Tanzanian Tales: Ten Unconventional Ways to Live Like an African Missionary

After reading the article titled ‘10 Unconventional Habits to Live Distraction-Less’ on a website about becoming minimalist (http://www.becomingminimalist.com/distraction-less/) I thought I’d write my own based on my experiences living here in Tanzania as a missionary.

Ten Unconventional Ways to Live Like an African Missionary

1. Dump your smart phone in the bin and go out and buy the cheapest model nokia you can find – no colour screen or music capabilities allowed. Only check it if you get a call or message or need to check the time.

2. Connect with the slowest dial-up internet connection around. Check your emails only one per day or every two days as you cannot handle how long it takes! Facebook once a week, or month. Don’t even consider youtube as it will take far too long to download even the shortest clip.

3. Live ‘from scratch’. Bake bread from scratch, cook without using anything that comes from a packet or can, experiment with other things that can be made from scratch like yoghurt, cous cous (yes really, I’ve done it), hummus etc.

4. Turn off your electricity at the mains once a week for at least 8hrs at a time, preferably at night. Invest in a few solar lamps or better yet candles to eat your dinner by. Then when really game, turn off the power for 3 days straight – best done over a weekend for the full effect.

5. Put your TV in a closet for 6mths to a year. Go out and visit neighbours in the evening hours instead and if you really feel the need for entertainment watch a DVD on your laptop and invite those neighbours around too.

6. Shop exclusively in second hand clothing stores. Don’t buy anything worth more than $5 and limit your shopping to once every 3 months. Make sure your wardrobe mainly consists of knee-length skirts/trousers for guys and simple t-shirts.

7. Once every three months turn off your running water and find an alternative source outside your house. Invest in some buckets to help you collect and store the water. Keep the water switched off for at least 2 days.

8. Leave the car at home and ride the bus, but make sure you sit as close as possible to someone and even think about offering the remaining space beside you to the next person who hops on.

9. Leave your bank cards in a drawer and live on cash only. Hoard your change in a jar and use it when you ride the bus.

10. Give the washing machine a break and put your newly purchased buckets to good use by hand-washing all your clothes only once a week. If you can find an African neighbour to teach you the proper way to do this even better, although they may be horrified at your attempts and end up doing all your washing for you. It seems to be a skill that only Africans possess no matter how hard others try to learn it.

In a few short weeks my husband Gody and I plan on moving out to our new house. We’re working towards making it liveable in the coming weeks which includes putting in windows and some form of a kitchen bench and smoothing down the concrete floors. We’re both really excited to see this dream of ours taking shape and are truly blessed to have had the opportunity to buy land out in a nearby Masai village and build a house.

I’m very much looking forward to the challenges that will come with living in an unfinished house – we won’t have any power or running water and have only one piece of furniture to move – our bed! But it will be fun to live completely minimalist and rely on some of the inventions my friends and I have made over the years. My fridge will be two clay pots (one inside the other with sand in-between) which I will have to water down each day and my washing machine is a small plastic barrel with a handle to turn it and agitate the clothes. I plan on turning the fridge off over the coming week to see how well the pots can handle milk and other things that spoil quickly, just so I know what I’m in for. Here are a few pics of our land and house.