reasons for inviting people

The other day we were supposed to have some Americans who are doing a study on tourism in Tunisia staying over for dinner at our place. I was a bit sceptical about that because they had been questioning my friend, who knows quite a bit about the topic, for quite some time and for free too. For some reason or the other research ethics and the equality in the relation between informant and researcher are an important issue to me. So when I heard that apart from talking to them for hours about all kinds of issues related to tourism they were also invited to our home and looking forward to eating Couscous with us I was not too happy. But the invitation was made and therefore things could not be changed without embarrassing one or bouth parties involved. The only thing that was left for me was giving advice to my frined that next time he thinks about it twice befor agreeing to a lengthy interview. He agreed and added that he might ask for money but also he mentioned why he had invited them although he knew that their relationship was quite an unequal one:

because they are ignorant and therefore need to be educated about my
country...

I guess the next time I am invited I will watch out for the real reasons of being invited to somebodys home!

CHERS CLIENTS

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thats just a little note in arabic and french on the desk where my computer stands on, in my internet cafe Here is a great link related to the topic and the upcoming WSIS [World Summit of Information Society]

what happened....

The reason this blog has been so quiet is that I am in Tunisia/Salammbo [yes, Flauberts one]. I am staying here for several reasons, one of them is to improve my arabic. I discovered many strange and interesting things so far....one of them being a magician.

We were strolling through the narrow lanes in the old market of Tunis not aiming for much except soaking up the atmosphere. Then we stopped to buy some henna and harkous [the stuff people call naqsch in Yemen, used to paint hands and feet]. The man sitting in the tiny shop let us browse his goods for some time which consisted of the strangest things i have ever seen [skewered dead toads, three little chameleons in a tiny cage, porcupine bristles lots of different dried herbs and different spices to make bkhur]. We were invited into the tiny shop and could therefore discover how he practised his art. Lots of people dropped in while we were there and quite a big amount got amulets for different kinds of problems. There were letters that had to be placed above the door to make ones husband stop deceiving oneself and a shopkeeper dropped in to get something to improve his business. I thought that something like that does not exist here and was pretty excited about experiencing it. Coming home and telling friends about what happened was even more interesting. The man, I was told, is a good for nothing ripping of people.

Skype me!

Dina's got a very good post about her and other womens experience of using Skype and turning to "Skype me". I find it difficult to add another view point, as my experience was very similar, and I learnt quick (as quick as no one ever touches nettles twice). So this is just a recommendation to read, what she said.

U2 - Live Aid / Vienna

Yesterday U2 played in Vienna [in the Ernst Happel Stadion], and London within a few hours. I wanted to go to the Vienna concerts, but tickets where more than my student budget allowed. Nevertheless I just listened to the version of "One"[mp3] which they played at the live aid concert in London. At the beginning Bono's says somehting like:

"this is our moment, this is our time, this is our chance to stand up for what's right. We're not looking for charity - we are looking for justice. We can't fix every problem, but the ones we can, we must. 3.000 africans, mostly children, die every day of a mosquito bite, we can fix that. 9.000 people die every day of a treatable desease like AIDS - we got the drugs, we can help them. Dirty water, death by dirty water, well, we can digs wells...
Eight of the most powerful man of the world are meeting at a golf course in Scotland - we have a message for them: this is your moment too, make history through making poverty history"

Here's a review of their concert in Vienna, and here at live8insider you can also view videos of the concert.
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update: I just found a video with Dave Sifry about technoratis support for live8. (link from Supernova, through Buffer overflow, seems to be down now, though)

here's more background information about technoratis and bloggers support for live8

[mp3 above via live8insider]


Tags: live8

Korean visitor...

Yungtak Cho, a 24 year old south korean student is staying with me for a few days - we met trough globalfreeloaders, he'll travel through Europe for the next two months. I just discovered he's also got a blog, and quite a few of his friends seem to have one too .

Something I learnt from him already:

Samsung is korean but "pretends" to be japanese because they sell more products as the reputation of japanese gadgets is better.

Traditional korean music (played with a flute) sounds like what I'd call new-age-music- and is very nice (I got a CD as a present!).