Google is planning to add Somali, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and Zulu to its list of language options on Google Translate, the search engine giant’s free automatic translation service.
A post published yesterday on the Google Africa page on Google+ called on users to evaluate the translation quality of the five languages. After assessing passages that are translated into English and vice versa, users can rate them as Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor.
Google Translate already supports 71 languages but the possible inclusion of Somali, Zulu and other African ones has been met with wide approval and excitement. However, users have already pointed out that there are some tweaks needed. Here’s the system’s take on Igbo to English translation.
Two men in Kenya have agreed to marry the same woman, taking turns to stay with her and helping raise her children.
Joyce Wambui had been torn between two lovers for more than four years and was unable to choose between them. So she joined in a contract stipulating that Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani would “share” her.
But Mwendwa’s decision to go public about the unusual deal has infuriated Wambui, cost him his job and forced him into hiding to escape a public backlash in Kisauni, Mombasa.
The 26-year-old told the BBC that he entered a pact with Kimani to end their rivalry. “It could have been very dangerous if the other man would have come to her house and caught me,” he said. “So our agreement is good as it sets boundaries and helps us keep peace.”
He claimed Wambui’s parents had given her their blessing, adding: “She is like the central referee. She can say whether she wants me or my colleague.”
Wambui, a widow and mother of young twins, is said to be in her late 20s. In a separate interview with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Mwendwa explained: “It’s not because she is a superwoman, but because she is a hard worker and very beautiful.”
(Graphic: Flickr / charlesfettinger)
The unusual arrangement came about after the intervention of Abdhallah Abdulrahman, a community policing officer. “The two men were quarrelling and I wanted to know what they were quarrelling about,” he said. “I found out they were sharing one woman without knowing each other. I wanted the woman to decide which she loved and agree to stay with one. Unfortunately, she refused to decide. She said, ‘I love both of them, I’m not ready to lose them.’
“Both men refused to surrender the woman. They assured me they’re going for a discussion where they’ll settle the differences themselves. They surprised me when they said they had agreed to be together.”
Abdulrahman said he was strongly opposed to the contract. “To me as a Muslim and a Kenyan, I don’t accept it,” he added. “It is against our religion and our African tradition. It is against Kenyan law. Under our Constitution it is not allowed. The community are disappointed and everybody is against it. Sylvester Mwendwa is now in hiding, saying his life is in danger.”
Mwendwa’s willingness to publicise the contract in national and international media has also caused a rift with Kimani and Wambui, putting the whole understanding in jeopardy. On Tuesday the Daily Nation reported that Mwendwa, a butcher, said his boss fired him after he heard the story, and he is reported to have gone into hiding.
Even if Wambui forgives him, there is little prospect of making the three-way marriage legal. Whereas polygamy – one man with multiple wives – is legal in Kenya and widely practised by various communities, polyandry is almost unknown.
According to Kenya’s NTV station, the contract states: “We have agreed that from today we will not threaten or have jealous feelings because of our wife, who says she’s not ready to let go of any of us. Each one will respect the day set aside for him. We agree to love each other and live peacefully. No one has forced us to make this agreement.”
The formula has worked in California, Florida and Paris. Now officials in Zimbabwe, eager to rebrand a country notorious for economic collapse and political violence, want to build a “Disneyland in Africa”.
Walter Mzembi, the tourism and hospitality minister, told New Ziana, the official news agency, that the government was planning a $300m theme park near Victoria Falls, the country’s top tourist attraction.
Mzembi was quoted as saying the resort would be a “Disneyland in Africa”, although he did not appear to suggest that the statue of explorer David Livingstone, which overlooks the falls, would be supplanted by a jobbing actor in a Mickey Mouse costume.
(Pic: Reuters)
Instead, he outlined plans for shopping malls, banks and exhibition and entertainment facilities such as casinos. “We have reserved 1 200 hectares of land closer to Victoria Falls international airport to do hotels and convention centres,” Mzembi told New Ziana on the sidelines of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly , which Victoria Falls is co-hosting with the town of Livingstone in neighbouring Zambia.
Mzembi said the project would cost about $300m.
“We want to create a free zone with a banking centre where even people who do not necessarily live in Zimbabwe can open bank accounts,” he said.
The government has plans to invest $150m in expanding the town’s airport to accommodate bigger aircraft, according to the report from Ziana. Mzembi said the government had found funding partners including multilateral financial institutions.
Visitors travel from across the world to see Victoria Falls where water plummets more than 100 metres into the Zambezi gorge, generating mists of spray so high they can be seen up to 30 miles away. A bridge linking Zimbabwe and Zambia offers bungee jumping but made headlines for the wrong reasons last year when an Australian tourist narrowly survived her cord snapping.
The nearby town offers few reasons to linger or spend money, however, despite the launch last month of an open-top bus tour in an attempt to drum up interest. Mzembi hopes to appeal to a younger market.
Tourism conference Zimbabwe’s considerable tourism potential was devastated by a decade of conflict and hyperinflation but has recovered in recent years. The government says it recorded a 17% increase in tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2013, up 346 299 to 404 282. It has predicted the tourism sector will contribute 15% to GDP by 2015 if the country remains stable.
Following a mostly peaceful, though bitterly disputed, election last month, Zimbabwe’s co-hosting of the UNWTO conference this week is seen as another milestone towards that stability. But the decision to award the conference to Zimbabwe as a co-host was condemned by the independent UN Watch human rights group as a “disgraceful show of support — and a terribly timed award of false legitimacy — for a brutal, corrupt and authoritarian regime.
Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based group, added: “Amid reports of election rigging and continuing human rights abuses, Zimbabwe is the last country that should be legitimised by a UN summit of any kind. The notion that the UN should spin this country as a lovely tourist destination is, frankly, sickening.”
Winding through the parched Namibian farmland, Bonzo, an Anatolian shepherd dog, has a singular focus: protecting his herd of goats from lurking predators.
He pads along, sniffing the air and marking the scrubby landscape, just like a bodyguard ready to ward off any threat to his charges, which he considers family.
“They’re not pets. They’re not allowed to be pets,” said Bonzo’s owner farmer Retha Joubert.
Anatolian shepherd dog Bonzo leads a herd of goats on Retha Joubert’s farm near near Gobabis, east of Windhoek. (Pic: AFP)
The breed descends from ancient livestock dogs used thousands of years ago in what is now central Turkey. And they not only save sheep and goats, but have handed a lifeline to Namibia’s decimated cheetah numbers by reducing conflicts between farmers and predators.
“The dogs are protecting the flock in such a way that the farmers don’t have to kill predators,” said Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) which breeds the dogs near the northern city of Otjiwarongo.
“It’s a non-lethal predator control method so it is green, it’s happy, it’s win-win.”
The concept is simple.
The dogs are placed with a flock when a few weeks old to bond with the livestock. They live permanently with the animals, loyally heading out with them every day to deter hunters, and bedding down with them at night.
Marker’s centre started breeding the livestock dogs to promote cheetah-friendly farming after some 10 000 big cats – the current total worldwide population – were killed or moved off farms in the 1980s.
Up to 1000 cheetahs were being killed a year, mostly by farmers who saw them as livestock killers.
But the use of dogs has slashed losses for sheep and goat farmers and led to less retaliation against the vulnerable cheetah.
‘Fight to the finish’ “We see about 80% to 100% decrease of livestock loss from any predator when the farmers have the dogs,” said Marker.
In the last 19 years, around 450 dogs have been placed with farmers and more than 3 000 farmers trained.
There is now a two-year waiting list for the dogs – either stately Anatolian shepherds or Kangals – and the programme has expanded to other countries with predators.
For Joubert, staying up late at night worrying about her sheep and goats coming home is a thing of the past.
Her farm near Gobabis, east of the capital Windhoek, lost 60 animals in 2008.
But the arrival of Bonzo, her first Anatolian, as a puppy five years ago has slashed losses to just one animal last year.
Joubert is now training four-month-old Kangal !Nussie – whose name starts with the exclamation point typical of Namibia’s Nama people – to follow in Bonzo’s footsteps.
The fluffy-coated pup is learning the ropes by going out with a flock every day on a leash with a human herder and beds down in the animal enclosure at night. She gets half an hour in the evening to play in the yard.
“She must associate herself with the goats, she must be a goat, she’s part of a group, that’s the main thing I think to make them to protect the animals,” said Joubert, who is deeply proud of her dogs.
The dogs’ presence and intimidating bark is usually enough to deter predators, who would rather opt for prey that does not have a guardian.
But they will attack if a hunter does not back off.
Bonzo for example, has killed jackals, who attack in packs and a young, weak cheetah.
“If indeed they do come in, the dog could and would fight to the finish,” said Marker.
A cheetah eats at The Cheetah Conservation Fund centre in Otjiwarongo, Namibia on August 13 2013. (Pic: AFP)
Altercations between the dogs and cheetahs, though, are rare and those who target livestock are usually desperate, such as being wounded.
But working in Namibia’s tough landscape takes it toll.
Bonzo has been bitten by snakes, stung by a scorpion, attacked by baboons and now has tongue cancer from exposure to the relentless sun.
Ironically, despite cheetahs being seen as livestock killers, analysis of their droppings has shown only 5% had preyed on farm animals.
“They do occasionally take livestock,” said Gail Potgieter, a human-wildlife conflict specialist at the Namibia Nature Foundation.
“But the perception that any cheetah is going to start killing livestock as its main diet is very wrong.”
Cheetah numbers hit a low of 2500 in 1986. But the population has now potentially reached nearly 4000 – the biggest wild cheetah population in the world.
Cheetahs still face threats on game ranches, where they eat valuable animals, and on cattle farms where the dogs are not suited.
But for small stock farmers, they have proven their worth.
“For the type of livestock farming that’s going on in Namibia, it’s definitely one of the most promising solutions that they have,” said Potgieter, who used to manage the CCF’s dog programme.
Andrew Esiebo is a Nigerian photographer whose photo essay, Pride, is an exploration of barbers and their shops across seven West African countries. He captures the spaces in which barbers operate and looks at the aesthetics of their shops.
Pride was recently featured in the New York Times’ online magazine Lens, and ten of his prints have been added to the permanent collection of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.
Côte d’Ivoire. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Esiebo chatted to Voices of Africa about the barbers, their shops and the hairstyles he shot.
How did the barbershop project come about? The idea for Pride came about during a street photography project I was doing in Lagos. While photographing people on the street, I stumbled upon a barbershop and started talking to the owner. He said to me that while he might not be considered an important person in the society, he was proud to be the barber to one of Nigeria’s ex-presidents. That resonated with me and made me think about the role, and importance, of barbers in West African society. I thought about the idea for several years and in 2012, following an artistic award I received, I was able to develop the project. I travelled to several West African cities and looked at the relevance, and the role, of the barbershop in the city.
Liberia. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
What can you tell us about the role that the barber plays in West African societies? Barbers help people to gain an identity. Some people have to have the right cut to project who they are. The way they look, through their hairstyle, influences the way they feel about themselves, the way people see them and address them.
Barbers are also influential because their shops are what I call “public intimate spaces”. People share their problems in conversation with the barber. The barbers learn a lot from this, and this knowledge is then shared with other customers.
So, barbershops are not only a place for cutting your hair but a space where people meet, where they come to relax and discuss issues; a space where relationships are built, business deals are sealed and where intimate subjects are often discussed.
Mali. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Which barbershops were most interesting to you? The barbershops I found most interesting were those which displayed icons, religious images, pictures of hip-hop artists, posters of soccer teams and icons of global black culture. There was a shop in Mali where the guy had posters of [Osama] Bin Laden and [Muammar] Gaddafi next to pictures of President Obama. I found this contrasting use of icons interesting. The barber said that, on the one hand, Bin Laden and Gaddafi were his heroes while on the other hand Obama is a global symbol of black power. For a black African to be the president of the US is something to be proud of, he said. So he named his shop Barack Obama Coiffure. There were many others I found interesting too.
Hairstyles. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Tell us about the hairstyles. Many of the hairstyles offered by barbers were similar, inspired by football stars or hip-hop icons in America. While the hairstyles themselves overlapped, their functions differed, depending on the country.
In Senegal or Mali, which are restrictive Islamic societies, a hairstyle can be a way of making a social statement, while in Liberia or Côte d’Ivoire, that same hairstyle can be a way to get attention from the ladies.
There was one particularly eclectic one from Senegal, worn by a barber. I asked the guy why he barbered that style for himself. He told me: “You know, this is a very conservative society but through my hair, I have the freedom to express what I want”. I really fancied that. He was rebelling against the conservative nature of the society.
Benin. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Were there any regional or national differences across the barbershops you photographed? To be honest, I did not find many regional or national differences in barbershops across West Africa. In fact, I found them very similar. There also was unity in the hairstyles themselves; unity in the language of using your head to talk.
Sure, there were differences in the names of the styles but many of the styles were the same. It shows how globalised or how connected the world is today. Many of the styles come from the same influences: Western media.
Côte d’Ivoire. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Are you exhibiting Pride at the moment? No, but I hope to exhibit this project across West Africa and beyond. I am still looking for an organisation to support the exhibition. I would also like to publish a book on the project because I think this is an important part of our culture that needs to be documented. It has to be celebrated and shown around the world.
Ghana. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
What is your next project? I will be looking at the nightlife of Lagos and beyond through the eyes and lives of DJs. DJs at parties, DJs in concerts, DJs at various ceremonies. I want to use DJs, who are an integral part of our nightlife, to depict life in Lagos.
Senegal. (Pic: Andrew Esiebo)
Any advice for aspiring African photographers? I think the only advice I can give is for them to work hard, to be passionate about what they do, to never give up and always be ready to learn new things. Keep pushing and open your horizons. You’ll go places with that.
