tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68913202010-05-03T13:06:05.989-06:00postcards, x-raysjohnnoreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-964488064869320982010-02-27T07:30:00.003-07:002010-02-27T08:36:57.973-07:00

Here is my second "field report" from this mission in the Orthodox Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria. My apologies to some of you who have seen parts of this before, but if you read on, there are new stories as well. Also, sorry for the delay-- i promised to send them out every month, but the pace is what it is here.And this is perhaps a bit long, but i hope you'll find it interesting.But

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-74463414714229159672010-01-04T02:51:00.007-07:002010-02-20T01:11:48.192-07:00

So, David Modupi and I got into a discussion here in rainy Johannesburg last night about eating pork. He mentioned that he had once served some pork lungs to friends who belonged to a pentecostal church that didn't believe in eating pork, telling them that they were sheep's lungs. After eating, they went to a meeting at that church, and all of them became very dizzy and ill and had to leave the

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-90857404876033415292009-10-24T13:37:00.034-06:002009-11-08T09:10:01.124-07:00

Before communion at church last Sunday, the priest urged people to prepare more seriously and not to come to communion if they're unprepared— "So let's work on this"— communion may harm us if we're not worthy— and "its the preparation that makes us worthy." This "affects our whole life and our eternal life..."Hmmm... well i'm not sure that reading some prayers and fasting a bit "makes us worthy"

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-31247250536764766692009-10-16T13:35:00.015-06:002009-10-17T19:54:30.450-06:00

The amazingly prolific Fr Dn Steve Hayes writes about inculturation, interculturality, cross-fertilization, and the indigenization of Christianity in Africa on his Khanya blog, which I sometimes keep an eye on. His thoughts there evoke some of my own regarding this issue and Orthodoxy in particular, so I submit them with a good deal of trepidation (you might see why) here. I invite comments!In my

johnnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-53288133370145216352009-10-15T19:00:00.005-06:002009-10-15T19:09:29.915-06:00

Here's an article from Prospect magazine (online), regarding Uganda's burgeoning oil industry. I'm all for prosperity, but I fear that oil does not mean peace for anyone on the face of the earth. And Uganda (Africa generally) soooo doesn't deserve all the trouble it has!New-found oil reserves could double Uganda's GDP, but at what cost?Ben Simon, Prospect, 21st September 2009, Issue No. 163

johnnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-70052038998867313292009-07-27T00:38:00.001-06:002009-07-27T00:39:21.799-06:00

Paul Boutin at Venturebeat recently wrote: “More than a third of Ugandans own cellphones. In some areas, ‘cellphones could outnumber light bulbs.’ Is that really true?”Let’s do the math…In 2007 only between 5% and 6% of Ugandans had electricity (demand is growing at roughly 6% per year). Meanwhile in 2007, .52% had landlines while mobile subscriptions stood at 13% (a number skewed by the fact

johnnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-86619723978564369262009-06-25T23:11:00.006-06:002009-06-25T23:48:23.749-06:00

June 20th, 2009At the left, patches of burnt grass are seen in a tree forest in the Ugandan north-eastern plains in 2007. Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forest cover since 1990 due to expanding farmlands, a rapidly growing human population and increased urbanisation, a government report said on Friday.Uganda's annual deforestation rate has climbed 21 percent since the end of the 1990s. The

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-13421437662300066622009-06-05T01:55:00.009-06:002009-06-07T17:26:58.785-06:00

"St Jude kids' lunch fee was raised to 20k [$10] not 15k [$7.50] as we used to pay. The explanation was that the prices for food items have gone up. And for sure it is not a lie. Now for instance I buy sugar for 2500, up from 1700, posho [corn meal] per kg used to be 1200 but now 1800, rice per kg is now 2600 up from 1800 shillings. Life has become bit tough, majority (low income earners) go with

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-89549575966211323072009-04-17T01:40:00.004-06:002009-04-17T02:08:48.686-06:00

While everybody is thinking (yes?) about how Europe etc are taking advantage of Somalia's currently prostrate condition to rape its coastal waters and steal all the fish— as well as to use it as a dumping ground for all kinds of toxic and nuclear waste, here are two more items worthy of the same attention:The first piece:And the other item is related:Natural Resources in Sudan and Africa: What

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-86893514615773351982009-04-08T17:38:00.011-06:002009-04-08T18:09:24.323-06:00

Ugandan rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army, now based in the far north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is continuing its attacks on civilians in DR Congo and southern Sudan, despite a three-month campaign to hunt the rebels down.The BBC's Africa analyst, Martin Plaut, looks at how the LRA has survived and considers who might be re-supplying it (story from BBC News, 2009/04/04):LRA

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-72688782570212443532009-04-07T00:51:00.012-06:002009-04-07T01:11:39.729-06:00

It has deeply troubled me for a long time that of the world's worst conflict since WW2 (somewhere between 3.9 and 5 million dead, and counting!)— that'd be the war in Congo— hardly a word makes it to our press, but Darfur is the "greatest humanitarian tragedy of the day", right up there with Kony's rebellion in Northern Uganda, of which itself we began to hear only after some 19 years of fighting

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-29064418842933826912009-03-03T12:38:00.012-07:002009-03-03T13:35:02.378-07:00

This is from irinnews.org, a UN news service:KAMPALA, 3 March 2009 (IRIN) - The ice caps on the Rwenzori Mountains along Uganda’s western border have receded significantly in the past century and could disappear completely in the next few years, experts said. "The results of recent mapping are alarming," Philip Gwage, assistant commissioner in charge of meteorology in the ministry of water and

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-89471005335304695272009-02-26T17:49:00.018-07:002009-02-26T18:33:00.880-07:00

Here's an article that appeared in last Sunday's New York Times:Questions for Dambisa MoyoThe Anti-BonoInterview by DEBORAH SOLOMONPublished: February 19, 2009 Q: As a native of Zambia with advanced degrees in public policy and economics from Harvard and Oxford, you are about to publish an attack on Western aid to Africa and its recent glamorization by celebrities. Dead Aid, as your book is

johnnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-24403823041421756042009-01-14T01:29:00.016-07:002009-01-14T21:41:42.384-07:00

I've been reading John V. Taylor, Primal Vision: Christian Presence Amid African Religion (Fortress, 1963). I was stunned by this paragraph (and many others besides— Taylor, an Anglican missionary with experience even in Uganda, is really, really good!):The first ancestor in most African myths is, strictly speaking, the equivalent of Abraham. Most Africans recognize, of course, like the

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-41407349845676716572008-10-20T14:52:00.005-06:002009-01-14T22:22:20.703-07:00

Imagine! Over half the population of Uganda is under 16 years old. Many are orphans, or living with destitute grandparents, often with 7 to 10 other siblings. Most are struggling hard to go to school. It’s not uncommon to find 25-year-olds in 10th grade.And while there’s a fair amount of aid for very young kids— and programs for adults exist as well— high school students are almost ignored by

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-1958705959740423832008-09-12T01:07:00.038-06:002008-09-18T12:37:27.580-06:00

An African friend who lives on the East Coast told me the other day that there are Orthodox churches in America and Greece where women serve in the altar. My reaction was negative, and i regret this because it was a knee-jerk reaction and not dialogical. And of course in that case, what get missed are my own reasons for reacting negatively, which are not what one might expect— that I would be

johnnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-25929319441138774312008-08-22T02:50:00.003-06:002008-08-22T03:18:38.184-06:00

It's been a long time since I've posted anything, and even longer since I posted anything personal. Maybe more about why, later. But it's time for a change— thinking of starting all over again, or at least deleting a lot of the old posts, not much point in them. Need a whole new navigation system. Trying to get back to Africa. I really loved it there. The people were great, except for a few in

johnnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-30025714349233914352008-02-15T18:36:00.005-07:002008-02-15T18:57:39.596-07:00

A recent handout picture shows the Freninitial excavations of a Neolithic tomb containing a 5,500-year-old man, believed to have been an important leader at the time of death, in El Kadada. French archaeologists in Sudan say they have uncovered the oldest proof of human sacrifice in Africa, hailing the discovery as the biggest Neolithic find on the continent for years. The tomb of a 5,500-

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-55534575211181421172008-01-18T08:58:00.000-07:002008-01-18T09:14:31.065-07:00

Haven't written to this blog in a long time! Well, there are reasons for that, and I may blog about them as time goes on. But anyway, I'm back in the USA now, and— IF YOU HAVEN'T COMMUNICATED WITH ME SINCE THE FIRST OF THE YEAR, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH. My computer was stolen in Naivasha, Kenya during the troubles there, and I lost everyone's email addresses.And yes, i am really bummed out about it.

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-53422395611105591072007-08-30T07:58:00.001-06:002007-08-30T08:18:23.737-06:00

I was sitting with a priest friend of mine after matins the other day when a young man stopped by. I'd seen him around, off and on, for some time— a rather unforgettable fellow, tall, slim, extremely smooth skin and refined features; didn't really look like anyone around here and, indeed, as I was to learn, he was from Tanzania. But I was a little surprisd to see him this time in a very smart

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-90041879026143895512007-07-25T04:19:00.001-06:002007-07-25T04:31:05.071-06:00

New research published in the journal Nature (19 July 2007) has proved the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world. The research, at the University of Cambridge and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, represents a final blow for supporters of a multiple origins of humans

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-30664610069087869602007-07-13T00:37:00.000-06:002007-07-13T03:37:44.079-06:00

One of the most memorable things I've done since I got here was the week I spent in Teso after Pascha (Easter) 2006. I am just now posting the pictures. Teso is a region in the central-eastern part of Uganda where the Itesot tribe lives. The Itesot are a Nilo-Saharan people; as you can tell from their name, they don't belong to the baNtu family that includes the baGanda, baSoga, baGisu, baTooro,

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-79625666921502080432007-07-01T23:40:00.000-06:002007-07-02T00:34:54.734-06:00

Here are some photos of my new digs here on Crow Hill: First, the neighborhood: looking south off my front porch:This land is now National Housing Authority land, although it used to belong to the Kabaka (King of the baGanda). Given the fact that the average Uganda household is about 5 to 10 people, and the fact that most Ugandans live in one or two room dwellings, I am guessing that within 5

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-53056267733543797342007-05-15T01:35:00.001-06:002007-05-15T04:26:52.626-06:00

John Vidal in Kisangani / Guardian, Wednesday April 11, 2007· Congo village chiefs not told value of concessions· World Bank blamed over deals causing 'catastrophe'· Zoomable map of logging activity (same as above)Lamoko, 150 miles down the Maringa river, sits on the edge of a massive stretch of virgin rainforest in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On February 8 2005, representatives

johnnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6891320.post-58679344343743586832007-05-15T01:00:00.001-06:002007-05-15T01:10:31.017-06:00

2005 Fire Patterns Across AfricaSeason after season, year after year, people set fire to African landscapes to create and maintain farmland and grazing areas. People use fire to keep less desirable plants from invading crop or rangeland, to drive grazing animals away from areas more desirable for farming, to remove crop stubble and return nutrients to the soil, and to convert natural ecosystems

johnnoreply@blogger.com0