chased out of Tanga, enjoying Dar
It is a regular morning on our own almost private compound near Tanga. Doing our morning rituals, we meditate for about an hour, lift 200 Lbs. just for fun and discuss the bibliography of Nietzsche, which we read the previous evening. When Marten tries to make a religious point, Audrey calls. Audrey fed us a couple of times, does our laundrey now and then and is the head of catering at TangaFresh. Worried she tries to explain to us that we’d better didn’t show up near the city, cause immigration is looking for us. This sounds like a well deserved break from normality and we hurry ourself to the city. Indeed, an hour later, we encounter an immigration officer who tells us we are lucky he doesn’t throw us in jail. Instead of the humble apologies he expects as being an operator for the authorities, we reply with typical Dutch bluntness. ‘This is not true,’ we say, ‘you can’t arrest us for being in an office.’. ‘Can too, you can’t work on a tourist visa!’, the officer replies. ‘Can not,’ we say in our turn, ‘we were not working.’ The man agrees reluctantly but insists that whenever he sees us again in an office behind a desk, he has all the right to throw us in the pen. Barely being able to keep our laughs, we again tell him this is ridiculous. Tanzania does not prevent us from reading our email, right? The man of the law shrugs a bit and closes the door behind him. We look at eachother and find that we handled this pretty smooth, although we’re a bit disappointed none of us were to see a Tanzanian prison from the inside.
Obviously we are not longer wanted in Tanga. We celebrated Henk’s 26th here, rewarding ourselves with a Dutch cigar from the box we still have from The Netherlands and Tanga is not much fun besides a handful really nice people and a frustrated immigrationman. Taken all this in account and the fact there is much more to Tanzania, we decide to drive on. Many a townsman, and mainly women, shed a few tears as we head of in to the wild, willingly to face ferocious animals, fight dozens of outlaws and mingle with albino cannibals to save our own hides. We didn’t count on the perfectly tarmacked road though, which left all previous possibilities untouched; two days later we park somewhere in a backalley of the capital Dar es Salaam, it is from here where we will decide what our next plan will be.
Walking and talking in Dar es Salaam
Discussing the countless possibilities we have in this beautiful land, we walk the streets of this city. It is typical to Eastern Africa; between Western feeling high buildings, the old more village like alleys are still the center of the cities life. Get your shoe fixed in one narrow alley, walk a bit further under the stainless steel and plastic plates and you can buy a coke for a couple of Shilling. When you walk in to a sudden warm and pleasant smell but aren’t able to figure where this restaurant must be, turn from the sidewalk in a narrow muddy corner and you’re sure to find a local ‘mama’ cooking on a little heap of charcoal and handing out food to businessmen and bums, sitting next to each other on a concrete slab, in exchange for some petty money. This is where we feel good, this is where we eat, this is where our flip-flops are fixed and this is where we have our little meetings while zipping from an ice cold soda. The African mentality of everything on its time is bound to take a grip in your head, even when you are a young and restless traveler like us.
Walking back to our car after a day in this town, its night already; the streets become quiet, shady people come out yet we feel fine, we encounter May. A guy who claims to have met us before. Likely, cause he can name the places we visited, unlikely regarding our unreliable schedule of riding back and forth, spending too much time about everywhere. Anyway, we invite him for a cop of tea and there his story begins.
This man was with four fellow Caribbean men in an airplane, when the plane exploded and Indiana Jones here was forced to use his parachute. He was in the plane because he was employed by the American government yet, he was not enlisted, nor was his name to be found on any payroll. It was some kind of secret thing. We already lost most of our attention, but the guy went on; he had used The Secret to hear voices from over two miles away, could see through other peoples eyes, made his body grow by the very power of his mind and even made himself look younger by retracting the hairs on his arms. All by using the law of attraction. Somehow, us eradicating the fundamentals of this theory does not seem to bother May, as if we’re not there.
Amusing, but what an idiot. A couple of minutes went by and of course at the end, May was directing his monologue to the point that he needed transportation to the south. Unfortunately, we did not trust him, nor did we head south, so he asked for money for the bus-ride. We sighed, said ‘No’, saw the guy walk away and headed for our own bunk, safe in our Doutzen.
The next day we walk through the city as if it is ours, we’re confident and ready to get what we came for. For guys who own a city, spending three days to get Minne to a dentist, acquire a V-belt and some canvas for our yet to be designed home made bed is quite much. But as already told, we take everything ‘pole-pole’ and actually, three days in a city is a new record for us; normally we spend about a month in cities like this, desperately trying to find out where that one shop was before. So, after a couple of nights, we drive to the cliffs, enjoy the warm nights and get ready for the next thousands of miles.
Tags: Dar es Salaam, immigration, tanga, tanzania, The Secret
