Yesterday Was a 3 Slug Day

The first one was on the door (outside the house) on the door frame adjacent to the lock. It ‘stood’ there while I locked the house and welcomed me back in its own smug slug way. It was a midsized slug, perhaps 5 inches. The second one was discovered late in the afternoon on the kitchen floor (almost stepped on it). The third was a small one in a water bucket that got washed down the drain. Yup, I am back in Tanzania.

Home in Tanzania. It feels like home. Instead of waiting in the line at the airport for a tourist visa (which is always a really long line) I whizzed through the line for ‘residents’! I received a ‘hero’s welcome’ at the airport and breathed deeply of the night air. (Arriving at night means relying on senses other than sight and I have always enjoyed those first smells of Tanzania.) It feels really good to be back.

Unlike last year when it took us weeks to settle in, I am settled on day 2. The house is good, my office is ready and my head is ready to get to the business of working on this book. I don’t yet know what my teaching assignments will be, but I think I will be on safari (teaching) in November.

Returning from the United States to a place that feels truly like home, yet is so different, is hard to explain. Here are a few things that feel wonderfully like home to me…

-Slugs and internet …speed isn’t the objective
-Warm welcomes from colleagues
-No water for most of day 1…waterless cleaning, better for the environment
-Wildly enthusiastic student greetings, hugs and waves and yes invitations to dance.
-Chapatti with chai for morning tea (Yum!)
-Bush babies calling in the night; mosquitoes humming outside my mosquito netting
-Discovering that I need yet another car safety sticker (TZ government likes safety stickers)
-Kilimanjaro beer (good and inexpensive)
-Kiswahili
-Malaria medication for breakfast.
-Being white in a sea of black
-The swishing sound of grass being cut by hand (machete) in my backyard.
-Silver-cheeked hornbills in my yard, raucous and outrageous.
-Children in oversized clothing; roosters crowing; long trains of ants in the house
-Brushing teeth with bottled water… no more drinking tap water
-Driving on the left side of the road with the shift on the left feels perfectly natural
-Putting away my credit card. This is a cash based society; credit cards are useless in most places.
-My beautiful royal blue land rover, Matitizo (Kiswahili for troubles)
-Markets where merchants compete for my business calling me rafiki (Kiswahili for friend).
-Passion fruit, mango juice, little bananas
-Living in the clouds on a mountain
-Bumpsi (speed bumps which are ubiquitous here)

Such is life in Tanzania, always something to learn. Perhaps this is why I like it. It is not complacent, routine or dull, but instead vibrant, challenging and life giving.