I went to Dar es Salaam and all I met were rude Tanzanians

I was in Dar es Salaam last weekend. I was leading a writing workshop for the continental literary initiative Writivism. It being ‘Njanuworry,’ I found out beforehand that most of the participants from Kenya would be travelling by bus.

I chose to take that route, too, as it would give me a chance to know some of them a little better before we started our workshop.

Besides, it was my first time in Tanzania and where countries are close enough, I try to do neighbouring countries by road so as to get an understanding of the people (listening to people’s conversations on public transport is often great material for writers).

At Namanga Border Post, the Kenyan immigration officer looked at my passport and grinned, “South Africa?” I nodded while thinking, ‘please please don’t let him ask me anything about Zuma,’ I get that a lot with government officials in Kenya.

He didn’t. Instead he said to me, ‘unaenda nyumbani?’ and I nodded and said yes because in my South African mind, given the history between our two countries, Tanzania has mentally always loomed large in my mind as a home away from home.

The country did, after all, host many South African exiles for a long time.

So back to me at the border. I had this sense of being overwhelmed. Interestingly the same feeling I had at 14 when I landed at the then Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg after SA exiles were unbanned and finally allowed back home.

I wondered whether it would be too much to kneel and kiss the ground. But then I looked at the workshop participants, spotted Magunga Williams over there and thought, ‘I don’t really want this emotional moment of me with the land becoming material for a blogpost,’ so instead I just smiled and walked on to the Tanzanian side of the border.

The one thing that Kenyans who have been to Tanzania (and those who claim to have been) have always told me about Tanzania:

a) How polite and friendly Tanzanians are and,

b) How it may be difficult for me to survive there with my Nairobian Swahili designed primarily to negotiate with the local mama mboga, Purity, “Mia tatu? Unadhani mimi ni mzungu? Ah ah dada (head shake) utawacha kunizoea”.

POLITELY ROBBED

In explaining the politeness, a Kenyan friend told me how she had been robbed once by a Tanzanian cab driver. “He was so polite,” she said, “I wasn’t sure whether he robbed me or whether I just gave him my wallet and phone.”

Apparently when he got her to her destination, he naomba’d and tafadhali’d with a smile but with a steely sound to his voice, that she pass him her wallet and her phone.

I was looking forward to encountering a lot of the politeness, without the robbery of course.

And filled with much trepidation about my hazy Swahili language skills. Would the Tanzanians look at me and think, “SADC was not formed for this?”

I had already been introduced to the politeness. On the bus, the Tanzanian bus assistant (or are they called road attendants?) was very polite and would come to the Togolese participant Maimouna Jallow and I and translate every little thing.

I got to the Tanzanian side of the border. As I stood in line after filling out my arrival card, a woman behind me poked my shoulder with her finger. I looked at her in a ‘the hell?’ fashion. “Kalamu,” she said.

At least I know what that is, I thought to myself. But still. What happened to being polite?

So I replied, “What about it?”

“I want a pen,” she said.

“You mean, please could you borrow my pen?” I replied.

She nodded her head and said, “tafadhali.”

Must be Kenyan, I thought to myself. Not only was she rude but she understood what I said in English.

Then I got to the immigration officer.

“Passport?” he said.

“Mjambo,” I said as I slid it over to him with a grin on my face. He didn’t answer my greeting. Just flipped through the passport and asked in English, “how long are you staying for?”

“About a week,” I said.

He stamped my passport, slid it back.

No welcome home, no nothing. What had just happened?

I got back on the bus. The bus attendant again redeemed the woman I had decided was Kenyan.

As for the immigration officer, sure he wasn’t as friendly as the Kenyan officer but he had other problems.

Not only does he have to sit through dark blue, dark green, maroon looking passports (which boring bureaucrat decided on the colour of passports anyway?), but he probably does not earn as much as his Kenyan counterpart, or may be his dog had died the day before. It could have been anything.

Finally we got to Dar at 8pm after 12 hours on the road. A mkokoteni took our luggage and escorted us to where our driver Kamugisha had parked less than 50 metres away from the bus. Then insisted he wanted to be paid TSh10,000. That’s about Sh500.

“Elfu kumi? Unadhani mimi ni mzungu?” I thought, offering him only Tsh3,000. But Kamugisha went a step further. After lecturing this guy about trying to rob his guests, he pulled a thousand shillings from what I had proffered and told him he wasn’t getting a shilling more.

We drove away.

And in the days following, I realised that Bongo was like any big city. The people were no more polite or rude than anywhere else. The English conversations were no better or worse than in Jo’burg, Nairobi or Kampala. The hustle was more or less the same.

I decided Kenyans who had warned me had lied to me. Now it’s possible that Tanzanians in smaller towns are more polite and a majority speak Swahili only. But this is true of small towns all over the world. But it was strangely comforting that this homecoming was like any other homecoming.

No better nor worse.

Zukiswa Wanner is a South African author living in Kenya. [email protected]