Putting the "zany" in Tanzanian

Thanks those that sent birthday wishes. Around here I usually just do something for Thanksgiving/my birthday and tell people I have my own national holiday back in America. This year it involved me and a few boys cooking 18 pounds (dry) of rice, grilling 12 chickens on the wheelbarrow grill, making 35 pounds of french fries, serving up 48 pops, and 3 gallons of ice cream. It was a splendid day indeed.

On to more recent stories, this is one that happened almost half a year ago, but I was reminded of it only recently. Victor's old car had been dying a slow death for the better part of a year. (It has since been replaced.) One of the major problems was a failing transmission. The other problem was it being the only automatic transmission of that model for several thousand nautical miles (it was a Japanese car).

The only guy Victor trusts to work on his transmission is a Tanzanian man that we'll call Bob. Bob has spent so long in Mozambique, but grew up in Tanzania and his first language is Swahili. Bob likes to bring his friends to work. By friends, I mean consultants for when he gets stuck on a part he can't put together right.

Working on cars is also a lot different that in America, principally in that the mechanic always comes to you, instead of you going to his garage. Well, he almost always comes to you, but does so if you want to be sure he isn't stripping your car for parts when you're not looking. And thus Bob came out to the orphanage nearly every day that week, each day with a different friend, trying to put Victor's transmission back together.

Now on about the fourth day of this it had been a particularly long and testy day, and it was about three hours after it had gone dark. I was tired from having to mind the mechanics all day. Bob was mad because after he finally got it all put back together I made him take it apart again because there were several bolts left over. Bob's friend did not take kindly to me as I kept sneaking up behind him and putting out his cigarettes. We were not exactly getting along.

Then things hit the boiling point. Whenever Bob needed to talk to his friend (also Tanzanian) they'd would just speak Swahili. I was perfectly fine with that, because I didn't see any sense in the two of them communicating in a language that was not their own. I did have a problem with it when I heard the only two words in Swahili that I understand: white-man, and money. There was also some pretty aggressive gestures and pointing in my direction.

At that point I jumped in, speaking our common language of Portuguese and telling them that the work on the car has nothing to do with me nor is it my money so it won't do any good asking for it. At that, they just put down their tools and just looked at each other stunned.

They wrapped up their work in mostly silence and then when home for the night. When they came back the next morning to continue work on the car, Bob demanded to meet with Victor first. After that meeting, I went up to Victor to ask what their meeting was about. Victor, laughingly, told me that Bob and his friend refuse to work while I was around claiming that I knew everything they were saying.

Un/Fortunately for Bob, I didn't have a clue most of the time, and within no time was the car patched up and Bob on his way, never to have to deal with me again.