Friday, July 21, 2006
Not quite Cannes, but still pretty cool
When I told a friend from home that I would be going to the Zanzibar International Film Festival, she breathlessly asked (well, as breathless as one can be over e-mail) whether it would be like Cannes, and if I would be brushing elbows with celebrities. Well, I can report that I did have a few run-ins with famous people, but perhaps not exactly who she envisioned.
The most famous person I saw last weekend in Zanzibar was not an actor, nor does he have anything to do with film. He was, however, probably the most noteworthy guest, at least in certain circles. I am referring to the esteemed architect of the Iraq war, and current President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfie and co (a bunch of Secret Service looking types in suits and sunglasses) hurried past us on one of Stone Town’s narrow streets on Saturday afternoon. Alas I was not able to snap a photo. He had been on the mainland earlier in the week to meet with President Kikwete and World Bank officials in Tanzania (the Bank just gave TZ a huge loan) and I guess decided to take advantage of the festival and pop over to Zanzibar.
The other Famous Person I encountered is a whole lot cooler: the actor/writer/director/activist Melvin van Peebles, the father of the blaxploitation genre and independent cinema in America. He’s also credited by some (including himself) as being the brains behind Shaft. Allegedly, the film was originally set up as a standard detective story with a white lead. But under Melvin’s influence, the lead was transformed into the baaad motha we know today.
Melvin was the main guest of honor at the festival, and was first introduced on the third evening of the festival, having arrived hours before. He then proceeded to do the sound for the “cine-concert,” which involved a German string quartet providing live, original musical accompaniment for the screening of the German Expressionist horror film Nosferatu (a Dracula story). This event was held in the large stone ampitheatre behind the old German fort. The ampitheatre has the feeling of Roman antiquity, but apparently was built rather recently. Anyway, it worked, and the whole thing was pretty neat.
The Zanzibar International Film Festival is an annual event and lasts for 10 days. Sadly I was only able to go for four of them, since couldn’t swing a whole week off. In addition to film screenings, there are concerts, lectures, art exhibitions, and dance performances. While a number of the films were from Tanzania and other African countries, it was truly an international festival, with films (and other art) from all over the world. In addition to the cine-concert, some of my favorite things at the festival included a great but harrowing documentary about prostitution and HIV/AIDS in Dar called Hyena Square, a creepy Senegalese film about haunted Baobab trees (and democratic elections), and a concert by this great Ugandan group whose name I have forgotten, who played these crazy instruments made out of huge gourds.
It was very hard to leave, but fortunately I know that I will probably return soon. Zanzibar is only 2 hours away on the ferry (only 20 minutes by plane!) and with my residence permit, it’s pretty reasonable. What’s neat is that while it’s so close, the island just has a totally different feel from Dar. Stone Town (the major port city) in particular. Its winding streets and magical feel remind me of Venice. The scooters whizzing around the narrow corners at breakneck speed also help. Though their riders are often swathed in full Muslim garb, so it doesn't entirely feel like Italy.
The most famous person I saw last weekend in Zanzibar was not an actor, nor does he have anything to do with film. He was, however, probably the most noteworthy guest, at least in certain circles. I am referring to the esteemed architect of the Iraq war, and current President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfie and co (a bunch of Secret Service looking types in suits and sunglasses) hurried past us on one of Stone Town’s narrow streets on Saturday afternoon. Alas I was not able to snap a photo. He had been on the mainland earlier in the week to meet with President Kikwete and World Bank officials in Tanzania (the Bank just gave TZ a huge loan) and I guess decided to take advantage of the festival and pop over to Zanzibar.
The other Famous Person I encountered is a whole lot cooler: the actor/writer/director/activist Melvin van Peebles, the father of the blaxploitation genre and independent cinema in America. He’s also credited by some (including himself) as being the brains behind Shaft. Allegedly, the film was originally set up as a standard detective story with a white lead. But under Melvin’s influence, the lead was transformed into the baaad motha we know today.
Melvin was the main guest of honor at the festival, and was first introduced on the third evening of the festival, having arrived hours before. He then proceeded to do the sound for the “cine-concert,” which involved a German string quartet providing live, original musical accompaniment for the screening of the German Expressionist horror film Nosferatu (a Dracula story). This event was held in the large stone ampitheatre behind the old German fort. The ampitheatre has the feeling of Roman antiquity, but apparently was built rather recently. Anyway, it worked, and the whole thing was pretty neat.
The Zanzibar International Film Festival is an annual event and lasts for 10 days. Sadly I was only able to go for four of them, since couldn’t swing a whole week off. In addition to film screenings, there are concerts, lectures, art exhibitions, and dance performances. While a number of the films were from Tanzania and other African countries, it was truly an international festival, with films (and other art) from all over the world. In addition to the cine-concert, some of my favorite things at the festival included a great but harrowing documentary about prostitution and HIV/AIDS in Dar called Hyena Square, a creepy Senegalese film about haunted Baobab trees (and democratic elections), and a concert by this great Ugandan group whose name I have forgotten, who played these crazy instruments made out of huge gourds.
It was very hard to leave, but fortunately I know that I will probably return soon. Zanzibar is only 2 hours away on the ferry (only 20 minutes by plane!) and with my residence permit, it’s pretty reasonable. What’s neat is that while it’s so close, the island just has a totally different feel from Dar. Stone Town (the major port city) in particular. Its winding streets and magical feel remind me of Venice. The scooters whizzing around the narrow corners at breakneck speed also help. Though their riders are often swathed in full Muslim garb, so it doesn't entirely feel like Italy.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Urban Village
I’m not sure what triggered it, but about two weeks ago, I experienced a distinct change in terms of my feelings about living here. It’s hard to describe, but it was a combination of relief and peace and shoulder-shrugging resignation: OK, this is my life now. This is not to say I don’t still have my ups and downs, and don’t still continue to question what I’m doing here, what “right” I have to be here, how my current experience fits into my Life Plan, etc. but at least those thoughts are no longer at the forefront of my mind. Basically, I think I’m finally over culture shock, which manifested itself in a weird, subtle way. Rather than having trouble with the obvious differences like the heat, the ridiculously overcrowded public transportation, the water and power outages, and the lack of certain comfort foods (the cheese here is NOT good), it was this general feeling of outsider- and different-ness that was the biggest challenge.
Anyway, a friend recently commented that I spend so much time recounting my “quasi-existential musings” in this blog that it can be hard to really get a sense of my surroundings. So I will try to rectify that imbalance to an extent in this post…
A Tanzanian acquaintance recently referred to Dar as an “urban village” and I think that’s a pretty apt description. Before I got here I went through two phases of vague expectations. In the first, I imagined Dar as a dusty, impoverished place, with a bunch of huts and very little infrastructure. But then when I learned (after sending a rather embarassing e-mail to another American living here) that there were luxuries such as running water and paved roads, I began to imagine Dar as a gleaming metropolis. So much so that when I first saw the the decidedly less-than-gleaming city center, my first thought was, Wow, what a dump!
Well, Dar has grown on me since then, and what’s interesting is that it’s managed to live up to both sets of somewhat misconceived expectations. It is very dusty, and can be quite smoggy, dirty and, well, “third-world,” for lack of a better descriptor. Squat toilets are the norm in many places (including the Alliance Francaise and a co-worker’s home that I recently visited). It’s also not uncommon to see polio victims dragging themselves down the sidewalk on their hands (the more fortunate use hand-crank wheelchairs made from recycled bicycle parts). It’s also not uncommon to have people ask you for money. This latter disturbance is often perpetrated by brazen children who have made a game of asking the unsuspecting mzungu for cash (or a pen or a photograph) rather than by starving people asking out of genuine need. However, the other day I realized after a trip to the ATM that I was walking around with more money in my wallet than the average person in this country makes in a year... It can be hard to draw the line – most of my mzungu friends here are decidedly not rich (by Western standards): we are young and working for little or no pay, many of us worried about paying back student loans and wondering how we’ll pay for grad school. On the other hand, it can be hard not to recognize your relative fortune when you think that a few dollars can buy someone food for a week, or pay for a month of school.
Living in Dar, however, it can be quite easy to forget about the dire poverty that affects so many people in this country. One of my officemates recently explained to a visitng friend that if he wanted to see the “real” Tanzania, he would have to get out of Dar. Indeed, if you were to spend all your time on the Peninsula, it would be easy to forget completely that you were in Tanzania. The Peninsula can feel a bit like Palo Alto, except more tropical. Even in the center of town, there are a number of oases of Western comfort and privilege – such as the Kempinski Hotel, where one can eat sushi while checking one’s e-mail on the free Wireless Internet, and shivering from the intense air-conditioning.
My Dar experience is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes (though a lot closer to the latter, if I am honest). I cram into the overcrowded dala-dalas and try to ignore their squeaky, maybe-failing brakes. However, I take taxis after dark and am considering buying a friend’s Suzuki 4-by-4 for more peaceful transport. I am happy eating dirt-cheap nyama choma (grilled meat) and fried bananas and washing them down with dirt-cheap beer (75 cents for a half liter! And it’s really good!!) at the outdoor bar across the street. However, I’m also happy to indulge in the various finer dining options that Dar has to offer, including Thai (at the rooftop restaurant in one of the fancy hotels downtown), Italian, and Middle Eastern cuisine.
I live in a house that has flush toilets but no hot water, and sometimes no water at all. My mother called the other night when I was in the middle of taking a bucket shower by headlamp. I recounted that fact to her with some pride, but by my third bucket shower that week, I was kind of over the novelty, and began making arrangements with our landlord to put a reserve water tank on the roof.
My neighborhood is neither exclusively ex-pat nor totally Tanzanian, and has a range of accomodation. The road leading to our house is unpaved and littered with enormous potholes, but these do not seem to present too much of an obstacle for the chickens, bicycles, dala-dalas, and Land Rovers that are all frequent passengers.
One thing that both that haves and the have-nots of Dar can enjoy is the Indian Ocean. Dar's beaches are not Tanzania's most beautiful, but there is just something wonderful about having the ocean in your backyard. Being able to walk along the beach with with bare feet on the sand, looking out into a seemingly endless stretch of tropical blue water can make up for pretty much anything.
Anyway, a friend recently commented that I spend so much time recounting my “quasi-existential musings” in this blog that it can be hard to really get a sense of my surroundings. So I will try to rectify that imbalance to an extent in this post…
A Tanzanian acquaintance recently referred to Dar as an “urban village” and I think that’s a pretty apt description. Before I got here I went through two phases of vague expectations. In the first, I imagined Dar as a dusty, impoverished place, with a bunch of huts and very little infrastructure. But then when I learned (after sending a rather embarassing e-mail to another American living here) that there were luxuries such as running water and paved roads, I began to imagine Dar as a gleaming metropolis. So much so that when I first saw the the decidedly less-than-gleaming city center, my first thought was, Wow, what a dump!
Well, Dar has grown on me since then, and what’s interesting is that it’s managed to live up to both sets of somewhat misconceived expectations. It is very dusty, and can be quite smoggy, dirty and, well, “third-world,” for lack of a better descriptor. Squat toilets are the norm in many places (including the Alliance Francaise and a co-worker’s home that I recently visited). It’s also not uncommon to see polio victims dragging themselves down the sidewalk on their hands (the more fortunate use hand-crank wheelchairs made from recycled bicycle parts). It’s also not uncommon to have people ask you for money. This latter disturbance is often perpetrated by brazen children who have made a game of asking the unsuspecting mzungu for cash (or a pen or a photograph) rather than by starving people asking out of genuine need. However, the other day I realized after a trip to the ATM that I was walking around with more money in my wallet than the average person in this country makes in a year... It can be hard to draw the line – most of my mzungu friends here are decidedly not rich (by Western standards): we are young and working for little or no pay, many of us worried about paying back student loans and wondering how we’ll pay for grad school. On the other hand, it can be hard not to recognize your relative fortune when you think that a few dollars can buy someone food for a week, or pay for a month of school.
Living in Dar, however, it can be quite easy to forget about the dire poverty that affects so many people in this country. One of my officemates recently explained to a visitng friend that if he wanted to see the “real” Tanzania, he would have to get out of Dar. Indeed, if you were to spend all your time on the Peninsula, it would be easy to forget completely that you were in Tanzania. The Peninsula can feel a bit like Palo Alto, except more tropical. Even in the center of town, there are a number of oases of Western comfort and privilege – such as the Kempinski Hotel, where one can eat sushi while checking one’s e-mail on the free Wireless Internet, and shivering from the intense air-conditioning.
My Dar experience is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes (though a lot closer to the latter, if I am honest). I cram into the overcrowded dala-dalas and try to ignore their squeaky, maybe-failing brakes. However, I take taxis after dark and am considering buying a friend’s Suzuki 4-by-4 for more peaceful transport. I am happy eating dirt-cheap nyama choma (grilled meat) and fried bananas and washing them down with dirt-cheap beer (75 cents for a half liter! And it’s really good!!) at the outdoor bar across the street. However, I’m also happy to indulge in the various finer dining options that Dar has to offer, including Thai (at the rooftop restaurant in one of the fancy hotels downtown), Italian, and Middle Eastern cuisine.
I live in a house that has flush toilets but no hot water, and sometimes no water at all. My mother called the other night when I was in the middle of taking a bucket shower by headlamp. I recounted that fact to her with some pride, but by my third bucket shower that week, I was kind of over the novelty, and began making arrangements with our landlord to put a reserve water tank on the roof.
My neighborhood is neither exclusively ex-pat nor totally Tanzanian, and has a range of accomodation. The road leading to our house is unpaved and littered with enormous potholes, but these do not seem to present too much of an obstacle for the chickens, bicycles, dala-dalas, and Land Rovers that are all frequent passengers.
One thing that both that haves and the have-nots of Dar can enjoy is the Indian Ocean. Dar's beaches are not Tanzania's most beautiful, but there is just something wonderful about having the ocean in your backyard. Being able to walk along the beach with with bare feet on the sand, looking out into a seemingly endless stretch of tropical blue water can make up for pretty much anything.
