My Photo Scholarship 2010 Entry

The motor of Kilimanjaro III vibrated my achy body as the ferry pulled away from Dar es Salaam. The sea breeze evaporated the sweat from my face as the ship picked up speed toward the island of Zanzibar.
After three mind numbing weeks on a jolting truck ride through Eastern Africa, I needed the gentle, chiropractic massage of a rocking boat to realign my mind and body. During my confinement, I had read African history and watched my African experience speed by, but I really wondered what the real Africa was like.
“Is this your first time in Zanzibar?” a voice to my left asked.
I looked over into the smiling eyes and matching tooth chipped grin of a sharply dressed young African with designer sunglasses on top of his closely shaved head.
I answered yes.
He told me he was covering the island’s annual Sauti za Busara music festival for a special weekend edition of his new television show.
I was more interested in the TV show than the music festival.
He skillfully opened up his laptop and navigated to a video clip that played a hip-hop beat as a Tanzanian dala dala taxi van rolled up on screen. The exterior portrayed a bright yellow and orange African sunrise with silhouettes of people in the foreground. The interior transformed into a mobile television studio that could still fit upwards of 14 people inside.
During the week, this lawyer turned media man offered men and women of Dar es Salaam a free ride and while in transit interviewed them about their daily lives. Recordings were then produced and the voices of Tanzania were shared on screen each night.
Impressed by this young man’s open and honest approach to communication, I was curious about the kind of questions he asked.
“Everything,” he immediately replied.
So I began asking him the questions I sought on this African trip. Over the course of two hours our wave of communication covered everything from family to corruption to tourism to natural resources.
As he told me about the Africa he knew, loved and believed in, I smelled the African soil, I saw the crowds running to his taxi van, I heard their voices, and I felt the warm love Africans have for family and for each other.
At one point he said, “I’m not afraid of anything.” I believed him.
This young man found a way to live for the moment, for the truth and for his country.
I had wondered what the real Africa was like, but I realized this concept didn't exist. There was only a New Africa and he had just spoken to me.