What it is like to commute by daladala in Dar

Mbagala Rangi Tatu Bus Terminal is a tidal wave of minibuses, motorcycles, trucks, shops, kiosks, hawkers, food stall owners and yelling daladala conductors. It has to be one of the most congested spots in all of the country.

The narrow roadway and minute terminal block is the destination and transit zone for thousands of commuters. Such is the demand for transport in this area that some bus owners have chosen to forgo the small mini-bus model for large two decker buses usually reserved for regional routes.

“This is nothing, you should see what happens here in the morning at around seven, the evenings are even worse,” the man standing next to me says. “There’s no space to breathe, you would think you were in hell.” His name is Thomas, he stands with a white straw bag full of rolled up straw bags between his feet as we wait for a bus back into the city.

His back is curved with age but he’s used to standing for hours in daladalas. Thomas pays Sh2,200 from his home in Temeke to Mbagala and back everyday, a nominal fee by world standards ($1.2). But there is something about public transport in Dar es Salaam that leaves its users feeling extremely underwhelmed.

“They treat us like we’re cattle, just packing us in until no one can even see anything, it’s very bad,” Thomas says.

We are happy to get an empty bus to Makumbusho, we sit and wait for others to fill it up. What do you like about daladalas ? I ask my companion, “Sizipendi!” he shouts back.

We roll out of the terminal and head back into the city. Thomas’ words ring in my head when I look around me and realise that almost everyone is fixated on their phones, chatting, scrolling or listening to music. Even those hanging on to the railings manage to clutch onto their devices. Thomas is right, daladala rides are horrible and we all know it.

There’s something about them that needs a buffer to smooth out the rough edges and soften the painful stabs of shoe heels on your feet, the jarring elbow to your face, the sharp smell of sweat and the almost nightmarish ordeal of standing in traffic while you feel the slow descent of your own sweat running down your legs.

Daladalas are rough, as they have always been. As a transport system, daladalas were a solution to the severe lack of sufficient government run public transport after independence. Therefore, they operated as illegal taxis in the city and the process of legalising them only took place between 1975 and 1983. The unregulated nature of daladalas is a possible cause for the almost inhumane manner in which bus conductors and drivers treat their customers.

Another issue that has been pointed to as a reason for the sub-par state of daladala services is the fact that a majority of them are owned by private individuals who take a very backseat approach to running their businesses. A 2011 Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) study states that many of these private bus owners are against the regulation of daladalas by companies and cooperatives as they wish to continue circumventing regulations and law enforcement. Daladala owners therefore simply set a fixed price that drivers must deliver everyday. Whatever is left is divided between them and their conductors, and of course the petrol budget is factored in.

When we consider the environment in which the average conductor operates we can see what drives them to load as many people as they can on each trip. The conductor on this daladala ride is particularly angry and begins to scream and yell as a young girl appears to have slipped through the door without paying. He cranes his neck to yell at her as the bus leaves the stop.

The conductor then proceeds to squeeze and bully his way through the packed aisle making a tambourine sound with the stack of coins. I pay my Sh 600 to Makumbusho and get my ticket. This ride is particularly long and therefore never boring. On the way I see a couple of things that leave me gasping and laughing, the first is an accident which leaves a biker sitting on the road in shock with a bulge of what seems to be a bone protruding from his leg, the other; a Chinese woman behind the wheel of a large truck arguing with traffic officers while one attempts to open the back of her truck.

We finally arrive at Makumbusho and I lose Thomas in the bustle. Makumbusho looks like Heathrow airport in comparison to Mbagala. I start looking around for a bus to Kimara/Mbezi and for some reason can’t find one today. I ask around and the several conductors point me towards the back of a long cue of buses, but there’s no bus to Mbezi. I decide to stroll around and see if I can strike up a conversation with some of the busy conductors, I find some who seem to be taking a break.

I meet Gody who is a conductor for a bus to which routes from Makumbusho to Kariakoo. Gody tells me that he makes about Sh30,000 to 50,000 a day which he then hands over to the driver and often gets less than Sh10,000 back. “A lot of the time it’s even less than that, there are bad days when you get caught by the police or the bus breaks down then we have to park for hours, then we make nothing.” Gody and his fellow conductor and friend Ayub are both daily contract workers, what they refer to as “deiwaka.” This means that the two of them have a network of drivers who they can work for on a daily basis instead of working full time.

“It’s a rough life,” Ayub tells me, “some kids will start off thinking they can handle it, and many do, but many just can’t pull the long shifts. You go to work at eight and maybe leave at four, I work from five in the morning and sleep at midnight, that’s my life.”

I ask Ayub and Gody if they reckon that things would look better for conductors and drivers if they were more formally employed. They reply that that will never happen, “this works for the bosses,” says Gody and passes a lit cigarette to his friend.

I decide to take a daladala to Mwenge and find one to Mbezi from there. Once in Mwenge I realise that this is going to take longer than I’d expected. There are other Mbezi residents at the stop and we chat while waiting. No one wants to take a bus to

Mawasiliano then connect to Mbezi, we want to go straight home and for this, we have to wait.

We finally squeeze ourselves into a Kimara/Mbezi bound bus which proceeds to collide with a car which had collided with another car. The traffic officers move in, one has a stack of confiscated number plates under his arm. We don’t care about any damage or who’s been hurt, we all begin to line up to get our money back from the conductor then look for alternative transport. We all silently thank the heavens the accident happened close to the Mlimani bus stop.

We begin to walk to the bus stop exchanging opinions about which idiot was responsible for causing the accident. I get on a fully packed daladala to Mbezi and brace myself for the Ubungo traffic, which does not let me down. Finally at Ubungo, the conductor packs even more sluggish Mbezi residents in and we roll onwards.

At around Kimara the bus begins to empty and I’m able to secure a seat. I finally get to enjoy the evening breeze and watch the setting sun hit the coconut trees on the horizon. I look around and realise there are a lot of mothers carrying their babies on kanga slings. I try to avoid eye contact but one smiles at me and I get up to give her my seat. I get off my stop and it’s a short walk home so I ignore the Bajaj and bodaboda drivers. Finally at home, exhausted and very dusty, I realise that I’d travelled across most of residential Dar es Salaam for Sh2,500.

Email: [email protected]