Morogoro

I arrived in Dar es Salaam at midnight in the rain on January 2^nd.   Typically, the period between the moment you step off the plane and when you finally shut the taxi door is one long, hot, sweaty, loud, confusing mess.  You are shuffled down a narrow corridor petitioned off from the waiting area of the terminal and down stairs into a basement holding area.  Those who have been to Tanzania before quickly form some semblance of a line/mob to wait for their tourist visas, while those who either haven’t been to Tanzania before, or have but due to terrible memories typically rely on the kindness of strangers (i.e. me), look around bleary eyed for a pen to fill out their visa paperwork.  I say “those who haven’t been to Tanzania before” because anyone who HAS been here before would never ever assume that the long rows of tables with pen-holders provided for people to stand at and fill out forms would actually be stocked with pens.   Thereupon a long progression of “pass the single pen” begins, where the first person to dig into their bag for a writing utensil is pressed upon by all those around him to loan it to everyone else.   I had been to Tanzania before; I had played this game.  Did that forever teach me a valuable lesson to bring my own pens?  No, it did not.  “Pass the pen, please!”

As we try to read the tiny print of the forms through sleep-deprived eyes, a couple of officers work their way through the crowd demanding passports and visa fees.  That’s right, you hand over the only document you have proving your citizenship along with $100 to a tiny Tanzanian woman (currently juggling 10 other passports stuffed with cash), who then walks off into the crowd.  This is usually followed by a long period of milling about in close quarters with dozens of other folks who are bleary-eyed, overwhelmed, and haven’t showed in 24 hours.  The general feeling is, I imagine, akin to that of cattle before auction.

So we all just clump together waiting to be called up by name to the visa window.  Except that this is done by those with unfamiliar accents pronouncing names that they are often unaccustomed to.  Generally two or three people have to go up to the window before the person matching the name is actually found.  They scan your fingerprint and- Miracle!- return your previously lost passport.  From there, it is relatively painless.  You push your way through the security gate to the luggage carousel (by this time your bags have been sitting for some time), do your best to brush off the men who mill around the luggage wanting tips to carry it but eventually give in and allow it because you’re too tired to argue, and then emerge into the muggy but fresh air where you try to find the man holding a tiny sign with your name amongst the large crowd of taxi drivers yelling for your attention.  Or rather try to find the sign with the closest approximation to your name.  This time it was “Emil Chako.”

Fortunately for me, I arrived late at night on this trip.  Therefore, while all of these steps occurred, they occurred in a slightly cooler temperature and in a slightly smaller crowd.  Best of all, the usually tortuous traffic jam that is the Dar es Salaam road system was completely clear.  Racing through the dark city on deserted roads, I was able to see a different side of the city.  The usually hot, dusty, colorful, and bustling streets were quiet and cool, with hundreds of lights glittering off the wet roads.  Despite my exhaustion, I wasn’t sleepy at all.  Relishing the quiet after the constant white noise of the plane, I contemplated how similar this trip felt to my last two brief visits to Tanzania.  The fact that I was to be here for nearly a year hadn’t yet sunk in.

I spent the next three days in Dar es Salaam, alternately sleeping and venturing out into the neighborhood I was staying in for various necessities for the next ten months.   I wish I could say I was able to take in the sights, but after the whirlwind of wrapping up work in Colorado, moving all of my worldly belongings to Illinois, the holidays, New Year’s Eve in New York, and then flying halfway across the world, I was pooped.   And I knew there would be plenty of time in the coming year to explore Dar further.

On the fourth day, it was time to head for the ELCT Language School in Morogoro, a three hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam.  I had originally intended leave Dar at 1pm so that I would arrive at the school sometime in the late afternoon.  Unfortunately, I got stuck waiting in the heat outside at the bus station in Dar (actually, there is no “inside” to the bus station) for four hours because of a mix up with the bus times.  Finally, at 5pm, we boarded the bus and left about 30 minutes later.  The school is fairly far outside the actual town of Morogoro, so the administrators had told me to tell the bus driver to stop and drop me off at the seminary before we got to town.  Of course, I don’t speak Swahili yet (hence the language course) and he spoke very limited English, so naturally the driver didn’t understand me.  Fortunately, when I got on the bus I saw several girls wearing school uniforms- their shirts said Lutheran Junior Seminary, which I knew shared a campus with the language school.  I had no idea if they boarded at the school or would be heading to their homes, but I hoped for the former.  I tapped one on the shoulder and asked her if they were going to the seminary and if so, could they let me know when they were getting off the bus so that I could join them?  They smiled and nodded before hastily heading to the very back seats in the bus and so, with no idea whether or not they had understood, I sat in the only remaining seat in the front row of the bus.

I had been looking forward to my first glimpse of the Tanzanian countryside in two years; to leaving the suffocating heat and crowds of Dar es Salaam behind.  But after 30 minutes, I found myself nodding off and slept through most of the journey.  When I woke, it was dark and pouring rain.  Two and a half hours had passed, and the bus began pulling over every so often to let people off- this is usually a sign that we are nearing the destination.   Several people sitting around me had overheard me ask the girls about their school (who were still sitting at the back of the bus) and so suddenly I was surrounded by people tugging at my clothes and yelling, “Seminari, seminari!” to the driver while pulling my luggage off the rack and shoving into my arms.  The girls rushed to the front and I followed them off the bus.  We started down the road, them glancing behind at the silly mzungu (white person/foreigner) dragging her many bags through the mud and the rain.  It was pitch black so I couldn’t see anything, including the deep puddles I kept stepping into.  My shoes were immediately ruined (turns out Birkenstocks + Rain Puddles = Sad Birkenstocks) and my suitcase was drenched and filthy.  By the time we got to the school everything was shut down and only a night watchman was around.  As best I could between body language and what little Swahili I could conjure, I explained my predicament.   It being 9pm by this point, the girls shuffled off to their room and the night watchman took me over to the language school dormitories.  The two of us sat in chairs outside for about an hour waiting for someone with room keys to come and let me in.  Of course I had started my malaria prophylaxis a day late and my DEET was buried in my suitcase, so there I sat defenseless in prime mosquito time, in the rain, in the dark, and just when I began wondering how rude it would be to pull out my iPod since we couldn’t share a conversation anyway, the head of the school came with the keys.  And so ended my saga…I was finally home (for the next two months, anyway).

My new room

My new room