Zanzibar

I’m discreetly posting from work. Shhh. Having internet access on these computers is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it makes getting World Bank documents and recent statistics a lot easier. On the other hand, there is just so much else to do on the internet…   In other news, we discovered a canteen at work that serves rice and beans and curries.

 Right now, I am doing research on the distributional consequences of the EAC within Tanzania. Right now, I’m trying to look at the mechanisms other regional groups use to distribute costs and benefits. It’s been very interesting but I am not sure I am at all useful. ‘Direct service’ might be more fun, but it wouldn’t make much sense because unemployment is so high. I think the way in which I could be the most ‘useful’ is probably writing grant proposals for ngos because there are so few people here who can write well in English. At any rate, I’m learning a lot. Tim and Caitlin are researching the cashew industry in Tanzania– the country exports a lot of cashews to India, a major processing center, but efforts to increase domestic processing have been difficult. Eleuthera is researching the effects of language policy in Tanzania.

We went to Zanzibar the weekend before last and spent one night in Stone Town and one night on the beach. Most of the women there covered their heads (only about 40% do in Dar) and a lot of women wore buibui (like burkas). They still found ways to decorate and express themselves– sequins on hemlines, henna all over their hands. I can understand the appeal of the buibui; people seemed to treat them with a lot more respect than other women. I think laws that enforce burkas as a dress code are repressive but am becoming more sympathetic that the clothing itself could be empowering in some societies.

We ate dinner at a street market on the Indian ocean, where one could buy lobster, shrimp, and other fancy things from the ocean like octupus for less than fifty cents. I had a “Zanzibari pizza” — sort of an omelet inside a chapati– which cannot compete with ‘American” pizza. (Ohh, cheese…) We drank sugar cane juice (extracted by crushing the cane) flavored with ginger and lime juice. It was surprisingly delicious. There were laturns and small fires everywhere.

The night we stayed on the beach, we went swimming in the Indian ocean at midnight.

Tim’s parents are visiting right now. Having them here makes me miss my parents. They were in South Africa for a few weeks– Tim’s dad was lecturing at a linguistics conference and they came up here to visit for a week.

I think Dar might be a hard city to visit for a short period of time. There are some cities that are obviously beautiful, and then there are other cities where you have to look a little bit harder to find the beauty. Dar is a run down city without impressive or elegant buildings where nothing looks new. Unlike so many of its neighbors, Tanzania hasn’t suffered under self-aggrandizing leaders who erect monuments to themselves. There’s no Taj Mahal. The beauty in Dar is definitely in the people.

Like good Tanzanian residents, we’ve all become obsessed with the World Cup. Now that it is over, we spend a lot of time reading rumors about Zidane in tabloid-y papers. The last game made me sad. I was also hoping Italy would go offsides more because it was funny. If anyone wants to suggest a premier league European team I should support in the fall, I’d appreciate it. I’m trying to figure out post-graduate plans that will enable me to help Tanzania AND accidentally wind up in South Africa just in time for the 2010 World Cup. Suggestions?

Update: Last night, as a World-Cup-Substitute, Caitlin read the Da Vinci code aloud for three hours. Eleuthera and I had never read it before. Tim’s mother had brought it to Tanzania with her and hurried to finish it before leaving so we could read it. Although it feels less geo-political and there are no penalty kicks, it is equally gripping.