Waiting

I spent last Thursday morning waiting at the police station. I was on a bench in the hallway, in the traffic department. Francis, the man in charge of drivers licenses, had gone out for a short while.

Only a few people were waiting on the bench with me, about an accident that happened on September 17th. Trying to finalize the police report, I suppose.

I asked the woman in the first room off the hallway, who was writing in a thick ledger her precise handwriting stuffed into the thin lines, when Francis will come back. She can't say. Well, since I'm just looking for information about the process to get a driver's license maybe she can tell me what I need to bring when he does come. She can't say. She's not the head of the department, so it's not good to give out information.

I sit back down on my bench to wait for Francis.

Sometimes, waiting on benches or standing in queues is indescribably frustrating. At the end of the month, the bank lines can stream out the door, and I wait 45 minutes to talk to the customer service desk, pressed on all sides by people similarly annoyed, shifting their weight from foot to foot, anxiously starting forward to make sure they're not cut in line. But other days, like that rainy Thursday morning, waiting can be a welcome space. There's nothing to do but sit there and cultivate a serene countenance. Getting pissed off will only make things go slower. You'll piss other people off and you'll get all worked up with righteous indignation. So be one with the bench. Notice the people around you. Enjoy the play of light on the dirty wall.

The police station is an especially good space to watch the world with renewed attention. Women in short haircuts and socks pulled up tall walk in and out in clusters, their stiff khaki skirts making a quick swish. Men with pants belted high on their bellies and long raincoats walk by holding hands, saluting superiors, looking important. A short girl with no uniform, jeans and a tee-shirt that's too tight, wanders into an office and shuffles files around as though she belongs there. Someone calls for a stretcher for the accident down the road.

Seems like a productive hour spent waiting.

Network Busy

I've gone and done it! I have two phones. It's only a matter of time before I have a third, bulging out of my back pocket.

In the past, my cell phone strategy has been to buy the cheapest Nokia on the market, the one with the flashlight and the intuitive menu and the easy-to-read screen in the glare of midday. I've bought around five of those in two years, because eventually they are either left on a counter-top in town, never to be seen again, or are so banged up (having been dropped on my concrete floor at least once a day) that text messages are no longer legible. Last month I went to a cellphone store and got myself a new Nokia. But then two weeks later, I got a SECOND phone. At dinner, I take out both phones and put them on the table. I check both for messages during meetings. And of course have been buying double the vouchers, furiously entering both Zain and Voda recharge numbers.

For a few months now, communicating has been in the hands of God. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This all started when the leading cellphone networks, Vodacom and Zain, introduced special deals on talk time. Now, a Vodacom user can buy 60 minutes of talking time for 500 shillings (around 40 cents). Hallelujah! People have been calling and conversing with each other, rather than beeping (calling and hanging up to indicate that the other person should call back) or reducing phone conversations to their bare essence (ie: -Hello? -Where are you? -In town. -Ok, I'm coming. *quickly hang up) to reduce cost. But the cellphone networks apparently cannot handle the increased talk time. Now I often get a "Network Busy" message when I try to call. The "No Service" can last a minute or an hour, and I can't seem to figure out the pattern of bad connections.

So I improved my communication ability by getting a second number on a different network. When Zain tells me I have "Limited Service," Voda works like a charm. When Voda tells me "Network Busy," Zain gets me through the day. And when both are down, I dream about buying a Tigo line...

Where Are You Going?

You can take the water taxi to Gombe National Park. It leaves daily at 2 pm, but I recommend you get to the port a little early so you get a good seat. One not facing the sun, and near a cross beam upon which to rest your feet.

You can also rent your own boat if you have limited time or unlimited resources.

You might also walk to Gombe. Last week we flagged down a taxi that took us thirty minutes outside of town on a road that curves just east over the hills from the lake. We told the driver to stop just before the market, where a footpath cuts west between two houses, in the yard where palm nuts are laid out to dry.

We started confidently out of the car.
"Here?" the taxi driver confirmed. "just right here?"
"Yes," we called back.
"You sure?"
"Yes, we know the way," and shouldered our bags as we got out of the car. The path moves up and down, through fields, between houses, across rivers on fallen trees, splashes through streams.

The first person we met who stopped short and greeted us was a mother with two young children, all three carrying firewood on their heads. She turned slowly, maintaining her load's balance, as we passed.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Gombe."
"You know the path?"
"Yes."
"Well," she said slightly skeptical. "Ok then." And let us on our way, fairly sure that she'd still find us lost on her trip back that afternoon.

The second person who stopped for us was a mother with a child in her field, digging potatoes.
"Good morning!" her round face beamed, her eyes crinkled, her hands still on the earth. "Are you going to Gombe? It's just straight on this path, just straight up here till you reach the mountain."
Straight? Her vision of a path making a bee-line for the Gombe border was different from what we saw--an endless string of identical paths that spun around in circles. She waved us on our way and we continued along.

The third woman we met was a grandmother walking slowly with red palmnuts on her head, her slight frame bent at the waist, her head back to balance the load.
"Where are you going?" she asked after a pause.
"Gombe," we replied.
"Gombe?" she repeated.
"That's right."
"Well. You're headed to Mitumba." She turned us around and pointed us to the proper path-- left at the fork in the road, not right, over the stream and up the hill.

We made it eventually. I'm sure I'll remember the path next time. It's just straight in the village, through the river, and up over the hill.

Gobble

I am very proud of myself.

I made my first Thanksgiving dinner and did it in Kigoma--surely I get extra points for that. No one died of salmonella poisoning. And although a giardia and/or E. Coli outbreak did pop up post-dinner, nobody can prove it came from my kitchen--I blame Sun City. Americans got enough food, and then I plied the Spanish community of Kigoma with drinks and pies. Success!

There are special challenges that come with preparing a turkey dinner in Kigoma. Foremost is turkey. I did some preliminary research in September by wandering around the market and asking the guys who hang out next to the poultry stalls, full of chickens about to meet their maker, if they know where to get a...kind of bird.

-No not a chicken it's bigger than that. No, not a duck either, it's even bigger. And it has this weird red thing that hangs down from it's neck. (waggling hand motion).

-Oh! Yes! Bata mzinga! Hmm. Well, a few years ago there were some Baptists who kept bata mzinga. But I haven't seen them in a while. Maybe you can try Mwanga.

That was enough research for me. I was confident that if people at least had some idea what a turkey was, I would be able to find one somewhere in Kigoma Urban District suitable for a real Thanksgiving meal. And plus you can find anything in Mwanga; why not a turkey?

Then last Monday I realized I had made a mistake that only a novice to Tanzania would make; not enough follow-up. Because while everything does work out in the end, usually it works out best if you constantly are calling people and meeting with people and having them meet with their people about getting done what you need to get done. I needed expert help to remedy my lack of foresight. Asha.

-A big bird with a red thing that hangs down that's not a chicken or a guinea fowl or a duck? Oh, yes! Bata mzinga! I think I saw one walking around Mwanga. Let me look for you tomorrow and I'll let you know how much it is.

She walked through Mwanga and up the hill of Kilimahewa, got lost, turned around, and then finally found herself in the sprawling home of a retired Chagga guy who keeps all sorts of fowl in his yard and charges exorbitant prices for turkey. Which, by the way, are absolutely disgusting live. But delicious roasted, so on Wednesday we bought the turkey and proceeded to the butcher in Mwanga. Asha did the dirty work while Carson and I huddled in a nearby kanga stall. She emerged victorious, and we followed docilely behind while she strutted through the market carrying a plastic bag with two limp turkey feet and a few long turkey feathers spilling over the top.

24 hours later, this is what we got.

*photo credit to Rob, who incidentally was a key player in the anti-salmonella effort. Asante sana.

Reading the Signs

Two weeks ago, I went from Kigoma to Moshi by car. Over tarmac and dirt, through mountains and plains, past forest reserves and gold mines.

Moshi and Kigoma are pretty far apart geographically, about 1200 km by road, and perhaps further apart in attitude. The first thing I noticed about Moshi, besides how empty the streets seem, is that heads turn when our car passes. And, no, not because it's an exceptionally flashy or crappy looking car--it's pretty average. But because our company logo is plastered on the doors.

As pedestrians walk past their heads swivel around till they're bent nearly backwards trying to read the door. We get out, and meter maids ask us what our company is all about. Random strangers ask us where the office is.

When we put up a big signboard on the main road to direct people to the office, one passerby stopped and stood there contemplating it for a while. He fiddled with his phone and then later came up to my colleague--"you see?" he said pointing to the screen. "I found all about this Sustainable Harvest now. I looked it up on the internet."

I haven't quite figured it out. Is it suspicion? I would guess that people are just as suspicious in Kigoma, but their culture is less overt. Or maybe people are always actively looking for a job, and a new company in town might provide that? Or is it because Moshi is a small town run by a tight-knit community, where new-comers must be closely examined?

Domestic Dispute

I have a house cleaner. A domestic servant. House help? A cleaning lady? I'm not sure what her official title is; only sure that it's not the shudder-inducing "house girl."

The woman who works in my house (does my laundry, washes my dishes, mops my floor, makes my bed, cooks me dinner on Wednesdays, sweeps the dirt that is my front lawn, waters the garden, and other around-the-house chores) is incredible. She is smart, funny, and dying to organize people.

She can't stand that the residents of my housing complex, nearly all expats, let the (government) landlord get away with poor maintenance. Of course, she's the one who really has to deal with it. I'm at the office all day, but she's there mopping up.

My house leaks. A lot. Because the pipes were imported form Europe they are measured on the metric system. But the spare parts available in town are on the British Imperial measurement system. Which creates problems when a 15 year old plumbing systems needs repairs.

On top of that, the plumbers and electricians and other fundis who work for the housing complex never show up when they say they do. Or if they show up, don't actually fix the problem. Or if they fix the problem, they leave a big hole in the wall that large animals (like two-foot-long Forest Rats, I kid you not) can enter the house through.

She says to me, "why don't all of you get together and decide as a group to do something. You should then write an official letter from all of you to the management. You can decide to just hire your own fundis and deduct the cost of repair from your rent!"

But she'll never organize us. Expats are far too apathetic. We're all in Kigoma to be pro-active--we're fighting for refugees' rights, we're providing health care, we're building water systems, we're conserving biodiversity. But really we're a bunch of lazy bastards. And we're all moving on in a few months or a few years; let somebody else deal with it.

Howl

A few weeks ago I heard an eerie sound, both intensely familiar and strongly out-of-place.

The sound swept down the street, high pitched and wailing, and as it passed every dog in the neighborhood took up the call. They howled an off-key, off-kilter chorus; dozens of voices each at their own rhythm and pitch. The dogs had never heard such a powerful howl, and one by one they trailed off in defeat till the only sound left was that original wail. The blaring siren of an ambulance.

Rain and Beans

Yesterday during my morning run I passed dozens of women hoeing their front yards.

The rainy season has started in earnest. A few weeks ago the occasional storms were a dramatic surprise. When I was up in the highland villages in September a storm swept in suddenly; the sky darkened to asphalt-gray, the wind picked up, and rain spat down--until the wind doubled its efforts, and rain poured down in sheets. Banana trees were blown in two and at one point I thought falling eucalyptus trees were going to hit the car. Since then, when I've gone "uphill" the ground below the coffee trees is startlingly green with young bean, yam, and corn plants.

In town, rain the rain took a while longer to arrive; the clouds had to unstick themselves from the mountain peaks to get down here to the lakeshore. This week women are out in the early morning turning the soil to ready it for planting. Their fields had looked dusty brown and cement hard; now they are rich mahogany and invitingly soft. The rainy season is here and it's time to plant.

Mango Season

Last night during dinner, we heard a sudden "plunk! bonk, bonk, bonk...splat." It was the first time in a year we had heard that distinct sound, and we paused with our spoons hovering over our bowls.

"What was that?" our guest asked.
"A mango," we replied in unison and took another mouthful of soup.

In August, the hundreds of mango trees around town produced their brown, pollen-heavy blossoms. Last month the first fruits became visible, tightly-wound balls of green hanging down from the branches. Now the strings that hold the mango up are straining against the rosy weight. Until--plunk--they fall to the ground.

The good thing about mango is that, unlike guava or lemon, each tree produces so much fruit that the kids in my neighborhood can't possibly harvest it all before I can get some. There's just no way. A large part of a tree's crop just rots on the ground.

My first mango season, 2006, was a pivotal moment. Every mango was a delicious, mysterious experience. And I ate at least one a day. Each morning I would sit and marvel at the beauty of repetition, the pleasure in plainness, the tactile richness. Maybe I am a tad dramatic. But really, I stay in Tanzania because of mango season 2006.

Nuts and Bolts

One thing I hate--really, really hate--is plugging appliances into wall sockets.

Luckily, I don't actually have to do it very often. Most sockets in my house and office have nice strips that match perfectly with our varying plug shapes. But if for some reason I'm working strip-less, I first examine the plug to be plugged. If it's got three large square prongs, I'm happy. Pop it in, turn the socket on--the lamp will light, the oven will heat, the fridge will cool. If it's American style, two flat prongs, forget about it. I gotta go get myself a strip. But if the plug has got two round prongs, that's something I can work with. I take a deep breath, and proceed as follows:

My equipment: a pen, screwdriver, or other slightly pointy sturdy object. My method: turn off the socket (that is important). Insert pointy sturdy object into the bottom space while simultaneously inserting the appliance's plug. If I have the angle of the pointy sturdy object just right, the plug will pop in, I turn the socket on, and my lamp will light. If I can't reach the socket quite right, or if the tip of my pencil breaks, I usually throw my hands up in frustration and start looking for a flashlight.

Why would you design an electrical socket into which you must insert metal objects? I'm told this is the British design, which I guess means that all over the UK people have become inured to close calls with electrocution. Or maybe the socket design is just fine if appliances come with a standard plug design to match; unfortunately Tanzania's smorgasbord of imported electronics guarantee nothing. Thank goodness for Chinese strip manufacturers.

Mzungu!

A couple mornings a week I run along one of the few paved roads of Kigoma to the chorus of several dozen school children yelling "mzungu!" If you've been to East Africa and you're white you've been called the same thing. It gets kinda old.

What I do think is interesting are the patterns that develop for yelling mzungu!--based on hour, location, and the evolution of name-calling across time.

I used to be an evening jogger, since I figured fewer bored children trying to lengthen their walk to school would mean fewer shouters. But actually, as a friend pointed out, early morning is best since school children tend to be too tired to put much effort into yelling. Instead of one out of five people under the age of 14 yelling mzungu! around sunset, in the minutes just after sunrise it's more like one out of ten.

Recently, I've become such a well known sight along this road that people yell out "Jenny!" "Jane!" "Janet!" Once even "Gena!" I rarely answer to the mzungu! call, but when someone shouts my name I always turn my head, sometimes wave, and occasionally even shout back. I wonder if with increased reaction will come more calls. Or if this is a sign that I'm becoming an actual person on my road instead of an oddity to be pointed out. Which might mean my run will become an obstacle course where I must dodge around extended greetings, rush between salaams, and duck under family inquiries.

*
Last weekend I ran to a beach on the outskirts of town. The path goes around the central round-about, past the Regional Commissioner's residence, near the local prison and through a village before arriving at a beautiful sandy stretch along the lake. The town drunks and prisoners don't scare me. But the village children--oh, the children. They're terrifying.

During one point of the jog, a group of 25 three-foot-tall villagers swarmed us, arms outstretched, yelling as loudly as their little lungs allowed. We ran through them and they streamed behind us, picking up more and more children along the path who heard the call toddled out. In this village things are a little different. They yell mzungu! true, but that initial call is followed by a series of crescendoing "mpira! mpira! mpiraaa!" This call puzzled me for a long time. Mpira means "ball"--usually a soccer ball. I certainly don't know any mzungu who gives out balls to children. And the call was tightly contained in this area--children from surrounding villages haven't picked up the mpira! cry.

But until the mid-nineties the Norwegian development agency ran a water program out of Kigoma. A series of wazungu, the wives and children of engineers, would pass through this village on their way to play tennis. (I think the court has since disappeared) When their balls deflated too much for tennis-worthiness they tossed them out the window. Mpira! was born. And although no Norwegian tennis players have given out anything in twenty years, the children of children who did get the bouncy balls continue that cry.

In another village, Bitale, road construction has dramatically changed the way people shout at foreigners. From mzungu! children have shifted to mchina! The Chinese construction workers clearly have made an impact--if not on the road itself, well at least on Bitale's shouting culture.

Chinese Witchcraft

The Chinese company Henan is building a road from Kigoma to Manyovu where the Burundian border lies.

The first inkling I had of the impending road construction were the painted codes that suddenly appeared on each house, the signal that these mud-brick buildings were soon to be bulldozed. Then last September surveyors appeared in each village. A temporary camp was erected in an empty field near the Bitale dispensary. Kumho bulldozers, graders, and dump trucks began moving dirt around. People were pretty entertained. "It's like an elephant--an elephant moving things with its trunk!” one guy chuckled at a bulldozer scooping up dirt. "And that grader over there, it's weaving back and forth just like a preying mantis."

Large machinery and piles of dirt meant that children multiplied by the side of the road. Where in previous weeks there had been two, suddenly there were twenty. They slid down dirt piles on palm-frond sleds, losing momentum barely feet in front of the Land Cruisers that swept past.

The Chinese supervisors and Tanzanian workers moved quickly through the lowlands, and began taking chunks out of the hills up north. Once they get rid of the makona (curves) in the old road and pave the whole thing, it will only take 45 minutes to get to Burundi--compared to the 2 hours it now takes in the dry season. And only God can say how long in the wet season.

We're nervous though. The road is nowhere near complete. Huge stretches of formerly OK dirt road have been churned into potential mud puddles of death. When the rains come, we hear the road will be totally impassable. And on top of everything, El Nino rains are coming this year--which means torrential downpours that make travel impossible anyway.

How are we supposed to get any work done?

Luckily the Chinese had the same question. Their answer--magic away the rain. Village gossip has it that the construction workers know a powerful witchcraft which prevents rain from falling. Clouds pass right over the villages and storm somewhere out on the lake. There were a few days of rain in September, but since then we've been watching the sky and waiting. People are pissed. Their coffee blossoms need water to turn into coffee beans. Their freshly planted corn and bean fields will wither without rain. But for now, if the Chinese are stopping the rain I'm not complaining. Maybe that means they'll finish the road on time.

Bricks

In June the rains stopped and the brick making season started. Large groups of men and women gathered on clayey soil in villages and the suburbs around town. People brought their friends together to form the red rectangles with wooden molds. Soon they had deep pits on one side of the yard, and a large number of bricks on the other.

"Does the owner pay all those people?" I asked, shocked at the thought of what it would cost to pay 10 laborers to form bricks all afternoon.
"No-- people just help out. Then when it's their turn to build a house they know they will have help of their own."

The bricks stayed in scattered piles for weeks and weeks. Then slowly they were stacked into a kiln structure--a dome-topped rectangle with openings at the bottom to light a fire within. More weeks passed. A few days ago, I passed a group of half a dozen women carrying seven bricks on their heads on their way to the construction site. One at the base for balance, then three pairs stacked perpendicularly.

As Carson says, houses grow right out of the earth. And their construction goes at an organic pace. It depends on the rains, how many people are around, and the demands of other labors.

Toddling

Last week the mosque in Mwanga made an announcement over the loudspeaker during the morning call to prayer. Someone in the neighborhood had found a small child that night. She was her own, but not old enough to talk. Was anyone missing a toddler?

When people asked the girl where she lived she answered "mama." Her chubby feet were bare--she was too young for real shoes. But she looked well-fed and was well-clothed. How do you return a child to her parents when she's too young to tell you where she lives?

As the devout left the mosque, word spread from one neighborhood to another. After morning prayer, many mosques through town picked up the announcement, and the parents who hadn't found their daughter got her back that night. "Kids just start walking," it was explained to me. "They go far. They walk and walk without paying attention to their path, and then can't find their way back."

Kids have a lot of freedom, and also high expectations of their capabilities.

Last weekend I went to a birthday party for a one year old. His cake was enormous, about as big as he is. After lighting a dozen candles his mom lifted him up by his armpits and said, "blow!" He wasn't too successful. Next she set him down on his unsteady feet and put a napkin-wrapped knife in his hand. "Let's cut the cake!" she said.

Her baby still has a lot to learn, but he's going to learn it fast. By the time his fourth birthday comes around he'll probably be used to handling sharp knives, lighting fires, and wandering around the paths near his house. And if he looses his way, his mom can count on her neighbors to guide him back to her.

Instructions for Moving Heavy Objects

In Kigoma, all things come from Dar--well, except fish. Electronics, stationary supplies, agricultural machinery, canned goods, and bottled water arrive in town on trucks, usually Scania, often with phrases like "Sweden Power!" or "God is Great" splashed across the top of the windshield.

I have a bit of experience shipping supplies into Kigoma from the Dar es Salaam port. Getting the packages released from the port is no easy process, usually one too complicated for me to follow. I just wait for the export agent to say "ok, your shipment is in our warehouse" and then step forward to watch the transport process unfold.

The most exciting part is getting the shipment from the trucking company's depot to its final location. Arranging for transport from Dar is simple, and payment is straightforward. It's the offloading from the truck that's complicated.

Yesterday, I went to pick up a shipment.

First step: hire a pick-up. At the taxi stand in town a row of beat up trucks stand at attention, waiting for customers. They're all the same--Toyotas with no shock absorption and bodies that are held together mostly with twine. Usually it's better if they park facing downhill. Chose one that seems likely to be able to carry the weight of your goods-- surprisingly, most are able to manage just about anything.

Second step: agree on a price with the heavy lifters. This can be complicated, because you must figure out who the proper spokesman of the group is, try to understand who is working for who, and agree on a fair price. Also you should avoid being mobbed by 24 flip-flop wearing, wiry muscled, dust covered guys who are hoping to pressure you into choosing them to carry your stuff around at exorbitant rates. It's better to quietly negotiate with the leader, and then let him deal with the mob.

Third step: stand back and watch as the group of men you have hired transfers the goods into your pickup. You might want to close your eyes. At times it might seem like they are going to break your package or the truck or themselves-- but don't interfere, it always works out in the end.

Forth step: lead your pickup to the place where goods will be deposited, with your group of heavy lifters catching a lifti in the back. Repeat step three, but in reverse. Pay the lifters and your truck driver. Make yourself a cup of tea, or a stiff drink, to relax and admire your new shipment from Dar.

Awkward Silence

Rhythm of conversation changes with language and culture. Tanzanian Swahili has a varied tempo. Conversations start off quickly, with rapid exchange and extended introductions.

"What's up?"
"Not much. What about you"
"Good. How's your family?"
"All OK. How's work?"
"Just fine. It's been a long time!"
"Yeah, true."
"Where have you been hiding?"
"I'm around. Busy though. You?"
"Oh, I'm here."

But once that's all finished, the pace of conversation changes. In fact, it might slow down to a standstill. If you don't have anything to say, you can sit in silence. Or if you have something to say but don't know how to approach it, you can sit in silence. Or, if you know the person you're talking to has something to say but you want them to bring it up, you can sit in silence. Or, if the person you're with doesn't feel like talking, you can sit in silence. Or if you're tired, you can sit in silence and close your eyes.

But the conversation might turn into a giant group back and forth, like volleyball teams tossing around a conversational gambit. I once sat at the airport waiting for a flight to arrive, and listened to a 45 minute discussion about pork. The dozen or so taxi drivers who were also waiting for the plane became quite energetic in defending or deriding pig-eating. Mainly divided along religious lines, they hugely enjoyed the rhetorical exercise.

"Pigs! They're dirty animals." (collective laughter)
"Why do you say they're dirty?"
"The Koran says they're dirty. I can't believe you eat that." (more laughter)
"Better that you don't eat them, more for us and they're aren't enough pigs around." (laughter continues) "...Plus, I bet you do eat them. I think I've seen you ordering roast pork at a dark corner of the bar." (roaring laughter)

Then when the jokes of pigs and pork died down, the taxi drivers sat in a a comfortable silence. Till the talk of dogs started up.

A Dog's Workweek

On Saturday mornings all across Tanzania, at an hour when I'm usually still tucked into my mosquito net, hordes of dogs drag small boys all over town.

Saturday is often a dog's one day of the week to step outside the family compound. He's in their home for security reasons. There's no point in walking the dog--his family doesn't want him tired out, he has to save his energy to ward off intruders. But on Saturday the only things that separate a dog from the wider world are a ten year old boy and a flimsy chain. Sometimes the dog to boy ratio is three to one, and I can only watch and hope the boy makes it. There's plenty of drama en route--the dogs fight, the boys fight, the chains get tangled--but usually the dogs don't make their break for freedom. Instead they all get dunked in the communal flea bath. Saturday is dog-dipping-day! After the dip comes a nice return walk full of interesting smells and social interactions, and then back to work till next Saturday.

Fish Frenzy

From the lakeshore, the lights of fishing boats stretch in a thin line. The horizon twinkles. But one morning I was lucky enough to peer down from a place very high up, very early in the morning and see the boats as they really are--a swirling mass across the lake, arms spread out wide. It was like a galaxy of stars that I'm normally only able to see in one dimension suddenly made 3-D.

The past week fish have been throwing themselves into fishermen's nets. In town the price of mgebuka has dropped to 8 for 2,000/= (that's 8 fish for approximately $1.60). During the morning the town smells of fish; rattling pickups fill boxes upon boxes with dagaa and bring them to village markets. Women with plastic basins on their heads sell kuhe door to door. On Saturday I was visited by 3 different fishmongers before 9 am.

I tried to capture the sight of boats on the lake, the impossible number of lights, their twinkle. I wanted to compare the evening arrival and morning departure, but slept in too late for the morning shots. By the time I got out of bed half an hour before dawn we were surrounded by the buzz of outboard motors. All the fishermen were racing home to their villages--so I briefly admired the morning star and went back to sleep. Dreaming of fish for lunch.

Incense

Today is a chilly day, the first day of real rain in town. Windshield wipers and mud puddles remind me of last May, when the rainy season was finishing up.

We had arrived in Nyarubanda village, about an hour north of town, and turned off the main dirt road down into a valley. Goats and small children ran out of our way and then turned to watch from the embankments along the path, following our progress down the hill with steady, serious eyes.

The construction site we were visiting is on the edge of the village, where an open field goes on and on until it meets the next village over. A river runs through the valley, and we've laid about 1 kilometer of pipes to bring water to a coffee processing station. At one point on that kilometer, the pipe recrosses the river above ground. It had been cut and we had to repair it before the coffee harvest began. It was a beautiful spot where they had broken the pipe--the river flows over a terraced series of stones that are square-cut as though by human hand.

We got out of the car and the construction manager Shaba, and a group of villagers went ahead of me, striding down the hill to the place where the pipe was exposed and needed repair. I nearly ran into them as they stopped and drew back sharply.

"Heh!" Shaba breathed in an involuntary puff of surprise. He looked at the ground, and stood there a minute

"Heh!" he said with more force. "What's that?" He pointed to the ground where bushes around the river parted, where we had dug the trench for our pipe.

A single stick of incense was smoking. Stuck in the ground, it had only burnt down about an inch. The smell of sandalwood suddenly surrounded me, as though by seeing it I smelled better--or it had been creeping along the ground but decided to rise towards our noses when we acknowledged it. The group of men from Nyaruboza didn't say anything. Although their feet stayed put in the mud, they drew back.

"What's that," Ishabakaki asked again. The four men averted their eyes and kept their distance. No one said anything; it was as if they acknowledged the stick's presence out loud it would have power over them.

In distracted bursts we started talking about fixing the pipe. Once the stick burnt out the men returned to the water system and began to work. We watched them shovel the clayey mud from around the pipe onto the bank. Shaba turned to the head mason, the oldest and most confident person there. "Where are the people who lit it? They must be near."

"We don't know who lit it," he anwered.

"Well this must be a sacred place," Ishabakaki said with a nervous smile. "No no," one man said quickly, "it's just them. they just decided that it should be a sacred place."

Shaba sighed with relief when we got back in the car, the tension left his shoulders. "You can light incense for good prayers and for bad prayers," he explained to me. "I can't say which one this was."

Ramadani

Ramadhan is nearly over. I'm not entirely sure which day completes this month of fasting and praying and family time, but I'm told it's either Sunday or Monday. Actually it's definitely Sunday. Wait no, it's either Sunday or Saturday.

These doubts lie in the mysterious lunar cycle. Ramadhan ends when the new moon is sighted; it is not enough to theoretically know which night the new moon appears--they have to see it with their own eyes to declare it official. Which means that if it's a cloudy night, Ramadhan ain't over yet.

Tanzania's Muslims often chose a day different from other parts of the world--apparently Tanzanian religious leaders tend to agree that they've seen the moon before others. I don't blame them. It's tough observing the fast here, because, as it's been explained to me, "in other countries people don't work that month. But here we're poor, and we can't stop working." Plus, less than half the country is Muslim--and Christians can't also shut down business for a month.

In any case, the end of this week will mark the end of Ramadhan. And we'll all get a long weekend, Christians and Muslims and pagans alike. Muslims might not be sure which day, but every Christian in town I've talked to is positive that the holiday will be Monday and Tuesday. Long weekend here we come!

Mgebuka

When the moon is full, fish runs out in Kigoma's restaurants.

Fishermen here go out at night and use lamps to attract their catch. When the moon is bright their lamps can't compete, and restaurants in town only serve Tilapia trucked in from Lake Victoria. Which I never order. I wait for the moon to wane so I can eat mgebuka again.

Mgebuka is a medium sized fish, the length of your plate, that comes fried whole next to a big pile of rice or fries, and perhaps a spoonful of boiled greens. I soon became used to staring into its milky white eyeball and its mouth hanging open, permanently fried into place. When I don't get a whole fish I start to distrust the restaurant. Gotta see the head.

I do love mgebuka. You must savor the first rip into the white meat--with that first bite you'll find out if you got a good one, if it hasn't been fried too long. When cooked right, you can indulge in the texture of the meat itself and the pleasure of separating it from the bones, peeling it off like the flesh of a fruit.

Kompyuta

I've worked in Kigoma for about a year and a half, and in that time we've had three interns pass through the office. They've all been young people from the "coffee growing communities" who spent six months learning all about coffee tasting, exporting, and sales.

They come from varied backgrounds but have one thing in common. They'd hardly touched a computer before starting at our office.

It took about a month of hesitant keyboard tapping and uncoordinated mouse clicks before the you-tubing started. Four weeks of asking how to close a window and requests for explanations of email attachments before music video downloads. 30 days of unsaved files and forgotten email passwords before MSN chat.

It takes four weeks to become an internet addict. Our bandwidth budget is in trouble.

Rotten Tomatoes

The other day, my flat-mate started talking to a former a tomato seller he knows. He had a burning question, one that had been troubling him for years. "But what happens at the end of the day to your dozens of leftovers?" he asked.

There are approximately thirty women in the Kigoma market who sit in cramped vegetable stalls and sell the same produce at the same price. They stack their identical tomatoes in pyramids of four or five, and sit back waiting for customers to come. At the end of the day, according to this former seller, they store their leftovers on the floor underneath the stall. Rats are not a problem she says, only cockroaches.

The next day when the tomatoes are no longer so firm-looking she's not worried. Regular customers might refuse them, but all the restaurants in town need tomatoes, and they aren't so picky about quality. In the morning they come to buy the previous day's produce to add to their sauces and stews and salads.

If they've gone too bad even for the restaurants, well the women have just got to take the tomatoes home and cook them up themselves.

2 Mechanics

I brought the car to our mechanic last Saturday. He wasn't surprised to see me. "You've got a strange sound when you drive over potholes, right? An ee-ee, ee-ee, right?" he squeaked.

"How did you know," I asked-- "Did our driver let you know I was coming?"

"No, no. I was at the ATM in town this morning when I saw your car drive by and heard that sound. I knew you'd come by soon."

There are two very good mechanics in town. We used to take our car to a man named Michael whose garage is on the outskirts of town. He's taller and wider than the average Tanzanian, with big oil stained hands that look too clumsy to fine-tune an engine. His garage has no sign--we found him with directions from a fellow car owner. To find his place, turn left on the dirt path just past the big mango tree before the Friends Peace Bar, and honk at the rusted gate just down the path.

His garage is impressive. The skeletons of ancient land rovers litter the lot. Michael's office, a building in the far end of the lot, is strewn with ancient papers on the floor, a calendar from 2007, and christmas decorations from some point in the past decade. A half a dozen young men loiter and insult each other, while two work on the cars for the day.

We took the car to Michael for about six months, but there was a chronic problem with the brakes that he couldn't figure out. We decided to see if the town's other mechanic had any idea why we heard that grating noise on muddy roads.

Panya's more compact garage is just off of Mwanga Market. The taxi drivers I talk to all bring their cars there, they swear by him. While Michael looks like he could pry the answers out of the car with his sheer strength, Panya seems like he could put his ear close to an engine, tap it a few times, and diagnose the problem.

Your mechanic must be someone you trust implicitly. Both Michael and Panya refuse any payment till the job is done, and when I forget for two weeks to pay a bill don't charge any extra for the wait. But lately we've been going to Panya for all our car troubles. I have to confess, it's mainly for his office. Panya has taken an old land rover, cut off the top, and laid it on a stand of bricks. You step into the door of his office, sit down on a stool next to his crowded desk, look around and realize that you're in a car. It's that creativity and frugality that draws me to Panya. Although I do like Michael's christmas decorations.

Contract Negotiation

I bought an mtumbu, a dugout canoe, last week.

I went to Katonga, a fishing village just outside of town, on a windy Sunday. I'd never been to this market in the morning, and I was constantly being told to get out of the way by people carrying large amounts of fish. The men had already returned from their night out, and had distributed their catch along the beach. Fish was everywhere: drying on wire mesh, loaded into wheelbarrows to go to town, on Mamas' heads in plastic buckets.

Getting the boat took a bit of strategizing. The guy I enlisted to help me told me to go wait by the car so he could negotiate a bit. "If they see you they'll increase the price," he explained. After a few rounds of walking up and down the market path lined with used clothes, tomatoes, and, of course, fish, I stood by the car enjoying the wait for relative anonymity. Eventually small children stop running up to peer at me and drunk guys kept rolling along. He came back. "OK we worked something out. What's next?" I went to have a look.

We walked down to the beach. Men repaired their purple fishing nets, and chatted, and added to the general windy chaos. A dozen canoes were lined up in the sand; mine was being sat in by its owner. "Want to try it out in the water?" my negotiator asked, and made ready to push it out. "No, no," I called out "I'm just looking at the wood." Looks were passed--what the hell is the deal with this woman? But the owner suffered my examination of his boat.

The bow has been smoothed by hundreds of hands that pushed it out to the water and thousands of waves that rolled over it. But patchwork began a foot down from the prow carved out of a tree. Each jagged board is loosely held together, the gaps filled in with cotton stuffing. Some are freshly added, still cyprus white, others were pilfered from other boats painted blue, some are nearly as ancient as the bow. Originally I wanted a boat that was of no use to anyone, one that was split in half, essentially driftwood. But looking at this boat I realized I wasn't going to find one because there's no such thing. Every boat is salvageable, even if in the process it becomes another boat entirely.


So I agreed on a price with the owner. At which point we entered into the formalities. Together we walked slowly up from the beach to the market chairman's office--which doubles as a stall where he sells powdered milk and phone credit. With him was a middle aged man wearing spectacles who greeted me in English. The negotiator came along as well.

The boat owner explained the transaction that was taking place, and the market chairman said--"OK. Well we need to write the contract. Here, take this piece of paper (he ripped one out of a student notebook) and this pen (he fumbled around in his desk) and write one with all the details." The boat owner took the paper and the pen and furrowed his brow. He held the paper close, he extended his arm far, he made a flourish with his left hand to fold the paper and a flourish with his right to bring the pen at the ready. He paused. "I can't write without my glasses," he said and handed his materials to the guy with the glasses. "Here, you write it."

The guy with the glasses began. "I, Jumanne Idi Nkola, am selling my dugout canoe to Jenevive Iden for the sum of fifty thousand only (=50,000/= only.) and no cents. In front of the following witnesses: (he lists the names of the three guys). Signed: (then followed space for our 5 signatures).

The contract was signed. Money was exchanged. Witnesses were paid. "OK," said the market chairman. "Now you officially own the boat." Now I will be asked no inconvenient questions about how I came to be the owner of an mtumbu.

Little did he know, I've cleverly disguised the boat. It will never float again, and even its builder might not recognize it in its present state.

Hand Sanitizer

Sometimes people whip out little bottles of hand-sanitizer before lunch. They’re usually short-term, first-time visitors to Tanzania. Or especially vigilant residents who don’t trust the local soap--which is orange, made out of palm nut oil, and not known for its anti-bacterial properties.

I feel somewhat uncomfortable when this sanitizing starts. First, usually by that point my unclean hands have already hovered over my plate. I feel uncouth--like I've begun serving myself dinner right as someone starts saying grace. So I must participate in the sanitizing the same way I bow my head, mumble a bit, and vocalize a very enthusiastic amen at the end.

Second, I feel that I’m impugning the cleanliness of the country which has been my home for two years. I feel guilty abandoning the tradition of hand washing in which I usually participate with real enthusiasm, rather like ablutions before entering the mosque. A waitress tends to come around with a plastic jug of warm water and some orange soap. She times her pours perfectly so that you rinse, lather, rinse, with your hands twisted a bit to the side, so the water falls on the dirt floor or into a plastic bowl that she holds. Then push the water off each hand and shake a few times. Voila! Eat!

Washing my hands with this evaporating chemical hand-cleansing agent feels much too sterile for the tactile experience that is eating in Tanzania. I may complain that staples like chocolate and cheese are in short supply, and dream about unattainable condiments like wasabi and tahini. But while vast portions of my tongue loll under-stimulated for months, eating takes on different sensory dimensions.

Rather than taste, it’s the texture in my hand and on my tongue that I wait for. There is a whole list of lunches that any visitor to Tanzania should avoid hand-sanitizer for.

Stories on the Road

There's an old story that's told constantly on the road.

One day, Dog, Goat and Sheep all went on a bus journey together. At the first stop, Sheep got off and paid his fare with exact change. At the second stop, Goat asked to get off--when the bus slowed down he hurled himself off and ran away as fast as he could without paying. Dog on the other hand told the conductor he wanted to get off at the third stop, and paid him with a large bill--but the driver sped off without returning his change.

And that is why to this day, Dogs run after cars (they're looking for their change), Goats run away from cars (they don't want to be caught), and Sheep stand stock still in the path of oncoming cars (they paid exact change).

Our driver loves this story, which I recently countered with a "well, do you know why chickens cross the road?" He didn't know, but is figuring out a way to add it to his repertoire of stories of human/animal interactions. He recently pointed out to me the difference between sheep and goats (besides the change thing)

Sheep hate the sun. If there's a strong sun their heads become heavy, they lose awareness of their surroundings, they seem dizzy. They'll try to find shade anywhere they can get it, for example by sticking their head in the armpit of a fellow sheep.

Goats, on the other hand, hate the rain. If it rains they run off to find shelter--I can vouch for this. You'll see seven sheep crowded under the overhang of a roof looking up at the sky in complete misery. "A goat can die from the rain," our driver claims.

Bibi

A Bibi (grandmother) doesn't retire. While the Babus get to sit at the market playing checkers, drinking tiny cups of coffee and talking the afternoon away, Bibis gotta go collect firewood. They make sure the cassava fields are planted. They take care of grandkids. They are fit. Their feet are wide and cracked, their hands like leather. Their thin arms could still kick the crap out of me.

This Bibi shuffled up barefoot to the house while I was talking with her son there. She can barely see, her eyes are clouded blue. She must only eat porridge since she's got no teeth left.

"That's my mother," my host explained as she walked past us in search of a stool. "She's got to be over 90 years old," he said proudly.

"Ah yes," my colleague commented, "in the village people can live a long time."

I asked how her health was. "Oh, pretty good," her son answered.

Where had she been--seems like she still walks around pretty well? "Just out farming cassava all morning."

Mushrooms

One of the projects I'm somehow attached to is a women's mushroom farming group.

The pilot project began in July, in a village near the border with Burundi. 30 women attended a week long training course and received materials. Then they had to wait for the mushrooms to grow. Two weeks later, 23 of them decided the whole thing was a conspiracy--after all only way to get really mushrooms is to wait for the rains and search for them in the forest. The group's calm chairwoman responded to the exodus with a simple "Let them leave. We'll just continue until we use up all our seeds. We'll see what happens." 7 women kept on preparing mushroom substrate and caring for their growing mycelium, not certain their efforts would amount to anything.

But earlier this week Chairwoman arrived at the mushroom house and saw her first crop poking through the plastic. She was so excited that she flew up the steep and dusty hill back to her house. "I was so happy, I danced! People watching me must have thought 'But what has happened to that woman? Has she gone crazy, or what?'"

A few days later, with dozens of mushrooms everywhere, the women invited some passing children into their mushroom house--(reactions: "Eh! Mushrooms! Huh.") to spread the good news quickly. According to village gossip, general opinion of mushroom growing has gone from bitterly skeptical to amazed.

Chairwoman's trust in fate paid off. She says these are "very delicious" mushrooms, that are especially nice fried with tomato.

Honey

Last Sunday, a Spanish neighbor invited us to a breakfast of chocolate and churros. By some terrible chance of fate and flakiness, I missed out. The leftovers went to Juma, a guard who works at the compound where we live. He came back with his empty mug later in the afternoon.

"It was very good," he said. "Very sweet. It had that flavor like honey. You know honey? There are these small bugs called bees, they make this sweet thing called honey, and we harvest it."

For someone who's never tasted chocolate, honey is the closest thing.

I didn't like honey as a kid, that cloying sweet floral flavor. But here, mmm--the honey has depth. Each bottle I've gotten is different. The light colored honeys that are sweet and have just a little spice to them. Or the honeys molasses colored with a woody, earthy sweetness.

The first time I came to Tanzania, I was in a village in the north hanging out in a boma with my hosts--a Tanzanian and American--when a young guy came in. He was walking home from the forest, and just stopped by to say hello. He had a plastic water bottle in one hand, half full with honey and the comb still floating there. I didn't speak any Swahili then. "Wild honey, fresh from the hive. He only got a few stings" my host explained. Clearly it was worth a few stings.

We passed the honey around like a whiskey bottle, each taking a swig. "Woo-oo!" the harvester said, shaking his head with relish after his turn. He became a little crazy, drunk off the pleasure of the honey. It was like a perfume had been made edible. It was like he had squeezed the forest itself to milk this honey. It was like drinking spices, distinct and dark. It was like a major sugar high, since when he got up to continue walking a few minutes later the bottle was two-thirds empty.

Birds Eye View

Kigoma is a bit easier to understand from the air than Dar was.

There is one main road that stretches up the hill from Lake Tanganyika. It starts at the train station, which was completed in 1914 by the German company Holzmann. From there it passes through the downtown commercial center--dominated by 2 banks, many Indian-owned stores, and the town market.

Further up the hill you enter Mwanga, where hair salons, spare auto parts, and stationary stores line the streets. Driving here means swinging to the right to avoid bikes loaded down with charcoal, hay, pineapples. Or swinging to the left to avoid big trucks coming in from the Kasulu road. And overtaking daladalas that chug slowly up the hills. And remembering which stretch hides the speed bumps.

Soon you come to a crossroads: to your left is the road to Dar es Salaam and Bujumbura. Straight ahead is the road to Ujiji. Mwanga market is the place to buy plastic buckets, nuts and bolts, wire mesh.

After two years, turns out I'm still am interested in "reading" the city, "decoding" the city. I still have the feeling that what I understand ("pouring over maps and photographs") about this place barely scratches the surface of how Tanzanians experience it. Drawing a map, creating categories, and finding a logic is satisfying, but not necessarily accurate. The linear roads tell an incomplete story. More important are the hidden neighborhoods and winding alleyways.