The Boy Who Saved Thanksgiving

Written December 20, 2010

As my first major holiday away from home, this Thanksgiving could have gone really good or really bad. Thankfully it ended really great…even though the beginning was a bit rough.

In case you weren’t sure, Tanzania does not celebrate American Thanksgiving! So to be able to include volunteers who work a 9-5 as well as a new batch of education volunteers placed in our region on Thanksgiving Day, we all planned a potluck dinner on Black Friday at a volunteer’s house in Mbeya town.

Turkey is crazy expensive, especially as we’d need enough for about 20 people. So my duty was to get chickens- preferably already slaughtered, plucked and cut into pieces ready to be baked. I was a little unsure of the sanitary aspect of traveling down a mountain on a dirt road with raw chicken, but I figured the large Ziplock bags brought from the US would do well enough.

As often occurs, a simple job turns out to be not so simple. My neighbors had explained while back they sell their chickens and ducks for meat. I started with them, but they did not have any big enough to sell. I spoke with my Village Exec Officer who turned to the shop owner standing beside him at the time and said this guy could provide the chickens. The guy looked surprised but agreed so I went with it. We settled on priced and arranged when I would pick up the meat. I even checked back with him the next day to confirm and was quite proud of my Swahili.

This ended up being my first major case with a common cultural obstacle. Most Tanzanians are very indirect with communicating. They would prefer to keep you initially happy by agreeing to something they may have no way of following through with. When I arrived to pick up the chickens on my way out of the village to town, I was informed they would not be available. Sorry.

While waiting for a ride to come through my village, I explained my problem to the women at the market. A positive cultural difference here is when you voice a problem it becomes everyone’s problem. Unfortunately no one could come up with four full grown chickens for sale….a hard fact to digest when chickens are constantly roaming.

It was decided I would have better luck finding what I needed in the larger village at the bottom of the mountain where I usually change from the truck to a dala to get to Mbeya town. Though I was a bit concerned if they would as accommodating with the whole killing, plucking and cutting.

Here’s where my luck started to change- I just happened to sit in the truck next to a boy of about 14 who spoke really good English and was from this village. I was able to explain my problem and ask for directions on where to go for all I needed. He was not sure where to go, so he decided to go searching with me. Like I said, your problem becomes theirs.
He found a restaurant where workers could buy three chickens at a nearby coop and would kill and pluck them for me. At which point I was happy to get that and was not going to worry about the fourth chicken or having them cut. How hard could it be to cut chicken? I found out the next day.

The chickens were kept fresh in a fridge another volunteer has. I was able to bake them in her stove right before the dinner. I could identify the legs and wings. Everything else was just pieces of bones and meat. It was actually fitting because Tanzanians also cut chicken like this to feed more people off fewer chickens….so really I did it all on purpose!

The dinner turned out amazing with tons of good food. A couple of volunteers had stuffing mix sent from America as well as the crunchy onion things to go on top of green bean casserole. Others baked bread and mashed potatoes as well as fixed a few non-traditional Thanksgiving foods like gaucomole and chili. For dessert there was a really good mango cobbler made with oatmeal. We also got to taste new homemade wines made from rice and mangos. I have not yet made any wine myself but thinking I am going to try soon!

"The Hills are Alive...."

Written October 12, 2010

"with the sound of music....ah, ahh, aaahhhh!"

Ok, I promise I did not really break out into show tunes when I recently climbed my first mountain. Mainly because I was too out of breath!

I have been jealously hearing stories from other volunteers climbing mountains and seeing breath taking scenes of various TZ landscapes. So when some of the gang in my region was going up a nearby mountain, I jumped at the chance....and that was the last time I jumped for about a week! Even though the constant walking and hand-washing of my clothes has helped shed pounds and gain muscle, I found I am not still the spry young lass I think I am.

The mountain we climbed is actually a crater filled with a lake called Ngozi Crater. To get there we first had about an hour walk along a gravel road. This led to basically the base of the crater.

We then started a gradually ascending path through a beautiful jungle-forest. There were lots of vines and moss hanging from trees of all sizes. There were lots of wild banana trees much bigger than ones growing in my ville. It reminded me of The Jungle Book, one of Disney's all-time greatest movies. I think it is also a famous novel?!

After walking another 45-ish minutes, we reached the point of real climbing. Now I am told this climb is one of the easier ones in my area. So I do not want to come off sounding like I climbed Killimanjaro. BUT I come from the side of Kentucky with easy rolling hills not the Appalachian Trail. Needless to say I was not sprinting up the 75degree angles of dirt and tree roots as some of my more advanced friends were!

Thankfully everyone was really supportive and encouraged me to go at my own pace. The path was really beautiful. Occasionally we could see glimpses through the trees out across the land. Some of the group even saw a monkey!

The view from the top was spectacular! The lake was surrounded by the crater's tree-lined perimeter. Once we caught our breath, we enjoyed lunches we had carried up. There is a path-more or less- down to the lake that the bravest can take. On trail rides at home when I have a horse carrying me around, I am all for trekking out anywhere, anytime.

But here I was perfectly content setting on my rock while my friends headed down. I passed the time with my new fav activities- taking pictures of myself and using the video tool on my camera to pretend I am hosting my own show on The Travel Channel. (Have not had good enough internet connection to upload or email these but hope to soon!)

At this point a group of Tanzanians reached the summit as well. When I explained my friends had taken the clearing down to the lake, this group had to do the same. They definitely did not want to be out done by the group of "mazungu".

Having just watched my friends cross a very narrow ledge in various low-croutching positions wearing sturdy hiking shoes, it was quite entertaining to watch the locals breeze across it. Some were barefoot, and the women were dressed nicely with jewelry and hair-dos. Though I should mention when we reached the bottom of the real climb section there were vans waiting on this group so they evidently skipped the 2 hour initial walk!

A few from their group also stayed behind, including an elderly German gentleman who is here consulting for a hospital. I had an interesting conversation with him in English about how he and his wife have volunteered with German programs similar to PC.

The trip down the mountain went much faster. I was really dragging along the gravel road but made it back to the main road in one piece!