We’re in South Africa this weekend, and hopefully I’ll come back with some cool observations and images to boot. Here’s a snapshot from early in the week, when the DiploMan went exploring in our own backyard.
If how-to’s always involved Wes Anderson-style sequences narrated by very serious children, I’d probably get more done in life.
I’m so much happier when there’s a body of water nearby. I’ll chalk it up to my California bones, and if that’s not enough, then well, my parents were born in Taiwan and my grandmother in Japan so I’m just genetically predisposed for a lifestyle on a tiny land mass surrounded by water. So there.
There aren’t many hiking trails around Dar, but the DiploMan and I did carve out a little path along the ocean this weekend, and though the sun was out bright bright bright over our heads, a very breezy ocean wind helped us walk swiftly along 3+ miles of oceanside cliffs. I typically shy away from taking photos of scenery and opt for shooting street scenes instead, but I’m not one to deny a beautiful image, and there were many on that day.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over the clarity of the water here. Let’s all dream about a private beach, shall we? Also, those cacti, how random, there were huge groves of them scattered throughout. Oceanside cacti, hmph! And finally, those huge airplane tires…so very LOST, isn’t it?
I’ve been making tons of mental notes about Tanzania these last three months, notes about daily life, about customs and culture, about little tricks of the local trade. But if I must name one remarkable difference between my new home country, Tanzania, and my old host country, China, it’s not the crazy traffic or the language or the pace of life or the lack of skyscrapers – although all that is pretty remarkable, too – but it’s simply the ratio of adults to children. China living gets you accustomed to many things, none of which is more apparent, in retrospect, as the effects of the One Child policy.
Walking along main streets of major cities in China are foreign couples with adopted Chinese babies in their strollers. Often baby girls, otherwise babies with disabilities, babies with cleft palates or odd growths or other facial deformities that make them, sadly, unwanted in a country where only one baby is allowed per couple. A scene all too familiar to me, especially living in Guangzhou where the paperwork for most Chinese adoptions for western countries take place.
Even within Chinese culture, the One Child Policy is deeply sowing its seed. There is the culture of what the Chinese are calling their “little emperors”. Sets of parents and double the sets of grandparents who dote over just one toddler. Spoiled rotten by their families, with no one else to share the spotlight. Given all the education, all the toys, all the attention in the world. In a culture where it is customary to take care of your parents and grandparents when you reach adulthood, young men and women are suddenly expected to handle the burden – financially and emotionally – of six elderly family members.
Of course the image of giving away girls, of a skewed population, of abortions, of a spoiled youth, of a disregarded geriatric population, it’s not exactly an image of China that authorities are necessarily trying to promote. So advertisements in the form of large painted murals are commissioned in rural areas, telling people not to abort girls, with sayings like ‘Girls are Good too’ – yet despite this warning, Elementary and Secondary School Classrooms still have male:female ratios of 2:1, sometimes even more skewed. And because taxes can penalties run high for those with more than one child, most families, especially in rural areas, adhere to the law.
In contrast, here in Dar, population control is the last thing on anyone’s mind, and as a result I find myself constantly surprised at the number of kids I see on an everyday basis. Children, heads shaved no matter boy or girl, playing in the streets, walking along roads, teeming out of schools, running in and out of city crevices. Families with three, four, five kids – something that simply didn’t exist in China. I think back to my trips to more impoverished areas in China, where in the dark stone buildings of villages, just one or two babies sat in the laps of groups of a dozens of elders.
The population in Tanzania has almost quintupled since the 1960’s, from just over 10 million to almost 50 million today. There are more mouths to feed, more water to source, more clothes to find. More space in already cramped neighborhoods, more housing needed in what is already shoddy construction. More garbage litters the streets. More plastic bottles clog up the sewars. More education, more competition, more consumption, more crime. In a culture where men often take more than one wife, and these wives in turn berth many more than the western average of two children, the country is experiencing a population boom that I’m not quite sure it’s ready for.
Elementary education is subsidized, but higher education – secondary education – is not. Even when kids are able to attend classrooms, if you don’t attend a private school, you’re pretty much out of a good education. Even in these esteemed (and expensive) private schools, the teachers are poor. I recently learned there are approximately 3 million orphans in this country, anywhere from aged 1 to age 20. And not enough orphanages to hold them all.
There’s a lot for me to learn, still, about the status of population growth and the future of these children in Tanzania. I’m only beginning to scratch the tip of the massive iceberg of this issue, obviously. The Chinese one-child policy has its detriments to both human rights and the Chinese culture, and by no means am I advocating such a policy for the world. But on the flip side, what good is a country if it is bulging at the seams and can’t provide for itself? I haven’t quite grappled with this issue enough to propose a solution, but when I do, I’ll let you know.
As you probably guessed right away, this isn’t from around here. But it’s relevant to this week, when I spent a good chunk of Thursday brushing up on my portfolio for a client meeting.
Really, this is still one of my all-time favorites.
This week has marked the first that I’ve seen it rain consistently, as I heard it might around these parts. Here, ‘consistently’ describes a pattern that I’ve actually never seen before. Clear skies followed by a bit of bright gray followed by a sudden downpour of soft but constant rain. Just several minutes of rain, and then clear again. A few times this cycle of rain comes around, and then disappears until the next day.
From my desk, I face a window that puts me at frond-level with our neighbors’ palm tree. When it rains, these fronds become extra droopy, spotted with a slick rain sheen. I often take this sheen, as well as the very light muttering of raindrops on the fronds, as sign that it’s raining outside. But I must be attentive, because the rains end almost as quickly as they come.
Repetition is notorious here. It’s best exemplified by the sun, that rises and sets within a half hour window all year ‘round, no matter winter or summer. I’m realizing even the sporadic rains have their patterns too. It’s not rainy season, so the wetness is not constant but simply present every day. These days that merge into weeks which blend into months. Maybe times seems like this blob because the days end, rather abruptly, at 6:30 every evening. Maybe it’s because Fridays are half days and thus the ‘weekend’ always comes just a little bit earlier, catching me off guard. Regardless of the reason, I looked at my calendar today and I’ve been at post for a week shy of three months. The OCD-planning side of me gets nervous, because a swift calculation later I realize that it’s three months out of a total twenty four, or in other words, already 1/8 of my time here.
But how could three months have passed when this past Monday already seems so far away? I can barely remember Monday. I went running on Monday, but I’m thinking that’s why I can barely remember it, since I likely blocked the experience from my memory. Though, it wasn’t as bad as I had built up in my head. I was urged out of the house by one enthusiastic DiploMan, and despite my complaints about the heat and the traffic and the blister that formed on my instep, it was nice to get out for some exercise.
Until Wednesday, that is, when my legs were like Jell-o and caused me to walk up and down our tile stairwell with an awkward waddle-tiptoe-limp for fear that my legs would at any moment give out and I would end up on the hard tile below. But then, Wednesday also seems so far away. How is this possible?
I just went downstairs for a cup of coffee, and my wobbly legs reminded me that oh yeah, Wednesday was just yesterday. Pole pole.
They say this a lot here, pole pole, pronounced “pohl-ay, pohl-ay“. Which literally means, slowly slowly. I’m certainly using it to describe the way I am walking this week, but more commonly are words spoken by everyone here as an all-encompassing term describing a way of life in addition to specific moments. It’s a catch-all, an excuse and a reason, an action and a thought, both literal and hypothetical. It’s kind of everything. And with this word, I describe these weeks and months that I feel pass so slowly and then end up behind me so quickly.
As I typed the last few paragraphs, another one of those mini rain sessions has come and gone. Rinse, Repeat. The rain water is now dripping off the palm fronds, very pole pole, and in ten minutes I’m sure the ground will be dried by the blanket of humidity that will follow, mopping up all evidence of rain.
Today, Thursday, in case anyone is unbridled with anticipation about what I’m going to do, means a lot of work and maybe a little yoga, then a hang-out sesh with friends. But first, I am going to share this recipe with you. Pole pole. These flavors are ones that I’ve been dreaming about for quite some time, and had been dreaming about mixing into an ice cream recipe. Given the huge Indian population in town, it’s quite easy to find pistachios and cardamom here, but you can easily find pistachios in most supermarkets at home and cardamom at most specialty food stores (or Whole Foods).
In addition to testing this new luxurious combination of smooth nutty pistachio and sweet spiced cardamom, it’s a new-to-me method of making ice cream. Sometimes I read a recipe and I try it the next day, but other times it takes me awhile to get around to it. Jeni’s ice cream recipe is an example of the latter. Bon Appetit and Saveur magazines have sworn to what I’m calling the ‘Jeni method’ for years now, and then after reading Kasey’s most recent ice cream post last month, I caved in. Although, maybe her shots of that drippy, peanut-y, chocolate-y ice cream were the ultimate straws. Regardless, I’m wondering why I didn’t listen sooner.
Pole pole, I guess. That’s why.
