And Home Was Kariakoo Read Online Free

as readily as the taste of a much-loved fruit: a mango, say, or a ripe jackfruit.
    The man responded, “Hongera.” Meaning, well done, congratulations. He stamped my passport. I was back.
    The population of Dar is about that of Toronto, or any large western city. The country, once a small trust territory, has a population surpassing Canada’s, and the East African countries, once again contemplating an economic community, have a combined population of 130 million or more. There are any number of natural resources. There is therefore all kinds of potential. The only question is whether corruption will eat up the wealth before it has a chance to improve the lives of people—bring textbooks and teachers to schools, for example, and illuminate the dark nights of the villagers. The city itself has expanded, swallowing up the outlying villages and neighbourhoods: in the evenings, blinding streams of headlights stretch for miles on end, almost as far as Chalinze, the junction from where the road branches north towards Kilimanjaro and Nairobi. Construction proceeds apace, and taller and fancier office buildings are in evidence everywhere in the newer business areas skirting the old Gaam. Andyet the city only manages to look physically uglier. One has to admit, beloved Dar never had a sense of urban beauty and proportion, never saw much use for green spaces and trees. What there was of grace was due to its small size and colonial look; that has mostly gone.
    But Dar to us is not what she looks like, it’s what she is.
    In Toronto there is a hangout called Safari where former denizens of Dar es Salaam gather in the evenings, where you might hear Swahili spoken, if not always full conversations then at least frequent expletives learned from the streets of Kariakoo and Gaam. It is a strange place, in a strip mall in an old European ethnic neighbourhood where an attempt to create an India Town around a cinema some years ago was snuffed out by the advent of VHS. The space is narrow, the lighting dim, and the patrons are all in their forties or over—bachelors, men who’ve taken leave from their families for a few hours, and couples, who can drink beer or whisky away from prying, sanctimonious eyes. The lingo is Dar. The owner and chef is also from Dar, a former rough-boy from Boyschool, now mellowed; a woman, perhaps with dyed hair, might stand at the front and sing sad Hindi film songs from yesteryear on karaoke, taking requests; a child might be waiting for her, at a table, with a book or laptop. You might wonder who exactly she is, why she has to do this. A depressing place, this, all in all, for its utter and unspoken nostalgia, its desperate and somewhat furtive ambience, and even the raucous laugh or argument sounds forced. You might come here before putting a bullet through your head. But it has other merits besides alcohol and familiar accents. It makes mishkaki, what the Kenyans call, crudely, nyama choma: grilled meat on skewers, East African style; it serves also fat, white mhogo (cassava) chips. But most important, what gives the Safari its imprimatur is that it serves meat kababs—round in shape, fried darkbrown, and subtly spiced—that conform to the gold standard of Gaam’s venerable KT Shop. With the kababs come coconut chutney. This is Gaam in exile.
    KT Shop in Dar—abbreviated “KT”—is itself infinitely more cheerful, though a hole of a place. It’s on a short road off Jamhuri Street that’s not been resurfaced in half a century, a stone’s throw from where years ago the Odeon used to bring regular fares of Bollywood. It is a narrow and shallow space, with six low tables set against one side wall, which faces a long and tall counter, behind which sits a bored manager. Behind him is an oversize Liverpool Football Club poster. On the back wall is another large poster, faded but framed, showing the great mosque of Mecca. The chai and kababs are legendary. For decades, Asian shopkeepers and salesmen stopped