A year and two weeks have passed since we returned. And just between Christmas and New Year, in the days when you have the feeling that time stands still, we would like to send our last article of the world trip to you on your sofa at home…
When we decided in Latin America to fly to Africa we deliberately chose Tanzania as an easy destination. Africa for beginners, to figure out if it’s something for us.
Black men, women and children, everybody’s black. Once in a while you can see Albinos or white tourists. Clearly we have to adjust our thinking. As remote as we have been traveling and acquiring knowledge, you can’t completely resist the prejudices that you have. It’s so stupid. Black people and crime, dictators, military regimes and HIV / AIDS, you name it. Did we experience crime? No. HIV / AIDS and malaria are on the Tanzanian agenda though. Issues like circumcision of girls, rapes, child marriages, sexual and physical child abuse should be mentioned here as well.
As a tourist it is made sure that you don’t get to see these ugly issues. Still I observed once how a man jumped out of the bus and touched a local woman that was just passing by on her breasts and buttocks. Then he was looking for more passengers as if nothing happened. The woman chased him off like an annoying fly, but didn’t appear to experience something like that for the first time. We didn’t hear or read anything about tourists being harassed or badgered. Still you should follow the usual precautions to avoid being robbed.
Tourism in Tanzania is nothing new, on the contrary, since many decades foreign visitors climb the Kilimanjaro or experience wildlife in the Serengeti. It has changed the country. The prices for anything that tourist do or need are crazy high. Most hotel rooms cost 50 Euros per night or more with no upper limit. We stayed true to our goal of staying in family hotels, Airbnbs or home stays. If you’d like to go from A to B, you pay 10 Euro for a twelve hour bus trip, if you chose to fly you pay 150 Euros. For comparison: A meal is one or two dollars, a bottle of water 20 cents. These insane price differences between “mzungus”, how white people are called here, and the locals are the biggest we have seen so far. On no other continent it was that extreme. On the one hand this fact led to discussions with the locals that not all white people are millionaires and on the other hand it resulted in hilarious cash withdrawals with bags full of banknotes because the largest banknote is 10,000 shillings (4 Euro). Quite often we felt like dollars on legs on the main tourist routes. We surely didn’t like that feeling, especially considering that we haven’t been treated like dollar millionaires during the many months in Latin America. Although the comparison is misleading, because we were able to speak Spanish with the Latinos. In Tanzania we were depending on people that could speak English with us. We only learned the most common Swahili phrases. Hakuna matata!
As soon as we stepped off the beaten track, we got to know accommodating and smiling Tanzanians, children and adults beckoning, wherever tourism didn’t spread its wings. To be fair, we saw only a small fraction of Tanzania. Big areas are undeveloped and are used as grassland by the Massai. You can charter an airplane and visit other remote national parks, for example on the border to Kenia or Uganda. People are living there as well, sometimes so remote that there is a flying doctor service just like in Australia.
This life, away from everything, is something that we as Germans cannot imagine. Without electricity, without TV, no phone, cut off from any technological development. What you have in these villages though is religion aplenty. It’s primarily Muslims and Christians, the traditional religions play a minor role. As far as we could tell during our short stay, we didn’t perceive tensions between the different religious communities and were able to move freely. Sometimes Tanzania reminded us of Iran 😊
Did we like Tanzania? Absolutely. It was a perfect country for having a peek in Africa. On our next around the world trip we’ll surely have the guts to visit a less touristy country in Africa.
And now we let the Tanzanians have their say:
“Muslims and Christians live peacefully together in Tanzania.” Tony from Arusha
“Our president is crazy. Let’s see how it goes with this government.” Charles from Dar Es Salaam.
“I like the mountains, they provide me with good income and tips.” Tony from Arusha
“We have a lot of police controls around here. But what can you do, it’s Tanzania.” Mustafa from Dar Es Salaam
“Your Europeans always come to visit my country. I’d like to come to your country, too.”
We say goodbye with two songs…
