Kipilefti

Shannon left a couple weeks ago voluntarily; Tim was just told to go home. So now we’re 31.

Just uploaded the last of the pictures on my flash drive (through a week or two ago) to Flickr. Link at left. Again, a reminder: to see pictures of people and not just pretty scenery, you have to (a) have a Flickr account, (b) be a friend of mine on Flickr, and (c) be logged in.

When I went to sleep last night, it was raining. When I woke up this morning, it was raining. When I walked to school, it was raining. Mama told me to take one of their umbrellas and I didn’t argue: the rain was pretty hard. I love the rain, so I was pretty thrilled. As I walked I whistled “Singin’ in the Rain”, which earned me some strange looks from the people I greeted between notes. Sitting in class (our last day of Kiswahili, our last day at our school), I saw a flock of cattle egrets land in the schoolyard and then my attention was completely diverted. The egrets took off and strange dragonfly-ish bugs with huge wings and small bodies filled the air, flying through the raindrops. An amazing sight, since bugs and rain usually don’t mix. We all stopped to look; “Where I come from,” our teacher told us, “we eat them. They’re delicious. But these ones are just babies; we wait until they’re bigger.”

I didn’t think more about it until, chatting with mama at home, she called me outside. Those same bugs were whirring around the light outside our door, throwing themselves at the brightness. She called Bebe and Ivan, too, and Ivan immediately climbed up the bars on the window underneath the light and grabbed a few insects. Bebe ran to get a basin of water and Ivan tossed the bugs in. Mama and I went back inside to eat dinner.

“Do you want to try them?” she asked halfway through the meal. “Sure”, I said honestly. I was curious.

I left my room to brush my teeth and my little sister came up to me with a bowl of fried things. I looked closer and saw that they were bugs, with most of the wings removed. True to my word, I picked the one with the fewest wings left on and ate it. It was pretty good: it just tasted like fried and crunchy. I contemplated the bug for a bit too long before eating it, though, so I don’t think I’ll be trying one again…

I got up at 5.30 A.M., not that much earlier than my normal time but it felt way earlier because the sun wasn’t up yet. Left the house a little after six to walk to the Acropol Hotel, where all the PCTs gathered to watch the election coverage. Soon after we got there it started to pour rain so the satellite went out and we missed CNN calling the election, and wound up learning of Obama’s victory when one of the people using the wireless refreshed and told us he had 273 votes. The real cheering happened when the television came back on in time for his acceptance speech.

Then to Mama Pierena’s for really realy good Italian food (I had lasagne…I’ve missed cheese so much!) and ice cream, then into town to pick up Anita’s shirt at the fundi. Half the people in town greeted us with “Barack Obama!” and we returned the salutation happily.

I’ve been smiling all day, but it doesn’t seem real. We missed the pre-election buildup, the incessant polls, the crazy media coverage. Can that really be all? Is it decided? Was that it?

(We hear of Obama kangas on Zanzibar and many of us really want them. Hopefully we’ll see them in Dar when we’re there in a couple weeks!)

It’s Sunday, our one day off. Mama takes me with her to the duka (small neighborhood shop) to buy food for lunch. She stops to chat with many people on the way and ascertains the whereabouts of Evitha, who has gone out to play. At the duka I chat with the man working there in Kiswinglish; he gives me a tiny ripe mango.

We walk home, carrying the basket of fruits and vegetables between us as the women here do. As we near the house we see Evitha; mama tells her to come get money to buy a sweet so she toddles towards us on her tiny legs. When she gets to us she takes the money but also grabs my hand and insists on coming back to the door of the house, where she and mama have the cutest conversation that consists of mama making a suggestion and Evitha saying “haya”, which means “okay”. Eventually she decides to leave and so she toddles off towards the duka to buy a sweet. We wave goodbye.

We were in town to pick things up from the tailor (this dress is more like what I wanted but still not great–I have two other kitenges, one which I like and one which I love, but I think I’ll wait on other dresses until I get to site and can suss out a good tailor to frequent for the next two years. It’s not really worth it to try to explain my finicky finishing preferences (zipper between lining and outside fabric rather than on the interior, reinforcing seams, various other things) until I’ve got someone I plan on sticking with. Talking to other PCTs, I’ve realized that I’m much pickier about clothing than they are–if I’m going to pay twice the amount the fabric costs for a custom-made dress, it had better be a good dress!

But anyway, after the stop at the tailor we split up to do various errands. When I got to the dala-dala stand I saw that Theresa was already on a dala-dala so I got on, too. There were no seats so I had to stand. The dala-dala turned out of the stand the wrong way but I figured they were just going to the roundabout to turn around, which they’ve done before. But after a bit Theresa started to look nervous and made eye contact and we had a brief conversation about how apparently this wasn’t our line. She said she’d asked if they passed a bar near us and they’d said yes, but either they lied or they take a pretty darn roundabout way.

We got off the first time they stopped to take on more passengers and crossed the street to wait for another dala-dala. We got to chatting with some women there and so when a “taxi” (car heading into town, basically) pulled up and offered us a dala-dala fare into town we accepted and the four of us crammed into the back seat. The “taxi” stopped at a taxi stand several blocks from the dala-dala stand but we didn’t complain and paid our money and left. We were sort of lost for a while but then we found our bearings (and ran into a couple PCVs, who told us we should stick around and hang out with them, but I at least had to get home) and made it to the dala-dala stand and took the correct dala-dala. At Theresa’s stop we ran into my mama and I squished past the half-dozen people standing to have a brief conversation with her and then had to squish back when she told me to go home rather than going with her. It was good times.

My father did visit; it was awesome; he was a great hit with my family and the other PCTs in my CBT group; sadly the bag of awesome stuff they packed was mislaid by the airline; hopefully it will be retrieved by my father at Heathrow and sent thisaway; things are good.

It’s the first thunderstorm of the year. “In America,” I tell mama, “when it rains like this it rains for maybe thirty minutes.” “Here,” she says, “maybe a day, maybe more.” I can totally wait for the rainy season, wait as long as necessary! This is the “short rains” season, which means it doesn’t rain all day, just most of it. It’s a pretty fierce storm, and my impressions of it are heightened by the percussive and amplified sound of the rain on our corrugated steel roof.

When it starts mama calls me over to point out the thunder; we exchange words for thunder and lightning (I have already forgotten the Swahili). The four women in the house stand in the doorway and watch the storm come in. Brightel, who’s 9, leans against me and I put my arm around her; Evitha, who’s 2, stands in front of us and clings to mama’s skirt. The rain rolls in, the thunder gets louder, lightning brighter. We stand and watch. “I’m scared of lightning,” mama says. “I love it,” I tell her, and she looks at me like I’m crazy. Maybe after a rainy season I’ll feel the same way.

We go back to preparing dinner and the power begins to flicker on and off and on and off. The kids run to turn off the refrigerators; mama reaches over and turns off the oven. The power surges are terrible for appliances–every time I charge my computer I’m afraid. Eventually the light goes out completely, just as we begin eating, but I’m prepared. In my lap I’ve been holding the flashlight Sam gave me before I left, and now I turn it on and hold it in my left hand, pointed at the ceiling, illuminating our meal. It’s a shame we’re eating the meal with spoons instead of with our hands (forks and knives are not even considered here), I think, because if it were a hands-only meal I could seriously practice only eating with my right hand, which I’m finding very difficult! Mama doesn’t mind but once I get to site it’s something I should really do…

(All dialogue translated from Swahili.)

I realized that I haven’t written much about the food here, which is a terrible oversight because the food is delicious. So I’ll give you a little outline of my average day, as exemplified by today because I can remember it, with a focus on food.

I woke up this morning at 6.45, making a conscious decision not to have a shower even though I heard water. Ate breakfast around 7.15: a chapati, a sweet cornbread muffin (what’s called “cake” here but really isn’t), a fried egg, a cup of tea (no milk this morning so I could drink it black instead of white), and the juice of 1.5 oranges. I poured water into my Nalgene, folded my books up into a kanga (I use a Japanese technique I learned from the Internet that gets lots of comments here) and headed off to school around 7.30, a little early.

Arrived at school around 7.45, the first one there. Chatted a little with a teacher in my halting Swahili as I walked in. Unpacked my books and waited for everyone else, who arrived around 8 when class starts.

Learned Swahili until chai at 10.15. Today was bread and butter (and tea, of course). Sometimes we have chapati, sometimes sweet potatoes, sometimes fried coconut pastries, sometimes sambusas (samosas).

Learned Swahili some more until lunch at 1. Lunch was rice, spicy pinto-type beans, spinach, and a banana. The food is always really good. After lunch we learned a little more Swahili and then broke for the day around 2. We all went up to the Teacher Training College to use the Internet there (Albert said we could use it whenever and we’ve been taking him up on his offer). Even there, the Internet is usually frustratingly slow. I was not able to upload any of my pictures.

Went to hang out at Bill’s house with Anita for a little bit: Bill’s mama had said she’d teach Anita to make sambusas and I wanted to tag along because they’re delicious, but they were about ready to start at the time I wanted to head home so I left and got home a little before 5. Did some reading, a little studying (in Swahili the words for “read” and “study” are the same, which makes me sound like a much better student than I am when someone asks me what I’ve been doing!) and some fooling around on the computer.

Mama got home around 6.45 and sprang into action to prepare dinner. My younger sister had already made rice and spinach (I love the spinach here–they saute onions and then cook the spinach down in the oil from the onions) and mama made a tomato-and-egg sauce (one of my favorite things), fried large sweet bananas, and unripe banana, tomato, and coconut sauce (another of my favorite things). We ate dinner around 8, which is a normal time for us (although early for Tanzanians). With the “standard” bananas we had as the fruit after dinner, I ate three different types of bananas in one meal and they all tasted different. The unripe ones are exactly like potatoes.

I’ve been helping in the kitchen more as I slowly gain competency. Yesterday I sliced half an onion over the pot before giving up and resorting to using a cutting board (which mama regards as weakness and tells me I won’t be able to find in the village, even though I keep pointing out that I can always just buy a piece of wood). Today I peeled the sweet bananas for frying without much trouble, which is more trouble than you might think (the unripe ones have to be peeled with a knife: the peel won’t come off at all on its own). I can shred a coconut, slowly. I’ve been able to cut tomatoes without a board since last week, although I do it gingerly and I know it entertains them how uncertain I am. I can’t wait to have my own kitchen and be able to cut things how I want! I will use the cutting board so much.

I think that one of the reasons I like the food here so much is that the ingredients are all so fresh. Everything we ate today was purchased either at the duka (neighborhood shop) or the market this afternoon, and that does a lot for the taste of food. I love going to the market and just walking around looking at the food, thinking about the possibilities. The fruits and vegetables are beautiful. (I also like looking at the kitchen utensils, thinking about my future kitchen! I’m very excited to cook here, even though it will probably be mostly rice and beans and spinach. But I’ll be really happy with that, if I can get the spices right!)

There is a cow outside in the road with opinions that it wants to share. Since it’s midafternoon and not late night or early morning, when dogs and roosters tend to share opinions, I’m inclined to be pretty receptive.

Not too much of note has happened lately. The Mikumi National Park trip was last weekend; lots of driving with 33 people in a minibus with approximately 28 seats, lots of hanging out (I stayed up until midnight, three hours past my bedtime!), an unexciting evening safari (crowded minibus: not the optimal venue) and a morning safari that I intentionally slept through. I had gotten very little sleep the previous two nights, so I decided it was best. When my family visits this summer I’ll make them come on a foot safari with me, which I’ve decided is probably the best way for me to feel an actual connection to the park, rather than feeling that I might just as well be watching the animals on television.

Swahili continues. We switched teachers after the Mikumi trip, midway through our training here. We have two weeks of Swahili left, a week of shadowing a current PCV at their site, a couple days in Dar, swearing in, and then we go to site on Thanksgiving! It’s coming right up!

Coming up even sooner (maybe) is my father’s visit! He’s in Uganda for work and will hopefully be able to visit while he’s in the area. I really hope he makes it–it would be great to see him!