Weekends in Kibondo

Everyone seems to be curious about what weekends in Kibondo are like, so I figured it was about time I did more than just mention them in passing…..

You know how most DVD players now have slow-motion fast-forward and rewind options with 3 or 4 different speeds? Imagine putting your life on one of the slower settings, and you can get an idea of what a weekend in Kibondo feels like. A melodramatic comparison? Perhaps … but only slightly :-P After all, weekends here are victims not only of the time-moves-more-slowly-when-you-have-nothing-to-do effect but also of the time-moves-extra-slowly-when-you’re-waiting-for-the-electricity-to-come-back-on effect. Saturdays are a bit better than Sundays since the power’s on for a few more hours during the day … unfortunately there are also more things to do outside of the house on Saturdays so the extra power often goes unappreciated. In other words, weekends can be pretty boring. Since my default antidote for boredom antidote is reading, I realized pretty early on that weekends in Kibondo could pose a very serious threat to my tiny library. This realization, combined with a basic desire to avoid slowly driving myself crazy, has prompted me to seek out some alternative weekend activities. The results so far:
• Puttering around the house (my leatherman + the set of tools I inherited when I moved in = fewer things being broken in the house!)
• Going to the market (more of a Saturday thing than a Sunday one since there’s a bigger market on Saturdays)
• Cooking (don’t be too shocked … this is more of a hypothetical future activity … my culinary escapades to date only include omelettes, pasta & oatmeal)
• Playing with Everbright (for the most part, this involves having my (lack of) basketball & hopscotch skills ridiculed)
• Hanging out at the IRC compound (in addition to the friendly people element, they also have internet, satellite tv, a microwave, and a blender at their rec center – quite exciting!)
• Walking/hiking around town (2 weekends ago we walked with Everbright out to see where she goes to school, and this past weekend we went on a three hour hike up to the highest point outside of town – the view was amazing!)

In spite of my griping, my past two weekends have actually been fairly fun. Having visitors has certainly mixed things up … plus, the weekend before last the three of us went over to the IOM compound for a Kibondo NGO Field Day. We weren’t sure what to expect … the flier that got posted in our office compound promised egg balancing, a sack race, a potato race, a chicken race, “tag-off-war,” a “marathon” around the compound, table tennis, and volleyball – to be followed by a “disco” … for the most part that all happened. There were egg, potato, and sack races, although we were quite disappointed to find that the advertised chicken race did not occur (the PC of IOM insisted that chickens had been purchased … perhaps some cook got a head start on that race?). There was also a pretty amusing hula-hoop competition (the only event a mzungu won!) and an impressively serious volleyball tournament. Impressively serious, that is, except for the one women’s game they decided to have after the men were finished … that game just involved perpetuating a lot of gender stereotypes about women and sports (I’m sorry to say that wasn’t able to do anything to counteract that, not having played volleyball since high school (and I wasn’t particularly good at it even then…)). It made for a fun afternoon though, albeit one that I spent a good part of wishing I could fast forward my language skills a few months…

Since we traveled down to Kasulu last Thursday (my guests were going to interview more NGOs; I tagged along to help them talk their way past the guards at the gate of each NGO’s compound…) and arrived back in Kibondo on Saturday in the early afternoon, this past weekend also erred on the eventful side of things (I hesitate to say fun since A. it involved spending more than 6 hours bouncing along unpaved roads and B. we decided that bigger does not always equal better when it comes to the towns in Kigoma region – we missed Kibondo!). The trip did have “upsides” though: the interviews with the NGOS were all productive; I got to at least see Kasulu (and learn for myself that the less time spent there, the better!); and I received a useful lesson on the merits of not acting on impulse. Actually, there were several lessons learned: 1. when a shiny, modern-looking bridge appears out of nowhere, check to see if there are any men in uniform guarding it before whipping out your camera; 2. avoid taking pictures of men in uniform at all possible costs; 3. when there is a decent chance that your car is one of only a handful of cars crossing the bridge that day, there is little to no hope of something like, say, a camera flash going unnoticed; and 4. if you foolishly take a picture of the bridge before noticing the men with uniforms and guns, delete it immediately and quickly take a decoy picture so you can innocently insist “I wanted to take a picture of the bridge, but saw the men in front and jerked my camera down at the last minute so the picture is of the seat, not the bridge.” That whole bit of excitement/trepidation/extreme foolishness had an upside as well though – we eventually made it across the bridge … and didn’t have to pay a bribe! (hooray for Swahili-speaking drivers, decoy pictures, and not entirely corrupt bridge guards!) The weekend took a turn for the better on Sunday thanks to the aforementioned hike and the discovery that Prisca had cooked Sunday dinner for us since the director of TCRS was coming into town.

This weekend looks promising as well – Friday is “Peasants Day,” a national holiday in Tanzania, so I have the day off from work and am planning on going with some people to see the Peasants Day Fair (I think it’s like a trade fair with examples of all the food and goods people in the area produce, but I’m not entirely sure) in the morning, and then we’re hopefully going to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics at IRC! But there will be more on that once it actually happens!