Community Spirit, Fever and Fun at the Arusha Festival!

By Charlotte Hill O’Neal

As soon as I got out of our car last Saturday afternoon and my feet touched the ground adjacent to the Clock Tower area, I could feel the electricity in the atmosphere around me. It seemed that everyone was headed in the same direction…straight toward Boma Road and the second day events at the Arusha Festival 2003! I just kind of went with the flow and let the energy of the tremendous crowd of people pull me along in its wake. After all, I was headed there too!

I’d been looking forward to attending and participating in this years Festival and was hoping that I’d garner the energy to defeat the pull of the fever that had been plaguing me due to a touch of flu. Even though I had started the walk up Boma Road still feeling a little weak and drained, the positive vibes of the people around me and the heart thumping beats coming from the waist high speakers of the sound system, soon had me practically tapping my toes up the street!

It seemed that everybody I passed had a smile permanently plastered on their face.

Everyone was in a jovial, carnival mood as they crowded every nick and cranny available along the sidewalks, spilling over at times into the street to get a better look at what was going on. And there was an unbelievable amount of activity going on: children’s three legged races and Maasai Dancers from Aang Serian Peace Village; the expertly executed stomping steps and twisting hips of the African Traditional Dance Group performing a series of Tanzanian ngomas; pizza actually cooking in a real red brick oven somehow loaded unto a Pizza Point wagon and barbeque chicken roasting on Khan’s grill smelling good enough to make even this ol’ vegetarian drool! The colorful flags of sponsoring companies such as MultiChoice, CocaCola, Kilimanjaro Lager and Celtel flapped freely in the wind transforming the freshly painted buildings up and down Boma Road and adding to the carnival flavor of the day. The many adverts present served to remind people to buy up as many raffle tickets as they could afford for the chance to both aid charitable causes and win all kinds of prizes including a balloon ride over the Serengeti and a slew of other prizes kindly donated by restaurants, hotels, beauty salons and many other businesses Arusha. The tables inside and outside tents groaning and stuffed with all kinds of clothes and textiles, beaded shoes, coiled and colored baskets, traditional Maasai jewelry (one table manned by one of the most elegant Maasai ladies around dressed in rows and rows of white beads coiled around her from head to ankle) and even in one tent, literature about the UNICTR!

What a dazzling array and fantastically surreal combination of stuff going on, it all was! And what tremendous work must have gone into making it all happen! And make it happen they did…they meaning the team of committed community volunteers that made up the festival committee including Fanuel Kagengere, Mary Luoga, Mama Mirambo, Lieven DeKoker, Mark Baseeporte, Paula Gremley and the lady with seemingly unstoppable energy and determination, Ms. Linda Smales of Jambo Makuti, one of the founding mothers, so to speak, of the Arusha Festival.

The sun continued to shine on that Saturday and I finally found an empty seat inside a smoke filled tent to catch my breath and enjoy the nearly 45 minute presentation of maigizo, rap and comedy put forth by Kush Kemet Actors, a group of talented artists based at the United African Alliance Community Center. I proudly followed those enthusiastic youth a couple of times with some poetry readings of my own.

What a joy it was to see so many of Arusha’s street children (or more correctly children in difficult circumstances) enjoy themselves, putting aside their daily trials and tribulations, racing up and down the street in unfettered excitement. I laughed out loud to see the looks of awe widening their eyes as they watched the expertise of the Mambo Jambo Acrobatic troupe, dreadlocks flying in the air, arms and legs twisted and balanced in seemingly impossible poses and their cheers of encouragement as they watched security guards take turns pulling the tons of metal that made up a huge crane truck and several waiters bearing trays of beer and water glasses balanced on delicately raised fingers as they competed for thousands of shillings and the cheers of the crowd.

As the afternoon sun began to fade and the chill of the evening began to invade my bones I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay to watch the antics of the famous musician and band of Mr. Ebbo nor hear the crowd cheering on Tanzania’s own Brother Mwisho during the live screening of Big Brother Africa beamed in by DSTV MultiChoice later on that Saturday night. My fever was on again, my energy level had pummeled and I was worn out by the day’s activities, but witnessing it all on that sunny afternoon had been worth it! I hope that next years festival will enjoy even more support from our Arusha community and municipal government and grow larger to encompass the road all the way to the Natural History Museum’s stage and tree filled grounds. It fills good to witness the growth of the Arusha Festival, an event that is sure to rival the Zanzibar Film Festival one day and I vow to be a part of the planners and organizers for next years Arusha Festival, Mungu Akipenda. How about you? 

Last modified: September 11, 2003.
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