At 5:30 yesterday (Thursday) our receptionist, Irene, and I were leaving the office. I asked her how long it would take for her to get home. Two hours she said. Two hours?!?! Her house is not more than 7 miles from our office. She has to go wait at the bus station and the lines to get on the bus are so long that it would take her nearly 40 minutes to get a bus and then another hour plus in traffic to get to her house.
Traffic in Dar es Salaam is is horrendous at rush hour (which lasts much longer than you would think). If you live in D.C. and think 495 or 66 are bad commuting into the District- you ain't seen nothing yet! In Dar there are three main roads that come into City Centre where most people work. Most people live either South, West or North of town (like the suburbs- it's cheaper!). All of these people use the same three roads (all only four lanes total) to come into work and go home for the day.
Our accountant lives maybe max 20 miles from the office. She drives- so maybe that would be better, right? Nope. She leaves her house around 5:30 a.m. every morning to beat the traffic. She'll get to work in about 30 minutes or so. If she leaves at 6:15 a.m., she might as well wait to leave her house until after morning rush hour because it will take her at least two hours to go 20 miles. Irene also has a heck of a commute in the a.m. Instead of having the school bus pick up her 5 year old at 5 a.m. (the school bus pick up time- for an 8 a.m. school start. Can you imagine waking up a 5 yr old at 4:00 a.m. to get ready for school?), Irene wakes her son around 5:30- and they go into town together on the dala-dala (bus) leaving her house around 6:15/6:30 to make sure that he gets to school by 8. She then takes another bus after that to get to work (hopefully around 9).
I took the picture above from the sun deck of the Holiday Inn on Thursday when I got home and imagined Irene waiting for the dala-dala and suddenly was more appreciative of my 45 minute commute on the subway in Boston.
No comments:
Post a Comment