Workers are doing some renovation on the little guest house next to our house (a good friend of ours will live there in the fall). So what did they do with all the scraps of concrete and roof shingles? What better way to put it to use than to fill in the potholes in the road! This is actually a pretty common practice….the drawback is that it occasionally puts holes in your tires! Below are pictures of the road right outside our house.
Tag: Life in Tanzania
1. Gil’s baseball caps
2. Bread left out for more than one day
3. A wet spot on my couch
4. My Bible cover
5. Our toothbrushes
6. My can opener
7. Leather watch bands
8. Any clothing that doesn’t dry completely (a definite challenge in the rainy season!)
One of the things I love about living in Tanzania are the tailors. It’s difficult to find workable clothing here, but beautiful fabric is plentiful, and so are tailors. The tailor I’ve most recently been using has been way too flaky, so I’ve been looking for another one. I was thrilled to find a young woman last week that’s just a few minutes walk from our house. Her name is Beatrice, and her shop is made out of one half of one of those big shipping containers. She uses an old-fashioned foot-pedal sewing machine. I’ve already had her make me a dress, a skirt, and curtain ties for my kitchen curtains–all for the equivalent of about $12. Made to order; done the next day. Can’t beat that!
Now that I have become a mother, my entire identity has changed in Tanzania. A Tanzanian woman’s identity is wrapped up in her children, so much so that her name changes with the birth of her first child. I am now known as “Mama Grace.” Tanzanians pay a whole lot more attention to me now…which could be because my baby is brown…but also because I have a baby at all. Checkers at the grocery store where I shop have seen me for a year and never paid much attention to me; now they always address me as “Mama Grace” and ask about her, even if she’s not with me.