Writer? Uh...maybe?

Oh Lord. The hellish gap between my blogging intentions and my blogging output is staring me in the face again. I knew I should never have made that resolution about posting more often: last year when I had no such lofty ideals I was much more productive. And as I keep telling Ink Head, blogging is a muscle that has to be exercised...I just got a little lazy.

Anywho, I am off to stock up on culture and clove perfume in Zanzibar over the next two days. Book Salaam is making its debut as a fringe event of the Sauti za Busara annual music festival. African Bambataa is a fan of the dude of honor, one Patrick Neate, who is coming down from the UK to support the Tanzanian iteration of his critically acclaimed London Book Slam. Just about everyone I know from the Paradisan writing scene is heading there en mass, all thirty or forty odd of us. I don't know what to expect but I know that whatever happens, it will be good.

As I started running down my list of preparations this evening- camera battery plugged in, where are the moleskine notebook and black ink pens, don't forget to pack clean underwear and a phone charger- I realized that this year I might be in imminent danger of aspiring to become a Writer, thanks to the overwhelming temptations of a collegial atmosphere. The other day under the influence of alcohol and warm enthusiasm from a nearly-published author, I let it slip that I would love to write biographies. And I would. But what posessed me to admit it?

What's the problem, you ask? This is a matter of self-definition, and determination, and choices- all that good stuff. I remember an article by a new author- I think it may have been Alexandra Robbins/Abby Wilner, or maybe someone completely different- who basically said that calling herself a writer and then trying to live it was one of the most terrifying things she had ever done. I could relate to that. I suppose anyone who has ever enforced a clear distinction between their artistic and pragmatic sides can relate to that.

As a writer with a small double-you, I can comfortably pursue my more lucrative and socially-approved ambitions. I can dedicate myself to my job. Admittedly it consists largely of reading and writing, but it comes with a salary and perhaps even health insurance in the future. As a writer in small caps I can fantasize about making enough money to buy a Fahm in Africah while nursing my other plans for world domination. But if I were to allow myself to capitalize that double-you, things would have to change.

Writers write. It is their raison d'etre, whether or not they succeed at it in the public eye. Writers write at the expense of ambitions to own a farm, at the expense of jobs with health insurance, sometimes at the expense of healthy relationships. In college I took a class for African Studies that brought me into contact with the work of a brilliant short story writer from Zimbabwe. His work was devastating, I can still recall some of it by memory (and my memory is a Swiss Cheese, evidently, since I cannot retain his name). But the man is/was also struggling with some pretty serious mental health issues in his civilian life. And I get it, I get him. Aspiring to Be a Writer and let the artistic side make the decisions is a rather unattractive ambition for anyone who likes the idea of a neatly ordered and logically progressive life.

I recently came across a potential ally in the quest for a literary magazine, an ambition I had been secretly nurturing for a couple of years. As it turns out, this year marks the beginning of a literary revolution in Paradise. This social idea is coming to fruition in many minds all at the same time: SOMA magazine, rumors of a writers' workshop, Book Salaam...we're all negotiating our alliances and rivalries in the area of innovation and collective effort. I have no idea how this will turn out, it could go either way: a small but critically-acclaimed journal someday, and the chance to do some interesting work, or complete loss of momentum. In an effort to guard the latter somewhat, this is the first entry in the This Writing Life section of the blog. With some luck, it will not go the way of the food blogging entries. Let me end here since tonight I have some homework to do: who is Patrick Neate?

Coming Out- Of the Back of the Bookstore

Although an out-and-out scorn for novels in the romance genre rarely bothers me, the faintly pitying dismissals of other avid fiction readers never fails to get under my skin and fill me with an impotent anger. Sadly, it is only in the past few months that I realized what the problem was: I have been ashamed of my reading habits all these long years. I have been that furtive buyer of bodice-rippers, clutching her brown paper parcel upon exiting bookstores like a drug fiend afraid to be seen in the wrong part of town. I have feigned interest in the high brows of people's private bookshelves while secretly scanning the spines for the flowery script and pastel colors favored by romance cover designers. But today I'm coming out in defence of my beloved genre.

The thing is that I understand perfectly well people's misgivings. It is not all Jane Austen out there, and there are copious amounts of execrable materials that get printed in the genre. I know that a number of readers who are high in the instep tend to look down on us romance lovers as precious but misguided literary idiots, though we would thank them to remember that our insatiability is what keeps book empires afloat so that they may afford to offer them more refined fare. Sure, the unimaginative may assume that we cannot discern between the fairy-tale worlds of love stories and the complex, unpredictable, elusive yet curiously universal experiences of love in The Real World. And by keeping silent, I feel that I have tacitly agreed to these and all the other rude misconceptions about this wonderful genre and those that write and read it.

La Dee and I proudly display our hodgepodge collection at home to the enduring irritation of Our Lady of the Fixed Smiles: "Must you put all those...those...books where people can see them? What will your visitors think!" I don't blame her; the bookshelves are laden with about 70% romance novels, bolstered by texts we will never read after college but could not bear to part with, very excellent fantasy/science fiction and the odd literature grandee. As it is, people usually think and state the obvious: 'Wow, you guys really like books! you really like those romance books, eh?' To which there is no polite reply other than 'yes.' Nothing like a Regency to teach one sardonic understatement.

So what is the big deal, you ask? I had a straw-that-broke-the-camels-back moment a couple of days ago when having a discussion about literature and fiction. As my colleague snarfled on about having read 'Judith Whatever' when he was a child as his only experience of romance, for the first time in my life I suffered an acute attack of testosterone allergy. As a person who fits snugly into some pretty classic 'disempowered' boxes, (African, Black, Female, and Young) I have lapped up romance as an escape tool and a refuge from the patriarchy. I like Le Male enough to consider myself a true androphile, but sometimes even in literature He needs to STFU so that the other noises can filter through. Don't think I am not aware of the patriarchal conformity in classic romance novels mind you, with their marriage and reproduction ideal. But we can get to that another time.

You see, romance has always been my go-to place when relentless masculine ego threatens to overwhelm me. Throughout high-school, literature was heavy on Le Male and His Angst, whether we watching Oedipus self-destruct, or MacBeth self-destruct, or Okonkwo self-destruct, or that little snot from Catcher in the Rye also, you guessed it: self-destruct. Kafka, Faust, Theatre of the Absurd, and nary a healthy female character in sight. This diet was leavened by ye Sylvia Plath and Bessie Head poetry to guarantee that our budding sexual identities and politics would be fully saturated with wariness for the Madness that is Woman. Did I mention MacBeth*? Yeah.

So on holidays I would cool out with a little romance, inhabiting worlds where gentler passions were allowed to see the light of day, female sexuality wasn't a red-toothed dragon waiting to devour someone unworthy man of feeble character, and humor was welcome. It was a wonderful introduction to some simple truths, such as Guys Have Feelings Too, Beware The Villains, and Don't be Afraid to Buck Convention if You are Fighting For Your Happiness. And it wasn't until Mrs. O'Connor made us read some Magical Realism towards the end of high school that the literary horizon changed for me (Thanks, POC!).

Enter: that female voice. Prior to reading books like The Red Tent, The Poisonwood Bible, A Thousand Splendid Suns and Purple Hibiscus I had never even imagined that someone out there might articulate my politics, feelings, thoughts and other less tangible experiences with so much more eloquence than I ever could. How to explain? Achebe will always be great but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie made me cry for half a day after reading her book. In many ways, my favorite romance novelists of yore guided me to them by giving me the tools to recognize the sound and cadences of that particular voice within seconds of browsing any title in a bookstore.

But it doesn't end there- no genre worth its salt remains static or rigid. Just as Fantasy branched out from Tolkien into Phillip Pullman, Guy Gavriel Kay and numerous others authors' mind-bending works, so has Romance gone forth and multiplied into a variety of offerings to suit all tastes and brows. Some of the big name romance authors have secondary lives as university professors, computer programmers, eminent physicists, farmers, librarians. Along with happily-ever-after, a romance reader can get a mass of information on the most interesting things- like the difference between a clusterfuck and a snafu in American military slang.

Best of all is that this genre lends itself handily to whatever place the author is coming from for the dissection of whatever issues the author cares about. It is easy to overlook the fact that a genre need be nothing more than a format, a vehicle for the author. Romance has mushroomed democratically in recent years in all kinds of interesting directions: erotica, paranormal, gay and lesbian, ethnic 'minority,' futuristic dystopia- you name it and the likelihood is someone is trying to get their manuscript published in that sub-genre. While in the 1980s the M&B (that's Mills and Boon to you uninitiated) industry was heavily pushing the dominant-man-submissive-inexperienced-woman schtick, these days their offerings include second or third marriages, older-woman-younger-man relationships and even mild BDSM and polyamory themes. And these are the conservative publishers of "cheap" romance. So whatever your flavor, there is romance for you out there. And if there isn't: write it. That's how some current best-sellers got started. Like the best literature, the good stuff in Romance can capture the intangibles and explore the human condition with insight, poignancy and artistry. It just does it with a good dollop of lovin' thrown in.

Wheeeeeeeewooooooh, glad to have gotten that off my chest. Alright with the world now. What's this got to do with Paradise, say you? Nothing much, other than the sad fact that it is damn hard to get your hands on good romance out here but yours truly is always willing to lend a book or two (after you swear on the blood of your unborn children that we will get them back). And if its not your thing, no worries- we all have our blind spots. Mine is anything vanilla-scented so naturally La Dee loves vanilla-scented things.

Have a loving weekend.

* Is any other Lady MacBeth fan eternally disappointed that she descended into madness in the end? And has anyone watched that pivotal scene in Mystic River? Somebody should have gotten her Oscar nod that year.

The Ideological Suit

I recently saw a consignment of Obama khangas sent off to the US and wished that I had had the foresight to order one for myself. One of the singular pleasures of khangas made to commemorate the visits of Important People (usually the Pope or the American President du jour) is that they print the image of the Honored Guest in the exact center of the fabric where it can fall over a well-proportioned African heritage. With the right collection on hand, one can sit on the faces of oh so many people- tell me that's not worth collecting for? The khangas also got me thinking about what our leaders wear.

In the last two years I have been keeping loose track of the evolution of the suit in Paradisan politics*. Styles of dress have changed as we embrace a free-market economy, and I for one am not about to complain, from an aesthetic point of view. Nyerere introduced the socialist suit during the Ujamaa times and we have been struggling with yawn-colored short-sleeved travesties ever since. Still, an ujamaa suit is very effective at communicating poverty, affability, hard work, lack of vanity and leftward leanings- all essential qualities for a politician in a socialist setting. Mzee Ruksa, Mzee Mkapa kept with this sartorial indifference throughout their presidencies, only breaking out the western suit and tie on those infrequent occasions that seemed to demand it. With Mr. Mkapa's neck size, ties are probably inadvisable anyways.

Then the fourth administration shook things up. The ujamaa suit has quietly been relegated to up-country rallies and Party gatherings. There is even a dressed-up version that comes fitted with long-sleeves in black, grey, cream. Jay Kay and his crew are most notable, however, for breaking out the suits and going 'executive.' Other than the fact that only the most unimaginative of spirits could bear to wear socialist suits when alternatives exist, I think the relatively recent adoption of the banker look by our political class is a clear sign of a number of changes. One, our Dear Leaders want to be taken seriously as professionals, not as dubious thugs from a banana republic. Two, ujamaa is out and capitalism is in. Third, these days you can get a facial, manicure, pedicure and pinky ring without compromising your masculinity even if you are commander in chief of the armed forces.

More interestingly, this loosening of imposed social 'cohesion' has pretty much permeated Paradise. We used to be a conservative society inclined to dowdiness and conformity, this is no longer the case. Its okay to wear a good suit, or tight jeans, or own and run a business, or be a television star, or get a few facial piercings, or speak in English, or make money. It is no longer untoward to be ambitious, get an education or have a nuclear family. You can wear a socialist suit one day, a tie the next, and imported West African linen the day after. It is generational ,this increased comfort with a multiplicity of identities.

I guess that the political class is just projecting those characteristics that some already have and others aspire to: affluence, style, youth, fluidity. It has been interesting to note, for example, that no matter how crappily-dressed folks were beforehand, as soon as they join the cabinet they have been spit-polished and squeezed into cufflinks and ankle-boots. The corporate image is important to this administration, which won't tolerate ministers straying around wearing white socks with black dress shoes.

A buddy has been trying to get me to join his party but I haven't had the heart to tell him about how repulsive their choice of uniform is to me. Costuming is important, which is why I am intrigued that Chadema has chosen the White Hunter look for its political uniform. You know the one: safari suit, safari boots, occasional cowboy hat, helicopter accessory. The associations are not good. Khakis hint at a martial mind-set redolent with conflict, blood-letting, war chieftains and patriarchal priviledge. Yes, banker suits also hint at patriarchal priviledge but nothing tops white hunter gear for sheer historical gloom. In fact, all political fashions related to savannahs and hunting are suspect: Mobutu rocked those admittedly snazzy animal prints and look at how the man served up an industrial portion of chilling madness.

'Tis the season for new year resolutions! Wish you lots of bubbly and squishes and merriment and hopefully 2009 will herald the final and total demise of the short-sleeved yawn-colored suit. Remember to beware of anyone who likes hunting or animal-related paraphenalia, including but not limited to: knobkerries, fly-whisks, tilted animal print hats, cowboy boots, cowboy hats, elephant-hair bracelets, copper bracelets, elephant guns, gunbelts, the color khaki, et cetera.

* Is there a field of study by the way, exploring the relationship between ideology and fashion in post-colonial Africa? Am looking for material: links, papers, art, blogs, musings, and fun stuff.

When does no mean 'yes, please'?

When people give pollsters an answer that politicians would rather not hear, I guess. There has been a mini-furore in the past month over Tanzania's misbehaving ways in the EAC. We don't want to tackle formal integration at a pace higher than a crawl while Kenya and Rwanda are chafing at the bit and Uganda schleps along. Of course, away from the beady eye of the press and regulatory authorities, we are negotiating various forms of integration anyways- economic and cultural, technological etc.

When Prof. Wangwe traipsed around the country a couple of years ago polling and 'educating' people on the EAC, 75% Tanzanians opposed political federation unless it could take place at some unmentioned date far in the mists of the future as opposed to within their lifetime. Things have not changed much, in spite of the tantrums that the other EAC countries have thrown. It can be argued that what Tanzanians claim to think about integration is immaterial, which is happening anyways, and that these periodic shouting matches with her neighbors are a waste of energy. But the will of the people should not be so lightly ignored- doing so is usually the hallmark of a dictatorship.

Our fellow countries might be content with their interesting political arrangements but Tanzania is at a point in her political development where the voice of the people is tentatively starting to matter. What is to be gained by reverting to our top-down ways now? I can't see the wisdom of setting up bodies and institutions and political instruments to administer an arrangement that Tanzania is resisting, unless the goal is to force Tanzania's not-so-buried fears to manifest as violent intolerance of citizens from neighboring countries. If we are already throwing rocks at Jay Kay's motorcade we are not that far from smacking non-locals into oblivion, and then the Pan African dream will really have to die.

The Style of a Woman

The Michelle and Barack show is going to be a fun one. I have always enjoyed how the Western press pays attention to the SOs of their leaders- except for that horrible Hilary-bashing stuff. Today I saw an article from a recent paper about our restless President's most recent trip (next door, to Mozambique). The news was humdrum until I reached the end of it and realized that not only had Salma Kikwete gone along, she had some of her own business to take care of while there, addressing a Mozambican women's organization. How about that.

From what I have read, Mwalimu doesn't appear to have been much interested in that First Lady crap. Mama Maria Nyerere's public career kicked off after our Dear Leader exited this mortal coil, and she has done well as Honored Widow and Custodian of the Dear Leader's Moral Legacy. President the Second too was retiring about his family life, bringing out his First Lady for the occasional public event. Things got mildly interesting with Madam Mkapa. During her term she started a charity and encouraged, imho, the courting of State House through dealings with her in the form of generous contributions to her charity. A charity whose good works I am inclined to think are rather slight for the amounts of money given.

Ah, but Salma. Salma is another kind of woman altogether. During Kikwete's campaign, Salma showed her political savvy and public speaking skills. Amejaa tele!* This First Family of course is a lot more visible, partly because of the changing political media culture and partly because that's just how they roll. And there can be no doubt that Salma is no 'little wifey' who has been relegated to the status of Ikulu furniture.

She seems to have acquired herself a public role in such a manner that the media here- which is largely intolerant of the idea of a First Lady doing anything other than redistributing wealth by shopping- has accepted, if not embraced her. Yes, her work is predictably about the wimmins and the chilluns but she's also had a lot to say about the HIV and the quality of the schools and the hospitals and stuffs. And she fundraises, and she speechifies, and she's an undeniably present and confident female role model. I'm not sure yet where this will all end up, but she has certainly brought an interesting new angle to our First Lady culture.

It helps that Jay to the Kay has the most progressive gender politics ever seen in the country's history. While I don't always agree with the how of it, this is one woman-friendly president who has made massive strides in opening up politics to women and other traditional minorities. You gotta pick your man right, my ambitious sistren, gotta pick him right.

*She's large and in charge.

Music and follies.

Went out last night to listen to some live music at a new place by the beach. I love, absolutely love this new place but I have to say that the entrance fee was an unwelcome shock. Watch out Dar Alive, if you keep that kind of thing up you might encourage the fickle Dar crowd to wander right back to their old, free haunts. I guess the gate fee was for the musicians- they've got to eat, right?

Carola and her band, Shada, offered some excellent music which was balm for my restless soul. They did a section with traditional instruments and sang some fusion songs- very, very excellent (although they need to work on their endings which sounded more like abrupt abandonments than endings). And then, the moon was full. So we were on the beach, in the cool night breeze off the ocean, watching stars and listening to Carola and Co. The urge to run away to Cape Town and live a bohemian life was somewhat alleviated.

While in Die Kaap and Jo'Burg we listened to some radio, and I really missed the Paradisan stations. Saffie talk radio is pretty damn fantastic, and there is a good selection of music but...but Paradisan stations are very broad in their range of music. I haven't had to choke on that effing 'If I Was A Boy' track more than once a day here which is a blessed relief. Just today at work I have caught up on all my Utake, took a trip down memory lane with Koffi Olomide and visited some Dirty South.

So, in Cape Town, like right in town, there's this fly-over that end abruptly. It is a fantastic piece of urban statuary, soaring up about ten meters into the air and just hanging there, going nowhere. Apparently the engineer made a mistake in the calculations and the two ends of the highway were not going to meet. Funny, yes, but let us not forget that is an unemployed, disgraced, possibly alcoholic engineer out there trying to hustle a job under an assumed name and fake resume.

I love that the Mother City hasn't bothered tearing it down. I hope they never do, as every city needs its follies. Dar has a few, but they are so fugly they give little or no pleasure. My favorite Paradisan urban quirk is the peacocks. State House used to have a sort of zoo on its grounds, a throw-back I guess to Sultanish pleasure gardens filled with oddments of the animal kingdom. Well, President the Second, Mzee Ruksa, let things degenerate. The deer and other protein was probably put down and eaten, but the peacocks escaped to survive on the streets of Dar es Salaam. Ornamental, yes, but tough. Their offspring are still around, scrappy little city birds that have an astoundigly loud shriek. They nest in ministry parking lots. I can never help smiling when I see one dodging Land Cruisers as it crosses the road from a bank garden to an office pavement, brood in tow.

Have a quirky, musical weekend.

A Weighty Matter

About 90% of folks that have seen me so far post-vacation have exclaimed in delight: 'you have put on weight!'* Um, thank you?

Let me put this in some context: as someone who had to wait a good long time for the old curves to pop out, I am not in the least bit interested in being svelte. Fun-sized women who go straight up and down look like pre-pubescent boy models. However, in the past couple of years I have been conscious of a creeping concern with what being healthy means. The magazines haven't helped. It is becoming harder and harder to ignore conversations about cabbage soup diets and coffee enemas- both of which pleasures I intend to absent myself from forever.

South Africa was a revelation. As a friend remarked who has recently moved there, there are many slim waists to be seen. It is amazingly easy to eat healthy, even if greengrocers seem to have been driven to extinction by the supermarkets. But that's not what vacations are for, and I guess my consumption of game meats and Peroni caught up with me, to the aforementioned delight of so many friends. Aaah, gone are the days when a woman could effectively hide behind her African Heritage.

Watching people run around the Cape seafront, I felt twinges of guilt about my sedentary lifestyle. While a rich African figure is a gift from the creator, an excess ten to fifteen kilos of jiggle and roll is not actually all that much fun for the bearer (especially when up-stairs haulage is involved) nor for the viewer, although that remains subjective. Where is the line of sanity between enjoying one's fabulous self, punishing one's fabulous self with ridiculous eating plans so as to fit into a chinese medium-sized dress, and letting one's fabulous self 'go?'

Its not like there is any more need to plump up like a Toro bride in this day and age, prosperity can be indicated by bling, luxe cars, the ordering of Hennessy on Friday nights. So the yawping pit of one-size-fits-all-and-it-is-zero insanity beckons, especially now that I am no longer in the populous and high-metabolism 15-25 age bracket. To stave off both the rice cakes and the diabetes, I have come up with a series of measures: if you can still jog up two flights of stairs and get to your meeting fresh, shake what your mama beqeathed you for two half-hour sets of live music, and (with or without help) produce a cleavage to drown an oil tanker in at need, life's good.

*In all fairness, 'umenenepa' more directly translates to: "you look fresh, energized, healthy and have put on a little weight" rather than "you've gotten fat." But after ten people tell one that, one's waistband starts to feel unaccountably snug...

On Vacations

But one must go to the Mother City. It is fabulous. fantastic. fearsome. free and frivolous. i run out of effs. Consonants aside, what can't you get in the Cape? The Cape put the bounce back in my swagger, the pot back in my belly, the, flow back in my rhyme. So like James Brown, I am back and perhaps wearing clothing that is a mite too tight.

How was it? Well. There was the Beau Monde walking around shirtless (Thank You Gay Men). And there were weathered old jazzmen playing some Cape-unique tunes for free (free. FREEEE!) at the waterfront. Not to mention the five young turks at Asoka killing me with their rendition of Caravan (free. live. jazz. every. tuesday). Thrown in some whales, a little Table Mountain and wine tasting...we acha tu.

There were disgruntled taxi drivers defending the dubious notion of Black Entitlement. There were charmingly gregarious Afrikaner tourguides wistfully recounting the histories of Stellenbosch. Sommeliers, gourmet Kudu, unique ecologies. Cheap t-shirts, expensive cars, rolling rrrrrrrrrs. And so much more. The rainbow nation lived up to its promise of diversity, however uneasy the mixtures may have been at times.

To experience all that and get to come back to Dar es Salaam at the end of it is impossibly delicious. Have a restful, and appreciative week. And don't, no matter how tempted you are, raise bail for Yona and Mramba. Your kids need the schoolfees.

A propos Ethiopian food: La Dee and I went to Addis in the Cape to 'greet'- after all, these guys are practically our living room in Dar. It was...different. Fine, you know, just not nearly as wonderful as the original. And the food was a bit meh- anemic menu, comatose flavors. Mama came over to chat after the meal and when we broached the subject of the taste difference she revealed something interesting: the Cape food is bland because she can't import the flavored, cultured butter (ghee-like stuff) that imparts so much richness and depth of flavor to Ethiopian food. South African laws don't allow, blah blah blah, pasteurization, blah blah blah, food safety. Pity.