Week one of my two weeks off from school was jam-packed with visitors and fun.
Sunday, Cat and Beth, JVs at Gonzaga primary school in Dar came to town. After a run around "The Rock" we ate dinner and prepped for a night on the town. We learned that Club 84, the dance club by our house, has LADIES' NIGHT on Sundays! After some Konyagi and Bongo Flavor, we made it home at about 4 a.m. Who knew?
The next day, we slept in and then went for a tour of the Village of Hope where I work. It was pretty low-key there because the kids were napping. We did go into the dispensary to visit the babies, though which was a lot of fun. Alice, a British volunteer working in Mwanza came through Dodoma on Monday night on her way home. Roland came to town and we had a great feast of a dinner including guacamole and velveta cheese!
Tuesday, our first set of guests headed for the bus station and Laura and I began our prep for the next set.
Wednesday, Mary Ahlbach, her nephew Adam, niece Mairead, and friend, Sr. Gaudentia came to Dodoma! Their main purpose for coming to Tanzania was to visit the Orphan Center near Bukoba that Mary has been working with since 2005. Generously, they changed their departure city to Dar to be able to pass through Dodoma and see me! This switch included about 20 hours of bus travel... VERY GENEROUS. It was so great to see a face from home and make some new friends. In town for two days, three nights, we made the most of it. Day one we went downtown, did a little shopping, toured the market, and at lunch at one of my favorite spots. Then we walked over to the Cathedral where we met a priest who wanted to give us a tour of St. Gaspar's hotel and Radio Mwangaza, promising that it would be thirty minutes. At this point, I know what that means, but it was pretty cool. We went home eventually and had a lovely dinner at our house in Area D (thanks Cristina).
The next day we all headed to daily mass at 6:30 a.m. Afterwards, we had a great chai with the Jesuits and sorted out a bunch of the great gifts our guests hauled with them across the world!! (A volleyball net!?! And LOTS of stuff for me! So heavy! They are saints.) We then went to pick up the bus tickets (slight scare there when some were sold out... luckily we have some friends that were able to help us out.) We moved on to St. Peter Claver where Roland gave us a great tour. It was really nice for me, too. I'd seen hardly any of the school until this point! It is a pretty huge place, and a lot of it is still under construction. Like Mary said, it will be very cool to see that place in about 10-20 years.
We moved on to the Village of Hope and had a great time walking around the beautiful site and again, getting some love from the babies. Then Fr. Vincent met with us to give us a history of the Village, which is turning 10 years old this year! He is so humble and truly inspiring to listen to. I could see the wheels turning in Sr. Gaudentia and Mary's heads, getting ideas for there orphan center outside Bukoba. We closed up the tour with a quick visit to the church and the new bakery, which is part of the plan to make the Village self-sustaining.
This being Mary's sixth visit to Tanzania, I thought it was about time she got on a daladala, so we took one part of the way home. We took a taxi for leg two of the journey, not because they couldn't handle it, but because we were pressed for time. We wanted to do our hike of "The Rock" before sunset. We made it about half way up and saw some stellar views of Dodoma.
Mary then treated me, my roomies, and Fr. Sossy to one of our favorite dinners... the swanky pizza place by our house! It was great, fun, and delicious. Then it was time to pack up and get to bed, as taxis were set to pick us up for the bus stand at 6:15 a.m.
Though the visit was a little hectic, it was so great to have visitors! I had some wonderful talks with each visitor and really appreciate each one's advice and perspectives on life here. It is so refreshing to see things through someone else's eyes. Also with Adam being a second grade teacher and Mary having taught primary before, they had really good tips and advice for me.
Having visitors also helped me take some ownership of my life here by sharing it with others. Introducing my friends around town and speaking Swahili really helped me see how far I have come in this experience. These six months (almost 7 now!) have been really hard, but with encouraging words and perspectives from my visitors, I am thinking it will only get better. I can't thank them enough.
Me!
Monday, July 2, 2012
The Dodoma Meat Tour
So my friend Erick, bus driver from Maria De Mattias, is also a butcher. For a few weeks now he's been asking me to visit his shop and I've given him the excuse that I am too scared. I ran out of excuses and found myself on a tour of meat processing in Dodoma. I talked to Mom the morning of and she told me "channel your grandfather." I did my best. It was nuts, but it was actually a lot of fun, and something I will never forget. Here's the summary:
We started at mchinjoni (the slaughterhouse) at 8:00 a.m. Thank god Laura and I were together for this. After a brief tour of the facilities (luckily you can't go inside without a uniform... but the goat processing is visible from windows from the outside) we went across the street where there is a market for the less desirable parts of the cow. "We're walking on hooves..." Laura murmured to me as we kept smiles on our faces and greeted the people there. At the market, the feet and heads of the cows are broken down (image: man hacking at cow head with a machete on a tarp) and made into soup. The horns are apparently sent to Dar where they are processed and made into things like buttons and earrings. Laura and I enjoyed some cow foot soup (Erick ate the foot, we just couldn't do it... but we ate the broth) sitting across from an inspector from the slaughterhouse. He was in his uniform that was not exactly clean, which only added to the experience. After that we enjoyed some chai and chapatti with some of the other workers. Not really sure why, but the words "goats sound like children when they cry" came out of my mouth at one point. My comment was met with a simple "yep."
After the slaughterhouse we moved on to see Erick's butcher shop in town where they package the meat to be shipped to Dar. They had done all the butchering the day before, so they were just cleaning up. After that, we saw a vocational training slaughterhouse that was not currently functioning, so we got to go inside and walk around. It was very modern and pretty cool to see. It was clean at the time, but it was easy to imagine it working!
We took a break then and went to Erick's house. His nephew is one of my students, so it was fun to surprise him! We looked at photo albums and relaxed a bit. Then, we headed out for lunch with Erick's brother to a place Laura and I hadn't been yet. We ate delicious mshikaki (meat kabobs) and chips with a couple of beers. Two beers (they are big here) at one in the afternoon will get you... We had some good laughs, saying that next time we'll have the beers first and actually go into the slaughterhouse.
Then we moved on to check out Erick's brother's house in a place called Nzuguni outside of town. A lot of Maria De Mattias kids live there so I heard a lot of "TEACHER!" shout outs. There is also a small meat market out there where they roast goat on Saturdays. Naturally, we stopped by. It was a good thing we had the beers, because then we were served roasted goat intestines. They serve this with the stomach bile that they mix with salt. It's green. I ate it. 'Nuff said.
With a roasted goat meat goodie bag, we headed home. Exhausted with the smell of meat permeating our skin, we gladly gave the goodie bag to Cristina and Sean for dinner.
We started at mchinjoni (the slaughterhouse) at 8:00 a.m. Thank god Laura and I were together for this. After a brief tour of the facilities (luckily you can't go inside without a uniform... but the goat processing is visible from windows from the outside) we went across the street where there is a market for the less desirable parts of the cow. "We're walking on hooves..." Laura murmured to me as we kept smiles on our faces and greeted the people there. At the market, the feet and heads of the cows are broken down (image: man hacking at cow head with a machete on a tarp) and made into soup. The horns are apparently sent to Dar where they are processed and made into things like buttons and earrings. Laura and I enjoyed some cow foot soup (Erick ate the foot, we just couldn't do it... but we ate the broth) sitting across from an inspector from the slaughterhouse. He was in his uniform that was not exactly clean, which only added to the experience. After that we enjoyed some chai and chapatti with some of the other workers. Not really sure why, but the words "goats sound like children when they cry" came out of my mouth at one point. My comment was met with a simple "yep."
After the slaughterhouse we moved on to see Erick's butcher shop in town where they package the meat to be shipped to Dar. They had done all the butchering the day before, so they were just cleaning up. After that, we saw a vocational training slaughterhouse that was not currently functioning, so we got to go inside and walk around. It was very modern and pretty cool to see. It was clean at the time, but it was easy to imagine it working!
We took a break then and went to Erick's house. His nephew is one of my students, so it was fun to surprise him! We looked at photo albums and relaxed a bit. Then, we headed out for lunch with Erick's brother to a place Laura and I hadn't been yet. We ate delicious mshikaki (meat kabobs) and chips with a couple of beers. Two beers (they are big here) at one in the afternoon will get you... We had some good laughs, saying that next time we'll have the beers first and actually go into the slaughterhouse.
Then we moved on to check out Erick's brother's house in a place called Nzuguni outside of town. A lot of Maria De Mattias kids live there so I heard a lot of "TEACHER!" shout outs. There is also a small meat market out there where they roast goat on Saturdays. Naturally, we stopped by. It was a good thing we had the beers, because then we were served roasted goat intestines. They serve this with the stomach bile that they mix with salt. It's green. I ate it. 'Nuff said.
With a roasted goat meat goodie bag, we headed home. Exhausted with the smell of meat permeating our skin, we gladly gave the goodie bag to Cristina and Sean for dinner.
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