Dar

On Tuesday, George and I took the bus to Dar es Salaam, or Bongo as it's commonly known around these parts. Bongo means "brains" in Swahili; they call it this because you need brains to survive in this city. Or so they say. It can't be much worse than Nairobbery, right?

The bus ride was quite long -- about nine hours and we arrived in the city just as the sun was setting. Though I'm not crazy about long bus rides, this one had the benefit of fantastic scenery. Tanzania really is a beautiful place. It's filled with never-ending mountains and lush countryside dotted with little villages and towns.

Dar is quite a change from all that. It's a sprawling city, with suburbs spilling out in every direction. Our hotel is located in a ramshackle part of town, which seems to be predominantly Indian. Most of the architecture is from the 1930s, and doesn't appear to have been fixed up much since that time. The buildings' facades are crumbling with age, and blackened by pollution. This is just the old part of town, though -- the city centre is more modern, with its gleaming office buildings and modern hotels.

I've found that Dar's reputation as a sketchy, scary city is much overrated. Sure, there's a lot of hassle. Lots of aggressive hawkers and taxi drivers. Lots of pan handlers. Lots of people and traffic. But the hassle from people on the street isn't any worse than in Zanzibar, for example, and the traffic is nothing compared to Nairobi. My major beef with Dar is really the heat. Yes, Zanzibar was hot, but at least then you could escape to the waterfront or the top of a tall building for some ocean breeze. Here the air is trapped between buildings, and is heated from car exhaust and the reflection of office windows. There are beaches, but it takes at least an hour to get to them from the city centre. The beaches are truly beautiful, though. It's amazing that such tranquility and clear waters lie so close to such chaos.

Here I've mostly been working on school applications and making arrangements for my next steps. Soon I'll be heading to Morogoro, a town a few hours West of Dar, to work with one of IIN's partner organizations for a little while. Then it's off to Cape Town in mid-November. So there's lots to look forward to.