Africa: Day 4

Why is it that it takes a foreign continent, country, language and way of life to remind you of how fascinating the simplest things can be? Yesterday, walking home from the market, I was beaming with pride because I had managed to ask for, in Swahili, and purchase, tea and jam! How many times a week have I gone into Sainsbury's and done the exact same thing without the slightest flicker of excitement? But this was amazing, what a sense of accomplishment, it is absolutely ridiculous! And that wasn't my only victory yesterday, I also managed to buy onions. I know, probably one of the least exciting things imaginable and here I am raving about it but here, for me, it was a highlight. These were things I always took for granted, knowing that if I went to one supermarket I could get everything I needed, but there is hardly anything even close to resembling a super-market down here. The market is a collection of stalls, small shops and women, men and children sitting along the roadside with maybe a table, a cart or a blanket with their goods displayed. It's mostly bananas, Ndizi and if I could only find baking goods (flour isn't the problem, its everything else), I'd be baking enough banana bread to last the rest of my life. There's two meter long branches of sugar cane bending under their own weight as the rest on a table and are chunks are hacked off to order. Pineapples are piled high on carts tempting you to pull one from the bottom just to watch them all tumble. I managed to refrain, I was afraid what might happen to me, but I did buy one yesterday and it seems that fruit just tastes better here. Might be that its more refreshing in this heat or my triumph at a successful day had left me overly happy and excited about everything, but it was one good pineapple.
Wednesday we'd eaten lunch with a few of my colleague's, Christophe, friends and while we had the meat and rice, he'd ordered some nice looking fish. So yesterday, not feeling up for gnawing on the unidentified meat again, I figured I'd go for the fish. Now the meat was served on the bone, fine, and the fish had still be attached to its tail the other day, I can deal with tails, but what I'm not too keen on is a bowl with a fish head swimming in it. Eyes, mouth, gills, all present. Name parts of a fish head and that's what was in my bowl. Not exactly what I had in mind. I don't know if it was the look on my face or that he's not to eager to dig into a fish head himself, but the two bowls with staring fish heads were taken away and replaced by tails. Tails are fine, they don't look at you when you eat them. And how would you even start to eat a fish head? Especially since the meat or fish is usually eaten as finger food! Do you eat the eye? the brain (do fish even have brains?) or whatever else is in its head? There's way too many questions that go along with that one, tails are child's play in comparison and I gave up on finger food and ate it with a spoon. Trying to peel back the skin and then manage to avoid all the little bones, and keep the flesh from flaking everywhere and splattering the red broth (still not quite sure what it is but it was the same as what was served with the meat. I'm guessing tomato?) all over my white shirt... way too much of a mission for lunch. I think this is why I was so excited that I managed to buy tea and jam, they're simple food. No eyes, no splattering, no fear of bones. It's a good change.
Rice is apparently a luxury down here and many of the men, I think I'm the only women who eats at this canteen, have their stew with a kind of stiff porridge. It's a white playdough like starch that is eaten with one hand breaking off a chunk, rolling it into a ball to hold shape, and then using this as a base for the greens or meat or broth. One day, when I've mastered the fish, I'll move onto the porridge... Until then, I'm still surprised that rice, I mean how many times have we complained about having rice AGAIN, is a luxury! I guess it's not really a rice growing country but it was something I'd never thought about before, it's such a staple back home.
So it looks like this Sunday, I'm about to go a whole lot more rural, we're heading "into the field" to collect surveys from some of the clinics and some historic data from their records. That is assuming they have records, these things don't always happen. We, the syph team or at least from what I understand the director, Christoph who works on data management and a driver, are heading out to Geita Sunday, catching the 2.30 ferry (I still haven't figured out where this ferry takes us but I think there's a river) and returning to Mwanza Saturday. Nobody was really clear about where it is we're going to be staying or what I need to take with me so it's going to be a bit of a guessing game. I was told to bring my computer so we can continue working (this was news to me because I haven't really started working yet, there's no data so far to work on!) and some clothes... OK so six days with a computer and maybe some clothes... should be exciting stuff!!!
Oh and Michael Jackson died??? I'm hoping this is recent news and I'm not too detached from the rest of the world... I can't believe I just compared being informed of "MJs" death with being attached to the rest of the world! On my walk home today, passing by what I think is a construction site, there's a lot of half finished buildings so you can't always tell, a couple of guys were rocking out to the Michael Jackson song from Free Willy (and I only know it's from Free Willy because we used to watch that movie all the time when we were younger). I don't know if it was just a coincidence or they were playing it as a memorial but even here, as far away as it feels, there's always little reminders of home.
I took my camera out today on my post-"work" walk and I suppose, shopping trip since that's when I usually pick up some food, so here's a few pictures of the local area. They make Treehouse look like a five star resort but this is a better view of what life is like no the outskirts of the town.

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