Culture shock 101
Well, we arrived in Dar es Salaam this morning. The flight from London was fine (despite being overnight!) because we got the thrill of flying past Mount Kilimanjaro at sunrise. The peak, with the huge snow capped crater poked through the clouds in a very surreal and un-natural way. It really was beautiful. I thought the plane would tip sideways with all the passengers crowding to one side to have a look. Wow.
"Dar" as it is known here is hot and crowded with people. I thought we would run over at least two different pedestrians as we drove from the airport to the hotel today. This city reminds me of somewhere else..just not sure where. It might be that it is perhaps like many major cities in third world countries with a few large office buildings and hotels but mostly crumbling facades and dust and wild animals eating garbage and people...everywhere.
This city is mostly Muslim (as is most of the Eastern part of Tanzania) and we could see that in the way people were dressed. Women are fairly conservative but not with major face coverage or Burquas, just more conservative. We also saw some tall thin people resembling what I pictured to be Masai (like those in most Serengeti safari pictures). I later learned they were Masai...having come to the big city like everyone else, out of necessity to earn a living and feed their families.
We have learned (and tried) some Swahili.
Karibu means welcome
Assante means Thanks
Assante sana means many thanks
Habari means Good Day but when it has a suffix such as Habari Zemchanna (probabably misspelled) it means good afternoon or good night etc..depend son the suffix.
The main language here is Swahili but English is required to some degree in all schools.
The most important word we learned (but actually knew of before we got here) is Mzungu or white person. And, that is what we are ...no matter how you slice it...we stick out.
Our hotel is called the Golden Tulip and by Tanzanian standards is quite fancy. It sits on a cliff on the Indian Ocean acroos a bay from the down town area. The beaches on the North and South side of Dar are quite beautiful. The ferry to Zanzibar leaves from near where we are staying. This will be our 'breaking in' period, to ease into the culture, because, in two days we head for Moshi (near Kilimanjaro) to meet Greg John (from CACHA) and Elizabeth Minde (of KWIECO). Elizabeth is partnered with us for our HIV women's health project (Prevention Through Empowerment). I am sure she will be an excellent resource for us and we hope to be able to help her expand on her in improving women's rights in Tanzania.
More tomorrow on our visit to the Boona Baana Children's rights centre and The Green Door Home Orphanage. We will visit with Marco and Brooke there tomorrow and take them for dinner. We met them today at our hotel to discuss Tanzanian adoption. We also met their two adopted daughters, Masai and Elba.
More on Dar tomorrow...time for dinner now (or is it breakfast or is it lunch?).
We already miss all of you but we are excited about our journey...
Jack and Hannah: we miss you and hope that Hannah had a good birthday yesterday. We will take lots of pictures so that we will be able to tell you about what we have seen.
"Dar" as it is known here is hot and crowded with people. I thought we would run over at least two different pedestrians as we drove from the airport to the hotel today. This city reminds me of somewhere else..just not sure where. It might be that it is perhaps like many major cities in third world countries with a few large office buildings and hotels but mostly crumbling facades and dust and wild animals eating garbage and people...everywhere.
This city is mostly Muslim (as is most of the Eastern part of Tanzania) and we could see that in the way people were dressed. Women are fairly conservative but not with major face coverage or Burquas, just more conservative. We also saw some tall thin people resembling what I pictured to be Masai (like those in most Serengeti safari pictures). I later learned they were Masai...having come to the big city like everyone else, out of necessity to earn a living and feed their families.
We have learned (and tried) some Swahili.
Karibu means welcome
Assante means Thanks
Assante sana means many thanks
Habari means Good Day but when it has a suffix such as Habari Zemchanna (probabably misspelled) it means good afternoon or good night etc..depend son the suffix.
The main language here is Swahili but English is required to some degree in all schools.
The most important word we learned (but actually knew of before we got here) is Mzungu or white person. And, that is what we are ...no matter how you slice it...we stick out.
Our hotel is called the Golden Tulip and by Tanzanian standards is quite fancy. It sits on a cliff on the Indian Ocean acroos a bay from the down town area. The beaches on the North and South side of Dar are quite beautiful. The ferry to Zanzibar leaves from near where we are staying. This will be our 'breaking in' period, to ease into the culture, because, in two days we head for Moshi (near Kilimanjaro) to meet Greg John (from CACHA) and Elizabeth Minde (of KWIECO). Elizabeth is partnered with us for our HIV women's health project (Prevention Through Empowerment). I am sure she will be an excellent resource for us and we hope to be able to help her expand on her in improving women's rights in Tanzania.
More tomorrow on our visit to the Boona Baana Children's rights centre and The Green Door Home Orphanage. We will visit with Marco and Brooke there tomorrow and take them for dinner. We met them today at our hotel to discuss Tanzanian adoption. We also met their two adopted daughters, Masai and Elba.
More on Dar tomorrow...time for dinner now (or is it breakfast or is it lunch?).
We already miss all of you but we are excited about our journey...
Jack and Hannah: we miss you and hope that Hannah had a good birthday yesterday. We will take lots of pictures so that we will be able to tell you about what we have seen.
posted by karenandroman at 10:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home