Where Has September Gone?

Ugali, Peas, and Cabbage that I ate for Lunch

Our Disasterous Room (We have no closet)

The Living Room

The Beginning of My Quilt.  This is the only sneak peek you get...you'll have to wait until I get back to see the finished product!

It seems like just yesterday that we were saying we couldn’t believe it was the beginning of September.  And now it’s almost a month later! Oh how time flies.  Tomorrow we have our Kiswahili final exam.  It consists of a written portion and an oral portion.  Hopefully it all goes well!  Today we had Kiswahili, research methods, and ecology.  For ecology we got to walk around outside and identify physiognomic vegetation types (just think of identifying ecosystem types, like woodland, grassland, bushland etc.) .  It was fun even though we got rained on a little!  So yes, it did rain today.  Actually, it poured for quite a while.  But as always, the rain never lasts and we ended up having sun for the rest of the day.  Lauren and I are both getting ready for our break which starts tomorrow after our exam.  Lauren is going to Cairo and is leaving tomorrow afternoon.  I am going to the Usambara Mountains and will be leaving Saturday morning.  The bus ride to the Usambaras is about 7 hours long, so hopefully we should be there by mid afternoon.  Life with the host family is going well.  It’s crazy to think that we have to leave them so soon!  Tonight we had rice, peas, beef, and cooked spinach.  It was a pretty typical meal, although it was interesting to cook since we didn’t have electricity today.  But, no worries, they have a charcoal stove that they use to cook things on.  I don’t have much else to say except for that I started my quilt.  I decided that my project in the field is going to be making a quilt.  I plan on buying one kanga (a huge piece of fabric that is used to wrap around you as a kind of dress) in each place we visit, and then cutting them apart to make a quilt.  So far, I’ve gotten one kanga from Zanzibar, and then I bought some fabric from Mwenge.  And I’ve found that hand sewing doesn’t actually take that long. 

I thought I’d share a few observations about Tanzania with you since I don’t have much to say in this blog.  One, Tanzanians walk very slowly.  Nobody has anywhere to be and they do not have busy schedules, so the walking pace is definitely slow.  It is a pain to walk behind them!  Two, Tanzanians always hold hands.  In the states, it would be slightly odd for two grown men to be holding hands, but here it is perfectly common.  In fact, often when you meet a stranger, they will grab your hand and hold onto it.  Three, variety does not seem to be a concept that is embraced by many Tanzanians.  They find comfort in eating the exact same food every day, for virtually every meal.  Rice fritters for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and rice and beans for dinner.  Four, athletics are not very popular.  But, if you think about it, this makes sense.  Why would you waste your time burning calories if you only have a limited supply of food?  Five, toilet paper and hot water are luxuries.  You can tell how ritzy a place is just by looking in their bathroom.  Six, Tanzanians talk very quietly.  It is nearly impossible to understand them and we often have to tell them to repeat what they are saying.  Seven, deodorant is a foreign concept.  Sometimes, being in a crowded room or squished in a daladala is suffocating due to the B.O.  Eight, air pollution is terrible.  The exhaust coming out of the tailpipes of cars is thick and black, and we often feel nauseous after riding on a bus for a while.  Nine, there is no cheese anywhere.  We want cheese!  And ten, it hardly ever rains here.  I think it has rained maybe five times since we have gotten here. 

Well, this may be my last post for a while.  I am going to the Usambara Mountains on Saturday, and while I will have my computer, there won’t be internet access.  Hopefully I can pawn an internet stick off of someone or use an internet café!

Erin