guinnad

Welp, I've made it halfway. Two and a half months that have flown, ebbed, stretched, whirred, swirled, and coasted by and two and a half more to enjoy, experience, learn from, hang on to, and live. I don't really feel like I'm at a place where I can reflect on it all yet. It's hard to say exactly what have been the best moments, the worst, the ones that have taught me the most. It's so hard to pick out any single isolated incident or day that can define or capture what life is like here. So many people have been asking for more details, more daily events, more concrete descriptions of life here, and the reason I've been resisting is that I feel like I can't do it justice. I can't paint the picture. I can't really convey how I'm living. But I've decided to try. Here's something like an average day, or as close to average as it gets here:

I first wake up sometime between five and six, and lie in bed listening to the morning call to prayer from the mosque across the street from my dorm. If I'm lucky I can fall back asleep for awhile longer before the sun comes up. Brice and I try and go running around 6 or 6:30. Around 7:30 it's way too hot to run anymore so we head back to the dorms and hope the water is working so we can take a shower. 

Our bathrooms are interesting. Sometimes the sinks work, the toilets work, or the showers work, rarely all of them at once, more often none of them at all. What's working dictates the morning schedule. If it's the showers I run and get my soap, the toilets my toilet paper, the sinks my dirty laundry. After using whatever water is available I usually have about an hour to kill before my first class. Options for this hour include using the internet, reading, journaling, doing push-ups, or going back to bed. 

Classes are really interesting, even if they get a little hot. It's strange being in such huge classes. I remember thinking how big my philosophy class was freshman year with 40 students in it. Here classes are a couple hundred, with people taking up every seat and spilling out into the aisles and down the staircases. I'm taking four classes, which is about half as many as the average UDSM student. African Literature, Philosophy of Religion, Indigenous Music of Africa, and Kiswahili. 

Between classes I usually read, eat, or go back to my room and see if the water is working. Depending on the day, classes end around 4 or 5 (Wednesday not until 8) at which time I find something to do for an hour before dinner. Brice and I throw the frisbee a lot and the campus swimming pool is open now. 

Lunch and dinner are the same every day and I love them. A plate of rice and beans and a plate of fruit, usually bananas and pineapple. On good days the rice and beans come with mchicha (spinach) or cabbage and on really good days they have hot sauce too. During the day I'll usually get a samosa or two at the little shop near our dorm where I also buy water, or sometimes a chapati or kitumbua. When we go out to eat it's usually for some fantastic Indian food, but theres also the occasional hole in the wall place serving rice, ugali, pilau, beans, meat, or chicken in some combination. Street food is absolutely incredible as well, although it's been harder to find in Dar that the other cities I've been to. Chapatis are always good off the street, as well as coffee, crepes, roasted corn, and mishkaki (meat skewers).

We go up on the roof of our dorm quite a bit. It's where we dry our laundry and there's a great view of the city, as well as the Indian Ocean. It's also a great place to watch the sunrise and sunset, but it's little hot during the day. We're on the third (which is really the fourth by American standards) floor, which is closest to the roof. We have a spiral staircase that we use most of the time, but there's a ladder at the end of the hall in case there are too many monkeys on the main stairs. Or Hank. Hank is the baboon. Hank is actually a girl too, but we didn't find that out until after we had christened her. We're pretty sure she likes us because we gave her a banana the other day, but we haven't seen her since then so we're not really sure. She's got some big teeth and is probably about the size of a twelve year old that eats a lot of cake and lifts a lot of weights so we're still pretty cautious. 

Weekends we either buy a bus ticket somewhere or explore downtown. So far I've been to Arusha, Lushoto, Iringa, and Bagamoyo. Still on the docket are Tanga, Dodoma, Zanzibar, and hopefully Nairobi. Buses are fun, but daladalas are better. Daladalas are the local mode of transportation here. I think I described them earlier, but I'll give it another shot. Imagine a vehicle slightly larger than a minivan gutted and then outfitted with fifteen seats in back and three in front. Fill up those seats with people and then add another five more standing in the minimal amount of space near the sliding door. Finally add a Tanzania guy with a long shirt with pockets full of change, constantly busy either hanging out the window or door looking for more passengers, or ducking in and out of all the passengers collecting roughly the equivalent of 20 cents from every passenger and jumping out at every stop to try and herd more people into the already packed van, all the while yelling something like "Posta gari! Posta gari! Gari ya Posta!" then hopping halfway back in, banging on the door twice to let the driver know its time to go. I love daladalas. 

That's all I have for now, I hope it's what everyone was looking for. Reading back over it, I really feel like it's pretty inadequate at actually capturing what life is like here, but it's about the best I can do. Hope everything is going well back home or elsewhere abroad. I can't believe the Rockies have a shot at a sweep tonight! Cheer loud for me. Poa, baadaye.