Rwanda - The land of NGOs

Crossing over to Rwanda was unsettlingly straightforward. We easily and fairly changed money with a generous South African trucker, avoiding the terrible official rates and unreliable black market changers. At Rwandan immigration, I tried to switch to my British passport to get in for free. The official rejected me at first, telling me that it was against the law to change passports but when I said that it was usually fine, he just smiled, whispered “don’t tell anyone, ok?” and stamped me in. He even left the office and led us past the waiting trucks into the small border town to find a trustworthy black market changer and a cheap hotel!

As was so often the case, the fauna mysteriously changed almost immediately at the border. I could only assume that it was due to the difference in the way the two countries and cultures treated the landscape, because surely nature would dictate a more gradual transition. Tanzania had been largely comprised of open plains and arid scrublands but on the Rwandan side things were distinctly tropical. Banana and tea plantations and other cultivated crops dominated. Sure the ecosystem wasn’t natural but the difference can’t have been entirely artificial. Whether natural forest or, more often, crops of some description, the whole country seemed to enjoy a thick coat of lush greenery. At least that’s how I remember it.

The fancy, plush new bus (in which, oddly, nobody was without a seat) cruised along the fancy, newly laid road all the way to the capital. Kigali was not only clean and bustling with energy, but blessed with road safety! Motorbike riders wore helmets, cars stopped at traffic lights and reserved horn-honking only for when it was absolutely necessary, and even indicated when turning corners or changing lanes! This was handy, because it was the first country I had visited since France to drive on the right side of the road so took a bit of getting used to. On more than one occasion I nearly stepped out in front of traffic after looking the wrong way, only to have Leslie grab my arm at the last moment.

The first child we met in Kigali smiled and proffered his hand vertically, rather than horizontally, requesting only a simple handshake. This was quite a shock: kids usually asked for money or sweets! Many friendly locals took a moment out of their busy schedules to say hi, or just shout: “Ça va, Petro? (Howsit, Jesus?)” I was called Petro literally hundreds of times before learning that it was the local name for Jesus*. This made sense. My ever-expanding beard and shaggy hair had earned me this title with increasing frequency in recent months. Leslie liked the beard, but I also loved the attention: there’s nothing like biblical celebrity status to make you fall in love with a place!

Inexpensive accommodation was hard to find in the capital. The only dirt cheap place in town was the church-run backpackers. It had strict rules about the mixing of genders within dorm rooms and the consumption of alcohol, but we would cope. I tried to get us a room as Gavin and Les waited outside:

Me: “Avez vous une chambre pour trois personne ce soir?

(Do you have a room for three people this evening?)”

The nun: “non, desolee.

(No, sorry.)”

Me: “hmm. Ok. Je m’appele Petro. Maintenant avez vous une chambre?

(Hmm. Ok. My name is Jesus. Now do you have a room?)”

The nun and her assistant laughed at my joke... but they still didn’t have a room. We eventually found one somewhere else.

Foreign aid is a complex and sensitive subject, so anything I say is obviously just observation-based. If my readers would like to contribute something, please post a comment! (The below toilet is not what I think of your opinions.)

Kigali was a clean, developing city and seemed unaffected by the worldwide financial crisis. The toilets were flushable and the buses, as I have mentioned, were immaculate. Every one sported an in-tact windscreen and soft, stain-free seats. There was even a system in place for pre-purchasing tickets, designed to guarantee a seat for each and every passenger. This level of organisation seemed very out-of-place but it can be, I think, easily explained: it’s the product of a country overcompensating for past failures. The 1994 Rwandan genocide left the country in tatters, so it’s understandable that there would be pressure on the new government to prevent a bloody resurgence. The influx of international funding seemed to be put largely to good use. American aid workers were everywhere, populating the many cafés and restaurants. It was great to see so much effort being put into rebuilding a destroyed land, but what happens when the NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) collectively decide that their job is done and move on to temporarily prop up some other crisis-plagued community? Apart from anything else, who will order all the soy vanilla Frappuccinos?

I got talking with a Zimbabwean NGO worker (who will remain nameless... because I can’t remember his name) in a supermarket who said that he didn’t really agree with the way things were being handled. He expressed concerns that, to employ an overused analogy, Rwandans were being given too many fish and not enough rods. When the international aid runs out, he predicted, Rwanda will be in serious trouble. It’s a well known fact that during the genocide, many of the country’s most educated people were slaughtered, leaving gaping holes in the workforce. Our new friend accused the NGOs (including his own) of avoiding the difficult task of finding a long-term solution. He said that, when the international aid finally leaves, the holes will just reopen. At the time of writing, international aid has been in the country for fifteen years so their long term positions, however transitory, must seem permanent to locals. The holes they leave will be difficult to fill indeed.

I imagine that it must be extremely difficult to manage the distribution of foreign cash, so it’s inevitable that a certain amount is going to be misspent. We saw what I consider to be misuse of aid money on a few occasions. One such occasion was while we visited a small village in the south of the country. Early one afternoon, we noticed an unusually large congregation of locals sitting at the side of a dirt trail. They sat tensely, peering up and down the road in anticipation of what I assumed to be public transport but then a truck pulled up. The driver got out, opened the double doors at the back and unloaded sack after sack onto the roadside. It was a free-for-all. Locals grabbed what they could, loading the bags onto shoulders and makeshift wooden wheelbarrows. Interested in the delivery, we approached some men as they attempted to negotiate theirs under a minivan’s back seat. The large paper bags and plastic sacks were stamped clearly with “USAID” and that country’s annoyingly recognisable rectangle of stars and stripes. As I snapped some pictures, one of the men involved strode up with his hand out, palm forward, “no photo!” Les announced that the food had come from her country therefore she had a right to be there, adding that we were in a public place anyway. He reluctantly backed off. I considered it odd at the time that he tried to prevent us from witnessing the event, but in hindsight it seems obvious. He was humiliated for accepting handouts and didn’t want to have it rubbed in his face.

The bags contained rice, most likely sourced from outside Rwanda, thrown into the laps of a population of farmers in the middle of highly fertile farmland. Both sides of the road were fringed with lush, green crops that continued outwards, draping and undulating their way across the hills like a mystical, patchwork quilt. Considering the natural abundance of the area, surely dumping food on these people was counterproductive. Several dozen people spent their day waiting for first dibs on free food rather than working in the fields to produce their own, and who can blame them? But what good does this kind of donation do? Train locals to wait for food to appear on a truck? They aren’t stupid –they know that the well will dry up eventually, but if they don’t claim the free food in the meantime, some other family will. Meanwhile, the international community gives itself a pat on the back for “helping”, shedding the guilt they feel for having ignored this country when it needed them most (see the next blog entry for details on the genocide). Money dumped into Rwanda is entered into a spreadsheet on a computer in an office somewhere, totalised and used by politicians (and NGOs trying to raise more money) to represent moral decency... meanwhile, thousands of people in less fertile, more desperate, but less newsworthy countries die.

We soon learned that although French was the most widely spoken language in Rwanda, nearly all educated city-folk spoke good English**, as well as Kirwanda, Swahili and, often, at least one other local dialect (Africans’ knack for languages never ceases to amaze me!) In the countryside, we were told, locals mainly spoke local dialects, but many also knew French, so we decided to switch over from Swahili for a while. More than just the need to communicate with locals drove this choice, however. Les and I had made a decision: we weren’t going to travel all the way to Cairo with Gavin. Instead we would end our time together in a more comfortable setting: Europe. We booked tickets to Italy where we would travel for two weeks before finding a place to stay in France. We would stay there for the whole month of August, to learn the language, and just relax – constant travel takes its toll. Leslie, intent on catching up with my (not extensive) vocabulary, embarked on a regimented study routine: she would memorise twenty new words a day until we reached France. This way she would have something to build on by the time we started our first lesson. For the time being, it would help with communication with locals anyway. We were keen to learn more about the country, especially regarding the Genocide that rocked this unfortunate land less than fifteen years before.

In fact, I have so much to say about it (I consider myself something of an expert now that I’ve read a book on the subject) that I’m saving it all up for the next episode. Stay tuned for the next cheery entry: Rwanda: The Genocide.

* I think it was Petro, but I can’t find a confirmation of this. If anyone could help out, please post a comment!

** Their English was not always excellent. It was often at that perfect level that’s good enough to make the mistakes humorously stand out. For example, I approached a stranger looking for directions: “Excuse me but I have a question” to which he promptly replied, much to Gav and Les’s amusement, “Which question?”

Fist fights and Tanzanian films

Lacking the foresight to book train tickets two weeks in advance, we caught a bus instead. Destination: Rwanda. It was big and reasonably comfortable despite the high-speed travel over largely unsealed roads. Les wasn’t happy about the speed, but didn’t think there was anything we could do about it. Later she would pluck up the courage to speak to bus drivers about their speed, but for the time being, she just grinned and bore it.

The dust was thick, and the journey exceedingly long, but like most buses in the region, it stopped once in a while for a toilet break or to give roadside locals a chance to sell bottled water, softdrink, samoosas (they spell and say samosa this way), and various other foodstuffs. Boiled eggs were my favourite. For about twenty cents you could get your very own shell-wrapped bundle of deliciousness and a hand-deployed sprinkle of dipping salt. Apart from being scrumptious, they were almost guaranteed not to cause stomach troubles. The boy selling them asked the usual price, but as I fished out some local change to pay, a man approached and corrected the boy: the eggs were fifty cents each, not twenty. I didn’t mind, so I fished out some more coins, but the bus driver who had overheard the interaction stepped in. “NO!”, exclaimed the huge man, “You are dishonest! This is a bad price! You must not take advantage of the white man!” I tried to tell him that I didn’t mind, but there was no stopping him now. The man who had bumped the price up yelled at the bus driver in Swahili, who then screamed something back. It was less than ten seconds between the beginning of the discussion and the first physical contact. The bus driver swung a fist, hitting the man clean in the face. There was a brief struggle and I retreated onto the bus for fear of getting involved. The two men pummelled one another for a minute or so until the smaller of the two hit the ground. The bus driver turned away, ignoring the fallen man’s verbal abuse and got back on the bus. He glanced at me as he turned the key in the ignition and said “20c is the right price!” He was trying to do the honourable thing, but it was hard to be grateful. I didn’t care about paying a little more, but thanks to him I was without lunch.

We stopped later for a toilet break at the side of a small dirt track off the main road. People scattered, searching for seclusion behind tiny, sparse bushes. Like a class of naughty children filing into detention, passengers reluctantly shuffled, heads down, back towards the bus. As they moped across the road a loud revving could be heard around the corner and a second later a man on a motorbike hurtled over the rise. When he saw the group of migrating passengers, he braked suddenly, lost control and swerved. The bike, now skidding sideways on quite an angle, slipped out from under him and they slid together for several metres across the gravel as people jumped out of the way. Somehow he managed not to hit anyone but because he was dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt, the biker must have hurt himself in the fall. The bus driver and conductor, livid, stormed over to the cloud of dust shrouding the fallen bike. I assumed they were going to help get him up before having a word with him, but I must have forgotten how the driver had dealt with someone who tried to charge thirty cents too much for a boiled egg. They screamed abuse at him while taking turns belting him about the head. He remained under the bike, unmoving, wincing with pain but accepting the punishment. I can only assume that he was so consenting because he believed that he deserved the beating. When the officials were finished, they just walked away without helping him out from under the bike that was crushing his leg.

These reactionary ways are strange to us foreigners but here they seem to be a way of life. While in the West, certain minorities feel that fistfights are the solution (usually when drunk), in east Africa it was the norm... and seemed independent of education or social standing. As we settled down into our seats, a local, Swahili-with-English-subtitles film started up on the small TV in the front of the bus. And it was immediately clear: certain dramatic similarities between the storylines and what we had seen outside the bus could not be ignored.

Before I recap the storyline of the film that we saw on the bus, I should explain something about the style of these Dar es Salaam films. We had seen a couple of them before, and they all had a few things in common. They are all:

1. ...dramas about everyday Tanzanians, and contain very obvious morals

2. ...destined to contain wife beating of some kind. A computer game sound effect is usually heard as hand hits face: “DUN!”

- Hear some in Fake Promise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YjDjNp7lxY

3. ...hugely popular

4. ...complimented by a simple, synthesised piano soundtrack. Ten second loops are used for extended periods and each movie has only one or two tunes. By the end of the film you know them VERY WELL INDEED.

- Hear some in Fake smile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlHnvAcUgAg

5. ...very slow, often with several minutes at a time dedicated to a shot of someone sitting on a couch or bed and thinking, waiting, or sobbing. Riveting stuff! There are lots of Bold and the Beautiful-style slow-mo zoom-ins on faces during moments of emotional intensity.

6. ...in Swahili, but switch to English during arguments for impact. For example, in one film without subtitles we saw, the following segment of an argument between a husband and wife was in English:

- “You are a prostitute!”

- “What?”

- “I said you are a prostitute.”

- “What did you say? Did you call me a prostitute?”

- “Yes. By profession!”

As a result, they are, in their own way, hilarious. Check out this for some serious drama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo5qFwUHhGo

So back to the film on the bus: picture all of the above information when you read what I imagine the writer’s notes must have looked like as the plot of this film was sketched up:

Plot of: Yellow Banana (Yes, really! And no, I don’t know why):

Part 1 – Going to the big smoke: Nice guy living in a village in Arusha, Tanzania convinces his family and fiancée to let him leave for the big city (Dar es Salaam) to find a real job. He promises to bring her to the big city when he becomes successful. He meets someone on the bus who is moving to the big city to live with her sister. She invites him to stay with them. He accepts but is hated at first by the big city sister, but eventually gains her respect and friendship. Already about 40 mins has passed. This is a long, slow film!

Part 2 – Deception and rise to coolness: He hits it off with the big city girl (big sister), and they have an affair. She manages to get him a job where she works. The fiancée tries to call repeatedly. He ignores the calls. He is a cool asshole now. He wears “cool” (i.e. black) sunglasses and fancy suits. He laughs a lot and has fun with the big city girl.

Part 3 – Confrontation and resolution: Our main character gets a phone call from an anonymous source saying that his father has fallen deathly ill. He immediately flies home to see him, but it’s a trap set by the fiancée. The mother and father are in on it. It was their only way to get him to come home. They are worried that the wedding is going to be called off, and they convince him to bring his fiancée back to the big city with him. He calls the big city girl (who he’s been having the affair with) and asks if his fiancée can stay with them. She accepts (!?), saying “we can continue our affairs while she is here”. He agrees that this is a good idea.

Part 4 – Despair and Retribution: Now that the fiancée is in the house, our main character’s attention is focused on her. They finally get married but the big city girl is out of the loop and doesn’t like it. She cries a LOT. Several minutes at a time are dedicated to watching her force out badly acted sobs while sitting still on the living room couch while the same repetitive music plays in the background: excruciating stuff. She finally decides to take action. We see her pouring something in the powdered milk tin (possibly the most common food item in an African kitchen, so this gets points for realism at least!) and resealing the lid. The wife opens the tin and there is an explosion. She falls to the ground covering her eyes. At the hospital she is pronounced permanently blind and the husband is understandably shocked. No-one seems to try and find out how it happened.

Part 5 – Hatred and Wickedness: The husband almost immediately begins treating his wife like rubbish, showering her with spite. He gets back with the big city girl and seems to feel that they would be completely happy together if it wasn’t for the annoying blind woman always getting in their way. The husband tells her to stay in her room. Months seem to pass and the wife is miserable, constantly crying and for some reason she has a hunchback and is now uncoordinated. She ventures out once or twice and on one occasion falls down half the flight of stairs. The husband and big city girl are snuggling on the couch at the time. The big city girl rolls her eyes and says “Pick it up. It is your burden.” The husband strides across the room towards his wife, who is cowering on the floor and bellows a monologue of loathing at her containing such classic lines as, “I have told you a thousand times: do not come downstairs. You must stay in your room like a chicken in a cage” and “I don’t want people to know that I have a blind woman here.” When he is finished ranting, he hits her hard with her walking stick. Oh, did I mention that she’s heavily pregnant? She cowers and pleads “b... but I am hungry, husband! Please have pity on me!” to which he responds “I hate you! Why must you be such a burden?” and shoves her roughly back up the stairs towards her room. The big city girl sits on the couch snickering to herself and enjoying the show.

Part 6 – Escape: The wife finds a phone and fumbles with the invisible buttons, trying to dial her home number. She finally reaches her father just as the husband discovers her. He screams at her while her father listens in from the other end of the phone. The father just seems puzzled and puts down the phone. She later tries to escape and actually makes it out of the house, bumbling across the road using her hands for guidance. Someone finds her, but it turns out to be the husband’s best friend who returns her to the house despite her protests. She finally actually escapes but the husband doesn’t seem to care. She disappears.

Part 7 – Comeuppance: The main character decides to marry the big city girl but he must ask permission of his parents to do this. He returns home to do this, and they give him permission, and announce that they have an engagement gift for them. There is a tense pause and the blind wife rounds the corner. It’s the gift of guilt. The marriage goes ahead anyway. They return to Dar es Salaam but it turns out that the big city girl is only successful because she is owned by her boss (who is rarely in town). The main character doesn’t like this and leaves. The Boss finds out about the affair and destroys the big city girl’s life, taking all the things that he gave her: the house, car and job. She is last seen on the street dressed in rags.

Part 8 – Apology: The husband returns home, and begs forgiveness from his parents. After very little convincing, they agree that they will forgive him on one condition: he must win his first wife back. At that moment, the first wife walks into the room and LOOKS RIGHT AT HIM, shocked. She is somehow not blind anymore and is in good health. She is holding their baby. She is angry, but after a dramatic pause he says, “I am sorry”. She smiles widely and they hug and kiss. Everybody smiles. There is a brief scene where everybody drinks and laughs together to show that it’s a happy ending. The credits roll.

This took three long hours. And if you are interested in seeing what the film looks like, take a look at the ‘*’ below...

This film was a lot like many others we saw in the region. They are hugely popular, so there must be a connection between the films and the way people act. They must either represent or influence (or both) the psyche of the masses. In any case, it’s a little worrying.

* Here is the trailer for Yellow Banana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RD3iSQ1yOI

And the DVD cover:

http://api.ning.com/files/Tby6fj2i33GfXNakgxTrf-I5wG5fNwvnerMnetTi6RoOuXZMIJlybbxcXionWh-DJhtBOP0E8JmPzhp-4UN32uQY8TMBFKJD/YELLOW20BANANA.jpg

Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar

We journeyed through Tanzania* by bus from just north of the Malawian border towards Dar es Salaam on the coast, making use of our spare time to study up on local dialect. In the preceding months we had encountered too many languages to count, let alone learn so now that we were in the first of a series of countries that mostly spoke a common one, we dived in. Swahili is the national language of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya (alongside English) and although it’s not an official language in Rwanda or the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), it’s still commonly spoken. Also, Rwanda and the DRC both speak French as well! Three cups of English, a teaspoon of French and a pinch of Swahili would surely be the recipe we needed for communication success!

Dar es Salaam (DeS) was unlike anything we had seen so far and top of the strange-stuff list, alongside the Asian food and religion (and familiar, Asian-style, three-wheeled tuk-tuks!), was the number of tourists (which I suppose made it seem even more like Asia!) We were no longer in backwater Africa – this was a short-term holiday-goer hotspot. The YWCA where we stayed was one of the only cheap places in town and the dining hall out back was packed with backpackers: the usual crowd of Brits, Aussies and Europeans dominated. Gavin, Les and I were, we realised, a tad socially awkward outside our three-way clique by this stage, so making conversation with others was challenging at first. All the new people to socialise with made me feel like a lad in a lolly-shop, but I wasn’t sure how to talk to them. We were accustomed to our own little in-jokes and references and regarded outsiders with suspicion. I tried to compensate when I realised I might be coming across as unfriendly, but I overshot the mark, smiling and nodding so much that they probably assumed I was a missionary.

As is always the case, we talked about our travel experiences but we had little in common with most of our new friends: they were flying in and out of DeS and staying for only a couple of weeks at most. They were in the area to visit the Zanzibar archipelago, climb Kilimanjaro, or take photos of wild beast from the roof of a big truck in one of the countries many wildlife reserves. It was hard to resist regarding these short-term, big-spending holiday goers with travel-disdain but I recognised that not everyone is in a position to take a year’s “break from real life”.

If Dar es Salaam was bustling with backpackers, across the strait, Zanzibar was touristically tumultuous. The ferry across the strait contained more white people than I had seen since Victoria Falls and, when we arrived, we were instantly hounded by a crowd of men wanting us to follow them to guesthouses (see pic). We declined because we knew where we wanted to go, but a few of them were persistent and ‘led’ us anyway. We had heard that this was so they could claim a finder’s fee at whatever hotel we ended up staying at. They would walk a dozen or so paces ahead of us, looking back and beckoning us to follow. When we turned in a different direction, they would circle around through some tiny alley and appear ahead of us again. This carried on for a while, but they eventually grew bored of the game and drifted off down the narrow alleys of Stone Town.

Stone Town presented a rainbow of unpleasantly familiar and pleasantly unfamiliar odours. The less enjoyable smells were mercifully faint whiffs of gutters and goop, decomposing fruit, dog crap and rotting rat. The stronger, more welcome scents were ones we had not experienced in months: mango and mangosteen, spice and curry, vanilla, coconut and coffee beans. The staggeringly varied airborne buffet drifted with us through the erratically narrowing and widening, seemingly directionless, craftshop-lined alleys that were dotted with playing kids and merchants. Although the kids, presumably well used to the sight of tourists, ignored us the merchants all wanted a piece. Zanzibar is a tourist town but we weren’t about to start shopping while wearing our backpacks so we bypassed the bargaining and continued through the impossible maze. Eventually we located our well hidden accommodation and settled in.

Over the next few days we explored the town. The new, strange convergence of African, European and Asian culture was a lot to take in. In fact, because Zanzibar has so much history**, perhaps it’s time to take in a brief lesson on the subject.

The history of Zanzibar is an exceedingly multicultural one. After an estimated 20,000 years of human occupation (see that’s a lot of history covered already!), the first foreigners to arrive were Arabs who visited as early as the 1^st century AD. They started stone construction on the southern island around 1000 AD, but not in stone town. The southern hemisphere’s oldest mosque was built by Iranian settlers near the southern tip of the island in 1107 AD! In 1505 the Portuguese empire moved in and held power for nearly 200 years before they were expelled by the Arabs (Omanis) again in 1698. Ivory and slaves trades were started, clove plantations were established and in 1840 the sultan of Oman decided that he liked the place so much that he actually moved across the ocean to make it his capital! The Omanis gradually built the city of Stone Town, and Zanzibar became famous for its spices and slaves: it was East Africa’s main slave trading port. In the 19^th century, as many as 50,000 enslaved people passed through its slave markets EACH YEAR. David Livingstone estimated, with disgust, that as many as an additional 80,000 slaves died each year before ever reaching the port. Britain became interested in Zanzibar in the 1820s, both because of trade opportunities and because of a determination to end the slave trade but it wasn’t until 1876 that it finally succeeded in bringing it to an end. The English, as was in vogue at the time, took over. An agreement between Germany and Britain made the Caprivi Strip (now a part of Namibia) a German protectorate in exchange for allowing Zanzibar to remain a British protectorate. The two countries agreed to stay away from each other’s turf. In 1896, the sultan of Zanzibar died, and was replaced. The British weren’t happy with the new ruler, and war broke out. News of The Anglo-Zanzibar War, the shortest war in history, had barely spread across town when it ended just 38 minutes after it began. The British got their wish, and the ruler was replaced with one they approved of. Later, the british appointed their own residents to rule the archipelago. From the late 19^th until independence the town was clearly segregated into three main groups: Arabs, Indians and British. Very few Africans lived in the tow. Independence was achieved in 1963 but it was short-lived. The democratically elected government was overthrown just two months after the election and the following Zanzibar Revolution resulted in the murder of several thousand Arabs living on the island. Many thousands more fled***, were expelled or imprisoned. Africans moved into the now empty houses, and populated stone town. A few months later, in April 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form “The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar”, which had its name pleasingly shortened later that year... Tanzania was born!

The substantial change in the quality of food was most welcome. Gone were the plain, nshima and chicken or beef dinners of southern Africa; a variety of spiced, flavoured, scented meal choices awaited our tingling taste buds at the food market each evening. Zanzibar should be renamed “Flavourtowne"! Logically, since we were eating our first good food in months, we wanted to see where the flavours came from so we booked into a spice/fruit tour. The main crops on Zanzibar include cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, vanilla beans and raffia palms, but there are many other crops including a variety of tropical fruits.

But we didn’t need to smell the spices to be convinced that ancient Orientals had oriented their way to Zanzibar; all you have to do is look at what the locals are wearing. Sarongs (known locally as Kanga), originally from Indonesia, were brought to Zanzibar in the mid-19^th century from India. And this very stylish dress style goes hand in hand with the religion (how sheik!). Almost 100% of Zanzibar’s population are Muslim**** so it makes sense that the architecture would represent this. This was one of the most noteworthy contrasts between Zanzibar and southern Africa. Plenty of dome-spired mosques ensured that the wailing, mysterious call to prayer would be heard by all. Also, many of the homes were connected via second story walkways traditionally to allow women to visit family and friends without the need to walk the streets (requiring a male escort). Islamic construction may have dominated, but they weren’t the only style on display. Plenty of colonial buildings and churches could also be found throughout the city. Unfortunately, however, it is estimated that 75 percent of the 1709 buildings in (world heritage listed) stone town are suffering from severe deterioration. This wasn’t something that we needed to learn about in the museum to notice. Most buildings looked like a decent gale would knock them over and many of the visibly slanted buildings were held up by giant, makeshift log supports. God forbid that an earthquake or associated tidal wave ever reach this delicate town.

On our third day, Zanzibar was transformed into Venice: we awoke to heavy tropical rain. In the deluge, drainpipes shot cylinders of water and gutters overflowed. Liquid drapery hung from gutterless corrugated iron roof-edges, crashing into the pavement with surprising energy. Flash flooding turned streets to knee-deep sluices. The newly formed rivers washed away rubbish and stranded small well-behaved children who pointlessly tried to keep their shoes dry on the way to school. Stunned by the transformation, we asked our hotel manager who stood on his front step watching the scene, whether this was a common occurrence. He told us that it usually happens once or twice a year, but that June was very late for the wet season to arrive. The rain soon cleared up, and the locals resumed their activity, taking extra care not to slip on the grip-free cobblestones.

We had our final meal on the island down at the food market, keeping a wary eye on nearby boy and, more importantly, at the end of a length of chain, his waistcoat-wearing pet monkey. I had assumed he was at the market to perform for tourists but he was keeping suspiciously out of their sight. We watched as he waited behind a group of nearby Brits who loudly debated which was the best local beer. He gently pushed the monkey in their direction, but Abu (I can’t imagine a pet monkey by any other name... thanks Disney!) resisted so he pushed harder. He was evidently encouraging the monkey to do what it had not yet been properly trained to do: steal. Just in case the monkey had a change of heart I warned the target: a woman whose exposed bag made for potentially straightforward pickings. It must be pretty easy for the duo to steal a fair amount each night in the darkness, as tourists are distracted by each other and the many local artists trying to sell their paintings and carvings.

Zanzibar seemed to be enduring touristic adolescence. Locals knew that there was money to be made from tourism, but unlike Thailand for example, a country more used to extracting money from impulsive holidaymakers, they didn’t seem to understand that being nice to foreigners is a key part of that. Locals plainly weren’t just being friendly when they wanted to know what we were doing or where we were going. Questions like “What is your schedule for the day?” and “What are you looking for?” weren’t uncommon. Less frequently we would receive more bizarre questions like “are you going to bed?” or, without us having opened our mouths, “Are you from Switzerland?” I hated the idea that it might seem like I think I’m better than them but I just felt like my privacy was being invaded. No matter where I am, if a stranger asks me such personal questions without smiling I’m likely to feel a little uncomfortable. I thought it might be a cultural thing; that perhaps they ask each other the same questions, because I know that it’s that way in parts of Asia. But if it was a cultural habit in Zanzibar, I never saw evidence of it. They were relaxed and cheerful around each other.

The above generalisation about the Zanzibar locals is just that. Shortly after the monkey and its owner had cleared off, Les noticed two boys looking at us. We were a little concerned about the attention, but then one of them plucked up the courage to approach us. He wandered up, shyly crouched down on a patch of lamp-lit grass and introduced himself. He was a school kid who just wanted to practice his English. As we talked, it became clear that he was genuine and just wanted to interact with some foreigners. He told us that it was difficult to talk to foreigners because they usually assume that he wants to ask them for money or sell them something. His friend (shooting us introverted glances from a concrete ledge across the lawn) was apparently afraid to come over for this reason – he was “too shy to talk to tourists”. Soon he joined us, however, and we took the chance to relate to some locals. But the kids were more interested in hearing about us than telling us about themselves. They were heart-warmingly keen to learn about anything we had to say. It was a refreshingly calm way to spend our last night in magical Zanzibar. The next day we took the ferry back to Dar es Salaam. We were headed for Rwanda.

* Interestingly, Africans actually pronounce Tanzania as “Tan-zay-nee-ah” rather than the western “Tan-zah-nee-yuh”. Yet another difference! It’s almost like they’re from a different planet, isn’t it?

** Well, if you’re going to be pedantic I suppose that technically all places have exactly the same amount of history.

*** Among those evacuating the island was seventeen year old singer Freddy Mercury of Queen fame. He was born in stone town to West Indian parents so they were prime targets during the revolution.

**** Les, well experienced in travelling in Muslim countries wore a headscarf during our stay.

Drunken Friends in Mbeya

Again, sorry about the lack of photos. I'll make up for it next time! =)

...

After an arduous journey from the Malawian border we arrived in Mbeya, Tanzania and an affable hotel manager showed us to a room. It was clean, the beds were sheeted, the showers were hot, and the toilets sittable... and all this for the unheard-of total price of US$2 (US$0.66c each! I have been trying to reduce the amount I talk about prices, but that one deserves a special mention.) We had arrived just in time to have dinner at the hotel restaurant before it closed, so while the food was prepared, Gav and I headed off to fetch some beverages. A moonlit dirt track led us away from the main road towards some ratty buildings that, intuition told us, looked like the type to sell booze. Only one of the shacks emitted artificial light so, like nocturnal insects, we excitedly scuffled towards it*. Sure enough, it was a bar, and the rowdy gang within greeted us with the kind of cheers and woops reserved only for foreigners. Flustered by the attention, we couldn’t help but have our spirits lifted as we met and gret, reciprocating lively handshakes from all angles.

The staggering variety of beers behind the barred-up bar (security, I guess) just added to the confusion. Each new country we visited had its own brands, but Tanzania seemed especially alcohol-prolific... which is odd, considering its population is one-third Muslim and therefore banned from booze! Lacking any knowledge of local beverages, we bought three of the bar’s highest-alcohol-content beers (our selection criterion was cause for bar-wide delight) but when we tried to leave, the bartender regrettably informed us that we couldn’t take them with us. She needed the bottles to exchange for new, full bottles (A fantastic system used in many of the countries we visited). We were saved the difficult task of working out how to carry the beer back to the hotel without bottles when one of our new friends stepped in: “don’t worry”, he announced, puffing out his chest and shooting us a proud smile, “I will vouch for them. If they don’t bring the bottles back, put the cost on my tab.” The bartender nodded reluctantly. It was another example of white favouritism, but one we weren’t about to protest. We thanked the man, promised to fulfil our end of the deal, and headed back out into the night towards the hotel.

The next night we found ourselves wandering into another bar (Two nights in a row? Yeah, we needed to wind down, OKAY!) and on the receiving end of a similarly rambunctious greeting. Les and Gavin distracted the locals while I sneaked towards the bar to order some beers. The barlady hoisted three huge 750ml bottles down from the shelf, but I stopped her before she could grab the bottle opener: “are there not any cold ones?” She replied with a hint of annoyance that of course there were cold ones: I was stupid to even ask. In many parts of Africa, locals like their beer room temperature for some reason. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism to avoid disappointment during the many inevitable power cuts, or maybe it’s one of those wacky British traditions carried over from colonial days.

I slumped into the old couch between the other two, and shook hands with the two men looming over us: an energetic, cheerful twenty-something and an older, stately, quieter character. The older man regaled us with details of his life: growing up in a mission, becoming a man of maths and retiring. However, it seems that even in Africa, accountants aren’t the most entertaining of people so when the younger guy butted in, it was a welcome distraction. He said seriously, and much to our amusement, “I will come down to Mzungu (I will come down to white person)” as he squatted down in front of the couch, “The old man didn’t retire! He was fired for stealing from the government!” The accused just shook his head and assured us that the Youngster was full of it, but in fewer words.

Just then, a middle-aged man walked into the bar. Before he could introduce himself, the Youngster did it for him, “This fellow is VERY funny! He is a comedian.” And he wasn’t wrong. Even though we had three men now fighting for our attention, the Comedian stole the show. At one point he complained, stand-up style, about how much children cost. His daughter had spent $10 of his money at the salon that day getting her hair done and we all agreed that, yes, women DO like to spend our man-money on frivolous things. He pulled out his wallet and inside the front flap was a photo of his daughter, “here she is”, he announced but the girl in the photo wasn’t more than three years old, and almost completely bald. “But... she doesn’t have any hair!” I said. “I know!” he exclaimed with wide eyes, “that’s the problem!”

As the banter continued between us and the Comedian, the Youngster laughed and the Accountant shot them disapproving, you-are-wasting-our-foreign-friends’-time, looks. There was tension between the three and I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t so obvious: they were competing for our attention. For example, each claimed to have the finest English skills, and as they fought for the title they directed their argument in our direction rather than at each other. The Accountant claimed that his skills were the best, “I was brought up in a mission! They taught me everything I know, including correct English” to which the Youngster replied “But you only speak dictionary English, old man! I know how to talk to the Mzungu. You don’t know anything!” The Comedian just cracked jokes about being so good at the language that he made us “Europeans” look like WE were the ones from Africa. He spoke slowly and pronounced his words clearly for our non-English-speaking benefit, and the Youngster pealed off with roars of laughter.

While the ruckus continued above our couch, two Maasai** warriors across the bar, clad in bright red patterned robes/sheets (Shúkà), drank their water and quietly observed, smiling inquisitively. The Maasai are one of the best known African ethnic groups and their nearly 1 million strong population is evenly shared between northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. The region, commonly known as Maasailand, spans a maasive area between the two countries of somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 square kilometres. It includes, among other National Parks, the famous Serengeti NP in Tanzania and its continuation across the border into Kenya, the Maasai Mara National Reserve. However, descriptions of land area are somewhat meaningless for the Maasai because they’re a semi-nomadic people. Their wealth is traditionally defined by number of cattle (and children, actually) because land is not individually owned.

They didn’t have their children or their cattle with them, so it was impossible to tell the status of the two men who were now nomadically wandering across the room towards us. Their red-robed bums were perched on some stools near our couch (putting the semi- back in semi-nomadic) so they could more closely observe the action. They didn’t seem to speak a word of English, but laughed shyly, entertained at the energy of the conversation in lieu of any understanding of its content. Les, who was sitting closest to them, took an interest, and tried to communicate, but hand gestures were her only tool. However, despite vocabulary limitations, they managed to get along, shaking hands, teaching each other names for various objects and rolling their eyes at the other guys. Usually people from remote communities in the developing world get uncomfortable or scared when trying to communicate outside what they are used to, but these guys seemed relaxed enough to just enjoy the company.

Something the Comedian used as a throwaway remark that night interested me: “You are Mzungu...” he said to the three of us before waving idly in the direction of the Youngster and the Accountant, “so you have bigger brains than these two”. We argued, of course, but he didn’t seem to grasp the problem with his statement. This was the same kind of self-racism that we had experienced many times in the preceding months. As I’ve discussed, just the night before it was assumed that we were “more trustworthy” by the guy at the bar who had taken responsibility for our borrowed glassware. Although this skin-colour-based assumption was misplaced, the fact is that locals are unlikely to ever come across our race’s less savoury half so their positive view will remain unchanged. A petty thief is unlikely to bother visiting Tanzania, let alone this local bar in this small town. White travellers they are likely to meet will continue to be either: friendly, open-minded lefties who want to learn new things about the place; or one of the many money-grubbing, business-minded, technologically-superior righties who infest the region (I don’t see a political bias creeping into my writing, do you?) In any case, white people are seen as “mentally-superior”, educated donators of food, rulers of the educated world and inventors of many a technological wonder. Good, intelligent people. That said, however, it’s nice to be automatically respected and trusted, and I can’t argue that the trust was misplaced (we returned the borrowed bottles later that night). I only wish we had the chance to earn his trust on our merits rather than by default.

The ironic thing is that this prejudiced attitude is a product of historical racism as a result of the late 19^th century colonial occupation of much of the continent. Even as the eastern and southern African nations were pillaged (not to mention the northwest), the Caucasian (majority) countries in the north boomed, boosted by the resources and slave labour arriving via ships from the south (Zanzabar on the Tanzanian east coast was one of the major African slave-trade shipping routes, which I’ll talk about more in the next entry.) Therefore, it seems that because of a lack of scruples in the past, whites are considered superior in the present? We are looked up to as more intelligent because of our ability to conquer, enslave, and demean others! Was there ever a more fucked up logic?

Often, along with comments of white superiority came comments of wealth. The locals we met knew that we had more money than they did, but they didn’t resent us for it; they unquestioningly respected us. Many people took the attitude that “you are richer than us because you are smarter”, which is not a pleasant thing to have to argue against, and when we did argue, it must have caused internal conflict: what do they do? Keep their “inferior” opinions, or alter them to match the “smarter” white person’s views? We apparently know better, after all!

Perhaps it was more a view of western superiority rather than white superiority, with one of their main windows to the western world being through African American rappers’ music videos (hugely popular in Africa, for one obvious reason: race... not quality of content. Obviously!) I was never sure whether they saw African Americans as Americans or as their own kind, separate to the western world, but working alongside it. In any case, they certainly saw them as successfully taking advantage of the western system: capitalism.

As the African American rapper, 50 Cent so eloquently says in the track, “In Da Club”:

“And you should love it, way more then you hate it; Nigga you mad? I thought that you'd be happy I made it; I'm that cat by the bar toasting to the good life; You that faggot ass nigga trying to pull me back right?”

Or when he raps about the ghetto in this self-inflated line from the highly originally titled, “In Da Hood”:

“I'm hot boy, I told you before; Got that Benz and that Hummer off the showroom floor; I know you hate it when I pop up, wrist all rockedup***;...”

Or as in the song “In Da Livingroom”:

“Like a pimp I’m chillin’ on my velour couch with my hoes peepin’ at my bigass plasma; while you do shit like read books because your oldschool CRT just don’t cut it;...”

Ok. I made that last one up. I would try and find more actual examples if reading them didn’t inspire me to jump straight out the window. But the point remains: The superficial, triumphant subject matter – “I was in the ghetto but look where I am now” and “I am rich because I am awesome” – must teach African viewers that we, in the western world, are entirely responsible for our own success. While this is true to some extent, the problem is that they think the reason we are able to succeed is because we have superior mental hardware. They don’t see that it’s merely our good fortune to be brought up in a world where success is just more obtainable. If they understood that we are the same, and have the same individual potential, perhaps the culture of laziness I observed in Africa would be a thing of the past.

* Why, incidentally, do moths come out at night if they like light so much? Is it that daytime is just too much of a good thing? Sickly?

** Maasai is the traditional spelling, so I’m sticking to that. It’s a contraction of ‘maa-sai’, ‘my people’

*** In the hiphop world “rocks”=”diamonds”, so I assume the verb to “to rock” means “to decorate with bigass diamonds”.

Leaving Malawi

Unfortunately Malawi, like Mozambique, was going to finish badly for us. We hitchhiked north away from thievery ground-zero (the Ilala ferry and Nkhata Bay) and towards the border, catching a ride with a trucker who was actually going all the way to Mbeya on the Tanzanian side. Truckers have to go through complicated border control though, so we parted ways at the town of Lponga on Malawi’s periphery, agreeing that we might see each other on the other side in the morning.

At the border the next day we searched in vain for an official money changer, ignoring the countless black market changers wagging their wads of assorted currency. The many backpackers’ tales of swindling had left us wary of such dupers. However, when we found that the official rate at the border was a shocking 6.9 Tanzanian Shillings per Malawian Kwacha (it was worth 10 according to xe.com), we reconsidered. The black market guys seemed nice enough, but wouldn’t give us the deal we wanted so we bartered towards compromise while skulking in the shadows. Policemen patrolled the dirt pathways that grouted the village’s tiny square buildings together and when one was detected, the horde would disperse. Calculators were sheathed, cash pocketed and moneychangers scuttled through doorways and down alleys. We would spin on the spot, not sure where to look or what to pretend we had been doing. The police would lecture the slower members of the group (in English for our benefit) but either because the cops didn’t really care, or because they couldn’t arrest anyone unless money was seen actually changing hands, once their spiel was spilled they would stroll off around a different corner, allowing the civil disobedience to resume.

We hoped to find a better deal on the other side of the border so once all box-ticking and visa-paying was complete, we asked one of the friendly staff where money exchanges could be carried out. There was no official money changer so our only option was the black market. He even called a friend who he said we could trust, but the rate offered was terrible so we decided to try our luck outside. Moneychangers, thanks to a lack of regulation, thrive on the Tanzanian side of the border. This was our last chance and the constant haggling was becoming tired so any reasonable offer would do at this point but only unreasonable offers were made, so the bartering continued. We were coming to the end of our tether when a large, imposing man pushed his way through the mob, agreed to the number we had been punching into calculators for fifteen minutes and handed the requested cash over. We counted it and it was all there so Gavin handed ours over. Just as we thought the deal was done and Gavin was pocketing the money, the man held up his hand, palm forward, and shook his head. He punched a number into a calculator and held up the device, dwarfed in his hands, for us to see. He hadn’t accepted our offer at all! Gavin was so infuriated that he grabbed the money from the man’s hand and shoved ours back in its place. Les and I agreed about how frustrating all this was as Gavin counted the cash. Trickery seemed impossible because we were so careful to keep an eye on the guy the whole time, but sure enough: we had been swindled. The equivalent of AU$30 was missing and the guy had run off! I ran around the corner after him, but aside from a woman clothes washing, the alley was empty. Like Keyser Söze, poof: he was gone, and we were left with nothing but the bitter, lingering tang of touristic naivety hanging in our mouths. We had been so careful to watch out for deceit but we had been fooled nonetheless and it felt like crap.

Livid and mortified at our own stupidity we pushed through the remaining crowd, who pretended, honour-among-thieves-style not to know the man, and headed off down the road with no plan and only a few remaining Malawian Kwatcha. The town was undoubtedly ATM-less, so we had to hope that the truck driver was still around. He had accepted Malawian money on the other side, so we figured he was bound to allow us to pay using that same currency a second time. Ten minutes walk down the shabby road among familiar village buildings was a truck stop and parked between two other brightly coloured monsters was a familiar-looking semi: the American flag on the dashboard was the giveaway. Around the back of the building was a bar, and sitting with some friends, glowing like a beacon of hope, was our truckie. I approached, and he turned to see me, grinned massively: “I’ve been waiting for you!” he exclaimed with a slight slur. The man was drunk! I didn’t know what to say to this, but he continued before I could come up with anything, “We will leave in five minutes!” I thought about protesting, but we I figured we no longer had a choice. Gavin and Les agreed: we were without useful money and ages away from the nearest cash machine. Ironically, we needed this tipsy truck driver to get us to safety.



The door swung open with an unlubricated squeak and our driver hoisted himself up into his seat and started the engine while slotting a full bottle of Carlsberg Green* into the drink-holder next to his seat. Gavin, Les and I, sitting behind him on his bed, exchanged a three-way look of concern and the Malawian woman in the passenger seat shot a fleeting glance back in our direction, seemingly trying to gauge our reaction. I gave her what I hoped was a significant, wide-eyed, high-eyebrowed look that said: “we’re not cool with this”, but left it at that. The driver was less tipsy than I previously thought; perhaps he had been playing it up for his friends. Whispering undetected under the drone of the engine, the three of us agreed that we would keep an eye on how he was driving and step in if he tried to have another beer. His driving was too fast, but nothing out of the ordinary, so we held our tongues... until he grabbed another bottle from his bag. With the Malawian woman’s assistance, we prevented him from opening it. He was understandably miffed about the intervention until Les calmly explained that ever since our car accident in Mozambique we had this weird, irrational fear of speeding drunk drivers. The situation was under control and things were looking up. That is, until we were reminded of what it was like to travel in a truck. Thirty minutes later the huge vehicle jerked and CHISHHH-ed to a halt at the side of the road next to a huge pile of bananas. The driver switched off the engine and got out to talk to someone. After a brief conversation, a single shrivelled man shifted the tropical mountain, bunch-by-bunch, two metres up and three metres to the east, onto the bed of the truck.

This hitchhike was my African low point. It provided time for painful reflection, the star of the show being the wide open mental laceration left by the ferry robbery. The mood in the cabin, although relatively upbeat, seemed a little forced. We were attempting to not let the negativity take hold but it was difficult; I was frustrated, weary and fed up of the bullshit. I didn’t want anything as melodramatic as to “get out of this place”, I could make do with a hot shower and a comfortable bed to sleep it off. Despite my minimal needs, I never dared believe that my wish might be granted so it was a pleasant surprise when, after six hours (but less than 150km) of stasis within the cabin of eternal delay, I found myself in receipt of these comforts and more. We had arrived in Mbeya, our first Tanzanian locale and things were starting to look up!


* Unlike nearly all other African countries we visited which have their own brands, the Danish beer company Carlsberg holds the beer market in Malawi. In fact the Carlsberg Malawi Brewery, established in 1968, was the first Carlsberg brewery outside Denmark!