in the south of senegal standing up for a promised future gets you a complimentary headshot in the local paper. sugar, fertilizer and TNT make an explosive cocktail in the middle east. as for me this foam mattress is cheap and there is no honey for my tea and i’m counting these as blessings.
ArcelorMittal in Kédougou contracted to hire locals when they moved into the region to set up mining operations. The Senegalese recruiters they use are headhunting people from their own villages and from Dakar and not hiring locally. Africa is notoriously racially divided.
There was a riot and police fired on the crowd with bullets, killing three, and now have made over 30 arrests. Journalists and friends have reported the suspects are being tortured with boiling water and electric shock and coerced into giving up their friends.
Rioting may seem a poor solution, but in a corrupt political system it is the only voice many Africans have.
The village I grew up in is a few kilometers from here. It is normally a tranquil place.
From this post:
Quassam rockets. Kedougou news.
December 29th, 2008 on 5:10 pm
I love the curtain billowing in the breeze, life flowing into the room, with the information flowing in and out through the phone, computer, newspaper…
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Kari Reply:
December 29th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
thanks taylor, you have such a love affair with information
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Taylor Davidson Reply:
January 6th, 2009 at 7:16 am
I will choose to take that as a compliment; but an “affair” sounds so temporary, fleeting, transitory, almost self-destructive. How about a “lifelong relationship with information”, or “a passionate quest for knowledge”?
But more importantly, the rioting is sad. Is it really the only way? Have we learned anything from Gandhi?
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Kari Reply:
January 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
God yes, it’s sad. It’s tragic.
Africans have become used to exploitation. Most people in Senegal are just surviving day to day. Just staying alive, literally. They don’t have the opportunity for education to gain the ability and influence to go through the proper political channels for change. Indeed, the government is so bribe-based there are no proper channels other than cold cash. When no one is interested in the plight of one African, or one village, or one region, what are your options? To band together and make a voice that will be hard to ignore?
I asked a Sengalese/Kenyan today over lunch his take on the topic of rioting and he told me this story. He is a pacifist by the way.
A farmer had a goat that he fed three times a day. Times were hard and he had to cut back so he started feeding his goat only twice a day. Months went by and life was still hard and not getting easier so he started to feed his goat only once a day. The goat died and the farmer exclaimed, why did he have to die just as I was getting him accustomed to not having to eat at all.
As he said, people in Africa are squeezed until they have nothing to lose. What is the solution? I wish I knew.
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Taylor Davidson Reply:
January 6th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
The solution: you may not know the destination, but I think you know the path, and I think that’s what’s guiding you. Believe in yourself.
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December 30th, 2008 on 6:09 pm
your photos are boggling my brain. why would anyone want to live in America I ask myself – then there’s that newspaper and I kind of get it, but…
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Kari Reply:
January 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Josh, I don’t want to be responsible for your brain being boggled. Why don’t you plan a trip here? Where are you anyway? You’ve disappeared.
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Josh Currie Reply:
January 7th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
i’d love to plan a trip there. i’d f*&ing live there if i could. how’s the job market?
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December 31st, 2008 on 2:11 am
poor, poor kedougou… has anything calmed down now? have you gotten to chobo?
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December 31st, 2008 on 7:06 pm
what an arresting photo!
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Kari Reply:
January 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Literally.
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