African Continent

Slave Trade At Malawi Lake

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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We are headed to Malawi Lake which is huge-of Malawi�s 118,000 sq km 20% is taken up by the long narrow lake which nearly runs approximately 500km down the length of the thin sliver of land which dips deep into Mozambique.

In the mid 1800’s an Arab trader from Oman shipped thousands of slaves annually to the eastern lake shore before they made the three to four month march to Kilwa on the coast. At the same time a tribe of Islamic converts, the Yao, captured the local Maganja and Chewa people in large numbers for sale to the Portuguese. Villagers unfit for shipment were slaughtered.

In 1859 David Livingstone visited the area and tried to set up a mission to interrupt the slave trade. After his death in 1874 Scots missionaries, inspired by Livingstone�s humanitarianism, risked their lives to end local wars and curb slavery and provided education to thousands of the locals. In 1895 the first British Commissioner dealt the final death blow to the slave trade in Malawi with the defeat of the last two Yao traders in the south and the execution of Mlozi, the self-styled Sultan at Karonga in the north.

Malawi was led to independence by Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda who maintained absolute power until 1992 when a group of Catholic bishops publicized the Lenten Letter which documented the failings and abuse of power of the Banda administration. An election the following year was won by the current president Bakikli Muluzi. However, the Capetown Cape News reported June 17 that a priest in Malawi was arrested for translating documents opposing a third-term bid for President Muluzi. The priest said he was arrested in the central district of Kasungu after taking documents to be typed. He was told he was in possession of seditious material. So the battle for democracy rages on.

Muzungu At The Malawi Border

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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We stop at a small town for supplies and “toilet stop” near the Malawi border and to spend the rest of our Tanzania shillings…scores of young boys in dirty and unbelievably tattered clothing surround the truck selling sweets, pastries, bananas, nuts…most of us stay on the truck…I don’t want the pastry but I do want the Rastafarian scarf on a young guy’s head-I buy it from him for 700 shillings-about 70 cents. He is delighted as he touches his bare head-probably had traded for it in the first place. We watch two women being introduced to a man-they bend elegantly at the knee as they extend their hands.

Malawi Border
We are the third overlander across the border that day, the kids outside the truck tell us….and then they ask for pens. I tell one that I have already given my pens away to all the children. “Fibber!” he yells at me. Then he says something and I only hear the word “white.” I ask him to repeat what he has said and then I learn the word “muzungu.” Rod says it means “white vomit from the bottom of the sea” and is a word for anyone that is white. Rod steals away the word and wears his black T-shirt with “Muzungu” written across the front and back in white.

At the border Bob gives his Sifnos Greece pen to the immigration official who stamps his passport with a crack on the desktop as if he were killing a cockroach. The immigration guy is happy. I think Rod keeps a carton of cigarettes and some magazines in the truck and hands them out to grease delicate situations.

Truck pulls out to cross the border and then begins backing up which confuses everyone but we discover Janine had dropped her towel and a little boy is running about 100 yards behind the truck to give it to her. She threw pens and sweets out the window to the boy in thanks. She has a soft spot for the children!

Coming into Malawi the land becomes lush and green. The terraced rolling foothills look manicured-not a bit of land wasted-breathtakingly beautiful. A couple miles inside the border the truck stopped for lunch at the top of a hill but a group of children and a couple elders were there and watched us eat which made us all very uncomfortable. What are we going to do about the little ones, I asked George. “Nothing!” he said with a resolute tone. Tim from New Zealand played “soccer” with them with a small ball from the truck and they really knew how to handle the ball! When we left they were happy to get all our empty plastic water bottles and some sweets and pens thanks to Janine again!

Malawi definitely has a different feel. Most of the country is rural and very poor; people are friendly…we see more waving at the truck-especially from young girls…little towns…we go through the little village of Chatinze…Don’t Walk Alone Resort…Dental and Maternity Clinic…Man On Man Hair Dressers…Come Boys Hair Salon…little huts dot the middle of fields with women standing alone waving with their arms up wide…we see the universal thumbs up from young men. We are elated…little guys as young as 5 and 6 tending small herds of cows quickly turn and whistle… We stop and buy a huge bag of charcoal from a family by the side of the road for 2000 Kwatchas ($4.)

…Judy Shop… We can see the floor fires in the little mud huts that people live in. We see six bicycles carrying huge bags of charcoal instead of a rider…I’m looking out the front windows and see a huge white truck coming at us…oh shit I yell-waking everyone up-and James has to veer to the side of the road…children stand waving and whistling as if they were extras in a movie-Melissa and I wonder what they were doing the split second before we got there…kids holler at the top of their lungs both arms waving….we give the thumbs up and they whistle and holler louder…even adults wave with both arms in the air…the soft friendly Malawi people….poor but healthy looking. They weren’t so friendly in Kenya and Tanzania. Malawi is one of the poorest but friendliest countries but Rod says they won’t be so friendly in Namibia and South Africa.

Then the roads turn to shit. Britain has the contract to rebuild the road to Lake Malawi so we are on pot-holed dirt. I try the ejector seats over the wheels in the back but quickly retreat to my own middle seat. Mud huts are made of hand made mud bricks here. Malawi is lush, green…rolling foothills…then through more little towns…Wannagwa Shopping Center is a small 8×14 foot building divided into two little stores…fields of marijuana are one of Malawi’s biggest crops.

To Malawi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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May 15th 2002
Jambo! (Swahili for Hello!)
Back On The Road-Tanzania South to Malawi We were up at 4:30-no breaky (Australian, English, New Zealander and South African for breakfast) or coffee-and were on the road by 5:30. We are troopers. As the light creeps over the horizon we start to see shop signs along the road…Appointment Bar…Eggy Shop.

Pleasuring In Zanzibar

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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We spent evenings on the deck of the Mercury Bar watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean full of fishing boats and beautiful lean bodies swimming in the water. The Mercury Bar is named after Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen before he died, was born just up the street. We read in a local English language newspaper that his Bohemian Rhapsody was recently voted the number one all-time most popular song in the UK. Incidentelly, the bar menu has a drink called the Monica Lewinsky-Blue Curacao, triple sec, gin and sprite. Subscript: “Find out what a bubbly body can do in a blue dressing!”

Next morning on the 14th it’s back on the ferry (hi-speed hydrofoil this time) to the truck waiting for us in Dar es Salaam where we camped at the Mikadi Beach Resort in Dar again. We fight off the Malaria “mosies” (mosquitos) in the tent with a towel before falling asleep in a heap.

Tanzanian News

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Picked up a Sunday Observer-local Tanzanian paper in English; lead article: “Reading culture badly lacking” lamented the lack of interest in reading and warning that Tanzania could become isolated and left behind as the world was “changing so fast.” The advent of TVs, the Internet and use of CD-Roms, according to the article, has contributed to the decline of reading.

Subsidiary article extolled President Mkapa’s gesture to include opposition parties in a discussion of issues concerning the country. Big front page news!

A third front page article by correspondent Saum Zidadu reported on a conference on “Reporting Africa” held in Gaborone, Botswana. Ms. Connie Rapoo Garebatho, in her paper “Gender and Human Rights” said that “Negative coverage has created negative images of the African continent which has had a negative effect on the continent’s economic, political and social development, especially hurting women, and makes Africa look hopeless in the eyes of the rest of the world.”

Conference presenters said that most media houses in the developed world report negatively about Africa as not only a poor continent that it is, but also as a continent that has no hope economically, socially or politically. Most of the time Africa only makes headlines, the conferees said, when people are dying of hunger, engaged in civil wars and natural disasters…

Finally, an inside column on literature by Bernard Mapalala titled “Nelson Mandela’s Ageing Principles” gave an unflattering review of the official biography of Mandela written by Anthony Sampson that came out in 1999. Apparently many African leaders did not feel supported by Mandela after his release from prison. Well…?

Zanzibari Feasting

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Zanzibar’s native cuisine brazenly drenches seafood in local aromatic spices. At night, locals gather at Forodhani Gardens, a strip of park on the waterfront right outside the House of Wonders. Before sunset, cooks begin setting up grills and tables along the water and laying out skewers of raw seafood. You can stroll along the stalls and pick different delicacies that are then grilled in front of you by lamplight, and wash it all down with mugs of fresh sugarcane juice.

On the upper deck of the Africa House, converted from a gentleman’s club during the era of British colonial rule and rich in atmosphere, we feasted on grilled pork, calimari, mashed sweet potatoes, cabbage salad, chapatis and fresh mixed fruit smoothies served by a very gracious waiter while we watched the sun go down over the Indian Ocean. We sampled Samaki/Kuku wa kapaka, fish and chicken in coconut curry with it’s sweet, warm and spicy flavor which is common all over East Africa. Biriani is meat or chicken with a deep fried onion-based sauce served on a bed of rice.

Another night we ate at a Chinese restaurant-first Chinese since we left home; we are desperate for vegetables! I ordered crab-three huge claws whose shells were at least 1/8 inch thick. As we were leaving the restaurant, I asked the young Chinese cashier where he was from. I am Zanzibari, he said proudly, as he threw his squared shoulders back! Oh, you were born here? I am third generation he said! Are you from Hong Kong? Yes…where should we go in China…oh, stay on the east coast where they have everything new…and go to the Island of Macaw…just like Las Vegas…it’s where I went to college! What was your mother thinking, I said laughing! He said he only liked places in China that were new and modern-hated buildings and statues and old walls-means nothing to him. His dad, he said, always liked to visit those places that were boring to him. Yes, he was Zanzibari!

Poli Poli In Tanzania

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Tanzania
Walking around Poli Poli means “slowly, slowly” in Swahili. That is how we are learning to do everything like the others here in this hot humid equatorial country. We stop to buy a sugar cane juice drink with lime and ginger from a young fellow running long stalks of sugar cane through his little press on his little table. I don’t want ice, I say…Many of the cultural centers and their activities were closed because it was the off-season. If they don’t know the answer they will just say anything to save face…not a good thing if you are asking for directions…

You hear American Rap playing all over Africa. There is a definite feeling of solidarity with African-American youth…our own guys have let the cat out of the bag…a lot of the younger women wear plaited hair. A lot of adolescents have little tiny dreadlocks-girls and boys.

No one wants their photos taken here unless they are paid. Bob asked to take a picture of an artist who was working on some of the famous Ting Ting paintings in a local cooperative compound. Artist said “sure!” Then he said that it would cost $2.

Beach Boys In Zanzibar

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Beach Boy Answer to Poverty
Beach Boys are a pain in the arse. They don’t want to work because they can get more money wearing flip-flops. smoking hash and hustling tourists, the smart young woman behind the reception desk of the hotel says. They aren’t selling anything-just want to hook you up with a taxi, hotel, or a tour and then they get a commission. Or the most frustrating thing-they come up to you with a “Good morning, how are you?” If they get eye contact and an answer they know they have have you. (You don’t want to be the stone-faced unkind westerner.) Then they introduce themselves to you and ask your name. Then they ask you where you come from. They will want to know where in the US you live. They will give you advice, give you directions, explain the history of the area and tell you how to keep yourself safe and all of this distracts you from what you are doing and keeps your attention on them.

It is also a misuse of the African custom of exchange by which a person, after giving you something (in this instance information) expects something back (in this instance money). So we have figured two answers to this problem. One goes like this: Bob hired a motor scooter from George who seemed to be pretty straight. So on the last day in Stonetown we paid him 3000 shillings, or about $3 to take us around to the optical shop, barber shops and to drive us to the ferry at noon. Not one tout bothered us as long as we were with George and George was very happy. So from now on I think we will try to find a guy we are comfortable with and just pay him to go around with us. The second answer is to be blind and mute-don’t give them eye contact and don’t answer them-which is hard for me because my nature is to connect with others.

Zanzibar’s History

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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After Independence from Britain in 1963, Dr. Julius Nyerere was Tanzania’s beloved president for nearly 30 years until his death in 1999. The cornerstone of his policies were based on the Ujamaa Village, a collective agricultural venture run along traditional African lines. He sought to ensure that those in political power did not develop into an exploitative class.

In the 1800’s, Zanzibar, however, was ruled by the Arab country of Oman and was important to the Arabs as a slaving center. In fact, you can visit the Old Slave Market in what is now Darajani Market. Unfortunately, after independence was won from Britain, and even though the Afro-Shirazi party won a majority in the elections the government somehow was formed by an Arab minority which infuriated the Africans. Outraged, they organized an armed revolt and abolished Arab rule. The president of Zanzibar now is Benjamin Mkapa.

You can visit Dr. Livingstone’s Exhibition Room where Livingstone stayed in 1866 during the preparation of his last journey into Africa where he led an expedition to suppress slavery by means of “civilizing influences” and to discover the source of the Nile. But he was not heard from for several years so in 1870 he was met on Lake Tanganyika in the present day Democratic Republic of Congo by a rescue party led by Henry Morton Stanley who greeted him with the famous remark, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Stanley and Livingstone explored the area north of Lake Tanganyika together. He died in 1873. His servant dried his body and carried it and his papers on an 11 month journey to Zanzibar-a trip of 1000 miles. The people buried his heart in Africa as he had requested, but his body was returned to England and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Stone Town Zanzibar

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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May 11-15 2002 City of Stone Town Island of Zanzibar
The tropical island of Zanzibar has a more cosmopolitan and warm and open ambiance than other African countries we have been in-more like the islands off Thailand. Zanzibar is an island partner in the United Republic of Tanzania. It is made up of Pemba and the Unguja Islands, also known as the Spice Islands, along with about 50 small islands. The official languages are Swahili and English and the population including the Island of Pemba is just under 100,000. The religions are Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Traditional Beliefs. Per Capita yearly income is U.S. $190.

Stone Town, the capital, is often the first stop for travelers. After getting off the three-hour ferry from Dar es Salaam, Bob and I chose the Baghani House Hotel, with a nice quiet room with a real air conditioner and full breakfast owned by a friendly local family. That evening we were so tired we missed a big party at the African House Bar and Restaurant commemorating the death of Bob Marley who is revered in Tanzania for his peacemaking role between Tanzania and other African countries (and other) efforts. The next day the other truck riders went on a Spice Tour and continued to the northern beaches to work on their tans and do some fishing while Bob and I stayed in exotic Stone Town to cool our heels and rest after enduring the noise and charcoal cooking smoke of Dar.

The tropical island of Zanzibar has a more cosmopolitan and warm and open ambiance than other African towns we have been in-more like the islands off Thailand. The official languages are Swahili and English and the population including the Island of Pemba is just under 100,000. Zanzibar is an island
partner in the United Republic of Tanzania. It is made up of Pemba and the Unguja Islands, also known as the Spice Islands, along with about 50 small islands. The religions are Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Traditional Beliefs. Per Capita yearly income is U.S. $190.

Stone Town retains the atmospheric trappings of urban life in Muslim cities but hews to a much looser interpretation of Islam than many places in the Middle East. So while calls to prayer regularly resound through the streets, bars and restaurants serve alcohol with little restraint. Leaving the hotel we instantly found ourselves swept into the decaying opulence of the city. From the narrow passageways we ducked into the inner courtyards of old manors, pastel paint peeling from the walls.

What lends Stone Town its charm are the remnants of empire, all piled atop one another and inflected by the native Swahili culture. The Persians were among the first foreigners to settle here alongside the indigenous people. The island was colonized by the Portuguese starting in 1503, and brought under the control of Oman in 1698. The sultan of Oman eventually moved the seat of his kingdom to Zanzibar, which resulted in an artistic renaissance in Stone Town, with Arabic influence becoming much more overt in the designs of manors and palaces. In the late 19th century, the British Empire annexed the island, only to have it gain independence decades later, before coming under the rule of the government of mainland Tanzania.

The shadow of the Arabian peninsula, just across the Indian Ocean, falls everywhere in Stone Town. We made our way through the twisting streets, marveling at the thick wooden double doors with their arabesque carved lintels and large brass studs. One narrow alleyway led to another, with branches veering off in all directions and plenty of dead ends. There were groups of men in white robes and skullcaps playing pool in small cafes, and cramped shops selling everything from spices to television sets to long rolls of multihued cloth. It had the same feel as Cairo – the urban design of Zanzibar is the same as the one imprinted all over the Islamic world.