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Archive for December, 2005

Free Range Lounge Chickens

Friday, December 30th, 2005

I’m having a bad day individually. The restlessness is hitting hard today and lying on the couch working on the ole laptop and reading just didn’t feel so good today. My sister Susan is visiting with a friend and I’m stuck on the couch. Africa is not a place to live a […]

I Get To Keep My Leg

Wednesday, December 28th, 2005

So I’ve been living with the nuisance of having a broken ankle for the past couple of weeks. My next appointment with the doctor (I assume to have the cast removed) is February 3rd. When all is said and done about 9 weeks of hobbling with the expectation that the ankle should be […]

Christmas in Lilongwe

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005

Our first Christmas in Africa has come and went and it was a good one. There were some moments of wishing we could be with family but our friends here made it a good day. One thing I will say though is that Christmas Eve was way too hot. I’m not someone […]

Photo Absurdity #7

Monday, December 26th, 2005

This is Kalpesh. He is a successful Malawian business man and friend in Lilongwe. He was born and raised in Malawi and spent some time in the UK. He is a very generous and kind man and has treated me and others to delicious Indian meals in town and handled all the […]

Clueless in Africa

Friday, December 23rd, 2005

This past Wednesday evening was yet another heated discussion over the effectiveness of development in Malawi and more generally in the region. One of the things that came up is that “the package” for a person to come and work here from another country is worth in the neighborhood of £100,000 (that’s British Pounds […]

Wordpress, Media Temple and .htaccess

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

There is a fair amount of posts in the Wordpress discussion groups about running Wordpress on a shared server account with Media Temple. They currently do not offer an easy Wordpress install via a web interface like some other ISPs. There seemed to be a lot of problems getting Wordpress to work properly […]

Paul Theroux, Bono and Malawi

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Mr. Theroux just wrote an editorial in the New York Times about the bad aspects of African Aid and about Bono’s misplaced and annoying attempts at trying to help. He was similiarly annoyed with aid efforts in his book “Dark Star Safari” and took them to task, rightly so in many cases, for driving […]

Malawi Unplugged

Sunday, December 18th, 2005

Last night there was a concert at the theater called MADSOC given by local bands and musicians. It was an unplugged event and it was quite good. There were about 6 different acts (tough to count because there was a lot of intermingling) and some great song selections. You never know […]

Happy Merry Chanukah Christmas Kwanzaa

Saturday, December 17th, 2005

Save Christmas? You couldn’t kill it with all the weapons in our overstocked arsenal. Either way it never ceases to amaze me how such RIDICULOUS things can stir our society into such a frenzy. Perhaps I should be careful because I do not know that much about the debate. What I’ve […]

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Thursday, December 15th, 2005

Our government and Exxon Mobil just don’t get it. Or rather, they just don’t care because they’d rather protect their own (by own I mean getting re-elected and stock prices which does not include the majority of the people of the U.S.) financial interests even in light of scientific evidence and some nasty side […]