Day 43 - The White African

This is the last week of the intensive Swahili program. We are staying at the TCDC campus for the remaining time, but this past weekend was our last weekend with our host family. I'm definitely looking forward to completing the program (final exam, oral proficiency exam, and final project presentation still to go), but not looking forward to leaving the country. This weekend, per usual, had its own series of (mis)fortunate events.

It is a small world after all [even in Kambia chupa Madukani, Tanzania].

Friday afternoon, we left the campus and returned to our host family. Friday evening, we went to "Slope Hill Bar" with our host father. The bar and restaurant is a small establishment about 5 minute walking distance from our house. It's located in a group of small shops that overlook the main road into Arusha. This particular evening, Hugh and I met Sarah, a 21-year-old from Ohio who has been volunteering in Tanzania several times. She is renting a house from our host dad with her boyfriend, Emanuel. When I was talking to Emanuel (who was born in Arusha), he told me that he spent about 5 years living in Silver Spring, Maryland! His dad worked for the World Bank in D.C. for a number of years. He also told me he enjoyed going to Hagerstown, MD because apparently there is a place to buy butchered goats. He was also talking to me about his trips into northern Virginia, and "Amish Country" in Pennsylvania (watu ambao hawapendi umeme - people which don't like electricity). He also said he had neighbors who worked in the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, which is the same hospital where I was born. It was definitely a chance encounter in such a removed bar in northern Tanzania.

It would be one thing if my conversation with Emanuel was the first of its kind, but several weeks ago, I met a friend of my host father who studied one year at Indiana University! It was back in the 70's, but he remembered he stayed in Eigenmann and got a degree through the School of Education. It's funny to think both chance encounters happened at this small little restaurant 10 minutes outside of Arusha.

Saturday was the goat slaughtering day. We went to the main Tengeru market with our host mom (always funny to see the look on peoples' faces when they saw two white guys helping the Tanzanian woman!). After we returned from the market, all of my host father's brothers came to the house. We cleared a section of the backyard and placed chairs to watch the process. It was a little graphic, but not as bad as I was expecting. Our host father was telling us about the Chagga beliefs about the goat - evaluating the health of the family by looking at its intestines, throwing away a small piece of the heart for good luck, seeing if finances will improve, etc. We then grilled the meat immediately upon butchering and had dinner! In addition to the meat, I ate liver (not recommended), a foot (also not recommended), stomach lining (also not recommended) and large intestines (actually not that bad!). After that we tried some of the local Chagga brew - mbege - which was actually made from bananas and not too bad. We were drinking from a gourd, which was interesting as well.

Sunday was supposed to be a day devoted to studying. I say "supposed to" with good cause. I started the day studying in bed. Around lunchtime, Hugh and I asked Beda to take us to the top of the small mountain (really, it's a hill) by our house. We quickly lost the main path and were at times nearly crawling on the ground to avoid trees and branches. We nearly turned back, but managed to find the summit. It was a terrific view! Unfortunately Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro were covered by clouds, but it was a great site of the landscape. We then found the main path back down the mountain - which entailed a lot of running and "skiing" down the slopes on the loose dirt. We then exited through the back of an unknown (to Hugh and myself) village. We were all pretty dirty, and people were really surprised to see us. I told Hugh it was as if we had dropped out of the sky - it was pretty funny. When we were walking back, we both needed to get work done. We were walking up to the house, when our host parents were driving away. They said there was a celebration which we should attend...so much for working!

I wasn't pleased about the forced attendance of this random celebration. It was in Kwa Mrefu, which is the next village over (about a 15 minute walk) and getting late. The electricity was also out for the day, so we needed the natural light to do our work. Regardless, we went. But only for a little bit, and then we would go (Beda assured us this was okay). We were walking up to the house with Beda, when we quickly realized this wasn't in informal get-together. Everyone was nicely dressed, there was an outdoor tent set up, with balloons and about 50 chairs - filled with people. There were also speakers and an emcee, with food and beverages. Things just became a bit worse.

We sit down after getting food in the crowd. We are sitting down, listening to the emcee, when Beda says we should go give money to the boy and shake his hand (it was celebrating his first communion - he was standing up front-and-center in a suit with about 4 of his friends, also in suits). I thought this would be fun, so after pressuring Hugh for a moment to join me, we got up and walked toward the front. It was hysterical to see the kid's face when he realized the only two wazungu in the crowd were coming up to him. His eyes tripled in size and his jaw dropped a bit. After returning to my seat, I noticed most of the people in the crowd were laughing. I didn't need anyone to tell me to whom they were directing their laughter.

It couldn't get any worse, right?

Later in the ceremony (way longer than we were anticipating staying) they brought a cake out for the boy and set it on a table right in front of him (again, front and center of the 50-75 person crowd). The emcee started calling up every single member of the family - parents, aunts, grandma, grandpa, paternal uncles, maternal uncles, etc etc etc. After each person was called, they walked up to the table, when the boy took a piece of cake on a toothpick and fed it to them. There was a photographer documenting the entire procedure. Hugh and I began wondering how long this was going to last, but at least we could sit back and not be noticed, right? After a few minutes, I noticed several people sitting around us had left for another area of the house. After that moment, it was similar to watching a car crash in slow motion. Hugh and I exchanged looks of "What if they call us up?" and we both looked at the ground hoping to suddenly become invisible. It didn't work. I looked up briefly, when the emcee was walking towards us with her microphone. She started to walk through the crowd, which she didn't do for anyone else (after this moment, I could only hear faint sounds and couldn't distinguish any words from the speakers). I looked at Hugh, who was burying his face in his hat. She paused right in front of us, put her hand up to the cake, and in a rush of regaining consciousness, I heard "Karibuni." Welcome.

We walk up to the center of the ceremony, stand and wait while they cut more pieces of cake, and line up in front of the boy. Of course the photographer is telling us to wait until he finds the best angle, and after a bit of maneuvering, we bend over to be fed cake with a toothpick by a 10 year old whose name I still don't know. Needless to say, the laughter returned.

After this experience, Hugh and I were ready to leave. We were told by Beda that we should take a drink with the elder members of the crowd in a separate room in the house. We entered to a cramped, dark room and finished our drink as quickly as possible in silence. On the way leaving the house, Beda said someone in the ceremony said Hugh and I were 'white Africans,' since we were not shy like Americans or other Europeans. Even after being publicly humiliated repeatedly, I left the ceremony pleased.

The electricity still had not returned when we got back to the house. We tried working for a couple hours by candlelight, when our host dad returned and said that Gladstone (the gentleman who went to IU) wanted to see us again before we left. So, we left the house and talked with him once more. After getting back, the electricity returned and after more studying we went to bed. This morning we left the house for the final time. It was definitely sad to leave Moivaro and Kambia Chupa. Hopefully it won't be too long before I return again.