Well, that was fun. Roman emailed me the other day with a screenshot of my website, asking if there was some joke—instead of a little blog about my thoughts on life and social enterprise in Tanzania, a DOS-command-prompt-from-circa-1995-looking screen greeted me instead. Thanks to some help from Scott (love you! and…
Tags: equalityWhy don’t you bring more American woman here?
–I can’t promise that they’d want to come.
Tell them how many goats we have. There are so many goats.
–Ronan, a Tanzanian at breakfast (who is right about the goats…ladies…)
‘Habari ya jioni!’ Good evening! I called to Filimani, our askari (guard), through the window as he patrolled the perimeter of the house. ‘Salama! Habari, Lulu?’ Peaceful. What’s new with you, Lulu? he replied. ‘Salama kapisa. O! Nina shida kwa nyuki… Subiri kidogo.’ Completely peaceful. O, I have a problem…
Tags: art imitates life > strange bugs
I am a feminist. This post started as a desire to write about the kidnapping of 234 girls in Nigeria. Girls who were kidnapped because they were taking a physics exam. Getting an education. My physics education was rife with SpongeBob references. (Thanks, Mr. Gundrum!) I may have resented that I was…
Tags: equality
My heart is big. I wonder sometimes whether I have too many loves in this life; how I will ever find the time to fit everything in—experience it all, change all that I wish to change, improve, make better. Language, literature. Conversation. Wine, beer, spirits. Travel. Really inspired business models….
Tags: calorific > Mamas
Three months ago today I was cruising down Route 1 through Big Sur with Ben. Three months. A quarter of a year. 25% of 2014. It was the first day of the rest of my life, in a very real way. I had packed up my belongings, left on a…
Oh, Dag
you remembered
–I got you something
you did?
that’s so sweet
–I got you the greatest gift one human being can offer another person
you didn’t have to do that
what is it?
–I have achieved something
Oh, gosh
well
–I made an achievement all by myself and no one can touch it or sully it with their dirty jealous fingers and no one can take it away from me, never never never
–so
–happy birthday
thank you, Dagny
–Yes.
–You’re welcome.
Just a little sumpin’ sumpin’ from The Toast for your birthday. You’re welcome!
Wishing I could offer you an actual toast with something like Lagunitas’s Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’. Happy birthday, Ryan!
There’s a stall close by our house where I go for breakfast most mornings, and for lunch when I’m not in town. (Head on over to Flickr to check our some pictures of it empty on a Sunday.) It’s nice. They know my name, address me as Dada Lulu. I’m…
It made it! I couldn’t be more pleased. Or duly impressed. Ben figured out how to send me packages. To those of you with mailboxes living in a country able to support the basic infrastructure of a postal service, you may not understand why I’m so impressed. There aren’t addresses…
We do not know why it is raining like this. All that we know is that when it rains for two days in a row, it will be time to plant the seeds.
–Mama Shido (more stories of her to follow)
There are two rainy seasons here, one from March-May (short rains: rains daily for only half an hour to two hours, but a deluge) and the other around November (long rains: a few hours a day, but very light).
A couple weeks ago, it was raining. Early. Turns out there was a storm south of here, over Madagascar, but it was a storm so big that its spindly arms sprinkled us, too.
It’s now March. It rained yesterday. It just started raining again today. Tomorrow it will be time to plant the seeds.
It’s our dada’s first day of work here today. Family relations took me a couple tries to get right here in Swahili. Easy: Mother is mama. Medium: Brother is kaka. (Yep.) Hard: Sister is dada and father is baba. I may have called a few old men ‘sister’ once or…
Tags: Swahili
Ah, Coca-Cola. I tip my hat to you. You have figured out a way to distribute to the last mile. It probably has something to do with your bottomless pockets and nearly infinite resources, but nevertheless, you are my role model. For distribution. Generally I’m not too fond of the…
Tags: business
I survived my commute, safe and sound. Sameer and I stopped alongside the row of shops where Reminia’s was. He and Sean breakfast here every day. He warns me that each time that they bring someone new, something changes. Today the change is that the samosas are dry. But no…
Tags: calorificTalking with friends and family back home reminded me that the mundane here is what most people wonder about. Roman asked what I eat. Martha wanted to see what the toilets look like. Daddy couldn’t believe that women actually carry bunches of bananas on their heads.
It’s in the spirit of recording my day-to-day that I’m approaching these posts that will be published in the Mundane category. I’ve shaken off my self-consciousness at feeling like a tourist when I photograph everything. I obviously am not from around here. (Lakini mimi ni mbongo kabisa.) I’m documenting my daily mundane for your edification, to show you what life in Moshi is like.
In keeping with the theme, I thought that I’d record my commute.
Tags: safe and sound
Tim says that unfortunately there aren’t linens yet. I’m moving into his house this weekend. It will be good for me to live with some mzungu, to have friends around to hang out, to create some spontaneous social opportunities. ‘That’s fine,’ I tell him. I have linens, and we can…
Tags: social life
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