I wasn’t going to bother going to Dar Es Salaam but I had time and it seemed quite a cheap place to get to and stay so I thought – why not! I was in Moshi but got the hostel to book me on the Super Luxury Bus. I was a little suspicious but when it turned up it looked quite big which was encouraging. However, after sitting by the window, a man lowered himself into the seat next to me and immediately I knew this was goig to be a painful 10 hour journey.
The seats were so narrow that his elbows were digging into my side. I’m not the smallest person in the world – I am fully grown westerner with long legs – and this guy next to me filled his to capacity.
It was too late to change my mind, the bus set off and I resigned myself to a miserable journey cramped up in my seat with my knees against the seat in front and a man elbowing me all the way to Dar Es Salaam. Perhaps I would try to get some sleep – the time will pass quicker.
But first impressions can be misleading and it was not long before we were chatting and he introduced himself as a professor at a university in Dar. We played around a bit with the selfie app on my phone and then exchanged stories. He regaled me with stories told in various accents and of his days in the UK.
I explained the predicament I had found myself in, which was being in Kampala with no work and no prospect of any work. He had a good idea and was on the phone immediately to someone at the Open University of Tanzania. Before I knew it, I was set up with a meeting the next day.
Now there is a real possibility of work there and of starting a business with them. So the moral of the story is to chat to strangers – always. Always show an interest in people, even if they seem quite annoying because you never know who you they may turn out to be and how your future could be determined by a chance meeting.