Reflections on Village Life

Time is running short for us in Dar es Salaam, but we are able to share just a few more thoughts with you because some lovely folks staying here at the guest house loaned us an airtel cellular data USB dongle and showed us how to top it up with some megabytes. We might have to invest in one of these things, or at least should have two months ago when we arrived in Africa. It definitely comes in handy when there are no wifi spots around.


Anyway, we were finally able to post a few pictures of the past week, though not many from the village itself, and wanted to share these with you before we leave Tanzania.

As Carol mentioned earlier, we had a fantastically challenging and eye-opening week with our friends, the Morris Family, in their village. We didn't have many expectations for what it would be like to live in such a remote place, but the most surprising thing to us both was the mental exhaustion of constantly being watched by so many pairs of eyes as we went about the most mundane tasks: walking to another house, buying veggies or eggs at the dukas, going for a walk up the hill to watch the sunset, etc.

However, the people were incredible friendly to us, and especially chatty once Carol and I were able to learn a few basic greetings in the local language. It's not surprising that they were so curious about us though, as apparently they have never had white folks living in their village before, and very little contact with westerners since Tanzania's independence.

Highlights of the week (forgive me if these have already been mentioned) included: watching part of a premier league soccer match with Jeremy and about 20 other guys from the village in a palm thatched shelter (the village just recently acquired a generator, and seeing a TV spew out British football announcers and commercials in the middle of Tanzania where people exclusively cook over charcoal was pretty strange), spending a day at the beach in Kilwa, learning a bit of the local language, attending a graduation ceremony for the local primary school, worshiping with our friends on Sunday morning with palm trees swaying in the background, hanging out with the kids, working on home improvement projects with our friends, finding a chameleon on the side of the road, watching geckos run around on the walls, and just having time to chat and pray with our friends by candle light before heading to our bed-tent.

The finale of our visit was a 45 minute pickypicky (motorcycle) ride on dirt roads from the village to the nearest junction with the main road where we were able to find a bus heading back to Dar. Carol and I hired two locals to drive us (Carol, myself, and a driver on one bike, and our backpacks on the second) out that morning, and it was quite an amazing experience.

We are heading westward today into Zambia via overnight train.  It may be a few days before we have internet again so until then, Badai! (= see you later in Swahili :))