Cultural differences

So, it seems to long have been a point of confusion for our Tanzanian friends, why do these wazungu need so much time to pumzika (rest/relax)? I have no doubt we often seem rude as we turn down invitations to people’s houses because we would rather go home and recover from whatever social function we have just attended. The thing is, we wazungu seem to have a much greater need for personal space than the Tanzanians, in fact it seems almost abnormal to them to prefer to be alone sometimes. Our major problem with this, quite apart from the unintentional offenses we cause, is that we are often surprised at our house by Tanzanian visitors. In our Western mindset, we think that someone would make an appointment, or let us know in advance, but in Tanzania it is quite normal to turn up on someone’s doorstep, and rude to turn someone away. Quite apart from the need to then entertain our visitor when we are in the mindset of speaking English, this presents us with the issue that we are not always properly dressed for visitors! Since we live in a hot country where decency for women is skirts past the knee, we often “dress down” at home, relaxing in trousers and shirts without sleeves or spaghetti straps. This makes it quite amusing when we have to scramble for a shirt to stick over the top in order to make ourselves decent. I think I have become a little more prudish because of the dress code here (rural and small town Tanzania at least) – when I was in Dar es Salaam and saw a few women dressed in short shorts in public, I was horrified! Likewise, I found it quite amusing, upon arrival Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport, a place which looked tiny and not particularly special when I arrived from England, I could not stop being amazed at the escalators and baggage terminal! What will I be like in another year when I return to Heathrow Airport?