Tag: Life in Tanzania Page 24 of 26

Okay, so it’s not exactly new. It’s actually a 1998, so it’s really not new. But considering the fact that we’ve never bought a really “new” car, and the fact that this car only has 60,000 km (40,000 miles) on it, it seems new to us.

We decided it was time to get a new car because our 17-year-old Suzuki was becoming a money pit. And we needed something with more seats, because once we add another car seat into the mix, we would have had no room to transport anyone else except our family in the Suzuki. Which was a problem since and there is always someone living with us.

Buying a car is interesting here. First of all, you can pay in two ways: through a wire transfer or in cash. Yep, cash. And the highest denomination in Tanzanian currency is 10,000 shillings (about 9 dollars). Imagine buying your last car with 10 dollar bills. That’s a lot of cash. So we decided to go the wire transfer route.

On the day we went to pick up the car, Gil took it downtown to get everything nailed down.

Literally. Nailed down.

Every piece of rubber, every light cover, every decorative piece of metal on the car was bolted down. He also had the license plate number etched into every window of the car. Why? So that none of those things get stolen. It happens a lot. In our Suzuki, we had everything on the outside bolted down, so nothing there was stolen, but we did have our window switches stolen twice (you know, the switches used for automatic windows), and the head rests and the ash tray stolen. Basically, anything that can come off of the car can/will be stolen. Hence the reason for getting anything and everything bolted down.

So now we have a new car! It’s a Toyota Ipsum, imported directly from Japan. That model does not exist in the States, but basically it’s a mini-mini van. Smaller than an American mini-van but with 7 seats. It drives great! The only downside to it is that it does not have 4-wheel drive, which means that there will be roads where we can’t drive it in the rainy season. But a 4-wheel drive would have cost twice as much, and we didn’t think that was worth it.

I like driving so much better now that I don’t have to worry about my car breaking down! 🙂

…”Quick, get all the chocolate out of the suitcases and put it in the fridge!”

Why?

Within two hours of arriving in Tanzania, my twelve bags of chocolate chips had already begun melting.

So do you believe me when I say it’s hot here? 🙂

On Friday we noticed that water was no longer coming to our house. This is not an immediate problem, because we have large water storage tanks at this house that collect water when it comes in from the city (because water tends to be irregular). The water in our tanks can last us a couple of weeks.

However, we found out today that the water company has shut off the water for the entire area, because too many people have not paid their water bill!

Water is the only utility in this city that is not pre-paid. You don’t get a bill in the mail either. Periodically you just have to drive to the water company and ask to pay your bill. (My bill is PAID, thank you very much). And since they can’t just turn off an individual’s water, they turned off everyone’s water.

So who knows how long the water will be off. The problem is that since there is no accountability for paying for your water bill, a renter will move on without paying their year’s worth of water. So that means that the next renter is supposed to pay for the past renter’s water bill too….which is why no one pays for water.

So what will we do in a week or so when we run out of water? Hire a “water truck” to come to our house and fill our tanks with water again. It’s more expensive that way…but…what can you do?

It’s taken a long time for this sprawling city of 4 million people to feel like “my” city. Don’t get me wrong; Tanzania felt like home after our first term here, but the city itself intimidated me. Very few street signs, driving on the “wrong” side of the road, very little traffic-law enforcement (which leads to chaos most of the time), huge diversity in economic levels, cows and goats mingled in with millions of people. It really wasn’t until the last couple of years, when I was forced to drive to all sorts of unusual places in order to adopt Grace that I really started feeling comfortable driving in this city. They say you come to a point when living overseas of reaching a “new normal.” I think I have finally come to that point.

Downtown traffic

A main market

Dar es Salaam is 70% Muslim

Bicycles are not recreational here! They are a means of work–and it’s amazing what is carried on the back of a bicycle! Every morning you see guys with their bicycles stacked with bread, as in this picture. Even more amazing are the guys who carry about 30 dozen eggs on the back of a bicycle!

A common sight

The most common form of transportation for most Tanzanians–the “dolla dolla.” One of these buses can take 50 or more people during rush hour, and there are thousands of dolla-dollas in the city. It costs about 30 cents to get to town.

Just for clarification–we live more on the outskirts of the city, just a few mintues away from HOPAC. I guess you could call us the “suberbs”–but it’s a far cry from California suberbs!