MITTERAND OKORIE goes on holiday in Tanzania and gets a warm welcome in the socialist country, right from the taxi driver.
He shuns the Oyster Bay zone of exotic streets for a feel of the locals.
The atmosphere is humid but there is nothing strange about this at all. Certainly not for me. If anything, it reminds me of the many times I landed at Ercan Airport in North Cyprus as an undergraduate.
I am just happy to have finally reached my destination, after what has been a long and tortuous journey.
Hassles in Abuja
In Abuja, where it all begins, I have been nearly harassed like a common thief. All airport authorities seem to cast incredulous gazes at me.
I can’t tell why the sight of a young, well-dressed Nigerian heading to Tanzania for a two-week holiday attracts so much interest.
My bag is ransacked to check for any trace of hard drugs, and just before I make my way to the waiting lounge, some officers of the NDLEA (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency) check me into a room where those suspected of trafficking drugs are x-rayed.
“Are you going for an official journey?” one asks.
It is, to me, a very stupid question and I do not border to respond.
“Why are you going to Tanzania?” he rephrases.
“Holiday, sir.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a businessman. I work in my dad’s company as his personal assistant. We import used trucks from Europe and sell in Nigeria.”
They continue to gaze at me with a curiosity that gets me seriously peeved. I begin to wonder what is strange about anything I said. That I am off to a two-week vacation? That I am a businessman, or that I am too young to afford either status?
It is easy to assume a mentality of wretchedness is at play for them, given their demeanour. But they are men who earn decent wages, so it is a case of being annoyingly uncultured.
I have been to a handful of international airports, but only in the ones in my own country do I suffer such abrasive heckling.
Cabbie in Dar es Salaam
In Dar es Salaam, the cab man skids off the asphalt over to the dusty pedestrian path. The car bounces against the potholes as he tries to manoeuvre against the traffic.
“I’m sorry about that” he says. “Dar has a very terrible traffic and we would not arrive early if I don’t do this.”
It is obvious he has mistaken my shock for censure whereas it is only a moment of discovery. They break traffic rules everywhere in Africa!
I find it interesting how traffic wardens are stationed beneath dysfunctional traffic lights. What is the cost of simply repairing them?
Just like in Nigeria, I see in Addis Ababa, and now here, that these wardens, despite their best efforts, are often undone by an army of unruly and impatient motorists.
As we drive on, the cab man, who has now introduced himself as John, takes time to point out the important buildings or places he thinks I should know in Dar city centre.
With the state of the roads, the hawkers on the streets, the rickety tricycles, a picture of the political situation in the country is already beginning to form in my mind.
But since John looks pretty excited for a conversation, I ask him what he thinks about the political leaders in his country.
“Thieves. They are all thieves!”
“I often thought corruption was only rife in my country, and that most other African countries where better off …” I reply, goading him to say more.
“No!!! Here… I think here is the worst.”
As we arrive the hotel, a cosy bungalow apartment with a serene beer garden, John hands me his card. I flip to the other side and I see he’s also a real estate agent. I smile.
Everyone in Abuja is a property agent, too – from penthouse office bosses down to roadside vulcanizers.
I pay him 45,000 Tanzanian Shillings; 5,000 more than the agreed price for being excellent company.
Proper welcome to the city
My friend Kay arrives in the evening to take me out and gives me a proper welcome to the city.
When I had told him a week before my arrival of where I found a budget hotel with a gym and swimming pool – a place called Manzese, he had screamed in horror.
“You can’t stay there, Mitt!” “I don’t think it’s very safe. Street gangs are rife over there. Please, I’d recommend somewhere else for you, tell me exactly what your budget is.”
Kay is one of the managers at the Double Tree Hilton Dar es Salaam and well versed in his country’s tourism and hospitality sector.
I arrive Msasani village, move around, and come to understand exactly why he recommended it. Coco Beach is less than 10 minutes away, my own hotel has been just overlooking the Hilton.
This is Oyster Bay zone, which features exotic streets and an array of foreign commissions.
The Double Tree Hilton is magnificent, especially at night – when the outdoor dinner tables are lit with candle lights as they overlook the shore of the Indian Ocean.
Kay brings back the Manzese discussion.
“If you were in Manzese now, I swear bro, you’d be crapping in your pants”, he says and then laughs heartily.
I smile and tell him how much I’ve grown aloof to such stories of violent neighbourhoods, and how exaggerated I find them.
I have lived in Catford, Elephant & Castle, and New Cross. All three are among London’s notorious areas; yet despite staying in these places for a year, only on one occasion did I see someone get stabbed with my own eyes.
I am, however, very pleased to be in that part of Dar, where, remarkably, and to my utmost surprise, every restaurant, chicken & chips stall or beer parlour has high-speed WiFi.
It’ll be a miracle to get free high-speed WiFi in most of Abuja’s three or four star hotels let alone bars or restaurants.
• Okorie lectures in peace and conflict resolution at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. His book All That Was Bright and Ugly is expected to be published this year.