Cooking lesson with Betty

Last Friday, instead of our regular language class, Betty taught us how to cook, Tanzanian style! Everything was prepared and cooked in true tanzanian fashion -headpieces and all! The kangas which we are sporting, are used for many different things; it is their main dress, headpiece, scarf, shawl, towel, baby carrier, and apron! A very multi-purpose piece of fabric!

Our day started off with a trip to Mama Kiri's (a lovely Tanzanian women who is a friend of the Wingfields -she's also taught me how to bake bread over a charcoal stove!) Our mission was to fetch a chicken and bring it with us to Betty's. Thankfully, Andrew was able to drive us that morning -I couldn't really picture us three *wazungus walking across town with a live chicken in tow! (*wazungu is the swahili word for "white people"...ie. any foreigners) Joe named our chicken Dorothy, and did a great job of holding her down in the backseat of the car!

Before our cooking session began, we were all outfitted with kangas! The first thing Betty taught us how to make was chapaties. There's a lot of rolling and oil involved -but the end result is well worth the effort! We also made homemade chai, coconut rice, pilau, a pea medley cooked in coconut milk, a beef dish, deep fried chicken (sorry Dorothy!), steamed spinach and tomato, plantain and ugali! It took seven hours in total, preparing everything by hand -literally, and cooking everything over little charcoal stoves. I had underestimated the time and energy that goes into making a meal here! I can't imagine doing that everyday! (Although it is rare that one would prepare such a feast daily!)

We called it a day around four o'clock and went home to rest for a few hours before heading back out for yet another meal...this time at the Bishop's house! Although we were pretty tired (and very full) from cooking, dinning with the Bishop and his wife was a lot of fun! The Bishop, who is in charge of the Diocese of Ruaha here in Iringa, is also the arch-bishop of Tanzania -he's a VERY busy man! He's also one of the friendliess, most laid back person I've met here! We had a very nice evening and hopefully we'll be able to visit with him some more while we are here.

All in all, friday was a very eventfull day - one with many highlights that will be remembered for a long time!

It's been a month!

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for a whole month already! There have been many exciting things keeping us busy in addition to learning Kiswahili (which is coming along quite nicely, just not as quickly as we’d like!) Two weekends ago we had the pleasure of attending our first Tanzanian wedding…what an experience! I’ve posted the pictures and tried to give an explanation for each of them! There were a variety of bright colors, loud music and a lot of dancing! It was also our first time eating a traditional Tanzanian meal, Tanzanian style- with no utensils! Although I do have to admit that I cheated and accepted the fork that was later offered to me! Jen and Joe were troopers and enjoyed eating with their hands along with all the other guests! Last week we were fortunate enough to tag along with some fellow ex-pats and visited one of the orphanages just outside of Iringa. We had a quick tour of the grounds and got to meet and chat with the main caretaker and some of the children – a few of us got lucky and were able to join in on a short soccer match! Although these kids have come from very dire circumstances, you would never know it based on their huge smiles! It’s encouraging to see a well-run facility that is providing these kids with the opportunity for success!

I’m currently in the process of learning how to drive –Tanzanian style! (i.e. on the opposite side of the road and somewhat aggressively!) I’ve been out driving a few times now, and so far haven’t killed anyone! It’s not as bad as I first thought it would be, I guess one is able to slowly become accustomed to the craziness that is the driving here! Speaking of ‘craziness’, we’ve had a few ‘exciting’ encounters with Betty’s (our language teacher) next-door neighbor! We’ve been told that she is bi-polar and usually makes her rounds to every house on her street demanding them to pay rent –even though she doesn’t own any of houses! We’ve also been informed about a few other interesting things she likes to do, however we were not warned about her tendency to throw rocks at our little school hut! We have been a target a few times in the past few weeks! Luckily she’s only managed to hit the outside of the hut, so I don’t think we’re in any real danger –it just provides an interesting twist to language learning! We finish class Monday (October 22) and then Jen and I will be heading out to the village on Wednesday for a few days to get better acquainted with the dispensary and those we’ll be working with. After we’ve settled in and become more familiar with village life, we’ll gradually work our way up to staying a full two weeks in a row. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be going for a few days at a time only –we’ve been told that this gradual introduction to village life has proven to be the best way to adapt successfully! I’m sure I’ll have many stories in the near future about my integration into village life! I’ve been hearing about people’s experiences and I’m excited to see for myself!

All you can do is laugh...at yourself!

Learning a new language has proven to be quite challenging at times but it has also given us a few good laughs! One of the first things we learnt to say, besides “habari” (how are things?) and “assante” (thank-you), was “sielewi” (I don’t understand). This little phrase has come in handy as often we really don’t understand what is being said! Now in Swahili there are many words that sound and look the same but mean completely different things (so we’re finding out!). The word “sielewi” stems from the verb “elewa” (understand), so we didn’t think anything of it to say “silewa” (you are supposed to add ‘si’ to the beginning of the word to make it negative when it is in the first person) to people when we didn’t understand what was being said. People would usually smile encouragingly or sometimes laugh and would slowly repeat what they had just said. The other day while in language class we all had an “aha!” and “oh-oh” moment at the same time . . . it turns out our “silewa” phrase actually means “I’m not drunk”!! It only took a few seconds to realize that by omitting the “e”, we were telling people that we were not drunk instead of telling them we didn’t understand! There have been a number of similar incidents since, for example I was trying to use “kusini” (south) in a sentence but kept pronouncing it as “kuzini” (which means adultery!). Another word that we kept misusing was “taka” (verb to want); we would say “tako” (which means buttocks!) –talk about making a sentence awkward! I’m sure there will be many more incidents when we’ll completely butcher the language and make interesting statements and/or requests!
Although it has been challenging and we’ve been cramming a lot of grammar and vocabulary into a short amount of time, we’re slowly getting the hang of it!