Nancy gets out of bed at 5:00 a.m. daily to do yoga to the plaintive
cry of the Mullah in a nearby minerette. She says she finds the exotic
call to prayer peaceful, a welcome addition to her meditative exercise.
I lie in bed and count off my fingers, one through five. Allah Akbar!
The garden leaps to life: two towering Heliconium, or Poetical Honey as
they are better known; the flowering, fragrant, Frangipani; the
Bougainvillea - resplendent in crimson and chartreuse - a particular
favorite of mine. They all spring up full grown like fabled Athena,
sprung from Zeus’ head. (there's this great video…of the garden - unfortunately
there is no video of Athena’s famous leap…though there is said to be a
fair approximation of it in the film Alien 2.)
The garden grows swiftly while all else moves…well, rather slow.
Poli-poli is the Swahili word for it, once described as roughly
equivalent to mañana…but without the sense of urgency. An example: I
have a beautiful old Land Rover parked in the driveway where it sits
awaiting plates…where it has been sitting now for for five full weeks.
I am paying a guy to wait in line for me (can't complain about that
deal!) and he promises the plates will be delivered…well, mañana. In
the meantime I’ve been driving a rented taxi – an honest to god
taxicab. That is how I am known around here, Dar’s only white taxi
driver. White hair, white skin, white taxi. Call me ‘the Ghost Driver
of Dar es Salaam’.
And that brings me to the subject of taxis. But
first, let me draw you a picture…
Okay?  So you get the idea of taxis in Dar. The really crowded ones are
called dala-dalas and they only cost 12¢ a ride, so you really have to
pack folks in if you want to make a buck. These minivans lurch around
honking and flashing lights for passengers, careening from blacktop to
dirt shoulder and back again, like a drunken pigs on roller skates. The
main traffic control takes the form of speed bumps, or ‘sleeping
policeman’ as they are sometimes called, causing the dala-dalas to
stand on the brakes between moments of pure acceleration and – while
one can only guess at the condition of the brakes themselves – the
brake lights get such heavy use that I have yet to see a dala-dala with
functioning lights at all.
The lack of brake lights has been widely copied, taken no doubt as the
sign of the true road-warrior. It was even-odds on whether Luke would
spy ten people peeing beside the road the other day before Kate counted
ten dala-dalas with a single brake light working. But I shouldn't make
light of it as tragedies are all too terrible and real...
Which brings us back to God. In our seaside church – a
nondenominational community affair – a lay minister was leading prayer
the other day. She said she liked to use her hand to guide her prayer.
The thumb, the digit closest to us, reminds us to pray for our families
and friends. Next, the index or ‘teachers finger’, reminds us to prayer
for those who teach, minister, and heal. The middle finger, the
tallest, reminds us to pray for those who lead in any aspect of our
lives, that they may receive the grace they need to lead. Then the ring
finger, the weakest on the hand, reminds us to pray for those in need.
And finally, the pinky, the smallest and the last, reminds us to
remember our own needs.
Nancy asked a Christian Tanzanian colleague
what he thought about the ‘call to prayer’ echoing throughout the city
five or six times every day. He said that he liked it as it reminded
him that he too should pause to pray. We discussed it as a family and
decided to try to take his sentiment to heart.
In the meantime, I wish
the dala-dalas would buy bulbs..but then, when all is said and done,
the transportation here isn't really all that bad here...I mean I have
certainly heard of worse...
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