The Wazungu and their Strange Ways

The Wazungu are a bizarre group of people. They wear impractical clothes, lack manners and sense of appropriateness, and stick out on the landscape like a sore thumb. They are almost childlike in their inability to function. Modern bathrooms confound them, they don’t know how to eat, and their concept of hygiene is questionable at best. Without their Mzungu mzee leading them around and speaking their Swahili for them, they would certainly perish in Tanzania.

Well, they could also high-tail it for the United States Embassy in Dar Es Salaam. Fortunately, some Wazungu make decent wanafunzi as well.

I’ve spent about a week in Dar Es Salaam now, and utensil-free eating, squat toilets, and language barriers (think Berlin wall) are only some of the obstacles this mzungu has been tackling. Today, electricity and power went out in my dorm, so I showered with a bucket of water I carried up 4 flights of stairs.

And you know what? I already love Tanzania.

None of these issues can compete with the warmth we’ve all received from our Tanzanian hosts. Tanzanians have a reputation for being polite and friendly, and the faculty and students at the University of Dar Es Salaam live up to it. Even complete strangers will help an inept American learn a little Kiswahili. Classes have just begun, and our first week was spent acclimating with the help of some Tanzanian students recruited by UDSM. You might call them our expert guides, though I sometimes think of them as mzungu wranglers J.

To some extent, we were tourists this week. It definitely helped with the culture shock. I’ve never been so busy running around seeing things, so rather than tell the story sequentially, I’ve got pictures. Some things are harder to photograph – you’ll see fewer pictures of crowded places and urban areas, because of my reluctance to photograph people without permission. So at the moment, I can’t provide images of a bumpin’ all-night music and dance event at the Mango Garden bar, the massive extent of the Mwenge marketplace, and certain photogenic parts of the UDSM campus. But some of this other stuff is pretty cool!

This is the view from my room. I have a balcony! You can see the clothesline in the corner. None of those cushy washers and driers here. We wash clothes by hand.

There are quite a few monkeys on campus. They’re a lot like squirrels on American campuses. You can walk right up to some of them.

Here are shots of Dar from an nice vantage point on campus.

The following two are campus buildings. Most of UDSM is heavily wooded.

Buses in downtown Dar. This doesn’t capture even a fraction of the insanity that characterizes traffic there. Away from big streets, you see a lot of pedestrians walking side-by-side with all types of vehicular traffic. Drivers here are very “precise”.

Walking to the ferry.

We took a day trip last Sunday to jump in the Indian Ocean. The ferry cost 100 TSH (less than 10 cents).

Downtown coastline.

Indian Ocean.

Chips Mayai. Basically a French-fry omelette. It’s really greasy, but it’s really good.

A daladala! These puny Toyota buses are the peoples’ transport of Tanzania. Getting a ride usually costs 250 TSH, which is barely pocket change in the US. Every daladala has a driver and a conductor. The driver is typically a silent guy with a death wish; you tell the conductor where you are going and pay him when you get off. Daladala conductors seem to be able to detect a herd of wazungu from several miles away, as far as I can tell.

We fit 23 people in that damn thing.

Some seafaring gentlemen.

Wali mboga. Or, rice and stuff. Mboga literally means “vegetables”, but if you order it at the UDSM cafeteria, you get a huge pile of rice with beans, veggies (usually cabbage and spinach), and a little beef with sauce. I eat a lot of this. It costs 1000 TSH at the cafeteria, which is less than US $1. There are other things too, which I’ll post more of.

My laundry equipment. And sometimes my shower.

To my great delight, there is tasty dark beer available in Tanzania.

Anyway, I've begun school now, and am already hard at work with my Swahili class, which meets for four straight hours per day. Research methods is beginning to, so I'll be thinking more and more about my project as time goes on. Now that I've introduced things a bit, I'll try and post less content more often. Shoot me an email or a comment if you want to hear about anything in particular!

For now, kwa heri.