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Tracy E. Longacre
from Lubumbashi, DR Congo

Blog: http://telglobal.vox.com
Run Blog: http://revruns.blogspot.com
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre/
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I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy. Rabindranath Tagore

Kalemie sunrise

I am in Kalemie this week, on the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika. It's
quite a lovely place in my book. Much warmer than Bukavu and the lake is so
big it might as well be the ocean.

This was the sunrise this morning. Beautiful, although my digital camera
makes it look different than it did in reality (the sun was much more of an
orb and not so dispersed as it looks in the photo).

Capitaine is the main fish that comes from this lake (I have no idea what
the English name of that is as I've only eaten it in French-speaking
countries). There is no power or running water in Kalemie, though there is a
pump near our house that takes water from the lake and filters it for
drinking. Everyone washes their bodies, dishes and clothes straight in the
lake (which actually is amazing clean when you consider that). There are
enormous electrical lines running all over the place and far out into the
country, but they do not seem to be active in town. Anyone who really needs
or wants power has a generator.

I'm here heading up an audit team. Can't say more about that right now.
Monday we head up to Kabalo for a week to do site visits in our village
projects. That should be very interesting.

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Lovely lizard

This lizard was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, he was a bit far away
and I only had my iPhone with me. But I think you can get a sense of him.
Taken this past week in Goma.

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Azanzi Resort, Zanzibar

Well, although I'm not getting any benefit from doing this, I really, really
have to promote the Azanzi Resort in Matemwe, Zanzibar. It was the resort
next to Matemwe Baharini Villas, which is where I stayed. Azanzi wasn't in
any guide books or the websites I looked at because it is quite new (soon to
be one year old). I wandered over there looking for some badly needed
sunscreen and the staff was so incredibly welcoming and helpful that I ended
up spending a lot of time there.

I met a couple of the guys that run the place - friendly South Africans, but
the most impressive thing is the quality of their staff. They are sincerely
friendly, instinctively helpful, and adequately attentive. The other thing I
personally appreciated about Azanzi is that they have a system - all
expenses are paid at reception. But, of course, I wasn't staying there. So
what to do? You simply go to reception and they set up an account for you. I
had drinks many days, ate dinner a couple of times and had a wonderful
massage, pedicure and gorgeous henna tattoo, all went on my bill. The day I
was leaving, I simply went to reception and paid up. Simple, efficient and
effective. I love that.

The other thing I liked about Azanzi were the guests. Because Azanzi is
beautiful, schnazzy, has great food and drinks, hot tubs, a pool, etc. it is
a luxury place. However, it's prices are well below many luxury places. So
you get this great clientele - a group of 30-ish friends from the south of
the US who had gone on safari and climbed Kilimanjaro and came to Azanzi for
a few beach days before heading home; an Australian couple who I think were
on their honeymoon; two couples from South Africa with a baby each - a very
interesting mix of people.

Check out their website for photos. The places is gorgeous. And if you are
going to Zanzibar, I would highly recommend spending a few days at Azanzi.

http://www.azanzibeachhotel.com

Tourism & communities

This is a photo of the village behind where I stayed in Matemwe, on the east
coast of Zanzibar. It is a picture that very, very few tourists ever see.
Not because it is hidden, but more likely because there is no reason to ever
go out the back of the resort you are staying in and see what is out there.
I went there intentionally just to see what the village looked like.

Here in Matemwe there are several resorts, but it is considered a sleepy
little place by all the guide books. The northern tip or further south down
the east coast are where most people go. Even just south of Matemwe there
are a whole slew of resorts. All the resorts, whether high end or budget,
are focused on the beach. You come in the back way and walk on the beach,
access activities from the beach, go to other resorts from the beach. Then
on the day you leave, you go back out again the back way. I have visited
several of the resorts and spoken with quite a few staff and I was somewhat
surprised to find that virtually all of the staff come from Stone Town (that
is, that is where their families live). With the exception of the guys that
work in the Dive Centre, Scuba Libre, based here at Matemwe Baharini Villas
(where I am staying), who live in the village, every other staff person I
had a conversation with (which means they speak English) either comes from
Stone Town or off the island. They work 6 days here and on their day off go
back to visit their friends and family (it's a 2-2.5 hour "dalla dalla" ride
each way).

Also, with the exception of the fish, which is mostly locally bought, the
rest of the food -- chicken, meat, vegetables, fruit, rice, etc. -- is
bought in Stone Town. And, I learned when I was there, that most of the
fruits, vegetables and other food in the market in Stone Town is shipped
over from the mainland.

So Zanzibar has a pretty thriving tourist industry. (Compared to the Solomon
Islands, it is wildly thriving.) A lot of folks, Zanzibari, other Tanzanian
and foreigners, are doing very well because of their work in this industry.
But the vast majority of Zanzibaris, especially outside Stone Town, are not
involved at all.

In all my conversations with people there are two reasons which have been
given. One is clearly true. For many Zanzibaris, regular education is not
highly valued. Most of the children in Stone Town, I have heard, just want
to go to religious school, not regular school. And in Matemwe at least, lots
and lots of children simply don't go to school at all (judging by the number
of them playing on the beach in the middle of the school day). In fact,
those who have even pretty minimal schooling can really get ahead quickly.
One of the guys at the Dive Centre has a younger brother who only completed
Standard 6 (like 6th grade in the US), but he subsequently picked up
Italian, Spanish and French and so now is the manager at a resort up in
Nungwe (and he's in his early 20s). There are lots of guys in Stone Town --
the ones that chase after you and want to be your guide -- who have a
passing knowledge of several European languages (Italian is incredibly
popular -- I think Zanzibar must be a big destination for Italians). This
could get them a wage-earning job working on a tour boat or something like
that. But since they really don't know how to read and write (even Swahili)
or do math, they'll never be able to move beyond that. So they hustle. But
that's a young man's job. Maybe when they get older they'll fish? Or they
could become cleaners or dishwashers in one of the big hotels. Meanwhile,
there are lots of much better educated Tanzanians coming over from the
mainland because there are jobs here. Every "front office" staff I met in
Stone Town came from the mainland. And every manager I met in Matemwe also
came from the mainland. Unfortunately, children cannot see all this. They
cannot see the limitations they are putting on their future by not going to
school. They simply want to do what their parents tell them is good.

The other reason for the lack of local involvement in the tourist industry
is lack of farming. This one I don't understand very well because I haven't
had a chance to talk to anyone local about why this is, but people here do
not seem to raise enough crops to sell at market. They have their home
gardens and that is it. This really perplexes me because there has been a
rather large city (pop. about 16-20,000) for several centuries and that city
population has to eat. I don't know if the villagers have always not
produced enough or if this is a relatively recent phenomenon. But it is not
due to lack of arable land, for sure. In fact, I heard that many of the big
hotels in Stone Town are starting their own farms because the cost of
importing food was too high. But it saddens me that no one has organized the
local farmers to fulfill this need. There is no reason I can see why all the
food a hotel or resort needs cannot be provided on the island. There are
cows, goats, chickens, ducks and plenty of fish. There is a lot of unused
arable land where most fruits and vegetables can be grown. There's even
enough water that they could probably grown their own rice if they wanted
to, though that might always be cheaper to just import, given the dumping of
rice that many countries do.

There is a part of me that has done a lot of thinking about all this while
I've been here. The urge to want to stay and make something happen is
strong, though that's just the "do-gooder" in me. I've really done no
research on this phenomenon. It is just clearly evident that the local
population, for the most part, is missing out. And that is too bad because
there are a lot of opportunities available. However, as things continue the
way they are going now, pretty soon, there will really be two different
universes here -- all those, mostly from outside the island, who work and
make a good living in the tourist industry and all those, mostly in the
villages, who reap no rewards from the largest sector of the economy.

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Zanzibar photos!

Lots of photos of Zanzibar posted on my Flickr site. Check 'em out:

www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre

Zanzibar Restaurant review

I’m here in Zanzibar for a week of R&R and I’m loving it. This is pretty close to my image of heaven – perfect weather (warmer than Bukavu or Bamenda), diverse cultures, in Africa. . . Wonderful.

 

My experience with food has been pretty touch and go, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned, in case anyone else comes here. Don’t believe the guidebooks. Really. One recommendation they gave was good, the rest were really bad.

 

So, the first thing is Forodhani Gardens. All the guidebooks tell you to go here for good, cheap “street food.” What I did not notice, but now all of you will, is that the only people eating this supposed “local food” are tourists. This should have been a big clue. You walk around and it looks all cool and the guys are pretty aggressively trying to get you to buy their food – everything from fish brochettes to lobster claws to squid heads. You finally decide on someone and start picking out your stuff. They tell you that they cook it fresh on the grill (this isn’t true). You may or may not notice that there are ants crawling on everything. They take what you’ve chosen, walk over and dump it on a grill to warm it up a bit (it was already cooked earlier). The food is okay. Nothing to really write home about, but also nothing spectacular. You’ve probably made the same, even better, on your home BBQ. The shocker comes when they tell you the bill. Because the guidebooks all say that you can eat for less than $1. That may have been true way back when. But now, after the renovation of Fordhani Gardens, the *cheapest* item on the table – the fish brochettes – cost 3,000 shillings each (that’s nearly $3!).

 

My recommendation – skip this scene altogether, there is much better available. If you really want to hang out there, you can go after dinner and get a banana & nutella “pizza” for dessert. That’s only 1,500 shillings.

 

Second bad recommendation I got was Kidude. It has a nice atmosphere and, to their credit the guidebooks didn’t rave about it or anything. But it was listed as a nice place to eat. But the food was boring. This is in Zanzibar, the Spice Island. I had rice and veg in a village (during the Spice Tour) that was much more exciting than my dinner at Kidude. Although their pumpkin pie was pretty good.

 

That’s it for the negative recommendations. Now for the positives:

 

Africa House – I had a nice prawn (crayfish, really) and mango salad there, but the real reason to go is really just to have a drink and hang out with the view. Their terrace looks straight out onto the ocean and it’s really lovely. Unfortunately, they don’t understand about “smoking” and “non-smoking” areas and apparently Europeans have become as obnoxious as Americans once were (and as enamored with getting lung cancer, apparently), so pick your seat carefully or you may have to smoke while you drink as well.

 

The Monsoon – I thought this was going to be my best meal, but it turns out it was only second best. However, it was great. To some extent, it doesn’t really matter what you order, because that will only be one small thing on your plate. Because they serve you a plate filled with Zanzibar delicacies. Pilau rice, ratatouille, garbanzo beans, mango chutney, etc. The flavors explode and combine and swirl around your mouth in the most wonderful ways! This would be a great place to go your first night because you will get a feel for Zanzibari cooking and spices. Or go here after you’ve done the spice tour and see how well you can discern what you are eating. For dessert, I had a pressed date pudding with vanilla cream that was exquisite.

 

Finally, the Archipelago. This was not in any guidebook, but I did a quick search on the web and it came up as the number 1 recommendation. I had seen it (it’s right next to the Monsoon) and wondered if it was any good. First of all, it is set up as a café, so it’s not fancy. However, it is positioned, so that the view provides all the elegance needed. Palm trees swaying a foot or two away, a sweet breeze blowing and the sound of the waves lapping on the shore provide the backdrop. I ordered a salad and, at the recommendation of my waiter, the Zanzibar prawns with pilau rice. The salad has way too much dressing, but that’s my only complaint. The prawns were delicious. Full of the flavors and spices of the island, but not hot. The pilau rice was incredible. Sweet and savory at the same time with more flavor than I ever thought rice could have. Yum! For dessert I had a piece of date cake in a puddle of caramel sauce – all warm and dripping with sweet goodness.

 

A couple of notes. I went during Ramadan. I don’t know that I’d recommend this, but it didn’t put too much of a damper on things for me. One place, Mercury’s, which is talked about in the guidebooks quite a lot, is completely closed for the whole month of Ramadan. Also, sleeping was pretty difficult as people were up and out and making quite a bit of noise very, very late. I don’t know how the kids can make it through school the next day because no one even goes home before midnight. And they have to be up before dawn if they want to eat anything. The only way I felt constrained was not being able to just drink water whenever and wherever I felt like. I have definitely not been drinking enough water.

 

Also, I did the Island Excursion offered through Nakupendo Tours which I would really recommend. You go visit the huge Seychelles tortoises on Prison Island and then spend the afternoon on this sandbank where you can snorkel, have lunch, sunbathe, etc. It was wonderful riding around in their boat, too. I did get sunburnt, despite trying to be attentive, but it was a wonderful day and well worth the $50.

 

I’d also recommend the Spice Tour. Though I am no farmer, I can’t even garden, I am always fascinated by agriculture and like to know where my food comes from. On the Spice Tour you’ll get to see your spices in the wild and some of them look nothing like what you’ve imagined, I’m sure. You also spend a bit of time on a beach as part of that tour, which is a nice end to the day.

 

Today I’m off to Matemwe, on the northeast side of the island to *really* relax.

Downtown Kigali

I'm in transit from Bukavu to Zanzibar where I'm going for a week of R&R.
Yeah! Had to stay overnight in Kigali, which was quite nice, actually. Good,
free, reasonably fast Internet connection in hotel. Took a bus down to the
center of town and just walked around -- astounded at all the stuff, people,
cars, hustle & bustle. Ah, the big city! And Kigali, and Rwanda in general
these days -- wow, what a contrast to DR Congo. You can feel the hope in the
air, just as I could feel the tension when I was here back in 1998. Even
just crossing the border, 2km from my house, there was a tremendous
difference. All the officials -- Customs, Passport Control, Police -- were
in clean, new, well-pressed uniforms.

I found a café on the second floor with a terrace, had a beer and some chips
and watched the scene. It was great. Fascinating. Some sightings:

- quite a few Muslims (men and women). The women in the typical
African style of scarf-covered hair (quite stylish).
- women in every manner of dress, from jeans, sneakers & t-shirts,
to traditional dresses, to western skirts, to you name it. And women of all
ages in all types of dress.
- most people, men and women, were quite stylish in their dress
(much more than me, though let's face it, that's not saying much ).
- a public transport system of mini-vans and coaster buses that are
all marked, with posted prices and designated areas depending on their
destinations.
- a motorcycle taxi system with drivers in green vests with numbers
and drivers and passengers in standard issue, decent quality green and
numbered helmets which everyone was wearing properly (actually on their
heads and fastened).
In Bukavu, moto taxis must have helmets for themselves and
their passengers, but some of them are of extremely questionable usefulness
and most women, in particular, don't wear them properly (mustn't muss the
hair!)
- everyone wants to speak English. Even when it is clear that their
English is much worse than my French. Interesting. And I have run into a few
people (my IRC driver for one) who don't speak French -- just English or
Kinyarwanda.
- when the tout on the bus says "mugende" little synapses went off
in my brain and I remembered that Kinyarwanda has many similarities to
Luganda and Lukiga (Ugandan languages). I knew he said "let's go".
- so clean. Kigali is so incredibly clean. Like Tulsa, OK or
Singapore. And everywhere there are (mostly) women in municipal smocks, with
gloves and face masks and hair coverings and brooms sweeping up the streets.
This one project could do so much for development in every African town and
city -- employ people, keep the place clean (public health) and instill
pride in their city. It was a beautiful, beautiful sight.

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Been busy

I've been really busy with work and just realized it's been a month since
I've updated my blog. Aack! Sorry. I'm on Facebook fairly regularly, if you
are interested, and find it easier to share articles and such through that
venue. Hillary Clinton's visit produced a flurry coverage of the Congo, some
of it good (Christian Science Monitor & NY Times), some of it not so good. I
heard a rumour that in the US most of the attention was paid to her snippy
response to the arrogant student who wanted to know Bill Clinton's thoughts.
Over here we didn't even hear the whole story. It amazes me how Americans
can expend so much energy on stupid trivia rather than getting the point.
But maybe that's intentional.

The other rumour I heard was that there were Town Hall meetings about Health
Care where actual fights broke out. Is this really true? Have Americans
completely lost their marbles?

I am certainly glad I don't live there, President Obama notwithstanding.

Heading to the field

or "au terrain" as we say in French.

I'm going to the field this week with two people from my team. They are leading a briefing on self-evaluations for our partners in our civic education project. I'm going to meet the partners, see their sites, that sort of thing. This is my first time in the field with my own team, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

I'll be back at the end of the week with photos and stories. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, if you want to hear about my weekly adventure of getting lost in Bukavu while running, head over to: http://revruns.blogspot.com