Welcome to Tanzania

Are you ready to smile, laugh out loud and occasionally wonder how one country can be chaotic, ingenious, bewildering and remarkably wise before lunchtime?

Welcome to Tanzania

A country where “I’m coming” may indicate movement, intention or an admirable degree of optimism. Where bargaining is less a commercial transaction than the beginning of a relationship. Where a taxi ride can become couples counselling, a driving lesson, a family meeting and a business proposal before you have reached the next junction.

Where a barber may cut your hair, trim your eyebrows, massage your shoulders, offer unsolicited life advice and enquire why you are not yet married. Where a motorcycle can transport a sofa, three chickens, a refrigerator, two mattresses and what appears to be an entire extended family without attracting particular attention.

Where asking “What time are we leaving?” can lead to a surprisingly philosophical discussion about the nature of time.

Where a power cut may actually improve the party.

And where people with considerably less stuff can occasionally leave you wondering whether they might have considerably more of something else.

Warning

Do not read this book:

• in a quiet carriage;

• during a serious meeting;

• beside people who still believe you are emotionally stable;

• immediately before giving a presentation;

• or with coffee in your mouth.

You have been warned!

Nearly thirthy years of material

Martijn van Gogh first travelled to Tanzania in 1997 as a student of International Development Studies. He was supposed to stay for six months.

He stayed for a year.
This should probably have been regarded as a warning.
Nearly thirty years later, he is still returning.
Along the way he learned Swahili, worked and conducted research with young people living on the streets, later carried out research for UNICEF Tanzania, became part of Tanzanian families and accumulated an unreasonable number of stories involving cultural misunderstandings, remarkable improvisation, unexpected friendships and events that would have been rejected by an editor had they not actually happened. Tanzania gradually became far more than somewhere Martijn visited. It became part of his life — and a country that, after almost three decades, still regularly leaves him wondering what on earth just happened.

This book grew out of those years.
Not as an attempt to explain Tanzania.

After nearly thirty years, Martijn knows better than to attempt anything that ambitious.

Instead, it is a collection of the funniest, warmest, strangest and occasionally most moving stories he encountered along the way.

Why this book is different

Because it isn’t really about animals.
It’s about people.
It isn’t about ticking off sights.
It’s about what happens between them.
And it doesn’t attempt to explain exactly how Tanzania works.
Nobody knows exactly how Tanzania works. Tanzania occasionally appears to be waiting for clarification itself.
This book simply lets you experience what it feels like to be there.

For anyone who loves Tanzania

For people who already know Tanzania.
For people who are about to discover it.
For people who once went there and still experience a small emotional event whenever somebody says karibu.
For travellers who know that the best stories rarely begin with:
“Everything went exactly according to plan.”
For anyone who enjoys cultural misunderstandings, unexpected wisdom, questionable logistics, wonderful people and the occasional goat.
And for anyone whose life could use a little more laughter.

A country with a surplus of smiles

This is a book about a country blessed with an extraordinary surplus of smiles and a chronic shortage of predictability.
A place where problems are rarely solved according to plan, yet have an irritating habit of being solved anyway.
Where people may own less than we do but sometimes appear suspiciously better at enjoying what they have.
Where a stranger can become a friend before you have established his surname, somebody you met yesterday may introduce you as family today, and an afternoon that achieved absolutely nothing can somehow feel remarkably well spent.
Tanzania confuses you.
Then surprises you.
Then makes you laugh.
And somewhere along the way, without submitting the appropriate paperwork, it steals a little piece of your heart.

One thing we can probably promise

After reading this book, you are unlikely to look at Tanzania in quite the same way again.
There is also a reasonable chance that at some point you will laugh loudly enough for somebody nearby to ask what you are reading.
Fortunately, the answer is printed on the cover:

Probably the Funniest Book Ever Written About Tanzania

35 stories. 35 original Tingatinga paintings. One unforgetable Tanzania.

A book that gives something back

The stories came from Tanzania.
Martijn would like something to go back.
Part of the ambition behind the book is to help create a butterfly garden in Tanzania: a place bringing together indigenous butterflies and plants, biodiversity, conservation, education and tourism.
But there is another part to the dream.
Martijn first came to Tanzania in 1997 to work and conduct research with young people living and working on the streets of Mwanza. Nearly thirty years later, he hopes the butterfly garden can also create opportunities for young people who live, or have lived, on the streets — through skills, responsibility, experience and paid work.

There is currently only one minor obstacle.
The butterfly garden does not yet exist.
Martijn’s entirely sensible response was to write a book to help finance it.
Nobody has yet described this as a conventional business model.
But then conventional plans have not always proved particularly useful in Tanzania.
Every copy sold brings the dream a little closer.

Ready for Tanzania?

You don’t need to book a flight.
No vaccinations are required.
And your luggage cannot go missing.
Simply open the book and enter a world where plans are regarded with healthy suspicion, humour appears in the most unexpected places and even the smallest event can become a life lesson.

There is only one thing we cannot guarantee.
That you’ll still believe your own life is normal afterwards.

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