ARUSHA, TANZANIA - The minibus seems to be overflowing when we pull out of Arusha, packed with two dozen men, women and children headed west toward the village of Monduli in the dry hills of northern Tanzania, a country in east Africa. But it is not full yet.

This is a dalla-dalla, Tanzania's cheap, dangerous shared taxi. There is always room for one more rider.

We stop a few times on the highway to tuck in another half-dozen travelers, including women with bags of bread and bottles of cooking oil, and a boy with a docile hen tucked under his arm. There are 30 people crammed hip-to-hip in the Toyota.

The riders include Maasai men wrapped in red and purple tartans, a smartly dressed businessman, and two young men carrying blue brochures and wearing blue T-shirts that promote a wireless telephone service.

Several riders talk on their cell phones on the way to a Maasai market that features goats auctioned, butchered and barbecued; sandals made from automobile tires; knots of people losing money in a deceptively simple game of chance; and backpacks and shoes for parents doing some back-to-school shopping before school resumes next week after a holiday break.

The sliding door of the dalla-dalla stays open and two boys hang out the side, one of them whistling for more riders as we pass other minibuses stopped along the way. Between stops, he collects the fare: 1,000 Tanzanian shillings per person (about 90 U.S. cents).

The driver floors it, passing other dalla-dallas wherever he can. Sometimes, two overloaded minibuses race side-by-side for more than a half mile, spouting black diesel clouds, before one finally edges past the other; until then, oncoming drivers veer out of the way. There are no posted speed limits or patrolling officers, but we slow down occasionally to roll across a big, wide speed bump.

At a stop a few miles outside Monduli, two women with babies seated in the fourth row signal that they are getting off here. Ten riders step out onto the shoulder so they can exit the minibus. They secure the children on their backs with blankets, pick up their groceries and start walking home.

We climb back into the dalla-dalla. The whistling boy bangs twice on the roof, and the driver floors it.