Shaban Gonga is in the driver’s seat. This is his last session, and his confidence and competence show. He works as a security guard at the Angolan embassy. “The work is okay,” he says, “but I am planning on something better. I hope to find work as a driver.” He managed to scrape together the $120 for lessons, an admirable accomplishment in a place where a typical security guard earns about $50 per month. Babu is a labourer and also wants a job as a driver. “Can you give me one? ” he asks me. Jackson Sylvester works as a gardener. His boss has bought a Mercedes and wants Jackson to be his chauffeur. “A very nice car,” he says, smiling. Mama Agnes is the elder of the group. She owns a car and has a driver. “He doesn’t know the rules of the road,” she tells me. “I want to be able to drive myself.”
In the past decade, economic growth has transformed Dar es Salaam, now a city of 3 million and growing rapidly. Public transit is limited to the ubiquitous minivans, where passengers stand nose to armpit for twenty-five cents a ride. Many residents are now wealthy, and if the number of driving schools is any indication, more and more of them want to learn how to drive.
It starts to rain as we snake our way along Ocean Road, past the smells and hustle of the fish market to the city centre. Motioning for Shaban to pull over, Mwalimu signals it is time for a switch. Mama Agnes takes the wheel, and Mwalimu points her toward Kisutu, one of the downtown’s busiest neighbourhoods. She is soon swamped by cars, motorcycles, handcarts, rickshaws, bicycles, and people. With encouragement, she manages to thread her way slowly through to a main road on the far side. We lurch to a stop at a red light. Grinning broadly, the driver next to us leans out and yells to Mama, “You were swerving all over the place, like this —” He gesticulates exaggeratedly. “How else am I supposed to learn how to drive? You know how to drive. I am learning!” Mama shouts back. Everybody in the car laughs. The light turns green. “Let’s go, Mama!” Babu shouts.
Started in 1997, Victory is the biggest private-sector driving school in Dar, with eight branches and twenty-two vehicles. We pass the competition during our excursion: Love and Joy, Liberty, Glory, Good Luck, Get Well, Future, Perfect, Kilimanjaro, Oxford. Each promises freedom of a sort, but these students have chosen Victory. Perhaps it is the motto.
Past the railway tracks, we hit the closest thing to open road the city has to offer. The rain has stopped. Talk ceases, and everyone gazes out the window. We pass the new car dealerships: Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Subaru. A wind brings welcome relief from the heat inside the car. Mama steers us along Nyerere Road as far as the airport and then turns back into town. Mwalimu’s fingers dart frequently to the steering wheel, and his foot gives the occasional pump on the instructor’s brake. Gesturing with his hand, he encourages Mama to accelerate. “Leave the clutch alone, Mama.” We drift toward the median. I notice sweat on Mama Agnes’s brow. “Watch the curb, the curb!” Mwalimu chides. A sign indicates we are in an eighty kilometre per hour zone; I reckon we’re doing forty. I check the speedometer, but it isn’t working.
A tree branch on the road signals an accident up ahead. “Brakes, brakes, where are the brakes? Okay, clutch then brake.” We crawl closer and see it now: a pileup. By the time we pass, Babu has counted eight cars. The students are mesmerized. Mwalimu seizes the opportunity. “What do you think caused this?” “Speed,” says Jackson. “Distance!” retorts Mwalimu. “Everybody was following too closely.” Heads nod sagely in unison. “Negligence,” Mwalimu says, sucking his teeth. “What about insurance?” asks Shaban. Babu begins to sing hymns.
After we drop off Mama Agnes at another Victory branch and fill the hot radiator with water, Jackson eagerly takes over. It is getting hotter, and Babu has gone silent. Ahead of us is yet more traffic. “Are there more cars on the road these days?” I ask Mwalimu. “Many, many more,” he says.
Four years ago, an educated guess put the number of cars arriving through the port every month at 2,000, mostly used from Japan, and that number can only have gone up. Those that stay here are filling up a road network that has expanded little since the 1970s. Like everywhere else, the more people get the freedom to drive, the less able they are to enjoy it. We turn into Kariakoo. Babu has fallen asleep. “Do I follow that motorcycle?” asks Jackson. “You follow the road,” says Mwalimu, cuffing Jackson on the head, “Now relax and give it some gas.”
View or download a PDF of the Victory Driving School rules in English or Swahili.