:: louder than swahili

How to find a house in Dar Es Salaam?

I get that question often. I recommend this article and this estate agent website.

And this blog post for the relativity.

International food in a local setting: Rohobot Ethiopian Restaurant

In the neighbourhood of Namanga there is a little Ethiopian restaurant run by an Ethiopian woman and her Tanzanian husband.

She cooks, and he, as a carpenter, has made the funky, colourful furniture.

Turn off the Haile Selassie Road and down the Bin Said Street. Follow it down to the Wonder Welders' Compound, where you'll find the signpost to the entrance of the Rohobot Restaurant which is squeezed into a little garden between the cluster of small houses.

From here you can hear the TV hizzing from the one neighbour; someone doing the dishes on the other side of the wall; children laughing while others are praying.

Obviously, it isn't elegant or crowded like the famous 'Addis in Dar', but it is nice and hospitable. Personally, I really like the idea when people create a living based on their skills, experiences and potentials - and do it with what they have.

A meal for four persons, inclusive four beers and Ethiopian spiced coffee with popcorn costed us 40,000 TSH.

It is open during lunch from 12:00-2:30 and for dinner from 6:00 to 10:00. The restaurant can be contacted as displayed on the road sign.

Kariakoo Belle Vue

Kariakoo. One day the new Yeoville, Melville. Istedgade. Christianshavn. Nørre Bronx. Temple Bar. Soho.

Or maybe not.

It is hard to predict fashion trends in Dar Es Salaam.

Sukuma wiki. Push the week.

The kiswahili phrase sukuma wiki means to push the week - what's really being pushed is the family food budget. Your leftover meat (like nyama choma) can be combined with greens - here this dish might be made with greens like spinach, cassava leaves, sweet potato leaves, or pumpkin leaves.

Read more here.

Swahili biltong...?

Dried , chopped and neatly arranged kingfish on the market in Kariakoo.

 

 

Sunday: Kigamboni/Kisutu/Kariakoo

Guess where?

I challenge you who really know Tanzania; where is this photo taken?

Help: The woman is standing under a roof.

Turning back time

 

My mother just called me from Denmark, asking me when I thought I'd be home (meaning returning to Denmark on a permanent note). 

Casually, as if I were still 7 and on my way out playing (and not 38 years old and 7400 km away in Africa).

Back then my sister and I tried to trick our parents by turning back the clock. Literally, we simply synchronised and turned the time back on our wrist watches. Initially, half an hour, one hour more - until the Danish summer evening eventually turned into night, and it was too difficult to negotiate that it was still time to play.

Unfortunately, it isn't an option any longer.

Panic.

Photo: From Lolland, the rural area where I grew up in Denmark.

Show me your toilet, and I'll tell you who you are...

Here are toilets where someone gently and discretly has folded the tip of the toilet roll.

Here are toilets where someone digged a hole in the ground, and found whatever other people threw away to create the walls so that you can do the long call in peace.

No folded tip of the toilet rolls there.

But isn't that also some wicked sense of comfort in a nation where the majority of its inhabitants can't even afford toilet paper?

Kikwete's morning view (if he sleeps in State House)

Another Swahili Breakfast: Supu ya kuku!

 

My Swiss friend repeats; I want supu, and walks off in search of someone cooking chicken soup. In general she talks a lot about supu itself and the supu as a breakfast concept.

It’s 10 am at the Kivukoni Seafront in Dar Es Salaam on Saturday morning, and the boat is leaving for Zanzibar in half an hour (actually it didn’t leave until much later, but that’s another story).

Plenty of time for supu ya kuku, which all over Tanzania is eaten as a breakfast meal. Amongst others.

 

Often on the go, served from small road side food stalls or in the market. Except, to a lot of the Tanzanians eating supu ya kuku at 10 am isn't really a breakfast meal, as they are likely have been up long before the sun.

 

Receipt here.

Watch me!

'Wazungu, you have the watches but we have the time'

Quote: The Tanzanians

 

Expat Karma: Stay!

Last night I had an Italian friend of a friend overnighting. He had to catch an early plane from Dar Es Salaam to Nairobi and then Kigali. Then a 3-hour bus to Eastern Congo, where he works.

I just have to be in Congo by 6 pm before the border closes, he said and finished a late meal I had tried to organise (Italians always make me think I can't cook).

Today, from Iceland my sister is messaging that the Germans are famous now. I'm about to text her back; What Germans? when I realise that the Germans are a couple on honeymoon in Iceland, who normally live here in Dar Es Salaam, and whom I gave my sister's contact, in case they needed to hook up with some Icelandic locals.

In today's Danish daily, Information, Pia Kjaersgaard, Chairwoman of the Danish People's Party is quoted for telling the Palaestinians residing in Denmark to go home.

Pia surely hasn't  realised that offering a temporary home to someone who needs it - for whatever reasons - does wonders for your karma.

It also makes life a bit more interesting.

I recommend Zanzibar. The best stress release. Kweli!

  

Zanzibar is my high. 

 

And I am not talking about 4-star, romantic honey moon resorts fenced off to the public, where the waiters wear white gloves and the 'karibu' sounds hollow.

 

No.

 

Zanzibar doesn't have to be expensive to be good.

 

Though the tourist agencies shamelessly have conceptualised that conviction.

 

I'm also not talking about the endless hassling at the harbour when arriving by boat. I'm definitely not talking about the Yes, taxi..?! or the mass of men jamboing me (never women) over my limit.

 

For me it is way simpler.

 

A blue kikoy. A new kanga or Indian tunika which is gonna last till my housekeeper washes it to pieces.

 

My wazungu friends, who have been long enough in Africa to think it is funny to keep conversations going by saying eh, ehhh, ah, eh eh or eh eh eh ehhhh.

 

Cool Kilis.

 

That the water is warmer than the air.

 

Oh, and of course the men with Persian genes.

 

And the flying low back home over the Indian Ocean in a 6-seater plane. A last minute's change, where you watch the mechanic screw the passenger door back on before you enter.

 

Adds on to the state of feeling very much alive.

White woman you're on your own!

A modern rephrasing of Steve Bantu Biko's 'Black man you're on your own!?', I laughed and texted back to the sender of this SMS.

Steve who? the sender texted back. 

Nothing much beats Steve Bantu Biko, but this one was funny as the sender had never heard about the man.

And sometimes white women are in fact on their own.

Visa2Dance - Don't miss the Contemporary Dance Festival in Dar Es Salaam next month!

When I meet Tanzanians bara ya Afrika they say 'those people there at the coast, all they think about is the ngoma - all they want to spend their time doing, is to dance'.

I'm not passing on that stereotype, and the Dar Es Salaam Visa2Dance festival does take you beyond the ngoma, though I'm sure the ngoma will sneak in one way or the other.

In fact, it is a rather unusual event, and a lot of hard work has been put in the fundraising and getting the international dance performers to Dar Es Salaam, now awaits the coordination. Though Tanzania isn't generally associated with modern dance festivals, I believe that creative spaces like this is a very important ingridient in development and in the making of a modern cultural identity. 

Read more at www.Visa2Dance.com.

Please, link and forward.

Pigeon faster than telkom line...

The situation in South Africa in regard of satellite, data, voice, internet, network solutions and LAN provisioning.- and how the government deals with it - according to Zapiro.

Wonder what Zapiro would make of our situation here in Tanzania?

Illustration borrowed from here

Ramadhan njema. From Coca-Cola.

You like this one?, the manager at the Kobil cafeteria in Chalinze asked me today, when I stopped for mandazi - and a coca-cola - on my return from Moshi to Dar Es Salaam.

He was pointing to the poster on the wall (image).

I do love this poster, I told him. And I do find it interesting when global firms go local and adapt to culture, religion and season.

Obviously, also a matter of ramadhan going hand in hand with capitalism.

A postcard from Tanzania to the Danish People's Party

Dear Danish People's Party,

Yesterday's Parking Guard in Moshi at the foot of Kilimanjaro was a woman.

She wore a veil.

I'm writing you as I want to tell you that it is completely normal in Tanzania, and that I was the only person in the street paying attention to it.

Probably because I'm Danish.

Probably because I'm absolutely fed up with the blurred debate in Denmark on women wearing veils or burkas, or not, the debate on mosques, on Islam, Muslims and on how Danish politicians treat refugees and immigrants. I am sick and tired, and deeply embarrased on how Danish values have been redefined into something I can't associate with.

I asked the parking guard if I could take her photo, as I wanted to prove to the Danes supporting the policies of the Danish People's Party, that at this end of the world, a famous 3rd world country, it is possible for a woman to wear a veil while holding a position as a civil servant.

And smile...!

Greetings from Tanzania

Impressions from Marangu and Moshi

Photos from a good, long and exhausting day at Marangu and Moshi.

Me behind the camera till the end where the children took over.

I'm working on an article about a young man who went to Denmark to participate in the Bright Green Youth camp together with a group of friends from Moshi. The article will focus on what he learnt. So far, we tested his friend's cooking skills - his friend had prepared dinner for us this evening, inspired from his stay in Denmark.

We were highly impressed by the two guys' skills and their drive. Very inspirational to meet to young guys who just move.

Sometimes, it actually really is fun to be me, doing this job. On the mission for one more day tomorrow.

More photos here.

Meet my friend, the chameleon!

It doesn't bite, the young man promised, trying to hand it over to me, while we were busy negotiating with a bunch of tricky guides at Marangu today.

Then it bit him! And we were all laughing like idiots, including himself.

But that is another story.

Wikipedia: The English word chameleon (also chamaeleon) derives from the Latin chamaeleo which is borrowed from the Ancient Greek χαμαιλέων (khamaileon), a compound of χαμαί (khamai) "on the earth, on the ground" + λέων (leon) "lion". The Greek word is a calque translating the Akkadian nēš qaqqari, "ground lion".^[1]

Support Lubna Hussein

Stuck in a road block in Mkata. People protesting - seriously - against local leader.

Today while driving from Dar Es Salaam to Arusha a rather unusual thing occurred on the road between Chalinze and Segera:

People all over the road, demonstrating!

When we arrived to the village of Mkata around noon, about 70 kilometres from Segera, the road was suddenly blocked by the busses which are regularly driving this distance daily.

All the busses driving this route connecting Dar Es Salaam and even the southern highlands with northern Tanzania, Kenya and even Uganda, make up a lot vehicles.

An enormous lot.

The whole scenario was mildly absurd, as the busses ahead of us had been stuck in the place since 8 AM. However, blocking the road in a place like this is an effective tool communicating a message.

A man in the road side, a former teacher from the area, started explaining the reasoning behind the road block:

Apparently the local village chairman (or the local leader) had prevented a private firm selling water to the people of the village - in favour of his own water selling business. The problem, however, was then that the village chair man offered water at 500 TSH (per entity) contra the alternative private businessman's cheaper offer on 300 TSH. The village chair man had obstructed the private businessman's business simply by emptying his water truck.

That was - literally - the drop - which made people take action. According to other people we spoke to, the villagers chased away the village chairman, and decided to block the road untill the 'cheapest' water supplier would be back in business. Not just on paper, but in practice.

Which is why the busses and cars on the route had to wait.

The police came before that, and there had just been shooting in the air, trying to split the crowd, when we arrived. People talked about additional assistance on the way from Handeni. People came running towards us, and when a thing like that happens around here, you think. One thing I was told early on when moving to Africa, was that in the case you see people running from a village towards you, you should turn your car in the opposite direction as they're trying to escape something bad - or might be targeting you.

I couldn't really turn the car anywhere, so we stayed.

When we had waited for about an hour, the water truck arrived.

People cheering on top of it and in the street.

The teacher on the sideline explained that when people know their rights, you cannot stop them.

Worth waiting for, I'll say. Seeing people escorting the water truck into town appeared to be a small revolution in Mkata. Also, I must admit that I honestly felt all the fine words the NGO I work for put on paper are nothing compared to when people take action in real life. 

Kilimanjaro in the rear view

I arrived at sunset to Usa River with Kilimanjaro in the rear.

Oh, I love the sight of this mountain, and it feels like a present whenever the mountains decides not to be shy (as the Chagga say when the mountain is hiding behind the clouds).

Mambo iko huku. The good stuff is here.

Sorry, but I promised not to pass on the exact position of where this fantastic place is - where I went to on Saturday.

Lakini, this is the Swahili Coast at its absolutely best.

Africa's new Disneyland

On September 6 2009 this article here by Alex Renton was published in the British Observer. Renton reports on the plight of the Maasai as they are evicted from their homelands to create vast 'nature refuges.

It begins like this:

Twilight is swift near the equator. As the cloud castles on the western horizon turn a tandoori red, the children are hurrying the goats into the thorn enclosure that keeps them from the leopards. A Masai elder passes on the path up the hill, striding easily into the slope. His purple plaid wraps him from shoulders to knees; there's a long-bladed spear in his left hand, a furled umbrella is strapped to his back. With his free hand he is busy with a mobile phone. He looks up to nod a greeting. I can smell the smoke of cooking fires from the nearby Masai village. It is an ordinary evening in the highlands of East Africa.

So it's particularly odd that I've just received a text message welcoming me to the United Arab Emirates. "Enjoy the best network coverage and other unmatched services only with Etisalat," it says. "Enjoy your stay in the UAE!"

Read on here to find out why it is poosible to receive this kind of text messages in northern Tanzania.

The article is extremely well-written and critical, while presenting many different perspectives of a problem not just present in Tanzania, but in several other places in Africa; there's the conflict between capitalistic interests - some call it development - and the promotion of a culture/tribe as a touristic object (with the idea of profiting on it, while the wazungu observe it), the role of the government, the investors and tourism companies - and then finally the people of the land.

Which again leads on to a debate about what people have the right to what land?

A question which is going to be more and more relevant for Africa in the time to come.

Read: The mzungu is crazy

My favourite Ugandan blogger says it so much better than me: The mzungu is crazy. 

Fortunately for, us, the wazungu, Tumwi has got irony:

“The shopping in Uganda is so frustrating! I can’t find cream cheese anywhere!”

or

“I’ve really traveled around Uganda. I’ve been to Murchison Falls National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Mount Elgon National Park … Everywhere!”

She is also right. Painfully right (which is why I couldn't help posting a safari photo from Murchinson Falls in July 2005). I mean, I'm one of them, the wazungu (though I truly did go beyond the national parks the 26 months I lived in West Nile).

Read her latest post here, and though you might not believe the statements and questions occasionally posed by the wazungu, I can assure that they are extremely realistic.

The King of Kwaito

Good sound tracks for driving must have a certain, aggressive speed.

That's what I get from Mandoza.

In fact, I get a lot more.  

Mandoza is this crazy Sowetan who made it into the worlds of music stars. Who got caught some weeks ago for having alcohol in his blood while driving, having done nothing the average South African his age couldn't imagine. Mandoza just praised the South African police for good work (!), especially as it turned out that he was in fact below the limit. 

Mandoza is an interesting urban African male clash between praising your mama and family on one hand, dressing street style, acting like a supreme macho winning music awards for songs in a mix of languages on the other.

Great music.

Read: Mr. Museveni, Please Come to My Wedding

I love the Ugandan Insomniac for its severe Ugandan irony:

You see, Mr. President, my better half and I have agreed not to get married until you leave power. We know it won’t be in 2011, but that’s okay. Take your time. It will give me the opportunity to work off the extra fat and to get a plush job in the National Social Security Fund. That way I can look my personal best and he and I can rip off a few working suckers to afford a yearlong honeymoon in Cape Verde.

My fiancé doesn’t mind …

Read the rest of the blog post Mr Museveni Please Come to My Wedding here.

New blog: Why work when you can sit?

Read a new Tanzanian blog dedicated to discussing the culture of allowances so characteristic of Tanzania's civil service.

Very much needed!

Go to www.whyworkwhenyoucansit.blogspot.com/

Swahili Breakfast: Mandazi in the making

Mandazi are East African fried breads similar to the American doughnuts (donuts) and the Danish 'klejne' which my grandmother and mother used to make when I was a child - I grew up in the rural area in Denmark where homemade, substantial food were part of the diet.

Mandazi are substantial snacks, popular in the coastal Swahili areas of Kenya and Tanzania - but I have found them all the way up through northern Uganda to Southern Sudan. Here people eat them for breakfast or as a snack with chai or kahawa.

Here (photo) they were prepared from scratch right on the street in Kisutu downtown Dar Es Salaam. A mandazi costs between 100 to 200 TSH, depending on the quality, my colleague next door says and adds; The best ones are made by the Indians, because they add spices.

Curious to make your own mandazi?

There are many recipes out there, but most of them appear to skip the essential, the Zanzibar flava; the spices and the coconut. And they truly are the best.

My favorite recipe is from the Congo Cook Book.

Old enough to become a real Tanzanian politician?

Zitto Kabwe is only 32 years old. MP for Kigoma North, and many young Tanzanians' favourite MP. The young man, who is also a deputy secretary general of Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), one of the two biggest opposition parties in Tanzania, caused a stir in late August by announcing that he would be challenging Freeman Mbowe (48), the party's secretary general, in the party's forthcoming elections.

Chadema has 11 seats in the National Assembly. Five are constituency and the rest, special seats. Chadema is the second strongest opposition party after the Civic United Front (CUF), which has 32 seats.

Yesterday, however, Kabwe, withdrew his decision, which has caused a really interesting stir. The assumption goes that the elders of Chadema have persuaded Kabwe to withdraw. Kabwe himself reiterated to the Daily News that his decision to withdraw came from "the deepest part of his heart" and it was for the best interests of the party. And Kabwe admitted that he had always believed in socialism whereas Mr Mbowe believes in capitalism, the fact that has often provoked strong debate between them.

In the Citizen Dr. Azaveli Lwaitama from the University of Dar Es Salaam is challenging Tanzanian politics. It is no secret that the tradition in this country tends to favour the wazee over the young. But it hasn't always been like that, he notes;

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was one year younger, 31, when he contested and was elected as chairperson of Tanganyika African Association in 1953. Lwaitama suggests that leaders of the 1950s were more prepared to allow youth participate in politics then.

Today a candidate must be 40-50 years to be considered material for a leading position. Kikwete is namely considered young, in spite of the fact he is 59 years old (!)

Lwaitama does also refer to the young late politician and MP Amina Chifupa (whom the singer Nakaaya by the way also asks us to remember in her popular song Mr. Politician, encouraging politicians to shake up), who like Zitto was extremely popular among youth.

Back in the Citizen Lwaitama lifts the problem up on a higher level, by emphasizing that these elders do not seem to appreciate that Africa is passing through a period similar to the one it passed through in the 1940s and 1950s in terms of seeking ideological clarity to guide political struggles.

In a country where youth make up around half of the population, it is rather interesting how little space they are granted for participation in democracy. At one point you are no longer young, you stop thinking from a young person's perspective, and then you can become a politician.

But maybe a change is in the making? Maybe this really is about something else?

Photo from here.

I always have a plan...

the writing of the back of the truck claims.

I don't.