Settling Into Life in Dar Es Salaam

Well it’s hard to believe a week has already passed here in Dar Es Salaam although I imagine by the time the internet allows me to post this, this post may be a couple weeks delayed! I’ve been surprised by the temperatures here in the city which is in the southern coastal part of Tanzania, I half expected to be sweltering in heat and dripping in sweat much of the day however I’ve been surprised by the pleasantly warm but not ridiculously hot temperatures. 

CoCo beach - 2 mins walk down the road but we get too hassled to go there to swim or relax

During the peak of the day, from around 11am-1pm, the temps hit around 28-32 degrees max but then cool slightly to a balmy 25-27 degrees for the remainder of the day, normally with a nice breeze which makes it quite nice to walk around in a t-shirt and shorts without melting J. 

Neville, our house pet

Where I’m staying in Dar is considered to be the ‘nice’ area of town, Oyster bay, as it’s called, hosts most of the embassy and UN houses along with many of the top government officials homes and is a popular area for higher budget hotel chains.  

Each house is lined by high walls and guard posts at the front doors to ensure that visibility of the property is not particularly easy from the street.  

A local outdoor shop in Oyster Bay - note the difference from the city

Gardeners are seen outside each house constantly planting new ‘african grass’, a much thicker version of grass to what we’re used to, in an attempt to keep the front lawns looking ‘green’ and there is much distance separating each house with a wide road which runs down the middle which seems surprisingly quiet, except for around 6pm when there is a mass of people who make the journey back from the local beach through towards one of the main roads past our house which has Dahla Dahla’s (minivan type buses which seat 20 but take around 40-50 people!) and Bjaj’s (3 wheeled half covered motored transport used as a form of taxi for short distances) to take them back towards the main city. 

Oyster bay seems to be like a little ‘bubble’ of wealth which seems oddly out of place from the rest of the city.  If you walk around 5-10 minutes in any direction from the house I’m staying at, you enter what could be considered the more ‘usual’ scenery of Dar Es Salaam.  The ‘main streets’ have an interesting combination of ramshackled buildings made varying lengths of wood slats where local tradesmen sell various furnishings, locally grown produce and sometimes eat-in or take away meals cooked in large metal pots on open fires to be given to customers in black plastic bags to take away or metal trays if eating in.  Small old concrete buildings of various colours are interspersed amongst the wooden ‘shacks’ containing various small businesses or ‘corner shop’ type stores and every once in a while, a new, shiny tall building, not dissimilar to any found in the UK/Canada etc is seen which seems oddly out of place amongst the rest of the landscape, usually a hotel or large corporate building catering to international individuals. 

The Dalla Dalla

The Dalla Dallas

The streets themselves never seem to sleep, with men often rushing from person to person, offering ‘great deals’ on souvenirs or furnishings, often African style paintings from the numerous local artists or wooden carvings, necklaces and beaded or massai type sandals on display every 100 meters or so.  Women sit on the sides of the roads offering fresh vegetables and often have corn for sale which they cook on open flames as a ‘take-away’ snack.  The bjaj drivers often follow people who are on foot vying for business along the dusty old tarmacked roads with cars and dahla dahlas speeding by honking at anything that moves with no discernible distinction between which side of the road should be driven on thus making driving a bit of a ‘free for all’ event. Unless you are on one of the main ‘highways’, where the road is divided by a meridian, I get the feeling that the driving rules are rather loosely applied to bigger vehicles getting right of way over anything smaller which is likely to be crushed in the event of a collision (a common occurrence here, particularly for the numerous motorcylists where helmets are rarely, if ever used).

The Night Bjaj with Lizzie and Megan

A normal downtown street in Dar

During the first week here, it became quickly apparent that we should never leave the house carrying anything more than a small amount of money hidden in a bra or a closely attached bum bag (fanny pack for my Canadian friends J ), particularly if you are a ‘mzungo’ (Swahili for a ‘white person’). In my week, 2 of the girls staying at the house had their purses brazenly taken from them in broad daylight by passing vehicles where the men hang outside the window and grab anything they can reach before speeding off and one girl was unfortunately dragged around 200 meters as a thief tried to pull her purse from over her neck but was unable to free it easily.  Just prior to my arrival, a newly hired night security guard at the house waited for all the students to go out then broke many of the room’s lock boxes with an accomplice and made off with hundreds of pounds and valuables.  Surprisingly, or rather stupidly, he remained at the house after his accomplice left, presumably as he thought the goods taken would not be immediately noticed so he could claim ignorance, but was quickly apprehended and taken away by police.

Central Dar

  

Despite the high level of street crime in the form of thieving, the majority of Tanzanians take thieving very seriously and often take punishment into their own hands, observed first hand on our first trip to a local restaurant.  A young thief attempted to pickpocket money at the outdoor restaurant where we were eating and was quickly set upon by restaurant staff, as many as 10 staff members beating the thief as they dragged him off the premises, presumably to continue punishment away from view of the customers.  I’ve been told that this type of crime has become more and more common in the area where I’m staying as criminals have cottoned on to the fact that Oyster Bay houses mainly affluent ‘Mzungo’s’ where they are more likely to get more money from a robbery then elsewhere in the city.  As much as this type of crime is upsetting, I can’t help but feel some sadness for those committing the crimes as they are often young, poor unemployed men with little or no means of supporting themselves or their families.  I find myself wondering if I were in their position, starving and having to watch my children go hungry & crying from starvation, what extent I would go to in order to put food on the table.

The largest Orphanage in Dar (To be discussed more in another post

My first trip into town, 3 days after I arrived to reach the hospital where I would be spending the coming 5 weeks, was quite an experience in itself.  From the house I am staying in, there is a 15-20 minute walk along dusty roads to a ‘main’ road which travels towards the centre of town.  Myself, plus 4 other medics and nursing students waited for our ‘dahla dahla’ to pull up at the bus stop whilst being approached by various ‘punters’ begging us to buy trinkets for sale and bjaj drivers offering ‘good price’ fares to the city (which we were told to avoid as they are known to use both the roads, sidewalks/pavements and grassy verges to reach their destination as quickly as possible).  As our dahla dahla pulled up, it resembled something you would expect of a clown car, with several men hanging out the door and 40 people crammed into what should fit maybe 20 people at a normal ‘push’.  Given that the dahla dahla stopped in front of us, we assumed that people must be getting off to have space to fit us in, however this quickly proved not to be the case.  The ‘money man’ who takes payment for the driver and gets you onto the bus, quickly ushered us to get on the bus, pushing people as fast as he could to the back of the bus to the point where sardines would have had more room than we did!  The ride couldn’t pass fast enough with my face was firmly planted in the armpit of a local man who clearly didn’t believe in deodorant  as we were jostled back and forth by the dahla dahla, honking it’s way through the traffic towards town.  As we disembarked at the entrance to the hospital, I tried to manage a smile at the man who’s armpit had been my headrest for the past 40 minutes whilst subtly reaching for the alcohol gel in my bum bag.  I have a feeling the buckets of alcohol gel I brought with me to Tanzania will be well used!

6 is a normal number for a taxi right? (With Megan, Lizzie, Me and Abbie - Simon +1 in the front)