A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are...

what are they again?

all around my town, there are diamonds and gold.

there are a few big mines [including Williamson Diamond Mine, which if i'm not mistaken is the largest diamond mine in the world], Geita gold mines, and a whole lot of guys running around with shovels digging here and there and anywhere they can.

but it wasn't always this way. you know the game 'mancala'? Well, it's loosely based [i.e. simplified for stupid Americans] on a game prevalant throughout much of Africa. Here in Tanzania it's called 'bao' [wood, original name, huh?].

so it turns out that around my town, back in the day, people used to play this game bao with....you guessed it....diamonds. They had no clue what they were. Someone even told me people took them and plastered them onto fronts of their houses for decoration!

i can't really blame them, i mean who would think that a piece of rock could be so valuable? I can blame the Germans/English/Missionaries who first encountered these folks, because I'm eagerly willing to bet that they ripped them off royally to get as many of the diamonds as quickly as possible. even the current president of Tanzania is looking at renegotiating some of the contracts for the mining companies [all are foreign, most South African] because Tanzania apparently gets the short end of the stick.



research project: there is an insect here, it looks like a large black beetle. they are heavy, and make a sound like an old bus trying to climb up a steep hill. and they do the most peculiar thing - they fly madly around and around the ceiling, and the ceiling light, and then without warning they appear to retract their wings and suicide divebomb any of the pieces of furniture, or people, sitting below. then they rest, before they start all over again. why does this happen?!



you know the expression 'chicken legs' in English? well my best friend here, Dominic, has chicken legs. he's just a really skinny guy. so i went to his house on Sunday night because we had bought a chicken, and we killed it, cut it up, and gave it to his girlfriend to cook. so i told him about the expression 'chicken legs', and that it suited him rather well. He was not offended, laughed heartily, and then told me that in Swahili the teasing words of choice are 'walking on your hands'. So his friends in high school would come up to him, stick out their hands, and then stoop down and try to shake hands with his feet. I guess it made sense after i heard it, and it's kind of funny, but chicken legs just seems so much easier.



I had another good chat with one of my other good friends, the carpenter. we talked at length about the preparations he is making for his wife, who is due to deliver their 4th child any day now. I cannot write too much on this issue, as much of the discussion revolved around corruption in the health system, but he seemed overall positive [hoping for a boy], and it was fun exchanging perspectives on pregnant women [they eat dirt here, a sign of iron deficiency. i tried to explain pickles, with great difficulty].
but then he had to stop talking and start working, because he had to build a coffin for someone from a village who had just came, and was waiting to bury his father. i sat and watched for awhile, it was a peaceful but somewhat haunting experience. a carpenter toiling hard [no machines, so all sawing/sanding/finishing was done by hand] and a grieving son shelling out close to 50 dollars [i.e. 1-2 months salary] so his father could rest in peace.
after he was finished, i told my friend that i wanted to be 'burned' [cremated]. he seemed shocked, but then i explained myself a bit [want to put my ashes around a tree sapling or something cheesy like that] and he got really enthusiastic about it. i doubt he would ever be cremated, he will most certainly be buried, but now i get the impression if i were to die today or tomorrow, he'd be there to defend my body from the diggers, and get his apprentices to light a nice toasty fire...