Now that Mama Julia is gone, I know that I am past the halfway point of my (first) Tanzania adventure. I looked at a calendar last night and realized I have fewer than twenty weeks left in this country I have come to love deeply. I know I will return at some point, God willing, but I also know life will never be exactly the same as it is right now.
I’m at my desk this morning...waiting for a yet-again broken-down Coaster to be repaired and bring our teachers and students from Igoma/Kisesa. Salome, Yonga, and Catherine are gathered around me, little girls who are all at an age when everything is magical—the sound of my cell phone, the welcome icon on this laptop, the smooth texture of my bracelet. They are giggling as they play with a pencil sharpener, which is dangerously close to sprinkling wood shavings on my keyboard. I know I will look back and long for moments like these, when I am surrounded by love constantly.
In these first five months, I’ve been presented with new experiences at every turn. I’ve never once been bored. Now I feel the pressing of time slipping away, and I must be proactive in order to accomplish everything I set out to do. Many of these things have happened organically...but some will take more effort. When I think about there being a finite number of Sunday Pilau Dinners and times to run with the girls left...well, I can’t think about it now.
I’m going out to live these moments as fully as possible. See items sans "check!" below for a list of what I hope the next few months hold for me.
Julia’s Tanzania Bucket List (A Work in Progress…)
- Learn Swahili (check!)
- Learn to speak GOOD Swahili
- Build my vocabulary of Kisukuma and Kimasai, also
- Eavesdrop on a conversation in Swahili when people don’t know I speak it, then reply with an awesome comeback
- Memorize all the regions of Tanzania and generally become not an idiot about the country’s geography
- Read up on Tanzanian history
- Proudly sing all the words to the Tanzanian National Anthem at morning assembly (check!)
- Take a foot picture on the “heart rock” (check!)
- Eat at Hotel Tilapia (check!)
- Learn to dance, Africa-style (check!)
- Learn how to plait the girls’ hair (check!)
- Plait my hair (check!)
- Experience Christmas in Tanzania (check!)
- Hike Kilimanjaro
- Learn to cook several Tanzanian dishes: pilau, kisamvu (check!), mandazi (check!), chapatti (check!), matoke (check!)…
- Know the name of every student at Joseph and Mary Primary Academy
- Walk to the fishpond (check!)
- Turn right at the main road (check!)
- Swim in Lake Victoria (check!)
- Walk to Kitongo and buy something without a Swahili-speaking chaperone (check!)
- Buy my own produce in Mwanza’s huge market while bargaining in Swahili (check!)
- Take a piki-piki to a dala-dala to another dala-dala to Mwanza
- Wander the streets of Mwanza by myself without the anxiety of having a driver wait for me (check!)
- Marvel at the Serengeti’s magnificence (check, check!)
- Eat in a random café with plastic chairs (check!)
- Soak up the sun on the beaches of Zanzibar (check!)
- Do one special thing for/with each of our girls
- Paint my bedroom sky blue (check!)
- Coordinate a half marathon and train the girls for it
- Teach the girls sign language to accompany the lyrics to various songs
- Perform a song, with dance choreography, on Sunday night for the girls (check!)
- Be part of a flash mob with the girls—future guests, beware!
- Beat Liku on a run (well, I can dream, anyway…)
- Be invited to someone’s home for dinner and actually go (check!)
- Same as 32, but with a local family (check!)
- Introduce Thanksgiving to my Tanzanian family (check!)
- Master those terrible “Lucky” matches so that lighting the gas stove and oven is not an overwhelming object lesson in failure, daily (check!)
- Teach the girls origami
- Open a nail salon for the day (check!)
- Go on a date (check!)
- Learn to balance items on my head (at least five pounds, walking a distance of at least 100 feet with no hands)
- Attend a wedding (check!)
- Buy a fish directly from the fisherman, clean and cook it myself
- Swim in the Indian Ocean (check!)
- Host a Disco Night in the dining hall for all the girls (check!)
- Get a dress custom made for me by a fundi (check!)
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