2011 haba na haba blogging in review

I started 2011 with a commitment to write more, including here at haba na haba. Without a doubt, 2011 has been my best year of blogging thus far, with respect to number of blog posts written, popularity of the posts, and new connections to resources (i.e., other like-minded bloggers).

The increase in the blog’s popularity is bittersweet as much of the new traffic to haba na haba stems from writing on Malawi’s July 20th protests this year. July 21st saw the largest number of hits ever in haba na haba’s history and four of the top ten posts from 2011 were directly related to the protest.

2011’s top 10 posts (beyond the homepage) were:

• A Day of Protests in Malawi: A Chronological Account from Afar
• Situation Report: Malawi
• Stepson calls Bingu wa Mutharika a tyrant on Facebook [updated]
• Why not to post your working paper online
• snarky volunteer gets pwned on Twitter; or why you should learn something before you do something
• What to follow for #20July protests in #Malawi
• APSA Seattle Round-Up
• Is the sky falling? Continuing concern over governance and freedom in Malawi
• “Academic Freedom and the University of Malawi”
• The day before Malawi’s protests

Prior to 2011, the blog had been viewed 6,917 times (over roughly three-and-a-half years of blogging). In 2011 alone, haba na haba was viewed 25,118 times. A map of visitors shows a range of countries, with the US, Malawi, and the UK topping the list.

The top search keywords that brought readers to haba na haba were:

• “haba na haba”: the blog is third on a Google search (hmm…), following links to a store of the same name. I’m trying hard to think positive thoughts about another top search hit for “haba na haba”, which begins with discussion of Swahili, the language from Africa.
• “bingu wa mutharika”: Mutharika is the president of Malawi, and though in real life I often remark how unimportant executives are to the day-to-day lives of their countries’ citizens, there is a great deal of power concentrated in this particular executive.
• “academic freedom in malawi”: unfortunately, the motivation to search for this is not rooted in sheer curiosity.
• “kim yi dionne”: still unsure if it’s better that folks land here instead of my professional page.
• “robert chasowa”: Chasowa was the young man found dead at the University of Malawi Polytechnic earlier this year.
• “unaids global report 2010 citation”: I have since updated last year’s post on the UNAIDS 2010 report to include how to properly cite it.
• “deng deng nhial”: I met DDN when I was an observer at the Dallas location of out-of-country voting for the Sudanese Referendum election.
• “protests in malawi”: rather than this, this, and this, I actually recommend you read what someone else wrote.

Facebook was the biggest referrer by a long shot, I think likely due to sharing about posts among Malawians. Twitter came in second. Google+ is not even in the same league. Big thanks to bloggers Alex Thurston (Sahel Blog) and Laura Seay (Texas in Africa) for also sending a lot of traffic to haba na haba.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to haba na haba readers. Please post in the comments what you’d like to read more of in 2012.