All is quiet on the home front. The “mass exodus” of the students for their mid-term break was yesterday. Todd got up at 5 am to get them all to the bus stop for them to all begin their several hour ride home to their villages. You could feel the excitement in the air the day before. They were all ready for a much needed break, not to mention how ready they were to see their family and friends. They will be back in 3 weeks eager to begin their 2nd phase of training. But, for now, it's like a ghost town. Even the other members of our team have gone to Kenya early to prepare for our annual conference. We leave in about an hour. Once we go...the only noise you'll here is the chatter of crickets and the occasional complaint from our neighbor's donkey.
It’s always so interesting to me to see how eager they are to get back home and how home sick they are when they are here. I’ve not seen their homes per se. However, they are not unlike those of our other students and Tanzanian friends. I would venture to say tho that most of them, if not all of them come from very simple, mud hut structures with dirt floors. Some may have concrete houses but usually only those more savvy and wealthy. They’re not big as they would have only one main room and a bedroom or two. One thing is for certain, they all have very little in the way of personal possessions. They may own a couple pots and pans and a tea kettle. I’d imagine they have beds. Most likely they are not beds like we know it. Their bed may be a cushion or mat placed on the floor. It may be sticks held together by rope in a waffle pattern covered in animal skin. And who knows, it could even be close to a bed like what we are used to. It’s highly unlikely they own much in the way of living room furniture. If they do it’s probably a few chairs and maybe a small table from which they use to serve food and tea. They cook all their meals outside over an open fire. Their bathrooms are all outhouses at best. Many may even have just a crude whole in the ground surrounded by a privacy fence of thatch. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their houses didn’t even have a door but just a curtain hanging at the entrance to keep out bugs. Windows are a luxury for them, especially to have glass in them. Screens would be unheard of. If they have any window at all in their mud huts, it would be a crude shaped whole covered by a small, often dingy curtain suspended by a droopy wire. Again, this serves to keep the bugs at bay. I can’t say how many times a day they would eat. I would venture to say once in the morning..a light meal of maybe porridge or bread and tea. Then, once again in the evening they might have another small meal of their common starch called Ugali. Ugali is like a thick cream of wheat they ball up in their hands and dip in some kind of broth. The broth would commonly be made from greens fried in oil with onions and tomatoes. Meat is a commodity. Even tho many of them own cattle, they won’t butcher them except for very festive occasions. Occasionally they may have roasted goat..again , for a festive occasion.
In contrast, while here on our campus each family gets a lovely, warm, concrete room with comfy beds, desks and a small table and glass window with screens. They dine three times a day in a rather nice dining hall with what we consider to be quite tasteful and comfortable chairs and tables. We serve them carefully thought out healthy meals including meat twice a week. There’s even a t.v. with a video player in there. While in class they have similar comforts. Their bathroom facilities are like palaces compared to what they are used to. We have several acres of nice land for them to relax in. Cows give us fresh milk daily and our chickens provide with eggs. Their children have a lovely classroom for their school and really nice playground as well. I’m always amazed tho that even tho we provide all these nice “comforts” they never feel as home here as they would in their grass/mud huts, sitting on a dirt ground around a fire! Isn’t that interesting?!?
Home truly is where the heart is. I could stand to learn so much from our dear African friends. Like Jewish culture from the time of Jesus till now, African culture shares in the honor of hosting guests. When a guest arrives at an African’s home, one is treated as royalty. Tho the hosts may not splurge on a chicken meal themselves, they would certainly not think twice about butchering one to serve their guests. It’s always so strange to visit a village and see a goat or chicken wondering around. Then, a few hours later when the meal is served and we’re wondering what kind of meat we’re eating, it dawns on us. We haven’t seen that pesky goat or chicken in the past few hours. Ha! While in your host’s home, you are also considered “under their protection.” This means anything that you would need would be their honor to provide for you, especially in the area of safety. This is taken so much to the extreme that they will even walk you all the way to your car or even back to your home if you walked there. The host sees a guest as their responsibility as long as the guests are in their home. Isn’t that beautiful?!
Relationships and time spent building relationships are highly honored and cherished. They think nothing of spending hours sitting around a fire and talking, getting to know each other more and sharing stories. Of course, this mostly the men who do this. The women and young girls share stories and build relationships while gathering the firewood, cooking, cleaning, caring for children, building their stick/stone homes, etc. Most women don’t have a lot of time to just sit around and chat. There’s too much work to be done. Sitting around chatting is what the elders and young men do! J In any case, life is really pretty simple for the Tanzania..aside from the hard work. They wake and go off to their perspective duties; young men to shepherd their cattle and women and girls to their gardens. They work pretty much all day till sunset. They come home, gather around a fire and chat while the women prepare the food. They eat and talk. The women clean up and then all go to bed only to start it all over again the following day. Simple… Perhaps this is why they miss their homes so much while here at our training. Perhaps we westerners complicate life too much with all our “stuff?” It is something to ponder…
