Tales from Tanzania: Ticket to Ride

I left my village early Tuesday morning to catch the first of three buses I needed to take in order to get to Ben's village in Newala. I arrived in Nakachela after 4 hours. This weekend was the Kilimanjaro marathon, and we had made plans to run the 5K Fun Run and to go support those volunteers who had actually been training many months for the full marathon. We had bought tickets to leave early Thursday morning. We arose before the sun that morning to get to the bus stand by 5:30 as the bus was supposed to pass through the village by about 6:00 am. After waiting for a couple of hours, we receive a call and come to find that due to the harsh rains that week, the unpaved roads had become undriveable and the Mahuta bus we had bought tickets for had been rerouted to pass through Masasi instead of Nakachela. Our only option at this point was to get our tickets refunded and try to find our way to Masasi in time to catch another bus going to Dar that day. As our luck would have it a truck wit about 30 Tanzanians standing up in the back pulled up. We made a quick decision, and hopped in hte back of the truck. We held on for dear life until we arrived in newala about 30 minutes later. From Newala, there was only one bus waiting at the stand and it was heading for Masasi. We crammed into a couple of seats and pulled out of the stand about 20 minutes later. After a 3 hour bumpy ride back down the Makonde plateau, and past my village where I had come from only 2 days earlier, we arrived in Masasi around 10:30. By this time, our Mahuta bus had long since passed and all of the buses leaving for Dar that day had already left the stand. We came to the realization that we were probably not going to make it to Dar today, and our already short vacation would have to be cut a day short. But we weren't ready to let Tanzania win this battle. We decided we would get as far north towards Dar that day as was possible. We hopped on another already crowded bus that was heading towards Lindi. After being literally packed into to the bus by the conductor, we were seated underneath piles of bags of flour and aluminum cooking pots. Then, we were off like a herd of turtles! Four hours later, we pulled into Lindi. We got off the bus and tried to regain the feeling in our legs. We walked around the back of the bus and stepped right onto another smaller bus that was headed for Kilwa. As we squeezed into a couple open spaces at the back, the small overloaded van pulled out of the stand and once again we were on our way north up the road to Dar. We arrived at a four way stop some distance outside of Kilwa six hours later. We had been talking with another volunteer about hopefully arriving at her house for the night. Her village was just about an hour more north along the Dar road. We didn't arrrive at the four way stop until about 7:30 and there were no mroe dalas heading to her village for that day. We wandered around for a bit to figure out our next plan of action. We found a driver with a car and asked how much it would cost to arrive in Njia Nne. He told us it would cost us 50,000 shillings. After arguing for a bit, we found another driver who said that he would take us for 35,000. We were both so tired and defeated that we decided to just get in the car, even though we knew the fair price really should have been 20,000. We arrived at our friend Liz's house aroubd 9:00 pm. It had taken us all day. we started that morning at 5:30 and had paid 22,000 shillings for one 8 hour bus ride to Dar. After a total of 14 hours on 5 separate modes of transportation, and 31,000 shillings each, we had arrived only as far as Kilwa. Needless to say, it was a very long and trying day. But our good friend Liz knew all too well, and she was ready and waiting for us with hot food and comfy beds. Tanzania had almost beat us to death on this day. I don't think I would have made it without my best travel buddy by my side.
The next morning we woke up early and started walking back towards the road to Dar. We waited for some coasters to pass us by and spot the disheveled wazungu with the look of desperation in their eyes. Fortunately, one did stop and pick us up, and we were able to continue our long journey to Dar. After only six and a half more hours and one flat tire, we had finally made it to Tanzania's capital. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the Dar bus stand, the buses headed for Moshi that day had all left. We would have to spend the night in Dar and leave for Moshi the next morning. We made some plans with a married couple of ex-pats who have housed volunteers in the past. They were kind enough to pick us up, and we drove to their compound. We pulled in the gate to their beautiful home complete with pool, electricity, and indoor plumbing. Our kind hosts offered up dinner for the night, hot showeres, and comfy beds. After two long days of travel, it was just what we needed. I took my first hot showere in over 6 months, and washed the two days worth of road dust off me. I hadn't felt this clean in far too long. The next morning, we were well-rested and squeaky clean, and ready to face another long day on the bus. It was Saturday now, and we had already spent two long days being beat up by the buses of Tanzania. We arrived at the Ubungo Stand at about 6:00 am. Although it was early, the loud bustling stand was full of at least 40 large buses preparing to shuffle people to all ends of the country that day. Ubungo was loud and overwhelming with masses of people and their mountains of luggage in toe. I don't even know how to describe the atmosphere of this bus stand in order to ellicit and accurate understanding of how much it really is to take in at 6:00 am. The second our white faces emerge from the car, mobs of conductors and bus drivers approach us and proceed to urge us onto each of their respective buses. Amongst all the chaos, we find one whose bus is headed towards Moshi. He leads us through the maze of large colorful buses to a large Moshi bus, which is already full and getting ready to pull out of the stand. We jump on really quick, and as the bus is pulling away, we realize thath this bus is much too nice and pricey looking for the likes of us. Doesn't he know that we're just a couple of poor volunteers from the village trying to make our cheapest way up to Moshi? Doesn't he know the trials we've already been through just in our efforts to get to Dar? It was too late and we were being taken hostage on the expensive ride. The conductor asks for 30,000 shillings from each of us. This was surprising, since another conductor on the bus had told us that it cost 25,000 shillings for a ticket. Its not uncommon for us to receive altered prices due to our appearance, but we had already been through too much so we tried to fight it. We handed over the money, and patiently waited for our change, which never came. But after another 10 hour bus ride, we were just happy enough to have finally arrived in Moshi to be met by our friends who had arrived a couple of days earlier.
I can't honestly say that the journey up north was worth it, but Moshi was a beautiful place. The weather was cooler, the streets were cleaner, and we could see Mount Kilimanjaro not too far off in the distance. Ben decided to make it his own personal mission to put as many cheeseburgers in his mouth during our stay as was humanly possible. Cheeseburgers are a foreign concept in the south and for the better part of Tanzania, so it was necessary to take advantage of the American food that was available in Moshi. We headed straight for a burger stand after getting off the bus from Dar, and I think those burgers actually put the life back into us after all that we had been through.
The next morning was the race. The streets were teaming with Tanzanians and people from all different parts of the world who had come to run the Kilimanjaro marathon that day. We finished our 5K and waited at the stadium for our marathon runners to come in. Everyone ran their best that day, and it was really exciting to see our fellow volunteers coming through the finish line with all of the Tanzanians. For the full marathon, the first male and female to finish both had come from Kenya.
We stayed in Moshi for one more day afte the marathon, before we had to get bacvk on a bus to head back down south. After arriving back home, we realized we had spent more time during this vacation crammed on the bus than we actually did on vacation. But we did get to eat cheeseburgers and see some friends when it was all said and done.

After arriving back in my village, I continued that week with teaching Life Skills and English at the Secondary School. I returned to the farm with my friend, Mwanahawa, to see how the peanuts we planted were doing. The rains had been coming everyday, and the peanuts had already grown into small green bushes. She also showed me the cow peas she had also planted while I was gone. Everything is green now, and growing. Everyone in the village is happy because they have plenty of food now. One thing that I'm excited about is all of the pumpkins that are sprouting up everywhere. They have these huge wide leaves and bright yelllow flowers. Not only are the pumpkins delicious, but they also cook the pumpkin greens mixed with things like tomatoes, onions, and peanuts. Just gotta cook up some pumpkin greens with ugali...its delicious!
Mama Swaum and I have started ou women's chicken raising group. There are about 15 women of various ages in the group. We chose a group chairman and are writing out a constitution. The agricultural officer for the Ward has started coming to meetings to teach them about best chicken keeping practices. We started talking about different breeds of chickens, and now we have moved on to best ways to build bandas, or housing, for the chickens. As oppsoed to one large group banda, the ladies have opted to build a separte banda for each of them at their own respective houses. Now, they are just working on gathering affordable raw materials from within the village to use for building, such as wood, thatch, stones, bricks, etc.
The village water project is progressing slowly but surely. Dickson and I are in the process of writing a letter to the District to asl for assistance with doing the land survey, and I have started the grant writing process.
But for now my work in the village has been put on hold briefly. I have been selected as the new Warden for the Mtwara Region. I am currently in Dar again for our Warden Training until tomorrow. The responsibilities of the Warden are to ensure volunteer safety in the case of an emergency. We are responsible to carry out the Emergency Action Plan that Peace Corps has put in place for us, and to know the region's consolidation point as well as making sure each volunteer is able to arrive there in the case of a crisis. We also talked about potential threats and dangers that are specific to our respective regions. For Mtwara, floods pose a large threat when it comes to transportation. Also drought in the dry season is a potential danger due, to the increased lack of food security, which in turn increases thefts and crime. For all regions, transortation was the number one threat. It is also our responsibility to welcome and familiarize incoming volunteers with the region. So I'm at the training right now and will be returning to my village tomorrow. It is nice to get to Dar for a bit. We got to go to the MALL one night and had fast food and saw a movie! It was very weird to be walking around the clean mall with all its nice clothing and electronic stores after living in the village for the past 7 months. We got some fast food fries and bought some candy in the supermarket before going into the theater to watch "Love and Other Drugs" on the biggest screen in East Africa. I can't say that the movie was all that great but to be able to go to the movies with a bunch of my friends and eat junk food made the trip worth it in itself. But tomorrow I'll have to get back on the bus, but I will be happy to return to my village and to my house.

Pictures of Dar es Salaam