A Kwanza Celebration. Kwanza means first.

If ever again I have a panic attack about having to be in transit for 32 hours, remind me that the past two days were some of the best of my life. My flight from Boston to Amsterdam was incredible, in large part because even coach was equipped with personal screens. I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner in his most unforgettable role to date, and then played some Dutch-style (don’t ask me what this means) tetris. A pretty cool Dutch boy sat beside me and laughed while I failed level one time and again, but then I noticed he opted for Shrek 3, so, whatever. The two hour layover in Amsterdam was nothing, and then I slept for all but forty-five minutes of the seven-hour flight to Dar (and missed raspberry ice cream L!).

Dar is…oh god, I LOVE it. I think I was still disoriented from so much sleep when I stepped off the plane because the man who approached me about my visa application asked me, in English, if I spoke Swahili and for reasons that escape me now I told him yes, in a duh sort of way, which is actually a complete lie. So I watched his lips move as he fluttered through some instructions and then, with no backtracking recourse, started very politely reciting my small army of Swahili phrases. It turns out that no, he didn’t care that my name is Jessica, or that I’m nineteen years old, hail from Memphis, Tennessee (jimbo la Tennessee, mji wa Memphis!), and have two small animals (I forgot the word for dog). He gave up on me very quickly after that, but in an effort to escape my life story (what, who doesn’t want to know about my favorite foods?!) he moved me up to the front of the line.
I emerged from the airport, visa in hand, and was met by Elizabeth XXX (whom I already knew through Leigh), Sarah XXX (who was actually on my flight), and Dr Leedy (our program coordinator from UF who’s hanging around for the next ten days to make sure we can hack it). My flight actually got in around 9:30 pm (we’re currently seven hours ahead of EST), but we waited at the airport for another two hours for a girl named Mariah XXX (I have to stop telling her she’s on fire) to get in. Every ten seconds on the way home I’d look up and squeal really stupidly, a. because I was excited, and b. because I kept forgetting that you’re SUPPOSED to drive on the left side of the road here.
We pulled up to the dorm and then huffed and puffed up SIX flights of stairs with all our luggage. We’re rooming with fellow program participants these first four or so weeks because classes don’t actually start until September 17th, and our Tanzanian roommates won’t move in until a week or so before that. Sarah and I hit it off immediately, so we made the easy decision to live together in XXX this room, which has this XXX view as the sun comes up around 7 am in the morning (and yes that is the Indian Ocean in the distance).
On Sunday everyone woke up pretty early, so after grabbing a quick breakfast at the cafeteria we decided to walk the mile to the incongruous Shoprite, a South African Wal-Mart-esque chain, and pick up some necessities. On our way we passed a lot of street vendors, whose general reactions to herds of white people seem to be split between pumping their fists in the air and yelling, “Wazungu, wazungu!” (Basically just “White people, white people,” but literally, “Pale-faced ghosts who run around in circles!”), or staring. Awkwardly. Some of the more outgoing men will walk alongside you for a bit, and then the standard pick up line seems to be, “It is my dream to come to America! How may I contact you?”
Shoprite was nuts, because it’s just like a Wal-Mart - huge, and surprisingly well-maintained (for a country so incredibly lacking in basic infrastructure) - but some of the pricing was ridiculous. Roughly US$.20 for 1.5 liters of bottled water, but $10 for Frosted Flakes? And it’s about 12,000 Tanzanian schillings to 1 USD, so that reads as Tsch 120,000 for the Frosted Flakes, which when combined with several other products amounts to a level of math that is simply beyond me. Generally when I pay for things here I just stare at the cashier and slowly place bills on the counter one at a time until she takes my money. I mean, I could communicate my confusion, but every time I buck up and go for the Swahili, it always ends the same way. I start speaking, and the Tanzanian facial expression evolves from a quizzical, “What is this pale-faced white girl trying to say?” to him or her doubled over in laughter. I actually love it, because everyone is so good-natured and I know what I must sound like (“Hey, man of the shop, where are the big round orange balls for eating?“) that it really is just comical. As Elizabeth succinctly put it, “Jessica, your experience with Africans will be like that of the duck that thinks it’s a dog.” Anyways, I am safe, and loving it, and writing this from under my Out of Africa mosquito net before I read some and go to bed. Kwaherini!