Welcome Back

Upon arrival in Tanzania, I experienced a series of events that I like to think of as my "Welcome Back to Africa" experiences. It's like the continent was waiting for me, and doing its best to make me to feel instantly at home....

∗ Luggage. I left for the airport with two overweight bags and two rather heavy carry-on items, which I had to lug across the entire Atlanta airport after being dropped off at the wrong place. Surprisingly, getting my bags checked went pretty smoothly - I paid my overweight fee and that was that. The problem came when I was in the Amsterdam airport during my layover. I was checking in for the second leg of my KLM flight and, after having my carry on bags screened at the gate, was told that I could only take one bag on the plane and that the other would be "locked" and checked. I hadn't slept, it was the middle of the night for me, so I handed over my bag without giving it much thought. It was "locked" with a plastic zip tie, which I can only assume was promptly removed once the bag was out of my sight. To make a long story short, my bag arrived in Dar (along with both of my other checked bags), minus my small digital camera. Luckily I had all of my other electronics and valuables in the bag I took with me on the plane....but the camera had slipped my mind. Welcome back to Africa.

∗ The "dirty handshake". You know the one. When the guy shaking your hand tickles your palm with his middle finger while shaking your hand. Needless to say it is not a very polite thing to do, and I will assume you can all guess what it means. I received my first dirty handshake on day 2 in TZ. Welcome back to Africa.

∗ Luggage, continued. As if losing the camera wasn't bad enough....I discovered a few days later, after unpacking more thoroughly, that my four pairs of nice sterling silver earrings had also been removed from my bag. KLM received a very nasty complaint letter from me.....to which they have yet to respond. Welcome back to Africa.

∗ Swahili lessons. Although English is one of Tanzania's official languages, people don't actually speak a whole lot of it. Naturally, I was eager to begin learning Swahili as soon as I arrived (bargaining is significantly more successful when done in Swahili!). So I started asking people to help me learn, and I have to say, my very favorite language teachers are the taxi drivers. Every time I get in a taxi, I try to use all of the Swahili words that I know (and learn a few that I don't). And it never ceases to amaze me how excited people are to share their language and culture with you if you express even a tiny bit of interest. I have had taxi drivers spend an entire trip patiently and enthusiastically counting to 10 with me or practicing the days of the week with me over and over and over again. Karibu tena Afrika.

∗ Wazungu. There are a lot of foreigners (wazungu) in Tanzania. And a lot of them live in Dar. One of my least favorite, but always present, interactions with other foreigners is the "safety and security" discussion. When I was looking for a place to live I told another woman that I wanted a place that didn't feel too isolated - I wanted to be able to walk out of my house and walk down the street to buy vegetables. Her response: "But you're white. Why would you walk anywhere?". Welcome back to (the ex-pat mentality of) Africa.

∗ The posh part of town? The CDC was kind enough to put all of the fellows up in a hotel for our first month in country, while we look for places to live and settle in. And of course, they chose a nice hotel in a rather posh part of Dar where we would have access to restaurants and shops. And yet, even though we are in the posh part of town, our hotel is still on a dirt road. And every time I walk out to the main tarmacked road, I am more or less instantly covered in sweat and a fine layer of dust. Welcome back to Africa.