Tanzania is a Poor Country, but Bongoland is Blingtastic

I was staring out the windscreen at a 100,000 USD car and praying that we wouldn't scratch the metallic paint on it when La Dee piped up: 'Tanzania is a poor country?' Um. Maybe, but not judging by that car... We were on the peninsula trying to pick up something to eat after a surprisingly long-winded wedding planning committee meeting, because grease makes everything better. Sadly we had forgotten: Sunday Night.

On Sunday Night inhabitants of the city center, Upanga and other surrounding areas get into their vehicles and go hang out on the Peninsula. Every single establishment we passed was crusted with people- malls, bars, restaurants, shops. And showing off? Forget about clothes: it is all in the cars. Gleaming vistas of air-conditioned 4x4s in all their variations were practically parking on top of each other wherever they could find space. Same people that bitch up one side and down the other about traffic congestion*. Genius.

It occurred to me as we- phew- avoided scraping the expensive metallic paint job that Tanzania might be poor... but much of Dar doesn't seem to be. The number of new cars on the streets in the past three years, the blinging ego-mobiles people can afford, the number of families treating themselves to a nice meal in the most expensive part of town- disposable income anyone? Nothing at all like the 'bad' old days when I was a kid and we had to forage far and wide for any kind of eatery that had seen fresh produce in the last month. You couldn't throw money at anything back then. There are definite benefits to being an emerging market, why lie.

But for me the deeper issue is a tough one. For every dollar Bongolanders spend making themselves feel good about living in the 21st century with all its modern conveniences, how many cents are making it down the chain of consumption to our brethren and sistren who are living simpler lives out in the hinterland? Why does the Village Supermarket stock beans imported from Argentina? Seriously? Have we gotten rich off the fat of our fellow countrymen's poverty? Where the hell is all this money coming from, and how much of it is ethical (forget legitimate)? Oh, and can TRA actually try to come up with a rational and progressive taxation system?

Don't get me wrong: I have no beef with legitimate affluence. Hell, I aspire to it. Kind of. But I do get a bit twitchy about callous inequalities- how does one drive a Shangingi around town when you know in your bone marrow that the majority is getting totally shafted. So, economists, I have one question for your number-loving brains: what is Tanzania's Gini coefficient? First one to give me a reasonable answer and explicate it without mentioning elasticity wins a couple of cocktails with one cantankerous liberal blogger who likes to annoy economists for sport. How can you resist :)

*Yeah, I own a pair of wheels as well but they are superbly fuel-efficient and well-maintained Japanese works of art with little mileage on them. Heh.

Traffic Jam at 2:00 pm

So I'm driving back from city-sides this afternoon at around 2:00 in the afternoon, and to my surprise there's crazy traffic. I thought to myself: 'Where the heck are all these office folks going? Shouldn't they be food-comatose in the corporate rec room trying to digest the day's portion of ugali-samaki?' Apparently not.

I am evidently still getting used to the New World Order of traffic in Bongoland, and I spend much of my time trying to maintain my composure while navigating the general chaos. But who expects traffic at two in the afternoon? It was full blown misbehavior all around- cars overtaking on the left and on the right, people driving down the wrong lane*, pedestrians testing my braking skills, kuchomeka, gridlocking, totally inappropriate lane-changes, those (expletive deleted) bajaj... you know how it goes.

It all put me in mind of something that was said during an excellent discussion recently on the politics of development. In other countries (alert: totally unquantifiable generalization), traffic takes care of itself when there are no cops around. I had the chance to see this in South Africa at some four-way intersections where people went one by one all around- no gridlock, no road rage.

Can't we just do this in Bongoland? I figure (and we all more or less agreed during said excellent discussion) that it is because of those all-important substructures. Call it culture, informal institutions, whatever. See, in other countries (warning: seriously unquantifiable generalization) folks are used to taking care of business for themselves. Active citizenship, like. This means that they don't need to rely on the state, i.e. traffic cops, to come up with a set of rules for them to get on with life. But I am optimistic- something's going to give.

Remember the bad old days when folks would not queue up at a bank and just skip the line, coming up to the teller while you were still counting your loot? Not so much anymore. I suppose that we are on the same slow learning curve with our road manners. And I figure, once we can deal with each other somewhat politely on the road, much of the rest should take care of itself.

Aside: the Mo Ibrahim foundation has decided not to award anybody for the second year running. But they have announced an initiative to incubate talented young African leaders of tomorrow. Tenterhooks.

*Seriously? Only if you are The President, The Prime Minister, or The Army. Otherwise you are asking for it, and it shall come to you.