Natural Resources...

The near distant roar

Falling water

Epupa

Across

The narrowed river

Angola

Beneath

Manicured thatch

Omarunga

Water

And wind without

Nationality

Without

A continental identity

African

Elemental

Eternally explored

Enslaved

Oppressed

Yet mostly un-mastered

Martyred

Soil

Sons and daughters natural

Resources.

Pornography or prostitution?

It is a combination of cultural pornography and touristic prostitution that further entrenches ideas of being the lesser ‘other’ that is required to afford the perceived superior and foreign other to enter into spaces as if visitors in a zoo where entire countries and histories are on display to be gawked at or prodded and poked.

Throughout Africa, tourism is a big money-spinner and every incident whether the recent mainstream coverage of the outbreak of Ebola or news of yet another Boko Haram attack, has major impacts on an industry that for the main part generates huge profits for private businesses as opposed to what trickles into national coffers through visa fees. And yet tourism is touted as the lifeblood of many impoverished areas where lodge owners engage with surrounding communities through necessity rather than any noble altruistic inclinations. Often these relationships are anything but successful as rows of craft and curio stalls try to attract a tiny trickle of visitors who venture beyond the security gates and then only to have to haggle with well-healed tourists over the value of the trinket. These same tourists think nothing of spending six dollars for a cold beer at the bar and never walk out of a supermarket without whatever it is they wanted, but come to crafters and they get some imperialist joy out of bargaining and trying to impose a price that is based on an underestimated value of what it takes to produce whatever it is they want to fit into their hand luggage for so-and-so a friend or for the corner of the mantle that is standing bare.

Then there are the village tours and township tours where they want to point their cameras at the faces of poverty and desperation that have been coerced into allowing such an invasion through a lack of viable alternatives. The proud people of Africa reduced once again to nothing more than a curiosity. And not everyone, but those who have been sold and have bought the mistruth that there is a living to be made from such behaviour. Despite my reservations though, I have seen the levels of poverty and understand the willingness to be made a subject of scrutiny for a fee, but what I cannot fathom is the type of human being that would get some kind of kick out of visiting the zoo. What kind of latent voyeuristic tendencies must be lurking behind the social veneer of propriety that is more than often presented as the image of western culture and civilization? How easily that façade is cracked when given the opportunity to photograph the naked breasts of an African mother or child?

So whether it is a matter of cultural pornography or touristic prostitution is quite irrelevant! What it is, is fucking wacked!

Morsigge Varke!

Manners maketh man! It is said…

However when travelling through Africa such considerations are not important. What is important are notions of privilege, entitlement, arrogance and the simpleton’s confirmation that sanctions centuries-old preconceptions and confirms opinions gathered from the propagandized mainstream-media.

Suddenly to greet is not necessary and a simple ‘thank-you’ is more than most deserve. Rubbish can be left for someone else to pick up and it is quite okay to leave dirty dishes because someone else will surely clean it: and not to mention when the dishes are done and there are cups and plates and bowls that still have visible streaks and blobs of food. Die varke is kak morsig!

It makes me wonder whether any of these people actually wipe their asses or whether they have a cleaner to take care of personal hygiene as well!

And yet, mention is regularly made of how ‘civilized’ it is to have ice in their gin and tonic after a long, hot day on the road. Or how someone will ‘die for a cup of tea’ and I think to myself “Yes! Please do the world a favour!”

The low-down on the high ground...

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has certainly managed to get things working in the tiny little town of Victoria Falls situated just beneath the falls and close to the border with Zambia. The streets are clean and lined with slick coffee shops, African-themed restaurants and an endless assortment of curio and craft shops catering exclusively to the tourist market.

Over the past few weeks I have had to deal with six different currencies and I had to brush up on my algebra to make sense of the value of these currencies. For instance, in Tanzania where 10000 Tanzanian Shillings is equivalent to about 60 South African Rands, a loaf of bread works out to about R6. At the local OK supermarket in Vic Falls, prices are quoted in US Dollars and a loaf of bread is $1.85. In Dar es Sallam I bought some shorts which cost me around R40, but at the Jet clothing store in Zim, a shorts costs $25.

My dilemma here is twofold. Firstly, how does the average unemployed Zimbabwean survive? And secondly, what’s up with using the American currency while making headlines for a hard core stance on colonial interests and imperialism?

At the massive outdoor craft markets there are hundreds of stall owners who are for the most part trying to earn a buck selling variations of the same carved animals and masks. There are always one or two real artists at these markets whose work makes one stop and take notice; but it saddens me to think that someone like Baino Nyamhondoro has to haggle with dumb-ass foreigners to earn a fraction of what his work is worth. When I visited him he even offered to trade me something for old clothes or food.

And as I said, Victoria Falls is one of the success stories of the current Zimbabwean reality.

The future of the past...

Tanzania gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1961 and two years later in 1963, Kenya and Malawi followed suit.  In 1964 it was Zambia’s turn and finally in 1980 Zimbabwe also became an independent state. Travelling through these countries one is struck by a similar socio-economic reality that is defined by a general infra-structural under-development and widespread poverty.

As a rule, British travellers speak of the brutish colonial past with barely muted pride and refer fondly to historical anecdotes as if oppression then was an act of benevolence. They are largely unaffected by the plight of the people and if possible would prefer to remain at a safe distance from crafters and traders who often feel obliged to harass tourists in an attempt to make just one overpriced sale.

In a sense tour groups are like visitors to a zoo, but in this case entire countries are on display in their cages of poverty and desperation. Towns which have some kind of natural attraction have lost their identity and could be any tourist trap anywhere with quaint and mostly expensive coffee shops, African themed restaurants and of course endless craft markets with sometimes hundreds of stall owners trying to scrape by.

Governments on the other hand are cosying up to the USA through USAID and China for trade deals in which most locals are overlooked or underpaid. Progressive social ideals have been discarded to make way for free markets that ensure international loans and cooperation and the continued outflow of profits to these economic partners. The British are for the most part uninvolved and yet the ‘ordinary’ British citizens who can afford to travel still feel entitled and arrogantly superior with lopsided, propagandized opinions borrowed directly from the international media and Wikipedia.

Having said all of that though, I saw a painting in the Tinga Tinga Gallery in Meserani just outside of Arusha by one of the local painters whose name I forget. It was a village scene with a protest theme and in the centre of the image was a stern looking face staring directly at the viewer with a placard held aloft that read: “African Presidents kill 100 000 people.”

And I sit and wonder what notions of responsibility for freedom and independence mean after all is said and done…

Click...

“Africa is black!”

He shouted angrily

As I walked away

Thinking

“Fuck you!”

Africa is battered

And bruised

Africa is blue

And purple and brown.

All because I wanted to reflect

I wanted to embrace

The whispering lake

And the clouds

And the sunset

And the moment,

But beach-boy couldn’t imagine

That I could be immune

To his golliwog song-and-dance.

Africa still bleeds

The wounds still raw

Festering minds colonized

With carved hands

Grasping for tourist dollars

Passing through

The half-smiling zoo

With bags of medication

And preconceptions intact.

No-one utters a word

The civilized brutality

And prejudice intact

Overlooking the bloodied white hand

Nurturing murderous despots

Pointing manicured fingers

Ignoring the abject desperation

Of a mother drenched and begging

From a passing vehicle with cameras drawn.

The other side of the Tanzanian Shilling...

It’s the rainy season and everything is lush. The most prominent feature of the landscape however is the lack of fencing. Closer to clusters of homes – mostly mud huts with the structural sticks showing through the walls – the land is tilled and planted or being prepared to receive a combination of the various subsistence crops. Larger plantations are worked by co-operatives of local farmers who in some instances are exporting their tea or coffee, but all are able to varying degrees to sustain themselves from the land. Their land and their birth right.

Again, along the streets the crafters and traders are busy: mostly selling Tanzanian products including T-shirts that are being manufactured and printed locally and not made in China… like the road network. The ugly face of poverty is prevalent but there is an industriousness – a wilful and determined drive to survive and beat the odds. And ‘well-off’ implies having the means to simply generate an income without the ugliness of excess. That doesn’t mean that consumerism hasn’t left its mark as the streets are lined with litter and plastic that seems to have become a permanent part of both the urban and rural landscape.

We slept over in a place called Same but pronounced Sami. Sometimes the joy of a comfortable bed is redundant when work finishes late and starts early; last to bed and first to rise and all of that shit… no birds, no worms. Another early morning and another treacherous road through beautiful scenery; with overloaded trucks and the passing smell of brakes or clutch burning and the inevitable avoidable accidents. Jack-knifes, over-turns, head-ons and drivers seemingly falling asleep on sharp bends resulting in trucks and loads hanging precariously from trees above lush and welcoming ravines.

But then there are also the stories about Chogela who cycled from Arusha to Ruaha to negotiate with the chief for land to establish a camp just outside the national park from where he runs tours; and Simba who studied medicine in Germany to return to Iringa where he is planting a medicinal garden just alongside the Isimila stone-age site on land given him by the municipality. As he proudly showed me around the property, he spoke optimistically of the formation of the East African Union and his own plans to open a lodge and develop a cultural tour of the region.

The roads may be fucked but the people are not deterred…