Finding a seamstress

Before I left the States, I had bought about five skirts from Goodwill that all needed pockets. In lieu of pockets, I’ve been using a zippered pouch that my good friend and Midland colleague, Alcyone Scott, had loaned me. She had gotten it from a Sigma Tau Delta convention, and I initially used it to carry a passport since it has a handy cord to hang around my neck.

Essentially I’ve become a kangaroo. I carry my keys in that pouch – huge skeleton keys for both interior and exterior doors to my apartment. I carry my cell phone. I carry scraps of paper with vocabulary words, someone’s cell phone number, or a note I wrote in Swahili for Kimaro, the cook. I also carry a priority list of who I need to email first, second, third, etc. in the off chance that I can get internet.

I’ve been eternally grateful to and for this pouch and Alcyone. However, it lacks aesthetic appeal. Its bright red color and Steven Barclay Agency advertisement does not in any way work in design or color with my pale green, blue, green blue, and burnt orange skirts. I’ve tried to hide it under a light weight jacket, but the fact of the matter is, pockets would be better. For one thing, I wouldn’t have to remember where I left my pockets each morning before I left my apartment.

Before I left the States, I told my mother about the pocket problem. She assured me Tanzania would have many seamstresses who would be able to sew pockets. She was right! (I cannot tell you how many times my mother has been right!) When I take my daily walks down the red dusty road, within a half hour of walking, I’ll have found ten seamstresses. They each sit at a treadle sewing machine under the porch of a stucco building. Sheets of bright fabric hang from a string along the porch in front of them, and if a bus isn’t roaring down the road, you can hear their machines whirring away.

I chose my seamstress by her smile, which brightened even more when I ventured off the road one day, into her yard and onto the porch. At that point my Swahili was still at the how-are-you stage, and she helped me with “I am fine.” We both tried for more communication, and the best we could do was smile and shrug.

Then I discovered Happy, the bursar’s assistant, was an excellent resource for writing notes whenever I needed help in communicating. I had initially used Tumaini, the head bursar, as a translator. Her method was to call up the other party on her cell phone and deliver my message in rapid-fire sentences at full volume. Not only did the poor ear on the other end get the message, so did everyone in the building. But Tumaini left for a week-long business meeting, and so I turned to Happy. Happy composed pithy messages in her head, I wrote them down, she explained each word, and then I put each note in my bright red pouch.

For the trip to the seamstress, Happy had thought of two sentences I would need. Also, she knew I would need to clarify that I wanted two pockets, and that the pockets should go inside (ndani) the seam. Finally we worked on how I would ask the seamstress when she’d be able to have the pockets done, which turned into a lesson on the seven days of the week.

So it was, I appeared at the whirring machine of the seamstress, bright fabric hanging above and a bright smile radiating from within her. I pulled out my scrap of paper from the red pouch, and in my best Swahili accent, I asked the first question dictated by Happy. And then I wondered why the bright smile vanished into thin air. And why didn’t she take the skirt from my hands and look at pocket possibilities? I looked down at the words thinking I’d mispronounced them, and then at the translation below: “When can you have it finished?” I slapped my paper over and read, “Please put pockets in my skirt,” the bright smile re-appearing. The rest of the transaction happened according to plan. Happy had given me all the right words.

Not only had Happy given me all the right words, my mother had given me the right advice, Alcyone had given me the pouch, the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA and SMMUCo had given me the job here in Tanzania, Midland Lutheran College had given me the year off to do it, and the Lord had given me the wisdom to recognize the radiance of a seamstress, dimmed only momentarily by linguistic confusion.

Rhythmically hard of hearing

Having attended two wedding receptions, I’ve decided my favorite part occurs at the beginning, or sort of beginning, after the guests have been waiting in the parking lot an hour or two for the wedding couple to arrive. Throughout town, a ten-piece brass band riding on the back of a pickup has blasted celebratory songs, leading a long train of cars. The wedding car, easily identified by an arrangement of roses and bows on the hood, parks at the entrance to the YMCA reception hall. The band now assemble themselves on the steps nearby, the bass and snare drums on one end, the trombones and trumpet on the other.

Unlike the police band of last week’s wedding, these musicians wear red satin shirts and black ties. They are a group much plumper than the police, and this band has energy. Before the trumpet player sounds the first note, he feels the beat in his body by swaying from side to side, closer to a bounce with loose hips. While he’s been swaying, his trumpet has been pressed to his lips and just at the right moment, music somersaults into the wedding air. The whole band now sways, loose hips and all, waiting for the right moment, instruments poised and ready. Their sounds tumble into the air, and I am giddy.

Now the women whoop, holler and form a line, dancing around the wedding car. The more sedate ones bounce from foot to foot, some add a bounce of the hip, and some put shoulders, hips, and shaking head into the rhythm.

I wish I could join them. For eight years, I studied piano. When I became proficient at breaking down measures into four beats, three beats, or some other variation, I couldn’t keep the same tempo. My teacher tapped the end of the piano with a pencil and counted out, “ONE AND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND.” In marching band, I listened for the bass drum’s downbeat, planting my right foot on a yard line in the football field in time with it. My feet learned how to make eight equal steps for every five yards, and I learned to listen for that bass drum.

At the wedding reception with hips and shoulders and dizzying music, I am bumping shoulders out of time with the woman next to me. I stop and watch. Clearly she feels the rhythm. I listen for the bass drum, the snare, and then each brass player. There’s not a downbeat to be found anywhere. All I can do is match my swaying visually to the trumpet player’s.

I remember a line from a book about the history of jazz that describes African rhythm, the seeds of jazz. In African drumming, syncopation layers upon syncopation. The intent is to mesmerize and disorient listeners, but not enough to alienate them. So, imagine a knot, and imagine that this knot is made up of six strands. Imagine that each of these strands has already formed a knot. Then imagine each of those knots has six strands that form a knot. Then imagine all of those knots have been looping around you. It’s impossible to follow them, yet you are the center of those knots.

Later at the wedding reception, I happily tapped my toe to popular recorded music with downbeats obvious and clear by Michael Jackson, Abba, and African artists I didn’t know. But this other music, this spell of silent downbeats that left me with the euphoria of having the bottom drop out, of floating with bouncing shoulders and swaying hips—that was intoxicating—sway, though I did, out of time.

Water, hot and cold

At the college, the bursar’s office is directly below my apartment. When I first arrived here, Tumaini, the bursar, told me that if I wanted hot water for a bath, she would turn on the switch in her office to heat a huge metal tank hidden in her closet. The trickiest part was remembering to tell her to turn it off, which meant that when I forgot, the closet doors were also heated by morning. Soon I adjusted to that system.

In the following days, I studied the larger rhythms of campus life beyond my own. Mama Viktor and the cleaning crew began sweeping the sidewalks at 6:30 a.m.; Haji, the van driver, drove through the campus gate at 7:00 to collect college workers in Moshi Town, about a half hour away. By 8:00, Kimaro had served my breakfast, and at 11:00, the campus converged into the dining hall for tea.

All of these activities were stepped into high gear this past week when a conference of 95 parish workers and pastors arrived for four days. Tea in heavy kettles were rolled over to the group at the chapel. For meals, colorful linens had been unfurled over the tables, place settings arranged, and goats roasted.

In the evening Mama Viktor and the cleaning crew were still on campus. At 8:30 p.m. I noticed they had been heating water in a huge vat over an open fire behind the chapel. Soon I saw two of the crew (all women) carry between them large buckets of steaming water from the fire to the dorms, where the guests were staying; then another two women, and then the first two women returning with another bucket. At this point, they couldn’t carry the steaming bucket without stopping to rest a time or two.

It wasn’t until later I learned they were providing hot water for the guests to bathe. The single water heater on campus leads to my apartment only.

Not Going to a Wedding

My dear friend and colleague Allyson Backstrom, professor of chemistry at Midland Lutheran College, says it’s neither wise nor intelligent to make conclusions based on one-point data sets. But I’m no scientist; I’m a dreamer. I can conclude all kinds of things based on a one-time occurrence. And like any dreamy fool, I’ll announce my conclusions and wait for further clarification.
Based on a wedding that occurred this past Saturday, I’ve arrived at my Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: often—but not always—organized time known as a schedule is fluid and organic here. It follows naturally that I might or might not have attended that wedding.
The invitation came to me as a general announcement at 11:00 a.m. tea on Friday. This brings me to my first law of organized time: the Constancy of Tea, which says that eleven o’clock tea is constant and never changes during the work week. All office workers and faculty abandon their desks; John, the security guard leaves his post at the gate as do the plumber and electrician who moments earlier were sitting at a bench talking to John; Mama Victor and her cleaning crew set their mops against a wall, and I race out of my apartment. All converge at 11:00 to the dining hall where boiled tea in a heavy kettle waits for us with a large bowl of half-cakes.
On Friday 11:00 tea, Mr. Priva stood up and reminded everyone, first in Swahili then in English, that a lecturer at our college named Gidion was getting married. Mr. Priva came over to my table to make sure I understood that the college van would leave at 1:00 p.m. We repeated 1:00 p.m. several times. I understood, he understood, 1:00 p.m.
At 1:00 p.m. Saturday I stood in front of the main campus building where the only ones to show up besides me were two mockingbirds. At about 1:15, two young men appeared on the front steps, both in non-wedding jeans. After they exchanged a few words, one of them asked me where I was going. I said I’d shown up for the wedding, repeated “wedding” in Swahili. It turns out, one of them was the van driver hired to take us to the wedding and the other his friend. I asked where the others were. “Ah, this is African time,” the friend said. “We never come on time.”
Since I was the only to show, they decided it was a good time for tea.
This brings me to my next law in the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: when something doesn’t happen according to schedule, it’s a good time for tea.
At the insistence of the van driver and his friend (“Please, come with us, Madam!”), I followed them to the men’s dormitory. It wasn’t as though I’d miss the van. The van driver introduced himself as Haji, the English-speaking friend was Hassan, and I was Jeanne whose head was full of thoughts about the impropriety of fraternizing with students and van drivers in a men’s dorm room. In Haji’s cramped room, I sat on the only desk chair, the other two stood beside me at the desk against the wall. I ate one boiled egg and the other two split the second boiled egg, and we all drank tea and ate half-cakes. As Haji cleaned up our dishes in the washroom, Hassan sat on the lower bunk of one bed with his head bent forward by the upper bunk, explaining to me that he was a frustrated author. I gave him some tips, and by 2:20 p.m. we were back at the main campus building where I discovered that the assistant to the bursar, Happy, was waiting for us. It’s always a good sign when Happy is waiting for you, as opposed to mockingbirds.
On the way to Moshi Town, I learned that the wedding started at 1:00 p.m. Our first stop though, was not at the church but downtown Moshi where we parked and found the secretary to the provost, Mama Cate, with her hair in curlers. After Mama Cate and Happy talked for a bit in Swahili, they urged me to go with Mama Cate to the hair dressers, Happy would go home and get ready for the wedding, and we would meet back at some point. It was 3:00 at this point, and if the wedding had really started at 1:00 p.m., surely it would be over. (I later learned that it ended at about 4:00.)
At the hair dresser’s, I sat on a chair with one of those hair dryer domes that I avoided by sitting closer to the chair’s edge, my head bent forward by the dome. The shop’s proprietor sat at the far end of the room on a stool. Between her legs another woman sat on the floor handing strands of fake copper-colored hair to the proprietor who braided them into endless rows along the scalp. Bits of black hair littered the floor along with paper and plastic packaging and a roll of black yarn that the only male hair dresser was using to tie up hair and secure an extended length of false hair. He also used a lot of goo to form complex curls in what looked like a gift-wrap bow.
Apparently—to my lack of surprise—no one had made an appointment. The room was crowded with people waiting. Occasionally someone walked in from the street with a plastic bag stuffed with wrinkled clothes. She pulled one out and held it up for those waiting under a dryer or on a couch or large stuffed chair. When one woman held up her hand, the merchant casually tossed the blouse to her and continued unpacking her merchandize.
At about 4:15 I followed Mama Cate out of the salon, her hair coiffed into a French knot, a strand of curled hair spiraling down from one temple. We stood by the Leopard Hotel and waited for Haji, Happy, and the van. (Hassan had left earlier.) Mama Cate made several calls to Haji who assured Mama Cate he was almost there.
This brings me to my next law of the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: “almost there” means “not there.” It has no reference to time. I had a professor like this in graduate school. It was her way of encouraging me to keep going and not worry about the end, whatever the end may be. I think that definition works for Tanzania also.
About 20 minutes later, Haji really was there. Then it was time not to go to the wedding again, but to Mama Cate’s house so she could finish dressing. At Mama Cate’s house, I met many of her family, who came in an out of the living room where I watched what looked like a Tanzanian revival meeting on TV.
At 5:00, we arrived at the reception hall. We waited one hour for the wedding car to arrive and another hour for the wedding couple to enter the reception. But for most of the college folks, this was the real wedding, the thing worth attending. By 9:30 that night, the wedding attendants had sung and danced around the wedding car accompanied by a ten-piece brass band, and we’d waved our wedding handkerchiefs in rhythm to the brass band. The roasted goat, mouth stuffed with folded banana leaves, had danced along the red carpet on a rolling cart. The bride and groom had fed each other and their parents, and the guests had danced up the red carpet to offer gifts and shake hands with the bride and groom. Finally back at my apartment, my head literally hit the pillow.
I never saw Mr. Priva that day. One o’clock indeed.

Taking a walk at SMMUCo

At the entrance of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College (SMMUCo, pronounced “SeeMOOco”), a large yellow gate stands between the campus and the road. After I pass through the gate and greet John, the security guard, I can either go left—an uphill climb—or go right, downhill. Either way, the road is a red dust that coats the corn stalks and banana leaves, and I think to myself that corn stalks and banana leaves deserve to be clean and green. If I had a water hose, I would spray them to their proper green. As buses rush by, pedestrians fling themselves against the side of the road, billows of red dust swirl and settle, and then I know that I have just become a banana leaf.
Since I am the only Caucasian on the road, passersby often stare without any attempt at subtlety. School children call out, “Good morning, Madam!” or “Good evening, Madam!” Three little ones tiptoe beside me for a good bit of the way, staring and listening in eerie silence for any behavior from me that might offer insight into the species of English-speaking madams. Later, teenagers, who walk in swarms, rush across the road to greet me. One gives me a high-five and throws her head back, laughing hysterically.
As for the older, more sedate folk, I greet them and they return my greeting with something I’ve never heard of, so I suspect our conversations could be translated like this:
Jeanne: Hello, Madam! (“Hujambo, Mama!”)
Other person: Hello! It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?
Jeanne: Thank you. Welcome! Teacher! SMMUCo!
By the end of the walk, I am swirling with call-and-nonsensical-responses. When a VW bus stuffed with passengers roars by, one man thrusts his torso out the window and hollers, “Sorry, Madam! We have no more room for you!”
I throw my hands up in the air and yell in my best Swahili, “No!” After the red dust settles once again, I am still laughing hysterically.

A note on Swahili

In Swahili, many foreign words are adopted by adding an "i" to the end. "Hotel" is "hoteli," "change" (monetary change) is "chenji," "bank" is "benki." An American here in Tanzania named Bob told of the time he was in a shop and asked for a receipt using the Swahili dictionary term.

"What?" said the shop owner. "We haven't used that since Nyerere (first Tanzanian president). It's 'receipti.'"

Bob explained that after eating at a restaurant, one asks for the "billi." Another American named Mabel said the best one she'd heard was from a pastor who began a prayer with "Dear Godi."

At the Uhuru Lutheran Hotel, Moshi, Tanzania

Since I arrived here at the hotel at night, I had no clue who my neighbors were until the middle of the night when dogs barked and goats bleated. I was even more puzzled at 2:00 a.m. when a trumpet blasted out a reveille nearby and later a capella singing of men. When I got up in the morning, I saw signs of a farm just beyond the hedge that surrounds the hotel grounds. Outbuildings of wooden planks and rusty tin roofs housed chickens and goats, and a shepherd whistled to the herd of cows, goats, and ducks, urging them across the pasture, but I saw no sign of singing men in uniform. Later I learned that there's a police academy just beyond the farm, and occasionally I see two or three men in uniform march down beaten dusty paths through the farm.

Besides the bleating of goats, lowing of cows, and crowing of roosters, the Muslim imam adds to the evening chorus when the sun goes down. The imam wails out a mournful call to prayer at sunrise, noon, and sundown over a loudspeaker. The call I hear is the evening one. Just when all is quiet on the farm, the imam does his thing, and then the dogs begin to howl. As suddenly as he starts, the imam stops, and fortunately so do the dogs.

The days have been cloudy, and I realized one evening that Mount Kilimanjaro hovered beyond the farm, slipping through the clouds at the end of the day calmly and quietly, a striking contrast to the goats, dogs, trumpets and imams.