My First Days in Tanzania

You know you’re going far away when the United ticketing representative who’s checking you in looks at your destination and says, “I don’t even know how to pronounce that. Where is that?”

I arrived in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania Monday evening.  I feel like i was travelling forever, across a blurry mix of beverage services and movies, hurtling across time zones until I had no idea what time it really was in my body. Eat, movie, drowse, read, eat, movie, drowse, read.  Every minute that passed, I started to feel more and more alone, further and further from all of the things that bind me to home.

Which made it seem more surreal to be greeted by my sister at the other end with Frank, her favorite bajaji driver.  (A bajaji is a little motorized three-wheeler.)

Frank greets me and asks me, “How was your safari?”

The view towards the street from her apartment

“Oh, but I was coming from home,” I say, kind of confused.

“Safari means “trip” in Swahili,” My sister tells me.

“Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “Very long, but I’m happy I’m here.”

Needless to say, I spent a half an hour this morning studying some Swahili from one of my sister’s books.

My sister lives in a little one-room rooftop studio with an big patio near Msasani Beach.  It’s a residential area out of the center of town with bumpy dirt roads. I haven't seen any foreigners around, so I feel like I totally stick out every time I leave her building. I hear the call to prayer from nearby mosques, which would wake me up at 4:30 a.m. if I didn't happen to already be awake from the jet lag. 

I definitely take a lot of things for granted at home. Like power. And water pressure. I am always reminded of these things every time I travel!

Relaxing on my sister's outdoor patio 

As my sister warned me, we’ve already had long power outages every single day I’ve been here. In fact, there's no power right now. I'm glad I brought my headlamp! 

The first day while my sister was out, I didn’t know I needed to turn on the water pump before taking a shower, so I crouched under the trickle of water from the faucet to batthe.  After she came back, she was surprised that I’d managed to get enough water to wash myself.  “Oh, I just thought that’s how it was!” I said. I'm finding my way around, and well, making do when I don't know.

The view from her place towards the water

I’m trying to motivate for another walk, but it is so hot that I’m tempted to just read and nap.  Tough decisions :)