Well, yesterday was quite an adventurous day in the city of Dar es Salaam. Having no classes I decided to visit my friend Zenno who lives about a 30-minute walk from the university. Arriving at [9] in the morning... I joined him for a breakfast of chai (tea), mkate (bread) and an embe (mango) which we enjoyed in his kitchen/room. We decided that since there was nothing specific we had to do we'd just get into town and "walk about." We boarded the Dala Dala (which many have already heard about) and made the 30 minute or so trek into town. Once in town we decided to go to the "country club" where Zenno would ask his tennis coach to keep an eye out for a cheap tennis racquet. This was an interesting country club, no doubt left over from when Tanganyika was a German Colony/British Protectorate...red tiled roofs, open dinning area looking out toward the Indian Ocean. Anyway, we did that and then headed over to the USIS where I checked my mail (thanks y'all).

We then decided to swing by his brother's workplace to get the key to his apartment so we could eat lunch there. His brother works on computers in what I think (by the few Swahili words that I can pick up from the health field) [is] a regional health clinic. This place was an interesting place. ...It looked as though out of that colonial [era], and [this] probably was due to its location (port-front) and the building materials (red-tiled roofs and whitewashed sand-like walls).

Now it was time to walk across town to Ilala area. What a long walk! Past the numerous Indian stores selling radios, and other appliances. We passed through Kariakoo which is THE MARKET in Dar es Salaam, with people selling whatever, wherever. It was in Kariakoo that the action for the day occurs. Zenno's attention was caught by the nice tennis shoes that the guy had in his bag. He told Zenno they were only 4,000 /-. The next thing you know Zenno is handing over the money and the guy hands Zenno the bag. It was only when I asked for the bag to see the shoes that we realized that the bag Zenno bought for 4,000/- contained not shoes, but cardboard and rocks (which in the way they were folded and weighed, seemed like shoes). By that time we were far away and Zenno could do nothing but laugh and say, "It pains my heart John." We decided to continue on to eat lunch (Zenno says he remembers the face and will catch him one day when he is passing, but he wasn't going to waste his time now).

We had a nice lunch of rice and peas, then just "chilled" for a while. We went up to the summit of the apartment building (what we in the States would call [looking at it from the outside] "projects") and I had a wonderful view of the Kariakoo market and surrounding Ilala: women sitting in the shade of a house, children playing a game of soccer with a ball made from plastic bags and twine, and young men pulling carts full of what not in the hot sun. Towards the evening we made our way to the dala dala stop so we could get back to my room at the university for a nice dinner of potatoes and veggies.

I think the most impressive part of the day came at the end when I told Zenno how sorry I was about the shoes incident. He said, "At least I know God is smiling down at me, John [because] someone's eating a good meal tonight." He then went on to talk about how he could "understand" why someone would do that, with employment being the way it is (or isn't). I don't understand that guy sometimes. He's only 19, but some of the insights he has and the things he says would cause me to think he is so much older than his babyfaced self proclaims.--John

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First Online Edition: 22 July 1997
Last Revised: 18 May 2024