Reflecting on Tanzania
Sarah | January 22nd, 2012I apologize for the length of this. You don’t have to read it.
I’ve been dreading writing this post, not looking forward to finding the words to communicate my feelings and sentiments about our time in Africa. Since many people reading this may not have the opportunity to travel to Africa in their lifetime, I feel as though it is my responsibility to ensure that I don’t encourage stereotypes or skew people’s ideas of African countries in a negative way. At the same time, our experience of Tanzania was quite different than what I expected and if you see where I’m going with this, it wasn’t exactly different in a good way…
Before arriving, I expected that Tanzania would be an impoverished country, obviously. I didn’t expect there would be much in the way of infrastructure and I expected the people to be friendly. You know how the movies often portray rural African communities where everyone is smiling and the kids are running after you eager to have their picture taken, I expected a people of bubbly disposition (if you will 
) Driving though Tanzania I was correct about my first two assumptions. Similarly to Sri Lanka, Nepal and India, the people of Tanzania were dirt poor. The only buildings that we saw that were over two storeys were hotels, and furthermore, most of the buildings that we saw were makeshift shacks with dirt floors. This did not surprise me, I had expected as much.
What surprised me were the people. Although the previous countries mentioned contained a local population that was extremely impoverished, the people still remained friendly and welcoming. They made you know that they were happy to have you visiting their country and they were often excited to meet us, and figure out where we came from. Tanzania is the first country where this has not been the case.
As we drove through towns with our windows down taking in the sights and the culture we were greeted with seemingly hostile eyes. Although there were a couple who waved or smiled, the vast majority glared, not even smiling back. From the expressions on the faces we saw it was so hard to tell whether they looked at us with resentment or indifference. Honestly speaking, if tables were turned and I was born into a village in Africa with nothing to speak of and every day I saw loads of Land Rovers full of rich white folk drive through paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars to see some animals nearby while I’m worried about feeding my family that day… well I’d likely have some pretty bitter, hostile eyes too.
The fact remains though that we’ve visited countries where people are just as poor, but they were still friendly.
The locals that we did interact with were only friendly on a superficial level. They would start some banter asking your name, where you’re from, and then they would proceed to tell you about their shop or simply ask for money. If you were talking to a child and you told them that you’d got no money to give, they’d inform you that they’d gladly take sweets! ☺ Our safari driver Martin was the exception to this rule. I mean it’s obviously his job to be helpful and friendly, not to mention smart of him to do if he wants a good tip, however I truly believe that Martin was genuinely sincere and wasn’t forming his entire character in a way to get more money out of us.
Speaking of character or lack there of, here’s another story. While in Zanzibar all of us had times when we didn’t feel that good, some more than others… It was never clear whether it was side effects from the malaria pills or the aftermath from a meal we had eaten. On our second last day, I went into our mini fridge and pulled out a brand new bottle of water that we had purchased at a mini general store on the beach. As I’m about to open the bottle I realize that the cap is not sealed. I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face (while I’m also instantly so happy that we’ve been vaccinated). It would seem that the man that we’d been buying snacks and beverages from had been selling us tap water as well. We knew that we had opened sealed bottles in the past, but realized at that moment that we could have accidently consumed some African water over the past couple of days. It sounds idiotic that we could be so stupid to not notice that our water wasn’t sealed. I suppose we had been taking human decency for granted, something that we really shouldn’t have done in a country where so many people are so desperate for a buck.
Another myth buster: Shopping in Tanzania is not cheap. Here I expected to find all kinds of cool things for good deals, I mean, its Africa after all. Fact: vendors will start with a price that could be 10x (if not more) the real price of the object, because now and then oblivious tourists will hand over the cash at the first price. I’ve never bargained so hard in my life… I say this but I need to elaborate… Usually I enjoy bargaining a little, or at least I don’t usually mind it but shopping in Tanzania was so frustrating because they started their prices so high for everything that it was daunting to have to get them to come down far enough for the purchase to be worth it. Having just gone to Global Village in Dubai and having looked around the Africa kiosks (where everything there comes directly from Kenya and Tanzania) I knew what things should cost, I knew my “last price” was a fair one, but boy was it difficult to get it there. I’m just going to stop here, no point in ranting, though I could.
Zanzibar is a lovely area. The beach we were at was certainly the nicest beach I’ve ever been to with nearly white sand and pristine aquamarine water that you can see straight though. Our rooms were decent and with AC. The weather was lovely. Hot but lovely. And even with all of this we felt a little let down. At the risk of sounding extremely spoiled I’m going to be honest. The fact of the matter is that our resort wasn’t cheap. We knew that it wasn’t the classiest resort on the strip, but we had expected more than what we got. For example, there was no pool, fine we have the beautiful ocean but it would have been nice to have some lounge chairs on the beach or even an umbrella. There was not really any shade unless you went under the balconies. My parents were not provided beach towels until our second day there since the towels were all in the wash. 
The doors to our rooms had a good centimeter of space between them and the floor so there were lots of bugs in our rooms. Thankfully we had bed nets, however they didn’t keep all of the critters out! I know, I know, ‘it’s Africa!’ you say, ‘what did you expect!?’ Well, it’s just that we’ve paid less for more throughout other travels, so it was difficult to get in the proper frame of mind to simply accept that the standards in Africa are obviously lower and that prices are high because tourists will come either way.
The food. Everything we ate up until Zanzibar was pretty delicious. Good food was a little more difficult to come by on the beach… Sometimes we would order a meal, and get something quite different than what the menu read- always a fun time. One afternoon we all decided to have a salad for lunch. Skylar, Mom and I ended up ordering the same salad (there weren’t too many to choose from), it was something like, mixed greens with tomato, cucumber and poppy seed dressing, sounded simple but refreshing. First our plates came out with a sliced tomato, some cucumber slices, some cheese slices and balsamic dressing. We explained that this is not actually what we ordered, that there were no mixed greens to be seen and that the dressing was incorrect. Our plates disappeared and shortly thereafter returned with only tomato and cucumber slices, some onion slices and once again the balsamic dressing. Disappointing. At dinner another night I ordered a tandoori chicken sandwich. I was pretty disappointed since it tasted incredibly bland to me. I didn’t think much of it though, since it was so far, par for the course in Zanzibar. Once the bill arrived our server told us that my sandwich was discounted since they didn’t have tandoori sauce. Why they wouldn’t inform me of this crucial fact before they proceeded to make me a crappy sandwich is beyond me.
I’m aware that this is probably coming off as a big rant, I don’t know how I always turn things into that, I’m not meaning to be so negative, I’m only trying to honestly share the experience. Our time in Karatu and Arusha was so enjoyable. Our accommodations were clean, comfortable and cozy. The food at our lodges was delicious and the customer service was spectacular. The two days of safari were definitely the highlight of the trip; it was so fabulous experiencing the beautiful nature that Tanzania has to offer. All things said Africa was amazing. Tanzania’s landscape, as you’ve seen from our pictures is stunning. Seeing so much of God’s creation up close and personal was a phenomenal experience that we’re never going to forget. Beaches won’t compare to Zanzibar (I’m still hopeful that we’ll get to see the French Polynesia one day, but until then…) And, having the opportunity to see and experience all that we did with none other than my parents was such an incredible treat! If we could do it all again we would, however we’d likely be a little more careful about where we purchase our bottled water.
