hodi hodi

this is what you say instead of knocking. As in, I'm here, I'm coming in the house. The response is "karibu". Welcome. Oh, which reminds me of something else that I like. As an example of literal translations that aren't quite right: you meet someone, they say hi, you say hi, they say you're welcome. It's awesome.

The election is over. I didn't mention it earlier because you know how mom worries. I was mostly blissfully unaware of the issues of the election but here's the gist. CCM (The Party of the Revolution) has been in power since '62 when Tanganyika (which eventually became Tanzania when Zanzibar joined the party) achieved independence. They were communist and single party until other parties were allowed in '94. The different parties send trucks with loud speakers out to the neighbourhoods. I'm not that hot with the language so I don't know if there was mudslinging or the stereophonic equivalent of kissing babies.


I do know that a couple of days before the election one of the parties said they were going to kick all the white people out if they won. CCM said, umm, I know why you feel that's a good idea, but they will take their money with them when they go.* The day before the election we were out and about when we got the call and told to be home by 4pm. There were going to be demonstrations in the city and it would not be ideal to be wandering around should one of these crowds work itself into a lather. We went home and we weren't allowed to go out for Halloween. Fine with me, I'm old. I have had exactly one good costume in about the last 30 years (it was pretty awesome). But Josey was disappointed.

The next day, Sunday, was the election. It occurred without incident (here). Eventually we heard that Kikwete was re-elected. That irritated the hell out of some people. Our friend went to some other city for work that night and he could here shots fired etc. But he's been here for eight years so he knows how to stay out of trouble (which is stay in your hotel room -- which I could have figured out upon hearing gunfire. I'm just saying).

The results took a week to come in. I had some friends that were acting as observers. They got sequestered and wrote reports but still got to leave at night and do karaoke.

* none of these statements are based on newspaper reporting but just what I've heard. Must all be true.