Christmas in Bongo
One thing you will learn quickly in Tanzania is that the locals like to refer to Dar es Salaam as Bongo. No, there’s nothing really racist about it once you dissect it more closely. The Swahili word ‘ubongo’ means brain, or intelligence. This nickname hints at what is needed by people to survive in the city. Fair enough.
This, then, is Christmas in Bongo. It dawns on me that this is the first Christmas I have spent in a long time in 90 degree weather, despite all of our travels. The good news: it is 90 degrees, and I can swim outside in the pool. The bad news: it is 90 degrees, so the Christmas spirit, admittedly, will suffer a little bit here. Sometimes you can’t have it both ways, I suppose.
A look at Bongo during a walk on Christmas Eve shows a neighborhood largely containing shanties, makeshift buildings that use corrugated tin for roofs, walls, even for a fence sometimes. The roofs themselves are weighed down with anything from cinderblocks to full jugs of water. Occasionally, you’ll see a stretch of rope tying the roof down to avoid the winds from upending it.
Outside the shanties, there are chickens and goats grazing…on what, I don’t know, since there is no grass and the ground is too dry for anything but sand on a regular basis. A lone bajaj bumps and sways on the rocky dirt road through the neighborhood. There is a huge baobab tree offering shade to at least a dozen people in the neighborhood, usually women who have just hung up the laundry outside.
I look at the chickens and almost have to laugh. They look so pitiful, so skinny, and for a moment I wonder what people feed them here. A lot of eggs sold in the supermarket have a fishy taste to them, so there can be little doubt that the chickens get a steady diet of fish remnants. These are not the puffed up chickens back west, which might not be such a bad thing. Who knows what we’re feeding chickens these days, although maybe I shouldn’t wonder too much. Suffice to say that there are pigeons back west that are the size of these chickens. The goats merely sit on a couple of old rubber tires and stare into space. You can tell them that it’s Christmas, Easter, or the next coming of the great goat god and I doubt their expression would alter any.
There are kids running around, usually shirtless. It seems like they’re engaged in a game of tag, with the baobab tree serving as the homebase. With their endless energy, the kids chase each other in circles. One of them, a boy no older than three or four, trips over the feet of one of the women and is sent sprawling. Just as he is about to bawl his little eyes out, he sees one of his friends bearing down on him and quickly picks himself off the dirt road to make good his escape. Once he reaches the trunk and homebase he gingerly rubs his knee before jumping back into the fray.
On every corner you’ll find the inevitable pile of rubbish burning, the thick smoke adding to the heavy hot air. I look out into the distance, and there’s a skyline off Bagamoyo Road: there’s a highrise under construction, a radio tower, trees…and a huge beer bottle looming somewhere. It must be part of a billboard towering over a highway, I’m guessing.
No Christmas music playing anywhere, no candy canes or mistletoe. Oh well. So be it.
That, in a coconut shell, is Bongo on Christmas Eve.
This, then, is Christmas in Bongo. It dawns on me that this is the first Christmas I have spent in a long time in 90 degree weather, despite all of our travels. The good news: it is 90 degrees, and I can swim outside in the pool. The bad news: it is 90 degrees, so the Christmas spirit, admittedly, will suffer a little bit here. Sometimes you can’t have it both ways, I suppose.
A look at Bongo during a walk on Christmas Eve shows a neighborhood largely containing shanties, makeshift buildings that use corrugated tin for roofs, walls, even for a fence sometimes. The roofs themselves are weighed down with anything from cinderblocks to full jugs of water. Occasionally, you’ll see a stretch of rope tying the roof down to avoid the winds from upending it.
Outside the shanties, there are chickens and goats grazing…on what, I don’t know, since there is no grass and the ground is too dry for anything but sand on a regular basis. A lone bajaj bumps and sways on the rocky dirt road through the neighborhood. There is a huge baobab tree offering shade to at least a dozen people in the neighborhood, usually women who have just hung up the laundry outside.
I look at the chickens and almost have to laugh. They look so pitiful, so skinny, and for a moment I wonder what people feed them here. A lot of eggs sold in the supermarket have a fishy taste to them, so there can be little doubt that the chickens get a steady diet of fish remnants. These are not the puffed up chickens back west, which might not be such a bad thing. Who knows what we’re feeding chickens these days, although maybe I shouldn’t wonder too much. Suffice to say that there are pigeons back west that are the size of these chickens. The goats merely sit on a couple of old rubber tires and stare into space. You can tell them that it’s Christmas, Easter, or the next coming of the great goat god and I doubt their expression would alter any.
There are kids running around, usually shirtless. It seems like they’re engaged in a game of tag, with the baobab tree serving as the homebase. With their endless energy, the kids chase each other in circles. One of them, a boy no older than three or four, trips over the feet of one of the women and is sent sprawling. Just as he is about to bawl his little eyes out, he sees one of his friends bearing down on him and quickly picks himself off the dirt road to make good his escape. Once he reaches the trunk and homebase he gingerly rubs his knee before jumping back into the fray.
On every corner you’ll find the inevitable pile of rubbish burning, the thick smoke adding to the heavy hot air. I look out into the distance, and there’s a skyline off Bagamoyo Road: there’s a highrise under construction, a radio tower, trees…and a huge beer bottle looming somewhere. It must be part of a billboard towering over a highway, I’m guessing.
No Christmas music playing anywhere, no candy canes or mistletoe. Oh well. So be it.
That, in a coconut shell, is Bongo on Christmas Eve.
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