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!
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.
I'm almost giving up on the Tanzanian newspapers!
No respect of copyright. No idea of context:
Just found myself on page 7 in the Guardian.
The photo caption says: 'Tanzanians in the diaspora. Most of them are academic, economic and social refugees'.
Hata mimi...??!!
The photo is from Banana, an area close to the airport in Dar es Salaam. The photo portrays Adrian Nzamba and me on an assignment for Tanzanian Youth Coalition in June 2009. I'm an expat, Adrian a Tanzanian, who at the moment is attending training in Copenhagen.
I must admit the caption still makes me laugh: Does it really look as if we are Tanzanians in the diaspora?
The photo is in low resolution and obviously taken from a previous blog post here, where I clearly state that the photo is by James Seigel.
This is stealing. You cannot copy a photo from the Internet, print it in the paper without the photographer's accept. Even if you had the accept, it would be decent to acknowledge the photographer.
So, what do you do when that happens?
You ring the editor of the Guardian (who maybe calls you back).
I just realised that I knew exactly what to do when I saw this road sign on the road between Moshi and Tanga.
It didn't even feel strange, but relatively normal.
Per intuition, though. I still can't explain what it really means in practice.
Praise to the Tanzanian (road) sign makers. This is indeed an area where creativity seeps through.
Reintegrating into Danish traffic might have consequences.
I'm not ready.
This one is from Stone Town on Unguja.
The grafitti puzzles me a bit.
Is it rooted in Islam, as in religious love?
Is it the rasta way of dedicating their appreciation of Bob Marley?
Or is it a Zanzibari off the track making a statement against the legal polygamy allowing men to marry more than one woman? (I have seen a few men walking around the Swahili Coast who would make me produce statements like this all over the place if I had to be their first wife or nyumba ndogo.)
Unfortunately not (yet) in English. But if you read Danish, please read about my admiration for his work here.
Jacob Ejersbo died last summer of cancer at the age of 40. Much too early. He grew up in Moshi at Kilimanjaro where his father worked for Danida over two periods of time, and he went to ISM, International School of Moshi. Before he died he wrote three books centred in Tanzania.
Literature which is already now proclaimed to be a milestone in Danish literature on Africa. Personally, it has made me look differently at what I see in Tanzania.
This is what Klaus Rothstein writes about Ejersbo for a Danish Literary Magazine: 'Seldom has anyone written anything so insistent and impassioned, so glowing hot and ice-cold, so heartfelt and so cynical'.
I'll keep you posted when the books are translated into English.
Last week I completed an article in Danish about the fact that the Tanznians, like many other Africans, use symbols, signs etc. to explain something which isn’t necessarily said in words.
Tumaini means hope in Kiswahili.
Last week I saw the sign on top of a driving school car which were stuck on a road in
Says it all.
Mvuli, the short rain season (October to December) might have begun already this morning, where it drizzled gently over Dar Es Salaam.
Tanzania need the rain badly.
More on the Kiswahili weather vocabulary here.
The kiswahili phrase sukuma wiki means to push the week - what's really being pushed is the family food budget. Your leftover meat (like nyama choma) can be combined with greens - here this dish might be made with greens like spinach, cassava leaves, sweet potato leaves, or pumpkin leaves.
Read more here.
Dried , chopped and neatly arranged kingfish on the market in Kariakoo.
My Swiss friend repeats; I want supu, and walks off in search of someone cooking chicken soup. In general she talks a lot about supu itself and the supu as a breakfast concept.
It’s 10 am at the Kivukoni Seafront in Dar Es Salaam on Saturday morning, and the boat is leaving for Zanzibar in half an hour (actually it didn’t leave until much later, but that’s another story).
Plenty of time for supu ya kuku, which all over
Often on the go, served from small road side food stalls or in the market. Except, to a lot of the Tanzanians eating supu ya kuku at 10 am isn't really a breakfast meal, as they are likely have been up long before the sun.
Receipt here.
'Wazungu, you have the watches but we have the time'
Quote: The Tanzanians
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.
the writing of the back of the truck claims.
I don't.
A friend of mine is visiting Copenhagen.
Our home town.
He took this photo of one of the biggest cathedrals in Copenhagen - during World Outgames.
Imagine, what a different world I come from, compared to the world I live in now.
Why rainbow colours? Please, check this link.
' 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.
'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.)
The poster is in Danish, but I'm sure that English and Kiswahili work fine at the party. But hurry up, the tickets move fast.
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...
I don't think I have ever received a compliment here in Africa without it having a realistic touch to it. Or maybe I should call it a statement, and not a compliment, for what I regard as positive might be negative here and hence not necessarily a compliment in my perspective.
I.e., I'm being told that I look thinner than usual, that it appears as if I'm slimming (which is not always a compliment here, where fat people are considered free of 'the disease we don't talk about'), but that before I used to be very fat.
Right. Eh. Whatever. Sema tena...!
Somehow, I like that. I mean, I don't always like to be told the truth, but I suppose there really is more in a statement when you know it is uttered free from the heart and based on what that person really sees. Cutting to the bone.
In Denmark the concept of giving compliments is, in comparison, that much more complicated, as compliments are not always based on the truth, but maybe only uttered when you have something good to say, or given based on what you believe the respective person wants to hear.
But it is somehow strange to receive a statement which is meant as a compliment, just not in your own culture. In fact, it can mean the complete opposite.
Or maybe I don't get any of it.
I am a very fond and frequent user of the Kamusi Project’s dictionary, and Wednesday last week I was invited to visit the Kamusi Project working in Dar Es Salaam.
The invitation said that 'the week had been organised by tzLUG (the Tanzania Linux Users Group) and Kamusi Project International in association with ANLoc (the African Network for Localization), with the support of IDRC (International Development Research Centre), and that it is hosting a blitz to complete at least 15 Tanzanian language locales this week.’
The Kamusi Project is a collaborative work by people all over the world working to establish new dictionaries and learning resources for Kiswahili - both within Swahili and between Swahili and English. Kiswahili is the most widely spoken African language, with as many as 100 million speakers in East and Central Africa. Kiwahili is a national language of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and it is an official language of the African Union.
I found the tzLUG group after walking up five stairs in the NRC Life House building on the corner of Ohio Street and Sokoine Drive. Hamna umeme - no electricity. On the 5th floor I found a tiny room full of Tanzanian twenty-somethings scattered around laptops and cables.
They almost lost me there.
And I still don’t know exactly what a ‘blitz’ or a ‘locale’ is. And I had to google ‘kamusi’ only to find out that it means ‘dictionary’.
So I asked them why they had decided to spend all their free time in a tiny room in the centre of Dar for a whole week - to do something so unusual: to volunteer?
Some of the answers were:
- My name appears (on the product), and I feel proud.
- No other person will do it.
- You learn.
- It is the future of IT in Bongo (Dar Es Salaam).
One of the concrete ideas behind the Kamusi Project is to make it possible that you don't have to know English in order to use IT. Another that the different IT products use the same vocabulary for the same things.
In Tanzania, along with other African nations, the oral tradition favours the written word. In today's world managing the written word gives power. Hence, securing and developing a language in terms of structure and vocabulary adjusted to the current development is of great significance - not just for a national or cultural identity, but also on an individual level: If you use Kiswahili to formulate your first thought, or if this is the language you dream in, Kiswahili is a fundamental part of you.
Check the Kamusi Project here, and note that you can support the project.
Must admit that I feel tempted to send this photo to the Danish Foreign Ministry.
However, less money is not necessarily less problem.
The photo is from Moshi.
The notice is from my favorite place in Dar es Saalam in terms of Indian food - for instance my favorite kachori with coconut relish and pili pili - the Badminton Institute.
If you have ever seen someone eating paan, you might understand the background for the Badminton Institute's warning.
"Sasa" means "now", and "bado" means "after", "far", "afterwards", "later" or "not yet".
Now, I have passed this billboard on the New Bagamoyo Road in Dar es Salaam for a couple of times. Seen through the eyes of the mzungu it is a brilliant idea to mix significant words/concepts from Kiswahili with English.
We all want whatever we really want sasa. Not bado. That might be universal.
However, in particular, I find the the "sasa-bado" mechanism curious in an African context. People do live for the "sasa" - which in my experience often entails little planning for the future, from hand-to-mouth and, therefore, with little preparation and a lot of improvisation. Reasons are plenty, but we do also live in the territory of hakuna matata and pole pole. Things seldom happens now, and most often the more correct answer would be "after", "far", "afterwards", "later" or "not yet".
For sure, we all want a fast connection rather sasa than bado!
Thanks to the Kamusi Project for the linguistic explanation.
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?
One of the best souvenirs to bring back home from the Swahili Coast is a kanga. Or a couple. You will find the best selections of kangas to choose from in Uhuru Street in Dar es Salaam. They are sold in bulk, in many patterns and colours, in various qualities and at different prices - from 3500 to 4000 TSH. Do note the saying (a lot include 'mungu') - and that the kanga also is used as a way to communicate a message. Read more here.
Always remember one of the many Kiswahili sayings: 'That a woman can't be happy till she' got a thousand kangas.'
Still a way to go.
I keep passing the same places with names, which to me appear strange ( - and not just because my Kiswahili is not among the best ones).
This place - a small truck stop village on the highway between Chalinze and Dar es Salaam - I worked out the literal meaning of the name a while ago: 'Picture of a plane (or bird)'.
Lakini, kwa nini?
According to a local Tanzanian the place is named after this little plane which the bar owner put up - and now the whole village is named after this.
Ugali, greens and tilapia. With Coca-Cola, of course.
Here the global brand (of them all) Coca-Cola reaches further out locally than tarmac and mosquito nets.
Photo from Chalinze.
I'm reading a book at the moment called 'Into Africa: Intercultural Insights' by Yale Richmondand Phyllis Gestrin. The book explores the complex cultures of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, and provides intercultural insights for anymore with an interest in Africa.
I have only two problems with this book - the first one is that it is in fact 10 years old, and that even though the most fundamental things have not changed, it doesn't pick up on newer trends (i.e. the influence from Internet, mobile phones, TV etc.), which play a significant role on the continent these days.
Secondly, in spite the book appears to be extremely accurate in its descriptions, and to provide very concrete examples, on occasion it is almost too precise as it also tends to genereralize a lot: 'When an African says this, he means that...'
However, the book is actually the best one I have found around trying to give an introduction to living and working in Africa, in fact it put words on a few concepts which I hadn't been able to grasp or explain.
One interesting example, I stumbled over today, is the chapter on 'The Expat and the Extended Family', where one piece of advice is that one shouldn't let oneself be drawn into an extended family, if one doesn't accept to play according to the African rules.
Very true. Reading the book does in general give a good foundation for understanding African culture and its people, but it also provides good answers to a regular expat's questions, which might just solve some typical misunderstandings. - But as in real life, don't take it all too literally - make your own experience.
Africa tricks me everyday.
Find the book here.
Today I spent the day on a field trip going from Arusha to Kiserian Village in Longido District, an area close to the border to Kenya (about 30 minutes from Namanga Town).
The purpose of the visit was to visit a group pf women, who have been supported on sensitisation on land rights - by the NGO I work for.
During the visit we were invited for chai & chapati in Ruthi's mgahawa - her tiny tea- and guesthouse.
A new advert, which I get to stare at long enough every afternoon in the traffic jam to over-analyse several potential messages.
For one thing, an advert like this, isn't it a bit unusual on a continent which occasionally preaches abstaining from from having sex on other street corners?
Or has advertising caught up with reality?
Obviously, trousers are being unbuttoned and unzipped on the continent no matter what. As on other continents.
Might as well tell people to do it responsibly. But will people make the link between the encouragement, the red AIDS ribbon and a condom?
And does a Freudian interpretation of the shape of the shadow make any sense?
'Yesu ni jubi' says the banner. Jesus is the answer.
A firm answer like this makes me want to ask; The answer to what question!?
A funny note to the background of this photo is that I took it last week (on the highway between Moshi and Arusha) when I was writing an article for a Danish newspaper about how Christmas is celebrated in the Kilimanjaro region.
- The saying goes that the Chagga tribe are the people in Tanzania who take Christmas the most serious.
After consulting the Kiswahili teachers at MS TCDC I was a little wiser. The German missionaries have simply had an unusual stronghold in the Kilimanjaro region for more than 100 years, and conveniently they have used the celebration of Christmas as part of their mission. Several different people supported this - a local Chagga chief, as he introduced himself, whom I met over coffee at the Blue Herron in Arusha, told me that the Chaggas say 'Next year - Kilimanjaro!' like the Jews say 'Next year - Jerusalem'.
Another employee at MS TCDC elaborated a bit more on global issues and the modern Chaggas - that nowadays the youth forget their roots and their history. That they copy paste too much. She sounded exactly like my grandmother, and it was actually nice to be reminded about a perspective I seem to forget. That Christmas is about kujumuika - to be together.
What also became clear is that a Chagga needs a very good excuse if he/she isn't celebrating Christmas in tribal land.
Read the Danish article here.
I'm in Copenhagen. I have not been in Denmark for about a year. It surprises me every time, how easy it is to re-enter. As if everything has stood still while my world has been running at high speed in Tanzania.
But it obviously it isn't this simple.
In Kiswahili when you say you come from somewhere, i.e. Africa, you say; 'Ninatoka Africa' - which means that I come out of Africa. In Kiswahili you come out of something - you come with baggage.
And this explains more finely what time it takes to adapt. And that it is hard not to look for African prints.
One of my 'African' favorites in Copenhagen is The Black Diamond - the building, which houses the Royal Library - which is made of 2,500 square meters black granite, known as Absolute Black. Black granite from South Africa. A heavy, concrete piece of Africa, finely polished and tailormade to fit into the Danish cityscape, which instantly catches the eye of a temporary homecoming development worker because, unlike Africa, urban settlements are organised and planned down in the smallest details: Here architects have conspired, and agreed on a limited set of colour nuances. Here the free imagination is structured and subsidized by the government. The majority of people are white, and dressed rather similar, but obviously dictated by a fashion trend, which will take me some time to work out.
On the train people are asked to keep quiet in silent zones, and they do - and my, previously heavy smoking, friends are talking about the 'stop smoking treatment' and they celebrate the anti-smoking law in positive terms. And then there are the friends who move to Sweden, where there is zero tolerance for alcohol in the blood while driving. Or a drive on the motorway which feels quite different because we are driving in the other side of the road and out of a belief that we really can count on the other drivers' intentions.
My hometown in Africa, Dar es Salaam, is quite different. Always in process. Never quite finished. Never quite sure where it is heading. But surely a place where concepts such as silent zones, smoke-free environment and zero tolerance rightly would be described as far out as a city in Europe.
At the bus stop at the Copenhagen Town Hall Square an African bus driver on line 6A shouts; - 'Come! " I shout back that I am going to Kongens Nytorv. 'Then you are not going with me, but with 26', he concludes. I cannot help but smile over his attention, and the fact that it is now him who is home in what used to be my city. He even knows what busses to catch to go where. I have forgotten, or maybe they changed the system?
I have already escaped three 'face-to-face recruiters' on my way down the streets. Avoided eye contact, with an apologetic smile. Pretty much the same principle as when I try to avoid the beggars' outstretched hands and poky eyes on Ali Hassan Mwinyi in Dar es Salaam. But when I come out from a meeting at the MS head quarter, I collide with a young guy at the central square, Kongens Nytorv. Exorbitantly he smacks a light blue binder up my face and say, 'Do you have a moment?!' I spurt;
'Hey, I actually work for MS! In Tanzania! "
I do not know what I think. Possibly that my job as a development workers entitles me to some sort of affirmative action.
I am ashamed for half a second regarding my doubts on whether these young people who have been given the task to rescue Africa in return for a study job - whether they have the slightest idea of where that money ends up. I am thinking of the Nigerian writer Uzodinma Iweala, who in July 2007 had an article published in The Washington Post under the headline 'Stop Trying to Save Africa', which specifically criticized the Western youth's sudden love for Africa.
Iweala thanked no to the effort. But it is actually a part of the premises of my daily work in Tanzania anno 2008. Like it or not.
Fortunately, the guy is thick-skinned, and instead of thinking what a fool, he lights up in a big smile, 'Groovy! How cool that some people actually do something!' What follows, makes me smile the rest of the day; 'And you're even dressed trendy and such. Cool to see that Danish development workers are not all dressed in earth colours!'
No, we do not necessarily dress in earth colours, I'm thinking. 'But you do see it happen, don't you?!' Stereotypes, about what we look like when you work for MS in Africa, are alive and well! And perhaps there is something about it? In fact, I'm expected to answer many - other - rhetorical questions when I'm home:
Does it help anything? Do you think that you make a difference? How long will you be there (implied; When is it enough and when you come home)?
My answer is not set in stone. I have over the last few years changed my perception of many things. Thought one thing, and learnt something else. However, I like this curiosity and the ability to wonder and observe, when you have home n more than one place.
And yes, I have actually missed Copenhagen, although it does not feel quite like my city more.
Photos from last Wednesday's visit to Kiserian Village, close to Longido Mountain, in Monduli District. More here.
Orpopongi is the name of this Maasai Village in Kiteto District.
Orpopongi is also the local name of the cactus-like plants in the background.
The area is very dry creating harsh living conditions for its people.
The children carry water with them in the old jerry cans when they go to or from school.
View a slideshow here.
Jaw’s Corner is a local coffee place in the Hurumzi ward (I think) in Stone Town. Stone Town consists of about 2,000 stone buildings which are organised into wards. Hurumzi is named after the Hurmuz island in the Persian Gulf (I only know that because I bought a tiny architectural guide to Stone Town, and because I find the Swahili architecture profoundly interesting).
A coffee place is called mikihawa in Kiswahili – a place where men gather to sit on the baraza, to relax and exchange information. A baraza is a stone bench running along the fronts of most houses in Stone Town inviting people to sit.
The baraza is one of my absolute favorite architectural inventions – baraza is often used as a metaphor for a meeting place or people simply use it naming a restaurant (like the Southern Sun Hotel in Dar es Salaam).
In Stone Town, however, it can feel intimate and intense when you step into the open space of a mikihawa and look at the men occupying the baraza. 
Not that there are any confined lines, it’s just there, and it’s up to you to choose how you go about it. A mikihawa is the place of the people who live there, it’s sort of an extended living room, and then again still public.
Jaw’s Corner always, at least for the past four years, had a preference for one of the big Tanzanian political parties in the opposition; Civic United Front. The epic grafitti reminds me a bit of the one I once read on walls in Belfast - pro IRA. The cups definitely about drinking turska kafa in Bosnia. Not that I can think of any serious connection.
Nevertheless, Jaw’s Corner does offer a certain degree of passion and intensity – not to forget the good piece of advice on the wall! Such a more down to earth way of saying the usual Carpe Diem…
Sometimes I feel that my employer forgets that I also have to learn Kiswahili. It is very time demanding. Not just to find the time for actual lessons, it is also taking space on my mental hard disc. Besides it takes practice to keep it alive.
But I want it to fit in. Not only would it look nice on my CV, it is also rather useful. The best part is that it is full of crazy stuff.
While here in Morogoro I managed to hook up with a local teacher who just gave me 2x2 hours of intensive language training.
Take a look at my notes! Kiswahili is a Bantu language, well mixed with Arab and other words, but the origin and structure is Bantu. One of the characteristics of a Bantu language, I've been told over a braai by a stoned South African with a peculiar interest in linguistics, is the way you use a whole word to construct what would be a setence in English or in most other European languages. He also told me that if you haven't been exposed from an early age to this way of thinking in terms of constructing communication, it is very difficult to get under your skin as a adult.
I should think so.
Eish, I forgot the name of this Indian snack, though it was spelled out clearly to me, and in spite of the fact that I munched it less than an hour ago downtown Dar es Salaam.
It mainly tasted of soap. A bit of coconut, grass and sugar.
The 'snack maker' served it straight into your mouth, obviously with a broad smile.
I hope I won't get tricked into a thing like that again.
Mkono wa tembo means the 'hand of the elephant' in Kiswahili (photo left). One hand of the elephant costs about 500 shillings. You slice it, fry it and eat it. It is a delicacy around here.
Then there is the other kind of green bananas (photo here), which in Kiswahili are called mkungu wa ndizi, which means 'stock of bananas'. It costs about 1500 shillings, and can feed a family matoke for many meals.
It is also the kind of food which made Idi Amin suffer from indigestion according to the Last King of Scotland. Idi loved his matoke, and I believe it is many Ugandans' favorite meal, too.
The stocks are heavy, and I wonder what justice there is to the person carrying it from the village to the market only to cash 1500 shillings?
What can you buy for that? Matoke is pure starch. Ugali is starch and so is cassava. Not exactly very trendy in the Western world to base your diet on starch. But it is cheap, it's available, it fills your stomach.
And 10 tomatoes costs 1000 shillings!
Sukuma wiki might be an option then. Sukuma Wiki means push the week - what's really being pushed is the food budget, because the green, spinach-like plants used for sukuma wiki is cheap.
Seriously, I've been practising my Kiswahili this week, including learning useful phrases like the one in the headline (back to that one later).
It's all in my head, but putting the words together in the right order to make up a reasonable conversation speed is not easy.
But still, Kiswahili is the most fun language to learn (and I've tried bits of Icelandic and Serbian). First of all because it has an interesting logic and you quickly build up vocabulary and get the verbs in place in order to construct sentences.
Kiswahili has the most fantastic words. Words you feel like saying over and over. They just feel good to pronounce.
Can I take your picture? is one of the sentences I have tried to use thoroughly. However, Arusha is the no. 1 tourist attraction and the Tanzanians know that the wazungu do take their photos and make money of it. They have seen themselves on the postcards for sale in town. And a hapana is a hapana is a no. Halafu, I'm doing a bit of flowers at the moment.
Coffee is called kahawa in Kiswahili. Coffee sounds like kofi, but kofi in Kiswahili actually means 'a slap'.
If you buy coffee in the market, ask for kahawa.
I wonder how they get around this in Kenya, where a lot of babies now according to the BBC Africa are being named Kofi after Annan?
This one definitely made me think twice. What are these guys advertising? Kweli!
Part of my contract as a development worker for MS Tanzania is to engage in learning Kiswahili.
MS pays the costs of the training, 2 x 3 weeks in MS TCDC in Arusha. One beginners' course and later an intermediate. A free language course of this quality and in these surroundings is a real treat.
Check out MS TCDC here:
http://www.mstcdc.or.tz/
Late this afternoon, after having finished an interview session with a group of youngsters explaining about an initiative called the Youth Parliament, which MS Tanzania supports, I had kahawa na kashata in the Uhuru Park in Tanga.
It costed me 70 shilings. 50 for the kahawa - the coffee. And 20 for the kashata - the sweet piece of groundnuts/coconut/sugar. What I got for free was an extraordinary experience and a new view upon coffee and bying it in the street. This coffee is from the slopes of the Kilimanjaro, it is natural, as someone said. I think he meant that it hasn't been all the way to Europe and back again. It tasted real good.
I also realised that apparently I have had the idea that coffee served this way couldn't taste this good. That I have a truly Scandinavian way of judging on appearance and price - the more fancy it looks and the more expensive, the better. Lesson learned and thanks to the guys in the photo for inviting me for coffee!
My Icelandic nephew, Baltasar, is only five years old. But this is his 3rd time to Africa, and 2nd to Zanzibar.
So - he sort of knows the story. Still, I am impressed with his curiosity, open mind, his ability to go along with a group of adults and their interests. Like a guided tour around Stone Town.
The boy followed track, didn't complain for once about the heat or talk, though he did talk a lot about his (imaginary) friends, 'the frogs' and how he looked forward to a promised swim in the pool at the Dhow Palace.
In stead he was asking questions when we translated the guide's words. At one point he grabbed the guide's hand and walked along with him, while we were watching the curious sight of the little white boy and our Zanzibar guide.
Finally, he wanted to know if there really was more to know. I also felt slightly overloaded regarding information on Stone Town.
Here in Stone Town conversations sometimes simplify a lot and seem to concentrate only on the essential stuff in life. Sometimes it is mainly a one-way dialogue, depending on my patience or ability to be taken by surprise.
The inter-cultural approach :
Young bloke: Where you from?
Young bloke: - You wanna smoke the Bob Marley cigarettes?!
The surreal romantic approach:
Young bloke: - Hey, cute,
Me: Me? What?!
Young bloke: You speak Swahili?
Me: - Are you flattering me?!
Young bloke: - Come on, I'll teach you. Pole pole. I love you.
Me: Speechless, but wondering silently what these Swahili classes would
be like. Probably more fun than the ones I had in November.
Check out photos from today here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74938124@N00/tags/zanzibar/
What better excuse for being late than to blame it on the Kiswahili time?
At least this is my first thought, but thinking twice: isn't Kiswahili time the purest logic?!
When the sun rises the clock is 1, that means 7 in my time. When the clock is 11 my time, it is 17 Kiswahili time.
However the office I work in, operates on the European time concept, so does I. The Tanzanians switch between them both, but I suspect they operate naturally on Kiswahili time.
So, my time or Kiswahili time?!
I was invited for dinner last night by a white South African. I know quite a bit of white South Africans, but I have never met one who felt this funny about using the colour terms 'white' and 'black'.
I am not stupid. Or Scandinavianly naive. I am very conscious about the fact that:
In stead he pinched the skin on his arm and looked knowingly at me when he couldn't avoid to say 'white'. The wicked thing is that this made me feel even more puzzled about the whole black and white thing.
When do I (as a white person) insult someone by using the term 'black' when a person obviously is black? Or does it say more about the me and my uncomfortableness regarding myself in a society with people of other skin colours? Is there one right thing to say?
In the news papers in Uganda you would have men looking for 'chockolate coloured' and 'light-skinned' women. The Ugandans would say: 'This one is fat' and 'This one is old', statements based on pure observations, never meant to insult any. I always felt slightly insulted though, when I was told 'you look fat, you have put on weight', though it was meant well.
Don't we just make the whole thing worse by pinching our arms or inventing new ways of saying what we really need to say?
Photo from Soweto, December 2006.
My watchman asked a very relevant question tonight.
'I quite like Lingala music', I answered, and couldn't help thinking of my good Argentinian friend, Peter who won't stop dancing if the Lingala is playing. And the Lingala was playing in Southern Sudan and northern Uganda. Right close up to Congo where the Lingala was born.
'What I don't get is how the bar next door to my house in Dar es Salaam can get away with playing Lingala music from 6 in the morning till way after midnight!', I sighed. My watchman looked in the direction of the high volume coming from the other side of the wall, and then he explained: 'But that is because there is a lot of drunk people over there: When people drink beers they want to hear the Lingala.'
I also prefer my Lingala in a drunken haze. Even better when it is played out loud in places where you have to dance barefeet on the red soil and can only get the local beers to build up the haze. That's how I like it. Lingala is the most crazy African musical invention. The songs go on for hours. I recall once I was invited for a party in the northern Ugandan town of Arua, about 10 kilometres from the Congo border, where the guys moved out the huge TV onto the lawn to play Lingala videos. I had absolutely no clue that the Lingala has this many variations and is a huge thing in Paris. The videos went on for hours showing Congolese artists perform seriously complicated coreografed dance moves accompanying the music.
In West Africa they call it Soukous, but it is also known as Lingala or Congo, and previously as African Rumba. Its a musical genre that originated in the two neighbouring countries of Belgian Congo and French Congo during the 1930s and early 1940s (imagining having been in Africa at that time!!!), and which has gained popularity throughout the continent. Soukous (said to be a derivative of the French word secouer, to shake) was originally the name of a dance popular in the Congos in the late 1960s, and danced to an African version of rumba. Soukous is called Lingala in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - referring to the Lingala language of the region from where it originated. In the 1980s and early 1990s, a fast-paced style of soukous known as kwassa kwassa – named after a popular dance, was popular. A style called ndombolo, also named after a dance, is currently popular. 
However, that's according to the Wikipedia, I'm still highly illiterate considering Lingala.
My Argentinian friend, Peter, is here captured dancing Lingala at a party in Kajo Keji in Southern Sudan. Notice the way he clenches his fists, lets his arms roll and his arse shake - that's the Lingala move.
Read more here.
Source: www.wikipedia.org
I love coffee table books, I buy them in heaps, and I love going through them for inspiration.
But sometimes I get irritated.
I prefer coffee table books which have figured out how to use a fancy presentation method to sell a message which has a touch of reality.
Most coffee table books on Africa haven't. They ramble on about how beautiful Africa is, and committ very little to the harsh facts. Some try to transfer poverty into some wicked chic'ness, like a new 3rd world dimension of shabby chic, which I somehow can see a point in, but still, I don't really get it.
I have seen some do it with substance, but most coffee table books on display are directed to the classic tourist, who doesn't want to know. Or maybe he/she doesn't know that it is any different. I'd find it challenging to put a coffee table book together which could do both. About people, their style, their lives and how they see their world from their swahili doors.
These old swahili style doors are captured in Bagamoyo and in Stone Town. I can assure that behind these doors people are most likely not to embrace the Swahili life of this coffee table book: Swahili Chic!
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