Beach!

Went to the beach yesterday! It was amazing. To get there, the 21 of us ACM students as well as Hamida and Emanuel, the two USDM students who have been showing us around, had to all pile into a dalla-dalla that took us to Mwenge, where we got in another dalla-dalla that took us to the city center, from where we could walk to a ferry that took us to an island, where we got on a third dalla-dalla that took us to the beach. This beach was part of a resort hotel, so we had to pay a bit to get in. It did seem very touristy, and makes me all the more glad that we’re living at the university and are getting an exposure to the actual Dar. Not only is it more interesting, it is much cheaper as well; a meal on campus rarely costs more than 2000-3000Tsh (so around $2-$3), whereas at the resort food was closer to 10,000Tsh.

The beach was perfect: fine, nearly white sand, warm turquoise water, palm trees, very few people (because it is Ramadan), lots of pretty seashells… I spent the day swimming, floating lazily (the water is really salty so it’s really easy to float), eating coconuts, and wandering along the shore picking up shells. The most fun part was swimming out quite far. This was because the soccer ball Emanuel had rented somehow ended up drifting way out, and I went with the guy who swam out to rescue it. We swam out fairly far, to the point that I felt myself getting very tired (and I’m a decent swimmer) and turned back. So for the return to shore I was alone. I’ve always been mildly afraid of bodies of water that contain living creatures. I know this is about on par with my fear of snails, but for some reason I get freaked out by the thought of fish-like animals brushing against me in the water. Hence, I tend to stick to the shallow water where I can see what’s around me and can easily run to land if a stray piece of seaweed startles me. If I do go out farther, which I have been trying to do more lately because I hate being such a wimp, it is always with someone else. It feels safer – the more people making noise, the less fishy things there ought to be. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed finding myself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I did make sure to not look down, in case I’d accidentally mistake my shadow for a shark, and did have to somewhat bully my thoughts into focusing on how wonderful it felt to be swimming, and how gorgeous the water and beach and trees were. But I’m SO glad to have done that, and next time we go to the beach I want to swim out far again.

The other person who went out continued and did save the ball. He also got a ride back with a fishing boat, and me and Emanuel met him on the shore. Several boats had just come in, and we got to watch them sell their fish to people. The fish themselves were beautiful. There were some long, red ones, and some broader iridescent ones, as well as an octopus. What was really interesting though was to see these people go about the transactions. These were subsistence fishermen – what they catch they sell, and what they earn will (hopefully) be enough to get them through the day. I’ve never seen that before. Seeing poverty, as one does every day here, is odd. Like the dalla-dalla driver the other day said he drives about 14 hours a day. It’s horrifying. And yet everyone here is so incredibly friendly too. I'm certainly glad that I'm getting the chance to see this kind of thing, as it is very different than simply reading about it.



Today we had our first Swahili class. Four hours... It was exhausting. But also a lot of fun. The professor is great, and the language assistants are all very helpful. I'm just scared of falling behind, as I doubt catching up later is much of an option -- the class moves too fast for that!

I've been here a week now. This is going to be one very eventful, interesting and thought-provoking semester!