Annemarie:
Tanzania is, in a word, busy. Every village you pass through has stalls and shops by the roadside and people are either carrying things to market or taking home their purchases. Bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks are laden with people and produce; chickens dangle upside down, goats, piglets and even calves are carried across the seat or over the frame at the back of a motorbike. Not sure they make good passengers! Huge sacks of maize, potatoes and other lumpy unidentifiable goods are carried on heads or sandwiched between two people, charcoal bundles are loaded five or six high on a bike, which is then wheeled laboriously to the roadside destination. Fruits and vegetables are piled in impossibly high pyramids on stalls; onions hang from the roof frame or are laid out in neat rows; beans and maize lie drying on huge mats.
This scene of business reflects the rural Tanzanians who are largely subsistence farmers but who also grow a few crops for sale. The small towns have cheery, efficient fuel stations often with modern pumps. We see school signs again and hordes of children either walking purposefully toward them or meandering and joshing with each other on their way home. There are lots of bicycle repair stalls to keep the overworked and heavily loaded bikes on the road and even the occasional bakery!
We’re whizzing past these rural pictures again, on relatively fast roads heading for a night in Dar es Salaam. With an odd sense of coincidence this is also to visit a sister of a very good UK friend and she’s also called Deborah. Our rapid progress slows as we stop for petrol and Hector decides he’s gone far enough and won’t start. After some ‘under the bonnet fiddling’ and much cursing, he cooperates and we turn up in Dar’s ex-pat sector just as the sun sets. We’re welcomed by a trio of dogs, Debbie, her lovely daughter Ruby and an excitingly English supper of shepherd’s pie and peas! Debbie has travelled a lot in Africa working in leadership positions for VSO and Save the Children, has set up and run a school and is now an author of a lively little number: “The Darling Menopause” so we have a wide-ranging discussion. Her husband, Nick, a lawyer, arrives home and joins the debate over a glass of wine. We have turned up empty-handed due to Hector’s delaying tactics so we break out our only feasible contribution: chocolate. It turns into a perfect evening, a hot shower, intelligent talk, supper, chocolate - bliss. We retire to our roof tent very happy.
Next day we’re struck by a painting in Debbie’s home. We saw some in the same style on our first visit to Tanzania in December: brightly coloured, stylized busy pictures of street scenes, hospitals, markets and menageries of fantastical animals. We find out they are known as TingaTinga paintings named after the artist, Edward Tingatinga who first created the style in the 1960’s. What’s more we’re in luck, the art co-operative that produces them is literally down the road. We spend a couple of hours talking to the artists and buying several canvases to take home. We couldn’t have a better means of remembering our time here.
