Twenty six weeks in Tanzania: August 2012

Shwari!

As you may have noticed, it's been easiest for me to send these out once a week and review the things that I've done over the past week. But lately, I feel like there are a lot of little things that I see or experience that never quite make it into my e-mail but I really want to share. So here, are some really random things that I have had the pleasure of experiencing here.

Starting with the electric slide. Most all Americans are familiar with it, especially if the song comes on at a wedding or other event where people from all ages are dancing together. But here, people dance the electric slide to everything, at any club. It's really quite a strange site to go up to a dance floor with some techno remix of a popular song from 10 years ago and see people dancing the electric slide. AND THEN, that song leads into a new one, and they're still dancing the electric slide. It's almost like a constant flash mob and no one seems to notice, it just happens.

Next up is clothes, people here care about their appearance, and professionals at least, will always have on clean, pressed clothes. But many people seem to have very little sense of matching their clothes. Mixing random patterns (maybe animal print and stripes) with random colors is pretty common, plus any shoes will do. Of course there are matching outfits that people make, but usually it's the same fabric so you've got a safe bet there. I've had someone compliment me on my outfit when i had a specific color scheme going on, which back home no one would look twice at.

Continuing with the theme of appearance, the culture here is generally very conservative. If, as a female, you wear shorts or a shirt above you knee or a top with spaghetti straps, you can expect some unwanted stares and comments from people around you. But if you have baby who needs to breastfeed and you're sitting on the side of a main street or on a bus or anywhere really, you just start nursing right there with nothing to cover yourself. I've seen it several times and while I suppose it makes sense (too hot to cover up, it's rude to look and so it's just accepted here) I still can't quite get comfortable with it. In addition to that, if you go out to a club at night, all of the rules about clothes go out the window. Girls dress just as skimpy in a club as the would in the US, I guess the difference is that you expect to be in a car for the entire travel time and the people in the club are usually mzungu or well-off Tanzanians who don't get offended by it. A couple of other interesting things I've seen has been a woman with a plastic bag on her head underneath a cloth wrap...water proofing maybe? I saw a young boy with a shirt that said "it's a girl thing" another that said "I <3 virginia", "Cheerleading fan team" and even a UMD jersey (I may have taken a picture of that guy).

Another interesting difference is the way kids are treated. Not in a bad way per se, but their safety is apparently not in as much jeopardy as it is in the US. People let their young children walk across town to school on their own every day (I'm talking like 5 year olds here). They are free to play in the street or at a neighbors house and no one is really worried what they are up to. Rahim, in fact wanders around the house and yard as he likes and plays with anything he happens to find (he's been known to eat matches). There's no such thing as child proofing, or car seats. You get on a bus with a kid and don't have a seat? Pass the kid to a stranger to sit on their lap for the ride. Only seat open in the bus is the front? Your small child sits on your lap in the front seat. Only person in the car is you, the driver, and you're taking your child somewhere? Here's hoping he sits relatively still. In some ways its nice that people don't worry so much about every little detail, but I can't help but freak out a little when I see some of these situations. All of it, of course is relative to the abilities and needs of the people so I'm not criticizing, just noticing.

As well as having children wander everywhere, I've seen chickens, goats and cows all over the place. Usually the goats and cows will be herded around by someone but they still have free roam, which is kind of cool. Although the drivers here are crazy and I was surprised by the fact that I haven't seen any road kill. Though I heard a story from a friend here that she saw a Massai guy cutting up a dead cow on the side of the road once so I suspect that any animals killed by a car quickly become someones food so you rarely actually see them.

I guess I should start off by saying that after a few days I started feeling well again and I never had any serious problem. I think I keep expecting something horrible to happen where I'm bed ridden for a day or two. Technically it can still happen so I'm keeping my guard up. It's been a busy week in Moshi, we haven't done any huge projects or moved mountains yet, but we've gotten a lot of good planning and preparations done. As well as some networking to be able to start working with the students and community on their Roots and Shoot projects.

Last Monday we familiarized ourselves with the area and met up with Tina to make plans for our upcoming time here. Tina is our Tanzanian volunteer, she is between secondary school and college so for the next month and a half she will be our guide, translator and friend. She was a roots and shoots member in secondary school so she is very excited to see all the other schools and projects and has been a great help so far.

The house we are staying at, is a hostel for volunteers in Tanzania. The price we pay includes breakfast and dinner made by the family so of course the food is always delicious. I keep trying to go into the kitchen an hour or so before dinner to help cook but they haven't made use of me yet. I really want to learn how to make some of their treats. Anyway, while staying here, we've met several volunteers and while no one is doing the same thing as us, we are making an effort to see what other programs are going on around us for the potential to join forces or at least make connections. So last week a group from the organization "Mama Hope" was here and they spent the week at St. Timothy's pre/primary school which they raised the funds to build. So on Tuesday, we went to the school with them to meet the students and help with their activity for the day, which was an olympic game day. The kids were all really excited and had a lot of fun though many of them lost interest eventually because there are almost 200 students and we could only keep so many engaged at once. They had a lot of fun though and medals were given to the winners and cookies and candy was passed out to everyone. Plus we were able to get a contact of someone at the school who was interested in R & S. The school has their own bus and a fair amount of land some of which is already used for gardening so maybe in the future we can bring the kids to Mweka or partner them with a secondary school. We gave him a pamphlet on starting a roots and shoots club so hopefully we can stay in touch if he really wants to get going.

Wednesday we went to Mweka which wasn't quite as productive as we had hoped because Sikievu never met us there. Sikievu is the local Moshi Roots and Shoots coordinator though he is semi-retired so he only works around the Mweka area where he lives. Joseph is the manager at the environmental education site so we were still able to meet up with him and help a little with the gardening and talk to him about some ideas/plans and look a little closer at the library. Plus we were able to find our way there such that we can get back (we got a little lost initially). Some of our hopeful plans for Mweka include student trips, fuel efficient stove building, designing a more successful fish pond, and maybe preparing informational pamphlets on the trees there (type and care, etc) for students or anyone else who takes a sapling back with them. If we manage to get even one of those things done in our time here I think we'll be a success. We later found out that Sikievu wanted us at a meeting at the Mweka university but we had no idea and were only able to get in touch through Joseph who wasn't a great middle man. We did finally meet up with Sikievu yesterday and have made plans today to do a school visit with him. The school we are going to is Kibosho Girls Secondary School and they have an active Roots and Shoots club so this will be a good chance for us to share our information and find out what they have going on.

Thursday we headed to Arusha which was unfortunately about 3 hours to get there again so by the time we got there Japhet, the Arusha Coordinator was at a school (apparently it was the American students last day and they spent at Mringa Secondary School in Arusha). So we joined there and got to catch up with them a little and see what that school was up to. They are a very successful club and had some nice presentations planned. We got to see them do a traditional dance and then present a skit on the environment. The skit was a little silly, but it was great to see the students really passionate about the topic. After the club meeting we sat down with Japhet at the office and went over plans and suggestions for our time here. Our initial plan was to go to Arusha every week but with the incredibly long commute we decided that every other week, unless something important is going on will be our plan.

Friday ended up being a lazy day on the computer. We made some plans and did some research for the things that we want to do here. We quit working in the early afternoon to go to the gym for a bit, yup, I joined a gym here! I was surprised at how easy it was to find one (just down the street from our house) which I didn't really expect but I'm glad we found it. The place is smallish, but they have all the basic cardio and weight equipment and some mats and free weights to do your own stuff on. They also have an aerobics class which they hold every day at 5pm. On friday I went just for a quick run and to do a short circuit of my own little exercises. At the end I was pretty worn out and ready to go but unfortunately got pressured into staying for the aerobics class "just for a little bit". I ended up staying for the whole thing and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I haven't worked out since before I even came here so I was really sore Saturday and Sunday. But yesterday I managed to go for another run. I'm not sure if it's from the lack of exercise or a difference in altitude but I need to work myself back up in my running, it'll be good preparation for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro!

We've spent some time wandering around the town and exploring the area. I've discovered that similar to in Dar, I want to buy everything I see! I'm not usually such a shopper but I love that everything here is handmade and many things are significantly cheaper than back home. I've already bought a few souvenirs for people and a few for myself. The stuff I've gotten for myself I've already started using though, like sandals and a bag and some earrings. I want to get some clothes made while I'm here because apparently its pretty inexpensive and you can request to have things made in whatever style you want (and it might even turn out the way you asked!). One of the other volunteers here works for Tafcom which is a local organization that does a lot but one of the things in specific is a tailoring shop for single mothers here. They'll make all kinds of things, not just clothes so don't be surprised if I end up bringing some gifts back from them. I hope everyone back home is doing well, I still miss you all and as usual, I'll send pictures separately in a few minutes!