Dar es Salaam

Friday 13 April, 2007 – 06:01 – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Although one month’s time has long since passed without any new entries from Bongo (east African slang for Dar es Salaam), there is certainly no shortage of stories to relay. It is a shame, though, that so many tales have amassed – because it seems now they are being reported out of a sense of duty rather than told out of a sense of joy. But I’ll do my best to recreate the colors these experiences first came to me in.

Let us start at the airport. Whereas in the West passengers file through a gauntlet of security check points before being funneled through an enormous metal sock leading directly from the gate to the door of the aircraft, in Africa they walk out to the airplane, greeting it on the runway, and they deplane in the same manner. It was late into the evening when my flight landed, but when stepping into darkness I was immediately aware of the ocean’s proximity. The air was humid, smelling like salt and slowing all movement, but I waded through its weight, picked up my bags and carried on to find my ride.

But in Africa, little ever goes as planned. So at 10:30PM I was alone in a new country, stranded at an airport, without communication, I did not know my host and there was nobody to meet me. As kindly ladies always seem to show in these situations, an African sister took both notice and pity, letting me place a call from her cell phone. However, my host was so ill and hoarse te into the evening when my flight landed, but when stepping into darkness I was immediately aware of the ocean’s proximity. The air was humid, smelling like salt and slowing all movement, but I waded through its weight, picked up my bags and carried on to finshe could not speak – and after a long-winded introduction of who I was, how she knew me and a question about how to get to her house, all I heard in response were a few groans of unrecognizable instructions before she hung up. Without warning I was back in Africa, alone, with no clue as to what was going on. Pretty typical, though, and not cause for panic by any means. Through a series of SMS messages and calls from friends of hers, I reached my new home by taxi safe and sound enough.

She lives in a beautiful house – both by the Rwandese standards I had come to adopt and by American standards I once thought were, well, standard. We are two in a large home, with the exception of the garden boy and his wife who live in a smaller structure in the corner of the property. And on that note, the whole property is a garden – palm trees, cactuses, and an array of colored flowers of all shapes and sizes carefully hedged, clipped, trimmed and sculpted to perfection. The interior is also lovely.

Those who know say the best Swahili in the world is spoken in Tanzania. So to TZ I went, with the sole objective to learn – because in the future I want to return as a doctor who is not isolated from his patients by a language barrier. Within two days classes began – and three weeks later yours truly graduated from beginner level and started life in the big world of intermediate Kiswahili.

Each morning I walk, run or bike to class 5km on the beach along the Indian Ocean. The other day the tide was out and two fishermen had carried a defunct boat to the flat of the sand where the water previously sat. They propped it on stilts and set it ablaze – the boat fully engulfed in flames. Because the sun was rising behind them, everything was silhouetted except for the intensely red and orange fire. The heat billowing from the boat cause the colors form the flame to mix with the silhouette of the fishermen as if they were painted with oil pastels. And of course the pockets of water sprinkled across the flat sand where the tide had receded shimmered with the morning sun. As always, it was a beautiful morning in Africa.

I love the beach for its unpredictability. Some days I see boats burning, other days I find incredible sea shells, stop to help fishermen pull their nets in, or pass youth and elders alike practicing kung fu – totally crazy, but oddly totally normal. And on the best days I get to do all of these and more. When I’m home before the sun sets, sometimes I catch pick up soccer games with the Maasai. We all run around together – me with shorts and a watch around my wrist, them with robes and billyclubs and sometimes machetes around their waist.

At the end of three weeks of beginner classes I composed the following letter. If you find languages interesting, have fun reading the Swahili (a mix of Bantu, Arabic and English), but if not then jump down a bit and I’ll translate it to English.

Habari Zenu Rafiki Na Familia Yangu-

Hamjambo? Maisha hapa ni mazuri sana. Sasa niko Tanzania, lakini kabla ya kuja Dar es Salaam nilikaa Rwanda. Huko, kama mnajua, nilikuwa mwalimu chuo kikuu na nilifanya kazi hospitalini na rafiki zangu wanyarwanda.

Lakini, kama nilivyosema mwanzao wa hii barua, nimekuja karibu na bahari kusoma Kiswahili. Kila siku huenda shuleni. Ndani ya darasa mwalimu wangu na mimi tunajaribu kufundishana. Nataka kujifunza harakaharaka lakini siwezi – kujifunza lugha mtu anahitaji muda – hivyo (kwa sababu sijifunzi haraka) sina furaha kila siku. Lakini hakuna matata, nitajua – kila wiki ninajifunza polepole. Oneni – sasa hivi ninawaandikia hii barua! Nimejifunza!

Nimekaa Mbezi Bich, karibu sana na bahari ya hindi, ndani ya nyumba ya rafiki wa mama mdogo doto yangu. Jina lake ni Sue, na yeye ni mwema kabisa. Ninampenda sana, na mimi napenda kulala ndani ya nyumba kubwa na nzuri (tunakaa peke yetu kwenye nyumba moja) lakini tunaongea kiingereza pamoja. Nilipolala huko sikujifunza kiswahili haraka. Hivyo mara kwa mara nimeamua kulala na rafiki yangu John uswahlini kwa watu maskini. Hapa ninajifunza mishemishe – kula chapati kwenye takataka na matope sana, kwenda choo kichafu, kulala bila umeme – sisi ni watu watatu kwenye kitanda kimoja – kuamka kwenye kelele za watoto wafrika – kuwa na furaha bila hela. Nitakaporudi Marekani, nitataka kurudi hapa Afrika kukaa, kuishi, na kupenda. Lakini ninaelewa lazima niendelee kusomo shule ya dawa hivyo nitakuwa daktari, hivyo nitaweza kuwasaidia watu na matatizo yao, hivyo nitaitambuusha dawa kwa romtakatifu, na kuaombea wagonjwa na sisi wote tutakuwa karibu na yesu kristo. Hiki ndicho ninachotaka – basi.

Hii imekuwa safari nzuri, lakini sasa nikotayari kuwa pamoja na familia yangu. Nimejifunza vitu vingi vingine pia, lakini tunaweza kuongea nitakaporudi nyumbani Marekani. Asanteni kwa kusoma mpaka hapa na tutaonana mwezi kesho kutwa.

Awapendaye,
Ni mimi rafiki, kaka na kijana wenu,
Benjamin Huntley



How are you all, my friends and family –

Are you doing well? Life here is very good. Currently I am in Tanzania, but before arriving in Dar es Salaam I was staying in Rwanda. There, as you all know, I was a university teacher and worked in a hospital with my Rwandan friends.

But, as I said to begin this letter, I came close to the ocean to study Swahili. Every day I go to school. In class my teacher and I are trying to learn together. I want to learn quickly but cannot – to learn a language one needs time – so (because I am not learning quickly) I am not happy every day. But no worries, I will learn – every week I am learning slowly. Look – I am now writing you this letter! I am learning!

I stay in Mbezi Beach, very close to the Indian Ocean, in the home of a friend of my aunt’s. Her name is Sue and she is very nice. I like her a great deal and love sleeping in a nice, big home (we are the only ones for the single house) but we speak to each other in English. When I sleep there I do not learn Swahili quickly. So from time to time I have decided to spend the night with my friend John in the slum with the poor people. Here I am learning the ways of the people – to eat local food in the midst of garbage and tons of mud, to use dirty bathrooms, to sleep without electricity – we are three people in one bed – to wake up to the noise of African children – to be happy without money. When I return to the US I am going to want to return here to Africa to stay, to live and to love. But I understand I must continue my medical studies so I can become a doctor, so I can help people with their problems, so I can introduce medicine with the Holy Spirit, pray for the sick and all draw closer to Christ together. That is all I want.

This has been a good trip, but now I am ready to be with my family. I have learned many other things as well, but we can discuss these when I return home. Thank you all for reading to this point and we’ll see each other the month after next.

With love,
It’s me, your friend, brother and son-
Benjamin Huntley


The slum is a wild and electrifying place, packed with people, movement, and business – buying and selling, eating and drinking, loud music, rhythmic life, mamas, babas, and aunties, baba’s babies and baba’s babies from baba’s babies’ other mama, laughing children, crying children, kids with clothes and those without, vegetable stands - ripe and rotten… I am tempted to describe it as unity in chaos, but this is only accurate according to the lens of the life I know, not according to their norms. My perceptions are not their perceptions, nor can I say they are better or worse – just different. It is dirty, though. The streets are narrow passages of mud, crowded with markets and shacks on either side. But it’s not mud like you and I might picture mud – it is blackened from oil, garbage, gasoline, trash, vomit, fish guts – waste of all sorts that turns walking through the slum into a game of hopscotch, only you don’t dare reach down to pick anything up – that is, unless you’re a kid, in which case everything becomes a potential chew toy.

This is an abused land, dating back a couple of hundred years to the beginning of the slave trade in the 16th century. Half hour up the road by car is a town called Bagamoyo, the former mainland slave-trading hub of eastern Africa. Here were brought peoples from what are the present day countries Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Let me break down the town’s telling name. In Swahili, moyo means heart – and bagamoyo, coming from the Bantu verb kubwaga – to lay down - means to lay one’s heart down. This was the last Africa slaves touched, aside from a layover in Zanzibar, before being shackled and hauled to India, Oman, and other northern slave-importing countries. In spite of David Livingstone’s contribution and the Christian church’s fight to abolish slavery in east Africa, the Arab-Islamic influence remains much stronger than that of the Christian church (I specify Arab because there are many Arab Tanzanians, and much of the culture, even the artwork, has been filtered through an Arab lens). On the island of Zanzibar, for example, the population is estimated to be 80% Islamic – and both black and Arab Africans worship in mosques harmoniously.

I was to Zanzibar last week for a mini-vacation (By the way, interesting fact – the mainland was formerly called Tanganyika but when it merged with Zanzibar as one country the two names put together became Tanzania. Strangely enough, although Tanzania is one country it has two presidents – one for Zanzibar and the internationally recognized one for the mainland Tanzania). The island is a photographer’s near-paradise. Although by ferry it is only 2 hours (or about 15 miles) off the coast, it certainly has its own feel. Stone Town, the largest city, strongly reminded me of Damascene alleyways – fruit stands, mosques, children sitting three wide in an open doorway, old buildings, Koran recitations and friendly people – half of whom are Arab. The island is best known for its doors, though. Zanzibari doors are carefully, delicately and beautifully carved masterpieces that in older days told a family’s genealogy. In Stone Town is a large church, the pulpit of which stands intentionally and directly on the former slave stage. As I said, Africans were taken from the inland to Zanzibar. At that point, they were then chained and starved for two days in a tiny underground pit. A trench ran through the middle of the pit (see picture) that filled with sea water at high tide, washing the feces away. After two days detainment, the men were taken to the whipping post – those who screamed, a sign of weakness, earned less money. Under pressure from the British Navy, the former Sultan of Zanzibar abolished slave-trading in the late 1800’s, but it continued as an underground practice (literally, the slaves were kept in caves and shuttled out 50 at a time to touch and go slave ships) until 1907.

But like the rest of Africa, there is more to this place than gut-wrenching stories of weakness, abuse and horror. Traveling around the island, I discovered plenty to do. One afternoon my host ordered grilled shrimp and a bottle of wine to go, and we set off by boat with local fishermen to swim with dolphins. What beautiful creatures they are, the dolphins – massive yet incredibly caring. They seemed to effortlessly swim against the current while I kicked as hard as I could to keep up. Imagine me neck and neck with a school of dolphins. From the boat you might see my head, a constant above the water, and then fins of dolphins curve in and out of view. They swam beneath me, behind me and to either side. But unfortunately just when it seemed I was having a beautiful moment with nature, the one in front shat in my face mask. So if you ever tell me you swam with dolphins, don’t be surprised when I bitterly ask if you were close enough to see them poop.

But all joking aside, there are lovely moments on the island. There is the beauty in watching a fisherman catch squid, casting a throw of line that is tide around his waist off the side of a cliff and pulling it back in hand over hand in a fluid motion for the evening’s meal. The white man needs his gear – the nice shoes, a fancy belt to hold his new rod, tension-tested nylon string – and he is either disappointed when the hook comes back empty or overly elated when it comes back full. The African man is free – poor with ragged clothes, but rich in spirit – free from contrived emotions. I have wondered a lot this week if, given the opportunity, I would choose his life or mine. Perhaps the ignorance of the island is not ignorance at all, but knowledge and the ability to be spiritual. And perhaps – if materialism comes at the cost of spirituality – my cultural upbringing put me more further back than it did further forward. At one point I decided I would have still selected my life, because I at least have choice in how and where to live – but then I realized that although I can choose to visit him (whereas he cannot choose to visit me), knowing where I come from, I could never mentally live as he lives. Even with money and privilege, I cannot access his world just as without money and privilege he cannot access mine. I am still trying to figure out who has the upper hand.

I carried a sketchpad with me to jot down my thoughts. Originally I hoped to expand them into full stories, but this is getting to be quite lengthy as is, so here they are in short (take me out for coffee or something when I return and I’ll tell you all about them):

One day we were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, off coast of Zanzibar, and kicked off a smaller island.

Another day I went snorkeling with an mzee (old man) and found a giant clam on the ocean floor. We wanted to take it ashore, but it was stuck and had to be pried loose. We alternated turns - banging on, wiggling, twisting, and pulling, trying to get it out. As a young, fit early-twenties kid, I could only hold my breath for thirty seconds by the time I swam down there before racing back up for air. He was old and frail, but had spent his life chasing octopus underwater, and each time gently glided down to the clam, staying for a minute or two, before coming back up. Lovely to watch.

On Easter Sunday I sat around a communal bowl with seven local fishermen and shared dinner by the ocean as the sun set. We had a large mound of rice, and one of the men was in charge of placing a new fish (eyes, tail and all) on top when the old one ran out. We ate with our right hands, as is customary, scooping a fistful of rice, squeezing it a few times between fingers and palm, then reaching forward and pinching some meat off the fish skeleton with our handy opposable thumbs. It was not anything I would order, and yet you could never pay for the company.

When I was in Zanzibar I got up early one more to go for a walk along the ocean. As the sun was rising a guy in a boat passed close-by. With his permission, I waded out to the boat, hopped in and off we went to the middle of the bay to go octopus hunting. He jumped in the water with snorkel and fins, swam off and was gone for a long time – so eventually I followed suit, only jumping in to swim a great distance back ashore.

Oh, and one last story from before Zanzibar. As I wrote, I had been staying in the slum, walking around at night through streets lit by the flicker of candles from the occasional octopus stand, or by the kerosene lamp of a mama selling tortillas. In Swahili they use a word mishemishe to mean the ways of the people, and I had started to understand the life that meant. One night, however, I decided to go back to the mzungu house to use the internet to communicate with the States. But my key broke and I was locked out (my mzungu host friend had left the country). She lives on the outskirts of town, about an hour’s walk to what you could start to consider city, and it was dark, which meant it was dangerous to be white and alone on the street. So like anyone might do, I went to the neighbor across the way, rang the bell and sweet-talked my way into spending the night. Bear in mind that I smell, having been sleeping on a mildewy mattress, I’m covered in a combination of dirt, sweat and mud from having just played barefoot soccer out front, and I have bloody feet for the same reason. Not a big deal – my neighbor just turned out to be the sister of Joseph Kabila, current president of the Democratic Republic of Congo – and their father, Laurent, before his assassination, was Congo’s former president. I ate a piece of her son’s birthday cake before going to bed – because, you know, they have fancy things like cake. The next day I was back in the slum, hunched over in a dirty corner with four mamas, cooking food together, laughing and continuing to learn mishemishe.