who buys all the apples – foleni No I

traffic is harsh in dar es salaam. and almost everybody is complaining once in a while about getting stuck in traffic jams (some rather frequently). from wazungu you can hear sometimes weird theories about the reasons of these jams. one of my favorite is to blame it all on the daladala drivers (minibuses): ‘ they don’t give a shit, stop in the middle of everything to let passengers enter and get off and blocking the road. and they drive like maniacs. pushing after every stop back into traffic no mater what´s going on around them, driving to fast and reckless and causing accidents.’ yes i do agree with most of it. but most of all i feel sorry for the passengers, because it’s fucking hot in there, you are squeezed between lots of sweating people, the busses are old, uncomfortable, only when your are lucky you get a seat and on top of all that the conductor might insult you for not having the 250 schilingi ready. but ok, he is doing a 14 hours shift in 32 degrees.

i am really thankful that i am not dependant anymore on public transport and i know lots of the expats around have never used it – i think that should be obligatory, just to know what it’s all about. but still i keep hearing the story about the bad drivers causing the traffic jams – till now i never asked, what do you think would happen of all this people could afford buying a car and would contribute to the daily chaos. i didn’t because i thought that’s too obvious. they must have thought about it. there are just so many cars  and actually everybody can be glad, that the overwhelming majority is just too poor to buy a car. otherwise traffic would entirely collapse and the lucky car owners would have to walk the 10 km from mbezi beach to the city center or better camp over the week in their office.

i got a little bit of  track because this is about traffic jams. hata mimi – i  think they are very annoying and i wonder, why there aren’t more people loosing patience, run riot or just leave their car where it is. personally i decided that a motorbike is the best mean to move in this city – even though a little dangerous, it is terrific. i really do love biking in dar but sometimes for work i can’t avoid using my duty car, even in the unpleasant rush hour and get stuck in traffic. at some stage i got tempted to buy something. you can buy anything on the road.  i always wondered who is buying all the stuff offered but there has to be a market, otherways the crowds trying to sell things would not make sense. specially apples! there are far too many apple-sellers and i never saw anybody buying one.

first thing i bought was a mosquito racket. i really wanted and needed one. than a long time nothing. than plastic containers. i had seen them at a friend’s place and wanted them as well.

but one afternoon when i got stuck badly i bought a yellow plastic elephant with a little plastic elephant on top and above all an umbrella. if you pull the string at the bum of the elephant he runs and the umbrella with the green plastic things turns.

that didn’t make any sense and it was the first step towards getting addicted. the elephant was followed by cups, a machete … and finally also apples. the last think a bought was a little plastic combat helicopter, hanging in my car now. if you push it on a table the rotor blades would turn.  i wonder whats coming next. i heard that there are also aquariums with living goldfish sold on the street. and i seriously hope that i will never be tempted and will have to withstand that seduction.