Mambo vipi? We have never in my entire life experienced that 4 weeks have gone by as fast as the recent 4 weeks. We really believe there’s a truth in the expression “Time flies when you’re having fun”. We were greeted at the airport by two really nice people from the office, who had a lot of patients since it took us two hours to get the visa. At that moment they had already driven six hours from Singida to Kilimanjaro airport. We are starting to get into the routines that are going to be out everyday life for the next five months. Maybe some of you are wondering what we are doing in our stay here in Singida. We are working at an office called Sustainable Environment Management Action, or more known as SEMA. Our work is going to consist of different types of teaching on the Vocational Training Center which is a part of SEMA’s program, on a special school and contribute in the Bonga groups. We are also going to participate in the work at the SEMA office and visit the different departments and go to fields. SEMA is focusing on youth and their rights and have different groups like Bonga, Comunity Based Vocational Skill Training (CVST) and more. On our second week here we got the opportunity to participate in the Bonga graduation, here the Bonga girls show what they have learned during the nine-month program. If you would like to read more about SEMA’s projects you can visit Strømme Foundations website here: https://strommeea.org/partner/sustainable-environment-management-action-sema/ We spent the first two days packing out and washing the house, something that’s neither exciting to write about or to read about. When we got to the office on Monday morning we got greeted with open arms, by both former Hald students and other colleagues. It didn’t take long until “hospitality” felt like a foreign word in Norway. It can’t compare. Everyone we greet either wants to invite us for food, or wants to give their number in case we face any problems. People we meet on the streets are also very eager to talk to us, even though they lack English knowledge. We are often met with a “Hello, how are you?” or “Good morning Madam”, no matter what time it is during the day. In Tanzania, there is a greater focus upon the elders, and you greet anyone who is older than you with “Shikamoo” as a sign of respect. Even though I (Kristine) have visited Tanzania many times before, I always get positively surprised by the kindness, helpfulness and compassion people have. Another thing that is different from Norwegian culture is the expanded families. For us it’s difficult to know if the person someone introduces as a brother, really is their brother. Before we left, we got the impression that Singida was a small place. But after some research we found out that Singida is bigger than Bergen based on population. Nevertheless, here they base the size of the city on infrastructure. And of we think like that as well, Singida can’t compare. Even though Singida is a small place they have two supermarkets on the same size as the shops at Norwegian camping spots. But we have made Tacos, and enjoyed a lot of ice-cream so we are not suffering by any means. Apart from the two supermarkets we are wandering around the local fruit and vegetable markets and the other day we bargained down the price of a pineapple with 2 Norwegian kroners and were very pleased with that. If there is anything we are struggling with here, it’s the meat. There is a lot of butchers, so it’s not that there is a lack of meat, we just did not know how to prepare it. The first week the meals were the biggest problem for us. In Norway we are used to eat five small meals a day, but here they eat three times and the portions are bigger. The first week we were constantly hungry and when we got the food we only managed to eat 1/3 of the portion because of the size. The food here mainly consists of rice, chicken, beans, vegetables, ugali and chapati. Ugali is a sticky version of mashed potatoes, but it’s made of corn flour, oil, salt and water. Chapati is what we eat for breakfast every day at the office, it can be compared to a tortilla, just with more oil. The use of oil is very different from what we are used to in Norway. When Mama Shose taught us how to make Tanzanian food we used over 4 liters of oil on two weeks. Another thing that is different is that people mainly eat with their hands. At first it was weird for us, but now we can’t imagine to eat chicken with knife and fork again. We have experienced a lot of Tanzanian culture during these four weeks. We got invited to the brother of our contact persons wedding, and got a greater role than we first had expected. We were lucky enough to contribute as maids and experienced a totally different type of wedding than what we are used to. To begin with, it wasn’t only one weddingparty, it was three. One of the ceremonies was to honor the mother of the groom, the next was a give away party for the groom, and the last one was the actual wedding ceremony. At the official wedding day, we got a flower bouquet and followed the bride and groom down the aisle. After church, everyone drove around town with blinking lights, honking, and a band playing on the back of a truck. Compared to Norway, there was almost no speeches, and a lot more focus on dancing, music and especially gifts. We had a great night with a lot of new cultural insights. Tutaonane tena! Kristine, Iselin and Thea
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Kristine
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