WEDDING AROUND POOL DRAWS HUNDREDS
By Bob Van Leer

  (DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, EAST AFRICA, Nov. 6, 1993) - Our fifth floor room overlooks the hotel pool area which has been taken over this afternoon for an elaborate wedding. The bride has a gown with a train that must be 10 feet long. Several hundred people are at the ceremony and, out of sight under a canopy, a band is playing. The bride and groom and attendants are under a specially set up tent. The ceremony has been underway now for a couple of hours. It appears to be a Christian service with African overlays. There are dancers and ululating calls that are not what we are used to seeing and hearing at weddings. An affair of this size we should be able to read about in the local daily newspaper tomorrow.

  A tour of this Indian Ocean city this morning started with a visit to the Magogoni Fish Market. The market is a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. It is located right on the waterfront under ramshackle roofs. Fish were being sold at a fast-paced auction and all around were supporting services. In one area thousands of smelt-sized fish were laid out to dry. Fish were being cleaned all over. A technique for scaling seemed to be to rub sand all over the fish first. After cleaning the sand was washed off the fish in the bay. Along the bay front were dug-out boats used by fishermen. We were entreated throughout the market to buy goods: shells, wood carvings and others.

  Following the fish market, we went to the National Museum. It is not a large museum but houses important archaeological collections taken from the Olduvai gorge. This includes Zinjanthropus dating back 1.75 million years found by Dr. Leakey. Also on display were relicts from the colonial era - first before World War I when this was a German colony and secondly, when the British took over. Another stop was a gallery of stalls of the famous Makonde wood carvers and other crafts people. These people are very aggressive in selling their wares. At another site, an extension of the National Museum, there were houses constructed in the styles of the various tribes of Tanzania. A common factor among all the houses is a thatched roof. Some are all roof. Others have sidewalls of what appears to be a form of stucco. The Masai houses are made of cow dung smeared over wattle.

  The temperature today was scorching but some of the houses were surprisingly cool inside. On the way back to the hotel we drove through the campus of the University of Dar es Salaam. This is a large school established in 1970. Teaching is done in English. Our guide estimates an overall attendance of 6000. We think the school is larger than that and asked for a check of the figure. Crime appears to be a real problem here. We are constantly warned about avoiding conspicuous jewelry, for purses to be kept close to the body and not to travel, especially at night, except in groups. Many of the vehicles have the vehicle license number etched, in quite large numbers, into all the windows, even including rear-view mirrors. This would make them unsaleable on the black market. Room air conditioners at street level are protected by cages of iron bars. There is a small shopping arcade off the hotel lobby and windows of the shops even there have iron bars over them. There are not the safety factors in construction here we are used to. There aren't many guard rails. In many places there are sharp dropoffs with no protecting rails. Tomorrow we are to take the "fast boat" to Zanzibar a few miles off the coast where we will spend the night.