Lately my body has been an alarmingly impressive incubator for unpleasant things. Something is definitely up. Last week I thought I might have malaria again. I’d been really tired lately and feverish and had PLENTY of stomach discomfort. It turned out to not be malaria, but I was starting to think that it might be worth it to investigate into buying some kind of at-home test because the possibility that I might have it again made me feel ridiculous.
Not to complain, but I’ve not had the best of luck lately. The day after I got back from the coast, I woke up to my room and a small lake that had infiltrated said room. The unwelcome flood came from our crap-tastic ceiling in the hallway, which has so much water damage, it looks like it may fall in any day now. Because of a slight slope, my room (and ONLY my room) was the chosen destination for all the rain water. The contractor was supposed to show up on Thursday to fix the roof (he showed up four days later) and apparently he’s “patched” things up, but I’m still skeptical. Then, that Friday, I got peed on by Zulfa, the youngest girl at Amani. I’ve been teaching a few kids how to draw on the computer and let Zulfa watch….on my lap. On Sunday I got harassed in town by two creepy men who were saying nasty things to me (in English) and ended up going home. Anyways, this past week I’ve had an African amoeba in my stomach, so that’s why I’ve been feeling tired and feared it was malaria. Now I have some weird bumps on the back of my tongue….so we shall see. A lot of the kids are sick at work so I’m sure I’ve got some kind of viral thing from one of the buggers.
The kids have finally started class again- thank you lord. Now I finally understand those “back to school” commercials with the dad happily shopping for school supplies while that Christmas song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” plays in the background. Haha. No, I’m mostly kidding, but it was exhausting trying to keep up with them over spring break. A lot of the kids went home to visit their families, but many were unable to do so, which made my heart break a little. I taught the kids perspective last week which they were surprisingly good at.
This past Thursday I went to an African wedding, which was straight out of “Coming to America,” back when Eddie Murphy didn’t have to play every character in a movie to get it made (by his own production company). It was at the local YMCA after work. Technically it’s called a “Send-Off Party” all about the bride, but it’s a bigger deal than the wedding. Most of the gift’s are for the bride’s new home (my roommates and I gave her some nice glassware). Of course, as expected, the power kept going off and on, off and on. It wouldn’t be African otherwise. Everything was decorated white and gold and there were nice little twinkly lights on the walls and real pink and white roses on the tables. Pretty snazzy! A lot of stuff went on that I couldn’t understand because it was beyond an eight-year old vocabulary. There was plenty of African beer and thick milky Chai tea, and we ate some unrecognizable roast beast with rice, bananas and fruit. The highlight for me was when they brought the “cakey” out. All the cooks were dancing behind it in a funny line, and “it” it turns out, was a roast goat. It still had all it’s fur on but the inside had been cooked, and flowery bushes were stuck in its mouth and rear area, while sliced lemons adorned its sides. Poor lil’ guy. Seeing as I had an amoeba in my tum, I did not go near that goat. There were a lot of dances that involved the bride’s family (the bride, by the way, was my home-stay sister Sophy), like when all her aunties lifted up a suitcase and shouted “ay-yiyiyi!” and brought it towards her. I thought that was kind of sad actually. Another dance was when the female family members took a colorful cloth and shook it around the bride’s mama. I took some photos, and eventually left when I had to parade up the aisle with the gift that my roommates and I brought.
Nothing much else to report….the boy from Amani, Augustino, who asked to live with me sent me another love letter. He's such a good artist and I've been tutoring him recently in English. I really do care about him and would like to stay in his life after I've left Tanzania, but I also worry about getting too attached to the kids.
Anyhow, toodles for now.
Whitney
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Blog Update: From Moshi to Pangani
Just got back from the coast this Tuesday and it was so freakin’ beautiful. We left last Friday to spend Easter on the beach, and it was definitely worth the trip. On Friday, my friend Asa and I took a six-hour bus to a large-ish village called Muheza located in the Usambara Mountains. There, we met her Canadian friend Brownwen, who is doing research on nutritional health in the mountains. African buses are ridiculous; there is no limit to the number of people on board and everyone is sweating tons and of course chucking their trash out the window. At one point we got off to go to the bathroom and the aisle was so stuffed that people were literally pushing us to our seats like we were in a human jigsaw puzzle. Asa and I switched off holding a three year-old girl, who, by the end of the trip, peed on Asa (which the mother denied). The view of the countryside was beautiful; the red earth and the Maasai men herding their cattle later contrasting with lush, tall green mountains and small houses on sisal plantations (a plant that looks like agave except it grows to about 8 feet tall and is used to make rum).
The hotel we stayed at in Muheza cost about $9 and was pretty decent, except the guy running it kept asking me inappropriate questions like if I want to have a baby (babies) with him. Of, course. I watched Sesame Street in Swahili (haha) and drank fresh cream with chai in the morning which was lovely.
On Saturday we woke up to drive to the beach (Brownwen has a car she uses to do research in local villages), and literally there was monsoon-style rain from the night before until about mid-morning. Luckily by the time we got to Tanga (which means “sail” in Swahili) the weather had improved. Tanga is one of the bigger towns along the coast, but definitely doesn’t seem like a city. We had lunch in Tanga at a nice yacht club on the beach in the wealthier area where the houses look almost Spanish and there is pink bougainvilla everywhere.
From Tanga we had a short drive to Pangani, but it felt longer because it was all dirt roads. Because of the rains, the road had flooded in places so the car had to wade through large ponds at some point. The red earth and the lush, open countryside was such a beautiful sight. It really made me want to take more road trips around Eastern Africa, preferably in a car and not a crazy bus. There were some cute monkeys hanging out on the road and also on the campgrounds where we stayed.
The place we stayed was called Peponi (only $5 per night). It’s especially nice because it’s not all developed and concrete. It’s run by a South African family and mostly has a lot of expat families. We camped out about 20 feet from the beach, under an open palm leaf shelter because of all the coconuts falling from the trees in the night. At night, there’s also a lot of bush babies, which we have in Moshi, but not as many. Bush babies are primates that are smaller than monkeys and have giant eyes and make freaky sounds in the night. Other than camping, there were less than a dozen “bandas” or cabanas, which were sweet little houses made of palm leaves, and all had porches and hammocks outside, with working bathrooms and bedrooms inside. The flowers and the smell of everything reminded me of Hawaii and I really didn’t want to leave! There was a small pool and a nice little restaurant on the property, with a bar shaped like a boat (!), that had wonderful food (lots of fish, fresh fruit, real ice cream, etc). We mostly read and took long walks and ate delicious meals, which is my idea of a perfect day. The Indian ocean is so warm it’s almost hot. I wore 50 spf sunscreen religiously but somehow still got sunburnt. In the morning, the tide goes way out (close to a mile), which freaked me out because I’ve watched too many documentaries on tsunamis. The surrounding villages mostly rely on fishing and their boats (dhows) are hundreds of years old and made completely out of wood. On Monday, we went on one of the wooden fishing boats and it was such a thrill to be on a sailboat that wasn’t made from plexiglass. We stopped a few miles off shore and went snorkeling, which was nice, but there were these microscopic jellyfish that kept biting me, and then, not so microscopic ones about two-inches tall. It must have something to do with the warm water because the last time that happened to me was when I was 16 in the Caribbean.
Monday evening we headed back to Muheza, and on Tuesday it was back to Moshi. Needless to say I am already fantasizing about this avocado, mango, prawn salad I had at Peponi….back to beans and bananas. I would love to go back there or maybe take a weekend to travel to Mombasa. I loved being on the coast and feel like I could haved stayed there for awhile. I’m also pretty thankful to have gotten out of Moshi for a weekend because I was going really stir crazy. The kids are also out of school so there has been a lot more work for me…they all want attention and tutoring and balloons and stickers and one of the 14 year-old boys wrote me a letter last week asking me to adopt him, which was very sweet but stressed me out a bit for the obvious reasons. Obviously, there is no way I can adopt any child right now, but I’ve thought about it 10 years or so down the line, although life is impossible to predict. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I’ve come into these kids lives only to eventually leave them and possibly disappoint them again like their families have. It’s hard to think about. Everyone wants a family, even if it’s a really messed up one, even if you have to construct it yourself from strangers and friends. These kids are no different. I feel like a part of their constructed family at times, but mostly I’m just busy trying to babysit 40 children.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Amani na upendo,
Whitney
The hotel we stayed at in Muheza cost about $9 and was pretty decent, except the guy running it kept asking me inappropriate questions like if I want to have a baby (babies) with him. Of, course. I watched Sesame Street in Swahili (haha) and drank fresh cream with chai in the morning which was lovely.
On Saturday we woke up to drive to the beach (Brownwen has a car she uses to do research in local villages), and literally there was monsoon-style rain from the night before until about mid-morning. Luckily by the time we got to Tanga (which means “sail” in Swahili) the weather had improved. Tanga is one of the bigger towns along the coast, but definitely doesn’t seem like a city. We had lunch in Tanga at a nice yacht club on the beach in the wealthier area where the houses look almost Spanish and there is pink bougainvilla everywhere.
From Tanga we had a short drive to Pangani, but it felt longer because it was all dirt roads. Because of the rains, the road had flooded in places so the car had to wade through large ponds at some point. The red earth and the lush, open countryside was such a beautiful sight. It really made me want to take more road trips around Eastern Africa, preferably in a car and not a crazy bus. There were some cute monkeys hanging out on the road and also on the campgrounds where we stayed.
The place we stayed was called Peponi (only $5 per night). It’s especially nice because it’s not all developed and concrete. It’s run by a South African family and mostly has a lot of expat families. We camped out about 20 feet from the beach, under an open palm leaf shelter because of all the coconuts falling from the trees in the night. At night, there’s also a lot of bush babies, which we have in Moshi, but not as many. Bush babies are primates that are smaller than monkeys and have giant eyes and make freaky sounds in the night. Other than camping, there were less than a dozen “bandas” or cabanas, which were sweet little houses made of palm leaves, and all had porches and hammocks outside, with working bathrooms and bedrooms inside. The flowers and the smell of everything reminded me of Hawaii and I really didn’t want to leave! There was a small pool and a nice little restaurant on the property, with a bar shaped like a boat (!), that had wonderful food (lots of fish, fresh fruit, real ice cream, etc). We mostly read and took long walks and ate delicious meals, which is my idea of a perfect day. The Indian ocean is so warm it’s almost hot. I wore 50 spf sunscreen religiously but somehow still got sunburnt. In the morning, the tide goes way out (close to a mile), which freaked me out because I’ve watched too many documentaries on tsunamis. The surrounding villages mostly rely on fishing and their boats (dhows) are hundreds of years old and made completely out of wood. On Monday, we went on one of the wooden fishing boats and it was such a thrill to be on a sailboat that wasn’t made from plexiglass. We stopped a few miles off shore and went snorkeling, which was nice, but there were these microscopic jellyfish that kept biting me, and then, not so microscopic ones about two-inches tall. It must have something to do with the warm water because the last time that happened to me was when I was 16 in the Caribbean.
Monday evening we headed back to Muheza, and on Tuesday it was back to Moshi. Needless to say I am already fantasizing about this avocado, mango, prawn salad I had at Peponi….back to beans and bananas. I would love to go back there or maybe take a weekend to travel to Mombasa. I loved being on the coast and feel like I could haved stayed there for awhile. I’m also pretty thankful to have gotten out of Moshi for a weekend because I was going really stir crazy. The kids are also out of school so there has been a lot more work for me…they all want attention and tutoring and balloons and stickers and one of the 14 year-old boys wrote me a letter last week asking me to adopt him, which was very sweet but stressed me out a bit for the obvious reasons. Obviously, there is no way I can adopt any child right now, but I’ve thought about it 10 years or so down the line, although life is impossible to predict. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I’ve come into these kids lives only to eventually leave them and possibly disappoint them again like their families have. It’s hard to think about. Everyone wants a family, even if it’s a really messed up one, even if you have to construct it yourself from strangers and friends. These kids are no different. I feel like a part of their constructed family at times, but mostly I’m just busy trying to babysit 40 children.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Amani na upendo,
Whitney
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Blog Update: Visiting villages and street kids
I haven’t written in a while since things have been pretty busy at work, but now I finally have a chance to just lay like a vegetable for a moment. This week the education department was conducting midterms so I gave a short art test...really just drawing still-life and animals. I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll most likely leave here in September. At first I was just going to be here until June, but that’s really too short of a time, and 8-9 months feels better to me than a year, at least at this point. It’s been a long couple of weeks and I’ve been a bit homesick off and on the past few days. Sometimes the level of ignorance here due to lack of education is really frustrating. When I was walking home from work today all these kids kept telling me to give them money then chanted “Albino, Albino!” This really is not funny because albinos are persecuted here and really discriminated against. It’s been in the news off and on internationally because witch doctors here, yes, witch doctors, are encouraging people to kill albinos because apparently their body parts hold magical powers.
Anyways, I just tried to watch a movie that takes place in LA and had to turn it off. I’ve been watching a lot of pirated American TV shows lately for comfort purposes, but I guess this was just too realistic and the urban-ness was disturbing. It was too weird to see such a different city, even in a movie, and I couldn’t relate to any of the surroundings or the clothes or all the highways and felt really bizarre. I felt the same way looking at a People magazine from the inauguration that had photos of people reacting to Obama being sworn in around the world. The images from Japan, Europe and the U.S. confused me; everything seemed so luxurious and absurdly nice. But the image from Kenya made perfect sense- people standing on the seats of their old bicycles in their brightly colored rubber sandals that everyone wears here, watching TV from a dirt road in a village. Even when I went to Arusha I felt like I was in an urban metropolis. It will be incredibly weird to go back to the U.S..
The rainy season was supposed to start in mid-March, but now it is April and we’ve only had a few days of heavier rains. It seems pretty clear that this is because of global warming and all the deforestation going on around the base of Kili. It’s a bit scary. I don’t really feel forced to think about global warming or food supply when I’m in the U.S., but here a huge majority of people rely on farming for food and for an income. Amani has a shamba (field) near the center but the seeds were all planted weeks ago and nothing is growing. It’s also concerning because vegetables and fruit are by far the cheapest and most readily available food around, not to mention you don’t need to cook them for hours on an open fire like they do with sorghum/millet/maize here, using up fuel and money. Most people here make under $5 a day and Tanzania remains one of the top ten countries in the world with the lowest GDPs. Even nurses make 5,000 shillings per each 8 hour shift; less than 4 dollars a day.
On another note, sometimes transportation here is ridiculous. Today I got in a dala-dala (mini-bus) and every time we stopped the side door fell off. I mean, really? A few months ago this would have been shocking but now I just breathe out and think…typical. Yesterday I went further down the road I walk every day to get to Amani to pick up a little guy’s uniform, out in the sticks. His name is Manuel and another volunteer and I are trying to enroll him in preschool. Anyways, because it is a long freaking walk into the bush and I was going on my own I decided to ask Petro, my coworker who takes care of the grounds, to borrow his bike. Maybe I’m just more naïve than I’d like to admit, but this was not the breeze I thought it would be. The bike was big and heavy and too tall for my feet to touch the ground. To top it off, I kept wiping out. The road is all dirt and rocks…and holes. So I’d hit a few rocks and gradually, or sometimes suddenly, topple over. School kids were not so compassionate about this. And the seamstress wasn’t even there. Awesome. But no cuts or bruises so that’s great- although I no longer want a bike in this country/continent, maybe ever.
On Sunday, I went for a hike with a Tanzanian friend named Samora. He’s a really nice kid who’s in secondary school right now. We walked from my house in town to a village called West Uru where he goes to school in the mountains, to another village Shimbwe, to another village called East Uru, and all the way back to town. Samora was raised by his ancient bibi (grandmother), after his parents abandoned him and his mother died. He told me all about how he had worms all the time as a kid and they would exit his body through his feet. Yeah. Most kids have worms at some point, especially kids like Sam who grow up in houses with dirt floors and don’t own shoes. He told me you’re supposed to cover the ground in your house with hot water but most people don’t do that because they don’t want a muddy house (literally). He really is like a mountain goat the way he walks up hills, but this time I could actually keep up with him because he had a bike accident and had a lot of bruises and open wounds. I had some extra ibuprofen in my pocket because I figured I might be in pain after/during the hike (which lasted 7 hours), and ended up giving it to him, along with some Neosporin and band-aids for all of his wounds. I feel a little guilty because I didn’t realize he had never taken western medicine before, and wow did he love ibuprofen! He kept saying “Winnie, I feel like my old self now.” He said in the village they treated his worms with tobacco leaves and other herbs. Even when you are in the hospital here they only give you 100mg of Tylenol because they are so freaking paranoid about people getting addicted. It was funny because at one point Sam said “just one more hill” since I told him I had to get back, and the “hill” was basically a small mountain. Somehow I still kept up with him the whole time and at the end he told me “You are very strong and you can climb Kili no problem.” Now, not that I’m going to climb Kili most likely this year, because it costs about $1,000, but it was really nice to hear him say that. Sam worked as a porter on Kili at 15 when he couldn’t afford school, and is really strong. Ever since I got evacuated (twice!) on the second NOLS trip I did in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I’ve been caring this feeling of failure around, so it was really nice to erase that for a day. Anyways the villages are beautiful, especially the jungle/rivers, but it is hard to see the poverty. Oh, I also went into this big underground dirt tunnel built by the Chagga tribe to hide from the Maasai when they were fighting. There are small vents that they made to lead up to the surface so the could cook, and the actually kept animals down there in the dark. This old Tanzanian man guided me through it and because his flashlight didn’t work he kept lighting matches and holding them up to his face. A little freaky and a little Indiana Jones.
On Wednesday, I took a day off of work (going in Saturday instead), to visit another village, Marangue, which is much more jungle-like because of the higher altitude. Marilyn took me there to meet her close friends that live in the mountains. (She goes back to Oregon on Monday and I am really heartbroken- she is such a good friend). Once we got off the bus it took about an hour walking up these back roads into the jungle to get to their house, where we could see the Usambara mountains. Most houses I saw had a cow or a few chickens, and were made of wood. Very beautiful but poor.
Last week I went back to Arusha to see the street kids with X the social worker and my Swedish friend Asa. This time was a little different- no truck rides into remote Masaai villages, but still great. We mostly played cards with the kids and bought them some bananas, porridge and mandazi (sweet breads). It’s so great to meet these kids. This might sound strange but I think it’s good therapy, in a way, for them to be able to get healthy attention (and not from a stupid tourist who gives them money). It was sad too, a lot of the kids are addicted to glue, which basically costs 20 cents and curbs hunger, but I really love being able to hear their stories. It’s nice that even though we come from such drastically different backgrounds, we can share a bit of time and a bit of our lives together. If that’s not the point of life, then what is? I was able to ask them more questions this time because my Swahili is better, and most of them beg, steal or collect and sell scrap metal to survive. Most are fleeing poverty, starvation, child labor or abuse. Abandonment and death of parents is also prominent.
I’m starting to recognize a lot more of the street kids in Moshi. On Wednesday I saw a kid who was living at Amani a month ago, (his name is Bahati), sitting in the main area of town, alone and staring into space. I recognized him and he said he remembered me from Amani. He’s probably about 9 or 10. I bought him a big bottle of water and a loaf of bread, mostly because I knew he would take it back to his friends. Some people would say this isn’t good, and I agree it’s not something that should be done all the time. But at the same time, these are kids, who have nothing and are always hungry and never completely safe. It’s not something I would do too often because I don’t want kids to come up to me and ask for money and things all the time, but at that moment, seeing this kid I knew with no one helping him or talking to him, I couldn’t just keep walking. Thursday night I also saw about 6 kids, Bahati was one of them, and another kid named Rashidi, hanging out in the center of town where it is safer for them at night. I was really happy to see Rashidi- he used to live at Amani and is probably around 13. He may live on the streets, but somewhere inside of him there is just this goodness that is present when you look at him. He’s also a really sweet artist and I’ve missed seeing him at Amani. Anyways, I’m just happy to see and talk to the kids when I can, because most people apart from the few social workers, really just ignore them. It makes me sad to think that some of them will probably be on the street forever, more will end up addicted to drugs, and others may end up HIV positive and die before they ever know it. Honestly, no one can make a huge difference somewhere in six months or a year or even a few years, but it does make me happy to know these kids and spend some time with them, listen to them, and not make them feel like criminals.
Anyways…most likely heading to the coast next weekend for Easter break. It was nice to get out of Moshi and be in Arusha last week, surprisingly. We went to this bar with a bonfire outside and African huts and a dance floor and a reggae band….which was a pretty nice change from small town life.
Ok, well I hope everything is having a nice spring and thanks for reading.
Kwa upendo wa Africa/With love from Africa,
Whitney
Anyways, I just tried to watch a movie that takes place in LA and had to turn it off. I’ve been watching a lot of pirated American TV shows lately for comfort purposes, but I guess this was just too realistic and the urban-ness was disturbing. It was too weird to see such a different city, even in a movie, and I couldn’t relate to any of the surroundings or the clothes or all the highways and felt really bizarre. I felt the same way looking at a People magazine from the inauguration that had photos of people reacting to Obama being sworn in around the world. The images from Japan, Europe and the U.S. confused me; everything seemed so luxurious and absurdly nice. But the image from Kenya made perfect sense- people standing on the seats of their old bicycles in their brightly colored rubber sandals that everyone wears here, watching TV from a dirt road in a village. Even when I went to Arusha I felt like I was in an urban metropolis. It will be incredibly weird to go back to the U.S..
The rainy season was supposed to start in mid-March, but now it is April and we’ve only had a few days of heavier rains. It seems pretty clear that this is because of global warming and all the deforestation going on around the base of Kili. It’s a bit scary. I don’t really feel forced to think about global warming or food supply when I’m in the U.S., but here a huge majority of people rely on farming for food and for an income. Amani has a shamba (field) near the center but the seeds were all planted weeks ago and nothing is growing. It’s also concerning because vegetables and fruit are by far the cheapest and most readily available food around, not to mention you don’t need to cook them for hours on an open fire like they do with sorghum/millet/maize here, using up fuel and money. Most people here make under $5 a day and Tanzania remains one of the top ten countries in the world with the lowest GDPs. Even nurses make 5,000 shillings per each 8 hour shift; less than 4 dollars a day.
On another note, sometimes transportation here is ridiculous. Today I got in a dala-dala (mini-bus) and every time we stopped the side door fell off. I mean, really? A few months ago this would have been shocking but now I just breathe out and think…typical. Yesterday I went further down the road I walk every day to get to Amani to pick up a little guy’s uniform, out in the sticks. His name is Manuel and another volunteer and I are trying to enroll him in preschool. Anyways, because it is a long freaking walk into the bush and I was going on my own I decided to ask Petro, my coworker who takes care of the grounds, to borrow his bike. Maybe I’m just more naïve than I’d like to admit, but this was not the breeze I thought it would be. The bike was big and heavy and too tall for my feet to touch the ground. To top it off, I kept wiping out. The road is all dirt and rocks…and holes. So I’d hit a few rocks and gradually, or sometimes suddenly, topple over. School kids were not so compassionate about this. And the seamstress wasn’t even there. Awesome. But no cuts or bruises so that’s great- although I no longer want a bike in this country/continent, maybe ever.
On Sunday, I went for a hike with a Tanzanian friend named Samora. He’s a really nice kid who’s in secondary school right now. We walked from my house in town to a village called West Uru where he goes to school in the mountains, to another village Shimbwe, to another village called East Uru, and all the way back to town. Samora was raised by his ancient bibi (grandmother), after his parents abandoned him and his mother died. He told me all about how he had worms all the time as a kid and they would exit his body through his feet. Yeah. Most kids have worms at some point, especially kids like Sam who grow up in houses with dirt floors and don’t own shoes. He told me you’re supposed to cover the ground in your house with hot water but most people don’t do that because they don’t want a muddy house (literally). He really is like a mountain goat the way he walks up hills, but this time I could actually keep up with him because he had a bike accident and had a lot of bruises and open wounds. I had some extra ibuprofen in my pocket because I figured I might be in pain after/during the hike (which lasted 7 hours), and ended up giving it to him, along with some Neosporin and band-aids for all of his wounds. I feel a little guilty because I didn’t realize he had never taken western medicine before, and wow did he love ibuprofen! He kept saying “Winnie, I feel like my old self now.” He said in the village they treated his worms with tobacco leaves and other herbs. Even when you are in the hospital here they only give you 100mg of Tylenol because they are so freaking paranoid about people getting addicted. It was funny because at one point Sam said “just one more hill” since I told him I had to get back, and the “hill” was basically a small mountain. Somehow I still kept up with him the whole time and at the end he told me “You are very strong and you can climb Kili no problem.” Now, not that I’m going to climb Kili most likely this year, because it costs about $1,000, but it was really nice to hear him say that. Sam worked as a porter on Kili at 15 when he couldn’t afford school, and is really strong. Ever since I got evacuated (twice!) on the second NOLS trip I did in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I’ve been caring this feeling of failure around, so it was really nice to erase that for a day. Anyways the villages are beautiful, especially the jungle/rivers, but it is hard to see the poverty. Oh, I also went into this big underground dirt tunnel built by the Chagga tribe to hide from the Maasai when they were fighting. There are small vents that they made to lead up to the surface so the could cook, and the actually kept animals down there in the dark. This old Tanzanian man guided me through it and because his flashlight didn’t work he kept lighting matches and holding them up to his face. A little freaky and a little Indiana Jones.
On Wednesday, I took a day off of work (going in Saturday instead), to visit another village, Marangue, which is much more jungle-like because of the higher altitude. Marilyn took me there to meet her close friends that live in the mountains. (She goes back to Oregon on Monday and I am really heartbroken- she is such a good friend). Once we got off the bus it took about an hour walking up these back roads into the jungle to get to their house, where we could see the Usambara mountains. Most houses I saw had a cow or a few chickens, and were made of wood. Very beautiful but poor.
Last week I went back to Arusha to see the street kids with X the social worker and my Swedish friend Asa. This time was a little different- no truck rides into remote Masaai villages, but still great. We mostly played cards with the kids and bought them some bananas, porridge and mandazi (sweet breads). It’s so great to meet these kids. This might sound strange but I think it’s good therapy, in a way, for them to be able to get healthy attention (and not from a stupid tourist who gives them money). It was sad too, a lot of the kids are addicted to glue, which basically costs 20 cents and curbs hunger, but I really love being able to hear their stories. It’s nice that even though we come from such drastically different backgrounds, we can share a bit of time and a bit of our lives together. If that’s not the point of life, then what is? I was able to ask them more questions this time because my Swahili is better, and most of them beg, steal or collect and sell scrap metal to survive. Most are fleeing poverty, starvation, child labor or abuse. Abandonment and death of parents is also prominent.
I’m starting to recognize a lot more of the street kids in Moshi. On Wednesday I saw a kid who was living at Amani a month ago, (his name is Bahati), sitting in the main area of town, alone and staring into space. I recognized him and he said he remembered me from Amani. He’s probably about 9 or 10. I bought him a big bottle of water and a loaf of bread, mostly because I knew he would take it back to his friends. Some people would say this isn’t good, and I agree it’s not something that should be done all the time. But at the same time, these are kids, who have nothing and are always hungry and never completely safe. It’s not something I would do too often because I don’t want kids to come up to me and ask for money and things all the time, but at that moment, seeing this kid I knew with no one helping him or talking to him, I couldn’t just keep walking. Thursday night I also saw about 6 kids, Bahati was one of them, and another kid named Rashidi, hanging out in the center of town where it is safer for them at night. I was really happy to see Rashidi- he used to live at Amani and is probably around 13. He may live on the streets, but somewhere inside of him there is just this goodness that is present when you look at him. He’s also a really sweet artist and I’ve missed seeing him at Amani. Anyways, I’m just happy to see and talk to the kids when I can, because most people apart from the few social workers, really just ignore them. It makes me sad to think that some of them will probably be on the street forever, more will end up addicted to drugs, and others may end up HIV positive and die before they ever know it. Honestly, no one can make a huge difference somewhere in six months or a year or even a few years, but it does make me happy to know these kids and spend some time with them, listen to them, and not make them feel like criminals.
Anyways…most likely heading to the coast next weekend for Easter break. It was nice to get out of Moshi and be in Arusha last week, surprisingly. We went to this bar with a bonfire outside and African huts and a dance floor and a reggae band….which was a pretty nice change from small town life.
Ok, well I hope everything is having a nice spring and thanks for reading.
Kwa upendo wa Africa/With love from Africa,
Whitney
New mailing address for packages
I have a feeling this mostly applies to my parents, but because of an "incident" at the post office last week, it is better to send anything bigger than an envelope to Amani:
Amani Children's Home
c/o Whitney Hall
PO Box 6515
Moshi, Tanzania
Yea, so basically the post office asked me for a bribe to get my package with running shoes and a hammock in it, and when I refused the locked it up in the customs office and disappeared until I refused to leave 2 hours later at closing time.
Asante,
Whitney
Amani Children's Home
c/o Whitney Hall
PO Box 6515
Moshi, Tanzania
Yea, so basically the post office asked me for a bribe to get my package with running shoes and a hammock in it, and when I refused the locked it up in the customs office and disappeared until I refused to leave 2 hours later at closing time.
Asante,
Whitney
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Blog Update: Life on the other side of the world
So I wrote this about 4 days ago speculating I had malaria again and GUESS what? I do. That’s the second time in 3 weeks! I missed a few days of anti-malarial pills so I guess I just have bad luck and/or am really susceptible to it. This time I only had one parasite in my blood…last time I had more (lovely, yes?) but it was still very crappy and I'm just now starting to feel better.
****
I’m really tired lately and ready for a bit of an escape (hopefully a weekend trip to Mombasa on the coast in Kenya at the end of the month). It might be because I’ve been a little afraid I’m getting malaria again due to the fact that I’ve been having similar symptoms like pain in my upper abdomen and bad nausea, but the problem with malaria is that it’s similar to a lot of other illnesses and difficult to diagnose without a blood test. It could just be that on top of stomach problems and the unrelenting heat, some days, the kids are totally out of control. It helps when I remember that most of them have been abused and unprotected the majority of their lives. It’s hard to imagine not being able to go to your parents for comfort or guidance or what have you at 4 years old for an indefinite period of time. But still, sometimes the watoto (some of whom have started calling me “mother”) are like a wild uncontrollable pack of monkeys. Their hygiene is not very stellar and they usually have to take de-worming pills every month (fyi worms really terrifies me in every way). This week I’ve been trying to be a little tougher on them to teach them better manners because I can’t take the level of aggressive behavior anymore. It’s very different than being at a regular school here because respect for elders and politeness is extremely important in Tanzanian culture. But especially because I’m not fluent in Swahili, they think they can get away with more.
On top of work, living here it’s sometimes difficult to deal with the disconnect between tourism and reality. I think about traveling through Africa as a tourist, choosing what you want to be exposed to and how much; regulating your cultural exchange. Everything appears more exotic and alluring because it is foreign. But to process the culture for a longer period of time is an entirely different experience. There are the more clear cut disturbing scenes like the amount of beggars who have leprosy or the men I see digging through pits of garbage. More often, the smallest things stick out in my mind, like the music stands that sell tapes instead of cds, the phone stalls that sell phones from 5 or so years ago, the used book stand that sells National Geographic magazines from the 1960s (which is actually pretty wonderful), and the open air markets that sell second hand clothes from wealthier countries. I never know what to make of this. On the one hand, it’s almost calming to see people using resources and reducing waste, and I feel like the U.S. could learn a lot from African cultures. On the other hand, I find it weirdly depressing, like why do poorer countries get material things that rich countries throw away; why do they get all the left over crap? A good example is the dala-dalas. They use these Toyota minivans until they literally fall apart. Literally. I’ve gotten on one where the door fell off when I used it as a support to climb in, and seen doors fall off other ones while they’re moving. In the U.S., I usually get a new phone every few years. At least when it comes to clothes, I appreciate the whole “system” here a lot more. I love picking out the fabric, which is hand-made and dyed, deciding on the design, searching out a tailor and seeing the end product. Even though I’m not constructing any of it, I have to think about the article of clothing a lot more and feel more connected with the end product.
On Friday, the kids at Amani worked on the nearby shamba (field or farm), planting seeds before the rains start. I stayed behind to work on the mural I’ve been painting (it’s pretty slow going but it’s basically different animals and Mt. Kilimanjaro). When I think about it, people really use their bodies more here. My Swahili teacher Mama Semiono laughed, loudly, when I asked if there is pain medicine available to women giving birth. This is a woman who birthed five children. Five! Most days, I see people (usually women) caring small trees on their heads or giant bundles of grasses to feed their cows. Women mop the floor on their hands and knees with rags and carry their babies with them on their backs wherever they go. Laundry is done in a bucket, with your hands, and dried in the sun.
Hand in hand with this is the physical process of getting to work. I am about ready to invest in a bicycle or a little motorized bike (in my dreams) although death is a realistic concern. Everyday, I walk 15 minutes or so up-hill through the trees to the roundabout where I get a dala-dala. Usually people try and make conversation with me questioning me to the umpteenth degree or stare at me like an alien. Sometimes people ask me for a job: “Mzungu, do you have a job for me?” Still haven’t mastered the response to that. Then I take the dala-dala through the country, over the river and get off at Magereza, the village where Amani is, which, by the way, means “prison.” This would be because nearby, there is….a prison. Sometimes I see the prisoners working the fields or fixing the roads. Then I pass a small row of dukas (shops) where people again stare at me and I turn down the country road to walk to work. This walk is usually where kids come up to me asking for candy or money (“Give me my money”), because somewhere out there some idiot tourist is handing out money in dirt-poor villages thinking this is a good idea. One day, two preschoolers came up to me and grabbed my hands and started running, and I thought, “What in the hell?” My bag slipped down my arm and one of the little tykes tried to grab it until a big mama yelled at her. I’m mostly glad she didn’t take it because it’d be really embarrassing to explain I was mugged by a five year old. Once in a while on this road, Maasai men are herding their cattle (which one day I thought was peoples’ legs from far away and it freaked me out). Other times perverts come up to me and ask me for “sexy time” or say they love me and hope that I’ll prostitute myself. After all of this (which adds up to about 45 minutes), I am really tired of commuting to work.
In spite of everything involved in this daily commute, which I do twice thank you very much, there are parts of the road where the vegetable fields are the most amazing color green and the sun shines on the workers’ backs in a way that surpasses even the most beautiful paintings. And with this, I forget for a few minutes about the fact that at times I feel more like a symbol of the disparity of wealth in the world than an actual person with a story and an intent.
****
I’m really tired lately and ready for a bit of an escape (hopefully a weekend trip to Mombasa on the coast in Kenya at the end of the month). It might be because I’ve been a little afraid I’m getting malaria again due to the fact that I’ve been having similar symptoms like pain in my upper abdomen and bad nausea, but the problem with malaria is that it’s similar to a lot of other illnesses and difficult to diagnose without a blood test. It could just be that on top of stomach problems and the unrelenting heat, some days, the kids are totally out of control. It helps when I remember that most of them have been abused and unprotected the majority of their lives. It’s hard to imagine not being able to go to your parents for comfort or guidance or what have you at 4 years old for an indefinite period of time. But still, sometimes the watoto (some of whom have started calling me “mother”) are like a wild uncontrollable pack of monkeys. Their hygiene is not very stellar and they usually have to take de-worming pills every month (fyi worms really terrifies me in every way). This week I’ve been trying to be a little tougher on them to teach them better manners because I can’t take the level of aggressive behavior anymore. It’s very different than being at a regular school here because respect for elders and politeness is extremely important in Tanzanian culture. But especially because I’m not fluent in Swahili, they think they can get away with more.
On top of work, living here it’s sometimes difficult to deal with the disconnect between tourism and reality. I think about traveling through Africa as a tourist, choosing what you want to be exposed to and how much; regulating your cultural exchange. Everything appears more exotic and alluring because it is foreign. But to process the culture for a longer period of time is an entirely different experience. There are the more clear cut disturbing scenes like the amount of beggars who have leprosy or the men I see digging through pits of garbage. More often, the smallest things stick out in my mind, like the music stands that sell tapes instead of cds, the phone stalls that sell phones from 5 or so years ago, the used book stand that sells National Geographic magazines from the 1960s (which is actually pretty wonderful), and the open air markets that sell second hand clothes from wealthier countries. I never know what to make of this. On the one hand, it’s almost calming to see people using resources and reducing waste, and I feel like the U.S. could learn a lot from African cultures. On the other hand, I find it weirdly depressing, like why do poorer countries get material things that rich countries throw away; why do they get all the left over crap? A good example is the dala-dalas. They use these Toyota minivans until they literally fall apart. Literally. I’ve gotten on one where the door fell off when I used it as a support to climb in, and seen doors fall off other ones while they’re moving. In the U.S., I usually get a new phone every few years. At least when it comes to clothes, I appreciate the whole “system” here a lot more. I love picking out the fabric, which is hand-made and dyed, deciding on the design, searching out a tailor and seeing the end product. Even though I’m not constructing any of it, I have to think about the article of clothing a lot more and feel more connected with the end product.
On Friday, the kids at Amani worked on the nearby shamba (field or farm), planting seeds before the rains start. I stayed behind to work on the mural I’ve been painting (it’s pretty slow going but it’s basically different animals and Mt. Kilimanjaro). When I think about it, people really use their bodies more here. My Swahili teacher Mama Semiono laughed, loudly, when I asked if there is pain medicine available to women giving birth. This is a woman who birthed five children. Five! Most days, I see people (usually women) caring small trees on their heads or giant bundles of grasses to feed their cows. Women mop the floor on their hands and knees with rags and carry their babies with them on their backs wherever they go. Laundry is done in a bucket, with your hands, and dried in the sun.
Hand in hand with this is the physical process of getting to work. I am about ready to invest in a bicycle or a little motorized bike (in my dreams) although death is a realistic concern. Everyday, I walk 15 minutes or so up-hill through the trees to the roundabout where I get a dala-dala. Usually people try and make conversation with me questioning me to the umpteenth degree or stare at me like an alien. Sometimes people ask me for a job: “Mzungu, do you have a job for me?” Still haven’t mastered the response to that. Then I take the dala-dala through the country, over the river and get off at Magereza, the village where Amani is, which, by the way, means “prison.” This would be because nearby, there is….a prison. Sometimes I see the prisoners working the fields or fixing the roads. Then I pass a small row of dukas (shops) where people again stare at me and I turn down the country road to walk to work. This walk is usually where kids come up to me asking for candy or money (“Give me my money”), because somewhere out there some idiot tourist is handing out money in dirt-poor villages thinking this is a good idea. One day, two preschoolers came up to me and grabbed my hands and started running, and I thought, “What in the hell?” My bag slipped down my arm and one of the little tykes tried to grab it until a big mama yelled at her. I’m mostly glad she didn’t take it because it’d be really embarrassing to explain I was mugged by a five year old. Once in a while on this road, Maasai men are herding their cattle (which one day I thought was peoples’ legs from far away and it freaked me out). Other times perverts come up to me and ask me for “sexy time” or say they love me and hope that I’ll prostitute myself. After all of this (which adds up to about 45 minutes), I am really tired of commuting to work.
In spite of everything involved in this daily commute, which I do twice thank you very much, there are parts of the road where the vegetable fields are the most amazing color green and the sun shines on the workers’ backs in a way that surpasses even the most beautiful paintings. And with this, I forget for a few minutes about the fact that at times I feel more like a symbol of the disparity of wealth in the world than an actual person with a story and an intent.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Blog Update: Marathon Weekend, etc etc
Work life and as a result, things in general, have gotten easier over the past 2 weeks. Although that one chick I was talking about is still not my favorite person, things have smoothed over a bit and she is keeping her distance. I’m hanging in there because I realized that the kids are worth staying around for. This week I’ve been teaching art classes (and one piano lesson), and started drawing a animal mural on the wall of the dining hall which the kids seem to like. Next week, I'll start painting, which will be a lot more chaotic. A lot of the younger kids have a hard time not drawing without copying photos, so I've been doing a lot more craft projects with them like making lion/simba puppets out of paper bags. Last Friday, the entire staff and all the kids cleaned the school. We each got assigned to a different area (mine was the girls bedroom) and scrubbed the walls and the floor, etc. I thought the kids would be pests about the whole thing but they actually had a great attitude about it. None of them were wearing their shoes and they were all sliding back and forth for fun along the floors, which were slippery from the soap and water. I kind of felt like I was in “Anne,” without the music and all the white people.
In domestic news I bought a (dead) chicken last week….eek. It was way too intimate of a process. My good friend Marilyn who works at the local hospital KCMC has a friend who owns 200 chickens (200! How does she ever sleep?!), so a few of us decided to buy 1 each from her for $5. The chicken came frozen with its neck still attached and the head, feet and organs stuffed inside…um, yea. Marilyn took the reins of reaching inside the chicken’s private area. Oy. So first I had to boil those lovely unwanted parts and then give them to our dog and her friends who lounge around outside…otherwise they would have just rotted in our trash pit in the yard and made the dogs sick. Then I roasted the chicken and pried all the edible meat off of it and broke up the carcass and all of the bones into bits under Marilyn’s instructions and fed them to the dogs. Bleh, gross. Protein other than beans is nice and everything but still…
Dogs are really poorly treated here and also feared incredibly. Most people abuse them terribly and only have them around as guards for their property. Sometimes I get woken up by people screaming in the middle of the night because they see a dog. Because of this, the dog living here Luna has started attracting her other neighborhood pals seeking refuge from abusive humans. So we now have 4 dogs in the yard and I feel like I live at an animal shelter (and one of the dogs is covered in flies and fleas.)
Marilyn was supposed to be here until July, but because the economy is so bad her husband has asked her to come back to Portland, so she’ll be leaving in April now. She is a really wonderful person and I’ll miss her terribly…I was actually already dreading having to say goodbye to her and now it’s come too soon.
There were a lot of foreigners here from all around the world as well as all around Africa (especially Kenya and South Africa) last weekend for the annual Kilimanjaro Marathon, which was a really fun community event. I saw a lot of Tanzanians I knew and some of the Amani kids attended the big party in the stadium at the end. It felt really nice to be a part of everything. Moshi was really bustling, which was kind of a nice change from the slow pace. The day of the marathon my roommates and I ran the 5K race (definitely at different paces!) and it was actually really fun! I had planned to walk it because it’s always so freaking hot here and I haven’t run in months, but it was easy to be swept up in all the camaraderie. We ran thru part of town and there were a few bands playing trumpets and things on the sidelines. I felt pretty smooth drinking water from the pit stops whilst still running. The funny thing was, the kids were all so incredibly fast and the marathon runners were running the opposite direction on the same road. Damiono, a 16 year old who lives at Amani, came in 11th place in the 5K. There was also a guy who ran in a lion suit and many people running to raise awareness about Albino Tanzanians being killed or violently attacked because of witch doctors encouraging people that their bones are magical…very sad and a huge issue here.
Tanzanians and Kenyans all came in top places in the half marathon and marathon, and their bodies are incredible to watch in action. The first male marathon runner finished at the same time as many of the half marathoners. How is this physically possible? Some of the first male finishers I saw (although plenty of women ran too), looked like they were about to fall over from exhaustion. One of the western women who finished the half marathon looked like she was approaching 70. What a badass! There was also a kid who was about 9 or 10 who ran the half marathon. Very cool. I took pictures of my co-worker Petro (a Tanzanian), as he came in from the marathon, and hope to make prints this weekend for him. This was his sixth time running the marathon and his shoes are basically converse. Incredible! They were selling nice running shoes at the stadium where everyone ended up for $25 USD and I really wanted him to buy a pair (although this was all in my head). I’m guessing he makes around $100 a month or less, so spending a quarter of your salary on shoes doesn’t make too much sense.
For the most part, I’m really enjoying living here. That’s not to stay that there aren’t some days where I want to flee the country and go to Europe. It’s difficult to always be looked at as different and constantly be asked for something, whether it’s money or candy or what have you. Sometimes when I’m walking down the long dirt road to work I really want everyone to just stop staring already, but I feel really grateful to be living in such a different part of the world. Most Tanzanians I’ve talked to have never left their own country, and Nairobi is an 8-hour bus ride away. This is definitely due to the cost of bus fare and the price of entering a foreign country.
Now it’s the weekend and I’m very happy to pumzika (relax).
Weekend njema!
Whitney (…people keep calling me Witness. This would be because people here have names here like Happiness, Goodluck, Godslove, Loveness, Wisdom, Gellas…and I met a baby named Talent the other day).
In domestic news I bought a (dead) chicken last week….eek. It was way too intimate of a process. My good friend Marilyn who works at the local hospital KCMC has a friend who owns 200 chickens (200! How does she ever sleep?!), so a few of us decided to buy 1 each from her for $5. The chicken came frozen with its neck still attached and the head, feet and organs stuffed inside…um, yea. Marilyn took the reins of reaching inside the chicken’s private area. Oy. So first I had to boil those lovely unwanted parts and then give them to our dog and her friends who lounge around outside…otherwise they would have just rotted in our trash pit in the yard and made the dogs sick. Then I roasted the chicken and pried all the edible meat off of it and broke up the carcass and all of the bones into bits under Marilyn’s instructions and fed them to the dogs. Bleh, gross. Protein other than beans is nice and everything but still…
Dogs are really poorly treated here and also feared incredibly. Most people abuse them terribly and only have them around as guards for their property. Sometimes I get woken up by people screaming in the middle of the night because they see a dog. Because of this, the dog living here Luna has started attracting her other neighborhood pals seeking refuge from abusive humans. So we now have 4 dogs in the yard and I feel like I live at an animal shelter (and one of the dogs is covered in flies and fleas.)
Marilyn was supposed to be here until July, but because the economy is so bad her husband has asked her to come back to Portland, so she’ll be leaving in April now. She is a really wonderful person and I’ll miss her terribly…I was actually already dreading having to say goodbye to her and now it’s come too soon.
There were a lot of foreigners here from all around the world as well as all around Africa (especially Kenya and South Africa) last weekend for the annual Kilimanjaro Marathon, which was a really fun community event. I saw a lot of Tanzanians I knew and some of the Amani kids attended the big party in the stadium at the end. It felt really nice to be a part of everything. Moshi was really bustling, which was kind of a nice change from the slow pace. The day of the marathon my roommates and I ran the 5K race (definitely at different paces!) and it was actually really fun! I had planned to walk it because it’s always so freaking hot here and I haven’t run in months, but it was easy to be swept up in all the camaraderie. We ran thru part of town and there were a few bands playing trumpets and things on the sidelines. I felt pretty smooth drinking water from the pit stops whilst still running. The funny thing was, the kids were all so incredibly fast and the marathon runners were running the opposite direction on the same road. Damiono, a 16 year old who lives at Amani, came in 11th place in the 5K. There was also a guy who ran in a lion suit and many people running to raise awareness about Albino Tanzanians being killed or violently attacked because of witch doctors encouraging people that their bones are magical…very sad and a huge issue here.
Tanzanians and Kenyans all came in top places in the half marathon and marathon, and their bodies are incredible to watch in action. The first male marathon runner finished at the same time as many of the half marathoners. How is this physically possible? Some of the first male finishers I saw (although plenty of women ran too), looked like they were about to fall over from exhaustion. One of the western women who finished the half marathon looked like she was approaching 70. What a badass! There was also a kid who was about 9 or 10 who ran the half marathon. Very cool. I took pictures of my co-worker Petro (a Tanzanian), as he came in from the marathon, and hope to make prints this weekend for him. This was his sixth time running the marathon and his shoes are basically converse. Incredible! They were selling nice running shoes at the stadium where everyone ended up for $25 USD and I really wanted him to buy a pair (although this was all in my head). I’m guessing he makes around $100 a month or less, so spending a quarter of your salary on shoes doesn’t make too much sense.
For the most part, I’m really enjoying living here. That’s not to stay that there aren’t some days where I want to flee the country and go to Europe. It’s difficult to always be looked at as different and constantly be asked for something, whether it’s money or candy or what have you. Sometimes when I’m walking down the long dirt road to work I really want everyone to just stop staring already, but I feel really grateful to be living in such a different part of the world. Most Tanzanians I’ve talked to have never left their own country, and Nairobi is an 8-hour bus ride away. This is definitely due to the cost of bus fare and the price of entering a foreign country.
Now it’s the weekend and I’m very happy to pumzika (relax).
Weekend njema!
Whitney (…people keep calling me Witness. This would be because people here have names here like Happiness, Goodluck, Godslove, Loveness, Wisdom, Gellas…and I met a baby named Talent the other day).
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