Village Trip

One of the most exciting parts of this orientation course for Rachel and I was the Village Trip. This involved driving for about three hours, taking a ferry, and walking a little way to the home of a Tanzanian family who had agreed to show us their lifestyle. They spoke no English, so we brought along a friend and interpreter from the office. First, we drove through the city and got onto the ferry. Here's a cool sailboat passing in front of us.




Then we drove on dirt and sand roads while our guide looked for "a mango tree" to indicate the turn off.





After we parked, we walked for a little bit, passing cattle on the way. The cows were under the previously mentioned mango tree.




Our host family's house.





The women were weaving palm branches when we arrived. We sat on large mats that were all woven by hand. You will see them throughout these pictures.



The main project we were to accomplish was the preparation of a Tanzanian feast prepared exactly how people in the village would do it. This included harvesting, cleaning, preparing, and cooking the food. The one thing we cheated on was to bring dead meat, instead of having to kill it ourselves. The husband of the family took us on a walk to his brother's coconut trees. He then proceeded to climb up and get us a few coconuts for dinner, which the men took turns husking. Culturally, harvesting and shucking coconuts is man's work.

Next, we started cooking. I helped set up the two fire pits in the front yard. A local pastor had also come with several couples from the church to help make the meal; the group brought charcoal, then several of us helped chop wood and get a fire going.

Rachel got to help cut up the meat. Don't worry, we boiled it for hours.

The family had several cashew trees on their property, but the nuts won't be ready until September to November.

A common food in Tanzania is greens. Basically, if the vegetable has leaves, they are edible. These in the picture are sweet potato greens. We also had pumpkin greens.

Preparing the greens.

Here is Rachel cooking over the fire. Ingredients: Corn oil, Onions, Tomatoes, Sweet Potato Greens, Ground Nuts, and Salt.

Collecting water. This is the water we used for cooking and cleaning.

We cooked lots of rice. We had to pick out the rocks and a few bugs. When all the food you use is freshly harvested with almost no processing, it is amazing all the extra steps to preparing a meal.

These are the men doing the culturally appropriate dinner prep.

This is the 60 Liter pan we used to cook rice. Tanzanians eat an amazing amount of rice each day. We used about 12 gallons of water to cook the rice.

After about 30 minutes, we piled all the coals on top of the pan to cook the top half of the rice.

Ugali is something that Tanzanians eat with every meal. It is basically just corn meal and water. The corn meal is added to the boiling water until it is very thick. When we saw these big paddles at the store, I thought they were oars, but actually they are for stirring ugali.

This is the whole feast laid out on palm branches. It only took 7 hours to prepare, but it was worth it.

Well, I guess I will end this post. Rachel laughs every time I add more pictures. Maybe I'll put a few more in the next post.