Arusha – big city life
Hello all. As promised, this edition will focus on village life, the ups and downs.
There are many ups to village life. Most notably, the environment is spectacular. Tanzania boasts two great mountains and we are next to both of them. To our north lies Mt Meru, the fourth largest in Africa and to the east Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest. On a clear day Meru towers over the village, dominating my walk home through the banana plantations. In the distance, the peak of Kilimanjaro is in plain view, capped with ice and snow. It is a wonderful contrast to the heat at ground level. One day I might climb Meru, but Kilimanjaro can stay unclimbed for mine.
I once read an article entitled ' How to Write on Africa', in which an incredible Nigerian writer bemoaned the fact that every Western portrayal of Africa starts with a dusty road and a starving mother and had a white hero somewhere in the middle. Another great speech I heard warned of the danger of the 'single story' whereby we fall for the idea that there is just one way of viewing another culture. For example, all Arabs are terrorists, all Africans are poor etc. In fact, I will include a link to this, it is an amazing speech. With this in mind I will attempt to avoid this kind of depiction.
So the roads here are dusty. Well they are. But most of the mamas have a fair bit of meat on them. Try to imagine a few major dusty tracks capable of carrying cars heading out from a reasonably sized regional town centre. These roads act as arterials and between them wind a seemingly random web of narrow rutted tracks wide enough for walking and bicycles. Of course the tracks are not random, they navigate around property lines known well to locals. The properties are largely smallholding farms growing bananas, corn or other subsistence crops. There is a plot adjacent to our house that is growing amazing lettuce, but I can't seem to catch the farmer at work in order to buy some.
Because of the variety of crops, the landscape seems to change every hundred metres or so. The walk home every afternoon is spectacular. There is a system of little canals that irrigate the farms and so I cross many home-made bridges over narrow streams. Along the way, many of the local children run out of their bomas (house groups) to greet me, either yelling what little English they know or firing up in Swahili, oblivious to the fact that mine is woeful. I can usually have a little conversation about their day but that is all.
Swahili, or Kiswahili as it is known here, is a beautiful language and I am enjoying picking up bits and pieces. My favourite saying so far is 'pole kwa kazi' or 'sorry for your work'. It is considered customary to say this to anyone who is carrying a load, hoeing a field or otherwise not engaging in 'pumzika', or rest. I spend much of my walk home greeting fellow walkers, exchanging pleasantries and expressing sympathy at their lack of rest. Some may suggest this love of rest and relaxation is, in fact, one of the reasons African civil service is so ineffective, but that is another discussion.
Living near us there are people of every kind living anything but a simple, easy to categorise life. There are many students working toward their national examinations. We have a local drunk lady who wanders around trying to procure drinks from all and sundry. There are professionals who catch the dalla dallas to work every day in smart office attire. There are those who run small stores, carefully judging supply and demand, stocking everything from beer to nylon underwear. Actually, the shop owner who stocks the nylon underwear clearly didn't judge supply and demand well at all, given the underwear looks to be about ten years old. There are also countless mamas, the women who run the households and often earn the wage. They adopt the name of their first born child, showing just how important their role as mother is to them. So mum, you would be Mama Paul. Lisa, you are now Mama Mitchell.
The point is that as yet I have found life in Tanzania far from exotic. In fact, the people here live in a remarkably similar way to us. I'm sure as time goes on I shall discover the intrinsic differences, but for now I can see more similarities. Perhaps I need to go out to a Masai village to find exotic! So far I have had meals and a beer at the local pub, shopped at the stalls selling vegetables, chatted with my neighbours and attended an agricultural show, much like the Melbourne Show would have been thirty years ago. I guess the biggest difference here is the welcome. People are genuinely keen to chat with you and I am starting to open up to this.
Our area smells of lush green plants and dust. The morning light is usually diffused through cloud cover but in the afternoon the sky clears and the bright light transforms the landscape into vibrant greens and browns. There are monkeys in the trees at school and cute kids do play with old bike wheels in the street. All of these things are true so I guess there is a little bit of the exotic Africa here. I would hate to disappoint.
I am well and apart from a few stories of minor violence nearby I feel completely safe. That is, apart from Papa Boa, the homosexual half bat half human who violates men while they sleep. Apparently if he violates you it is imperative that you tell everyone the next day or he will do it again the next night. So unless I meet this guy, you need not worry about me.
Love to all at home.
Matt
