A Ride in a Dalla-dalla

Many 3rd world counties have an efficient ride-sharing transportation system, and I had not experienced it before our visit to Tanzania.  The dalla-dalla takes to form of a minibus, pickup truck, or other vehicle with lots of space for people to squeeze in.  They have set routes, and passengers simply board as one would a bus, ride until their destination is reached, and pay according to the distance travelled.  Dalla-dallas do not operate on a fixed time schedule, but depart from their starting point only when they are full.  So if a would-be passenger arrives at the dalla-dalla hubs in a city and the dalla-dalla going to his or her destination is empty, there could be a long wait before it departs.

The dalla-dalla we rode from Stone Town to Nungwi was a bit like a covered military transport.  It had benches running down the length in the back which could comfortably seat 8 people per side.  However, they squeezed about 12 per side, plus people sat in the center aisle among the baskets of fruit, plastic buckets containing the day's catch, and whatever shopping the occupants happened to be caring with them.  When it was too full to squeeze another person in, they would stand on the back bumper and cling to the roof rail.  Up on the roof were some of the larger items the passengers were taking with them, including our bags, a giant stiff swordfish, a bundle of timber, a coil of small gauge rebar, and numerous boxes wrapped with pieces of cardboard box and binder twine.
There is an operator who rides at the back with all the passengers, taking payment from them and ensuring the driver does not take off before everyone has boarded.  He also speaks with the police stationed at the numerous, seemingly useless checkpoints.  The police always just seemed to have a short conversation gave we passengers a cursory scan, and then waved us on.  Our operator spoke English, and told us to pay in advance the fee of $3.30 each for the 1.5 hour ride.  We thought this was a good deal, because hotels charge upwards of $60 for the same distance in a private car.  But as we travelled along the journey and saw money changing hands, it became clear that most passengers were paying a tiny fraction of what we had been charged.  Proof that our operator was lining his pockets came when, on our return journey 5 days later, our operator charged us a fee in line with the others at $1.30 each.  It is an extremely small difference to most of us, but the thought of having to deal with corrupt people stings nonetheless.
As for the comfort of the trip, it could not be described as plush by very many people's standards.  The bench was thinly padded, but after sitting on it for an hour it felt like nothing but a stiff board.  There were so many people squeezing my legs against the edge of the seat the circulation was cut off.  The bucket under my nose containing some smelly, stiff little fish was not pleasant.  But to the locals, this is their main method of transport, and they don't complain.  Some of the small children in their mother's laps slept through all the jostling and rearranging as their fellow passengers got on and off.