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Published: July 30th 2006
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It’s been a hectic week of zooming up and down the country.
I’ve been in places I never thought I’d be involving flights, and days of solid driving along dusty dirt tracks and very very bumpy roads, eating bananas and oranges and packaged biscuits. I’m now back in Dar, but have spent some time in Masasi, and Mtwara, about 60 km from the Mozambique border. Masasi has little to offer other than a thriving cashew nut trade and a tarmaced road (which after 2 days of driving was a sight for sore eyes. The cashew nuts, however weren’t.)
On the way down, I stayed in Kilwa Kivinje - a one horse market town, once occupied by the Germans. I was somewhat taken with the 1 pound a night hostel (particularly after the pricyness of Dar and Zanzibar), though that may have had something to do with my evening wash. By the communal well, I shared my Estee Lauder face product with a smiling lady who smeared it all over her body and face and just beamed at me. We laughed and I wondered whether I was in some kind of bizarre ad.
I came down South with Neil
Shaw, a film maker I met at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in Stone Town, where I spent 4 days gorgeing on cultural mixes, films, bars, and good conversation as well as seafood. He’s here to make a news feature about the Unity Bridge. The bridge was originally suggested just post the Mozambican war in 1975 to increase trade between Tanzania and Mozambique. After 30 years of struggling to find outside investors the two countries finally decided to fund the $24 million project themselves and aim to finish building it by 2008.
So all good? It will encourage trade and open development between the two countries. Well, yes, but also there are some other considerations to be made, which are what concern Neil.
Sure, trade will increase. The stolen motorbikes and bicycles, the bright khanga cloths and the scrawny chickens (apparently all cheaper in Mozambique) will keep going North whilst the radios and pre-made clothing will increasingly leave Tanzania. Traders will no longer need to rely on the slow ferry which only a few years ago replaced the canoes used to cross the border.
But what will happen to the nature reserves that run alongside this trade
corridor? Already the route sees a lot of traffic leading to poaching on the Mozambican side and the Selous game reserve across the border. Surely a more accessible route will only encourage more destruction of the natural surroundings? This is one of the worries of the Director of the Niassa game reserve in Mozambique.
Another concern (at least of Neil’s) is the affect on the HIV rate. In Tanzania 1 in 15 people are positive. Along the Mozambique/Tanzania trade corridor this rate doubles. It’s the truck drivers. Whilst driving from place to place there is little else for them to do other than visit the local prostitutes. By opening up a bridge where previously there was only a ferry more and more truck drivers will be passing through…
We’ve actually been given the runaround in terms of permits and authority and who to speak to for what, which has had Neil charging around the country somewhat like a yo-yo queuing in district offices. I’ve been intrigued by the whole bureaucracy of it all. Much of African behaviour seems to be based on the culture of exchange and the fact that we are Wazungu (whities) I think means that
we are expected to be able to offer something in return for permission to film. This can be somewhat frustrating but as I have little at stake I have been lapping up the whole African-ness of it all.
I am just loving being here. I love the light. It’s like everything has been polarized. And (certainly in comparison to India), there is just so much space. Driving across the country, baobab trees stretch out their root-like branches across luminous skies. Dust covers the branches at the side of the road making me wonder if autumn has come early.
We pass women in brightly covered khangas (skirts and headscarves matching) carrying up to 20kg on their heads, sometimes primary-coloured plastic buckets full of fruit or water or panniers of oranges or paw paw, and sometimes half a tree. Barefoot uniformed school-children carry their books on their head on their way to and from school and men pedal creaking bicycles languidly. The tempo here is so much slower than in India. There is more space, less noise and much much less rain.
I’m heading to Moshi under the shadow of Kilimanjaro in a couple of days where thanks to
atomic skies
just one of the views when travelling south Ed, I’ve arranged to work at a woman’s group. Trying to make a film with Neil has been great, but it’s time I stopped adopting other people’s projects and found one of my own.
Susie
X
Bekka : thanks loads for your fantastic mails. Your news and gossip has kept me going. :o)
Cato : I hope the family didn’t drive you too insane. Big kiss to your lovely smiley daughter.
Rachel : Behave
All : For anyone who wants it, my phone no in Tanzania is 00255 742 287728.
Also I have no idea why I want to know this, but did anyone bit the bullet and see the Da Vinci Code? Was it really as bad as I think it must have been?
Oh, and some of you are a bit slack in your communications these days. ;o) I’ll put it down to the inundations of london’s summer cultural events, which I look forward to hearing about (hint).
Jag: Am curious to know about the job?
Daniella : Thinking of you.:o)
Murray : Looking forward to seeing the pics of Morocco.
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Jim
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Fantastic photos, keep em coming! Can't quite match the Zanzibar International Film Festival but was at Lovebox Weekender: Cut Copy, Gilles Peterson, Groove Armada, Candi Staton. What's the music like there? Take care Jx