food!

the vegetarians diet

at long last, an blog about the food here in Dar es salaam. So many of you have being asking what the food was like in both places. Grabouw, being in south Africa which could be described as Britain in Africa to some extent, we ate the same as we would in England.

But now in Dar im eating whatever the locals eat. I normaly have to skip breakfast in order to get to the school on time-7, i wasn’t going to be late for school buy eating “cardboard” bread. So for snack at the school (the kids don’t have breakfast either despite being up since 5) i normal have the equivalent of an English hash brown,  this is an triangular shaped fryied outer coating thingy which as potateo in the middle- i canne describe it any better, nor remember the real name- sorry!

Then lunch- this is Buguruni’s infamous ugali and beans. Ugali is a tradditonal African staple deirt and is best described as mash potateo in flour, it is tasteless i mean really tasteless but after a while a have got used for it. (for those of you that think its nice it’s because you’ve had “posh” ugali in a restaurant of special occasion!) the beans are godsend as they add taste to the ugali J, at the school we always eat with our hands and their is a special method for eating the ugali, another time perhaps.

Supper- its always rice, whether i eat it at the school (rice and beans, rather nice) or at the convent. The convent do actually cook some rather nice nosh. But the bottom line for everymeal is rice and spinach, normally combined with some other tings such as cabbage- my favourite or this pea soup thingy which is rather nice. Then we always have some fruit for pudding, the pineapple and the mangos are the freshest on the planet J

On occasions the nuns have invited to little nun gatherings/partys where they cook stuff out of the ordinary! Omelette with chips- actually surprisingly nice. Yes they do drink acholol, but its normaly some horrible Tanzanian made red wine mixed with coke, i’ve yet to decide whether coke or Pepsi taste better!?

Now the meat- its horrible, Tanzanian livestock don’t get fed very well (compared to Jame’s  cows on Robert berry farm) so its just disgusting. Whether its beef, chicken or even something unregonisable (maybe roadkill dog!) its just so skinny, the fat always out ratios the meat and thats if there is any meat! So i actually dread eating meat here L makes me gag.

So its normal for me to go for days or weeks without eating meat- argh! But some weekends i escape bugurni to Nevil and Alisons house (the most wonderful people in the world) and eat like royals. Nevil is such an amazing chef, why he didn’t make a career out of it i dunno. But my favourite dish is just to consume a packet of sausages (10 by myself yes).

That’s the food in a bombshell! Hopefully il add another blog before of to summit kilimanjuro.

For those of you already collecting football gear- a huge thank you J

Simonx

football

Football J

Every afternoon some form of sport has to be played to entertain the children of Buguruni, often football, but they now know how to play touch rugby, netball, rounder’s (ultimate Frisbee is slowly getting there!)

Back in January i asked the lads if they were ready for a football match and they were well up for it. So i went around asking the other local schools if they were willing for a match but they all turned it down when they found out it was the “deaf school”.

Mama Hamish (boss) kindly explained to me that in Tanzania its illegal for “normal” people to play against “diasbleled/deaf people” this made me so soo angry (a head butting the computer screen moment). What kind of law is that? I thought the Nazis made those kind of laws?, nevertheless rules are meant to be broken.

A team of Indian guys who train nearby were keen for the challenge when i explained them the situation- so we got our self’s a match J

Many of the lads had no football boots, most even played in bare feet, forget about uniforms and shin pads. It was bibs Vs no bibs. The opposing team turned up in nice shiny kit, football boots and shin pads all looking very smug.

Buguruni boys gave them a run for their money, by the end of the first half we had scored 3 goals (2 of which were hat tricks by Kelvin) and the pros were losing, 3-0 to Buguruni. This made their manager very angry, D)

However during the second half the lads were exhausted, no matter how many subistutes we did, we didn’t have a huge amount of energy. The pros however were slightly embrassed and were keen to get the score up whatever the cost. There were injuries to bare feet- result  of studs meeting unprotected skin (often on purpose) elbowing, shoving. This typically enough made all of us at the sidelines very angry, our ref (who has being blessed with deafness) fortunately didn’t hear the abuse for not sending the pros off.

We ended in a 4-4 draw, i seriously couldn’t ask for more. It was the best football match i have ever seen and the boys loved playing every second of it. It’s just a real shame that the politicians who wear suits and just simply sit in their office without seeing the real world don’t understand the real potential deaf/diasbleled people could have for sports. But hey this is TIT= This Is Tanzania. (TITS is another alternative, let me know when you have worked it out!)

I WILL be coming back to Buguruni again, hopefully bringing out some deaf friends to expirence this awesome place. When I do come out, i would love to bring some presents for the lads here. The thing they keep asking me for is football boots, if you have any old/unloved football boots (or trainers, socks, shinpads) that you need to get rid of, please give them to the boys of Buguruni!

Simonx

launguge barriers

The language barrier...

Most hearing people on planet earth think sign language is universal wheresle most deaf people know its actually unique to each country! Were telling you hearing people that sign language is not universal!

Simon only speaks English (he cannot write very good English, all blogs are done in a word document to help him overcome his errors in grammar and spelling- he blames the XY chromosome he has inherted from his father (which came with a dyslexixa mutation). He also sign’s pretty good BSL, but many deaf peers think outherwise.

At Buguruni all of the lessons are taught in Swahili sign language (theres no mary hare “oral” status to boost about!) and all of the teachers communicate with each other by speaking Swahili, a few speak English- but its work in progress.

For the kids their first language is Swahili sign language, then actual Swahili itself and then their third language is English. I literally find it amazing that im able to have a proper conversation with them at all! But thanks to previous volunteers who have given the kids a bit of background BSL, they seem to have a pretty good idea what im trying to say.

A typical converstion would be in Swahili sign language, if you didn’t get the message they would fingerspell it in Swahili (the American single handed alpherbet), if you still don’t understand then they would fingerspell it in BSL- which is actually just fingerspelling Swahili words- no luck. Then finaly they would perform actions, write/draw on the sandy floor- pretty efficient J

Its weird at first as “how are you?” is the same as thank you in BSL. “im fine” is nothing. Women means oil, and more/hurry up is actually something quite rude!- just so so weird at first but you get used to it. Geuss it will be reverse when i go home.

But i love using the language barrier to my advantage! Some time i end up with two lunches (not bad at all!) the head winfredia doesn’t speak much English, so any conversation between me and her is a one way conversation with winfredia just nodding her head smiling, so i could ask if i could do this and that and get a nod as the go ahead J.

The cultural barrier is also useful, during the week i cooked the nuns toad in the hole as a treat. When it came to bring it out of the oven it looked beautifully crispy and golden on top. However the base was heavily burnt (how do you avoide this? I burn latterly everything including myself when cooking grr) but i told the nuns that this is normal of English cooking, its how we get the taste were after and then explained we scrape off the good bits with a fork and eat it J they loved it!

I have uploaded some photos onto facebook, if your young enough please enjoy. If your of the later generation perhaps its time you think about setting up a fb account!

Simonx