The First Visit

After 3 weeks in Dar es Salaam, just for the next 5 days though, I am finally leaving here to my assignment site.
As I have mentioned, I'll be visiting my work place for the first time to talk to the principal and the fellow teachers and students and to discuss about some logistical and administrave issues such as my housing, and the grades and subjects I will teach.
I'll be back to Dar on Saturday, continue withe my Kiswahili lessons for another week and I'm then off to the site again to start teaching.
I found out that there are several internet cafes at my site so no problem on internet accessibility.
I'm happy to finally be out of Dar and to see the other parts of Tanzania!

Culture Session

On top of the Kiswahili lessons, everyday we have an hour of culture session where the Kiswahili teachers teach us about various aspect of Tanzanian culture such as mannerisms at work place, among friends tothe elders etc.

Two days ago we had a session on the Tanzanian perception of Japan andits people. The teachers listed what Tanzanians in general think about Japanese and it goes something like this;

1. Japanese people are so rich that their main concern is how to spend the enormous amount of money they have. (this probably applies to any foreigners coming here, because the fact that we use airplanes to comehere makes us be percieved as rich according to my Kiswahili teacher)

2. They love taking pictures. (Classic!)

3. All the Japanese are fond of computers, car maintenace and electronics. They can fix those items if they stop working. (This onecomes from the fact that pretty much every car we see here areJapanese and same goes for electronics)

4. Because Japan is rich, everyone has a car. Tanzanians may besurprised if we take Daladala (a microbus form of common publictransport), and if they see us walking they'll think we're justexercising.

5. Japan has the highly advanced technology. (This one also is aclassic, I guess)

6. They only wear Kimono, and likes to conserve their culture a lot.(no surprises here as well)

Among some typically formulated stereotypes around the globe, I found the following to be quite interesting.

7. Japanese people work so hard (well, so far so good), and they NEVER take a break or get tired. (My teacher exaggeratingly added, if they see you taking a break or getting tired, they won't think you're from Japan.)

8. Every Japanese knows Kung-fu, Karate, Judo, Kendo or some other martial arts and they are extremely good at it. Tanzanians will bereally scared of you when you take the Karate fighting stance. On top of this, Tanzanians consider Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan as Japanese!(not sure how they got this one)

Now, I haven't been engaged in long enough conversations with manyTanzanians yet to find out how much of this people seriously beleive in. Like any stereotypes about anyone, there're some truth and mis-concieved ideas to it.One thing the teachers emhpasized was that whether you fall into any of these stereotypes or not, people around you in your town/village and at work, to some extent will look at you through these ideas. I'm not sure whether the people whom I'll meet will be disappointed with me without Kimono, knowledge of cars and electronics and expertise in matrial arts, but regardless of where you are, I know for the fact, that there're always some people accepting you the way you are and I hope to meet them again in where I'll be.

Photos: Food, Classroom and Accomodation

Pilau and Mchuzi wa Kuku (Rice and Chicken Stew)
My Kiswahili Classroom
Looking over the main entrance of Salvation Army. Each of us llives in small cottages to the left.
My cottage
Inside

Intensive Kiswahili Session 1

I'm writing this at an internet cafe close to the facility we stay and take Kiswahili lessons, hence I've got limited amount of time.

Briefly, here're the updates;

1. we moved out of our somewhat luxurious volunteer dormitory and checked into the Salvation Army Territorial headquater two days ago where we stay for four weeks and take intensive Kiswahili lessons and leanrn more about the Tanzanian culture. In my class (which is internediate because I've done the two months of fundamental Kiswahili at the training in Japan), we started right into the free-way conversations on various specific topics, and slowly though, I'm getting to be in a good shape.

2. For the third week of our program, each of us will make a trip to our respective volunteer sites and talk to the colleagues or supervisors(we call them counterparts) to decide specifically what each of us will be doing.

3. This part of the city has relatively calm and relaxed atomosphere compared to where the dormitory was. People seem more friendly and relaxed. Even though we're still in Dar es Salaam, we are starting to witness the Tanzanian culture of emhpasis on greeting and talking with the strangers inside the facility/on the road which apparently is more prominent in other parts of the country.

Please be patient about the photos. I've taken a few and will upload them when I have a chance to, but in general it takes ages to upload photos with the current internet situation here.

Chakula cha Tanzania (Tanzanian Food)

First of all, I’ve been doing pretty well for the past couple of days here in Dar. We have a rough internet connection (and this is supposed to be pretty good for Tanzanian standard) here at the volunteer dormitory but things are good so far.

So, here’s the story of my first encounter with the Tanzanian food.

Muslims make up a significant minority in Tanzania especially on the Indian coast. (I'm really excited to experience pieces of the Islamic culture here during my service by the way) Hence they had Ramadan in during the last month and the day we arrived marked the last day of it. This delayed our introduction into the local Tanzanian life for the first two days because most of the local shops and restaurants were closed for the Islamic holiday with the city center and dala dala (a form of popular public transportation) much less crowded than they would be on regular days.
We had to get started on our orientations in downtown office though. So what we had eaten during these two days for lunch were Subway (yes, they do have Subways over here) and at an Italian restaurant which were open for the tourists. Both of them were ridiculously expensive (you have to pay the same price in Tanzanian Shillings you would pay for a sandwich for a meal of pasta back in the West/Japan).

So yesterday, we were very happy to finally have a slice of the local life.

Some people went to an area in downtown called Kariakoo which is a vibrant local market place also famous for frequent pickpockets.
I and two others decided to hang around in our neighborhood and went to this moderately priced local restaurant for chakula cha Tanzania. I was told, by my Kiswahili teacher during the training in Japan, about a lot of good things about the Tanzanian food and it didn’t take much to confirm what she said. The food here is amazingly good! I had a plate of beef pilau (a rice dish cooked with spices and meat), kachumbari (tomato and onion salad tasted only with squeezed lemon juice and salt, but this has become my favorite!) and mchuzi wa kuku (chicken stew). I had doubted a little about the food here for the first two days because all I had eaten out then was Italian BMT and lasagna, but one bite of pilau and kachumbari was enough to get rid of my unsettling thoughts.

Just like ramen/soba noodles in Japan and Romados chicken and buffalo wings in the US/Canada, I guess I was successfully able to find my favorite staples here in Tanzania.

PS
I’m regretting to announce that I haven’t taken many photos here yet. What I was told was that people here are sensitive about being photographed, and that I need extra caution when and where to take my camera out and go nuts. I know I have to start photographing soon because I have already seen so many good moments and I’m sure within a month or so what’s entertaining will be a norm for me.