Tingatinga!

May 04 2008 – Day 4: Dar Es Salaam – Tingatinga!

This morning Jamie and I enjoyed our first proper African breakfast here at the hostel (on time!).We then proceeded (gross, yes I know) to take our first (cold!!) African shower.

With our full bellies and squeaky clean bodies, we hit the streets of Dar. First stop – trace steps to bus stop to be ready to roll tomorrow morning and then the ATM. We took out our lunch money and headed to “City Garden” – a Tanzanian restaurant near our hostel recommended in our tour book. On the way, our magnetic white skin drew plenty of touts – 2 that were particularly persistent. They began with the usual small talk then ever so swiftly whipped out their products and the bargaining began. Jamie had mentioned this morning that he wanted to pick up some tingatinga paintings (bright, colorful paintings representing aspects of African life) sometime during our trip and low and behold what do our two friends whip out – a vast collection of tingatina paintings. After a long sales pitch and history lesson for each painting, Jamie and I picked 3 that we liked (they are beautiful and very impressive paintings of Tanzanian tribes people). I had a ballpark figure of approximately 20,000 TNS for all 3 in my head and was ready to bargain. The guys started the bidding at 150,000 TNS ($150USD)!!! They continued with their elaborate stories of street life and expensive painting materials and we eventually budged them down to 40,000 TNS (Approx. $35 USD) which is the average price of a tingatinga painting in a market. So we haggled ourselves a pretty good deal.

So we were out 40,000 and thus our lunch money. In this particular area the touts were on us like flies on shit so we decided to head out. We wandered around in search of an ATM – we were bordering on dehydrated and we still hadn’t purchased sun block (we both got nice little burns yesterday). I was dehydrated and hungry and burnt. And needless to say – cranky. Good ol’ Jamie put up with me and we found an ATM and finally reached our haven. The food was delicious and the restaurant was quaint in an outdoor shelter with wooden safari animal décor.

We then headed to the local supermarket to pick up some water, bus snacks and sun block. I was a bit shocked to see that the prices of familiar products were the same as prices at home (Ex. Bottle of Dove body lotion - $11). To put this into perspective, a police officer’s monthly salary in Dar Es Salaam is $50 USD. So we stocked up and headed home, weaseling our way away from oncoming touts.

This evening Willy, our friend and tour guide from Saturday’s adventures, called us to see if we wanted to go to the 50 Cent concert tonight – we told him that we have an early bus to catch in the morning, but thanks (what we were really thinking – us two at a 50 Cent concert in Africa… !?!?). The city is very highly anticipating 50 Cent’s visit – 99% of the people that we encounter in the streets let us know about it.

We spent the rest of the evening reading (Jamie – Biography of Mao, and myself – The State of Africa), packing and recollecting the past 3 days’ events. Dar has been a totally amazing experience and I feel like we’ve both learned a lot in the past 3 days and are becoming a bit more Africanized each day and our Swahili vocabulary is expanding.

**Side note / funny trend – Anytime we tell people that we are from Canada – their response: “Vancouver or Toronto?” pause “Quebec?)” Because those are the only three places in Canada.

Looking forward to moving on to Moshi!