Editors Note: The author discusses the growth of the Kiswahili dialect in Tanzania.

For decades, Tanzanians have cherished their version of Swahili, considered to be the purest in the region. But in the spirit of opening up, they now seem to be accepting the "less pure" versions of the neighbours.

Last week I gate crashed into a retreat of top Tanzanian editors and media managers that was taking place in Arusha and it was a most rewarding experience.

One day this summer, on the island of Masbate, I watched a tricycle chug down the highway carrying 20 people. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I may not have believed it. Fortunately, my journalist colleague Rowena Paraan saw it, too, and she confirmed my count.

For my American friends: what people here call a tricycle is a small motorcycle with a covered sidecar. In Manila, tricycle drivers taxi people between neighborhoods; in the provinces, between towns and villages. Tricycles are ubiquitous in the Philippines.

I am an American journalist here in the Philippines to work on a ground-breaking media project involving the poorest of the poor. I’d like to tell you about it. But I’d be lying if I said I was here only as an altruist. I’m also here for selfish reasons: to experience life in the country where I was born.

It is the holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims all over the world fast and abstain from all forms of entertainment. Here in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam, life has taken a slow pace that can be felt almost everywhere and all the time.

From the lighter traffic on the usually congested roads, to the quiet night spots which during other times of the year are literally vibrating with life, you can almost feel this city of five million souls meditating.

I was expecting a city of shanties. A sprawling ghetto. A legion of beggars stumbling around a sagging town square. But I found none of these things in Dipolog City, the capital of Zamboanga del Norte, said to be the poorest province in the Philippines.

What I found instead during a recent visit to this city of 120,000 in western Mindanao was a prim, progressive place, full of bustle and ambition and a fair number of residents mystified by their province's number-one ranking on the poverty list.

"Yes we are poor but not that poor," I heard over and over again.

This past week I traveled to the geographic center of the Philippines, Masbate, one of the wildest and poorest places in this poor and unruly nation. I met with widows of murder victims, with fish-less fisherfolk and destitute gold miners. I met with a governor who, though nice enough, seemed to take pride in being clueless. “I’m not even from Masbate,” said Governor Elisa Kho. “I’m from Marikina!”

Sad, rugged, dusty place, Masbate. But a handful of individuals there gave me hope for the province, the country. They inspired me. All were journalists.

Hello all. My name is Alex Tizon. I’m the new Knight Fellow in Manila, Philippines, and I arrived here May 21, after a 21-hour voyage, late on a muggy Thursday night. I guess all days and nights are muggy here. It only took me a few days to remember that.

Articulo publicado en diarios mexicanos en el dia de la declaración universal de los DDHH el pasado 10 de diciembre.

LIBERTAD DE EXPRESION Y VIOLENCIA

Los pueblos se construyen a través de las palabras. Ellas crean el imaginario de lo posible y lo imposible. Ellas determinan la distancia que separa la utopía de la realidad, la misma que la construimos no solo por lo que decimos sino también por lo que toleramos que digan los demás.