September 13, Children Dig for Exercise

This morning I woke up feeling better, and then within an hour realized I wasn’t actually feeling as well as I had originally thought. I’m still battling dizziness and abdominal pain, unfortunately. It’s frustrating because I really need to do laundry, but I just don’t really feel up to it today thanks to my general feelings of lethargy. I did have a vivid dream that my mother came to Africa with her friend Cynthia. They surprised me in the dream, and I really thought it was real until I woke up and realized the timing didn’t make any sense.

Anyway, I had an interesting conversation with Saumu over breakfast. We discussed TZ names, which tend to be a bit off-the-wall sometimes. I have heard of a lot of people being named after days of the week, and met a couple people with ‘interesting’ names: Papa (father in many languages), Mazuri (Good, pl.), Cheka (Verb: to laugh) etc.

Saumu (her name when attached to ‘kitunguu’ means garlic) also told me about the following names: Apparently the fundi who is building my furniture is named Kisu (knife). There is also a teacher named Jembe (Garden hoe), and a student named Kitunguu (Onion). There are also Traditional, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and English names used here: Siwema, Luka, Pedro, Anna, Imma, Emmanuel etc. It’s a very interesting mixture for sure. (I’m a name dork, so I find this to be truly fascinating.)

The primary school children (there are a TON of them—when I came back to site on Tuesday I was overwhelmed walking through the crowd of primary school children huddled around the outside of the school buildings) are all out on the hill with garden hoes, digging up soil to plant corn. Apparently it’s not a learning activity, but is primarily being done for “exercise”. That’s what Saumu told me anyway. 

I am waiting until noon to go into the village center. I am getting my bed (hopefully) and maybe some food from the market to cook with tomorrow. I'd like to make some fruity oatmeal and popcorn for myself, but Saumu said she might be "teaching me to cook" tomorrow, so I may be stuck making traditional foods instead. I also need to decide when I'm leaving for Tanga. Our super-regional conference is coming up, but I could use an extra day to go couch-cushion shopping etc. I'm not sure what I'm doing yet, but I'll figure it out tomorrow depending on how my body is feeling. I don't want to travel while feeling sick to my stomach again.