So What Do You say?

Hey everyone…..

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the season change. While most of you will be pulling out your long sleeves and down comforters, I will be wiping a little more sweat from my brow and sleeping in less clothing. Well, I thought I would make this entry an interactive one, giving each of you a chance to express yourselves. Below I’ve listed some “situations” that I may have been faced with in the past couple of months. I would like you openly express what you would do in each of these situations. Now, I’m not prepared to tell you upfront what my choices were, you may think differently of me…..LOL. Oh, and be honest, we’re all family here, right?

1. It’s 9pm, pitch black outside, and you only have ½ pail of water left until tomorrow morning when your house girl brings more. You’ve been walking in the heat all day so really want and need to bathe, your cat wont even come close to you because you’re a little ranky. You haven’t eaten all day and have a choice of rice or beans to cook for dinner, both of which require, yup u guessed it, a ½ pail of water. If only you had stopped at the Wal-mart super center on your way home you wouldn’t be in this bind but…you are so what will you do…..?

2. An elder in the neighborhood has invited you over for lunch and you finally accepted, everyone in the village, I mean community, knows that you DON’T EAT MEAT, she even told you what she was cooking the day she invited you, not a fleshy morsel on the menu. So you arrive hungry as hell because you don’t really have any food at your house besides 2 bananas that you are saving for a late night snack and dagaa (dried sardines), which you use as cat food. You wash your hands sit down and the first pot she uncovers is kiti moto, also known as fried pork. O.k. you’re not the only one eating so you just pass the pan to the right. The next pot smells great and looks like, oh beef and veggies, you pass that one along too. The last pot you cant wait to get to because everyone else is already digging in and so you uncover it and what do we have here….Da-freakin-gaa, the cat food! Prepared with lots of oil, tomatoes and onions, no rice, not even ugali (grits). So what do you do……?
Side note-(Depending on what you chose to do with your ½ pail of water the night before you may be very hungry)

3. You come into the office one morning, the village office, where all of the major decisions take place in the community. The Village executive officer is listening to a man and a woman who seem to be very upset. You attempt to apply your Swahili and determine what the problem is. The man and woman are married, have 3 kids, wait she has 2 kids, his other wife has a child….ok, the other wife has a farm nearby in the village, he lives between the 2 homes which is not uncommon in TZ culture. The man is cool, calm and collect. However, this lady is really upset and wants to leave her husband, which doesn’t normally happen in Tanzanian culture. The first wife is upset because her husband is helping the second wife in the rice fields more than he is helping her. He spent 4 hours with the other wife on the farm and only spent 1 hour last week helping her. She says that all of the other women in the village are talking about their situation and she is embarrassed and wants it to stop. Their last resort is to come to the village office and have this situation squared away. Did I mention it was 8am and you thought you were coming to the village office to do serious Peace Corps work. After almost an hour of non-stop bickering about how many more bags of rice the 2nd wife harvested than the 1st wife because the husband helps more days and hours a week, everyone in the office turns their attention to the smart, fair, diverse American….oh wait that’s me. The Village Executive officer does not know how to handle this situation and suggests that their Peace Corps Volunteer step in and solve the problem. So you say……

Ok so I cant wait to see how you handle these situations….

Word of the day:
Swahili=nyama
English=meat

Love,
Shani C.