Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Dar es Salaam
The first thing you notice when you arrive in Dar is that it's hot. Really hot. You go out shopping at 8:40 in the morning, and it's already hot. By 10 am you're covered in sweat, but it's so humid that the sweat doesn't help.
The second thing you notice is the people. Everywhere. There are the endless lines of taxi drivers who are convinced that all white people on foot must want a taxi. There are the beggars that are found in every city, though one can't help but notice that their physical problems here are often worse than those of the beggars in America. And then there are the every day people: shopkeepers, shoeshiners, sellers of newspapers, sellers of cell-phone vouchers, watch repairmen, businessmen, people who are running to catch a daladala to somewhere and people who are just sitting and watching the traffic go by. There are blacks Tanzanians, of all tribes, mostly in modern dress, occasionally in tribal dress. There are Indian Tanzanians who speak Swahili and whose families have lived in Dar es Salaam for generations. And there are the occasional wazungu (white people), tourists or students or expats who work in Dar.
Coming into Dar after 7.5 months in Tanzania, it doesn't feel foreign. The palm trees no longer seem exotic; Kiswahili sounds more natural than English. It seems perfectly normal for people to walk around selling clothes, bottles of water, and random knickknacks. When coming into Dar after living in a Tanzanian village, what strikes one is not how exotic it seems, but how developed it is. The roads are paved! There are supermarkets! And bookstores that sell novels! Not to mention ice cream, Indian food, Lebanese food, and coffee that's not powdered.
Dar es Salaam is certainly not New York. There are power outages. Tap water has to be boiled before drinking. Public transportation consists of crowded small minivans (daladalas), most of which are far beyond their prime. The city probably has a host of problems which will never be noticed by a Peace Corps volunteer who's merely passing through. Despite the existence of supermarkets, paved roads, and ice cream, Dar is no doubt dealing with the problems of development facing cities throughout Africa.
But. Living in a village definitely puts things in perspective. Things like electricity, pavement, and well-supplied stores suddenly seem more rare and exotic than banana trees and mangoes. After months in rural Tanzania, Dar doesn't feel like an undeveloped foreign country. It feels like America.
The second thing you notice is the people. Everywhere. There are the endless lines of taxi drivers who are convinced that all white people on foot must want a taxi. There are the beggars that are found in every city, though one can't help but notice that their physical problems here are often worse than those of the beggars in America. And then there are the every day people: shopkeepers, shoeshiners, sellers of newspapers, sellers of cell-phone vouchers, watch repairmen, businessmen, people who are running to catch a daladala to somewhere and people who are just sitting and watching the traffic go by. There are blacks Tanzanians, of all tribes, mostly in modern dress, occasionally in tribal dress. There are Indian Tanzanians who speak Swahili and whose families have lived in Dar es Salaam for generations. And there are the occasional wazungu (white people), tourists or students or expats who work in Dar.
Coming into Dar after 7.5 months in Tanzania, it doesn't feel foreign. The palm trees no longer seem exotic; Kiswahili sounds more natural than English. It seems perfectly normal for people to walk around selling clothes, bottles of water, and random knickknacks. When coming into Dar after living in a Tanzanian village, what strikes one is not how exotic it seems, but how developed it is. The roads are paved! There are supermarkets! And bookstores that sell novels! Not to mention ice cream, Indian food, Lebanese food, and coffee that's not powdered.
Dar es Salaam is certainly not New York. There are power outages. Tap water has to be boiled before drinking. Public transportation consists of crowded small minivans (daladalas), most of which are far beyond their prime. The city probably has a host of problems which will never be noticed by a Peace Corps volunteer who's merely passing through. Despite the existence of supermarkets, paved roads, and ice cream, Dar is no doubt dealing with the problems of development facing cities throughout Africa.
But. Living in a village definitely puts things in perspective. Things like electricity, pavement, and well-supplied stores suddenly seem more rare and exotic than banana trees and mangoes. After months in rural Tanzania, Dar doesn't feel like an undeveloped foreign country. It feels like America.
# posted by Kristen @ 5:20 AM 
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