The Leaning Season

He left just as I was starting to need him, which was a timely lesson in (in)dependency: it’s good not to need anything too much.  I read an article earlier today that said coffee might be extinct in 70 years, and my first thought was not, “How can we save our environment and remedy this terrible issue!” Instead I thought “Ugh, I should probably start weaning myself off of coffee now, instead of waiting til it gets super rare and expensive.”  Maybe one day I'll devote my career to saving Arabica-region coffees… but for now, I’m learning about detachment.  I’ve found that a lot of life consists of finding things that we resonate with – people, places, causes, organizations – followed by a period of loving and growing more attached to them, followed by a period of creating distance and letting them go.  It’s always like that: the drawing close, and then the backswing, the unavoidable distancing.  I’m still pretty young and maybe my life-paradigms are influenced by my mobile history, but everything seems marked by its temporariness.

One night, leaving Soma Book Café after a music show, we were squished in the back of a car with some of his coworkers.  The guys in the front seat were tossing around the word shoga as an insult (bad Kiswahili slang for ‘homosexual’) and he interrupted them and asked angrily why being a shoga is a bad thing, he said it’s a great thing, he said that Tanzanians need to accept that being a shoga is normal, and his Kiswahili was perfect -- it always gets better when he's arguing.  His friends laughed, dismissive or embarrassed (I couldn't tell which), but I think I loved him then and I catalogued all those comments in my mind, and took note of the weight he assigned to words, to people.  

He doesn’t like America very much, and I guess that should bother me more than it does, but neither of us have a strong sense of nation.  He thinks Americans call everything “awesome” until the word is emptied of meaning. He thinks we say “like” too often – a theory that I only helped to concretize.

One night after dancing to the old school beatz of Msondo & Sikinde, I slept over because I couldn’t find a taxi, or just because I wanted to. He had an itinerant’s room; spare, only partially unpacked.  There was an empty soymilk box under the kitchen sink, and colorless European toothpaste in the bathroom, and a few books scattered around the room.  His bed was neatly made. These are the things I remember:

He was washing up in the bathroom and I was flipping through a book on his bed (Outliers) and telling him about another Malcolm Gladwell book called Blink, whose thesis is that we can tell a lot about each other from our first split-second impressions, before we start misleading each other with words and gestures.  I was talking too much about things I didn’t know much about, which is what I do when I’m nervous.  He called out from the bathroom over the sound of piss on ceramic, “Yeah, we’re always acting… I mean, all of life is a performance.” And I didn't know if he was talking about himself, or about us, or about people in general; I felt that I had no gauges for him, no ways of measuring the things he said.

Later, after we turned out the lights and turned on the fan, I rolled over to face the wall and tried not to look at him, afraid that his beauty would overwhelm me – afraid that if I were to glance at his shoulders, I might reach out and touch them.  For some reason, I felt like I wasn't allowed to touch him, that I'd be breaching an unspoken pact between us if I did.  We talked a little under the whir of the fan.  Before I fell asleep, I remember feeling his weird braid between my hands in the dark while I told him about my mom.

Dar Street-Economiks, The Wild Web, & the Currency of Trust

One of the things that annoys and delights me the most about Dar es Salaam is how everything can be twisted into a business venture, into an opportunity for profit or pleasure.  Everyone is an entrepreneur, and everyone (in every context) is a potential consumer.  

Entrepreneurship in TZ can look whimsical: there's a guy near the ferry who put a scale out on the sidewalk, along with the sign, "Upime Mzito, 100/-."   Learn your weight for a mere six cents!

Or it's kitschy: in Zanzibar's eastern beaches, there are some Masai guys who dress in full warrior attire and walk up and down the hot sand, faking nonchalance, totin' spears and smeared in paint, hoping that a tourist will be like "omg look at those warriors on the beach we're so lucky can u believe this crazy photo op???" 

Or it's extraneous: If you've ever tried to park a car in Dar, you've had like 3 guys magically materialize from the bushes to "help" you park by waving furiously for you to reverse, then screaming "Stop! Stoooop!"  And in their magnanimity, they only expect a minor return for their efforts.

Or it's actually helpful: In Kariakoo, the major fruit/veg market in Dar, kids will wait until some poor lady is juggling all the food she just bought, and come running up to sell her a convenient plastic bag.  

I recently watched a TED talk by Rachel Botsman called "The currency of the new economy is trust."  Her focus was online economies, and she talked about the "third wave" of human trust in the internet: First we shared our personal info online, followed by our financial info, and today, we trust the internet to connect us with real-life strangers. We rent rooms and cars from each other, buy books and appliances from each other, and even run errands and pet-sit for each other -- all through connections formed on the web.

She talks specifically about an economic value shift taking place, in which human connection and trust can translate into quantifiable benefits:"At its core, [collaborative consumption] is about empowerment.  It's about empowering people to make meaningful connections, connections that enable us to rediscover a humanness that we've lost somewhere along the way, by engaging in marketplaces (like Airbnb, Kickstarter and Etsy) that are built on personal relationships versus empty transactions.  The irony is that these ideas are actually taking us back to old market principles and collaborative behaviors that are hard-wired in all of us.  They're just being reinvented in ways that are relevant for the Facebook age.  We're beginning to realize that we have wired our world to share, swap, rent, barter or trade just about anything."

In Tanzania, more than anywhere else on earth, people believe you can "share, swap, rent, barter or trade just about anything."  Whatever tiny resources people have at their disposal can be flipped into business-schemes, resulting in the daily emergence of thousands of impromptu translators, mechanics, chefs, valets, fundis, guides, bodyguards, etc.  And what Botsman calls a new shift toward trust & human connection, and a "return to old market principles" is already operative and flourishing in Dar es Salaam -- here, business has never been divorced from the actual human beings who are profiting and paying.

One thing that sometimes annoys me about Tanzania's economies (both formal and in-) is the absolute imperative to barter, for everything from peanuts to hotel rates. Bargaining and heckling is not optional -- it's totally necessary in nearly every context where money is involved.  Like, when I'm trying to get a ride back from town, the conversation sounds like this:

-Itakuwa bei ngapi kufika ubalozi wa ufaransa?

-Ehhh... shingi elfu tano tu rafiki

-Ah ndugu, nimekuja kwa elfu mbili.. nadthani hii ni bei ya kawaida

-Eh dada, lakini bei ya gesi inapanda siku hizi. Elfu mbili haifai

-Sawa bana, hamna shida, ntachukua basi ya Mwenge.  Asante

-Eh sawa, fanya kwa elfu tatu dada

-Tafadhali fanya kwa elfu mbili.. ubalozi sio mbali

-Eh, sio mbali

-Kweli siwezi kulipa zaidi

-Ahhh unanishtuka dada

-Ni kweli tu, siwezi kutupa hela zaidi.. unakubali kwa elfmbili?

-Hiya, let's go

So during an average conversation about the price of the ride (which always ends up being the exact same, though it takes 3-5 minutes to settle on it), we talk about the price of gas, the economy, the distance to the Embassy, the city traffic, our respective financial situations, and we've probably referred to each other as "brother" and "sister," all before I hop onto the motorcycle.  We have a relationship, however provisional.

Botsman says that through collaborative consumption, a shift is taking place in which "instead of consuming to keep up with the Joneses, people are consuming to get to know the Joneses."  Well, Tanzania beat everyone to the punch in that respect.  A major facet of any business transaction here has always been the relationship between buyer & seller, the rapport between provider & consumer.  Throughout TZ's history, the "humanness" of business never once fell by the wayside.  So is Tanzania ahead of the game economically?  Hardly. But we do have something worth hanging onto.  As Tanzania becomes more digitized/ technified in the coming years, our goal should be to move toward web-aided "collaborative consumption" without passing through that impersonal, sterile middle-phase of "empty transactions" that dominated Western business for decades.

Tanzanians usually place a high priority on people & relationships, and I love that -- I think its rare and beautiful.  We can fault TZ's economy for a ton of things, but not for its inhuman-ness!

Myth & Meritokracy: Fight Like a Woman

Also published on Vijana.FM.

The Citizen recently published an article on the deficit of female artists in the music industry, entitled “Divas: What’s Wrong With the Conveyor Belt?”  While it suggested, controversially, that many Tanzanian women had an unfocused or “half hearted approach” to making music, the article placed most of the blame on systemic problems in the industry – problems that make it “practically impossible for young girls to break through.”  At first I was appalled at the “conveyor belt” metaphor – it seemed supremely disempowering syntactically, as if female artists gained success through some kind of machinated, factory-like process beyond their control, rather than through their own effort, talent and willpower.

But on second thought, I think the title was reaching toward something true: I think it’s right to turn a scrutinizing eye onto the system, onto the endemic and often hidden workings of the music industry.  What factors, beyond a supposed lethargy among women, could account for such lopsided gender representation in the TZ music scene?  Here is where meritocracy loses its credibility; no one can tell me that Tanzania’s guys are simply 200% more talented than its girls.

The article, though brief, touched on some of the most daunting roadblocks for Tanzanian women who are trying to become recording artists.  Dar’s music world (like most others) has limited equipment, low airspace, and profiteers at every juncture; so, competition for radio-play, stages and promotion is fierce, and it’s not so much a matter of talent as it is a complicated game of politics and profit.  Who you know and how much you can pay will determine your time in the studio, on the radio, and what concert slots you get.

Women, unsurprisingly, are pressured into paying through “alternative means,” fostering what the Citizen calls an economy of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”  If women balk at swapping special “favors” for studio-time, their careers will likely come screeching to a halt.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of talking with Yvonne Mwale before one of her shows.  Yvonne is gorgeous, gypsy-spirited reggae singer from Zambia, now based out of Dar es Salaam.  She has a newly-released album Kalamatila, and recently collaborated with hip-hop artist Fid Q on the song “Sihitaji Marafiki.” During our interview, she talked candidly about her harrowing career path, which involved rape, abuse and displays of blatant sexism from industry curators.  Her journey began at age twelve, when her parents passed away suddenly.  Yvonne spent the next several years doing piecework to get by – laundry, cleaning, anything that she could find.  She sang in tiny venues when she got the chance, but people seemed to take advantage of her at every turn.

She recalled her earliest days as a musician, when she couldn’t find a single Zambian studio that would record with her.  At studios, she begged to be allowed to record just one track, but was “treated like scum” by every producer she met.  The few producers who didn’t turn her away told her to stand in the front lounge, where she waited until 11:00 pm or later — unacknowledged until all the other (male) artists had been attended to.

In the midst of her story, Yvonne recalled one group of artists who treated her with respect and kindness.  Several years ago, a Zambian band led by the legendary guitarist Jones Kabanga held auditions for a female vocalist.  When Yvonne showed up, she looked unimpressive – “useless, a dirty orphan,” she says.  But they handed her the mic to see what she could do, and her freestyle vocals worked well with their music.  She didn’t get a job offer immediately, but the band took a liking to her and began to help her with voice training.  Yvonne talks fondly about “Uncle Jones Kabanga,” who became her musical mentor and a father-figure in her life. When she was young, she’d always tried to sing like Mariah Carey, twisting and straining her voice to match the diva’s.  But Uncle Jones advised Yvonne to sing more naturally and just “use the voice that you have.”  She says, “I realized then that you don’t have to imitate anybody – if you have the feel and the passion for music, you can do whatever you want.”  As she started making her own musical and aesthetic decisions, she opted for her traditional home sounds, and usually sang in Nsenge, her home language.

Later that year, Yvonne entered Zambia’s major Music Crossroads Competition, where she won first place.  First prize included a sponsored 8-country tour of Europe, after which she had less trouble finding studios who would work with her.  But her early experiences of intense prejudice left deep marks on her mind and her music; the gentle woman I met in a Dar es Salaam dusk also writes indignant, ignited songs like “Fight Like a Soldier.”

I watched a TED talk recently by Alain de Botton, in which he probes the pros and cons of a meritocratic society — or of a perceived meritocracy, since he concludes that no such thing exists.  He says: “What is a meritocratic society? A meritocratic society is one in which, if you’ve got talent and energy and skill, you will get to the top.  Nothing should hold you back.  It’s a beautiful idea.  The problem is, if you really believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.  In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved.  And that makes failure seem much more crushing.”

De Button essentially believes that an ideal meritocracy is a myth.  He says, “Meritocracy, this idea that everybody deserves to get where they get to, I think it’s a crazy idea… it’s an impossible dream.  The idea that we will make a society where literally everyone is graded, with the good at the top and the bad at the bottom, done exactly as it should be, is impossible. There are simply too many random factors: accidents, accidents of birth, accidents of things dropping on people’s heads, illnesses, etc.  We will never get to grade them, get to grade people as they should be.”

I agree that we’ll never get to evaluate others “as they should be,” but where de Button suggests that “random factors” dilute meritocracy, I think it makes more sense (at least in Tanzania) to look at systemic factors that chronically preclude any kind of real meritocracy.  Let’s recognize those factors and biases working against East African women who dare to venture out of their domestic spheres, and into male-ruled domains like muzik and entertainment.  Maybe someday it will just be accidents preventing a meritocratic society, but for now, success-distribution is anything but random.

Dance Templates and Sex-on-Stage

I. Leaders Club, on Iddi Mosi (the second night of Eid in TZ)

Alex Perullo wrote a brilliant book called Live from Dar (2011) in which he suggests that the success of Tanzanian bands is measured by how enthusiastically the audience responds.  The more the spectators dance, sing along, come up to the stage, get on stage, or shout out their approval, the more successful the musicians are thought to be.  And this determines whether the club/venue will hire the musicians again – cuz every venue wants to provide a good time to their customers. 

The original part of Perullo's thesis is that artists aren’t wholly responsible for the popularity of their performances.  Most old clubs and social halls in the city contain these embedded histories, or what Perullo calls “codes of response” – a kind of ingrained template of dancing and responding for the audience to follow.  After a venue has hosted hundreds or thousands of performances, the space has a kind of happy protocol; a performance is expected from the audience, not just from the band.  This means that older venues tend to host more “successful” performances than newer ones, because the audience is naturally more inclined to sing, whistle, jester, or get up & dance.  Perullo named the Leaders Club as a newer venue in which bands had a difficult time getting the audience to participate; he described one event where the audience sat tepidly in plastic chairs for the duration of the performance.

My first trip to Leaders Club was on the second night of Eid, and spirits were high.  That night, the Club was hosting a competition between two beloved, semi-historical bands: Msondo, who specializes in ngoma (or traditional Tanzanian dance), and Sikinde, whose forté is “Afro-jazz” – an easy-swingin’ fusion genre that bears little resemblance to actual jazz.  Msondo was in full swing when we arrived, and all the Msondo-loyalists were shaking and shimmying in front of the stage.  On an adjacent stage, Sikinde were setting up their instruments and testing their sound-system, prepping for a hard-hittin' retaliation.  The whole thing looked like a rap or dance battle, complete with gangs of supporters on either side.

While there was definitely some mad Afro dancing going down, I understood what Perullo wrote about the hesitance to participate.  There were plenty of middle-aged guys in the audience who were just slouching deep in their plastic chairs, chins on their chests, staring apathetically at the stage.  I sat next to one old dude who had two samosas in hand, and his dress shoes unlaced on the grass in front of him.  

"Which band do you like better?" I asked him.

"Sikinde," he grunted.  He licked the samosa grease off some fingers.

"Why... are they better musicians?" I probed, feeling all anthropological.

"Uhnnn-ghslkh," he snorted from his slouch. I tried to decipher the snort: was that affirmative? ambivalent?

He leaned over very creakily and asked me, still chewing: "Eh.. are you married?" My friend arrived at that precise moment bearing Tangawizis (hardcore TZ ginger-ale) and we quickly downed them before Sikinde started performing.  The rest of the night was spent in unplanned and unregulated and never-before-seen dancing, because at Leaders Club, no one knew what the hell they were supposed to be doing.  Hooray for non-historical venues!

II. Leaders Club last Friday, site of the Tanzania Live Music Festival

We'd actually planned to go out somewhere else last Friday, but after vuting on the porch to too many OK Computer tracks, we suddenly realized it was 11:30 and the event we'd wanted to go to was over.  But we weren't discouraged -- we could hear hyper, syncopated Tanzanian dance tunes wafting down the road from what could only be Leaders Club.  So we followed our ears (or, in our ganjafied clarity, what we understood to be our vibrating hearts) down the road to the music.  At the gate, they made us pay the standard 3-dollar entry fee, and in return, we got these tickets that said Tanzania Live Music Festival. 

We all looked at each other like, "Did you know this was a festival?"

Inside, we saw a massive outdoor stage looming on one side of the field.  There were hundreds of empty chairs in front of the stage, and a glitzy crowd milling around in the grass.  Only the front row of chairs was occupied by some fashionistas, and a guy with grills.  We danced and swayed for a while in the dark, until someone suggested, "Wanna sit down and rest for a while?"  But as we headed toward the plastic chairs, a huge guard stepped in front of us and demanded to see our VIP tickets.

"Show me VIP ticket," he said.

I looked at him: "Uhhhhmmm......"  At that point I had a hard time responding, because I was registering every festival-decibel with ultra-high acuity, and also because I couldn't understand why anyone would pay $15 to have access to plastic chairs.

"Get out!" he said, pointing to the dark abyss beyond the chair-area and the sound-booth, to where some ladies were adjusting the fabric over each other's bums.  

"But... we aren't even in the VIP section right now," I reminded him.  

"Out, out!"  he said, snapping his fingers like an angry mom.  

The bands/ dance troupes that performed that night were mostly bongo flava (Tanzania's mainstream blend of hip-hop and bad pop) and each successive group seemed like it was trying to outdo all the others in terms of sexual provocativeness.  I know I was absorbing everything through a mental magnifying glass, but it seemed like they were making totally shocking group-sex configurations on stage, wearing either tight weird bodysuits, or these retro-fringy cheerleading costumes that were worse than Halloween in an American college. And at some point they were so risqué that we all disintegrated into laughter -- we were laughing so hard that we had to lie down in the grass.  What was happening on stage was actually grotesque and terrifying.  Live Music Fest?  More like "Come watch live porn with your friends and family."   But everyone else was thinking the same thing -- a few Tanzanians around us were looking at the ground, some were watching with utter absorption, and most people were just laughing til they ached.

Then it started raining, and a Zanzibari mama-group came on, dressed in demure floor-length dresses. We got up and danced in the dark and the tumbling night-water to some wholesome muzik.  One of the sound-booth guys told us the festival would go til morning, but we left around 3, when the world was still feeling alriiiiiiiiight.