Out of Africa
Jambo friends!
It’s been about a month since I last wrote. Time flies when you’re travelling! Even in Africa, although African minutes seem to last longer than European ones. Everything here goes polle polle, slowly, and people’s motto is: hakuna matata, no worries. Yes, just like in the Lion King. And in order to enjoy and survive Africa, one cannot do without a bit of a hakuna matata attitude.
The best example of this is traffic. Theoretically, they drive on the left. In reality, they drive where ever they feel like driving. The roads are often in an awkward state, full of potholes and cracks, not to mention the widespread total absence of any form of tarmac. In addition the drivers, especially in buses, are dangerous psychopaths who don’t care about the other traffic or passengers. One of the most common forms of public transport are minivans that are called matatu in Kenya, taxi in Uganda and Dalla-dalla here in Tanzania. Those minivans are designed to seat about 12, max 14 people, but the more people, the more money, so you just put four persons in a row instead of three, cram a couple on top and let another five or so hang out of the open door, and you can easily fit 29 in there. Including luggage. Even with so many inside (and half outside) the drivers still speed up to 120 km on those potholed roads… serious accidents are frequent. But since there is no real alternative for the budget traveller, I have used them often and so far came out alive. There is no real surviving strategy other than hakuna matata, and trying to choose vans that do not have names like ’stairway to heaven’, ‘total eclipse’ or ‘titanic II’.
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