Home » Tanzania » November 20 – Arusha

Arusha has to be the armpit of Tanzania. It’s the jumping off point for tours to Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater. You would think the influx of tourists would bring an improvement in infrastructure, and maybe some money to brighten the place up a bit and add more police. The touts here are like crocodiles during the wildebeest migration. The bus station, full of touts, is a place where we have to get off the bus with elbows flying to avoid being pick-pocketed or grabbed or groped or pushed around. Travelling around is part of the package, the stage, the adventure that is Africa. Here is a typical journey:

<br/>
Bus journeys in Africa are never fun but are the best street theatre around. As soon as we enter the station, we are accosted by touts trying to drag us to their bus.

November 20 – Arusha

Lasulo
2005-11-25 17:28:11

Displayed times (last time: )

(guy in front of me once bought a bucket for 25 cents!), plastic combs, fake jewelry and watches, dresses, and other junk. Since we are the ‘rich’ mzungus, there is always a cluster of boys around our window. The sellers are always male, usually under the age of fifteen. I cannot imagine that life - working in a bus station all day with the fumes and throngs of people.

The scene outside the bus parallels the excitement going on inside the bus. We are not leaving until the minibus is full, which means the ‘conductor’, the guy responsible for getting people on his bus and also collecting the money while en route, is running around outside, banging on the bus and shouting the name of the final destination.

“Arusha. Arusha. ARUSHA!!” Bang, bang, BANG!

We have sat on the bus in the station for two hours before it was full enough to leave. Full enough means people sitting on each other’s laps, and people standing in every available space, and, sometimes, people hanging out the door for a few ‘stops’. The stops are indiscriminate: some in towns, some on the side of the road in the middle of, apparently, nowhere. Even when people get off, the bus never empties as there are two more people pushing to get on. When the doors on the subway in New York open, and the train is too full for more people, the passengers look at the dismayed people on the platform with disdain, as if to say, “Too bad. Tough luck.” In Africa, community is more important. Each new person is helped onto the bus by the passengers already onboard; even if THERE IS NO MORE ROOM!! The rule of thumb is to fit more in which is why I try and sit next to a window. At least I can stick my head out to get some fresh air which is in very short supply inside the minibus.

Our journeys have lasted anywhere from one hour to six hours. Cramping legs and sweaty bums are the result of long journeys. NOT COMFORTABLE! But, it is cheap, and for the most part, people are exceptionally friendly. Yesterday, a drunk guy persisted in talking to me and oddly enough told his fellow passengers in Swahili (translated for me by the guy next to me) that American teachers make much more than Tanzanian teachers. Oddly enough, I had never told him I was American or that I was a teacher. Weird voodoo juju stuff going on. Juju is the black magic of Africa.

Today I sat next to a Masai women. The Masai people dress exactly as you would picture them on National Geographic, wearing two pieces of cloth, either blue or red wrapped around their shoulders and torso, an intricately beaded belt which holds a knife and wooden baton, beaded bracelets on wrists and ankles, and earrings which have made the hole stretch almost to the shoulder. This is not for tourists. This is the way they dress all the time. On the beach in Zanzibar, I was talking to a Masai guy and trying to teach him how to do the devil sticks. I asked him what the club was used for, and he said to defend himself. And the machete? To kill lions. Hmm, just as I would have guessed.

And then our worlds collided because his cell phone rang.

That’s Africa. An Africa that I will miss because of its warm heart. It has one foot in the present, one foot in the past, and none in the future as that is just not important to the people here, which accounts for many of the problems. It is however, a fascinating place that I will forever have in my heart and in my head.