The African women’s blogsphere this week · Global Voices
Nish Matenjwa

Some Kenyan women bloggers have been blogging about the famine in Kenya where the government says 4 million people are in need of food aid.
The inequalities and unequal distribution of resources that exist amongst Kenyans greatly disturbs the Girl Next Door who writes about a country where ‘famine, wealth and squalor co-exist’ and where while one part of the country has the food it needs, the other is starving to death.  This blogger takes issue with Kenyan government officials and says ’it does not make sense to treat symptoms without looking at the root cause’.
Amongst other issues, Mimmz also writes about the famine’s effect on only parts of the population and wonders whether this means ’Nairobi is still going about its business uninterrupted’.
Nyakehu ponders about the fact that ’there are those buying and selling food to Southern African states’ during the current famine and drought.
Irena has posted several pictures of contented and important looking government officials being driven to unnamed destinations and asks where they ‘are being driven to while others die of hunger’.
African women have also blogged about other issues.
The banning of gay marriages in Nigeria does not surprise to Black Looks as homosexuality is already illegal in the country.  ‘What is worrying and of more immediate concern’ she writes, is that this law also outlaws ’any form of protest to press for rights or recognition by homosexuals’ and the consequent difficulties that will be faced by campaigners for the human rights of gay people.
Molara Wood takes the reader on a fascinating and absorbing tour of London’s West End starting at the British Museum and ending on Leicester Square that takes in an an exhibition and movie.
A new year resolution was to open up to new experiences thus Pilli went for a reflexology session which turned out not to be the relaxing experience she was expecting. ‘I would like to recommend this exercise to all those folks who get a kick from painful experiences’, she writes and says she will go on a ‘trip to the beach’ next time she wants a pleasurable foot experience.
‘The rich places in the world are never on people's t-shirts or dangling from their ears’, writes Helenism who posts photographs of two young women she met on a shopping trip were wearing big, beautiful earrings carved in the shape of the map of Africa. ’The more contested a place is, for whatever political reason, the more it becomes a symbol’, she says.
What is the point of people spouting beliefs and ideologies they do not follow or adhere to, ponders Afrikan Eye and gives the example of people who claim to love Africa and yet will spend their money buying goods imported from abroad rather than purchase those that are ’beautiful and well crafted’ and made in Africa.
Pilgrimage to self celebrates her 36th birthday, looks back and takes stock of her life and concludes that although people tell her she has achieved several milestones, she still wants to do something that will make a difference. In her mind, the ’what’ question still remains unanswered.
Things are beginning to look up for Nneka who recently gave up smoking and who writes about her debilitating withdrawal symptomsthat included insomnia, irritation and light headedness and generally feeling unwell. Hang in there, Nneka.