Today was our last full day in Dar es Salaam, the former capital and largest city of Tanzania. The jetlag had finally caught up to us and after a slow start to our day, Katie, Nathan, and I decided to head to into the city and enjoy our last day before heading to Kisarawe. Our new taxi driver friend Rizzifi took us to Kariakoo Market first, which is a popular shopping area for locals, filled with anything you could possibly imagine. I guess not a ton of mzungus come through because everywhere we walked we heard “Mambo! Mambo Raffiki!” (How are you! How are you friend!). There were stacks and stacks of baskets with intricate designs, everyday home goods like cooking utensils, tall lumps of colorful jumbled up clothing, rows and rows of shoes, pyramids of varying fruits, and so much more!
We probably could have spent hours just walking around, but we stumbled into a young man named Frances, who used to be a city bus driver. He seemed really friendly and enthusiastic about practicing his English, so he showed us how to ride the city buses (which are SO much cheaper than taking taxis everywhere, 400 TZS vs 2500 TZS), and we headed to the Mwenge Woodcarver’s Market. Frances took the role of tour guide, pointing out landmarks like the French and American embassies on the bumpy bus ride and attempting to teach me more Swahili on the way. While famous for their intricately carved wooden animals, boxes, and statues, Mwenge also has large assortments of colorful scarves and dresses, paintings, and pottery. About an hour in, it started to rain (rainy season is still not quite over yet!) and so we said our goodbyes to Frances and headed back to the hotel. By this time we were all starving after completely forgetting to eat lunch, so we had an early dinner at the hotel (mishkaki) and headed back to our rooms to pack and get ready for tomorrow.
Tomorrow we are heading to Muhumbili Hospital in Dar in the morning to meet with Claire and Stephanie, who will accompany us to Kisarawe, about an hour or hour car ride and help us get settled for the next few weeks and get us acquainted with the hospital staff.
Cheers from TZ,
~Irene
