Dar is Far

There was a point in time that I contemplated flying from Southern Africa to East Africa in order to save time. Then Dennis Hopper’s voice from Easy Rider and that old axiom “The journey is the destination, man” popped into my head and I realized how foolish it would be to fly. So I set out overland through Malawi for Dar es Salaam.

Well, I’ve now made it to Dar, and I have to say it was quite an adventure in getting here. I left Nkhata Bay in Malawi on Sunday, and over four days took the following modes of transport to get here:

-Small boat
-Big boat (Ilala)
-Minibus at 3am in Chilumba, Northern Malawi
-Walk
-Hitchhike, get picked up by a truck
-Taxi
-Walk
-Minibus - called here a Daladala (by the way, my personal record of most people in a minibus – 18 in Namibia in the off chance you can’t remember – was shattered a few days ago in Mbeya, Tanzania: 26 people in one single minibus. 26!)
-Taxi
-Tazara train (27 hours, but astoundingly arrived only a few minutes late)
-Pickup truck

I’m off to Zanzibar this afternoon by boat, so there will be at least one more leg to the journey before I settle down again for a week or so there. I have to say, I’ve really, really enjoyed the journey in getting here. It really did feel like an adventure, and we were quite off the beaten path in northern Malawi. On the Ilala there would be hours of total darkness on the coastline, then the occasional collection of fires that indicated a fishing village somewhere back there. We’d also occasionally see big swaths of hillside awash in flames. Apparently, this is their traditional method of hunting small game: light the hillside on fire, and wait for the rabbits and everything else to come running out the other end. Hardly sustainable in my opinion, but who am I to judge?

I’m in Dar now—a city full of people and cars and activity and noise and light—and I’m feeling a bit shocked by the contrast. I haven’t been in a city since Cape Town, and the change I notice most is the bright lights at night. Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia were all so very dark at night. The only real light you would get was from a campfire or a full moon or the muted lights of your hostel.

That I’m shocked by the level of development in Tanzania says as much, I think, about Malawi as it does Tanzania. Malawi is so utterly poor, so lacking in infrastructure and investment, that you almost don’t notice it. Something on the order of 85% of the population lives hand-to-mouth, so Malawi can at times almost seem more an idyllic collection of agrarian villages than a destitute country. Peter, you have your work cut out for you, my friend.

Crossing over into Tanzania, one of the first things I noticed was the presence of Indian immigrants. True to their stereotype by locals here in Africa, Indians seem to be running most of the shops around town. You can also sense the presence of industry and mechanized farming here in Tanzania, and, reassuringly, you see schoolchildren wandering the streets in uniform. It’s distressing though to see the number of people—and schoolchildren in particular—who seem to be sitting around idly. Many schools here do ½-day shifts, so there’s often one group of kids milling about while the other group is in school. But you also see big groups of men standing idly, often under the shade of a tree in a village or on street corners here in the city. Why aren’t these people working? I keep asking myself this question over and over again. Appropriate for an MBA student, I suppose, but a bit worrisome. I think it’s a combination of high unemployment and a culture that relies heavily on women to do most of the work in the village. Whatever the reasons, it’s distressing to see so many people without something to do.

Things are different here in a fun way, too. For example, the first day of the week apparently is Saturday, rather than our custom of Monday. High noon is the 6th hour rather than the 12th hour of the day. As far as I can tell, the custom prior to European arrival was to count only daylight hours in their concept of time. And, there are squat toilets here. God damn it, I hate squat toilets. I understand that they are actually more hygienic and easier to keep clean and all that blah blah blah. But give me a western-style toilet and a local newspaper and I’d be a much happier man.

The only downside of the Tazara train actually was the squat toilet. Waking up early in the morning, laying there in bed, knowing full well that the task ahead would involve squatting, bracing, balancing, and other related gerunds was really the only time when I wished I was anywhere else but the Tazara train. But, we press on, and we cross our fingers that Zanzibar may be home to the porcelain thrones that we have all come to love.

The train was a blast. Not quite as cool as the boat, but pretty close. We three bought a first-class sleeper cabin so we were traveling comfortably, but spent most of the time in the dining car where, paradoxically, there was no food. They did have warm beer though, so we subsisted on that for the 27-hour ride. We also bought some local food from people selling it on the tracks when the train would stop (which it did, often and randomly). I ate sugar directly from the cane for the first time, and had other firsts like banana-in-chipati sandwiches.

I also met some very interesting characters on the train. One guy, Clinton, was a Professional Hunter and with his dad ran one of these outfits that bring rich American hunters over to Africa to kill big game like elephants, lions and leopards. Tanzania is one of the only countries left in Africa where you can still hunt big game in the wild, but you have to pay big bucks for the privilege. Lion and leopard are $12,000 and elephants are $18,000. Why anyone would pay $18,000 to shoot and elephant dead is beyond the scope of this missive, but The Economist at one point did a write-up that explains both sides of the hunting issue pretty well, so if you must know more, crack on. However one might feel about big game hunting, Clinton was a damned interesting guy to talk to. I also met a local guy, Masozi, who was the country learning advisor for a U.K.-based charity called Plan International. He was incredibly knowledgeable, affable, and his English was excellent. We talked a lot about the state of Tanzanian education, and basically netted out that even with all of the funding in the world there would still be serious cultural obstacles to overcome. How you go about reforming a culture such that it supports education is also beyond the scope of this missive.

Then I had a discussion on politics with two 19-year old British guys who opened a conversation with “What’s it like to be an American and hated everywhere you go in the world?” I’ve been good at restraining myself so far on this trip, but I think the arrogance and ignorance of their youth touched a nerve in me, so I felt obliged to give them a good lashing. As inane as the conversation was, it did serve as a good reminder of something that I’ve noticed widely here: the world really is pissed off at America. Most people are unable to separate the actions of a government from its people, so by association the world is really pissed off at Americans. Not a day goes by when I don’t have to smile outwardly and inwardly bite my tongue as someone casually insults me for being American. Whether the ill will is legitimate or not, we have a lot of goodwill rebuilding to do in the world. Once GWB is turfed out of office, the next American president will have a tall order on his (her?) plate.

Signing off now, as the pictures are finally uploaded. I’m catching the midday boat to Zanzibar, which should have us into Stone Town right around sunset. A few days in Stone Town, then it’s up to the north end of the island for a full moon party. My last one was in Thailand five years ago; it will be interesting to see how this one compares.