
L’ampoule grillée n’a pas peur du court-circuit (Dicton populaire Camerounais).
A dead bulb is not afraid of a short circuit (Cameroonian Popular quote).
L’ampoule grillée n’a pas peur du court-circuit (Dicton populaire Camerounais).
A dead bulb is not afraid of a short circuit (Cameroonian Popular quote).
I just found another species of birds in my mother’s garden. It is called the Souimanga in Malagasy which has been adopted as its name in French, or simply sunbird in English. In the case at hand, it is the Souimanga bronzé or bronzy sunbird known by its scientific name as Nectarinia kilimensis; it is very close to the Souimanga de Mariqua or Marico sunbird. It is native of Sub-Saharan Africa. Its coat is quite shiny and irridescent. Its flight is quick, similar to the American hummingbird. As you can see, this pretty visitor has a shiny green coat sparsed with black, and a red underbelly; it feeds on flower nectar. The shiny metallic color indicates that our visitor is a male. Enjoy!
What does the Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain on African soil, have to do with corals in the ocean? Well, it turns out that there are channels of cool water that developed millions of years ago under the Mt Kilimanjaro, and these end in the Indian ocean off the coast of Mombasa. With the recent warming of the oceans, this cool water meets the ocean right on the coast to create a sort of marine sanctuary for corals, dolphins, and even species taught to be extinct. Enjoy excerpts below from the article at the Guardian!
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Scientists have discovered a climate crisis refuge for coral reefs off the coast of Kenya and Tanzania, where species are thriving despite warming events that have killed their neighbours.
The coral sanctuary is a wildlife hotspot, teeming with spinner dolphins and boasting rare species, including prehistoric fish and dugongs. Researchers believe its location in a cool spot in the ocean is helping to protect it and the surrounding marine life from the harmful effects of the climate crisis.
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[Tim] McClanahan, the lead scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, who lives and works in Mombasa, Kenya, said he had an “epiphany” when he realised why the reef was so rich in wildlife. The coastline has the highest density of dolphins in east Africa, and coelacanths, fish once believed extinct, swim in its deep waters. “I thought ‘why are all the animals here?’ And I realised it was because of Kilimanjaro,” he said.
The coral refuge, which stretches from Shimoni, 50 miles south of Mombasa, in Kenya to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, is fed by cool water from deep channels formed thousands of years ago by glacial runoff from Mt Kilimanjaro and the Usambara mountains.
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There was a recent discovery of a long lost artifact from the Great Pyramid of Giza, this is one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It was found in… Scotland… at the University of Aberdeen. The wooden fragments were obtained by engineer Waynman Dixon inside the pyramid’s Queens Chamber in 1872, which he offered to someone at the university as a gift. The artifact has been carbon-dated to be about 5000 years old, to the period 3341-3094 BC – some 500 years earlier than historical records which date the Great Pyramid to the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu in 2580-2560 BC. This raises important question given that they are older than the pyramid… so could they have been part of an older structure, or just part of a tree buried with the pharaoh for continuity ? For the full article, go to the Guardian.
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Curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany, originally from Egypt, was reviewing items in the university’s Asia collection when she came across a cigar box marked with her country’s former flag.
Inside she found several wooden splinters which she then identified as a fragment of wood from the Great Pyramid which has been missing for more than a century. …
From its large leaves, the taro collected water and without gathering any for itself, or absorbing enough, watered its neighbors who bloomed and produced abundantly. For the benefit of others, generous taro forgot itself.
When the dry season came, it was the first to suffer from the lack of water. Turning to its neighbors who had great reserves, it begged them to share enough to survive until the rainy season. Everyone closed their door to its face and fell back on their complacency.
It is while dying that he understood that forgetting oneself for the benefit of others is a failure and that one must always be satisfied before adding to others.
Fables des Montagnes de Patrice Kayo, Collection Les CLES de l’avenir, Editions CLE, Yaounde, p. 59 (1998). Translated to English by Dr. Y., Afrolegends.com
Precious readers, wishing you all a HAPPY 2021! May this new year mark the beginning of new endeavors, the continuation of current ones, and/or the end of old ones. May it be filled with greatness, success, joy, love, happiness, abundance, harmony, and peace! I know 2020 was quite a year, and that many are hoping for something better. Let us leave behind the baggage, and be prepared to take off for this new year, never losing altitude during this flight, and trusting for better.
The top 5 posts of the year 2020 are listed below. We, at Afrolegends.com, would like to express our profound gratitude for your constant support, as your readership has carried us forward. Keep on visiting, sharing, and commenting. I wish you all wonders without borders, grace, and peace for 2021! Keep your heads up, and may your year be as beautiful as the petals of this flower! As you can see, everything about this flower marks the beginning of something beautiful: a new start, a new life, and a new joy! As always, like Agostinho Neto said, “A luta continua … a vitória é certa!”
1. Adinkra Symbols and the Rich Akan Culture
2. Kente Cloth: An Ashanti Tradition dating Centuries back
3. ‘Love Poem for my Country’ by Sandile Dikeni
4. Scarification: an ‘Ancient’ African Tattoo Culture
5. Samori Touré: African Leader and Resistant to French Imperialism!
Even though 2020 was quite a “different” year for a lot of people, there were still a lot of things to celebrate in Africa. Let’s do a review of some of the things we celebrated this year in 2020! There are many more, of course, but I selected 10. Enjoy!
Well, 2020 has been quite a year… when 2020 started, nobody could have told me that there would be a “global pandemic” and I would have believed it, that there will be a confinement and I would have believed, that people will be having “virtual parties” and I would have believed, or that people would have been walking around faceless i.e. masked and I would have believed. What a year! For sure, 2020 is going out, and there will be no other 2020. So let us remember 2020 in Africa, and remember the people, situations, and more that we said goodbye to.
Quand les autres ont reçu, tu pourras encore recevoir, car Imana (Dieu) est encore là (Proverbe Burundais – Burundi, Rwanda).
When others have received, you will still receive, because Imana (God) is still there (Burundi proverb – Burundi, Rwanda).
In the video below, you will hear J.J. Rawlings talk about the issues I always talk about on this blog: the loss of the African soul to westernization, the danger of traitors within our ranks, and more importantly the dangers of globalization. I think people should really pay attention to all he has to say about betrayal, African identity, and also about the manipulations of the people by the triumvirate that is the multinationals, the media, and the intelligence.
On betrayal, Jerry Rawlings said, “Something that is worse than an enemy is a traitor.” This is very reminiscent of the speech Amilcar Cabral gave at the funeral of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah on May 13, 1972, which I translated to English here on Afrolegends, “The Cancer of Betrayal” by Amilcar Cabral. J.J. adds, “As bad as an enemy can be, … something worse than an enemy is a traitor.”
On African identity, Rawlings affirmed, “In the process of trying to modernize, we [Africans] have ended up being westernized. … When I wanted to even name my children African names, heroic names, … the catholic church said no… they will have to be catholic names … [which] are European names.“… “I have a right to my identity, don’t take away my identity!”
“Christianize me if you may, but don’t westernize me!” He talks about the issues of African identity, which is powerfully shown in the poem ‘My Name’ by Magoleng wa Selepe.
On globalization, “The world is manipulated by the multinational corporations, the media, and the intelligence apparatus, … they work as a triumvirate and they are neatly sandwiched… in between the governed people and the governors… the sooner we begin to return, restore, some sense of morality in business ethics, in politics, in the media, intelligence apparatus, …” apply the same morality to all, especially when talking about globalization, applying the same moral standards to all.