On the Streets of Dar es Salaam

Here’s a poem I wrote 2 years ago while visiting my sister in Africa…

 

On the streets of Dar es Salaam:

Owner-less vendors sell dignity and bananas-

Flashlights and globalization-

Speak in tongues, but still spit American slogans.

Potholed pavement, lucky to be paved.

Missionaries searching for the unsaved.

Sad, saggy, somber eyes

Asking why I’m in their country,

Because they were already colonized-

Children cry more from mzungu than hunger-

They know hunger-

Tired, work-worn hands never waver,

Except when escaping wasteland shackles.

I keep my digital camera close to my hip…

Not for fear of it being stolen,

but rather because I don’t have the courage

To take snap-shot  memories of others’ troubles.

Of happy-less smiles.

Hand-me-down tourist clothing.

Shanty town homes.

Tired, broken bones.

Click-click-click shoot the heartless drones.

Real life is not a spectacle to be mocked,

To be hung on my bedroom walls-

-I have walls to hang it on-

Poverty is NOT art.

The heat covers the streets,

The way I’m looked at makes it difficult to eat,

My humility and retreat to discover my own greed-

For the souls on the streets of Dar es Salaam my heart bleeds.