Hakuna Matata – Tidbits from Tanzania

As Lisa and I arrived at the airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we were greeted with sniper fire and mortars. It was all we could do to keep our heads down and run for cover. Our greeting ceremony had to be held in the basement of the airport.

Tanzania is actually a lovely country. Some blogable moments came from our visit and I would like to share them with you.

George Bush – He looks awful. The president was in Tanzania a short while ago. A friend of ours, who works for the U.S. government in Dar as Salaam, met George Bush and was surprised by the president’s appearance – heavy lines on his face, gray hair, and a look of total exhaustion. However, Bush is loved in Tanzania. After all, he arrived with suitcases full of our tax dollars. He was there to personally review “President Bush’s Plan to Eradicate Malaria”. Funny how politicians always take the credit for and have their names affixed to things that other people paid for.

America Backers – We met several people that love the U.S. As I have stated in a previous blog, foreigners think highly of our country. On this trip we heard Tanzanians use words like wonderful, efficient, and freedom when referring to the U.S.

Chinese –We met a young entrepreneur in Zanzibar whose enterprises include a second hand clothing business. He buys tons of leftover clothes from Goodwill, Salvation Army, and similar companies and then sells them on the African continent to the poor who need them. This explains why we are forever seeing t-shirts of American sports teams on the streets of Lusaka and other African cities. He told us that his business is a low-margin venture anyway and then on top of that the Chinese have been successful in lobbying the Zambian government to impose a 100 percent duty on imported used clothing. This duty of course protects Chinese textile imports into Zambia. China is very quickly becoming an economic powerhouse in Africa because it is contributing to developing the continent by brokering business deals not throwing money at corrupt leaders like the West has done for years.

Shipping Containers – A note to the wise investor – when the dollar is weak, go into the shipping container business in the U.S. Our young entrepreneur friend also told us that shipping containers in the U.S. are very scarce right now. Of course with the weak dollar exports from the U.S. are way up. Consequently, shipping containers are leaving the country faster than they are coming back.

An Observation – Zanzibar is a traditional, Islamic island. Most of the merchants there are Muslim and conservative at that – women were covered from head to toe including face veils. My take was that it didn’t matter to them that we were Americans (Americans are easily distinguished from others overseas by our dress and accent). We had what they desired – money. We were welcome on their island because our business was valuable for them to take care of their families and build a good life. There is a lesson to be learned from this.

Let’s return to the opening paragraph for a moment. This story of our arrival in Dar es Salaam will be very affective if I ever run for president and need to show off my foreign policy experience. The best part is that there is no video to show that it didn’t happen.

Kenn Jacobine teaches History and English for the American International School of Lusaka, Zambia. Send him email at lovesliberty@gmail.com.