A Dispatch from Dar es Salaam

Greetings from Dar es Salaam - "Week One" of the month of our February-long stay in this East African country. We arrived here on Saturday safely and, perhaps more surprisingly, on-time in our hitch-free trip from Maseru via Johannesburg. Our Guest House sits on top of a, shall we say, "lively" bar just near Coco Beach - "Dar's" main upscale beach in the more tony Msasani penninsula at the north part iof the city. For those Canadians beating back what sounds like a ghard winter coast-to-coast, we cannot expect much sympathy when I tell you that it is absolutely sweltering here - probably 35 Degrees + with humidity - probably a good preparation for India which is next up on the "If not now, when" Tour . Yesterday, we spent a wonderful afternoon watching some African big band "jazz" music in an outdoors social club grounds. We got there at 3:30 and watched two very lively bands playing- under a canopy of lush, leafy trees. The music was a mesmerizing mix of horns, spectacular dancers, twangy, high-pitched guitars on full reverb, effortlessly harmonious singers, wild drums all stirred together into songs that seemed to spin on and on and on until they magically changed into another tune. Strangely enough, the crowd of several hundred seemed quite subdued. Patty and I seemed to be among the few tapping our feet to the incendiary rhythms. A selection of cold beer was avaiolable on site to wash down a selection of slightly suspect (and perhaps wisely untried!) grilled meats and freshly roasted cashews. When we left at 6:00 I got the sense that the music was just warming up and probably would go well past midnight. Dined at Coco Beach on fresh fish right on top of the India ocean surf in a thatched taverna.

Dar es Salaam is a big, bustling African city of 4 million - full of street hawkers, bicycles laden down with all sorts of stuff like chicken cages, banana baskets and piles of egg flat crates. Compared to South Africa, Tanzania (so far) has a much more lade back feel. Disney aficionados will recognize the Tanzanian Swahili phrase - Hakuna Matata - "no worries" heard often from the locals. As we've come to expect in Africa, as the Western world apparently melts down in a finanacial crisis, this stuiff is so far of the radar screen in one of the poorest countries in the world. Instaed, everyone seems madly pre-occupied with English premier League soccer with taxis and buses festooned with slogans and team colours of such not-so-local teams as Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea. In Tanzania, English football results and pictures make it on to the front page of the daily papers (although I must also add, to my amazement, I read a report about a Boston Bruin - New York Rangers NHL game in the paper as well). We will be here for a couple of days more as we wait for our visas to India - then off to do some quality beach reserach in Zanzibar. Hakuna Matata all !