In Africa XIV

XIV

Music

I was talking to an American Doctor who is here working with the CDC. We were talking about the experience. We somehow got to music and I told him that our oldest son Rick is in Malawi now working on his Doctorate in Ethnomusicology, and that he had spent a lot of time in Malawi working with and making music. I told him that Rick’s wife is from Malawi although they met and married in South Bend, Indiana. He then reminisced about having worked in Malawi in the late sixties with the Peace Corps. He was talking about the drumming. He would always hear drums particularly in the late afternoon and evening. All traditional rhythms; sending messages, accompanying dance, or just simply soothing the soul. He wondered if the drumming – traditional drumming - still existed in Malawi. He hoped that was the case, although we talked about the fluid nature of everything especially music and especially in this age of computers, television, the internet and social media.

Tuning drums by the fire

Watching the fire

Checking the drums

A few weeks ago I was at the Police College in Kidatu attending a function to close a particular training session. As part of the activities for the day, they had two groups of local dancers and drummers. As we waited for the event to begin, well, actually waiting for the arrival of a local political dignitary, I was watching the dancers across the road in the edge of the woods standing around several fires. I asked the official in charge what they were doing. She said that they were heating the drumheads. Normally they let the sun heat them to the proper tension, but since this was fairly early in the morning they were using fires.

The dancers

The drums themselves are very traditional, made from metal drums and buckets and some from wood, all with hides stretched over the ends. It is the hides that were being heated to give the correct pitch. The drummers tended the fires keeping them at a certain level. They tested the drums, tapping in the center, then on the edges, then putting them back in front of the fire; later tapping the heads again. Finally the drums were tuned appropriately. The drummers brought them out and placed them in the sun to wait the final minutes for the performance.

Young but professional

I can’t say that the dress was particularly traditional; enough to convey the idea of what the dress in this region had been perhaps in Livingstone’s time. One of the traditional accessories the dancers wore were ankle cuffs made from nutshells and worn to add a rattle type of sound as the dancers moved. One of the groups had a young boy of perhaps 10 years old as the focal point of their performance. He was in fact quite talented and proved to be a real “trooper.” As he began his performance one of his ankle cuffs came loose. He, without hesitation, bent over picked it up, moved to the back of the group and laid it out of the way, and went back to the front and continued dancing. The show must go on.

But the doctor and I have now speculated that music is much different in Malawi than it was when he was there in his youth. Our son is testament to that fact. He has spent a lot of time in Malawi, from his college experience as an exchange student, to operating a recording studio in Malawi, to promoting a CD of his style of African music, to finally his doctoral fieldwork. As I listen to what he and his Malawian colleagues have done, even in my untrained ear, I note the incorporation of the influences that the “internet age” makes so available to the most remote parts of the globe today. He speaks of the interdisciplinary nature of ethnomusicology. I only observe that the world is ever shrinking even as the population of the planet increases. There is a homogeneity emerging that always existed, it is just now, because of the speed of communications, expressing itself in ways that we can all easily feel affinity with regardless of our place of origin. The drums still beat. If it is in fact a less exotic rhythm, it is one to which we can all relate.

Until Next Connection,
Dan

In Africa XIII

XIII

Daily Life

Whether you live in Michigan or Florida or Tanzania, life has a tendency to take on a routine. Days begin in the morning and continue until night and are followed by another, and then another; in succession. Occasionally events interject themselves to add an emotional break from the routine, but mostly one day is pretty much the same as the others.

Food and Craft fair at Oyster Bay Shopping Center

Locally grown and produced items for sale

Mine begins with a drive to work. Monday through Friday from early morning until 10:00 or so, then again starting at around 2:30 in the afternoon until 6:00 or so in the evening, is rush-hour in Dar es Salaam. The skyscrapers in the City Center are filled with people who mostly drive in from the surrounding area. There is bus service in small city busses called Dolla-dollas (from the term dollar dollar, having to do with the fare at some point in local history), but they crowd the streets along with cars, taxis, boda bodas (or picky pickys (motorcycles)), and bajais (three wheel motorcycle taxis), with pedestrians walking on the pavement, and push carts, bicycles, etc. From where we live it is a ten-minute drive without traffic and a half hour to an hour in the mornings and afternoons. The exotic nature of the drive has long ago disappeared; only the fear remains, tempered by the fact that the vehicles move so slowly that serious injury is usually not likely.

Preparations for a wedding at Sea Cliff Hotel

Dhows sail through the mooring field at the yacht club

Part of the yacht club's yard 

The Commodores from 1933 to present

Yacht Club beach.
The club has nearly a quarter mile of shoreline on the peninsula

As we sit waiting for the traffic police to move us along, I sometimes look at my surroundings and remember how exotic the Masaai looked walking along the streets, when I first arrived, as well as the coconut sellers and street vendors, and the women dressed in colorful dresses carrying their loads on their heads, and the traffic police themselves dressed in white uniforms. Once a routine is established, the exotic tends to become a part of it.

The morning commute. Signs for the Syrian Exhibition

Seems life goes on everywhere

Russian Embassy across Bagamoyo Road
at the junction of Kenyata Drive

Traffic policeman

So on the ride into work I watch the ships anchored in the Indian Ocean waiting to enter the port at Dar es Salaaam; sometimes counting to see if more have come or if some have indeed been able to off-load their cargo and move on to the next port. The fishermen begin their routine early and are already working as I eat my breakfast at home. They live on the beach in front of my house. The little beach village has its own routine that includes the same rituals we all abide and of course tending the dhows, the workboats providing their livelihood. On the drive, I watch them sailing in their dhows or paddling their dugouts, or laying nets. At low tide I see the flamingos scooping the sea life from the pools of water in the creek as we cross the Salander Bridge. Then note whether the coconut sellers are out along Ocean Road – now Barack Obama Road, or if the school children are getting exercise playing soccer on Aga Khan Beach.

School children having gym class on the beach

Woman and her wares

Masaai walking on the street.
Their sandals are often made from old tires

I can’t necessarily say that our routine is the same as the average Tanzanian, but neither is our routine the same as every other person’s routine at home. Our lives adjust to our circumstances wherever we find ourselves. Here, we live in an area populated by expats from many different places, mostly developed countries in North American and Europe and of course many South Africans. Expatriates in most countries, particularly developing countries, tend to live in an area in close proximity to each other, and tend to surround themselves with things familiar to their culture, such as schools, restaurants, supermarkets carrying “Western” items, meat markets and delicatessens all catering to the “expat” community. The International School of Tanzania (IST) is here on the peninsula. Nearby is a medical clinic staffed by European doctors.

City Bus or Dolla Dolla

Dolla Dolla stop near the ferry terminal in City Center

Boda Bodas with passengers also called picky picky
Boda bodas take the space between lanes and avoid the jam

The hotels are modern and well equipped. The apartments and houses are designed to give those people who work for companies or governments from Europe and North America the comforts of home. Nearly all of the ambassadors from nearly every country in the world live on the Msasani Peninsula, in Oyster Bay or Masaki. It is a bubble – an expensive but tolerable bubble in an otherwise very poor country.

Shoppers Supermarket.
Everything we need - when they have it 

Cape Town Fish Market Restaurant near our home

With any such similar circumstance – wealth amongst poverty, crime gravitates toward the wealth. So we are mindful and vigilant. The modus-operandi among thieves here is for innocuous looking cars of silver or white with dark windows to drive by and grab bags, purses or backpacks from Westerners (Mzungus – white people) who dare walk the along the roads of the peninsula carrying such items. There are other methods of robbery that we are made aware through a variety of mechanisms. All in all, it is the typical rich-poor, have-have not, scenario. But here, among the ”haves” it is more than preservation of wealth, it is in a very real sense preservation of life. Those without means are seemingly neither personally affected by the injury or death they often inflict, or are they in any meaningful way fearful of being apprehended by the authorities. But there are not other options. We are very much relegated to living in the bubble and relegated to defending ourselves against those who suffer and whom we are trying, in many cases, to help. It is just part of the contrasts of Tanzania.

Light Sunday lunch at the Cape Town Fish Market Restaurant

Looking across the bay from the restaurant to our house

But expat communities the world over, and especially in developing countries, try to create a bit of “home” in otherwise unfamiliar surroundings. So, in Bangladesh the various clubs were created to accommodate the expat community; the American Club, The Australian Club, the British Club, the Canadian Club, the International Club. And in Kyrgyzstan the Russians long ago, when they began to “colonize” the Central Asian Republics, brought with them the opera, the symphony, puppet theatre, ballet, parks with fountains, and so on. It is no different here in Tanzania. The yacht club, of which we are now members, is eighty years old this year. The annual formal ball acknowledged the event. The club is something that the British created to make life for their expatriated citizens more tolerable in what was then even more of a hostile environment.

80 years for the yacht club of Dar es Salaam

Because of the heat,
For the men, red tie and cumberbun are considered formal,
or kilts - and there were many

Here, as in all countries where we have lived, the women of the workingmen (mostly, but we can say spouses now) have their own clubs to keep themselves occupied in strange surroundings. In Kosovo and Kyrgyzstan it was the International Women’s Club. Here it is the Corona Club, but the purpose and function is the same; activities for spouses who have accompanied their mates to a strange land. There is bridge, mahjong, beach days, shopping, lunches and the like. These are great social groups that help the spouses, but also the working partners, meet other people in like circumstances. But mostly it gives spouses activities; and with regular activities, routines develop. So in our situation, I have my routine and Sharon has hers.

...and on the beach, life in the fishing village also goes on...

We live in a compound; fenced in, guarded, but otherwise comfortable. My driver takes me to work every day. Then he takes Sharon where she needs to go. The housekeeper tends to things like cleaning and laundry. Our lives go on the same one-day to the next. And beyond the wall on the beach, the fishermen have routines of their own; building a fire to cook a meal, hanging freshly laundered clothes on a line strung between a scrub tree and a pole stuck into the sand, and of course tending to the boats, and going fishing. They play soccer. They lift weights made from concrete poured into abandoned cans. They visit with each other. They sleep on the sand, head propped on a driftwood log. They work day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year. In a way, a very real way, they are no different than we are.

Until Next Connection,



Dan

In Africa XII

XII

A friend from Kyrgyzstan; Trip to Dodoma

We like to say that ‘it’s a small world’ when we see someone in a place far from where we ever would have expected to see them. The world is not small, but the circles in which we move are small. The world in fact is a large place containing more than seven billion people – with a “B” – and growing. The work that I have been doing for the past ten years or so is a narrow sliver of subject matter and is done by an even smaller group of people. The people I followed on my very first project in Bangladesh, I met on my second project in Kosovo. One I replaced and the other I eventually hired as my deputy. A colleague of mine from my prior career hired my deputy from Kosovo to his first international job. A fellow I knew in Kosovo I met again in Iraq. There are even more connections when we move to the second degree. We recently met a guy in Zanzibar who was working in Iraq and worked with a fellow I worked with in Iraq; and on it goes. Not surprising then that my wife recognized someone we knew from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in a local hotel here in Tanzania. That person, it turns out, is working here on an unrelated project and will be here for a year or so. The plus side of this is that these seemingly random reconnections bring a sense of familiarity and continuity to otherwise strange and unfamiliar surroundings. Or should I just simply say; it’s a small world.

Road to Dodoma

It was in October that I went to Dodoma. It was part of the preparations which we did before the project actually started in January. Dodoma is the national capital of Tanzania since 1973. The National Assembly moved to Dodoma in 1996, but nearly all government offices remain in Dar es Salaam. Its central location, existing infrastructure, room for expansion and moderate climate made it a logical choice. These attributes, however, are not enough to overcome the desire of leaders to remain in the cultural and economic center of the country; Dar es Salaam. Dodoma is also the capital of the Dodoma Region and the home of a “Zonal Office” of the agency for which I consult. I, therefore, made the trip.

Villages

The trip to Dodoma is, like all trips by road in Tanzania, long and tiring. It is a six-hour trip across generally good paved roads that are interrupted all too frequently by small villages and speed bumps. The traffic police in Tanzania patrol the highways and streets by standing along the road and waiving violators over to the side of the road as they pass. They do not have patrol cars that we are familiar with in the US. Speed, therefore, is controlled by the frequent interjection of speed bumps into an otherwise open paved road. The road is a two-lane road and, as in the US, is heavily traveled by trucks. The whole process of passing trucks, traversing speed bumps, driving through villages where pedestrians, motorcycles and cars, roadside markets, and even weigh scales for the trucks, add to the mix, becomes a tiring experience.

Drying rice

The urban sprawl of Dar es Salaam thins only slightly until the halfway point to Morogoro at Chalinze where the road north to Arusha diverts from the Morogoro Road. There are still many small villages interspersed with farming of varying sizes but predominated by flora; mangos, bananas, sisal, maize (corn), but not much livestock. Once you get to Morogoro and turn right off the roundabout and head northwest toward Dodoma, the scenery quickly begins to change.

Svannah

It is not far out of Morogoro that the terrain begins to rise slightly but steadily from the near sea level humid tropical environment of Dar es Salaam to open rolling savannah. From the top of every rise, the scrub trees and grasses stretch as far as can be seen; rolling away, punctuated by an occasional baobab tree in the distance, or a herd of goats driven by a Maasai herder, or a red brick house doorless with thatched roof.

Villages are smaller and more sparsely placed. Crops give way to herds of goats and cows, and the Maasai people can be seen in their natural setting; rather than parking cars at restaurants and hotels as they do in Dar es Salaam, they are herding livestock as they have done for centuries. They are the only tribe of the many that were in Tanzania, who has kept their identity. The others have assimilated into a generic Tanzanian culture. A common language and intermarriages together with a strong nationalistic approach taken by the country’s founder and first president, Julius Nyerere resulted in a populace who now identify more with Tanzania than their original tribes. The Maasai are the exception.

Baobab trees in center and left

When we reached Dodoma we were on a high plateau. The city is low rise and unremarkable. We stayed at the New Dodoma Hotel across from the railway station that was built by the Germans in the late 19th century. I am uncertain when the term “New” was connected to the name or to what it refers, but the hotel is actually reminiscent of a time long past. The rooms were very adequate with retrofitted screens on all windows and netting over the bed. The lodgings on two levels surrounded a rather pleasant courtyard with pool, fountains and scattered tables and chairs. This proved to be a very pleasant place to sit and the only place the free wifi had strength enough to access my email.

Dodoma

Dodoma

New Dodoma Hotel

courtyard

Courtyard of New Dodoma Hotel

Dodoma Railway Station

The lobby stretched across the front of the hotel and wound around the corner continuing partly down one side. Two restaurants were situated off the open-air lounge, scattered with arched top pillars. There was a bar and black tied waiters, although few. I actually found myself looking for Sam thinking he may have come there after leaving Casablanca, but the piano stood dignified and silent. There were no crowds there; no smoke filled noisy environs; but the walls clearly held memories, stories that will ever remain untold. I had a quiet dinner at a table for one.

Lounge area with restaurant in back

Lounge area

That October evening was cool despite the waning spring and single digit latitude of the place. To me it is counterintuitive to think of a sub-Saharan African country as having a climate that might at times require a jacket, but most of Tanzania is high enough to escape the heat characteristic of the tropical coast and Dar es Salaam where we live. Everyday I understand more about the continent, its people and its geography. For that I am grateful for this opportunity.

Until Next Connection,
Dan

In Africa XI

XI

Rick comes to Dar; Another trip to Mikumi; Roadside Vendors; Tingatinga

Our oldest son Rick is doing his fieldwork for a Doctorate from the University of Illinois. He worked for six months in South Africa and is currently in Malawi for a second six months. Over a weekend, which happened to coincide with my 65th birthday, Rick came to Dar es Salaam to participate in a symposium at the University of Dar es Salaam. It was good seeing him. The event was covered in the Daily News newspaper as well. It is always great to see you child’s name in print for accomplishments well deserved.

View on road to Police College

He arrived by bus with a friend from Malawi on a Sunday night. He was supposed to arrive at five or six in the evening but a breakdown a few hours outside of Mbeya delayed his arrival until after ten at night. The busses from the regions come to the Ubungo bus terminal on the Morogoro Road on the outskirts of town; actually near the University of Dar es Salaam. I asked Mshamu to come to drive since I knew the traffic would be too much for me.

At theCollege. My Rav 4

The Ubungo bus terminal is an old facility soon to be replaced with a modern terminal area with pavement and well-marked sections identifying which busses will arrive and depart from the designated areas. The current terminal is a large unpaved parking area behind a long stretch of run-down ticket offices beside the Morogoro Road, which is under massive reconstruction. The bus parking area is a free-for-all of busses, cars and taxis, intermingled with vendors. At night there are a scant few lights illuminating the area.

The mountain across the river. A Village is at its peak.
A portion of the dam is at left

There are specific areas for buses from the various towns to park, but they are not marked and if you are not familiar, you are, as we were, left to … well, fend for yourself. We kept in contact via telephone with Rick to know his approximate location. We knew his bus line. When he announced that he was turning into the lot, we saw his bus … or what we thought was his bus. We followed it to the very back of the lot and waited for Rick. After the very last passenger stepped off the bus it was clear that he was not on that bus. We finally made telephone connection asked each other where we were. It was impossible to know or describe anything that was distinctive in the lot of a hundred buses or so and thousands of travelers coming and going.

The town at the base

Mshamu began a systematic search of the large lot. We drove down one lane and up the next – simpler in the description than in the execution. Rick was by a light next to some vendors, not a very narrowing depiction. As we were trying to navigate through a snarl of cars and people, we heard a bang on the car; Rick had found us.

Tomato sellers. Charcoal in the distance in white bags.

The week past was busy with a five-day workshop in Dar es Salaam conducted by a local colleague working on the project, and for me, a second trip to the Police College near Mikumi. The trip is long – a six to eight hour drive – but it is good to see the countryside and experience the environmental and geographic diversity that Tanzania has to offer.

"Canvas' " being made ready

The weather at the police College, which sits atop a mountain in south-central Tanzania, was cool and the air was clean. My “cold” seemed to disappear the three days I was there. The trip was made more interesting by virtue of a power outage at the College. This might be expected but for the fact that the Police College is situated on a site formerly owned by the Tanzanian Power company at the site of a dam and hydroelectric power generating facility. The area is also a game preserve and therefor not developed. A late night storm prior to our arrival knocked a tree over a power line and the College was without power for two days. I was provided a generator to facilitate my Power Point presentation.

Tingatinga shops

The remoteness of the Police College is such that currently there is no mobile phone connectivity and, as a result of the power outage, they had no Internet. On Thursday afternoon, Mshamu and I began the twelve-kilometer drive down the mountain to the town that sits across the one lane bridge at the base of the mountain. Before we left the Police College premises, just past the first of the two gates, the Police College Doctor with white smock over Police Uniform, flagged us down. There was an older woman who needed to be taken to the hospital, or at least to the town below where she could take a bus.

There are a few people living near and around the Police College, their status is still uncertain to me. Across the river on the next mountain there is a village that uses the road to the Police College as their access to town. They travel on foot down their mountain, across the river and up to the Police College access road. The village is a farming community where they grow bananas, cassavas, potatoes, beans, rice and other crops. The people can be seen several days each week beside the road waiting for a bus or a car to transport them and their goods to the town where their produce is sold.

We did not know from where the woman came, but the doctor was insistent that she needed treatment at a hospital. We of course agreed to drive her down – along with her daughter (presumably) and two gentlemen whose relationship to her I am totally uncertain. Three of them used the back seat of my Toyota Rav 4 while one young man climbed into the back luggage area. The road winds through the forest and down the mountain, interspersed periodically with baboons looking for a handout. It is about fifteen minutes or more for the twelve kilometers. We left the woman and her family at the buss stop. I do hope all turned out well for her.

They paint on any object. For sale inside.

Artist working on crocodiles

Mshamu, as is usual with Tanzanians living in cities like Dar es Salaam, wanted again to bring back onions, tomatoes and rice from the “Regions” as those items are cheaper outside of the city. As we had done this on our first trip, we stopped; first in Mikumi to get onions, then on the Morogoro side of the Mikumi National Park where the tomato selling women work the roadside together with the charcoal sellers. The process, like so many things here, is more chaos than order; each woman trying to gain the sale, but all with the same produce at the same price.

These elephants are nearly finished.

Sharon wanted a second hand woven basket and another woven carpet. For these items we stopped near Morogoro at the roadside woven basket and carpet sellers. We stopped at the same place we had on our prior trip since the man with a bad leg and limp gave us such a reasonable price. We were not disappointed. We dealt with his mother this trip, but the prices were the same. It is an interesting phenomenon of human nature that we are offended by those who try to take advantage of a situation. Even at the inflated Mzungu (white person) prices, the cost is minimal, but we just do not like those who will take advantage of our perceived wealth and lack of local knowledge. The woman and her handicapped son have been more than fair and thus get our business.

Artists at work

Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) is a painting style that developed in the second half of the 20th century in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and later spread to most of East Africa. Tingatinga paintings are one of the most widely represented forms of tourist-oriented art in Tanzania, Kenya and neighboring countries. The genre is named after its founder, Tanzanian painter Edward Said Tingatinga.

Wheel covers near the road

Near our home and in the area where the painting style began, in Oysrerbay, there is a bazaar featuring not only numerous Tingatinga paintings on all types of media, but also the artists who actually do the paintings. It is in fact the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society formed by the relatives and followers of Tngatinga himself. While the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society is usually recognized as the most authoritative representative of the Tingatinga heritage only a small fraction of Tingatinga artists are directly linked to this society. The style can be found in everywhere in Tanzania and the East African region. The benefit to us of having this resource so close is that we can have paintings done to order, such as the cups we had painted or the wheel cover for our spare tire. It is not only fun but also interesting and educational to watch these artists ply their craft. They are truly talented.

We had plain white cups

Our wheel cover

Everything is negotiable here among the Tanzanians; art, supplies, foodstuffs, everything. Not always so with those of different ethnic backgrounds. I have said often in this series that this is a place of contrasts. It truly is. So much talent among so many. So much poverty among so many. So much disparity between the haves and those who have not. Among many of the Westerners, there is a response to this, seldom spoken but nonetheless there; we select one or two locals for whom we have respect and affection, and try, in our short time here, to bring them to a higher standard of living. I suppose it is guilt and compassion all intertwined. If it does nothing, it makes us feel better.

Until Next Connection,
Dan