Chuck Norris

(Saturday, June 4)

Starting Monday, I'll be studying Swahili in the morning and then at work in the afternoon, learning about the restoration projects going on here in Stone Town. For now, I'm busy getting to know my new family. Bwana Sallum and his wife (I just call her Mama) are extremely relaxed - a pre-req it seems for living in Zanzibar. Mama stays at home while Bwana Sallum has two jobs. His part-time job is working with a tour operator - tourism is big business here - and his full time job is with the Norwegian Embassy, reporting on politics in Zanzibar. I had actually hoped I could talk smack about politics with someone here - Zanzibaris don't generally appreciate their lack of influence in Tanzania - a union of Tanganyika (the mainland) and Zanzibar (an archipelago off its coast).

My new Mama and Baba have two boys - Sahil, 7 and Salahi, 4. Sahil is in standard 1 and is learning English at school (with books from the US gov't). When he does his homework, I 'help' - aka learn as many words in Swahili as he does in English. But this kid is, for lack of a better word from the 90's, Badass. Whenever he's not running around or eating mkate and chai, he's watching Chuck Norris in Delta Force. He has every single Chuck Norris-esque movie ever made but I've yet to witness any other. Salahi, younger and prone to crying, does whatever his brother tells him to. Their niece Farida also lives with them, though I don't really know the story. She is the complete opposite of her cousins - quiet and reserved. She does the housework with mama, while the boys play. I get the sense that it's a "woman's role." (Ironically, my grandfather told me that I would learn how to treat women here. So far I've learned how not to treat your niece.) Although she was shy at first,  that disappeared after I bought the three of them ice cream. (Ice cream transcends language barriers.)

Aside from that ice cream thing, the culture is entirely different here. I'll need a separate post for that.

Baadaye,

Adam

Edit: Their Bibi (grandma) got really worried when she saw me walking around the market with the two boys. She also calls Sahil her husband and Salahi her brother-in-law (in English) - apparently this is a common grandma joke in Africa?