Birthday - February 2014

Happy Birthday to Me!

Have you ever questioned which day your birthday was? I never have until this year. Africa changes everything.  You see, I was born on the evening of February 9th, Eastern Standard Time. Which would mean I was born in the wee hours of the morning of February 10th here in Eastern Africa. So. which day is my birthday here? I decided to celebrate both!

February 9th dawned with anticipation in the air. Six of us student missionary girls headed out for a day in Iringa. Speeding down the washed-out road in the back of a pick-up truck, I thought, "What better way to begin a birthday adventure?" And quite an adventure it was! We picked up some "hitchhikers" on our way to Mafinga, where we girls boarded a bus. It cost us only about $2 to ride the hour-and-forty-five-minutes to the city of Iringa. I was grateful that one of the girls who has been at Kibidula for several months knows a substantial amount of conversational Swahili. What an asset that was!

But when the bus made its first stop at the top of the mountain which is Iringa, only two of the girls had time to exit the bus! The remaining four of us turned to each other with expressions of confusion. Where were we headed? Why didn't they wait a moment for us to dismount? We quickly scrambled to the front of the bus. Some of the girls hollered to me to tell the driver to stop, but one thing I've learned about travel here in Tanzania is that one just must be patient and not question things too much, because usually the driver has reason for the decisions he makes. I say usually. We rode until the next stop on that street, which was not very far, and then literally jumped from the bus to the sidewalk, not wanting to be stuck on that rapidly-leaving vehicle! Our teammates were running down the hill to catch up with us. We had a good laugh after the conundrum was over.

The two girls who have been at Kibidula for longer talk often about this Indian restaurant in Iringa called "Hasty Tasty." They said it is worth the trip to Iringa simply to eat lunch there. Hearing that it sometimes closes in the afternoon on Sundays, we decided we should walk there before doing anything else. Asked directions of the locals and bought some beautiful fabric before we made it to where the restaurant stood, only to find it was closed. Apparently the owners had gone to Dar and wouldn't be back in business until the next day.

Well, well! The girls who had been there were disappointed, but I was excited to see where our culinary adventure would lead us!

Upon hearing that "Hasty Tasty" was closed, we all decided we weren't too hungry yet, anyway. We looked at a few roadside shops where things were ridiculously priced for us "tourists," and then shopped in a local Masai market where things were a bit more reasonable and one could actually argue prices. I was in my glory! I love going back-and-forth, arguing a price with one of the locals, especially when I don't really need to purchase the item.

We eventually decreased the amount of cash we had on-hand and decided maybe we should try to find somewhere to eat. Asking the few "wazungu" (white people) around where there might be a local rice-and-beans joint led us to "Four Seasons." There we enjoyed rice, beans, cooked greens, and fresh mango juice-a delicious birthday meal! Cost less than the bus ride, too! The girls sang to me as we sat around the table, which incited curiosity in one of the employees. He came over and asked, "So, who was born today?" I got a good inward chuckle out of the way that question was asked. One of the girls pointed out that the birthday girl was me and jokingly asked the man, "Are you going to give her a birthday cake?" He asked how long we would be in town. If we could come back later, he said, he would try to make me something.

Wish we could have stuck around for a while. I would have been interested in seeing what he concocted. Needing to leave Iringa early enough in the afternoon to account for the travel back to Kibidula, we trekked to the local bus station.

There we had a bit of a time trying to understand the bus schedule, as told to us by several bus company workers. The time here is like Bible time: noon is referred to as six o'clock, three in the afternoon as nine o'clock. When we finally got across to them in our broken Swahili what time we needed to leave by and that we wanted to be on one of the larger buses, we followed one of the guys back to his "bus station" and purchased from him tickets that would get us back to Mafinga. It was during our wait there that I decided maybe I should put on some sunscreen.

Yeah, that makes sense, Ashley: wait until afternoon, when you've already been sunburned to apply the sunscreen you brought. Smart. But that's a twenty-one-year-old Ashley for you. Having time before the next bus departed, we trekked the short distance to the local Sunday market, where one can find almost anything imaginable.

Lots of baskets and beautiful fabrics to be found, along with a host of other things: shoes, backpacks, sunglasses, wallets,. lots to look at.

Hurrying back to the bus stop, we found a bus that matched the company we had purchased the tickets from. But wait! This wasn't one of the bigger buses that would travel quickly to Mafinga! This was one of the smaller ones that would stop every few yards to pick up and drop off passengers! That's not what we wanted! Our brave, Swahili-speaking teammate took it upon herself to have a good talking-to with the guy who sold us the tickets. Then we climbed aboard the small bus. We were the only passengers on the bus.

After sitting there for about 15 minutes, we thought maybe we should ask what time we were supposed to be departing. What?! In an hour! That's not what we had been told at all! Augh! We lumbered off the bus to stand in the center of attention once more as we tried to figure out where we were supposed to be and when. We were told a bigger bus would be coming at a later time. We trekked back to the market area, then returned to find that bigger bus. None to be found. The guy who sold us the tickets was nowhere to be found, either. By this time, some of the girls were quite upset with him for not selling us the tickets we had asked for. I didn't really mind, as long as we made it back to Kibidula that evening. We conversed with the nearby bus workers and couldn't get anywhere. We stood there, as if on display, a bunch of confused white girls who weren't really sure what to do next. Then, one of the guys suddenly pointed to a nearby bus, already packed with people and headed to Mafinga, and practically dragged us aboard. Might have been the last bus to Mafinga that day. We weren't sure whether to board or not, as the bus company didn't match the one we had purchased our tickets from. We didn't want to have to pay again, but figured we might not have much of a choice. Climbing aboard, we found the only vacant seats to be the ones nobody else wanted: the seats in the back of the bus that were quite worn out. The seats weren't really able to be sat on. The bench tipped toward the floor, making it an uncomfortable balancing act of half-standing-half-sitting, so one did not slide off the front of the seat.

The bus soon pulled out of the station and began the long journey back to Mafinga. We would have had a relaxing ride back, except that a man who had been drinking soon boarded the bus and insisted that he sit on the back bench with us. We greeted him in Swahili, and then we girls returned to conversing with each other in English. The man, speaking quite clear English, soon asked us why we were speaking English with each other. Didn't we know we were in Tanzania? Then why weren't we speaking only Swahili?? I tried to reason with him that when he was with his friends, didn't he speak Swahili with them, because that's what they all knew as a first language? And we all knew English as our first language, so we. He would hear none of it. Needless to say, we were much relieved to reach Mafinga and disembark on the next portion of our journey home. Only, had we known what that would entail, we may have been glad to remain on that bus a little longer!

A quick stop to purchase some fresh fruit at the market, and then we were ready to board the last dala-dala toward home. Or, we thought we were ready to board that dala-dala. every seat was taken and the aisle was crowded with passengers and heavy bags of grain. Where were we to fit? We soon found standing room, only to discover that we were not the last people to board this vessel! By the time the loaded vehicle pulled away from Mafinga, I counted forty-one people I could see and estimated about twenty more that were blocked from my view. (We later counted the number of seats to see what the maximum capacity of this vehicle was supposed to

be-twenty-one.) What a ride! The being-packed-like-sardines-ness didn't really bother me so much. What bothered me is that the windows of the dala-dalas do not open. I could picture us all fainting from lack of oxygen and it taking so long to extricate us from the bus that we wouldn't be able to be revived. One of the girls, poor thing, is claustrophobic. I don't know how she survived. People were sitting and standing on one another, belongings and purchases squeezed in any nook and cranny that a part of a person was not occupying. Because the floor of the aisle was packed with sacks of grain, I could not even stand upright, but had to bend my head to keep it from smacking the roof when we would hit a pothole. We travelled at the speed of a snail. It's a wonder the dala-dala could even move with that heavy of a load! Anytime we stopped, we prayed that no one else would be getting on, but someone getting off was almost as great an ordeal...

In order for someone to move through the bus to one of two doors, he or she must step on, over, or around about twenty other people. Then, if that person owned any large packages, those must also be found and passed from person-to-person until all that belonged to that person was safely off the bus. And so the story went for I-don't-know-how-many-hours! Once some seats had been vacated, I was able to actually sit down for a while. The air seemed a little more breathe-able, that few inches lower. I sat next to a lady and her baby. That made the time pass more quickly, as I was able to talk with and befriend them. Upon reaching the village of Matanana, everyone and everything was finally off the bus-except for us and our belongings.

Matanana is the closest village to Kibidula, and is usually the last stop of the bus, but we really hoped we wouldn't have to get off there and walk the two hours back to our house. Because there were six of us girls and another lady (Mama Temboh) who were going back to Kibidula, the driver agreed to drive us the remaining distance for 500 Tsh apiece. Certainly! I was more than willing to pay thirty cents and not have to walk two hours in the dark without a flashlight! I've never been more excited to be back to our house.

We were absolutely exhausted, hungry, and travel-worn. Upon entering the house, I discovered that some little angels had visited while I was gone and had left me some beautiful bouquets of flowers and a crayon-drawn poster that read "Happy Birthday Ashley!" I was so surprisedly-delighted. And so ended the first of my birth-days.