Give Thanks

Tanzania does not celebrate Thanksgiving-it is just another day.  Jason and I both teach on Thursdays, so we will be spending the day in class.  Many Peace Corps volunteers get together on American holidays, but Jason and I will have to miss our region’s get-together so this past weekend we headed down to Tukuyu to visit our friend Beth and celebrate Thanksgiving together.  What does a Tanzanian Thanksgiving look like, you ask?  I will show you.

We planned on having chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls, peas, and an apple cobbler.  Miraculously, everything came together and our Thanksgiving dinner was a success!  First off, all of us were too, well, chicken to go through the whole process of killing a chicken.  We had a mama do the killing and the cooking for us.  A mama also helped us start our peas, as the electricity was out and we only had Beth’s charcoal jiko to cook on.  Eventually we ended up with two jikos and we were really cooking!  Once dinner was all cooked we sat down and ate ourselves into food comas.  We enjoyed the fellowship with Beth-we played games and tossed a Frisbee around with some of the kids who live at Beth’s school.  It was a wonderful Thanksgiving day.

 

Me cooking over the charcoal jikos-we had to have help to get them started as they are hard to light

Our Thanksgiving table-Beth set the table so pretty!

Jason is very excited to dig in to the good food

Looking at the picture makes me hungry all over again!  Such good food!

Jason playing Frisbee with the neighborhood kids

 

Being in Tanzania these past few months has helped me to appreciate the simple and small things in life.  We don’t have much, but what we have is enough and I am truly thankful.  I thought I would share some of the things I am thankful for this year:

• The view of the mountains I have while hand-washing my laundry
• Water-and not even clean water, as we cannot drink what comes out of the tap until we boil it, but I am so thankful for water when it is around
• Family and good friends both near and far, far away
• My students, who make every day worth the struggle of living in a culture different from my own
• Spices-they make beans and rice so much more interesting
• Our gas stove-so useful when the power goes out
• My husband-for following God’s call and leading us to Tanzania
• For the opportunity to live a life full of adventure and service!

Peace,

Heather

Chef Jason

I am a very blessed woman-my husband loves to cook.  And he is a very good cook.  Here in Tanzania we have to be creative when it comes to dinner time.  At our local market we can find tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, bell pepper, cucumbers, avocados, bananas, fruit that is in season (right now it is mango season!), corn, potatoes, wheat, rice, and every type of bean that you could ever imagine.  There are also all types of leaves that Tanzanians like to cook in oil, as well as peanuts that you roast yourself.  And spaghetti noodles (where would we be without pasta?).  So behold the creations of Chef Jason-made from scratch and mostly local.

Banana bread with black tea is our staple breakfast.  We used to have wonderful loose leaf tea from Irente Biodiversity Reserve in Lushoto, but we enjoyed it too much and it is now gone.  Now we enjoy a cup of Chai Bora with our freshly made banana bread.

One of the first meals Jason perfected was spaghetti with tomato sauce.  Good old comfort food sometimes served with a side of parachichi for me.

Jason tried another variation on pasta-peanut noodles!  We can buy peanut butter at the store on campus and it has saved our lives (not really, but we are thankful for peanut butter).  We serve our peanut noodles with grated carrots and cucumber.  So refreshing and tasty!

This meal is one of my creations.  Chef Heather serves up roasted potatoes with local vegetables and rosemary.  I plan on growing a little rosemary bush on our back balcony to have fresh rosemary available.

One day Chef Jason marched to the local butcher in search of meat.  Our butcher shop consists of a little room that is tiled with identifiable and unidentifiable parts of cows and goats and mystery meat hanging from the ceiling.  Jason brought back some mystery meat for this delightful stir fry made with tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, and soy sauce.

Tonight's meal was homemade pizza.  We made the dough and sauce and a fancy store in Mbeya provided the cheese.  Served with an ice-cold Tangawizi (a type of ginger ale soda made by Coca Cola) a bad evening can turn into a good evening.

And now I am off to go grade quizzes.  Enough procrastinating for me.  Until next time,

Peace,
Heather

Better Homes and No Garden-Tanzania Edition

Welcome to our home in Mbeya, Tanzania!  We have a two bedroom apartment with a view of the local mountains from our living room windows and front balcony.  Jason and I have spent time cleaning and organizing and now we have have a very livable home.  We still have some things we would like to purchase, but for the most part we are all settled in and can welcome guests into our home.  Karibu!

When you first enter our home, you will be welcomed into our living room.  We have maps of Tanzania and the world decorating our walls at the moment.  We have a nice selection of books left by the previous volunteer in our bookcase.  Jason and I sit and play games at the coffee table most every night.

Up next is our kitchen!  We have a nice, big kitchen in which to prepare our meals.  We have a little stove that has both electric and gas burners (the gas is very nice when the power is out) and a little oven.  We have a kitchen sink, but I need to do dishes in basins as the sink has no stopper and the water is not usually on anyway.  Jason and I bought a refrigerator a couple of weeks ago and it has been so nice to have cold water to drink.  On top of the refrigerator is our drinking water, which we collect from the bathroom sink, then boil to make it safe to drink.

Our bathroom!  We have a shower room with a shower that spills cold water, so we normally take bucket baths.  We have a toilet room with a Western toilet!  The downside of the Western toilet is that it really only flushes when the water is on.  And lastly we have a little sink area where we can store our buckets of water.  We have water ~3 times per day, so we need to collect and store the water in order to have it when we need it.

This is our guest bedroom.  We have two almost twin-sized beds, and a chair.  Come visit us!

Our bedroom!  We have a large, king-sized bed with the most amazing, fuzzy blanket on which Jason has bestowed the title of "Beauty and the Beast Blanket" as it is purple with pink roses that look like the forbidden rose in "Beauty and the Beast."  We have a big wardrobe in which to store our clothes and not pictured is a little vanity with a big mirror on which we store our toiletries.  Our bedroom windows look out over the mountains.

Attached to the guest bedroom is a little balcony that gets plenty of sun.  I hope to grow a bucket garden here one day soon.  The first balcony picture looks west to the eucalyptus forest and the farms upon which the teachers cultivate their maize.  The second picture looks east to more staff housing and the university beyond.  We are happy to call Mbeya and Mbeya University of Science and Technology our home for the next two years!

Peace,
Heather and Jason