Convenience Vs. Inconvenience

Life in Tanzania can be pretty inconvenient (from our point of view).  Most people don't own their own vehicle, and have to walk or take buses to go anywhere.  Since we've been without a vehicle for 6 months, we've been walking a lot too.  I walk a mile to the grocery store and back.

   Of course, it's also *convenient* that there are several small grocery stores and even several "Western" grocery stores all within walking distance.  We never lived within walking distance to a grocery store in America and had to drive to get everywhere.

   It's inconvenient that we don't have a dishwasher, washing machine, or microwave oven.  Most people here don't. 
  However, it is pretty *convenient* that we have a house girl who comes everyday and does our dishes, hand washes our clothes, mops the floors, and cooks our lunch for us.

   It's inconvenient that there aren't any frozen dinners, boxed dinners, or other packaged "convenience" foods.  There are no "fast food" restaurants here either.
      I do find it *convenient* that I can buy very fresh and tasty tropical fruits quite near our house, and that my house girl can make us Africans doughnuts or fries for a snack.  I also kind of like that there aren't fast food restaurants. All restaurants are sit down, and you go there to make a meal an event, and plan to spend time relaxing and talking before the food comes because it's never "fast".

   Having to drive all the way down town to the post office to check our post office box because there is no mail delivery can be quite inconvenient (especially when we don't have a car)... but I DO like the fact that we get NO junk mail in our mail box, and when we do get mail it's cards, or packages from loved ones, or magazines. We don't even get our bills in our mail box (read the previous post), so only NICE things come in the mail.  We usually only check it once a week.

   Yes, there are many inconvenient things about living in Tanzania, some that I haven't gone into.  I just don't let those overshadow the things that I love about living here.

Creepy Crawlies

                                    Ok, it had to be done.  I didn't want to write about "bugs and such",

                                  but when you think of Africa, you know you're thinking about all the

 *CREEPY CRAWLIES*

 

First, MOSQUITOS!  I've been told that the mosquitos with black and white striped legs are the ones that carry malaria.  But, I tend not to trust any mosquitos. 

 

Our house is swarming with them.  Probably because we leave our doors wide open all day. 

But, it's hot, and we want a breeze.  So, we live with the mosquitos.  We spray bug spray around the living room at night and such, but the real way to avoid malaria is to use a net when you sleep.

(This isn't really about disease prevention, but we don't take anti-malaria medication, although we do HIGHLY recommend all visitors to take it.  There are too many reason to go into here, I'll write another post about that.)

 

 

This is a silverfish.

 

Another bug I'm used to seeing is silverfish.  I usually find these in my pots or pans, or bookshelves.  They are harmless, and easy to kill.

 

 

Flying ant



Whenever it rains, there are swarms of flying ants that come out and start flying all over the place, looking for places to make a new colony, I'm told.
They somehow make their way into our house.
 (The doors and windows aren't exactly airtight, and have space all around them). 
They are just annoying and die by morning.



Nairobi eye

This little bug is a Nairobi eye or Nairobi fly.  It is tiny, about the size of an ant, but has red and black stripes.  It is very harmful though. If the bug gets squished on your skin, you will can a nasty chemical burn that looks like a bad rash that is very uncomfortable.
For this reason, we always look before we swat anything we feel on our skin. 
Our kids, even Jonathan, all know how to deal with Nairobi eye.
Take a piece of tissue paper, and carefully pick it up and flush down the toilet.

Besides these, we usually have ants in the house.  Also, our neighbor has a bee hive in their roof so we sometimes have bees in the house but that often. 

These are bugs that we deal with on a daily basis, but we just get used to it.
Since I grew up in the woods, it really doesn't bother me at all.

Ok, one more, that does kind of freak me out- weevils.
Whenever I open a can of popcorn, or bag of pasta, etc. I always have to check for weevils.

I have found weevils in a newly opened bag of pasta, and in a can of popcorn I just opened.
So, I always look for bugs before I cook. 

 

Money Matters

I haven't written on here for awhile, so will try to do better.
         Today, I will write about how money is different in Tanzania.
First of all, we use shillings instead of dollars.

 

Other than looking different, money is money. One other difference is that the largest bill is a 10,000 shilling note.  Which is worth around $6.  So, you can imagine when we take out a few hundred dollars at the ATM, we feel like millionaires with wads of cash!

         The exchange rate for dollars to shillings is one dollar is worth 1630 shillings.  Which means the Tanzanian economy is really bad.  The Kenyan shilling is much better- one dollar is worth 80 Kenyan shillings.  So, you can see how much further behind the Tanzanian economy is than Kenya.

     One thing about money here is that we pay all of our bills in cash (rent, utilities, internet), in PERSON.  The bill is either e-mailed to us, or usually delivered to our house in person.  We don't even own a checking account in the country, but just pull out cash with an ATM, since checks are rarely used as a means of payment for anything.  One reason that bills are hand delivered to your house is that there is no home delivery for mail here.  Having a post box is the only way to receive mail, and the person billing you doesn't trust that you have a post box or that you gave him the right address.  So, they send someone to your house with a bill.

      There are a few fancy stores and restaurants in town that accept credit cards, but most of the country works on a cash basis.