Straight Outta The Udder; The Boda Boda Diaries; Learning to Kiswahili 

Oh what an adventurous day it has been!  Let’s start with the maziwa (milk).

Mazima Maziwa

Most items in Tanzania are relatively inexpensive compared to the United States. Surprisingly, however, there are a few that are extremely expensive. For example, a box of Corn Flakes cereal, which would cost three dollars or so in the United States, costs 18,000 T-schillings here in Tanzania–around $8.50!!!  I don’t get it. Milk is also expensive at about $2 per liter. And this isn’t fresh milk:  it’s “long life” milk that is vacuum-packed and sits on the store shelf unrefrigerated. It doesn’t taste too great.

I don’t drink a ton of milk, but I do want to have it available. The house lady recommended that I purchase local milk, a half liter of which is delivered to my doorstep each morning. At 600 T-schillings (about 25 cents), you really can’t go wrong. Or can you?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the opposite of long life milk. It is delivered by a local woman, who ladles it out of a plastic container into my own container. It came straight outta some cow this morning and is raw. Naturally, this caused great concern on my part for a lack of Louis Pasteur’s contribution to food safety, so I called my brother, who has a Masters Degree in biology, to advise. Should I drink it?  Boil it?  We concluded that if I boiled the shit out of it (literally), it would probably be fine.

We both agreed I should venture in slowly, though, so I started with a couple ounces this morning. So far, so good. So I drank the rest a few hours later:

Yeah, it’s weird. Very creamy and “livestock-y” tasting. There were a few chunks of something (cream?) that turned me a little green, but I finished it. Let’s hope I don’t develop some sort of food-borne illness, but so far I’m fine.

Boda Boda Anyone?

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Tanzanian drivers believe there is one road, and they are the only driver. One of the most economical ways to get around is by boda boda (motorcycle for hire). I had been warned and strictly prohibited to use one, because they are truly dangerous, weaving through the frenetic traffic. But today I needed to get to town quickly, and it was too hot and far to walk. So I succumbed to using a boda boda:

Above is my driver, Innocent. With a name like that, how could I go wrong?  I made him give me a helmet, and I yelled “pole pole!” (slowly) at regular intervals to ensure he didn’t get too crazy. I made it in and back without incident, though a few times I didn’t much care for squeezing through the tight spots between cars and jumping the sidewalk to avoid traffic. ? But all’s well that ends well. Innocent was kind enough to selfie with me:

It cost me less than a dollar to go into town and back. I may be forced to use this mode of transportation again!

Back to School

Although I’ve been making good progress at learning Kiswahili, it’s been too slow for my liking. Today I enrolled in classes that will hopefully move me along more quickly. I started out with a one-on-one session with a private instructor (Mr. Raphaele), who then invited me to a class of mostly younger students to study common grammatical errors in Swahili. The instructor gave me a minute to introduce myself in Swahili, which, though correct, for some reason elicited giggles from the other students. I don’t think they often have English-speaking Americans crashing their classes. I definitely was the cheap circus side show!

The girl sitting next to me was kind enough to correct my errors (the teacher’s writing was illegible!). At the end, I asked to take a quick video and called out for “tabasamu” (smiles). The mwalim (teacher) insisted on “Cheka” (laughter), which was fine with me:

​Swahili class Cheka video!

I wonder what tomorrow’s adventures have in store. I guess I’ll just have to wait to find out.

Habari za jioni (good early evening).