The rise and rise of ceremony industry in Tanzania

y = f(x) is probably the most re-used statement in math and engineering. Founded by Euler, it reads, y is a function of x. Emerging during Form Three additional math class, students instinctively hate it, but, hate or like, it comes to make permanent presence in our day-to-day lives. The stuff in parentheses can take a head-spinning complexity to describe a normal, uncomplicated scenario.
That brings us to the blog subject: Tanzania, by the ranking in the UNDP Human Development 2010 Report, is among the poorest nations in the World, ranking 148th in the 160-nation list of world nations. It is surpassed with countries marked by internal strifes such as Zimbabwe and Liberia.
Not only is Tanzania peaceful, it also has the largest landmass among the countries of East Africa, as well as many kilometres of rivers and square kilometres of lakes.
One might think with all this contrasting situation, Tanzania would be rushing to drag itself out of this fix at the bottom of nations to climb up to its rightful place where other nations with similar blessing on the human development chart roost, countries such as Malaysia (57) and Algeria (84). It is to the contrary: Where hard work to tap the fat of the land would be a logical direction, people have concentrated in providing services that has the effect of collecting the little money the individuals get (meagre salaries for employees, bribes for uniformed officers, corruption stash for politicians, and under-priced sales by farmers) and blowing it up in ceremonies. The function takes the shape

This is the social equation of ceremony. Sometimes ago, "ceremony" would be referring to wedding. No longer so. Now we do have graduation (from pre-school, from primary school, from o-level, from a-level, from first degree, from 2nd degree, from 3rd degree, from degree mills (pacific western type)etc. ceremony might also be referring to send-off and to bereavement.
Ceremony comes with many things, therefore the Schroedinger-like equation above. In that equation, c represents any of the several ceremonies named above. Mc is the Master of Ceremony. Some individuals that are wordy have been popular lately, whereby they do that alone for living. Since the carreer goes on in places one can hardly avoid liquor, and liquor has bad reputation of damaging vocal cords, they try to avert this by swallowing raw eggs every now and then, said to smoothern the voices. C is catering. D. T. SM. V etc. shall be the subject of the next post.

Technology advancement showed Aero the door

When I bought my Compaq Contura Aero 486 I was full of pride, for it was such a handy little thing. with 4 MB Ram and 170 MB HDD, it was cool, I was using Wordperfect 5.1 for Wordprocessing, Lotus 123 for spreadsheet and Harvard Graphics for presentation. Nicely compact, I used to carry it with me whenever I went.
With the hardware limitations that it had, I could only install Microsoft Windows 3.1 Operating System. That OS was running with DOS in the background. Then I got a break: a niece of mine living in Washington DC was coming over to Tanzania. I promptly searched (with Alta Vista, those days Google was unheard of, not yet born!)and located a store that sold stuff online. I requested her to buy me a 16 MB module that would bring RAM to 20 MB. It meant I would be able to install windows 95, no less. The "thingy", as we would refer the memory module, arrived instact, costing about $75, a Kingston KTC-Aero/16.

By and by, tek revolution took place, I acquired a pentium, but i still kept the Aero.
Recently going through some stuff i hadn't touched for years, I re-discovered the Aero. I uttered a yelp of joy, retrieved it, placed it on a desk and opened it. Mmmh! The liquid--or whatever the LCD screen is made up of--had kind of flowed out and the otherwise nicely turgid screen was shapeless like a bad shrinkwrap. I shut it and dropped it in the trashbasket. But wait, I told myself: the hard disk may still contain some data, and the memory module might be of use to someone somewhere.
Bye, tough little hero, I told it, you did quite a job during your heydays.

Contribution for weddings and stuff

Some interesting New Year resolutions, from Dr. Olomi

I wholeheartedly support Dr Donati Olomi in this analysis. Please share this widely. Sorry if you can't understand the language. Info applies for Tanzania.

Nimekuwa nafuatilia jinsi desturi ya kuchangia na kufanya sherehe kubwa inavyozidi kushika kasi, ikipelekea ule wigo wa kuomba michango kupanuka kiasi kwamba sasa hata mtu ambaye jina lako halijui vizuri anaweza kukuomba mchango.
Aidha michango na sherehe hizi zimekuwa mzigo mkubwa sana kwa baadhi ya watu, ikiwa ni pamoja na wale wenye kipato kidogo wanaochangiwa na kulazimika kulipa michango hiyo kwa miaka mingi. Je, wajua kuwa kuna familia ambazo zimefikia kulazimisha ndugu wauze mashamba au mifugo mtaji ili kupata fedha za kuchangia sherehe?. Je, wajua kuwa kuna watu ambao zaidi ya nusu ya kipato chao wanatumia kuchangia sherehe na huku wakishindwa kulipia huduma muhimu kama shule, matibabu, lishe, nk. Na kuwa wakati mwingine wewe au mimi (au wengine kama mimi na wewe) ndio wenyeviti na makatibu wa sherehe hiyo?. Na ni sisi tunaoona fahari ya kutumia milioni 30 au zaidi kwenye sherehe usiku mmoja?
Kuna kijana mmoja jamaa yetu juzi juzi alipata shule Australia akawa anatafuta mchango wa dola 5,000 aende. Alipata 2,000 na amwekwama kwenda. Mwaka kesho akisema anaoa tutamchangia milioni 15-20!!!. Hii si hadithi, ni ukweli, na ni kielelezo cha ulimbukeni tuliofikia.
Siku za karibuni nimetambua kuwa kuna kundi kubwa tu linasikitishwa na huu mwenendo, na hata kutambua kuwa tunaweza kuwa tunaandikiwa dhambi kubwa (na hukumu yatusubiri) kwa jinsi wengi wetu tunashindwa kusaidia mambo ya msingi lakini tunakuwa wepesi kutoa kwenye sherehe. Wengi wanaamini kuwa tumeshatumbukia kwenye lindi la mazoea ambapo hatuwezi kujitoa mpaka upepo uje ubadilike wenyewe!.
Mimi nafikiri wasomi tuna jukumu muhimu la kuwa chachu ya mabadiliko pale ambapo mazoea yenye madhara yanavuka mipaka na kuweza hata kuwa chanzo cha ufukara na kuviza maendeleo.
Ili kubadilisha hili jambo, lazima tuanzie mahali. Mimi napendeleza na kuanza kutekeleza. Kuanzia Januari 2011, nitapunguza michango ninayotoa. Nitatoa tu kwa mtu wa karibu sana , na nitachanga kidogo. Usishangae nikakuchangia 20,000/= kama ulitegemea 50,000/= kwa mfano. Kuanzia July 2011, nitaacha kabisa kuchangia sherehe. Badala yake nitakuwa nachangia elimu pale ambapo mzazi hayupo au mhusika kweli hana uwezo na pia nitachangia miradi mingine ya jamii na maendeleo.
Je waniunga mkono? Kama ndiyo sambaza huu ujumbe kwa mtandao wako.

Dr. D.R.Olomi
Box 35036 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

When occult took corporate dimensions

At a little village called Isimila, on the Iringa-Mbeya road (Highway A-104), there has been a tomb with reputation - a myth really. It is said when electrical power lines were laid to pass above the tomb, the power did not flow, no matter what technicins did to troubleshoot. Then the Iringa old "wise" men pointed out the reason - it's the tomb. The company then circumvented the tomb contrary to the survey map, and, lo, electricity flowed. The skewed-for-no-logical-reason lay of pylons provides a good fodder to tour guides.
Recently, though, when a road-building firm had wanted to run a straight path that would go right over the tomb, they were warned of futile attempts of works in the past.
I was tickled to learn that they contracted some people "who would risk their lives" to shift the tomb at a (rather exorbitant) fee. It's not uncommon to hear of shifting graves-even entire graveyards-out of "respect for the departed".
I'd love to hear explanation to auditors as to why the exercise of moving the solitary tomb should cost so much. To keep off spirits? Belief in the supernatural is commonplace in sports in Africa, some soccer teams even keep in payroll "an expert" who shall help "enhance" the team. Coach, it seems, takes second place...

2011 is here

The year past got me to think, is the clock going backwards? Religious skirmishes at several spots in the world, John-Silver-type piracy in full bloom, increase in belief in occult and zodiac among population (can you in your right mind believe the position of planet Mars will bring you luck? Aah!). Meanwhile politician continued making the country their playground, full of numskulls (numskulls that included professors and thousands of graduates). The stylishly-written contracts continued to benefit devil's agents. How much do they want to leave for their families when they croak, anyway? What's the point of stashing the steal in foreign banks, yet deny thievery?
Then came election, led by the star of change. Political bridge was shaken! indicator of what is in the future. Zanzibar election outcome was a win-win for all players.
I lost Ade, my sister, one of the closest to my heart. I owe her a book i must complete and publish for the world to learn a few things. More obituary, Dr Gregory Njau, Bobby Farrel.
Reunion of sorts, touching base with Brandon, Willemijn and Pallav. And Kissoon and Sheila.
2011 no much resolutions, except giving (however little i have) and coming to terms with procrastination.