African spices.

Often when we're taught of the Dutch East India Company, we're taught that they went all over the world looking for cash crops & spices. These spices are said to be from Asia or South America but we never hear of spices that precolonial Africans used for their foods. Below is a list of select spices Africans used: 

• Grains of Paradise (Aframomum melegueta): Also known as Guinea grains, these peppery, citrusy seeds are indigenous to West Africa. They were a prized historical trade commodity used to flavor everything from wine to traditional stews. 

• Grains of Selim (Xylopia aethiopica): Also referred to as Uda pods or Guinea pepper, this West and Central African spice has a smoky flavor with herbal, nutmeg, and black pepper notes. The whole pods are often used to flavor soups, stews, and teas. 

• Calabash Nutmeg (Monodora myristica): Native to tropical Africa, this spice offers a warm, musky, and faintly vanilla flavor. It is a vital component in traditional pepper soups and local spice blends. 

• Peri-Peri (Capsicum frutescens): Originating in Southern and East Africa (particularly Mozambique), this fiery chili is the defining ingredient in many local marinades, hot sauces, and spice rubs across the continent. 

• Korarima (Aframomum corrorima): Often called Ethiopian cardamom, this plant is native to the Ethiopian highlands. It is essential for traditional Ethiopian spice blends like Berbere and Mitmita, as well as flavoring coffee and bread. 

• Aiden Fruit (Tetrapleura tetraptera): Commonly known as Prekese in Ghana or Urayi in Nigeria, this pod possesses a sweet, chocolatey, and aromatic profile. It is used to perfume soups and carries notable medicinal properties. 

• Frankincense is an aromatic resin harvested from the Boswellia tree, native to parts of Africa. 

African diet in 1500 B. C.

Dear FIFA...

Before reading this blog, first watch this video...

Now, you can continue... 

No one asked me to do this suggestions blog & FIFA has it's own economic model on supporting tournaments which bring the organisation the most money. But it is my blog & I feel that I have a right to blog about any topics I feel like blogging about... So were I an employee of FIFA, these are the suggestions I'd put on the table. 

• No red cards for covering mouth, only for content of words said: It is bizarre to me that you can get a red card for covering your mouth. I think even Vinicius Jr. would rather be sent off for actually insulting someone than covering his mouth. It's virtually a red card for talking or removing something from your face. 

• Standardise the number of teams per league: No one thinks of this when they award the best goalscorers at the end of the season or calculate number of career goals but if you play 34 games against 17 teams in a league, you have more opportunity to score goals, get assists or have clean sheets than someone who plays 28 games against 14 teams, for example. Simply making every league worldwide have a set number of teams would solve the problem.

• Bring back the Confederations Cup & make it bigger: The Confederations Cup was a tournament where each continent's best teams played against each other. It was great in that no team could feel bad for losing because you literally lost against another continent's best team. I'd improve it by qualifying along with continental champions & the World Champions - 1) the previous Confederations Cup Champions & 2) the best ranked team on the FIFA rankings in each continent (should this be the reigning continental champions, the second best ranked team on the FIFA rankings would qualify). This would allow 14 teams to qualify in the FIFA Confederations Cup. A minimum of two & maximum of four national teams per continent. 

• Bring back the smaller Club World Cup: I don't really have a problem with the Club World Cup but I feel that a big Club World Cup makes the game a bit of a free-for-all & really big clubs stand much more to lose than small village teams. I feel that the Club World Cup could be bigger but not massive. So ideally, (assuming that each continent has two continental club tournaments) we could have two teams from each continent qualify. This would give more impetus for clubs to win the smaller continental tournaments.

• Standardise the awards with a formula that calculates performance for all players including the goalkeeper: I'm not a fan of voting awards because of obvious reasons like human bias. So, I feel it would be better to have a predetermined formula to calculate who really was the best player. This formula could include goals, goals blocked, own goals, assists, opposition challenges avoided/dribbled, forward passes, balls won & balls lost. To make it even more fair for all players, the results would be calculated on a per minute basis. Goalscorer awards could also be calculated on a goals per minute basis.

• Red card means 90 minutes suspension e. g. player with a red card in the 30th minute of one game can only be substituted on after the 30th minute of the next game: I borrowed this from Trump, because I sort of understood what he was getting at. See the video here. I think football/soccer is the only game where fouls accumulate across games. Nonetheless, I have no problem with yellow cards being carried to the next game. Furthermore, I believe a player who hospitalises, seriously injures or disables a player needs to be given an unpaid ban for three games. Knowing that you will be banned for three games & not be paid in the process should prevent wreckless challenges for the ball. 

• Adopt the USA penalty shootout with the centre circle run-ups: Penalty shootouts have always just been a lottery where far worse teams could beat better teams. We could cancel the game of chance in favour of a game you could actually train for. I find it unfair that you could train for penalties for hours only to lose because of an unlucky kick or a lucky goalkeeper. In-game penalty kicks could still be taken from the penalty spot. 

• Bonus point for three goals scored: I borrowed this from a YouTube video where a famous footballer suggested this to encourage attacking play & more goals being scored. Any team, including a losing team would get a bonus point for three goals scored & I guess own goals could be excluded from the tally. Six goals in a game would mean two bonus points, nine goals would mean three bonus points & so on.

• Offside being more fair: This is a Wenger suggestion. This is because in the tussle of the game; hands, feet, knees & elbows can protrude ahead of defenders while running. This is unfair on attacking players. Having the offside being both feet being ahead of the last defenders feet at the time ball was being played should make it easier for referees using VAR. 

That's all for my suggestions to improve the game. 

Confederations Cup 2021 & 2025 (The ones that didn't happen.)

Do kings/chiefs need to be educated in separate educational institutions?

I've always juggled with this concept but never reached a conclusion because a separate education institution for royalty would still need the requirements of other schools & it would be seen as an elitist institution in some way - so may gain some dislike from common people. Funding models, physical training & systems to ground the princes & princesses enrolled in such an educational institution would need to be created. And, of course, this educational institution needs to be funded so the royals & state should naturally "foot the bill". 

Personally, I feel that royals need to be in touch with the people, gain military training & a short briefing or "education" on their role as tribal leaders from a select group of elders. So, I do feel that the sons of chiefs & kings should be among common people (i. e. the people they will lead) during their school years somehow. But I suppose interaction with common people can be done during the course of daily life & not enforced upon royals as a requirement. 

Public school education could present a unique problem for educators & perhaps some unwanted obsession with the school the royal is in & peer obsession during school or maybe even hatred due to having royal blood being something common people can't work towards having. 

Perhaps, a separate education system for children of royalty could be established - one for males & one for females that could go from primary education right up to tertiary education where they would then join national military service. In these educational institutions they could learn the land's language, the land's laws, land's faith, the land's politics & political history, the land's history, public speaking, self-defence alongside the national school curriculum. Their chosen tertiary studies - if they wish to have further education - & military service with "commoners" would follow afterwards. 

I wrote this blog entry partly because I feel many African royal houses send their youths to overseas educational institutions where they become out-of-touch with the people they are expected to lead. An indigenous educational institution for only royalty could help prevent this divide. 

And I suppose that this is my idealistic blueprint of creating generation after generation of chiefs & monarchs that won't embarrass the people they lead or tribal leaders who won't go against what is required of tribal leadership. 

AN IDEAL EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR AFRICA

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Across borders in Africa...

I just watched a YouTube video by a gentleman complaining about the paperwork required to travel within Africa. He made it very simple that his Schengen VISA was quickly processed yet you need to apply for individual VISAs for every African country you go to as an African. So, I went back to my dual African currencies concept & thought maybe if these single currency regions I mentioned in the blog would be accompanied with VISA-free travel similar to the VISA-free travel many European countries have amongst themselves. This could be to decrease the bureaucracy & perhaps fastrack the transfer of skills & knowledge amongst Africans. 

The truth is there are wealth class differences within Africa despite the world grouping us together. And there's a reason some countries are not included in Europe's own continental VISA-free travel  programme. We'd have to choose countries by economy & stability for our own African VISA-free travel system.

And in my system, a VISA-free travel model could be initially tried with: Seychelles, Mauritius, Gabon, Botswana, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Algeria, Namibia, Cape Verde, Tunisia, Eswatini, Djibouti, Morocco, Egypt, São Tomé & Príncipe, Côte d'Ivoire, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia & Angola. 

I'm a part-time cartographer & often make myself & others maps to understand the world better. In the map below is another VISA-free travel system model we could use. 

Mainly; 

• the countries in green could get continent-wide VISA-free entry for up to a year. 

• The countries in yellow could get a vacation period VISA-free entry. 

• The countries in orange & red would apply for VISA or entry into country.