Travel log Tanzania - part 2
Wednesday 30-08 until and including Tuesday 19-09 (2000 km)
Our leisure days in Bagamoyo have come to an end, and the day after tomorrow we will be on the road again daily on our way to Nairobi and beyond. Although … leisure days is not a fair characterisation of the past three weeks. On average, we travelled to Dar es Salaam and Mbande three times a week and never managed to cover these 200 km in less than five hours! Occasionally, it took us more than 7 hours. Most of our time, we spent in Mbande busying ourselves with the bore hole and the maternity wards and we are not dissatisfied with the progress (see the Clinic part of our website). Luckily, we also found time to see Dafrosa Wangoma and her family in Dar es Salaam and Kibaha and to spend time with the Mbawala family. The time left, and all nights, we spent at our beloved Travellers Lodge. The place is still run by Helen and Frank Pieper and has not changed much since we were there two years ago. It is still a quiet, comfortable and clean place with friendly staff and good food. The price-quality ratio is favourable and we can recommend the place to anyone still. The magnificent garden, however, has matured beyond recognition and here and there a canopy of palm leaves is forming, providing enough shade for all kind of epiphytes. Another couple of years, and the Pieper’s have created a botanical garden!
Our cottage in Bagamoyo
At night we largely talk Africa. Since we are a lot on the roads in and around Dar es Salaam, these are a recurrent topic. Particularly the roads in northern Dar es Salaam and those leading north. Although new roads are under construction (among others near the University), the old ones are all but gone completely. Potholes of more than half a meter are no exception and over some distances the asphalt has disappeared completely. That, the increasingly dense traffic, traffic lights that are not working and traffic police with peculiar ways of letting traffic through, cause unimaginable traffic jams. The uncountable bloody “dalla dallas” – small passenger busses – make things only worse. Their drivers have reached a stage of complete lawlessness and apparently the police is incapable or unwilling to control the situation. They ruin the shoulders of the tarmac roads, overtake on the wrong side or drive against the traffic direction. To pick up or let out passengers, they will stop anywhere and under any condition without the least consideration to the safety of other road users. Worse still, all of them drive over closed off sections of new roads under construction, thus damaging the roads’ compacted dirt cores even before asphalt is laid.
Then, there are the “pole pole” bumps. Originally and justifiably constructed to slow down speeding traffic, they have become completely counterproductive. More often than not, they are the only killing asphalt ridges left on otherwise ruined roads and the damage they inflict on non-speeding cars must run in the millions of US dollars per year. But, let’s drop the road issue. Wa Bashasha loves potholes and is huge and impressive enough to occasionally even scare a “dalla dalla”.
The road from Dar es Salaam to Bagamoyo
The sanitary situation in most of Dar es Salaam and the surrounding villages has – in our opinion – not really improved in the past decades. There are still too many open sewage systems and many of these are blocked with sand and garbage. In many places running water is not available and water sellers can still be seen everywhere along all roads. Septic tank latrines are an exception. Garbage is usually dumped along the roads and not, or only infrequently, collected. At the same time, some local authorities are apparently much more effective than others with respect to sanitary measures. Tegeta township and the Rangitatu market in Mbagala are incredibly filthy, whilst other townships and villages look very respectable indeed. Another observation is that spaces around houses and huts are generally clean, but that public spaces are apparently no one’s responsibility.
Tegeta
Talking with expatriates you can hear the most gruesome stories about the safety in Tanzania. People are shot in front of ATMs, their cars are taken on gun point or their homes are violently robbed. Our experience, so far, has been different. The atmosphere in Tanzania is much more relaxed than in any other country we passed through so far. People generally are friendly and helpful and we often had interesting conversations and good laughs with people we had never met before.
Of course, there are numerous other topics. The increasing differences in wealth between a small group of extremely rich people with grand homes and expensive 4x4 vehicles and the incredibly poor masses. The apparent lack of accountability of politicians and other holders of power. The inability of economists to capture the realities of developing countries. However, I don’t want to become too heavy handed and … … Paul, of course, needs some untouched topics for his book!
Continue reading: Tanzania part 3
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