Random fun in Tanzania

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Trip Start Aug 08, 2006 Previous
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  Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Thursday, November 23, 2006

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  I am very thankful that I will not be missing out on turkey dinner this year and that there are two large ex-pat turkey dinners happening, one today and one on Saturday.  Tonight's dinner is rumored to have 40 people and 10 turkeys.  I'm excited about the dinners but I do wish I were home in MA celebrating with friends and family!

The last few weeks in Dar Es Salaam have been very random.  This past weekend I went to a wedding on Saturday and was part of a bridal photo shoot for a magazine on Sunday.  The weekend before, I went to my family's home district and went deep-sea fishing with a Rotarian.  I was also invited by a South African TV producer to help out on the set of a well-known TV show that is taking place in Tanzania and Zanzibar.  They needed local production assistants to help the executive producers get around, make phones, and such.  It's an American show and Katherine (who is also helping out) and I signed a ten page legal document stating that we wouldn't reveal any details of the show for three years!  So, please if you're interested in any details, speak to me on November 6th, 2009

01 view from Hatim's boat

. Should be fun!

Send - off party:

Last weekend, my friend, Magda and I went to Kilembero with my Mama to attend a send-off party.  In Tanzania, a bride has a send-off party before she is sent to be married.  In Swahili, a man 'gets married' and a woman 'is married'.  There is no word for a woman to get married instead she is just married.  I was glad that Magda came with me because the ceremony and the bus ride were very long.  We thought that the party was in Morogoro town which is two hours from Dar but instead it was at the edge of the Morogoro region which was six hours away.  Because we had just planned to go and come back the next day, it was a long journey.  The bride is the daughter of the Pastor's elder brother.  It was nice to attend a family party because we were included in the festivities.  We got to meet the whole Ngao family and they were all very warm and friendly.  Mama has always called me her daughter so the rest of the family continued with niece and sister, etc. which was so nice.  We all piled into a bus to go to the hall for the party and everyone sang songs on the way.

Big celebrations in Tanzania all have the same sort of order.  A female MC leads the whole event, telling people when to do things and telling jokes (sometimes even singing).  Once everyone is seated, the families of the bride and groom come in dancing and then the bride comes in walking very slowly

02 Katherine, Hatim, and the Captain

.  At one point, the bride cuts the cake and feeds it her family and friends.  As special guests, Magda and I got to receive the cake.  The celebration was pretty long and there was a gift portion (where the guests dance their gifts to the front), a speaking portion, a champagne presentation, and dinner.  After the party, we slept in a guesthouse near the mother of the bride's house (with the loudest goats I've ever heard next door!).  In the morning, we had mbezi soup (goat's meat!) and waited for the bus back to Dar Es Salaam.  The 10 a.m. bus came at 11:30 a.m. and was crammed full of people.  Because it was the only bus back to Dar Es Salaam we had to get on and push for some standing room for the 6-hour bus ride back.  It was actually a pretty funny experience and Mama Ngao kept laughing and saying that now we really know how the African lives.  We stood on the bus for about 2 hours and then stole a bit of space on the floor next to the driver, although standing up might have been more comfortable because on the floor, Magda fell asleep on me!

Fishing:

I was so excited when Hatim, a local Rotarian asked Katherine and me to go fishing on his boat.  I thought that we would have a couple fishing lines out over the side of a sailboat but instead we were going deep-sea fishing!  We set out for the yacht club Sunday morning and boarded his boat, La Louve.  We waited for the captain and then put all seven heavy-duty fishing lines in the water.  It was a beautiful day for fishing and the water was so clear you could see the fish from the boat.  We were hoping to catch a sail fish with can weigh up to 70 pounds.  The captain told us to look for feeds, which are areas where the larger fish are feeding on the surface so you can see them and they are also often accompanied by birds circling above which are easier to spot.  We didn't catch any sailfish but we did see some.  They kind of look like sharks because all you see if their black fin out of the water.  We also saw schools of fish and dolphins!  We did, however, catch three small wahoo (which were 3 feet long and 10 pounds but still considered small) and Hatim, Katherine, and I all reeled one in.  For lunch, we stopped at a well-known sand bar where there were a few families docked with their boats

03 perfect day for fishing

.  I did get a little sea sick in the morning but bounced back after an hour.  All and all, it was a wonderful day!

Wedding:

Saturday, I went to the wedding of the bride from the send-off party.  It was in Dar Es Salaam so it was easy to get to.  Mama Ngao and I went to a family member's house around 2:00 p.m. and the wedding started around 3:00 p.m.  There were actually two couples getting married at the same time, completely unrelated.  It was a Catholic church and there was a whole service before the wedding proceedings.  Many of the family members fell asleep including Mama Ngao and the mother of the bride!  Once the wedding proceedings started, they woke up.  The bride and groom said their vows and signed their marriage certificates.  Then, they left the church dancing with their certificates to greet all the people waiting outside.  In some ways, it seems that the wedding celebrations are more important then the service because not many people came to the actual service but everyone was at the parties.  After the service, we went to the beach to take some pictures (the same one, I had walked along before with the Ngaos when there were seven wedding parties and this day it was also that busy).  We then went to the reception, which was pretty similar to the send off party except that the groom was involved and the MC at one point did a rap

04 first catch

!

My turn to be a bride:

Two weeks ago a friend of mine asked me if I would help model a wedding dress for a multi-cultural bridal magazine.  His roommate's friend, Rukia, works for a wedding planner who wanted to produce the magazine.  They needed to find some white models so they asked Matt, Nathan, Corey, and I, all students at the university.  It was one of the weirdest things I've ever done.  Tuesday, Corey and I were fitted for wedding dresses.  Thursday, I went into the salon to get extensions (a weave!) put into my hair.  Then on Sunday, they put giant fake nails on my hand and an up-do in my hair.  We then went to the kunduchi beach hotel for the shoot.  There were seven brides in all and eight grooms.  We were all parading around the hotel in our wedding clothes.  Some of the hotel guests were even taking pictures of us!  I met Emperous Gypsy Mama Africa (her real name on her passport) who works for a local theater company and whose little grandson, Lawrence was in the shoot.  It was a long day from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. but it was definitely fun and something different.  They paid for all the meals and transportation and were very grateful for the help.  Corey and I even got a call from the photographer yesterday asking if we would be interested in doing another shoot for a hotel advertisement!  This time paid!


Other news:

Last Monday, Katherine and I went to the Rotary Club of Dar Es Salaam North to give a presentation. The club was smaller than our host club and meet at night instead of during lunch but they asked a lot of good questions and were really interested in our experience at the University.

Mr. Kyle Slavin has officially booked his ticket to Dar Es Salaam and will arrive the night of January 3rd. My dad, Bill and stepmother, Margot booked theirs a while back and will be flying in on December 29th. Needless to say, I am excited for visitors.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

05 Wahoo!	06 sandbar for lunch!	07 Katherine fishing	08 Katherine's catch
09 Hatim's boat	10 the boat	11 father of the bride and last born	12 Inside the church
13 Waiting outside	14 Beach pictures	15 Bibi (Grandmothers)	16 the bride
17 photo shoot	18 Tanzania bride	19 more photo shoot	20 Corey
22 Emperous Gypsy Mama Africa and Lawerence	25 beach scene....this is so weird	26	27
28	Lawerence and a groom	me, Lawerence, and Emperous Gypsy Mama Africa!	my dress
set up!

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