I arrived in Tanzania with a desire to learn about the history of Tanzania but also, in all honesty, with the intention of experiencing the tourist’s version of African culture: zebras and giraffes roaming the savannah grasslands, Lion King-style. While we have another week to go until our academic safari in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, I have already discovered far more about Tanzania than the men in traditional Masai warrior attire walking in the streets of the nation’s capital and wooden tribal masks on sale at the village where our group is volunteering. I saw a rapidly growing city with a long history of globalization, the new Africa’s dynamic and international face.

Dar es Salaam offers more than stereotypical tourist images of Africa.

At first glance, the most obvious foreign influence here is Arab, dating back from the Indian Ocean trade a millennium ago. “Dar es Salaam” means “house of peace” in Arabic, and it sounds like every third word in Swahili comes from Arabic. Many women wear headscarves painted with colorful African patterns, and we can hear the calls to prayer from our hotel. The Arab influence is most visible in the wonderful and fragrant island of Zanzibar, former capital of the Sultanate of Oman. The street scenes in Stone Town seem to come right out of Aladdin.

South African fruit juices are on sale at the Milimani City shopping mall.

But the mosques here are interspersed with churches, the influence of British missionaries who came during the era of colonialism and gave Tanzanians their second language. The British Empire also brought Indian laborers, many of whom stayed in Tanzania after decolonization. There is a charming Indian neighborhood behind the waterfront in Dar, with Hindu and Jain temples and quaint snack shops offering chapatti, sambar idli, and masala dosa, the spicy taste washed down with fruit juices from South Africa. Locals in Bangladeshi-made Brazilian soccer jerseys  watch Filipino dramas on their Korean televisions. Tanzanian culture is really a mix of diverse global influences.

Chinese firms are behind the construction of Dar es Salaam’s rapidly expanding skyline.

And then, of course, there is the newest and fastest-growing influence here: the Chinese, who have helped to build so much of the modern city of Dar es Salaam and deserve their own blog post.