Nee-ah-GAR-ah

It's been chilly here, even though we are only 3 degrees south of the equator.  We are about a mile high (think "Denver"), and July is the coldest month of the year.  I don't have a thermometer, but it feels like it has been dropping into the upper 40s at night.  Homes and schools aren't heated or insulated, so we bundle up to keep comfortable.

Mark has been wearing his hooded Niagara University sweatshirt regularly, and it always gets a reaction from the Tanzanians who see it.  They say that the word "Niagara" looks like an African word, and wonder where the university is.  Mark tells them that it's in America, and they can hardly believe it.  Then he explains that Niagara is a name from the Iroquois tribe that means "flowing water".  Tribes and tribal languages resonate with the people here, so then they understand.

And Nee-ah-GAR-ah?  That's how a speaker of Swahili pronounces "Niagara".

Motorcades

We've seen a number of motorcades in the past month.  The first was when we arrived back in Tanzania after our trip to Ghana.  Striding through the airport, we were approached by several taxi drivers.  We told them, "No thank you.  We will go by dala-dala."  One had the effrontery to lie, "Obama is in town.  The dala-dalas aren't running."  Which, of course, was ridiculous.  Obama was not due for 2 more days.

We made our way to the dala-dala stop across the street from the airport.  Three of the minibuses stopped, but they were so packed we did not even attempt to board with our backpacks.  Then, suddenly, there was no more traffic headed into the city.  Peering down the road, we could see cars and trucks stopped at the next intersection.  So we waited.  And waited.  More and more people gathered at the bus stop.

After a few minutes, we heard small cannon--Boom!  Boom!  Boom!--from the direction of the airport.  People around us started to take out their cell phones.  I heard some of them say "Obama".  Eventually, motorcycles sped past, sirens sounding and lights flashing.  Then there were police vehicles, Land Rovers, and a limousine with dark windows.  More police vehicles and a bus full of white men in black suits followed.  (One of them pulled out a small camera and snapped a photo of the people standing at the bus stop. I wonder what he thought when he saw me and Mark with our pale faces in the crowd.)  Last in the motorcade was an ambulance.  Soon, regular traffic was allowed to flow, and we took a dala-dala to our destination.  We found out later that various heads of state and diplomatic ministers were in the city that week, and it was one of them who passed us.  President Obama arrived later in the week.  (And would have had a longer motorcade).

We had a similar experience last weekend.  We were on our way to Arusha for shopping and lunch when our dala-dala was pulled over, not once, but twice for motorcades.  The president of Tanzania was appearing at a local event.  Once it was clear what was happening, most of the people on the dala-dala got out and stood alongside the road to get a better view.  After 10 minutes or so, the motorcade sped past--sirens, motorcycles, police, limo, more police, and, finally, an ambulance.  The passengers, driver, and conductor scrambled to re-board so that our vehicle could be first of the several stopped along the road to pull out and be on our way.

We were stopped once more on our return trip from Arusha.  Watching a motorcade was a fun experience the first time or two, but I'm a little tired of having our travels interrupted.

Trip to Ghana

Our school break was in June, and after grading exams and completing reports we had weeks of free time.  We decided to visit our friend Rose in Ghana.  Hey, we're on the same continent, right?  It should be easy.

When discussing arrangements for our visit, Rose asked if we already had visas.  Oop!  No.  So, we went in search of how to get them.  Internet was no help.  Is there a Ghanaian embassy or consulate in Tanzania?  Nope.  Finally we learned that we could possibly get them on  arrival at the airport.  Rose's businessman brother kindly supplied us with a letter stating that he would be responsible for us during our stay.  It turned out that his letter made all the difference in the attitudes of the immigration officials who supplied the visas.  They went from suspicious to cooperative in an instant.

We flew into Accra at night and were amazed at the size of the city.  It has a population of over two million, and twinkling lights extended far into the distance.  We learned that the city is growing rapidly, due to people moving in from rural areas in search of opportunity.

Rose met us and took us to her lovely home in a suburb of Accra.  She put us into a guest room with the best bed we have slept on in a year.

We saw many similarities between Ghana and Tanzania.  The people are friendly in both countries.  People live in similar-looking houses, which are not built of wood because they would be destroyed by termites before they could be completed.  Instead, the houses of those who can afford it are usually built of cement block, even interior walls.  The more well-off add wall finishes, tile floors, and ornate ceilings.  Middle-class and wealthy homeowners live in walled compounds with gates and sometimes gatekeepers.  Crime is a factor in housing construction in countries where there is much poverty, as well as the fact that local police cannot always be relied on for protection.

Those able to afford it have a main house in the walled compound and a smaller one for servants' quarters.  The people who live in the small house may actually be servants or may just be younger members of the extended family.  In any case, homes at any economic level need a lot of help to run.  Even those who can afford modern appliances experience power outages.  A washing machine and dryer are not labor-saving if there is no electricity to run them.  Convenience foods are rare, expensive, and less tasty than meals made from scratch.  Hence the need for help running a household.  And, (looking back at my economic training) when labor is cheaper and more reliable than labor-saving devices, people have household help.

Rose took us on a tour of Accra, which is a cleaner and more modern city than any in Tanzania.  We were also surprised and pleased that all of the street signs and billboards were in English!  Ghana's national language is English, but there are many tribal languages as well.  We visited a textile market that was full of the colorful and textured Kente cloth.  I did not buy any then, as I noticed that people do not use it for everyday wear.  It is only for special occasions.  We went to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, which contains the museum and tomb of the father of the country.  I found myself affected more than I had expected by the museum, which held, among copies of his books and some of his furniture, photos of him with John F Kennedy, Mao Tse Tung, and Fidel Castro:  people right out of the headlines of my childhood, during a turbulent time in history.

Another day we visited a dam east of Accra that provides electricity to most of the country.  It was an impressive spot.  Along the way we noted that the small towns and villages, with their tiny shops and street vendors, look very much the same as those in Tanzania.

Mid-week we did some shopping and errands with Rose, and had lunch at her sister's beautiful home.  Rose's many sisters and brothers--some of them cousins-- form a close, extended family, complete with nieces, nephews, aunties, and uncles.  Older people are shown deference in the culture and it is the duty of children to help their elders.  As a senior myself, I approve of the system.

At the end of the week we took a trip to Kakum Forest, which lies a couple of hours to the west of the city.  The traffic is so heavy that it took us 90 minutes to clear the suburbs.  Kakum is a rainforest preserve with rope bridges suspended from treetop to treetop.  We were told that no one had ever fallen from the bridges, so, with some misgivings, I made my way across them  I found that looking down was not so scary, as all I could see was the tops of smaller trees.  The worst part is when the twenty-somethings in front of me got playful and rocked the bridge.  I spoke to them sternly (Hooray for the culture of respect for elders!) and they stopped.

On our way back to Accra we stopped at Cape Coast Castle built hundreds of years ago for trade.  The fort was used as an assembly point for captured slaves waiting for ships to take them to the west.  It's a solemn spot, but the coastline there is beautiful, similar to Cinque Terra, in Italy.

The next evening we boarded our plane back to Tanzania, happy to have been able to visit our dear friend and to have met some of her family.  We plan to see her next in just over a year, in Florida.               

Just when I thought we were street-savvy...

We were in Dar es Salaam about a month ago.  The city, which has one of the county's two major airports, seemed to swarm with Peace Corps volunteers.  All of us who teach in Tanzania were on holiday, and many were either traveling or meeting families who came to visit.  We ran into one friend and her parents and the five of us decided to have dinner on the street.  In the towns and cities here, dusk brings the emergence of street food vendors.  These vary from very simple, a mama grilling corn cobs over a charcoal fire, to more elaborate, with tables, chairs, and printed menus.  On a parking lot near a hotel popular with PCVs was one of the latter, and we opted to eat there.  We sat down at a table and a man arrived and asked if he could help us.  We asked for menus and he brought them, and after a few minutes he reappeared and asked us what we wanted to order.  We told him in a mixture of Swahili and English, and he sat down with us and slowly and laboriously wrote on a piece of paper.  He then left to turn in our order.

At this point, everything seemed fine.  If the waiter seemed a little uninformed about the menu options, well, that was not unusual.  He may have been new at the job.  He was certainly friendly enough and seemed eager to be of help.  We were too busy chatting and sharing stories to pay much attention to anything odd about his behavior.

A few minutes later, the man returned chatted a while, and then totaled the cost of our order.  We paid him, and he left, never to be seen again.

Some time later, our food was delivered by different people.  There seemed to be some confusion about exactly what was ordered. Soon the proprietor came to our table, and we discovered that the man who so helpfully took our orders and our money was not a waiter at all, but a con artist.  He did turn in the orders, telling the owner that he was our guide, but he took off with the cash.  Well, our food was partially eaten by that time, and consternation was felt all around.  The owner graciously did not charge us for the meal.  Later, he returned to our table and told us that some of his employees recognized the man, and that he would be caught.  I am sure he was made to pay, in one way or another.  People in this country have no tolerance for thieves, who are often subject to mob justice.        

Lessons learned:  Always be aware of your surroundings, and never pay for something before you receive it.