Tanzania is a terrific place for those who are looking for outbound activities, cultural vibrancy, wild life, natural beauty and adventure. Located in Central East Africa it borders Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Burundi. That’s quite a lot of neighbors. Tanzania is famous for three things, the Serengetti National Park, the Lake Victoria and Mount Kilimanjaro. Serengetti is famous for its annual migration of more than a million wildebeest and Zebras from Tanzania to Kenya. Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest inactive volcanic mountain in Africa. Kilimanjaro is ice capped and at the foot of the mountain the temperature is sometimes more than 40 degrees Celsius. The contrast is stark and a phenomena to experience. Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake and the largest tropical lake in the world. It is the world’s third largest freshwater lake. The lake has a shore line of 4,828 kilometers. Do carry your binoculars if you are anywhere near the striking distance of this lake.
Dar Es Salaam is the commercial capital of Tanzania while its political capital is Dodoma.
I first travelled to Dar Es Salaam in the year 2006. This was my first trip to Africa. Africa has always fascinated me. The fascination started when I was in my 6th standard in the Army School. We had English non-detail class and one of the books was dedicated to stories from Africa. Reflecting back, those stories were like R.K Narayan’s “Malgudi days”. So I wanted to experience Africa. Here came a chance after a long wait through Arowana.
The trip to Africa started off in the most eventful way and the most unpredictable manner. I boarded the Jet Airways from Bangalore to Mumbai. There was a transfer from the domestic airport to the international airport in Mumbai, and to my shock my baggage was missing from the airport bus. The Airport bus!! This happened while offloading the luggage. Maybe I was dreaming about Africa and did not notice that someone picked up my baggage and loaded it on his trolley and left into oblivion. Dreams of Africa were suddenly reduced to the engulfing nightmares of my airport situation. Look at what happened then. After every baggage was offloaded from the bus, I was left with a suitcase that was similar to mine, and quite obviously it was an operation swap like in the bond movies where the suitcases are deliberately exchanged for a mission. Anyway I was nowhere close to any James Bond experience, I was more worried about my pickles and puliogare masala and spices my mother had so fondly packed for my sustained well being.
I took that similar looking suitcase and started searching if somebody had mine. I was staring at every bag just short of not sniffing like a police dog at every bag in the entire airport. Finally a policeman sensed my anguish and waddled up to me to my rescue. He directed me to the information centre where I could get the barcode on the tag scanned and know who the person was and which flight he was heading towards so that it could be announced. While I was hurrying towards the information centre, I noticed a person with my suitcase and heading towards the IC from the opposite direction. We met at the doors of the IC and exchanged smiles. For those of you who have seen my smile will know what he may have experienced at that instance, a humane instance. He apologized profusely and said he was in a hurry and picked my suitcase wrongly. He then dared to ask me where I was heading to. I said Tanzania. He was going to the UK.
I then travelled by Kenya Airways from Mumbai to Nairobi and then another flight from Nairobi to Dar Es Salaam. The sight from the aircraft was wondrous. I could see many of those famous umbrella trees during the take-off from Nairobi and then after some time the tip of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Waaahoooooo!!! I was top of the world, a world of sheer rustic character in beauty.
Our colleague Mahesh Nair was there to receive me at the airport. He looked half between being a Brazilian and an Afro-Indian since he was in Tanzania for some days before I had landed. It was a quite drive from the Airport to our apartment. The next day I was at our client’s office. I was introduced to key people who were related to the project and started off with the work. Africa, here I was finally, real and surreal.
My experience in Tanzania is mixed. Good weather, nice people, some scary incidents, Lazy weekend afternoons, excited and sometimes confused client members and finally a successful project implementation.
A surprise was awaiting me. It was Navaratri festival time and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was literally like I was in India. There were celebrations for nine days among the Gujaratis. Dandiya was organized, songs and dances everywhere and the streets were very colorful. There was free dinner organized every night.
I couldn’t go for the dinner every night due to various reasons.
To talk about the food in Dar Es Salaam, there is the native food “Ugali” which is commonly made from maize flour and water,and varies in consistency from porridge to a dough like substance. Ugali is made from other types of starch also. I’m a person who is afraid of trying new food and the thought of trying one in Africa was scary. Being a vegetarian I was eagerly enquiring about the availability of vegetarian food in Dar Es Salaam before I got there.
To my surprise there were few Gujarati restaurants which offered vegetarian food. Vegetable biryani at Retreat was heaven. I also liked the Veg-Thali which was my every weekend lunch. We could get all the Bombay chats at Chappan Bhog almost tasting similar to what we get in India. Sadly the Idli and Dosa (South Indian meal) at Chappan Bhog were awfully awful. I had them just once on a trial basis and instantly knew why home was home when it came to idlis.
Entertainment was plenty in Dar. There are many beaches, casinos, pubs and dance bars. My favorite was the mini cinema hall right in front of our apartment. I must have watched 8 to 10 Hindi movies there. I also visited the coco beach but it wasn’t interesting as it was over crowded. I heard that it is most of the time crowded by locals.
I got a chance to see Mikumi National Park which is around 250 km from Dar. African safari is so different from the ones in India. Here in India we need to struggle to spot some animal. In Mikumi I could see numerous Zebras and Giraffes scattered all over the grassland in plenty. Another distinction between Indian safari and African safari is, in India animals are camouflaged, hidden behind the bushes plants or trees. Most of the African safaris are on plain grassland, very rarely do you miss spotting animals. Mikumi is famous for tree climbing lions. I was wishing to spot one, but found most of them lazily lying on the ground. I could also see herds of elephants, wildebeest, warthogs, impalas and hippos.
One thing that scared everybody in the team the most was the policeman of Tanzania on account of some stray incidents involving them. In this case the police it appears had a plan to extract whatever money possible from expatriates. The police first talks to you in Swahili. This is to confirm that you are an outsider. They have problems distinguishing visitors from India and the local Gujaratis. The only way is talk something in Swahili, and you are caught. They try to find if some document like the passport, visa copy or the yellow fever card is missing from you, if yes, then you will be bombarded by series of questions. If everything intact, then a small fees for spending their precious time talking to you. Either ways you are going to part with some money. Since then some of our colleagues used to change their routes if they spotted a policeman far away.
Another scary incident I can recall is the tribal men staring at us late in the night when we walked back from office to home. These are men of height more than six and a half feet with spears measuring the same length in their hand. They were the guards at the market place. You never know what irritates them, I used to bend my head and walk faster while passing through them making sure he is not wanting to join the race. We cannot escape from them by running away, they are professional hunters.
But then there is really no validity to these assumptions and fears. The people of Tanzania are quite nice, very friendly and jovial. Most of the staffs in NSSF are educated outside Tanzania. India and the UK are their favorite study centers. A large chunk of the population of Tanzania is into agriculture. Tourism is the next big thing in the country and many have found jobs in the tourism industry there. With regards to IT industry, there are very few IT companies within their country. There are many companies from India and South Africa trying to tap the market. Our company has lots of opportunities in this country. We have a high profile client in NSSF which is a good source of reference in Africa. So dear Arowanite, go back to your non detail textbooks and pick up some threads about Africa and fantasize the African Safari. We might have more projects from Africa.
Shared by Bhaskar.
