Sunday stroll

To be honest, I never stroll! However, I thought I'd take you with me on a short walk I took this morning before lunch. The thunder was rumbling overhead and the air was heavy and oppressive, but though the sky was black over the mountains it was blue and sunny over town. I walked up the hill, through the woods to a point where I get a nice view of the mountain. Being the rainy season, everywhere is fresh and green and the scent of the eucalyptus trees fill the air. I didn't have my camera with me, but I captured a few snapshots on my phone of things I saw - the flowers and views were lovely, I saw beautiful butterflies too and also women returning from a busy morning of gathering wood jogging quickly down the path with huge bundles on their head that are probably heavier than their own body weight.

Back home

Settling back into life in Mbeya has been a rather bumpy ride, but now the way is smoothing out and life has fallen into some kind of pattern. This pattern involves a brisk and hilly walk to work from 7.45am – 8.15am (a good way to exercise and pray), a day in the office, a hot walk home and then a long evening that always seems to pass surprisingly quickly! If I’m home alone there’s food to be cooked, washing up to be done, correspondence to keep up with and people to Skype as well as ER to watch, music to write and listen to and books to read. Sometimes I have friends round – this week my landlady popped in for a bit, three Tanzanian colleagues came for a drink and cake one evening after work and another two a different evening. Today a Tanzanian friend is coming for lunch and tomorrow I’m going out for dinner with three missionary friends, so the weekend shouldn’t feel too lonely!

Thought I’d share a big cultural difference with you, one you may already be aware of but was brought home to me in a funny way this week. I was in the car with three Tanzanian colleagues (two men and a lady) and another missionary. The man in the middle put on his seat belt, which was rather loose on him, and said (loosely translated), “This belt is for Mama!” Mama is sitting in the front, and is somewhat on the large side. Can you imagine making a comment like that in England? What would the lady’s reaction be?!! However, they all considered it a perfectly acceptable joke, and if anything Mama took it as a complement. Here, when you describe people, you describe them by their size (the fat one, the tall one etc.) and to describe them as thin is something of an insult. My colleagues told me that if a lady is well rounded, people may even joke that she shouldn’t do hard work so that she doesn’t lose weight! As a nutritionist, I can’t say that fat is good, though it is better to be a bit overweight and fit than thin and unfit, however I wonder if our society can learn something from this attitude by becoming a little less obsessed with what we conceive as the perfect figure.

Back in my house

On Monday I was in my parents’ home in little Lapworth, in the heart of England, and by Wednesday evening I was in my house in the city of Mbeya, in the southern highlands of Tanzania. Quite a transition! And as always happens in these situations, England now feels like a dream that I’ve just woken up from, and I’m not sure whether it was real or not. However, emails, texts and Skype connects me in a way that makes it very real, though sometimes I feel like I am reading about something that is happening in a book, rather than real life, as I am not there to feel it, touch it and smell it! To be honest, this transition is a very difficult one for me for many reasons, so I am trying to focus on the things that make me smile about being back here. I thought I’d share a few of those with you…

- Being greeted by all kinds of people, whether I know them or not, as I walk along the street

- The smell of the rain, trees and flowers (I can smell them even now, in my living room, wafting in through the open window, as the rain patters on the roof and the thunder rumbles)

- The way people help you – at the market today, my ‘friend’ who sells bananas just abandoned her stall to show me where to buy something else that I wanted, and helped me make my purchase! (Of course, I then went and bought some bananas off her, even though I didn’t need any more, so it was also a pretty good business move!)

- Being able to walk everywhere to do what I need to do (rather than drive)

- Chatting with the ‘milk lady’ – I buy fresh milk from a lady down the road, and when I went to get it on Friday the cow hadn’t yet been milked, so I was invited in and we sat and chatted for nearly an hour! She sent off her child to buy me a soda (such hospitality is so important to them, though I was just shamefully aware of how the soda had cost almost as much as I was about to pay them for the milk*). Relationships are so much more important here than your ‘to do’ list!

- Mangos (big fat juicy ones – four for about 70p) and chapattis

- Being able to wear light clothes and sandals again

- Sitting in my rocking chair on the veranda in the sunshine

*In case you are wondering whether this means milk is very expensive or soda is very cheap – it’s the latter. A 350ml bottle of Coca Cola costs about 25p, and 1 litre of milk about 30p