Tanzanian Mornings

I like mornings in Tanzania. I know many of you are going to be astonished, but it is very hard to not be a morning person here. There are a few reasons for me becoming a morning person. First, there is not much to do at night during the week that we've found. Second, it's not really safe to be out at night, especially by yourself. Third, Tanzanians don't really sleep in, and start playing loud music as early as 7:30-8am. Fourth, the sun rises right in our windows. Fifth, since we don't stay up, we go to sleep well before midnight and our bodies don't need to sleep that long.

As I said, I like mornings here. I get up, hit the on button of my water boiler and make myself a cup of instant tea or coffee. While it's cooling, I brush my teeth, wash my face, get dressed and make sure I have my notebooks and school stuff for the day. Then I drink my tea or coffee on my balcony, where I can see the Indian Ocean in the distance. It's beautiful, and amazing. I still don't have a roommate, so thus far I don't need to worry about waking my roommate up, or anything like that.

This week we've been going to classes, sort of. All of my classes have met, it's just that I don't have a syllabus for 2 of them, or a book list. Professors still sometimes don't show up for class, and often students don't either. I still haven't officially registered for classes, but I'm not concerned. I figure everything will work out.

My sociological aspects of criminology class will be interesting I think. The professor is pretty cool. She gave me a ride back to the main campus from the engineering technology building after she and I were the only ones to show up for seminar yesterday. Today in class we were talking about gender, and how gender influences how different organizations report crime and categorize crimes. The topic of "feminist" organizations came up, and someone commented that it wasn't fair that these organizations report crimes against women more than men. I brought up the point that historically, men have defined what crime is, and how crimes are reported, and what crimes are reported. "Feminist" organizations reporting higher rates of crimes against women is not unfair, it's just that women are finally being able to define for themselves what crimes against women are, and that scares men. (I'm speaking generally here) Later in class the topic of prostitution came up, and my rhetorical question to the class was why in cases of prostitution it is always the prostitute who is criminal, but hardly ever the person paying for sex. I am pretty sure that I will not be making friends in that class with some of my views, especially when we get to the section when we do feminist analysis of crime. But I refuse to compromise what I believe, so the Tanzanians can just write me off as a crazy American.

So, my other classes are starting to get into the rhythm of actually meeting, which is nice. And, if everything works out, all of my classes here will fulfill graduation requirements at Luther.

Last weekend I didn't do all that much. The highlights of our weekend are going out to dinner usually. We ate at a very nice Thai restaurant overlooking the harbor. It was good food and a pretty view, but our evening was fairly dull. We need to find evening weekend activities that don't surround eating dinner. Not that food isn't exciting, it's just not the most exciting activity.

This week I have been more aware of my white skin. Making friends here is difficult. For one thing, it's hard to create sustainable relationships when classes aren't meeting consistently. For another, I don't have a roommate yet, which also complicates things. As I was discussing with one of the women on the program, there are also cultural differences in making friends. We don't really know what to talk about with Tanzanians. We can talk about our degree programs, where we are from, where we study, but then we come up short. Even questions like what do you do for fun don't really help. Tanzanians are friendly, and kind, but I can't seem to break through just being another white person who is just here for a semester. I admit, I could try different things, I could approach more people and try talking to them, I could sit down with people I don't know at dinner, I could try and use more Kiswahili. Nonetheless, it is more difficult so far for me to make connections with Tanzanians. Maybe my roommate will move in this weekend, who knows. And next week is a new week.