Wrapping up with a Rap

A Homestay Neighbor, pre-departure

This last week has been a crazy rush of finishing up the homestay, writing lots of papers and coming back to Arusha. But I’m gonna start with today and go backwards because last night the SIT office got robbed!

We woke up this morning and were all taking our time with coffee and breakfast when news came about the robbery. Apparently a bunch of people climbed over the back wall onto the SIT office property and broke into the building. The only room they got into was the room where all the students keep their luggage. Apparently the next-door neighbors, who happen to be TanzaniteOne, the biggest exporter of Tanzanite, sounded an alarm. The robbers ran off with as many bags as they could carry, dropping stuff as they went. We got there too late to see it—but we’ve heard that there were clothes and bags and shoes everywhere.

Some people lost everything they had left at the office but I was lucky and only lost binoculars and my waterfilter. The really good news was that none of our askaris (guards) were hurt. There are two night askaris at the SIT office, and they are unarmed, unlike the askaris over at TanzaniteOne. It is a dangerous job guarding a building where 19 wazungu come and go with valuables, and it is really scary to know that we put them in so much danger.

Security in Tanzania is almost completely privatized because the police aren’t exactly a reliable solution. For armed guards the law in Tanzania is that you can shoot if the person is on your property. It’s a tough question—I wouldn’t want that responsibility, but I also don’t like the idea of people guarding my stuff being in danger…

This all happened after a night on the town in Arusha. Most of us went to Octoberfest, which happened to be at a mall/movie theater in a part of town called Njiro. Nothing like partying at a movie theater right? Disco at the mall? It was really really weird. I had never been to Njiro, which appears to be where a lot of wazungu live. First of all, there was a café with toasted bagels, POWERBARS, and a hookah bar attached. Interesting... Next there was a video store, which had a bunch of movies in the window and was also selling x-box. That was strange enough, but then I noticed that the most prominently placed movie was The L Word. I was totally surprised, given that homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania, and that the L Word is a tv show about gay women. I went inside to take a picture, and was even further surprised to see that it was The L Word in Chinese! Craziness.

The next weird thing was that Octoberfest also had a separate disco for kids. Which meant that there was essentially the equivalent of a middle school dance happening right next to the bar. There were tons of kids running around in pretty goth/punk style clothing. Then there was the guy who was dressed up with a wig and hat, drinking a beer in one hand, a shot of blue alcohol on the other—and a hotdog on the table in front of him. Then, there were the bearded Australians who were playing the music. Then there was the mother and daughter who were dancing—a little too close.

It was maybe the strangest place I’ve ever been. But I would go back—especially for the power bars. What a discovery!

We had all been stoked to go out to Octoberfest because we had spent the last week writing a ton of papers. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, because the papers all related to our experiences in Bangata and our discussions of globalization here. I’m attaching two of them—but that is for the really really dedicated few.

The biggest disappointment for the week was not being able to see the vp debate live. We were planning on waking up at 4am to try to watch, but we lacked access to electricity/cable. Watching the next day was still pretty good-- but I think the Palin jokes would have been flowing faster if it had been 4am instead of 12noon a day later.

After watching the debate, there was an end of Homestay departure party where we celebrated our three-week stay, ate yummy foods, gave speeches and performed a rap. Stef and I gave the speech for the students in Swahili, which was fine. But then the village Chairman gave his speech, in English, and asked me to translate, in Swahili. I stumbled a little, but made it through. Apparently he liked it so much though, that he asked met to come to his house later that day with my homestay sister.

We arrived at around 7pm and he wasn’t home, so we waited in the usual somewhat awkward silence until he came home. He was coming home from the bar and was… drunk. I wish I could bring the scene to life for you, but I’m afraid it is impossible. The chairman would come in and out of the room and say the exact same things. He would start by telling me that he likes my homestay sister and that she has smarts. “School is not a game” he would say to me in Swahili. Then he would tell me to feel at home here—saying this both in Swahili and English. And then he would ask for Naima, his daughter, and he would leave the room. We had tea, and then he sent his son to go buy soda. He had his other son carry a tv into the room and set it up so that we could watch it. There was a show on Bongo Fleva (East African hip hop) and its relation to Gospel music. It was in Swahili though, so I didn’t catch much of the content. We stayed at his house for two hours and then got escorted home.

The last dinner was a true send off meal. We had rice, and then there was this pot of something that had meat in it. But it was basically a bowl of oil. There were a few pieces of meat, but they were unidentified parts of the animal that I was not ready to try. I tried not to take any, but they scooped some on my plate. Yum!

When I left in the morning my homestay mama cried. I promised I would come back in December and then headed off. So that brings us back to the city and Octoberfest. My apologies if this was chronologically confusing—but you get the idea. I have had no luck with pictures, but am hoping for better internet access in Dar a week from now. Tomorrow we head out to a rainforest where we will be studying forest ecology, hiking around and apparently learning some martial arts. Should be fun--

love,
mego

Songs of the day: Aint No Reason by Brett Dennon and Rewind by Paulo Nutini

Best moment of the day: Getting a CD in the mail!