June 12th-14th

The Tazara! Now the traveling adventures begin. Although I am sad to leave the village behind I am quite excited to begin exploring Zambia and Tanzania. And what better way to see the countryside than a train? The Tazara is a train that runs from Kapiri, Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The train moves at a snail’s pace, makes a hundred stops, bumps, rattles, and shakes worse than a paint mixer, and almost always breaks down at least once each trip. The journey takes three days. I became hopeful half way through the second day that we were going to arrive on time; unfortunately my hopes were premature. No sooner had my brain uttered these words of confidence one of the train cars derailed. No one was injured and only one car was affected. Surprisingly the problem was resolved on only 8 hours and one more railcar entered the railcar gravel yard; the solution was to detach the rebel car and push in off the tracks down the hill… problem solved.

I have never taken an overnight train anywhere else in the world so I have not else to compare it to, but I have a hunch that not all train rides are like this one. This is an African train! True to form the bathrooms are questionable and require an immense amount of skill and creativity to perform the necessary task without incident. I feel as though I have already gone into enough detail about the bathroom science in Africa that I feel it would be a bit redundant to explore the complexities of being a girl in a train bathroom. Just reread the toilet entry and then imagine the target constantly moving.

The food on the train was edible and cheap. The only issue was digesting the food. As I have mentioned before Nshema is a thick doughy/ pasty like substance made from maize meal. It has the same effect on one’s digestion that I assume swallowing a bucket of cement would; which given the bathroom situation was not entirely unwelcome. One of the most pleasing parts of the train ride besides that people that you meet and the beautiful scenery was the endless supply of beer. With little to do to occupy your time on a 56 hour train ride consuming alcohol and playing cards with new found friends is a viable and most often your only option to pass the time, that and staring blankly out the window.