STUDIES
• THE SWAHILI HOUSE
We were most interested in the one·storey dwelling units sometimes call-ed Swahili houses, as this is a very common traditional type of house found all along the East African COast. The house has a very characteristic plan;
it is an oblong with a corridor in the middle, two or three rooms on each side of it, a front entrance at one end and an exi t to the backyard at the other.
In the back yard you usually find one to four Or even five dwellings and a kitchen and sanitary facilities; if any. In one of the front corners of the house you usually find a veranda. In Kariakoo most houses follow this
pattern~ Among 125 houses along Kiungani and Somali Streets we found only three exceptions, and only one of them was a two-storey building.
The plots usually have a width of 12m and a depth of 20m. The main house, with few exceptions) consists of 6 room s.
B" iJding standard
The houses {lre of varying standard which is on the whole very bad. We figure'that at least half of the houses along Kiungani and $om ali Streets have leaking roof!'>, as the paJmleaf thatching or tin roofing hardly resist the heavy rains very long. Even metal sheets are unsafe unless you have a good ceiling, and in most cases the ceiling is non.existent~ Most houses have semi-permanent walls of mud and poles and cracked plaster if it has not altogether come off. Along the aforemenqoned streets we found only ten per cent of the houses made of permanent material, e.g. blocks of ce~
ment, and most of those were built by the NHC (National Housing Corpora.
tion) •
The windows are usually very small, 70 x 90cm2 (2.5 feet X 3 feet), too small for satisfactory ventilation, and the rooms get very hot, especially if there is a tin or metal sheet roof and no ceiling and thin mud walls. We asked people what changes they thought could be made for the beller in their houses and almost aU of them wanted nicely painted walls, a good ceiling and bigger windows. We fgund it peculiar that nobody said any-thing about sanitary facilities Or electricity. We also asked about the im ..
provements they had made in the rooms. People do not seem to make any major r~pairSt if any at alll it may be painting a wall at the most. Bigger initiatives are always taken by the owner of the house; and mostly only concerning his own rooms. So the houses seem to be slowly withering down, sadly enough.
We found 567 households where the head of the household was a Moslem, 235 where he was a Christian and 5 with some other religion or not stated i
but religion dOes not seem to be of much importance in the choice of neigh~
bour, if it is relevant to speak about a choice. We asked people what they would use another room for, if they had one, They all seemed to know what
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beau-coup plus mediocre. Pour l' eclairage les occupants utilisent des lampesa
ptHroIe oua
carbu re de calcium. gens font leur cuisine sans autres installations qu'un simple foumeau ou un fourneaua
charbon de bois, melle simplement un feu de charbona
meme Ie sol. Quand la cuisine est partagee entre tollS les occupants. eUe se trouve generalemmt dans la cour.
A quelques exceptions pres, les occupants prennent leurs repas dans les pieces, ou bien, Ie cas echeant, dans La COUt au ils ont prepare leur repas.
Eau et instal1ations sanitaires
Les chiffres suivants ont etc foumis par I' enquete sociale:
Kariakoo Moyerme de la ville
SECTION 18
Water and sanitary facilities From the social survey:
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de ses chambres est habituellement meilleure.Inieriear
SECTION1s
.~i.illl
al
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STUDIES
In Kiungani and Somali Streets, piped water is even rarer, The lh:'?/ hOll",es
all have water taps in the plot which are shared. Most people h8:.e :0 g,~' to the public tap and then they have to walk up to 300m or more, sin cc t~lcse
are far too few, Along Kiungani and So:nali Streets we found anlv on(;, Sd
no wonder most people in our sample preferred to buy their water fWlt1 C\
sellet, even if it costs 15 cents per Un containing about IS lilres and they need up to 5 to 6 tins a day" Monthly this makes 20sh. which is 8 lot com-pared with the rent. Where there was piped water in the plot, they bought it from the owner of the house for 5 cents a tin] except for the NHC houses where it is free of chargeo In the backyard there is usually a big cement
sqUare with an outflow, where they wash the dishes and their clothes. Only very rarely is there a shower in the hQusel e~g, only in the new houses, WCs are equaJly rare, Generally there is only one pit~latrine in the back~
Yard, shared by all tenants.
T he hoose-owner's monthly rent income (SomaH and Kiungani Streets)
Income Number Percentage
o •
SOsh 3 2,4%1 • 150 sh 10 7.8%
51 • 100 sh 13 9.9%
101 • 150 sh 26 20,9%
151 - 200 sh 26 20,9%
201 • 250 sh 15 12,0%
251 • 300 sh 15 12.0%
301 - 350 sh 12 9.3%
351 • 400 sh 5 44~O%
401 • 450 sh 451 - 500 sh
501·550 sh 1 0.8%
It is rather obvious that the owner exploits his tenants, most of them get ..
tingnear 200sh monthly. He does not do many repairs or have any other expenses relating to the house, except for his own room or rooms, He Oc-cupies on an average more rOoms than his tenant; and the standard of his room Or rooms is usually better.
lnteriar
We were surprised how cluttered with furniture most of the rooms are, and how much better the furniture is in comparison wHh the standard of the room itself. The room might have an obviously leaking roof and still people have re ... upholstered furniture, The most important thing to possess is a bed"
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de dirigeants poUtiques! de coupures de journaux, d' images musulmanes et,a
peu pres portout. un certain nombre de calendriers plus ou moinsMobilite et etaoiissement permanent
L' enquete sociale nous a permis d' avoir des reponses a,ux questions sui-vantes: Avez~vous l' intention de demeuter
a
Dar es~Salam pour Ie reste de votre vie? 53,7 p.100 ont Pintention deresteretS,4p.l00 desiremient quitter la ville. La plupart des gens sont venusa
Dar es-Salam pour Ytoges et les inconvenients qu' Us y trouvaient. Certain occupants n'avaient
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