Ninafikiria

“I am thinking”  (from 18 October 2009 5:40 PM)

Hello all.  We just got back a few minutes ago from a weekend trip to Bagamoyo which is a town about an hour north along the coast from where we live on campus at UDSM.  Bagamoyo is one of the oldest cities in all of East Africa and has an extensive and fascinating history.  Our first stop was the Kaole ruins where the weathered limestone structures are standing from 13^th century settlers from Persia or somewhere in the Middle East I think.  We were able to stand in the site that was the first mosque in East Africa and examine the old graves/tombs of the settlers that had some cool designs. 

Our tour guide who was explaining all of this to us came with us and spoke at a few more places we visited and I thought he was a pretty cool.  I found out he is from the same region and tribe as my Kiswahili teacher at University of Oregon so I told him what I had been told about the Hehe people by my teacher: they have a reputation for eating dogs.  Another person we’ve met here who is not Hehe but from the same region told me earlier that they might try to sell you dog meat there and tell you it’s something else but when I asked my tour guide if it was true he just sort of shrugged and said yeah.  When I asked if he ever ate dog, his answer was affirmative and when I somewhat jokingly asked if he liked it, he had to admit that he did.  It was an interesting conversation for me and what’s better is that you would have never guessed it just by looking at this guy.  I guess the rumors and stigma about the Hehe tribe are true.

The second destination on our tour was the museum in the old trading post where ivory and slaves would come to be sold.  It is from this spot that Bagamoyo gets its name as “Bwagamoyo” means something like “leave your heart here” amongst several other really depressing and sorrowful translations that I can’t remember.  It is the end of the central slave trade route on Tanzania’s coast where they would make slaves march from deep in the country’s interior all the way out to this place while they were chained together and/or hauling ivory.  Something like one in five of these slaves actually survived the journey and there were many atrocities along the way.  The history of slavery and such is always pretty depressing.

We walked a few more places including the fish market which is basically just a bunch of people huddled around a couple guys on the beach auctioning off fish and squid.  It was a pretty cool scene and the random Congolese tourist who kept filming us and asking us questions only added to the atmosphere.  The current president of Tanzania was born in Bagamoyo in a house right on the main road we traveled so we saw the home quite a few times.  All I can say is that it didn’t take much more than a quick glance to get a new definition of what humble beginnings really are.  We ate lunch in a hotel restaurant/bar which just opened in the renovated building of Tanzania’s first post office.  It was a pretty nice place and had to take some investment to get that way so it wasn’t completely surprising to learn that manager/owner happens to be the cousin of the aforementioned current president.  I ordered a pizza there and was reminded of how much I miss cheese.  A pretty popular topic of conversation amongst the people in my program lately has been foods that we miss.  We got over the initial joy of discovering the local cuisine and then got bored upon realizing that the menu will never change the entire time we’re here so we are still waiting until we come to accept eating the same stuff everyday.

I was very fortunately blessed with disproportionately outstanding food for the last three meals I’ve had as they were all buffet style from the nice hotel resort we were staying at.  Our director, Ken, really came through for us once again and landed us a very very nice place right on the coast with full amenities.  It’s hard to say if it was nicer than the first place we stayed at but the food definitely was better.  Even though I haven’t quite been here for two weeks yet, it was still great to take a warm shower for the first time since Oregon.  The weather made me prefer a colder one, but I don’t know when the next time I will get a warm shower or even one with normal water pressure will be so you have to take advantage of these things rather than taking them for granted.

The reason I titled went with that title for this post is for a couple reasons – one relating to what I was just describing.  I don’t know if you were able to tell from last time I wrote about staying at a nice resort, but it really makes me feel jaded to do so because it is so foreign to what my hopes and expectations of this trip are.  Don’t get me wrong though because I am extremely grateful to have such an opportunity and I didn’t take these luxuries for granted.  It is just such a huge contrast to what I’m sure the normal life experience is for a Tanzanian person.  I did not choose to study abroad in Tanzania because my dollar can buy me more but instead to see and live life from a different perspective.  One that would presumably not be one of comfort, luxury, and hyper-security like the one I’ve enjoyed thus far in my life.  To be catered to so much by these people who have had to work very hard to get to their position in life makes me very uneasy.  I can see on their faces that there seems to almost be a hint of despair that we are able to leisurely drink, dance, swim, etc. while their own family members probably can never fathom such luxuries.  I don’t want to assume too much about these people because I can’t honestly say I know this about them, but it just seems so wrong and against what I value to be living this bourgeois lifestyle and flaunt wealth in these people’s faces.

Another thing that is on my mind right now is what courses I should register.  They are releasing the initial timetable of classes tomorrow (which will apparently be heavily revised several times before a final version is available) and so we are supposed to pick our classes tonight and hopefully sign up for them tomorrow.  I really like reading course titles and their seem to be a lot of interesting classes but I’ve been burned too many times before by taking hopelessly pointless and lame classes that don’t live up to the hype of the title of the course.  What’s worse is that there isn’t any course descriptions listed so all I can do is assume based off of the three to six word titles that they give.  I’ll only be taking maybe six or eight elective classes while I’m here so I really want to make them count.  It’s about time now for me to look more into them so I’ll cut this post off and hopefully get back tomorrow or soon to share what I’ve signed up for.

One closing remark I’d like to make is that I really enjoyed being in the actual city of Bagamoyo.  It’s so much smaller than Dar and has a completely different feel to it.  If I’m being honest, I’ll say that I’d prefer to live there than in this city but I think that the challenge of living here instead will be better for me in the end.  A main reason I liked being in Bagamoyo and also why I like other old cities is because you get a chance to live right amongst history and see it all around you.  I understand a little better now why people enjoy old European cities and such.  For the record, this isn’t me endorsing studying abroad in Europe over other places.  It’s just me admitting that I guess I do see at least some merit in it.  See I’m not a total Europe hater.