I just thought that I would add in some more cultural experiences that we have had while in Dar. One of the biggest ongoing crises in Tanzania since we arrived has been the doctors’ strike. Many of the doctors hadn’t been paid in over six months, and for at least a few weeks a majority of them stopped working and the nurses essentially ran the hospitals. This was shocking to us because as a vital part of society doctors have different codes of conduct which I assumed were universal. However, I think people can only work for so long without proper compensation. Ultimately, the state does not have enough money to finance even the most basic institutions. This seems to be a reoccurring theme, which can be seen in the crumbling infrastructure and with constant strikes. Eventually the doctors strike was called off because under their union contract they are not allowed to go on strike, and the government threatened to fire all of them and replace them with the military doctors. Unfortunately the doctors have still not received payments, and some have tried to strike again.
Another interesting development has been with the arrival of our new housegirl, Rebecca. Rebecca is 19 and was married in her village because her family needed the dowry money. Her husband wanted to move to Dar to study (I think they said he is in form 4, or just finishing primary school) but she had to work at our house to help finance him. However, he dropped her off at our house and has not had contact with her since. At first she was frantic, trying to walk and find him in the city (of three million). She even stopped eating and tried to walk to her village (which is about 800 kilometers away). I felt terrible for her, but our family did everything they could so that she could just stay in the house and not run away. They said that anything could happen to her in the city alone, including being raped or turned into a slave. Luckily she is still here and has calmed down a lot, although she keeps on trying to borrow Emily’s phone to call her husband, who is still refusing to talk to her. Our parents told us that if she returns to live with her family, the marriage would be over but they would have to return the dowry. The whole situation is really sad and it illuminates how unequal men and women’s status really are. An interesting conversation with our host parents spawned from this situation about marriages in traditional villages. The funniest example was of one village in which a man will chase and try to tackle who he wants to marry, and if the girl can get away she doesn’t have to marry him. So we joked that all the girls in that village must work out so they don’t have to marry someone they didn’t want to.
As a side note, a water pipe broke somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and nowhere in this area had water for basically this whole week. Luckily we got it back two days ago and it has been flowing pretty consistently since, but it looked like it could get pretty bad there for a while. Anyways not too much going on this week, but Easter weekend are going to climb Mt. Hanag and see the rock art paintings, I’m wicked excited!
Much love,
Beebs
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