14 - 19 SEPTEMBER 2011

DAR ES SALAAM TANZANIA

Finally checking into the YMCA, I sing the song, making all the hand actions,

OF COURSE in memory of the Village People and disco!  My room has a balcony overlooking huge mango trees in the centre of town and backs onto a church with lovely bells at 6.30am each morning. There is a great cafeteria and bar here along with lovely folk working here. Even the voracious taxi drivers out the front are very friendly accept my daily knock back in response to their offer of a taxi ride, with grace. Granted there are power cuts each day but with a generator so we are never indisposed for very long. And we are right across the road from the Holiday Inn, with its fab rooftop bar and fantastic wifi.

Try making my way around using the dalladallas – get directed to Uganda street and get a taxi to the Uganda embassy . Pay at the bank come back and “one minute, madam”.  30minutes later I have the sticker in  my passport and I figure its not too late to try Rwanda as well this morning. No luck finding my way with the dalladallas so I get a taxi who insists he knows where the embassy is – I try to tell him it’s the other way, but I am reluctant to be so sure. Turns out he was wrong, I was right, they have moved and nobody told him! Sorry madam, sorry madam – but yet there is something to be said for a bargained price because even if they get lost you don’t pay extra.  Back we go to Old Bagamoyo Rd and find their lovely big new house with little sign of offices or workers.  The security guard leads me to a back room where there is one desk with a lovely young Rwandan woman who is very excited that I am Australian and wanting to travel to Rwanda. She has never been there (to Rwanda) but is hoping to visit next month. I fill in the paperwork and then receive a post it note with a telephone number to call tomorrow along with an account number to pay US$50 into if the said telephone call says its ok. Half of the day is gone now, but I message Zohra from Girl Guides Tanzania to arrange to visit their HQ tomorrow.

I try for the tourist office and Ethiopian Airlines but both are closed by the time I make my way back into town. In the morning I head to the now open tourist office and I am successful in getting decent instructions out to Mwananyamala, where I want to go, using the dalladallas. When I get to the Mama Zakaria stop, I telephone Stella who comes out to meet me and we walk back to a house that they are using as a headquarters while they await a new office to be built – it will take 2 years!!!  I meet some of the Region Leaders who are in town to learn a new training project to make girls aware of the dangers of alcohol. At home our health departments take this type of education on board but here it is left to small organisations who petition for funding to do it. Apparently here in Tanzania alcohol consumption is a real problem, with many rural folk in some areas using it to settle their babies and tots without any knowledge of the danger in doing so. Hmmm Stella tells me there is one woman on Zanzibar who is looking to start Girl Guides and I ask if I can be putin contact to meet with her – no problems. We wish each other farewell and Stella sees me safely onto the Dalladalla back to town.

Wise words

Back I come to the city and visit Ethiopian Airlines to get official confirmation that if I fly in and out of Addis I am entitled to internal airfares at much reduced prices. This is great news unlike the Rwandans who tell me after calling them that yes I will be approved for the visa and it will be ready on Tuesday. TUESDAY – and what will I do till then, methinks??  I explain that I had planned to travel to Zanzibar but without a passport that will not be possible. He reassures me that I can travel to Zanzibar using a copy of my passport but I just don’t believe that and think it would probably be my luck to catch the ferry over, only to be sent back because of no passport. He suggests I ring Monday but he is not making any promises. That means I will be here in Dar until Tuesday if I can catch an afternoon ferry to the island, fingers crossed.

Friday evening I am finally reading Thursday’s Tanzanian Daily News and I notice an article about Tazara Railways who are celebrating Tanzania’s 50^th year of Independence and their own 35^th anniversary by running a special train down to Selous Game Reserve. “It includes the annual beauty pageant winners for them to enjoy the beautiful landscape along the railway line! Moreove, other people are allowed to buy the tickets and enjoy the trip at a low cost.”

MIss Tanzania and bodyguard

A return day trip to Selous with Miss Tanzania and her four runners up on board? Nothing else to do tomorrow so why not! I head out early Saturday morning to the Tazara station to find crowds around Miss Tanzania and Miss Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth in the flesh! Tickets are still available so I lash out for a ticket in first class and join two pommy blokes in a compartment decorated with a flower arrangement of roses! It turns out we are the only mzungus on board and they are both here for work here (economics etc). They bought their tix days ago when the trip was first announced and they assure me that our tickets are all inclusive!  
We are asked if we mind another passenger – no, plenty of room and we are joined by Mohammed asks if he can join us and he who is a mine of information having been in the railway industry for 30 years. And it seems as if he knows everyone on board, knew the rail line backwards and even had a timetable for today’s trip. The train leaves ON TIME and soon enough we were served a packed breakfast and delicious masala tea – chai. This is followed by quickly by offers of beer! I walk through the train to the airplane equivalent of ‘the pointy end’ to find Miss Tanzania Salha Israel,  dining off real plates with Tanzania Railways ‘Deputy Managing Director. Because Tazara is a joint operation between Zambia and Tanzania so there are two Deputy Managing Directors – one from Zambia and the other from Tanzania. We have the Tanzania’s Deputy on board, Damas Danial Ndumbaro who is very happy to meet a mzungu and promises to call in on my compartment later. Photos are taken, I get a guided tour of the pointy end to see a real double bed, a full sized bath in the bathroom and I get to shake many hands, introduce myself and where I come from. Enough of the pleasantries I wander down through the rest of the train where techs are trying to get the PA going – because its just not a celebration unless here is loud music happening. Everyone is on board with friends and workmates and I wonder just how many of them actually have purchased tickets! Second and Third classes are full and there is a great anticipation about today’s trip, everyone is happy, smiling and wants to know who I am and where I’ve popped up from!  I am really in search of another chai now but no luck there so after the many more offers of a beer I relent and find myself watching the scenery fly past drinking my first Safari (beer) of the day at 10am!

A full sized bath on the train JIC??

There are tv crews on board from both Zambia and from Tanzania recording this momentous day and I am interviewed by both stations. Some chap pops into our compartment at regular intervals to keep us informed of what is going to happen next. Mohammed keeps us up to the minute on how much time we have gained or lost at the various stations we pass. And by this time the music is blaring but we find the volume control in our compartment actually works so we are all happy travellers. Another update on our travels tells us that the rail line cuts through the Selous Game Reserve, the train will slow down when it passes through and if we spot animals  the train will stop to allow us to view them more easily. What a civilised train ride! The animals didn’t seem too keen on the train and obviously knew that this was not a timetabled arrival – but we did manage to spot various (and fleeing) giraffe, zebra, elephants, antelopes and birdies. We then reached the small station of Kisaki where everyone disembarked and the women were off like a shot to the village for a spot of shopping. So naturally I followed the women because they ALWAYS know what is going on and what is good.
Local kids were employed to carry back the kilograms of fresh produce purchases – I really didn’t think there would have been a tomato left in that village after those passengers had been through! Later when we’re back on the train returning to Dar, Mohammed lamented that he didn’t get to the village for shopping because he didn’t know about it – no train line there I think and you didn’t follow the women! lol  Mohammed also laments the lost time and gives us a very accurate estimate of our late arrival time. He also kindly offers me a lift back into to town and the two poms jump on too.
A long day but really a lot of fun on a once off journey!

FACT: The short rains have started here and just like a tropical monsoon.  Known as mvuli, they are very heavy but usually over in ten or fifteen minutes.. But beware getting caught out in them because you will most certainly be soaked to the skin within a couple of minutes.

I thought this was a really cool wheel cover