The First Week

I'm laying in bed at the hotel, both windows open, a very slight breeze coming in but I'm still sticky and damp. It's the tail end of the rainy season in Dar Es Salaam.

Last week on Wednesday it rained and rained and rained. Traffic came to a stand still and it took us 2.5 hours to get home from the VSO office, a drive that is 15 minutes without traffic.

The first week has felt more like a holiday than work to be honest.



I arrived in Tanzania on Sunday afternoon along with three other CUSO volunteers from Toronto, all of us coming for the T-LED project. We were joined by another two volunteers, one from Uganda and one from the Philippines, to make our little training group.

We were introduced to the VSO staff on Monday, and then Tuesday was Union Day here; a national holiday celebrating the union of Tanganika (mainland Tanzania) with Zanzibar, to make Tan+Zan+ia. A kind VSO volunteer offered to take all six of us around town and show us the market and a nice beach. The market was pretty crazy! It was packed with people and cars slowly driving by, mere inches from our bodies. I only bought a popsicle and I think it'll take a few more trips to work up the guts to buy more things in such a crazy place.

 

We started Swahili lessons later in the week and we will be continuing lessons until this Friday. It's going well so far, but I feel like my head is so full of new Swahili words that some English words are falling out in order to make room!

I hung out at a muzungu bar on Friday, chilling to Spice Girls and Shaggy, eating pizza and enjoying the harbour.


My first impressions of Dar Es Salaam are that the women dress so beautifully in many different colours, which I love. Jet lag SSUUUCCKKKKSSS. The music here is good! I normally can't stand the local pop music when I go travelling, but the bongo flava (music) here is so much fun. The food is good for vegetarians; lots of rice or ugali and some veggies and beans. My favourite restaurant has been Jackie's, which was a heaping buffet with so much veggie food for 6,000 shillings, or $4. The locals seem to like bananas and beef. The city hasn't been quite as dangerous as I was expecting, knock on wood! Wetter and more humid though.

Ugali and beans

Veggie delight! Nom nom

Samaki (fish)

Beef and bananas

  Until next time, tutaonana baadaye!