Posters and billboards, new and old, Zain, Zantel, Vodacom, Tigo, crowd the wall competing for space with the frayed faces of politicians from the recent 2010 elections, leaving no empty spot. Drenched and torn, the posters were meant to be taken down many months ago, but stay on… A newspaper seller sits waiting for a customer [...]
Archive for the ‘writing’ Category
d’aroma
Posted in writing, tagged art, dar es salaam, dar sketches, nahida esmail, news, streel level on January 27, 2011 | 1 Comment »
i am machinga 2
Posted in writing, tagged dar es salaam, hafiz juma, illustration, machinga, street level, tanzania on December 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It is a strange irony, how I, the poet of provision, the builder of beauty, am deemed unworthy of my own creation. They run me out of town, and I go: what is a mere artist to do in the face of brutality? excerpt two from ‘I am machinga’ by Hafiz Juma, soon to be [...]
i am machinga
Posted in writing, tagged art, dar es salaam, foleni, hafiz juma, traffic on August 6, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The sweet, sticky heat makes my clothes stick to my skin. I am damp to the touch, dripping with the unavoidable refuse of my art. Yes, I am an artist my friend, although you may not think so. How else can you explain what I do? I walk the town like a vagabond of the [...]
and she sweeps
Posted in writing, tagged amabilis batamula, dar es salaam, khanga, street sweeper on July 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Before the sun rises, she walks, walks to get there because a free ride is never going to come, and bus fare is at home buying lunch for the kids. Her broken slippers obeying every step, her tired limbs lifting, one after another, she gets there. Time to get going! It is a windy morning, [...]
two different things
Posted in writing, tagged dar es salaam, development, diana nyaki, mkokoteni, sketches on July 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It was ordinary for Gibson to nap in front of the world, especially after an acid morning carting coconuts to his top customers’ eateries. That day, he reckoned he had spent enough time scrapping for lane space and losing momentum in potholes. So he wheeled his mkokoteni over to the dusty rubbly edge of the [...]
Hey Mr.Mfisadi Man
Posted in writing, tagged art, corruption, dar es salaam, hafiz juma, sketches on June 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
What tragedy alights the flame of pittance in the beggar’s heart? Is it the unnerving hole-ridden road to prosperity? Or merely the worn-ragged story of possibility? Indeed, if hollow promises made heavy debts then the rich would beg on their knees. Sadly only the sorry live with sorrow, craving and raving about the unlikely prospects [...]
the invasion
Posted in writing, tagged art, dar es salaam, msasani, sketches, tanzania on June 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This morning, I woke to find an American flag hoisted above the fisher camp on Msasani bay. Sometime during the night the stars and stripes were erected and now proclaim that the corrugated iron sheets, the plastic bottles, the sun-bleached washing hanging on a line, The graffiti saying mysteriously - Naz - are all somehow Yankee property. [...]
this dar
Posted in writing, tagged amy gautam, art, dar es salaam, sketches, tanzania on May 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sidewalks swarm with women wrapped in black, men draped in white, and a rainbow of harmony in between. This Dar embraces. A luminous moon pulls swollen tides onto rocky shores while residents revel in weekend freedom. This Dar celebrates. A briny perfume lingers in the air like the inherited memory of ancient ship holds. This [...]
mbuyuni
Posted in writing, tagged baobab, dar es salaam, elsie eyakuze, mbuyuni, sketches on April 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It is easy to listen to trees when your mind is cracked. This tree of life with her fat trunk that reminds me of my fat wife the colour of chai and all our tea-colored children… This magic tree talks to me. The place Mbuyuni is named, of course, because it is where the mbuyu [...]
A Tale from Innocent’s Chair
Posted in writing, tagged art, chair, creative writing, tanzania on March 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“Maybe you heard,” he says, ripping a rainbow of long strips from plastic shopping bags and lacing them through the seat of his folding chair, “about the woman who disappeared on Selander Bridge yesterday.” He pauses to wipe sweat from his deeply wrinkled brow with his shirtsleeve. He tears and knots the strips that will [...]
