Kuuliza si ujinga

(This entry was written on October 4, 2007)

“It’s just life.”
This was the best advice the Peace Corps trainers gave
us before sending us to live with our host family.
Occasionally it’s an adventure here, occasionally it
feels very foreign, but most of the time, it’s just
life.
--
I’m currently living in Morogoro, a three hour drive
to the west of Dar es Salaam.  It’s a city of about
500,000 people, bordered on three sides by the
absolutely beautiful Uluguru mountains, a range of
rugged green hills that look like the Appalachians
might look if they were given steroids, placed in
Africa, and planted with banana trees.  I’m living
with a family in a residential neighborhood that feels
rural.  In the morning I wake up to roosters crowing
and the two family milk cows mooing.  I walk down a
rutted, cracked red dirt road to the room where my
Swahili lessons are held, passing grazing goats on the
way.  My family has television, a DVD player, and cell
phones, but they cook their meals over charcoal stoves
and wash their clothes by hand.

The family house itself is fairly nice.  It’s actually
a compound surrounded by a fence, with a house, a
chicken coop, several sheds, an sort of pavilion for
cooking, and several fruit trees inside.  For
Tanzania, I think it’s upper middle class.  We have
electricity, which is reliable, and running water,
which is not reliable.  There’s also a fridge, a
blender, and a large tank for storing water.

Now we come to the question of how many people live in
the house.  Actually, I’m not sure.  There are four
mamas: the head of the family (Mama Rhoda), her older
sister (Neema), a friend of Mama Rhoda’s (Giselle),
and I believe one of Mama Rhoda’s older nieces
(Tumaini).  Then there’s the grandmother, Bibi, and a
constantly changing population of younger people.
More or less permanent are Manu, Mama Rhoda’s
twenty-five year old daughter, Shangwe, Neema's
sixteen year-old daughter who attends secondary school
in Morogoro, Silvanus, the houseboy, and George, a son
of a deceased friend of Mama Rhoda’s who studies IT at
Mzumbe university.  Occasionally I see Uli, son of
another deceased friend, Parminda, Mama Rhoda’s
9-year-old daughter who goes to a boarding school in
Dar es Salaam, and Sono, Mama Rhoda’s son and an IT
student in another city.  It’s a large and extended
family, and there are always visitors coming in and
out.  I love it.  At all times of day, there’s
something going on and someone to talk to.

I apologize in advance for the lack of blog entries in
the next eight weeks, but the Peace Corps keeps us
busy.  On weekdays, I climb out of bed at 6:15, take a
hot bucket bath, pack my books for the days, and sit
down to an inevitably large breakfast of uji (porridge
of millet and corn flour), tea brewed in whole milk,
and either eggs or samosas filled with spiced beef.
From 7:30 to 8, I stand awkwardly in the courtyard of
Lupanga secondary school, watching kids sweep and cut
grass with sickles, and occasionally trying to talk to
them.  Then I walk with the four other people in my
training group to the house of our Swahili teacher.
We learn Swahili until 10 am, then take a tea break
from 10-10:30.  After that more Swahili and lunch,
followed by observation of a Tanzanian class, classes
on how to teach in Tanzania, or a “language
walk-around” where we walk around Morogoro and
practice Swahili.

Saturdays are CCT day—all 40 Peace Corps trainees meet
at a compound known as the Christian Council of
Tanzania for vaccines and lectures on medical issues,
IT in Tanzania, and AIDS.  And of course simply to
catch up.  Since we were divided into eight training
groups at the beginning of training, we don’t see each
other very often any more.  My group does meet with
two other training groups twice a week for classes on
teaching, but I have some good friends from staging
that I only see on Saturdays.  Last Saturday was our
first day together after a week with our host
families, and we all lingered at CCT as long as
possible, walking home only when it began to grow
dark.

And now we come to the only free day.  Sunday.  Ah,
Sunday.  Last Sunday I went to church (Catholic with a
Swahili service), washed laundry, bought a cell phone,
and taught my host sister to play Frisbee.  This
Sunday, if I’m lucky, I may make it back to this
Internet café, wash clothes by hand, finally write
some letters, study my Swahili flashcards, catch up on
my journal, catch up on my sleep, play Scrabble with
Shangwe, Giselle, and fellow trainee Laura, and spend
some quality time with my host family.   Ah,
ninatumaini, I hope so.  But I’d be happy just for the
sleep.

# posted by Kristen @ 6:35 AM