Volunteering in Tanzania – Part 3

One morning, when I was drinking black tea with milk and having my favourite rice muffins for breakfasts with my hosts, they told me I’d be helping out with painting window grilles.

“We only need to buy black paint and then we can start painting.” I was really looking forward to being able to help out with the chore, since promoting the safari agency didn’t take up much of my time.

I might’ve mentioned once that I can draw and paint (which is true, since I went to a secondary school of art). But I had no idea I’d become the main co-ordinator of window painting because of that!

“Ida, which paint should I buy, which brushes and thinner?!” my host shocked me with his question. The seller explained which paints he had in Swahili, while the host translated it all to me into English.

I tried to excuse myself saying I only painted on canvas and that I’d never painted windows! And that I really have no idea how to do that! But it wasn’t relevant at that moment at all. I then picked out black paint, thinner and a paintbrush of medium thickness by feeling.

My host and I spend the following days painting three window grilles. “Pole pole” was our motto.

Baking cookies without an oven

In addition to promoting the safari agency and painting window grilles in the mornings, I had a lot of free time which I used to talk to the locals and learn Swahili. After somewhat wary neighbours, I befriended a Tanzanian woman of my age and spent evenings helping her bake muffins, which she then sold in school.

»Ida, can you show me how to make cookies?« she asked me one day.

I googled “simple cookies” and found a recipe with ingredients I could find in Arusha.

But those were really a minor problem. Very few houses here have an oven. People cook food over fire or embers as well as using a gas cylinder. Electricity is expensive and unreliable I was told by the locals. So, we baked muffins in a shallow metal pot. We put an aluminium pot on the embers and filled it with muffins, which we then covered with an aluminium lid covered in embers as well.

We put the cookies we made using five ingredients (margarine, eggs, flour, sugar and baking powder) into the aluminium pot and baked them.

»How long do we need to bake them, Ida?« they put me in an awkward position.

»I really don’t know, I bake them for the first time.«

“What? But you said that you make cookies very often?!«

I tried to explain to them that we only bake them in an oven in Slovenia and that I can set the temperature and then bake them for ten minutes. And that I can’t really tell how hot the embers are, so I’ll check the cookies more often to make sure I don’t burn them.

We were all satisfied with the result and the cookies were quickly gone. :)

»Ida, next time, can you show me how to bake bread?« was another challenge I was given right away.

Celebrating Easter and the “ku-ku” in the risotto

I slowly started looking for voluntary work in another part of Tanzania. My current hosts were very happy with me, so they invited me to stay at their place at least until Easter when they would ceremoniously pluck the chicken.

Judging by our Easter tradition, I was quite curious how they celebrated the holiday in Tanzania. The village I stayed at was mostly Christian. On Easter morning, I attended breakfast as usual, when the host’s three-year-old son looked at me with eyes glistening and started screaming out loud: “Ku-ku!” Over and over again: »Ku-ku!«. Yes, I know! It means chicken, ku-ku. I was left totally clueless until he pointed at the ku-ku in the pit latrine. There was a young hen waiting there quietly the whole night. Ready to become our Easter feast. As a vegetarian, I was really relieved when I didn’t have to witness when it was plucked and then cooked in some kind of spiced risotto.

The locals don’t have Easter traditions like we do. The whole family gathers, but the food is somewhat more festive.

After I had left my African family in Arusha, I moved to Dar es Salaam, the city Indian Ocean coast. I volunteered at an orphanage for children with disabilities. In May, I took care of a small house and a tropical garden in the southern part of Zanzibar, in the village of Kizimkazi.

Despite doing my best to avoid any tourist offer, the locals helped me experience a few incredible adventures I’ll never forget. Diving and swimming with the dolphins in Zanzibar, cycling on Uzi Island, visiting giant tortoises in Prison Island, going on a safari in the Ngorongoro Crater... These are just a few of the top tourist activities that are worth experiencing in Tanzania.

I never regretted being turned down in Morocco, since I wouldn’t have been able to explore Tanzania otherwise. I got the chance to feel the locals and their culture up close, as well as experience beautiful and some less beautiful things. Plus, I witnessed a woman becoming president for the first time in the history of Tanzania.