June
30, 2013
It’s quite remarkable how much a day can go from good
to bad and vice versa, so quickly.
Fortunately for me, it was the latter.
I woke up at 6 AM after hardly getting a wink of sleep, as I was to
leave with my homestay sister Lina for church at 7 AM. Groggy, I struggled to get out of bed, though
amazingly, I was greeted by a two egg omelet filled with tomatoes, onions, and
lettuce – my homestay mom is a gem. We
went to church (Roman Catholic) down the street and saying it was painful was
an understatement. I felt like a
petulant child…I could even relate to the crying, whaling babies, except that I
had no mother to carry me outside (I wish).
Helen originally told me that church usually lasts around an hour and a
half, which seemed reasonable. This mass
clocked in at a whopping 3 hours. All in
Swahili. You would think that because I
grew up going to Catholic school that it wouldn’t matter what language mass is
in, but alas – false. Apparently a
baptism occurred during mass, which I couldn’t even tell. The priest gave a sermon that was more than
an hour long and every time I thought the ceremony was coming to a close,
something else happened. I learned over
to Lina and whispered, “what are they doing now?” “Oh it’s just second offering.” …Excuse
me? As the whole church lines again to
give more money. This is post-Eucharist,
mind you, so I swore I saw the end in sight.
And don’t get me wrong. The whole
event wasn’t intolerable; in fact, the music was incredible. We clapped and they sang joyously in Swahili,
almost gospel choir-esque, and the women dressed in brightly colored skirts and
matching head wraps were beautiful. But
the duration and language barrier really got me down. You can only sit for so long and day dreams
can only pass so much time. I later
learned that this is a new priest at church and his first mass; typical. Let’s just say that I don’t think I will be
going to church again any time soon!
Following mass, we stopped at the tailor’s and my
konga skirt was ready with the matching bag.
I thought it turned out exquisitely and the tailoring job was only
10,000 tsh ($6 USD). Shocking. And the day already began to look up.
However, who would have expected though that the highlight of
my weekend would have been a four-year-old’s birthday party? Not me.
Paddy, one of my contacts at an Arusha-based NGO, invited me to his
son’s birthday party. To be honest, I
originally thought he was a middle-aged Tanzanian woman via email; turns out
Paddy is short for Patrick and he is a British ex-pat (whoops!). I think my opinion of ex-pat arties has
changed since I last wrote, as this one was so utterly enjoyable. I ate beef kabobs with onions and
peppers. This was high quality juicy
steak, not the fatty and bone-filled cuts I’ve been used to over the last two
weeks). They served pasta salad, fruit
salad, chicken wings, and CAKE!!!
Yes…CAKE! They don’t serve
dessert in my homestay, so the cake (three pieces later, ha) made my life. I even had a Fanta and a beer…for free! Wahooo; it was blissful and the company was
even better. Despite the throngs of
energetic children running around, crying, hitting each other etc., (the bounce
house was broken for the first hour of the party), I enjoyed mingling. I ignored that I was again sort of an awkward
age – there were of course four and five year olds and then people in their 30s
and 40s, but I gladly made the best of it.
It was an intimate party with no more than 10 or so adults, about half
ex-pats and half Tanzanians, so a much more balanced crowd. I met an Australian woman who is married to a
Maasai man and through her NGO, they’ve been training Maasai women on
permaculture practices – SO COOL!
Although the Maasai are traditionally pastoralists who move with their
cattle, the herds have suffered due to climate change and recent severe
drought. In addition, there was a man
from Ethiopia, another Australian, a few more Tanzanians, and a couple: a
Taiwanese woman and a Belgian man. And I
couldn’t believe it, but she used to live in Easthampton. I was shocked. Apparently she participated in a high school exchange
program in New Mexico before making her way to the East Coast for undergrad at
BU. After getting a job in sales and
marketing, she slowly found herself moving west from Cambridge, to Newton, to
Shrewsbury and eventually to Easthampton.
I almost peed myself with excitement and disbelief. We bonded over knowing similar landmarks
(Smith College, Tasty Top etc.) and to think that we met in Arusha,
Tanzania…the world is a small place!
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