Jonathan’s Blog

Maisome Part II

Part II

Wednesday through Saturday we lived with the pastor Zacharia, his wife Joyce, and their nephew Ema. Their house is a traditional rural Tanzanian home, but is actually a bit nicer because it is built of cement and has a reservoir to collect rain water from the roof. There is one large living/dining room surrounded by 4 smaller bedrooms. My room was a cement cell with two windows and a single mattress above which hung a mosquito net. They have three chickens and a rooster which have the run of the yard (but sleep in the house at night to protect them from wild animals) and a kitten named Tom. Meals are prepared outside in the dirt yard between the house and the smaller kitchen, which is separate from the house and largely serves to store rice, veggies, pots and pans. There is also a separate building which is a combination outhouse/bathhouse. The bathroom side is simply a hole in the ground. No seat. This is actually the case throughout Tanzania, but until this point I had managed to avoid using them. I imagine Africans must have toned quadriceps. There is a cover to place over the hole to prevent bats from flying in. There isn’t much you can do about bugs though—or the smell. The bath side has enough room only for a basin of water just wide enough to stand in. Joyce heats up water over coals in the yard, and when it is bath time pours it in the basin so we can have warm water. On my first try at the bucket bath it was already after dusk, and a bat flew in and encircled me twice before leaving. Joyce prepared for us three meals a day: midmorning tea, dinner, and supper. Tea was served with chipati (flat bread), but all of the other meals were pretty much the same and consisted of rice, beans, bananas, and tomatoes with okra. The made us rice only because they know that we don’t like ugali (cassava root). Occasionally there was fried perch. Morning tea was always awkward because it was served only a couple hours into our work at the clinic. Joyce would walk over and tell us that tea was ready, and we would just drop whatever we were doing to walk over to the house and eat. The way the clinic is set up we would have to walk past all of the sick people waiting to be seen. But this is apparently accepted culture. Nowhere in Tanzania does there ever seem to be a sense of urgency. After clinic Joyce will heat up water for our bucket baths. I spent the rest of my time either reading, watching the Vervet monkeys venture  from the tree tops to the ground to scavenge for fruit, or playing soccer with Ema and the other local kids (including Jame’s son who apparently lives and goes to secondary school on Maisome). We eat supper by lamp light, and when we’re done it’s just about time for bed. It’s funny that I would consider the way I lived for those three days to be camping. And without electricity or running water, really rough camping at that. And yet this is the way they live every day of their lives.