It’s Sunday morning. I’m enjoying a nice lie in (as the Brits say), watching the sun filter in through my mosquito net and catching up on some of the Master of Rome series (almost done Book V, baby!). I roll over to get my glasses, and notice a small tick-like…
Tags: safe and sound > strange bugs
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’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
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
Fueled by chapati mbili and a perfect mug of chai ya rangi, I’m ready to work. I resolved to carry out four chapati to eat along this morning while I worked, in denial about the fact that it’s impossible to eat chapati and type at the same time. It takes two hands to rip…
Tags: calorific
Sometimes, you need to take a step back and laugh. Those who know me are familiar with my meticulousness. I live by my to-do list, my calendar, my smart mailbox of unread messages (beats checking my 40+ folders individually). So when I sat down to review this week’s schedule, I…
Mwihidini’s driving me home again. It’s the night before we leave for Nairobi for Sankalp. I’m sitting in the front for the first time. Usually I prefer to sit in the back, to be driven and to maintain a semblance of decorum. I’m not sure how things are done here,…
Tags: Swahili
(Photo courtesy of Sameer Dossa. Cheers, Sameer!) Mama Kosta is nothing if not a business woman. When we asked her if we could film her for a video, she declined. She hates being in front of a camera, for pictures or video. ‘Tell her what it’s for,’ Adam tells Cecilia….
Tags: Mamas
Moshi is safe. It’s also very clean. It’s peaceful and pretty. If it’s not too late in the morning when I leave the house, I walk into town. I can stay in the shade on the side of the road, and enjoy the walk thinking through things for myself. The…
Tags: Swahili
I can’t decide whether it’s a disadvantage that I can manage to go without food easily. Unlike others, I don’t get irritable when my blood sugar starts to dip when I haven’t eaten in a while. I don’t have to eat immediately after I get up in the morning. I…
Tags: Swahili
I like Mwihidini, whom Adam and I usually refer to simply as Baba. One of our usual taxi drivers, Mwhidini does everything slowly. His slow driving makes me feel safe, and doesn’t jostle me too much as we bounce down my unpaved road. His slow Swahili makes him easy to understand…
Tags: Swahili
‘Do you need anything before heading home? Wine, food, water?’ ‘I should probably get water.’ We pause to check for cars before crossing the street. Right, left, right again. Or is it left, right, left? No, the former. We’re on the other side here. We enter the grocery store. Mambo….
Tags: Swahili
It’s blissfully cool these mornings. My large, loud ceiling fan churns, pulling up the dew-damp air that spills through my windows onto the floor. Somewhere someone has just lighted a fire; I can smell burning—if I had to guess—charcoal. But the kind of charcoal that looks like a completely burnt…
Tags: Swahili
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