May 10, 2016 - Travelling with Toddlers in Tanzania

A few months ago I was invited to write a guest blog post over at Roasted Montreal and today is the day that my specific post is up!

This was flattering because, as you know, I've been pretty awful at blogging consistently since Aya was born and the fact that another blogger likes my blog and my writing enough to ask me to pop over to her place...well, let's just say that came as a surprise to me!  So thanks to Michelle at Roasted Montreal for seeing some potential in sending people over to Tanzania on vacation with their toddlers.  It would definitely not be your "easiest" trip with little ones to come here. Eeek!  The travel time alone to get here from most places is enough to make a staycation sound super exotic. Unless you were coming to visit some specific people that you love in this place...then the extreme travel part of it might be worth it.  I think my post, the first in her current series on travel with toddlers, was used as more of a "dream" trip to take with toddlers...but once you're here and you're used to the heat and the malaria risk and the really-don't-drink-the-water, etc...it's a pretty cool place to hang out.  

I am hesitant to broadcast my guest blog too widely for fear that everyone here will have strong opinions about what I did and did not include/recommend in the post.  There were limitations, of course, and there is no way to capture everything in one blog!  So I tried, based on my own experiences and perspectives which have been and are, no doubt, quite different than other people's.  But I hope Michelle gets some positive response and that people will enjoy a bit of a vacation day dream. 

To new readers to the this blog who might have come here by way of Roasted Montreal...thank you for stopping by and I hope you see something you like.

More news is coming soon on our relocation plans to America!  We've got less then 6 weeks to go here in Dar, which is pretty hard to believe...even when I see it in writing!

If you've already been patient enough to hang in here with me this long, hang in just a little longer...

LMW

January 16, 2014 - Fundis

Living in East Africa, something you get used to pretty quickly is the constant presence of "fundis".  The word fundi in Kiswahili actually means "technician" I think, but is applied generally to any kind of handy man, skilled (or not so skilled, as the case may be) laborer, day worker.  We use it to talk about the plumber, electrician, carpenter, mechanic, etc.  And because of a lacking or absent proper vocational education system here, you often need a LOT of fundis because quality is not so good and things are often breaking.  Also, you can't buy as many "ready made" things as at home, so you are often hiring people to build or make things for you.

In the last few weeks we've had a number of fundis in our house:  to give us new wireless internet, to reupholster the sofa, to fix the cars, to build Grace and Noah's new bunk beds (coming soon!), and to fix a blown fuse (note that we've had an unusually long stretch with no need for a plumber!).  Of course I have gotten so used to this that it doesn't phase me at all and when we are not home Rose and Christopher are perfectly capable of managing different fundis, but last night I heard Grace's perspective on fundis for the first time.

Situation: the fundi came (during dinner of course) to fix the blown fuse and check other electrical wiring

Grace:  Another fundi is here?

Me:  Yup.

Grace: Why is everything always broken?

Me:  Well, sometimes that just happens and we need different people to help us fix all of the different things.

Grace:  It's too many fundis.  How about for tomorrow and the whole weekend, we have no fundis at all!  I'm tired of all these fundis!

Who knew she had such pent-up fundi aggression!  HA!  I really got a kick out of it.  Not that at home you don't have repairmen or workers around too, but certainly not to the extent or degree that I think we're used to here.  Someday this will be one aspect of Grace's culture shock when we move back to the US or Denmark! But in the meantime, I hope we can honor her request to have a fundi-free weekend.

LMW

December 10, 2013 - Sharing is Caring

Even though we live in a developing country, our life is pretty much a totally "expat bubble," where we mostly interact with other expats, our children live very comfortably and very rarely interact with this country's poverty/reality at all.  Of course we want to protect them from seeing "too much" at their ages, but wherever we will live in the world - be it Kenya, Tanzania, Denmark, America or somewhere else! -  there are people who have much less than we do and whose basic needs are not met.  Granted there are different kinds of poverty in these places, but I believe it is important that our kids start to learn about this reality, even if in a relatively protected way.  We have so much to be grateful for, but sometimes it takes seeing what others do not have to help you feel grateful for what you do have.

So my idea for the Christmas season was to take Grace and Noah to visit a Tanzanian orphanage.  One of their teachers is involved in a small orphanage here and agreed to take us there.  During the past week, I've had the kids going through their playroom and bedrooms to find toys that they don't play with very much (or in some cases toys that are duplicates of other toys!).  We felt strongly that they had to pick the toys themselves and agree (ok, I suggested some things to give away but they did not accept all of my suggestions and Kristoffer reminded me that that was OK!) or else when we got to the orphanage there might be conflict.  So it was two shopping bags of toys and puzzles in good condition that we brought, along with some clothes that the kids have outgrown.  We talked to them a lot about giving things away before we get new presents for Christmas, about what they might see or experience at the orphanage, and why these children don't have mothers and fathers and toys.  

There is only so much prep we could do though, and then we just had to hope for the best! Yesterday was a holiday here so Kristoffer didn't have to work, and off we went for our visit. My expectations of the orphanage were pretty different than reality.  The house had just been renovated in a way so that it was painted nicely and didn't smell bad or have a lot of trash around it, even though it was in a slum about 30 minutes from our house.  This was much different from the orphanage we used to visit in Nairobi, which was really dirty.  There were 25 children living in this house, but many of them had gone on some kind of trip for the day with the head Mama of the house.  So it was a small group receiving our gifts and it was probably much easier for us than if all children had been there.  (We learned that there used to be 65 kids in that tiny house, but that a Norwegian man donated a house to the others moved to live in that donated house.)

We spent one hour with them, trying to teach the children (some 14 year old girls, boys, and then some younger kids...but most of the small children were not there) how to play with the toys.  It was interesting because they don't speak English and we don't speak Kiswahili (well, Kristoffer does...but not the me, Grace or Noah), so we were using the toys to communicate.  Some of the children were definitely trying to hoard the toys - that is pretty understandable - and they were not really used to saying thank you, but that was also OK.  We also left some more toys from a friend of mine so that when the Mama returned she could distribute them to the children we didn't see.

Grace and Noah were shy and awkward when we were there, but not unfriendly or rude.  Grace said to me more than once, "I think we made them happy."  She could see that in their small house there were not any other toys. So while it is a big life lesson that we need to reinforce repeatedly throughout the future - I do feel this was a good introduction at an appropriate time of year to teach the children about giving to those less fortunate than we are.  They will not miss those toys (even though they were really nice ones!) because they have so many others, and they did not begrudge the other children because they could see how little they already had.

This was a parenting win, as far as I am concerned, and I am interested to see how much (if at all) they process the experience in the coming days or weeks.  I hope it made Grace and Noah feel good on some level...it certainly made ME feel good.  Here are a few (iPhone) pictures - all of the kids there wanted to use the camera or have their picture taken...even if the quality is not great.

Grace and Noah learn at school that sharing is caring, and that was definitely true today!

LMW

May 13, 2013 - Education in Tanzania

I have started to look into possibilities for more regular work here in the education sector of development.  There are no specific job prospects out there but I am circulating my resume and talking to a few people, so that is good.  And from the research I did intially when we moved here and I applied for a few different jobs with development partners coupled with some of the conversations I am having and things I am reading now, it is clear that the system of education in this country is so deeply flawed that I actually wonder how and when it will ever change. 

A fellow expat blogger recently wrote about corporal punishment.  You might recall from our Kenyan days that while I was proud of Kenya for making corporal punishment illegal, I was appalled at how widespread the practice still was (blogged here).  Well, in Tanzania they tried outlawing corporal punishment but recently decided to reinstitute the practice legally.  One reason they gave is that with 70% of students failing their national exams (which the government has recently decided to just nullify altogether) those students must be doing so poorly because they were NOT threatened by the cane!  In order to perform well in school, people here honestly believe that the students must be caned.

And when you meet adult Tanzanians, if you find them to be conflict-averse, good at following instructions to the letter (when they understand the instructions) but unable to critically or creatively think for themselves...they are very likely to have been students in the country's public schools.  I don't know if it is the same in private schools...but if Tanzania is anything like Kenya the problem exists there as well.

I am not trying to offend Tanzanians...who we find to be friendly and kind and not nearly as brusque as Kenyans...because it is certainly through no fault of their own. We interviewed a cook this weekend (who we are considering hiring) who is from Malawi and he has lived here for 20 years. He still sends his children back to Malawi for public school because, even though Malawi is a poorer, less developed country, he believes their education system is much better than Tanzania's.  Corruption is a very big part of the problem here and it is a sad state of affairs for sure.

As my blogger friend writes,
"If you were trying to design an educational system to more efficiently drive creativity, inquisitiveness, and love of learning out of students, you would have a hard time topping Tanzany."

Frustrating!

LMW

December 3, 2012 - Tough Life

This is kind of a random blog post, but I haven't written much about Tanzania in awhile so I thought I would share something new.  One of the things we have noticed since we moved to Dar is how many people with Albinism (also called "Albinos", although sometimes people think that is a derogatory term, which is not how I intend it) live here.  We noticed some Albinos in Kenya, but here in Dar they are a much bigger population. My sister also just emailed me this article from NPR about Albinism in Tanzania.

Tanzania has one of the highest populations of Albinos in the world: 1 in every 1,400 people is born with Albinism.  To be honest with you, I used to think that being born an African woman would be one of the hardest things to be - because African women have so many challenges to overcome in their lives.  But now I really think that being born an African Albino (an African Albino Woman too?!) would be even more difficult.  

Before I read this article I didn't know that 98% of Tanzanian Albinos die of skin cancer before they are 40 years old.  I also didn't know that the killing of Albinos is worse in Tanzania than any other African country; there have 100 known violent attacks against albinos in the last 6 years.  There are witch doctors who believe in the "magic" of Albino skin and people will kill them for their body parts.  Other people believe they are evil.  

I was encouraged to read that the Government of Tanzania is increasing efforts to support people with Albinism here.  But I also think they have a long way to go.

LMW

November 17, 2012 - Ngoma

For the last six weeks at the Nordic School, the kids (particularly Grace) have been learning about Tanzanian culture. They have done singing in Kiswahili, dancing, drumming and crafts along with learning about the flag and eating traditional Tanzanian food once a week.  This has been REALLY fun for Grace and yesterday was their final "project" for the topic.  Called "Ngoma" (which means "dance"), it was a celebration of Tanzanian culture and a celebration of our kids!

Parents had to provide kangas (or "cloth") for each child and the school had someone make traditional clothes out of the material (from what I hear the school paid only $1.90 per child!). Below were my kids getting ready for "Ngoma" (bribed with a lollipop to wake up from their naps).

Noah and his friend Helena before the show.

Noah's class was up first.  I'm sorry the video quality is poor - I was sitting in a bad spot to see Noah's face (he is to the right). But you get the idea.  It was very sweet!

Noah and his classmates getting ready.

Then Grace's class performed 4 different songs.  She was so excited and proud.  It was really fun(ny)!

Grace with the Head Master and her classmates getting ready.

First Song (the funniest and the longest recording).

Second Song (kids dance in pairs or trios).

Third Song (Grace's drum "solo").

Fourth Song (the Tanzanian national anthem).

After the show there was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Masai hut that the children all built together over several weeks.  They can play in it for the rest of the year.

And some of the older children who come for after school programs showed us how they can jump like a Masai!

There was a man making sugar cane juice on the spot!

And exhibition of the Masai jewelry that the kids made.

I have to say that this event illustrates the best parts of living here.  First, the kids have a "home" culture and community at their Nordic school where Nordic values and traditions are present for them.  But second, there is so much diversity! From the exposure of living here in Tanzania to all of the different cultural elements they get from having friends who are also half-Nordic and half-something-else (American, Tanzanian, Kenya, Dutch, Finnish, British, South African...)...they are just such open-minded little people.  I could not be happier about that.     

Ngoma ilikuwa furaha! (my attempt at saying: Ngoma was fun!)

LMW