21st of April, 2018.
The trip it is exhaustive. And to make it worse, the guy beside me keep stealing my already small space for the legs.
At the first stop to eat I felt, again, stolen. I think they might have charged me more in the chips (Muzungo price), but at least the water it is cheap. I also buy some chocolate biscuits and this is what I eat until eleven o’clock in the night!
The whole travel takes such more time than I was expecting. I do not know if it is because of the so many stops or what but we left Tanga at eight o’clock in the morning and arrive in Dodoma after eight in the night. An absurd!
At least, I see some beautiful and huge sun’s flower camps during the journey.
I start to imagine a few situations that could happen once I arrive, because it is already night: the bus stop would be far from the Dodoma Hotel (where J. should to pick me up); how I would find it; it would be too late to send an email around nine in the night… But I could not ever imagined a problem as big as I got: as the same as Tanga, the bus station it is outside of town, something about twenty minutes by bus. Fuck!
Of course that as soon as I leave the bus, another wave of people almost kill me. I just take my backpack and move away.
A young man approach and starts to say that he just want to help. I ask him about my chances of going to town, specifically to the Dodoma Hotel. The taxis and boda-boda are over ten thousand Tanzania Xelins. The best option is to take a public bus, at the cost of one thousand, and from there walk a little to the hotel. He offer to escort me there.
While I am waiting for him to call a friend, another man start to talk with me and he tells me that the same travel bus would go to town and bring people for free once it had to remain in town until next morning anyway. The other guy, Isaac, tells me that he knows about but, usually, it takes a long time for the bus leave the station. Luckily that night it is already moving! So I get in!
I have to take the backpack with me though because it is just a lift so no time to open the luggage compartment.
In the way to town, an accident on the road: between all the people and cars and sticks to signalize, a body of a woman. She has colourful traditional clothes but unfortunately the colour of her blood around her it is what catches my attention.
When Isaac is trying to help me with the backpack, he loses the balance and falls down, over my backpack. He is fine and the only thing I can think about it now is that I am glad that I do not keep the computer in there anymore.
I am a little concerned, of course, but Isaac brings me to the hotel as he told me. Unfortunately he asks me for one thousand Xelins to take a boda-boda. Unfortunately because that makes me think that, maybe, he was not really just trying to help. Who knows. Anyway, I gave to him and he left.
The hotel it is really fancy and I stay in the lodge, trying to get connection. It is after nine
already.
While my computer it is not working, I check out my feet and realize how swollen they are.
So the notebook it is not getting connection and the lady from reception calls an young man to help me. David it is an expert in computers and after he try everything he could, he brings me to his officer where he offers me to use his notebook while he would open mine and try to fix it.
I cannot open my email in a different device. Fuck you Gmail! Luckily, whatever David did in my notebook it worked and I get connection. Unfortunately, when I send the email to J. it is already ten o’clock in the night.
I try another shot, sending an email to Judith and asking her his phone number. I felt bad because I had not sent an email to her before but she was my last hope.
I decide to talk with the people from the hotel and see if there is a place for me to stay for the night, even in the lodge. A nice old Indian man talk with his superior but the answer it is no. Still, he shows to me the Rail Station, just crossing the street, where I could spend the night.
There is a bar just beside the station, where I take a cake and a fried pastry with tea.
The “waiting room” of the station it is outside and all the few seats are occupied per other people. I put my mattress on the floor and take my sleeping bag. The first time I wake up is because I feel my under lip really big because of a mosquito bite. They are everywhere! Covering my face with a scarf, I go back to sleep but I wake up again a few times.
The last time, I was checking what time it is, when one of the security guard from the hotel approaches me with another man. The man calls me Lei and the first thought I have it is to call him J.. He pushes me up for my arms and it is extremely careful and surprise about my situation. So much that I even felt uncomfortable, as I was doing something wrong. Later he explains that his surprise it was because most of people he knows here, would never have the courage to confront a bad situation and accept in a good way when something goes wrong.
He drives me to a hotel with the promise of coming back later. The place it is huge, because the bedrooms are one just beside another in single lines. Outside is, as usual, better than inside. Do you know me, right? And my concept of how everything should follow the same pattern of quality, being this good or not. Anyway, I have my shower and I manage to sleep for two hours, until nine in the morning. When I wake up, I check this paper in the room which says that the breakfast it is only until ten o’clock the same time we should leave the bedroom. Ufff! That was luck!
I leave my stuff in the reception and go to have breakfast: pineapple, watermelon, pancakes, fried cakes, fried bread with egg and coffee. Wonderful!
While I am waiting for J., I start to write. He arrives after ten o’clock and tells me that for the day I would stay again in the hotel and could have some rest for the whole day.
I write some more; I have vegetable curry with rice for lunch; I edit my photos; and when I am having some vegetable pasta for dinner, he is back.
Actually, he had asked me before to write something: a plan of how the students could speak and write English faster and better and how to stimulate their achievement. I do that. Even though I don’t have much information about the school, the classes and the students, and because of that it looked kind of simple for me, when J. saw it he was so surprise and said it was great.
After dinner he insist to go out. I accept because I thought he wanted to go, but later he told me he was just thinking I wanted to relax after stay the whole day in the hotel. I explain to him I am not the kind of “going out” person so I think now we will be cool. The place it was a loud outside pub but at least I had my first Tanzanian beer: Serengeti Lite.