100 thing challenge: Tanzania Style

I recently read a book called 'The 100 thing challenge' by Dave Bruno. It's about an ordinary American man who decides to reduce his possessions to 100. He doesn't include items he shares with his family, such as kitchen items. He also groups things together: all his books count as one item. By the end of the challenge he's living with way over 100 things, yet he feels satisfied that he is leading a more fulfilled life.

Living in Tanzania, 100 items seems like a lot for one person. For many Tanzanians 100 personal possessions would be hard to imagine. For Maasai people who live traditionally, wealth is measured in cows. If a man has 100 cows, he's considered wealthy. He can probably also afford to have about 4 wives. Cows provide sustenance and a large herd means stability. Yet even a Masaai with 100 cows has few other possessions: typically some mud huts for his family and cattle to sleep in, containers for storing milk and cow's blood, red robes, a pair of sandals, a mobile phone, and little else. If a Masaai man living a traditional life were to follow the 100 thing challenge, I'd imagine 90 of his chosen possessions would be cows.

I'll be moving in 10 months or so (I don't know to which country yet) and I'm thinking about reducing my stuff. I moved here with 4 cardboard boxes, but want to move away with less. One advantage of living in Tanzania is being removed from materialism: I used to buy a lot of clothes, and now I don't. Those which I do have are getting worn from hand washing and I haven't been buying new ones. So that should make it easy for me to take less with me than I brought here. 100 things doesn't seem like much, but I'm going to start getting my list together this week to see if I can do it.

Carving Lessons

I have been taking carving lessons here: so far I've had five lessons. I just finished carving the statue on the right. My teacher did the one on the left. He's called Jeremiah and he's a master carver. He always tells me, 'Slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly!'

We moved to Tanzania

Hello, Sunshine!

It's bright and beautiful. I'm teaching some more small children in a less liberal school. Everyone must read and write! It's rather wonderful, though. There are elephants.

I'm taking weekly lessons in tingatinga painting and wood carving from some local artists. I'm so excited to be here!

Hei Hei, Soumi!

Goodbye, Finland! It's a long, long summer. Finished work and have just play for the next 8 weeks. Will be here, then in Crete, England, and Chicago, and then Tanzania. Living in Finland has been the longest winter of my life: bring on some sunshine!

The Tongue

On Friday morning my tongue fell out of my mouth and onto the floor. It made a wet flip flop noise. I thought I might try to put it back in. I could sew it, maybe, or use magnets. But then I felt a wonderful lightness all over my head. I thought I might float. So I left the tongue there: it wasn't getting any dryer. If anything it got wetter, and it grew and grew until it was the size of a sofa.

I wanted to lie on it and find out what a tastebud tasted like. Then I remembered I couldn't. It was my own tongue, and I didn't have another. Of course, it was too big by now to fit back in my mouth. But I wanted it. It's hard for me to express how much I wanted it, that big, soft tongue.

So I crawled underneath it, and carefully cut off a small piece with a knife. I put the tongue-piece in my mouth, and it soaked up my saliva. But it would not attach itself. It just sat there. And the big tongue, it kept bleeding and bleeding from where I cut it. All the people rushed over, looking at the pool of blood and saying how sad it was that in this city not even a giant tongue is safe from the threat of knife crime. Then they looked at me with contempt and fear.

I said, 'It's my tongue. I'm not a criminal. All I want is a tongue that fits my mouth'. But the words didn't work, and the little tongue fell out and crept back, weeping, to the big tongue. It slotted back in to where I cut it, and the bleeding stopped. And everyone gasped as the big tongue started shrinking. It wept as it shrank. Finally it was small again. I picked it up and put it in my mouth. And that tongue, that warm, wet tongue, that beautiful tongue, it turned to stone.

Sock Monkey, Sock Bunny

I made a sock monkey and a sock bunny over the bank holiday weekend. Each one used a pair of socks, and not a single sock as I expected. I'd been envying my friend John's sock bunny for years and just now got around to making one myself! They were easy and would be a good project for children.

We made some earrings

Here they are on the drum I bought in Ghana. We went to the craft store and got feathers and earring hooks. We also used some wire on the bigger ones. I love feathers! I have been wearing these to school.