Daladalas

I find daladalas to be completely fascinating. Daladalas are Tanzania’s equivalent of public transportation and they are EVERYWHERE: I think easily half of the vehicles on the road are daladalas. They are really just minivans that are privately operated by a driver and a helper. The helper loads and unloads passengers and collects the money and the driver, well, drives. They are often overflowing with people and anything that they might need to be carrying with them. This includes, but is not limited to: chickens, mattresses, sacks of rice/flour, bicycles, and goats. Yep, you heard that right, goats; pulled from underneath the back seat. I have no idea how they coax them in there, but I thought my mom’s eyes were going to pop out of her head when she saw them open up the back and pull some goats out from under the seat.

I don’t know who decides what decals should decorate the individual daladalas – the owner of the vehicle, the driver? As I’ve mentioned before, there seem be either religious or hip-hop themed, but there are also a lot of futbol ones as well (yes, the soccer kind, not American football). In addition to the backs and sides of the vans being decaled there is usually one word over the windshield..for some reason there is an odd affinity for “Cupcake” and “Led Zeppelin” (which has also included Led Zepperlin and Led Zeppein). No idea what’s up with “Cupcake”.

Here are some (probably too many) pictures of the local daladalas. Like I said, I find them completely fascinating. (And it can give you a little bit of an idea of what driving through town might be like).

And then there are the mkokoteni (handcarts/wheelbarrows used to carry anything you can possibly think of). I think I’ll have to save a tribute to them for another time though.