After church on Sunday, Barbara and I went with Dada Maggie,
a woman who works at Loyola, to greet her at her home. She is building a
beautiful house outside the city. The house where she and her family stay now
is right on the river that was flooded (and always floods) during the rainy
season. To get to her new home we took a dala dala (city bus), a smaller dala
(like a eighteen passenger van), and finally an actual minivan. Something I
didn’t realize is that there are hills just outside Dar, and her house is
literally on the hillside. From there you can see the entire spread of Dar and
its extending neighborhoods. The view was spectacular. The house was not yet
finished. It was only the exposed brick, roof and window irons. The dirt in the
surrounding yard was deep red and looked especially saturated against all the
green that were orange trees, cashew plants, and a collection of other foliage.
The sun faded in and out as thick clouds passed. It was noticeably quiet. Since
kids were out of school they had been frequently knocking on our gate to play,
so the relative silence was relaxing.
We spread out a mat on the floor and started the day with
tea and chapati. Dada Maggie’s daughter had come with us as well. While she
started the charcoal for cooking lunch, Dada Maggie lit a small fire outside to
heat water for our tea. She picked lemon grass that was growing in the yard to
put in the tea. They had brought chapati from home.
For lunch, we learned to prepare rice, beef and spinach. We
made the rice with coconut. Since this is Tanzania, we started with an actual
coconut, burst is open with a hammer that was around, and poured the milk into
glasses so we could drink it. Then, with a device that is a small seat with a
jagged metal spatula on the end, we took turns scraping out the coconut. When
all the coconut had been scraped out, we added water to the shavings, and
worked our hands through it to saturate the water. The strained water is what
we added to the rice to cook. I have found that everything tastes better here,
not only because the ingredients are fresh, but also because you have to work a
lot harder to get the consumable product. The chunks of beef we cooked in
tomatoes and onions and the spinach also with onions and garlic. It was a feast
and we truly enjoyed, just the four of us, in her house on the hillside.
Greeting Dada Maggie has been my favorite visit so far. That
hill side has become my new ‘happy place.’ Last week we went back to school. On
Friday we celebrated Gonzaga Day, which included delicious food, student performances,
a dance party, and lots of photo ops with my students. I was happy to enjoy the
day with them. Seeing them relaxed and just being kids. Also these past three
weeks, Erin and Alyson’s parents were visiting. They were so wonderful; relaxed
and flexible guests which made their time here truly enjoyable. Hopefully this
week will be a return to some sort of normalcy. Although I was happy for a
month of rest, I am looking forward to getting back into a routine.
