Scenes from Arusha

With only a couple of days left in Arusha, we have begun to laugh at all of the bizarre everyday occurrences that no longer startle us. Here are a few things that we have become accustomed to seeing throughout our temporary Tanzanian hometown...

1. Women really DO carry anything and everything on their heads. We’ve witnessed women carry everything from baskets of fruit to piles of socks and underwear. (Note, the socks and underwear were NOT in baskets.) 
2. Men carry anything and everything on their bicycles. I once saw a man carry seven or eight trays of bread loaves on the back of his bike. The trays towered at least a foot above his head while he was riding the bike. We’ve also seen men carry huge buckets of water. It’s amazing. 
3. What cannot be carried on a woman’s head or a man’s bicycle is put into a large wheel barrel. Normally, we see pounds and pounds of potatoes pushed in these carts. Today I witnessed a cart transporting a flock of chickens. A huge basket (about 5’ x 7’ feet) flipped upside down kept the chickens from escaping. I think we’ve now seen it all.
4. Speaking of chickens, they can be found anywhere in Tanzania except the chicken coup. In fact, Chickens : Tanzania :: Pigeons : America. I’m no longer startled to see a rooster walk out of someone’s home or store, but if this is what Free Range really looks like, I’m going to continue to not eat chicken even when I get back in the US. 
5. Cell phones. Second to chickens, they are everywhere. In fact, most people have two, claiming they need two phones in the event one of the networks isn’t working. 
6. Fires in the middle of the sidewalk… Once I realized we didn’t need to call for help, I thought people were just burning trash. It’s nearly impossible to find a trash can here. Turns out, they are making charcoal. Which is great, because…
7. Every day is a BBQ! Cooking corn on the cob on the grill is a special occasion back home. In Tanzania, many women make a decent living grilling corn on the street and then selling it to the locals every day. I guess no one minds that the charcoal flavor comes from yesterday’s trash. I myself can’t bring myself to buy it, although it smells SO GOOD.
8. Sweeping. It’s a chore performed by everyone in the morning. I get that people sweep in the US, as well. But here, people sweep dirt from one portion of a dirt road to another portion of a dirt road. What a waste! It looks so painful, too. They use brooms made of twigs that are about a foot long, so they do all this futile sweeping hunched over. 
9. Honking. In the US, honking is reserved for situations in which a driver needs to be “alerted” or “reminded” of the driving rules. Here, honking means, “Lookout, I’m coming!” There is a lot of honking here, and it used to make us jump. Now, we know a dala dala is coming, so we casually move over as we look up and admire the decorations on the dala dala as it passes by.
10. Traffic lights, or lack thereof. I have only seen one traffic light in the city. (Hundreds are needed.) Drivers wait 10 minutes to get through the intersections. We expect this when driving now, so we’ll decline a ride home to walk 3.5 KM rather than sit in traffic. 
11. The “Make Your Own Lane” concept. There aren’t any lines in the street to keep cars on the left, which is the side of the road on which they are supposed to drive. So, when there’s a lot of traffic and a dala dala driver doesn’t want to wait, he just makes a new lane and goes around the cars. In Moshono, this new lane is often a dirt path that many of us Westerners would have thought was a sidewalk. Oddly enough, we now think it’s safer to walk in the street. That way, we remain vigilant to oncoming cars. When walking on the sidewalk, it’s too easy to not realize that the honking dala dala is telling YOU to move out of its way.
12. Pick-up truck concerts! Pick-up trucks carrying bands and dancers often drive by, filling the street with happy music. Oddly, the music quiets the chaos of the streets even while making things louder. 
13. Oranges. Here, they are green. Go figure.
14. In other cities I have visited, I have heard the Muslim call to prayer sound each morning, afternoon, and evening. The call lasts about a minute. Here in Arusha, since we live next door to a mosque, we hear the call, but we also hear the entire prayer, as well. Once, it lasted until midnight. 
15. Doilies. People here put doilies on all of their furniture. We’ve even seen doilies placed on top of piles of clothes or dishes. At our house, there is even a doily on top of the TV. It’s odd, but we’re used to it now. 
16. There’s a reason they don’t call them French Fries. In Tanzania, “chips” are soggy potatoes sliced to look like British chips, but since they aren’t fried enough, they do not taste like them. In fact, chips are normally pretty disappointing. We now know not to order them unless we’re in a restaurant listed in Lonely Planet, which means it is a restaurant for non-Africans.
17. And the only thing worse than the soggy chips is Tomato Sauce, what people here use instead of ketchup. Tomato Sauce is like watery ketchup. I can’t believe people stand for it! And I think I could open a successful expat café in Arusha just by stocking Heinz. But alas, I have come to accept Tomato Sauce.
18. Street merchants. They try to sell us everything from Swahili dictionaries to pillows. Today, someone tried to sell me a shirt that said, “Well Spotted: I’m a Mzungu. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any pens. And I don’t want to buy anything.” Ironic?
19. Men holding hands. They greet on the street and walk hand in hand for blocks at a time. It’s kind of nice to see, actually. I wonder why I have never seen any women do it?
20. We take part in street greetings, too. I used to be a little taken aback by so many people I didn’t know saying hello to me. I assumed they wanted to sell me something. (Many did!) But many people here just want to say hello, too. They want to meet us, here how we are doing, and welcome us to their country. And we love it!