Getting around Dar es Salaam is a challenge. The population of the metropolitan area is estimated at eight million and growing at about five per cent a year. The problem is that, apart from the downtown area and a couple of new business districts, most of it is low-rise, two or three-story commercial buildings and many one-story homes and stores. The city sprawls north and south along the coast, with smart upscale suburbs with well-maintained roads alternating with poorer districts with unsurfaced dirt roads.
Even in the downtown area, many streets don’t have signs (or if they once had them, somebody stole them to sell for scrap). Addresses are, well, a bit vague, with locations identified by plot and house number or more commonly by landmark such as, “near the ODL Tower.” “opposite the regional tax office” or “behind the barbecue restaurant.” I’ve experienced locational dysfunction before, in India, Bangladesh, and Mongolia, but it makes planning your route for the day a challenging exercise. GPS can help but sometimes you get what I’ll call a digital shrug, which means you’re close, but the place is down one of those unnamed dirt side roads.
Most days, I’ve had to be at four or five different places, mostly universities and colleges. Fortunately, I’ve had Iddi Hassan, a staff member from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam and a PhD candidate, with me all week. Not only to do the driving, but to figure out where I need to be when we get to a building with no signage or faculty names on doors. There’s usually a security person signing you in, but sometimes they don’t know. So Iddi has done a lot of speculative door knocking. Most people are friendly and willing to help, but Tanzania campuses are confusing places.
Iddi has been skillful at weaving his way through congested areas where drivers pull out or cross lanes without warning. Most people commute or get around on the dala dala, small buses with lots of dents and names such as “Fast Bus” or “The Dictator.” For short trips, people use a bajaj, the three-wheel motorcycle taxi (known as tuk-tuk in Asia). The fastest form of transport is the boda boda, a motorcycle taxi that carries two passengers or transports merchandise. Too risky for me.
Outside the city center, broad highways lead in all directions. The city has built bus-only lanes (but restricted to city buses, no dala dala allowed) to relieve congestion, and it’s made a difference. However, where these lanes are under construction, there’s always congestion. On the broad highways, there are speed bumps, especially at the pedestrian crossings to the huge bus shelters. The roads remain dangerous, especially at intersections, but it’s clear the city government is doing what it can to combat driving culture.
The bajaj come in a rainbow of colors, red, green, blue, pink, orange and probably others. The drivers earn a little extra income by carrying ads on the rear, often for shops, beauty salons, restaurants and, in this case, for a musician.
I’ve taken a few rides, the first with an uninvited tour guide who hopped in beside me as I was leaving the port area, gave me a few facts about the city that I could have Googled, and then demanded a fee. I politely refused.