Dar es Salaam Diary

I’m not sure what triggered it, but about two weeks ago, I experienced a distinct change in terms of my feelings about living here. It’s hard to describe, but it was a combination of relief and peace and shoulder-shrugging resignation: OK, this is my life now. This is not to say I don’t still have my ups and downs, and don’t still continue to question what I’m doing here, what “right” I have to be here, how my current experience fits into my Life Plan, etc. but at least those thoughts are no longer at the forefront of my mind. Basically, I think I’m finally over culture shock, which manifested itself in a weird, subtle way. Rather than having trouble with the obvious differences like the heat, the ridiculously overcrowded public transportation, the water and power outages, and the lack of certain comfort foods (the cheese here is NOT good), it was this general feeling of outsider- and different-ness that was the biggest challenge.

Anyway, a friend recently commented that I spend so much time recounting my “quasi-existential musings” in this blog that it can be hard to really get a sense of my surroundings. So I will try to rectify that imbalance to an extent in this post…

A Tanzanian acquaintance recently referred to Dar as an “urban village” and I think that’s a pretty apt description. Before I got here I went through two phases of vague expectations. In the first, I imagined Dar as a dusty, impoverished place, with a bunch of huts and very little infrastructure. But then when I learned (after sending a rather embarassing e-mail to another American living here) that there were luxuries such as running water and paved roads, I began to imagine Dar as a gleaming metropolis. So much so that when I first saw the the decidedly less-than-gleaming city center, my first thought was, Wow, what a dump!

Well, Dar has grown on me since then, and what’s interesting is that it’s managed to live up to both sets of somewhat misconceived expectations. It is very dusty, and can be quite smoggy, dirty and, well, “third-world,” for lack of a better descriptor. Squat toilets are the norm in many places (including the Alliance Francaise and a co-worker’s home that I recently visited). It’s also not uncommon to see polio victims dragging themselves down the sidewalk on their hands (the more fortunate use hand-crank wheelchairs made from recycled bicycle parts). It’s also not uncommon to have people ask you for money. This latter disturbance is often perpetrated by brazen children who have made a game of asking the unsuspecting mzungu for cash (or a pen or a photograph) rather than by starving people asking out of genuine need. However, the other day I realized after a trip to the ATM that I was walking around with more money in my wallet than the average person in this country makes in a year... It can be hard to draw the line – most of my mzungu friends here are decidedly not rich (by Western standards): we are young and working for little or no pay, many of us worried about paying back student loans and wondering how we’ll pay for grad school. On the other hand, it can be hard not to recognize your relative fortune when you think that a few dollars can buy someone food for a week, or pay for a month of school.

Living in Dar, however, it can be quite easy to forget about the dire poverty that affects so many people in this country. One of my officemates recently explained to a visitng friend that if he wanted to see the “real” Tanzania, he would have to get out of Dar. Indeed, if you were to spend all your time on the Peninsula, it would be easy to forget completely that you were in Tanzania. The Peninsula can feel a bit like Palo Alto, except more tropical. Even in the center of town, there are a number of oases of Western comfort and privilege – such as the Kempinski Hotel, where one can eat sushi while checking one’s e-mail on the free Wireless Internet, and shivering from the intense air-conditioning.

My Dar experience is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes (though a lot closer to the latter, if I am honest). I cram into the overcrowded dala-dalas and try to ignore their squeaky, maybe-failing brakes. However, I take taxis after dark and am considering buying a friend’s Suzuki 4-by-4 for more peaceful transport. I am happy eating dirt-cheap nyama choma (grilled meat) and fried bananas and washing them down with dirt-cheap beer (75 cents for a half liter! And it’s really good!!) at the outdoor bar across the street. However, I’m also happy to indulge in the various finer dining options that Dar has to offer, including Thai (at the rooftop restaurant in one of the fancy hotels downtown), Italian, and Middle Eastern cuisine.

I live in a house that has flush toilets but no hot water, and sometimes no water at all. My mother called the other night when I was in the middle of taking a bucket shower by headlamp. I recounted that fact to her with some pride, but by my third bucket shower that week, I was kind of over the novelty, and began making arrangements with our landlord to put a reserve water tank on the roof.

My neighborhood is neither exclusively ex-pat nor totally Tanzanian, and has a range of accomodation. The road leading to our house is unpaved and littered with enormous potholes, but these do not seem to present too much of an obstacle for the chickens, bicycles, dala-dalas, and Land Rovers that are all frequent passengers.

One thing that both that haves and the have-nots of Dar can enjoy is the Indian Ocean. Dar's beaches are not Tanzania's most beautiful, but there is just something wonderful about having the ocean in your backyard. Being able to walk along the beach with with bare feet on the sand, looking out into a seemingly endless stretch of tropical blue water can make up for pretty much anything.