We got through midterms, nothing too stressful, but it was very hard to be motivated to study for them. I’m confident everyone did okay, but I noticed a bit of reluctance to give a hundred percent when studying; I did indeed do some studying though. The environment here is in itself a learning experience and hasn’t failed to continue to be interesting. Classes here are clearly a focus of our experience, but there is a tendency for them to exist on the side when you’re studying abroad in a foreign and exciting place with many new faces and friends. I’ve decided that there is more to gain from my experience if I continue to engross myself in local life in Arusha and enjoy my time, as long as I pass my classes. So far it’s looking like A’s and B’s.
So, as a reward for making it to the midpoint of our stay in Tanzania, our program organized a week long excursion to Kigamboni and Bagamoyo on the coast. Kigamboni is a part of the city of Dar es Salaam, but we didn’t really see any of the city, we just drove through the outskirts to get to the ferry that took us across the channel to Kigamboni. However, even in the part of the city where we were driving through, people were everywhere. Dar is crowded, and huge. I may have to go back to get the real Dar experience, and it will most likely be crazy and hectic. Driving our bus onto a ferry that was packed with vehicles and people was an interesting experience. I’m sure they don’t really regulate the amount of passengers that go aboard the ferry, and as we were pulling away from the shore, people were still running to jump on. Kigamboni isn’t an island, but from where we were, it was easiest to get there by crossing the water. It was pretty hectic getting off the ferry. As I predicted, there was no order to offloading passengers. As soon as the ferry landed cars and people began to make their way up the ramp simultaneously. In addition to this chaos, the traffic of cars trying to board the ferry slowed everything down. People were apparently so impatient or unaware on the other side. For a stretch of road both lanes were blocked by oncoming traffic. We finally got through after cars backed up and understood the obvious situation. It took at least an hour to go about 8 kilometers. I’m pretty sure that leaving the ferry is not usually so complicated by such disorganization and there may have been another factor I wasn't aware of that influenced the chaos. We finally arrived at Kipepeo (butterfly) resort at night and couldn’t really tell what the environment was like. We walked out to the beach after dinner and couldn’t tell what color the water was, and the lights we saw out over the water we thought were lights on land across a bay or something. When we woke up the next morning and walked out to the beach, I saw one of the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen. The water was a brilliant light blue and was so clear. In the distance were a few small islands. I found out later that the lights we saw the previous night were from fishing vessels; apparently they use lights to attract fish to the surface. It’s surprising to know that this beach that seemed so secluded is right next to a huge city of over 3 million. Apparently the water is so clean because there is no industrial pollution in this part and the water doesn’t collect in an inlet to trap any pollutants either. That day we sailed on a small dhow to one of the islands called Inner Sinda. The other island directly behind it is called Outer Sinda, and it is mostly inaccessible by boat because of the rock shoreline. Inner Sinda was beautiful, there we had a look at the German military ruins, took a hike to the other side of the island on a trail of razor sharp dead coral. We played in the water for a couple of hours, had lunch, picked up sea shells, and then sailed around the island a bit more before returning to Kipepeo for the rest of the day. Being in beautiful Kigamboni was definitely a highlight of the trip, but we didn’t get to stay there long enough.
The next morning we left early to Bagamoyo, a small fishing town that is quite poor, filled with art, and has a long and significant history involved in the slave trade. There in Bagamoyo we visited old Islamic Kaole ruins from the 13th century. These structures, which signify Bagamoyo’s early connection with the Islamic world, were built from coral stones. This was the first place we saw in Bagamoyo and I bashed my toe open a sharp stone. It was kind of bloody and was a huge nuisance for the rest of the week. The next place we visited was the crocodile farm. It was very small a bit sad to see the animals in such small quarters, but they are providing some income for the village through tourism and selling the skins. We later went to the historic area of the town and saw some old German forts and other structures. We walked down the narrow, brick street and visited some local shops, and visited the fish market, and then went to the chuo cha sanaa (college of art). Luckily we had good timing for our one week vacation. Generally, Bagamoyo is pretty calm and not too exciting, but there was an arts and music festival being held at the college that whole week. We saw various forms of traditional and contemporary music and dance and browsed through several art stands and bought some nice crafts. Overall, the festival is very small, but it was definitely the biggest thing for the town that week. Bagamoyo is has an interesting vibe about it. It is very poor, and it seems that many people support themselves by fishing and making art. Slavery has left a strong impression on the lifestyle of the people there. There is not really much agriculture in the area because of the resonance of slave labor. Hard agricultural work is perceived as slave labor, so the people’s lifestyles and livelihoods are not associated with labor intensive work. The whole town moves at about half the pace as Arusha and could take some getting used to. Any restaurant we went to took about 2 hours to get our food, but it was okay because nothing was pressing us for time. At night I returned to the festival to hear more music and hang out with a friend who was there from Arusha. I walked down to the main road from our hostel at the old Catholic Mission there and flagged down a pikipiki (motorcycle) taxi and rode through the historic narrow street to the the chuo cha sanaa. I had some drinks and met some interesting people. I’m not too sure how people actually sustain themselves in Bagamoyo. People seem to lack the needed work ethic to get ahead in life and you could sense the desperation amongst them. When I would return at night, there would be a crowd of people near the entrance who wanted to see the performances but were standing outside because they couldn’t afford TSh1,000 for the entry fee(a bit less than 1USD); I helped a couple friends that I made get in to see the music. By the end of the week, I think the whole group was ready to leave Bagamoyo. It’s such a small community and not terribly exciting, but extremely interesting. I was happy to have seen it and stayed there as long as we did, but I was ready to go back to Kigamboni for a few more nights. Oh well, I look forward to Zanzibar in December.
