BFE Africa!

It’s like we are in rural Africa! We were without electricity from 3pm on last night, again, seems to be common occurrence, three times a week or so, give or take a day. Luckily, the family has on stock a large quantity of “shumaa”, or candles in English, which lit that evening’s dinner. I have a feeling Betsy and I will have “romantic” dinners quite often here, much to our chagrin because the darkness usually invites the buibui, or spiders the size of Betsy’s head, out of the walls. We have affectionately named one of the extraordinarily nimble spiders, Alfred; though not as cuddly as Frank, our dog, it may possess superior intelligence. We currently have a running tally of insects killed, Betsy is not as adept to killing as I am, although I definitely do not possess a “killer-instinct” myself.

Betsy: 4 roaches, 2 mini-spiders, 2 centipedes

Ryan: 4 GIANT spiders (gross!), 3 roaches, 3 mini-spiders, countless flies and the largest beetle I have ever seen! So large that I had to run and get Betsy to look at it before I took the howitzer to it.

Life here has been alright, I love the family we’re living with, however, I’m still trying to adjust to Tanzanian culture. There is a saying here, “Tanzanians are not like Westerners who like to have everything finished today, we leave the hardest tasks for tomorrow.” This mentality has been a stick in our spokes on a daily basis, which I’ve lovingly termed, Tanz-time, and has driven me nuts from the day we arrived. I am not an anthropologist, that is for sure and watching the paint dry is definitely not a coveted past-time for me, so this experience, albeit great so far, has had its definitive points of frustration.

The past few nights, especially the ones without electricity, have been quite spectacular, celestially speaking. A few nights ago I witnessed an amazing sight, the Milky Way, which is all but impossible to see in the US. Every part of the sky was lit-up with twinkling, yes they actually do twinkle, stars and there wasn’t a dark spot to be seen. Venus, which is high right now, was so incredibly bright is was hard to take my eyes off of while the rest of the stars come in a brilliant array of colors ranging from bright white down to a pale brown. It was one of the more incredible things I’ve seen in my adult life and wish all of you could see it. I will try to perfect my aperture timing over the next few nights and upload the pictures when we are in Dar. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures over the past week, Haydom’s internet connection shares the same mentality of its people, Tanz-time.
-Ryan