:: louder than swahili

South Africa: What is football really about?

Today I spent the day in Soweto, most of the time at Tshebedisano Primary School in Pimville, where the NGO Grassroot Soccer has arranged a week full of football and education on HIV/AIDS for about 100 pupils.

The daily programme is mixed between educational sessions and soccer matches.The children were told the rules for the soccer matches; That it is not only about the goals you score, it also is about team spirit - basically about how much cheering, dancing and singing you can come up with on the sideline.

I couldn't help thinking that that is what life is exactly about, that this is what should apply to the politicians ruling the world (but that most of us forget it when we enter our offices).These children did not. I didn't come across one sulky teenager. In stead you had children listening and asking questions when their Skillz Coaches shared their own personal experience with HIV/AIDS. And then you had children going absolutely crazy cheering, dancing and singing while supporting their team. Take away the vuvuzela, you'll still get noise for the 2010.

And that is how it should be.

Yesterday I was again reminded how capitalism runs this continent.

Everybody talks about fottball and the 2010. South Africans want to want the football, too.

But who can afford the tickets?

What national football team will be cuddling up in comfortable Knysna - flying in and out for the games, never getting in touch with how the majority of the South Africans live? (The Danes, of course)

Who will make money on the visitors' fear of South Africa?

I asked one of the girls at the school what she thought 2010 would bring on for South Africa, and she looked at me and said: Honestly?! I really don't know.

To some the answers come easier. People explain that the infrastructure (around the bigger cities) will improve; to others it is about image and pride. During the draw in Cape Town on Saturday Jacob Zuma held the trophy and said it is going to stay in Africa after the cup. That might be wishfull thinking, but it is a huge thing that probably the most football crazy continent finally get to host a world cup. But it is also a challenge when you see the distance between the expectations from the national teams to what is Africa on the ground.

In Johannesburg

I'm in Johannesburg for the next two weeks, visiting friends, but also working on a set of articles and photography for a Danish youth magazine dealing with South African youth and the upcoming 2010 FIFA world cup.

I find it rather ironic that for the past four and a half years I have been cruising many kilometres along and across the Ugandan border to Southern Sudan, in an out of Nairobi and to far corners of Tanzania - rather carefreely - now I have to think in order to go a trip to Soweto.

South Africa is no way as easy as East Africa in this regard. More about this experience later.

Afrika Kaskazini. Nakwenda. Kesho

Dresscode: kikoi, konyagi and malapa. It's all you need.

The upcoming festivious season is an event I and some friends have spent many hours debating.

 

Where others leave Bongo for Christmas and New Year, we stay. The IST is closed (and no kids have to be driven to school in a landcruiser), which means lovely less traffic, fewer wazungu hanging out in Dar, and less crowds on the beaches.

 

However, the seasonal festivities have also proven to be a logistical challenge when friends and families are coming in and out of Bongo on very different dates, bringing with them different budgets and colourful expectations.

 

Add to that that I'm leaving Dar on Thursday for South Africa, only returning four days before I am (ambitiously) planning to host a Christmas Party (fortunately not a regular Danish one, as my mother would have dictated).

 

Friends are arriving from next week on. My Icelandic family after Christmas.

 

And it just feels so good. The party ambiance is already radiating on line.

 

A friend arriving from Denmark next week asks what to bring:

 

What is the dress code for Xmas and NY... Do I need them stilettos?

The answer is:

 

yes... you have two options actually:

a) stilettos, gala dress, and a bottle of konyagi

b) flip flops, kikoy, and a bottle of konyagi

 

I promise you, it'll be good.

Selfportrait

'you'll never see the end of the road by your travelling with me...'

Dusty scenery driving back from the Kim Beach to Kigamboni late yesterday afternoon.

The life of an mzungu (a not so typical one)

The life of a mzungu in Dar es Salaam is a challenging one:

What moustache and what sun glasses to wear today?

To put the fan on 3 or 4 or 5?

So many kali cigarettes to be smoken.

This mzungu is not a classical one, I can assure that, this one even has one thing in common with Bi Kidudde.

Climate Change: Acclimatize today!

In Denmark Tine Aurvig-Huggenberger, chief of public affairs in Prime Time Communications, a while ago used the term 'climate fucked'.

And the media flipped.

I do understand her, and find her arguments completely in place. The past week I have myself had an overdose of climate correct words. I am not the only one - when I posted my climate nausea (klimakvalme) on Facebook, I instantly got supportive comments in return.

However, I realised that my problem here in Tanzania is different from the ones of my Danish friends. Here I'm not being told to perform a long line of political correct things; I drive many kilometres in a Nissan Hardbody and I work in an office with aircondition, and nobody winks an eye.

I'm on the other hand being menthally challenged by the rethorics of the international climate change agenda, which I think have taken over the whole picture. The NGO I work for has surely gone overboard, too, and have so far been operating with a new range of climate related words; climate agents, climate campaign coordinator assistants, climate solitaire, climate debt, climate diploma, climate scoundrels, climate heroes etc.

It is as if it is all about adding the prefix 'climate' to something, and then people will listen. But what if you overdo it? I agree with the blogger here that this kind of campaigning is targeting the lowest denomitator, thus recquiring little from the receiver in terms of really understanding what this is about.

It is not new, and the Tanzanians have also becoming rather good at it. For a while climate has been integrated as the new buzz word in all important agendas. Kikwete says it and last week even Mama Nyerere took up the climate agenda, too.

I am blogging for the NGO I work for on climate change here, and I am desperately looking for links between the meeting in Copenhagen and the ground: What are all the climate words really about when it comes to a Tanzanian village?

I still don't know for certain. Climate change is complicated. And so far I'm stuck with the idea that for many of the NGOs and governments in both developed and developing countries it is very much about publicity, funds raised, donations gained - and then there'll be climate change.

Or..?!

Surely someone needs to acclimatisize soon, as the Tanzanian Kilimanjaro beer slogan suggests. Follow our blog here, and do not shy away from letting me know what you think!

I ask: Does revolutionaries read UN protocols?

'President Jakaya Kikwete wants the United Nations to officially adopt a protocol banning military coups in Africa.'

What exactly did I miss here? I thought the whole point of being a revolutionista is that you don't read UN resolutions? 

Lakini, while we are at it, I think we should take it further and suggest more official UN protocols. For instance:

Climate change now; wars should stop; poverty must end sasa hivi; albino killings gives Tanzania a bad image; traffic accidents kill people; gender based violence is not good for families; mob justice is a mess; traffic jams make blood pressure go up; low tide (especially at Selander Bridge) makes Dar es Salaam stink, and high tide just looks nicer; corruption make the wazungu sleepless; kito kidogo is too much;  you cannot wear malapa if you don't lift your feet; bascially we must decrease uswahili behaviour (a friend of mine is already working on that protocol); we must tell wazungu males, who live in the illusion that they work for change in Africa, to get real; that fax machines belong in the 80ties; and that education should be free (really free)....

Now I'm all exhausted.

Alfred Mutua, what do you say?

Not a week in Bongoland without:

• a Very-Important-Person disguised in a long line of black, flashy cars with rotating blue lights bringing all traffic to a halt (think it was Kikwete this morning on Ocean Road);
• a newspaper writing about a corruption investigation case in process (looking forward to when the papers eventually write about cases solved, big potatoes behind bars); 
• a newspaper copying photos in low resolution from the Internet;
• a miss Earth/Air/Ilala/Korosho/you-don’t-need-a-brain competition;
• mob justice; 
• high tide & low tide;
• power cuts;
• traffic jams;
• accidents;
• people asking for money;
• a presidential plea for international aid/ deal with the Chinese/ trip overseas;
• a mobile phone company splashing pink/green/blue paint on the walls of innocent house facades/ adding another billboard on Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road so that the people of Bongo have something nice to look at while stuck in traffic;
• another funny quote from a representative from the Tanzanian civil society related to posho, sitting allowance or interpretation of the theory of where money originates from;
• another newspaper documenting a VIP mzungu shaking hands with a government official;
• another week ahead.

Hata mimi!! My photos are published in a South African photo magazine

I've gone very serious and adult. Am very happy.

Dowload the Photo Comment Magazine here.

Come to Africa. The road is yours. Go. Go. Go.

While we're at interpretating Tanzanian road signs. Occasionally, on my long safaris, I end up taking them rather personal.

As if they are talking back to me. This one says it all:

Cut the crap.

Stop beating around the bush.

Just go.

The road is at your feet.

Use the opportunities given.

Explore.

Come to Africa.

And don't leave yet, there are still roads you haven't taken.

Go. Go. Go.

Meet the natives (they might be gone before you know of it)

Maybe you remember this article by Alex Renton which was published on September 6 2009 in the Observer?

Within this article Alex Renton interviewed the manager, Liz McKee, from Thomson Safaris, which later has changed name to the slightly different Thomson Family Adventures. The company is on their website offering an active family’s dream come true and meeting the native Tanzanians. 

That is if there is still any natives left, I'm noting.

The Loliondo saga which makes up an essential part of Renton's article, is namely still cooking with fresh details.

Later in September the Danish Ambassador, Bjarne H. Sørensen, formally handed over 15 years of Danish support to the Maasai as part of the ERETO celebrations, but it was overshadowed by recent events that have seen the pastoralists being forcefully evicted from their homes, and their bomas burned down. ERETO has assisted in supplying water, animal health-care, restocking livestock, women’s economic groups and HIV/AIDS awareness, also in Loliondo. 

Afterwards the topic heated up the Ubunge in Dodoma, the Tanzanian parliament, as referred to here on November 7.

Back to the Thomson Family Adventures. The company still uses the term 'natives', which I find rather curious, taking into consideration that the term in British post-colonial context is considered patronising. 

In this case, in particular, as the natives here are reduced to a bunch of colorful Maasai expected to live up to the tourists' stereotypical ideas of natives - and then stay off the land of the safari company (according to Renton's article).

I think we all go to Africa with some sort of wish to have our stereotypes confirmed.

However, my annual income has so far prevented me from getting that done at Thompson's. Vanity and pride might be other reasons. Conscience, too.

It simply makes me feel like an idiot if I have to pay for engaging in a meeting with the population facilitated by a safari company who try to pretend they are philantropists.

It is as simple as that.

Arranging paid meetings like this make people stay with their stereotypes; It makes the natives believe that all wazungu are rich, while the wazungu believe that all the Maasai are poor people in need.

Last week I went along with the natives - the cheap way - and not that far from the Ngorongoro. I travelled with the natives to Kiserian and Moirowa villages (photo).  Poor, yes. But also strong and resourceful people.

Natives all over, too, in the Lion Guest House in Namanga on the border to Kenya, in fact very few wazungu - and that costed only 5,000 TSH for a room, and I even got to see a lot of natives only dressed in towels when we shared the communal bathing facilities!

If you want my opinion on the colourfull variety of wazungu who think they contribute to change in Africa, while making money, read here. Again, this is not rocket science, this is only another example of capitalism mixed with arrogance.

Female wazungu in flock

Occasionally I have to go to the international clinic in Masaki on the peninsula in Dar es Salaam. Some weeks ago, after having returned from a 10 hours' drive, I urgently needed a cure, which would make an infernal mix of stomach cramps, exhaustion and back pain go away.

 

Two women of my tribe enter the waiting room, accompanied by their children, who also make up the reason for their visit. They occupy a line of chairs, and start talking while they make bland gestures, and communicate at the top of their voices in their native tongue.

 

Exchange greetings, and exchange information as was it habitual commodities. As if they are the only ones in the room. They use irony, and joke with the facts that their children are not dying this time, that it is not that serious.

 

The talk goes on.

 

Aimlessly to the indifferent.

 

Woman A: How are you spending the coming holidays?

Woman B: Oh, I tried calling the X, but everything is booked. One really needs to get away sometimes.

Woman A (nods convincingly, expressing her sincere agreement): We really should get together one of these days. Go somewhere. Bring the children.

 

I start shrinking.

 

Not only by the thought of bringing a lot of children to one place, but about the whole idea of being caught in the midst of a flock of female wazungu slowly running out of commodities to exchange. Females, whose men's choice of careers have turned their families into modern versions of hunters and gatherers.

 

Not that I wouldn't envy - on occasion - the benefits of a man providing, but when I do, I do so for a wide range of obscure reasons. Not that I put all the female wazungu spouses in one box - far from - but when I meet them in flock in Masaki, I imagine the diluted conversations pending.

 

All in spite, I admit, I am a female mzungu myself - one who does know the directions to the Yacht Club; the best kanga designer/tailor in town; where to buy the best German homebaked bread; where to go for sushi; and a lot of other supposedly valuable commodities for a classic Dar es Salaam female, wazungu exchange of information.

 

Here a female mzungu can not only afford the international clinic, lakini, also the irony and the jokes which distances us to the majority of the people. When I lived in northern Uganda it was not unusual that I had to give someone a lift to a clinic, and that morning in the Dar es Salaam clinic it struck me that in Uganda I lived and worked closer to the Ugandans to ever joke about the fact that a child wouldn’t be dying today. 

 

The female wazungu operating in flock make me feel like I'm 16 years old again and back in high school spending too much time figuring out why I am not part of what appears to be the group of girls the boys are interested in. 22 years later, I know that that was a waste of time, and that I definitely don't belong among the wazungu females who isolate themselves in a bourgois life style far off the kelele.

Nothing like instant 'Africafe' (before 200 km on dusty roads)

Today I woke up in Namanga on the border to Kenya. The morning rain wet the dust, and messed up the front screen of the car, which was covered in a fine layer of red dust from the night before. Soon me, too. When you take off from Namanga, you have a great landscape ahead: Kilimanjaro, Meru and Longido. Later, when we drove into the bush, again the peak of Ol Doinyo Lengai.Quite a few of the people interested in 'my' job as communication adviser ask me;

How much do you travel and how much time do you spend outside the office every month?

I answer: as much as possible.

Probably not a very useful answer (if you like the idea of staying a lot in the office), lakini, true. In general in Africa, I see an increasing tendency to cluster expats in the bigger cities and tie them to desks. This is certainly the case of the NGO I work for, which in my opinion now is putting a greater focus on its programme and overall objectives in favour of the smaller civil society organisations we work in partnership with (and which often reside at the end of a dust road in rural Tanzania).

Moreover, it is a fact, that it is difficult to place European expats in rural areas because of the lack of amenities. It is also a common joke between local organisations that sooner or later one of their donors will be ask them to arrange to fly them in to places where there are no airstrips. We laugh when we imagine how the wazungu think they can get from Dar es Salaam to Kiteto to Arusha in only 5 days. Even me, I once had someone requesting me to pick someone up at the border between Tanzania and Uganda, and then take them to Iringa. (I told them I liked to drive, but doubted the visitors would like it as much as me, when they eventually got to look at a map of East Africa). 

However, in times with wide network coverage, mobile Internet modems, Nissan Hardbodies and the majority of the African population living in the rural areas, the only thing which makes sense, is to get out there.

I love having my base in Dar es Salaam, but I am not a writer of fiction.

Besides, this is what Africa is made of.

I love my job: Kilimanjaro, Meru, Longido and Ol Doinyo Lengai in ONE day

I have been happily cruising Tanzania this week – from Dar es Salaam to Tanga to Moshi to Arusha.

This morning I set off from Usa River at the foot of Mount Meru, drove towards Longido (photo above) about 75 km from Arusha and 30 km from the border to Kenya, then off into the bush towards Kiserian Village.

At a certain point during this drive, and on clear days, you can see the mountains of Kilimanjaro, Meru, Longido and Ol Doinyo Lengai.

All the sacred mountains in one go.

I went to Kiserian with two guests from MS ActionAid Denmark and our partner organisation CORDS to visit places where MS ActionAid Denmark supports work on land rights. The guests won their trip to Tanzania in a campaign competition, and this week I am the tour guide. So far, a rather pleasant task. Mainly because I get to go out and meet the wamaasai, and because I get to go through the most magic landscapes of Africa, while I do my job.

Obviously everything got delayed, political heated discussions in the morning in the office over the land issue in Ngorongoro (more about that in a seperate post); people needed lifti, and I ended up driving the last half hour to Namanga cloaked in black, African darkness, blinded by truck headlights, making me inhale 3 kg of African dust which I have now washed down the drains of the Lion Guesthouse on the border to Kenya.

Lakini. This kind of work makes me feel alive.

Personally, I think selected Scandinavian women should have a prize for not freaking out under these circumstances. Or it should be evident what it means when I put the achievement on my CV.

Apropos, jobs:

'My' job is now posted. I do hope who ever gets it, will appreciate getting out of the office working with the wamaasai as much as I do (while I get my head adjusted for leaving it). On days like this it feels like the hardest decision I am making - to return home to Copenhagen.

Lakini. There is a first & last for everything as the hotel on the border between Tanzania and Kenya so rightly puts it.

Tanga: It's Kili Time. Make the most it!

  Another lazy afternoon in Tanga. When Tanzania is good, it is exceptionally good.

 

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

   

Photography: Quick snaps from Morogoro

 

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.'

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.
 

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.

Swahili biltong...?

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

 

 

Sunday: Kigamboni/Kisutu/Kariakoo

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.

Watch me!

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

Quote: The Tanzanians

 

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.

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.

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).

Facing my fear of dancing in African bars

Friday night I went with a group of people to an open air bar in the centre of Dar Es Salaam, right opposite the famous nightclub Bilicana (photo above).

One thing on this continent freaks me out on occasion, especially if I am too conscious about my own role in it:

Dancing in bars.

I'm not a teenager any longer, but I probably go out with a higher frequency, and have been to more parties in places with exoctic African names like Juba, Yei, Kajo Keji, Moyo, Arua, Adjumani, Kampala, Harare, Johannesburg, Durban, Mbabane, Arusha, Mhingo, Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam and Stone Town, than the average female Dane my age.

In fact, it ought to show on my CV.

However, I can't claim that I get the rules (if there are any); and I feel like the worst dancer next to the overconfident average African who appear to have been practising daily since birth. People who don't give a thing about my Scandinavian inhibitions, and believe me (unless I've had a lot of Konyagi) I face them all when I'm on a dancefloor in Africa.

In Europe each person is granted a personal space, which practically means that other people keep a distance, they don't stare concentratedly or start touching you, unless you have established a relation. That phenomenon is practised way differently here, and in a bar after midnight it is as if it doesn't exist at all. Additionally, in Europe you'd do your best to hide your hips, ass and belly. Here it is all part of the game (which is the part I really do like). In Europe, conventionally, you dance in couples or in a group with people you know. Here anybody can take the space next to you. In Europe I'm used to establish contact via conversation, here it goes through the eyes, or direct touching.

I simply can't overcome the fact, that I feel so invaded when a guy, I have never ever met, shows up next to me; smiles; lays his hands on my hips. As if that is the most normal thing to do.

Dancing in bars in Africa makes me feel part of an anthropological experiment.

Maybe I am?

Where do you get your best ideas?

I've just completed editing a 70 pages long document which can be counted among the most boring pieces of paper I've ever had my hands on.

I'd rather drive 10 hours, than doing it again (unless I get paid specifically to do it).

Two Fridays ago I did drive 10 hours on a Thurday, and was out of my office and in Mtwara on the Friday. While sorting my photos from this trip, it appeared to me that this is so much more the real thing: Serene, blue sky, people wearing nothing but basics, simple food from the ocean next door and direct contact to the soil.

I've been trying to find time for the Economist' Thinking Space, answering the question on where I get my ideas. A lot of people have used their desk/office as the case illustrating their source of inspiration.

I ask myself why?

Because that's what you do in Europe? Get ideas in your office? Are European office environments so much more stimulating than mine (which on occasion is a little conservative in comparison to the European offices I've been around, I must admit)? My office here in Dar Es Salaam from the inside resembles a European one if I shut my ears ears and turn on the air condition. This is the space where I process, not the place I get my best ideas.

For that I have to be out there. So, every week I grant myself a trip into Kariakoo or to Kisutu to find the perfect kanga; a dinner at the Badminton Institute to eat kachori and check out the wonderfull appearance of men experimenting with black hair dye. These places out there are exactly what good ideas are made of.

I don't know what I'd do back in Europe.

Kariakoo: Tanzania's Pulse

You thought the centre of this nation was the Bunge in Dodoma. At least that was the intention when the Mwalimu tried to reorganise this nation which had already had the Germans messing round with their indecisive ideas of German East African capitals.

Lakini, the heart beats at its fastest in Kariakoo, the central part of Dar Es Salaam.

Here all goes in, and eventually out.

Swahili, Pemba and Sikukuu Streets flow like main arteries, circulating blood to and from the heart which takes the material shape of a concrete piece of East European architectural style: The Kariakoo Market.

The streets are overflowing with people of all varieties. Few of my kind, the wazungu, but otherwise here you probably find the greatest tribal vairety in one spot.

Along with all that your heart desires in terms of East Africa anno 2009.

In fact, to me this is better than IKEA. Here are things I did not even know existed; which cannot be catalogued or googled; or which will never find their way into a website from where you can order it on-line from your home.

You have to go there. And if you can't go bara ya Afrika, go to Kariakoo.

Inhale the smell of freshly cracked coconuts, spices and oranges; body odour mixed with diesel, decaying rubbish and greasy oil fumes from someone's half eaten chips mayai. Mind your steps; watch the traffic and the people dragging heavy-loaded carts; You're nothing but in the way. Step aside; take in the colours of fresh green pepper landed from Morogoro; or have a cup of coffee from the street instant coffee maker.

The Tanzanians say 'Kariakoo' when you ask them:

• What does the K/KOO on the daladalas mean?
• Where can I find a cheap hotel?
• Whats the Tanzanian equivalent to Owino Market in Kampala?
• Where are you going after work?
• Where did you get this and that?
• Where do you buy your seeds, your fertilizer and your panga?
• Where can I buy Congo-style trousers?
• Where did you buy those fancy, spiky shoes?
• Where can I get a one-size-fits-all kitenge dress? Or a niqab, a kanga or some decent kitenge?
• Or where are all the Chinese during daytime?

Kariakoo is the answer to many questions.

Possibly also the root of many troubles. In fact, Kariakoo is the material the best excuses are made of: 'Sorry, I'm late - I just came from Kariakoo.' Or 'Oh, yes, my sidemirrors were stolen in Kariakoo.'

Kariakoo was back in history a small village which the slave traders raided; then the German carrier corps resided in the area, and gave name to the place via a corrupted translation of 'Carrier Corps'. Carrier = Karia, and Corps = koo.

Ryszard Kapuściński wrote about his experiences in Kariakoo in his book Ebony. And when Aidan Hartley was a stringer in the 90ties in Dar Es Salaam, I'm sure Kariakoo played a part, too. To me, for sure, the heart of Dar Es Salaam is an endless source of inspiration.

Source: Wikipedia

Zanzibar: The first meal of the Ramadhan

Saturday was the first day of the Ramadhan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar where the Muslims fast, initially in order to concentrate on reaching a higher degree of patience, modesty and spirituality. Amongst others. In Dar Es Salaam, a Muslim friend of mine is hoping that the Ramadhan might help him combat his smoking habit.

In Stone Town during this period of time a lot of restaurants close at day time, and you are advised not to eat or drink in the street when others are going through the hardship of fasting. At 18.32 yesterday, the fast was broken, and eating was allowed. I know for certain, as yesterday evening I was sitting in the car of Isidori with his cousin brother, Hamisi, and our common Italian friend, Simona. We were stopping to buy passion juice in a little duka at the outskirts of Stone Town on the way to Isidori’s home where dinner awaited us, when we heard the call for the fourth prayer of the day, Maghrib.

Obviously, I feel lucky to be invited inside, to someone’s home. Possibly also due to the fact that I’m Danish. I come from this country in Scandinavia which previously and rather randomly has offended Islam, its culture and its people on several occasions. Most infamously, probably, through the publication of the cartoons, however, less known are all the indirect ways the Danish politicians try to distance Danes as a nation from other cultures and religions which, according to our democratically elected politicians, appear strange.

I’m not proud of it. In fact, it makes me both angry and ashamed every time I have to read in a Danish newspaper that another Danish politician tries to define what is strange and ‘non-Danish’. Last week the Conservative People’s Party suggested banning women wearing the bhurka, (un)aware that possibly only 50-150 women wear the bhurka in Denmark (!)

I do understand the dynamics which occur in your head, when you find yourself in a culture which works completely differently than the one you grew up with, and that this can evoke a certain degree of confusion and fear. But I can’t watch silently when politicians use this fear and confusion to create unnecessary stir, when the politicians move people’s attention from the real problems, or when no proper research is being done.

Last night back in Stone Town on the island of Unguja we celebrated the first meal of the Ramadhan with a Zanzibari family. Not a traditional family, but food wise we certainly went along the classical Zanzibar dishes: We had mhugo wa nasi (cassava with coconut); mwali wa nasi (rice with coconut); pweza wa nasi (octopus with coconut), jodari (tuna) and kaimati (small, sweet and spiced donuts).

And of course, the passion jusi. ‘No beers’, our host smiled and apologised rethorically.

After all, this is the Ramadhan, the holy month, and in spite we deal with young Muslims who declare themselves 'happy muslims', who don't go to the mosque to pray five times, and who refer to their Ramadhan practice with a 'nusu nusu' (half half), they do fast during day time. In my opinion and in regard of the few young Muslims I know, I reckon that trying to do your best to follow the concept of the Ramadhan is in fact not such a bad idea. Researching for this blog post, I read that there is an increasing group on non-Muslims practising fasting, too, during the Ramadhan, pursuing the same aim. 

But to be honest, I have no clear, conceptual idea of a good way to get familiar with a new culture which on many levels is far off your own. I was raised in a home where at least one adult throughout life has been voting for the Conservative People's Party and the other for the Liberals ('Venstre' in Danish), but I was also taught to behave politely towards strangers, say 'yes' and 'thank you very much' when offered something, and to greet people with respect. I know for sure that the adults raising me with these values had no idea - what so ever - that I'd be practising these in Zanzibar.

However, I know that there is a lot to learn by observing how others go about it. The majority of wazungu hang out in the regular tourist places, and so would I have done last night, if not for my Italian companion, Simona, who is so much better than me about this. Curiousity is another good thing - apropos trying to figuring out the differences of another culture - my sympathy goes to this guy. Curiousity is probably my main strenght in this perspective.

Our evening ended at the Forodhani Gardens (photo above), which has been renovated with the support from the Aga Khan Foundation, and has finally given Stone Town back its vibe. Zanzibarians were munching food, sugar cane juice and smoking cigarettes. According to the rules of the Ramadhan you must get up before dawn to eat Sahur, the pre-dawn meal, and then perform the fajr prayer. There is no eating or drinking before the call for prayer starts until the fourth prayer of the day, Maghrib. You may continue to eat and drink after the sun has set until the next morning's fajr prayer call.

Basically, it is about getting a routine going and planning. For some people, I guess, it turns day and night around, and probably lowers work efforts in some offices. The Ramadhan is ending at September 19th, and will be marked with an important celebration; Eid Ul-Fitr.

Now, my question is; Who's gonna invite me for this?

Read more about the Ramadhan here, which has also been used as the source for the Ramadhan facts in this blog post.
 

I tell you; Things are relative!

I’m trying to tell people this. But some don’t listen and some they don’t read.

But listen, things are very relative here in Tanzania.

Every week I get questions from people who are planning to move to or travel in Tanzania. A lot have taken their time to read what I or others have already written, and they ask qualified and substantial questions, which I do enjoy to give feedback to.

Others don’t.

The funny thing is that the majority of these have found my blog via www.expat-blog.com and InterNations, and maybe that explains. That people first and foremost see themselves as expats. Both forums are communicating intensively to its members trying to make them 'ambassadors' and 'guides', either by writing articles and guides to the respective country one is an expat in (for free, obviously, while they scoop the advertising fees.)

Let me emphasise, that I do not mind giving advice to people who have taken their time to do a little research, write more than one sentence and who comprise a greeting and an introduction. But I do not wanna spend my time writing travel and country analysises for free, and it is honestly a waste of time, when people ask me questions like these:

• Is it expensive living in Dar Es Salaam?

Dar Es Salaam is a relatively pricy affair if you crave a 4-bedroom house with a sea view and swimming pool (2500-3500$ per month), easy access to the International School and the Yacht Club, organic Muesli, Danish rye bread, Norwegian salmon and French red wine. On the other hand, it depends on your income and expectation, right?!

• What is the best place to live in Dar Es Salaam?

The wazungu who have jobs in the diplomacy and higher end of the international NGO sector tend to cluster in the Peninsula along with the richer part of the Tanzanian population (if you are keen on my opinion in this regard, read it here). The middle-class Tanzanian and mzungu, like me, tend to live in the northern suburbs like Ada or Regent Estate, Mbezi and Mikocheni (and many other places) The inhabitants of Indian/Arabic origin tend to populate Upanga and central Dar Es Salaam. The poorest part of the population live in the far outskirts of town, in crowded settlements where security, access to water, electricity and proper sewage is a daily problem. Personally, if I were to choose my own place, I'd probably consider Upanga or Kigamboni.

• What does it take to get a job in Tanzania?

I really don't know how to answer that. It all depends on you, your experience and education. And if you've got that right, you most certainly wouldn't ask me that question. You'd rephrase it, explain a bit more about yourself etc. I usually answer back to the latter what I did, but that there happens to be thousands ways of doing it.

• Is it safe?

Again depends on your own gut feeling. On where you lived before. On your own limitations. I managed 26 months along and across the Ugandan border to Southern Sudan, which partly explains why Dar Es Salaam to me mainly appears as a picnic, and if anyone complains about the limitations of this place I think they should take the first flight back home. Check my lists on the blog: TRAVEL, WORK AND LIVE IN AFRICA and WHAT'S UP TANZANIA.

• Best place to stay in Zanzibar?

See my list here on the blog: GOOD PLACES TO GO. I add places I've enjoyed staying in.

Finally:

There is no reason for me to google stuff, when you can do it yourself, your connection is most likely better than mine. Besides, get used to the fact that things aren’t obvious. You have to ask and do your own research, and you have to spend hours doing so. Besides, we are different - that's where the relativity again comes into the picture- and what I like, you might not.

My advice is that you turn it into an interest. It’ll make it much more fun.

The top most stupid question I have ever received was when a Danish tourist called MS Uganda’s Country Office, where I happened to be passing through, and asked:

‘Do you think that the Lord’s Resistance Army would kill someone like me?!’

I answered him politely, as I try to do in most of these cases, though it was a tough one. 

Hence, the last advice from me: Always write back and say thanks.

Photos from the MaKuYa Festival in Mtwara

 

 

More to come, but check out these photos here in the meantime.

Gone Tribal. MaKuYa Festival in Mtwara

You should have been here.

It's cheap, wild, tribal and hot.

Up-coming Safari: Travelling Dar Es Salaam to Mikindani

Tomorrow I'm driving from Dar Es Salaam to Mikindani, the second-last town before the Mozambiquan border if you go south along the coast. 

A trip which lasted 10,5 hours, the last time I went there in March 2008, including stops - and where the GPS noted an average speed of 62 km/hour and a top speed of 123 kph.

Last time I also noted that the lush, green, coconut palm tree forests outside Dar es Salaam; when the 60 kilometres of dirt road ended around Songema; and the spot just before Lindi Town where you can finally see the turquoise Indian Ocean as highlights.

See map here.

I also noted that bringing coffee and a decent lunch is a really good idea. It is a bloody long trip. Last time I also fell in love with the idea of owning a GPS, and went as far as googling the thing. But still think it's too much money*.

This time I'm travelling with a diverse group consisting of 8 people, who're going to be stuffed into 3 cars. We're staying in The 10 Degrees South Lodge in Mikindani, which will be our base for attending the MaKuYa festival in Mtwara, 20 minutes further down the road.

Safari njema to us. I think it is going to be quite an expedition, partly into the unknown.

Just the way it should be when you can't get enough Africa.

*Should have thought of getting a GPS sponsor and write about the places I'd take it! Is it too late?

Only in Africa...

...do I get text messages from 9500 metres in the sky.

Napenda.

Remind me again; Why am I supposed to leave this place?

Late afternoon under a blue sky in the centre of Dar Es Salaam

More here.

Chagga Bite. Read the wrong way.

' I pass this sign weekly, and I can't help reading it in all the wrong ways:

Beware, the Chagga bite!

or

'Bites made of Chagga' (as in cannibalism.)

The Chaga (also called Wachaga, Chagga, Jagga, Dschagga, Waschagga, or Wachagga) are Bantu speaking indigenous African ethnicity and the third largest ethnic group in Tanzania. They live on the southern and eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, as well as in the Moshi area. Their relative wealth comes from not only the favorable climate of the area, but also from successful agricultural methods which include extensive irrigation systems and continuous fertilization practised for thousands of years. They were one of the first tribes in the area to convert to Christianity. This may have given them an economic advantage over other ethnic groups, as they had better access to education and health care as Christians.

Photo from Kijitonyama, Old Bagamoyo Road.

Source, where you can find more information about the Chagga tribe: Wikipedia.

Photos for a Fair Trade Festival Kitchen in Copenhagen

Last Friday I made this compilation of photos for banners for the kitchen at this August's fair trade festival in Copenhagen - FAIR Fælled, organised by the NGO I work for - a task which was done in a hurry while I was in the middle of three other things and the deadline was sasa hivi. However, it belongs in the fun category, namely as these photos are amongst my favorite motives; food, people, tableaus, colour and texture.

 

It made me think about approaches - what ways we choose to put Africa on display back home. In this case, I picked photos based on a gut feeling and my personal idea of aesthetics, not paying attention to the confinement of representation in terms of geography (the districts we work within), partners or the NGO I work for. Only that it had to deal with food.

 

This is the way I prefer to go about a task, but obviously that doesn't always work. The NGO I work for normally puts 'right to access to land' up on an abstract level in its policy papers. I like to boil it down to essentials; What's there to eat? What does it look like? People might be poor, but we all party, eat, drink and put joy and energy into it. In my photos I go for close-ups of people, and intimacy when it comes to space - getting close, taking a smaller part of the bigger context to become familiar with and maybe suddenly see it from a different perspective.

 

In fact, that's how I like to go about Africa, I think.

 

The NGO I work for is usually good at appreciating this, and I am happy that they generally also choose to use my photos for other purposes than the regular way.  

 

Take a closer look at the photos (descriptions in Danish), or go to FAIR Fælled, and tell me what you think!

Karma. Do good stuff, and it multiplies back to you

I think I was way more alive yesterday than today. But I'm alive. Life's a party, and last night I gave up the high-heeled and walked barefeet. This Sunday was spent at Kipepeo Beach with good friends.

I made a New Year's Resolution to get more out of life on a personal level. I wanted to stress less in terms of my work, meaning that I didn't want to work in weekends or evenings (unless exceptional); and I didn't want work related problems, to which potential solutions I had no power of executing anyway, take up valuable space on my mental hard disc. I also wanted to spend time pursueing some creative, artistic ideas of my own. I wanted to take all travel opportunities being me granted, preferably the routes less taken. I wanted to spend more time with cool people, not waste it on whining expats who think that the traffic jam will go away if they mention it every day.

Sort of a karma thing, I believe. Do good stuff, and it multiplies back to you. The more you generate, the more you get. The more you talk about the traffic jam, the longer it takes.

Here, more than mid-way through the year, it seems to work. I have slowly started the process of the making of the coffee table photography book, something which both makes me excited and a little nervous. On Thursday I'm off to Mtwara, and I'm also planning to to go Nairobi for the Kelele Blogging Conference in October/November. Later one of my favorite Danish friends will move into my house for a couple of months while preparing a research project.

The past week I read an article in a women's magazine about life quality, and one question was to what capacity you live your life. I realised I feel like I'm living my life close to 100%. Of course, things are not perfect, probably never will be, and there is still space for improvements, things to be done, plans to be made and people to be met. Not to forget identifying my next job, pushing the balance on my bank account, and making it to the fittness centre more than once a month.

I'm in Africa and roads here are not smooth for long. On the other hand, that's the unpredicability I like.

Going to the MaKuYa Festival in Mtwara

The Mtwara region of Tanzania contains a rich and unique tradition of performing arts among the Makonde, Makua and Yao tribes. Because of Mtwara’s isolation many traditional dances have not yet been lost to modern trends, until now.

With development, radios and televisions are making their way into rural Mtwara, and many people are being drawn into current modern trends of music and fashion, abandoning their interest in traditional dance and music.

But there are some who still treasure it and wish to perform, and many village elders see the value of preserving it and wish to serve as advisors to young performers.

Check last years festival out here, from where the above text derives.

I'm off next Thursday to Mikindani and Mtwara - the road less travelled.

Had Freud been put on a daladala in Africa, I bet the psychoanalysis had looked very different

'Duni ni mapito', the streamer on the daladala says. It just passed me in one of these moves which make you doubt whether it has seen you or even cares.

Many of the texts on the daladalas have religious meanings, and a colleague of mine adviced me to translate it into 'the world is in transition (not permanent), meaning 'you will get to a better place when you come to heaven'.

I wonder why the daladalas tend to put forward these rather poetic statements when it would be way more truthfully simply to write 'I don't give a fuck, we're all going to die!'

On Saturday I returned from a 1800 kilometres drive to the Southern Highlands spread over 7 days. When I reached Ubongo, the treshold to Dar Es Salaam I found myself about to explode. This daladala in the photo didn't exactly help.

The traffic in this country is horrific, and it sort of culminates at Ubongo, increasing in both size and idiocy.

I'm sorry, Tanzanians, but I simply don't get the major part of the people whom your police has allowed behind wheels.

I drive myself, and I'm usually confident doing so though previous experience always stays at the back of my mind as a constant reminder of what traffic can do to people; People who died or got injured, body parts strewn over on a Johannesburg highway, and plenty of wrecks in ditches all over the Africa I have travelled.

When I moved to northern Uganda in June 2005 it was a bigger issue to me, than it is today. But coping with it, is not a thing I take for granted.

Questions differ when I explain that I drive on my own; from 'How do you find the way?' to 'Do you really dare driving on your own?'  The Tanzanian highways usually go straight from A to B according to the maps and without much fuss. Besides coming from 26 months along and across the Ugandan border to Southern Sudan, Tanzania appears lighter. Here are risks, but not a crazy, scattered rebel movement planning random ambushes, army checkpoints, landmines or areas where you'll need military police escort. On the other hand, the roads in Tanzania are in a better condition (amongst others thanks to the Danish government), which means you can drive faster.

In Tanzania I mainly operate with risks in the following categories:

• Other drivers: Especially of trucks and busses, who drive as if they are on LSD, or had their fear of death surgically removed. I absolutely fear and loathe this category on a primal level. They generally drive too fast; they overtake even when visibility is low; they lie behind your car and push you into unsafe positions. These drivers do not respond to common sense, but should be approached with it.

• Speed: My Nissan Hardbody can reach 180 kph. The higher speed, the higher risk. The lower the speed, the lower risk.

• Awareness: Always safety belts; lots of coffee, lots of Red Bull; many pauses (good to combine with photgraphy and short calls).

• The risk of having an accident: In particular an accident which will make me unable to look after myself, i.e. call for help or get to the hospital. It is not unthinkable in this peaceloving country to be robbed or left to die in your car. I'm just saying that I have absolutely no illusions in that regard, and that it is all about staying alive and keeping up your authority, if you get a problem. In fact, I learnt early on in northern Uganda that being a single white woman means you do need to boost your ability to make quick decisions and appear clear.

The day before I left for my trip to the Southern Highlands I had a negative experience:

At noon I drove through Oysterday from Saint Peter's Church in Dar Es Salaam, and came to the zebra crossing, where I halted my car when I saw that the children were about to cross; the children noticed it, but looked no further. In fact they often cross along the whole distance, not paying attention to the zebra crossing. I sat in my car and waited for the long line of children to cross, when a pick-up approached the zebra crossing from the opposite direction. At full speed. I was automatically assuming he'd stop, after all there are children all over the road. And me. But the freak didn't! He didn't even lower his speed, but navigated right through the line of children while the pick-up lingers from side to side. It leaves me with three seconds to imagine what will happen when his car hits mine: I thought that I probably won't die, but that I might break something and get bruises. I thought of the fact that my car stands still, and that it is constructed with a special steel frame which should minimize the risk in head on crashes. I calculated that he'll hit my most vulnerable side, my door. I thought of the cars of colleagues, left as wrecks in our compund; colleagues who have had their cars smashed, and I think that if they made it without injuries, so will I.

But he didn't hit me. Somehow the maniac managed to get his car straight and pass mine with less of a metre. It was so close. My heart went ballistic. I started to shake. Clutch, speeder, come on, go on, get out of here. And take it fucking easy. I kept thinking that this was so incredibly unnecessary, and would have been bloody unbearable had he hit the children or me for no reason, but him being an idiot.

Secondly, I get the feeling, which I also had when I experienced a similar thing on Jinja Road in Uganda back in 2006; I want to face the driver, make him understand the consequences, and then rip off his private parts with a slow panga. Rather primal, but I guess that is exactly what fear and anger is. Sometimes it seems that drivers in Africa operate at only one end of the scale; fearless. Had Freud been born put on a daladala in Africa, I bet the psycho analysis had looked very different.

I'm sure I could entertain a Danish psychotherapist for several sessions on this topic. Traffic is the thing I fear the most, and what makes me the most angry in this place. Here, everyone has experienced something similar, and they will take your story as an invitation to tell theirs before you finish. Or they will share morbid jokes. All to make a convenient distance. I do that, too.

We all want it out, and make it go away. I think we all fear that the experiences will corrupt us; make us cynical. I know, if an experience like this stays with me, I'm fucked if I still wanna drive in Africa. For me it is all about the balance of not forgetting the fear, but even it out with a realistic approach to driving. For me it works to write it out of my system.

On my way back from Njombe a traffic police officer stopped me, and asked me to give him a lift, as there had been an accident ahead. Sure. Two cars crashed head on, and people rushed to hospital. 50 bystanders watching the scene. Some two hours later on the road to Iringa I met a similar accident. And in the Baobab Valley a big truck. lying down, blocked the road.

No, I'm never getting used to the fact that life and death travels closely together on this continent.

Safari njema, the Tanzanians say. Travel safely. I wish!

(Apologies for a very long post, way too long.)

1800 KM in 7 days

I'm back in Dar Es Salaam after 1800 km in 7 days to dusty places crying for decent tarmac; where people call condoms for 'tatu bila', but still die of HIV; and where the wazungu wear two-tone shirts and call my safari boots for 'vellies'.

I need sleep. And later the breeze from the Indian Ocean.

Nothing beats Dar Es Salaam.

It feels like having sex without a condom....

...when I have to plug in the great variety of USB flashsticks in my laptop, when I cooperate with people here.

I'm so left with no choice, but that or laying down the work. And yes, give me all your good advice, but this is rural Africa, and we plug the USB sticks in whereever, forgetting the anti-virus protection, or maybe it just isn't an option, when here's no Internet.

My laptop is now suffering from a wide range of virusses popping up, while I try to kill them with a virus detection programme, slowing down my machine. I hope it doesn't die before I reach Dar Es Salaam!

Man, I'm tired of this.

Today's Best Photo: Woman with a healthy laughter

I feel absolutely on top of the world, when I come home with a photo like this. Best thing is that I have a range of them.

In spite of the fact, that I need a hot shower, power is cheating on me, I freeze (not as much as yesterday), and I long for a cold beer and the tropical climate.

After all I'm a Dar Es Salaam girl...

But for now, it can all wait, this photo is worth all the kilometres, the cold bucket showers and the people observing me repeatedly.

Yeah!

Photos: Baobab Valley and the Great Ruaha River

I have arrived from Dar Es Salaam to Iringa. Quite a drive, I must say, partly due to road works along the way. Sponsored by the Danes by the way. Almost felt proud to be Danish for a moment here today; frequent readers know how happy I am of tarmac.

It is almost two years ago I drove this distance, and I kept thinking of it as longer.

Stunning scenery, nevertheless. The drive from Mikumi along the Great Ruaha River in particular is a breathtaking experience. The river flows massively through green vegetation below reddish brown cliffs which are covered by thousands of baobabs.

Today the sun made the baobabs beam like silver lathered over the mountain sides; their branches reaching for pieces of the blue sky.

And I caught a bunch of smily bi-cyclists shouting 'mzungu' and 'picha'.

Nakwenda bara ya Africa: Off to the Southern Highlands

I have made strong coffee, fresh tangerine juice with ginger and a packed lunch, burnt soundtracks on CDs (lots of Morcheeba and obviously Johnny Clegg), found warm clothes for the Southern Highlands (which is very cold at this time of year), organised medicine, malaria test kit and a net, sorted the photo equipment, the cables, the laptop, the external harddrive and the Vodafone modem (believing I'll be online in bara ya Africa). Now trying to localise the panga for the car; up-dating my Facebook status; then off to Iringa; Sunday to Njombe.

Buying the coconuts for Njombe on the road. Life's an adventure and I'm taking a big part of it.

Follow my trip here.

Bagamoyo Wall Grafitti Poetry

No retreat

No surrender

No true love

No job

No house

No money

No girlfriend

No car

A grafitti poem on a wall in Bagamoyo.

I love it.

Don't we all know the feeling when we hit bottom:

No girlfriend.

No car.

I take it that the inspiration must have come out of trying to make a living from being an artist - and from the Civic United Front slogans...

Swahili Style Obsessions

I'm obsessed with a certain motive, which for the past 10 years has repeated itself over and over again. From my time in the Balkans, Uganda and now in Tanzania.

A circular object, presenting something full of colour and texture. Preferably on a table, which adds depths to the motive.

I went to Bagamoyo today, and didn't realise till I saw my photostream that this motive must be a favorite.

These three motives are truly Swahili:

• Kahawa na kashata.

• Cashew nuts.

• Fried cassava.

Purnima Restaurant. (Yes, there's a life outside the Dar Es Salaam Yacht Club...)

A personal, favorite mantra is to hate the Dar Es Salaam Yacht Club (but not enough to stay away if invited). Basically I'm against the idea that a certain group of people can decide who else they'll allow access to its premises through procedures which are too conservative for my liking.

Besides, if you end up finally becoming a fully granted member, you have to spend every f***ing single night in the rest of your Dar Es Salaam residency life there among all the other sun-dried wazungu in order to benefit from your membership fee.

I could go on & on about this phenomenon, but it wasn't the intentional plan for this post.

I am, however,  wondering why many wazungu in Dar Es Salaam never go anywhere else, but in circles on Msasani, the most expensive area in Dar Es Salaam, also called the Peninsula. Nice area, but also such a diluted version of what Dar Es Salaam really is.

At least that's how I look upon it. Or maybe I am rendering a projection, as I don't get invited enough to the Yacht Club?

Which might be the reason I have to go other places.

Today I went to Kisutu again with some friends, who were in town looking for dresses to wear for a wedding. Somewhere around Zanaki Street and Jamhuri Street we found Purnima Restaurant, which I was told is a must. Smiling faces behind the counters, opening up and talking as soon the camera got out. A place like this has operated for decades in the same fashion.

History. And culture right at your hands.

Fascinating.

I'm only 23...

'I'm only 23,' my friend replies, while we are drinking champagne, struggling with the amount of candles on the cake at her birthday party tonight at Slipway.

'But how old are you for real?' 'one of the guests repeats the question.

'I'm only 23,' my friend repeats.

'But how old are you?,' the guest turns to me and asks.

'I'm one year younger,' I say. Which is true. I happen to know my friend's real age.

The deal here is that you always state your age younger. It is just not a question of vanity. Partly maybe. However, here the age for retirement is relatively low compared to Europe, so many Tanzanians lie themselves younger in order to keep up employment.

'And that's why I won't say my real age,' my friend explains. 'Because then they will add on to that, assuming I'm much, much older.'

Champagne on an ordinary Tuesday surely makes me feel younger. 

Today's Quote

You have to be lost in order to find a place that cannot be found.
--Capt. Barbosa (Pirates of the Carribbean)

What is it with Johnny Clegg's wife?

After a Johnny Clegg concert in Johannesburg on June 29 2008 I ecstaticly admitted that I had googled 'Johnny Clegg's wife'. No interesting results came up, though. But I realise I am not the only one. In fact, at present 'Johnny Clegg's wife' seems to be the most popular top search word leading to my blog.

Last Searches (max 25 shown)

• freshwater fish species (18 hours ago)
• johnny clegg's wife (1 day ago)
• johnny clegg's wife (1 day ago)
• obama (1 day ago)
• mzungu kichaa (2 days ago)
• obama in africa, pernille (3 days ago)
• nkoaranga (4 days ago)
• saba (5 days ago)
• johnny clegg's wife (5 days ago)
• indian, dar es salaam (5 days ago)
• johnny clegg's wife (6 days ago)
• johnny clegg's wife (7 days ago)

Apologies to Mrs. Clegg.

Today's Photo: Kanga and kahawa in Kisutu

Testng RAW and Lightroom.

On innocent people in Kisutu, Dar Es Salaam.

I really need a decent, comprehensive and professional photo course sometime soon.

And a sponsor.

When home is where you family is: At the other end of the world

These are not my photos, but I wish they were.

They are taken by my Icelandic brother-in-law's cousin, Hjalti Arnason, who lives in northern Iceland - Saudarkrokur in Skagafjordur. Hjalte is an excellent photographer, and I have just realised how much it means to know someone in the other end of the world putting daily photos of high quality on display in cyberspace.

June-July is the best period to visit Iceland, and it is way too long since I went there. Hjalti makes me miss my family in Iceland big time, but I can also see that they are well: On the two first photos my nephew, Baltasar, is playing with his friend, Hjalti's daughter. And the last photo is from the fell above Saudarkrokur looking into Skagafjordur, where my sister lives with her family.

This is what eventually will pull me off the continent. And home.

10 things to do in Dar Es Salaam...what are your favorites?

I get that question quite often. I usually know what to suggest (though a lot of people forget to explain what they expect in terms of price, interests and quality).

Most guide books tell you to skip Dar Es Salaam and go straight to your next destination. In fact, the majority of visitors to Dar Es Salaam tend to follow that advice, but if you appear to come through Dar with time to kill or if you as an expat have visitors to entertain, – or simply as me – actually like Dar Es Salaam for what it is, give it a try.

Amongst my favorites are (click):

1. Kanga shopping in Uhuru Street.

2. South Indian food at the Badminton Institute.

3. A walk from Mission Street via Mosque Street - maybe all the way down to Kariakoo.

4. Music, art performance or drinks at Dar Alive/Malaika House or the next door Cine Club.

5. Mishkaki at Jackie's on Haile Selassie

6. A visit to the National Museum and a walk round the Botanical Garden

7. Swimming in the Indian Ocean at the Southern or Northern Beaches.

8. Flying over Dar Es Salaam.

9. Exploring the colourful nightlife - from Mediterraneo, Cine Club, Dar Alive, Trinity to Level8.

10. A trip to Bongoy Island.

But there is so much more. I am about to write an article, encouraging people to check out Dar Es Salaam, in stead of rushing through.

 

If you have any favorites, you'd like to share, please do let me know.

Make the most of it. Expat Existentialism

Quite a few of the people I have got to know over the past four years living in Africa have left or are in the process of returning to Europe. I don't understand how they do it. I know it sounds irrational, and it is nothing but a completely irrational feeling: I don't understand how they can leave Africa. I do know on the rational account that contracts terminate and that some of us are tied to places in Europe due to family, friends, bank loans and work.

A final return is simply an avoidable part of the deal. My brain knows that I have to get a real job in the real world at some point down the line. That I need to reconnect with my family, that it is highly absurd that other people get to spend valuable time with my Icelandic nephew, while I am away. But the rest of me simply doesn't reconcile with the fact that Africa can be over and maybe never be again.

The last time it happened in June 2007, I left the decision to the destiny (and it worked).

I know that the returnees struggle with the return as a concept and with integration into European life. I know that I will when my turn is up. My time is in fact approaching again, and hard decisions must be made. Four years in Africa, which initially was only meant to be two years, is a long time. For the last couple of months I have made minus-and-plus lists, balanced rationality with emotions, the fantastic options I get via my job contra my personal dilemma with the development world in general.

I haven't made a clear decision yet. In stead I end up saying yes to all I can get my hands on. More trips deep inside. More dinner invitations, parties, drinks, lunches, trips to the beach, more photography, more interesting assignments, more walks into the centre of Dar Es Salaam. Squeezing out what ever possible of Africa while I am still on the continent.

I feel so extremely priviledged when friends in Denmark tell me that they are missing Africa. I congratulate myself that it isn't me.

Yet.

The Kilimanjaro Beer slogan says 'Make the most of it'. For now it feels like the only right thing to do.

Sauti za Busara 2010

Now is the week of the Danish Roskilde Festival, held every year in the first month of July. I don't do Roskilde anymore - it seems - but I'll use the opportunity to pass on a message from East Africa's friendliest music festival, Sauti za Busara:

After six successful festivals in Zanzibar, Busara Promotions urgently needs to acquire its own quality sound, lighting and stage equipment. If you have contacts for organisations that may be able to supply us with new/used equipment either by donation or at a reasonable price, do let us know. A full list of requirements can be supplied on request.

Such technical equipment is in extremely short supply in Tanzania and is a resource that can be used throughout the year to generate employment and enhance the social and cultural lives of the region, as well as to build financial sustainability for the festival.

Read more here. Busara also calls for artists and sponsors.

And finally, do read my previous blog posts from Sauti za Busara 2008 and 2009 here.

Give me your gun!

Quick snapshots from my Sunday in Ally Maua, a suburb in Dar es Salaam. According to one of my guides amongst the ones with the worst reputation in terms of crime.

I find it hard to tell, I must admit, on a lazy Sunday like this. The people I interviewed, however, had been robbed recently at night, and not just that once, but for the third time.

Dar es Salaam is a tricky place in this sense. Crime doesn't necessarily come with poverty, and it doesn't show. Moreover, local Tanzanians have a tendency, in my experience, to overstate a potential risk, in order to protect you. On the other hand many wazungu tend to take the advice too lightly, or don't listen at all. 

Nevertheless, I must say it isn't a factor I deal with on a daily basis. I know there always is a potential risk. I have seen drivers on Nyerere and Morogoro Road been robbed for jewellery and mobile phones by street thugs. But it is a rather quiet affair, and the worst thing really is when the thugs are being targeted by mob justice.

In fact, during the past four years violent crime has escalated in Copenhagen to an extent that makes me feel way more unsafe cycling home through the centre of the city at night than talking a walk - in Tanzanian company - in Ally Mavua on a Sunday afternoon.

Not the ordinary safari photos

Just for your information: I didn't kill the hyena.

But, still, quite a safari.

Blogging for Blogging Denmark: What makes me feel Danish?

I'm blogging for a relatively new initiative called Blogging Denmark, which is a sister site to Denmark.dk – Denmark’s official portal. The aim of Blogging Denmark is to create a range of commentary on Denmark and the Danes.

If you would like to blog on blogs.denmark.dk then contact editors@denmark.dk for more information.

Read my first post here, which admittedly is a write-up of several previous posts from my English and Danish blogs.

Swahili Simplicity

It doesn't take more; 3 plastic chairs, a table, a makuti roof - and the Indian Ocean.

I arrived with a friend at ten this morning to Kipepeo Camp at the Southern Beaches in Dar es Salaam, and later the makuti hut was filled with various people who make this Sunday activity perfect.   

The beach is among the best in Tanzania, much much better than the northern beaches, only problem here is getting there, as you have to cross the harbour with a ferry. A very much disputed ferry, which on occasion tends to run based on principles not obvious to me. A new rule has now been introduced: Passengers are not allowed to sit in the car while driving on board the ferry!

However, as usual, rules can be bended - a white landcruiser with 4 important-looking wazee was excempted, and went first in the line.

On the way back we rounded 56 Bhog in central Dar es Salaam for a South Indian meal. Fantastic. Fantastic to still be able to discover new stuff (20 minutes later my stomach was churning, though, but I'd do it again).

I don't think I'd ever get tired of the Swahili Coast concept. And I do know it is important not just to work your ass off 5 days a week, and do it in the weekends, too. Then I might as well be in Copenhagen. For me there has to be space for taking in what actually makes me want to get up in the morning in the long run.

We Need Ground Rules...

I'm in a workshop at White Sands, a 4 star hotel in Dar es Salaam which has made a business of catering for organisations like the one I work for.

For 3,5 days I'll be sitting in a conference room with air-condition, flouroscent lightning and carpets which tranfers static electricity when you move your metallic chair over it.

From my seat I have a straight view over the big group of participants gathered here. Also a view of the Indian Ocean embraced by green palm trees, which might eventually make me go crazy as there is glass in between.

When we started out yesterday someone suggested 'ground rules'. I have been in somewhat over 100 workshops/ meetings/ seminars the past 10 years, and it never fails:

The people have spoken, and they want ground rules.

The reason why is quite unclear to me, and personally I'm against ground rules. Mainly because I don't believe they'll ever replace common sense (and because it doesn't work).

Just try guessing how many of these are already broken here on the second day?

Photos from a walk around Tanga

I love Tanga. Maybe because it reminds me of lazy summers in Vojvodina. With a Swahili touch. Perfect for taking dusty, low-sun photos.

Photos from Pangani

One of my absolute favorite places - for taking photos randomly -  is Pangani, the laid-back Swahili town on the coast north of Dar es Salaam - about 45 minutes south of Tanga.

The light, dust, people and history makes it perfect for this purpose. Find more photos here.

What did I learn after about 4 years around...?

I have started wondering a bit what I will take with me when I check out of Tanzania at one point.

More than 4 years in East Africa, and a lot of achieved skills which do not fit easily into a regular CV.

Possibly also a lot of habits which might not match a European context. I.e. I fear going back having to drive according to rules set in Copenhagen.

There is however, one thing I haven't learnt yet, in spite of 10thousands of kilometres: Parallel parking.

The funny things is that there are so many ways to come about it here, you just make up alternatives in the process (or simply park proudly according to your skills).

In fact, that seems to say a lot about what I have learnt around here.

Downtown Kariakoo

Kariakoo is sort of the Tanzanian equivalent to the area around Arua Bus Station and Owino Market in Kampala. I like the place around Mafia and Congo Street, and on Sundays you can even find a parking space without too much hassle.

The streets are hectic, bustling, colourful. Alive. Smells rather exotic after a wet drizzle. Still, black water and garbage dumps add on to the reality of this place. Men at work, sweating, not giving space. Women dragging children across the street to the dala dalas. As a pedestrian, always lift your feet, and check where you put them.

I know some people warn about driving and walking in Kariakoo. There is always someone who knows someone who got her side mirrors dismantled (while sitting in the car), or someone who got robbed in the street. Or someone who got a bad stomach after drinking the sugar cane juice.

Never say never, but I have never ever experienced any trouble, and I have never felt uncomfortable walking round the streets of Kariakoo. 

But I'd stay far off the sugar cane juice. 

More photos here.

When Ernesto Guevara was 37...

I have recently found myself slightly disillusioned in regard of development work in Africa. In particular, and let me emphasise that, my own role in this context. Which obviously is problematic on more than one level, as I happen to live in Africa, and have made a living based on a relative long line of jobs in the international NGO sector for the past 10 years. 

I hope it is a phase similar to the ones you get in other types of job sectors? Well, I also had malaria recently, and having my favorite part of the family visiting me a month ago, only made me miss them more, now that they have returned home.

I am not much for ranting effortlessly on emotional issues on my blog, however - just let me say that it isn't always a long line of palm trees in sunsets or bushy adrenaline driving this mission I am on.

Nevertheless, I'll leave it to Ernesto Guevara's 'The African Dream - 'The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo', which I took down from my bookshelf the other day (see also here). Guevara wrote these diaries in the Cuban Embassy in Dar es Salaam over a period of two months. He was 37 years old.

Dar es Salaam. 37 years. And the big Africa question.

Interesting coincidence, I thought. (Or maybe not, after all I am made of somewhat different substance than Guevara).

Guevara went to the Congo in 1965-1966 via Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Guevara, one of the heroes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and a minister in Fidel Castro's government, simply vanished, travelled via the U.S.S.R. and surfaced in the heart of Africa where he with 100 Cuban guerilla fighters to assist him put into action his theories of how to help the oppressed peoples of Africa.

Guevara believed in fighting imperialism, in revolutions - he had experience, ideals, and he tried to set himself as a good example. However, Congo was different than anything else he had tried, and it didn't exactly go as planned. His diaries were kept a secret up till the 1990ties, though the experience Guevara put forward was supposedly implemented in Cuba's ongoing support to African revolutions.

It obviously made me think about my own African context (which is where it gets messy, I admit)

Like what do the development agencies actually do when today's development support to Africa fails? Do they actually manage to link properly between the theories in Europe and the actual needs of the beneficiaries here? Don't the agenda of advocating the causes of poverty, of making celebreties taking an interest and of fund-raising for it all, take too many resources from the actual point? What when development agencies move on and apply a new set of methods or programmes instead of analyzing, adjusting to and admitting mistakes? And what is it exactly that Africa want? Development, but no change?

What I like the best about Guevara's diaries is the fact that he admits that there simply are things in his theory which never matched Africa, that he is insufficient and that there are things he doesn't understand. In these diaries Guevara analyzes his doubt in a simple and very honest way, but also with a remarkable respect for Africa.

What a relief!

Read it here.

Win a trip to Tanzania (in Danish)

In Danish. Please read more here.

Maasai Mix straight from Maasailand

Last week I went to Kibaya Town in Kiteto. The afternoon before I laid myself down with malaria, I visited the Maasai market in Kibaya Town. Lucky - it is only being held twice a month on the 2nd and 15th.

There was everything for sale a Maasai can dream of: Long knives, red powder and polyester yarn (for the morani's hair extensions), nyama mbusi in plenty (roasted goat), mandazi (Tanzanian donughts), cold beers (and a lot of very drunk Maasai), beads, bangles, shoes of old car tyres, food items, cassava, maize, dagaa (little, dry, smelly fish) clothes - you name it.

Thanks to Mustafa from CORDS for taking us!

Check out more photos here.

Where non-waterproof mascara and high-heels make no sense

About 10.30 this morning it started to rain in Dar es Salaam.

Full speed for a couple of hours, turning the roads into rivers. Like in this photo from United Nation Road.

Due to the fact that it seems that Dar es Salaam's draining system doesn't match the density of the population and rain, everything runs wild when it rains like this.

I left the office around 6.30 this evening, drove down Migombani Street towards my home, only to realise that I couldn't enter the street where I live. I tried one of the back roads, ended up in a pitch black street with stranded cars.

Wicked feeling. I actually got scared. I haven't felt like that for very long. Maybe I have a phobia regarding deep, dark potholes? I blessed my decent car (and the fact that the NGO I work for hasn't changed its car policy (yet)), continuing without the car taking in water or getting sucked into the Indian Ocean through a sudden hole in the road.

Even though I live in the metropolis of Tanzania, there are days where non-waterproof mascara and high-heels make no sense.

Taking back Zimbabwe. Fuck Mugabe: Clear message from Johannesburg band

When I was in South Africa in March a friend introduced me to Cassette. Another Johannesburg band. Apart from a new and lovingly lively version of Elvis Costello's Pump It Up, the CD also offers an excellent song called Get In The Ring, which basically is a very direct message to Zimbabwe's President Mugabe to get lost.

I can't find the lyrics online, but the most fascinating part of it goes like this:

Taking back Zimbabwe
Fuck you, Mugabe

Politicians ought to listen, not only to people, but to rock musicians, too.

From a hot afternoon in Dar es Salaam

 

12 hours in the bush

Too knackered to write anything sensible - but that today's trip went to Kisarawe and beyond; That the long rains were with us most of the day; That the moment I realised I had equipped my car well - brought coffee, knækbrød, a pulling rope, shovel and a huge, sharp and shiny panga - I felt proud (as reflected in this mzungu's face above); And finally that driving with my colleague, Jonas, makes an interesting lesson in participatory forestry management (which was somehow part of the reason we were there).

I still see green leaves coming towards me when I close my eyes. I will sleep like a baby tonight. Push till tomorrow, that I didn't get exactly what I went there for...

Earth Hour in advance

Hamna umeme. No power. The subject always makes good conversation material in Dar es Salaam.

Especially this month, as it seems the power cuts have increased.

The photo is from last night at my house. Just before the guests got in, the power went out.

Tonight is Earth Hour - a globally advertised initiative, encouraging people to switch off our lights at 8:30pm Today!

We didn't do so last night. Tanesco did it for us, and I can assure you that no matter how much I sympatize with Earth Hour, there is no way I am switching off my lights if the power is on tonight!

Well, who am I to complain about three to four power cuts weekly, for many of the 40 million watanzania Earth Hour is not even an option: To participate in Earth Hour you must have access to power to be able to switch it off.

The Oh No Man

Practising a newly bought Manfrotto tripod on my South African friend's 'OH NO MAN' collection in Johannesburg. 

Fantastic tool. How did I do without a tripod before?

The right soundtrack for Lesotho?

Last Thursday I left Johannesburg together with two friends for Clarens in the Free State. The next day we left for a short day trip to Butha-Buthe in Lesotho, went a bit up hill, and back through Caledon Port.

I got dizzy up there in about 3000 meters altitude (photo above). I also felt my fear of heights standing at the view point, looking at how the road had been carved into the mountain slopes. I imagined for a moment that some would do the same to the Kilimanjaro.

Look at it. It is crazy. Built by the South Africans (or whoever they made do it) when they constructed the Katse Dam further inside, which is supplying (parts of) South Africa with water.

What else to say? It doesn't become me well to give space to the classic stereotype, but a high number of children along the road did put out their open hands, saying 'money!'

The traffic police were more discrete. It is, however, the first time I have ever been hiding notes in my bra, in case they really wanted to have a go at searching the car. Exciting somehow to be stuck in a no-man's land mountain nek with creative traffic police.

A great deal of this trip was, however, not spent on these trivial matters, but on more serious ones as on agreeing in between us on a suitable soundtrack, provided by a CD store in Ficksburg: Amongst others Peter Tosh, Cassette, Jesse Clegg, Billy Idol, Cris Cameleon and Crowded House.

The right soundtrack can make stereotypes vanish for as long as it lasts.

South Africa: Clegg and tequila

I am a big, big, big fan of his father, but the son, though on a completely different mission than the father, has actually produced quite an addictive CD, you want to listen to over and over.

I skipped his father's works this time, and last week I bought the son's first CD in Ficksburg, the second busiest and important town in the Eastern Free State region of the Freestate province in South Africa, in order to avoid listening to the Afrikaans radio stations (it got so much more wicked proportionally with the distance from Johannesburg).

While in the Free State, I also learnt that asking the bartender for 'more Johnny Clegg' after a million tequila shots is so not up-to-date-South-African. But, come on, you can only love these two.

Besides, tequila, Clegg and South Africa really go together.

Back in Bongoland

The good things don't last. My holiday is so over.
I'm back in Dar es Salaam from a trip to South Africa which took me to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lesotho and the Free State.
Now trying to get back into work mode.
Hur!

Escaping Tanzania

   

Photos from this morning's departure from Dar es Salaam.

The fast reader has already guessed where I have landed.

Still on the continent.

Holidays.

Final Final Update: Sauti za Busara

Have a look at the photos from Sauti za Busara 2009 here, which I have finally got together in a set.

Do also check the Baobabconnection's sum up here, and the UNAA Times here, who picked up on the Omega Bugembe Okello performance.

Meanwhile, I will try to finish an article for this new Danish magazine about the Sauti za Busara.

Zimbabwean Poetry: Love You Like A Riot

I am composing an article for a Danish world culture magazine about the Sauti za Busara.

Some of the music experiences fortunately fade straight away (like this one), but some stay and repeat themselves on my CD player. Like Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka.

I think that was true love at first listening.

This one is a favorite:

...But to live a day without your touch
Well that’s asking too much
‘Cause I need you like a riot needs a petrol bomb
I love you like a freedom fighter loves freedom
I need you like a bottle store needs to break laws
Like capitalism needs wars
I need you like struggle needs Nehanda
Like mbira loves ngoma
Like art loves inspiration
Like destruction craves creation
I need your power, your lips
Your philosophies your hips
Your strength, your beauty
Your love, your poetry
Your fire, your desire
Your body, your energy

(cc) Comrade Fatso

Samm Farai Monro, better known as Comrade Fatso, is one of the most popular and controversial poets in the Zimbabwe arts scene. Cde Fatso calls his poetry Toyi Toyi Poetry, radical street poetry that mixes Shona with English and mbira with hip hop. Its an art form that is an uprising against the bloody ZANU (PF) regime.

My personal favorite: Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka

Just one note on yesterday's Sauti za Busara (and then I will go to bed and try to figure out why I thought I could stomach the mishkaki from the food stall) - Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka from Zimbabwe were fantastic, and something which I believe hit me straight.

When Comrade Fatso swung his dreadlocks, jumped around the stage and then suddenly grabbed the microphone holder, offering his political viewpoints on Zimbabwe, the ordience inhaled collectively, not expecting this urban, rebellious and political performance.

The performers even picked up on the typical Precision Air characteristics (they were redirected over Kenya) and the 'Jambo Bwana' CD which the hustlers try to impose on tourists on Kenyatta Road.

Even better: I got the CD!

Panorama: Sauti za Busara in all colours

People Watching

What the Sauti za Busara festival bar shelves might lack in diversity, the mix of people, performers. colours and flavours compensate. It almost sounds like such a cliche to be repeating the fact, that this is the core of Zanzibar. However, this variety, which is so unique to Zanzibar, is strongly reflected within the Sauti za Busara, the people and the performers.

In fact, this is one of the most interesting parts of this festival; People watching.

A huge sea cruise ship has plunged its anchor in the Stone Town bay, shining bright at night from what seems like a thousand tiny windows. From here groups of elderly wazungu, sensibly dressed with sunhats, some with supporting sticks, enter the festival from smaller boats taking them from the ship to the shore. Yesterday, an elderly couple walked up to me and a friend, asking about the state of Forodhani Gardens (wonder if anyone knows the answer to this), assuming we were 'some of these young students studying at the university.'

And there are many of them at the Sauti za Busara. And in the eyes of someone twice my age, we might at first sight appear to belong to this category of the young, western European volunteers or tourists, who are not only 10-15 years younger than us, but also people who seem to spend most days on the beach, and typically dress too minimalistacally in terms of cultural sensitivity.

An issue which seems completely irrelevant to this category, in spite the largest parts of the ordience are people from Stone Town, who dress more conservatively and according to Islamic and Swahili tradition.

It is quite interesting to see how this mix, nevertheless, is lived out in a confined space like the Old Fort.

Maybe it works because there also exists an interesting balance between the performers who range from i.e. Omega, a Uganda/American singing in Luganda and English (photo above); Sansa, a Ugandan ngoma (traditional folk music) troup, Tarbia - a local Zanzibar group, based in a madras a (an Islamic school) and who performs on a spiritual and religious base - to last night's politically engaged and loud, British performer, TY (photo below), who gave a whole other impression of hip hop, than I'd expected from reading about him in the programme.

Hip hop with soul and heart. 

I stood next to a somewhat 9-year old girl, shouting out loud; 'Love you, TY!' In spite, the man was awesome, I left the confessions to the 9-year old. Man, this power, dressed up in a Zanzibar print one-size-fits-all shirt, did also reach me!

Sansa - the traditional folk music band from Uganda - I'd usually say that I have had my share of ngoma - but when a guy last night walked up to me in a mixture of joy and pride presenting himself with a big smile and a; 'Hi, I am Charles from Uganda. Did you see me perform?', I truly did regret that I hadn't.

These meetings and conversations are, so to speak, the stuff Sauti za Busara is made of - and what makes this so different to a music festival in Europe.

Sound Tests

Today I walked through the Old Fort after lunch and watched the performers do sound tests.

This is the best time to get photos of performers - they pay attention, the sky is blue and the light is sufficient.

It is burning hot at this time of day, and visitors and artists withdraw to the right corner below where there seems to be a bit of shade. The photo is taken with my mobile phone's panorama function, and might give an impression of the festival settings. In evenings the place is crowded.  

When I left the Old Fort a song by the Zimbabwean Comrade Fatso, performing on Sunday at 9.15, blasted through the space: House of Hunger. I can't wait to watch this guy!

Check today's photos here - sound tests with Carola Kinasha & Shada, and Joh Makini. I have just learnt that Carola is from Longido, a place I visited back in October 2008 - see photos here.

Carnival Parade - Sauti za Busara is on

I arrived at 6 o'clock this morning to Stone Town after 12 hours in transit between Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

Courtesy of Precision Air. Highly non-recommendable.

Therefore, my energy levels were low, but somehow I made it to the carnival parade at 4 o'clock, where the Old Fort exploded into a session of human fireworks (including a couple of mad donkeys), and signaled the festival opened.

More photos here.

Working in Africa: A Priveledge

Monday I flew out of Dar es Salaam (photo) to Arusha (in an old Precision Air aircraft which somehow resembled flying in a old microwave oven: steamy hot, nosiy and unsafe).

Tuesday I gave a presentation to the last batch of MS development workers - historically some might say - being prepared by MS' training centre in Usa River in Arusha. My presentation was about the history of the (Danish) development worker back from 1963, where the first ones arrived in Dar es Salaam, til now (where development workers come in several nationalities) - an attempt to put the present development worker into a broader context which is characterised by fast changes on a lot of levels.

Not an easy job, but a good group.

One of the participants, one with a much longer MS history than me, later during a cocktail party confided that it is a priviledge to work in Africa. And that one is stupid not to appriciate it while it lasts.

Very wise words. I completely agree.

And I still think I have one of the most exciting jobs, and it only adds on that I get to go places and watch Africa from above. Like today in some few hours, I fly back from Kilimanjaro to the Swahili Coast, to Stone Town on Zanzibar for the Sauti za Busara.