February 2008

kitenge kraziness!

check out swatches from the kitenge cloth i have purchased from markets and shops in Tanzania! Almost all are made in Tanzania, a couple are made in the Congo.

Usangi and the Pare Mountains

above: Mama, Juma, and me at the Usangi clinic above: Ally and his flapping origami crane; he wants to be a doctor! We’ll work to make that happen. Interesting things happen when the power goes out: The world gets quiet. You start to hear each other and the animals and the water and the wind. …

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Tanzanian travel peeves

Pet peeve of the moment #1 Would you sleep on a sponge? I didn’t think so. The foam mattresses here in East Africa look like (and act like) giant car wash sponges. After a few nights of an obese mzungu tourist sleeping on them, foam mattresses get sunken in. It’s like sleeping in a worn …

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Tanzania Kazi: work

What am I really here to do? A couple principles to keep in mind while working here: -Our ultimate goal here is to make ourselves unnecessary. -It is not impossible to get things done; it just might take much much much longer than you would ever expect. The first three weeks of my time in …

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Bagamoyo Represent!

above: sculptor Omari and me at the Seaview Sculpture Arts Center Bagamoyo: lay down my heartAside from the eau-de-poo water, Bagamoyo is a pretty darn cool place. It’s a crying shame that I had to work from about 8 am to 8 pm (or sometimes later if folks decided to talk about work over dinner …

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Bagamoyo Uhuru dancers!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy82NnjGSo] This is a low-res (point and shoot camera) video i took yesterday night at the Bagamoyo Arts College (Chua Cha Sanaa) weekly performance. There was some really great work by young artists, including the young people in this piece – a group called the Uhuru (freedom) dancers and drummers. Sadly, the sound on …

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