Steen and Erin: Our Favorite Things

Here is a short post to share with you some of our most/least favorite things here in Tanzania!

Favorite Things:

1. Orange mud! 
2. People turning off their motorcycles to coast downhill in order to save on gas.
3. Passion Fruit (20 for 80 cents)
4. "China!" (pronounced chee-na)
5. Eating fish tongue (its actually quite tasty)
6. Turning on the fan, and having it  start spinning 30min later
7. Sister Theresina at Mugana Hospital
8. Seeing babies tied to their mother's back

Least Favorite Things:

1. Dirt in the rice
2. "China!" (it gets old)
3. Getting overcharged because we are "Muzungu" (foreign/white)
4. Lake flies
5. Brown flavorless curry
6. 

Erin: Flowers

Steen and I went back to Mugana to collect CD4 data for our study. While we were there, I noticed this flower that really intrigued me. It is a beautiful fuchsia color and the stem and flower look furry. But the flowers grow in this weird fan shape rather than in circles. As I was admiring it, Sister Theresina notices me and encourages me to take some of the seeds home so that I can plant some for myself. I protest, but she tells me that I can hide the seeds from customs. She herself tried to sneak pickle into Tanzania (pickle is an Indian condiment made from many fruits and vegetables that essentially delivers spice to your food) but got caught and they took it from her. “I think they ate it” she said disappointedly.

So if you visit me next year and I have this weird pink fan flower growing in my kitchen, you know where I got it from. I’ve also been eyeing this purple gum-drop shaped flower ;)

Steen: Three Little Pigs' Houses

No, Erin and I are not the three little pigs, although we are always hungries (or super full, sometimes that happens, too, since meals here are so big).

I think of the best way of describing housing construction here as the three little pigs. I've never been anywhere quite like it. There much to say/analyze about it with regards to poverty and inequalities, but for now, I will show you in pictures.

First, there is the STRAW HUT: (this one is also made with cardboard and clear plastic tarp)



Then there is the WOOD BRANCH/MUD HUT: (okay, this doesn't quite fit, but it should be included. Imagine skinny tree branches stacked like Lincoln logs and then filled in with mud/clay).

Then, there is the WOOD HUT: (on the left; probably a kiosk and not a house; made of planks of timber)


Finally, there is the BRICK HOUSE: (with a nice metal roof; probably no other insulation or amenities)

Welcome home?

Erin: On Driving

Our Tanzanian travel guides have a warning for Americans about driving. Tanzania uses the British system, so everyone drives on the left side of the road and steering wheels are on the right. But in addition to getting used to this (and making sure you know how to use a stick-shift; there is no other way to get up a muddy hill), there are a couple other rules important for both drivers and pedestrians to note.

1. 
   Speed – There may be a speed limit but it is not enforced. Usually you are limited by the quality of the road, especially as the rainy season has carved gorges into many of the dirt roads. Exceptions include police barricades, which are designed to collect tax on agricultural goods being taken to market before the ‘season’ officially starts for a certain good.
2. 
   Passing – If you want to pass a vehicle, use your turn signal to indicate your desire to do so (right-hand signal). The driver ahead of you will respond with his own signal by either indicating that the path ahead is clear for you (left-hand signal), or that you should not pass yet as the road is obstructed by oncoming traffic or that its too narrow (right-hand signal).
3. 
   Right of way – The right of way belongs to the biggest thing on the road. Cars beat out bikes, which beat out people. If bikes or people are not clearing from the intersection, you should honk at them (or ring the bell on your bike at pedestrians). I have seen one man knocked off his bike for leaving not enough clearance between his path and the car’s, but he was not injured. Children also frequently get honked at, even if they are out of the way. I assume this is to make sure they are paying attention and do not run into the road. (Roads here are always filled in the afternoon with children walking home from primary or secondary school.)

Ps. If you're reading this Dad, I think you would have liked our driver in Dar Es Salaam. Before working for ICAP, Manuel used to be a mechanic for racecar drivers on the East African circuit. This was in the 70s, and the races would go around Lake Victoria, through Kenya, Ugandan, and Tanzania. They would take short cuts to get ahead of the racecars, and had to use the bare minimum of parts to get the cars going again. Manuel scoffed at modern mechanics who just go to junk-yards to find replacement parts, he would disassemble the alternator, figure out what was wrong with it, and fix it himself before putting it back into the car. He also raced motorbikes himself in the 80s. Cool, huh?

Erin: Random moments with food.

Have you ever ordered one thing and then ended up with something completely different that what you expected? To Steen and I, that happens a lot. Usually this is because if we order two things on the menu that are too similar, they will end up being cooked in the exact same sauce. Coconut chicken ends up tasting like fish curry for instance (sans coconut). Today, Steen and I went to the Walkguard hotel for dinner and ordered Indian food. She got cabbage with peas, and I ordered spinach paneer. While both these dishes ended up tasting as expected, for some reason the kitchen fixed them with French-fries rather than rice. They didn’t ask us if we wanted French fries like at most other places we’ve eaten, they just kinda do their own thing there. Like the time they brought us two fruit salads when we only ordered one. Or the time when we didn’t even order fruit salad and they brought us two! Funny thing is, we always got charged for them even though we didn’t order them. But because they were tasty and we ate them, we went ahead and paid full price.

Speaking of being overcharged, they also tried to add 1,000/= Tanzanian shillings to my dish and 500/= Tshillings to the price of Steen’s. They said “food cost more,” (than a week ago when the menu still listed the price accurately?). Maybe it cost more because they didn’t make us anything special this time and charge us after we’d eaten it.

And by the way, spinach paneer does not go well with French fries.

Steen: On Advertisements

- Houses are painted bright colors here if they advertise for a cell phone company. The big ones to paint here are TiGo and Zain. These houses are often lime green, magenta, bright blue, or yellow. There are often also ads for the other companies hanging on banners, VodaCom, TCCL, and CelTel. I wonder how much money people get if they advertise for these companies, or is it just that their houses receive a fresh coat of paint? What are the terms of the agreement?
- Cocacola has a stronghold in these parts. Many signs for towns (Karibu Bukoba!), schools (Happy Primary Elemtnary), or whatnot are written in black letters on a white background next to or underneath a big red Coca-cola sign about 2-3 times the size of the sign itself. All the softdrinks we have here are made by Coke. Coke, Sprite, Fanta (Orange, Passion, Grape, Black Current), Krest (Bitterlemon or Tonic), Spar-Letta are all made by Coke. Dasani is one of three bottled water brands here. We have seen a few old Pepsi signs around, but they are far and few between and seem older than the bright Coke signs. We have also yet to taste a Pepsi product in Tanzania.

Steen: On Roman Catholic Church Service in Swahili

- On Friday morning, I went to the Morning Service here at the Bukoba Kolping Hotel, which is run by the Roman Catholic Church. Services are held at 8am on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Since Erin and I had to leave early Wednesday morning for a daytrip to Nyakahanga, I could not go before Mom’s one year anniversary on Thursday, leaving Friday as the best option.
- The service had elements with which I was familiar having attended some Methodist services back in the States and part of a Catholic service with Preeti. A few of the prayers I could recite from memory and there were a few portions of the service that I had seen before such as Passing of the Peace and Communion. On the whole though, it was a pretty different structure. We started out by reading a variety of morning prayers in English and then the Priest came in and gave a bit of a sermon in Swahili. It seemed like there may have been a Priest in training because two men stood up at the podium, one older and the other much younger. Then there was a period with which I was unfamiliar where the members of the church sang hymns from memory while one by one they went up to the front or to a side room for Confession (I found out later that this was a special service for Lent, not part of the usual routine). This went on for at least 7 songs, maybe more, so about a half an hour to 45 minutes. By and large, they were uplifting sounding songs with absolutely beautiful harmonies. I was really impressed because there must have been at least 3 parts to most songs and everyone sang without any hymnals. After that, there was Communion followed by another reading or sermon from the Priests. Somewhere in there was Passing of the Peace, where I shook the hands of people around me and said “Shalom!”
- The whole service lasted nearly two hours, which I was not used to, since most services I’ve attended have been an hour. I felt a bit antsy at the one hour point, but then I decided to welcome the time, because it just gave me that much more time to sit and reflect. Not being Catholic, I was not about to go up for Confession myself, and so I thought the best use of that time would be to try and remember about all the good times and the bad; at some point it just became overwhelming. My tears really started to fall; I couldn’t hold them back and then I didn’t want to hold them back. In part, it was running through the memories that brought up tears. The knowledge that there would be no more new memories was tough to face even as I have had a year to come to terms with that idea. At the same time, I felt like there were so many moments that I had forgotten about or could only vaguely remember and that too made me sad – that memories were fading. Then I felt like I should try and remember more things, to bring them up to the forefront of my mind, so that next time I sat and tried to remember, they would still be in my repository of memories. After the tears, which came in a few spurts, I actually felt relieved and at a certain peace with the world that is difficult to describe. I suppose tears in of themselves are cathartic. I was thankful for all the many good memories that we did share, some of which made me even want to smile and giggle a little by the end of my reflections. I miss Mom deeply, some times more than other times, but I know usually when I miss her I hold back my feelings in order to maintain composure and move on with my days and life in a way that she would have wanted and that is most useful to me, so this was a good time for me to just sit and let emotions pass through me… and then I felt better. I feel better.
- I am glad that on Friday, through this service offered at Kolping, I was both able to honor and remember my mother and also take care of myself at the same time. I think she would have been pleased. ☺