A week is a long time in Africa. I was also reading Earnest Heminway’s ‘True at First Light’ which is semi-autobiographical about his time with one of his wives in Africa. He says in it that a year in Africa is like two years anywhere else in the impact it has on your wisdom. I agree with him.
Within a week I knew how to catch the local transport, knew where to eat, had phone numbers of three taxi drivers, knew the local greetings, and knew that I was a Mzungu.
A Mzungu is the word that is used to describe any westerner. You get used to it being yelled out to you but you never get used to it being yelled to you because you’re different. Interestingly, the root of the word Mzungu comes from the same word for confused. When you ask Tanzanians about this, they just smile.
I thought that after a couple of weeks people would start to get used to me being around. That I would start to blend in, if not in looks, but just in daily repetition. I was wrong. I was a Mzungu until I got back on the plane and that makes me a celebrity. You get attention everywhere you go. Every time. Every day. And it weighs down on you. You start to ‘deal with it’.
Dealing with Celebrity Status
- First week – overwhelmed, stop and listen, but polite rejection of request for money.
- Second week – I get it now, no thanks, straight out rejection. Plus you can speak enough now to say it so they know that you are not a tourist.
- Third week – Ignorance is bliss, don’t even acknowledge them, keep walking.
- Fourth week – OK, enough. Aggressive rejection. “HAPANA. Habari za schule? Twende. Hapana, schule humna pesa. Twende schule!!!!”. ‘NO. How is school? No, school is free. Go to school!!!.”
Then you cycle through the options based on your moods. It sounds harsh, and we all talked about the realities of it. The fact that we are relatively very rich, but there was something about us coming to Africa to do volunteer work that we felt gave us the right to feel poor. XXXX
Mamma Happy was different. She was the lady who ran the home stay where I lived for three and a half months. She wasn’t exactly like the African Mamma that you picture, but not too far off. She is probably about forty years old, and mid sized, not a huge mamma like some of them are. She wears blouses with a kanga, which is a cloth covered with a colourful print or pattern. She also wore either a big smile or a concerned scowl. She had some challenges.
It’s funny thinking about Mamma Happy’s difficult life, because it is not difficult in terms of food, clothing and shelter. It’s complicated, busy and sensitive. Mamma Happy ran the home stay where there were multiple borders, volunteers, a house girl and work to be done. It was a business and she ran it well, being efficient and diligent, as well as planning for the future and growing.
She also played a role of community wise woman. Young mothers would bring their problems to the door and depending upon the situation or the person, it would be solved sharply on the stoop, or be taken inside to sit with. Family problems also seemed Mamma’s domain. Everyone was a brother or sister, whether by law or three steps removed and everyone’s problems were shared.
I only saw Babba Happy, the husband, on two occasions. He lived and worked in the capital, Dar es Salaam and came back for the rare weekend. Mamma Happy was usually stoic, but occasionally you could see the look of sadness, loneliness and disappointment on her face. The cultural differences when it came to family were perhaps the most difficult to understand.
Mamma Happy was named after her youngest daughter Happiness. The tradition is for the mother to be named after the eldest or youngest daughter. I think the father is named after the eldest son. 
Happiness lived in the same house as me and I think in the same room as Mamma Happy. She was about nine years old, going to a local school and seemingly very happy. She had a number of friends who lived close to her, and the she enjoyed the fruits of her mothers hard work. Happiness had two sisters who lived with their father in Dar who I never met.
Mamma was a good woman and in the early days we used to have lots of talks. One of my prejudices was that Africans don’t travel the world because they can’t afford it. Mostly this is true, but Mamma Happy had travelled with her brother when he was an ambassador and Tanzania was communist. In the sixties, communism spread through Africa, being pushed by Lenin and the Chinese, and Tanzania adopted a form of socialism that would lead to economic disaster and food shortages. Mamma Happy visited Russia so her brother could be educated, and they also visited France and Italy before returning home.
She had also had volunteers from around the world for more than two years, and it all added up to an interested worldly view. She was particularly interested in the Australian Aboriginals. She wanted to know what they looked like, how they lived and how they got on with Australians. It was quite a confronting conversation given that I knew that my knowledge was limited, as was my opinions. It was hard for me to articulate and it was hard for Mamma to understand that the Aborigines are a very small minority when it was their country. She asked around the question of whether they were wiped out, and I spoke about the near genocide, less than 140 years ago. I felt like an ignorant, colonial Mzungu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Aborigine
Along with the deep conversations, life at the homestay was good, and much better than I expected. To begin with, Mamma Happy spoke excellent English, as did Happiness, but they both pushed my Kiswahili every day. There was also a toilet. It didn’t flush, and it didn’t have a toilet seat, but it was better than a hole in the ground.
There was also a shower, and Mamma hoped it would work in a year or two. We showered with a bucket of warm water provided every morning. For some reason we never had night showers even though we were filthy with mud and dust. You would tip a plastic cup full of water over your head, wash with soap, and then tip more water over your head to rinse off. I never appreciated a shower head as much, but you get used to it and it starts to have the same soothing effect. My routine also included underwear washing from the day before. African norms say that you don’t hang your underwear outside, so I’d wash mine after washing myself and hang it in my room.
My room was also luxurious compared to my expectations and to other volunteers. I had a proper bed with the typical foam mattress. My pillow was a brick, but I bought a new one for two dollars. I had a 
desk, a seat, a chair and a string with five coat hangers. It was small, but more than enough for my backpack and I.
The house had three bedrooms, one for Mamma Happy and Happiness, one for Kevin, another volunteer and one for me. There was also a store room right next to the kitchen that the house girl lived in, which was tiny, barely fitting a bed. The lounge room was decorated with pictures of Mamma and Babba, as well as calendars and pictures of past volunteers. It was furnished with a table with four seats for dinner and four chairs covered in coloured macramé. The chairs faced a reasonable sized TV and video recorder.
I didn’t expect to see TV for four months and was not bothered in the slightest. The family watched TV every night, including a couple of news programs and some comedy shows about drunk guys yelling and beating people up. All the Tanzanians would laugh uproariously but I never quite got it. Seeing the look of confusion on my face, someone would invariably point to the TV and say something like “He is very stupid.”
They also watched a lot of videos, with the content varying. They seemed to have a library with four genres.
- Gospel Music – Rose Muhando singing Hallelujah, and other church songs.
- Kids movies – Spongebob Squarepants, Harry Potter or the Lion King.
- B-Grade True Stories – a husband and wife go to Romania to raise orphans, a man joins the Foreign Legion to escape America or a lady, played by Sally Field, is trapped in the Middle East with her Islamic husband.
- Violent Action Flicks – Predator, Bloodsports or other movie with fighting and death.
Regardless of the movie, the room was always silent and everyone looked bored, whether they were watching a cartoon or a kickboxing fest. It is also strange to watch Lion King in Africa. It’s a great movie, but the sense that there is more life just outside your door has never felt stronger. It is like that Leunig cartoon where the dad and son are watching a sunset on TV when there is a sunset out the window.
http://www.curlyflat.net/
One of my favourite things about the house was a big map of the world on the wall next to the dinner table. Every breakfast and dinner I’d look over the map, and read the extra bits about the size, 
population, and density of each country. It was a good way to learn some geography and I vowed to get more maps in more houses during my life, or at least make sure one is in mine.
The house was made of twelve centimetre concrete walls, painted orange, white or light blue, as they all are. There was a tin roof that I loved in the rain and hated on hot nights. A garden was being nurtured around the house, including thirty or so paint tins and other vessels holding plants of different kinds. Beyond the garden was a compound of dirt and rocks, bordered by other houses and rubbish.
Strewn plastic bags and other garbage, this was one of my issues with Arusha. I went through stages with it. Initially I was just shocked that there was so much rubbish. Then Mamma Happy told me that there are no facilities to get rid of rubbish. That even if people collected it, that they would then just have to throw it in the street or stream. I had taken our garbage collection services for granted. It is easy for me to say that when I put the bin out and the rubbish is collected that my job is done. Later in my stay, I changed my mind. I took the opinion that whilst it is difficult at first, if it is important then you will find a way. The reason why my town had a good garbage collection service was that someone once said that they didn’t want garbage in the streets anymore.
This was one of the issues that I felt combined with others to reduce pride in the town and led to a vicious circle of apathy. In the town of Moshi nearby, the streets were much cleaner and the people of the town seemed much happier. They didn’t have better facilities or more money, they just did something about it. I remember once in Arusha walking with Christoff, a boarder at Mamma Happy’s, and talking about the rubbish. Then he just dropped a plastic bag on the ground. I couldn’t believe it, but knew that whilst I’d been talking, I hadn’t taught him anything. Although Christoff taught me to say ‘tunavook bara bara’, which meant ‘let’s cross the road’.
Apart from garbage, life in Africa is dirty. The streets were tarred in the town and the main roads from the airport to the safari parks were in good condition, but all other roads were rough. Every day you 
and everything of yours would be covered in dirt and dust and after the first week, when you graduate as a veteran, you barely notice. I remember one of the previous volunteers had written a ‘life in Arusha’ email and it said ‘just get comfortable with the fact that you will be dirty the entire time you are there’.
I did one load of washing myself. It is part of my general philosophy that if you are going to pay someone to do something, you will appreciate it more if you have done it yourself at least once. This was the most compelling example of the principle ever. Washing a single t-shirt by hand is tough. Washing trousers, three shirts, four pairs of socks and a pair of shorts is a days job for a manicured office boy like me. Two buckets of water, some cloth, a sachet of Foma soap and start scrubbing. Washing machines were high on my ‘I miss’ list.
Subsequent washing was done by the house girls Ana or Rahema. Ana, the first house girl, was very shy, but pretty. She really loved living and working with Mamma Happy who spent time talking to her and teaching her things such as cooking and Kiswahili. With only a language barrier separating us, we may have become friends, but there was a subservience to me as a guest, a man and as a Mzungu which made it impossible in the short time I was there to form a friendship. Ana had to leave us in December to go back to her village near Tanga as her mother was sick. We gave her a good tip and I gave her a picture I’d had printed of Mamma Happy and her. It was a sad day for everyone.
Rahema, the second house girl was different. She was confident and talkative. It took her a week to start making fun of Kevin and I, mimicking our voices or just laughing at us when we did normal things in our Mzungu ways. She also didn’t speak English, but had less of a barrier up between us. I got the impression that Mamma Happy would have preferred her to be more like Ana, but ever she would laugh at the antics.
Weekly washing of all my clothes would cost 2,000 Tanzanian shillings, or about US$2. This was the going rate and Mamma Happy probably would have done it for free if she wasn’t trying to grow the home stay. Looking at it now, it feels like sweatshop labour, but when you pay 50 shillings for a banana and 150 shillings for a dalla dalla ride it makes sense.
Dalla Dalla’s were a part of the culture. They are mini vans that have seating for fifteen people comfortably. However, there is no law in Tanzania restricting passengers per vehicle, so the business minded conductor made sure that full was full. Sometimes more than 25 people were squeezed in. As one of the ‘extra’ passengers, you either stood stooped with your head banging against the roof, half hanging out the door holding onto what ever part of the van you thought least likely to fall off, or completely hanging out the door.
Adding to the fun of the squash game was the ever present pickpocket. So you had to somehow also hold onto any bag or money that you may have on you. These guys were fast and normally you didn’t even notice that you were ‘done’. I don’t think I ever was, but I usually carried most money in a money belt and had my bag padlocked.
Fortunately you were distracted from the lack of personal space and pickpockets by the reckless driving. The more trips you do, the more money you make, so each driver goes as fast as possible. There are no real laws about overtaking or speeding, so it is every driver for themselves. The good seats were those where you were at the back of the van and had your view of the upcoming intersection obscured.
The Dalla Dalla industry was huge, and to own one was a great investment. Money changed hands from passengers, to conductors, to drivers, to guys in the streets with blue vests and little pieces of paper. It was somehow organised. Each region had a different colour and each conductor would yell their final location as they clung to the side of the van. I remember my first day when I was left at a stop with the guy showing me around saying “Just get on the one that is going to “kajeng banana.” Or that is what I heard anyway?
It seemed like Dalla Dalla drivers who were too crazy got to drive buses. After seeing the first crash, I was wary and as often as I could I told every bus driver “Please drive safely, my life is in your hands.” Sometimes they would say “Yes, of course” and sometimes “OK”, but mostly they would just nod, both of us knowing that there was no communication going on. I felt better about it. A little bit anyway.
I never got comfortable on buses. They scared the shit out of me and I couldn’t help looking out the front windscreen and saying “Oh my god” or yelling “Pole pole” which means slowly. There were times when we were overtaking a truck on the wrong side of the road, around a blind corner and a souped up four wheel drive would over take us. Three cars going the one way on a single lane road in bad condition. They all had a death wish and unfortunately they were the only way to get around.
So I walked as often as I could. Healthier, and as long as you didn’t get hit by an errant Dalla Dalla, it was safer too. One of my fondest memories was walking home from town each day. I’d walk along Old Moshi Road, past nut vendors and the guys who sold pot plants. Past the AICC clinic and the Everest Chinese restaurant. The shady side of the road depending on what time it was.
There would always be hundreds of people walking up and down Old Moshi Road. Only the rich or taxi drivers had cars, and a few people had bikes, so walking was the way you got around. Old Mammas and their daughters carrying baskets on their heads as if they were light as a feather. Groups of men in collared shirts walking slowly. Children in bright school uniforms, girls and boys with short hair.
My route took me up to the Impala Circle, the round about next to the fancy Impala Hotel, with the rough soccer pitch next to it. Then I walked up into Kijenge Chini, which means the down part of the Kijenge suburb. It was a busy intersection of people, taxi’s, dalla dallas, hair salons and other shops. Every day I walked past every taxi driver would rush to their cars expecting that I wanted a lift because I was Mzungu. Initially I was scared to walk past this area because it was so busy and crazy, but I got used to it.
After the madness was the sawmill which looked like a noisy ant colony, with people rushing everywhere and piles of wood in random spots. I don’t know if they worked shifts, but half the men seemed to be working hard and the other half were not working at all.
Down the hill past the notorious Colobus Niteclub, so serene during the day and so nuts at night. The big right hand turn off towards Kijenge Mwanama, pronounced Mwa-nar-ma (OK that didn’t’ help much did it). From here on in I was a local celebrity. “Mzungu, Mzungu!” with occasional kids following all the way home. Down the hill past the bar that is also a car wash. Over the bridge where a bunch of volunteers had been robbed late at night. It was also where the water was, and nearly twenty four hours a day people would be filling buckets.
Over the bridge and up the hill past more hair salons, a couple of Internet cafés and Big Sister bar, the local hang out where you could get beer, chicken and chips with your game of pool. My Internet café was opposite, where the lovely ladies were who looked after me and put up with me burning disks and telling them how to fix the network. I really miss those ladies.
A big left hand turn, or kushoto XXX and we were almost home. Here I was a regular, but still a Mzungu. Some people even knew my name, and neighbours kids would want to hold your hand, or grab your shirt and follow you home. Walking past the local toilets that you smelt before you saw and overflowed during rain. Past Peter’s, my tailor, a good man who never overcharged me. Past a teachers college that was a shack and a room where the girls would practice their English and then giggle as they hid their faces. Past the last fruit and vegetable stand where bananas hung, and spinach wilted in the sun.
Another left and a quick right and you’re on the lane home. Here you were known. The first kid who saw you got the honour of yelling “MZUNGU!!” to the other kids. Then the madness would begin as they ran from all directions. If Kevin and I were walking together it felt like New Years Eve. If you were in a good mood, you’d pick them up, one at a time and put them down gently. Then you’d admonish the kid who pushed their little sister to the ground to go next, but they never quite understood why it was a bad thing.
Plucking children off your clothing like thorns, you pushed open the wooden gate, covered partly by many pieces of corrugated iron in varies degrees of rust and decay. Safety in the compound. Sometimes a few kids would be playing here and you’d ask about school. Walking down the side of the house and coming out to the back area was coming home.
I loved that walk home. It was something about it more than a safari or eating beans that made me feel like I was not only in Africa but that I was, in some small way, being African.
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