Student orientation is over today; now it gets less hectic. The past week’s been intense exploring the University of Dar es Salaam and the city with students every day. We are going to Kiswahili class for 4 hours in the morning. He started teaching his US history class last week – 5 students so far. He’s enjoying his experience—quite different from US teaching.
Life in the hood. I’ve already mentioned our neighbor, an American ethnomusicologist who’s lived in Africa since the 1960s. We also had A for dinner one night—she’s a Norwegian linguistics Ph.D. studying Tanzanian court language. We meet her swimming every other day or so.
P.S. Our neighbor has a fabulous collection of pirated DVD’s; last night we watched CASINO ROYALE in Russian with English subtitles. Except the Eng subtitles didn’t match the movie; they were for some other movie.
Food shopping in the hood. We’ve found a veggie and fruit seller who speaks no English. Good for us, although I’m certain we sound illiterate. We bring our newfound Kiswahili vocab and attempt to order fresh, locally grown tomatoes, potatoes, papayas, mangoes, pineapples, shallots and limes. There’s also great masala spice mixes. Our acquaintances keep asking us, how do you survive here being vegetarian? The meat has made 2 students sick already.
Group activities. As leaders of the group P and I trek around w/our 14 “children” everywhere – I’m mother goose; P follows in the rear of the brood making sure everyone’s safe (the aforementioned pickpocketing incident occurred when I protectively tried to follow in the rear—mistake). I’ve learned to stay in front surrounded by my posse of tall male students. Other recurring director activities: pay large bills for lunchs for 14 at white sandy beaches, swim while students watch my purse, do yoga on the beach & go for long walks. 4 students and I did yoga at Kipepeo Beach on Saturday, and attracted beachgazers interested in our warrior forms. Our students are laidback; they don’t mind sweat dripping into their eyes as we smash into a daladala—one sitting atop the engine, another nested in someone’s lap. We invited 6 Tanzanian women students with them to the beach yesterday, and later last night the whole brood went out to the disco. One friend of mine pointed out that the title of this post comes from the Disney film Lion King – swear I haven’t seen it and am not stealing, but life is good!
Upcoming events: Bagamoyo field trip (coastal city north of Dar), budget balancing (starts in 5 mins actually), P arrives home from Kariakoo Market with an African shirt or two!
For more photos see www.flickr.com/photos/sawtooth
