58 Tanzania: Moshi Arusha to Dar es Salaam

As we look back on this part of the trip it seems a pity that we were not able to visit Ngorongoro or one of Tanzania´s other world-class parks.  However the exchange rates and general financial instability made it difficult for us to get around and get food, let alone to organize trips to major parks. The alternative at that time it would have been to go all the way with one of the Overland Encounter groups.  In each group the drivers were experienced hands with all paperwork, and knew ahead of time what to do in each country.  However even they were having trouble with Tanzania at the time we were traveling through.

In the previous post we had climbed Kilimanjaro, so were pretty sore and blistered at the beginning of this section.

 

Our travel route through Northern Tanzania.  Yellow indicates road travel and red indicates rail travel.

Moshi - Arusha, Tanzania, Friday, 17 June, 1983

(HELENA) Considering that we had left all of our reorganizing and packing for this morning, we did pretty well and were out of our room by 10:00. It helps that after 9 months (yesterday was our anniversary) everything has a pretty fixed place. After having spent 5 days with light packs, it was a jolt to put the full weight on our backs. We exchanged addresses and a bit of travel information with Chris and hobbled off to the bus station.

As with the other bus we took from here (to Marangu), no one seemed to know or want to say where we should take the bus to Arusha. People would point vaguely in one direc­tion or another when Dan would walk up painfully to ask. Finally he found three Arab men who were sitting calmly waiting for a bus to Arusha, and from then on we watched them for our cues. After about an hour, a bus drove into the slot in front of us, and we put our plan of action into motion. I took our handbags and crowded around the door to try to get a seat while Dan stood back until he was able to load our packs on top more calmly. The pushing and shoving at the door was “perfectly frightful”, but I managed to squeeze through and get us seats.  After all that, everyone had a seat although it was a tight fit.

On the way to Arusha we had a nice view of “Kili”, and went through cornfield af­ter cornfield. We even went past some sunflower fields (both crops tractor planted).

We got to Arusha near noon, so we had some chai with a LOAF OF BREAD (our first since arriving in Tanzania) we bought it off the back of a truck before Dan set off to inquire about the train to Dar es Salaam. Ha! He returned from that foray to inform me that it is a local train from here to Moshi and from there one takes the real train to Dar es Salaam. That would not be so bad except that reservations are notoriously impossible to get --especially at short notice. At least he found that there are buses that go from here. We set off to find the Scotts, our Canadian Seventh Day Adventist missionary friends who gave us a lift into Moshi. They had warmly invited us to stay with them while we were in Arusha.

Everyone we asked said that the house (near “General Tire”) was very far away and that we should take a taxi.  We started to walk out, but it was pretty slow and painful going (both of us are sore and I have two blisters all over the tips of my little toes) so we finally decided to take a taxi. The first one wanted to charge 3 times the price we had been told, but the second one seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go and said he would charge us the standard 50 shillings.

We sank back into the seat to enjoy the 5 km journey out to General Tire --so we thought.  We rounded a curve after about 3 kms and watched curiously while a tow-truck worked on hooking up a tan Toyota Land Cruiser (luxury model) that had suffered a bad wreck. That is exactly the kind of car the Scotts drive! There was one way we could prove whe­ther or not it was theirs, and that was to look at the driver’s side.  The Scott’s car had previously had a wreck where most of the driver’s side was torn up and that side was being held together by chicken wire. This meant that everyone had to use the doors on the pass­enger side, and since they had no outside mirror, the driver could not stick his head out the window to check on the traffic behind him. Well, we immediately saw that it WAS the Scotts’ vehicle and we could see a boy who had to be their adopted Indian son directing the traffic. What a horrible feeling to see the wrecked car of people you are on your way to visit!

Our taxi driver knew that the car belonged to the mission where we were going, and he stopped to have a word with the man who was having the Toyota towed away. I felt like running back to town, but Dan talked to the man there (William is high up in the administration of the Adventist health services) and we decided to transfer our things to his pick-up and go on out to at least greet the Scotts’ daughter. The accident had happened at about 9:00 when Pat Scott was on his way to pick up some people at the border with Kenya. Somehow he ran into a truck on this curve, once again bashing in the driv­er’s side. He was alone except for a woman he had picked up along the way. She had run away immediately. By the time we arrived, Pat had been put on a plane to be flown to Nairobi. It had taken them six hours to get permission from the authorities in Dar es Salaam to fly to Kenya.  They did not know how badly he was hurt except that his left side was numb and he could not use it. They also feared he may have suffered internal injuries.

We went out to the house and greeted their daughter rather awkwardly. We made motions to leave, but an older woman missionary and William told us to wait and he would drive us back into town. We were taken to another Tanzanian church worker’s house where we talked some with the man, sat, had a pear which his wife served us, and alto­gether felt like extras on the scene. Mrs. Moe, a dainty white haired woman who has been here for 2 1/2 years and before that was in Alaska for a year, was very preoccu­pied, but she conversed with us a while. The tow truck arrived with the Toyota after an hour or so, and William took us back to town.

He invited us to stay at his home, but we told him we had better find a cheap hotel. He insisted on helping us find one, and we almost immediately settled on the Twiga (I THINK that is “giraffe” in Swahili) Guest House. Its special feature was that it is airy, set back from the street, and even had a little garden outside the window.

We were pretty tired, so we went back toward the bus stop to have some wali na makaragwe (rice and beans) at the “Muslim Restaurant”. I think Dan must have been slyly approached by three different would-be money changers. As we ate, a man we had seen earlier and who had had a few drinks in the meantime came and sat down to talk with Dan.  As Dan said, it would have been interesting to learn something about Tanzania’s problems from someone like him, but he was too far into his cups. He had quit the army out of disillusion with socialism.

It was not till we got to Arusha, where there are a lot of Indians in evidence, that I realized how few there are in Moshi.

(DAN) One of the things we had hoped to do at the Scotts’ was setting up a trip to see the wildlife reserve at Ngorongoro Crater. They had visited a lot of the parks, and they knew the ropes; i.e., the gate prices as opposed to guided tours. Ngorongoro is a park virtually sealed from the outside by the surrounding rim of the volcano. It is supposed to have the widest range of animals in a permanent community; however one needs a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get in and around. The hire of the vehicle can run $200 to $250 a day on top of park and guide fees. There are ways to combat this such as getting a group together, but it takes several days and contacts. We are running out of time in Tanzania, and to tell the truth seeing the wrecked vehicle really shocked us. That night we talked and stronger than ever felt the need to be on the road home. We shall go to the bus station tomorrow at 0700 as directed and see if we can get the soonest bus back to Dar es Salaam.

Arusha - Korogwe, Tanzania, Saturday, June 18

We decided to get into line before breakfast just to be sure, so we headed over to the taxi park as soon as we were ready--and then began to worry. There was already at least a bus load in line ahead of us, though the window had not yet opened. Then as we watched the scene around us, we decided our decision to head out was right, maybe a bit late. We had only been in line a while when we could recognize that people, mostly (but not exclusively) smooth young men, were insinuating themselves into the line. Even before the window opened, there was a confident, select stream of people knocking and being admitted to the office by the door. It is a very sad commentary on “the most politically honest state in Africa” and “the most politically honest army in Africa”, but about half of the people who chose this route, and a higher number of those success­ful, were police and army officers. Of the 8 or 9 officers in snappy uniforms who stopped and looked at the knot of pushing bodies, not one used his authority to enforce a line. To an officer they used their authority to walk into the office and walk out again, smiling and folding their tickets.

The actual line had hardly advanced when some people at the window motioned to me and said that the ticket agent was calling for us. It was the same man with whom we had talked the night before who had told us the only way to buy the ticket was “same day purchase”. He informed me that the tickets were about to run out --how many did I want? I told him we would continue to wait in line if he would only enforce it. He shrugged his shoulders. After another 5 minutes I was called back in and informed that there were only two tickets left --did I want them? There was no hint at a bribe; we were just white. He said, “I’m trying to do you a favor, my friend. In Tanzania you don’t get anything by standing in line.” Some sad statements on socialism in Tanzania. We bought the tickets, so we cannot say much.

In our defense I should say that in the two hours we were standing in line, we were watching a scene of widespread desperation. KAMATA (the National Bus Service) is in an open bus barn surrounded by waiting-islands for various local runs. Groups of people would stand waiting in a spot, and as a particular vehicle would appear, they would break into a run, chase it till it stopped (usually not at the designated place where the people waited) and crowd against the side of the door. The worst situation was with the bus going to Moshi (the stretch we traveled yesterday). Once this bus completely circled the block with people --old people, women with babies, etc.-- running after it before it stopped. Then even before it unloaded, people began to climb in through the windows, push babies and packages through windows to reserve places, etc. Fights broke out, and we saw descending passengers actually taking bids for their unoccupied seat.

There is an acute shortage of fuel and spare parts in the country, but it cannot completely explain the attitude of the people. Apparently people feel that if they do not fight with every means available, they will not get a place. Of at least five companies that used to go daily to “Dar”, only KAMATA appears to be running, and I saw an ad in the English language paper where KAMATA apologized to the passengers who were “disturbed” when the company did not have enough fuel to run its buses the 11th and 12th of the month.

It is urgent for us to get to Dar es Salaam because we need to get places on the Wednesday train to Zambia. It only goes once a week, it is the last we can take, and under the circumstances may be our ONLY way out of Tanzania.

While we were waiting in line, Helena bought some chapatis to keep us going. These are a type of pancake some 6 inches in diameter made from corn or rice flour. The corn ones are definitely superior, and these particular ones tasted like soft tortillas with molasses. Wow! We went then to finish breakfast with chai and, alas, rice chapatis.

We returned to the room and got ready for the 10:00 checkout. Then we spent the rest of the time till the supposed departure, 15:30, roaming Arusha to see a few more sights. We again happened upon the European cemetery. It is larger and not so old as the Mwanza one. There were no Germans, a few South Africans, more Greeks, and nearly an equal number of Portuguese and British graves.

Arusha may be the most economically polarized city we had encountered. There is a definitely wealthy part of town with houses in secluded woods, and then there is a considerable area of poor, makeshift housing. Food seems plentiful as there is a lot of corn grown around here. We have seen a good bit of whole grain wheat and bread around. We have seen a couple of vehicles from the Canada-Tanzania Cooperative Wheat Project. I happened on an article saying that due to this help around Arusha, Tanzania has tripled last year’s wheat crop. Still very few peanuts. We did buy three big, crunchy pears for the trip.

We arrived at 1500 hrs, but the bus did not physically leave until 1730, so we had some more time to observe the transportation crisis. While we were waiting, three travelers happened by. They had just been dropped off from a hitching ride they had enjoyed ever since Bangui, Central African Republic. We have found this common; Land Rover overlanders pick up long distance companions to share the cost --rather risky. One of the men was pretty dejected; he had had his entire pack stolen off the top of the jeep three days before. “We only left the vehicle for a few minutes and on the main street.” WE continue to be thankful for our good fortune.

One of the big delays in leaving was that one of the army officers had brought about ten 100-pound sacks of maize, and nobody was in a real hurry to help him load them. Another incident was with two Muslim youths who had a big (3’x4’x2’) crate chock full of small black and white birds. The driver must have wanted a high figure for transport­ing them because the haggling went on for 30 minutes, and finally the crate was wrestled back to the ground and left. When we did leave, there was nobody standing in the aisle.

We should mention that Arusha is at the foot of Mt. Meru, yet another extinct vol­cano.  It is certainly not on the scale of “Kili”, but impressive none the less.

Once we got on the road, firmly jammed into the last seat on the far right, the pace was pretty slow. First we had a military check (our first in Tanzania) and the military detained two persons before we were allowed to continue. There has been a jail break by two of the conspirators in the uncovered coup. There is a nationwide hunt going on, and these people were kept because they bore some resemblance to the newspaper clipping. We left without them. The coup has caused a real scandal with officials resigning, etc.

The next stop was mid-country where there were some women selling sacks of corn, and the driver and conductor got down to choose and buy some. Then we stopped in Moshi for a while, and again in Same, etc. The most curious stop was just after Himo or when the road turns south near the officially closed border with Kenya. We were barreling right along after a second police check when we suddenly screeched to a halt. Figures came out of the dark, and it soon became evident that they were waving toilet soap, toothpaste, candy, etc., all Kenyan, of course, all contraband brought across the border. Obviously it is a routine stop for this government-owned bus company, and the presence of both police and army officers changed not a thing.

We stopped again in Same for another cursory police check, this time to the luggage on top. We pulled into Korogwe at about 2 a.m. Bompa, a few kms from where we spent our night in the sisal field, with several buses going in both directions stopped for “refreshment”.

We have so far neglected to describe a remarkable group of Nilotic people fairly common in this part of Tanzania. They are a group of pastoral tribes generally referred to as Ma­sai. In some ways they have resisted westernized dress more than any other group we have seen. They are uncommonly tall and are usually wrapped in several lengths of red or blue cloth (both sexes). The cloth appears to be home­made, and the garment is shorter than when the wrap is done with commercial cloth. Some men, as they stride, can be seen nearly to their waists. I believe they wear a small cloth front and back like the stereotyped American Indian. Both women and men have shaved heads and incredible holes for earrings in their lobes. Sometimes those holes have become loops of skin hanging from the ear with a gap 3 inches in diameter. Some earrings are quite elaborate with a lot of beads. Some holes are smaller, and Helena noticed two men who had small film canisters inserted in the gap. One man had the old metal screw-top type while the other had black plastic with a gray top. We have since seen that these people used to insert cylindrical wooden plugs in the holes.

While 95% of black Tanzanians appear to have switched to Third World African garb (i.e. second hand western clothes and a length of cloth wrapped around the waist) these Masai walk around Moshi, Arusha, and Dar es Salaam in their garb with their earlobes flapping or tinkling and leaning on their staffs. They wear square-toed sandals.

Korogwe - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Sunday, 19 June, 1983

(HELENA) In spite of the sort of paved road, Dan and I looked pretty grubby and dusty by the time morning rolled around. Sitting on the back seat of a rattle-trap bus is never a clean proposition.

At the various stops that we made during the night, it was pathetic to see how people went about getting seats on the already full bus. At Bompa a young boy and girl climbed on openly and sat in temporarily vacated seats toward the back. As the people returned to their seats, the kids would move over to another until they were left sitting in the aisle. The conductor saw them and dumped the boy. Two young men sitting in the next-to-the-last seat put the girl between them and she sort of hid behind the seat in front of her. Her brother got on again only to be asked to leave (all of this very politely). When we left, the girl was with us and the boy was not, I just hope he had expected that and knew what to do.

At Korogwe two women with babies got on and were eventually allowed to stay when two men gave up their seats to them. I gather because the local station master put in a word and perhaps a chilingi for them. One of the women moved in as though she owned the place, even attempting to move some of the already installed hand luggage.

As we rode along, Dan and I ate the last of our delicious big pears (the best we have ever had, although I am still loyal to the little green ones in Bolivia) along with a bite of bread and some raw peanuts which we finally found for sale in Arusha. We managed to put down some more chapatis and chai when the rest of the bus stopped for breakfast. In front of the restaurant there were people selling nice big tangerines and oranges; as always the oranges were peeled in the very special way we have been seeing all across Africa. The young men do it expertly.

It took us ages to do the last stretch, what with stopping to let the driver buy a couple of gunny sacks of charcoal and letting people off at various places on the way into “Dar”.

It is sheer luxury to arrive in a city that you have visited, es­pecially since Dan has such a good head for directions. We felt like slinking unseen through the streets because we were filthy, but at least we knew where to head. We went first to our old Royal Guest House, but they could only offer us a room to be shared with one of their permanent roomers. We felt like a bit of privacy, so we ended up around the corner at the Holiday Hotel on Jamhuri, 150 shillings with breakfast included. We were rather disgusted to find there was no water, but when Dan asked, we were told that there is water the next floor down. Most important, we have a good ceil­ing fan to keep the mosquitoes hopping at night.

Rooftop view of Dar es Salaam, showing both Hindu and Moslem architecture.

We rested and went out for a walk toward sundown. We walked all over looking for a good hot meal, but Sunday afternoon is a bad time. The few open places had only cold leftovers and chai. Over near the market we finally came across two Arab men carrying a box of fresh loaves of bread. They said they were for personal use. We must have turned away with forlorn looks because they called us back and insisted on giving us a loaf, free. We finally found a restaurant where we ordered chai to have with our bread. We ended up sharing a plate of beans and rice, too.  Apparently one reason for the lack of food may be that it is now Ramadan. An older man explained that to Dan while we stood undecided in front of a fly-ridden restaurant.

Our luck with the ceiling fan ran out in the middle of the night when the electri­city went off. The mosquitoes got so bad we had to get up and light one of our trusty mosquito coils. We both remember buying those in Cameroon and thinking how expensive they were, but many times they have allowed us to sleep when we otherwise might have been kept awake.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Monday, June 20

(DAN) Our first priority was to see if we could “gain passage” on Wednesday’s train to the Zambian border. It is variously known as the Tanzam Railway, TAZARA, and the “Great Uhuru Railway”, the second being correct. The breakfast included in the price here is actually served at the Florida Inn, so after walking a few blocks over there, we searched for the proper bus stop. The station that serves this line is about 5 kms out, but there is regular transport to within a few blocks. Helena decided to get started on the clothes washing, so I headed out on my own.

Now, I am getting tired of describing the scenes of inefficiency on our trip, but it seems to be a truly important problem facing the countries we have visited. This railway was financed and built by Communist China during the seventies, so it is essenti­ally a new system. The station, one of the finest train stations we have seen, is still in good condition, but as one approaches the ten ticket windows, one can see that all is not right. There is a large blackboard saying, “Third class accommodations are booked full for the 22 and 29 of June” for the one train a week. There were only two persons working at the windows (though there were solid lines at each), one woman sitting on the counter talking with the man. When I approached, the man over several people already in line asked what I wanted. “Two tickets for the 22^nd.” “I hope you can afford first class” (773 shillings it turns out). “We don’t have any choice.” He said, “I’ll be right back.” That was 0830, and both he and the woman disappeared. At 0930 they reap­peared and started to deal with me. The entire hour they were gone the two phones rang continually. When I left, he turned and conversed with the woman as if the lines were not there.

Even though the rules say --reservation first and payment the day before-- he refused to take our names unless we paid. I did not have nearly enough money, so I left 200 shillings “on deposit” and headed back into town. An hour and two panicked bus rides later I was back with the money. He again insisted on dealing with me over the queue of people. So we have our tickets out of Tanzania, none too soon with the fuel situation deteriorating. But for the common Tanzanian it appears that life is an endless string of crowded transportation and unexplained denials.

Yesterday as we walked with our bags to the hotel, we watched a group of people rush a bus across the street. As the bus pulled away, a youngish woman ran along the side trying to jump on. The two conductors tried to push her back, but she succeeded in get­ting on.  As it passed us, we could hear her sort of screaming and the two men appeared to be hitting her there in the door.

The Zambian Embassy, our next goal, was not encouraging, either. We had applied two weeks ago for visas that “take one week to get permission from Lusaka”. There was no word on them, but we were told to leave our passports. “The ambassador is not in; please check back tomorrow.” We leave the day after.

The rest of the afternoon and evening were more enjoyable.  We went to the National Museum and walked around for two hours. The first wing is the “ancestors of man” area with most of the displays coming from the Leakey finds in Olduvai Gorge.  What has been left is very good and well-explained, but nothing had been dusted or cleaned in a while, and a third of the displays had been dismantled, leaving unbleached outlines on the background hinting at what had been --very sad.

Upstairs was the History of Tanzania room which might be divided into three main categories: Arab artifacts and displays from the pre-colonial sultanate of Kilwa; the German colonial period, including a display of the major explorers, and third an area dedicated to Nyerere’s rise to power, ending with union with Zanzibar in ‘64. There were some interesting documents from the British colonial period, e.g. an “unofficial” memo from a high official in the early twenties indicating that education of the natives MUST not be left to religious organizations as they spend more time teaching religion and the resulting student is not of much use to the colony. There was one point that said many of the Christian students “revert” to Islam after leaving school so what is the use anyway.

In the older building there were two large rooms. One had excellent displays of mus­ical instruments, weapons, masks, drums, a large canoe, and some Tanzanian dress. The other had a personal collection of rare maps and a large collection of marine life in the Dar es Salaam area. There were as well some collections of photographs of the main cities in early times with which I am always fascinated. We have seen enough of DES to recognize that very few of the beautiful old buildings remain.

We left by the back way which adjoins the grounds of the parliament building. Both the museum and parliament are built on grounds of a botanical garden the Germans started in 1905, so it is really beautiful. There are, however, buildings on the property dating from the 1940’s that are falling down and full of trash. (We just remembered that Victoria, Cameroon also had an extensive botanical garden, so it is quite a legacy of their Colonialism.)

Our walk out to the sea took us past the presidential palace which dates from co­lonial time, in part from 1926. It has been well kept with tremendous trees, a variety of flowering bushes and trees and even a large flock of peacocks on the lawn. Directly across the street, however, are what were once large, three-story colonial residences, probably for high officials, that are completely run down. Two were gutted by fire and are just shells standing by. On the other side of the palace are fairly new buildings of what look like a military slum.

Once on the beach there was quite a scene of activity. There is an open air fruit market with high quality fruit. On beyond, there are many benches in the sand, placed to form squares, with women squatting over large pots of steaming foods. The most common were bean and banana stew, a soupy gruel, and deep fried fish.  We picked up a number of chapatis for our supper. They are rising in our estimation.

As we walked back to our hotel along the waterfront at sunset, we remembered that our most pleasant walks have been at this time of day, usually as we are about to leave a place.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Tuesday, 21 June, 1983

(HELENA) After our breakfast of chai, omelet and sweet potatoes at the Florida Inn, Dan returned to the Zambia embassy while I went back to the room to wash the last of our clothes. Yesterday I had borrowed a bucket and had to carry water up to the room, but we had excellent drying weather. Today I was lucky in that there was water on our floor, but it rained some during the day. By leaving our ceiling fan on all day, we had ourselves a nice little clothes drier.

Dan returned --still nothing on the visas-- and we walked the good long way to the U.S. embassy to check just in case we had received more than Mother’s one letter. This time they had us leave our camera at the gate, and there were several U.S. men inside discussing ways they could improve security. It made good fodder for people like us who like to speculate. No mail, sniff, but it should be only about two weeks until we get to our last big mail stop.

It rained on us on the way home, but we were in pretty good spirits and did not let it bother us. We nipped into the same restaurant, The Impala, where we had eaten lunch the last time we were out Embassy Row, but this time we really did it right. After our lean days up “Kili” and since our more favorable exchange rate, we have been living it up. We each had a good hot, spicy pilau followed by chai and a chapati. We are going to miss the Tanzanian food.

After all that we had to go home to rest and digest our food. We went out again at what we guessed was 14:30. (Ever since last Thursday, we have been operating without any kind of time piece. Back in Kigali the band on my watch broke, so I had been carrying it around in my pocket since then. On the bus from Marangu back to Moshi I apparently did not get it completely into my pocket and it slipped out on the seat. From now on everything is SUN TIME.) The Zambian receptionist told us to come again at 16:00, so we decided to spend a bit of time at the USIS library because we had enjoyed it so in Kigali. This place was really full, but still it was quiet and we were able to browse through some encyclopedias.

We finally got the 2-day transit to Botswana visas for Zambia, the only problem being that since making the application, we have decided to go to Zimbabwe. For some reason they returned our applications and pictures to us. Strange system since we also have to pay at the border.

Chris had told us that there is always bread on the street between the train station and the clock tower, so we went by there and bought four lovely-looking brown loaves –HOT. With those secured for our trip (we think it is 36 hours to the Zambian border) we went to the market to buy raw peanuts, oranges, and our last (sniff) big pears. We have a bunch of shilingis left, so we even made an effort to look around for things to take back to people. It is painful for two travelers like us who have avoided touristy places for all their lives, and especially during these last 9 months. We walked into several shops, heads hanging, only to find nothing to our liking. This is going to be tough, y’all.

It was only five-ish when we finished with our shopping, but we decided to round off our day of feasting with a plate of beans and chapatis at the little “quaint” restaurant near the market where we ate on Sunday. On the way there, we saw a long line of people waiting to buy bread loaves from a Land Rover. We are pretty sure that bread is more plentiful than it was last time we were here, but obviously it is still pretty special.

Back at the Holiday Hotel we packed, got a little farther along on the journal and got to bed fairly early.

The view from our hotel, Dar Es Salaam

Before leaving Tanzania we want to be sure to mention how many people, especially men, wear huge, thick platform shoes. Dan and I were first struck by it the night we drove into Mwanza. We saw a soldier in complete uniform but with a spectacular pair of suecos try to clamber into the back of one of the closed trucks. It is difficult under any circumstance, but with suecos….

(DAN) We have commented that English simply is not used much here anymore. I would say that 9/10 of the people we ask for the time cannot say it in English; they just show us the watch. Every now and then you find an older man who speaks quite a bit. The other night one went out of his way to explain that there are few restaurants open now due to Ramadan. We are still not sure when it started, and directly after he told us, we ate in a Muslim restaurant BEFORE sunset.  We have seen one other sign indicating changed hours due to Ramadan.

One thing we learned at USIS today is that many or most of the Muslims in Tanzania are followers of the Aga Khan which explains in part the hospitals and buildings in his honor we have seen, especially in Moshi.

Another “fact” we came across: supposedly more than 300,000 Tanzanians died during the fighting of the “Great War” (WWI) or in the famine that resulted from it.