The bungling of Bujagali

On Tuesday the New Vision reported that Bujagali Energy finished their environmental feasibility study for the construction of a new dam at Bujagali Falls.

The proposed dam — a $530 million collaboration between the Sithe Global LLC (based in the U.S.) and Industrial Promotion Services (based in Kenya and owned by Aga Khan) — is an attempt to ease Uganda’s energy crisis. Estimates made in 2005 by Power Technology, a web site that aggregates power industry data, claim that, if construction goes as planned, Uganda’s electricity supply would exceed demand for the first time in years.

Though Uganda’s electricity deficit has been called “the single greatest obstacle to the country’s economic growth,” many local and international groups have raised concerns as to whether the dam is the best choice for development. An independent study conducted by the Prayas Energy Group of India found that the project would cost the nation up to $132 million annually — money that the government has considered taking from the World Bank (which agreed, then refused to sponsor the project), from an infrastructure development bond and from the National Social Security Fund. All of these options would place an enormous strain upon the citizens of Uganda, miring the country even deeper in debt.

Furthermore, official discourse on the dam has thus far ignored the losses Uganda would sustain as a result of the project. The National Association of Professional Environmentalists released a list of major concerns, including the submersion of both the falls and the surrounding islands (which would cost $675,000 annually in lost agricultural revenue), the extinction of several rare species of plants and birds, and the extirpation of regional tourism. Tourism is Uganda’s second-largest industry after coffee, and sightseeing and whitewater rafting at Bujagali contribute between $600,000 and $1 million to this every year.

Despite the dam’s excessive costs, the government is charging on towards its completion, actively working to lessen the falls’ international attraction. In 2000 Uganda refused to host the Camel Whitewater Challenge, a rafting competition that would have brought over 1000 participants and spectators to the country for two weeks and cemented the nation as a leading adventure tourism destination. Writing for the International Rivers Network, an organization that opposes the dam, Stephen Linaweaver claims, “Tony Hansen, the CWWC Director, was specifically told by a Ugandan government official that Uganda would not host the Challenge because it did not want to broadcast the popularity and success of rafting or the beauty of Bujagali Falls, for fear that it would spread opposition to the Bujagali Falls Dam.”

The government’s handling of this project is appalling. The drive to proceed with the dam in the face of so many clear counterindicators to its success rings eerily of the October declaration that all IDP camps would be closed by the end of the year: it’s a flashy, economically dangerous move that has the potential to harm not only those who live and work near Bujagali but the wellbeing of the country as a whole.

Aga Khan, I’m disappointed in you.

Merry Christmas from the Internets

AfriGadget is proof that the Internet celebrates holidays (if it didn’t, why would it be giving me such great presents?). This delightfully, inspirationally geeky blog is a bit Gizmodo, a bit MAKE — a chronicle of “African ingenuity” that’s a pleasant jumble of everything from battery-operated podcast broadcasters to trendy USB flash drive covers.

One of my favorite gadgets, though, is the PlayPump. No, it’s not anything like that. It’s a merry-go-round that pulls water from the ground, stores it in a tank, and makes it easily available from a tap. It’s brilliant.

I was happy to learn that USAID supports PlayPumps — compared with this debacle, it’s a rather impressive endeavor. I was even happier to learn that one of the lead fundraisers for the project is none other than my boy Jay-Z. This kid is everywhere.

would you like fries with that?

Last night my roommate and I indulged in a number of vices: cheese, cigarettes, beer. A couple of hours later, sitting on the balcony, I blurted out a tipsy confession:

I really want meat right now.

This statement may not be shocking, but it runs contrary to the more than third of my life I’ve spent as a vegetarian.

I try to dissect the craving — it’s salt, I decide. I just need salt.

We decide to run across the street and split a plate of chips. On our way, we’re accosted by a friendly Ugandan who offers us “special chicken.” We pass him by, get our chips, and head home. We meet him again.

“Hello, madame! Hello! You want special chicken?”

He’s very insistant, and we’re very…err…persuadable. “Might as well put all possible toxins in our body at once,” Roommate says. I shrug. What’s one piece of chicken? And what makes it so special? We rummage in our pockets for cash, and Roommate comes up with a dollar.

“Fine. I’ll give you one American dollar for one piece of special chicken.” We look at each other and giggle at the lengths to which a street vendor will go to make a late-night sale.

Rather than go back to his grill to make the chicken, though, this particular street vendor disappears into a little shack in the parking lot. He comes back chickenless, and we wonder if he’s going to demand money that’s actually worth something here.

Instead, he presses a small, white, cylindrical object into Roommate’s hand. “Special chicken,” he repeats in a whisper.

Oh holy mother of God.

Roommate and I stare at the joint — for that is what it is, unmistakably — in horrified amusement.

“Special chicken,” I say again.

“Special chicken,” Roommate agrees.

The vendor — dealer? — nods his head enthusiastically. “Special chicken!” he crows.

Indeed.

oh, jay

Though I pretend to write about politics, conflict and economic development, I know what really draws people to Jackfruity: Aga Khan and Jay-Z. It’s been a while since I last touched on the Hov, and it turns out there’s a lot I’ve been missing.

I’m reserving musical judgement on Jay’s new album until I can sit down and listen to the whole thing, start to finish, but the buzz in the blogosphere caught my attention. Turns out there’s a bit of controversy about Kingdom Come. Jody Rosen at Slate rips him a new one:

The Brooklyn street hustler shtick is anachronistic, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous songs pay diminishing returns: How many more times can he keep a straight face, rapping about his fancy vacations and his famous girlfriend’s “Birkin bags”?
My boy Jack, on the other hand, sticks up for Jay, comparing Kingdom Come to Outkast’s Idlewild:

In hip hop, much like political debates, how you perform relative to what is expected of you is actually more important than your performance compared to your competitors.
(…)
I’m bothered by how much people are seeming to savor hating on Jay. They were the same way with Outkast. Why are we so quick to trash our heroes?
Geoff Dabelko at Gristmill isn’t. His recent piece on the champagne-boycotting, Maasai-loving hip-hop artist idolizes Jay as a sensitive philanthropist. Quoting Peter Gleick, “one of the world’s leading water experts,” Geoff writes:

Jay-Z underwent a real transition in his understanding of the nature of African water challenges during his recent tour. The documentary that MTV is releasing shows his growing understanding and appreciation of water problems, and reflects in a genuine way his emotional responses to those problems. If only all of our cultural celebrities and icons were so engaged!
I took a closer look to see if I could catch a glimpse of this in the lyrics of Kingdom Come. This is what I found:

What you call money, I pay more in taxes
I got crowned king down in Africa
Out in Niger’, do you have any idea?
Sold out shows, albums his whole career
Jo-burg, Dublin, Tanzania
Lunch with Mandella, dinner with Cavalli
Still got time to get water out to everybody
The emotional response I’m sensing here is less, “I feel compelled to help these people” and more, “Ain’t I the shit? Hey, who wants to go put on one of those red kimono things and take pictures? Yo B. B! Get me a bottle of Dom from the fridge, baby.”

secret heart

I have a confession to make: for a brief period (just a little bit, just a very, very little while) I was attracted to Robert Kaplan.

I know, I know. He’s pessimistic. He’s a little cocky. And there’s that whole Balkan War thing.

Still. There’s just something about him — he believes so strongly that he’s the final authority on everything from Slovenia to Somalia that you start to believe it, too. He’s a well-travelled, well-paid journalist. Not only that, he’s an author. Of books. About other countries. Hot. He also makes some good points, especially about U.S. stupidity concerning rebel movements in Eritrea and about Henry Kissinger. And let’s face it: all that talk about the imminent collapse of the world as we know it just makes you want to snuggle up close to someone who looks like he knew what was going to happen all along.

But. I also nurture a deep-rooted love and respect for Tom Bissell, another journalist-come-travel writer whose raw, unapologetic — yet still humorous and tender — portrayals of the former Soviet Unionhave sometimes taught me more about Russia than actually living there — an affirmation of things I have seen and thought and wondered but was too afraid or unsure of to put into words.

Bissell is like the mysterious older brother of your best friend — the one who graduated with a liberal arts degree and then joined the Peace Corps. He came back with giardia and uncut hair and a tan that was half sun and half dirt, carrying a thick, worn, dusty journal full of (articulate, beautiful, introspective) insights based on late nights listening to the tales of old men’s lives and conversations about everything from lemons to lynchings with street vendors and taxi drivers and other people whose stories never get told. Kaplan is like the econ professor you had in college who projected an irresistible aura of educated, hard-earned arrogance and condescension from behind his podium — the one you hated but still worked endlessly to please because he had eighty thousand degrees from Harvard, knew everything and was always, unfailingly, maddeningly right.

I mentioned earlier that books are worth their weight in gold here. After a friend loaned me The Coming Anarchy,a collection of Kaplan’s essays on American foreign policy, I wrote frantically to friends and family and begged for almost everything he’s written. And then, to stave off the literary cravings, I went online and rummaged around the Virginia Quarterly Review for articles to tide me over until the packages arrived.

Bissell had a piece up. A long piece. A long piece about Robert Kaplan. A long, scathing piece about Robert Kaplan, in which Bissell describes him as, to paraphrase mildly, a no-talent ass clown.

Kaplan’s other critics have pointed out his unwavering pessimism and his tendency to ignore individual responsibility in favor of the overwhelming, inevitable forces of history, ethnicity and religion. Bissell was a little more frank. “Kaplan… is an incompetent thinker and a miserable writer,” he states directly. “The damage he has done to literature [is] unforgivable.”

Peace Corps boy just dissed the prof, hardcore, and I’m finding the lectures a little harder to listen to than I did before.