To market, to market

About one month after my arrival in Arusha I went to the grocery store around the corner (not the Stop and Shop: Convenient Store, but another one) and discovered cake mix. It could be that it just happened to be one of the first days I wasn’t feeling quite so depressed anymore, or it could just be that one month in Africa made me disproportionately happy about seeing anything Western because cake mix normally doesn’t have this much of an effect on me. But I was really, really excited to see this cake mix. So I brought it home along with all the ingredients for frosting intent on making a cake. It then occurred to me that I don’t have an oven in my apartment, but the girls downstairs have one, so I was only momentarily deterred. The next obstacle, however, was the fact that I didn’t have a cake pan. So the next morning, I set out resolutely with Elizabeth in tow, to the central market to find a pan.

We walked through Arusha avoiding the usual calls of “Mzungu!”, people following us, and stepping in garbage until we arrived at the centre of town. I was quite proud of myself at this point for remembering how to say “Sokoine wapi?” (i.e. Where is the market?) but was too scared to actually say it to anyone so I made Elizabeth do it (and of course the guy she asked answered in Swahili so we had no idea what he said and had to ask someone else directions in English, but still, at the time it was a breakthrough moment).

As soon as we stepped inside it was all I could do to not vomit and/or cry. The smell of… I really don’t know, was so overpowering I couldn’t stand it. All of a sudden we were squished in a narrow little path between rows and rows of shacks with people crowded all around us yelling “Rafiki!” (friend) and “Mzungu!” and grabbing onto my clothes. At arms length on one side was a man scaling fish, while directly in front of us was a bike with 5 or so live, squawking, flapping chickens just strapped onto the back like luggage. One chicken ran out in front of us and a man grabbed it by the wing and hauled it back to the pen. One man tried to become our “market guide” and began leading us to different stalls. He showed us one where a Maasai medicine man was selling traditional remedies, which was really cool, but by this point we knew that the self-appointed guide would just get us ripped off and then expect a big tip for it at the end, so we told him to leave us alone about twenty times before finally just running away when he wasn’t looking.

I soon found what I thought I was looking for, a kitchen ware store, but they didn’t seem to have any cake pans. The owner attempted to sell me some sort of tin bowl insisting I could bake a cake in it, but I was too excited about this cake mix to risk it in a sketchy pot. Finally we found a place with real pans. The fact that I am white and fairly unassertive is bad enough, but the guy at the stall knew from the stars in my eyes when I first saw the cupcake pan that I wasn’t going anywhere without it. So when I asked how much the pan the guy looked at me and totally straight faced said 30,000 Tsh (25 USD). This wasn’t quite as bad as the 90,000 Tsh sandals, but still, no pan costs $25. So we began the arduous process of me saying I wasn’t going to pay that and him calling me sister and his best customer and asking me to give him my “final price” or my “serious price” and each time I told him a price he would tell me it was too low and ask me to give him my “final price” again. I finally bought the stupid pan for 12,000 Tsh (still overpriced, but whatever) and was one step closer to Betty Crocker cupcakes.

Next we stumbled across an old Maasai woman selling beaded jewellery the Maasai wear so of course I stopped and so did half of people in the market, all of whom were following us around. As I looked at the necklaces, more self-appointed guides started picking them up to show me, so that if I picked the one they had chosen the woman would have to give them a commission. The old Maasai lady was having none of it and pushed all of the men down until they finally backed off. I half-heartedly tried to bargain with her, but she was so awesome and the necklace was only about 2 USD anyway, so I just paid what she asked.

We then walked past some fabric shops with lines of men and women sitting at sewing machines outside and I made a mental note to get something loud and African sewn for me. We also saw stacks and stacks of spices of all kinds and bought some nice tomatoes for Nicole.

At this point I hit my limit and had to go back to my apartment to watch HBO and forget I was in Africa for the rest of the day. All in all, however, it was more or less a success, although I have to admit that after all of that trouble I was so exhausted that I still haven’t actually made the cupcakes.

Safari I

Upon discovering that weekends in Arusha are depressing beyond belief, some other interns and I concluded that aside from leaving Tanzania altogether, going on safari was the only viable anti-depressant. So one Sunday six of us pooled together to hire a Landrover and guide and headed to Tarangire National Park. We got off to a typically African start with the guide arriving about 40 minutes later than planned and discovering upon our payment that he needed to change our Tsh for USD because apparently the “national” parks don’t accept the national currency. So after another stop at the bureau de change and yet another to fill the gas tank (at this point, Chloe, who had spent 40 minutes waiting outside in the rain for the guide to arrive, commented “What, is he going to get a haircut next?” to which Nicole replied “No, he already got one on the way to get us”) we were on our way.

Tarangire is about 120 km southwest of Arusha and although Arusha is very lush and green on the foot of Mount Meru, to get to Tarangire we drove through the slightly barren Maasai Steppes. It was still incredible scenery, and although I see members of the Maasai tribe all over Arusha (including in nightclubs, well… nightclub might be a strong word, in full-on traditional garb) it was really breathtaking to see them on their traditional lands herding cattle and goats across the plains and the little groupings of thatched roof huts of their villages.

We made one pit stop along the way at which I dutifully headed to the “bathroom” and upon seeing, or rather, smelling the definition of “African toilet” I immediately returned to the car. This was my day for learning that putting the adjective “Africa/n” before a word is used to warn the mzungu to lower or eliminate all expectations. So “African toilet” generally means “smelly hole in the ground”, “Africa time” means “at least one half hour after you were supposed to be somewhere” (as demonstrated by our safari guide) and “African road” means “unpaved dirt path one can only really drive on with a Landrover or other vehicle that is looked down on in Canada for being environmentally unfriendly”.

Despite the nice scenery on the Arusha-Tarangire drive, I was sunburned to the point that wearing clothing was causing a great deal of pain, coming down with a awful cold, and just feeling generally low (which the fact that it was cloudy and I have an extreme case of self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder (SAD) was not helping). Once we arrived in the park, however, all of that was forgotten. Our guide lifted the roof of the car so that we could stand with our heads sticking out the top for better viewing. I am ashamed to admit that most of my pre-two-weeks-ago African wildlife references come from the Lion King, but I am pleased to say that Disney did not disappoint. Tarangire looks a lot like the pridelands, despite the fact that we did not see any simbas, which in Swahili actually means “lion” (see, I told you Disney did not disappoint). The trees are those cool umbrella-shaped acacias and baobabs, which I had previously only ever seen illustrated in Le Petit Prince. I bought a new camera before I left which gave me some really awesome close-up shots of the animals, so shout out to the Canon PowerShot SX110 and to the 18 year old guy with braces at Circuit City who knew nothing about cameras, but managed to sell this one to me nonetheless. The first animal I spotted was an antelope, which is pretty cool, but then all of a sudden right in front of us about 20 million feet high and eating off of trees were GIRAFFES!!!! We saw so many zebras that by the end of the day they began to get annoying (although the little ones are really cute) and spotted families of elephants from afar. I even saw a bird that looks just like Zazu, some ostriches (with heads in and out of the ground) and various other less exciting animals like wildebeests, warthogs, and buffalo.

We stopped for lunch on a cliff with a spectacular view of the park and I had heard from other interns that at this place, often monkeys will come try to snatch your food. Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was at this prospect and anyone who knows my mother knows that she somehow, in her well-intentioned way, managed to pray all of the monkeys away, so we didn’t actually see any. I was pretty disappointed about this, but we still had the afternoon for my goal of seeing a monkey and an elephant up-close.

After lunch I discovered the joy of sitting on the roof of the safari vehicle and I have to say that being up there in the wind with a 180 degree view of the park gliding past and that Africa smell I first experienced when I landed at the airport, I felt like I was flying. It was the first time I felt really happy since I arrived. My safari dreams were then realized as a whole troupe of probably fifty baboons sauntered over to where we had stopped the car and crossed the road right behind us. The males were actually quite big, and I hear aggressive as well, so I was glad there had been no lunch-snatching, but they were really super cute to watch. The little ones would scamper around everywhere and then get lazy and ride on a bigger one’s back. We also saw some other monkeys, although I don’t know which kind, climbing around in the trees and generally being bad. The best moment, however, was just as we crossed the river in our Landrover, we came very close to a herd of elephants making their way slowly past. I literally felt my heart catch. They were so majestic and so beautiful.

On the way home we drove through a Maasai village at market time and the car was immediately swarmed with people shoving necklaces and bracelets through the windows. Being the sucker that I am I nearly got stuck with a handful of jewellery (new lesson: don’t look, don’t touch), but it was really awesome to see. By the end of that day I felt like maybe I could understand how someone could fall in love with Africa. (Still not quite sure, but maybe).

Feeling colonialist

Being a white person in Africa is definitely a strange experience. I obviously became aware of this early on, considering that as soon as I stepped off the plane people started harassing me to take their taxis (see post 2), buy things from them (see post 3), marry them and take them to Canada/America with me (potential future post), etc. A few experiences, however, have been particularly off-putting.

When I first arrived at my guesthouse, the gatekeeper carried my extremely heavy suitcase up the stairs on his back (see post 3). [As a side note, when he asked me why my bag was so heavy, I responded that my husband was inside. No one laughed, however, so I deduced that either i) the joke was lost in translation ii) Swahili culture does not get sarcasm or iii) that despite my best efforts, I am not very funny.] Anyway, considering that carrying this bag was quite the task, I gave him a 1USD tip. He seemed happy, and I was happy. A few days later I came in late and was groping my way up the staircase in the dark when he sidled up beside me out of nowhere and said, “Do you have a thousand shillings for me?” (1,000 Tsh = about 0.70 USD). I was totally scared out of my wits and said “No I don’t have any.” To which he responded “US dollars are ok too.” Got to hand it to the guy for being versatile, but being approached and straight up asked for money by someone made me feel super uncomfortable with my “status”.

Another time, I was standing on the curb waiting to cross the street when a group of girls in their school uniforms came down the sidewalk behind me. One of the bigger ones shot her hand out as she passed and touched my hair, which apparently emboldened the others as they all started touching my hair when they walked by too. That was actually pretty cute.

Soon after I arrived, a couple of South African hunters (see post 3) took me out around Arusha and to their home base in Usa River for the day. The trip to and from Usa was really beautiful as we passed rows of people walking and biking down the road past banana and coffee plantations. The women were all dressed in colourful cloth with huge burdens of everything imaginable (water, sacks of rice, bundles of clothing) on their heads and then men were often herding goats, cows, or donkeys. We saw rows of small brick shanties with corrugated metal roofs that housed everything from barber shops to restaurants to butchers to churches to family dwellings. I was really happy to get this glimpse of real Africa, despite the small regret that it was from the back of a Landrover with a local driver up front and guns in the back seat.

This twinge of regret was blown away by how I felt when we arrived at the TGT. TGT stands for Tanzania Game and hunting something or other and is basically a big old-fashioned white boys’ country club. The grounds are absolutely stunning with tennis courts, golf course, etc. and when I walked up to the bar it was exclusively white South Africans and other ex-pats watching rugby. The only black people in sight were serving drinks and our own driver, who is black, sat in the car and waited for several hours while we had drinks and watched the game (which, by the way, I found super boring, but was somehow meaningful to the South Africans watching their local team rise above adversity and beat the English).

I think the worst part is that I always feel somewhat relieved and more comfortable in a situation like that than I do trying to make my way around like a local in Arusha. In Canada I would never just waltz into a country club or luxury hotel and hang out in their lobby or garden, sit by their pool, or join their gym (well let’s be honest, I would never normally join any gym for any reason anyway, but I was super bored), but here the fact that I am white means that no one blinks an eye when I do these things, and I find myself quite often needing to do these things because I find the poverty and the sheer enormity of the difference of being in Tanzania to be overwhelming. I guess the good news is the longer I am here the less often I feel that need and the less patience I have for white people here who act like it still is a colony. Just don’t take away my satellite TV.

First Week

Morning comes early in Arusha, partly because they don’t have daylight savings so the sun rises at like 6 am, but also because dogs, roosters, cleaning ladies, and African dance radio don’t really grasp the concept of sleeping in. So despite the fact that I had prayed I would not awake in this place, that I was sick and hadn’t really slept in a over a week, and had no idea what to do with myself when I awoke, awake I did. The fact that I had promised to inform my parents that I was still alive was the only thing that pushed me to get out of bed rather than hiding under the covers and wishing I was dead (well that and the fact that I was still trying hard not to touch anything, including the covers).

I asked the hotel owner, let’s call him Mr. P, if I could get a taxi to town and he gave me a weird look and told me I could walk. He took me to the end of the road and gave me vague directions to get to the city centre. Considering the state of the roads outside Arusha it was more of a hike than a walk, but luckily I was wearing my trusty moccasins. This came back to bit me in the ass exactly 2 minutes later when I reached the main road and men began yelling “Muzungu!” (white person) “Hey Muzungu eye liiike youuuur shooooes!” and “Cowgirl!”. As became a regular occurrence whenever I walked anywhere alone, a random guy started walking along and talking to me all friendly-like and then proceeded to try to sell me things. This one in particular led me to an Internet café, where I realized later he got a commission and I got overcharged for him bringing me there. I sat on the computer sending frantic S.O.S. messages to my parents and sisters and forced “Hey how are you? I’m fine” emails to friends.

My self-appointed guide was waiting outside when I emerged about two hours later and “invited” me to his shop. I told him the sandals were nice at which point he told me they were 90,000 tsh (about 75 USD). Shocked, I put them down and attempted to leave while he began the painful process of bargaining down from a price that had been inflated about 10 times. I finally escaped, or thought I had, when he came running after me down the street, sandals in hand, and grabbed my wrist telling me I had money and he didn’t so how much was I going to pay for the sandals. I gave him 45,000 tsh which is still about 5 times what I should have paid and cried again.

Later on that day a white South African hunter named George found me like a stray dog on the side of the road and took me in, as in took me for lunch at the Arusha Hotel, which is very modern and like an oasis in dirty downtown Arusha. As he told me how he hunts elephants and performs vigilante arrests of poachers, I felt like I was living some sort of weird Blood Diamond Leo Dicaprio-Jennifer Connelly type scenario, minus the phoney accent. Despite our divergent interests, it was quite nice to have someone to talk to.

The first few days felt very long. I ventured out a bit during the day, but in the evenings stayed in my room and read. This was fairly unpleasant because the power would go off between 7 and 10 pm. Mr. P would show up at the door with a candle and I hated opening the door alone in my room in the dark. I seemed to be the only guest at the hotel besides a man who had come up from Dar es Salaam on business, and so I assumed this was the reason Mr. P was so attentive. I also assumed it was some sort of cultural norm to ask young women whether or not they were married, seeing as both the business man and Mr. P did this to me fairly early on. I began to become a bit concerned, however, when Mr. P began to insist that I make myself at home and offering me free wine because “I love you”. This concern became alarm as one night while eating dinner downstairs in the dark as usual, the business man informed me “I will miss you” as I was checking out the next morning to which I responded “I’m sure you won’t” and then made an awkward attempt to say something about going to bed at 8pm while heading for the door. The alarm became outright panic when I realized the doors from the dining room to my part of the guesthouse were locked and I was trapped with the business man and Mr. P moving around somewhere inside.

It turns out the doors were actually just stuck and the businessman called Mr. P who had to come hammer them open (literally, with a hammer), but I still ran to my room and locked myself in until the next morning when Mr. P was banging on my door asking to borrow my cell phone charger. Thankfully I checked out a few hours later. I think I might have left my track jacket there, but at this point I cut my losses.