CROSSING TANZANIA CHAP2

11/18/15 or 18/11/15:  Crossing Tanzania    Chap 2 

   In Dar, as in the rest of Tanzania, the hottest part of the day seems  to happen much later in the day then in New England. Maybe its because we are just below the equator.  But as the afternoon continues and, if it stays sunny, it just keeps getting hotter. No afternoon sea breeze like in my home town.

By 3 oclock  the temperature was still taking off; almost unbearable in the sun.  Anyone who can, black or white, is out of the sun in the shade. We had made good progress by then. The truck was full. The  workers were finishing up putting boxes and equipment we couln’t bring  to Rulenge back into container.  We were all were soaked but the workers were all still going strong. They were in a good mood. I think I had paid them well and I let then have their pick of Vermont style winter, and summer gear. It was the price of doing business.  Lets get real here. Most of these clothes belonged to priests who left their stuff in Vt. And most of it had been in boxes for years. As far as I knew nobody from Tz. had made a special trip or even called , or maybe written, to see if their stuff was safe or ever coming back.  Meanwhile I had made at least 50 international phone calls over the last 16 months to get us to this stage. And, I had just flown in here from Mwanza to get the truck “ in gear” and get it moving to its destination at the other end of Tanzania: Rulenge. Of course my interest was the hospital equipment, especially hospital beds that were promised to Rulenge Hospital more them 16 months before.

     Rulenge  Hospital is  deep in the bush near the Berundi and Rwandian borders. To put into perspective you have to understand Tanzania. The best way to do that is to think east to west. The east is flat, hot, populated and contributes probably 2/3 of the country’s GDP. As you head west the  elevation rises, the temperature drops, the poverty goes up and the population goes down.  The village of Rulenge is as far west as you can go in Tanzania. And so by the above description it is very poor and believe me it looks it. The hospital servicing the Rulenge region is as poor as its people and…. it looks it.  With the exception of the  new solar panels you might think its still 1975.

   So I might as well furnish you with the backround of this story. I run a very small NGO  called The Sandy Christman Foundation ( SCF) . Our mission is “to make things better” I know that’s simplistic but that’s the idea. We are small, and we can only know simple because simple is cheap…usually. The Sandy Christman Foundation is no threat to Bill and Melinda Gates. We will not wipe out Malaria. But we are in the action. And the site of action is in Rulenge and western Tanzania, a region known as Kagera. Pick a poor developing country , like Tanzania, go to its poorest, least developed region and you’ll find yourself in Kagera. There may be worse places on earth but the need here is true.  I know, I’ve been coming here seven years. Plus it’s relatively safe. I don’t know about you but I’m not planning on getting to the Gaza strip or Syria in my lifetime.

   Our project is to deliver Hospital equipment to the Rulenge Hospital. We have a 40 foot shipping contained stuffed with donated medical equipment and clothing from a catholic parish in south central Vermont. This is the second container from this parish. The last one didn’t go so well and ended up at the wrong hospital in Kagera. Still a success but a little off target. The SCF partially funded that project. You think you’d learn from mistakes  but no, that didn’t happen. For this 2^nd shipping container the SCF funded the whole thing, 100%. And it hasn’t gone so well. We are now 16 months behind schedule. The container is safe  but its in Dar es Salaam, probably1000 miles away from Rulenge. And its been sitting there since June 2014.

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Monday 11/2/15:  the truck is stuffed, we are soaked and instead of calling it a day the truck driver says we should go now.  My 2 new friends are Dennis, the driver and Elami who is sort of the co pilot.  They aren’t crazy about me coming with them but I have told them that the equipment is mine and I’ve waited 16 months to get to this stage and I want to see it delivered.  Of course they didn’t understand that. They speak to Fr. Florence. They want to know if me, the mzungu, is ready, capable, sure I want  to travel with them. I think they don’t want to be responsible for me. Some rapid Swahili goes back and forth. Dennis is definitely the in charge guy. He has been checking me out all day….. and I  have been checking him out. Its sort of bilateral. I’m not completely sure I trust Dennis and Elami  after all they are truck drivers…African truck drivers at that. They have a big job, drive across Tanznaia.  Now they might have to baby sit a mzungu.  They are from Rulenge and I’m quite certain they have never spent any time with a white man ….maybe a white priest  but never a white “Meerikani”.

       Dennis has the truck running, I run to get my pack, climb up into the cab throw  my pack onto the cot behind the seats and we are ready . Its 4:30 pm I’m in a the 30 foot truck, 2 African truck drivers and we are off on a 3 day  safari across Tanznia. Dennis and Elami speak “yes, no”, “good bad” “ Michael Jackson! “( big grin) English. I speak Swahili like a 3 year old. Or maybe more like  Johnny Weismuller in the original Tarzan movies….. “ me go you” (prepositions are so difficult sometimes). There are no maps, no GPS and no air conditioning and I’m psyched to get some breeze into the stifling hot cab. As we pull out of the Caritas compound the metal gate slides closed behind us and we enter into the great Dar es Salaam  evening rush hour. For the next 2 hrs we creep through a chaotic, anything goes traffic jam. Cars, trucks, motor cylcles/scooters, bicycles are everywhere. Curbs, lanes, the other side of the road, the rare traffic light : none of it matters. The goal is the go forward. In the long stand stills hawkers are in the traffic to sell anything.  At one point 3 motor cycle guys pull up next to us, climb up on Dennis’ step and theres rapid bad Swahili. They are scary and demanding something. Elami reaches over from the middle seat locks my door just as another guys is climbing up to my door pulling on the  handle. We haven’t gone  5 km and we are being raided.!   Dennis accelerates the truck forward, opens his door to shake the guy off the door. It works! They are off the truck and disappear. But only for a minute.  Soon there are 3 motocycles weaving through the lanes next to us  and  then driving right in front of us.  Dennis threatens to run them down. Lots of yelling, screaming, gestures.  The fuck you, middle finger seems to transcend all language barriers.  I’m waiting for a gun to appear. Dennis has his window down yelling as the motorcycles buzz around us between lanes like angry bees. Its still light but I'm getting freaked out about how this is going to go down….especially when its dark. Suddenly  Dennis turns left  at the last second as we enter a big intersection we are moving but not fast. The cycles have gone straight but I’m sure they will be back. I look at Elami, he smiles ….….”bandits”.   Great ! Bandits in downtown Dar es Salaam at rush hour.

Around 2 pm

  Dennis and Elami are laughing and yaking in hi speed Swahili. They seem to think it over. Just another pesky rush hour problem: people trying to hijack your truck.  Big smiles and gestures, like locker room post game bragging, reliving the tense moments.  Who are these guys? And who were those guys?

   We are picking up some speed and facing less bottlenecks. The rush hour is winding down as we head straight into a setting sun. I don’t know where we are but I do know we have to go west so things are really starting to look up. Another big bonus it’s starting to cool down.

    A few words about African truck drivers.  Not to be compared with the big belly, big belt buckle big semi driving American brothers. Africa moves on trucks. The only way to get goods from China and India to the African interior is by truck.  And the drivers of these trucks are small, caffeinated,  dex./ meth. drapped, bloodshot eye, road warriors. These guys work in a world with few regulations and drive some of the worst roads in the word.  African truck drivers are know to singlehandedly have been a major contributor to the spread of HIV/ AIDS through out Africa in the 90’s and earlier this mellenium. Like mosquitoes are vectors of Malaria, African truckers, roaming across Africa have been vectors of HIV/AIDS. African truck stops are the stuff of lore. You may not find a Hampton Inn there but you can find, drugs sex and just about any communicatable disease you can name at truck stops. Truck drivers have money and truck stops have lots of ways for men on the move to spend it, one night at time ….and best of all, be gone in the morning. Contraband including people and guns are carried by trucks across borders thru countries that have small budgets for law enforcement.  Hey, it’s a job.

     As we left the last of the Dar suburbs behind, the speed picked up, the temperature went down and we headed west into the African night. We didn’t exactly have friendly chatter but the 3 of us seemed to be settling into our places. Despite my efforts to let Elami sit by the window he seemed pretty adamant to stay sitting on the middle consule  or lean of the cot behind the seats. 

  We are driving a Fuso Fighter Truck. Made by Mitzubishi for this part of the world with the driver on the right. I don’t know where this truck was made but it’s a tough mother. The roads here are bad but at least paved. Where we are going it will only be worse. In the dark we drive by small and medium villages and enter more and more stretches of bush. I cant get the story from Dennis and Elami about the 3 motorcyclist who just tried to kill us. It just gets them amped up and they start laughing like the whole thing was entertaining.

   Music is just as internationally understood as the middle  finger. We can barely talk but we do know what fuck you means ( laughter) and we can all dance in our seats  as I play “Don’t stop til you get enough “ on my iphone.  I think we were really speeding when I played “Happy” by  Pherrell Williams.  Repeated that one a few times. 

    By 10pm I’m falling asleep and hope that Dennis isn’t.  We are in the middle on nowhere and I’m starting to think about where we will sleep and  wondering about those African Truck stops. Our original goal was Didoma  ( the Capital) but the rush hour traffic has shattered that plan. I’m really unsure about what these guys do at night and knowing everybody has been working all day I try to verbalize a question.  “Lala wapi usiko”.  no answer. “ Je lala wapi usiko?” ( hey, where sleep tonight?) .   Elami has got my drift, I dunno, may be my New York accent is throwing them off.

He and Dennis have a mystery dialog and I think the answer is “ we don’t know”. We drive on. I sleep and nod. Sometime after 12:30 Dennis is slowing down and we are in some small town.  Just a bunch of one story buildings with corrugated metal roofs. We pull into a big lot full of parked trucks.  There are very few lights and most light is from parked trucks.  Dennis is hunting, creeping the big truck in low gear. We stop talk to a few guys ( truckers), do a 3 point turn head out and parallel park on the shoulder.  I’m dying to get out, stretch and pee. Elami follows me towards some tall grass, we both pee.  I am dirty, sweaty hungry and tired.  Its dark and very quiet. If this is an infamous African truck stop than I’m going to have come up with a new theory on the spread of AIDs.

 There is no food, no music, no bar and I haven’t seen any prostitutes in the headlights.  We head back to the truck. Elami says  ( I think) : “lala hapa  sasa, sawa?”  ( we sleep here OK?”)  We are going to sleep in the truck?”   Right here?  I think the answer is “ndyio”(yes).  Well sure, the 3 of us in the cab tonight? Not to be a wimp I say “nzuri” ( fine ).  Yeah I’m up for anything you guys do…I’m no white Meerikani wimp…I can sleep in the truck… No big deal… sure I do this all time,  we always sleep in the tuck back in the US.

   So it’s settled. I would like to brush my teeth, buy a mosquito net, find some deet, maybe a pillow?  WIMP!  We sleep in the truck. This is my first night ever in Africa without a mosquito neat. Luckily its pretty cool now  and we keep the windows mostly rolled up. I’m in my very light weight rain coat.  Comfortable. Feet up on the dashboard, Not exactly stretched out but in for the night. Dennis is curled up in the drivers seat and Elami has grabbed the cot, which is really just a board to store stuff on.  Before I pass out I hope these guys sleep soundly because I am told that I snore loudly.

  I wake up about every 15 minutes through the night tortured by the seat, the cramped sleeping space and the simple fact that trucks are not made for sleeping. My 2 truck mates seem very content.  By 5:30 we are all up and out in the bush in the dark and then back in the truck. Dennis is ready to roll. I am looking for breakfast and dreaming of Denny’s. It’s a quiet early morning, not much talk, I think we are just trying to put in the miles.  The first village we come to I’m psyched to stop eat and hit the choo. But it’s too early and none of the roadside “cafes’ are open. Another hour and we reach a real town. Dennis pulls over we all get out and head to a place to eat.  A place to eat. Sounds simple enough. But we are heading to a place you would not want your local board of health to even look at much less think about approving a license.  And as for the choo…..well believe it or not I might have seen worse….once. There is no privacy in small villages, rarely doors and no “western toilets”. Anyway, when I come out I wash my hands in a communal bucket with a well used bare of soap while most of the locals check me out. The only mzungu in town and everybody knows my bowel habits. Great!

    I come to the table on the dirt floor and find Dennis and Elami have ordered and paid for my breakfast ( more on breakfast later)  Hey, I think I’m getting some street cred with these guys!