A lesson for Kermit the frog

This year I will dare to be green.  I vow to reduce my energy consumption, conserve water and eat locally. 

A year ago, I had to drive twenty minutes to get to school and back home, at least five times a week.  Now because I have vowed to go green, I will walk.  It takes 30 minutes each way but in addition to reducing carbon emissions, I’m also improving my health. 

In Minnesota, the days are getting shorter and lights have to be turned on earlier in the evening.  But at 3° south, the length of our days remains pretty much constant throughout the year.  Even though I am already using indoor lighting less, I promise to shut of the lights when I don’t use them and even use candles from time to time. 

And since we reside at a toasty distance from the equator, it will remain warm enough to air dry clothes even in January.  So I pledge to hang my clothes on the line and let them air dry instead of using an energy sucking drying machine. 

As for water conservation, I swear to use as little as possible and reuse as much as I can.  I promise to wash dishes by hand and take shorter showers.  I promise to shut of the water when I brush my teeth and to not water the lawn.  I promise to remember the age old adage, ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down’ even though that can be a little gross.

Finally, I will eat locally.  I vow to buy as much food as I can from local farmers.  I vow to buy as little food as I can that has been shipped in across the country, continent or world.  And as long as I’m at it, I’ll try to eat foods that are unprocessed and packaged foods that have less than five ingredients.

Today I begin and for the rest of the year, I will be green.  I will use less energy and water.  I will eat locally.  I will do my part to help our planet.  What about you?  I dare you to go green.

Now that I have given you my word of conservation, there are a few things I should tell you.

First off, I should admit that I really can’t drive to school because one driving in Tanzania is crazy and two I don’t know how to operate a stick shift.  Second, part of my energy conservation is mandatory.  We often loose electricity, especially in the evenings and have no choice but to use candles.  Third, we don’t have a drying machine to use.  Actually we don’t even have a washing machine.  Laundry is done manually in the kitchen sink which is a real pain.  Air drying clothing is fine by me but hand washing all of you clothes gets old after the first pair of socks.  I no longer take a washing machine for granted and I have a much greater respect for anyone who washes their own clothes.

Water is also akin to electricity.  The water is regularly turned off, most commonly in the afternoon and evening which can make cooking dinner and doing dishes difficult.  Last week I was in the middle of a shower when the water was shut off and I had to wash off the soap with cold water from a reserve bucket that we keep in the bathroom for emergencies such as that one.  And flushing the toilet is only possible when we have water.  We don’t have a dishwasher either, so dishes must be done my hand.  Since we can only rise with boiled water (see the upcoming post on water), we are very careful to use as little a possible to save the extra effort of purifying more water.

Eating locally is just one of the benefits of living in a warm climate.  Getting fresh local veggies here is always an option, unlike Minnesota where unless you want scurvy, you have no choice but to import your fruits and vegetables.  Same is true for processed foods.  Almost none of the foods here have more than five ingredients.  No artificial flavor, no preservatives, no corn syrup, nothing.  The food here in general is healthier. 

Kermit must not have been an African dwarf frog because, Mr. Kermit, being green really is easy – especially in Africa.

Partly cloudy with a chance of rain

The weather here is annoyingly unpredictable.  The mornings when you wake up to a clear blue sky always seem to be the ones that end in a shower, and the days that start off gloomy, end up cheerfully sunny.  Yesterday, I awoke to a clear sky.  By nine, it was dark and dreary.  It cleared up for lunch, but in the afternoon the sky clouded over again.

Having lived in Minnesota all my life, I’ve come to know its weather patterns.  I can look up in the sky and say, “Its going to rain soon,” or notice a change in the winds and realize, “Its going to be cold tomorrow.”  But here none of that applies.

Mt. Kilimanjaro, I have decided, is a cloud machine, or at least a cloud magnet.  Most days, the view of the summit is entirely blocked by thick gray clouds.  Only in the early mornings and evenings is it clear.  Now, I should mention that these are no ordinary clouds.  On a partially cloudy day, of which there are many, you can see the gigantic towering clouds that flock to the mountain.  These are the types of clouds which you might only see on a humid spring day when huge thunderclouds loom on the horizon that hark the coming of a storm.  Here they stand on their own as they drift up to the mountain and slowly merge together, blocking the setting sun.

On other days, the clouds cover the sky like waves on a frothy sea.  Though their deep blue bellies look full of rain, they never seem to let it out.  These clouds will loom ominously throughout the morning and suddenly dissipate in the afternoons, leaving behind little white puffs on a startlingly blue sky.  These large, rolling clouds are always accompanied  by strong winds that come sweeping up from the southeast. 

And being the cloud magnet it is, Mt. Kilimanjaro tends to create its own microclimate.  Because of the elevation, the slopes of the mountain are much cooler than the surrounding area.   I think Mweka has a very agreeable temperature, but some at the college disagree.  Its always funny when you see students walking around with woolen sweaters and winter fur-lined parkas.  And thanks to its cloud-attractive properties the mountain’s slopes are blocked, for the most part, from the harsh rays of an equatorial sun .  Having said that, do not doubt we lack warm sunshine.  We just have less of it than other areas of Tanzania.

As the short rains are just beginning, there is an increasing frequency of cloud cover.  The clouds though often don’t stick around for long.  You never know when to pack an umbrella, as when it clouds up and you think it’s going to rain, the sky always seems to clear up and you wish you brought the sunscreen instead. 

When it does rain, its because the clouds have descended on the mountain and consumed the slopes.  The mist at times is so thick you would think yourself in the cloud, which you most likely are.  As the clouds hug the mountain side, the temperature drops considerably and the rain beats down steadily.  The rain is a constant drumming, only changing pace as it sharply wanes off.  It can rain in the morning, or the evening, or the middle of the day.  You only know its going to rain when you find yourself in a clouds and you can feel the first raindrops falling on your head.

Perhaps after nine months I will know the weather patters a little better, but for now I will just have to put on my sunscreen and remember to bring the umbrella.

These are a few of my favorite things

Now that I have been here for over a month, I figured I could indulge in a list of things I miss. Here they are:

• Friends and family (but that goes without saying)
• Pets
• Snow (but not the cold or the biting wind)
• Carpet
• Goldfish (not the live ones but the cracker snacks)
• Granola bars
• My mattress
• Movies
• Numb3rs
• High speed internet
• St. Peter Co-op granola
• A properly functioning shower
• Stereo
• Public radio (Radio Lab and This American Life in particular)
• National Geographic
• A completely furnished kitchen
• Microwave
• Books
• Wall outlets that all work
• A good set of pens and pencils
• Wall decorations
• Clothing diversity (coming down, I didn’t really know what the temperature would be like – it’s colder and people dress more formally than I expected)
• Pizza
• Laundry Machine
• Dishwasher
• Constant electricity

Tune back in during May for ‘Things I Will Miss When I Go Home’.

Close Enough

Tanzania is the land of approximation.  The lifestyles, products and mindsets of Tanzania are all very approximate.  What I mean is Tanzania proscribes a different set of ideals and protocol to its people and products.

For example, if you happen down to the lumber store in Tanzania you’re bound to find irregular boards and sheets of wood.  The general shape is an approximation.  Some boards might be thicker than others and some might not be entirely straight.  On the other hand, the United States is a land of exactness.  If you find yourself at Menards you will see that each 4x4 is exactly the same size, shape and color.  New housing developments in the States are similarly exact.  Each house is identical to its neighbor.  Here, houses are much more unique.  Americans pride themselves on individuality but in reality they crave a sense of order. 

The state of the wood industry in Tanzania is mirrored in other businesses too.  In the market place, ‘new’ products seem less than new and silverware sets are rarely matched.  This makes a stark contrast to the neatly lined shelves of the traditional American department store. Marred merchandise in the States would be cast out where as a semi-crushed can of beans in Tanzania is commonplace. 

Land is an additional approximation.  Unlike the States, where if you set one foot on your neighbor’s perfectly manicured lawn you run the risk of giving the owner a hernia, Tanzania is very laid back about property boundaries.  Goats are let out to graze where ever they can find food; it doesn’t matter if its on someone else’s property.  Having lived in the Minnesotan countryside my whole life, it’s always startling to see people using our yard here as a shortcut to the football field or to scavenge fallen branches for firewood.

Though approximation may sound like a bad thing, it has a good side too.  Time is another Tanzanian approximation.  Americans are far too uptight about time.  We rush around from school, to work, to run errands and to home.  We cram every second with productivity.  Tanzania, however, is much more laid back.  Lunch at the college is an hour and a half – not unusual in this country.  If you are late to a meeting, there is no problem – perhaps you stopped along the way to chat with an old friend.  Life here is run at a much calmer pace.

Surprisingly enough, money is also an approximation in Tanzania.  Tanzanians could never imagine being harked by IRS agents who think you’ve cheated  eighteen cents out of your taxes.  As I’ve previously mentioned, bartering is a must.  No price is fixed.  And I discovered the other day that that includes the grocery store.  We had picked out our basket of groceries and had brought it up to the counter to check out.  Though when the bill was totaled, we found ourselves several thousand shillings short.  Since almost no shopkeepers takes any type of credit, debt or other cash card, we had to resort to taking something out of our basket.  But before we could decide what to remove, one of the shopkeepers (there were at least seven of them, even though the store was only about the size of a Holiday gas station ‘Quik-Mart’) said “Eh, close enough.” I like that kind of approximation. (As a side note, everything in Tanzania is done with good old fashioned paper money.  I much prefer this over the newfangled plastic money (credit cards etc.) except for the fact that the largest bill denomination seems to be only 10,000 shillings – less than eight US dollars.  This requires the carrying around of large stacks of bills that tend to add up in thickness quite rapidly.)

Some of this approximation will take time to get use to (my mattress, a sad sheet of foam only a few inches thick, is a very rough approximation of the mattress I am used to.).  Other approximations, namely time, are things that we could do a lot to learn from.

Can you hear me now?

One thing I’ve noticed here is the surprising regularity of cell phones.  In a developing nation one thing you would not expect to see is phones.  But they are everywhere here.  At the college most people seem to have them as do many in the city.  And, as I’ve been told, the coverage is very good even in rural areas. 

So we’ve joined the bandwagon.  While in Arusha we got our own cell phones, which was an adventure in and of itself.  The electronics store we went to had three large ceiling-to-floor cases of phones. From the very basic to the most advanced, they had them all.  The cost of a phone in Tanzania is, for the most part, similar to the cost in the States, though it might be higher for some phones.  As some of you will be happy to know, I’ve upgraded from my brick that could barely make calls to a fancy new phone that can do just about everything except clean the dishes. (It even has the Arabic alphabet in addition to the Latin one.)

But the similarities in phones end there.  In Tanzania you don’t get a ‘plan’ with your phone.  Instead you buy ‘credits’ as you need them.  Once you’ve set up an account with a phone company, all you need to do is periodically by credits as you need them.  Available in 1000, 2000 or 5000 shilling amounts(roughly $.77, $1.50 and $3.80), the credits can be bought nearly everywhere.  They are sold at the open air bars you find everywhere down here and they are sold by vendors in the market place.  Recently, I bought a credit from a cleaning lady at the college who in the middle of sweeping the sidewalk, pulled out some credits from her pocket to sell to me (which seems kind of black-market-like if you ask me). Though phones are as expensive as they are in the States, the cost to make a phone call or send a text message is much less.

Now I suppose I should explain these ‘credits’ in greater detail.  The little cardboard squares look like the scratch card games you would buy from under the counter of a gas station.  Printed on each is a number code which once programmed into your phone will provide you with that amount of credit good for talking or texting.

Computer Science 101

While in Tanzania, I had a plan of volunteering. I thought I might be able to do some promotional photography for the college and volunteer at a local school. So last week I got started on finding where I could volunteer.

Starting to volunteer is not as easy a project as I had imagined. I quickly discovered there is a slow multistep process needed to volunteer. I first had to talk to someone at the college who could hook me up with a job. But or course this person is nearly impossible to find. Four out of the five times I went looking for him, he was not around. Once I finally contacted him, he told me I needed to talk to two other people. So off I went to scout them down. Finding them was not so hard and I was able to sit down with them and explain what I wanted to do. But it doesn’t end there. They told me that I needed to write a letter to the school asking if they needed a volunteer. So off I went to my computer to type up a letter. Having done and delivered that, someone needed to talk to the headmaster at the school for me. Mind you, this is all done at the leisurely pace of Tanzania.

Eventually I was able to talk to the headmaster himself. Now talking to some Tanzanians can be difficult. Eye contact is considered impolite in Tanzania for one thing, and many men just don’t know how to talk to women, especially a white one. On top of that, it is always hard to understand exactly what the Tanzanian is saying because of their accent.

I imagined that I could tutor perhaps math or English naturally. Evidently not. I was told straight away that I couldn’t tutor English because I had an American accent - they wouldn’t understand me. Never mind that English is my first language and I’ve spoken it all my life. Okay, that’s fine, I can tutor math then. Nope. We want you to teach computer science. You want me to what?

Yes they want me to teach of all things. I’m still not sure where they got such an outlandish idea. For starters I’ve just finished high school, second I don’t know the least about teaching in the States much less in Tanzania, and third I’ve never taken a computer class in my life. I think those are some good qualifications for teaching, don’t you? (Now if I can’t tutor English because of my accent, how do they expect me to teach computer science? There are a lot of things here that don’t make much sense.) The headmaster gave me the course syllabus and told me to come back the next week.

On Tuesday I found myself facing forty-odd students in the Nsoo Secondary School. The students are in Form I, which is the equivalent of 9th grade. The classroom is about half the size of a typical American classroom and is stuffed with twice the occupants on little wooden benches. There is just enough room at the front for the teacher to stand at the chalkboard.

When I first entered, the students all stood and in chorus said, “Welcome teacher. How are you today teacher?” Tanzanian school children are much better behaved than American students. They are taught to respect teachers from the start and don’t have the discipline issues that we do. Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.

As I began teaching, I found it hard to assess their knowledge of computers. They knew their facts but have a hard time drawing conclusions and ‘thinking critically’. I found it even harder to know if they understood my English. When I asked if they understood, they responded in a programmed, “Yes teacher” but I have my doubts as to whether they really understood or not. At one point I was talking about data and asked the class if anyone could define data. No one answered. I turned to write it on the chalkboard and instantly they said, “Oh, you mean daata!” Evidently I hadn’t pronounced the word ‘data’ in the proper British manner with the long aah sound.

Assigning homework was a similarly difficult task. Since the students don’t have a textbook, I can’t assign any reading. And because they don’t know how to use computers yet (hence the class) and there is limited internet they can’t do much in the way of research. So I had to be creative and figure something out they could do with the resources they have.

There are only three more weeks left in the term so I have a lot to fit in. Tanzanian schools operate in a semester program with long breaks in between (school will resume in Mid-January).

And so begins my career in teaching.

Rain and Rugby

This past weekend we went to a Rugby game in Moshi.  Football (soccer) is the true game of Tanzania – and the world – but Rugby is gaining popularity.  Introduced in Kenya during the colonial period it has since spread south and is becoming common in Tanzania. 

So down the hill we went to Moshi.  The international school in Moshi hosted the ‘Kili 7s’ tournament with teams from both Tanzania and Kenya.  Two leagues competed to be Junior (school aged teams) and Senior (college aged teams) Champions.  Imagine a field, or a ‘pitch’ if you will, much like an American football field.  Now replace the grand stand and press box with acacia, jacaranda and other tropical trees. 

The event lasted all day and was really rather interesting.  Some of the ex-pats we met at the party were at the tournament and they taught us all about rugby.  We added new words to our vocabulary like scrum, try, and knock-on.  The game is played with seven players for two seven minute halves (hence the Kili 7s). 

  In short, rugby is like football.  Football actually evolved out of rugby.  In more detail, rugby is played with a ball much like a football if not a little more square-ish.  The goal is the same at football – to get a touchdown.  The difference is that you actually have to touch the ball to the ground to score a point and it’s not called a touchdown, it’s called a ‘try’.  Yes, you’ve got it right, when you try in rugby you score a point.  If that doesn’t make sense think about football – it’s called football but you hardly even use your feet. 

For those of you who think American football is a tough game, you’ve apparently never seen a game of rugby.  What makes rugby such a tough sport is the tackling, like football, but they do it with only mouth guards.  No helmets, no shoulder pads, nothing.  Although unlike football, rugby is more about getting the ball than it is about tackling the other team.  In rugby, you are only allowed to tackle the person with the ball and you cannot grab, push, shove or otherwise hamper the other player’s movement.  An additional hardship is that the game is nonstop.  Although seven minutes might not sound like much, imagine running around a pitch, tackling and getting tackled without pause for seven whole minutes.  American football seems to stop at least once every two minutes and has multiple player replacements (rugby only allows for three substitutions at most). 

Other than that, the two games are quite similar.  After a try for five points, the scorer has the opportunity for a goal kick as in football for an additional two points.  Something I found really interesting is what happens after the ball goes out of bounds.  When the ball is thrown back in, two teammates lift a third teammate up into the air so that he/she can grab the ball without interference from the other team.  I say he/she because of all the teams there was one female player.  Anne goes to the international school in Moshi and, if you remember, is the same person we gave a lift to after the party. 

The teams at the tournament came from a wide range of backgrounds.  Some were university teams, one was from the international school and some were from orphanages or centers for street children.  For those of you who think that your school equipment is bad, consider this: teams had matching jerseys, but different shorts.  And most of the jerseys looked like they had seen more games than Atlantis has fish.  Even more surprising, some of the teams played barefoot.  And the few pairs of shoes there were, got shared depending on who was playing.  We used to complain in track that our uniforms were terrible and that we never had the right pole vaulting equipment (which I still maintain we don’t) but I can hardly complain anymore after seeing rugby players without shoes.

So we hung out all day in our borrowed lawn chairs watching rugby and chatting with other spectators.  The morning promised to be warm and sunny but by early afternoon, the clouds started to roll in.  All of the rugby players were hoping for rain because real rugby can only be played in the rain on a muddy pitch.  All of the spectators, though, were fervently hoping not to be caught in a downpour.  Luckily for us, the rain held off just long enough.  As the trophies were handed out ( if you were wondering, the international school won the junior competition) it started to rain lightly and we hopped back in our blue land rover to drive back to Mweka before it could rain harder.  And so the rainy season has begun.

Slow Computer Movement

Today I have a special guest speaker, or columnist rather, for you.  Here is the one and only Professor Cindy. . .

Everyone who has used a computer is familiar with the little bars that run across the screen in a rectangular box to indicate that your computer is processing a command to send an email or find a website. Or maybe you have a little string of dots that circle continuously until the connection is made. Without looking can you tell what color those bars are that move across the screen? Or which way do the dots circle, clockwise or counterclockwise? If you don’t know you are one of the privileged folks who has such a fast connection to the World Wide Web that you don’t even ponder this. Faster and faster connectivity and information at our fingertips is something many of us have become dependent on and generally take for granted.

Remember back in the day when we were excited to have such a thing called Internet. We could send electronic messages by simply pushing a button. Slow wasn’t an issue, just the very fact that we could do such a thing was a marvel. Human ingenuity…. faster is always better … or is it?

A Fulbright Scholar, I now reside in Mweka, Tanzania. I have all the modern conveniences; running water, electricity and computer connectivity. With the click of a mouse I can send an email to colleagues in the US or surf the net. Well, that is if the server is working and the electricity hasn’t missed a beat. These days I find myself clicking the mouse and waiting. Yeah waiting. No, I don’t mean the annoying finger tapping impatient waiting when connections are slow or the server bogged down. I mean wait. Sit back and contemplate life wait. No use being in a rush wait. This kind of wait looms with possibilities.

‘Connection timed out’ means click the refresh button and wait. Wait for the little bars to connect. Smarter than the average computer, I open up multiple windows and get them all waiting. I watch lots of bars prance across my computer…waiting. Surfing here is attempting to dance the jitterbug to a waltz; possible it just requires a different frame of reference.

What do you think of while waiting for a computer to respond to the command you have cast on the internet waters? The bars briefly march across the page and viola you have connected to your bank, the latest news or countless websites. Perhaps you were thinking about passwords or something else, but it likely wasn’t a consciously thoughtful wait. Imagine now the possibilities if you had a longer wait. Oh, the things you could think and do between marching bars! Time to read scholarly articles, time to compose emails off-line, time to make a phone call and perhaps time to write articles like this.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Slow Food Movement. Eating your food slowly allows you to savor all aspects of foods’ social and nutritional sustenance. Likewise the newly convened Slow Computer Movement (this is the inaugural introductory invitation to join) allows you to capture the time lost computing and put it to good use. Think of all the nanoseconds you have wasted waiting for the computer to respond, watching little bars prance across the screen.

The next time you find yourself watching the bars or circle take a moment to reflect on what a marvel it is to send messages and surf the net. The Slow Computer Movement (SCM) is about appreciating and savoring computers and connectivity. The core values of the SCM are patience, gratitude and good humor (tolerance). I f you find yourself wolfing down websites, impatient with even the slightest of delays and little or no gratitude for the technology wizards that keep us connected than you must join the SCM.

Benefits of SCM include:

· Increased productivity (less useless surfing)

· Increased quality of relationships (more time face to face; fewer hastily cast emails)

· Greater appreciation for technology and the role it plays in our lives.

· Time to enjoy slow foods

· Improved mental health, attitude and outlook on life

Remember the core values of SCM. When you have fully attained these values you are a member in good standing of the Slow Computer Movement. So sit back, pick up a book (remember those?) and wait. Maybe you can even enjoy some slow foods while enjoying your slow computer. Hamna shida (no worries in Kswahili) will become your mantra.

Lest you think this is a critique of the slow computing system of Tanzania, you are dead wrong. It is instead an appreciation for all that we have in the US for computing, most of which we take for granted. So instead of impatience when the bars march too slowly, consider the wonder of being able to email across the world in nanoseconds and perhaps relax enough to allow space in your being for patience, gratitude and good humor.

Written slowly and sent in nanoseconds via the internet… amazing.

The sky is falling!

Ka-boom! come the noises in the evening. Another bowling ball lands on our roof. The loud noises echo through our open house and are only enhanced by the sloping metal roof.

The first few times, you jump and say, “What was that?”. After a while you get more curious and really wonder, “What could that be?”. But the sun has already set and as hard as you peer into the darkness, you’re not going to be able to identify the noisemaker. Nonetheless, you hop over to the window, nose pressed against the glass, looking for anything conspicuous.

You’ve noticed, it only really happens after dark and coincides with the blowing of the wind. It must be something falling. The sky must be falling! No, that couldn’t be. Must be something falling out of the trees. You’ve surmised that much, but haven’t really figured out the details.

After a while the sounds, though still as loud, become less interesting. You original curiosity is replaced by a milder, “Oh, I wonder what is making that sound.”

A few days later someone clues you in on the truth. The culprits are either bush babies (gelagos), monkeys or bats munching on an evening snack in the mahogany tree next to your house. Inevitably some pods fall on your roof which makes quite a ruckus. Some of the louder noises are made by falling avocadoes sent down by a clumsy diner. Occasionally though, it is just the evening breeze that sends a fruit crashing down on the roof.

One of the culprits at work . . .

Home, Sweet Home

We have now been living in our quaint little home for two weeks.  Sparse though it is, it is quite nice.   As you can see here in this lovely picture, we are near Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

Here is a more accurate representation of out house… (no we don’t have giraffes in our backyard)

                

 

This is the college campus.  The building you can see in the foreground is the main lecture hall and administration offices.  The other classrooms, offices, dorms and library mostly lie father back. We live just a football field (that’s a soccer field to you Yankees) away from the campus.  Mt. Kilimanjaro makes for quite a view when it it visible. In fact, I can see it out my window when the sky is clear.

(This a picture out my window of Kili. No, I don’t live in jail.  All of the windows in the house come with lovely, sight-blocking metal bars.)

(Notice our beautiful new Land Rover)

Our house consists of two bedrooms, a spacious living room, a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and a dinning room. 

        

          

As you can see, our walls are in need of some decoration.  The entire house is a rather unbecoming shade of yellow, though I shouldn’t complain because it could have been off white or puke green.  Although we have bare light bulbs protruding from the walls and our furniture could easily pass a patio chairs in the States, our home is comfortable enough.

You may have noticed the bug nets over the beds (if you hadn’t, look again).  These are both a hindrance and a comfort.  They make it difficult to make your bed and move about, but once you’re all tucked in, its nice to know that you won’t have to be swatting potentially disease ridden mosquitoes all night.

Other multi-legged visitors to our home often include geckos.  These cute little milk-white critters always have a way of finding their way into my room.  They seem to like to hang out high up on the corner of the wall near the ceiling.  Because if their speed, and wiggling movements, and high hiding places they are most difficult to catch and so we have decided to leave them and eat whatever bugs they wish.

My favorite part about the house is the locks.  Not because I’m afraid of our safety or anything like that but because of the kind of locks we have.  I’m proud to say that you need a good old fashioned skeleton key to get into our house.  Actually, many of the buildings around here require skeleton keys, something I find rather endearing.  As far as safety is concerned, there really is no concern here.  The college is gated and the premises are completely safe. 

As for our yard, in the front we have a small corn field planted by the house’s previous occupant and in the back a few banana trees and an avocado tree from which many have fallen.  Hopefully we’ll have some fresh bananas soon.

And that concludes the tour of our home.  If you would like a more detailed look at our house, you’ll just have to come visit!

Over the bridge and through the banana fields to Arusha we shall go…

On our drives to and from Arusha we have gotten to see a lot of the landscape of this area.  Though it only takes about 90 minutes to there is a high diversity in the environment. 

Mweka is on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro at an elevation of 1400 metres.  The landscape is lush up here, fed by the spring and rivers of melting snow of the mountain.  Many people in the village grow bananas but there are also fields of corn and beans.  And added benefit of the elevation is the cool temperatures that you won’t find anywhere else in Tanzania. 

As you head down to Moshi, early on there are several coffee plantations with, as I have been told, the best coffee beans in Tanzania. 

Moshi, at 1000 meters, is already quite different than Mweka.  Banana farms and tall fig trees give way to corn fields and short, spare acacia trees.  It is harvesting time here as it is in Minnesota, though here it is done with machetes instead of machines.  The corn stalks are saved and used for cattle feed.  The stalks can be seen carted along the road, piled higher than a car on tiny carts pulled by donkeys.

Past Moshi, the landscape becomes even drier.  We are nearing the end of the dry season, but this year has been abnormally dry and everyone is hoping for an El Niño to bring extra rains.  The short rains will come within a month or so and stay until late December.  Then there will be another dry season until the long rains come in March for about three months. 

Along the road to Arusha, there is an expanse of flat, parched land that extends to either horizon where you can see low hills though the haze of the heat.  Low scrub and short acacia trees dot the landscape.  One room mud or cinderblock huts with corrugated metal roofs are interspersed among the trees.   Many of them are only the size of some American’s living rooms. 

The dirt of Tanzania is unlike the rich dark brown soil of southern Minnesota.  Here the dirt is a heavy reddish brown that is prone to packing down. Because it is so dry here, the dust is everywhere, covering everything in a fine red-brown film. 

The farther from Moshi you get, the drier the land gets.  Corn fields give way to open pasture land if you could call it that.  Young boys watch over herds of goats and cattle that graze on what dry scrub is left.   As the herds are driven along, big cloud of dust rise behind them. 

Nearer to Arusha, dust devils frequent the landscape.  Swirling vortexes of dust rise high up into the air.  Some of them are skinny and tall, others  fatter, and some are gigantic.  The ones that get really big can even be deadly if you are not careful.  Dust devils are one of the signs that the rains are coming. 

Just outside of Arusha, the landscape subtly becomes lush again.  Because it is in the rain shadow of Mt. Meru, Arusha has an environment more like Moshi.  More trees start to show up and small creeks run through deep valleys.  Once I sat two vervet monkeys in a tree along the road.  The jacaranda trees are in bloom now, another sign that the rains are coming.  The jacaranda trees deserve special attention because of their beauty.  When in bloom, the trees loose all of their leaves and are covered in millions of small purple blossoms.  There are so many flowers that it looks like the trees have purple leaves.  An additional sign of the coming rains are leaves on baobab trees.  Despite Mt. Meru, Arusha is still drier than Mweka. 

The last notable thing about landscapes is less about the environment and more about people.  Everywhere people walk along the road with baskets on their heads (quite a remarkable feat of balance if you ask me) or cattle at their side.  In the States, no one walks anymore, but here most people don’t have cars or bicycles.  As a result, everyone walks and the roads get especially full with pedestrians in the evenings as people get done with work.