• listening to weezer… does that make me old now? #

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• the dust is killing me… i can’t breath and now my sinuses hurt… juba is not a nice place sometimes #

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I was going to write a fascinating evaluation of my time at BarCamp Nairobi last Saturday. Unfortunately I came back to Juba the day after and got sucked into the craziness that is here. This is Thursday, I think, and the time that I am starting to think about posting anything.

But then I have no pictures that I took from the event and anything I might have commented on has already been said in enough places. Here are some of the places: White African, theintelligensia, girl in the meadow and louder than swahili. White African has a much more detailed list.

Now I am back in Sudan, which seems so very far away from anything techy. I have had a cold for weeks which is turning into sinus infection. All because of dust. Lots and lots and lots of dust. I can’t breath just thinking about it. I’ll be happy when they finish tarmacking the main road. Will be even happier if they get to doing all the rest.

• juba is hot #

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• juba is hot #

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• I still don’t understand twitter… but I am at Bar Camp Nairobi. Should be fun. Lots of interesting folks round here #
• most of this stuff is slightly over my head #
• Listening to people talk #
• its finished… #
• my wife is going to kill me… its almost eight and I’m still in this place listening to people talk about things I don’t understand #

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11:29 A.M.

So we have started with coffee and bites to eat. Lots of folks still streaming in. A few sessions posted on the board. People ready to talk all kinds of things. Blogging Tricks, Ubuntu Servers, CMS content management, Wordpress stuff, and a whole mess of others. That is just for this morning.

12:39
Going on the 3rd session here. Had a basic presentation from some Google map folks about using maps and data and all that fun stuff. Just bit into the meat of the topic but didn’t get a chance to chew it much. Second session were all topics I had no idea about. A gadget by a group called BugLabs that can be programmed with java to do all types of things. A talk about using Ubuntu for all kinds of nifty things. Another group talking about a web app that monitors local Kenyan content,etc.

This third session is about “blogging”. 30 minutes is a little too short to really get deep into anything, but is fun none the less. Alot of the Kenyan bloggers that I keep up with are here. Is a little strange to be in a room full of these guys. Almost intimidating.

14:12
Back from Lunch. In a few minutes we start a one hour session where anyone with a topic can stand up and talk for five minutes. Will be interesting to see how this one works. In my experience when you get a large group of people together in Kenya and people talk, it can take five minutes just to get through an introduction.

19:47
Somehow the day disappeared. The conference is finished.

It was a fun day. Bloggers, Developers, IT folks, geeks, journalists, etc all showed up to see what was going on. The discussions were quick, some were boring and some were great. Most of the topics were a chance for people to throw out ideas and get feedback from the participants. These topics ranged from blogging, internet security, application development for Kenya, the iPhone and whatever else took their fancy.

Hash over at whiteafrican has some nice photos of the event.

In this photo, you can see me sitting in the back corner trying to listen intently. Some of my favorite bloggers are in this picture too.:

The internet connection was free, the coffee was strong and the people were great. I had a blast today and can’t wait to do this again.

Hash, hope you don’t mind me using your pics:)

i’m currently in Nairobi. I should be back in Juba.

problems with tickets, vehicle issues and a slight desire to get some more time in with my family has kept me here longer than I planned. I may even stay longer.

Am hoping to hit this thing on Saturday and then jump a flight back to Juba on Sunday.

looks like a lot of fun:)