My govt is willing to sacrifice a unique wetland for a hydropower plant.
At this point, it is a ritual that must be observed: The complaint about the weather.
In its own quiet way, the weather is going a little bit crazy here on the coast of East Africa; none of the drama of polar vortices or the coverage, but it is there. Dar es Salaam has been experiencing heat that is inhumane and summer is supposedly winding down.
To add insult to injury, extreme weather does something to the national grids of most places experiencing it. So predictably, our power utility has been blacking out, most frequently exactly when we are most dependent on air conditioning and for the majority, hardy fans.
Because this is a ritual repeated every summer I will say all the usual things I say. Let us plant more trees for shade; please stop paving your residential plots and putting up parking lots everywhere, because concrete is unforgiving. To those of you who pave because you are “afraid of snakes,” hey, this is Bongo, bwana.
The most dangerous reptile in the city is probably a politician and it has been a long time since any of them have been reported to actually bite a civilian with their own teeth. As far as the record shows, anyway.
Blah blah renewable energies, remember to conserve water and think a little bit about integrating nature-consciousness into your life and we’re only guardians of this city, and by extension this country and this planet we live on for future generations.
But. It is 2019 and Donald Trump, leader of one of the least environmentally “developed” countries in the world, doesn’t know the difference between climate change and weather.
Meanwhile, my government is willing to sacrifice a unique wetland for a hydropower plant that is going to be incredibly expensive to build, and I am not even sure we can take care of the infrastructure we already have.
I give up.
There is a saying in Kiswahili: “Mla ni mla leo,” which basically encourages a very short-term view of life. I always thought that resisting this self-serving consumerist and indulgent approach to life was the thing to do, but this is not acknowledging the tensions of adaptation or evolution.
We talk a good game about the environment but continue to insist on cooking with non-sustainable charcoal because “we’re too poor to adopt other technologies.” We want clean air and keep buying massive gas guzzling cars.
So, I give up. It’s not that there isn’t a green movement and an admirable one at that, but somehow it has remained at a grassroots level. It’s just not quite enough. I give up on waiting for the Big Push, Tanzanian policies that are less Trumpish in their obfuscations about the difference between climate change and weather.
Yes, let us embrace solar technology (seems a bit obvious for this part of the world) and compost and recycle and ban plastics.
But I have given up. So in preparation for an anticipated old age in which the weak will not do well, I have taken to walking in the noonday sun to boost my resilience. Mad dogs, Englishmen, and doomsday enviro-pessimistic columnists: see who makes it Mad Max style.
Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: elsieeyakuze@gmail.com