Learning Life

Monday, January 28, 2019


This morning, Ray came to pick up John for a visit to Anita’s school. I had visited it last year and was extremely impressed with both the physical facilities and the staff. It is by far the best private school—outside of the international schools circuit—that I personally have seen in Africa. This Prime School is fairly new and is still developing and building its campus. They have students from pre-school through grade 7. Soon they hope to add several more years so as to cover the O level (grades K thru 7 ) as well. They also have plans to build a swimming pool so that all their students can enjoy swimming without paying extra fees to swim at another facility.

John’s visit followed the usual format: first a call at the director’s office, where he met the director and his assistant, and then a tour of classrooms. Like me, John was very impressed with the facilities and the quality of the teachers, who come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and religions.  Classes are limited to 30 and then divided into half for teaching core subjects. John also got to see the completed computer classroom, which was being built when I visited last year. The director said that use of the computers will begin in grade 1.

John with the director and assistant director

The 1st grade classroom.

The interior courtyard for the higher grades, designed so that every classroom has plenty of natural light.

Anita's class. She is second from the left.

Being able to attend this school will give Anita, an incredible advantage if she wants to continue on to higher education. It’s sad, but children who have no option but to attend the “free” government schools are crammed, 50 to 60, into dank, dark rooms, which often do not have a teacher present, or if one is present, has barely rudimentary knowledge to share. Several people have told me that there is no real public education in Tanzania anymore. What I know from observation is that there is no decent quality of education outside private schools. Fees are costly (My 3 children need approximately $4500 each year), but the investment is more certain to pay off in the future.

Our friend Sharon Mkisi had invited us to join her and another friend, Terry Morton, at a reading by a Tanzanian author this evening. This event was being held at the African Cultural Heritage Center, which is a huge gaudy campus showcasing all sorts of art and tourist amusements. Except for the art gallery, I usually try to avoid this place, but being with Sharon and Terry was too tempting to turn down. We all met at 5:00 p.m. at Sharon’s office at the Anglican cathedral, and she drove us out to the center.

Gallery Staff had set up a bar on the terrace of the art gallery, and soon there were also freshly made samosas for sale, either vegetable or mutton. John was in samosa heaven!  The reading was to begin at 6:00, so we all wandered into the auditorium and few minutes before the hour, and then waited for over an hour for the program to begin. Apparently certain important people were caught in traffic and things couldn’t begin until they arrived. Since many of us in the audience knew each other from other places, we had plenty of time to catch up with one another.

Finally, sometime after 7:00, the author, Maria Nhambu, came in and soon began her presentation. I hadn’t known anything about her except that she had been a Tanzanian orphan who had been adopted at the age of 19 and taken to the States. She did not read, but rather, spoke for an hour and a half about her life, first as a very mistreated child without any known identity who had been dropped at a Catholic orphanage for biracial children when she was 3-days-old. Then, at age 19, she was adopted by a 23-year-old American volunteer teacher, Catherine Murray, (Yes, her mother is barely 4 years older than she is) and left Tanzania to begin another life in America. In a series of incredible events, Maria finally met her birth mother, found a half-brother in Boston, and eventually came back to Tanzania with her brother to search for her father. That brought the discovery of another completely new family. The drama of her life is now all recorded in a trilogy, which can be found and purchased on Amazon. I bought the first volume, Africa’s Child, last night so that I could have it signed. Then, I bought the following two volumes, America’s Daughter and Drum Beats, Heart Beats on Kindle, which is much cheaper.  (Go to www.marianhumba.com to learn more)

Getting the book Africa's Child signed by Maria Nhambu

It was unexpected when Maria introduced her adoptive mother, who was sitting in the audience looking just like many of the old timers who stay in Tanzania instead of returning to their countries of origin. The legendary Simonson family was represented by their matriarch, Eunie, and her two daughter’s, Rebecca and Naomi. They appear in this trilogy someplace and were apparently the people whose late arrival held up the program. I was interested in seeing who linked with whom and how variegated the racial connections were. The entire evening was a wonderful experience in cross-cultural mixing and celebration.

L to R: Cathy, Nhambu's mother, Eunice Simonson, Sharon Mkisi

Surprise Sunday

Sunday, January 27, 2019

This Sunday began just as all other have so far: we got up, ate breakfast, got dressed and climbed into Ray’s taxi at 10:00 for our ride to church. Upon arriving at ACC and discovering that today was “family Sunday,” I gave an inward groan. Such services in the past have featured torturous sets of bad songs, poorly sung by the younger Sunday School kids, and then maybe a puppet show instead of a sermon. It was a total relief to discover that there was only one song by the children and while the lyrics were semi-bunk theologically, the kids did a pretty good job of singing it. It was even more interesting for me to notice that among the 26 children, only 4 where caucasian. This is a massive ratio change since last year! ACC has always had a large Sunday School program, but before this year I would have judged the at least a third of the children to be wazungu.

Sunday's flower arrangement

Then, better yet, there was no puppet show or cutsie drama for small children. Instead a real person, Rex Chapote, gave a real sermon, based on Luke 4: 14-22 ,which describes Jesus’ return to the synagogue in his home town, Nazareth. I had never seen him before and thought he must be a pastor visiting from another church. However, he turned out to be a recent member of ACC from Malawi, and now he is the director of Farm Radio here in Arusha. I don’t know if he has ever been a minister, but he gave the most lucid and interesting sermon I’ve heard at ACC so far this year.

Last Sunday, I had complained about the lousy singing at ACC, but the music today was excellent. Accomplished musicians—2 Americans and 2 Tanzanian—played guitars and piano and led the singing beautifully. Even more amazing and heartening to me was that one of the Americans played a traditional drum during some of the songs, one of which was in Swahili. The congregational singing for the Swahili song was excellent! Maybe some older wazungu will feel a bit out of joint, but I loved these slight changes and hope more come.

During the usual after service coffee/chai time, I talked with my usual homies and was very happy to find out that our women’s group would be meeting this coming Thursday. This will be the very first time we have met this year, and although I know the size of the group is diminished, I am excited about being with the members who are still here in Arusha. However, I am less excited that we will be meeting in ACC’s chapel instead of a member’s home as we always did before. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have had to be a guest in so many homes in the past years. Maybe we can return to that custom of hospitality before I leave again in March.

No one else seemed interested in going out to lunch, so we found a taxi and went to Taj, an Indian restaurant on Njiro road, next door to the Pepsi plant. It has wonderful Indian food at reasonable prices, $6.50 an entrée. Once again, John ordered something mutton. I took a chance and ordered something completely new to me, chicken keema kofta, which was delicious. John ordered more naan than we needed, but it’s such a treat to get good, fresh, authentic naan that we tend to gorge when we can.

Enjoying Sunday dinner at the Taj.

The rest of the day was our usual napping, reading, and waiting until 7:00 p.m. here so that we could call Peri at 8:00 a.m. in Spokane. The connection with our Smile gizmo was excellent, and peri was much more conversational than before. Her main topic was her watermelon swimsuit, which she wears when she goes swimming at the Y with her mama. She seemed a bit amused when we told her that here watermelon is called “tiki-tiki maji.” We also got her usual play doh demonstration, and the half hour passed all too quickly. We miss her very much.

Oh, by the way, I finished Ruth Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats and must decide now what I will read next. I haven’t been able to download any new Kindle books here, something I’ve always been able to do in the past. What could be the problem?

Saturday Snakes

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Where did Saturday go? Perhaps nowhere except from daybreak soon after 6:00 a.m. to dusk at 6:30 p.m. My activities—such as they were—all took place inside the walls of Kundayo within an oasis of peace and calmness. John as usual took a long outing by dalla-dalla and foot to downtown and back. Meanwhile, I continued reading Ruth Oseki’s novel My Year of Meats.

In the late afternoon, just as we had settled ourselves on the garden terrace to be closer to the internet source, Mama Kundayo came floating across the courtyard hoping for a nice long visit. She watches an enormous amount of international news and wondered if we had her about the woman in Australia who had found a snake in her toilet. We had not, but I googled it and found the BBC story. I dutifully showed the photos to Mama, who recoiled in horror.  This led to questions about snakes we had known in the Congo and snakes that we have in the USA. I found plenty of snake action videos on YouTube, all of which terrified Mama. Yet she kept wanting more. When I tried to excuse myself to go and make dinner, Mama foiled my escape by ordering us all Swahili coffee. It was my discovery of a video of an epic battle between a black mamba and a rattlesnake which finally put things over the top and closed the show. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIpKIsu-C4  Spoiler alert: the mamba won.) Mama claimed she was going to have nightmares, but she had asked for it.

The day ended with medallions of petit mignon, fresh green beans, boiled baby potatoes, and fresh fruit salad for dessert. The day ended more happily than usual because we had managed to convince Maso that we had a faulty cable box and had procured a new one which didn’t flicker on and off constantly, so we were able to watch some BBC news before we went to bed.

Free Friday

Friday, January 25, 2019

Yesterday afternoon, Mary Lou remarked that she hadn’t been out of the Kundayo compound for two days. I replied that it had been three days for me, and I was not complaining. That’s one of the wonderful aspects of being here, time and days pass by so peacefully that there is no stress level to worry about. Reading, blogging, talking with the staff and Mama, doing laundry, and cooking dinner all fill the days with enough to do. Sometimes I simply sit and watch the banana and palm trees sway in the breeze and feel contented and happy. We are far too task driven back in the States, and if our calendars are not full of appointments and projects, we worry that we are “wasting time.”  Here time cannot be wasted, only lived in.

For dinner last evening, I made my eggplant stew once again. It’s not a complex recipe, but preparing and chopping all the vegetables takes a lot of time. By the time I had everything prepped, I was drenched in sweat. It was extremely warm but I don’t know the actual temperature. Fortunately once the sun goes down around 6:30 p.m. the air cools off, and we can enjoy being outside again, so we eat all of our evening meals out at the table on our little front terrace. Our usual dinner entertainment is watching small, translucent lizards snap up the insects which fly near the outside light. We always cheer when one of the lizards gets a large moth which takes many gulps to swallow.

Dining area on our terrace.

This was the morning when Mary Lou was leaving to go on her 4-day camping safari, so I made sure I was up and dressed in time to give her a proper send off. Yesterday afternoon, the pick-up time had changed from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. so I didn’t need to get up earlier than usual after all. Mary Lou was very excited and dress in classic safari garb even with a correct sun hat. John took photos of her pre-launch and I during her boarding and departure. She can post what she wants upon her return. There was already an older couple in the safari vehicle, but I didn’t have time to ask where they were from. Poor Mary Lou may need to speak German to communicate with them. We’ll find out….

Safari Njema!

After Mary Lou left, John and I sat out on the garden terrace and processed our email and I my Facebook. Then, we decided to go to Kitamu for lunch and called Ray to come and get us. There must have been extra police traffic stops on the highway because Ray took us way around on back roads until we could exit out on the highway farther on. I loved it because in spite of how fiercely jolting the ride was, I got to see parts of our neighborhood I have never been in before. John has walked everywhere, but I have not. So, I felt as if I were getting a free tour as Ray sought to evade a police shakedown. Of course, there were exactly the same little shops and businesses as in the areas I have walked: produce stalls, seamstresses, open-air butchers, stationery shops, barbers, snack kiosks, brick and furniture makers, grain and egg merchants, beauty salons, and many, many churches both big and little. Of course the Lutheran church was by far the largest.

Kitamu was very full by the time we arrived, but there was still one unoccupied table for two back near the cooler. A young Japanese woman was seated next to us and as more people came in, she had to share her tiny table with other customers. She handled any discomfort she may have felt by putting in her earbuds and listening to Japanese boy bands (I could see her computer screen very clearly). John ordered the tilapia in coconut sauce with fries, and I got the Kitamu chicken stroganoff with coconut rice. Of course both entrées came with the requisite avocado slices. Then I really splurged and ordered a slice of carrot cake and a latté. John shared the cake, thank goodness. Then, I really increased our bill by purchasing one of the aprons the Albino Peacemakers has for sale at Kitamu. I think it is unusually lovely.

I love the fabrics these women use for their creations.

I wanted to try to walk from Kitamu to FiFi’s, where my second skirt was waiting to be picked up.  It was much cooler out today than yesterday, so walking was very comfortable. I watched each step carefully, as the badly broken concrete and random small steps up and down between shops can be killers for me. Along the way, we stopped in a stationery shop so I could buy notebooks and pens for the albino women if Mary Lou teaches them English (If not, I’ll just donate them elsewhere.), and a lovely mango and big avocado. We were carrying several bags by the time we reached FiFi’s, but I had made it successfully!

My second skirt is longer than the first one, and, therefore, ready to be worn publicly. I talked with Leonica about perhaps adding a tier to the bottom of my first skirt, and she said to bring it in and she’d see what can be done. This second skirt pleases me so much that I just may order another one.

Skirt #2

Soon after we arrived back at Kundayo, the electricity went off. This is, of course nothing unusual, but by later in the evening, John began to worry that the Azam ice cream he had in out tiny mini-fridge freezer compartment might melt. So, he asked Maso about putting it in the Kundayo freezer, which would stay colder longer. Soon after that transfer, about 10:15, the power came back on. We turned on the TV and there was Trump telling us the government shutdown was over. More good news.

Projects

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

It’s surprising how quickly the days slip by and blend into each other. I amazed how difficult it is for me to remember what happened just a day ago when so much of what we do or experience is very much the same from one day to the next. Laundry gets plunged about every other day, whites one day and darks the next time. John walks every day and almost always returns with fresh produce and fruit. I now have eggplants, mangoes, avocados, bananas, green peppers, tomatoes, and a huge pineapple to use very soon. Onions, garlic, and potatoes as well as rice are always on hand. So, I think I am likely to make eggplant stew for dinner tonight.

Yesterday, John took Mary Lou to the African Cultural Heritage Centre (http://www.culturalheritage.co.tz/), a huge complex with the interior of the main building patterned after the Guggenheim Museum in New York and set in a large campus of restaurants, dioramas, and and a massive curio shop, in which one can buy thousands of different items from plastic keychains to amazing chunks for Tanzanite for only $75K. One usually cannot see everything in a single visit, but the main exhibition center is usually more than enough to occupy an entire morning. Having been to this site several previous times, I opted to stay at Kundayo and enjoy the relative simplicity of the garden here.

John had assured me that he would be back for lunch. He planned to stop by Shoppers on his return trip and buy more samosas for us. I waited and waited and waited, and finally at 2:15, I ordered an order of french fries from the kitchen. Here the fries come with a small side of Swahili salad, thinly sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with an oil and vinegar dressing. Beatrice also gave me a complementary dish of maharagwe, red beans. So, I was having a nice lunch of my own when the two sightseers returned soon after 2:30. John had forgotten what he had told me about lunch and Mary Lou and he had decided to have lunch in the cafe at Shoppers. I was peeved on two counts: John didn’t call to tell me he had changed lunch plans so I waited for him to return, and I missed out on a chance to try the new cafe at Shoppers. The perfect french fries mollified my disappointment, however.

This morning seemed to promise another very ordinary day of reading, writing, checking email and Facebook, but among my phone rang and it was Terry Morton, who has returned from six weeks in the U.S. and a week’s safari with her oldest son. She was at The Blue Heron, an old outdoor restaurant, and wondered if I could join her for lunch and a catch-up conversation. Of course, I wanted to meet with her, so I took off on my own and had a wonderful 3 hours in the lush garden at The Blue Heron.

Looking out at The Blue Heron's garden.

Terry at The Blue Heron on Wednesday.

Terry volunteers on her own dime to work with a group of albino women who work in a sewing workshop and are now marketing their creations here in Arusha and through some connections in the States. The quality of their work is better than much of what one finds in the shops and markets here, and Terry has made some good connections with local businesses which now feature their wares. In the past 5 years, I have seen a remarkable growth and evolution in what these unique women have done for themselves economically.
(https://www.facebook.com/Albino-Peacemakers-1908841156023954/)

One of the seamstresses at work.

Terry displaying some of the women's finished items for sale.

Choroko

Monday, January 21, 2019

The electricity was off for most of the day. Interestingly, this was true for a large section of Tanzania, even as far as some outer areas of Dar. Mazo didn’t know what might have caused such a large outage but said it was highly unusual. For us the effects were the usual: no viable internet, an inability to charge our phones and computers, and melting food in our dinky refrigerator. In mid-afternoon, John got out the little carton of Azam ice cream and divided the contents between us so we could eat it before it completely melted. That was an unexpected treat, as we each had double what we normally would have had for a serving. Around 5 p.m. the power came back on and everyone rushed to plug in their electronics.

The focus of my day was choroko, the tiny green grain I had bought on Saturday. Mama and Beatrice had both told me that this could be made into a very nice stew with onions, garlic, carrots, green peppers, or even other add-ons. Mary Lou discovered that choroko was a favorite food of Henry Stanley, an early African explorer, the guy who found Dr. Livingstone. So, I sorted and winnnowed my grain, prepared my vegetables—no green pepper—and, once the electricity returned, cooked my stew.

Beatrice had said that it would take 30 minutes of cooking for the grain to soften enough to eat. During that time, I was to cook the onions, garlic and diced carrots separately. Then, when the grain was soft enough, I was to drain off the excess water and mix the vegetables into it. I could also add some coconut milk if I wanted to. I did everything as directed, but the grain was not soft enough after 30 minutes, and I had to cook it another 5 or 10 minutes. I also semi-burnt the onions and garlic because I became distracted by a lizard darting around in front of our terrace. However, I deemed the onions okay and used them as planned. I also made rice, which was perfectly done, and once everything was complete, we sat down to eat. The stew was actually very good. John really liked it, and I was pleased that I have found a very inexpensive meatless stew to make. I don’t know why no one had ever told me about choroko before, and I wonder what other common Tanzanian recipes I am missing out on.

Winnowed and washed choroko.

All ingredients ready to go.

Enjoying the stew on rice.

Arusha Community Church

Sunday, January 20, 2019

There were the usual bouquets of flowers at church this morning, but the woman putting them up was so late, I couldn’t take a photo before the service. Then, I forgot to do so afterwards. So no pretty photo today, and there were some stunning birds of paradise blooms in the arrangement. I guess I’ll have to take a photo of one in our garden and post it for all to see how dramatic they are.

The service was okay, but not great. A young Anglican teacher at a local pastors school gave the sermon, which wasn’t bad, just not great. And the singing was actually pretty pathetic. That’s very very odd for any church in Africa. However, I’m beginning to notice the stunning difference which has taken place since last year. A year ago, there was still a fairly large wazungu contingent at ACC, and they were very visible in leadership roles. Now many of the German, American, British, and Swiss people we knew and saw year after year are gone. One reason is that the Tanzanian government has made it extremely difficult—almost impossible—for many to get work permits/visas. The theory behind this policy is that Tanzanians should be taking over the jobs wazungu have long held. But, when there are not enough doctors, high school math teachers, trained agronomists, volunteers to work with disadvantaged groups, etc. the policy becomes more harmful than beneficial. One of my friends works for no salary with a group of albino women who have developed a sewing workshop. When she was told to fill out a government form and state by name who would replace her, she refused because as she pointed out no one who was now working for a salary would want an unpaid position.

Anyway, many of our former wazungu friends are no longer here. Concurrently, the Tanzanian membership at ACC has rapidly increased. Now, the congregation is overwhelmingly African, which I find heartening, but I have picked up on the fact that some of the remaining long-time wazungu are struggling with the changes in leadership and worship. The old songs, which used to be accompanied by the grand piano and a group with guitars and a flute, just don’t work well with a mostly African audience, so now the singing stinks. No matter what the old Germans think, the music needs to change, and soon. Another problem which may be more critical is that Africans do not (probably cannot) give as much in the offerings as the wazungu do. So, with fewer foreigners, I am pretty sure that the offerings have shrunk, and the budget may be in trouble. This is definitely a time of change at ACC, and I hope it weathers all the challenges well.

No one else at church seemed interested in going out to lunch with us, so we took a taxi to Picasso, a restaurant near where we live. It’s a place very popular with a wide range of people, and when we arrived, a large Indian family was finishing lunch, an Asian girl (Japanese?) was ordering, and a Tanzanian family walked in just ahead of us. We three ordered very different entrees: John a pizza, Mary Lou a hamburger, and I a salad. John ate his complete pizza, while Mary Lou and I had take away boxes. Then, Mary Lou and John split a big piece of Black Forest Cake.

Mary Lou decided to walk home, but John and I took a taxi back to Kundayo. The remainder of the day was very low-key until 7:00 p.m. here, when we connected with Peri, our 2-year-old granddaughter, via FaceChat. This time she seemed to understand better how to communicate with us via a computer screen, and she put on a 30 minute show of jumping around, making giraffes out of blue play doh, showing off her new “phone,” and being just plain silly. It was wonderful to see her silly self, but  next time we hope she will talk more and jump less.

Skirts

Saturday, January 19, 2019

This morning after breakfast, I decided that I wanted to get one of the two skirts I had brought with me to Arusha this year hemmed up because it was far too long. So, John accompanied me out along the highway pedestrian path, and we walked to the seamstress he had used for shortening his trouser legs. I presented my request and she agreed to do it immediately. While she was sewing, we walked on further to the grain shop when I had bought the mystery non-lentils and found out that I had bought small soy beans, which looked like yellow lentils. Maso had told me about a small round green grain, choroko, with which Tanzanians make a stew to eat with rice or ugali. I spotted some in a sack and decided to buy a half kilo. Now I have to decide if I am brave enough to try cooking them for dinner soon. So far, my record with new grains hasn’t been all that stellar.

Asking about the various grains for sale.

When we returned to the seamstress, I noticed that right behind where she was sitting was a mill for grinding corn. Of course, John was very intrigued with the machine and how it operated. To his great luck just then a woman came with a small sack of corn she had just bought and wanted milled. John got to watch the whole operation and had a good chat with the miller, who was happy to have a mzungu interested in his work. The miller gave me a small sample of the very nicely ground cornmeal to feel. I was quite impressed and wonder if I shouldn’t buy some corn now just so I can have it ground.

Our street side seamstress.

The grain mill.

May skirt was finished, so I paid the seamstress 2000 TZsch (maybe 85 cents) for her work and we walked back home. Once back at Kundayo, we decided we had plenty of time before lunch to go into town and pick up our skirts at FiFi’s. I had texted Leonica at Afrileo Collections, which is based at FiFi's,  (https://afrileotz.com/ )
.
I was dropped off at FiFi’s to wait there until John and Mary Lou returned from the safari company. Since I knew my skirt was finished, I got it and tried it on. OMG! It was too short and made me look like some sort of square Amazon. However, the Tanzanian women in FiFi’s all told me that it was beautiful and the perfect length. After John returned and I modeled it for him, he agreed with me that it is too short but also noted that the African women would like it as it accents my best feature (for an African woman), my butt. Well, that makes me feel better!  No matter, I went ahead and ordered another skirt which I insisted must be longer.

the evening before to ask if they were finished and she said they were. Also, Mary Lou had decided to join a group on a 4-day safari next week and needed to make a payment at the safari company’s office. So, we called Ray and headed out.

Modeling my skirt from Afrileo.

While we were preparing dinner— a very dead looking chicken—Immanuel delivered a big bowl of freshly made kitumbura. He said they were a gift from the kitchen, but I found out later that Mama Kundayo was behind this largesse. I love kitumbura, and these were by far the best I have had so far. Fortunately, I was smart enough to share them with Mary Lou, or I probably would have gorged myself senseless.

An out-of-focus photo of the kitumbura. Perhaps I was shaking with excitement.

Gentrification

Friday, January 18, 2019

Soon after breakfast, before the day became hot, John and I took a walk back along Kundayo Road, which is perpendicular to the highway running nearby.  This had always been what we considered “our neighborhood,” as we seldom walked past the shops along the larger paved road. Now that there is a paved pedestrian trail along the highway, it is easy for me to walk there and to visit the shops and tradespeople. This morning, however, I wanted to explore our back road and check on any changes which had taken place since last year. This has always been a very rough dirt road, which made it difficult for me to walk very far on it.

Was I ever in for a huge surprise! Since last year, the owner of a private luxury guesthouse back among the banana groves, Zawadi House, has paved most of the road and funded new landscaping. Some of the small shops and the JJ Bar have had facelifts as well.  Nothing looks the same anymore.  There is even a homemade type of streetlight installed along the way. This new paving made walking much easier for me to walk, but I missed the organic chaos of the old road and eclectic nature of the old shops. John remarked that I want to keep Africa as a museum, and maybe that is partly true. However, a new homogenized western style just doesn’t feel all that authentic to me and is definitely not as interesting as the older layout was.

In the past, I have posted photos of the Kundayo neighborhood, and I will not repost them here. This time I will only post photos of what now exists, and if you have been here or want to review my past postings, you will recognize an enormous change. It’s all far too sterile and tidy for me.

A glimpse of the old road and a shop remains.

Renovated shop fronts.

A new McMansion built since we were here last year.

A long view of the new paved road.

There are even some streetlights now.

Shoppers

Thursday, January 17, 2019

The monkeys came to play in our garden this morning. There were six or seven of them, mothers and babies, and while the adults stayed pretty much on the wall, the little ones jumped onto trees and bushes. I threw some shelled peanuts out on the lawn for them, but they were spooked by our gardener and ran away. They’ll likely be back soon.

Our gardener and two other men began whacking on the huge tree which provides shade for Mama Kundayo sits outside in the late afternoons. At first I was fearful that they were cutting it down; however, it turned out that they were only trimming it. Their only tools were their machetes with which they hacked off huge branches, some at least 10” in diameter. It took them at least 5 hours to get the tree in the shape they wanted. I think it looks a bit shorn now, but Maso says this tree grows out again very fast and will look full once more soon.

Late in the morning, John decided that we should go into town. Mary Lou had been repeatedly asking whether the skirts she and I had ordered last week were finished as sort of promised. John thought it would be good for us to go to Shoppers, the large supermarket which used to be Shop Rite before it became Nakumatt and now Shoppers. This seemed a wee bit odd since Shoppers is fairly far from us and out of the way if we were going to FiFi’s for our skirts. Still, I hadn’t yet been inside Shoppers and was curious. It was only after we arrived at the store that I realized that John wanted to buy samosas there. He craves them almost as much as he does chocolate, and the ones from Shoppers are excellent. (It’s owned and operated by Indians, so they should make excellent samosas.)  Once we got home, I discovered John had bought 10!

Shoppers has almost everything anyone could want, even dental floss, which I had never seen before in Arusha. The inventory was huge, and there was a whole section of kitchen utensils, where I found a vegetable peeler just like the one John had just broken while peeling mangoes.
I wavered but finally decided I would pay about $5 for the peeler so I would not cut myself all the time with a paring knife.There was also an area of bulk dry items which offered all sorts of spices, grains, and fruits. I passed on the dried blueberries but did get a small amount of yellow raisins to use in my Oatibix oatmeal.

After we had finished exploring Shoppers, we had Ray take us across town to FiFi’s. There we discovered that our skirts were not completed—no big surprise—but might be the next day. “Might be” is the operative phrase. Mary Lou keeps thinking time and schedules will be exact here, but she’s discovering how unreliable such an expectation is.

So, we piled back into Ray’s taxi and headed toward Meat King and home. It seems so odd to me to shop for dairy products and meat in a lovely big colonial type house. However, the shopping area is well laid out and the service impeccable. I ordered two more Russian sausages, some beef haché and stew meat, and a whole beef tenderloin (just over 1 kg).  While ordering fillet may seem extravagant, it costs less than $5 a pound here and is well worth it.

Upon our return to Kundayo, we tried again unsuccessfully to connect to the internet. Even my Smile gizmo didn’t link into whatever it connects to, so obviously the big overall internet thing  for Arusha was kaput. (That’s the best I can do with technical terms.) It poured rain for a while in the late afternoon, which likely added to any infrastructure problems, and we had to resort to reading to pass the time. I am currently reading “Gutenberg’s Apprentice,” which may be good; it is certainly interesting. To break up the time a bit more, I also went out looking for slugs and found dozens of them. Life here isn’t all that interesting all the time.

Rain, Rain Go Away

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Rain began to fall in the night and continued all morning and into the afternoon. With the rain came much cooler temperatures, and the official high for today was 72º, about 10 - 12 degrees cooler than normal for this time of the year. I thought of putting on the one sweater I brought with me, but decided that would be too weird. The rain was too heavy for me to think of going out anywhere, so I spent the morning reading, downloading photos, and getting my blog posted. Those seem to be daily tasks here.

Even when the rain subsided in mid-afternoon, I stayed at our apartment, taking advantage of the cooler temperature to bake some peanut butter cookies. Lest that sound very adventurous to you, I must admit that I used a pouch of cookie mix I had bought at the Dollar Store in Spokane. Still, I had to turn on the oven, add oil and water, make and squash little balls of dough, and bake them. Unfortunately, I got distracted by a big snail I saw in the plants in front of our place and let the cookies bake too long. Even slightly burned, they taste pretty good. I gave one to Ray when he stopped by to visit.

John got cabin fever and took off for a walk and to buy some bread. Along the way, our friend Eric spotted John and picked him up. They went to my favorite spot, Kitamu, for coffee and to catch up on things. I noticed that John was gone a long time, but I figured he had gone further than he had first planned and didn’t worry. When John did get back, he asked if I had been worried and seemed a bit taken aback that I had not. But this is Africa, so I probably wouldn’t think about worrying until it got dark. More curious is that I never did ask if he had gotten any bread. I’ll find out tomorrow morning when there is or isn’t toast for breakfast.

The electricity went off and on today, but it was never out for longer than an hour or so each time. Short outages like the ones today are no bother. It’s only when the electricity is off for a day or more that I get cranky, especially if it’s hot. I hate it if we can’t have a fan on at night, and John gets upset if he has bought ice cream and it melts because the refrigerator is off. Today we needed no fan, and John’s Azam ice cream was just fine.

I thought I would post a photo of one of the local seamstresses who sit outside waiting for people to bring them alteration or mending jobs. John took this woman a pair of pants which he had somehow torn near a pocket. The legs were also too long. So, he had the woman mend the tear and shorten the legs, for which he had to pay her 3000 TZsch. ( $1.30). Now, I wish I had remembered to bring my pair of slacks that need to be shortened.

What's Cooking?

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

It seemed as if the only major event of Tuesday was going to be Mary Lou’s first solo walk to and from downtown. She had been studying the Arusha city map for almost a week and following each route we took whenever we went anywhere with Ray. So, her venture today was in effect her graduation from relying on John to guide her as she ventures out in the neighborhood and into downtown. The only problem that arose on her walk was a downpour, which trapped her under a wall overhang for about half an hour on her way home down Kinissa Road. Here at Kundayo, not very far away, we had only a light shower.

Our normal afternoon activities included doing more hand laundry, reading, downloading photos, and then deciding to cook some lentil soup with the yellow lentils I had bought from the shopkeeper on our walk on Monday. I picked out all the dried corn kernels which had somehow gotten mixed into my lentils, rinsed them as usual, and put them in a pot with water to cook. After about 45 minutes, I checked to see if the lentils were getting soft, but they weren’t. I waited a while longer to check them again, and while they had swelled in size, they were definitely not soft. I also noticed that they were not round, but more bean-shaped. After 4 hours of simmering them, I turned off the pot in frustration.

Mama dressed for greeting the neighbors.

Mama Kundayo was out by the gate, greeting and chatting with the neighbors who passed by. I greeted her, and she said she’d be back in her usual spot to chat with me in an hour, or at 6:00. Well, 6:00 came and went and there was no sign of Mama, so I made dinner, and we sat down to eat. Just after we had finished our meal, Mama showed up and sat down for a short greeting time. I decided to ask her what was wrong with my lentils and got the pot to show her what was in it after 4 hours of cooking. She tasted the lentils and broth, and while she liked the broth, she was not positive about the still crunchy legumes—obviously not really lentils. And so the fun began.

Mama yelled loudly for the Kundayo cook and his assistant to come and check out what was in my pot. Immanuel, the concierge, also showed up, and the three composed a “committee” of tasters. They examined and ate some of the pot’s contents and said they didn’t know exactly what I had been cooking because it didn’t look like the beans they use in their bean stew. When I asked if it could be chicken feed, they just laughted. During all of this Mama kept interjecting comments until finally the chef asked if he could take the “soup” and run it through the bender in his kitchen. Of course, I agreed to this, and we soon heard a loud grinding noise in the next building. Then, the two cooks reappeared carrying a pot of purée, which upon being tasted by the “committee” was declared “nzuri sana,” very good. After their final judgement, Mama and the other taste testers dismissed themselves. Immanuel said he would visit the grain shop and find out what I had bought since it certainly was not lentils. I hadn’t laughed so much and so hard in a long time.

Trying to figure out exactly what I was cooking and why it was still hard after 4 hours.

The lovely purée made in Kundayo's blender

The final tasting at which the soup was declared very good.

Neighborhood Shops

Monday, January 14, 2019

It was cooler today than it has been up to now, so I decided to see how far I could walk on the pedestrian path along the big highway which now runs near Kundayo. The path is asphalted so it’s much smoother than the dirt side roads John loves to roam. I probably walked about a quarter mile to and back to the produce vendor whom John usually frequents. Along the way, we greeted the shop owners and stopped at several places to buy items such as mandazi (holeless donuts), a large plastic basin for laundry, some nice yellow lentils, and some potatoes, mangoes, avocados, and a watermelon from the produce lady. Here is a small sample of the places we passed.

Maso's brother, Joe Kundayo, has a workshop which produces cement bricks and iron fabrications, mainly beds.

A worker cuts a metal sheet. Notice the lack of protective eyewear.

Beds for sale out along the highway.  Around $200 would pay for one.

 A barber shop is one of the most common new businesses people establish, but duka la dawa (drugstores) are almost as ubiquitous.

The Kundayo family used to own--and maybe still do--a lot of land in this area. Baba Kundayo has a very prominent hardware store along the highway.

This is where we purchased the toilet plunger we use to do our hand laundry.

A dress shop with lots of fancy dresses for little girls.

 

 

A larger than usual open air butcher shop.

A feed shop for all sorts of animals.

A grain shop, where I bought some lovely yellow lentils. This mama also sold popcorn.

re

John's favorite produce vendor. We bought potatoes, mangoes, avocados, and a watermelon from her.

There we several other shops at which we stopped, but I didn't take photos of them all. Maybe another time.

Sunday Routine

Sunday, January 13, 2019

What else would we do on Sunday but go to church? Even if we wanted to sleep in, Ray would come and tell us we needed to go. He’s a very devout Lutheran, and he goes to an early service so he can be here at 10:00 to take us to ACC. Mary Lou came along, too.

The Sunday flowers are always lovely.

Since ACC has no professional paid staff, the sermons are delivered by different pastors and seminary professors in the area and a few members of the congregation. Last year, I gave my first talk, and in spite of all my fears, it was well received. So, two days after we arrived, last Sunday, both John and I were put on the peaching schedule again. John will be in February and I in late March again. Since John has an M.Div., he has no excuse for not doing well; however, all I have to rely on is my current sense of what makes sense—at least to me. I got by with that last year and am hoping for the same tolerance this year, too.

The speaker of this morning was a Catholic priest, Father Oliver O’Brien, who had a lovely Irish accent. His topic was the Baptism of Jesus, but he wandered all over even getting as far afield as infant versus adult baptism and the sex scandal in the Catholic church. He had warned us that he is a sociologist, not a theologian, which I had thought might be in his favor, but apparently he has yet to learn how to focus on a topic. Still, in the end, he proclaimed that what God really wants is for us to love one another no matter what our culture, class, or religion. With that I could heartily agree.

Mark Jacobson, the former head of Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, was back in town for the graduation of the first doctor from ALMC’s residency program. In fact, a whole delegation of people flew in from Minnesota to attend the graduation ceremony for this one doctor. Mark’s a lovely person, but seeing him made me miss his wife, Linda, more than ever. She always added such vitality to everything here and was the heart of the women’s group I loved to attend. Without Linda, the group has crumbled a bit, and we haven’t met once yet since I arrived. Mark said Linda would return in February, so I may have six weeks to enjoy her energy and zany take on life.

Linda Jacobson

John and I had planned on going out to Njiro for lunch and then a bit of shopping in The Village Market there. When we first came to Arusha, Njiro had the one and only mall in the area, and even though it was terribly small, it was sort of exciting, with its grocery store offering insane items such as lemon curd, marshmallows, Kraft macaroni and cheese, etc. The  little shops on the second floor provided goods and services such as photography, hair styling, locally made clothing, and pet supplies. A big British Woolworth’s is still there with its stock of outrageously priced western clothing, but most all the other shops are now empty. Fortunately, the courtyard with its many restaurants still exists, and the second we sat down, four or five waiters were there to offer us the menus from the various businesses. It can be incredibly overwhelming as one must choose among Chinese, Indian, Australian, and other cuisines. I already knew that I wanted Chicken Saagwala, and, of course, John had to order something mutton. After much pondering, Mary Lou chose what I had ordered and was as enthusiastic about it as I always am.

http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net/2012/02/01/how-to-make-british-indian-restaurant-style-chicken-saagwala/

The remainder of the day was spent relaxing, reading, and being happy that we are here.

FiFi's and AfriLeo

Saturday, January 12, 2019

There’s not much excitement in writing about doing laundry by hand nor even about eating delicious mangoes, pineapples and bananas. This is especially true since I have been writing about these things and all the rest of our lives in Tanzania each year. This year we have been here in Arusha for just a little over a week no, and unless I really concentrate and try, I just do not see much that is unusual or unique. The shops, markets, street vendors, crazy traffic patterns, and people are as familiar to me as those in Spokane usually are. Surprise and wonder do occur, but not every day anymore. Is that good or not?

So, we had a very ordinary Saturday morning, doing laundry, reading, and trying to get on the internet. However, mid-afternoon, I decided that I needed to go to FiFi’s, a popular cafe for wazungu and hip Tanzanians, and order a new skirt for myself. A young woman sells crafts and clothing at FiFi’s and creates custom clothing under the name of “Afrileo Collections,” which you can find on Facebook. She made some outfits for my granddaughter Peri last year, and I like her designs. I took my trusty tape measure with me and, after being measured, ordered one skirt. If that fits me well, I’ll order one or maybe two more to replace what the rats chewed up. One skirt including the African fabric and sewing will cost me about $15—a real bargain, I think.

Mary Lou had tagged along with us and also ordered a skirt. After placing our orders, we all sat at Fifi’s enjoying cool drinks—or in John’s case chocolate ice cream—until we thought we might as well return to Kundayo. I bought a lovely loaf of seed bread at FifFi’s and Ray stopped along the way back so John and Mary Lou could buy huge bottles of water. Having enough drinking water on hand is very important.

The other day, I had noticed that the newer FiFi’s across from AfriCafe was closed and looked very abandoned and shabby.  (That was where we found the most amazing fruit salad ever, which we often got as take-away because it was large enough for two lunches.) Many of the shops that were between Phillip’s Corner and Kundayo are now closed, too. Perhaps I haven’t seen enough yet to make a generalization, but it feels to me as if there is a sense of recession here. Certainly tourism has been down, prices have risen very noticeably, and no new businesses are apparent. If all this is bad for people like us, it is definitely far worse for the Tanzanians.

Just after it turned dark, at 7:00 p.m. here, we initiated a FaceChat session with little Peri, who was already up at 8:00 a.m. in Spokane. She seemed a bit unsure about how we were inside a computer and squealed more than talked. After maybe 10 minutes of very good video connection, our connection just quit. Still it is amazing to me that we can see and speak directly with people at home so easily.

Rushda and Rats

Friday, January 11, 2019

Our internet service has been horrible today. For some reason, Kundayo’s usual slow, but functioning, system just would not connect strongly enough for me to upload or send anything. And, worse yet, my Smile hotspot gave out. Apparently, John had bought only a week’s worth of service. I guess his brain really was not alert at all when he did that. Anyway, I got really frustrated and then mad at myself for caring so much about internet in the first place. I’ve been ruined by the instant connection life we all seem to rely upon now. (Breathe, I tell myself, Breathe deeply, and let it go.)

Today, we decided to go downtown to Rushda, a very small, crowded grocery store stuck in the middle of an Indian section. Right across the street is the best spice store in Arusha, and on the corner is Dolly’s Patissierie, where John likes to buy samosas. To enter or exit Rushada, one must run a gauntlet of market women trying very eagerly to sell their mangoes, onions, bananas, papayas, or whatever. This time some were even selling strawberries and raspberries, which actually looked very good and really weren’t obscenely expensive. I did not buy any if the berries but rather got two beautiful mangoes.

Inside the store, which was perhaps the size of a large master bedroom, had close set aisles stocked with almost anything one would ever need. There was even a section of Pampers, and I was able to find a silicone spatula, which I had forgotten to pack. The pasta and sauces aisle had the most variety, and there were even many kinds of cheeses in the cooler. I even look at the knew better than to look at the cheese prices, which are usually on par with gold prices. So, I focused on items such as pasta, tomato paste, oil, vinegar, dish soap, etc. I even got 2 frozen chickens, and John bought a small container of Azam ice cream. All for very reasonable prices.

Once done at Rushda, John and Mary Lou walked to the corner to buy samosas for our lunch. Ray and I returned with all our goods, leaving the other two to walk all the way back. On our way back to Kundayo, I asked Ray to make a small detour to Meat King, which has moved from its space downtown to a big house in a compound near The Blue Heron. It seemed odd to enter a former luxury dwelling to buy stew beef.

Back at Kundayo, Maso and other workers were emptying out the storage room in a move to make sure they banished all rats. It looked as if they were setting up for a garage sale, but they were just going through all the boxes and sacks of items people have left behind when they intend to return. I forgot to ask Maso if they found more damage or if we had been the only victims of rat rage.

Hunting for rat damage.

After lunch and a rest, I spent much of my time futilely fighting with a noncooperative internet system. Here at Kundayo, I am liberated from most housework. A young woman comes every morning to make our bed, change our towels, clean our floors, and even do the dishes if we don’t. Also because we can only do hand laundry in a big plastic bucket with a plunger, anything other than underwear and socks is washed by the Kundayo staff and returned neatly pressed and folded. Life is very good here.

Agnes cleans and our room every morning.