The Outsiders: Tanzania’s Albinos
The first time I came across an albino in Dar es Salaam was during a drive home down Haile Selassie Road. There was this white guy walking down the road, his head covered by a floppy hat. So it’s a foreigner, I’m thinking. Probably a Brit or some other Euro. Definitely a mzungu. Mzungus stick out here like a sore thumb.
But this guy especially. And speaking of sore thumb: his pain didn’t seem to be limited to one finger. He didn’t look right at all. He reminded me of somebody disfigured, kind of like the soldier in The English Patient who was wrapped up like a mummy. Whereas the locals and most foreigners here walk with their heads held high, this guy was making every effort to remain concealed.
I saw him again a few weeks later riding a bajaj. It was hard to get a good look at him. I thought, okay, so an expat down on his luck, reduced to working odd jobs as a local. Unusual, but it happens. Next, a few weeks later: Euro expat at a traffic light, begging for money. Okay, so the bajaj job didn’t work out, or it didn’t pay enough, and now he needs to supplement his income.
I would see him again near Oyster Bay. At Slipway. Downtown, near the ferry. This guy gets around, I’m thinking.
Duh. Wrong, chump.
Ever heard of albinos? There are actually quite a few of them here in Dar. Everywhere in the world, you will have a certain hierarchy that usually depends on your financial status. There will be the super-rich, the well off, the middle class, the working class, the poor, the homeless, etc. Never fails. In the end money does talk. Even in Nepal, under the Maoist government, there would be the caste system that superseded even the most rigid leftist ideology.
Here it doesn’t take brain surgery to see that albinos are well beneath the poor, the homeless, and even the insects. Why are they discriminated against? For one, there is an old superstition that an albino’s body parts can be used by witch doctors to heal certain diseases. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The ivory trunks of the elephant, the horns of the rhino, the testicles of the tiger. Which should also tell you in which esteem albinos are really held here (below any humans, that is). Discrimination also happens because—and here we don’t need a history lesson to confirm this—of the color of one’s skin. I know, how odd. Discrimination in Africa, of all places. The irony is so thick you can cut it with a butter knife.
Here in Tanzania, responding lately to a spree of assaults against albinos, members of the Association of People living with Albinism are criticizing the government acutely for their passivity when it comes to prosecuting the perpetrators of violence against albinos. Lately, there’s been some progress (if you’d like to label the death penalty as such): four men were sentenced to death for their role in killing an albino woman while she was eating dinner. According to the report, not only did they kill her but dismembered her, chopping off both legs and a hand.
These days, it is hard to watch the news without watching an albino speaking out against the wrongs committed against them by their colored brethren, and by default the government. It’s a sad story and an equally sad fact of life here in Tanzania.
We can only hope we’ve learned from the past here and that a chapter can be written that will reconcile the hopes and dreams of everybody in this country.
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