Conversations (1)
September 23, 2008
Waiting for an elevator:
- Good afternoon!
- Good afternoon to you! - I answer back
- How are you?
- Good, thank you! How’s life?
And so the conversation goes. The person turns out to be an interesting designers pushing the local clothing creativity to an exporting standard with collaborations with Italy in the process. But no matter what, it's direct and spontaneous.
I must admit taking pleasure in asking more than what one is allowed to ask in other places, just because I know I can do this here without people finding it weird, just because I am free to be nice without nothing more about it than just talking with someone, just because I like to use this freedom in feeling free interacting with people.
- Good afternoon!
- Good afternoon to you! - I answer back
- How are you?
- Good, thank you! How’s life?
And so the conversation goes. The person turns out to be an interesting designers pushing the local clothing creativity to an exporting standard with collaborations with Italy in the process. But no matter what, it's direct and spontaneous.
I must admit taking pleasure in asking more than what one is allowed to ask in other places, just because I know I can do this here without people finding it weird, just because I am free to be nice without nothing more about it than just talking with someone, just because I like to use this freedom in feeling free interacting with people.
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Street life, pêle-mêle
September 23, 2008
It is a left drive here, and I am still enjoying the novelty of it, the pleasure of not feeling totally accustomed with new things striking the eyes. It won’t last long, and already I don’t see what had been obviously different in my first trip here: the dirt roads within Dar-es-Salaam out of the main paved streets, mosques almost every corner with El Aid coming up next week, people in their clothes, traditional big squares of cloth or large pieces of dress and carrying loads, public workers endlessly sweeping the streets and tiredlessly pushing the dust of the tarmac roads to the sides, stone breakers working under the tree (didn’t see children today, only a few women there). Tas de détritus/small pile of waste, and the house of a minister in the background in this “very safe and tranquil” area I am told. The dhows sailing in the harbour, the low tide and high tide and the smell of the sea. The awful traffic jams on Ocean Drive.
Back to Kariakoo and its marketplace today: fruit and veggies of all kinds can be found here, in a colourful and joyful mess of sounds, shouts, laughs, phone rings, honks! Tomatoes, zuchinis, aubergines, cucumbers, red, white or yellow onions and peppers, watermelons, black grapes, oranges and apples, sugar canes, guavas: they all compete for a space in the midst of the narrow dirt streets where cars, goats, bicycles, trolleys and people already strive to make their way without ever elbowing or stepping on each other. My skills still lag behind, but then in Asia people often didn’t bother bumping into each other...
“Everything is fresh from here, someone tells me, except for the apples and some of the oranges from South Africa. But the oranges from there are not very good because of what they put inside.”
Who said organic was for the wealthiest...? What a reverse thought we have now come to in Europe, requesting what any possible person aware of what is good, already knows from tasting... Putting common sense far in the back of our minds, for the sake of productivity and endorsing our production system? And despite fertilizers and pesticides helped to address post-war needs for food, they now make many small producers dependant on heavy expenses in countries where the poor access to health care doesn’t make this food ideal... - not even mentionning Monsanto making them dependant on seeds.
Back to Kariakoo and its marketplace today: fruit and veggies of all kinds can be found here, in a colourful and joyful mess of sounds, shouts, laughs, phone rings, honks! Tomatoes, zuchinis, aubergines, cucumbers, red, white or yellow onions and peppers, watermelons, black grapes, oranges and apples, sugar canes, guavas: they all compete for a space in the midst of the narrow dirt streets where cars, goats, bicycles, trolleys and people already strive to make their way without ever elbowing or stepping on each other. My skills still lag behind, but then in Asia people often didn’t bother bumping into each other...
“Everything is fresh from here, someone tells me, except for the apples and some of the oranges from South Africa. But the oranges from there are not very good because of what they put inside.”
Who said organic was for the wealthiest...? What a reverse thought we have now come to in Europe, requesting what any possible person aware of what is good, already knows from tasting... Putting common sense far in the back of our minds, for the sake of productivity and endorsing our production system? And despite fertilizers and pesticides helped to address post-war needs for food, they now make many small producers dependant on heavy expenses in countries where the poor access to health care doesn’t make this food ideal... - not even mentionning Monsanto making them dependant on seeds.
Conversations (2)
September 23, 2008
A surrealist but basic conversation, half-Chinese half-Swahili:
- nihao! says one man
- nihao! I reply
- karibu, he goes on
- asante, I thank him
- jambo!
- nihao! says one man
- nihao! I reply
- karibu, he goes on
- asante, I thank him
- jambo!
