In literature the personal narrative is the factual or fictional recounting of an experience. From identity politics to Twitter tweets this has certainly been the year of the personal narrative. It is the search for your story told by another being that shares or reflects your thoughts, feelings and, at times, pain.

I think that our hearts speak to us and gives us messages... They can be just whispers. But the important thing is that we pay attention and we learn to listen. Because when we follow our hearts we realize we have the potential to do anything or to be anything. As young women in this world ,we are truly limitless. - Maggi Doyne

In the troubled south African nation of Zimbabwe, death is in the water.

Danny (not his real name, and you'll understand why in a minute) is a husband and father who wanted to do something special for his wife this Christmas.  They were both fed up with the materialistic emptiness the holidays often brought: "typical American Christmas—gizmos, gadgets, whatnots, and an oversized helping of turkey," as he calls it.

Reportedly Oprah is considering retiring from her daily talk show when her current contract ends in 2011. Maybe she worries that there is nothing new left to talk about or that she is on auto-pilot rehashing lessons already learned. If today's show is any indication, sadly I wonder if Oprah has already mentally checked out.

Miriam Makeba, the South African singer and vocal critic of apartheid, died last night after performing in Italy. She was 76 years old. After she left for a tour in 1960, the South African government revoked her passport, forcing her into exile for over 30 years. In those years, Ms. Makeba lived in United States, France, Guinea and Belgium, and served as a constant reminder and voice to the outside world of the struggles for justice, freedom, and equality for black South Africans.

There is nothing as infuriating as dangerous public policy made on circular logic. The latest example of irrational policies coming out of the Bush administration is the decision to withhold condoms, birth control pills, and other contraceptives paid for by the United States from Marie Stopes International, a British non-governmental organization that operates family planning and reproductive health clinics in impoverished nations.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself for having sustained extensive nether-region damage during the birth of my son ten weeks ago AND having the surgery to correct that damage BOTCHED (don't even ask), when I came across this: a Wall Street Journal report from Cindy McCain on the state of things in Rwanda.

Ory Okolloh blogs at KenyaPundit, and also is a co-founder of political sites Ushahidi and Mzalendo. I heard her speak this morning at Global Voices Citizen Media summit on her blogging experiences. Throughout the Kenyan elections and the political violence there, she updated her blog very actively, sometimes every hour. Her blog became the center of controversy.

Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah spoke just now at Global Voices Summit about bloggers who resist government censorship. YouTube and mobile blogging and cameraphones are extremely important. But also, connecting bloggers and photobloggers to the wider struggle for democracy in Egypt. The stakes are very high for the government, and you can't fight in isolation to publish what you like without consequence to your body, to your freedom.

This week, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be facing off in a runoff ballot intended to determine who will be that country's president for the next five years.

Up until the end of April this year, if you had run into former South African footballer Eudy Simelane, chances are that you would have met a happy woman. At 31, Simelane was still involved with the sport she loved as a coach and referee. She was a lesbian in a country in which homosexuality was not only legal, it is enshrined in the Constitution.