Settling into life in Dar es Salaam

Today is the day our new grandchild is due to make her appearance! So far, she has shown no indication of wanting to leave her safe place, but we are anxiously awaiting news from Canada.

Some have complained that I am somewhat invisible in this blog, at least in the picture portion,  so Lars was permitted to have the camera for a few minutes when we were visiting Bongoyo island last weekend, and here I am paddling in the water at low tide.

    So, this is Molly writing about daily life in Dar es Salaam as experienced by 2 middle-aged, reasonably well-travelled and educated Canadians – or at least as experienced by my half of the duo. Lars started to work last week on Tuesday, and since he was working out the commuting, I decided to stay at home for a few days (hence all the blogging activity). I was not alone, - on 2 of the days Rose was at the house. Rose travels for 2 hours, I discovered, to get to our house to wash the immense floors and handwash our laundry (she does much more than that – she irons, squeezes oranges, organizes,  and washes everything). She also speaks rudimentary English (courtesy of the 3 ½ years she spent in New York), which is a real plus, because it has enabled me to get to know her a bit. Here is what I have learned so  far: I estimate she is in her mid thirties, no children or boyfriend, and is the caretaker at the house belonging to a Tanzanian diplomatic family currently living abroad. Her stories of living in New York  reflect some of the worst ones I have heard about foreign domestics. I think she may be one of a generation of Tanzanians who suffered from growing up during the time the Tanzanian economy collapsed, and they started levying school fees – she just finished primary education. Another man, about the same age we met in Zanzibar was so pleased when Lars complimented him on his English, because he said he had never been to school. But Rose, I discover, has ambitions – she seems to have forgiven the family she worked for for most things, but she is still bitter that they only allowed her to take English classes in New York for 3 months. She wants to improve her English, and learn about computers so she can get a real job. 

     Rose works very hard, as it seems most people do in Tanzania. I am amazed at what she accomplishes in a day – I am also amazed when I drive down a side road in the Msasani peninsula where all the rich Wazungu (white folks) live and see alongside the walls of a huge mansion a half kilometre of piles of baseball-sized rocks – each pile with a woman with a small hammer, making gravel. Or right outside the gates of our house (not completely a rich neighbourhood) is a tiny duka  with 10 small piles of tomatoes for sale, and a woman who minds the stall all day long. Not to mention the activity all along the roads at 6:00am when we are driving into town...

      Here is a scene from the road, the day we forgot something and landed smack in the middle of the traffic – that day, I was late, in spite of leaving at 6:00 am. Note that this is a 2 lane highway, our car is in the right lane (I mean left) and all the other cars around us are queue jumping. Can you see the poor dalla dalla (bus) in the oncoming lane forced to drive on the shoulder?

    But most days, we get up at 5:00, Lars squeezes orange juice and makes coffee while I get the eggs and toast.  We are driving out the driveway by about 6:05 and I drop him off at REPOA at about 6:45...

 

     And then I proceed to my class which takes place at the Slipway, in the heart of the Msasani peninsula, and is probably in the  most beautiful classroom I have ever been in. Its hard to concentrate sometimes when I look out the open archways and see palm trees blowing and a strip of that incredible blue –green ocean. Sometimes a fishing dhow sails by, or I get distracted by the intricate woodwork or the paintings hanging in the gallery behind. But my classmates are great too – 3 Germans (2 of whom are here for 3 weeks just to learn Swahili for the hell of it), 2 South Africans (one black, one white), 1 Scot and 2 Canadians  - all women except for 1. We have fun sharing experiences, and only occasionally get bogged down in obscure points of German grammar (having a Professor  of German linguistics in the class is only partially responsible).

The classes are every morning for 3 weeks from 8:00 am to 12:00. We have a lovely teacher named Benjamin, who is very good at breaking things down into manageable chunks, and I think that just by being exposed to 4 hours a day of language, something should stick. But the first 2 days lulled me into a false sense of security, and I fondly thought that it would be a breeze…and then we started learning about making the negative present tense (the negative past and future are still to come!). Just to give you an idea… to say “he is eating” is “a na kula” (actually all one word). But to say "he is not eating" you say “hali” – the only thing left of the original root is the letter “l”. And to make matters worse, the negative prefix changes with each pronoun! "We are not eating" would be “hutuli” And each tense will be a different story! Makes me appreciate the word “not!” – how simple!

      I think some things I am learning give me a little insight into the Tanzanian character. We have already referred to the friendliness, lack of aggression on the roads, and the general agreeableness of everyone we meet. Add to that the fact that I only learned the word for “no” after 3 days of classes , and it is “hapana” – not a word that you hear all that often! When responding to the endless greetings (how is your mother, how is work, how is the dog etc), you generally only say Nzuri (good!). If you are in extremis (ie you have just been robbed, or someone is dying), you can sometimes say “Nzuri kidogo”, which means “a little bit good” – but then you have to expect many concerned questions. I conclude from all this that Tanzanians are an incredibly positive and optimistic people!

     And it’s a fun language to speak. I love the rhythms, and the musical sounds –  the word for sleep is “lala” (hence lalaland?) and to say “I slept”, you say “nililala”. “Sleep well” is”Lala salaama’. Takataka means garbage – delicious!

      I spend my afternoons eating lunch with classmates, drinking coffee and exploring the Msasani peninsula until its time to pick Lars up at 3:30. One afternoon, I was given a tour of the shops by a lovely South African lady who had been delegated by someone else to take me under her wing. There had been some clucking of tongues at my refusal to attend the “Newcomer’s Tea” at the Sea Cliff hotel last Tuesday because of my Swahili class (I was told that the tea would do me much more good!). So I was given my own private tour of this little bit of expat heaven – and it really is possible to live almost completely within its bounds. I was shown the yacht club, taken for lunch at the Sea Cliff, shown Coco beach where I absolutely must not go (I didn’t let on that I had had a coke at the café the day before, all by myself!) and introduced to the best shops (the Italian deli one can’t live without  and the only butcher in Dar).

      But sometimes I wander off the paved part of Msasani, and find myself in another world - side by side to this one. Several times I have got lost, and ended up at the end of  dirt tracks in the middle of a collection of tin shacks, and then I have to turn around and retrace my steps! This is where gravel crushing goes on- presumably to help pave the driveways of the rich.

This fallen baobab seems to house several businesses and is by the main road...

     At around 3:30 I pick up Lars, and we head home, before the traffic. That way we can enjoy a few hours of sunlight, and try to get some exercise. We have been taking walks in our neighbourhood, and so far they are all an adventure in their own way. One day, we decided to follow the track immediately across the road from us and over the crest of the hill. We were amazed that there was a whole community living down in the valley that we hadn’t guessed was there – a bar, a playing field, a community water tap, a mosque (where the call for prayer we hear must come from), lots of shops and houses. We kept wandering until we were completely lost – we could see Brian’s house (our landmark), but couldn’t seem to find a way there without retracing our steps completely. At this point, a whole collection of men surrounded us, and tried to tell us where to go (politely), and when our Swahili didn’t rise to the occasion, one of them guided us all the way home, through an amazing dried up river gully which was like a mini Grand Canyon.

     And then, home to dinner – and yes, we have been frequenting a local butcher where we can get fillet steak for about $6 per kilo. We are eating a lot of stews when we have meat, and lots of pasta and eggs and chips when we don’t.

     After dinner, we have been doing our little yoga routine (aren’t you proud of us!) and then collapsing into bed at a ridiculously early hour. With no TV news to keep us up, we are being very healthy, wealthy (we are reminded of this constantly) and wise (not sure about that one yet!).

     Weekends are another story...although, we may have to consider going to church on Sundays if today has been any indication. The service next door has been going on since 8:00 this morning (it is now 12:20), and might as well be happening in our living room. Some of the music is quite nice, but the 15 minutes of wailing by a distraught woman, and the interludes of haranguing by the preacher are a bit hard to take. Now I am hearing someone singing "Auld Lang Syne" in Swahili, so hopefully that means it is time to go home!

Kwaheri, rafiki, wikiendi njema!

(Good bye, friends, have a good weekend!)