John made his daily walk downtown this morning with the pretext of needing to get his shoes polished. This is rather comical for a man who never ever polishes his shoes at home and allows them to acquire a raw, scrubbed hide look. Under oath, I would swear that I have not seen him with his shoe shine kit for at least five years and probably much longer. Still, it gave him a reason—which he didn’t really need—to go downtown again and explore new places. I so envy his mobility.
When John returned, he brought me a fruit salad from the second, newer Fifi’s, which is just across the street from AfriCafe. This salad has to be one of the best bargains in Arusha: more than 4 cups of cubed mango, papaya, pineapple, watermelon, apples, and bananas for less than $2.75. Sometimes there are even grapes in the mix. We always eat a lot of fruit here, but it would take extra effort for us to assemble such a variety of fruits for a salad, so I’m happy to let Fifi’s do that work. This salad and the vegetable salad one can assemble at George’s are my two favorite dishes to order in Arusha.
My day was a quiet, ordinary one filled with reading, email, laundry, and a bit of MSNBC. I can only take a small dose of American news before I have to cleanse my brain by turning to Al-Jazeera and a reminder that there is much more to the world than the USA. So much is happening that we never hear about in the States. (Did you know that there is a severe sugar shortage in Ethiopia?) Sometimes I think that we are every bit as isolated and brainwashed as the North Koreans. We have a much better material life, of course, but our focus only on our country and its importance and our ignorance of the outside world are pretty parallel to Kim-Jong Un’s kingdom.
Thank goodness, there was another women’s group meeting yesterday. This group is my main link to social reality and feminine support here. We met at Linda Jacobson’s, in her rather funky little colonial bungalow. I think they have lived there over 30 years now, and though her husband, Mark, is the top administrator at Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, their home has the well-used and eclectic air of a lake or beach cottage. Everyone sinks into the well-worn sofas and instantly relaxes there. That’s likely part of the reason our meeting didn’t end until about 2:30.
Again, as I looked around our group, I noted the variety of cultures and life experiences among us. We came from the States, Denmark, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Switzerland, India, and perhaps the UK. (The maybe UK woman had to leave early to coach swimming at a nearby school, so I didn’t get to find out much about her.) After singing, we had time to catch up on news from sisters who now live elsewhere. There were emails from women now in Germany, China, and the USA who still feel connected and supported by this group. There is a special bond for many which comes from years of sharing the unique life of those who are expats and yet have come to think of Tanzania as their real home. They can’t fully go “home” again when they leave. Many of the African women from other countries share this feeling as well, and the Tanzanians have usually worked for NGOs and want to maintain a link to a culture and language in which they were immersed for years. In a way, we are all outsiders and find understanding with each other.
After a session of having to hear more about the grumbling Israelites stumbling through the wilderness, we got to some serious business. One of the women who has always been here since I arrived in 2012 and is a strong pillar in the group was recently told that she and her husband will be transferred to a different country. They are to leave March 1, which was a huge shock to everyone. This decision was made by a detached administrator in the States, who apparently does not realize how disruptive such a change will be for not just the couple moving but also for all the Tanzanians they have worked with for many years. I‘d love to give a little sermon about “good missionaries,” who often do outstanding work in development and women’s issues, and the way in which they are often treated like impersonal chess pieces by their boards, but I need to maintain some anonymity here.
Then, another bomb hit. Kristine from Switzerland expected to move to Nairobi in December, right after Christmas, so she and her husband could assume teaching positions at a private university there. However, for some reason their placement has been volleyed between several departments, and the paperwork they thought had been completed seems not to have been processed. So, they are still caught here in Arusha and are beginning to wonder if they actually do have jobs now. The thought of having to return to Switzerland without any jobs there either is very frightening for them. We expats were all quick to offer sympathy and express our displeasure with heartless bureaucrats who have caused such stress and trauma to our friends. The response from the African women present, on the other hand, was that these women caught in forced change needed to think of their husbands first and do what they could to support and encourage their mates. A bit of cultural difference perhaps?
Then we all enjoyed a fine lunch of magnificent pumpkin soup, tossed green salad, sliced cheese (a great luxury), homemade bread, and mango and watermelon slices. There was even pressed coffee instead of the ubiquitous instant. Since Linda serves as hostess to scores of visitors who show up to do short-term work at the hospital or come to visit the hospital which they help support, she has a horde of special gifts she shares: Today it was squares of Ghirardelli chocolate.
After we began dispersing, Atula and I had a bit of side conversation in which I found out that she is not Japanese as I thought she might be, but rather Mongolian, part of a people somehow included within the borders of India when the British drew country boundaries. She’s married to a Masai and has an adult daughter and son. The daughter married a man whose father is African and mother is Russian, so their cute little 4-year-old son, Pierre, is a real UN mixture.
This evening, Friday, I didn’t feel like making dinner or going out to eat, so John ran around the corner to our favorite cook shack and bought nyama choma (roasted meat) and chipsies for us. The cook takes a big chunk of grilled beef and whacks it into small bite-sized pieces, which are then dipped in a special tomato sauce—sort of like a salsa. This time the meat was more tender than it often is and the chipsies were crisp enough to be called real french fries.
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| Our favorite place for kuku and nyama choma |
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