I live in a community of ginger farmers who are living and farming within mountains. The slope of the mountain causes a big problem with soil run off during rain. Also farmers want to plant these farms all year long in order to be most productive, and this means that they have to device a way to rely on irrigation rather than weather patterns. So when my villagers farm they of course use terracing, which is basically like a giant set of stairs, and in each terrace they build a small wall around the outside creating kind of a bowl where they plant their crops. They then divert the flow of water from irrigation channels so that they are pouring water into certain terraces until they fill up. This is an awesome way of irrigating here because instead of loosing soil with water runoff, a problem most farms have, the water just sits in the bowl until it settles and essentially no nutrients are lost.
The villagers are also very diplomatic about the use of the irrigation channels. They all work together every month to repair the ditches as they get overgrown with weeds. Also in order to have a strong flow of water to use for irrigating only several farmers can be irrigating at a time, therefore a committee every week assigns certain times for people to irrigate as well as assign persons to change the flow of water at key junctures in order to directe the water toward the proper farms. They have become so effcient with this that because water flows all hours all day people will be assigned night shifts and will be going out to water their crops at midnight and all hours in the night, as well as regular daylight hours.
I have decided to start teaching english at the primary school that is right near my house this next week. Out of the many things that I do not know or understand about Tanzanian life, english is not one of them. It is the one skill that I am automatically an expert on in my village and I feel that helping out a few days a week by teaching an hour class would definitely help me improve Kiswahili as well as let students learn english from a native speaker. The more I learn about Kiswahili the more I learn about english. One thing I recently have found is that there is no word for ‘both’ in Kiswahili, just a word for ‘all’. This brings me to the question, do we need the word both, it just means ‘all two’ I feel like?
In my village I walk around all day and write down words that people say that I don’t understand. The other day I was translating my recently aquired batch of new queries, and the translated definitions went in this order ‘Stupid/dim witted’, ‘Hopeless’, ‘Slaughter’. I totally see my villagers having a conversation about a stupid white person who should probably be dispossed of.
Note of Culture: The culture here has alot more intergenerational integration. It is interesting to commonly see people from ages 3 to 80 hanging out together often in public places.
Note of Quotation that Inspired Me: ‘Freedom is doing that which scares you the most.’
Note of Clothing: Old man wearing a ‘Cat and the Hat’ shirt to a funeral.
Note of English: ‘I Say!’ They love this phrase, and will proptly say it after every time something surprising happens.
Note of Excitement: Scored a goal playing ‘soccer’ the other week!
Note of Something to Try: If you are ever with a Tanzanian teenage boy, ask him if he can walk on his hands, they prety much all can.
Note of Dissapointment: Loss of traditional religion. I’m starting to realize that since Christianity was brought a hundred years ago here, everyone in the village has become a christian, and there is no longer the traditional religious practices of the tribe. Even the oldest people don’t know about the religion of their ancestors.
Mistake: Biggest reoccuring mistake, I hit my head on all the door frames... they on average are at my eye level.
Wander: Sucked into nighttime field irrigation by flashlight.
Awkward Pause: Chairman of my subvillage got impeached, which was unknown to the priest who the following day asked at a funeral if the subvillage chairman could get up and say a word or two about the decieced.I took some pictures, one, I didn't take any good ones, two I am having trouble uploading them, I will try later.
Jeff Hubley
PO box 344
Same, Kilimanjaro
Tanzania
