Tamie Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.
“You can’t use compost on such small trees,” our gardener said. “It’s too strong for anything but the bananas.” “Nonsense,” we thought, “you can use compost on anything!” This little interaction is laden with cultural baggage.
Last week the daughter of Alice Walker wrote an article about how radical feminism has failed women. It was reposted on my Facebook timeline several times with comments like, ‘Feminism has had some very damaging effects’ and ‘Right on’. I’ve written before about how I’m frustrated when people (especially Christians) fail […]
In our language classes, we have been discussing reverse racism: while Tanzanians readily view their country people with suspicion, we wageni are given the benefit of the doubt. That’s not to say there aren’t negative stereotypes of foreigners: we’re rich, unused to hard work, impatient, and not well dressed. But […]
Contextualisation is big deal for those of us who live in another culture. I defined it here as the necessity and complication of putting off your own culture to live in another. I thought we might explore the idea by taking a case study: the small group Bible study. Let’s start […]
In June Arthur and I are taking our first trip further afield since we arrived in Dodoma. We are off to Songea for the baptism of our friend John’s little girl. Both Arthur and I have been invited to speak. Arthur will preach at the Sunday service and I will […]
Jamie the Very Worst Missionary has a knack for the brutally honest. Her recent post Deciphering Missions argues that a lack of accountability in missions results in some missionaries being able to sound spiritual while doing virtually nothing. In her experience, Every innocuous coffee date with a friend [turned] into ‘discipleship […]
Every language has unique idiosyncrasies. One thing about Swahili that seems odd to English speakers is the complexity and breadth you can use when talking about location. Grammatically, there isn’t a simple answer to the question ‘where?’ You use different words to talk about locations that are general (e.g. in […]
Meet Jesus at uni 