It means “Smart Dar Es Salaam!”
To say someone is bongo means he’s clever. And in a great many ways it’s true for the homeboys of Dar Es Salaam … First and foremost, the people of Dar Es Salaam have ensured that there’s space to move! It must be one of the most spread-out urban Metropoles in the world. The initial aerial view of Dar Es Salaam shows a massive area of grey, interrupted only by the slightest green outcrop, here and there. Then, as the plane’s descent starts, you increasingly see what this city is all about.It’s must be something like landing in the Bikini Atoll. The runway, and everywhere beyond it, is festooned with oases of palm trees, blowing gently in a light, steady breeze coming off the sea. Small buildings next to larger ones; the big with the small, all built in a widely dispersed pattern on the grey-white sand that is everywhere.
And when you climb off the plane, you immediately learn what the climate is all about. I came from the early morning cool of Nairobi wearing a light jacket (would you believe). Ten minutes into Dar Es Salaam and I am cursing the stupidity of this move. At 7am the temperature must already be nearing 30 degrees C, and the humidity (certainly in the airport building) is already quite oppressive. Although, I must say, once outside, things changed a little for the better.
As it is with the big and the small, so Dar Es Salaam has also ensured the survival of the old with the new, the Arabic with more conformist latter-Christian architecture. Wide streets with no sidewalks, lined instead by the sand. The sand! After every ten houses, almost everywhere you go, there is a ‘clump’ of ‘local’ shops, selling anything from general supplies to cold beers, with samoosas and pies. A fabric shop, selling Kanga and Kitenge fabrics, a shoe maker, and a bicycle repair place might sandwich a small cyber café! Near the city centre, but off to the side where the more ‘indigenous’ people are found in their masses, there are actual kilometers of small, aanmekaar shops. Shops where, clearly, there is NOTHING you couldn’t find.
At many of the smaller local ‘shopping centres’ in the city’s suburbs there will be a sapiens-propelled cart, piled high with pineapples and it’s owner, or perhaps a couple, deftly handling a machete each, cutting pineapples into hand-held slices, sold for a few “T Shillings” (1310 of them to the Dollar) a piece. And whether you are on the road, or not, there is space to move, folks, space to move! If there’s a blockage ahead, the car just has to take so the sandy sideway and drive around it! Not so in my adoptive home!
“Nobrakes” has just had his foot taken out of plaster, as a result of the unfortunate tangle he had with a car a few weeks ago. His bicycle has no brakes. But he don’t mind (see the smile!). His bicycle still got no brakes and he rode with the plaster on for a few weeks. His sole-proprietorship involves the delivery of raw sugar cane (on his back) to the various makuti (palm-frond) bars that are everywhere. He spends his day riding from the one to the next, selling his semi-popular product. But, no wurries, Nobrakes is one happy Tanzanian (you can see!).As are most Tanzanians “happy” (certainly the ones that I came across in Dar Es Salaam). This is one happy place. From what I can see (and from the inevitable questions I got from hotel staff about my Johannesburg life) crime is almost non-existent here. And we’re not talking Sharia law here either (most of the Muslims in Tanzania are Sunni’s).
This is a black African country with strong Arab, and African tribal, roots. The people are very proud to be Tanzanian. And evidence of a rising, inclusive Africanism is in evidence everywhere. Mostly, I see it in the women wearing African prints as skirts. The Kanga (big image, few repeats) or the Kitenge (small images, many repeats) is worn with pride by many (but not yet all) Tanzanian women. The designs are stunning. The bright colours have a definite allure against the grey uniformity of the sand.
Maasai are seen all over the place, whether at a makuti bar or coming out of an empty house in the plush suburbs of the Oyster Bay coastline. And, although the term doesn’t really apply that well, Hakuna Mutata in Tanzania too! The people are chilled to the bone, despite the constant heat and humidity. Everyone walks around with a shiny face and me, myself, I was dripping most of the time. It’s very hot, but not too oppressive. And this I attribute to the breeze. As soon as you are near the water (which seems to surround you), there is a definite lightness to the air, quite distinct from the more serious heat you find in the city centre, or in the inland suburbs.
And, yes, Ruguru (my Dar Es Salaam manager), I note your slight objection, but I did not see poverty in Dar Es Salaam. As we took off back to Nairobi I saw some squatting next to the airport runway that looked pretty bleak (and very South African), but for the rest (and Ruguru, you must admit, we drove) I did not see poverty! Yes, there may be relative poverty, but the standard against which it is measured is a full-bellied one. It is nothing at the level of what I have seen here in Kenya, or in South Africa for that matter. The next pic is just about the worst I saw.
And here, the rich live among the poor and there seems to be no division along caste or class lines. I was quite amazed. Right next to a white-painted ‘compound’ where properly rich people live, there might be three or four, low-slung, typically Arabic-styled houses (not that different from the single stories you see in older parts of Salt River and Woodstock in Cape Town). The houses are not painted though, but tend to subsist with the sand they are built on, in a stoic grey-white silence. The sense of peace and tranquility is pervasive and fully palpable in this city. It is very, very appealing! Bongo Dar Es Salaam! I paid Charles a handsome sum to show me the town, when I arrived on Sunday. We passed “Nobrakes” on the road and Charles hooted for him to stop. They conversed briefly in Tanzanian Swahili (more lyrical, and softer than Kenyan Swahili) and Charles then related his recent mix-up with a car. (Note that Tanzanians are very prone to mix the “R’s” and “L’s” up – for in their language they sound the same. “No probrem”. “You like the R&B artist, R. Kerry?”)
The whole time I was with Charles, if he wasn’t talking on his mobile he was hooting and greeting fellow drivers or, more often, pedestrians, walking on the side of the road, Charles is one serious homeboy here. He is known everywhere and he’s a true ‘fixer’ in the sense that anything you need, Charles can get; a fact that he’s very proud of.
I keep forgetting it’s a Sunday until, each time we pass a church, Charles points out the number of cars. Despite the Muslim, Chinese and black tribal groups in the country, something like 30% of the population is Christian of some description, and from what I see, most of this Christianity is of the charismatic, revivalist, Pentecostal variety. Latter Day Saints, Baptists, Pentecostals, et.al. The churches actually stand out quite starkly against the smaller, grey uniformity of their surroundings.
Shortly after my introduction to Nobrakes I experienced my first makuti bar (although this one was a little more ‘fitted out’ than most of those you see). At these bars, everyone is sitting quietly in the heat, nursing a drink of some kind. Tusker moto (warm) competes with Castle baridi (cold). (yes, KusStill is popular here). These are two favourites, but the Maasai seem to prefer Safari beer. There’s no music playing at the makuti bar, but the soft, lyrical Swahili is music enough to my ears. Conversation is truly soft and the guests are involved in engaging conversation with each other, all over the place. The loudest sound comes from the clicking of pool balls in the corner. 
We have been sitting at the table for a few minutes when we are joined by a Maasai that, already, I can see is a ‘brother’ to Charles. Charles quickly explains to me that his fiancé is Maasai and this man, Isiah, is his future brother-in-law. Isiah looks me up and down, saying nothing. He is stony-faced, regarding my presence at the table. Charles explains in broken Maasai (that sounds a bit like Shangaan), that I am from Kenya but originally from South Africa. A broad, very warm smile spreads across his face and he asks, in Engrish, “How is Mr.Mandela?” I tell him that Madiba is getting old and probably won’t be around for much longer. He looks at me with a genuinely sad expression on his face, understanding most of what I’ve said. Isiah then breaks into an animated chat with Charles, and I hear the words “South Africa, Mandela, Uhuru, Mzungu” amidst the fast, short-syllabelled Maasai-speak. I smile, as only a mzungu can in a far-out and strange African land.
Watching Isiah intently, I can see this is one sensitive boy, with some differences about him. What these differences are, I can only guess, but what I do see immediately is that he doesn’t have the usual Maasai ‘hooped’, open earlobes. I ask Charles to get an explanation from Isiah, please. He doesn’t need to.
“Well”, says Charles, “It’s like this….”
“Maasai, when they apply for a job, always land up getting the job in security. In fact, they got the job in security even before they applied! Isiah wants to get away from this, and when he applies for a job does not want them to know that he is Maasai. Isiah is hoping for more.”
I’m blown away and can do nothing but smile and nod (as only a mzungu can!)
Then Isiah sees the camera on the table (in Kenya, they tell me “don’t leave it like that”. Not so in Tanzania!). Immediately he starts rattling away to Charles and I hear the repeated word “Video” in the brief, choppy conversation. I anticipate what he’s asking Charles and tell him, yes, it can take video but is actually a still camera”
“Aah. Still na (and) video!”, he says.
Isiah wants to know how it works. I show him. The next twenty minutes are taken up with Isiah trying various shots and angles out. I show him the replay function and he’s in another world. In the meantime, Charles is in and out of shot as he talks incessantly on his mobile, arranging this, and arranging that!
Isiah, Charles and I share some of the food being sold at the makuti bar (nyama with ugali/pap). We have scarcely finished when Charles tells me it’s time to go! (And we’re off, on another excursion of discovery).
At the next makuti bar I am left alone for a few minutes, nursing another Tusker moto ("Don't get too off your Facebook", says Charles), while Charles is organising his ‘things’. I am asked, in a fairly disinterested way, about my roots, origins and recent history by a rather large ‘elder’ wearing an overstuffed Castle Lager T-Shirt. I am mid-explanation when we are joined by another man. Again, I sense something quite ‘different’ about the guy who has joined us (long, handsome face that I seem almost to recognize as someone I know). I continue with my story while the new member watches me closely, holding on to his sweating can of Charles Glass’ famous preservative-filled brew.
I don’t know how we got talking, how it started, but Charles joins us after Fidel and I have already been talking for some time. I’m about to introduce Fidel to Charles when Charles tells me that, no, Fidel is also his ‘brother’ and they go back from school days. Fidel looks quite a bit older than Charles (probably near my age), so I’m not so sure about this, but who cares? I do immediately sense a ‘worldliness’ about Fidel, mainly in the questions he is almost firing at me.
Then Fidel tells me he’s traveled to 37 countries and starts to challenge me (in the nicest possible way) on what I know of the world, broadly. The banter is quick. The questions are fired from both sides.
“I thought New York was going to be a violent city”, he says.
“Mayor Guiliani changed all that”, I say.
“Yes, he had the benefit of the Italian Connection”, Fidel retorts.
Quite quickly, I desist to Fidel’s superior authority on matters of the world and begin to listen intently to the story he has to tell. It’s a fascinating story of discovery and global entrepreneurship.
(“Philly is fantastic. I still want to see the city of Havana. Kingston is a fucking dangerous slum!”)
I won’t go into detail here, but the man has been around. Right now he’s looking to introduce a guarana-based energy drink into the Kenyan market. He shows me all the clearance papers from the Tanzanian Food and Drug Administration. He can import. He’s got a company in Johannesburg that will make the syrup for him. And he’s got funky silver packaging. He needs around US$20 000 to get started. I tell him immediately to e-mail me a business plan (which he has already done). No promises. I’ll see who I can hook him up with (no promises expected). A few minutes later and Charles and I are outa there again.
This time we go to the beach, somewhere way down the coast (mainly, it seems, so that Charles can have an extended pee in the bush). Here on the beach, coconuts are strewn everywhere, having been mercilessly butchered for their milk. Charles remains glued to that damned mobile! We have a smoke outside the car. I walk down to the water’s edge and take a pic of a Muslim mother and child, standing on a rock in the Spring low tide.
It’s getting late and I watch a few container ships heading out to sea. These ships are about to start the perilous journey through the Gulf of Aden and every one of them face the very real possibility of being taken by pirates; - at most, two days from now. Charles says the pirates “don’t know who they are”, while I heard a member of Nairobi’s recent-immigrant black-burka brigade from Somalia say, at Nairobi airport, that Somalia’s Muslim rebels are “a bunch of bloody lunatics” (meaning bloody in the true sense of the word!)
But right now I want to get to the hotel, check in properly and have a quick swim somewhere. Charles tells me I must go to Coco Beach just down from the Golden Tulip/ Turip Hotel. Later, I ask Ruguru (somewhat stupidly), “Is it Koko Beach (“No”, says Ruguru, “they threw out the nut and replaced it with a beach”. Hilarious laughter). Yes, I get it now. A ten-minute walk from the hotel, across the low cliffs, and I’m at Coco Beach. And it’s late (5ish) but the beach is still packed. Where the ‘refreshment area’ stands, there are fewer people on the sand because most of them are quaffing some kind of liquid refreshment. I’m dead tired from the flight and having had to abide with the incessant movement of Charles and the Cab.
I nearly fall asleep sitting next to the pot plants. I decide I need to go and dip my head in the water to freshen up. This, after downing a Coke baridi – a cold one; Coke moto , being not so lekker!
I have filled my bag with all kinds of trash I just might need. The result is that it acts as a great pillow. And I proceed to fall soundly asleep on the beach, with the hustle and bustle of hundreds of excited people around me. What interests me, just before I drop soundly off, is that there is an inherent beach conservatism here; a conservatism that obviously stems from the Muslim cultural influences.
No-one takes their clothes off on the beach (even non-Muslims), and slippers (flip-flops, to us) are in evidence everywhere. It seems that only when you actually go and swim is it allowed for you to undress into a swimming costume of any description, and take off your shoes. And note, this does not apply to Muslim ladies! They seem to remain fully dressed at all times (note the Kitenge fabric, at left).But the folks are having a lot of fun. Many of the guys are hiring rubber inner-tubes from a stall near the road and are then walking some way up the rocky ledge that surrounds the beach to launch themselves into the tube, only to be brought in (very quickly) by the tidal flow of water. The cycle is repeated and their floating is so quick, back to the beach, that I suspect there is one very strong rip-tide on the other side of the bay.
And then I fall asleep.
I wake up completely dehydrated and feeling very hung-over. One thing is needed and I walk - nay, jog – to a stall that is making its (plentiful) money selling nothing but ice cold bottled water. Later, Ruguru notes that “you’ll think you got a nasty bout of malaria here if you don’t re-hydrate properly” (that is, re-hydrate all the time). I had a glimpse of this when I woke up! Before downing a whole liter of Kilimanjaro water I thought I might not make it out of there unaided (and was about to call Charles all the way back from home).
But, mercifully, I started to feel better quickly after the water. Still, I caught a tuk-tuk for Tsh200 (less than R3) back to the hotel (a 5 minute ride). However, this was not before I dipped my now rapidly-expanding body in the water. Of this experience I can only say that a hot bath would have been colder! The water is that warm.It’s now Sunday night, prior to the start of the first week in a new year, and I go out for a quiet night with Charles, who collects me from the hotel. It wasn’t meant as a quiet night, necessarily, but clearly Dar Es Salaam is gearing up (gearing down, actually) for the start of the new year, tomorrow. Like everywhere else in the world tonight.
We go to a few places and I begin to suspect that Charles is wanting to hook me up with a “Tanzanian Girl” (hook being the operative word). After the last place we visit, I find, when we get to the car, that we are three! Some protestation on my part and the “Tanzanian Girl” (cute as she is) returns to the bar. Now it makes some sense to me why Charles kept asking me about my tastes regarding the opposite gender!
Charles drops me at the hotel. I sleep fitfully, for it’s the usual new-city excitement that has got to me. I sleep. I write. I write and sleep at the same time, nodding off often.
I wake properly around 6am and call room service. I am absolutely starving, having shared only a small meal with Isiah and Charles yesterday afternoon! The lady on the other end of the line tells me that my sandwich is coming. About half an hour later she rings my room to tell me that I will be wasting money because breakfast is now served! I make my way down to breakfast and am expecting Ruguru-arranged transport to collect me from the hotel around 9.30am. I must say that I am still feeling quite wrecked and I pass it off to my fitful sleep.
I get a call from ‘the transport’ on my mobile at around 9.00am. I have yet to recover fully and still need (another) shower. I get this together and (eventually and slowly) make my way downstairs to meet ‘the transport’ to our local office. I am greeted by a light-skinned man, Rasta beanie on his head, who introduces himself as Rakesh. Funny, methinks, he doesn’t look like a Hindi really (and since when do Hindus become Rasta?).
After a fifteen minute drive (listening to Tanzanian Bongo Flava music on the CD player), we turn into a suburban driveway, at the end of which our offices are located. The ‘offices’ comprise a very neat and clean contemporary house, in a good suburb. The potential of the house as a great office space is clearly there. But the paint job is shocking! Ugly yellow paint with enamel-brown doors and cupboards. Not very inviting. I meet Ruguru and immediately know that this is a chick I can work with! Yes, Ruguru, the paint has to go!
Wearing some kind of African print number, with plain strapped shoes (and a pair of very attractive small feet), the dreads (part-extension) are in proud evidence. Quickly I learn that Rasta Rakesh is her husband. Nice couple. She’s a Kenyan who relocated to Tanzania ‘cos she fell in love. Sweet, baby, sweet!
We spend the rest of the day touring Dar Es Salaam in Rakesh’s car. We drive up and down, to and fro, there and back again. Kivukoni to Kinondoni; Kurasini to Kigogo, and then on to Kilawini. Uptown and downtown, from the outskirts to the centre, and back to the outskirts again (or so it seemed). My shirt is getting wetter and wetterer. Ruguru’s face is getting shinier and shinier (and mine is too). Rakesh talks infrequently while the banter between Ruguru and I reaches fever pitch at times. Rakesh adds something in Swahili every now and then (and usually laughs at the thought of what he’s just said). Strangely, I find I am understanding a fair bit of what he’s saying. I must be turning Swahili methinks! But what an absolutely cool city. Space. Mixed cultures. Joy and contentment on the streets. And no abject poverty at all! And a pretty cool Rastaman driver too! Tanzania achieved peaceful independence in 1961 and by 1963 Zanzibar had been incorporated into the independent statehood. Under Julius Nyerere, Tanzania immediately became a socialist state, adopting a Pan-African socialism that, in the end, did it no good. Under Nyerere’s leadership, all firms, and banks, were nationalized. There was no chance of owning land – it all belonged to the State. In the 1970’s Tanzania sought alliances with China and today you will find a great many signs in Dar Es Salaam, in Chinese and English.
Unfortunately, many elements of the Chinese communist model were adopted and peasant farmers were turned off their land and forced into collective farming. As a result of the forced relocation, Tanzania turned from a nation of adequately-fed subsistence farmers into a nation of starving collective farmers. Corruption, of course, was rife and while passing the huge, but now-defunct, Meat Canning Factory (now full of squatters) Ruguru explains to me that “the Ministers wanted to eat, so they minced the meat factory”. It’s about ten minutes later before the three of us have stopped giggling at this.
Today, however, influenced by the need for foreign investment, 35 year leasehold is at least possible, although, perhaps, not always granted. Conditional on their loans, the IMF introduced many reforms in the ‘80s and '90’s and investors are slowly coming. But things seem far from ideal on the investment front. The companies most prone to enter the economic realm are those who need little (if any) land, like the mobile operators, the tour operators and, broadly, service oriented businesses.
Of those businesses that have come South African business has been among the first. Shoprite, Game, Truworths, and a few others besides, are strongly in evidence at the malls. In fact, it seems like it is almost exclusively South African business that has ventured into the foray.
Dion tells me that there is no will to work in Tanzania (why should there be, I ask?) and he almost had a heart attack trying to ‘get things done’ here. He contrasts this to working in Kenya, where, he says, he finds things no different from back in the R.S.A. The people of Kenya are keen to work and learn. The people of Tanzania probably couldn’t give too much of a damn he reckons. This, of course, because life is actually quite sorted here. Do they really need to work hard? Hard work and heart attacks are, after all, a Western invention, not an African one!!!
Flying out
Flying into Dar Es Salaam was accompanied by quite heavy cloud cover so I couldn’t see anything when we passed the highest mountain in Africa. But flying out was different! And, I am told, I was extremely privileged to get the view I had!
Yes folks, one day I will be able to tell my grandchildren, with a tear in my eye (when everything is cooking like a broth around us), that I once saw Mt. Kilimanjaro with (albeit trickling) snow on it! You better believe it guys, the picture of this mountain with a snow-cap is already an historical artifact! The snow ‘streaks’ only certain faces of the peak. There is no snow-“cap” to speak of any more. Hail to CO2 and fluorocarbons!
We flew just on the Kenyan side of Kilimanjaro and, at over 19 000ft, the mountain reaches more than half-way to the plane’s flying altitude! From Kili, I could see easily to Mt. Meru (Arusha - the town where most Maasai originate - being at the base of the mountain) to the West. I could even see the start of the Ngorongoro Crater from the window of the Kenya Airways Boeing. I sat glued to the plane window for the last 20 minutes of the one-hour flight from Dar Es Salaam back to Nairobi. Smiling at the sheer marvel before me. But sad. (Camera batteries flat, no pics! Sorry.)
I landed in cool-as-ever Nairobi and was collected at the airport. Quite quickly we found ourselves in a trufeek jum of moderate proportions. It took us only an hour or so to cover the 20kms from Kenyatta to Westlands, and not the two hours one might usually expect.
Any other thoughts, feelings or notions I might have about Dar Es Salaam? No, none, other than the obvious... Bongo, Dar Es Salaam, Bongo!Absolutely beautiful city. Shiny, happy people!
Amani na mapenzi brothers and sisters!
