Tale of Four Cities… The Modern Life
Going from the far reaches of African countryside to the inner cities is an amazing contrast in life. Contrasts and Contradictions is what Africa is all about. I have visited five cities and I would like to tell you a bit about Dar es Salaam and Arusha, Tanzania, Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda. The fifth city, Pretoria, South Africa, was too short to report anything although I loved seeing the place near their “White House” where Nelson Mandela was inaugurated. Such an amazing day that was for South Africa, Africa and the World. Let’s start with a five hour drive in Tanzania from Saadani N.P. to Dar es Salaam. The eastern portion of Tanzania is mostly muslims in small towns and the one big town, Dar. The drive starts in a small village within the park with traditional mud/dung and stick homes. The park service is trying to move all of the residents out of this new park because it is dangerous (i.e. you’re walking in lion, buffalo and elephant country). Outside of the park we run into larger villages and finally towns. The towns are full of hawkers trying to sell everything under the sun (most of Africa is trying to sell something) to the passerbys. We stop once so Bill can buy charcoal – they cook wood in the ground to make charcoal for people to burn in their homes. Charcoal like everything else is less money outside of the city. The park road is very rutty, but after 1.5 hours we reach pavement and the real ride begins. I decided to video tape much of this ride to show the contrasts between villages, towns and cities and I captured one hour of hopefully interesting if not harrowing sites. Harrowing… yeah, when you come up to a slow truck climbing a hill with five cars behind it and the driver decides to pass and, oh yeah, you are totally blind to what is coming on the other side because of a curve. Sure… go ahead and pass. And if another car decides to pass you during this maneuver… yes that’s three cars going the same direction on a two lane road (I mean highway… one lane each way!) with absolutely no visibility to uncoming traffic… just marvelous… good video if it works. I saw a lot of broken down trucks and buses along the way mainly for tires and rarely pulled off the road usually with a few branches in the road to warn you… hopefully no one is passing you at the time of the late notice. I also witnessed one accident where a passing car couldn’t quite squeeze between the car it is passing and the oncoming traffic… oops. As well as seeing the aftermath of other accidents. Buy the insurance here for sure and tighten the seatbelt. So five hours later averaging 40-50 kilometers per hour (good time in Africa!) we arrive in Dar…
Dar es Salaam is a busy place. The women are dressed up and looking mighty proud as I have described previously. The men are generally wearing the African version of blue collar. Other than in the fancy hotel where I had my first culture shock, I did not see a lot of men dressed up and I am not sure exactly why that is other to say it must mainly be an industrial work type place. Bill, my driver from Savannah Safari, took me to the post office and we both discovered how to mail a box to the U.S. It was a funny time learning that you have to get the box inspected (no tape yet) by customs, get it weighed, tape the box, wrap it in brown paper, tape again, address and then tape the customs paperwork. Can I remember all of these steps? The city is not wealthy, but it sits on the coast, has some highend housing on the beaches and is certainly the main pulse of Tanzania containing the rail headquarters, major deep port and largest airport. It is mainly black muslims, but there is also a fair share of Arabs and Indians. White locals… few. There is an ex-pat section of town where most of the hide. I did not feel threatened with danger during my daytime visit and everyone I dealt with was quite friendly. This is one of the cities where al Qaeda blew up our embassy and I am sure it contains some radical muslims, but I doubt they are that large of a group. Most Tanzanians I met were embarassed by the bombing if it came up in conversation. The city has everything you would expect in a normal modern city and it also has some cows and other animals, bicycles with every imaginable object on them – did I already mention the 600 eggs (20 flats containing 30 each) on one bike? The traffic is nuts, but I would soon learn that Dar is nothing when it comes to extremes. I unfortunately did not get to the fish market at the docks, but I will tell you about an African fish market when I finally get to writing about Zanzibar. Dar contains a lot of people selling anything on the streets and sidewalks and markets. These areas are where the past collide with the present such as ox carts and automobiles.
Arusha, Tanzania is the hub for Tanzania safaris. It has a domestic airport as well as an international airport. It is very tropical due to its 1600 meter elevation and being at the base of Tanzania’s second largest mountain, Mt Meru. It is surrounded by the lushest farmland that I have ever seen. Coffee, bananas, nursery stock and many other crops grow here. In the morning it is often covered with clouds and the couple of days I was there reminded me of the weather in Sonoma County – foggy cool mornings followed by sunshine and warm temperatues. Arusha’s city center is all business and includes the courthouses where the U.N. Rwanda genocide trials are taking place as well as hotel rooms for the foreigners. I had been following the trials in America and a chill ran down my spine when I saw the sign thinking about my upcoming visit there in August. Like with Dar, it has a lot of collision areas between the old ways and the new mainly where commerce is traded. Dar and Arusha have shanty buildings set up along roads where people set up shop selling auto repair services, handmade beds, charcoal, garments, you name it. Arusha is more balanced between christian and muslim being that it is not on the coast where Arabs had much influence in the past. Although Dar had some rich folks along the coast and I am sure Arusha had a few hidden somewhere, one of my main thoughts about Tanzania is that there is very few people getting wealthy, very few starving and mostly everyone is in the same boat – barely keeping afloat, but happy that they are in a peaceful country and optimistic that things are getting better for their country.
I have spent three days in Nairobi, Kenya, my first large city in Africa. It has 3,000,000 residents including 800,000 in the largest slum in Africa. I saw the slum and wanted to visit it to bring pens and prove further that black poverty does not equate to dangerous thieves, but I chickened out when the logistics seemed a bit much. My biggest fear was finding my way out considering it is just a maze of corrugated metal huts with no streets and no plan. I came to this city with definite fear. I believed it was one of the most dangerous places around. Foolishness! I have a very clear picture on how whitey sees the world. If it is black, rundown and filled with poverty then we label it DANGEROUS even if we never get out and check it out. Security is high in Nairobi, but mainly the streets are packed with people trying to get their jobs done so I didn’t see many opportunities for criminals. I stayed closer to the city center/hotel land at night, but that does not mean it all of a sudden becomes murder city after the sun goes down. Considering Kenya shoots poachers dead on sight (or is it on site?), I don’t think crime is the biggest deal in Kenya. I read in the newspaper that two members of a gang terrorizing a neighborhood were caught by the locals and they proceeded to put them in tires with gasoline and burn them up after the police declined to intervene. So you want to be a criminal in Nairobi… good luck! The men and women are dressed up here on weekdays because this is a truly international business center. Lots of money moving around although I doubt there are that many rich Kenyans. It is a banking, commerce and travel hub. Everything and anything you ever need in America is available in Nairobi. They have a beautification compaign and I was impressed with the cleanliness of the city and the amount of trees that it has. Maribou Storks are very prevalent in the air and on the trees and structures. Other than it being 99.9% black, I don’t think it was all that different than a European city. It has no traffic lights – I guess I forgotten to mention that about Dar and Arusha, too – and the traffic is insane. Police control traffic on the roundabouts (many British touches to this city) and it looked impossible until I saw them coordinating moves via radio. Why no traffic lights? Power outages are very normal although I saw none and so I guess the city is better off not losing them regularly so everyone is just used to it. It seems to work if you don’t mind the slow progress (do any cities have traffic that proceeds well even with lights?) and the spewing pollution. I know I was eager to give it a try behind the wheel… maybe another time. I took a walk to a nice rundown park and it had a “peace corner”. The walkways’ short fences are made of barbed wire on posts. I liked the irony. Lots of government buildings here and of course they have fine housing for their employees. Government corruption is rampant just as it is in Tanzania and probably most of Africa. Work for the government and you are one of the entitled. This city has the least amount of collision between old and new probably due to its sheer size. The Nairobi airport pretty much sucks, but I liked seeing giraffes when I was being driven to town! I stayed at the Stanley and then at the Hilton. The Stanley is great and the Hilton is OK. Being that Nairobi is the other embassy bombing location by al Qaeda (note that Muslim influence in this city is much less than Dar), Hilton has lots of security whereas the Stanley is pretty laid back. I did not like staying in a potential target although I really did not think of Nairobi as a high risk location to begin with. Although there are so many theft stories about Nairobi, I say be smart (i.e. no damn purses!) and you can enjoy a fast-paced city with a lot of friendly folks.
And then there is Kampala. By far, this is the craziest, most filthy place I have ever been. But it also has to be one of the friendliest cities you can find. I must have seen 100,000 people yesterday and maybe 100 of us were white! Like everywhere I go, I engage people in conversations and grill them with questions until they are probably sick of me. I met someone from Sudan and had to know what is going on there. Kampalans work hard selling everything. The city has seven hills and is compared to Rome. God help me if I get to Rome and find it has screwed up as this city 🙂 As with any other hilly city, the roads do anything, but run straight. They wrap around the hills and the lower the area and road, the more scummy it gets. There isn’t garbage everywhere (Africans create way less garbage than the rest of us to start with), but everything is dirty. I wanted a good rain this weekend to clean things up, but I doubt that clean is possible here. The lower the location, the dirtier it gets! From my luxurious room at the Sheraton I look over the whole thing. Everyone burns charcoal here and the industry spews out huge amounts of smoke and the vehicles belch diesel soot creating the most disgusting air I have ever seen especially when you look before the daily winds start in the morning. Uganda has a wonderful electricity system… it works every other day by plan. The city has a lot of businesses with generators, but at night it is the darkest city you can find. I have walked around at night and it is very safe. Safe except for the missing manhole covers and bricks in the sidewalks. Miss going around one of these and you’ll break a leg. Everyone is so focused on doing that, who has the energy to be a thief? I think someone is stealing the covers and bricks and building a home out of them. I saw one in the middle of a major sidewalk being replaced. I would suggest that they abandon the rectangular shapes and go with round, but African ingenuity would still figure a way to use those, too. Somewhere in Uganda is the House of Manhole Covers. I have had no one treat me with anything but respect and kindness here. I went into the seediest looking part of town yesterday during the day and it was an interesting adventure especially around the Old Taxi Park (where I catch my 22-passenger small Japanese mini-van back to the farm I am working at (by the way, the farm stories and the in-between people will need to wait a couple of weeks). The first time I arrived, it had rained and this area was a mud pit. Yesterday it was high and dry. Being at the bottom of the city, I wonder what flows down hill into that hole. The city is full of motorcycles who give people rides. Craziest rides of your life. It also is mainly made up of crazy 22-passenger “taxis” which by the way only have 15 seats including the driver. I am dumb-founded how the traffic can move here, but it manages. Unlike Nairobi, I wanted no part of being behind the wheel. That’s a challenge left for the insane… or the normal Kampalan. I have told a number of people that their city is a crazy, filthy place with great people and I love it. They laugh knowingly. I’m sure most of the Sheraton guests don’t go walking around and are scared to death by what they see. I say too bad for them and their fears. When I get to a city that really strikes fear in me… won’t that be fun! I do take precautions such as taking nothing like a camera or watch. I went without a hat until I knew it was safe and I did not walk with a bag until I knew it was really safe. No money in the pockets except what can be lost with little pain. And I smile and engage people as much as I can. As with the other cities, I find the people here too busy trying to survive to be targeting guests in their country. Let’s see… anything else… the women are just as beautiful here as the rest of the countries I have visited. Also, this city has a lot of Maribou Storks – I have seen a hundred in the sky at one time – as well as birds of prey (currently unidentified) flying by hotel window and pied crows (a crow with a white middle) and many other interesting birds that we never see in America.
Two more weeks until Gorilla Time…
Tags: Travel
vagabondrick
Rick – I am so glad to hear your comments about Narolbi. Jessica and I spent three days there during the week we had in Kenya and I had very much the same impressions as you.
Your trip!!! – I am in awe that you are doing this and I am envious that I am not.
Best to you in your travels. Safe journey.
Bibi