Africa for Obama

Tuesday 20 January 2009

About 67 million people actually cast a ballot for him but for hundreds of millions more today is a historic day. He may have been voted President of the United States of America only but over here in Tanzania it certainly feels like Barack Obama has been anointed the leader of the united nations of Africa too. I can only imagine what it must be like in neighbouring Kenya but over here the Obama-mania is thick enough to cut with a knife. Everywhere you look you can see Obama bumper stickers, Obama shirts and shawls, and buses decorated with "yes, we can".

It is hard not to be swept away by all the enthusiasm and I too of course recognise the significance of this day. Rather than watch the inauguration ceremony all alone on CNN in my hotel room, I decide to join the crowds in the bar. Although there is still almost an hour to go before the supreme moment, it is already very crowded. I suddenly find myself wedged on a sofa between an American woman and her Tanzanian companion. The three of us each represent a different continent and we each have our own reasons to be excited by this moment but the feeling is equally intense in all of us. Together we watch the moment when Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the USA. Together we briefly draw our breath when it seems he stumbles over the most momentous words of his life. It is not until the next day—away from the bar clamour—that I learn the mistake was not his but was prompted by the bumbling Chief Justice. It does not matter. All this crowd cares about is that as of this moment Barack Obama is the new president; not just America's but Africa's too.

Return to the light

Monday 19 January 2009

December is not my month. Call it holiday blues, call it winter depression, call it whatever you like but December just really is not my month. All I want to do is fast-forward the year to its inevitable conclusion and start fresh. January is better. Maybe it is the illusion of the blank slate, maybe it is the slow lengthening of the days but January inspires me to look forward rather than backward. Before me now is a new adventure: two weeks of field work in Tanzania. Over the next 14 days I will be working both in Dar es Salaam and in the Northern parts of the country.

I have been to Dar before—less than half a year ago—so naturally my arrival here has had a slight déjà-vu feel to it: the prerogative of the returning traveller. I am even staying at the same hotel I did last time and recognise some of the faces of people working here. The temperature is equally familiar. So near to the equator defining seasons as "winter" or "summer" is pointless. Strictly speaking I have moved from the European winter to an African summer but I can't really tell the difference with my last visit here when the situation was reversed. It was hot then as it is hot now.


After a productive first working day, I fall back into a routine I established during my previous visit and wash away the city dust in the hotel pool. After weeks of darkness and inactivity, I feel reinvigorated by the light and excitement. The new year is off to a good start.

Resuscitation

For a variety of reasons this blog has been in deep hibernation for a while. In fact, I had every intention of letting it sleep all together after two years of service. However, over the last weeks and months several people have lamented this decision and have urged me to reconsider. It is for them that I will attempt to breathe some life into the old girl once more. Forgive her for waking up a bit groggy still.

Plenty of things have changed since my last post; even more things haven't. I am still living and working in Amsterdam though that situation is set to change before winter's end. Over the holiday season my suitcase has been sharing shelf space with this blog. The arrival of the new year, however, has had me dust it off to pack for Tanzania again. Although—as we say in Dutch—this might come a bit as "mustard after the meal", over the next few days I will attempt to share some of my experiences there with you in words and images.

We have a pulse...

A picture is worth a thousand words

The fairly wobbly (and massively overpriced) internet connection at my Tanzanian hotel meant that I had not yet had a chance to upload all my pictures. For those of you who want to see more of the Zanzibari sunset, the Tanzanian tingatinga art, or Africa's pick for the American presidency, you can now have a look here:

Tanzania 14-26 Aug 2007

Scintillating Zanzibar

Of course there are also times when I simply have the best job in the world. This weekend a 2-hour ferry trip transported me to another world all together. I've had the opportunity to spend time in the island that put the zan in Tanzania: Zanzibar.

The old part of Zanzibar city, Stone Town, is completely unlike Dar es-Salaam. It's Lion King meets Aladdin. Having been ruled by Omanian sultans and as a once focal point for the slave trade between East Africa and the Middle East, Zanzibar has a unique character heavily mixing Arab influences with Swahili culture. The Arab influences are most clearly visible in the local architecture, in particular the town's famous carved doors. Stone Town itself is a maze of little streets in which you will inevitable get lost. Not that that matters as each alley way brings its own charm and sooner or later you are bound to end up somewhere familiar again. To be fair, it is quite touristy here and at times it feels like the whole town is just one big curio shop but the atmosphere is wonderful nonetheless. The fact that it is right on the deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean certainly does not do it any harm either.

Doors of Stone Town, Zanzibar

To my sheer unadulterated pleasure my hotel was also one of the cutest little boutique hotels I have ever had the good fortune of staying in. No insomnia this time in a beautiful 4-poster bed surrounded by netting and lush pillows. Mixed with a wonderful dinner and the sun on my face I have had an unbelievably relaxing weekend. Zanzibar also has some magnificent sandy beaches and reputedly is a paradise for water enthusiasts. I wish I could give you a firsthand account of all that too but a weekend is simply not enough to experience all the island has to offer. Tanzania on the whole is too big and interesting a country to be done in weekends and forgotten hours. It is a good thing then that I will have to come back here. If I can manage at all at any point I will certainly try to add on some holidays.

International Wait

Don't get me wrong, I love getting the chance to work in places such as Ghana, Russia or Tanzania, but it does come with a few downsides too. The part of the job that really clashes with my fairly gung-ho nature is the endless waiting and excruciating slowness of everything. My idea of a useful visit is to go in, do my thing as efficiently as possible, maybe relax a bit and come out. The reality is more go in, wait a while, do a little bit, wait some more, do another bit, wait again and finally agree to "follow up soon". Especially where procedures and bureaucracy are involved it is just the nature of the game called International Aid (IA). Since I work in academia still rather than directly for an NGO, I know I have even only experienced the tip of the iceberg. Many NGOs are renowned for their syrupy procedures and tortoise-like velocity.

You may think that waiting is not such a bad thing if you get to spend time in exotic places but unfortunately that is not quite how it works. Since you never know when things suddenly will kick into action you have to remain on standby, pretty much confining you to the hotel. Perhaps that is why IA workers tend to be found in the most expensive hotels in town. Giles Bolton in his book Poor Story refers to this group somewhat cynically as the "345ers", for their:

• 3 course meals
• 4 wheel drives
• 5 star hotels

It's not entirely fair of course as it suggests that IA people are pampered out-of-touch little princes and princesses but neither is it wholly untrue. As those of you who know me will be aware, the 3 course meal is hardly my thing anyway and though my current hotel has a pool, it does not exactly qualify as 5 star. I did, however, yesterday have dinner in what is easily the fanciest hotel in town and, for sure, there they were: the IA conference delegates rubbing shoulders with attendees of the ministerial meeting next door. The 4-wheel drives on the other hand are spot on even for me. So far, in almost all places I have been, I find myself being picked up by these high-wheeled monsters with all sorts of important looking logos encrusted on their doors.

So here I am again: waiting in my hotel room for the 4-wheel drive to come and pick me up to do my bit for today. Bit by tiny little bit we are moving forwards but by now it is already clear that I will have to come back here pretty soon to do that infamous follow-up. By the looks of things, I may not get to spend much time in that longed for Amsterdam apartment of mine after all!

Time out in Tanzania

Just like I had hoped I have been able to recharge my batteries very nicely this weekend. Although I worked a bit in the mornings, I have had the afternoons and evenings to relax and enjoy. In the end I did not go to the beaches, which proved a bit more difficult to reach in a limited space of time, but I certainly managed to take full advantage of the hotel swimming pool. Ocean view lunches and tasty dinners are definitely not a bad way to spend time either. My, it's a hard life!

The mystery of Dar Es-Salaam's apparent well-off state is beginning to unravel a bit. As I suspected, the neighbourhoods we have come through are not entirely representative. Dar is a rather schizophrenic place. Along the ocean front there are some very, very posh looking villas. These mainly belong to diplomats and other well-to-do expats. Then there is the old colonial part of town which is around where I am staying. Here the streets are all paved and surprisingly clean. Much cleaner than your run of the mill London street in fact. Houses are decently looking and often brightly coloured. Aside from the frequent power outages and water shortages it strikes me as really not such a bad place to be. This part of town and the neighbouring areas are not populated by African Tanzanians either though. This is little India. Eastern Africa has a fairly large population of Indians, mostly as a result of the former British colonial rule. The Indians are in general far better off than their African counterparts. They are the entrepreneurs running the corner shops and small businesses.

The African part of town is clearly less developed although visibly new buildings have sprouted up left and right. You can see the direction the town is headed but there is still a long way to go. The upshoot of new middle-class type houses does, however, make you wonder what happened to the people who used to live in these areas. Given that Tanzania is still a very poor country it is unlikely that the once poor have en masse joined the middle classes. Rather, the poor have been pushed further out of the centre to the slum parts of town, out of sight.

Despite these large discrepencies I still think Dar has a fairly pleasant feel to it. Unfortunately, it is also rather dull. Compared to the chaos in Accra, Dar is incredibly sleepy. In the evenings the roads are deserted and it doesn't feel like there is much to do around. This may be the capital but there is not much more going on than in most European country side villages. Tomorrow I will be travelling for the day into one of the nearby districts. I suspect this may give me a truer flavour of what the country is really like. So much for the relaxation; tomorrow works starts again!

Karibu!

On Sunday I was still breathing in the fresh Norwegian mountain air. Today I am inhaling diesel fumes in Dar Es-Salaam. I’ve arrived early this morning after an exhausting overnight flight. I seem to have picked up a touch of insomnia lately and my body is protesting in all sorts of ways against the less than 2 hours of sleep it has been getting in the last 48 hours. Especially since I already started working within hours after stepping off the plane. My interview techniques were definitely a bit blunted today by sleep deprivation so it is a good thing I will have all weekend to recover and prepare.

First impressions of Tanzania then… Not as hot as I was expecting at all. In fact, it has been raining down quite spectacularly for part of today. Day temperatures are pleasantly below 30 degrees. I may not have seen quite enough of the town to fully warrant this judgment but so far Dar Es-Salaam strikes me as a bit more modernised than Accra. Buildings look newer and cleaner, traffic is still chaotic but somewhat less suicidal, and poverty is not as blatantly in your face. Then again, according to the Economist’s latest figures for the Human Development Index Tanzania is worse off than Ghana so probably my comparison applies to the respective capitals only. Also, I may just have seen the better parts of town so far.

I have already glimpsed the ocean but have not really seen a beach. For that you need to get a little bit further out of town. I might try to drag myself over there this weekend. I haven’t read my guidebook well enough yet to map out exactly how I want to spend my free time. For next weekend though I am considering making the crossing to Zanzibar. It is not that far and it sounds like it is definitely worth the trip. I really wish I had time to go further land inwards where the big game reserves and national parks are as well. My guidebook has mouth watering pictures of all there is to see and do there and it’s a crying shame I will not be able to do any of that as I need to be back in London before the end of the month. Perhaps next time my boss ships me off to Tanzania (a by no means hypothetical scenario in fact!) I will be able to get in a few days to roam wild. But before I visit any other countries I am dying to visit that most exotic of places: Dreamland.

Around the world in 80 days

"The world has grown smaller, since a man can now go round it ten times more quickly than a hundred years ago. ... you can go round it in three months"

"In eighty days," interrupted Phileas Fogg.

Around the world in 80 days was one of my childhood favourites. That and the Travels of Marco Polo. Both books tell the most incredulous, marvellous travel stories my child's imagination could fathom. I devoured these stories of Phileas Fogg in the Indian jungle and Marco Polo visiting the Kublai Khan. Great stuff to dream away by on a rainy day in dreary Holland. The times of the Mongol empire and of trans-Atlantic steamers are long gone -and with them a sense of adventure- but at least in the amount of kilometres I will be getting in these next few months I am starting to emulate my childhood heroes!

Early August will first see me jetting off to the North for a few days of holiday. There I intend to fill my lungs with the fresh air of the great outdoors, my belly with yummy goodies, and my liver with some tasty red wine, all in the company of my dear friend MyYear. With barely enough time to do my laundry and to repack for warmer climates, I am then headed far South for two weeks of work. It's a very exciting assignment and one I really look forward to. It should be a great opportunity to put some of our theoretical work of the last few months to the test in a real field situation. It's a pity though that I won't be able to tag a few days at the end for some touristic wanderings through this country that has so much to offer in terms of natural beauty but I need to be back in London on time to pack my moving boxes. Hopping slightly to the East I then cross the Channel to settle back into my own apartment. I can't get too comfortable though as, before another month is out, I am expected to head back further East to follow-up on my last journey.

Travelling seems to be part of my new life and career. So far I am loving the opportunities it is giving me. At this point in my life, where I can easily hop on a plane at a moment's notice, I am going to take full advantage of it. But by taking full advantage I also mean making sure I don't end up like this guy: