Community Finance in West Africa

Vasco Pyjama talks about community finance. The ROSCA is known as a “sou-sou” in west Africa, or at least in Nimba county, Liberia. Sousous run for a fixed term, based on the number of members. If there are 10 members and the contribution is $10, each month one of the members will get $90 (9…

Repair vs Replace

What are the economic effects of the repair vs replace decision? Interesting question, that. If you missed “more local employment of the blue collar type”, go read this: There is a slight diversion of purchasing strategy, repair rather than replace. This feeds a blue collar industry in the local region. It used to be, when…

Malaria Medicine Advice

A friend sent me this question: Speaking of healthy, when you’re in Africa, do you take malaria medication the whole time you’re there? Is 45 days too long to take it? First, taking it 45 days is no big deal. It’s taking it for months on end (9, 18, 60) that is not recommended —…

The Skills Exist, Use Them!

One of the headlines that came out of my trip to Freetown was “The Skills Exist, Use Them!” First, a bit more about what I was doing there. I was on a contract with the Health Metrics Network, which is a project running under the auspices of the World Health Organization, but funded by the…

Hello, I’m back!

I am back from Freetown, freezing in Leeds. I’ve spent today trying to get software working including reinstalling Chrome (which started marking all words as misspelled) and Word Press which inexplicably started hanging. I’ll write a note, maybe this weekend, about what I was doing in Freetown. It was fun, and we got a lot…

An Interview with a DVD-man

Rare is the dinner in an expat restaurant in Africa which is not (politely and quietly) interrupted by a DVD-man. They have a stock of DVD’s in their backpacks, and work their way through the restaurant giving you a chance to peruse their wares. You have to see the DVDs to believe them, they are…

Hello from Freetown

I started a two week trip to Freetown, Sierra Leone yesterday. I am here as an IT consultant for the Health Metrics Network, part of the World Health Organization. We are taking a bunch of random hardware that the government bought with a not-quite-complete architecture and putting in place a foundation for IT services related…