Day 42, assorted thoughts

Having a small fit of pique, in Florence. It's all mild, really- went to the train station to get tomorrow's ticket to Siena; my credit card won't work, which means a $20 international phone call to sort out. Switch to the machine that takes cash, which tells me after I have deposited my 20 €, that it does not intend to give me change. And despite this being quite a civilized place, it is by far the most difficult in terms of internet access. I stop at two places, both of which insist on seeing the passport I have locked in my hotel room. Mille grazie. I will now have to go back to the place across the bridge I found yesterday, with the loudest snuffling pug dog you have ever heard.

The only thing for a fit of pique, in Florence, is to sit in a lovely piazza and drink wine. This comes with a little surprise assortment of snacks. Today it's olives, and some sort of cheese-pepper crackers, and a little dish of snack mix. So, forgetting the last hour, some snippets from Florence:


On Rooms With a View:

I really do have one. It's a budget hotel, but it's on the piazza with the Duomo. How did they pull this off? It seems to be a crumbling corner of a glorious old plazzo. I suspect this because of the fresco on my ceiling, which is beautiful- and cut exactly in half, by the new wall subdividing this space into two guest rooms. I want to go knock on my neighbor's door, just to see the other half. Also, there's the smallest, oldest, scariest elevator I've ever seen, which takes ylou 3 flights up with a lot of banging and creaking. I wouldn't mind the walk, except that there are no lights in the stairewll, so even in the daytime you have to feel ahead with your toes on the landings before you commit to a step. All of this just adds to the charm. Upstairs it's cozy and cheerful.

On David:

I went to the Galleria dell'Accademia today, to see Michelangelo's David. (I stopped at the beautiful Ospedale degli Innocenti on the way, for those who are interested.) I've mentioned that statues, most of the time, are not a very moving art form for me. This one, of course, is different. I stood there, staring, from every angle, for something like 20 minutes. There's something about that left foot, bearing no weight, making it look like he's just about to step off of the pedestal. The hands, other than being just a little bit on the disturbingly large side, are practically moving. He is so alive that at one point, I actually turned my head to see what he was looking at, before I realized what I was doing. I'm not the first to say it's a masterpiece, but that doesn't make it any less true.

On Food, Mostly Beverages:

Every city has challenged my budget with a different surprise. In Cairo, it was camels; in Istanbul, it was boots; in Athens, it was taxis. Here- it's beverages. I can't seem to go more than a couple of hours without hanging out in a piazza, which means cafes, or vinos, or birras, or at least mineral water. It's just part of the cost of living here- this whole pedestrian city is designed around piazzas. There are tiny ones tucked in between buildings, giant ones full of fountains, and long thin ones full of market stalls. So it's begging you, really, to sit down and enjoy yourself, and linger over your drink to people-watch. And the food...these people have a tight relationship with prosciutto, which I fully endorse. And olives, which I've come to love. Their sweets are just barely sweet, which is perfect. Except for the gelato, which is in its own category. I had some in Rome, which I have to say, I found uninspiring. I'm not a big ice cream eater anyway. But, determined to conquer this culinary obstacle, I tried some again last night. I bought a cone of caramel, outside the Duomo. The guy behind the counter packed my cone full, then took a tiny little spoon and carefully placed some diced caramel cubes on top. Creamy, but light and airy, with chewy little bits of candy. Wow.

On Playing Hookey:

The closer I get to the end of my trip, the less I feel like being inside. It's so odd- I love art history, and experiencing architecture, and this is one of THE world's best places for both of those things- but all I want to do is walk. Walk, and sit in piazzas drinking coffee and wine. I think that's ok. this trip is about experience, not academics. I have been studying, and learning, and sitting inside, for quite some time now. And so: I am skipping the Uffizi. There. I said it. In Virginia's list of Florentine suggestions, she mentions of the Uffizi, "It can start to feel epic towards the end..." And she is right. It contains treasures, and would enrich me as a human being, and expand my understanding of art and culture. But I am not in the mood for Epic. The Vatican Museum sapped my energy, for Epic. I have seen the Uffizi, years ago, and it was memorable, and it was Epic. And so I'm skipping it. It feels like skipping class: I appreciated every minute of grad school, and almost never skipped. All the more decadent, and therefore fantastic, when you do- an afternoon movie the week before a studio review; a nap when you should be in the carpentry shop; watching Glee with friends when you should be working on your portfolio; all of these, on occasion, a wonderful thing. Just like skipping the Uffizi, to hang out in piazzas and drink wine...

On Amore, Idiocy in the Face Of:

Oh, this one pains me to write.

Last night I was sitting in the Piazza Signoria, having a glass of wine. (This is a recurring theme.) A young man walks by, says, "Buona Sera," to the people at the corner table, and then "Buona Sera," as he walks past me. I respond in flawless Italian, "Buona Sera!" and he says, "Ah, Americana." So my Italian is not remotely flawless. We chat for a minute about Florence. He is charming. He looks a little like a young Colin Firth. And we all know how much I love a young Colin Firth. I totally chickened out when he said, "You need-a some-a company, eh?" It has become a total reflex, to politely dodge people trying to sell me carpets, or ply me with mystery drinks, or offer to be my Egyptian husband. So without thinking I smile and offer a lame excuse, thank you but no thank you, and he is not pushy so he says good night and walks away.

And then I realize what I have done, and am completely and utterly dismayed. So now I am left sitting in the piazza with wine and time to reflect, and what I am reflecting upon is this: when a charming and handsome young Italian man, Colin Firth with an accent, strolls by and asks if you need-a some company, YOU SAY YES, you fool, what are you, just AFRAID OF HAPPINESS? Damn. This is is an even worse decision than, say, committing to a six-hour bike ride in Dar. I had a fight with myself on the way home. There was cursing. "Sure, join me for a glass of wine," would have done nicely. "Absolutely, pull up a chair," would have been fine. And I remind myself, you have to be careful about your Travel Face. You use it when you have to, to keep from being beseiged in markets and, well, anywhere in Egypt. But your Travel Face isn't who you are, and it shouldn't be used out of habit, because there goes Colin Firth. Again I say, damn.

Day 41: Florence.

Sitting in a trattoria by the central market, recommended by my friend Virginia. It is fabulous, no surprise. I am having wine with lunch because, why the hell not? I am in Italy, and I don't have a job to report to. Florence: lovely, as expected. My room is about 50 m from the Duomo, on the piazza. When I got here, I immediately hung my head out the window, all excited about the view. I wondered, why isn't every single other person in these piazza rooms also hanging out the windows? And then I realized, oh yes, they're all out enjoying Florence. So I headed out to do the same.

I really hadn't done any research before I came to Italy, knowing that there was plenty to see and I had no particular agenda. All the more fun: I pull out my map,and am surprised to find that I am about a block from the Laurentian Library. I go there directly: it is purported to be one of the strangest, most perverse pieces of architecture of its age, by Michelangelo. And it is. The famous almost-liquid stairs, pouring out of the library above, are practically moving, and they do puddle at the bottom. It's a really small space, very vertical, which makes the dynamics all the more strange. It's know for taking the classical language and twisting it until things feel wobbly; for example, the columns should rest on something substantial, like a huge base or at least the ground. Here, they just stop 2/3 of the way down, and these little scrolls are set into the wall underneath. Mentally, you feel like it's all about to topple. Even more fun, the scrolls actually crash into each other in the corners, like they're an afterthought and just mashed together- but this is Michelangelo, and he is messing with you. A genius in a lot of areas, Michaelangelo didn't start his career in architecture until he was 40, a fact I happen to really like. One more note on the surreal space: its's an icky, grey-ish green color. The stone itself feels chalky and cold and more like clay than marble. The reflections of light in the space are a bit seasick- it's so odd, for someone who was a master of color theory. So, so interesting

After the library, and aimless stroll, but I immediately run smack into a sign for Dante's house. Brief flashback: when I was here years ago during fall break, on a semester abroad, there were 4 of us stomping around the streets with our backpacks. It was pouring down rain, and I remember being sick and no help whatsoever in finding a place, but we finally found a room on our 6th or 8th try. We dropped off our bags and opened the window, and the clouds parted and in my memory there is even a rainbow....and we looked down below us, onto Dante's house. So today I knew I had to go in. It's better from the outside, actually: the museum made no sense at all, and was mostly a collection of coats of arms, unrelated to Dante. But it's a beautiful little spot.

And so: Ponte Vecchio, and piazzas, and the Central Market, and a perfect meal. Finishing my coffee, we'll see what I stumble across next...

And then later:
After my giant meal: went into the Duomo, just to marvel. The outside is so, so much more ornate than I remembered. The inside is much more simple, but with a staggering scale. From there, I wandered south through the Nuovo Mercato, then (again on my friend Virginia’s advice), made the long climb up to the Piazzola Michaelangelo, on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, to watch the sunset. It’s really not that long, but very steep. And oh so worth it- from the terrace at the top, you can look back down over Florence, the river, and the tidy row of bridges, at the sunset. It’s also the first time I could see the gentle mountains surrounding the city- this is hill country, after all. Florence is nestled down in this bowl of foothills- it’s as if it filled in every possible inch of flat land, but balked at actually making the climb upwards, and just stopped. (This sounds perfectly reasonable to me, if it had anything like as much lunch as I just did.) At sunset, of course, it’s all lit up with sunlight reflecting off the water.

If Rome is a watercolor, though, Florence is an oil painting. Everything here is more solid, heavier, deeper shades; the light is different, although it’s not very far north, really. Maybe it’s just the Gravitas. This is the heart of the Renaissance, the Medicis, intellectual discovery, literature, and rational thought as we understand it.

Day 40. Culture.

Woke up today refreshed enough to be excited about some culture. As promised, I went first to the Keats Memorial on the Spanish Steps- very touching, as it is coincidentally the anniversary of his death today. The room in which he died looks out onto the stops, about halfway up. I walked away spouting poetry..."When I have fears that I may cease to be, before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain..."

Next stop- St. Peter's. Worth the long wait to get in. It's as beautiful as I remembered it. (I think we might have lost sight of context, though, when tourists are lining up for smiling thumbs-up pictures, in front of the Pieta.) Oddly, I thought some architectural education would make a difference in my appreciation of this place, and it really doesn't. Which isn't a slight against my education, at all- in fact, it reinforces that the experience of being inside great architecture is something you can't explain. I was here at age 21 and remember being deeply moved, I still get nostalgic for that memory every year when I see the St. Peter's midnight Mass broadcast every year on the news at Christmas. It's a powerful place. It says something that, when you are in a sacred place like this, the impact doesn't necessarily come from analysis, that was never the intention.

Vatican: The Sistine Chapel, also as delightful as I remembered. But wow, the Vatican is going to make you work for that moment. Follow a sign to the "Capella Sistina," and you are in for at least 45 minutes of snaking through chamber after chamber of early religious art. And tapestries. Early flat-faced iconic paintings? No thank you. Cappella Sistina, please. Medieval gruesome paintings? Cappella Sistina, where is the Cappella Sistina?? Half a mile of contemporary religious art, and not necessarily good contemporary religious art? CAPPELLA SISTINA. PER FAVORE, CAPPELLA SISTINA. So when you finally get there, whew. I read The Agony and the Ecstasy a couple of years ago- and that greatly increased my appreciation of this place. (In fact, so did the centuries and centuries of religious art you have to traverse, in order to get here.)

By the time I get out of the Vatican Museum, I feel like I have been in Sunday School for about a week, so it's off to find some food- gnocci al pomodoro, con vino della casa, in the Campo del Fiore. I haven't had any gelato yet, but trust me, that's next.

Day 39, pm: wandering through Rome, and Buon Appetito

After coffee in Piazza Navona: determined to take in some culture. But my coffee was too small, and really, there's no point taking in culture when you're so tired it feels like a chore- so I walk. I walk all around the culture, and up to it, and I take pic tures of it, but I'm not ready to go inside yet, not while the rain's holding off and I can be outside soaking in Rome. As I planned I went to St. Peter's and admired the lovely piazza; I admired the bridge and the castle, and thought about admiring the outside of the Vatican, too- but I had another coffee instead. The lines are crazy long- I'll go in the morning, when it's supposed to be raining for real.

I walked along the river to the Trastavere, one of Rome's medieval neighborhoods; I crossed the river and strolled back near the old Jewish Ghetto; I crossed back again, this time stopping in the middle on the little island in the Tiber; on the other side I had a beer and paged through an Italian entertainment magazine. Back on the other side, I had a sudden desperate yen to get to the Pantheon. Stat. There was a sprinkle of rain, and I really wanted to see it rain in there.

The Pantheon: that oculis is way, way bigger than I remembered. It used to be the eye of the gods, cosmically speaking. Now that it's a church, I guess it's the Eye of God? At any rate, it's huge. While I stood there looking up, a couple of birds swooped across the sky. The giant coffers in the ceiling, tapering to the top, are mesmerizing. They force the perspective, making the dome look bigger, and keep leading yoru eyes upward. It wasn't raining when I got there, but it had been- they just roped off the floor underneath the oculis and left the water there, to reflect on the marble. I like seeing nature and architecture work together.

After the Pantheon: a real treat. Greg and Kate sent me to a restaurant called Alfredo and Ada's. Perfection. I got there at 6 and was the first one for dinner. It's the kind of place where the burden of making decisions is lifted from you- there are no menus. You will take what you are given, and you will like it. For real. I get a "Buona Sera," and Alfredo opens this waist-high slanting bread drawer and slices some wedges off of a giant loaf. I make it through the "red or white wine" part in Italian, which feels like a small triumph. With my wine Alfredo brings a dish of warm pasta, tossed in a skillet with just enough sauce and a mound of parmesan. By this time a few others have trickled in and they are jealous of my food.

I get my biggest choice of the evening: veal, chicken, or beef? Chicken. My chicken is marinated in rosemary and lemon, with a little garlic, served with greens and a scoop of cold vinegar potato salad. As I eat, I have to close my eyes to keep from swooning. Ada, standing in the kitchen doorway when I open them again, is watching me with grandmotherly satisfaction, wiping her hands on her apron. At the end I am served three simple, not too sweet ring-shaped cookies as I finish my teensy carafe of wine. Bliss.

I decide to take the long walk home, down past the shops on Corso Vittorio Emmanuel, and up to the Trevi Fountain. It's great at night, and it makes me want to go home and rent La Dolce Vita. At this point it starts to rain, in earnest- which is fun because all the umbrellas come out in front of the fountain. Heading home, I take a wrong turn, but accidentally manage to short-cut my trip by ending up unexpectedly at the Quattro Fontane. Sigh. Rome.

Day 38, 39: Roma

Ah, Rome. I am writing this from the Piazza Navona, drinking a 6 euro cup of coffee. I will add that it's on the skimpy side, and does not even have the advantage of a small cookie which should always come with a fancy European coffee drink. No matter, I am happy to pay extra for the piazza, and the busker sitting by the fountain playing Pink Floyd's "How I Wish You Were Here," and for the trickling fountain itself, a few feet from my table.

Truth be known, as much as I love every inch of Rome, I am feeling a little bit busted up today. This is not a surprise- one of the things I learned in grad school is that it's not the day after an all-nighter that's the worst- it's the day after that. And today is that day. I arrived yesterday at dawn, knowing that my room wasn't ready; also, it was the best weather day of my Rome visit, so I figured I'd better stay upright and do outdoor things all day. My 5-hour flight from Qatar, leaving at 2:30 am, had the lights off for about 3 hours, so I had dozed a little. And seriously, wouldn't Rome perk anybody up? So it was ok. But still, halfway through the Forum, I was weaving. I sat down a lot. I was worn out enough that by 3 pm, I came in to re-group. I unpacked and surveyed the dismal laundry situation, and decided that I had no choice but a couple of hours at a Roman laundromat.

My first evening in Italy: I put on my dorkiest combination of clothes so I could wash all the good ones at once. It was dark before my laundry and I set off for this mysterious laundromat, a good 20 minute walk away. Once I got there, it was fortunately situated next to both a pizza stand and an exquisite little bakery, so it was all good. At the pizza place they sliced my square into two pieces, heated them till they were crunchy, then served them cheese-sides together in waxed paper. Mmmm. At the bakery I just said, "Per favori- uno...e quattro...et due..." and got an assortment of scrumptious wafers and almond thingies and million-layer bite sized cookies. AND I have a bag full of clean clothes. Not "washed in the sink and dried on a Cairo balcony" clean, but "washed with detergent and dried all the way in a dryer" clean.

I don't remember anything after the buying the cookies- it's all foggy from there. I just woke up in a daze this morning at 9:15, from a dream in which Angelina Jolie, my friend Paula from teaching, and I were all having coffee and commiserating about how hard it is to be famous. Couldn't figure out why it was still so dark...oh. Piove in Roma. Raining in Rome.

Still weary and draggy, I stumbled across my perfect travel destination in a book- Cafe Greco, where Byron, Keats, Dickens, and any other literary figure you could name hung out at some point or other. I decided to get myself there at once, have a giant coffee or three, and soak in some literary air and nourish my inner English major. It's the first time on my trip I have nearly cried from disappointment- closed for remodeling. Tomorrow I'll take myself to the Keats museum on the Spanish Steps to make up for it. But today, hung over from sleep deprivation: heartbreak.

Which is ridiculous- I am in ROME. Yesterday: walked the Spanish Steps, found the twin churches we studied in the Piazza del Popolo, strolled the Via del Corso to the Forum, the Paletine, and the Coloseum. Had 3 spontaneous on-the-street meals, each one to die for. This whole city is like meandering through a watercolor- the palette of creams, peaches, ochres, pinks, misty cloud greys- music trailing out of cafes into the street, clusters of people gathered everywhere practically singing in Italian, since that's how every conversation sounds- it's so, so beautiful.

Added to which, there are a few other blessings: I look like everyone else, more or less, which is boring to people who are used to dealing with hoardes of tourists, so nobody looks twice. Serenity. The weather here is a cool and pleasant 50's to 60's, intermittent sun. Ahh. And I can drink the water. And it's so easy to navigate in Rome that it's almost not sporting. I can read all of the signs. There actually ARE signs. When you're wondering whether you'll spot your turn onto Via Delle Quattro Fontane, no worries, the Quattro Fontane are unmistakeable, one on each corner. Landmarks! Arrows! Maps with road names and pictures! And everything in the city is within walking distance.

The fun of walking with no agenda: now and then I stop, mid-step, one foot in the air, and raise an eyebrow at something. Hmm...I have drawn that window in my class notes....famous...palazzo....I put my foot down and go investigate. It's way more fun to find them accidentally, scattered around the city for me like Easter eggs.

Days 35, 36: Ahhh.

Kate and Greg had already planned some fun activities for my last couple of days in town, and we girls had plenty to do while Greg was working. Here I have to say again, God bless Kate Giles. After a certain incident, when a fierce African concrete drainage ditch tried to eat me and my bike, Kate surveyed the situation and tried to make the schedule even cushier. "After Dar Reality," she said, "we're going to see how the other end of the spectrum here lives." So on Thursday we had a giant breakfast while watching three episodes of Flight of the Conchords under the ceiling fans. Full and happy, we headed out fabric shopping. I know. I have mentioned this before- but it's great. In Zanzibar we were buying khangas, which are bright rectangles of cloth printed in sets of two, with sayings written on them in Swahili. They're not expensive, which is how I've racked up 12 pounds of fabric this week, according to the scale at the airport. They say that the khangas in Zanzibar tend to be sweet or religious in tone, while in Dar they can get a bit snarky. If you live with 7 other housewives in a Swahili house, for example, you might feel the need now and then to wear a khanga that says something like, "She ain't all that" to get your message across now and then.

So in Dar we went shopping for kitange cloth, also great. I have a thing for African cloth anyway, after getting to spend a month in Ghana studying African design. So we took a dala-dala to the fabric street. (This one was fun- I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle. When we got to our stop Kate yelled, "Katherine! Go towards the light!!" And I actually had to do a backwards pirhouette to get off.) We had planned to spend a fair amount of time shopping, but by the second or third store we'd already bought about 6 different cloths, splitting a few of them. Teal with crazy fan shapes, blue with a peacock pattern, red with black and white dots, a black and grey pattern that makes me dizzy- I love them all.

After fabric shopping, a visit to the custom pillow shop, then coffee at the
Kilimanjaro Hotel, one of the swankest spots in town. Presidents stay here, and we sat next to a magistrate and some ambassadors and a possible gangsta who pulled out a giant roll of cash at one point. Air conditioned bliss and serenity. I can imagine that, if this were all you saw of Dar, you'd have a pretty different slant than most. After coffee: swimming. And homemade enchiladas- have I mentioned that Greg and Kate make their own tortillas?

Last day in Dar, equally cushy. We went to on coffee shop for breakfast, and then strolled over to another and hugn out there, just because we could, then Kate scheduled me a massage with a friend whose husband teaches with Greg. So fabulous. After that I felt like I could face another overnight flight. Two more fun stops: first, a trip to a place called Wonder Welders, a workshop that puts disabled people to work as welders and artists. Their pieces are great- my only regret is that I don't have the luggage allowance for a suitcase full of steel. The Giles household is full of small welded warthogs- delightful. After shopping: Ethiopian food and African beer.

So, I certainly didn't see every facet of Dar. You couldn't do that in a place, even as a resident; we all come with our own perspectives, too. I just read this great book, West With the Night, written by East African bush pilot Beryl Markham. (She was a badass, adn flew with Denys Finch-Hatton and Von Blixen and generally did crazy things and lived to write all about them.) She writes that there are as many different Africas as there are people who have written anything about Africa. That's probably true of every place. Certainly, though, this place could be examined from any aspect- culture, urban design, politics, sociology, economics- you name the topic and it would be a complex and rewardign discussion here. It's very layered, and intricate, and I just saw the tiniest part of it all....

It's going to be such a surreal transition from East Africa to Rome.

Day 34, revisited: Dar Reality Tour

Typing all of this from Rome...it was Tanzania just yesterday, but wow, it all seems dreamy now in this cool weather and pastel streetscapes...


So. Backing up a bit, I owe some details from the Dar Reality Tour, because it's too good to gloss over. Close readers will notice that I have dropped a word, both from the title and from my vocabulary. Certain parts of that tour, I will maintain, Never Happened. But, whatever mode of transport you choose, the Reality Tour was really great. This tour is run by a guy named Maja; he is a twenty-something energetic guy from Kilimanjaro, friendly, well-educated, committed to getting his hands dirty solving Africa's problems. He wears a Rasta hat. He started this tour because he knows that visitors and expats often see one side of Dar, but miss most of it, and all of the important parts. This isn't intended to be a favela tour, or a history tour, or anything like that- just a good range of sites showing vignettes of everyday Dar life. Maja has a good perspective, too, on the difference between outside intervention and grassroots action, and how the two can work together.

We started at a new market space- nicely built, good drainage, near a busy street- which was pretty dead. The planners hadn't really considered location, and market tradition, so nice or not, nobody's coming. It's not close enough to the neighborhoods and to the dala dala stops, and it's too wide and open, and the rent is high so people have to charge more for their products. The only people trying to sell here are the ones too new to the area to know better yet. Interesting. I was late to this stop due to transport issues but I think it might have been built with IMF funds- great idea, but not in context.

Next stop: the coffee sellers. This was my favorite. There are lots of guys around town selling little espresso-sized cups of strong coffee and sweet peanut candy. This is harder than it sounds, for many reasons, but mainly because they are carrying a coffee pot out away from their bodies on a hanging basket with live coals, and a bucket of water full of espresso glasses, and a tray of peanut candy, all at once. They also get up at dawn to start this process. They start with green coffee beans from near Kili, and roast them in a shallow pan over a small burner. When they're dark brown in about 10 minutes, they blow off the charred skin and grind them in a mortar and pestle. Meanwhile, over another burner on their porch workshop, they're making peanut candy from sugar, peanuts, and a handful of flour at the end, caramelized and rolled out on a wooden bench. We got to watch them do all this, and grind some coffee, and then try the coffee and candy. It's good- but the real point, though, is that this whole enterprise is a stepping stone job for newcomers. It's a long day's work, and work that makes you strong, for about 7 or 8 thousand shillings a day(maybe 5 or 6 dollars.) Novody tries to make this into a bigger business venture, because when you save enough money to move up the ladder to something else, it's expected that you train someone new to town to take your place. That person will almost certainly from your village, and it gives him a chance to make a start in Dar, too. Maja says there are a lot of small industries like this, each one perpetuated by cycles of folks moving to the city from the same village as well.

Next stop was a small neighborhood, where we were fed again. This time it was chapati, kind of like a thick tortilla, and mendazi, one of my favorite foods since I left home. It's a cross between a donut and a crumpet, barely sweet and spongy inside and crunchy on the outside. We fished these out of a bucket with a skewer. This is a neighborhood of Swahili houses, which are 8 rooms: 3 on each side of a small hallway, and two more across a small courtyard in the back. The front porch is for businesses; people either sell things at the front, like the food we tried, or rent the space out to others. 8 families live in these 8 rooms. I'm sure it's a little tight when everybody's home, but we went inside and it was really pleasant, especially the courtyard in the back.

On to another small neighborhood with a water problem. There's a stream running through a gully here, which has been stagnant and polluted for a long time. Maja has been working on this problem; the neighborhood first mangaged to build a small bridge across the gully. The second challenge was to get the water moving, which they have recently done thanks to a small donation from a film crew who was coming through the village. The still have a couple of obstacles- there's the issue of improving sanitation so that sewage is re-directed, which is a huge health problem. There's also talk of a big stream clean-up, and a campaign to get people to stop littering. Maja really wants to get the locals to take ownership in this part, which makes a big difference in follow-through. It's important to him that the neighborhood kids don't grow up learning to wait for outiders to come in and fix problems for them.

After the bridge we went to the big market. An African market is one of the busiest places on earth, and I am including Manhattan here. Piles of everything edible you can imagine is piled up, people jostling and crowding, hot and loud and smelly and everything else that a dynamic market should be. Maja showed us some local products, such as rolls of clay people buy either for vitamins or make'up, and a little bitter eggplant that contains quinine, so people eat it for malaria prevention. Behind the market is a clothing market, bundles and bales of goods donated from other countries. Lots of them are donated, but lots of them are sold. Here, people buy the nicest of the donations, fix them up, and sell them for a small profit in stalls.

There were a couple of stops after the market: a cloth seller, a traditional herbal healer who walked us through her garden, a corn grinding operation, and a cottage industry making handpainted fans. It's pretty amazig- people are really resourceful here, and interdependent, and making do with very little and living joyfully. I've been thinking long and hard about whether I would call this poverty, and how I feel about it. Is it poverty? Is it just less things, which is not the same thing at all? A different way of living? That, for sure. Certainly, from what I've seen in Dar, conditions are far better than they might be in, say, a Rio favela. People don't have much, but they mostly seem to have enough, and to know what to do with it. They share, they live in close quarters, it's an up-close and personal kind of community- but it's one that's functioning well, and allows for a lot of support and upward mobility and entrepreneurial spirit. It's not fair, I know, to try and parse this out through the lens of my experience and assumptions, but there's a lot to be learned here....still thinking.