Photos!

:)

www.carriecweaver.smugmug.com

There are a lot of them. And no, I haven't forgotten about my blog or ANY of you. Will update soon now that I'm settled in a new city. I need to get my many thought together...

Happenings of Late...

Writing is not something I'm doing a lot of right now. I'm just experiencing. But I'll let you know a bit of what I've been up to...

This last "weekend" was a four-day weekend for us volunteers. The schools are closed for the summer, so we're not missing many scheduled teaching days, and being in Africa so far away from home, SIC gives us opportunities to travel a bit. So this weekend most of us went on a 21-hr bus ride through Kenya to Uganda to raft the Nile River from its source (Lake Victoria)! It was a crazy weekend, starting with the bus ride itself (we hit a suicidal giraffe) and on through bungee jumping over the Nile and dipping into it and rafting its whitewater rapids for the next two days. In a text message I sent to my mom: "Uganda is beautiful the Nile is amazing the rapids are outrageous." The company was great and despite the class-five rapids rating, we felt quite safe. (Helmets, life vests and rescue kayakers, we're good to go!)

We're back in Arusha now and heading back into our villages in about an hour. Tonight we have scheduled a kakas teaching (literally, "brothers") with my homestay kaka and his friends. They should be around the age 20, which is a primary target audience for our education-prevention effort, in my opinion.

Last week we taught a group of around 48 village leaders, both male and female, and we had a scheduled subvillage teaching where we taught 51 mamas and 53 babas! It was likely the most successful community teaching I've been a part of, in either of my villages. My whole group is excited.

Speaking of my group... I love my teaching group. I love this village,and I love my homestay situation. It's really turned my experience around from my first village. We have a lot of fun together and still get effective work done. I guess this is what happens when you set intentions for such things... hehe.

We're going into our third week of our five-week awareness campaign and brainstorming ideas to make our work sustainable for after we leave. So far we've got a soccer teach started up that might be turned into an awareness-team, if possible... But this is all still in the works, as well as our actual on-the-ground work.

World AIDS Day is this Saturday, December 1st!!

And, that's all for now...
Peace.

Majimoto!

It's been a while since I posted last. Again, there's so much to talk about... and I won't cover it all. I'm trying to journal to keep up a bit and hopefully write about it later.

I moved into my new village this week on Monday. We're now in another ward called Nduruma. I'm in the farthest-out village from Arusha city, and it's called Majimoto, which literally translates to "hot water," and it's very different from Maroroni! I'm also in a new teaching group. There are four American volunteers--Ashley, Bonnie, Joey and me--and two Tanzanian teaching partners--Jacob and Dhulfa.

I'm living in a homestay with Mama Juliana (also known as Mama Noah, as Noah is her oldest son) and some kids. She's a widow and she's awesome. She has three kids, ages 20, 17 and 13, the middle child being her only daughter. They live together with Mama's little grand nephew in the room across from my and my roommate's room (I'm living with one of my former sorority sisters, Ashley), the only other bedroom in the house. The littl'n is called Junior, and he's a year and ten months old and very cute. He's a chubby little snotty-nosed toddler, and he gets cuter as he becomes less and less terrified of us wazungu. He can now be near us or even simply look at us without crying. haha!

Our home is a small, three-room house with two bedrooms and two doors, total, one of which is to kmy room. Mama sleeps iln the room accross the way with her daughter and Junior, and they don't have a door to their room--just a purple cloth hanging in the threshold. We have rough dirt floors that I don't need to worry about keeping clean or spilling hot chai on. Ashley and I each have our own bed over which we hung our mosquito nets from an electrical wire tied across the room. Now worries, there is absolutely no electricity in this village. [I asked some men fixing the chicken coop door if there were any cold sodas in Majimoto, and they said no. I also asked where I could charge my phone, and they sort of laughed and suggested that I get a bike.] Ashley and I appear to have the only lock in the house, and it was brand new when it was given to us. There's no ceiling but a tin roof, and the two windows on either side of our room let in a very nice breeze when opened. [Mind, by 'windows' I mean framed holes in the walls with shudders. No glass, of course.]

Our choo--though not quite as nice as my last homestay's--is nice, well cemented and has thus far, to my knowledge, very little wildlife. I've actually seen a few more cockroaches on our bedroom walls than I have in the choo. I, once again, live at the homestay with the enviable choo, according to my other teaching group members. They come to my house to go.

There are two water spicketts in our yard: one behind the house next to the small banana tree forest and one in what feels like a slight extension of our front yard. On move-in day they were both very colorful and busy with many mamas and colorful plastic buckets. We had our first idea of where we could teach.

The village is much much greener than Maroroni was and much closer together, too. I feel like I actually live in an African neighborhood, and all of us volunteers live very close to each other, with my house being the central point. Although it's much greener, it is also much dustier... or at least it was until it started raining at night and drizzling during the day. Thank you! It's nice to cool off sometimes.

It's also much different in the sense that it is much less conservative than Maroroni. For one, people are drunk all over the place. Fortunately, in my village, I don't feel threatened by the people that have been drinking, though I still won't walk anywhere at night, and they're just very friendly... and ironically inviting to their Catholic church. People actually smoke here, too, and when we went to the duka to buy a soda (not cold: "shady"), we saw a box of condoms in clear view for sale, kicking us off for our duka condom survey of the village. Maroroni didn't sell alcohol or cigarrettes and would not sell condoms, for religious reasons. Also, people seemed to know right away why we were there, moving into the village. Several people asked me on the first day when we would be testing (woot!) and over the course of the week, people have been very receptive to us and our 'mission' here as well as probing us to tell them when we would be teaching ("Lini utafundisha semina?").

Interesting... so on our first night I woke up because I heard something that sounded like a radio with voices. I woke up a little more and decided it was something that I had heard of before in other villages but hadn't experienced in Maroroni: a town crier. It was a man on a truck driving around with a megaphone, yelling to all the people... something in Swahili... I asked around the next day and found out that it was, indeed, a town crier, and that it came by our house at 4AM and that it was announcing that all the men needed to go to build trenches the next day to bring more water to ours. I found this out because the former Mwenye kiti of the village came by my house one day and talked to me in our yard for quite a while. He has very good English and loved to speak it--about anything. I took the opportunity to ask him what that was all about, so he was the one who explained it to me. He also explained that the work was mandatory for anyone who was not old or a student, and that they would fine you if you didn't go like you were supposed to. Every night this week around 5PM we've seen the men coming home on their bikes or by foot, in groups, with their shovels, picks and other such digging instruments. We also saw a roudy group of them walking behind a man who was leading a calf by a rope around its neck... apparently being reposessed from someone who did not show up for the work! Fined. I expect that we'll be able to use the "mandatory attendance" system already in place in the village to teach the most people as possible. The Mwenye kiti is schedulling subvillage teachings for us that will be mandatory for the villagers. Woot!

On Tuesday I went to kindergarden. It was incredibly cute. Just behind my house and across the road is the village office next to t he kindergarden. Bonnie, Dhulfa and Ashley were already there, squatting in rows in the dirt with the rest of the class, when I arrived. Dhulfa caught me up on what to do: write my name and my father's name in the dirt in front of me. My personal blackboard. The teacher came by and checked our work, and then had us read our names at the same time, which we did standing, straddling the word on the ground, doubled over, pointint a finger from the end of our swinging arm, roughly underscoring the word over and over again, saying it out loud over and over again. We continued with our father's names, followed by the writing of "mama" (me-ah-me-ah, mama!) The mwalimu (teacher) would ocme around and put a check mark next to it in the dirt if you had done it right, and enthusiastically slapped us wazungu on the back, laughing histerically at our success. There was a boy in a yellow, non-uniform shirt who wrote and spelled everything perfectly, except for the fact that it was completely backwards. The students around him helped him, including us, hoping to be encouraging to him. We also wrote "baba", "dada", "bibi" and "mtoto", which are father, sister, grandmother, child, respectively. We've since not joined kindergarden again, but we've been waiting for a meeting with the mwenye kiti at the same time the kindergarden is happening outside, so we've gotten to watch a few times. Unfortunately, the teacher carries a stick that she doesn't only use for making checkmarks in the dirt for corrections. I don't like seeing four, five and six year-olds being whipped for now knowing how to write, sometimes out of fear of their teacher.

Photos: I can't take as many as I would really like to be taking, for a number of reasons, including but not limited to... if I take out a camera, people will ask me for the camera, incessantly ask me to take their picture, ask me for another gift, ask me for money, freak out at the possibility of me taking their picture without permission, ask me to marry them, ask me to fly them to America, ask me to fly my parent's car to them... Oh, wait... that happens anyway. But really. I won't be taking my camera out until the last week. It's better that people don't know that I have it, as much as I would like to visually document my experience.

Ni Bure. Ni Haraka. Ni Siri.

This is what we advertised on our posters for our village HIV testing day held on Thursday. We tested 92 people! (96, including the four of us wazungu volunteers.) It was an exciting day for me, and most of the people we tested were secondary school students, which meant a lot to me, as it showed that they had taken our teaching to heart and acted on what they'd learned. As they've heard us say so many times... "The only way to know your status is to get tested!"

* * *

I have a lot to write about right now, but I don't want to be on the computer. So here's a bit of what I've had mostly pre-prepared.

* * *

Now that I know them better, I will describe my family in more detail. Mama is a big woman and a devout Christian. She goes to the Pentecostal church in the village, and she prays before meals. She sings songs in Swahili about Jesus as she works during the day. In our livingroom there is a painting of the Virgin Mary hanging from the end of the window covering rod. She calls me Dada Carrie and always asks me what my schedule is ("Nafundisha wapi leo?". She rarely eats with us, but wants to prepare what we like and wants us to eat more. She owns a duka (shop) in the village and gives me free sodas and invites me in to sit for a while.

Baba reminds me very much of many American men-of-households. He's very proud but is not as warm, friendly or welcoming as so many of the men I meet in the village. Kweli (it's true), as Erica and Romy told me before moving in, he really likes to speak English--or rather, practice what he knows. His English is possibly better than my Swahili, and he doesn't seem to have the patience for my practicing. He tries to teach me a phrase in Kimeru every now and then, but more often just stares at me and repeats himself, slowly, expecting me to suddenly understand what he says in Kiswahili, never reverting to sign language or simpler sentences. He has a belly and a slight swagger to his gait, and he teases the cat as he slouches in his couchlike seat at dinner. He also once showed up near the village center on a motorcycle that he noisily sped away on, after stopping to say hi. It wasn't his motorcycle, but he seemed to feel important riding it.

Stella is the only child I know is from both Baba and Mama. She's around 10 years old and in our Maroroni Primary school's standard 6 class. She smiles a lot at me and says, "Mambo Dada Carrie!" at every opportunity she gets. She's my best, most patient and energetic Kiswahili teacher. She'll also sing and dance songs she's learned in school for me, never embarrassed. She tries to teach them to me, too. I'm currently learning Tanzania's main national song ("Tanzania, Tanzania! Nakupenda kwa moyo wote... Nchi yangu Tanzania... ?"/"TZ, TZ! I love you from the bottom of my heart... country of mine, Tanzania...?") along with a greetings song I started learning in my UCLA basic Swahili course ("Jambo, Jambo Bwana! Habari gani? Nzuri sana! Wageni, mnakari biahwa, Tanzania yetu, Hakuna Matata!"). Stella listens to the radio a lot--which is always static with some discernable tune or voice--and will sit it down and dance for me. She likes to high-five, pound fists and play with my hair (which is very different from hers, of course, especially since she has hardly any), and she likes to ask me to do they prayer when we eat together. I love having her around as my Dada.

There are other members of the family, too, that live, work and hang out in and around the house. Furaha is always there. She's about 21 years old and is not clearly related to the family, though seems to be treated as a member of the family with simply more responsibilities. She does most of the work around the house from mopping the floors almost daily to cooking, setting out the food, washing clothes, sweeping the dirt outside, and fetching and/or heating water for me and Fatuma to wash with. She's somewhat stylish, smiles a lot, and has beautiful eyes. I haven't had much of a conversation with her, but I do end up thanking her a lot.

There's also Baba's sister, Mami. She is unmarried and has no children and has been cooking a lot for us. I like her. She's very warm towards me and exhibits a lot of patience for my Swahili. She takes good care of me, making sure I ate more than once per meal and that I ate everything that was served.

There's also Alex (pronounced "Alexi"), who's a 17-year-old Form-2 students at our secondary school. I think he's a cousin to the family. He's very pretty with a very dark, wide face and very pright eyes. He studies almost every school night in the living room and asks me, "Carrie, what's the definition of '[insert technical word here, as in "transportation, family, trade...]'" and always reads the textbook definition he has in his notes to me when I've failed to come up with the same exact wording. Why does he do that? People don't think in English in textbook language like he learns in school...

Finally, there's Maneno (Roberti) and Frank (Franki), who I think are done with school and work all day, driving the donkeys here or there and doing I'm-not-sure-what-else, but they keep busy.

* * *

Sunday night, upon return to the village, Stella had somehow produced a jump rope. She coaxed me out to play, too. There was a mat lain out on the dirt outside, on which we played in the dark, jump-roping with Furaha and even Mami (who I think is in her late 40s)! After jumping for a while, we sat on the mat and looked up at the moon. It was so bright that it made shadows on the ground. Stella started playing with my hair, again, and as I had intended to get my hair braided this week, I asked her if she and Furaha knew how to braid ("Unaweza kusuka?"). Sh must have thought I meant right now because she called Furaha over from preparing dinner, and they each started braiding different sections of my hair with no apparent plan. Mami, came over, too, sat on her knees and took up another part of my head, doing her own thing, but all saying, "Nyuele vizuri!" (very nice hair!). At one point they called Frank over, too, and I had eight hands in my hair! Needless to say, the endproduct was a typical endproduct of nonproductive hair-play.

* * *

We had a big week in the village and we're on our way to finishing the Awareness Campaign strong. We have one more full week in the village to teach, etc. and then a short week that will include our Community Day on the day before we move out. We'll then move into our second village to launch an awareness campaign there, too, fresh. Again, for five weeks.

Thank you all for your love and support. It means a lot. More than I can say right now. Love.

Most Recent Post!

We’ve had a very productive week in the village. Along with our regular school teachings, we had four community teachings, reaching about 200 people. The first community teaching was scheduled for Monday out near the Nazareti Primary School, one of the schools we teach at twice a week, about an hour’s walk away from the center of town. Gaby and Stefanie expected no one to show up. They weren’t sure the sub-village leader would have gotten the message out to the people and that they would actually come. I just expected to do an effective teaching with no expectation of how large the crowd would be.

We arrived 5 minutes before 11 and saw some men hanging around a duka close to the school, seemingly waiting for something. They turned out to be waiting for us—waiting for the teaching. I think the village leader told them 10AM so that they would show up in a somewhat timely manner for starting. As it turned out, there was a funeral at the same time, so not as many people showed up as would have otherwise, but I was happy with the turnout. We had a crowd of 21 very attentive men, which was good because we didn’t have to split the genders and teaching group for the gender-sensitive topics. We each were prepared to teach individual sections of the curriculum. I taught the sections on sexual transmission of HIV and prevention of sexual transmission as well as the “taking action” section at the end. The SIC curriculum incorporates the ABC’s (Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condom Use—the ABK’s in Swahili), which offer choices, and are both proven to be effective in reducing the impact of HIV as well as supported by the Tanzanian government, which helps our case in the event that an individual comes up against what we’re teaching. The citizens are very proud Tanzanians and love their government, so many will support what their government supports, which is a progressive approach to the AIDS issue.

We taught for almost three hours as the men sat, scowling in concentration, listening carefully to what we had to say. Because it was a group of Babas only (no women), it might have been wise of us to have switched it up and had Jonas or Joey teach the sexual transmission section, because even the grown men had a hard time staying completely serious. I have so far been very serious and professional in my teachings (maybe there’s some room for humor in the future), but the fact is that I’m still a woman talking about sex. Good thing we didn’t have me or any of the other female teachers do the condom demonstration... with our huge, black, rubber, anatomically accurate prop. They would have been in fits. So Jonas took care of teaching that for us.

In my sexual transmission section, I talked not only about the ABKs, but also about the importance of good communication and trust between sexual partners. Finally, I added something I really believe: The way I see it, personally, is that one of the most loving things you can do is protect yourself and your partner from HIV transmission. A whopping 80% of HIV transmissions in Tanzania occur through sex—typically an act of intimacy and love. So the most loving thing you can do is communicate with your partener about how to stay healthy. Our village appears to be very family-oriented, and I felt like the message was well-received. When I sat down for the next person to teach his section, I asked Gaby if she thought it was preachy. I didn’t think it was, but I was more reassured when she said she didn’t think it was, either. Although I feel very strongly about the kinds of attitudes people should have around HIV and their lives and community, I am careful to be respectful of them as people at choice and of another culture.

In my personal conclusion at the end of the teaching, I also added that now that they know a lot, they have a kind of responsibility to change their behavior a little. I explained that I don’t want to change their culture, but there are some behaviors that must be changed to keep the community and themselves safe—namely, sexual and child-bearing behaviors. I also was inspired to thank them personally for coming to be taught, as it gave me a lot of energy to keep teaching in their community. I’ve come a long way and am living in a very different environment, and it is very fulfilling to be able to do this.

The men were deeply grateful for our coming and teaching to them. They asked good, thoughtful questions throughout the session and listened well the whole time. At the end of the teaching, the sub-village leader who organized the teaching and brought people to it, assigned on of the men—which happened to be one of the most attentive ones and the one asking the most questions—to lead the group in a tradition they have for thanking people they respect and to which they’re very grateful. The assigned man had everyone stand, and exlained to us that they would repeat three things three times, starting with “pasha” (rubbing their palms together to heat them up). When the man said, “Choma!”, the men clapped three times towards us, stomped three times, and snapped their fingers three times at us, all together. It was so cool to have them honor us so, “according to their culture.”

* * *

Africa is beautiful. If there’s one t hing I’ve learned since being here, it’s that the skies are ALWAYS incredible. For example, on my safari in the Serengeti, I quickly realized that the image of the rays of sun shinging down throught the clouds to spectacularly light the land- and sky-scape was by no means something Disney made up for The Lion King. It’s as much a reality here as night being dark. Why is it so beautiful? The skies are SO vast. I grew up in a valley, so I always had hills surrounding me. But here, my horizon is flatter, farther away, and with one mountain—or two on a clear day—characterizing the skyline. I can see clearly where the sun comes up and where it goes down. And speaking of mountains, I saw Kilimanjaro on Tuesday in the evening for the second time—the first time since our introduction to the village. It looks smaller than I think it should and certainly much smaller than Mt. Meru. But I like it. It’s beautiful, and it’s different from Mt. Meru in that it doesn’t just look like a jagged rock... it has snow!

Also, at night, because there are no city or ambient lights, the universe above is free to take its turn show its own spectacle of light. I see more stars here than I can ever recall seeing at once, even out at the Colorado River in the desert. Maybe I just need to get out more. But since coming here five weeks ago, there’s been only one night that I’ve not seen the Milky Way. And after that one night it rained. Often (maybe as a result of drinking chai before going to bed, hmm...), I am forced awake in the middle of the night by an insane urge to go to the bathroom. I have to leave the house to walk to the choo, and on the way back stop in my tracks to look up at the stars. I’m grateful for these emergency choo-visits in the night because they give me the opportunity to see the stars, when the stars alone would not have gotten me out of bed. I think I’ll keep drinking chai before bed.

I absolutely love my morning wand evening walks, too, especially if I take them alone. We teach every morning at 8AM, so I walk every morning from my house to school at around 7:30AM... rested, fed (with chai na maziwa na sukari! / chai with milk and sugar!) and looking out at the beautifully lit landscape from horizon to horizon. I walk back in the evenings from the Mwenye Kiti’s house, usually from planning lessons, often just before sundown. With the sun on the other side of my village world and with it so low in the sky, the trees are perfectly silhouetted against it and the fire-like clouds. There’s no need for underexposure photography here. But even with the sky so vast, there never exists a feeling of emptiness. At these times, it is easy and most natural to feel connected to the universe.

* * *

Despite appreciating the beauty of the scenery, I became very conscious during the week of the fact that I didn’t have my rock with me. I’ve been dealing with such a multitude of deep frustrations that I’ve been operating from a place of not understanding what I was going through or even knowing what to treat for. On the day that it hit me this week, Gaby said a few things very well. She said that although she doesn’t understand my beliefs or philosophy, she does see that I’m far from them. She also said that at the end when we go back home, people will ask us how it was... We’ll say that some of it was actually quite hard. But what people might not understand is that “some of it being very hard” can translate into days of living that very real experience, but that yes, we did get some good photos. Somehow both the things she said were very helpful and supportive. I knew they meant something. But I didn’t value the latter as much as I do now until she told a group of us on a crowded bus ride about a time she became so altitude-sick while climing the highest mountain in South America that she was actually very scared. Unstoppable nose-bleeding and vomiting during a night when she had to wait at that altitude until dawn... I realized why I sensed before that she knew what she was talking about.

Joey also said something very well that day. He said that this is what culture shock really is: not having your rock. I wasn’t sure I agreed at first, as I could see myself traveling with a friend and never losing my rock. But that’s not the same category. Traveling with a rock, you can still assimilate into and experience a culture without losing your foothold. I guess I’ve got some culture shock starting to heal.

Stef also said something well. She didn’t say anything but just hugged me. I really needed that. My teaching group is definitely growing on me.

In the meantime, I’m finding rocks all over. I’m re-centering and being clear on who I am and why I’m here. It’s a process, so I don’t plan on finishing that this week, but I’m starting in a big way. I think it’s safe to say that the next time you see me, I’ll be changed into a more revealed me.

* * *

Our second community teaching happened at the village office for two sub-vilages. It was scheduled for 12 noon but didn’t start till 2PM because of another NGO in the village, Catholic Relief Services. Somehow they got our audience first.

This teaching reached about 75 village members, both babas and mamas. Fortunately/unfortunately we were teaching a group of mamas at the dispensary simultaneously, so our teaching group was already split and we couldn’t divide the men and women and teach them separately. We ideally try to do this for community groups because the women will tend not to ask questions on important topics like sexual transmission if the men are present. Also... they just about die of embarassment when we talk about condoms, and many end up crying during the condom demonstration. I think it’s a combination of laughter and embarrassment, but they turn their faces away or cover them with their kanghas, head scarves or hands, and when they reappear, they’re wiping their eyes and show no sign of being publicly amused.

* * *

So, I’ve been here for a little over a month and living in the village for over two weeks. I’m getting used to some things... I never used to drink tea, but I now drink about four cups a day. With milk. And sugar. It’s like hot liquid candy. I’m getting used to shaking everyone’s hand, and I’m getting used to being quite dirty. Even on the weekends when I have the opportunity to take a hot, running-water shower, I only take one. At home I was used to being dirty from working with the horses, but I could always just clean up. But here, even when you’re inside, it’s still not quite clean. So you just start getting dirty again. I’ve only taken three bucket showers here (but I don’t smell, I swear), I don’t wash my feet every night like I probably should, and I figure that having clean hands means no more than using hand sanitizer, whether or not it gets the dirt off. It’s rare to see my fingernails clean. But I do brush my teeth (not always floss... because of the “not clean” hands situation) and “wash” my face with pre-moistened towelettes every day and night. I’m also getting used to using very little toilet paper, and I don’t mind the food.

It’s a good thing I like to eat rice, beans and cabbage, because I eat a lot of it. And fresh fruit, which no one should mind. We also often eat makande (a corn and beans chunky moosh dish), and we always eat with one utensil: a spoon. Last week we were served tikitikimaji (watermelon) twice a day with sliced bananas. I don’t think I will ever get tired of tikitikimaji! And it’s also a good thing I like ndizi because we basically have some sort of banana or plantain product at every meal. The foods are not cooked with any spices, so it’s also a good thing thaty I have a history of liking bland foods. But this might also explain why on the weekends I want curry!!

* * *

That’s all for now. I have a more detailed description of my family, classrooms and our work in the works. Again, you can let me know what you would like to hear about, as this is just becoming my way of life and it sometimes easy to skip over things I deem basic.

Also, please note that the SIC P.O. Box (so, my mailing address) has changed to 16390.

Finally, you’re welcome to email me personally. I love comments on the blog, but be aware that they give me no way of replying to you personally. My email address is carrie.c.weaver@gmail.com, and just because I’m far away “doing good” doesn’t mean your life is not important to me! :P

I love you all. Thanks for reading! :)

Peace.

It's Kiswahili to me!

One night, I tried—with my limited Swahili—to explain to my Baba one of the differences between America and Tanzania, as he’d asked me what’s different. The thing that came to mind was greetings—or lack thereof in many parts of the U.S. In the village culture of Tanzania, greetings are of utmost importance. When you pass someone—especially if they’re alone and you’re alone—you stop, greet, shake hands, and often hold that position holding hands for the duration of the conversation.

It starts something like this:

Shikamoo! (greeting to an older person than you)
Marahaba! (greeting to a younger person than you, or response to ‘Shikamoo’)
Habari zenu? (‘What’s your news?”)
Nzuri / Salama / Safi (each to any degree, as in “sana,” much, or “kabisa,” totally)

If it’s in the morning, you will ask or will be asked how you woke up (“Umeamkaje?”) or how you slept (“Umelalaje?”), which elicits an answer, “Salama,” which means ‘peacefully, safe, or in good health.’

What I find most interesting about social greetings is two things. The first is that the greeting “Shikamoo” (a greeting to an older person, pronounced ‘sheek-a-MOW’) is used even by some youngsters who appear around my age. I think I just think I look younger than I actually do to them, but also, I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes they say it because I’m white, they know I’m here as a teacher, or because I’m in a collared shirt (for teaching). It just occurred to me that it could also be the uncertainty of how to tell the age of a white person or the shyness of not knowing what to say, in some cases. Sometimes one of us volunteers will “shikamoo” someone out of respect who, as they neared us, turned out to be closer to our age or even younger. It’s not always easy to tell until they open their mouths (judging age by their teath). The watoto (kids) will look up at us with wide eyes and expressions of wonder on their faces as they say “shikao,” removing many of the consonants in a colloquial manner.

The second thing that I find very interesting that I think you will, too, is the use of the word “pole” (pronounced “poll-ay”). It generally means, “I’m sorry for your troubles.” At first exposure to it, it seemed like an apology to me, which made me hesitant to use it, because I didn’t feel I had anything to be sorry for. I can empathize but not take credit for something I didn’t cause. After a while, I’ve become more accustomed to its use. It’s actually a sympathetic expression of compassion, which is nice. For example, if a woman is carrying a large load on her head, you can say “Pole, Mama.” Also, if someone trips, you can say “pole.” Apparently, its completely acceptable for my Baba, Mama, aunt, dada… or anyone… to assume that whatever activity I’ve come from has been taxing for me, and upon my return home, greet me with “Pole!” At first, I looked at them with puzzlement, but now I just say, “Asante,” thank you. Sometimes I feel I merit sympathy for my work (long hours, long walks or heat), in which case I hope I’m expressing as much gratitude for their sympathy as I feel.

One of my fellow wazungu (white people) commented that maybe because the culture/language doesn’t permit for people to respond to “Habari” (effectively, “What’s your news?”) with anything less favorable than “Nzuri tu” (“Just good.”), they use the expression “pole” to express sympathy for the unsaid hardships people supposedly have. So, because they can’t verbally express them, the other person will acknowledge them anyway.

On top of those two things is also the translation of the more automatically accepted greetings I use. “Habari” is used like “How are you,” but actually means “news.” And you tell them the quality of your news (remember, not anything worse than “nzuri tu”) or the quality of the news they ask after. For example, “Habari asubuhi/mchana/jioni?” is “what’s your news of the morning/afternoon/evening?” This can continue for ages, asking about anything under the sun.

Also, you may have heard the greeting “Jambo!” before. Don’t say that in Swahililand. You’ll be tagged as a tourist right away. You should conjugate it and say “Hujambo” for you, singular, or “Hamjambo” for you, plural. These phrases are actually conjugated with negation and to my understanding end up translated as something like, “Don’t you have any problems?” If someone greeted you this way—or rather, asked you this question—you would answer “Sijambo,” as in, “No, I don’t have any problems.” It’s also very normal, even in casual greetings with people you’ve never met before, to ask, “Mama/Baba/Familia yako hajambo?” (about their mother/father/family).

Finally, often times I will come home in the afternoon or evening and have a full exchange with, say, the aunt, during which all I ever say is “Asante/ Asante sana,” because that is the response that what she says elicits. Over and over again. To the point where I feel like I’m just moving my mouth and vocal chords without feeling… or the feeling that I’m becoming dumb. Okay, not exactly. But I’m not kidding about only saying “Asante”:

“Karibu nyumbani!... Asante… Karibu tena!... Asante… Pole, Dada… Asante… Karibu sana!... Asante sana!”

I feel like I’m forgetting something.

OH! And they ALWAYS ask if I’m tired. Umechoka? Again, at first I was taken aback, like… no, actually I’m not. Should I be? I’m learning to take that in stride and not say, “Hapana” (no) and just give in and say “Kidogo” (a little bit), unless I’m actually tired, in which case I say so, to which they say—you guessed it—pole.

When in Africa...

Some of us volunteers have talked about the interesting racial dynamic here, from being a part of a vast minority, to being called out to or referred to as “mzungu” (white person), to calling our experiences “African” versus “Tanzanian.” During that conversation we came to the conclusion that the people here do identify as African almost as much as they do Tanzanian, even though the continent is huge and encompasses many different cultures and even colors.

But when in Tanzania, do as the Tanzanians do.

So we don’t have running water or electricity in the village. So that means no toilets. But rural doesn’t mean uncivilized. They have their own kind of facility, called a “choo” (rhymes with “snow”). What it is, is basically a hole in the ground (quite deep… I don’t imagine they’ll have to dig a new one for many many years to come) surrounded by some sort of barrier that includes a latching door that latches from both the inside and the outside. (I’ve heard stories from my coordinator of volunteers being locked into the choo from the outside by accident.) Mine looks like a shack on a concrete slab. When you walk in, there is a nice concrete floor with one large block-like foot stand on either side of the hole to—you guessed it—put your feet on. The hole itself is rectangular, allowing a forward-backward margin for error. When compared to the choo stories my fellow teaching team members have, I’m a natural at using it. And apparently, my homestay has the best choo of all three host homestays in my village. I think mine is the only homestay whose choo is not cockroach-infested, especially at night. I’ve been shocked that it’s not, according to all the stories I’ve heard. But I don’t know why the buggers don’t like our choo. Is it not smelly enough? Hard to imagine…

Now… I have provided myself with my own toilet paper. But we haven’t figured out what the locals do. Someone told me that the left hand is… the “dirty hand,” but I don’t know if I actually believe they use it to wipe themselves or if that’s volunteer rumor. I’ll let you know if I find out for sure. We have a somewhat evidence-based theory that they use water from a bottle to wash themselves afterwards, but that doesn’t make sense to me. They’re pretty clean, non-stinky people. In fact, I’m under the impression they wash here more often than I do.

Speaking of washing, bucket showers are actually quite nice! They boil some water and add that to another bucket of water to make a very nice temperature bath. You take the bucket into the wash room (the next door over from the choo, on the same concrete slab). Instead of a towel, I’ve brought with me a small-towel-sized shammy for showering, etc. Good choice, I must say. I used the shammy to soak up water and wring it out over my shoulders, creating a very nice shower effect! I won’t lie… bathing this way has been LUXURIOUS compared with the bathing we did in standing showers at some of the places we’ve stayed. Often times the water won’t be running at all or, when you’re lucky and it is, it’s cold!

Off the hygiene topic, time is kept quite differently here. There’s “English time,” “Swahili time,” and “Tanzanian time,” each of which are different from the others. For the sake of explaining this, I’ll call English time normal time. Because that’s what it is. To me. And you. You’ll see how.

Swahili time is how you say the hour when speaking Swahili. I can’t account for Kimeru or other local languages, but it’s this way for Swahili. In this time frame, 7AM is the first hour of the day (“Saa moja”). So 8AM is referred to as “Saa mbili” (hour two). Likewise, 7PM is the first hour of the night (“Saa moja”). So likewise, 8PM is “Saa mbili”. Now you can see the confusion this would cause in many ways. One of those is cleared up by referencing the time of day you’re referring to, such as “Saa mbili asubuhi (morning)” versus “Saa mbili jioni (evening).”

The peculiar thing is that the clocks here look the same as the clocks at home and in western society. They also have the same numbers, with 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom. 10:00AM on the clock looks exactly like you’d want it to, although you’d read it in Swahili as, “Saa nne,” meaning “Hour four.”

Tanzanian time is something else. If you’d ever heard the phrase “No hurry in Africa,” it wasn’t a westerner who’d said it. It is not uncommon for people to show up hours late for a meeting or appointment. I don’t know how they function this way. But I guess it’s because they don’t try to do so many things in the day as we do. I don’t know what else to say about this except that it’s been a source of frustration for we wazungu, and that although the Tanzanians make a habit of being hours late, we need to be on time everywhere, even if that means on time to wait patiently for their presence. And we can’t allow their tardiness to make us late for our later engagements (i.e. scheduled teachings in schools).

My theory is that they don’t have enough clocks—or enough people don’t have them—to keep a consistent sense of time, even once they put the watch on. I’ve joked that my gift to Tanzania would be a large clock. But that, of course, was coming from a place of impatience.