Since Friday morning till yesterday afternoon I was on the road - from Arusha to Dar es Salaam, with several stops. First one stop at MS TCDC in Usa River (giving a lift to 3 young Global Contact volunteers), then off-loading them in Moshi, and interviewing one of our partners for our magazine. Then giving a lift to a lutheran priest to Mombo, having a several hour long chat on religion and how to teach or not teach sexual health to youth. Then one overnight stop in Lushoto, where I slept in the Lawn's Hotel - a hotel which fits so well into the category of places which could have been cosy and cool had the staff only cleaned it up recently or appeared more alive. Then off from Lushoto towards Dar.
However, at Wami River Bridge, I met the longest, most massive, traffic jam I have ever seen. Down the mountain, over the bridge, up the other mountain. For 30 minutes I sat still, read a magazine. Nothing moved, then I gambled, and drove my car (from the right top corner of the photo to the point where this photo is taken) only to realise that a huge truck had turned over, blocking the road. Cars and busses always seem to find a passage anyhow, like in this case next to it, and off road over the mountain. These passages were blocked too. By one of these nasty long-distance busses. Someone pulled it out, we all reorganised ourselves, I blessed my 4WD, got an instant Uganda flashback when I found my car squeezed in between a huge petrol truck and another 4DW and couldn't open the driver's seat door.
One hour later, out of the jam, in Chalinze I got a phone call from a Tanzanian colleague in Dar es Salaam who wanted to hear if I made it. When you drive a car with a logo everyone knows you, in this case one of MS Tanzania's partner organisations who had spotted me and my car and instantly called the country office to forward his concern.
But I got out, over the mountain, and out.
