Coca Cola Welcome Sign, University of Dar Es Salaam, John Hobgood, 1997

MZEE PUNCH, 4 February 1997, 17

61
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:47:30 +0300 (GMT+0300)
From: John Hobgood
To: "Dr. Ken Wilburn"
Subject: Hey there MZEE PUNCH (fwd)

Hey there, long time. How are things? The [incident] below occurred yesterday and the following is a letter I wrote to my Dad about MZEE PUNCH. Otherwise, how are things with you? I have been loosely following the [Steve] Biko revelations [in South Africa] which are interesting [in terms of] the benefits and [detriments]....of the amnesty policy [there]....

Well, I was going to write about the Mzee Punch that occurred on campus yesterday to the whole mailing list, but have decided that wasting my time and energy on it was not worth it to me. But it was just real disturbing and annoying. Some underground organization posted five huge pieces of paper with literature talking about the government (president) and school administrators and then lastly some female "slut, homosexual, HIV +, uncircumcised...etc..etc" students here on campus. It is quite frustrating and sad. Like I said last time, there have been times in the past that the girls named have been so shunned by the other students that it has led them to suicide. Pretty sick. So yeah, they name these girls, give their registration numbers, majors, hall numbers and room numbers, then go on to talk of their lives.

I went and took a few photos of it and copied a section of it before I just got sick of it and left. This guy Andy, an American who was a student here last term, was filming it on a video camera. Unfortunately, as he was [filming], the police appeared, tackled him, took the camera away from him, and took the writings down. Andy was pretty pissed and I went with him to the on-campus police station.... If I were in need, I'd instead go to the bar and drink a few lagers and calm down and then just leave it at that. Anyway, [there is much to] this place [that] is sad; it isn't the students, but then again it is the students, for if they didn't give so much attention [to Mzee Punch] and shun those who are "punched," then it wouldn't have the effect that it does. Anyway, this is the kind of crap that my roommate told me last night [had] shut the university down for a year back in the early 1990s. Then too I can't explain why people laugh and enjoy the punch when it may in fact cause them to turn a 3 or 4 year education into a 6 year education. I mean that seems to be what has happened to me, but that's my own doings.--John

Return to Letters from Africa

Return to the Academic Home Page

First Online Edition: 22 July 1997
Last Revised: 19 March 2001