Humbled by the Flame (Saturday 6/27)

Today was the first morning that I woke up and ate breakfast with Paul! He had the leftovers from last night (rice and beans) and I ate bare spaghetti noodles he had just prepared for me. The noodles were good, but I’m definitely missing the doughnut-like mandazi we were served for almost a month. Perhaps I’ll be able to eat it once more before I leave here (and maybe learn how to make it)! 

Following breakfast, I needed to fetch my water to boil for my morning bath when I was met with the sight of TONS of ants swarming the area near the water basin. There had to be thousands of ants walking around in neat, thick lines ready to bite any trespasser that stepped in their way. I’m not sure if they came because of the supply of water or left out food, but I hope they don’t come back! I was in awe watching the whole scene and Paul thought I was too afraid to get water! I wasn’t, but in the back of my mind there was a scene of Indiana Jones playing where an enemy was engulfed by ants and died in such an awful way. Picture for reference:

What I thought might happen to me if I stepped into the ants!

Regardless, I ended up navigating around the ants to not get bitten by sticking myself between the water basin and the wall of my house. Safe to say I did not fall to the same fate as that unfortunate character! While it wasn’t fun to get water this way, it reminded me of how thankful I am that water is pumped into an easy-to-collect basin for my use at any time right outside of my house. I cannot even begin to imagine walking miles, or even up the hill, to get my water. and got my water ready. As I spend more and more time out here, it’s clear to see how important water is for nearly every application: cooking, cleaning, and drinking. When all you do is stick your glass under a tap, you don’t think of the work it would take to get that water otherwise. This is all to say, I’m incredibly thankful for running water!

I boiled my water, took a bucket bath, got ready, and walked up to the office. Paul left before and must’ve brought up the router as I could not find it anywhere in the house. I arrived at the office and Eli is the only one there. We need WiFi to work, but I still could not find the router even though my phone was connected to it in the office. I wanted to make sure that the router was close to us and near a window so we could get the best connection possible. After searching all around and asking Paul who was in the printing room, I finally found it and put it in the correct place! 

With the WiFi all set up, we got to work! Since it’s a Saturday we technically don’t have to work so I brought up the idea of watching a movie on the projector while we worked to have a little fun! I got it all set up and the first movie we watched was Rango! Even though it’s a kids movie, I thought it was great and would highly recommend watching it. The problem with a good movie though is that it’s hard to actually be productive and get work done! We worked as more people began to trickle in: first Michael, then Henry, and then Miraclin who arrived a little past noon! During our Math Club reviewing we often get side tracked on some sort of random argument that has no definite ending. This time around it was on the definition of what a pond is! Henry and Eli seemed to have very different opinions on such a random matter! Personally I think that a pond is a small body of water, nothing more and nothing less (Eli likes his scientific definition quite a lot!). 

The next movie on the docket was Garfield as it seemed like a movie we could get work done to since it didn’t seem that engaging for us adults. One interesting quirk about the projector we’re using is that after 10 or so minutes, it completely overheats and shuts down. Eli and I tried to clean the air filter, taking the air filter out completely, and making sure it had good airflow and nothing would fix it! Perhaps there’s just a lot of dust inside of the machine that needs to be cleaned. Whenever it did shut off, Eli always had to race to pause the movie so we didn’t miss any crucial details. Time flew by fast and it was time to go back to our host’s houses for lunch around 1:00pm. Paul never gave me a time for me to be back but I figured it would make sense if I left at the same time as everyone else.

I left all of my stuff at the office and went down to his house honestly expecting there to be some sort of meal to be on the stove or already ready. I was quite mistaken. When I got there, Paul was doing his laundry and hadn’t even started to cook! What followed him finishing his laundry were several random chores that we “had” to do before we could even start to cook. First we had to take a ton of junk out of the closet and convert it into our cooking room. The original cooking setup was inside of a room and since there would be a guest arriving, we would need to remove everything. We had to sweep out a lot of rat poop which made me feel great about the kitchen conversion…! 

Once we got everything inside of the closet, I was actually quite glad we moved everything. The closet setup made cooking feel a lot more like a kitchen than the setup we had on the floor. The next chore on the list was to remove a bunch of stuff from Paul’s room into the main living room. He wanted to set up his speaker system in the front room to prepare for when he gets a TV and be able to connect his speakers to the TV when that happens. There were also a lot of random bags that we put in a room that I had never been in before. This room seemed to be the master bedroom of the house but was instead used as a storage room for a dozen plug mattresses and bedding! As soon as we were finished with that chore, it was time to clean a bunch of dishes and gather a large amount of water to put inside of the house for ease of access. 

With all of the miscellaneous chores out of the way, it was finally time to cook! Paul started by showing me how to make ugali: boil water with a small amount of flour in it, wait for the flour-water mixture to thicken and boil, then add in a couple more cups of flour while stirring continuously to create a dough-like texture. A simple process, all things considered! 

The next part of the meal was to prepare the ingredients for a sauce for meat Paul was ordering on a boda boda. I sliced up onions and tomatoes, and with some oil and salt, sautéed them on the stove. I then added the already cooked pig meat (although I think it’s cow meat, but I’m told it’s pig) to the pot and added more water and salt. I let the whole concoction simmer for a while and reduce on low heat from the propane stove. I should mention that the propane stove we’re cooking with has an extremely finicky on/off mechanism. With the slightest of turns, you completely kill the flame making it extremely hard to keep a flame that isn’t raging like the sun. It’s better than a fire, 100%, but I definitely waste a lot of matches turning it back on when I inevitably kill the flame! 

With a lot of patience, the meal was finally made and it was time for us to eat. The time was 3:15pm now and the entire process made me feel incredibly frustrated. I was unfamiliar with everything that I was doing and Paul would take ages to help me when I called for him. The last thing I wanted to do is ruin some part of the meal and make sure that I was doing things correctly. I would’ve understood his lack of punctuality if he was working or doing something important, but he would be sitting on his phone 15 feet away from me and ignoring me. The same goes for when the food was ready and prepared, I had to be stern and almost yell at him to get up and join me! I assume this is what it’s like for my parents when I take forever to come down; I finally understand the frustration. 

Overall this experience pushed me quite a lot. I felt like in just an hour of cooking on a propane stove, a wave of gratitude and understanding flowed over me and opened my eyes to a side of life I’ve been unfamiliar with. There is a lot of sacrifice when it comes to preparing a meal with love and care and takes quite a lot of work. To make a long story short, I was humbled and want to make sure that in the future I either give a helping hand in every meal I can or show my extreme gratitude to the ones who prepared it.

I was very hungry when I sat down, and to my surprise, the meal was amazing! We first had to take out a portion of the ugali and meat to leave for a guest that would be arriving later that day. The rest was for Paul and I to devour! After the first bite, it did need some salt and I think I added too much for Paul’s liking (we ate from the same plate)! I love salty food so I thought it was great. Eating meat out here is a privilege and it was amazing to have so much of it in one meal. Even though the meat is great, I think the best part is dipping the ugali in the sauce as it’s so rich in flavor it almost tastes like you’re eating more meat!

With a full belly I went up to the office around 4:00pm. I knew I wanted to be back at the house at 5:00pm to do my laundry so I tried to be as productive as possible. I sort of was. Kung Fu Panda was playing on the projector and of course when there was a good scene, the projector shuts itself off! 

Quittin’ time came and both Eli and I left to go do our laundry. With all of my stuff, I went down to the house to start washing and met the guest. It was a woman who looked to be around Paul’s age and was very short! The house I’m in is the guest house so I just assumed it was someone that was a part of VST in some capacity. I grabbed all of the dirty laundry, got the buckets of water ready, and got to scrubbing! I’ve gotten used to the whole process by now and feel less of a need to dream about having a washing machine again. At the beginning of my wash, a neighbor I hadn’t spoken to before was fetching water from the basin and had a brief conversation with me about the weather and the fact that he’s proud of me for living like them. He told me that when he tells his students that people like me, namely white people, come to the village and live like them, they don’t believe him at all! Especially when he tells them that white people here do in fact eat ugali! It makes me sad that there’s a divide between us because of how most people come and interact with the country. I’ve had a great time assimilating to Tanzanian culture and hope that many others can experience the same thing.

As I washed Peter and his son Arusha came by a couple and talked with me as well! His son has the cutest smile and as his father puts it, “is very stubborn”! All of my clothes ended up being easy to wash except one shirt that would not smell clean no matter how much I scrubbed it! I’m thinking the technique I’m using must be faulty as I’ve never had this problem before. In total it took me an hour to wash three shirts, two pants, and a bunch of underwear and socks. 

Towards the end of my washing, Paul came out to inform me that he needed to go to the shop to buy some stuff. I wanted to tag along so I was glad when he waited for me to finish up. I needed more soap as the soap I bought was almost gone from three full washes (I think I must be inefficient or something!). 

I hung up all my clothes to dry and waited for Paul to get ready after his bucket bath. We walked up the hill to the office to first get the WiFi but Miraclin and Henry were still using it, so Paul and I went to the shop first to give them time to pack up. After clearing his debt (it’s common here to pick up something and pay for it later), he bought a bunch of soap, some matches, Embe, crackers, and peanuts! While walking back to the office, I asked more about the guest and learned that it was his girlfriend of TWO YEARS! I could’ve misinterpreted what he meant, but I’m not sure why he wouldn’t tell me such important information! By the time we were back at the office, Henry and Miraclin were long gone and the door for the WiFi was locked! We of course could not go back to the house without WiFi so we tracked down Josea who happened to have an extra key that could get us in.

With the WiFi in hand, we left the office where all of the power suddenly cut out! To my surprise, the light from the almost full moon made it completely possible to walk without a flashlight. Walking in the dark made him joke that we were being a word I could not understand and “expeditious”. He thought it was so funny he called one of his friends and told him the same thing where the friend started laughing too. I must be missing something!

We got back to the house and I relaxed around on my phone. Since there was no power, it kind of sucked the mood out of the house (no music mainly). I snacked on some of the peanuts Paul bought and they did not taste like peanuts at all. I think it’s because they weren’t roasted and were raw! They made my stomach upset though for some reason. During this time, Paul tried to have me talk with his mother on the phone, but poor connection cancelled the call! 

Thanks to the girlfriend being here, someone was there to cook for us! I am so very, VERY thankful for her being here after my lunch experience. I was served the rest of the meat that I cooked earlier with rice and the couple had small fish and rice. Even though we had no power, we still had WiFi so I played some music on my phone and danced around with Paul. The girlfriend thought it was hilarious that I knew so many Swahili songs (all thanks to Paul playing them non-stop since I’ve been here). Eventually we all decided to go to bed where I blogged and relaxed before sleeping. I’m not sure what the plans for tomorrow are for church, but I’m hoping that I can bust a move for the Lord!