-Arrivig in Kiliminjaro Airport is a glimpse of what is to come. There are no directions on what to do or where to go. I got in the mob that was headed for the Visa booth. There were no roped lines to keep us in order, no structure, no system in place.... Welcome to Tanzania.
after getting my Visa it was very late at night and the officials weren't really paying attention so I walked past customs with my bags and out the front door.
I met William who is the "tour guide" for the next several days.
The first thing that is different when we got on the road, other that the fact at how nice these people are and extremely polite, is that there are people walking every where, at all hours of the night. The other thing that was notable was the speed bumps.
We arrived in Arusha late and when I got to William's house I couldn't see much of the environment. The "road" to Willy's house was very narrow and had a surface like large bubble wrap. This is I think due to the poor (none) drainage and the rainy season.
We entered the compound (we don't have these in the US) through an iron gate, I had to stoop to get through. Willy's apartment is one of 8 and you enter into a square cement pad. The apartments all face this pad, two on each side. This is like their courtyard. This is where all the cooking (on a kerosene burner), washing of clothese (out of a bucket) and playing of the children occurs. We went to Willy's door where upon hearing us arrive his 4 year old daughter,Miriam (aka princess) came pealing out, eventhough it was very late. When she saw me she screamed for joy and ran into my arms and gave me the biggest hug I have ever had. Wow welcome to Tanzania.
I slept under a net for the first time, slightly clausterphobic but you get used to it. The TZ people are very generous people. The do not have a lot, but they share everything they have. They wait for the guest to serve themselves first, everytime and they tell you to take as much as you want. TZ folks eat a lot of food (starch). The fruits and veggies are amazing. I became a vegetarian while here (the meat is not too good and one can only eat so much rice and ugali (corn powder mixed with water to make a thick paste)
The next morning we explored Arusha. I wasn't quite ready for what I saw especially the contradictions.
First do not where pants that drag on the ground even a little,trust me on this.
Second if you plan on staying a while and washing your own clothes (in a bucket with a bar of orange soap, the white bar is for your "showers") do not bring: jeans (they take forever to dry and are a bear to wring out and they do not shrink back into shape), sweatshirts (see previous), anything white, or t-shirts. Bring: flip-flops (do not go bear foot), old tennis shoes, boots, mudboots (if the rainy season), cotton clothes that are easy to wash and dry quickly, layers of clothes (it is cold in the winter), matches (TZ matches will frustrate the hell out of you, fingernail clippers, lotion, tape,scissors or knife, flashlight, and a leavermen (they have few tools and you will find you need them) Learn some basic Swahili or go with a local when shopping so you don't get ripped off. Shop owners will respect you more and will give you a better deal even if you know a little. They will all help you with the pronounciation.
The TZ love to greet you, and most of them (especially the children) love white people. Whitepeople are called, 'Mzungu.'
When I left Willy's we walked through his neighborhood and it is exactly as you see a developing country portrayed. Women working over buckets or pans, either cooking or washing clothes. Many of these women have children on their backs while they work. There are stray dogs and errant chickens everywhere. Waste water from dishes, clothes and cooking is running down the streets (paths), the children play on mounds of dirt (and there are children everywhere).
Most of the roads are unpaved and very rocky. People have to walk to a local water pipe to get their water, this is done several times a day. The 5 gallon buckets are placed on the heads of women and children as they carry that water home. I am sure there are homes that have water in them (maybe not), but I never saw one,nor did any of the people I talked to know of one. The only place you will find running water inside is in the big hotels (where I used the bathroom several times while in Arusha just to have a Western style toilette) or the restaurants that cater to tourists. The everyday TZ does not have that luxury.
The mom of the family I stayed with busy making lunch when we came home. She was sitting on the cement pad with a bread board in front of here kneading bread that would then be fried to make a flat bread. They have no ovens so most of their food is fried or cooked as a stew. She then made ugali which is corn powder stirred into boiling water. This takes great strength to stir in the final stages, it gets very thick. They use aluminum pans because of how they conduct heat and they are light weight, they don't know about the Alzheimer connection and I didn't tell them.
Most TZ eat very late at night, just before bed. I had a hard time with this and it is one reason that the women get progressively larger as the years go by, that and the fact that their diet consists of primarily starch. They eat a lot of starch, either in the form of rice, fried potatoes, or ugali. The men don't gain weight like the women because their work involves more cardio and they travel further from home.
Going to the market can take all day. You have to walk from you neighborhood to where the Dali-Dali road is, then you either wait or walk toward your destination. A Dali-Dali will be along and they will pick you up if you extend your hand. The vans they use for this are all old Japanese vehicles, many in disrepair. There were several times that people jumped out of the Dali-Dali (you must have at least 11 on board for them to leave) and helped push it so the driver could pop the clutch. Many more have horrible exhausts and spew CO into the air. You ride the Dali-Dali until you get close to the market and you pay your 50 cents (no matter how far you ride) and get off by climbing over everyone in front of you. You then walk the rest of the way to the market (a very big place) and buy what you need for that day and maybe the next since there is little refrigeration. People can't afford the electricity and if they can afford the electricity they cannot afford the refrigerator. They then take their purchases (hopefully) not forgetting anything and do the whole route backwards. Remember this is with a child on their back and possibly more in tow. There is no daycare here, although neighbors help out a lot. I watched my house mom keep track of the whole square of children.
Most TZ do not wear their shoes in the house and you will see a stack of shoes and flipflops outside of every door. The reason for this is the mud and the bathrooms. The bathrooms are a separate (closet) away from the house, sometimes connected sometimes not. It consists of a hole in the floor that drains to a holding tank somewhere (I think) there is no toilet paper and no sink for washing (yeah, I know) You use a bucket of water that is kept handy, sometimes, to wash down what you don't make down the hole. This takes some practice and skill. Enough said about that, only my leg and butt muscles are now much stronger.
I took my showers in the morning in Arusha and learned the hard way when they say, "Your shower is ready", you should not delay, because your shower is a bucket of water and it cools down fast. The shower is taken in either a different concrete closet or in the toilette closet. You learn to conserve water and be quick about the scrubbing because it is cold in the mountains.
The people of Tanzania have life hard according to our standards, but yet they love life and each other. There is a special place in their culture for children. They consider them a blessing and they are.
after getting my Visa it was very late at night and the officials weren't really paying attention so I walked past customs with my bags and out the front door.
I met William who is the "tour guide" for the next several days.
The first thing that is different when we got on the road, other that the fact at how nice these people are and extremely polite, is that there are people walking every where, at all hours of the night. The other thing that was notable was the speed bumps.
We arrived in Arusha late and when I got to William's house I couldn't see much of the environment. The "road" to Willy's house was very narrow and had a surface like large bubble wrap. This is I think due to the poor (none) drainage and the rainy season.
We entered the compound (we don't have these in the US) through an iron gate, I had to stoop to get through. Willy's apartment is one of 8 and you enter into a square cement pad. The apartments all face this pad, two on each side. This is like their courtyard. This is where all the cooking (on a kerosene burner), washing of clothese (out of a bucket) and playing of the children occurs. We went to Willy's door where upon hearing us arrive his 4 year old daughter,Miriam (aka princess) came pealing out, eventhough it was very late. When she saw me she screamed for joy and ran into my arms and gave me the biggest hug I have ever had. Wow welcome to Tanzania.
I slept under a net for the first time, slightly clausterphobic but you get used to it. The TZ people are very generous people. The do not have a lot, but they share everything they have. They wait for the guest to serve themselves first, everytime and they tell you to take as much as you want. TZ folks eat a lot of food (starch). The fruits and veggies are amazing. I became a vegetarian while here (the meat is not too good and one can only eat so much rice and ugali (corn powder mixed with water to make a thick paste)
The next morning we explored Arusha. I wasn't quite ready for what I saw especially the contradictions.
First do not where pants that drag on the ground even a little,trust me on this.
Second if you plan on staying a while and washing your own clothes (in a bucket with a bar of orange soap, the white bar is for your "showers") do not bring: jeans (they take forever to dry and are a bear to wring out and they do not shrink back into shape), sweatshirts (see previous), anything white, or t-shirts. Bring: flip-flops (do not go bear foot), old tennis shoes, boots, mudboots (if the rainy season), cotton clothes that are easy to wash and dry quickly, layers of clothes (it is cold in the winter), matches (TZ matches will frustrate the hell out of you, fingernail clippers, lotion, tape,scissors or knife, flashlight, and a leavermen (they have few tools and you will find you need them) Learn some basic Swahili or go with a local when shopping so you don't get ripped off. Shop owners will respect you more and will give you a better deal even if you know a little. They will all help you with the pronounciation.
The TZ love to greet you, and most of them (especially the children) love white people. Whitepeople are called, 'Mzungu.'
When I left Willy's we walked through his neighborhood and it is exactly as you see a developing country portrayed. Women working over buckets or pans, either cooking or washing clothes. Many of these women have children on their backs while they work. There are stray dogs and errant chickens everywhere. Waste water from dishes, clothes and cooking is running down the streets (paths), the children play on mounds of dirt (and there are children everywhere).
Most of the roads are unpaved and very rocky. People have to walk to a local water pipe to get their water, this is done several times a day. The 5 gallon buckets are placed on the heads of women and children as they carry that water home. I am sure there are homes that have water in them (maybe not), but I never saw one,nor did any of the people I talked to know of one. The only place you will find running water inside is in the big hotels (where I used the bathroom several times while in Arusha just to have a Western style toilette) or the restaurants that cater to tourists. The everyday TZ does not have that luxury.
The mom of the family I stayed with busy making lunch when we came home. She was sitting on the cement pad with a bread board in front of here kneading bread that would then be fried to make a flat bread. They have no ovens so most of their food is fried or cooked as a stew. She then made ugali which is corn powder stirred into boiling water. This takes great strength to stir in the final stages, it gets very thick. They use aluminum pans because of how they conduct heat and they are light weight, they don't know about the Alzheimer connection and I didn't tell them.
Most TZ eat very late at night, just before bed. I had a hard time with this and it is one reason that the women get progressively larger as the years go by, that and the fact that their diet consists of primarily starch. They eat a lot of starch, either in the form of rice, fried potatoes, or ugali. The men don't gain weight like the women because their work involves more cardio and they travel further from home.
Going to the market can take all day. You have to walk from you neighborhood to where the Dali-Dali road is, then you either wait or walk toward your destination. A Dali-Dali will be along and they will pick you up if you extend your hand. The vans they use for this are all old Japanese vehicles, many in disrepair. There were several times that people jumped out of the Dali-Dali (you must have at least 11 on board for them to leave) and helped push it so the driver could pop the clutch. Many more have horrible exhausts and spew CO into the air. You ride the Dali-Dali until you get close to the market and you pay your 50 cents (no matter how far you ride) and get off by climbing over everyone in front of you. You then walk the rest of the way to the market (a very big place) and buy what you need for that day and maybe the next since there is little refrigeration. People can't afford the electricity and if they can afford the electricity they cannot afford the refrigerator. They then take their purchases (hopefully) not forgetting anything and do the whole route backwards. Remember this is with a child on their back and possibly more in tow. There is no daycare here, although neighbors help out a lot. I watched my house mom keep track of the whole square of children.
Most TZ do not wear their shoes in the house and you will see a stack of shoes and flipflops outside of every door. The reason for this is the mud and the bathrooms. The bathrooms are a separate (closet) away from the house, sometimes connected sometimes not. It consists of a hole in the floor that drains to a holding tank somewhere (I think) there is no toilet paper and no sink for washing (yeah, I know) You use a bucket of water that is kept handy, sometimes, to wash down what you don't make down the hole. This takes some practice and skill. Enough said about that, only my leg and butt muscles are now much stronger.
I took my showers in the morning in Arusha and learned the hard way when they say, "Your shower is ready", you should not delay, because your shower is a bucket of water and it cools down fast. The shower is taken in either a different concrete closet or in the toilette closet. You learn to conserve water and be quick about the scrubbing because it is cold in the mountains.
The people of Tanzania have life hard according to our standards, but yet they love life and each other. There is a special place in their culture for children. They consider them a blessing and they are.
2 comments:
Glad to hear that you are well. Ever consider the possibility that you have gone home...that you may have lived a previous life in Tanzania? So what?.......you live eternally, if you believe in a soul,.... but only 80-90 years on Earth and the rest what? All the big whoopdeedoo over 80 or 90 years out of how many? Millions?How much more insignificant could that be in the overall scope of millions of years of history were that to be true? 80-90 years? :>(
Then you just chill out and collect your pension in your rocking chair on the other side?
The fact is you have been here before and shall be here again, and may well have lived a previous life in Tanzania.
At any rate, your healing energy is changing the world, and changing forever each of these souls that you come into contact with. You will forever be in the akashic records for having been here at this point. You have made a permanent impact on the evolution of their souls. I salute you for "walking the walk". I am sending lots of love and light to you, but the Truth is you have much higher powers watching over you. :> ) Jim
I can't stop reading this. I need more TIME! Your writing is amazing as is your experience. I'll be back this afternoon.
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