Single in the City 57, 22, 5

By ME from my column in 'The Citizen Newspaper' on Saturday's now MKEKA gets a copy too...

Issue 57

The feminine cap

The curvature of the finger with joints hungry for the skin, as they artfully dance to your gestures; nails becoming music that spell out your disposition, whether easy going, romantic, stoic, or all encompassing.

At  Swahili Fashion Week in 2014,
Fashion-here's an industry that is forward
in knowing what's feminine or masculine
isn't constricted to gender

You know that part of the body that draws you. For no particular reason, each time you notice it on someone, be it a loved one or a stranger, you drink in its detail. I recall the first fingers that intrigued me; they belonged to the principal of my nursery school (Mama Rosa) back when I was toddler.

Her fingers were so expressive, the joints were well articulated but her bones were thick so she didn’t have plump fingers. Rather a weathered hand that spoke of feminine brushes with the kitchen knife and a crying baby. All awhile being quite elegant as she almost always had them manicured, with a round tip and a red nail polish.

Fits both sexes

Many of us possess two hands; right there constantly at the end of our arms is an example of gender. As you have the hand which is deft and the one that is slightly less adept at strength and so it goes we either fall into the ‘right handed’ or ‘left handed’ category.

An adolescent girl from Michungwani Primary
School in Mikocheni DSM, showing prowess
in Public Speaking skills, a feat considered more
masculine

As I’m writing here its international women’s day and as I deliberate on ways to celebrate the female feats, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s obscure. That gender as a difference is not the point. Paolo Coelho writes “How people treat other people, is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.”

Taking that quote to test it follows that the inequalities against women, have come from perpetrators who are as well hurting. In our society we’re all still shaking off the dogmas of the past, that say women are the only ones to handle kitchen duties. The only ones to coo a baby to sleep, the dogmas that say the boardroom is for men, sexual appraisal should only come from male pupils.

I was watching an interview with Jamie Fox, where he was talking on the making of the film ‘Django’. Here he went on to elaborate how Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the son of the owner of a sugar plantation; that harshly uses African Slaves for labor. Jamie relays how even on set backstage, Leonardo found he couldn’t allow himself to be nice and civil; to him and other African American cast, this in order he acted out the racist disposition of his character well.

Just like the masculine hat

More than ever today the world needs the feminine voice, yet it can’t continue to be preached, that this voice lives only in females. The qualities of compassion, attention to detail, appreciation of beauty, mediation, these qualities can be found in men just as they can be absent in women.

Adolescent boys from DSM participating in an art class,
a forum seen to exude aesthetics and refined qualities seen
more feminine

It fares therefore that in celebrating the feminine voice, it’s time to heal the hands that have wounded this representative of curve. By embracing the aspects in ourselves that aren’t straight forward; like what has you singing ridiculous nursery rhymes to your baby daughter, as you’re figuring out, how to get her to sleep.

The curves that allow for dialogue that will have us solving our glaring dichotomies, like having a globe that’s figured out complex challenges like how to get to the moon. Yet not being able to figure out, that continuing to manufacture weapons; is continuing to foster wars. That continuing to invest in non-renewable energy, despite that sea levels have never been this high since some 3000 years ago, is calamitous.

So today I’m going to salute the feminine in you, the one that allows for a rendezvous with connection. Hopefully you can now dare to cling to that which leaves you blushing with remnants of joy. As you understand that though we’re all born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some. Real peace comes from accepting all aspects of ourselves, including the feminine.

Issue 22

Love is simple but not easy

Looking out from a moving car, at the familiar streets, worn landmarks of the city. A memory seeps in slowly burgeoning to the time; you ;walked home with your classmates in primary school. A Steaming ‘muhogo’ in your hands wrapped in a newspaper. Bought with the big silver heptagon 20 TSHS, that you got as snack money.

These streets know you well, they know where your first date was, how the walk back home from your first day of school felt. Where your husband held your hand as you walked to the maternity ward, labor cramps blurring your vision, as you were about to deliver your first child. Oh there’s reason to fall in love with the city.

Gotta love who you really are

Have you ever been envious of other cities in the world; particularly those of the west. Personally I have this questionable habit when am watching a Hollywood flick and I see suburban home fronts with the picket fences or none at all. Where I swoon with envy as I notice those sizable tarmac roads, in the suburbs no less. Where one can jovially ride their bicycle or take an evening stroll, without worrying about a 'Bajaj' or 'Bodaboda' knocking them senseless.


It’s about then that I need reassuring words or three from the likes of Prof Felix Chambi  “After examining the published pottery of southern African Early Iron Working tradition, there is no doubt that the pottery is of the same tradition as that produced on the coast of Tanzania. The dates are also exactly the same….Such similar dates could not involve any kind of people’s movement over land, fast, as suggested by Collet (1982)…it might be explained by direct sailing between East African and South Africa.”-The Unity of African Ancient History 3000BC to AD 500

In this book you glance that we as members of various tribes in Africa before even Christ was born, were adept at valuing art. Adept at innovation in architecture and transport, ensuring we traded rather frequently with other African natives on the continent from far and wide.

Before you can truly love another 

You can’t begin to talk seriously about relationships in Tanzania between man and woman; friend to friend; city and resident. Without accepting the trauma that plagues our culture from being robbed of our history as Africans, resulting in the belief embedded in our psyche that we’re not good enough.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the comment “Mambo ya kizungu hayo’ or ‘Mzungu hakosei bwana…’

I literary heard this last statement from a neighbor recently. In remedy I like this call for action from Prof Mammo Muchie “Africa should start with its children. The whole educational system on the continent needs to be revamped and developed into an African centered one. We need to do away with the ‘David Livingstone –discovered-the-Victoria-falls’ type of education.” -The New African Magazine

Mind you it’s no longer excusable for us Tanzanians to keep lumbering in the aftermath of that trauma. Perpetually making blunders from bad governance, starting with the bad governance at home where your relationship with your kin. Is akin to that of a colonial master and slave, you can argue to the contrary saying we treat each other in no way so cruel.

Yet I beg you to take a closer look, aren’t we giving each other raw deals? In our homes, in our schools, in our offices of governance; are we not like the slave masters bleeding the life out of these institutions, taking everything and replenishing little? Leaving them barely erect to keep producing, keep producing.

In turn like slaves from these institutions; me and you- the wife & husband, student & teacher, city official & resident. We are taking the abuse without knowledge of our power to overcome and thus we succumb to the nightmare of blindly following orders. Yet as I always say we’re all born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some; so don’t be afraid to do something.

Issue No 5

Sun Baked in Tanzania 

I’ve always wanted to be proud of coming from Tanzania, be able to stand next to an American or Swedish girl and hail the virtues of my land. Except in reality I stutter... I stutter as I look around most of my sisters are valiantly trying to look or be white. 

Looking back at myself I was a teenager from the late nineties. In Dar es Salaam, this was the time the ‘Congo’ hair stylist gentlemen had just invaded the city, relaxer was still new on Tanzanian women most of whom, had just migrated from the ‘kalkiti’ saga.

It’s been a month since I’ve migrated to this column the third in my career. The ones previous were a little more defined ‘I am an African’ & ‘Sweet Home’ compared to ‘Single in the city’. Perhaps why you can forgive me for taking a leaf from ‘Cary Bradshaw’ of ‘Sex & the City’ in introducing my soul sisters in my Afro-politan meandering.

With papaya skin…?

Meet Salome the young politician, Anande the therapist, Shukria the Kenyan fiend and congruent ally, Sheba the sexologist and Cocoa the career woman. Currently all soul sisters would kill me if they knew I were using them as inspiration.

However in all truth, it’s been so rewarding to finally know them such that they’ll just have to forgive me and thank me with a TV drama later n.b. all names and characters are fictional.

Back to the Congo hairstyling gentlemen who gave those beautiful ‘bomba’ hairstyles,

I finally did convince my mom to relax my hair. Once I completed my form 2 successfully, I plummeted into all manner of experiments.

No it’s toning!

In congruency again to ‘Sex & the City’ my slippery soul love isn’t Mr Big rather Mr Long. Now it was this comment from ‘Mr Long’ that jarred me to my core. ‘When I am making love…kama nimeshikilia nywele za mzoga.’ He added this of all forms of non natural hair on African women. Yes I vehemently defended all my Tanzanian sisters in town, however deep down I found myself cracking up with disbelief.

Why well you see as a young girl, all I wanted was to be seen as sexy and beautiful when I grow up. Still there’s one mistake that I thank heavens my ancestors haven’t allowed me to fall for. Which is bleaching my skin to a point of no return, you know there’s evening your skin tone. Then there’s buying to the lie that we’re of Caucasian, Latino or Asian descent. 

As a Tanzanian now natural haired lady, I am not blaming you African sister. With that god given natural melanin for falling for this trap, but I do wish to shoot those advertisers.‘Yani…!’ well Salome put it best this week for me ‘Nina rafiki yangu nusu afukuzwe kazi kwasababu ya dreads’. She went on to explain that this man in saving his job went on to bring a letter; to certify that he was of the religion ‘Rastafari’. 

The funniest thing though is, he’s not really a ‘rastafari’ and when meat is served in the office he’s cringing with envy hence texting Salome. ‘Baadaye lazima unipeleke nyama choma, manake humu ofisini wananiua...’ Ok people till next week remember we’re born single and shall meet our death recount by our single some.

© All photos are copyright of Caroline Anande Uliwa