The Road to Dar es Salaam

Hello Blog!  Been a while.

The thing about living and working in a different country is just that… you live and work…. Once you get used to it, it’s not that exciting, and certainly not exciting enough to blog about!  Today I went to work, understood  few words of kiswahili, did some work, then went home.  Yesterday I went to the market, bought some tomatoes, then went home! 

However now I do have something to write about as I’ve just got back from a short trip to Zanzibar, and writing about that will make you all very jealous ;)

Firstly let me tell you about the road to Dar-es-Salaam..  

There is only one road running north-south along the east coast.  It’s about 450km from Lindi to Dar es salaam.. and to get to Lindi from my village I have to travel East for about 80km, so a total distance of over 500km. (over 300 miles) Which should not be a problem.. just like driving from Bournemouth to say Leeds. –should take less than 5 hours travelling at a reasonable speed on decent roads.    Yes, decent roads.  A thing that Tanzania seems to lack……….

I was travelling in the hospital vehicle, as it was taking some of the hospital staff and Sisters from the convent to a conference in Dar es salaam so I blagged a lift.  I knew it was going to be a long trip when after only 20 minutes of driving out of the village the road was closed for works, and traffic diverted along a dirt track alongside.  A lorry had jack knifed on this dirt track, blocked it completely and was in the process of being dug out by hand.  A traffic jam was forming (2 lorrys and 3 busses) and lots of people were stood watching, including the guys who were supposed to be working on the main road.  Nobody was moving until the lorry was out!

Thankfully I was in the Hospital Toyota Landcruiser.. a beast of a 4x4 with the awesome Mr Erick at the wheel.  He got out, had a little wander up the dirt track, stopped to think then got back in the cab, switched to off road mode, drove up a 40 degree slope, turned along the crest, drove at an angle that had me hanging onto the overhead handgrip for dear life, down the hill beeping his horn to scatter the people stood round the stuck lorry, through a gap between the lorry and a bus that had me breathing in to help us get through, up another bank, knocked a tree down and drove over it, and back on the tarmac the other side of the diversion!  Respect Mr Erick!!   Jealous looking faces from the people stuck on the busses, and on we went!

It’s a tarmac road to Lindi, nice and fast (although you do need to avoid animals/children/people on bicycles carrying animals/children/coconuts/charcoal/wood/other bikes and everything else ), and North from Lindi, the road is good and wide, and is fairly easy to overatake the slow moving lorries, slowing only to pass through the many villages en-route.  Fairly easy going for another 100km.

I'm sure he can fit some more on there

Then the road stops.

                    Just stops.

  It has not been built yet.  – it looks like it has been started.  There is a foundation, some drainage pipes in places, and in two places there are concrete supports for a bridge.  But no bridges. 

Instead, you are forced to drive on a dirt/sand track alongside the “road”, full of bumps and holes and patches of loose sand and lots of dust.  Not many vehicles use the road.  Those that do are either very slow lorries, very hard to overtake on a narrow sandy track; insane 4x4 drivers going fast and kicking up dust; or the trans-country coaches driving at INSANE speed, almost getting airborne on the bumps and creating a dust cloud thicker than that Icelandic volcano nobody could pronounce. 

Trans-country coach.  Mentalists

  

    There’s no 50mph limit with average speed cameras, no contra-flow, no traffic cones, no temporary cat-eyes, no convoy system in place, or any of the luxuries found in UK roadworks.  However like all good roadworks worldwide, there were a few men in flo-jackets standing around or leaning on shovels, and I did see a couple of roller-machines and a tarmac layer, but they were not moving. 

And so it continues, being thrown around the back of a Toyota Landcruiser for about 90 minutes, to cover a distance of about 60km.  Bumps, holes and dust.   At some points I was airborne and flying towards one of the Sisters, other times I thought I may have broken my coccyx after being slammed back onto the not very padded bench seats.   Windows closed because of the dust, so starting to roast in the 30+ degree Tanzanian sunshine.   All the while, Mr Erick smiling like a man possessed!

Then the black at the end of the dust.. tarmac!  What a relief… everyone adjusts themselves, stops hanging on for dear life opens the windows and breathes!

Then it starts again!  This time is more frustrating as there is a complete road, tarmacked and looking lovely just alongside the sandy track.  However it seems the Ministry of Transport were not happy with the quality of the road, and have ordered it to be ripped up and replaced.    Seeing as it has taken the best part of 10 years to not yet finish the road, I do not want to guess how long it will take to rebuild this section. 

 

In the rainy season the track becomes a mud-fest.  It is virtually impassable.  Where the bridge supports are built are where rivers run in the rainy season but there are no bridges built, so you have to ford the rivers!  There are rumours of locals diverting unwary vehicles around a puddle of mud saying it is impassable, towards an even worse mud pool where they get stuck and looted!  Cars, lorries and busses often get stuck in the mire, and block the road for all other traffic.  Chaos!

Once past the bad road it’s all fairly plain sailing until you get to within 40 miles of Dar, and then it’s a traffic jam all the way into the city, another couple of hours to travel not very far! 

Total distance approx. 500km, 300miles.   Total time taken 10 hours.  Number of bruised butt cheeks 2.  Number of minutes taken to drink the first beer upon arrival in Dar es salaam 5.  

Once the road is completed it will open up the whole of southern Tanzania to the rest of the country.  It will enable the southern farmers to reach new markets in the northern cities, enable the efficient transport of people and materials to the newly discovered oil and gas deposits in Mtwara, improve tourism to the southern Game reserves, and generally be huge step towards increasing prosperity and relieving poverty in the area.   So why has it taken 10 years to not finish it? .. This is Tanzania !   

 oh yeah, I was going to tell you about Zanzibar..... well that's another post!