Blog Post

Maputo's New Unhealthy Fad

They look lovely, the heaps of sand in ochre, sienna, orange and yellow hues, glistening under the sun or the dappled shade in the markets and street corners of Maputo. Five meticais (US$0,10) will buy you a funil, a cone made of newsprint filled with silky sand, the colour – and taste - of your choice.

Yes, taste. For this sand is sold to be eaten. Eating soil or sand (geofagia) was a traditional practice among many groups, from Native Americans to Amazonian tribes.

Maps, maps, everywhere maps - Two New Geolocation Data and Distribution Services

Lost in San Francisco, no need to ask for directions. Just pull out your mobile phone – iPhone or Android. Pinpoint your current location, “tell” your phone your destination and within a few seconds you have directions.

Creating a Journalism Community in Brazil

Early in 2010, I bumped totally by chance on the streets of São Paulo into a good friend of mine, Alexandre Maron, an editor of New Projects at the Globo magazine group. I told him then that I was in Brazil as a Knight International Journalism Fellow, with the International Center for Journalists.

The Nobel Prize in Literature brings pride to Peru

Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, but only lived there until the age of four. Still, he is considered the city’s pride and joy even though the city didn’t always show it. His childhood home still stands, but was recently sold to a company that was going to turn it into a center to help poor women. And, in a move right out of the best Hollywood movie, the announcement that Vargas Llosa won a Nobel put a stop to the remodel just in the nick of time.

Breast cancer is a neglected disease in Mozambique

Editors Note: Mercedes Sayagues discussing breast cancer and hospital/patient awareness.

For a change, I am happy to be queuing at the photocopying shop.

I could queue the whole day, for the shop is air-conditioned on this Hot-Sticky-Maputo-Summer Day with 36 degrees Celsius and 200% humidity.

I read a magazine, my pile of clippings on the counter. On top, last week’s story about breast cancer.

People here know little about breast cancer. HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and cholera get the lion’ s share of attention, information and money.

Building a Consortium of Media Development Partners in Sierra Leone

Working with the media in Freetown can be enormously frustrating and tiring. But a quick comparison of where we were a few years ago shows just how far we’ve come.

During the brutal, ten-year war, Sierra Leone suffered a massive brain drain/exodus of journalists, teachers, business-people, politicians and young community leaders. In many ways, the country's media has never recovered. As a result, there are many challenges, both large and small.

Since the end of the conflicts in 2002, there’s been a proliferation of newspapers and radio stations.

Digital Journalism Center in Guadalajara takes hold with new leadership

Over two years, the Center, a project of the Knight International Journalism Fellowship program, offered 15 online training courses in Spanish to some 500 journalists from 22 countries as well as in-person technical training to more than 200 of the best performers. On a Saturday in December, the 15th class to pass through the Digital Journalism Center in Guadalajara, Mexico, had its recognition ceremony.

Creative ways to use communication technology in Panama

Journalists in Panama are using online technology to link colleagues from Panama city, Washington, D.C., an the provinces to discuss ongoing challenges to freedom of expression.

Journalists in Mozambique Tread a Careful Line Between Medical Fact and Local Lore

On the first day, only the girls in the afternoon shift at one classroom fainted. First one, then four, 20 by the end of the week. In the second week, the fainting spells spread to all the classes of the Quisse Mavota High School in the periphery of Maputo. Among its 4,475 pupils, only the older girls fainted. By the end of the second week, 120 girls were having fainting spells and these were spreading into the satellite school. Panic followed: parents, teachers and students alike were scared.

The girls explained that the ancestor spirits were upset.

Bizarre Stories Sometimes Trump Substance, Even in Malawi

When it comes to crazy things, nothing beats what Pilirani Lazaro, a 22-year-old peasant farmer from Kalaza Village in central Malawi, did recently.

It may sound stranger than fiction, but on November 21, he took a knife, went into the bush, cut off his testicles and immediately put them up for sale.