Off to be born free
“Born free, as free as the wind flows. As free as the grass grows. Born free to follow your heart. Born free, and life is worth living. But only worth living. ‘Cause you’re born free.” Whenever we heard of the above ‘Born Free’ music, we cannot help but remember the spirit of lioness Elsa roaming the widespread plains of Africa. We had the unique opportunity to be there to experience the soul of Africa by going for the first time to Arusha, Tanzania, attending the World Press Council Assembly and North Africa Media Councils summit.
Arusha is a city in East Africa’s Tanzania, located at the base of volcanic Mt. Meru (fifth highest mountain in Africa). It’s a gateway to safari destinations and to Africa’s highest peak, 5,895m Mt. Kilimanjaro, lying some 100 kilometres northeast. To the west lies Serengeti National Park, home to wildlife including lions, rhinoceros, giraffes and leopards. Annual migrations feature huge herds of wildebeests crossing its plains. The city claims the title to being the fourth largest city in Tanzania. We were there close to a week, meeting many media colleagues across the globe, discussing on media issues of the day while exploring the various natural beauties of the country around the city.
The best way to a man’s heart
It is said that ‘The best way to a man’s heart is through is stomach’. And we do not have it easy in Tanzania. The key issue is that in Africa, rice is not the staple food. For five consecutive days, our diet suddenly changed from rice based to tuber and root-based staples. Instead of alternating between Basmati, Jasmine and Brown, we had the enviable selection of alternatives among sweet potato, yam, potatoes, and Ugali (a thick porridge made from maize flour). This sudden change of menu is something that we had not expected beforehand.
Another surprise constituent on th table is banana dishes. In our whole lives, we are totally unaware of the fact that bananas can be cooked into dishes. Hot banana soup, banana curry, banana with beef, banana stew, you name it, they got it. We cannot help but wonder how such a tasty fruit such as banana is not eaten directly and had to go through such arduous process to turn it into something that is not incrementally better off.
Jewels of the Nile
Tanzania is quite akin to Myanmar in a sense that it also produces precious stones, despite most of them being of questionable quality. Yet there is one type of precious rock that can only be found in this great state of Tanzania – the Tanzanite. The name itself indicates its origin. Contrarians might ask ‘how about Tsavorite?’ Well Tsavorite is found across the East African region, including Kenya and Tanzania. So it is not exclusive to the latter.
The last king of Tanzanite
How would the trip to Tanzania be complete without a tour of the famous Tanzanite experience. MI visited three out of four such places. The first one is at next to Africa Arts
Gallery, one of the major must-visit place in Arusha. The two-story shop there is as big as the gallery itself, selling everything from stationery to souvenirs to stones. There we managed to speak to the self-proclaimed king of Tanzanite. He apparently supplied all the tanzanites to Tiffany and to the 47th street jewellers in the Big Apple. A businessman of Indian origin, his family business is not just a global business, but an engagement in personal and corporate social responsibilities. The gallery itself was mainly sponsored by him and he teamed up with the UNOPs in many of the projects that help the less fortunate African children. Bravo indeed.
