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. 

Correspondence

All my fuzzy intentions to revive the blog have melted in the summer heat. Every attempt on my part to stoke the flames of passion that were the fount of my writing prior to my “quitting” in protest has fizzled out. Why am I suffering this impotence, what was the underlying issue? After all I write on a regular basis anyways for a different public, and blogging was my refuge and relaxation, my space for meditation on topics at a level that is not possible in an online or print newspaper. Why couldn’t I perform as I did between 2008-2018 on Mikocheni Report?

There is no pill for this lassitude, no quick fix. I have let it lie, having learned over a decade of blogging that one cannot expect to be as energetic as an adult as one was as a younger adult. My energies are split as is my attention, there are a few more demands on my time and while wisdom comes with age it seems to demand the sacrifice of some vigor in exchange. Besides, change has happened too. There is a period of trauma there that has changed me in ways I am still learning about. Not just personal trauma, but the effects of a communal experience during a specific period of time in Tanzania. We are not all traumatized, but many of us are. I think the Zanzibaris might be more truthful about understanding this than we Tanganyikans can allow ourselves to be.

In the event, what could I bring to blogging now? Against the insistence of many I still do not consider myself a journalist in the traditional sense. I am a writer, I write. Blogging comes naturally for many reasons- of independence and editorial control, convenience, lack of pressure. Also: it is just fun. But why should I keep blogging, what for? I am tired, oh. My knees are beginning to creak and what little patience I had once upon a time is fast disappearing as I become more like my precedents in temperament. I am cranky.

I am cranky… unless I am writing, or better yet reading a missive. And that is the key- that is what is going to keep this blog limping along is the lifelong joy of correspondence. Writing is about audience: one can happily write for oneself and many of us do as we journal in some form or other, keep diaries and records. Then there is writing with the reader in mind, what I have been doing since school days and now do voluntarily for a living and sometimes in spite of a living. Truth is, perhaps since the very first notes passed in class and the very first letters received in boarding school, I have been hooked to the type of conversation that can only be had via the written word.

It’s different isn’t it? A letter or  note can be slipped in the pocket and read and re-read infinitely. There is the careful choice of words that went into it. If one is lucky enough to get a hand-written note or letter there is an entire dimension therein: the loops and lines of someone’s actual making. When you write a note by hand you are really drawing a story for them with code, and that’s lovely. As a child I remember looking at the differences between my mother’s neat and rounded vowels and my father’s kinetic overblown consonants with sharp edges and long strokes. Their writing was gendered to my eye! And each seemed imbued somehow with their life energy. Of course I have kept as many letters as I can, that is what collectors do. And perhaps it was those letters and notes and the few pen-pals I had over the years that are truly responsible for the kind of writer I am.

I am a (repressed) poet and an essayist, really. Fiction has declined my invitations to visit and stay a while, at best perhaps a short story or two in my past worked out. But letters? Letters I can write. I’d rather write you a letter or even leave you a voice note than entertain a phone-call most of the time. With technology this habit has gotten even more acute: honestly phones have come to their best form allowing us to ignore the voice aspects, turn on silent and simply text. Text, text, text.

Text. And that is how, and that is why dear reader I think I will continue blogging.

The time of seeking work and trying to attract readers is a little bit past me, I think. I want to go back to the simple days of writing you a letter. So I will, and hope that you write back from time to time.

Hello. How are you doing?

Yours in faithful correspondence,

Elsie.

"City of the Smiling People"- Ongala Festival 2022

"I am sitting at a table during the height of the lunch rush, waiting for someone. A couple approaches the 4-top and asks if they can sit there with me? Against my nature I tell them “I am waiting for someone” because I don’t know if that someone will be okay with company. This does not go down well. They remark to me, surprised, that surely they may sit since I am only waiting for one person? I do not respond, only apologizing for their inconvenience. The woman moves on, already looking at friendlier tables. The man lingers to glare before turning away and grumbling. The entire encounter takes a few seconds and nary a voice is raised.

I smile down at my phone to avert my gaze, aware that I have just violated social rule of generosity, graciousness and conviviality. Not my fault he came at me with just a touch more aggression in his request than was warranted. In the end, a peaceful silence reigns and nobody’s feelings or pride are hurt.

This is Bongo. Dar es Salaam. We are slated to hit a cool 7 million this year which the upcoming Census might verify for us. Fastest growing city on the continent, one of the fastest growing in the world. And we are holding on to our smiles and our particular brand of Utu with both hands.

Many mistake Tanzanians easy-going and low key approach for something else. Shyness or low confidence, lack of language skills, other- whatever they feel they need to project upon us. While any of these might be in play, much of the time Tanzanians and especially those of us who live in the City know that non-confrontation is a choice as well as an art. Dar is a pleasant city to live in because we wish it so: amidst the trials and tribulations of modern life and the grimness of the human experience we not only choose life, we choose to smile. Why fight, when we can love instead? It takes courage, and effort, and commitment to love. Anger is easy, peace is not.

A much older man approaches the table, eyes me and demands: “what are you doing here alone, young lady?” I protest weakly that I am waiting for someone, knowing that I have lost the fight to protect our table. He uses the privilege of age and customership to let me know I am sitting at his table, in fact. He proceeds to sit down and order his meal while I receive a call from my friend and direct him to our shared table.

The two old men know each other, as it turns out. Veterans of the public service system and nearly of an age, they have much in common including people. They exchange pleasantries and proceed to catch up on news of careers, current affairs, thoughts on the President. I eat quietly, piping up with the occasional question, knowing that I am being indulged by my elders in this glimpse behind the curtain of how political sausage is made.

I look around. The only sign that in this bustling, hustling popular eatery that my two old men are of any importance at all is the way the waiters will respond to their calls with a touch more alacrity. This might also simply be because of age: old folks are cranky, trust me, they are really much more manageable if you respond to them quickly. And smile while you are doing so.

The couple found a table in the end, shared. They ate and ended up alone there, talking for a while before they got up and went on with their day. As they glanced over at our table they smiled and she smiled back while his eyes simply widened and he nodded slightly. All is well.

The older man at whose table I sat is finished before us. He pays our bill as well as his and graciously accepts our relaxed thanks before he leaves us to our business. He is smiling as he goes, no longer the stern elder who commandeered a seat, now just another friendly face.

This is Bongo, Dar es Salaam. The City of the Smiling people. Anywhere I go, I know a little ease, a little charm, a little conviviality will make things well. Home."

Wrote this piece fresh for the Ongala Music Festival that begins tomorrow 5th of August and will be running until Sunday 7th of August at the Silver Sands Hotel in Kunduchi, Dar es Salaam. The request was for words about the 'Tanzanian spirit', thought I would share a vignette of what happened yesterday at lunch. 

There will be a wee bit more of my work and that of other writers and poets at the Poetry and Prose Corner of the Festival. Karibuni sana. 

Enjoy. Let's celebrate Remy and the Arts together. 

Social Media, Amirite?

 Y'all, while I was away a lot happened in the Tanzanian social media sphere. Much of it is great, much of it is bad- we are in keeping with global trends in this sphere. So there I was planning to totally blog on the weekend and get things warmed up again. 

But in the back of my mind I had an issue brewing. That of cyberbullying. A friend was going through a very messed up situation and I was quietly meditating on why, what could be done in such circumstances, a whole bunch of factors. 

So on Friday just as I am thinking "Oh, I should select a fun topic for The Mikocheni Report" and going about my day: smack! Got popped right in the face with some Tweets reacting to piece I wrote in The East African a while back. Initially I was pretty open to "dialogue" because I never get feedback on Twitter about the stuff I do on the East African. But then the day and the conversation progressed and I realized this was actually not a good thing. 

Everyone who writes for public consumption gets used to feedback as a part of the job. It is valuable, it is a way to keep a finger on the pulse of things, of finding out how things are going, of getting loads more information and making connections, sometimes even making friends. "Negative" feedback is very important in identifying gaps in your knowledge and 99% of the time it is offered for free by an expert in the field who took the time to write to you and provide evidence, data, articles and so on. Seriously, you would not believe how many experts in various fields a decade of opinion can garner one.  

But there is the other kind of negative feedback: that with malicious intent. Occasionally it is personal: someone just doesn't like you. Which is normal, right? No big. Easily handled. Malicious intent as part of a larger campaign around a controversial topic? Different story. If you're not careful with that stuff you can get dragged by your dreadlox into a very nasty space with no reasonable way out. 

My social media is active, I tend to respond to people who @ me which is not the wisest policy but I feel it keeps the door open. Obviously if you keep the door open anyone can walk in tho. But here's the thing: Mark Zuckerberg is younger than me. Twitter came online in the mid-2000s. I grew up playing video games that had to be loaded of a cassette tape and have learned how to mistype with both thumbs. I might know a thing or two about how to avoid being dragged by my dreadlox into a nasty space.

On the other side of being called a cyberbully, I have to wonder about the whole experience. Evidently it is great fodder for an eventual piece on gender and cyberbullying (it is not a straightforward thing, that) as part of commentary on the changing online landscape in Tanzania and beyond. On a  personal level it was a great check on how well the whole anger management effort is going. Once upon a time I was a chill and easygoing person. And then I was not. Now I am getting back to the Zen zone again and it was nice to get tested on that over the weekend.

Long story short: this is why the first real post on TMR in a long time isn't really a cool piece about something interesting as was originally intended. But it is also perfect because it reminded me that very few of my plans when it comes to blogging ever work out as anticipated. I guess that's just the House Style as it were. TMR may never manage to become a serious, planned out, consistently structured blog... thank God.

Y'all keep safe out there, especially online, y'hear?  

1527 Days: 4 Years, Two Months and a Week.

In my last real blogpost published on May 3^rd of 2018, I said the following:

“Tanzania has passed laws and regulations this year requiring bloggers to register and pay a punitive fee in order to keep offering their content. The flimsy excuse is taxation. The real reason is standard restriction of free speech. The Tanzanian blogosphere is too minute to generate anything worth taxing, but it has punched above its weight lately.

So it is with a clean heart that I announce the icing of the Mikocheni Report. Reader, you already knew it was coming.

I say icing because in truth I have no idea what these regulations actually mean and I need time to see. Also...ten years. I am going to take a break. Maybe new opportunities will come along. Maybe there will be an evolution. There is a lot of maybe right now. Maybe the blog is just...on ice?

What I really want to say is thank you. For reading. It is hard for me to explain how essential writing is in my life. Like...how do you explain bone marrow? Since I was a child the world has been rendered in terms of the word. Word is life.”

I stopped blogging out of protest, having amassed enough of a readership by then to be able to leverage this move as a signal that all was not well with my country. It worked better than I had hoped considering TMR is just one woman’s little corner of the internets. Thank you for that.

So here we are again.

A few months ago, President Samia Suluhu Hassan mentioned in one of her speeches that Hon. Nape Nnauye, the Minister for Information, should look into the laws and regulations on online content to make it easier for more Tanzanians to participate in the online conversation. This should apparently preceed a move to overhaul the current Information Act. Because Mama Samia said it in public, I was assured that this meant an easing of the restrictions that led to my pausing the blogging in the first place. But I did not blog immediately.

A lot happened between 2018 and 2022. I turned 40 somewhere in there, praise be. I have now “eaten some salt” as we might say in Kiswahili. The salt of sweat, the salt of tears? The expression never specifies. In that time I lost several “innocences” as well as trust in Tanzania’s leadership class. So no, I did not blog immediately. These days my position is to be cautious, patient, strategic where possible- all of which is a lot easier in one’s fourth decade on Terra than in one’s second or third.

Instead of firing up TMR, I waited. I asked. And asked again. Then triangulated to be sure. Then waited some more to see what might happen to other bloggers. The scene in Tanzania is a wasteland: everyone is on Medium or a shared platform or social media, or technically located “elsewhere” in the ether of the World Wide Web. No point in taking risks- I had made my point and several platforms very generously offered me a couch to crash on during my self-exile from blogging.

It has been imperative to know for sure whether blogging again on this platform would be okay. Not just safe, but okay and understood. Tanzania is not what it was prior to 2015. It will never be like that again. Our culture of Presidentialism might convince you to put the blame on the shoulders of one deceased man but it is not so. This is a paradigm shift in which we all participated in, one way or another. We all made choices. We live with them.

I am still learning how to navigate these new environs. I move slower in my mind and in my feelings: scar tissue.

Sometimes my sleep breaks in the night and I think of a poem that writes about “floating belly-up from the depths” yet try as I might I cannot recollect it nor who wrote it. Sometimes I don’t know I was dreaming and I laugh easily, only to wake up to another day in 2022. For the longest I simply didn’t get out of bed. Better that way, frankly. And yet, my stubborn soul has cleaved to the promise I made myself when I was a child: live. Live it all, live it to the fullest of your being, live greedy for experiences, live. And in that living, write.

So here we are again.

I built this shelter with my own two hands because material things come and go, as do people. But words? Words. Words are a record and my records give me the comfort of a sense of place: somewhere to go that is mine. A Blog of her own. I had to leave it for a while but I am back now. I am home. The Mikocheni Report is online.  

Hello. Shall we… dance? Cheek to Cheek?

#ThisWritingLife

Loading 2022...

Power up: Good Morning, Author. It is Saturday, 9th of July, 2022 CE.  

Wetware: Running Diagnostics. 

Hardware: Running Diagnostics. Warning: Upgrade recommended. 

Software: Running Diagnostincs. Warning: Retraining recommended. 

Overall Report: Diagnostics ongoing. Main systems appear to be functioning optimally. However, some changes detected in the Wetware and Software due to passage of time. May require further investigation. Recommendation: Start 'er slow, eh. Been in hibernation for a while, she'll need a bit of warm-up time. 

Action: Selection of Topic. 

Action: Software management- run program Music, Jazz.

Action: Idle/Sleep Mode. Engage. 

Power down. 

Tuning. Touching Keyboards. Checking the Dashboard. Trying Not To Cry on the Electronics.

 ...Hello?

Mic check. 

Audio Check. 

Heart Check. 

Maintenance Mode: Engage. 

Cue: Song dedicated to the Written Word. 

Selection: The One and Only Ray Charles. 

Power Down. 

Rest Mode: Engaged

Restart: To Be Determined...

Au Revoir But Maybe Not Adieu

Hey there. It has been a tradition on this blog to do a yearly check-in every April to mark the anniversary of this blog and maybe talk about how it could be improved.

That last bit was always my favorite  because it was dismally and laughably optimistic. Like a new years resolution- meant to fail. It became a fun inside joke.

But this year I did not check in. And I apologise because that is also canon for this blog.

Here is the thing: I was and I still am exhausted. Exhausted in the true sense of the term. As in used up and burned out. I did a thing last year, a project. Just about killed my writing spirit. Worth it. But. There you go. I only have enough low battery left to try and keep breathing, so if you are looking for me find me at home at The East African. And sometimes hanging out with my new friend Al Jazeera.

Also my country, the love of which is the foundation on which this blog has been built, has been going through some shit. Which means that I have been stressed beyond belief.

It is not an excuse for having abandoned what was conceived as a ten year project. It is an explanation.

Tanzania has passed laws and regulations this year requiring bloggers to register and pay a punitive fee in order to keep offering their content. The flimsy excuse is taxation. The real reason is standard restriction of free speech. The Tanzanian blogosphere is too minute to generate anything worth taxing , but it has punched above its weight lately.

So it is with a clean heart that I announce the icing of the Mikocheni Report. Reader, you already knew it was coming.

I say icing because in truth I have no idea what these regulations actually mean and I need time to see. Also...ten years. I am going to take a break. Maybe new opportunities will come along. Maybe there will be an evolution. There is a lot of maybe right now. Maybe the blog is just...on ice?

What I really want to say is thank you. For reading. It is hard for me to explain how essential writing is in my life. Like...how do you explain bone marrow? Since I was a child the world has been rendered in terms of the word. Word is life.

I actually get paid to write these days, if you can believe it. I have days when I don't believe it either. It is like being paid to eat ice cream.

But never on the Mikocheni Report.

Free speech is a philosophy and a value that one can live in real terms, not just a lefty indulgence. It has never been a chore to write here, it has been an honor and a privilege and a therapy and a haven,a wonderful opportunity for community. I never could bring myself to sully that with filthy lucre.

So, my dears. It is May 2018. I have loved offering you missives. I have loved hearing your thoughts in the comments and in person and via emails. I have loved the occasional opportunity to host. I have lived and loved meeting you.

I am grateful for the chances you have given me to travel and talk to you both at home and abroad because of this little space. I am grateful for the chances you have given me to collaborate. To work. To hear about and pass on beauty and culture and love for Tanzania and beyond.

Thank you seems a bit flimsy to offer in return. But it is the best this limited English language can do. So thanks Google you evil corporation for providing free platforms for communication. Thank you readers for not giving up on the written word in an era of multimedia.

I am going to miss you horribly. Au revoir, but perhaps not Adieu.  Stay well.

The Places That Begin With Q

Go to Mozambique*, they said. It's fabulous there, they said. Wonderful country...they said. I got excited. Mozambique...even the name suggests that this is no ordinary place. It's got z's and q's in it and is pronounced differently by every accent I have ever heard. We call it Msumbiji up here, our quiescent neighbor with whom we have a long relationship colored by the harder, darker parts of liberation and pan-Africanism...

Maputo is beautiful. No, scratch that; Maputo is gorgeous. It is low-lying and tightly bound to generations of secrets of the soils and sea. Everything feels just a little bit dangerous here, behind the smiles are silences that reeks of caution. Maputo, Quelimane: they are beautiful to me the way that a venus flytrap is beautiful, the way that a panther is beautiful, the way that the hand-carved pommel of my grandfather's 19th/20th century rifle is beautiful. 

Tanzania is a complex society- we have many byzantine tendencies that I don't find in the same quantities in fellow Southern African states- let alone Kenya. Double-speak is natural to us, Kiswahili doesn't lend itself to plainness unless one intends to be brutal. But Mozambique? Schooled me. I have never met a people who have such natural resistance to the Tanzanian Charm Offensive. Considering how much I depend on the TCO to navigate, this was a shock. I'm afraid it is hard to outclass a seasoned Tanzanian social operator, but we have nothing at all on our Mozambican neighbors. 

Respect. 

I like complicated places. Lost lands call to me. This Quelimane (Kilimani) that we went to: southern outpost of the Swahili Coast, even further out than the mysterious ruins of Qiloa (Kilwa). I was curious to see what it would be like in these quiet hinterlands of the former Sultanate of Zanzibar. Would the music hark to the sound of violin strings and Swahili Blues, would the architecture show glimpses of the slave markets? Would I be woken by the warm and familiar sounds of the morning call to prayer, would they tie their khangas the same way- would they even call them khanga? Would 'salaam' or some version of it work as a greeting?

In the end, no. They drink Five Roses tea in Mozambique, no spices, for shame. They showed me the school where Robert Mugabe taught back in the 1980s. All of their main streets are cryptically named for long-forgetten events, or after the many dead of the African Leftist past. They bury authors in their Hero's Crypt, not just soldiers. They dance like nobody is watching. 

Bom Dia. Todo Bem. Long beards and kanzus abound, as do crumbling churches and filigreed mosques. Everyone is a little bit of something and a little bit of something else: afro-portuguese, mixed, situated. They might not make it obvious by my god, the place is steeped in class and race/color divisions with a healthy helping of religious polarities- all this besides the political divisions of a post-civil-war society. Perpetually wet with rain, ridiculously fecund, with an architecture that seems to want to both recruit you to a greater cause and break your heart all at once! 

"I have never heard you talk about a country like this before" said La Dee, amused that I had to call every 48 hours to download how overwhelmed I was. This is no land to put a sensitive soul into, unwarned. Poets and writers, singers and lovers, travelers and dreamers: be thou careful here. You might go, but coming back will be a science. 

Go to Mozambique, they said. It's fabulous there, they said. Wonderful country...they said. Mozambique...even the name suggests that this is no ordinary place. Mozambique yielded almost none of her secrets to me, which can only mean that I must now labor under this mystery. It will be a deep and desperate and unrequited love. Honestly, Africanism is not a healthy lifestyle. I don't recommend it. I love it. I am conflicted. These places that begin with Q? Queridos.  

*So on the official side: I am part of a team working on a Learning Pilot with the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) based at Rhodes University in South Africa. We have blog. If you are in 'Development', have an interest in Governance/Southern Africa/ Civil Society/ Development Practice/Research Methodologies/Aid and Donors et cetera? Come by and read, it's pretty good. Karibu. 

The Other Governance Structure/Why Nobody Gets Called 'Daddy.'

Y'all know how I go on and on and on about the patriarchy. Believe it or not, I actually appreciate some elements of patriarchy when they are done right. Just because I am a feminist doesn't mean I am immune from my own cultural conditioning, hey, and besides one should always be aware of the distances between the ideals we hold and the realities we inhabit. 

This week's article is dedicated to the the very many Africanist pretenders towards the title of "Father"- be that Father of the Nation or any other non-familial paternalistic ambition. An elderly client of mine once invited me to call him "Baba" as opposed to Mzee, or Sir or any number of alternative titles that I always have on hand. I had to politely decline the honor for a simple reason: there is only one man in this lifetime whom I called that and the title died with him. That word has...weight.*

So, you can imagine how unamused I am whenever people inappropriately baptize our leaders 'Father'- especially when the posts they occupy are electoral ones (not even hereditary, jamani!). Eti I voted you in and then I call you Daddy? Not likely, mate. It is a cultural conflation I despise. As republics, we must guard against this mother-father business and refuse to infantilize ourselves in relationships of power. 

That said: I met a total patriarch about a week ago...and it wasn't the worst. Coming to The East African sometime next week, a musing about Bemba royalty:

"I leave you with this little note on patriarchy: Senior Chief Nkula's pronouncement upon his ascension to Chiefdom- and I paraphrase, like, massively- was something along the lines of: “I shall expose my breasts so that my children may feed from them, abundantly.” That our strongest men, our wisest leaders and our most peaceful countries are the ones that admire and adopt qualities of motherhood is a source of pride to me not only as a feminist, but as an Africanist. May our mother continent feed us abundantly. May we thrive."

HRH** Nkula confirmed my long-held belief that the best Fathers know enough to be in touch with their feminine side and appreciate what it does to enhance their leadership. Strength-through nurture, people, strength through nurture. If you want to be called a Daddy, be worthy of the title. #clears throat.# 

*Turns out the only other guy I naturally call Baba is my nephew, but there isn't enough space in this blogpost to weave in a discussion about names, inter-generational practices and African terms of affection.

**Dodged a bullet here, folks, the proper form of address is "Your Royal Highness." No need for Baba or Tata or any other controversial-to-me titles.

April 2017: A Note on Blogiversary the Ninth

Still alive! April 2017 marks the 9th Blogiversary of The Mikocheni Report and a good time to assure you that the project is not abandoned. Here's a fat wall of text to make up for so long a silence. 

These past few months have been a period of hibernation and reflection for a number of reasons:

1. Writing fatigue happens. Social media with its incessant appetite for fresh content is not the best milieu in which to admit this, but I think that blogs are close enough to traditional writing products such as essay collections that this aspect of writing need not be concealed. I took a break to try to recharge. Learned from the TZ blogs I admire and visit in the blogosphere that taking time off is fine. 

2. We have a new President. In the spirit of giving the Fifth Administration a fair amount of time before forming opinions, I have been in observation mode. However my distress is evident in the columns I put out for The East African. I started writing for public consumption in the very hey-day of Kikwete's media-forward regime. Let's just say that the past decade has in no way prepared me for a repressive government that is afraid of freedom of speech. 

Was it all roses and champagne under Kikwete? Of course not. Very many journalists and prominent outspoken people were threatened, some physically assaulted, newsrooms were raided and repression did not disappear. However my sense was the the heavy hand of state that we felt then was a manifestation of a characteristic of our Deep State. Our Deep State has never been fond of too much civilian liberty, I can't imagine what impatience it  experienced with Mr. Kikwete who was altogether too jovial a believer in people's right to say what they think and feel. My interpretation was that the difference of opinion between the President and the conservative elements of his party and government in this regard worked in our favor. This came at a cost. Ten years conservatives have been waiting to pick up their tools of state repression again and beat us into line. 

Trouble with freedom is that once people have had a taste, we are loathe to give it up easily when commanded to do so. The signal that President Magufuli is sending is a very strong one: media has been to told to watch itself, that we are not as free as we think we are. There are numerous utterances that he has made even before that last one that articulated his opinion and attitude towards free speech. It has been an unwelcome shock, and part of the reason for a good hibernation. How does one recalibrate when the environment in which you work suddenly contracts? 

Under Kikwete it was fun to joke with people who asked me how I could get away with "strong" opinions- my standard response was to ask them to contribute to my bail fund. These days that joke has taken on an edge. Those of us who have fully exploited our freedom to express and been obnoxious about insisting on said freedoms as our right are now challenged to put our courage where our mouths and pens are. There have been casualties. People have adopted various strategies: some have become careful in their pronouncements. Some have chosen straight-up sycophancy out of either self-preservation (disgusting, but smart) or a real (and troubling) inability to resist rolling over when figures of authority say so. 

Some of us are going to keep doing what we do, perhaps with some adjustments here and there. Only two years into what could be a decade of Mr. Magufuli in office, I still maintain that it is too early to be certain. We seem to be negotiating the boundaries of free expression on a day-to-day or event-to-event basis. Yes, it was exciting to be part of the crowd that thrived under President Kikwete's easy fondness for media and entertainment. It is also exciting to be part of the crowd challenged by President Magufuli's regime and the conservatives who are taking advantage of the situation to go much further, I suspect, than the incumbent himself would necessarily allow. It is still not a one-man show in Tanzania, not just yet. 

Anyways, enough about politics. I could make the usual promises about revamping and refurbishing and better visuals and more frequent postings... but we all know how that goes, right? Instead let me end by thanking you for reading, and a special thank you to those who occasionally hit the 'reply' button. A lutta continua. 

The Weekly Sneak: This is Fine.

Hello, happy 2017! Sorry about the long silence. Needed some time to be quiet because of a number of interdictions I had set on myself. First: to carefully not share my opinion on President Magufuli's performance so far. Second: to not have a public melt-down over the Trumpocalypse too early in the game. Third: to have a quiet end to 2016, because.

Anyways. 

I filed my East African article super-early this week. Who knows how much time the human race has left after Friday? It seemed important to give my lovely eccentric editor a small gift of joy: he likes it when I hit my deadline:

"First of all, Mr. Trump is going to be the guy with his finger on the trigger of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Is he a man of calm temperament, who has demonstrated maturity in the face of criticism (let alone baiting or derision), a man who clearly deliberates before making important statements and taking actions with serious consequences? Does he take well to advice, especially from security professionals from, imagine, his own country? Have you read his Tweets? You can see why he might be a source of anxiety. 

The bomb is not even what is realistically scary, it is just my short-hand way of thinking about what to anticipate if he is ultimately in charge of the world's last super-power. Considering the size of the US footprint on the globe, it behooves us all to have a steady mind and a steady hand at the helm of that particular country irrespective of ideological leanings. Between the half-chewed America First jingoism and his racism and particular vitriol towards Obama for having a Kenyan father, I am not particularly excited about the Trump administration for Africa's interests."

Don't worry, there are a few jokes in there. I have been "laughing" since November in-between bouts of crushing dread because hey, it's the best medicine, right? 

There are those who can live in what they call hope, an optimistic attitude that I sometimes have trouble distinguishing from ostrich-with-its-head-in-the-sand syndrome. The best form of hope in my opinion is to expect the worst, wish fervently that it doesn't happen but be prepared anyways because it probably will. This has served me reasonably well. Articulating a fear helps you face it and make contingency plans, laughing about how horrible a situation is lets you look it in the eye and avoid being caught flatfooted by horror like some wet-eared naif. So imagine my delight when I came across today's offerings from Samantha Bee. Dark humor will get you through anything. Sure, it's not polite, but then again neither is Trump.*

*Just because you don't use swearwords doesn't mean you talk or even think with respect. It is the norm for virulently odious autocrats to be polite, sober, neat people rather than the exception... dun dun dun!

Lego Therapy for Tired Brains

2016, right? But nah, this is about appreciating something good that happened.  

A couple of weeks ago a handful of Danish students visiting Tanzania from Vallekilde Hojskolle (lets pretend I spelled that right) took some time to sit with me in Mikocheni and shoot the breeze about feminism, religion, politics, individual agency and other light-weight matters. Their coordinator, Pia, had cultural exchange in mind.

It was a wonderful experience. I won't lie: there is something always daunting about facing a roomful of skeptical and expectant students and no matter how many times I do it, it is never an easy ride. But it is always a superbly enriching encounter and a challenge to any complacencies that have crept up on me over time. I honestly get depressed that governments are not routinely run by youth. 

Anyways, one of the things that I learned is that Lego is not a Swedish company as I had always believed (...um. sorry about that). As a generous gift for my time I was given a goodie bag which consisted of a  handcrafted, hand-printed bag with a map of Tanzania on it that made my crunchy-grainy hippie soul deeply, deeply delighted. They also gave me two types of liqorice that I have not yet been able to con anyone into taking. The most disgusting candy in the world can be hard to pass along once people have encountered it even once in life, but christmerrybuystuff is around the corner and someone is going to get it.*

Best of all, I got given a Lego set. My very own, make-three-kinds-of-cars, aged 6-12 Lego set. Ugh! People, I cannot stress enough the importance of play** in adult life. This month a variety of personal and intellectual challenges have come up that are taking some energy to digest. After a deluge of information, forwards and reversals and lateral developments I found myself looking for solace and meditative enabling to walk through some thinking. Writing looks simple but the further I venture into it with time and experience,  the more it humbles me. 

So I am playing Lego. It is three-dimensional and technical and non-competitive, which is helping me to travel through the complexities of a current intellectual challenge. It is soothing, beautiful in design and canny enough to allow one to build structures of incredible intricacies from teeny-tiny bits. Best of all it is fun, accessible to all ages and a surprisingly effective meditation aid.  This is not an ad, but if you are going to give a kid of any age a thing this end of year, consider some building blocks. Or liqorice, if you are that kind of monster ;)

* Dear family and beloved friends: consider it an act of love-slash-lets-start-a-regifting-tradition-because-nobody-actually-wants-it. Yay! That's all the warning I am going to give. 

**Actually it's a thing for me right now. If you smirked at that last sentence, you should wash your filthy mind out with soap.  The role of humor and play in creativity and social life is beginning to fascinate me no end: why does the world restrict these intellectual tools to "childhood" only. I'll get around to ranting about it if I ever get around to reading the literature about it. But if you can, whenever you can, throw off the mantles of adulthood and just build something with your hands without a care as to whether it is useful.  

The Weekly Sneak: What Just Happened?

Somewhere between Trump and Buhari I had a Major Feminist Attack* and decided to write about chauvinism. And then I got completely lost in my own essay. You see, what I wanted to do was comment on the fact that we're still living in an era where men find it normal- beneficial even- to tell women what their place in life is. 

But then I got way too deep into discussing the biological aspect of it and trying to tie together very disparate sciences. And then I got completely lost. By the time I was trying to come to a coherent conclusion the essay was already bizarre, my deadline was long past me and I had no strength left having expended it all on whatever fugue state I was in. 

So. I like the essay but yes, it might be slightly inappropriate in tone and topic for a stuffy middle class rag like the East African. My editor has decided to print it anyways.** Have a good weekend. 

"We've all been raised with the usual barnyard talk about how males have testosterone and big and strong and ooga-booga hormonal drive and that's why they gather in clumps at street corners and catcall and roofie your drink. Truth is that women also have testosterone in rather respectable quantities but they also contend with the behavioral suggestions put forth by their friends progesterone and estrogen. The main difference seems to be a very interesting mismatch between supply and demand for intercourse."

Yes, it all goes downhill from there. I blame David Attenborough's horrid influence on my innocent young mind. 

*Major Feminist Attacks happen when an overwhelming rage is triggered in a feminist by some public incident she has no way of rectifying. They vary in severity but at their worst can result in homicidal behavior. Mine just make me hate every complicit adult for the part they play in making the world a shittier place than it should be. Then I get over it, mop up the blood and move on. 

** I love my editors. However, all things considered, they are supposed to be the voice of reason that holds my cray-cray in check. Sometimes I wonder about them. 

 

The Weekly Sneak: An Illosophy of Protest

I am in Grahamstown, South Africa. It is such a unique place. So many characteristics that I find particular to South Africa seem concentrated here. A University town and South African to boot, it is very 'diverse'. The friction of the mixture is like a scent in the air.  A slightly buttoned up malaise mixed with friendliness, as opposed to the brusqueness one might experience in Johannesburg. 

And the students are protesting as part of the fees must fall (trademarked yet?) movement. I was kind of hoping that the entire town would be gripped with tension but nope: it is perfectly calm as things go on as usual. The most drama so far was listening to some protesters chanting a couple of nights ago. Anyways, it felt like a nice opportunity to do some stream of consciousness writing. Blame it on being in a University environment, where the world loosens it's grip a little bit on absolute certainty:

"...I am now watching students chase other students out of classrooms and libraries and dining halls. Staff are hastily closing shops and eateries, the journalists documenting all this are clearly doing so by surfing the crest of the protest wave so they can record the dismay and harried faces of the people being swept out of the way of this movement. Irritation is certainly competing with the envy I feel for these South African youth. The culture of protest is deeply a part of the political dynamic of this country I am visiting and has been used to great effect. There's always a dark side, though isn't there? 

...The saying is that the only constant is change. The question is what amount of agency we have over this change when we try to engage in it. Where do movements move to? I don't know and perhaps it does not matter. Perhaps our duty is simply to move at all. I am back to envying the South African students, and wondering whether I should hope for the same dynamism back in my own polity." 

I think I am still a bit sore about UKUTA... and didn't even know until I started writing. Not because I am a member of the opposition but because I believe that opposition as a principle is the yin to the yang of stability- and where the two grapple we get dynamism. Not answers, not perfection, but movement itself. 

Basic Kiswahili Phrases: 'Nilipopata Ajali'

Just about everyone who lives here has that story. It begins with "when I had my accident..." and goes from there. A city of broken people, we are, all harboring reminiscences of hospital stays caused by incredible events. Those of us who have lived to tell about it. 

Someone asked me recently: how come everybody has that story? I was stumped. I don't drive in Dar anymore... since I had my accident... but the statistics are off the charts. This is a dangerous city for many reasons. Transport is one of them. 

La Dee was in an accident recently. A hit and run. She was the passenger in a bajaj that got swiped from the left by someone who was speeding at an intersection. Through a series of miracles, she was not terminally damaged and good samaritans ensured that we were able to find her and get her care.*

So we are going through recovery. She does the hard work of healing while I get to fuss about her nutrition and general mood upkeep as best I can.**

It turns out that having an interest in cooking makes one a very dubious carer. I had dreams of maybe going to medical school someday in my sixties- should I live that long- to explore a fascination that gets stronger over time. Oh, god, medical science is absolutely riveting. There is nothing about it I don't want to know.

Except for the clinical aspect. So there we were one evening, watching La Dee get one of her ouchies dressed by some docs. First of all, it was utterly disgusting. As someone with a strong stomach it caught me by surprise how the old gag reflex kicks in when you see a loved one getting basted like a joint of pork. I have watched slaughters and flicked worms out of the ass of the carcass of a dead cow... but this? This was horrifying. 

Even worse was the part where my brain started to consider the culinary possibilities as I gazed into my sister's wounded flesh. Hmm. Sure- honey has been used as a medicament since before the pharaohs walked the earth but in this case... it sure looked like basting to me. The more honey they poured in the wound, the more I thought about how rosemary would be a lovely compliment in the flavor profile. Vinegar for contrast, maybe? Cloves? 

How beautifully trussed her leg was, just lovely. Stuffed with honey, clean stitching. Add some herbs and put in a hot oven for a little while, it might go good with some red wine or maybe a nice ice tea...

Oh god.

So this is why I will not be pursuing the medical ambition. My inner omnivore surprised me and while I would never actually eat a relative or a friend... well. I also wouldn't trust a woman who thinks of recipes while watching her relative undergo a medical procedure. Just doesn't seem right. 

I told La Dee about this issue and she laughed of course. Then she told me to blog about my psychopathic moment. So here you go sis, because if it makes you laugh at least we'll both be happy plus your stitches are going to bitch at you as revenge for this request. I am collecting more jokes about Long Pig but will deliver them in person because I don't want to end up in a plexiglas cage with a face-mask on, okay?

Just about everyone here has that story. The one which starts with 'when I had my accident...' The trick? Is to find a way to laugh about it, even... especially... when it can take you out of the darkness. 

* Universal free healthcare? Has kind of become a thing for me now. Going to be throwing some passion at it. 

** not to brag or anything but I am really, really fucking good at getting sick people to eat well and keep an even keel. No idea why, and not interested in trying to quantify it. But if you ever have to be a carer too (out of the blue) just remember sick people need a bit of laughter too and a good tasty meal never hurt anyone. 

Keep An Eye Out

I was supposed to write a thing for an online outlet that says it is about African opinions. We didn't agree on how that goes. Oh well. Here's the raw material, complete with holes in the argument and questionability. Still, if it makes you want to Google something, my job is done. Namaste.

Come Bearing Gifts.

by Elsie Eyakuze

Thursday 1^st September 2016

This article is the result of my online indignation at Mark Zuckerberg's recent visit to Kenya, where he offered to support various tech related projects... and provide cheap and affordable internet to the poor people of Africa. The online tantrum was a violation of conventions- some Tanzanian blogger had a meltdown over the fact that an American tech billionaire was offering “something good” to my fellow dwellers on the continent of pity. But if India can say no to Mark Zuckerberg, then by jolly goodness so can Africa.

Just a quick note on structural racism: the assumption is that Africa is a poor continent populated by poor people who are simply poor and prostrated by their poverty. We are not supposed to have a past, a dynamic and self-aware present, let alone a future, unless a non-African of means comes along to say so. Because we're poor. But material poverty, much as it has been manufactured over centuries of exploitation, land grabbing, colonialism and slavery, hasn't resulted in poverty of mind, spirit or body. If anything, Africa is emerging with grand vigor at the moment and everyone is trying to jump on that bandwagon. To which I say: nope, not again. This time it has to be on better terms. Our terms.

The Zuckerberg offer for cheap internet in India was tied to giving his company control over the content that his clients would be able to access. There is a lot of literature on 'net control that I can't get into right now for word limit reasons, but please feel free to search on your affordable internet connection about it. Indians are superbly competent in the area of technology as we all know, having been tech-supported by them for the last decade. They looked at these conditions he was proposing and asked him to vacate their online premises thank you very much. Is there poverty in India? You bet. Did they believe for an instant that the Zuckerberg offer was going to make any difference? Nope.

So having observed from them, I feel empowered as an African who uses the internet to resist the offer of good things. I know a scam when I see it, even if my foremothers did not. The bible, the gatling gun, the replacement of local political systems and culture, the imposition of western clothing, taxation as a tool to rob people of their autonomies? Familiar territory to a dying breed of Africanist. I don't reach for the golden ring, I don't thank oppressors for oppressing me economically and I don't want Mark Zuckerberg's drones allegedly providing internet to “poor” Africans. If information is power, you best believe I am going to bring the geopolitical argument into the situation.

On to the numbers: yes, I am part of the economic elite that can afford ridiculous amounts on online presence. But here's what's up in Tanzania at least, and let me quote extensively from an article in the Guardian (Tanzania) about the African Peering and Interconnection Form meeting that recently took place in my city, Dar es Salaam. Ahem. “Tanzania Communications and Regulatory Authority (TCRA) figures show that the number of wireless internet users reached 16.26 million last year” which makes me think that there is more penetration because of shared gadgets- e.g. children who are heavy users don't necessarily get their own simcards. There's roughly 50 million Tanzanians.

Tanzania also has three major competing service providers- Vodacom, Airtel, Tigo- with another one that is challenging the market due to rural penetration - Halotel- as well as a few minor dedicated companies that focus on internet provision like Smile. The market here is hot with competition, and almost nobody uses only a single provider for all services because our gadgets and our markets skew in favor of the consumer. Several providers even provide access to Facebook for “free” with airtime, with one offering a memorable WTF package (Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook) on the cheap for its customers.

For all the competition we have a playful environment, with marketers intelligent enough to appeal to the masses in most cases. Tigo does this best, Vodacom is woefully inadequate but we forgive them because of their cheap, cheap internets. We price-compare, we have several simcards and we always choose the cheapest option. But most of all, we like the freedom to manage our communications how we want, when we want, as cheaply as possible.

I'm sorry if this essay violates any fantasies you have of Africans being static, open to exploitation, prone to bad decisions every time. Not so much. We're having internal conversation that Zuckerberg has no place in. His version of philanthropy can go shove itself up the same hole in history as the bible, the gatling gun, King Leopold and suchlike. Neocolonialism is real, and it must be resisted, especially in times where everyone demands that the world be painted in the simple colors of black and white.

I fully expect, accept and welcome the failure of this small campaign to keep Big Internet out of Africa. Our political leaders have a bad habit of colluding with the oppressors for their own benefit. I might even be wrong, god forbid, about the extent of Zuckerberg's evilness. But the point remains: there has never been a time when a gift has been offered to Africans that they would not regret accepting. Capitalism does not do gifts. Neither does Mark Zuckerberg. Sometimes saying NO is the best thing you can do for yourself and more importantly for future generations.

.

The Weekly Sneak: Goddammit, UKUTA!

You made me lose at least four arguments. Just last Sunday I declared with grand pomposity that there is no way the government was going to shut the planned September 1st demonstrations. That the force of discontent would burst through all restrictions as Tanzanians' quest for freedoms and rights breached the damn walls of stupid middle-aged patriarchal crap. I even went so far as to denigrate those who said it would not happen as being stuck in their gilded cages of privilege, unable to smell or taste the sheer fury of the people in the air. 

Full. Blown. Wrong. 

Goddamit. 

I know the story is not over but there is a reason I didn't comment on it earlier and there is a reason I will probably not write about TZ politics again for a while. In the meantime, here's a nibble:

"How did it come to this? The mechanisms of Tanzanian peace and stability are intricate, and retaining the balance through our various stages of growth is always challenging. I like to say that we cycle through phases characterized by the incumbents we choose. Mwinyi was seen as having been a touch too laissez-faire so his successor Mkapa provided just the right touch of pedantry and discipline to appeal. After a decade of his dyspeptic guidance, we ran happily into the warm and charming embrace of Kikwete. We were in need of fun and relaxation and hope and modernity, what can I say. And after too large a serving of his brand of leadership, well. It was time for discipline again. 

So we swing between the poles. Sometimes we are more open, sometimes we are more conservative. Sometimes we are channeling a very masculine energy, sometimes it is a very feminine energy. Always, it is Tanzania first: that's the “tax” we pay to be so lucky as to be her citizens. Our incumbents usually come to understand, accept and sometimes even be defeated by the fact that our complex society believes in the social contract between the state and the people. Live, but let live."

And for duck's sake, Tanzania: solar eclipses have nothing to do with Magufuli. It is a natural phenomenon, not a sign. 

  

The Weekly Sneak: You Are Who You Eat

First of all, a little notice. I am perfectly aware that the Frankenmonster of an opposition that we have is headed for a full-bull encounter with my stubborn and frightened state security system. There will be more than enough time, with Government The Fifth, to talk about it. 

So this week was the second segment about weird future stuff that I am into and I made a mistake. I crossed the streams. I wrote about food! Ugh. It has not gone well, to be honest. I love food. I love tech (what I can understand about it) and I love sci-fi. Putting the three of them together for a staid, middle-aged regional newspaper though? Was not a good idea. I blame it on the fact that I have been watching Mr. Robot. Things will be better next week. In the meantime:

"The world can feed herself and have plenty left over but we don't, because of politics and power. Tanzania can feed herself and have plenty left over but we don't because of politics, money and power. Well, you know what they say. If you can't stand them, join them? Outside of the nefarious world of terminator seeds there are interesting things going on with GMOs that are worth some contemplation. Two recent innovations that are fun to speculate about are the advances in 3-dimensional printing and the manufacture of meat grown in laboratories."

See you next week and remember that we really are who we eat. That's not a grammatical error.