Home Stay

Today we were all lucky enough to spend the entire day with a local family from the Iraqw tribe, in which we participated in all their daily routines and traditions. I was with one other girl in the group, and we hiked several miles to get there with heavy bags full of maize flour, sugar, vegetable fat, cabbage heads, goat meat and jugs of water. 

We were greeted with a warm welcome and were happy to see that the family had multiple, really cute watoto.  Some of their names were Kelsia, Julius, Deogratus, and Loveness.  One of the mamas was named Mama Happy.  Most of the names here are either ridiculously amusing or really hard to pronounce.  

Thankfully the oldest boy who was twenty, Florian, was able to speak decent English.  We started the day weeding in the fields with him, but it was nearly impossible to tell which was a weed and which was a crop.  Needless to say, we accidentally pulled out a few baby corn sprouts.  After we had done our best at weeding, we headed back up to the hut to relax for a while before lunch.  We were tickling the kids and resting on the couch when all of a sudden a loud squawk came from the corner.  There was a full size chicken sitting on five eggs in the corner of the room behind the couch.  And another one in the other corner.  We later learned this wasn’t the only wildlife in the house- wasps would frequently fly in and out, as their homes were holes in the mud walls of the hut’s main room.

After scooping out goat poop from the other hut, we began to prepare lunch with some of the mamas using the food that we had brought.  We did this over an open fire inside the hut, which filled it with smoke and was kind of unpleasant.  We were failures at chopping the cabbage too, since they used a huge ponga (knife) and did it faster than a chef at a restaurant.  I also tried my corn kernel grinding skills and didn’t get very far before they just laughed and took over.   First we cooked the vegetables, and then ugali, which is a mix of maize flour and water and is served at almost every meal and found everywhere here in Tanzania.  It’s the consistency of white rice when cooked. 

Since the family insisted that we drink a cup of chai (tea) every couple of hours, and it was rude to refuse, I also experienced the first pit latrine here for the first time.  The bathroom is called a choo and was outside.  It was quite an experience…I’ll leave it at that. 

Later on in the day, I showed the kids the bubbles that I had brought.  They went crazyyyy!  They all took turns blowing them and chasing after them, shrieking.  It was adorable.  The little girl, Kelsia, also really liked my sunglasses, which she insisted on wearing upside down every time she put them on.

The most important thing I learned from the day was that the life these people live is simple and traditional, not something to look down on or pity.  The family had two toys: a very small ball and a little green car that all of the children shared playing with and none of them fought over.  Their family ties are so much stronger and they don’t have all of the “wants” that Americans have, things we claim we can’t live without.  Their lifestyle isn’t sad or upsetting, rather it’s full of genuine happiness.