Uzunguni, Uhindini, Uswahilini

"European area, Indian area, Swahili area"

The people in Dar es Salaam are very diverse, hailing from the four corners of the world. The restaurants are fantastic.

When the British took over the colony of Tanganyika (Tanganyika combined with Zanzibar after achieving independence in the ‘60’s to become Tanzania) from the Germans after WWI, the town of Dar was largely divided into three different areas. An area of town for whites, an area of town for Indians, and an area of town for locals. The city is still kind of broken down that way.

Many expats live on the peninsula, which you might have guessed is a pretty ritzy part of town. I don’t really know the neighbourhoods that well so can’t get much more into than that. We are in a Tanzanian neighbourhood but we’re in a compound with a gate and employees. We are not in the typical Tanz household. People around me are gardening and cleaning and letting people in an out of the gate while I drink my coffee, web log, and complain about intermittent internet signals.

Our friend from Canada is here working for 6 months. She is Japanese-Canadian. Here she is called Chinese. There isn’t a differentiation between the various Asian cultures (well, except for Indians and Arabs but you know what I mean).

Her room-mate here is Indian-Canadian. Here she is called Indian. Indians have been traveling and trading here in East Africa for hundreds of years. By some people here, the Chinese and the Indians are disliked. The Chinese because they come here and take jobs from local Tanzanians. The Indians because they come here and open businesses and are upper middle class. Somebody said it is like the Indians are viewed as the Jews of Africa (went to the Anne Frank house while in Amsterdam).

The working wage in Tanzania is not much. You can work a whole day for $1 or $2. The Chinese are disliked because they come and do the very lowest jobs for cheaper than the locals. This is incredible to me. Somehow, it is worth it for a Chinese immigrant to make that long passage and then work for less than $1 to $2 a day. Uggh. When I went to Egypt as a young man (blerg, as a kid) we were told by an Egyptian woman before we went that we would go and see people with nothing and feel sorry for how poor they were but that it was important to remember that they don’t think of themselves as poor. Ok. But still.

Besides my history of Africa book, I’m reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. The author wrote this book because he was asked a question by his friend from the Polynesian islands. “Why do whites have so much cargo (stuff)?” What were the root causes of the material wealth and fortune that Europeans had that other cultures did not?