Twenty-two-year-old James Robert is a native of Tanzania. Tanzania is located in East Africa and lies on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It is the land of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain in Africa, and the spice islands of Zanzibar.
Robert was born in the northern part of the country in a region called Shinyanga. When he was five, his family migrated to the southern part of the country to the region of Mbeya, seeking more fertile land for agricultural purposes. His family still lives there.
Robert now lives in the capital city of Dar es Salaam. He is a government-sponsored, second-year computer-engineering student at The Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology. Since Robert has lived in Tanzania all of his life, he was helpful in providing insight into teen life in Tanzania.
“Tanzania is divided into two blocks: rural and urban. In these two areas, the lifestyle of teens is pretty different,” says Robert.
Robert says that in rural areas, many teens aren’t afforded the same privileges as urban teens, such as educational opportunities. Those who come from rural areas often come from poor families who make their living off the land.
“[Rural] parents have no ability to simultaneously feed and pay school fees for their kids, nor are they able to buy stationery and school uniforms.”
He says that cultural traditions often dictate a teen’s future. Robert is from the Msukuma tribe and explained that in his tribe women are discouraged from pursuing education and are instead encouraged to marry at a young age, some as young as 12, to men far older than them. He says men, on the other hand, are responsible for looking after cattle.
“That is the way of life for teens in rural areas here in Tanzania,” says Robert. “Because there’s no electricity in these areas, the teens are not able to see movies, attend concerts, or other things of the like. What most teens do for fun in rural areas is play traditional drums and participate in other cultural rites.”
In urban areas, things are different. Robert says parents are usually more educated, have good jobs where they receive a regular salary, and live in homes with modern conveniences. As a result, teens have better opportunities. However, urban areas also attract many “street teens,” some of whom are orphans, who live off the streets and engage in prostitution, drugs, and other activities just to survive. Tanzania has a high incidence of AIDS.
In rural areas, teens dress according to culture, but in urban areas it is common to find teens wearing T-shirts and jeans, sporting familiar brands like Nike®, Fila®, Calvin Klein®, Fubu®, Reebok®, Adidas®, Puma®, and others. Women tend to follow American and European fashion. Tanzanian teens are real big on expressing themselves through different hairstyles, too.
“Walking around the streets in Dar es Salaam, you can meet teens with different hairstyles. And style is not only in hair; the women like well-colored nails.”
For Robert, life in Tanzania is good. One day he hopes to travel the globe to get exposed to other cultures. He says what he likes most about his country is that it is “blessed to be a peaceful country.”
“There are no fights or any kind of factions that endanger peace in Tanzania. We live in peace, regardless of our poverty, and we thank God for that gift,” says Robert.
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