Tanzania and the Hindu Temple - Sam

The past week and a half we have been researching what it will take to purchase a motorbike and drive it though the remaining countries. To our avail, we have learned that to cross borders with a motorcycle, it will be extremely expensive. According to what we have researched online, which may or may not be true, each country charges their own tax for bringing a vehicle into the country. It ranges from around 200% of the price of the vehicle in Kenya to 800% in Egypt. Once you exit a country with your vehicle you will get the majority of the money back. It is designed to ensure that people are not importing and exporting vehicles into the country, keeping business within that country rather than elsewhere. For us the issue lies in that we DO plan on selling the vehicle in another country, not to mention 800% of a motorcycle that costs $1000 is an additional cost of $8000 each, which needless to say neither of us have. We are beginning to realize that doing the Cape to Cairo trip by vehicle is a rich man's game. The cost of doing the trip by a land rover would be unimaginably expensive.

Matt and I have not given up hope though. We are going to continue to look for bikes in Nairobi for the month we will be in Kenya. We are also planning to stop into the Ethiopian Embassy in Kenya and get more information about bringing the bikes into Ethiopia, where we would tour around for 2 or 3 more weeks and then attempt to sell them there. It is just a matter of how big of a hit it will be to our budget. We will see in a few days. The thought of having our own means of transport is too appealing to give up just yet.

We've been in Tanzania now for a little over a week. It's been quite the change in culture. Tanzania has a large Muslim population, unlike any of the countries we have been in prior. It is also much more developed and multicultural. It's been a nice change from Malawi and Zimbabwe whose economies are doing very poorly. We arrived in Dar Es Salaam late in the night, groggy and tired after a 36 hour train ride that should have taken less than 24 and not quite recovered from the food poisoning we recieved. We bought dinner on the train, the all too common rice, chicken and salad that makes up the majority of the cuisine in all of southern Africa.We take a bite of the chicken which tastes unusually like fish. We both look at each and both shrug and say,"oh well," and coninue eating. Within two hours we begin feeling funny. I began getting flu like sympstoms and immediately think Malaria. We spend the rest of the night running back and forth from the bathroom. Thank god we had toilet paper. Lessons in Africa often come at a high price.

The train to Dar Es Salaam

We awoke the next morning to the sound of the Muslim call to prayer sometime around 5am. A man on a loud speaker chants something in Arabic, amplifying the sound of his voice to the whole area our hotel is located in. Many people in the streets wear traditional Muslim clothing. Muslim women often wear brightly colored dresses, headscarves that wrap around their heads long ways called a hijab, or veils covering most of their heads and part of their face called a niqab. Occosaionally, you see a woman wearing all black with only a slit cut out for for her eyes called a burqa, resembling some kind of secretive ninja. Muslim men will often wear long white robes that nearly touch the ground. Matt and I think it would be cool if we could find one for ourselves. I'm not sure how much I would actually wear it, but it would be a cool thing to take home from Africa, not to mention it has to feel amazing wearing one without any underwear.

We left Dar a little disenchanted by the fact that we didn't have motorcycles and had to continue by bus, something that is beginning to feel more like a chore than a pleasure, this time especially. I was still sick from food I had eaten in Dar just days after the train ride. I was up all night running to and from the bathroom yet again, this time vommiting and not being able to keep even water down. The next morning I decided I would risk taking the bus and just before we got into the taxi to take us to the station I vomitted right in front of the driver. That was miraculously the last time and with the aid of anti-diarreal medication I made it to our destination without incident.

We were headed for Arusha to get out of the big city, continue looking for bikes and meet up with a friend of mine who is living outside of the city. Arusha is known for being halfway between Cape Town and Cairo, meaning with how much travelling we have done off the beaten path we must have travelled a few thousand miles at this point. We hung around in Arusha for a few days being very lazy. We had wifi, met a guy travelling from the states to hang out with and restaurants that offered things like cheeseburgers and pizza. It was a nice change from the rest of southern Africa

A variety of grains and spices in a market in Arusha

While wondering around the city, Matt spotted the top of a Hindu temple off in the distance. We decided to go check it out. We arrived at the front of the building and proceeded to attempt to enter when a local man came up and questioned us about what we doing. He instructed us to follow him around back. We were skeptical, as usually when someone in Africa helps a white person, there is a reward that is expected, even for the most menial of tasks. We start to follow him and then turn around and go back to the entrance. The man begins yelling to someone, "Muzungu muzungu!," or "white person white person!" An Indian man comes from around the building and greets us with a smile and a firm handshake. He welcomes us warmly and explains that the temple is not open just yet for visitors, but invites us back that evening as there was a special speaker from India there to give a talk and explains that there will be food provided. Obviously, with the invitation for free food and a chance to expereince something culturally unique, Matt and I graciously excepted.

We arrived at the temple around 6pm with empty stomachs thinking we would be eating dinner shortly. Pranesh, the man we had met earlier in the day met us at near the entrance of the large temple. He began showing us around the main room of the temple where there were many shrines where people would come twice and day pray to their different gods. In the corner there was a shrine of a man named Swaminaryan who had left his home at the age of 12 and began travelling through India teaching people about how to be more spiritual and become better Hindus. We came to learn that the name Swaminaryan is also the name of this sect of Hinduism. The shrine was surounded by flashing neon lights and brightly colored, resembling something out of Las Vegas rather than in a holy temple, but this was classic Hindu extravagance. Pranesh then told us that the evening was going to begin with Hindu prayer and song and then we would move to a different room where the talk would begin. We found a seat and the ceremony began.

The men and the women sat in different areas with the men up front leading the chanting and drumming and the women in the back. The reason for this, Pranesh explained, was "so that the men would not be distracted by the the women." As we were not in any place to question their faith or practices, we nodded and smiled. There were four men sitting in front of the shrines on a large mat. They had microphones and were chanting something in their native language, Gujarati. I believe the chanting and drumming was the signal that the evening had begun. People began filling the room. Women would find a spot in the back and sit together and men would come into the center of the room to the mat and start their prayer rituals and jooin with the rythmic chanting. Occasionally a man with an orange colored robe would come in and walk up to the shines and perform his prayers giving respect to the figures. After the chanting all the men walked in a line along the shrines and close their eyes and appeared to be soaking in the energy of the figures. We were invited to do the same and we did so respectively which in all honesty felt a little silly being that I didn't know what I was doing. I just followed what everyone else did and moved along.

We then all filed into a large room in a different part of the temple that had more seating available and a stage where there were chairs set up and a podium for the speaker. We followed Pranesh and he instructed us to sit near the front row. Again, the women sat in the back and men in the front. As we sat not knowing what to expect from this talk, whether it was going to be in English and our stomachs rumbling away, we began to feel that we may have made a mistake. At this point it would have been rude to get up and walk out and we were still intrigued by what was to come, so we sat there politely with Pranesh waiting for the talk to begin.

It began with an introductory speaker. To our relief he spoke in English as well as Gujarati. We realized that the ceremony was to promote a book that was written recently about conversations that took place between a living guru and the ex-president of India. Through the series of talks that took place, the well educated ex-president of India began to realize that something was missing from his life and to the plan he was making to help build up the country of India. He realized his plan was missing a spiritual component. The speaker talked of friendship, told some stories and introduced the main speaker Sadhu Brahmavihardi, the translator between the ex-president and the guru Pramukh Swamiji.

I expected it to be something that was unrelatable and overly spiritual, but to our surpise was actually quite good. He talked a lot of the different faiths in the world, including agnostics and atheists, needing to have more diologue and understanding. It was important to accept each others beliefs as their own and have respect for one another. The speaker wore an orange robe and was very charasmatic. He was educated in London, held multiple degrees, and could speak multiple languages. He was clearly a scholor before he became a holy figure.

Sadhu Brahmavihari in the large chair with Pramukh Swamiji pictured above

After the talk the men all lined up to thank the speaker and the different holy men he travelled with for coming all the way Africa to speak, shaking their hands and touching the feet of the speaker. Pranesh instructed us to wait until the end and he would introduce us. We waited and hopped in line at the end. We came through the line thanking the men for coming. We approched the Sadhu Brahmavihari and he stopped us and we talked for a while together. He was extremely kind and asked us what kind of work we do. We explained to him what Outward Bound was and he told us a story of Edmund Hillary, a famous mountaineer. We couldn't believe he knew of him, let alone told us a story of his childhood. He encouraged us to keep exploring and travelling and then proceeded to give us each a book in which he wrote a message to each of us and signed his name. We then took pictures together and Matt and I thanked him once again and headed downstair to eat. It was around 10pm at this point and we were starving.

Sadhu Brahmavihari writing a message in our books

They served traditional vegetarian Indian food which was amazing, much better than the Indian food I ate in Dar es Salaam which got me violently ill for about 24 hours. They servered different curries with vegetables and paneer, an Indian cheese, rice, salad, and homemade desert that resembled a donut mixed with a cookie. At the end of the dinner Pramesh insisted that we once again go talk with speaker and say our farewells. We felt like we had had enough special treatment for the evening, but also felt like we couldn't tell our guide no. We approached Sadhu Brahmavihari in his room and we said our goodbuys. He then proceeded to give us prayer beads and a bracelet as further gifts to take with us. By this time it was nearly 11pm and Pranesh insisted on driving us back to our hostel because it wasn't safe to walk home alone. We relunctantly accepted. We were honestly blown away by the evening. The kindness we were shown was more than we ever expected and the talk was actually one that we could relate to. We had no idea that when we wandered up to a strange Hindu temple in Africa that we would be shown such hospitality or have such an experience.

After spending a few days in Arusha, we headed for Usa River, about 30 min outside the city to meet up with my friend Halle who is studying Swahili at the University there. We met her and met a couple of her friends who are also studying there. It was great to hang out with fellow Americans for a few days as they are so few on the continent. One of the days Matt and I took a bus to a small town about 30 minutes away and then took a tuk tuk another 30 minutes into the bush to find a natural spring. The spring was bubbling up from under the ground and was so clear it was difficult to tell how deep it was. There was a rope swing and trees you could climb into and jump from. We were getting a bit restless and feeling disapointed about not getting bikes before we got there. Finding a spring like this in the African bush has the ability to transform one's mood from one of disdain to one of hopefullness. It was exactly what we needed and the following day we daparted and headed for Nairobi with motorcycles still on the radar.