Hi all, big time apologies for having lagged so much on the blog! I am continuing to have a fabulous time here in Tanzania and I suppose I owe you guys a story or two. It's been way too long, so I'll get right to it...
After Tingatinga, we did our first week in Lengijave, a largely Maasai village not far from Arusha. They told me Lengijave means "Cold Place" in Maasai, but I wasn't sure how cold I could actually expect it to be, considering these were Tanzanians after all. Surprise, surprise! Overcast, windy, and rainy, Lengijave certainly lived up to it's name. One day Molly, a volunteer from Boston, asked me, "Is this what it's like in San Francisco?" Haha... I responded, "Absolutely!" The nice part of being close to Arusha was that we got to have another town week, and as much fun as camping can be, my back appreciates sleeping in a bed now and then. That meant I got to do fun errands with Molly and Leah in the afternoons. It was Molly's last week, so we did some souvenir shopping at the central market, which included a purchase of 20 bags of chai masala to take home as gifts. I also found a cool little sewing shop called Mr. Button where a really nice woman helped me put together my own sewing kit: black thread, white thread, two needles, and a half meter of scrap fabric for patching/reinforcing, all for 800 shillings (about 50 cents).
Because that Sunday was Easter, we had a short week, and only worked in Lengijave until Thursday. We were well-received and the folks seemed to appreciate the trainings we did, although we didn't do the double-digging practical due to rain (DARN...). One man in particular had a lot of really great questions. During the classroom session on chemical fertilizers versus compost, he raised his hand and asked, "If we know how toxic these chemicals are, why does our government let us use them?" I wanted to shout, "I know, right?!" He was visibly bothered and it was rewarding to see the lightbulb turn on above someone's head.
After training and handing out certificates on Thursday, the girls and I met some friends at Arusha City Park (an outdoor bar, not a park) for kuku choma and Konyagi mixed with tonic and Red Bull. There's a whole process along with drinking a bottle of Konyagi. If you want to have a drink at a bar, you order the liquor as well as the mixers you want, all in their own bottles, and you mix it yourself. When you order Konyagi, it is laid down flat on the table, and when the bottle's not in use it stays that way... people will apparently think you are a drunkard if you leave it upright. To open it, you first remove the plastic around the cap, then bang on the bottom of the bottle with the palm of your hand several times, and finally push in on the top of the cap as hard as you can with your thumbs. Then, you may open it with ease. Can you open it without all of these charades? I think so, but I've never tried without the waitress laughing and insisting to do it for me.
Since we had Friday off, we spent lots of time relaxing and socializing. Most of our friends who go to University in Moshi had returned, but not all... even though the semester had started a couple weeks ago at this point. I learned that first-year students are the only ones who show up to school on the first day at Tanzanian universities. This relationship with time and appointments is so African. Saning'o met up with us Friday night and he hadn't even registered for classes yet. No big deal. When it comes down to it, the universities really need the money, so they continue to take people no matter how late they are (although the late comers are in frequent contact with folks in the classes so they know what tests to prepare for when they do actually show up).
That night we started at Babylon, where Saning'o had been waiting for us long enough to accrue some drunk-guy friends who hung around us the entire time we were there. Tanzanian men have a delightfully affectionate way of interacting with each other (especially after a few drinks), which is even more ironic when you consider how horribly homophobic they all are. They hold hands, they put their arms around each other, dance together, rest their hands on the other's leg, etc. My friend Adam calls this "tender touches." From Babylon we went to Empire for pool and reggae music. We went in a friends' car, and when we arrived the guard at the gate wouldn't let us in. I didn't understand what was said in Swahili, but I assumed the complex was closed for some reason. That is until our driver, Josh, busted out of the car, shoved the guard aside, flung open the gate, and drove right on through! Apparently, the guard at the gate was demanding a bribe, and Josh didn't appreciate that! After Empire we stopped for some midnight chipsi mayai on the street (Tanzanian fast food-- fried eggs with french fries mixed in), and made our way to another club for more dancing.
Saturday Leah and I met Molly's mom at one of our favorite lunch spots, affectionately refered to as Space Cadet around the GSC office due to a frequently absent minded waitress there. Her mom had met her in TZ so that they could travel a bit together before returning to the States. It was fun to see one of our American mamas in our bustling African town, and made me so eager to show my own folks around when they come in June. That afternoon Leah and I took Karen swimming at the Impala hotel, which was totally adorable. Karen is so cute and sweet. She needed an innertube (most Tanzanians can't swim) but had a ball splashing around.
Sunday was Easter, and I went to church with Mama Chaulla in the morning. Karen had gone to an earlier children's service, and the rest of the family, I later realized, stayed home all day cooking up a storm! The service lasted about 3 hours-- long, but painless. When we returned, all the mamas were at Mama Franco's house next door, and there were about a half a dozen giant pots strewn all over the yard balancing on top of a variety of kerosene and charcoal stoves. I helped with whatever they'd let me (usually just peeling vegetables), and watched as more and more friends and family arrived. The feast was incredible... rainbow rice (thanks to food coloring), pilau (rice with spices and meat chunks in it), two types of chicken with amazing sauces of spices I often associate with Indian food, fried potatoes, avocado, banana, oranges, pili pili, and a plate of heavily salted cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots. Mama Franco also made passion-avocado-ginger juice which really grew on me! I sat mostly in silence as the family spoke Swahili to each other, and after some time I said my thank yous and goodbyes and met Adam and Saning'o for a few games of pool. I think this is where my pool playing obsession began. I love it!! The more times I play and the more friends that offer me strategies/advice, the more sucked in I become. At one point that night I made 5 balls in a row and won the game out of nowhere. A hustler in the making, y'all.
Monday Leah and I spent the day exploring, because we had the day off for Easter-- and the next day off for Union Day! (The day Zanzibar united with Tanzania) We visited the very touristy Maasai market, had lunch at Green Hut where I was surprised to find a fried egg on the burger I ordered, and ended at a pool hall called Sundip (pronounced Sun Deep) with Saning'o. To my surprise, the crowd of entirely African men eventually transitioned to entirely Indian men as the evening turned to night. I still haven't quite figured that out. It was a really fun group, and Saning'o thanked me for making him some new friends... they all got a kick out of helping to give me advice, when apparently they never used to greet him in the past. Tuesday we had lunch at a magical restaurant called Mapinduzi (which means Revolution!) that serves up some incredible mbuzi (thats goat) and the most delicious frosty avocado juice, and if you're still hungry when you're done, they refill your plate.
Wednesday through Friday we did not go to a village, but participated in a workshop at the GSC office with a food and nutrition expert named Anne Perera who works with an organization called SIDO. My favorite of all the things we learned that week was how to cook and eat green banana peels, banana blossom, and even banana pith- the inner core of banana tree trunks. To my surprise, it was really tasty, and seems like a great opportunity for increased food security in some of the villages we work with. We also learned how to make candied citrus peels and how to make and jar jam and chutney. Safi sana.
The next week we returned to Lengijave. We typically go to a village two weeks in a row to train different sub-village groups, and also to train community kuku vaccinators the first week and actually do the vaccinating the second. Even though Lengijave was close, this meant we had to camp, because it's not practical to meet up, drive, and arrive at a village by 6am every morning. We stayed in a guesthouse ("gesti") in a nearby town called Mgaramtoni, which was about a 20 minute drive away, and the home of one of our favorite signs in front of a church: "Evangelistic Ass of God." Unfortunately the rest of the town wasn't quite as fun as that sign... the people weren't quite as friendly to visitors as one might hope, and as wazungu Leah and I were harrassed a bit more than usual. It was a really crowded town, for some reason chock full of pikipikis (motorcycle taxis) that couldn't care less if there were people in their path. No wonder on Friday as we were about to leave, one of our staffmembers, Happy, was hit by one on the street! I didn't see it happen, but the poor girl walked away limping, holding her arm, clothes all torn up. It was quite scary actually. We took her straight to the hospital in Arusha. Apparently she was just fine though-- I didn't see her again until Monday, where she joined us for our next training as if nothing had happened... wearing high heels no less.
Although Mgaramtoni was rough, training in Lengijave was great. The people there were really fun and very welcoming, and the village itself was gorgeous. Full of hills and valleys, vaccinating kukus in the morning meant trekking up and down hills to the different bomas in very chilly wind and fog-- but I couldn't complain for a second, it was so gorgeous. I spent the following weekend hanging out with friends, and playing more pool of course. One night we were at Empire again and the power kept going out for several minutes at a time. Within seconds, everyone would pull out their cell phones and shine the lights onto the pool table so the game could continue! The live reggae band would take the opportunity to take a break and mingle with the crowd. That weekend there was a football match between Manchester United and Chelsea-- two of Arusha's favorite teams-- and I'm pretty the entire country was tuned into that game. I knew what time it was supposed to start, but Baba wasn't home at the time, so I thought I'd ask Mama Karen if we could turn it on. Just before I said anything, she looked at the clock and ran over to turn on the TV! It was only Mama Chaulla, Mama Karen, Karen and I home at the time, and we ladies got our football on. My family is so cool. Mama Karen was in the kitchen preparing dinner, but everytime I made a sound she'd rush into the living room to check the replay and cheer if she liked what she saw!
The next Monday we began training in Enguiki village, near the town of Monduli. Enguiki is surrounded by really awesome jungley rainforest, which was my first time seeing that kind of ecosystem in Africa. I didn't get to explore it much, but we kept hearing stories from villagers of encounters with elephants in the early morning. The participants, again, were mostly Maasai, but this group was particularly big on singing and dancing! Totally sweet! The women would start up during down time and it was sometimes hard to get them to stop! Those mamas were very hardworking and really appreciated the practicals, which was nice. They also really liked interacting with me, which is also appreciated! Villagers seem to either really enjoy attempting to communicate with me, or really prefer not to. These mamas even got a kick out of just knowing my name, and when we returned the next week I was greeted with a crowd of women shouting, "Aandi! Andi!!" When we finished our training with certificates on Friday, one of them removed a brightly colored beaded necklace from her neck and placed it over my head. Very sweet.
Camping in Enguiki was a little rough, though. We camped in tents at someone's house since there wasn't a gesti big enough for all of us, but there was no level ground for us to pitch our tents on. We ended up sleeping on very sloped, very rocky ground, which was a bit of a nightmare-- made worse by very heavy wind and rain at night. Fortunately, Leah's and my tent held up just fine, but others woke up a bit soggy in the mornings. Considering it was pretty cold for Leah and I, you can guess how badly the Tanzanian crew froze that week. In fact, during one of our nightly meetings one person brought up the way that we are "risking our lives" camping out there, and suggested that we change accomodations for the next week when we'd return to vaccinate kukus. So, Thursday afternoon after our trainings I went with some of the GSC crew into Monduli to prepare food and lodging for the following week. While walking through town, I spotted a t-shirt that said "usinizingue..." and asked Musa what it meant. After several attempts, he finally found it's English equivalent-- Don't mess with me! This has become one of my favorite phrases, and something of an inside joke with the CFGB crew, always said accompanied by our very best "stink face."
Sadly, that was Leah's last week with GSC, and we spent that weekend running errands for her and making last minute purchases before heading home. We did stop at a book store where I finally bought a decent Swahili-English dictionary, as well as a big world map to assist me in my world-traveling day dreams! I can't stop staring at it. :) We also bought Leah some kangas and kitenges, as well as pretty beaded sandals they sell on the street, which made for a long day of haggling for prices. Having secured some decent Swahili under my belt really helps us get a decent price, although it takes time and is really pretty exhausting. That night I met up with friends for a few games of pool at a small neighborhood bar, where one of the GSC interns Edita met up with us, which was so much fun! This girl is a blast. She and I are really quite different... she's much more "girly" as they say, and a total Tanzanian babe with her rather full figure, but equally sassy in the way we tease and play, so we have such a fun time together.
After lots and lots of laundry on Sunday, I went to Leah's homestay to hang out with her family on her last day. She has a lot of siblings, which is so much fun-- including a completely crazy, entirely un-disciplined 4 year old named Jackie, which ensures a lively good time. Her mama cooked us lunch (ugali for strength for the journey home!) and we ate cake afterward, a gift Leah got for the family at a local pastry shop. All afternoon Jackie would cheerfully call out, "Bye, Leah!" (if she wasn't yelling for cake, that is). Our favorite taxi driver picked us up to take Leah to the airport shuttle, where I said goodbye before dropping at my house. Before I left he confirmed with me, "So, we are still together right? And you are the one with the Swahili?" Haha. And with that, Leah was on her way back to New Jersey, where she hangs out with the Cake Boss and the crew of Jersey Shore every day.
I spent that afternoon at Mama Franco's house, hanging out and getting acquainted with each other's Facebook pages (who knew they had internet?!). She got a kick out of seeing photos of my family back home, and Steve, she thinks you are a total cutie. Before I left she asked me if I drink alcohol... when I said yes, she let out a huge laugh and gave me a big high five. Makes me wonder if there'll be good times to come with Mama Franco...
This last week was our final week in Enguiki, me as the lonely single volunteer for the week. Actually, I wasn't lonely at all, because Edita was with us and she and I had a ton of fun getting to know each other a bit better. It was fun seeing the women from the week prior around the village, who loved to greet me by name and shake my hand. One day I was walking to the choo (toilet) and as I passed by the church, I saw two of our former participants hanging out on the opposite side of the building. At first, I happily started waving, and then I noticed that one of them was peeing in a half-bent, standing position, smiling right back at me with her skirt hiked up so as not to get pee on it. She didn't seem to mind one bit that I, or anyone else for that matter, could see her. On my way back from the choo, she waved again and I called to her, "Ninataka kukojua kama wewe! Siwezi!!" (I want to pee like you! I can't!) We laughed together as I continued on.
It was a fun week, and without other volunteers around I got to spend more time with the GSC crew and the participants. One of our participants spent a lot of time teaching me Kimaasai, the Maasai language, which was a lot of fun. A common question-- both in Swahili and Maasai-- was one of the first I learned: "What is your father's name?" (Irayae Ereng'ay?) The language is really neat. Some of our crew also speaks Maasai, so I was able to practice outside of trainings. I was talking with Joyce one night about the new volunteers who are showing up on Monday, I hear we're getting 7! I'm really eager to hang out with some new people, but not very excited to be part of a group of 8 wazungu walking through town. I'm totally happy to play tourguide, but big groups of wazungu really looks silly and begs for harassment in town. When I told Joyce how I felt about being in a group like that around town, her response was perfect: "Yeah... that's not very impressive..."
Today is Saturday and I had a really nice day, begining with another private Swhaili lesson with Godson. When I first saw him, he said, "I cannot teach you verb tenses today-- I know from your texts you have been studying!!" And truthfully, even I am kind of impressed by how effective learning a language by submission has been... I never would have thought I could pick something up so quickly. We had a nice lesson, and when I went for lunch I met a Japanese univeristy student who was traveling on his own, and had just arrived in Arusha the night before. So, I spent the day taking Kazu through town and gave him a tour of the central market, where I bought him some passion fruit before taking him on the daladala. Anyone can see the tourist sites, but it's hard to brave something as overwhelming as the central market by yourself for the first time, so I was glad he got to have that experience.
Unfortunately though I think I'm coming down with something. Nothing major, I hope, since I've been taking my malaria meds... I think I was just coughed on one too many times by nasty, phlegmy, snot faced children in the village this week. Hoping it passes by Monday before we head out to the next village!
