Missing Machingas

This week was fairly uneventful. Went to class, and all that. I turned in my revised proposal to Barbara, but I haven't heard back from her yet. I hope I don't need to revise it again. On Friday I went downtown with two of the LCCT people. We went to Epi D'or, the french bakery, for lunch to celebrate having turned in our revised proposals for our research project, and walked around Uhuru street looking at all of the cloth vendors. I like eating at Epi D'or. The women that work there tease us if we don't stop by for a while. Usually when I am downtown I stop in and say hello and talk. I don't eat there very often, but I do like to practice my Kiswahili outside of talking to Irene who makes fun of me.

It was strange walking around. Usually there are vendors lining the sidewalks, walking up and down the streets, offering you clothes, shoes, mosquito nets. The vendors lining the sidewalks, the daladala stops and walking the streets are petty traders, in Kiswahili machingas. For the past three years, the government has been trying to get them off the streets of Dar. They want to present a "neat, clean and organized face of our city" (The Citizen editorial). Previous attempts to move the machingas by force has not worked, and after a while the machingas would return to selling on the sidewalks and streets. This time, the government gave a six month period in which the machingas were supposed to move their business to specified areas in the city. The government also provided funds or supplies for the construction of small booths in these areas. So at the end of September, the deadline came and the streets were suddenly a lot emptier. According to the newspaper, most areas of the city haven't had any problems with machingas refusing to move. But in the Tegeta area, among others, some machingas refuse to move, and the police are keeping a 24 hour watch to ensure that they don't move back to their old sites.

It's very odd walking around Samora Avenue and Kariakoo without the machingas. It some ways it's relieving because there aren't skirts, shirts, mosquito nets, you name it being pushed in your face. On the other hand, you need to actually go to the assigned machinga areas or find a store to buy things. Ubungo daladala stop is also very different. It almost feels empty because there are no machingas lining the sidewalks around the station, on the sidewalk in front of the station, or even on the platforms where you wait for daladalas.

As long as the government is able to ensure that the machingas will all have space at their designated areas, have good bathroom facilities, and aren't evicted from their new locations, they might be successful in creating the new face of Dar that they want. On of the problems is that it doesn't sound like there is enough space for all the machingas in the designated areas. Part of the reason that machingas would work in the streets was that they could move and find an optimal location to sell. We'll see how it goes.