Year: 2013

Ramadan in Sudan: The tie that binds

There’s nothing like Ramadan in Sudan. To be more specific, from my personal experience, there’s nothing like Ramadan in my hometown of Khartoum.

This year marks my second Ramadan away from home and, like they say, you never really realise what you had until it’s gone. There are so many things that I miss, but I mostly miss the sense of solidarity that binds the people of my country during such a month.

I used to spend many hours of my fasting days in the streets of Khartoum. There is something majestic about how people carried themselves around; walking around the various streets, markets and bus stations, going about their daily business while bearing the grunt of the staggering heat of Sudan’s sun, trying to eke out a living in today’s harsh conditions.

It is not the lanterns and well-lit streets and alleys that make Ramadan so special, rather it is the scope of distinct practices and traditions that are ever so unique. It is the call for Maghreb prayer and the events that follow. It is the people gathering around the mosques minutes before the sun sets, some worshipping in silence while others converse about their families, the weather and politics. It is that first sip of cool water that quenches the thirst of a hardworking bus driver who spends his entire day driving a rundown vehicle with no air conditioning, and suffers blasts of hot air coming from a broken window. It is that group of volunteers who stop you in the middle of the road at the sound of the azaan (call to prayer) to offer you water and dates to break your fast.

Men break their fast on the first Friday of Ramadan in a mosque at Umdowan Ban village outside Khartoum on August 5 2011. (Pic: Reuters)

It is family. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would light up at the sight of my sisters, mother and I entering her warm home just in time for Iftar (breaking of the fast). She would kiss each one of us and ask Allah to protect us. It is her blessings, her smile and the wisdom in her eyes. It is tasting the food made with love; the aseeda (porridge), mulaah (sauce) and delicious soup just before we set off for prayer and later on commence our first meal of the day. It is the sugary gongolez juice, helo mur (a drink made with sorghum and spices) and hibiscus poured into enormous glasses. It is the long Taraweeh prayers that I used to always struggle with on the first week of the month after stuffing my face like it’s the last day on earth.

So no, it is not the lanterns and well-lit streets and alleys that make Ramadan what it is in a place like Sudan, a place that lacks the kinds of festivities that other neighbouring countries have the privilege of exercising. It is the kind of love that is portrayed in the simplest of conduct, and in the crudest of times. It is the tie that binds.

Maha El-Sonasi for 500 Words Magazine, an independent online magazine about Sudan. It is an amalgamation of various thoughts and opinions on Sudanese society, culture and life, and provides a platform for discussion among Sudanese youth. Connect with 500 Words Magazine on Twitter and Facebook.

12 years ago

Car shopping with the help of Dar Es Salaam’s taximen

It may be that nothing brings out a man’s emotional side quite like helping a woman buy a car.

A few months ago I lost Maggie, my trusty chariot of several years. She was a big-hearted Suzuki Jimny that could never go above 60kph, but had enough 4-wheel drive muscle to pull cars three times her weight out of bogs. I named her Maggie, like Thatcher, a solid name for a tough can-do broad. Even the rainy-season potholes of Dar were no deterrent to her. While thousands driving lesser cars got stranded in the suburbs at the slightest tropical downpour, Maggie would confidently navigate the dangerous rapids at Shopper’s Plaza bridge, not to mention the deceptively deep Lake Millenium towers – both on important tarmac roads connecting to the city.

But she’s gone now. While I know that nothing will ever feel as perfect as her gearshift cupped in my hand or the way her engine growled on cool mornings like a smoker waking up, I can’t help trying to look for a car that has some of her spirit. Good news came recently – one of my taximen had found another fiesty little Suzuki that I might be interested in.

Let me explain a little bit about the real taximen of Dar es Salaam. They are amazing. In the course of a couple of years, you can build relationships of trust usually only enjoyed between a client and her lawyer or a patient and her doctor. They’re the guys who will pick your kids up from school, buy your utilities when you run out, deposit cash at the bank and never charge your Mama when she sends them on an emergency trip because they know to bring the bill to you.

Nothing is beyond them, not a 3am am pick-up at Julius Nyerere International nor a hunt for an affordable apartment in the mixed neighborhoods off the Old and New Bagamoyo roads. I put out the word about a month ago that I was in the market for a new ride. My taximen understood what kind of car might pass muster as a replacement so when Tony called me about a potential candidate, I knew I was in safe hands.

Little did I realise how much my knights in shining motor vehicles would invest in the quest! Or how dramatic they can be. As I took the potential purchase for a test drive it was impossible not to smile at the guys – two taximen and a mechanic – who came along. They preened over my familiarity with a manual transmission. You’d think I had performed cardiac surgery.

(Pic: Flickr/Daniel Oines)

Yet within hours of kicking the tyres of this potential purchase I had to counsel Tony, who was having a meltdown about hidden costs. The next day I had to calm down Mwinyi who could barely speak through his tears because he couldn’t get hold of me for two hours in morning to warn me about the hazards of a V6 engine. I was in a meeting for goodness sake! If these men weren’t so damn cute with their concern, this would be a very vexing situation.

What does a feminist like me do with such chivalry, when I have always considered it the other side of the chauvinism coin? I don’t know what kind of women they hang out with – all the best drivers I know are hardcore stick-shift women who drive like girls and thus keep their beloved cars roadworthy and unscratched for decades. I usually take my cue from these capable dames, but in this situation it just seemed churlish not to let my taximen lead the way. Hysteria included.

Because no matter how hard I tried to detect any condescension or outright patronising I just couldn’t. Mwinyi taught me everything I know about preventing salt-air corrosion in the car body, the regular replacement of spark plugs, fan belts and oil seals. They are inordinately proud of my independent lifestyle – especially the part where I can drive a stick shift. Haji and Saidi debate politics with me and have helped me out of more than one tight spot in life. If getting a little unhinged in their zeal to help me secure a new car is part of the deal, what’s a bit of craziness between friends?

It is not just the taximen in Dar who are crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside, which is secretly one of my favourite Swahili Coast quirks. I’m not crazy, I do like a man who is in touch with his inner mother hen. But when you actually have to deal with that from your male support group? Eish. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know if the sale will go through, the owner is a tough but fair businesswoman and we’re facing off over the last couple of hundred thousand shillings. Wish me luck. No seriously, wish me luck. The mental health of my friends is hanging in the balance, bless their sweet and sensitive souls.

Elsie Eyakuze is a freelance consultant in print and online media from Tanzania, working mainly in the development sector. She blogs at mikochenireport.blogspot.com. Connect with her on Twitter.

12 years ago

Transgender in Africa: The great divide

Two Ugandan activists, Cleo Quentaro and Kim Mukasa, speak about their struggle for recognition in their country and the abuse they endure in light of the proposed anti-homosexuality Bill.

12 years ago

African art is flourishing thanks to the newly wealthy

When one of Nigeria’s biggest media moguls began collecting contemporary African art three decades ago, he was one of the few Africans in a niche market dominated by western connoisseurs. But as African art becomes more sought-after globally, that is rapidly changing.

“Some of the things I bought just for aesthetic pleasure years ago are now worth millions,” said the wealthy businessman, who did not want to be named for fear his home could become a target for thieves.

“A lot of people on both sides of the pond are waking up to the fact you can make big money in contemporary [African] art,” he added, reclining on a golden sofa in his Lagos home crammed with expensive art from across the globe.

As African economies outperform the global average, a collectors’ scene is booming among emerging elites and a growing number of foreign buyers.

When Nike Davies-Okundaye began selling adire – a Nigerian traditional textile art she learned from her great-grandmother – in the 1960s, “only expats liked buying, even though our forefathers were already art lovers”, she said on a walk through her gallery, which sprawls over four floors. It’s the largest in west Africa.

Nowadays she has a global clientele and, increasingly among locals, young business people wanting to invest their money in safe assets. “Young Nigerians are now driving the art scene – they are becoming the biggest patrons of Nigerian art,” she said.

Growing incomes colliding with a rich history of visual arts have seen fine art sales soar in other African countries too, said Davies-Okundaye, who helped establish one of Kenya’s first art galleries in the 1980s.

The boom has been most pronounced in Nigeria and South Africa,the continent’s two biggest economies, which between them account for half of Africa’s billionaires. Increasingly, local rather than imported artwork adorns the walls of many glitzy offices and restaurants.

“One stockbroker I know recently went and bought so much art he didn’t know where to put it. He actually had to put some of the paintings on the ceilings,” said Arthur Mbanefo, a prominent sponsor, visibly distressed by the collision between art and Nigerians’ flair for exhibitionism.

As African nations replicate a trend witnessed by emerging countries, such as Brazil and India, over the past decade, the fever is also sweeping across international galleries and exhibitions.

Last year El Anatsui’s New World Map tapestry – made using flattened bottle tops of cheap African liquor – sold for a record-breaking £541 250 at a Bonham’s auction of African art.

“Artworks from hitherto unacknowledged regions of the world, not only Africa, are being collected as artworks rather than curios or ethnological objects,” said the Nigeria-based artist, whose colossal outdoor installations draw huge crowds to galleries in Berlin, Paris and New York. Nevertheless he dismissed the “African artist” label. “Art is a universal sensibility,” he said.

El Anatsui’s installation “Ozone Layer and Yam Mound(s)” was exhibited at the Old National Gallery in Berlin in June 2010. (AFP)

This year Angola became the first African country to win a prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and, in London, the Cameroon-born curator Koyo Kouch plans to show work from the continent at Frieze.

This month, London’s Tate Modern opened its first major exhibition of work by African artists Meschac Gaba of Benin and Sudan’s Ibrahim el-Salahi.

“Before, there would be moments of huge interest and then another 10 years would pass before we saw anything,” said Kerry Green, head of Tate’s African art acquisitions committee, which was set up last year.

Ibrahim El-Salahi poses for a photograph in front of his painting entitled “Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams” at the Tate Modern in London on July 1 2013. (AFP)

A gallery assistant sits among part of an installation, entitled “The Museum of Contemporary African Art” by Meschac Gaba at the Tate Modern in London on July 1 2013. (AFP)

“Acquiring African collections before was very much ad hoc,” added Green, whose team visited Nigeria for its first annual trip, and plans to visit South Africa and Cameroon next year.

Some worry that huge sums of money flooding in to the region could distort attempts to police a fledgling art market. “We have had people return objects they buy from the roadside which turned out to be heritage art stolen from this very museum,” said a worker at the national museum in Lagos.

Nevertheless, sellers are scrambling to feed the growing appetite. At a recent sale in Lagos, an auctioneer was flown in from London. “We wanted it to be someone really up to scratch,” one of the exhibition’s Lebanese curators explained. Pausing to air kiss a passerby, he added: “Also, it gives prestige.”

Monica Mark for the Guardian

12 years ago

Jesus Inc: Paying for miracles to happen

A man wobbled across the podium leaning heavily on his crutches as the preacher beckoned to him with outstretched hands. The mammoth crowd at the Kamukunji grounds in Nairobi fell silent in anticipation. The preacher asked the man a few questions and then boomed into the mic: “In the name of Jesus I command you to walk!” The man immediately threw down his crutches and trod unsteadily around the stage. The crowd burst into delirium. Some people fainted.

My colleague who was standing besides me shook with quiet laughter. He knew the “disabled” guy, Joel, since they both live in the Kangemi neighbourhood. Joel is a hopeless drunkard. To finance his drinking habit, he takes on casual jobs – like this one.

Kenyan worshippers are seeking divinity in “miracle” churches and dubious pastors who’ve sprung up all around the country. They command a huge following and are raking in money – millions, even – through, among other things, their claims of miracle healing. One session can cost as much as R300. In addition to this and weekly donations from congregants, the pastors sell anointing oils which cost between R15 to R50 a bottle. The oils have a short shelf life – anything from a few days to a month – so believers have to stock up on them regularly to keep “miracles” flowing in their lives. No wonder, then, that these religious leaders can afford posh mansions and Range Rovers – and that they make the news for the wrong reasons.

(Graphic: Kenny Leung)

Take Pastor Michael Njoroge of Fire Ministries, who reportedly slept with a prostitute last year and then hired her for R200 to attend his Sunday mass service with a disfigured mouth. With a cloth covering her mouth, sobbing because of her shame, the woman performed like a pro in front of cameras. Njoroge, who has a slot on a Christian TV station, prayed for her at his service. The next day she was back in his church with a perfect mouth, giving testimony of the miracle in front of a transfixed crowd. Soon after the incident Njoroge was exposed by Kenyan news channel NTV but his loyal congregants stood by him.

Then there’s the billionaire businessman, politician and pastor Kamlesh Pattni, who was charged with conspiracy to defraud the government of Sh58-billion in the Goldenberg scandal. He was cleared of the charges in April 2013 but not of his notoriety. Pattni has established his own church and provides a free lunch to his growing congregation every Sunday. Who doesn’t want a free meal?

Pattni could soon be receiving a hefty Kh4-billion of taxpayers’ money after winning a legal tussle over exclusive rights to duty-free shops in two Kenyan airports. The hefty award, however, is being challenged.

Let’s not forget Pastor Maina Njenga, the former leader of Mungiki, a criminal gang known for extortion, ethnic violence, female genital mutilation and other horrific crimes including the beheading and skinning in its strongholds in Nairobi and central Kenya. He spent a long stint in jail and was released from prison in 2009. Njenga then became a born-again Christian, and set up Hope International Ministries. He professed that he changed his life around but few believe him.

Like many Kenyan pastors, he was quick to enter business and politics too. Last year he threw his hat into the ring for the presidential race but quit due to a lack of funds.

Money troubles are not something Bishop Allan Kiuna and his wife Reverend Kathy have to worry about. The influential, doting couple run the Jubilee Christian Centre in Nairobi which has an ‘international media ministry’ with video and music production and book publishing. They’ve come under fire for their luxurious lifestyle on social media, but Reverend Kathy makes no apologies. “We serve a prosperity God,” Kathy said in an interview with True Love magazine. “God wants us to be prosperous in every single way. His desire for us is to walk in abundance. I am praying for church people to show the likes of Bill Gates dust!”

But the gold prize for the miracles business goes to Kenyan Archbishop Gilbert Deya, who was previously based in Peckham, UK. The evangelical pastor who has been photographed with European royalty, prime ministers and presidents engineered a miracle babies scam, claiming to be able to make infertile women fall pregnant. British women travelled to Kenya to “give birth”, but were actually given babies that the pastor and his wife Mary had stolen or abducted. Suspicions were raised when a woman claimed to give birth to three ‘miracle’ babies in a year, prompting an investigation. DNA testing also revealed that there was no genetic link between the women and the babies they’d apparently given birth to.

Gilbert Deya arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London on 1 November 2007 to fight an attempt to extradite him to Kenya to face child theft charges. (AFP)

Mary was eventually arrested in 2004 for stealing a baby from a Nairobi hospital and passing it off as her own. She is currently in prison for child-trafficking. Deya was arrested in 2006 in London and has since been fighting his extradition from the UK to face charges of child theft in Kenya. He has denied the charges, but this particular quote stands out – of course, it was all God’s idea: “I have been judged by the media as a child trafficker, which is a slave trade, but miracles have happened. God has used me and I tell you God cannot use a criminal. They are miracles.”

Given the numerous scams orchestrated in the name of God, it’s no surprise that a generation of young Kenyans is becoming increasingly sceptical about religion. However, it’s a pity that there are still plenty of desperate and ignorant Kenyans around to keep the Jesus Inc industry flourishing.

Munene Kilongi is a freelance writer and videographer. He blogs at thepeculiarkenyan.wordpress.com