Culture Clash: Islamic Nation

Amateur observer: Islam in TZ, month 3

Muslim dress mixed with Western dress is the norm in Dar es Salaam for men and women. As you can expect, Westerners, Indians, Arabs, and people from other Middle Eastern nations dress the same as they would in their own countries. Dar is a very tolerant place. Tanzanian’s themselves are usually Western style, and our Muslim landlord dresses beautifully in Western and African dresses draped in Indian shawls.

The Abaya, full black robes with a veil covering the face from the nose down and black gloves, are a common sight in Dar es Salaam. You see them in the streets, often without the chaperone that the media tells us is supposed to accompany theses conservative Muslim women when they are out in public. They carry flashy purses and wear super heavy Cleopatra-style eyeliner. The outfit itself is a paradox. Nearly all of them I see shopping in the malls or going to movies are totally decked out in sequins, making the women look like disco balls when they move in the sun. A roving disco ball contradicts the whole purpose of the garment, which is to be hidden from the world, right? And the veil is usually totally ineffective. Whenever these women bend over to look at something or pick something up, the veil falls forward and the full face is revealed. It’s one of our favorite people-watching games, “did you see her face? Yeah, caught it!” It’s our little innocuous thrill at glimpsing the asininely forbidden. (yes, I just made a judgment there.)

I must admit I know I nothing about the community of people who wear the Abayas, or if they would even be open to a foreigner asking them about their dress. My instincts, based on influences like media and growing up as an American, tell me that if I tried to ask one of these veiled women for directions in the street, their husband would be neighborly and assist me. Let’s face it, someone draped in head to toe black with a veil is not screaming “I’m friendly, feel free to ask me how the weather is.” The black veil abaya is intimidating and keeps the woman from being harassed, spoken to, and touched. So when they walk by themselves into a boutique, isn’t it intimidating to say “how can I help you?” and I wonder if men and women can offer shop assistance or only women?

But the sequined disco ball frocks, unaccompanied shopping trips in the street, heavy eye make-up and flashy purses give a different story. These are not Taleban women, wearing the frock under threat of violence. There’s some sort of balance between choice, religious obligation, and tradition that I just don’t get because I’m from a totally different world. Again, a culture clash.

Dress as a culture clash is not something we’ve ever had a problem with, and to be honest I don’t agree with making head scarves into a human rights issue. Westerners who attack how Muslim women dress usually don’t seem to have spent a lot of time with religiously active Muslims (neither have we, but we work and live alongside them everyday) and I think are confusing traditional obligations with violent intimidation. I admit to this: I secretly believe that covering women eyelash to toenail relates to a fair amount of evolutionary baby-mama paranoia gone wild. But I also believe that changing traditional dress has to come from the Muslim world, and as a Westerner I don’t have the spiritual equipment to allow me to understand why women have to cover their heads and bodies but men dress like they do in Texas and Arkansas. (Well, okay, most Muslim men dress more chicly, actually.)

Most Muslim women who dress conservatively in Dar es Salaam, but not in full black and not with the face veil, are very approachable. They have power in their places of work, and (if they are foreigners) usually hold supervisory and managerial jobs in banks, corporations, service agencies, etc. Like every other business, some know exactly what they are doing in their work and handle themselves professionally, others don’t. The black veils do NOT come out in the work place. I don’t know if it is because Abaya wearers don’t work, or if they have a different dress for work. Few of the conservative dressers choose to wear gloves, but some men and women will choose to bow their head politely during an introduction rather than shake the hand of a person from the opposite sex (this rarely happens in professional relationships).

Sometimes you see conservative Muslims sitting altogether in restaurants, and other times the women are segregated from the men. But I have never felt that the conservative women in Dar are shy. And they talk loudly and gesture widely just like a soccer mom at junior league game in shorts and a fanny pack. If you are sitting looking at a map next to a conservative family, I mean full frocks (face uncovered) and the men in beards wearing doppas, there’s a good chance that they’ll ask you what you are doing and if you need help. Dar is like that. Actually, come to think of it, that same scenario happened to us in Mumbai, also, and the family itself was from South Africa, so maybe it isn’t just the city culture, but the Muslim culture as well…………….

In Kinshasa, we lived within a kilometer of a mosque and heard the call to prayer in the morning, at 7am, and at sunset. It was lovely to hear, soft, and didn’t wake us up if we were sleeping in. It’s a different story now. We don’t live in close proximity to a mosque, so someone has taken it on himself to walk through our neighborhood with a bullhorn from 4-6am screeching prayers. I know of no polite way to say this: the dude can’t sing. It’s terrible! The first time I heard it I was offended, but now I have to chuckle. If he were onstage the audience would throw tomatoes at him. Luckily he rarely passes directly on our street, so often we just sleep right through it.

Dar is no stranger to Islamic extremism and terrorism. In 1996, the US Embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, Kenya were bombed nearly simultaneously in coordinated attacks. Over 200 people were killed and more than 2000 injured. All but 6 of the dead were local people. Al Queda took credit for the bombings, and US security strategy immediately shifted to the African frontlines in the form of humanitarian and development assistance. Bush’s visit to Tanzania in March was downright popular, they loved him. The reason? He pledged $750 million to Tanzanian in development assistance, and then he went hopping out with Maasi. As one Tanzania reflected, Bush was in a mosh pit with Maasi warriors carrying daggers, when in the USA you couldn’t get that kind of contact with him. Bush remains that guy you could sit and have a beer with (oops, meant to say soda water J), which in the USA wins elections. But in Africa, it wins elections and allows you to take over the military and central bank, change the constitution, ruin the economy, and stay in power for decades until an entire generation of citizens can’t write their own names and are in no position to know for certain that their leader is bad, because, after all, he’s a good guy to have a beer with. But I digress…………

Yes, a terrorist attack happened in Tanzania and yes, it is a Muslim country. But it ought to be apparent to any non-Muslim coming here that to equate Islam in Tanzania with terrorism is highly offensive. It’s not something I would ever bring up with colleagues because it’s like saying because I come from the USA I must be a cowboy. It’s just extreme. Apart from some Muslims choosing to take on conservative dress, religion is no more apparent in everyday life here than it is in the USA. I’m still not going to approach a woman dressed in a black veil until someone tells me that it’s okay, but apart from the cater-wauling going on every morning through the bullhorn, I don’t feel like I’m asked to make extreme or uncomfortable changes in my behavior or dress in Tanzania. The disco-bar down the street blaring hip hop offends me more than anything else here. It is a new and interesting life living in a Muslim country, but then again Tanzania is very tolerant and accepting.

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Introducing the Paka: Cappy & Canelo

Paka means “cat” in Swahili. It was the first word I learned in Tanzania (apart from that stupid Jambo song that Hollywood plays whenever it sets a movie in Africa.) The reason I learned it first is because we brought our cats with us from the Congo when we moved to Tanzania. Travelling in and out of the Congo, or any African country, is a special experience, and doing it with animals even more so. I was very worried, especially after hearing that a USAID employee lost her cats at the Kinshasa airport when a porter dropped the cage and it busted open. Not until she arrived in France was she told her cats didn’t even make it on the plane! After hearing that story, I bought 2 rolls of duct tape and made sure the cages were completely secure no matter what happened

First of all, to bring animals on any flight you have to make the reservation in advance, which is just asking for trouble in the Congo, because of course this gives the cargo people time to alert the airport officials that some rich foreigner is ripe for the pickings. The moment we walked into the airport we were accosted by men in white robes claiming to be veterinarians. Guys in white coats are NEVER hanging out at the front of the airport, so clearly they had been called in just for us. Then came an hour-long negotiation about what kind of "tax" I was supposed to pay on the cats. They never actually looked at the cats, and kept insisting I had to pay an import tax. They even produced some decrepit looking law book from the 1950s which said I had to pay an import tax. There was no possibility of explaining what the word “import” actually meant!!

Finally we settled on $20, but then had another problem when I insisted on a receipt with full name and identification. Didn’t exist. I got something that sort of looked official but was certainly not a receipt and I had to insist that they write their names and phone numbers on it, just in case somewhere down the line more “vets” required yet further import taxes. But happily then I was directed to the sanctuary of the Kenya Airways Cargohold, where at least I had some recourse (and the Kenya Airways Cargo HQ phone number to complain to) if I got shaken down further. A nice tip insured not only that the cats got on the plan but that I also received a text message from the boss confirming it (always get it in writing!)

In Kenya, we had a 1 hour layover, and I already had the number of the Cargo people, so I called to make sure the cats would make the transfer to the next plan. Of course, Cargo had no idea about it. By the time I got onto the tarmac to board the plane, there was still no confirmation about the cats, so I spoke to the crew on the ground about whether they expected to receive cats. I then stood there on the tarmac, and politely declined to board until I saw the cats arrive. They were actually totally cool about this, even though I sort of held up the plane by a few minutes. And then the cats arrived, I was ushered quickly onto the plane, and all was well.

Until we got to Dar es Salaam, that is. Going straight to the cargo hold, we said Paka and there was absolutely no comprehension or expectation of cats arriving from Kenya Airways. There were, however, alligators and other reptiles boxed up for travel to the USA, which was really intriguing. After a big run around, driving back and forth from the cargo to the airport to get signatures, they finally located the cats. But, then we also had a bag in cargo. We asked to have the bag released as well, on the grounds that “the cat food is in the bag.” More running around, and 6 hours later, the bag was released. But when they went to look for it, it wasn’t there. It hadn’t even arrived. After all that effort I’d spent in Kenya making sure that the cats arrived, it didn’t occur to me to also make sure that my bag would arrive as well. Unfortunately this was the start of Easter weekend, which in Tanzania means 5 days national holiday. (which makes sense, being a Muslim country and all……….. ?)

We had nowhere to take the cats at that point, because it was nearly midnight and we had no house. So we tentatively covered up the cages, parked in front of the front door of the Holiday Inn, waved off the bell hops, and booked it across the lobby with screeching cats under blankets up to our room. Mike, who was thoroughly enjoying himself, nonchalantly hopped back down to get our bags like we didn’t just run cats into the hotel illegally and everyone saw. I stayed in the room waiting for the inevitable knock on the door from management. But it never came.

In the end we didn’t get the bag left in cargo until the next week, so we needed to search out grocery stores that sold cat food. I went traipsing all over downtown asking everyone I saw for “Paka” food. No luck, so I ended up buying some puppy chow instead. That worked for about a minute, and then I think the cats caught on that they were eating dog food and walked away in disgust. After that, it was Holiday Inn room service leftovers and whatever sausage I could sneak out of breakfast.

For the next week our refugee cats hid in the room with us. We wouldn’t let the maid in to clean, and I made a makeshift litterbox in the bathroom. But by the 7th day they’d started marking their territory. We knew where the house was that we were to move into, but the owner was making a lot of repairs and we couldn’t move in for some time to come. So we dumped the cats in the garage there with food and litter for another week until we could move into the house ourselves. By the time we finally insisted on moving into the house, the cats were thoroughly traumatized. Cappy, who is the bully, was visibly depressed. I’ve never see a cat depressed before, I didn’t know it could happen, but he was clearly unhappy. Canelo, on the other hand, never was too bright to begin with, so recovered quickly.

The paka are now back to their old habits: sleeping during the day and playing jungle cat at night. But for the first time they have to contend with a host of other animals in the yard, and it’s been tough going from their coddled city life in Kinshasa to “country” living on the Peninsula of Dar es Salaam. They’re crap at trying to catch rabbits, and were getting beat up regularly by the local strays. But they’ve toughened up a little, and now Cappy is the valiant defender of the back porch, and Canelo keeps the wandering kittens at bay. They still haven’t learned how to climb trees, though, and think the guinea fowl are shite (couldn’t agree more). And the rooster terrifies them. But they keep the mice away!

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