Well, this update did not come by as quickly as I had hoped, but I really am going to try to make the effort to increase the number of postings over the next months in order to keep everyone I know as much in the loop of my life as they would like. At the end of my last entry, I promised a glossary of terms that would be useful to know when travelling through Tanzania, and I aim to fulfill that promise now. I know that some of you were wondering what type of food we ate in Tanzania, and I included many staples to our diet there that you will have difficulty finding in the States, which is no surprise considering Tanzanian food is fairly bland- I don´t see a huge market for Tanzanian restaurants opening up anytime soon. I have also included a few other words that represent unique experiences for me. So prepare your pens and paper readers, because you might want to take notes on a few of these.
Asante sana-Swahili for "thank you very much". As Tanzanian people are incredibly generous and friendly, this phrase comes in handy on many an occasion.
Chapati - in a word, yummy. Imagine a cross in thickness between naan bread and a tortilla, then double in size, add some grease, and a bit more sweetness, and you have come within the ballpark of the rich and filling taste of the bread eaten with just about anything from sugar, to beans and chicken. I miss my chapatis, as I don´t know know when I will ever find them again as good as they were when homemade by the women of the Amani village.
Daladalas - A daladala is the city transportation system throughout Tanzania. I hesitate to use the word bus, since that would be granting them delusions of grandeur. Take the camper van used in the Scooby Doo cartoons, make it white, age it about 25 years, take out all of the comfort of the interior so that only the most basic layers of cushion remain on the seats, then line the walls in a burber carpet pattern from 1982 in order to keep the heat in as much as possible throughout the cold months of Tanzania, hah, and then put into operation. The average camper van holds about 12-14 people comfortably. The daladala works as such: unlike a bus, which picks up and drops off passengers continually, a daladala does the same, but will not leave its origin until it is completely full with not 12, not 14, not 16, but 20 passengers, and more if it can get them. So, if you hop into a daladala with only 9 passengers and hope to reach your destination anywhere within the next two hours, think again. A delightful experience, really, I don´t think you have had a true African transportation trip until you have been squashed, sweating and desperately needing to pee, in a daladala for an hour and half before it even leaves to make the two hour journey back to your house.
Dar Es Salaam- the capital of Tanzania, and I mention it here because it represents to me an example of simple knowledge I have gained on my trip. A year and a half ago, if asked with a gun to my head to say where Dar Es Salaam was located, I would have ventured to say a small town in the Middle East. I do not say this with anything but humiliation, and at least now I will never forget where it is, although I still cannot say the same for all the other 30 capitals in Africa. I guess I will have to keep on travelling.
The Flying Horse - the clue is definitely not in the title. It is neither flying nor a horse. It is however, the name of the world´s most uncomfortable and possibly slowest method of transportation, being the night ferry from Stone Town in Zanzibar back to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. The actual distance of the trip is 70 kilometres, but in the time it takes to cover the distance you might as well be taking a boat across the Atlantic. The ferry leaves the dock at 10:15 at night, meanders outside of the port since working boats cannot stay inside the port limits at night, sits just outside Zanzibar Town until about 1:30, when the engines start and with the speed of a thousand turtles creeps back to Dar Es Salaam to dock about 6:30 in the morning. Five hours, about forty miles. Then take the nightmare a step further when you realize you have to spend those eight hours jammed in a broken old white plastic chair, sqashed between backpacks, strangers who smell, large sacks of grain, babies, an aluminum open sided roof and a cement floor. Actually, by the time I got my space on the cement floor at 4:30 AM, and got to leave my hell of a seat, I slept like a happy baby. Thank you, nice man, who saw my agony and gave me his spot on the floor to take my chair!
Hujambo/Habari- Swahili greetings, meaning "hello, how are you" in one word. Hujambo is very informal, and typically used when passing children on the street, who will respond with "Sijambo". Habari is more formal, and usually used with peers who will answer "Nzuri". Greetings are very important to Tanzanian culture, especially in the villages, and you will never pass another human being without being saluted and wished well in some way, a habit most of us never learn in cities where you rarely even make eye contact as you walk down the street.
Khanga - for about a dollar a pop, you can buy about a yard of fabric, each one more rich and colorful a design than the last. Khangas are the national item of female clothing in Tanzania. Divided into two types, Muslim and Christian, each khanga also sports a religious maxim at the bottom of each one. Mine says, "Trust in God". There is a saying that the khanga can be worn in over a hundred different ways, and although I have yet to prove it, I don´t doubt it. With no clasps or hooks, it is amenable to any contortion, as a skirt, sarong, shawl, dress, or top. And any item of clothing that does not have a fastener, stays on, and is always comfortable? Sign me up.
Khan´s - a delicious barbeque restaurant in Arusha, one of the two towns at the base of Kilimanjaro. An auto parts store by day and outdoor barbecue by night, it was a lucky and appreciated find for four people who had not had meat in three weeks and were about to leave the next morning to climb Africa´s highest peak. The salad bar was included, and there were three sections to it-mild, spicy, and so spicy you will never be able to taste anything again. I did not even go near the third section, so my taste buds are still happily alive, but I don´t know that I can say as much for my three male companions.
Macuti - the dried gatherings of large leaves used to thatch the roofs of the huts in Amani village and all around the country. I mention it only because they are transported in bunches of ten, weighing about thirty five pounds a bunch, and each of us was required to carry one on our heads about half a mile downhill to the project site. It was such a cool experience, not to mention difficult, and being forced to transport something on my head only increased my awe for the Africans who carry buckets of water for miles atop their head, not even using their hands.
Mt. Kilimanjaro - the most difficult physical task of my life. I just met a guy in my hostel who said it was fun and a "breeze". I punched him out. Kidding. I am sure for some the summit climb did not produce the worst exhaustion ever experienced, but I am sadly, not one of those fortunate few. But I made it, and may appreciate it more so in my life because the wall I hit was dense and high, and I still got to the top, with a little help from my friends. Thank you Eli and John.
Papasi - one of the very few unfortunate aspects to Zanzibar. A "papasi" is a tout, a man who approaches you in the street and tries to sell you an activity, day trip, experience, you name it. They are not the proprietors of the tours, but act independently as go betweens, and expect a commission from the final cost if they succeed in getting you to sign up for whatever activity they are selling. Everyone has to earn a living, and after a while you get quite used to being approached no less than twenty times a day, where "no" only works the fifth or sixth time. But there are some that can be aggressive and manipulative, namely a drug addicted tout by the name of Krepsi. So word to the wise, be careful and selective in your dealings, and don´t be too wary of them as some are nice and decent and will give you a better deal on a tourist outing than going straight to the tour company.
Poa Kchizi Kama Ndizi/ Pole pole - it is Swahili for "cool as a banana", which can be translated into English idiom as "cool as a cucumber". The guides on Kilimanjaro taught it to us as the phrase they use to signify that all´s good, and when other porters and guides passed us and asked us how we were, we were told to say "poa kchizi kama ndizi". It always earned a laugh. Pole pole means "slowly slowly", and is the more famous of the Swahili words you learn while trekking up Kilimanjaro. The guides say it about every ten minutes, just to remind you to not walk too quickly and fall prey to altitude sickness. By the end of six days of "pole pole" every ten minutes, you are ready to kill the next person who utters those words.
Pongwe-if you ever get the chance to visit Zanzibar, your trip is not complete until you visit one of the eastern beaches of the island, be it Jambiani or Matamwe, or, in this case, Pongwe. More difficult to get to than many of the other beaches, Pongwe lies at the end of 5 kilometres of a bumpy and dusty dirt road off of the road to Kiwengwa, a more crowded version of Pongwe´s beach paradise. Deposited in Pongwe for four hours of perfect idle time, we discovered that we were the only three on the beach for the whole of the afternoon, and soon after making our way to the white soft sands, we were approached by the cook at the reserve we passed on the way in, who took our order for fish and chapati and told us it would be two hours until our food was ready. Any other time I would have balked at such a length of waiting time, but with the crystal turquoise waters beckoning in front of me, where it looked as if I could wade out a mile and still be up to my waist, which was close to the truth, I was not too worried about how I would make it until lunch. The water was warm and calming, and after six weeks of pretty intense physical activity, I could not imagine a better way to relax. At one point in my stroll through the ocean, I looked down and saw a huge blue starfish, clear as if I was looking through a window pane. Once back on land, after wading and floating in part silence and part conversation with my friends, I spread my khanga on the beach and read a book in the shade to avoid more blistering sunburns. Our lunch came with an appetizer of a plate of fresh cut pineapple, the sweetest I have ever tasted, and then the main course or freshly caught (meaning, literally, caught within the last hour) fish, fried, with scrumptous chapati, and a rich sauce of tomato, coconut, cumin and paprika spices, and onions. It will remain, for its original and perfect simplicity in an idyllic setting, one of the best meals I have eaten. I repeat, if you ever get the chance to pass a day at a beautiful and tranquil beach, seize it. It is even better in life than it is imagined.
Redd´s- well, there is really not much to say about Redd´s other than my life changed the day we met. Redd´s is a sort of cider, well, actually, a carbonated fruit ale, but a tastier alcoholic ambrosia has yet to pass my lips. It is manufactured in South Africa, but is sold all over Africa, and for me, it is almost worth the price of a ticket to get there just to have a few Redd´s.
Ugali - what glossary of key terms in Tanzania would be complete without a mention to ugali, the staple dish? Ugali has the appearance of a white ball of smashed up rice, thick enough to lay bricks with, and bland enough to feed a baby. It is nothing more than corn meal (maize) and water, and is rather difficult to take on its own in large amounts. It is usually eaten with beans or sauce, by picking off a small ball of it in the right hand, poking a indent in the side using the right thumb, and then scooping the beans/sauce into the indentation and eaten all as one bite. As a group we did not take to it very much, and I only ate it a few times while in Africa, but its ingredients are so prevalent there that you cannot help but see it on many a plate eaten by someone who grew up there.
Uji - the typical breakfast food served to us, it is like a grainier version of cream of wheat, and with a little added sugar, very good. At least, I thought it was very good. Come to think of it, I might be the only one who liked it enough to go back for second helpings, but then, I have always been a sucker for anything related to oatmeal.
Thanks for your time, folks! Hope you enjoyed the new words added to your vocabulary. Let me know what you think, and which word was your favorite, until then, I hope all is nzuri!
Asante sana-Swahili for "thank you very much". As Tanzanian people are incredibly generous and friendly, this phrase comes in handy on many an occasion.
Chapati - in a word, yummy. Imagine a cross in thickness between naan bread and a tortilla, then double in size, add some grease, and a bit more sweetness, and you have come within the ballpark of the rich and filling taste of the bread eaten with just about anything from sugar, to beans and chicken. I miss my chapatis, as I don´t know know when I will ever find them again as good as they were when homemade by the women of the Amani village.
Daladalas - A daladala is the city transportation system throughout Tanzania. I hesitate to use the word bus, since that would be granting them delusions of grandeur. Take the camper van used in the Scooby Doo cartoons, make it white, age it about 25 years, take out all of the comfort of the interior so that only the most basic layers of cushion remain on the seats, then line the walls in a burber carpet pattern from 1982 in order to keep the heat in as much as possible throughout the cold months of Tanzania, hah, and then put into operation. The average camper van holds about 12-14 people comfortably. The daladala works as such: unlike a bus, which picks up and drops off passengers continually, a daladala does the same, but will not leave its origin until it is completely full with not 12, not 14, not 16, but 20 passengers, and more if it can get them. So, if you hop into a daladala with only 9 passengers and hope to reach your destination anywhere within the next two hours, think again. A delightful experience, really, I don´t think you have had a true African transportation trip until you have been squashed, sweating and desperately needing to pee, in a daladala for an hour and half before it even leaves to make the two hour journey back to your house.
Dar Es Salaam- the capital of Tanzania, and I mention it here because it represents to me an example of simple knowledge I have gained on my trip. A year and a half ago, if asked with a gun to my head to say where Dar Es Salaam was located, I would have ventured to say a small town in the Middle East. I do not say this with anything but humiliation, and at least now I will never forget where it is, although I still cannot say the same for all the other 30 capitals in Africa. I guess I will have to keep on travelling.
The Flying Horse - the clue is definitely not in the title. It is neither flying nor a horse. It is however, the name of the world´s most uncomfortable and possibly slowest method of transportation, being the night ferry from Stone Town in Zanzibar back to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. The actual distance of the trip is 70 kilometres, but in the time it takes to cover the distance you might as well be taking a boat across the Atlantic. The ferry leaves the dock at 10:15 at night, meanders outside of the port since working boats cannot stay inside the port limits at night, sits just outside Zanzibar Town until about 1:30, when the engines start and with the speed of a thousand turtles creeps back to Dar Es Salaam to dock about 6:30 in the morning. Five hours, about forty miles. Then take the nightmare a step further when you realize you have to spend those eight hours jammed in a broken old white plastic chair, sqashed between backpacks, strangers who smell, large sacks of grain, babies, an aluminum open sided roof and a cement floor. Actually, by the time I got my space on the cement floor at 4:30 AM, and got to leave my hell of a seat, I slept like a happy baby. Thank you, nice man, who saw my agony and gave me his spot on the floor to take my chair!
Hujambo/Habari- Swahili greetings, meaning "hello, how are you" in one word. Hujambo is very informal, and typically used when passing children on the street, who will respond with "Sijambo". Habari is more formal, and usually used with peers who will answer "Nzuri". Greetings are very important to Tanzanian culture, especially in the villages, and you will never pass another human being without being saluted and wished well in some way, a habit most of us never learn in cities where you rarely even make eye contact as you walk down the street.
Khanga - for about a dollar a pop, you can buy about a yard of fabric, each one more rich and colorful a design than the last. Khangas are the national item of female clothing in Tanzania. Divided into two types, Muslim and Christian, each khanga also sports a religious maxim at the bottom of each one. Mine says, "Trust in God". There is a saying that the khanga can be worn in over a hundred different ways, and although I have yet to prove it, I don´t doubt it. With no clasps or hooks, it is amenable to any contortion, as a skirt, sarong, shawl, dress, or top. And any item of clothing that does not have a fastener, stays on, and is always comfortable? Sign me up.
Khan´s - a delicious barbeque restaurant in Arusha, one of the two towns at the base of Kilimanjaro. An auto parts store by day and outdoor barbecue by night, it was a lucky and appreciated find for four people who had not had meat in three weeks and were about to leave the next morning to climb Africa´s highest peak. The salad bar was included, and there were three sections to it-mild, spicy, and so spicy you will never be able to taste anything again. I did not even go near the third section, so my taste buds are still happily alive, but I don´t know that I can say as much for my three male companions.
Macuti - the dried gatherings of large leaves used to thatch the roofs of the huts in Amani village and all around the country. I mention it only because they are transported in bunches of ten, weighing about thirty five pounds a bunch, and each of us was required to carry one on our heads about half a mile downhill to the project site. It was such a cool experience, not to mention difficult, and being forced to transport something on my head only increased my awe for the Africans who carry buckets of water for miles atop their head, not even using their hands.
Mt. Kilimanjaro - the most difficult physical task of my life. I just met a guy in my hostel who said it was fun and a "breeze". I punched him out. Kidding. I am sure for some the summit climb did not produce the worst exhaustion ever experienced, but I am sadly, not one of those fortunate few. But I made it, and may appreciate it more so in my life because the wall I hit was dense and high, and I still got to the top, with a little help from my friends. Thank you Eli and John.
Papasi - one of the very few unfortunate aspects to Zanzibar. A "papasi" is a tout, a man who approaches you in the street and tries to sell you an activity, day trip, experience, you name it. They are not the proprietors of the tours, but act independently as go betweens, and expect a commission from the final cost if they succeed in getting you to sign up for whatever activity they are selling. Everyone has to earn a living, and after a while you get quite used to being approached no less than twenty times a day, where "no" only works the fifth or sixth time. But there are some that can be aggressive and manipulative, namely a drug addicted tout by the name of Krepsi. So word to the wise, be careful and selective in your dealings, and don´t be too wary of them as some are nice and decent and will give you a better deal on a tourist outing than going straight to the tour company.
Poa Kchizi Kama Ndizi/ Pole pole - it is Swahili for "cool as a banana", which can be translated into English idiom as "cool as a cucumber". The guides on Kilimanjaro taught it to us as the phrase they use to signify that all´s good, and when other porters and guides passed us and asked us how we were, we were told to say "poa kchizi kama ndizi". It always earned a laugh. Pole pole means "slowly slowly", and is the more famous of the Swahili words you learn while trekking up Kilimanjaro. The guides say it about every ten minutes, just to remind you to not walk too quickly and fall prey to altitude sickness. By the end of six days of "pole pole" every ten minutes, you are ready to kill the next person who utters those words.
Pongwe-if you ever get the chance to visit Zanzibar, your trip is not complete until you visit one of the eastern beaches of the island, be it Jambiani or Matamwe, or, in this case, Pongwe. More difficult to get to than many of the other beaches, Pongwe lies at the end of 5 kilometres of a bumpy and dusty dirt road off of the road to Kiwengwa, a more crowded version of Pongwe´s beach paradise. Deposited in Pongwe for four hours of perfect idle time, we discovered that we were the only three on the beach for the whole of the afternoon, and soon after making our way to the white soft sands, we were approached by the cook at the reserve we passed on the way in, who took our order for fish and chapati and told us it would be two hours until our food was ready. Any other time I would have balked at such a length of waiting time, but with the crystal turquoise waters beckoning in front of me, where it looked as if I could wade out a mile and still be up to my waist, which was close to the truth, I was not too worried about how I would make it until lunch. The water was warm and calming, and after six weeks of pretty intense physical activity, I could not imagine a better way to relax. At one point in my stroll through the ocean, I looked down and saw a huge blue starfish, clear as if I was looking through a window pane. Once back on land, after wading and floating in part silence and part conversation with my friends, I spread my khanga on the beach and read a book in the shade to avoid more blistering sunburns. Our lunch came with an appetizer of a plate of fresh cut pineapple, the sweetest I have ever tasted, and then the main course or freshly caught (meaning, literally, caught within the last hour) fish, fried, with scrumptous chapati, and a rich sauce of tomato, coconut, cumin and paprika spices, and onions. It will remain, for its original and perfect simplicity in an idyllic setting, one of the best meals I have eaten. I repeat, if you ever get the chance to pass a day at a beautiful and tranquil beach, seize it. It is even better in life than it is imagined.
Redd´s- well, there is really not much to say about Redd´s other than my life changed the day we met. Redd´s is a sort of cider, well, actually, a carbonated fruit ale, but a tastier alcoholic ambrosia has yet to pass my lips. It is manufactured in South Africa, but is sold all over Africa, and for me, it is almost worth the price of a ticket to get there just to have a few Redd´s.
Ugali - what glossary of key terms in Tanzania would be complete without a mention to ugali, the staple dish? Ugali has the appearance of a white ball of smashed up rice, thick enough to lay bricks with, and bland enough to feed a baby. It is nothing more than corn meal (maize) and water, and is rather difficult to take on its own in large amounts. It is usually eaten with beans or sauce, by picking off a small ball of it in the right hand, poking a indent in the side using the right thumb, and then scooping the beans/sauce into the indentation and eaten all as one bite. As a group we did not take to it very much, and I only ate it a few times while in Africa, but its ingredients are so prevalent there that you cannot help but see it on many a plate eaten by someone who grew up there.
Uji - the typical breakfast food served to us, it is like a grainier version of cream of wheat, and with a little added sugar, very good. At least, I thought it was very good. Come to think of it, I might be the only one who liked it enough to go back for second helpings, but then, I have always been a sucker for anything related to oatmeal.
Thanks for your time, folks! Hope you enjoyed the new words added to your vocabulary. Let me know what you think, and which word was your favorite, until then, I hope all is nzuri!
posted by Laura, aka "Nornabelle" @ 6:31 PM
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