Banana Stew and Jogging

15 January, 2010

We’ve had a couple of relaxed weeks since returning from the beach. We’ve been working on grant writing for the center, drawing posters for the school, including maps of Africa and Tanzania and the human body, and also writing letters to groups who we hope to present to in the next couple of months. We just finished a letter to the Tanzania Military Academy, which is currently training over 7,000 soldiers. We received a tip from a student there that they desperately need educated about reproductive health, women’s rights, and HIV/AIDS, and we definitely couldn’t pass up the chance. Hopefully we’ll hear back from them soon. We are also working on letters to several governmental offices here in Arusha that we hope to present to in the near future. I’m not sure how and what we will present to this group, but this is another group that could have great pull in the community.

We start presenting in schools again beginning on Tuesday, and have a full schedule through the middle of February, so the time should start to move a little quicker. Students are always a great to talk to.

We were invited to dinner at a ladies house that we have come to know through our time at the market. She wanted us to meet her children, and also to show us how to make banana stew. I talked with Grace’s son, while Whitney worked in the kitchen with Grace. I love to cook, but it’s not Whitney’s favorite thing. Yet everyone continually tries to convert Whitney into the “perfect” wife, and we have been told to not tell people that I do most of the cooking because the men will get upset. It’s quite hilarious. Regardless, we had a lovely afternoon with this family and had an absolutely wonderful meal that I can’t wait to try cooking on our own.

We’ve made a commitment to some friends that we would run the Kilimanjaro Marathon (actually the half-marathon) at the end of February in Moshi, so Whit and I have started jogging around town a few days a week. As much as I always thought that Africans loved to run, it is clearly only the professionals who care about running. Everyone else would rather save their energy, and for good reason. However, rather than respecting our decision to exercise, many feel the need to mock us, as if we don’t catch enough flack everyday. I guess it gives us more incentive to run faster though.

Corruption appears here at every level of society, from small vegetable stands and taxis to large governmental offices and police officers. We can’t trust anyone here; fruit vendors charge the people in front of us one price and then try to double it when we go to pay, and we tried to renew our volunteer permits at immigrations and they tried to make us pay three times as much as we’d been told. All I wish for the rest of our time here is that people would be honest with us, but everything we do and everywhere we go, we have this overwhelming feeling of mistrust from everyone. By continually trying to rip off visitors, they are only hurting themselves. They only thing they can think about is how to get the most out of visitors right at that moment, but people won’t continue to support a country or a group if they feel that they can’t trust them with that money. It is so sad, and it is hard to blame the younger generations who have never known any different, just as they can’t be blamed for their views on HIV/AIDS and human rights, etc. We can only hope to show them another way of thinking about these issues.

(This picture is of Whitney and Grace preparing banana stew.)

Written by Zach