Sunday, June 12th:  Learning Swahili, Guacamole, and Globalization

Some of my favorite Swahili are those where the words is repeated:

Dalla dalla:  the colorful mini-van taxi designed for 7, but often filled with more than double that number.

Pika pika: motorcycle.  They are usually cheap models from China, and they are one of the main modes of transportation in Tanzania.  My favorite make is Kinglion with its picture of a big-maned lion sitting against a backdrop of a snow-capped mountain on the side of the fuel tank.  The picture is framed with a leopard spot motif on the remaining area of the tank.  Sometimes there are fancy strings of christmas lights strung on the bike.

Boda Boda:  motorcycle “taxis” carrying people, produce, furniture, and anything else they can balance on two wheels on the  rutted dirt roads of the country.  The received the name long ago when motorcycles first appeared in Uganda, and started taking passengers across the border border.

Pili pili:  a hot sauce similar to siracha.

Ku Ku:  chicken

Pi Pi (“pee pee”):  candy.  Ruby and Jane like this one too.  Jane also likes the fact that the english pronunciaton of “coffee” means slap in Swahili.  She keeps reminding me that I better say “kahawa” or I’ll take one to the face.  

Pole Pole:  Slowly.  Describes much of life in Tanzania.

Doo Doo: Insect

On our first lunch stop on the trek with Issa, we sat in a small clearing next to the road on his shuka blanket and watched as he unpacked the ingredients to prepare our meal.  He pulled out some avocados, lime, and tomato.  Have you ever had guacamole?, he asked.   Next he pulled out some aluminum containers, that contained chapatis, samosas, some chickpea flour fried doughnuts that resembled hush puppies.  So we had Mexican-Indian fusion cuisine in the Usambara mountains of Tanzania:  I am going to open a food truck when I get back home.

After lunch, we continued our walk along the road until we emerged at an old monastery, that had been founded by the Germans in the late 19th century.  Since it was Sunday, there place was eerily quiet as the monks were spending the day devoted to prayer.  The grounds of the monastery were planted with a vineyard and a large macadamia orchard; the brothers support the monastery with the proceeds from the sale of wine and nuts.  

Although much of the country doesn’t have electricity and and most people still gather water in buckets from running streams, there are still so much evidence of how this part of teh world has never been cut off from the rest of the world.  The Indian chapatis, the Luthern institutions present in all of the small villages of the mountains, the Chinese made youth underwear sold in the colorful Pinacolada stand at the Lushoto market, and of course, the millions of Coca-Cola signs that are everywhere.