50 first experiences! #missionarylife

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

1. 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.
2. 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 Viazi 
   Saying 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.
3. Having to introduce myself in Swahili in a Tanzanian church. There’s no chance of going unnoticed in church!
4. 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 village
   My 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?”
5. 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! 
   
6. 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! 
7. 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
8. 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!
9. 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!
10. Sitting on a daladala and having some high school girls quickly touch my hair and start giggling
11. Strangers wanting to shake my hands as they pass me on the street
12. 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
13. 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
    
14. 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.
15. Running through the village
16. 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!
17. 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!
18. 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!
19. Or having children terrified of my whiteness a simple glance and they run away crying!
    
20. 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!
21. Camping in the Maasai bush and meeting people whose lives could not be more different to mine if they tried
22. Praying for a group of Maasai women and their children with a group of Maasai DTS
    
    students!
23. Watching a Maasai choir competition. Those Maasai men can jump soooo high!
24. Singing and dancing with Maasai children
25. Teaching Maasai children games like “crocodile, crocodile”
26. 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
27. 12 hour bus rides with only one toilet stop!! And buying stuff out the window of the bus
28. No knees in 2016! With the exception of our trip to Zanzibar! That’s right modest is hottest haha
29. 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!
30. 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
31. Greeting every single person at church with a handshake
32. Praying for people in the village and having the privilege of seeing them except Jesus or set free!
33. 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
    
34. Being stuck in a 7 lane traffic jam where technically there should only have been 2 lanes for at least an hour.
35. 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!
36. Wearing gumboots to school in the rainy season
37. Weekly whole day power cuts
38. 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”
    
39. Going to town and back for less than a dollar!
40. 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...
41. I have learnt what it feels like to not be able to communicate with those around me because they speak a language other than English
    
42.  How hard it is to learn another language!  Not only is it a slow process but in order to improve I have to be willing to put myself out there and risk saying something wrong or sometimes embarrasing in order to improve. I must admit at first I chose not to because I care to much about looking silly but over the past month I have been making more effort to speak Swahili. When I come across anyone who speaks English as a second language I will definitely have more sympathy and patience, especially with children in my class
43.  What it feels like to be a minority and to be treated differently because of my skin colour. Our differences
    
    
    
    should unite us and not divide us. I have never understood why race is an issue, even as a young girl, as one of the only white kids in my group of friends. But I know racial stereotypes are still so prevalent in society and minorities everywhere are still fighting for their rights as equal citizens. I watched a movie the other day where an African American man was giving his kidney to a white man. The African American man’s daughter asked “how do they know that a black man’s kidney will work in a white man’s body.” The Muma answered “because baby on the inside we are all the same.” How true is that, yet so many of us are still so divided by the colour of our skin. As much as I don’t want these racial barriers to exist, at times I still feel them and I am constantly fighting my own judgments where I think “my ways” are better or that I know better. Children however seem to be much more free from these prejudices,they  love everybody!
44.  That my society has told me lies that my worth is based on what I do and how I look when in reality my worth comes from God. And I see that here society is also feeding lies that a woman’s worth is based on being a wife and a mother. And that corruption is just a part of life and you can only trust yourself
45.  In New Zealand we expect that we can trust a policeman to uphold the law. to be honest and to not abuse their power. We can trust government officials and we have rights as citizens. Here that’s not always the case, many in power abuse that power and you can bribe your way out of or into almost anything. Want to pay less for your speeding ticket, or want a licence or a passport quickly? Just pay a bribe. How awesome is it to grow up being able to trust people?
46. I have realised that often we are so busy doing, that we forget to just be. At times we priorities work and busyness over people. I have so enjoyed the more relaxed pace of life here. There’s always time to greet, to stop and to chat
47. That things I have seen as my right for some are a privilege. I have a right to a
    
    good education, to a roof over my head, to plenty of food in my stomach and to love and affection! For many this is not their reality
48. Related to the last point… that I have had an incredibly privileged life. I would never have called myself rich but now I see how rich and blessed I truly was/ am. Had I been born in an African village in a mud hut, with no running water my life could have been very different. I have dreams and opportunities that many here don’t. 
49.  And finally I have also learnt that I want nothing more than to live a life that is God honoring and that betters the lives of others because in that true purpose and satisfaction is found. I don’t care about being rich or successful in the worlds eyes. Worldly possessions don't last.
50. And finally that i'd do it all again in a heartbeat!