20 Hottest Blogs in East Africa

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending an entire week with one of my favorite cousins who was visiting from Kampala. We hung out and caught up like we used to way back in the day when we were both still single young females (I am still single; she’s married with two kids). We talked about everything under the sun, and of course, because she’s an avid reader of ChickAboutTown, we also talked about blogging and about our respective experiences in the blogosphere.

During one such conversation, my cousin let on that she now reads blogs regularly and that she discovered a couple of the blogs she reads through my “The Chick Behind the Blog…” post. I was surprised and pleased. The blogs that she mentioned are ones that I enjoy reading, and I knew her life must be richer for reading these blogs too.

It got me thinking. Although I never read blogs before I started blogging (don’t ask me how I decided to start blogging – call it divine inspiration ), I have since become an avid frequenter of the blogosphere, in general, and the East African blogosphere, in particular. Why the East African blogosphere? Well, mainly for two reasons. First, the subject of my blog is East Africa so I tend to attract East African readers. It’s only natural, therefore, when these readers also happen to be bloggers, to be curious about their blogs and to find my way to them. In the 2+ years that I’ve been blogging, I’ve come to know and love my fair share of blogs in the East African blogosphere this way. The second reason is a little more intentional. Reading East African blogs helps me keep informed about everyday living in the different countries that make up this region. There’s nothing like reading blogs to find out what’s truly on the hearts and minds of a people.

And now to today’s list.  With the endless number of blogs across the East African blogosphere, how do I choose which blogs to read regularly? Honestly, it’s quite simple: I don’t. Instead, I let someone else do the choosing for me. What?! Yes, you heard me. To figure out what blogs to read in the East African blogosphere, I turn to Afrigator, an African social media aggregator.

Without getting into too much detail, I simply log in to Afrigator, which allows me to select African countries from which to view social media content. For a composite view of East African blogs, I simply select the 5 individual countries that comprise the East African Community – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda – and voilà! I have a great starting point to finding the hottest blogs in the region. So…interested in finding out the 20 hottest blogs in East Africa today?

With no further ado, the 20 hottest blogs in East Africa today (according to Afrigator) are:

Screenshot of Afrigator's Top 20 Ranked Blogs in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda (Sept. 20, 2009; 6.15pm)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1. Afro Articles
                            2. Blog for News
                            3. Marathon You Can Do It
                            4. Saharan Vibe
                            5. Jambo Network
                            6. Uganda Insomniac
                            7. PoliticalArticles.NET
                            8. Full Shangwe
                            9. A Nairobian’s Perspective!
                            10. Bankelele
                            11. Appfrica
                            12. African Music Forum
                            13. Total Knockout
                            14. Africa Expat Wives Club
                            15. Food, Fun & Farm Life in East Africa!
                            16. kenyantykoon’s blog
                            17. FotoBaraza
                            18. Confluence
                            19. Wananchi Forums
                            20. my wretched consciousness

Now tell me, are you familiar with the blogs on this list? Do some of your favorites feature here? If so, which ones are they? Which blogs did you think would feature on this list but didn’t? (And before you write me any nasty-grams, yes, I know that this is not an all-inclusive list and that there are many East African blogs not on the Afrigator network. Still, a woman’s gotta start somewhere! )

So that’s it from me now. I hope you found this post interesting but more importantly, I hope that through this list you discover a great new East African blog that you’d never read before. When you do, please be sure to write me a comment and tell me all about it. As always, I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Until the next time,
Biche

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