Hello sister

I love cities, even untidy, half-finished, sprawling ones, and Dar es Salaam is certainly not neat.
Nor is it the capital of Tanzania as I thought, which just shows how ignorant I am of African political geography. That responsibility lies with Dodoma, which became the country’s official capital when the national Parliament moved there in 1996.
According to my very useful Bradt guide book, Dodoma was mooted as the capital as far back as 1959 for the undeniably equitable reason that it was the country’s most centrally located large town.
But political logic alone does not make a capital city, people and geography play a big role, and Dar retains the buzz and energy of the capital city it was before losing out to modest Domodo.
I write this from the tenth floor of a hotel that has floor length windows offering views of the Indian Ocean, although the workmen building a high rise block a few yards from my window keep distracting me.
No, I am not having a Diet Pepsi moment, I am simply amazed that none have yet fallen to their certain death, so careless are they of their personal safety.
Our studio is so large I can hide my stash of Mars Bars from Nigel without fear of him confiscating them, there is a cream leather chaise longue which wouldn’t look out of place in downtown Manhattan, as well as broadband, BBC Prime and of course the aforementioned views of the Indian Ocean.
We are only here for three nights and went off budget as a mid-adventure treat to ourselves. Come Friday, and our trip to Moshi in the north,  and we will be back in the “moderate” range of hotels and hostels – but until then I am going to enjoy every marble tiled moment of 0ur Harbour View executive suite.
And that means cooking meals instead of eating out in indifferent restaurants.
The city’s fruit market is just a few streets away from our hotel and this morning I stocked up on life’s essentials including red ripe tomatoes, tiny baby aubergines and avocados so large – and ripe - they are almost unrecognizable to someone used to buying tiny ones which defiantly refuse to ripen no matter how much I coax them.
Tonight we are dining on fresh bean soup, feta and tomato salad and bread, followed by fresh fruit. Actually I will probably skip the fresh fruit and have a Mars Bar, but you get my drift.
The fruit market is like the city, at first glance it looks quite chaotic, but is actually as efficiently organised as any major supermarket, and a lot more cheerful.
Stall holders smiled when I declined their offer of bunches of greens, cassava roots and large bags of potatoes. They were happy for me to pick through their produce, taste the herbs and local spinach, and they all grinned at my attempts to speak Swahili.
“Jambo, jambo,” I cried at every stall. I concluded every purchase with an effusive “asanti sana, asanti sana” and was touched when I was greeted in return as sister and not madame.
There is no more uncomfortable salutation than an African man or woman calling a white woman Madame. It stinks of colonialism and bestows a status that none of us deserves. I hate it. Sister, on the other hand, is a greeting between equals.
Tomorrow I plan to extend my vocabulary beyond hello and thank you very much - brother seems a good place to start.