City Streets and Transportation

Ok so I promised more information on getting around in Arusha.  I want to start by trying to paint a picture for you.  There are two main roads in the city proper and one section paved connecting the two.  There are some paved side streets and some dirt ones.  The main road, Sokoine (pronounced so-ko-ee-nay) has the most stores and buildings line the street and for about 80% of the in-town part a sidewalk.  The sidewalk will have holes and grating and drainage sections exposed you must be careful to navigate when walking in addition to vendors who lay their goods out on the sidewalk everywhere and the traveling merchants who carry everything they are selling.  This is especially fun with those selling luggage as they carry about 30 bags at one time.

On the other streets these vendors set up on the road edges with all their product laying about 3 feet into the road which to start with is about wide enough for two lane traffic.  About every 100 feet or so is someone selling shoes, wallets, bracelets, cell phones or recharges for your cell phone minutes.  On some areas you can add in the ones selling DVDs and electrical equipment.

Now the vehicles. 

• There is the transport or delivery type trucks which are the largest normally in the military vocabulary they would be between 2.5 and 5 ton trucks.  Think 20 foot moving vehicles to get a basic size.
• Next up is the ever present safari vehicles that are basically Toyota Landcruisers of different sizes depending on how many people they can seat.  These are the luxury of traveling as your seats are actually sized for a human being to sit in and there is some leg room available.
• Then come the even more ubiquitous dolla dolla which is supposed to be a 15 passenger van but those 15 seats are really only about 1 foot wide at the most and some them have to fold up though when you climb in the back you just have to climb over other passengers.  These are never going anywhere with only 15 people.  The personal best of a van I was in was 23 people and several of them were bigger width wise than me.  Add to this most of the seats are not far enough apart for me to get my knees in fully.  These vans have different routes so you need to pay attention to what they say and not what is written because they sometimes change things up.  The cost of a ride is 400 shillings or about 25 cents US.  There are two people who work this operation, the driver who will set the tone of the vehicle with the type of music he blares out of the sound system that may cost as much as the van.  The other is the person who hangs out the window yelling what route the vehicle is going to run and constantly slaps on the side to communicate with the driver when it is time to stop or go.  A good driver is not afraid to use the sidewalk, the vendor area or anything else to drive around cars that stop or are too slow or to get to a fare.
• personal cars tend to run in the small hatchback or small suv category though sedans are also found.  regular taxis are typically sedans.
• motorcycles-these guys are for hire as a taxi or to transport items.  The largest item I saw was a loveseat strapped to the rear and the motorcycle trying to balance as he weaved in and out of traffic.  These guys have no concept of living for tomorrow as they dart in and around all the other vehicles never looking to see if someone else is doing that or that there may be a reason others stop.  Their passengers often include very small children who should never be on something that moves that dangerously (I mean a couple years old). Only the driver wears a helmet.  Since being here I have seen several passengers get dumped on the road because the driver did not properly judge the distance to get around something.  This does not deter the driver who just keeps going.
• now we get to my favorite guys.  the ones pushing or pulling large carts the size of  towed trailer for most vehicles that actually have vehicle tires on them.  These guys will load these carts up to the point that it takes two or three people to get the unbalanced end down so they can start to push or pull it to the destination.  These are normally the obstruction which all other traffic is trying to get around but they simply keep their heads down and keep going because to stop will be disaster as they will lose control of their cargo.

Now imagine all of these things going on at once in town of 500,000 or more with only two traffic lights and multiple circles of death (oh wait that was what we called them in traffic engineering class they are actually traffic circles).

It is a lot of fun to ride around in the dolla dolla as they use their horns over the blaring rap music and the occasionally jingle as the money man shakes his coins to let everyone know it is time to pay.   They however do not power their vehicles by how much they blow the horn as they do in South America. 

They simply maneuver around all these obstacles but not too well as can be seen by the various types of damage on the sides and the complete absence of bumpers for most vehicles.  In addition is the graphic arts all over the vehicle and the row of licensure stamps down the middle of the windshield obstructing their view.