Maybe I should change the title of my blog to “The Rodent
Chronicles.” Since I last wrote, I
have had a mouse chew through my mosquito net and bounce around my head until
my stupor had faded enough for me untuck my net and let it out. I’ve woken up to a mouse knocking over
everything on my nightstand right next to my head (but thankfully on the other
side of my net) and last, but not least, I recently found a drowned rat
floating in what was going to be my shower water (I tossed it outside and it
was gone within the hour). I
became a little more flinchy after the mouse-in-my-bed incident but I’m still
much more comfortable with my fellow housemates than I would ever have been had
I never lived here. One of the
many ways that Tanzania is helping to shape the person I am becoming.
As I approach my one-year mark in country (June 15), I often
think back to how much has happened and how much I feel like I have
changed. Most of these changes are
expected, welcomed and feel appropriate but what surprises me more often than
the changes, though, are the “not-changes.” The pieces of me that have stuck, that have turned out to be
part of my very core. It’s
eye-opening to realize how much of an influence American culture, family values,
and the friends I’ve chosen over the years have had on my character. (all of
these influences, by the way, I have become more and more grateful for with
each passing day – in other words I love all of YOU and am thankful for each
and every one of you).
One of these core traits seems to be my opinion of
time. In Tanzania, nothing ever
happens on time. EVER. I’ve probably mentioned this before but it’s something
that still nags at me. If someone
says 1:00, it probably means 3:00 or later. If school starts on the 3rd, people will probably
show up on the 10th.
The first class of the day at my school starts at 7:30 but very rarely
are the teachers actually at school by that time even though all live within 5
minutes walking distance of the school and some live right on campus. It’s the Tanzanian way, the mindset of
the culture. I was having lunch
with some teachers yesterday and they said to me “Madame Brie, you are always
at school so early!” which caught me by surprise because I constantly feel
guilty for my tardiness. I
consider reporting time to be before the students gather and usually I show up
as they’re singing the morning song.
When my fellow teachers asked me why I was so early, I started off by
saying “well, I teach the first period every morning so I need to be there
before that.” Then I thought about
it a little more and realized that it had more to do with the fact that I am an
American. I tried to explain how
much value Americans place on time and that it’s disrespectful to be late for a
scheduled event or meeting. Then I
realized, for me, it’s not only American culture, but also the culture of my
family, both immediate and extended. Right then and there, as I was explaining “American time” to
these two women, I heard my Dad’s voice in my head (again) saying “if you’re on
time, you’re late, and if you’re early, you’re on time.” I guess that stuck and I am forever
doomed to be a slave to the clock… a concept, by the way, that Tanzanians think
is hilarious. It will probably always
bother me if I’m late by MY standards, even if I know a Tanzanian will not
notice the difference between me being five minutes early and two hours late. I will probably always have to remind
myself that a Tanzanian means no disrespect if they’re late for something that
they’ve scheduled with me and I will probably always hate waiting for hours on
end for reasons that seem to be unwarranted and due only to inefficiency or the
need to greet someone twenty times. On the other side of that, it has made it possible for, no forced, me to relax in ways that I never would have been able to in the states. There's a valuable lesson in that and I'm getting the opportunity to appreciate time in a whole new way. Plus, guess what? The DMV is going to be a breeze for this lady!
A few weeks ago, I went to Zanzibar with my friend. The two of us boarded the ferry that, much to our surprise, left within ten minutes of the scheduled departure. We just looked at each other and laughed about
how amazing it was that we were leaving when we were when neither of us expected to leave for at least
another hour.
On that note… last time I wrote, I was talking about the
fact that I had finally gotten bored.
I was waiting for something exciting to happen, something to change up
the routine and break up monotony.
Well, ask and you shall receive, right? I spent a week in Zanzibar, followed shortly by a week-long
regional conference down south.
Now I’m back at site grading papers until Wednesday when I will head to
Dar es Salaam for a meeting with some other volunteers from around the country. At the end of May, our region is
putting on a girls’ empowerment conference and then at the end of June, I will
be making another trip to Dar for another meeting. I have a feeling that the next couple of months are going to
fly by as fast as the last one has.
As for Zanzibar… what a fabulous place!
We spent most of our time in Stonetown, a city full of labyrinth-like
alleyways, fantastic food, amazing churches, old buildings, fascinating history,
and cool doors. Cool doors? Yeah. They were absolutely amazing. Everywhere you turned, there were these fantastic,
intricately, hand-carved doors. In
Zanzibar, back in the day (even though the place isn’t really any older than 50
years), your door signified your wealth and social status. The result: amazing works of art on the
front of every building that leave you in a constant state of awe. They were breathtaking.
Aside from getting lost in this fabulous city on a daily
basis, we also headed out to Prison Island, an island that was in reality a
quarantine and never actually a prison.
The main attraction: giant tortoises ranging anywhere from the age of a
couple of months to 125 years old.
They. Were. Awesome. The
guy feeding them even let us hold one of the younger ones. We hung out with them for a while and
then got back on the boat and headed back to the big island for some more wandering
and door gazing followed by street
food and… Zanzibar pizza!
Every night at around 6pm, the Tanzanian vendors would start
setting up their tables of food. A time-lapse of this would be way cool. There was octopus, chicken, crab, fish, meat, meat, and more meat but,
since I don’t eat meat, I bee-lined for the main attraction: Zanzibar
pizza. This wonderful invention,
at least the cheese and tomato version, is a concoction of cabbage,
laughing-cow-style cheese, tomatoes, eggs, and probably a few more things, all
mixed together and fried inside of a tortilla-thin pizza dough. It comes complete with an awesome chef. It definitely wasn’t what I was
expecting when I heard “pizza” but it was pretty dang good, extremely cheap,
and really fun. For dessert: the
same thing except with banana and nutella inside and a drizzle of chocolate
sauce on the outside. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. Deeeeeeelicious. I’m going to stop there with food but
just know that during my week of vacation, I enjoyed some pretty amazing food
and it made me oh-so-excited for the day when I actually have choices again.
In addition to some fabulous food, we also explored some
fascinating museums, and then headed out of town for one of Zanzibar’s biggest
tourist attractions, a spice tour.
My friend and I definitely wanted to go but we were bracing ourselves
for over-the-top sales pitches and relentless hassling. Much to our surprise, the whole
excursion was very pleasant (maybe because we were there during the tourism
off-season). They showed us all of
the different kinds of spices and fruits that they grow and we learned a few
things about each of them. Did you
know cinnamon is actually the bark of a tree? They cut it off in strips to use and then wait for it to
grow back. What about cocoa? Did
you know that cocoa seeds are actually white? There weren’t very many pods because the kids in the area
like to break them open and eat the top layer of the cocoa seeds (a gooey layer
with very little taste that I think is usually used for cocoa butter). This
means the inside of the seed, the part that is used in chocolate, gets lost. While cocoa is
what most Americans would be interested in, cloves are the spice that Zanzibar
is famous for. Smelling that was
like walking into the candle section of a Hallmark store or Bath and Body Works, except… in the middle of a forest, which,
in my opinion, is waaaaaay better.
I think my favorite thing that we saw, though, was something that came towards
the end. It was a little fuzzy, reddish, heart-shaped pod and when you open it up,
there are all these little red balls inside.
The women of Zanzibar mash them up and use them as lipstick. It was like nature’s version of a
compact but, instead of buying them at the store, you pick them off of a bush from anywhere on the island.
Zanzibar definitely made for a fantastic week and was just
the adventure I needed to shake things up a bit. If you ever have the opportunity to go there, do it, it’s
absolutely fantastic and my words don't even begin to do it justice.
Happy May!
P.S. This one’s for you Grampa! Love you!
