:: louder than swahili

Mwafrika, I need you again tomorrow!

 

Monday I handed in the keys to my house and my Nissan Hardbody which came with the contract.

Somehow a little traumatising, I must admit, as they made my life in Tanzania so easy.

Rather symbolic, today it all went crazy. 

I'm so priviledged to be staying with a friend who has a really nice house on the Kigamboni site, close to the beach and calm. All I needed to gear down, see people and sort practicalities before I return to Europe. It even comes with a car, called 'Rocky' (or 'Lucky') which I took to town today.

When I drove down Toure Drive I heard a loud gun shut, seconds later realising one of the car tyres had exploded with a big bang.

I've been cruising all over Tanzania for the past two and a half years in my Hardbody without a puncture. Today I had two. The explosion which tore the tyre into two on Toure Drive, and then another one one hour ago returning home to Kigamboni.

No transport officer at MS to call (or to blame for a car with worn out tyres). I had to find a solution by myself. 

I'm a little fascinated what a former development worker can do by herself when she has to (well, someone else (the police officer and an askari at the Danish ambassador's residence) actually changed the tyre - they just took over in this Swahili slow mode way, where they end up with the tools and I go for notes in my bag - and Bashir, the most famous taxi driver unlimited among my friends, lead the way into Livingstone Street and knew exactly what kind of new tyre to ask for.

My house. Till the contract ends

And my contract ends today, which means that I'm leaving my house in Dar es Salaam tomorrow.

A fantastic house. Mainly due to the people filling it up.

I want to say thanks to the ones who came from everywhere and filled up the beds; the overlanders from Zimbabwe and their mother-in-law from Skjern; the coordinator who missed her train to Zambia (though the TAZARA appears to be the most set inetiary in this country since the 70ties); the easy-going Swedish director working with forests at Lake Victoria; the married couple who had a life-altering fight in my guest room; a couple of students trying to define essences of this country, colleagues in transition, fellow NGO workers from Congo, Sudan and Uganda; two PhD candidates (and maybe some future ones), family and friends; the ones who stuffed the fridge with wine; turned up the volume; never complained that there's no air condition; sat on my veranda till the sun got up; complimented me for being the coolest non-smoker; the ones who tried (in vain) to figure out the logic of my next-door container bar; interviewed my askaris; took me home (in spite I refused to leave Garden Bistro); for Dr. Wang's magic acupuncture every Thursday; the Msasani Beach Club Annex 2 (which cemented my love for linghala as a loud backdrop on weekends); lazy Saturdays in kikois under the fans on the couches in the lounge; not to forget my Icelandic nephew who turned the front yard into a play ground making five adults laugh till their bellies hurt.

It takes a lot to beat the vibe of this house.

I'm checking out of Dar es Salaam pole pole. I leave my house tomorrow and go to stay on the Southern Beaches in Kigamboni at a friend's house till March 19, where I fly home(ish).

  
 
  

Stay. Or come back

There are three countries where I have lived for longer periods of time - Serbia, Uganda and Tanzania. All three places have the tendency to work against you when you have made the decision to leave.

In a positive and complimenting way, and it always made me smile when the Serbs said: 'When will you be back?' and the Tanzanians 'Lakini, you must stay.'

As if there is no other alternative.

I come from a country that indulges in law-making which can keep foreigners out; make integration an everyday challenge; who don't involve people who are not part of their usual circle; who do dinner table dinners with pre-set guest lists; and who aren't very good at complimenting foreigners. After almost 40 years they'll still criticize the Prince Consort for his Danish prononciation, though he speaks Danish grammatically correct. And they will never say: 'Oh, you speak Danish!' like the waswahili positively conclude: 'unasema Kiswahili' when you're embarrassing yourself trying to figure out the right tense.

Maybe that's why I've always noted the hospitality in other countries.

Africans love Africa. I used to know South Africans, Congolese, Nigerians and Tanzanians in Copenhagen who got lonely and restless. Europe will always only be a middle station to most Africans, at least mentally. You go to Europe to educate or work, to use your skills to send money home. There was the Zulu who poured alcohol on my door mat in my Copenhagen flat back in June 2005 as a fare safely ritual; and Prince, Prince, Emeika and Sonny, the Nigerians, who would take me to Guinea Bissau, the African bar, drinking Carlsberg Elephant Beer.

Today I had my farewell reception at work. My second last day for the NGO I have worked for for the past 10 years. Whereas the Danes will say what they think I want: that obviously I'll get a new job in Copenhagen just like that, the Tanzanian auto-reply is straight forward, lovely naive: 'But you have to come back! How can you not be in Africa?'

I'm obviously flattered. I know a great deal of it is based in the swahili politeness. That it really hasn't so much to do with me as a person, as it has with the fact that Africa per African definition is just a better place to be.

Enchanting, considering the image Africa has in the rest of the world and how many empty words we fill into our poverty reduction strategies. Nevertheless, Africa is just so much more self-confident.

Mzunguuuuuuuu!

 

Photo from today's trip to Mbagala in Dar es Salaam.

Copenhagen>Belgrade>Copenhagen>Kampala>Dar es Salaam>Copenhagen

Saturday night I hosted another farewell party.

The 5th in the past 10 years.

Copenhagen>Belgrade>Copenhagen>Kampala>Dar es Salaam.

When I left Copenhagen for Serbia in February 2000 I left initially for three months which nevertheless turned into seven and one of the best experiences in my life. Nothing beats living in a city among strong people who had been isolated, sanctioned, had just overcome a bombing campaign while in high spirit preparing for a good old-fashioned revolution.

When I returned to Copenhagen I have never felt so lost. I lacked purpose, craved a mission and the idea of Africa began to concretise. When I left Copenhagen for northern Uganda in June 2005 I was so ready. And when I left Uganda for Tanzania in August 2007 it felt like one of the best decisions I had ever made.

Now I am packing up all my stuff after almost five years on the African continent.   

You have no idea how good I am at packing.

Logistically and organisationally I know exactly how to do it.

Emotionally I'm improvising. I hate to say good-bye.

I know very well that Africa will do without me. I'm honestly more worried about how I will do without it. But maybe even more worried about how I will do with Europe.

Europe has changed a lot in the past five years. So have I. And I have no idea of how we’ll match.

The thing is that Africa makes me feel comfortable and free. Africa makes me feel this extremely strange mix of being capable, humble and confident at the same time.

Africa always makes me want more.

Europe makes me feel I have to do such a bloody effort to fall into certain categories I don't even give a thing about.

When I left Copenhagen for northern Uganda a South African friend wrote me a line saying 'it is your dream come true'. I found the note yesterday, and here close to the end of this African momentum of my life I must agree in spite it sounds theatrical.  I did make the right decisions at the right times, in spite it included a lot of farewell parties.

However, in Danish we have a proverb saying 'that you ought to break up while the game is still fun'. I do leave in a positive spirit, knowing that I did my best, and that I did make the most of it.

Besides, you know, it isn't really over with me and Africa. This is just a break. (Probably for a little longer than I'd like to admit.)

Standardized guesthouse equipment

You haven't really been here/ done that, if you haven't yet been greeted by the bright malapa. Big enough for all feet.

Photography: Young girl carrying water in a yellow plastic bucket

A stop on the Dodoma-Morogoro Highway, and this young girl walks out of a maize field.

Stunning views in the background with blue mountains in the backdrop, and people coming out of the fields for a noon break, carrying their tools. Faces covered in sweat and dust.

It has been raining, it is time to dig the shamba.

It is hard work, but it is also positive. Rain brings life to the soil, which is going to give you food for the year to come.

Really happy with this photo.

CCM encounters in Maasailand

CCM had its birthday yesterday, but is celebrating it today - not to spoil a work day - as far as I've understood. Faustine at Faustine's Baraza writes about the CCM 32th anniversary here.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having dinner with the MP of Kiteto District, Mr. Benedict Ole Nangoro who returned from Bunge to Kiteto on Friday to take part in the CCM celebrations in Kiteto today. Yesterday he managed to squeeze me and my company in between a parlimentary session in Dodoma, a drive to Kiteto and a late meeting with fellow CCM comrades.

A very interesting dinner, and in fact, the level of informality was so low that an mzungu was tasked to beat the ugali.

(I encountered the woman wearing a CCM scarf (upper photo) on the highway between Dodoma and Morogoro, coming out of a maize field.)

Impressions from Orponpong'ni. Maasailand

 
 
  

Documentation wazungu style

or is it the other way round?

If anybody is in doubt, we made it to Kiteto in Maasailand. 

What do the benificiaries say (if we ask them)?

 

I figured that I could just make one more last trip inside - Bara ya Afrika. So, today I drove to Kiteto again. Tomorrow we're gonna show the two videos I made last year in cooperation with a friend - on the spot where we made them; The Baobab People and Papiya - Maasai and single mother.

I have no idea how that will turn out, but I think it is going to be fun.  

Personally, this is for me very important. I have - on occasion - a problem with the way we invent and implement our campaigns and fundraisings. The last one I did in 2009 for the NGO I work for was subsequently evaluated, however, no one in Denmark asked what the benificiaries thought.

I am not personally responsible for transfer of funds or programme activities, the partner which the NGO I work for, is cooperating with, is. However, my responsibility is to create information material where the NGO I work for can motivate people in Denmark to support the case - my own personal aim is to create information material where the beneficiaries can recognise themselves and the problems presented.

To me that is actually the biggest challenge. We, my friend and I, who put these two films together, have only received fine words for them. However, as far as I know, nobody asked the people whose case we're promoting.

I must admit; it makes me a little nervous, but it will also make me feel that I finish a cycle asking the people who this is all about.

Photos from today's drive towards Kibaya Town.

The Famous African Compromise: The one-size-fits-all dress

 
...and I finally bought one of them...In Kariakoo!

Expat Existentialism: Momentum

 
There is a time for everything.

Good things don’t last.

Better leave when it’s still fun.

Make the most of it.

 

There is no cool way to say good bye when you’re sending someone off you’re going to miss seriously, in spite there is a long list of phrases for occasions like this.

 

Living away from friends and family you create a momentum – a momentary space. If you are lucky you can fill it with new friends, who for that while will make it up for what you left.

 

At least that is how you approach it till you realize that the new people you get to know have now become your friends.

 

People with keys to your house; who start wearing your kikoys; fill up the space in your fridge with wine; do your dishes (kweli!); think it is funny to break the conventions of Garden Bistro, or whom you text when the umeme returns after a power cut to hear if you're on the same Tanesco scedule.

 

People who will think it is funny to wonder about how long one has to live in this country to get the mobile number for the guy in charge of Kikwete's security escort (so that you can go to Julius Nyerere without thinking about traffic jams).

 

These friendships are established in completely arbitrary ways:

 

One I met over a dinner in the Badminton Institute. Another stalked me for months via my blog and SMSs, but after we finally met for beers in Reunion Bar in Haile Selassie, that was it.

 

One is writing a PhD, presumably at a table in the guest room at the back of my house. In the guest room at the front of my house, another is trying to define in what way the NGO I work for implements its democracy focus.

 

We all just said good bye - including the Dane with the Tanzanian surname I contacted when she made a comment on a blog post I wrote about how unusually cool this way of meeting new friends is – to my Swiss friend whom I met first time in Reunion Bar.

 

Next time: Ulaya!

Dar Sketches: A whole new way of looking at Dar es Salaam

I'm honoured to be included in this new intiative: Dar Sketches, which might eventually turn into a book.

My post WORKING FOR CHANGE (THE SMALL CHANGE WHICH MAKES DAR ES SALAAM MOVE) made in onto the blog here.

A whole new way of looking at Dar es Salaam.

Photography: Calm corner of a market place somewhere in northern Tanzania

Umas(i)kini Sikitu

Poverty is nothing.

Please correct me if this is not a correct translation. And please, do also get back to me with ideas for interpretating it.

The photo is taken in the village at Kilwa Ruins.

 

Tuning into Europe. Africa will make it without us

I'm not the only one returning to Europe soon. I have two other good, European friends who are going through the same existential crisis of preparing to transfer in not so long.

Therefore, a lot of our conversations are dealing with what will be of Europe and what will be of us upon return.

Somehow, it appears, we’re certain that Africa will make it without us.

Honestly, we're more worried about Europe, ourselves and our ability to re-integrate in a location where there are less than 26 degrees; nobody being uswahili about anything; where mobiles are sim-locked; people drive accordingly to signs and the designated lanes; where your friends will check their calendar before they agree to have coffee with you ('eh, next week or what about next month?'); and where the colour of your couch can make up enough material for a typical, average conversation.

Lakini, you know; it’s better to go home while this is still good.

Besides, I also tend to forget that back home there used to less amoeba infections; no malaria; no dinner conversations where it seems perfectly okay to talk about stomac infections in details; high speed Internet for less money, rye bread; European rock music; a million different kinds of dairy products to choose from on the supermarket shelves; friends and family. And yesterday my friend predicted that in our absence the type of men who brush their teeth with a daily frequency have multiplied. 

I keep my expectations practical when it comes to Europe.

The Marlboro Man (in a Danish volunteer way)

Yesterday I took an extra look at my book shelf in the office and found this book:

It is called ‘Frivillig og Fremmedarbejder’ a title which can be translated into English as ‘Volunteer and Emmigrant Worker’. The book is revising the personnel programme of the NGO I work for.

20 years ago. The book is from 1988.

I brought the book home to share it with the variety of people who live here at the moment.

The photos are fantastic.

Like this one of a smoking, female, Danish plumber.

Or the volunteer wearing a bikini on the beach in Zanzibar, the caption explaining it is a great way to make contact with locals.

But the three women of us all had one favourite. This man.

 
The caption says he’s a farmer from the northern part of Jutland who volunteered in Kimuli in Tanzania in the early days of the programme, which must have been the 1960ties

He looks as if he hasn’t showered or shaved recently, he’s wearing sandals of old car tyres and his clothes are worn out. He’s smoking, too. He’s into music.

Generally, he looks as if he’s really into what’s he’s doing.

A bit like a Marlboro Man but in a Danish volunteer way.

Not many of his kind around any more, I’m afraid.

We'd really like to have known this one.

'I don't understand the Tanzanians'

Why is everything polepole?

Is it because of the ujamaa?

Why do they accept this crazy corruption?

Why don't they do something?

When I was in Kenya/South Africa/Zimbabwe/Uganda there was so much more drive.

Sometimes I'm being cornered by an mzungu, who (in my opinion) is caught in a desperate process of projecting the facts that he/she needs reasoning for his/her existence in Africa.

In stead of questioning our own short comings (our inability to speak the local language, our lack of patience and time to get into a completely different culture or our unwillingness to live on similar conditions like the majority of the Africans), we distribute some of the above questions.

Often, I go along, and together we can make up an even longer list. If you work for an NGO the need is a bit more tangible as you need visible impact to reply back to the donors (but also to legitimise the money you deal with).

But even the capitalists, and the men looking for easy women, need it.

Wazungu want explanations. But, I believe, we make up the list in vain.

I've learnt two things: 

One thing - it is all about psychology; It is extremely painful to be an expat, hired on a contract which provides you with a huge responsibility, new title, contract, job, house, insurance, 4WD and resettlement allowance - admitting your own shortcomings when you're already in it (I'm soon out, which means that I'm convincing myself it is easier to write this).

Secondly, 10 years ago in Serbia, I also learnt this (but almost forgot it): it is so much easier if you don't try to understand e-ve-ry-thing all the time. In Serbia it made it so much more easy for me to get to know people by accepting that parts would probably always only be a mystery.

Some things are not even supposed to be understood.

Back from a short hiatus (where I lost inspiration)

After I returned from South Africa on December 20I kind of got lost between a house full of wonderfull - and long awaited - guests coming and going; a Christmas Eve party in Dar es Salaam; a quick drive through the mud to Kilwa; a safari to Selous and a boat trip to a rainy Unguja (which by the way has no electricity).

I basically felt that I ran out of inspiration, which might be related to the fact that my subconsciousness is trying hard to tell my brain to get ready for returning back to Europe.

You might not believe me, but it is so much more comlicated returning home, than it is to make the decision to go and work and live in Africa. When you leave for Africa, you have a mission, a job, house, insurance and transport -  they even give you a preparation course and an attempt to explain how the Danish tax system works.

When you go back, you're on you're own.

I tried to explain some of these contemplations to my Icelandic family who themselves have moved forth and back between Denmark and Iceland a couple of times. My 7-year old nephew overheard the conversation, and later he returned to me to elaborate on the fact that he had interpretated my statements as 'starting from scratch' to 'moving back to your parents' house, doing primary school all over'.

At that point it all got really scary. It is complex, but not that difficult.

I even think the inspiration is returning.

2009: Where did it go? 2010: Where will it take me?

  

Same day, last year I wrote abstractly about my New Year resolutions here. 

I've had a 2009 in high speed, a year which never took me off the continent, but on the contrary to many far corners of interesting places in Africa.

I have met a great variety of people; I have met some absolutely fantastic personalities; and 2009 gave some new, extraordinarilyy good friends.

I've tried not to overwork, and I believe that the extra time given has been spent exploring an learning. In general, I do think I made the most of it.

Here at the last day of 2009 my house is booked down to the last bed; People are arriving here for drinks and then we're off for a roof top party on Kimweri Avenue.

I'm still struggling with sensible New Year resolutions for 2010, and I can't really transfer them into words. However, I do think it is something about finding my way out of Africa; about (a new) course and direction; about making real money; and probably about getting to terms with some waiting time before I realise what will be.

For me it is a huge thing to leave Africa, and I don't feel like thinking about it in details. Lakini, that will happen in 2010.

Twentyten, I'm sure will offer a lot of new opportunities. Europe can't be that bad after all, can it?!

I wish you all a Happy New Year:

Heri ya mwaka mpya!

Misunderstood solidarity

Let me say it the kali way;

If you, the mzungu who come to Tanzania or any other country in Africa for a shorter period of time, suddenly find yourself faced with the evident lack of fairness and inequality, and you decide to support, let's say a school child with his or her education, you better stick to it.

Via my job I have received my share of emails from people who have been here, returned to Denmark, and realised that this support they promised while they were here, is a financial burden and a logistical challenge. Or they need someone to document or check up.

This morning I just received a letter from someone in Denmark explaining me his financial constraints contra his promise to pay a young man's school fees; and his failed attempts to get an NGO or others on board.

In general, I don't mind wazungu supporting Africans on a private level. What I don't get, is that a lot of wazungu don't understand the range from how easy it is to make a promise while they are in it in Africa, to how difficult it is to fullfill it back home. A lot of wazungu don't understand that they have to take the full responsibility for what they embark on and for the expectations they create.

What really pisses me off is when a person writes me from Denmark appealing to my conscience, attempting to make me feel guilty (while listing a lot of extremely important facts which appear only to apply in that particular case), because that person wants someone to take over his/her promise.

I find it immensely selfish, and those cases are, in my opinion, in fact the worst examples of misunderstood solidarity.

'Danish Text Leak': What does Africa say?

I'm blogging for the NGO I work for here about issues related to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. This is my post for Friday:

Not being in Copenhagen, but in the other end of the African continent, namely Johannesburg, things are not just remote in a geographical way, it is also not easy to get a real idea of the atmosphere in Copenhagen. However, for the past few days I've been following what the Africans say about the so-called 'Danish text leak' on on-line newspapers, Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

The 'Danish text leak' does not exactly support the rich countries' attempt to bring on that rich and poor countries are equal in the negotiations or in real life, though Ban Ki-Moon has been working overtime to reassure the good intentions; 'I have been very consciously engaging with developing countries,' he said. 'Even if there have been some trust issues, we have been bridging this gap as much as we can. This is what I am going to continue to do.'

On the other hand; it hasn't exactly caused an avalance in the African media.

When the 'Danish text leak' hit the social media a Kenyan friend of mine opened up with this Facebook status on Wednesday: Is anyone surprised? But the World Bank, seriously? Shame on you Denmark! And then she linked to Gado, the Kenyan illustrator's Facebook page, where people amongst others have commented on the illustration below as follows:

 

• - Talks, talks and much more talks. That is all! It has been like this since WW2. Participants get allowances during such meetings and they go back to their countries with just recommendations that are not binding!
• - Its a climatic talkshow...just too much co2 emission with no action after the show
• - God is the only King who can change all situations in the world don be cheated by the copenhagen gathering nothing will take effect....lets pray enough prayers n all shall be well.
• - It's time we Africans took responsibility for our problems instead of always blaming foreigners. 
• - prayers are for the faint hearted....we need to stop hiding in Gods name and act on his behalf may be......doing whatever you can to save his creation iif you believe in that.....www.climatedebtagents.com visit that site for more.

The South African Mail & Guardian on Wednesday here delivered an observant analysis quoting Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77 plus China, when he explained 'why the poor countries he represents were so incensed' about the text leak: 

'We will not walk out of the talks at this late hour, because we will not allow the failure of Copenhagen. But we will not sign an inequitable deal; we will not accept a deal that condemns 80% of the world population to further suffering and injustice.'

However, some of the comments replying to the article are in deed indicating that the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit isn't just black and white (for all comments look here):

• - 132 developing countries, and they choose Sudan to represent them! WTF?
• - It's most hypocritical for world governments to lecture everyone about reducing greenhouse gases when they spent time flying around the world for countless conferences. There are just too many world jamborees. I will just name a few - UN, AU, Sadc, EU, G8, G20, now G77, East Asia Community, South American Confederation, NATO, China-Africa, East Africa Union, West Africa Union,Non-Aligned Movement, Arab Confederation,Food Summit, Climate Change, etc.
• - If Zuma and his ilk are so concerned about climate change, why aren't they driving small, energy-efficient cars, like the Toyota Prius, instead of huge gas-guzzling R1 million Beamers?? Where is the gvt's long-term plan to reduce carbon emissions? Why are new houses for the poor not fitted with solar panels as a matter of course? Why all those overseas visits in private or army jets? If I were the West, I'd want to be sure that my money was actually going to be used to combat climate change, instead of being just another gift to the corrupt politicians.

Adam Welz, a South African, participating in the summit in Copenhagen is here blogging a first account of the Di-Aping speech:

'He then went on to forthrightly address the weakness of many African negotiating delegations, noting that many were unprepared and that some members were either lazy or had been “bought off” by the industrialised nations. He singled out South Africa, saying that some members of that delegation had actively sought to disrupt the unity of the bloc. He said that civil society needed to hold its negotiators to account, but warned of a long and difficult struggle for a fair climate deal (words to the effect of ‘you have no idea of the powers that are arrayed against you’, spoken in the tone of someone who has spent years interacting with these powers.).'

The limited amount of reactions to the 'Danish text leak' and the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in African media does not mean that Africans are indifferent to climate change.

My personal guess is that the majority of Africans have no idea of what's going on in Copenhagen this week, nor of its potential impact on their lives; secondly, the Africans, who do have an engagement on this account, simply have very few illusions in regards of  the expected outcome of the Climate Change Summit. Thirdly, a recurrent issue is that Africans suspect that their politicians are not in this for real; i.e., The Tanzanian government has been criticized of bringing the secondlargest delegation (and for chasing the per diem) and South Africa's Jacob Zuma didn't make up his mind until last minute.

Climate change does matter to Africa; Africans do talk about the weather, the sudden mud slides, the draught and the rising water levels. These are real factors in many Africans' lives. However, the complex discussions dominating the agenda in Copenhagen dealing with man made temperature rises, CO2 quotas and fossil fuel are simply not matching most of the Africans' reality.

The 'Danish text leak', in my opinion, sadly underlines this, and the big question really is; whatever happens in Copenhagen, will it improve the everyday lives of the Africans?

Illustration by the Kenyan illustrator, Gado. Taken from here.

Copenhagen Climate Summit: The Danish text leak. Give me your opinons!

The UK Guardian is reporting that the second day of the UN Copenhagen climate summit erupted in even more controversy today after developing countries reacted angrily to documents that were leaked showing world leaders will be asked to sign an agreement next week that gives considerably more power to rich nations and curtails the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

 

Read more here.

 

I'm writing on a blog post for http://ms-action.dk/blogs/climate about reactions from the Africans bloggers and tweeters on 'the Danish text leak'.

 

Africans, please, give me your opinions!

Selfportrait

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!

Copyright. According to Tanzanian media (photo of me in The Guardian, page 7)

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).

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.

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 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 Bunge 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 a 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).

Many, myself included, come 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.

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.

Paying for meetings like these make people stay with their stereotypes; It makes the natives believe that all wazungu are rich, while the wazungu believe that all 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.

Getting emotional: The Tanzanian state of education

Working with development, we all have our favourites, something which is closer to our hearts than other areas.

In my case it is education - but as in human potential, creativity, personal drive, eagerness and motivation. So far, I have only found the word 'education' enlisted among the buzz words in the development support bible.

However, it all boils down to utilised and appreciated human potential, creativity, personal drive, eagerness and motivation, which will be the only forces change is made of.

Of course, this is my opinion. I used to be a teacher, and I have absolutely no objective approach to this. I have written about it before from northern Uganda and South Sudan - countries which in my opinion easilier can explain why they haven't got their education system in place. Tanzania has not gone through the same conflicts and problems, and have moreover received non-stop development support since the 1960ties

That makes me rather emotional. Not just the state of education in Tanzania, but the fact that this vast human potential, creativity, personal drive, eagerness and motivation 365 days a year in a large range of Tanzanian villages just isn't utilised, but ignored.There are lots of explanations for this. Education is merely the only thing neglected in the rural areas. Access to water, health services, decent infrastructure and information are other absent, basic necessities for development. The distance between the people who have and the ones who don't, is rather tangible in Tanzania.

In many cases, the schools are there - as in hardware. Buildings are constructed all over the country, but often they don't provide enough space for the pupils enrolled or they are in miserable states. Other problems are obviously also that some teachers don't show up; don't teach; don't speak the tribal language of the children in that area; that they take bribes or demand other services. But teachers are also directed by the government where to work, paid an absolutely ridiculously little salary considering their role and tasks. According to the teachers I spoke to last week, a Tanzanian teacher makes about 75 - 300 USD monthly, that is if they are paid at all - recently teachers have announced that they may go on a 'go slow strike', demanding amongst others their salaries.

And while researching for this blog post, I read this article, which presents a rather interesting variety of view points in terms of the modern Tanzanian teachers, most of them offending, like this one:

Many modern day teachers may have come up short in being role models. Take the female unmarried pregnant teacher or with own children. Single parenthood may be the trend in urban Tanzania, but single mom teacher is setting the example that it is OK to disobey the commandments of the Holy Bible, Quran or other beliefs of one’s community.

The list is long, however, what is fundamental is, that Tanzania has an educational system which simply doesn't meet the need for the vast majority of the watanzania.

Last week I visited two schools in Monduli District - each a primary school in the villages of Moirowa and Kiserian. Both are populated by the Maasai, though Moirowa over time has had a Somali influence which has integrated with the Maasai. They are both situated about 35 km from the main road going between Arusha and Namanga at the border to Kenya, turning in Longido towards Lake Natron. Both villages are situated about 100 km from Arusha, in an area where you on clear days can see you can see the mountains of Kilimanjaro, Meru, Longido and Ol Doinyo Lengai.In the school in Kiserian there was no water and no kitchen facilities for cooking food for the children. Some of the children walk up to 15 km to and from school every day. Enrollment is highly influenced by the present draught in the area, as families shift according to access to water.

In the school in Moirowa there was water, and food was prepared for the pupils - a thin maize soup with beans. Here the children did not walk as far as in Kiserian, and a much higher percentage of girls were enrolled.

The visitors coming with me had brought paper and crayons, and the pupils sat down and drew. Using their human potential, creativity, personal drive, eagerness and motivation. The teachers went along; The children concentrated and produced. As long as there is this ability, everything is possible. Africans have made it big, coming from everywhere. However, a lot of potential is not utilised in Tanzania.

About 50% of Tanzania’s population is under 18 years: How can Tanzania ignore the importance of education?

If in doubt: Scroll back and take another look at the first photo of the child concentrating to draw!

Adaptation: It is easier summing up what Africa has changed in me, than what I have changed in Africa

The logo on my car refuses to stay white.

Gradually it has taken colour after the red dust, and it won't go off, even after lots of rain.

Metaphorically speaking: Not too sure if it symbolises the rest of the NGO I work for.

Lakini, personally I do feel that it is more difficult getting the dust off than getting dusty. It is easier coming to Africa, than returning. It is easier summing up what Africa has changed in me, than what I have changed in Africa.

I know some of you will laugh, but months ago I collected a little bag of red soil from the Kilimanjaro region, where the soil is blindingly red. They have my favourite colour soil in that area, and Kilimanjaro is one of the most astounding places in Africa. To take with me home and stare at when I am going to blend in with the Danish landscape.

Does red African soil fade over time if you move it out of its original environment?  

Back in Dar es Salaam

I got back to Dar es Salaam yesterday after 10 days on th road. I love driving, getting out there, but sometimes driving back home is a real mission. Within a month I have driven 2763 kilometres. I am exhausted. Being back in Dar es Salaam just feels fantastic.

Now sorting photos and editing. More to come.

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.

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

   

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

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

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.

Expat life: The art of making (new) friends

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

It didn’t give me friends, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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.

Sunday ranting from Kampala

Glad I am not the only blogger out here who occasionally has had it with the missionaries. However, a lot said on the account on the missionaries, could also be said on the account of Danish development workers.

So, I'll leave it, and pass on the word to the Ugandan Insomniac here.

Things are relative

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 questions, which I do enjoy to give feedback to.

Others don’t.

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, ask specific questions and who comprise a greeting. But I do not wanna spend my time writing travel and country analysises for free, and obviously I cannot answer specifically when people ask me unspecific 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 in 2009), 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 expats 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 the wazungu, 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.

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. 

Bongo Design: The Watchman's Chair #2

More about the phenomenon here.

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

More here.

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!

KenyaAirways on Twitter: Cool!

KenyaAirwaysAre you travelling today with Kenya Airways?Need any info on Flight Status?Please tweet us and we will let you know #travel #nairobi #flight6 minutes ago from web

I have been up-dating myself on 'social media' tools as I co-facilitated a training session on new media last Friday for staff at Tanzania Media Fund. In particular, I have been trying to work out Twitter, which I haven't been overtly fond of, but I realised new opportunities if I connect it with my blog, Flickr and Facebook - amongst them a new way to reach - or be reached - by a different target group.

I like Twitter now, and will try to use it a bit more focused.

I  also like Kenya Airways' approach on Twitter. It made me wonder what a Precision Air Twitterstream would look like...! (I even wondered what Mugabe's Twitterstream would look like).

What the f**ck is 'new media'? Try these guides.

 

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.)

What's your Thinking Space?

The Economist is asking opinion leaders from around Europe to share where they get their ideas (their ‘Thinking Space’). Over the next few months The Economist will be featuring the best contributions in the main section of this site, alongside those of the leading personalities already featured like movie director Claudia Llosa, musician Jamie Lidell and Spotify founder Daniel Ek.

If you have a blog, they would love to see what your thinking space is. To take part, all you have to do is check out this site.

...now, right - it focuses on Europe, however, I'd loved it to have asked Robert Mugabe. Or Kikwete. Or maybe the person who designed the traffic system in Dar Es Salaam.

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!

Southern Highlands: Vastness & Solitude

It is Sunday night around eight o’clock.

 

 

  

Above me is the serene, dark sky, edged by the four walls of the little yard of the house of the family I’m staying with.

 

  

The moon and the stars are shining bright. The view is healing. I don’t know why but it gives me the impression that there is more to life that an office job in the big city, though I doubt I could ever exchange the remote vastness of the Southern Highlands for a longer period of time with the kelele of the big city.

‘Have you ever seen such a clear sky?,’ my host, John asked last night. 

 

  

I have. Once in northern Uganda, where we drove by the back roads between Arua and Koboko one night. And once I went by dhow from Bagamoyo to Zanzibar. But it doesn’t happen often. To see such a clear sky you need to be far off the infrastructure. In Denmark it isn’t possible.

 

  

I have no exact idea of where I am, but far off the infrastructure. The village is called Kanani, and it is no more than a few scattered houses, two churches and a school. I left Iringa Sunday morning at 9 o’clock, and met with John in Makumbako two hours later. Makumbako is a trading centre and a junction for the traffic moving up from Zambia via Mbeya, and to and from Songea, a town close to the Mozambiqan border.

 

  

But lost track when we drove off the road at Halali Village 22 kilometres after Makumbako on the road to Mbeya. We circled for 30 kilometres through Ilembula Village, where I waited for John to have a haircut; then to Mambegu junction; and finally the last 2,5 kilometres to Kanani.

 

  

To our right we had the blue Livingstone Mountains at Lake Nyasa. Livingstone made it all the way down here, entering from Mikindani at the southern coast of Tanzania.

 

 

Someone is beating the drum, walking round the few houses which make up Kanani. ‘All people are requested to show up to make bricks tomorrow for the school toilets,’ my hosts explains.

 

We are far out. At least that is what I’m thinking as the life here is such a contrast to where I come from.

Even to Dar es Salaam which in this perspective has got it all; power, newspapers and people; network and tarmac.

 

  

The wind shook the house all night. It was freezingly cold when I woke up this morning and slid my feet into a pair of cold malapa. The procedures for my morning toilette were another cold affair, and I’m soon to long for a warm shower.

 

 

 

  

Today I have been facilitating a training session on how to make a newsletter for John’s organisation, Njombe Agricultural Development Association (NADO), and right now, here at the end of it, I’m impressed with our progress, and the fact that it got concrete. Tomorrow will show if I’m too optimistic.

 

  

More about it later, my laptop battery is running low.

Iringa: May I recommend the Copenhagen Suite?!

I still find it overwhelming and far out to take my car and drive into Africa, and find a hotel. All on my own.

Several times I have also hung out the car, asking my way, in spite it now seems obvious. The first time I drove to Iringa two years ago, I couldn't find the town itself.

I now know that it is hidden away on a cliff 1600 metres above sea level. But nobody said anything about that.

A classic European idea, in this case the German colonisers, to build a town here where the climate is cool. The Germans though had trouble settling issues with the local chief from the Hehe tribe, Mtwa Mkwawa, who later committed suicide in 1898 rather than surrendering himself to the Germans. Tanzanian core history took place in this area.

On Uhuru Avenue I parked my car outside Annex of Staff Inn. The place has this peculiar thing - every room has a name after a town.

No evident system, but I got the Copenhagen Suite.

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.

Girls and boys wear ear plugs. Not just in Africa.

There's a Flickr group for almost anything. Now here's one for girls and boys wearing ear plugs (!), which I initially thought was another project to make Africans look overtly tribal.

But in fact, it isn't.

My contribution is this little girl in the photo above collecting water at one of the bomas in Orpopong'ni Village in Kiteto District in Maasailand. The Maasai girl have their ears pierced - this one recently. Fascinating, if you can avoid thinking of the pain.

But - take a look at the other photos in the group here: Other people outside Africa go tribal, too.

Stop Making Sense: Once In A Lifetime

The lyrics of an old Talking Heads song popped up in my head yesterday:

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?

Sounds relatively familiar.

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.

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 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.

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.

Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world...

When I was in Maasailand in January, I had a bit of time to kill in Kimana Village, while we were filming.

A rather rough place. Evidently heavily marked of the general pressure on land. In Kimana Village the Maasai live side by side with the Wagogo and the Wahehe – people from other tribes deriving as far away as Dodoma and Iringa.

In fact, to me it resembled the Sudanese refugee settlements and the internally displaces people’s camps in northern Uganda: Sun burnt land. People scattered around the trading centres waiting for the rain.

Hanging out.
Getting drunk.
Very drunk.

On cheap karanga.

The smell of fermenting millet greets you from the afar. Well mixed with the smell of fresh meat put out to dry in the sun. Sort of the Maasai version of the South African biltong.

‘How to make karanga?,’ I asked.

A woman with a utensil resembling a paddle, explained that you take a bag of millet, a bag of sugar and some water. Then you pick enough firewood from around, and put the ingredients in a big oil drum. Boil it all day, while you stir. You leave it overnight to ferment, and it is ready to be sold.

Karanga is not just a Tanzanian phenomenon, it comes in many variations all over Africa. In South Africa and Zimbabwe it is common to throw in meat (!) or fruit, I have been told, to support the fermenting process - and the flavour, maybe?

One portion costs 25,000 TSH to produce, and will make about 100 servings, 250 TSH a cup. Hence, the profit is about 15,000 per portion.

The woman, I spoke to, will do this once a week. Most women do this in order to support their children.

I asked if the karanga caused any problems (while trying to get out of the way as an old man subconsciously wobbled his way through leaving a pong of liquid still in the process of fermenting.)

‘Not really,’ the woman stated. ‘If you drink a lot, you’ll sleep.’

Abuse exists everywhere in the world, in particular in places with high depression and potential conflict. For the ones who don't fall asleep, the karanga fuels agression, making life even more basic and raw, from the ingredients to the impact.

However, here, it is a way to make a living

When working in your own city turns into an expedition

I have been working Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a very talented photographer. James Seigel is normally based in Cape Town, doing phootage of a quality which an NGO of our calibre seldom can pay for.

However, he offered MS Tanzania/ ActionAid Denmark and our partner organisation, Tanzanian Youth Coalition (TYC), his competences in return for basic commodities and a set-up.

So, for the past three days I, the photographer and Adrian and Juma from TYC have been cruising the suburbs of Dar es Salaam talking to people from Mabibo, Makumbusho, Kijitnyama, Sinza, Tegeta (and beyond), Magomeni, Mansese, Ubongo, Ally Maua, Kekuwanga and Bombalauma.

It is amazing how deep you can enter via local Tanzanians and a purpose - suddenly you are in the lounge of a complete stranger's house, who tells you her/his story, while another one of us is battling with a never ending supply of children who want to be digitalised wearing broad smiles.

For the past three days I have seen an uncountable amount of men peeling potatoes - and others frying, selling and eating them.

I have been invited, repeatedly, to church by a reverend who played his gospel out that loud that I'd gone mental if I lived in that place. Many mosques have called for prayers (and I am repeating my regular explanation 'that I don't need a house to practice my faith', when asked what my religion is).

Coulourful laundry everywhere.

Homemade antennas reaching for the blue sky.

Tropical heat under iron sheet roofs, while trying to put my scarce Kiswahili at some good use.

Zig-zagging over channels of sewage and garbage. 

I have been in awe of the colours of dusty walls in low sun.

The smell of  warm charcoal and humid limestone.

I have seen women in kangas much nicer than the ones I have ever bought ('Mombassa' they said, when I asked 'wapi?'). 

In fact, I suggested TYC that we'd start planning guided tours to suburbs with curious names, inspired by this.

The idea was to speak to youth who had received training in entrepreneurship skills at TYC, and to produce some small portraits of youth who have been capable of making a change in their own lives. The interviews were amazing and we were in fact all surprised, as it turned out that all six we spoke to had made impressive changes, and expressed it with pride.

One of the women gave the advice: ' Don’t sit back. Don’t wait for being provided for.'

And finally, I have to say that I myself learnt a few things in terms of photography - the photos are amazing, and I can't wait to put it all together.

Photo by James Seigel.

Snapshots from the Dar es Salaam Suburbs

Not the ordinary safari photos

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

But, still, quite a safari.

Obama for sale in Moshi (but no safari boots)

I am on a safari, which today took me from Lushoto (where the freezing cold convinced me that Europe is never gonna be real fun again) through Moshi to Usa River.

I stopped in Moshi for a short walk. Departing Dar es Salaam in flip-flops, is a Swahili Coast habit hard to beat.

Hence I tried to buy a pair of safari boots in Bata Shoes.

None my size. though. But I gotta get some. Seems like the northern Tanzanian thing to do.

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.

Will you give us a lift to our Bible classes?

Why not?!

I, on the other hand, needed a photo for an article.

Something which illustrated Christianity.

Sasa hivi.

Something for something, so I got my photo and took three nuns in light blue dresses to their bible classes while answering the obligatory questions regarding my religion.

Golden Tulip Hotel Mystery

The Golden Tulip has probably got the best swimmingpool in Dar es Salaam. An infinity swimming pool with a magnificent view of Dar es Salaam and the bay.

However, while someone has made an interesting attempt to give the hotel an Arabic/ Swahili design, it appears as if it was given up to a Yugoslav interior designer during the socialist era, who must have wrapped the hotel and staff up in a time pocket, and sold it to an Indian tycoon (who also likes everything in brown colours).

I go there for the swimmingpool. And expect nothing more. But most tourists do, and the friends I have sent off there (who i.e. also wanted lunch) where not to too overtly excited.

Places like the Golden Tulip are mysteries to me.

The hotel has such great potential, but it isn't used.

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?

Workshop. Volleyball. White Sands

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.

'Do you know what the best thing about living in Africa is?'

On Tuesday when checking out of Tanga, the mzungu hotel manager, who had been circulating around the reception for a while, finally popped her million dollar question while I was in the process of stuffing a long line of assorted and colourful pieces of luggage into my Nissan Hardbody which was parked right outside the best hotel in Tanga.

The question obviously appeared to be rethoric. The manager also didn't hesitate providing the right answer in her own quiz: 'That you never have to carry anything yourself!'

The manager has quizzed me on another occasion earlier on, but conclusions like these still puzzle me. She has a point, obviously. Labour in Africa is cheap, and per tradition and out of lack of appropiate comodities the Tanzanians do not only carry their own stuff, but also whatever the wazungu come along with. Right from the beginning. It is a fine balance about being able to accept this luxury at the right times, and at other shut up and do it yourself.

It is a thing I do appriciate, I must admit, but for me the line is thin: I have no such luxury where I come from and there will be none of it when I return. I am brought up to never bring more than I can carry myself, but having the luxury here occasionally makes me forget it.

My 6-year-old Icelandic nephew, Baltasar, put the case into the ironic perspective when he asked me on his latest visit to Tanzania: 'Why have you got slaves?'. He was evidently referring to my watchman carrying my groceries and washing my car.

Made me think.

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.

'Into Africa: Intercultural Insights' (Africa tricks me everyday)

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.

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.

One long vein meandering its way into the heart of Dar es Salaam

Every morning of the work week I drive through the same 4,5 kilometre scenario along the Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road, from Regent Estate at the New Bagamoyo Road to Selander Bridge/United Nations Road in Upanga. And back again.

 

With very few exemptions the mornings are similar.

 

From early morning the road is packed with cars, from the oversize, governmental and non-governmental landcruisers with silky white interior to the worn-out Toyota salon cars, the tuk-tuks (which name sounds like a hostile tribe), dala dalas and what not. All forming one long vein meandering its way into the heart of Dar es Salaam.

 

Occasionally brought to a halt by a VIP enjoying the comforts on this country's weakness for hierachy, leaving the horrors of the traffic jam to the common people.

 

Due to the fact that the amount of cars doesn't match the squaremetres of available tarmac (though the ones who don't believe in waiting, will make up additional lanes) everything reduces to slow-mode. Here a life of its own has developed along the traffic jams of this road. With recurrent characters (myself included). This morning a traffic police officer greeted me at the Haile Selassie junction; ‘You are late this morning.’ I laughed, I was actually late. It makes a lot of difference when exactly you enter the traffic flow, and this morning I left my house at 7.40, 40 minutes later than usual.

 

Lakini, the Scandinavian capital I come from, a traffic police officer would never note it.

 

And Sunday one of the young men selling newspapers embarked on a discussion while I was waiting in the Morocco junction; ‘Why don’t you buy a paper from me?’ I told him, that I usually read them in the office. ‘But it is Sunday, and you don’t work on a Sunday!’

 

Also true.

 

On the other hand I do always buy the East African from one of the regular vendors who appear around the Big Baobab Tree. These guys know their customers well, and I live up to their expectation. The street vendors are in general intensive, but not very logical in their promoting. Do I really look like someone who plans to buy hangers, pillows, oranges and some weird-looking liquid for the car - in the traffic jam? All at once?! My 'sihitaji' or the 'sitaki' is never acceptable, and I am being starred at from eyes belonging to bodies captured by a draining mix of hunger and hope. That is if I don't give in to the junk I don't need and don't want.

 

My main challenge are the beggars, the handicapped and the sick. The young guy with no fingers on his hands, where one carefully has to leave notes (better than coins) for him to grasp between his palms; The bearded guy with a limp instead of a full leg: The young menthally sick boy with kind eyes about whom I am always thinking could have had a good life in Denmark. There is also the albino who works his way up and down on the whole stretch on all times. Once he summarized the whole scenario to me, when he said; 'It is up to you, babe!', when I looked back at him through a pair of expensive, black shades once given to me by my sister.

 

I saw myself from outside, and did not like the sight. Maybe he knew. Surely he sparked the dilemma I can afford to let me puzzle myself with on an existential level. The question between my conscience saying if you have, you must give - and my principle lack of belief in giving money to beggars; Or to buying things I don't see the use for just because the vendors then will go hungry.

 

In spite the days appear similiar, I can't help thinking that the stretch I drive through twice a day makes up the complexity of Tanzania too well. It surely demands patience, and frequent reviews on how far I will and can take myrself.

 

 

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.

Bara ya Africa - the meaning of deep inside (of Africa)

When I worked with the Sudanese in northern Uganda, the people would say: 'We are going deep inside', when we were off on a mission. I always wondered what that actually meant. Linguistically as well as practically.

I mean, the Scandinavian would ask the obvious practical questions: 'How far inside, for how long, when will we be back, and will I need to bring my passport?' But in linguistic terms I have also been curious on how far you'd have to go before it counts as deep inside, and what exactly makes it count as such. 

Never seemed clear, and at one point you just go with the flow and stop asking.

However, a Tanzanian colleague explained the concept to me today like this.

'Bara' is a word in Kiswahili for 'the continent, the interior, territory'. Like 'Bara ya Afrika', the African continent, but it is also used more symbolically as 'the inside of Africa', as in opposition to the coast.

People from the coast, the Swahili, will say 'anatoka bara', meaning 'he comes from deep inside', from far away. (I also get the understanding it can indicate that the guy might not be as updated as the people on the coast. And that he might complain about those light meals they eat on the coast, he prefers his ugali or even the matoke. But that is another story.)

Those are the people who come from bara, the interior, from deep inside Africa. If I go deep inside I'll say 'nakwenda bara' (or 'ninakwenda bara') - still I am not completely sure when or where to use the phrase.

Get all the meanings of bara here.

The photo is from the road between Koboko in northern Uganda and Yei in Southern Sudan.

Advice for 4×4 enthusiasts

Mick Farmer from OnCourse in Uganda is back with the kind of advice for 4×4 enthusiasts, I usually have to ask my brother about.

One of the exercises we do on our High range course, for example, is the slalom (weaving in and out of traffic cones). This doesn’t sound like much fun but come along and do it and you won’t want to stop.

It is true. Read here.

The photo is not from an excersise but a scene from daily life in the rain season in northern Uganda in May 2007.

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.

No one can wear a green Kaunda suit like Kikwete...

Today I am wearing a toxic-green shirt. Two colleagues in my office instantly noticed, and laughed:  

Are you supporting CCM!?

Aren't we all?! I smiled (while trying to match the irony of the question).

Tanzania introduced multi-party system in 1992, which means that Tanzania has limited experience with different political parties, but a lot with CCM.

Here you can express your political affiliation by colour, but time it well. The colour of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi - the revolutionary party and the leading political party in Tanzania - is green and yellow.

Sparkling, grass green.

And I must say; no one can wear a green Kaunda suit like Kikwete (with a glimpse of his bare chest).

Imagine this in a European context!

A Danish male politician would never wear a grass green suit, nor would he not wear a shirt underneath, but would restrict himself to a conservative black, navy, grey or brown, and finish off with a tie.

Four Pieces of Advice from Rakesh Rajani

I just found a worn-out notebook from a session last year on the topic of education in Tanzania at the British Council in Dar es Salaam, where Rakesh Rajani gave four pieces of advice.

1. Read fiction. Minimum a novel a month. It stimulates your imagination. It makes you travel to places. It makes you dream.

2. Engage actively in the media. Call a talkshow. Write a letter to the editor. Take a stand.

3. Do something. Start at home and with your neighbours. Improve your own space. Start with yourself and your home.

4. Engage in the educational system. Join a school committee or something else. Just don't sit back.

 

These pieces of advice were targeted a predominantly Tanzanian ordience, but I believe they count well for the rest of the world, too.

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.

Mal air. Bad air. Malaria. Bad for you

People once thought it was the gas from the swamps which made them sick. Not until the 19th century it was clear that malaria is caused by a parasite carried by a mosquito. Malaria - mal air - comes from Italian, but it goes well in Kiswahili, too.

Here everybody knows the meaning of it.

And I got it again. Last Thursday while in Maasailand.

I can feel it already in the early morning. I simply can’t get out of bed. My whole body – muscles and bones - hurt. Abit like the flu, but just more heavy. But I get up, have a cold shower which makes me freeze even more in the dry morning air.

I make it to the Maasai village, walk and talk, till I have to go and sit in the car. While I wait in the car for the driver to take me back to Kibaya Town, the women of the village, I have visited now for my 3rd time, take up first row positions staring at me with sincere sympathy.

One has a baby who also has malaria. A baby, but no dawa. No medicine. Aish!

I sweat and I ache, and I try to remember how to say high fever. Joto la homa or something. Not necessary, my eyes answer them back shiny and feverishly. I keep thinking if that baby feels what I do, she keeps a better face. If you ever had malaria before you know what is ahead of you, and you certainly don't want a baby to go through it. Babies die of malaria every day in this country. Globally malaria kills about 880,000 people every year. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than 60% of infections and 80% of the deaths from the disease. 

I feel like someone beat me up, as if someone walked over me with heavy shoes, drove me over with a truck. As if someone put my head into a microwawe oven.

Fortunately, I have a self-test kit and treatment on me, and I know how to use it (with some help of a colleague who can prick my finger  for the blood sample). I know enough from last time I got malaria to measure my fever regularly with a thermometre, to drink water and to keep my head cool. I have realised that a big part of making it through the first day with malaria is all about this, secondly not to panic.

I can't say that I haven't felt scared. Malaria is not just an awful disease because it easily turns lethal. Malaria also takes away motivation for life in general - you only think about how and when it will leave your body. I also can't say that being a passenger for 130 kilometres on a bad road makes you feel any better.

I don't have any good advice on malaria, I can only tell you what I have done and what I would do. It might not necessarily be correct. After all, I got it again.

Previous posts on malaria:
Malaria prophylactics, self test kits and keeping your head cool
Time Out

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.

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...

With Kikwete Looking over the Shoulder

It is all there what makes up a classic office in a small town in Tanzania. The flag, the laptop, the adapter, the big, heavy calendar, note book, guest book, wall calendars and the inventory inscriptions on the furniture in bold black writing. 

Also, Kikwete, the President is here. Hanging on a nail up under the ceiling. It does make me associate that the man is given a value and a vision to constantly remind us ordinary people that we are subjects, and that we physically have to look up to the chief-in-command.

It would almost be too obvious to write that the man keeps an eye on us, but Tanzania doesn't feel like that. Kikwete has - unlike many other African presidents - also a bit of a too charming Mona Lisa smile - for me to think further along those lines.

The pictures are from Vijana Vision Tanzania's office in Kisarawe, a town about 45 minutes south-west of Dar es Salaam.

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!

Invitation for chai & chapati in Ruthi's 'mgahawa'

 

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.

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.

You cannot do both. Lakini, in East Africa you can...

In a meeting today on MS Tanzania's ongoing merger with Action Aid Tanzania the facilitator used an image to illustrate that two different ways of doing the same thing cannot be merged into one.

It is either one of them: 'In Denmark you drive in the right side of the road, in Tanzania the left. You cannot do both at the same time.'

Someone, correctly mentioned; 'But it happens every morning on Ali Hassan Mwinyi in Dar es Salaam.'

On Uhuru Highway in Nairobi, too, where this photo is from.

My inner, hungry Dane

My nationality - the inner Dane that I rarely have problems keeping in line - sometimes strikes unexpectedly.

Especially around lunch time.

Generally, I am practising a gradually achieved principle not to indulge in the categories in which the Danish People's Party attempt to monopolize under the label 'Danish', however, I have a real soft spot in terms of smørrebrød - open sandwiches.

It is among the first things I do when visiting Denmark - to rob friendly people's refrigerators for ingredients. My sister, who in 1992 settled permanently in the Northern part of Iceland, does the same, and used to prior to visiting Copenhagen to request specific items which ought to be availale in my then Danish refrigerator.

Today, a few things slipped into my trolley which unmistakably must have given the impression that I essentially am Danish. Revealing, I thought, and perhaps even a little boring in the Shoppers' Plaza context on Old Bagamoyo Road in Dar es Salaam which is such a multicultural supermarket with offers to all hungry nationalities.

I looked at the Chinese with their explosively fully-filled trolleys which leave me with the impression that extended families at home are waiting for being feed in pluralis. Indians buy spices, dhal and lentils in kilograms. And adult Tanzanians - with and without children - roll around with small children trolleys, filled to the bursting point with the ingredients for a classic African household: cooking oil in cans, sugar, maize flour and vegetables.

I buy rye bread produced in Nairobi, with added preservatives, and a can of marinated herring which later is transferred into smørrebrød.

Days like this

are ubelieveably stunning, like this Sunday at Kasa Beach, 45 kilometres south of Dar es Salaam.

But really - most days are like this - stuck in one of the 4 lanes trying to make it to the office in Dar es Salaam.

Driving in Africa: On Course with Mick Farmer

When I worked and lived in northern Uganda from 2005-2007 I was offered a 4WD course at On Course's facilities between Kampala and Entebbe.

I think it is one of best and most useful courses I have had in many years, and one of the reasons why I both enjoy and feel comfortable driving long distances myself - on African roads.

For a whole day I was taught the theoretical background for potential problems which often occur on African roads, and then I was put behind the wheel next to On Course's Australian lead trainer /director, Mick Farmer, and told that you can do it as in hit 60 (on what felt like a too short piece of road) and still navigate the car.

Which was the best part - mainly because Mick Farmer managed to do what no other man had done so far - he made me believe that I could drive a 4WD!  

Today I realised that Mick Farmer blogs about road safety and driving in Africa - from a really nicely lay-outed blog - so I do not just recommend his driving courses here, I'd also strongly recommend reading his blog here.

The Baobab Connections: How do you see yourself contributing to change?

The Baobab Connections features its members and interviews them under the title: How do you see yourself contributing to change? 

Interesting questions, though not easily answered. It was my turn today - see what I answered here. In particular I'm flattered by someone asking me this question: As someone who is ‘conscious’ and aware of things happening around you, what advice to others starting off in this path?