On the Road to Dodoma

Wednesday, 20 May

After the tour and a few minutes to pack my things, I headed with Fr. Damas to Dodoma. With us were his mother and sister, who live northwest of Dodoma, in Singida, I believe. His mother had been in Dar looking into what it would mean to have knee-replacement surgery. Between the walk and now this ride through the neighborhood to the road to Dodoma I saw what I had missed last night because of the darkness.

Because there is such un- and underemployment here, there are a lot of folks walking, visiting, sitting. But you also see in the neighborhood small businesses: hair, butchery, etc. People getting by. In addition to the adults are a good number of children not in school.

Once we hit the main road to Dodoma, I felt we were in a bustling metropolitan setting, though on its western edge. The neighborhood road comes out to the main road near the bus station. There were loads of mostly young men selling every sort of fruit, candy, and beverage, running along the busses as they were leaving the station. There were few takers from what I could see.

It took awhile to get out the city – though it has a semi-rural flavour after a few kilometres, the ubiquitous dalla-dallas – jam packed with riders — reminded me just how really close we were.

What can I say about the 300+ miles from Dar to Dodoma? Well one obvious thing is that there was not one half mile on the journey where we didn’t see a person along the road, walking or biking, selling food or charcoal, tending goats or pasturing cows (there were a number of Maasai men doing just that all along the route).

Fortunately Damas is a good and skilled driver. The busses zipped by us, and the busses headed toward Dar weren’t afraid to pass slow traffic, coming into our westbound lane with little distance. So not only will I have to relearn how to drive a manual transmission (I learned when I worked at St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center in Baltimore in 1983, but I didn’t really learn – I spent a lot of time using the hand-break on hills and riding the clutch at stops) -- not only will I have to relearn how to drive a manual transmission but I’ll have to learn to be a bit of a daredevil.

We stopped along the road in Morogoro, southeast of Dodoma, a little less than half way there. Suddenly our land cruiser was surrounded by folks selling oranges, bananas, and “milk bread” (otherwise known as white bread). When they saw me in the car, they started saying “Mzungu, mzungu (white guy, white guy), buy some oranges, buy some bananas, etc.” Damas’s sister bought some oranges and bananas and we were on our way.

Between Morogoro and Dodoma, Damas mentioned that his niece was at a boarding school just off the road. He hadn’t finished his sentence when he spotter her at the side of the road. He pulled over thirty yards ahead, and her mother called back to her. How happy she was to see them! We went ahead to the convent and friary (Italian Franciscans), and she caught up with us. After she had a chance to visit with her mother and grandmother along with the sisters while Damas and I enjoyed the hospitality of a Franciscan brother, we continued on the journey to our destination.

On the outskirts of Dodoma, Damas mentioned we were approaching the OLQP campus. He kindly pulled over for me to see it and then drove around to the entrance gate. The guard on duty let us pass, and we drove around the campus. The first impression, which you don’t get from the video, is just how big it is – the shortest length, along to Dodoma-Morogoro Road is 1.5 kilometres. The accompanying video captures this initial approach -- pardon the handheld camera. The University of Dodoma is next to the campus and its campus is huge. The combined immensity means that the university buildings (former parliament buildings to give you some sense of scale) are dots (large dots, but dots). The folks on the site were closing up shop for the day. Everyone seemed very industrious. I don’t know how obvious it is to you in the video, but this is “Big Sky Country.” It’s expansive. I’m sure I’ll head out for a more formal tour with Sossy in the next days.

After that quick tour we headed to the Jesuit parish, known by all as the “airport parish” because, well, it’s next to the airport. I have a comfortable room at the end of the house – about the size of the room I grew up in at 3627 Anderson Pkwy in Toledo. We ate at 19h00, joined by two of the volunteers, one who works at Ignatius Loyola Primary school and the other at an orphanage operated by the Ursuline sisters. I’ve been here for two days and have yet to have ugali! We had a wonderful meal of rice with a vegetable curry, chicken, a nice cabbage dish, and boiled corn – with pineapple for dessert. After dinner everyone takes some quiet time together in the chapel before returning for clean up. Not unlike many other Jesuit communities I have lived in, the next step was to catch the evening news, in this case BBC International. I didn’t last long and trundled off to my room for a bit of quiet time the product of which is in part what you’re reading.