Dalla at me

Our pink-trimmed chariot awaits.

Inside the dalla-dalla. Fun fact: there is no Swahili word for 'full.' Another fun fact: that's not true.

Children walking home from school from the back of a dalla-dalla.

PAJE, Zanzibar – Dalla dalla is Swahili for ‘as many asses as possible squeezed onto a wooden bench and the leftover asses on the floor and out the door,” or something like that.

It also means ‘cheap’ and ‘friendly’ and ‘dangerous,’ though the latter is quickly forgotten amid the cool breeze and easy smiles. The overloaded, converted pickup is to Tanzanians what the subway is to New Yorkers. An inexpensive form of public transit and a way to rub sweaty shoulders with your neighbor, whether you want to or not.

Following a two-hour ride in a packed ferry across the sea from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar City (Stone Town) a Zanzibarian I chatted up on the ferry, who smiled broadly when I said a $10 taxi ride was way out of budget, led Connie and I to the anarchy of the Stone Town dalla-dalla stand, where he was also catching a ride to Paje, a town on the opposite side (east coast) of the island.

After being assured by a shady cabbie that there were no more dalla-dallas to Paje that day (it was only 3 p.m.) our ride pulled up, a long-bed pickup with an open-sided wooden cover, a pink-wallpaper interior and benches grafted on to the bed, crammed full of about 20 people, just two who weren’t from around there.

We flew down the road, perilously fast for the potholes, the livestock, and the groaning engine, but the perfect speed for a nice cool breeze that took the edge off the oppressive humidity. Past thatched huts, roadside mango stalls, the tangled jungle of a monkey preserve, and wide-canopied trees blooming ruby-red, we bounced and swerved down the road, stopping in the middle of the bush for pickups, with no schedule other than leave when full. Save for two of us on-board, there was no novelty to this ride for the passengers and yet everyone was friendly despite uncomfortably close quarters.

And then at a dusty roundabout we were off the bus, the barefoot attendant handing down the wood bundles, baskets of produce, and two embarrassingly large backpacks to the off-loading passengers, banging the back of the bus and wobbling back down the road in a dark brown puff of diesel smoke. It cost about $1.30 and has the early lead for my favorite part of the trip.