Tanzania

Pole pole. No, slow down. I mean it, slow down. Really. Pooole pooole take it eaaaasy. In Tansania, people cultivate the en vogue stream of „Entschleunigung“ that all German managers would postulate when asked but don’t live.  We did. Either because it’s healthy to go slow or because we just don’t have any other choice, being forced to slow down by suspicious police officers, bumpy dirt roads, instant incapacity or bureaucracy issues you will never be able to understand as non-native. In the end it’s a matter of marketing, pole pole or also hakuna matata, no problem, just live and have fun! If all Africa was like that, no Ebola, no Boko Haram, no civil wars, genocides and other deadly environments would be encountered. Just friendly people like the Tanganyikans, mixed up by Nyerere in a hard but clever way: He dislocated people from every tribe and send them all over the country to mix up with other tribes, reducing tribal tensions to a minimum nowadays. That’s what we experienced, people from different cultural backgrounds living together mostly peacefully, flanked by a huge variety of animals living next to each other. And hell yeah they have animals. No bad surprises there, we were so lucky. By the way we didn’t climb Kilimanjaro but followed a common understanding that we were told at each opportunity while having the “Kilimanjaro” brand beer, “If you don’t climb it, drink it”. That’s what I recommend, open your bottle and check out the “peoples and animals” taken in Tarangire, Serengeti and Ngorongoro, Selous Game Reserve and Sansibar.