New Year's Eve with a twist

If someone asked me where I would like to be on New Year's Eve, I would have said, my bedroom. That's where I have always commemorated the New Year for the past few years. Pressed to name an exotic place, I would probably have mentioned Uhuru Peak on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

What happened this New Year's Eve, I would not have imagined. I had to travel from Butiama to Dar es Salaam on Thursday through a flight from Mwanza that normally takes off at around 2000hrs and arrives in Dar before midnight. However, before I left Butiama for the two-hour drive to Mwanza, I was informed that the Air Tanzania flight was delayed and would leave Mwanza at 2300hrs. And so it was.

An hour into the flight and about 30 seconds before the stroke of midnight, Captain Karim interrupted a quiet but chilled cabin half-filled to capacity and began to speak, but I could not make much sense of what he said having just woken up from a nap. But I caught his mention of the fact that we had left Mwanza in the year 2009 and would arrive at Dar es Salaam in the year 2010.

I realize there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of travelers who take a few hours and two years between two destinations, but it felt unique to experience it myself.

The Captain then began a countdown to the New Year. A week ago if someone suggested I would be in an plane on New Year's Eve at 20,000ft above Tanzania, I would have said that was interesting dream.

My wedding jacket

I saw part of my wedding suit in Dar es Salaam recently. For some reason I cannot explain, the jacket is in Dar while the trousers are at Butiama.

For no good reason I tried to wear the jacket and after a few minutes of considerable effort that reminded me of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro I managed to put it on, leaving a gap of a few inches between the single button and the button hole. I knew I had outgrown the jacket, but what I was on my wedding day and what I have since become could not have been demonstrated in a more striking manner.

I don't consider myself overweight, given my height, but the fact that I fitted into that jacket when I got married is amazing. There ought to be a law preventing people who have not reached their body's expanding potential getting married. Such a law would be particularly relevant for people who marry their partners for their bodies.

Letter from Butiama: Married life in the village

When an old man of the Zanaki ethnic group approaches his home after dark, he begins to sing at the top of his voice his kibanziko, a song usually sung when an old man has had more than enough to drink, and whose purpose is to alert everyone, from as wide an area as possible, that the head of the household is returning home. Any man at the house who cannot satisfactorily justify his presence will know it is time to leave, quickly. Every old man his his kibanziko.

No self-respecting elder of the Zanaki tribe will be caught sneaking upon his wife trying to catch her in the act of committing adultery. It is behaviour that is frowned upon.

Ginga Kihanga, 93 years old, told me elders 'scare' away 'intruders' rather than risk confrontation that may lead to serious injury or even death.

This does not mean, however, that no one was caught in the act in the past. During colonial times,* those who were caught were humiliated in public, stripped naked, lashed by strokes, and made to pay a fine of two cows. The exception was when the Chief was the complainant; he was free to impose any fine.

The kibanziko serves another purpose. Kihanga said normally acts of adultery were committed in the bush, some distance from the matrimonial home. The biggest insult that any Zanaki man can suffer is catching the pair at his house, so, in fact, the singing is aimed at preventing what otherwise can be a huge embarrassment in the community.

It is likely that this leniency stems from the old tradition of arranged marriages. Young men were married to young women because their parents said so, not because they wanted. However, before parents concluded the marriage arrangements, the newly-weds would already have had separate relations with other partners. And it is probably in suspecting that the newly-weds were likely to retain some attachment to their pre-marriage partners that Zanaki society came up with a safety valve called kibanziko, to give room to old lovers by minimizing the risk of confrontation with the husband.

Normally the kitungo was someone's first choice in marriage, but had to be set because of the arranged marriage. Since arranged marriages were compulsory, they only succeeded in bringing together two individuals who had no affection for each other. Consequently, relations between the two were more like those of adversaries than partners. The man ordered around; the woman, within limits, remained relatively stubborn. Relief was sought in one's kitungo.

As with many other traditions, the kibanziko is also falling victim to the passage of time. Today, the young arrive at their homes in the evenings unannounced. I also suspect they cannot sing as well as the elderly.

Who can blame them? In most songs that young people listen to nowadays, the 'singers' rarely sing, they spend more time talking.

*Before 1961

- This is an edited version of an article published in the "Daily News" (Tanzania) on May 15, 2005.

The late Alex Nyirenda Remembered

Lt. Alex Nyirenda, with Tanganyika's flag and the Uhuru torch, at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro on the eve of Tanzania's independence, 9 December 1961 (Photo courtesy of Tanzania Information Services)

It is the first death anniversary today of Brig. Alex Gwebe Nyirenda who died in Dar es Salaam from throat cancer.

At the eve of Tanzania's independence, Brig. Nyirenda hoisted Tanzania's flag (then Tanganyika) on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro as the Union Jack was lowered at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam.

Two years earlier, former President Julius K. Nyerere, in a speech to the Tanganyika Legislative Assembly, said the following:

We the people of Tanganyika, would like to light a candle and put it on top of Mount Kilimanjaro which would shine beyond our borders giving hope where there was despair, love where there was hate, and dignity where there was before only humiliation.

That candle (which came to be known to Tanzanians as the Uhuru torch) was placed on Mt. Kilimanjaro by Nyirenda, and signalled Tanzania's long and unwavering commitment to the liberation struggle of those African countries that remained in the early sixties under colonialism and white minority rule.

Brig. Nyirenda was the first Tanganyikan in 1958 to graduate from Sandhurst Military Academy in England. He also became, prior to independence, the first African to become an officer in the King's African Rifles.

He was also related, through a common ancestor, to former Zambian President, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, which is a stark reminder to Africans that they are often closer to each other than artificial boundaries would indicate.

Visitors to Butiama

I had the privilege recently to receive at Butiama doctors from the Medical Women Association of Tanzania (MEWATA) who had just completed a visit to the district of Tarime.

I remember only two names: Dr. Brenda, because she mentioned her name as she was about to pull out a donation for the Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Library comprising former President Julius K. Nyerere's 8,000-plus book collection, and Dr. Lillian, because she called me to inform me of their intention to visit Butiama.

Dr. Lillian, (second from left), and Dr. Brenda (right) with their colleague (third, from left) donating to the Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Library

During their visit, one subject that came up in conversation was what has been known for a long time as female circumcision, now known as female genital mutilation.

I feel it is rather difficult to influence those communities that indulge in the practice just by attempting to isolate one link in a chain of events that revolve around the transition of a young woman from one age group to another, a transition that allows acceptance into the next group and recognition by the community.

A member of the community who does not go through this transition becomes an outcast. The only possible means of avoiding this transition is by avoiding the community itself.

In front of the Mausoleum of Mwalimu Nyerere

A Masai friend told me that a Masai woman who skips that stage cannot get married and that remains true of many ethnic communities throughout Tanzania. Changing attitudes among these communities has to involve a dismantling of deep cultural roots and traditions that have solidified with use over centuries, no doubt a difficult task.

The continuing migration from rural to urban areas will eventually create a new generation of individuals whose links with these traditions will be severed and the practice will die with time.