I’ve been a member of Couchsurfing almost since the website began but had only participated a measly one time when I was in China. It was a fantastic experience and I constantly wonder why I don’t do it more often and then still end up not doing it. Until last week when I found myself sitting in the lounge room of Gabriel Robert surrounded by his wife and his family of five young children. He lives in Ubungo, a suburb of Dar Es Salaam, the country’s capital city and I was there to Couchsurf for my second time.
In talking to Gabriel it’s easy to tell he’s a very ambitious man who sets goals and knows how to follow through on them. He seems to be a leader in the community and I witnessed him talking to his own children and kids in the neighbourhood about the importance of education and chasing your dreams. His oldest daughter, Mary, wants to be a pilot, his son Carlos wants to be an electrical engineer like dad, and his middle daughter, Glory, wants to be a TV news presenter. I’m not sure what his babies want to do yet but I’m sure they’ll be filled with ideas in no time.
My first morning was spent at a neighbour’s house chatting to the wife of his pastor. They’ve got a pig pen, a small chicken business, and ducks wandering around the property. The young boys were busy working on painting some window frames and we sat down and chatted over a couple bottles of Fanta. I had already spoken a bit to Gabriel about my online work, volunteering, living in the UK and we had also exchanged some ideas about business and I told him I have a business degree. He seemed to pass this information on to each friend he met up with while I was there, telling them all about my travels, work and education as they looked on with approval.
That same night, the pastor and his wife came for a visit and Gabriel showed them the beginnings of a website he’s been working on for their church. He’s been teaching himself HTML and was in the early stages but had managed to get off to a good start and everyone he showed his creation to were impressed. I was really happy to have an opportunity to give him a few tips and teach him a few more of the basics. Gabriel and his family have been ridiculously generous to me so it felt great to be able to give a bit back with my short lesson on HTML.
On the next day it was me who was the student as Mary, Glory and Carlos taught me a bunch of Swahili words on the front porch. Nothing really stuck in my useless memory but I think I grasped the spelling which I think impressed them. I doubt they would have given me a gold star for my efforts, though. But now I’ve got a notebook of words to study and practice with. Unfortunately Swahili seems to be a lot more complicated than Creole so learning even the basics will be a struggle for language-challenged me. When I get to a place with a better connection I’m going to buy Benny’s Language Hacking Guide. Help me Benny!
I attracted the curiosity of the kids when I opened up my computer but it seemed to disappoint with the lack of games. It doesn’t even have card games – the horror! But I did attempt to give a quick lesson in chess. Later when we were watching a Mexican soap opera dubbed over with English-speaking actors, Mary noticed they were playing chess in one scene and seemed a bit interested. I might have turned one of them into a chess geek. Sweet.
One of the more bizarre moments of my travel life happened while we were driving into town on afternoon. We were stuck in what I now know is Dar Es Salaam’s regular, everyday, at all times of the day, traffic jam when Gabriel mentioned that a big truck that was passing was a tourist truck. I didn’t really know what he meant, glanced over and saw a giant Kumuka overland truck complete with my two Aussie friends inside. One was fiddling with the window flap and sort of looking in my direction and I got her attention with the beep of the car horn. The look on her face was priceless. There I was in a car with an entire Tanzanian family in a traffic jam on the outskirts of a foreign city, hanging out the window to get her attention. It was pretty crazy to me that we were in the same place at the same time like that but I’m sure the whole scene is a bit more bizarre for them considering what on earth I was doing there.
I stayed with Gabriel an his family for four nights and they not only fed me and gave me a place to sleep, they also bought me ice cream. Plus, more importantly than the ice cream (yes, it’s possible), I got to hang out with them, meet some of their family and friends, have a bunch of interesting conversations and learn a lot of different things: from what exactly was going on in that Mexican soap opera to how much you can buy and sell a pig for at the market to the state of politics in the country.
I was really made to feel at home and I had an amazing experience. If the rest of my Couchsurfing experiences are anywhere near as great as this one then I will be very happy.
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