Tribeless

In my wife's country it is totally acceptable to ask someone which tribe they are from. When you register at an hotel you write the name of your tribe next to your ID number. I normally just write Mholanzi which means that I am from a tribe called Holland. But it always leaves an awkward feeling of tribelessness.

Team is about as close as I have been to a tribe, but they rarely last. My family is another tribe altogether but that doesn't really count.

To address my modern affliction I sought modern medicine: bought a book, watched a series on TV, YouTubed tribes and even joined tribes online. It only made matters worse. I felt more tribeless than ever.

Of late, my feelings of tribelessness are relieved by fleeting but increasingly frequent sensations of belonging to a larger tribe that is all around me. I don't want to name or brand it for fear it might disappear, but it's great to be part of it.

What the world wants to know

While my daughter was horseback riding, I was listening to a podcast from Appfricast on a Grameen initiative called Question Box with Community Knowledge Workers (CKW) in Uganda and India. I have worked with Community Development Workers and Creative Development Workers, but this term was new for me. Essentially the idea is to have someone with a mobile phone in each village who can call or text in questions from villagers that are then answered by people with access to knowledge a.k.a. the internet.

Interesting to see what the villagers ask:

• What causes banana bacterial wilt?
• Who is the president of Lebanon?
• Why is it that girls feel pain while in their periods?
• Best feeds to give a dairy cow to ensure it gives a lot of milk?
• Who is the president of Sao Tome?

And the list goes on. All could fairly easily be answered with a little internet surfing, especially the factual ones. It reminds me of a guy who we could ask one question as part of a getting to know each other exercise. I asked whether he could tell something about himself and he said: "yes". No chance for follow-up questions.

Most questions, and certainly internet searches, lead to more questions, particularly the ones with good answers. Giving a bad answer is the best way to keep people from asking follow-up questions. A question is more of an invitation to share and collaborate. Just as the classic "Would you like a drink?" question is not meant to quench your thirst, but to get to know you better.

The internet has two good responses to these invitations: wikipedia and social networks. Access is the answer.

"I have no chupis"

My wife is from Tanzania. Through mobile phones and internet she is now more in touch than ever with her friends and family, or extended family as westerners like to put it. Our Tanzanian nieces and nephews are now leaving childhood and entering the boy/girl-friend phase. While all these years it was too early to talk about sex, it may soon be too late. Time to put social media to work.

"I want to hear more from them than just 'I have no more chupis!'", my wife says. Chupi means slip or underpants in Swahili and is what is asked for most by girls and women when asked what they would like auntie or sister to bring. Most clothes are either bought from second-hand markets called mitumba or are tailored out of traditional cloths. But chupis are scarce on the second-hand markets and not part of traditional garments. So now, instead of, or in addition to, chupis they are going to get a mobile phone. The price of most older models is comparable to that of chupis anyway.

There is no way of knowing what the conversations will go like once the classic 'I have no more chupis!' has been preempted, but I certainly look forward to hearing them.

Procrastination ends here

Go read my blog! Knowing no one would, this was a safe way to cut short conversations devoid of energy. Then I realised I was talking to myself. Where is my blog? Where are my thoughts?

A few weeks ago I started tweeting. Now that was easier: already almost 100 followers with less than 140 keystrokes at a time.

As you can tell from the 'archive' of this blog, I intended to start blogging back in January. Posted one blog, got two comments. Never came back.

I have re-branded my blog with PlanLive as its title. Unfortunately the planlive.blogspot.com url was already taken by a Chinese typing person who last blogged in 2006. Oh well. So I added a dash, and plan-live.blogspot.com it is.

PlanLive is Plan's online community platform. This blog talks about what you run into setting up an online community for a global child centred community development organisation that is Plan.