The National Museum and Independence Day

December 9 is Tanzanian Independence Day. In addition to watching the parade and some historical programs on television, I decided it was appropriate to visit the National Museum to further my understanding of this country. The building itself is quite ornate, as you can tell from the entrance here. The display on Tanzanian history featured pictures of key moments. Pictured here under the Tanzanian flag is the ceremony that Nyerere officiated when Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined to form the United Republic of Tanzania, symbolized here with pouring the soil from the two presidential estates into one container.
A section about the sad history of slavery in this region included notes about how there are still lasting impacts to this day. As someone who is working on agricultural development in this country that has embraced the motto "Agriculture First (Kilimo Kwanza)", it was a bit disheartening to read "agriculture and manual work despised by some people especially in the coastal area, because it is associated with slavery."
Tanzania is the source of quite a few fossils, and so I got to peruse a few dinosaur fossils and other interesting collections such as this australopithicus bolsei skull.
Other highlights included a memorial for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing, cars used by Nyerere, and a wooden bicycle. Most peculiar item was Tanzania's first ATM, which was right inside the beautiful entrance.
So there's your quick tour of the National Museum aka Makumbusho ya Taifa

Visit to the Village Museum

Recently I visited the Village Museum. The fact that I was an anthropology major and that I've built houses, I found it fascinating to wander around the grounds of the museum, which includes examples of homes from all over Tanzania, various household items, and lots of signs with cultural factoids. I hope to return sometime to meet with more of the artists and watch dances.

The first picture here is standing next to a Maasai house, which is partially constructed of cow dung. These pastoralists are generally quite tall, so it was interesting how short their houses are constructed. The second and third photos show examples of thatch rooftops and circular homes. The final picture is from a Swahili style house with a wooden carved door.

So the SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY is nyumbani = house

Spicin' it Up

Last weekend I bought some spices and a bunch of fresh veggies, so I had to come up with something good to bring it all together in culinary style. Found this recipe for an eggplant-chickpea-tomato curry: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/eggplant-chickpea-and-tomato-curry. In the words of my sister "I am such a good cook!" Wish you could have joined.

Here are a few of the main ingredients, with their Swahili translations:
eggplant: biringani
tomato: nyanya
coconut milk: mnazi
onion: vitunguu
garlic: vitunguu saumu
ginger: tangawizi
curry: bizari
cilantro: mgiligilani
rice: wali

Deep Insights from the Ministry of Irrigation

So today I was trying to access the National Irrigation Master Plan on the Tanzanian Ministry of Irrigation and Water website. I had hoped that I could access it through the FAQ link. But instead, I found there is only one frequently asked question for the Ministry of Irrigation. Copied verbatim below is the FAQ: http://www.maji.go.tz/info/faq.php


FAQs
What is water?

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface[1]. On Earth, it is found mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation.[2] Saltwater oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers, lakes and ponds 0.6%. A very small amount of the Earth's water is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products. Other water is trapped in ice caps, glaciers, aquifers, or in lakes, sometimes providing fresh water for life on land.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water

Finally, the answer to my most pressing question in life. And with a source that would make any researcher proud - Wikipedia.

So our SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY is maji = water.

Cookie Time!

Best part of my weekend: baking cookies with friends and some adorable kids from the orphanage. My friend Elizabeth was so generous to entertain my crazy idea of making Christmas cookies with another friend Iris and a few kids from the orphanage where she works.
A bit of backstory: Before embarking on this baking extravaganza, I went down to the central market. Very few people here have ovens, so the idea of a cookie sheet is a bit foreign. After searching through some options, I settled for a pot lid (exhibited below) to serve the general purpose of a cookie sheet. I stopped by the place where you can buy flour and picked up a bag. Back closer to my place, I went to the grocery store to get some other hard to find items, like baking soda. Just before going over to start baking, I thought, you know, I should find out what kind of flour this is, and confirm that it's wheat flour. Well, for all of you out there, I want to teach you this SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: muhogo means cassava (not wheat)
So thankfully Iris was able to pick up some wheat flour on her way over, so we didn't have to accidentally create the first ever cassava cookies. Along with the flour, Iris also brought (from left to right in the group photo) Bahati, Bakari, Hussen, and Samwel. Since ginger is very common here, I figured it was appropriate to make a few gingerbread men. Well, I actually started by showing how to make a gingerbread girl (to be gender sensitive), but the kids quickly branched out to also making a gingerbread dress (gauni), house (nyumba), car (gari), cup (kikombe), and hand (mkono), among other things. Creativity was flowing freely, and when they came out of the oven (successfully on the improvized cookie sheet), we then mixed up a bit of frosting and decorated with jelly beans and raisins. All it all, it was a baking success and a ton of fun.

Cultural Day

So one of the highlights of the last week was the second annual Cultural Day at the embassy. It was a day to learn more about Tanzanian culture, and also included some great skits that enabled the Americans and Tanzanians to laugh about our cultural differences in a great group therapy type of way. The MC highlighted the stereotypes of the regions of Tanzania, so now I know which tribes are proud, and which ones love money too much, etc.
So here on the left are a few pictures. The first one shows the typical clothes from Zanzibar (the ZAN of Tanzania, these islands are a 2-3 hour boat ride from Dar es Salaam, and is predominantly Muslim). The next picture is a dance of the Masaai, with two of the staff from the embassy featuring the typical red clothing. The next photo are Muslim women from the Dar es Salaam region. And finally we've got a photo of the incredible dance troupe that showed us a dance from each region. The yellow fabric is a kanga, a multi-purpose fabric that serves as a skirt, shirt, dress, baby carrier, etc. This yellow kanga has a map of Africa, as well as a lovely picture of President Obama (slightly hidden here by another piece of fabric).

In lieu of just one SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY, I'll insert one stanza of a song that we learned, with the translation:

Tanzania, Tanzania! Nakupenda kwa moyo wote.
Nchi yangu Tanzania, Jina lako ni tamu sana.
Nilalapo nakuota wewe, Niamkapo ni heri mama wee.
Tanzania, Tanzania! Nakupenda kwa moyo wote.

Tanzania, Tanzania! I love you with all of my heart.
You are my country, your name is very sweet.
When I sleep I dream of you, when I wake up all is well my lady.
Tanzania, Tanzania! I love you with all of my heart.

Wish you were here

Sorry, dear friends bundling up for the cold of winter. Wish I had a transporter beam and could bring you here to enjoy a day at the beach.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: pwani = beach. Example sentence: Namshukuru Mungu kwa ajili ya pwani = Thank God for the beach.

Giving Thanks

It's that time of year when Americans gather round the TV to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and gather round a table with a very specific menu (turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie). And although I was on the other side of the world, I got to indulge in both of these traditions. I wasn't able to be with my family for the holiday, but did get to be with some friends of the family and make new friends (pictured here).

Thanksgiving is about more than just food and keeping particular traditions. It really is about giving thanks, and I have so much to be grateful for. I'm thankful that I do have an incredible family and loving friends, that I do have food on my table, and clean water, and a roof over my head. I'm thankful that I'm healthy and have a job and have had a chance to be educated. I'm thankful that I have community, and reasons to live beyond myself, and opportunities to serve. I'm thankful for the gifts of love, joy, and peace, and for the Spirit that fills me with life.

So the SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY is "asante" - thank you!

Enjoying Food and Friends at Shamba

So last weekend, my friends who work with Hananasif Orphanage Center (HOCET) were gracious enough to let me tag along with them on a 2 1/2 hour ride from Dar es Salaam out to visit the boarding school for dozens of orphans in secondary school. It was so nice to get out of the city again and see another part of Tanzania. The school is pretty seeking to become self-sustaining through innovative business ventures, and one of the ideas is to use the 300 acres of land that the school sits on for agricultural projects. They've already got some chickens for a poultry business, and a number of the students have started their own small gardens, and are selling some of the produce to the school "cafeteria". I personally got to enjoy some mchicha greens from one student (the picture at the bottom is Eric showing off his mchicha plot). They have to deal with some pests, the largest of which is (allegedly) a hippo that tramps through the gardens. Overall it was very encouraging to meet these budding farmers and ambitious students. This weekend was the graduation ceremony for the first graduating class from the high school, and I wasn't able to make it out there again, but the blog post is pretty exciting: http://www.kujali.org/blog/

Looking over my dozens of pictures I took last weekend, I realized I enjoyed the food related ones the most, so I'll integrate the SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY with captions.

Suma sorting the chaff and broken pieces from the rice, which in its uncooked form is mchele, and then when cooked is called wali.

For breakfast, we had maandazi, which is the Tanzanian version of a donut, also deep fried but only lightly sweetened. Coupled with super sugary tea (chai), this made for an incredible breakfast.

Sarah and I enjoying ugali, a maize-based Play-dough consistency staple (think thick tamale substance), which is used to eat the rest of your meal. Here we had beans (maharagwe) and mchicha (a local green from the amarathus family).

Eric in his mchicha garden.

For more pictures from this trip and others, click on the "Images from Tanzania" on the right of the blog

To Market, to market...

On our field trip, we also stopped by markets. The largest one was Kibaigwa market, where maize, sunflower seed, sorghum, millet, peanut, and pea buyers and sellers meet. It's the largest grain market in Tanzania and we saw piles of maize, which is the staple in the local diet. In many ways they have developed a good local system, but there is room for improvement in post-harvest management and grades and standards, which would provide benefits to the farmer and the consumer.

In addition, we also stopped at a small market along the road where produce was sold, and it was fascinating to watch as the merchants swarmed our car and came towards the wazungu (foreigners), but we threw up our hands and said it was actually our driver who was the one who wanted to make some purchases. Desperately each person brought the best of their produce for him to inspect.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: soko means market

Field Trip to the Fields

The first week in November, I got a chance to travel from Dar es Salaam through Morogoro to Dodoma, the capital in the center of the country. Along this journey I had the chance to meet with farmers, extension workers, local government officials, professors of agriculture, and management of the largest grain market in the country. Going on this field trip literally to the fields was extremely helpful for increasing my knowledge and awareness of the conditions facing agriculture in Tanzania.

A few impressions:
-there are exciting developments and lots of potential
-the areas we visited were much drier than I expected, and irrigation was often cited as a need by farmers
-the 2 lane road stretching through the central part of the country is fairly decent, but anything beyond that is guaranteed to be dirt or sand and bumpy
-saw a lot of charcoal - a livelihood for many of the poor, since this is a primary source of fuel, but it unfortunately leads to Tanzania having one of the highest rates of deforestation. How do you balance the challenges of poverty with farmland, pastoralist land, and forests?

The pictures included here are: women's group in Mlandizi with a greenhouse where they are growing green peppers; farmer's association that is growing tomatoes and will soon install drip irrigation; the president of the farmer's association; discussing the new vineyard with agriculture extension agents and farmers.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: shamba is a field or farmland

Church and State

Last Sunday I visited the Lutheran church called Azania Front, along the Dar es Salaam port area. It’s an old and historic church building with stained glass brought from Germany. It was a nice service in Swahili and I especially enjoyed the music. After the service, a member offered to give me a little tour of the place, so I ascended many stairs to get up to the giant ticking clock and then even higher to the bell tower with a great view of the harbor.

As I went back home, I passed through the lively Kariakoo again for some fresh fruits and veggies, then caught a dalla-dalla (small local bus) for the ride back. Along the way, I saw a couple of polling stations. Thankfully things were incredibly peaceful, and all that I observed was people waiting patiently in line. In the evening, I watched some of the Tanzania local news commentary, with live coverage of the elections. Not surprisingly, the incumbent president Kikwete won the election.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: “changuzi” means “elections”

Bangoyo Island

On Saturday, I made my way off the mainland to a nearby uninhabited island to take my first dip into the Indian Ocean. Bangoyo Island can be reached by taking a 30 minute ferry from the Slipway on Msasani Peninsula to the sandy beaches of the long, narrow island. The water really is that blue and clear, and on this day the weather was just right. Although it turns out the sun was a bit more intense than I anticipated, and I'm still feeling the warmth now with my lovely sunburn.

A fun little treat was finding a tide pool about 6 m/yds by 2 m/yds, which was home to about 15 eels, which were entertaining to watch slithering through the water with their beady eyes and large mouths open wide.

All in all, it was a very pleasant beach day, and I highly recommend this little getaway, if you happen to find yourself in Dar es Salaam for a couple of days, in which case the SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY would be mashua (boat) and kisiwa (island).