This is really long...you have been warned.
Well, I survived the trip. Two nine-hour flights and one eight-hour bus ride later (it felt like much longer), and here I am sitting in my new apartment in Dodoma.
I left Seattle at 8:55pm on Sunday, August 3rd and flew to Heathrow Airport in London. I had a five-hour layover at Heathrow which wasn’t too bad because I took some great advice from my friend Chris Johnson and found an in-airport mini-hotel room to spend the time in – and more importantly take a shower. Then I boarded the second flight leg of my trip in London at 7:20pm local time on Monday, August 4th. I actually ended up having a row to myself because the girl who was originally going to sit with me was able to switch to the club traveler section to sit with her parents. The flight itself was uneventful - which is the way I prefer to have my flights. There was a really adorable little boy in the row in front of me and we played peek-a-boo as the flight was making its final descent.
My flight arrived in Dar Es Salaam at just before 7:00am local time on Tuesday, August 5th. As we were flying over Tanzania, the first officer said that we could see Mt. Kilimanjaro if we looked out the windows on the right side of the plane. I looked – no such luck. I did, however, see the most amazing sunrise that I’ve seen in a long time. I would definitely prefer to be sleeping at sunrise but my inability to sleep for more than 15-20 minutes at a time on a plane paid off this time. The sun was sort of a pinky-orange color and then turned a shade of bright pink that reminded me of a ripe pink grapefruit.
Upon arrival in Dar Es Salaam, I got in the line to get a tourist visa. About 20 minutes, a completed application form and $100 later I had a visa and was able to pick up my bags and head outside. As I exited the airport into a mildly humid day of about 83 degrees, I saw Magi Griffin, who works for the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. It was great to finally meet her in person. She introduced me to Frank, who was our driver for the morning. We stopped at a shop just outside the airport so I could get some bottled water and then we headed to the hotel that Magi and Sarah, who is from the Diocese of Atlanta and will also be working for Carpenter’s Kids, were staying in. Magi suggested that I take advantage of hot running water and take a shower. The water came out with about ¼ of the water pressure back home, but it was great nonetheless.
Then I met Magi and Sarah in the hotel’s lounge which was a nice outdoor area with wicker chairs and a great view of the Indian Ocean. Sarah even saw some monkeys in a nearby tree. Frank picked the three of us up at the hotel at 10:00am to take us to the bus station. We decided to stop in one of the grocery stores in Dar Es Salaam before we got on the bus to Dodoma so we could get some snacks for the road and because sometimes certain goods are less expensive in Dar Es Salaam than they are in Dodoma. It was interesting to see the variety items available and amazing to see how expensive certain things are here. For example, Sarah’s box of Special K cereal cost almost $7 USD. I settled for a box of hibiscus tea-not really practical for the bus, but it’s a taste of home anyway. Magi bought us little meat pies to take on the bus for lunch. Then we went to the bus station to get started on the journey to Dodoma.
My first impression of Dar Es Salaam, which came from the aerial view I got as we were preparing to land, was that it was beautiful. There are lots of trees-palm trees, monkey trees and lots of other kinds. I also thought that there was some kind of fog enveloping the city, but after driving and walking around town I realized that it was actually dust. Lots and lots of dust. I didn’t have a chance to see the city center area or any of the more touristy areas today, but what I noticed about Dar Es Salaam more than anything is how incredibly busy the city is. The car traffic reminded me of rush hour traffic in Manhattan, but less organized. The pedestrian traffic reminded me of the streets in Soho just before Christmas time. So essentially, lots of cars and lots of people. And the people didn’t stay on the sidewalks either, they walked between cars and lanes of traffic-all with a sort of nonchalance that had me cringing from the backseat of Frank’s car. Traffic in Dar Es Salaam can move at a snail’s pace to what felt like to me breakneck speeds. It was the latter that made me a little nervous for some of the more adventurous pedestrians.
As we boarded our bus to Dodoma-interestingly enough the bus line is called Scandinavia Express. I’m not entirely sure why, but I guess it just is what it is. The bus itself was your standard touring bus with about 45 seats on it and looked to be at least 20 years old. We ended up getting a rather scenic tour of Dar Es Salaam as our driver went from the first city stop to a garage to the final stop in Dar before heading to Dodoma. One thing that struck me was how much stuff is simply moved by people-power here. I saw men carrying huge bags of shoes on their backs or pushing hand carts full of paint cans. There were women in brightly-colored skirts and dresses carrying baskets of fruit on their heads. I don’t know how long I’d last doing that. There are also a plethora of goods you can get on the street-everthing from clothing to cell phones to hand-crafted furniture and coffins. I wasn’t really expecting to see coffins being sold on the street, but you’ve got to sell them somewhere.
As we made our way through the streets of Dar Es Salaam, I noticed how big of a role religion seems to play here. I saw numerous churches from all denominations and several mosques. Some of the churches in Dar run hotels that provide a less expensive, but still quite clean and nice alternative to the larger, more expensive hotels. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t really news worthy but it was the open expression of religious expression that caught my attention. My Swahili is quite limited at best, but two of the phrases I do know and heard on a regular basis during my short stay in Dar were ‘Bwana asifiwe!’ and ‘Mungu akubariki.’ These translate to ‘Praise the Lord’ and ‘God bless you’, respectively. These are said with complete sincerity in an expression of the speaker’s beliefs. Both were said to me by Frank, our driver in Dar, in the context of thanksgiving for my safe arrival in Tanzania and in expressing best wishes for my time here. I guess it was just interesting to have phrases that I’m more used to hearing in church or from a priest or a family member said to me by someone I’d just met.
Another interesting site in Dar that caught my attention were the city buses. The first thing I noticed was that they were packed – completely full, people standing in the aisles, almost coming out of the windows it seemed. There are several different sizes of buses, the most common being the Daladala, which is a mini-bus that appears to hold 25 people. Rather, it appears to have seats for about 25 people. I have no idea how many people you could actually fit into the bus. What was really the most interesting about the buses were the ways in which they were decorated. Some of them were brightly colored with words like safari or chimpanzee painted on them. The buses that caught my attention were the ones with phrases like ‘God loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘Allah Akbar’ painted in big letters on the front and rear windows and sometimes the sides of the buses. I guess I point this out, because it’s quite different from what I was used to seeing in New York or Seattle. Seeing ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘Allah Akbar’ deliberately painted anywhere on a city bus seems less than probable.
Our bus ride to Dodoma was supposed to be 7 hours long. It actually ended up being 8 hours long, but it felt like each hour took at least three of four hours. I think part of the problem was that it took us so long to just get out of Dar Es Salaam. It was also hot and dusty-surprise, surprise. I actually fell asleep for about an hour or so as we were getting closer to Dodoma. I spent most of the trip looking out the window at the people, villages, trees and shrubs. The vegetation between Dar and Dodoma was quite green in many places. There were lots of plants that looked vaguely familiar, but I don’t know what they’re called. The houses were a mixture of different styles of construction. There were the traditional mud houses with thatched roofs that I’d seen pictures of from when Alan and Matthew were here last year. There were also houses made of stone and wood. I even saw a dilapidated stone house with an enormous satellite dish on it.
As we slowly but surely made our way to Dodoma, we stopped several times in a couple towns. At each stop, people would run up to the bus carrying everything from bottled water and soda to cookies to bags of fresh okra and other vegetables. They’d come up and pound on the side of the bus to get our attention. Passengers would then exchange money for goods through the windows of the bus. This is pretty much how the trip passed. As we approached Moro Goro (considered to be the half-way point between Dar and Dodoma), we started to climb upward. Dodoma is at a higher elevation than Dar Es Salaam-I think it’s on a plateau-so we had a ways to climb. We also had a bus full of people and luggage so the driver had to work for it.
We stopped in Moro Goro and everyone got off the bus to walk around, use the bathroom or buy something to drink or eat from the ever-present vendors. I didn’t need to use the bathroom, but I did go in and check it out. Let’s just say it will take some time to get used to squat toilets. I don’t really remember the ride between Moro Goro and Dodoma because I slept during most of it. I woke up when we were about 30 minutes outside of Dodoma. There are large church-run schools and a conference center that was paid for by the Italian government on the outskirts of the town. I didn’t see a great deal of Dodoma because it was getting dark by the time we arrived – 7:00pm. I did notice, however, that there is more than one paved road. We pulled into the Scandinavia bus station and were all relieved to get off of the cramped and crowded bus. I think I’ll need a couple days to get over than ride...
Miriam met us at the bus station. She’s been in Tanzania working for Carpenter’s Kids for the past two years and is getting ready to head back home to New Zealand next month. It was great to finally meet her in person after talking to her on the phone and via e-mail for the past few months. Miriam was very happy to see us, but also slightly embarrassed because she had accidentally locked the keys to the Land Rover in the cab of the car. She called Father Noah to see if he could come and help because no one was sure if there was a spare key to the car. Her house key was also in the car, so it was really important that she be able to get in.
Father Noah arrived with his son and another man whose name I don’t know because we were never introduced. They tried to figure out a way to get into the car, but didn’t have any luck. Miriam then called someone else who thought he knew where there was a spare key. As we were waiting for him to arrive, he called to say that the spare key was in a money box in the office but someone else had the key. So, he was going to go pick up the guy with the key, they were going to head to the office and then come to the bus station. Since this process was going to take about 30 minutes, Miriam and Father Noah decided that it would be best for her to bring Sarah and me to our apartments in Father Noah’s car and then Miriam could go back to the bus station after she’d dropped us off. So we piled all of our luggage and ourselves into Father Noah’s car and away we went. We arrived at the compound a short while later and Miriam picked up our keys for us.
The apartments belong to CAMS which stands for the Canon Andrea Mwaka School, which is an international school run by the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. Sarah lives in apartment 1 and I live in apartment 6 in the compound. As we were driving here, Miriam and Magi were explaining that we live in one of the more established, ‘nicer’ areas of town. Bishop Mhogolo and his family live in the same neighborhood, though not in the same housing compound, as do Father Noah (my boss) and his family and Miriam. There are some government officials who also live in the same neighborhood. This actually works out well for us because we’re all on the same electric grid and the power company tries to ensure that the government officials’ power is disrupted as little as possible. We’ll see how that goes.
With the help of the guard on the night shift, I believe his name is Hosea, and Father Noah’s son, we unloaded our bags from the car and got them into our apartments. Miriam needed to get back to the bus station to get her house keys and to get the groceries she’d picked up for Sarah and me out of the car. We told her not to worry and to just come back with them when she could. She ended up coming back about an hour later with some food that she'd foraged from her neighbors. All in all, it was a busy but rewarding day.
More later,
Liz
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