The Banana Biz Blitz
For those of you still interested in the how the banana craft business has been fairing these last few weeks, here's a brief and final update on that front.
My time with the women pretty much wrapped up before I went to Zanzibar, but I've still been around and visiting them to plan ahead for the future. The business is now in the hands of the women, Mr. Shija, and Robin.
I saw the Mama Machumba group for the last time on Tuesday of this week. There were some nice little speeches to officiate my parting, a happy photo shoot and a few sing-a-longs. On Monday, I saw the Mama Nazareth group. They're a separate group of women who we were introduced to in the first few weeks of February, but haven't really dealt with until now. We're involving them in the banana craft business, because its been going so well – there's enough demand to involve more women, which means more families can make money.
Basically, our plan for the future is this:
The Mama Machumba Group will continue selling crafts to Massai Wanderings Safaris. They will also been trained by a professional craftswoman on how to make banana fibre lunch boxes, to also sell to Massai Wanderings.
The Mama Nazareth Group – a group of 12 women – starting Monday are being trained in the creation of the same two products that Machumba have been making and selling: coasters and bracelets. Once the products are of high enough quality, they will be sold to Soko Adventure Safaris.
Robin performed the admirable feat of recruiting this large safari business (Soko) into our cabal, which means there's going to be even more demand for these banana craft products soon. For now, Mama Machumba Crafts will sell to both Massai Wanderings and Soko, but ideally both groups of women, in a few months time, will be selling to one business each.
And that's that. Evidently, things are getting a lot more complicated and ambitious – but Robin has a month left to try her best to ensure that it all goes smoothly. I'm confident she'll manage this well, and that the results will mean more economic stability for more people – around 17 women, in fact.
As for me, I'm done, and feel like I've left the business at a good time – when we have success under our belts and a promising future ahead.
Books I've read while in Africa
Paul - Alan Clayson
John - Alan Clayson
George - Alan Clayson
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Tarzan, King of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Remains of the Day – somebody Kazuo
American Gods – Neil Gaimon
Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
Disgrace – J.M. Coeztee
There were a couple more but I can't remember them right now.
In transit
I write from Amsterdam Schipol airport, and am flying to Toronto this afternoon. It's been a terrific experience, being in Africa, and one that has no doubt performed small but significant advancements upon my character.
Often I've heard from people that I would come back “a different person” and that the trip would “completely blow my mind” - and not just from people who have been to Africa. Being blunt, I don't think that the experience has had any sort of life-changing impact on me. If I came back a different person, then the guy who left Canada two months ago probably didn't have much tenacity to his personality in the first place. I'll allow myself the immodesty to suggest that I wasn't susceptible to total transformation because I've already done some growing up already. No matter how heavy it feels, two months is just a drop in the pond after 24 years. Still, as I've said before and tried to make clear in this blog – the ripple has been significant enough to make me feel like its been two months incredibly well spent.
I'm not sure if I'll ever come back to Africa. Though I've had a great time here, if I ever had enough money to travel again in the future, I'd go somewhere different – like South America, or east Asia. I was often being asked by Tanzanians I met and worked with while in Arusha, “When are you coming back?” It seems that most volunteers promise that they will return, but then, of course, don't bother. I tried to be honest with people, telling them that I didn't imagine I would ever come back. Though it is a beautiful and adventurous country, I didn't “fall in love” with Tanzania, or at least I don't think I did. Perhaps, if this trip revealed anything about me, it's that I dislike romanticized cliches placed in quotation marks.
Anyway, thanks for reading and see some of you soon in my heartland. For "home is where the heart is".
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tanzania and Zanzibar mix-tape
I have a confession to make. The Africa thing was not my idea. I stole it from my friends. Brandon and Mike, who have both worked for Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in Zambia and Sierra Leone, respectively, had evidently done this years before me. I'm just a copycat.
Continuing this thieving trend, I'm going to nick another idea that originated with Brandon and continued with Mike – a mixtape for the country I stayed in.
Mike and Brandon seemed to be exposed to a lot of second-hand music on radio and otherwise in their countries. I didn't hear as much in Tanzania (except a music video by a one-armed acrobatic worship singer called Jean something), so my list is mostly restricted just to stuff I've listened to on my iPod, with a few exceptions.
1. MIA – “Jimmy”
On the ferry over to Zanzibar, I was stuck in economy class watching some weird Bollywood musical about a dude called Jimmy who is scared to play electric guitar because his lover was electrocuted whilst using one, or something. Suddenly, this song pops through the speakers – albeit in original 1970s groove – and I realized that I knew it. Sure, it's annoying as hell, and requires skipping after about 30 seconds, but MIA's cover earns a position on this playlist because of that boat trip.
2. Matt Mays – “Travellin'”
I had this song on heavy rotation before heading off to Africa via KLM from Toronto, and it has continued to spin ever since. Technically, it's written from the wrong perspective – Matt Mays laments his girlfriend going away for too long – but the general theme of putting on your “travellin' shoes” and seeing a different side to the world is one that rings true with any cross-cultural endeavour.
3. Sam Roberts - “Lions of the Kalahari”
Cruising through the Serengeti plains with the wind blowing through my hair as I stood upright in an open-top Landrover, Sam Roberts' song about getting eaten by lions was in my head about eight times a day during my February safari. I may have sung it out loud a few times actually, as the wind was just loud enough to mask my beautiful crooning.
4. Queen - “Seaside Rendezvous”
“Seaside Rendezvous” is Queen's least-rocking song, and therefore not one of their best, but it had particular relevance to the Zanzibar leg of my trip. After my birthday dinner at Mercury's seaside restaurant, I lay in bed and listened to some Queen – and instantly knew that Freddie's camp little ditty deserved a place here.
5. Loudon Wainwright III - “Grey in LA”
Mr. Wainwright senior's ode to rainfall in a typically sunny place came into my head pretty much anytime in rained here in Tanzania – which happened quite often and increasingly so as time stretched closer to the long rain season. At the end of my trip, now, three other songs of Loudon's have also come to mind: “The Home Stretch”, “Expatriot” and “Your Mother and I” - the latter because I just heard that Kate McGarigle died.
6. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”
In the spirit of the aforementioned “The Home Stretch” by Wainwright, “Two Weeks” kept popping into my head about a fortnight ago when I realized that I only had that much time remaining in my trip. It's also a great song to have in your head, so I let it stay there.
7. The Beatles - “I'll Follow the Sun”
After the grey comes the sun, and no one seems to know it better than the Beatles. This track, from Beatles for Sale, sounds a little out of place on an album full of poppy numbers like “Eight Days a Week” and “Rock n' Roll Music”. But its endearingly sweet lyrics and subconsciously catchy chorus foreshadow what the band would later be musically capable of. And it's about sun! Which there's lots of in Tanzania.
8. Hey Rosetta! - “A Thousand Suns”
Again, no real reason for this song's placement except that I listened to it almost daily and it's got some lyrics about sun. Moreover, a “thousand” suns, which is what it feels like is beating down on me most days in bright Tengeru.
9. Eddie Vedder - “Far Behind”
Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into The Wild is a wonderful companion to any adventure into a wild and crazy place. I listened to it on repeat before flying over to Africa, but the song that's stuck around longest on my iPod is “Far Behind”, a true ode to leaving everything and everyone you know back at home... for a little while, at least. I could have put “Big Hard Sun” in instead, but that might have been ultraviolet overload.
10. Doves - “Some Cities”
Driving by coach into Dar Es Salaam, Doves' industrial pounding provided good companionship to my transition from the wild north of Tanzania into the concrete jungle of Dar. Any Doves song is good for a road trip, really, there's something both epic and kinetic about their sound.
11. The Beatles - “Got To Get You Into My Life”
This funky number – also a McCartney track, naturally – was a song I listened to on the drive from my parent's house in Newmarket to Toronto airport. “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there,” goes the first line. “Sounds like you,” commented my mum. Respect.
12. Arkells - “Pullin' Punches”
“Pullin' Punches” has absolutely nothing to do with Tanzania, but it's definitely the song I've listened to the most while here. Hearing Hamilton's Arkells - one of the best live bands I've ever seen - is a nice reminder of one of my favourite things to do in Canada: go to gigs with my friends. If there's one song that's helped me to stay sane here, it's this one.
13. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - “Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka”
Give this song a listen and you might think I'm a bit of a music snob for putting it in (or just a douche), but I listened to a fair bit of Nusrat while away in Zanzibar. His soothing Indian rhythms put me in the right frame of mind to appreciate the island's rich cosmopolitan atmosphere. There, that didn't sound snobbish at all.
14. K'Naan – “Wavin' Flag”
No respectable Africa playlist by a Canadian music fan can go without K'Naan. I was originally going to put “Somalia” here instead, because its lyrics about street kids and general hood life in Africa related sharply to my surroundings. But on the daladala the other day to Arusha, I heard “Wavin' Flag” on the radio – well, I heard a female voice singing a Coca Cola commercial to the exact same tune – and I knew it belonged on my playlist. It's a little surreal to hear the now world-famous melody over here on the other side of the planet – especially considering I got to interview K'Naan for my university paper in 2005. Also, if you didn't know already, this song is the official South Africa 2010 World Cup anthem, so you're going to hear it a lot come June.
Note: Can-con count = 6 out of 14.
Continuing this thieving trend, I'm going to nick another idea that originated with Brandon and continued with Mike – a mixtape for the country I stayed in.
Mike and Brandon seemed to be exposed to a lot of second-hand music on radio and otherwise in their countries. I didn't hear as much in Tanzania (except a music video by a one-armed acrobatic worship singer called Jean something), so my list is mostly restricted just to stuff I've listened to on my iPod, with a few exceptions.
1. MIA – “Jimmy”
On the ferry over to Zanzibar, I was stuck in economy class watching some weird Bollywood musical about a dude called Jimmy who is scared to play electric guitar because his lover was electrocuted whilst using one, or something. Suddenly, this song pops through the speakers – albeit in original 1970s groove – and I realized that I knew it. Sure, it's annoying as hell, and requires skipping after about 30 seconds, but MIA's cover earns a position on this playlist because of that boat trip.
2. Matt Mays – “Travellin'”
I had this song on heavy rotation before heading off to Africa via KLM from Toronto, and it has continued to spin ever since. Technically, it's written from the wrong perspective – Matt Mays laments his girlfriend going away for too long – but the general theme of putting on your “travellin' shoes” and seeing a different side to the world is one that rings true with any cross-cultural endeavour.
3. Sam Roberts - “Lions of the Kalahari”
Cruising through the Serengeti plains with the wind blowing through my hair as I stood upright in an open-top Landrover, Sam Roberts' song about getting eaten by lions was in my head about eight times a day during my February safari. I may have sung it out loud a few times actually, as the wind was just loud enough to mask my beautiful crooning.
4. Queen - “Seaside Rendezvous”
“Seaside Rendezvous” is Queen's least-rocking song, and therefore not one of their best, but it had particular relevance to the Zanzibar leg of my trip. After my birthday dinner at Mercury's seaside restaurant, I lay in bed and listened to some Queen – and instantly knew that Freddie's camp little ditty deserved a place here.
5. Loudon Wainwright III - “Grey in LA”
Mr. Wainwright senior's ode to rainfall in a typically sunny place came into my head pretty much anytime in rained here in Tanzania – which happened quite often and increasingly so as time stretched closer to the long rain season. At the end of my trip, now, three other songs of Loudon's have also come to mind: “The Home Stretch”, “Expatriot” and “Your Mother and I” - the latter because I just heard that Kate McGarigle died.
6. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”
In the spirit of the aforementioned “The Home Stretch” by Wainwright, “Two Weeks” kept popping into my head about a fortnight ago when I realized that I only had that much time remaining in my trip. It's also a great song to have in your head, so I let it stay there.
7. The Beatles - “I'll Follow the Sun”
After the grey comes the sun, and no one seems to know it better than the Beatles. This track, from Beatles for Sale, sounds a little out of place on an album full of poppy numbers like “Eight Days a Week” and “Rock n' Roll Music”. But its endearingly sweet lyrics and subconsciously catchy chorus foreshadow what the band would later be musically capable of. And it's about sun! Which there's lots of in Tanzania.
8. Hey Rosetta! - “A Thousand Suns”
Again, no real reason for this song's placement except that I listened to it almost daily and it's got some lyrics about sun. Moreover, a “thousand” suns, which is what it feels like is beating down on me most days in bright Tengeru.
9. Eddie Vedder - “Far Behind”
Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into The Wild is a wonderful companion to any adventure into a wild and crazy place. I listened to it on repeat before flying over to Africa, but the song that's stuck around longest on my iPod is “Far Behind”, a true ode to leaving everything and everyone you know back at home... for a little while, at least. I could have put “Big Hard Sun” in instead, but that might have been ultraviolet overload.
10. Doves - “Some Cities”
Driving by coach into Dar Es Salaam, Doves' industrial pounding provided good companionship to my transition from the wild north of Tanzania into the concrete jungle of Dar. Any Doves song is good for a road trip, really, there's something both epic and kinetic about their sound.
11. The Beatles - “Got To Get You Into My Life”
This funky number – also a McCartney track, naturally – was a song I listened to on the drive from my parent's house in Newmarket to Toronto airport. “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there,” goes the first line. “Sounds like you,” commented my mum. Respect.
12. Arkells - “Pullin' Punches”
“Pullin' Punches” has absolutely nothing to do with Tanzania, but it's definitely the song I've listened to the most while here. Hearing Hamilton's Arkells - one of the best live bands I've ever seen - is a nice reminder of one of my favourite things to do in Canada: go to gigs with my friends. If there's one song that's helped me to stay sane here, it's this one.
13. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - “Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka”
Give this song a listen and you might think I'm a bit of a music snob for putting it in (or just a douche), but I listened to a fair bit of Nusrat while away in Zanzibar. His soothing Indian rhythms put me in the right frame of mind to appreciate the island's rich cosmopolitan atmosphere. There, that didn't sound snobbish at all.
14. K'Naan – “Wavin' Flag”
No respectable Africa playlist by a Canadian music fan can go without K'Naan. I was originally going to put “Somalia” here instead, because its lyrics about street kids and general hood life in Africa related sharply to my surroundings. But on the daladala the other day to Arusha, I heard “Wavin' Flag” on the radio – well, I heard a female voice singing a Coca Cola commercial to the exact same tune – and I knew it belonged on my playlist. It's a little surreal to hear the now world-famous melody over here on the other side of the planet – especially considering I got to interview K'Naan for my university paper in 2005. Also, if you didn't know already, this song is the official South Africa 2010 World Cup anthem, so you're going to hear it a lot come June.
Note: Can-con count = 6 out of 14.
Zanzibar: What I did
Having in my last two posts discussed at length the semi-arduous journey and then the satisfying friendliness of Zanzibar's people, I'll proceed now to actually explain chronologically what I did while I was away on my adventure.
So, at Dar on Monday, after the Battle of Ubungo and a ten hour coach ride, I had a tasty little chicken curry soup thing at the adjoining restaurant to the Jambo Inn and then settled in for a night's rest. To continue the trend of aggravating financial dealings with taxi drivers and bus ticket salespeople, I was followed back to my room by the owner of the (also adjoining) internet cafe who informed me that I forgot to pay for my hour's worth of net time. Oops, I said, and gave him a 1,000 Tsh note. Wait a minute, I then said, and grabbed the note right back. Yes, in fact, I had paid. The man spoke little English, and didn't really understand me (and seemed to genuinely believe I hadn't paid). This ultimately resulted in me talking to the owner's security man, who politely asked me again if I had paid. I said I had, and we left the conversation at that. It was only a dollar.
Dar was boiling, but my room was freezing – thanks to the air-conditioner I tried leaving on all night long. This didn't help my cold too much. The next morning, after deciding to sleep in and skip the 7 a.m. ferry, I sauntered down to the ferry terminal and got confused between ticket touts and certified vendors before settling on a mild but not unsettling rip-off of a fare. Around the corner, I chilled in a shopping mall (that had an Apple store inside, oddly) for about an hour before grabbing a 10 a.m. boat over to Zanzibar.
Around two hours later, I emerged from Zanzibar's sea port, dragging faintly annoying touts in my wake. I'd made a friend on the trip over, an Indian girl called Sonya who spoke immaculate English, so we ditched the touts and grabbed lunch together in front of my hotel – the Clove. After this second Indian dish, we parted and made non-committal plans to see one another again on Thursday – my 24th birthday.
If you're wondering why so much Indian stuff is going on in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar, I can try to explain. Basically, Tanzania has a fairly large Indian population – thanks to hundreds of years of immigration. Zanzibar was previously controlled by Indian sultans, and back when the slave trade was at its peak in East Africa, Stone Town was the continental capital for human trafficking.
Anyway, the Clove Hotel proved to be a fantastic base of operations for my stay in Zanzibar. I had a nice four-post bed all to myself, a warm shower, hearty breakfast and beautiful rooftop for views of the ocean and surrounding rustic urban sprawl. After settling in and unpacking, I went wandering around Stone Town – making sure, at least at first, to stick to the coastal periphery of the small city. I'd save the maze for later.
By the time I'd reached the end of my Rough Guide map, I'd only been walking for about ten or fifteen minutes, and was thus surprised by how small Stone Town seemed. Later, that central maze of alleyways would change such perception.
After an ice cream break at an Italian place called Amore Mio – with a beautiful seated view in front of the west-facing seafront – I burned time at a net cafe before settling into the Livingstone for a few happy hour beers and some menu research. The Livingstone is one of the better known restaurants in Stone Town. It's located within the former British Consulate, back in the good ol' days of the empire. Tables on the beach provided me with a view of an industrial boat being loaded up with cars and all sorts of bags. I had an unsatisfying crab claw dinner – which, being a crab claw dinner, you really expect to be delectable – but an otherwise fine evening watching the sun go down over acrobatic somersaulting teens playing on the beach in front of me.
The next day, I woke up early for my Clove breakfast and then got picked up from my hotel by the driver for the spice tour I had signed up for. After grabbing some other guests – a German couple, a Swedish woman and Aleem, the Scottish lad from Manchester University mentioned previously – we took off to a spice farm located about twenty minutes north of Stone Town.
I'd had many people tell me that, if I was going to Zanzibar, a spice tour was totally mandatory. If I didn't go on a spice tour, then I was truly missing out on a special experience. Now, I learned a few interesting things about spices, and got to smell a lot of nice-smelling doohickeys, but I didn't exactly have my mind blown to a million sniffable pieces. Still, it was nice to get out of Stone Town to experience a different side to Zanzibar – and, I ended up getting along well enough with Aleem to eat lunch with him on my birthday.
Before that, though, let's continue with the spice tour. After the farm, we went to a market stall and sampled a variety of tasty fruits, then went on to peek at some ancient Persian baths. They were OK. More interesting was the slave cave, a giant hole in the ground near the ocean that was once used to hide hundreds of slaves in. It was pitch black, giant millipedes crawled around my feet, and I imagine it must have been simply horrible to have been cramped down there with no food, water, or freedom.
After this depressing episode, more lighthearted affairs were in order, so we trekked to the beach nearby. I slipped into my swimming trunks and rushed eagerly towards the blue ocean. It was very warm, and very pleasant. I collected some sea shells and had a pee in the ocean. I didn't even need to go that bad, it just felt necessary.
Back in Stone Town, I went on my second culinary adventure – which turned out even worse than the first (the Livingstone). The outdoor seafood market at Forodhani Gardens, just a minute's walk from my hotel, was highly recommended in my guidebook. In spite of warnings from both Aleem and a Danish couple I had met, who told me not to go, I was continuing to put increasingly unnecessary faith in my Rough Guide. I spent 5000 Tsh on skewered lobster meat, and it was not any good at all. Two seafood meals in the seafood capital of Africa – and both of them fairly shit.
The next morning, I didn't feel so great – due to the bad lobster – so took it easy for a while. It was my birthday, after all, and I wanted to ensure I was feeling OK eventually. After sorting out a new ferry ticket stamp at the terminal – which proved as confusing as Dar's, owing to the fact that almost everyone was a tout – I answered birthday messages on Facebook and spoke to my mum, before eventually heading off to lunch with Aleem at Monsoon.
Best to avoid the seafood, thought I, and ordered a nice little steak that came surrounded by small appetizers like thick chickpea humus and cassava leaves. It was a very tasty birthday meal and I enjoyed Monsoon enough to return the next day for lunch.
After discussing what videogames we most looked forward to playing upon our return to the West (mine's Mass Effect 2. Or maybe Bioshock 2. Something 2), Aleem and I parted and pledged the usual Facebook friendship exchange.
I then decided to brave the maze of Stone Town all on my own (the previous day I had looked around for a bit with Aleem, who had been there for a month). After all, I was 24 now, and therefore old enough to look wistfully back upon teenage years. Surely that qualifies me for a solitary walk down some streets. Apparently, though, it doesn't grant me the ability to navigate said streets – as I spent the better part of a day looking for the Anglican Cathedral, which was built on the site of the city's once infamous slave market. Simply could not find it.
Following the social escapades of the maze that I summarized in my last blog, most of the day was over and it was time for dinner. Almost tempted to order food to the rooftop of my hotel (which is possible from the Indian place next door), I sided with another must-do recommendation – this time from a reputable source, my friend Brandon, who has spent time in parts of Africa as a volunteer Edward Norton lookalike.
So, my birthday dinner was pizza at Mercury's – the restaurant named after Zanzibar's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) son, Freddie Mercury. As Brandon noted to me, it's a little ironic to have a bar in Africa dedicated to a man who was openly gay and had aids. Neither of these things are popular in Africa – at least not in terms of legality (the former) or social acceptability (both). At the end of the day though, Freddie was a musical legend and that's all the bar seemed to think too. My pizza was called the Princess Salme and, for a feminist-themed feast, it was absolutely scrumptious. Sorry, just had to use a word that sounded a little gay.
So after another night spent watching the sun go down on Stone Town's gorgeous harbour – this time with a view of a group of locals playing beach soccer – I clocked in for my last night's rest at the Clove.
The next day, equipped with a better map, I set off to locate the elusive Anglican Cathedral, and find it I did. In the basement of a hostel on site is a pitch dark, scary chamber where slaves used to be kept, sometimes upwards of 75 people at a time, before being sold at the market. The cathedral was an interesting place also, as it housed a cross made from the wood of the tree under which the explorer/missionary/slave-trade-abolitionist Livingstone's heart is supposedly buried.
After the cathedral, I took off into Stone Town's eastern market streets, which I expect are rarely visited by many tourists, and got some surprised glances from shopkeepers and workers busying themselves on the streets. I was on a mission for a soccer jersey for Dar Es Salaam Simba. Sure, I wasn't in Dar, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Unfortunately, it did, so I had to settle for a nice Zanzibar one instead. Not even sure if Zanzibar actually has a soccer team, though.
All that walking about - missionary work, if you will - had me fairly worn out, so I sat for a while in the renovated Forodhani Gardens, watching ferries and industrial ocean liners going about their daily duties. I returned to Monsoon for a long but affordable three-course lunch – as my ferry wasn't until 4 p.m. - and then moseyed on towards the ferry terminal. Snuck into first-class seating for the return ferry, for some necessary retribution against my ticket problems, and talked to some businessman from Bangalore about how marketing has two metaphorical sides, cooking a meal and presenting it, or something. We got into Dar and I shimmied past the hordes of taxi drivers itching to give me “good price my friend”, opting to walk back to the Jambo Inn instead.
Burger, fries, bed, shower, taxi, bus, home. A great trip that almost deserves an exclamation mark. Almost!
So, at Dar on Monday, after the Battle of Ubungo and a ten hour coach ride, I had a tasty little chicken curry soup thing at the adjoining restaurant to the Jambo Inn and then settled in for a night's rest. To continue the trend of aggravating financial dealings with taxi drivers and bus ticket salespeople, I was followed back to my room by the owner of the (also adjoining) internet cafe who informed me that I forgot to pay for my hour's worth of net time. Oops, I said, and gave him a 1,000 Tsh note. Wait a minute, I then said, and grabbed the note right back. Yes, in fact, I had paid. The man spoke little English, and didn't really understand me (and seemed to genuinely believe I hadn't paid). This ultimately resulted in me talking to the owner's security man, who politely asked me again if I had paid. I said I had, and we left the conversation at that. It was only a dollar.
Dar was boiling, but my room was freezing – thanks to the air-conditioner I tried leaving on all night long. This didn't help my cold too much. The next morning, after deciding to sleep in and skip the 7 a.m. ferry, I sauntered down to the ferry terminal and got confused between ticket touts and certified vendors before settling on a mild but not unsettling rip-off of a fare. Around the corner, I chilled in a shopping mall (that had an Apple store inside, oddly) for about an hour before grabbing a 10 a.m. boat over to Zanzibar.
Around two hours later, I emerged from Zanzibar's sea port, dragging faintly annoying touts in my wake. I'd made a friend on the trip over, an Indian girl called Sonya who spoke immaculate English, so we ditched the touts and grabbed lunch together in front of my hotel – the Clove. After this second Indian dish, we parted and made non-committal plans to see one another again on Thursday – my 24th birthday.
If you're wondering why so much Indian stuff is going on in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar, I can try to explain. Basically, Tanzania has a fairly large Indian population – thanks to hundreds of years of immigration. Zanzibar was previously controlled by Indian sultans, and back when the slave trade was at its peak in East Africa, Stone Town was the continental capital for human trafficking.
Anyway, the Clove Hotel proved to be a fantastic base of operations for my stay in Zanzibar. I had a nice four-post bed all to myself, a warm shower, hearty breakfast and beautiful rooftop for views of the ocean and surrounding rustic urban sprawl. After settling in and unpacking, I went wandering around Stone Town – making sure, at least at first, to stick to the coastal periphery of the small city. I'd save the maze for later.
By the time I'd reached the end of my Rough Guide map, I'd only been walking for about ten or fifteen minutes, and was thus surprised by how small Stone Town seemed. Later, that central maze of alleyways would change such perception.
After an ice cream break at an Italian place called Amore Mio – with a beautiful seated view in front of the west-facing seafront – I burned time at a net cafe before settling into the Livingstone for a few happy hour beers and some menu research. The Livingstone is one of the better known restaurants in Stone Town. It's located within the former British Consulate, back in the good ol' days of the empire. Tables on the beach provided me with a view of an industrial boat being loaded up with cars and all sorts of bags. I had an unsatisfying crab claw dinner – which, being a crab claw dinner, you really expect to be delectable – but an otherwise fine evening watching the sun go down over acrobatic somersaulting teens playing on the beach in front of me.
The next day, I woke up early for my Clove breakfast and then got picked up from my hotel by the driver for the spice tour I had signed up for. After grabbing some other guests – a German couple, a Swedish woman and Aleem, the Scottish lad from Manchester University mentioned previously – we took off to a spice farm located about twenty minutes north of Stone Town.
I'd had many people tell me that, if I was going to Zanzibar, a spice tour was totally mandatory. If I didn't go on a spice tour, then I was truly missing out on a special experience. Now, I learned a few interesting things about spices, and got to smell a lot of nice-smelling doohickeys, but I didn't exactly have my mind blown to a million sniffable pieces. Still, it was nice to get out of Stone Town to experience a different side to Zanzibar – and, I ended up getting along well enough with Aleem to eat lunch with him on my birthday.
Before that, though, let's continue with the spice tour. After the farm, we went to a market stall and sampled a variety of tasty fruits, then went on to peek at some ancient Persian baths. They were OK. More interesting was the slave cave, a giant hole in the ground near the ocean that was once used to hide hundreds of slaves in. It was pitch black, giant millipedes crawled around my feet, and I imagine it must have been simply horrible to have been cramped down there with no food, water, or freedom.
After this depressing episode, more lighthearted affairs were in order, so we trekked to the beach nearby. I slipped into my swimming trunks and rushed eagerly towards the blue ocean. It was very warm, and very pleasant. I collected some sea shells and had a pee in the ocean. I didn't even need to go that bad, it just felt necessary.
Back in Stone Town, I went on my second culinary adventure – which turned out even worse than the first (the Livingstone). The outdoor seafood market at Forodhani Gardens, just a minute's walk from my hotel, was highly recommended in my guidebook. In spite of warnings from both Aleem and a Danish couple I had met, who told me not to go, I was continuing to put increasingly unnecessary faith in my Rough Guide. I spent 5000 Tsh on skewered lobster meat, and it was not any good at all. Two seafood meals in the seafood capital of Africa – and both of them fairly shit.
The next morning, I didn't feel so great – due to the bad lobster – so took it easy for a while. It was my birthday, after all, and I wanted to ensure I was feeling OK eventually. After sorting out a new ferry ticket stamp at the terminal – which proved as confusing as Dar's, owing to the fact that almost everyone was a tout – I answered birthday messages on Facebook and spoke to my mum, before eventually heading off to lunch with Aleem at Monsoon.
Best to avoid the seafood, thought I, and ordered a nice little steak that came surrounded by small appetizers like thick chickpea humus and cassava leaves. It was a very tasty birthday meal and I enjoyed Monsoon enough to return the next day for lunch.
After discussing what videogames we most looked forward to playing upon our return to the West (mine's Mass Effect 2. Or maybe Bioshock 2. Something 2), Aleem and I parted and pledged the usual Facebook friendship exchange.
I then decided to brave the maze of Stone Town all on my own (the previous day I had looked around for a bit with Aleem, who had been there for a month). After all, I was 24 now, and therefore old enough to look wistfully back upon teenage years. Surely that qualifies me for a solitary walk down some streets. Apparently, though, it doesn't grant me the ability to navigate said streets – as I spent the better part of a day looking for the Anglican Cathedral, which was built on the site of the city's once infamous slave market. Simply could not find it.
Following the social escapades of the maze that I summarized in my last blog, most of the day was over and it was time for dinner. Almost tempted to order food to the rooftop of my hotel (which is possible from the Indian place next door), I sided with another must-do recommendation – this time from a reputable source, my friend Brandon, who has spent time in parts of Africa as a volunteer Edward Norton lookalike.
So, my birthday dinner was pizza at Mercury's – the restaurant named after Zanzibar's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) son, Freddie Mercury. As Brandon noted to me, it's a little ironic to have a bar in Africa dedicated to a man who was openly gay and had aids. Neither of these things are popular in Africa – at least not in terms of legality (the former) or social acceptability (both). At the end of the day though, Freddie was a musical legend and that's all the bar seemed to think too. My pizza was called the Princess Salme and, for a feminist-themed feast, it was absolutely scrumptious. Sorry, just had to use a word that sounded a little gay.
So after another night spent watching the sun go down on Stone Town's gorgeous harbour – this time with a view of a group of locals playing beach soccer – I clocked in for my last night's rest at the Clove.
The next day, equipped with a better map, I set off to locate the elusive Anglican Cathedral, and find it I did. In the basement of a hostel on site is a pitch dark, scary chamber where slaves used to be kept, sometimes upwards of 75 people at a time, before being sold at the market. The cathedral was an interesting place also, as it housed a cross made from the wood of the tree under which the explorer/missionary/slave-trade-abolitionist Livingstone's heart is supposedly buried.
After the cathedral, I took off into Stone Town's eastern market streets, which I expect are rarely visited by many tourists, and got some surprised glances from shopkeepers and workers busying themselves on the streets. I was on a mission for a soccer jersey for Dar Es Salaam Simba. Sure, I wasn't in Dar, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Unfortunately, it did, so I had to settle for a nice Zanzibar one instead. Not even sure if Zanzibar actually has a soccer team, though.
All that walking about - missionary work, if you will - had me fairly worn out, so I sat for a while in the renovated Forodhani Gardens, watching ferries and industrial ocean liners going about their daily duties. I returned to Monsoon for a long but affordable three-course lunch – as my ferry wasn't until 4 p.m. - and then moseyed on towards the ferry terminal. Snuck into first-class seating for the return ferry, for some necessary retribution against my ticket problems, and talked to some businessman from Bangalore about how marketing has two metaphorical sides, cooking a meal and presenting it, or something. We got into Dar and I shimmied past the hordes of taxi drivers itching to give me “good price my friend”, opting to walk back to the Jambo Inn instead.
Burger, fries, bed, shower, taxi, bus, home. A great trip that almost deserves an exclamation mark. Almost!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Zanzibar – the people
I've never really thought of myself as a social dynamo. I tend to be quiet, let others do most of the talking, and settle for being tolerably friendly without trying too hard to impress. If there's one thing I've learned about myself this trip, though, it's that I can be a lot more sociable than I give myself credit.
And one place where sociability is key to the enjoyment of one's experience – in my mind at least – is most certainly Zanzibar. Unlike the bustling, heaving Arusha or the crowded, rushed Dar Es Salaam, Zanzibar is a place for relaxation, friendliness, and general laidbackness. “Hakuna matata”, if you will.
Walking down the myriad alleyways that form spider-web mazes through the entirety of Stone Town, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the things you'd pay most attention to are the beautiful stonework, the handcrafted doorways, and the decaying beauty of 17th century architecture. In fact, what really makes Stone Town special is its very friendly people.
It's in this regard that I give myself some credit for my social skills. Specifically, the skills granted to me because of my efforts to learn the peoples' native language – Swahili.
Walking down the streets or alleyways of Zanzibar, I was able to converse with shopkeepers, kids and general walk-abouters throughout my days there. Most people were surprised that I was even able to speak Swahili – as typical whiteys like myself on the island apparently don't really bother trying. Thanks to my time spent learning the language in Arusha and Tengeru, I was able to have a much more social – and therefore rewarding – experience on the island than other Westerners I met along the way. Whether it was discussing Tanzanian soccer, Canadian weather or prattling on about any old nonsense, I made a point of making conversation with any local who said hello to me. With the wealth of friendly, talkative people about, this was a simple task. I even explained to one person what the term "prosecution" meant. He had it written down on a tiny piece of paper, and was saving that piece of paper for the mzungu that might talk to him that day.
“The Real Africa” is a strange term that's often tossed about by travellers to the continent. Is it the nature, the food, the cities, the air, or a mixture of everything? If there's one qualification that could possibly make the cut – in my opinion – it's that you haven't experienced Africa unless you've (properly) interacted with its people.
The same really goes for any culture. So – if you come to Tanzania and your only interactions with its native people are when you order wine and lobster in English, or ask your safari guide how long the gestation period of the black rhino is, then you haven't experienced “The Real Africa”. And trust me, this is the case for some tourists. There, I've made it official.
I therefore feel, perhaps immodestly, that I've experienced a more “genuine” trip than other travellers might have. One friend I made in Zanzibar, Aleem, a nice Scottish lad from Manchester University, had been on the island for over a month and only seemed to know one phrase – “mambo poa” – which he was using incorrectly. Like the townfolk, he was equally surprised by the fact that I could string a brief conversation together with passerbys. Knowing how to speak the language also made it far easier to get good prices for souvenirs in the plethora of street shops in Stone Town's alley ways. I could almost halve some of the original asking prices.
All of this isn't to say that I'm blessed with some incredible capacity for learning languages: I really only know a smidgeon of Swahili, and can understand it far better than I can speak it. What's more, most of my conversations with people turned into a cocktail of English and Swahili, both parties trying to throw out words and phrases that the other might recognise.
But a smidgeon is all one really needs to engage in simple conversation with locals – and thus to get a qualified certificate of having experienced “The Real Africa”. I'll have to buy the t-shirt now.
Next: What I actually done did in Zanzibar
And one place where sociability is key to the enjoyment of one's experience – in my mind at least – is most certainly Zanzibar. Unlike the bustling, heaving Arusha or the crowded, rushed Dar Es Salaam, Zanzibar is a place for relaxation, friendliness, and general laidbackness. “Hakuna matata”, if you will.
Walking down the myriad alleyways that form spider-web mazes through the entirety of Stone Town, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the things you'd pay most attention to are the beautiful stonework, the handcrafted doorways, and the decaying beauty of 17th century architecture. In fact, what really makes Stone Town special is its very friendly people.
It's in this regard that I give myself some credit for my social skills. Specifically, the skills granted to me because of my efforts to learn the peoples' native language – Swahili.
Walking down the streets or alleyways of Zanzibar, I was able to converse with shopkeepers, kids and general walk-abouters throughout my days there. Most people were surprised that I was even able to speak Swahili – as typical whiteys like myself on the island apparently don't really bother trying. Thanks to my time spent learning the language in Arusha and Tengeru, I was able to have a much more social – and therefore rewarding – experience on the island than other Westerners I met along the way. Whether it was discussing Tanzanian soccer, Canadian weather or prattling on about any old nonsense, I made a point of making conversation with any local who said hello to me. With the wealth of friendly, talkative people about, this was a simple task. I even explained to one person what the term "prosecution" meant. He had it written down on a tiny piece of paper, and was saving that piece of paper for the mzungu that might talk to him that day.
“The Real Africa” is a strange term that's often tossed about by travellers to the continent. Is it the nature, the food, the cities, the air, or a mixture of everything? If there's one qualification that could possibly make the cut – in my opinion – it's that you haven't experienced Africa unless you've (properly) interacted with its people.
The same really goes for any culture. So – if you come to Tanzania and your only interactions with its native people are when you order wine and lobster in English, or ask your safari guide how long the gestation period of the black rhino is, then you haven't experienced “The Real Africa”. And trust me, this is the case for some tourists. There, I've made it official.
I therefore feel, perhaps immodestly, that I've experienced a more “genuine” trip than other travellers might have. One friend I made in Zanzibar, Aleem, a nice Scottish lad from Manchester University, had been on the island for over a month and only seemed to know one phrase – “mambo poa” – which he was using incorrectly. Like the townfolk, he was equally surprised by the fact that I could string a brief conversation together with passerbys. Knowing how to speak the language also made it far easier to get good prices for souvenirs in the plethora of street shops in Stone Town's alley ways. I could almost halve some of the original asking prices.
All of this isn't to say that I'm blessed with some incredible capacity for learning languages: I really only know a smidgeon of Swahili, and can understand it far better than I can speak it. What's more, most of my conversations with people turned into a cocktail of English and Swahili, both parties trying to throw out words and phrases that the other might recognise.
But a smidgeon is all one really needs to engage in simple conversation with locals – and thus to get a qualified certificate of having experienced “The Real Africa”. I'll have to buy the t-shirt now.
Next: What I actually done did in Zanzibar
Zanzibar: the journey
While a tame exercise for many people, for me, setting off on a cross-country tour towards Zanzibar was definitely the most daunting part of this whole Tanzanian adventure.
Ordinary little man goes off on big, crazy trip – it's the archetypal journey narrative and one that I'm now proud to have performed myself. Prior to heading down the long traveller's road, I read through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit – one of my favourite books. Poor pampered little Bilbo Baggins finds himself whisked away on a quest, and is forced to harden and endure the physical and mental hurdles that await. This nice read put me in the right frame of mind on Monday morning, when I had to awake in twilight and head off down the pitch-black road with a heavy backpack and no handkerchief in my pocket (well, I did have a few packs of travel Kleenex).
So I was travelling in charted coaches, taxis and ferries – not on a pony through the Desolation of Smaug – but like Bilbo, my journey wasn't without its complications.
For one, I was forced to buy a second bus ticket at the last minute, after my first one became useless because the manager of Dar Express decided to die – leading to a temporary company shutdown. Stuck on the Kilimanjaro Express, with no air conditioning, it was a stuffy ride but the views of Mt. Kilimanjaro through my left-hand window made the trip easier. Ten and a half hours went by surprisingly fast.
Arriving at Ubungo station in Dar, I found my bearings and tried to screw my head on straight. The long drive had left me fairly dazed – not least because the head cold I was suffering from screwed with my sinuses (dropping from 1400m to sea level makes your ears pop a lot). With my useless Dar Express ticket in hand, I sought to rectify that situation and get a refund. A half hour of discussions between three staff members later, I got myself an exchange and booked a return ticket for Saturday.
Then came the Battle of the Ubungo. My guidebook – which until this point had been Word-of-God reliable – implied that a taxi to town shouldn't cost more than 5000 Tsh. I therefore spent a good 20 minutes arguing with a pack of taxi drivers (never argue with a pack of taxi drivers) over what price I should pay. They wanted 1500 Tsh. At the end, I got away with 9000 Tsh, but still felt ripped off. More-so when the driver insisted I pay half up front, at a gas stop. As it turns out, 1500 Tsh was a fairly reasonable fee, as it is the price agreed upon by staff at the Jambo Inn (who booked my return taxi on Saturday for as much).
After a night at the Jambo, I went to buy my ferry ticket to Zanzibar. This was an even more frustrating experience, as there was no distinguishing between genuine ticket agents and touts looking to charge extra commission fees. I'm pretty sure I ended up with a tout – though the sale still took place at a ticket booth. I paid 110,000 for return tickets – which is about the right price if you're travelling first-class (roughly 55,000 per ticket). I thought as much when I handed over my money, and only realized moments later that he had given me economy tickets. Secondly, and more worryingly, my return ticket didn't have a port tax stamp on it – which is mandatory. Long story short, it worked out in the end. I went to the Zanzibar ferry terminal later in the week and got a free stamp, then snuck into first-class seating on the return trip to Dar Es Salaam.
The final lap of my trip – the bus home – was satisfyingly free of any real hiccups. I had asked for a window seat, and had been assigned the wrong number, but the man next to me was sympathetic and swapped with me. Apart from that, it was smooth driving (along a bumpy road with overzealous speed-bumps). I got back to my hobbit hole in one piece, threw off my shoes, and took a well-earned night's rest.
Next - Zanzibar: the people
Ordinary little man goes off on big, crazy trip – it's the archetypal journey narrative and one that I'm now proud to have performed myself. Prior to heading down the long traveller's road, I read through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit – one of my favourite books. Poor pampered little Bilbo Baggins finds himself whisked away on a quest, and is forced to harden and endure the physical and mental hurdles that await. This nice read put me in the right frame of mind on Monday morning, when I had to awake in twilight and head off down the pitch-black road with a heavy backpack and no handkerchief in my pocket (well, I did have a few packs of travel Kleenex).
So I was travelling in charted coaches, taxis and ferries – not on a pony through the Desolation of Smaug – but like Bilbo, my journey wasn't without its complications.
For one, I was forced to buy a second bus ticket at the last minute, after my first one became useless because the manager of Dar Express decided to die – leading to a temporary company shutdown. Stuck on the Kilimanjaro Express, with no air conditioning, it was a stuffy ride but the views of Mt. Kilimanjaro through my left-hand window made the trip easier. Ten and a half hours went by surprisingly fast.
Arriving at Ubungo station in Dar, I found my bearings and tried to screw my head on straight. The long drive had left me fairly dazed – not least because the head cold I was suffering from screwed with my sinuses (dropping from 1400m to sea level makes your ears pop a lot). With my useless Dar Express ticket in hand, I sought to rectify that situation and get a refund. A half hour of discussions between three staff members later, I got myself an exchange and booked a return ticket for Saturday.
Then came the Battle of the Ubungo. My guidebook – which until this point had been Word-of-God reliable – implied that a taxi to town shouldn't cost more than 5000 Tsh. I therefore spent a good 20 minutes arguing with a pack of taxi drivers (never argue with a pack of taxi drivers) over what price I should pay. They wanted 1500 Tsh. At the end, I got away with 9000 Tsh, but still felt ripped off. More-so when the driver insisted I pay half up front, at a gas stop. As it turns out, 1500 Tsh was a fairly reasonable fee, as it is the price agreed upon by staff at the Jambo Inn (who booked my return taxi on Saturday for as much).
After a night at the Jambo, I went to buy my ferry ticket to Zanzibar. This was an even more frustrating experience, as there was no distinguishing between genuine ticket agents and touts looking to charge extra commission fees. I'm pretty sure I ended up with a tout – though the sale still took place at a ticket booth. I paid 110,000 for return tickets – which is about the right price if you're travelling first-class (roughly 55,000 per ticket). I thought as much when I handed over my money, and only realized moments later that he had given me economy tickets. Secondly, and more worryingly, my return ticket didn't have a port tax stamp on it – which is mandatory. Long story short, it worked out in the end. I went to the Zanzibar ferry terminal later in the week and got a free stamp, then snuck into first-class seating on the return trip to Dar Es Salaam.
The final lap of my trip – the bus home – was satisfyingly free of any real hiccups. I had asked for a window seat, and had been assigned the wrong number, but the man next to me was sympathetic and swapped with me. Apart from that, it was smooth driving (along a bumpy road with overzealous speed-bumps). I got back to my hobbit hole in one piece, threw off my shoes, and took a well-earned night's rest.
Next - Zanzibar: the people
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Toronto here I come
I apologize for the self-congratulatory, self-indulgent nature of this post, but seeing as most of my friends read this blog I thought it would be a good way to spread the news.
Accepted an offer to York Uni to study Communication & Culture today, which means I will be living in Toronto for the next two years. Probably starting in May. Hurrah!
That's all.
Accepted an offer to York Uni to study Communication & Culture today, which means I will be living in Toronto for the next two years. Probably starting in May. Hurrah!
That's all.
Chapter closed
A trip to Dar Es Salaam awaits me on Monday, followed by an anticipated foray to Zanzibar. Unless some unforeseen disaster – which I've been getting increasingly paranoid about – awaits me. As if to bait my anxiety, I just learned from Lema that the bus company who I bought a ticket from suspended their services on Friday, after a death in the management's family. If they are operating on Monday I should be OK, otherwise I'll have to attempt to go with a different company at the last minute. Annoying (and weird that an entire company stops business because of non-employee's funeral), but I'll have to wait and see.
As I've mentioned many times previously, this Zanzibar trip essentially represents the end of my volunteering experience here. For the first few weeks of this experience, I was feeling a little down – perhaps pessimistic – about what I could realistically achieve. I resolved to do what I could in the time I had, with a basic target of making a little money for the mamas, and an ideal target of creating a solid and contingent business for them. With the shared efforts of my volunteering partner Robin, I believe we've achieved that ideal.
In brief, here's what we've gotten done:
While the list is modest, I'm happy with it after two months' work. As you would expect, it leaves out the plethora of the tiny details, miscellaneous complications and daily grinds that came up along the way. Getting a printer, finding ink, trekking out to the middle of nowhere to find safari companies, learning how to make the products, explaining business procedures in limited English translation, selecting the best products, making countless early-morning daladala trips, creating work records, etc, etc.
I'm sure that teaching English, building schools, looking after children or other such activities would have provided an extremely enriching experience; but for me, doing something out of my comfort zone professionally-speaking was an alien task in itself and thus rewarding in a special way.
In short, I have not saved the African people (as I clearly set out to do), but I do feel like I've done something helpful for a small group of women, and thus their families too. Naturally, the whole shebang could fall apart if, for whatever reason, the business is not able to continue – but I have to accept that certain things are out of my hands once I am gone.
Following a post-Zanzibar update, then, I think that this blog will shortly be coming to an end. Writing it has been a nice way to flex my braincells, as well as document memories I'll look back upon fondly in twenty years, when my beaver-tail coaster business is thriving in the trendy boutiques of Toronto.
(Actually, I think I'll survive happily if I never have to market jewellery or household goods again in my life).
As I've mentioned many times previously, this Zanzibar trip essentially represents the end of my volunteering experience here. For the first few weeks of this experience, I was feeling a little down – perhaps pessimistic – about what I could realistically achieve. I resolved to do what I could in the time I had, with a basic target of making a little money for the mamas, and an ideal target of creating a solid and contingent business for them. With the shared efforts of my volunteering partner Robin, I believe we've achieved that ideal.
In brief, here's what we've gotten done:
- Selected a pair of product types (coasters and bracelets) that were suitable to serve as gifts for a safari company to give to clients.
- Refined and improved both products (made smaller, easier to make, more consistent in size, shape and style)
- Designed marketing materials to promote business to safari companies.
- Created packaging arrangement for products (labels tied onto individual coasters and bracelets with a fancy bow, courtesy of Robin)
- Divided prospective earnings into three categories (wages, expenses, Educare overhead)
- Approached three safari companies (Access 2 Tanzania, Massai Wanderings and Tropical Trails)
- Sold trial pack (15 coasters and 15 bracelets @ 75,000 Tsh) to Massai Wanderings.
- Sold first regular pack (15 coasters and 15 bracelets @ 90,000 Tsh) to Massai Wanderings. Successfully entered into regular business agreement.
While the list is modest, I'm happy with it after two months' work. As you would expect, it leaves out the plethora of the tiny details, miscellaneous complications and daily grinds that came up along the way. Getting a printer, finding ink, trekking out to the middle of nowhere to find safari companies, learning how to make the products, explaining business procedures in limited English translation, selecting the best products, making countless early-morning daladala trips, creating work records, etc, etc.
I'm sure that teaching English, building schools, looking after children or other such activities would have provided an extremely enriching experience; but for me, doing something out of my comfort zone professionally-speaking was an alien task in itself and thus rewarding in a special way.
In short, I have not saved the African people (as I clearly set out to do), but I do feel like I've done something helpful for a small group of women, and thus their families too. Naturally, the whole shebang could fall apart if, for whatever reason, the business is not able to continue – but I have to accept that certain things are out of my hands once I am gone.
Following a post-Zanzibar update, then, I think that this blog will shortly be coming to an end. Writing it has been a nice way to flex my braincells, as well as document memories I'll look back upon fondly in twenty years, when my beaver-tail coaster business is thriving in the trendy boutiques of Toronto.
(Actually, I think I'll survive happily if I never have to market jewellery or household goods again in my life).
Musician, murderer?
Attended the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on Wednesday morning to watch the verdict for the appeals case of one Simon Bikindi. Bikindi was a well-known composer and singer in Rwanda, active prior to the genocide. His songs have been banned in Rwanda since 1994, as their messages were seen by many as a call-to-arms for genocidal murder.
Wednesday's proceedings lasted less than an hour, during which the sole speaker was the central judge of the tribunal. Bikindi was appealing his current sentence – which is to serve 15 years in prison, from 2001 – on a collection of grounds. The ground given the most attention by the judge's summary (and I therefore expect it was Bikindi's most fundamental plea) was that Bikindi's previous defence council was inadequate and therefore unable to properly defend him.
In a previous trial, Bikindi had been found guilty of incitement to commit genocide. The prosecution had proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the singer had made a speech from an Interhamwe vehicle equipped with a sound system, encouraging those in hearing distance to start killing.
In response to the Bikindi's appeal, the prosecution brought a rebuttal of their own – that the accused's sentence should be lengthened to at least thirty years, if not life. For not only was Bikindi guilty of this Interhamwe vechicle crime, they argued, but he had also had a far wider impact through his music and political action prior to the genocide. He was even once accused of having participated in genocidal killings, as well as training Interhamwe militia.
With this battle of appeals, the case therefore had a lot of potential to be quite exciting. Because of this, the press box was packed – not an empty seat in sight. I was lucky to steal a working headphone set from the seat front of me, after I realized no sound was coming through mine.
In spite of the excitement of the packed audience area, the trial resulted in a judgement that rejected both Bikindi's and the prosecution's appeals. He'll go back to prison to serve out the remaining six years of his sentence (unless another appeal is brought forward) before becoming a free man once again.
I suspect that many people in attendance were hoping that Bikindi would be made to face a harsher sentence as a result of the new trials. Evidently, this was not the case. Though it is jarring to know that a man who may have played a part in brain-washing regular Rwandan people into committing murder, through his music and the power of radio, will not be persecuted to the full capacity of the court.
On the other hand, though Bikindi has been proven guilty of one crime – the instance in the Interhamwe vehicle – it's probable that hundreds of people could be guilty of the same thing, but avoided justice because they were lower-profile targets than this infamous musician. Is it fair that he is jailed for that crime while others guilty of the same thing walk free?
As I know little about Bikindi other than what today's events have informed me of (as well as some tertiary internet research), I'll cease my rambling commentary. Definitely glad I got to witness this part of the ICTR though.
Wednesday's proceedings lasted less than an hour, during which the sole speaker was the central judge of the tribunal. Bikindi was appealing his current sentence – which is to serve 15 years in prison, from 2001 – on a collection of grounds. The ground given the most attention by the judge's summary (and I therefore expect it was Bikindi's most fundamental plea) was that Bikindi's previous defence council was inadequate and therefore unable to properly defend him.
In a previous trial, Bikindi had been found guilty of incitement to commit genocide. The prosecution had proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the singer had made a speech from an Interhamwe vehicle equipped with a sound system, encouraging those in hearing distance to start killing.
In response to the Bikindi's appeal, the prosecution brought a rebuttal of their own – that the accused's sentence should be lengthened to at least thirty years, if not life. For not only was Bikindi guilty of this Interhamwe vechicle crime, they argued, but he had also had a far wider impact through his music and political action prior to the genocide. He was even once accused of having participated in genocidal killings, as well as training Interhamwe militia.
With this battle of appeals, the case therefore had a lot of potential to be quite exciting. Because of this, the press box was packed – not an empty seat in sight. I was lucky to steal a working headphone set from the seat front of me, after I realized no sound was coming through mine.
In spite of the excitement of the packed audience area, the trial resulted in a judgement that rejected both Bikindi's and the prosecution's appeals. He'll go back to prison to serve out the remaining six years of his sentence (unless another appeal is brought forward) before becoming a free man once again.
I suspect that many people in attendance were hoping that Bikindi would be made to face a harsher sentence as a result of the new trials. Evidently, this was not the case. Though it is jarring to know that a man who may have played a part in brain-washing regular Rwandan people into committing murder, through his music and the power of radio, will not be persecuted to the full capacity of the court.
On the other hand, though Bikindi has been proven guilty of one crime – the instance in the Interhamwe vehicle – it's probable that hundreds of people could be guilty of the same thing, but avoided justice because they were lower-profile targets than this infamous musician. Is it fair that he is jailed for that crime while others guilty of the same thing walk free?
As I know little about Bikindi other than what today's events have informed me of (as well as some tertiary internet research), I'll cease my rambling commentary. Definitely glad I got to witness this part of the ICTR though.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Massai Massala
Time for a little update on how the business is going. Don't worry – in spite of all my orphanaging, genociding, dreaming and philosophizing, I've still had time to do what I actually came here to do: save the world with fine crafts.
We finally heard back from the first safari company we visited – Access 2 Tanzania – and they gave us a committed “probably” to agreeing to buy a trial pack, eventually. The catch is that we have to wait until the peak season for safaris picks up – which won't be until at least June. Still, a lot better than “no”.
Though neither Robin nor I will be in Tanzania at that point, it should still be possible for the women and Mr. Shija to continue business without us. Really, that's the entire point of this exercise – to allow the Mama Machumba group to thrive as a business without needing outside help ever again.
The second safari company – Massai Wanderings, the one that did buy a trial pack the other week – has basically agreed to commit to regular business with Mama Machumba Crafts. This is a big win for the group, and for me; an affirmation that my work here will have made a long-lasting difference to the lives of the women. Leaving here knowing we had made them some money is nice – but knowing they'll be able to continue making money for themselves is far more rewarding.
This morning, I dropped off our second pack of handicrafts to Donna, the owner, who has also informed us that she will be going back home to Australia for three weeks starting on Wednesday. This shouldn't be much of a problem, though, as it means we'll be able to prepare stock for her company. With a fresh 90,000 Tsh in my pocket for the women, I must admit to have betrayed a swing in my step today.
The business will be basically out of my hands come next week, as my upcoming Zanzibar trip essentially puts a full stop on the terms of my sentence. I'll be back for less than week, during which I'll take time to see whatever I've missed in Arusha, wrap things up with the Mama Machumba group, buy some souvenirs, print off my plane tickets, and avoid catching malaria.
My volunteer partner, Robin, will remain working with the group for an additional month, which leaves me optimistic she'll have enough time to ensure the ultimate goal of enabling the women to maintain their business independently.
One more thing: ate a delicious curry dinner at the tiny Big Bite restaurant in the middle of Arusha, after a hearty recommendation from the Rough Guide, which hailed it as the best Indian restaurant in East Africa. I won't argue with that - as it's the only Indian restaurant in East Africa I've ever eaten at – but it was certainly ridiculously tasty. I had chicken tiki massala and Robin ate some weird potato thing, which I initially smirked at, but then found it to be the tastiest dish on the table.
We finally heard back from the first safari company we visited – Access 2 Tanzania – and they gave us a committed “probably” to agreeing to buy a trial pack, eventually. The catch is that we have to wait until the peak season for safaris picks up – which won't be until at least June. Still, a lot better than “no”.
Though neither Robin nor I will be in Tanzania at that point, it should still be possible for the women and Mr. Shija to continue business without us. Really, that's the entire point of this exercise – to allow the Mama Machumba group to thrive as a business without needing outside help ever again.
The second safari company – Massai Wanderings, the one that did buy a trial pack the other week – has basically agreed to commit to regular business with Mama Machumba Crafts. This is a big win for the group, and for me; an affirmation that my work here will have made a long-lasting difference to the lives of the women. Leaving here knowing we had made them some money is nice – but knowing they'll be able to continue making money for themselves is far more rewarding.
This morning, I dropped off our second pack of handicrafts to Donna, the owner, who has also informed us that she will be going back home to Australia for three weeks starting on Wednesday. This shouldn't be much of a problem, though, as it means we'll be able to prepare stock for her company. With a fresh 90,000 Tsh in my pocket for the women, I must admit to have betrayed a swing in my step today.
The business will be basically out of my hands come next week, as my upcoming Zanzibar trip essentially puts a full stop on the terms of my sentence. I'll be back for less than week, during which I'll take time to see whatever I've missed in Arusha, wrap things up with the Mama Machumba group, buy some souvenirs, print off my plane tickets, and avoid catching malaria.
My volunteer partner, Robin, will remain working with the group for an additional month, which leaves me optimistic she'll have enough time to ensure the ultimate goal of enabling the women to maintain their business independently.
One more thing: ate a delicious curry dinner at the tiny Big Bite restaurant in the middle of Arusha, after a hearty recommendation from the Rough Guide, which hailed it as the best Indian restaurant in East Africa. I won't argue with that - as it's the only Indian restaurant in East Africa I've ever eaten at – but it was certainly ridiculously tasty. I had chicken tiki massala and Robin ate some weird potato thing, which I initially smirked at, but then found it to be the tastiest dish on the table.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
In Zanzibar did Alex a stately pleasure trip decree
I came to Tanzania at an interesting cross-roads in my life. A bridge over mildly bubbling water.
In December, I completed my Honours B.A. Degree in English, finally putting the wrapping over five and a half years of studying and working professionally at university. As I didn't learn quite enough in that half-decade, I then applied for a Master's in Communication/Media/Vagueness at three universities in Canada: York (Toronto), Western (London) and Concordia (Montreal).
My heart is set on York, as the city of Toronto pulls at my vein-strings and the thought of studying with the faculty of two top-tier Canadian universities warms my intellectual blood. This joint program with Ryerson would begin in September, which left me with January-August to fill my time productively.
Since the start of 2010, I've done OK – I came to Africa to “blow my mind” and that's about it. When I return, though, my living situation will be a bit up in the air. So this update serves, in part, to let people know where, if, when, how, why, and what my domestic plan is for the next chapter of my life.
I won't hear back about my university applications until sometime in April. Presumably not on April 1, unless the academic administration have some cruel sense of humour. The track of my life depends rather intently upon this sneaky little month.
Upon my return to Canada, one thing is certain: I'll be living in Newmarket for most of April.
I will then await a reply from my Master's applications. If I hear successfully from York, I plan on moving to Toronto to a central apartment I have my eye on. As this is my first choice, it's my current plan if not for the cautious pessimism that prevents me from putting all my eggs in the same basket. If only Western, Concordia or no university replies in affirmation of my acceptance, I'll try to settle myself in Waterloo for the summer.
As my plans of action have developed further since I left Canada – and now I may never be returning permanently to what I considered “home” back in February – it will be interesting to see how I cope with the “reverse culture-shock” that can occur when one returns to their home after an extended stay abroad. Perhaps I will go completely insane. Newmarket, with its highways, cineplexes, shopping malls and stock clearance warehouses represents the polar opposite of what life has been life in Tanzania, so abject madness is quite possible.
More likely, hopefully, is that my journeys in Africa will have better prepared me to the nomadic lifestyle that I may be subjected to upon my return to Canada.
“But you've only stayed in one place this whole time!” I hear you cry. Well, apart from my five-day safari into the heart of East Africa's national park territory, I also have a final excursion ahead of me – this one experienced on my lonesome.
On March 22 I'll be taking a ten-hour bus from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, for a night's stay at a backpacker's inn. Come morning, I'll hop on a two-hour ferry (hopefully the speedy Sea Express at 7 a.m.) and make my way to Zanzibar, birthplace of Freddy Mercury and the African slave trade.
I'll be staying at a cozy little place in the shadow of the House of Wonders, the island's most famous landmark and once the tallest building on the continent. It's not that big though. After three nights' stay, I'll head back to Dar Es Salaam by afternoon cruise and spend another night there before taking an early-morning bus back to the centre of the universe, Arusha.
While I'm most excited to see the cultural phenomenon that is Zanzibar, I'm also intrigued to see how interesting its port, Dar, will be. It's nickname in Swahili, “Bongo”, refers to the fact that to survive in the city, you need “wits”. My Rough Guide assures me that the city is an under-appreciated gem, so I'll give it a fair shot.
Regardless of how the trip pans out, I'm excited at the prospect of doing some independent travelling, something that faintly resembles “back-packing”, but with the security of luxury bus lines and the comfort of a light luggage load.
My only real paranoia is that, in spite of my meticulously organized scheming of this trip (which has been narrowed down to where I will eat each night), something will go awry and I'll have to respond with a change in plan. The schedule is a pretty firm house of cards though, so I doubt that anything but a serious roadblock could truly topple the deck.
In December, I completed my Honours B.A. Degree in English, finally putting the wrapping over five and a half years of studying and working professionally at university. As I didn't learn quite enough in that half-decade, I then applied for a Master's in Communication/Media/Vagueness at three universities in Canada: York (Toronto), Western (London) and Concordia (Montreal).
My heart is set on York, as the city of Toronto pulls at my vein-strings and the thought of studying with the faculty of two top-tier Canadian universities warms my intellectual blood. This joint program with Ryerson would begin in September, which left me with January-August to fill my time productively.
Since the start of 2010, I've done OK – I came to Africa to “blow my mind” and that's about it. When I return, though, my living situation will be a bit up in the air. So this update serves, in part, to let people know where, if, when, how, why, and what my domestic plan is for the next chapter of my life.
I won't hear back about my university applications until sometime in April. Presumably not on April 1, unless the academic administration have some cruel sense of humour. The track of my life depends rather intently upon this sneaky little month.
Upon my return to Canada, one thing is certain: I'll be living in Newmarket for most of April.
I will then await a reply from my Master's applications. If I hear successfully from York, I plan on moving to Toronto to a central apartment I have my eye on. As this is my first choice, it's my current plan if not for the cautious pessimism that prevents me from putting all my eggs in the same basket. If only Western, Concordia or no university replies in affirmation of my acceptance, I'll try to settle myself in Waterloo for the summer.
As my plans of action have developed further since I left Canada – and now I may never be returning permanently to what I considered “home” back in February – it will be interesting to see how I cope with the “reverse culture-shock” that can occur when one returns to their home after an extended stay abroad. Perhaps I will go completely insane. Newmarket, with its highways, cineplexes, shopping malls and stock clearance warehouses represents the polar opposite of what life has been life in Tanzania, so abject madness is quite possible.
More likely, hopefully, is that my journeys in Africa will have better prepared me to the nomadic lifestyle that I may be subjected to upon my return to Canada.
“But you've only stayed in one place this whole time!” I hear you cry. Well, apart from my five-day safari into the heart of East Africa's national park territory, I also have a final excursion ahead of me – this one experienced on my lonesome.
On March 22 I'll be taking a ten-hour bus from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, for a night's stay at a backpacker's inn. Come morning, I'll hop on a two-hour ferry (hopefully the speedy Sea Express at 7 a.m.) and make my way to Zanzibar, birthplace of Freddy Mercury and the African slave trade.
I'll be staying at a cozy little place in the shadow of the House of Wonders, the island's most famous landmark and once the tallest building on the continent. It's not that big though. After three nights' stay, I'll head back to Dar Es Salaam by afternoon cruise and spend another night there before taking an early-morning bus back to the centre of the universe, Arusha.
While I'm most excited to see the cultural phenomenon that is Zanzibar, I'm also intrigued to see how interesting its port, Dar, will be. It's nickname in Swahili, “Bongo”, refers to the fact that to survive in the city, you need “wits”. My Rough Guide assures me that the city is an under-appreciated gem, so I'll give it a fair shot.
Regardless of how the trip pans out, I'm excited at the prospect of doing some independent travelling, something that faintly resembles “back-packing”, but with the security of luxury bus lines and the comfort of a light luggage load.
My only real paranoia is that, in spite of my meticulously organized scheming of this trip (which has been narrowed down to where I will eat each night), something will go awry and I'll have to respond with a change in plan. The schedule is a pretty firm house of cards though, so I doubt that anything but a serious roadblock could truly topple the deck.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Orphans and murderers
In spite of having been here for over a month now, I did two things yesterday that I had planned on doing in the first few weeks – but never got around to until now.
First, I went to an orphanage in nearby Kilala village. A short daladala (200 Tsh) ride east of Tengeru took me to Kilala's roadside transit area, and then another minibus (500 Tsh) took me uphill to where the orphanage and small hospital are located.
The orphanage looks after around 25 children, from age of birth until toddler-sized (around five). Located in a small, peaceful compound bordered by hills and a grassy athletic field, the orphanage resembles a converted church and is comprised of a laundry room, kitchen, eating area and then several bedrooms with cots. Just outside of the main building is a classroom, and this was my first destination of work. After being given an informal hand-held tour by a tiny orphan girl, who didn't say anything I could understand, I sat down in the classroom with the group of rambunctious tots and their saintly teacher/caregiver/foster-parent. After noting her teaching style of practising phrases in English as a group, and then quizzing each little squirt individually, I then took my turn of lecturing the miniature congregation. On the wall behind me was a drawing of a human body with labels in English and Swahili, so I first took to teaching the kids some memorable basics (eyes, ears, nose and mouth) before moving on to some more complicated parts (arm, hand, fingers, thumb). After lessons, we all took off to the field for some leg-stretching games interspersed with counting activities. All good fun. The kids then returned to the classroom and I was handed a pair of chubby two-year-olds to entertain. With banana-flavoured baby slobber still fermenting on my t-shirt collar, I soon saw myself putting sub-1-year-olds to sleep in their cots. At this point, it was noon, so my first orphanage experience came to a close.
The next half of my day – spent listening to a convicted murderer describe the events of a day of mass-killings during the genocide in Rwanda – was predictably dissimilar to a morning spent playing with kids. In Arusha sits the Arusha International Conference Centre, site of the criminal tribunal for the genocide in Rwanda. They host morning and afternoon trials in a series of small courtrooms. Visiting courtroom #3, I got to watch the trial of Jean-Baptiste Gatete, an official accused of giving orders for a gathering of Hutus to commit genocide. Most harrowing was the fact that the day's witness – unnamed and under witness protection – was a convicted participant in the genocide. The courtroom consisted of Gatete's defence (to my left), prosecution (to my right) and a trio of judges in the centre. Also in the centre, but blocked from my view by a curtain, sat the witness. I sat in a gallery, blocked from the courtroom by soundproof windows, and listened to the discussion with a radio headset (live translations in French and English were available).
Though I didn't write any details down – and I only saw a fraction of a trial that was several sessions in-progress – the gist of it was this: the witness was, at some point in 1994, at a church where mass-killings were being carried out. Many Tutsi people sought refuge in churches during the genocide, thinking themselves safe. Let's call the witness Bob. Bob was made to carry the bodies of the dead from the church and throw them into a mass pit. This took him about three hours. At the same time, killings of the Tutsis trying to protect themselves in the church were taking place.
I gathered that the Prosecution had previously been trying to prove that Gatete was present at the church during that day, and had given orders to kill those inside the church. The Defence had provided the witness in order to prove that Gatete was not there. Bob's evidence of this was that, in those three hours, he had not seen Gatete. If he had not seen him, then someone would have informed him of his presence.
After the Defence spoke to the witness, the Prosecution started their battering of him. “Is it not possible,” asked the American Prosecutor, “That Gatete was there, and you simply did not see him?”
After some back-and-forth, somewhat contradictory statements from the witness, Bob settled on “No, it was not possible.”
I've summarized the events in such a way that makes the whole experience sound brief and riveting – but it was actually quite boring, for the most part. Discussion moved very slowly, focusing on intricate details. Even the International Law student sat to my right had fallen asleep at one point. At the end of the day, the witness seemed a little irrelevant. His evidence neither proved that Gatete was present, nor that he was absent, during that day at the church. He seemed a little unreliable, but not to the extent of obviously lying about not having seen Gatete at the church.
So, while the trial itself was nothing incredible, the fact that I sat in the same company as a participant in the genocide was itself an experience I won't forget. Though Bob was only prosecuted for a single murder, it was evident that he may have been involved in far, far more than this. After all, he owned a beating club. Still, Bob maintained that he had had no choice in his participation. He was following orders, and would have been shot had he not participated or helped to carry the bodies of the dead. In fact, he claimed that he managed to save one Tutsi woman's life, after she pleaded with him for help. All sounds a bit similar to the fantasies and excuses I've read in books like Jean Hatzfeld's Machete Season.
Update: Gatete was a leader of Interahamwe, a paramilitary organization backed by the 1994 Rwandan government. This was a bigger case than I thought.
First, I went to an orphanage in nearby Kilala village. A short daladala (200 Tsh) ride east of Tengeru took me to Kilala's roadside transit area, and then another minibus (500 Tsh) took me uphill to where the orphanage and small hospital are located.
The orphanage looks after around 25 children, from age of birth until toddler-sized (around five). Located in a small, peaceful compound bordered by hills and a grassy athletic field, the orphanage resembles a converted church and is comprised of a laundry room, kitchen, eating area and then several bedrooms with cots. Just outside of the main building is a classroom, and this was my first destination of work. After being given an informal hand-held tour by a tiny orphan girl, who didn't say anything I could understand, I sat down in the classroom with the group of rambunctious tots and their saintly teacher/caregiver/foster-parent. After noting her teaching style of practising phrases in English as a group, and then quizzing each little squirt individually, I then took my turn of lecturing the miniature congregation. On the wall behind me was a drawing of a human body with labels in English and Swahili, so I first took to teaching the kids some memorable basics (eyes, ears, nose and mouth) before moving on to some more complicated parts (arm, hand, fingers, thumb). After lessons, we all took off to the field for some leg-stretching games interspersed with counting activities. All good fun. The kids then returned to the classroom and I was handed a pair of chubby two-year-olds to entertain. With banana-flavoured baby slobber still fermenting on my t-shirt collar, I soon saw myself putting sub-1-year-olds to sleep in their cots. At this point, it was noon, so my first orphanage experience came to a close.
The next half of my day – spent listening to a convicted murderer describe the events of a day of mass-killings during the genocide in Rwanda – was predictably dissimilar to a morning spent playing with kids. In Arusha sits the Arusha International Conference Centre, site of the criminal tribunal for the genocide in Rwanda. They host morning and afternoon trials in a series of small courtrooms. Visiting courtroom #3, I got to watch the trial of Jean-Baptiste Gatete, an official accused of giving orders for a gathering of Hutus to commit genocide. Most harrowing was the fact that the day's witness – unnamed and under witness protection – was a convicted participant in the genocide. The courtroom consisted of Gatete's defence (to my left), prosecution (to my right) and a trio of judges in the centre. Also in the centre, but blocked from my view by a curtain, sat the witness. I sat in a gallery, blocked from the courtroom by soundproof windows, and listened to the discussion with a radio headset (live translations in French and English were available).
Though I didn't write any details down – and I only saw a fraction of a trial that was several sessions in-progress – the gist of it was this: the witness was, at some point in 1994, at a church where mass-killings were being carried out. Many Tutsi people sought refuge in churches during the genocide, thinking themselves safe. Let's call the witness Bob. Bob was made to carry the bodies of the dead from the church and throw them into a mass pit. This took him about three hours. At the same time, killings of the Tutsis trying to protect themselves in the church were taking place.
I gathered that the Prosecution had previously been trying to prove that Gatete was present at the church during that day, and had given orders to kill those inside the church. The Defence had provided the witness in order to prove that Gatete was not there. Bob's evidence of this was that, in those three hours, he had not seen Gatete. If he had not seen him, then someone would have informed him of his presence.
After the Defence spoke to the witness, the Prosecution started their battering of him. “Is it not possible,” asked the American Prosecutor, “That Gatete was there, and you simply did not see him?”
After some back-and-forth, somewhat contradictory statements from the witness, Bob settled on “No, it was not possible.”
I've summarized the events in such a way that makes the whole experience sound brief and riveting – but it was actually quite boring, for the most part. Discussion moved very slowly, focusing on intricate details. Even the International Law student sat to my right had fallen asleep at one point. At the end of the day, the witness seemed a little irrelevant. His evidence neither proved that Gatete was present, nor that he was absent, during that day at the church. He seemed a little unreliable, but not to the extent of obviously lying about not having seen Gatete at the church.
So, while the trial itself was nothing incredible, the fact that I sat in the same company as a participant in the genocide was itself an experience I won't forget. Though Bob was only prosecuted for a single murder, it was evident that he may have been involved in far, far more than this. After all, he owned a beating club. Still, Bob maintained that he had had no choice in his participation. He was following orders, and would have been shot had he not participated or helped to carry the bodies of the dead. In fact, he claimed that he managed to save one Tutsi woman's life, after she pleaded with him for help. All sounds a bit similar to the fantasies and excuses I've read in books like Jean Hatzfeld's Machete Season.
Update: Gatete was a leader of Interahamwe, a paramilitary organization backed by the 1994 Rwandan government. This was a bigger case than I thought.
A bunch of hot air
Every Wednesday night I take my weekly Mefloquine pill – the one I mentioned last week as the source of a plethora of interesting twilight escapades in the land of Nod. Wednesdays are extra-special though, because the tablet appears to have its strongest effect immediately after this hump in the week. Often, the dreams are so strange that my mind does its best to forget them upon waking up. Probably a defence mechanism.
On Wednesday night, then, I experienced two loosely connected scenarios. In the first, my friend Ben and I, along with a random girl, were walking along a road and spotted a pair of abnormally massive giraffes nearby. A large crowd formed alongside us, and moments later a hot air balloon erupted from the populous and took off into the sky. A pair of French acrobats were the pilots, and they proceeded to perform athletic feats off of ropes hanging from the basket. Ben captured all of this on video with his digital camera – but most of the recording comprised of Ben and I screaming in mock-excitement, shouting things like “Oh my God! Oh my God!” over and over again.
Next, my buddy Mike was being reprimanded for playing basketball in a place where it was not allowed. The ball was taken from him. His response was to simply shout “My ball! My ball!”, with equal emphasis on each syllable, around fifty times. At this point in my dream, I found the chant quite annoying. After this, though, I was in a hot air balloon (a different one, I think), and there was a commentator/tour guide who was narrating our journey over a city. He made a sudden comment about how the tactic of shouting “My ball!” over and over was actually a fairly good way of ensuring one's claim over one's property. After this, I had new-found respect for Mike.
On Wednesday night, then, I experienced two loosely connected scenarios. In the first, my friend Ben and I, along with a random girl, were walking along a road and spotted a pair of abnormally massive giraffes nearby. A large crowd formed alongside us, and moments later a hot air balloon erupted from the populous and took off into the sky. A pair of French acrobats were the pilots, and they proceeded to perform athletic feats off of ropes hanging from the basket. Ben captured all of this on video with his digital camera – but most of the recording comprised of Ben and I screaming in mock-excitement, shouting things like “Oh my God! Oh my God!” over and over again.
Next, my buddy Mike was being reprimanded for playing basketball in a place where it was not allowed. The ball was taken from him. His response was to simply shout “My ball! My ball!”, with equal emphasis on each syllable, around fifty times. At this point in my dream, I found the chant quite annoying. After this, though, I was in a hot air balloon (a different one, I think), and there was a commentator/tour guide who was narrating our journey over a city. He made a sudden comment about how the tactic of shouting “My ball!” over and over was actually a fairly good way of ensuring one's claim over one's property. After this, I had new-found respect for Mike.
Monday, March 8, 2010
The boredom metre
Western attention spans are awful. In the interests of empirical research though, let me be more specific: my attention span is awful.
Sitting at home in my apartment back in Waterloo, I could get bored the second a yawn stretched my jawbones, even when I was surrounded by a bevy of distractions. Guitars and an amplifier. An MP3 library of some 10,000 songs. Computer consoles and more games than I can be bothered to count. A television with digital cable. A shelf full of DVDs – many of them unwatched. Next to these, unread novels. An equally bored-out hamster to play with. What to do, Louis, what to do? “Feed me!” he would scream. “NO!” I would reply. My list at home goes on, and is dwarfed by the possibilities outside of my abode – friends, cinemas, shops, cafes, parks, bars.
On those days when I had no specific task at hand – nothing that genuinely required doing - I would become bored, listless, fatigued, ho-hum. What made things even more mind-numbing, though, was that I was simply spoilt for choice of things to do – and had no real reason for doing any of them other than to fill time. I sporadically suffer from self-inflicted attention-deficit disorder. I get bored very easily, and it bothers me. I expect the same might be true for many people in the west.
It's this particular affliction of mine that has shed a unique light on my observations of the citizens of Tanzania. They can cope with boredom more adeptly than I ever imagined a human being capable of. Because they really aren't spoilt for choice of things to do. A lot of the time, there's very, very little for them to do at all.
It's a common sight to see someone simply sitting in the shade on the side of the road, watching the day grow old; or a group of elderly men standing around waiting for the hours to pass by, chatting idly to each other. Call me a scrooge - it's a lifestyle I don't feel jealous for, but it's all they've got. Options for “entertainment” in the middle of their day are relegated to mostly just face-to-face socializing. Some people might think of this as quite utopian. They spend their lives working, and when they're not working, they relax and talk amongst each other.
I'm not sure if I can make a comment, as I'm not really certain that locals themselves would describe their lives as anything nearing “utopian”. I'm also generalizing, referring really to just the people I see in towns. Perhaps they're bored out of their minds, but can do nothing about it. I don't know if they would (given the choice) rather be reading books, watching movies, whatever. Maybe they'd be jealous of the infinite number of entertaining distractions available to me. Whatever the case – if they're spending their downtime better by just doing nothing, rather than superficially filling their time in with all of the leisurely activities enjoyed by us westerns – it's definitely going to have an impact on the way I evaluate my sense of boredom back home.
Have our lives really become just like the future satirically prophesied by Aldous Huxley (apologies for the segue, I'm reading Brave New World right now) – where we feel driven to spend our free time engulfed in complicated activities (like playing rounds of Obstacle Golf or listening to the Super-Vox-Wurlitzeriana), rather than just simply sitting next to someone and doing nothing in particular?
If the great Meaning of Life is “Don't get bored,” then an evaluation of what constitutes boredom is most certainly in order for me. This trip has at least set the gears in motion for such philosophizing.
Sitting at home in my apartment back in Waterloo, I could get bored the second a yawn stretched my jawbones, even when I was surrounded by a bevy of distractions. Guitars and an amplifier. An MP3 library of some 10,000 songs. Computer consoles and more games than I can be bothered to count. A television with digital cable. A shelf full of DVDs – many of them unwatched. Next to these, unread novels. An equally bored-out hamster to play with. What to do, Louis, what to do? “Feed me!” he would scream. “NO!” I would reply. My list at home goes on, and is dwarfed by the possibilities outside of my abode – friends, cinemas, shops, cafes, parks, bars.
On those days when I had no specific task at hand – nothing that genuinely required doing - I would become bored, listless, fatigued, ho-hum. What made things even more mind-numbing, though, was that I was simply spoilt for choice of things to do – and had no real reason for doing any of them other than to fill time. I sporadically suffer from self-inflicted attention-deficit disorder. I get bored very easily, and it bothers me. I expect the same might be true for many people in the west.
It's this particular affliction of mine that has shed a unique light on my observations of the citizens of Tanzania. They can cope with boredom more adeptly than I ever imagined a human being capable of. Because they really aren't spoilt for choice of things to do. A lot of the time, there's very, very little for them to do at all.
It's a common sight to see someone simply sitting in the shade on the side of the road, watching the day grow old; or a group of elderly men standing around waiting for the hours to pass by, chatting idly to each other. Call me a scrooge - it's a lifestyle I don't feel jealous for, but it's all they've got. Options for “entertainment” in the middle of their day are relegated to mostly just face-to-face socializing. Some people might think of this as quite utopian. They spend their lives working, and when they're not working, they relax and talk amongst each other.
I'm not sure if I can make a comment, as I'm not really certain that locals themselves would describe their lives as anything nearing “utopian”. I'm also generalizing, referring really to just the people I see in towns. Perhaps they're bored out of their minds, but can do nothing about it. I don't know if they would (given the choice) rather be reading books, watching movies, whatever. Maybe they'd be jealous of the infinite number of entertaining distractions available to me. Whatever the case – if they're spending their downtime better by just doing nothing, rather than superficially filling their time in with all of the leisurely activities enjoyed by us westerns – it's definitely going to have an impact on the way I evaluate my sense of boredom back home.
Have our lives really become just like the future satirically prophesied by Aldous Huxley (apologies for the segue, I'm reading Brave New World right now) – where we feel driven to spend our free time engulfed in complicated activities (like playing rounds of Obstacle Golf or listening to the Super-Vox-Wurlitzeriana), rather than just simply sitting next to someone and doing nothing in particular?
If the great Meaning of Life is “Don't get bored,” then an evaluation of what constitutes boredom is most certainly in order for me. This trip has at least set the gears in motion for such philosophizing.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Some Tengeru thoughts
Ugly ugali
Ugali is one of the most popular dishes in Tanzania. It's a stodgy, rice-like substance balled up into a lump of white dough. It is eaten with a variety of vegetables, stewed or otherwise. I get sick just thinking of ugali. I hate it. We eat it at least once a week. At first, I felt fairly indifferent to it – its taste is very plain, somewhat bitter, and not particularly striking. I can't for the life of me understand of why I detest it so deeply. I think it's something to do with last Sunday. That day, I was feeling bored out of my mind – bored to the very core of my soul. I hadn't yet achieved anything significant in my volunteering (since remedied), and I had just got back from an absolutely wonderful safari. Yet there I was, stuck at home, doing absolutely nothing. And in the middle of it all sat a plate of ugali. Two mouthfuls into this dish, I put my spoon down. I stared at my plate dejectedly. I wanted no more. And from that moment on, I have hated ugali. Of course, I say this with the snootiness of a westerner raised on luxurious culinary delights of my choosing. As the majority of Tanzanians live in poverty, for them to have a steady supply of ugali every day would be a dream come true. Perhaps ugali represents, then, my general callousness towards poverty. I know I'm lucky to be eating it, but that doesn't stop me from not wanting to taste something better.
Willy
Willy is a real swell dude. Holding a folded umbrella that he never seems to use, Willy sits by a tree on the roadside, along my daily walk to Tengeru. The road is paved, a rarity for rural villages like ours. Why is it paved? When President George Bush came to visit Arusha a few years back, he was supposed to drive down that road to meet a few of the local villagers, impress them with his Texan schtick. So, as his visit was planned many months in advance, the local government scrounged up enough money to pay to transform this dirt road into a concrete carpet fit for a king. When Bush visited, his special agent entourage decided that the hills of Mt. Meru presented too many inviting perches to potential snipers. So Bush didn't use the road. But Willy uses it. Willy sits in the sun with an umbrella, his old back spread against a tree that's probably his equal in age. Every time I pass him – which typically occurs whenever I leave the house – I greet him and we exchange pleasantries. He grins a tooth-lacking grin, and compliments me on my improving Swahili. “You know Swahili!” he exclaims with finger-wagging excitement. I like Willy – he's my friend. The opposite of Willy is the old man who lives across the street from me. I think of him as my nemesis. The first time I met him, I tried to be nice with him – he told me that I should be nicer and that I should come to his house, otherwise I was acting superior. I think he called me a “slaver”, amidst other accusatory remarks – before I had even considered his invitation. Promptly, I bid him adieu. Now he ignores me when we cross paths, and I return the favour.
Coetzee and Kurt
This weekend I made my way through two books: J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Having previously read just one novel by each author, I was impressed to find my second literary undertakings even more satisfying than the first time around. I now have strong desire to digest each authors' entire catalogue. It's a pity I'm in a place that lacks real bookstores. Still, if I'm to maintain any hipster credibility - as supported by album titles of cool bands like The Klaxons, Dan Mangen and Jeremy Fisher - I really have to move on to Vonnegut's Gravity's Rainbow as soon as possible. Along with Douglas Adams, I find Vonnegut to be one of the funniest writers - therefore people - on the planet. Luckily, summer is just ahead, and it tends to be the season where I wade through piles of books and get my smarts together... I wonder if there's a Vonnegut Collection I can buy. Unfortunately, one of the only books I have left to read here in Tanzania is a biography of Ringo Starr by Alan Clayson. Woe is me. Next, I'll either tackle Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World (yes, I haven't read it yet) or The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. I'll do my best to maintain my dignity and not read the Confessions of a Shopaholic sitting on my house's bookshelf.
Ugali is one of the most popular dishes in Tanzania. It's a stodgy, rice-like substance balled up into a lump of white dough. It is eaten with a variety of vegetables, stewed or otherwise. I get sick just thinking of ugali. I hate it. We eat it at least once a week. At first, I felt fairly indifferent to it – its taste is very plain, somewhat bitter, and not particularly striking. I can't for the life of me understand of why I detest it so deeply. I think it's something to do with last Sunday. That day, I was feeling bored out of my mind – bored to the very core of my soul. I hadn't yet achieved anything significant in my volunteering (since remedied), and I had just got back from an absolutely wonderful safari. Yet there I was, stuck at home, doing absolutely nothing. And in the middle of it all sat a plate of ugali. Two mouthfuls into this dish, I put my spoon down. I stared at my plate dejectedly. I wanted no more. And from that moment on, I have hated ugali. Of course, I say this with the snootiness of a westerner raised on luxurious culinary delights of my choosing. As the majority of Tanzanians live in poverty, for them to have a steady supply of ugali every day would be a dream come true. Perhaps ugali represents, then, my general callousness towards poverty. I know I'm lucky to be eating it, but that doesn't stop me from not wanting to taste something better.
Willy
Willy is a real swell dude. Holding a folded umbrella that he never seems to use, Willy sits by a tree on the roadside, along my daily walk to Tengeru. The road is paved, a rarity for rural villages like ours. Why is it paved? When President George Bush came to visit Arusha a few years back, he was supposed to drive down that road to meet a few of the local villagers, impress them with his Texan schtick. So, as his visit was planned many months in advance, the local government scrounged up enough money to pay to transform this dirt road into a concrete carpet fit for a king. When Bush visited, his special agent entourage decided that the hills of Mt. Meru presented too many inviting perches to potential snipers. So Bush didn't use the road. But Willy uses it. Willy sits in the sun with an umbrella, his old back spread against a tree that's probably his equal in age. Every time I pass him – which typically occurs whenever I leave the house – I greet him and we exchange pleasantries. He grins a tooth-lacking grin, and compliments me on my improving Swahili. “You know Swahili!” he exclaims with finger-wagging excitement. I like Willy – he's my friend. The opposite of Willy is the old man who lives across the street from me. I think of him as my nemesis. The first time I met him, I tried to be nice with him – he told me that I should be nicer and that I should come to his house, otherwise I was acting superior. I think he called me a “slaver”, amidst other accusatory remarks – before I had even considered his invitation. Promptly, I bid him adieu. Now he ignores me when we cross paths, and I return the favour.
Coetzee and Kurt
This weekend I made my way through two books: J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Having previously read just one novel by each author, I was impressed to find my second literary undertakings even more satisfying than the first time around. I now have strong desire to digest each authors' entire catalogue. It's a pity I'm in a place that lacks real bookstores. Still, if I'm to maintain any hipster credibility - as supported by album titles of cool bands like The Klaxons, Dan Mangen and Jeremy Fisher - I really have to move on to Vonnegut's Gravity's Rainbow as soon as possible. Along with Douglas Adams, I find Vonnegut to be one of the funniest writers - therefore people - on the planet. Luckily, summer is just ahead, and it tends to be the season where I wade through piles of books and get my smarts together... I wonder if there's a Vonnegut Collection I can buy. Unfortunately, one of the only books I have left to read here in Tanzania is a biography of Ringo Starr by Alan Clayson. Woe is me. Next, I'll either tackle Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World (yes, I haven't read it yet) or The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. I'll do my best to maintain my dignity and not read the Confessions of a Shopaholic sitting on my house's bookshelf.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Mefloquine-fuelled dreams
I've been taking anti-malarial medication for about five weeks now. At my travel doctor's appointment back in January, I was asked to chose between a more expensive daily tablet – Malarone – and the far cheaper pill taken weekly – Mefloquine.
“What's the catch?” I asked my doctor of the cheaper, thus most appealing, option.
“You may have visions and extremely vivid dreams,” she replied. Suddenly this option became even more attractive. “I'll take that one,” said I.
As a result of this lighthearted choice of medication, I've avoided getting malaria this far into my trip – but it's come at the cost of a few nights of interrupted rest thanks to the creatively psychotic side effects of these zany tablets.
A sampling from my mental dream diary:
Clearly all utter nonsense – but each dream vivid to the point of seeming real until I come to my senses and wake up.
All of this isn't helped by the maddening atmosphere of my surroundings. As I write, at eight in the morning on a Friday, a fairly terrifying Swahili voice is screaming hysterical babble at the top of his lungs a short distance from my house. I've been assured by Lema that he is merely one of many local over-jealous Christians, shaking the ol' devil out of someone. During my second night here, I was kept awake by beautiful gospel chanting from a nearby house – that was interrupted sporadically by the jarring screams of holy exorcism.
Of less concern are the plethora of animal presences filling my aural senses throughout the day (and, occasionally, olfactory). Usually they're nothing more than Old MacDonald's Farm on crack: the wailing “moo” of our neighbour's sow going through protracted labour for ten hours straight; the squabble of chickens ensuring that the world knows that they are, indeed, chickens.
Most annoying and frequent is the orchestra of dogs that assembles in my vicinity on cue at around 10 p.m. At the draw of the night's curtain, a lone hound will signal to the pit an affirmation of his identity as a dog, and an evening of cacophonous howls will commence in disharmony. Though earplugs can try their best to mute the Canine Symphonic Orchestra, I usually just lie back and chuckle to myself at the hilarity of it all. And nothing's going to stop those insane dreams from continuing, so I might as well just roll with the Beethovens.
“What's the catch?” I asked my doctor of the cheaper, thus most appealing, option.
“You may have visions and extremely vivid dreams,” she replied. Suddenly this option became even more attractive. “I'll take that one,” said I.
As a result of this lighthearted choice of medication, I've avoided getting malaria this far into my trip – but it's come at the cost of a few nights of interrupted rest thanks to the creatively psychotic side effects of these zany tablets.
A sampling from my mental dream diary:
- I enter Brad Pitt's house somewhere in the States. Brad's shaved off his silly goatee; I compliment him for his clean-shaven good looks. He thanks me. I tell him he has a nice house – but does he have a secret, hidden hideaway from Angelina and the kids? Though at first his reaction to this strange question is one of unprepared surprise, he retorts with “Uh... sure I do”. Then, he appears to conjure one of these rooms out of his mind. Hidden in a corner of his basement television room is another basement television room. The dream concludes with Brad chasing me down the street, for I have eloped with his 18-year-old daughter. He is less than impressed.
- I'm at my own wedding; though it's totally unrelated to the Pitt family. I'm getting married to an ex-girlfriend – no wait, to my other ex-girlfriend. Evidently, I'm betrothed to some mercurial mixture of the two. There are only two guests I recognize at the wedding. One is Jenny L, a friend from England who I've only seen once in the last six years. The other guest is someone from university, Dan H, who – no offence Dan – I probably wouldn't invite to my wedding unless I got to know him better. For some reason, I call him a “dick”. He is less than impressed. The dream concludes with me sneaking out of a window, then getting chased down the street by the wedding party.
- I'm in England, probably back in Durham where I used to live. I go to the cinema to watch Avatar, in 2D. The giant room has two screens, one on the front wall, one on the rear. There are therefore two audiences, each facing in a separate direction. Whilst I sit with some friends – a few familiar faces here and there, perhaps Matthew and Mark – I spot my pal Simon in the opposite-direction-facing audience. He's seated alone, a few seats down from some girls – Jillian, maybe Kate – so I wave him over to my side. He shakes his head. I go over to him, to find more people I know – John H and some of his friends. They compliment me on my beard. I make an awkward reply as the movie begins. Strange lack of street chase sequence.
Clearly all utter nonsense – but each dream vivid to the point of seeming real until I come to my senses and wake up.
All of this isn't helped by the maddening atmosphere of my surroundings. As I write, at eight in the morning on a Friday, a fairly terrifying Swahili voice is screaming hysterical babble at the top of his lungs a short distance from my house. I've been assured by Lema that he is merely one of many local over-jealous Christians, shaking the ol' devil out of someone. During my second night here, I was kept awake by beautiful gospel chanting from a nearby house – that was interrupted sporadically by the jarring screams of holy exorcism.
Of less concern are the plethora of animal presences filling my aural senses throughout the day (and, occasionally, olfactory). Usually they're nothing more than Old MacDonald's Farm on crack: the wailing “moo” of our neighbour's sow going through protracted labour for ten hours straight; the squabble of chickens ensuring that the world knows that they are, indeed, chickens.
Most annoying and frequent is the orchestra of dogs that assembles in my vicinity on cue at around 10 p.m. At the draw of the night's curtain, a lone hound will signal to the pit an affirmation of his identity as a dog, and an evening of cacophonous howls will commence in disharmony. Though earplugs can try their best to mute the Canine Symphonic Orchestra, I usually just lie back and chuckle to myself at the hilarity of it all. And nothing's going to stop those insane dreams from continuing, so I might as well just roll with the Beethovens.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Hmmm...
Not much to say of the last few days since our first sale of banana fibre products to Massai Wanderings Safaris on Tuesday.
We were supposed to go to an orphanage on Wednesday for the first time – but that was delayed once again as Lema (my host) was too busy during the day. As well as running the Tengeru Cultural Tourism programme – a very popular philanthropic local tourist operation – he seems to know pretty much everyone of importance in the Arusha area, leading to a hectic social schedule (that has been unfortunately tied up with funerals lately).
I'm looking forward to helping out in the orphanage, as a change of day-to-day scenery would be nice. In honesty, though, it was nice to have a break from the productive craziness that was Monday and Tuesday of this week.
Rather than waste at home all day, I took off to a cafe in Arusha to plunder some faster wi-fi internet and indulge in a few western delicacies. A strawberry milkshake and fruit salad with ice cream gave my stomach a dairy overload as I sat in the very relaxing Via Via restaurant (last mentioned in “Grey in TA”) for three hours. Located in the gardens surrounding the German Boma (fortress) – one of the oldest buildings in the city and a relic of Arusha's colonial origins – it's a very trendy spot, popular with expats, volunteers, tourists and locals alike. The staff speak English and the food is deliciously familiar to mzungu tastebuds. It's fast becoming my favourite haven from the daily grind of squeezing into daladalas, getting stared/shouted at for my skin colour and feeling the dull but persistent pangs of homesickness.
My favourite taste of the west, though, is the fact that I can access websites that either take too long at home or aren't compatible with dial-up speed – like Facebook, Metacritic, Kokatu, CBC, etc. With milkshake curdling on my month-old beard whilst I surf the web like the console cowboy I've always been, it's not dissimilar to being virtually transported back home for an afternoon. Who would have thought that I'd miss my virtual life as much as my real one?
As such, I think I'll go nuts this Saturday and spend the majority of the day at Via Via. It looks like they offer a killer all-day breakfast – complete with steak, for God's sake.
We were supposed to go to an orphanage on Wednesday for the first time – but that was delayed once again as Lema (my host) was too busy during the day. As well as running the Tengeru Cultural Tourism programme – a very popular philanthropic local tourist operation – he seems to know pretty much everyone of importance in the Arusha area, leading to a hectic social schedule (that has been unfortunately tied up with funerals lately).
I'm looking forward to helping out in the orphanage, as a change of day-to-day scenery would be nice. In honesty, though, it was nice to have a break from the productive craziness that was Monday and Tuesday of this week.
Rather than waste at home all day, I took off to a cafe in Arusha to plunder some faster wi-fi internet and indulge in a few western delicacies. A strawberry milkshake and fruit salad with ice cream gave my stomach a dairy overload as I sat in the very relaxing Via Via restaurant (last mentioned in “Grey in TA”) for three hours. Located in the gardens surrounding the German Boma (fortress) – one of the oldest buildings in the city and a relic of Arusha's colonial origins – it's a very trendy spot, popular with expats, volunteers, tourists and locals alike. The staff speak English and the food is deliciously familiar to mzungu tastebuds. It's fast becoming my favourite haven from the daily grind of squeezing into daladalas, getting stared/shouted at for my skin colour and feeling the dull but persistent pangs of homesickness.
My favourite taste of the west, though, is the fact that I can access websites that either take too long at home or aren't compatible with dial-up speed – like Facebook, Metacritic, Kokatu, CBC, etc. With milkshake curdling on my month-old beard whilst I surf the web like the console cowboy I've always been, it's not dissimilar to being virtually transported back home for an afternoon. Who would have thought that I'd miss my virtual life as much as my real one?
As such, I think I'll go nuts this Saturday and spend the majority of the day at Via Via. It looks like they offer a killer all-day breakfast – complete with steak, for God's sake.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
First sale
Our second visit to a safari company to discuss business deals occurred on Tuesday of this week, as we trekked out to Massai Wanderings in the outskirts of Arusha. This meant more wholesomely character-building experiences on dala dalas, with only a very vague idea of what to look for in a destination. Fun.
I don't have a driver's license – and I'm talking about a Canadian one. If there's any motivation for wanting to drive myself in the comfort of my own car, then Tanzania's dala dalas (Swahili for “sardine trap of unusual social encounters”) are most certainly it. I've been putting off getting my Canadian drivers license for, well, around six years now. A mixture of laziness and a lack of time and necessity, it's been a mild inconvenience for friends and family who, on the odd occasion, have to cart me around town or province.
Having spent the past month in the some of the most uncomfortable public transit vessels available on Earth, the thought of driving myself in a comparably luxurious hatchback in Canada looks very appealing to me now. Such an experience would be the polar opposite of the crampness of dala dalas, as well as the reckless driving skills often on display here substituting my own (presumably flawless) abilities.
But back to business. Following two dala dala trips and an on-foot trek past a garbage dump and into an obscure patch of Meru countryside, we found our way to the headquarters of Massai Wanderings. After a business pitch not dissimilar to Monday's trip to Access 2 Tanzania Safaris, we left the office with a successful trial deal – and 75,000 Tanzanian shillings in our pockets to hand over to Mama Machumba Crafts.
Finally, a month into my trip, we've got results. Sure, 75,000 Tsh is only around $50 CDN, but it's a damn sight higher amount than zero. If that amount grows to the regular 90,000 Tsh weekly (for 30 products at full price), then we'll really have achieved something significant. We've yet to hear back from Access 2 Tanzania, but we'll be able to sell them a trial pack too, if they're interested.
As an added bonus to keep the mamas busy in the future, Massai Wanderings' co-manager Donna also asked us if we could provide banana fibre lunchboxes for her safari business to use. Most safari companies tend to provide packed lunches to their clients when on the road, in order to maximise viewing times in the wildlife parks. On my safari last week, we were given our lunches in disposable, cardboard, non-descript, white lunchboxes. Massai Wanderings' idea, though, is to use a more permanent, aesthetically-pleasing solution. Which we would sell to them. I like how that sounds.
This would be a totally new project, of course, and as a one-off order it wouldn't provide a steady flow of income – as the banana fibre bracelets/coasters do – but it's another great way for the women to make money. For the time being, we'll concentrate on our original deal – selling gifts to the safari companies – but this lunchbox thing has a lot of potential too.
I feel like I've got more done in the last two days than I have in the past month. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come, rather than a mirage in the middle of desert.
I don't have a driver's license – and I'm talking about a Canadian one. If there's any motivation for wanting to drive myself in the comfort of my own car, then Tanzania's dala dalas (Swahili for “sardine trap of unusual social encounters”) are most certainly it. I've been putting off getting my Canadian drivers license for, well, around six years now. A mixture of laziness and a lack of time and necessity, it's been a mild inconvenience for friends and family who, on the odd occasion, have to cart me around town or province.
Having spent the past month in the some of the most uncomfortable public transit vessels available on Earth, the thought of driving myself in a comparably luxurious hatchback in Canada looks very appealing to me now. Such an experience would be the polar opposite of the crampness of dala dalas, as well as the reckless driving skills often on display here substituting my own (presumably flawless) abilities.
But back to business. Following two dala dala trips and an on-foot trek past a garbage dump and into an obscure patch of Meru countryside, we found our way to the headquarters of Massai Wanderings. After a business pitch not dissimilar to Monday's trip to Access 2 Tanzania Safaris, we left the office with a successful trial deal – and 75,000 Tanzanian shillings in our pockets to hand over to Mama Machumba Crafts.
Finally, a month into my trip, we've got results. Sure, 75,000 Tsh is only around $50 CDN, but it's a damn sight higher amount than zero. If that amount grows to the regular 90,000 Tsh weekly (for 30 products at full price), then we'll really have achieved something significant. We've yet to hear back from Access 2 Tanzania, but we'll be able to sell them a trial pack too, if they're interested.
As an added bonus to keep the mamas busy in the future, Massai Wanderings' co-manager Donna also asked us if we could provide banana fibre lunchboxes for her safari business to use. Most safari companies tend to provide packed lunches to their clients when on the road, in order to maximise viewing times in the wildlife parks. On my safari last week, we were given our lunches in disposable, cardboard, non-descript, white lunchboxes. Massai Wanderings' idea, though, is to use a more permanent, aesthetically-pleasing solution. Which we would sell to them. I like how that sounds.
This would be a totally new project, of course, and as a one-off order it wouldn't provide a steady flow of income – as the banana fibre bracelets/coasters do – but it's another great way for the women to make money. For the time being, we'll concentrate on our original deal – selling gifts to the safari companies – but this lunchbox thing has a lot of potential too.
I feel like I've got more done in the last two days than I have in the past month. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come, rather than a mirage in the middle of desert.
Grey in TA
Rainfall finally accepted my open invitation this weekend, following a scorching Saturn's day spent lounging at home then braving the bustle of Arusha centre.
We're approaching the start of the long rain season here in northern Tanzania, which typically affects most heavily the months of April and May, but gets fairly riled up in March too. Basically, as I return to Canada on April 2, I'll be departing at a good time – just as the country becomes sactimoniously drenched in cool equatorial showers. In February and March, though, the rain acts as a soothing contrast to the parched days ruled by the big hard sun.
Equally satisfying was the work we were able to do on Monday, as our long awaited first meeting with a safari company (re: the banana fibre crafts we are trying to sell) came to fruition.
We met with Access 2 Tanzania, a smaller safari company based in Arusha. After a few daladala trips into, then briefly outside of, the city (and a brief delay following distracting directions from some locals), we found our way to the company's base nestled between farmland and industry.
Having already introduced our business proposal to the company's local owner – Mike, a friend of Lema's – all that was left for us to do was to discuss matters with the manager of operations, Stella. Armed with nicely packaged samples (bracelets/coasters wrapped in banana fibre with a small biographical label attached), paper brochures and a formal business letter, our first attempt at pretending we know how to do business seemed to go over pretty well with Stella.
For now, we'll play a short waiting game with Access 2 Tanzania, and see if they'll bite into at least purchasing a trial package. In the meantime, we'll take our proposal to other companies and see if there's any further interest.
Later in the day, Robin and I met more formally with Mr. Shija and Geoffrey – another person involved with Educare – to clear up some of the issues regarding Educare's funds. We decided that for each 3,000 Tsh craft sold, half (1,500 Tsh) will go as payment to the women making them, a third (1,000 Tsh) will go towards the business and its regular expenses, and then the remaining 500 Tsh will be put into the Educare Foundation. It's a division that gives equal attention to the charitable side of the project as it does to growing and supporting the business – which seems like sound logic. The more the business can grow, the more money it can make for the community – which means more money that Educare, as an umbrella organisation, can use to develop further initiatives in the area.
Putting the maths together, a 90,000 Tsh package (of 30 products) will make 45,000 Tsh for the women themselves, 30,000 Tsh for the Machumba business and then 15,000 Tsh for Educare.
So, it's nice to feel like the planning stages are wrapping up and turning into action, of some form at least. After a productive morning, I treated myself to a delicious burger and fries at Via Via in Arusha – a very hip traveller's haunt nestled in the gardens of an old German colonial fort.
Speaking of plans of action, I've been researching my next expedition outside of Tengeru this week. Here's the plan: bus to Dar Es Salaam on March 22, find my way over to the fabled island of Zanzibar for four nights at a reasonably priced hotel and then return via Dar to Arusha. Apart from its northern safari circuit, Tanzania's most popular tourist destination is this middle-eastern styled vacation spot, where architectural relics of the slave trade mingle with sun-soaked beaches and various sun 'n sand activities.
This plan means I have just three weeks left of volunteering. In honesty, it's nice to have an end in near sight.
We're approaching the start of the long rain season here in northern Tanzania, which typically affects most heavily the months of April and May, but gets fairly riled up in March too. Basically, as I return to Canada on April 2, I'll be departing at a good time – just as the country becomes sactimoniously drenched in cool equatorial showers. In February and March, though, the rain acts as a soothing contrast to the parched days ruled by the big hard sun.
Equally satisfying was the work we were able to do on Monday, as our long awaited first meeting with a safari company (re: the banana fibre crafts we are trying to sell) came to fruition.
We met with Access 2 Tanzania, a smaller safari company based in Arusha. After a few daladala trips into, then briefly outside of, the city (and a brief delay following distracting directions from some locals), we found our way to the company's base nestled between farmland and industry.
Having already introduced our business proposal to the company's local owner – Mike, a friend of Lema's – all that was left for us to do was to discuss matters with the manager of operations, Stella. Armed with nicely packaged samples (bracelets/coasters wrapped in banana fibre with a small biographical label attached), paper brochures and a formal business letter, our first attempt at pretending we know how to do business seemed to go over pretty well with Stella.
For now, we'll play a short waiting game with Access 2 Tanzania, and see if they'll bite into at least purchasing a trial package. In the meantime, we'll take our proposal to other companies and see if there's any further interest.
Later in the day, Robin and I met more formally with Mr. Shija and Geoffrey – another person involved with Educare – to clear up some of the issues regarding Educare's funds. We decided that for each 3,000 Tsh craft sold, half (1,500 Tsh) will go as payment to the women making them, a third (1,000 Tsh) will go towards the business and its regular expenses, and then the remaining 500 Tsh will be put into the Educare Foundation. It's a division that gives equal attention to the charitable side of the project as it does to growing and supporting the business – which seems like sound logic. The more the business can grow, the more money it can make for the community – which means more money that Educare, as an umbrella organisation, can use to develop further initiatives in the area.
Putting the maths together, a 90,000 Tsh package (of 30 products) will make 45,000 Tsh for the women themselves, 30,000 Tsh for the Machumba business and then 15,000 Tsh for Educare.
So, it's nice to feel like the planning stages are wrapping up and turning into action, of some form at least. After a productive morning, I treated myself to a delicious burger and fries at Via Via in Arusha – a very hip traveller's haunt nestled in the gardens of an old German colonial fort.
Speaking of plans of action, I've been researching my next expedition outside of Tengeru this week. Here's the plan: bus to Dar Es Salaam on March 22, find my way over to the fabled island of Zanzibar for four nights at a reasonably priced hotel and then return via Dar to Arusha. Apart from its northern safari circuit, Tanzania's most popular tourist destination is this middle-eastern styled vacation spot, where architectural relics of the slave trade mingle with sun-soaked beaches and various sun 'n sand activities.
This plan means I have just three weeks left of volunteering. In honesty, it's nice to have an end in near sight.
Gettin' homesick up in this biatch
At the risk of sounding like some kind of schoolboy bitch, something that’s surprised me during my trip is how homesick I’ve been this entire time. It’s silly, really, as my domestic setup in Tanzania is totally reasonable, the people are friendly, and I don’t feel uncomfortable in the slightest.
Still, I’m obviously a total sap, a limp biscuit, a silly twit, a damp pussycat, a wet squib - so I’ve just accepted that my sporadic states of self-imposed, self-indulgent misery are an unavoidable part of my experience here.
As either a coping method or a way to make my “suffering” even worse, I’ve written up this short list of things I miss the most back home. Following this, and in an effort to sound like less of a wimp, I’ve also thought of some things that I don’t particularly miss.
Things I’ve missed:
//Videogaming
I know I can come across as a hipper-than-thou, well-muscled cool cat constantly on the run from ladies, but deep down inside I’m just a nerd who loves videogames too much.
Aside from all of the solo gaming I constantly treat myself to - and the bevy of such games I’m missing right now (Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2... argggh) - social gaming is a big hobby of mine.
My friend Ben and I like to get together for fairly gargantuan gaming sessions. Modern Warfare, Halo, Resistance… whatever floats our boat for a significantly buoyant period of time. It’s harmless, meaningless, escapist indulgence where we drink beer, order takeaway and spend time chilling - and I
totally miss it.
Of course, to me, games aren’t meaningless - they’re an art form unique to my generation, and something I cherish in the same way that the ‘60s generation embraced pop music. I shit you not. If accepted to my chosen Master’s program - Communication & Culture at York U in Toronto - I plan on studying games academically. So I like to think that my heartache for gaming runs deeper than a nostalgically childish connection to hopping around the Mushroom Kingdom.
I brought a netbook along with me and it’s proven to be a very effective remedy for home-ache. Perhaps it’s doing me more harm than good to indulge in such light-hearted escapism whilst I‘m supposed to be Saving The World, but whatever. My EEE PC can run Monkey Island: Special Edition, Half-Life, Audiosurf, Darwinia, Trials 2, World of Goo, Crayon Physics and Plants Vs. Zombies - so I really should stop my goddamn complaining.
//Music
I know I can come across as… oh yeah, well I am. I’m hip as hell. I love music. The last few years have really opened up my eyes to Canadian music in particular, and how awesome our home-grown Can Con is. In spite of being the Arts & Entertainment Editor of my university newspaper a few years ago (almost several… wow I‘m old), I once was blind but now I see.
An email from Doc Brown, my three-fingered amigo from Kitchener, placed a shining beacon of light in the near distance, in the form of a Tokyo Police Club show at Starlight upon my return in April.
Still, the fact that I’ll be missing a Thrush Hermit reunion tour (including Joel Plaskett, one of my favourite Canadian singers), K-Os, Shad, and Canadian Music Week (for which I have futile press invitations waiting patiently in my Gmail inbox) all within the proximity of home irks me quite a bit.
At the risk of sounding even more pretentious, I also greatly miss my faithful stockpile of electric and acoustic guitars back at home.
Also painful is how I’ve been absent from the weekly pub quiz at Failtes in Waterloo, where, in spite of my deficiencies in sports, geography, politics, news and knowledge in general, I do know a thing or two about non-recent music. How’s that going, guys? I could kill for a bangers ’n mash right about now.
//Family and friends
Well, this is an obvious one - and the only reason I’ve placed it last is because of its predictability, and not its importance. It’s a little redundant to explain how vital my family and friends are to my happiness - as I’m sure the case is the same for you, dear non-existent reader. Still, an extended trip abroad certainly brings to light precisely how simple that equation is: without loved ones, happiness is impossible.
I also miss the Roc like a severed limb. You know who you are. One of you has severed limbs. Guy’s Day.
//The City
At around 10km east of Arusha - which itself is hardly a bustling cultural metropolis - I really am stranded in the middle of nowhere out here in Tengeru. All of the places I frequent in Waterloo - favourite haunts ranging from the generic (Subway, Futureshop, HMV) to the unique (Laurier campus, El Medina’s, Starlight, Ethel’s, hell - even Jim’s Valumart) - truly help to form the fabric of my day-to-day life back home. Add in the fact that I know a lot of people in Waterloo, and a walk down the road can mean an afternoon of amusing social escapades.
To some, this kind of constructed community might seem superficially sad. But in Don Delillo fashion, I still hold some genuine value to it. Arusha and Tengeru are neither the charmingly rural nor ghost-town dives that I was half-expecting. Instead, most of the urban landscape is composed of rusty tin shacks and overtly generic Coca Cola signs with shop names on them.
Things I’ve been happy to live without:
//Social Networking
I’ve been without Facebook, instant messaging or a consistently-used mobile phone for almost a month now, and I haven’t gone crazy. Far from it; it’s been a nice break to be disconnected from what I consider to be the more mundane country roads off of the Information Superhighway. Truthfully, I’ve known I can live without Status Updates for quite some time now. And it’s been a breath of fresh air not to know what pet gift Billy got on Farm Douche, or whatever that app is called.
I’ve missed my website, SocietyEye.com, but that’s more been out of guilt than anything else - it’s slightly frustrating being forced to leave its pages blank after building up a fairly solid readership internationally. Rest assured, I’ve promised myself to dedicate a calculated effort to bringing the site back to full strength upon my return.
//Getting fat
Stop worrying, mum, I haven’t been turning into an emaciated skeleton over here - there’s plenty of food for me to eat, three square meals a day and all quite nutritious. While the food in Canada is certainly to be missed, living in Tanzania has certainly changed my perspective on how I eat back in chubby ol’ North America. It’s quite easy for me to lose and gain weight - I’ve fluctuated between 190 and 150 pounds over the last two years - but I’ve often blamed my non-athletic figure over disagreeable genes instead of the true culprit: luxurious over-eating and lack of exercise. While mowing down a 15 (hell, or a 20) ounce AAA steak back in Canada is a suitable way to please your palate, over here, it’s an extremely rare luxury afforded only to heavy-pocketed tourists and the upper-class.
So, I haven’t missed how easy it is to put on weight in Canada - the expectation to eat until your stomach stretches, the reliance on automobiles instead of legs to move you around. I’m not going to come back all vegan and shit, but I’ve certainly learned a few healthy lessons. Perhaps I’ll adopt a more moderate lifestyle back home - instead of pouring calories into my body and then sweating them out at the gym, I’ll eat less and get exercise outside. Whatever happens, I’ve resolved to never let myself get chubby again.
//The weather
Tanzania has been gorgeous, weather-wise, so far. Sunny skies, cool nights and the occasional graceful rain shower. Last I heard from southern Ontario, it was snowing and damp. I left my country during a good season. Sure, I miss skiing, but I miss skiing when I’m in Canada because I never make the time to do it.
//The City
Being away from the city has made me realise how much I appreciate the various activities and places that I’m granted to access to back home. But living around the country has also been a welcome break from the negatives of city life - too much stuff to spend money on, too many distractions from tasks at hand. Ok, so the negatives hardly outweigh the positives, but two months here provides somewhat of an enticing holiday away from such vices.
Still, I’m obviously a total sap, a limp biscuit, a silly twit, a damp pussycat, a wet squib - so I’ve just accepted that my sporadic states of self-imposed, self-indulgent misery are an unavoidable part of my experience here.
As either a coping method or a way to make my “suffering” even worse, I’ve written up this short list of things I miss the most back home. Following this, and in an effort to sound like less of a wimp, I’ve also thought of some things that I don’t particularly miss.
Things I’ve missed:
//Videogaming
I know I can come across as a hipper-than-thou, well-muscled cool cat constantly on the run from ladies, but deep down inside I’m just a nerd who loves videogames too much.
Aside from all of the solo gaming I constantly treat myself to - and the bevy of such games I’m missing right now (Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2... argggh) - social gaming is a big hobby of mine.
My friend Ben and I like to get together for fairly gargantuan gaming sessions. Modern Warfare, Halo, Resistance… whatever floats our boat for a significantly buoyant period of time. It’s harmless, meaningless, escapist indulgence where we drink beer, order takeaway and spend time chilling - and I
totally miss it.
Of course, to me, games aren’t meaningless - they’re an art form unique to my generation, and something I cherish in the same way that the ‘60s generation embraced pop music. I shit you not. If accepted to my chosen Master’s program - Communication & Culture at York U in Toronto - I plan on studying games academically. So I like to think that my heartache for gaming runs deeper than a nostalgically childish connection to hopping around the Mushroom Kingdom.
I brought a netbook along with me and it’s proven to be a very effective remedy for home-ache. Perhaps it’s doing me more harm than good to indulge in such light-hearted escapism whilst I‘m supposed to be Saving The World, but whatever. My EEE PC can run Monkey Island: Special Edition, Half-Life, Audiosurf, Darwinia, Trials 2, World of Goo, Crayon Physics and Plants Vs. Zombies - so I really should stop my goddamn complaining.
//Music
I know I can come across as… oh yeah, well I am. I’m hip as hell. I love music. The last few years have really opened up my eyes to Canadian music in particular, and how awesome our home-grown Can Con is. In spite of being the Arts & Entertainment Editor of my university newspaper a few years ago (almost several… wow I‘m old), I once was blind but now I see.
An email from Doc Brown, my three-fingered amigo from Kitchener, placed a shining beacon of light in the near distance, in the form of a Tokyo Police Club show at Starlight upon my return in April.
Still, the fact that I’ll be missing a Thrush Hermit reunion tour (including Joel Plaskett, one of my favourite Canadian singers), K-Os, Shad, and Canadian Music Week (for which I have futile press invitations waiting patiently in my Gmail inbox) all within the proximity of home irks me quite a bit.
At the risk of sounding even more pretentious, I also greatly miss my faithful stockpile of electric and acoustic guitars back at home.
Also painful is how I’ve been absent from the weekly pub quiz at Failtes in Waterloo, where, in spite of my deficiencies in sports, geography, politics, news and knowledge in general, I do know a thing or two about non-recent music. How’s that going, guys? I could kill for a bangers ’n mash right about now.
//Family and friends
Well, this is an obvious one - and the only reason I’ve placed it last is because of its predictability, and not its importance. It’s a little redundant to explain how vital my family and friends are to my happiness - as I’m sure the case is the same for you, dear non-existent reader. Still, an extended trip abroad certainly brings to light precisely how simple that equation is: without loved ones, happiness is impossible.
I also miss the Roc like a severed limb. You know who you are. One of you has severed limbs. Guy’s Day.
//The City
At around 10km east of Arusha - which itself is hardly a bustling cultural metropolis - I really am stranded in the middle of nowhere out here in Tengeru. All of the places I frequent in Waterloo - favourite haunts ranging from the generic (Subway, Futureshop, HMV) to the unique (Laurier campus, El Medina’s, Starlight, Ethel’s, hell - even Jim’s Valumart) - truly help to form the fabric of my day-to-day life back home. Add in the fact that I know a lot of people in Waterloo, and a walk down the road can mean an afternoon of amusing social escapades.
To some, this kind of constructed community might seem superficially sad. But in Don Delillo fashion, I still hold some genuine value to it. Arusha and Tengeru are neither the charmingly rural nor ghost-town dives that I was half-expecting. Instead, most of the urban landscape is composed of rusty tin shacks and overtly generic Coca Cola signs with shop names on them.
Things I’ve been happy to live without:
//Social Networking
I’ve been without Facebook, instant messaging or a consistently-used mobile phone for almost a month now, and I haven’t gone crazy. Far from it; it’s been a nice break to be disconnected from what I consider to be the more mundane country roads off of the Information Superhighway. Truthfully, I’ve known I can live without Status Updates for quite some time now. And it’s been a breath of fresh air not to know what pet gift Billy got on Farm Douche, or whatever that app is called.
I’ve missed my website, SocietyEye.com, but that’s more been out of guilt than anything else - it’s slightly frustrating being forced to leave its pages blank after building up a fairly solid readership internationally. Rest assured, I’ve promised myself to dedicate a calculated effort to bringing the site back to full strength upon my return.
//Getting fat
Stop worrying, mum, I haven’t been turning into an emaciated skeleton over here - there’s plenty of food for me to eat, three square meals a day and all quite nutritious. While the food in Canada is certainly to be missed, living in Tanzania has certainly changed my perspective on how I eat back in chubby ol’ North America. It’s quite easy for me to lose and gain weight - I’ve fluctuated between 190 and 150 pounds over the last two years - but I’ve often blamed my non-athletic figure over disagreeable genes instead of the true culprit: luxurious over-eating and lack of exercise. While mowing down a 15 (hell, or a 20) ounce AAA steak back in Canada is a suitable way to please your palate, over here, it’s an extremely rare luxury afforded only to heavy-pocketed tourists and the upper-class.
So, I haven’t missed how easy it is to put on weight in Canada - the expectation to eat until your stomach stretches, the reliance on automobiles instead of legs to move you around. I’m not going to come back all vegan and shit, but I’ve certainly learned a few healthy lessons. Perhaps I’ll adopt a more moderate lifestyle back home - instead of pouring calories into my body and then sweating them out at the gym, I’ll eat less and get exercise outside. Whatever happens, I’ve resolved to never let myself get chubby again.
//The weather
Tanzania has been gorgeous, weather-wise, so far. Sunny skies, cool nights and the occasional graceful rain shower. Last I heard from southern Ontario, it was snowing and damp. I left my country during a good season. Sure, I miss skiing, but I miss skiing when I’m in Canada because I never make the time to do it.
//The City
Being away from the city has made me realise how much I appreciate the various activities and places that I’m granted to access to back home. But living around the country has also been a welcome break from the negatives of city life - too much stuff to spend money on, too many distractions from tasks at hand. Ok, so the negatives hardly outweigh the positives, but two months here provides somewhat of an enticing holiday away from such vices.
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