A day at the beach

On Sunday, Cristiano, Eveline - our neighbour - and I headed out for a day at the beach. Getting to the beach can be a little bit of a procedure. Being a port city, Dar has a number of its own beaches. However, it is not recommended that you visit these beaches for safety and health reasons, as people occasionally get robbed or worse on these beaches and there is all sorts of fun stuff that washes down from the city into the sea. Coco beach, which is on the Msasani Peninsula, is the exception to the rule, as it fills up with people on a Sunday afternoon who try their luck at the various games set out on the beach and enjoy a drink or some seafood at the local, beachside restuarant. However, Coco Beach is not that forward thinking and it would be inappropriate to wear a bikini and sunbathe on Coco Beach. The end result of my long explanation is that we have to travel a little further afield for the tropical paradise beach with beautifully clear, warm water. In our case, we travelled to Kipepeo Beach.


A trip to Kipepeo Beach from the Msasani Peninsula involves a walk, three dalladallas and a short ferry ride. Of course, the trip can be abbreviated by taking a taxi. It was incredibly relaxing to spend the day on the beach, reading a good book and swimming in the sea. The sea is delightfully warm, which is in sharp contrast to swimming in Cape Town (or Vancouver for that matter) where it requires bravery and a bit of foolhardiness to enter the water on anything but the hottest days. And then there was the camel.

And in the news

In November 2008, I read the following statement made by the Tanzanian Deputy Minister of Education and Vocational training, Mwantumu Mahiza, about sexual violence against schoolgirls:

"sexual violence in schools is mostly fuelled by schoolgirls themselves who are easily lured by lucrative offers such as French fries and expensive cell phones".

I just came across the newspaper article again and I thought would share her statement with you.

A few of my favourite (and not so favourite) things

After almost three weeks of being out and about, I feel a little bit discombobulated being back in Dar. All the Swahili I had learnt had been swept clean from my mind and I had forgotten about the joys of not having running water. I also became very aware that the clock is ticking down on my time in Dar. Somewhat amazingly, I only have 6 weeks left here. When we arrived last August, it seemed like we were here for an impossibly long time. As my thoughts start to turn homeward, I find myself also thinking about the things that I found to be the best and the worst aspects of living in Dar. In no particular order, here are my five top picks for both categories.

The best of the best

1. The people. Generally, I have found people to be incredibly friendly and helpful. For instance, the other day I was trying to get through the unseemly crush of people that besets the door of the dalladalla the minute it reaches its final destination. I was having a hard time getting off. This tiny, Tanzanian woman came to my rescue. She pushed people out of the way and then pulled me through the crowd before walking off with a smile and a wave. It made my day. I have found that this lady is representative of the approach to life taken by most Tanzanians.

2. The food. I have an unswerving love of chapattis, which make a great breakfast. Also up there are the various fried goodies, like egg chop (a boiled egg coated in .5” mince meat and deep fried), that are available from the ubiquitous Indian tea shops scattered throughout downtown Dar. And then there’s the meat, the fish and the fruit...

3. The other people. The other people refers to our wazungu friends. The other young, ex-pats who are hoping to do something in Tanzania and want to have fun in the process. Cristiano and I have been extremely lucky to meet a great bunch of people who will lend us a cup of sugar, a smile or a shoulder to cry on depending on the situation. I’m cutting myself off there before I get too soppy.

4. The beach. I know, it is kind of shallow choice, but how can I not mention it. The beaches here have all pretty much been of the tropical paradise variety. It doesn't hurt that we are a skip and a jump away from Zanzibar.

5. Maggie, our maid. I suspect this is not a particularly politically correct choice, but nonetheless. The original motivation for hiring Maggie was laundry. We do not have access to a washing machine and the prospect of doing hand washing for seven months was a powerful incentive. Maggie is great. She keeps everything in ship-shape order and shows us how to cope when things go awry, like when there is no water. We have been spoilt by Maggie who has made it infinitely easier to live in and adapt to Dar.

...and the rest

1. The lack of running water. I find the somewhat unpredictable lapses in running water and electricity incredibly frustrating. As there is always the expectation that the amenity will return shortly, we don’t have the infrastructure, like gas stoves and big containers for water, to deal with long term lapses. Having said that, after the water issues of December and January, we have started to store larger quantities of water in the house.

2. The heat. It is hot in Dar, like 40 degrees hot. We are lucky we arrived in Dar at the tail end of winter, as it gave our bodies a fighting chance to adapt to the heat. From August to November, I embraced the heat and the perfectly sunny days. However, in December and January, the height of summer, the heat has become oppressive. When I wake up in the morning, I am sweating and this sets the precedent for the day. On the positive side, it has given me the excuse to get a little, white hankie to dab my face. I feel very Tanzanian.

3. The dalladallas. The dalladallas are a blessing and a curse. It is incredibly cheap to get around on dalladallas and they seem to run at all hours. However, the dalladallas invariably look like they have two wheels in the grave and are packed to an almost exploding point with people. There is always room for one more person on a dalladalla.

4. The different work culture. Coming from a large, corporate law firm, I found it challenging at times to adjust to a more laid back environment where time is sometimes frittered away and deadlines aren’t really deadlines. Being an A-type personality, I like to get things done as efficiently as possible. However, in Tanzania, the most efficient way is not always the best way, as it may cause you to miss out important relationship-building opportunities. It took me a while to discover the differences between the Canadian and Tanzanian work cultures, and it took me a little longer after that to figure out how to work with the two different cultures.

5. My laptop being stolen. My laptop being stolen was a bugger and it was not helped by the complete inaction of the police, our landlord, and our security guards.

Going South for the summer

After being a bit of a tourist in Johannesburg, I winged down to Cape Town to become a (temporary) Capetonian. I met my twin sister, Vicky, and her boyfriend, Greg, in Cape Town for a little more R&R and some twin time. Quick correction, Greg’s status was upgraded last week from boyfriend to fiancé. This change in status created frissons of excitement in my family, as Greg is a great guy and Vicky is the first of three daughters to get married. I only wish I could have been in South Africa for a few days longer so that I could share in the celebration. Congratulations!

Cape Town is very Vancouverish with Table Mountain providing a solid backdrop and the sea stretching out in front of you. To be fair, the differences probably end there. Capetonians are extremely fashion forward and there is a never-ending supply of beautiful people. The highlights of our time in Cape Town were a marvelous, catered picnic at the Boschendal wine estate with plenty of wine to boot and tandem paragliding off the Lions.

Paragliding is when you run off a mountain with a parachute and, in my case, a man strapped to your back and you soar on thermals. Paragliding didn’t give me the same adrenalin rush that bungee jumping and parachuting did, rather I felt incredibly peaceful and in awe of my sky-high perspective. I did have a couple of toe-tingling moments when we looped into land, but I don’t think those were adrenalin induced. I think they came from the rumbles in my stomach. Somewhat ironically, Vicky and I got food poisoning in Cape Town. The kind of food poisoning that makes you never want to eat again. Unfortunately, we also got it the night before I was due to fly back to Dar. After a night of no-fun, I tottered onto an overcrowded flight to Dar (via Johannesburg) and tried to hold onto the insides of my stomach. I made it to Johannesburg, but no further. I was whisked away from the airport by my Dad for a couple of bonus days in Johannesburg. In the end, the food poisoning was a blessing in disguise.

The Promised Land

After a couple of hiccups with our train journey, Wes and I got to Lusaka, Zambia and had some quality hanging out time at the airport. The airport had a bar and a stuffed warthog’s head grinning down on us, what more could we need? A quick flight and we made it to the promised land, a.k.a South Africa. After living in rural Tanzania for a year, some American friends of mine keep referring to South Africa as the promised land and it has caught on, or, at least, it has caught on with me.

Arriving in South Africa on December 23 gave us all a quick breather to catch up on the last two years of news, for Wes to meet my Dad and his partner, Bernice, and for us to do a lightening tour of all the important places in Johannesburg, like where I went to primary school. Then we tried to fall into the spirit of Christmas. When I first got to Canada, I had trouble associating Christmas with snow and coldness. Nine years later, I had the opposite problem in South Africa where the 30 degree heat dried up all my Christmas spirit (although it was somewhat revived by a little turkey and champagne).

Over the next ten days, Wes and I had a whirlwind taste of the history, the food and the wildlife of South Africa. As all good lawyers do, we popped into the rather avant garde Constitutional Court of South Africa for a quick look-see at the cow-hide covered bench. We also swiftly learnt that South Africa’s Bill of Rights, which is contained in its Constitution, is one of the very few that guarantees economic and social rights, such as the right to health care, food and water. It will be interesting to see how the court deals with proceedings to enforce these types of rights.

Our next step was the apartheid museum. I had somewhat mixed feelings about the apartheid museum because I wasn’t sure how it would reflect South Africa’s recent past and because I am a white South African. Overall, I would give it two thumbs up, as it has interesting and largely comprehensive multi-media exhibits. However, sometimes, a little more context was needed to get the full flavour of a particular historical event.

After our historical dose, we were off to commune with nature. Our first stop was the Dewildt Cheetah Park, where they breed cheetahs and wild dogs in captivity to bolster the stocks in the wild. Our second stop was the Pilansberg Game Reserve. The highlight of these wildlife endeavors was having a black rhino and her calf saunter within 6 or 7 meters of the car. Our proximity to the rhino gave us a new appreciation for its size – it is HUGE. Rhinos are renowned for their bad temper and their poor eyesight. We were quite careful to not get between mom and her calf.

The last thing on our list was a township tour. Somewhat like the apartheid museum, I felt a little conflicted about going on a township tour and watching someone else’s way of life. However, in the spirit of giving everything a go once, off we went. We went on a tour of Soweto, one of Johannesburg’s largest and oldest townships. Soweto was an interesting mix of middle-class suburbia and shacks that had been cobbled together with tin sheeting. We also had the chance to see a couple of historical sites in Soweto, such as where the Sharpeville massacre took place and a church that was the “parliament of Soweto” during apartheid. Ultimately, I found the township tour a bit boring. I think that by the time we did the tour, we had overdosed on museums and the living conditions of the poorer inhabitants of Soweto are very akin to the living conditions of the folks that I go past every day. In the mornings, my seat on the dalladalla gives me a window into people’s lives as they have a “bowl bath’’ outside their tiny, tin homes that have no power or running water. In the evenings, I see little kids playing in the dust among flattened water bottles and fluttering pieces of plastic bags. I have not become inured to the difficulty of living in these types of conditions, but I have lost the desire to stare at it or to be shocked by it.

Wes and I got around a fair bit, thanks to Wes’ ability to drive a manual. However, being in Johannesburg was about more than being tourists. It was about introducing Wes to South Africa and spending time with my family. I enjoyed the opportunity to be a tourist and a home girl.

Riding the Rails

On December 19, Wes and I excitedly boarded a tuk-tuk and wobbled our way along the edges of standstill traffic from my office to the Tazara train station to catch the once-a-week train to Zambia. Tazara is the name of the rail link between Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Kipiri Moshi, Zambia (Kapiri Moshi is approximately 200 km away from Lusaka, the capital of Zambia). According to my guidebook, the train trip could take anywhere from 42 to 46 hours. Our plan was to take the train to Kipiri Moshi, find our way to Lusaka and then fly to Johannesburg to spend Christmas with my family.

We arrived at the train station in fine form, only to be told that the train had been delayed by 25 hours. While I had built in a 48-hour buffer between our estimated time of arrival in Kipiri Moshi and our flight to Johannesburg, I hadn’t counted on a 25-hour delay off the bat. 25 hours is a long time. Wes and I trekked back into Dar, bags and all, and adjusted our flight arrangements accordingly. On a positive note, the delay meant that we got to hang out with Prasanna (the CBA intern placed in Addis Abba) for the evening and to compare our experiences over a couple of bottles of beer.

The next day, we taxied our way back to the train station only to have a deja vue moment when the ticket agent told us the train was delayed by a further 5 hours so it would be leaving at 8 p.m that evening. This caused a bit of head shaking and muttering about public transportation on my part. Thankfully, there was a first class lounge in which to spin away the hours and an alternative transportation plan if things really went south, like if the train didn’t show up. Outside the first class lounge, the 300 or so people who would be travelling in second and third class sat behind a small sign that dictated that people line up in neat rows while waiting for the train. My guess is that people were willing to sit in these lines for 6 or more hours because they would then be the first on the train and the first to select the good seats.

True to their word, the train showed up 7 p.m. and the station gates were opened for boarding an hour after the train arrived. Boarding was controlled chaos that was managed by two khaki-clad men, who I took to be policemen. These men measured the flow of people through the station gate with a short stick, the butt of a gun and loud voices. One guy who went against the flow was rewarded with a swift whack to the head with the butt of the gun. After seeing that, I wasn’t too keen to be within range of the policemen. Without the policemen’s presence, I think people would have stampeded the train. However, the casual manner with which force was employed was a little unexpected and rather off putting.

Once on the train, Wes and I took stock of the first class cabin that had been reserved for Miss Louw and family. We had to book the entire cabin, as there is a prohibition against men and women sharing a cabin in any other circumstances (booking the cabin cost approx. $275 Cdn). The cabin had four berths, blankets and pillows, a little table and a window to the outside world. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the train also had a basic shower, a bar cart, and a food cart with decent food at very decent prices. The only hiccup with the food cart is that you have to pay with the currency of the country in which the train is travelling, so shillings in Tanzania and kwacha once you cross the border into Zambia. We found it next to impossible to buy kwacha in Dar and we had high hopes of doing some money exchange at the border (which we successfully did). 29 hours after the anticipated departure time, the train set off with a lurch and the comforting click-clack of the railway ties.

The train wound its way through subsistence farms, tiny railway stations and excited, waving hands. At each train station, bags of rice, baskets of mangoes and starched fish were hoisted to our window for our inspection. In a memorable moment, Wes did a half-duck dive out of the window as he tried to reach the mangoes proffered to him by a small, Zambian girl. Once Wes had grabbed a couple of mangoes, the little girl’s legs took off and we had to call her back to pay her. I think she was still mastering the principles of selling. At most of the stations, little children stared into our cabin with curiosity. Sometimes, these little children would look at us with entreating eyes and open palms, or they would repeatedly ask for pens, bottles and soap. I found the level of poverty and these semi-constant requests somewhat depressing.

After 55 hours on the train, we glided into Kipiri Moshi at the rather ungodly hour of 2 a.m. Overall, the train journey was fantastic and incredibly relaxing. It was rather startling to have to get off the train and face reality. Reality at Kipiri Moshi was bedding down for the night in a cavernous train station with a few hundred other people. Wes and I spent the night hugging our bags, as we tried to find a comfortable spot on an emaciated couch. We were up with the birds and away from the train station at 5:30 a.m. to search for the mythical bus to Lusaka. After waiting at the rather informal Kipiri Moshi bus station for 4 hours and watching over-packed "big buses" roar their way to Lusaka, Wes and I went against the general advice to take a "big bus" and boarded a "little bus". The little bus was a little slower, a little fuller and a little cheaper (35,000 kwacha), but it got us to Lusaka.