DAR ES SALAAM — Surprising how some global events end up beating a path to your own front door. Just this morning I was reading a WikiLeaks U.S. cable written by the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, which accuses Tanzania’s President, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, of accepting bribes to the tune of $1 million from the UAE-based […]

The idea that the human race as a whole can be looked upon as a cancerous disease is nothing new. In fact, the idea was originally coined by Dr. Alan Gregg, an official working for the Rockefeller Foundation whose job was to recommend funding strategies on improving public health and medical education. He travelled extensively […]

Over the years I’ve often wondered what it is about men and spitting when in the toilet, or more importantly, why they feel compelled to spit before urinating. This whole spitting activity was completely foreign to me, until one day, I noticed that the guy standing next to me spat into the urinal before relieving […]

I was recently working on another project where I needed to read Plato’s Republic and his Allegory of the Cave. Part of the project required me to explore how Plato’s Allegory of the Cave could be considered a metaphor for the Media and how we perceive news and current affairs; my exploration of the topic follows. […]

Who could have thought there was so much to know about blueberries. This was my first introduction to the North American blueberry — very different to the ones I was used to in continental Europe. I was invited to help pick blueberries at a nearby organic farm in Canada, a short drive from Waterloo. What […]

No matter how ridiculous the airport security checkpoints may appear, the rest of the world has nothing on the experience one gets in the US. I completely support bag x-ray machines, metal detectors, the explosive residue and contraband swab, the customs sniffer dogs and even annoying questioning, but I draw the line when common sense […]

There are things that most people wouldn’t consider being part of a job description; taking your clothes off probably being one of them. So what would you say if I told you that that is exactly what I had to do? One of my clients — the largest diamond miner in the world — invited […]

I was told once that if you’ve just had a brilliant original idea, there’s a pretty good chance that someone else has already thought of it and perhaps even acted on it. Having spent a good part of the last fortnight toying with unique knowledge management concepts, I was devastated to find that not only […]

A few days ago I lost my smartphone on a flight from Nairobi to Accra, not something I do very often. Actually it was the first time I’ve lost a phone, usually any loss is due to me dropping them or worse still, drowning them in salt water. To cut a long story short, I […]

Although I admire people who fold their clothes and meticulously pamper every item until the edges line up, I personally don’t have the time, patience and usually the desire. Home-maker magazines do make a romantically neat statement of what the ideal wardrobe should look like but the reality is that most closets are anything but […]