Kumbe nilizimia brazzameeeeeenii! Kumbe nilizimia sista du

How to blog this delicately.

Brazzameni is a yoh-yoh, and sister du is the girl equivalent. Yaani ma-odinari, mabaabi [er…Barbie?] I cannot for the life of me say this in English, but I, apparently, I’m one. It’s the ‘rasta-feki’ dreads. But I’m doing this wrong.

See, after weeks of dead headphones, I remembered that my phone has a radio, so I spent my workday glued to the charger and browsing Tanzania radio. I have never been so tickled.

First there was the brazzameni song. It’s some girl and guy whining about how they are dating a…yuppie? The guy/girl in question likes to look good for the pals, so he brags about how his S/O is at his beck and call, jumping through hoops and all, or how the person in question is soooo into them…

Okay wait. Breathe slow, ladies never loose compooooosure [it’s the Chamdor. Goes badly with fresh milk]

Here’s the scenario in the song. A guy is with his pals. He tells them about this girl who adores him, and that he feels nothing for her, but she’s at his command. Then he washas a speakerphone, calls the girl, whispers sweet nothings and makes a date with her while the boys are snickering in the background. Very common here – I’ve seen the guys at my office do it. The girl has no idea of course, and thinks this guy likes her, till she shows up and sees his boys laughing at her.

Verse 2, another girl telling her pals how she just uses this guy as an organic ATM, then she puts her cell on speakerphone while her girls giggle as she twists the boy round her litty bitty finger. Sigh. The things we do for love.

[PS: I am only a sista du by virtue of the hair, and an odinari for growing up in LA (I distinctly remember idiot children crossing our fingers in a sideways W and yelling WESSAAAIIIIDDDD!!!) I do NOT pull the sista du stunts named in the song. Kthxbai]

And there’s Asha promisi, a song about a guy who made a date with a chick. She was treating, so he showed up, ordered and waited and … she didn’t show, so he had to chonga viazi [or rather piga deki – there are no viazis to chonga in Dar]. Eti ‘nilijaribu kupiga kiswahili, meneja hakutaka kujua, nikawakabidhi pete na peni, Asha promisi sitakusahau’ Classic!! I just love Bongo flava.

Then I finally heard the Beyonce boys song, and the ring thing – now to find the video. It’s is strange how these Neyo songs have such great tracks but such pointless lyrics!! Can I buy just the instrumentals to ‘mad’ and ‘miss independent’, without the fothogari words? I’m dead serious, they’re great for bellydance. And I like the sober pink song. And the dancing one, great song to dag to. I wonder if she knows how apt her name sounds to Kenyans. I haven’t seen her, but she is allegedly a blonde bombshell stage-named Lady Gaga. Rihanna’s rehab is nice too.

Then there is Auntie Kitchen Party. Let me explain. In Dar, weddings have four ceremonies. Each ceremony is a grand expensive affair, invited-guests-ony, and you get invited with a card that indicates the expected mchango. I.E. to attend, you have to contribute. The recommended minimum is 20K [which is about a K kenyan]

First comes the kitchen party, which is a girls only affair. The women-folk gather at a venue, dirty dance round poles and chairs, get very detailed and very specific tips on man-pleasing, and gift the bride with household goods. This is how a bride stocks her kitchen. The party is hosted [and costed] by the bride’s people, and the gifts range from microwaves and ricecookers to fully fledges gas burners. Since guys aren’t allowed, this is the one place where the usually buibui-clad women come ungowned, and believe me, they hide a LOT under there. The DJs are usually the only males present, and I have to say, at a kitchen party, it pays to be a musicboy.

Next comes the send-off party, which is a wedding reception-style party hosted by the bride’s family to aga her. More invites, more paying, more presents, usually a wedding dress and cake. No sermons though. Lots of [non-alcoholic] champagne and speeches.

Then there’s the wedding itself, at the DO’s, mosque or church, usually at 4.00 p.m. on a weekday, characterised by a loud brass band in an open pickup, and a traffic jam at Photopoint. NB: ALL weddings have this. And finally, the reception, hosted by the guys. The bride and her maids have separate outfits for each of the four ceremonies, and the beautifying cost 250 [thousand T] a piece. Hence the michango.

So. Auntie Kitchen party is an old lady on Tanzania radio, I forget which station, who dispenses kitchen-party-ic advise inbetween hits. The standard advice, incidentally, is something along the lines of:

Mnajua wanaume wanapenda kucheza mpira uwanjani, kwa hiyo ni juhudi yako kama mke kuhakikisha kwamba umeandaa uwanja. Kata vichaka vyote karibu na nyumbani kwako ili mumeo asiumwe na nyoka au kujikata kwenye miiba.

Ni muhimu kufanya upishi wako katika sehemu zilizoandaliwa kwa upishi. Na msisahau kuacha taa wazi, la sivyo mtaonaje midomo yenu?

There is also something about preparing ugali for breakfast then asking Mzee to have a nap while you clean his room in a leso which occassionally drops accidentally. All this said by a very old lady mind you, as she does the pinda mgongo dance, which I can only describe as scary. Refer to ‘mduara’ EATV. The DJ loved it though. I’m still in trauma!

PS: I am soooooo liking that Jason Mraz song!!

Ice cream calls. Dairyland vanilla-chocolate swirl. Heaven in a bowl. Anti-lactose stomachache will follow, but it’s SO worth it. Nanite

PPS: Kuzimia is TZ swa for kunoki, to fall for.

For more information on 3CB, click here.

The letter C

I’m going through some pretty heavy stuff right now, stuff that even blog therapy and pals can’t fix. Plus I’ve lengad two tags from Mo and Archer… so to make up for all the doom and gloom I’ve been spreading, here’s a little something I picked off FB.

Rules:

It’s harder than it looks! Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real…nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name: CB

2. A four Letter Word: Cash

3. A boy’s Name: Carlos

4. A girl’s Name: Catherine

5. An occupation: Cashier

[Am I sensing a pattern here?!]

6. A color: Chocolate-brown…or crimson?

7. Something you’ll wear: Chain

9. A food: cake

10. Something found in the bathroom: Choo

[heheh, okay, hapo nime-cheat]

11. A place: Canada

12. A reason for being late: Chilling for the school bus

13. Something you’d shout: Crap!!

14. A movie title: Catch me if you can

15. Something you drink: [BLLL!!] …coke?

[I LOVE that ad!]

16. A musical group: Chumbawamba

[was that the band or the song? Er…okay…Cardigans..no wait, that starts with a ‘the’ doesn’t it? How about..got it. Celine Dion. Duh!! **smhw**]

17. An animal: cat

18. A street name: eh…CB’s avenue? Okay, Chole road, somewhere in Mikocheni, I think

19. A type of car: Corolla

20. The title of a song: Cherrie Oh baby

[is that how it’s spelt?]

Y’all are tagged.

For more information on 3CB, click here.

Attack of the roaches, volume 2

I don’t know what it is with me and mendes. It’s like they got this roachiversal memo about my phobia, so they attack me every chance they get.

I was lying on my bed, minding my business, not bothering anybody. I had just let my dreads down. They’ve been tied up [by my hairdresser] in some elaborate pony for a while [to stay neater longer], and they were itching like crazy. So when I felt a tickle on my forehead, I ignored it. Figured it was some loose dreads dancing in the breeze.

I lengad three more tickles before it hit me that I hadn’t checked on princess in a while, and that she was being mischieviously quiet. I got up to go peek, and found her at the door, hovering over me. She has this mummy-radar that makes her get up three seconds before I bust her. I still don’t know what she was up to.

Sated, I lay back down for my siesta and found…

…just above my pillow was the biggest, ugliest cockroach I’ve ever seen…today. [In dar, they’re all big and ugly!!] It was a weird roach, it didn’t pull a Marion Jones like they usually do, it just stood there waving at me. In that instant I realised what the hair-breeze tickle was, and I can only say my bed turned trampoline – the way I jumped!! Let out some kind of silly yelp as well, such a woosy sound. It wasn’t a diva screech or a war cry, just some strange confusing squelch. **smhw**

The lazy roach lay right there while I dashed around the house to find insecticide and slippers. It didn’t even resist when I smished it, just sort of disintegrated under the shoe and dropped to the ground in several leafy pieces.

Man I hate roaches!!

Yesterday I was watching an episode of ER season 5, and I shuddered when Carter had to get a mende that had walked into some chick’s ear, and today, a sleepy roach just happens to be hanging out near my pillow?!

I still say the nasty things are devil seeds. Some kind of backfired butterfly clone or something. And I am very grateful that my ever-faithful J used my mischief-silent daughter to get that six-legged demon out of my hair. Now if only I could learn to trust him more, and stop sweating the small [and not-so-small] stuff…

For more information on 3CB, click here.