After almost a year living in our new place, we thought maybe we should tie up some admin-y things, like telling our bank what our new address is. We tried to think about what we’d need to bring to do that, e.g. identity documents such as a passport, something to […]
Story 1: Msikwao is a young girl, early high school age who is seen at a river breastfeeding a child. The boy who sees her tells his father who gathers the village elders to interview her. She says she’s looking for her grandfather, and they question her about her past. […]
As a little girl in the west, the stories you hear are of princesses. Though this trope is being critiqued and perhaps modified, it is still the case that traditionally the girls in these stories are sweet, beautiful, compliant, and often awaiting rescue. They look for the prince in the […]
Kufa kwa wengi ni harusi means ‘For many, (a) death is a wedding,’ where wedding is representative of a big party. When I first heard this proverb, I assumed it was about people who die, that for them death is a happy thing or a release. It’s not that. The […]
“We always assume our way is normal,” I told the group I was teaching on cross-cultural communication last week. This thought was still bumping its way around my head as I thought about the birthday cake I was about to make. Five of the TAFES staff are September birthdays, and […]
Yesterday I ran a session for university campus workers on crossing cultures. I was the teacher, but I learned heaps too. For example, I learned that the way people treat children is a key way in which you can judge their character. I knew that interacting with children is very important […]
“This is such a heavy burden. May God give me strength to bear it.” This is what people say when they have been elected to Christian leadership in Tanzania. During elections, people are very reluctant to put themselves forward, always waiting for someone else to suggest them. Even the most […]
