What We Eat

 

I was recently asked what we eat, here.  The short answer is:  lots of rice.  But we also eat other things.

Our school provides lunch and a mid-morning tea break (Thank you British colonialism!) on school days. Tea is hot, sweet tea with maandazi, which can best be described as deep-fried plain muffins. Two days a week at lunch we eat beans and rice and two days a week we eat pilau, which is seasoned rice with a few small bits of beef in it. On Wednesdays we eat ugali, which is corn meal cooked with water until it has the look and consistency of stiff, grainy mashed potatoes. This is served with beef and gravy. The beef chunks come complete with bones and cartilage. Side dishes are always either overcooked greens or a cabbage salad. Often bananas or orange slices are served as well. These lunches are a nice, convenient perk, if a bit tedious.

 
Breakfast at home is usually a peanut butter sandwich and sometimes a boiled egg. For dinner I cook pasta primavera or hot dogs (available at our local shop and called "sausages".) I often cook thinly-sliced pan-fried potatoes with scrambled eggs. Once in a while I can get ground beef, which I can make into hamburger patties or serve in a tomato sauce over pasta. I have started buying a chicken on weekends, especially if we don't make the trip into Arusha. (See the blog titled "Chicken and Eggs").

When we do get to the big city we treat ourselves to a nice meal. There are a number of good restaurants in Arusha. Our favorite is an Indian place where we usually order chicken dishes.  The proprietor is an amiable and friendly man who went to a university in the UK, and  took over the restaurant when his father died.  His newest project is origami folding of paper napkins.  Last time we ate there the colorful napkins looked like short-sleeved sport shirts.

There is a lot of fresh produce available here. We eat mangoes, bananas, pineapples, papaya, watermelon, and even plums and grapes when they are in season. We can also get yogurt.

All in all, not a bad diet. I miss eating fish. Fresh-water fish is the best bet here in our small town, but it is mainly available deep-fried by mamas on street corners. I miss salmon filets. And sushi. And Thai food. And cheese. And nice, greasy Italian subs. Does that make me a spoiled American? Maybe, but there it is.

Education in Tanzania

There has been wailing and gnashing of teeth in the teachers' lounge during the past week.  The results of the Form IV national exams came out, and over 80% of our school's Form IV students had failing marks.  Overall national results were not much better:  60% of the 400,000 public and private school students who took the exam failed.  These scores are much worse than in previous years, although there has been a noticeable decline during that time.  The questions now being raised in the political and education sectors are predictable: why is this happening, and what can we do about it.

I have only been in this country 9 months, so I probably do not totally understand the intricacies of the situation, but the following is my opinion of some of the causes.

Government policy has focused on a bricks-and mortar approach to getting students in school.  Many secondary schools have been built in rural areas.  Staffing those schools with trained teachers has of necessity lagged behind.  Filling those schools with students actually prepared for secondary school has lagged further.  I don't have first-hand knowledge of the primary schools, but I see their results.  Quite a few students lack basic skills. 

There is little immediate, lasting penalty to students for failure.  In the States we call it "social promotion".  Here, they don't call it anything, they just pass students on.  A student who gets all "F"s on the annual report card is still be promoted to the next grade.  This seems nuts to me. I teach math, which is a subject that builds on what is previously learned.  A student who receives an "F" in math cannot possibly grasp more complicated topics in the subject.  

There are periodic national exams which, in some cases, determine if a student can proceed to the next educational level.  There is one such exam at the end of primary school with 250 total points.  Our school accepts students who score above 70 points on the test.  There is another national exam at the end of Form II.  Starting just last year, failure on this exam means that the student must repeat the form.  A second failure and he or she must leave secondary school.  Options after that include vocational training or going back to the farm, literally.    

Rote learning is taught; critical thinking is not, at least at lower educational levels.  My students are very good at copying every single word I put on the board into their exercise books (they have to do so, as they have no textbooks), but 10 minutes later some of them cannot solve simple problems using the guidelines I have just written.  And, given a word problem, many cannot even decide how to approach it.  This, I have concluded, is more than a language difficulty.

There are lesser issues:  Burnt-out and indifferent teachers (although most in our school are conscientious), no books for students, a culture that does not value reading, students assigned to work duty (chopping wood or cleaning the campus) during class hours.  These have bothered me a great deal from time to time, but I think those I previously discussed are the root causes of the problem.

Can Peace Corps teachers make an impact?  Certainly not in a national sense.  What I hope to do is make a difference for at least a handful of individuals.  The people of Tanzania must do the rest.   

Hair

Most of the people of Tanzania are black Africans.  (No surprise, there.)  People whose ancestors are from India live in the larger cities and people of Arab descent live along the coast and the former trade routes, but in our area almost everyone is a black Tanzanian.  The result is that the local barbers and hairdressers have no experience cutting Caucasian hair, and are loathe to try, for fear of botching the job.

Mark was able to find an Indian barber in a large city who gives him a good, if short, haircut.  I had the same man cut my hair, to my regret.  He said he knows how to layer hair, but he does not, and he cut waaay too much off.  (I am so nearsighted that when I take my glasses off for hair styling, I don't know the result until it's too late.)  I am resigned to letting my hair just grow long for the next year and a half.

Almost all of the Tanzanian men that we have seen wear their hair very short, even shaved.  (I find it interesting that the "Afro" look that was popular in the States in the '60s and '70s isn't worn here in East Africa.)  Public school students, girls as well as boys, are also required to have their hair sheared very short.  This is a rule that is very practical--with a dusty environment and water in short supply, shaved hair is easier to keep clean.  A side consequence is that when the youngest students are seated at their desks, all in uniforms and with identical haircuts, I sometimes can't tell the girls from the boys without peeking to see if they are wearing skirts or trousers.  Of course, the Muslim girls are allowed to wear scarves if they so choose, and that helps with identification.

Tanzanian women also tend to have short hair, although there is a great deal of variation.  Traditional Maasai women shave their heads, and so do some others.  Many other women presumably cut their hair very short, but it's hard to be sure because their heads are wrapped in headscarves in public.  The most variation is found among middle-class women--those with enough disposable income to spend on style.  Some of the teachers at our school wear their hair short, but others let it grow longer and pull it back into a knot or ponytail.  Some have their hair permed or straightened.  Still others favor cornrows, hair extensions, and (gasp!) wigs.  The last two options only slowly came to my consciousness.  Early on in our homestay family I watched my "sister" braiding a little girl's hair--or so I thought.  She was actually weaving in braided hair extensions.  I also watched a neighbor here go from narrow to fat cornrows and then to straightened hair before realizing she was wearing a succession of wigs. 

Okay, so I'm dim.  But people's experience and expectations color their perceptions.  Just a couple of days ago I was walking with a group of my female students when one of them asked, "Madam, is that your hair or a wig?"  I said, "My hair, of course."  She then stepped forward and lifted my bangs to see if they were really attached to my scalp.  "It is your hair!" she exclaimed.

Chicken and Eggs

Eating chicken is somewhat different here than in the States.  And, I'm not even referring to the kill-it, pluck-it, cook-it differences.   (Our town has a shop where I can sometimes buy them ready to cook.)  Menus will often specify whether the chicken is "kienyegi" (local) or "kisasa" (modern).  A kienyegi bird can best be described as free-range.  It was recently scrabbling around in someone's yard.  It is flavorful and nutritious, but if it is not cooked correctly it is extremely tough and rubbery.  Kisasa birds are akin to broilers--tender young birds which are bred for meat and not given as much freedom. 

Even though kisasa chickens are raised on farms in some quantity, the huge factory-like operations that we have in the States do not exist.  Possibly as a result, Tanzanian chicken tastes more chicken-y than any I have purchased at Publix, Safeway, or even Whole Foods. 

They are also skinnier.  Here, I use the meat from an entire chicken--instead of just the leg quarters--for my chicken and yellow rice recipe.  But I also use the bones and odds and ends to make a chicken vegetable soup at the same time, so we do get a couple of hearty meals out of the purchase.  That's good, because a chicken costs 6500 Tsh at our local shop.  Our net living allowance works out to about 9000 Tsh each per day.       

Kienyegi eggs are wonderful.  Their yolks are dark yellow, and they are tasty.  Kisasa egg yolks, on the other hand, are so pale as to be almost white.  Makes me wonder what is added to chicken feed at factory farms in the U.S., to make yolks yellow.

Confirmation Day

Confirmation is an important event in the Lutheran Church.  It is when, after a period of study, a person (usually a child of about 12 or 13) confirms publicly that he or she really does believe the doctrines of the church, and is accepted into full membership.  There is a Lutheran church next to our school, and we know two people whose children were confirmed a couple of weeks ago.  We were invited to the event and the family festivities that followed it.

Now, I already knew that this is a large congregation, but I was surprised at the number of children being confirmed--there were at least 60!  This is a thriving faith community.

The service lasted about 3 hours, as it was combined with the regular Sunday service.  It was full of singing, as well as the standard liturgy.  Of course, it was all in Swahili, but we've acquired a hymnal in that language, so we could follow along to a degree, although we did not totally understand what was being said.

We had offered to take photos of the event for one of our friends whose child was being confirmed, and we were also invited to the party at their home.  The party location was not far, but up the mountain, so the family rented a dala-dala to take us all there.  More party-goers joined us later.  The family is Maasai, and their clothing varied from traditional shukas (robes) to Western styles.

The party was held outdoors in a tent set up for the purpose, with rented plastic chairs.  After a good meal there was a lull, and I was beginning to wonder if we should leave.  Then, we were told that a cake would soon be brought out.  The cake would be cut, and then gifts would be presented to the confirmand.  Camera at the ready, we watched the procession bringing the cake.  It was uncovered, and we saw that it was...a goat!  A whole, roasted goat, complete with hide, horns, and leaves hanging out of its mouth!  The confirmand, with the help of an aunt, sliced pieces from the side of the "cake", and fed them to the guests.  Mark ate a piece and said it was good.  I declined.

 

Presentation of gifts was an elaborate ceremony.  Guests started a chant (in Kiswahili) that called up family members one by one: "This one is Mama, this one", "This one is Auntie, this one", etc. and that person would walk, or sometimes dance, to the child and hand the gift to him.  Some dropped money into a box covered by a shawl instead.  A large gift was presented with great pomp, carried in atop the head of one of the aunties.

Another cake was brought out--this time a standard pastry--and after it was consumed, the party broke up.  We walked back down the mountain with a group of other guests and managed to get home just before dark.  The day's events had started at 10 am, and lasted until 6 pm.  Longer than we had expected, but we were glad we were there to participate.

Camping Safari

This week we went on a 3 day/2 night camping safari.  Mark and I and our friend Doug left with the driver/guide and cook in a big 4-wheel drive Land Cruiser with a pop-up roof.   

Let me say that I have never especially liked camping.  It has always seemed like a lot of work and inconvenience in order to spend time outdoors.  However, in a camping safari, the tour operator does all the work and suffers most of the inconvenience.  Our trip was highly enjoyable.

The first day out, we drove to the Engaruka ruins.  This is a settlement in the Rift Valley that was occupied between about 1500 and 1700 C.E.  We saw gravesites, the thick rock walls of sizable dwellings, and an irrigation system that resembles modern permagardening systems.  Although that settlement was abandoned, Maasai villages are in the area now, and the tribespeople are protective of the site.

Proceeding on, we stopped for the night at a posh campsite in Karatu, Kudu Camp.  By posh, I mean that it had an internet cafe, swimming pool, pub, gift shop, and more.  Our driver set up the tents and our cook prepared a wonderful meal.

The next morning we drove into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  We saw baboons along the road, including a family group with a tiny baby clutching its mother.  Our cook was dropped off at Simba A Camp, where he set things up and starting preparing another feast.  We then went to the Oldupai Gorge, where Mary Leakey's team made 60 different finds of ancient hominid remains, including a skull of Australopithecus boisei, who lived 1.8 million years ago and remains of Homo Hablis and Homo Erectus.  Her team also found 3.75 million year old footprints of Australopithecus afarensis nearby.  This is the same species as the individual whose bones were found in Ethiopia and named "Lucy".  These remains were preserved at Oldupai due to repeated volcanic activity that sandwiched them between layers of lava flows.  Rifting and erosion enabled them to be found in the 20th century.  Fascinating stuff.

We returned to the camp, which is situated on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater.  The view was breathtaking.  By that point in the early evening, quite a few other campers had arrived.  Most were brought there by tour companies, but a few had their own cars.  I was grateful for our guide and cook, not only because of the afore-mentioned work and inconvenience of a do-it-yourself camping experience, but also because they were very good at their jobs.  We settled in for the night, under the visible Milky Way.  It was about 2:30 am when we were awakened by cries of "Help! Help!" from nearby.  A cape buffalo had wandered through the camp and had repeatedly bumped a tent.  Our guide told us that he was the one who scooped up a handful of rocks and threw them at the animal, who then strolled out of the campsite.    

The next morning, the Land Cruiser was loaded up and we drove down into the crater.  This was the highlight of the safari.  The crater is about 20 km wide and holds thousands of animals.  Most of them can and do migrate in and out, but the crater has food and water and is a comfortable place for them to live.  Our guide was expert at spotting animals that we wouldn't have noticed on our own.  He and the other guides also share information on where exciting things might be seen.  Like the lions sleeping in a clump of tall grass right next to the road.  Or the cheetah surveying the landscape from a small rise on the plain.  We saw elephants (one about 30 feet away), warthogs, hippos, ostriches, gazelles, cape buffalo, zebras, wildebeest, and much more.  We took lots of pictures.  We are grateful to Doug for sharing the photos from his camera, which has a longer zoom than ours.

After lunch we proceeded home, tired from this amazing experience and from bumping along dirt roads, but extremely happy that we had this opportunity.

Mount Kili and Tingatinga

Last weekend, we spent a day and a half in the town of Moshi, which is at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.  The mountain is the tallest in Africa, at around 19,000 feet, and its peak is usually hidden by clouds.  The days we were there, though, the sky was clear and the view was spectacular.  This is actually a bad thing.  The clouds shade the snow at the peak and protect it from melting too much.  The slow snow melt and other precipitation provides water to the area.  I have been told that there are fewer clouds now than in the past because of deforestation and climate change, resulting in less snow on the mountain than at the same time of year 50, 40, or even 20 years ago.

 

Gloomy thoughts aside, we enjoy Moshi.  It is a walkable  size, is less intense than Arusha,  and has several restaurants that appeal to Westerners.  This time of year, the poinciana trees are in lush bloom, covered with red-orange flowers.  The town also has a small concentration of artists, and we wanted to spend extra time this trip to explore what they had to offer.

We started by going to a shop we had seen back in August, when we were too overloaded with baggage to consider a single extra purchase.  This time, we hoped to pick up something  to brighten the walls of our little house.  Tanzania is famous for Tingatinga-style paintings, which are cheerful, primitive, and very appealing.  We went to the shop we had remembered and found that it and its neighbors have formed an association of artists.  There are 4 or 5 shops in a row, and the artists themselves work in the same building complex behind the storefronts.  We spoke to them, and ended up buying several pieces of art.  We are delighted with our purchases, and I'm sure the artists are delighted we stopped by.