On the morning of the 28th, we departed from TCDC to go to the Aang Serian office in Arusha. (Aang Serian is the NGO that is helping to promote/preserve cultural identity within areas that are struggling to do so.) There, they have a music program that allows young artists from the Arusha area to come and record their music. It was very loud and to the non-Swahili speaking ear sounded very Western. But after having the music translated for us, it became quite clear that these messages are nothing like what American hip-hop artists or rappers are singing about in their music.
This organization is run by two young men – and I kid you not when I tell you that there names are Freddy and Eddy. Eddy, or Edmund, helps recruit the young artists (or MCs as they called themselves) from the Arusha area. DIRA, as the program is called, equips the artists with a recoding studio, performing venues, the ability to distribute their cds, and a place to hang out, freestyle, get together, to talk about their music. Many of the songs have a very Western sound, like I said before, but the messages are distinctly Tanzanian/East African. One is about the political unrest in Kenya, and how the brunt of the pain and death fell on the shoulders of mothers and children. Another was about the frustration among young men and women, how hard it is for them to make a living, so they have to resort to moving away from their families to try and survive in the cities. Another was about the anger that artists have with the music industry, how so much of the profits go to the store selling the cd, or to the record company, so it becomes impossible for the MCs to make a living on their music even if it is good enough.
The office is housed right behind a giant mosque on Nairobi Street in downtown Arusha. Do the neighbors complain about the bass thumping and the baggy-jeaned youths that are hanging around the place? Not at all. The message of the music, the intent of the program, and the fact that none of the young people do drugs of any kind helps a lot. In fact, DIRA runs workshops and programs with young people in the area who are susceptible to getting involved with drugs, solely for the purpose of showing that there are other options for those hundreds of unemployed 20-year-olds.
After this introduction to the DIRA operation, we piled into our cars are drove four hours to the Ngorongoro crater. Well, we were actually staying just outside of the crater in a small village called Karatu. The Ngorongoro crater is the largest non-filled-in volcanic crater in the world. Very cool, very scary drive up there, though. Instead of trying to convey the coolness of it all, I’ll just post some pictures with brief explanations (but not right now, because the internet is slow). Basically, there are lions, cheetahs, wildebeests, zebra, cape buffalo, elephants, rhino, hyenas, servals, ostriches, hippos, Thompson and Grant gazelles, baboons, warthogs, and dozens of beautiful varieties of birds.
Sorry about the delay - here are some of the pictures!!!
okay, that second animal pictured made me laugh. what is that??
ReplyDeletehahaha yeah...that is a wildebeest. They are dumb as rocks, but very funny looking.
ReplyDelete