Arjen Westra’s African Weblog

Green, green, green banana’s everywhere. The sweet smell of matoke mixes with the smell of sweating locals coming aboard. I took the night boat from Bukoba in Tanzania to Mwanza. It’s a ten hour journey. The boat leaves Bukoba, one of the major economic cities in Tanzania around 21.30 at night and arrives in Mwanza at around seven in the morning. The boat has three classes and a fourth class: for matoke and (like last night) a coffin. Matoke or green bananas are the staple food for a lot of people around the lake. On the way the boat stops once in Kemondo Bay where more matoke comes aboard. The big bunches of matoke have marks so people can easily recognize which bunch is theirs. It was not the first time I took the boat and I noticed a small difference with the last time, in November last year. In November there was much more activity around the boat in the water. Fishermen come to the boat to trade their fresh fish, but it seems this time they did not come. I asked around with several people, but nobody could answer me why the fisherman did not come. I could see them far away like flickering stars. I was standing on the deck with the wind blowing in my hair. A few meters below me, on the third class deck, people where sweating in their private square meter, staring at me without any expression. Mothers with children, man, drunken men: ‘Please no pictures’, the smell of urine took over from the pentrating smell of sweat when people invited me in the nose of the boat on the lowest deck. Some of them were even taking their own matoke with them, folding themselves. It was great to see and quit confronting at the same moment. Migration is a natural part of life in Africa. In fact its part of a survival life style not as a choice like the group of tourists that travelled First Class using the same boat two decks above them. Enjoy the nightboat to Mwanza! All pictures are made on mobile phone…

This is possible: I wrote this posting on my mobile phone somewhere in the middle of nowhere in East Africa. Could post it thanks to GPRS. This is not Europe. This is Africa. As you can see: (sometimes it is hard to admit) but… we are booking some progress here!

The digital gap is getting smaller: the thing is: we don’t see that it is really getting smaller because desert places get connected and they are out of our sight. At the moment I am enjoying rather quick internet in the deep south of Uganda (in the village Buhoma to be more precise, a few kilometers from the Congolese border). The cybercafe was set up for the purpose of sending medical reports on gorilla dung to the headoffice in Kampala. In case of an emergency Kampala can send a vet. The cyber is partly financed by the fees (360 usdollar) that people pay for gorilla tracking in the nearby Bwindi Inpenetratable Forest National Parc.   

Piracy might have good consequences but in the end a lot of people would be better of if there would be a better system of protecting consumers against these natural mechanisms of making income differences smaller in this continent. Such a system would at least contribute to the trust people would have in their own government their own systems. Trust is one of the most important things that a lot of African societies are lacking. It might even one of the main reasons that a lot of countries are still lacking a strong growth in development. In daily life one is all the time confronted with small and big lies, non-stop. If you want to bring a mobile phone to the repair shop you will get it back stripped from some parts: nobody in the shop is able to tell where the parts went. If you go to a shop people talk to you nicely to get you as a customer and after picking up the slides they have all sort of reasons why they did not deliver the quality what they promised. You want to talk about a discount. They call their uncle who works with the police and threaten to arrest you if you don’t pay the full amount al thought they didn’t deliver what they promised (which actually happened when I enjoyed a beer with a friend in a bar). The insurance company might come to see you and ask you to pay an extra amount of money because they have a police abstract that says you are guilty although you have a copy that says you are not. And as a climax you have to come to the police station to pay the ‘fine’ for your girlfriend who has been arrested for not wearing her belt in the matatu. Walking home she tells you that the police officer was suggesting other ways of lowering the fine when he took her to his office and proposed to remove your trousers. All cases are from real life and you pick up these stories daily fro the streets, from friends or I experience them myself. All cases have to do with a lack of trust or at least they contribute to trust in society. Trust from people in their governments, their police force and trust from people in their fellow citizen. For a lot of people on this continent it is daily reality. For me it explains a bit why people tend to behave selfish: if you don’t know who to trust, not even your own police force or government, then who could you? Then you are on your own. If people feel they are on their own and cannot have any influence on their circumstances, they will grab any one-minute of power where at least they can have the feeling they are in control of their live. In the West we have One Minute of Fame. In Africa a lot of people enjoy their One Minute of Power in those situations. Enjoy your day!

Don’t misunderstand me: I am not supporting piracy. But wandering through the streets of Nairobi I wondered if piracy is really so bad as some research suggest. Kenya was singled out as one of the number one piracy countries in the world. Imagine: 30 percent of al the books you find in Kenya are pirated and 90(!!!) percent of al music is pirated. The entertainment industry tends to complain about this, which is understandable, but on the other hand: hundreds of fathers are coming home every night to feed their children with the money that they made with selling pirated CD’s in Nairobi’s streets. Guess who is buying those CD’s and DVD’s. It might be interesting to make the sum and find out what is costing more: non-effective development aid or piracy… and: who really pays the price? I am enjoying Kampala and all its goodness at the moment…. It’s hot, just before the short rains and, believe me or not: a friendly guy just offered me some DVD’s: the movie General Idi Amin and Pirates of the Carribean 2 for three euro each. His children would have been happy if I would have bought at least one. Have a pirated day!

 

As journalists we are constantly dealing with the changing media environment. Just wanted to share this article about the future of newspapers:  

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1004/p09s01-cojh.html?s=hns

Coming up I got a posting on music piracy and what it brings to developing countries. Have a wonderful day and enjoy my mobile morning view! (And please don’t blame me if you fall asleep).