An unconventional Christmas

I’m sorry that it has been so long since my last post, but these last few months have been a bit of a whirlwind. If you thought my Thanksgiving was untraditional, wait until you hear about my Christmas.

For Christmas, myself and a group of fellow Peace Corps Volunteers decided to sign up for a cultural tour and spend Christmas with a Maasai tribe, located just a few hours from Iringa. This tribe was located in a sub-village of a former PCV who recently returned to America, and she helped this particular tribe set up an income generating activity by hosting tours in their village to share their culture with tourists.

We boarded a bus on December 23 and headed 5 hours to a small village called Makifu. When we got off the bus, we were met by a member of the Maasai and he led us on a 3 km walk away from civilization (the booming civilization of the village), toward the Maasai village. As we walked, I asked him why the Maasai lived so far away from the main village along the road, and he told me that “the villagers don’t like all the yelling, singing and drumming that we do. We make a lot of noise and keep them awake.”

dry river beds around the Maasai village valley

beautiful northern Iringa

By the time we arrived, it was dark, so we put our bags into our bomas (huts) where we would be sleeping. They are constructed purely of mud, sticks, and straw. In fact, both nights that we slept in them, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a cow eating the straw roof my lodging accommodations.

The boma I slept in

After ditching our bags, we huddled around a campfire and ate a typical meal of rice, beans and papaya. With our bellies full, it was now time to dance!

Darryl around the campfire

Both men and women got up, the men in one group, the women in another. The two groups each formed their own kind of “line” and faced each other. The men started to sing a bass line, unlike anything I had ever heard, and other men started to join in to keep the beat. 

Then, random men would jump into the middle between the groups, jumping on every beat, higher than I have ever seen anyone jump in my life. These men are amazing athletes.

That man hovering above everyone else is jumping... he has one amazing vertical

When the men gave a vocal signal, several women/girls would come forward into the middle and move the a very fast, convulsing motion to make the jewelry on their chest and neck jump and jingle while the men got up in their face. When the man decided the woman had been brave long enough, they brushed shoulders and the girl was dismissed back to the group.

After dancing for about an hour, we called it a night and went to bed. The beds we slept on were straw mattresses with a blanket over the straw and a bug net over top. The walls of the bomas had holes in them and when it rained, the straw roofs had a slight leaking problem…

But before I knew it, it was time to start a new day, Christmas Eve. After getting ready for the day and having some breakfast, we set out on a tour of the Maasai village to see where they were living, how they kept their live stock and what kinds of plants were in the area and how the people used them for different things.

When we returned to our lodging area, we were greeted by many mamas holding traditional Maasai garments and jewelry and told us to follow them. They lead the women into one hut and the men into another and one by one, the Mzungu emerged from the mud huts in traditional dress. 

The crew plus our guides in front of a boma  in our traditional dress

Lauren and I in our Maasai wear

the men in their traditional clothing

Man, were those things comfortable! It was like wearing a toga, so soft and breezy. The jewelry on the other hand,  not so comfortable. It’s made of wire and beads, and since no Maasai women have hair longer than any of the men, they never thought through the issue of hair-pulling.

After being dressed in our garb, we were taken out to herd cattle. We walked several km to where the herds were being kept and learned that each heard was made up of cattle from multiple owners. While branding exists here to distinguish whose are whose, each herder also has a specific whistle that the cattle respond to. The children seemed to love us, holding our hands, playing games and showing off. After we left the cattle, we continued walking around to see more of the locally available plants and their uses. We even found the vine that they use to brush their teeth. They cut a small portion off, carve one end into the point like a tooth pick and cut a couple slits in the other end to get it started. The blunt end gets rubbed over your teeth and there is a chemical in the plant that supposedly kills the bacteria. It was fun to try. 

Sunhee hand-in-hand with some of the children heading to the cattle

herding cattle

brushing her teeth

we called this one Honey Badger. He looks stoic now, but I watched him eat dirt...

 After the tour, we returned back to the village for dinner, followed by more singing and dancing, but now that we were in proper dress, we were expected to join in. We all learned very quickly how foolish we looked and just as quickly got over it.

Girls in our group preparing to enter the middle to shake our stuff

The man circle

The next day was Christmas, and since Tanzania was colonized by Europeans, Christmas meant Church. We dressed up in the same traditional clothing and headed to the church where we sat though a very traditional Lutheran service.  Very few men attended service, for they were slaughtering a goat (and drinking it’s blood) for the Christmas feast that followed church.

The church we attended Christmas Day

 After the Christmas service and feasting were over, we returned to our huts to change and gather our things, because we had to leave and to go a camp down the road for the night (we had to catch a bus at 6am the next day and didn’t want to have to walk the 3km walk in the dark.)

The campground we stayed at was very nice. We slept in tents, but the tents all had full twin-sized beds inside. The facility had warm showers, our lodging price included a beautiful, traditional Tanzanian meal and then they lit a campfire for us, so we spent Christmas night gathered around a campfire being eaten by mosquitoes.

hanging around the fire Christmas night

My Christmas may have been a little untraditional, but I had an amazing time with people I only met 6 months ago that have become my new little family. When you are away from home, you have to find new little pseudo families of caring people. I’m glad there are so many of those people in Peace Corps Tanzania.

Merry Christmas!

 

How to slaughter a chicken

Celebrating holidays in Tanzania aren’t quite the same as they are in America, but we do what we can to share our culture with the Tanzanians and not forget what’s important to us. The first holiday we celebrated was Halloween. Now, it wasn’t until I tried to explain the concept of Halloween to Tanzanians that I realized how truly strange it is. We dress small children up in costumes and take them around to strangers’ houses to collect candy… sounds weird, right?

Lauren and I (aka the Mexican and the random girl from the 80's)

About a month later, after school had wrapped up and Form I and III students had completed their district annual exams, it was Turkey Day! Now, since I had school on Thanksgiving, I was unable to celebrate on the actual day (in fact, I spent the day grading exams), but a few other Ed volunteers met up in Iringa on Saturday to have our own little Thanksgiving feast.

We started the meal off with appetizers of homemade guacamole and salsa, homemade chips and veggie slices with ranch dip. We needed our strength to tackle the task that was the main meal.

The appetizer spread

Feeding each other. yea, we're integrating

 There aren’t any turkeys to be had here, but there are chickens aplenty, so we bought one. A live one J

We had to walk across the village to buy it, then tied up its feet and carried it home in a plastic sack. When we arrived home, we put some water on the jiko to boil and hung the chicken upside down for a while (apparently it is supposed to calm it down and it seemed to work.)

Joe, picking up tonight's dinner

The walk back to the house, chicken under arm

Nobody puts chicken in the corner!

Chicken meditation

When the water got to a boil, we moved the upside down chicken to a spot suitable for blood spatter. Joe, dressed in kanga apron and armed with a knife, stepped up to do the deed. It was pretty quick and not as much blood as any of us expected. After waiting for a few minutes for the blood to drain out, we untied it and threw it in a basin where we poured hot water over it. This helps loosen up the feathers so they can be plucked out. After several minutes, we had all the feathers removed and cut off the feet. 

Joe, getting ready to chinga kuku

and...

headless chicken

hot water helps remove the feathers

they remove pretty easily and quickly

Then it was time to clean out the insides. Now, our instructions told us that puncturing the entrails smells terrible, so this was a delicate process. And in that process we found an EGG!  We cleaned out the rest of the innards and rinsed it off for cooking.

ready to clean it out... doesn't look like it was alive 5 minutes ago 

Lauren with the bonus egg we found

Cleaning out the entrails

cleaned up and ready to cook

The oven we made to cook the chicken

roasting over the hot coals

It was delicious and I must say, we were pretty proud of ourselves.

Table set up

The delicious spread

The meal was accompanied with buttermilk biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fruit salad

The moral of this post... I will never take advantage of frozen turkeys at Thanksgiving, but I really enjoyed the experience of a meal all from scratch!

Water, water everywhere!

I promised a flooding story, so now I will deliver. Last month, out of now where, my school got hit with a huge hail/rain storm that lasted several hours. I was stuck on campus during the storm, but as I left the school buildings to return home, I followed a small, but swift moving stream of water downhill toward my house. I sloshed through mud several inches thick on my front porch and opened my front door to see a puddle where my living room once had been  

The mud on my porch and the puddle inside the front door

Also, due to the contouring of my floors, the water managed to flow into every room of my house… lucky me. On the bright side, I have concrete floors, so I was able to just let the water dry over the next couple days, then swept and mopped the dirt and mud that had accompanied the water.
Word got around pretty fast about my house flooding and several students came by the next day to help me dig a ditch around my house to divert the water back around  to my garden during the next storm. And what do you know, it worked great. No more flooding for me.

Moat around my house in action

Well, I seem to be adjusting to everyday life here, but it’s not without its challenges. I tend to live in a very buggy part of Tanzania. In fact, I have killed more bugs in my couple months here than I have in my entire life combined (its times like these that I wish I had my little brother.) I have nightly invasions of giant flying termites, known here as kumbikumbi. The locals like to catch them, fry them and eat them as a snack… I haven’t been brave enough to try them yet, but I will let you know when that day comes. I also have a family of spiders in my ceiling the size of my hand that come out only to bask in the beautiful glow of my energy efficient light bulb that turns on for several hours a night. I let them live, but only because I’m petrified of them and they stay out of reach. I also have a mouse that lives in my room. He is a baby, but he still gives me anxiety, so I’m planning getting a cat come January.

I don't think those hairs would feel good if you touched them

One of my jirani (neighbors) has several cattle that get lose just about every day (I’m starting to wonder if he even ties them up) and like to eat the grass in around my house and stomp through my garden, grazing at what few plants have sprouted. Most days when I return home from school, I have to meander around cows to get to my front door.

Just a few feet from my front door near, I think he would classify as my closest neighbor

 Every day here is full of surprises here, but last week, when I went out to use the bathroom in the morning, I had to sidestep around an amputated chicken foot in my courtyard. Didn’t expect that one. Don’t know where it came from, or how it got there since my courtyard is surrounded by  12 foot tall concrete walls with glass on top… but like I said, everyday is an adventure, right?

I’ve also been handy around the house. I tried to change out my outdoor porch light that was burnt out, but despite my innovative attempts, I couldn't get tall enough without the real fear of breaking my neck (see photo below.)

a little sketchy to say the least. a desk, balanced on stairs by the aid of 2 bricks and a piece of wood... and I still wasn't tall enough to reach the light!

These last few days, my school has hired some fundi’s to finish the construction on the dorms across from my house, so the students hauled dirt and rocks to help with the landscaping for a few days and we didn’t have class; but that’s how things go here. Classes will be canceled so the students can clean, work in the shambas (farms), the list goes on.  Flexibility is key when  being a Peace Corps Volunteer.

hauling dirt with 5 gallon buckets to fill in the space between the dorms

 Well, I am in the homestretch for Christmas break. The Form II students left last month, the Form IV students finished up their NECTA’s just a week or so ago and headed home to await their results, and my Form I and III students are in the process of taking their annual district exams. I have to admit, it feels strange to be playing a different role in the exam room. I now proctor the exams rather than take them, answer questions rather than ask them, and grade the exams rather than await my score. Being on this end of things is much less stressful, so you won’t hear me complain (too much).

 

Later days!

President, tornado, Darryl's graduation

My first month here at site has been full of adventures! My one of first weekends, my school held a celebration for the Catholic Student Association of Tanzania. The students used local materials to construct a large tent-like structure to hold the ceremony under.

This ceremony was just held with students, faculty and 2 honored guests from the church. There was a lot of singing, dancing, and food and cake! In Tanzania, it’s customary for the recipient of a party to feed cake to guests, and this celebration was no different. Catholic students that were being honored that day bought cake and fed it to whom ever they chose (I had like 4!). This celebration started Friday and continued through the weekend with singing and dancing until late Sunday night. 

The ceremony structure made of wooden poles, straw and cloth

The Form IV members of  Catholic Student Association posing

The Catholic celebration was just a warm up, because then 2 weeks later was Form IV Graduation. The O-level (ordinary level) secondary schools go through Forms I-IV (the equivalent of 8^th-11^th grade), and after Form IV, they graduate and continue onto A-level (advanced level) Forms V and VI if they pass their National Exams in November. For the Form IV Graduation, parents and family members came to witness and celebrate. There was singing and dancing, plays and gift giving. It was an all-day event, and everyone was so happy, even the guests got up and danced during the music gap fillers between events. It was so fun to be a part of. Then we had a huge Tanzanian meal together: parents, teachers and students, because sharing a meal here shows that you care and is an important part of culture. Unfortunately, schools are not equipped with hundreds of plates and utensils, so everyone ate off of paper plates with their hands. But the food was good!

The method of transportation for many family members to my small village for graduation

Students parade into the ceremony

A couple weekends later, I was invited to a graduation at a nearby village (an hour away by bus) where a fellow Peace Corps Education Volunteer named Darryl teaches. So, Friday morning I caught the bus from my village to his. His graduation was very similar to mine with shade tents of local materials, singing, dancing and food, except that Darryl played guitar and sang! They also put on a fashion show and did some very impressive acrobatics. It was a great time. That night we were invited out to the after celebration the teachers were having in the science lab. This consisted of more eating and dancing. They loved to laugh at how we danced! Tanzanian’s are so welcoming, I felt right at home and comfortable at this new school and village.

Painted in the dirt to welcome parents and visitors to graduation

Darryl singing a song he wrote at his schools graduation

Darryl in at a pig raising project at his school

Graduating Form IV students 

These models in the fashion show were dressed as Masai

Impressive acrobatics

Taking photos in the Tanzanian style

 The next morning, Darryl and I woke up early to catch a bus to Njombe town where we quickly caught another bus to a small village called Kipenguere about 1 hour south of my village. Why, you ask? Well, on the day of Darryl’s school’s graduation, the President of Tanzania, Dr. Jakaya Kikwete, came to Njombe town to officially declare Njombe an independent region. About 2 years ago, this area used to be part of the region to the north called Iringa, but after the census, they decided to separate it to create new region. Just goes to show the pace of life here in TZ, when the President comes to officially open it 2 years after the fact. Anyway, the next couple days after his appearance, he traveled around to remote villages in Njombe to greet the people and just make an appearance. Darryl and I couldn’t pass this up, so we made our way out for the festivities. We arrived in Kipenguere at a soccer filled all decorated and full of people awaiting the President’s arrival. We joined the crowd, and not 20 minutes later were pulled through the crowd to the front (they spotted the mzungu). We were then asked what villages we were representing were escorted to seats just 50 feet away from the President’s table.

We went from this view in the crowd...

to this view!

The President's table just 50 ft left of our chairs

When Dr.Kikwete arrived, the crowd was full of energy, and they sang and danced to welcome him. Kikwete was accompanied by his wife and all of the Ministers of Tanzania. All of the Ministers proceeded to give speeches, followed by the First Lady, and finally Kikwete himself. 

students from a local elementary school sing and dance to welcome the President

His grand enterance

And his arrival

The First lady giving her speech

Dr. Kikwete giving his speech

Dr. Kikwete greeting Father Caleo

 About 20 minutes after the President left the building (or the small outdoor dugout-like structure of the soccer field…), Darryl and I witnessed a small dust devil, several hundred yards away. It grew larger and larger and eventually lifted the roof off of a housing structure! It was the closest thing to a tornado I had ever seen, and boy was it cool!

Toto, I think we are in Kansas!

It is the beginning of rainy season here, which means I have been experiencing more storms lately…

Like last week, my house flooded. But I feel like I have written enough already, so I will save that story for another post J