At 6.15 am my alarm goes off. About fifteen minutes later I stumble out of bed. The breakfast can be bread with jam - Peta did observe well during her stay in Gent - but it can be boiled pieces of yam (potato with a purple colour when cooked) or pumpkin with a pinch of salt. At 7 am I leave the house. With or without having breakfast. Passing the Kwetu Pub and Pharmacist centre I reach the main road. The shower – or better: splashing cold water over me with tiny baskets, because the water pressure is absent – I took is no longer visible if you look at my feet. The sandy way is coloured black due to the ashes coming from the wooden stoves. Whether they have swept the way or not. At the main road I await my first daladala. I carry my course book, a notebook and 300 Tsh (equivalent of about 0,15 eurocent) for this journey. At the junction of Moroco I alight. I cross the road and await my second daladala, the one to Masaki. Or rather: the one to Msasani peninsula, the place to be for my course. Once again I pay 300 Tsh. Around ten to eight, so in no time, I arrive at Slipway. Tanzanians complain about traffic jams which made me gniffle a little. Two year ago, in Nbo, the jam started a few meters passed my door all the way to town. Surely, everything is perception and to be honest, the cars do queue sometimes.
My second daladala drops me at Fitness Center, a bus stop about 5 minute walking from my class. Once again I wander through black coloured sand, watching the women cook mandazi, chapati and kasava.
Slipway branch is located at Msasani peninsula, so near the water. The compound houses a children's playground, a hotel, a terrace restaurant, shops, a small soukh, a bank and exchange office, a supermarket, a bookstore and so on. The prices are significantly higher than somewhere else in Dar. Not surprising since this is clearly a meet and greet for expats. During our class break I quickly run to the supermarket to go and buy salted dry fried banana crisps and juices from the brand Azam. A famous brand. The owner is filthy rich. If I say he also owns the ferry mooring spot for instance, I am sure you can picture his wealth.
Pure wealth is a rare good, but if you were to explore the city centre on a business trip and stick to that centre - which stretches from one end of the coastal corridor avenue to the other end - you have an absolute wow! impression. Gigantic fancy, new buildings (for pictures scroll down to two blog entries ago)in the street view. Clearly they invest into buildings. Apart from that, you spot old Swahili-houses, with similar architecture to the pasha-houses of the Ottoman Empire you see along the riverside of the Bosporus, beautiful old mosques and lots of coloured facades. Facades with those South-Americanlike pastel colours.
At noon my classes finish and I take the same route back home, in the opposite direction of course. One hour later I arrive back home, in Mwenge. I change into a top and a shirt, and wrap a blue kanga (piece of cloth with bantu/ Swahili-design) around me. Peta and Alex are at work, but Razaro, Alex’s younger brother, is present. Though he is thirthysomething he is currently finishing his secondary education via an adult education system. As one of the youngest he never got the chance to finish his school. Nowadays his brother invests in his education. Razaro's wife and his three sons are still upcountry.
Razaro and I have kinda come to a silent agreement for one of us to do dishes every other day. Kinda funny. Once the kitchen is restored to its former glory, he puts on the kettle to boil water, which is cooled down afterwards and used as drinking water, and prepares lunch. Late lunch though because by the time he serves it the clock is ticking 3 pm. No big deal. Especially because the dinner is not served untill 9.30 pm. Peta cooks in the evening, but after finishing her plate she gets comfortable in the sofa. The men clear the table. A lovely scene to watch. Hehe. And yes, I am kinda spoiled. No reason not to like that. Haha. But in return I need to agree with the daily portion of ugali (looks like smashed poatoes; ingredients: water and maize flower; boiled). But I can imagine that a daily portion of potatoes or bread is as boring for them as ugali is to me. Now and then we eat rice and last Friday Peta cooked spaghetti for the guest, yours truly. Quite nice. The food in general is actually quite tasty. I just miss olives and real European soup sometimes. Weird, because the temperatures don't go below 25 during the day.
Meanwhile I do homework, look at some vocabulary, read a little, write about a zillion things. At night we mostly watch tv. Not that I understand even 5%, but a tv programme guide can also give an insight in a lot of societal and cultural customs.
There is Isidingo, a South-African soap serie, Soy tu dueño, a dubbed South-American soap serie or Nigerian tv-shows. Other programmes include the Epiq Bongo Star Search which hosts super funny judges. Two women, Madame Rita Paulsen and Salama, and a man, Master J. Sunday night one of the candidates folded a gecko and put it into his mounth. The two female judges runned out screaming. At home Alex rolled out of the sofa laughing. Razaro nickered. I remember these first rounds from Belgium as being epic and extremely funny as well. Unfortunately the Tanzanian version shows sad stories as well.
They do not shy away of portraying this at tv. Moreover there are ads warning you from harm. There is this one add that really touched me. It starts with a whimpering school girl being pulled in the corn field by a masked man. Some minutes later her friends find her schoolbag and try to find her. She is found huddling and sobbing. Amongst these friends different opinions arise. One thinks she should forget about it, the other one urges her to go to the hospital first and the police after that. The latter is then stimulated to do.
The tv-programming also include parliament's debates, live from the political capital Dodoma, and early in the morning somebody is reading the scoops written in the newspaper. Little publicity or on the strangest moments, like in the middle of a newsbulletin.
By 10 - 10.30 pm, or as Tanzanians say ‘saa 4:00 usiku’ or ‘4 at night’ because just like Ethiopia they have a slightly different timetable, the Sandman arrives. Lala salama (sleepwell)!
