Ninapenda Chakula

Weather: It actually cooled off at the weekend and I marched around in glee, with Mum in tow looking a little pink and almost collapsing after I made her take a tennis lesson with me (I think I must be acclimatizing), but alas the humidity and heat are now back in full force. Looking forward to some pool time this weekend!

Swahili word of the week: Damu ya Mzee: direct translation- blood of an old person, actual meaning- the color: maroon. I tried to explain that old people’s blood was not a different color but my mwalimu did not believe me!

Special Shout Out: To the corresponders out there. A BIG thanks for the emails, its lovely to hear the news as it makes me feel a little closer to everyone.

Ninapenda Chakula

Work has been full pelt and we are developing our goals and objectives for next years work. Included activities are increasing and improving the image of nursing in Tanzania. Developing an integrated and modularized HIV/AIDS curriculum in the BSc nursing programs, providing skills labs in nursing schools, nurse faculty development and working with the Tanzania nursing council. My application is in for my Tanzanian nursing license, and then I hope to start volunteering at the Ocean Road Cancer Center.

Well as a foodie it was only a matter of time before the subject of food in Tanzania reached the written page. Food is a focus in Tanzania for many different reasons. In rural areas it is a primary focus because of the length of time and effort it takes to grow, harvest, prepare and cook food. Because the main production of food here is small, sustenance farmers there is not a large amount of surplus food (a necessity for city dwellers) making a noticeable lack of cities in most countries in Africa (compared to the western world). For example, 85% of Tanzanians live in rural areas. It is these rural people that are producing the food. The produce here is quite delicious probably because it is small production farming but it does make me wonder why there is such a lack of variation in the cooking here.

While in Dodoma a visited the one and only winery in Tanzania. I bought two bottles of wine for $6 so was a little skeptical. Though definitely not a Duckhorn, it was drinkable.
Standard food here is Ugali (corn based porridge), Rice or Bananas served with meat, stew, fish, vegetables or beans. There is a plethora of fruit (all seasonal). I swear I have been surviving on mangoes, it will be a sad day when they are out of season. Food in Dar is never more then 5 minutes away and is a focus on the streets not only visually but auditory as well. Each food vendors appears to have a different “call” on the street. Water boys yell Maji, Maji while making a kissing sound. Peanut vendors, who sell delicious roasted nuts in recycled paper cones (the paper will often have hand written homework on it, recycling to a whole new level), clink large coils of coins in their hands creating an underlying metal beat that follows me around wherever I go. Sister, sister ladies sell oranges and bananas piled high on the baskets on their heads, which will often hold my gaze in wonderment on how they can balance it all (especially when I can’t balance when trying to stand on one leg in yoga with nothing on my head). In addition, the bicycle boys bike around huge baskets of mangoes, watermelons, pineapples, coconuts, apples or oranges. I often will do my shopping on the walk home making it an eclectic commute.
Dar is an ocean port and boasts an amazing fish market that has tons (literally) of seafood. You can smell the market before you can see it but the quality, choice and price of the seafood are unbeatable. The Indian influence in Dar is very evident creating a melting pot of cuisine. Pilau, biryani, and masala are integrated into standard Tanzanian fare. I have found the most delicious dosa place, close to my home which shames DOSA in SF. Menus also included is Egg Chop (French fries/chips in an omelette), Masala chips (spicy French fries/chips), fried bread, fried rice cake, kebabs and curries.
I have been cooking at home, often in a full sweat. Created from a mixture of the incessant heat and humidity and my love of spicy food. But I crave the experience of buying new foods and spices and trying to create, often 'trying' being the operative word (though Mum said my Rice Pilau was pretty good). All in all its an experience though I have to say, I miss cheese…

Time in Tanzania

Weather: Arid yet Hot, I am in Dodoma, TZ an "arid disconsolately nowhere" and capital of TZ

Swahili Word of the Week: Kiti Moto: Pork, direct translation of fire chair. "Why?" I asked my Mwalimu (teacher). Because the meat is so good that you keep jumping from your chair to grab some more, like the chair is on fire...

Special Shout Out: Happy Birthday Maggie!!!

TIME

Time has been an interesting concept for me this week, especially because I am not a time conscious person. I always try to cram too much stuff in a day, or an hour and I never seem to be on time, it is a battle in my life (shown by the many flights I have missed). I feel like its opposite week as time seems to be on my hands indicated by many occurrences throughout the week.

In Tanzania time is just complicated, pure and simple. We'll start with the concept of "swahili time". Swahili time is from dawn to dusk, so 6am is when the day begins and 6pm is when the days ends. So if you wake up at 7am, you are actually waking up at 1, 8am is 2 etc! Take this concept and then add in trying to say it in swahili while doing mental calculations on what time it is "swahili time" and you can see why I get flustered. My mwalimu simply says Hakuna Matata...Hah.

I obviously had not made a complete fool of myself at the Kitchen Party on Saturday night, as I got invited to the Send Off party on Thursday. This had promises of being bigger, grander and inclusive of men so I was excited, and yes got a new dress made to match the silver and red theme! I was prewarned at the kitchen party to not arrive on time. The party was supposed to start at 4pm and I showed up at 530 and was probably one of the first 5 people there out of 150. So, I thought, I will not make that charlatan mistake again. The send off was supposed to start at 6pm. At 6pm I was still playing tennis made it home by 7, taxi at 8pm and arrived at the send off by 830. I was literally the first guest, they were doing sound checks and the lights were off. I ordered myself a Tusker and laughed at myself. The send off was great, again lots of dancing, including a traditional Rwandan tribe who did Kupiga Vigeregere-the high wail with a reverberating tongue, if that doesn't get a send off party going, I don't know what does. Late morning in the office after too much Tanzanian Wine (did you know they had vineyards here, I didn't...) and then off to Dodoma on Sunday which rounds out the blog of the week.

We were heading to Dodoma for a curriculum forum and to do some site visits of a university and a lab. In my invite letter I was told the bus was leaving at 730 am and to "please keep my time." I was a little perplexed at what time I should actually show up, considering my experiences the previous week. I decided to play it safe and show up at 730, I was the first but not by much and soon everyone was there and we began the long (8.5 hours) bus ride to the middle of nowhere. As our bus tootled out of Dar, one of the Deans stated Muwa mua Muzungu, Asante Sana. I was told it translated to Thank you all for acting like a white person, ie she was thanking everyone for showing up on time for the bus (I guess that's what Muzungus are known for).

Work is good, making great progress. Doing some site visits tomorrow. Mum arrives Thursday and we are off on some adventures.

a few pictures of Dar

Chicken dinner!

Indian BBQ

Commute with local traffic

Walk to Work

Birthdays, Kitchen Parties, Car Accidents and Thunderstorms

Weather: Hot & Humid. Occasional lightening and thunder so loud I woke up and almost peed my pants, followed by an immediate electrical outage for 16 hours…

Swahili Word of the Week: Mboo- so rude, my instructor will not even say it out loud. He whispers it in my ear. It means penis. Unfortunately, it sounds like the word for vegetable, Mboga. I will NOT mix this up!

The Week:

It seems to be a week of excitement in Dar. Our office boy, Maganga, turned 25 this week. He is lovely and I got to witness some new birthday traditions, I can now add them to my repertoire. His thank you speech touched my heart as he stated “I am proud to be 25, and to have a birthday cake with my name on it!”. Another important birthday, my dear friend Jon. Happy Birthday Jon!!

My office is located in central Dar and there is always many happenings around. The BIG excitement this Friday was a car accident that happened right outside my window. This caused a hullabaloo that was beyond imagination. The giant crash first of all got all my co-workers excitedly running to my desk to look at what was happening. I think literally anyone that was in a 4 block radius came running through the streets to witness the confrontation with the TZ army officer driving the landy and the gentleman driving the vintage Mercedes. It lasted a good two hours with traffic stopped in all directions, everyone offering an opinion and the crowd growing rather than dispersing until finally the cars were pushed to who knows where…

I was invited to a kitchen party which I attended last night. Great fun. Mama Safe the Tanzanian nurse I work closely with said that “you can come on my umbrella”. Basically meaning I could come as her tag along Muzungo (white person). I was told it was like a wedding shower. Hmmmmm, it was not quite like that. I arrived thinking it would be small, intimate affair and I was nicely surprised. I arrived and it was a huge hall, with probably 150 women. It looked like a game show with stove, refrigerator, microwave and any type of utensil you could think of displayed proudly in the front (gifts from the guests). The dancing started at 4pm and probably ended around 1 am. My favorite ceremony (there were many!) was each table presented 1-4 kangas to the mother of the bride by dancing in a line and then wrap the kangas around her until she looked like the abominable snowman. She probably had about 50 kangas piled around her. All I can say is she must have been hot. We all got given sieves as party favours at the end of the night and as I meandered out around 1130, I looked back and caught a glimpse of 50 Tanzanian women dancing up a storm with sieves flying wildly above their heads. A night to remember!

Work has been very busy. I am excited because we have confirmation that our mobile libraries have been shipped and should be arriving mid Feb. I will be traveling to the different nursing schools to help train librarians on how to manage the libraries (our survey results stated that most nursing books currently in the nursing schools are published in 1950-1960, youch!) I am going up the Nation’s capital next week. It is described in my rough guide as “a disconsolately arid nowhere!” I will be there for 6 days, Yay?? The purpose is a meeting with all the deans of the nursing schools. We are converting many of the curriculums to be shorter and more defined in order to increase the workforce of nurses as they are desperately short over here.

Life is good!

a
xoxo

First Days in Dar

Well things are going relatively smoothly so far. I am now situated in the office which is set in Downtown Dar. There are about 10-15 people in the office, mostly tanzanians with a few scattered volunteers from the US. The project has started to make more sense in my head and the more I learn the more I am impressed with its design and sustainability.

The funding, although from the USG is funneled through a non profit which provides the logistical partnerships with an American Institution and a Tanzanian Institution . I am part of one of five partnerships in TZ (they have a social work partnership, lab partnership, substance abuse partnership, nurse partnership (me)). They also have partnerships in Ethiopia, Nigeria, SA, and some other countries. All partnership projects are HIV/AIDS related. The idea in the partnership is very collaborative with the host country (TZ) directing what expertise they would like from the partnering country (US). The idea is to be capacity building the current country so that when the partnership eventually ends, we have not left a hole instead have built a strong infrastructure, team of workers so current projects can be maintained by host countries. The Nurse project has about 5 different themes and is quite complicated.

The overall idea is to build the HIV/AIDS education of new nurse graduates in Tanzania (so we are working with all 68! nurse trainee schools) but we have a lot of projects that are working on this major program outcome. For example a mobile library project that is delivering HIV/AIDS books and resources in shipping containers (Go Danny!) to schools, the HIV/AIDS curriculum which we are integrating into current curriculum, training of faculty members in school, increasing the capacity of current nursing schools through infrastructure development, long term planning with the Tanzania Nurse and Midwifery Council on the direction and education of Nursing Education and a few more that I haven't even got my head around. My to do list is long!

Dar is a nice city, though right now is quite sickly hot (34 C at night) so I have a tendency to melt after walking around for an hour or two. Apt is quite sweet, about a 20-30 minute walk down dirt roads to the office. I have a local bar across the street where I had a Tusker and watched a footie match. I believe my neighbors are english (heard voices yesterday) so will have to go introduce myself. The askari 'Jon' is hilarious, speaks very little english and is (I'm not joking) about 4'11" but the place is very secure so I'm sure he wont have to take on any attackers. The houseboy is on holiday, I have yet to meet.

I believe I am starting my Swahili school today at lunch with a volunteer. Will keep you posted.