Duka

Hi all,

Here is the duka (store) that is about 2 minutes from the house. I go there to get water, soda, soap, toilet paper, and other random odds and ends like that. There are a few larger stores (but nothing like super target) to get things at, but they are further away and people do not really buy in bulk here. When we need something the kids or the house help just run to the duka. I like to go myself because the more I emerge from the house the more the novelty of seeing a mzungu wears off.

Gecko Chooni (Gecko in the toilet)

Yes, and I have the picture to prove it. There was a gecko in my toilet. I flushed and all the sudden there was this loud splashing and I turned around and screamed as this gecko was frantically trying not to get swished down the toilet. He got himself out and back up underneath a lip in the toilet where I couldn’t get to him. Well I couldn’t have him staying there so I flushed a half flush to get him down again and then coaxed him into an empty water bottle and took him outside. Not a big deal other than now, I every time I sit down, I think of big hairy buibui (spiders) hiding in the same place. Yikes! :)

Habari nzuri na chakula (Good news and food)

Hi all,I haven't had any great adventures, but I wanted to say hello. Most of you know about the organization I've been working on with professors and students at school and I have good news to report....looks like we finally got a large sum of money so this summer you'll very likely have to check back here again to get more reports from Jen in TZ. :)

I think for today’s news I'll tell you about the food here, not the weird meat I have to eat, but the daily menu (it doesn't change very much). Most often, I use my hands to eat; sometimes I use a spoon, that is just the way it is done.

Breakfast - Chai (black tea, not like our "Chai" in the states). Juice, fruit (usually pineapple and bananas, sometimes mango and/or papaya), white bread toasted just enough to make it hard with peanut butter, a hard boiled egg, and breakfast chapati (which is sort of like creeps, only without anything on it). The juice, chapati, and egg every day are because I'm still a "guest" in some senses. The kids only eat bread and chai for breakfast during the week.

Lunch/Dinner - They serve the same meals for both, although not in the same day. The meals almost always contain a starch and then a sauce. The starches are in order of frequency: ugali (a flour-water mixture that is very dense, almost tasteless and you ball it up to use to pick up the accompanying food), rice, spaghetti noodles, chapatti (sort of like Indian fry bread/naan, only not crispy), white bread, chips (fries).

The sauces are some mixture of veggies and spices (although not spicy), most often with peas, carrots, onion and a few tomatoes (this is the only thing served with the spaghetti noodles). Sometimes the sauce is entirely different and has ndizi (banana) and some veggies (served with bread). They don’t use sweet bananas, rather one more like a plantain that sort of acts like a potato would in our meals. Sometimes, instead of a veggie sauce, we have beans, some sort of red/brown bean; often with coconut in the bean mixture (I love the beans here!).

There are two meals that are served on their own. A corn/bean dish called makande that is common with the Wachaga people (the ethnic group of my host family) and pilao, which is best described as something close to fried rice.

For every meal we also have some sort of cooked greens, most often spinach. We also usually have fruit, the same as for breakfast and now that avocados are ripe, we have been eating those too. Finally, we have chai again before bed.

Of course, this is the vegetarian version of the food here. They would add meat to some of the dishes (esp. the ndizi and pilao).

Childhood fun

Hi again (or Habari Tena)
Thanks for everyone's comments. Yes, the house I'm staying in is definitely not roughing it. I have killed at least half a dozen buibui (spiders) in my room though, but they are all babies so I'm not freaked out. I also have two geckos living with me, a mom and baby (well at least one is big and the other the size of a pen cap). They help keep the bugs to a minimum as well. So not much is new, just working working working. I came into town today in the back of a pick-up. My host mom thought I was crazy b/c I insisted 1) that I ride in the back and let guest ride up front and 2) b/c I thoroughly enjoyed it. Seriously it was like being a kid, only my parents never let me ride in the back of a pick up. This truck (envision a little truck, not the big ones we have in the US) has bars across the back so I got to stand up the whole way, with a big grin on my face. Of course it was like I was on show though, everyone could clearly see a mzungu standing in the back of the truck. Oh well, nothing I can do about that. Mom, Dad, don't worry I know it isn't safe, but we can't really drive that fast here, there are huge speed bumps every mile or so on the paved roads and the rest are all unmaintained dirt roads that you can't go above 15 mph. And besides, they don't have seat belts in the cars so it isn't that much worse than sitting inside. Seriously don't freak, when a seatbelt is available I use it (people here don't even when available). Okay, until next week. :)

Rainbow in Tarangire

This is an image of my very own bathroom and my adjoining bedroom with my newly handwashed cloths on the bed :)

A summary of my village/Tarangire trip

Habari zenu? Last Thursday I went with a fellow student of mine (Bernard, a Tanzanian) who was in town, to visit some villages in the Tarangire ecosystem (part of my study area). Bernard has good connections with the villagers so he was introducing me to some of them, giving them a heads up that I would be back in the area. All the villages we visited were Maasai (a pastoralist people).The people were very friendly and it was good to get out into my study area and actually see what is going on. To get to the furthest most village was about a 2 hour plus drive on a paved road, and then at least two hours on a unpaved, unkempt dirt path. After visiting three villages, we spent the evening in Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito river). On the trip to Mto wa Mbu the exhaust pipe in the car fell off (or something similar bad happened) and the next morning we spent a good hour getting the car fixed (a very typical event for field research here). Fixing the car ate into our time so we only visited one more village (or the village office rather), but then went to a semi-protected area that I didn’t know about, but is a good area for my study. I spent the night at Bernard and Ifura’s “house” in Tarangire National Park after having tea with the Foleys (Elephant researchers). The next morning I returned with Ifura to Arusha. The whole trip was shadowed by the current drought, where many cows and goats we saw were starving. We saw a handful already dead along the road. Many told us of their livestock losses, and we even heard of some Maasai that had committed suicide b/c the drought had killed all there livestock! We had a little rain during the trip, but haven’t had any these past two days.

Mbuzi tena (Goat again)

One interesting snippet of my trip….I had to eat half a goat! Okay, it wasn’t half a goat, more like half a goat shared by 6 people. We had it in Engaruka, one of the Maasai villages we visited where Bernard has a particularly close contact. As a welcome to the visitors the Maasai offered us food. Picture if you will, six people sitting around half a cooked goat sitting on a bed of leaves. One Maasai takes a piece of the goat and skewers it on a pointed stick anchored in the ground. This way he can take his big knife/blade and cut quarter size pieces off, one for each person at a time, around in a circle until the whole thing is eaten. Seeing as I was a visitor, hoping to ingratiate myself with the village and wanting to be respectful of their culture, I didn’t tell them I don’t eat meat. Instead, I tried not to think about the very juicy (sometimes red tinted juicy) meat, nor the fat still on the pieces of meat. Even if I ate meat, I have to say, I don’t like the taste of goat! Perhaps it is an acquired trait. After about 10 rounds of the meat, I was behind on eating my pieces, I couldn’t eat them as fast as everyone else, so I convinced the server to pass me up for a round every now and then. This allowed me to eat a little less, but I kept chewing and not thinking until the last scrap of goat was served. Well not really last scrap. When I thought it was all finished the server cut the bones and sucked out the marrow. Thank goodness he didn’t offer it to me because there was no way I could have eaten it!. It was bad enough hearing him eat it. Despite my best efforts, whenever my mind wandered for the remainder of the trip, it returned to eating the mbuzi. Ugh!

Wadudu (Bugs)

A second story from my trip….Tsetse flies and falling bugs (including cockroaches). In Tarangire there were lots of Tsetse flies. The good thing, I didn’t feel them this time when they bit me. The bad thing, I got bit 14 times, including on my back, chest, and legs. How you ask, wasn’t I wearing cloths? Of course, but those damm things can bite through cloths and climb up them! I felt one on my leg and squished it, only to see it fall out of my pant leg! Ugh! The bites turn to big itching spots so when I got back to Arusha a day later I took two allergy pills to decrease the swelling. However, this caused me to sleep for three hours from the side effects. Se la vi. I think I was also tired b/c we had been up late both the previous nights and while all the Tanzanians seem to be cold, I did not sleep well b/c I keep sweating, waking up drenched, because it is so hot (it is all relative I guessJ). So back to bugs, falling bugs that is…. Bernard and Ifura’s place in Tarangire is very quaint and great during the day. However, once the sunsets, the bugs rushed to their light and for some reason we all sat around the table (with the light almost over head) for a good hour while these little beetle things (that were crawling on the tin ceiling) kept falling on us. Furthermore, lots of flying ants and at least three cockroaches dive-bombed our bodies on more than one occasion. I sat there, pants tucked into my socks, hand clenching my shirt around my neck so nothing would fall in my shirt, flicking bugs off me ever 10-30 seconds! And yes, we did turn off the light, hoping they would leave, and that help a little, but only for about 10 minutes then drop, drop, drop, back they were.

Nyama (Meat)

Hello all,

Things here are moving along. Yesterday I hand washed my cloths over protests from my “mama” that she could do it. It was fine, but harder than washing a few nice shirts in the sink, and of course a mzungu (white person) doing laundry was entertainment for all those around. In the evening we went to Allen’s farm (or what will be a farm) where his cousin also has a farm and is building a house. I guess it is a weekly tradition; they all get together and talk, eat and play. It was a good time, a very REAL experience. Staying with a family is a 1000 times better than staying in a hostile or with other students. It is exhausting as well though. Everyone is eager to help me learn Swahili and continually try to talk to me, but I have to continually say, “say again” or “I don’t know that word” and 3 hours of that is tiring. They were all also very curious about me not eating meat so I tried to explain, which lead to the realization that I would eat meat in TZ so under their insistence I tried cow and goat. Cow was good, goat not so much. I think Allen understands I’d still prefer not to eat meat and it isn’t any trouble to not eat it at his house so that it good. I don’t mind trying, but I don’t always want to eat/like the meat. I’ll take some pictures next week or the week after. Love to all! ~ Jennifer

Habari from TZ

Hello everyone!
I have made it to Tanzania with one bag making it a day after me. No surprise or big deal other than one bottle of my mosquito repellent burst, but didn't make too big a mess. The family I'm staying with is very nice and their accommodations are great. I've just been getting my bearings, going to TAWIRI (the place I need to get my research clearance), and getting to know my host family. Esther, the mother, is pregnant (about 3 months) and they have five other children that are getting used to a mzungu (white person) in their house. Although the rains should have already come, they haven't and things are very dry and dusty. I hope everyone is doing well and I'll post more (hopefully with pictures) later. Tutazumgumza baadaye (I will talk with you later). ~love jen