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?
