The Influence

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

This post is the overdue response to the questions asked by none other than Mr. David Yabu about a month ago during that whole “ask me a question” fiasco and I really only heard from him and one other person, the talented and gentlemanly Mr. Michael Lansing. As I sit at my computer now at home without having the actual questions in front of me or any way to access them at this point in time, I feel the need to answer what I remember of David’s questions just based off of how I remember them for two reasons: a) because I finally looked it up again a couple days ago and it’s been on my mind ever since, and b) because I’ve actually got the motivation, inspiration, and rough idea of how I’d like to answer them at this point and this feeling doesn’t always last so I gotta write it out now or else it’s never. So I apologize for misinterpreting them and not remembering their exact wording, but here goes my attempt.

I believe the questions were something like this: Who has influenced you most during your study abroad? And what is the Tanzanian equivalent to Pabst Blue Ribbon?

I’m going to start with the second of the two just because although both have presented a persistent challenge to me over the last few days, this one seems significantly to at least take a stab at. So in answer to your question about the presence of a Tanzanian equivalent to PBR, I would have to say that there simply is none. I can, however, just share with you my experiences and opinions on the beers here. And guess what… I’m going to! (keep reading)

There are basically only about 7 beers in Tanzania and 5 of them are almost identical. Your everyday beers are Safari Lager, Kilimanjaro Lager, Castle Lager, Tusker Lager, Serengeti Premium Lager, and Ndovu which, believe it or not, is also a lager! Since I’ve been here, they’ve added a few new beers, or maybe it just took me a little while to come across them, and they are Uhuru Peak Lager (my personal favorite), Eagle Lager, and Castle Milk Stout.

All beer here is served in glass bottles that are returnable and reused which I appreciate for the environmental aspects though I’ve been longing to just get a pitcher on tap. We saw a small kegerator at a Chinese restaurant once in Dar but we had already ordered drinks before we inquired about it and for all we know was just our minds playing tricks on us. You can also get some beers in cans from a few places which sometimes is the only way they’ll let you do takeaway with them but overall I rarely drink from cans because you get less beer for your money and they don’t recycle them but it is something you have to do at least once because they’re different cans from home with different proportions, ways of opening, and are a little heavier so you always feel like there’s another drink left when it’s empty and this of course fools us Americans at least every time. Now even though all the beers I’ve mentioned again are made by one of two companies, come in almost the same bottle, taste virtually identical and are all sold for the same price which makes it challenging to determine which one is most like PBR, each beer is distinguished slightly in its own way.

Safari had the highest alcohol content (before I discovered the milk stout and Uhuru) and was probably the beer we drank most back in Dar. Tanzanians say this is a “strong beer” even though it’s really only like .2% stronger than a couple of the other beers but they always seem kind of amazed when you drink it and waiters will do like a double-take or ask if you’re sure if you happen to order this and are female. Dylan and I met a couple Brits in Malawi who had passed through Tanzania before and were convinced that this wasn’t actually a lager but rather a pilsner. They’re right that it does taste a little different and now that I’ve actually seen other places like Malawi and Zambia which each only have 2 or 3 different beers each, I’ve stopped complaining about the lack of variety here in Tanzania. Whether it is actually a pilsner or a lager still has yet to be proven.

Serengeti, or “chui” because it has a leopard on it (“chui” is Kiswahili for “leopard”) does have a little bite to it that we confused for a metallic taste when we were still new here. It does taste different than all the others and boasts itself as 100% malt though by every way that you could interpret that, it doesn’t quite seem true. Still, it’s got a unique flavor to it that makes it hard to mix with other beers so you usually stick with this for a while.

Kilimanjaro and Castle are essentially the exact same thing. They’re both pretty generic lagers alright and the only thing that really separates them is the design, marketing and origins. I won’t drink Castle as much as Kili mostly because it is South African and all of the South Africans I’ve met in Dar or around there are essentially neo-colonialists and I don’t want to support that even though they’re both brewed by the same company and probably are the same thing.

Tusker is a pretty easy going beer that is favored by a lot of people here in Arusha, especially all the old school white guys who were born and raised in still-colonial Africa. I think it’s actually Kenyan and I’ve seen it for sale in Market of Choice in Eugene. Rumor has it that Tanzania Breweries Ltd. just lost the license to brew it or something so they’ll stop brewing it soon. This has yet to be confirmed.

Ndovu is essentially Tusker but in a smaller green bottle with foil wrapped around the cap so it looks fancier but I mean they both refer to elephants and really only get bought by people who want to look fancy or tourists who think it’s different. Reality is that you’re just paying the same price for a smaller bottle (only 375 ml whereas every other beer comes in half-liters here).

So which one is Pabst? Well none of them taste like PBR though some of them do put the awards they received on their labels though I don’t think any of those awards are from 100 years ago. Uhuru is kind of not classy, but isn’t widely available. Eagle is actually cheaper than all the other beers and tastes the shittiest though it’s not widely available either. Safari would be the next unclassy beer but the truth is just that none of the cultures exist here that carry the same connotations as PBR life except for alcoholism and from my experiences, the alcoholics in Tanzania rarely live and die by one particular beer. Tricky question, David. Pabst is more than a beer, it’s a lifestyle or an inside joke or a history or sometimes just flavor. Nothing here really fits that mold.


Okay, that was more than I planned on writing about that which bodes poorly for answering the next question, but here it goes:



Part II: Who has influenced you most during your time abroad?

Real tough question. Nobody and nothing immediately comes to mind when I consider how I could answer this so there’s no one clear role model. I’ve surely been influenced by a great deal of people, experiences, things I’ve read, etc. during my time here and I feel like I’ve changed a lot as a result. Truth be told, by the beginning of my second month in Tanzania, I felt a big change coming on and huge reevaluation of who I am, what I believe in, where my values lie, etc. turning in me which I think probably came through in just about everything for 5 or 6 months there. I feel like I’ve made it through all of the hard parts now and have been much more comfortable in my own skin over the past couple months though there’s been sort of like a rebirth process which I think I wrote about last month.

Now that the dust has settled, I’ve learned what I value most and even in the last two weeks I think I found my dream job. Who I am and how I’ve changed has been the result of many different influences.

In terms of people, I’d say that I was mostly influenced in Dar slightly by everyone I came into contact with. It wasn’t easy for me to just be myself or feel comfortable being who I have always been before when I was living in Dar so I really had to start thinking about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I was being perceived. I enjoyed meeting such diverse people in the international students and local students who gave me a lot of ideas of who I wanted to be and way too many ideas of who I didn’t want to be. I was inspired by how hardworking some of my fellow students were and wanted to be more like that. I didn’t want to be as socially awkward or socially oblivious as some other people I knew were and I DEFINITELY did not want to be as angry all the time and uptight as this one Austrian student. I never really hit my stride in Dar, but by the end I was living more like I wanted to by taking my studies more seriously, finding time to volunteer in the evenings, taking extra time to learn Swahili, and was doing a little better socially or maybe not.

There have been a lot of other experiences that have influenced me in many ways too. I think any time I talked about getting some fresh inspiration, that meant I was influenced in a way. I saw that “Invictus” movie which made me remember how much Nelson Mandela is a hero of mine. I also got to meet everyday people who had some pretty amazing stories. Most Tanzanians we know would be extraordinary people if placed in our society just in terms of the things they can do and the experiences they have. There are 8-year-olds who can do more with a kerosene stove or a hoe than I can or people like my friend Hamimu who is 19 but has had to deal with more heartbreaking loss in his life than an 85-year-old man. He was already orphaned and in his grandmother’s custody though she’s been slowly dying from diabetes. In the couple weeks I was out of Dar traveling with Dylan, two more people he was living with died too. Or then I think of some of the students I was teaching or even Juhudi here in Arusha who will be very honest about how they haven’t eaten all day because they have no money but aren’t asking for help or sympathy. I went to Juhudi’s two-room house yesterday with it’s sitting room and it’s bedroom/kitchen for his wife and two kids. He’s working on moving into a four-room home which is a significant improvement but still seems dreadful based on our standards and he doesn’t even complain because the family next door has only one room and 5 people living in it. Very humbling moments at all times. I understand the psychological value of complaining for the sake of venting, but our problems are just so petty.

I remember now just a song I listen to a lot here that is kind of about that called “Petty Problems” and I remember that I’m really influenced by music I listen to here. When I’m on my own computer, I most often will listen to Defiance, Ohio and John Lennon who are definitely my favorites right now but I even end up just listening to a lot Blink 182 from time to time as strange as that is. I’ve grown more fond of pop music and hip-hop since I’ve been here just because it’s always on whether it is American or Tanzanian. I’ll say up front that Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” is the best song in the last year and I think it’s even been about a year now since it came out but still has yet to be dethroned. I can listen to that song over and over which is good because Tanzanians like to play the same song over and over. I can’t say for sure how strongly I’ve been influenced by music but it’s definitely laid the soundtrack for my time here and when I listen to John Lennon and here what he has to say in his music, it usually makes me think. Same with Defiance, Ohio even though I’ve only got like 10 or 12 songs by them.

I have to admit that I’ve officially achieved bookworm status for the first time in my life (except for minor two week periods here and there) just in the last two months that I’ve been in Arusha and this has been probably the biggest clear influence lately. I’m averaging about one book per week right now which for me has been really pleasurable and I’m learning a lot. I wasn’t really able to read for pleasure in Dar or have a peaceful setting in which to read until I got here so I’m taking advantage of it. Actually it’s mainly because the VIA house in Moshi has an outstanding book collection. I’ve read some fiction like Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Vonnegut but what’s influenced me most has been the nonfiction. I’ve read the biopics “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, “Three Cups of Tea” and “Banker for the Poor”, all of which I would recommend. I’ve also read “The End of Poverty” by Jeffrey Sachs and last week I finished “Out of Poverty” by Paul Polak. The two most influential books in terms of changing my thinking have been “Banker for the Poor” and “Out of Poverty”. The first one completely changed the way I think about poverty and economics. The second one was not a great book, but I mentioned earlier that I think I’ve found my dream job. I won’t go into it now, but it’s basically what’s going on in this book.

As you can see, I’ve been influenced by just about everything. I came here ready to just open myself up to be influenced and changed. It turned out to be a much more difficult experience than I expected in that sense. One last big influence has just been my memories. I try and remember all of the things I ever learned or how things used to be just to try and give me some support when times are rough or confusing here. I try and think about who is out there reading this blog and what they would say. I try and think about my friends at home or elsewhere and what they might be up to. I try and remember who I used to be and what I’ve been through in different points in my life even if it seems like another person. I’ve basically just been trying to make sense of everything by pulling from every different source that I can from my experiences, things I’ve read, and even my own imagination. I’m influenced by a lot of things but I’ve never wanted to be someone else regardless of how great or inspirational they are. I’ve always wanted to pull together all of the good things from a variety of places and synthesize them into something great. I see the flaws in everything and don’t follow any dogmas, but I also see the positive things and am influenced by them just as much as the negatives.

So I said that I’ve changed and rearranged my values just since November. I’ve learned a lot about what is important to me and what I think I can do or should do with my life. As cliché as it sounds, my most important values are just love and peace. I’ve learned that I want to be a leader and I want to dedicate myself to service. I’ve learned that poverty is the enemy and that we can do a lot more than just talk about it. It’s taken me this entire experience for all of this to come together and it’s really been derived from countless influential sources. What this all means for when I come back, I don’t know, but I guess I’ve only got a month to wait and find out.