Down by the Ravine

DSM, March 2007

The campus of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) is where we live and spend most of our days and nights. It's a sprawling and verdant thing, on a series of hillsides and little valleys about 12 km northwest of the city center. You see, we're in Dar but on the outskirts, which has its ups and downs. It's a pain in the arse to get downtown to do things like goto the bank, eat at a greater variety of restaurants, deal w/ our passports at various bureaucratic institutions, etc. But on the good foot, we're removed from the insanity of Dar, which is nicknamed by local people "bongo," meaning you need to have your wits about you to survive in the big city (cue: "New York, New York").

On campus, whether it's going to classes or the library, heading to the pool to swim (which, currently, is a very unhealthy shade of green), mailing a letter, going to an ATM, or eating at one of a handful of eateries, we walk.

From our cush pad at 24 Kilimahewa we head down a winding road, past the house of the current assistant secretary general of the United Nations (!), past the campus church and chapel, past the daladala (minibus) stand, and towards my fave part of campus...the ravine...Ooooh, the ravine.

Basically, there's a stretch of campus that has been covered by the plush, leafy canopies of a bunch of banyan trees, with their neat, above-ground, root systems. Actually, there's a "famous" road in South Florida, Old Cutler Drive, which has a stretch where you drive under a series of banyans. Real purdy, both of 'em are.

Lots of people hang around the ravine, including random peeps who will take your photographs for money, there's a lot of posters for events, people in between classes, people walking to classes, people...a regular happening.

We just uploaded a few pics of the UDSM ravine at:

www.flickr.com/photos/sawtooth