Food

I have never really shared my thoughts on Tanzanian food, or, more precisely, food that Tanzanians eat. I made this distinction for a reason. That's because there isn't really such thing as a traditional Tanzanian cuisine. Over the weeks I've been here I haven't really tasted many flavours which I hadn't experienced before. As a courtesy to the Tanzanian culture, however, I will refer to the dishes as local.

Chapati – breakfast classic; a little bit more rough version of a Polish/French pancake (the thin one, not the Canadian fatass), tastes slightly different, probably because of the difference in ingredients; still, in my opinion, close enough to call it a pancake. Usually eaten by itself or with fruits (mostly bananas).

Wali nyama – probably the only distinctive, not fried and, by the way, my favourite food in Tanzania. Wali in swahili means rice, nyama – beef. The green thing is cooked spinach – quite bitter in taste, but goes well with the rest. Accompanied with cooked beans in a thick sauce.

Ugali – creature made of maiz flour. You take a little bit, throw it in the air (only after some practice), roll it into a ball, make a little whole with your finger and dip it in the nyama sauce. Usually as a replacement for rice.

Chips maiai – classic Tanzanian food. Maiai in swahili means eggs. It's an omelette with chips – inside the omelette. Served with salt, tomato sauce (which is just a watery version of ketchup) and occasionally sauerkraut. Eaten with hands or toothpicks.

Mishikaki – pre-fried beef skewers and then grilled.

Kuku – quarter of a chicken, deep fried and then grilled.

Samaki – a whole fish, i'll let you guess the way of preparing it. I didn't dare to try.

Ocassionally behind the glass you can also find beef samosas and 'kababs' – signs of Indian and Arabic influence back in the days. Very, very deep fried.

The impression that people coming from countries with more sophisticated food culture get is that EVERY SINGLE THING IS FRIED. It's difficult to explain why, living in such hot conditions all year around, Tanzanians chose to eat the heaviest food possible. The reason why I couldn't find an answer for a long time is that my assumption was wrong. It is not people who chose such cuisine. It is the poverty that did. Take a look at chips maiai – all you need is a few eggs and some potatoes. Surprisingly, people don't eat much vegetables or seafood here. Zanzibar, however, is different. Full of seafood. I guess it is more profitable for locals to sell seafood to tourists, rather than eating it themselves.
This place is definitely not a paradise for foodies. The variety is close to zero. It takes time, but you can really get used to eating the same thing almost every day. You just need to change your mindset – accept that food is a necessity, rather than pleasure. You eat, because you have to. You eat in order to survive, rather than enjoy it. Once you get past that issue, you'll be fine. And if you still miss variety, there are a few Indian and Chinese restaurants as well as 3 Subways and 1 KFC (no McDonald's though!). The prices in these places are usually twice or three times as high as in the local food places.

Many streets in Dar Es Salaam have no names. In fact, only main roads and those next to important facilities have official names – and this, to be fair, is enough. People use names of areas, districts or some significant landmarks to identify their location. In other words, you're supposed to know the city and its topography. It makes a lot of sense, especially if you go for a walk to those poorest areas, get off the main road and delve into the maze of little dirt roads with razors, empty plastic bottles and cigarette butts being the most common inventory found there. It is then when you understand the idea behind the 'no-name policy'. These streets change a lot, some of them expand, sometimes someone decides to build a house (well, 'shelter' is probably a little bit more fitting) in the middle, diving the street into two.

Thinking about this triggered another thought in my mind – how does the post get delivered? Clearly these people regardless of their living standards receive various sort of post. I figured it out after one of my trips to the city centre, where the main post office is situated. Behind the office located are tens of rows with thousands of post boxes with numbers on them. In Dar Es Salaam (and I'm assuming in the whole country too) post does not get delivered. You have to come to pick it up yourself. I regret not checking it properly, but I think there are more such points of post collection as even thousands of post boxes would not be enough for an almost 5 million people city. Anyway, credits to the person who came up with this solution – GREAT IDEA!!! First of all, it minimises the costs of delivery and therefore lowers the prices of post service. However, more importantly – the post doesn't get lost. It would be physically impossible to deliver the post in such conditions – it would either get lost, stolen or delivered to a wrong person. Two thumbs up.

post boxes in Posta, Dar Es Salaam

Safari (updated with photos)

Safari was great. Managed to see pretty much all the animals, including lions, elephants (loads), giraffes, wildebeests, zebras, impalas and a cheetah! We went to Tarangire National Park.

me (POLAND), marta (ITALY), olivia (CHINA), abraham (mexico)

safari jeeps

marcelo (ITALY) hunting for some ivory

elephants crossing

zebras chilling

giraffes

cheetah! (apparently really rare)

However, what I enjoyed the most was the journey itself and all the things I've seen from inside the bus/jeep. This trip broke all my stereotypes about Africa, such as the one that it's always hot here. It really isn't. When we got to Arusha it was freezing cold. Apparently it was 16C but felt much colder. The whole landscape is completely different from the Dar Es Salaam area. It's less green with a lot of mountains and endless plains. As we were driving by I saw many Masai villages (and other tribes as well). Little Masai children, dressed in their traditional red clothes walking along with tens, if not hundreds, of goats and cows. It was quite shocking to see all these people living without any sort of technology (although mobile phones are the only thing that they adapted), electricity and such.  Their main purpose of living is to... survive. Every day they wake up in order to collect water, grow vegetables, raise animals and extend their lives for another day. It's not very different from our lives if you think about it. We think it's different because we've got internet, teflon frying pans and helicopters. By getting up to work every day, we're doing exactly the same thing, just in an indirect way - instead of water, food and building materials we get money to pay for all these things. What is different though is knowing about it and actually seeing it live. I was aware of people existing in such conditions, but seeing it with my own eyes was a completely different experience.

masai village

old masai women

mount meru (4565m)

masai children cowherding

It's been a long time...

So first of all, my apologies. I've been quite busy recently and frankly a bit lazy too.

orange juice, safari, bus to arusha

Came back from a safari. In order to get to Arusha, which is a city in the north, next to Kilimanjaro, we had to take a bus. The day before our safari Myarcello and went to Ubungo (one of the main coach stations) to  tickets. As we got there at 6PM it was already getting dark. Honestly it was the first time I was properly scared here in Tanzania. The bus station looks exactly the way you'd imagine an African coach station. Full of people (and other creatures). In order to save some space, everyone carries their bags, suitcases and such on their heads. Very loud. As we entered the station we were immediately approached by many locals trying to sell us tickets. 'Mzungu! Where do you want to go?' Armed in confidence and a little bit of experienced we passed all of them, avoiding any type of conversation. We reached the area full of offices of different coach companies. The word 'office' is a bit of overstatement. We entered one of them - Dar Express. About 90% of the companies have the word 'Express' in their names, which, as we learned the next day, has nothing to do with reality.

The Dar Express office was in fact a 5m x 3m room full of people, obviously without any sort of uniform or identification, which made things more difficult as we didn't know who to talk to. We came up to a desk that we believed was the right place.

I can proudly announce that I managed to carry the whole conversation in swahili. We were supposed to leave at 6AM, but all the buses were already fully booked. 6AM full, 7AM full, 8AM - 6 seats, 9AM - 7 seats. We needed 11.

Moreover, even the bus prices are not fixed. They are not displayed ANYWHERE. So it's up to the person selling the tickets how much he's going to charge you.We went to a different office. The guy in the office clearly did not give a single fuck about us. He was too busy playing on his phone and enjoying a conversation with his colleague. After asking him about 4-5 times, he finally pointed at his friend, standing outside the office who told us to follow him. We followed him for about 5 minutes, God knew where we were going as he did not speak a single word in English. We took us to another office, which turned out to be just a random guy standing on his own and selling tickets. He didn't have enough tickets either.

Long story short, we went to another office, which probably looked the worst out of all the offices out there. Five guys sitting inside, some guy passed out on the floor (for whatever reason - drugs, hunger, malaria, or maybe just cold - the reason of his mild delirium), CHICKENS running around. We managed to get the price down to 25,000 (about $15 USD) as it started off with 40,000. Then the guy took out a pile of tickets and started filling them up. Neatly changed the price from 22,700 to 25,000 with his pen and gave us the tickets. Surprisingly, the name of the company did not have 'Express' in it. We were travelling with Royal Class Osaka...

The distance between Dar Es Salaam and Arusha is approximately 650km. Took us 15 HOURS to get there. THE BUS BROKE DOWN TWICE. Below Tanzanian engineering at its finest. The first time we had to wait for about an hour. The second, a little bit less than two. The bus was completely full, with some people standing. It was the first time I've seen a bus with 5 seats in a row (2+3). So I spent 15 hours on the bus, with a big bag on my lap and a Masai sitting next to me, not being able to move.

I will upload some pictures as soon as I can, but currently can't find my phone cable to get them on my laptop, so please, be patient (that's what Africa is all about :)).

'Waiting' is Africans' main activity. They always wait. Never have I seen in Europe so many people just sitting around and... waiting. The so called 'Ítalian strike' (the one in which you work as usual but do everything 10 times slower) seems to be existent all around this place. People here wait for different things. The fact that you are standing in front of the person is not clear enough - you must really emphasize it using all possible methods. Otherwise, you're waiting too. The more people are in the group, the longer the waiting as waiting for each person may not be synchronised and as a result you get to wait a long, long time... Another property of waiting is that it is very contagious. After being here for nearly three weeks I am slowly getting used to it. There is no reason to fuss or expect apologies, you just have to accept it. The sooner, the better. Seems like African day is just longer and they can simply afford to do so. 

I came to a conclusion, that the Western picture of Africa being such a horrible place to live is just nothing more than a very subjective and unfair approach to the topic. Western world judges places by wealth. The more money country A has, the better place to live it is. But I respect Africans for clearly not giving a fuck about it. They might not have iPads, airconditioning or dishwashers but I can guarantee you most of them are way happier than you surrounded with all your possessions. Spending time around Dar, especially with the locals made me realise that Africa will never reach the Western level of development. And it's not because as some people say - they are hundreds years behind us. They are not. They are in 2013, just like we are. They simply chose a different path of living. Different hopes, dreams and expectations from life. Of course I am not talking about people who suffer from extreme hunger and poverty, because this is an undoubtedly horrible thing and people should not live in such conditions, but here in Dar I can surely say that I have seen just as many beggars as in any other city I've been to or maybe even less. People might not be as wealthy (again, in Western terms), but the surrounding world is accustomed so that they can live their lives having as much as they do.

P.S. Tomorrow and Friday are public holidays, which is why I'm going to Arusha (that's where Kilimanjaro is) and from there I'm going on a safari to Tarangire National Park. Ciao!

On Dala Dalas (again...)

Mambo!

So it's been more than two weeks since I came here and I yet there hasn't been a single day in which I wouldn't be amazed by a completely new thing.

Dala dalas (mini buses --> public transport in Dar es Salaam) really are one of the coolest things in this city.

This is how they work:

These mini buses are old and dirty, but so is the city - perfect match. Nobody cries if you hit it, scratch it or whatever else. As long as you can transport people from one place to another - it's all good. Imported from Japan, many of them still have some Japanese signs all over, but back to the main point. When I first saw them I was surprised that none of them have any route numbers displayed. I asked the taxi driver about it and with a smile meaning something like - oh, those Europeans... - he answered my question. Each bus has the first and the final stop written on the front along with an adequate colour - this is because of the relatively high percentage of illiteracy in the country. So one bus can only be used on one particular route (unless you repaint it). It kind of works like an underground, but overground and instead of trains there are buses... The final stops are usually main junctions, which give you a general idea of where the bus is heading.

But how do we know which direction it is going? Responsible for this is a person that I will refer to as 'THE GUY'. The guy is a person wearing an oversized navy blue shirt, who is responsible for all the things that countries considered as developed have replaced with machines.

Therefore, the guy is:
1. Ticket validator - collects money as you enter, leave or during the journey
2. Route number/station announcer - as the bus approaches a station, the guy yells the name of the station for people on the bus and the direction for people at the bus stop.
3. Security - in case anything happens, he's always there to bring law and order back onboard.

Bus stops are also a contractual thing. You can just wave in the middle of the road and the bus will stop to let you onboard. If you want to get off all you need to do is tap the bus so that the guy can hear it.

Another interested thing I've noticed is that although doors usually don't close, seats have holes, forget about airconditioning etc., there is one thing that always works - speakers. People here really can't survive without music. It is the only thing that makes the whole Dala Dala journey bearable.

Overall, really impressed with public transport here. I have never waited any longer than 5 minutes for my bus. And I believe that that's what counts. Buses are packed and dirty, people inside smell, but so what? Think of being on the tube during rush hour in London or on a summery day on public transport in Poland - SAME THING. And neither of the places are considered any close to Dar es Salaam.

P.S. By now I know how to say hello, goodbye, order food, ask for the price, count and name various animals in swahili!

P.S. 2 Promise I won't write about dala dalas again! Check the blog tomorrow as I've got another few things to talk about!

Bajajs no longer seem as crazy as they used to be. They are the quickest way of getting from one place to another as they can avoid traffic. Traffic is a huge deal in Dar Es Salaam. There's not surprise though if you live in a 4.5 million people city where the main road is two lanes each way. It usually starts around 3 and does not stop until 9-10 in the evening. People here are in constant traffic.

Marcelo (my Italian roommate) and I had to take an evening Dala Dala back to our intern house which is about 20mins away from the other house. We left at around 9 PM with our Tanzanian friend Philemon, but as it was getting late he had to go home so he couldn't take the bus with us. So we were standing at the bus stop, waiting for our dala dala. Got on. Remember I was telling you about the best drivers here? Scratch that. The driver was desperately trying to avoid the traffic so he used a side road to overtake cars stuck in a jam. As he was trying to get back on the road, his assumption that another dala dala would let him in was too optimistic. We hit the bus... So here we are, 9PM, dark as hell, just Marcelo and myself, two mzungu (swahili for white people) in a bus full of locals. Soon after this we realised that we're not going any further and we had to get off the bus... Luckily, we met a guy who spoke English and walked with us for about 15mins. 'Don't take out your phone now, it's a pretty rough area'. Another 15mins we had to walk by ourselves. I'm not saying I was completely relaxed but I wasn't very stressed. Maybe a bit anxious. I was actually quite enjoying it. As we were getting close to our house some guy approached me and grabbed my hand. For a fraction of a second I considered all the possible choices - run, scream, fight back? I pushed him away and as he called my name I realised it was our friend Felix, who came to pick us up. Uff. That was a long walk.