Crumbling Facades...

I for one was keen to leave the teeming humidity of Dar es Salaam. The two hour drive from the camp site through the city was not without incident though as we were stopped by a two-man road block and while G went through his usual routine with the white-clad police, some of the travellers on-board took photographs of the bustle. One of the locals complained to the police who were only too happy to be given a reason to exert pressure in the hopes of exacting another bribe. Apparently, it is against the law to photograph a policeman or soldier executing their duty and the threat of imprisonment was bruskly made while one of the pair climbed into the cab and the other joined the rest of us at the back of the truck. I smile at the irony as I think of Eric Cartman’s ‘authority’ refrain. There is nothing as maddening as a stupid fucker in uniform and I had to bight my tongue as the surly tirade continued for the few minutes it took for us to reach the local police station where a more senior officer took his turn to go through the same uniformed song-and-dance routine of threats and hints that this ‘problem’ could be made to disappear. And disappear it did after a ‘fine’ of 60000 Shillings. This set the tone for my reflections… And the notion of how the façade of democracy quickly crumbles when dealing with career bureaucrats

The sprawling urban slum that comprises most of the city is populated by poor people eking out an existence in un-serviced squalor. Rules of the road are virtually non-existent and prostitution and crime are rife. Yet, most women are covered with burkas and an almost missionary, conservative and ‘traditional’ mind-set prevails. The usual counterfeit brands are worn and the sheer extent of the commerce would imply a definite Western aspiration of the mostly mindless middle-class. Gender roles and social status is for the most part set and unchallenged. There is not much progressive discourse and everyone seems to be either hustling or on the make. But I suppose that the most telling indication of the malaise was the signs along the road through one of the unfenced National Parks that were written in Swahili with a price quoted in US Dollars alongside the names of animals. I am not sure whether these figures are fines for harming the animals or prices for hunting them.

Suddenly I am not surprised that the AU is what it is. A gathering of governments that seem to be playing at being in power while in fact advancing the agendas of the Chinese or the Indians or more traditionally the West and most likely a combination of essentially foreign interests. Corporate securities and capitalist dictates have superseded notions of equality and justice and corruption seems to be the order of the day, while ordinary people go about their lives scratching in the dirt to survive with their heads bowed in prayer and supplication. The scarred and scuffed façade of liberation has crumbled. In Kenya talk of terrorism is front page news and in the City of Dar es Salaam, there is a Barrack Obama Road. Black Africans are still poorly paid labourers who defer to their bosses who in turn – and irrespective of the colour of their skin – are not in business to develop the skills of their workforce but instead – as elsewhere – to make as much profit as possible.

For me it is not enough to be a proud African or for that matter, to mistake arrogance for pride. It is not enough to speak of liberation and democracy or any other noble ideal while your mind has successfully been colonized. Happy to be accepted or even just acknowledged by the oppressor for your ability to unquestioningly assume the values and characteristics of what was once the moral and physical enemy. At the end of the day, it does not matter how bright or shiny the uniform if wearing it allows you to continue to be stupid.

Ripping the night fantastic...

We were stuck in traffic en route to the camp site situated along the coast to the south of the city of Dar es Salaam when suddenly the driver of a light delivery truck jumped from the cab and charged between the cars. After a few minutes he returned despondently and walked around the passenger side of his vehicle before climbing into the cab with his air filter. Someone had stolen the cover.

Later that evening I was returning to my tent after a shower when frantic screaming from the beach drew my attention. One of the guests was charging her phone just outside her tent when one of the locals walked by and casually unplugged the phone and charged down the beach. Needless to say, she was in a state.

Welcome to Dar es Salaam.

Crime was just another part of growing up on the Cape Flats and although I was cautious, I was not too concerned. Shit happens after all: no matter where you are. A few nights later I was asleep when I heard a ripping noise and upon waking I discovered that someone was cutting through the mosquito mesh of my tent. “Jas naai!” was all it took for the fucker to run off into the predawn darkness and by the time I stood naked outside my tent the would-be thief was nowhere to be seen. Pretty much like the security who came ambling up wiping the sleep from their eyes. After a brief investigation, they confirmed that they suspected the guy in the tent next to mine. He was a local who had spent a romantic night with his wife and even though I knew that it could not have been him, they badgered him for more than fifteen minutes and all because he did not get up to investigate when his wife told him earlier that she had heard someone sneaking about outside. Talk about racial profiling. At least I was up in time to watch the sunrise and listen to the boom of the local fishermen using explosives to collect the morning’s catch.

The Sunrise Beach Resort is one of more than a dozen such concessions scattered along the coast and with legislation preventing the fencing off of the beach, the lukewarm water was filled locals enjoying the ocean. This was a welcome sight when compared with South Africa where so many beaches have been privatised and where access is controlled by private security companies. To the right of the fancy resort where day visitors pay 5000 Shillings to enter, was a tiny ramshackle Rasta bar where the inferior strain of local ganja was readily available and where a couple of beach boys and girls hang out every day waiting to be picked up by tourists who come here especially to purchase the endless array of sexual indulgences on offer.

But the flesh trade paled in comparison to the amount of micro enterprises lining every major thoroughfare and side road. Tiny hovels selling every conceivable kind of goods and service. Some with just fresh fruit or a single vegetable while others stocked a wide variety of clothing or foodstuffs with restaurants and pubs and repair shops in between. And every one making some sort of living.

And having shared my blood with the mosquitoes, and sweated through the steaming nights, we prepare once again to depart this sub-tropical paradise where the wind and the waves and the humidity will remain to fan the insatiable desires of foreigners and locals alike.

Magnificently sad...

Bad roads, speed bumps, detours, traffic and a border crossing. It took us close to eight hours to cover just under three hundred kilometres from Nairobi to Arusha on the first leg of the journey. At the Kenyan border G discovered that there was an oil leak and when he tilted the cab to check what was wrong, he discovered that the repair done in Nairobi was shoddy and one of the plugs on the diesel pump was missing – probably because it had not been tightened – but with the help of a piece of broom stick and a couple of screwdrivers, the immediate problem was quickly solved even though G had to (casually) walk across the border into Tanzania with some locals to buy twenty litres of oil.

From the outskirts of Arusha, the bustle slowly intensified with over-laden trucks labouring at the lead of an unruly assortment of cars and buses and motorbikes weaving in between. Ramshackle wooden structures lined the sidewalks with interspersed buildings of a more ‘conventional’ design and every single one conducting some sort of business. Blackened young men selling large bags of coal piled high and held in place with woven string. Down the side roads people were busy living profusely!

We camped at a site just outside of the city where a week before there was a serious flood leaving one of the overland trucks bogged down in more than a meter of mud. Mop up operations were underway and while the group went off to the Serengeti, I stayed behind to breathe. The owners of the Snake Park Camp site are a beautiful elderly South African couple who moved to Tanzania twenty years ago to establish a sanctuary for snakes. Deon helps to manage the facility and is a friend of one of their sons and the few nights I spent chatting to them at the bar reminded me of similarly pleasant times spent with good friends in the Karoo.

On Tuesday morning I walked along the highway to the weekly vegetable market for potatoes and hundreds of traders with bags and boxes of goods were arriving by the busload. As I took it all in, I wondered what the streets of South Africa would have been like if bylaws and policy had not killed informal trade.

Before we eventually left Arusha, we stopped at the Cultural Heritage Museum which has curated the most magnificent collection of African painting and sculpture that I had ever seen – a collection of such scope that it alone could one of ensure the City’s title of being the Capitol of African Art. Intricate sculptures from massive ebony logs, of entire families over the generations, others of folk tales or mythical characters and all with such exquisite craftsmanship and exact detail with one of the larger pieces reputed to have taken eighteen years to complete. And then, housing this mind-blowing overload is the museum itself. Designed by a local architect and artist who created a spiral of continuous wall-and-floor space to accommodate what could comfortably be called a home for the artwork on display. And yet, once again reflecting on my moment of awe, I think about the state of the South African National Gallery in Cape Town with its mostly insipid colonial paintings and marked lack of support of local contemporary artists – let alone the privately owned galleries (such as this) that follow every mindless commercial trend to ensure that great South African art is deemed a foolish cousin to the purely decorative clichés that get scooped up by a piddle of buyers.

Over Land

it is all over land
over stolen land
land stolen over
and over and over again
stolen from the ancestors
the ancestral guardians
over their dead bodies
buried beneath the land
soaked in blood
barely discernible
hardly remembered
the cracking veneer
stolen land fissures
over and over

Random Artwork