It’s amazing to me how many situations I find myself in
daily, that I have never and probably would never experience if I only ever stayed
living in New Zealand. In just 4 and a half months, I will be back living in
New Zealand, where life will be very different. So I want to remember all these
quirky, amusing, and sometimes uncomfortable situations that I have encountered
over this past year
- Often having no idea what is being said around me and sometimes even to me. I literally sat in an hour long meeting the other day, before I realised they were talking about electing someone as a chairperson. In a Tanzanian church service I usually make friends with a child because I have no idea what the pastor is saying.
- Learning Swahili and attempting to speak it which leads to some hilarious Swahili fails like:Asking for books at a vegetable stand instead of potatoes Vitabu vs ViaziSaying I need to go to the market to buy a buffalo instead of vegetables Mbogo vs Mboga (easy mistake)Answering a question like did you understand with good (nzuri) instead of yes (ndiyo). Not the best way to convince someone that I understood!Telling someone I have been here 7 years instead of 7 months Mweze = months Mwaka = years. Then they really wonder why my Swahili is so bad!Singing worship songs wrong over and over again.
Using you, we, he or she when I want to say I. It changes the meaning completely!Going to the toilet in a local food place and coming back out to ask if I am a mwanaume (male) or mwanamke (female).Having to write my daladala stop down on my phone in Swahili so that when the daladala conductor ask where I am going I can tell him! I have now proudly mastered that one and can say "Mwisho wa lami" (end of the tarmac) whenever I here "wapi" (where). My most amusing fail happened while in Zanzibar. At the place we were staying I asked the guy for some mugs and used words like maji (water) some hand gestures and charades to describe what I wanted. He went away for about 10 minutes and came back with a squeegee! The second time around he came back with a flask of boiling water and mugs…close enough. - Having to introduce myself in Swahili in a Tanzanian church. There’s no chance of going unnoticed in church!
Random compliments/ comment that
I’ve never received before this year like: “you look like a rasta” I am not sure why I’ve never been told that before?“You look like a rock star”“Mzungu, I love you”“Are you German?”“You look Scandinavian”“Welcome to Tanzania” (just the other day)“I want her as my wife” (Old drunk Maasai man)
“Umependeza” you look nice“Give me your dog” while walking Lynda’s dog in the villageMy personal favorite “You look like Kim Kardashian” (while trying on a skirt)All from strangers and then from children...“is that your real hair” “when you get long hair will it be black”“are those mosquito bites (referring to my freckles)“did you get bitten by a tetzy fly? (referring to a pimple on my face!)“wow nzuri” (while stroking my hair)“why does she have white hair?”- Class 2 kids answering the
question “why is it important that we have a clean living environment with “because
otherwise you will get HIV Aids” hahaha that is most definitely not an answer
NZ kids would think of!
- Second hand clothes shopping which involves digging through piles of clothes to find some gold. It’s kind of like op shopping except wayyyy more intense because everyone wants you to buy from their stall. All you here is “rafiki, support me” “looking is free” and everyone is handing you things to try that they think you may like, such as a yellow jumper. I would literally look like a banana! Or skirts about ten sizes too big or too small! If I am looking for shoes there’s no way I have to bend down and try that shoe on myself! There is always someone ready to put shoes on my feet!
- Which then leads to my next point bartering for everything! There is no way I am paying more than 30c for that second hand top haha. Sometimes the price bumps up for mzungu but now we take our secret weapon Joseph, Emma’s fiancé, one of the first guys I’ve met who actually doesn’t mind shopping and always makes sure we get a good deal
- Having people try and sell me stuff on the street constantly. The most random things being a live chicken, a $5 NZ note, and a lamp shade!
- Being in a daladala (van) that’s
so full that they can’t even close the door. I literally was holding on to both
the inside and the outside of the van! Or sitting between 3 large
mama’s on a
two seater seat! - Sitting on a daladala and having some high school girls quickly touch my hair and start giggling
- Strangers wanting to shake my hands as they pass me on the street
- Eating dinner with a street kid at the local chicken place (instead of giving him money) and not once going to town without being asked for money
- Staying at an orphanage and
hanging out with some of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met with some of the most heart-breaking
stories
- Using some of the most horrendous squat toilets I’ve ever experienced and hoping that it’s water on the ground and not something else.
- Running through the village
- Being served a huge portion of rice and still managing to finish it (what can I say I have a gift). The day we were given two lunches however, really tested how much I can eat!First I ate a plate of ugali (ground maize) and then a large of plate of rice!
- Sitting next to a man and his live chicken on the daladala and then realising there were about 7 more chickens tied together that were under the seat!
- Having random children run up and hug me. This happens a lot working with kids in NZ but usually only with children I actually know!
- Or having children terrified of
my whiteness a simple glance and they run away crying!
- Having a flash mob of children surrounding me in a village touching me stroking my arms, hair and even licking me!! As if I’m some celebrity or mystical creature! It literally started with a few children but they just kept coming out of nowhere!
- Camping in the Maasai bush and meeting people whose lives could not be more different to mine if they tried
- Praying for a group of Maasai
women and their children with a group of Maasai DTS
students! - Watching a Maasai choir competition. Those Maasai men can jump soooo high!
- Singing and dancing with Maasai children
- Teaching Maasai children games like “crocodile, crocodile”
- Being a minority! I experienced this to a small degree at my primary school in Rotorua which was 90 % maori but never to the degree in which people constantly stare
- 12 hour bus rides with only one toilet stop!! And buying stuff out the window of the bus
- No knees in 2016! With the exception of our trip to Zanzibar! That’s right modest is hottest haha
- Teaching a class full of children where English is a second language and getting blank stares when I speak too fast or after 10 minutes of explaining a lesson. Also having an assistant teacher translate my lessons!
- Being in a place where there is seemingly no road rules! Don't wait for a gap just push your way in! Also helmets are more of a suggestion then a rule when riding any form of bike
- Greeting every single person at church with a handshake
- Praying for people in the village and having the privilege of seeing them except Jesus or set free!
- Having the neighbors child come
to our house just to watch our washing machine go round and round! And
entertaining children for hours with a front camera
- Being stuck in a 7 lane traffic jam where technically there should only have been 2 lanes for at least an hour.
- Doing extra jobs like filtering
water through a bucket, boiling the
milk that came straight from a cow, washing the fruit and vegetables we bought from the market, freezing rice, pasta and lentils just encase there’s any bugs in them! - Wearing gumboots to school in the rainy season
- Weekly whole day power cuts
- Being called “teacher Rachel” I
have had many names as a teacher. At Preschool in New Zealand, I was Rachy-pooh.
On practicums I was Miss Judd at kids camps I was “Aunty Rachel” but never have I been “teacher Rachel”
- Going to town and back for less than a dollar!
- Having a video I took of Tanzanian Joshua school children singing a Te Reo Maori song go viral in NZ! It even got mentioned on the news!But even more impacting than what I have experienced is what I have learnt...
