Gold Mining in Sierra Leone/Africa

In Ancestor's Stones the gold mining scene was a memorable scene. Hawa explained what was going on at the gold mine when the workers went on strike. The workers striked after finding out how much the gold was really worth and what they were being paid. I mean this was a serious strike, those workers was very upset. This shows that gold mining in Sierra Leone was important.

Some of the world's most valuable diamond mines can be found in Sierra Leone. Mining and diamonds have been their economic base. In the 1970's and early 1980's the economic growth rate slowed because of the decline in the mining sector. Sierra leone's formal economy was destroyed by the country's civil war. Most of the civil war fighting was brough about by the control of the mines. So this raises a question in my mind, was the mining and diamond resouces a curse or a blessing for the country? Since the war mining in Sierra Leone is back up and running.

Mining in South Africa has been an economic advantage for Africa. According to wikipedia the profitable mining in South Africa develop when Erasmus Jacobs discovered a diamond along the Orange River. In 2002, South Africa accounted for 15% of the world's gold production. the De Beers Consolidated Mines Company controls much of South Africa's sources of Diamonds. So South Africa's success with gold mining turned out to be beneficial for Africa.

Ancestor Stones (Part Two)

There was so many points in this book that focused on the struggles of women like women voting, polygamy, religion, and political aspects. It was cool to read about these points through the lives of the women who lived through those struggles. At first it took me a minute to get into the book, because it was hard to follow what character was who. Reading about the things that these went through was amazing. There was a few parts that really stuck out to me.

Hawa is one character that caught my attention, mainly because of the steralizing of women. It was hard to believe that they were steralizing women without them even knowing it. What hurt me about Hawa was that eventhough she may have had six children she had lost three and she was steralized. The whole steralizing of women was just crazy to me because that was not fair to the women.

Asana's marriage was also interesting to me. It was shocking to read how her husband was beating her while she was pregnant. To me her husband was a coward anyway because of the way he treated his wives. When he got the Xala he wasn't so tough then and he had the nerve to get rid of Asana and what was interesting is that she wasn't even the one who gave it to him. It was one of the other wives who gave it to him, she was helping out Asana. That was a powerful scene to me. After reading this book it opened my eyes to the struggles that women through.

Ancestor's Stones (Part One)

I'm really excited to get into this book. So far I've read the first four chapters and I'm already enjoying it. Before I even began to read the book, I was excited just to know that it was based off of Women. Rarely find books that just talk about women. I've read about Abie, Asana, and Mariama. I noticed that in each of their stories they are mainly talking about their mothers. By just looking at the family tree their are alot of members of the family.

With just reading the first few chapters, Pologamy plays a big part of the family. It is interesting because Asana's mother is the first of Eleven wives. This makes me wonder exactly how many wives one man has had in history based on pologamy, because eleven wives is alot. I enjoyed reading about Asana's relationship with her brother. Her feelings toward him were normal I feel because for example when your the only child you recieve all the attention, and when another sibling comes along the attention is no longer on you. So you may feel neglected and dislike the other sibling for those reasons. I was alittle shocked to read about him dying I wanted to see where their relationship would go.

I'm really looking forward to getting more into this book. I think their are going to be alot of interesting stories in the family. I want to learn more about women's survival in Africa during that time.

Xala

I must admit Xala was a very interesting novel. I was actually excited to read the whole book through. It was interesting to read about how polygamy was during that time. I've always known polygamy is when a man has more than one wife. I enjoyed reading in depth the conflicts that acually existed within the family. The relationships between the children was crazy because they chose on their own not to associate with one another. Another thing that caught my attention was how often El Hadji's first two wives had seen each other within a 17 year period. It was a surprise because most polygamist families I've heard about either live together or in the same area. Aleast that's how I would think it would be.

Rama is one character that I enjoyed. I like that fact that she was so outspoken about what she believed. She was sort of a sassy character to me. One of the parts that I remember most about her is when she told her father she wasn't going to the wedding. Even though he slapped her, she stood firm on what she believed. Yay Bineta was another character that was interesting. I don't know if it was just me, but I thought she was kind of annoying. She was always in the middle of things between El Hadji and N'Gone. I did wonder why she was cursed I could have just over read it.

One thing that I found funny about the whole novel, is how everyone knew about El Hadji's Xala. It's like everyone knew about it, it sure didn't take long for that news to spread. I guess because of the so called El Hadji held, that's what made the news of his Xala so important. That was another thing that was interesting about polygamy back then, the more wives you had the more you were respected. One quote that shocked me was when El Hadji's second wife was thinking about divorcing him. She said "without a man's help a woman has to fall back on prostitution to live and bring up her children." It's like women back then couln't survive without a man, so they all had that same mindset. I don't know why but for some reason would have even thought that prostitution happened back then.

Mau Mau Rebellion

The Mau Mau Rebellion was an African movement in Kenya against the british rule. The goal of the movement was to remove the British rule and European settlers from the country. It lasted from 1952 to 1960. The Appropriation of land is on key element that brought about the Rebellion. The African Community was tired of having their grievances ignored. The KiKuyu group were the first to lead toward resistance against the British. In 1952 they began a campaign of violence against the Europeans and disloyal Africans.

In 1952, Jomo Kenyatta, a leader of the Kenya Afrian Union, was arrested and charged with organizing the Mau Mau. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. In 1961 he was released and in 1963 he was elected prime minister in Kenya's first multi-racial election. He served as the first prime minister and president of Kenya.

By the end of the Mau Mau Rebellion , for the Mau Mau society 10,527 were killed in action, 2,633 captured, 26,625 arrested, 2,714 surrendered, and from 70,000 to 100,000 were interned. For the British Empire close to 100 Europeans and 2000 Africans were killed. There were quite abit of casualties during this movement but they wanted to be heard. Even though the Rebellion turned out to be a military failue, Kenya did recieve independence. A great deal of that independence can be credited to the Mau Mau Rebellion, the outcome of the rebellion gained recognition of African grivances and the efforts for correction.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

I really enjoyed reading this article. It gave me a better understanding of the political and economic things that happen in Africa due to the Europeans. Walter Rodney does an excellent job with describing the effects of the colonial governments in Africa. I thought it was kind of interesting how the African workers were paid. The European civil servants in the Gold Coast was paid an average salary of 40 per month, while Africans got an average salary of 4. That to me was a huge difference in salary given the fact the African labor was reason for the amount of surplus in Africa. Another thing that I found crazy, was how they used taxation, which made it even harder for the Africans to survive. I think it was unfair for them to use the taxation system for exploitation.

The education issue was one part of the article that really got my attention. I remember reading in King Leopold's Ghost how the children were educated, but it didn't really go into detail like this article. I was amazed at the unevenness in education throughout the continent. It was shocking to know that secondary education was rare and other forms of higher education was almost non-existent. In the part of the admission that Dr. Kofi Busia gave he mentioned that the education he recieved taught him more and more about Europe and less about his own society. That is what was so unfair about the education system, what they learned was what the Europeans wanted them to know.

The part of the article about indiviualism was also interesting. I liked how Rodney compared the idea and affects of indiviualism in Europe and in Africa. It was completely opposite in both continents. In Europe it was action that contributed to its goal of conquering the rest of the world. Where as in Africa it contributed to the downfall of its independence. Overall it think this was a good article with wonderful analysis.