Coming Home

It's that time--I'm returning to the US. I am officially malaria and parasite free, I've packed my bags, and I'm bidding Arusha good bye. I can't believe it's already been three months! This also marks the end of my blog. Thank you to everyone who followed and commented, and I hope it has been a window into a different world.

Chickens and Rain

Tanzania in the winter, as far as I can tell, is chilly and sometimes cloudy, but not really rainy. There were times that it rained during the night, but it was usually done by the time I had to go to work in the morning. Then, during the day, the sun will come out and the temperature will rise so that it's really quite a nice day. This is my first real rainy day here, and it was so novel that I had to take pictures of it. Unfortunately it didn't rain enough to fill the gutters on the sides of the street--there was a puny little trickle, but I wanted a moat.

My neighbors have chickens and a new bunch of chicks just hatched. They are so cute! My landlady's kids don't come in the house anymore, because they're busy watching the little chicks run around and scratch in the dirt. So, I figured I'd join them and watch too.

Sometimes dinner is pretty...

...and sometimes it isn't. The first is a picture of a "signature" stew concoction (read: I use what I have in the fridge, recipe or no) made with green beans, onions, carrots, green peppers, and plantains. I fried them a little first, added some tomato paste and salt, fried them a little more, then added enough water to let them boil for a bit and soften. It really tastes good over rice with some chili sauce! The second is leftover ugali with leftover thick vegetable soup (from a packet) poured over it, and two eggs for protein. There are probably ways to make it look prettier.

I am Tanzanian

I just bought a snack on credit from the snack shop downstairs (because she didn't have change for my large bill) and I have gone to the tailor's shop twice now and have only been heckled once on the street. I also walked down to the fabric shop with another intern and no one even looked twice at us.

I have also managed to keep my shawl wrapped around my shoulders while still walking at my usual (speedy) mzungu pace, which is quite a feat.

Supa Loaf

Here's a little anecdote about life in Tanzania. Not all bread is the same, and not all of it is good. I bought a loaf once of Sunkist bread and got sick from it. When I told my landlady about it, she said "Oh, you should always get Supa Loaf, because it's always good. It's a good quality bread." So now, whenever I stop by the shop to pick up bread, I ask for "Supa Loaf" by name, rather than just asking for bread. And I have to do it with a straight face. (Try saying "Supa Loaf" quietly to yourself and you may appreciate how difficult this is).

Beans without gas

Another trip to the market last week, and I decided to go crazy and buy a different kind of beans. I'm not sure that the picture is doing justice to how lime green they are.


I'm not sure what they're called, and I'm not sure what the real difference is between these lime green beans and the purple ones I've been cooking with so far. They taste kind of the same to me, they're about the same size, they look remarkably similar except for color, and they certainly cook the same. At the market, after I decided that I wanted to try something new, I asked my friend, "what's the difference between the two?" After a flurry of Swahili between her and the seller, she translated the response: apparently the purple ones cause lots of gas, and the green ones only cause a little bit of gas. Sign me up.



This is a picture of my bathroom/shower. You'll notice the switches on the wall outside--the small one is for the light and the big one is for the water heater in my shower. Here's how the heater works: when you flip the switch it activates some gadget on the head of the shower that heats the water as it leaves the nozzle. If you turn it on before you've turned the water on, you get scalding steam--not fun. So, you have to turn the water on, then turn the switch on, then fiddle with the water so that the amount coming out doesn't overpower the amount of heat the gadget produces. You may also notice that the switches are quite some distance away from the door, which means that after you're done with your shower, you have to leave the water on, get out of the shower, reach around the doorframe dripping wet and cold, turn the heater off, then get back in the shower and turn off the water. It takes some skill. The point of this story is that this switch no longer works, and while I wait for it to be fixed, I get to sponge bathe in ice water in a drafty concrete room in 60 degree weather.

As a side note, the lemon soap is good at its word. I have used it for both laundry and personal hygiene and it works marvelously for both. Now I smell refreshingly like lemon, in addition to my laundry. I am hesitant to take it into the kitchen and use it (there's an odd mental block about using a single bar of soap to clean the sink, me, and my clothes) but I'm sure it would work just as well there.

The Good, the Bad, and the Chapatti

So, my adventures in chapatti.

My recipe is pretty basic: flour, water, oil, and salt. Bread products outside the US are very different from bread products inside the US (or maybe I should say bread products that originate in Europe?), and it's actually really hard to make them because you just can't get the ingredients. When in Tanzania, make the bread products that Tanzanians make.


Chapatti are actually made with ghee, which is a special type of butter, but I just used oil. I spoke with my Kenyan friend and she said oil works just fine. The second thing about cooking with my recipe is I don't actually have any measuring utensils. That makes cooking very interesting. In retrospect I could have spoken with my Pakistani mother (my landlady's mother, because my landlady doesn't know how to cook chapatti) about ingredients and recipes, but she's visiting her sick mother in Pakistan, which makes conversation difficult. Also, I think I would have to work very hard to just get the recipe--I think once I showed interest she would just want to make me chapatti and feed me (which isn't bad, really, but not quite my intent).

My pseudo-chapatti. If it cooks like chapatti, tastes like chapatti, but looks only kinda like chapatti, is it still chapatti? I didn't have a rolling pin and I'm really not that skilled to make them flat without one, so my chapatti are very lumpy! They looked a little more like pita than chapatti, but they tasted good. Mine are very filling because they're thicker!

So, of course, I tried to make them again the night before last, and added too much water to the recipe. Rather than dump my whole bag of flour in to make dough I decided to cut my losses and make chapatti-pancakes. I must say, it was the ugliest batch of chapatti I have ever seen. Like I said, I'm not sure if they actually count as chapatti, but I eat them and like them, so I consider it a win!

I am also surprised by how much I like puttering around the kitchen in my khanga (kanga? I'm not sure if it's like the animal or the Mongolian emperor) trying new things. (That is a window in the picture, by the way). Cooking without measuring cups and without an actual stove makes it more novel and unpredictable, but also more exciting. I cooked beans the other night and added onions and peas to it and really enjoyed the whole thing. I think my priorities are very different from other interns here, but I like living a different way, not just being a tourist.

Candlelight and Khangas

This is going to be a post of dark pictures. Terribly sorry for my photography skills.

So I happen to come home one evening to no power and no water. I decided to make a moment of it and post it on my blog. This picture actually gives a pretty good impression of my life here: that's my little table where I keep my computer; that's my huge bucket of peanut butter because I couldn't cook anything without water; that's my book of Sudoku (ah, sudoku and candlelight...); and those are my candles that I bought for maybe 10 cents each. They're stuck in empty bottles because I couldn't come up with a reason to spend money on candlesticks (but, so you know, those bottles are from a friend. I don't drink here!) It happened that I bought the candles not thinking I would need to use them, and so I forgot to get matches, too. When I realized that I thought "well, I probably won't need them" (I hadn't turned on any lights by then) but something told me I should go buy matches before it got dark out. Thank you, God!

These are two of my beautiful khanga. I thought at first that three would be enough, but when I think about how much I love them and how I'm likely never going to be back to Tanzania, I think one for every day of the week might be better. Or I might get two for every day of the week, just in case I want to wear a different one in the morning than in the evening. : ) These pictures show the center print and then the border. I didn't take pictures of the words, but on every khanga, centered above the bottom border, is a saying in Swahili. The khanga below says "God is Great" and the khanga above says "There is no God like you" (not that it particularly matters, but the Swahili is the Christian God). When the khanga is wrapped (like a sarong) then the words hit mid-calf on the back of ones' legs. I put a pair of shorts on underneath them and wear them around the house kinda like sweatpants, only much better. You're supposed to get the edges hemmed but I haven't yet (they are printed in big long rolls, and then cut apart. When you buy a khanga for about 5000Tsh, you get two pieces: one to wrap around your waist and one to wear as a shawl. You then have to cut the two pieces apart yourself and get them hemmed).


It's interesting how khanga can be a social commentary: everyone on the streets wear them (and one thing I will tell you about fashion in Africa: NO ONE is afraid to mix prints, stripes, plaids, and everything in between!) and you see them all over. I was speaking with my landlady, however, and she said that a lot of the businesswomen in Arusha refuse to wear them. I'm not sure if her statement is correct or not, but it introduces an interesting socio-economic flavor to the mix.

You can get khanga in practically every color and with any number of sayings on them--many are religious, like mine, but not all. The patterns vary from flowers to simple designs to Obama's face (not sure whether I'm going to get one of those...) There are lots of corn patterns and chicken patterns and nature patterns. I think they are so beautiful!

Home

As promised, here are pictures of my lovely home. Most houses have gates to the courtyards here, for safety reasons, but not all. All of the homes on my side of the street do, but the homes opposite us have no gates or fences. The homes are simpler, too (no shutters on the windows, looks like one room only, but they have screens). I'm not sure why there's a difference but there is, even from one side of the street to the other.
The ditches on the road are the most interesting thing to me. They're really quite deep--likely three to four feet--and in town there are all sorts of haphazard wood planking to get from one side to the other. You can leap across, if you're agile and not carrying anything, but I haven't tried it yet (mainly because I wouldn't want to get laughed at if I fell in!). Usually they're kept pretty clean--swept, and there isn't a lot of trash in them. Occasionally some fruit remains, or a wrapper or two. I just try to imagine these during the rainy season filled with water!


This is the front part of the courtyard, inside the gate. I walk through here every morning to go to work.

And here is my little friend. I'm not sure how he got in, or how he got out (my idea is the grate in my wall that promotes airflow), but he was really cute and quite shy. My landlady hates them but I love them!

Plantains

[Funny how someone who cares as little about food as I do should be talking so much about it!]

I discovered yesterday that you can "just peel" a plantain, provided that it's yellow. I also discovered that they lose their starchy taste when they are yellow, and taste just like a banana, rather than a potato. I also did some research and discovered that you can cook them and eat them even when the peel is black--I think they're really sweet then, or something.

So, in sum, I fried bananas and carrots last night and made some rice, and called it dinner (and breakfast this morning, because I've run out of milk, cereal, and bread). They taste really good and quite sweet.

Ugali

Last night was the ugali adventure. Compared to beans and plantains, ugali is a piece of cake! I got a recipe from online that is pictured above--that single page is all it takes. I'm not sure if cornmeal flour is available in the US but, dear readers, you should try making it. For those of you who have been to South Africa, too, this is the same as pap or mealie pap. I boiled my water, added the salt, and had my two cups of cornmeal flour ready to "stir in slowly, letting it fall through the fingers of your hand." (I picked this recipe because that seemed "authentic" to me, for some reason).

Letting it pour through my fingers lasted through about the first half of the first cup: I dumped it in slowly after that. After I dumped it I was a little worried that it would hurt the recipe somehow, but I can't see that it's had any negative effects at all. Also, a thick-bottomed saucepan is not required--I used the same aluminum bowl as I did for beans (since it's the only one I have to cook with). I think it's hard to screw up ugali. The recipe says stir until the mush pulls away from the sides of the pot, and by the end it started feeling like I was stirring concrete--ugali is pretty solid stuff! I'm not sure whether it actually took 10 minutes or not, but it did started pulling away from the side of the pot in an easily identifiable way.

It looks like mashed potatoes but it is not light, nor fluffy, and I didn't put any butter in (but did put salt in). Ugali is stiff, so it can actually be cut like bread, and tastes delicious! My Kenyan friend here says ugali is a staple for her, so she's going to try some of mine during lunch. I told her that even if I didn't make it right, it's edible and I like it, so I'm not too poorly off.

Yum. Now I really need to find a good sauce recipe.

Ugali
Water: 4 cups
Salt: 2 teaspoons
White cornmeal, finely ground: 2 cups

1. Bring water and salt to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the cornmeal slowly, letting it fall through the fingers of your hand.
2. Reduce head to medium-low and stir regularly until mush pulls away from the sides of the pan (approximately 10 minutes)
3. Allow to cool.

Cooking in Tanzania

This past weekend was devoted to market shopping and cooking, and so I will post pictures of both. Another intern and I went to the market on Saturday and shopped around--I stocked my cabinets with fruits, veggies, beans, and corn flour for about $7. That is one thing that I'm going to miss the most when I'm back in the USA: cheap fruit and vegetables, year round. I'll also miss being able to buy odd numbers of things. It took me a while to get used to not buying things in bulk, but now I prefer it. I can buy three avocados (of varying ripeness--I have one that's hard as a rock in my cabinet right now, waiting to ripen at the end of the week for me to eat it) if I want, or just two; I can buy five eggs, and not worry about them going bad; and I can buy four bananas, or just three, and then when I run out just get more (because I buy them from my next door neighbor. "Welcome banana" is their unfailing greeting to me, even though I've tried to say hello, hi, mambo, and all manner of other things).

So, in the next few days I will be attempting exciting culinary delights: plantains, chapati, ugali, and beans (without a crock pot). Yesterday I cooked beans and plantains.

I don't actually know what kind of beans these are, but they're very gook cooked with salt and garlic. At the market there's a huge burlap bag filled with them, probably as tall as my waist, and the shop owner scooped up a bunch, weighed them, and put them in a plastic bag for me. I soaked them for 12+ hours--which I think is the secret--and it only took about four hours on the burner for them to be nice and soft. (By the way, when I say "burner," I mean "burner," singular. What you see is what I have to cook with by way of a stove. I'm actually quite impressed that beans on a gas burner, in a thin aluminum bowl, with a glass plate as a lid, came out so well.)

I've never had much luck with beans before. When I cooked them on the stove it looked like a bean massacre because the pot boiled over (and I mean massacre: it was all over the stove, somehow all over the walls, on the floor, dripping down the oven), and when I cooked them in the crock pot they came out crunchy. These beans are the softest, best tasting beans I've ever made, and I am so happy to eat them at lunch (and dinner, and lunch again, and dinner...) For lunch today I had them with rice (which I have yet to master) and avocado. Yum! Good for my digestion, probably not so good for my office mates.

The plantains were a bit more of an experience. They're super good fried or boiled and I like them more than potatoes. I first had them on the coffee farm tour and they weren't cut up at all, but were fried whole. So I figured I would just peel them and pop them into the pan, and all would be good. First, you don't "just peel" a plantain--this I figured out by the time I got to the second one. I wouldn't say the first one put up a fight, but I would say we struggled for a bit (it lost). Second, frying them didn't quite turn out like I thought. I've fried a number of things before, but I put too much oil in the pan and so they were practically deep-fried. Not bad, because the vegetable oil here really tastes good (and has no cholesterol) but I think I'll try boiling them next time.

This bar of soap has changed my life. "Sunlight" yellow and smelling so pleasantly of lemon, it has freed me from the bonds of waiting for laundry. There are no washing machines in Arusha--not one. All clothes are washed by hand. My landlady's mother has a maid who does her clothes, and so she told me that I can just throw mine in with hers. This is a very nice arrangement, as you can imagine, but the clothes take about 4 days to wash, dry, and the iron (I really like wearing ironed t-shirts. Call me crazy.) But now, with this lovely bar of soap, I can wash all manner of small things and have them dry by the next day. And I even iron them. Apparently this is miracle soap, too: the label said "for laundry, kitchen, and personal use." Just add water, and the whole house will be clean before you know it.

Lastly, this is the small lizard that was hanging out in the corner of my room for a night. I think he's outside somewhere now. He looks like a gecko (based on the foot and coloring) and he was probably no more than two inches long, tail and all. I wished him a happy life and told him to keep eating all of those mosquitoes.

Mzungu in a canoe

I went with a bunch of other interns out to Lake Duluti last weekend, and canoed around the placid and beautiful lake. The reason I titled this post the way I did is because I didn't see any locals out in canoes, despite beautiful weather, and both of our guides looked at us like we were crazy when we asked them if they canoed at all. The lake, which is a crater, is beautiful and calm and so serene, despite the water being green and filled with parasitic worms.

This is what we went canoeing in...just kidding. Those are two of the birds that I attempted to capture. They allowed me to get pretty close, but my poor camera wouldn't zoom any more before they flew off. We also saw kingfishers, cormorants, and another type of really pretty bird that I can't remember (and didn't get any pictures of). And we also saw...


water monitors! I was super excited about these, because I LOVE lizards and reptiles. Apparently these bad boys get up to nine feet long, so the ones we saw were only babies. This one here was probably about three feet long, tail included. He looked pretty harmless sunning himself on that log, but our guide said they bite.

The best part about the whole trip was how exotic the lake was. Everything was green and leafy, there were lots of vines hanging down, and we even saw some bamboo. After pine trees and shrubs in the USA, the vegetation here never fails to show me that I am, after all, in Africa. The other part that I love is the flowers--they grow everywhere! Some just pop up randomly, and all of them are so pretty and colorful that I try to get pictures of them all. I'm so pleased with the close-up feature on my camera, as I said, because it captures them so well. I never thought I would enjoy flowers as much as I am, and I never thought I would get just pleasure out of taking pictures of them!

Lukundane

This past Friday I went to a celebration called Lukundane with a whole group of interns--it's at a home for widows and orphans, and all of the proceeds benefit the organization. It was such a good time! We first got a tour of the facilities, and then we ordered dinner and watched a show that had traditional Tanzanian dances and songs as well as traditional Masaai dances. I ordered "chips mayai" which is that egg-and-french-fry dish I had the first night I was here. And I even got up and danced (there will be no pictures of that online). At the end of the evening all of the widows get up and do a traditional dance in a circle, but it's easy enough that even clumsy mzungus like me can join in.

The home does vocational training in computers and sewing, and these are the machines that they sew with. I wish I could sew on them! These are also the sewing machines that you see everywhere. They're from China, and who knows how old they are. Imagine this: men and women tailors sitting outside of their shops, sewing away on these machines right on the street. It's pretty neat.

The best part: they have a gift shop filled with things the women have made. I can't wait to go again and give them the rest of my money. I e-mailed the director about volunteering, which I think would be a great way to spend some of my time here. We'll see what he writes back!

Pictures and coffee

So, everyone, I am going to be selective in the pictures that I post, only because I want there to be some reason for everyone to see me when I get back. : ) I'm trying to pick out my favorites, but it is very difficult. Enjoy!

These first ones are from the crater trip.

The higher up the side of the crater we got, the foggier it got. We were going really fast, so trees would just loom up through the mist and then disappear back into it. It wasn't really eerie, but it did lend a certain amount of atmosphere, especially because the trees just look different in Africa.

Here is Ngorongoro Crater. It was cloudy during the morning but brightened up during the afternoon.

Did you know that wildebeasts moo like cows do? I have a few pictures of them up close, too, and they are surprisingly ugly creatures. Yet, like good little wildebeasts, they cross the road in one straight line.

Lions! They looked so comfortable in that bracken that I wanted to go curl up with them. The fact that they could eat my head in one bite stopped me.

I'll say a little about the coffee farm tour as well. We were picked up in a group around 9:00, then drove maybe a half hour to Nkoaranga, a small village in the mountains. Our tour guide, Justin, met us there and showed us around the orphanage, secondary school, town (which we had to walk through) and then took us to the coffee farm. This coffee farm is organic, cooperative, and fair trade, and we met the owner of the farm, who is 72 and still amazingly spry. The owner showed us how they graft plants, then showed us the coffee bushes (trees?) themselves. I had no idea that coffee beans grew on trees, in clusters, and can be picked only when red.


So they picked a bunch, then showed us the manual crank that they use to shell the beans.
They explained that after the beans are shelled, then have to be washed multiple times, dried in huge net trays, and then shelled again. Only after all of that are they sent to the coffee factory. We had a snack of bananas while we were there (RK took a picture: "my first African banana.") The walking-around part was really nice, because the countryside was amazing. I learned how to use the close-up setting on my camera, and I really had a blast taking pictures of flowers. You wouldn't believe how pretty the flowers are here--roses grow naturally all over the place, and there are about six different other types of flowers draped over trees and scattered through the shrubs. Very pretty.


After that part of the tour we went to the tour-owner's home for a huge lunch: we had platters of fresh mangos, papayas, pineapples, passionfruit, watermelon, and avocados, followed by a meal of goat stew with vegetables, chapati, rice, ugali, salad, greens, and plantains. Justin showed us the traditional way of eating ugali (a corn porridge type food) with our hands, and using it to scoop up vegetables and meat (it serves the same purpose as chapati does), but our host said it's very sticky and if you don't get it right you get it all over, so we decided to use our forks instead. Yes, I ate the goat. I knocked down some pretty high mental barriers in order to do it, but I didn't want to miss out on it since I was there and it was the main dish (I was hungry after tromping up and down mountains all morning!) The goat itself was OK, but the sauce and the vegetables were absolutely delicious. I ate more than I should have, but it was all very very good. Then we had waffles (our host is from Norway, and so slipped a little bit of that into our lunch!) with jam and honey, and a cup of local coffee for dessert. RK said it was the best coffee he had ever tasted. Not being a coffee connoisseur myself, I took his word for it--it was pretty good coffee.

After lunch we went to the coffee factory, which consisted of one room where the beans are roasted, ground, and packaged. Literally. Our host showed us the different settings for making the different kind of roasts and different types of grounds (french press, filter drip), and then showed us how she packages everything. When I said it's all in that room, it was all in that room: she buys huge rolls of plastic tubes, has a sealing machine that she uses to make the bags that the actual coffee is packaged in; she had bolts of fabric and a sewing machine to make the decorative bags, she hires people to sit outside and wind strings from banana leaves (which, of course, grow around her house) which she uses to tie up the bags, and then she attaches a tag with the date and the name of the farmer where the beans come from. All in one room. It's a pretty amazing operation, all around, and if it grows I think she would employ half the village. We each got a bag of coffee included in the trip price and then an opportunity to buy more--I think RK has more coffee in his bag than clothes, for the trip back. Then, around 5:00 ish, we were driven back home.

Safari

RK visited me this weekend in Tanzania, and boy did we have a good time! Pictures will follow, never fear.

Saturday: day trip to Ngorongoro Crater

We started at 6:00 am by being picked up, and then had a three hour drive out to the crater. Seeing the countryside of Tanzania--outside of Arusha--was very interesting. It's a mix of empty landscape, cows, and small villages (would they even count as villages?) which are usually lines of shops on either side of the main road with a few houses behind them. The shops are always incredibly tiny, and there's usually a grocery, a barber shop, a general shop, and a bar/restaurant. There were people out but not too many, because it was very early in the morning. We actually saw zebras and giraffes on the way to the crater, which is what reminded me that yes, we are in Africa. Those animals aren't exactly wandering around on the side of the road anywhere else.

We got to the crater around 9/9:30 ish, and then it was a bumpy, winding road up the side of the crater, where it got progressively foggier and colder. The landscape reminded me of Avatar, actually, and it was pretty cool. Then the crater itself...amazing! It's interesting to me that all sorts of different animals (all kinds, actually, including zebras, wildebeasts, elephants, rhinos, ostriches, hippos, lions, jackels, hyenas, and some funny looking birds) live in one crater. They certainly aren't trapped--the guide said they actually move out during the rainy season--but that all could live in such a comparatively small space seems so neat. I mean, compared to the Serengeti, the Crater is practically a studio apartment. We got to see all of the above animals and the lions were my favorite. We saw lots sleeping (one group was just a bunch of bellies and paws) and then we saw one eating a wildebeast in a thicket of grass. That was neat. What strikes me most is how big their faces are--lions are big all around, but their paws and faces are just huge. Not your average housecat, for sure.

Towards the end of the day the road started getting a little too bumpy, and I was less than excited to see another huge group of mooing wildebeasts. The trip up the wall of the crater was much like the trip coming down, and the landscape on the opposite side was the same. I think I fell asleep for a little bit of it, and poor jet-lagged RK did too (he was not happy when he found out I took a picture of him, but I couldn't help it). We were dropped off, got a cab home, and were too tired to do anything else.

Now I'm too tired to talk about Sunday, so I'll save that for tomorrow. (It's amazing that, after getting 8-9 hours of sleep regularly, 6-7 really leaves me tired. I can't believe I was living on 4-6 during the school year. I thought I was handling that well, but after knowing what I feel like when I get 8-9, "well" isn't how I would describe my academic state of being. I am also starting to think it's like childbirth, or what I imagine childbirth would be: you forget about the pain so fast that you actually want to have more kids. I forget about the hell of being a 1L and actually get excited about going back to be a 2L.)

Thank you to everyone who sent me something! I'm fabulously excited about all of the presents, and will be using/enjoying them hugely for the next two months.

Also, work is good (yeah, that thing I do from 9-5 M-F). It's slow sometimes, because it takes skill to go fast and I don't have that skill, but I'm narrowing down research topics for my paper (I'm getting credit for this program) and I'm getting excited about that.

Life in Arusha: veggies and internet

Well, the exciting news for this past weekend was my trip to the veggie market. It was very crowded, very rocky, and yet very fun. I went with another intern who spoke Swahili, and I had a lot of fun learning the words for "ripe" or "raw," and learning how to pick vegetables and barter (well, she did all of the bartering). Pity I can't actually remember any of the words, but I'm sure to be prepared if I go next time. I laugh because all of the produce here is organic and dirt cheap--healthy me! Here's what I got:
one bunch of bananas
tangerines
a watermelon (about half the size of them in the US)
a mango
apples
an avocado
carrots
cucumbers

I didn't keep good track of how much I spent, but it couldn't have been more than 5-8 Tsh. A bunch of three (big) carrots was about 500Tsh, three cucumbers were about 300 Tsh, the mango was 500 Tsh, the watermelon was 1500 Tsh (I think--it was one of the more expensive purchases) and the bananas were about the same, but only because I bought a lot of them. That's just a sample of the prices. The neat thing was that there's a word for "add something" in Swahili, and if you say it with a smile the seller will throw something extra in sometimes. I got an extra carrot and tangerine that way. I also stopped at the shop and bought milk and cereal--I never thought I would consider those things comfort food! I love my cereal in the morning with a banana cut up in it.

In more depressing news, I have yet to get internet at home. I can buy a USB modem and a monthly plan, but every time I've been in the office they're out of stock. I'm not sure when they're going to get more, but the lady took my number and said she would call, which sounded a little foreboding to me. Hopefully not too much more time will go by, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have to go another two weeks without it. It's not such a bad thing, because I can make do at work and with the stuff I have, but I'm not sure I could last the whole summer without it at home. Hopefully I won't have to!

I wanted to add some reflections on the economy and cashflow of Arusha (in my limited experience.) There are a couple interesting things to note: one is the lack of a technological infrastructure, which means that to pay bills, you have to go in person to one window, pick up your bill, and then go and pay it at another window, in person, in cash. The second is the relative poverty of the area, and the response of creating currency in small denominations. The largest bill I've seen in 10,000 Tsh, which is about $8 USD. It makes sense, however, not to have large bills when most things don't cost over 10,000 Tsh. As an example, a ride in a dala dala (for Tanzanians, the cheapest mode of transport around Arusha, for anyone else with a sense of safety, deathtraps) is 300 Tsh--about 30 cents USD. However, given the ICTR and also the booming tourism trade, there is demand for some things that cost a lot of money, like safaris, USB modems, and even rent for apartments (up to $400). Since everything is paid in cash, to pay any of these things, one has to go to the ATM, take out the motherlode of 5,000 Tsh and 10,000 Tsh bills, go to wherever it is you have to pay, and fork over a huge stack of cash. The third thing about this is crime, because when you're getting wherever you need to go, you feel like you have a large sign posted on your back saying "I'm going to buy something important, and am carrying a ridiculous amount of cash on me." It's not a very good feeling, and even a native Tanzanian (my landlady) gets nervous when she does it.
It's an odd look at the stops and starts of development. Most people probably don't need bills larger than 10,000 Tsh, but the grafting of the tourism industry onto the area means that there are large purchases to be made. There is likely no demand for the infrastructure, because I'm not sure that most Tanzanians are going to be paying their bills from a checking account that their paychecks are deposited into. Cash is therefore still required, but the chance of crime makes it unsafe for those who are willing to pay it (tourists and interns, like me).

I feel like I will need an armed guard when I go to buy my USB modem.

update

I just bought one of the egg snacks. It is actually a hardboiled egg surrounded by some kind of seasoned beef and is breaded and fried. I would like it better without the beef, but it isn't bad. Costs as much as a meal, however, which means I'm unlikely to get this snack again, but it is almost the size of a regular meal. (It also looks a bit like a nest of some kind, which is not exactly appealing. Still tasty!)

Another weekend

Friday again--amazing how the days go by. I think I will take this post and tell you of my culinary adventures in Arusha so far.

I'm not well versed on the traditional food, but I know corn, rice, and beans are staples. Here's a view of the snacks sold in the snack shop (goodbye pre-packaged US snacks!):
hardboiled eggs dipped in some kind of spicy batter and fried (haven't had these yet)
potato patties with spices that are fried (heavy on the onion--I just about breathed fire after eating one)
samosas (veggie and meat--both are very good)
bread pastries in various shapes and sizes (I bought one this morning--they say they're like donuts, but not US donuts. They seem more like a roll, but are a little sweeter than regular dinner rolls.)
cinnamon rolls
breaded and fried bananas (I really want to try one of these)

My landlady also treated me to coconut water on the street. You see men with huge trays of coconuts, and the tops are shaved/cut into points. After you buy one, the man selling them chops off the top with a knife, right there in front of you, and then just hands it to you to drink. I've never seen a coconut up close, much less the inside of one, and much less drank from one in the street! The coconut is thick, but it's completely hollow on the inside and filled with coconut water. Apparently the juice stains clothing (she said be careful with it) but is full of minerals and healthy stuff, so it really was a treat. There's a lot in there and it has a very distinct coconut flavor--I almost couldn't finish mine, because it was so filling, but I didn't want to miss any of the healthy stuff. Then, when you're done with it, you just hand the coconut back to the man. No idea what he does with them, but I imagine there's something useful to do with the rest of the coconut.

I already spoke of the french-fry-omlette thing (which I tried to reproduce last night for dinner, with pretty abysmal results. At least the egg was cooked all the way through), and I've had lots of VERY good Pakistani dishes cooked by my landlady's mother. I've also had vegetable curry with rice (very good) and rice and beans at the Immigration Canteen, a restaurant frequented by the interns.
This is what the restaurant looks like: it's one big room filled with plastic tables and lawn chairs, with a long counter on one end. Behind the counter is a man serving food, which is kept in huge pots and bowls. He scoops up rice with a small plastic bowl, puts it in the middle of the plate, ladles sauce over it (no idea what was in it--I just said "sauce please") and uses the same ladle to dish up greens, beans, and meat, if you ask for it. Then he just hands you the plate with a smile and you pay 2000 Tsh afterwards (approximately $1.37) to a man who collects money and keeps it in an old-fashioned lockbox. You can pay another 1000 Tsh for a coke or water, if you want it, and when you're done someone picks up your plates. I didn't order it because I didn't know about it, but I heard that you can also get ugali, which is a traditional corn-porridge-type dish.

Not all restaurants look like that (there's a reason the food is so cheap--good, but low maintenance) but you can get the same food at "prettier" restaurants and you just overpay. There's another restaurant called Via Via, where you sit down, someone serves you, and there's a nice atmosphere...however, you pay 6000 Tsh for "traditional Tanzania dish" which is three times the amount for the same food that you can eat in plastic lawn chairs at Immigration Canteen. If you're a foodie, there are a lot of other places to eat, but I've only sampled the cheap ones so far, because I'm not a foodie. We'll see what other adventures I get in during the next two months.

Khanga

It keeps getting steadily cooler here, reminding me that it is in fact winter. I'm glad that I brought a jacket and mainly long pants, but I am getting antsy about stocking up on beautiful scarves and fabrics. There are so many pretty khanga fabrics here. Here's what I know about them: they're printed in big blocks, and when you buy them you buy two: one to wrap around your waist, one to wear as a scarf/shawl. Women usually wear a t-shirt and skirt, and then wrap the fabric over their clothes, and I can't tell whether the whole long thing is wrapped around the body (skirt/scarf) or if they're cut apart and used separately. The funny thing is that my landlady told me most of them are printed in India, and then shipped here where they're sold for cheap. They would be much more expensive if they were actually printed here. I've seen a wide variety of prints, colors, and patterns, but my favorite is the one with a huge picture of Obama's face and a map of Africa. It says something in Swahili, but I'm not sure what. I've seen two of those so far--one on someone's wall as a decoration and one that a woman was wearing.

I would love to wear them myself, but I have a feeling that a skinny white redhead would stick out even more wrapped in a colorful khanga. We'll see.

I'm also planning on going to the vegetable market this weekend. I've managed to vary my diet so I don't get scurvy, but I would like to cook some veggies at home. The amazing thing here is that it's actually real food--in the US, all you're eating is chemicals, processed stuff, and fake substitutes. I looked at the ingredients of my bread just yesterday: "flour, salt, fat, sugar, yeast, eggs." Period. I asked for butter from the corner shop and got a two pound brick of unsalted butter wrapped in paper. Real food! Don't get me wrong--there's still margarine, and there are still chips and cheese puffs and other stuff like that, but you can eat real food for very cheap. I don't have to worry about checking everything for high fructose corn syrup. The pop is better, too, because they use real sugar--all of it comes in glass bottles that you have to give back, and use a bottle opener to get them open. No plastic, no screw-off lids. Oh, traveling.

QUESTIONS!
1. Yes, I've met the other interns. There's a whole "army" of us here working. Everyone is nice, but the group is a little diffuse--we all live in different areas, plan different things, and go different places. Usually a couple different groups go out to eat for lunch together, and many are getting all sorts of trips set up, but we're not a huge group that does everything together. Lots of people go out after work, too, but that's not really my scene. I'm as much a loner here as I am in the US. : ) I don't ever go anywhere by myself, however, because it's simply not safe. [family--don't worry about me! I'm being smart!]
2. My landlady is fantastic--very nice, very helpful, and very funny. We chat, hang out, she introduced me to her family (her kids are really cute, especially with their little-kid-accents when they call out my name to see where I am) and it's all good. I know she's taken lodgers before, but I think it's a summer-type-thing. She's helping me set up the safari, too, because she's lived here her whole life and knows practically everyone. We took a taxi one morning to work because she had two flat tires, and by the end of the ride (speaking in Swahili to the taxi-driver) she determined that he knew her entire family in Arusha. Now I have a safe taxi driver that I can call, that is stationed right by my house.
3. Safari (one day) looks like this: the car picks you up at your home at 6:00 am, drives out to wherever, the cost includes a $50 park entrance fee, you hang out with the lions for a few hours, and then drive back and are back around 7:00 pm. That's as far as I know, at least, for just one day. There are lots of different safari packages, but they're all customized to the individual/group. People can camp for a few days, which I would love to do, but it costs an arm and a leg. If that's what you're coming for, it's a great opportunity, but if you're traveling on a shoestring because you're a poor intern, you take what you can get. : )
4. DVDs will be another adventure. I don't really know what that's going to look like.
5. Life is still an adventure, really. The only thing I do with confidence is open doors at the UN.

Week Two (sort of)

Can't believe I've been here for a week tomorrow--doesn't seem like that much time has gone by.

Drizzly rain today, which was a little muddy but nice because it wasn't so dusty outside. A little cooler, but not really enough to need a jacket. People here walk around in sweaters and long pants, which I can't understand, but I am from MI after all. I will say, however, that even though it's usually 68-70 degrees outside at night, I have sweatpants, a long sleeved shirt, and wool socks on at night to stay warm. And then, in the morning, the shower is FREEZING, to the point of my teeth chattering and shivering so hard I can't stand still. But that's what happens in a building with no insulation and no central heat.

My weekend was pretty quiet: went to the Karibu ("welcome" in Swahili) Tourism Fair on Saturday to price safaris, and then spent Sunday relaxing at home. I will freely admit that relaxing is hard for me: after about an hour or two I start getting antsy and looking for something challenging and analytical to solve. I guess that's a perk in some ways, but not very helpful for refreshing and renewing! I will have to work harder at relaxing : ) I asked my landlady about internet and renting movies, because the more time I spend relaxing at home, the faster I go through my leisure materials. Seems like I can get movies for pretty cheap, but internet might be a different beast.

My Swahili is coming along--I learned numbers yesterday (1-50) and will move on to learning "Taxi vocabulary" today.

I'm here!

I have arrived in Tanzania to begin my internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda!

Arusha: very dusty. This is the end of their rainy season and, while I've only been here a few days, it hasn't rained at all. It is also a lot busier than I anticipated, but I think that's because there are a lot of people walking about and people here drive like maniacs. There aren't any lines in the road, there are only two traffic lights for the whole of Arusha (all the rest are round-abouts), and using a turn signal is optional no matter which direction you're going. "Hooting" is also prevalent whether you're on the road, off the road, walking, biking, or driving. I still tend to look around guiltily whenever I hear a horn honk (because I'm usually trying to cross on the wrong side of the road) but it usually isn't me.
Housing: my room is very nice, but very basic. The homes here have no screens on the windows, but grills to keep people from getting in, concrete floors, concrete walls, and rudimentary electricity (i.e. lightbulbs). At least that's what my home looks like. The Conference Center is a little more western but still no screens on the windows, and I get nervous every now and then that a bird is going to fly through the huge open window and we're going to have a mess on our hands. I don't open the windows at home because it lets in the bugs. (I tried it last night but freaked out when these huge nasty worm-fly-things started buzzing around my room. I was so grossed out that I caught all of them, threw them outside, closed my windows, and turned off the light. Ew.)
Work: Can't say much about this (ooh, confidentiality!) but I can say I'm working on witness testimonies for the Karemera Case at the ICTR. You can go to the ICTR webpage to the cases and click on the link for the Karemera case to get the publicly released information. It's a pretty big case, actually, which is really cool. We had training sessions yesterday about the substantive elements of the crimes the accused are charged with (genocide, extermination, murder, etc.) which was very interesting.
Me: I'm good. No negative side effects from traveling or living here besides spider bites, looking the wrong way when I'm crossing the street, and sticking out like a sore thumb. All of the Swahili I learned came back in these last few days but I'm a little too scared to use it. I said "asante" (thank you) to the woman who sold me my samosas this morning at the ICTR, but I couldn't understand what she said back. I'm managing to eat mostly well: I'm trying to bump up my intake of fruits and veggies without increasing my intake of bacteria and parasites, which takes a little bit of knowledge and lots of fresh water. Food here is pretty cheap, and grocery shopping is a whole new experience--the shop was maybe a 10th of the size of a small grocery store in the US with a corresponding small selection of items. Then some people stood in line to pay, while others just stepped up to the front and called out what they had to pay for. There's no order to it at all--because my landlady was there, she got two shop assistants to call out my items, tell me how much it cost, then bag them for me. I probably would have been waiting a very long time if I was there by myself. : )
I've only been heckled once (a man got nasty when I wouldn't give him money or pay attention to his bum leg) but lots of kids have said hello and some men have called out too. I can't understand what they're saying and my landlady says that's for the best, so I just ignore them and go on my way.

Post questions for me if you have specific inquiries--I'll answer them as best as I can!