International Women's Day!

One week in. Tanzania is growing on me even more. I had my one week evaluation today where they asked me information on how I was finding Tanzania and the family I am staying with. Incidentally, I have answered all of the questions on my blog anyway and when he asked how I found living with Moses and Benedeta Jacob, I just refreshed the answer I gave to a volunteer who will be staying with us in April. The experience so far has been amazing but so different to what I expected. The family have made me feel like a guest at a hotel, with my own room and en-suite bathroom equipped with Western facilities, three meals a day if I am at home and, today, I came home to all my clothes washed and ironed. I have found the people of Tanzania generally very friendly, although you get the usual sort trying to sell a tourist anything and everything. It has been a bit of a shock but I have felt so welcome that it does not really affect me in the way that it might have.

Thursday 8^th March marked International Women’s Day and I was asked if I wanted to attend with some other Projects Abroad volunteers as it may have been of interest for my human rights project. Having been to an excellent International Women's Day event while at Lancaster, I was happy to go along, even though it meant that I was unable to teach at Gohechi for the day. It also provided me with plenty of photo opportunities and something to write about. The walk itself was a great experience, with hundreds of local women from many different organisations and groups attending the walk, and lasted roughly an hour. At the head of the walk was a band but all along the line of women there were songs and chants to go with the banners and placards, most highlighting violence against women. As we passed local men a volunteer holding our own hand drawn sign was pressing the message. It was a benefit that they were young, white women as they instantly drew male attention. The walk culminated in a park outside the Impala Hotel, with different stalls giving away leaflets or selling items made by women and a local dance troupe to provide entertainment.

As the other volunteers left, I decided to take a trip to the Njiro Complex which, in the end, consisted of a supermarket, a food court, a cinema and four or five stores selling clothes, toys and books. The supermarket was what most interested me though as when I walked inside a majority of the brands they stocked were the same as the ones I had to take customers to at ASDA. Carex soap, Nando's peri-peri sauce, Vina Albali Gran Reserva (although 2001 not 2004) were all there, as were the white shoppers. It was nice to know I could head somewhere if I ever got homesick and buy some Nando's sauce to have with my ugali. On the way back to my house I was befriended by another local, who apparently wants to become a tour guide if he gets enough money. He followed me all the way back to Mianzini before I managed to get rid of him at the point where I turn into my road.

Later that day was the Projects Abroad social. Everyone met at the office and went down to a local Swahili buffet. Compared to the nine volunteers that were at the International Women's Day walk earlier, it was a welcome surprise to find a whole room full of people. At the buffet I sat at first with two girls I had met earlier at the walk, but found my place taken as I went to get food so ended up sitting in the main room watching football on the TV with a Projects' employee, a Dutch volunteer and we were eventually joined by an Australian. This accounted for almost half the men there with two other male volunteers, one of which had finished his project anyway, in the other room. I may or may not have mentioned before my surprise at the lack of British and male volunteers in Tanzania and I felt it at the social. As my house-mate did not attend, I felt rather alienated at the beginning of the night, but as they closed out dinner with a view to switching the venue to Via Via, a popular bar here in Arusha, I was not going to say no to hanging out for a couple more hours. Here it was easier to chat to people as the environment of standing around was a little more conductive and a drink or two helps. The shy child of yesteryear still rears his ugly (uglier?) head every once in a while. Anyway, I was not able to stay long as I had to get a taxi home at 10 due to not having a key to the house and I did not want to disturb my hosts at 2am in the morning. I am told that a popular solution for my conundrum is to stay at a local backpackers hostel so, next time, I will be able to stay later hopefully.

On Friday I was back at school, where the children were taking tests. This meant that I was mostly making sure everyone behaved rather than teaching but I also had to intervene at one point to explain what one of the answers meant for a child as the teacher either did not understand the question, did not understand the answer or just simply ignored the poor girl. I'm not sure which would be the better option, to be honest. I was also visited on site by Robert, a Project's employee in charge of the teaching and human rights projects, for the evaluation. One thing we did hit upon was whether I liked Tanzania, which I do for many reasons. One of those reasons was because I actually feel rather safe in Tanzania. I find the people really friendly to the extent that strangers on the dala-dala (minibus) will check your change to make sure you haven't been overcharged. However, I have two things going for me: I'm used to sticking out. I'm a BBC who doesn't speak Chinese, went to a northern university and studied English Literature; and I am a bloke. I heard tales from my house-mate, as well as from other volunteers on Thursday's social, that they get harassed far more with men approaching them asking if they were married, touching them and even a few on-the-spot proposals. I, on the other hand, don't get marriage proposals from the Tanzanian women (neither do the other male volunteers before you start) and like I posted in my last post, everyone probably thinks I can do kung fu.

Hopefully I will get to meet more people over the coming weeks. 'Til next time.