Today I lived like a Tanzanian. Or actually, I lived like a guest in a Tanzanian house. I definitely did not work as hard as a
Tanzanian.
Today, we had our home stays! We were paired up, I was with
a girl named Jesi, and were dropped off at assorted Tanzanian homes around
Rhotia around 8 am and picked up at 5 pm.
It was such a neat experience, very eye-opening.
Jesi and I were told we would be going to the home of Mama
Aziz, however when we got there, there was no Mama Aziz. We found out later that Mama Aziz was
actually in a different region of Tanzania. I’m not sure where Baba Aziz (Father) was, if I understood
the Swahili correctly, he was with Mama Aziz as well. Anyways, we were dropped off and met by about nine children
ranging from the ages of 16 to 1 years old. At first Jesi and I thought all these children were in the
same family because we would ask “kaka yako”, “dada yako” (your brother or your
sister) and they would all respond saying yes. As the day went on and we got more information, we realized
that only three of the children were in the family we were staying with and the
rest were neighbor children.
The children in our family are named Mwanahawa, she is 16,
Azama, she is 13, and Sheban, I believe he is 9 but I never got a straight
answer. The assorted other
children were Joesy, she is 12, Godi, he is 2.5, Martini, he is at most a year
old, Paulina, who is 15. There
were three to four other boys who would trickle in and out but I never got
their names or ages. So it was
Jesi and I with a whole lot of kids for a while until the neighbor, Mama Godi
(Godi and Joesy’s mother) came to check on us. Mama Godi also helped make lunch. Jesi and I decided at the end of the day that from the
outside it looked like we were babysitting all of the kids, but they were
actually babysitting us.
The language barrier was really funny. Any of the Swahili I have learned
conveniently decided to leave my head today. The kids go to school and all the schools teach English, but
they didn’t know enough to help with the language barrier. We all often ended up just laughing at
the horrific Swahili that would come from Jesi or I. Sign language was our best friend today.
When we got there the girls served us chai (tea, but not
like the chai tea goes into chai lattes, it’s confusing), and it was the best
tea I have ever drank, the three heaping spoonfuls of sugar probably
helped. They also served us these
fried dough doughnut type things that are delicious. We tried to get them to eat with us, but at first they
didn’t seem to want to, they wanted to treat us as guests. All the families were told that we were
to be treated like family and have to do all the same work, but it took some
convincing for the girls to let us help out. After morning chai, we washed the dishes from the
morning. After washing dishes, we
cut up cabbage and jumped rope.
Jumping rope brought back many summer memories of when my neighbors, the
Costellos, and my family would jump rope!
I remembered some of the songs that we used to sing while jumping
too! I taught the kids how to play
“school” with the jump rope, essentially whatever “grade” youre on, dictates
how many jumps you have to do; so you start with 1st grade and do
one jump, 2nd grade, two jumps and so on.
We brought the family’s two bags of food as compensation for
putting up with us all day. In the
bags there was corn flour, salt, tea, sugar, rice, cooking oil, laundry soap,
milk, meat, cabbage, tomatoes, and onions. For lunch, Mama Godi came over and helped us with
lunch. With us helping in very
insignificant ways, we made this cabbage dish with tomatoes and onions, rice,
and ugali. Ugali is a staple in
East Africa. Its corn flour and
water that gets really sticky and you eat it by rolling it up into a ball and
dipping it in whatever you want. Ugali has no taste, but its quite
filling. To be polite, I ate way
more ugali than I ever wanted to and ever want to again. I just kept stuffing it down. The cabbage dish was incredible; I want
to try to make it at home. The
rice was good but we were served the ugali and cabbage first so I was already
stuffed when the rice was served.
Once again, I forced myself to eat more rice than I really wanted.
After lunch, it was nap time! At first I didn’t know if the girls offered us naps because
we looked tired, but talking to my fellow students it sounds like everyone was
offered a nap so it must be fairly standard for Tanzania. We were shown to the parent’s bed and
told to lie down, for a little while there were 6 of us in the bed as the kids
all wanted to join us. After our
short nap, we started cooking again, or watching as the girls cooked. They were cooking peanuts in sugar and
rolling them into balls to sell at the market. They were delicious!
You had to roll the mixture into balls when they were still extremely
hot. Jesi and I were kinda wimps
but it was really hot! The girls would just grab the peanuts and roll them up
without any hesitation. After
cooking a little more, it was time for chai again! I think this was only for
our benefit because no one had chai this time except for us. After chai we washed more dishes and
jump roped some more. Soon it was
time to go and the day had flown by!
The kids were so much fun. We sang songs with them and laughed a lot. They really enjoyed pictures. Once they found out I had a camera, I
had no chance to taking any photos for myself. The boys especially loved the camera. I have loads of pictures of the boys
doing action shots of them diving for soccer balls and posing with the
cat. The kids took so many
pictures that my memory card filled up!
Most of the time I didn’t even know where my camera was exactly, which
may not have been smart, but hey I got it back at the end of the day! I’m
thinking right now of a lecture my Uncle Russ gave to me before leaving about
trust and safety in different countries…sorry Uncle Russ, that kinda slipped by
the wayside today with my camera.
The little boy, Godi, was so funny. He folled Jesi and I around all day, repeating anything we
said. The family had a pole to tie
their goat up and at one point, we looked over and Godi was tying himself to
the goat pole and just lying on the ground! It was hilarious!
I was so impressed with these children. Here they are, taking care of the other
kids and all of the chores as their parents are away and the oldest is 16 years
old. They do all the chores
without complaining or hesitation; it’s just what needs to be done. Sometimes it hits me how different
Tanzania and the US are, for instance, the kids basically did chores all day
with only a few breaks for a little playing. I know when my brother who is 13 is asked to do chores; it
takes so much pushing and insistence before anything gets done. Also, these kids have so little but
they just make due. Their house
consisted of two rooms to sleep in, which were like the size of a bathroom in
my house and a smaller lean-to type building where they tie the goats up at
night and cook. The kids don’t
have any possessions or toys, but they still occupy themselves and seem to have
a lot of fun. Times like this can
make me feel guilty that I come from a country of such opulence and
opportunity. We were debriefing
afterwards and were all sharing the same sentiments, but we also talked about
how guilt doesn’t do much good.
Instead of feeling guilty, we need to channel that into action and do
things for other people, to make sure other people have their needs met and are
happy.
These kids were incredible. They were so cute and funny, but so self-sufficient. The girls did most of the cooking,
except for lunch when Mama Godi helped some. Jesi and I were talking and it was fine to live like this
for a day, but to live like that every single day would be really hard. The kids are such hard workers. Mwanahawa, the oldest girl, was
essentially the mother, taking care of the dishes, the cooking, the kids, and
all of the other chores, as well as being a gracious host to Jesi and I. Sometimes I idealize the Tanzanian
lifestyle, thinking how great it must be to live so simply, but I’m coming to
realize that living like this is really hard and I don’t know if I could ever
make it. I really like aspects of
their communal living though. Mama
Godi wasn’t the mother of the kids in our family, but she helped make sure
everything was running smoothly as well as taking care of her own family. At one point, another man from the
village came over and helped the boys take down and move the toilet to a
different location. While the
people seem to be really self-sufficient, helping each other out seems to be a
huge priority, and something that just comes naturally. I like that aspect of Tanzanian
living.
No comments:
Post a Comment