kwaheri tena

Kind of a twist on the more common Kiswahili saying of "karibu tena"...actually almost the opposite. I leave tonight and again, it is a mixture of emotions. Even though I was only here for two weeks this time, I miss people at home a lot more. It was kind of a lonely trip this time, doing fieldwork by myself instead of actually teaching. I did very much enjoy spending time with my family here and I met up with many of my Tanzanian friends from last year on Saturday and we had a great lunch together. Two of my favorites are actually dating now, which is exciting! But I am definitely glad to be going home too, back to running water and toilets as usual.

Yesterday bibi (grandma) came over and she thinks I am a riot. She breaks into this huge grin whenever I say anything in Kiswahili to her, which I have to pratically yell because she is pretty deaf. She also falls asleep constantly in her chair while we are all sitting around and talking or whatnot. She is amazing, I wish I had met her sooner.

Back to school, labs, friends, work, research, interviews, boys, running, dancing, and dining halls.

last days

The new mzungu volunteer, Alice, moved in last night. She is super nice but it was hilarious to watch someone else go through the transition into living with the family that I made last year. I felt a bit sheepish that I may have been ruining her moment or whatever but she seemed pretty grateful that I was there to explain some things. And the kids are very quiet and shy when they meet new people so she felt less awkward having me to talk with at least. It was funny though, we were playing Old Maid with Dorcas, Rachel, and Irene, and they were all sitting very quietly and being polite and well-behaved. Then when Alice went to bed, the radio was turned out, Dorcas started dancing around like a crazy person, there was shouting during the subsequent game of Go Fish, and mama even joined in. Irene made fun of Dory for being not shy once Alice went to bed, then I pointed out that Irene had done the same thing and we all laughed.

Also I should have known better...this is Tanzania...I was not moved into the Harry Potter room. Baba moved into the Harry Potter room and mama moved into the kids' room, and I moved into mama and baba's room! After a few minutes of protesting when I realized what had happened, I quickly realized it was a losing battle. Since it is only for 2 days I let it go. But yikes. Good thing I am leaving Monday or I would feel even more awful!

I leave on Monday...if everything goes according to plan, I will have collected 13 more interviews, bringing my total to 30! It was not easy per se, but definitely enjoyable and worthwhile. I think my thesis should be very relevant.

cheka

Interviews are picking up! I have done 5 so far, and over the next few days have plans to do 8 more. And they are going very well, getting info that my original data was pointing at but did not necessarily explicitly say. So that front is good!

I also was able to call Fr. Paul’s friends in Arusha, the Krafts, and I might have dinner with them sometime before I leave. I spoke with Mr. Kraft on the phone and he sounded very friendly. Tonight I am going out to dinner with a new group of GSC volunteers who arrived last night as well as the staff at the GSC office (who have been extremely helpful and friendly to me during my stay). The funny part is one of these volunteers is apparently moving into my family’s house on Friday evening…so I am being relegated to the “other” room. I have actually never seen this room, but I think it is a Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs sort of deal. Hahaha, I am excited to see this actually. And Arusha is currently going through a water shortage (no rain in a long time apparently) so there has not been any running water in the house. More the experience that many people probably imagine when they think of Africa I suppose.

I leave Monday and I am already getting sad to leave my family. Maybe it will help that there will be anther mzungu there to distract them. This time though, I am not sure if I will be coming back. Of course I was not sure before either, but at that point I still had very lofty goals of getting my PhD in med anthro and doing my fieldwork in Tanzania. And I still have that goal, but the application process is definitely a huge reality check. And I am no longer certain that I would want to do my research in Tanzania. It is very far away from the majority of the people that I love, and spending years here alone would be intense. Not a decision I even need to think about now. But something that crosses my mind when I think about leaving.

I am so much better at getting what I need/want in Arusha now. I am not sure if that is good or bad. Probably both?

Just labeling this post as winter makes me pause. It is hard to believe it is so cold at home right now.

Halfway done (?)

One week into my 2 weeks here…not too much has been accomplished. I kind of forgot how pole pole (slowly) things move in Tanzania. I honestly enjoy it a lot once I readjust; Tanzania is really the only place where I do not hate spending time alone, I actually handle it very well here. But the slow pace of life is not entirely conducive to cramming as many interviews as possible into two weeks. The good news is the GSC office re-opened today, so I made it in to reconnect with friends and was able to set up four interviews for tomorrow. Plus I already have two lined up. I was also able to borrow a phone from a friend (I did not really want to pay $45 to use a phone for two weeks), so I am going to text the young people I did not get a chance to interview last summer and ask them to meet sometime this week. Plus I think I will do follow-up interviews with my friends from the summer, since I now have a more directed focus and specific questions to ask. And while I will still use the semi-structured narrative style of interviews, I think I can keep them each to about half an hour or 45 minutes, which will help the transcribing process upon my return.

I did have a crisis of sorts last week when I realized that my Harvard grad school application was due on Jan. 2! Yikes. Luckily I found this random high tech internet café (which serves the multiple purposes of car wash, barber shop, and internet café) right next to the hole in the wall place I usually use. It has 8 brand new computers, fast internet, and 3 flat screen TVs hooked up to Xbox 360s that people can pay to play video games on. Whattt? I do not even know. But I was super thankful it was there as I was able to get the vast majority of the application done. And I hope that will suffice until my return.

I am also happy to have been able to go into the office today because I was able to pick up some books…I only brought three with me from the states, which is so clearly not enough for Tanzania. I have been having a great time with my dadas and kaka this time around, even better than the first. Probably because they feel like I followed through on some unspoken agreement to make sure that we see each other again? Last night we were talking about the various “machines” in America that do a lot of the things we do by hand in TZ – washing dishes, washing clothes, drying clothes…even the fact that we have mops instead of using a cloth to clean the floor. Essentially they were flabbergasted. It is strange that they have hosted so many wazungu (apparently 11) but there are still a lot of things about the states that they do not know. I hope that someday maybe Rachel and/or Dorcus at least could come to the states to visit.

I have also more or less picked right back up with my Swahili where I left off. For some reason (maybe because it is no longer high season for tourists?) Tanzanians now readily assume that I speak Kiswahili as soon as we go through the customary greetings. Unfortunately I have to quickly follow it up with “Ninasema Kiswahili kidogo sana” (I speak only a very little Kiswahili) at which they laugh and applaud my efforts, at any rate.

The food situation is going surprisingly well. Since I am living with my family I obviously cannot refuse food – the original plan was to buy only packaged food and supplement with Clif bars. So instead I am just eating kidogo of their food and then supplementing with bars. Yum. Haha actually we have only had ugali once so far (and now I just jinxed it and we will be having ugali every night no doubt).

I have two interviews this afternoon (if all goes according to plan…you never know here) and then probably another night of “Go fish” with my sibs. It was the only game I could think of that was super easy to understand beyond crazy 8s. Does anyone have any suggestions for other simple card games? Think games for 10 year olds and younger please. And maybe include a description because I might not know it offhand, I guess I did not play many card games as a child (or really ever). Thanks!