Schrattenkalk in Kairo
18/07/10

Ok, there we go. As promised a post on Roskilde. What can I say? It was lots of fun to go there with the Spreeblick crew. We had full access to th media sector, including web access, lockers and Nikon Professional Services. Over all the festival is a little bit like the Fusion with lots of stuff going on around it, but it still is a proper festival with big acts like Prince or the Gorillaz. I also enjoyed watching Bonaparte and Die Antwoord. Some of my photographs are also here (of the trip), here (with text of the stuff besides the concerts) and here (of the Germany-Argentina match). Last but not least, there is a slightly failed attempt at video journalism…

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16/07/10

After the Fusion and Roskilde (I will maybe post some photos later, but Gregor who made much better pictures already posted lots on Spreeblick) I went to Berlin and from there to a village south of the beautiful Bautzen by the name of Kirschau. We went there to visit the ObPhon festival becuase Mary and Alex participated with their Max & Moritz 2.0 installation. (I hope now I have done enough for my link karma for the rest of the year.) That’s also where Christoph shaved my beard. Anyway… enough talk. Below you can see some pictures I took on the exhibition grounds.

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14/07/10


10/07/10

Pictures by Rychard, shaving by Christoph.


30/06/10

I just got back from the Fusion and tomorrow morning I am off to the Roskilde as part of the Spreeblick team. Check out what we are doing and tell us what you think.


24/05/10

Port Sudan is an extremely relaxed town. The city was build by the British in the early 20th century, because Port Sudan was able to serve as a deep sea harbour. Suakin, which had been the most important harbour town until then, is not. Interestingly Suaking is up to today important as a ferry harbour for boats to Saudi Arabia, for migrant workers as well as for Haj. The city centre of Port Sudan  is developed by a grid scheme and in the middle is a beautiful market area. Most of the pictures below show the market.

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22/05/10

As part of my research on regional parties I spent the last week in Kassala and Port Sudan, where I tried to meet old parliamentarians and party members who would be able to tell me about the 60s.

Kassala is supposed to be one of Sudan’s most beautiful towns. And it is true, the setting of the town under the Taka mountains is dramatic. Amid a never ending plain, suddenly the mountains shoot up out of nowhere. The town itself is green and pleasent, people are nice –but not as relaxed as in Port Sudan– and the city is dominated by one large market area. The market is fun to explore and covered and open markets are mixed in between each other. However due to the continuing high “security” status of Kassala –the town is close to the Eritrean border and was attacked (by SPLM / NDA forces) at least once in 2000– it is still not advisable to take pictures all around town –especially if you are a PhD student. Below you can see the Taka mountains as back drop to the town as seen from the roof of the hotel I stayed in.

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06/05/10

Khartoum has a pretty good bus network. It’s actually great if you want to travel long distance and if you travel outside the city centre. If you are in the city centre however, it actually sucks. The reason for this is basically that all busses travel via one central bus station which is on one end of the city centre. So if you are at any place in down town, you can either walk across the centre to jump on a specific bus line –or you can grab any bus back to the central station, then jumble through the masses of other travellers to eventually find the bus line you aim for. I usually pick the first option.

Since I am currently staying at a friend’s house for a couple of days while he is in Finland, the easiest way home is to walk towards Khartoum 2 and then grab any bus at the first roundabout going down towards airport road. Most busses going that direction cost 400 (old pounds, i.e. 10 British pence), but that’s not true for all busses. As I learned today, the bus to “Maju, Sinia” costs between 500 and 700 depending on where you want to get off. But the ticket guys never say anything, they just click their fingers and assume you know the price. So I gave him 400. He looked at me and asked where I want to get off. After I told him, he shrugged, looked at me again and shook his head as if he was trying to say; what a greedy Khawaja, not only is he too cheap to use private transport, he doesn’t even want to pay the normal bus fare. Then he turned around and let me be.


13/04/10

(Picture by Laura Mann – it shows my favourite election poster, with the exception of a poster for a local candidate in Malakal who promised to spread corruption.)

I know, you expect me to comment on the Sudanese elections. But I have been wrong too many times now about what was going to happen or how one can explain certain events. I will for now be a good historian, wait until everything is over, and then give you my enlightened, or maybe less enlightened opinion. Instead I will give you some links you can read and play with in the meantime.

The Electionnaire by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, where you can answer questions and find out, whom you would vote for and what the issues are (which noone really ever talked about).

SudanVoteMonitor which collects reports from all around the country on how the voting is going. They also have some fancy Google Maps overlay of all the incidents –think Web 2.0 meets Sudanese elections. A less fancy but possibly more substantial list of violations is published daily by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies.

For news on the elections you can check the Southern Sudanese biased Sudan Tribune or you can check the differently biased Al Jazeera International. On the blog of some very distinguished Sudan academics you can read some intelligent commentary, I especially recommend the post on the complexity of the whole exercise. For some visuals you can check out the pictures my flat mate Laura took of campaign posters. She also posted translations of most of them.

Last but not least you can check out the website of a Sudanese anti-government pressure group called Girifna who has been quite outspoken lately.


10/04/10

Now it is time to talk about the nature and landscapes between Kosti and Juba. Basically the trip is divided into three sections. First from Kosti to somewhere after the point where the Sobat river splits off. From there nearly all the way to Bor is the Sudd, the large Sudanese swamp area. From Bor onwards the landscape changes again.

From Kosti down to the Sobat the Nile is wide and the river is still crossing rather dry areas. Therefore the vegetation is mostly only around the river itself, it is low with some interspersed trees and palms. Generally the riverbanks are rather dry now, however this area, as all the others we passed through, surely look very different during the rainy season. The first new element in the landscape is only a couple of hours after Kosti, a small town situated under two hill, fittingly name Jabalain (two mountains). Just before reaching Malakal the river suddenly is lined by palm trees. Already at this point and from here onwards for the whole trip, there was big plants swimming in the water. They grow on the side of the river and I presume that they rip off with the seeds, swim further down and then grow again on the side of the river at a lower point. While it seems obvious how this plant moves down the river, I wonder why it doesn’t die out further up the river –especially as the seeds, if my interpretation that this were seeds is correct, are approximately half the size of a fist and cannot be moved by wind. Sometimes the water was practically full of these swimming plants.

nature01.jpg

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