Is not the cheetah.
The first cause of death, in the short
term, for an expat, is car accident.
And it’s impressive how Tanzanian apply the
pole pole (slowly slowly) philosophy to everything but driving.
They are never in a rush to finish a job,
to cook, to give an answer, to walk or to respect an appointment, but when they
are driving they cannot stand to lose time.
Driving these old crappy chariot imported
second handed from China or Japan, they run as every moment of the life is not
expendable and must be saved.
Freud would say is something related with
sex or the father, in this case, the Mother Queen, or better, Nyerere.
Or maybe is because it’s not necessary to
be a Masaai warrior to be taller than a Chinese and the seats in these cars are
so tiny and uncomfortable that the driver wants to end this suffer, at least
this one, as soon as possible.
But also I saw so many people suffering to
obtain the most basic needs (a doctor, water, food) and at the same time acting
like struggling was the only and normal way to reach them, that I honestly do
not believe that the public transport driver do actually care about the
passengers. Or themselves.
Otherwise I cannot explain why every, but
really every day, I was in the Arusha-Moshi road, there was an accident. A bus
in the river, another one down the bridge, one just jumped inside a family mud
house. And everybody dead.
The
most fierce were the dala dala. Old Toyota Caravan with 25 Chinese shaped seats
and as many standing room in four and an half square meters. Kind of private
public transportation. One guy driving, another one hanging from the side door
calling costumers and waving small bills in the hand. Collencting old and fat mamas on the fly or
men with baskets of live chickens. Space for everybody, for fifty shelling I
bring you to Arusha in a blink of an eye.
And running like cheetahs, faster than
cheetahs in those narrow and prick roads, overcoming everything and
everybody without decelerating a moment.
And between dala dala was some kind of war: you are stopping to take this
costumers, so I’ll overcome you to take your next stop costumers.
Of course there were no official stops.
Why they were driving so crazily? Just
because they could.
Very late I came to know that the owners of
the dala dala were policemen. Renting them to schizophrenic guys to run them.
That’s why, even if driving like cocaine addicted, they were never stopped by
the Tanzanian police, very lavish in receiving bribes for every nonexistent infraction.
But I have my personal theory: they like to
overcome you, risking clearly their lives, because in their back in all the
dala dala backs, was something written, and often a picture or a drawing. The meaning
or the association of idea of those, was and still is an enigma.
“Love
is the answer”, with the picture of Ban Ki Moon next to one of Gheddafi.
“When I’m rich, you will be my bitch”, and
a young girl with the burqa and the sigh of a prayer.
“Jesus is the answer”, for no mentioned
question, but the picture of an American rapper
The poster of the 1956 Ten Commandments
And this one, the interpretation of which
has ignited a long debate in the car: “zero to hero with god”.
In case the mentioned ‘god’ was intended to
be the dala dala driver, we unanimously decided to overcome it.
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