Chapter Eight
Dar Es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania, with a population of 4 million. It sounds like it would be a mad house and a place I’d typically avoid. However, I found many quaint local experiences in the suburbs.
Village Life
I left Arusha for a last minute workaway in the Dar Es Salaam area. It was a tiny village 40 minutes by public transit west of the city center. I was first struck by how unusually sandy this town was. We were twelve miles from the coast but the streets made it appear like a beach town. Shed-like metal homes made it feel like I was in a post apocalyptic desert village.
I found delicious street food in this village. The neighbors of my host would go to the street outside their home and make delicious sambusa each morning. They were filled with a potato, onion, tomato and pili pili sauce. She charged 100 shillings per delicious morsel. To put the price into perspective: 2200 shillings equal 1 USD.
I always traveled with beads and string and I made bracelets for all of the children in this village. I’d walk around and have mothers give me approving nods and children would run up and show me that they were wearing their bracelets. I also try to travel with bubbles. Kids freak out when you blow bubbles for them. Sadly, they kill fairies and pop the beautiful bubbles but their hysteric glee makes it almost forgivable.
One day I stumbled upon two men sitting in the sandy road on wooden boxes. A man was hitting a large branch into a bowl. They invited me over and I discovered that they were making and selling coffee. The guy I initially noticed was crushing the beans. His companion was heating a kettle over a fire. I sat down on a wooden crate, they poured coffee into a tea cup for me and I had a lovely time trying to converse with these men despite the language barrier. The coffee was only 100 shillings. They also sold G-nut toffee bars for the same price. What a magical experience.
I seemed to be having a bit of bad luck and this Workaway was also a failure. When the previous host wanted $250, I left and messaged hosts for a last minute exchange. I only came here because they got back to me quickly. My hosts were two young men. One younger than me, the other slightly older. They were taking advantage of Workaway as a way of meeting Westerners. They would try to book tours and safaris in order to make a commission off of their volunteers. When I told them I doing anything touristy they suddenly had to paint their apartment and needed me to leave. I’m not complaining though, I got four nights of free lodging and had a chance to get to know the neighborhood.
Luckily, I had a legitimate Workaway planned for January. It was the last week of November at this point. Due to all of my failed volunteering gigs I was a month and a half ahead of schedule. I contacted the next host and they agreed to take me early.
Kigamboni
I was off to Kigamboni, a beautiful coastal village also in the Dar Es Salaam area. Hallelujah! This workaway was a positive experience! I was teaching at a kindergarten. I’ve never taught before and the usual teacher gave me no guidance as to what a typical day was like. The kids knew the alphabet so I tried to teach them the sounds the letters made in hopes of teaching them how to read. Two of the boys in the class benefitted. Sadly, the girls had a lot less of an interest in school. The girls would guess how to read a word and say purple even if I had just told them the word was dog. We played some relay games, they loved the bubbles and bracelets. It was a learning experience for all of us.
My hosts had two children that I adored. I would take Lessy, a five year old, to the beach each day after class and we would swim for hours. Lessy was my favorite person that I met in Tanzania. He was such a truly good soul.
Kigamboni is a three minute ferry ride from Dar Es Salaam. You cross the jut-in of the Indian Ocean and go from skyscrapers to a sandy beach village. I went to Zanzibar and it was quite expensive but Kigamboni has clear water, cheap amazing street food, and affordable local guest houses. It’s the best kept secret. If you are going to Tanzania, you have to see Kigamboni!
Winging It
Once I got to my hosts I found out that they were closing the school for winter break. I should have realized it was that time of year and they should have mentioned it before I came. They never asked me to leave but without the preschool to teach at, It felt awkward getting a private room and eating their food in exchange for playing with Lessy at the beach. It was one week into December and I had to be in Tanzania mid January because my sister already had her plane ticket to Zanzibar. I had five weeks to kill and no idea what to do. Luckily the double the price American visa for Tanzania is automatically a double entry.
I looked at a map and realized Mozambique and Malawi are on the border of Tanzania. I messaged hosts in both and soon lined up a workaway for the Christmas Season in Malawi. I spontaneously headed to a country I didn’t know existed until a few months earlier. The next post in this section will be about my Zanzibar trip but skip to the Malawi section to find out what happened chronologically.
Chronicles of a Wandering Soul 