trapped

My experience in Arusha, for the past 3 months, has been difficult. 

The thing that has come most easily:  teaching four year olds

The thing I am still trying to find:  community

I decided, upon arriving in Arusha, that I wanted to find a community outside of my school community.  I have found this much more difficult here than in other places I have lived abroad because the Arusha community tends to run in tight circles, having to almost unnaturally force your way in.  These tight-knit communities are an understandable reaction to the constant turnover of volunteers and travelers on safari that blow through town on a weekly basis.

Going out in Arusha can be tricky.  Whenever plans are made, and a bunch of us go out, I find myself wandering away from my mzungu friends because I am frankly embarrassed to be with such a large group of mzungus (white people).  There are clear assumptions made about me as a white person living in Africa, made by Africans, that are difficult enough to combat and side step the effects of these assumptions.  Butto arrive with a whole group of us?  I might as well wave my white flag (no pun intended).  Common assumptions about the Whities include:

-they are entitled to our money

-we don’t mind having our personal space and right-not-to-be-touched violated often

-we make better babies (literally told to me)

-we can take these poor African men away to a better life

-they are entitled to our money

A co-worker once told me:  The men that want to talk to you are not the men you want to talk to.  What a terrible irony.  Notice I’m only addressing socializing with men.  The community of Tanzanian women is actually very tight and can be quite difficult to break into.  But don’t worry, I’ve been working on it.

Now let’s talk about standards of beauty.  I’m just going to say it- I am a white girl trapped in an African woman’s body.  The men LOVE it here.  I had one guy tell me I looked just like his wife.  Yep- she’s African.  The men went nuts when I was in Zanzibar and now they’re absolutely crazy here as well.  The women I know that have thicker bodies here get FAR more attention than our skinnier friends.  It just blows my mind how women traditionally seen as a beacon of beauty in the states aren’t looked at twice here because, frankly, they don’t enough meat on their bones.

Now, with all of this local attention, you might be wondering what I’m doing about it. Even though I love to “shop locally,” I have not met anyone that meets standard.  There is a statistic floating around the expat community of how many men would meet “westernized women’s” standards like: faithful, honest, doesn’t text 20 times a day, not jealous.  They say that one percent of the local men have these qualities.  When someone finds a good man from Arusha they are even referred to a part of “The One Percent.”  So, there you go.  The likelihood of finding love here is most likely… one percent.