Category: ugandan blogosphere

Global Voices Uganda: The Literary Blogren

My next piece is up at Global Voices Online:

Uganda’s bloggers are increasingly using their blogs as forums for literary expression, and online poems, short stories and multi-part novellas are becoming increasingly popular.

Carsozy is one of the blogren’s most prolific creative writers. His series, The Devil’s Bonfire, is the story of Simon Katende, a young Kampalan who leaves the city to visit his grandfather and gets mixed up in things he doesn’t understand:

He was halfway to the bar when he saw her, his entire body froze and his mouth opened in shock, the glass slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.

Read more »

Featured in the piece are Carsozy, Jon Gosier and Gay Uganda.

Global Voices Uganda: Fire destroys Owino Market

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for Global Voices, but this week’s fire at Owino Market prompted enough of a blogger response (and I’ve been sufficiently inspired by my week in Miami with ten other GV-ers) that I had to post a round-up:

A massive fire gutted Kampala’s Owino Market early Wednesday morning, seriously injuring five people and destroying thousands of stalls. As many as 25,000 traders, mostly women, are estimated to have suffered losses.

Owino, also known as the Nakivubo Park Yard and St. Balikuddembe Market, is Kampala’s largest market and has been at the center of several controversies involving leasing rights. Recent plans to build a new bus terminal at the Nakivubo Stadium next door have sparked anger among vendors, who will lose their space if the development proceeds as planned.

Uganda’s Daily Monitor is reporting that the fire started at a hole in the wall separating the market from the stadium, and many victims are accusing the bus company that wants to build the terminal of arson. Some bloggers agree.

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Featured in this post are Even Steven, Ariaka, Ugandan Insomniac and Spartakuss.

uganda blogger happy hour, redux

This month’s (impromptu) Uganda Blogger Happy Hour was nothing short of perfect. It was the two-year anniversary of the first UBHH. Rev, who’s been a lovable yet aggravating presence since the very beginning, was on his very best behavior (this unfortunately means I have very little to write about). And, proof that the blogren are continually growing, there were new faces. Like I said, perfect.

Nevender and Antipop have considerably more detailed round-ups, and Dee has photos. Before you head over there, though, I want to point you to Solomon, who has a list of Very Important Questions concerning this year’s Uganda Best of Blog Awards. This year we’re introducing prizes including free hosting, your very own domain name, and possibly pizza — go check it out and let us know what you think.

Last thing: earlier this month I wrote about why I blog about Africa. In my wave of Uganda-inspired love, I neglected to obey the rules of the meme and tag other bloggers. Here goes:

Dee

Gay Uganda

Mr. King

Rev — I know you just closed your blog, but surely there’s room for one more post?

Tumwijuke

ugandan bloglove

Voting opened yesterday for the 2009 Bloggies, the “Web’s longest-running blog awards,” and of the five blogs in the running for Best African Weblog, two originated in Uganda.

Appfrica has its finger on the pulse of African IT, including podcasts from last December’s Facebook Dev Garage in Kampala and an interview with Blogren Superstar Benge Solomon King. It’s also available in Luganda.

Scarlett Lion left Kampala last month to move to Liberia, but her site has been an integral part of the Ugandan blogging scene since 2007, and her archives hold a wealth of reflections and photography from all over the country.

Voting lasts until Monday, February 2, so head over soon and give your fellow blogren some love.

why i blog about africa

Last November Abidjan-based blogger Théophile Kouamouo started the “Why I Blog About Africa” meme. Global Voices posted a round-up of responses from both Francophone and Anglophone bloggers, and now I’ve been tagged by Hash at White African. So, here goes:

I write about Africa because of the boda-boda driver I had earlier this week, who pleaded, “You add me 1000, you see I have no shoes!” and then told me I could come to Masaka with him and be his sister and his wife (exactly how this would work was unclear).

I write about Africa because two years ago, when I would come to Bubbles O’Leary’s Irish Pub in Kololo to use the free wireless, it was full of muzungus. Now, of the seven people in here with laptops, I am the only white one.

Sometimes I write about Africa because it is the only thing I can do: when I am angry that the HIV infection rate is rising in conjunction with the failures of American foreign policy or when I am ashamed of how little I understand this world.

Sometimes I write about Africa because it is funny: when I am pursued by a love-stricken boda-boda driver or when the Aga Khan seems omnipresent.

But mostly, I write about Africa because I am afraid I will forget. I am afraid that if this blog is not constantly on my mind, even when I am not writing, then I will forget my neighbor Moses, who gave me groundnuts and did Tae-Bo with me on my porch, things that bound us together as friends. I am afraid I will forget a dying communist and heated conversations on a balcony far above the city and the taste of warm Pilsner in the darkness of a Gulu night.

It sounds, even now as I am sitting surrounded by the smell of Kampala, melodramatic and romanticized. Still, for me, blogging about Africa means that a part of me is eternally connected to that place: that even if I am thousands of miles away from the continent, part of me will always exist there, just as part of it will always exist with me.