A walk by the sea in a Tanzanian fishing village

by Tom Jameson (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Tanzania

Tilted triangular fishing huts line the perimeter of the litter-strewn Indian Ocean beach. Their corrugated apexes peer above scatterings of parched brown bushes, together forming thick blotches in my peripheral vision amongst its otherwise crisp blues and yellows. My eyes dart across the scene as I feel the tip of his knife gently protrude into my chin. It was a strange place to experience a bolt of such sudden alarm. Me and a friend, Sonja, had set out in the early morning from our volunteer house near Kunduchi, a fishing village just north of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, en route to the bus station to take a dala dala into the city. We were headed to the Zambian embassy to obtain my visa, and as such I carried my passport, albeit hidden away in an inside short pocket, conscious that without it my plans to traverse the remainder of South-east Africa would be cast into doubt. Our feet imprinted our course in the wet sand around miniature sandworm castings and occasional empty handwoven fishing baskets, sunken at various angles like marine gravestones. We had been walking half an hour and seen only two people – children playing with an old car tyre – customarily shouting “Mzungu” (white person) before greeting us with a “Mambo!” (hello) and beaming smiles. A slight breeze skirted the encroaching and retreating tide the only sounds, seemingly for miles. The children had resembled those I taught as a volunteer English teacher nearby. I would walk home every day after school with my favourite students, Miriam and Junior, holding their hands and singing songs. Extreme poverty here invaded every dwelling, school, item of clothing, but mostly failed to contain the exuberant spirit of its people. A figure emerged in the distance from behind the huts and quickened as walking ahead in a route that it became clear would bring them into contact with us. He wore a threadbare vest and knee-length deep-pocketed shorts. We were addressed in a faint muffled voice that extended far beyond my grasp of the language. The ridged calloused contours around his forehead and eyes brought a new dimension to the description of a face being weathered. “Pole sana, sina fahamu..” - very sorry, I don’t understand, I offered hesitantly, uncertain of my Swahili. “… Elfu mbili shilingi…” he replied. He was asking for two thousand shillings, roughly a pound. As I had answered he walked past Sonja and was speaking directly to me. I pulled out the requested notes and in a single swift motion he lifted an until then concealed large fishing knife from his short pocket towards my face. I looked down upon what appeared to be the type of knife with which a fisherman might skin a whale. His demeanour became fraught, his jaw clenched, as if some indeterminate frenzied attack were facing him also. My thoughts turned to Sonja who looked on, visibly alarmed. What if he attacked her? Instinct hijacked all reason. I scoured the surface of the beach. Stray rocks became potential weapons. Incomprehensible angered shouts followed as the assailant seized my collar with his spare hand and pushed me back with his shirt-clenched fist, then rummaging through my pockets, taking my phone, wallet, money, and retreating, his knife still directed at me, which he pointed as he shouted a parting expletive, in English, before disappearing back into the direction of the huts and beyond. I realised my passport had been undiscovered. I could continue my journey. Sonja was unharmed. Discarded multicoloured plastic debris underfoot we left the beach by a derelict shell of a building, beside which a farmer attended to his rather emaciated cows. We walked in silence until a passerby exchanged with us more mambos and smiles. This crime defines Tanzania no more than it would any other place, I thought to myself, but somehow in this setting of spoilt natural beauty the hardships endured by its wondrous people seemed all the more tragic.