Life in Tanzania is HOT

 Life in Tanzania is hot, hard and habitually frustrating. I am now starting my seventh week (10/30/08) in Tanzania and I would be a liar if it has been an easy month and three quarters. I have five weeks left and I find myself longing for the multi colored hills of fall, the smell of burning leaves and dried corn and of course the annual pumpkin carving and Halloween revelry. Here in Tanzania it feels like I am stuck in a time warp, it is always August…everyday for the rest of my life. The intense heat and lack of shade trees create insurmountable amounts of orange brown dust that coats your body and has lined my lungs. I find myself coughing up dirt like a cat after a 30min jaunt to the center or MWEDO. On average I walk 2+ hours a day to get to work, volunteer or just to get food. I am getting my exercise, but by the end of any trek I am as sweaty as any other Tanzanian. The smell of body odor must be the national cologne. It is still surprising how the sale of deodorants and antiperspirants have not become a popular item in this eternal sauna
The power and water outages are a continual frustration along with the lack of organization of the dala-dalas, the local “bus.” I have either almost died by being stuck by them or have risked bodily injury being a patron of one. The dala-dalas are nothing more than hollowed out family caravans that have been fitted with about ten seats and hold about twenty people who are packed inside like sardines. By continual banging on the sides of the van the dala-dala knows when to stop and let passengers off and on. They are brightly decorated with sticker decals with American and English nick names in all different varieties such as “cupcake,” “ganja weed,” “Arsenal” and the ever popular Obama bus called “hope for change.” The dala-dalas are also a place for pickpocketers as Beth and Jason experienced by having their pants and bags slashed open and the contents stolen in only a 5min ride.
Crime is rampant in Tanzania. Most visitors aka mezungos are targeted for purse snatching and mugging as Maureen has unfortunately experienced. Luckily for Maureen her mugger was not very smart and stole her purse in broad daylight in front of 30 witnesses and had her bagged returned to her. Mezungos also have the fortune of being over charged by 50% for everything, being heckled to buy street items and seen to be related to all other mezungos. The upside to being white in Africa is that all children under 5 think you are a celebrity and greet you with the usual “good morning mezungo” even when its 5pm. The children of Tanzania are the cutest children I have ever seen; they all have great big smiles and cute little faces. I am amazed that children under 5 can walk alone on the streets of Arusha, but whenever I leave and walk alone I get scolded. Maybe if I walk with a back of 4yr olds I will not get into trouble!
I have started to fall into a routine here which is somewhat comforting that some structure has existed in this country. For the most part we have Swahili lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the rest of the week I volunteer at the Maasai Women’s Development Organization and occasionally at Miracle Corners of the world and teach English with Beth. It is frustrating, however, when I would like to practice Kiswahili with the women of MWEDO, but find it futile since they want to practice their English with me. Sometimes we manage to exchange a few words in Swahili mainly greetings or numbers. For the most part I am helping with English advertisement, taking pictures, writing status reports and creating flyers and ads.
MWEDO is a very cool organization whose focus is to improve the patriotically oppressed Maasai women who are circumcised and live life of polygamy. The program I am volunteering with is the fair trade center where women can create bead work and sell it a fair price. Two weeks ago I sat in on training with over 50 Maasai women; it was an amazing experience to see these native women learning how to make bangle bracelets and dangly earrings using unnatural colors like “teal” and “antique gold.” There was some confuse at first as to why anyone would wear bracelets in this size and shape, but after they were modeled for the women they understood.
I recently had the pleasure of going on a safari. The wilderness of Tanzania is beautiful and majestic, but not elusive. The amount of rare animals and predicators seems common place once you are surrounded by hundreds of wildebeest and zebras. The safari vehicles become part of the scenery as they flood into the crater all at once causing traffic jams in the middle of the savanna. This was a little disconcerting that the animals were so use to human presence that our guide actually threw rocks at a lion to make it wake up and the lion simply glared at him as if to say “fuck you” and went back to sleep. The deep roar of the safari trucks seems to not disturb the animals as were stuck behind zebras and water buffalo that would not move out of the road while the Giraffes simply seemed to walk over the trucks. I wonder just how well protected these animals and just how damaging human presence has become to their home.
Maureen and I mainly because were bored agreed to go hunting with Mr. Guta our landlord to learn more about the hunting laws of Tanzania. Driving hours into the bush there is nothing but dead grass, small acacia trees and 5 feet high ant hills. The sun is as relentless as the biting flies and dust bowls. The terrain is rough and barren and filled with giant elephant tracks that make the jeep sink and bounce with repetition. Mr. Guta, a man in his 60’s told us this was simply a pleasure ride to do research for Maureen’s report…however, once he saw a wildebeest he took advantage of the situation and without even leaving the jeep shot the bison dead. Having never actually gone hunting I was rather disturbed at the whole process and went to explore the bush being attacked by bugs and ticks while Maureen was recruited to help gut and moved the giant bison into his wagon. I felt like a woos, but did not want to have to stare at the bloody carcass that was alive only 10 mins ago.
Besides being traumatized we did see some interesting things such as a giraffe family, dic-dics, guinea fowl, and met some Maasai men that wanted to buy Maureen for 40 cows. She chose to take that as a compliment. Since we were seen as giving him good luck in his hunt (and having arcadia pay for his gas) Mr. Guta gave us the prime cut of meat, which I guess was a nice gesture. My experience of hunting in Africa seems to be a lot easier than in the states. One barely has to leave the car and catch himself a prize winning animal while in PA people dress in camo, hide in bushes and spray deer urine to lure animals near them. Maybe we have it all wrong.
I recently got over a bought of self diagnosed travelers sickness (aka diarrhea) which was not pleasant and last for about a week. I am now recovering and able to eat food which is always good. Tomorrow is Halloween…Arusha doesn’t really celebrate this holiday and we have heard Diwali fireworks going off every night at all hours ahhh. Maybe the Mezungos in the area will throw a party or carve some watermelons who knows. Either way I miss fall, festive Halloween decorations and costume parties…not to mention the CANDY! Only 38 more days left and still so much I haven’t seen!