Rainy Season in Dar

This was the scene from our bedroom window yesterday during a 2 hour downpour which overwhelmed the ditches, washed away a lot of the new gravel just put down on our road and flooded many lower areas. It was very welcome though,  because it signaled that there really will be a rainy season this year, in spite of the gloomy prediction that global warming is causing droughts in this part of the world. The lack of rain til now (and the season is starting late) is directly causing all the power cuts we have been having - the dams are low on water ergo no power. We now have a generator for our complex, but it burns smelly diesel, and what is that doing to the atmosphere? Our fingers are crossed for the climate change deal coming up in Copenhagen.

This little "restaurant" under the baobab picked a bad day for its first day in operation! Business was not brisk!

A brave soul getting out and about...

Lars and I were passing by this office one day a few weeks ago, and were looking at this little wall around the door area wondering what it was for....now we know. (Incidentally, while we were discussing this, Peter came out and became the agent who later found us our new house!)

I guess s/he thought there was a road somewhere under here...

Remember my favourite pothole at the end of our road? It got filled up with tires, and then water!

Just a few more scenes from our window...these boys playing remind me of the Makonde carvings this area is famous for.

Looking down the beach towards where the boats unload fish for the market. We went down on Saturday, and bought fresh red snapper. Some have questioned the safety of fish caught in this bay, and after what we saw running off into it after the storm, I have a few questions myself! However it tasted good, and probably we'll never know...

Waiting around...the engine seems to break down frequently, or perhaps they are waiting for the last member of the crew to arrive.

That's it for this weekend! Have a great week everyone - enjoy the warmer weather I hear that you have been blessed with (at least in NS).

Nevada Village

Well, once we decided to move, I had an entertaining week of looking at apartments and houses for rent, and poked around many neighbourhoods of Dar I might not have visited otherwise. It was lots of fun, and it seemed there are many vacant places in our price range, many of which would have been just fine, and all of which were much closer and more convenient! But it wasn’t until the end of the day, when we had almost decided on another place, that Peter, our agent showed me the Nevada apartments, completely in upheaval, but oh! the beach! the balcony! So that was that, and all that remained was negotiations about wire transfers and offshore accounts (they wanted the entire 6 months rent up front, as seems usual). The place was ready for us to move on the 14^th as  promised, and the landlords turn out to be very accommodating – we have some new furniture and the biggest, most embarrassing TV I have ever lived with!

Moving day was easy - except for saying good bye to Temius and Isaya...

And then of course, the rainy season, which is very late 

this year, decided to start just as 

we were driving up to the new place...

We are so happy to be here, not least because Lars walked to work on Friday, and it took him only 20 minutes (he got a little bit lost, so it should be faster next time). We revel in the views from our windows and the balcony...there is never a dull moment around here!

     One morning, this class of school children arrived by bus - a few minutes later, they were all down to their underwear, and frolicking in the water.

Most evenings there seems to be a pick up football game here, which we can watch from the little beach side bar on the other side - only problem with it is the litter scattered everywhere - where is Clean Nova Scotia's beach clean up when you want it?

These fishermen seem to go out at all hours

Always working...

View from the balcony (including laundry)

We inherited some lovely plants, including lots of these "Mexican Hat Plants" which remind me of my school at home.

And it seems that, like most neighbourhoods in Dar es Salaam, we have a truly terrible road leading in - this pothole right by the Old Bagamoyo road is capable of swallowing a car like ours! However, it seems that there is some work going on, and a rumour is going around that the road may be paved - I will miss this pothole!

So, it seems that Lars and I are very happily ensconced here and our daily life has become infinitely less stressful. It is all helped along by the existence of a little gym for Lars, and a small pool where I have been swimming twice daily...also by the fact that there is a rather nice international community living within these walls. There is a flotilla of small, naked children who descend on the pool everyday (mostly Danish), and people from Ireland, Congo, France, Sweden and Tanzania who live in the other apartments. 


Today, I venture out to visit a secondary school where I am volunteering my time. Of course the school year is winding down here (something I had forgotten about), so it may be that I will be more useful come January. 

Nyerere Day - October 14

Julius K. Nyerere  1922-1999

October 14  is a national holiday here in Tanzania which marks the anniversary of Mwalimu Julius K Nyerere’s death and this year it is a special because it is the 10^th anniversary.  Mwalimu means “teacher”,  because that was Nyerere's first job, before going into politics, and  this is what he is reverently called by everyone, still today. Nyerere was the first and founding president of Tanganyika, who negotiated a  peaceful independence from the colonial “masters” the  British and went on to establish “ujamaa” or “family” socialism, the Tanzanian  version of African socialism. He based this on the idea that before colonialism, African society was founded on the village or extended family as the basis for society. Land was held in common, and was farmed  more or less communally, laws were  passed and justice meted out by village elders and the community took care of its weakest members. Nyerere’s ujamaa socialism involved nationalizing many large industries and foreign owned plantations (such as the sisal estates), and giving power back to the village level.

One of his greatest accomplishments was the adoption of Kiswahili as the national language, and its promotion among Tanzania’s many tribes who spoke so many different languages that they could not communicate with each other, other than in English. By doing this he broke down tribalism while encouraging national pride. To this day, many people here feel that this policy has contributed to Tanzania’s strong sense of national identity, and its relatively peaceful, caring society. While he was President, Tanzania boasted one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world - it is still higher than in India.

"In Tanzania, it was more than one hundred tribal units which lost their freedom; it was one nation that regained it."
Julius Kambarage Nyerere, from his Stability and Change in Africa speech given to the University of Toronto, Canada, 2 October 1969.

Nyerere stepped down from power in 1985, establishing the precedent of peaceful, democratic transitions of power. Although he saw hard economic times affect his country, and the influence of the World Bank and structural adjustment programmes forced the country’s leaders to backtrack on many of the educational, health and social reforms he had instituted, he is still remembered today as the Father of the Nation. He died on October 14 1999. Many people we talk to attribute the fact that Tanzania has not been afflicted by the civil wars, internal violence and undemocratic regimes experienced by many other African countries to Nyerere’s vision. Although Tanzania is a very poor country, and has many problems, there is a sense of caring and community here which is heartwarming, and the fact that the people still celebrate and honour Nyerere gives me hope.

"We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which produced us."
Julius Kambarage Nyerere, from his book Uhuru na Umoja (Freedom and Unity): Essays on Socialism, 1967.

"No nation has the right to make decisions for another nation; no people for another people."
Julius Kambarage Nyerere, from his A Peaceful New Year speech given in Tanzania on 1 January 1968.

"The African is not 'Communistic' in his thinking; he is -- if I may coin an expression -- 'communitary'."
Julius Kambarage Nyerere as quoted in the New York Times Magazine on 27 March 1960.

Visit to a little school

Now that Swahili classes are over, it is time to get serious about finding something serious to do with my time. I have put out some feelers, and have been doing some thinking about how best to make use of my skills in the short time I have here. In talking to many people and reading about the education system here, I find the hopefulness and faith put into education as a way forward is touching (future blog photo essay on school signs). It seems that primary education (all in Swahili) has about 95% enrolment, but the quality is uneven at best – lots of factors, but the education level and pay of teachers is a big concern. However, the big inequality occurs at the secondary level where all of a sudden all the teaching is in English – many children do not get in because of poor teaching at the primary level and if they do, they often suffer from being taught in English by teachers whose English is minimal at best. From my limited perspective, it seems that the government here is doing well with its objectives at improving the status, education and pay of teachers, and hence the quality of primary education – but it will take time and lots more money. Same goes for secondary education, but in the meantime thousands (millions?) of bright children from poor or rural areas are being denied the opportunities to go on in education, and the country is losing out on all this potential! This is my current thinking, after only 6 weeks in the country.

Main Street Mikadi, Kigamboni District

When Claire, my young VSO friend, met some teachers by chance in a teashop and was invited to visit a small, struggling “English Medium School” in Kigamboni (just across the harbour from Dar, but a ferry ride and a world away – see previous blogs), I encouraged her to go and take me along. So this Tuesday, we braved the ferry (in the process managing to go the wrong way down a one-way street in downtown Dar, and earning a severe lecture from a policeman for it) and managed to find the “Academia English Medium School” in the middle of a sandy little village. English Medium simply means taught in English, but also means that it is privately funded. We were warmly welcomed, even though they had no idea we were coming and the teachers she had met were away that day on a course.

Academia from the outside

The Headteacher Meshack looked like he had been hit by a bolt from the blue (us) – this struggling school with 70 children from nursery age to Standard 5 sees some kind of foreign involvement as the key to success. He would love to see volunteer teachers coming, curriculum materials and of course, donations of money. Within minutes of us arriving, the children were all brought out of their tiny classrooms and assembled in the tiny courtyard. We were given a formal welcome with songs and a dance and of course we had to introduce ourselves. I was quite impressed with the level of English of the songs – one of the lines sung by the Standard 5 children was “Although you come from far away, we will never forget you”. It was obvious that they were prepared for this moment; however in looking around and chatting, it doesn’t seem like they had had any foreigners dropping in yet.

Getting ready to welcome us

Standard 5 getting ready to sing ....

and dance.

The rest of the children

We walked around the tiny classrooms, which looked no better equipped than the state schools I remember from Nigeria 30 years ago and from Kenya. The walls were bare, except for a few tattered hand drawn posters. There were about 3 rows of benches in each class, seating about 20-30 kids. Higher benches serve as desks. I saw no books in the classrooms - I believe each child at least has one notebook, but they must have taken them home.

This little guy had to stay after to finish copying his homework.

Homework - Standard 1

Homework - Standard 2 0r 3

The Headteacher's office reminded me eerily of the old office at Dalhousie Co-operative School, in our old digs at Dal....in fact the whole school had somewhat the same spirit. Rundown, grungy, with few materials, but lots of determination  to get better, lots of idealism and hope.  Meshack talked a lot about "doing something for the local community" - he is looking for government funding to provide lunches for children who can't afford to go home to eat. Although this is a private school, each child only pays about $6 per month (still a considerable sum) and I get the impression there are some non fee-paying students. It was a short visit, but I would like to go back and spend a little more time there, and really suss out what they are doing.

This is the Headteacher's office... there is a "roaster" of teacher duties on the wall, and a copy of the curriculum, which I didn't get to really look at. At the bottom though, it encourages:  "All teachers consider the school prospector for preparing scheme of works and lesson plan. BE STRICTLY OF THAT (sic)" Also in the office was a world map and a shiny new globe - obviously very precious!

This is Meshack, and another teacher. 

Altogether we had a lovely visit, and I want to go back...my dilemma is that it is hard to get to, and I am not convinced that a private school is where I want to spend a lot of time. I'll keep you posted!

Meanderings by Molly

Just in case anyone else is finding these pictures a little small...I just discovered that if  you zoom in when viewing this blog, everything gets a lot bigger, including the pictures! 

This week’s posting hasn’t a theme – let’s just say it is some meanderings and thoughts about the expat life in Dar, which is really all I’ve experienced so far. My Swahili class wrapped up this week, and has been very entertaining. My head is full of constructions, and I am starting to have a mental map of the grammar, but when I open my mouth, nothing useful comes out. So I am taking a break from formal classes, and will start practicing with Rose, and Temius when he stops teasing me.

But the classes were wonderful in that they gave me a glimpse into the life of the expat  community here, particularly the South African one. They also provided me with a little social group to hang out with during the long days, and a sub-group of us even did some exploring together.

The Swahili class day starts early, with me arriving at about 7:00 at the Slipway, where the waitress brings me a cup of cappuccino (I know, life is tough!). I gaze out at the water, check my email and eavesdrop on the conversation of 2 old men who are there every morning, never sitting at the same table, but obviously old friends. Perhaps it is because one is German (I think) and the other is Asian? They have both lived in Tanzania a long time, and talk about old journeys to remote places, car problems, business deals etc.

This last week, I have been helping an elderly woman with her translation of a government training manual for “stakeholders” in the fight against “GBV” – Gender-based Violence. Its amazing how our jargon is creeping in everywhere, and this highly educated woman is having trouble translating phrases like “critical mass” and “proactive and reactive strategies”. A good argument for plain English!

Our teacher Benjamin arrives at about 7:30 after 2 ½ hours travelling by bus, has a cup of tea and we have a nice chat in butchered Swahili. In between long coffee breaks, and lunch afterwards, these days have developed their own quite pleasant rhythm!

For our second last class, we went to one member’s house and did some cooking. Benjamin enlisted the support of another female teacher, as he claims not to be much of a cook. In fact he says that if he wants to do anything in the kitchen at home, he has to close the curtains so his father won’t see him doing women’s work!

First we went to the market together and bought the fresh ingredients (and in the process I discovered a lovely local market, which has broccoli and zucchini as well as everything else, and is a little more appealing than the “Pickpocket’s Market” down the road).

Luckily we had a great kitchen  to work in (and a real cook to help out!). We cooked ugali, peas, fish stew, plantain, beans, mchicha (local greens), sweet potato, and coconut rice. Everything had freshly squeezed coconut milk in it, but each dish had its own unique flavour, without the use of any spices (and apparently most Tanzanians don’t use chilis or any seasonings other than salt, garlic and pepper). Delicious!

     We (Lars and I) are getting much more adventurous about food, and lessening our dependence on the largely South African owned supermarkets, where everything is available, but nothing is fresh.  We seem to be developing a pattern of cooking a big stew with meat on the weekend, and then living off variations of it for a couple of days. We have discovered the “Nice Butchery” where we can buy a kilo of “fillet” beef for about $6 CDN. The only catch is we have to go at 8:00 am, because apparently each little butcher kills a cow daily, cuts it up and all the good bits go quickly. If you go in the afternoon, there won’t be much left but the hooves. (Sorry all you vegetarians - I’ll spare you the description of the “Not Nice Butcheries” that we went to before we found this one).

One exciting thing happened this week: coming home on Monday, we met Rose, our housekeeper, who was in a high state of excitement. She had been shaking the bottom cushions on this settee, when a large (about a metre long) snake, who had been napping along the crack, hissed at her and tried to bite her. She  jumped back, called Isaya and Temius, who came and bravely killed the beast. They said it was poisonous, and we had many consultations about how it got into the house…we finally decided it slipped under a gap under the kitchen door, so Temius was delegated to block it up. They all said they had never had a poisonous snake in their houses, and everyone else I told the story to said the same thing, so I guess we’re just lucky! Oh, except for my friend Judy who told us about how years ago while living in Kenya, they had a snake curled around inside their toilet bowl – thanks Judy!

I was going to write about all the Tanzanian media we’ve been observing, and about how the supernatural world is so close to the surface….but I’ve run out of space and time, so I’ll save it for next week. Suffice to say that last Friday night sitting for 2 hours in a traffic jam on our way home from a supper out in town, enabled us to buy a pair of rabbit ears for our ancient TV from a street tout (amazing what you can buy sitting in your car – pillows, ice cube trays, maps, etc). Now we have about 10 channels, some very entertaining with local dramas, others less so with incredibly awful foreign films dubbed into the most stilted, artificial English I have heard in a long time – but we also get BBC news – thrilling! So far I have seen 2 segments on the Toronto International Film Festival, which made me just a little  homesick. Now that we have TV, (don’t worry I won’t be a couch potato, there really isn’t much on) we have finally rearranged our living room furniture, to make it a little more homey….there is still lots of space for yoga.

Here are some pictures from our last weekend trip to the southern beaches, just a five minute ferry ride from central Dar. I had thought that Kigamboni would be another suburb of Dar, but I was mistaken - it's a whole different world across the harbour.



These bikes on the ferry were laden with tomatoes and other produce, and were actually not able to be ridden off. It took 2 guys pushing to get them where they were going...

It seems like condom campaigns are everywhere you look! Let's hope they are having some impact. One of the younger members of my Swahili class came with a pencil case decorated on both sides with real, coloured condoms - I thought it was a paint box. Apparently this NGO also produces earrings, which are very popular with the expat youth.

A cricket game on the beach...

And back home, a soccer game on a very steep soccer field at the top of the driveway, looking down at the most amazing view.

And finally, my very own hibiscus flower which I am growing myself (thanks to Temius).

I hope everyone has a great week, and that you enjoy your lovely fall weather. Think of us as the temperature creeps up...32 today and rising!

Lars' Impressions #5: A House with a Yard

“A house with a yard” – isn’t that the aspiration of most Canadians? Didn’t that fuel the expansion of North American suburbs? As we take our daily walks around our Dar es Salaam neighbourhood, just before the sun goes down, we see scores of Tanzanian families trying to build very much that same sort of future for themselves.

Dar es Salaam is a sprawling city and the area we live in was quite undeveloped, even a decade ago. The Bagamoyo Road that I drove down forty years ago was partly just a sand track in the coconut groves – now it is paved all the way, and our section of it is usually blocked, nose to tail, by traffic jams. All the same, our neighbourhood seems semi-rural – herds of goats forage wherever they can, the odd cow appears occasionally in the garden to nibble our flowers and roosters crow every morning at the crack of dawn (and often well before).

Of course, it looks very different from our Halifax neighbourhood, where the streets are laid out in a clear rectangular grid, and all the lots are unambiguously defined – some may be 60 x 100 and others are 30 x 100, but that is the extent of the differences. Tidy old Canada seems almost obsessively organized compared to Mbezi Juu, where we now live. Perhaps partly because the area is so hilly, everything is absolutely irregular – in the whole neighbourhood, there is only one survey marker that I have been able to find, and absolutely nothing that is at right angles. Although it is evident that people do own plots of land here, I cannot figure out how they demarcate one lot from the next.

The main road runs along the crest of the hill, and somebody obviously does do some maintenance on it, because there are ditches along the side. Because it is made of crushed coral rock, the sharpest bits of which have been worn down a bit by relentless traffic, it is incredibly rough, but solid. But there is no evidence of any maintenance of the side roads. At irregular intervals, tracks branch off winding down into the valleys, wide enough for a single car. Right now is the dry season, but it is easy to see how much drainage ditches will matter during the rains,  because erosion has cut huge holes in the road surface in many places and most side lanes seem to us passable only by four-wheel drive jeeps (if then).

 Nevertheless, economic growth has been strong in Dar es Salaam and our neighbourhood is changing as we watch. Along each lane are new houses, some under construction and some just completed. Some are huge and some are hovels, but many are also middle class – kitchen, living room, two or three bedrooms and a front porch. Because mortgage finance for housing purchase is practically unknown here, people get a lot and then build as the money becomes available.

Some dig sand from the river bed and combine it with a little cement to make sun-dried concrete blocks, while others buy the blocks from one of the many suppliers in the area. In our area there are countless houses at various stages of construction, from slab pouring to wall building to corrugated iron roof erection to window and door installation. Footpaths run everywhere, in and out of yards, so Canadian notions of ‘trespassing’ require some revision. Nevertheless, people apparently feel no qualms about leaving a half-finished house empty for months. Remarkably, there is little sign of squatting and evidently nobody is too worried about losing their corrugated iron roofing to theft.

To somebody who is used to the continentally open North American market – where anything you buy at the building supply store probably came from thousands of miles away, it is refreshing to see how very locally-sourced production is here. Both at the top of our hill and at the bottom, small shops make wooden doors and windows. Basic inputs like cement and iron bars come from a distance, but the concrete blocks are made on site or just down the road. Under a small awning, a welding shop around the corner turns out decorative railing and window hardware. Most everything you need to build a house is manufactured within a 500 metre radius of where we live.

Dar es Salaam is growing strongly, and expanding to the north and west. People are evidently willing to pay a big price in time for the dream of a nice house, with a yard, of your own. If we travel at peak times, it takes an hour and a half for us to get part way to the downtown – and often it is much worse. At the office, I know many people who are commuting in from much further out than us – and one has to wonder how much worse congestion will become if more Tanzanians start to drive cars, rather than brave the massively overcrowded fleets of mini-buses that now ferry most commuters. Still, the urge to have a plot of land and a single family house drove the relentless suburban sprawl of North America, a sprawl which still continues. That seems also to be very much the same vision that drives many Tanzanians – although it would be nice if they could avoid some of the city planning mistakes we have made.

Of course Dar es Salaam is not a good snapshot of the country. It takes a growing economy for people to be able to afford to build new homes, and there was little economic growth in evidence when we visited Tanga last month. Dirt floors, mud walls and thatched roofs are all that most people can afford there – very picturesque and low cost construction, but also not very durable when the rains come.

Nevertheless, the cleanly swept yards and flowers that you often see planted outside impressed me forty years ago, and the same cleanliness and care is still very evident today. It must be pretty difficult to keep a dirt floor clean, and when you see a house without running water or electricity, but you also see that people are stepping out the door wearing a spotless white shirt ironed to a razor crease, you know that that it took a lot of work to look sharp. In Tanzania, in small villages (as in large towns) people work hard to keep up appearances. 

“A house with a yard, and keeping up appearances” – seems like these are pretty similar, and pretty common, aspirations, in Canada or in Tanzania.

 Here is the duka where I buy our tomatoes (on the far right) - almost directly across the road from us.

Here is a project that won't get completed, at least not any time soon. It is the school right next door to us, built by the Holy Ghost Fathers on land donated by Brian, our landlord. Apparently they ran out of money several years ago, and now the need for secondary schools in not so urgent. We think there is a family living in there now.