By Ndesanjo Macha

A list of 5 Things You Did Not Know About Africa by Tolu Ogunlesi: “When Western tourists talk about Africa somehow it seems to me that what they really mean is East and Southern Africa, places like Namibia and Kenya and Botswana and parts of Uganda where you will find safaris and zebras and elephants and lakes in abundance.”

By Tomomi Sasaki

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it matter if it made a sound or not when the tree was doing its own thing? Blogger Zope ponders mountains, morals, and messages in a Japanese post titled “Is it wrong to climb Mount Fuji empty-handed?“.

Note: The post was translated in its entirety with permission from the blogger. All links were added by Tomomi Sasaki for reference.

Photo of Mount Fuji by Flickr user TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋) under a Creative Commons Attribution license

Excerpt from the Yomiuri Online article “Man climbs Mount Fuji empty-handed on a whim, needs help”, published July 3rd, 12:07: (Note: the article is no longer online)

July 2nd, 21:45 - A man called the police from the Eight Station on Mount Fuji [altitude: 3,250 meters], saying “I’m climbing Mount Fuji but didn’t come with a flashlight. It’s too dark to see the road and I’m scared. Please help me”.

Six mountain rescue workers from the Fujinomiya Precinct of Shizuoka Prefecture Police headed out around 23:30 and rescued the man who had climbed down to the Sixth Station [altitude: 2,490 meters] by himself. The man had no injuries. According to the Precinct, he is a 22 year old pachinko parlor worker from Nakano Ward in Tokyo. He had started climbing Mount Fuji from the Fifth Station on the Fujinomiya Course around 17:00. Upon reaching the Ninth Station [altitude: 3,460 meters], he gave up and began to descend before calling for help with his cell phone when it became dark.

The man was wearing a long sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He was empty-handed; he wasn’t carrying any food or equipment. The climbing season for Mount Fuji started on July 1st but the temperature around the Sixth Station is 2 degrees Celcius. The man had no climbing experience and was apologetic, saying “I started climbing on a whim”. The Precinct stated, “One wrong step and it would have been a matter of life and death. We’d like everyone to come fully prepared, even for summer mountains.”

View this graph for a visualization of the altitude of each Station in the article “A guide for climbing Mount Fuji and enjoying Mother Nature” from the Japan National Tourism Organization.

Zope goes on to explain his viewpoint after the excerpt.

To an experienced climber, attempting Mount Fuji without any gear is ridiculous. They might say, “Don’t underestimate mountain climbing!”. Be it Mount Fuji or the South Pole however, I think that the decision is fundamentally one that should be left to the individual.

I bet there are lots of folks that climb Mount Fuji empty-handed. It becomes newsworthy like this when an incident occurs but many people probably return unharmed. Perhaps they even come back thinking, “Oh, that was much easier because I wasn’t carrying anything”.

Now, the problem is when a person gets lost or almost dies. They then require rescue, which incurs a cost to society in general. Even if a rescue attempt isn’t made and they perish, a dead body can’t just be left up in the mountains. It's a burden either way and society foots the bill.

The issue isn’t about climbing Mount Fuji without equipment. It’s about “not being able to take full responsibility of one’s actions” and “causing problems to society” when something happens.

On the other hand, if a person can take full responsibility and not cause problems, nothing should be prohibited, not even the most foolish undertaking.

The rescued man was purposely described as being “a 22 year old pachinko parlor worker from Nakano Ward”. The description of his outfit with the comment “not carrying neither food nor equipment” leaves the reader with the impression that he is a carefree, perhaps even reckless, fellow. Think about it, though! People will get lost when they get lost and die when they die… even powerful executives and high level bureaucrats, and even in full gear. In fact, it could be said that an experienced person might be more at risk because of false confidence.

What it boils down to is that this type of article is one form of “public service announcement”. If more people start climbing Mount Fuji without the proper equipment, the chance of trouble increases and the cost of rescue missions starts to pile up. So, they tell us to be properly equipped when climbing Mount Fuji. It’s like those Moral Education classes in elementary school, but all throughout the year and utilizing the mass media.

A prohibition to climb Mount Fuji without equipment doesn’t really affect our freedom. However, the influence is more widespread when the topic is restriction on Konjac jelly manufacturing, selling medicine online, hiring temp workers, or terminating employment contracts. The government’s position is usually to promote stricter restrictions for these kinds of topics. Therefore, any news with a “public service announcement” flavor takes the angle of “Disasters occur because there are no restrictions in place. If we make rules, we can prevent these disasters.” The disadvantages, cost, or unfairness that would arise from such rules do not receive any mention.

While there’s no denying that the man took a foolhardy action, making a point of mentioning that he was “a 22 year old pachinko parlor worker” gives off the air of a carefully designed public service announcement. Had the man been an executive or high ranking bureaucrat, I very much doubt that this would have hit the news at all.

Thanks to Ziggy Okugawa for helping with the translation.

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya

Torn and Frayed in Manila blogs about a book on maps of the Philippines by Carlos Quirino.

By Janine Mendes-Franco

“This village is stunning – the scenery, the variety of panoramic views, and even the crops on the steep hillside are mesmerising”: MEP Caribbean Publishers visits the village of Paramin, “one of the few communities where some of the older residents still speak French patois.”

By Veronica Khokhlova

Polish cities' coats of arms competition - at Polandian.

By Veronica Khokhlova

Danil Nikitin's photos from Kherson, Berdychiv and a number of other Ukrainian locations (UKR).

By Veronica Khokhlova

At Russia! blog, Tatyana Bokova-Foley re-posts photos of the graffiti in the Crimean capital of Simferopol and writes about the possible identity of the artist who created them.

By Janine Mendes-Franco

“The Commonwealth of Dominica has gone virtual with great alacrity” in order to promote tourism; Repeating Islands has the details.

By Janine Mendes-Franco

Ariel Sigler Amaya arrives in the United States from Cuba to undergo medical treatment; Uncommon Sense applauds his resolve.

By Juliana Rincón Parra

All it took was one child to talk about his destroyed school in front of a camera:  through the following months, thanks to Shawn Ahmed of the Uncultured Project and Nerdfighters, the world rallied through YouTube and raised enough money to rebuild the school.

Pidahouse on the Signboard by Shawn Ahmed under a CC BY NC SA license.

This video tells the story: Cyclon Sidr hit Bangladesh back in 2007: Shawn recorded the damage, shocked at so many children's lives who were lost and then focused on a boy, Pidahouse, a survivor who took him around the town showing him the damage done to the school. After the video aired, the Nerdfighters, a community around the VlogBrothers YouTube channel helped the Uncultured Project raise money to help the boy. First raising enough to repair the roof and then, as more money came in, to rebuild, repaint the school and even get new desks. What makes it even more impressive is that those donations aren't even tax-exempt since as Shawn writes in his site:

This isn’t a charity or NGO – this is just an experiment in charitable community.

Because it’s not anything formal, donations are not tax-deductible.

Last year Shawn kept busy, and we have been following his humanitarian adventure. From the relief efforts back in 2007 and 2008, to the clean water campaign. Although he has many videos on his site, he doesn't post with much frequency, and it may be a good thing, even if it hurts his YouTube ratings:

Although I want to, I also can’t make videos on a regular & frequent schedule. I’m forced to balance doing a good job on-the-ground with spending time making videos.

In some cases, the projects I do take years to complete. They require planning, networking, budgets, on-the-ground trust building, and also need to account for natural disasters & political unrest which push back schedules.

Following, a video of Shawn's appearance at VidCon, a conference on online video, where he shared a video with the Audience: The Boy who Lived is a video showing a story that took 1000 days to tell.

Shawn Ahmed's blog posts are touching, insightful and broad: they touch upon many different topics related to poverty: from Doing good, feeling good and Voluntourism, to the ethics of nudity in poverty photography, while also making a case for charities to seek beyond the celebrity spokesperson and instead invest in the average person and their online audiences. Follow and subscribe to his YouTube channel for a dose of optimism and a glimpse on how one person can change people's lives, a little bit at a time.

By Jillian C. York

Moroccan blogger Agharass is known for having an eclectic blog with posts (in French) on a variety of subjects from Palestine to pop culture, often peppered with the blogger's own photographs.

Recently, Agharass launched a photo blog, entitled Portfolio de Agharass! The enticing front page displays stunning photographs from around Morocco, organized like a calendar, while clicking on any given photo takes the audience to an individual entry, complete with explanations and accompanying quotes.

The entry for July 22, a photograph of a young salesman strolling on the beach, is accompanied by quotes by Joseph Conrad, Fernand Vandérem, and Christophe Dejours, including the following:

“C’est l’homme tout entier qui est conditionné au comportement productif par l’organisation du travail, et hors de l’usine il garde la même peau et la même tête. Dépersonnalisé au travail, il demeurera dépersonnalisé chez lui.
[Christophe Dejours]”

Humanity itself is conditioned to be a productive entity through the logic of organizational labor so outside of the chain of production, a man holds on to the same apparent “skin”, the same frame of mind. Devoid of personality at work,  devoid of personality he will also be in life [ Christophe Dejours]

On the author page of Agharass's blog, the following explanation appears:

Un simple amateur de la photographie, entre la prise couleur et monochrome c’est toute ma vision du monde qui prend forme. La photo m’a toujours permet de mémoriser un instant de la vie, une prise de vue qui reste pour la vie. Mon objectif ? C’est apprendre a mieux maximiser la beauté dans les clichés !

L’amour de la photographie est d’abord une vision splendide de la couleur, de la lumière et des reflets !! La photo parfait est celle qui garde au fond d’elle une certaine histoire que seul la capteur en connait les secrets.

As a simple aficionado of photography, it's my vision of the world that takes shape somewhere between monochromatic and color snapshots. Photography has always allowed me to immortalize  life's passing moment, a snapshot  that stays with me forever. My goal? To learn how to maximize the beauty I capture  in my snapshots. My passion for photography is first and foremost about capturing shots that combines splendidly color, light and reflections ! The perfect photo is one that encapsulate the depth of a story that only the photograph can truly know.

Glancing at the portfolio of photographs and Agharass's Flickr account, however, one gets the impression that the person behind the camera is not, in fact, an amateur. Here is a sampling:

The text in the photograph reads "no stopping", while the photographer's caption says "C'est interdit et pis c'est tout !" ("It's banned, and that's that!")

"Art populaire et universel…!" (Pop art and universal…!")

The Koutoubia Minaret in Marrakesh, Morocco, at dusk

Agharass's photos, available on Flickr, are all licensed under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License

By Rezwan

Hina Safdar at Chowrangi reports in details about an Airblue Airbus 321 flight originating from Karachi, which has crashed in Islamabad’s Margalla Hills today morning. 152 passengers including the crew members were killed.

By Veronica Khokhlova

The Pickle Project writes about the post-Soviet ““nostalgia cuisine” and the Ukrainian Puzata Khata chain restaurant.

By Veronica Khokhlova

NikiBGD of Life in Retro(bel)grade lists things she loves and dislikes about Belgrade: “I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – Belgrade is at least 16 cities in one.”

By Janine Mendes-Franco

MEP Caribbean Publishers visits Argyle Waterfall in Tobago.

By Amira Al Hussaini

From Yemen, Omar takes us on a tour of Al Mukalla here. Click on the link to check out the photographs.

By Elia Varela Serra

Maameous recommends a few Ghanaian beaches worth exploring.

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya

The Marocharim Experiment designates the Filipino word “dayo” as descriptive of the Filipino experience of migration: “Diaspora assumes exile, deportation, the removal of identification. ‘Dayo,' like ‘pakikipagsapalaran,' represents the hope for return; of when, they can only tell.”

By Rezwan

Tazeen at A Reluctant Mind talks about the perils of a single Pakistani woman traveling alone.

By Silvia Viñas

The blogger from Antigone Wanders is traveling Central America for three months, going through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In her latest post she talks about her experience crashing a meeting of “Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP), the Honduran resistance”, she goes on to give the necessary background about the Honduran resistance, and then tells us about her experience at the meeting. While in Guatemala, she volunteered for an NGO called FUNCEDESCRI and wrote: “They amaze me more than all of the other NGOs that I have visited or worked for in developing countries.” These are just two of the many experiences she writes about; all are worth the read.