A Lazy Saturday Morning

I don't know the last time I was able to laze around on a Saturday morning and look out my window at palm trees in the backyard.  Okay, maybe that’s never happened to me before, which may be why it's so unfamiliar.  

Life is already exceedingly slower since I arrived here in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Wednesday morning.  It feels so good to have left the hustle bustle of Boston and finals week far behind.  It seems like it was all so long ago already.  

I was kindly greeted at the airport by my Tanzanian friend in Kansas City's family and their friend, Emmanuel.  It was wonderful to see people holding my name outside of the airport, and ready to take me wherever I needed to go.  Emmanuel went out of his way to help me exchange money and took me to a clinic for the rest of my malaria medication.  Then he dropped me off at the hotel where the Helen Keller International (HKI) retreat was taking place. 

 It was a beautiful hotel, all open to the outside, with a view of the Indian Ocean and a lovely breeze cooling the humid air. The retreat lasted three days, and it was great because I got to meet all of the staff from the Dar office, as well as the people I’ll be working with in Mwanza for the summer.

Everyone has been wonderfully warm and welcoming, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them all better.  We were very well fed during the retreat, and I was introduced to a few Tanzanian dishes.  Palao was one of my favorites, which was rice with what tasted to me like Chinese Five Spice.  My favorite salad was a cabbage, tomato, lemon salad, but I can’t remember what it was called.  There was a delicious fruit salad with every meal.  I’ve never eaten so much mango in my life, and it’s so fresh! 

Thankfully I’ve had a great place to stay for my time in Dar.  I’m temporarily living with the Deputy Country Director of HKI Tanzania, Christina Nyhus Dhillon and her family for the next week.  They’ve been so wonderful to generously put me up for the week.  This morning we made play dough for their two-year old son, but I think we had just as much fun playing with it as he did. 

I have been slowly picking up some Kiswahili.  Karibu is “welcome” as well as “you’re welcome” and asanté is “thank you”…it’s a start.  :) The Tanzanians assure me it’s an easy language to learn, but I’m not convinced, and Christina has told me otherwise.  In either case I’m still up for the challenge. 

With the whole HKI Tanzania team on the last day of the retreat. 

This coming week I’ll continue to work on the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan for the Homestead Food Production (HFP) Program with their M&E specialist.  Next weekend I’ll take a flight with some of the other staff members up to Mwanza to start my assignment there. I can't believe that last Friday I finished my last group assignment for my M&E class at Tufts, and this week I was already working on a real plan that will be used for this program.  It's exciting to know these skills could be used in the real world.

The three people on the right are the Mwanza team.

It’s been nice to spend some time here to get acclimated to Africa.  It’s been a pretty soft landing so far staying with an American family and spending the week at a beachfront hotel.  So far I feel so relaxed it’s like I’m on vacation, but work will start up in force on Monday.  I’ve been told Mwanza will be different; it’s a smaller city with fewer expats, and thankfully has cooler temperatures.  People say it’s even more beautiful there.  I’m looking forward to getting there because it will take me further into the country and into Tanzanian culture, but for now I’m very content to enjoy this time in Dar es Salaam.

Kwa heri until next time,   

~Katrina