This post is about my new hash tag #TUNAWEZA. It is about time we Tanzanians talk about personal responsibilities. I know many will wonder what am I talking here? Yes it is that time we Tanzanians start to speak about "us". We start to speak what is not right about some of our cultures.. Yes, we do have so many good cultures but we have the worse ones too..It is time to open the dialogue and point out things that drug us behind.. Things that worked back then but do not work right now....When is wrong is wrong... How can we solve some of our problems without waiting for the Govt or wahisani to come to help us? It has been 50 years now Govt doesn't do much and wahisani are getting tired. But first we have to ask ourselves is there any way we do contribute to some of these problems?
Today I feel the urge to talk about our personal responsibilities as citizens. Many people do not know that as a citizen of any nation you have your responsibilities too not just to be a good citizen but how to contribute to your society. It is necessary that the citizens perform their duties for the government to properly function.
I really don't like when I see people post online pictures of nasty places taken in various places in Tanzania. My first reaction of these pictures is how could people be able to live in that kind of environment without getting sick and who made that messy? (That is my soon to be 3 yr old always ask). After 50 years of independent we all should know better, the Govt won't be able to provide fund enough to clean everywhere in the country and if the citizens don't take their personal responsibilities who is going to suffer? Who is going to get sick? Why do people put garbage in places where it shouldn't be? Why do people spit, throw or put chewing gums in places where it shouldn't be? Why do people just throw bottles, papers anywhere and everywhere? Who do you expect to clean that?
Living in many cities in different states of America I have learned so much about person responsibilities and I have learned one thing that is common in all these places. I have found that in many dirty neighborhoods the majority of the people who live there are foreigners (watu wa kuja). These people are bringing their filthy laziness culture with them. The culture of want to be told to do something or pushed to do something. The culture of waiting for the Govt to do anything and everything for them. Don't get me wrong there are some places that are dirty and people who live in those neighborhoods are not foreigners but majority of those dirty places are foreigners.
Local people do clean after themselves. Local people do organize parks, play grounds or neighborhoods clean up days. They volunteer so much in many things and still they pay their property and state taxes 100% and that is 1000% more than a regular Tanzanian pays. They know for sure local cities, municipalities or towns can do so much and the rest it is up to individuals. They know it is either to pay much more tax or to provide more time and energy when needed. Also sometimes you will see just a regular person on the street if finds anything that is not on a place that should be, he picks up and puts on the right place eg newspapers, soda cans, empty bottles etc..Why not us? Why we have to be forced to do anything?
Local people do clean after themselves. Local people do organize parks, play grounds or neighborhoods clean up days. They volunteer so much in many things and still they pay their property and state taxes 100% and that is 1000% more than a regular Tanzanian pays. They know for sure local cities, municipalities or towns can do so much and the rest it is up to individuals. They know it is either to pay much more tax or to provide more time and energy when needed. Also sometimes you will see just a regular person on the street if finds anything that is not on a place that should be, he picks up and puts on the right place eg newspapers, soda cans, empty bottles etc..Why not us? Why we have to be forced to do anything?
I always say do not associate uchafu and umasikini. Those things do not go hand to hand. You can be as poor hell but very neat and vice verse..Do we want to wait for people to come and tell us dirty can kill us? Do we need them to come and organize various cleaning activities? Why people enjoy sleeping on places where just less than 100 feet is a pile of dirty water sitting there for weeks? Just on the same road there are piles of plastic papers, weeds and grass creeping up everywhere. Personal I believe being dirty is associates with laziness. Dirty is not liking yourself. I am not a neat freak person and don't say people should be one but people need to learn their responsibilities. People should learn a clean way of living to free the city or the tax collected to be allocated to do some other necessity things..
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