Friday June 21, 2013
Shikamoo. Habari za
asubuhi. Jina lako nani? Jina langu ni Lauren. Natoka Marekani; nasoma kilimo. Chakula kizuri. Ulale salama.
Kwaheri. Asante sana kwa wema
waka.
Here are a few of the Swahili words and phrases I’ve picked
up in the last few days. They translate
to: “Respectful greetings (given to anyone older). Good morning.
What is your name? My name is
Lauren. I am from America; I am studying
agriculture. The food is delicious. Goodnight.
Goodbye. Thank you very much for
your hospitality.” Wow. I can’t believe that I’ve already been in
Tanzania for almost a week. This
relatively short amount of time has felt like both the blink of an eye and an
eternity, probably because so much has happened in the span of five days.
Rewind to last Monday.
I befriended a couple in Ataturk International Airport in Turkey, who
generously helped me get to Kilimanjaro.
They were preparing to go on a safari and have done a ton of traveling
themselves, ranging from India to Peru (both destinations I’m hoping to get
to!). Even though they’re less than ten
years older than me, they took me in, almost like a child, letting me tag along
as the airport was enormous and overwhelming.
Plus our flight from New York had been delayed almost an hour, so I was
even more concerned about making it to Tanzania. We grabbed coffee and they bestowed upon me
travel advice, making the few hour layover more than tolerable…even enjoyable! However, during our coffee break, a nervously
shaking man, who claimed to be from Ohio but had a strong Canadian accent,
started ranting about how Istanbul was in a state of chaos. Apparently the riots had left the park and
began to spread about the city. He said
he and his friends could feel the tear gas from blocks away as police attempted
to break up the crowds. This made me
less than calm and I was eager to get out of Turkey before my parents saw the
news. Unfortunately, civil unrest seems
to have followed me to Tanzania, where the nearby city of Arusha experienced a
bombing last Saturday. Four people were
killed and upwards of 70 wounded due to election-related violence. I assumed that I would dodge any trace of it,
since the election isn’t until 2015, but apparently local politics and
opposition parties are alive and (un)well.
Fortunately, I haven’t yet even gone into town and I am a good 20 km
outside Arusha, living in a small suburb (? – this seems like the wrong word…)
called Usa River (pronounced Oo-Suh), so not to worry, loved ones!
When I finally arrived in Kilimanjaro (which is a tiny
airport by the way!), it was close to 3:30 in the morning and I was nervous
about my homestay family picking me up.
I had attempted to conjure up back-up plans in the event that I found myself
stranded, but I knew my Iphone was close to dying. I also somehow managed to be the last person
off the flight and in line for my Visa.
My nervousness quickly subsided, however, when I found my luggage and
saw Helen and her husband with a sign for me “Laurean How” (classic spelling). Helen and her husband were accompanied by
their taxi driver and I was gracious that I was with three local people, as
traveling around at night is not advisable.
After a short (about ½ hour) drive, we arrived at their home
in Usa River. I had no idea what to
expect, naturally, but was relieved when I was invited inside (Karibu –
welcome). They have a beautiful home by
East African standards, which is referred to as a compound. It is protected by metal gates/fencing on all
sides and is composed of a few small buildings.
I am residing in their son’s old room, which are small quarters set
apart from the main house. I have a
double bed protected by a mosquito net and my own bathroom, which has running
water about half the time. There is also
electricity here, which also goes out on occasion. It just so happened that my first shower here
was a bucket shower and I’ve learned to refill the toilet when the running
water stops. The weather is much cooler
than I expected, especially for being in such close proximity to the
equator. Apparently it’s slightly cooler
than normal and we are also closer to the mountains. It probably drops down to 50s in the evening
and 60s during the day. The sun doesn’t
shine very frequently, and the nearby mountains are frequently shrouded in
clouds and fog.
Aside from these few annoyances, which are minor (I didn’t
even know if I was going to be in a house with water or electricity), Helen’s
is an incredible place to stay. To give
you some background on her and her family, Helen is a sixty-something year-old
woman who spent many years working with the Catholic Church. She retired around 2009 due to exhaustion and
went on to found her own NGO (not exhausting at all, right?) called TRMEGA,
which stands for “Training, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation on Gender and
AIDS.” She helps marginalized groups
such as women, the disabled, widows, HIV/AIDs positive people etc. through
programming, education, and empowerment.
On the side, Helen is a coordinator for the Slow Food Thousand Gardens
Project in Northern Tanzania. And want
to know something funny? This is not the
first time Helen and I met; I actually made her acquaintance last October in
Italy for the 2012 International Slow Food Congress Terra Madre in Torino. She was at the Tanzanian booth and gave me
her contact card when I informed them that I might be traveling to TZ next
year. What a small world! Helen’s husband Kosmos works for the an
Environmental Conservation Group in Arusha and makes frequent trips to nearby
National Parks and wildlife areas to help educate people about the importance
of conservation. They have a 25 year old
daughter, Lina, who is home for the summer before she goes off to the nearby
town of Moshi to get her Master’s in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. Their son, Dick, is 22 and is going to school
in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania on the East Coast (which is how I
scored his room for the next 8 weeks!).
The Nguya family is extremely hospitable and generous. They have a gardener on site, who takes care
of the beautiful and extensive plots on their compound, and a housekeeper,
Regina, who does some of the cooking and cleaning. We eat dinner every night between 8:30 and 9,
which is a bit late by my standards; I sleep around 9 or 10, and I get up
between 6 and 8 most days. My body is
doing its best to adjust to the changes in circadian rhythm.
The food is, for the most part, tasty but heavy. It typically consists of some sort of staple
such as white rice or Ugali (pronounced Oo-gah-lee), a hard porridge usually
made of maize (corn) resembling mashed potatoes. Beans in a sauce are often served with the
starch and almost always, avocado is served with dinner. These aren’t the tiny Hass avocadoes that the
U.S. imports from New Zealand, oh no, they are oversized beefy avocadoes grown
in the backyard. Sometimes there will be
a meat dish (usually fatty beef) and occasionally fruit juice. For breakfast, it alternates between bread
and peanut butter (which I was elated about, as I was told it would be nearly
impossible for me to find peanut butter abroad), mixed fruit salad (bananas,
oranges, watermelon, mangos etc.), and when I’m lucky, a fried egg on a piece
of bread. Always tea aka chai, multiple
times a day with raw milk and raw sugar.
I prefer the “rooibus and vanilla” blend, though the plain black tea is
a good alternative. Lunch is usually
some sort of mixture of breakfast and dinner foodstuffs, unless I am going out
into the field, in which case, it is bottled water and a white bread roll or
fried banana chips. So much white bread…
And with all the good that has happened so far, there are
unsurprisingly aspects of my TZ experience that irk me: the fact that cell
phones are always out at the dinner table with frequent calling and texting; the
jogoo (rooster) wakes me up every morning at 5:30 AM on the dot, without fail;
people stare at me and often shout “Konichiwa,” as if I am from Japan; daladalas
(overcrowded, speeding mini buses that deserve an entire post in and of
themselves) are terrifying but it’s how locals get around (though at least I am
not riding a bodaboda anytime soon, which are little motorcycles with
helmetless men who drive at hair-raising speeds); we live next door to a Pentecostal
church, which from 5-6 AM every morning has men singing and worshipping
(sometimes they worship until midnight too and this week is apparently holy
week); meals are heavy and infrequent, so I am really hungry by the time the
next meal comes and feel inclined to gorge; it’s rare that the electricity and
running water work at the same time; 95% of the conversations that occur around
me are in Swahili, so I might as well be deaf (I miss what’s going on, the
jokes, the news, dinner-time banter, daladala directions etc.); and constantly
covering myself with insect repellent and attempting to avoid contracting
malaria. Whew, now that I’ve got that
all out of my system, I’ve been learning so much here. Everything is a new experience. From leaving the safety of Helen’s compound
to go to the duka (small store) down the street to riding a daladala on my own
for the first time.
On my second day here, Helen generously sat down with me at
the kitchen table and helped map out a rough plan for my time in Tanzania. I initially was worried about being in Arusha
because it is notoriously touristy and I feared that this would taint the
“authenticity” of my experience. I can
say pretty safely that I was wrong. I
haven’t seen more than five wazungu (plural for mzungu or white people or
foreigners as they are fondly referred to by Tanzanians) in my first week
here. Because I am living outside
Arusha-town, I am very much embedded in the local culture. Moreover, I had identified many organizations
in the area that I want to visit, so I don’t see any reason to rush out of here.
I have plans to visit AVRDC – World Vegetable Center, Women
Development for Science and Technology Association (WODSTA), Farm Radio
International, and Centre
for Agricultural Mechanisation and Rural Technology (CARMATEC). Farm Radio helps disperse information to
farmers through radio programming and broadcasting and the others are fairly
self-explanatory. In addition, Helen has
contacted her friend at CESuDe-T (Community Empowerment for Sustainable
Development – Tanzania), who is working with the agricultural system of a nearby
village. CESuDe-T “trains on proper land
use, environmental protection, improve agronomy, and animal husbandry for
developing profitable market chains.”
They are also relatively new (the founder, Rogat used to work with Helen
in the church and when he retired, he also founded an NGO…casual business) and
looking for volunteers, specifically those interested in agriculture (Rogat
noted that there is an abundance of volunteers interested in working with
orphans or on HIV/AIDs issues, but that agriculture is lacking). On my second day in Tanzania, I went with Rogat
to the village; it was a day of many firsts.
Children called me “mzungu” and I ate Tanzanian “street food” at a café
(and enjoyed it, even though I was at first alarmed by being served an entire
tilapia fish with the head, eyes, scales, and bones). We also engaged in deep dialogue on the ride
to the village. He asked me how I felt
about Obama, the principles of Slow Food, if I believed in God, my adoption, and
what I thought about global climate change (hardly light stuff). He was genuinely interested in hearing my
opinions and the genuineness of the conversation was refreshing.
Once we arrived at the village, he began introducing me to
the people who lived there. The women
were dressed in colorful cloth, many carrying concrete bricks on their
heads. They were contributing to the
construction of an irrigation scheme in the village. The project is funded by donors from Japan
and the Tanzanian government, so you can imagine the strange twist this brought
to the day, as Rogat confirmed that many of the villagers thought I was the
daughter of the Japanese donor. However,
I neither speak Japanese nor Swahili, so that made the day interesting. In addition, I am trying to figure out how to
best blend in and not stick out like a sore thumb (more difficult than you
might imagine). I think I must ditch the
Eddie Bauer over the shoulder bag and avoid the heinously ‘backpacker’
combination of Tevas, Northface hiking pants, and quick-dry EMS t-shirt. Though even if I was dressed less touristy, I
don’t think I would nr used to the stares I get from Tanzanians everywhere I
go, be it the daladala en route to Arusha-town or small rural village.
Anyways, back to the irrigation project: they are digging a
trench, lining the bottom with poured cement and the sides with concrete bricks
in order to bring the water down from the mountains. This was my first reality check that
‘technology’ is really a gamut. I also
got a chance to meet the village chairman and practice my Swahili. I think my favorite part about the day,
however, was the breathtaking views, especially the verdant mountains that
loomed adjacent to the village, dissected by terrace farming and the
cultivation of coffee and bananas.
Africa is like another world in all honesty. Photos and recounts of friends and previous
travelers cannot capture the essence of what it is like. I hate to admit that I am comforted when I
spot a fellow tourist or white person, regardless of who they are or what
they’re doing. At first, it was nerve-racking
to leave Helen’s compound, where right outside the gates, children are running
around in the mud and trash lines the dirt road. Passersby sport vacant stares and there seems
to be a ubiquitous sense of idleness and desperation. I obviously have no authority in passing
these judgments, but they are merely observations. However, it is clear that as is the case with
all humans, the Tanzanians I have seen and interacted with just want to survive
and thrive. When looking at Helen’s
family photo album, I swear I could have been looking at my own family – a
moment of profound connectedness and comfort.
Speaking of comforts, those associated with home feel like a
trillion miles away. I must maintain,
however, that all of this is good for me: the culture shock, the stepping out
of my comfort zone, the personal challenges; I know I am going to grow in ways
I hadn’t known were possible. And this
year away will always make reuniting with my family, friends, and Jack the most
special occurrence in the entire world.
Until then, I am fortuate to be living with Helen and her family.
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