Random Tidbits

There are a bunch of random memories from my trip that I’ve been meaning to write about while I was in TZ, so I guess I’ll just compile them all here before I forget. I hope to continue with some bigger posts on education, tribes, the differences between TZ and the US, and my personal reflections on the trip at a later time, but I’ll keep these clips short for now (or short-ish, to be more precise).

Soda Can Story
While I was walking home after Skyping with Mr. Shekdar’s 4th grade class for a second time a few weeks ago, I stopped at a small local store (duka) for a drink. Everyone here drinks out of 400mL bottles which cost 400 TZ shillings (if a Coke product) wholesale or 500 shillings at the store. You can also buy small 300 mL bottles for 400 shillings at the store, but that’s mostly just for kids.

Anyway, I was really thirsty and opened the cooler to help myself to a drink. If you drink a soda you usually have to wait and give the bottle back to the store for them to recycle. I didn’t feel like waiting, so I just grabbed a can from the fridge. The cans are just 330 mL, so I gave the woman and the store a 500 shilling bill and waited for the change.

Instead of waiting for the change, she waited for me to give her more money. I was very confused by this and asked her how much more she wanted. It turned out to be 1,000 shillings! That’s twice as much money as a bottle and not as much liquid! Of course, this was the only day I decided to open the drink before drinking it. Unfortunately I had no more money on me and had to ask if I could pay her later. Luckily I have made sure to greet her from the road almost every day in Swahili, so my friend had no problem waiting for the money. I, however, felt like quite the idiot.

Deborah Washing Clothes
I had gotten a little bit behind in the washing-of -the-underpants department in my last few weeks here and had to scramble at the end to get everything clean. I had a whole rotation system between washing clothes and packing and was having a good old time getting all of my things together when my little friend Deborah (the house girl’s daughter) game to help me pack.

Deborah, while extremely cute, is usually quite a pain because she is almost always the most interested in the item I want her to touch the least. However, on that day, for some reason, she decided to make herself useful. I didn’t know what she was doing, but she went into my bathroom, presumably to do some perusing of the shampoo bottles and soaps. I let her be for a few minutes as I continued to pack. After a little while I began to get suspicious and went into the bathroom to see what she was up to. Low and behold she was leaning over the big bucket, barely reaching, but diligently washing my underpants in the soapy water! At just one and a half years of age I was very impressed by her hard work. I of course helped her find something else to do, but not before snapping a few pics.

Rooster on the Safari
On my very mini safari to Ngorongoro Crater I had the chance to see a lot of very cool birds, as well as the other safari creatures you’d expect to see (elephants, hyenas, a lion, warthogs, wildebeest, zebras etc.) While observing these beautiful creatures out of the roof of our Land Cruiser, I became very confused when I heard the unmistakable crow of a rooster. I assumed I must be imagining things, but after another 2 minutes I heard it again. I looked everywhere for the bird, even though I couldn’t imagine how a rooster would have arrived at the bottom of the crater with all the safari animals. The third crow just a few seconds later was interrupted mid call, and I when I turned around to see what it was my host sister was standing there on toying with her phone. Apparently that’s the sound of her incoming text messages.

Maasai at the Beach
On the second to last day of my trip to Zanzibar I was dropped off by my guide at a random beach hotel and told that he would come pick me up several hours later. I had to pay an entrance fee of 2,000 shillings, order lunch for myself, and find entertainment. I was initially rather annoyed with this since all of these things were supposed to be covered in the cost of my trip, and leaving me to play by myself was never in the itinerary.

However, after a few minutes of getting settled, I relaxed and decided to just go with it. From the hotel I could see the beach, except it appeared to be about a kilometer off in the distance. I challenged myself to make it all the way out there even though the waiter at the restaurant told me that the tide would come in just a few short hours. Off I went, holding a kanga over my head to protect my unfortunately white skin from the blaring afternoon sun. After a few minutes I came across a group of three boys catching small fish by smacking sticks against the sand in small pools of water. As I continued on, the water got to be about ankle deep, but the real ocean border was still far off in the distance. I came across a ton of cool creatures including fat, sand-colored starfish, skinny starfish with bright red lines across them in cool vein-like patterns, conch, and other random ocean life.

After awhile I began to feel that I would never reach the ocean. I decided to quit and just stick to observing the creatures on the sea floor. When I got back, I took a nice long nap on the beach, and woke up to find that the ocean had come all the way up to the hotel beach, fully covering all the animals I had seen before. I went for a nice swim in the ocean, and then went to go find myself a soda.

In the process of getting a drink I made friends with several members of the hotel staff. The majority of these guys were Maasai (a tribe I have yet to write about). I was really excited to actually get a chance to talk to them and ask them a few questions.

One of my questions about their tribe was the practice of polygamy. I was especially interested in whether they are allowed to marry members of other tribes, which I learned is an absolute no-no. The guys were so quick to tell me that Maasai don’t marry people of other tribes that I thought I must have misunderstood the question when one of them asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I immediately challenged his request given their previous statement, but as it turns out, Maasai are allowed actually allowed to marry Maasai or mzungu – just not other Swahilis. Unfortunately I denied the request, although if his courtship proposal had turned into a marriage he would have had to go kill a lion for my father and give him a bunch of cattle. Pretty cool deal if you ask me.