Sugar Cane, Forest Haircuts, and "The Pink Panther" (Monday 6/8)

For a surprise, Paul did not wake Michael and I up this morning! Michael, being the adult here, made sure I got out of bed and got ready to go to the office. He had a lot of studying to do and wanted to get on top of it as soon as possible! With Paul being gone and not knowing where his kettle is to warm up water nor having the ability to start a fire to heat up water, we both didn’t have a bucket bath!

Went up to the office where we started work. I mainly worked on organizing materials, generating content, and figuring out how I was going to do all of this screen recording for the video guides. I landed on a software and made a test video to fulfill my childhood dreams of being a YouTuber! Henry and Miraclin went to the school to teach and left Eli, Michael, and I to do our regular jobs. The regular tea time ensued afterwards! 

When Henry and Miraclin got back, Mr. Chesco came back as well to talk with us! He was very curious if Michael and I could help teach. Michael, trying to be nice and not wanting to say no, gave in to teaching math and physics before I stepped in and “saved” him. 

If it hasn’t been clear, Michael has a lot of work to catch up and get ahead in his summer class in order to start working on trucks. In fact, Mzee’s only goal for Michael was to work hard on his classes before he returned back to Tanzania! I informed Mr. Chesco that Michael would be too busy and Michael was very glad I stepped in. 

When Mr. Chesco asked me, I had to politely decline as Jonathan expects a lot of stuff from me and my project. I offered to bring in my Kolibri project to a class tomorrow to not only save himself time grading all of the quizzes, but to see if the project would actually work how it’s supposed to! Mr. Chesco was very excited about this idea and worked on figuring out how to access the school’s Chromebooks so the students could log onto the Kolibri server. I love talking and working with Mr. Chesco but sometimes it’s difficult to understand what he’s saying so sometimes there’s a little confusion on what I’m talking about. I’ve learned very quickly it’s hard to talk about my project without getting a confused face! 

More work until it was time for lunch! Rice, beans, chicken, cabbage, and spicy sauce. The piece of chicken had a good chunk of meat on it that was absolutely delicious. In America I’m so used to the unnaturally massive hunks of meat that eating meat here in Tanzania makes me realize how grateful I am for what has come to be a commodity in the States. I miss having tons of meat in every meal, but it all adds to broadening my perspective of the world and realizing how good we have it! Lots of meat or no meat, I’m content to have a full belly! 

Back to the food, the sauce is a type of chunky tomato sauce with spicy peppers. A lot of the cuisine here has a lot of tomatoes as I’ve been told they grow really well here almost all year round. Paired with the meal was my favorite Embe drink! I think what I love about it is the fact it’s thick and feels like you’re drinking a smoothie. A 600mL (20oz) bottle of Embe here costs around 1000 Tsh which is about $0.40; a pretty great deal for a drink! 

Whilst eating lunch, a team of mechanics worked on a large truck nearby. They had the entire transmission and rear differential taken apart there on the dirt road. Michael, being a mechanic, was intrigued and asked what they were doing. They spoke no English unfortunately. I was so impressed to see such an intricate repair being done so quickly! 

Before Mzee left, he told us that nothing is too broken to be repaired in Tanzania. Someone will always find a way to make something work again. The ingenuity and basic grit to fix something that’s broken beyond conventional means is so cool to see first hand. They don’t have the option to just buy a new one and must work with what they have. The right tool or part might not be available but you need the truck working by the time the sun sets. I think this sentiment is something us Americans should internalize, and as an engineer, design products in a way that can be repaired! Learning how to fix things and not throwing them away is a skill a lot of us were never taught or simply forgotten. I hope that while I’m here I can learn how to fix/repair one thing I use in daily life!

Getting back to work after eating is so difficult when all you want to do is take a nap. Eli began complaining about his hair and how he wanted to cut it. Considering this was what seemed like the millionth complaint about it, we all just convinced him to bite the bullet and shave it all off. He wanted to go to a local barber to experience something new but considering we have no Tanzanian Shillings we don’t have the currency to pay for anything. Luckily, Michael had an electric razor on hand and Eli finally agreed. 

I followed Eli into a nearby forest near Paul’s house to find a spot to cut his hair. We found a small clearing away from the path; we figured it would look weird if two white boys were in the middle of the forest cutting hair! After Eli shaved off the first bit, I took the razor and did the rest of the work. It was an absolute blast and took around 30 minutes. Knowing how great it feels to have short hair after months of growing it out, Eli was very happy with his decision. Long hair out here is annoying to take care of and an all around pain. I don’t 100% know, but I assume this is one of the reasons that almost everyone, including the girls, have very short hair. 

When we got back, everyone was surprised to see such a transformation and everyone really liked it! With a new haircut this of course meant it was time to play hacky sack. It’s always funny to see the looks of our Tanzanian friends when they see us play hacky sack as they insist that we play with a football (soccer ball) to make it easier. The thing is that what makes hacky sack fun is the difficulty of it!

One can only do so much playing before it’s time to get back to work. It was time for my big stint of working on Kolibri to get it ready for tomorrow. I wanted to make sure that I was prepared for anything that might come my way and to make the process as easy as possible for the students. To spare the technical details (there were a lot), it was a ton of work but I’m confident it will work well tomorrow. The more I put effort into the Kolibri project the more I realize it’s going to be very difficult to teach others how it all works!

In the middle of the work, we were brought sugar cane to eat! Henry had eaten it before during his time in Kenya a couple years ago and taught Eli and I how to eat it. The cane has a tough outer layer that must be stripped off by your teeth to get into the meat of the cane. Once the skin of the cane is removed, you’re greeted with sugary goodness inside! You tear a chunk off and chew the meat until all of the sweet juices are squeezed out and swallowed. Inside of your mouth you’re left with a chunk of tasteless fiber that you then spit out. You repeat this process until the cane is all gone! It’s quite a workout for the teeth and sometimes almost feels like you’re going to lose a couple of molars with every bite. The cane juice is also very sticky and leaves quite the mess afterwards!

Leaving me to finish my work, Henry, Eli, and Michael left to go play soccer. I wanted to go but there was just too much work to do with Kolibri to make sure I wouldn’t disappoint Mr. Chesco tomorrow. I worked until they got back and it was subsequently time for dinner: ugali, beans, greens, and the spicy sauce that I wrote about earlier. 

On the walk to the kitchen, the truck that was in pieces 6 hours ago was now put back together and up and running. Who knows if what needs to be fixed got fixed but so cool to see it all back together! Henry, Eli, and Miraclin go back to their families for dinner. Overall, the meal was great! I talked briefly with the three women that always cook for us and taught them “napkin” which in Swahili they just call a “tissue”. 

While talking with them in simple English, Michael began to try to chop some wood. The three women thought it was hilarious how ineffective Michael was at chopping. He claimed it was because the axe was so dull and I believe it, the axe had no edge. It also didn’t help that the wood was a 2x4 laid down on the ground that is inherently hard to chop in the first place. 

Regardless, Michael and I grabbed our stuff and walked back to Paul’s house. To our surprise there was WiFi so Michael and I watched a movie together. He had a couple downloaded onto his computer and choosing the one I had never seen before, we watched “The Pink Panther”. 

The movie in no way was related to what you imagine in your mind when you think of the Pink Panther besides the theme song and a short stint of animation at the beginning. Regardless it was a funny movie and pretty enjoyable to watch! We got ready for bed and we’re ready for another great day tomorrow!