:: louder than swahili

Lazy afternoon. 10 kilometres south of Tanga

   

Sweet Africa

Back on the road again. This weekend in Tanga. Next week in Arusha.

ActionAid Climate Debt Agents Dressing up in Brussel

From MS ActionAid Denmark's action today in Brussel.

Cool guys!

Fashion Tradition

 

Sauti za Busara versus Mafia Dance Festival

  I have taken the first photo at this year's Sauti za Busara in Stone Town, Zanzibar. a

The second is from Mafia Dance Festival announcing dates for a coming festival in August.

Seems like the wazungu go to Mafia, and that people wear clothes on Sauti za Busara.

Kweli...(?)!

So much more reason to go to Sauti za Busara 11-16 February 2010.

Photography: Kawawa Road, Dar es Salaam

   

Dar es Salaam: HIPHOP NITE / MUSIC & DANCE / TANZANIA & FRANCE

ALLIANCE FRANCAISE, THE FRENCH EMBASSY and VISA2DANCE PRESENT:

HIPHOP NITE / MUSIC & DANCE / TANZANIA & FRANCE with:

ZAHRBAT DANCE COMPAGNIE

(Contemporary / hip hop dance from France)

THE BEST FRIENDS

(Winners of DSM street dance competition)

TMK WANAUME HALISI

PROFESSOR JAY

MRISHO MPOTO

FID-Q

Venue: Diamond Jubilee-Main Hall.

Date:    Saturday 31 October 2009.

Time:    8pm - 12pm

Entrance fees: TSH 6000

TSH 2000 (students & under 26 years)

A brilliant mix of Tanzanian & French music and dance, hip hop style. For both hip hop fans and contemporary dance lovers.

The opening act will be a presentation by selected Tanzanian dancers as the result of a two days workshop conducted by Zahrbat French dancers and choreographers.

Zahrbat performance will start by a 30mn danced lecture on the history of hiphop dance. It will be followed by “El Firak” a 30mn dance duo about separation and dealing with the issue of the wall built between Israel and the West Bank and the families torn apart by the conflict. The night will continue with live performances of TMK WANAUME HALISI, PROFESSOR JAY, MRISHO MPOTO, FID-Q and BEST FRIENDS dance show.

African Street Football: How to make the juwala ball?

‘Juwala’ means 'waste plastic' in Kiswahili. The juwala ball went public in Europe last month when Ban Ki Moon held it up during his keynote address at the opening of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Congress in Copenhagen.

I believe the idea was to remind the Olympic Committee to connect sports with development.  And the juwala ball truly is representative for how most football matches are played on the continent.

Streetfootballworld has produced a give-away postcard with easy-to-follow instructions (below).

Photo above from Dar es Salaam.

   

Drink beer. Donate blood. Save life. All in one go?

Bar sign in Sinza - a suburb in Dar es Salaam.

+ list over things which are good about returning to Denmark #01

   

I'm gathering points on my + list over things which are good about returning to Denmark.

My Icelandic nephew Baltasar and his new born second cousin, Scottish/Danish Maja Siri, are high on the list. Beautifull children, both of them by the way. I'm sure it pays off to stirr up the Danish gene pool.

Africa and its control freaks

I quite enjoy to look at Africa from a psychological point of view. To just boil it down to people, desires and emotional behaviour.

One of my favorites is when an mzungu arrives to the continent, and turns out to be a control freak.

According to th Wikipedia, in psychology-related slang, a control freak is a derogatory term for a person who attempts to dictate how everything around them is done. It can also refer to someone with a limited number of things that they want done a specific way.

Control Freaks are people who care more than you do about something and won't stop at being pushy to get their way.

In some cases, the control freak sees their constant intervention as beneficial or even necessary; this can be caused by feelings of superiority, believing that others are incapable of handling matters properly, or the fear that things will go wrong if they don't attend to every detail. In other cases, they may simply enjoy the feeling of power it gives them so much that they automatically try to gain control of everything around them.

We all are to different degrees, us, the wazungu, control freaks (me too. I, for instance, still like to believe that traffic rules should apply; and I insist that people wear safety belts when I drive).

No doubt that the first wazungu on the continent were control freaks: the explorers, the missionaries, the voortrekkers and the colonisers all bear the characteristics of a classic control freak. Stanley might be among the most infamous, while the Afrikaans later turned it into a collective, political concept which was legal till 1994.

And what else can explain the idea behind the Great Trek?

However, the string thrives vibrantly among the modern wazungu, too. Development workers, NGO management, ambassadors, lodge owners, safari companies, volunteers, diplomats and spouses - many fit the control freak profile, too. I can't help noticing that the modern control freaks carry with them different ideas of why they are here to sort it out. Some, ironically, having no prior management or Africa experience. They react differently when realising the challenge, that real Africa doesn't fit the theory.

In my experience, these are the most interesting cases. A majority of the Tanzanians I have met are brought up to choose peace over justice, and will during a potential conflict rather keep quiet than speaking up loud. It is almost too easy for a control freak to abuse this, as an mzungu can set him/herself outside the cultural rules, especially if he/she arrives with an appointed authority to lead; to make decisions; to guide and supervise others.

Chief Mkwawa is an interesting example of a Tanzanian who tried to resist the German control freaks back in the 1890ties. However, I have realised that modern Tanzanians frequently prefer a variety of more silent and sophisticated revenges over the control freak mzungu.

For instance, no mzungu beats a Tanzanian's ability to wait.

Some would claim that some of Africas worst dictators were control freaks, too. That present presidents might be. But when it comes to classifying Jacob Zuma (photo) as one, I'm in doubt, and it somehow fascinates me immensely.

The wazungu control freaks, I know, would never let loose the way Zuma does. Somehow I prefer freaks in favour of control.

Illustration from here.

Swahili Fashion Week in Dar es Salaam

For the second time in a row Swahili Fashion Week (SFW) will take place in Dar es Salaam to give the local fashion is an exciting three days full of fashion fanfare; and galore.

Swahili Fashion week which brings forth an eclectic mix of Swahili culture ensconced with chic style also brings together talented designers from across the Swahili speaking countries and beyond, under one roof to showcase their unique and truly African creations which include clothes, shoes, jewellery, and handbags.

November 4 to 6 at Karimjee Hall in Dar Es Salaam.

More here.

* The bag is made by Doreen Mashika.

Please i want you to write me back Because i will like to have a relationship with you,so that we will know each other very well. so will you write me back in my email address

This e-mail I also don't get:

Hello,
How are you hope fine, I Want to introduce my self to you before i go further, My Name is Sofia Umar from southern part of sudan.Please i want you to write me back Because i will like to have a relationship with you,so that we will know each other very well. so will you write me back in my email address (miss_sofia_umar_y@yahoo.com) i have an important discussion that i will like to discuss with you urgently, so I am look forward to hear from you soon!
Thanks and God bless you,
Miss Sofia Umar.

Not a single clear reason included for writing back: Sorry!

Today's Quote: William Burroughs, My Education: A Book of Dreams

Airport sounds from a distance, blurred, incomprehensible, then suddenly loud and clear. "Flight sixty-nine has been..." Static ... fades into the distance ... "Flight..." Standing to one side of the desk are three men, grinning with joy at their prospective destinations. When I present myself at the desk, the woman says: "You haven't had your education yet."

William Burroughs, My Education: A Book of Dreams

Photography: Tracing the shadow of our own car

 

Looking for crocodiles. We know you are there.

Photography: Drought. Mikumi National Park waiting for the rains

Game drive in Mikumi: Find your own way!

  Just returned from a day in Mikumi National Park. It wasn't the plan to go to Mikumi, but it rained too much in the Uluguru Mountains where Plan A should have taken us, if only we were not worried about spending a weekend in deep red mud sliding down the slopes.

At Mikumi we bought a map at the entrance, and tried to follow the land marks. I can get lost anywhere, especially if it all looks the same. It is only a matter of time. Besides I am not really into safaris where tourists dress up in khaki with many pockets, wear hats which say 'mzungu', wear oversize binoculars and camera lenses around the neck - and sulk if they don't get their expectations met. 

But hey, sometimes it is fun in an odd way. Like last time.

Saturday, some game rangers had tried to make it a bit more of a challenge. I'm sure they must have had fun this week while renovating the land marks, and then tossed the road signs around the places.

Then a game drive really turns into a game.

Very few animals by the way. The place is hard hit by drought, and when it rains in other places, the animals are off for water.

Photography: Quick snaps from Morogoro

 

Photography: One love. One heart.

This one is from Stone Town on Unguja.

The grafitti puzzles me a bit.

Is it rooted in Islam, as in religious love?

Is it the rasta way of dedicating their appreciation of Bob Marley?

Or is it a Zanzibari off the track making a statement against the legal polygamy allowing men to marry more than one woman? (I have seen a few men walking around the Swahili Coast who would make me produce statements like this all over the place if I had to be their first wife or nyumba ndogo.)

Breaking (mainly other people's) illusions in Q Bar, Dar es Salaam

Two friends and I went to Q Bar some Friday nights ago.

In my opinion, Q Bar in Dar Es Salaam serves as one of the most wide-ranging and profound introductions to Africa, mainly because it includes all the stuff you would like to repress the existence of. Go sit upstairs on a Friday night and you have an excellent panoramic view of some of the most characteristic personalities acting out under the black sky. 

First of all, it is real. Hard to believe; but real.

Some of the most vibrant personalities on the floor are the Tanzanian ladies on duty, the malaya, and the brassy selection of males who come in all colours, sizes and ages. Other bars have a tendency to favour certain - more trendy - looks, but here you can be an old, fat, bald, sweaty, sundried and overtly horny bastard, and still leave with a teethy smile. 

(Pole sana for leaving that image with you).

This Friday three guys next to our table hit instant luck when three malaya dedicated themselves to sit on their laps, and shift between so-called fuck-me movements and allowing them to touch their breasts.

Q Bar certainly is 10 times more interesting than a Danish television prime time programme.

First time I found myself in the middle of a situation like this in Kapalagala in Uganda,  I thought it cannot be right; I couldn’t believe that average male wazungu from my own tribe could take such pleasure in regressing to a variation of primal phases, and do things I had never seen them done back in Europe. At least not in public. 

After some time I realised that this is probably closer to whom we all are if we were free of all conventions. It was also about that time I started looking at all men from a new perspective. Africa will never not fascinate me: It is the perfect place to get an idea of your own or other people's illusions.

This Friday two bosbefok Australians embarked on a conversation with me and my friends. One ended up at the same corner of the table as me, insisting to share his visions on Africa. He and his mate had just got back to town from four months in the bush at Lake Tanganyika where they had been looking for nickel. In other places and at other times they would be looking for gold for an Australian mining company.

As a true bosbefok he was in severe need for sharing his genuine impressions from the bush, and a conversation spun over the fragments below gradually developed:

- Before they threw stones after us. Now they wave

- They didn't like us at first, now they do

- We go and have beers with them, we give them money, we go to their funerals in the village

- We make people happy

He was referring to the villagers on the site, which they went to research for nickel. He kept going about the fact that he and his mate contributed to change, how rewarding that was and what good this would bring on to Africa.

I quickly noted that his selection of ‘indicators’ went from ‘stones’ to ‘waving’: Less stones + more waving = happy people, equals change.  

As much as I enjoy the diversity of the company you can come across in Q Bar; – from the Saffricans in two-tone shades; assecorized tourists; loud, alpamale Chinese; Scandinavian volunteers with red faces; Libyan gemstone dealers; the Tanzanian Indian living with his family on top of their shop in Zanaki Street; the mzungu mzee trying to get two ladies with him home at once, - I simply cannot stand listening to crap like this.

And it is at moments like these where I know for sure that Africa hasn’t made me less of a socialist.

You don’t really need a degree in rocket science to know that if a foreign mining company ever finds nickel, gold or tanzanite, the primary outcome isn’t meant for the villagers. The same goes for timber, oil, gas and a lot of other natural resources. The list is long. What is likely to happen, is, that it will mess their village up big time, and the profit ends up in other people’s pockets. Usually outside of the country.

The Aussie called me rough, indicating between the lines that he liked that, and besides; ‘This is my last night in Africa, before I go and look for gold in the Solomon Islands.’  Then he went on blaming me for not openly expressing the change I make for Africa. I told him that I find it hard to believe that my pure presence (just because I happen to be white) on the continent offers vital change. That things are more complex. That I believe I'm one little brick, who occasionally gets things done which then might stirr things off in a good direction. But I have absolutely no illusion that my contribution are bigger than that; and men who have a need for making me confirm their illusion that they contribute to change in Africa (especially when they boil it down to waving African villagers), makes me outright unresponsive.

In an ideal world, yes. But at the moment Tanzania doesn't live up to its own legislation. Its natural resources are being taken out of the country, leaving almost no visible difference to the average villager. (Gado on Arabs, land grabbing, silly Africans and their leaders here).

Even me, working for a Danish NGO, do not live in an illusion like this. And sometimes, I simply cannot grasp how little some people know of the vastness of Africa and their own part in it; how huge differences there are from the ones who have, to the ones who haven't; and how much is build on illusions in our heads.

On the other hand, Africa also makes you spacious, you open up for the fact that the world is not fair, that is has to comprise people you don't agree with, and you learn to find a way to cope with it. And as well as I now accept the buzz on the floor in Q-bar, the loud inequalities of the relations being established here on many Friday nights, I have no problem telling the Aussie:

'Leave me alone. Go find some other women to play with. Safari njema.'

Twitter: Check out the 'FAKE Official Spokesman Of the Jovernment Of Kenya'

Check out the tweets of the 'FAKE Official Spokesman Of the Jovernment Of Kenya' @alfredmutua.

This is hilariously funny. Fantastic humour:

• Government urges all Kenyans to report to the nearest police post if they are being followed on twitter for their safety
• Government is sending a 50 man delegation to the LA Galaxy to watch Victoria Beckham play
• Government has in fact scored 134% on reforms but modesty compelled me to say 90% in my advertisement
• This state house chef is a hoax! Bean stew CANNOT be made with coffee beans!
• Govt would like to assure Kenyans that Aaron Ringera is the best KACC director that money can buy
• I would like to assure Kenyans that they have the best government that money can buy
• I've not received SMSes from anyone that died of hunger. I hereby declare famine a figment of imagination
• If you are dying, or recently died of hunger, send me a SMS
• Government does not understand Kenyans complaining about no maize. Why not eat ugali instead?
• Can't understand what all the rationing fuss is. Half the night Kenyans sleep in the dark anyway!
• To save water, government is encouraging Kenyans to shower together.

and go on yourself here @alfredmutua

Kitenge from Kariakoo

 

Kariakoo: Over 1 million enter to trade daily

I have previously written about Kariakoo with fascination, i.e. here.

Now the Guardian brings an interesting article with facts about Kariakoo; One problem is that it is congested.

The Kariakoo business area in Dar es Salaam, which has of recent opened doors to larger volumes of trade, particularly from the oriental, is most likely going to malfunction due to lack of enough space to accommodate more incoming merchandise and services, a survey by ‘The Guardian’ has established.

 

The article points out some of the reasons behind which are rather interesting, as I find them significant for Tanzania in general:

 

One woman says: “It is true that Kariakoo is overcrowded, and we can’t escape that due to the fact that, in the country there is an increased number of people without jobs. This has made many to get into business so as to easy life, here you will find professional businessmen and women as well as those who just do business.”

 

Another: “The business boom in Kariakoo has been caused by globalization; it is not only Tanzanians who conduct their businesses in the area, but also other nationals such as people Congolese, Zambian, Malawians and Chinese.”

And a third one: “The problem is that most Tanzanians just do business in their own. They do business individually that is why you see most of them openning shops in Kariakoo”.

Life-time bans for Tanzanian football referees

According to the BBC the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) has imposed life bans on four premier league referees and fined a club US$10,000 after it found them guilty of corruption.

It all boils down to commodities: transportation, food and drinks: And who actually did what, and who forgot to report it.

The Twitterkids of Tanzania

Check out the Twitter kids of Tanzania here.

VERY curious to see how that works out.

Who made us, here, and why...

On days like this, I crank up this song, and when I have a decent Internet connection I watch the video. As I noted here, I do know that Scatterlings of Africa is old fashion in present South Africa, but it means something special to me. It is no secret to the frequent reader of this blog that I have a crush on Johnny Clegg. His son is cool, too, not to forget his wife (which still is one of the most frequent searches leading to my blog).

Also, I'll argue anytime that the amount of times Johnny Clegg's music is now going to be used for the World Cup soundtracks only understates the fact that his work goes beyond the mainstream.

Many videos have been made to illustrate Scatterlings of Africa, however, this one is my favorite. Shot in the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe. Johnny Clegg was brought up by his Zimbabwean mother, in his mother’s native land of Zimbabwe. She later married a South African journalist and immigrated to South Africa when Johnny was seven years old.

My first trip South of Sahara went to Johannesburg in 2003, then off 14 hours overland in a car to Harare. I went with my then boyfriend, who was born in Zimbabwe, and who later moved to South Africa, then Denmark. When we went to Harare he brought a guitar, CDs, flipflops, boxes of food, diesel and absolutely no suitable clothes for the wedding we were invited to. It didn't matter. The guitar did. Making stops, people would ask for a song, out the guitar came. After a few drinks the zulu dance moves, too. The people in Denmark didn't really get it, here it made perfect sense. 

I heard Johnny Clegg for the first time then. Everybody jumped around like mad. I didn't know what it was, didn't feel the song belonged to me.

It does now.

I arrived to Africa in a complex mode of feeling innocent and open - but also intimidated and worried if I could take it. I was invited by friends, and welcomed into their families and culture. All the other times I came to Africa, I came due to the fact that I work for an NGO. That completely changed my perspective, that and the experience you gather from living 26 months along and across the Ugandan border to Sudan, or the 26 months I have now lived at the Swahili Coast.

It is no secret that I feel that my NGO contract obliges me in certain ways: My presence has a very specified work purpose, I'm a resident, not a tourist. I drive a car with a logo. I work, I get per diem and travel reimbursement. I often end up argueing politically corrrect, defending my presence, though I feel like letting go for the simpler way. NGO workers are serious people, we like to be taken seriously. Sometimes I just wanna be me.

Fortunately, I started in the real way. I know exactly what I love about this continent, I got that under my skin the first time around. Scatterlings of Africa sparks that feeling.

Finally, as a curiosity; I doubt many people know that Johnny Clegg made a reference to Tanzania in his most popular song: Olduvai (or Oldupai) is in Tanzania.

Full lyrics here.

Tanzania: One-UN calls for earlier start of general election monitoring

The One-UN system Representative in Tanzania, Alberic Kacou, has underscored the need for general election monitoring process to start much earlier than just a day or so to the elections day.

Source: The Guardian

Sounds completely sane!

2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup Advert: Start imagining

Local election in Tanzania: Watch the 'Mr. Politician' video by Nakaaya

I really like this song, and today I used some of the lines for a Danish article about the local elections coming up this Sunday, 25 October. I'll write more about it later, but this video says it all.

The video is - in my opinion - not perfect to the end, compositionally or technically, but it has a real great vibe, energy and some curious little features (like the young people reading Nkrumah and Nyerere). The guy acting the 'Mr. Politician' is perfect.

Enjoy!

Sweet Easy as in Sweet Easy

 

Some say go there on Thursdays (it's great).

Some say don't (it's horrible, too loud, too expensive).

Some say that it's a wazungu thing (with too many malaya).

Some say the name refers to the food.

Some say it refers to the malaya.

Dar es Salaam really depends on what angle you see it from and from what you need.

Kenyan Condom Ad: As big as an umbrella (makes you smile long after)...

 

 

Kudos to Kenya for making a man take up a condom in the street and do..., well, see for yourself what he does...but I like it.

Agency Lowe Scanad, Kenya
Copywriter/Creative Director: Andrew White
Art Director: Pat Richer
Account Director: Eve Onduru
Music: Blue, with the song "One Love"

Maisha iko sawa na trust means 'life is good with trust'.

And the Africa Leadership Award Goes to … No One

It's not a good sign when your leadership prize runs out of eligible candidates to honor after a whopping two years. Welcome to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, whose winner was meant to be announced in London yesterday: 

This year the Prize Committee has considered some credible candidates. However, after in-depth review, the Prize Committee could not select a winner."

Read more on Foreign Policy.

Gotta give it to Mo Ibrahim, and I suggest that this interesting approach would be considered next time the Nobel Peace Prize is up (though Bono disagrees here); or at the coming Euro Vision Music Contest.

Sometimes there just aren't any winners.

Danish author, Ejersbo, publishes outstanding novels centred in Tanzania

Unfortunately not (yet) in English. But if you read Danish, please read about my admiration for his work here.

Jacob Ejersbo died last summer of cancer at the age of 40. Much too early. He grew up in Moshi at Kilimanjaro where his father worked for Danida over two periods of time, and he went to ISM, International School of Moshi. Before he died he wrote three books centred in Tanzania.

Literature which is already now proclaimed to be a milestone in Danish literature on Africa. Personally, it has made me look differently at what I see in Tanzania.

This is what Klaus Rothstein writes about Ejersbo for a Danish Literary Magazine: 'Seldom has anyone written anything so insistent and impassioned, so glowing hot and ice-cold, so heartfelt and so cynical'.

I'll keep you posted when the books are translated into English.

 

Tanzania: Interesting statistics on mobilephone users (and use)

• With the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) putting the total number of mobile phone subscribers at 14million by this June, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) surged to Sh66,000 during the second quarter of this year-a figure that means that subscribers spend Sh22,000($16) per month.
• Taking this figure as the basis for revenue measurement for this year, the mobile phone industry may earn an estimated $2.684billion(Sh3.6trillion) per year - that’s double what the mining sector earns yearly — making telecommunications now the country’s leading industry, The Guardian on Sunday has learnt.
• According to official statistics from the TCRA, Tanzanian subscribers spend the second most on mobile phone use in the region, behind Kenya where ARPU is currently pegged at around $18. In Uganda, ARPU stands at $10 with about 10million users estimated in the country.

• Still, the largely weak consumer purchasing power in the country - where half of the population still lives on less than a dollar a day - puts a looming ceiling over how high telecom executives can expect profits to climb.

• By comparison, for example, in South Africa where the country’s GDP stands at $280billion per year, the ARPU is $40 per month.

• According to a survey conducted by Tele World, across Africa, Latin America and Asia, the number of people who do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone is set to grow from 1 billion today to 1.7 billion by 2012. These ‘unbanked mobile’ individuals represent a compelling market opportunity for operators.

Read the full article from the Guardian on Sunday here.

Editor: Tanzanians need power, not cheap politicking

The Guardian on Sunday reminded Tanzania's leaders, especially politicians that, cheap politicking fuelled mainly by egoism and the quest for cheap popularity won’t solve the current power crisis:

For the past two weeks Tanzanians have been facing another power rationing, reminding us of the worse situation in 2006 when the country nearly faced total blackout. State-owned company announced a countrywide power rationing exactly six months after the Tanesco MD had sounded the alarm bells on the looming crisis in March, during the debate on whether the nation should acquire Dowans plants or not.

Angered by the tough stance taken by the Parliamentary Committee on Energy and Minerals, the outgoing Tanesco Managing Director Dr Idriss Rashidi, said Tanzania has two choices- acquire an emergency power generating plant or face a total blackout in the next 180 days.

On Thursday, Kigoma North MP Zitto Kabwe held a press conference whereby apart from urging the government to confiscate controversial Dowans plants, he also defended the earlier move by Tanesco to buy the emergency power generating plants. We all know who is who in the Dowans deal and would like to state clearly that, as a nation, let us not be dragged again into the debate that was ended seven months ago.

With dilapidated infrastructure built mainly during the 1970s, the company’s power supply capacity is estimated at 595 megawatts. This year, the actual demand is 787 megawatts - creating a deficit of 192 megawatts. 

Read the full article here.

My favorite kikoys

Days like this

Friday I managed to stirr my head well with all vital, practical things related to my own (small) role in Danish development aid, electricity, Internet, water, traffic, corruption - to the music pouring out loud from the container bar next door run by the self-acclaimed peaceful rasta (who once told me that he sold drugs for the Nigerians in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, which means I don’t complain when a bar customer cranks up his car stereo outside my gate.);

• to the ufisadi I read about in the paper;
• the big potatoes in the fat land cruiser not giving me space on Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road;
• my Internet provider who has been hassling me to prepay my Internet subscription (though there hasn't been any connection for the past two months and they have no intention of telling me that his company really has been bought up by another...);
• that my water bill suddenly tripled, and DAWASCO interpretates 'Customer Care' very differently than I.
• the young female students who pay with sex to get through university or to get jobs;
• the fact that you have to know someone to get somewhere (but that you owe that person the rest of your life);
• the young guy with limps in stead of legs;
• to the hungry street child on Morogoro Road whom I passed when I returned from Zanaki Street, and who wanted to wash my (clean) front screen so that he could fill his stomach later.

And that's where I had had it:

He mimicked ‘chakula’. Food.

I got a lump in my throat, and I then went for notes in stead of coins, though it is against all principles (which ones exactly, I’ve luckily forgotten). I thought; World Food Day, my ass. I just blogged about it, and here I face my own limitations one hour later a kilometer away from the office. It made me feel like I was paying a monthly subscription for a lighter conscience in return for representing a nation which have prioritized Tanzania in their development support budget, but not the boy in the street ‘because he is outside the strategy which is focusing on another district, cluster, group or theme.’

Some days it just doesn't stop.

When I finally got home to my neighborhood, all traffic had come to a halt. Two cars had crashed, one driver still stuck in the front seat behind the wheel, people gathering like flies on sugar, hovering like hyenas. Just up front Kikwete's house in the crossing between Ursino and Migombani Street, which got tarmac last year so that people now can drive as if no one else exists.

There is only so much you can deal with in one day.

Your friends at home think you’ve finally lost it, and that Africa has beaten you. They tell you, they told you. That Africa wears you out. That it is time to return home.

So, you stop telling them what's really going on.

Or you insist that this is normal. That Danish psychological interpretations appear absurd in Tanzania. That this is what most people in Africa go through, and you are not excempted just because you are white.

If so, that is because you close your eyes and have lost touch with your feelings and conscience.

Photography: Late afternoon in Libya and Zanaki Street. Kisutu. Dar Es Salaam

      

Siku Kuu!

Thanks to my friend's great, visual blogpost here, I don't have to write one about what we did on the latest Siku Kuu.

Siku Kuu is a great Swahili word.

It means 'holiday' or 'special day'.

It is also a street in Kariakoo, which by the way is a bit of a mystery to me as it appears that really no one practises siku kuus in Kariakoo.

A cynical view on the tendency to designate days to create attention...

Dutifully I have during this week blogged about the climate on Blog Action Day, hunger on World Food Day, Nyerere Day and probably a dozen other days which have been agreed upon and then designated to mark something so special that it needs it own day.

I suddenly realised that I had completely ignored the Global Handwashing Day.

But what.

To be honest, it makes me feel a little bit stupid, and to be even more honest, I sometimes only do it (except for the Nyerere Day) to see what traffic it generates to my blog. The UN, NGOs and governments and others designate special days and they use bloggers much more targettedly to spread messages on new campaigns, i.e. events on special days like the above example. I think. however, that the messages end up getting all stirred if it doesn't come from the blogger's heart or based on a personal experience.

Maybe that's just me, but sometimes you gotta stop up and ask yourself, if this designation of days, decades and years makes any sense at all apart from giving indicators and a momentary satisfaction to a bunch of interest organisations?

I know the fundamental rules of campaigning and lobbying, but sometimes it is all just a repetition and too predictable. What difference does it really make to the people the days are all about. Most, probably unaware they have a day?

Take a look at the UN's official designations here, and let me know what you think!

World Food Day: HungerFREE

It is World Food Day 2009 today. ActionAid's HungerFREE campaign goes:

 

What's the problem?

• Over one billion people are going hungry right now.
• That's nearly a sixth of humanity.
• Last year, a food price crisis pushed 100 million more into hunger.  Poor people ate less frequently and cut back on the nutrient-rich food they need most. 
• Local food prices remain much higher than before, so hungry families have to make a horrible choice between buying food and doing without healthcare or school for their children.
• There is enough food in the world to meet everyone's needs, but not everyone gets a fair share.

Who is suffering most?

• The problem is worst in rural areas, home to 75% of the world’s poor. 
• Poor people lack control over land and access to other basic farming resources like water.
• Women are particularly disadvantaged. While women in poor countries grow more than 60% of the food, they own less than 1% of the land.
• Climate change, high prices, trade barriers and agro-fuel production are all hitting the poorest people hardest.
• Poor people in rural communities can feed themselves if they have the right support, but the current system isn’t working.

What's the solution?

• There is enough food in the world to feed everyone - the problem is political. And that means it can be fixed.
• Low-impact farming by small-holder farmers is the best way to tackle hunger.
• A UN study found sustainable agriculture increased crop yields in Africa by an astonishing 116%.

What can I do?

• We need Gordon Brown to demonstrate international leadership in improving the way the global food system is governed.
• We need governments to be monitored and held to account for eradicating hunger.
• We need the UK government to support small scale, sustainable farming of the kind that can best support women farmers.
• Take action now!

BAD09 Tanzania: rain + land = food

Within the past year I have travelled more than ten thousand of kilometres around Tanzania: I have been to Simanjiro, Kiteto , Tanga, Pangani, Lushoto, Kisarawe, Kilimanjaro, the Southern Highlands and Mtwara.

Everywhere, everybody talked about the weather.

In Kiteto the acacia trees were blooming in January (photo); according to the Maasai the flowers indicate that rain is near. Later in January I was confused about the weather, but the heavy rain finally came, and was about to drive me mad in March where I went on a 12 hour trip round Kisarawe to find material for an article on land sale for biofuel. In April I got malaria during the masika - the long rains which drowned the area around my house in Dar es Salaam. Now, in October, it hasn't rained since May, apart for a few showers this week, possibly indicating that the mvuli has started in Dar es Salaam. But the grass in my garden in Dar es Salaam is still dried out and the sandy soil is bare.

The long rains have become shorter. The consequences are clear.

My problems are nothing compared to the majority of the Tanzanian people who live in the rural areas. Most are dependent on either maize or cassava which are the most popular stable food in Tanzania. Whereas the cassava can sustain lack of rain, the maize plants need lots of water. If the longs rains (the masika), which normally runs from March to June, is shorter than this, the maize plants dry out, or stay small.

And people starve, food prices go up, all other prices go up. If you live in a Tanzanian village where the economical dynamics are limited, it takes little to make life go in the wrong direction.

This is exactly what happened this year in many areas in Tanzania.

In May the masika - the long rains - in many places stopped too early, and in many places there was no or too little rain, resulting in drought. People in 10 Tanzanian districts were asking for food in May. In Kiteto the Akiye tribe - the hunter gatherers were already starving in April. In Moshi the maize plants were yellow while the soil cracked of thirst in September, and while the snow melts on the Mount Kilimanjaro, it is suddenly there on the Mount Meru, a newspaper noted.

80% of the Tanzanian population, who depend on agriculture as a means to get something to eat, had no food. People don't understand why the weather changes, only that it changes their foundation of their livelyhood.

Completely.

It is an absurd feeling to visit a Tanzanian village waiting for rain when you know that Tanzania is among the 100 most vulnerable countries in the world having contributed the least to total global carbon emissions. At the same time it feels rather absurd that Tanzania is selling out of her land, interestingly enough to a variety of countries which position themselves high on the scale of carbon emisson. 

The government have plans, not all in favour of its people, which the Kenyan Gado notes in an illustration, while others are critisizing the Tanzanian goverment for evicting farmers in favour of a biofuel company. According to BBC Africa on September 24 Korea bought 1,000 sq km in Tanzania, however the Tanzanian government the day after refuted media reports indicating that it has leased out 1000 square kilometres of farmland to South Koreans. In Loliondo the Maasai were chased away in favour of a safari company, which the Danish embassador openly critisized in September.

Not to forget the fact that President Kikwete is reported to have told the Saudis that Tanzania could lease them land covering up to 10,000 hectares for 99 years: “Tanzania is ready to do business with you… here is 100 million acres (40.5 million hectares) of good arable land,” Reuters quoted Mr Kikwete as telling the Saudi businessmen. 

Climate change affects us all. In Tanzania, amongst others, it causes hunger because the rain isn't there or it isn't enough. But again, it can rain as much as it likes, people still need land to grow crops for their food.

This post is part of BLOG ACTION DAY 2009.

Snow on Mount Meru. What what?

 

I just read an odd article in 'The African' from today (page 3): 'Snow on Mount Meru is an added attraction to Arusha', the headline tells us.

In an exclusive (!) interview the director of The Tanzania Metheorological Agency, however, explains that it really isn't news, it has been going on for a while (but that people might not notice as the mountain often is covered by clouds).

However, what I find interesting is that the journalist of the article is focusing on the fact 'that tourists are often fascinated when viewing the snow capped mountains in the Equator', and in the photo caption and headline name the snow to be a tourist attraction.

Sure.

Especially now that the snow on Kilimanjaro is melting only 75 kilometres down the road towards Moshi, Tanzania must master another mountain with snow.

While the researchers disagree of the reasons behind the snow melting on Kilimanjaro, the article here states that the fact 'that Mount Meru is covered by vegetation from top to bottom makes it possible to trap the cold air which again form snow.'

But why, all of a sudden, if The Tanzania Metheorological Agency says it isn't news (which it really isn't - the All Africa already wrote about it back in February 2008) has this become an attraction?

Anyway, if curious, best chances are June to October according to the newspaper.

The first photo is from February 2008 taken over Arusha, and the second from last year in October facing Mount Meru from the Kenya side.

What happened since 1932?

 

A colleague lead my attention to this photo which is listed here under the following title:

School classrooms Tanzania: Left was built in 2008 and the right in 1932.

Big knives

 

 

Denmark has recently had a lot of focus on knives which have caused several problems. One of them is an increase in the amount of people being attacked and killed with knives.

 

Hence, the legislation has been tightened, and it limits what kinds of knives you can carrry. It has caused a lot of debate - see here (in Danish).

 

Here, in Tanzania, big knives, i.e. the most common one, the panga, are present everywhere in daily life. I have one in the back of my car in case I need to cut branches or cut coconut - or rather, it is probably more correct to say, that I have the knife, and will lend it out to a skilled panga person if necessary. The few times I tried to handle it, my watchman looked away, and tried - rightfully - to take it out of my hands.

 

The students in Iquachanya Village in Njombe use the panga to cut the sugar cane.

 

The maasai in Kiteto uses it  to slice the goat meat.

 

It is rather interesting that people walk around freely in Tanzania with huge knives, and the Danish, developed democracy has to legislate and regulate in order to keep people from being killed. Of course, the panga is also a common murder weapon in Africa (just think of Rwanda), and the impromptu mob justice killings in the street.

 

However, my own personal feeling is that, if you use your common sense, rural Tanzania and even northern Uganda are safer places than the centre of Copenhagen on a regular Saturday night. I think we often forget that when we read foreign ministries' travel guidance, which have a tendency to focus on mainstream media transmitted, political violence and leave out what happens in European capitals.

Road accident statistics

A recent report indicated that road accidents in Dar es Salaam account for 35 per cent of all road accidents and 20 per cent of deaths in the country. Dar es Salaam’s population represents 10 per cent of the country's entire population of 38 million people, according to the 2002 national population census.

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development has analysed several reasons for road accidents in the country including bad roads, defective vehicles, speeding, weak law enforcement, bad driving and ignorant pedestrians.

FInd solutions suggested here.

 

Another Tanzanian Public Holiday: Nyerere Day

On Wednesday, 14 October, we are off again, as it is Nyerere Day, marking the day of Julius Nyerere's death in 1999.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere was not only Tanzania's first president, he was also the Tanzanians' favorite president. Born in Tanganyika to Nyerere Burito (1860-1942), Chief of the Zanaki (my absolute favorite street in Dar Es Salaam is named hereafter). Nyerere is known by the Swahili name Mwalimu or 'teacher', his profession prior to politics. He was also referred to as Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation).

Source: Wikipedia.

Tumaini Driving School. Full of hope

Last week I completed an article in Danish about the fact that the Tanznians, like many other Africans, use symbols, signs etc. to explain something which isn’t necessarily said in words.

 

Tumaini means hope in Kiswahili.

Last week I saw the sign on top of a driving school car which were stuck on a road in Dar Es Salaam.

 

Says it all.

Uganda: An unbearable story

Please read this blog post about Aggrey, a former captive of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

It is unbearable, but has to be told.

And read.

Take my heart away

To be the sound of wild geese calling
To be ten seasons in a night
To dance the sun beyond the tides of war and peace
To put silence stained by crimes to flight
I need to heart-break-loose-the wind
Dedela umoya, wami baba
(Set my spirit free, father)

To see your eyes shine like two desert stars
To see life burning with a mission
To break the empty circle of living and dying
To leave a child with a vision
I need to heart-break-loose-the wind
Dedela umoya wami, Baba
(Set my spirit free, father)

© Johnny Clegg. Shadowman.

Am getting my things together for another trip to the motherland in November/December. Can't wait.

Tanzania: Up-coming local elections

The registration of voters began on Sunday.

Enough time?

Official polling day is 25 October

This article doesn't give the answer, but describes amongst others that very few voters registrated on the first day, and that the reason might be lack of sensitation.

My plan is to follow the elections on Sunday 25 from the polling stations in Kibaba District.  The Tanzanians are not voting for the man on the poster (in my favourite colour safari suit) till next year.  

Read more here.

Mwenda Pole. A person going slowly

 

 

 

I spent the morning at a voters' education meeting in a village off the Morogoro Road called Mwenda Pole, which can be translated into 'a person going slowly. Somehow a bit ironic, I associated, and recalled Nyerere once saying something like; 'we must run, while others they walk'.

 

Lakini, the Watanzania this morning needed a massive injection of chai & chapati before going anywhere.

 

It is one of the things I struggle with: the whole system of sitting allowance, transport reimbursement, per diem, free food etcetera, etcetera.

 

The fact that the watanzania on many occasions have to get something in order to go to something which again is aiming at making them do something.

 

On the other hand I do know that some of these people today had been up early and came from far. Meetings like these are in the low scale of the infamous NGO support system (read more about it here), i.e. they only received 2,000 TSH per person in travel support, and the chai and chapati is cheap and supported a local woman's business.

 

There is a long way from Mwenda Pole to the NGO and government meetings in aircondtioned facilities in Dar Es Salaam. The people in these villages do not eat the bigger pieces of the cake. But whatever the big potatoes do, will be reflected in what they do.

 

Because that is how you do it.

Mvuli. The short rains have started?

Mvuli, the short rain season (October to December) might have begun already this morning, where it drizzled gently over Dar Es Salaam. 

Tanzania need the rain badly.

More on the Kiswahili weather vocabulary here.

Expat life: The art of making (new) friends

 

If someone asked me for a best advice when settling in a new country and culture, I’d say make friends a high priority.

In Dar Es Salaam I see a lot of expats arriving, focusing on getting a house in the ‘right’ place (preferably close to the Yacht Club and the International School of Tanganyika (IST), preferably far off the traffic jam and the kelele), getting IST to accept their children (so they can meet other appropriate children), buying a car (‘always saw myself driving that land rover when moving to Africa…’); locating where to buy the European style food; and how to get invitations to cocktail parties, receptions or the right people’s houses.

The despair is always tangible when the Danish Embassy has invited the Danes for the June 5 celebration of Constitution Day, and someone didn't receive the official invitation card with the royal gold stamp. The Danes ask; ‘Why did you get one, when I haven’t got one?!’ as if the embassy personally tried to punish selected Danes.

It is hard to be cool. The desperation of a newly arrived is immense. In my culture it is a taboo to admit that you don’t know anybody, or even worse; that nobody knows you. At the same time the expat hierarchy decides without consultation on what level to fit you in. The expats who have been here longer than you, quiz you; how long have you been here? Where did you work before? How long are you going to stay?

The less time, the further away from Africa, and the shorter you are going to stay, the less chance of getting a good position.

(Me, I was in the fortunate position that I could answer: ‘I’ve been here before’; 26 months along and across the Ugandan border to Southern Sudan; and as long as they let me’.)

It didn’t give me friends, though.

It has been bloody hard. Moving to a new country is considered one of the most stress provoking actions, together with leaving your safe environment. Your best friends are somewhere else. Your work is crazy. You desperately need new friends. But you are expected to have things under control.

For me, Dar Es Salaam hasn’t been easy in this way. I have generally blamed it on the huge, spoiled expat community which firstly is comprised by a majority of families (in comparison to my aid worker and missionary friends high on coffeeine and post-conflict daily life in northern Uganda and Sudan), but also characterized by a conservative tradition for how you do things. If you don’t fit into the categories, it is just your bad luck. And, man, that is exactly why I didn’t decide to stay on the island back in Denmark, to copy my parents’ lifestyle.

I think a lot of expats confuse making new friends with a membership to the Yacht Club; hanging out with the Coastal Air pilots (who really should sleep more hours) while getting drunk and singing karokee in the Irish Pub; Joining the Hash Runners Club; Or trying to be accepted among the experienced selection of sundried, white male expats at the High Table at Jackie’s Bar on Haile Selassie Road or getting integrated by the Diplomatic Spouses Community (where one can look forward to saving the world in a way more sophisticated way than my patience would ever allow).

I am not saying it isn’t possible, I just think that a lot of expats trick themselves into thinking that they can get the right friends the way they get the right house, car and school, and forget that it take longer time. I am not saying I know how to do it the right way. Not sure there is one. But I have definitely spent too much time doing the wrong things.

My life in northern Uganda was very different from the one I have had for the past two years in Dar Es Salaam. In Uganda I rather easily got a real good core group of friends who were open to letting new ones in. When I lived in Belgrade my work was strongly connected to my private life, and I made a lot of friends through work, friends who are still there.

The thing is that I know that it usually works out. I have tried it several times, and I always make friends who fill out the extremely important spaces in my expat life, who take the most important places of the ones I left behind. In many ways, very rewarding when it works out. And right now, I consider myself extremely lucky in this regard. I do know an interesting variety of amazing people. But it took time.

Gado on Arabs, land grabbing, silly Africans and their leaders

Illustration from this week's East African.

Do also check today's Editorial in the Tanzanian Guardian: 'Treat land rights with utmost care' here.

The issue of land, land grabbing and land rights appear to be more frequently in the media lately. 

 

Kimweri Avenue/Namanga Road

This photo was taken last night from a friend's roof top in Namanga on Kiweri Avenue in Dar Es Salaam.

Driving down Kimweri Avenue, you go through one of the most busy places in town.

Always alive.

Always colourful.

There is chips mayai being prepared. Cold Kilis in the partly Tanesco/ partly generator run fridges in the backs of the small dukas. Loud gospel coming from the church blending in with the prayer calls from the minarets. Women in kangas, and women in tight jersey and high heels. Giggling school girls. Daladalas amplifying your fantasy of African chaos.

There are palm trees at the very end, and if you drive far enough and turn a few corners, you'll make it to Masaki and the Dar Es Salaam Yacht Club, which basically represents the other end of the world if you live in a little brick house under a mabati roof with many other people, have to collect water in a plastic bucket and do your toilette on a pit latrine.

Some call it Kimweri Avenue, others call it Namanga Road.

I call it Kimweri Avenue, and I believe it is named after Kimweri ya Nyumbai, also called Simba Mwene (Lion King) who ruled between early 1800’s to the 1860’s the Kilindi Kingdom which extended from the Pare mountains, down to the coast at Tanga and Pangani, and out onto the plains in the south and east.

Not sure if that Kimweri would match today’s Kimweri Avenue?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...!

Subject	{SPAM 05.4} [Tanzania_ms-mail.dk] LAST INHERITANCE NOTIFICATION!!!

LAST INHERITANCE NOTIFICATION!!!

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of  Late Engr.Juriaan Kugger. I once again try to notify you as my earlier letter were returned undelivered. I wish to notify you that late Engr. Juriaan Kugger made you a beneficiary to his WILL.

He left the sum of Thirty Million,One Hundred Thousand Dollars (USD$30, 100.000.00) to you in the Codicil and last testament to his WILL. This may sound strange and unbelievable to you, but it is real and true. Being a widely traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous friends abroad who wished you good. Engr. Juriaan  Kugger until his death was a member of the Helicopter Society and the Institute of Electronic & Electrical Engineers. Please if I reach you as I am hopeful, endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me conclude my job.

You are advice to contact me with my personal email:

barr_andfraser_esq@live.co.uk

Await your prompt response.

Yours in Service,

BARRISTER ANDREAW FRASER ESQ.

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS: Barrister Aidan Walsh., Markus Wolfgang, Mr. John Marvey Esq.,
Mr. Jerry Smith Esq.

Yep, it surely does sound unbelievable to me.

Kisutu: The Barghashia Hat. Handmade

  Back then, a million years ago, I studied embrodery for four months in Copenhagen, and later after four years in Teachers' Training College I graduated as a teacher of Arts (and English). I know my way round stiching, and back then I thought I was going seriously into art & craft. Not the development business.

The handmade Barghashia hat on sale in Kisutu costs 25,000 TSH. Today, I got it down to 20, and am now, in fact,  left with a bad taste in my mouth. I always bargain as a principle. I always ask for second price. 25,000 is a lot of money in this place.

However, in some cases it is not okay to bargain. That is when things are handmade and of good quality. I truly think this should be honoured, in particularly in a place which is flushed with cheap Chinese crap and where time spend on labour isn't valued.

Hence, apologies to the man in the photo, the advice is put forward.

Bongo is amazing. It gives me an excellent excuse to listen to music I would be condemned for in Denmark

 
I can't blame the Tanzanians for occasionally having trouble sussing out the wazungu.

The most frequently offered CDs in the streets of Bongo these days are (- and please sit down);

• Westlife
• Ronan Keating
• Phil Collins
• Backstreet Boys
• Kenny Rogers
• Dolly Parton 
• Shakira

Bongo is amazing. It gives me an excellent excuse to listen to music I would be condemned for in Denmark.

Living abroad opens your mind in ways I never imagined.
 

Come on. This is too much (as my Italian friend would say)

For my sisters in batik

Afro Supplies: Please, don't run out!

 

Polygamy. From a Scandinavian woman's point of view

Today, I discussed polygamy over coffee with a Kenyan guy.

 

Simply, as if we were discussing who would be the next Kenyan president.

 

In fact, this is one of my favorite subjects, mainly because it seems to be rather popular, and because I don't often get a chance to hear people's honest opinions without a lot of giggling.

 

A bit to my surprise, the Kenyan honestly promoted the concept, and explained thoroughly his own contemplations in this regard.

 

It has lately been a hot issue in Kenya, where a draft marriage bill has been heavily debated. The Kenyan President Kibaki has been accused of being married to more than one wife; and South African Jacob Zuma is overtly and proudly promoting it. The  informal polygami, nyumba ndogo, is also a rather well known concept in Tanzania.

 

Having that in mind, I suddenly heard myself say; 'I think we're all polygamous deep down, but Christianity fucked it up and socialised us into monogamists.'

 

The Kenyan lifted an eyebrow, and added 'in Kenya even wazungu women do it and are happy with it.' Then followed a curious observation that apparently it works better and you get less jealousy if you mix your wives so that they come from different tribes.

 

The funny thing is that I can follow the logic fine. And I do respect the man's choice and honesty. Whatever he does, is his business. For me, people must live the life they prefer.

 

I rambled on and on till he asked me the existential question of the day: 'Do you think you could do it?'

 

Even though I personally believe that people aren't originally made for one person only, but that we fit in along the rules of our given society, I doubt I'd be a good deal in an African polygamic marriage in the long run.

 

Maybe as a short term anthropological experiment, but I guess that undermines the idea of the marriage from my side.

 

In opposition to the Kenyan guy, I namely see it from a woman's point.

 

And from a woman's point the draft marriage bill in Kenya, or for that matter the present Tanzanian legislation on polygamy, only favour men.

 

'But how can anyone imagine a woman married with more than one man?', you might ask.

 

The Kenyan did.

 

I'm sure most women would prefer monogamous marriages to acquire importance with their husbands, sometimes they just don't have the choice. (I don't even wanna mention the fact that it has occurred previously on the continent that certain tribes have allowed women to have more than one man at the same time.)

 

It is irrelevant when you see how a majority of men run on a conviction that they are first priority from presidency to the bedroom. It is so inbuild in this society that men are the ones with the choices.

 

I'm sorry, but this is probably the biggest turn-off from a Scandinavian woman's point of view - and the lack of imagination.

Why doesn't anyone call me...?

 

Cultural Events around DarEsSalaam

28th Art Festival in Bagamoyo
Ending this Saturday. (As usual badly advertised)

Check it out here, you can still make it tomorrow

Visa2Dance in Dar Es Salaam
Venue: Diamond Jubilee VIP Hall, Upanga.
Dates: Thursday 8 October, Friday 9 0ctober and Saturday 10 October 2009 from 7.30-9.30pm and Sunday 11 October 2009: 4-6pm.
Tickets: Available at the entrance or in advance from 28 September at Alliance Francaise and Goethe Institut.
Prices: 6,000 tzs; students and persons under 26 year 2,000 tzs.

Programme here.

European Film Festival - 31 films from 14 European countries
Time: 16 – 29 October 2009
Venue: New World Cinema, Mwenge, Dar es Salaam
Entrance: Free

Programme here.

Breaking the rules of gravity: Fun in a hammock

Flashback: The Perfect Roadtrip (except for the bananas)

 

It's Sunday in the middle of August. Mikindani at sunset.

Getting people out of bed. Smoking the first cigarette. Drinking coffee. Getting the Hardbody packed. More coffee (knowing it will mean an early pee break for the four women). Stuffing four passengers in and all their stuff on the load. Getting going. 10 hours ahead of us.

The 60 kilometres of red road appear to be less bad on the way out. Possibly because we invent this game where you have to guess someone who played a (funny, remarkable) role on this road trip. We play loud music, sing and make many stops to pee, smoke cigarettes and joke about whatever can make the trip appear shorter.

I took the above photo of Justine, and I told her she looked like a lost European rock star on a mission in Africa; 'Eh, tell me, where are those starving children, I'm gonna dedicate my next album to?'

Somewhere around 65 kilometres before Dar Es Salaam I almost lost my energy, partly my temper. The petrol station reported no more diesel. And my passengers began buying bananas.

It is the worst thing I know. Bananas, especially inside a car.

So, now I am this person with a remarkably, funny limit: Bananas.

Guess, that's what happens on road trips.

If you drive far enough, you can't hide.