Molly and Lars' Tanzanian Adventures: Meanderings by Molly

Just in case anyone else is finding these pictures a little small...I just discovered that if you zoom in when viewing this blog, everything gets a lot bigger, including the pictures!

This week’s posting hasn’t a theme – let’s just say it is some meanderings and thoughts about the expat life in Dar, which is really all I’ve experienced so far. My Swahili class wrapped up this week, and has been very entertaining. My head is full of constructions, and I am starting to have a mental map of the grammar, but when I open my mouth, nothing useful comes out. So I am taking a break from formal classes, and will start practicing with Rose, and Temius when he stops teasing me.

But the classes were wonderful in that they gave me a glimpse into the life of the expat community here, particularly the South African one. They also provided me with a little social group to hang out with during the long days, and a sub-group of us even did some exploring together.

The Swahili class day starts early, with me arriving at about 7:00 at the Slipway, where the waitress brings me a cup of cappuccino (I know, life is tough!). I gaze out at the water, check my email and eavesdrop on the conversation of 2 old men who are there every morning, never sitting at the same table, but obviously old friends. Perhaps it is because one is German (I think) and the other is Asian? They have both lived in Tanzania a long time, and talk about old journeys to remote places, car problems, business deals etc.

This last week, I have been helping an elderly woman with her translation of a government training manual for “stakeholders” in the fight against “GBV” – Gender-based Violence. Its amazing how our jargon is creeping in everywhere, and this highly educated woman is having trouble translating phrases like “critical mass” and “proactive and reactive strategies”. A good argument for plain English!

Our teacher Benjamin arrives at about 7:30 after 2 ½ hours travelling by bus, has a cup of tea and we have a nice chat in butchered Swahili. In between long coffee breaks, and lunch afterwards, these days have developed their own quite pleasant rhythm!

For our second last class, we went to one member’s house and did some cooking. Benjamin enlisted the support of another female teacher, as he claims not to be much of a cook. In fact he says that if he wants to do anything in the kitchen at home, he has to close the curtains so his father won’t see him doing women’s work!

First we went to the market together and bought the fresh ingredients (and in the process I discovered a lovely local market, which has broccoli and zucchini as well as everything else, and is a little more appealing than the “Pickpocket’s Market” down the road).

Luckily we had a great kitchen to work in (and a real cook to help out!). We cooked ugali, peas, fish stew, plantain, beans, mchicha (local greens), sweet potato, and coconut rice. Everything had freshly squeezed coconut milk in it, but each dish had its own unique flavour, without the use of any spices (and apparently most Tanzanians don’t use chilis or any seasonings other than salt, garlic and pepper). Delicious!

We (Lars and I) are getting much more adventurous about food, and lessening our dependence on the largely South African owned supermarkets, where everything is available, but nothing is fresh. We seem to be developing a pattern of cooking a big stew with meat on the weekend, and then living off variations of it for a couple of days. We have discovered the “Nice Butchery” where we can buy a kilo of “fillet” beef for about $6 CDN. The only catch is we have to go at 8:00 am, because apparently each little butcher kills a cow daily, cuts it up and all the good bits go quickly. If you go in the afternoon, there won’t be much left but the hooves. (Sorry all you vegetarians - I’ll spare you the description of the “Not Nice Butcheries” that we went to before we found this one).

One exciting thing happened this week: coming home on Monday, we met Rose, our housekeeper, who was in a high state of excitement. She had been shaking the bottom cushions on this settee, when a large (about a metre long) snake, who had been napping along the crack, hissed at her and tried to bite her. She jumped back, called Isaya and Temius, who came and bravely killed the beast. They said it was poisonous, and we had many consultations about how it got into the house…we finally decided it slipped under a gap under the kitchen door, so Temius was delegated to block it up. They all said they had never had a poisonous snake in their houses, and everyone else I told the story to said the same thing, so I guess we’re just lucky! Oh, except for my friend Judy who told us about how years ago while living in Kenya, they had a snake curled around inside their toilet bowl – thanks Judy!

I was going to write about all the Tanzanian media we’ve been observing, and about how the supernatural world is so close to the surface….but I’ve run out of space and time, so I’ll save it for next week. Suffice to say that last Friday night sitting for 2 hours in a traffic jam on our way home from a supper out in town, enabled us to buy a pair of rabbit ears for our ancient TV from a street tout (amazing what you can buy sitting in your car – pillows, ice cube trays, maps, etc). Now we have about 10 channels, some very entertaining with local dramas, others less so with incredibly awful foreign films dubbed into the most stilted, artificial English I have heard in a long time – but we also get BBC news – thrilling! So far I have seen 2 segments on the Toronto International Film Festival, which made me just a little homesick. Now that we have TV, (don’t worry I won’t be a couch potato, there really isn’t much on) we have finally rearranged our living room furniture, to make it a little more homey….there is still lots of space for yoga.

Here are some pictures from our last weekend trip to the southern beaches, just a five minute ferry ride from central Dar. I had thought that Kigamboni would be another suburb of Dar, but I was mistaken - it's a whole different world across the harbour.

These bikes on the ferry were laden with tomatoes and other produce, and were actually not able to be ridden off. It took 2 guys pushing to get them where they were going...

It seems like condom campaigns are everywhere you look! Let's hope they are having some impact. One of the younger members of my Swahili class came with a pencil case decorated on both sides with real, coloured condoms - I thought it was a paint box. Apparently this NGO also produces earrings, which are very popular with the expat youth.