We had our last family breakfast very early, so early that the chapattis in the café were just balls of dough when we arrived. Rosie, Ticha, and the four boys, Fredy, Pius, Sebi and Jarvah, were leaving to go to Dar es Salaam for a few days, and then home to Australia.
A new life would begin for them all there, as a new family unit with adjustments for everyone. We had so enjoyed having the chance to spend so much time with them all, and to have come to know all four of our great nephews so much better. It had been a wonderful opportunity to spend time with Ticha, and to meet his family and learn about his background and experiences. Above all, we had both come to know Rosie so much more. For me, our hours of chatting as adults together had created a bond that will always be there, on top of the love I already felt for her as my niece who I had known since she was born. We felt quite flat after the goodbye hugs and kisses, as their taxi carried them off to the Scandinavian Bus Company depot.It took only a few minutes for us to be ready, and we walked through the dusty morning streets for the last time, declining offers of taxis and trying to remember it all. Rosie had told us the sad story of a time she was leaving on a journey in northern Tanzania and bought a ticket the day before. When she went to the depot, it turned out that the bus didn’t exist, and she had been cheated. A man helped her to organise another ticket and told her that he would go to the police and try to get her money back for her. Eventually she received some of the money, and accepted that here it would be normal to keep back a little for the trouble taken.
When we arrived, the bus was there so we showed our tickets, had our luggage stashed underneath and got on. Someone was in our seat, but the man who had checked our tickets asked him to move and we sat down to wait. Another man checked our tickets again after about fifteen minutes. The bus was very late leaving, so late that we began to feel uneasy. A man in a blue shirt with a list, similar to the one that we had seen our ticket numbers written on, came and told us to get off the bus because our tickets were for the next day. He said that the bus line that we had the ticket for did not run a bus on Saturdays, and that he would help us sort out a new ticket. Keith was not happy and argued a bit, but a fellow passenger who spoke English said to us that it was correct, that the bus named on our tickets did not run today. We got off and just had time to retrieve our packs before the bus drove off.
Mr Blue Shirt listened to Keith explaining which office we had bought our tickets from, and said that he would see if he could arrange other tickets for us for today, and to wait here. Keith wanted to go with him but he was insistent that we waited while he sorted things out. After a quarter of an hour of waiting, Keith went off to the ticket office we had dealt with, being sure that we had been dumped by blue shirt. We had; I waited on and he never returned.
Meanwhile Keith went to the area where the office we had bought our tickets from was located, about 30 metres away. He found a number of men who said they would help, with each coming and going several times while he waited. Every report was, “Don’t worry. Wait here.” After half an hour one of the helpers told Keith to go with him and took him to the office of a bus company. “Wait here,” again. Whenever Keith asked what was happening and what would happen, he was told that the man we had paid the money to was ‘on his way’ and then a new ticket could be sorted out. The man with the money seemed not to be appearing in a hurry and it was nearly two hours after our scheduled departure and several buses to Tanga had left in the meantime. Keith came to get me and take me to the office he was waiting at.
Meanwhile, I had been the object to of curiosity and pity, standing for more than an hour with all our luggage, making it impossible for me to move, and never able to get on a bus and go. Two bus drivers going to Tanga offered to take us, but with Keith off somewhere and no tickets sorted, I could only thank them and wait on. Eventually Keith came back and helped to carry the luggage to where he was now waiting. Nothing seemed to be happening quickly and I knew from the bus drivers that the last buses to Tanga went at about midday. I said that maybe we should go to the police. That idea was brushed aside, after all this was the ‘government office’ we were waiting at. It didn’t look like a government office to me, so I said to Keith that we should go to the police anyway. Suddenly the men jumped into action, deciding to put us on a bus and sort the money out with the man who sold us the dud ticket later. They all knew who he was, and the secretary had agreed with all of Keith’s story.
So suddenly we were on a bus to Tanga, but not the luxury one our ticket had been for, only a local one with hard seats, luggage strapped to the top and people standing in the aisle. At least we would be on our way, and we had seats. Keith speculated that this scam made money whatever happened. If we had bought a ticket on another bus just to get out of there, the salesman would have kept the lot. As it was, by the time he had paid over for our new tickets, he would still have the difference between the cheap bus we went on and the one we had paid for, plus the suspect luggage fee. Tourists with limited time would be sitting ducks for this sort of scam. We thought that we caught sight of blue shirt before our bus left, but frankly I never wanted to see him again. We left Arusha feeling disgruntled by the dose of ripping off that we had experienced; such a different feeling to when we left the village and all the people there. Apparently Arusha has a reputation as the worst city in Tanzania for hassling and scamming tourists. The reputation appears to be well deserved.
The trip was fine, and we soon cheered up. We were very glad that we had heeded Rosie’s advice about never relying on any form of transport meeting any other form on the same day, and we had arranged our flight to Pemba for the following day. So it was not too bad to be spending the six hours driving to Tanga, past rugged bare mountains, beside villages and sisal plantations. Sisal was introduced in German colonial days as a plantation crop, and although synthetic ropes have replaced it to a large extent, we saw new plants in rows in many areas along the way. We passed Mount Kilimanjaro, but it was completely shrouded in clouds. People were sitting around in the villages, with grass roofed open shelters being filled up when it started to rain. A little girl in a butter yellow party dress ran for ages beside the bus, batting her tyre rim hoop along with a stick.
We talked a little of how we had seen the best and the worst in Tanzania, of how we had been told to expect that people in positions of community trust would milk funds, of how there was swift community justice but sometimes the weight of the punishment did not fall on the offender, and how it was a bit of a dog eat dog world. Equally, there was rich family and community life and support for people; we had witnessed the concern that teachers had for their students, way beyond the involvement that would be expected of teachers in Australia, and there was great respect for older people and education. Did people suspend their morals when they fleeced others or was that considered to be in a different sphere, a sphere of business where anything was passable? It was impossible for us to know. In any case, Keith said that he was going to take a photo of anyone who sold him a ticket in future, along with the documents that were filled in and their office, and that he would ask to see the bus schedule in writing. He planned to write to the bus company in question, since it couldn’t be good for their business to be connected with con men.
The rain was pouring down, running along in the dust like rivers, and I pitied the poor recipient of the lounge suite that was travelling up on top of the bus. We had no idea why there was a large red cross in paint on nearly all the houses, be they large cement block buildings or little mud huts. Could the power be coming through and could they be the houses that were to be connected to it? We stopped so many times, with vendors holding up rural produce for travellers to buy, and at one stop a bucket of fresh fish. No-one bought the fresh fish held up in a bucket, and since there was no wrapping in sight, I guess that travellers would have to come prepared with their own container for such a purchase.
Darkness fell, and we were gradually nearing Tanga. A rangy town, it started with some buildings and a cement factory and gradually grew to a town centre and at last the bus stop. People were milling around the bus and shouting. They were taxi drivers vying for custom. A man clinging to the side of the bus opened the window beside us. We said where we were going and he offered a price way beyond the worth of the distance. We said no and he came down to something close to reasonable. As we got off people pawed at us and shouted other offers in our faces. Keith was not sure of what was going on, not knowing the Swahili numbers, and was keen to get our luggage before it possibly disappeared, such was his level of trust after our last experience. The swarm followed us, with the man I had spoken to through the window claiming us as his. I translated all for Keith and we went with a man who was cheaper than the window man. That made for argument, and another man offered to take us for ‘nothing’, using English, but we were not that stupid. Before we got in the car that at least six arguing men led us too, Keith asked the man he had agreed to go with if he would be driving. He said yes, so our luggage went in the boot and we got in. A different man got into the driver’s seat and another man, one of the arguers, got in beside him. Our man pulled open the door and shouted at him. The door was pulled shut. After it happened again, I opened my door, and it was rudely slammed from outside before I could get out. I had only been going to ask our man why he wasn’t driving after all, since maybe this was a tourist napping scam. The car tore off, with those left behind still in an angry scrum.
It was not very far to the hotel, which was an oasis of calm, set on the bay with gardens leading down to the water. We went next door to the swimming club for dinner, and sat on the terrace listening to the lapping of the sea and the chatter of other diners. It was such a peaceful spot that we wished that we had allowed a day here simply to recover from scammers, but the next afternoon we would be flying off to Pemba, one of the islands which, along with Zanzibar, make up the Zanzibar Archipelago.
At every bus station and bus stop in Tanzania hawkers circulate around the bus hoping to sell things to the passengers. Some come onto the bus but most sell through the windows. They sell ust about everything: phones, watches, food, clothes, shoes, jewellery, water, nuts
We spent hours on the bus wondering if the hair two seats in front of us was a wig or for real. The man on the outside of the bus is loading freight onto the roof. At some stops he would climb onto the roof to put off the belongings of the passengers who were getting off. Often the bus would start rolling again while the man was still coming down from the roof. He would then edge his way along a ledge on the outside of the bus then slip in the front door.
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