Pole sana that I haven’t updated in over two weeks! Life got a little hectic there the last two weeks while I was still in Tanzania. We had a family burial to attend, a school celebration to plan and host, school supplies to buy for the next school year starting in January, and my apartment to pack up. I left a lot of things there with my friends and still managed to bring home two completely full suitcases. I don’t know how that is possible, but it’s true.
If you’ve never been on a long international flight with a long layover in a foreign country, let me tell you how it goes. I can’t afford to fly anything except economy (although there was one time that I was able to upgrade to business class for only $1000, and somehow, I managed to do it. I recommend it.), and some airlines are simply better than others at it. I flew American this time…they are not my favorite even flying domestically, but I was in a pinch. However, because they are not known for their international flights, and the plane was landing in Philly which is not a major hub, the flight was nowhere near full. This meant I got an entire row of seats to myself!! There are some airlines where you can buy the seats next to you or the entire row for about $100 (Ethiopian Air is one of them), and I definitely recommend that. I was able to stretch across the row and get some sleep for once. Plus you don’t have to worry about climbing over anyone (or them climbing over you) to get to the bathroom.
The airport I normally fly into for a layover both ways (coming and going) is in Doha, Qatar. If you have never been to this airport, why not?? It is simply amazing. There is an “orchard” in the terminal C that you can walk through where you think you are outside. They even have “tents” set up where you can rest if you are lucky enough to find an empty one. There are beautiful sculptures all over the place. And the shopping/stores are amazing! I can’t afford anything myself, but I love to look at all of them. Sometimes I treat myself to high tea at Harrod’s, but mostly I stick to cheaper stuff. You can also take tours through Doha at all hours of the day or night. My friend did that last summer and really enjoyed it. I tried to get one scheduled for this most recent trip, but I couldn’t get it to go through for some reason, so I always figure there is a reason why things are not working out and don’t stress too much about it. Instead, I had another “Instant Glow” facial and soaked in the jacuzzi at the hotel spa. Again, I highly recommend this! I love being able to take a shower halfway through my trip and not feel so “icky” upon arrival. I also bring a change of clothes in my carryon for this purpose.
Anyway, I am back in America for the holidays and then I will stay on for a few months while I start my master’s degree and do some online work that I am starting. I want to make sure I have a handle on things, and a good Wi-Fi connection, before I head back over. Plus, I am hoping my registration of the school comes through which will allow me more visa options in the future and not having to leave every ninety days. Enjoy these pictures of the Doha airport!
Today I want to talk about how fortunate I have been to see so many amazing sights here in Tanzania! It is such a beautiful country, and I feel like I have just scratched the surface of all the national parks here. Last week I was really blessed to visit a lake here in Arusha. I didn’t even know about this lake, and it’s literally thirty minutes from where I live. We went in the late afternoon and had a guide row us around the lake, telling us about the different birds and animals there. If you go in the late afternoon, the sun is setting across the water which is reason enough, but the birds are also coming home to nest for the evening. We saw different types of kingfishers, herons, weavers (the male builds a nest for the female during mating season, and she picks which one she likes), and even two fish eagles! Truly an incredible experience. Also in Arusha is the Arusha National Park. A few years ago, I took the staff there on an outing. One of the main things I love about this park is that you can see both Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru at the same time here! It’s really cool! The other thing I loved was seeing Colobus monkeys for the first time there. These are black and white monkeys who don’t have thumbs, so they jump from branch to branch or tree to tree.
One of my favorite parks to visit is Tarangire National Park which is located in Manyara region southwest of Arusha. It is close enough to where we live that you can get up early and make a day trip out of it and be home in time for dinner. This is the park where we take our students every year for a little field trip, and it rarely disappoints! You can see all kinds of animals here especially herds of zebra and wildebeest. Some other animals that we have seen are giraffes, elephant herds, baboons, lots of monkeys who hang out at the local feeding areas and steal your food, mongooses, various antelope/deer-like creatures (eland, water buck, impala, etc.), lots of different bird species, LIONS, and even a cheetah home from the hunt this last visit! We normally see at least five to seven lions although my first trip ten years ago, I saw a male with two females hanging around. The different watering holes are fun to watch because you can see all different kinds of animals in one place. We saw giraffes, elephants, baboons, zebra, and wildebeest all at one time at one hole. The kids always have an amazing time as does the staff.
One year I was able to visit Ngorongoro Crater which is the world’s largest volcanic caldera and is located in part of the famous Rift Valley. To get into the crater, you have to drive up and up the mountainside (hoping to see a gorilla or two) and then down into the crater. Inside the crater, you can find all five of the “Big Five” here: lions, leopards, elephants, Cape buffalo, and rhinos! I have seen all five, but I really don’t consider the rhino because we saw him, but he was so far away that I don’t really consider it a true sighting. That day we saw so many animals, but the coolest thing that happened to us was two male lions came and LAID DOWN RIGHT NEXT TO OUR VEHICLE to take a nap! My friend, Langoi, and his son (my godson), Loy, came with me that day. Loy was hanging out of the top and I was terrified that he was going to be a snack for these lions! But, man! What a cool experience! Another cool experience was eating lunch at the “HIppo Pool” and watching the hippos bob up and down in the water. On that trip, I was staying at a camp near Lake Manyara, and the hippos would come “visit” me every night. They would eat outside of my tent, and they are very loud eaters! We also had a wildebeest/zebra stampede through the middle of camp one night. You could hear the animals racing up and down and then would hear the cries of the Maasai guards following them to steer them out of the camp.
The best park by far is the Serengeti National Park. I think when people think of a safari in Africa, they think of the Serengeti and the song from Toto, “Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti…” To get here, you drive through Ngorongoro (not the crater itself), past Olduvai Gorge which is considered the “Cradle of Civilization” and contain the “Footprints of Man” (which I have also seen on a different trip to Loliondo and Lake Natron near Mt. Lengai), and on into Serengeti. You can see ALL of the animals there (although I STILL haven’t seen a rhino!). I spent three days there, and it was the perfect amount of time. On the first evening as we were about to turn onto the road leading to my camp, we came across two female lionesses with a fresh kill (wildebeest or water buck, I can’t remember which). They and two male lions ate on that kill the entire three days I was there. You could see vultures flying overhead and hyenas trying to get the courage to confront the lions and steal some meat in the distance. It was truly the “Circle of Life”. I went in December which is one of the best times to see the zebra/wildebeest migration through the Serengeti.
My last destination is hands-down my favorite place in the world: Zanzibar! I have visited twice now, and I would go again and again because, at heart, I am a beach girl. This is one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen with white, sandy beaches and turquoise waters that come right up to your apartment during high tide and flow way off in the distance during low tide. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else. Overall, I have only spent three full days on two separate trips there, but I managed to pack a lot into those days. I have walked through Stone Town and the Darajani Market where you can visit all of the shops in different alleyways with spices and fresh produce. I have taken pictures of the beautiful “Doors of Zanzibar”. I’ve seen the Freddie Mercury museum and the Old Fort. I have been to Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park and seen the red colobus monkeys and the caves formed from the ocean coming right up to the cliffs. I have watched the sun set twice from Nungwi Beach and the kitesurfers at Paje Beach. I have eaten at The Rock Restaurant which is built, literally, on a rock in the middle of the ocean. At low tide, you can walk there, but at high tide, you have to take a boat. I still need to visit both Prison Island to see the tortoises and Mnemba Island to see the beautiful water, so I guess I will have to go back soon!
I hope you enjoyed my tour of Tanzania! As I was looking back over the thousands of pictures that I have taken through the years, I reflected on just how blessed I am that God has allowed me to spend this time in a place I love at this season of my life. The animals are just the “icing on the cake”!
This past weekend. was a really nice weekend. My “twin”, Benjamin, came to visit me. I have been here since September, and this is the first chance we’ve had to get together. Clearly, we aren’t “twins”, ha ha ha, but we call each other that because we were both born in the same year (although neither of us look our actual age *insert winky face emoji*). He lives in Arusha, so I have been a little concerned about him and his family as that is where much of the civil unrest has been located. But he said they were all fine although he is concerned about sending his boys back to college and them not being home for the upcoming Independence Day next month. Speaking of which, that was the day I was scheduled to fly home. Thank goodness Langoi mentioned it to me recently, or I may not have been able to change my flight in time. I moved up my departure date by a day and an half to ensure that I get out before the holiday. I just have a feeling that there may be more pockets of unrest that day. So that was my Saturday, hosting my friend/twin at my little apartment.
On Sunday, I was supposed to go to Emmanuel’s church (which is where my school is located also), but my driver, Baraka, got delayed and we weren’t able to make it. I may have mentioned that it takes a good forty-five minutes to get from my location to the school/church, so it just isn’t feasible for me to go every day of the week even if I drove myself. Speaking of which, I have driven (never alone) here, but it is something I am hesitant to do without a native speaker with me as I still do not speak Swahili very well (or at all…). I am working on learning it, but my brain just has a difficult time wrapping around the grammar aspect of it. Anyway, I went to AIM Mall, the Tanzanian version of a mall which is very similar to the American version. There is a supermarket there, European-style, a furniture store, a pharmacy (where I was able to buy some more contact solution, but you can get all kinds of things there), a “beauty” store…like perfumes and special body washes, a spa, a “department store” that has everything from school supplies to household items, a couple of toy stores that I took a look at to see if they had stuff I might want for the school, a children’s clothing store, a safari goods store, an athletic store (their version of Dick’s Sporting Goods), a kitchenware store, two different spas, and a variety or restaurants: coffee shop, Mexican, pizza, Chinese, brewery (Twiga Beer!), and a children’s playland (sort of like one of those places where the kids go through tubes and slides as if they are hamsters. That kind of place.). Then in the courtyard outside, there is a place for the kids to rent a toy car and drive it up and down the courtyard while their parents spend money or drink a beverage and relax. So you can see, it is very similar to an American mall. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was focused on getting the contact solution and seeing what kinds of items the toy stores had that might be useful for the school.
After the mall, I went to a friend’s house who lives in Arusha. He owns a tourism company where he takes people, re: mzungus/white people, on safari or helps them book safaris. He also has started another safari business which is once a month setting up a trip for Tanzanian citizens to go on safari for the day for a lesser fee than us mzungus pay. He has started these “Sunday Special’s” where he invites guests over and cooks for them. Well, his son and nephew are actually planning to do this to make a little extra money, so they invited me over to try the idea out and get feedback. He has a lovely backyard, full of banana trees (again, I wish I had taken more pictures) and a great seating area/grill area that he is planning to expand. The food was delicious; chicken stew, grilled beef and bananas, and fresh tomato/carrot/cucumber salad. It is a peaceful oasis right in the middle of a big city. I was able to walk around a little bit with him and see where some of the “unrest” occurred. There are burned out cars and buildings very close to his house. He said he put water hoses on the four corners of the property to keep the fires at bay. But he fully believes this government is going to change the constitution for the better, so we will wait and see if that happens. One final “hustle” that he has is a podcast where he talks about tourism and the different national parks available to tourists called Utalii Podcast. I was interviewed for it because he and I actually met at Tarangire National Park last summer when I had my students and staff there. We are kind of hard to ignore when we take the kids because there are thirty little ones running around in matching track suits…it’s kind of adorable.
So that was my weekend. It wasn’t a “normal” weekend by any means, but then, I’m not really sure what a “normal” weekend is supposed to look like. Sometimes I go out to eat here just like I would back home, and sometimes I just stay in and cook…just like I would back home. On Monday I went to visit the babies, and they are really progressing on their “project” of singing “Bwana Shamba Had a Farm”. I think we really might be able to sing it for our end of the year celebration which is coming up rapidly. I can’t believe our fifth school year has almost come to a close! Our government registration is still in the works, so things are really progressing along nicely. We recently received a very generous donation which will allow us to finish some projects that had to be shelved due to lack of funding, do some beautification projects for the property, and get some specialized curriculum supplies (and more playground equipment!) for the school. God continues to bless us and bless my time here in my chosen second home.
This week I really wasn’t sure what I was going to write about. I have been confined mostly to this apartment complex for most of the past two weeks due to the local “situation” and just logistics. While I am here, I am relying on the kindness of friends to get me from Point A to Point B on a daily basis, and sometimes, it just isn’t possible for them to do that, Things happen, meetings pop up, cars need repair, cows need water, white people shouldn’t be out and about…whatever the situation may be, I have just laid low for a couple of weeks now. So, during that time, I have tried to learn more Swahili which, learning the words isn’t so difficult for me, it’s the grammar. Again, this is so ironic as I am an ENGLISH teacher!! I TEACH grammar! I have long felt, however, that you either ARE a language person or you AREN’T. I really wish I was. I wish that other languages came more easily to me, but they just don’t. I understand more Spanish than I can speak (thank you college Spanish). Likewise, I understand more Swahili than I can speak. I can say a lot of basic words, but I definitely cannot carry on a conversation with anyone other than a kind friend who is willing to let me practice on them.
Another thing I’ve been doing is cooking and eating healthily. I have also tried to exercise more than I do at home. (IYKYK) Although I played three sports in high school and really love sports, I don’t like to exercise. I’m getting better at it though. And I would encourage all of you “of a certain age” to try to start doing something in the exercise realm to keep your body strong and mobile. I love yoga or Pilates, so I do a little of that. I really enjoy walking (not jogging or running), so I try to do that. I have incorporated other stretching activities into my routine to try and combat ageing (I know, vanity is a real thing, but it’s also healthy to stretch, ha ha). One supper dish that I have somewhat mastered over here is…spaghetti! Crazy, right? They sell pasta noodles at the store, so I picked some up the first weekend I was here. I make my own sauce using fresh tomatoes and canned, whole tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, fresh garlic and onions, oregano (dried), garlic powder, salt and pepper. I may never buy a jarred sauce again as it is delicious and easy to do! I have also mastered the art of avocado toast or just the avocado mixture to put on top of it. I just use the fresh avocado, a little garlic powder, a VERY SMALL amount of chili powder (it is WAYYYY more potent than the stuff we get in the states), and a small amount of turmeric powder. (You could also throw in fresh garlic and onions if you like; I am usually hungry, so I don’t bother too often with that.) And then I mash it up and spread it on the toast or just eat it alone without bread!
Finally, one thing I try to do every day is get outside and sit on the rooftop deck. Right now, I am watching the livestock in the nearby field. Piki-piki’s go by every so often (motorbikes that transport people and goods). The neighborhood kids come by after school. They will often stop at the gate and call up to me in order to practice their English. It’s really cute. It’s very peaceful and calm up here. There is usually a nice breeze, and when you aren’t in the direct sunlight, it is very pleasant. I face west usually because that is the direction my “chosen” chair faces, and I look at the neighborhood houses with their colorful roofs. Off in the distance are some beautiful houses set on the hillside. And behind me is Mount Meru, my favorite mountain. I love to take pictures of it during different times of the day to watch how the clouds change. Right now, the sky is very blue and full of puffy clouds which have completely covered the top of Meru. I can’t see it at all, but I know it is there. Meru reminds me of God’s promises: always there through each situation you face. Sometimes it’s cloudy and you can’t see His hand working, but He’s still there. Sometimes it’s really clear and you see exactly how He is moving in your life. Either way, I’m thankful that He IS. Psalms 91:1-2: “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: he alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him.”
Well! What a year last week was!! Literally about ten minutes after publishing last week’s blog, the internet was shut off for the entire country. The government was holding national elections and wanted to “preserve the integrity” of them. Um…sure. That’s what we will call it. I’m not gonna post what was really going on, but let’s just call it “preventative measures” that didn’t really work out so well for them. Google “Tanzanian National Election” and you can read the stories that have made their way out to print. Suffice it to say, I was locked inside my apartment complex for five days. My friend and manager, Langoi, was able to contact me through my guard’s phone daily just to check in and make sure I was okay (I was). On Sunday, he and his wife were able to venture out and pick me up for a “quick trip” to the market and lunch. Then back to “purgatory”. The election “results” were announced on Monday evening, and the internet was turned back on although you need to use a VPN in order to actually use it (which is fine…you should use one anyway). I was finally able to send and receive messages from my family and friends. What was so strange is that I had one friend whose texts were able to come through every single day. He and I play “Wordle” together daily and send our results to each other. Sadly, my 238 day streak was broken with this internet shutdown, and that, perhaps, is the real tragedy in all of this.
Here are some things I learned during my week of enforced solitude: 1. Make sure you like yourself and are okay with being alone when you travel solo. Thankfully, I do and I am. I spent almost thirty-years in a marriage where I was alone a lot of the time (even when he was there, I was still alone), and I have spent five years post-divorce living alone. I have communicated with God a lot during these times, and I am so thankful to have a God that I can pray to and Bible verses memorized (thank you to my Southern Baptist upbringing!) that I can pull out and mediate upon during times of trial. 2. Surround yourself with good people. My friend, Langoi, truly is a hero. He goes above and beyond to make sure I feel comfortable every day. Even though I have been traveling here for ten years, and five years by myself, I still don’t speak Swahilli “salama sana” (very well). I am trying and know a lot of words, but it is the grammar that trips me up which is ironic because I was a grammar teacher for almost twenty years. My friend, Michael, the one who was able to text me every day, kept my spirits up by just continuing to check on me and be normal. Once internet was restored, I had so many messages waiting for me from friends and family who were very concerned over my absence and “ghosting”. Side note: by Sunday I did start to wonder why no one was checking on me since I hadn’t posted anything since Wednesday! It was so weird that MB was the only one whose texts were able to get through. The internet is still a giant mystery to me. And 3. Perhaps most important of all, make sure you have apps downloaded on your phone that you can use without Wi-Fi because I had no books to read except one that I have already read and a half of one that I found on the rooftop deck. I read the half in about two hours and now I need to know if she ever finished her walk across Africa or not. I had about three apps of games I could play without internet, and I have gotten really good at Mahjong as a result.
Life seems to be slowly returning to normal. I was able to go to the bank, market, and store yesterday (all with Langoi; I don’t venture out without an escort). There is still a military presence in the village, but it didn’t seem as pronounced as it was on Sunday. I am giving it until Friday before I head out to the school to check on the kids and staff. Today is their first day back in a week anyway. It’s better to let them settle back in before disrupting their routine (IYKYK). This week’s pictures will be a variety of snaps I took during my daily trip to the rooftop deck to get some fresh air. “Mpaka wakati ujao”…until next time…
Today I am going to tell you about market days here in Tanzania. All of the villages have their own designated market day. Nanja’s is Monday. So, every Monday when I am traveling to Losi to see the kids, I see people heading to Nanja market to buy and sell. It’s a pretty big market for the area as Nanja is a slightly bigger village than say, Losimingiori and surrounding areas. (Most of these pictures are from my visits to Nanja market over the years.) The village where I live, Kisongo, has its “official” market day on Wednesday, but it is a bigger village (more like a town), so there are market stalls set up along the main road every day of the week. Duka Bovu which is down the road a little way holds its market day on Thursday (I think…I’m pretty sure it isn’t Tuesday). And Makuyuni, which is past Losimingiori, is a really big market every Saturday. Of course, Arusha has a very, very large market every day of the week. Emmanuel and I went there a few weeks ago to buy the food supplies for our safari with the kids.
When I say that you can buy any and everything at these markets, I’m not kidding. There are legumes and beans, rice, fruits and vegetables of all kinds, spices, meat, eggs, beads and jewelry, cloth or clothing, cows/goats/sheep/donkeys, all kinds of drinks (both non-alcoholic and alcoholic), cleaning supplies…truly if you need it, you can most likely find it at the market. I always buy my fresh fruit and vegetables at the local market and most of my cleaning supplies, eggs, milk, and household supplies there also. Sometimes I shop at the village “mini-supermarket” (like for milk and cleaning supplies) and other times I go into Arusha or near Arusha and shop at the big supermarkets there for items that I can’t find as easily at the local market like “beauty” supplies. Just like in America, I spend wayyyy more at the big supermarkets than I do in the local markets. The other day I got potatoes, onions, a cucumber, mangoes, lettuce, and avocados all for under 10,000 tzs. which equates to under $5. When I go to the big supermarkets, it is always over 100,000 tzs. which is closer to $40. Enjoy your trip to the market with these pictures!
PotatoesOnions and other vegetablesWatermelonsChicken and eggs (which came first??)Butchering the chicken for usFabricsKitchen suppliesBeads and JewelryOnions, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants…Tomatoes and onions (cooking oil in the yellow cannisters behind)Cabbage and other lettucesOrangesPotatoes, tomatoes, onionsPiles of beansBlack beansRed beans and white beansMaasai carMore beansLots of tire shoes!Picking out which goat to eatCooking the meatOur version of a “steakhouse”I’m not sure this is FDA-approvedDonkeys waitingMore donkeysWhite and red beansMore beansSome electric goods plus tomatoes across the wayOranges, tomatoes, onions, and green bananas across the wayPeppers, tomatoes, and onionsCarrots, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers,, and lemonsAvocados, tomatoes, carrotsTire shoes!Donkey ParkingMore Donkey Parking
As I mentioned in my first post, I am here because I started a nursery school almost five years ago in a little village called Losimingiori which is named for the mountain nearby. Side note: there are mountains all over Tanzania which is definitely not the first thing you think about when you think of a country in Africa, am I right? Is that just me? Anyway, this school is for preschool-aged children, 3-5 (ish), who live near Losi. Some walk many kilometers each way to get to school every morning. It’s very interesting to me as an American to see such young children walking to school every day all over villages and towns in Tanzania. They typically walk in pairs or groups with their school uniforms on. I’m talking these kids are walking on major roads (tarmac!!) and busy highways to get to school. Even my little babies walk to school in groups and go home the same way. We would never allow our kids in America to walk so far to school by themselves! In the past few years, I have started to see little, yellow school buses which drive around and pick up kids for school.
My first day back at schoolStudents Greeting me!Already learning They sit so nicely at their desks
Our school mainly focuses on teaching the students how to go to school and learning some Swahili and some English. We do follow the Tanzanian nursery school curriculum as well. We partner with the local primary school down the street, and their headmistress comes and assesses our students to see who is ready to move up each year. All of their personal children (headmistress and staff) have been educated at Namayana Nursery, so they really support our work in the community. By law, students have to start primary school at age six, and the school year starts in January and goes through December. There are three vacation times throughout the year. The first is around Easter which is the fall season here. This one is typically two weeks long. The next one is usually the month of June (or June 7-July 7-ish). The last one is around September and is also usually about two weeks long. Then they get the month of December off until the next school year starts again in January. Of course there are various holiday days sprinkled throughout the year, and this year is an election year, so they will get that day off next week. Students are not required to go through a preschool curriculum, but the headmistress has told us that she can see a difference between the ones who have and the ones who have not.
One of the things we are striving to do as a nursery school is to instill a love of learning in our students. We purposely accept more girls than boys into our program because girls are typically not as educated as boys in the Maasai culture. Our students are learning vowel sounds and how to put sounds together to form words and numbers up to and even beyond twenty (in both Swahili and English). They even are learning some basic addition and subtraction! They learn various things about their environment like dangers to avoid: bees, fire, snakes, etc. They sing songs and play games which all enhance their learning while having fun. One of the most important things we do is feed them a nutritional porridge every day during recess time. And one of my “jobs” while I am here is to teach the kids a Bible story every week. All of this is funded through donations from people in America who believe that what we are doing in this small village will make a lasting impact on generations to come. You can follow the school on both Facebook and Instagram by searching for “The Namayana Project” or just “Namayana Project” (and there are links to our PayPal and Venmo there).
Today I want to talk about some of the interesting things that I see on an almost daily basis. An interesting fact about Tanzania is that each village has their own market day of the week. The town where I live, Kisongo, also has stalls set up every day along the main road, but their market is in the middle of the town which I would have never known if my friends hadn’t taken me to “eat local” last week. That is an experience unto itself! There is a butcher/chef’s area where you go and pick out the kind of meat you want (typically goat) and what cut: foreleg, back haunch, etc. Then they cook it for you. You can also order side dishes like ugali (a hominy mixture that is sort of the texture of bread dough but safe to eat) and tomato/cucumber/onion salad. Then there are little rooms set up inside and outside where you can find a table to sit and eat. These little places also offer drinks: sodas, water, and even beer, wine, or harder stuff if you want it. Once the meat is ready, they bring it to you. Well, first they bring you warm water and soap to wash your hands because you eat almost everything here with your hands and everyone eats off the same platter. Then you dig in! These types of places are much cheaper to eat in than a restaurant like Kisongo Lounge will I like to eat kuku (chicken).
You see so many different things as you drive along the road here! I see a lot of donkeys who seem to be wandering by themselves sometimes, but you also see them hauling water jugs. It is very dry here as the rainy season has not yet begun (although it did rain at my place the other night which brings unwelcome critters: baby mosquitoes). Because it is so dry, the people and animals have to walk a long way to get water, so they bring the donkeys to carry many jugs which will last them longer. Some walk up to and over ten miles one way to find water! I always see flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle on my drives. I wish I could take better pictures of them, but I’m in a moving vehicle on an iPhone, lol. The Maasai love bright colors, so their clothes really stand out against the dry, dusty land. It’s really exactly how you would imagine their ancestors looked one thousand years ago, but then you see them riding on a piki-piki (motorcycle) in their Maasai clothes talking on a cell phone, and you remember it is 2025.
Okay, don’t laugh, but time really seems slower here. I don’t know if it is because I am seven or eight hours ahead of my people in America, but I feel like I am so much more productive over here. A typical day may consist of me waking up around 7:00 am, turning on the hot water heater, scrolling on my phone for about thirty minutes while the water heats, walking outside to turn on the water pressure button, THEN taking a shower. Before turning on the shower, I go ahead and wash my face at the sink, brush my teeth (using bottled water!!), and put my contacts in so I can see what I’m doing. Then I turn on the shower, rinse off, and turn it back off while I soap my body or shampoo my hair. Turn the water back on to rinse body or hair. I have learned that this lets me have hot/warm water for the entire shower. Next time you take a thirty-minute shower “just because”, think of me.
After all of this, I finish getting ready for the day and go fix breakfast. Normally my driver comes to get me between 9:00-9:15 to drive me out to Losimingiori to visit my school which is about 45 minutes away (I think it’s around 30 miles and whatever that translates to in kilometers). I try to time my visits to arrive during porridge/recess time which lasts anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half. This is preschool, after all. For them, play time is still a time to learn. (See “The Namayana Project” website: www.namayanaproject.com or on Facebook or Instagram) I typically leave there around noon when the kids are dismissed for the day. We drive back to Kisongo, and I usually go home and eat lunch. Sometimes I eat at Kisongo Lounge (if I haven’t had kuku/chicken in a while, ha ha), or we drive into “town” (Arusha). I love how they call Arusha a “town” when its population is over 600,000+ people. By this time, people in America start waking up.
On days (like today) when I stay home to work, my routine is still roughly the same minus the drive to Losi. Today I woke at 8:00 and cleaned up because the cleaning ladies were coming (some things are the same no matter where you live, IYKYK). As I write this, I have already completed two work assignments for my job in America, checked email and responded, read my morning devotion which included a ten-minute video, eaten breakfast and washed those dishes, and responded to several WhatsApp messages that needed my attention, plus checked Facebook and completed “Wordle” (in four attempts today, not very good), and it’s not even noon. I actually love “African Time”! Here when someone says they will come get you around 10:00(ish), that “ish” part is REAL! Church starts at 10:00 (ish). Late arrivals are encouraged. It’s like this country was made for me (again, IYKYK, I’m somewhat notoriously late in America). Anyway, I think the simple life may suit me. Enjoy these pictures that I took while I was writing this.
As I’m writing this, I am sitting at a cafe in Arusha where Langoi has parked me while he gets something done to his car. We came to Arusha today to run some errands and get some work done on his car. I wish I could express how different it is, and yet, how similar to a big city back home. It is still early (relatively…11:15 am), so the cafe isn’t full yet which is probably why they tolerate this Mzungu sitting here after her chai and japati are done. There is a lot of traffic going by, both on foot and vehicular. There seem to be a lot of car part stores along this particular street. You can find just about anything from spare car parts, floor mats, to radios and everything in between. It’s very colorful yet dirty and dusty. You kind of get used to it after a while. I remember the first time I came to Tanzania over a decade ago, and I was shocked at the buildings and houses, especially the bomas of the Maasai, because it is so different from America. But I think that difference is what gives it its beauty. The people are friendly and warm to me. I have never really felt unsafe in all the years I’ve been traveling here.
Langoi LangoiThe car parts store Our cafe view Table shaped like a boatSatellite image of ArushaA store on another streetI’m thinking I could get a job with them. They teach English to students.
Goodbye for now from Arusha town! Tutoanonna kesho, maybe…”see you tomorrow”!
Mzungu Maasai 