LIFE IN THE BIG CITY…

Things are coming to an end for me here as I fly out tomorrow evening; it has been sad to leave as the Tanzanians are good people to work with.  They are so appreciative of any effort you put into helping them understand their job. They are thoroughly pleasant people, I have not had a cross word in the whole time I have been here, in fact it’s almost been a holiday. They have all asked for my private email address and phone number and one of the students working for us sent me a text today saying “Thank you very much Sir. I appreciate everything I’ve learnt from you. To be honest I’m gonna miss you so much.  I promise to work hard sir. May God rain his blesses down on every plan of yours”. Charming guy but also looking for a job.

  

Leaving site was quite upsetting, everyone was very sad to see me go (more likely concerned about the return of Stalin!)  but they are a very likeable people and have fun when they work. I drove back to Dar which is probably close to 1400Km a long haul over 1.5 days. The country on one front absolutely fascinating but in others can be an absolute dump, one of the worst sections is about 300km with interval where eucalypt forest have been planted which has devastated the landscape.

 For the return trip I used my authority and got our driver to take us to Mikumi a small game reserve and with a western hotel called TanSwiss.  We got in late, close to 9, and the kitchen was closing at 10.  I asked for chicken tikka, “would sir like it with ricey or chipsy?” despite 90,000 serves of rice over the previous 3 weeks I said rice, only for her to come back and say they had run out and would I like mashed potatoes to which I said yes please. Still tasted good but the chicken was like rubber bullets.  As you can see by the pics Mikumi Park did not disappoint. All we did was drive along the main road (which is traversed by a thundering, fume belching truck every 2min) to see the most amazing wildlife.

I had a taste of life in the big city the day before I left. Firstly dropping one of our technicians to his home in an outer suburb of Dar; then dinner with middle Tanzania in an up market shopping mall that could have come straight out of the “burbs” of Adelaide and including the wife of one of our employees called Hapiness, and; a discussion with a german intern doctor that told an horrific story of government repression; followed by a visit to the “Q” bar, a place where expats hang out and where prostitutes pick up “mzungu”, desperate old white men to be sugar daddies.

Well the horrendous story was that from the german intern who is in Dar for 6 weeks. Apparently shortly after arrival the doctors went on strike, after a week the leader of the strike disappeared to be discovered near death with his finger nails and2 teeth pulled out and badly beaten.  The doctors had to “fight” to get the fellow released from the Police so they could take care of him.  After the doctors did return to work the Government still said they were on strike as propaganda.  The intern said whilst working there three case note piles at the start of the day, public patients, private patients and fast track patients, the last group were those that paid to jump the queue.

The dinner was with one of our geologists and his wife, “Happiness”, was a lacklustre meal, a lot of talk about work but the cat had got Happiness’s tongue as she did not say a word.

The last one was to the “Q” bar described above. I was told it was where the beautiful black girls hung out trying to find white sugar daddies.   It was a Monday night so it was very quiet but clearly there were a few girls there, I ran into the german intern again and he said if I stood alone it would take only 10min to be approached. Well they circled me, and nudged me and it was probably close to 20min before one spoke to me  - good English, doing language studies just back from Moscow and Blearuse, she must be catering for white Russian fantasise.  I was then approached by another one and said that I was  Australian and she said she had a friend Stewie …., I said oh I know him, which brought on this fear from her that I would tell him and that he would beat her if he found out she was out. Hmmmm. I exited shortly after.

On my last day I went to the Dar Es Salaam fish market and the Kariakoo market where I was told to leave all valuables behind.  An uneventful visit but fascinating  - have a look at the photos.  I’m now signing off for 3 weeks until I take up my new posting in Kyrgyzstan. Hope you have enjoyed this little expose of life in Tanzania.