After Africa

Colourful African president portraits - on cloth. Up-coming exhibition at the Tropenmuseum in Holland

 
The Tropenmuseum in Holland runs an exhibition on African president portraits on cloths, like for instance kangas or vitenge (see here the website translated into English via Google Translate).

I contributed to the exhibition with a few contemporary kangas from Uhuru Street as mentioned previously here, which leads me to thank bloggers for instant translation support.

I really think this exhibition ought to reach Dar es Salaam, Africa...

Don´t loose your Saint Christopher...

I embarked on Easter with a lunch at old friends in Sweden. Late in the process my friend puts on Tom Waits´ Waltzing Mathilda, a song played many times in our company all the way back to when we started to listen to music. We start discussing it.

The lyrics go like this, and my favorite part is:

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
And the one-armed bandit knows
And the maverick Chinamen, and the cold-blooded signs,
And the girls down by the strip-tease shows, go
Waltzing Mathilda, waltzing Mathilda,
You'll go waltzing Mathilda with me

According to the Wikipedia "Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known bush ballad, a country folk song, and has been referred to as "the unofficial national anthem of Australia".^[1] The title is Australian slang for travelling by foot with one's goods in a "Matilda" (bag) slung over one's back.^[2] The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker or swagman making a drink of tea at a bush camp and capturing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's ostensible owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker for the theft (a crime punishable by hanging), the worker drowns himself in a small watering hole and goes on to haunt the site.

The original lyrics were written in 1887 by poet and nationalist Banjo Paterson. It was first published as sheet music in 1903. Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that the song has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland.

"Saint Christopher" has, also according to Wikipedia, always been a widely popular saint, being especially revered by athletes, mariners, ferrymen, and travelers.^[7] He is revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He holds patronage of things related to travel and travelers: against lightning; against pestilence; archers; bachelors; boatmen; bookbinders; epilepsy; floods; fruit dealers; fullers; gardeners; for a holy death; mariners; market carriers; motorists and drivers; sailors; storms; surfers^[8]; toothache; and transportation workers.

My saint. I guess.

Visiting friends in Sweden

Soundtrack:

Waltzing Mathilda

The modern man

 
Kudos to the modern man from Faustine´s Baraza here (and from me, too). 

Connectedness

 
  
One of my best friends calls me from South Africa this morning. To check on me.

He says, he worried (rightfully) when I left Copenhagen for Uganda, now he wonders even more how I am gonna cope with returning (rightfully). Usually I am the one checking on him, but when you move continents things are shifting.

I am easily moved these days when people show their interest and that they care. It also gives me this maginificent sense of - to stay in a South African context - ubuntu:

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Connectnedness shouldn´t be underestimated.

Afro. Afro what?

Someone has dumped this container on the grounds next to Lergraven Metro.

Makes me wonder every day: What is the AFRO about?

Let´s have coffee...?!

This is probably one of the most frequent sentences in Denmark used to express interest in arranging a meeting with a friend (later during the day coffee is exchanged with ´beer´ or ´wine´).   

I´m using it very frequently these days. However, what I experience is that in Denmark having coffee has to be arranged, often days ahead. I almost fear asking for coffee with a short notice, as I can´t take busy people´s time, but it is also indicating I´ve nothing important to do (everybody should try that by the way, it is a fantastic feeling as long as it lasts).

It is driving me crazy that such a simple thing has to be made so complex and noted down into a calendar. Obviously, the coffee is not the central point in this, but meeting friends, moving yourself out of your home and into the public space, leaving your children with your spouse, taking time off from your busy scedule.

Coffee the Swahili way is served everywhere in public space, and I find the difference significant, as I believe it is also indicating a difference in how the Danes withdraw from public space to our homes, while the Tanzanians share more things in the public space.

As an expat - or a newly returned development worker - it is easier to enter the culture when the natives are present in the public space doing ordinary things, like having coffee the more random way. A lot of wazungu in Tanzania complain about the fact that it is impossible to arrange anything ahead with a Tanzanian. Funnily, it is much more easily to arrange something within a short timeframe.

I guess, that is where these two places really differ, secondly how you deal with it. No solutions to the latter, as I´m late for coffee. Fortunately, there are exemptions to the rule in this place.

Something I´m trying to hold on to: So, please do invite me for coffee (or whatever).

Soundtrack:

Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club\Zanzibara, Vol. 1- A Hundred Years of Tarab in Zanzibar

Postcards from (idyllic) Denmark

I intend to challenge this perception.

Fuck Racism (more or less my words)

Street art or grafitti is immensely popular in Copenhagen. I´m a great fan of the whole idea of how certain groups of the society express themselves often in a more abbrasive language and via channels which are not acceptable according to the legislation.

Grafitti is no way as near as popular in Tanzania, but I have stumbled over a few magnificient pieces, like this one in Bagamoyo, this piece in Kilwa Ruins and quite a few in Stone Town on Unguja. In general Africa offers an abundance of colorful ways of sending a message.

Some things have to be said in this way I suppose, or the message looses its power. Some things can only be said in this way because some people don´t have the access to other communication channels.

Sometimes it is just art on concrete (or lime stone).

Which makes me wonder:

Is grafitti a sign of a vibrant democracy?

Or is it a sign of bored youth?  

The Danish government does not treasure it, and while I took the photo of this one in a street on Amager, a cleaning unit was preparing to wash the writing on the wall down.

Well, by the way then there is knitting grafitti...fantastic!

Jakob Ejersbo´s triology on Tanzania is being published into English. Jubiii!

I´ve previously blogged about my Danish favorite author, Jakob Ejersbo here.

Now, finally, a decision is made to publish his three outstanding novels, which are going on in Tanzania, into English. The British publisher Christopher MacLehose, who publishes books under the publishing company named Quercus, is taking up the task.

Thanks! These books need to be read by many more than just the Danes.