1 year (+1 day because the internet was down across the whole of Tzn yesterday) Anniversary

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Yesterday (becasue the internet was down all day so I couldn’t send this!) marks one year exactly since I arrived in Tanzania, weary but excited at 6am in the morning! Wow. I marked my 1 year anniversary in style. I got a top made out of the local fabric called ‘kitenge’ and was wearing it for the first time yesterday (this was actually more coincidence, but still fitting I feel!). Furthermore I received my Tanzanian Driving License and finally Thangale my boss took me out to lunch at a local ‘nyama choma’ bar where in true Tanzanian style we drank soda and ate chips and barbecued meat.

Perhaps it would be fitting to reflect on how this past year has been a life changing experience for me. About how seeing the lives some people lead here really puts your own life into perspective. About how kids here are happy with juice carton turned into a toy car, a plastic bag tied up with string for a football. And how despite the degree of poverty in which some people live, they still seem happier than that business man who earns loads in the city with the perfectly kept house and 2.4 children. And perhaps all of it would be true. But I don’t want to preach and I don’t want to patronize because yes, living here has opened my eyes somewhat, but also there are plenty of people who lead very comfortable lives much like mine in England and don’t (contrary to what propaganda might want us to believe) live in mud huts on less than one dollar a day. I’m sure such people don’t need my sympathy. Furthermore, I’m still essentially the same Carly. I’m not going to lie - I’m still going to come back to England and want to shop in H&M and look nice and go to little cafes for coffee and cake with my friends. So rather than blab on about my ‘life-changing’ experience instead I want to discuss some of those things that have just become part of everyday life here for me, things that definitely were not so in England, but things I’ve got used to - be it for better or for worse!

1) Of course it has to be top of my list. Powercuts. Yes, they are still annoying, but somehow it has become automatic to plan around them. If one ensures to flick the hot water switch at around 7:30am and to boil the water for a cup of tea before 7:55am, it doesn’t feel too tragic when the power cuts like clockwork at 8am. And my nifty ‘cheapest-in-the-shop’ nokia mobile equip with torch has been a lifesaver for those more unexpected cuts after dark. Ok, so candlelight doesn’t have quite such a romantic feel to it anymore and evening entertainment minus electricity is somewhat limited but really, one shouldn’t complain. Nothing wrong with good conversation and a luke-warm drink before bedtime, even if you can’t perfectly make out who you are talking to.

2) Soda. It took me only about a month to drop my English ‘Can I have a fizzy/soft drink?’ So soda it is. And there is a wide array here - am a big fan of Fanta Passion and Black Mirinda which is similar to Vimto but if possible slightly sweeter. One must remember however that if you are in a pub that sells coke, the chances are you can only buy 7up and fanta etc and not any of the pepsi company brands such as sprite and sparletta. Can be a little inconvenient at times.

3) Chips mayai. Exciting phenomenon consisting of frying chips in a pan, then adding 2-3 whisked raw eggs, resulting in a sort of chip omelette. Cravings for chips mayai normally arise from extreme hunger when only the greasiest, stodgiest dish will do. Both nutritious and delicious.

4) Now this one I think will impress anyone who knows me well enough to have eaten with me on several occasions. I now eat meat..wait for it...off a bone. Long gone are the days when the thought of eating a chicken drumstick makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Furthermore, I enjoy a good fish too, even the skin, though still haven’t reached the stage where I can eat head and eyes and all. Small steps, small steps...

5) Coping with the ‘seasonality’ of food. This is more of an issue in rural Tanzania too. What do you mean mangos aren’t in season now? And oranges? No longer are my eating habits dictated by what is available on the supermarket shelves. Well, perhaps with the exception of nutella and the odd packet of pringles....

6) Back-handed marriage proposals. I achieved record timing last week too. I went into a shop to buy curtain hooks (a whole different story) and the conversation went something as follows:
Carly - ‘Hi, do you sell curtain hooks?’
Shop keeper - ‘Yes, are you already married?

I’d like to say this does wonders for a girl’s ego, but I’d be lying. Depending on my mood it can actually be incredibly annoying. As too is explaining why I personally don’t want to be married and have children by the age of 23. I mean, congratulations for all those people who do but I guess it is just not for me.

7) Greetings of ‘how are you?’ (accent on the ‘you’) and ‘good morning tee-cha’ - despite the time of the day. I’m told this is because children here only have English lessons in the morning so never really absorb ‘good afternoon’ or ‘good evening’. Something else baffling - if I respond with ‘I’m good, how are you?’ I’m normally received by confused faces. The only correct response of course is ‘I am fine, how are you?’. Do we use ‘I’m fine?’ Maybe being away for a year has gone to my head but i associate such a response with a plea on behalf of the other to please ask ‘what’s wrong?’ -why only fine?’ Just a pause for thought.

8) Never fully understanding what is going on or being properly able to express myself. My Kiswahili has progressed over the year but even if I can get the gist of a conversation it is still practically impossible to understand it in full. Take yesterday as an example - I was at a farmer meeting taking notes and thought I understood what was going on until I asked Shaban (a fellow colleague) next to me and of course I’d got the wrong end of the stick. I’d missed a key word and no they weren’t talking about the problems with the dry mill, they were talking about the problems some of the washing station managers had had with arriving at the meeting. Doh.

9) Bumpy roads. Banging your head at regular intervals, up, down, left, right. Needing a sports bra on every journey (pah, if only such a thing existed here!). I’m sure you get the idea. No need to elaborate.

10) Tanzanian (or apparently I’m supposed to say African - since I’m told it is not a phenomenon isolated to just this country) timing. If someone says they will meet you at 2, that means don’t bother turning up/expecting them until around 3. If someone says ‘I’m on my way, I’ll be 5 minutes’ - that usually means they haven’t left the house yet. Just the way things work. I’ve tried to explain that it is much less annoying if you just say ‘I’m going to be half an hour late’ than to pretend you are 5 minutes late then leave me sitting somewhere slowly working myself up for the remaining 25 minutes. However, over time I’ve adapted - it annoys me less now (most of the time) and on one or two occasions here in Kigoma I’ve been known to leave a group of Tzn’s waiting - proclaiming ‘ I’m just round the corner, 2 minutes’ into my headset as I make a dash front my front door a good 15 minutes walk into town...

11) Tanzanian directions. It is much more acceptable most of the time to send someone off in a random direction than to admit you don’t know where it is they need to go. In Dar, and particularly in places such as Kariakoo market which is nothing less than a rabbit warren, I’ve wasted way too much of my life walking in all directions of the compass to try and decipher my destination. ‘Turn left’....’No, you need to go that way and turn right at the end of the road’....‘You are going the wrong way - follow that path until you hit the road then walk towards the bank’..... At which point I was probably so hot and fed-up that I probably found the nearest dala-dala and probably purchased an ice-cream through the window. Ice-cream does wonders for self- repletion.

12) The incorporation of ‘aiya’ and the overuse of ‘karibu’ in my vocabulary. ‘Aiya’ is used by means of ending a phone conversation here and also in response to a comment as though to agree or express understanding, a kind of ‘ah yeah’ or ‘ah, I see’. It’s addictive. It’s the new ‘like’ in terms of frequency-it-ends-up-flying-unexpectedly-out-of-your-mouth. As for karibu (which means both welcome and you are welcome), one uses it every time you invite someone into your house/shop/room/office/any space in which you are standing first, as well as every time someone says thank you, and finally every time you are eating or drinking or receive anything with the capacity to share. Based on how often people come into my office and how often I eat here I would predict I probably use this word at lest 100 hundred times a day.

13) Millepedes/centipedes. This one is actually more of a Kigoma phenomenon - didn’t suffer nearly as much in Dar. I don’t know either which one it is but either way they look like worms with an unfathomable number of legs. And they are everywhere. Tucked into a flap in your bag when you leave the house. On your bead sheets. In the shower. Unexpectedly under your foot - too late. What is even more of a mystery is how so many get in the house, considering all the doors and windows are covered with mosquito netting. Eery if you ask me. Lizards/geckos are also everywhere. And so are the signs that they are healthy digesters. Now I’m not easily grossed out but even I had to shudder the other day when I found a dropping in my cup of tea - must have fallen from the ceiling into the kettle. It is incredibly tempting to attempt a mass killing, only like everything in this world there would be negative consequences - geckos actually do a great job of killing off flies/spiders and most importantly mosquitos. As annoying as it is to sweep up droppings on a daily basis I’m guess it sucks a lot less than getting malaria at least 10 hours drive from a decent hospital. Sometimes one just has to make sacrifices.

14) Never having clean feet. Also more of a Kigoma phenomenon. Basically no matter how much I scrub, open shoes + red dirt = non-cleanable feet (and clothes for that matter...)

15) To add the cliche (it has to be done) seeing women and children carrying anything from bananas/buckets of water/firewood/school bags on their heads and men push bicycles laden with crates of soda/mounds of grass/up too (at a guess) 100 pineapples. Still fascinates me I have to say. I can’t even balance an apple or push an empty bike up the hill without sweating out my body contents. Clearly I have a long way to go.

I could go on, but I think I’ve said enough until next time... also, for those of you who haven't seen yet I put my best photos from Tanzania on facebook so go have a browse.

All my love,
Carly xxxx

P.s - if you are wondering why half my photos for this month are from Burundi it's because we went there to do a farmer training session at the beginning of April...completely unrelated to the content of this entry but thought they were nice photos all the same!

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Photos

Me cupping coffee in the office
So i can taste 'chocolate' now, but tasting 'apricots, smoke and hints of potato' are still far beyond my abilities I'll be honest...

Burundi
View from the training centre

Burundi
Very near the Rwandan border

Burundi
Coffee drying tables

Being interviewed by the local radio station
In swahili...on the day that I'd just been tested for malaria I felt so sick..not so fun!