Orientation of the CCS Program

The next few days will be the orientation period of the CCS program. We’re on a pretty strict schedule from breakfast to dinner. Breakfast is from saa moja (7am. Weird considering that moja is one in Kiswahili. “Swahili time runs on an hour system reckoned from dawn to dawn and not midnight to midnight.”*) to saa mbili (8am), but will sometime be put out by saa kumi na mbili nusu (6:30am). And BTW, roosters are definitely around. After breakfast we had an hour break to get things together and do whatever we had to do before we had our first activity. I took this opportunity to get lost for a bit on my own.

I left the main house and walked west on the road right in front of the main and Annex houses. At first I thought the neighborhood looked a lot like Cevillar in Barranquilla, Colombia, the town my mom is from and that I have visited many times before. It is very poor with unpaved roads and locals walking around with giant baskets or buckets balanced on their heads. The difference though, was the houses weren’t really houses, but tin roofs with long strong sticks as columns holding the tin roof up. What I saw were women cooking on a fire made of burnt wood pieces and/or garbage on the floor with children surrounding them and/or running about, sometimes naked. The women were wrapped in fabrics called kangas, making breakfast for their familia and themselves. Their adults’ and sometimes the children’s faces were stoic, but once I said mambo? (What’s up?) to the children, their response being poa (cool), or Habari or Shikamoo to the older and elder people, their faces lit up with a warm and welcoming smile. I wasn’t afraid to say Mambo, Habari, or Shikamoo after the first few times. Everyone responded with a welcome and warmth that let me know I was safe. I felt an immediate connection once those introductory words were exchanged. Everyone stared at the mzungu (white person or foreigner). Sometimes the children would callout “MZUNGU! MZUNGU!” and run towards me asking nipe tano (give me five). And sometimes they’d crowd around me and grab my hand and walk with me for a few paces, their eyes just glowing, full of wonder of the tall mzungu. I walked a bit passing two junctions, turning north on the second. I said hello to a few people and high fived a number of children. Tanzanian people are beautiful, inside and out. There were seamstresses going at the sewing machine and mothers washing clothes by hand in a bucket. Men were riding on a piki (motor bike) or walking to work, I assume. I asked “Habari?” to one woman and she stopped me to tell me something I didn’t understand in Swahili. I told her Sifahamu (I don’t understand). Meanwhile an adolescent boy who spoke English was passing by at the same time and asked me “what did I need?” I told him I didn’t understand the woman and he just said, “Then just keep walking!” I laughed to myself. I looked at the time and noticed it was getting close to the time of the next activity. So I headed back to the Main House.

Fido, one of the guards greeted me at the front door and told me I was being sought. Of course, even in Bagamoyo, I was late to the next activity. The rest of the crowd, staff and volunteers (old and new) were in a big circle in the front of the complex. There was a ball being tossed around. The exercise was to state your name, where you were from, and what your CCS placement was once the ball was tossed to you. After we all went, Paulina and Edna, two of the housekeepers, were asked to teach us a song. After a little apprehension, they sang the following with the help of the previous volunteers and other staff.

Jambo, Jambo Bwana ( Hello, Hello Mister)

Habari Gani (What’s the new? or How are you?)

Nzuri Sana! (Very Fine!)

Wageni (Visitors),

Mwakaribishwa (You are all welcome!)

Tanzania Yetu (Our Tanzania)

Hakuna Matata! (No Worries!)

The song is fun and simple and I just can’t help but sing it all the time.

After the song, we all congregated to the back of the main house where all our meals are served. This is also the space used for meetings, lectures, and language lessons. The next activity/meeting was to discuss our expectations in Tanzania and our programs and to write them down on paper. Mine are to understand the differences between my and Tanzania’s cultures, learn the beautiful language of Kiswahili, and to make as many Tanzanian friends as possible.

We were also to discuss our worries or fears of being in Tanzania. Of course I was the first to jump up and say BUIBUI (SPIDERS). Some others from the volunteers were not being able to appropriately communicate with the locals, and not being successful or being overwhelmed at our placements. The papers we wrote on were posted on a board so that we can refer to them as our program progresses. Our facilitator for many of the meetings and group discussions is Zik Alula. Zik is a great, smart, and very funny man. His spoken English is wonderful. He even uses some of the cliché phrases we use in the US.

One of the activities during our orientation period was to go out into the community, follow specific instructions on a slip of paper, and return with the item or information that was asked for. Our mission was to turn left from the CCS exit, go down the road and pass two junctions, make a right and find a market area. In the market area we were to find an English language newspaper called “The Guardian”, purchase it, and bring it back to the CCS community. Then, we had to come back to the main road, find the Bagamoyo View Hotel, ask how much was a room per night, then look at the menu and take note of what was on it, and report all the information back to the group. There were only two rules: we couldn’t take a piki piki or a taxi, and we couldn’t ask anyone in CCS for help. We only had an hour and a half to do both task with a group of 4 people. My team members were Hollie from Seattle, Alli whom I mentioned before from Santa Barbara California, Peter with the pretty eyes from New Jersey, and me. We figured we had more than enough time to do both tasks and get back in time.

So, we set off to find the newpaper first. Holli whipped out her Swahili phrasebook and figured out how to say Ico wapi gazeti kingereza? (Where is the English Newpaper?) Funny thing is we are all a bunch of characters in our group. We were just laughing and greeting our neighbors and having a good time. We finally got to a right turn that Peter swore was the turn we had to make. I told him that it wasn’t a junction and that a junction is usually a 4-way intersection. All of a sudden Alli laughs and, like a 12 year old boy says, “You said 4-way!” Mind you, she’s a 30 year old woman. We were all just cackling. Of course our neighbors were staring at the laughing mzungus. They were enjoying the sight of us trying to figure this out.

So, after discussing what a junction was we decided to make the right turn anyway. We walked for a good 5 minutes and noticed a couple of shops. We went up to a few of them and asked about the newspaper. None of them sold the paper, but pointed us toward a place that might have it. Every time we stop at a shop and asked about the newspaper, they’d point us in a different direction than the last shop keeper. We made it to a bus depot. At this point we were getting a bit frustrated that we couldn’t find this English newspaper. We finally asked inside the bus depot if anyone new about this newspaper and the guy pointed us to the outside of bus depot a man sold it. We made sure to ask him a second time if it was “The Guardian” that he sold. The gentleman assured us that he sold that specific newspaper.

Low and behold we made it to the man that sold the English newspaper and of course he was fresh out of them. Forty-five minutes of searching for this paper and nothing! We were all frustrated, but took it in stride. We only had a few minutes left to find our second destination and get back to the Main House. My other team members were giving up on trying to look for the second items. I wanted to keep going and told them that I don’t want to fail our mission. Allison assured me that it wasn’t failed, we just couldn’t buy a sold out newspaper. Still, I wanted to go to the hotel and see what the deal was. We made a compromise and only walked passed a few junctions, but to no avail. We had 5 minutes left on the clock. Just enough time to walk back to the main house. Suffice to say, I was disappointed. We had no items to report on, however, the experience was invaluable. Still, I went back later on in the day, during my free time, and found the Bagamoyo View Hotel and asked for the price of the rooms and looked at the menu, all in my very broken Swahili. I was proud of myself.

Another activity during orientation was to break up into groups, again, and take a walking tour of the neighborhood. Abid is one of the passed volunteers. He took us on the tour. His intention was to check out all the local artist studios/stores. This was heaven for me. We hit up about 4 or 5 studios. They were all amazing. We saw pieces from paintings to wood carvings, all done by the studio owners/resident artists. It was just amazing. Some of the pieces were absolutely breathtaking! I started to realize what a huge artist community Bagamoyo was and is. Moreover, not only were some of these artists just visual; some were also drummers and dancers. On this walking tour, I was invited, twice, to come back alone and dance with them. I was elated!

After visiting all the art studios, we ended the tour on the beach. It was so wonderful to see the Indian Ocean up close and personal like this. It is just beautiful! We hung out at the beach for a few minutes, took some pictures, and then headed back to the home-base to talk about the policies and procedures of the program.

---

*Swahili: Dictionary & Phrasebook, Nicholas Awde. Hippocrene Books Inc. New York, 2002