Childrearing in Tanzania

I have thought about writing something on this topic for a while, but something has come between every time.

One thing I have noticed is that there are kids everywhere in this country. According to statistics each woman will give birth to 5.7 children. That's a lot and probably explain why there are kids pretty much everywhere. But also because we in Sweden or probably in other countries in the world we lock them in different institutions....oh I mean the school system. Here they seem to have much more freedom. I don't mean that they don't go to school because they do. However, in Sweden we leave our children in school and after school programs for up to 10-12 hrs. They don't here. The children just simply walk home when school is over. And the children are playing everywhere and they sort of seem to handle traffic well and other things that we in Sweden would consider dangerous, such as riding the motorcycle or cycle just by holding on to the luggage carrier. Accidents probably happens, and most people seem to have some scars but whether they got them from riding a bike or because of some other reason I'm not able to tell. Maybe I should ask sometime.

Neither have I really seen any child labour. It probably exists, especially when it is time for farming. In some cases such as goat tending, I guess, could be seen as child labour but it is also a very important part of being a teenager, or even a rite of passage for example among the Maasai.

Another interesting thing I have noticed is that when a mama is getting on a dala dala and if their is no room to sit she will just hand over her child to some stranger. The child will just sit in the strangers lap like nothing special is going on. I'd like to see that in Sweden. Our children will make the biggest fuss or scream and don't even mention the parents. We just wouldn't do it! Here instead it is sometimes actually the stranger taking the child from its mother and if the stranger gets off she will automatically simply hand over the child to another stranger. Still no sign of distress in the child. If this happened in Sweden we would call the Police. Of course I'm exaggerating a bit (as far as Sweden is concerned, but not Tanzania).

It is nice to see that we aren't afraid of our fellow bus travelers and don't see every situation as a potential threat or pedophile.

It would also be very interesting to see Swedish children running around asking strangers to take photos of the children. Oh no! Do I hear people scream pedophile?
But here its one of their (the children's) favorite activity. At first it was a bit awkward because you just don't do it in Sweden. That or I was expecting them to ask for money. So far no one has, though some friends have experienced that, they just simply seem to enjoy posing in front of the camera and look at the photos afterwards. My iPhone is become very handy and the children can actually slide from one pic to another and enjoy it a lot. Its actually quite surprising when adults also enjoy it. I had a man stopping us as he was carrying a large sack of apples on his head just to have us take a photo of him. Its amazing!

My final thought is that if we mixed some Swedish structure and educational standards with some Tanzanian courage and freedom I think childhood could be awesome experience.