Pole Sana

The first language of Tanzania is Swahili. Pole Sana is Swahili for So Sorry. Unfortunately this was the first phrase we learned in this new language. Continue reading….

Tanzania is an entirely different world. It’s really remarkable that just a few days travel away is a giant city (Dar Es Salaam) filled with tons of people and modern development. However, to get to this developed city, you must cross the undeveloped part of northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. My trip started out with a 3 am open back chapa ride to the border. This road was very undeveloped and bumpy, and I was sitting on some sort of spare car part. Needless to say the next day my butt and back were pretty sore. The border is the Rovuma river which is an important landmark in Moz. When talking about the country of Mozambique, the saying is “from Rovuma to Maputo”; it’s even part of the national anthem. (Rovuma River is the northern border and Maputo province is in the southern border). We arrived in Mtwara, which is the first big town in Tanzania after the border. We stayed there for the night, and bought some bus tickets to head out in the morning. The main form of transport, we discovered, are giant greyhound-esque buses. However, they are generally painted crazy colors and have a personalized horn. What we didn’t realize is how dangerous some of these companies could be.

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 6 a.m., and we almost missed it. For some reason, Tanzania and Mozambique have 1 hour of time difference (who’d a thunk since they lie north and south of each other). But we were still in Africa so of course they didn’t leave on time and we made it. Little did we know that it was not our lucky day to catch it. The roads in southern Tanzania are still being paved so it was all pretty much one giant construction zone, with you driving on a dirt road running parallel to the in-progress paved road. These buses travel pretty fast, and sure enough, on one of the dirt turns our bus lost control and we shot out into the countryside, bumping along all the way. We were in the second to last row and got bounced around pretty good. Luckily the bus didn’t tip over, and there were only slight injuries, the worst being my friend cutting his forehead and needing stitches. We got to the hospital surprisingly fast for Africa standards. We also got in contact with Peace Corps Tanzania and their medical officer drove down to meet us and check us out personally that night. We got a nice ride into the capital (we only made it about half way when the bus crashed) and were set up to stay with an American family living in Dar Es Salaam while doing D.C.-mandated tests at the hospital there. I repeat, everything turned out fine. I just have an ugly black eye in all my vacation photos to help me remember. Like I could forget…