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!