Traveling in Africa: Daladala

Walking around Moshi town you will immediately hear a lot of different noises. Music from loudspeakers, cars and buses with noisy engines, hooting and yelling.

Some of this street noise comes from the conductors of Daladala (mini-buses) hanging outside the doors or windows of their vehicles. They Yell their final destination and try to see if you want to travel this direction with them. This is needed since there are no official bus stops.

In Moshi, daldala have colored stripes on the sides of the buses and the name of their destination painted in the front of the car. To go to KCMC I try to look for green-striped mini-buses and listen to the Yelling of KCMC.

If you need to catch a daladala you can just stand anywhere you want and just slightly wave your hand or nod with your head to an approaching vehicle. All conductors are very keen on small signs of “Yes I want to travel with you”, they immediately slap their hand twice on the side of the car as a signal for the driver to stop the bus.

The side-door swings open and you can find yourself a seat on a 3-sit bench with 4 people or stand sideways if all seats are taken. In Uganda I remember these buses had a sticker on the side that says: License to carry 14 passengers. However Daladala’s easily fill themselves with 22-30 people. Thereby enjoying each others physical closeness and odors.

When you hear the conductor tinkling with coins you try to reach into your pockets to find 200 Tsh (20ct.). After experiencing how difficult to reach into your pockets while being trapped into the arms and legs of others, you learn to place this coin somewhere easy to reach.

If you reach the place you need to be, you just shout “Susha (and the name of the place)”. The conductor will again tap his hand twice on the side of the car and the driver stops. I always try to calculate where to sit related to my destination. This to avoid that all people in the Daladala have to move outside for only me. But imagine there are at least five people standing in the doorway, this becomes virtually impossible.

It stops on almost every street corner and all people exit the car to let others out and enter again (together with new passengers). Thereby I have to remind you (and me) of the saying “Hakuna Matata” while traveling. I never found anybody in hurry or giving you an angry face for delaying his or her time table. And this you will not find in Holland unless you won the lottery or are on Holliday!

I hope I will remember “Hakuna Matata” every time I find myself becoming upset because the trains are 5 minutes late or I missed my bus and have to wait 10 minutes, or even when I am rushing myself on my bicycle. Maybe this delay happened because it was suppose to happen and prevents you from or guides you to a great new experience…...

(My camera broke, I will include an old Daladala picture to give you an idea... and some new pictures from other peoples camera...)