Labda Hata Mimi

So now we take another break from my timeline to share some…

Favorite Things

• Only Thunderstormy Days and beautiful fluffy-clouded Sunny Days (overcast is very rare) with the mountains in the background on one side and the valley on the other.
• Mangos, Bananas or Passion fruits every day (it is our rainy season until March), also bi-weekly fresh pineapples. Monthly Pineapples, Jackfruit, Avacados or Weird fruit many of which I haven’t been able to discover english names for like SheriSheri, Matunda Damu (apricot-size, sweet tart outside, berry-flavor inside), Zambarau, Unripe dates (euch!),
• Corollary: Juice, I got a cheap blender last time I was in the nearest large city. My school provides free sour Passion fruits any day I want them and it only takes three per person to make great juice.
• My house: it is bigger than anything I would have in the US and I have kind neighbors that work at nearby schools that I visit with regularly. I also have one of those Hawaiian-lei trees *right* outside my living room window making shade and loads of fragrant flowers.
• My Shamba: My field behind my house is about an acre. About three weeks ago my friend and I prepared a garden (Okra, Cucumbers, Carrots, Lettuce, Kale) and then this past week my Househelp (”Mzee”) and I planted maize, sweet potatoes, pigeon peas, pumpkins, chickpea-like flavorwise peanut-like growingwise things (”Njugumawe”) and peanuts in the rest of the space. I can’t wait to see if I get a good harvest. So far the lettuce looks to be coming along. I have had to chase away Guinea Fowl the last few mornings as they were eating my seeds.
• When people perk up when they realize a Mzungu (White person) knows Swahili.
• I like balancing my time in my town (and computers) with some time in the village. In my town most people and businesses live in concrete or wooden-board structures. In the village many people live in Mud houses or wooden pole structures. Completely adequate but it makes for a different atmosphere which is much more peaceful and laid back.
• Solaris at work: Sure, it is fantastically quirky Operating System but I love working with Unix on a daily basis rather than pure-Windows, keeps my tech-learning skills sharpened.
• Keeping busy at work: it interferes with my Swahili learning but it is nice to have an significant plain of computer tasks to explore and improve. ICT teachers spend almost 60 hours a week in the office. I settled on 45-50. PCVs are suppose to do about 30.
• Walking: (and biking) around town.
• Tanzanian Sketches: It seems like all Tanzanians can sketch really well, I don’t know why this is but it is cool.
• Neighbors, Friends and Coworkers: Tanzanians around my life are amazing and “push” more (in the best sense) than I’d expect from the TZ stereotype. The PCVs ’round are fun too, I think they will help me stave off most forms of culture shock.
• Peaceful Tanzania: I am amazed with the Tanzanian leader from about 1960 to 1982, Nyrere. He created this fantastic though very socialistic public employee system where the teachers (and police officers) are assigned to semi-random places around the country not unlike Peace Corps volunteers. This forced the lingua-franca of all Tanzania to be Swahili and not any of the 120 tribal languages: primary schools use it exclusively and secondary schools use it extensively. This and other policies have gone a long way to preventing the kind of serious socio-political-tribal tensions that have been raking Kenya in these past weeks. Also notable is the almost even distribution of Muslim, Christian and indigenous religions (30%/30%/30%).

     

  Hand of bananas ripening in the server room next to the blades.
  

  Things I don’t take for granted:

  Trash: I make a tiny amount of trash in a week. Most of it is paper trash that Tanzanians wouldn’t make like tissue paper or water bottles.

  Electricity: It goes out a lot but I also have it a lot. If I didn’t have it at all I wouldn’t mind but I’m still not accustomed to it being unavailable so when it is gone I’m in a funny spot where it is hard to cook, go out or host guests (which I probably invited days before). This said, a nice jolt of “hakuna umeme” (no electricity in this place) is nice to break up the daily routine and help me do things I wouldn’t regularly do but should be doing like reading a book or writing a letter.

  Rain: This season is not particularly rainy compared to a good year. If it rains we get more better fruit from my school and my field gets greener. I like rain.

  Water: Water is a bit complicated here in the desert. There are two types: “hard” and “soft” but really the hard is so unpalatable that I wouldn’t even translate it as hard. In Swahili they call it salt water, maybe brackish is the best term. My tap produces this type of water though it only works for an hour every two days. I collect it for the days it doesn’t rain and my garden is thirsty. I am very thankful that every couple days my Mzee/Househelp brings 50 or so liters of soft water. The problem with the soft water is that it comes in with lots of mud so it needs to be filtered with ceramic filters and then boiled. I have also casually been collecting rainwater when it has been convenient.

  Pop (English)/Soda (Swahili :): Soda is gloriously made with real sugar instead of corn syrup. When I wish for an occasional sucrose fix, a refreshing taste is ready at almost any duka. Bonus: There are all sorts of unavailable strange and interesting flavors like Gingerbeer, Quinine lemon, 50/50 or Squirt-like grapefruit, Fanta orange and passion and other indescribable varieties. Mmm.

  Imported things: PCVs always have one shop in their city/town which has been lovingly designated “safi duka”. This fun Kiswinglish word translates to “shop (that is) clean/cool/peaceful” but really comes down to having things that aren’t generally available in Tee-Zed: good jam, pasta, Cadbury fruit-n-nut, in big cities even soy sauce, mayo, butter, ice cream, olive oil and oregano. These goods come at quite a premium (butter for $3.50, olive oil $10!) so you have to use them sparingly. Remember I can get 5 tomatoes or one avacado (seasonally) for $0.20; Huge mangos for $0.20, $0.30 is expensive; passion fruits for $0.05. Also all tech things go for normal American prices so I have to change modes and burn lots of cash if I’m in a place (ie. the capital) where they sell good techy things like CDs, keyboards, or voltage stabilizers.

  Personal Space on Mass Transit: Daladalas (like Mutatus in Kenya), stout little busses and Roll-Cage Lori’s are the workhorses of Tanzania for short distance jumps from the big cities to the countryside villages. Gas is expensive, the Tanzanian shilling isn’t worth much, and average pay is small. Consequently Dala fare is about 200 shillings or 20c for most 20 minutes or less hops, not bad. The downside of this is that the Dala is never full. They always fit more people on and if you get on at a late stop on the line it will be quite cramped. Bus companies run between larger cities are a bit better if you pick the right ones.

  Tanzanian Progress: Although on the surface Tanzania seems to have it all, things like:

  • no less than three major sites of human anthropological origin,
  • topographical beauty,
  • amazing wildlife rivaling Kenya,
  • fertile land,
  • people who know how to work land (surprising bits of land get cultivated),
  • land rich in minerals,
  • long-lasting peace (peaceful government change in 1960s from British protectorate),
  • a common language among cultural diversity,
  • Few slums,
  • Had strong, decisive leader from independence through the eighties,
  • Stable democracy (albeit yet single party),
  • some English background.

  It has not progressed past countries like Kenya which lack many of these positive elements. Somehow even by many measures it is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world. The best single reason I have heard so far is that when TZ became an independent nation it had only 8 college graduates residing in the country. TZ was a protectorate not a colony like Kenya and Uganda. Britain had absorbed it as an afterthought once they defeated the Germans. They didn’t pour any money into educating the populace, focusing on their full colonies.

  One more humble outlook offered by some of the seasoned peace corps volunteers is that Tanzanians are happy with what they have. With the exception of starting a small shop in their front room aren’t interested in large-scale business. When they have enough money to get by for the week they’ll just close their shop and go about their personal business. Another alternative perspective was that for years Muslim leadership put a large focus on church schools which concentrated on the holy books instead of the science books. In any case in a country twice the size of California there are only 3000 miles of paved roads. 50% of food grown in the country spoils. People routinely make charcoal ruining the old growth on mountains and in the plains across the country and worsening global warming in their region. Poachers are not always dealt with swiftly as Kenya; they have not yet banned government-run game parks: animals like rhinos roam into this land and are shot for a one time return for the TZ gov’t. Leaders take bribes to overlook large amounts of minerals being carried out of the country.

     
   

  Dubious Things (that I hear about or see)

• Corporal punishment with families
• Corporal punishment at Secondary schools.
• Corruption in the small villages with teachers stealing cement from schools, cement from Peace Corps Volunteers houses. Required bribes with shipping of goods.
• No Cilantro (though I planted a bit of Coriander-spice which I hear is similar when fresh)
• No Nectarines
• Everyone Begging everyone for money (especially including me). Just to give you a sense of how entrenched it is the word for beg in Swahili is basically used instead of “please” in every routine transaction.
• Whenever more than two Wazungu (white people) are together it is assumed that we don’t know Swahili.
• Mosquitos after dark, Malaria, and Malaria prophylaxis side effects (like super-caffeine).
• When cows wander through your field and eat your knee high corn and spices that cannot be found in TZ :( One can pursue serious lawsuits for these offenses but I don’t know whose cows they were and would probably just ask for a week of free milk.

Stuffed daladalas driving crazily on bad roads(left) and Dry, seasonally green mountains at site.

Coming next: Learning Swahili, Shadow visit, Daily life.