The Seereer Resource Centre (SRC)

The SRC would like to wish everyone a prosperous and happy New Year.

Ngam jam, o yas jam.

Happy New Year.

Bonne année.

Our oral history audio "Cosaani Senegambia" has been translated and transcribed. Click this link to read the document in French.

You can listen to the audio by visiting this page.

In the next few weeks we will be translating and transcribing more of our oral history audios into these languages: Seereer-Siin, Saafi-Saafi, Ndut, Laalaa (or Lehar), Sili-Sili (or Palor), None, English and French. Stay tuned for updates.

Tell us about your comments and suggestions at info@seereer.com or use our contact page to submit your comments. 

We recently added Siin Day on our events page. Did you go to the event? Share your views with the community.

The deadly and easily transmittable Ebola virus disease has penetrated the West African country of Guinea and neighbouring countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia. It is quite possible that this deadly disease could be transmitted to other West African countries.

Ebola can cause a slow and painful death. The symptoms can include fever, vomiting blood, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding. Ebola is easily transmittable unless one takes all the necessary precautions to protect oneself. It can be transmitted "by direct contact with infected blood, bodily fluids or organs, or indirectly through contact with contaminated environments." Close personal contact, for example standing or sitting next to an infected person without full body protection gear (including masks), touching or shaking their hands may also cause transmission of the virus. "Even funerals of Ebola victims can be a risk, if mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased."  Some doctors and nurses in Guinea have also been infected. The best way to prevent this deadly disease from spreading rapidly is to totally isolate the infected person in an isolation unit.

Please avoid travelling to these countries until further notice. There is great concern that this disease could spread to other parts of West Africa. At present, all we know is the reported cases in these countries. However, due to the nature this disease is transmitted, it is quite possible that other infected persons have not yet shown the symptoms and are yet to find out that they’ve got the disease.

Senegal has closed its border with Guinea, and Youssou N'Dour who was due to perform in Conakry (Guinea’s capital) cancelled his concert last week saying "it was not a good idea to bring hundreds or thousands of people together in an enclosed area."

Please stay safe and share this with your friends and family, and everyone you know.

Source

For more about this story, see the BBC : "Why Ebola is so dangerous"

For more information about the Ebola virus disease and how to protect yourself, visit the following external websites:

1. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) : "Guinea: Mobilisation against an unprecedented Ebola epidemic"

2. World Health Organization : "Ebola virus disease"

Windows XP will come to an end on 8th April 2014. If you use Windows XP, you may need to upgrade it with another Operating System before this date otherwise you face the possibility of your computer getting hacked or being infected with viruses.  There will no longer be any support or security upgrades from Microsoft from this date on.

The following quote from The Independent Newspaper (UK)

"So, come 8 April, executives will be cheering. On that day, Microsoft will finally cease its support of XP. The zombie OS really will become the walking dead, as the wolves, in the form of hackers, viruses and malware, start to circle. Computers running the operating system will become more vulnerable as Microsoft stops releasing security patches, and there will be no more automatic updates. Meanwhile, hackers may look to reverse-engineer security updates that appear for Windows 7 or 8/8.1, hoping to find unpatched exploits that they can use to gain access to systems. The zombie OS will start to haunt its users, becoming unpredictable and dangerous.

[...]

There are solutions. Users could switch to Apple, install the open-source operating system Linux or just upgrade to a more up-to-date Windows. This latter option may mean buying a new computer, although some users will just be able to buy a copy of Windows 7 or 8. "The problem is," says Enderle, "Windows 7 is already obsolete and has been superseded by Windows 8. And Windows 8 is such a big change, thanks to the fact it is touchscreen and has a new interface. Plus, once people move, Microsoft will have another problem: getting them to move again in the future."

Source: The Independent 

For additional information and support, visit Mircrosoft.

The SRC would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. May all your wishes come to fruition. As people of the land, a New Year has both an agricultural significance and a religious one in Seereer culture. In an agricultural sense, we pray for rain and a happy harvest. This is well summed up by the Seereer proverb and prayer: "Ngam jam, o yas jam" (rain in peace! Sow in peace). This is the way our Seereer ancestors used to wish one another Happy New Year during the first rain. In a religious sense, it recounts the narrative of Ngam - which details the first time rain occurred on planet earth according to the Seereer creation narrative. Happy New Year. Ngam jam, o yas jam.

We have currently translated several pages of our Website into Seereer-Siin and French. Please see "More" for French pages. We are still working on our Saafi-Saafi pages and will appreciate any input from the Saafi community. We are delighted to announce that Issa Dione has joined the SRC Team as its Sili-Sili Translator. The first Sili-Sili pages will go up in January/February 2014.