Meat market
Two Aussies were in town, visiting and helping out with an NGO, and the doctor of the hosiptal wanted to take them and us to the meat market. Russ and I have been to the meat market before so it was nothing new to us, but the girls, Elizabeth and Ku, were impressed. Bravely they brought their cameras and Ku snapped up pictures that I had previously been afraid to take (expensive camera in crowded area not too far from home). She gave me her pictures and they are in our gallery. Basically the meat market is where villagers and people from town go to buy/sell cows and goats and eat cooked goat meat. It's really an all day event as the food takes hours to cook. However, we got there at around noon and walked around and talked to vendors. Cows and goats are going at their normal prices at the moment (150,000 - 200,000 Tanzanian shillings, written as /=, for a cow and 20,000/= for a goat). But I remember last year when the rains were late (supposed to have started in November but didn't until March) goats were being sold for 5,000/= and cows for 30,000/= - a steal really as the vendor would rather have gotten anything for his goat than to have it die (because of lack of food) and not have anything.
For eating on site or at home, you can buy any part of the goat - limbs, stomach, intestines, brain, etc. and have it wrapped or cooked. They don't slaugter cows then as it would be difficult to sell all that meat or cook it up. Goat is really tasty - especially with homemade pickle mango sauce.
Other things...
We had a Halloween, yet not a Halloween, party with VSO Angus and Rico (from the Phillipines as is helping small businesses in town), the Aussies, PCVs Becky, Jason, Christy, James, and M. It was just cooking good food, drinking wine, and chatting at our house that just happened to be on 31 Oct. Pics in the gallery.
My students just finished their final exams and I'm currently marking them. So far, they have done a great job and I'm very happy! I will update my blog later with final results.
We leave for Moshi this week as all PCVs are required to attend a monitoring & reporting workshop. So more when we return!
For eating on site or at home, you can buy any part of the goat - limbs, stomach, intestines, brain, etc. and have it wrapped or cooked. They don't slaugter cows then as it would be difficult to sell all that meat or cook it up. Goat is really tasty - especially with homemade pickle mango sauce.
Other things...
We had a Halloween, yet not a Halloween, party with VSO Angus and Rico (from the Phillipines as is helping small businesses in town), the Aussies, PCVs Becky, Jason, Christy, James, and M. It was just cooking good food, drinking wine, and chatting at our house that just happened to be on 31 Oct. Pics in the gallery.
My students just finished their final exams and I'm currently marking them. So far, they have done a great job and I'm very happy! I will update my blog later with final results.
We leave for Moshi this week as all PCVs are required to attend a monitoring & reporting workshop. So more when we return!
posted by lisa at
08:46
1 Comments:
Hello,
I gather from the map of Tanzania you inserted in your last blog, you are actually posted in Dodoma. Am I correct?
In the sixties I was a schoolboy at the Arusha primary Boarding school. Every 3 months on our journey home for the school holidays, the bus load of school kids over-nighted in Dodoma.We used to be accommodated at an old colonial Hotel called the Dodoma Railway Hotel. It was the least liked establishment of our itinerary as the area was infested with mosquitos and during our stay we would be eaten alive by the little beasts. The girls of course were placed in rooms with mosquito nets whilst we boys were encamped in an area which for some reason forgotten in history was called the Conference Room (off the dining room) but no mozzie nets! We had rickety camp beds to sleep on with itchy blankets as covers. Almost impossible to sleep. And you know what happens when 20-30 bored irritated 8-12 year old, unsupervised, boys can't get to sleep!! The pillow fights used go on for hours! Then there were the 'dare you' games; as in I dare you to escape through the window, shimmy up a nearby boabab and pick one of the fat pod-like fruits from its branches, or I dare you to run bare foot and in your pyjamas to the nearby railway station and buy a soft drink from the stall!! The success, or failure of our overnight stay was determined by the number of pillows we managed to destroy and the number of camp beds that were ripped so badly the occupier would be forced to sleep on the floor.
The morning after we dragged ourselves into the dining room to be presented with the ubiquitos Dodoma Hotel breakfast: Porridge, 2 fried eggs, bakebeans and 2 pieces of toast washed down with tea served by a team of scornful hotel waiters dressed in spotless starched white uniforms complete with a fez as headgear and wearing white cotton gloves!! In the 5 years I was a schoolboy at Arusha school this scenario never changed.
Is the hotel still there?
Dodoma itself was then a dusty, dreary godforsaken town with only one claim to fame; the Dodoma Madhouse!!
There used to be a mental health asylum in Dodoma in the sixties, and at school the rumours abounded as to the horrific treatment of the misfortunates that were housed there. Does that also still exist?
Regards
rhos1355
By
Anonymous, at 22 November, 2006 17:31
Post a Comment
<< Home