Ten things that are different in Tanzania

1.     The moon…it’s sideways! I guess it's because I'm in the southern hemisphere?

2.     The ocean is SO WARM. Depending on where you’re from. But to most of us newbies, it feels like a hot tub.

3.     Telling the time: in Swahili time, the day starts at 6 in the morning. So 9 am is 3 o’clock, noon is 6 o’clock, and so on.

4.     Mosquitoes are scary. In Dar I found one in my room right before bed and spent ten minutes trying to hunt it down. You can buy weapons that look like small tennis rackets and zap mosquitoes when you swat them. 

5.   The plants. Including awesome Dr. Seuss-like trees, like this one. 

6.     Only 12 hours of daylight. But in my current location the stars are incredible! 

Too bad you can't see them in this picture; you'll just have to come to Tanzania!

7.      When it’s dark, it’s really dark. In most areas there aren’t street lights: seeing pedestrians and bicyclists can be difficult!

8.     I don’t go barefoot. At least not very often.

9.     Church services often last three hours.  A lot of it is standing up.
10. Geckos are everywhere! They can be the size of your finger or two feet long. 

This one is about a foot long.

P.S. I have a lot more differences, but these are some random ones you might not have thought of. :)

A Day in the Life of an Orientee

Two weeks of orientation done, one still to go! This is what I’m doing in a typical day of orientation:

7:00 am: Around the time most of you are waking up and starting your morning, our afternoon has become evening and we’re getting ready for dinner…maybe relaxing or studying Swahili or finishing some other homework from orientation sessions. Dinner is at 5:30 (7:30 am West Coast time). So far, African food is great! Beans and rice are a common theme, but sometimes we have a number of different dishes in one meal to sample from.

9:00 am: For me, it’s dark by this time (7 pm), which is hard to get used to! I often feel sleepy early in the evening. I do a variety of things at this time—studying, watching a documentary for orientation, playing tri-lingual Scrabble with my Dutch friends, and so on.

12:00 pm: By the time you’re eating lunch, I’m in bed! I haven’t had any trouble sleeping, which is pretty normal.

My bed, complete with mosquito net.

8:30 pm: It’s late in the evening on the U.S. West Coast when I wake up. I love that I wake up every morning and know that it will be sunny. (It might not be sunny the whole day…as I write there is a huge downpour.) I go running when it’s light out but before the sun is up all the way. This is one of the times I have a chance to go off the compound, and it’s so much fun! Tanzanians are very friendly, and I practice Swahili greetings with everyone I pass by. I wouldn’t run later in the day because it’s too hot, even though this is winter in Tanzania. But I sit in a classroom for hours of most orientation days, and running makes me feel more alive.

Picked these up under a tree on a run. They smell SO good.

10:30 pm: After breakfast and a shower (we do have hot water, although it took me a couple days to figure out that I just needed to flip the heater switch to get it) orientation classes start (by this time, lots of you are in bed).  Some participants are American, some are Dutch, and some are Texan, and we are taught by British, Dutch, Canadian, American, Austrian, or Tanzanian SIL staff.  We’re learning all sorts of things about living in a third-world country: finance, security and contingency, African worldview, getting around Dar, spiritual vitality, basic Swahili, technology, SIL office tour, government advocacy, Tanzanian hospitality, staff rules & handbook, cooking, religion in Tanzania, etc.

12:00 am: When it’s midnight for you, we are taking our mid-morning chai break. “Chai” is the Swahili word for tea.

2:30 am: Lunchtime! Lunch and dinner are both outside, under a shelter called a banda. It’s mostly in the 80’s and humid…so far I love the warmth but not the humidity! We have an hour break and then go back to orientation. For the first week Swahili learning was in the afternoon and was my favorite part, but since then it’s been replaced by other sessions. This will be resumed later at language school…and hopefully practiced in the meantime.

The banda. 

4:30 am: At this point we are done with classroom sessions for the day. If there’s nothing else we need to attend, we will often relax under the banda to study Swahili, etc., or take a walk down to the duka (shop) to pick up drinks or small items we need. By this time, it’s starting to get light on the west coast!

So far I’ve had a very easy adjustment to Africa: no jet lag, no sickness, and only one sunburn (while learning to snorkel in the Indian Ocean on our day off…worth it). Looking forward to the next few weeks! Until orientation is over, I’m very easy to contact by email…feel free to say hi and/or ask me questions!