First Impressions

THIS MAY SOUND LIKE COMPLAINING BUT I AM JUST POINTING OUT CULTURE DIFFERENCES. I REALLY LIKE IT HERE.

My first day of work was a tiring one. Not that I did too much (or too little) work in the office but it was a long 8am-5pm work day. Truthfully, I started drifting off around 4.30pm. It started at 6.30am when I crawled from under my mosquito net and had a very cold shower.
Elaine had left her bike at work when she was going to airport to collect me so we got 2 dala dalas. To explain these, I must separate them into their own paragraph as they are such an experience.

DALA DALAS:
(or another name for them, which is quite questionable is the city bus !)
These are small mini-buses, which look older than anybody who's alive today, with about 14 seats. On our 2ND dala dala to work, I counted 21 people and it was more "roomy" than usual, no kidding. When its packed, I have no idea how many people are in there. Getting one to the Irish Pub on my 1st night, I took an elbow to the jaw. No biggie!!!!
And going to work on my first day, Elaine and I were sitting in the back and black smoke started coming up from my feet. Elaine said something in Swahili,
to which the money collector man looked over, saw the smoke and smiled. They cost on average 200 schillings which I think is about €0.30 which you pay whenever the man is good and ready to take it. He will gently shake a fist full of coins to make the "pay the fare" noise. When a relatively empty dala dala pulls up to the stop, it is "literally" mental!!!! Everybody, old and young, male and female all rush and try squeeze in the small door at once. I have yet the courage to try it but if I do, I will purposely scream like a woman to see if there is a reaction. I doubt there will be.

On my trip home from work today, Elaine had kindly given me my 1st independent living in Tanzania test by cycling home and writing down how to get home by dala dala.Calling it an experience is quite the under-statement. I had to wait for the 3rd possible dala dala to come as I wasn't too enthusiastic about jumping into a crowd of insanity with a laptop in my bag but eventually I got in one and had a "seat" which was with my back to the driver, facing the rest of the people and having my poor bumi being burnt on God knows what part of the engine. Traffic (which apparently is normal) was total deadlock. I opened up my little scrap of paper with instructions home and asked the girl facing me where Ubungo was. She pointed in a direction so I got out and walked. I almost shat myself trying to cross this very busy road, which would have been terrible since my arse was already BBQed in the dala dala. Apparently green men mean as much to Tanzanians as rain jackets do.
There's one policeman standing in the middle of a major junction directing traffic and pedestrians have to make a judgement call on when to cross the road. As an Irishman, I wouldn't have thought I'd be too bad, I can't imagine how long an Austrian would be standing there. Finally I got to the big dala dala centre, after been offered 4 taxis in between, which, I will admit were tempting but in this traffic, would cost a fortune.

All in all, in took me just over an hour and a half to get home. Elaine cycled it in about a half hour.

The mosquitoes here must have some bite because all the bites on my arms and legs which I have accumulated in less than 24 hours are all bigger than ones received in Ireland and Austria. I think they have nicely contributed to my 1st day fatigue, along with lack of recovery time from travel, the long work day (because of Linz, I haven't worked since last summer) and of course, believe it or not but those dala dalas can exhaust a child with ADD and a packet of skittles.

Some "different" things I've seen:

1. Most barbers have a black celebrities name in the name of the building or a painting of their face, for example, I've seen the Queen Latifa's Hair Salon, barbers with 2pac, Biggy and Ronaldinho painted on the building. Shops do something similar, have words that Tanzanians might know. Ive seen the Manchester clothes shop with "MANCHESTER" painted in red or "The Chelsea Blues Auto Repair Shop".


2. Everything outside is very dusty but in 2 butcher shops with big windows, across the road from each other are so clean looking, if someone licked the wall, their tongue would be cleaner from it.


3. Waiting for my 2ND dala dala to leave Ubungo, I saw a man sit on the ground and somehow, almost touch his face off the ground in order to swing his head under his dala dala so he could fix something. His tools were a jack and some sort of blunt instrument.


4. People carry ridiculous amounts of stuff on the back of 3 wheeled bicycles. Most ridiculous I've seen was about 20 bed mattresses all at once. Quite amazing actually.