Riding in Cars With Boys

"If these are life's lessons she'll take this test. She needs wide open spaces, room to make a big mistake, she needs new faces, she knows the high stakes, she knows the high stakes..." - Dixie Chicks

Novemeber 18, 2009

Now that Image is used to me, my appearence at village things hardly surprises them. So I do things to "up my profile"- this is my chance to be famous after all, for once in my life no one looks like me. I do things that people will least expect. For example: I learned how to cook pombe (home brewed alcohol that looks and tastes like vomit) with a bunch of bibis (grandmothers). I learned how to play some game that all the babus (grandfathers) play that makes no sense and people told me that only old people can play it... well, Brie now can too. I kiss little dirty village kids, hold their hands and tell them that I love them. At the meeting with all the vijana (young men) about how they are supposed to stay away from my house, I tell them that if any of them come through my window again, I will go "Lorena Bobitt" on them. They laugh but they believe me. It was a good threat. I find jobs at two mgahawas (cafes/beer shacks) and one duka (shop) where i surprise people by working when I feel like it (I work for free after all!) I take the guys to visit my owl and crack up when they are terrified. The fuuny thing is these stories follow me around, I even get to hear the third or fourth hand. "I heard you threw 200 condoms ar the guys in the bar today and then walked out." Yep- true story.

Anyways, my antics keep me interesting and while I am interesting, people want my ideas, adivce and company. Today I decide I am going to paint the checker board at Mama Max's Mgahawa, because the red squares are entirely impossible to see from too much use. I take my red acrylic paint and go to work. Then I write around the edge "Use Condoms" in swahili, surrounded my hearts. This makes all the guys laugh. Osmond shows up and I ask him what he is going to do today. "We are going to work." "Work?" I say, like I have never heard the word, which from village men, I pretty much never do. He has just bought the worst Land Rover in human history. It is a Flintstone car, you can see the ground as you go because there is no floor. None of the doors fully close and only the windsheild still has gas. You have to push it to get it to start. So when he invites me to come along, the prospect of riding in it is fully awesome! "Great!'" I respond. The guys are out of money for beer, so we need to cut some trees. This is not really like deforestation- timber is our main livlihood, so we are constantly replanting pines.

Unfortunately for this little outting, I am Tanzanian woman dressed, complete with a long tight skirt and heels. I get into the front seat (if you can call it that) and hold my feet up so they don't drag. Puce, Joeseph and Stanly all effortlessly sit on nothing or stand on the back bumper. Nicky rides on the roof. We go complete bush four-bying over old cornfeilds, between banana trees and into the forest. What cracks me up about the whole event is how suddenly my rough, rural TZ guys are all super concerned about me. Osmond asks me, "Are you scared? You can get out if you want," as we plow over a ridge. "No", I reply, smiling. I am not sure how to translate, "Hell no! This is my African Indiana Jones adventure!" (He wouldn't get the reference anyways.) I ditch the heels when we park, so everyone offers to carry me, I refuse that, so then everyone's shoes are offered, which I also refuse, preferring like always to go barefoot. Tanzanians and their hospitality though, geez. I lay on my back in the grass surrounded by wildflowers. Puce comes over with the equivillant of "bush grapes" and another "fruit" I have never seen before. I'll question Tanzanians about a lot of things but what is safe to eat in the bush is not one of them. After an hour, they declare that is enough. We load back into (or out of) the "car" but all the guys have to jump in when it is actually moving, because first they have to push us out of the ravine.

Back in the village, my bush story arrives before I do- was I afraid? How did Osmond drive? Why would I go into the woods ? The guys brag- she even went barefoot, she wasn't scared at all. My villagers look surprised, Americans sure are weird people.