My Family and the darker side of Tanzania

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  Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hujambo! I'm now into my 6th week in Dar es Salaam and the 4th week of classes. Well, the 4th week of the official start of any classes but not mine. I knew that the classes here would take some time to get started but this is a little longer then I expected. As a Tanzanian friend of mine says "that's bongo life for you!" I thought that classes might start today because we had a department meeting last week but when I showed up to class there were students but no professor. We heard that the professor would be coming at 10:00 a.m. after his meeting (class was to start at 9:00 a.m.), but before we could start class we were disturbed by rioters! I guess it happens every year. Students who haven't received their student loans from the government, or their food stipends, or may just be unhappy about the sanitary conditions on campus start a riot and in the end the government responds. The rioting students saw us in a classroom (although the professor wasn't even there) and came in to kick us out. They surrounded the room banging on the desks with sticks and shouting until we all left the room. I was a little startled especially because one of them accidentally hit me instead of the desk! However, my fellow students were around to talk to and asked me "don't they do stuff like this in the states!" So instead of class, I'm writing to you.

Family:

Margot, my stepmother, asked me to give the names of the family members I live with because I am always referring to them as my "host family." So here goes!

The Ngaos: Pastor, Mama, Bibi, Tumieni, Matilda, Rachel, Zarah, Deborah, and Hallelujah..

Mama and Pastor Ngao are such wonderful people and it has been great to get to know them.

Bibi (grandmother)

They both speak English but Pastor Ngao's English is a bit better then Mama's because she is still learning, although she is an English teacher! (On a side note, that's a big education problem here. Most English teachers don't know English very well and students must take their standard 7 exams in English at age 12 to enter secondary school. Only 3,000 of 20,000 students make it through the exams. The rest start work or stay home. It's a big problem.) The Ngaos always introduce me to all of their friends and colleagues as their daughter or first born so I really feel like I'm part of their family.

Mama and Pastor Ngao have four children. Their oldest or first born is a boy, Hallelujah who is 18 and has been away at seminary school. I haven't met him yet but he is said to be charming and outgoing. Their second born is Deborah who is 14 and is also away at secondary school. We went to visit her last week and only stayed for half an hour. The school is about 45 minutes and she just came out to the truck to visit with all of us (8 in total) and had some muffins and juice and then went back inside. I guess they are only allowed short visits. However, she is home this week on a one-week break and Hallelujah will be home next week for a one-week break. Their third born is Tumieni. She is 12 years old and attends school somewhere nearby although it takes her awhile to get home. She's very quiet but sweet. Lastly, the youngest is Rachel. Rachel is 4 and is a super ball of energy. She loves to play, loves to be held, and loves to "borrow" my stuff.

Crashing weddings on the beach

She's really cute. Only two of their four children live at home, Tumeni and Rachel but they also have extended family who live with them.

Matilda is one of the extended family members that lives with them. "Matti" is 19 and is the daughter of Mama Ngao's brother (again brother is used quite loosely and could mean cousin) who passed away. Mama Ngao told me that after her husband's death, Matti's mother began to drink and sleep around leaving Matilda and her siblings to fend for themselves. Matilda asked the Ngaos to take her in and in return she does most of the cooking and cleaning. The Ngaos have agreed to send her to sewing school next year. The tuition for sewing school is about $20 a month. Zarah is another extended family member who lives with them. She is 10 and extremely shy. She is very thin and I think she is sick or was very sick. She was previously cared for by an aunt of Mama Ngao's but has now come to live with the Ngaos. Bibi is another interesting relative who lives in the house. 'Bibi' means grandmother but she is actually an aunt of Mama Ngao's. Bibi is deaf and mute and is only as advanced as a 5 or 6 year old child although she is 60 or so. She's very sweet and smiles a lot. Mama and the girls communicate with her with some limited sign language that they have come up for food, clothes, and sleep.

My family likes to eat a lot. For breakfast, there is homemade bread or chapata (sort of like friend dough) with eggs, fruit, and peanut butter. For lunch there is usually ugali (a stiff porridge) with meat or fish, vegetables, and fruit, and for dinner we usually have rice, meat or fish, beans, vegetables, and fruit.

Mama na Baba Ngao

Last Friday, however, I made pizza for them. It was actually my first time making pizza from scratch (I prefer frozen!). It came out pretty well although their oven only cooks from the top so the bottom was a little doughy. Most of time, I hang out with the family in the house but last Saturday we did go to the beach to check out some weddings. In Seaview, there is a strip of beach were most wedding parties go to take pictures after their wedding. The whole wedding goes, including all the relatives and the band. so each photo session also becomes a small party on the beach. When we went, there were 7 or 8 wedding parties on the beach. We spent our time walking up the beach and dancing on the outskirts of their parties. It was pretty fun.


The darker side of Tanzania, Tanzania's energy crisis:

Tanzania's power supply comes from the dams in the country. Last February, the government warned that the dams were low and something needed to be done but nothing was. Then in May, there were talk about cutting residential power every other day. They called this power sharing -- one community would get power on one day and then it would switch. The government still hadn't done anything except send one official to Thailand to learn how the Thai rainmakers create rain and to see if it might work in Tanzania! As the water in the dam got lower and lower, the government decided to cut residential power every day (it only goes on after 7 p.m.) and to allow industry to have power during business hours.

Monkey under a bench

Hospitals and Universities are exempt from the cuts.

To put it in context, in the northeastern United States, we lost power for one day and it cost the country $10 billion dollars and spurred the creation of a committee on power that wrote a 226-page paper on the issues of utility companies. Here in Tanzania, however, you'll barely hear people complain. Tanzanians are very complacent people and tend to take things instead of standing up because what good will it do. The newspapers have been covering the crisis and it has now come to the point that the business associations want to call a state of emergency in Tanzania in order to get help. If you really consider the implications of the energy crisis, you can understand how deeply this will affect Tanzania. Without power reserves until next January (if help comes through), only the rich can afford to keep their businesses going. People need to have generators, which are expensive and use a lot of fuel. Any small business is bound to lose most of its business because it can't afford generators. Also, a lot of people will have to be laid off because the resources to conduct business are not available. It is only Tanzania and Tanzanian business that will suffer. Large multinational corporations located in Tanzania will be fine because they can afford to pay any price for power. I hope that the state of emergency is called because the Tanzania economy is going to be greatly burdened by this energy crisis to the extent that it will likely put them even further behind the rest of the global economy then they already are.

Monkeys in the yard

Safety:

With the riots and two failed attempts by pickpockets in Dar, I've become even more aware about how careful I have to be. Travel during the day is fine but pickpockets are everywhere and I have one bag in particular that seems to attract wandering hands. I definitely don't walk alone at night even on campus especially because during the first few weeks of school there were a few night muggings on campus. Foreign students are especially targeted and it's not hard to find them because they all reside in the same dorm! When I go out, I take a cab door to door and when I walk, I walk with others. I lock the door when I sleep and there is usually always someone home during the day. However, I do feel safe. It's just important to be cautious.


Ending on a positive note - Travel:

This weekend I'm planning on traveling to Arusha with a Norwegian friend, Trude. We plan to go on safari in the Serengeti or in the Ngorongoro Crater, which is said to be the cradle of life. We will also check out the city of Arusha and hang out with some Rasta friends who live in the area. It should be a great trip.

I really miss everyone so much. I've been talking to my parents and Kyle via phone quite frequently but everyone else feel free to call! Skype is 30 cents a minute but you might be able to find some calling cards that are a bit cheaper. I've heard that callingcard.com has rates as low as 13 cents a minute. Hope to hear from you soon!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

My house!	My room!	Rachel, 4 and Tumieni, 12	Rachel, Tumieni, and Matty in the truck
The girls of the house	The kitchen in the house	Three-legged monkey	Wedding party on the beach

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