Tanzania photos, July-Sept 08, album #2

Click on the photos below to see a larger slideshow!

HOT nights! (Hotel Orion Tabora is HOT!)

Imagine this scene: the gliterrati of the region assembled at our hotel restaurant and bar, socializing, drinking, smoking (a sign of affluence) and enjoying live music. The men are beefy and hefty – some are in suits, some are in cool t-shirts and jeans and chains. The women are dressed to the nines, in satin and sequins and heels, and have spent all day getting their hair done. That’s HOT: Hotel Orion Tabora. It’s where we stay when we’re in Tabora.

On the Sunday night that Young Whan arrived, we ate a hefty meal of dagaa na ugali wa mahogo, small lake fish stew with cassava mash. I was surprised to see so many people at the bar on Sunday – the usual day of rest and prayer. But sure enough, the bar was packed with men guzzling bottles of beer and women drinking sodas.

We went back to our room to rest and allow ourselves to digest the heavy cassava meal, with a plan to return to the restaurant-bar when the live music started.

Some time later, instead of live music, we heard a very long drawn-out serious-sounding speech in Kiswahili followed by an American pop song that would start, then suddenly stop, and get interrupted by more boring speech. The voice was muffled from our room, so I couldn’t quite tell what he was talking about. This abrupt starting and stopping happened many times more, and we got curiouser and curiouser as to what was happening out there.

This is what we found: four plastic chairs assembled in a line and five of the beefiest, well-dressed men dancing around them when the music played, and then brawling each other for the last chair when the music stopped. They had been playing musical chairs that whole time. Musical chairs.

That’s HOT.

I often have to redefine cool when I’m out here.

sophy's suture removal party

above:

Suture removal party, first attempt: Barbie manicure set (a.k.a. make-shift suture removal kit), suture removal team, Royce getting sterile, sophy’s sutures close-up, and attempt at removal (and finding out the scissors were way too blunt!)

Above: Suture removal party, second attempt: Kitete Hospital minor theatre with Dr. Amos Nsheha and Mama preparing sterile suture kit, sophy before removal, sophy, Amos and Mama during removal. Success!

Frankensophy Takes Tabora

I realize that when Tanzanians see my face with the bandages and black eye, they are probably thinking about two possibilities: I was beaten by my husband (in their minds, most likely) or I was beaten and robbed on the street (less likely, especially as a foreigner – since foreigners are less likely to be beaten before being robbed). I get a lot of stares, and it’s hard to discern whether people are staring at me because I’m East Asian or because I look like I was recently clobbered. I also occasionally get a “pole sana” (“very sorry,” a way of expressing sympathy), which is a thoughtful acknowledgment.

I started feeling well enough to teach a few days after the accident, so I facilitated the afternoon training workshops on Wednesday and Thursday this past week in Tabora. I was running around the classroom, pulling people in to participate like I normally do, and forgetting that I had a big bandage in the middle of my forehead (at the third eye) and an obvious shiner. The participants were all very polite to me, though I wonder how they felt about being taught medicine from an injured person.

Coming soon: pictures of my suture removal ceremony – both at the Orion Tabora Hotel with Barbie manicure scissors (first attempt) – and at Kitete Regional Hospital in the minor surgical procedures theatre (second attempt).

it’s Tabora Time

[above: VIP lounge at Tabora Airport]

Tabora is a lovely city – one of my favorites - and starting to edge out Moshi as my favorite city in Tanzania. It’s got a decent-sized population of 250,000 people, but has a much mellower pace of life than Dar or Moshi. Because it’s off the beaten tourist path, we are among the very few non-Africans here and get a lot of attention. Thankfully it’s not the annoying tourism-type of harassment. It’s more of a curiosity and “Wow, a mzungu or mchina, I’ll try to say hello like we learned in English class.” People stare and express surprise or giggle at my existence. Sometimes they'll straighten up like they're in class (especially kids) and yell out (very formally) "Good evening, Madame!" It’s interesting to get this reaction for half a day, and then the attention gets tiresome. Being a freak is not that much fun (contrary to popular belief).

It was remarkable to arrive in Tabora after our car accident. Tabora is calm and soothing where Dar is all about the hustle. Immediately following the accident in Dar, I couldn’t see well because blood was gushing from my eyeglass-face-cuts, but I remember total chaos with a huge throng of people gathered around to stare at me and tell me to go to which clinic or hospital to get fixed up. A couple of Tanzanian women also came up close to Jenny and me and warned us to lock up the car, protect our belongings, and not trust anyone who wanted to bring us to a “hospital,” because it could end up a scam. At that time, all I could muster was “I don’t want to go to a hospital” (first thing out of my mouth) and “We gotta get out of here” (second thing out of my mouth).

Dar felt crazy and out-of-control. It is much nicer to recuperate in Tabora, where I really feel like I can be at ease. Adjusting to the slow pace of life can be challenging (try waiting two hours for food after placing your order when you’re hungry!), but ultimately it’s worthwhile to be in a place where people take the time to pay attention to each other.

Tanzania photos, album #1

Please click on the teeny slide show above to see the bigger version and/or individual photos more clearly. Asante!

Tabora Town: Kenya vs Tanzania, mosquito mania

Kenya: Chaos, an African perspective

The on-going political violence in Kenya has been on the front page of Tanzanian newspapers and on the tongues of the Tanzanian people. While waiting for a cobbler on the street to repair my Dansko sport clogs (all for 500 shillings – 50 cents!- and saving me the $110 of purchasing a new pair), I sat on a worn wooden bench with three older Tanzanian men. They were speaking animatedly in Kiswahili. I couldn’t understand all of what they were saying, but recognized enough to know that they were discussing Kibaki and Odinga’s strategies to end the conflict.

Today (my “lazy day”) I purchased English versions of two Tanzanian newspapers, The Citizen and The African and curled up in my sitting room wicker chair to read what they had to say about the situation in Kenya. The front page articles were quite opinionated, much more openly so than the western press coverage I have seen online (BBC and CNN).

“Washington behind Kibaki’s arrogance,” proclaimed The African staff reporter.

The article proceeded to describe how US economic and political interests are pressuring the Kibaki camp to be more forceful in staying in power. A couple of professors at the university in Dar explain that Kibaki has been willing to give in to US interests of establishing a base there from which to monitor eastern and southern Africa’s “terrorist” activities. Apparently the US doesn’t like the fact that Raila Odinga (of the ODM party, the group in opposition to Kibaki’s government) has been building alliances with the Muslim communities in Kenya. Many folks in Kenya (except in the ruling Kikuyu, Embu and Meru tribes) generally see that as a good way to unite across tribal factions, which is one of the reasons Odinga has popular support.

From what I can tell, the Tanzanian papers have been criticizing Kibaki for inflaming violence, for not taking Odinga’s support seriously, and for not conceding to the popular vote – and at least a recount or revote. They view Odinga’s party as being more organized and more a representative of “the people.” They can’t see how the violence will resolve if Kibaki is stays in power.

Tanzania vs Kenya

I have often felt a subtle undercurrent of desperateness and restlessness in Kenya. Everyday folks have struck me as always trying to get on up, perhaps because of its long and deep history of wealthy wazungu (white people) colonizers. This subterranean anger manifests itself in all sorts of ways, and the current political conflict may reflect that.

On the whole, I’ve found Tanzania to be very different from Kenya, its Swahili-speaking neighbor. Royce and John think that it might be related to former Tanzanian president Nyerere’s principles of ujamaa, familyhood. Ujamaa was part of Nyerere’s African socialism and self-reliance: resettlement of rural households into centralized and collective villages. It brought different people together in a way that forced them to work with each other. Indeed, Nyerere, known here as Mwalimu (“Teacher”) and Baba wa Taifa (“Father of the Nation”), had the enormous task of pulling 129 different tribes out of the ruins of European colonization and uniting them into a cohesive African identity.

Sadly the policy turned out to be an economic disaster, as it left lots of fertile land unused and bred corruption probably like that I’ve seen in China. However, it served the function as nation-building- and folks here seem to some amount of access to education, clean water and health care. The literacy rate is over 90%. And people have less of the tribal and religious conflict I’ve seen in Kenya.

“We are very different here in Tanzania,” said Amos, one of the EGPAF officers and medical officers based here in Tabora. “Totally different from Kenya,” he emphasized.

Tanzanians are proud of this history, one in which people have learned to retain their tribal heritage but not become ruled by it; one in which people have seen the good that comes from collective hard work.

Mosquito Mania

I am putting 100% DEET on my hair and face at night. That’s BAD. The mosquitoes here in Tabora during the rainy season (as it is now) are numerous and aggressive. They have a strong will to suck my blood and make eggs and reproduce and suck my blood in increasingly exponential quantities. And they like my blood. I get huge welts as a result of bite, so you can imagine how ugly I get with 20 mosquito bites fighting for space on my legs.

All I have to say is: hurray for DEET, hurray for malaria prophylaxis!

Tabora Town: going local

I am typing in my very own sitting room verandah in this small city’s only fancy hotel, the Orion Tabora. Outside are the intermingling sounds of people speaking Swahili at their bar, Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” (for the third time in the last hour), a man singing prayer at the nearest mosque, frogs, crickets, turtles munching on plumeria flowers, rain, and the crazy whooping and whistling of African gray mimic birds.

above: turtle munching plumeria flowers outside my front door

There are few barriers to life here: other peoples’ lives, nature, community. This is so unlike the isolated enclaves of the Coral Beach Hotel in Dar es Salaam and a world away from the bubbles in which most of us live in the US.

** a couple days later…

The Tabora Sound Band

The Tabora Sound Band has been rocking the Orion Hotel for the last three hours. They will likely play for three more hours – it’s midnight. My room is directly in back of their stage, so you can imagine that with their new ten-speaker system, it’s a bit loud. It’s a good thing they’re good musicians, and I like their style: lots of smooth Swahili singing and intricate guitar picking over a danceable bass. Very African, very fun.

Royce and I have cut a few tracks on their nice wooden parquet dance floor. Tanzanians dance very conservatively (at least among the older set): men dance with other men, women dance with other women, men and women don’t touch each other. It’s an interesting traditional-conservative + slightly homoerotic gathering. One night, a man grabbed Royce’s hand to come up to dance. I eventually joined them on my own (it would be scandalous for a man to invite me), along with four other of the men’s drunk friends. They are generally very respectful of me, keeping distance, until one mildly drunken moment of holding onto each others shoulders and singing together. I’m pretty sensitive to strangers’ touches, and only then did I feel a slight violation of personal space. On the whole, it’s a very tame scene.

Amazingly, I’ve been able to fall asleep while the Tabora Sound Band is still playing. I’ve been exhausted from my daily forays into the world of kitenge (colorful, patterned East African cloth) and tailor-made sewing projects. It’s a bit dangerous to put beautiful fabric and affordable tailoring into my hands. I’ve gotten the idea to make all sorts of craft-sewn items of my design; since I’ve always been limited by my lack of sewing machine skills, I can now hire tailors to make my designs for me. What luxury!

Arts ‘n’ crafts in rural Tanzania

and

a Tanzanian family’s home

Part of the fun is hunting for kitenge in the street market and bargaining in my recovering Kiswahili. The following comprises most of the Kiswahili I’ve regained so far besides “maji biridi” (water, cold):

Jambo, habari yako?

Nataka kitenge?

Ni bei gani?

Elfu tano mia tano? Ni gali sana!

Nitakupa shilingi elfu nne.

[Hello, how’s it going?

Do you have kitenge?

How much is it?

5,500? That’s too much!

I’ll give you 4,000 shillings.]

Yes, the vocabulary of a cheap market shopper. In the end, I don’t bargain hard (at least not like I do in China). They are a really good deal for me: 2 meters of gorgeous unique fabric for about 4 bucks. I have a sense of how much most folks pay on these fabrics, so I just ask for the general going rate.

above: detail from two kitenge fabrics and one kanga

So now a young woman named Petty is making a tunic dress and a skirt out of some funky purple and black fabric and an older man (whom Valerie knows as “the father of Omari”) is making a market bag (so I can accrue more fabrics, naturally) out of a deep turquoise and brown butterfly kitenge. Man, these kitenge and kanga designers are artistic geniuses!

Today I went to their homes in the national housing district by bicycle taxi.

above: Father of Omari with the butterfly kitenge and antique sewing machine from China!!

Now you may ask:

How in the world did I know whose houses to wander into?

And what is national housing?

National housing is apparently government-provided homes for Tanzanians who have served in the military or in public office at some point in their lives. I don’t know this for sure, but national housing might be a vestige of Nyerere’s socialist principles in ensuring that people have shelter, especially if they’ve served the country in some way. It seems to be very much a working class black African district: very basic, dirt roads, but still with permanent concrete dwellings, electricity and limited running water.

I spent the afternoon there with Valerie, her family, and her neighbors who happen to be tailors.

Valerie is a young woman who works at the small snack shop and internet café at the Orion Tabora Hotel. She was wearing a gorgeous dress made out of a kitenge this morning. I initially walked up to her to ask her about the internet access at the shop (which hasn’t been working for the last week) and then noticed her awesome dress. Petty had made it for her. When I enquired about good tailors she could recommend, she instructed me to purchase the kitenge I wanted to use, then meet her back at the hotel at 2 pm. I ran into town, found my kitenge, and went on a national housing safari (journey) with Valerie.

We took bicycle taxis along these crazy pot-holed dirt roads. Now these are not the suped-up boda boda bicycle taxis of Kenya. Tanzania’s per capita annual GDP is $100 less than Kenya’s, mind you. It shows. Tanzania’s bicycle taxis lack the butt cushion on the back bike rack and the little extra-rider foot rests. The combination of my boney ass + the naked wire bike rack + potholed roads + aggressive bike riding = very sore sophy bum right now.

By far the most memorable part of the trip was having lunch with Valerie’s family. Unexpectedly, she invited me to her family home after we dropped off the fabric and projects at Petty’s house.

“Come, let’s have lunch at my home,” she said.

“Sasawa,” I said. OK!

So we went into an alley next to Petty’s house, past a bunch of chickens and a group of children playing in the dirt patch and thinking of clever things to say to me in English.

“Hello, how are you?”

“Good day, Madam!”

“My name is Mfana!”

Valerie’s house is humble and friendly: concrete floors and walls, plain wooden doors, windows with hand-crocheted lace curtains and simple furniture adorned with crocheted doilies and hand-knitted stuffed animals. They have a tiny television and were watching some local beauty pageant on it when I entered the main family and dining room. Valerie’s uncle, older brother, two younger brothers, mother, grandmother and grandfather were all there. They were patiently waiting for Valerie to return home for lunch. They didn’t eat until we came in, and everyone made proper introductions with me. I bowed and said a shikamoo (respectful greeting to elders) to Valerie’s grandparents. Her babu (grandfather) gave a hearty belly laugh and held my hand warmly. Karibu sana. You’re very welcome.

We ate ugali with stewed greens and red beans. It was a perfect meal for me: fresh, vegan, hearty. And I liked their ugali. I guess that I haven’t liked it in the past because I’ve just had bad, soggy or cold ugali. Ugali is white corn meal mash, kinda like a super bland, super fine polenta. Eating this local food with my fingers and sharing it among people who so warmly invited a stranger into their home represented all things good in the world.

Afterwards, Valerie asked me if I enjoyed the meal. I told her that it is one of the best meals I’ve had. She laughed and told me that it can’t be true. But it is.