Dirty and Clean at the Same Time

As you all know (well, those who have read all our blog entries), I’ve never set foot one onto soil in a developing country. Little did I know, at least here in Dar, that the soil was mostly covered in garbage. Everywhere you look-- plastic bottles, newspaper, mango pits, coconut shells, coke bottle caps, plastic bags, etc. Trash covers every area we have been to in the city, rich or poor. When you walk down the street, if someone in front you has a wrapper in their hands--thwip--on the ground it goes. Done drinking that delicious warm bottled water, “I guess I’ll just throw it down right here on the dirt path along the road, good a place as any”. While at first it appalled me to see people living surrounded by garbage (though, oddly and surprisingly, the streets don’t really smell aside from the toxic amount of air pollution), after living here for a while, you come to realize that it is ingrained in the culture of the city. They don’t seem to see it as disgusting, it is just something to walk over and ignore. Playing a hand in this mess (literally), is the city’s sanitation department. Really, waste pick-up is almost non-existent in most areas. The government just doesn’t have the money. There are the occasional places where the trash is in a higher concentration and resembles a pile. I don’t know if these sites are official. But every couple of days, plus or minus a couple of days, some guys in a large rickety flat bed truck roll by and pick up about 90% of the pile. The rest just sits there and gets kicked and blown all over the area.

Whereas the streets are trashed and the dirt is actually dirty, the average Tanzanian we see walking or taking the daladala to work are immaculately clean. The women are all wearing spotless, colorful wraps or very nice long skirts and blouses. The men often wear dress pants and long sleeve dress shirts that look like they just came off the dry-cleaner’s hangers. Honestly, you’d think some of these guys were execs at fortune 500 companies. To keep your leather shoes clean, there is a small stall every fifty yards on the main roads where you can get your shoes polished. I have never been able to keep whites as white as the Tanzanians do, and here in Dar, we live in a dirt bowl surrounded by trash and everybody does laundry by hand. The cleanliness of individuals also extends to their cars, we constantly see drivers washing their taxis anywhere they can get water—be it a faucet or a random puddle along side the road. Rarely do we see a dirty car driving down these dusty streets.

It has been really interesting to see the strong juxtaposition of the maintenance of the individual and their possessions and the maintenance their city and environment. We’ll post some good trash pictures soon!!