Tanzania Tidbits: Day 1

We arrived safely in Dar es Salaam last night and spent our first day acclimatizing and fighting off jetlag.  I slept soundly that first night but was still tired--I’m not sure if it was because of the heat, or the time change.  My expectations for the day were low, with every minor task feeling like a major accomplishment.  The only success was buying a SIM card for my phone, which required walking about a mile on the dirt shoulder of a paved road and attempting to ask the locals for directions.  We only found a place when a man called out to us and I asked them where to go--the shop sold cosmetics and women’s clothes for all I could tell.  Nothing has a price tag on it and bargaining is expected, but I had neither the will nor the energy for it.  We also took a trip to a “western” marketplace and saw the Indian Ocean with huge cargo ships sailing towards the horizon.  Apparently Valentine’s Day made its way here because we saw several roadside stands selling flowers and other favors, or decorated with red and white bunting.  A few even chose the day for marriage, and we saw their cars driving around decorated with ribbons and flowers.  An Italian NGO operates the hostel we’re staying at and the food they serve is delicious!  I thought it was amusing that their outlets are all Italian, so we needed a converter for our TZ converters to work.  The room next door had a group of German guys.  I never figured out how many stayed in that room, but every time I went outside there was a different guy on their hammock.  This is the hottest time of the year in Dar, but mercifully our hostel had AC and I’m grateful to be walking on dusty roads rather than muddy (monsoons should come next month).  That being said, Julie and I still aren’t used to the metric system—especially when it comes to temperature.  We set it too low our first night and both got up separately to turn it up “a few degrees”.  In Celsius, this resulted in our either turning the AC off or actually heating up the room.  Either way, not going to make that mistake twice!