In Praise of the Plastic Shoe

It might be a right of passage, a marker of African childhood that at some point you had a good pair of plastic shoes that were strong and capable in the face of youthful adventures. I can think back to some sandals in the 1980s that might have had some glitter and were worn with socks, which suggests to me that they were a fancy pair probably intended for outings and Church-going. I don't think I liked them much due to the problem of sweaty feet - plastic shoes don't have the absorbency of fabrics and leather shoes and so can make playing a little bit perilous when they get a little moisture on them. Besides, due to hard usage they also break, leading to unwanted inquisitions by parental units. 

That was last millenium and I happily left the plastic shoe thing behind me, associating them with red mud and trouble until recently. There were some slides of course, it might not be possible to go through university or one's twenties without a comfortable pair to slip on thanks to sports or summer or dressing down informally for early morning classes that one isn't quite awake enough yet to attend fully composed. And there are of course the usual house slippers to put on after a long day, the foot equivalent of taking your bra off and letting the day's burdens go. This I don't do much, indoors is for bare feet and I admit that out and obout the garden as well I tend to avoid slippers if I can get on some grass.So plastic shoes fell out of favour with me until recently, due to the rains. 

Tropical rains are like nothing else, hard to describe. In Dar we get varieties but all of them have the ability to soak one properly in a matter of a minute or two. Very rarely are the rains here polite enough for a quick walk to a bus station or shops without getting a bit soaked. Then there are the medium and intense rains that really lean into the word 'precipitation.' Sometimes the drops and huge and spaced out, each one coming down like a bullet to splatter strongly on head, shoulders, feet, a dijointed bucket of water distributed over a large area. Or the mazimum sheeting rain when the full firehose of the heavens opens up and even the eaves of a house are not enough to keep the water out of windows and doorways. These are the rains that have no interest in your fancy footwear, they demand real committment int he form of boots or better yet the not-so-humble yebo-yebo. 

Yebo-yebos are shoes, distinct from the kanda-mbilis or ndalas we all have as a matter of course. They are outside shoes meant to work with and for you in varied and challenging terrains, from hot sticky asphalt to boggy new soils disturbed by grave-diggers to a thunderous downpour that requires you to brave it and the instant puddles it creates. I have even seen them on children in mountainous areas with socks on, grappling rural roads and rocky outcrops. The most famous - and expensive - brand is the Croc, made popular in the West by television chefs as something comfortable to wear indoors during long and dangerous shifts that might involve falling knives or hot stews slipping from the hand. That's for there, over here in the tropics Crocs are expensive and have given rise to a plethora of look-alike and inspired-by designs that can deliver better service than the original. 

I started noticing them in inclement weather when the usual Zanzibar-sourced leather sandals and other footwear were not up to the task of going out of the house. Sneakers got soaked and don't like red soil in the treads, sandals betray and spill you, boots are boots and if you're not gardening or security personnel the likelihood of owning a pair let alone wearing them in the humid heat is slim. It was the young men who tipped me off to the yebo-yebo, they always seem to going somewhere with great gusto no matter the weather. I noticed them were wearing some rather nice grown up plastic shoes in the wet season - some slides, some Croc-alike, a very few even looking like a full shoe with breathing holes in them. These yebo-yebos even started showing up at roadside stalls where we sell second-hand goods. That's when I knew this was a Dar necessity that I should get involved in for safety and transport reasons. 

We have shops these days in Dar and I found one in a mall where I could try the original Croc, thinking I might close my eyes to the price if the shoe fit right. After all, it is an ivestment is it not? The shoes never fit right. There is something about the way Crocs are moulded that fight with my high arches and splayed toes and give me instant blister promises. I rarely wear closed shoes as it is* which makes my feet rather particular about what kind of confinement they can accept. Original Crocs might be fun and heavy-duty investments but they are simply unwearable for me. The cheap stuff, however? Entirelye different story. They are clearly a Thrid World FUBU (For Us, By Us, Made In The Tropics) response to my fellow billions who also live a minimalist shoe life in the hot places. 

Mine were bought at a shop that didn't survive it's time in the mall, they were on sale. Thick, heat resistant plastic with a lot of give, quite comfortable and just high enough to keep my feet dry from the micro-puddles. I figured out when I wore them that this is our equivalent of engaging the Four-Wheel-Drive function for our feet. Many obstacles can be handled by a good pair of yebos, strong ankles and dexterity - urban pothole crossings on the way to work, condolence visits, going to the markets with the shady paving and yucky run-off streams. They have been a revelation, and I am so glad I re-discovered this essential piece of African gear. 

I am careful with them now, the left is starting to develop a tear and I can't bear the thought of them ending up as flotsam at one of the beach clean-ups where our tired and discarded plastic shoes retire to. It is pollution, I know, but something about Dar makes it seem almost fitting to see all the sizes and colours of yebos awash on the shore and the edges of the streams to the ocean, where everything ends up eventually. Here's to yebo yebos, keeping us mobile, agile and third-worlding like bosses through dry and wet circumstances. 

Here is to Hope: Reviving The Mikocheni Report in Interesting Times

Facing the blank page on a blog hosted on Google after a hiatus of one-and-a-hald Tanzanian presidential terms is a good feeling. When I stopped writing in 2018, I was protesting the introduction of fees that would make blogging a commercial endeavour whether or not the writer wanted to monetize their efforts. This was made mandatory by the Tanzanian Communications Regulations Agency and it also came at a time when the crackdown on all media, press and even arts and culture was heightened due to then-President Magufuli's personal feelings about freedom of speech. 

I want to say that the situation has improved in terms of regulations but I cannot be confident of that since I haven't looked into it deeply. There have been one or two posts since the hiatus, when I would check if the blog was still alive on Google servers, and to my delight it is. 

What is definite is another watershed moment in the Freedom of Expression environment that has prompted me to start writing again, perhaps because there is such a dearth of material in the past few months. On October 29th, 2025 the general elections were held in Tanzania. They were accompanied by protests that broke out country-wide and that caused a strict internet shut-down as well as the gagging of the media for a period of roughly five days. 

During that time a lot happened that was atrocious. Initially the number of people believed to have been killed during some violence between protesters and elements of the police and other militias was set between a few thousand people and roughly seven hundred people. However the story is only beginning to be told on the ground in Tanzania and somewhat through international media, and due to the absolute lock-down on movement and on communications it will take a long time to it seems as though the number might be in the high hundreds to a thousand. This Global Dispatches interview with political scientist Constantine Manda about the situation in the first few days gives context, some history and facts from the first week of reactions and I think it will stand the test of time.

It is in this vacuum of news and information and that the need to revive a strong and independent formal and citizen media  landscape with a plurality of voices has become apparent. We are all using the platforms that we have available to us to the best of our abilities and that of the technologies we can muster. There has been no real direct communications from the Head of State, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, since the brief speech at her inauguration. It is a rare vacuum in a conversation that has always been active between the public and the leadership, one that is indicative of the shift that has taken place this year. 

All of which is to say, it seems like a good time to come back to the work of blogging about politics - yes - but also the everyday of life in Dar es Salaam as the Mikocheni Report was intended to do from its inception. If I had little to say in the years of hiatus, the mood and the situation has changed and there is much to be said now to try and craft a link between the past, the present and what the future might hold. Here is to hope.