25 Days in Tanzania

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I’ve moved on from Tanzania and am now playing around in Malawi and Mozambique. In summary Tanzania was brilliant.

Having crossed from the south west of Uganda I arrived in a charming little town on Lake Victoria called Bukoba. (Border day went relatively smoothly although they seemed to be storing some alcohol down the backs of the seats as the bus crossed the border. I don’t know why they didn’t just store it in the boot with the other bags, but I guess they had their reasons.) In Bukoba I stayed right on the beach in a cute thatched hut which was idyllic. I also had my second African nightclub experience in Bukoba which was more enjoyable than my first; I didn’t get a trendy hoodie stolen this time (admittedly I no longer own a trendy hoodie after the first time). My one trick break dancing move was also very widely appreciated and earned me a lot of African club cred. Obviously I can never go back there as I don’t have any other moves.

Next came one of my highlights, the boat trip across the bottom corner of the lake on the MV Victoria. I really don’t know why I liked this so much; it was 9 hours of which I slept for 8 and spent 1 hour talking to an annoying German about the pros and cons of nuclear power (he fully supports Germany’s knee-jerk reaction to Fukushima of reducing nuclear power, but doesn’t have an alternative solution apart from more oil). However, I loved the trip. Possibly it was the colonial feel of the boat, the cute little cabins and my ‘Death on the Nile’ imagination, but was also great just being part of the action at the docks, watching the loading and unloading thousands of bananas.

The boat took me to Mwanza where I joined some Europeans for a safari in the Seregenti and the Ngorongoro Crater. The Serengeti was amazing, and having listened to Attenborough’s dulcet tones and his Wilderbeast migration when I was young, it didn’t disappoint. We saw so many animals and right up close too. The highlights for me were watching an elephant about 5m away rip down branches from a tree with its trunk, shove them in its mouth and strip the leaves, little families of monkeys fooling about which were so human like, and driving along side a lion that was out for its morning jog – awesome creatures. Even without the animals the Serengeti is a phenomenal landscape. It means ‘endless plane’ and goes on as far as you can see, constantly changing in character as you travel through. I’m really not eloquent enough to do it justice, but thought you might be able to recreate the experience at home or in the office. Simply lie down on your carpet so that your eye is right next to the pile and look along the ‘endless’ floor. Then gradually move around onto a rug, onto tiles, wowed by the dramatic change in character of the floor landscape, for about 5 hours – there you’ve experienced the Serengeti.

One thing you might not be able to recreate is the fear in our eyes when we thought there was a big cat in the campsite about 10m away, only seeing the outline after dusk. I came back absolutely petrified, got mocked by the rest of the group until they saw it too, who were then also petrified. (I did take some comfort reckoning that I could out run 2 of our group if push came to shove and we were chased.) It ambled off though rather than wanting a European dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening half wishing it would return, but a more significant half glad that it didn’t. In hindsight it was probably just a hyena, technically not a cat, but you still wouldn’t want to meet it down a dark alley.

Serengeti brilliant, but Ngorongoro Crater was a bit of a damp squib. This is an enormous crater of 20km diameter like one big zoo teeming with wildlife with (a little harsh on the smaller animals with the lions in there, and pretty sure the lions were getting a bit flabby with all that tasty zebra on tap). Many people have said that the crater is superb, but for us the animals just weren’t performing and it was difficult to surpass our Serengeti experience.

Team Europe then gave up animal watching and headed for the beach on Zanzibar. Ridiculously hot, even for my dark Meditaranean skin, and had a fantastic time living up to our stereotypes – lobster red by the end of each day, and didn’t miss a cocktail during the 4 hour happy hour. Every day ended with a sunset beer in the sea. Such good fun and it was a sad day when team Europe disbanded.

My final leg was a fantastic train to the south west, a place called Mbeya. (It wasn’t the original plan, but rain in Dar Es Salaam caused the other line to be suspended.) Due to some ‘corruption’ in may favour, I managed to get a ticket at the last minute even though the train was officially full; I just called a number, said I was a friend of this guy and hey presto I was on the reservation list. And it wasn’t full either before you have pictures of an orphan sitting on his suitcase crying on the platform as the train pulls out because I’d taken his seat. The train really felt like a Michael Palin adventure with all the villagers running to the train to wave as it went past and the selling and buying frenzy at each station. I loved every minute of the 26 hours.

After a spot of hiking on Mt Mbeya, I traveled to the border along a road known locally as the airport as many a minibus has flown off the road into the valley. That was reassuring to know. Tanzania ticked.

Special report: The People

I want to write about this, but really struggle. Firstly I struggled with the title as I wanted to say ‘the people of Africa’ or ‘the people of Uganda/Tanzania’, but I came to realize that there isn’t just one kind of people, but a huge diversity from one region or tribe to the next and I’ve only experienced little snippets of the continent. Secondly, just like anywhere else, within any region there is an enormous range of individual differences from people that want to take you for all the money you have to the warmest kindest people, just like the UK. Also, I’ve only seen tyhings from a white person’s perspective, and locals' interaction with me is bound to be skewed, often because white people are their main source of income, but sometime because the want to impress you and show off their country. In summary, I’d love to say that I’ve identified African people as a certain type that behave in a certain way, but I’m not sure I understand that much and I don’t think that a single ‘African’ type exists. I will though mention the jumbled things I’ve seen.

Wealth. The people that live here really don’t have very much money and extremely little material wealth. The houses are extremely basic by UK standards, often built from cane and dried mud walls, and if you’re really poshe from locally made bricks. The ‘middleclass’ have corrugated iron for their rooves, rather than thatch. Electricity access varies from place to place, and TVs are virtually non existent. When I stayed with the chef for a few days, the evening entertainment was listening to the radio or making faces with his daughter. There is a tiny upper class that works for the government, doing the jobs that everyone dreams of, but are usually unattainable. Therefore, some people see their only way of getting ahead to work in a rich neighbouring country such as South Africa (for Malawi and Mozambique), or riskier work in Sudan (for Uganda). Children are literally playing with a stick and a wheel like my parents used to when they were young. The best toy I’ve seen though is a 1.5l water bottle converted into a lorry: some plastic bent up to make a windscreen and bottle tops as wheels pulled along with string – awesome.

Socially I don’t know where to begin and I’ve really struggled to perceive what is going on. Even at the individual level my radar is way off and just when I think a fight is breaking out, it suddenly turns into a bit of fun. There is little public affection between men and women. Ironically there are more men holding hands demonstrating their friendship (being gay is generally illegal) than male-female hand holding. (I’m looking forward to trying it with my male friends when I get home to show my friendship.) Apparently the ‘larger’ lady is generally desired, which is lucky as the most popular meal in many places now is fried chicken and chips. (I met one guy saying he checks that he’s sitting next to a man for space reasons when buying a train ticket.) And being married gives ‘adult’ status; In Uganda if you’re not married when you die then your body is taken out through the back of the house rather than the front. (I’ve had so many people burst out laughing when I tell them I’m 34 and not married, which makes me feel great!)

There’s also something about noise that I can’t quite put my finger on. Africa is so so noisy. Nobody sits quietly and reads (I don’t think I’ve seen any locals reading actually), but instead makes as much noise as possible. In buses the Afropop is blaring, and if it’s not then someone will find a repetitive song on their phone and blare that. All bars have the music blaring. In Malawi there is a fuel crisis and I’ve heard that it is in part because there are very few Malawian exports resulting in no foreign currency to buy fuel with. I disagree - I think it is simply that they use all their electricity and fuel on blaring music. One thing to note though is that I don’t think it is meant to be antisocial as it would be regarded on a bus in the UK. I think it’s simply sharing the music, or not even realizing that it’s having an impact on their neighbour. I think I’m getting old having just written all that.

Work. This varies so much from place to place, but I can pick out a couple of themes. Firstly, the general rule of thumb is that the women work so much harder than the men. Where I was staying in Uganda, the women were the ones that were climbing the mountains each day carrying down loads on their backs that I could barely lift. The men were generally socializing during this time. Secondly, there seems to be a difference in attitude to work between the African Africans and the Indian Africans with the latter being much more business driven and orientated (treading very carefully here). Obviously there are exceptions.

There are 2 remaining things that dominate people’s lives here: religion and The Premiership. Christianity is massive, although I’m unclear which types. I guess religion and belief must give so much hope and support where the government infrastructure doesn’t (I hope that doesn’t sound too patronizing), but I do question the large sums that the very poor contribute to the church. I’ve also heard in some cases that the priest can have significant influence over individuals’ lives within the community which can have its drawbacks.

The other religion, The Premiership, is even bigger. Everywhere I’ve been they support Man U, Chelsea or Arsenal, although some glory hunters are switching to Man City (nobody seems to be switching to Spurs or supports Liverpool though). I get endless amusement from the ubiquity of the awful memorabilia, and teams’ and players’ names plastered all over busses, my favourite being a bashed up Carlos Tevez bus.

So there’s my jumbled dissection of the people, which for me seems very hard to fathom. Even if I stayed here another 10 years, I’m not sure I would have progressed that much in my understanding.

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