Category: Lifestyle

Morocco: Once a stopover, now a home for migrants

African migrants sit on top of a border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla during their latest attempt to cross into Spanish territory, on April 3 2014. (Pic: Reuters)

In a back alley in the Moroccan capital, the small household repair shop opened by Moctar Toure since escaping conflict in his native Côte d’Ivoire is doing a brisk business.

At the gates of Europe, Morocco has long been a transit point for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa looking to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

But tighter immigration controls and economic malaise in Europe have made the kingdom a destination in its own right for many.

In spite of the challenges that living in Morocco poses for migrants, Toure wants to stay permanently and got his legal papers last year.

“In the beginning it wasn’t difficult… it was impossible,” said the Ivorian, who migrated to Morocco nine years ago.

For several years after his arrival he relied on whatever odd jobs came up.

Toure struggled with a family to support, and it was only when he received his residency permit that he was able to secure a regular income.

With the help of local refugee agency Amapp, he got a roof over his head and rented a small space where he started his shop a few months ago in a working-class neighbourhood of Rabat.

Toure has even managed to employ a fellow Ivorian to meet demand from customers, most of whom are locals.

Although he is still working to integrate with society, “to return to Côte d’Ivoire would be something abnormal”, he said.

Multiple rejections
The alternative to staying in Morocco for many is a perilous sea voyage across the Mediterranean.

According to figures from the UN’s refugee agency, more than 2 500 people have drowned or been reported lost at sea this year trying to cross the sea to Europe.

They include people who have fled poverty-stricken nations in sub-Saharan Africa, preferring to risk their lives at the hands of people smugglers.

Those who remain in Morocco face a struggle to access education and healthcare.

This year, in response to a migrant influx and criticism from rights groups, authorities launched a scheme to naturalise migrants and refugees, who number about 30 000.

By the end of October, 4 385 residency permits had been delivered out of more than 20 000 requested.

Serge Gnako, president of the migrant organisation Fased in the economic hub Casablanca, arrived five years ago.

The 35-year-old Ivorian said he was deported several times and it was “difficult to access healthcare or to school your children”.

Gnako believes Morocco is changing, however, and is hopeful his one-month-old son will receive a solid education.

“I see our future in Morocco, and I hope my child will learn Arabic,” said the former university lecturer, who now teaches French.

Thanks to a recent ministerial ruling, Gnako’s local school in the residential suburb of Oulfa now has 15 students from sub-Saharan Africa.

‘No magic wand’
Migrants in Morocco still face problems after gaining residency, especially in finding work in a country where youth unemployment is near 30 percent.

“Your residency permit lets you look for work, not to find it,” said Reuben Yenoh Odoi, a member of the Council of sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco.

Many still consider “going to sea”, said Odoi, a Ghanian, referring to the treacherous maritime crossing to Spain.

Several hundred migrants recently tried to storm the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north African coast, leading to the arrest of more than 200.

Driss el Yazami, president of the National Human Rights Council, the group tasked with Morocco’s residency programme, recognises that the process is still in its infancy.

“Getting your papers is not a magic wand for integration,” he said.

In addition, tensions between local and migrant communities remain fraught.

In August, a Senegalese man was killed in clashes between migrants and residents in the northern port city of Tangiers.

But such impediments do not faze Simon Ibukun, a Nigerian musician who plans to settle in Casablanca.

“I’m Moroccan, and I’m working hard to get into the management business and become my own boss,” he said.

Zakaria Choukrallah for AFP

10 years ago

Miniskirt attack: This is not a Kenyan issue, this is an African issue

Women take part in a protest along a main street in Nairobi on November 17 2014. They demanded justice for a woman who was attacked for being dressed ‘indecently’. (Pic: Reuters)

It is a funny thing, the African’s relationship with his Africanness. Like the Christian discusses ‘the flesh’ when falling into the temptation to commit sins, the African brings up the question of Africanness when defending his anti-social behaviour.

When a group of men in Kenya put it into their minds to undress and assault a woman in public because she was dressed “indecently”, some African men defended this move and shrouded their argument in the opaque veil of Africanness. On Facebook posts of this story, top-voted comments included pleas to African women to remain “decent”.

Although it may seem perfectly natural for me to choose anger in such a situation, I decided to skip that step and muse on the meaning of “decency” in the mind of the modern African.

To whom shall we credit such a notion, but the missionaries? To me, it seems the term is only ever used to demonise some part of the African population. Whether it is homosexuals, or women wearing miniskirts, the question of Africanness is only ever brought up when violations of human rights are committed by Africans. But where did such an idea begin?

It is easy to surmise my previous conclusion, with an examination of even the simplest look into African history. With the introduction of European missionaries to African society came the idea of “decency” – more so the idea that the scanty attire of traditional Africans was indecent.

For how else can this notion develop organically in the minds of people who live in one of the hottest climates in the world? Surely, it cannot. We cannot claim that an obsession with covering up the bodies of women – a very Victorian obsession – could have developed naturally in the minds of African people.

I say “African” and not “Kenyan” because this issue is not confined to one African country. Just last year Swaziland talked about enforcing anti-miniskirt laws that were penned during, gasp, colonial times. Even in my native Botswana, there was a time when young girls were warned against wearing revealing attire at the bus station. This is not a Kenyan issue, it is an African issue.

To take it further, this is not a dress issue, it is an identity issue. More specifically, this is a crisis of identity. There must exist some conflict in the mind of a man deeming a woman in a miniskirt indecent when only a century ago his ancestors deemed even less clothing perfectly acceptable. Particularly when events still exist in the contemporary setting where African women dress in said traditional attire without protest from the very men happy to police the dress of women in urban settings. The disjoint in logic can only be rationalised by a mind in conflict.

In condemning the miniskirt, the modern African joins in the tradition of condemning his ancestors – a tradition inspired by the European missionaries of the 18th century.

I say this because even those that condemned the behaviour of these men used words like “barbaric” and “primitive” to describe them – in other words, they used the language of colonialism. Even in the minds of those that deplored this behaviour, there swam images of some immoral ancestors that went about undressing women.

This too is a symptom of an identity crisis, of associating decency with Other, and then going further to associate the immoral acts committed in the name of correcting indecency with barbarism, or quite clearly pre-colonial Africanness.

Both assumptions are founded in missionary teachings, whether asserters know it or not. It is this idea that pre-colonial Africans truly were morally bankrupt. This is incorrect.

Even in the most patriarchal societies (if there is such a scale), I doubt that undressing a woman in public would happen without consequence. The dignity of a woman may have not belonged to her, but it belonged to somebody (likely, a father or husband) and doing whatever it took to violate it would not have gone unpunished. Our ancestors were not a group of speaking baboons: they too, had standards of conduct.

Ultimately, when situations like this arise, it is necessary that we examine our thinking and then act accordingly. We cannot allow people to use African culture as a scapegoat. We must be able to see if anything is to be deemed “barbaric” it is the idea that enforcing European missionary ideals in modern Africa is in some way “right.” We must examine our beliefs about decency and dignity and reconcile them with a switch in thinking: with an embracing of the realities that we inhabit. It should be a priority for us in this day and age to correct mentalities that defend any violations of basic human rights and use understanding of history to inspire the creating of environments that nurture and heal our social, religious and mental conflicts. And for this to be done, we should know that there are no [insert african nation] problems, but African problems.

Siyanda Mohutsiwa is a 21-year-old mathematics major at the University of Botswana. She is currently slumming it in Finland. Follow her on Twitter: @SiyandaWrites

10 years ago

Quail farming: The new ‘side hustle’ in Kenya

While Kenyans went about their daily lives, a flock of birds, hidden in plain view, fluttered onto our dinner plates and captured a nation’s imagination.

Social media pundits describe them as a pyramid scheme. Skeptics sneer at this idea. Locals in the markets, at chama meetings and around their dinner tables never tire of discussing them. You see, these little wild things are at the epicentre of a health revolution in this nyama choma country. They should be. We Kenyans take ourselves too seriously and build too many castles in the air to notice nature’s solutions all around us. This time it has come in the form of a bird the size of a small fist.

A helping of two quail eggs a day is said to be the answer to multiple problems. One of its benefits is a rather well-known secret on the streets. Every witchdoctor’s cut-and-paste poster that hug school walls, lamp posts and every nook available, emphasises an endemic problem. “We cure male weaknesses!” is their tagline. Well, a simple quail’s egg is said to improve blood circulation as it strengthens the heart muscles, increasing the male libido and stamina. Packed with protein and low in carbohydrates and fat, a quail egg is not only considered a superfood, but an aphrodisiac too. Don’t overdo it though. A poor chap from Nairobi’s Komarock suburb gulped – on a friend’s advice – 30 raw quail eggs during a sleep-over at his girlfriend’s house. He woke up on the other side of town where people rest in peace.

The nutritional value of quail eggs is said to be about three times higher than that of chicken eggs. (Pic: Flickr / ilya)

Like everyone else, we dread poverty and aspire to the good life. We have to. The ugly face of poverty tends to relentlessly peep into our living room windows, its ugly grin announcing the fate that awaits anyone who slips. From local politicians, office workers, informal workers, public administrators, and even the jobless, every Kenyan is a hustler. The broke sod in the pub has to run errands, wash cars and wipe tables to earn just a cigarette or drinks.

Now quail farming is the new side hustle. It has attracted thousands of would-be entrepreneurs who have been bitten by the famous ‘wildebeest migration’ bug. Here’s how it works: One person tells his friends that his half-acre strawberry farm brings in a million bob every three months. The next thing you know, his friends have taken up strawberry farming and it becomes the in thing.

A quail farmer was featured in the local newspaper last year. His quail business was minting a fortune and incurring negligible expenses. You see, a quail bird is low-maintenance: it gobbles 20 grams of feed a day, unlike a chicken that consumes 120 grams. Within a few weeks, there were small banners on shop fronts, walls, and, street light pillars proclaiming the magical powers of this brown-freckled bird. Enterprising Kenyans quickly did their research and sent off their applications to the Kenya Wildlife Service to become… quail farmers.

Quail farming is a million-shilling business with the promise of boosting many incomes in a country where the masses are constantly chasing the elusive shilling. To qualify to be a quail farmer, one completes an application form from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), a government agency in charge of the country’s wildlife. Their officers then come around to inspect the cages for housing the birds. They need to be kept in a warm and dry place in well-ventilated cages that are far from modern pollutants. After their applications have been approved, farmers pay a fee of R150. Permit holders are also subject to impromptu inspections and any violations of the permit’s conditions can result in the licence being revoked. Last year the government handed out more than 5 000 licences, and thousands more are still pending.

The opportunities are boundless if one can capture the still young Kenyan market. However, KWS say the market is becoming saturated, so many farmers are now eyeing the more lucrative Chinese market. There are over 172 000 Google search results about quails from Kenya. The quail farming business has also taken off online – you can now purchase chicks or eggs from a number of sources.

In December 2013, a single tiny quail egg was retailing at slightly more than a dollar in Kenya. Considering a chicken egg costs 8 US cents, quail farmers were making a killing. A day-old quail chick was retailing at an average of R45. The problem with the wildebeest migration bug is that now the lucrative quail market is flooded by too many entrepreneurs and we are experiencing a glut. Like a gift from the skies, now the common man can enjoy the benefits of this bird which was previously only affordable to the middle class. Now, you can purchase a day-old chick for R15 while a quail egg costs between R2 and R3.

The gist of the matter is that this quail business is not only about money. As any health and nutrition buff will tell you, natural food is best! Lately our country is experiencing a surge in lifestyle diseases as western corporates scramble to satiate our rising appetite for junk food. The rich AND poor are dying in droves from cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart-related ailments. Our government has actually banned the importing and selling of GMO food products.

The reality is that cheap processed food is available everywhere, and is easier on the pocket, but the Kenyan middle-class is awakening to the fact that money is not true wealth, health is. Going green and eating healthy is the new rave. And consuming quail meat and eggs promises a plethora of health benefits. It’s said to be a detoxifying agent, an immune booster and stress reliever. It helps with digestive tract disorders, stomach ulcers, anemia, tuberculosis, heart problems, bronchial illnesses and diabetes. It can alleviate migraines and give you healthier hair, while keeping hypertension, digestive disturbance, gastric ulcer, liver problems and blood pressure under control. A quail egg a day may indeed keep the doctor away.

With all these ‘super natural’ powers, I suggest government should fund two quail eggs a day for each child in public school instead of wrestling with a costly laptop project that’s way beyond their depth. The quail phenomenon is a healthy socio-political, economic, and spiritual answer to Kenyans’ problems. Right now, I’m off to have my own dish of fried aluru (quail) accompanied by wild vegetable herbs and brown ugali (a cake made from corn).

Munene Kilongi is a freelance writer and videographer based in Nairobi.

10 years ago

Tanzanian women marry each other to escape domestic violence

Safety: Mtongori Chacha (left) and her wife, Gati Buraya, with their children. The women say their union saves them from abuse by men. (Pic: AFP)

It is 12.30pm and an older woman emerges from her tiny mud house. A younger woman is making some porridge outside.

These two women are husband and wife: they are traditionally married and they have children.

This practice is called nyumba ntobhu in western Tanzania. It is a traditional form of same-sex marriage. The two women share a bed as a couple, they live together, bear children in their union; they do everything a married couple would, except have sex.

In the Mara region, nyumba ntobhu allows older women to marry younger women in order to have children of their own and assist with the household chores. Women say nyumba ntobhu also helps them overcome problems of gender-based domestic violence.

Mtongori Chacha (56), who is married to a woman, Gati Buraya (30), says the traditional practice arose as a result of male violence against women.

It is also an alternative family structure for older women who do not have sons to inherit their property and whose daughters have moved away to their husbands’ villages. It offers a form of security for elderly women so they do not live on their own.

Chacha and Buraya have three children. Chacha says she decided to marry Buraya because she was unable to have children in her previous marriage to a man, who she says physically abused and tortured her.

To bear children, women who are married under nyumba ntobhu usually hire a man and pay him when the younger woman falls pregnant.

The hired man will also enter into an agreement with both women that he will not demand paternal rights to any children born out of the agreement.

The older woman is the guardian of the children and they usually take her surname.

Chacha says the man who impregnates the younger woman is paid with food or a goat.

In some rare cases, a man may return to claim a child, but Chacha says this can be avoided by choosing a man who is not known in the village or who is known to be irresponsible. These men are known as “street men”.

“I decided to run away from my marriage as I was humiliated and sometimes beaten nearly dead. At 45 I was not able to have children and I had to look for a new family to give me an heir to my property,” Chacha says while she feeds two of her children.

She says she could not accept the fact that she would die without children of her own. Her parents were rich and had many cattle so she chose to marry another woman who would give her children.

“Here, a woman will pay a lobola like any system of marriage in African culture, and the ‘wife’ is supposed to obey and live under the rules of her ‘husband’. Nyumba ntobhu is blessed by all the family members and accepted by the society,” says Chacha.

Agnes Robi (61) says she decided to pay six cattle to marry Sophia Bhoke Alex (25) after her six daughters moved away.

“She has given me one baby girl already, while we are still praying for her to get a baby boy who would take over this compound when I die,” Robi says.

It’s not uncommon for women to be prohibited from inheriting property in Tanzania. Initially, the culture of women marrying women was practised as an option for barren women. It enabled them to claim the children borne by the other woman as their own. This was a way of providing security for their old age.

But now it’s not only for those unable to have children. Some women choose not to marry a man because they say they want to avoid domestic violence.

Bupe Matambalya says she witnessed her older sisters “beaten nearly dead” by their husbands and decided that she would never marry a man.

Some villagers discourage the practice, saying it leads to an increase in the spread of HIV.

In some cases, nyumba ntobhu can be a polygamous marriage. The older woman will marry two younger women, who will both bear her children.

But nyumba ntobhu does not always save women from domestic violence. Take the case of Jesca Peter (25). She experienced domestic violence and humiliation even from her nyumba ntobhu husband.

“I was married to Nyambura, a 63-year-old woman. She had paid a dowry of six cattle and I moved into her compound. Within a few years of that marriage, Nyambura demanded that I have to look for my own food,” she says.

She says her union with Nyambura was unhappy and she was used “as a slave to just work and produce on her farm and look after her cattle”.

“She wanted children from me, which I bore her, but the relationship was unfriendly.

“We lived like a cat and dog. I was simply a slave for her,” says Peter.

She fled from the marriage and her parents had to return the cattle paid as a dowry.

Tanzania’s Minister of Information and Culture Fenela Mukandara says gender violence is prevalent in the Mara region, which is why nyumba ntobhu is becoming more common.

“When women decide to marry each other and live by themselves, it means there are extremely violent acts in that place.”

Florence Majani for the Mail & Guardian.

10 years ago

Dutch adventurer heads to the South Pole after driving a tractor from Holland to Cape Town

After driving a tractor the length of Africa, Dutch adventurer Manon “Tractor Girl” Ossevoort is setting out to fulfill a decade-long dream of chugging her way to the South Pole.

Asked whether people think she is crazy, the 38-year-old actress replies with a wide smile and bubbly confidence: “Only if they haven’t met me.”

She’s at least partly right.

“The world needs people who are a little crazy like this,” a burly South African tractor mechanic says as Ossevoort clambers onto a huge red Massey-Ferguson in a shed north of Cape Town.

Wearing a mini-dress in the summer heat, the ebullient new mother of a 10-month-old baby girl perches on the seat and chats about her epic trip as mechanics put the final touches to her beloved tractor.

Ossevoort will spend about 12 hours a day in that seat – having swapped her summer outfit for Arctic gear– as she heads for what she likes to call the “end of the world.”

She will make a 4 500-kilometre round trip across the largest single mass of ice on earth, from Russia’s Novo base on the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and back.

The MF 5610 tractor and support vehicles for Ossevoort’s trip to the South Pole. (Supplied)

When not pushed to the limits by the hostile environment of frozen mountains and deadly crevasses, she will have plenty of time to admire the scenery.

“Ten kilometres an hour would be good,” she says. “Fifteen would be nice, 20 lovely.”

Ossevoort travelled alone through Africa, but in Antarctica the tractor will need to creep forward day and night, so French mechanic Nicolas Bachelet will share the driving.

That way, they hope to make 100 to 200 kilometres a day and complete the trip in four to six weeks.

“I think I’ll love the experience, travelling the last leg in relative silence over this vast and white continent,” she says.

“It’s a beautiful last phase in a long pilgrimage.”

In total, she will be accompanied by a team of seven, including crew who will film the journey for a documentary.

‘Belly of a snowman’
Ossevoort began her trip in 2005, taking four years to drive from her home village in Holland to Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa – and then missed the boat that was due to take her to Antarctica for the final leg due to delays.

Frustrated, the former theatre actress spent the next four years back in Holland, writing a book, working as a motivational speaker and desperately trying to get back on a tractor.

With sponsorship from Massey-Ferguson and other companies, she and her tractor will finally fly to Antarctica from Cape Town this week and set off for the pole around November 20.

While fulfilling her own long-held dream, Ossevoort will be carrying with her thousands of ‘dreams’ collected from people in Africa and around the world.

Scraps of paper and emails have been converted into digital form and will be placed in the belly of a big snowman she plans to build at the pole – to be opened only in 80 years’ time.

“I want to turn them into a beautiful time capsule of the dreams of the world so that in the future children and people can read something about our dreams and not only about politics or war.”

Fear holds people back from pursuing their dreams, she says, and many believe that “putting them into reality is as impossible as driving a tractor to the South Pole”.

“The tractor for me symbolises this very down to earth fact that if you want to do something, maybe you will not be so fast but if you keep going and keep your sense of humour you will get there.”

The pull of her own dream is so strong it has trumped being at home for her baby Hannah’s first Christmas.

But she has the full support of her partner, airline pilot Rogier Nieuwendyk, who will look after Hannah while she is away.

“We’ll be there to meet her at the airport when she comes home,” he said, cradling Hannah in his arms as she phlegmatically watched her mother prepare to leave.

Ossevoort’s tractor is named Antarctica 2 in honour of legendary explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, who travelled to the South Pole on a tractor in 1958.

His vehicle was equipped with full tracks, however, while Ossevoort’s has normal inflatable tyres which have been slightly modified for better grip on the snow and ice.

Her progress can be followed on the website antarcticatwo.com.