I arrived in Ngara yesterday (07/09/1012), after a long and sometimes stressful bus ride. More may follow on that, but I want to begin by thinking a little about the warm welcome my fellow volunteers and I have received. As anyone who has read some of my earlier posts knows, my blog is called ujamaa because I am interested in better understanding the social dynamics of Tanzanian culture. My first extended authentic experience with this culture came with my arrival in Ngara, and with the series of meetings that took place shortly following our arrival.
The four of us arrived following over 30 hours of travel time, which was broken up by a 6 hour layover in Kahama. We were picked up by the District Secondary Education Officer, Julius Nestory, who heads the department, and the statistics and logistics officer. We headed to their office to begin our Ngara orientation, where we were introduced to the other department members. This first meeting was an odd mix of formality and warm welcome. We signed the guest book, which, I would come to learn, is a fixture of any Tanzanian government office or school, and had tea, chapati, and maandazi. Everyone introduced themselves somewhat formally, with their name and job position, and we did the same, including some details about where we were from and the location of our teaching assignments. Despite these formalities, everyone was very warm and casual, once we began to chat, and we were told to “be free” more times than I can count. I think this an approximation of the Swahili word karibu, which literally means welcome, but also has some connotation with being free that I don’t quite understand, other than the fact that it is very hospitable.
Despite the fact that Secondary Schools in Tanzania are supposed to be an English-only environment, this is not the case, practically, anywhere in Tanzania. The reason for this becomes evident after only a short time with the district officers – they are simply, and understandably, more comfortable speaking in Swahili. Some conversation takes place between us and them, but they quickly switch into Swahili and do most of their conversing in that language. While the four Ngara volunteers have – on average – the most developed Swahili skills of any the volunteers in any of the regions, even Sue who is very conversational, was unable to carry on much conversation in Swahili with the group. I could catch words here and there, but most of the content went over my head. Occasionally, one of the officers would translate some of the content as it related to our plans for the day. We learned that we would be going to a number of government offices to be introduced to various members of government.
We met the people in the immigration department, the police commander, the head of education in the Ngara district, the President’s representative in Ngara, and a few more important people. In each office, we would pass around the guest book, sign our names, and do introductions. Every official was very gracious and welcoming, and they all assured us that we were free to contact them should we have any problems. All these meetings had to same – to my American eyes – odd fix of formality and casualness, but in the end the point being made was very clear – we were very welcome, and everyone was very happy to have us here. That was a very good feeling, despite the oddness of the cross-cultural interactions, and I imagine I will slowly get used to these Tanzanian formalities.
We were brought to our house (which is largely fantastic), and told that there would be a welcoming dinner at one of the facilities in the compound later that evening at 6. Again, we could not have been made to feel more welcome. The generosity of our hosts was almost overwhelming. At six, we headed to the house were the dinner party was going to take place. Only the other volunteers were there. Around 6:30, Julius Nestory and the headmaster of the school where the Ngara district returning volunteer works showed up. Not until an hour later did everyone else arrive, along with the food. Surprisingly, they all arrived within 5 minutes of each other, which to me signified that Tanzanians are an hour and a half late to functions like this. There were around 18 people in all (including the headmasters or a representative from each of our schools), and there was probably enough food to feed 40. After introductions, a brief prayer, and hand-washing, we began to eat. Everyone was encouraged to go back for more food, and Jonah Katanga, the Statistics and Logistics Officer, who I think all the volunteers got a really good feel for, jokingly told us that we would be offending everyone if there was food left over at the end of dinner. Tanzanians are not shy about telling you that you should eat more, which I have no problems with (at least not yet!), because the food was fantastic and I was very hungry. Following dinner there were speeches, which we were told should be under a minute and a half in length. Everyone gave a speech, which was nice, but again brings us back to the odd mix of formality and informality over the course of dinner. I thanked everyone for making us feel so at home, and in the middle of the last speech of the evening the electricity went out, and thus the dinner ended.
Trying to put all these experiences in words of analysis is very difficult, because they are so confusing to me in many ways, but I hope that they shed a little light on my experiences with Tanzanians in Ngara thus far. Perhaps as time goes on I will be better able to articulate the roots of some of these cultural differences and better explain how they affect life for Tanzanians.
PS: This post is far from current, but you’ll have to get used to reading about things days and even weeks after they take place.