First couple of days in Tanzania

Holy crap, where do I begin? A lot has happened since my last post. We moved out of our house in Durham, got most of our junk into one 5x10 foot storage container (and spread the rest around into various attics), said goodbye to all of our friends in Durham and in West Virginia and caught a flight to Dar es Salaam, Africa from the Pittsburg airport.

We flew on Emirates airlines which was really nice. I would say “if you have the means, I highly recommend it”, but strangely we booked the cheapest tickets we could find and wound up on that airline. The food was great, the service was spectacular and each seat had a video touch-screen with 600 channels of movies and TV shows and music. If you don’t mind that the safety video is in Arabic and shows a skull-capped Islamic dude blowing air into his life preserver as he jumps out the emergency doors, then fly Emirates. We had an overnight layover in Dubai so the airline put us up in a nice hotel for free with all our meals complementary. From there it was only a 5 hour flight to Dar es Salaam.

It's hot as constricted unclean balls here! Ruth and I arrived yesterday afternoon, with about 300 pounds of luggage, to a chaotic scene at the airport. Customs and immigration control went smoothly, but when we stepped outside we were mobbed by taxi drivers and tour operators speaking a mix of English and Swahili. Wish I had some pictures of that scene, but we were too busy trying to get our bearings- we had to exchange some $, buy a cell phone and call a hotel to arrange for a room. By the time we got this taken care of, we had a lot of spectators, but somehow it was already worked out which of these guys was going to be our taxi driver and we had no choice in the matter. There are a lot of men that are working as Jack of all trades here in Dar es Salaam- You need car? I get you car. You need taxi? Safari? Here is my card, you call me- So we have a few numbers now.

It was so hot in the middle of the day today that we had to just lay under the fan in our room and not move. While I was eating lunch with Ruth I watched heat rash break out on her eye sockets, and Ruth says that my lips are white. Here is a photo of the street, taken from our hotel balcony.

Dar es Salaam is crowded and busy even in this heat. We walk around during the afternoon and say ‘Hujambo bwana’ or ‘Hujambo mama’ to people we see. Of course they want to know where we are from and practice English. Not many guess that we are American but once we tell them, they say things like ‘Oh Hollywood!’ or ‘Obama. Bush!’ and also ‘Welcome to Tanzania!’ People are generally very nice here. There are lots of cars, but many people are just walking and some are riding their awesome old school bikes. The bikes I’ve seen so far are very similar to the ones that I saw in China. The brakes are mechanically levered with rods, or even !hydraulics! and not cabled like most modern bikes in the US and Europe. Out of the hundreds of new and old bikes I’ve worked on at the Durham bike COOP, never have I done a bike with this type of braking system. Here is a picture of a typical bike, although you can’t see the brakes on this one so perhaps it’s a hipster’s fixed gear?

Tomorrow is Monday, so we will finally be able to get some of our tasks done. We have some hustlers showing up at the hotel in the morning to sell us a car. We casually mentioned that we were going to buy a car to some guys that we were talking to on the street and before we knew it we were surrounded by ‘car dealers’ and they have just the right one for us! We will have several to choose from waiting in front of our hotel at very good prices in the morning!