The other evening Chris and I were relaxing on the porch, our respective books in hand, while Nani was at camp schmoozing the guests. We started talking about life in Tanzania, about how hard most of the people work, about how little they ask for, and yet how they all appear to be extremely happy (almost unnaturally happy) but it’s so genuine that you have no choice but to believe them. We quickly concluded that no one laughs like a Tanzanian. They’re always singing, giggling, whistling, boisterously laughing and telling stories. I can’t help but share in their joy when I’m I their presence. Still, so many people who come to stay here feel bad for these poor Tanzanians. They’re quick to judge their minimalistic lifestyle and often pity them. But they laugh so much more than all of us. It seems like we’re the ones who they feel somewhat sorry for. Their lives are simple, but good. What more could you want?
As Notorious B.I.G. so eloquently put it in his hit 90s rap song, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems”.
The day by day “hakuna matata” lifestyle has certainly made me question things and realize that there is a fine line between comfort and excess, over which most Americans have jumped headlong into the latter. During my stay here I have at least come back to teeter over the line, or so I’d like to humbly believe. In light of all the power outages that have been occurring on the east coast due to the bizarre temperament of mother earth as of late, I thought it would be fitting to post about amenities here. It may sound mundane, but it’s actually quite interesting to see such basic differences.
With the exception of a few random days, I have electricity in my house all the time. For a girl just out of college, I’m living the life of luxury in my own solar-powered house. However, since I have reliable power, people mysteriously come from all over to charge their phones here. At least 3 people I don’t recognize creep around my house to find the outside outlets or (much less discretely than they think) ask the two people who work in my house to find an outlet inside. It doesn’t much matter to me, although this has caused the power to drain once or twice.
Hamna shida. No problem.
In my opinion I’m in no position to complain seeing as Nani and Chris don’t even have power all day long. They run on a generator and actually only have power from about 6:30-10:30pm, as in four hours each night during which they all rush to charge their computers and watch movies.
The tented camp that Nani and Chris run is a beautiful and luxurious place to safari, so it has power 24/7. If all goes as planned that is. It runs mostly on a generator but has a few solar panels as well, and for the most part works without any problems. A few months ago the camp received some famous guests: the Dutch Royal family, or at least Princess Maxima, the Crowned Prince, their three little princesses, and about 15 other family members and security guards. It was extremely top secret and they booked the whole place for the weekend. All the staff had been preparing for quite some time and each was afraid that they would be the one to screw-up around the Royals. The night before they arrived the generator blew. Literally died. Done-zo. They had had it forever and it apparently decided that was an opportune time to say goodbye. Somehow they managed to get to town and buy a new one and set it up in time for their arrival. It was certainly a crazy weekend. And yes, I met them all. Two of the princesses definitely tried to drown me in the swimming pool. I would share more gossip but I’d prefer not to get a letter from the Dutch government about any of the slander I could potentially disclose.
Back to electricity and whatnot…
Being out in the bush, I somewhat expected to have limited power, but I was surprised to see that Arusha (the nearest small city which is about 5 hours away and a population of 300,000) has even more problems than we do here. Due to the shortage, they have been getting power cuts for about 10 hours a day mandated by the government. In fact now we don’t really have bread since the flour factory closed due to the power cuts so they can’t bake new loaves.
About a month ago we went to Arusha and stayed at a friend’s house and were without power the entire day and night. Recently, they were even out of fuel for a few days (although this was largely due to the gas stations boycotting price mandates by the government) which caused lots of problems to say the least.
Arusha is so short on water that you can barely properly wash your hands without someone sneering at you for being wasteful. Thankfully we’re near water so we don’t have a problem, but heating the water for a nice warm shower is another story. The water needs to be heated by fire (which I have to get one of the workers to set) and then it takes about a half an hour to get warm, but only stays hot for a short while. Between my pathetic Swahili and the lackadaisical African concept of time, it’s nearly impossible. So I’ve resorted to expecting cold showers, and end up extremely happy when I happen to get lucky and still have hot water available or have managed to accurately communicate when I’d like hot water.
I think I’m starting to understand the Tanzanian happiness; when you don’t have much it becomes much easier to be delighted with the little things. Expectations only lead to disappointments. Many foreigners see it as the Tanzanians being lazy or poor, but I have found it to be that they are just extremely content. Probably the most common phrase here most easily explains their outlook: hamna shida or hakuna matata.
No problem.
Perhaps my favorite post thus far! Can't wait to arrive in late sept to experience it !
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