Why travelling in Tanzania is bad for your teeth

Last week I (Matt) made two day-long visits to two of our language areas. One was planned, the other not. They both went well and without any real surprises, however they did give me an opportunity to reflect on just how bad travelling in Tanzania is for one’s teeth!

Wherever you go in Tanzania, if you drop in on somebody at their house or church and are staying for more than a brief hello (and even then actually!), your hosts will want to provide you with some refreshment. Now, if you had told them you were coming and the time of day was right then you could expect chai (tea and possibly a chapati or mandazi [bread like things]) or lunch (maybe beans and rice). However, often these visits are not scheduled and so your host has no warning of your arrival (or at least your time of arrival!). So they turn to the next best thing, the ‘guest’ refreshment that is available everywhere, soda!

Sodas are, in my opinion, the bane of Africa. Coca-cola is making a ton of money from lots of people with little to no disposable income. That said, they do provide an ‘affordable treat’ for most people who might not otherwise get one. Add on top of this that soda is undoubtedly better for the community than beer and you are beginning to come round to the idea! However leaving aside the question of ‘is Coca-cola good for Africa’ for a minute, one thing that is certainly true is that sodas are refreshing drinks which happen to be available EVERYWHERE!

So you can picture the scene: we arrive at a house having travelled for some time in a hot car on a bumpy road, and before too long our host shows up with a tray of cold sodas! Now firstly we cannot turn down this gift (that would be culturally unacceptable) and secondly this lovely sweet syrupy goodness feels like just what we need right now! And here we come to the problem – it’s really terrible for our teeth! So last week, in my two daytrips, I drank 4 sodas. This may not seem like too many but when you work out the number of time we visit people, with work trips, church or just friends… it adds up to a lot of decay hours for our teeth.

I really do need to try and learn from this (especially after having a seriously rotten wisdom tooth pulled out while we were in UK!). An essential item for all future travels must be a large supply of sugar-free chewing gum!