This is some Puff. It features heavily in my life here, as does papaya. Puff because it is what I use to handwash my clothes in cold water, and papaya because I normally eat it three times a day. Yum! It grows here, and I am always on the lookout to catch a nun shinning up a tree to pick it.
I really didn’t think the nuns would be such a laugh, but they have proved that they have a marvellous sense of humour by laughing uproariously at all my great cross-cultural jokes. However, they also laugh uproariously at all my mistakes in Swahili. Anyway, I live in a convent – but it’s more open and friendly than that word normally indicates. The building is lovely. It made me think “ah, colonial” when I saw it, but as it was only built about ten years ago I suspect it is colonial stylie rather than anything else. Here is a photo of the verandah –
the bedrooms are all here. The next photo is the view in the morning. 
You can see the parish church in the background. More on this later, including an explanation of an unfortunate misunderstanding resulting in all the nuns thinking I am a proper practising Catholic, and subsequent reluctant trips to Mass.
My room is nicer than I expected – the anticipated crucifix and unflattering strip light made an appearance, but I have a double bed with mosquito net (pronounced “moskweet” by the nuns. People here have a very endearing habit of adding some syllables and removing others when they speak English, so they say things like “The tax, he will come at sixy” and so on.) It is like a university hall of residence but with a great view, a maid who brings clean sheets every three days but is a bit tight with the loo roll, and the un-asked for alarm clock of a nearby mosque call to prayer and cockerel crowing a tad too early at 5.30am most days. Still, I am fairly sure that this awakening is considerably better than most mornings in the UK used to be, when I would gaze with loathing and disbelief at my alarm, then begin to ponder another day rebuilding collaborative pathways to policy implementation success etc etc. Now the only thing that stops me bounding out of bed is the voluminous folds of my moskweet net, which I have to negotiate as if dressed up as a wooo woooo! ghost in TV glory It’s A Knockout, or perhaps just a mummy coming back to life.
Anyway, here is a nun.
She is called Sister Dorothy and she loooooooves me a lot because I am internationally witty, and also a big suck-up. Last night she tied my hand to her rope-belt so that I couldn’t go back to England. I had been threatening this if there was no roast plantain on the table tonight.
Writing that, I realise how different my life has become.
In this photo she was listening to my iPod. I was laughing because she was singing along to it without realising. But I was kind and put some nice sacred music on for her. Mind you, there isn’t much on my iPod that would shock a nun. It is a bit tragic.
The convent is very soothing. There are palm trees and a garden with flowers, and room for a breeze, unlike the city parts of Dar es Salaam. I welcome being soothed, as everywhere else is the most different place I have ever been. On my first day, I was just wondering how soon I could come home without unbearable loss of face. It was too hot and too different. I just couldn’t process how much my life had changed, and could only think “What have I done? Why am I not at home with a delicious glass of chilled Viogner?” I am the only white person in the areas where I live and work, and people stare at me without exception – it isn’t considered rude here. They also call out “Mzungu!” All. The. Time. This means “European” or occasionally, I suspect, “White She-Devil Who Comes To Patronise Us With Her Annoying Do-Gooding Ways”. And that’s not totally unreasonable, I suppose. I had no idea what it was like to be the only person of a particular skin-tone amongst thousands. And how it is is simply uncomfortably exposed: obviously I can’t see myself, so I don’t see this hot shiny white thing bobbing down the road in contrast to all the African people – I just see all the stares. I used to love attention but I honestly considered wearing an Islamic veil recently, just to be able to walk somewhere without being looked at. But nearly everyone is very friendly and welcoming, especially when I make the effort to greet them first – and the thing that impresses me the most is that no-one hassles me to buy things. I was thinking about Peru, where I started off thinking that the little children selling finger puppets were cute and in ten days wanted to kick them right off the top of Macchu Picchu, scattering miniature woollen llamas as they flew. Here, the children either say “good morning” (usually in the afternoon, though) or “shikamoo” which means “I respectfully greet you, old person”. I like the way they respeck mah authoritah, but would prefer a greeting indicating perhaps more of a flush of youth.
Most roads aren’t paved – my journey to school is through a little village where the “roads” are wide, sandy paths. Chickens run free like Elsa the Lioness, and today on my way back from school a goat was mounting another goat in my path. And shops are tiny – they are called “dukas” and are tiny kiosks selling a range of things that on my first day I thought pitifully sparse and now see as retail extravaganzas. I walk past and think “oooh, clothes pegs! How exciting. Note to self: remember where this fine emporium is so that I can buy same if the nuns run out. And lo! What is this? A shopping bag with a selection of pictures of African animals? And “Grory be to God” (R and L are pretty much interchangeable here when speaking English) written across the bottom? Surely buying only one would be insufficient, and probably downright insulting to the owner. Etc etc” Ha, I can’t believe I thought there might be a Gap here.
I can’t take photos of any of this because I think it would be disrespectful until my Swahili is good enough to talk to people about it first. So…. On to the school.
Writing that, I realise how different my life has become.
In this photo she was listening to my iPod. I was laughing because she was singing along to it without realising. But I was kind and put some nice sacred music on for her. Mind you, there isn’t much on my iPod that would shock a nun. It is a bit tragic.
The convent is very soothing. There are palm trees and a garden with flowers, and room for a breeze, unlike the city parts of Dar es Salaam. I welcome being soothed, as everywhere else is the most different place I have ever been. On my first day, I was just wondering how soon I could come home without unbearable loss of face. It was too hot and too different. I just couldn’t process how much my life had changed, and could only think “What have I done? Why am I not at home with a delicious glass of chilled Viogner?” I am the only white person in the areas where I live and work, and people stare at me without exception – it isn’t considered rude here. They also call out “Mzungu!” All. The. Time. This means “European” or occasionally, I suspect, “White She-Devil Who Comes To Patronise Us With Her Annoying Do-Gooding Ways”. And that’s not totally unreasonable, I suppose. I had no idea what it was like to be the only person of a particular skin-tone amongst thousands. And how it is is simply uncomfortably exposed: obviously I can’t see myself, so I don’t see this hot shiny white thing bobbing down the road in contrast to all the African people – I just see all the stares. I used to love attention but I honestly considered wearing an Islamic veil recently, just to be able to walk somewhere without being looked at. But nearly everyone is very friendly and welcoming, especially when I make the effort to greet them first – and the thing that impresses me the most is that no-one hassles me to buy things. I was thinking about Peru, where I started off thinking that the little children selling finger puppets were cute and in ten days wanted to kick them right off the top of Macchu Picchu, scattering miniature woollen llamas as they flew. Here, the children either say “good morning” (usually in the afternoon, though) or “shikamoo” which means “I respectfully greet you, old person”. I like the way they respeck mah authoritah, but would prefer a greeting indicating perhaps more of a flush of youth.
Most roads aren’t paved – my journey to school is through a little village where the “roads” are wide, sandy paths. Chickens run free like Elsa the Lioness, and today on my way back from school a goat was mounting another goat in my path. And shops are tiny – they are called “dukas” and are tiny kiosks selling a range of things that on my first day I thought pitifully sparse and now see as retail extravaganzas. I walk past and think “oooh, clothes pegs! How exciting. Note to self: remember where this fine emporium is so that I can buy same if the nuns run out. And lo! What is this? A shopping bag with a selection of pictures of African animals? And “Grory be to God” (R and L are pretty much interchangeable here when speaking English) written across the bottom? Surely buying only one would be insufficient, and probably downright insulting to the owner. Etc etc” Ha, I can’t believe I thought there might be a Gap here.
I can’t take photos of any of this because I think it would be disrespectful until my Swahili is good enough to talk to people about it first. So…. On to the school.
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