Arjen Westra’s African Weblog

Been a kind of offline (moving in and out almost every country between Kenya and South Africa)in the past months, collecting stories from Africans telling about their lives, their frustrations and most of all: their dreams. I met fishermen on the Cape who are not allowed to fish and had to flee into crime and drugs, I met beachboys in Mombasa who in order to be more succesfull with a muzungu lady, are planning to visit a witch doctor ‘before the season starts’ to get a black magic battery in their wallet, and i talked to Tanzanians being frustrated about the fact that the country’s mining profits are disappearing abroad, other Tanzanians who believe that they can make a difference by starting a business and treating their employees in a human way by paying them a normal salary and treating them as human beings (soemthing you could not always say about so called decent companies in Africa., On the road i talked to Zambians that use chili to keep away the elephants from their village, to Kenians that keep hope for a better future although the new Grand Coalition Government cannot take away the impression that they are as clean as they pretent to be and to Namibians that are happy that there is no solution in Zimabwe ‘The money used to go to Zimbabwe but now the countries around (Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia) get some investment too… Look: none of the neighbouring countries are doing bad, in fact they are very fine.’ Stories will be available for my appreciated customers in Netherlands and Belgium.

Shortly you will find more grassroot audio and pictures online. Owners of an iPod: since a few months you can subscribe to the Official Africareporter.net Audiopodcast. Please subscribe by clicking this link iTunes users can go to the Itunes StorePodcast directory. Search for “Africareporter” and subscribe. Alernatively, you could visit this website: Podcast Directory But the best option for anybody is this link: Africareporter.net Podcast Enjoy. Comments and request are welcome! See you on the road!
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Thank you mister Seaman from Zimbabwe, you started a small coffee stand on Lusaka International Airport. You know what a traveller needs at the beginning of the day: good coffee. But… what i don’t get: why do Zambians need a Zimbabwian on their International Airport to start a coffee shop all those years nobody noticed?

The masses decide the direction of history. Yes it is a cliché. Thanks for observing that. At least you know your cliché’s. And also: thew image is never as bad as reality, especially if you talk about so called African countries with political tension. Examples? My first visit to Nigeria years ago, I did not get the AK47 roadblocks every 200 meters that people prepared me for. I neglected the advice of friends (who had never been to Africa), asking me if a story is worth my life. I went and I met a crazy country, but not the roadblocks. And I have had the experience before and often. Anyway: travelling to Togo is was prepared for soldiers and harassment during election time. The immigration officer in neighbouring country Ghana had already warned me when he asked my profession. Don’t tell the neighbours that you are a journalist, every year journalists are disappearing. I laughed and thanked him for his advice when he returned my passport over the counter.

Hours later, I got a warm welcome, again, by a very friendly immigration officer at the Lomé international airport. I had to fly because the overland border was closed, not very promising, indeed. Of course the usual bureaucracy (’We can not allow you in, when you can’t show us the boarding pass of the plane you were on, sir’, the plane with the engine on meters behind me).
-’Could you please join me to my office?’
-’Sure sir, I understand.’

The next day, elections passed. Calm and as the BBC reported with long qeus at the polling stations which is a reason to believe that a high percentage of people went out to vote. No violence reported, only some harassment around the border, which is a less than ten minute-moto-taxidrive from the city center.
Days passed, without any violence being reported. From the capital Lomé, I travelled over well maintained tarmac-roads, hardly counted any potholes nor roadblocks manned by angry drunken soldiers asking for money. Not that you would expect when you hear the name Togo? Excellent! My starting point is an average Kenyan road, that is like it has been bombarded recently and is full with roadblocks. Anyway, I stayed in hotels, that served nice breakfast, had rooms with cold and hot water and a friendly staff that understands hospitality.

Days later, I returned to the capital and I got a different feeling. Everybody in capital Lomé seemed to be full of fear the evening the results of the elections were to be announced. The beautiful waitress of the pub were I enjoyed a cold Eku-beer, came to me, bowed over, looked me deep in my eyes, and asked me extremely friendly with an extremely beautiful smile if i could leave ‘Parce que on ferme tot ce soir. On attend les résultats.’ I gave her my best ‘Pas de problème’ since long.

Arriving at the hotel, I found a panicking old white madam from the reception who called me on my room to tell me in a high voice ‘de pas sortir’, not to go out, or even better leave the country now, because even last time ‘they’ came and destroyed part of the hotel. I could not tell her my profession, so I accepted her advice calm with a polite smile and ‘Merci madam’. Coming from the North, I had not felt anything like tension. Talking with people about the elections, they seemed to be happy that they were able to bring out their vote, although they knew that their voice would not make a difference. And they told me and it seemed that people were discussing politics in the open. At least the president had brought some good things I learned: a year ago there was no water, there no electricity on a lot of places, but now there is. I saw police officers, ok, but they seemed friendly and not of the bullying-bulldog-type. It seemed that the whole nation was ready not to spoil this time. It’s the Togo-complot against the West

That is the name I gave to this small community of Himba people in Namibia’s Northwest where is just passed some days ago. Probabely the only Himba-community with a white female Minister of Finance. Himba’s are to Namibia what the Maasai are to Kenya and Tanzania and Bushmen to Southern Africa. The difference in Namibia is that white ‘native’ people talk about their fellow nationals the San and the Himba in a very strange way: just as if the white nationals are superior to the natives. AIt seems to be a trend among whites in Southern Africa to do something good. And that is also how a lot of these white well-do’ers behave: We are doing something GOOD. Look how GOOD I am. And i have to believe how GOOD they are of course. I ran into a white lady who ‘adopted’ this small community of Himba people, when according to the lady they came to her with the question if they could stay on her land. The lady said yes, you are welcome. Her motive, how could i even think it would not be, was very noble: helping these poor Himba-people who are, in fact and according to the lady ‘very normal people’. It took the lady a lot of effort to ‘help this Himba’s stop drinking’ and she almost cried, I had the impression. I almost felt like offering a tissue, when she was talking about HER Himba’s and the pain SHE had gone through to make them adjust their behaviour (to what?). Now every day in the tourist high season, the small community gets ‘more than five trucks with guests a day’. Every tourist pays 100 Rand to visit (approximately 10 euro’s). That is an average turnover of 750 euro a day, or more than 5000 euro a week. When I asked the lady what’s in it for the Himba’s, she told me: ‘…everything is for them and I am the one buying food for them, I know exactly what they need, and exactly how much they need of it. The rest of the money goes in an account. I am their Minister of Finance and decide what happens with the money.’ I fully understood, of course. Who wouldn’t? On a yearly basis, that is more than 240.000 euro, for this 20 head community of mais-eating Himba’s. Interesting he? This has been going on for years, that’s why I would call these people The Himba Millionaires. I did not find a nick name for the lady, who truly is a VERY NORMAL lady of the white tribe of WEDO’s (Well do’ers). Any suggestions are welcome! Pictures are clickable! Much better!

Because they are nomads, it was easy for them to accept the Camel Library in their life, according to Faraah Noor Farah. Head of the camel division of the Garissa Camel Library. The majority of the people in the outback around regional capital Garissa in Eastern Kenya are illiterate and/or don’t have the money to afford books. Four times a week Garissa regional library visits schools in the region, with camels loaded with books. Today, we visit a school on 2.5 hours walk (we took 200 books). Please enjoy the short report and also check out the pictures I took on the trip by clicking here

Enjoy!

I am in Dar es Salaam at the moment. Four million people of which 70 percent in informal settlements but huray, they can enjoy these views, for free and almost daily! This one is for Dar Dreamers!

Tanzania’s economy is growing with an impressive 7 percent a year. Almost 18 percent of the GDP is being earned by tourism. The expected growth in number of tourists is much bigger than the National Parcs will be able to handle in the future. The parcs, in terms of beds are full. So: developing tourism on other spots than the Serengeti and Lake Manyara, is becoming more important and the question how much money from the economic growth is reaching the people (like Maasai) is becoming more important. In order to start monitoring what is happening with the money, the Tourist Confederation of Tanzania came up with an initiative during a seminar organized by Karibu, one of the most important Tourism and Travel Fairs in East Africa. I had a short talk with Andrew Williams, coordinator of the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (listen to the small interview below), one of the initiators (Interview Made on Mobile Phone). And… a growing number of people is getting my free email-updates. For those who did not subscribe: please leave your email-adress on the top right! You will get an update in your inbox everytime I updated this Blog. Thanks and have a nice day!

Testing some audio. In the middle of changing this Blog a bit more in a multimedia Blog, so you don’t fall asleep with all my writing ;-). Soon, you will find my Mobile Phone Made introduction video on my Contact-page (see above). In order to make posts more accessable I added some tags in the sidebar. Try and enjoy. Remember: it’s still under (re-) construction. Like seeing you coming back. At the moment I am in Arusha, Tanzania, working on a feature about ‘responsible’ tourism, human-wildlife conflict among others. Enjoy your day!

Just back from the outback around Garissa for reports on a Camel Library. Prepared for the worst but got the best tarmac road: six and a half hours from Nairobi. The more than hundred NGO’s working here are using proper fourwheeldrives to deliver their aid to the needy. The local Nomad Palace is happy with the clientele. Development workers around means workshops! The Kenyan National Library Service delivers books to the needy, with camels. Why? Because camels are better accepted than other ways of delivery according one of the spokesmen of the libray. Interesting he? Audio and pictures will be posted soon. Have a cultural and literate day!

Just back from Chogoria area for reports on community tourism, the coffee- and tea industry. Coffee dioes not bring enough income, farmers don’t want to change, or are not able to change their business. Now, locals are becoming share holders in a tourist lodge and getting the profit. More pictures available soon.

Enjoy!