Dar es Salaam Diary

This post is terribly overdue, given that Passover is now over, but I think the novelty of my attending a seder here in Dar es Salaam is still worth writing about. Anyway, during my first week here, I met two other American young women who will also be in Dar for two years and who are also members of the tribe. (That’s the Jewish tribe, for you non-chosen people.) One of them is now my housemate, Michelle. The two of them thought it would be nice to observe Passover in some way, either holding their own seder, or trying to find one to attend. Word got round, as it tends to do in the ex-pat community here, and on the Sunday before the first day of Passover, Michelle received a text message from a woman named Pamina, who said she had heard we were looking for a seder.

Michelle called Pamina back and we were summoned to her house that evening to consult on plans for the seder. In the movie version of this story, Pamina would be played by a slightly younger Anjelica Houston…. She is Israeli, 56 years old (over 20 of which have been spent in Tanzania), a chain-smoker and font of unsolicited and often excessive, personal information. It was a bit unclear as to why she needed us there to plan the seder – perhaps she just wanted someone to kvetch at besides her three adult daughters (all of whom have spent almost their entire lives in Dar and speak English, Hebrew, and Swahili fluently). She explained that she was used to hosting large seders here (50 people or more) but had been away from Dar in the past couple of years, and since then the small Jewish community seems to have splintered. But she was determined to resume her hosting duties this year as she had been contacted by two American rabbis who were spending three weeks in East Africa.

After we had been at Pamina’s restaurant for about an hour, the rabbis came to join in the preparations. When I heard that rabbis were coming, I was expecting older, staid men of few words (at least not for a non-religious Jew such as myself). Rather, they were both 22, fresh out of rabbinical school, and only too happy to talk with us, in their strong New York accents, about anything and everything, at great length and with great enthusiasm. They were thus a good match for Pamina. When one lamented his lack of life experience and worried that this would affect his ability to advise members of his congregation, Pamina said, “Well, you may not have experience, but I do. Here are some stories.” And launched into the complete stories of her two marriages and subsequent divorces…

In keeping with their strict dietary restrictions, the rabbis had brought enough food over to hold them for the entire three weeks. Their stash included 100 kilos of chicken schnitzel, which they had frozen, wrapped in newspapers, and packed in suitcases!! This level of precaution was met with a fair degree of scorn from Pamina and her daughters, who explained to the rabbis that Dar’s large Muslim population means that it’s possible to get halal meat everywhere, and halal is the same as kosher. The rabbis were of a different opinion, and proceeded to get into a very heated debate, which Michelle and I were finally able to escape when I was no longer able to conceal my yawns. (At this point we had been “planning” the seder for a good three hours, it was past 10 PM, and we still had not eaten dinner!)

The seder itself was a bit anti-climactic. Or at least different from what I had expected. There were only about 16 of us, and Michelle and I managed to be late, which further soured our hostess’s bad mood. The rabbis were clearly very nervous, and I think in what was an attempt to not offend or bore anyone, they skipped over or rushed through a lot of key elements of the seder. Despite some of the guests grumbling that we were not doing things properly, we cut the ceremony short to eat, as Pamina informed us that the food would burn otherwise. The chicken schnitzel had been transformed into meatballs, which were served “Chinese style,” “Cajun style,” and “Tanzanian style.” All very tasty, but I actually don’t think the rabbis ate ANY after all their protesting. I think they still were not satisfied with how it had been prepared… I also think one of them was coming down with something, as he put on his jacket midway through dinner, and it’s really NEVER cool enough in Dar to merit putting on a jacket…

Food and a bit of too-sweet kosher wine put everyone (with the possible exception of the rabbis) in a more relaxed mood, and we were able to resume the official business of the seder after eating. We concluded by singing the songs that more than one person could remember and were finally sent home with excess homemade matzo (also imported from New York City).

I can only hope that the rest of our rabbis’ visit has been a success. The “Tanzanian way” of accepting and adapting to one’s circumstances with limited worries and stress is not exactly conducive to a strict adherence to the laws of Orthodox Judaism (or a strict adherence to anything that matter). But if nothing else, I’m sure they’ll return home with a few good stories.