Archive for the ‘Elsewhere’ Category
On being on the other end of stereotype
There are a lot of ridiculous assumptions Americans hold, wittingly or not, about Africa. That it’s a country. That it’s always at war. That its people are all poor, starving and sick, and usually all of the above. We also tend to assume that Africans are illiterate. So there was a bit of collective cosmic [...]
Whither democracy in Burundi?
I’m personally bummed about the election debacle in Burundi. As I was flying from Cameroon to Nairobi, the opposition parties pulled out of the upcoming presidential election, dashing my dreams of an article that went something like, “The little country you’ve never heard of may be Africa’s best case study in democracy.” Everyone was excited [...]
This week in African elections…
There aren’t any. To be fair, only one of the three I’m thinking about is even supposed to have happened. But the other two are getting dicey. Let’s start with Rwanda, because it’s all over the news. I’m not there at the moment, but that never stops the New York Times from writing vague stories [...]
Boozing it up in the ‘third world’?: The mix tape
Update, after I got out from under my rock In one of the very active comments sections on the blogs that have taken this up, someone accused Nick Kristof of living under a rock. Accused is a strong word. ‘Asked if he did’ is better. I have been the cyber equivalent of living under a [...]
“Bangui, la Coquette!” Sure, if heat-n-humidity’s your thing…
I’ve been in the Central African Republic for the last two weeks, on the first leg of a long reporting journey about peacebuilding. More to come. In the meantime, here are some kids in a school in literally the middle of nowhere, sitting on skinny tree trunks and studying French under a thatched roof. This [...]
Ending the LRA…or preparing for a CIA-style strike?
So the House yesterday passed a bill aimed at ending the fight by the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Ugandan rebel group that spent a decade terrorizing northern Uganda and has recently spread the practice to DRC and Central African Republic. Let’s skip the part where we wonder what a Congressional bill (HR 2478, for all [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [