mambo jambo and the search for ujamaa

sorry - i wrote this in africa but was in Australia over christmas so forgot to send:

and if you're looking for some photos...

http://picasaweb.google.com/charlierattray/Tanzania

After I last wrote, I headed off to dinner; this consisted of wildebeest and gazelle stew with a spot of rice and local beer (kilimanjaro). It was excellent, especially the gazelle - like lamb but a little... well better.. more tender. I happened to sit next to a french canadian who proceeded to tell me I was wasting my life in finance and should find a more fulfilling job in construction. I recently asked someone how it is that I attract these sort of people - people who tell me i am one of fat, wasting my life, look very old or boring and at the same time have 3 people a week try to pick a fight with me; she didn't have an answer but I open to suggestions!!

The following morning I met Nicholas and Damian - my driver and cook for the 4 day safari in nogongoro crater and serengetti national parks. We headed off to the supermarket for some supplies and started out with some small talk. Turns out both are deeply religious, don't drink and go to bed at 8pm every night - just my type of guys - 4 days in a 4wd looking at lions with two religious nuts who didn't want me to have a beer.

Anyway we passed through a few towns and whatever - very typical poor country stuff - kids waving and trying to sell their sisters, old ladies offering me a tshirt 18 times to big saying things like, and I am not kidding, "[insert tour name] tours - stripping and spots tour, cum for the pleasure" - of course they meant to say "[insert tour name] tours - stripe and spots tour - come along for the enjoyment of the majestical sights and sounds of africa!" or something like that I hope.

On the actual safari we saw, in order of best to worst: a lion killing a wildebeest (photos on website); a cheetah killing and eating a gazelle then following it and its cubs for 40 minutes; lots of lions with kills from the previous night; hippos mating in the water and meeting a group of israelis who described it as "making love" and believed they were getting closer to the planet by flicking stones at the males as they enjoyed the company of the females; giraffes; hyennas; the migration of the wildebeest and zebra and elan from the masai mara into the serrengetti; lots of crocs and other animals; and a 7 year old fall face first in elephant poo!

The migration, as students of ernie hobdel (insert name of your worst geography teacher) will know, is when the wildebeest, elan, gazelles and zebras move from region to region in east africa. Bits of it happen all year but there are active times and inactive times. One such active time is right now (then) - by complete coincidence - and I was lucky enough to see the arrival of the first group (thus the feeding frenzy) into the serengetti - even better I was there for THE first rains of the wet and saw the dust bowl turn to quagmire in 4 hours. It was simply awesome to see the animals moving for water, the local drivers getting bogged but battling on, and the farmers and masai celebrating the early arrival of the rains.

Tanzania was a curious experience for me. I had gone through a few books before and during my stay to give me a feel for the place's history but couldn't really understand it. Some people saying that the problem for Tanzania and other african countries was a sort of post-colonial battle to undo the damage of opressive leaders. Other books said that while the problems under european leadership/dictatorship or whatever were bad, that bad and ineffective and at times ruthless leadership was the problem. In the case of Tanzania it wasn't really like that - no real horror stories like sierra leone or the congo. For tanzania there was Ujamaa. This was essentially "african socialism" where the word means something like wider family in swahili. The leader of tanzania at independence (nyerere) decided it best to nationalise everything - but most tellingly the land. peopler were forced to farm and you couln't buy things for personal use - it was all about the collective. there was also a one-party system (never a good idea), creation of a central democracy, the abolition of discrimination based on status (good), what was called "villagisation" of production etc etc etc. The ideas were mostly good and the regime was not tyranical. The problem for Tanzania was the thoughts were ill conceived in a modern economy and were not prepared for exongenous shocks - the oil crisis of the 1970s, the collapse of export commodity prices, an inability to attract foreign direct investment because assets were nationalised and the war with Uganda. In addition, and maybe pretty imporantly (lol) the west didn't give a toss about them!!

Anyway, after seeing first hand the damage that international affairs, poorly run economies and a lack of concern from the west (mostly beceause there is no oil or gas there) it was time, sadly, to leave tanzania. i left via a visit to kilimanjaro airport and was amazed to see the mountain in all its glory. much bigger than i expected. perhaps a return trip one day to climb it.. but not for now!!

So, i arrived in kenya, knowing that people say nairobi is dangerous, and expecting it to be all crap. as with every other travel furphy i'd ever heard... here is dangerous, there is bad blah blah... however, unlike most travel danger warnings.. this one is totally right. even the airport has a special taxi company that meets you inside the airport and takes you outside to an unmarked cab, locks all the doors with dark windows and whisks you off into the night - all for the cut price cost of $15. On arrival I asked the concierge about a night on the town. he said, hang on ill get security (armed) to escort you to your car - you should hire it for the night - he will wait outside any bar you want to go to and bring you home. While I thought this was an over the top attempt to get more money out of me... on the trip to the bar I saw 6 guns and a giraffe. two of the guns were being pointed at people. the bar was ok - but again - typical of such a country i think. lots of rich expats and lots of local women pretending to have a job or be a student; all of whom were professionals but unfortunately not accountants [insert whatever]. It seems they did a roaring trade in the bar. After reading about prostitution in africa all week (great couple of books I brought), I really worried for these women. They are mostly either infected or to become infected with HIV. most will die from that or violence committed against them and they don't earn enough from a night to feed a baby or a family or themselves. i did, however, meet a great bloke from kenya and his two saffa mates. we had a couple of beers before it all got too much and i retired to my room to watch peitersen smash the aussies around - and collingwood to waste his wicket in the 90s (great!!).

the following day i spent much of the day cleaning myself up for a return to london. i had a shave and got a haircut for a couple of bucks and washed my clothes. i was harrassed all day in different shops and places and really didn't like the town. i did however have time before my flight to drive out to a place called "carnivore" for dinner. i was able to sample a range of meat. the place is simple to understand - you get a flag on a small mast. up means feed me, down means i surrender. it's a fixed price and menu. you're visited by men brandishing swords with meat on them all night as they carve giraffe, camel, wildebeest.. etc for you. camel goes with some apple sauce they say. after the meal it was back to the airport and a return to work.

i will be forever changed by this trip. to see the poverty firsthand and how different it is to other poor places i had visited. more .. desperate. less apparent hope that one day people won't suffer like this.... next time I want to go too west or north africa in search for another place and more experiences like this!