Tona's Daily Wheels

So, you couldn't pay me enough ever to drive here myself. For one thing, it's on the wrong side of the road. But I think I could get used to that. For another thing, it's like a constant road rally. Looking out the front windshield is like watching a video game, with obstacles leaping up from the road: potholes big enough to put a goat into, bicycles with huge loads of cornstalks on the back, pedestrians diving into the road, little buses, trucks spewing black exhaust and taking up more than half the road, etc. Usually I just close my eyes or look out the side window.

But to get to the preschool some 7 km away, I need wheels.

One of the other volunteers (Grace, in fact), recommended a driver she said was reliable and reasonable. I called him out of the blue and asked him to pick us up one morning, and we liked him so much that we asked him to be our regular ride to the school in the morning. His name's Sedik, and he has the world's coolest Rasta hat.



He plays Bob Marley in the car. He's got the cleanest, tricked-out Toyota minivan in Moshi, and he's really really nice. He said he would drive us for 4000 TSh (about $3 a day). He's busy, has a car in addition to the van and lots of clients. One time he couldn't drive, and his wife drove instead. We got pulled over for a stop at the police checkpoint and when they saw who was in the car with her, they just waved her on. She said it was because she was wearing a hat similar to Sedik's and that they must have thought it was him. She said they will stop him just to talk, or to ask for money for tea. She says if they pull her over she pretends not to speak Swahili. That's usually my feint too.

In the afternoons, we fend for ourselves on public transportation, since it's not consistent where we have to go - sometimes to Moshi center for lunch, sometimes to KCMC, sometimes another place. So we take the local "bus" - using the word very loosely - called the dalla-dalla.



Dalla-dallas are Toyota vans, supposed to be 14 passenger, but all of them, to a one, are a) falling apart, and b) routinely carry 28, 29, 30 people or more. They cost 250 THs per person, so the four of us hand over a 1000-TSh bill each time we ride (about 75 cents). They are the world's most battered vehicles - each one is individualized with a name or a saying on the windshield or pictures glued to the windows - usually something like "God Help Us" or a catchy nickname. We have gotten to know some of them on the routes we travel - there's the Hailie Salassie one, and the Che Guevara one among others. The sliding door is maintained by the tout, who sort of rides the door and holds it open or closed, as needed (since the door rarely latches well) and hangs out the side window calling out the route name to the people on the roadside to see if they can drum up any additional riders. Then at some point in the ride, he reaches around everyone clinking the money asking for the fare, and makes the change. Standing, technically, is free, and we usually stand since it's very rare for 4 seats to be open on a dalla-dalla - but we usually pay anyway. Then it goes along, stopping frequently or whenever someone asks for "shusha" (dropoff), beeping its horn as it swings in and out of traffic. Despite how it sounds, they've been very safe (and cheap) to travel in, albeit ridiculously crowded, hot, and something of an adventure.



It seems rude to take a picture while on one, since we're in tremendously close quarters with so many people (and we've never seen another Muzungu on one), but I did manage to snap this one without being obvious, catching the fancy ceiling, the burned-out door, and the general vibe inside of a dalla-dalla. That's my daily ride.