STAFF

More Zanzibar Doors

Stonetown, Zanibar Island

Stonetown, Zanibar Island (off the northern coast of Tanzania, just south of Mombasa, Kenya) began as a typical Swahili settlement, as early as the 12 century. I have always wanted to come here after reading in high school about the famous African explorations of Morton Stanley and Robert Livingston, joining up at one point to cross the continent. From this amazing place. Its roots are in fishing, but oral traditions of the Swahili are replete with stories of migrations of people not only from the African mainland, but also from Arabia, the Persian Gulf (large groups today include descendants from Yeman, the biblical land of Oman and Portugal) India and China. A critical commercial and plantaion economy developed with slavery and the spice trade. Even Queen Fatma ruled in the sixteenth century and her palace remains today as a museum. These peoples represent now a heterogenous society in a constant process of assimilation! The architecture alone is an amazing cultural heritage.

Arab doors are always carved and cut straight across at the top, an Indian door features the fluted dome shape at the top. The Zanzibar door was an indicator of wealth, with a variety of motifs which also were represented in the elaborately carved sterns of the Indian ocean dhows (fish, fish scales, wavy lines, rosettes and lotus flowers, chain design to indicate security) The pointed brass knobs kept the street animals from causing damage.

As a result o the dramatic social upheaval of the 1964 revolution and the nationalism of the clove economy, more than 60% of the 2000 stone houses went into the hands of the government and or low income housing, leaving behind the great historic buildings to fall into decay. Since the 80’s however, a new conservation society has been formed and Stonetown has been designated a world heritage site. Wander the intricate narrow streets and lanes bonded by the social nodes of mikahawa (Kiswahili for coffee houses and barazas, meeting points with benches) When it rains, it really rains, and the streets become rivers, part of the natural heritage. Someday the drainage system will be cleaned. Look for me at The House of Wonders near the harbor front
Park, Queen Fatmas place!

Ancient tortoises, up to 125 years old, live on Prison Island where the old slave quarters honor those who served before us. Wonderful snorkeling is nearby, clear blue no seaweed!

I loved the spice plantations, located in a wonderful hilly center part of island. Hectares of clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, cardammon, turmeric, ginger, all fruits, coffee, pepper (white, so as not to show itself in the final meal, green, red and black corns harvested at different times from the same tree) curry, (the curry powder we buy does not have curry leaves in it, rather an amalgam of many Indian spices). More, quinine and neem tea to treat malaria, paprika and many others I did not know.

Kids in Class

YOU’RE SO CLOSE, WHATS YOUR TAKE ON SUDAN?

Peace between S Sudan and Sudan remains elusive even after the peace agreement with Kenya. After the bush war against Khartoum, the agreement was signed in 2005 but peace never came, aggressions, rebel attacks, and economic sabotage have resulted. Future war between the two countries will cost the US billions if it were to last over 5 years, because of the dual GNP loss, and peacekeeping and humanitarian needs. Ethiopia will suffer greatly too.

-The government of S Sudan is preparing for war now, barely a year after successfully seceding, and seeing a majority of its 8 M in population newly returned from refugee camps, relying on relief aid for food.

-Juba’s government has closed the oil fields, a sign that relations are dangerously strained, oil exports aren’t going through the north, a dissolution between Kharthoum relations/government is worsening.

S is especially vulnerable to the break in economic lifeline.

Large non-Arab population prevents slows adoption of Islamic law even though Arabic is official language, Islam religion of country.

Bashir never wanted S Sudan to work, disregards President Kiir who needs to be a better diplomat.


WHY DO YOU THINK FAMINE IS STILL A PROBLEM??

Famine, the humane calamity that was prevalent throughout the world earlier in this century is fast being confined to Africa. Countries in the rest of the world seem to have managed to deal with the famine problem, but Kenya is one country not to have found the way. I only have a few observations after being here 10 months.

As long ago as 1991, Joachim Von Braun wrote in his report from the Food Policy Research Institute, stating that the food crisis in the continent is a result of the interaction between environmental and socio-economic factors in the short and long terms. It’s still a failure of policy to deal with, and we seem not to have made much progress. While agriculture can be under increased stress from drought and production failure, even for years, this does not produce famine unless other socio-economic conditions are present. Here ya go:

-deficiencies in public policy impair growth of households, poverty persists

-lack of seeds, affordable fertilizers, training to compost, manage water

- lack of technologies to improve alternative production methods,
(PC teaches and maintains many independent projects)

- lack of transportation, marketing for farm goods

-limit in non farming income opportunities due to poor education system,

-no training in savings for rainy day (PC is also involved in rural village
banking with women)
-poor health conditions, lack of country investment health infrastructure

-no macroeconomic infrastructure (exchange rates, export laws)

While mobile money is a booming business here, a tool helping to teach banking for the first time through MPesa, the cart is a bit before the horse. This system is not used for world business purposes. Resource capital is what’s needed to point to an impactful future –development of natural resources - minerals, fisheries, forestry, and gas – all waiting to be managed.

There is enough water, land, air and sunshine to manage these complexities, we need another 20years probably!

Dutch in Africa January Update

(a “cloud” blurb to add) “Everyone born in Kenya and throughout East Africa at least, has a tribal name and a Christian name. Both are used, normally the tribal name most used at home”.

(January)I enjoyed at real break from the job and heat during the holidays, traveling to JoBerg SA to visit friends. The complexity of the South African history and heritage is unavoidable. Human evolution began here. Yet it is ironic that humanity suffered in the place of it genesis and the scar of a crashing mederoite (Tswang Crater) is not clearly as etched on the soil as the cruelty of apartheid. Africans began here – with the Busotho, Tswana and Bapedi tribes, much replaced by the arrival of early explorers – but their stories were retold, and I was reminded why we are able to hear these stories again. The many monuments, for instance the women’s prison,
the Old Fort, and the Hector Peterson statue, the tribute to the slain youth of Soweto, are testimony to the bravery of many heros.

Then there was the renaissance “50’s, giving a place in the world to artists and musicians who grew to be international legends like Marian Makeba. None however is more famous than Nelson Rosihlahla Mandela, perhaps the most recognized statesman of this century. Now he has returned to his village on the western cape, high in spirit I hear, (his middle name stand for the word “branch,” growing in a different direction) to live out his nineties in peace.

Jo Berg is a major political and economic force on both sides of the African continent. Its also known as Gautang..the “city and province of gold” where the founders mined and stayed - planting so many trees that its almost known for the
being the city in the forest more than it’s gold deposits. Since the signing of the freedom charter, the treason trial in Rivonia (Mandela, Sobuko and nine others,
Mandela’s law partner Oliver Tembo already exiled to England) and the 1976 school massacre (Hector), Jo- Berg has evolved into a multifaceted treasure with many future growth possibilities. It pulsates with global advancement, music, public art and design, film festivals, sport mecca and fashion center. And no place in the world could be as culturally complex with the British, Dutch and 12 national tribes all intertwined. Jacob Zuma, the president, is known to be very engaging but corrupt to the core.

I particularly enjoyed my visit to the Constitutional Court, nestled dramatically into the Old Fort and Men’s Prison campus (where Mandela and MH Ghandi both were imprisoned at one time, years before Mandela’s 27 years at Robbin Island)…a poignant, daily, reminder of just how freedom came about for South Africa. I never could learn who the architect was. Somebody look on line for me. The Aparteid Museum, is staggering but uplifting in a way I know that progress is possible.

I also visited Winnie and Nelson Mandela’a early home in Soweto where their children were raised along with his two sons by his first marriage. Mandela returned to live there after his release from Robbin Island. And after a museum was established, Winnie still lives close by when she’s not in Capetown serving as a regional representative.

Mombasa and even Nairobi are real Kenyan communities and the change in environment for me after 8 months in Kenya was startling. I savoured the food, the washing machine and wonderful running water!

11 Judges Preside

SA Constitutional Court in Jo berg Mens prison, also on site of Old Fort

MOYO Restaurant, Jo berg

Nelson Mandelas Cell

Supreme Court Main door of Constitutional Court where Freedom came for SA in 1996. There are more guarantees for individual rights in SA than any other constitution in the world.

Cool Jo Berg Restaurant MOYO

Sheldrake Baby Elephant and Rhino Sanctuary. Rescued infants are on view.
In silence one hour daily so they can be released when healthy into the wild again! Soya milk only, fed no animal products, blanketed at night to ward off pneumonia since ekes can't cough.

Kipange House, Nairobi; Many Kenyans registered for papers at the turn of the century.

Local business teaching dressmaking

Raunchy Radio Talk Shows, Perverts, Anything Goes- thats Light matatu Riding!

"The Light Side of Matatu Travel"
(Certainly every VW bus you ever saw in America is now in use in Kenya!)

A matatu is like a traveling melting pot of smells.
From the drivers cheap cigarette to the "conductor" who looks and effuses an air of
being up all night, to the occasional weird fellow who wants to let his feet breathe, all made worse by the cologne wafting through from the smartly dressed guy in the corner seat. Yet Kenyans must travel with all the windows broken shut, irrespective of how hot or "close" the matatu is.

It’s no wonder that nowadays some of the driers who have had enough of this torture employ an oversized sticker, usually in bright red, announcing "tafadhali, usitoe viatu ndani ya gari" (keep you shoes on). Not all stickers are eco friendly though. Some are calculated to frighten the life out of you! (The driver is insane! Don't bring stress here!) They are not joking because they carry enough crude weapons to mount a credible assault on the Al Shabaab militia.

At 60mph with every sharp bend he leans hard on you. With every pothole the vehicle hits, he generally smears you with some of the perspiration. But until you hire a private driver one has to put up with the very public nature of the matatu. These include the endless chatterboxes who try to interest you in stories you care nothing about --like Mr. Preacherman on how the devil personally invented computers to spread his influence on earth. Why can't they just listen to the blaring radio and let me look out with every lurch or jolt - in peace.

Speaking of radios -and let’s not get into the fact that you could be perched on the top of a refrigerator sized speaker and each thunderous decibel scatters your innards -- you can be minding your own business, or next to an elderly person, when the FM radio launches into a raunchy bedroom story, told by a female caller in shrieking voice, "I'm cheating on my husband because he's useless! He finishes in three minutes she shamelessly rants to the radio hosts raucous laughter/ You can't laugh and squirm at the same time.

Every ones praying the darn thing shuts off. The mobile phone is another thing altogether in close proximity. Ironically, its those who hold the loud conversations in matatus, quoting astronomical figures, say, I'm selling the plot next to the petrol station for ks9 million!, are usually the shabbiest and smell of old banana skins. Then there are the femmes fatales who plot office coups on the phone. But then you realize the gossip was an angel when you have on the other side a passenger who chats loudly for a mind boggling 45 minutes in their mother tongue!

What of the wide loaded passenger consuming 80%of the seat and leave me to perch on an eighth of my cheek on the remaining space -- considering we're both paying the same fare! Others are known to travel with their entire family yet they only want to pay for two seats, because the kids and luggage pieces are too small to be charged.

Woe is me if I end up there. And not a good plan for long journeys.
A few kilometres down the road one of the children will start wailing endlessly, waking up another toddler. Without consultation I am asked to take the baby dumped in my lap for me to rock gently. A few minutes later the child may go thankfully quiet and reward me with a warm liquid trickling down.

But what can we say about the farmer Joe, the hardworking small scale shamba guy from out of town? He will have a dirty raffia bag in his lap caked with red earth at the bottom.

Mindful of every available space, there will be several jerry cans of fresh mild, easily discernible by the rich scent, packed protectively around his feet. To complete the diet, an assortment of vegetables will be spread liberally around him, not to mention the squealing piglet propped up between his legs.

If the condition of the road or the excessive swerving of the driver makes him lean a bit, his gumboots will re-dye your shoes or hem as the sap seeping slowly from the bananas in his sack stains whatever you're wearing.

But at least you will have learned that he hails from Kitale, has six acres of maize ready for harvest and his brothers’ eldest daughter, who is a single mother of three, is about to wed a church elder is a widower whose wife died "just like that."

Next time, the big bus ride with nine goats to Kaoleni!

Marine Tour off Mobasa Reef

With breezes blowing, Ihad just resurfaced from the coral, angel and zebra fish off Mombasa Reef!