HEY!

MZUNGU!
A VERY PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH EAST AFRICA

by J P STONEHOUSE
 Copyright J P Stonehouse 2011

The right of J P Stonehouse to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cont ent s
1 LEAVING ON A JET PLANE................................ 5
2 IN TO AFRICA..................................................... 10
3 DAY ONE IN THE HOUSE OF PEACE............... 14
4 GETTING PERSPECTIVE.................................. 21
TANZANIA

“Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day, give him a hoe”

-- Swahili Proverb
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

I was four hours into a flight to Tanzania, 34,500ft above the Libyan desert,
when I first seriously began to question my decision to go to Africa. I think the
totally alien nature of the landscape that was slowly unfolding beneath me had
something to do with it; the lush green of Europe had given way to the deep blue
of the Mediterranean, which in turn had given way to a scorched, pitted and
apparently lifeless moonscape. I was, it seemed, going to Africa. That was now
undeniable. The problem, however, was that I had absolutely no idea why I was
going or what I intended to do when I got there. I sat there in my seat with the
peculiar sensation of being outside myself, looking in at this person who had
made such a series of unfathomable and uncharacteristic decisions. I looked on as
the plane’s shadow moved slowly across the face of a chain of bizarre circular
installations. What they were I do not know. Irrigation stations? Oil processing
plants? Yet from this altitude they resembled nothing so much as 21st Century
Nazca Lines, geoglyphs of unknown meaning beckoning riders of modern day
Chariots of the Gods to descend and stay awhile. Everything looked and felt
unreal, not least the sanitised family-friendly Hollywood movie vying for my
attention in the headrest in front of me. I must be dreaming, I thought. What the
hell am I doing on this plane?

I’d had doubts before of course, but had managed to avoid confronting them
head on by losing myself in the minutiae of Planning The Trip. The preceding
three months had been a blur of activity. I'd read books and travel guides,
mastered some basic Swahili, bought maps, visas and insurance, received more
inoculations than I care to remember, carefully drafted and redrafted itineraries,
taken photocopies of my travel documents, and even taken photocopies of the
photocopies to sew into my backpack. Just in case. I'd made sure that my
backpack came equipped with an on-line i-Track account that would enable me to
trace my belongings in the event they wound up in Honk Kong or Kuala Lumpur.
I'd even resurrected a ten-year old PDA and pre-loaded it with language guides,
contact details, and a database on various exotic tropical diseases and their
symptoms and cures. Mine was a trip planned to perfection, and in the days prior
to catching my flight I felt fully prepared for all eventualities.

Looking back, it seems to me now that the planning of the thing somehow
attained greater importance than the trip itself, because six months after the trip
ended I'm still unable to fully explain why I chose Africa rather than Europe,
Asia or the Americas. It's true that I had stock answers prepared for the question
I was invariable asked whenever I announced my intention to quit everything and
go travelling: "That's great! But why Africa?". Why indeed. None of the answers
I gave (the adventure, the challenge, to see for myself how the other half live)
were dishonest or untrue, but that's not to say they told the whole story. In
retrospect, I think I decided on Africa partly because a perverse streak in me
always prefers the hard option. Europe was too close, too familiar and the
obvious choice for those looking to pop their solo traveler cherry, whereas Africa
seemed alien and unknown, and by extension more exotic and dangerous.

Of all the answers I gave to this question perhaps the most honest was
"Because it's a challenge". I was about to turn 39 and had been working in the
NHS for three years. Not in any genuinely useful capacity but as what I half-
jokingly referred to as Chief of Colouring-In. I ran a helpdesk, one designed to
collect information and produce statistics that would enable finance managers to
crow about their departments' performance. Needless to say, over time most of
the departments involved became aware of certain reporting holes that enabled
them to fudge their statistics, although in truth nobody really knew what the
figures actually meant, assuming they meant anything at all. Nor did they care to
know for that matter, provided the stats showed plenty of green and displayed
achievement percentages in the 90s or thereabouts. My job was almost entirely
without purpose, and it's fair to say that my department could have vanished from
the face of the earth overnight with absolutely no detrimental effects whatsoever.

To make matters worse, my department was almost universally reviled, on

account of the fact that it was perceived as a Big Brother exercise in monitoring
and surveillance. As a consequence of the constant wear of being called upon to
'make a case' for my department and explain its supposed benefits, I found myself
becoming increasingly obsessed with the perceptions, expectations and
misrepresentations of 'my' department. I began to exhort 'my' staff to be aware of
how their actions, attitude, telephone manner and general demeanour contributed
to these perceptions and misrepresentations. Finally, I woke up one day and
realised that I'd become what I most detested: petty minded, rule crazy, and
overly concerned with surface appearances. I felt small and narrow minded,
frustrated that I was wasting my life in a job that served no purpose beyond
putting food in my mouth and a roof over my head. Was I suffering from some
sort of early onset Midlife Crisis? Who knows. All I knew was that I didn't really
like myself anymore. Something, I thought, has got to give.

Now, if I'm honest I have to admit that I'm not a planner. Well, let me
qualify that: planning in a purely organisational sense is something I'm really
rather good at, whereas planning in the making-a-decision-that-will-determine-
the-course-of-my-life sense is something I've always managed to circumvent. Not
because of cowardice or lack of willpower you understand, but more in a quirk-
of-personality-stroke-nature sense: I'm really just not interested in material gain
or accumulating possessions for the sake of it, and temperamentally I'm not
inclined to enjoy exercising power over others. Add to this a very firm belief that
the basic premises and goals of the world we inhabit, not to mention a good
number of its inhabitants, are quite completely insane and what we're left with is,
in effect, a policy of non-alignment. At best I would describe myself as a cynical
and detached observer of post-industrial consumer society, rather than an active
participant. And this, I think, was the root cause of the problem: I'd pickled
myself in my own cynicism, to the extent that I saw every choice as two sides of
the same coin and equally worthy of my disdain. Those who know me on a
superficial basis might be surprised by this: "Oh, but you're so nice and polite
and well spoken!" I'm often told. Appearances. They really are deceiving.

To fully understand my mindset at the time it might help if I outline some of

the books and films I'd been digesting in the months prior to quitting my job.
High on the list was Into The Wild (book and film), which I read and watched
several times. I also read Conrad's Heart of Darkness for the -nth time and
watched Coppola's film version, Apocalypse Now, also for the -nth time. Then
there was Michel Houellebecq's Atomised, which portrays the lives of two
emotionally disturbed brothers and their attempts to overcome the meaningless
and anomie of modern life. If I were to add Coupland's Generation X, Microserfs
and Girlfriend in a Coma to the list then you'll probably get the picture. I was by
no means a happy bunny. Yet as bleak and cynical as some of this material may
be some common threads can be discerned: all are concerned with throwing away
the established, given and accepted in order to put oneself to the test and
transcend one's situation. It was in this spirit that I decided to go to Africa, and
just as planning for the trip helped to throw a veil over my reasons for going, the
very act of choosing seemed like an end in itself, in the sense that it temporarily
silenced the inner conflict I was experiencing. The actual choice itself was of
secondary importance to the act of choosing.

Several months later, however, I found myself in a tin can several miles
above the earth's surface, free from the self-imposed pressures of planning and
decision-making. It didn't take long before I started questioning myself. It had
started at Birmingham International. A friend had dropped me off at 5.30am and
my off-the-cuff parting shot was "See you in September!". This gave me a bit of
a jolt. I was actually going to Africa. On my own. For four months. My friend
drove off and I stood outside the terminal and brooded over a cigarette, then lit
another and brooded some more. It just felt so odd. Me. Going to Africa? Before
long, however, the needs of the moment intruded and pushed these thoughts
aside: check-in, get rid of the luggage, grab a coffee, smoke some cigarettes and
Damn it all! is that really the final call for my flight already? I arrived in the
empty departure lounge a hot, sweaty mess as one of the last to board my
connecting flight to Amsterdam.

I simply didn't have time to brood at Schipol, where I very quickly made a
complete fool of myself. Having failed to realise that my backpack was tagged
with my final destination, I passed through customs and spent an agonizing forty
minutes waiting for my luggage to appear. When it didn't I went looking for a
KLM office, where a none-too-friendly KLM representative highlighted my
error, but not before making a point of informing me that she was employed to
assist Business and Club passengers, rather than economy class peasants such as
myself. This left me with just twenty minutes to renegotiate entry to the terminal,
obtain my boarding pass, smoke some cigarettes and find the departure gate. The
first two were accomplished with relative ease thanks to some judicious queue
jumping. As to the third, all I can say is that if there's a Guinness World Record
for smoking two consecutive cigarettes in the shortest possible amount of time
then I'm reasonably certain I shattered it. You can imagine my disappointment
when I arrived at the departure gate to find myself at the back of a long queue of
passengers awaiting entry to the departure lounge. Forty-five minutes of potential
smoking time...wasted!
 The flight itself was uneventful. I'm quite the aviation buff and have never
lost the thrill of flying, so I was perfectly content to mentally run through what
the pilots were doing in the cockpit before settling back to watch and wonder as
the world slipped lazily by beneath me. But, as I said, it was the desolate yet
oddly compelling Libyan desert that really triggered my soul searching. I was on
my way, that much was obvious. But why was I going? What did I expect to find
out there? All of a sudden the decision to quit my job and home seemed a lot like
burning my bridges. I couldn't ignore the fact that for all my planning and
attention to detail I had completely - perhaps deliberately? - failed to plan an exit
strategy. In short, I had absolutely no idea when or how I would live on my return
to the UK. For the first time I began to seriously worry about myself. Had I
extricated myself from one cycle of non-decision-making only to fall straight into
another? Ultimately, as I said, I decided to abandon this utterly useless train of
thought. What I might or might not do in September was of little importance next
to spending four months in three of the world's poorest countries: Tanzania,
Kenya and Ethiopia. At this point, I thought, there's only the trip and the
challenge it represents, whatever that means and all motives aside. I began to
breathe a little easier. Eventually I dozed off, awaking just in time to watch a
spectacular sunset and an equally spectacular light show in the huge
thunderclouds that had formed on the horizon. The plane flew on into the night.
IN TO AFRICA

It’s difficult to convey just quite what it’s like to fly over Africa at night to
those who have never experienced it first hand. As a veteran purchaser of
package holidays I had flown over a considerable portion of West Europe at
night, and at all times the hand of humankind was to be seen in the light pollution
given off by the villages, towns, cities and conurbations that litter the terrain. For
the last four hours of my flight to Tanzania, however, the landscape presented
itself as a uniform shade of pitch black. Back in the 19th Century, of course,
Africa was colloquially - often pejoratively - referred to as the Dark Continent.
Although I’m hesitant to use such a loaded term, I have to say that in a more
limited and purely technological sense it remains valid even today: night-time
satellite images show that Africa is still very much the Dark Continent. So dark,
in fact, that the plane’s landing at Kilimanjaro International airport almost took
me by surprise. You mean there’s an entire city down there?

The stopover was relatively short and we were soon airborne again. The
lights of the coastal town of Tanga came into view on the horizon, then quickly
receded. The darkness washed in again and I found myself thinking of Marlow,
Conrad’s protagonist in Heart of Darkness, and his evocative descriptions of the
African interior: brooding, inscrutable, impenetrable. It was not difficult to
imagine that the plane had somehow traveled back through the ages and now flew
over a literally prehistoric landscape where “the vegetation rioted and the Big
Trees were kings”. Soon, however, the lights of Tanzania’s former capital and
largest and most populous city, Dar es Salaam, swam into view to shatter the
illusion. Flaps were extended, speed bled off, and the 777 turned onto final
approach. I remember expressing some minor annoyance at the pilot’s decision to
leave the cabin lights on form landing, then we were down. I felt tired, grainy, but
not a little exhilarated. I was here. I’d made it. Africa.

Now, I’m one of those people who never rush to disembark and on this
particular occasion I had no need to. Although my planning for the trip had
bordered on an exercise in anal retention par excellence it had nonetheless
afforded me certain advantages of some of my fellow passengers. Chief among
them was a nice new Tanzanian visa safety tucked away inside my passport. I’d
also read up on the airport’s taxi tout situation and decided to spare myself any
first night trauma by booking a taxi through my hotel. It was with a certain
amount of smugness, therefore, that I skirted the throngs of American
missionaries and fellow travellers squabbling over pens and visa forms to pass
directly through passport control and on to baggage reclamation. I exited the
airport fifteen minutes later, leaving the rest to fight the good bureaucratic fight
somewhere behind me. Outside, I was first assaulted by the sweltering heat and
humidity and then by a small army of taxi touts congregated by the exit. I peered
anxiously at the sea of faces. Thankfully, one driver was holding up a piece of
cardboard with my name on it. We pushed our way through the throng to the car
park, where my driver introduced himself. Greetings were exchanged. A cigarette
or two changed hands. I can smoke in your car? Very well. We were off.

Ali, my driver, was a young guy in his very early twenties dressed in a
uniform known the world over: jeans, t-shirt and white trainers. I was surprised to
learn that he was already married with children, although I was to come across
this time and time again during the course of my trip. We chatted about this and
that, and it occurred to me that neither car nor driver would look out of place in
the West Midlands. The interior of the car was bathed in a blue neon glow given
off by a rather impressive looking stereo system, and before getting in I couldn’t
help but notice the wide low profile tyres that graced the scuffed after-market
alloy wheels. The car itself was a white automatic Toyota saloon, and I mention
this only because it very quickly became apparent that roughly 90% of all cars in
Tanzania are automatic Toyota saloons, and fully half this number happen to be
white. Everybody is familiar with the stereotype of ultra-reliable yet personality-
free Japanese cars, but even so I found the almost total lack of Honda, Nissan,
Mitsubishi and the like puzzling to say the least. Rumour has it that somebody
high up in the Tanzanian equivalent of the UK’s Department of Trade and
Industry is on a nice little earner helping Toyota shift thousands of unwanted
automatic saloons. I know this because I started the rumour, having grown tired
of the blank looks and head scratching that went on whenever I asked locals to
explain Toyota’s apparent popularity. At this point it’s probably prudent to point
out (for the benefit of any members of Toyota’s legal team who might happen to
be reading) that there’s absolutely no truth in it whatsoever. Really there isn’t.
Toyota make simply terrific cars with silky-smooth auto boxes, and 90% of all
Tanzanian drivers who expressed a preference agree...

Whatever the merits of Toyota saloons, I have to admit that they can and do
take one hell of a battering. It’s not uncommon to see examples from the early-
to mid-1970s still pottering about, which is a wonder really given that the state of
Tanzania’s roads is such that dodging one pothole invariably means hitting
another. Ali’s was an early 90s example, and it was abundantly clear that his
approach to navigating the atrocious roads was to plough on regardless and
simply ignore the crashes and bangs emanating from what was left of the
suspension. It was undoubtedly an effective, if spine-crushing, strategy, and in
some areas an unavoidable one in the absence of working street lamps. We
stopped in one of these areas so that I could use an ATM, and the experience was
unnerving to say the least: the street was deserted save for a number of shadowy
figures that flitted from one side of the street to another, and the general
atmosphere was more than a little menacing.

We eventually pulled up outside a dark gated alleyway guarded by a sleepy-

looking security guard or askari. I stumbled through the opening into what
looked like a building site, and after negotiating a few obstacles entered a
courtyard outside the hotel proper. Three figures were seated on a bench outside,
and one - a tiny man in his forties - jumped up to greet me: “Ah, Mr Jonathan!
We’ve been expecting you!”. I replied in Kiswahili, and my efforts were
rewarded with an infectious smile. I was subsequently to discover that very few
travellers spoke more than a dozen or so words of Kiswahili, and some none at
all. The fact I spoke quite a bit usually resulted in a protracted conversation about
where and how I’d learned the language. On this particular occasion, however, it
was sleep rather than conversation that was on my mind, and I was grateful that
my host chose not to press me on the matter. I bought some water and retired to
my room, too tired to do anything other than fumble with the controls to the
ceiling fan and fall into bed. Usiku mwema.
DAY ONE IN THE HOUSE OF PEACE

I awoke at 8.30am and lay on my bed for a while, covered in a light sweat.
Even at this hour it was oppressively hot, making me wish I’d paid extra for a
room with air conditioning. As it was, the noisy ceiling fan was doing an
outstanding job of recirculating the room’s sultry atmosphere. Getting out of bed,
I drank some water and lit a cigarette before surveying the room and taking stock
of my situation. The room itself was nothing to write home about: a 15x8ft box
with a bed, table and chair and wardrobe. A single small window (covered in
mesh to keep mosquitoes out) provided a less than inspiring view. Let’s just say
I’d been right about the building site and leave it at that. The shabby en suite
bathroom did at least have a toilet seat (a rare luxury I really came to appreciate
as my trip progressed). but if anything was even hotter than the room itself. I was,
to be frank, a little disappointed. This was the Safari Inn and it had a fairy good
reputation. At 20,000 Tsh (about $15) per night it was certainly cheap by UK
standards but by no means rock bottom by local standards. If this was the top of
the budget range then what could I expect from a real budget choice? I knew my
travels would take me through areas where the choice was between dirt cheap and
practically free, and on the basis of this first impression the thought was not a
particularly appealing one.

Having surveyed the room I turned my attention to taking stock of myself. It

was abundantly clear that after a full day’s travelling I was none to fresh and in
need of some proper food. I grabbed a quick shower, got dressed and went
downstairs for a breakfast of fruit, toast, eggs, orange juice and coffee.
Afterwards I chatted with a young Dutch guy in his early twenties, who had
managed to find work in, and was en route to, Kigoma. Without any such
intention on his part he made me feel like the greenhorn I undoubtedly was. For a
start, this was his third extended trip to Tanzania, whereas I was not far off twice
his age and had never before attempted independent travel. To make matters
worse, when I told him of my intention to travel cross country by train, first to the
country’s capital, Dodoma, and then to Kigoma on Lake Tangayika, he wiped his
mouth, shook his head and suggested I contact one of Tanzania’s domestic
airlines. It transpired that portions of the line between Dar and Dodoma had been
washed away by floods way back in November 2009 and were still awaiting
repair. The only sure fire way to reach Kigoma was by air, and at no small cost. I
left the dining room feeling like a rank amateur. So much for planning...

I walked into reception pondering this ‘new’ development. Dodoma and Dar
are to Tanzania what London and Birmingham are to the UK, and the idea that a
major transport route between the UK’s first and second cities would be allowed
to remain out of service was six whole months was simply unthinkable. Unless,
that it, the government of the day had a decent excuse. Thermo-nuclear war for
example. Although it’s true that Tanzania is a very poor country, and that repairs
would have been hamstrung by the rainy season, I was convinced that there was
more to it than that. A brief chat with the hotel’s receptionist confirmed my
suspicions: apparently, there was a Mexican stand-off of sorts between the
national rail carrier and government of the day. Each was waiting for the other to
blink first.

I thanked the receptionist for the information, armed myself with a fresh
supply of bottled water, and hit the streets. Nothing but nothing could have
prepared me for them. There was the interminable heat for one thing. The sun
beat down remorselessly and even the slightest effort produced an inordinate
amount of sweat. But what really struck me was the rubbish strewn everywhere,
the poor state of the roads and buildings, the sheer volume of hawkers and street
hustlers, and the large number of men and women reclining in doorways and on
street corners, either too hot do anything or with nothing to do. Overall the scene
was very much like a set designed for a Ridley Scott war movie. “Bloody hell!” I
thought. “I’ve gone to Somalia by mistake!”. The experience was very nearly
overwhelming; a cacophony of noise and activity completely at odds with the
ghost town I had driven through the night before. I walked on in a daze,
extremely conscious of the fact that I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.
My attempt to ‘blend-in’ by dressing like an ex-pat - or rather what I though an
ex-pat might look like - just seemed laughable. I looked and felt very much like a
walking sign emblazoned with the words “Fresh Meat”. If I’m honest, I have to
admit that my frequent and not-so-surreptitious glances at the city map I was
carrying probably did little to dispel this image. Nor did my rather paranoid
decision to stuff all my valuables in my money belt and shoulder pouch rather
than entrust them to my hotel. Both produced very noticeable bulges underneath
my shirt, which rather defeated the point of wearing them in the first place. Fresh
meat indeed!

Undeterred, I fended of the attentions of a swarm of taxi drivers (there was

a very noticeable imbalance in supply and demand) and elected to walk in to the
city proper, down to the harbour and Kivukoni Market. I began to regret this
decision almost immediately, thanks to a combination of heat, humidity and
doxycycline, my malaria prophylactic of choice and one famed for causing
heightened photosensitivity. In the space of less than ten minutes I found myself
with a roasted bald patch and salmon-pink forearms. What really bothered me,
however, was what Conrad would call the “bundles of acute angles” lying by the
roadside. I’d taken a wrong turn and was walking down a broad dual carriageway,
the grass verges of which were littered with refugees from Dar’s manic daily
battle for survival. Here, the unfit - those to old or infirm to compete, together
with polio victims and a simply astonishing number of bare-breasted young
mothers - reclined in varying states of distress and apathy. Some lay prostrate and
unmoving in the undergrowth. I had no idea whether they were simply seeking
respite from the sun or had departed this mortal coil altogether. Upon seeing a
mzungu coming their way, however, the living among them soon stirred. It was, I
think, one of the most difficult situations I’d ever encountered: these people were
literally on their knees, cupped hands outstretched, pleading for money. Some
were undoubtedly professional beggars, but the vast majority appeared to be
utterly destitute. I was shocked. My first thought, which I very quickly acted on,
was to get the hell out of there.

As I had witnessed first hand, in the absence of a social security safety net
those who live a hand-to-mouth existence on the margins of Tanzanian society -
any African society for that matter - are always only one step away from the
street. A young man I came across later provides a case in point. An orphan with
no relatives to fall back on, he had broken a leg and was unable to work.
Although Tanzania’s free public health system had patched him back together, it
could offer him no financial support. Consequently, he soon found himself
homeless and reliant on charity. I honestly don’t know whether he was able to
obtain the small sum of capital he required to restore his independence. The
question was moot at the time given that his leg was still in plaster. What I do
know, however, is that his was a fairly typical example of a vicious cycle that
some are simply unable to break. Although it’s tempting to lay the blame
squarely on policy measures imposed from without, by Western institutions such
as the IMF and World Bank, it has to be said that Tanzania’s home-grown
attempt to build a socialist utopia in the 1970s very nearly brought the country to
its knees, and if anything was far more damaging.

If this first-day experience of the realities of Tanzanian life did anything it

started in me an on-going debate: to give or not to give. I never did make my
mind up one way or the other. That is to say, I regularly resolved not to give, on
the grounds that giving perpetuates the vicious cycle that keeps people reliant on
charity. Tanzania, I thought, needs to put its house in order and provide for its
own. Faced with the reality of the situation, however, my resolve often wavered.
Tanzania is a poor country, and philosophising about causes and solutions - be
they failed experiments with socialism or the self-serving fallacies of capitalism -
is a job for those who never have to worry about where their next meal is coming
from. Those who live under the stars know only that their bellies are empty and
think no further ahead than surviving the next day. So, I gave; here and there and
within the confines of my own limited budget. My position on this issue,
however, was to harden over time...

I eventually reached Kivukoni Market, a small but bustling affair next to a

dala-dala stand full of smoke-belching Toyota Hi-Ace people carriers (surprise!)
and small buses of unknown provenance. My guidebook had recommended a
visit, although it was clear from the stares and whispers of “mzungu” that hung in
the air (along with the overwhelming stink of fish) that not too many travellers
bothered to do so. The welcome was warm though, so I strolled about, bought
some fruit, paid a quick and traumatic visit to the public toilet (one of only a
handful in Dar - don’t get caught short!) and walked back along the seafront.

The road here is lined with what my guidebook referred to as the “fading
grandeur” of Dar’s colonial heritage. As I passed by, I couldn’t help but think that
this is a matter of perspective: one man’s fading grandeur is another’s slow decay.
These large wooden relics of misplaced Edwardian culture must once have been
hugely impressive. To my eyes, however, the peeling paint and rotting woodwork
told another story; one of exposure to the elements and neglect. Even if the
colonial era is something Tanzanian’s would rather forget, it has to be said that
the country is not exactly awash with historical artifacts and monument in the
way European countries are. As such, these buildings represent a real and tangible
part of the country’s history, and I was saddened to see them in such condition.

I walked back to my hotel and deposited the contents of my bulging money

belt and shoulder pouch with the hotel’s manager, before popping round the
corner for a very late lunch at the popular Chef’s Pride restaurant. I was soon
swigging ice-cold fruit juice and tucking into a delicious beef stew. A young
Australian guy and his American girlfriend joined me and we started chatting.
They’d been ‘in country’ for eight months and imparted a few words of wisdom:
take extra care with cuts and bites, which take longer to heal and can quickly
fester in the heat, and always, always, always have some anti-diarrhea tablets on
hand for those days you absolutely have to travel. They’d been caught out on
both accounts, the former requiring a trip to hospital, and the general message
was “Don’t be too paranoid about it but expect to be ill at some point”. Cheered
by this thought I bought some internet time and a sim card for my mobile phone,
retiring to my hotel just before dark.

Days are shorter on the equator: sunrise occurs at about 6am and sunset
6pm, giving just twelve hours of daylight all year round. In Dar, as in most major
cities, the streets empty rapidly at sunset and I for one had absolutely no intention
of venturing out on them. Walking about at night is a no-no, and I had no desire
whatsoever to hire a taxi and go to a club or bar on my first day. So, I resolved to
stay in my room, hand wash a set of clothes, update my journal and call home. I
felt a little deflated by the day’s experiences, a little homesick even. Day one had
not been anything like what I’d expected. Looking back now, I’m not entirely
sure what my expectations of Africa actually were, beyond certain romantic
notions I’d dreamed up back home: exploring the labyrinth of Zanzibar’s Stone
Town; steaming down Lake Tangayika on the MV Liemba; hiking in the
Usambara Mountains, and going on safari. I simply hadn’t prepared myself for
the poverty, begging, dirty streets and crumbling infrastructure. I went to bed
with the feeling that I’d made a dreadful mistake.
GETTING PERSPECTIVE

In the morning I got up fairly late and breakfasted alone in a dining room
deserted apart from myself and a small group of young American travellers. It
seemed that solo travellers were relatively rare beasts and I was to meet only a
handful during the course of my trip. I’d drawn up a fairly extensive itinerary the
night before and intended to visit the National Museum, botanical gardens and
Dar’s highest building, the Benjamin Kenyatta Pension Towers. I also wanted to
kick start the second phase of my trip by purchasing a ferry ticket to Zanzibar.
After my experiences the previous day, however, I freely admit to feeling some
slight trepidation before venturing out on the streets. As it happened, my concerns
proved baseless. What a difference a day makes? In my case, a night seemed to
have sufficed because I found myself viewing Dar with a fresh pair of eyes. Was
it dirty and chaotic? Yes! Was I troubled by the sight of the destitute?
Undoubtedly so. But on this particular morning I had somehow managed to push
these issues into the background, for the time being at least.

I think my new approach to Dar stemmed in part from a conversation I'd had
with a local in the hotel lobby before setting out. I'd been fairly honest with him
when he asked me what I though about the city, softening the blow by explaining
how different it is from the UK. In return, he'd offered some valuable advice: in
the heat and humidity of Dar it's best not to think too much; just relax and go with
the flow. So I did. What seemed like chaos only yesterday became the energetic
activity of a people that actually worked for a living, some of whom lived from
one day to the next pushing carts, shining or repairing shoes, or hawking fruits or
groundnuts or water. And, for the most part, a friendly people, although I’m not
blind to the fact that some of the friendliness was perhaps tinged by the thought
of making a sale at...let us say...a slightly elevated price, as befitted my status as
a ‘rich’ mzungu.

It has to be said that for all its faults Dar es Salaam (literally “The House of
Peace" in Arabic) is well-named in at least one respect: the almost total lack of
ethnic or religious hostility. The city lies at the heart of a Swahili culture that
extends up the coast all the way into Kenya, a culture that has assimilated and
synthesised its African, Indian and Persian heritage into a unique blend. Although
there’s evidence to suggest that the different ethnic groups and faiths tend not to
mix, there’s none of the tension that one might expect from such a melting pot of
different beliefs and practices. Walk down any given street and you’re likely to
encounter Africans and Indians working side-by-side, together with churches and
mosques within a stone’s throw of one another. On the coast the ratio of
Christians and Muslims is the inverse of that found in the UK, and although
religious extremism is not unknown there was not even a hint of it during my
stay. Nor did any of the faiths concern themselves with proselytising the other.
The general attitude was one of live and let live. As one local said to me, "Oh yes,
we have Catholic churches, Protestant churches and lots of Mosques. We don't
bother each other. We just get along."

I said earlier that Tanzania is not a country awash with historical monuments
and artifacts, and I have to say that the National Museum does rather reflect this.
As I walked around it became apparent that many exhibits concerned themselves
with archaeological finds dating back to prehistory. At the other end of the scale
were a large number of exhibits related to the colonial era. The relatively small
section on Tanzanian history and culture itself lay somewhere in between the two.
It has to be said that with the exception of Swahili culture, which has a long and
fairly well documented history, comparatively little is known about the tribes of
the interior prior to the colonial era. One example that springs to mind is that of
the Arusha tribe. The reason for their migration to the Arusha region as recently
as the early 1800s is completely unknown, the best guess being that they were
captured and forcibly relocated by Maasai.

I continued through the museum and observed that this situation holds true
wherever oral traditions predominate; story-telling and mythology serve in place
of history. The oral history of the Meru tribe, which bears a striking resemblance
to the Israelites supposed exodus from Egypt, is another case in point. Tradition
has it that they originated in Egypt, and that their flight from enslavement there
by a “red people” involved crossing a large body of water by magical means. Is
this history? Most likely not. The consequence is that the history of Tanzania’s
tribes is an exercise in pure anthropology, comprising displays of costumes, tools,
instruments of warfare and descriptions of rites and beliefs. In fact, even this
history is from without, in the sense that museums, history and anthropology are
fundamentally Western inventions, the product of civilisations with long
established written histories and a predilection for classifying, indexing, and
preserving for posterity. Perhaps the absence of such a tradition explains the
museum’s rather forlorn and incongruous exterior showpiece: a vintage Rolls-
Royce and Mercedes-Benz side-by-side with revered former President Julius
Nyerere’s Morris Minor, all left to wither in the equatorial heat and rust in the
salty air.

Leaving the museum I walked on to the botanical gardens just round the
corner. One of Dar's few green spaces, they proved to be a relaxing if rather
oversubscribed haven from the sun. I sat underneath a palm tree for a while and
watched some peacocks peck and preen themselves, mentally preparing myself
for a visit to the ferry terminal, which according to my guidebook was a base for
a small army of aggressive and persistent touts. As it happened, my visit was
almost an anti-climax. Yes there were plenty of touts and Yes they very quickly
surrounded me, waving tickets of highly dubious validity and promising wildly
improbably discounts and scenarios of financial doom if I were to buy direct from
the ferry operator. A quick burst of Kiswahili, together with an equally quick
walking pace, soon brought me into the clear: "Hapana rafiki, hapana. Sitake
biashara sasa hivi. Baadaye, labda. Sawa?”. The effect was astonishing. I can
only assume they thought I was a veteran rather than the slightly anxious novice
I actually was. I swept into the terminal triumphant, only to find the entire staff at
lunch and fully intent on not moving a muscle until the big hand hit twelve.

With their work-to-rule exercise over the staff turned out to be very friendly
and helpful, so much so that I paid for a second class ticket but left with a free
upgrade to first class. This meant a spot on the ferry’s air conditioned upper deck,
a leather armchair and a movie to keep me occupied, as if the journey wasn't
entertainment enough in itself. Although it was low season and the assistant's
chart suggested that first class was practically empty, I'm convinced that I was
given the upgrade purely because of my efforts to speak Kiswahili. On boarding
the next day, I chatted with a number of fellow travellers who spoke no Kiswahili
whatsoever beyond please and thank you. They found themselves sweating it out
on the lower deck, even though first class turned out to be less than a quarter full.
If this (together with my experience dealing with touts) highlights anything then
it highlights the usefulness of investing time learning the language. That said, my
decision to learn Kiswahili was by no means a means to an end: my entirely
truthful reply to those who asked was that I considered making the effort to learn
it a sign of respect.

The heavens opened shortly thereafter, scuppering my plan to soak up the

view from Dar’s tallest building. It was, after all, the rainy season. Although
downpours tend to be short they’re certainly impressive while they last: the rain
simply lashes down and the manic pace of city life is temporarily suspended as
everybody runs for shelter. Ordinarily the sun makes a quick return, and an hour
later one would never know that it had rained at all. On this occasion, however,
the rain drummed down for a full two hours, forcing me to seek shelter in a local
cafe and wait it out over a cup of coffee or two. By the time it stopped the streets
muddy water was streaming down the roads and I soon regretted my decision to
wear open sandals and chinos. When I eventually arrived back at my hotel I
found myself covered in a thin film of road filth.

After grabbing a quick shower I treated myself to a two-course meal at

Chef’s Pride, then went back to the hotel to sort out my pack ready for the
journey to Zanzibar early the next morning. The young receptionist on duty had
obviously taken a shine to my training shoes: “Can I have them?” he asked after
engaging me in a conversation about where I’d got them and how much they cost.
I laughed, shook my head and explained that I needed them for the months ahead:
“You’re welcome to them when I’ve finished my trip, but after what they’ll have
gone through by then I’m not sure you’ll want them!”. He was still laughing as I
hit the stairs. Back in my room I quickly packed my things, prayed that my still-
damp washing would be dry come the morning and not covered in mould and
mushrooms, and settled down on my bed to go through my itinerary and read up
on Zanzibar. From this point on there’d be no pre-booked hotels or taxis.
Tomorrow, I thought, my trip begins in earnest.