'Settling In'

Third Post

Saturday, Aug 4th, 2007

'Settling In'

Here I am again- who knew I'd be able to stay in touch so often?! Well, I've enjoyed writing you guys, and am looking forward to receiving your snail-mail letters too.

If I remember right I'd just finished the LAMP course when I last wrote, so I'll pick up the narrative from there. This last week has been our first on our own. Timo and Emily still check on us every once in a while, but for the most part, it's Jeremy and I and our new neighbours- the week's intended for settling in and getting to know the people around us.

Jeremy and I seem to complement each other pretty well- he does't mind sweeping up and generally cleaning (although he's always careful in cleaning around the spiders), as well as taking care of the garbage (we have a 6-foot-deep pit out back) and any strange animals that may find their way into our home; while I do the cooking and the dishwashing, which I don't mind at all, so that's allright.

The food situation here is quite interesting. The Zaramo are in fact neither cattle, nor goat herders. Each family generally has several chickens, but they keep them for the eggs, and only slaughter them on special celebrations. Also, families are very attached to their chickens and don't like selling them. So for the most part, our diet consists of rice and beans. Personally, I'm a big fan of beans, so I haven't had a problem so far; but poor Jeremy is a meat, potatoes and boiled vegetables kinda guy, and is not, alas, very fond of beans. So he's been subsisting on a diet of chappatis (oily flatbread) and mandazis (deep-fried doughy bread) with peanut butter (quite easily available) and jam. Every once in a while, however, we get a special treat- there's a man who lives in Minengwe (the next village over) who is from northern Tanzania - from the cattle-herding Chaga tribe - so he often buys a cow or two, drives them through town, slaughters and butchers them the next morning, and sells the meat. This last Monday was such a day, and Jeremy and I lined up outside his shop bright and early.

Our Chagaman butcher basically sells two kinds of meat- 'steaky' (meat without bones), and 'gnhama' (meat with bone) - he makes no other differentiation in the cut. He has two prices, and that's it. We got so excited that we bought two kilos of filet mignon for 6,000 shillings (that's 4.4 lbs for Cdn$ 6.00), brought it home, washed and chopped it, and then realized there was no way we could eat all that meat by ourselves fast enough that it wouldn't spoil (no fridge, remember?). So we invited the whole team over, made around kilo of beef curry, and a kilo of roasted beef, and had a great time together. That was Monday (I was cooking the whole day, while Jeremy was walking from home to home inviting everyone and asking them to bring rice).

The next day we got to know the young men who hang out at the circle a lot better. Now, we'd been hanging out with them fairly often in the evenings, and had even been invited to a couple of games of soccer with them at a field down the road. So on Tuesday, we got them to help us and cleared out our yard. The home we've rented actually has a fairly good-sized piece of land around it, but it was ridiculously overgrown with all kinds of very-tall-grass and other weeds. So we spent the day clearing it out (well, they did really- they had the tools), and now we have a nice clear backyard, where I hope to plant an herb-and-vegetable garden. Jeremy's thinking of perhaps raising some chickens or rabbits, just so he can kill them- he's quite bloodthirsty (Although I haven't actually ever seen any rabbits around. Jer saw a baboon this week though). We should soon have such exotic things as broccoli, white onions (all the ones here are red), parsley, dill, and whatever else I brought seeds for, growing in abundance in our backyard.

Over this last week we've also had ample chance to hang out with the young men of the village and get to know them better, which has been great. So now we know not only Ali- our translator, but we've also gotten to know Daudi, Cleopas, Moi, other Moi, Dullah (Abdullah), yet another Moi, Lama (Ramadan), Khus-Khus (not to be confused with cous-cous), etc, etc. Been good times. Other than sitting around and doing nothing, and playing soccer for a couple of hours in the evening, their favourite pass-time seems to be playing checkers. I was quite surprised when I first saw it, but it seems that almost every little shop (dukka) in our village has a bench out front where there'll be a couple of people playing 'draftees' (draughts? that's the British name for checkers), and a little crowd observing and giving sugestions. I tried my hand and beat a couple of the kids, but then played a few of the experts and had my bottom whipped. Sadly, I've found no one who plays or has even heard of chess. However, both ebony (beautiful black wood) and cypress (white wood) are plentyful here; and just the other day I met a professional ebony carver (at least I think that's what he was saying he did). So I'm hoping to get some wood from him, carve myself a chess-set, and introduce the game of kings to Mzenga.

Other than that, Dave'll be happy to know that even though I had no place in my luggage for either chess or cattan; our teammates from Cobourg, the Couches, actually brought Settlers! So we also played a couple of games with them, which has been great.

Last but by far not least, I have some amazing news that will rock your socks! As you know (or at least you should if you've been reading this blog), the first three months of TIMO (the program, not to be confused with Timo(thy) Tanner our teamleader) calls for a technology fast, so I actually shouldn't even be able to email out very much. Thankfully, the Tanners have been lenient enough on the strictness of the fast to allow us to write back home, and therefore you've heard so much from me. Just a reminder- hold on to that thought.

The village of Mzenga is very secluded- not only do we have no electricity, but there isn't even a phone-line that I know of, and cellphones don't really work here (I guess cos we're in the middle of nowhere). So really, we're pretty much cut-off from the rest of the world. For all I know the US may have declared war on Canada and you may all be reading this from an US refugee camp (how bizarre would it be if that actually has happened?!); but I wouldn't know anything about it (Jeremy has a short-wave radio, but while we've been able to pick-up Swahili, Arab, Thai, French and German broadcasts, we've picked up nothing in English yet). So even to send these emails out, we have to wait till around Aug 13/14, when we go down to Dar es Salaam for a couple of days.

However, a cell-phone tower is soon to be operational in Mzenga! They actually built the tower literally over the last week- quicker than I've ever seen or heard of anything being built in a third-world country, and it should be operational soon! Which means that by the time our techno-fast is over, I should have a cell-phone you'll be able to call me on! (the tower is around 400 m away from our home, so we should get some great reception, even if we do get cancer in the process). Even if you don't end up calling me much (in case it turns out to be expensive), at least we'll be able to access email more often, and if anything happens to me, you'll get to know right away! So mom, you can stop worrying :).

Well, that's pretty much been this last week. Tomorrow we meet for worship, and then we all go on our 'Homestays'. In order to help us bond with and better understand the local culture, we'll be spending a week living with a local family and closely observing their lives and habits. Personally, I'm quite looking forward to it- my homestay host is a young man named Dullah (Abdullah) and his two wives and three children, but I've met Dullah several times and gotten to know him- he's a great guy. However, the homestays would call for a considerably rougher time than we've been used to- here we'll experience the real 'squatter' toilets (we've all been practicing the position), food we're not used to, a lifestyle completely different from our own in almost every way, and very little (if any) privacy, so the families and the single girls aren't quite looking forward to it- some of them, in fact, are quite nervous. I was about to ask for your prayer, when I realized that you probably won't get to read this until well after we're done out homestays, so never mind then.

Hope you guys have a great week (again, the week I'm wishing you for will long be over when you read this... so hope you had a good one!). God bless.