After coming back from Kilwa, Sam and I still had one more day of weekend because of the national holiday Saba Saba (Seven Seven, because it’s the 7th of July). Schools and businesses close, and people from all over the country converge on Dar for a huge week-long trade fair. Our host father’s mother even flew in from Moshi!
The fair grounds were huge, and had pavilions for companies from all over the world. The range of products was incredible, everything from huge displays of plastic chairs to tasting stands for imported beer. All the government agencies got in on it as well, and set up impressive exhibits about their values, goals, and how they are going about accomplishing them. One of my favorites was the Parliament’s TV loop of pictures of each MP and which district they serve. The woman leading us through the booth explained that a lot of people don’t know how their government works, so Saba Saba is a good way to reach a large audience. My other favorite was the huge display by the American embassy’s both about the prominent role Muslims play in the states, complete with pictures of Muslim US soldiers praying.
After a full morning at the fair, we decided to head to the outdoor soccer stadium to try to catch the friendly between Yanga, a Tanzanian team, and Express, a Ugandan one. We had no idea what time the game started, and showed up almost two hours early. It was fun sitting in the stands and watching them fill up. I became more and more uncomfortable as the crowd got bigger and bigger. There were no clearly divided seats, just benches, which gradually got more and more densely packed. Eventually all the stairs were covered as well, but people kept coming. It got to the point that in order to get up or down, people were climbing the guard rail on the side of the stadium. As far as I could see, Sam and I were the only wazungu (white foreigners) in the whole stadium, and I was one of only a handful of women. This has never really bothered us before, but for some reason it was a bit scary at that moment. The game started, but still more and more people kept streaming in. We became increasingly aware of the fact that, having gotten there really early, we had pretty good seats. For the first time since we arrived in Tanzania, we felt very unwelcome. As the game went on, the men around us got more and more intense. While at first their yelling seemed like fun sports rivalry, it gradually shifted into yelling about us. With the language barrier we could only pick out small snippets, but they included things like, “This isn’t for the English, this is for Swahili people!” By halftime we were no longer having fun, and decided to catch a taxi home.
Talking about it later, Sam and I decided that it probably would have felt safe if we had been able to understand none or all of what was said about us. And perhaps it would have been better to go on a different day – we all know how public holidays can be. I was proud of us for being willing to leave, even though we were definitely made fun of for it. Sometimes that’s just part of traveling.
4 comments:
one of the unfortunate experiences of travel as a stranger in a largely homogenous population is the potential to become the symbol of a community's prejudice,one of the fortunate experiences of travel as a stranger in a homogenous population is the potential to become beneficiary of the community's pride and cultural beneficence.
As Rabbi Penn teaches, the Torah states “Do not wrong the stranger in your midst” (Exodus 22:20. Rabbi Penn says that this includes offending someone by pointing out that he is the “other”, creating a distinction between him and the rest of the community, making him an outsider in the land. I suppose if one merely listened to Rabbi Penn more one would not need to travel to far off places to learn stuff.`-but then again, the food is more interesting when you travel
I think you were wise to leave. Normal inhibitions can break down in crowds, especially if sporting passions are running high. There are myriad examples of group violence breaking out in soccer stadiums (though admittedly often brought on by English yobos). Ignoring taunts in a passionate crowd would not have been smart. I applaud you for sizing up the situation and choosing to act rather than sit.
just saying hi!!
I agree with my dad. Something i'd like to add, however, is that while one of the unfortunate experiences can be the target of a prejudice attitude, a fortunate experience can be proving that this attitude may be wrong. Clearly, trying to do so in that setting wouldnt have been the best idea, but i had a lot of people ask me questions about americans when i was in europe that made no sense to me. One family thought that we didnt have ovens, we only heated things up in the microwave. They were also slightly surprised that no one was really fat. Ha.
Post a Comment