Days 23-24: Busy Doing Nothing

          If ya'll are wondern why I ain't wrote nutting fer ma' blog (I's just loves that wurd, 'Blog'), it's 'cause I'v been too busy to write.
          Busy wid what, ya ask?  Well, nuttin, really.
          I can see that you're confused, so maybe I should explain (in something other than hill billy).  As I may have mentioned before, there's no hurry in Africa.  If someone tells you they want to visit you and they're leaving right now, what they really mean is they'll be leaving in an hour or two.  Cars and digital watches may be prevalent in Tanzania, but that doesn't mean that people know how to use them.  The art of being fast and efficient is a skill that is yet to be learned by most.  Which means that, when making plans, most of your time will be wasted doing nothing while you wait for someone else.  Thus, the more independent you can be, the better.
          Note that this does not apply to the tourism industry, which has learned how to accurately keep time (as it would otherwise not make any money).
          The problem of being on time is double compounded for me because of my baba.  You see, he is a Tanzanian.  He grew up here way back in the dark ages when most people walked to where ever they were going (even if it was a couple hundred kilometers away).  Back when life moved slowly.  My baba has always been good at entertaining people and telling good stories.  But let me tell you, I have never seen him talk as much as he does now that he's back home.  In Moshi we would often go to my Mjomba Terevaeli's restaurant to eat dinner.  whenever this happened we would always stay until at least ten or eleven, Baba regaling everyone (but me) with stories in Swahili.  I quickly learned to take my laptop with me so that I would have something to do.
          Because my dear, sweet, baba enjoys telling stories so much, and because he is such a spellbinding story teller that everyone feels compelled to listen, a brief stop over somewhere can last a few hours.
          Take today, for instance.  We were supposed to visit three of my relatives (a rather daring program, considering how much food we'd have to eat).  My cousin Innocent was to pick us up and drive us around to each of our relatives. Unfortunately, Innocent also had to pick up his mother, my Shangazi Eliremisa from work and take her home, and he decided to do this when he picked us up.  Which meant that we first had to go by Shangazi Eliremisa's house.  Just a quick detour, right?  HA.  We ended up staying there for either two or three hours.  Of course, it wasn't just Baba's fault, all of Eliremisa's children, my cousins, hadn't seen me for a week and wanted to spend time with me.
          The long and short of it was that we ended up staying so long, Baba decided to just forget about going and seeing anyone else.  Instead, we'd just go back to Zara's.  This however made Shangazi Eliremisa feel bad, and so she insisted that we go and visit one of the three.  Baba tried to convince her that she really didn't need to feel that bad, but it didn't work.  I never knew guilt tripping could be so deadly...  So finally we went, at eight at night, well after sun down, to my Shangazi Ndeshiswa, in Poli, Meru about 24 km (15 miles) away.
          Which is why we didn't get home until well after midnight.  The next day Baba and I determined to do better.  This time we got a ride from Zara, who, as it turned out had heard of a property for sale.  We stopped there first to take a look at it.  It turned out to be a very nice little home on a rather large property, with all kinds of fruit trees and coffee plants.  But you can hear the rather long story about that here.
          From there we went to Jua Kali (which means: "Hot sun", though it didn't seem that hot to me...) to visit Mjomba Zelote's (the oldest in my Baba's family, and a spitting image of my babu).  After visiting him, we stopped by my cousin Rasheed.  From there we went to visit my Mjomba General Sam Sarakikya, in Poli (where Shangazi Ndeshiswa also lives), and stayed talking to him until midnight.  Or rather, Baba talked to him.  I spent the time playing cards with Kisali, General Sarakikya's son.
          At least I got to sleep in late the next morning...


E’ya! - Tate


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