TOUTS OF TANZANIA

You may or may not know that before we were on Safari, we spent two nights and one full day in Arusha, Tanzania. The one day that we spent there was not enjoyable. We started off the day by walking into town, and on the walk there we met a man that started talking to us. It's not like he wasn't nice or anything but after a while we started to get bothered by him. When we got into town, we got rid of the guy that we were talking to, but soon another one spotted us. This man was more aggressive. I don't mean aggressive like he started to pick a fight with us, but he wasn't as nice as the previous man. What was more, he was telling us the wrong information!! He told us the supermarket was closed but it wasn't and we couldn't get rid of him. After a while, there were more people following us. I mean it's obvious that we're tourists, so it's kind of hard not to be spotted. When they first come up to you, they start off by saying, “Hello, what is your name?”, “Where do you come from?”, “Come, I will take you to my mother's shop”. Why would I go to your mother's shop? You're bothering me! Others, will say, “ Arusha is very confusing. Let me be your guide.” These people are called touts and all of them are trying to sell you something, either goods or services. Even if you say, “No thank you” they won't leave you alone. Avocet and I got really freaked, so we spent the rest of the day in the hotel.

Along our journey throughout Tanzania, we have met other people that have had the same experiences. We met this one American lady named Jenny, and she met a newspaper person that kept trying to sell her a German newspaper and she finally turned around and said, “I'm not German!!!” and the man said "Oh!" and he had a very perplexed look on his face. There was also a lady named Meghan, that had a tout propose to her. Well, he didn't really propose, he kind've declared it.

To ward off the touts you can say, “Apana Asante Sana” which means no thank you very much in Kiswahili. Or if they keep bothering you, you can say “bas!!!” which means enough . You could also say when they come up to you “No English, habla Espanol” Which means, speak Spanish. But there's always a chance that the touts speak Spanish too. In the other cities that we have been in, Moshi, Bagamoyo, and now Zanzibar, there have been touts but they weren't as agressive as in Arusha. There are actually touts in a lot of different countries, but don't let that stop you from traveling!