In Kibaha, Tanzania: On African Time

In M’Sanganni all I can ever hear are crickets, birds and the weird blend of rap, R&B, “bongo flava” and Celine Dion which blasts from the military bar about a mile down the road. Despite the rustic surroundings it’s a strangely fitting sound knowing their obsession with electronics and anything to do with the U.S.

People want to be American so badly that they go as far as to name their kids things like Frank, Harry and Jennifer Lopez (I’m not kidding). It’s kind of weird to be so completely idolized by such a large number of people. I try to tell them it’s not all worth admiring but I don’t think anything could sway their impressions from the dubbed Hollywood films that make it to their local theater (a tent with a few chairs and a TV, about 50 cents a ticket). America is their solution as it has been for so many dreamers throughout history. I don’t think it’s a lack of pride for Tanzania just a lack of ambition for the amount of work it takes to live here. People are tired and they want nothing more than to join us in putting our feet up at the end of the day.

There have been a lot of new things for me to think about within the past few weeks. There’s this huge portion that hovers over death and illness and strength. It’s not something clearly drawn out and sometimes I think it’s better not to worry over it too much. I don’t mean to make it into a light-hearted subject, it’s obviously not, but everyone here has to go on living quickly. They don’t have time to waste on mourning.

In fact most families give it three days and then put it aside. Earlier tonight I was with the women next door (all between 20 and 25, all with at least one child and a husband) and they were telling me about a woman in the village who had just returned from the hospital. She wasn’t a close friend of theirs but her daughter had just died and when there is a death the whole village is your sister. They told me that when someone dies at the hospital as this woman’s one-year-old girl had, you are required to hire a special car to transport the body back to your village.

This woman is incredibly poor. When she first brought her girl to the hospital in the morning she had to beg from her neighbors the bus fare which is less than a dollar. When her daughter died she had no choice but to wrap the little body onto her back, as all women do with their babies and trick the bus driver into thinking she was just sleeping. Simon told me that women do this often, holding in their pain and tears in order to get the bodies to their village safely. Talk about strength.

I wanted to ask Simon if people ever grow accustomed to death but then realized it was a stupid question. The strength of the bonds between families and friends here is obvious in their interactions. Communities are impressive. When people care for one another as much as these people do anything remotely close to death is jarring and startling every time. Of course they don’t grow accustomed to death. Stupid question.

There are many depressing things I could talk about, but most of the time life outweighs the bad. Every day I wake up around six and lay in bed for an hour or so before getting up. I have an amazingly comfortable bed and listening to my neighbors begin their day is one of my favorite things to do. The sun rises just outside my window above the fields of maize and at 6 a.m. it is cool and forgiving. I relish in it like I would a clean lake if there was one here.

People know me now so the 10 minute walk to school takes about 20. They all want to hear how my Swahili is coming along and they all have a word to teach me or a story (that I don’t understand) to tell me. The older village people get a kick out of me for some reason, they crack up when I attempt to ask how their days are but I know it’s all in kindness. In conversations if one person says something hilarious or surprising the two people slap hands and usually hold them there for a while until the next good joke. I love this small, but incredibly different, detail about their culture.

Good friends often hold hands while walking and talking, even the men. It’s a sign of a very close bond and it’s a common sight. Little boys are always tangled up with one another or at least have their arms slung around one another’s shoulders, physical boundaries are scarce. It’s been a surprisingly easy thing to get use to. When you let go of all the connotations and assumptions that we have about touching you realize how completely human it is.

Somehow, in the tricky, liquid way of time, the days pass quickly. It’s already been four weeks and there are only 10 left, yet everything we do is done polepole (slowly, slowly). We walk and cook slowly, we communicate slowly and we learn slowly. Slowing down has been difficult. When you are use to walking at a certain pace it is hard to suddenly just amble along and stop every few feet to inspect something.

Simon has a wealth of knowledge about plants, insects and people which he is eager to share and I love listening, but sometimes I just want to keep walking and get to wherever we are going. “African time” is frustrating, though I don’t think I’ve experienced it as badly as some people. I recently started teaching English classes in the evenings for anyone that wants to come. At 3 p.m. the football team comes, at 4 the women who live next to me and a few other beginners come, at 5 are the intermediate-ish students and at 6 are three students who are pretty advanced. Since everyone judges time by the sun this can be fairly difficult and if they get to class within a half hour of their time frame I am happy. I’ve tried to insist that they learn how to keep time but I think it’s a useless lesson.

Things could be much worse though. It could be snake season which is in August. Or I could be having way more run-ins with scorpions and centipedes (so far only nine scorpions and two centipedes). I could have seen the gigantic furry spider that was in my house, but luckily Simon killed it without me noticing. He did make sure to take a picture though and showed me the next day.

Overall things are peachy. This weekend a friend is taking me fishing in the canoe he made. I asked him if I could go swimming also and the only word I caught in his reply was ‘crocodile’ so I think the answer was no. I’m still excited though. Fishing with crocodiles should be an adventure. I might even start a TV show about how dangerous and awesome it is.

The woman next door is calling for me to cook with her. In Swahili my name is very similar to the word for mango, so rather than struggle with the pronunciation of ‘Amber’ they all just call me ‘Embe.’ It’s appropriate though because the mangoes are unbelievable here. I eat them every chance I get, which is often because the path to school is lined with their trees. So this is all for now. Sorry for the wait! I’ll try to figure out how to send mangoes ASAP.

Read more about Amber’s trip here. To view her blog, go to: www.inkibaha.blogspot.com