Oct. 4th - Msasani ....back home again......

Msasani - Saturday, Oct 4

I think I figured out the reason I stopped writing a travel journal last year. I don't write a journal at home. Life just doesn't seem interesting enough day to day. Eventually everything here became day to day and I stopped noticing the differences between my Canadian and Tanzanian lives. They have melted together now very effectively. So much so that I never got that familiar feeling of excitement when i landed in Nairobi. I didn't cry while the bus passed through dirt cities and markets, in fact I slept most of the way.

At first everything was like I was watching it on television and I found myself very suprised that I was actually still the same person. Somehow I suppose i was expecting some miraculous transformation into my Swahili self and never imagined that I had brought myself home to Canada and it is now an active part of me.

Moshi is as if I never left, only I have changed. I don't really remember who I was exactly when I left- how i felt about people constantly staring at me (is that why I stopped going in to town?) and was I giving money to the lepers on the street? (i cant imagine why I would ever decide not to but im not sure I did by the time i left).

There are more children in my house than usual - a great gift for me - they look up to me like I used to look up to my uncle Lou - the cool young uncle who brought me interesting toys and spoke to me like I was an adult. I am reaping the benifits of their unconditional love.

Only one person has died since I left, I feared many more and am incredibly grateful. The family has welcomed me back into their arms and I think I'm doing a pretty good job avoiding headlocks of family politics and drama which runs rampant at my house. People in town are recognizing me and calling out my Swahili name on the street, giving me the old celebrity feeling and making up for the endless stares that make me feel that I do not belong.

This early in my visit the possiblities are endless I've been sitting at the bar drinking soup with Issack for breakfast fantasisng about going to safari guide school, travelling to rwanda, joining him on a one month research safari all around tanzania, visiting the jane goodall institute, becoming fluent in swahili, loosing weight and getting in shape, learning to cook the 5 hour meals that are prepared outside my bedroom door all day every day, taking over for Grace who ran the Hisani orphanage in Mwanza but has now elected to go to university.... endless. More likely though, I'll just hang around and do whatever I want whenever I want and soak into myself as much as possible until its time to go home.


I haven't known what time it is since I arrived and had a 10 minute argument with Issack today about what day it is. Ahhhh... Tanzania.

I've already got a to do list a mile long but somehow totally unconcerned about it. I'm still so happy to be here.

Let me step outside of the situation for a moment and explain my surroundings. At the moment I am lying on my bed (a foamie on the floor) with Kefa, Angel and Ivan. They are the children of the women I call my sisters and have adopted me as their auntie. We are watching one of the Harry Potter DVDs I brought and they are a bit worried about the dementors. Except Kefa. He is not scared of anything. He is also reading every word I write so I have to be careful what I say!

Its kind of funny, looking outside in I notice that my room is full of laptop computers, new and used, a fridge and a fan, but the floor is made of cement, the electricty is ify at best and the other women are preparing lunch outside over fires.

I'm going to have to force some details out of myself somehow so let me interview myself a bit:

How do you spend your days?

Yesterday I woke up, went to the pub for mtori (a breakfast soup made of cow and green bananas), went to the bank to get some cash (a forty five minute ordeal as the first two did not want to give me money), came home and slept throught the hottest part of the day (most of the day!), woke up, ate some ugali mchicha (corn mush served with spinach cooked with coconut), unpacked and started to set up my room, went back to sleep, woke up and went for mchemsha (a bowl of consume and a tray of stewed chicken and veggies and green banana) , watched Issack play four games of pool, bought an avacado and came home to bed. Oh, and watched 1.5 Harry Potter movies. Yup, life here is tough for me.

Today Kefa has come over and we will spend a few hours working on laptops.