Driving to Dar Es Salaam

After staying at (what amounted to) a farm-turned-campsite, we finally were on our last stretch of drive to Dar Es Salaam.

It was great to finally be in a real city with people all around us, instead of the isolated places we’d been staying the past few nights. It was also nice to finally get out of that freaking truck for a good few days.

We stopped at a shopping mall (or, the African version of one anyway) to get money, use the internet, go grocery shopping, whatever we had to do. There was a little kids section with someone in the funniest, funniest mickey-mouse costume ever (clearly fake, clearly put together by someone who had never seen the mouse other than in a 50s photo.

Our campsite was a 2 minute ferry ride away on a beach just outside of the main part of Dar. Dar is very much an international city, with the largest variety of ethnicities and backgrounds of any city we’ve been in so far.

Our campsite was…ok. It was certainly better than some we’ve stayed at, and had a nice bar, but the beach was crappy the first day because of far too much seaweed.

Kaitlin, Laura (a tripmate) and I decided to go into the main city on our full day in Dar. Well, I didn’t have much a choice. Lake Malawi gave me a horrible, horrible fungal ear infection that was easily, 100% without a doubt the worst pain I have ever, EVER experienced.

We went to an Ear and Throat specialist on a weekend. Our trip leader said he was supposed to be the best in the country. We pulled up to this tiny Dar village, and the clinic was in this run down metal-sheet-roofed shack that had an incredibly ridiculous soap opera playing on the TV waiting room.

To start things off, there was a huge wait, at least 20+ people. Our leader went to the reception and said a few words in Swahili. Apparently it was to see if I could get my wait time down (we had all day, so no real rush). I sat patiently and waited. When the door to the office opened (notice that I’ve only been here for a few minutes), a little 9 year old girl sprung up thinking it was her turn, only to have “Jason Aul?” called out. I felt so embarrassed, and the girl looked so sad. But this happens everywhere, white people or simply westerners get called in first, even in places that are entirely 100% run by locals, just because they assume they are guaranteed to pay.

My right ear was completely closed, and the doctor (trained in the US, studied in the US, and literally the go-to ear and throat guy for Tanzania) had to jam a huge thing of medicinal cotton into my ear to make an opening. Worst. Pain. Ever. And it had to sit there for 24 hours. Great. This man worked at the hospital during the week, and had this private clinic on weekends. At least I felt he knew what he was doing…

I was given penicillin and a fungal pill (the next day, after the cotton was removed…) for the infection and eardrops for the pain. It was horrible.

At least I only had a few more days until I could shave again.

We wondered around the city (just the 2 girls and myself) and went to the National Museum of Tanzania, which was pretty small and not kept that well, to the point where million year old fossils were just sitting out in the open for anyone to touch. They had a small memorial for the US Embassy blast that happened years earlier, and cars owned by previous presidents, a short history of the country and of humans in Tanzania, and a section dedicated to the natural beauty and wildlife (and tribal life) of Tanzania. 40 million people and far too much space in the country.

We headed back to the campsite afterwards. On the ferry, Laura was followed by a creepy old man who was drinking some nice booze, propositioned to give us a cab ride back to the hotel and hang out with us…well, mostly her. I stood between them to make talk, claiming they were my wives, and pretending I only spoke French, and barely any English. He said “oh, I know some French!” but to my luck, didn’t speak a word of it (and I doubt he knew a word, anyway). We hastily ran off the ferry (he kept following us) and jumped in a cab out of his reach.

Back to the campsite we go.

Tanzania (Finally)

As we entered Tanzania (another stamp, woo, and now much less space…wooo….). The immediate differences between Tanzania and Malawi were apparent, from the dress to the cleanliness (and it was clear that Tanzania ether prided themselves more in cleaning up, or just had the infrastructure and money to do so).

We stopped on our way to our campsite to look at the Great Rift Valley, which I have many pictures of now up on Facebook.

The Tanzanian people were equally as friendly (and “businessy”) to us as they were in Malawi, yet we had officially entered the East African Community (Comprising of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania).

Making progress now!

We Spent St. Patrick's Day with an Irish woman

On the way to our campsite, we stopped at Muzuzu, a town where we picked up as many green clothing items as possible, food for that evening, and stopped at a local restaurant for lunch called “Graceland” which seemed to honor black history, as important and influential names were posted all along its walls. The food was fairly tasty for how incredibly cheap it was.

Outside, I bought some Obama candy, lollipops with his head on it and gum that was all too proud to have his image. I’m definitely starting a solid Obama collection.

Our St. Patrick’s day was spent on another campsite on Lake Malawi, just before Tanzania.

It was a fun night. One woman on our trip was from Ireland, so we made a big event of the day. There was a nice bar with a good selection of drinks and beers that ranged from the very disgusting not-so-enjoyable to the really delicious 8%-in-alcohol beers.

Dinner that night was as closed to shepherd’s pie we’ve had, with mashed taters, vegetables and a beef mince.

We had a long drive the next morning that required us to wake up super freakin early after St. Patrick’s day. I ate a banana in the morning just in case the bus became too turbulent.

Driving, Driving and More Driving...

We’ve been driving a lot to make it to our next grand adventure (Zanzibar). We passed through many towns and cities, but nothing major to report. It appears, however, that Malawi has some of the highest HIV infection rates in all of Africa. 22,000 people for 1 doctor and 2 nurses and very little education on safe-sex.

I’m sure the national rate of HIV infection is 22%. In fact, I’m not just sure, I’m HIV positive.

But I probably shouldn’t be making AIDS jokes.

We stopped at a wood market (HUGE) of carvings made out of ebony, teak, and various woods. Everything was very well made and VERY cheap (it’s the low season after all). I bought a globe, a chess set, a bao game (I’ll explain the rules later, its easy and really fun), coasters, some smaller craft as well.

Everyone claims they “give good price”, but really, if you don’t negotiate it down, you’re getting screwed. I came out of there with far too much stuff for the 20 or so bucks I ultimately paid. If I had bought everything at their starting price, easily into the hundreds I would have gone. And remember, this is stuff that, if sold in the states, would have cost $20+ a piece without the ability to negotiate. I remember I got a coaster set here for all of 2 bucks (Less, actually), made of teak wood. In fact, now that I think about it, I think I spent less than $15 that day…

Lilongwe

We stopped in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, to grab some snacks and use the restroom (and the ATM, if needed). There were a lot of westerners here who looked as if they had been here a while, clearly volunteers and people working on behalf of the Malawian government or Malawian businesses.

When we arrived at the grocery store in town (Shoprite, I believe), Kaitlin went on a journey to find the bathroom, while I made a journey to the meat section to get a meat pie for lunch. Kaitlin came up to me 5 minutes later having had no luck finding it. I kindly asked the man behind the counter where the nearest toilet was. His English wasn’t the greatest, but surely toilet (being as though all bathrooms are labeled “TOILET”) would translate well.

He said “Oh, let me show!” and promptly had us follow him through the store. He asked “Big or small?” to which we replied, however cautiously optimistic, “Big”, for who wants to use a small bathroom over a big one? He brought us to the front of the store, and with the biggest smile on his face, handed us a shopping cart, said “Have a great day” and was on his way. Lovely. Not wanting to dirty up their shopping cart, we headed to the nearest security guard to ask, who prompted us to take the path to the private offices of the grocery store. Upon entry, another security guard had us sign in, submit a photo ID, and had an officer pat us down, looking for suspicious objects (or weapons, I suppose. I guess grocery stores are targets for hijacking these days). Up the stairs and to the left was a lovely little flush toilet with very little toilet paper, no soap, and no hand towels.

At least we found the toilet.

Why do I agree to these things?

Kaitlin challenged me to go unshaven from the Okavango Delta until Zanzibar (2+ weeks). We’re a few days in, and its yet to look noticeable. I’m very fortunate I don’t grow that much facial hair…

The Lake Itself

Lake Malawi is huge, so big that it seems like an ocean where one never dares to make out the other side. Naturally, once you get to the beach there are plenty of hawkers and “business folk” waiting. They are there to offer you cheaply made crap, trips on their personal boats for scooba diving, and other fun-filled ripping-you-off activities. We were well advised to not take up their offers, as their services were usually cut short to skip you out of some money.

There were also offers to take you fishing during the day. The actual fishermen leave at 10pm and return at 5am with their fresh catches, so clearly trying to cheat you out of money there..

The lake was very pretty, with a small island near the coast.

Malawi Visit Tour and School Visit (Lake Malawi / Kande)

While our campsite was more of a western haven (once again, loads of white people allowed to wear and eat pretty much anything), we resumed culture-shockness once we left for the village, having to dress modestly and obeying the customs of the tribe.

This village was just outside our campsite along the beach of Lake Malawi. The campsite was nice. We set up tents on the beach under some crudely made roofing, were allowed to swim and do water sports, and there was a nice bar.

This village was a bit more what you’d expect a non-modern African village to be like. Loads of mud and brick huts with simple roofs, tons of mini gardens and small stalls for fish and other sorts of food, tons of corn crops and root-vegetable crops.

This village had a single proper water pump, installed by the Canadian government, that provided a clean and safe way to obtain drinking water. It was all metal, and had a lever to pump the water straight from the ground.

In this village, the men, if they were wealthy, had several wives, sometimes up to five! Not all marriages were based on wealth or arranged by parents, some were done out of love, which was nice.

It rained as we were visiting a house, where we stayed for about 30 or so minutes. Once the rain cleared, we visited a local school and hung around with the local students, playing with them and teaching them all about where we came from. Some were fascinated there were cities that consisted of just tall, tall buildings. Skyscrapers are some things these kids never, and will never, see, so the idea still fascinated them. None of the kids were shy, and had many questions. The few I were talking to had, of course, knew all about Obama (or, the fact that he was black and the US President) and were astounded to hear I lived in the same city as him, and just blocks away too.


So, this one girl apparently wanted to go the states really badly….reeally really badly. The 15 year old guy I was talking to kept nudging her too me…a bit odd. He asked if I was married, to which I replied no (first mistake), he asked if I was going to go back home eventually, to which I said yes (second mistake), and asked if there were a lot of jobs at home (third mistake). He promptly tried to set me up to marry the 14 year old girl who really wanted to go to the states…and marriage, it seemed, was the only way to get there. He was so determined that he tried to arrange a time to meet outside our campsite. I never stepped a foot outside the campsite after the village walk…

The school was a bit depressing, and not because of the infrastructure. In fact, it was one of the top primary schools in Malawi. What was depressing was that the national primary school graduation rate is between 30-50%, while secondary school is a shameful 6%, followed by a disgraceful 2% on the university level (and lets not even get into post-graduate studies). The Malawian government provides little to nothing for the students to go to school, barely any incentives, and its not a requirement. In fact, they rely so much on foreign aid and help that they really won’t do anything till the rich westerners do first. And its like this in many, many African countries, where they have relied so much on aid that they figure they don’t have to do a damn thing to help their infrastructure.

We visited a local hospital afterwards. Only 1 doctor and 2 nurses for 22,000 people spread across the village beach front for miles. Disgusting. Another area that needs so much work done. There were a ton of people waiting to see the doctor, many with flu like symptoms (I’m guessing Malaria) and just general check ups. The hospital was…well, it was ok. Nice beds for patients who are sick, and just enough equipment to get by. But only 1 doctor for 22,000 people? They can’t exactly ship in more in a time of crisis either.

It was certainly an experience, and one of the days where I learned far too much about the local area I was visiting.

Village Walk in Livingstone (more detail)

Today we embarked on a village walk of one of the local villages just on the outskirts of the main part of Livingstone. This village housed the local king of his tribe, an area that represented many villages and hundreds of square miles allotted from the Zambian government for him to continue his rule, while still answering to the laws of the Zambian government and obeying its constitution and authority.

While our campsite was more of a western haven (loads of white people allowed to wear and eat pretty much anything), we resumed culture-shockness once we left for the village, having to dress modestly and obeying the customs of the tribe.

It was like any village we had been too: thatched huts, some, but not many, modern buildings, local and old methods for harvesting crops and preparing food, and gobs and gobs of wood carvings to be sold to tourists who could be tricked out of money.

They had a small jail, no more than the size of two walk-in closets put together, that was pretty much used just for the drunkest and rowdiest villagers until they sober up. Crime seemed to be low here.

We went to the local market to purchase many a wood carving for almost no money at all, which was great. Everything was negotiable and since it’s the low season, the merchants are willing and able to go very low just to sell you some oddly made carvings and crafts.

Sunset Cruise in Livingstone

I believe Kaitlin said it best on her blog:

“Sunset cruise last night. Open bar. Lots of fun. Saw hippos. Rough morning.”

At kaitoujo.tumblr.com

Done with Intrepid! Will Resume updating

Yes, its been about a month since my last post, and yes, I'm way behind with updating my travels, but now that I'm done with Intrepid and will most likely have internet for a while, I can begin updating in the next day or so (if not much sooner!). So look out for stuff about my travels!