"If ministers get sick, they go to India"

 “(undecipherable Swahili) wanasharia” came the response to our cab driver’s inquiry about why traffic had ground to a standstill.  The one word of a sentence I understand always catches my attention, but this time I was especially interested: wanasharia means lawyers.

I turned to my companion and asked with incredulity “the lawyers are protesting?”  He could hardly believe it either and responded “I don’t think so, I never heard anything about a protest today”.  Our cab driver, lamenting his misfortune at taking an ill-fated fare, made and abrupt turn into the shoulder of the road, cutting off a person doing the exact same thing.  A few minutes of weaving, heavy braking and intermittent cursing brought us to the main intersection that was the source of the blockage.

Approximately thirty people stood blocking off all corners of the T-intersection.  Many held placards saying something roughly translated as “if the ministers get sick, they go to India”.  Surrounding them were the mass of cars, trucks and bajajes, silenced by the midday anomaly.  Relieved of the false urgency that is Dar es Salaam traffic, passengers and drivers alike migrated towards the protesters – some to take pictures or record the latest on their i-pads, some to lend support, others, like our driver, to stage their own protest.

This was an impassioned, though peaceful protest.  One man implored “foreigners, see what we are doing to our people, Tanzanians, if you care, join us!”  Another woman, who I recognized, was having a heated argument with a commuter demanding that they stop blocking the intersection.  As it turns out, the protesters were lawyers.  A group from several local NGOs had banded together to block off the main artery in and out of the city’s commercial centre.  They were united by the increasingly desperate situation in public hospitals in throughout the country as a result of an ongoing countrywide doctors’ strike.  Their message: it is the government’s constitutional responsibility to protect the people’s right to health”.

Since January 23^rd, patients have been scrambling to procure frontline healthcare and were dealt another blow this weekend, when specialists who had up until then continued their services, opted to join the strike, ceding to the increasing strain.  This last move was the culmination of a deterioration of medical services that began with an intern strike over unpaid arrears late last year at Dar es Salaam's Muhibili National Hospital.

The doctors’ requests are not new: better pay, improved working conditions and the reinstating of the interns whose employment was terminated as a consequence of their strike.  The government has been engaged in negotiations with the doctors, but local news reveals that the public perceives it to be lax in its efforts to resolve the issue.  Adding fuel to frustrations is the recent substantial increase to sitting allowances of MPs (or ‘sleeping allowances’ as my assistant informed me, in reference to the frequent stream of pictures of MPs asleep during government sessions).   Many, including the opposition, see the raise as unjustifiable given the state of the country and in the context of the many other perks associated with government office. The doctors’ strike is just one of many supporting examples.

The failure to resolve the doctors’ strike is particularly egregious as its consequences can actually mean life or death, and that is exactly what is happening.  Poor Tanzanians with few alternatives are being denied treatment, including emergency services.  Regardless of the politics, their lives hang in the balance.  That was the clarion call of the lawyers this afternoon.

Never am I more exhilarated by my profession then when I see us speaking up for those without voices.  The power of peaceful protest is its ability for few to make known the plight of the many.  I was heartened by the calmness of the police and military as well as the general “there’s nothing we can do” sentiment of the crowd regarding the interruption.  Above the arguing, singing and exacerbated honking by frustrated travelers, I recalled something I once read, written by Arundhati Roy “Another world is in not only possible, she is on her way.  On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”  

Let’s hope she gets here soon.

Pictures

Circles

The Sunday before last I landed at Julius Nyrere International Airport at about 11:30 pm.  I was returning from a work trip in Nairobi and hadn’t paid much attention to my time of arrival when booking the ticket.  It was only during the course of the week when someone asked me how long I’ve been in Tanzania that I realized the significance.  I would be arriving at the airport, within minutes of being exactly a year to the date of my original arrival in Dar.

This time I knew that the signs on top of the customs terminals do not have any bearing on who can queue in which line and so made my way to the shortest.  Miraculously my suitcase was among the first off the conveyor belt and looking through the customs officers I walked out of the sliding doors and into the balmy night.  The cab driver I always use was waiting and we took the route we always take from the airport and I stared out the window at the patch work of lights and darkness and people and traffic that I always see on such trips.  A year is plenty of time to get familiar.

Later in the week I came home late one night to find a guard sleeping outside our gate in pieces of a cardboard box.  Not our guard, mind you, he was in the watch building on our compound, but another, random guard.  The following morning there was a knock on my door at 7:30 – and a request that a battery be changed somewhere in my apartment.  Returning fifteen minutes later when I was dressed for work, a man came into my apartment saying that the battery for the security service alarm needed to be replaced.  So early and so many questions: was this related to the guard sleeping outside? Where in my apartment was this alarm system?  While I was contemplating these clearly important questions, the man came back in with a ladder.  After a quick search of my apartment, he deduced that the way to the roof was through the vent above my washing machine.  Up he went.  Minutes passed.  I began to get caught up on my ever-important text correspondence.  Suddenly he’s back in my living room. “Torch?”  I dutifully retrieve my headlamp, the security of my building depends on it! Then I start to wonder – what was he doing up there all this time if he couldn’t see?  Amid a flurry of texts, my curiosity lapses and ten minutes later the exercise is finished. 

I get in my car and go to work.  As always, a dalla swerves out at me as I drive down the main road.  There is a man pushing a wooden wheelbarrow contraption on the road, like every morning.  Like clockwork, at a busy intersection, everyone remains determined to claim the right of way, to the detriment of us all.  

Yes, a year is plenty of time to get familiar.  But the nice thing is that here in Dar, I am always surprised.

A road trip to the Southern Highlands

Two weeks ago Tanzania celebrated Zanzibar Revolution Day.  Taking advantage of the opportunity to leave town, I joined a friend for a road trip to a tiny village about an hour outside of Mafinga, in the Southern Highlands.  I had little to no idea what to expect – just try to Google it and see what I mean.

Up, up, up we went, shedding the sweltering heat of Dar as we wound our way up the Rift Valley escarpment.  Through Baobab Valley – where ancient trees have stood watch over centuries, silently observing parties like ours, coming and going.  And then a burst of green – rows of tea plantations against a darkening sky.  The fertility of the soil on display in fruit laden vines, masses of pine forests and indigenous trees and the cool damp of the earth.

Here I met a couple who are among the most inspirational people I’ve met since setting foot in the ochre hued dust of sub Saharan Africa.  A former peace corps volunteer and teacher in the highlands outside of Mafinga, her and her husband run the NGO started by Geoff Fox, founder of Fox Farms.  Our ‘tour’ of their work took us from a daycare centre for villagers working for the NGO, to the dorm rooms of young adolescents in the ‘children’s village’, the construction site of a future school and community health centre, vast and lush fruit and vegetable gardens (coined the garden of Eden), to  a mediation to find a home in the village for an AIDS infected young woman with nowhere to stay (who incidentally was taken in by a woman who once cast out of her home for her positive status  had used her considerable talent as a basket weaver to build a small home for herself) and a check-up on a child reported not to be attending school.  Fluent in KiSwahili and the local KiHeHe, the couple’s house is a beehive of activity, with community members and their young toddlers filtering in and out in a steady flow.  

Quite honestly, I could go on and on about the work that they are doing, but the truth is, I could barely keep up with all the initiatives they are involved in.  What struck me even beyond this is how much love emanated from their home.  To see so much hurt and sadness and transform it into opportunity and empowerment is not something many people can accomplish.  There is work instead of handouts and with it, a chance for something better.  Whether it is childcare or basket weaving or rocket science, isn’t it all a chance to taste the fulfillment that comes with sharing our gifts with others?  An image I can’t shake from my mind is that of a young mentally disabled woman, pregnant with the child of her attacker and HIV positive as a result, sitting and cutting grass for 2500 shilling ($1.50) a day.  Arguably, this might not be an illustration of fulfillment.  But then, at its most basic, isn’t an opportunity to become self sufficient satisfying in itself?

I’ve had a lot of conflicting thoughts about the development industry this past year, few of which I’ve resolved with any certainty.  But this experience brought home to me a truth: these are people.  Actual flesh and blood people- with disappointments, struggles and hopes for the future.  Sure, the current overriding model of development is not sustainable.  Yes, there is waste and ways to do things better.  But while we figure that out, what do we tell that woman cutting the grass?  To me it has to be something like this: ‘you are worth something, let me help you’.

an ode to Toronto

A couple of nights ago I stepped into the first snowfall of my trip home. While others hurried past, eager to get home and out of the accumulating slush, I kept couldn't stop looking up.  Because sometimes when it snows, it's perfect. Clusters of snowflakes took circuitous routes to the ground and the dizzying effect of looking up was like being in a giant snow globe. These are the moments that I especially love Canada.

Toronto is the city of my adulthood. There's a memory on every corner: the nervous energy of my first 'real' job downtown, late nights turned to early mornings with my girlfriends, the intersection where a ringing phone brought good news, the hopefulness of a first kiss. I grew up here. I have found courage and contentment in those who have helped me to fill these streets with memories. I faced challenges and found strength to meet them over countless coffees and the steady rhythm of my feet on its pavement. Returning, I still find peace in the familiar-but-changing landscape of the city.

This trip, I was initially taken aback by the dirtiness of the city and the bleak eight hours of almost-daylight each day. My thoughts drifted back to the 5:30 am sunrise in Dar. But slowly, Toronto reeled me back in. A chance encounter with a guy who managed to get an ear bud lodged in his ear canal and the ensuing removal in my brothers' kitchen reminded me that strange (and sometimes wonderful) things happen everywhere. A conversation with a taxi driver that lingered after the meter stopped affirmed wisdom that I've heard around the world: be prepared, do your best, be yourself. An unexpectedly candid Christmas party conversation posed a challenging thought about North American culture: Is it predicated on lies? Why do most of us start by telling our children about a cast of imaginary characters? As I traversed the city, I saw poverty and riches - feeling alarm at the people who have set up camp in vacant storefronts instead of empathy and questioning myself: have I changed?

And then there were people. Suffice it to say Toronto is my city of love.

This morning I got up far too early to leave Toronto - for now. As if to reinforce my building sentiment I was greeted with mild weather and, finally, sunshine! As I walked downtown, the morning light hit the CN Tower, casting it in a faint pink glow. I remarked to myself that the city looked pretty clean for just hours after the revellers stumbled home. I took a deep breath, enjoying having the streets mainly to myself. And then I looked around and saw Toronto again: the discarded liquor bottles, McDonald's wrappers and errant confetti pieces. In the distance, I could see city workers, hard at work cleaning the debris. A fresh start. I thought it symbolic of the new year - the chance we all have every day to start again. My New Year's wish is to take up that offer: to see my city, my experiences and myself anew each day. 

A happy New Year to you all!!!

des milles collines

This year a number of African countries marked 50 years of independence from their colonizers.  Notably, Tanzania celebrated this occasion on December 9th and Kenya on December 12th.   Never one to miss a long weekend opportunity, I headed to Rwanda.

Rwanda is called the 'land of a thousand hills' but the first thing I noticed when we arrived in Kigali was the order.  At a clearly marked visa line I presented my pre-approved application, my money was inserted into a machine, change popped out and my passport was stamped.  Upon leaving the airport, my friend and I were even more shocked.  We traveled along manicured boulevards, traffic politely and obediently ambling up and down the hillsides, pedestrians making their way along paved sidewalks.  Sidewalks!  Giddily we congratulated ourselves on our escape from Dar and eagerly awaited our chance to explore the city.

Daylight did not disappoint.  When cars stopped at pedestrian cross-walks, we were almost too astounded to move.  The high of our morning of sidewalks, traffic rules and strong coffee ended abruptly when we made our way to the Kigali Genocide Memorial.  The audio tour began at large unmarked graves that house hundreds of thousands of genocide victims.  Beyond the graves are the endless rolling hills of Kigali.  My immediate thought was 'how could such horror unfold amid such beauty?'  Pictures and testimonials inside the exhibit were macabre.  Although I'd been reading Shake Hands with the Devil, it was at this point that the heaviness of Rwanda's history began to settle upon me.  More questions began to surface - where are the poor, hawkers and beggars, whose presence is ubiquitous on the streets of other East African major cities?   Rwanda has been an economic success story under the Kagame regime, but no poor people!?! Something did not seem right.

I've heard Rwanda described as a place that feels as though something is lurking under the surface many times before.  Yes, that's a pretty unsurprising observation, to the extent that it is less than 20 years since the genocide that killed a million people in 90 days.  But it is not just the suspected tension amid the population, it's the sense you get of tension between the populace and the government.

Days later this sentiment was confirmed during a day trip to the Parc National des Volcans, where Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo meet.  We'd traveled to the far east of the county and were repeatedly overcome by the staggering beauty of the countryside.  The four people who joined us on our day trip up the Bisoke volcano had recently moved to Kigali.  When we raved to them about our impressions of the city, they responded with information about an island that poor people were relegated to and a ban on flip flop sandals in the city centre - designed to keep the poorest people out.  These anecdotes, while outlandish, helped us to understand what we'd seen: a peaceful, calm, beautiful landscape with hills full of densely packed homes clearly occupied by the invisible poor.

Back in Dar I looked it up.  In fact, there is such a 'rehabilitation island' exists.  As for the sandals, I've not been able to find a clear answer.  Confirming the existence of the island made me think back to my initial giddiness.  What is the cost of order in developing cities?  In our own cities in the West? Should be we be comfortable with the overt exclusion of the poor against the reality of the pervasive exclusion of the poor in the socio-political life of almost every country?  Can order, infrastructure and efficiency 'trickle down'? Or will it only be for the citizens of Kigali?  What does my comfort with the hidden dysfunction of Kigali say about me and the cultural paradigm that I come from?  One year in East Africa and I feel no closer to the answers -- but I'm relieved that I can still see the questions.