'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

DAR ES-SALAAM:

DAR ES-SALAAM: When my travel agent, Alaina, told me that various flight schedules had been changed and I could not any longer fly from Arusha, Tanzania to Maputo, Mozambique in a single day, at first I felt really frustrated. I mean! For goodness sake! This would cut a whole workday off my valuable schedule! Etc.!

Then I got a grip and thought, wow, it's amazing I can do this whole four-location research trip with as much amazing convenience as I still have. I should stop whingeing. Besides, I've never been to Dar Es-Salaam before, so maybe an overnight here would be fun?

Well, I'm here. I'm not sure about fun, yet-- I've been holed up in a hotel room writing a slightly overdue column for Al-Hayat.

(Hey, wouldn't you just know that while I'm really getting into this Africa project, Syria suddenly becomes a big subject? The Lehrer Newshour on the phone; my editor at the CSM graciously asking me if I want to write about Syria for her; etc etc? If you, my devoted reader, want to see the most recent thing I wrote about Syria, check out the link I have in the column to the right, to my recent Boston Review piece on the subject.)

Anyway, tomorrow I'll go out and look for the seafront or something.

Basically, so far, all the travel arrangements have been working amazingly well. This morning, my last in Arusha, I had a really good meeting with Martin Ngoga, who's the Rwandan government's "representative" to the ICTR. (Also, a Rwandan diplomat accredited to the Govt of Tanzania.) I said some sad farewells to two of the people who helped me find my way around ICTR: Gabi Gabiroz, of Hirondelle, and ICTR public-affairs officer Straton Musonera. Then I went back to the dear old Impala Hotel to await the shuttle bus to Kilimanjaro that had been promised when I went by the Air Tanzania office last week.

What with the worries Gabi and others had expressed about whether Air Tanzania still existed this week, etc, plus a lot of pessimism-- expressed by, guess who, the Impala taxi drivers-- over whether the AT shuttle would ever come, I was determined not to be too worried about possible glitches, but...

Well, the shuttle arrived just fine. And the flight occurred just fine (in a South African-liveried plane). So here I am. Plus, it's kind of nice to be able to catch my breath here before plunging into Mozambique, which is another whole part of my project; another, entirely different story to get myself immersed in; and another topic that really, really fascinates me.

So Jambo, tonight, from the House of Peace: Dar es-Salaam. Can't tell you much about it yet except that it looks like I'm in the middle of a very big African city.