The Scary Hosts

Saturday we had our landlord's family over for dinner.  This is considered a big deal for us because they are higher than we are on the social food chain.  It's difficult to decide what to cook when you have Tanzanians over because more than likely they are not going to like whatever it is because it's so unfamiliar.  Tanzanians as a whole do not enjoy a wide variety of foods.  They have their same basic few and all eat them every day.  There's just not a lot of branching out.  I finally settled on roast, potatoes, carrots, rice, and this cucumber/tomato/onion salad thing they eat here.  I figured they would at least know what all the foods were, even if cooked differently.

Anyway, they were supposed to arrive at 4:00 in the afternoon but when 4:00 came and went we didn't think anything of it because being late is normal.  And since they rank higher than us, they get even more time to show up late and it not be considered rude.  They finally showed up about 5:45. Well, some of them did.  Our landlords's wife and 2 of their kids and 3 of their nieces came then.   We offered them sodas, oranges, and banana bread and made small talk.  Unfortunately, one of the little girls was not impressed with our hospitality.  She wouldn't look at us from the moment she walked in.  I would guess she was about 8 years old and soon we heard sniffles coming from her direction.   We tried to be extra nice to her, but that seemed to produce the opposite effect than we intended.  She was soon sobbing into her banana bread.  Our landlord's wife informed us we were scaring her.  Apparently she had never been in a white person's house before or really even known any white people.  Maybe she thought we were ghosts there to haunt her?  Anyway, they eventually took her home.  Though on her way out we frightening creatures made sure she took her soda and invited her back again sometime.

Our landlord finally got there a little before 7:00.  Apparently he had business.  We sat down to dinner and I waited to see if they would like the food.  I think at least one of them did.  They ate a lot of rice.  Still, I can't think of anything else they would've liked better.  They went home around 8:15.  All in all, a pretty successful evening, if a bit awkward at times.