Life in Tanzania | Amy Medina

Everything is different.

On January 8, 2014

On Sunday night, a friend invited me to watch Downton Abbey. I zipped over to her house in 15 minutes.

And I realized, as I was driving the approximately 9 miles to her house, that in Dar es Salaam, I have a friend who also lives about 9 miles away: My friend Kathy. And I also realized, that in the entire 10 years we have lived together in Dar, that I have never–not even once–zipped over to her house at 8:00 at night to watch a show together.

Because to get to Kathy’s apartment takes a minimum of an hour, and usually around an hour and a half, even though it’s about 10 miles. So….we don’t get to see each other very often.

The population density of our current city is 1,300 people per square km. The population density of Dar es Salaam is 3,100 people per square km. With a fraction of the amount of roads.

I thought about how in Dar, I hardly drive anywhere at night by myself. It is stressful enough driving in the daytime. But here, I can go to Target or the grocery store or a friend’s house after dark. It feels so….free. I’m still not used to it.

People ask me sometimes about what is different from my life in Tanzania and my life in the States. I struggle so much with where to begin.

Everything is different. Everything. Driving, I tell them. Shopping. The weather. My schedule. Language. Color. I am different there.

But those are such broad categories. They don’t really describe how different it is. So here’s something specific:

I would never be able to watch Downton Abbey at my friend Kathy’s house, who lives only 10 miles away. (Of course, we’d have to wait for someone to send it to us on DVD first anyway.) But maybe, just maybe, if the traffic doesn’t happen to be too horrendous, we can meet in the middle at an Indian restaurant.

And that’s fun too. Just different.

No Place Like Home

By Amy Medina

On April 21, 2013

In Other

Someone recently posted this picture of Dar es Salaam to Facebook, so I shared it. I don’t know who took it so can’t give credit where credit is due.

But I love the picture.

This is my city; with the sprawling masses and the Indian ocean in the background. Downtown sits right in front of the ocean….where you can see the high rises that are springing up as fast as spring daffodils these days.

This picture shows only a small fraction of our city. HOPAC and our house are not in it. But we travel this area all the time.

Let me point out just one other interesting fact: You see that road that bisects the picture? That’s the only road going into downtown. The only main road going downtown in a city of 5 or 6 million people.

In this picture, the road is 4 lanes, two in each direction.

Later on, it tapers off into three lanes.

Three lanes, you ask?

What on earth do you do with three lanes?

Well, one lane going one direction; one lane going the other direction and

The Chicken Lane, right down the middle.

Oh yes. You know you wish you had one in your city.

Out by us, the road goes down to two lanes.

For 5 or 6 million people.

Can you see why people say, “I love Dar…except the traffic?”

Groove

By Amy Medina

On April 17, 2013

In Other

This family are some really great friends. And they know how to throw a really great party. Specifically, a 60’s, 70’s, 80’s party.

(They’re with Young Life; that probably explains a lot about them.)

Since these pictures could, at some point, possibly be used against us, I am posting them for the following reasons.

1. I want to break your stereotypes of:

the type of fun we have here
missionaries in general
us

and because

2. You’ll never really get to see my hunk of a husband in all his full-leg, sideburns glory, ever again. Ever.

Making Merry

By Amy Medina

On December 30, 2012

In Other

Since it’s almost impossible to buy decent gifts for the kids here, Christmas presents usually arrive via big yellow envelopes. These particular ones were from our friends at FCC.

Thank you to everyone who blesses us at Christmas!

Annual gingerbread house decorating with Caleb and Imani.

My houses did not collapse this year, so I am improving. However, as I was wrestling with these ridiculous contraptions, I declared rather loudly to anyone who would listen,

Next year I am buying a kit!

Making glorious messes has always got to be a part of Christmas.

Skyping in the relatives.

Next year there will be no Skyping!

More glorious messes: Christmas morning.

And the benefit to hosting 14 additional people on Christmas afternoon? It all gets cleaned up, lickety split.

So Gil convinced his mom to purchase a zip line for the kids for Christmas. (I don’t think, actually, that Grandma realized that this particular gift means that her grandchildren will be whizzing across our yard at tremendous speeds and almost crashing into trees…with no helmet.)

Thanks to Grandma for purchasing it;

Carley’s family for carting it over here;

and Tony and Devin for their help in putting it up.

It was a whiz-bang Christmas.

It was also a Claimjumper Christmas.

It all started with the meat.

My friends Alyssa and Lauren and I went to a day-long women’s retreat in November. A gift was given to each woman who attended: a recipe and little bag of spices to make Claimjumper’s Corned Beef.

We decided right then and there that we would make the beef for Christmas. AND that therefore, we needed an entire Claimjumper’s Christmas. Logical conclusion, don’t you think?

So we scoured the internet for recipes. And oh my. I have amazing friends.

Bacon wrapped shrimp, citrus salad, Thai salad, BBQ salad, mozzarella cheese sticks, cheese-potato cakes, twice-baked potatoes with chicken. And corned beef. We should open our own Claimjumpers.

Yes, those are Hershey’s kiss cookies, made from kisses that have been at the bottom of my freezer since August. However, they are not very well suited to Tanzania, since they could only be out of the freezer for about 10 minutes before they turned into Hershey’s kiss puddles. But that’s okay, 10 minutes is enough!