Frenchman Xavier Chevrin is driving an electric car 3,000 miles through Africa, from Nairobi to Johannesburg. Finding outlets is a challenge, about 65 percent of Africans do not have access to electricity. The
daily video logs are a joy not only for the beautiful scenery along a contemporary African road trip, but the excitement of many Africans who have never seen an electric vehicle.
The vehicle is a souped-up version of cars used by the French postal service, a
Citroen Berlingo powered by
Venturi. This is Xavier's 2nd long distance electric car expedition, previously he did
Shanghai to Paris, it set the record for the longest distance traveled in an electric vehicle.
posted by stbalbach
on May 23, 2012 -
9 comments
The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), is the largest church in the world
1. Completed in 1990 for about $300 million by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny - with profits skimmed from the slave labor best cocoa (chocolate) industry - in the small rural town of his birth, it sits today in the bush a vast empty palace of marble and crystal gawked at by the occasional backpacker. Among other trappings it has the only airport big enough in Africa to take the Concorde, a presidential palace with a lake stocked with scores of Sacred Caymans (crocodiles,) and a mansion next to the Basilica reserved exclusively for the Pope on visits from Rome (used once). The President enjoyed his complex for less than 3 years before dieing in 1993.
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 27, 2008 -
66 comments
There is time, and there is
"African time". The Ivory Coast is
fighting chronic lateness with a contest that offered a $60,000 villa as its grand prize. The winner, legal adviser Narcisse Aka, is known by his colleagues as "Mr. White Man's Time" and
said that his punctuality makes him feel like "an extra-terrestrial."
posted by stbalbach
on Oct 9, 2007 -
54 comments
