Hallo Darkness my Old Friend

Three o'clock in the morning. I can't sleep. Nothing unusual when I know I have to get up early to catch the taxi to the airport the next morning. Especially when pick-up is at 4.30 and I still have to shower, pack and check out. The only problem is that it is pitch dark around me. Have I lost my sight during the night, have I died or is the power off? Usually it is the latter in Africa, but strangely enough only my room is dark. The rest of the hotel has light. I need to shower and pack still.

I try each switch in the room. On, off, on, off, nothing, I even locate the distrubution board and find no tripped switches. On, off, on, off, nother there either. I have just finished a book by Joseph Murphy called "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind", but not even telling myself that the power will come on, helps. I decide I need 3rd party help, like the night watch who is sleeping behind the reception counter.

The night watch enters my room with a torch whose batteries are weaker than my state of mind. He tries each switch in the room. On, off, on, off, nothing. He even locates the distribution board and find no tripped switches. On, off, on, off, nothing there either. At least the first steps of troubleshooting was done correctly by me, I thought to myself. Would like to see what his next step is going to be. The man is baffled, he goes through the process again, each time from trying the switches to tripping the distribution board and then adding another step like looking in a cupboard, then looking under the bed, then looking outside the door. He gets help from what looks like another member of the staff who is on night duty and heard a commotion as he is opening cupboards and doors. She is just as in the dark (pun intended) as he is. This goes on for some time and I am running out of time. I need to shower. What is the rest of my day going to be like? I call in the power of the subconscious mind to convince myself that this is the practicle exam of my latest study in human phsychology and that everything will turn out fine. Can I change the rest of the day by staying positive?

The night watch man takes out his phone, makes a couple of calls. He speaks in Swahili, so I have no idea if he is getting the information he needs to shine a little light on the problem. He disappears down the corridor. The other member of the night staff is still flipping switches in my room. I wonder how many times one has to do that to realize that it is not going to solve the problem. Suddenly the lights come on, fortunately not while she was flipping a switch, otherwise I might have believed that it actually workes. Let's see how the rest of my day goes....

Would you trust this?

I was sitting at the airport in Dar Es Salaam hoping to find WiFi access. I was a bit reluctant to click on the only one that was available......

Sunset over Dar Es Salaam

Sunset from my hotel room in Dar Es Salaam.....Sorry, another point-and-shoot attempt.

Fish for the Mzungu

Like many places in Africa where you want to buy something, it is much better to take a local with you when you are a mzungu in Tanzania looking for fresh fish. If you do not know what a mzungu is, then you have obviously not been to any of the East African countries before. Any local vendor, no matter what they sell, curios, art, fish, whatever, will try and get more out of you when they see you are not from their country. We do exactly the same in South Africa when we see tourists coming. In Africa European tourists stand out like a sore thumb from the locals, so they see you coming from a mile away. Today went to the local fish market in Dar-Es-Salaam looking for fresh fish. Once you have been to the market with a local and you feel confident enough knowing how the system works, then you can try buying fish on your own. The chances are however that you are still going to get ripped off, but to a lesser extent than going there alone for the first time. I say "ripped off" because you pay more than the locals, but the price is still much lower than you would pay for the same item in South Africa. So I shouldn't sound like I am complaining and I guess I'm not. I am not an European in the true sense of the word, and I have had better deals in Africa because I am also an "African". The "Madiba" and "Bafana Bafana" connection usually helps, but in general I am seen as a mzungu so the treatment is mostly more or less the same than what any true European can expect to receive.

When you get to the fish market you cannot help but lurch back into the car when you get the first smell of fish, but unlike the smell the fish is usually fresh and you will not be disappointed once you've managed to get the "best deal". You have to know where to go, because Casta (or whatever his name was) explained to me the logic in the chaos after he convinced us (actually he just never gave up on us as potential customers) to buy fish from him and why there were two places where fish were being sold. On your arrival you are met by tons of desperate fish sellers all trying to convince you that they can give you the best price. The problem is that the best price is also their "mzungu price", and that is, needless to say, more than what the locals pay. I asked Casta what the difference is between the two places where they were selling fish. Without thinking he told me that the one place is where "the people with less money buy" and the other place is...well...he stopped. After confronting him with: "So is this where the msungus buy then?", he just got a smile on his face knowing that he has just revealed the "African secret". Something which is for many years not a secret anymore, mzungus (or wazungu which is the actual plural for mzungu) in Africa pay more.

The market has everything smelly you can think of. Even though the crayfish and tiger prawns looked stunning, we didn't have much money on us and settled on fresh tuna. We were handed the largest tuna I have ever seen in one piece (I am more familiar with the pinkish round ones you find in cans), but later settled for two smaller versions of the same species. For an extra 1000 Tanzanian Schilling (TZS) they clean it with a matchete. It is amazing how someone can clean and fillet a fish with such finess and not lose one or two fingers in the process. With all the fish blood I don't even think the finger would be found on the floor with the rest of the day's fish guts. Now you know where the smell comes from...and why my pair of jeans were soaked from the bottom up with a fishy smell that would attract sharks over a distance of a thousand sea miles. We paid 30 000 TZS (approx 20 USD), filleting included, and even though we knew we could get this for much less with a local's help, we gladly paid for it. Besides, it our way of giving something back to the friendly people of Tanzania.

Mbalamwezi Beach, Dar-Es-Salaam

I recently met a pleasant guy from Italy that was on vacation in Cape Town. We had a chat and he told me that he has a restaurant in Italy right on the beach. I have been to Italy before and I have seen these little restaurants with the sun chairs all in rows. I think if I can ever get my own restaurant on the beach, it would probably be the closest I would ever get to my dream of "living on the beach". I am in Tanzania at the moment, Dar-Es-Salaam to be more exact. Unfortunately for business and not pleasure only. Tanzania, with Zanzibar not far away is a popular holiday destination with some awesome beaches. We have an office in Dar-Es-Salaam, not far from the beach. Today I was taken to a little restaurant on the beach. What a setting. We had a Coke and spend a few minutes on the beach before we headed back to the office. What a dream place to have a restaurant. I was actually quite surprized to see how cheap the cold drinks were, compared to what I pay in the hotel. What does a person need to have a restaurant like this on the beach? What do you have to sacrifice to have this? And would it really be a sacrifice at all? If you ever come to Dar, try  Malaika Restaurant on Mbalamwezi beach.....

Welcome to Malaika's

I have no idea how accurate this it, but it definitely contributes to the atmosphere...

These Dhow sailboats are only part of the decorations, but they are very common on the east coast of Africa.

What a place to enjoy an ice cold Coke. Keep in the shade, it was definitey way above 40 degrees outside.



Dar Es Salaam Food Market

After I was told by a local that the best place to buy spices in Dar Es Salaam was the local Shoprite, I decided that I was not going to give up so soon. I was told by another local girl that if I really wanted spices that I should go to Zanzibar, but if that was not possible then the "downtown food market" would be another option. She however advised me NOT to go alone as I would "stand out like a sore thumb" in the city center where tourists don't usually go. I wonder why? But that was not going to deter me because a trip to Zanzibar on such short notice would not have worked. Actually to be honest, I could've managed to get to Zanzibar and back the same day, but that would've cost me 70 USD for a 3-hour ferry ride and a 4-hour visit to Zanzibar City. I couldn't stay over either otherwise I would've missed my flight that was leaving early the next morning. That was a bit of a high price to pay for spices that's available at Shoprite - should all else fails - so I reluctantly dropped the idea.

So, the "downtown food market" it was going to be. After checking out the ferry prices at the harbour  for my next "planned trip" to Zanzibar I headed with my driver to the market in the middle of Dar Es Salaam city center. I think it was the center because it was definitely the busiest area I have seen since I arrived in Tanzania a few days earlier. The streets were narrow and the place was crowded. I was told that because of Ramadan most of the Muslim community were not around, otherwise it would've been worse. Apparently Zanzibar is 97% Muslin, so it was good that I did not go there, I might've found no-one on the island to buy my spices from. Fortunately for me Dar Es Salaam is different and there was more than enough people still open for business.

Once we arrived at the market I wasn't surprized at what I found. Just another African market with heaps of people selling their merchandise all over the place. Usually fruit and vegetables like on most markets, but I did not see any gorilla arms and bush meat like I have seen in Gabon and Cameroon. I always wonder where one should buy, as they all seems to have the same supplier. The fruit and vegetables are usually very sweet and tasty and here it was no different. I am sure they have discovered genetically modification techniques yet. But I was looking for spices and this seemed to be more scarce at the market than blood red tomatoes and elephant dick-size bananas. Honestly, the largest bananas I have ever seen. I eventually found a shop (opposite the street where everyone was selling from the ground) that sells spices. The place had a lovely aroma, but when I reached for my list of spices I remembered that I did not bring it with me. With my wife on the mobile I tried to tell the lady what I wanted. I was a bit disappointed when she could not help me with the ones that my wife was looking for, so I just bought a few packets that was lying there to take home. I had no idea what it was, I am not into cooking and the only spices I know is cinnamon and masala. I don't even know if salt and pepper falls under "spices".

Like advised earlier I was in fact standing out like a sore thumb. I was a bit reluctant to take pictures, so I stole a few from the vehicle as we were driving through the market. I've had too many experiences in Africa of locals getting annoyed when you take your camera out, so I wasn't going to look for any confrontation. I actually never felt uncomfortable while walking there, and even at times when my driver disappeared from sight I still felt safe. The people in general are very friendly, and I always believe you have a much better chance to talk yourself out of a difficult situation if both parties speak a language that both understand. Bad English from both sides would've helped a lot here. None of this was required on the day. I got my spices, my taste of Africa and even a Coke at 500 shillings compared to the 2500 chillings it costs at the hotel, so I was happy. Maybe I'll do all my shopping here in future, just need to find a place close-by to stay. I still want to try those bananas, but I will need someone to help me finish one. You should be able to bake three banana bread loafs with only one banana.

Who wants to go to Shoprite to buy spices when you can get it at a Dar Es Salaam food market?

A dirty job, but someone's got to do it

I know that many of my South African friends think I am brave to work in Africa. The images of Africa you see on television don't really motivate people to plan their next holiday destination further north than the Limpopo River. I also have to agree, the worst places I have ever been in were in Africa. Hotels with no water, no electricity, 12 television channels of which only one has a clear picture, food that forces you to go an a strict diet until you arrive home (that is if a flight is available or has not been cancelled at the last moment), insects that carry deadly diseases, corrupt officials, suspicious people staring at you like you are the only soul around that's loaded with money, the list goes on. But there is a different side to Africa too, the side I don't usually like to show people because it has the opposite effect on people. They start getting envious and don't feel sorry for you anymore. So my intention is not to say too much about this, who would believe me in any case if I tell them I had cocktails on a beach in Dar Es Salaam and actually enjoyed it? As they say, one pictures speaks more than a thousand words, so all I am going to do is show one picture of the hotel I was staying in. Africa might have a place for sissies after all......