Americans abroad who are not Peace Corps are strange. They have money, standards, and apprehension. This is both good and bad. Thanksgiving with the expats in town was thrown by a former PCV who likes to have many people in her house with lots of food and drink. Her only requirement is that everyone brings something. This seems fair. Also, the expats are magical and can produce things like blackberry cheesecake. How blackberries were acquired in this country I need to know. Right now. (Actually she may have planted them herself since they looked like wild blackberries, so maybe I can cut a deal for some of those blackberries. I need them. ) For all my grumpiness, Thanksgiving was a fun day of expats and Peace Corps mutually entertaining one another with our incomprehensible weirdnesses.
Expats are entertaining because they are shocked by the conditions in which volunteers live and the general lack of concern we develop about it. One lady was very shocked that I live alone and kept asking me if I felt safe. I can understand why. If, in the developing world, you live in a really nice house with a fence around it, some guards, and are always transported in a private car, you are a visible symbol of wealth which is a tempting target to people desperately poor. The desperately poor may further assume that you are so wealthy that robbing you is really a victimless crime, in that you can easily replace whatever is taken. The psychological upset of having strangers enter your home with impunity is, I suppose, not considered. Anyway, large amounts of white folk with rich lifestyles (by the standard of TZ) have led to a stereotype that all white people are wealthy. In a way we are, since even the Peace Corps volunteers, who have a reputation among expats for being dirt poor and willing to to anything for money (nor are they wrong), have stealable electronics worth a great deal of money. I was once arguing over the price of something or other and the person in confusion asked me why I was concerned about a low price since I was white. Anyway, there is a way in which it is actually safer to live in typical housing--you aren't an obvious rich person. It also really helps to be able to introduce yourself and be known to a community as having a place there. It is quite a different thing to rob someone who is part of a community that might seek retribution than to rob the out of place person with no obvious community help or connections. On the other hand, rich expats have hot showers and decent transportation and don't have to clean their own houses. I have agreed to house sit for a pack of expats all of whom are leaving the country and need their dog walked and their house lived in. I will take 4 showers a day in their house. Because I can.
What was more fun was that the lady who was worried about my safety was very proud that she had taken a daladala once to experience it, but asked me in shocked tones if I was comfortable taking dalas on a regular basis. Daladalas are 15 passenger vans which function as public transport. As a general rule, it is possible to fit around 30 people, their children, luggage (which MUST include large buckets or sacks full of heavy things) and livestock. In a truly full dala, it is impossible for the people standing up to fall over, because there simply isn't enough space. The operators save a great deal of money on maintenance by never doing it. This is how I have learned through observation that breakdowns can be solved by poking at the engine with a stick for a while. The successful passenger of the daladala is the person who has no pretensions to personal space, no ability to smell compacted humanity (and chickens) in a hot, enclosed vehicle, and no sense of alarm when the operator does things like pour in more gas while the engine is running.
These ladies, however, cannot imagine taking anything other than taxis, and that not at night, so they have never encountered the fun world of taxis running out of gas, drunk taxi drivers, or taxi drivers who just can't drive. For example, on a particular night returning late to my house with friends, the driver got the wheel stuck in a large hole on the side of the road. As the smallest and least useful for pushing member of the party I was detailed to take the wheel and hold it in neutral while everyone else and the driver shoved for a while. These things happen.
Fortunately, the Peace Corps entertains expats considerably as well. There was a large group of Germans there with whom I had a delightful conversation about schadenfreude (they were just happy an American knew the word). Also, as mentioned above, we are dirt poor with no standards, so some people have found out that we will do silly things for money. Which is how I made 25,000TSH for agreeing to have a bucket of ice water poured over my head. After a quick mental check to make sure my clothing wouldn't become erotic when wet. The thing is, half the time I take cold bucket baths or showers anyway because I'm simply too lazy to heat water up to bathe in all the time, my shirt had chalk on it and needed rinsing anyway, and if expats want to fund me some cheese and jewelry, I'm okay with that. I'm really far more embarrassed about finding a dropped piece of pocky on my floor that had to have been there at least 2 days and eating it anyway. The expats then moved on to trying to talk another volunteer into rolling down a hill in a steel barrel, which he had the sense to refuse since his head would stick out and that's actually somewhat dangerous. Some expat children were around who seemed willing, but I think their parents intervened. Oh well.
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