Public Transit, Tanzania Style

Having lived in Vancouver and Toronto for most of the past 23 years, I have become accustomed to taking buses, subways, and light rail public transit. Although there are sometimes service delays or periods of waiting between connections, one can usually get where he needs to go with relative ease.

Dar Es Salaam is another world entirely. There are no subway systems. There is no Skytrain LRT. There are not even city buses. There are, however, dala dalas. These converted vans are the workhorses of the public transportation, such as it exists. All appear to be privately owned; to the best of my knowledge, there is no government-run urban transportation system.

I have mentioned dala dalas several times, but I have never really described them in all their glory. As is the case with most vehicles in Tanzania, dala dalas are inevitably of Japanese make, usually Toyota or Isuzu. As is often the case with larger touring buses and commercial trucks, dala dala owners frequently give their vehicles names that are proudly displayed on the windshield. My all-time favourite name for a dala dala is "Beware of Dog", a name whose significance is lost on me.

Passengers enter and leave the dala dala through a sliding door on the side, although in some cases (i.e. at crowded dala dala stations), limber young men enter through open windows in order to get a seat. Dala dalas are fitted with three full rows of seats capable of holding 4 to 5 people each to the rear of the sliding door as well as one 2-person seat adjacent to the door. Sometimes as many as 3 passengers are crammed into the front seat next to the driver. That, of course, leaves enough room for up to a dozen standing passengers. When the dala dala is full, the result can only be compared to the infamous vans of the Fraser Valley which transported up to 20 berry pickers at a time.

Most dala dalas have had handles installed on the interior walls so that standing passengers have something to grasp when the road gets bumpy, as it so often does. Unfortunately, the handles are often broken, so many standing passengers steady themselves by holding onto edging on the walls or by bracing themselves on one of the seats. When the dala dala is really packed, there is little need to brace oneself at all because people are so jammed in that you couldn't fall even if you wanted to.

Dala dalas are not a bad form of transportation if you are lucky enough to get a seat, and that can be a difficult feat to accomplish. At busy dala dala stations like Mwenge, a flood of people attempt to board the van to claim a seat even as the passengers are departing. It is hard to describe the flow of people getting on and off of the vehicle except to say they are two short, powerful floods of frenzied people that collide at the door of the vehicle. Think of it as a rugby scrum held in a van and you'll have a pretty good idea what I am talking about.

It would seem to make sense for departing passengers to be allowed to get off before new passengers get on, but that is not how it works. Given the obvious desirability of getting a seat rather than standing, passengers tend to push themselves forward with little regard for manners. Elderly people, parents with children, and the handicapped are left to fend for themselves, both entering and exiting the vehicle. I once saw a young mother with an infant swept towards the back of the dala dala by the incoming flood of passengers. She was only able to squeeze her way through the mob when people realized that if she got off, they just might be able to get on.

I used to try to use my size to block other passengers so that elders and mothers could get on, but having been slammed against the van by the pressure of the mob, I now attempt to navigate myself onto the dala dala in time to get one of the precious seats. Sometimes, the local passengers are kind and they hold a seat open for me, even though my broad shoulders mean that I take up space that two Tanzanians could share. I am not sure that it is a reflection of the hospitality that Tanzanians always seem to display or whether it is a pragmatic assessment that one mzungo sitting means room for three locals standing.

Sometimes, however, I am forced to stand and this is truly an unforgettable experience. The first time I took the dala dala from the orphanage to Dar was at 5:30 in the morning. Since it was the first dala dala of the day, it was especially packed and I was forced to stand on one foot since there was no space on the floor for me to place the other foot. It was hot and cramped, and I felt as if I was going to have an anxiety attack because it felt so claustrophobic. I have since learned to plant both feet on the floor and to use my feet to move other people's feet.

As I mentioned in another post, standing on a moving dala dala is rather like playing a standing game of Twister. Tanzanian roads are sometimes paved, but often they are dirt roads that have been ravaged by deep potholes caused by the rains. Standing passengers feel each bump as the dala dala hits it. Bodies lurch against each other, and faces are pressed into fellow passengers' backs, shoulders, or armpits. Even sitting passengers are not immune, since standing passengers often wind up falling into them after a particularly nasty bump. That is how I have become far more familiar with the fleshy attributes of Tanzanian derrieres than I would otherwise have hoped to become.

As you may well imagine, there are no seat belts on the dala dala. (In fact, I have only been in one vehicle that had seatbelts in the entire four weeks I have been in Tanzania.) I imagine that an accident would result in a number of injuries. However, when your options are to take a dala dala to the city for less than TSH 1,000 or take a taxi for TSH 75,000, there is really no choice but to get on board the dala dala and join the Muslim passengers in saying, "I will arrive safely, inshallah" (if Allah wills it).