Giraffes, birds and Pharaohs

Pop ‘Arusha Times’ into Google and you will find the web version of the newspaper where I am lending a part-time hand for the rest of my Tanzanian stay.

Here I am sub-editing stories submitted to the newspaper by its network of correspondents, which involves checking them for consistency and trying to make them more interesting to read.

It is a job I am enjoying immensely – in 10 years of journalism, never before have I worked for a newspaper which leads its front pages with stories such as giraffes in a local wildlife park having no tails (it’s because of hyenas having nothing else to feed on, apparently). It sells 3,000 copies a week and, unlike papers at home, has plenty of advertising and job adverts.

The editor, William Lobulu, is a lovely guy, who shares my view that too much Tanzanian journalism is too unquestioning. Many of the journalists I have met in Tanzania, at Arusha Journalists’ Training College and elsewhere, cite intimidation as the reason why.

It’s a problem not just in Tanzania, but all over Africa, where press freedom is a bit of an oxymoron. Thankfully there are indigenous newspapers here in Tanzania, such as The Guardian, who are pushing for more transparency and attempting to expose corruption.

The Arusha Times still has some way to go to reach that level – it is a two-man team, working for a pittance, after all – but for now, it does its job as a light weekly local rag very nicely.

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The rest of my time is taken up by working in the village of Ilboru, on the edge of Arusha, with Mama Lucy, the founder of DINKWA. The organisation is an enterprise group for vulnerable women who are victims of problems such as HIV, poverty or abusive relationships.

Mama Lucy has been at the helm of several community groups over many years, and is doing a fantastic job with DINKWA, where I have met many of her clients (“my ladies”, as she calls them) and learned more about what they are doing.

Last week, for instance, I met Basilisa (below left, with Mama Lucy).



She was diagnosed with HIV last year when she was pregnant with her third child. Turning to DINKWA for help in how to generate income for herself, she set up her own business with a small grant, and is now selling second-hand clothes, cooking oil and bananas to other villagers. Her daily profit is approximately 5,000 Tanzanian Shillings (about £2.50), which might not seem like a lot, but crucially is enough to feed her and her three children.

Other ladies have set up restaurants, shops and tailoring businesses. Mama Lucy needs organizational support and fundraising assistance to develop DINKWA, which she will get from me for the rest of my Tanzania time and beyond.

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I’ve always got loads to do, but find time for plenty of after-hours R&R.

As a longtime fan of African football, I was particularly pleased to be shoulder-to-shoulder with local fans in an African bar in Kijenge Kati last night to watch the African Cup of Nations Final between Egypt and Ghana.

Less pleasing was the fact that the match was on at exactly the same time as an English Premiership match between Manchester United and Arsenal, a fixture I don’t care too much about.

There were around 100 people in the bar, and two televisions, one showing each game. I was one of around 10 people gathered round the TV showing the Egypt match, the rest of the bar whooping and clapping their way through the Manchester United match (including most of the people round my TV, who kept scampering off to try and watch both games simultaneously).

I suspect that was a realistic straw poll for what most African football fans were watching across the continent, given the choice of the two big games. I found it disappointing, yet completely unsurprising, to see so many Africans so blasé about the final of their continent’s premier international tournament, in the face of football from overseas.

To be fair, going head-to-head, the AfCoN Final never stood a chance. Not only are Manchester United followed fanatically by the majority of football fans here in Tanzania, but I could also hear that their game last night was way more exciting (a swashbuckling 3-1 Man Utd win) than the tense AfCoN Final (a cagey 1-0 win for the Pharaohs). The absence of African superstar Michael Essien for Ghana, through injury, probably also didn’t help.

A later kick-off would have solved everything, but African football officialdom is not noted for such aptitude. Anyway, I still thoroughly enjoyed the Tanzanian Broadcasting Corporation’s enthusiastic coverage of the Egypt-Ghana match, especially the witterings of Pendael Omari, the Tanzanian Dougie Donnelly. And even if it wasn’t a great game, it was a great way to watch the game. I just hope the next AfCoN Final isn’t the victim of such another unfortunate fixture pile-up.


Ross