This One Time, In Tanzania...

A few years from now, when I’m back home with friends and family, and someone brings up goats, xray machines, lizards, mangos, deathbeds, basketball, Nelly, doctors, buses, drunk nuns, the devil, or the dougie… I won’t have to say ‘this one time in Tanzania.’  I can simple refer back to this post about my first month at site.

-I ate fried goat gizzards with pilau and goat grease drizzled on top.  All while squatting next to a thorn tree, in the bush, with a bunch of Kimasai men.  I was admiring their single red cloths, canes and gaged ears, and they were deep in discussion about who would marry that tall, white mzungu.  That one time, on a hot January day, in Tanzania.

-I cut 40 Tanzanians in line to get an x-ray.  This was after the regional hospital had no electricity to take the picture and before I traveled via land cruiser on a dirt road, mid-rainy season, bumping my arm the whole way.  The result was a grainy, two-picture masterpiece, given to me via poop hand, sans envelope.  That one time, I took an x-ray with all metal jewelry still intact, while squatting on the floor of a very well lit room, in Tanzania.

- Olly ate a lizard that was bigger than him.  Whole.  It was turquoise and orange.  This one time, my cat wanted attention, in Tanzania.

-I successfully baked mango (in season) and ginger bread using a two sufaria and stones homemade oven.  Bake time=3 episodes of Modern Family.  Eat time=1/2 of an episode of Modern Family (it was delicious).  This one time, I was feeling domestic, in Tanzania.

-I played a full court basketball game with a bunch of dudes at the University nearby, to a crowd of 30+ more dudes.  The court happens to be outside the men’s dormitory….  White person+ woman+ high scorer=what the HECK?!  The court also had ‘Barack Obama was here’ spray painted on it.  This one time, I screamed ‘in your eye’ in Kiswahili, in Tanzania.

-Every day I sit, chatting with Mama Amina (aka my Dodoma Mama), looking white and American, while the doctors at the hospital argue over who’s going to buy me a soda and chapati today.  This one time, I told a bunch of doctors over and over that I was taken, in Tanzania.

-When two buses become one because it’s the rainy season and one bus can’t make it in the mud, you’ve got yourself a dala dala for a 7 hour bus ride.  Squished between two mamas, and two babies just young enough not to have their own seat, but just old enough to touch you with their snotty hands and change their poopy kanga diapers on you 5 times.  I’m pretty sure I was squeezed in so tight I could count the change in one mama’s pocket (700 Tsh).  This one time, I made two babies cry because they were petrified sitting next to a white person, in Tanzania.

-Mama Amina was playing some American music and I asked her if she knew how to dougie?  Obviously she didn’t, so I proceeded to teach her how to dougie, in the jikoni, to the delight of the men on staff at the hospital who were watching us and laughing in a distance.  This one time, I got jiggy with it, in Tanzania.

Mama Amina

-This Mama told me, ‘njoo!’  So I followed her off the bus.  She put me in a car, drove me to a duka (where she had me leave my stuff), took me to a sunflower oil shop where we snacked on seeds, showed me off to the people in town as her ‘new best friend,’ stopped by her family’s home, made me ugali and goat while her brother told me I should start a fruit juice business in Tanga, had me greet dying Bibi in the next room, took me to a hostel for free soda, bought me embe at the sokoni, took me to the local bar and bought me beers, returned to the duka to get my things that were magically safe, and made sure I got to my hostel and settled in for the night.  In that order.  This one time, I followed a Mama because she told me to, in Tanzania.

-I received a welcome party from a village that included a feast of rabbit, goat, chicken, and pilau.  Along with entertainment of a comedy-central style roast of the new nun in town (to which she awkwardly sat through, quietly, nearly in tears), two priests joking about climbing and drinking Kilimanjaro, a Kimasai sitting in the corner downing Kanyogi packets, and a drunken dance off between the nuns (post-numerous party fouls).  This one time, New Years Day, in Tanzania.

Loolera

-Meck: “Auntie, unajua shetani?”  Me: “Do I know the devil?  No, why do you ask?”  Meck: “No reason!”  This one time, my neighbor boy asked me if I knew the devil, in Tanzania

-A teacher at the nursing school invited me to her house on my way home to hang out.  She promptly pulled out her American music videos which she felt was super hip and American of her to do.  This one time, I watched Nelly and Puff Daddy (because they were so old he was still called that) music videos for an hour, in Tanzania.