Title:	So-fari, so-good
Region:	Africa
Countries:	Tanzania
Date:	September 16, 2002
My Rating (out of 100):	70
	Tanzania. Naturally the last 9 days since I landed here have been full of interesting experiences, interesting people and learning lots about the place. We started out in Zanzibar which is an island 35km off the coast of Tanzania that was a historical port for Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. People here for the most part look African, but many have Arabic names. Stone town is the major tourist area and I have to say that as exotic as Zanzibar sounds, it's really a bit disappointing. Only one building has been restored so the place generally looks like a dump. Naturally, corruption and bureaucracy are to blame for this. A few years ago the Lyons club in Dar Es Salaam offered to completely renovate and restore Stone Town with one caveat. The Lyons club insisted on managing the projects and their finances. Basically, they were offering to spruce up the town for free, but this wasn't a free hand-out of money. The local officials refused, because although this would be a great benefit to the population as a whole, they couldn't pocket the money themselves. They wanted to manage (i.e., pocket most of) the money! Apparently, it is quite common for aid money from western countries to vanish into the pockets of corrupt officials all the way down the line. So, Zanzibar's Stone Town looks like crap...with potential. We did have a very good experience renting a motocross 250 (after an interesting experience with corrupt traffic police, but that's another story) and riding to the islands East Coast. Part of our journey was spent cruising along the beach at low tide, palm trees flying by on one side, the blue-green Indian ocean on the other. Now, that is the life! Dogs. Most developing nations I have been to have lots of dogs covered in mange running around, sometimes rabid, but not here. Tanzania is largely Muslim and one of our guides told us that they are not allowed to have dogs as pets, so they really don't exist here. Plenty of malnourished looking cats though. A.I.D.S., as you probably already know, is a big problem in Africa and Tanzania is no exception. Lack of education is the problem and there are some very strange attitudes towards AIDS, especially in rural areas. Some people call it AIDS (Americas Idea to Discourage Sex) and don't even believe that it exists. Others believe that if they catch it, all they have to do is have sex with a virgin and they are cured. One of the people we met here, Leigh-Ellen, works for a school and most of her co-workers are locals. Last year, 3 of her co-workers died of AIDS and she only works with 150 people. I wonder how many are HIV positive?? So, let's assume you worked for 30 years of your life, most than half of the people you worked with would die of AIDS. That puts things in perspective! Anyway, on that cheery note I will sign off for now. We just finished a camping safari with Shannon, who is kind enough to host us here in Dar Es Salaam, but I will write about that later!