My last entry, on dala-dalas, is something of a elegy. About a month ago, we bought a car—this lovely 2001-ish Toyota Cresta with only 35,000 km on it (the proverbial grandma car that was only driven to the mosque and the market). It was less a desire to have a car than a desire to stay healthy during this time of no electricity and no running water for most people. We didn’t like dala-dalas enough to want to risk riding on them if cholera or some other public health risk breaks out.
So we’re car owners, and the American part of me does love the freedom that comes with being in control of our own transportation and being able to zip over to a beach on a weekend.
But it does come at a price. Now, rather than being with everyone on the dala-dalas, we park our car in the public lot several blocks from our apartment, and we tip the guard there to watch our car, and we pay the car-washer there to keep our car looking spiffy clean. We’re contributing more to the local economy, but we’re also separated from it to a much greater degree than we were for the first five months we were here.
And although our new car has air bags and seat belts, I’m not sure that we’re safer from road hazards than we were in the dala-dalas—or vice versa. Dala-dala drivers have been on these roads since they were riding on their father’s bicycles. I’ve had a driver’s license since I was 16, but I never learned in driver’s ed what to do when the car behind me is nudging me to pass between a well-populated bicycle and dala-dala on our side of the road and there is an oncoming army truck, or what to do when the ox in front of me suddenly breaks free from its cart and driver. All things considered, driving on the left side of the road is the easiest part of driving in Tanzania!
So we’re now right there in the midst of the gritty, scary, Richard Scarry world, but it’s hard not to feel like there’s a loss, as well.
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