Mud

The mosquitoes are coming. I can feel it, though I have yet to make a positive ID. It’s hard to live in coastal Tanzania and work in public health--and in conjunction with a malaria project, no less--without being abnormally paranoid about getting malaria. I arrived fully armed with insecticide-impregnated bednet, antimalaria pills, and enough DEET to protect the entire US military, but ironically, I’ve noticed only one bite since I arrived, and that very well could have been a spider. I seem not to be the most appealing target for mosquitoes. However, they have a predilection for my friend Anne, who confirmed her second case of malaria this morning… but then again, that could be related to her fondness for infested pit latrines…

The kaskazi (monsoon) rains that normally arrive in mid to late November and last into January seem to be arriving a bit earlier than usual. Along with the 100% humidity, their early arrival means that mold and mildew are having a field day among my belongings. Most mornings lately I awake to the sound of pounding rain – big, tropical rain plopping on the ground outside. Within hours, it can transform the modest dirt path into town into a slushy, grimy, clay Slip n’ Slide with several vehicular casualties in ditches on the side of the road. For reasons defying logic, dirt roads here are deliberately graded with steep slopes off the side, so vehicles can easily slide off the flat surface. My friends’ Daihatsu Feroza 4x4 (no, I am not making that up) has lately been fishtailing its way to and from the University. The Chinese are building a large road between the University and the main road downtown, working on the underlayment now, so the road they are building is about 4 feet lower than and runs alongside the existing road.They might as well be engineering an aqueduct – what was a dry roadworks project-in-progress when I arrived is undifferentiable from a river.

Yesterday, the rain had seemed to let up and the weather was breezy, cool, and cloudy by the time I got off the daladala at the cell phone store this morning, so I decided to walk the rest of the way to work (about 2 miles). Bad idea. No more than 5 minutes after I started walking, the rain returned with a vengeance: the heavens opened and I was fully soaked in a matter of 60 seconds. If there had been a wet T-shirt contest for wazungu, I would have won. The Tanzanians I passed were all huddled under eaves and umbrellas, incredulously watching this brazen mzungu stomp through the mud in her flip-flops, soaked to the core. I must have heard Pole sana, dada (roughly: “take it easy, poor sister”) a hundred times in a mile and a half. All I know how to say in Swahili is “Big rain, no problem.” They must think I’m crazy. Six hours later, I am just beginning to dry out.