Thanks for all of the birthday emails, wall writings, and various social network messages on Monday. It was great. I look forward to 26… even though it’s starting to sound more and more like “30″. He’s a little sunset that Dar cooked up for me on my special day.
Continued from previous post.
When we finally managed to re-mobilize with the group of 10 guys that came to meet us at the hotel, Ninja was allegedly threatening people, and himself, with a broken bottle. All ten guys were miserable, and who can blame them.
We walked through the dirt streets of the Kariakoo market in the area to pay for the first room in the 1000 degree heat. Since the area is fairly urban, I had a naive vision of some small, quaint apartment. We wandered past the craze of the market and dodged the cars that bounced past on the roller coaster streets… and we kept walking… and walking… until we hit what felt like the end of the world. We ducked through a little “restaurant” and emerged on the other side in an area that you wouldn’t even see on the Discovery Channel. It was like someone came along and removed an entire city block, dug a pit, filled it with shit, and made the best they could out of 1000 cinder blocks and 100 sheets of corrugated metal. There was broken glass everywhere with young children playing barefoot, a stream of sewage flowing down the central alleyway, layers of garbage protruding from the hillside as if a new type of rock formation… It smelled like a enema.
I still can’t figure out what Dotto and Dotto were thinking when they decided to look there for a room. After a few minutes of browsing the area and trying to respectfully not step on some of people sleeping in the narrow passageways, we were led up some stairs to visit the Mama of the area. We got to a small platform where a group of young men stood. As if choreographed, they parted ways to reveal the mama, who was a woman of TV special report proportions, draped ungracefully through the doorway on an assortment of throw pillows. She was partially covered by a sarong but many of her components were in un-modestly splashing about. In such a tragically destitute area of an already poor country it was surreal to stumble across the largest human being I have ever seen with my own eyes. The guys walked off and left us standing there… dumbstruck and Swahililess. Nobody spoke for what felt like an extremely long time, long enough to inhale far too much of a smell somewhere between diarrhea, gasoline, and industrial degreaser. Our hosts were clearly as confused about why we were there as we were. It was one of the oddest moments of my life.
We did the quiet and walking slow version of running away screaming and hopped a dalladalla to the uswalini (low-income sprawls of housing). The rest of the day was drab in comparison but included a suicide threat via text-message from Ninja, a heated negotiation over wazungu-inflated housing prices, and a blow-up with the guys over more roommate drama.
That vacation in Zanzibar next week will be well-needed.
Edit :: It should be noted that Ninja’s threat turned out to be empty and booze-induced, and was really just his way of asking if he’d still be getting a room despite the drama.
Yesterday was one of the more bizarre days I’ve had… at least on this trip, but maybe ever.
Act One - Booze Breath and Fist Fights
It started with an early morning trip to the maskani after sunrise, the street where the guys hang out and wash cars in Dar es Salaam. I went alone to watch Dotto, Dotto, and Mwingyi practice soccer (soka) with the idea that I might get some good filming in. When I arrived, the three guys I had gone to meet weren’t there, but there were a dozen other not-so-happy guys sitting in a circle. I plunked myself down to half eat, half bathe in, an overly ripe mango. When I was finished Shavu walked me over to the field, which turned out to be housing a full match complete with subs. There were 42 boys there, some from the street, some watoto wamama (”mama’s boys” - meaning they live in the ghetto in severe poverty rather than complete poverty), and even a few university students. You could tell who was who based on the footwear… or lack of.
It had been a few days since we announced to the guys that we’d be paying for one year’s housing, and yesterday was the day we were to go look at the rooms they had chosen and pay accordingly. As it happens, after all of Ninja’s antics over the past weeks, nobody wanted anything to do with him where being roommates was concerned. Well, that was enough to send Ninja into a downward spiral of drinking moonshine, picking fights with all of his “friends”, and declaring his disgust with us and this project. I had wondered why the guys were so cozy with me at the soccer field, but it turns out that they were just trying to protect me incase he showed up.
Show up he did. Ninja stumbled over, reeking of booze, covered in sweat, yelling, challenging everyone or anyone to fight…. which takes balls, or a REALLY high blood alcohol content, when you’re the smallest of the 43 people present and are trying to take on 42 of them. He walked through the crowd and forcibly removed clothing items that belonged to him, putting up his dukes as an invitation to anyone as he went.
When he came up to me I wasn’t sure whether to hold on tight to the camera or to just drop it and brace myself for a knuckle sandwich… But he hugged me. Tears started to stream down his face and snot instantly poured like a faucet into his frothing mouth as he sobbed to me about his friends turning on him. My heart broke.
I tried to sneak away quietly as he continued to confront his friends. When I looked back from a block away all I could see were two black bodies, Ninja and Shavu, running through traffic with their shirts off throwing punches, and others tried to hold them back. Not a good start to the day. We were supposed to meet in an hour to deal with the housing. It was only 9am.
To be continued…
Quote of the week, in reference to our cab fair quote: “Wazungu (white people) are like an ATM”
You know the lyric from that old OutKast song from ‘95, “I’m cooler than a poler bear’s toenails”? It’s likely that you don’t, but it still doesn’t detract from it’s power of illustration… except that I’m the exact opposite. I’m like… hotter than a giraffe’s pancreas. As this southern hemisphere equatorial climate nears summer, the heat is becoming something that’s almost as fascinating as it is uncomfortable. The sun is so directly above us that it’s not so much shining in my eyes but into my brain, making each of my thoughts squint. Everywhere around me are men in black suits and dress shoes, and the guys we’re hanging out with routinely where toques, multiple shirts and wool pants. Meanwhile, I’m drinking water at a staggering rate and am still just barely offsetting the liquid pouring out of my pores (and you think it’s a coincidence that they’re called that.) The rapid intake and output of fluid, as if my body is re-gifting it, combined with the odd cycle of taking antibiotics in the morning (Malaria pills) and probiotics at night, has my body in a state of perpetual insecurity. “Just tell me what you want already!” … What’s a biotic anyway?
We got stopped by another police officer the other day. A woman. I was immediately terrified and took the initiative to pee myself preemptively so that she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing me do it because of anything she was about to say. As it happens, she merely wanted to welcome us (karibuni sana) to Dar es Salaam and to remind us that Jesus loves us. It was actually quite lovely, and took the average of my impression of the police here from “absolutely appalling” down to just “rather dickish”.
Yesterday we went to the recording studio with pockets full of excitement to pick up, and listen to, the fully mixed album. Everything sounded amazing when we left and we were bursting with the idea of it sounding even better after they’d done a proper mix down. Cut to: us listening in horror to the revised tracks which they had added sounds of machine gun fire to, cheesy vocal effects that haven’t been used since Cher proved to us that they’re undesirable, and bad disco synthesizer sounds that, well, just sucked. The worst part? The guys thought each and every addition was the coolest thing they had ever heard. It was like looking at a beautiful 18 year old girl that hasn’t developed the maturity of sophisticated restraint not to don cakes of orange makeup, that clumpy looking mascara that looks like she had just tried to spread Nutella on a piece of toast with her eyelashes… and that shitty, sticky lip-gloss that you can smell, and see your reflection in, from across the room. But, that’s what you get for hosting a youth-directed project.
Disaster was diverted when, after a precarious conversation, I convinced the producer to give us the project files so that we can mute a few tracks and make slightly simplified versions for the film… and to better suit the sensibilities of the Canadian market (ie - loose the synthesizer and gunshots).
Now that the album is finished, we told the guys today that we had raised money to rent them rooms for the next year and to pay for school, or other training, fees. Shavu Meka (his nickname meaning “fat cheeks”, pictured above) was so thrilled. He’s the oldest of the guys, and has expressed that he feels like he’s getting to old to be a “streeti boy”. He jumped up and burst into song, “Goodbye mosquitos, goodbye Malaria.” He’s in his late 20s and this will be the first time having his own bed since he left home as a young boy.
After the mosquito song he started into a version of Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems, but changed it to Mo’ Money, NO problems. His life’s problem aren’t gone, but finding a safe doorway to get a good night’s sleep in won’t be one of them next year.
Yesterday we hit the two week mark of “the program”, as the guys call it, and we’ve managed to finish recording a 6 track album… leaving us weeks ahead of schedule. After the studio appropriately mixes and polishes, fiddles with knobs, and slides buttons on that big, intimidating mixing board, we’ll be set to pick up the CD on Monday and have a final approval listen with the guys.
After spending a solid week inside the studio [on common ground] with the guys, it’s easy to forget that they live and sleep on the street. You’d never know it by looking at them; they dress meticulously, which is all a part of being a msela, a term they use to refer to themselves that loosely translates as “hussler”. Despite how they look, after a few days together it becomes clear that, between them, they only have as many outfits as msela in the group. Tops and bottoms are on an constant rotation which gives them endless outfits… although nothing seems to go unworn in a given day.
Through the week, the guys took advantage of having a clean dry place to be. They napped in the corner, washed their clothes in a bucket behind the studio, and even took sponge baths between tracks. Each time it reminded us of our vastly different realities. No wonder they were so tired on Wednesday after the thunder storm. Like Dotto said, “Have you ever tried to sleep outside in a rain storm?”
I haven’t.
Regardless, they laugh, hug, sing and dance more than any of my rich friends. That’s just life here for them. Hamna shida. No problem.
Speaking of conveniences taken for granted, here’s a shot of one of the very common power outages from the room of Safari Inn. You can see who had candles on hand from the orange glows coming from some apartments.
