Reminiscing...again!

As my five year anniversary of living in Tanzania draws closer I find myself reminiscing over life in Tanzania. Highlights…I want to share some highlights, but I think that I have already written lots of blog entries over the past five years so do I really want to write another blog entry highlighting those “little” things that make life here an ongoing adventure? The answer to that question is OH YEH, of course I do!!!

1. Washing Clothes by Hand: Before we had our washing machine and dryer at TOA I used to wash all my clothes by hand. It was pure torture. But with the power out so much I still have to do some of my laundry by hand. I still hate it, but what can I do? The laundry has to be done and I am the one to do it! (The above photo is of Innocent and Benny doing their laundry by hand)
2. No electricity: I was going to write a separate blog about my secret love with electricity. I didn’t realize how much I loved it until I didn’t have it day and night for almost two weeks and I had no more battery power in my computer and the batteries in my flashlight died and I couldn’t find the other batteries because it was too dark to find them. I have this giddy feeling inside of me when the lights come back on. The other night they came back on at 2am and I sat up out of bed and smiled.
3. Cooking: This kind of flows with the no electricity but is still a highlight on its own. I have learned to cook a full meal in the dark. Jodie and I do this together quite often but the past two months she has been in the U.S. so I have tackled this job on my own. I cooked a great pot roast the other night…in the dark! I made oatmeal cookies, mac and cheese, spaghetti, and a Stove Top Stuffing casserole (my mom sent me two boxes of Stove Top Stuffing and there was a fun recipe on the back of the box). My favorite thing to do is wash the dishes and then wake up in the morning and re-wash the ugly ones that I somehow missed getting clean. HA!
4. Take cold showers and putting on my make-up in the dark: Still this falls into the electricity category again…seriously, I was going to write a blog on how much I love electricity…anyways, I really hate cold showers. As invigorating as people say they are, I don’t like them. But it makes no difference when my water is warmed up by turning on my hot water heater that only works when there is power. I can’t leave the hot water heater turned on all the time because I did that once and it burned out all the power connected to that line…it was a disaster and I didn’t have any hot water for a long time because it took the repairman that long to get it all fixed. Ok…the putting on make-up part isn’t so bad since I hardly wear any make-up anymore. But the little bit I do wear I now put on with just a speck of light from a window. Since my hair is so long I just slap it in a ponytail or bun I don’t even think it is worth making mention of how I do that in the dark too…oops, I mentioned it!
5. Wild Life Inside My House: Yeh, so I don’t like it that I still find all kinds of nonsense trying to make a home inside my house. My motto is: “If it comes inside the house then it must die.” Then I call Jodie and she kills whatever it is for me! Jodie will be so proud of me because in the two months that she has been gone I have done all the killing myself. One of the worst things for me was when there was a bat trying to get inside the house through a hole in the ceiling. It was awful. I had to call Eli, who dropped what he was doing at that moment to come and rescue me. It was a good thing I called him when I did because if that bat had gotten it there was a big ol’ family with it who would have probably followed it in. Eli, my hero, got rid of that bat and the rest of them too!!!
6. Dirt and Mud: It can’t be avoided. I have given up on a beautiful pedicure and can only hope that when it is time to visit the U.S. that the pedicure lady will be kind to me and the torture it will take to get my toes clean will not last too long. I will say that I have gotten much better about walking in the mud and mud skating. I don’t scream as much either when my feet unexpectedly go sliding.
7. There is no Such Thing as Fast Food: I don’t go out to eat a whole lot because eating out means waiting for my food a minimum of an hour, and if it comes in an hour then that is considered fast. Jodie and I now and then will try different places just to see how fast the food is. We literally time them from the moment we order to the moment we get our food. We’ve turned it into game. We ask them how long it will take and they tell us 10 minutes and then we time the food and it turns into an hour and 45 minutes. When we are in the mood for Tanzanian food and we don’t mind being stared at the whole time we are eating then we go to some places where the locals eat and we can get our food in less then 10 minutes and for a very reasonable price (usually under $3).
8. When someone remembers meeting me and I have no clue who they are: In the five years I have lived here I have met so many people. The other day our assistant director Eli had a visitor (he lives at TOA) and he called me to his house to greet his visitor. It was a pastor I had met about three years ago. Eli asked me in front of this man if I remembered him. I smiled and tried to fake my way through the question by saying, “Did we meet at a church we were both at?” Eli, who is not exactly Mr. Subtle blurts out, “Sister Lydia! You mean you don’t remember when we met him in town near the Stanbic Bank and I introduced him to you!?” I looked at Eli with this look that said, “Oh sure three years ago at the bank…yeh, right, like I have any clue about that day.” I apologized to the pastor about not remembering having that random meeting with him on a busy day that probably involved some kind of govt meeting with some sort of govt official…in other words I was probably pre-occupied when I met him. This happens all the time because when I go into town I usually go with a list of things to do and I am rushing to get them done because the town doesn’t fully open up until 9am and then it shuts down for lunch for two hours and most govt offices are closed by 3pm. My small window of opportunity to get things done keeps me slightly pre-occupied when I am in town. When I am in town with Eli it is always for business purposes and Eli runs around faster than me!!!

I might have to do another blog entry to continue this because this is getting kind of long and I just got started! I think the longer I live here the more I appreciate the little things in life. I need to write a blog about how I appreciate the little things in life!!!