I have met a lot of people while I have been here, and I have gotten very good at recognizing who is legitimately interested in talking and who is looking for a way into my wallet. It's actually not very difficult to tell in most cases once you understand the culture and the economy. On the streets of Moshi and Arusha local “artists” or “guides” called “fly catchers” latch onto tourists who stand out easily in a sea of black faces. “Hey brotha, how are you my man?” they clamor as you walk along. After about two minutes of “making friends” the “artists,” who are little more than stoned street salesmen try to get you to “support them” by buying their run of the mill screen prints. The “fly catchers” attempt to “help” you around town or refer you to “their” shop or tour company. They latch onto the hope of a few coins at the end of the interaction and complain angrily when you tell them that you are not interested.
Though it is annoying at times, this disturbance is harmless. Tanzania, unlike some of its neighbors, is very peaceful. While in “Nairobbery” (Nairobi, Kenya) you might lose your shirt at knife point, you don't have to worry about much more than a picked pocket in Boma, Moshi or Arusha. Understanding this I don't fear people on the street and my response flows easily without worry, although it varies by the day. Some days I smile and say “hapana asanate” (no thank you) or politely listen to whatever the salesman is trying to say. Other days, my response is barely short of “go f--- yourself.” While I have learned that I am a very patient person, everyone has a limit and there is only so much begging I can take. However, despite the occasional disturbance, being open to interaction has led to some very interesting conversations.
Perhaps the most interesting and truly unpredictable place to meet people is on the dalla-dalla. I am often traveling to or around town alone in the over packed early nineties buses, and for obvious reasons I am always the center of attention. When the mzungu boards the dalla-dalla everyone stops and looks with curious eyes. Sometimes the curiosity wears off quickly, but more frequently I become the focus of conversation. Typically a particularly outspoken man, having imbibed on too much Konyagi or local brew too early in the day, starts talking about white people in Africa, “America's” wars across the globe, or Africa's favorite black man, Barack Obama. The conversation typically shifts focus to my role in one of these topics, and there is a funny point in nearly every ride when the passengers realize that I understand what they are saying about me. It usually happens when they say something in Swahili and I laugh or begin to smile. “He knows Swahili?” they ask each other in bewilderment. As the forty five minute drive between Boma and Moshi nears completion people are in high spirits and laugh either at the absurdity of the conversation, the fact that I speak some Swahili, or the boisterous personality of the drunkard.
While many of the rides are memorable because they are particularly funny, others stick with me because of the people that I meet. Two months ago I was on my way to Moshi on a seemingly uneventful ride. About halfway through the ride, the man sitting across from me began asking about where I was from, what I was doing, and what I thought about Tanzania. My first impression was that he was very nice and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but his eyes had a sadness to them. We talked about Tanzania, Africans in the United States, the upcoming elections, and his job. Hashim works as a technician for TPC, a massive sugar company that was started by natives seventy-four years ago. Ownership changed hands between international stakeholders multiple times before the current Mauritian owners purchased the corporation. This is a common theme in Tanzania. Despite abundant natural resources, nearly all of the revenue from these resources gets exported.
Though it is annoying at times, this disturbance is harmless. Tanzania, unlike some of its neighbors, is very peaceful. While in “Nairobbery” (Nairobi, Kenya) you might lose your shirt at knife point, you don't have to worry about much more than a picked pocket in Boma, Moshi or Arusha. Understanding this I don't fear people on the street and my response flows easily without worry, although it varies by the day. Some days I smile and say “hapana asanate” (no thank you) or politely listen to whatever the salesman is trying to say. Other days, my response is barely short of “go f--- yourself.” While I have learned that I am a very patient person, everyone has a limit and there is only so much begging I can take. However, despite the occasional disturbance, being open to interaction has led to some very interesting conversations.
Perhaps the most interesting and truly unpredictable place to meet people is on the dalla-dalla. I am often traveling to or around town alone in the over packed early nineties buses, and for obvious reasons I am always the center of attention. When the mzungu boards the dalla-dalla everyone stops and looks with curious eyes. Sometimes the curiosity wears off quickly, but more frequently I become the focus of conversation. Typically a particularly outspoken man, having imbibed on too much Konyagi or local brew too early in the day, starts talking about white people in Africa, “America's” wars across the globe, or Africa's favorite black man, Barack Obama. The conversation typically shifts focus to my role in one of these topics, and there is a funny point in nearly every ride when the passengers realize that I understand what they are saying about me. It usually happens when they say something in Swahili and I laugh or begin to smile. “He knows Swahili?” they ask each other in bewilderment. As the forty five minute drive between Boma and Moshi nears completion people are in high spirits and laugh either at the absurdity of the conversation, the fact that I speak some Swahili, or the boisterous personality of the drunkard.
While many of the rides are memorable because they are particularly funny, others stick with me because of the people that I meet. Two months ago I was on my way to Moshi on a seemingly uneventful ride. About halfway through the ride, the man sitting across from me began asking about where I was from, what I was doing, and what I thought about Tanzania. My first impression was that he was very nice and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but his eyes had a sadness to them. We talked about Tanzania, Africans in the United States, the upcoming elections, and his job. Hashim works as a technician for TPC, a massive sugar company that was started by natives seventy-four years ago. Ownership changed hands between international stakeholders multiple times before the current Mauritian owners purchased the corporation. This is a common theme in Tanzania. Despite abundant natural resources, nearly all of the revenue from these resources gets exported.
When we reached Moshi, Hashim asked to stay in touch and said that he hoped I would come visit TPC and see where he worked. I am not naive enough to think that he would have been as interested in getting to know me if I was a poor African man, but I was also very intrigued to learn more about his work. I have learned over the past month what to watch out for in Tanzania, and I felt that Hashim was relatively harmless so I promised that I would take him up on the offer.
A few weeks later, I had a bit of free time so I headed into Moshi to meet Hashim. After a long wait and plenty of confusion caused by a terrible cell connection through Tanzania's pay-as-you-go phones I met Hashim. We walked quickly to the end of town to a run down petrol station where we hopped in the cab of a dump truck headed towards the mountains to haul sand. Ten minutes outside of Moshi, we entered TPC's campus. We breezed by the security checkpoint and entered the sugar cane plantation. The sight was incredible. Sugar cane was planted neatly in grids for as far as I could see. Hashim commented as we went and I sat in silence awestruck by the shear scale of the plantation. We headed for the heart of the campus and for more than 30 kilometers there was nothing but sugar cane, disrupted only by the road through campus. In the distance I saw a massive plume of black smoke. When I asked what this was, Hashim explained that the workers burn the sugar cane fields before they cut the cane in order to remove the leaves and kill any animals such as snakes that might pose a threat to the workers. Judging from this country's almost non-existent environmental policy, it did not surprise me to see vast quantities of CO2 billowing into the air.
A few weeks later, I had a bit of free time so I headed into Moshi to meet Hashim. After a long wait and plenty of confusion caused by a terrible cell connection through Tanzania's pay-as-you-go phones I met Hashim. We walked quickly to the end of town to a run down petrol station where we hopped in the cab of a dump truck headed towards the mountains to haul sand. Ten minutes outside of Moshi, we entered TPC's campus. We breezed by the security checkpoint and entered the sugar cane plantation. The sight was incredible. Sugar cane was planted neatly in grids for as far as I could see. Hashim commented as we went and I sat in silence awestruck by the shear scale of the plantation. We headed for the heart of the campus and for more than 30 kilometers there was nothing but sugar cane, disrupted only by the road through campus. In the distance I saw a massive plume of black smoke. When I asked what this was, Hashim explained that the workers burn the sugar cane fields before they cut the cane in order to remove the leaves and kill any animals such as snakes that might pose a threat to the workers. Judging from this country's almost non-existent environmental policy, it did not surprise me to see vast quantities of CO2 billowing into the air.
Sugar cane as far as the eye can see
TPC: Tanganyika Planting Company
The first sign of life was kids walking along the road dressed in school uniform. We passed a secondary school and then approach more buildings. Hashim explained that this was a company owned school and he pointed across the way to the company hospital. We jumped down from the truck and Hashim welcomed me to his home, a small single room with a couch decorated in tacky doilies, a bed oddly covered by stuffed animals, and a coffee table upon which cheesy looking birthday cards were displayed. There were so many knickknacks packed into this four by four meter room that I could barely move. TPC gives single rooms to workers without children and homes with two rooms to workers with families. Though the workers do not have to pay rent, this is hardly something to get excited about.
Something that I never quite got used to in Tanzania was Tanzanians' idea of a house visit. When someone invites you into their home they tell you to “be free” which I supposed means something along the lines of “relax” or “be at ease.” Though Hashim did not have any to share, families nearly always offer you tea and something to eat if it is available. This offer involves very little choice because refusing chai (tea) is very offensive. I say that I had trouble getting used to all of this not because I felt uncomfortable in the presence of strangers or new friends, but because when visiting you often do nothing. It is common to sit together on a leopard or tiger print couch and drink tea without talking much. I suspect that for many Tanzanians there isn't much to get excited about and simply being in the presence of a visitor, particularly a white visitor, is enough of a treat.
Hashim and his new white friend
Two single room homes for workers
After sitting and taking a picture with his new white friend, Hashim took me for a tour of the center of TPC's campus. We passed the golf course and clubhouse where the “staff,” who are the better paid and better treated workers can pass their free time. We also passed through different “camps” or groups of homes where workers reside. The presence of classism overwhelmed me as we passed signs that read “staff only” posted on a chain link fences around nicer sets of buildings.
We rounded a bend, and I covered my face as a huge tractor rolled by pulling a large cart filled with cane, displacing a cloud of dust. We neared the main factory and the pungent odor of molasses wafted in my direction. Open railroad cars filled with cane waited on a track to enter the factory that operates twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Hashim explained that as an engineer he works one eight-hour shift six days per week alternating between the morning, day and night shift. Working conditions are dangerous and the work is relentless. Everyday, workers go through the same routine with no end in sight.
When I was in Costa Rica six years ago I visited a banana plantation where workers make pennies, live in horrid conditions and spend their lives in contact with pesticides and chemicals that planes dust not only over fields but also over the homes of workers that are proximate to the fields. In comparison I was initially impressed with TPCs campus. However, as Hashim explained his life I realized that the conditions at TPC had the same rough foundation as those at the Dole Banana plantation but were simply glossed over with a shiny veneer. TPC provides free health care and housing for their workers. However, the salary that they pay workers is so miniscule that after buying food, at the end of the month there is nothing left. After years of working, employees will own no home, have little personal property, and have no money to support life when they are too old to work.
What struck me as interesting was not the dismal salary, as low wages are common through most of Tanzania, but that the system is set up to keep the money within the TPC campus. Workers go to the overpriced markets and shops on the campus to buy food and living needs and workers with children pay school fees to the company to send the children to company owned schools. As I thought about this life, the sadness in Hashim's eyes began to make sense. He talked about wanting to change jobs and change his life, but without any money left after paying to support his life, how could he manage to do so. The conditions at TPC are a sad reality, but unfortunately they are more reflective of Tanzania's economy as a whole than of bad intentions of a single, large, multinational company.
We rounded a bend, and I covered my face as a huge tractor rolled by pulling a large cart filled with cane, displacing a cloud of dust. We neared the main factory and the pungent odor of molasses wafted in my direction. Open railroad cars filled with cane waited on a track to enter the factory that operates twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Hashim explained that as an engineer he works one eight-hour shift six days per week alternating between the morning, day and night shift. Working conditions are dangerous and the work is relentless. Everyday, workers go through the same routine with no end in sight.
When I was in Costa Rica six years ago I visited a banana plantation where workers make pennies, live in horrid conditions and spend their lives in contact with pesticides and chemicals that planes dust not only over fields but also over the homes of workers that are proximate to the fields. In comparison I was initially impressed with TPCs campus. However, as Hashim explained his life I realized that the conditions at TPC had the same rough foundation as those at the Dole Banana plantation but were simply glossed over with a shiny veneer. TPC provides free health care and housing for their workers. However, the salary that they pay workers is so miniscule that after buying food, at the end of the month there is nothing left. After years of working, employees will own no home, have little personal property, and have no money to support life when they are too old to work.
What struck me as interesting was not the dismal salary, as low wages are common through most of Tanzania, but that the system is set up to keep the money within the TPC campus. Workers go to the overpriced markets and shops on the campus to buy food and living needs and workers with children pay school fees to the company to send the children to company owned schools. As I thought about this life, the sadness in Hashim's eyes began to make sense. He talked about wanting to change jobs and change his life, but without any money left after paying to support his life, how could he manage to do so. The conditions at TPC are a sad reality, but unfortunately they are more reflective of Tanzania's economy as a whole than of bad intentions of a single, large, multinational company.
A hooded and masked worker pulls a train car to the tracks where it will be driven by train to the factory
Tractors load rail cars laden with cane onto the tracks where they sit awaiting an engine.
Sugar cane lined up on train tracks waiting to enter the factory
Cane overflowing the rail cars
The Central Factory
At the end of the afternoon at TPC, I hopped in the bed of a dump truck filled with sand that was headed for Moshi. As the wind swirled the sand into my face and eyes I thought about the many Tanzanians that travel like this frequently because they cannot even afford to ride dalla-dallas. This is one of the things that I was referring to when I mentioned in a previous post that Tanzania's government is failing its people. Measured by GDP per capita, Tanzania's economy ranks two hundred and third in the world ($1,500/year) with thirty six percent of the population below the poverty line (according to the CIA World Factbook).
As my thoughts came full circle I began to understand the boys on the streets of Moshi. With few job opportunities, especially for those with little education, the boys have little alternative than to try to make a living off of tourists that they see as their financial savior. Can you blame them for looking at a white man wearing a pair of hiking boots that is worth more than four months of wages and seeing a dollar sign? While waiting for a ride in Moshi I spoke to a boy about my age who makes bracelets to sell to tourists for a living. “That's cool,” I replied after he told me what he did. “Is it though?” he returned. He told me he didn't like that he felt he was annoying tourists by trying to sell his bracelets. He never asked me for a thing and I respected him for it, but I sympathize with his situation. These kids don't stand a chance in a system that is set up against them.
The Company "Town" and a dalla-dalla
