Wednesday, 28th January 2009
For the last two days I have been bothered by an e-mail I received from a close and loyal friend of mine, my ex-bass player, Nick. Nick has done a lot of work for ad agencies in Uganda and travels to this part of the world quite regularly. He accused me of being a little too glib in my criticism of Kenya, considering where South Africa had gone of late, and particularly seeing as I was a “newcomer to Kenya”. Kenya deserved more respect, he said.
I reacted harshly at first. Then I re-read some of my writing. The potential of being ‘read’ like this has bothered me from the start of my political diatribes. And I can see now that Nick was completely rational in seeing some of my later ranting (this year) as instructions to Kenya from a more ‘enlightened being’. Obviously, these pieces were never meant like that… Kenya, I am sorry for sounding in any way arrogant and bettter informed ... or whatever.
If truth be told, in my writing I have had to constantly downplay my adoration of this country and what I feel for its people (within such a short space of time!). This, for fear of being seen as some kinda weird sycophant. Kenya is an indescribably amazing country with blessedly beautiful people. I am secretly SO jealous of what Kenyans have got here (and you know, Kenyans, that I’m not alone in this ‘expat love’ of your country).
Your nation is very special. And this is before you close the gap between what is and what could be! Let me keep quiet about what could and should be. You can sort that out without the help of me. Kenyans, your spirit is so huge that somehow you triumph over your State-domination. How? I really can’t exclude my weird-freaky-ass-mystical take on it and say there’s just a multiplex “vibe” in Kenya. A vibe that, to me at least, can’t be denied. So much more than a “Hakuna Whatsitsface” attitude …
Closing advert: To become free, a lot of South Africans, of every description, put a lot of energy into hastening the end of Apartheid (in my case, through music and live performance). My children enjoy the fruits of a free (albeit violent) country today. That’s important to me. Kenya, if you are to become free, don’t leave it too long. The time really is NOW. Like it’s never been before. (And my view is vindicated by what I hear and read - increasingly - every day).
Kenyans, if there is no change, what legacy are you going to leave for your kids? You have to secure your basic freedoms now.
With a single stone, an ‘avalanche’ will start. Right here, right now.
Amani na Mapenzi
B-)
6.15am, Thursday 29th January 2009
I have been waking up very early of late. Never before have I survived on such little sleep. I’m making it through a pretty hectic day with about 5Hrs sleep on average. The UN Environmental Programme’s esteemed Jenny Clover (she of the TV set in her car) says it’s because I’m happy. I think she’s right. But at least some of the reason for my early waking this is the big sound of bird calls coming from the miniature forest that flourishes over the road from the apartment block. I can hear they are small birds, but the range of different calls is absolutely amazing and in the early morning light their music echoes across the small valley, in the absence of vehicle noise. The sound is really quite beautiful so early in the day.
At least some of the reason for my early rise is also the fact that I have to get to work at about 7.30 today to change the costing of a proposal we wrote yesterday, and send it to client before 9am…
I think there’s a spider in my bed somewhere. I have woken up with huge welts all over my body! I wake up to the sound of Kiss FM, having taken to sleeping with the radio on, playing ‘black’ R&B through the night. I like the music so much more than the white rock thing I’m used to from SA.
It’s now just past 6am and Thika Road is ALREADY jum-pucked according to Caroline Mutoko on Kiss FM. They have what they call ‘butterfly’ cameras on all the main routes and give the radio-listening Nairobi public regular traffic updates during the hilarious drive-time show. The Chinese have been widening and resurfacing Mombasa Road. Usually they stop work at 6am but today it seems they are working a bit later and causing a serious jum. Can you believe that already there are enough Nairobese on the roads – trying to avoid the later jum – to create a trufeek jum at a quarter past six on a Thursday!
Yesterday there was a serious fire at the Nakumatt Downtown. I saw the smoke from 10kms away while at the office. Many thousand Nairobese crowded the scene to watch the (much too late) attempts to extinguish the fire – the fire department, just around the corner, took over an hour to respond to the fire call, evidently. The TV footage showed the public having to be dispersed with tear gas as they crowded the scene and flooded all over the entrance to the Stanley (as in Livingstone) Hotel. (A hotel with prints of the most stunning woordcuts and paintings all over the walls).
Kenya's teachers are on strike. I just heard that the average teachers salary is Ksh7000 before tax. They clear Ksh5800 after tax. That’s less than R800 folks (and, as I have said before, Nairobi ain’t cheap!). No wonder they have gone on strike. A few have been arrested and are currently languishing in Nairobi jails. The rest are simply refusing to work. Government says there’s no more money in the fiscus for their needs. One of Kenya's MP’s is, meantime, effecting renovations to his house to the tune of a few million Shillings. And, believe it or not, most parents are fully in support of the strike. They say they would rather pay a bit more in school fees and know that their kids are getting a good education!
Yesterday Kiss took a microphone and tape recorder onto the streets and interviewed some kids, about the State President. The first kid interviewed said “President Kibaki is a bud mun…”, the next said “President Kibaki has to get everything for free…” I guess that gives you some idea of popular (even young) sentiment here!
Caroline has just bought the latest copy of True Love (that same magazine that is published in SA). She is raving on air about the magazine and tells us that there’s an article in the magazine about bachelors who can’t be read. I'm not quite sure what she means. The bachelors are illegible, according to Caroline. I wonder if they are also eligible to find a partner soon, while still eluding one’s ability to read them?
Sunday, 1st February 2009
It has been an event-filled few weeks since I last wrote.
The first bit of news is that I found a house to rent in the greenbelt suburb of Spring Valley (on Spring Hill, really). Less a house than some sort of mansion, the place has an enormous living area, four bedrooms inside and two cottages outside (yet to be ‘done-up’). Entering the place for the first time (following a tip-off from the Maasai 'askari' - security guard - at our offices), I knew I wanted to live here immediately. It is really beautiful. Expensive, yes, but I have found three house-mates who allow me to pay a fairly normal rental on the place. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a pool but the garden makes up for that on its own. And the pair of black kites that are seen continually circling the sky above our roof just add a little extra something. From the sounds of things there are monkeys living close by too.
Spring Valley is home to a lot of those big-ass four-wheel-drive vehicles I have talked about, with red UN, RC and CD (Corps Diplomatique) number plates. The other day, going to work, I also had the big black Mercedes (replete with Kenyan flag) of our neighbour, a Minister of Parliament (ministry unknown), driving behind me. And coming home the other night, I gave a lift to a late-for-duty policeman (replete with Uzzi sub-machine gun) to the road in which said minister lives. Spring Valley Road has security-controlled access, so I guess it is quite safe living here. I certainly feel safe because I have not yet closed the French doors that lead from the ‘master’ bedroom onto the garden. Anyway, as is the style of large Nairobi homes, we have employed our own security in the form of genuine Samburu Maasai ‘warrior’ (those from northern Kenya who look quite a lot like Somalis) who loves listening to reggae on Radio Metro.
And talking of Somalis, I had the honour the other night of meeting Mima – a member of the Somali royal family – and her husband Jon, a Norwegian who is so into, and knowledgable about, alternative technology it’s frightening. Clearly a genius in his own right, Jon has so much to offer Africa … And he’s about to participate in a sort-of Kyoto Protocol meeting being held here in Nairobi from Monday and featuring the environmental heads of 166 countries, or their emissaries (and his company is called Kyoto!). This meeting is being organized by Jaime’s (my fellow research director) girlfriend, Melissa. She promises to send me a summary of proceedings. I’ll try write more about the new global environment agenda as soon as I get the summary from Melli.
Monday, 23rd February 2009.
It’s been nearly a month since I have written. Work has kept me from it.
I am due to fly to Entebbbe, Uganda, this Sunday as part of a week-long Trade Mission to Kampala and Kigali, Rwanda. Through the East Africa Association, I have set up a number of meetings with people who might be interested in research in their part of the world. I will likely be most enthused when I return and promise to write furiously. Can’t wait.
Moving into this house has been an amazing experience. It has given me a sense of real belonging here and has made me feel that much more comfortable than before (if it’s possible for me to feel more comfortable). Sign of this, perhaps, is that I have got me a lovely ‘girlfriend’. I won’t breach her confidence here, but suffice it to say that Brenda is an amazing woman who I would never have imagined to meet in Kenya. Whatever her soon-to-start contract in Dubai might bring, we have had more fun in a short while than either of us has had in years. She is a part-time model and a rather gifted artist and stylist. She is also a born mimic who has me in stitches with her take on local politicians (and also a few friends of ours). She is really quite special and I suspect (Dubai aside) that we will be together for a while still.
Returning swiftly to my new resident status in Kenya (while still waiting for my permanent resident permit)…
I am increasingly asked, by intrigued Kenyans, about how long I have been here. I am now myself amazed by the fact that I have been here for a mere eleven weeks! I feel like it’s been years already! I feel like I somehow came home and that I am meant to be here. I have numerous local, Kenyan, friends – many of them through Brenda - yet I still get amazed on a daily basis at what I find here. I love this place. It just has SO much going for it.
What is REALLY amazing to me is the fact that I am understanding a great deal of Swahili in daily use. My researchers rattle something off to me and somehow I get the gist of it … They laugh.
Meantime, what other news of Kenya (habari ya Kenya)?
… so much is news that it’s hard to cover it. Brief notes follow:
Shopping in Eastleigh, among thousands of Somalis, Ethiopians and Sudanese. Nothing you can't get for quarter the price you'll pay in town. Every woman wearing a head scarf. Burkas, burkas everywhere, and not a face to see. Brenda warning me that if I take a picture I will get stoned. "But I'm stoned already, baby..." The road through Eastleigh is not a road but a pitted and potholed passageway where busses vie with hand drawn 'trailers' for command of the space.
Going out to Brenda's half-completed house (next to another, very opulent house) in the distant Ngong Hills ... Buying furniture (hand made queen size bed, in mahogany: R800) along Ngong Road on our return. Having supper at Brenda's aunt - owner of a modelling agency - in Kileleshwa. Recognising the differences between Maasai taxi drivers (in regular clothes) versus Kamba drivers versus Luos ... etc. I'm getting to 'see' the differences very clearly. Much laughter in assent when I ask the ethnic question... Buying a puppy - that looks Shepherd but isn't - on Peponi Road. The puppy's name is Moshoeshoe (after the King of the Basotho people) and she lives (of her own choice) under the elephant ear plants in the garden. (And talking of elephants ... a hilarious correction to my earlier assumption about elephants and Nakumatt... Nakumatt is actually derived from "Nakuru Mattress Company" and has absolutely nothing to do with elephants! Thanks, Kairu).
I have recently seen a few live bands that have been pretty good. On Sunday night at Black Diamond I saw a singer who has a voice that would fool the most ardent Marley fan. On the Wednesday before I saw a band at Club Afrique that would scare most pro bands in South Africa (yet they have one gig per week and play to small audiences).
So much more I could talk about ... Later.
Regarding the house mates: Rachel: she of dinner party and South Sudan technology consulting. Sheetal: an Asian Kenyan woman who consults in North Sudan on behalf of her principals in Italy. Then there’s Bob, a well-rounded and informed American with experience in drug and alcohol rehabilitation who is looking for work at an AIDS orphanage or similar (as an unpaid intern if necessary, he says).
Currently, Rachel is in the Sudan. Sheetal is about to embark on the same trade mission as I, and which I mentioned above. And Bob is in Kisumu, having some sort of assessment as a manager for a ‘home’ on the coastal border between Kenya and Tanzania, on Lake Victoria. Brenda and I have just been hanging out at home. I have been going to work and working hard - through lunch and into the night. Hence, so little time to write!
There is so much I want to tell you esteemed readers. But I guess, for now, this will have to do. Back to reviewing some proposals, writing some e-mails, and generally making myself worth Jane’s while…
In closing, here’s a poem I wrote a little while ago:
CAN YOU IMAGINE
Just like the tears of freedom
shed with Madiba,
Wembley Stadium, 1990
I’d still like to be here
(and cry)
when again
I can be a part of Afrika
that proudly says:
“Free at last, we’re Free at last”
KENYA,
CAN YOU
IMAGINE...
Africa!
the world
will shake!
Mapenzi sana
(Lots of love)
B-)
The Kenya We Want!
You haven’t heard much from me lately because I have been working very hard over the last two weeks. I have been starting work at 9am, leaving the office at 7pm, only to continue working at home from 9pm again! It has certainly restricted my writing time. But when the muse visits there’s no alternative but to write, write, write!
This particular blog was promising to be something of an Epic Tale. But it seems that the tale of intrigue I was hoping to write simply refuses to resolve itself (and remains intriguing!). It will have to wait until the time is right. And so, I have to desist to the will of the gods and leave that blog alone for now. It will out when it will.
Meantime, with my proposal-writing at work, my little recent exposure to Kenya’s news media, and my observation of local distaste in the mouths of many, I have been led to even more sober thoughts about Kenya.
First up is my recurrent concern for the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
FGM was outlawed in the Sudan last week sometime (see blog: “Two Things That Bother Me”).
Hongera (congratulations) Sudan, for entering the 21st Century! I am sure there are a lot of young girls breathing a very deep sigh of relief in your country right now – although the extent to which the banning will be enforced remains to be seen.
But I mention the Sudan’s brave action here, only because we need to know that FGM is definitely not outlawed in Kenya yet!
In a speech marking Jamhuri (Independence) Day, on 12th December 2001, President Daniel Arap Moi, Independent Kenya’s second-only President, declared the ‘circumcision’ of girls under the age of 17 unlawful, punishable by at least a year in jail. However, for girls over 16, it remained a ‘matter of choice’. Moi did at least give the girls some measure of legal protection and promised the support of the law for those ‘who do not wish to be cut’. Yet despite the start of some moral opprobrium, the practice remains widespread. I have already blogged the fact that no less than 260 girls absconded from a village near here in December, simply in order to avoid ‘the cut’.
A 1998 Kenya survey found that 30% of women between 15 and 49 had been ‘cut’. That is nearly one in three (even with likely significant under-reporting of its incidence by victims)! And it doesn’t seem to be restricted to rural areas either.
Thankfully, various Christian organisations and NGO’s are working towards its eradication, but this in the rural areas mainly. And quite a lot of anti-FGM work is being conducted among the Maasai, in an effort to end its widespread and enduring practice within this ‘preserved’ tribal group. And I hope soon to be able to schedule a trip to Arusha (‘homeland’ of the Maasai), allied to another piece of social research we have proposed. This should give me some space to gauge what is actually being achieved in terms of its eradication among the Maasai people (if we get to do the proposed research that is).
As I mentioned in a brief note the other day, my research team has also just written a (very good) proposal for the conduct of large-scale research into FGM and into the potential means of its stigmatization and eradication in Kenya. Obviously, I seriously hope we get this work too. Actually, so confident am I that we will get the work that I have just employed an M.A. in Gender Studies to take over the study (and some of the other ‘social’ research that we are increasingly being asked to propose). So, if circumstances (not circumcisions) permit, we are certainly going to do our little bit to have this gender-outrage depart the East African region for good.
From increasingly vocal accounts, it certainly seems that the time for the end of this ‘idea’ has come. I have no doubt that the practice imposes severe suffering and, I suspect, subjugation, among its hapless victims. It is high time for this practice to go, whatever the cultural and historical reasons for its entrenched and continued practice…
That’s my bit, yet again, on the subject of FGM in Kenya. Yet however passionate I might be about it, the issue of FGM is not in the very dim spotlight of Kenya’s civil society.
The importance of FGM eradication, as might otherwise be espoused by Kenya’s intelligentsia, is insignificant in their view. They seem more ‘concerned’ – nay, almost exclusively concerned - by the pervasive corruption that is eating away at every facet of Kenyan politics and that infests just about every government department. Almost every day there are corruption charges, or rumours of corruption, mentioned in the press.
But Kenyans actually have little to add once the press is done with their one-day coverage of some new corruption innuendo. And with this being the case, if there is actually any spotlight being wielded by civil society in Kenya, I believe it should first be set to highlight Kenyan civil society’s own apathy and lack of political resolve…
Almost every mature, educated and ‘concerned’ Kenyan I have met (and I have met a few now) exudes an entrenched air of gloomy resignation about the current, and future, of Kenyan politics. No-one (that I can see, at least) is standing up to say, “We want change, and we want it now”. Everyone just seems to mutter under his or her breath about the evils of local corruption and incompetent governance.
But where’s the activism in this country? Where are the people who are willing to make sacrifices, and suffer a bit, for the common good? Where are the idealists and quiet revolutionaries? Where are the Sarafinas and the Hector Petersen’s (although I don’t think it’ll ever need to go that far in Kenya)?
Is everyone perhaps just a little too comfortable in the warm glow of the status quo? If we can claim that there is a problem here (is there, folks?), I believe a large part of it lies at the feet of Kenyans themselves! Kenyans are simply too happy, or, at least, satisfied, with their lot. On the whole, they would rather go out and have a good time than get involved in the potential threats inherent in local politics! Politics they leave to the aged, old-school geezers of their fathers’ era.
So far, the only significant statements of dissatisfaction, or even knowledge, of the sorry state of State corruption have had to come from mzungus. Past British High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay took the initiative a while ago and accused the Kenyan government of behaving “like gluttons”, eating the money meant for the Kenyan people, and then “vomiting on the shoes of donors”. This caused a huge furor and placed Sir Edward seriously in it. He apologized, saying something to effect of not meaning any insult. I wonder what he might have said if he did mean an insult? His Liberal Party successor, Sir Jeffrey James, followed suit with musing and muttering, only to be accused by President Moi, upon his retirement, of being a ‘meddler’ in local politics.
At a recent ‘briefing’ on East African politics and economics at the stunning Serena Hotel in Nairobi, Jane spoke warmly and easily with Sir Jeffrey. He is currently ‘on business’ in the East Africa region and is apparently still on the Kenya government’s list of ‘undesirables’. I would love to have had a word with him about the unhappy state of this nation but I didn’t get the honour of an introduction to his esteemed person. I waited in the wings until Jane was finished and then we filed into the dining room for lunch…
So far (to my limited knowledge) it has only been these two mzungu expats who have had anything significant to say about the government’s hungry disposition in Kenya. For the rest, there’s been a deathly silence. The Americans seized the opportunity that Kenya’s spat with Britain had created and quickly strengthened its trade ties!
So, on a day-to-day basis, one might see a few column-centimeters of coverage on some alleged corruption in one or all of the daily papers. Then it disappears from the pages of the press. If the scandal is big enough, the government will waste no time! It will appoint a commission, comprising those responsible for the corruption, with the task of investigating it!
But one has to ask, are there reasons for a lack of activism here? Official stats tell us there’s a ratio of one policeman for every 1000 Kenyans. That’s a lot of policemen. And considering that most of the Po-Lease force is probably located in the urban areas, that is a very lot of policemen! You see them all over; walking with their machine guns slung casually over their shoulders or held over their arms. But, again, you generally don’t get the impression of living in a police state as one once did in South Africa. But if called upon, I guess that a large scale mobilization of the said force in the cities would produce a very significant show of strength, and enough to quell just about any insurrection of ‘concerned’ Kenyans. That’s probably the real reason they are so evident on the streets. But I doubt the show of strength will ever really be needed…
The Kenyan police are certainly a source of derision (for never wanting anything else but a bribe), but they are also the object of fear and loathing. I haven’t got the details but the latest is that some of their number have been caught trigger-fingered, taking the (lack of rule-of-)law into their own hands. They have been gunning down innocent people. I have previously remarked on the fact that the police here shoot to kill and many a ‘suspected’ gangster has met his untimely demise at the smoking end of an AK47 (or similar). Ever since the Minister of Security gave permission for the police to fire at will, and with lethal intent, upon members of the notorious Mungiki gang (who, incidentally, number 2 million!), I fear that a lot of fairly innocent dissenters have lost their lives. But we’ll never know, will we? But there is a fresh scandal brewing if I am to believe the news I heard in Kiss FM today. Watch this space!
But, again, it seems to me that Kenyans of all shapes and sizes, all classes, and all measures of political influence, are so mired in apathy and borderline depression that really not much is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. It’s a sorry state of affairs and I think it’s going to be decades before this country is “free at last”. If you spend a little time with people of standing and influence in this society you hear the same gripe about government corruption, over and over. But you hear of no-ones plans or dreams of changing it all. There is nothing but a gloomy resignation and cynicism everywhere.
The role of the media in effecting social change has so far not been highlighted by anyone within civil society either. There aren’t any political ‘agitators’ within the journalist class that I know of. No-one ever appears in the media with a voice of proper dissent or opposition! Certainly, there’s no one that I see ready to stand up and be counted on the issues of importance to Kenya right now. It seems that the only true statements on the uneasy state of Kenyan politics came from the two mzungu expatriates!
Remember in South Africa how the birth of the Weekly Mail sparked a vision among the country’s journalists that then led to the publishing of the New Nation and then, later, Die Vrye Weekblad? They were all newspapers openly devoted to the subversion and ultimate toppling of the Apartheid regime. They made no bones about it and published what they could under a much greater threat of individual persecution and business closure than exists here. The papers had their tribulations and dissenters. The New Nation didn’t survive the onslaught. But the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) did, and survives today, rather unfortunately, as a rather dry and academic paper. But it certainly did serve its purpose, along with the others at the time.
And I can’t help but think that, with Kenya’s Media Amendment Bill currently in for revision, now is surely the time for the media to start agitating about something. Anything! While it is being amended, one could surely make the constitutional argument that there exists a de facto suspension of some, or all, of its clauses? Yet the media bosses will say that they can’t say anything, despite their intimate knowledge of what is actually going on right now. Aside from random expressions of audience disillusionment on only one radio frequency (to my limited knowledge), there is no campaign of any description that might permit Kenyans to get more than the government they currently deserve! (Who was it that said every country gets the government they deserve?)
Kiss 100 are doing a bit of agitation but so far it’s the only medium I have heard or seen doing anything at all about the perilous state of media and public freedoms in this country. On the morning show, the two presenters are not particularly scared… (and it’s heartening to hear!)
In response to the resistance of MP’s to pay tax, they say things like;
“I’m so-and-so (female ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer!”
“I’m so-and-so (male ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer”
“The TAX PAYERS ARE IN THE HOUSE!”
It’s a small something, but I respect and admire the little bit they are trying to do to conscientise the Kenyan public. But aside from what’s on Kiss in the morning, there is NOTHING being said anywhere else!
Where are the Kenyan Leaders? Among locals, their deep-rooted cynicism gets excused as ‘past experience’, ‘hard-earned knowledge’ and the like. Some of society’s leaders and agents of change have indeed been harassed and persecuted. But so what? Kenya needs more people standing up, making at least some noise! Unless someone takes an initial firm stand on the way things should be – or at least what needs to stop – nothing will ever change in your country, people of Kenya!
You have such a beautiful country, with such lovely people! This is not how it is supposed to be for you now, in a world where freedom is breaking out everywhere, unchecked!
And as for your ‘new’ constitution … It will land up being nothing but a rehash of the old. Let’s face it; you’re not likely to see any radical – or even ‘new’ - clauses being introduced while the current government is in charge of its drafting.
But Kenya, your government has better strategies than you think! The upcoming conference on the “Kenya We Want” is being hosted by the same government that is so much in dispute. Who is ever going to raise the real issue at this meeting? Must I come along and have a say in your stead, people of Kenya? Do I need to give new meaning to the term “lip service”? I hope it will not be necessary. I need my job.
But I guess Kibaki’s government has hatched a clever strategy to subvert the influence of anyone else in matters of free, sound governance. The “Kenya We Want” conference is, at least, being handled by the significantly more open-minded Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. But as we know, he’s paid from the same account as any other minister (to the tune of Kshs 1.4 million a month). And so Kenyans, you’ll be stuck with the same old, same old. It’s coming (or not coming, as the case may be?), and then you’ll be moaning for the next twenty years!
Until someone actually does something and stops just moaning about the way things are, nothing will change. A critical mass of dissent needs to be formed. Now! While everyone is sitting tjoep stil (dead quiet) on the issues, nothing will happen. The time is now, Kenya! Kenya Awethu!
Democracy is supposed to be government ‘for the people, by the people’. Not here, folks. No sirree. Kenya’s government is a carefully orchestrated symphony of cabalism where only the elite know the tune of the day, the secret handshake, the true meaning of the conductor’s baton-swing!
Kenya, a new world is possible for you! But only if you take a few tentative steps, at the very least, towards it realization.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003
Peace and love everyone.
B-)
This particular blog was promising to be something of an Epic Tale. But it seems that the tale of intrigue I was hoping to write simply refuses to resolve itself (and remains intriguing!). It will have to wait until the time is right. And so, I have to desist to the will of the gods and leave that blog alone for now. It will out when it will.
Meantime, with my proposal-writing at work, my little recent exposure to Kenya’s news media, and my observation of local distaste in the mouths of many, I have been led to even more sober thoughts about Kenya.
First up is my recurrent concern for the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
FGM was outlawed in the Sudan last week sometime (see blog: “Two Things That Bother Me”).
Hongera (congratulations) Sudan, for entering the 21st Century! I am sure there are a lot of young girls breathing a very deep sigh of relief in your country right now – although the extent to which the banning will be enforced remains to be seen.
But I mention the Sudan’s brave action here, only because we need to know that FGM is definitely not outlawed in Kenya yet!
In a speech marking Jamhuri (Independence) Day, on 12th December 2001, President Daniel Arap Moi, Independent Kenya’s second-only President, declared the ‘circumcision’ of girls under the age of 17 unlawful, punishable by at least a year in jail. However, for girls over 16, it remained a ‘matter of choice’. Moi did at least give the girls some measure of legal protection and promised the support of the law for those ‘who do not wish to be cut’. Yet despite the start of some moral opprobrium, the practice remains widespread. I have already blogged the fact that no less than 260 girls absconded from a village near here in December, simply in order to avoid ‘the cut’.
A 1998 Kenya survey found that 30% of women between 15 and 49 had been ‘cut’. That is nearly one in three (even with likely significant under-reporting of its incidence by victims)! And it doesn’t seem to be restricted to rural areas either.
Thankfully, various Christian organisations and NGO’s are working towards its eradication, but this in the rural areas mainly. And quite a lot of anti-FGM work is being conducted among the Maasai, in an effort to end its widespread and enduring practice within this ‘preserved’ tribal group. And I hope soon to be able to schedule a trip to Arusha (‘homeland’ of the Maasai), allied to another piece of social research we have proposed. This should give me some space to gauge what is actually being achieved in terms of its eradication among the Maasai people (if we get to do the proposed research that is).
As I mentioned in a brief note the other day, my research team has also just written a (very good) proposal for the conduct of large-scale research into FGM and into the potential means of its stigmatization and eradication in Kenya. Obviously, I seriously hope we get this work too. Actually, so confident am I that we will get the work that I have just employed an M.A. in Gender Studies to take over the study (and some of the other ‘social’ research that we are increasingly being asked to propose). So, if circumstances (not circumcisions) permit, we are certainly going to do our little bit to have this gender-outrage depart the East African region for good.
From increasingly vocal accounts, it certainly seems that the time for the end of this ‘idea’ has come. I have no doubt that the practice imposes severe suffering and, I suspect, subjugation, among its hapless victims. It is high time for this practice to go, whatever the cultural and historical reasons for its entrenched and continued practice…
That’s my bit, yet again, on the subject of FGM in Kenya. Yet however passionate I might be about it, the issue of FGM is not in the very dim spotlight of Kenya’s civil society.
The importance of FGM eradication, as might otherwise be espoused by Kenya’s intelligentsia, is insignificant in their view. They seem more ‘concerned’ – nay, almost exclusively concerned - by the pervasive corruption that is eating away at every facet of Kenyan politics and that infests just about every government department. Almost every day there are corruption charges, or rumours of corruption, mentioned in the press.
But Kenyans actually have little to add once the press is done with their one-day coverage of some new corruption innuendo. And with this being the case, if there is actually any spotlight being wielded by civil society in Kenya, I believe it should first be set to highlight Kenyan civil society’s own apathy and lack of political resolve…
Almost every mature, educated and ‘concerned’ Kenyan I have met (and I have met a few now) exudes an entrenched air of gloomy resignation about the current, and future, of Kenyan politics. No-one (that I can see, at least) is standing up to say, “We want change, and we want it now”. Everyone just seems to mutter under his or her breath about the evils of local corruption and incompetent governance.
But where’s the activism in this country? Where are the people who are willing to make sacrifices, and suffer a bit, for the common good? Where are the idealists and quiet revolutionaries? Where are the Sarafinas and the Hector Petersen’s (although I don’t think it’ll ever need to go that far in Kenya)?
Is everyone perhaps just a little too comfortable in the warm glow of the status quo? If we can claim that there is a problem here (is there, folks?), I believe a large part of it lies at the feet of Kenyans themselves! Kenyans are simply too happy, or, at least, satisfied, with their lot. On the whole, they would rather go out and have a good time than get involved in the potential threats inherent in local politics! Politics they leave to the aged, old-school geezers of their fathers’ era.
So far, the only significant statements of dissatisfaction, or even knowledge, of the sorry state of State corruption have had to come from mzungus. Past British High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay took the initiative a while ago and accused the Kenyan government of behaving “like gluttons”, eating the money meant for the Kenyan people, and then “vomiting on the shoes of donors”. This caused a huge furor and placed Sir Edward seriously in it. He apologized, saying something to effect of not meaning any insult. I wonder what he might have said if he did mean an insult? His Liberal Party successor, Sir Jeffrey James, followed suit with musing and muttering, only to be accused by President Moi, upon his retirement, of being a ‘meddler’ in local politics.
At a recent ‘briefing’ on East African politics and economics at the stunning Serena Hotel in Nairobi, Jane spoke warmly and easily with Sir Jeffrey. He is currently ‘on business’ in the East Africa region and is apparently still on the Kenya government’s list of ‘undesirables’. I would love to have had a word with him about the unhappy state of this nation but I didn’t get the honour of an introduction to his esteemed person. I waited in the wings until Jane was finished and then we filed into the dining room for lunch…
So far (to my limited knowledge) it has only been these two mzungu expats who have had anything significant to say about the government’s hungry disposition in Kenya. For the rest, there’s been a deathly silence. The Americans seized the opportunity that Kenya’s spat with Britain had created and quickly strengthened its trade ties!
So, on a day-to-day basis, one might see a few column-centimeters of coverage on some alleged corruption in one or all of the daily papers. Then it disappears from the pages of the press. If the scandal is big enough, the government will waste no time! It will appoint a commission, comprising those responsible for the corruption, with the task of investigating it!
But one has to ask, are there reasons for a lack of activism here? Official stats tell us there’s a ratio of one policeman for every 1000 Kenyans. That’s a lot of policemen. And considering that most of the Po-Lease force is probably located in the urban areas, that is a very lot of policemen! You see them all over; walking with their machine guns slung casually over their shoulders or held over their arms. But, again, you generally don’t get the impression of living in a police state as one once did in South Africa. But if called upon, I guess that a large scale mobilization of the said force in the cities would produce a very significant show of strength, and enough to quell just about any insurrection of ‘concerned’ Kenyans. That’s probably the real reason they are so evident on the streets. But I doubt the show of strength will ever really be needed…
The Kenyan police are certainly a source of derision (for never wanting anything else but a bribe), but they are also the object of fear and loathing. I haven’t got the details but the latest is that some of their number have been caught trigger-fingered, taking the (lack of rule-of-)law into their own hands. They have been gunning down innocent people. I have previously remarked on the fact that the police here shoot to kill and many a ‘suspected’ gangster has met his untimely demise at the smoking end of an AK47 (or similar). Ever since the Minister of Security gave permission for the police to fire at will, and with lethal intent, upon members of the notorious Mungiki gang (who, incidentally, number 2 million!), I fear that a lot of fairly innocent dissenters have lost their lives. But we’ll never know, will we? But there is a fresh scandal brewing if I am to believe the news I heard in Kiss FM today. Watch this space!
But, again, it seems to me that Kenyans of all shapes and sizes, all classes, and all measures of political influence, are so mired in apathy and borderline depression that really not much is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. It’s a sorry state of affairs and I think it’s going to be decades before this country is “free at last”. If you spend a little time with people of standing and influence in this society you hear the same gripe about government corruption, over and over. But you hear of no-ones plans or dreams of changing it all. There is nothing but a gloomy resignation and cynicism everywhere.
The role of the media in effecting social change has so far not been highlighted by anyone within civil society either. There aren’t any political ‘agitators’ within the journalist class that I know of. No-one ever appears in the media with a voice of proper dissent or opposition! Certainly, there’s no one that I see ready to stand up and be counted on the issues of importance to Kenya right now. It seems that the only true statements on the uneasy state of Kenyan politics came from the two mzungu expatriates!
Remember in South Africa how the birth of the Weekly Mail sparked a vision among the country’s journalists that then led to the publishing of the New Nation and then, later, Die Vrye Weekblad? They were all newspapers openly devoted to the subversion and ultimate toppling of the Apartheid regime. They made no bones about it and published what they could under a much greater threat of individual persecution and business closure than exists here. The papers had their tribulations and dissenters. The New Nation didn’t survive the onslaught. But the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) did, and survives today, rather unfortunately, as a rather dry and academic paper. But it certainly did serve its purpose, along with the others at the time.
And I can’t help but think that, with Kenya’s Media Amendment Bill currently in for revision, now is surely the time for the media to start agitating about something. Anything! While it is being amended, one could surely make the constitutional argument that there exists a de facto suspension of some, or all, of its clauses? Yet the media bosses will say that they can’t say anything, despite their intimate knowledge of what is actually going on right now. Aside from random expressions of audience disillusionment on only one radio frequency (to my limited knowledge), there is no campaign of any description that might permit Kenyans to get more than the government they currently deserve! (Who was it that said every country gets the government they deserve?)
Kiss 100 are doing a bit of agitation but so far it’s the only medium I have heard or seen doing anything at all about the perilous state of media and public freedoms in this country. On the morning show, the two presenters are not particularly scared… (and it’s heartening to hear!)
In response to the resistance of MP’s to pay tax, they say things like;
“I’m so-and-so (female ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer!”
“I’m so-and-so (male ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer”
“The TAX PAYERS ARE IN THE HOUSE!”
It’s a small something, but I respect and admire the little bit they are trying to do to conscientise the Kenyan public. But aside from what’s on Kiss in the morning, there is NOTHING being said anywhere else!
Where are the Kenyan Leaders? Among locals, their deep-rooted cynicism gets excused as ‘past experience’, ‘hard-earned knowledge’ and the like. Some of society’s leaders and agents of change have indeed been harassed and persecuted. But so what? Kenya needs more people standing up, making at least some noise! Unless someone takes an initial firm stand on the way things should be – or at least what needs to stop – nothing will ever change in your country, people of Kenya!
You have such a beautiful country, with such lovely people! This is not how it is supposed to be for you now, in a world where freedom is breaking out everywhere, unchecked!
And as for your ‘new’ constitution … It will land up being nothing but a rehash of the old. Let’s face it; you’re not likely to see any radical – or even ‘new’ - clauses being introduced while the current government is in charge of its drafting.
But Kenya, your government has better strategies than you think! The upcoming conference on the “Kenya We Want” is being hosted by the same government that is so much in dispute. Who is ever going to raise the real issue at this meeting? Must I come along and have a say in your stead, people of Kenya? Do I need to give new meaning to the term “lip service”? I hope it will not be necessary. I need my job.
But I guess Kibaki’s government has hatched a clever strategy to subvert the influence of anyone else in matters of free, sound governance. The “Kenya We Want” conference is, at least, being handled by the significantly more open-minded Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. But as we know, he’s paid from the same account as any other minister (to the tune of Kshs 1.4 million a month). And so Kenyans, you’ll be stuck with the same old, same old. It’s coming (or not coming, as the case may be?), and then you’ll be moaning for the next twenty years!
Until someone actually does something and stops just moaning about the way things are, nothing will change. A critical mass of dissent needs to be formed. Now! While everyone is sitting tjoep stil (dead quiet) on the issues, nothing will happen. The time is now, Kenya! Kenya Awethu!
Democracy is supposed to be government ‘for the people, by the people’. Not here, folks. No sirree. Kenya’s government is a carefully orchestrated symphony of cabalism where only the elite know the tune of the day, the secret handshake, the true meaning of the conductor’s baton-swing!
Kenya, a new world is possible for you! But only if you take a few tentative steps, at the very least, towards it realization.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003
Peace and love everyone.
B-)
Fly! The Beloved Country!
I am very proud to be a South African. I am proud of what we have achieved in terms of a free and supposedly fair constitution (in writing, at least!). I am proud of the little bit I did for freedom in SA. I am proud of the position we hold in the eyes, ears, hearts and heads of a great many Africans…
I’m not going to harp on, but, again, I have to say, I am at a loss to defend where my Beloved Country is headed. While Kenyans have a son of their soil about to become holder of the world’s most powerful position, I am stuck having to find reasons for South Africans wanting a “thug” (Kenyan term, not mine) in their highest office.
I’ve said it before, I know, but it almost always comes up. And (yet again!) it’s mostly beyond comprehension here. And I can’t either defend the 15% functional literacy level in South Africa, compared to the 95% among Kenyans! A four-and-a-half year-old Kenyan child can count to twenty!
OK, I’ve said it. Now there are far better, and more spiritually inspiring, things to talk about….
I mean, I might be inclined to say, “Your problem, not mine” right now. But no, I know that our country is “fly” – cool – if ever a country was. This, despite all the shit we have (had) to deal with…
And I’ll give you just two of the reasons why, hereafter….
Last night I met Dina (sorry if the spelling is wrong, honey), a 5ft tall (short?) Kenyan graduate.
She who exudes an untamed energy that radiates well beyond her diminutive frame.
Tonight (as my Dar Es Salaam cab driver, Charles, would put it), Dina is a little off her Facebook; attributable, she tells me, to some scene (in Nairobese: kwurreling) she had with her boyfriend, earlier. But she’s OK. Sawa, sawa.
We chat for twenty minutes before Dina works out that I’m from SA. She very nearly platses on the spot. The sheer speed of her utterances increase five-fold.
So let me tell you guys her little story:
Dina recently worked for the Kenyan National Theatre. They put on a production of Sarafina! (She positively GLOWS at mention of the name).
The script, she tells me, was culled from the stage production and the movie, and once they had got their ducks (dancing girls) in a row, they invited the man himself, Mbogeni Ngema - and Leleti Khumalo too - on an all expenses paid sortie to see the result of the National Theatre’s toils. I guess that top-level approval was important to The National Theatre…..
The two guests sat alone in the theatre watching the pre-release production. Then Dina glows even more as she tells me that the two guests gave the cast a very small (but standing) ovation when the pre-premiere was done. She glows and beams brightly, flushed just a little from the alcohol she’s steadily consuming!
In Dina’s words I detect just a hint of worship for the ground that the two – Mbogeni and Leleti - walk on. That means, largely, the soil that we walk on, too. I make my usual disparaging remark about it being a pity that Mbogeni had ‘knocked Leleti up’.
I don’t think Dina heard me. Or she doesn’t want to?
She hasn’t been to our country, but Dina’s Mecca is our Soweto and it’s a pilgrimage she’s clearly going to have to make one day. And may I admit that, despite my disparaging remark, and my reservations above, I too started to glow (and, note, I have had only one Tusker moto by now).
Looking at me and smiling a little glibly through her drink, Dina was now done with her story of Mzansi-love. It was now clearly my turn to give an account of my SA cred… my turn to respond to Dina’s part-worship of our Motherland’s Soil and soul….
I kick off with the real party-clincher:
I tell her about a brief encounter I had with Mr. Mandela, accompanied by Trevor Huddleston, as they came up the stairs (unencumbered by Security) at London’s Wembley Stadium, just days after his release, and at one of the biggest rock concerts ever dedicated to anyone. I was coming back from taking a pee.
I saw Madiba through the grill separating spectators from performers and couldn’t help myself…
“Mr.Mandela, sir!”, I said. Or something like it.
I tell her of the personal greeting I got from Madiba (with appropriate tingling down my spine and arms - as always happens when I tell the story).
He makes direct eye contact with me and says, “Hello, young man” (yes, I was a young man then).
Do you even remember me telling you this, Dina?
I don’t tell her the further detail of a very pregnant Audrey and I sitting in the PG-Glass ‘box’ at Wembley, guests of our friends, the Lubner brothers – heirs to the PG-Glass empire - with Murphy Morobe and a few other struggle stalwarts (then still in exile), watching Madiba’s first real public appearance. All of us with unashamed tears running down our cheeks.
I tell her of my experience of an aura, perhaps only slightly bigger than her own.
I tell her that I once managed SA’s only-ever ‘resistance’ record label (Lloyd Ross’ Shifty Records) and that I was once acquainted on first-name-terms with Mzwakhe Mbuli, Madiba’s first, and undoubtedly foremost, ‘praise singer/poet’ (seen quite often on TV here).
I take the complete silence as a sign I should continue….
I tell her that I haven’t just been to Soweto but that I taught Physical Science there during the time of the burning tyres and barricades. This, until I was told by one of the ‘comrades’ that coming into Soweto – in the renewed upsets of 1984 – was probably no longer such a good idea for someone as pale as myself.
Her jaw drops, just a little.
I hold on further revelations of my struggle credentials. She’ll probably think I’m shitting her if I carry on….
She would love to have been raised as a hippy. I tell her that I grew up when platforms and hot pants were as big as the ‘Afro’ hairstyles (what baby Lee Wilson used to call “Afro-Stasion-Stylels” – Afro-Asian styles). And I recount to her, with great fondness, the early exposure I got to ‘black’ music through Joy Wilson’s enjoyment of Diana Ross and The Supremes, along with other Motown greats of the time (like Mary Wilson). I tell her I was listening to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (probably still his best album) in the summer of 1979, throwing Frisbee till 8.30pm on Clifton Beach. I wax lyrical on a privileged ‘70s upbringing in Camps Bay, Cape Town…
Dina likes rock music. But I don’t tell her I was a founder-member of the Kalahari Surfers (probably SA’s only-ever avant garde, anti-Apartheid ‘rock’ group). I don’t tell her I drummed for two bands that headlined the Wits Free People’s Concert, on two successive years.
I tell both her and Charmaine that I know some members of Freshly Ground. Hello Peter, dude! Hello Kyla! (Anyone got Daddy Kyla’s e-mail address? Hey, Donald!). And X, Hi Too, although you might not remember meeting lil’ ol’ me!
Talking about Freshly Ground, royalties, and the problems of local piracy, I give an indication to Charmaine of what royalties can buy if there’s not 400 000 pirated copies in circulation. I’m quoting a rough figure that Donald gave me of what Kyla paid (kush, baby, kush) for a house in Brixton, Jozi, Mzansi, The Globe! With royalties from their first two albums only!
May I yet digress: I don’t tell Dina that we lived in Crown Mines; that Audrey and I lived in a house that was nicknamed ‘The Kremlin’ because of all the ‘commies’ that had lived there and because of it having been the birthplace of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) newspaper (Hello to Suzanna and Greg, The Kremlin’s previous tenants, wherever you are!).
Phew, this little story is all over the place.
I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had once been a safe-haven of safe-houses for ‘Terror’ Lekota (now head of the ANC’s biggest potential opposition party), and a few others too, in the ‘bad old days’. I don’t tell her that we lived over the road from where both David Webster and Neil Aggett (both assassinated Unionists) had lived. I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had been home to more activists than one can list today; that Audrey and I were good friends to SA Presidential spokesperson Mkoni Ratshitanga (although, I think, Mkoni was ousted along with Thabo) and his poet-parliamentarian Dad, Rashaka (both of them Venda Royalty). (And I remember fondly that Rashaka had a little crush on Audrey.)
I don’t tell her that Rian Malan (of best-selling My Traitor's Heart fame) used to come for coffee (and a little toke) every now and then, with Adriaan Turgel, arriving in Rian’s big old brown Benz (this when Rian first got back from his exile of dis-ease). Hello Rian! I don’t tell her that Adriaan is still a good (if a little crazy) friend, and is one of Johnny Clegg’s best friends (and a good Zulu as well!). Hello Adriaan! Hello Johnny!
I don’t tell Dina that The Arch’s son, Trevor (Tutu), comes (does he still?) for art lessons with Reshada (Hello Reshada!), at the house where I lived, just a year ago (Frank, it seems like an aeon ago already!).
(OK, I’m sounding off a bit here. But, you never know, I might need this stuff as a defense… In case of me being found to be an ‘undesirable’ in Kenya… Which, I suppose could actually happen, what with some of my local-political opinions being expressed, and a new Media Bill having been signed into law….(which I’ll talk about next time)!! Joke. At least I’ll be able to say one thing: “But I KNOW people!”)
A quick commercial spot for my friend Reshada who used to teach painting downstairs from my digs: she’s such a good super-realist painter (better than the photograph, folks!) that, apart from all her local SA commissions, she got to do a larger-than-life portrait of Gillian Anderson (of The X-Files)….! It’s a stunning painting that Reshada exhibited at her last showing at the Read Gallery.
(Sorry, Reshada, that I couldn’t attend more of your classes, but you know how broke I was at the time…. And yes, I know I’m supposed to slowly bring the ‘medium to the paint’ but I can’t help just squishing the oil, turps and paint together. Sorry. I’ll learn eventually, I’m sure.)
But now. Finally. Back to Dina: She has to see Soweto. At this stage, Dina has become a bit hard to follow. (Dina, you were a bit drunk, but I’d like to spend more time with you, when sober). Maybe we’ll go to South Africa together? I’ll show you Soweto (and we’ll take that little drunkard, Sponseni, with us. Hey brutha, I think of you quite often! You'd like it here).
(The next meeting with Dina will be soon enough because I have gratefully been invited to her son’s 7th birthday party - “to have some silly childish fun” - on 17th January. I WILL be there Dina! You’re someone I really want to know better.)
But let me just give credit where credit is due…
The reason for meeting Dina actually resulted from a date, set up by Kairu, for me to meet his friend, Charmaine. Confused? I'll try explain... Kairu is one of the researchers on my team. Bright as a pin, perceptive as hell, and not scared to voice his view… Karibu, Kairu!
Guys, the narrative is going haywire here. I’m losing the order of things. Let me backtrack to yesterday afternoon (Friday, 9th January)…
I had e-mailed Kairu, from my desk to his, about directions to a Westlands club where some of the local rappers were to perform last (Friday) night. I ask him, where are there any clubs in Westlands?
He says, “Wochumean? Westlands is Club Central!”
I say “Whaaaat?”
This fact I didn’t even know because of my early exposure to ‘downtown’ Nairobi – which I do still enjoy – through a local cabbie when I first arrived.
(An aside: the club I like to dance at is one which Kairu has never been to. This, because he’s too scared of the downtown-type patrons! Oh, what dubious virtues living in Johannesburg bestows on one! For one thing, I now realize that I can see ‘trouble’ a long way off (and so far there’s been nothing in Nairobi that has spelled t.r.o.u.b.l.e. like just an hour in Yeoville spells). Kairu, you ARE going to come to Madhouse soon. You have to see what fun seriously-downtown Nairobi can be!)
So, to show me the club scene in Westlands, Kairu and I head out, after work, for a “look-see”. It’s just after 5pm. We go on a little jaunt; down Parklands Road, past the Spur and the Holiday Inn. He’s going to show me where to find said club… The truf-eek is a bit dense but, hey, this is Friday evening, Nairobi West.
The car radio is tuned to ‘Hot 96’ a station dedicated to ‘90s Music. The female drive-time announcer comes on after some-or-other R&B tune has played.
“Hey, that’s my friend Charmaine….”, says Kairu.
I’m quite impressed. The boy’s connected methinks.
Next minute, Kairu’s mobile rings, and who should be on the other end, but Charmaine…! He puts the phone ‘on speaker’ and I chat briefly to her while I'm driving; she’s left what sounds like an extended play on the studio deck.
We’re chatting. The track’s coming to an end.
“OK, bye then” I say, to an extended beeeeeeep, that tells me she’s already gone.
We’re about to enter the premises of one of the big club ‘complexes’ in Westlands when the lady announcer I’ve just spoken to comes on-air again:
“Kairu and Brian are on Parklands Road. They say it’s jum-pucked. So if you’re on the road, look for another route in and around the Westlands area”
I’m tickled. It seems that nothing happens by accident (even in Nairobi truf-eek)!
They’re both broke (January being twice as long as any other month). So am I but I have already made a plan to cash a cheque with Credit-Guarantee-Mueni-Wambua (once she’s done fixing her broken nail at the Mary Mary salon, downtown).
I offer to buy them a drink after her set.
A short while later I’m dropping Kairu back at the office. I go home. Mueni calls a little later to say she’s done at the salon. I head to downtown Nairobi at 7.30 pm (and I must tell you, Nairobi Central buzzes – nay, absolutely cooks - at this time of the evening, never mind later on!).
I meet Mueni, tell her where I need to go (a bar called Alfijiri in the leafy northwest), Husband Daniel draws me a perfect map when I drop Mueni at home.
I hit the Uhuru Highway (actually called Mombasa Road in Mueni’s hood)
And right now, I have to digress, just a little (yet again!)…
I’m doing my Nairobi driving thing at the roundabout when a Nairobi taxi driver, riding home with his buddy after a day’s cabbing, winds down his window, leans over, and says:
“….(something in Swahili)… nzuri sana!"
He sees I’m mzungu and repeats, in English:
“You drive very well”, he says, laughing in slight disbelief.
I reply: “I have to drive Nairobi too, so wochuthink?”
Much laughter from them both.
We drive on.
(And guys, this is probably the ultimate driving compliment one can get)
I find Alfijiri (Swahili? For what?), after confirming some directions on the mobile with Kairu. He finds me in the street and we park, joining Charmaine inside. As we park, we pass local rapper, Nameless, talking on his mobile in the parking lot.
We move to a table outside. I quickly phone my boy, Ben. Then I return to the table, we order a drink and talk as best we can against the loud music.… In short, it’s very, very nice to have met you, Charmaine. I’m sorry our connection was interrupted by wine, woman and a little song. Later. Fur reel.
Just to trash the narrative again: We’ve been round and about a bit. By now I’ve met Gavin Bell – the South African owner of Kengeles – and we two have gassed a bit about the Old Country. By now it’s getting a little late (just before 12). We haven’t a lot of cash, so Kairu and I decide to call it a night for the pub scene in Nairobi’s plush North-West suburbs.
We start to leave, but not before making sure Dina will be able to drive herself safely home (a few blocks away). Kairu’s London-based photographer-friend, Zach, is at the window of her little Toyota and assures us she’ll get home safe. We go!
I drop Kairu and go to the usual downtown Nairobi club that has so far been the exclusive witness to my Nairobi dance moves. I feel like dancing a bit and don’t really have the money to do the Westlands rapper thing.
And for the first time, I encountered just a little t.r.o.u.b.l.e. I saw it coming aplenty….
But this is also a story of Mzansi pride, folks….
I met ‘the boyfriend’ last night. I had been at the club for a few hours already when ‘the girlfriend’ heard me talking to someone at the club (early this morning – Saturday 10th January - some time). She recognizes my accent and immediately wants to engage – which we do and which, of course, makes him upset.
She (name unknown) is a Kenyan lady teaching Afrikaans kids – remedial education - (would you believe?) in P.E. (condolences on your location, sweetheart) but loving it! We just hit it off. We talked and talked, and her excitement was totally infectious! She just has so much positive shit to say about our country! Obviously, I was blown away (yet again in one night).
Eventually I was threatened away from her. I threatened back but then just walked away and danced. This, not before I managed to give her my business card, though. The result was that she came to me on the dance floor (just prior to being hustled out of there by him) and said she WILL call. I really hope so. I’m waiting for the call sweetheart….
The bottom line….
It’s clear from the reactions I get around me, that SA IS something special (even if we don’t always see it). It takes being away to see it! Fuck it, guys, we went though a momentous experience and came through it with something special resident in our heads. Damned if I know what this resident thing is, though!
So what’s it really all about…
Fly, the Beloved Country! Fly!
And tonight is one of the biggest, brightest full moons we’ll ever get to see! (I haven't yet read up exactly why this is so, but it IS!)
Nothing by accident!
Amani na mapenzi. As alllllwaaaaays!
B-)
I’m not going to harp on, but, again, I have to say, I am at a loss to defend where my Beloved Country is headed. While Kenyans have a son of their soil about to become holder of the world’s most powerful position, I am stuck having to find reasons for South Africans wanting a “thug” (Kenyan term, not mine) in their highest office.
I’ve said it before, I know, but it almost always comes up. And (yet again!) it’s mostly beyond comprehension here. And I can’t either defend the 15% functional literacy level in South Africa, compared to the 95% among Kenyans! A four-and-a-half year-old Kenyan child can count to twenty!
OK, I’ve said it. Now there are far better, and more spiritually inspiring, things to talk about….
I mean, I might be inclined to say, “Your problem, not mine” right now. But no, I know that our country is “fly” – cool – if ever a country was. This, despite all the shit we have (had) to deal with…
And I’ll give you just two of the reasons why, hereafter….
Last night I met Dina (sorry if the spelling is wrong, honey), a 5ft tall (short?) Kenyan graduate.
She who exudes an untamed energy that radiates well beyond her diminutive frame.
Tonight (as my Dar Es Salaam cab driver, Charles, would put it), Dina is a little off her Facebook; attributable, she tells me, to some scene (in Nairobese: kwurreling) she had with her boyfriend, earlier. But she’s OK. Sawa, sawa.
We chat for twenty minutes before Dina works out that I’m from SA. She very nearly platses on the spot. The sheer speed of her utterances increase five-fold.
So let me tell you guys her little story:
Dina recently worked for the Kenyan National Theatre. They put on a production of Sarafina! (She positively GLOWS at mention of the name).
The script, she tells me, was culled from the stage production and the movie, and once they had got their ducks (dancing girls) in a row, they invited the man himself, Mbogeni Ngema - and Leleti Khumalo too - on an all expenses paid sortie to see the result of the National Theatre’s toils. I guess that top-level approval was important to The National Theatre…..
The two guests sat alone in the theatre watching the pre-release production. Then Dina glows even more as she tells me that the two guests gave the cast a very small (but standing) ovation when the pre-premiere was done. She glows and beams brightly, flushed just a little from the alcohol she’s steadily consuming!
In Dina’s words I detect just a hint of worship for the ground that the two – Mbogeni and Leleti - walk on. That means, largely, the soil that we walk on, too. I make my usual disparaging remark about it being a pity that Mbogeni had ‘knocked Leleti up’.
I don’t think Dina heard me. Or she doesn’t want to?
She hasn’t been to our country, but Dina’s Mecca is our Soweto and it’s a pilgrimage she’s clearly going to have to make one day. And may I admit that, despite my disparaging remark, and my reservations above, I too started to glow (and, note, I have had only one Tusker moto by now).
Looking at me and smiling a little glibly through her drink, Dina was now done with her story of Mzansi-love. It was now clearly my turn to give an account of my SA cred… my turn to respond to Dina’s part-worship of our Motherland’s Soil and soul….
I kick off with the real party-clincher:
I tell her about a brief encounter I had with Mr. Mandela, accompanied by Trevor Huddleston, as they came up the stairs (unencumbered by Security) at London’s Wembley Stadium, just days after his release, and at one of the biggest rock concerts ever dedicated to anyone. I was coming back from taking a pee.
I saw Madiba through the grill separating spectators from performers and couldn’t help myself…
“Mr.Mandela, sir!”, I said. Or something like it.
I tell her of the personal greeting I got from Madiba (with appropriate tingling down my spine and arms - as always happens when I tell the story).
He makes direct eye contact with me and says, “Hello, young man” (yes, I was a young man then).
Do you even remember me telling you this, Dina?
I don’t tell her the further detail of a very pregnant Audrey and I sitting in the PG-Glass ‘box’ at Wembley, guests of our friends, the Lubner brothers – heirs to the PG-Glass empire - with Murphy Morobe and a few other struggle stalwarts (then still in exile), watching Madiba’s first real public appearance. All of us with unashamed tears running down our cheeks.
I tell her of my experience of an aura, perhaps only slightly bigger than her own.
I tell her that I once managed SA’s only-ever ‘resistance’ record label (Lloyd Ross’ Shifty Records) and that I was once acquainted on first-name-terms with Mzwakhe Mbuli, Madiba’s first, and undoubtedly foremost, ‘praise singer/poet’ (seen quite often on TV here).
I take the complete silence as a sign I should continue….
I tell her that I haven’t just been to Soweto but that I taught Physical Science there during the time of the burning tyres and barricades. This, until I was told by one of the ‘comrades’ that coming into Soweto – in the renewed upsets of 1984 – was probably no longer such a good idea for someone as pale as myself.
Her jaw drops, just a little.
I hold on further revelations of my struggle credentials. She’ll probably think I’m shitting her if I carry on….
She would love to have been raised as a hippy. I tell her that I grew up when platforms and hot pants were as big as the ‘Afro’ hairstyles (what baby Lee Wilson used to call “Afro-Stasion-Stylels” – Afro-Asian styles). And I recount to her, with great fondness, the early exposure I got to ‘black’ music through Joy Wilson’s enjoyment of Diana Ross and The Supremes, along with other Motown greats of the time (like Mary Wilson). I tell her I was listening to Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (probably still his best album) in the summer of 1979, throwing Frisbee till 8.30pm on Clifton Beach. I wax lyrical on a privileged ‘70s upbringing in Camps Bay, Cape Town…
Dina likes rock music. But I don’t tell her I was a founder-member of the Kalahari Surfers (probably SA’s only-ever avant garde, anti-Apartheid ‘rock’ group). I don’t tell her I drummed for two bands that headlined the Wits Free People’s Concert, on two successive years.
I tell both her and Charmaine that I know some members of Freshly Ground. Hello Peter, dude! Hello Kyla! (Anyone got Daddy Kyla’s e-mail address? Hey, Donald!). And X, Hi Too, although you might not remember meeting lil’ ol’ me!
Talking about Freshly Ground, royalties, and the problems of local piracy, I give an indication to Charmaine of what royalties can buy if there’s not 400 000 pirated copies in circulation. I’m quoting a rough figure that Donald gave me of what Kyla paid (kush, baby, kush) for a house in Brixton, Jozi, Mzansi, The Globe! With royalties from their first two albums only!
May I yet digress: I don’t tell Dina that we lived in Crown Mines; that Audrey and I lived in a house that was nicknamed ‘The Kremlin’ because of all the ‘commies’ that had lived there and because of it having been the birthplace of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) newspaper (Hello to Suzanna and Greg, The Kremlin’s previous tenants, wherever you are!).
Phew, this little story is all over the place.
I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had once been a safe-haven of safe-houses for ‘Terror’ Lekota (now head of the ANC’s biggest potential opposition party), and a few others too, in the ‘bad old days’. I don’t tell her that we lived over the road from where both David Webster and Neil Aggett (both assassinated Unionists) had lived. I don’t tell her that Crown Mines had been home to more activists than one can list today; that Audrey and I were good friends to SA Presidential spokesperson Mkoni Ratshitanga (although, I think, Mkoni was ousted along with Thabo) and his poet-parliamentarian Dad, Rashaka (both of them Venda Royalty). (And I remember fondly that Rashaka had a little crush on Audrey.)
I don’t tell her that Rian Malan (of best-selling My Traitor's Heart fame) used to come for coffee (and a little toke) every now and then, with Adriaan Turgel, arriving in Rian’s big old brown Benz (this when Rian first got back from his exile of dis-ease). Hello Rian! I don’t tell her that Adriaan is still a good (if a little crazy) friend, and is one of Johnny Clegg’s best friends (and a good Zulu as well!). Hello Adriaan! Hello Johnny!
I don’t tell Dina that The Arch’s son, Trevor (Tutu), comes (does he still?) for art lessons with Reshada (Hello Reshada!), at the house where I lived, just a year ago (Frank, it seems like an aeon ago already!).
(OK, I’m sounding off a bit here. But, you never know, I might need this stuff as a defense… In case of me being found to be an ‘undesirable’ in Kenya… Which, I suppose could actually happen, what with some of my local-political opinions being expressed, and a new Media Bill having been signed into law….(which I’ll talk about next time)!! Joke. At least I’ll be able to say one thing: “But I KNOW people!”)
A quick commercial spot for my friend Reshada who used to teach painting downstairs from my digs: she’s such a good super-realist painter (better than the photograph, folks!) that, apart from all her local SA commissions, she got to do a larger-than-life portrait of Gillian Anderson (of The X-Files)….! It’s a stunning painting that Reshada exhibited at her last showing at the Read Gallery.
(Sorry, Reshada, that I couldn’t attend more of your classes, but you know how broke I was at the time…. And yes, I know I’m supposed to slowly bring the ‘medium to the paint’ but I can’t help just squishing the oil, turps and paint together. Sorry. I’ll learn eventually, I’m sure.)
But now. Finally. Back to Dina: She has to see Soweto. At this stage, Dina has become a bit hard to follow. (Dina, you were a bit drunk, but I’d like to spend more time with you, when sober). Maybe we’ll go to South Africa together? I’ll show you Soweto (and we’ll take that little drunkard, Sponseni, with us. Hey brutha, I think of you quite often! You'd like it here).
(The next meeting with Dina will be soon enough because I have gratefully been invited to her son’s 7th birthday party - “to have some silly childish fun” - on 17th January. I WILL be there Dina! You’re someone I really want to know better.)
But let me just give credit where credit is due…
The reason for meeting Dina actually resulted from a date, set up by Kairu, for me to meet his friend, Charmaine. Confused? I'll try explain... Kairu is one of the researchers on my team. Bright as a pin, perceptive as hell, and not scared to voice his view… Karibu, Kairu!
Guys, the narrative is going haywire here. I’m losing the order of things. Let me backtrack to yesterday afternoon (Friday, 9th January)…
I had e-mailed Kairu, from my desk to his, about directions to a Westlands club where some of the local rappers were to perform last (Friday) night. I ask him, where are there any clubs in Westlands?
He says, “Wochumean? Westlands is Club Central!”
I say “Whaaaat?”
This fact I didn’t even know because of my early exposure to ‘downtown’ Nairobi – which I do still enjoy – through a local cabbie when I first arrived.
(An aside: the club I like to dance at is one which Kairu has never been to. This, because he’s too scared of the downtown-type patrons! Oh, what dubious virtues living in Johannesburg bestows on one! For one thing, I now realize that I can see ‘trouble’ a long way off (and so far there’s been nothing in Nairobi that has spelled t.r.o.u.b.l.e. like just an hour in Yeoville spells). Kairu, you ARE going to come to Madhouse soon. You have to see what fun seriously-downtown Nairobi can be!)
So, to show me the club scene in Westlands, Kairu and I head out, after work, for a “look-see”. It’s just after 5pm. We go on a little jaunt; down Parklands Road, past the Spur and the Holiday Inn. He’s going to show me where to find said club… The truf-eek is a bit dense but, hey, this is Friday evening, Nairobi West.
The car radio is tuned to ‘Hot 96’ a station dedicated to ‘90s Music. The female drive-time announcer comes on after some-or-other R&B tune has played.
“Hey, that’s my friend Charmaine….”, says Kairu.
I’m quite impressed. The boy’s connected methinks.
Next minute, Kairu’s mobile rings, and who should be on the other end, but Charmaine…! He puts the phone ‘on speaker’ and I chat briefly to her while I'm driving; she’s left what sounds like an extended play on the studio deck.
We’re chatting. The track’s coming to an end.
“OK, bye then” I say, to an extended beeeeeeep, that tells me she’s already gone.
We’re about to enter the premises of one of the big club ‘complexes’ in Westlands when the lady announcer I’ve just spoken to comes on-air again:
“Kairu and Brian are on Parklands Road. They say it’s jum-pucked. So if you’re on the road, look for another route in and around the Westlands area”
I’m tickled. It seems that nothing happens by accident (even in Nairobi truf-eek)!
They’re both broke (January being twice as long as any other month). So am I but I have already made a plan to cash a cheque with Credit-Guarantee-Mueni-Wambua (once she’s done fixing her broken nail at the Mary Mary salon, downtown).
I offer to buy them a drink after her set.
A short while later I’m dropping Kairu back at the office. I go home. Mueni calls a little later to say she’s done at the salon. I head to downtown Nairobi at 7.30 pm (and I must tell you, Nairobi Central buzzes – nay, absolutely cooks - at this time of the evening, never mind later on!).
I meet Mueni, tell her where I need to go (a bar called Alfijiri in the leafy northwest), Husband Daniel draws me a perfect map when I drop Mueni at home.
I hit the Uhuru Highway (actually called Mombasa Road in Mueni’s hood)
And right now, I have to digress, just a little (yet again!)…
I’m doing my Nairobi driving thing at the roundabout when a Nairobi taxi driver, riding home with his buddy after a day’s cabbing, winds down his window, leans over, and says:
“….(something in Swahili)… nzuri sana!"
He sees I’m mzungu and repeats, in English:
“You drive very well”, he says, laughing in slight disbelief.
I reply: “I have to drive Nairobi too, so wochuthink?”
Much laughter from them both.
We drive on.
(And guys, this is probably the ultimate driving compliment one can get)
I find Alfijiri (Swahili? For what?), after confirming some directions on the mobile with Kairu. He finds me in the street and we park, joining Charmaine inside. As we park, we pass local rapper, Nameless, talking on his mobile in the parking lot.
We move to a table outside. I quickly phone my boy, Ben. Then I return to the table, we order a drink and talk as best we can against the loud music.… In short, it’s very, very nice to have met you, Charmaine. I’m sorry our connection was interrupted by wine, woman and a little song. Later. Fur reel.
Just to trash the narrative again: We’ve been round and about a bit. By now I’ve met Gavin Bell – the South African owner of Kengeles – and we two have gassed a bit about the Old Country. By now it’s getting a little late (just before 12). We haven’t a lot of cash, so Kairu and I decide to call it a night for the pub scene in Nairobi’s plush North-West suburbs.
We start to leave, but not before making sure Dina will be able to drive herself safely home (a few blocks away). Kairu’s London-based photographer-friend, Zach, is at the window of her little Toyota and assures us she’ll get home safe. We go!
I drop Kairu and go to the usual downtown Nairobi club that has so far been the exclusive witness to my Nairobi dance moves. I feel like dancing a bit and don’t really have the money to do the Westlands rapper thing.
And for the first time, I encountered just a little t.r.o.u.b.l.e. I saw it coming aplenty….
But this is also a story of Mzansi pride, folks….
I met ‘the boyfriend’ last night. I had been at the club for a few hours already when ‘the girlfriend’ heard me talking to someone at the club (early this morning – Saturday 10th January - some time). She recognizes my accent and immediately wants to engage – which we do and which, of course, makes him upset.
She (name unknown) is a Kenyan lady teaching Afrikaans kids – remedial education - (would you believe?) in P.E. (condolences on your location, sweetheart) but loving it! We just hit it off. We talked and talked, and her excitement was totally infectious! She just has so much positive shit to say about our country! Obviously, I was blown away (yet again in one night).
Eventually I was threatened away from her. I threatened back but then just walked away and danced. This, not before I managed to give her my business card, though. The result was that she came to me on the dance floor (just prior to being hustled out of there by him) and said she WILL call. I really hope so. I’m waiting for the call sweetheart….
The bottom line….
It’s clear from the reactions I get around me, that SA IS something special (even if we don’t always see it). It takes being away to see it! Fuck it, guys, we went though a momentous experience and came through it with something special resident in our heads. Damned if I know what this resident thing is, though!
So what’s it really all about…
Fly, the Beloved Country! Fly!
And tonight is one of the biggest, brightest full moons we’ll ever get to see! (I haven't yet read up exactly why this is so, but it IS!)
Nothing by accident!
Amani na mapenzi. As alllllwaaaaays!
B-)
Bongo, Dar Es Salaam!
It’s not a salutation but a self-congratulatory cry. The “B” in Bongo sometimes goes off like a grenade in your head with the amount of emphasis placed on it.
It means “Smart Dar Es Salaam!”
To say someone is bongo means he’s clever. And in a great many ways it’s true for the homeboys of Dar Es Salaam … First and foremost, the people of Dar Es Salaam have ensured that there’s space to move! It must be one of the most spread-out urban Metropoles in the world. The initial aerial view of Dar Es Salaam shows a massive area of grey, interrupted only by the slightest green outcrop, here and there. Then, as the plane’s descent starts, you increasingly see what this city is all about.
It’s must be something like landing in the Bikini Atoll. The runway, and everywhere beyond it, is festooned with oases of palm trees, blowing gently in a light, steady breeze coming off the sea. Small buildings next to larger ones; the big with the small, all built in a widely dispersed pattern on the grey-white sand that is everywhere.
And when you climb off the plane, you immediately learn what the climate is all about. I came from the early morning cool of Nairobi wearing a light jacket (would you believe). Ten minutes into Dar Es Salaam and I am cursing the stupidity of this move. At 7am the temperature must already be nearing 30 degrees C, and the humidity (certainly in the airport building) is already quite oppressive. Although, I must say, once outside, things changed a little for the better.
As it is with the big and the small, so Dar Es Salaam has also ensured the survival of the old with the new, the Arabic with more conformist latter-Christian architecture. Wide streets with no sidewalks, lined instead by the sand. The sand!
After every ten houses, almost everywhere you go, there is a ‘clump’ of ‘local’ shops, selling anything from general supplies to cold beers, with samoosas and pies. A fabric shop, selling Kanga and Kitenge fabrics, a shoe maker, and a bicycle repair place might sandwich a small cyber café! Near the city centre, but off to the side where the more ‘indigenous’ people are found in their masses, there are actual kilometers of small, aanmekaar shops. Shops where, clearly, there is NOTHING you couldn’t find.
At many of the smaller local ‘shopping centres’ in the city’s suburbs there will be a sapiens-propelled cart, piled high with pineapples and it’s owner, or perhaps a couple, deftly handling a machete each, cutting pineapples into hand-held slices, sold for a few “T Shillings” (1310 of them to the Dollar) a piece. And whether you are on the road, or not, there is space to move, folks, space to move! If there’s a blockage ahead, the car just has to take so the sandy sideway and drive around it! Not so in my adoptive home!
“Nobrakes” has just had his foot taken out of plaster, as a result of the unfortunate tangle he had with a car a few weeks ago. His bicycle has no brakes. But he don’t mind (see the smile!). His bicycle still got no brakes and he rode with the plaster on for a few weeks. His sole-proprietorship involves the delivery of raw sugar cane (on his back) to the various makuti (palm-frond) bars that are everywhere. He spends his day riding from the one to the next, selling his semi-popular product. But, no wurries, Nobrakes is one happy Tanzanian (you can see!).
As are most Tanzanians “happy” (certainly the ones that I came across in Dar Es Salaam). This is one happy place. From what I can see (and from the inevitable questions I got from hotel staff about my Johannesburg life) crime is almost non-existent here. And we’re not talking Sharia law here either (most of the Muslims in Tanzania are Sunni’s).
This is a black African country with strong Arab, and African tribal, roots. The people are very proud to be Tanzanian. And evidence of a rising, inclusive Africanism is in evidence everywhere. Mostly, I see it in the women wearing African prints as skirts. The Kanga (big image, few repeats) or the Kitenge (small images, many repeats) is worn with pride by many (but not yet all) Tanzanian women. The designs are stunning. The bright colours have a definite allure against the grey uniformity of the sand.
Maasai are seen all over the place, whether at a makuti bar or coming out of an empty house in the plush suburbs of the Oyster Bay coastline. And, although the term doesn’t really apply that well, Hakuna Mutata in Tanzania too! The people are chilled to the bone, despite the constant heat and humidity. Everyone walks around with a shiny face and me, myself, I was dripping most of the time.
It’s very hot, but not too oppressive. And this I attribute to the breeze. As soon as you are near the water (which seems to surround you), there is a definite lightness to the air, quite distinct from the more serious heat you find in the city centre, or in the inland suburbs.
And, yes, Ruguru (my Dar Es Salaam manager), I note your slight objection, but I did not see poverty in Dar Es Salaam. As we took off back to Nairobi I saw some squatting next to the airport runway that looked pretty bleak (and very South African), but for the rest (and Ruguru, you must admit, we drove) I did not see poverty! Yes, there may be relative poverty, but the standard against which it is measured is a full-bellied one. It is nothing at the level of what I have seen here in Kenya, or in South Africa for that matter. The next pic is just about the worst I saw.
And here, the rich live among the poor and there seems to be no division along caste or class lines. I was quite amazed. Right next to a white-painted ‘compound’ where properly rich people live, there might be three or four, low-slung, typically Arabic-styled houses (not that different from the single stories you see in older parts of Salt River and Woodstock in Cape Town). The houses are not painted though, but tend to subsist with the sand they are built on, in a stoic grey-white silence. The sense of peace and tranquility is pervasive and fully palpable in this city. It is very, very appealing! Bongo Dar Es Salaam!
I paid Charles a handsome sum to show me the town, when I arrived on Sunday. We passed “Nobrakes” on the road and Charles hooted for him to stop. They conversed briefly in Tanzanian Swahili (more lyrical, and softer than Kenyan Swahili) and Charles then related his recent mix-up with a car. (Note that Tanzanians are very prone to mix the “R’s” and “L’s” up – for in their language they sound the same. “No probrem”. “You like the R&B artist, R. Kerry?”)
The whole time I was with Charles, if he wasn’t talking on his mobile he was hooting and greeting fellow drivers or, more often, pedestrians, walking on the side of the road, Charles is one serious homeboy here. He is known everywhere and he’s a true ‘fixer’ in the sense that anything you need, Charles can get; a fact that he’s very proud of.
I keep forgetting it’s a Sunday until, each time we pass a church, Charles points out the number of cars. Despite the Muslim, Chinese and black tribal groups in the country, something like 30% of the population is Christian of some description, and from what I see, most of this Christianity is of the charismatic, revivalist, Pentecostal variety. Latter Day Saints, Baptists, Pentecostals, et.al. The churches actually stand out quite starkly against the smaller, grey uniformity of their surroundings.
Shortly after my introduction to Nobrakes I experienced my first makuti bar (although this one was a little more ‘fitted out’ than most of those you see). At these bars, everyone is sitting quietly in the heat, nursing a drink of some kind. Tusker moto (warm) competes with Castle baridi (cold). (yes, KusStill is popular here). These are two favourites, but the Maasai seem to prefer Safari beer. There’s no music playing at the makuti bar, but the soft, lyrical Swahili is music enough to my ears. Conversation is truly soft and the guests are involved in engaging conversation with each other, all over the place. The loudest sound comes from the clicking of pool balls in the corner.
We have been sitting at the table for a few minutes when we are joined by a Maasai that, already, I can see is a ‘brother’ to Charles. Charles quickly explains to me that his fiancé is Maasai and this man, Isiah, is his future brother-in-law.
Isiah looks me up and down, saying nothing. He is stony-faced, regarding my presence at the table. Charles explains in broken Maasai (that sounds a bit like Shangaan), that I am from Kenya but originally from South Africa. A broad, very warm smile spreads across his face and he asks, in Engrish, “How is Mr.Mandela?” I tell him that Madiba is getting old and probably won’t be around for much longer. He looks at me with a genuinely sad expression on his face, understanding most of what I’ve said. Isiah then breaks into an animated chat with Charles, and I hear the words “South Africa, Mandela, Uhuru, Mzungu” amidst the fast, short-syllabelled Maasai-speak. I smile, as only a mzungu can in a far-out and strange African land.
Watching Isiah intently, I can see this is one sensitive boy, with some differences about him. What these differences are, I can only guess, but what I do see immediately is that he doesn’t have the usual Maasai ‘hooped’, open earlobes. I ask Charles to get an explanation from Isiah, please. He doesn’t need to.
“Well”, says Charles, “It’s like this….”
“Maasai, when they apply for a job, always land up getting the job in security. In fact, they got the job in security even before they applied! Isiah wants to get away from this, and when he applies for a job does not want them to know that he is Maasai. Isiah is hoping for more.”
I’m blown away and can do nothing but smile and nod (as only a mzungu can!)
Then Isiah sees the camera on the table (in Kenya, they tell me “don’t leave it like that”. Not so in Tanzania!). Immediately he starts rattling away to Charles and I hear the repeated word “Video” in the brief, choppy conversation. I anticipate what he’s asking Charles and tell him, yes, it can take video but is actually a still camera”
“Aah. Still na (and) video!”, he says.
Isiah wants to know how it works. I show him. The next twenty minutes are taken up with Isiah trying various shots and angles out. I show him the replay function and he’s in another world. In the meantime, Charles is in and out of shot as he talks incessantly on his mobile, arranging this, and arranging that!
Isiah, Charles and I share some of the food being sold at the makuti bar (nyama with ugali/pap). We have scarcely finished when Charles tells me it’s time to go! (And we’re off, on another excursion of discovery).
At the next makuti bar I am left alone for a few minutes, nursing another Tusker moto ("Don't get too off your Facebook", says Charles), while Charles is organising his ‘things’. I am asked, in a fairly disinterested way, about my roots, origins and recent history by a rather large ‘elder’ wearing an overstuffed Castle Lager T-Shirt. I am mid-explanation when we are joined by another man. Again, I sense something quite ‘different’ about the guy who has joined us (long, handsome face that I seem almost to recognize as someone I know). I continue with my story while the new member watches me closely, holding on to his sweating can of Charles Glass’ famous preservative-filled brew.
I don’t know how we got talking, how it started, but Charles joins us after Fidel and I have already been talking for some time. I’m about to introduce Fidel to Charles when Charles tells me that, no, Fidel is also his ‘brother’ and they go back from school days. Fidel looks quite a bit older than Charles (probably near my age), so I’m not so sure about this, but who cares? I do immediately sense a ‘worldliness’ about Fidel, mainly in the questions he is almost firing at me.
Then Fidel tells me he’s traveled to 37 countries and starts to challenge me (in the nicest possible way) on what I know of the world, broadly. The banter is quick. The questions are fired from both sides.
“I thought New York was going to be a violent city”, he says.
“Mayor Guiliani changed all that”, I say.
“Yes, he had the benefit of the Italian Connection”, Fidel retorts.
Quite quickly, I desist to Fidel’s superior authority on matters of the world and begin to listen intently to the story he has to tell. It’s a fascinating story of discovery and global entrepreneurship.
(“Philly is fantastic. I still want to see the city of Havana. Kingston is a fucking dangerous slum!”)
I won’t go into detail here, but the man has been around. Right now he’s looking to introduce a guarana-based energy drink into the Kenyan market. He shows me all the clearance papers from the Tanzanian Food and Drug Administration. He can import. He’s got a company in Johannesburg that will make the syrup for him. And he’s got funky silver packaging. He needs around US$20 000 to get started. I tell him immediately to e-mail me a business plan (which he has already done). No promises. I’ll see who I can hook him up with (no promises expected). A few minutes later and Charles and I are outa there again.
This time we go to the beach, somewhere way down the coast (mainly, it seems, so that Charles can have an extended pee in the bush). Here on the beach, coconuts are strewn everywhere, having been mercilessly butchered for their milk. Charles remains glued to that damned mobile! We have a smoke outside the car. I walk down to the water’s edge and take a pic of a Muslim mother and child, standing on a rock in the Spring low tide.
It’s getting late and I watch a few container ships heading out to sea. These ships are about to start the perilous journey through the Gulf of Aden and every one of them face the very real possibility of being taken by pirates; - at most, two days from now. Charles says the pirates “don’t know who they are”, while I heard a member of Nairobi’s recent-immigrant black-burka brigade from Somalia say, at Nairobi airport, that Somalia’s Muslim rebels are “a bunch of bloody lunatics” (meaning bloody in the true sense of the word!)
But right now I want to get to the hotel, check in properly and have a quick swim somewhere. Charles tells me I must go to Coco Beach just down from the Golden Tulip/ Turip Hotel. Later, I ask Ruguru (somewhat stupidly), “Is it Koko Beach (“No”, says Ruguru, “they threw out the nut and replaced it with a beach”. Hilarious laughter). Yes, I get it now.
A ten-minute walk from the hotel, across the low cliffs, and I’m at Coco Beach. And it’s late (5ish) but the beach is still packed. Where the ‘refreshment area’ stands, there are fewer people on the sand because most of them are quaffing some kind of liquid refreshment. I’m dead tired from the flight and having had to abide with the incessant movement of Charles and the Cab.
I nearly fall asleep sitting next to the pot plants. I decide I need to go and dip my head in the water to freshen up. This, after downing a Coke baridi – a cold one; Coke moto , being not so lekker!
I have filled my bag with all kinds of trash I just might need. The result is that it acts as a great pillow. And I proceed to fall soundly asleep on the beach, with the hustle and bustle of hundreds of excited people around me. What interests me, just before I drop soundly off, is that there is an inherent beach conservatism here; a conservatism that obviously stems from the Muslim cultural influences.
No-one takes their clothes off on the beach (even non-Muslims), and slippers (flip-flops, to us) are in evidence everywhere. It seems that only when you actually go and swim is it allowed for you to undress into a swimming costume of any description, and take off your shoes. And note, this does not apply to Muslim ladies! They seem to remain fully dressed at all times (note the Kitenge fabric, at left).
But the folks are having a lot of fun. Many of the guys are hiring rubber inner-tubes from a stall near the road and are then walking some way up the rocky ledge that surrounds the beach to launch themselves into the tube, only to be brought in (very quickly) by the tidal flow of water. The cycle is repeated and their floating is so quick, back to the beach, that I suspect there is one very strong rip-tide on the other side of the bay.
And then I fall asleep.
I wake up completely dehydrated and feeling very hung-over. One thing is needed and I walk - nay, jog – to a stall that is making its (plentiful) money selling nothing but ice cold bottled water. Later, Ruguru notes that “you’ll think you got a nasty bout of malaria here if you don’t re-hydrate properly” (that is, re-hydrate all the time). I had a glimpse of this when I woke up! Before downing a whole liter of Kilimanjaro water I thought I might not make it out of there unaided (and was about to call Charles all the way back from home).
But, mercifully, I started to feel better quickly after the water. Still, I caught a tuk-tuk for Tsh200 (less than R3) back to the hotel (a 5 minute ride). However, this was not before I dipped my now rapidly-expanding body in the water. Of this experience I can only say that a hot bath would have been colder! The water is that warm.
It’s now Sunday night, prior to the start of the first week in a new year, and I go out for a quiet night with Charles, who collects me from the hotel. It wasn’t meant as a quiet night, necessarily, but clearly Dar Es Salaam is gearing up (gearing down, actually) for the start of the new year, tomorrow. Like everywhere else in the world tonight.
We go to a few places and I begin to suspect that Charles is wanting to hook me up with a “Tanzanian Girl” (hook being the operative word). After the last place we visit, I find, when we get to the car, that we are three! Some protestation on my part and the “Tanzanian Girl” (cute as she is) returns to the bar. Now it makes some sense to me why Charles kept asking me about my tastes regarding the opposite gender!
Charles drops me at the hotel. I sleep fitfully, for it’s the usual new-city excitement that has got to me. I sleep. I write. I write and sleep at the same time, nodding off often.
I wake properly around 6am and call room service. I am absolutely starving, having shared only a small meal with Isiah and Charles yesterday afternoon! The lady on the other end of the line tells me that my sandwich is coming. About half an hour later she rings my room to tell me that I will be wasting money because breakfast is now served! I make my way down to breakfast and am expecting Ruguru-arranged transport to collect me from the hotel around 9.30am. I must say that I am still feeling quite wrecked and I pass it off to my fitful sleep.
I get a call from ‘the transport’ on my mobile at around 9.00am. I have yet to recover fully and still need (another) shower. I get this together and (eventually and slowly) make my way downstairs to meet ‘the transport’ to our local office. I am greeted by a light-skinned man, Rasta beanie on his head, who introduces himself as Rakesh. Funny, methinks, he doesn’t look like a Hindi really (and since when do Hindus become Rasta?).
After a fifteen minute drive (listening to Tanzanian Bongo Flava music on the CD player), we turn into a suburban driveway, at the end of which our offices are located. The ‘offices’ comprise a very neat and clean contemporary house, in a good suburb. The potential of the house as a great office space is clearly there. But the paint job is shocking! Ugly yellow paint with enamel-brown doors and cupboards. Not very inviting. I meet Ruguru and immediately know that this is a chick I can work with! Yes, Ruguru, the paint has to go!
Wearing some kind of African print number, with plain strapped shoes (and a pair of very attractive small feet), the dreads (part-extension) are in proud evidence. Quickly I learn that Rasta Rakesh is her husband. Nice couple. She’s a Kenyan who relocated to Tanzania ‘cos she fell in love. Sweet, baby, sweet!
We spend the rest of the day touring Dar Es Salaam in Rakesh’s car. We drive up and down, to and fro, there and back again. Kivukoni to Kinondoni; Kurasini to Kigogo, and then on to Kilawini. Uptown and downtown, from the outskirts to the centre, and back to the outskirts again (or so it seemed). My shirt is getting wetter and wetterer. Ruguru’s face is getting shinier and shinier (and mine is too). Rakesh talks infrequently while the banter between Ruguru and I reaches fever pitch at times. Rakesh adds something in Swahili every now and then (and usually laughs at the thought of what he’s just said). Strangely, I find I am understanding a fair bit of what he’s saying. I must be turning Swahili methinks! But what an absolutely cool city. Space. Mixed cultures. Joy and contentment on the streets. And no abject poverty at all! And a pretty cool Rastaman driver too!
Tanzania achieved peaceful independence in 1961 and by 1963 Zanzibar had been incorporated into the independent statehood. Under Julius Nyerere, Tanzania immediately became a socialist state, adopting a Pan-African socialism that, in the end, did it no good. Under Nyerere’s leadership, all firms, and banks, were nationalized. There was no chance of owning land – it all belonged to the State. In the 1970’s Tanzania sought alliances with China and today you will find a great many signs in Dar Es Salaam, in Chinese and English.
Unfortunately, many elements of the Chinese communist model were adopted and peasant farmers were turned off their land and forced into collective farming. As a result of the forced relocation, Tanzania turned from a nation of adequately-fed subsistence farmers into a nation of starving collective farmers. Corruption, of course, was rife and while passing the huge, but now-defunct, Meat Canning Factory (now full of squatters) Ruguru explains to me that “the Ministers wanted to eat, so they minced the meat factory”. It’s about ten minutes later before the three of us have stopped giggling at this.
Today, however, influenced by the need for foreign investment, 35 year leasehold is at least possible, although, perhaps, not always granted. Conditional on their loans, the IMF introduced many reforms in the ‘80s and '90’s and investors are slowly coming. But things seem far from ideal on the investment front. The companies most prone to enter the economic realm are those who need little (if any) land, like the mobile operators, the tour operators and, broadly, service oriented businesses.
Of those businesses that have come South African business has been among the first. Shoprite, Game, Truworths, and a few others besides, are strongly in evidence at the malls. In fact, it seems like it is almost exclusively South African business that has ventured into the foray.
Dion tells me that there is no will to work in Tanzania (why should there be, I ask?) and he almost had a heart attack trying to ‘get things done’ here. He contrasts this to working in Kenya, where, he says, he finds things no different from back in the R.S.A. The people of Kenya are keen to work and learn. The people of Tanzania probably couldn’t give too much of a damn he reckons. This, of course, because life is actually quite sorted here. Do they really need to work hard? Hard work and heart attacks are, after all, a Western invention, not an African one!!!
Flying out
Flying into Dar Es Salaam was accompanied by quite heavy cloud cover so I couldn’t see anything when we passed the highest mountain in Africa. But flying out was different! And, I am told, I was extremely privileged to get the view I had!
Yes folks, one day I will be able to tell my grandchildren, with a tear in my eye (when everything is cooking like a broth around us), that I once saw Mt. Kilimanjaro with (albeit trickling) snow on it! You better believe it guys, the picture of this mountain with a snow-cap is already an historical artifact! The snow ‘streaks’ only certain faces of the peak. There is no snow-“cap” to speak of any more. Hail to CO2 and fluorocarbons!
We flew just on the Kenyan side of Kilimanjaro and, at over 19 000ft, the mountain reaches more than half-way to the plane’s flying altitude! From Kili, I could see easily to Mt. Meru (Arusha - the town where most Maasai originate - being at the base of the mountain) to the West. I could even see the start of the Ngorongoro Crater from the window of the Kenya Airways Boeing. I sat glued to the plane window for the last 20 minutes of the one-hour flight from Dar Es Salaam back to Nairobi. Smiling at the sheer marvel before me. But sad. (Camera batteries flat, no pics! Sorry.)
I landed in cool-as-ever Nairobi and was collected at the airport. Quite quickly we found ourselves in a trufeek jum of moderate proportions. It took us only an hour or so to cover the 20kms from Kenyatta to Westlands, and not the two hours one might usually expect.
Any other thoughts, feelings or notions I might have about Dar Es Salaam? No, none, other than the obvious... Bongo, Dar Es Salaam, Bongo!
Absolutely beautiful city. Shiny, happy people!
Amani na mapenzi brothers and sisters!
It means “Smart Dar Es Salaam!”
To say someone is bongo means he’s clever. And in a great many ways it’s true for the homeboys of Dar Es Salaam … First and foremost, the people of Dar Es Salaam have ensured that there’s space to move! It must be one of the most spread-out urban Metropoles in the world. The initial aerial view of Dar Es Salaam shows a massive area of grey, interrupted only by the slightest green outcrop, here and there. Then, as the plane’s descent starts, you increasingly see what this city is all about.It’s must be something like landing in the Bikini Atoll. The runway, and everywhere beyond it, is festooned with oases of palm trees, blowing gently in a light, steady breeze coming off the sea. Small buildings next to larger ones; the big with the small, all built in a widely dispersed pattern on the grey-white sand that is everywhere.
And when you climb off the plane, you immediately learn what the climate is all about. I came from the early morning cool of Nairobi wearing a light jacket (would you believe). Ten minutes into Dar Es Salaam and I am cursing the stupidity of this move. At 7am the temperature must already be nearing 30 degrees C, and the humidity (certainly in the airport building) is already quite oppressive. Although, I must say, once outside, things changed a little for the better.
As it is with the big and the small, so Dar Es Salaam has also ensured the survival of the old with the new, the Arabic with more conformist latter-Christian architecture. Wide streets with no sidewalks, lined instead by the sand. The sand! After every ten houses, almost everywhere you go, there is a ‘clump’ of ‘local’ shops, selling anything from general supplies to cold beers, with samoosas and pies. A fabric shop, selling Kanga and Kitenge fabrics, a shoe maker, and a bicycle repair place might sandwich a small cyber café! Near the city centre, but off to the side where the more ‘indigenous’ people are found in their masses, there are actual kilometers of small, aanmekaar shops. Shops where, clearly, there is NOTHING you couldn’t find.
At many of the smaller local ‘shopping centres’ in the city’s suburbs there will be a sapiens-propelled cart, piled high with pineapples and it’s owner, or perhaps a couple, deftly handling a machete each, cutting pineapples into hand-held slices, sold for a few “T Shillings” (1310 of them to the Dollar) a piece. And whether you are on the road, or not, there is space to move, folks, space to move! If there’s a blockage ahead, the car just has to take so the sandy sideway and drive around it! Not so in my adoptive home!
“Nobrakes” has just had his foot taken out of plaster, as a result of the unfortunate tangle he had with a car a few weeks ago. His bicycle has no brakes. But he don’t mind (see the smile!). His bicycle still got no brakes and he rode with the plaster on for a few weeks. His sole-proprietorship involves the delivery of raw sugar cane (on his back) to the various makuti (palm-frond) bars that are everywhere. He spends his day riding from the one to the next, selling his semi-popular product. But, no wurries, Nobrakes is one happy Tanzanian (you can see!).As are most Tanzanians “happy” (certainly the ones that I came across in Dar Es Salaam). This is one happy place. From what I can see (and from the inevitable questions I got from hotel staff about my Johannesburg life) crime is almost non-existent here. And we’re not talking Sharia law here either (most of the Muslims in Tanzania are Sunni’s).
This is a black African country with strong Arab, and African tribal, roots. The people are very proud to be Tanzanian. And evidence of a rising, inclusive Africanism is in evidence everywhere. Mostly, I see it in the women wearing African prints as skirts. The Kanga (big image, few repeats) or the Kitenge (small images, many repeats) is worn with pride by many (but not yet all) Tanzanian women. The designs are stunning. The bright colours have a definite allure against the grey uniformity of the sand.
Maasai are seen all over the place, whether at a makuti bar or coming out of an empty house in the plush suburbs of the Oyster Bay coastline. And, although the term doesn’t really apply that well, Hakuna Mutata in Tanzania too! The people are chilled to the bone, despite the constant heat and humidity. Everyone walks around with a shiny face and me, myself, I was dripping most of the time. It’s very hot, but not too oppressive. And this I attribute to the breeze. As soon as you are near the water (which seems to surround you), there is a definite lightness to the air, quite distinct from the more serious heat you find in the city centre, or in the inland suburbs.
And, yes, Ruguru (my Dar Es Salaam manager), I note your slight objection, but I did not see poverty in Dar Es Salaam. As we took off back to Nairobi I saw some squatting next to the airport runway that looked pretty bleak (and very South African), but for the rest (and Ruguru, you must admit, we drove) I did not see poverty! Yes, there may be relative poverty, but the standard against which it is measured is a full-bellied one. It is nothing at the level of what I have seen here in Kenya, or in South Africa for that matter. The next pic is just about the worst I saw.
And here, the rich live among the poor and there seems to be no division along caste or class lines. I was quite amazed. Right next to a white-painted ‘compound’ where properly rich people live, there might be three or four, low-slung, typically Arabic-styled houses (not that different from the single stories you see in older parts of Salt River and Woodstock in Cape Town). The houses are not painted though, but tend to subsist with the sand they are built on, in a stoic grey-white silence. The sense of peace and tranquility is pervasive and fully palpable in this city. It is very, very appealing! Bongo Dar Es Salaam! I paid Charles a handsome sum to show me the town, when I arrived on Sunday. We passed “Nobrakes” on the road and Charles hooted for him to stop. They conversed briefly in Tanzanian Swahili (more lyrical, and softer than Kenyan Swahili) and Charles then related his recent mix-up with a car. (Note that Tanzanians are very prone to mix the “R’s” and “L’s” up – for in their language they sound the same. “No probrem”. “You like the R&B artist, R. Kerry?”)
The whole time I was with Charles, if he wasn’t talking on his mobile he was hooting and greeting fellow drivers or, more often, pedestrians, walking on the side of the road, Charles is one serious homeboy here. He is known everywhere and he’s a true ‘fixer’ in the sense that anything you need, Charles can get; a fact that he’s very proud of.
I keep forgetting it’s a Sunday until, each time we pass a church, Charles points out the number of cars. Despite the Muslim, Chinese and black tribal groups in the country, something like 30% of the population is Christian of some description, and from what I see, most of this Christianity is of the charismatic, revivalist, Pentecostal variety. Latter Day Saints, Baptists, Pentecostals, et.al. The churches actually stand out quite starkly against the smaller, grey uniformity of their surroundings.
Shortly after my introduction to Nobrakes I experienced my first makuti bar (although this one was a little more ‘fitted out’ than most of those you see). At these bars, everyone is sitting quietly in the heat, nursing a drink of some kind. Tusker moto (warm) competes with Castle baridi (cold). (yes, KusStill is popular here). These are two favourites, but the Maasai seem to prefer Safari beer. There’s no music playing at the makuti bar, but the soft, lyrical Swahili is music enough to my ears. Conversation is truly soft and the guests are involved in engaging conversation with each other, all over the place. The loudest sound comes from the clicking of pool balls in the corner. 
We have been sitting at the table for a few minutes when we are joined by a Maasai that, already, I can see is a ‘brother’ to Charles. Charles quickly explains to me that his fiancé is Maasai and this man, Isiah, is his future brother-in-law. Isiah looks me up and down, saying nothing. He is stony-faced, regarding my presence at the table. Charles explains in broken Maasai (that sounds a bit like Shangaan), that I am from Kenya but originally from South Africa. A broad, very warm smile spreads across his face and he asks, in Engrish, “How is Mr.Mandela?” I tell him that Madiba is getting old and probably won’t be around for much longer. He looks at me with a genuinely sad expression on his face, understanding most of what I’ve said. Isiah then breaks into an animated chat with Charles, and I hear the words “South Africa, Mandela, Uhuru, Mzungu” amidst the fast, short-syllabelled Maasai-speak. I smile, as only a mzungu can in a far-out and strange African land.
Watching Isiah intently, I can see this is one sensitive boy, with some differences about him. What these differences are, I can only guess, but what I do see immediately is that he doesn’t have the usual Maasai ‘hooped’, open earlobes. I ask Charles to get an explanation from Isiah, please. He doesn’t need to.
“Well”, says Charles, “It’s like this….”
“Maasai, when they apply for a job, always land up getting the job in security. In fact, they got the job in security even before they applied! Isiah wants to get away from this, and when he applies for a job does not want them to know that he is Maasai. Isiah is hoping for more.”
I’m blown away and can do nothing but smile and nod (as only a mzungu can!)
Then Isiah sees the camera on the table (in Kenya, they tell me “don’t leave it like that”. Not so in Tanzania!). Immediately he starts rattling away to Charles and I hear the repeated word “Video” in the brief, choppy conversation. I anticipate what he’s asking Charles and tell him, yes, it can take video but is actually a still camera”
“Aah. Still na (and) video!”, he says.
Isiah wants to know how it works. I show him. The next twenty minutes are taken up with Isiah trying various shots and angles out. I show him the replay function and he’s in another world. In the meantime, Charles is in and out of shot as he talks incessantly on his mobile, arranging this, and arranging that!
Isiah, Charles and I share some of the food being sold at the makuti bar (nyama with ugali/pap). We have scarcely finished when Charles tells me it’s time to go! (And we’re off, on another excursion of discovery).
At the next makuti bar I am left alone for a few minutes, nursing another Tusker moto ("Don't get too off your Facebook", says Charles), while Charles is organising his ‘things’. I am asked, in a fairly disinterested way, about my roots, origins and recent history by a rather large ‘elder’ wearing an overstuffed Castle Lager T-Shirt. I am mid-explanation when we are joined by another man. Again, I sense something quite ‘different’ about the guy who has joined us (long, handsome face that I seem almost to recognize as someone I know). I continue with my story while the new member watches me closely, holding on to his sweating can of Charles Glass’ famous preservative-filled brew.
I don’t know how we got talking, how it started, but Charles joins us after Fidel and I have already been talking for some time. I’m about to introduce Fidel to Charles when Charles tells me that, no, Fidel is also his ‘brother’ and they go back from school days. Fidel looks quite a bit older than Charles (probably near my age), so I’m not so sure about this, but who cares? I do immediately sense a ‘worldliness’ about Fidel, mainly in the questions he is almost firing at me.
Then Fidel tells me he’s traveled to 37 countries and starts to challenge me (in the nicest possible way) on what I know of the world, broadly. The banter is quick. The questions are fired from both sides.
“I thought New York was going to be a violent city”, he says.
“Mayor Guiliani changed all that”, I say.
“Yes, he had the benefit of the Italian Connection”, Fidel retorts.
Quite quickly, I desist to Fidel’s superior authority on matters of the world and begin to listen intently to the story he has to tell. It’s a fascinating story of discovery and global entrepreneurship.
(“Philly is fantastic. I still want to see the city of Havana. Kingston is a fucking dangerous slum!”)
I won’t go into detail here, but the man has been around. Right now he’s looking to introduce a guarana-based energy drink into the Kenyan market. He shows me all the clearance papers from the Tanzanian Food and Drug Administration. He can import. He’s got a company in Johannesburg that will make the syrup for him. And he’s got funky silver packaging. He needs around US$20 000 to get started. I tell him immediately to e-mail me a business plan (which he has already done). No promises. I’ll see who I can hook him up with (no promises expected). A few minutes later and Charles and I are outa there again.
This time we go to the beach, somewhere way down the coast (mainly, it seems, so that Charles can have an extended pee in the bush). Here on the beach, coconuts are strewn everywhere, having been mercilessly butchered for their milk. Charles remains glued to that damned mobile! We have a smoke outside the car. I walk down to the water’s edge and take a pic of a Muslim mother and child, standing on a rock in the Spring low tide.
It’s getting late and I watch a few container ships heading out to sea. These ships are about to start the perilous journey through the Gulf of Aden and every one of them face the very real possibility of being taken by pirates; - at most, two days from now. Charles says the pirates “don’t know who they are”, while I heard a member of Nairobi’s recent-immigrant black-burka brigade from Somalia say, at Nairobi airport, that Somalia’s Muslim rebels are “a bunch of bloody lunatics” (meaning bloody in the true sense of the word!)
But right now I want to get to the hotel, check in properly and have a quick swim somewhere. Charles tells me I must go to Coco Beach just down from the Golden Tulip/ Turip Hotel. Later, I ask Ruguru (somewhat stupidly), “Is it Koko Beach (“No”, says Ruguru, “they threw out the nut and replaced it with a beach”. Hilarious laughter). Yes, I get it now. A ten-minute walk from the hotel, across the low cliffs, and I’m at Coco Beach. And it’s late (5ish) but the beach is still packed. Where the ‘refreshment area’ stands, there are fewer people on the sand because most of them are quaffing some kind of liquid refreshment. I’m dead tired from the flight and having had to abide with the incessant movement of Charles and the Cab.
I nearly fall asleep sitting next to the pot plants. I decide I need to go and dip my head in the water to freshen up. This, after downing a Coke baridi – a cold one; Coke moto , being not so lekker!
I have filled my bag with all kinds of trash I just might need. The result is that it acts as a great pillow. And I proceed to fall soundly asleep on the beach, with the hustle and bustle of hundreds of excited people around me. What interests me, just before I drop soundly off, is that there is an inherent beach conservatism here; a conservatism that obviously stems from the Muslim cultural influences.
No-one takes their clothes off on the beach (even non-Muslims), and slippers (flip-flops, to us) are in evidence everywhere. It seems that only when you actually go and swim is it allowed for you to undress into a swimming costume of any description, and take off your shoes. And note, this does not apply to Muslim ladies! They seem to remain fully dressed at all times (note the Kitenge fabric, at left).But the folks are having a lot of fun. Many of the guys are hiring rubber inner-tubes from a stall near the road and are then walking some way up the rocky ledge that surrounds the beach to launch themselves into the tube, only to be brought in (very quickly) by the tidal flow of water. The cycle is repeated and their floating is so quick, back to the beach, that I suspect there is one very strong rip-tide on the other side of the bay.
And then I fall asleep.
I wake up completely dehydrated and feeling very hung-over. One thing is needed and I walk - nay, jog – to a stall that is making its (plentiful) money selling nothing but ice cold bottled water. Later, Ruguru notes that “you’ll think you got a nasty bout of malaria here if you don’t re-hydrate properly” (that is, re-hydrate all the time). I had a glimpse of this when I woke up! Before downing a whole liter of Kilimanjaro water I thought I might not make it out of there unaided (and was about to call Charles all the way back from home).
But, mercifully, I started to feel better quickly after the water. Still, I caught a tuk-tuk for Tsh200 (less than R3) back to the hotel (a 5 minute ride). However, this was not before I dipped my now rapidly-expanding body in the water. Of this experience I can only say that a hot bath would have been colder! The water is that warm.It’s now Sunday night, prior to the start of the first week in a new year, and I go out for a quiet night with Charles, who collects me from the hotel. It wasn’t meant as a quiet night, necessarily, but clearly Dar Es Salaam is gearing up (gearing down, actually) for the start of the new year, tomorrow. Like everywhere else in the world tonight.
We go to a few places and I begin to suspect that Charles is wanting to hook me up with a “Tanzanian Girl” (hook being the operative word). After the last place we visit, I find, when we get to the car, that we are three! Some protestation on my part and the “Tanzanian Girl” (cute as she is) returns to the bar. Now it makes some sense to me why Charles kept asking me about my tastes regarding the opposite gender!
Charles drops me at the hotel. I sleep fitfully, for it’s the usual new-city excitement that has got to me. I sleep. I write. I write and sleep at the same time, nodding off often.
I wake properly around 6am and call room service. I am absolutely starving, having shared only a small meal with Isiah and Charles yesterday afternoon! The lady on the other end of the line tells me that my sandwich is coming. About half an hour later she rings my room to tell me that I will be wasting money because breakfast is now served! I make my way down to breakfast and am expecting Ruguru-arranged transport to collect me from the hotel around 9.30am. I must say that I am still feeling quite wrecked and I pass it off to my fitful sleep.
I get a call from ‘the transport’ on my mobile at around 9.00am. I have yet to recover fully and still need (another) shower. I get this together and (eventually and slowly) make my way downstairs to meet ‘the transport’ to our local office. I am greeted by a light-skinned man, Rasta beanie on his head, who introduces himself as Rakesh. Funny, methinks, he doesn’t look like a Hindi really (and since when do Hindus become Rasta?).
After a fifteen minute drive (listening to Tanzanian Bongo Flava music on the CD player), we turn into a suburban driveway, at the end of which our offices are located. The ‘offices’ comprise a very neat and clean contemporary house, in a good suburb. The potential of the house as a great office space is clearly there. But the paint job is shocking! Ugly yellow paint with enamel-brown doors and cupboards. Not very inviting. I meet Ruguru and immediately know that this is a chick I can work with! Yes, Ruguru, the paint has to go!
Wearing some kind of African print number, with plain strapped shoes (and a pair of very attractive small feet), the dreads (part-extension) are in proud evidence. Quickly I learn that Rasta Rakesh is her husband. Nice couple. She’s a Kenyan who relocated to Tanzania ‘cos she fell in love. Sweet, baby, sweet!
We spend the rest of the day touring Dar Es Salaam in Rakesh’s car. We drive up and down, to and fro, there and back again. Kivukoni to Kinondoni; Kurasini to Kigogo, and then on to Kilawini. Uptown and downtown, from the outskirts to the centre, and back to the outskirts again (or so it seemed). My shirt is getting wetter and wetterer. Ruguru’s face is getting shinier and shinier (and mine is too). Rakesh talks infrequently while the banter between Ruguru and I reaches fever pitch at times. Rakesh adds something in Swahili every now and then (and usually laughs at the thought of what he’s just said). Strangely, I find I am understanding a fair bit of what he’s saying. I must be turning Swahili methinks! But what an absolutely cool city. Space. Mixed cultures. Joy and contentment on the streets. And no abject poverty at all! And a pretty cool Rastaman driver too! Tanzania achieved peaceful independence in 1961 and by 1963 Zanzibar had been incorporated into the independent statehood. Under Julius Nyerere, Tanzania immediately became a socialist state, adopting a Pan-African socialism that, in the end, did it no good. Under Nyerere’s leadership, all firms, and banks, were nationalized. There was no chance of owning land – it all belonged to the State. In the 1970’s Tanzania sought alliances with China and today you will find a great many signs in Dar Es Salaam, in Chinese and English.
Unfortunately, many elements of the Chinese communist model were adopted and peasant farmers were turned off their land and forced into collective farming. As a result of the forced relocation, Tanzania turned from a nation of adequately-fed subsistence farmers into a nation of starving collective farmers. Corruption, of course, was rife and while passing the huge, but now-defunct, Meat Canning Factory (now full of squatters) Ruguru explains to me that “the Ministers wanted to eat, so they minced the meat factory”. It’s about ten minutes later before the three of us have stopped giggling at this.
Today, however, influenced by the need for foreign investment, 35 year leasehold is at least possible, although, perhaps, not always granted. Conditional on their loans, the IMF introduced many reforms in the ‘80s and '90’s and investors are slowly coming. But things seem far from ideal on the investment front. The companies most prone to enter the economic realm are those who need little (if any) land, like the mobile operators, the tour operators and, broadly, service oriented businesses.
Of those businesses that have come South African business has been among the first. Shoprite, Game, Truworths, and a few others besides, are strongly in evidence at the malls. In fact, it seems like it is almost exclusively South African business that has ventured into the foray.
Dion tells me that there is no will to work in Tanzania (why should there be, I ask?) and he almost had a heart attack trying to ‘get things done’ here. He contrasts this to working in Kenya, where, he says, he finds things no different from back in the R.S.A. The people of Kenya are keen to work and learn. The people of Tanzania probably couldn’t give too much of a damn he reckons. This, of course, because life is actually quite sorted here. Do they really need to work hard? Hard work and heart attacks are, after all, a Western invention, not an African one!!!
Flying out
Flying into Dar Es Salaam was accompanied by quite heavy cloud cover so I couldn’t see anything when we passed the highest mountain in Africa. But flying out was different! And, I am told, I was extremely privileged to get the view I had!
Yes folks, one day I will be able to tell my grandchildren, with a tear in my eye (when everything is cooking like a broth around us), that I once saw Mt. Kilimanjaro with (albeit trickling) snow on it! You better believe it guys, the picture of this mountain with a snow-cap is already an historical artifact! The snow ‘streaks’ only certain faces of the peak. There is no snow-“cap” to speak of any more. Hail to CO2 and fluorocarbons!
We flew just on the Kenyan side of Kilimanjaro and, at over 19 000ft, the mountain reaches more than half-way to the plane’s flying altitude! From Kili, I could see easily to Mt. Meru (Arusha - the town where most Maasai originate - being at the base of the mountain) to the West. I could even see the start of the Ngorongoro Crater from the window of the Kenya Airways Boeing. I sat glued to the plane window for the last 20 minutes of the one-hour flight from Dar Es Salaam back to Nairobi. Smiling at the sheer marvel before me. But sad. (Camera batteries flat, no pics! Sorry.)
I landed in cool-as-ever Nairobi and was collected at the airport. Quite quickly we found ourselves in a trufeek jum of moderate proportions. It took us only an hour or so to cover the 20kms from Kenyatta to Westlands, and not the two hours one might usually expect.
Any other thoughts, feelings or notions I might have about Dar Es Salaam? No, none, other than the obvious... Bongo, Dar Es Salaam, Bongo!Absolutely beautiful city. Shiny, happy people!
Amani na mapenzi brothers and sisters!
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