The first time in Africa, so exciting. I had a lot of expectations, or let’s say imaginations, of how it will be. Well, arriving in Tanzania, everything was even more extreme than I could ever imagine.
Flight to Cairo
But let’s start with the travel to Tanzania. First, I took a flight from Vienna to Cairo. Unfortunately, I had to check out and grep my baggage in Cairo, since they couldn’t check me in for both flights in Vienna. It was too unsafe for my backpack to arrive in Tanzania, or something like that. Checking out in Cairo, around 10 taxi drivers asked me for a ride. One even followed me for a minute. I had to stay around 4 hours at the airport. Fortunately, I met a really nice guy from China with whom I was spending the next hours talking about his experiences in Cairo and watching people praying in the waiting room of the gate (men in front).
At 6:00 am in the morning I arrived in Dar es Salaam and got immediately ripped off. They wanted me to pay for the working permit at the airport, since they found out what I will do there, even I was supposed to pay that at the university. But this important fact, I just found few hours later when it was too late. They are still sorting that out, hopefully everything works.
Erasmus, out IAESTE coordinator, picked me up at the airport and brought to my accommodation at Mama Abeid (I hope it’s written like that) house. The drive there was already an adventure for me. Everywhere potholes, drivers who have never heard of keeping distance to other cars, overloaded Dalla Dalla’s (kind of very cheap public transport) and Tuk Tuk’s (Bajaji) which are very small taxis with three wheels and ACTUAL space for 3 people plus driver.
Tuk Tuk
My accommodation is really nice. Mama is a very friendly person and also the other two students, living there, are most friendly. I have my own room with a big bed, a chair, a mirror and a broken window which is not too bad since I have the windows open all the time anyway. The rest of the house is pretty nice. They even have a huge flat screen. When you see that you expect the all rooms to be like that, but then you enter the bathroom and you know, you’re in Africa. The shower is not separated from the rest of the room, the wall is very old, you can’t close the door, there is only hot water if Mama turns it on especially and toilet paper is a luxury (understandable when they can only by one piece at a time). But you get used to everything. And in comparison to other toilets, in “restaurants” for example, it’s really nice. Usually you don’t even have water for flushing and a simple hole in the floor. All a bit of a challenge here 😉
My room
Coming home, Erasmus gave me like 10 minutes to relax and then we immediately went to the university to get to know everybody and all places. That’s Tanzanian style to say hello to everybody and chat a bit even if you won’t meet the person again. They are really nice.
Open University
University campus
So I saw my new office and met my new colleague Clement. He will be the one testing my website. Ah yeah, by the way, my job is to design a website for the department which is focusing on the requirements of people with disability. Since Clement is visually impaired, he is the perfect man and will certainly give a lot of contribution to this project.
Clement and me
After the university tour I had my first lunch in Africa in a friend’s restaurant. The friend is called Bernard and we can always call him when we need a drive or something else. His children are sooo sweet. Marther, his daugther, already painted something for me 😉
Bernards restaurant
First lunch