For our last couple of days in Tanzania, we decided to stay in Mbeya, the most important town in the southern part of the country, to experience some real life. Mbeya has a bit more than 250000 inhabitants but the “center” really does not feel like this. They just have two or three streets with a few shops, one bar and some restaurants with the usual monotone menus. It is very calm there but also a bit boring. Interestingly, the suburbs seem to be a bit more lively.

After having survived hairdressers from all over the world during 13 months, Mbeya was the first place where I should surrender. The “Jihad” barbershop (nomen est omen) had his first try to perform a comparatively long hairstyle on me. Using only the machine, he managed to give my hair all possible lengths between 5 mm to 10 cm without any visible structure. Finalizing his experimental art with an “it’s enough now”, he after all decided to use the scissors for cutting my beard. It would be an understatement to say I looked horrible. So I had to go to the adjacent barber’s shop to try and correct a few things, which at the end meant to now have the shortest haircut since I was 5 years old.

We spent the rest of our time here relaxing and trekking to the nearby villages or mountains. We were quite surprised to find a lush forest half an hour away, which was a big contrast to the rather dry areas in Western and Southern Tanzania. On another day, we hiked up the nearest mountain and found a remote village just one hour on foot from the center. There, people have to carry everything on their back, there is no electricity and they live from simplest agriculture – very different from the city with its not too bad infrastructure. We were accompanied by a group of small boys, who showed us the way to the peak, talked and laughed with us although they did not speak English. We gave them some fresh and tasty oranges for lunch and were prepared to give them a small tip afterwards. Nonetheless, on the top they said goodbye and went down again, without demanding anything. Obviously, they simply had fun walking with us.

Also in Mbeya, the children from the neighborhood loved greeting us and were happy when we shook hands with them. What a contrast to Ethiopia and probably the main difference between both were one or two tourists who had given them money. There, after greeting, children almost always became frustrated because we never gave them anything and they were not interested in simple contact with us. Here, they have no expectation and we left as friends. So everyone who thinks it is a good idea to give these children money: think twice whether you are really helping or rather destroying!

On Sunday, we decided to give Christianity in Africa another chance. We went to the nearest church and already at the evening before, when we asked for the ceremony hours, we had a much better feeling than in Ethiopia. People were happy that we wanted to join the congregation and warmly invited us to the service, which even was held in English. The next day we got up early as service started at 7 am. We were on time and arrived for the warm-up. Few people were there, they prayed loudly and with lots of gestures and welcomed us again. At maybe 7:15 the music started. They gave us a great gospel-rock concert, with guitars (the guitarist was late), a keyboard, a drummer, a choir and an awesome lead singer who indeed knew he was awesome. They even had a mixing desk and a beamer to display the lyrics, which were rather giving rough guidelines. An African sings what comes from the heart and not what comes from a PowerPoint slide. The church filled up, people participated and the atmosphere was amazing. This was when the Grand Inquisitor climbed the stage.

During two hours, the pastor preached about a story from the Old Testament: Moses sends 12 spies to the holy land, 10 are afraid and describe the strength of the inhabitants, whereas only 2 tell how great the promised country is. Israel gets nervous and starts complaining about God. The beginning of the preaching was straightforward. He told that God needs people with a right spirit and that it is not about majorities. Then the interpretation got more sophisticated. He said God did not like the bad news of the 10, since he prefers good news. Especially he does not want people to complain. And there are people complaining about many things. About the government, the country, and worst of all, about their pastor and its way of leading. These people told they were poor and complained about the donations (they asked for money 4 times during the ceremony). And they criticised that the pastor does not know what real poverty is. His voice grew louder and louder and he drove the interpreter crazy by screaming and shouting without any break. He himself, he told the congregation, used to be poor (laughing in the audience) but then he simply refused to be poor. No one is poor because God owns everything, so give your money plentifully. And especially, no one should complain, at least not about himself, as God KILLED the 10 spies who had returned and told bad news. And he would do so again! People (and we) started being frightened but the pastor was a grateful man. He told those, who had the feeling to have complained too much about him, to come to the stage such that he could do an imposition of hands and change them. While the intimidated sinners were given a new life, the other ones screamed and shouted, prayed and moved, it was totally unreal. If we had been daemons, we would have instantaneously driven out. Afterwards, the pastor invited us to breakfast. He was very friendly and calm again. He told us about his missionary work and about the conferences he visits all around the world, in the US, in Malaysia, in India, ….

Then we prepared ourselves to leave the country. We wanted to go to Zambia by a train which runs twice a week. It was built by the Chinese in the 70s but unfortunately it has fallen into the hands of Tanzanians. And that is how it looks like these days: Coming from Dar, the train was supposed to leave Mbeya at 2 pm. Guess when it really started …. Midnight? That’s what they told us when we arrived at 12:30. This turned out to be too optimistic. 2:30 am? That was their second guess in the evening. So we decided to sleep at the train station, but fortunately we could sleep longer than that. The train arrived at 5:30 in the morning. We boarded and had a comfortable compartment for the three of us all alone. Oh yes, and at 7 o’clock, with only 17 hours delay, we eventually started our journey to Zambia. Tanzania did not want to let us go.

The distance was about 1000 km so we were a bit nervous when the train started moving with approximately 25 km/h. Luckily, the train continuously speeded up. The landscape is rather dull – if you are a fan of bush or dry grass, Zambia is the place to be for you. Still, the train is the best mean of transport to spend the time for such a long trip, since it is comfortable and we met interesting people: Okon, a Nigerian-American investment analyst, with solid philosophical education, who travels from Cairo to Cape Town. A group of South-Korean volunteers who work in Zambia. And a group of Scandinavian students who do an internship in Lusaka. So we had a nice and agreeable journey and we reached Kapiri Mposhi with 4 more hours delay at 10 o’clock the next morning. We are looking forward to discover the last country on our shared world-trip.