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).

Wandering through Nairobi

Unfortunately, the majority of my time in Nairobi was spent in the hotel where the conference was held. But I decided to extend my time on Saturday so I could actually experience the city a bit. The fun actually began on Friday night, when I went with a couple of colleagues to a local restaurant with live music - a band with at least 10 members with lively trumpets, guitar, keyboard, and loud voices belting out the best of Congolese and East African music, but recent and older classics. And the dance floor reciprocated the enthusiasm.

On Saturday, I walked all over downtown Kenya and even found some local public transportation routes that made for interesting rides. A couple of highlights were the Kenya National Archives, the first picture here, which had a range of art and artifacts from Kenya and across the continent. What made it such an enjoyable visit was that I happened to arrive at the same time as a high school group, and the tour guide found excellent ways to keep it lively and engaging. Meanwhile, I was amused as students tried oh-so-slyly to snap a picture with the mobile phone that included this foreigner in the background.

I also stopped by the memorial garden for where the U.S. embassy was bombed in 1998. In the picture to the left there is a sculpture made from some of the rubble. Another part of the garden had a fountain and list of names of those who were victims. Sadly, the vast majority of those who died were Kenyans who were in or near the embassy when the bombing took place.

I could share more about the tourist market maze I found myself in, or the crowded meat market I stumbled upon, or the little agricultural shops I snooped around, or the city park I found myself in when the rainclouds burst open, but that's all I'll write about today.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: "ndege" - the word for both bird (there were huge 4' tall crane-like ones near the hotel) and airplane (which got me safely home on Saturday night)