night swimming

By now I’ve been through the process of moving to a new place and fitting together all the pieces of a new life many times. Sometimes those pieces come together easily and seamlessly, and other times the process is long and fraught with difficulty. For the most part, Tanzania has been easy. For about my first month, though, there was one serious conundrum: how to get my normal dosage of exercise.

Four factors conspire to make working out a challenge for me here. The first is my commute, which can take up to an hour depending on traffic. The second is the daily rhythm of light and dark: Tanzania is on the typical equatorial schedule of sunrise at 6, sundown at 6 all year round. The third is the abundance of crime on the Msasani Peninsula, where I live (more on that in a moment); combined with the first two factors it means that there is rarely a time during the week when I’m home and it’s safe for me to run or ride a bike. The fourth is a shortage of options. There is one gym that I know of on the peninsula, and it charges the equivalent of $15 per workout—not really a sustainable solution for an intern’s budget. I have splurged and gone a few times, and I discovered that access to the place is controlled by a fingerprint scanner, which may explain why it costs $15 to get in. It’s the first time I’ve ever used such a device, and it frequently malfunctions, requiring a staffer to override it. This high-tech absurdity is right at home on the Peninsula.

Just as I resigned myself to returning to the U.S. flabby and out of shape, I discovered Funky’s. I struggle a little to explain what the place is to my friends, but “multipurpose family fun center” is a serviceable description. Inside its floodlit interior of its walls, Funky’s has a basketball court, an inflatable castle, a skateboard park where the teenage children of U.S. government personnel hang out, and a fast food chain that bizarrely uses Native American imagery in its advertising. More to the point, it has a 25-meter pool with lap lanes that stays open until 10 pm every night. It’s not the world’s most pleasant pool, to be sure—the underwater lights combined with the paint job give it a sickening, metallic blue-green glow. The lights themselves remind me of the headlights of an 18-wheeler closing in. Usually I have the pool to myself. Occasionally I overlap with a British woman, and we’ve exchanged pleasantries a few times, but an activity that keeps your face in the water most of the time doesn’t really lend itself to socializing. Once in a while there are some teenagers of ambiguous nationality hanging out in the water too. (Not to worry, Mom, there is always a staffer watching the pool from the sidelines.)

The process of getting to Funky’s is not ideal either. Even though it’s within a 10-minute walking distance of where I live, a taxi is a must after dark, especially because the route passes a pair of abandoned apartment buildings that act as a base for muggers and carjackers. While I was in Zanzibar the first time, there was an incident where an expat woman and her 14-year-old son were (unwisely) driving with their windows down, and two carjackers sprang on them as they stopped at the intersection near the abandoned buildings. The attempt was foiled when the mom bit one would-be carjacker’s arm hard enough to draw blood as he reached for the keys, and the son kicked the other guy in the junk as he opened the passenger side door. Though the attempt was unsuccessful—kudos to mom and son for being total badasses— it was a good reminder to everyone not to let their guard down around here. I always keep the doors locked and windows up, and I usually ride to Funky’s with the American expat community’s favorite cabbie, a guy who goes by the name of Smoker.

It took a while for me to figure out how an underpaid mzungu can get exercise in Dar es Salaam, but Funky’s is now a treasured part of my routine. I'll be glad to return to the U.S. in something better than awful shape, and my night sessions at Funky's are a useful reminder that when there's a will, there's always a way.

happy birthday, america

The Fourth of July comes early to the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania: June 30 and July 1 this year. Through my "Embassy connections" (read: living with State Department interns), I was fortunate enough to attend two events on back-to-back days. The first was a community barbecue on the grounds of the Embassy itself, and the second was a swank party on the lawn of the Ambassador's house.

Of course, both of these invitations came at a price. At the barbeque, I bartended on behalf of the Marines-- who apparently are in charge of supplying these events with social lubrication-- while the Marines were busy doing this:



I imagine that being on an Embassy detail as a Marine would be a little like being an airline pilot: grinding boredom on a day-to-day basis, with a tiny but ever-present risk of things suddenly becoming really stressful. (Keep in mind that the Embassy in Tanzania was one of the two that was bombed in 1998.) Those Marines do know how to have a good time, though-- here's one busting a move later in the event:



Later, naturally, came the fireworks.



In exchange for my ticket to the Ambassador's place, I accepted what was possibly the most awkward task I have ever been given. I and two other interns served as "pullers" for the receiving line... or in my preferred description, our job was to "manhandle the dignitaries." Our job was to watch the receiving line for people who were monopolizing the attention of the Ambassador, his wife, and the Deputy Chief of Mission, and as politely as humanly possible move them along. We lurked nervously in the background, careful not to stand too close to the pathway lest anyone think we might be bigwigs who needed greeting. As Tanzanian government officials, leaders of NGOs and international organizations, and ambassadors and consuls from other countries shuffled past, we debated the exact length of the delay required before a dignitary triggered a "pulling." I subscribed to the fire department theory of pulling: ideally, our services would not be needed at all. For a very long time it looked like we wouldn't need to jump in, but then two older white women were yukking it up for an awfully long time while the line built behind them. I stepped up -- too suddenly, according to my fellow pullers, a verdict supported by the flash of bewilderment on the ambassador's wife's face. As soon as I and the talkative guests were clear of our hosts, I smiled, apologized, and explained the task I had been given. Much to my relief, they both burst into laughter. One introduced herself as Sister So-and-So, and they told me that they belonged to the Maryknoll order. I had "manhandled" a pair of Catholic nuns.

After that, we were free to enjoy the event. Many of the Tanzanians congratulated us on our 234 years of independence, which I found quite endearing. The party had a lot of nice touches, including a welcome speech in English and Swahili by an American boy and a Tanzanian boy. Here they rehearse before the guests arrive:



There was also time for a little intern family portrait. Unfortunately Yvon, whom we call mzee (elder) owing to his advanced age of 32, is missing. Still, it's a pretty good looking group, if I do say so myself:



Hope everyone has a wonderful Fourth!

dispatches from the house of peace

*New nicknames: my fellow intern, Elana, and I were inadvertently given a Brangelina-style combined nickname by our overtired DC boss: “Elawn.” The last time I was part of a combined nickname I was on the Danvers High track team, when Chris Abram and I, the only two freshman distance runners, were combined into the fearsome “Abramspowers.”

*Strangest thing I’ve seen a street vendor selling in Dar es Salaam traffic: an aquarium full of water and fish, balanced precariously on his head. It was unclear if he was trying to sell the entire aquarium or individual fish. Runner-up: laminated, wall-sized maps of East Africa.

*Tanzanian fashion: if you’re sporting a necktie, apparently the style around here is to tie a big, fat knot so that only a little more than half of the tie’s normal length hangs down the front of your shirt. I’m intrigued, but I can’t say I plan to adopt this fashion myself. It seems especially ill-advised if you have the slightest bit of a gut, since the tie acts like a big arrow pointing right at your extra poundage.

*I get evicted: the American family with whom I was staying has temporarily kicked me out of their guest room to make way for grandma, who is visiting until the end of the month. I’ve moved into another house—also a fortified mansion in expat land—with the other half of “Elawn” and a bunch of Embassy interns. The living/dining room is big enough to hold a wedding reception, but there’s barely any furniture and no decorations in the whole place. Nice.

*Big daddy: within a matter of days I will become an uncle, and then in November I will become an uncle again. Interestingly, Swahili makes a distinction in my relationships to my two future nephews. To young Michael, my sister’s son, I will be mjomba, or uncle. To young Bradley, my brother’s son, I will be baba mkubwa, or “big father.” In Tanzanian families, the father’s brothers are also considered “fathers,” and the mother’s sisters are also considered “mothers.” Since I am older than the father-to-be, I am baba mkubwa, while our youngest brother will be baba mdogo, or “little father.” Those who know our family will find this very amusing since "little father" could eat father and big father for lunch.

bursting the expat bubble (daladalas, y'all)

If any of my gentle readers are under the impression that I’m living a rugged life in Tanzania, we should probably begin with some clarification of my living situation. What you see below is the view of the Indian Ocean from the second floor hallway of the fortified mansion I live in here in Dar es Salaam.



I have dropped in on the comfortable life of an expat, living with an American family in embassy-owned housing with a small army of guards and housekeepers, all courtesy of you, the U.S. taxpayer. It sounds a little excessive on paper, but I know that if I were in the same situation as my hosts—living here for the long haul with young children—I would want some level of security and insulation too. Especially given that I live on the only street in the country singled out for special mention under “Crime” on the State Department’s website on Tanzania… though that’s probably has more to do with selection bias than anything else, given how many American diplomats live around here.

This is my first real experience with this kind of expat life and its odd combination of privilege and inconvenience. There are moments when it’s almost possible to forget that I’ m in Africa. On Friday evening I was drinking at a yacht club with middle-aged British men, on Saturday I chased small kids around a French-style café with SUV-driving American soccer moms. Even in expat-land, though, it is never long before the fact that I’m in Africa reasserts itself, whether it’s in the potholed moonscape of the local roads, my near-total lack of exercise options, or the restrictions on my freedom of movement that I must accept for safety reasons.

I realized early on that I could probably go this whole summer without exposing myself to a single foodborne illness or sweaty, overcrowded bus ride—and that’s just not my style. So on Sunday, I made my first concerted effort to pop the expat bubble. I met up with a friend of a friend whom I’d only met once and headed outside of “Dar” for a refreshing hike in the Pugu Hills, 2 hours southwest of the city. We arranged a guide through a small resort whose owners take the Soup Nazi approach to reservations: the website urges even would-be day hikers to book in advance and “spare us and yourself the unpleasant experience.”

As is so often the case, the real highlight was not so much the hike but the experience of getting there. We had to take three different daladalas (minibuses), all overflowing with people and stuff, including in one case a stainless steel commercial sink. The directions to this place involved getting off the daladala “at the petrol station,” walking 1 km and taking “the second dirt track,” and asking a local where “Bwana Kiki’s place” is (bwana is Swahili for Mister). Needless to say, there were a few miscalculations and wrong turns along the way. During the long ascent on foot, we really started to feel like we had made a clean break from Dar. I imagine that plenty of foreigners make their way up to the hills, but we still attracted much curiosity for the people we passed by, most of whom greeted and welcomed us. I got to practice many different Swahili greetings, which will surely be the subject of a blog post all their own at some point in the summer. I am always a little camera-shy before I feel like I understand the culture of picture taking in a place, but these boys obligingly asked me to take their picture on our way back down:



Unfortunately, I look godawful in the couple pictures that were taken of me, but hopefully this will give you a sense of the scenery during the actual hike:



Happy Memorial Day to everyone back home!