Karibou Kikwete

The long-awaited World AIDS Day occurred last Saturday. World AIDS Day tends to have more meaning when you’re living in a country with an HIV infection rate of between 7 and 11 per cent. It has even more meaning when you work all day with children whose parents died of AIDS and are now struggling to survive every day, against all odds. It has particular meaning when you’re working in the capital town of the region that is hosting World AIDS Day. And it has extra-particular meaning when that town receives a visit from the President, himself a strong supporter of AIDS prevention and the leader of Tanzania’s “know your status” campaign. Yes, it turns out the President actually did visit Tabora (to be clear, my cynicism was based on disbelief that he’d visit HAPO, not on disbelief that he’d visit Tabora – and as it turned out, that cynicism was well-founded for reasons too complicated and enormously confusing to go into) and attended the festival being held on a local oval, where HAPO had an information stall. I even got to see his upper half as he got out of his landcruiser (here I should say that I appreciated how he rode in the front seat and was only accompanied by 17 more landcruisers, and that the public was allowed within fifty miles of him without having to undergo cavity searches. But I suppose people have little reason for wanting to kill the President of Tanzania.). He seems like a nice guy – but then again, I would endorse the Presidency of anyone who has endorsed the spread of AIDS education by encouraging people to learn rap songs about it (although it’s a little disconcerting to see and hear these cheerful-sounding and catchy songs being sung in Swahili, only to find out the actual content is about sickness and death). The whole town turned out this weekend and you could feel the safe-sex message in the air.

A lot of education here is done via song – it’s a good way to get people to remember the information and is in keeping with the local culture, which is obsessed – and I mean obsessed – with music, singing and dancing. I fervently wish that I could upload video to my blog because I have footage of dancing that has to be seen to be believed. I don’t mind saying that I am completely mesmerized by the way people dance here. First up, imagine a torso staying more or less still. Then imagine two legs spread somewhat apart but also making very little movement. Then imagine an ass circling round and round, seemingly completely detached from the torso and legs it belongs to. Where I come from, this kind of dancing would be most commonly found in a strip club (so I’ve heard) but here everyone does it all the time, with strangers, in front of old people (old people do it, in fact).. the kids do it, which is the most disconcerting thing of all. A few weeks ago little Shela, one of my favourites, ran up to me and said “Sister Liza!”, turned sideways, and started doing the thing. Then she got down on her hands and knees and did it! I hardly knew where to look. And the boys… today I got videos of them rapping and dancing and I tell you, there isn’t a white boy in the world who can dance like that, and these boys are 10 years old! Everyone has a ridiculously good body from doing so much manual labour and it’s pretty humbling to be taught to dance by an 8-year-old girl. But Shela’s lessons seem to be paying off… on Saturday night at the Tabora, I was told a few times that I dance “not like mzungu, like Afrikani”, which I considered to be praise of the highest calibre. That’s the funny thing about Tanzania… it’s considered deeply impolite and provocative to hang your underwear outside (it’s seen as a blatant message of “intention” to whoever), and men and women can’t kiss or hold hands in public (plenty of same-sex PDAs though) but anyone, young or old, can grind their hips and weave their butts in very sexual-seeming figure-eights and that’s acceptable (and expected). It certainly makes for good people-watching at the Tabora, where, this Saturday night, the One-Temi Band seemed to spontaneously break out of its usual Groundhog-Day set delivery and sang and danced up a storm. Whether they were inspired by the magic of Kikwete’s visit, or were feeling emotional about the power of the AIDS message, or had simply had too much Konyagi (my vote – it’s the local firewater and even I have become accustomed to it) – damn, they kicked some musical ass that night.

As a result it was even harder to leave before 3am when we got kicked out (after dancing to the Tanzanian top 40 – this happens to us a lot) and then went to the only other scene in town – the infamous Club Royale, which is surrounded by what seems, to the untrained eye, to be the Coffin Cheaters but is actually the local pikipiki (motorcycle) guys who ferry people around like taxis (no, Dad, I have not been on one – yet). No visit to Club Royale is complete without the mandatory Tabora power failure, so thank you Kendall for giving me my Mac light, which I carry absolutely everywhere I go. Luckily the crucial places in town – the hospital, the nightclub – have backup generators so we got over the hurdle of having no power for music and sang on the couch until the generator powered up. Leaving Club Royale at 5am inevitably involves a run-in with the pikipiki guys, who can never accept that anyone would want to walk home at 5am (especially if it means losing a fare), and always pursue and surround us on their bikes until one of us turns around and screams at them to bugger off (which never works; actually it tends to get at least one person’s foot grazed by a tyre). It’s a weird feeling to walk home at dawn after a night of drinking and dancing and hear the Muslim call to prayer on the way (strange juxtaposition which probably suggests to the outside world that I am an insensitive mzungu who refuses to leave her Western was behind).

When we got home we sat on the water tank in the compound and watched the sun rise, listening to Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies” and watching all the lizards come out to sun themselves. I am proud to announce (believe it, sceptics) that I was one of the last two standing (well, sitting) that night – I went to bed at 9am and could have stayed up longer (but kept telling myself not to be mental). When I woke up at 12 there was still no power and no water too. No gas here so this meant no food, so we cooked breakfast that afternoon on a charcoal burner on the front porch (picture proves). I can only hope that my new habits – which include eating with my hands; saying “pole”, “asante” and “sawa” before even thinking about “sorry”, “thanks” and “OK”; squatting in the dirt; handling insects with my bare hands; and buying vegetables from the tops of women’s heads, will cancel out any points I lose by having fun on Saturday nights. And surely dancing like an African wins some back too?

[Pics: Sunrise over Africa

The HAPO kids enjoying icypoles at the AIDS festival oval

On the water tank - the blurriness kind of reflects how we felt at 6am

Eating breakfast from the charcoal burner]