The last few days have been quite eventful or typical, depending on how you look at it.
Lost luggage. People left in different countries. People getting threatened by government officials to be sent to different countries. Arguments and nearly fisticuffs in airports. Sleep deprivation. Lateral violence. Some serious anti-Black racism. Class distinctions. Traffic. Laughs. Tears. Pure joy. Communitas.
This is my first time back in Tanzania since I was living here as a grad student in 2011. Here, meaning Mwanza and Arusha. I’ve visited Dar es Salaam, but never stayed longer than a couple nights. And unfortunately, this trip is too whirlwind for me to go back to Mwanza and Arusha and see old friends that I promised over a decade ago that I would be back.
In 2011, and the reason why this blog started, I admittedly knew absolutely nothing about the Continent. I came with a very naive and romanticized view of ‘Africa’ - a vision that was framed by an orientalist perspective. While I was in Tanzania (and you can go back to the posts I have here), my views and position of why I was there with Western Heads East, shifted completely. I became more aware of the white saviourism (I didn’t have the language to call it that back then) that I was a part of.
It made me feel icky.
But that experience (and 2011 as a whole) changed my life completely.
What I listen to, how I dress, how I engage with people, how I think, how I move, and what I want from life have changed.
Some would say that is the natural progression of becoming an ‘adult’, but if you knew me before I climbed Kill-a-man-jaro, to now, you would understand what I mean.
And no, I’m not some bleeding heart that went to ‘Africa’ and has now decided to move to ‘Africa’ and build an orphanage (for the record, I do want to move to ‘Africa’ but for completely different reasons I’ll save for another post). I would argue that I’m probably a much more hardcore workaholic now than I’ve ever been. But the way I see this place, and feel in this place, and exist in this place (and at home) is completely different.
Yes, I now have a PhD and onto my third career. I can afford not to eat microwave burritos. And I have a lot more hair, beard, and tattoos.
It’s important to put that all in perspective in the context of the past 11 years.
I had a student yesterday that was quietly sitting by himself during one of the school visits. I called him over and we started chatting. He didn’t trust me at all. And rightfully so. All he saw was another ‘white’ man coming for something to take away from him and his country. He asked: ‘what’s in this for you?’
He was right and made me think.
Then when were speaking, it came around to ‘don’t people hate on you because of how you look? Being Black, your tats, hair, etc.?’
He was right and made me think.
But we chatted for the length of the event. Asking how I got here. Asking what he wanted to do in life. Asking about some of my challenges.
There is no moral to this story, but to really think how much I (and many other Black people) in Canada don’t get to see themselves. And not through a prism of racism or trauma, but to really have someone force them to see who they are and what their ‘success’ means to complete strangers that have nothing invested in them. And most likely will never see them again either.
This is now my fourth visit to the Continent. By the end of this trip I would have visited 10 countries here.
And no moment was more important to me than sitting in a hot auditorium in Dar es Salaam with teenagers teaching me about who I am.
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