Here are the five things I learned this week:
1. All white people are related- as I said in my last post we had other white people come to our school from the British non-profit Read International to tell our school we would be receiving new books for our library. This visit prompted much discussion among my fellow teachers and even the headmaster that would ultimately end with all white people are related. They refer ed to the three university students as our relatives and when we would try to explain to them otherwise we were told that in fact we were related and that was the end of that.
2. Tanzanians do not understand the concept of a water bottle- this week i finally received my packages from America!!!! and inside of them was a new water bottle because my other one had broken before i even left America. I started bringing it to school this week because I am always thirsty and was getting some really weird looks from the students and the teachers. Finally a teacher came up to me and said, "Madam are you drinking spirits?" In the class right after this question the students asked again as if it was no big deal if i was drinking alcohol? Apparently the only people who carry around water bottles are the drunks..Oops One teacher even confessed she thought it was perfume..The things they do not understand sometimes
3. Noodles with Ranch seasoning and a little water tastes like America. My package contained ranch dressing seasoning packets to make Ranch because clearly i cant go a year without that. Well I have come to find out that naturally I lack the ingredients to make Ranch dressing so all i am left with is the seasoning. IN a low point i decided to put some on my pasta and add a little water to make a roman noodle concoction if you will and low and behold it was Amazing!! tasted like pure America. I was happy
4. Africans find little people hilarious- I was desperate to watch some TV this week and on Thursdays at the school they watch TV so I decided to join after some students told me it was a good idea. I had no idea what i was in for. Picture about 150 people crowded in a room with a 26 inch TV straight out of 1994 being powered by a generator showing what looks like shows produced by high school production class. One of the shows featured a little person and every time he would come on the room went cray cray it was funny to watch them all freak out when they saw him. When i told some of the teachers about the show Little People Big World they were beside themselves.
5. You can always increase- after the phrase be free this is what i always here. They use it to refer to a coke, beer, food, time or really anything in general. My late friend Mr. Happy was notorious for using this phrase. Last Friday i was down in Isoko hanging out at the guest house/ bar/ lounge tha tin America on the inside would be considered a crack house but here is a fine establishment that plays gospel music videos and Tanzanian parliment. Anyway Happy and i were hanging out and he was buying me coke after coke informing me when I finished one that there were plenty and i must increase I could not possibly be full. Six big cokes later I finally managed to stop the madness only after being informed that I could alwasy increase with one for the walk home. I kindly declined and was about to set off for home when he infomred me that I must have an escoourt or two because again you can alwasy increase and walking alone all that way would make me lonely.
That is all for now because I do not have very much battery left on my computer I am going to update again this weekend with details from the Tanzanian funeral I sadly had to attend this week for my friend Mr. Happy.
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