The End of June and Time is Flying By

I’ve been in Tanzania now for 17 days, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. I keep going back and forth between thinking I’ve been here forever, and thinking that I’ve just arrived. After spending so long in Cape Town, my time here has been relatively short so far. I’m still just starting to get a sense of the place I’m in. There are things about Bagamoyo that I am just beginning to taste. Some of these are literally tastes. This past week I have started venturing out and purchasing food from ‘restaurants’ and street vendors along the road. One of the common things I have been eating is chipsi mayai. Basically, they take fries and cook them in a frying pan with an egg. The dish is then typically served with a mix of tomato sauce (fake ketchup) and some kind of spicy sauce (which is not that spicy). You typically eat the dish with two toothpicks, which is not an easy task, and inevitably the food touches your dirty hands and life goes on. Today Marlene and I tried a new addition. We went to the market and purchased all the ingredients for guacamole! I’ve really been missing any kind of food that is like Mexican food and so this was a real treat. The first adventure was trying to find fresh vegetables that looked like they hadn’t been sitting outside with the flies for too long. We washed the vegetables off before using them, but the wash water was also questionable. Hopefully all is ok. The guacamole was great though and really complemented the chipsi mayai.

As I’ve been adjusting to living here, these simple dishes are becoming normal. I’m getting used to the piki pikis (motorcycles) driving by all the time carrying passengers throughout town. I have a good sense of the layout of the town and I would feel comfortable walking anywhere here. Some of the people along the road to our research office know my name now. One particular group of painters is always very friendly with us. They are led by a man called Rasti, though as Marlene mentioned in her blog – his real name is David. He and his group of painters are Rastafarian and just sit all day painting, giving lessons, and just relaxing in the shade. Our conversations with them really demonstrate the nature of greeting here and so I want to go through our basic conversation with you.

Me: Mambo!
Rasti: Poa sana. Karibuni.
Me: Asante. Habari za asubuhi?
Rasti: Safi sana. Habari za kazi?
Me: Nzuri sana
…
5 minutes later:
Rasti: Karibuni sana.
Me: Asante sana. Baadaye.
Rasti: Siku njema.
Me: Siku njema!
Rasti: Baadaye!

Translation:
Me: How’s it going?
Rasti: Very cool. Welcome.
Me: Thank you. How is the morning?
Rasti: Very fresh. How is your work?
Me: Very Good.
…
5 minutes later:
Rasti: You are very welcome.
Me: Thank you very much. Later.
Rasti: Have a good day.
Me: Have a good day!
Rasti: Later!

Basically, it’s a game to see who can think of more greetings to say to make the other person respond. This isn’t just in conversations with Rasti; pretty much everyone just keeps greeting each other for several minutes before they get to the point. And, it is possible to have very pleasant conversations with people saying nothing but greetings. It’s kind of a cool cultural phenomenon.

Knowing these types of things makes me feel like I have been here for awhile. People in the community know who I am already. I’m not just a tourist (which you can pick out from a mile away). I’m still a mzungu, but the people who know me know that I’m doing research here and not just here because the Indian Ocean is a 5 minute walk from the house. I’m comfortable here now, which is a great. It’s amazing to think that I have just 8 weeks left in Tanzania.

Research is going well so far though. We have had two days of training with our enumerators this week and our first focus group will be on Friday. As we were discussing the questions for the groups with them, a couple really interesting insights came up. Basically, the whole goal of the larger project is to reach mothers with interventions that will improve the health of their children. Ideally, if the mother washed her hands more often, then the kid would as well. Our enumerators’ statements questioned this idea. There seems to be a huge disconnect between the hygiene expected of children and that expected of adults. The adults are expected to wash their hands before eating and some of them do, but children are not expected to meet the same standard. In addition, what was most surprising is that the feces of children are seen much differently than the feces of an adult. Adults are always expected to defecate in the latrine. Their feces are considered dirty and they will often wash their hands afterwards as well. The feces of young children, however, are not considered dirty. They will often not be placed in the latrine. If they are placed in the latrine, then the wash water from diapers will likely not be placed there. Instead, this water is not seen as dirty and will be spread in the garden or nearby the house. To compound matters, research shows that child feces are actually the most dangerous for children and will cause much more disease. Hearing this information was shocking and we are now including questions about differences in child versus adult hygiene in the focus group. I’m really excited that we’ll have some very interesting responses that will be able to help out in prevention measures in the future.

Hope that this post can fill some of the gaps in my writing. I’ll try to post after the focus group on Friday to let you know how it goes!