Author Archives: mkevane

At ISO pool today, a birthday party for a kid… Leslie and Sukie saw the whole show while I was playing tennis.  I’ll post a few more pictures later….

A series of secret contracts seen by Global Witness spell out how BSGR promised Mamadie Touré (sometimes known as Mamadie Conté) millions of dollars and shares in the massive Simandou iron ore concession in return for help in acquiring the … Continue reading →

The FAVL team in Ouaga (Michael, Donkoui, Krystle) spent the morning prioritizing our agenda, and then rearranging the office.  Nothing like a little furniture moving to make people feel better about the lives. Well, it works for me.  I went … Continue reading →

Sukie and I went to watch the dressage/jumping.  Reminded me of my youth when we would watch my sisters and brothers, out at El Comandante and then later at the place in Isla Grande (must have been where Convention Center … Continue reading →

The facts seem to be that the health workers declared a 96 hour strike, and a woman died in childbirth, along with her baby, and the government promptly fired the person who should have been the anesthesiologist, and indicated the … Continue reading →

A Loser who can be suckered into bad bargains is set to become one of the Clueless. That’s why they are promoted: they are worth even more as Clueless pawns in the middle than as direct producers at the bottom, … Continue reading →

As in: “Environ 2635 litres de carburant frelaté ont été saisis mercredi tôt dans la matinée le long des principales routes nationales partant de Ouagadougou … “

About 43, for you centigrade people.  This in the partial shade of our custard apple tree.  Our fans working nonstop.  Nice couscous today.  Sukie chowing down; we had a brief discussion of why anyone would eat at McDonald’s when they … Continue reading →

Ugh… I daren’t actually listen.  But I actually did talk about the sequester in French, to VOA-West Africa.  I come on about half way through.

Sukie was signed up for djembe class (African drumming) at ISO, but I got the times wrong so we showed up at the end.  It looked fun, and several of her classmates are in the class.  So after we walked … Continue reading →

First the Sukie and personal news.  All was good.  We both got really good night sleep; Sukie fell asleep about 9pm reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins and she slept the whole night through, so now her plan tonite is to do … Continue reading →

Dropped Sukie off at 7am at the International School. Everyone was very welcoming. Her class has 8 other kids. Four girls, four boys. She is the only American! Four of the kids are anglophone Africans, one boy from Holland, one … Continue reading →

I’m back for four months.  I think this will be a good trip.  Saw Peter Hochet on the plane; he was returning from Guinea.  He and colleagues in Labo Citoyennetes are doing a big project on land tenure regimes in … Continue reading →

On termine cette revue de presse au Sénégal. La Chine « déferle dans l’arachide » : c’est le titre choisi par Jeune Afrique dans son édition économique. Au port de Dakar, 53 000 tonnes d’oléagineux étaient en instance de départ … Continue reading →

From The New Yorker review of Justin Timberlake’s new album: Timberlake’s …  “Let the Groove Get In” is… powered by a synthetic kick drum and a sample of vocals and percussion from Burkina Faso…” Maybe because I don’t know a … Continue reading →

I’m reading Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer, and Jon Robinson’s AER paper on fertilizer use in Kenya.  Summarized by Chris Blattman here.  I’m looking for the gender dimension.  It’s hard to find and interpret.  They sampled ~450 men and ~450 women  … Continue reading →