As I sit here in Dar ES Salaam I have only the one regret. Due to being so sick not being able to dive in Zanzibar. Was going to head off to get on a safari trip. Then in the book was MAFIA island a marine sanctuary and WHALE SHARKS, where do I sign up. Will leave early tomorrow and wing it. The island does not have the push or the touts like in other destinations. Getting off on the ferry those morning was the repeated taxi taxi taxi. There are so many taxis here. I can imagine why that all fight for the business.
The city is hard to shoot as the people do not like to have there picture taken. A woman who was crippled was asking for money on the street about an hour ago. She was maybe 28-30 hard to tell life can be hard here when you cannot walk or work. She looked up at me with a large smile her hands clasped together like she was praying for me. I returned the smile stopped leaned down reaching into my pocket and pulled out about 800 shillings. I gently placed it in her hand the whole time she looked into my eyes. And for a moment she held my hand. And for that moment in time I just felt better. Better about the trip , better about being sick, better about everything. I smiled till I arrived back at the hotel. She was not angry she had no use of her legs, she did not seem spiteful at all. She was just happy for the kindness of strangers. For the record there is no social system here to help the sick or unemployed. Every time you see a person at home asking for money , or spare some change. Look at there legs. The only people I have ever seen ask for money here are people who have lost the ability to walk and are forced to ask for money or food to survive. So when you look at them again at home. They get the cheque from the government they have access to free health care. Take the money you may have given them and go buy an ice-cream for a senior citizen instead.
I had a man approach me with a sheet asking for me to donate to an orphanage. Yes he really did. It had a bunch of random stamps on it. I smiled and asked for his papers to do this. He said it was a good Christian company. I told him that he should be ashamed of himself. He shrugged his shoulders and went off and tried to find someone who would fall for it. See it happens everywhere. There is the good the bad and the ugly. I have mostly seen the good.
Here are a few pics of the days wandering the streets.
Well this was in Zanzibar. Thinking bc ferries should try this.
Thriftys the street version. The price depends on what you have.
This was lunch. Plantains , with I think they were cocktail wieners , and a simple salad. With water it went to a grand total of $1.60 cdn. Not a pretty picture but finding a local place to eat was not easy. When asking the hotel manager he said most people make food eating out is to expensive. The toothpick was my fork. Worked pretty well quite environmental really.
Location:En route to Mafia island
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