ETHIOPIA AND BEYOND
A new perspective on a journey across North East, East and Southern Africa
(KENYAN EDITION)
WEEK 4 ARRIVAL IN KENYA.
Nairobi and the British council: The value of making connections.
Whilst forming some travel plans back in the UK, one of my UK volunteers from the Raleigh Tanzania program puts me in touch with her family friends in Nairobi: Mandy, who is the regional director for the British council for Sub Saharan Africa and her husband Perry who has worked for the British consular office in Prague, Kuala Lumpar and elsewhere around the world. They agree to put me up in their home in the city, which is a great weight off my mind. I know very little about Nairobi, save for its reputation as the most dangerous city in Africa! It is definitely not a city where one can just rock up and ask for directions in the street. In the words of my Kenyan friend Mary who lives and works in the city, “if you’re a lone white man and you ask for directions, they’ll happily walk with you to their own house where they’ll rob you”. Encouraging food for thought.
Smooth transition from plane to private car.
I’m swiftly picked up at Jomo Kenyatta International airport by Mandy and Perry’s personal driver: a tall skinny Kenyan man called Johnson who drives their shiny new landcruiser to and from wherever he is needed. If I thought Addiss was the architypal modern metropolis of Africa then I had another thing coming when I stepping foot in Nairobi. I can only liken the drive from the airport to the central business district to similar journeys I have made in Madrid and Barcelona: all the same suburban features but with a distinct east African dimension. Large warehouses, cement factories, housing estates, generic hotels and very little in the way of charm or originality. Swathes of hawkers try to flog all manner of edible and non edible goods to drivers and passengers stuck in queues of traffic (one particular chap in a limp santa clause hat actually attempts to sell hot water bottles. An absurd notion in equatorial Africa, even in the relatively temperate city of Nairobi). Then my eyes widen at the sight of the elaborate and comical souped-up intercity buses sporting hot wheels-style flames, New York subway graffiti and American football team emblems. There is an entire menagerie of public vehicles in a rainbow of fluorescent colors, assorted sizes and dimensions, causing traffic congestion, starting their journeys in the city and rumbling across country in every possible direction.
My swahili quota.
I realish the opportunity to finally converse with a native Swahili speaker. Although Johnson is a man of few words and I’m nervous about my rusty swahili to start with. He turns out to be a typically easy going, non critical swahili speaker who is simply glad to have another person to share this language with. It doesn’t take me long to find my tongue and we get chatting about all sorts in no time. Now I fully understand the frustrations I had trying to speak even a little Amharic in Ethiopia: travelling with a good knowledge of the language is incredibly rewarding and is an indispensable tool in all sorts of situations.
A posh neighborhood.
We arrive in a wealthy suburbia where all the houses are double and triple gated with electric fences and 24 hour security guards. We’re waved through three such check points before entering the grounds of the Mandy and Perry residence. It is stunning, something of a little English paradise in the middle of Nairobi. Sitting in their garden with a cup of tea or a glass of wine next to the pool with radio 4 streaming through the wifi, one could easily forget how much man power it has taken to maintain this plot, to water the garden, to wash the clothes, to clean the pool and more importantly to prevent its incursion by armed robbers. Mandy and Perry are exceptional hosts, waiting on me and their close friends and colleagues hand and foot from the minute we arrive to the last second we depart.
A very English gathering.
On Saturday evening a sizeable crowd of people gather in the living room to watch the six nations rugby on a large flat screen, ordering in delicious Indian food from a local restaurant and eating and drinking like kings. Among the guests are heads of security at the British Embassy, owners of a hardliner security firm called KK Security and the manger of a South African beer company which brews a nice dark beer called Castle. In these circles you find only the wealthiest and most distinguished of Kenyans outside of the government. There is only a trace of snobbery (and a healthy sprinkling of gossip) in this open and informal forum for discussion on this fine evening and once the booze gets flowing and glasses are topped up, there is only warmth and humor to be shared.
International Development and Women Empowerment.
One vibrant red haired lady in her mid thirties tells me about her route in to international development work. "I knew what my passion was at the time, which was female empowerment and water infrastructure management at the village level. So I did my research in to which NGOs were engaged in these activities and I submitted my own project proposal to the likely candidates. I was really proactive and it wasn’t long before I had received in country support from an NGO in Indonesia. I spent years here working alongside an Indonesian counterpart with communities and implementing schemes for empowering women in managing water committees, to sustain water supply and to promote gender equality”. I ask her about household and school surveys in villages, the kind I conducted on Raleigh. “Monitoring and evaluation should be mostly qualitative and highly informed. You cannot infer very much about the development of a community from numbers alone. You need to speak to teachers, pupils, women’s groups, village elders and clinical staff to form a clear picture of what is really happening. And you cannot ignore the [complex] roles that tradition, religion, village politics and hierarchy play in the overall dynamic of a community”. I marvel at the get up and go she has and at her success in this strongly competitive line of work.
National security.
Occasionally talk turns to issues of national security, Al Shabaab and the drain on tourism at the coast (numbers of tourists visiting hotspots in Mombassa, Malindi and Lamu island have dropped significantly following sporadic attacks- not primarily targeting tourists- which Al Shebab have taken credit for). One stern chap strongly advises against visiting the coast, reeling off a long list of place names where the foreign office has received intelligence of potential terrorist attacks. Others in the party advise against travelling by public transport to Mombassa. “Just fly, it’s affordable, comfortable and safe!”. Later on Mandy quizzes me on what information her associates have shared with me and then helps to put a few things in to perspective. “It’s about being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Kenya. Just travel without anxiety but keep your wits about you and you’ll be fine”. I have to remind myself what a serious bunch of over thinkers and over planners us Brits are. Self preservation takes president over all our activities at home and abroad and god forbid should we be put ourselves at any risk. At times I feel like all the spontaneity has been zapped from me on this trip owing to this contagious condition. Don’t get me wrong, being the victim of a fatal car accident on the Mombassa road would be awful, but the equivalent disaster on the road from Bristol to London would be just as devastating and equally out of my control (assuming I’m not driving). I later speak about the same security and safety concerns with my Kenyan VSO supervisor Yvonne Komora working in Loitokitok at the Tanzanian boarder. She giggles throughout the conversation- in part owing to her bubbly personality and part owing to her very east African perspective on these issues. “VSO, on whose authority i don’t know- told us not to travel to Mombassa although we have been doing so for years. One day we just started going again and it was absolutely fine. VSO scared me. It’s a shame that the program was discontinued in Malindi due to security concerns [of the British government]. In my opinion Malindi is safe and will [continue to] be in the future”.
Sunday recreation.
Perry kits me out with a wicked mountain bike and a map of the Kakura forest nature reserve in the city and I head out with Johnson in the car to let off some steam. Here I surely bump in to the entire under 30’s British population of Nairobi: young couples out jogging and groups out with SLR cameras looking for wildlife shots. There is also steady footfall from Kenyan church groups arriving from their morning masses to go on leisurely Sunday afternoon walks, stopping for sandwiches by the side of the path. When their subtly patronising greetings of “jambo rafiki” are met with some of my favorite Swahili slang, they laugh in suprise; “huyu bwana anajua kiswahili”. I can’t help but be a little smug. I tear it up on dirt tracks for a few hours and then head back to the house to take a dip in the pool.
High security home for a good night’s sleep. Top right: Johnson waits patiently on the patio with Mandy and Perry’s two dogs for me to pack my bag. He ferries me around town day and night; top right and bottom, bars on every window connected to an intruder alarm. In the back ground electric fencing to deter intruders. All this for a safe night’s sleep.
Tearing it up on Perry’s mountain bike at a nature reserve in the middle of Nairobi on sunday morning. A tranquil muzungu haven!
Local schemes for a global community.
Mandy is due to fly out to Malawi the following morning to monitor the progress of the British council’s projects in this country. It is within her power to downsize or even close these British council posts if she concludes that they are not adhering to the council’s overall mission, or that perhaps that their man power would better utilised elsewhere. Although she must make these decisions in consultation with a board of directors. Although she is not engaged in community work in the field, she oversees some very interesting projects which link secondary school pupils in the UK and Malawi and equip Malawian youth with business and entrepreneurship skills. Perry regularly donates to a small business initiative operating in multiple African countries which provides small start ups with interest free loans between £500 - £1000, which are repaid to the scheme by the business owners as they expand and turn over a profit.
Mandy tells me about another neat little project set up by a group of ordinary Ethiopian women which has seen the installation and maintenance of clean portaloos at the major bus stations in Addis Ababa. These portaloos are intended for women who work as conductors on buses and prior to the availability of regular toilet breaks were suffering from renal problems as a result of holding it in all day. A serious issue which has been tackled at the community level. The women maintaining these toilets kindly receive donations from customers for the cost of upkeep and actively encourage men to use the loos instead of urinating on walls out in the open. The next stop on Mandy’s itinerary is Zambia, where she will have a similar supervisory role, before returning to Nairobi on the weekend. I’m not suprised to learn that she has visited almost every nation in Africa during her three year stint as regional director on this continent. Mind blowing.
Road safety.
Perry and I meet a friend of his from India in a smart restaurant where we eat Mombassa melts- cheese sandwiches with chapati in the place of bread- in the afternoon sunshine. He curses the awful driving and corrupt traffic police in Kenya, comparing it to the situation in Delhi in India. “What Kenya needs is incentives and education on safe driving. It’s not just corruption that is the problem. In Delhi the government invested in a shiny new metro system and the public took pride in it. At the same time a particularly cut throat female traffic police Sargent would discipline traffic cops who were seen not to be fining drivers for even the most minor of traffic offenses. There was a rapid attitude change in the city. People were proud of their reputation for increased safety”. I couldn’t help thinking that Nairobi could do with a similar scheme. The traffic here and the attitudes of drivers is disgusting.
Meeting an old acquaintance.
Perry puts his car and driver at my disposal on Monday evening and I arrange to meet my old acquaintance Mary at a Nakumatt Mega coffee shop for a long overdue catch up. She’s not changed a bit, and has the same dry sense of humor. She says unashamedly “you British are the reason Al Shabab is targeting Nairobi. All the big shopping centres are full of rich white people and our government has involvement in many of your country’s affairs”, almost in the same breath she says “sort me out with a job at the British council, they pay very well, all I need is Ksh 50,000 a month and I can have my own car”. Of course all this is said in humor and she never makes a bold statement without a beaming smile to soften the blow. Later we persuade Johnson to drop Mary off at her place and I attempt to keep up with their rapid conversations in a mixture of English and Swahili- or Sheng (Slang) as it is popularly referred to in Nairobi- on the way. Mary shows me her flat- or rather her room with a bed, charcoal cooking stove and a postage stamp bathroom-where she lives a very modest but tidy lifestyle. Next to the bed is a large suitcase brimming with immaculately folded clothes. Bible quotes and gaudy images of a white Jesus and several Chinese looking children help to liven up the plain white interior. These posters can be found in the living rooms of just about every Swahili family able to afford them. This is a very fleeting visit but I’m glad to have had the opportunity to gain an insight in to Mary’s home and work life. Johnson battles traffic congestion on the way back to the house, evidently frustrated by the slow progress but having enjoyed the outing. He’s a cool customer and not just because he’s paid well for his work. A classically reserved but self assured Kenyan, what a legend.
Kwaheri Nairobi.
The following morning Johnson is back, this time to ferry me to the matatu stage which serves Loitokitok, the next stop on my unconventional tour of Kenya. I say goodbye to Perry, he gives me his and Mandy’s phone numbers and his assurance that if I run in to trouble anywhere on the continent, he’ll surely have a local contact who will endeavor to assist me. I know I’ve landed myself some exceptionally caring and well connected acquaintances which I should never take for granted. Johnson drives us right through downtown Nairobi, beeping the horn as we go to part crowds of shoppers, to a bus stand I would never have been able to locate on my own. I squeeze in to the back seat of a matatu for the twentieth time and buy a nice Quartz watch off a hawker for an obscenely small sum of money (it’s either a fake or it’s been stolen). The Bibi (Old mama) sitting next to me haggles for a vegetable knife and other passengers get young lads running around locating cold sodas of specific flavor and branding. One very unfortunate gentleman flashes us his gonads which are swollen with tumors and shows us x-ray images of other parts of his body which are riddled. He begs for donations towards hospital fees. I’m not shocked- very little has shocked me so far- but I’m saddened by this experience. A few passengers hand him some coins. Before long we’re on our way south, although not without having to sit in city traffic for an hour.
Top: countryside around Loitokitok. Maize and sunflower fields are everywhere! Centre: view of Mt Kilimanjaro from Loitokitok town.
Loitokitok and VSO Jitolee.
Positioned at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro and at the heart of Maasai land, Loitokitok is a thirty minute bus drive from the Tanzania boarder. It is a beautiful spot, with rolling maize and sunflower fields sloping gently up to the foot of the ominous mount Kili and a generous spattering of woodland in every direction. The town itself is refreshingly untouristy, and there is very little in the way of evening entertainment, save for a few ropey bars with the usual middle aged male clientele crowded around tiny tables ordering Tusker beer by the crate load. Yvonne arranges to meet me in town and we head straight to the VSO jitolee office. I feel like I’ve stepped in to MEDA office in Malindi where I spent many hours as a volunteer typing up reports on stone age computers with intermittent electricity. I’m greeted by a big group of volunteers- Kenyans and Brits who spill in to the room at the end of a long day on placement and excitedly buzz around making tea and sharing news. It’s like being in a time warp. I hear snippets of conversations about community action days, team issues, African time and tediously early curfews, all very familiar to me.
WOES OF YOUTH VOLUNTEERING.
Allow me for a moment to express my sinsism, and make sure to take it with a pinch of salt as I’m yet to form a clear opinion myself on issues addressed below. I certainly have a renewed appreciation for my freedom of movement. I don’t miss the restrictions and the DFID appeasing paper work, nor the over emphasis on team building and organised fun which are part and parcel of the youth volunteering experience. I look on quietly, all the more sceptical about the effectiveness of the program with respect to the community it serves, for having observed it from an outsider’s perspective. It’s clear the volunteers are having a wild time, but the projects on the ground look a bit threadbare. Some volunteers are planting trees and building rabbit hutches, whilst others are working in schools and youth centres. I have the opportunity to visit placements alongside the team leaders on a routine checkup. I’m introduced to a very gentle and well mannered teacher at an orphanage. He smiles warmly with his hands interlocked and resting on his desk. He looks on expectantly. Aliphya asks about the progress of the four volunteers working at the orphanage and is met with highly informative feedback including but not limited to “everything is very fine” and “they are working very well”. As is customary during these exchanges, underlying challenges and limitations- financial or otherwise- are glossed over. Sometimes a suitable approach and one which I have tried and tested, is to get right down to business; to tackle issues head on so that volunteers have a clear plan of action and can maximise on their time in community, and project partners are themselves challenged to find solutions to problems. Passivity amongst community members is highly contagious and there’s nothing more frustrating for a team leader than a group of idle volunteers who have adapted accordingly. Equally frustrating are elusive project partners who are more than happy to bore you by talking the talk, whilst unwilling or unable to walk the walk.
 |
 |
Top:me with Aliphya’s Kenyan counterpart team leader Josephine. Bottom:VSO Loitokitok UK team leader Aliphya with return volunteer Felix . |
Maasai and FGM.
We meet another interesting chap at a youth centre in Loitokitok. A singer and song writer who campaigns to stop female genital mutilation (FGM) which is particularly prominent in the Maasai communities of southern Kenya. He explains in graphic detail the attitudes of Maasai men with respect to their Women folk, “a maasai man he doesn’t know romance. He just opens up his lady’s legs, puts his dick [there] and when he’s finished his business he goes on his way" He laughs to reveal miira stained teeth, much like those of my Ethiopian friend Solomon. We’re treated to a screening of his latest music video: himself and a group of youth singing and rapping as advocates for peaceful conflict resolution in Kenya. A very innocent approach to a very complex topic but vastly under rated in its importance in reaching out to the public.
Minor celebrity.
I’m something of a talking point in the office. A video I compiled a few years ago after returning from the VSO program in Malindi has been circulating ever since. Yvonne screens this to new teams as a motivational tool and it hasn’t lost momentum. The current team has clearly watched it, as they seem already to know who I am. I meet the two Loitokitok team leaders: a young Indian Swahili woman with UK-Kenyan dual nationality called Aliphya, and a Kenyan woman called Josephine; the latter volunteered in Malindi two cycles prior to my arrival. It comes as little surprise to learn that we share the same host Mama: Mama Anne who still owns a tiny shop attached to her house.
Home from home at Mama Christinas house.
On my first night Yvonne puts me up at her place and treats me to local chicken and kachumbali (sliced tomato salad with zingy red onions and chili). We chat over dinner until we loose our voices and the clock strikes midnight. The next day Yvonne heads to Nairobi for a conference and so I join the two team leaders at their host home at Mama Christinas. She is as welcoming and as rotund as one could expect any Kenyan host mama to be. She beams ear to ear, accepting her new guest as a member of the household from the off. Her large comfortable house is an open home and her cooking pot is bottomless. At the end of the working day we hop on motorbikes back home and we all squeeze in to the kitchen to share a mountain of ugali and a lake of tender beef stew whilst watching a bad taste American-dubbed Mexican soap on a tiny TV screen. Aliphya is responsible for round the clock intensive care of a kitten whose mother has abandoned it. She feeds it cows milk through a syringe and ties the mother to a chair to prevent her escape while she is unwillingly deprived of her own precious milk for the sake of her tiny, starving and unwanted child. Aliphya smuggles the kitty in to the office so that she can feed it milk at regular intervals. Josephine looks on baffled, suggesting we could put it out if it’s misery. On the topic of domesticated animals: very recently the house dog was poisoned by a group of men breaking and entering in an attempt to silence the canine alarm and to steal some expensive solar panels on the roof. The same group stole two puppies from under the noses of the inhabitants and also tried and failed to nab a collection of very expensive bike helmets which VSO has invested in for the safety of the volunteers. It transpires that this gang where subject to vigilantism in Loitokitok. They were absconded in the street by local men with a good beating and knee capping. Justice it seems is in the hands of whoever gets to the scene first. Needless to say Mama Christina is not anticipating any more break-ins in the near future.
During placement visits I meet an innovative American man who owns an orphanage in Loitokitok and grows his own fruit and vegetables on his local shamba. He explains to us why pests and disease are hindering his progress as a reputable supplier of produce to food supermarkets in Nairobi.
Nairobi at ground level.
By day I head to town by motorbike again and enjoy a stroll through the countryside whilst the volunteers are at work. I practice my swahili with two young cow herders on their way to collect water from a local spring. This water, branded ‘spring 51’ in its bottled form, runs directly off Mt Kili. These two young lads don’t speak any English so I am pleasantly surprised by how much we manage to communicate. I socialise with the volunteers in the evenings and I meet the Nairobi ICS entrepreneur team for the first time. They are taking a break from city life. One young and exceptionally bright British-Korean engineering student and volunteer gives me a telling account of life in Nairobi; one which differs hugely from that described by Perry and Mandy: “We use local matatus and we mix with the public in down town areas. As long as we’re with Kenyan volunteers we’re pretty safe. We’ve even had the chance to party at night in town. It’s a very exciting and progressive city under the surface”. This chap works in a HIV screening and counselling centre, where people who were once persecuted and ostracised for being HIV positive are now provided with free ARVs and counselling. “It was great for me to experience a different culture and to see what the situation really is like for ordinary people in Kenya. You see so much on TV but remain emotionally detached because you have not seen it on the ground. The women at the [screening and counselling] centre work really hard to ensure the services are available to HIV sufferers. It is amazing what they have done with little financial support”. These volunteers are as sharp as they come. The ICS scheme demands of it’s volunteers dynamic and practical business skills and an aptitude for working cross-culturally. No small ask. The UK team leader has lived in east Africa for a number of years and is almost fluent in Swahili. He is a huge booming chap with a vice like and shake and a natural approachability. Clearly a strong character and leader. He blows out the air from his cheeks when I ask him about the woes and responsibilities of being a team leader. “Definitely more demanding than I expected. ICS is a wicked scheme though. Really hands on”.
FRIDAY,20TH
MARCH MOMBASA BOUND.
I bid my new friends and host mama kwaheri and hit the road, promising to visit again if I decide to cross the boarder to Tanzania at this location. This time I’m off to the coastal town of Malindi- via Emali and Mombassa- to meet up with my old VSO counterpart Rashid and our host mama Anne Wanjiku. As the sounds of “when jesus say yes, nobody can say no” in manic high pitched American vocals and a rapid calypso bass line blare out over the bus’s steroid-fulled stereo system, I know I’ve picked up the renown 11:30 ghetto bus service from Nairobi to Mombassa. Is this track an awful byproduct of colonialism and Christian missionary efforts in east Africa? Certainly! Synthesised glass-shattering noises signify the end of one track and the start of another. There is a continuous medley of big tunes, ranging from Yemi Aladale’s infamous ‘Johnny’ and the equally infectious dancehall number ‘your love is a killa’, through lovers rock jams “slow slow slow slow (pole pole) slow slow” and arriving at twirk central ‘show me how to dougy’. Later we’re treated to a custom mix of hard hitting Nigerian afrobeats, ragga and South American carnival music as the bus rockets along the Mombassa road through wild bush lands parallel to the famous Mombassa railway; more a colonial relic than a functioning mode of transport . Next on the menu is “bungele bungele bungele”: a massive track with beastly drums and the vocals of an army which could easily accompany the apocalyptic chants of the Incars. The seats and window panes rattle and the reverberating basslines penetrate my core. No rest for the wicked. But I’m well informed now, Jesus has spoken and he says “yes, obscenely loud, impatiently mixed music is the theme of this bus journey” and as you know I’m not in a position to disagree. Friday 20th March. Mombassa. Congested, noisy, industrial and unrelenting, whilst somehow still pertaining to real coastal Swahili culture. It has an unmistakable air of lunacy- a boarder line madness which is characteristic of any place which suffers the intolerable heat of a low altitude tropical climate. I arrive in to the city centre at 8 pm after the ghetto bus service gets itself wedged between a two-ton truck and a fuel tanker. This is Friday evening rush hour on the notorious Nairobi - Mombassa road: a poorly maintained two lane which recieves all non-flight and non-rail thoroughfare from the coast, all the way to Kampala (Uganda’s capital city). The city is alight with the embers of late afternoon business and the kindling of evening leasure. Tuktuk drivers battle it out for a place on the road like teenagers at the dodgems, albeit with more intimidating opponents including road rage fuelled lorry drivers high up in the cabins of ugly and gigantic haulage vehicles and the usual florescent array of public buses, all oddly contrasted against daz-white people carriers with tinted windows and chrome hub caps, driven aggressively by wealthy Indians and Arabs. Mombasa is where east Africa, the Arab world, India and the relics of the Portuguese occupation all converge in a mosaic of culture and architecture. The unsettling and oddly melodic call for prayer echoes across the city from its many mosques at 4 am to rouse only the most devout Muslims in town, whilst entering the restless dreams of everyone else.
In town.
I rely on grit and determination to navigate the town centre by night and to pay local rates for tuktuks. I quickly locate a friendly budget guest house above an Indian restaurant on Hailie Selassie road, opposite an American style ice cream parlour and coffee shop called Blue Room Cafeteria. I drop my bags off and then Muzungufy (go back to being a white tourist) a little at the diner, using their wifi and spending as little cash as possible (I order chai masala with no food at 9 pm and the waitress gives me a funny look). I get chatting to a curious waitress with a massive frizzy afro. “You’re a black mzungu” she exclaims when I get chatting to her in Swahili. Her colleague is a tall, cheery guy who happily updates me on the security situation on the east coast. “Lamu is so safe now, there is a 6pm curfew and everyone is in doors. The streets are so peaceful. Mombassa is safe as well, security is tighter now”. We both stare up at a big flat screen TV absent mindedly, where a news reader reports on recent attacks for which al shaabab has taken responsibility. A school bus of teachers has been hijacked and all 28 teachers on board slaughtered on the spot. The waiter just shrugs his shoulders with disdain “there are some terrible things happening in the north of Kenya right now”. The security guard seated at the entrance to this glitzy eatery asks me to buy him a coffee on the way out. I reply by pointing out my wallet is probably lighter than his. We shake hands and laugh it off together, although I suspect he is still a little disappointed. Nice try mate!
My old host home counterpart and brother from another mother, Mbwana Rashid, meets me at a tiny food shack opposite the Malindi bus stand in Mombassa. We have trouble locating one another amidst the relentless tide of people and traffic, but his pink shirt and sporty gait are unmistakable and set him apart from the crowd. Rashid looks and acts a little older than when we last met over a year ago, but his mannerisms and character haven’t changed a bit. “I don’t use Facebook man! I don’t want people knowing my mind, what’s the deal?” he says proudly when I explain how difficult it has been to track him down. “Mama Anna is waiting for her sons to return home” he laughs. We jump on another ghettobus. This one comes complete with bongoflava music video cinema and surround sound. Rich Tanzanian men adorned in gold chains, designer sunnies and wearing flat rimmed baseball caps rap in Swahili whilst perching on the bonnet of a porche and lavishing in the company of pretty ladies. A clear depiction of the aspirations of many a young Dar es Salaamite.
Familiar scenery.
The familiar coastal vistas whiz past us as we fly along the Mombassa - Malindi two lane. Coconut trees in endless rows loom over clay houses and tin roofed dukas selling neatly arranged trios of tomatoes and onions. The carcasses of madafu- young coconuts- and sun dried palm leaves coat the sandy ground like the hulls of dicrepid boats. Women dressed in all manner of colorful and meticulously tailored kitenge balance bowls of papaya and jerry cans of water on their heads. Young men wearing sunnies (some barely out of secondary school and others looking as though they should still be there) lie across their motorbike seats with their hands interlocked behind their heads, waiting for customers to alight from matatus and to take lifts to far flung homesteads deep in the interiors as far as the mangrove swamps. Some women walk long distances with their babies strapped to their backs in a serong-like kitenge, whilst men are never seen carrying their children; instead they haul building materials on their shoulders from the market to the construction site.
No comments:
Post a Comment