16 June 2014

Home sweet home.  It’s always nice to go away but how sweet it is to come back home.  There are so many impressions of the “big” city running through my head.  And Dar es Salaam is big, really big.  The population now is around 4.5 million, and there is a prediction (fear?) that it will double in a few years.  One of the main talking points around DSM is the traffic, and while there are steps being taken to ease the jams, still people use a lot of time getting around from one part of the sprawling city to another.  We actually didn’t have a very hard time of moving around in the city but leaving was another story.  It took over three hours to do the first 60 miles, mainly because of lines of slow moving trucks.  Dar es Salaam  has a very large port which handles cargo for not only all the upcountry towns in Tanzania but also for several neighboring countries which are landlocked.  And the rail system isn’t very good so most of that cargo needs to go by road, and these roads are nearly all two lanes.  A lot of the road between Dar es Salaam and Dodoma is climbing, and parts quite curvy as well so all in all it took eight hours to go 280 miles.  That was a long drive on a sunny day … But the main consideration – a safe trip – was achieved, thanks be to God and to all our guardian angels and loved ones in heaven who are looking out for us.

Some of the scenes which I observed waiting in traffic in the city:

-          A young girl, about nine years old, leading an older man, probably her father.  She is holding one end of a stick, he the other.  He’s blind.

-          Young men, late teens or early twenties, walking between the cars which are sitting in stalled traffic.  They are selling all kinds of thing:  mosquito zappers, glassware, toys, water and soda, grapes, apples – to mention only a few.  They obviously know the places in the city where there are  traffic jams, and so they go, trying to make a sale.

-          Traffic policemen and women, directing traffic at almost every intersection.  Without them keeping the traffic moving the jams would even be worse.  Standing in the hot sun in the middle of traffic moving in all directions with exhaust fumes all around can’t be a real fun job.

-          This wasn’t noted in Dar es Salaam but from Dodoma to Dar every roadside along the way is having its grass slashed.  Not by a mower on a tractor, not by a hand or gas powered mower, but

by people with slashers.  Most  people doing the work are men, but there were some women as well, and I suppose many are glad to have this work in order to earn some cash.  This is what a slasher looks like (for those who don’t know):

 

Finally, a day at the ocean.  It was beautiful – enough shade with a gentle ocean breeze and a good book.  Is there a better way to spend a day??