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Published: February 25th 2006
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It was midnight when we crossed the border from Kenya to Tanzania on the overnight bus. And since buses aren’t allowed to drive at night in Tanzania, the driver pulled over in the first town and everyone slept for six hours; we curled up on the bus seats while others made beds of cardboard and sprawled out on the sidewalk til the sun came up and we could continue. Late in the morning we arrived in Dar es Salaam—tired, sweaty, and relieved to be off the mostly unpaved road after a full 24 hours of travel from Kenya.
Though Dodoma holds the official title, Dar is Tanzania’s economic and political capital, and the country’s biggest city. Among travelers it’s known for being uninteresting in relation to other East African cities—most people use it as a stop-over to Kilimanjaro or Zanzibar. After a few days in the city, we couldn’t exactly disagree: the downtown area was modern, conjested, and mostly devoid of character, though we did meet up with friends and together enjoyed the bustling fish market and national museum. The peacocks roaming the otherwise bland botanical gardens provided strange but colorful scenery.
During our stay, Dar newspapers splashed headlines
of rising crime in the city—a phenomenon we experienced firsthand when someone tried to open Randy’s bag on a crowded street. Page 2 ran articles on continued drought, lowered levels of water in Lake Victoria, and the consequent power shortages due to East Africa’s dependence on hydroelectric power. The city would randomly go completely dark, reminding us of California’s rolling blackouts in 2001.
With the bumps of the recent bus ride still fresh in our minds (and on our butts), we chose to take the train from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza, located on the shore of Lake Victoria. The two-day trip would take us clear across the country, from the East side to the West, through the dry central highlands. But first we had to leave the station in Dar—and in true East African fashion, the train was first delayed by 24 hours due to a derailed train somewhere along the line (a piece of information hardly comforting to those of us waiting to catch the next ride), then delayed by four hours, then by another three. When we finally filed into our tiny six-person sleeping cabins (separated by gender), suddenly the bus didn’t sound so bad.
But aside from the occasional bruise from being thrown violently against the corridor walls, and the car doors left swinging open while we sped along the tracks (making it possible for a careless passenger to take a wrong step and wind up debarking before his final stop), the train was an effortless way of getting a sense of the country. The landscape looked a lot like Kenya: clusters of banana trees, fields of dirt ridges with new crops peeking out of the soil, and flocks of excited children running down dirt paths to greet the train. As we got closer to Lake Victoria, we passed hilly fields of boulders stacked on and around each other like children’s building blocks.
Each town we passed through seemed to specialize in something different; whenever the train stopped in an unmarked village (which was quite often), local women would offer their wares through the train windows. In one town you could buy only pineapples; in the next, they sold only handcrafted wooden stools at absurdly cheap prices. After the first day our cabins were so full of other people’s purchases it was unclear where we were going to sleep.
On the train
we met a Tanzanian 20-something whose greatest aspiration (besides being the next 50 Cent) was to leave Tanzania and come to America in search of a better life. The assumption that “America is Paradise” is the basis for many conversations we have here. This guy in particular spent essentially the entire time complaining about life in Africa—he saw himself almost entirely as a victim of the government’s corruption and apathy toward the average Tanzanian. He literally said things would be better if the British had stayed. “They are intelligent, you know,” he told us. He didn’t believe us when we said there were homeless and impoverished people in America and England. It was as if Africa had a monopoly on suffering. We tried to point out to him that with such an attitude he wouldn’t be in any position to create a stronger Africa…but then again, who are we to say? The last thing they need is more white people coming in and making snap judgments about the way things should be.
Of course, misconceptions go both ways; despite our best efforts, we haven’t encountered any cannibals, been shot at, or contracted Ebola.
Upon arrival in Mwanza, along
with a few other “mzungus” (whites) we met on the train, we found a cheap hotel that doubled as a disco from 8pm til 7am. The club played Western style hip hop and R&B so loud that our windows actually shook (it certainly explained the rock-bottom price). We spent two days exploring Mwanza’s lakeside buildings and hillside villages while hanging out with our new European friends from the train. We watched the Egyptian soccer team beat the Ivory Coast in the Africa Cup of Nations final. The bar was filled with passionate Mwanzans rooting for the Ivory Coast, showing solidarity with their fellow sub-Saharan Africans. Still, the excitement of the Africa Cup of Nations is nothing compared to the absolute frenzy inspired by the English Premier League in every African country we visit. If you kick a soccer ball in Dar, chances are high you’ll hit a matatu decorated with Arsenal paraphernalia (or Chelsea, or Manchester United, or Liverpool…).
A three-hour ferry ride from Mwanza took us to Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria, the world’s second biggest freshwater lake. Indeed the lake is so vast that from some points you can look in all directions and not see any
land. On the island we ate delicious fried tilapia from the lake at 25 cents a fish on the streets. We got a few local fishermen to take us out in their rowboat around the bay; conversation was limited as they spoke only Swahili, but Randy brought one elderly fisherman to tears from laughter by pretending to eat a worm intended as bait.
From there, it was just a few ferries and a bus to Uganda, where the country’s in the middle of its first multi-party elections in 26 years.
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Laura Cheung
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wigglers
there's nothing like worm-eating to break the ice! Your travel journal entries are just superb and well-written! I enjoy them always.