The Darog Journal - Compute Through

The golden-backed weaver is also known as Jackson's weaver.    Native to Eastern Africa, specifically found in Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.   Adult male is bright yellow with a glossy black head and rusty-orange underparts.    Female is dullish yellow overall and can be difficult to distinguish from other female weavers.

Dhanur Masa or Dhanurmas is a month in the Hindu calendar. It corresponds to the zodiac sign of Saggitarius (Sun transits through Saggitarius). The Dhanus month or masa is called Margazhi (Margali) in the Tamil Hindu calendar. Dhanurmasa is also called as Shoonya Masa as it is considered inauspicious to do any good thing other than God and Holy functions. According to tradition, Gods wake up early in the morning during the month of Dhanurmasa. Special prayers are offered to Sri Maha Vishnu during the auspicious period of "Brahm Muhurta", i.e one and half hours before sunrise. During this month, devotees offer prayers to the Lord very early in the morning. The month of Dhanurmasa is considered a very special month for performing Puja of Vishnu. Vishnu Sahasranama is chanted during the period. The 30 pasurams/verses of Thiruppavai will be recited to wake up Lord Vishnu. Thiru means Sacred and Ppavai means Vrat. It is believed that Goddess Goda Devi, also known as Andal has comp...

The day of Nov 2, 2018 will remain in my mind as well for my fellow colleagues as it was the day of closing ceremony of our Corporate Services Corp (CSC) program at Terrou-Bi Hotel, Dakar. Fifteen members from 12 different countries worked on Five different projects across Government departments. Each team along with the host organisation had an opportunity to present the final recommendation from the 4 weeks effort.  In the pre-final on Oct 31, subteam 2 (Prasanna Darog, Jana Vincencova and Alexandra Eckman) presented, talking through on the recommendations to Thirteen delegates of different functions from ONAS (National Office of Sanitation of Senegal). This became a rehearsal to the closing ceremony.  The objective of our project was to reduce electricity expenses for ONAS by using various methods and sources of energy. It was interesting to see that based on the last Fourteen months of data and by changing the subscription load or applying different facto...

Wow, 3 weeks are over! Fifteen members from 12 different countries got together on Oct 6, 2018 to be part of IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) program and work on various projects (for 4 weeks) across Five different Departments of Government of Senegal. As we were in Week 3, each member of all the sub-teams were busy either compiling and analyzing the knowledge gained in the past 2 weeks or working on the final presentation for the closing ceremony on Nov 2, 2018 at Terrou-Bi Hotel, Dakar. For me and the team supporting ONAS (National Office of Sanitation of Senegal), we started week 3 on a good note discussing on our earlier meeting with the Managing Director of ONAS and his focus areas…. but all of a sudden, we had a setback in the overall game plan. This did not deter us from continuing to work (took a U-turn) though we spoke on the setback few times.   On Thursday Oct 25, after 12 hours of hard work (divide and conquer), we had the initial version of the final ...

Senegal’s Lac Rose (meaning Pink Lake) is an incredible sight. It lies north of the Cap Vert peninsula of Senegal, 36 kms from north-east of the capital, Dakar in West Africa (an hour drive).  The lake is nestled between pearly white sand dunes and the Atlantic ocean. The lake was then the finishing point of the Dakar Rally before the rally moved to South America in 2009.  The Dunaliella salina bacteria gives the lake its distinct color and is known for high salt content. The bacteria produce a red pigment to absorb sunlight and voila, that's how you get a pink lake. Locals work on extracting salt from the lake. I was informed that an estimated 1,000 people work around this lake -- 600 men and 400 women collecting 24,000 tons of salt each year. Over 70% is exported around West Africa and to Europe. People working here as harvesters are Malians, some are Guineans, few Ivorians, Burkinabe and even some from Guinea-Bissau. It is safe to dive-in and s...

The Goree Island (meaning good harbor in French) is 3.5 kms off the coast of Dakar, Senegal (measuring 27 hectares or 900 meters by 300 meters). The island has 1,800 inhabitants (1,000 Christians and 800 Moslims). This island has no car or no crime.   Between 15 th  to 19 th  century, it was the largest slave trading center on the Africa coast. It is estimated that 2 Million Africans were shipped or passed through the island to work in the plantations in Europe and the Americas. Ruled earlier by Portugese, Dutch, English and French, it continues to remind us of human exploitation (slave trading). As I understand, 1.2 to 2.0 Million Africans died during the transport.  The small fort called slave house was built in 1776. This house of slave ( Maison des Esclaves)  on Goree Island and the story is that millions of African slaves passed through the house's “Door of No Return”, facing the west across the Atlantic ocean. The slave houses had 150 to 2...