(Mostly) Arrived!

(From June 13, 2008)

I flew out of Washington Dulles on Tuesday night (actually, I think it might have been Wednesday morning before the plane actually took off--bad weather or something. Because I had the world's longest layover awaiting me, though, I was in no distress.) I got to skip part of the REALLY long line at the ticket counter because someone came through yelling for passengers traveling alone. This happened to me on another international flight once, and I got bumped up to an empty seat in business class for free, which pretty much made my year. Hoping that this might be the same case, I was quick to identify myself as a solo traveler. Unfortunately, this time it was actually the opposite of the business class situation...they had one seat left that no one wanted, so they gave it to some poor sucker (i.e., me) with no travelmates to feel bad for her. I got the middle seat in the middle section of the Ages 2 and Under row...and if you've never been on a 13-hour flight with two toddlers on each side of you and a kindergartener kicking the back of your seat, well, you've never really flown. The good news, though, was that it was the bulkhead row, so the extra legroom actually made it worthwhile...maybe.


I landed in Doha, Qatar around 7:30pm local time. It was already completely dark out, and I didn't have a visa anyway, so I just made myself at home in the airport. As far as airports to spend the night in, Doha was far from the worst. They had a designated quiet room with darkened lights and minimal PA announcements that I spent a few hours in pretending to sleep, but I finally gave up and went back out to the main area around 3am to wander around and read more about Tanzania in my Lonely Planet. Sunrise was early--well before 5am--and unimpressive, with a yellow ball of heat rising in a completely gray, dusty sky. The air in Qatar was a color I had never seen before. I don't know if it was pollution or just an incredible amount of dust and sand everywhere, but everything was gray and visibility was so low that you would have thought it was snowing out there. There was no wind, though, so a sandstorm didn't seem likely. I don't know what it was.

I flew out later that morning and was even able to phinangle a change to a window seat from the lady at the ticket counter. The flight was truly incredible...we flew over Saudi Arabia and then south, so I got to see the Persian Gulf and part of the desert before the attendants came around and made us all close our window shades. I don't know why--maybe they thought people were disturbed by the light or something--but I was rather put off by that. Heaven forbid I should see the Arabian Desert out the window if the light disturbs someone else's ability to watch Die Hard III. I did see, however, a section of really bizarre, huge dark circles, hundreds of them, in the sand. I might guess they had something to do with oil drilling, though I don't know.

Approaching Dar es Salaam by air was really interesting and, I think, a great way to get a feeling for what the city might be like before seeing the city itself. There were about three big paved roads, each going vaguely either N-S or E-W, but that was it. After those three roads, everything else was dirt. But not dirt roads like you might imagine, either, because they didn't even really look like roads. Nothing is straight; the houses and buildings are all in a massive jumble. It looked like someone had picked up the city, shaken it up in a tin can and thrown it back out again. Tin roofs were everywhere, on top of each other practically, at weird angles and with irregular spacing. There were no straight roads because buildings were built right in the middle of them.


I was met at the airport by a board member from the organization I'll be working with who also happens to be the chief economist for the Ministry of Health or something like that. He was very helpful and took me to the office where my friend Kim's friend Lauren is working for the summer. She and I took a bus called a dala-dala into town to find some dinner. The dala-dalas aren't actually buses, but gutted minivans with their tops hacked off and some weird carpet things installed instead in order to make the roof a foot or so higher. You stand inside them as best you can, which means that I was significantly hunched over, but it's really the teeming mass of humanity that can fit inside these things that amazed me. Twenty people in a minivan? Riding in luxury! Thirty? Just put that dude's head in that other guy's crotch and we'll fit. Thirty-five? Everyone on the left can stick their torsos out the window, right? If the people in the back need to get off, those glassless windows can also double as doors. Here we go! At 25 cents a ride, it wasn't such a bad deal.

Staying at Lauren's has also been fun. There's no electricity, though there is (brown) running water, so I showered by candlelight last night. The bathroom itself is truly a testament to innovation, as the whole thing is tile (so no need for a tub or basin) and large hole in the floor drains both the "sink" (a spigot low on the wall) and the shower while also serving as the toilet. Yep, the toilet hole's in the shower--shower shoes are even more important here than they were in my freshman dorm. When I stepped in a wet place in the road outside Lauren's house where the mud enveloped my entire foot and ankle and nearly sucked off my shoe, Lauren joked that I was experiencing Africa with all five senses on my first day, and she was totally right.

Leaving tomorrow by plane for Kiganza, the village where I'll be staying--I was supposed to leave today, but there was some confusion--anyway, I should be there by tomorrow afternoon. I'm excited to see what real life in the bush is like. I'll try to get internet access as often as possible.


Many hugs to you all and I look forward to hearing from you soon!!