A people that cook and eat together stay together

On Tuesday, in a Nairobi hotel conference room full of East Africans of all shapes, sizes and ages, those good chaps from the Society for International Development (SID) launched the ‘‘State of East Africa Report 2008’’ (SoEAR).

This was the fourth such report. As is their custom, they didn’t disappoint.

This time, it was not dozens of pages of print and graphs. In keeping with the times, they boiled it down to just one big chart of clever graphics and illustrations.

Entitled “Nature Under Pressure”, it is nevertheless a serious, if disturbing report on the state of the East Africa environment.

We shall not list all the figures here, but the interesting thing is that looking at some of them helps explain the national social and physical characteristics, and temperament of East Africans.
Consider calorie intake. An expert in the meeting told us that if your intake per day is 2,250 kilocalories (Kcal) in Africa, then you can claim that you are eating. If it is less, then you are just getting by.

By this measure, the only East Africans who can be said to be eating are Ugandans. The average daily calorie intake of Ugandans is 2,380 Kcal. The rest of the East Africans are only pretending to eat.

Kenya has the second highest intake at 2,150 Kcal. Third is Rwanda at 2,070, fourth Tanzania at 1,960, and fifth, Burundi at 1,690 Kcal.

Tanzania recorded a 73 per cent increase in the number of hungry people and accounted for 42 per cent of hungry East Africans, up from 34 per cent 10 years ago. Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda all reduced their share of hungry people.

This report, one imagines, will be new ammunition for Ugandan cultural nationalists. A woman who has a full granary of food can afford to be generous and welcoming to visitors.

Not surprisingly, Ugandans are probably the most generous and welcoming East Africans. They believe that a full general fullness of stomach is one reason their women are the most beautiful and well filled in all the right places.

Yes, they will say, Rwandan women might be more pretty-faced, but when it comes to the complete package, Ugandans are unbeatable.

This has its downside. Detached professional observers have noted that Ugandans tend to put a very high premium on a well-filled backside.

As a result, the health and fitness-consciousness of the women have been struggling unsuccessfully for years to find a formula on how to look lean everywhere else, but not in the back view.

Kenyans, meanwhile are the most brash, go-get, and enterprising East Africans. It is the region’s most industrialised economy, and, notes the SoEAR, has a “world-class horticulture industry”.

The report's figures tell it all. Kenya is, by far, the highest consumer of energy in East Africa. However, by 2020, its demand could have exceeded what domestic energy sources can supply.

Of all East Africa, Kenya is the one country which, if you don’t get out of bed, you will go hungry. That creates a rat-race.

Also, if you are faced with a future where important resources are running out, you tend to rush to get what is still available, and to knock people out of the way in the process.

Tanzania, is the most complex. Tanzanians are East Africa’s most polite people (Ugandans are generous, but not always polite). However, Tanzanians are also the one country in the East African Community that is most suspicious of its neighbours.

There is an explanation. A close reading of the SoEAR 2008 gives you some pointers. As already noted, Tanzania has the highest percentage of hungry people in the region. Then, 26.2 million hectares of East African forest have been cut down in 15 years (1990-2005).

Tanzania accounts for 90 per cent of this deforested land. Rwanda is the only country in East Africa (indeed, one of the few in the world) that has been able to reforest — they have managed 48,000 hectares so far.

When you aren’t sure about where your dinner will come from tomorrow, you tend to be polite to your neighbours, which Tanzanians are.

However, Tanzania is by far the richest country in resources. For example, East Africa’s total energy potential is 91,000 GWh. Of this 53,700GWh is in Tanzania. The country has 30 per cent more commercial energy than all its partners combined.

Thus, while Ugandans and Kenyans might eat better than Tanzanians, in the decades to come, they will need Tanzania’s electricity to cook. It also has 45 per cent of the region’s renewable water resources. If you add gold and natural gas, Tanzania is East Africa’s resource king.

Now, in Africa, it is the man who has a lush garden of maize who wakes up at night to check that thieves aren’t stealing his crop. The man with no garden can afford to sleep soundly.

Tanzania has good reason to be suspicious of its neighbours — it is the peasant with the rich maize garden. In future, we shall return to our Rwanda and Burundi cousins.