Some new musings about Tanzania
- - Celebrating
holidays in the village is a lot of fun.
For Idd-el-Haji (the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca, though from what I
understand, people around the world celebrate it, even if they didn’t actually
do the pilgrimage), my game plan consisted of one simple idea: just walk around
the village. And it worked
brilliantly! I got invited to many
homes all around, and went to an area that I don’t go very often. Many of my students live out there, so
I was able to visit their families.
It was adorable seeing some of the mamas, who were so welcoming and
brought me chai, pilau (spiced rice cooked with meat), meat pieces (a big
treat), Tanzanian chapati (like fried tortillas), mandazi (fried doughballs),
an avocado…I am not kidding when I say that I don’t think I’ve eaten that much
in my entire life. One of my
students walked me around to a bunch of people’s houses. He then dropped me off at his friend’s,
who then continued escorting me around.
It was useful having a Tanzanian take me around, as they’re much better
at turning down food when full than I am when I’m alone. To sum up the day, I left my house at
about 9:30 in the morning, and returned at about 6pm. As Tanzanians are incredibly welcoming all of the time, but
especially around the holidays, it gets hard to refuse food and drink. But I felt better than I usually do about
dropping in on people unannounced, as they had all prepared food already,
rather than having to start the fire in order to make tea. Plus it’s a day that people expect
visitors to come by, so I was being completely culturally appropriate. The villagers seemed excited to have me
come, and I was happy to see so many wonderful people. However, I was wildly full
afterward. I literally didn’t eat
for a full 24-hours afterward.
- - There
tends to be some very unrealistic ideas of time here. Granted, many cultures have very different views of
punctuality and time compared to Americans and many Western Europeans. Tanzania definitely falls into this
category. Often times, my bus to
my village will say that they’ll leave at noon, but we won’t leave until 2:30
or 3pm. Sometimes later. Waiting is just a very large part of
traveling here. But besides being
late, I find that Tanzanians just don’t know how much time it will actually
take to do something, or don’t pay attention to it. For example, teachers at my school will tell students to go
fetch water. This is pretty common
in most schools. But our school
and village area have a definite water problem. The majority of the year, the students have to walk
approximately 20 minutes. One
way. Then sometimes they have to wait
for enough water to fill a bucket.
Then they have to walk back.
Uphill with full buckets of water.
It’s not an easy trip.
Sometimes they have to walk even farther. And the teachers often tell the students to go and come back
in 15 minutes. Seriously, 15
minutes? Are they crazy? Not always, but sometimes the teachers
will give students a hard time if they come back late, one’s even beat them for
being late. Gah! It’s impossible for them to make the
trip that quickly!
Another example of an unrealistic expectation of time was when my school district decided that every school in the district needed to build a laboratory. My headmaster went to a meeting in October, where they informed everyone of this new district requirement. The construction was to be finished by the end of November. Even in a place like the United States, it would be difficult to meet that kind of deadline. Then you include details like people having to carry the rocks for the foundation on their heads to the worksite, getting enough water to make the cement and mortar, etc, and getting the manpower to do all of this. It’s mid January and we’ve barely gotten the foundation done. It’ll be interesting how long it will actually take to finish. Considering that our final classroom was supposed to be finished last February and still isn’t done…I don’t have high hopes.
Another example of an unrealistic expectation of time was when my school district decided that every school in the district needed to build a laboratory. My headmaster went to a meeting in October, where they informed everyone of this new district requirement. The construction was to be finished by the end of November. Even in a place like the United States, it would be difficult to meet that kind of deadline. Then you include details like people having to carry the rocks for the foundation on their heads to the worksite, getting enough water to make the cement and mortar, etc, and getting the manpower to do all of this. It’s mid January and we’ve barely gotten the foundation done. It’ll be interesting how long it will actually take to finish. Considering that our final classroom was supposed to be finished last February and still isn’t done…I don’t have high hopes.
- - Tanzanians
love tea. I love it too, but tea
is a huge part of Tanzanian culture.
They super duper love it.
One village elder told me that he can’t go two hours without a cup of
tea. It has a lot of
benefits. The water is boiled, so
it’s safe to drink. They add a
million spoonfuls of sugar so they get calories in their system (and bad teeth
in the process). In my region of
Tanga, they add spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and it’s VERY
good. I’ve been to other regions
and had their chai, but I’m very biased toward tea from Tanga. Especially in my village. 100tsh (about 6 cents) for a cup. Best prices ever! When I go other places, I usually balk
at the price, but village life is extremely cheap. When people drink tea, they usually have something like
mandazi (fried dough, kinda like a sopapilla without all the extra air inside)
or chapati to eat with it. Around
my village, when people have a guest come by, they almost always make chai and
serve mandazi.
My favorite tea is stuff I had in your village. Love Dad
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