Happy Independence Day!

By Megan, Dar es Salaam Tanzania

As we turned the corner off of Old Bagmoyo Road to the driveway of the American Embassy, the lawn changed from dirt and thin native grass to manicured crab grass. Empty blue planters decorated with white stars lined the road. We approached a small building at the gate, where we saw other Wazungus lining up, waiting to have their bags inspected. A Tanzanian security guard holds the door open. We chat with him in Swahili, but no one else does.

Inside the embassy, a friendly middle-aged white woman whose husband works at the embassy, hands us programs and tries to give us American flags and flag pins. I look at the program, glance at the activities which include the ambassador’s speech, a pie eating contest, a cake walk, henna, a patriotic photo stand, a bouncy castle, a dunking booth and fireworks, and then skip to the food prices. 8,500 shilingi for a large plate with a hamburger or chicken and a hotdog, coleslaw baked beans and fruit salad or 6,500 shilingi for a smaller version. By American standards, about 8 dollars isn’t shocking, but in Tanzania, these prices seem exorbinant.

“Where do the profits go?” one of the other students on my program asks.

We walk past a stylized copy of the Statue of Liberty toward a big compound with an open courtyard, listening to a Tanzanian jazz band play Norah Jones. All over the manicured lawn, families picnic. Palm trees shade the courtyard. A few students buy soda from Marines and then we sit on the lawn to people watch.

Most of crowd is white, although there seem to be both Black Americans and Tanzanians and a few multi-racial families. Watching families in summer dresses and shorts and t-shirts, eating hotdogs and playing carnival games, I wonder what it’s like to grow up with such a different standard of living from most of the country. With a nice house, car, security system, running water, and international schools for their kids, how much do their lives resemble those of real Tanzanians? I haven’t been in the country long enough to feel homesick. This display feels artificial, out of place. The other students in my program talk about the advantages of retiring to a place like Tanzania, where on a relatively low American budget, you can live quite comfortably. I can’t say that it’s better to live with our standard of living and consumption rate in the US, but I think still living like an American in a third world country, I would feel lonely and guilty. I think I would constantly feel confronted by why I deserve to live like that because of where I was born. I'm even aware and uncomfortable of the luxury of me studying here. I need to make the best of it.

A little disappointed, we don't wait for fire works. Instead we looking for a shopping center someone read about in a guide book, hoping there may be an affordable restaurant. Along the street, I see a man cooking skewers of meat on a barbeque. For the first time that day, I’m a little nostalgic for home. I realize, that I don’t associate Fourth of July cookouts with hamburgers or hotdogs and potato salad, as much as the skewers of marinate meat my Filipino grandfather always barbeques.