TIA

It doesn’t take long before you hear someone say “Well, TIA!”  The acronym is standard here:  “This is Africa!”  Why is it so common?  Let me count the ways.   Roosters crow at all hours of the night and day.  We have a night watchman who arrives just before dark and stays until dawn—outside—in a plastic lawn chair—inside our locked compound.  We ate dinner tonight with the ambiance of a kerosene lantern, and I was writing this by the same means of illumination, but now, praise the Lord, the power has just switched back on.  It is so unpredictable when the power is on or off.  Today was more off than on.  We wash our dishes in cold water, but we DO have running water at the tap and can take hot showers, if the power is on for the mini water heater!  25 people ride in a minivan called a dala dala, where a young man hangs out the window soliciting more riders!  The back seat is almost always available on a small bus called a “coasta”—the engine is in the rear, and the seats in the back not only get all the bumps, but they are “heated seats” at no additional cost!  We took one of these to Arusha twice last weekend, and it was plenty warm.  BTW, you can negotiate the price of the trip, but it is chaotic business at the bus station.  As soon as you are in the area, swarms of young men accost you trying to get you on his bus because there is a commission for him to fill the bus quickly.  Often these competitors engage in shouting matches or even fisticuffs!  We like to choose a bus that is nearly full, because it won’t leave until it is.  On a final note, TIA also applies to the differences in teaching here.  This afternoon, students stayed an extra 2+ hours to get extra help after their 3 hours of classes.  It was stifling in our classrooms, but they didn’t want to leave!  “I love English,”  “Thank you for coming to teach me,”  and the clincher after I have known these students for 2 whole days (counting today!) “I love you; you teach me English so well.”  You know why I’m here now!