Single in the City-79, 41, 26

By ME from my column in 'The Citizen Newspaper' on Saturday's. I thought to officially start sharing them in MKEKA too. 


Issue 79


Scrubbing off your ‘blackness’


Outside A Club in Dar, meeting fellow
Singer Enika back in 2009
“Ngoja leo watanijua na mimi nimetoka America. Like duuuh…” -Upendo with an exaggerated hand gesture. A bunch of young ladies in their early 20’s, are exiting a super market situated in the affluent neighborhoods of Oysterbay.

Upendo is totally convinced to fit in, in this area she ought to look the part of a successful young woman by dishing out a western accent with English. So she was confidently and desperately searching for the hip words to utter loudly so on this day, in this moment she too was-what?

I’ve found long straight hair won’t scrub it away; peppered British accents don’t mean it’ll sway. Using the fork and knife won’t destroy the markers, even as you bleach your skin to erode your melanin. The evidence still remains; you’re a cocoa child born with a DNA whose destiny comes from atrocious acts, against its existence. 

Is it possible…?



My dear sister & cousin
One of my favorite quotes comes from acclaimed African American author Toni Morrison, “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” from her novel Beloved. 
See if Africa were to stop trading with the world, economies would collapse as we’re one of the biggest suppliers of raw materials to industries from China to Canada. Now you’d think this earns us respect, just think of the hustle we go through to obtain a VISA to the USA or Europe. While citizens of the same countries, can decide today to come visit Africa day after tomorrow with little obstacles.
Why is it we’re still the beggars of the world, that Upendo in her own backyard feels to exude the aura of success. She needs to speak a foreign language with a foreign accent. I’ve often thought, this guise of NGO’s from the western world ‘helping’ our continent. Should be stripped of its false modesty and openly be mandated as the reparations for the crimes against humanity that were committed for centuries on this continent. Crimes including the stealing of huge swaths of raw materials that helped take most of these developed nations to the wealth they enjoy today. 

Is it worth it..?



However as Toni Morrison points out, the challenge really rests with us Africans now spread all over the world, most of us still sleeping with the abuse. That sees Afro-Latino’s with the biggest un-employment rates in their countries, African American men populating prisons of the USA. African natives being chased out of their land like the Bodi, Kwegu & Mursi tribes in Ethiopia, due to corporations mired in profit. That benefits a small percentage of the African population and more so foreign investors in this case from China and Italy. 
Most Africans share a pain that doesn’t vacate in a day for its etched in our DNA. Which is why we run from ourselves and when we’re brave enough to look at the truths of our histories, we buckle at the unfairness of it all. Thankfully we don’t have to face it alone; we can abolish the tactics of divide and rule by truly linking hands.
We can accept the help; happily challenge the advice of those Caucasian & Middle Eastern NGO & Corporation workers. Who are honestly working to develop Africa, knowing deep down they’re mending the wrongs of their great grand fathers. Going against these efforts by resorting to corruption and or blind resistance is resurrecting the oppressor from the past to today’s minutes.
You see, Upendo needs to be able to go to a supermarket in an affluent neighborhood of her city. Then hear so much Kiswahili in various accents of Chagga, Sukuma, Zaramo & Haya from successful women of cocoa skin shopping. That she’ll proudly pronounce sentences in Kiswahili, gaily confide in her friends. ‘Ngoja na mimi nipate kazi, sho mtanikoma. Na mimi na vikonkoliko vyangu mtaona najipitisha na kibegi nikiunua zaidi ya haya maji. Huku na nukia na marashi ya wabunifu wakubwa kama ‘Channel’.” As I always say we’re all born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some, why not be honest. 





Issue No 41



In love with the Police Man 




He knows just when I need punishment, knows to bend me so I’m screaming for justice. Sho, this love is toxic. I know he threatens me with his voice, but deep below something is squirting. It’s too much, I can’t let go and I’ve been arrested.


Is it the way he ushers on traffic, standing indifferent to the threatening vehicles rushing by, with blaring horns? ‘Madala-dala’ farting Carbon Dioxide as though it’s oxygen to his lungs, still we see this policeman. 


Calmly maintaining his white pristine angel like mercy, oh but like the devil he turns me on. For he sees all of me, the good, the slick, the toxic and yes I need punishment!



Reverse tactics…



When I was dating Mr Long (my equivalent of ‘Mr Big’ from the movie ‘Sex in the City-1’); I used to ‘tishia’ his validity in my heart, by flirting outrageously. So when a man bumped into me, if I’m impressed with his prowess of mind, of speech articulation, their sense of style (okay Mr Long has this down to a ‘T’). I’d tell Mr Long ‘I can marry so and so’s….’


He’d see the joke but somewhere, I saw his pulse racing and this gave me reassurance that he too was ‘love whooped’. Anyhow it’s true; I and ‘Mr Long’ have a crazy love affair, kind of like the one I’ve been having in my career as a Culture Journalist with the Police.


I recall whilst working at my first all round job, in that I had NSSF, a regular paycheck, a team et-cetera. There I got the chance to interview with a fellow colleague (Bella), a Traffic policeman. Our offices were at the city center, she was the one who incited me to go interview ‘a’ traffic police. Personally I didn’t see any merit in doing so at the time, for like many citizens of this country. The police in my subconscious are equated with TERROR.



The Affair…



However she had a huge crush with this traffic police (we later learned it’s illegal to quote individual police men in the press; without first going through their Public Relations representative). Now luckily she had her time under the sun with the man who ‘alimzimikia’; whilst I met another policeman.


Who revealed clearly how his job has ensured he’s now an alcoholic, who hardly spends quality time with his family. Due to odd hours and humiliating conditions of his work place, I wrote an article but never revealed this part of my conclusion. For I knew to protect his dignity, make it so ambiguous for even a proper detective to know his name.


Speaking of detectives, in 2008 I was kidnapped by drunks, by Goddess’s grace my female submissive flirtations managed to see me delivered home safe & sound. Albeit without my I-Pod (300USD), my wallet & my then recently altered clothes from the ‘fundi’. When my father got back home, I was forced to confront my fear of Police=Terror, so I allowed myself to report the whole incident. Let’s just say, I was given a detective’s phone-no, who wasn’t present on the day, plus my case was recorded on paper, which my family had to buy.


Bear in mind, I still respect the policeman as recently I have met two. One on the shores of Dar es Salaam, the other in front of ‘Ngome Kongwe’ gardens on Zanzibarian waters. Both despite not being well versed, with nuances of ‘sexual harrasment’, how to protect your citizens without intimidating the heaven out of them; managed to protect my nocturnal risky behavior, of taking refreshing walks by the beach.


In my ‘single in the city life’ I’ve tasted a true ‘flirting affair’ with a policeman. Sadly he too was an alcoholic. My retribution comes when I see the critical grievance for Police men & women, who despite being paid peanuts, forced to live in houses no larger than a cow-shed. Deal with the gargantuan task of protecting our democratic rights. However as this President’s term, has the ‘kauli mbiu’ #hapaKaziTu. I say let us now vent our truths, for we’re all born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some.



Issue No 26




Behind these veilled eyes



From Ngome Kongwe fort in Zanzibar Old Stone Town
Recently I was at an amphitheatre watching ‘the price of love’ a feature film shown at the ZIFF festival in Zanzibar. During a scene where the heroine is about to be raped; a row or so behind me I hear “Ananibaka huyo, ananibaka huyo…” A guy shouts in mocking tones ending with a laugh. 

His friends around him support him with weak laughs; I turn my head back with a reproachful look. For I thought nothing about rape and certainly not the way it was depicted on that screen was a joking matter. As it goes my glare stopped the laughs as I turned several times without saying a word but sending the vibe that said ‘how is a woman coerced against her will by a brute of a man, funny?


Is a tale



In another conversation while I was in Zanzibar, a man (we’ll call him Zuheir) with a colleague friend (we’ll call her Pili). Started a casual conversation where Pili teasingly chides “Ivi wewe kweli bado hujaoa tu?”  Zuheir replies “si nakusubiri weye unitafutie.” She goes on to ascertain that what he needs is a woman from ‘Tanga’. 

They do a little re-enactment of how this virtuous woman from Tanga would act. Here Pili takes on a fake handkerchief and enacts the motions of wiping Zuheir’s brow while saying “…she would wipe off your sweat like this,” and he goes ‘Mhmn…’ where she quickly adds. ‘Oh and she would quickly get you a glass of water’ while she gives him a fake sip, as though the guttural reply from him was a sign that he was caught in the beginnings of a cough.

Forodhani Gardens in Zanzibar
It was hilarious to watch and Zuheir was totally taken in adding that he heard that the women of Tanga really knew how to treat their men. He took on a wistful tone whilst describing this Tanga lady who would take his bag and shoes off after work, giving him a massage then leaving him a hot bath whilst warming his food; all awhile cooing with soothing sounds asking him how his day went.

Thankfully Pili added that men from Tanga were as well a gem to find, she went on to imitate the motions of washing clothes. “Mwanaume wa Tanga atakufulia, mara moja moja atakupikia, hapa mwambia mume wako akufulie uone kama ato kutukana…” 
I found myself smiling as Pili seriously suggested next time I am in Tanga to doll myself up so I get myself a keeper from Tanga.


Directly from my soul 



Thing is bottom line we ought to be able to put ourselves in each other’s shoes, going back to my movie. I was just reading online on cases of men being raped by women, essentially the men in question all spoke of the same ordeal. The feeling of being used having your will submerged and the shame of seeing your body react while your mind and emotions are in turmoil.

Well as it goes my girl Cocoa in recent years was co-hosting a workshop in Tanzania with other partners sensitizing couples on sexuality and sex education. A question was posed on what was their first sexual experience. Here it was found out that a lot of the men/husbands present had been sexually abused. 

The Indian ocean from Zanzibar
“Many said thinking that they were attesting to their machismo by confessing their first sexual encounter was when they were 9, 10, 11 or 12 years old and it was with an older female” Cocoa went on to cite an example from a member who had said “…A friend of my aunties knew I liked ‘nyama’ so she would seduce me with it…’ 

It was humbling for these men to find out that they had undergone statutory rape and to note how it had affected their view of women to their present relationships.
Well according to Pili and Zuheir we should all take a leaf from Tanga folks. I say indeed a relationship is a give and take and just as we’d like to be treated like Kings, let’s be willing to give Queen Service, for we are born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some.


© All photos are copyright of Caroline Anande Uliwa

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