Mango Season Doesn't Last Forever

So after three weeks in Africa, I have finally managed to find people to play sports with. I had expected when I came here that there would basically be soccer games played at every street corner, but it didn’t quite work out that way. The government here doesn’t have too much excess cash lying around, but I still feel they could find ways to invest in a few more empty fields.

On Saturday I played ultimate (Frisbee) with a group of about half ex-pats and half Tanzanians. Frisbees are not too common here (when I have tossed around the one I brought there are generally some locals looking confused), so I was lucky to bump into the right people who invited me. They play every week, so I should be able to get a good number of games in with them before I head home.

Then during the game I was asking if anyone knows of any regular soccer games, and a few of the Tanzanian guys (most well educated people here have pretty good English) let me know they were playing the next morning at eight. I wouldn’t have minded the time, as it is a lot more comfortable running around early in the day, but due to forces outside my control (peer pressure), I didn’t get home until pretty late the night before, and didn’t get quite as much sleep as I would have preferred. But, along with one of the guys I am living with, I forced myself out of bed and helped lead (I use that term very loosely) the African/ex-pat team to victory against the Indian team. There is a surprisingly large Indian population in Mwanza and in Tanzania as a whole, and by Indian I mean the real kind, in case anyone was confused.
Overall, I have started to get to know a lot more people living and staying here, and have been able to watch many of the more important world cup games with good-sized groups. I have also managed to get onto Lake Victoria twice in the last week, once on a large boat with about twenty people, the other a small sailboat with four others.


Lessons:

Always examine packaged goods before buying: It is not unusual here for bugs to get into food, and grocery store return policies are not quite as liberal here as they are in Canada (shocking I know). When you are all excited for those cookies you just bought, seeing ants crawling all over them can be a real downer.

Clothing donations don’t always go where you think they do: There is a used clothing market across the street from my apartment filled with everything from shoes to bras to hockey jerseys. I have even heard someone found a shirt from a soccer tournament they played in when they were a kid. People think they are giving away their old closes to help the poorest of the poor, but instead it just goes onto a clothing rack, or pile, in a different country (how it gets to the market I am not sure). While there are actually a lot of nice things being sold, as soon as you show the slightest interest in a vendors merchandise, they will begin shoving everything they own in your face, making casual shopping quite difficult.

When taking a cab, always ask before hand how much it will cost, and know what the price should be: Cab drivers will generally try and charge white people a higher price then locals, thinking we won’t know any better. It is important to know what the correct price will be, and make sure you bargain down to it. However, when asking after the ride has finished, you don’t quite have the same level of bargaining power.
Barbers don’t use scissors here: On my way to go to one of Mwanza’s countless barbershops (I choose the “Executive Barbershop”), I started to realized that basically every male Tanzanian had a very similar, very short haircut. Within two minutes of sitting down, the large majority of my hair was scattered over the floor. The barber did spend another forty minutes (not an exaggeration), however, cleaning up the sides and edges with different length razors. So my hair is now the shortest it has been since I used to get buzz cuts at the age of eight. I do feel like my head has been keeping colder though, so overall I kind of like it. On top of this my electric trimmers battery blew when I plugged it into the outlet here, so I have to use a razor now. Add that to the sunglasses I am wearing regularly for the glare and I look like a whole new person.

Driving here is generally chaotic: Passing in oncoming traffic on the highway is quite common, and most people push it much closer then etiquette says to do in Canada. People will speed up to the many speed bumps, then quickly slow down. Any roads outside the city require drivers to sway side to side wildly to find the path of least resistance, as the dirt roads will just get worse and worse until they get fixed again. Few cars have working seatbelts, and fewer people ware them. Motorcycles are often seen swerving between traffic. And best of all, the other day only quick reflex’s on the part of the driver stopped the car I was in from getting struck by a cow coming out of a bush. But on top of all this, I have seen no dangerous accidents. I have seen two minor ones though (cars scraping each others sides), both of which I was in one of the cars for.

Mango season doesn’t last forever: This sounds like a good metaphor for life. I recently found out that Mango season is nearing its end, meaning I will have to eat as many as I can while it is still an option.

Credit does not exist here: Getting any kind of bank loan for most people is next to impossible, there is no almost such thing as a credit card, and even the large majority of cell phone plans are prepaid. Luckily, this well known fact here isn’t always the case. After ordering a special at a restaurant, my group realized we might not have as much money with us as we thought, and were unsure of how much the special was exactly. Fortunately, we had been to the place before and they recognized us, letting us pay part of our bill the next day. I would not be surprised, however, if most places would have made one of us cab home and back, while keeping the others “around” (this was our initial plan).