What's in a name?

Maasai women are known to be one of the groups of people with the least rights on this Earth. They have a very low value in the economic system of the Maasai and it is seldom that a husband would be willing to sell a goat to get money for the wife's doctors' visit when she is sick. They even get only second-quality food and are sometimes stunted in growth compared to the men!

Yet, in other ways, they have more rights than women of other ethnic groups living in Tanzania. They build the family huts, which means they have ownership rights to their homes. Under special circumstances, when there is no adult man in the family, they can even change their sex! They need to do a ritual ceremony in which they take over a new, male name (hence identity) and from that point on they are allowed to take part in the men's meetings and decision making. How about that!

Good bye Bongowood-style

Bongo is the Kiswahili word for brain and also the slang name for Dar es Salaam, telling us that the people living in this huge city have brains enough to come through any situation in life - in short, they are born survivors.

The film industry in Dar es Salaam, although small, is booming. Just as India has Bollywood and Nigeria has Nollywood, Tanzania has Bongowood. And it suffered a terrible loss last week, with the death of one of its most famous actors, Steven Charles Kanumba, at 28 years old. Knifed to death by his girlfriend, died of heart attack, overdosis? We don't know.

What we do know is that the whole of Dar es Salaam came to a stop on the day of his funeral. About 40,000 people came, blocked several roads, fainted in front of his coffin, threw flowers and stood on the heat for hours just to get a glimpse of his coffin. He was loved by everyone and his importance in every home means that he was important to the government also. Not only was the first lady, mama Salma Kikwete, attending, but also the Vice President of Tanzania was there... You could only compare the whole affair with the death of Princess Diana.

Now, back to Bongo. After the masses blocked several roads and only one leading to the cementery remained passable, some clever guys quickly put up a roadblock, telling everyone that they have to pay a fee of 500 KSh (25 Cents) if they want to proceed. People knew the guys were fake, but were rushing to the funeral and could not be bothered to call the police, they rather paid than to be too late... If I imagine that only 5,000 of the 40,000 people paid, those guys made more than 1000 Euro on that single morning! That is BONGO!

The first ones

Prvi cevapcici iz najinega novega zara

Das neue Auto, endlich gekauft! Das erste nach dem legendaren Skoda Oktavia, nach dem der Stefan immer noch weint... Ist ein Toyota RAV4 - aber wenigstens die Farbe ist gleich, dunkelgruen...

Zanzibar forever

Pa je prisla - najina druga Velika noc v Dar es Salaamu! Lani sva se ja posteno potrudila z nasimi tradicijami, barvala sva pirhe in jedla kolikor dobro se je dalo. In odkrila, da se v Dar es Salaamu nic ne dogaja za Veliko noc in da velikonocnega vzdusja enostavno ni. Tako sva se letos odlocila, da dolg vikend izkoristiva za obisk Zanzibarja!

V Stone Townu, glavnem mestu Zanzibarja, sva se sprehaja po zavitih arabskih ulicah in si privoscila kavico v hotelu iz 1001 Noci...

Na promenadi, kjer se zbira zanzibarska mladina, sva obcudovala njihovo tekmovanje v umetelnih skokih v vodo...

Nato pa sva se odpravila pogledat enega zadnjih preostankov tropskega gozda, ki je vcasih pokrival Zanzibar (otok je dandanes porasel le se z trnicevjem in drugim grmovjem, gozd je ze davno posekan).

Na vzhodni obali je morje cudovito, azurno plave barve, pesek je bel in mehak, nebo je neskoncno... Ampak seveda se je treba tudi v paradizu drzati pravil (prepovedano parkirati zmaje).



Morje in sonce sta naju prevec zaposlila, da bi dosti mislila na Veliko noc - na pirhe so naju spominjali le kokosovi orehi. Ampak se je izplacalo!

Das erste mal gegrillt





Stefan hat am Wochenende gebastelt! Ein alter Tontopf, ein paar Stueck Metalnetze und schon war unser neuer Griller fuer einen Grilltest bereit. Den hat er fabelhaft bestanden, die Wuerstel haben gut geschmeckt (nein, nicht so wie Kaesekrainer, aber gut genug)...