Road trip to Iringa

Iringa is 300 miles inland, connected to Dar es Salaam by a long stretch of tarmac road called the Tanzanian-Zambian Highway, or the TanZam Highway for short. It stretches from Dar, through Iringa, then on to Zambia via Mbeya.



Iringa is one of a handful of towns along the highway that is Zambia's only overland connection to the coast. And when I say highway, I mean a narrow road with one lane going each way. This is The Route to get people and import goods from the coast to Zambia, and every place in between. So semi-trucks, giant buses, gasoline tankers, and trucks crammed with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, or cattle rattle along this road, competing with private cars, local mini-buses, military convoys, and the ubiquitous NGO-owned, donor-funded Toyota Landcruiser SUVs going 80 miles per hour.

No one wants to drive this road after dark--there are no street lights at all, and the road sometimes curves through mountain passes with steep drop offs, and other times directly through villages with everything from bicycles to goats to three-year-olds crossing the street at any time. Buses are determined to get their passengers to their far-flung destinations in one day, too, so they drive insanely fast, rumbling over villages' speed bumps and potholes as if they were nothing. The semi-trucks have their deadlines to get their goods to Zambia, but this often takes several days, and truck stop restaurants and cheap guesthouses dot the highway. The remains of trucks and buses that have rolled off the road in deadly accidents also dot the highway.

Speed limits are enforced in only two ways: speed bumps (called speed humps here, lol) and police stops. The police don't have cars to catch speeders, no. Police just get dropped off at random places on the highway, and they flag you down as you drive by. Even if you aren't speeding or passing illegally (absolutely everyone passes illegally, on blind curves and narrow bridges, up hills in mountains; they just try not to do it if they can see a police stop in the distance), the police almost always find an excuse to ask for a "fine." Either you were one kilometer over the limit, or one of your many registration/insurance/fire safety inspection/who-knows-what stickers are out of date, or you don't have the proper stamp on your registration. One policeman even claimed that we needed to paint our address on the body of the vehicle (it wasn't even our car).

The police, you see, are bored, or hungry, or greedy for a, ahem, "fine." We've found that speaking in very rapid English--it doesn't matter about what--does the trick to get us a clean pass. Once, Justin went off about Juma's school in Baltimore and what subjects he learns there. What matters is that the cop sees how many other cars are driving by without being stopped, and realizes he's wasting his time on the fast-talking mzungu, and waves you along. As one of our expat friends explained, they'll never ask for a "fine" in English, they don't really know how, so if you reveal your Swahili abilities, they've got you.

Last summer, we decided being stopped by the cops is inevitable. But on this most recent trip down to Iringa, we weren't stopped even one time. We felt very proud of this accomplishment, though I think it had everything to do with the fact that we were driving a rental car, with the company's well-known logo on the driver's side door, and nothing to do with us.

Before, we were renting a car from some friends, a monster of a car we had a love-hate relationship with. We called it The Green Machine; the owners called it the Avocadomobile.




We spent more money on repairs for it than we did in rent, and we got three flat tires within the first week. Once, we got two flat tires at the same time, high in the mountain pass where the road was the narrowest, the drop offs the steepest, and there was no cell phone reception. Thankfully, we had two spares. Another time, it broke down completely on the side of the road in town and Justin and Juma had to wait for two hours for help. That car scared me so much I never once drove it, all last summer. Justin, awesome husband that he is, did all the driving. As much as that car helped us build character, well, we're happy to be driving a more reliable car now. And, yes, I do drive this one, though re-learning how to drive a manual, and on the left side of the road no less, scared me. (And every time I drive it, it scares Justin.)

Despite all that crap, the drive through Tanzania is actually quite scenic. We pass through rolling hills with banana, coconut, and mango trees; a national park where you can see giraffes, elephants, baboons, zebras, and water buffalo while driving by; a huge forest of baobab trees; tiny villages; plantations of sisal; and beautiful mountains that remind me of Utah. There's one place about half-way through that serves Swiss food, oddly enough, and right next door is a snake park with pythons, cobras, vipers, and green mambas in cages. And as we get closer to Iringa, the air gets noticeably cooler, the road climbing up into the Southern Highlands, Tanzania's coldest regions, and our home.

the journey to Tanzania

One month ago today we arrived in Tanzania, exhausted and disheveled after 36 hours of travel. Although we have endured that trip many times--Justin has made the round-trip 10 times, I have 8 times, and Juma 6--this trip was different. First of all, Justin and I had spent the night and day before the departure sick as dogs. We had caught a ferocious stomach bug during the holiday festivities, and did nothing but lie in our hotel bed in Springville, Utah, wishing it would end and texting everyone I could think of to please come pick up Juma and feed him. Thankfully, it was only a 24 hour bug, and by the morning we were well enough to finish packing our 12 bags and drive the hour to the airport.

Which brings me to the second reason this trip was different--we were moving to Tanzania. Not just staying for 3 months or even 8 months like previous trips. That's why we had the 12 bags, 6 checked and 6 carry-on, the airline's limit for international flights. After all, we need a lot of stuff: sun block, mosquito repellant, tampons, decent socks, Legos, all our electronics--cameras, digital recorders, laptops, hard drives, a scanner--the kind of stuff we cannot get in-country.

The flights and layovers themselves were uneventful, as they almost always are. The most memorable thing about all the flights was the fact that there were no individual TV screens on the flight from Portland, Oregon to Amsterdam. What kind of airline doesn't provide individual screens an a 9-hour flight?!? Nevertheless, we survived Salt Lake City to Portland to Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro to Dar es Salaam.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's biggest city and commercial capital is hot, noisy, dirty, and cram-packed with cars. I never knew the Swahili word for traffic until we spent time in Dar last year. Fuleni. We're talking it takes 2 hours to get 2 miles sometimes. The city has 4 million people and there is not a single freeway. Cars are constantly competing with buses, pedestrians, bicycles, bajaj, donkey carts, you name it. Tourists have one reason to come to Dar: to get somewhere else--Zanzibar, safari, Mt. Kilimanjaro. While Dar has its advantages--good hotels, supermarkets with imported goods, a movie theater, a variety of restaurants, even a mall--the fuleni is impossible. I don't comprehend how people live there. Lucky for us, Dar is not where we need to be based for our projects; we only have to pass through from time to time. I don't even have any pictures from any of our trips in Dar; I haven't bothered to take pictures of anything there.

So within 2 days of arrival, just long enough for us to buy some rabies vaccines and get a rental car, we made the 300 mile overland journey to our new home: Iringa.

Iringa-Dar-Zanzibar

We finished up our short trip to Iringa, and took the looong car ride back to Dar es Salaam. We heard from various people that the car ride between Dar and Iringa is anywhere from 5 to 8 hours. It took us 10, door-to-door. Part of that was because we went into Morogoro town, partway between the two cities, to eat at a certain Indian restaurant that was recommended by someone on another project team. The food was fabulous, but they apparently had to prepare everything from scratch after we ordered it (actually, this is the norm for mid-priced restaurants in Tanzania; we should have known), so we were there for a while. The distance is about 500 kilometers, so we could make the trip in 5 hours...if there were absolutely no other cars or slow-moving transport trucks on the road, no construction, no pot-holed sections, no rain, and no stops. Which will never happen. Next time we go, which will be as soon as next week, we’ll call ahead to the Indian place to give our order, so it’ll be piping hot and ready when we reach the town.

Everyone kept telling how cold it is in Iringa, and giving their sympathies for having to endure such cold. To them, the heat of Dar is the default, the normal, so Iringa is not only cold, but too cold. But to me, the cool of Iringa is awesome, and Dar is far too hot and sweaty. The weather was downright pleasant in Iringa, and uncomfortable in Dar, even in the cool season that we’re in now.

We’re in a little bit of a waiting game on the project with some bureaucracy, so we decided to come to Zanzibar, our second home. It’s lovely to be back. We’ve already run across some people we know and visited a couple of our old haunts. We had a couple of meetings with people in the US today, so we conducted them via Skype from a rooftop restaurant while a great view of Stone Town and a lovely breeze, and then while having gelato at our favorite little Italian place just off the beach. Justin commented that it’s too bad we have to do work while we’re in Zanzibar; I said, “Yeah, but we’d be working anyway; might as well do it from Zanzibar!”

One our second day here in Zanzibar, we went to our oldest friend, Juma's, house. His wife gave birth to their first child in February. We'd been waiting almost 5 months to meet her. Since our Juma is named after big Juma, they named little Sarah after me!

meet Sarah Juma Hussein

karibu Iringa!

We are in Iringa town today, having made the long 8-hour drive down from Dar es Salaam, where we have been so far. We, along with two of our American colleagues, rented a car (rental cars come with drivers here) to come. We wanted to see Iringa for the first time--Justin and I had only stopped for 20 minutes at a truck stop outside of town once in 1999--and meet some of the officials we’d be working with. .

Iringa town is on a large hill in a region of low mountains (for someone who grew up in the Rockies, they are low; for Africa, they are certainly mountains). The site was originally chosen by the German colonists because it was on a high hill, both for defense and to stay away from mosquitoes. Everyone here claims there are no mosquitoes, and the hotel didn’t even originally provide a mosquito net for Juma, but when they say “there are no mosquitoes,” they mean “there are fewer mosquitoes here than elsewhere.” Which is still too many for us. We’ve done malaria three times in our family, and we’re not eager to do it again.

Anyway, the town is hilly, and has a nice view of surrounding valleys and mountains. It’s the cool season, and that actually means cool, not like in Zanzibar, where cool means it gets down to 75 at night. Here at night, it gets down to the 50s, which is cool enough to want a blanket, and a jacket in the evenings and mornings. I’ve had long-sleeves on all day, even outside, and while inside with no fan, and I haven’t sweated a bit! It’s astounding. The plants and trees are cooler-weather ones; they even grow peaches and pears in this region, and there is a noticeable lack of coconut palms.

The drive down here was long, but pleasant enough. Had the single-lane highway not been so full of slow-moving trucks the driver had to strategically pass up, we would have arrived a lot earlier. The road takes us right through Mikumi national park, and we spotted lots of animals standing very close to the road: several elephants, including a baby; zebras, giraffes, gazelles, baboons, and a monkey. I snapped a picture of the elephants with my phone, but without a zoom. Our coworkers got better pictures, I’ll try to get one from them. The road also takes us through all different topographies, from the coastal lowlands to the baobab tree forests, to sisal plantations, to areas with bright red dirt, to onion farms, to the mountains of the Rift Valley.

Here's the obligatory picture in front of a baobab tree. Their fruits are going into a yummy candy.

different

I can’t even remember what we did Friday and Saturday. I’m pretty sure there was another long meeting in a conference room, and some lazing around the hotel while trying to ignore the loud sounds of construction from the building sites on two sides of the hotel. Also some eating out at fancy restaurants (fancy for us in Tanzania, but pretty normal as far as our American choices would go) with our colleagues.

Again, the key theme on this trip is difference. The busy city, the interactions with more Americans and highly-educated Tanzanians in offices than regular Tanzanians in the neighborhoods, the rides in hired cars, the quality of accommodations.

In previous trips, especially before Juma was born but also after, we looked for the cheapest possible hotels. Not even hotels, but hostels and guesthouses. We paid 10 dollars a night, tops, per person, often as little as 2 or 3 dollars. They were generally just in the hustle and bustle of the city, and could be close to loud traffic. One was right above a city bus stop, with honking and yelling going all hours of the day and night. Those kinds of places have horribly uncomfortable, lumpy, thin mattresses, questionable sheets, dirty mosquito nets with holes in them, and shared bathrooms. Which could be quite scary at times, and usually had mosquito screens on the windows, but they were inevitably full of holes and being bitten in unreachable places on my back while showering was a given. There would be no question about not using the tap water to brush your teeth, because one look at that sink and faucet screamed, “Stay away!”

On this trip, though, we’ve had rather nice accommodations, will comfortable beds, nice mosquito nets, and pleasant gardens surrounding the hotel within a gated compound. The room we are in now is super spacious, with a separate nook as a dressing room, a desk in one corner, and a sectioned-off area that serves as both sitting room and Juma’s room. The staff are (overly?) attentive and nice, and there is even a trampoline on the grounds (the owners have small children). We have accidentally used the tap water on our toothbrushes, tricked into a false sense of security by its shiny cleanliness (Juma reports he has not--phew). We are quite pleased with it, and it’s someplace to be comfortable in, and not just put up with. My only complaint is that the supposed free wireless has been spotty or completely inaccessible. I’m writing these blog posts offline, to upload later...

Dear Jet lag,

I am jet lag.

Jet lag I am.

Do you like awake-at-1-am?


Jet lag I am, oh, jet lag I am,

I do not like that jet lag I am.


Would you like some in your bed?

Or would you like the couch instead?


No, I would not like it in my bed.

We do not have a couch instead.

I do not like you, jet lag I am.

I do not like awake-at-1-am.


Would you, could you, with a barking dog?

(Who wants to be sleeping like a log?)


No, I would not, could not with a barking doggy,

His bark is making me quite groggy,

I do not like you, jet lag I am.

I do not like awake-at-1-am.



Would you like to hear a goat,

A hellish bleating from its throat?

Try it, try it, and you may!

Try it, and you may, I say!




I do not like the bleating goat,

And that, jet lag, is my last vote!

I do not like you, jet lag I am!

I do not like awake-at-1-am!

day 2. is it only day 2?

After a fairly good night's sleep our first night here, we got up bright and early for an 8:30 meeting. We don't have child care arrangements for Juma yet, so we had to bring him along to two meetings yesterday and one today. At the first meeting yesterday, we had to be on the guest list and go through crazy security. Juma wasn't on the guest list, so that caused a hullabaloo, but we eventually got in. We hooked up Juma with a book to read, and he sat in the corner while we did our thing.

This trip it totally different from any of our previous trips. Not only are we on the mainland instead of the islands, but we are working top-down with lots of organizations and government officials instead of at the grassroots, talking to villagers and hanging out at local shops. We're going from hotel to taxi to air-conditioned conference room to taxi to another air-conditioned conference room. We ate at restaurants that cost just as much as they do in the US. We have an actual budget with real money. We have incomes and job titles, and I handed out more business cards in the past two days than I ever have in total.

It's like we're grownups or something.

As we waited for a taxi today after a meeting, Juma put on an impromptu concert for our colleagues (from my department at school).

yesterday

there must have been something in the air, because

1) I wore mismatched earrings.

2) I locked myself in the computer lab at Juma's school while I was taking out the school's recycling. After hours, in the dark. I had keys, but they wouldn't work to get me out. (Luckily, someone happened to be in the office, and I had the school's phone number in my phone already. And her key worked.)

3) I turned the wrong way down a one-way street. (Luckily, I didn't cause an accident, though I did get honked at.)

Good thing yesterday is over.

frumpy

This morning I was feeling stressed from school and just felt like just wearing something comfortable, so I put on a hoodie. I walked into Juma's room to say good morning to him. I popped my head in, but he asked me to come in all the way.

Juma: Why are you wearing that?
Sarah: Because I felt like it.
Juma: It looks too big.
Sarah: That's because it is. Does it look bad?
Juma: Yeah, kinda.

And because I'm visiting Juma's class today to talk about our pioneer ancestors, I changed into something he wouldn't be embarrassed by.

We've hit a new stage: Embarrassed by Parents.

Ugh.

t-minus

This semester of commuting has been crazy and hard, but we've managed it. Justin has proven his amazing juggling skills, keeping up with a full-time job, TAing, and single-parenting. Juma has been resilient and supportive and a great all-round kid.

I have to say goodbye to Justin and Juma only two more times! Then in a whirlwind week, we celebrate the holidays, I take my finals, Juma has his last day at his school, then we all move our stuff down to Baltimore, stuff it in storage, and fly off to Tanzania.

What can I say? My family is the greatest.

another week down, 4 days to go

Juma enjoyed his summer camp this week learning about sea coast ecology and preservation ("Did you know zooplankton create oxygen?").

But the week was marred by illness. Juma started out the week with a sore throat and fatigue, and I finished off the week with strep throat, fatigue, and grumpiness. I'm still recovering, but I actually had the energy tonight to actually cook dinner. Well, to boil some pasta.

In better news, Justin's coming home on Thursday! We couldn't be more excited about his return. It's been a long, tough summer without him, and now we can say we survived it. Well, just four more days.

Four days. We can do it.

Sarah's version of Justin's trip & his contact info

Justin arrived in Tanzania safe and sound, though exhausted. He's in the main city, Dar-es-Salaam, until tomorrow, when he'll fly to Pemba (one of the islands that makes up Zanzibar), the island where he'll be living. This is the same island we lived on in 2006 and 2008. While there, he'll be extremely busy conducting research for his dissertation, on the 1960's in Pemba.

When we (those of use who didn't live through them) think of the 1960's, we think Vietnam, hippies, and major changes in American social and political life. The 1960's in Africa also saw very rapid and dramatic changes--this is the decade when most of the African colonies became independent nations. Some had revolutions and coups. Zanzibar gained independence from the British in December 1963, and then the political party that had lost the elections enacted a revolution a month later. This revolution has books and manuscripts about it.

What hasn't been written is what happened on Pemba island. Pembans liked the ruling party that the British had left in power. They were not supportive of the revolution. Pemba has its own unique story, untold and unnoticed, because it's been cut off from tourist and researchers until rather recently. Scholars have assumed it was the same as the other island. But it wasn't.

Justin's seeking to tell that history. Pretty cool, eh?

Oh, and Justin can be reached by email justin dot beckham at gmail dot com but don't expect his internet access to be very reliable or frequent. Also, he has a cell phone:

011 255 715 789 450

011 is to get out of the US, 255 is the country code. If you call, I recommend using an international calling card (10-20 cents a minute) or a service like Skype (28 cents a minute). Calling from my regular old phone service would cost me $2.57 a minute!

If you're up for sending him a letter, you can send something through our friend at

Justin Beckham
c/o Mohamed Saidi
PO Box 193
Chake Chake, Pemba
Zanzibar, Tanzania

the move and the job

Okay. In between packing boxes, analyzing HIV statistics, playing Stars Wars Monopoly, cooking dinner, spontaneous slow dances in the living room, making snow forts, basketball practice, and addictive video games, I've found a minute to sit down and write about what's up with the Beckhams.

Well, Justin got a new job. But not just any new job. This one allows him to still be a student, an involved daddy, and be home most of the time. And the big bonus: it comes with an apartment. Much bigger than the one we have now. Pretty odd job, eh?

His job title is--get this--sexton. Since most people don't know what the he-- a sexton is, I usually tell people he's a "facilities manager" or "caretaker." A sexton, though, is traditionally someone who takes care of a church or synagogue building, and once upon a time, they dug graves, too. But luckily, Justin doesn't have to do that.

He does take care of a building, though, that belongs to a church. And our new apartment is on the third floor of that building, called a parish house. The Parish House is where they have their church offices, Sunday school classes, soup kitchen, reception hall, board meetings, etc. The Meeting House is the actual chapel where they have Sunday services. The church also regularly rents out both buildings for other uses--rallies, weddings, receptions, small congregations' church services, dance troupes, World AIDS Day services, etc, etc.

So Justin's job is to coordinate and contract all those extra functions in the Parish House. Which is pretty sweet considering we will live in the building, so he just has to run downstairs to let people in, and can come back up and do his normal stuff--read 10 books a day, teach a couple classes, have light-saber fights with Juma, give me massages, all that good stuff. There's more to the job than that, of course, but I won't bog you down in the details. (And we all know what blogging about your job can get you.)

Another bonus is that the church itself is rich in history. It's the oldest church in New Haven; it was founded the same time New Haven was, in 1638, back when New Haven colony had a theocracy. The Meeting house is in the center of town, on the town "Green," and was built over an existing graveyard, so there's a preserved crypt under the building.



We haven't moved in yet, though, since they are fixing things up after the last family (good friends of ours) moved out. Plus, Justin takes his oral qualifying exams this next Thursday. This is a huge deal and Justin's been working very hard toward this, reading like mad, for the past few months. He has two full bookshelves of books he has to not just read, but know, and be able to debate about.

Once he's done with the exam, he'll be what PhD students call ABD, "All but dissertation." After that, he'll TA a class this semester, and then he gets to research and write a book. Gee, that's all. Actually, that'll take at least a couple more years.

In the meantime, I start the last semester of my master's degree on Monday. Hooray!

Oh, and Juma's working on addition and subtraction, reading "chapter books," busting out with Latin names of prehistoric animals, dribbling a basketball, and making a career out of hammering ice in the courtyard. There are four other first-graders in our apartment complex, so he's never short on playmates. Which will change when we move downtown and live right by the library, the courthouse, and a preschool. We're looking forward to being so close to the library and other downtown amenities--restaurants, campus, bank, etc. But the lack of neighbors will be strange. We might actually have to--gasp!--try to be social and invite people over.

Update: Oh, and another huge bonus at the apartment. Dishwasher. Wash and dryer.

Let me repeat.

Dish. Wash. Er.

Washer. And. Dryer.

i couldn't let the week go out...

...without expressing my joy at the historic election season we just witnessed.

I know I have many different political opinions with many of my readers, and I do not want to get into a political discussion here on the blog. I keep this blog so family and friends can keep up, not to express my political opinions. However, regardless of what one thinks of president-elect Obama and his platforms, I can't let this election season slip by without acknowledging it.

The United States has, for the first time, elected an African-American president, and I am proud that we finally advanced enough beyond our ugly history with regards to race-relations to be able make such a historic stride.

I am glad Juma gets to grow up in an America where the color of one's skin means much, much less than it did in previous generations. I will always remember where I was when I found out Obama won, and how Juma gave me a gigantic hug when he found out. There are still miles to go (I see this every day in school when I study health disparities, for example), but this is a huge step.

the case of the missing car

Last night, Justin tied on his shoes, packed up his sports bag, and headed out to play basketball with some friends. I didn't expect him back for a couple hours. But a couple minutes later, he walked back in...

"Sarah," he asked, "Did you move the car?"

Realizing the implications of that question (either we are really, really forgetful about where we park, or the crime rate in this town finally got to us personally), and was reluctant to answer, "No...Did you?"

"We parked it right outside, right?" he continued.

"Yes." But a case of a whole car gone missing takes some time to settle in, and my brain wasn't ready to accept the suspected truth. "And you put the club on it last night, right?"

"Yes."

We started to go through all the possibilities. Housing sometimes tows cars for not having the right sticker, but we just put ours on a few days ago...We weren't parked illegally or in the way of snowplows (no snow yet!), so they wouldn't've towed it for that...Could it be?...Stolen?

Now, we don't use our car that often. We use our feet, bikes, and buses to get around town. But for a weekend away, or to shop for non-grocery items (we get our groceries delivered), it is pretty much essential. Still, to have the car stolen--UGH. It's a violation of our right to property.

And we like that car. It's taken us on two cross-country trips; it has a ever-so cool rack recently installed on the top; and when we call it a grandma car, we mean it affectionately: It actually was owned by Justin's grandma.

Just look at our trusty, faithful, cool car, here serving us well in Lousiana:




Naughty words ran through my head.

After standing outside staring at the parking lot, which didn't magically bring back our car, we went inside to call the cops.

The cops informed us that, thankfully, our car had not been stolen, it was just impounded after all. By the tax department. Apparently, our property tax statement had gone to our old address, and we never got it...And since it was due two and a half months ago, the city saw fit to impound it. ("Failure to receive a notice is not a reason to fail to pay taxes.")

And get this--the tax department stays open until 10pm. What government office stays open until 10pm? The kind that tows your cars, I guess. So Justin (my hero) rode his bike downtown, paid the taxes and overdue fee, then rode to the car lot and got the car back for another hefty fee. Sheesh.

But at least we have our car again.

rain in Pemba

It’s not the rainy season, but it rains nearly every day anyway. I’ve never been here during the long rainy season and I’m not sure I want to, with the heavy water running muddy and murky and toxic down the roads and ditches. Even in the cool, dry season that is now the water in the stream in the bottom of the valley emits a putrid smell and unearthly bluish glow and the houses nearest it are on the cheapest plots of land. The rain when it comes in this cool, dry season is quick and loud and weighty, pouring on the tin roof with a glorious sound that muffles conversation and is surprising every time. In Stone Town’s narrow stone streets, these rains create instant rivers of the walkways, with side streams feeding in from the alleys into the larger openings.

Boys playing soccer scatter to the higher ground of baraza and porch steps, under the awnings, to wait it out, because they never last long, these rains. Juma was caught on the wrong side of the street-turned-river on one of his first days in Stone Town when he was three, stuck crying under a tin awning as the rain made a noise too loud for his little heart to handle, too far away from his mama, and he never quite forgave the rain and the tin roofs for that. A teenage boy looked and understood his desperation, hefted him up and raced him across the little river to me, both of them soaked by the falling water, and the teenager’s jeans soaked up to his knees from the street water.

continued musings

This continues from the previous two posts:

This is when the street vendors are out, selling their loafs of bread, and their fried octopus for 100 shillings a piece and the customers stab the white meat with toothpicks while dropping the coins on the table all in one motion and then pop the bits, suction cups and all, in their mouths. It’s men out at this hour, the women home with the kids, making the last minute preparations for the light evening meal. It’s men who are out, chatting and buying and lingering near the kerosene lamps fashioned from old cans of bug killer and thin rope for the wick. I am uncomfortable going out at that hour to buy the bread and chipsi mayai that is our dinner almost every night. The only other women out are a few sellers of chapati and maandazi and their reputations are questioned because of it. Perhaps they are widows or divorcees or their husbands are drunks or military and stationed far away and send all their money to their mistresses instead of home, and perhaps these women sell sex on the side and perhaps they don’t but it doesn’t matter because every one believes they do anyway. They are desperate for the money, desperate enough that the gossip doesn’t matter because their children’s bellies are empty and mothers can do anything to fill their children’s bellies. If I was a Pemban, it would be me with the questionable reputation, and my husband too, because why would he send his wife out among all those men to buy the food, when he should do that himself, while I stay protected in the house. But since I am not Pemban, since I will never be Pemban, no matter how hard I try to fix my accent and how well I tie my head wrap, I can go out to buy the evening bread and people know it’s not because I do not have a husband to do that but because I am foreign and foreigners have their own customs, and they do things in their own way, not uswahilini, the Swahili way.

But it took me a long time to learn to accept that, and I used to be always angsty about doing things just right and by local custom and habits, but that’s okay now, because I’ve seen that some customs are just patterns that mean not much and others are even hurtful and those are okay to break even if it makes people a little uncomfortable.

more musings in Pemba

This follows from my previous post:

It helped, too, that I came to Pemba after three trips in Unguja. In Unguja, I made most of the mistakes, the cultural faux pas that broke the norms that are so normal that people don’t even realize I broke them, just that they are uncomfortable somehow. Through daily interaction and screwing up and offending and people mercifully pointing things out to my blind American self, I picked up little by little the behavior that helped people feel like I was a little less out of place, a little more than a tourist, a little more at home. The endless greetings; the modest and clean, pressed clothes; the slow walk down the street; the passing people so our right sides are closest. And the timing of the day: the early hour that begins the day, the work and chores--sweeping, laundry, shopping--in the morning, the late, big lunch in the early afternoon; then the afternoon shower and change of clothes, and the late afternoon visiting. When people’s work and chores are done, and the women sit around the barazas near their houses and gossip and maybe embroider or plait mats or each others’ hair, and the men head out to favorite hang-outs, the younger ones to play soccer, the older ones to sit on public baraza and discuss social issues. Or to just sit and be there, with each other. Calling out greetings to others who pass by, always ending in karibu, welcome, always ending with karibu.

If you walk anywhere at those early evening hours, from four or five to well past dark, you best be prepared to take your time. This is the social hour, where neighbors meet and talk and keep up their friendships. Greeting everyone you pass is essential; missing anyone is rude, even if it was only because it was so dark you couldn’t notice them sitting there, 15 feet away at the neighboring baraza. Call out shikamoo to the old ones, and hujambo to the middle-aged ones, and mambo to the young ones, chei chei to the toddlers.

to be continued...

thoughts in Pemba

We are back and home safe. The day after arriving in the US, we boarded our 6th plane in 4 days and flew to Seattle for a family reunion. Yesterday we got back from that and have been catching up on errands, laundry, and sleep since then.

Over the next couple weeks, I'll post more about our Pemba trip, along with pictures. For now, here is a bit I wrote while in Pemba when my muse hit me. (I had just read two Cormac McCarthy books, so his style influenced me a little. Bear with me.)

Legs stretched out in front of me, laptop on my thighs, I sit on the king size bed with the light green fitted sheet we brought from America, ‘cause there are no fitted sheets here, and this is the first trip we’ve been smart enough to just bring one with us, but the damn sheet is only queen size so it always popping off at the corners. Which makes it not much better than a flat sheet folded under the mattress, like how they do it here, but at least the one we brought for Juma’s bed fits his mattress. There are three pillows on our bed, but only two of us, but that’s okay. And one floral-print flat sheet, which I use as a blanket, because it never gets cold enough here to need more than a sheet. And sometimes, when the electricity is out and so there’s no ceiling fan, it’s too hot for even that, and I sleep like Justin does, as naked as possible, trying to have no part of my body touch any other part lest my body be covered in a sticky, sickly sweat all night. But that happens anyway, even with the fan on, and I am always ready for a shower first thing in the morning, even if I took one just before bed. And the showers are always cold, and the chill feels good in this heat. It feels good to be cold for at least a few minutes twice a day.

The laptop plays random songs from our giant collection of modern music. Scar Tissue is on now. I never brought music with me before. It was somehow not rugged enough, to go to Africa and bring all my American music and discman and mp3 players and gig after gig of music on our hard drive. Like listening to something familiar, instead of the local music, would take away from my experience, make it less African. I’d never make it to the status of “gone native” if I brought U2 and The Killers and Red Hot Chili Peppers with me. I was like that, before. Tried as hard as possible to get into the culture, and leave our Americanness behind. Then about the time when people started to joke with me that we were really Pemban now--I dressed right, I talked right, I acted right--I started to relax on my impossible previous standard. I am American and always will be, no matter how I dress and talk and act. That buibui covers my body, but it never covers the fact that I am white. And my accent will give me away, every time. Every damn time. Even on the phone.

It’s not that I’ve given up trying. I still pay attention to cultural cues and greet right and dress right and know when to give which gift of which size and when to take off my shoes and when to extend my hand and when to keep it by my side and when to eat the food offered and how much of it and what the best time of day is to go visiting. I just gave up trying to force myself into the impossible--to become Zanzibari. I will always be foreigner to them; I have accepted that. And with that acceptance that came finally after three painful-but-enjoyable trips, I loved it all the more here.


More later...

stressed

Tomorrow is the big day, both for us--we're driving to San Francisco then flying to LA then Chicago then London then Dar-es-Salaam then Pemba--and for Justin's mom Vicki--she gets her pathology report from the specialist. Hopefully, she'll have those results before we actually get on the first airplane, so we can hear about it before our marathon trip.

It's been pretty stressful here, what with trying to pack



and get all our medications and immunizations, move out of our rooms that have been home for the past 10 months, as well spend as much time as possible with Vicki.



Poor Juma has been a little neglected, but he doesn't feel it much because when we are so busy, he gets to watch extra Jimmy Neutron and The Backyardigans. We also give him lots of extra hugs.



We've also invited Justin's brother's family over a lot, to spend time with them too, before we go. Which means extra cooking, but that's cool, because Justin and I have discovered we love cooking together. (The dishes, not so much.)

Today's the day to go shopping for all the last minute things, like cheap jewelry for gifts; packets of oatmeal for Juma's breakfasts; ziplock bags for all sorts of purposes; earplugs to block out the 4:30am calls to prayer from the next-door mosque; and photo printer ink so we can give friends copies of the photos we take (there is no place to develop digital photos in Pemba, and no one owns a camera).

The next blog post will likely be from Pemba!