Quiloa

It is a big old gorgeous country: with the help of an intrepid driver and a real 4-by-4 one can affordably see a lot of rural beauty. So, I took a break from The Big City and headed into the coastal hinterlands for a bit of R&R this weekend. I had planned to provide some deep musings on the beautiful historic town of Kilwa, the destination of this year's internal tourism weekend (aka Easter) jaunt. Sadly, the only thing we plumbed with any depth was potholes on The Notorious Sixty Kilometer Stretch of the Kilwa road. Oh, and some gin-and-tonics. Because it rained all day on day two, and there was no way we were going to get on some rickety dhow to sail across the treacherous sea to look at beautiful, if moldy, remains of civilizations past.

So what is there to be done in this ancient coastal town, aside from absorb the startling fact that little about the place has really changed since the 1600s? The sea. This is a seafarer's paradise, as the folks who snorkelled and sailed and fished (unsuccessfully) could attest. If you love water, Kilwa is a place for you. If you are like me, it is an excellent place to get a tan on the beach while contemplating the thick smell of history that overlies the place. No one with a writers' soul will be able to resist Kilwa, with its aura of melancholy- all glories lie in the past- and the whitewashed structures trying futilely not to decay in the fecund coastal air. And the air! So thick and fresh it is practically liquid oxygen (with a soupcon of dead sea things for flavor). Kilwa is the kind of place that makes you want to believe in, and maybe even talk to, the ghosts of travellers past.

Other stuff I picked up on while there: The Notorious Sixty Kilometer Stretch of unpaved 'road' can, and regularly does, kick the stuffing out of city slickers. If you think that conquering Mikocheni potholes is a skill worth mentioning you are out of your depth, wait until the dry season to go. Kilwa traffic cops are on the lookout for bribes, but they are not quite tough enough to bully Dar residents. If you get stuck, the going rate is about 2000 Shillings per Dude Who Unstucks Your Car, unless you can get a big strapping shushushu lad named Chilli to drive you out of trouble. When stuck, try to look as small and helpless and female as possible (attracts do-gooders, brings the price down).

And next time you see a trucker, be kind: only by the grace of God do they keep Tanganyika supplied with soap and cigarettes.

Wow, is it January already?

Happy New Year! It always amazes me how fast the holiday season goes. I was cruising along nicely in October and then suddenly I was decorating Christmas trees and people were throwing bubbly my way and when I woke up again it was an entirely different year. As the blog and blogger have both made it this far, thought I would celebrate with a look back at the Ohs, or the Noughtys if you like. And then, to make up for a 2 month hiatus I'm going to take on Sheikh Yahya and do a little predicting of what's going to happen in 2010. Here goes:

The Noughties were interesting because:

1. Oysterbay Beach was called Oysterbay Beach before it was re-branded Coco, and there were no plastic chairs if you didn't bring your own.
2. Ashok trees were the vegetation rage of the decade. As I write this, I am looking outside at a forest of them in the neighbor's backyard. I have no idea why we think they make good shade trees/fencing because they are the tree version of an exclamation mark.
3. Mobile phone company wars result in 'a Nokia in every household' or close enough. Love you guys. Keep fighting.
4. Hotel Kilimanjaro morphs into Kilimanjaro Kempinski. Its like, the story of Dar and foreign investment, redux.
5. No longer a fly-over zone, we got to see the likes of Jay-Z and Mo Ibrahim hang out in Dar. Its like the glamorous nineteen sixties all over again.
6. A soda cost about 100 shillings as recently as the mid-Noughtys, and one thousand shillings was real money.
7. The rise and rise of Bongo Flava. And youth. And youthful art.
8. Michael Jackson turned out to be mortal. Damn.

Rock Solid Predictions for 2010 (valid as currency):
1. Jakaya Kikwete will be voted President in 2010. Again. But not with 80% of the vote...this time we might pretend to be sane and give him only a 75% landslide victory.
2. 20-30% of incumbent CCM Parliamentarians are going to lose their seats, some to the opposition and some in their party primaries. Opposition is going to expand its share of Parliament by five to ten new seats.
3. Jacob Zuma will marry another wife, to celebrate the successful conclusion of the World Cup in August.
4. Big Brother Africa 4 (or is it 5 now? I lose track...): Tanzania's candidate will be a 25-29-year old person of slim androgynous beauty with the forceful character of a limp dishrag and the quiet cunning of a starving ferret. S/he will not be dark in skin tone, nor Asian Tanzanian. S/He will be voted out in week six and forever be more popular outside of Tanzania that within.
5. Tanzania will come second in the Zain Unversity Challenge. Maybe Sokoine University, or...um..well, not UDSM anyways, though they do try.
6. The government will come up with a sincere and comprehensive thematic development initiative for the 2010/2011 budget: Vijana Nguvu Kazi! This will allow them to 'hire' the young unemployed to 'help out during the elections' ...
7. Sheikh Yahya will predict President Kikwete's exact margin of victory at the polls with stunning accuracy, as well as the winner of World Cup 2010. After the fact.
8. The World Economic Forum: take vacation time. The traffic is going to be completely impossible.

Have an excellent year.

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.