Tanzania, Day 11

July 27, 2010

It was our last day at MRI today so we had a lot of wrapping-up to do. I started off with a presentation about assessment, using Bloom's Taxonomy to expand your assessment strategies etc. After tea, Selemani requested more information about how we manage our Advisory Committees so Doug gave a presentation about that. We both did an overall review & reflection on the days of training. And we followed that with the usual anonymous evaluation form, then presented the Certificates of Training for everybody, the photographs (individual & group), hand-shaking etc. Then we got into perhaps the most important part of it: where to go for lunch. Doug & I had invited everybody, "our treat this time" & asked them to suggest a place. The group settled on a traditional eating establishment we hadn't yet visited (New Green cafe? something like that) & away we went.

The New Green cafe is situated in the downtown area of Dodoma. It seems to be owned by a couple who employ several kids (perhaps their own?) to wait on tables. The tables are outside, under trees, along the side of the street, & the cooking facilities for the cafe are in a location diagonally across the street. So you order your lunch from among the half-dozen or so possibilities & after a little while the kids carry your food across the street, dodging traffic. Good thing the street is not so busy.

The food was pretty good this time. Tanzania does not have what I would call a 'cuisine' but there are some tasty items. It seems that the most national dish is called 'Nyama choma'which translates as 'burnt meat'. Oh, surely they must mean 'barbecued meat' I thought when I first heard that but no: 'burnt meat' is more accurate. You are brought a dish piled high with almost-burnt bits of meat & you just eat away at the pile. You also get some condiments: limes, salt, some tomato or chili sauce, & a bit of fresh relish of some sort.

However the New Green Cafe was not a nyama choma sort of place so I was able to get some fish with ugali. Not bad, really. The fish looks totally gross when you first get it -- it seems to be just the huge burned head of a tilapia -- but in fact if you dig around a little you discover that there's lots of meat on the piece & it's tasty.

But you do not even start to eat before you wash your hands. Tanzanians wait until the food has just arrived & then they get up & wash hands. Every place -- even the lowliest & grimiest -- has handwashing facilities. Sometimes, as in the New Green Cafe, it is just a bucket with water & a little dish of soap powder. Because both Doug & I have been dealing with intestinal upset ever since we got here, regardless of whether we eat carefully or not, we have decided that the Tanzanians may have a point & we have started to follow the handwashing custom as well. Really, in this environment you just have no idea where you are picking up the germs. Washing your hands AFTER you handle the menu starts to make sense.

A lot of the food is eaten with your hands. The ugali (a sort of stiff porridge made from various kinds of flour; I think I mentioned it before) is pulled off into walnut-sized pieces & rolled in your fingers until it forms a ball & then it's dipped in whatever sauce came with your food. Pleasantly bland & filling. And then you just rip the fish apart with your hands & eat it bit by bit. French fries, however, are usually eaten with a fork. Go figure.

After eating, you get up & wash your hands again, which makes good sense after you have grubbed around digging out fish bones from greasy flesh for half an hour. Then you sit back & order another beer & wait for the bill.

We waited & waited for the bill. It turned out that the kids waiting on us were not that proficient with math & because we had a large group in our party, with plenty of engineers who had ordered quite a bit of beer, it was very difficult to calculate exactly how much had been ordered. Overall, it took us about 1 hour to eat & 1.5 hours to total the bill & get a receipt.

while they were struggling with the receipt, we had time to relax under the trees & drink & talk & watch the street life. I lost track of how many street vendors visited us, selling CDs, clothes, shoes, toothpaste, jewellry. A young woman wearing a t-shirt saying 'Jesus will do it AGAIN' stayed for a while & chanted prayers in Swahili. "She has a mental condition", one of our group told us, "and she can get aggressive at times." Hm, interesting; but she did not get aggressive this time & eventually moved on.

In the crowds of people coming & going, it took me a while to notice the street children. First there was a girl of maybe 12 or 13, leaning against a tree just at the edge of our group, watching us remotely. She was not begging; I'm not sure what she wanted. And I didn't notice until Selemani pointed it out to me that she was 5 or 6 months pregnant. "This is a common problem in Dodoma," he commented.

She drifted off into the crowd but suddenly there were 2 young boys sitting at the vacated table next to us. They would have been 10 or 12 or so & they stood out because they were dirty (most children in Tanzania seem to be very well looked after). They eyed our food & put out their hands to beg once or twice but members of our group spoke something & they retreated back to the table. Evenutally the New Green kids came to clear our table & they moved our plates over to the neighbouring table while they discussed the bill with us (at great length). Immediately the boys started going through our leftovers, looking for chicken bones with meat left on them & other bits. The one fellow had a bag & was trying to drain the baked beans into it but a woman in our crowd got up & took a spoon to help him collect the food more efficiently.

It was interesting to see how the street children were treated. Their begging behaviour was not encouraged or even tolerated but they were not yelled at or talked about at our table. Members of our group were willing to help them get some food & even the cafe owners turned a blind eye to their scavenging. On the whole I would have to say that they were treated more compassionately than I have seen street people treated in Canada.

The bill, when it came, had to be added up by half a dozen people & the total came out differently each time, partly because the engineers at some of the tables kept on ordering more beer (!). Finally Doug got so frustrated waiting for the total that he rounded it up (generously) just to cover the sum whatever it might be. The New Green staff was so grateful for the tip that they had to thank him at length & then they coaxed him to have his picture taken with their kids.

Things do take time.

But now the day is done & tomorrow we head for Dar es Salaam. Another 7 hours of death-defying travel on the highways of Tanzania. Wish me luck...