Time out in Tanzania

Just like I had hoped I have been able to recharge my batteries very nicely this weekend. Although I worked a bit in the mornings, I have had the afternoons and evenings to relax and enjoy. In the end I did not go to the beaches, which proved a bit more difficult to reach in a limited space of time, but I certainly managed to take full advantage of the hotel swimming pool. Ocean view lunches and tasty dinners are definitely not a bad way to spend time either. My, it's a hard life!

The mystery of Dar Es-Salaam's apparent well-off state is beginning to unravel a bit. As I suspected, the neighbourhoods we have come through are not entirely representative. Dar is a rather schizophrenic place. Along the ocean front there are some very, very posh looking villas. These mainly belong to diplomats and other well-to-do expats. Then there is the old colonial part of town which is around where I am staying. Here the streets are all paved and surprisingly clean. Much cleaner than your run of the mill London street in fact. Houses are decently looking and often brightly coloured. Aside from the frequent power outages and water shortages it strikes me as really not such a bad place to be. This part of town and the neighbouring areas are not populated by African Tanzanians either though. This is little India. Eastern Africa has a fairly large population of Indians, mostly as a result of the former British colonial rule. The Indians are in general far better off than their African counterparts. They are the entrepreneurs running the corner shops and small businesses.

The African part of town is clearly less developed although visibly new buildings have sprouted up left and right. You can see the direction the town is headed but there is still a long way to go. The upshoot of new middle-class type houses does, however, make you wonder what happened to the people who used to live in these areas. Given that Tanzania is still a very poor country it is unlikely that the once poor have en masse joined the middle classes. Rather, the poor have been pushed further out of the centre to the slum parts of town, out of sight.

Despite these large discrepencies I still think Dar has a fairly pleasant feel to it. Unfortunately, it is also rather dull. Compared to the chaos in Accra, Dar is incredibly sleepy. In the evenings the roads are deserted and it doesn't feel like there is much to do around. This may be the capital but there is not much more going on than in most European country side villages. Tomorrow I will be travelling for the day into one of the nearby districts. I suspect this may give me a truer flavour of what the country is really like. So much for the relaxation; tomorrow works starts again!