Mama Linda

Some Background on CHES Back in 1991, as CUSO cooperants, we were assigned to work in Hanang District, Tanzania, as an attempt on the Canadian government’s part to help rectify some of the economic and human rights abuses perpetrated by workers of the Tanzanian Canadian Wheat Farm Project (TCWP) upon the nomadic cattle herders of the area-the Barbaig. A British anthropologist, Charles Lane, had made public through Human rights organizations and Indigenous Survival groups the lost Barbaig economy and the alienation of their land. Ethnic tensions and conflict with the state were particularly horrendous during the late 1960s and late 1980s. Barbaig households in many areas lost thousands of cattle to raids, houses were burned, crops were destroyed, women raped and people killed. Barbaig children were forced to attend schools with limited resources far from their ... read more

Market Shopping in the Big Cities Going market shopping requires preparation, stamina and determination as well knowledge of local customs, language and prices. First of all, you must take only small notes and coins and have them readily available in zipped pockets. Tanzanians don’t carry change. They will always get it for you but it make take an hour until they find someone who can break your 500 shilling bill. Paper notes in Tanzania require delicate handling. Besides being tattered, torn, taped and glued, notes may carry note-born germs. Hint: check that you aren’t being passed a note so tattered that no one else will take it. Secondly, you need a basket large enough to carry your purchases. Tanzanians hire lads at the markets to do this for them. Give it a try! Thirdly, you will ... read more

Katesh lies at the base of Mt. Hanang, a presence that dominates the entire region. Often circled by a ring of clouds, it is referred to by the local indigenous people as the white necklace. Its other claim to fame is the complete absence of wazungus except for the occasional stray hiker and Canadian supporters of CHES, an NGO that supports education of the girl child. If you aren’t one of those supporters, then you aren’t lucky enough to have a bed at the very comfortable CHES House. Your choices are limited to some rather dubious and noisy guest houses ($3.00 a room, sharing) near the bus terminal. Rumour has it that the Summit Guest House might change your mind about putting up your tent on Mt. Hanang. Located in Katesh, in addition to guesthouses, is ... read more

Restaurant Etiquette Reading menus in Swahili you might think is difficult. Hamna shida. Don’t worry. If you are like mum you will patiently wait for a waiter to bring one for you. If you are like me, you will know the only menu is written on a blackboard behind the glass counter often holding donuts freshi or other unknowns and simply wait and see how your mother figures things. Either way, there are usually only one or two options. The choices will either be ugali (maize flour stiff porridge like glue) rice with bean, rosti, fish or chicken. Lunch for most people is at 2 and dinner at 7 so if you arrive around 4 or 5 you may be lucky and get bananas with rice. There will not be any chicken, fish or rosti. If ... read more

Bar shopping and hopping as related by Kelci Timing is definitely key to your shopping experience, and often means heading to town several times per day. The Serengeti is not a place to visit after 4 PM. Regular dukas only carry fanta, spriti, coka and sometimes ginga ale, not to be confused with ginger soda, AKA Stoney Tangawizi, a product of the Coca Cola company. Stoney is not a drink to be poured into a glass. It is a must have from the bottle. When you have company, please offer it to them in a glass as it will certainly produce some laughter on your part. I’m not sure what it is but when drunken from a glass the fizz tends to both go up and out your nose at the same time! Back to the ... read more

At the choo Some directions, are culturally appropriate to ask and worth asking. Knowing the whereabouts of a choo, sometimes referred to in urban areas as the WC, is after all, often necessary. Choos are placed in a variety of locations, mostly unsuspecting ones. You may ask, “Choo?” or the more polite, “Please be so kind as to tell me where the water closet is.” There is danger is speaking Swahili too well as the response may be beyond your understanding. Given that the locale of the choo may be out of doors, through the corridor to the back alley and around the building next door to a structure without a sign, you may want to carry a notebook in which you can draw a map. Choos come in many forms, but you can be guaranteed ... read more

Church Etiquette (or the Gospel account according to Binti Kelci) We were invited to the Christening of the baby of Naomi, the financial treasurer of CHES Tanzania at the Lutheran Church. It was to start at 7:30 AM and we were advised to arrive at 7 AM. It was to last an hour. The choir had arrived as had a few members of the congregation. The music was wonderful and mum reassured me I would not have to dance although swaying and clapping of hands to the music was appropriate. We were unsure of where to sit and decided on the second row of the middle group of benches on the far left. This was opposite the choir, near the baptismal font, and away from the altar. As more and more people piled into the church ... read more

Driving in Tanzania In the 1990s few people had their own cars. Drivers were professional drivers who were hired by government officials or other salaried people. Five minutes on Tanzanian roads would have explained the need for professional drivers. Now, however, the rising middle class have changed the roadways. Cars abound. Driving schools don’t. It is thought if you can drive a cart and oxen, you inherently can drive a car. If you insist on driving, a few fundamental facts and suggestions are hereby provided. Driving on the left People drive on the left in England, drive on the right in Canada, and drive on both sides in Tanzania. You must maneuver to drive to avoid pot holes, pedestrians, goats, cows, piki pikis, bicycles, buses, dala dalas and other road users. When you are not ... read more

Telling Time Ni saa ngapi sasa? Ni saa kumi. Telling time in Tanzania is just a wee bit confusing. Once you figure out that the Swahili day (siku) has 12 daylight hours followed by 12(usiku) hours, you’ll be fine as long as you learned your numbers 1 to 12 and remember to look at the hour exactly opposite the Swahili hour mentioned. The new day begins at sunrise, or 6:00 in the morning. The night cycle begins at sunset, or 6:00 in the evening. So just to show you how easy this is, here are a few examples. Remember that 12 is 6, 1 is 7, 2 is 8, 3 is 9, 4 is 10, 5 is 11, 6 is 12, 7 is 1, 8 is 2, 9 is 3, 10 is 4 and 11 is ... read more

It's two weeks before I return to Tanzania and friends and former projects. I am reminded of the journal I kept in 1991-1993 long before the word blog was known and years before Tanzania had internet. I think it will be interesting to revisit my entries and look with fresh eyes at those cultural clashes that are inevitable. As I attempt to remember my Swahili, I remember some of the learnings of my first experiences with the language and the speakers: Communicating in Tanzania Tanzania has 127 living languages and at least half a dozen dialects in each one. No, don’t despair. Thanks to Mwalimu Nyerere, President of Tanzania 1964-1985 who had a collectivist philosophy known as “ujaama”, Tanzanians all share one common language-Kiswahili or Swahili. Educated urban Tanzanians learn English in secondary school, a vestige ... read more