woah woah woah

This silly mzungu (white person) on the ferry to Zanzibar.
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Hamjambo wote! (hello everyone in Kiswahili)

I am writing this first update from my ofisi at Pact in Dar Es Salaam. I don’t quite know where to start because my first five days here have been wild and kind of random. Anyways, bear with me and you’ll get a sense of how I’m living here in Tanzania.

I arrived in Dar mid-day on Wednesday after beginning my journey on Monday morning. The trip itself was kind of a surreal taupe-colored blur of airports and the backside of airplane seats, broken up by two hour naps, 600 pages of reading, and a really charming British couple on my last flight. Note to other cheap travelers: Qatar Airways is actually luxurious but super cheap.

The sun setting over the Indian Ocean from the ferry to Zanzibar.
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On to the important stuff like my job and roommate. Both are great. The employees at Pact are efficient and intelligent and I’m working on an interesting initiative to teach civil society networks (for example, ANGOZA, a network of 73 NGOs in Zanzibar that analyzes government policy at the local level) how to track government expenditures from at different levels to monitor corruption and spending priorities. I don’t think I’m destined for this kind of work, but I’ll write more on that later.

My roommate Josh manages the IT for Pact. I’m staying in a huge room (maybe twice the size of my room in Suites) in his house, which has a great kitchen and satellite television (woah). Josh is really sharp and likes to argue with me about development, NGOs, how Americans view Africa, etc. He’s also been really helpful showing me how to get around, although I’m glad that I’ll be pushed to do more for myself now (he’s going away to work at a different Pact site for a few weeks).

Dar is fascinating. Before I arrived, my friend Mbwana who grew up here told me that it’s a modern city built on third world infrastructure, and now I know what he means. To be honest, I expected Dar to look like Lusaka because Lusaka is the only African city that I’ve been in. Lusaka has five stoplights (it’s really more, but that’s what a cab driver there told me). Dar has investment bankers and indulgent tourists.

There are 4.5 million people in this city. The roads are shit, both because they are pocked with huge potholes and because there is no rule of law on the road. Traffic is horrendous and cars actually pull into the right (they drive on the left) lane until an oncoming car makes them swerve even farther left onto the dirt “sidewalk.” There are also persistent problems with electricity (some of which have been compounded by corruption).

The rich Tanzanians and the ex-pats live up on the Msasani Peninsula (where Pact is located). Pretty much every night of the week there is a band playing at the Sweet Easy, quiz night at the Irish pub, or a party at the US embassy (like the swanky 4^th of July party that I’m going to on Wednesday).

Then there are the tourists. This weekend I met a New Zealand woman who is traveling for the next year all through southeast Africa. She says that her rule of thumb is at least one month per country. She and her Canadian friend were debating whether to spend $100 on nice artwork to bring home as gifts or not buy gifts at all (sorry homies, but I didn’t budget $100 each for your gifts). I like the tourists a lot, but the mentality of working just enough to make the money you need to travel for a year and spend $100 on a piece of art is, well, very un-American. One of my priorities this summer is to balance work and life a little bit better so I’m not so lame (just kidding, kind of), so we’ll see if my opinion on tourism changes.

Okay, my lunch break is over so I have to write more about Zanzibar and about how Dar has really exploded my conception of Africa in my next post. I’m going to keep posting to this website, and I’ll upload pictures as well. It will mostly be so my mom and dad can keep track of my progress, but it’s open to friends, other travelers and posterity as well.