My Africa Today

Tanzania, popular for its wildlife and beaches, expects tourism earnings to exceed $1 billion in 2008 thanks to marketing in North America and Europe.

“This year, we are going to embark on an aggressive marketing campaign in our major source markets,” Peter Mwenguo, managing director of the state-run Tanzania Tourist Board, told Reuters on Friday.

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Mwenguo said the accommodation problem was being tackled.

“For instance in the Serengeti there are four new areas that are being offered for investment for lodges. Already there is a lodge being constructed,” he said.

“I know the Aga Khan Group is due to put up three new properties in the southern part of Tanzania.”

The Aga Khan Group has shares in Serena Hotels, which has two hotels and four lodges in mainland Tanzania and one hotel on the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar.

Tanzania’s visitors come to enjoy its beaches, scale Africa’s highest mountain Mount Kilimanjaro or watch animal migrations, to and from Kenya, in its renowned Serengeti National Park, in the north of the country.

Tourists also have a chance to pursue sport hunting, which Mwenguo said brings an average of $14 million in licence fees.

Reuters Africa

What are your interests and what do you enjoy doing the most?
I enjoy modeling. Fashion is my passion. Music is also something I am interested in.

What is your career ambition?
My ambition is to be an engineer as well as a top model and also a fashion stylist.

Describe where you were raised and what your childhood was like.
I grew up in the Shinyanga region in a normal family. Shinyanga is a region in Tanzania that is known for its minerals, especially diamonds, and is also reputed to be endowed with precious stones. I had a happy and fun-filled childhood where laughter and adventure were a part of every day life. I also frequently visited the mines in the area with my family and friends.

What do you want the judges to know about you?
I am an electrical technician by profession as well as a top model in my country. I never let anyone define me neither by hair nor clothing as I believe God made me perfect as a pure, natural African woman.

Miss Tanzania, Flaviana Matata, an electrical technician whose country is participating for the first time, is also challenging stereotypes of beauty with her shaved head. ''I never let anyone define me neither by hair nor clothing as I believe God made me perfect as a pure, natural African woman,'' she said.

Donald Trump, who now co-owns the contest with NBC, says the Miss Universe Organization has redefined beauty pageants.

''With each passing year our ratings continue to get better because of the beautiful and intelligent women who participate in our competitions,'' he declared.

But the Miss Universe competition is still judged solely on an interview and swimsuit and evening gown competitions, continuing a tradition that began with a spat over a swimsuit more than 50 years ago. California's Pacific Mills clothing company launched the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants after the 1951 Miss America, Yolande Betbeze, refused to pose in its swimsuit.

Miss Universe is considered a wilder rival to Miss America, which offers scholarships and values its talent contest more than its swimsuit competition. Other than Vanessa Williams, who stepped down in 1984 after Penthouse published her nude photographs, Miss America has had relatively few scandals. But risque photos and public drunkenness have increasingly landed Miss USA and Miss Universe contestants in the tabloids.

The documentary, directed by Hubert Sauper, focuses on the area surrounding Lake Victoria in the African country of Tanzania. The lake has been over-run by the Nile Perch, a large fresh-water fish that was accidentally introduced 50 years ago. This has created a huge supply of fish for export to Europe, which has made a few businessmen quite wealthy and provided jobs for many of the people who live around the like. But the species has decimated the eco-system, including the smaller fish that used to provide much of the food for Tanzania's population. And because Europeans can pay much more for the Nile Perch than ordinary Tanzanians, few of the people living around the lake and in the wider countryside can afford to eat what was once a staple of their lifestyle. Economists talk about globalization bringing down the price of commodities, but the opposite is often true in the Third World.

Sauper does a nice job of giving the feel of the lake towns, interviewing everyone from the owner of the fish factory to the pilots who fly the food back to Europe to the homeless boys who eke out an existence on the street. He spends much more time with the marginalized Africans than with the ecologists and economists who are often trotted out in these kinds of movies. This helps us understand how the problem has impacted the native townsfolk, though it makes it harder for us to understand the full scale of the problem. We see the particular rather than the general. But given how often economists and politicians talk about Africa and globalization in general terms, I welcome a movie that shows us how those abstractions are impacting specific people.

Darwin's Nightmare is shot in ugly-looking digital video, but the format certainly makes it easier to get the range of interviews Sauper does. A pair of scenes that focus on a group of boys is both touching and harrowing, as is a long sequence that shows how resourceful Africans use the cast-offs from the fish factories. Sauper also spends a great deal of time shooting the apparently empty planes that fly into the local airport. At first, it seems as if he's emphasizing that Europe doesn't provide anything to Africa in return for the food. But he finally gets around to the presumption that illegal arms shipments are actually flying in. That's an even more provocative argument--that Europe takes Africa's food and offers only warfare in return--and the film would've been helped if that argument had been made earlier on. Still, this is a compelling examination on the impact of globalization and a heart-felt look at an area of the world we rarely see.

Mwanza Citizen talking about Darwin's Nightmare. The Making of Darwin's Nightmare.