Can I go on more about the food? Let me tell you, the food is tasty albeit a bit monotonous. For breakfast (chakula cha asabuhi) we have toast, a hard boiled egg, and porridge (made out of millet-it is tasteless, so Tanzanians add heaping spoonfuls of sugar to liven up the mud-colored mixture). Chai consists of tea (made with milk or water) and some finger foods. Sometimes there are these pieces of fried dough called andazi. If you eat them with sugar, they taste like a doughnut. If you eat them with salt, they taste like pretzels! There can also be fried plantains and something like a large fried won-ton filled with meat or vegetables. Chai is my favorite part of the day. Seriously America, you do not know what you are missing. For lunch (chakula cha mchana) we usually have rice, a spinach dish, meat (chicken or fish), and a fruit (plantains or watermelon). Soda is pretty self explanatory. Jason is pretty ecstatic as they serve Mountain Dew. What we eat with soda seems to vary. Today we had roasted nuts, the fried won-tons, and tomato sandwiches. Dinner (chakula cha jioni) is normally the same as lunch. So we are well fed.
Lest you imagine us living right now in a mud hut, let me tell you about our hostel. We have a nice, big bed with a mosquito net and fuchsia sheets, red carpet, a desk, a big yellow chair, a TV (have not turned it on yet), air conditioning (we are lucky-the other volunteers have dubbed our room "the honeymoon suite-it's super safi (nice!)), a cold shower (the best part of waking up?), sink, and a Western toilet. We expect much less when we go to live with our host family on Thursday, but we are content.
Besides all of our lessons, we have also had two excursions outside our beautiful compound walls-one into downtown Dar es Salaam and one to the Peace Corps Office. For the visit to Dar our group of 42 education volunteers was split up into smaller groups with a Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF) as our leader. We road a daladala (little mini-buses) into town, then walked to a kanga (a wrap skirt) shop where I bought a pretty dark blue and white kanga with the assistance of my LCF. I then had the kanga tailored. There are little shops all over selling everything you could ever imagine. And if you want to make a purchase, you need to muscle your way to the shop owner and be aggressive, as Tanzanians really do not form lines. They are very polite in every other way, although I should not impose my American idea of politeness on the Tanzania. From the tailor shop we saw different sights in Dar, including the Indian Ocean! Lunch was rice and beans at the YWCA. Our daladala ride home was interesting, as the daladala became packed full of us and Tanzanians! I would not want to drive in Dar, as the traffic is a nightmare, even with uniformed traffic officers guiding all the buses, daladalas, motorcycles, bajajs (three-wheeled vehicles), and bicycles.
At the Peace Corps office we met all of the administrators for Peace Corps Tanzania. We toured the offices and walked the grounds. It was a wonderful day and we had the best chai and lunch while there.
We have one more day left here in Dar before we head to our homestay family up north. We are excited and nervous, as we do not know much Kiswahili at the moment. We have focused on greetings, as greeting are very important in Tanzanian culture. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers! We miss you all!
Baadaye!
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| The Training Center grounds are so pretty! I love the colorful buildings |
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| One of the huts where we have language lessons with our LCF |
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