What to do in Morogoro if you’re bored…

I will be very honest: Morogoro is not Seoul. There is not nearly the same number of things to do here that there are to do there, and this has caused me a lot of time thinking about what I can do. I have, however, found a lot of things to help fill the time.

Books/Movies

This can be tough if you didn’t bring your own books (or had them stolen) or computer. Lucky for us, the YCI office has a small collection of books (even some I had been wanting to read) which we borrowed and spent some time reading. As for movies, there are a few options. If you have a laptop you can buy DVD’s at stores that have many English movies. The quality is low, but they’re passable and easy to watch. There are also places you can go to that will play VHS or DVD movies for a small price. I haven’t been to them, but you can see them everywhere. Some people also have VCR’s on their TV’s here and can watch movies whenever they like (well, if the power is on).

Though it’s not the same, you can also watch European Soccer Games on television here or in bars for a price. I haven’t done this, but it is a very common thing here.

Playing Pool

This is something I’ve seen around a lot, but hadn’t tried until a few weeks ago. The price for a game of pool near my house is 200 shillings which is roughly 20 cents. Not bad. The quality of the tables is not always great (but not bad) and I think the balls are smaller. There are a lot of people here who are good, so usually I play one game, lose, and that’s it. It is something that is fun to do though, and I plan to go back a few more times before I leave Morogoro.

Swim in a Pool

There are a couple of hotels in Morogoro (Oasis Hotel and the Morogoro Hotel) that offer swimming in their pools for a small fee (3 or 4 thousand shillings). We have gone once (many weeks ago) to the Morogoro Hotel. It was a nice afternoon, but not nearly as cheap as the other things on this list (plus we had lunch there and that was much more expensive than the food in town).

Disco/Live Music

There are different types of places to go out to at night if you want to hear music or dance. I’ve been to a few of both. There are some places where you can sit down and get a drink (alcohol, pop, etc.) and listen to people playing live music and others dancing to it. There are also some places where they play a lot of dance/hip-hop, etc. music where you can go and dance. We went to a disco on Saturday night. It was fun, but I was surprised at how empty the place was. Generally you have to pay for the discos, but you can go and watch the music for free (or the cost of the pop).

Climb a Mountain

Also, since there is a huge mountain right next to the town, you can obviously climb that or go for a hike there. I’ve already talked about that here and here, so I won’t mention it again.

There are things to do here, but obviously not as many things as you would find in a bigger city. At times I have been bored, but I have also had a lot to do at other times. It takes some getting used to, but if you look hard enough, there are several options to fill your less active moments.