Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog of my summer trip to Moshi, Tanzania. As we say in Kiswahili, karibu! First of all, I have very spotty internet so I will try to post entries when I can.
So briefly, what has happened so far: the flight over from Atlanta was fairly uneventful. The first leg was easy and I met up with my fellow Cornell students at the Amsterdam airport. To relieve some tension, Brenna, Rosie and I grabbed a culturally appropriate Heineken at one of the bars in the airport. The second leg was also uneventful, although I did sleep for a little.
The first night in Tanzania, we stayed at a hotel that had a hot shower. My last hot shower for probably a while. The next day, we had a brief orientation meeting at Professor Stoltzfus’s house, our contact while in Moshi. Later that night, we were brought to our host families.
I wasn’t really given any information about my host family before the orientation, apart from the family structure. The family consisted of two parents and two kids. The older child, Catherine, or Katie, is six and the younger child, Lincoln is one. The father, Bwana Theophile, is the head guide at the tourism company that leads climbs up Kilimanjaro, and the mother, Mama Catherine, is a personal assistant for a business man in town.
When I first arrived at Mama Catherine and Baba Theophile’s house, Baba Theophile was leading a group of English girls up Kili so it was just Mama Catherine, myself and the kids. It was a little awkward at first, especially when she asked me in very fast Kiswahili if I spoke any of the native language, only to reply with “kidogo” or “a little”. She chuckled at my response and began to cook dinner. Apart from Bwana Theophile, or maybe equal to, I have had the most contact with Katie, the six year old. She was hesitant at first to talk to me, but now she rambles off to me in Swahili. I think my gift of Jenga really broke the ice.
The next day began the first day of the Cornell and KCMC (Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College) class. The morning consisted of general information and many introductions. The Americans and Tanzanians were commingled and placed into teams to work on policy recommendations for the case studies we were assigned to read before the start of class. Information about the class was also not given before the trip, although now I know it focuses on a wide range of policy issues that are affecting most of the sub-Saharan African countries at a multitude of levels.
Today, Honest, Patricia (two of the Tanzanians) Danielle, Chelsea and I presented our policy recommendations for the HIV/AIDS, Food Insecurity, and Gender Issues case study. While working on this presentation, a lot of interesting sub-Saharan African gender role issues were brought up, like the castration of women, or the cultural acceptability for women to not have a choice when it comes to sex. For the rest of this entry, I thought it’d be interesting to look at the gender rolls in my host family, and in the Moshi environment that I have seen so far.
During the first night with my host family, Lincoln was crying and causing a fuss. To quench his tantrum, Mama Catherine began breastfeeding him on the couch within three feet of me. In America, it would be very uncommon for a mother to breastfeed her child directly in front of a man that she had just been introduced to.
In contrast to this outward display of the bosom region, the Tanzanian culture is very conservative when it comes to the revelation of the upper leg area. While playing Jenga with Katie, her skirt rose maybe a few centimeters above her knee and Mama Catherine gave a strict demand to lower her skirt. This issue of the woman’s upper leg also came up when the girls in the group wanted to run and were concerned about wearing gym shorts because the were cut above their knees. However, Prof. Stolzfus told us that running has become more acceptable and it would be fine for these girls to wear the shorts as long as they are running.
Another gender observation came about during meals with the host family. Mama Catherine does all of the cooking and cleaning while Bwana Theophile sits and waits for his meal and doesn’t clean. This is not entirely different from American culture, as there are many households in the U.S. where the mother does all of the cooking and cleaning.
This morning, May 28th, I did see an exception to this gender division. For the past few days, Bwana Theophile has stated that I should gather my laundry soon. Last night I placed my really dirty clothes into a bag and placed them in a designated corner of the living room. From past experiences at Tanzanian homes, I have seen all completely feminine house help. Based on these observations, I suspected that the individual doing my laundry would be a female. To my surprise, and to your assumptions based on my introduction, the individual doing my laundry as I left for school was a male. I would assume that his socioeconomic status is forcing him to perform tasks that would otherwise be performed by a female. I’ll have to make some more observations on this issue as my time in Tanzania continues.
So other interesting observations so far:
- Tanzanians don’t eat dessert, at least from what I can tell. There is usually a small piece of fruit with dinner but that is all.
- There are earthquakes in Tanzania. We felt a small tremor about 2 nights ago. I thought someone was shaking my bed in the middle of the night only to find out it was an earthquake.
- Most of the people I see on the street are very friendly. As opposed to other developing nations, such as those in South America, that make cat calls to girls, the girls in my group of many different skin tones have been more or less respected.
- Food is cheap. Lunch is about a dollar a day for a large plate of spiced rice with beef, and soup made out of coconut milk and tomato juice.
- Soda is very popular. I would guess that 85 – 90 percent of the locals I see eating are drinking soda, predominately coke.
- Tanzanians like to play music in the morning when they wake up. This morning I was woken up by an unfamiliar song around 5:30.
- The water in Moshi isn’t that bad. I’m brushing my teeth with the tap water but am using my SteriPen for the drinking water.
- No ice. I knew this would be the case but a glass of ice water would be awesome.
- Alcohol is very prevalent. I was given the opportunity to try a traditional Chagga home brew the second day in Moshi, right before I was taken to my host family. It was made from Bananas and Millet, and was actually quite good.
