Gmoke sez, "Susan Murcott and her team's factory making clay filters for Pure Home Water in Ghana. Over 100,000 served, so far."

They're shooting for 1,000,000.

Pure Home Water, Ghana: AfriClay Filters

Here's an interesting, short memoir about science fiction in Africa, written by Jonathan Dotse, a science fiction writer in Accra, Ghana. Dotse describes how his early exposure to science fiction changed his outlook on life, and how he sees the field relating to the future of Africa.

Imagine a young African boy staring wide-eyed at the grainy images of an old television set tuned to a VHF channel; a child discovering for the first time the sights and sounds of a wonderfully weird world beyond city limits. This is one of my earliest memories; growing up during the mid-nineties in a tranquil compound house in Maamobi; an enclave of the Nima suburb, one of the most notorious slums in Accra. Besides the government-run Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, only two other television stations operated in the country at the time, and satellite television was way beyond my family’s means. Nevertheless, all kinds of interesting programming from around the world occasionally found its way onto those public broadcasts. This was how I first met science fiction; not from the tomes of great authors, but from distilled approximations of their grand visions.

This was at a time when cyberpunk was arguably at its peak, and concepts like robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence were rife in mainstream media. Not only were these programs incredibly fun to watch, the ideas that they propagated left a lasting impression on my young mind for years to come. This early exposure to high technology sent me scavenging through piles of discarded mechanical parts in our backyard; searching for the most intriguing sculptures of steel from which I would dream up schematics for contraptions that would change the world as we knew it. With the television set for inspiration and the junkyard for experimentation, I spent my early childhood immersed in a discordant reality where dreams caked with rust and choked with weeds came alive in a not-so-distant future; my young mind well aware of the process of transformation occurring in the world around me; a world I was only just beginning to understand.

Developing World: Beyond the Frontiers of Science Fiction (Thanks, Richard!)

This old WFMU clip from 2005 features the beautiful "work-song" of Ghanian postal workers from the University of Ghana cancelling stamps, banging out infectious rhythm and melody.

Work Song From Postal Employees in Ghana (MP3)

MP3 Link

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Daniel sez, "Global Health resource is a facilitator of medical travel. Presently we are helping Mohammed Issaka of Ghana who only has half a face to receive plastic surgery in India. He has some sponsorship for this, but we would like to make this public as so perhaps solicit more funds to help others."

This is the inspiring story of Mr. Mohammed Issaka from Ghana in West Africa. 2 years ago Mohammed was diagnosed with a tumor behind his left eye. Fortunately for him the mass was benign, but in the process of the surgery his left eye and most of the left side of his face had to be removed. Since then this 28-year-old new husband has been living with a large hole in his face. Due to the extreme condition of his face he is forced to conceal the gaping wound on a daily basis.

A New Face for Mohammed (Thanks, Daniel!)

Here's a really interesting look from Younghee Jung at the global phenomenon of multi-SIM phones that can talk on multiple networks at once. Some people get these SIMs because they want to take advantage of low-cost calling within an single network (which means that you have to keep track of which network each person in your address book uses!). Others use it to establish priority -- a business man who has a "private number" for his best customers that he always answers. Sometimes, it's just a way to get a bargain, loading up prepaid minutes on different SIMs depending on who's got the best deal. A sketch from a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana depicts an "ideal phone" that holds four SIMs.

Many mobile network operators offer cheaper rates for inter-network calls, especially in markets where competition among network operators is high. Highly cost-conscious consumers naturally get multiple numbers for cheaper calls. While it may not take too much effort to acquire the new number itself, this comes at a cost of efforts and skill: Remembering, or identifying who in your social network has the number belonging to a specific network operator. People develop a tactic, such as indicating the network operator in the name stored on the phonebook. This is not an exclusive behavior only for the developing economies, however. When the 3G network was newly introduced in Japan several years ago, many Japanese consumers also owned two numbers, one from 3G for cheaper messaging & data connection, another from existing network for cheaper voice calls.

Use of Multiple Mobile Phone Numbers (part 1) (via Kottke)