Kiswahili Blogosphere

Mwandani is not sure whether he should be happy or sad after reading the review of the former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, two five-year terms. Mkapa finished his second term at the end of last year. Jakaya Kikwete, his successor, was the foreign minister in Mkapa’s government. Kikwete is the third Tanzanian president since independence. First it was Mwalimu Nyerere, followed by Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa, and now Jakaya Kikwete.

Every January, Tanzanians remember the Zanzibar revolution that deposed the Sultan of Oman. This year, Mwandani reflects over the long history of violence in the semi autonomous Island. During his inauguration speech, the Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, promised to take care of political tension in Zanzibar.

Michuzi digs up an old photo of the first Tanzanian president mixing soil from Zanzibar and Tanganyika to symbolize the union between the two countries in 1964.

Gaphiz writes very briefly about a site with Tanzanian domain name, which allows people to blog for free.

Responding to increasing interest in blogging in Tanzania, Jikomboe starts a new blog of Swahili blogging instructions. The blog will basically contain an updated version of the instruction manual that has been used in Kiswahili blogosphere for the past two years.

For some reasons, most Kiswahili bloggers are either poets or poetry lovers. It is nearly impossible to translate most of the poems and convey the same message. Most of the time these poet bloggers are challenging each other with creative use of complex and deep Swahili, which is an established tradition in Swahili poetry. The most prominent poet bloggers are Mkwinda, Mwandani, Kasri la Mwanazuo, and Nyembo.

Tanzania, finally, has a national dress.

3 comments

  • […] So keep your aggregators tuned for developments on that front. You can read Ndesanjo’s regular summaries of the Swahili blogosphere at Global Voices. […]

  • Amira Alghali

    Great work Ndesnjo

  • Safi sana Ndesanjo. You might want to change the 4th line there to: Kikwete is the fourth Tanzanian president since independence.

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