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.

An Introduction

When I first came to Tanzania in 2006, I started a blog. I posted two entries. I wanted to chronicle my research (on historic buildings in Dar es Salaam) and make it public. Now, in this space I just want a place to share the stories I hear and the things I see.

As an introduction from my former self, here's my impression of Dar es Salaam in October 2006, after about a month in Tanzania.

***
My first glimpse of Dar es Salaam was from the air. During most of the flight from London a thin layer of clouds floated below us. It wasn't until landing that we broke through the haze and the corrugated iron roofs, banana trees, and small patches of green and brown became visible. It was disorienting; I couldn't make out the shape of the city I thought I would easily recognize after pouring over maps and photographs.

Driving from the airport to my apartment in a neighborhood a few miles away, I became even more disoriented. The trip took nearly an hour, as we moved through a what seemed to me to be a chaos of cars, bicycles, pedestrians, and down streets lined by a jumble of buildings. From my vantage point, neighborhoods stretched endlessly, lying low to the ground and full to bursting. It is only now, after nearly a month, that I'm no longer constantly lost, and am beginning to be able to read the city.

Main streets radiate north and west from the city center, from the historic core along the port. These are the roads I drive on most often. They are paved and most are lined with small one-story buildings that house convenience stores, beauty salons, tailors, butchers, restaurants, and multi-storey buildings that contain offices and apartments. Beyond this first row of buildings, streets are unpaved and the buildings are much smaller, roofed with corrugated iron. Houses are close together, often accessible only through narrow alleyways. During the rainy season water rushes through these streets, and forces the inhabitants to evacuate. The water rises so high that people stand in the doorway and dump water by the bucketfull outside the house; they store their mattresses up high so they rising water doesn't ruin them. In many places there is no running water or electricity. My own apartment is just off the main road, and--except for the large quantity of ants marching along the walls and pale geckos--could be an apartment almost anywhere in the world.