There is also a restaurant out of town a ways called Hakuna Matata where a German chef challenges the status quo along with the taste buds. My favorite meal there was pan seared tuna, French style green beans with vanilla and rice pilau. Rice pilau is consistently good here since fresh spices are abundant. A couple of other spots around the island have tickled the tongue as well. Overall, the culinary joys are fresh, tropical fruit and really good fish. I’m not complaining.
What habit of yours do your co-workers feel is the most strange?
I have to guess here as I’m not brave enough to ask them! What they comment on most [and that I understand] follows:
- Drink so much water. I drink during office hours more water than most of them imbibe in a day. Around the world, Nalgene travels with me.
- I walk in the sun with an umbrella. Unlike parasols in Victorian days or sun-phobic women in Asia, this is just downright odd here. I carry an umbrella rain or shine because the sun is strong, it’s freaking hot and I’m lousy at putting on sunscreen. I just don’t like having anything on my skin in a climate where I’m going to melt like wax lipstick before the day ends.
- Wear crap shoes in the street and slip into ‘nice’ shoes at the office. This is so backwards to Zanzibari. I have seen the ground in the street versus the floor in my office. Even though fewer people see my ‘nice’ shoes, I think my way is preferred.
- The legacy I’ll be remembered for eternally here: the way I fuss over the cats. This is the first thing my co-workers tell any visitors to the office. Not that I’m from America, or my name, or that I’m running a research study, or that I probably understand enough Swahili to know what they’re saying about me. None of the above. They say what roughly translates to “the foreign woman is crazy about these stray cats. Ain’t that the darndest thing you’ve ever seen?” Office cats prove the perfect amount of cat for me. I play with them for a few minutes each day and feed them. The cats come seek me out when they want something and I do the same. Beyond that, we carry on content knowing the other is there.
