Swahili Places

I typed a long entry about what I've been up to, but it's on my laptop and I'm not sure how to transfer it to a computer with internet capabilities. The writing is a lot of catching up that I didn't think was too interesting, so in the mean time I decided to write and share with you the small parts of my yesterday and today - everyday life in Tanzania.

Yesterday I took breakfast at my friend's house. Well, it wasn't really his house - there isn't anything to take in his house, so we went to his aunt's house. And there wasn't really anything there either. A big house with couches, a tv and pictures with broken frames in the sitting room. But then I walked through to find the bathroom - and the rest of the house was totally and strangely bare. No furniture - people must sleep on the floors. No finished floors, people must sleep on the cement. Nothing on the walls but dirt, nothing in the kitchen but a sink that dangled loosely from the wall. But his aunt brought me a big breakfast - tea with sugar and nine pieces of bread, on which she spread something that's like butter but without flavor. She was so happy to feed me that I could not be anything but happy to be there being fed.

That afternoon I was at another friend's house. Her family prepared a meal for me: ugali (hot flour pudding - equal parts flour and water, boil off the water), peas, fish, spinach, and cooked chicken heads. One eats everything but the bones, which includes the tongue, the eyes and the brain. I cannot say I enjoyed the flavors or textures, but it made me appreciate, or more wholly understand, life. What a luxury it is to choose food. And what a luxury it is to have fat. Some people here eat everything they can and don't have that opportunity.

Tonight I was in the slum again. It was the first time I felt comfortable in my Swahili - the first time I spoke without hesitation - telling stories and answering questions with more ease than I had previously known. A little boy wanted to be carried so I picked him up and told him not to pee on me - and then on that moment realized I had just told him not to pee on me in Swahili. I like that place. When I am in the center of the slum I am protected because I am known and loved.

It rained most of the day, and consequently uswahilini (the swahili place - the slum) was filled with mud. The kids walked me back to the bus station just before dark and I hopped on the next available daladala (what the rest of Africa has called a matatu). There are seats for 16 people inside. We numbered 26 in all. Imagine seeing us cruise down the main road, sliding door open. Inside people are sitting in their seats, squashed by the other people standing between their legs, leaning against their faces, squeezed into every pocket of space from floor to ceiling. Then three of us, myself included, are situated outside the van, standing on a running board beneath where the sliding door would have been had it not had to have been opened to reveal some room for the inside to bulge. My hands found something on the inside to hold on to - a handle, a wrist - something reliable. And we continued like that for a few kilometers, rain spitting in our faces. That is my Africa, these are my friends, and this is my life, and I like it.