Dar es Salaam Diary

Yesterday did not have the most auspicious beginning. I awoke at 8 AM after a night out to the sad sound of my ceiling fan grinding to a halt (beginning a day’s worth of power cuts). My sleep was further disturbed by someone’s loud radio blasting Gospel music across the street (perhaps trying to tell me that I should be in church on a Sunday morning rather than bed). Then, more curiously, I heard loud footsteps running back and forth past my door, and my housemate yelling at someone, or something, to get out. Despite these distractions, I turned over and was able to catch another 45 minutes of shuteye.

When I finally emerged from my room, my housemate informed me that she had spent the last hour chasing our neighbors' rabbits out of our house! These unlikely pets have been becoming less and less timid, and we figure the wind blew the door open during the night at some point, and they hopped right in the house. We’re not sure how long they were running around, but they did manage to dig up one of the houseplants and deposit a large pile of dirt in the corner before they were finally removed.

After securing the door against rabbits and any other would-be intruders, I left the house to walk to the gym. As usual, I did not completely blend in with my surroundings, but I was a bit surprised, not to mention rather annoyed, when multiple people started laughing and pointing at me as I walked down the street. It soon became clear that I was actually not the primary object of amusement (for once!) I turned around to see a man riding the tallest unicycle I had ever seen and another guy on stilts that appeared to be made out of bicycle parts.

The day ended with a great lesson of the “be careful what you wish for” variety. As has happened many a weekend, our water was shut off on Saturday morning. Normally, these water outages only last until 6 or 7 PM on the same day, but this weekend our water was still off on Sunday morning, and remained off when we all left the house to go about our various wanderings. Given that my house is currently occupied by four females who are reasonably fond of being clean, two days without water was a bit of a chore, and we all grumbled and willed the water to return. Well, someone must have heard our wishes, because when we all reconvened at the house on Sunday evening, the water was back. And there were about two inches of it on the dining room floor.

In our vain hopes to restore running water, we conducted multiple tests of various faucets throughout the house, including one just next to the dining room. Apparently we had left it on by mistake, thus creating the mini-flood that greeted us when we returned home. Fortunately there were five of us, and we were able to devise an elaborate system involving buckets, towels, sheets, a mop, a broom, a dustpan, and successfully maneuver most of the water out of the house in under and hour. Still, it was rather exhausting.

Ah well, just another typical day in Dar!