Eat the Rich

strips of rubber cut from old inner tubes. There were a few industrial buildings at the city’s edge, but nothing industrious seemed to be happening in them. An open-air market was busy but looked more full of people than goods. John laughed to point out a Christian revival tent next to a brewery. The Tanzanian men wore shirts and slacks that had a clothing-drive look, but, if so, they were picked from the Goodwill bin with more taste than most Seattle bands show and more use of detergent, too. The Tanzanian women had on T- shirts or Western blouses, but also kanga s—yard-wide, twelve-foot lengths of brightly printed cotton cut in two to make a skirt and shawl. The kanga s were spotless, even when the women were working in the fields (something Tanzanian women have an equal opportunity to do; in fact, there seems to be an affirmative-action program in force). It’s not a dirty country—if you don’t count dust. It’s not a squalid country. There are no droves of the crippled and diseased, no beseeching for alms, no pestering of strangers, no evident public violence. Tanzania is not a nation suffering social collapse, but I’m not absolutely sure I mean that as a compliment. There’s the sad possibility that they just don’t have the cash for booze, drugs, and handguns. Seeing the people in Arusha going about their business—or lack thereof— should have been more depressing than it was. Describing the English poor of 150 years ago, George Eliot noted “the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want.” But with Tanzanians, there was a twinkle in that gaze. The women walked down the roads bearing all the burden of Tanzanian material possessions. These are few enough, but still a lot to carry on your head. And more often than not, the women were smiling. Their kanga s swayed and billowed. The printed cloths are embellished with slogans or catch phrases, such as PENYE KUKU WENGI HAKUMWAGWIMTAMA : “Don’t dry the millet where the chickens are.” Children rushed home from school as gleefully as if they were headed for rec rooms full of Sega games and Anastasia videos. (Tanzanian kids all wear school uniforms, in case you think that regulation is the answer to all ills.) Just the names of things in the country are cheerful: the No Competition grocery, the New Toyota Shoe Shine, the Buy-n-Bye minimart, and a long-distance motor coach christened So What. Merchants are nice to the point of chagrin over any commercial aspect of a visit to their stores. One shop had an apologetic sign posted in the window:

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online