I have now finished the first two weeks of school. Well, I have been going to campus with the intention of going to class for two weeks, but the majority of my courses just started last week and we’re still working out the details for the Kiswahili class. All in good time I suppose. As far as I know at the moment, I will be taking Soil Mechanics, Engineering Geology, Basic Analytical and Physical Chemistry, a chemistry practical, African Women Writers, Economic History of Tanzania, and Kiswahili, of course. Coming from the quarter system where four courses can be quite the load this seems like a lot, but most students take seven or eight classes so I’ll give it a shot. Just another component of my efforts to blend in. Ha.
The schedule itself is a bit mystifying. It’s kind of a miracle that all of my classes fit together. Most students have every class for every semester laid out for them by their chosen degree program, so they are generally spared from piecing together their schedules. But as I am taking classes from four different colleges, it was kind of a toss up. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t so disappointed when a physics class didn’t end up fitting into my schedule. I went for African Women writers instead. In addition, classes don’t exactly follow the same-time-per-day pattern that I am accustomed to at Seattle U. For example, my history lectures are on Monday at 11am and then on Wednesday at 7am in two different lecture theatres. The seminar times have yet to be decided. With seven erratic class times to sort out, I think I will be walking around with my timetable for a few more weeks before I have it all committed to memory.
Classes themselves are… different. In my soil mechanics class I mentioned in the last post my professor continues to reference god’s omniscience at least once per lecture, and to single me out whenever he mentions something having to do with colder climates, usually by calling me “our lady.” On the bright side, a couple more girls have showed up. In my geology class I really am the only girl, though the class only has 25 or 30 students total so it’s a bit less intimidating. It seems like it should be a pretty good class, except for somewhat of a dueling professors situation. There is a second, more senior professor that shows up periodically to “oversee” and “assist” the relatively young professor actually teaching the class who I like quite a bit. Not only does this younger professor try to encourage class discussion and participation, he’s also quite easy to understand. On the other hand, this additional professor tends to mutter into the board in a heavy accent, blatantly interrupts the younger professor to explain things (more often than not to discuss concepts we had finished about ten minutes prior) in a different way, and answers any questions the younger professor poses for the students himself. The Tanzanian social and academic hierarchy basically means the younger professor just has to let this other guy do whatever he wants, though some frustration was clearly visible. I wasn’t surprised when one of the other students told me the class hadn’t liked this older professor in a previous courses and is hoping he will show up to GY252 as infrequently as possible. I agree.
My chemistry class will be quite the experience for a number of reasons. It has about 250 students so there is not a lecture hall on campus large enough to accommodate everyone. This means I need to get there early if I want a seat, otherwise it’s sitting in the aisle or standing along the wall with 50 or so other students. With such a large class it can also be a bit difficult to hear, and I generally have to listen extra carefully anyway because the professor has a pretty heavy accent. He has particular trouble with his “l”s and “r”s (very common in Tanzanian English) and getting “molarity” from something that—to me—sounds like “morality” is even more difficult in the rustle of 250 other notebooks and bodies. From what I’ve experienced so far, UDSM doesn’t seem to cap classes at a certain capacity or to offer multiple sections of classes that are sure to be enormous (like this first year chemistry course required by multiple departments). Granted, their online registration program is still not up and running for this semester, so I guess I should be hoping that I don’t get shut out of the class after attending lectures and tutorials for a week and half. The practical is also a bit of an adventure. There are over 50 students in my section and the strategy necessarily adopted for taking minibuses of pushing one’s way into any available bit of space also seems to be applied to waiting for and using lab equipment. Combined with the fact that the lab coat doesn’t make the already warm lab (especially the air-tight room housing the analytical balances) any more bearable, I have the feeling the chemistry practical will not end up being my favorite four hours of the week. All part of the experience I suppose. I have, however, met some very nice chemistry classmates. Even though they are also new to the campus as first year students, they have kindly helped me to find various classrooms, push my way around the lab, and procure copies of the lecture notes. There are so many students that the chemistry library ran out of books, so a thick stack of lecture notes will be my text for the first half of the semester. At least it only cost me about two dollars!
Finding course material actually seems like it could be one of the bigger challenges of my semester. The campus bookstore only stocks ten to twenty copies of only some of the books used for classes, so when they run out (remember the vast majority of classes have at least 50 students) or never stocked what you were looking for in the first place (I’m zero for five at this point) you’re just sort of out of luck. Basically we make a lot of copies and I think I’ll need to hunt around some bookstores in the city center for a few novels. My geology professor actually gave us electronic copies of a couple books which has been great for me, though it poses new challenges for the half of our class who don’t have computers. Though making copies involves tracking down who managed to get a copy of what and is therefore rather inconvenient, at least it’s not expensive. Really, there is simply no way the most of the students could afford to pay hundreds of dollars each semester for textbooks.
I think the class that I am most eagerly anticipating at this point is African Women Writers. Not only is it my only class taught by a female professor, but I think it will be fascinating to learn about feminism from an African perspective and to observe how my classmates react to the course material. Though the class is for third (meaning final) year students, I got the impression that this class is likely the first exposure to feminism for many of them. While I’ve encountered women’s development and empowerment groups in the five months since I left the US, I’ve certainly never heard them use the word feminism. Given the eastern African male-female dynamic and a misunderstanding of the word in general, feminism isn’t a popular or positively viewed concept in this part of the world. So I can’t wait to hear what my professor and fellow students have to say. One challenging aspect of the class, however, will be the professor’s comments about the United States. I’m not sure where she has been or for how long, but she has spent enough time in the US to think she knows a lot about American culture and to make several blanket statements that I felt are misleading or simply incorrect. Thus far we have only had one lecture, but in that hour she told the class that feminists in America are most concerned about abortion, that lesbians hate men, and that American Christians are okay with sinning by staying together before they are married because they believe they can simply repent. She made these statements at various points in the lecture to illustrate the differences between American and African cultures (lumping all African culture together was her method for comparison, not mine). Unfortunately none of these statements were accompanied by an explanation to contextualize them at all and so I felt like the professor was basically saying, “look how absurd America is.” I suppose that could have been her objective if she truly doesn’t know anymore about these issues than what she abruptly shared with the class, but I guess my initial take on her personality and the fact that she is a feminist literature professor made me expect a bit more critical thinking. Of course, there is plenty of Tanzanian culture that I do not understand or have not yet been exposed to, so the students probably didn’t receive her comments in the same way I did. At this point I’m just curious to see what the professor will say in the future and if there will be any way for me to share my own perspective as well. I didn’t quite feel comfortable enough to raise my hand just yet…
While almost everyone has been friendly and helpful, I am a bit unsure of how the actual friend-making process will go. Thus far, the vast majority of my conversations with people have felt like very one-sided sessions of me explaining the differences between the US and Tanzania. This is certainly fair, and I might be asking a Tanzanian exchange student in the US many of the same questions, but I kind of feel like this enhances my strangeness rather than making me seem like any other student. I guess I wasn’t expecting to continue to stand out so much. Really, it has only been two weeks so I suppose I just need to be patient. Improving my Kiswahili will also help me to make friends as all conversations outside of class (and many in class as well) are in Kiswahili. I’ve had a few small conversations in Kiswahili with classmates so far, but my language skills (and confidence) are still lacking enough that I usually address people in English. If I want to make non-awkward friendships or join study groups, this will have to change.
I suppose if I really get to feeling lonely I could give Baraka Luther a call. Now, I don’t actually know him, but as I was walking home one day this week he approached me, held out a small piece of paper, and said, “here please.” Thinking it was a flyer for some group or event I took it and said asante, only to read a bit further down the road that it had his name, phone number, email address, and the message, “I need to be friends.” Uhhh… Had he specifically been waiting for me to walk home or does he have a supply of these notes that he just hands out to people who look interesting? Being approached like that made me pretty uncomfortable. I generally feel quite safe in my neighborhood during the day (and I haven’t yet been out at night), but that incident made me aware of just how much I stand out. Baraka is probably just looking for a friend to practice English with, but feeling like I’m being watched or at least noticed by everyone I pass is a bit disconcerting. Needless to say, I haven’t felt tempted to call or email him yet.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Giraffe or giraffes? Zebra or zebras?
My Google search has been inconclusive about the correct way to pluralize the words giraffe and zebra. Your thoughts? You can see what I’ve chosen below. But yeah, my trouble with these words means I’ve recently seen some cool animals!
Let’s see, it’s just after 6am as I write this and my shirt is already damp with sweat, which means I am in Dar es Salaam. I’ve been here for about five days now. Weather wise, it’s pretty miserable and I want to cry every time someone tells me that things have only just started heating up. By February I may have melted into a puddle; the humidity will have done me in. Aside from the nonstop sweating, Dar seems like a nice place to spend the next nine months. My baba wa Tanzania (Tanzanian host father) is an auditor for the University of Dar es Salaam, so we live in a house owned by the university about ten minutes walking distance from the main campus. The university area is really pretty and there are lots of large trees providing necessary shade. And around here, with trees come monkeys!
The semester technically started on Monday, but most lectures don’t actually get going for at least another week. However, it’s difficult to know which lectures those might be as my soil mechanics professor not only showed up to give out the syllabus on Monday but then he actually started teaching on Tuesday. That is really the only class I’ve had thus far, and it has given me an interesting taste of what is to come. Of the approximately 100 students in the class, I am one of just two girls. And as if I wasn’t already glaringly obvious, in class the professor singled me out as someone who had seen natural ice. While I was embarrassed about being called out (not that my face could get any redder than it already constantly is) it did make me realize that the majority of these students probably have never seen any ice or even frost on the ground. I was momentarily floored. A bit further into the lecture the professor also said, “Only the almighty god knows exactly how old the earth is, but scientists estimate about five thousand million years.” Yep, new perspectives. Even coming from a Jesuit university back in Seattle a comment like that wouldn’t fly in an engineering class. While most of the foreign students are taking specifically Africa centric sociology and political science classes, I think my general science courses will be just as much of a cultural experience.
My host family situation seems pretty good. My host mom and dad are big tennis fans, so over the weekend we enjoyed watching a French tournament in the evenings. Aside from the fact that I am more or less stuck to their leather couch (yes, quality furniture), it feels a lot like watching the grand slams with my family back in MT. My host family is actually very culturally westernized. They have each studied or lived abroad and their three children are all living and working in the US or Europe. This is a bit disappointing in some ways as my host family will not contribute so much to my Tanzanian cultural immersion, though I will be honest and say that am grateful I won’t be witnessing a typical Tanzanian husband-wife relationship on a daily basis. From what I have seen so far my host parents seem to have a lot of mutual respect and a true appreciation for each other, rather than the master-slave dynamic that, from my experience, seems more prominent in this part of the world. There are, of course, some notable differences between my Montana home and my family here. For example, here our water has been out for the majority of each day, there are two women (one who lives with us) who do all of the cooking and cleaning, if we turn on too many lights or appliances the electricity starts to cut in and out, and there are a bunch of feral cats hanging around the side of the house that live on garbage and lizards. Thanks for the warning host father, but don’t worry, I had no intention of attempting to cuddle with our feline neighbors.
I think the real reason the heat and humidity here in Dar are so uncomfortable is that Iringa, where I spent the last month, is located 1600m above sea level and had a blissful climate. Sure, it was hot out in the sun during the middle of the day, but I was spending my nights in light sweatpants comfortably curled up under a thick blanket. This also allowed for refreshing morning jogs through the bush and fields in the hills surrounding the campsite where I was staying and studying (we were actually 12km outside of Iringa town). Really, I immensely enjoyed my time at Riverside Campsite. The language school was really well run and I feel like I learned a lot of Kiswahili. We even had a Tanzanian cooking class that included slaughtering a few chickens. Now my challenge is to continue to use the Kiswahili I acquired and therefore not lose it. My host parents are so comfortable with English that I only rarely overhear them using Kiswahili for their own personal conversations so it’s not surprising they automatically choose English to speak with me. The women who work in the house don’t speak any English, but the woman who I interact with most often barely speaks above a whisper so I rarely feel like I understand her (even when it’s something simple like “Do you want some chai?”). She also seems to want to make any conversation as brief as possible (understandable I suppose since my lack of comprehension makes our exchanges painfully awkward) but it leaves me without much Kiswahili in my day. I realize I just need to be patient. Hopefully we’ll develop a more comfortable relationship over the next couple weeks.
Anyway, not only did I really enjoy the language instruction at Riverside, but the food was great (fresh salad at lunch and occasionally we even had something resembling pesto!), the campsite staff was friendly and willing to listen to us struggle through our terrible Kiswahili, and there was the most wonderful (though generally also quite dirty) dog named Polly that liked to accompany/lead other students and me on afternoon walks and hikes. There were usually six or seven students in addition to myself, of varying levels and from several countries. Most were Christian missionaries but within that general category there was a lot of diversity, so I generally didn’t feel too out of place and we all seemed to get along quite well. In addition to socializing at mealtimes and during study breaks, it was great to have people to go on mini adventures with on the weekends. The Saturday after my first week of study five others and I did a day safari in Ruaha National park. Not only was the trip affordable only because we organized such a large group, but the Swiss German guys in particular had wonderful senses of humor so seeing elephants, lions, giraffes, and zebra was only the tip of the entertainment iceberg. Then the next Saturday my friend Toni and I took a morning trip to an archaeological site and Tanzania’s version of the Grand Canyon. For being what my guidebook called “one of Africa’s richest Stone Age sites” I found the stone tools only reasonably interesting, but the huge sandstone pillars, rock formations, awesome bugs and lizards, and always entertaining minibus rides certainly made the trip worth it.
Another noteworthy event during my time at the campsite was Tanzania’s general election on October 31st (I know, exciting Halloween right?). After witnessing three weeks of vigorous campaigning (mostly by CCM, the main and previously only party) that included women clad in special green and florescent yellow kitenges showcasing the current president’s face and trucks with huge speakers driving through towns and villages spewing political slogans, the political fervor reached it’s climax on the day before election day. All rallies and campaigning were forbidden on election day itself, so that Saturday was everyone’s last chance. I was in town checking email and exploring Iringa a bit so I got to experience many of the day’s events. While I was eating lunch someone even asked me if I was one of the election observers from the European union. No… I actually sat down in this out-of-the-way restaurant before the CCM rally formed outside thinking I could escape the craziness for a bit… I think the highlight of the day was watching the political parades go by from my seat in an internet cafe on Iringa’s main street. Vehicle after vehicle (cars, minibuses, lorries, motorcycles, anything with wheels and an engine) went by stuffed with people who were dancing, singing, yelling and of course trying to make sure they didn’t fall off their ride. Again, it was mostly CCM, but the main opposition party, Chadema, put together a pretty raucous 15-vehicle parade of their own. And apparently it paid off as they won in Iringa. CCM still took the vast majority of the country’s parliamentary seats and Kikwete is still president, but the opposition gained enough seats in a variety of regions to start getting experience in the government and develop into a more legitimate opposition party. As Tanzania has essentially had a one party system since independence, everyone I talked to (both Tanzanian and wazungu) seemed to think pretty positively of this election.
I had about four free days between the end of my fourth week of language study in Iringa and my arrival in Dar, so I decided to visit my friend Toni from the language school in Mbeya where he is now living and working. I had a hard time deciding what to do with these free days, but going to Mbeya ended up being a wonderful choice. Not only were there things I wanted to see in the region, but I had a phenomenal time staying with Toni (who is Swiss) and a German couple who he was sharing the house with. Mbeya seemed like my last chance to enjoy a bit of nature before coming to Dar, and so with the help of my hosts I made the most of it. Mbeya itself is really dry and dusty, but the day after I arrived we hiked to a crater lake in a lush jungle environment about half an hour out of the city. On the recommendation of some locals (though advised against by my guidebook) we decided to make the journey from the rim of the crater down to the lakeshore, which made for a great but mildly terrifying adventure. It was certainly the steepest “trail” I’ve ever been on. The most entertaining and also the most humiliating parts of the experience were the Tanzanian guys who recommended we go in the first place. As we inched ourselves along in our hiking boots, they were basically running up and down the mountain in flip-flops or barefoot. At what was probably the most difficult point in the descent we had to lower (and then of course climb back up half an hour later) ourselves down and across a wall/cliff by holding onto roots and hoping our feet would first find and then not slip out of a few sandy footholds cut into the side of the mountain. And in my state of trying to conceal my fear I forgot that most Tanzanians don’t have any concept of sarcasm. One of the guys asked us how we were doing and I said, “Hamna shida. Ni rahisi sana.” (No problem, it’s very easy.) First he gave me this puzzled and incredulous look, and then replied, “If it’s easy, then let’s go!” and continued running down the path. Ha. I think another ten minutes then passed before we successfully descended the next 20 feet of “trail.”
Despite the thrilling nature of our adventures in the jungle, the most enjoyable part of my time in Mbeya was hanging out with my wonderful hosts during the evenings. After enjoying some German food for dinner, we played cards for a couple hours and drank South African wine. Under the Germans’ careful tutelage we played rummy the first evening and then a couple rousing rounds of canasta over the next two nights. Canasta is definitely my new favorite card game, though it will be a challenge to play in such good company again.
One of the main reasons I chose to spend my few free days in Mbeya was so that I could then take the train into Dar. The Tazara line runs all the way across Tanzania and then into central Zambia. For months I had been hearing what a fantastic trip it is; a great way to see the countryside and it even goes through a game reserve just outside of Dar. That, and the train’s schedule matched my necessary arrival window in Dar. Well, that was all in theory. It certainly wasn’t a bad trip as I met some other friendly travelers and saw a few giraffe, warthogs, and buffalo out the window, but I can’t say I’m too eager to get on the Tazara again any time soon. First the train arrived 17 hours late in Mbeya meaning I spent a sleepless night at the train station and then the Tanzanian women with whom I was sharing a compartment when the train eventually arrived were, from my cultural standpoint, less than wonderful traveling companions. For example, at this point I know enough Kiswahili to know that they were talking about what they had seen me doing at the train station (are reading and chatting with a couple people really gossip-worthy activities?) and one of them thought I was like a sick person because I went to sleep as soon as we finally got on the train (apparently their night at the train station included an ample amount of sleep). At one point they were discussing whether they thought I could speak Kiswahili or not, but they never actually said anything directly to me except a few simple greetings which most foreigners have down. Of course, I should have just pushed through my shyness and insecurity with my language skills to start chatting, but the desire to have a good view out the window and to get out of the stuffy compartment meant I spent nearly all of the journey’s waking hours at a table in the dining car or next to a window in the area between train cars. By the time the 27-hour trip ended and we got to Dar the train had somehow lost another five or six hours and thus arrived about 24 hours late. This meant I went straight from the train station to the orientation day I had missed the first half of. In addition to not having showered for over two days, I fell down a couple stairs while dragging my huge bag around campus. I sure know how to make a first impression! But I shouldn’t complain as I really did receive a nice welcome to Dar from the international student office and many other students. All things considered, I’m expecting an interesting but positive experience here this year. Plenty to look forward to. And the moral of the story with the train: if you have a set arrival time when traveling in Tanzania, just give yourself a day or two extra for the journey.
Let’s see, it’s just after 6am as I write this and my shirt is already damp with sweat, which means I am in Dar es Salaam. I’ve been here for about five days now. Weather wise, it’s pretty miserable and I want to cry every time someone tells me that things have only just started heating up. By February I may have melted into a puddle; the humidity will have done me in. Aside from the nonstop sweating, Dar seems like a nice place to spend the next nine months. My baba wa Tanzania (Tanzanian host father) is an auditor for the University of Dar es Salaam, so we live in a house owned by the university about ten minutes walking distance from the main campus. The university area is really pretty and there are lots of large trees providing necessary shade. And around here, with trees come monkeys!
The semester technically started on Monday, but most lectures don’t actually get going for at least another week. However, it’s difficult to know which lectures those might be as my soil mechanics professor not only showed up to give out the syllabus on Monday but then he actually started teaching on Tuesday. That is really the only class I’ve had thus far, and it has given me an interesting taste of what is to come. Of the approximately 100 students in the class, I am one of just two girls. And as if I wasn’t already glaringly obvious, in class the professor singled me out as someone who had seen natural ice. While I was embarrassed about being called out (not that my face could get any redder than it already constantly is) it did make me realize that the majority of these students probably have never seen any ice or even frost on the ground. I was momentarily floored. A bit further into the lecture the professor also said, “Only the almighty god knows exactly how old the earth is, but scientists estimate about five thousand million years.” Yep, new perspectives. Even coming from a Jesuit university back in Seattle a comment like that wouldn’t fly in an engineering class. While most of the foreign students are taking specifically Africa centric sociology and political science classes, I think my general science courses will be just as much of a cultural experience.
My host family situation seems pretty good. My host mom and dad are big tennis fans, so over the weekend we enjoyed watching a French tournament in the evenings. Aside from the fact that I am more or less stuck to their leather couch (yes, quality furniture), it feels a lot like watching the grand slams with my family back in MT. My host family is actually very culturally westernized. They have each studied or lived abroad and their three children are all living and working in the US or Europe. This is a bit disappointing in some ways as my host family will not contribute so much to my Tanzanian cultural immersion, though I will be honest and say that am grateful I won’t be witnessing a typical Tanzanian husband-wife relationship on a daily basis. From what I have seen so far my host parents seem to have a lot of mutual respect and a true appreciation for each other, rather than the master-slave dynamic that, from my experience, seems more prominent in this part of the world. There are, of course, some notable differences between my Montana home and my family here. For example, here our water has been out for the majority of each day, there are two women (one who lives with us) who do all of the cooking and cleaning, if we turn on too many lights or appliances the electricity starts to cut in and out, and there are a bunch of feral cats hanging around the side of the house that live on garbage and lizards. Thanks for the warning host father, but don’t worry, I had no intention of attempting to cuddle with our feline neighbors.
I think the real reason the heat and humidity here in Dar are so uncomfortable is that Iringa, where I spent the last month, is located 1600m above sea level and had a blissful climate. Sure, it was hot out in the sun during the middle of the day, but I was spending my nights in light sweatpants comfortably curled up under a thick blanket. This also allowed for refreshing morning jogs through the bush and fields in the hills surrounding the campsite where I was staying and studying (we were actually 12km outside of Iringa town). Really, I immensely enjoyed my time at Riverside Campsite. The language school was really well run and I feel like I learned a lot of Kiswahili. We even had a Tanzanian cooking class that included slaughtering a few chickens. Now my challenge is to continue to use the Kiswahili I acquired and therefore not lose it. My host parents are so comfortable with English that I only rarely overhear them using Kiswahili for their own personal conversations so it’s not surprising they automatically choose English to speak with me. The women who work in the house don’t speak any English, but the woman who I interact with most often barely speaks above a whisper so I rarely feel like I understand her (even when it’s something simple like “Do you want some chai?”). She also seems to want to make any conversation as brief as possible (understandable I suppose since my lack of comprehension makes our exchanges painfully awkward) but it leaves me without much Kiswahili in my day. I realize I just need to be patient. Hopefully we’ll develop a more comfortable relationship over the next couple weeks.
Anyway, not only did I really enjoy the language instruction at Riverside, but the food was great (fresh salad at lunch and occasionally we even had something resembling pesto!), the campsite staff was friendly and willing to listen to us struggle through our terrible Kiswahili, and there was the most wonderful (though generally also quite dirty) dog named Polly that liked to accompany/lead other students and me on afternoon walks and hikes. There were usually six or seven students in addition to myself, of varying levels and from several countries. Most were Christian missionaries but within that general category there was a lot of diversity, so I generally didn’t feel too out of place and we all seemed to get along quite well. In addition to socializing at mealtimes and during study breaks, it was great to have people to go on mini adventures with on the weekends. The Saturday after my first week of study five others and I did a day safari in Ruaha National park. Not only was the trip affordable only because we organized such a large group, but the Swiss German guys in particular had wonderful senses of humor so seeing elephants, lions, giraffes, and zebra was only the tip of the entertainment iceberg. Then the next Saturday my friend Toni and I took a morning trip to an archaeological site and Tanzania’s version of the Grand Canyon. For being what my guidebook called “one of Africa’s richest Stone Age sites” I found the stone tools only reasonably interesting, but the huge sandstone pillars, rock formations, awesome bugs and lizards, and always entertaining minibus rides certainly made the trip worth it.
Another noteworthy event during my time at the campsite was Tanzania’s general election on October 31st (I know, exciting Halloween right?). After witnessing three weeks of vigorous campaigning (mostly by CCM, the main and previously only party) that included women clad in special green and florescent yellow kitenges showcasing the current president’s face and trucks with huge speakers driving through towns and villages spewing political slogans, the political fervor reached it’s climax on the day before election day. All rallies and campaigning were forbidden on election day itself, so that Saturday was everyone’s last chance. I was in town checking email and exploring Iringa a bit so I got to experience many of the day’s events. While I was eating lunch someone even asked me if I was one of the election observers from the European union. No… I actually sat down in this out-of-the-way restaurant before the CCM rally formed outside thinking I could escape the craziness for a bit… I think the highlight of the day was watching the political parades go by from my seat in an internet cafe on Iringa’s main street. Vehicle after vehicle (cars, minibuses, lorries, motorcycles, anything with wheels and an engine) went by stuffed with people who were dancing, singing, yelling and of course trying to make sure they didn’t fall off their ride. Again, it was mostly CCM, but the main opposition party, Chadema, put together a pretty raucous 15-vehicle parade of their own. And apparently it paid off as they won in Iringa. CCM still took the vast majority of the country’s parliamentary seats and Kikwete is still president, but the opposition gained enough seats in a variety of regions to start getting experience in the government and develop into a more legitimate opposition party. As Tanzania has essentially had a one party system since independence, everyone I talked to (both Tanzanian and wazungu) seemed to think pretty positively of this election.
I had about four free days between the end of my fourth week of language study in Iringa and my arrival in Dar, so I decided to visit my friend Toni from the language school in Mbeya where he is now living and working. I had a hard time deciding what to do with these free days, but going to Mbeya ended up being a wonderful choice. Not only were there things I wanted to see in the region, but I had a phenomenal time staying with Toni (who is Swiss) and a German couple who he was sharing the house with. Mbeya seemed like my last chance to enjoy a bit of nature before coming to Dar, and so with the help of my hosts I made the most of it. Mbeya itself is really dry and dusty, but the day after I arrived we hiked to a crater lake in a lush jungle environment about half an hour out of the city. On the recommendation of some locals (though advised against by my guidebook) we decided to make the journey from the rim of the crater down to the lakeshore, which made for a great but mildly terrifying adventure. It was certainly the steepest “trail” I’ve ever been on. The most entertaining and also the most humiliating parts of the experience were the Tanzanian guys who recommended we go in the first place. As we inched ourselves along in our hiking boots, they were basically running up and down the mountain in flip-flops or barefoot. At what was probably the most difficult point in the descent we had to lower (and then of course climb back up half an hour later) ourselves down and across a wall/cliff by holding onto roots and hoping our feet would first find and then not slip out of a few sandy footholds cut into the side of the mountain. And in my state of trying to conceal my fear I forgot that most Tanzanians don’t have any concept of sarcasm. One of the guys asked us how we were doing and I said, “Hamna shida. Ni rahisi sana.” (No problem, it’s very easy.) First he gave me this puzzled and incredulous look, and then replied, “If it’s easy, then let’s go!” and continued running down the path. Ha. I think another ten minutes then passed before we successfully descended the next 20 feet of “trail.”
Despite the thrilling nature of our adventures in the jungle, the most enjoyable part of my time in Mbeya was hanging out with my wonderful hosts during the evenings. After enjoying some German food for dinner, we played cards for a couple hours and drank South African wine. Under the Germans’ careful tutelage we played rummy the first evening and then a couple rousing rounds of canasta over the next two nights. Canasta is definitely my new favorite card game, though it will be a challenge to play in such good company again.
One of the main reasons I chose to spend my few free days in Mbeya was so that I could then take the train into Dar. The Tazara line runs all the way across Tanzania and then into central Zambia. For months I had been hearing what a fantastic trip it is; a great way to see the countryside and it even goes through a game reserve just outside of Dar. That, and the train’s schedule matched my necessary arrival window in Dar. Well, that was all in theory. It certainly wasn’t a bad trip as I met some other friendly travelers and saw a few giraffe, warthogs, and buffalo out the window, but I can’t say I’m too eager to get on the Tazara again any time soon. First the train arrived 17 hours late in Mbeya meaning I spent a sleepless night at the train station and then the Tanzanian women with whom I was sharing a compartment when the train eventually arrived were, from my cultural standpoint, less than wonderful traveling companions. For example, at this point I know enough Kiswahili to know that they were talking about what they had seen me doing at the train station (are reading and chatting with a couple people really gossip-worthy activities?) and one of them thought I was like a sick person because I went to sleep as soon as we finally got on the train (apparently their night at the train station included an ample amount of sleep). At one point they were discussing whether they thought I could speak Kiswahili or not, but they never actually said anything directly to me except a few simple greetings which most foreigners have down. Of course, I should have just pushed through my shyness and insecurity with my language skills to start chatting, but the desire to have a good view out the window and to get out of the stuffy compartment meant I spent nearly all of the journey’s waking hours at a table in the dining car or next to a window in the area between train cars. By the time the 27-hour trip ended and we got to Dar the train had somehow lost another five or six hours and thus arrived about 24 hours late. This meant I went straight from the train station to the orientation day I had missed the first half of. In addition to not having showered for over two days, I fell down a couple stairs while dragging my huge bag around campus. I sure know how to make a first impression! But I shouldn’t complain as I really did receive a nice welcome to Dar from the international student office and many other students. All things considered, I’m expecting an interesting but positive experience here this year. Plenty to look forward to. And the moral of the story with the train: if you have a set arrival time when traveling in Tanzania, just give yourself a day or two extra for the journey.
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