June 2, 2012
I think the receptionist at the Christian Center in Dodoma doesn’t like me too much. She gave me the room closer to the road, and there is no glass on the windows, and when I told her there’s no water in the bathroom she replied it’s like this everyday.
Fortunately her colleague brought me a bucket of warm water in the evening, so I could bath. Hakuna Matata, people did it for centuries everywhere and in many places around the world people still live like this (or worse), so I guess I can also do it. And I must get used to it because the South of Tanzania is not very touristy and infrastractures are weak. I must be careful not to step onto the huge cockroach that is in the bathroom, but that is something I can cope with too.
I like Dodoma. In a small area there’s an Anglican Church, a Lutheran Church, a mosque, and this Christian Educational Centre where I’m staying.
Since 1973 Dodoma is the capital city of Tanzania, but due to the lack of water they can’t move their administrative offices here. Only the Parliament is here. The political and economical centre of Tanzania is Dar Es Salaam.
There’s a nice park in the middle of the town, dedicated to Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the Father of the Nation, that guided his country towards independence from the British crown at the beginning of the Sixties and was the country’s President for twenty years. Yesterday in the afternoon it was full of people and there were tents with women measuring your blood pressure.
For dinner I had a potato omelette. Basically my diet since I came here is: rice with chicken and vegetables, rice with pork and vegetables, rice with vegetables, or potato omelette. There’s also ugali, made with corn flour, that can replace rice, but I don’t like it very much. During the safari the menu was different. It was nice, we were treated like royals. We didn’t even have to put up our tents. All we had to do was eat and let us be guided around.
Now the difficult part is about to start. I’ve got in front of me a week not too easy. From this point on roads won’t be paved. It will take me one week to cover 1000 km. If I do find a transportation. If I don’t, I’ll have to go back. Like this morning. I was in Katesh and at 11.30 my bus hadn’t arrived yet (it was expected by 10am). I was worried I had missed it or it hadn’t run at tall. To avoid stress I thought that in the worst case scenario all I had to do was stay one more night in Katesh and take the bus to Dodoma the next day. Things don’t always go as planned when in Tanzania, but if you are flexible and follow the events, you’ll be ok.
Anyway, if everything goes as planned I’ll be at the beach by the end of the week.
