Here is a random ramble....
The second night in Tanzania allowed for many hours of good sleep. We are now in our accommodations for our stay in Dar es Salaam, the Research Flats (@UDSM), pictured below. Our beautiful warm Saturday morning starts off with lots of bird and insect sounds around us, accompanied by the lazy rotation of a ceiling fan, occasional voices from outside and distant street noises. Yesterday will be remembered for its level of exhaustion, transition and random, rapid shopping for necessities. Africa continues to offer a sense of exhilaration coupled to an understanding of - set expectations to minimum. The pace will be slower and what is normal elsewhere, is not here.
We arrived in Dar es Salaam to find that our host Shakrani (Professor, Dept of Geology, U Dar es Salaam) was not at the airport. The next morning we found out that he had not checked his e-mail for a few days and thought we arriving later. [We of course sent him an e-mail about 2 days before.] The disappointment was brief, because after about 30 minutes we took matters into our own hands.
We found a hotel and stayed there for the night. That in and of itself was a small story. The first hotel wanted $180 US per night for the overnight (btw, plane landed at just before midnight and so all this was going on at ~1AM over the phone). We called the next place, but no answer. The people at the airport info booth said that they would have rooms and it would be okay. We left for that hotel, because at least this got us going somewhere, but we knew the adventure had begun. The taxi and the ride was 'different' but not unexpected. Apologies in broken English and Kswahili told us that the taxi-man was sorry about the condition of the taxi - I'll leave that to you, but suffice to say, we could not sneak up on anything but a deaf mute and the desires to open the windows in the back were going nowhere. We arrived at the hotel and it was completely in the dark, but so too were the other surrounding buildings. Roberta went inside and got us a room, as there was no power in this area except for a few lights, which were powered by their in-house generator. I waited outside and listened to what my imagination told me was sounds from the Cretaceous (big, unseen birds up in the trees) and upon looking up to see what's up there I starred at the half-dozen fruit bats doing acrobatics just above me. The fruit bats around here are small compared to those in northeastern Australian; these African ones have wing spans of only about 10 inches across. We were amazed and pleasantly surprised to find that our room had electricity, air conditioning and complementary wireless internet (now that was unbelievable!!). After brief showers and setting up the netting around the bed we crashed to sleep.
The next morning came too early, with a panicked phone call from Shukrani, asking forgiveness for not being at the airport. That, plus all the workmen working outside the hotel room with rock hammers precluded more sleep. Yup, Hotel Protea was undergoing renovations and 9 AM was late enough for beginning. Everyone was polite and happy to greet you as you walked sleepily around the hotel. We were sitting in the breakfast room when we received a phone call from Shakrani who arranged to pick us up. Shakrani arrived at the hotel at about 10 AM and we went off immediately to find the on-campus housing for visiting scientists. The ride from downtown Dar to the NW of Dar, where the University is sited, was pretty uneventful. Shakrani owns a late model, perfectly clean, SUV type vehicle. That was a welcomed change in driving experience. Checking out our accommodations was brief, we immediately decided on the larger flat (for a bit more/day) and began checking out what we needed to pick up at the local store. It was akin to a regular start day at college with purchases of all the usual things ranging from toilet paper to lamps and cooking items. The flat is comparable to a college dorm for the house master, however without any of the usual charm (I'll leave the rest to your imagination).
The shopping day went fast and started with getting more money from the ATM so to do shopping. Between the airport $-extraction and this ATM moment, we had already removed $500,000 TZ schillings; yup, that is a half-million. That's okay, I returned 2 more times later in the day to remove some more, to a day-time total of almost $900,000 schillings in one day; at 1500 schillings to $1US, I still plowed through a good amount of cash in one day of shopping. [Oh yes, did I tell you that this is a cash society; credit card is rarely used in this country.]
By the end of the day, yesterday, we bought 2 laptop modems (they look like a USB stick) for accessing the internet and a card for one of our mobile phones to make local calls. The modems are from Vodafone. The modem sticks seem to work reasonably well, but they constantly lose connectivity. .....as we keep repeating, just set expectations to a new normal and be happy.
We woke up today after perhaps 11 hours (or more) of sleep to a very bright African morning with lots of wonderful sounds and a cool, slow moving breeze. [btw, the use of the word cool is already placed in an African context, as the temperature is about 90 degrees now and was only a few degrees cooler this AM.] We had breakfast downstairs at this common area with three others (one Swede, an Indian and a woman from Asia (perhaps China)). There were wonderful papayas, bananas, watermelons and lime accompanying hot dogs, boiled eggs and bread for making toast. The toast was really good; I went back for two more pieces of toast but dropped my desire to just one slice. I left the other to the 35 or so small ants checking out that piece. The one I ended up taking had far fewer ants. The cup of African tea was quite nice and a welcome finish to the fruit rich morning banquet.
The morning task was now ready to be undertaken. It was a hike back to the stores of yesterday, but this time on foot. The route by car is a long one, so we were determined to shorten our trip with a couple of adventurous short cuts. It wasn't that bad of a hike, given it only took ~35 minutes and we had only 1 short cut that turned out to be a bust. After another successful hunting experience, which also included getting out another 300,000 schillings from the ATM, we headed back to our flats with a very heavy back pack and a couple of bags for us to tote. Upon arriving back, I couldn't decide whether it was the six-pack of beers or the 2 kilograms of corn flour I objected to more during the 40++ minute return.
The mid-day sun is heating up even the shade now and so it is time for a nap to get me back into reasonable shape for the late afternoon. I need to adapt to the pace of life and a nap seems perfect.
Post nap: Well, we have finished dinner and dishes and it is time to end this letter. We'll write more at a future date (about mongoose in our back yard, monkeys in the trees outside our kitchen, the Muslim call to prayer, etc.).
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