it's all about me. tags. and mememe.

all talk and darkness

sometimes all the talk just gets to me. in what type of world do we all live? everything will never be perfect and quite frankly, nothing is supposed to last forever. and often people have these long faces over some inevitable issues. which is fine. but a sausage has an end. here is my sausage...

1.3 billion (b-i-l-l-i-o-n) africans do not have electricity and only 5% of people living in sub-saharan africa, do, in this day and age. akon, the missouri-born senegalese american singer has started a campaign to bring solar energy to africa. his idea of 'africa needs to be sustainable for a long time and be a crutch for the rest of world instead of the other way around' and 'a stable africa helps the world', make sense to me and seem logical. the unbelievable figures prompted akon to launch the akon lighting africa (ala) initiative in 2014, which aims to bring solar power to nearly half - 600 million - of the africans who live without power. this continent has over 120 days of sun a year, making it that much easier to harness solar power. akon's goals are to provide clean alternative energy and to create meaningful jobs for people. so far, ala has provided solar street lamps, micro-generators, charging stations and home kits to 11 countries, including guinea conakry, senegal, mali, niger, benin and sierra leone. one key trigger for rapid growth, akon reckons, is that the company funds initial projects itself as a way to demonstrate the technology and the benefits to potential buyers. according to the company, the average investment per village is $75,000 and the firm has invested almost $400 million in total so far. ala wants to assist the people to develop their own opportunities, but before people can do that, they have to be empowered and so an academy was developed which focuses on solar energy delivery and maintenance, so that they can eventually invent technology of their own and also build the electricity that is going to light their homes. the idea is to keep every village that is visited by the ala, sustainable, by promoting entrepreneurship, but the involvement of the rest of the world is important, so even if the exercise is started by africans, africa needs the technology of the rest of the world.

this brings me to my point. couldn't the more than $1 million that it cost to light up the empire state with pretty(and spectacular) pictures of wild life and cecil, be used towards that, rather? cecil died horribly. and africans do not have basic facilities (as don't have many others in the world, take your pick). and how many times can 75000 go into more than 1000000?

go figure.

it seems to me that people anguish over the atrocities in the world but at the same time just keep on doing stupid things, where they might have made a clever difference instead. and people talk so much. which means so little.

i just freed the bee in my bonnet. and a sausage has an end...

it is sorry that all the talk in the world does not make a difference, cecil. rest in peace now.