Mar 30, 04:54 PM
Toaster Wars at the Centre House Hostel
At the Centre House Hostel in Arusha, TZ, 14,000 shillings buys a double room with mosquito net, shared bathroom facilities, and breakfast.
The breakfast is very consistent. Each day you get tea or coffee (if you take milk here, it is boiled milk and actually tastes quite nice in your tea), one fried egg, and all the bread you want. (Every few days they also have bananas, but that’s the only variation.)
It’s the matter of the bread I’d like to talk about here. Each morning, about ten to twelve travelers, seemingly alert for 7am, stumble in to breakfast and almost simultaneously reach for the bread to toast it. Mind you, there is one two-slotted toaster for everyone to crowd around for toasting.
There are different strategies that one can employ while trying to get your bread toasted; you can sip your tea with one eye on the person you’re talking to at breakfast and one eye on the toaster (which is hard to do because most likely the person you’re talking to is doing the same thing); you can bypass putting the toast in the toaster yourself, but have your friend, conveniently seated by the toaster, put it in for you, thereby bypassing the rules a bit and “getting ahead in line,” so to speak; or you can simply wait for the toaster’s vacancy to work in your favor. Needless to say, most likely everyone who wants toast eventually gets what they need. It’s just a rather funny process to watch adults clamor over.
Meeting people:
The hostel hosts a lot of interesting people, and we were surprised to find some defense attorneys from the ICTR staying there. (Not very talkative, I’m afraid.)
One of the many people we met while staying at the Centre House Hostel was a man named Kanta. On Monday at breakfast, I mentioned interest in taking up a couple of language courses in Swahili and I was wondering if anyone knew of anyone who did such a thing in Arusha. Before I could make plans with an American public health PhD student who had a recommendation for me, a man by the name of Kanta, who I’d been introduced to before, chimed in with, “well, I can teach you. I am a good teacher. Let me do it.” We talked it over, established a price (only $10 for two hours—not bad, considering the American’s suggestion was someone who was offering $12/hour), and agreed that we would meet that day for two hours and he would start classes with
me. What I also learned about Kanta is that he has been carrying the “uhuru” torch, which means the “independence” torch, for Tanzania all around the country, raising awareness about HIV/AIDS and encouraging people to vote.
The “uhuru” torch, we later learned, was something that Mwalimu J.K. Nyere, Tanzania’s first president after independence, had encouraged among Tanzanians and had one torch placed on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, as a sign of commitment to independence.
The other reason Kanta was here was to take his bar exam, as he was a graduate of law school from Dar es Salaam and had traveled here to take the exam. He passed the exam successfully, called his girlfriend and proposed to her immediately over the phone, and then proceeded to stay in Arusha a couple of extra days to tutor some other law students, studying for the BAR exam.
While here, he also picked up his first ever payment from me (I hadn’t gone to the bank yet, so only had some American dollars) in American money for payment for the language course. I have to say, I learned a lot from him in those two hours. I’m certainly not fluent, but I have a better grasp on Swahili than I did before. I was hoping to continue working with Kanta this week, but he was called to an interview in Dar es Salaam and had to take it.
Before he left, he met Mark (whom he knew was to be a law student in the fall) and encouraged him to come to TZ when he was through, they’d start a practice together and be successful. He was very convincing and also offered us to stay with him when we’re in Dar es Salaam later on in April, and we plan on taking him up on that.
I really learned a lot from Kanta—more than just Swahili—and what I think both Mark and I have been impressed with are the amount of young, talented leaders we are meeting here in E. Africa. So many people think that Africa is full of hopelessness, but the kind of folks we are meeting provide one with a sense of hope for the continent, a sense that things will be, and can be, achieved.
LOVE the commentary on the toaster :) So great to hear your thoughts and reflections thus far. Love you guys!
— Becky Apr 21, 08:07 AM #