Tuesday last week was the Day of Eid, the Muslim celebration that breaks the end of the Ramadan fast with a big feast. Due to Tanzania’s large Islamic population, two days of public holidays surround the festival. To be honest, when I heard this, my immediate thoughts were wahoo 2 days off / the pool at the lodgeeeee / I seriously need a bikini wax.
As my furrowed brow debated whether it would be weird to sunbake in a sarong, our volunteer coordinator invited me to help prepare and serve food for Eid to 300 street kids in Arusha’s slum town, Unga Limited. It’s not a safe place for mzungus, and my host family was a little horrified that I would elect to do this. But it wasn’t an invitation I could really decline: what sort of a-hole sends their regrets to feed starving children in favour of lazing by the pool on a shabby banana lounge. I was going to Unga Limited.
Navigating to the middle of the ghetto is a bit of a mission. Lots of bumping down unpaved roads, then walking through haphazard laneways, dodging scraggy clotheslines, and skipping over slimy puddles. We arrived mid-morning at a concrete clearing that was to be our HQ, and were greeted by a veritable rainbow of women. Dressed in their Eid-y best, around thirty parrot coloured khangas popped against the drab backdrop. Young and old, dadas were draped or crouched into every nook and cranny, busy in their preparations.
And there was a lot to be done. Over a hundred kilograms of rice, three goats, and innumerable buckets of chicken, beef, vegetables and fruit. Besides one or two crude stoves, the enormous pots and saucepans dotted around the yard smouldered over naked coals. It was a smokey, smelly hive of activity and I wondered how I would be of any use in such a foreign chaos. Hakuna matata I was handed a barrel of tomatoes and a blunt knife to get to work. No cutting board or surface to lean on, I observed the technique was to use your forefinger to pull the blade through the fruit towards your thumb, and let the loosened segment fall free into a container. I’m actually allergic to tomatoes but have limited Swahili and a lot of pride, so just got stuck in.
About two and a half tomatoes in, I was fired. Despite the language barrier, it became clear that my slices were unsatisfactory, and a small crowd of women gathered to titter at my handiwork. I was moved over to cucumbers: humiliating. Who can’t slice a cucumber round, tsk. Ha. They tolerated my rustic flair for a short while, before I was unceremoniously demoted a second time. Handed a rowboat paddle, I became chief stirrer of a huge pot of beef stew. I’m a vegetarian and really hated this job, so jumped to assist two other women who were struggling to haul piping hot aluminium pots of pilau over to a cooling area. Their grateful smiles made me feel helpful, so I treated myself to a go of flicking bits of lard into a fifteen kilo pan of sautéeing cabbage (an excellent task), before the rowboat paddle I had abandoned came back to haunt me. A witchy looking mama dragged me back to inhale the meaty fumes, and reinstated me at my post.
Once the bubbling beef was deemed satisfactory, my final chore was to pull out pieces of burning wood out from one fire, and manouvre these to fuel another fire, with my bare hands. I thought this was a joke but apparently not. I cursed my polyester skirt and prayed not to be ignited as I studied how to avoid this happening.
Before service, the community gathered in another nearby courtyard where blue tarpaulins had been laid. Two young girls were busy sponging down the plastic before the men and local sheik were invited to sit, followed by the women and children. The sheik welcomed the crowd, sang some prayers, and led the group in spoken worship.
After the formalities, I took a teapot filled with water and helped a pubescent boy in a skull cap to wash everyone’s hands into a plastic pail. At last, it was time to pass around the mounds of paper-plated chakula. We served the men first, before the women and their children, and lastly the few hundred street kids, who were not invited to the VIP tarpaulin area, but served in the classroom of a nearby orphanage.
Handing a heaving plate of delicious, fragrant food to a ragamuffin who is excited by a small bowl of plain rice is a very humbling experience. When we offered them seconds, their eyes just about popped. I don’t know how such tiny humans ingested so much, but they finished the lot again and again. Later in the day there was some drumming and traditional dance, but nothing beat the big grins and full bellies of those totos.
As my furrowed brow debated whether it would be weird to sunbake in a sarong, our volunteer coordinator invited me to help prepare and serve food for Eid to 300 street kids in Arusha’s slum town, Unga Limited. It’s not a safe place for mzungus, and my host family was a little horrified that I would elect to do this. But it wasn’t an invitation I could really decline: what sort of a-hole sends their regrets to feed starving children in favour of lazing by the pool on a shabby banana lounge. I was going to Unga Limited.
Navigating to the middle of the ghetto is a bit of a mission. Lots of bumping down unpaved roads, then walking through haphazard laneways, dodging scraggy clotheslines, and skipping over slimy puddles. We arrived mid-morning at a concrete clearing that was to be our HQ, and were greeted by a veritable rainbow of women. Dressed in their Eid-y best, around thirty parrot coloured khangas popped against the drab backdrop. Young and old, dadas were draped or crouched into every nook and cranny, busy in their preparations.
And there was a lot to be done. Over a hundred kilograms of rice, three goats, and innumerable buckets of chicken, beef, vegetables and fruit. Besides one or two crude stoves, the enormous pots and saucepans dotted around the yard smouldered over naked coals. It was a smokey, smelly hive of activity and I wondered how I would be of any use in such a foreign chaos. Hakuna matata I was handed a barrel of tomatoes and a blunt knife to get to work. No cutting board or surface to lean on, I observed the technique was to use your forefinger to pull the blade through the fruit towards your thumb, and let the loosened segment fall free into a container. I’m actually allergic to tomatoes but have limited Swahili and a lot of pride, so just got stuck in.
About two and a half tomatoes in, I was fired. Despite the language barrier, it became clear that my slices were unsatisfactory, and a small crowd of women gathered to titter at my handiwork. I was moved over to cucumbers: humiliating. Who can’t slice a cucumber round, tsk. Ha. They tolerated my rustic flair for a short while, before I was unceremoniously demoted a second time. Handed a rowboat paddle, I became chief stirrer of a huge pot of beef stew. I’m a vegetarian and really hated this job, so jumped to assist two other women who were struggling to haul piping hot aluminium pots of pilau over to a cooling area. Their grateful smiles made me feel helpful, so I treated myself to a go of flicking bits of lard into a fifteen kilo pan of sautéeing cabbage (an excellent task), before the rowboat paddle I had abandoned came back to haunt me. A witchy looking mama dragged me back to inhale the meaty fumes, and reinstated me at my post.
Once the bubbling beef was deemed satisfactory, my final chore was to pull out pieces of burning wood out from one fire, and manouvre these to fuel another fire, with my bare hands. I thought this was a joke but apparently not. I cursed my polyester skirt and prayed not to be ignited as I studied how to avoid this happening.
Before service, the community gathered in another nearby courtyard where blue tarpaulins had been laid. Two young girls were busy sponging down the plastic before the men and local sheik were invited to sit, followed by the women and children. The sheik welcomed the crowd, sang some prayers, and led the group in spoken worship.
After the formalities, I took a teapot filled with water and helped a pubescent boy in a skull cap to wash everyone’s hands into a plastic pail. At last, it was time to pass around the mounds of paper-plated chakula. We served the men first, before the women and their children, and lastly the few hundred street kids, who were not invited to the VIP tarpaulin area, but served in the classroom of a nearby orphanage.
Handing a heaving plate of delicious, fragrant food to a ragamuffin who is excited by a small bowl of plain rice is a very humbling experience. When we offered them seconds, their eyes just about popped. I don’t know how such tiny humans ingested so much, but they finished the lot again and again. Later in the day there was some drumming and traditional dance, but nothing beat the big grins and full bellies of those totos.
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