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The Sound Kitchen

Get me to Mars! And on a tight budget...

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This week on The Sound Kitchen you’ll hear the answer to the quiz about the Indian MOM and the US NASA Mars budgets. There’s talk about festivals around the world, some great music, and of course, the new quiz question. So click on that little “Listen” arrow above, and join in!

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Hello everyone!

Welcome to The Sound Kitchen. You can catch the programme on-the-air every Saturday, at 4:52, 6:22, and 7:52 universal time. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you have grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and tune in every Saturday.

This week’s quiz: on 27 September, Indians were rejoicing: the Indian Space Research Organization had successfully sent their MOM to Mars! That is, their Mars Orbiter Mission. India’s MOM reached Mars orbit on Wednesday 24 September, breaking all records for a maiden Mars voyage: they beat China there, and outdid the U-S, Europe and the Soviet Union by successfully entering Mars orbit on a maiden voyage … and on a very limited budget!

You were to write in with the respective budgets of India and the recent U-S trip to Mars (the U-S entered Mars orbit on 21 September, just a few short days ahead of India.) But the prices were a bit different!

The answer is: India: 74 million US dollars, the U-S: 671 million dollars! As India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted, India’s trip to Mars cost less than the making of the Hollywood movie Gravity. And as Jahangir Alam Manto from the Kaptai RFI Fan Club in Bangladesh wrote: “One interesting fact to share: in the Indian mission, 40% of the team working on the Mars Orbiter Mission are women. That is a really interesting figure for women’s participation in an orbital mission.” I agree!

The winners this week are: Mrs Tania Khaton, from the Lolona Listeners Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh; Mr Hasan Saeed, from Lahore, Pakistan; Mr Suresh Agrawal from Odisha, India; Dr Siddhartha Sarkar from Murshidabad, India, and Samuel Francis, from sunny St Catherine, in Jamaica.

Congratulations, winners!

This week’s question is about the country where the Arab Spring was born: Tunisia. Tunisians went to the polls this past Sunday to vote – in their second free elections since the Arab Spring revolution in 2011 - for their parliamentarians. The official election results are in, and that is my question to you: which party won the majority of votes in Tunisia’s legislative elections this past Sunday? Tell me how many votes that party won, and how many votes the second runner party won. How were the votes divided in Tunisia’s 26 October legislative elections: how many votes did the winning party garner, and how many votes did the second party (which up until now had been the governing party) receive?

Get your answer in by 8 December, and be sure to tune in on 13 December to see if you are one of the lucky winners! As always, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer … and, if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number. Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

To our new mailing address:
Susan Owensby
RFI – The Sound Kitchen
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
France

or

By SMS … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen cell phone !!!!
Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Remember, it’s not just the quiz which wins you a prize. If your essay goes on the air, you’ll find a package in the mail from the Sound Kitchen. Write in about your community heroes – the people in your community who are quietly working to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can. As listener Pramod Maheshwari said: “Just as small drops of water can fill a pitcher, small drops of kindness can change the world.”

I am still looking for your “This I Believe” essays, too. Tell us about the principles that guide your life … what you have found to be true from your very own personal experience. Or write in with your most memorable moment, and/or your proudest achievement. If your essay is chosen to go on-the-air – read by you – you’ll win an RFI radio or a box set of world music CDs, edited by RFI!

Send in your musical requests, your secret “guilty” pleasure (mine’s chocolate!), your tricks for remembering things, your favourite quotations and proverbs, descriptions of the local festivals you participate in, your weirdest dream, the book you are reading and what you think about it, or just your general all-around thoughts to:

thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Include a phone number, so I can call you. Put that pen to paper! Don’t put it off!

The Sound Kitchen Listeners Cookbook has been published! It is a lovely little book and I am quite pleased. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. We’re using it as a quiz prize, so let me know if the cookbook is what you would like for us to send to you when you win a quiz.

Did you know there is such a thing as official RFI Clubs? Up until now, they have always been French clubs, but now we want to open them up to all our listeners … and open them up we have! There are already 20 brand new official RFI Clubs: in Kisii, Kenya, started by Mogire Machuki; in Ain Kechera, Algeria, with Ferhat Bezazel as president, and in Holguin, Cuba, started by Ivan Carralero. There are five RFI clubs in India: in Murshidabad, with Mr Najimuddin as president; in Medinipur, with Dr S S Bhattacharya at the helm; in Hyderabad / Miryalguda, headed up by Mrs P Sreelatha Reddy; in Sainikpuri / Secunderabad, with Hari Madugula as president, and in Maharashtra, created by Sandeep Jawale. There are now three clubs in Bangladesh: in Dhaka, started by Wali Ahad; in Rajshahi, with Salahudin Dolar as president, and the Kaptai RFI Fan Club, headed up Jahangir Alam. And Ras Franz Manko Ngogo from Tarime, Tanzania, is heading up the Kemogemba Club.

A warm welcome to our newest clubs: the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, with AKM Nuruzzaman as president; the RFI Listeners Club Gambia in Brikama Town, The Gambia, with Lamin Ceesay as president; the RFI Listeners Club GYPC Makassar, in Makassar, Indonesia, with Uki Ruknuddin at the helm; the Shawon DX Corner in Lalpur, Bangladesh, with Rajib Kumar Mondal as the head; the Friends Radio Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh, Dewan Rafiqul Islam, president; the Green Listeners Club in Rampura Phul, India, with Mrs Sonkia Gupta as president, and the RFI Listeners Club headed up by Hyrum Karyea Mennoh, in Monrovia, Liberia.

Welcome one and all!

Click to open

Click to see the wall of listeners

What about you? You can either transform your existing radio club into an RFI Club, or create a brand new one. Then, anytime you plan special events – be they humanitarian, cultural, or sports-oriented; if you want to host an environmental program, or a day dedicated to health issues - RFI will help you with ideas and free promotional items for your members. You’ll also be eligible to participate in special RFI Club events, like the recent football tournaments. RFI’s Listener Relations Department sponsored football tournaments for the Clubs to run during the World Cup Football Tournament. RFI furnished the team tee shirts, the footballs and trophies, as well as RFI banners.

If you are interested in either changing your radio club into an RFI club, or if you would like to create a brand-new RFI club, the first step is to read the RFI Club Charter:

http://clubsrfi.blogs.rfi.fr/sites/clubsrfi.blogs.rfi.fr/files/The%20RFI_Club%20Charter.pdf

If you are willing to abide by the Charter, write to my colleagues in the Listener Relations Department and let them know. They’ll help you with the rest of the process.

Sébastien Bonijol
Chrystelle Nammour
RFI – Relations Auditeurs
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130, Issy-les-Moulineaux
France

Which leads me to another item of interest: the RFI Listeners Club. Our Listener Relations department has decided that everyone can belong to the RFI Listeners Club, but you will only be issued a membership number, not an identity card. Only members of an official RFI Club will have identity cards. As an RFI Listeners Club member, you will still win a premium prize if you win a Sound Kitchen quiz. So no reason not to join – although having an official RFI Club is really far cooler.

If you only want to be a member of the general RFI Listeners Club – that’s great, too! Just send me (or Sébastien and Chrystelle) your full name, your postal mailing address, and if you have one, your e-mail address. You’ll receive an RFI Listeners Club number; include that number every time you enter a quiz, and if you are a winner, you’ll get a premium prize!

Nota bene: The RFI Listeners Club used to be called “Club 9516”. So if you are a member of the “Club 9516”, you are already a member of the RFI Listeners Club. Your “Club 9516” membership number still works – no need to reapply. Just include your membership number on your quiz entries.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

All the best,

Susan

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