Jambo from Arusha! Hope this email finds you all well! It has been quite a busy last month, with a great mix of work and fun. I had the great opportunity to travel for a few days with one of my best pals, Beau, who came to Tanzania for a visit. Highlights included gazing over Africa from the summit of Mt Kiliminjaro (19,000 ft!) and seeing some major wildlife in the epic Serengeti and Ngorongoro national parks. I also had a new experience traveling to visit one of the rural hospitals connected to the Lutheran church in Orkesumet, a 5-hour bus ride south from Arusha through Masaai grazing land. There, I was introduced a bit to life outside the big city, the experience that more than half of Tanzania lives day to day. Health care at Orkesumet was refreshing, with less patient volume and a smaller, but very committed, staff. While there, I had the opportunity to do a few house calls with the palliative care team into the Masaai bomas. From these visits, one can begin to catch a glimpse of what daily life might be like for the Masaai. As some of you know, the Masaai are a semi-nomadic tribe, whose major livelihood is tending to cows and goats. In more recent years they have become less mobile, which seems largely due to restrictions placed on the territories they can use for grazing. Being a polygamous society, they can have very large families, though this practice is also decreasing. Some of the Masaai that I have met who work in the hospital have 40-60 brothers and sisters! They traditionally live in bomas, which are a group of mud huts with thatch roofs for one extended family, surrounded by a fence made from sticks and thorny bushes for containing the livestock.  Entering the boma, one is privileged to enter a world apart. Curious children dressed with brightly colored cloth draped over their shoulder run to investigate. Masaai mamas dressed in bright blue and red, with dangling beaded earrings hung from large holes in the ears come toting the littlest ones on their backs or in their arms. The men, always with pastoral baton in hand (usually with mobile phone in the other), emerge with interesting mixes of traditional clothing and ski jackets or Manchester United hats. Respected elders lean upon walking sticks, sitting or standing. The homes are dark, relatively warm, and smell of the wood cooking fires.  The smiles are broad and the laughter seems constant. They seemed as perplexed by me as I by them, trying to fit each other’s appearance and lifestyle into any framework that could fit.

For this weeks Swahili lesson, I chose a rather cliché phrase heard constantly here: Pole Pole. It means slowly, carefully, or gently. For those who have been to East Africa before, this phrase is almost as overused as Hakuna Matata. It is often spoken both to Swahili speakers and to tourists who seem like they are in a rush or flustered in some way. It is meant to say: slow down, enjoy the moment, don’t worry. The phrase is also the official motto of climbing Mt. Kiliminjaro mostly based on the acclimatization strategy of hiking so slowly that you feel like you might be going backwards at times. Let’s just say that I got much more sick of hearing Pole pole than sick from the altitude, which I guess is the purpose. Pole pole, like most of the phrases that I find interesting, is more than a saying, but representative of Tanzanian culture. The only aspect of daily life that is clearly not pole pole, are the pikipikis (motorbikes) and daladalas (minibuses), which are all crazy. But apart from these, daily life is clearly a different pace than Western culture. People stop for long conversations on the road and enjoy frequent breaks for chai. Fastfood is mostly non-existent and even the suggestion of taking chai, coffee, or a meal “to go” is a bit confusing to some. People seem much more patient, especially as they endure long waits at places like the doctor’s office, the bank, and, coming soon, at the ballot booth. Change is also quite pole pole, which is multi-factorial, but can be observed in the way people dress, the cars they drive, the medical practices, and many of the cultural practices (some good and some not so good). It can be frustrating for a Westerner to get used to “Swahili time” – not just the different numbers they use for time, but the fact that most things are a bit late. It is true that this also frustrates many Tanzanians, especially in the hospital when it delays medical care. There is much to be said about the ways pole pole might not be the best strategy in certain circumstances, however, there are many lessons that we could take from this mantra. Clearly, the fast pace that we live our lives in the urban Western world has detrimental effects on individuals and communities. But what would it look like if we lived a little more pole pole? I think that we would spend less time doing things and more time together. I think our education and careers would be focused less on the length and strength of our resume and more on the relationships we build. I think we could pause long enough to enjoy the moments that pass.