I spent the whole of last week in Tanzania. It was a glorious week and dripping hot. I am not sure if Tanzania qualifies as part of deepest darkest Africa, but then again I have no idea where that would be either. It sure was not dark, instead hot, hot and sometimes it was hotter. Dar Es Salaam is busy. There is a true African feel to the place. Buildings are ancient and reminiscent of a time when some or other colonizer thought that the land was theirs. Now they are old and grimy and silently watch the incredible mayhem that is an African city. People and cars all follow some sort of unwritten code of conduct that is rather bewildering to an orderly rule driven self like me. Traffic is not traffic as most would understand it. Rather it is an amazing integration of the minds and hearts of the people as they intersect, merge and cross each other without break. In this land, he who hesitates is lost, and hooted at incessantly! Then again I understand that Tanzanians are one of the most peaceful of people’s on the African continent.

Street pavements are crammed with stalls and small shops filled with remarkably similar products. Cell phone companies battle it out on these streets every ten metres. Tyres are stacked on the road side in orderly piles, so much so that one would think that they are the columns that hold up these tired buildings. Radios and washing machines are for sale to only the bravest willing to park their cars at the side of the road. Incidentally, cars here are different too. This is a city of off road vehicles.. This is not Sandton where the only mud and terrain that a car may see is the washing of the mall floor. No, this is Africa, where cars are tough and need to go anywhere.

Deep inside, I know that I am in true Africa. It has rhythm and soul. It is busy and full of life. It smells deeply of something that I know is Africa, smoky and spicey and earthy. Sometimes it does not smell good at all. In some small way, I belong here. Mostly I feel that I can reconnect to my roots here. Deep down inside I know that this is only a stop over. A temporary sojourn to a another time, but in the end I will go home to my home in South Africa. But my connection to this great continent has grown and I am now a little more complete!