I couldn’t think of anywhere else to post this. I was doing research on war and peace quotes the other day. These two were one of my favourites:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.
– Havelock Ellis
I have, once again, abandoned you for a while dear blog. I always come back, don’t I? Like a returning addict.
Whenever life gets too happy, stressful, or depressing, and I have friends close by, it’s easy to simply vent without really writing and reflecting on what is happening. It’s easier to let out the emotions in an exhilarating rush, rather than pressing the play-pause-repeat trio to dissect and second-guess.
Needless to say (but just for the record), a lot happened, across the emotion spectrum. Dear friends have left. Exciting ideas fermenting. Ran from my own apartment for fear of safety. Yes, you read that right. Now part of the invisible homeless and trying to find space to search for a new place within the boundaries of crazy work hours, a ten day road trip, and new January arrivals having already snatched up all the places. Luckily I have the fortune of having amazing friends who jumped to my rescue for a temporary shelter; I really would not have known what to do if not for them.
Despite all this craziness thrown at me (sometimes I wonder if just as much craziness would be hurled my way if I lived back home), I can sincerely say I’m really enjoying my life right now. There’s just enough excitement, anxiety, intellectual stimulation, and over-worked exhaustion to make daily life interesting.
Thank you, life and privilege.
Thank you, blog.
And thank you, dear family and friends.
(Is it a sign of age when I get emotional over the end of a year? I can’t wait until I’m in my 30s : )
I haven’t written a recipe post for a while, but this one was too good to pass up. While my experiments in the kitchen don’t always turn out, I’m pretty happy this time.
I don’t like measuring usually and now that I don’t have a measuring cup, I basically guess everything. So please don’t ask for exact measurements.
I was tempted to try to make a sticky date pudding since I had just bought a huge pack of dates – the last few times I bought that many, I had never been able to finish all of it. A quick internet search showed recipes with tons of sugar and butter and heavy cream…so I decided to improvise with the custard cream I had left in the fridge. The instant custard cream I made two days ago was made with the custard cream power (basically corn starch and some flavourings?) and milk, no sugar.
The pudding came out so good I was seriously considering hiding it.
Somewhat Accurate Recipe
Dates, pitted – about 1 cup/200 g/two hand fulls
Custard cream – 1 cup (maybe a bit more?)
Flour – about ¾ cup
Eggs (smallish) – 2
Baking powder – 2 teaspoons
Water – about 1 cup
Make custard cream: buy the instant custard cream powder (I had never bought this back home, but they’re everywhere in Tanzania). Approximately 750 mL of milk with 3 heaped tablespoons. Don’t follow the instructions on the packaging because it only makes a very thin custard cream. Heat most of the milk up until it just starts boiling, take off the stove. Take some cold milk in a cup and mix well with the custard cream powder. Pour gradually into the heated milk and stir vigorously. It should set pretty fast. Leave it to cool down a bit.
Make the pudding: soak dates in water and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Put on gentle fire to heat up and stir. Take off fire once boiling and water murky from dates. Puree with food blender/processor/one of the hand held mixing things. Add custard cream, eggs, and baking powder. Mix well. Fold in flour until incorporated. Pop into oven at approximately 175C and 25 min. Viola! Tasty amazingness without sugar nor butter.
I liked it so much I even took a photo.
Sat in one of the front seats of the daladala today. After pulling to a stop at the curb, the driver turns around and asks me to move over to leave the aisle seat open. Twisting my head, I saw that the conductor was helping an mzee with a wheelchair onto the bus. I scooted over. The mzee climbed onto the seat next to me, I smiled and said shikamoo. We exchanged greetings and I turned back towards gazing out the window. Morning pre-wake up beverage Tiffany isn’t that talkative.
When the mzee arrived at his station, the daladala was already a bit crowded. He tapped a mama on the shoulder to help him unload the wheelchair and gingerly climbed down the stairs himself. The conductor helped him into the wheelchair and made sure he got onto the pedestrian sidewalk. They exchanged thank yous and the conductor jumped back on. The normally pushy, loud, and extremely impatient driver and conductor surprised me with their gentleness and understanding. The very competitive business of nabbing more customers than the three other daladalas running on the same route at the same time was temporarily put aside. Empathy and compassion shone through.
That’s part of the reason why I don’t want to buy a car. I’ll miss these moments.
That is until I jump on one of the super crowded ones after work and have to elbow my way to a tiny patch of standing space. Cursing is understandable.
—
Mzee = respectful title for an elderly man
Mlemavu = someone with a disability
Shikamoo = greeting for an elderly person
Conductor = person who collects the money and opens the doors and shoves people in on the daladala
Today, I missed winter…and home.
Thick winter trench coats. With pockets stretched out from jamming my hands inside in weak attempts to keep out the chilly air. Hand knitted scarves from high school. Warm and familiar yarn lovingly chosen as a birthday present. Fake leather boots that go up to my knee. Bought for the comfort of walking around a huge campus in the constant four month rains of Vancouver. Never worked anyways.
Smells of pumpkin spice lattes wafting from a certain overpriced, over-commercialized coffee stop (er…shop). Agora* lures with their winter pies and heated basement and endless homework assignments. Breaths of mist following sleepy yawns. Flakes of snow arriving with the early darkness. Hoods pulled up on heads, insulating against the dots of white twisting into a small storm announcing the arrival of the 43 Joyce Station bus.
Fingers freeze over typing the 5312nd word in an essay due at midnight. Toes of one leg curled under my seat. Belle** curled on top of my other. Faint rising steam from the hot tea dissolving into the cold air, for the environmentalist had to turn off the heating to save the planet. Movie nights with mom/dad, snuggled in one blanket, laughing at some ridiculous Cantonese comedy, pushing my icy cold feet towards their side seeking warmth; eliciting yelps of protests.
Belle zooming around the snow, nose covered in snowflakes, eyes shining like a puppy while white whiskers betray her age. Mom and I never fail to laugh at her antics. Black against white. Tail wagging in the air like ostrich feathers. Walks always doubled in time whenever it snowed.
The sigh of relief stepping into a heated room. Stomping the moisture off my boots. Shaking the droplets from my hood. Feeling the dampness rise off my clothes. Settling down on the wooden chair for another interesting lecture. Another interesting seminar discussion. Another long cold night under a blanket, reading, thinking, and writing.
…
Ah. The indulgence of air condition is a weak imitation of winter.
It’s one of those days.
*Amazing student run restaurant in the MacMillan Building at UBC.
**The dog I will never forget.
Here’s an idea to disrupt higher learning in Dar es Salaam
What do you think? I need feedback! I’m really interested in helping this take off if it’s a good idea.
Key words: DVDs, small community theatres, free online courses, free entry.
The main idea:
Needed:
Possible challenges:
Main challenges we’re helping to overcome:
It constantly surprises me how much social norms can change within different spaces.
Every morning, I cross my fingers that I can jump on a dala dala with a seat, but almost full of people. Depending on where and how I catch the dala dala, it might take me anywhere from 20 min to 45 min to get to work. As with the red minibuses in Hong Kong, most dalas only leave the station with enough people on board.
Every second day or so, though, a dala dala doesn’t come for a while and the crowd builds up. People push and shove to get in and “as packed as sardines” is a severe understatement. A tangled plate of compressed spaghetti would be a bit more accurate. Or even better, vacuum tank (no air to breathe…).
During these cramming sessions, women and men apparently do not take notice if they reach across your face to grab the handrail, step on your flip flop protected toes with their leather shoes, nor squeezed you into a strange shape with their shapely bum. The normal gender norms of men and women separate and remaining a respectful distance are completely disabled the moment you walk into the alternative universe called a dala dala.
I suppose it’s not that different from wearing a bikini on a beach compared to a bikini in Kariakoo. Yet, it still amazes me how much the concept of personal space and modesty gets completely thrown out of the dala dala window by the simple fact of piling into an enclosed moving space. And the best part is that I have yet to hear of any stories (or personal experience) about females being “felt up” in dalas, unlike in crowded trains back home. While it’s probably twice as crowded in a sardine dala than in the Hong Kong metro (or the Japanese metro), the sexual predators behave much better! So, for those rape apologists, it’s possible – men are not born to sexually molest and rape any woman they have a chance to.
Nothing makes me angry and annoyed more than people assuming that men will always be “men.”
Sky dark, moon bright, cool evening air brushing my face. I love the feeling of cruising home on a bajaji in the evening. The traffic minimal, the city pensive, the flickering lights mysterious. Daylight Dar wouldn’t have been able to recognize her twin sister.
The bajaji slows down to cross an intersection near my apartment. Neat rows of bodies lay on the ground. Every time.
A few weeks ago, I noticed while flying by that street corner on another bajaji. Curious and confused – while homelessness is a major problem scattered around the city, rarely did I see such congregations. The next time, it struck me that all were women. Vitenge wrapped around frail shoulders, providing a false sense of protection from the nipping night air. And everything else that lurks in the night.
How stupid of me. Being much more vulnerable to (sexual) violence, of course the women would band together. While some sleep, others keep watch. While some took care of the children, others begged. While men roam, women gathered.
A familiar sadness settled on my shoulders. Maybe one day I’ll have enough courage to go over with some wali na marahage and offer a bit of warmth. What else can I do?
One phenomenon really jived with my perceived sense of professionalism when I first arrived in East Africa: almost every single person I knew from work had one or multiple side businesses. (Talk about entrepreneurship!)
The lovely Mama is running a layer chicken business, selling eggs, and earning a tidy profit. The manager imports cars after work hours. The dada is involved in a pyramid scheme to sell products. The kaka offers delicious food in a catering business…Everyone, it seems, spends their weekends and week nights earning extra money, as if it’s not busy enough at work already.
I constantly wondered how could people possibly concentrate on so many tasks at once. And a few times, I wondered if productivity is lower than back home at the formal work place because of these “side” jobs. Running your side business during normal work hours is, to some extent, accepted. This fact really didn’t sit well with me when I first arrived in East Africa. I was brought up to have a certain perception of what is proper work ethic. To be professional is to fully concentrate on my formal job when at work. You’re paid to work from 8 to 4 and you’d better work from 8 to 4*. The Hong Kong part of me still thinks that there are no “off” hours for work. Weekends, overtime, holidays are all fair game if work needed to be done.
Now it makes sense, at least partially. Fortunate enough to have always had unemployment insurance, family help, and savings to fall back upon, I had never really worried about what would happen if I suddenly got fired. Good employment laws also dictates that I would never actually be suddenly fired unless due to a criminal act. The weight on my shoulders have never been more than light.
Here, it’s different. Unemployment insurance is non-existent. Contracts often non-formal. Employers powerful, and courts unfair. Not to mention ten other relatives that depend on your salary to provide tuition fees and food.
That’s why “side” jobs where you are the owner are actually the proper jobs. They are the insurance in case your formal job fails. They are the ones that will provide continuous income regardless of your formal job. If you’re lucky, you’ll earn enough with your side job that you don’t need your formal job any more. It’s simply the most rational survival strategy.
For quite different reasons, this entrepreneurial culture is rubbing off, and I really want to start some sort of business here. On top of my formal job, of course.
(*which, actually doesn’t happen anyways. People who can work with high concentration for that many hours are almost super human. This post from Study Hack is very revealing. The vast majority of us don’t actually work as much as we think we do)
Koudouryoku (行動力)
There is a word in Japanese called koudouryoku. I’ve been wracking my brain for a long time trying to find a suitable translation into Chinese or English. Unfortunately, unsuccessful. The approximate meaning is “the ability to get things done.” (Which, by the way, is very much in the spirit of the organization I’m currently working with.)
Koudouryoku, as far as I can tell, is quite prized in Japanese culture. It’s about how much energy and perseverance you have to make things happen; to make ideas materialize. In the popular, lets-do-this-for-fun personality tests, there’s usually a section on how high your koudouryoku is, along with how emotional you are or how creative you are. Even when they analyse the personality of pop stars on TV shows, this category would come up.
I think Tanzania would benefit from an injection of koudouryoku.
All these failed NGO projects, company projects, government projects. Sometimes I wonder if it really is the problem of design or is it the problem of implementation. Of course, most of the time it is both, but if you had more koudouryoku, the goal can be reached, regardless of the obstacles. How does a society get more koudouryoku? How does an individual get more koudouryoku?
