Friday, November 6, 2009
Blog Update: Villages, Gunshots and a weekend with Masai
It’s been a hell of a month.
A few weeks ago I went to Arusha for the weekend to see friends and get out of Moshi and while two of us were eating dinner one night two gunshots went off. The first about 75 feet away; the second closer to 20. All the other tourists around us just carried on la-dee-dah like nothing was wrong. I especially liked how a worker at the restaurant just said “oh it’s just the neighbor making sure everyone knows he has a gun.” Sure. To make a long story short, we got home fine but lied down in the back seat to be sure. The cab driver, like most Tanzanians, just kept telling us “no worries,” and my favorite “everyone has a gun in Arusha, it’s so easy!”
*Amani Update*
I also got the chance a little while back to go on a home visit with a social worker and a fourteen-year-old boy at Amani I’m very close with. His family lives two villages or so down the road from Amani, near Bonite, the Coca-Cola bottling plantation. I love seeing the Coca-Cola staff buses along the roads in Moshi since the bus is so ancient it’s a miracle it’s not falling apart, trailing in pieces. I have to say though Coca-Cola really is ingenius. When small shacks/shops decide to sell their products they give them printed signs of the shop’s name in exchange. Plus the transportation among other things. They really have it down. Anyways, it seemed like this village was really built around this bottling plant, which is pretty much out in the sticks. The area is pretty poor- mostly mud huts- and from what I’ve heard there’s a good amount of street kids and alcoholism. When we went to see the boy’s house (mud hut), his parents were absent since his father was at work and his mom was at a funeral (very typical here). We did see instead the mother of a child out on the street who I know who used to be at Amani about four months ago. It was pretty heart breaking since she was clearly drunk so early in the morning and hadn’t seen her son in so long. Her son is a great little artist and addicted to drugs. Since the parents weren’t there we went to visit the little brother at primary school. Because we were in the bush, at one point I looked behind me at the school and literally saw one hundred kids behind me chanting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” which means foreigner or white person. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like a Rolling Stone, and I’m pretty okay with that.
On the walk back the little brother kept saying “tunaenda wote?” or “are we all going back?” It was clear he’d really missed his older brother and wanted to come visit him which isn’t really done. Although of course the following weekend he showed up at Amani to play with bicycles and the next day his father angrily took him back. Unfortunately, I’m sure he was beaten since that’s what’s done here. This entire country is silently crying out for anything resembling a movement against domestic violence. There really is nothing and nowhere anyone can go when they are abused. The police are pretty worthless other than anything outside of bribes, which isn’t fair to say, but it’s mostly true.
By the time we got back the mother had returned (by the way the whole walk back the social worker was trying to get me to agree to marry him- not fun). The mother is blind from years of cooking over smoky fires and from what I can tell can only see shades of light and shapes. She was angry we had brought her son back since before he left he was going down to the river to help fisherman clean fish to sell to make some money for himself and his younger brother since the father was using his money on pombe (beer). This of course brought the boy to tears. The father came home around lunch and in typical Tanzanian fashion the two told the social worker that there are no problems at home. Ten minutes later they were yelling at each other so I took the kids to get a soda. In retaliation the mother stopped cooking for the husband, who refused to give her money to support herself for her disobedience. There were really hard any possessions in the house other some buckets and coals for a fire so I’m really hoping my little friend isn’t being reunified anytime soon without financial assistance and some much needed family counseling. The whole process was really interesting since really, this is what I want to learn about and eventually do.
A lot of the kids behavior has been really erratic lately. They love me one hour, they hate me the next. Many are pissed that I’m leaving them and I don’t blame them. They’re entitled. It must be confusing since I’ve been here close to a year.
There are a few new children this week, although one I’m pretty sure will leave soon. He’s got that look in his eye and it’s easy to see. The littlest one is pretty adorable and in love with the tiny keyboard we received as a donation recently. Personally, I want to chuck that thing out the window. It’s got prerecorded songs like “Jingle Bells” and….oh, wait, one other (!) and the kids love to listen to it on repeat and pretend they’re playing the songs. It was pretty heartbreaking today since I was standing over him and noticed a scar on his arm beneath his t-shirt line. As I pulled up the t-shirt sleeve I saw a cigarette burn (on a child less than ten years old), and four letters including K and L written out on his arm. The terrible part about it was the letters were scars from burns, and he tried to convince me he did it to himself when he can’t write. Whoever this child’s father was essentially branded him as a form of punishment. I’m continually shocked and disgusted on new levels of what humans can do to humans; what adults can do to children.
One of the best parts of my week are Thursday mornings when I go pick up two wonderful kids called Kalisti and Zainabu at a special needs school the next village over. I think they really love that they get to show off their school and have someone come pick them up since people don’t really do that here with kids. Even preschool kids make the long walk alone. Zain has pretty intense ADD sometimes, and let me tell you, they don’t sell daily drugs for that here. She is one slap happy child truly living on her own planet. I call it “The Zai Show” or “The Hurricane.” Anyways, I really love them and walking down the village road alongside the banana trees and the skinny stream and the wandering chickens to go get them is always so fun.
*Lake Natron*
After hearing of Amani’s death last week, I really needed to get away for the weekend and be distracted. Of course, I have still been thinking about him every day and really feel like it wasn’t properly explained to the kids. It’s difficult since they truly are so much more used to death here. It is much much more commonplace. His picture was taken off the website and it’s sort of just not being talked about.
My wonderful friend Anna’s mom and brother (plus girlfriend) are visiting her this week so I decided to go with them this past weekend to Lake Natron. If you’ve seen “Out of Africa,” Lake Natron is mentioned when Meryl Streep’s character ventures with her own safari party to go meet her husband, although it never actually shows the lake. Anna’s boyfriend (Josh) is Tanzania and was able to rent a large SUV for the six of us to drive out there. Of course when we got the car, it turned out the back seat was missing so yours truly sat in the trunk for six hours. It actually wasn’t too bad and I felt like I was in the womb being rocked to sleep on the backcountry road haha…yes, I know that sounds weird. On the way out there the car kept stopping and Josh would have to start it again, and the car was tilting a lot since the road was so crappy, which made Anna’s family less than pleased. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to terrible buses in this country or because I was clueless spacing out in the back, but it seemed like a pretty decent ride. Along the way Masai (kids mostly) kept appearing from across the desert asking us for water, which we had since we brought a few boxes of our own.
The drought that’s going on in this part of the world right now is incredible. I can’t tell you how desperate people were for water and I have never seen so many dying cows in my life. Masai depend on cows for their life and it is said that Masai believe all the cows in the world are their own. It was grim to see half decayed carcasses and cows that weren’t getting up to go to the bathroom, who according to Masai we met, would die the same day or the next. I don’t know how people are living out there, but it’s incredible.
The camp we stayed at was an oasis in the desert with trees and grass, right near an active volcano. We each stayed in a stand up tent with beds inside and lantern light. It was beautiful to wake up in the morning and see goats and sheeps and donkeys grazing on the camp grounds. The bathrooms reminded me of the Flintstones since the sinks were made of rock and the showers were rock covered by Masai blankets. There was a small sort of restaurant open to the elements, all run by Masai.
We took a short walking safari (only a few hours) from the camp ground through dried lava ash, across a river through the Masai bomas (villages) and finally to the lake. It felt so special to be able to walk in Masai country and see things like the bush they use (or the branches) to brush their teeth. The lake was beautiful and filled with pink flamingoes who shy fairly easily away from people. Because of the drought, the lake is much smaller than normal and the salt in the water was drying out the mud. At some point I felt like I was walking across a brownie, sort of crispy on the top and fudgy inside.
That same day we hiked up a canyon through a river to a waterfall. On the way back baboons were crawling up the hills like something out of “The Wizard of Oz” and there was a massive dust storm that at first made us think the volcano might be erupting and then just made me feel like I was traveling in north Africa. The waterfall was very picturesque and reminded me of “Swiss Family Robinson” since you had to lift yourself into one waterfall and then you could walk back to others hidden from plain view. At the end we were able to slide down a rock (a mini water slide) which was more than beautiful.
This all sounds fine and lovely until you hear about what a pain in the keister it was to come home. On the way to the campsite (the first day) we were running on empty for forty minutes or so and just made it in before night fall. Because we were out in no man’s land we had to buy gas through a deal with villagers and I’m pretty sure something was fishy with those forty-five liters of petrol….possibly diluted or dirty. Needless to say, the car broke down two hours outside of Lake Natron on the return trip, in the middle of endless desert. Josh tried fixing the car but I could tell nothing was gonna help this lemon. Luckily since there is only one road to Natron some safari cars passed us and tried to help. Of course, they all had clients and couldn’t really help us for long, and instead told us they’d radio for help. Stupidly not one safari car had a SAT phone which I sort of thought was necessary for trips like those. Eventually an ancient safari car from the 50s or 60s was driving our way and agreed to tow us…..10 kilometers in about an hour…to the next village. By the time we got there I really had to pee and this Masai chick flipped out at me and wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount for using the building that said “toilet.” We then had to pay since the rental car we were ditching was next to her house and she was talking about destroying it in retaliation. Honestly. I also forgot to mention that when we were stranded in the desert for hours Masai came out of nowhere (who did NOT speak Swahili) and were pinching our skin and looking at us like we were total aliens. Eventually I shut my door since I felt like I was on display at the zoo and the started drawing pictures in the dirt on our car. Back in the village, I convinced Josh we ditch this piece of crap rental car and pay these two Tanz dudes to take us to Mtu Mbu- Mosquito River- a village 2 to 3 hours away where there is cell-phone service and paved roads. We all climbed in the trunk of the hollowed out ancient safari car and made the slow crawl back to Mtu Mbu, were we had to get yet another lift to Arusha, at which point it started pouring out of nowhere. The good news is were alive and back in Moshi and we’ve survived.
A few weeks ago I went to Arusha for the weekend to see friends and get out of Moshi and while two of us were eating dinner one night two gunshots went off. The first about 75 feet away; the second closer to 20. All the other tourists around us just carried on la-dee-dah like nothing was wrong. I especially liked how a worker at the restaurant just said “oh it’s just the neighbor making sure everyone knows he has a gun.” Sure. To make a long story short, we got home fine but lied down in the back seat to be sure. The cab driver, like most Tanzanians, just kept telling us “no worries,” and my favorite “everyone has a gun in Arusha, it’s so easy!”
*Amani Update*
I also got the chance a little while back to go on a home visit with a social worker and a fourteen-year-old boy at Amani I’m very close with. His family lives two villages or so down the road from Amani, near Bonite, the Coca-Cola bottling plantation. I love seeing the Coca-Cola staff buses along the roads in Moshi since the bus is so ancient it’s a miracle it’s not falling apart, trailing in pieces. I have to say though Coca-Cola really is ingenius. When small shacks/shops decide to sell their products they give them printed signs of the shop’s name in exchange. Plus the transportation among other things. They really have it down. Anyways, it seemed like this village was really built around this bottling plant, which is pretty much out in the sticks. The area is pretty poor- mostly mud huts- and from what I’ve heard there’s a good amount of street kids and alcoholism. When we went to see the boy’s house (mud hut), his parents were absent since his father was at work and his mom was at a funeral (very typical here). We did see instead the mother of a child out on the street who I know who used to be at Amani about four months ago. It was pretty heart breaking since she was clearly drunk so early in the morning and hadn’t seen her son in so long. Her son is a great little artist and addicted to drugs. Since the parents weren’t there we went to visit the little brother at primary school. Because we were in the bush, at one point I looked behind me at the school and literally saw one hundred kids behind me chanting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” which means foreigner or white person. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like a Rolling Stone, and I’m pretty okay with that.
On the walk back the little brother kept saying “tunaenda wote?” or “are we all going back?” It was clear he’d really missed his older brother and wanted to come visit him which isn’t really done. Although of course the following weekend he showed up at Amani to play with bicycles and the next day his father angrily took him back. Unfortunately, I’m sure he was beaten since that’s what’s done here. This entire country is silently crying out for anything resembling a movement against domestic violence. There really is nothing and nowhere anyone can go when they are abused. The police are pretty worthless other than anything outside of bribes, which isn’t fair to say, but it’s mostly true.
By the time we got back the mother had returned (by the way the whole walk back the social worker was trying to get me to agree to marry him- not fun). The mother is blind from years of cooking over smoky fires and from what I can tell can only see shades of light and shapes. She was angry we had brought her son back since before he left he was going down to the river to help fisherman clean fish to sell to make some money for himself and his younger brother since the father was using his money on pombe (beer). This of course brought the boy to tears. The father came home around lunch and in typical Tanzanian fashion the two told the social worker that there are no problems at home. Ten minutes later they were yelling at each other so I took the kids to get a soda. In retaliation the mother stopped cooking for the husband, who refused to give her money to support herself for her disobedience. There were really hard any possessions in the house other some buckets and coals for a fire so I’m really hoping my little friend isn’t being reunified anytime soon without financial assistance and some much needed family counseling. The whole process was really interesting since really, this is what I want to learn about and eventually do.
A lot of the kids behavior has been really erratic lately. They love me one hour, they hate me the next. Many are pissed that I’m leaving them and I don’t blame them. They’re entitled. It must be confusing since I’ve been here close to a year.
There are a few new children this week, although one I’m pretty sure will leave soon. He’s got that look in his eye and it’s easy to see. The littlest one is pretty adorable and in love with the tiny keyboard we received as a donation recently. Personally, I want to chuck that thing out the window. It’s got prerecorded songs like “Jingle Bells” and….oh, wait, one other (!) and the kids love to listen to it on repeat and pretend they’re playing the songs. It was pretty heartbreaking today since I was standing over him and noticed a scar on his arm beneath his t-shirt line. As I pulled up the t-shirt sleeve I saw a cigarette burn (on a child less than ten years old), and four letters including K and L written out on his arm. The terrible part about it was the letters were scars from burns, and he tried to convince me he did it to himself when he can’t write. Whoever this child’s father was essentially branded him as a form of punishment. I’m continually shocked and disgusted on new levels of what humans can do to humans; what adults can do to children.
One of the best parts of my week are Thursday mornings when I go pick up two wonderful kids called Kalisti and Zainabu at a special needs school the next village over. I think they really love that they get to show off their school and have someone come pick them up since people don’t really do that here with kids. Even preschool kids make the long walk alone. Zain has pretty intense ADD sometimes, and let me tell you, they don’t sell daily drugs for that here. She is one slap happy child truly living on her own planet. I call it “The Zai Show” or “The Hurricane.” Anyways, I really love them and walking down the village road alongside the banana trees and the skinny stream and the wandering chickens to go get them is always so fun.
*Lake Natron*
After hearing of Amani’s death last week, I really needed to get away for the weekend and be distracted. Of course, I have still been thinking about him every day and really feel like it wasn’t properly explained to the kids. It’s difficult since they truly are so much more used to death here. It is much much more commonplace. His picture was taken off the website and it’s sort of just not being talked about.
My wonderful friend Anna’s mom and brother (plus girlfriend) are visiting her this week so I decided to go with them this past weekend to Lake Natron. If you’ve seen “Out of Africa,” Lake Natron is mentioned when Meryl Streep’s character ventures with her own safari party to go meet her husband, although it never actually shows the lake. Anna’s boyfriend (Josh) is Tanzania and was able to rent a large SUV for the six of us to drive out there. Of course when we got the car, it turned out the back seat was missing so yours truly sat in the trunk for six hours. It actually wasn’t too bad and I felt like I was in the womb being rocked to sleep on the backcountry road haha…yes, I know that sounds weird. On the way out there the car kept stopping and Josh would have to start it again, and the car was tilting a lot since the road was so crappy, which made Anna’s family less than pleased. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to terrible buses in this country or because I was clueless spacing out in the back, but it seemed like a pretty decent ride. Along the way Masai (kids mostly) kept appearing from across the desert asking us for water, which we had since we brought a few boxes of our own.
The drought that’s going on in this part of the world right now is incredible. I can’t tell you how desperate people were for water and I have never seen so many dying cows in my life. Masai depend on cows for their life and it is said that Masai believe all the cows in the world are their own. It was grim to see half decayed carcasses and cows that weren’t getting up to go to the bathroom, who according to Masai we met, would die the same day or the next. I don’t know how people are living out there, but it’s incredible.
The camp we stayed at was an oasis in the desert with trees and grass, right near an active volcano. We each stayed in a stand up tent with beds inside and lantern light. It was beautiful to wake up in the morning and see goats and sheeps and donkeys grazing on the camp grounds. The bathrooms reminded me of the Flintstones since the sinks were made of rock and the showers were rock covered by Masai blankets. There was a small sort of restaurant open to the elements, all run by Masai.
We took a short walking safari (only a few hours) from the camp ground through dried lava ash, across a river through the Masai bomas (villages) and finally to the lake. It felt so special to be able to walk in Masai country and see things like the bush they use (or the branches) to brush their teeth. The lake was beautiful and filled with pink flamingoes who shy fairly easily away from people. Because of the drought, the lake is much smaller than normal and the salt in the water was drying out the mud. At some point I felt like I was walking across a brownie, sort of crispy on the top and fudgy inside.
That same day we hiked up a canyon through a river to a waterfall. On the way back baboons were crawling up the hills like something out of “The Wizard of Oz” and there was a massive dust storm that at first made us think the volcano might be erupting and then just made me feel like I was traveling in north Africa. The waterfall was very picturesque and reminded me of “Swiss Family Robinson” since you had to lift yourself into one waterfall and then you could walk back to others hidden from plain view. At the end we were able to slide down a rock (a mini water slide) which was more than beautiful.
This all sounds fine and lovely until you hear about what a pain in the keister it was to come home. On the way to the campsite (the first day) we were running on empty for forty minutes or so and just made it in before night fall. Because we were out in no man’s land we had to buy gas through a deal with villagers and I’m pretty sure something was fishy with those forty-five liters of petrol….possibly diluted or dirty. Needless to say, the car broke down two hours outside of Lake Natron on the return trip, in the middle of endless desert. Josh tried fixing the car but I could tell nothing was gonna help this lemon. Luckily since there is only one road to Natron some safari cars passed us and tried to help. Of course, they all had clients and couldn’t really help us for long, and instead told us they’d radio for help. Stupidly not one safari car had a SAT phone which I sort of thought was necessary for trips like those. Eventually an ancient safari car from the 50s or 60s was driving our way and agreed to tow us…..10 kilometers in about an hour…to the next village. By the time we got there I really had to pee and this Masai chick flipped out at me and wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount for using the building that said “toilet.” We then had to pay since the rental car we were ditching was next to her house and she was talking about destroying it in retaliation. Honestly. I also forgot to mention that when we were stranded in the desert for hours Masai came out of nowhere (who did NOT speak Swahili) and were pinching our skin and looking at us like we were total aliens. Eventually I shut my door since I felt like I was on display at the zoo and the started drawing pictures in the dirt on our car. Back in the village, I convinced Josh we ditch this piece of crap rental car and pay these two Tanz dudes to take us to Mtu Mbu- Mosquito River- a village 2 to 3 hours away where there is cell-phone service and paved roads. We all climbed in the trunk of the hollowed out ancient safari car and made the slow crawl back to Mtu Mbu, were we had to get yet another lift to Arusha, at which point it started pouring out of nowhere. The good news is were alive and back in Moshi and we’ve survived.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Blog Update: Goodbye Amani Eduardi.
Saying goodbye is difficult. Saying goodbye to a child whose life ended much too soon is something that cannot be described with words. This week, Amani Eduardi, along with three of his friends living on the street, traveled by bus to Dar to try life there. Dar is a much bigger city where more money can be made. All of the kids had been to the center but Amani had spent the most time there. This whole year he’s been in and out, in and out. At some point he’d always return a few months later after running back to the street. I don’t know Amani’s story, but I felt like I knew who he was for the short period he stayed (one month at a time).
Amani, fourteen, died in a bus accident this week. His friends survived. I look at his photograph and feel beaten. I wanted him to have so many things and for some reason I always hoped he would pull through. Life is not easy here and it’s sometimes possible to lose sight of that. It’s terrible to think that more kids I know might die before me, might die before adulthood. I feel sick and shocked and saddened all at once so that it makes me not feel anything. I know Amani had a difficult life but he was always so appreciative and joyful. His eyes expressed such raw emotions that can’t possibly be revealed unless someone has experienced so much they do not have the energy to consciously conceal their state of mind.
To Amani Eduardi I say: I’ll miss you. I’ll miss seeing you. I’ll miss drawing with you; spending time with you. I hope you found some peace in your last few moments and I hope you know you will be remembered. Most of all I hope you know this is not your fault. While many people look down on children living on the street, I admire you for escaping a situation that felt unsafe. Not everyone is brave enough to do that. And I admire you for still embracing your childhood after everything that happened. I wish you could have grown up and finished school. I wish you could have had many things. I’m glad I got to meet you and I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m not sure what I believe in; all I know is that I don’t know much at all. I think atheists are as stubborn as fundamentalists, and stubbornness never solved anything. If I believe in one thing, it’s that a person’s spirit stays with us long after they’re gone. I think it’s what you do with this person’s influence that determines whether you’ll continue to change your life for the better. Amani: we’re thinking of you and you are loved.
Amani, fourteen, died in a bus accident this week. His friends survived. I look at his photograph and feel beaten. I wanted him to have so many things and for some reason I always hoped he would pull through. Life is not easy here and it’s sometimes possible to lose sight of that. It’s terrible to think that more kids I know might die before me, might die before adulthood. I feel sick and shocked and saddened all at once so that it makes me not feel anything. I know Amani had a difficult life but he was always so appreciative and joyful. His eyes expressed such raw emotions that can’t possibly be revealed unless someone has experienced so much they do not have the energy to consciously conceal their state of mind.
To Amani Eduardi I say: I’ll miss you. I’ll miss seeing you. I’ll miss drawing with you; spending time with you. I hope you found some peace in your last few moments and I hope you know you will be remembered. Most of all I hope you know this is not your fault. While many people look down on children living on the street, I admire you for escaping a situation that felt unsafe. Not everyone is brave enough to do that. And I admire you for still embracing your childhood after everything that happened. I wish you could have grown up and finished school. I wish you could have had many things. I’m glad I got to meet you and I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m not sure what I believe in; all I know is that I don’t know much at all. I think atheists are as stubborn as fundamentalists, and stubbornness never solved anything. If I believe in one thing, it’s that a person’s spirit stays with us long after they’re gone. I think it’s what you do with this person’s influence that determines whether you’ll continue to change your life for the better. Amani: we’re thinking of you and you are loved.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Blog Update: Cheeky rat invasion and other news
Our house has turned into a fancy campground. And by this I mean that we haven’t had power in 4 days so all six of us are sharing the propane stove. On the plus side we are really contributing to the East African candle and match industry. A big percentage of Tanzanians don’t have electricity so I’m a wuss to complain but I’m spoiled and appreciate the spoils I’m spoiled by. The dogs have chewed a giant hole where the butt goes on the hammock and we also have a massive colony of rats living in our roof that sounds like WWF-Rat at night. We wanted to believe it was lizards, but no. Apparently, the bastards have been playing with the wires attached to the electricity meter accelerating the measuring process, which explains why our electricity bill was so high last month.
Luckily when the fundi was over at the house investigating the rat sabotage situation, me and my new roommates Max and Zahra went for a hike in Marangu (a village at the foot of Kili.) It’s a lot cooler up there and very green, with banana trees and coffee plans everywhere. The waterfall we hiked to (Nduru) with a guide named Frank, was really beautiful. We walked through residential areas first with small farms and then reached the top of the river valley where there were some hiking sticks. Other than a german couple we passed on the way down, we were the only ones there. The jungle was so beautiful colored with every different type of green you can imagine. The way down was pretty steep and on the way back I felt like I might pass out with the altitude change. It was raining off and on during the hike, which felt really wonderful to walk in. The rain let up when we reached the 80 or so foot fall where we decided to go swimming. The water was cold but bearable and swimming under the fall made my heart beat and beat and beat faster than I can remember.
Amani update:
This week is my last week at Amani without my replacement. Scary! I’ve been so sad for months thinking about this but now I actually feel ready to move on. This week was fun- we drew hippos and watering holes and street scenes. I’ve learned a lot and love many of the kids but I’m burnt out. I’m unsure about the future. I do feel like I am much more creative now, or can at least think of new ideas quickly. I applied for a job in Arusha and got an email last week about having an interview but don’t know how I feel about it. I also don’t really have a desire to live in Arusha. Anna has become a really amazing friend here and is like a sister to me so I’ll be incredibly sad to say goodbye to her. Either way I’d really like to do more with street children issues in Tanzania and would love to come back and do some research in Dar sooner rather than later. My dream would be for someone, maybe me maybe not, to develop a drop-in center for street kids where they can get a shower, rest, eat a meal, and play some games. It would be great too if there was an addiction specialist and a psychologist- I would want any kid to be able to come in off the street but in order to use the facilities they’d have to talk to the psychologist first. I don’t know how realistic that is. There should also be some first aid supplies and someone there to chaperone sick kids to nearby clinics for malaria/STI tests. I would also want a literacy program and some vocational training classes. This is just the dream in my head but there is really no place like this in this area.
In other news my darling Ibrahim Simon came back on Thursday. I didn’t want to come in because some of the kids have been so rude lately, but when Anna called to tell me he was back it was a no-brainer. I had written him a letter and we ate juice and cookies together. This probably isn’t really encouraged since the kids are usually punished for running away but he’s a child and I love him. (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be a kind of crappy social worker). Anyways, Anna took him to the clinic the next day and it turns out he has really bad malaria from a week sleeping out on the street so it’s good she caught it in time. David, the kid with the toxic urine, actually has schistosimasis (SPPPP), the disease you get in poorer countries from bugs that live in dirty water crawling into intact skin, etc. So it turns out those idiots at the clinic didn’t need to order all those shots for him. The nurses were terrible at giving him his injections and used the biggest needle I’d ever seen on any child or adult, jammed right into the vein. Poor David was miserable and I wanted to body slam the nurse who told him there was no reason he should be crying. Another one of the kids has had swollen limbs and especially feet for the past few months especially and when I asked him, he said it’s been bothering him for a year. The clinic gave him medicine, which of course hasn’t been working, so he needs to go to KCMC for more tests this week with Anna. It’s possible his liver is failing. We hope it’s not too serious, but something is really wrong with him.
Anna has been working incredibly hard and I really feel like she is sort of taken advantage of as a volunteer. She’s the nurse right now! She, another volunteer Peter and I were all talking and we’re interesting in setting up a dental fund for the kids. This wasn’t very well received but I really think it should be implemented. It was all Anna’s idea after she took a kid to what sounds like the worst dentist ever and instead of doing a root canal for 70,000 shillings they pulled his tooth out for 2,000 because Amani couldn’t pay. Of course, they numbed his tooth and didn’t wait long enough so the numbing kicked in after the agony. There’s also another girl that needs braces and more kids that need teeth pulled. The kids don’t have any annual dental check-up at all, and many of their teeth are deteriorating due to poor water quality in villages and in Arusha.
Unfortunately, on Friday when I took a day off because some of the kids’ behavior has been truly awful, a girl who had been kicked out of Amani and sent home to her village showed back up at the front gates. Because she abused the other children she is not allowed to come back to Amani but apparently told Anna that her family murdered her grandmother in front of her and then blamed her when the police showed up. Both she and her family have serious mental problems so I’m not sure how much to believe, but whatever happened she is traumatized and alone with nowhere to go and no school or home that will take her. As Anna said, her life is ending in her early teens and it’s awful. No matter what she’s done, it’s an injustice that help cannot be found and I’m fearful that she’ll turn to prostitution.
That's it for now...the new art volunteer gets here this week! Crazy. Tomorrow I'm going on a home visit with a social worker to see where my best friend Zacharia is from. I love love love him and I'm a little apprehensive about seeing his home situation. I hope it's not too disheartening.
Hope everyone is enjoying the fall...
Luckily when the fundi was over at the house investigating the rat sabotage situation, me and my new roommates Max and Zahra went for a hike in Marangu (a village at the foot of Kili.) It’s a lot cooler up there and very green, with banana trees and coffee plans everywhere. The waterfall we hiked to (Nduru) with a guide named Frank, was really beautiful. We walked through residential areas first with small farms and then reached the top of the river valley where there were some hiking sticks. Other than a german couple we passed on the way down, we were the only ones there. The jungle was so beautiful colored with every different type of green you can imagine. The way down was pretty steep and on the way back I felt like I might pass out with the altitude change. It was raining off and on during the hike, which felt really wonderful to walk in. The rain let up when we reached the 80 or so foot fall where we decided to go swimming. The water was cold but bearable and swimming under the fall made my heart beat and beat and beat faster than I can remember.
Amani update:
This week is my last week at Amani without my replacement. Scary! I’ve been so sad for months thinking about this but now I actually feel ready to move on. This week was fun- we drew hippos and watering holes and street scenes. I’ve learned a lot and love many of the kids but I’m burnt out. I’m unsure about the future. I do feel like I am much more creative now, or can at least think of new ideas quickly. I applied for a job in Arusha and got an email last week about having an interview but don’t know how I feel about it. I also don’t really have a desire to live in Arusha. Anna has become a really amazing friend here and is like a sister to me so I’ll be incredibly sad to say goodbye to her. Either way I’d really like to do more with street children issues in Tanzania and would love to come back and do some research in Dar sooner rather than later. My dream would be for someone, maybe me maybe not, to develop a drop-in center for street kids where they can get a shower, rest, eat a meal, and play some games. It would be great too if there was an addiction specialist and a psychologist- I would want any kid to be able to come in off the street but in order to use the facilities they’d have to talk to the psychologist first. I don’t know how realistic that is. There should also be some first aid supplies and someone there to chaperone sick kids to nearby clinics for malaria/STI tests. I would also want a literacy program and some vocational training classes. This is just the dream in my head but there is really no place like this in this area.
In other news my darling Ibrahim Simon came back on Thursday. I didn’t want to come in because some of the kids have been so rude lately, but when Anna called to tell me he was back it was a no-brainer. I had written him a letter and we ate juice and cookies together. This probably isn’t really encouraged since the kids are usually punished for running away but he’s a child and I love him. (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be a kind of crappy social worker). Anyways, Anna took him to the clinic the next day and it turns out he has really bad malaria from a week sleeping out on the street so it’s good she caught it in time. David, the kid with the toxic urine, actually has schistosimasis (SPPPP), the disease you get in poorer countries from bugs that live in dirty water crawling into intact skin, etc. So it turns out those idiots at the clinic didn’t need to order all those shots for him. The nurses were terrible at giving him his injections and used the biggest needle I’d ever seen on any child or adult, jammed right into the vein. Poor David was miserable and I wanted to body slam the nurse who told him there was no reason he should be crying. Another one of the kids has had swollen limbs and especially feet for the past few months especially and when I asked him, he said it’s been bothering him for a year. The clinic gave him medicine, which of course hasn’t been working, so he needs to go to KCMC for more tests this week with Anna. It’s possible his liver is failing. We hope it’s not too serious, but something is really wrong with him.
Anna has been working incredibly hard and I really feel like she is sort of taken advantage of as a volunteer. She’s the nurse right now! She, another volunteer Peter and I were all talking and we’re interesting in setting up a dental fund for the kids. This wasn’t very well received but I really think it should be implemented. It was all Anna’s idea after she took a kid to what sounds like the worst dentist ever and instead of doing a root canal for 70,000 shillings they pulled his tooth out for 2,000 because Amani couldn’t pay. Of course, they numbed his tooth and didn’t wait long enough so the numbing kicked in after the agony. There’s also another girl that needs braces and more kids that need teeth pulled. The kids don’t have any annual dental check-up at all, and many of their teeth are deteriorating due to poor water quality in villages and in Arusha.
Unfortunately, on Friday when I took a day off because some of the kids’ behavior has been truly awful, a girl who had been kicked out of Amani and sent home to her village showed back up at the front gates. Because she abused the other children she is not allowed to come back to Amani but apparently told Anna that her family murdered her grandmother in front of her and then blamed her when the police showed up. Both she and her family have serious mental problems so I’m not sure how much to believe, but whatever happened she is traumatized and alone with nowhere to go and no school or home that will take her. As Anna said, her life is ending in her early teens and it’s awful. No matter what she’s done, it’s an injustice that help cannot be found and I’m fearful that she’ll turn to prostitution.
That's it for now...the new art volunteer gets here this week! Crazy. Tomorrow I'm going on a home visit with a social worker to see where my best friend Zacharia is from. I love love love him and I'm a little apprehensive about seeing his home situation. I hope it's not too disheartening.
Hope everyone is enjoying the fall...
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Hearts and Health
The Big Picture:
My departure is becoming more real. And I’m scared. In some ways I’m looking forward to certain things. I started making a list to give myself a more positive perspective: being able to talk to friends on the phone or in person, seeing doctors who don’t ask me for gifts from America, smoothies and sandwiches and driving and bookstores. Pie. Sterilized bathrooms and doctors’ offices. I’m still scared, but it helps. Today is October 2nd and the new art teacher at Amani arrives October 15th. I’m terrified of this because it will make my departure real. The kids will know I’m leaving them and I don’t want to. I know at some point, I have to move on. I have to get paid and be an adult. I do get tired and burnt out here more intensely than in the U.S. but I feel like I live here now. My life is here and it will be so hard to pack up and go. I want to come back as soon as I can, but still it will never be the same as living here. There have been times where things have been really difficult at work and just day-to-day, but in some days I feel like I’m just getting started. I look around at the kids and think, what will I do when I have to leave you? Life will certainly feel emptier. Multiple kids have become like surrogate children to me. It’s beautiful but heartbreaking to be told I am their mother. I hope to be in a loving relationship some day and I would be surprised if I didn’t adopt, but right now, in these moments, being with these children is enough. I feel guilty for leaving. I like myself less.
The thought of going back to the U.S. (so far away) where I may not find a job is difficult as well. Even so, I’m thankful I’m not from here. Maybe that sounds awful. It’s incredibly beautiful and resourceful and conservative and I want to come back immediately, but life here is incredibly hard. Kids begin to scrub and soak and carry bucketfuls of water on their heads by the time they are in preschool. It’s a wonder they don’t have arthritis by the time their twenty. And the women. The women are one thousand times stronger than I am or ever will be. Imagine giving birth eight times with no option of pain killers, ever. Eight sets of arms and legs and shoulders. Eight little donut-shaped butts to clean. Seventy-two months of pregnancy. PREGNANCY. Cleaning, cooking, children, farming, sewing. It’s really close to incredible. It’s hard to keep in mind the big picture and stay positive when I know how hard it will be to break away, but at least if I have to leave I can appreciate my luxuries a little more.
*****
Updates:
This week was a mighty long one. Since the nurse is not here for three weeks, my friend Anna has taken her place. Mind you, she’s a volunteer. She’s been working twelve-hour days and on Tuesday I helped her to take eight kids to the clinic for malaria tests, stomach spasms, etc. Along with that, today we went back to the clinic with kids (but really, Anna has had to go multiple times a day every day this week). Did I mention, she’s a volunteer? One kid’s urine is so toxic he has to get shots twice a day. I don’t know how that happened but he has lived on the street for a while. His friends also all went back to the streets and took his clothes, so he now owns one Bart Simpson t-shirt and one incredibly tight pair of blue pants that look like they are for someone half his size. The storekeeper at Amani is out of pants and shirts for the older kids so I gave him a pair of sweats I don’t really need. The injections look so painful and he’s so tough, yet he still asked me at the end of the day today when the toys and games would be taken out again. He’s still a child inside.
Anna and I went to immigration today since some agents stopped by Amani to check our papers, and we both realized that even though we have resident permits we don’t have the resident stamp you need inside your passport. Bleh. By two o’clock all was well as we were heading back to Amani along the main highway from town when we saw one of the Amani boys walking down the road. Anna miraculously spotted him so we turned the taxi around and got out to talk with him. I talked to one of the street educators over the phone hoping he would have some words of advice for Frank but he was busy at the main hospital and instead told me “You know what to do, you can do it.” This was a little overwhelming. This is not my culture or my language. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Tanzanian boy without a family. The taxi driver helped us talk him into going back to Amani and Frank admitted he likes school (and is a great artist). At first he was pretty against the idea but slowly started to warm up. Apparently he was fighting with another boy who hit him. Who knows what really happened, but I do know his eyes looked very lost. Two younger boys left earlier this week, which has been really difficult. I love them both, and one in particular, Ibrahim, is the most well-behaved, kindest child at Amani. He’s young and scrawny and kids pick on him because he is so helpful to teachers. The thought of him out on the street is painful. Every morning he would greet me with a big hug and a “Good morning, Whitney!”. I don’t know what happened, but something must have gone wrong to force a child to leave his home and his school. He absolutely loves being in school. Frank claimed he knew where the two boys were so we turned the taxi back around and went into town to explore. I know one of the boys (Bahati…which ironically means lucky) living on the Moshi streets, who is sadly very addicted to glue and will probably stay on the street for years to come. He came to Amani once this year but only lasted a week, and considering there is no drug rehabilitation program in this country for any age group, he doesn’t have a lot of hope. I visit him sometimes and buy him bread or juice. He only looks around ten but I’m sure he’s older. Anyways, he and his friend Nemes were the only ones we saw, and I had already visited them this week to look for the two missing boys. There’s been no sign of Ibrahim or his friend Baracka, but I am thinking of them constantly and hope to see them soon. *
All and all it was quite a busy day/week and ended with me holding Zacharia’s hands as Peter, another volunteer, drained a giant sore in his knee. At this point at Amani, I am closest to Zacharia. He’s fourteen and came to Amani around the same time I did. His father is abusive and his mother is blind but his energy is so contagious and his love of life. He’s my friend and my family and I would give my life for him if it came down to it. I love him with my whole heart and that’s not an easy task. I remember reading this quote once that said something like children teach you how to love and how much love resides within you to share with others. It’s very true.
Oh also! I saw a monkey at my house in the front yard for the first time. And a wonderful little kitten who I was hoping to take home and feel sardines and milk too was taken by a crazy man. The kitten followed me home from the garden down the road from our house and I was trying to get him to jump in my purse since he was scared of our dogs but alas, he was captured.
* Anna and I went to Arusha for the day on Saturday with our new roommates. We saw former Amani kids who live in Arusha now (they’ve graduated), but no sign of Ibrahim or Baracka.
My departure is becoming more real. And I’m scared. In some ways I’m looking forward to certain things. I started making a list to give myself a more positive perspective: being able to talk to friends on the phone or in person, seeing doctors who don’t ask me for gifts from America, smoothies and sandwiches and driving and bookstores. Pie. Sterilized bathrooms and doctors’ offices. I’m still scared, but it helps. Today is October 2nd and the new art teacher at Amani arrives October 15th. I’m terrified of this because it will make my departure real. The kids will know I’m leaving them and I don’t want to. I know at some point, I have to move on. I have to get paid and be an adult. I do get tired and burnt out here more intensely than in the U.S. but I feel like I live here now. My life is here and it will be so hard to pack up and go. I want to come back as soon as I can, but still it will never be the same as living here. There have been times where things have been really difficult at work and just day-to-day, but in some days I feel like I’m just getting started. I look around at the kids and think, what will I do when I have to leave you? Life will certainly feel emptier. Multiple kids have become like surrogate children to me. It’s beautiful but heartbreaking to be told I am their mother. I hope to be in a loving relationship some day and I would be surprised if I didn’t adopt, but right now, in these moments, being with these children is enough. I feel guilty for leaving. I like myself less.
The thought of going back to the U.S. (so far away) where I may not find a job is difficult as well. Even so, I’m thankful I’m not from here. Maybe that sounds awful. It’s incredibly beautiful and resourceful and conservative and I want to come back immediately, but life here is incredibly hard. Kids begin to scrub and soak and carry bucketfuls of water on their heads by the time they are in preschool. It’s a wonder they don’t have arthritis by the time their twenty. And the women. The women are one thousand times stronger than I am or ever will be. Imagine giving birth eight times with no option of pain killers, ever. Eight sets of arms and legs and shoulders. Eight little donut-shaped butts to clean. Seventy-two months of pregnancy. PREGNANCY. Cleaning, cooking, children, farming, sewing. It’s really close to incredible. It’s hard to keep in mind the big picture and stay positive when I know how hard it will be to break away, but at least if I have to leave I can appreciate my luxuries a little more.
*****
Updates:
This week was a mighty long one. Since the nurse is not here for three weeks, my friend Anna has taken her place. Mind you, she’s a volunteer. She’s been working twelve-hour days and on Tuesday I helped her to take eight kids to the clinic for malaria tests, stomach spasms, etc. Along with that, today we went back to the clinic with kids (but really, Anna has had to go multiple times a day every day this week). Did I mention, she’s a volunteer? One kid’s urine is so toxic he has to get shots twice a day. I don’t know how that happened but he has lived on the street for a while. His friends also all went back to the streets and took his clothes, so he now owns one Bart Simpson t-shirt and one incredibly tight pair of blue pants that look like they are for someone half his size. The storekeeper at Amani is out of pants and shirts for the older kids so I gave him a pair of sweats I don’t really need. The injections look so painful and he’s so tough, yet he still asked me at the end of the day today when the toys and games would be taken out again. He’s still a child inside.
Anna and I went to immigration today since some agents stopped by Amani to check our papers, and we both realized that even though we have resident permits we don’t have the resident stamp you need inside your passport. Bleh. By two o’clock all was well as we were heading back to Amani along the main highway from town when we saw one of the Amani boys walking down the road. Anna miraculously spotted him so we turned the taxi around and got out to talk with him. I talked to one of the street educators over the phone hoping he would have some words of advice for Frank but he was busy at the main hospital and instead told me “You know what to do, you can do it.” This was a little overwhelming. This is not my culture or my language. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Tanzanian boy without a family. The taxi driver helped us talk him into going back to Amani and Frank admitted he likes school (and is a great artist). At first he was pretty against the idea but slowly started to warm up. Apparently he was fighting with another boy who hit him. Who knows what really happened, but I do know his eyes looked very lost. Two younger boys left earlier this week, which has been really difficult. I love them both, and one in particular, Ibrahim, is the most well-behaved, kindest child at Amani. He’s young and scrawny and kids pick on him because he is so helpful to teachers. The thought of him out on the street is painful. Every morning he would greet me with a big hug and a “Good morning, Whitney!”. I don’t know what happened, but something must have gone wrong to force a child to leave his home and his school. He absolutely loves being in school. Frank claimed he knew where the two boys were so we turned the taxi back around and went into town to explore. I know one of the boys (Bahati…which ironically means lucky) living on the Moshi streets, who is sadly very addicted to glue and will probably stay on the street for years to come. He came to Amani once this year but only lasted a week, and considering there is no drug rehabilitation program in this country for any age group, he doesn’t have a lot of hope. I visit him sometimes and buy him bread or juice. He only looks around ten but I’m sure he’s older. Anyways, he and his friend Nemes were the only ones we saw, and I had already visited them this week to look for the two missing boys. There’s been no sign of Ibrahim or his friend Baracka, but I am thinking of them constantly and hope to see them soon. *
All and all it was quite a busy day/week and ended with me holding Zacharia’s hands as Peter, another volunteer, drained a giant sore in his knee. At this point at Amani, I am closest to Zacharia. He’s fourteen and came to Amani around the same time I did. His father is abusive and his mother is blind but his energy is so contagious and his love of life. He’s my friend and my family and I would give my life for him if it came down to it. I love him with my whole heart and that’s not an easy task. I remember reading this quote once that said something like children teach you how to love and how much love resides within you to share with others. It’s very true.
Oh also! I saw a monkey at my house in the front yard for the first time. And a wonderful little kitten who I was hoping to take home and feel sardines and milk too was taken by a crazy man. The kitten followed me home from the garden down the road from our house and I was trying to get him to jump in my purse since he was scared of our dogs but alas, he was captured.
* Anna and I went to Arusha for the day on Saturday with our new roommates. We saw former Amani kids who live in Arusha now (they’ve graduated), but no sign of Ibrahim or Baracka.
My beef with the Peace Corps Tanzania
I have to say, without trying to be a rain cloud, Peace Corps people (at least in this country) really rub me the wrong way. I know that that’s pretty much a gross generalization, blah blah blah….but I don’t care. They always try to play the p-card (p as in poverty) “oh my life is so tough I live in a village.” Dude. You get stipends, you get to travel, you get time off, you get paid thousands of dollars at the end. The villages (at least the ones I know about) are incredibly beautiful. I’m not playing the p-card and I drained the majority of my savings to come here. It sucks but the sacrifice was worth it. I think I’m mainly just annoyed because they act like an elite club and isn’t that the opposite of the point PC is trying to make? I also am not really a fan of JFK’s foreign policy (Bay of Pigs, anyone? Anyone?), which I always think of when I think of the PC (since he started it). Maybe they’re apples and oranges, whatever. So yea, I’m a little biased. At least it exists and they try to do wonderful things and no one’s perfect, lord knows.
I’m sure this sounds bitchy but imagine you’re me. You’ve lived here for nine months- not an eternity but not a tourist jaunt. Enough time to grow a baby inside your phantom uterus. You work with locals, you speak the language and you’ve finally stopped getting harassed in town because you look like you know where you’re going (oh sweet sweet victory!). It just makes it doubly insulting when these Peace Corps people who have been “at the site” for three months think they know how it all works here and say, like tonight, talk on and on in my face drunkenly about how tough they are. I mean, just because I’m white and not PC I don’t know what I’m doing? It’s also insulting to the people that live here. A person can live in a village for two or three years here and still not fully know what life is like for the people living in these isolated rural communities. Maybe they’ve lived there, but have they grown up there? Have they made families there? No. It’s possible I’m just bitter because when I meet PC volunteers they always assume I’ve only been here a few weeks and I always want to tell them to shut their pie hole. I guess it’s just frustrating because you can make a difference anywhere, it doesn’t have to be in East Africa or Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t have to be with the poorest of the poor. But if all people get out of helping others is bragging rights, then what’s the point? If that greater message is missing, then it’s all in vain. I feel pretty proud sometimes that I’ve gone out into the streets and met kids and criminals. I love that some of the Amani kids have become my best friends (and they’re fourteen). It feels liberating to bridge those connections, but I also think it’s so so important to keep in mind that what I feel lucky for is this window of observation and eventual interaction that I’ve been granted. In no way can that experience be romanticized because the lives of the kids, the criminals, the scavengers, are their own. Others can’t claim them. And the Peace Corps, volunteering, it’s definitely romanticized. If I don’t come out of my experience with a greater understanding of the unknown, then the lesson has been lost. If all I think about it is me and what I’ve done at the end of this, then I’ve failed. That’s not the point. I think the point is gaining a greater understanding of the human condition, of the relationships we make, the lives of others and what we choose to do in those seconds before our choices are made.
I’m sure this sounds bitchy but imagine you’re me. You’ve lived here for nine months- not an eternity but not a tourist jaunt. Enough time to grow a baby inside your phantom uterus. You work with locals, you speak the language and you’ve finally stopped getting harassed in town because you look like you know where you’re going (oh sweet sweet victory!). It just makes it doubly insulting when these Peace Corps people who have been “at the site” for three months think they know how it all works here and say, like tonight, talk on and on in my face drunkenly about how tough they are. I mean, just because I’m white and not PC I don’t know what I’m doing? It’s also insulting to the people that live here. A person can live in a village for two or three years here and still not fully know what life is like for the people living in these isolated rural communities. Maybe they’ve lived there, but have they grown up there? Have they made families there? No. It’s possible I’m just bitter because when I meet PC volunteers they always assume I’ve only been here a few weeks and I always want to tell them to shut their pie hole. I guess it’s just frustrating because you can make a difference anywhere, it doesn’t have to be in East Africa or Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t have to be with the poorest of the poor. But if all people get out of helping others is bragging rights, then what’s the point? If that greater message is missing, then it’s all in vain. I feel pretty proud sometimes that I’ve gone out into the streets and met kids and criminals. I love that some of the Amani kids have become my best friends (and they’re fourteen). It feels liberating to bridge those connections, but I also think it’s so so important to keep in mind that what I feel lucky for is this window of observation and eventual interaction that I’ve been granted. In no way can that experience be romanticized because the lives of the kids, the criminals, the scavengers, are their own. Others can’t claim them. And the Peace Corps, volunteering, it’s definitely romanticized. If I don’t come out of my experience with a greater understanding of the unknown, then the lesson has been lost. If all I think about it is me and what I’ve done at the end of this, then I’ve failed. That’s not the point. I think the point is gaining a greater understanding of the human condition, of the relationships we make, the lives of others and what we choose to do in those seconds before our choices are made.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Blog Update: Manual labor and white sand beaches
I’ve been out of touch for a while…so here it goes:
Right now I’ve been nursing the flu for a while, which is unfortunate because the weather is changing and it is now blazing hot in East Africa again with wind and dust. I also had a bad infection over the weekend which gave me fever and chills. This country…. Anyways, the older kids have at Amani graduate this Friday as they’ve taken their test to get into secondary school. Kids trying to get into secondary school have one chance to take the national exam to be able to go on in their education. One chance. If they don’t pass, their only option is vocational training for jobs like plumbing, electricity or sewing. I can’t imagine a single test I took at sixteen determining my life’s path. The test is in English and not easy. Fro Friday, I’m working on the slideshow I’ve been making as a present to them, which I’ll show at graduation. However since my body has decided to turn against itself with another regional illness, I’m a little nervous about making it the best version of what it could be.
In other news, a few weeks ago the volunteers, a few staff members, and mostly all of the kids went to the Amani shamba (farm) to harvest corn. It’s about a twenty-minute walk or so into the bush from the center. I wish I had brought a camera. The kids looked so beautiful set in a background of dried yellow cornhusks. I wasn’t sure how to harvest corn. It’s strange how we eat all these foods in the U.S. we don’t know how to cultivate or properly take care of from scratch. Anyways, the dry husk covers the corn, and there are about two to three on every stalk. Once you find the corn you peel off most of the husk and twist it off the stalk, then peel off the rest of it. It was pretty fun and exciting at first and I felt like an African Mama, but then the bugs started. There are these microscopic bugs that live in the fuzz at the top of the corn and eat away at the kernels. You don’t notice it at first but then the itching intensifies and every part of my body that wasn’t covered with clothing was red and swollen. It’s Ramadan right now (actually it just ended) so the Muslim kids (there are about twenty) aren’t eating or drinking during the day. They were all exhausted during the harvest, which went on for about three hours and itching like crazy. Since then the corn has been drying out in the basement and yesterday and today the kids were smashing the corn with sticks to get all the kernels off. It looked really strange….like farm kung-fu….and oddly therapeutic.
Last weekend I went to Dar es Salaam on the coast (the commercial capital of TZ), with my roommate Anna. Her boyfriend is Tanzanian and lives in Dar. It was sort of a culture shock (i.e. there is an actual mall in Dar with thirty stores and air conditioning), but I had a good weekend and I’m glad I went considering I was thinking of writing my whole blog before I left about Tanzanian men all being pigs. Really, I cannot even begin to count how many men have either a) asked me for money or b) been sexually inappropriate. Granted, I’m pretty tired of men from all countries- I don’t discriminate. In the past eight months numerous old men have told me to buy them sodas, or pay for their bus ride, which they tell the bus conductors in Swahili and think I won’t understand. The women ask too but the men are the worst. Kids are taught to beg here from a young age as well. The most frustrating part is when people ask me for things and they clearly have jobs and are wearing nice clothes. I mean, really? When so much of the country is poor and suffering that sort of thing upsets me. There’s also this crazy old woman who yelled at me once for taking a taxi to Amani. Really I’m just sick of getting treated as a means to an end or old geezers asking me for presents or sex. Doctors also ask me for presents from America. What the hell? If so many of my relatives didn’t have access to this, I would use many expletives right now. Anyways, the nice part about Dar is harassment happens less since it’s such a big city.
Dar was a nice break though. We ate at a really wonderful Ethiopian restaurant furnished with beautifully carved chairs, old lanterns and colorful umbrellas. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before and always think of famine when I think of that country, but it was really delicious! (It really made me want to go to Ethiopia and explore). You eat as a group with your hands and the plate is delicious and edible. Best of all it was all things I could eat since the bread is this spongy sourdough type thing made from rice and other gluten-free grains. The wine was a little too sweet since it’s made with honey but the food was excellent- different meats and vegetables marinated in spices and sauces. On Saturday we took a five minute ferry to an island across from the city that only cost 100 shillings (ten cents). Dar is large and congested and reminds me of California since everything is spread out and you really need a car to get around, which is why I was surprised that this island is lined with beautiful white sand, turquoise water beaches. About eight of us went…a few Tanzanians but mostly American college students doing research on public health issues in Tanz. We rented army tents outside that looked like they were from the 70s and it was strangely freezing that night. Down the beach there was a Rasta drum circle that went on until dawn. They were all incredibly stoned and excellent at making us feel continuously slightly awkward. Because of my distrust and bitterness toward Tanzanian men as well as my disinterest in the ganga or “sticky icky” as they like to call it, I didn’t stay for long. My friend Anna wanted to go for a late night moonlit swim in the ocean with her boyfriend, which we all thought was romantic from a distance, but it turned out that she swam right into some sort of spiky anemone that stuck into her leg, hand and foot, which her boyfriend later had to painfully extract from her skin. I went swimming most of the time we were there or drank passion fruit juice, which is the idea of a lovely time in my book.
At the moment I’m pretty preoccupied trying to figure my life out for the next year. Since I’m applying for grad school in international social work for the fall it’s difficult to look for an actual “job job” as I like to say. I finish at Amani end of October/early November, but I actually think it will be a lot harder for me than the kids. Three new long-term volunteers have come who I’m sure the kids will bond with, but I know I’ll think of the kids constantly. I sort of wish I had told my boss I could stay until the end of the year...but when he asked me a few months ago I wasn’t sure financially and he found a replacement art teacher incredibly fast. But to be honest, I’m also sort of burnt out. The holidays really aren’t a big deal to me and I’m sure it would be really wonderful to spend with the kids…but I will be in California by Christmas. The kids get shoeboxes every year filled with little things like pencils and stickers, etc. I’m not really sure what to do for the eight months I have until I start the school that I’ll hopefully get into. I would love to stay in Tanzania but money-wise it’s really not possible. I also want to avoid turning into a twenty-something loser who relies on her parents constantly financially. Then again I wouldn’t want to stay in Moshi and not see the kids…it’d be too difficult. I was hoping to try and stay here longer by bartending at the ex-pat bar in town but the boss (my boss’s wife) isn’t hiring until at least January….and volunteering on the side. I met a girl from Dartmouth who somehow knows the president of AMREF and she had some good contacts…including an American PHD student focusing on street children who might be looking for a research assistant in Dar so I’ve emailed the professor and I’m still fishing around for possibilities.
I feel like I really know what I want to do and surprisingly, it makes everything harder. I know I want to be a social worker, specifically working with homeless or previously homeless kids. I didn’t expect to figure that out this year but I just sort of feel it in my malaria-affected gut that this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I’ll read this in a few years and think about how naïve I was, but for now, I feel pretty certain. The part that makes it hard is the idea of doing different things and being unsatisfied. Sometimes I think I’m so focused on thinking about the life I want to be living that I forget to live the life I have now. It’s just part of being human I suppose, but sometimes it can be crippling. I don’t want to turn into someone who is so scared of being unhappy in the future that she forgets to be happy in the present.
I feel pretty tough or at least like I have a thicker skin from working at Amani. It’s a strange feeling when new volunteers come in…just to get their perspective on what they think of Amani and the kids and I inevitably think about how much they don’t know and that I was once in their place. Just to hear the kids’ stories and see them leave and know that they’ve struggled without family or adults to lean on. Some of them are not really kids at all, more often “the child” part of them just leaves their eyes. Other times I forget what they’ve gone through, both individually and collectively, because they are still able to experience some part of childhood.
My good friend, roommate and co-worker Anna is working on a drug-intake form to be filled out by kids when they first arrive. She’s in Arusha now visiting the kids on the street. The drugs kids most commonly do are glue and “mari-ja-juana” as they say (both about twenty cents U.S.). Others include “kiwi” or shoe polish, coke (which is becoming more and more popular as it becomes more prominent across East Africa), and car petrol from fuel tanks (which is inhaled).
I know it’ll be nice to go back to the U.S., especially to see a doctor who, say…doesn’t use a flashlight from their cell phone to look into my mouth and ears. Ha! But when I really think about it, I don’t really miss the U.S. that much. I miss food at times and new music and not being a minority, but really, I like the challenge of living here. I’m sure I bitch about it a lot, but I really do feel blessed to be able to live in another country. I love speaking another language the majority of the time, unless it’s with a lot of perverts. I don’t know how much I’ve really helped the kids, and I still think at times that I’m doing more of a disservice becoming attached to the kids and then leaving them. I’m pretty sure that they’ve given me more happiness than I could ever give to them. I do know that I don’t regret coming here and a part of my heart, like any place that I live, will stay here forever.
All the best…. Whitney
Right now I’ve been nursing the flu for a while, which is unfortunate because the weather is changing and it is now blazing hot in East Africa again with wind and dust. I also had a bad infection over the weekend which gave me fever and chills. This country…. Anyways, the older kids have at Amani graduate this Friday as they’ve taken their test to get into secondary school. Kids trying to get into secondary school have one chance to take the national exam to be able to go on in their education. One chance. If they don’t pass, their only option is vocational training for jobs like plumbing, electricity or sewing. I can’t imagine a single test I took at sixteen determining my life’s path. The test is in English and not easy. Fro Friday, I’m working on the slideshow I’ve been making as a present to them, which I’ll show at graduation. However since my body has decided to turn against itself with another regional illness, I’m a little nervous about making it the best version of what it could be.
In other news, a few weeks ago the volunteers, a few staff members, and mostly all of the kids went to the Amani shamba (farm) to harvest corn. It’s about a twenty-minute walk or so into the bush from the center. I wish I had brought a camera. The kids looked so beautiful set in a background of dried yellow cornhusks. I wasn’t sure how to harvest corn. It’s strange how we eat all these foods in the U.S. we don’t know how to cultivate or properly take care of from scratch. Anyways, the dry husk covers the corn, and there are about two to three on every stalk. Once you find the corn you peel off most of the husk and twist it off the stalk, then peel off the rest of it. It was pretty fun and exciting at first and I felt like an African Mama, but then the bugs started. There are these microscopic bugs that live in the fuzz at the top of the corn and eat away at the kernels. You don’t notice it at first but then the itching intensifies and every part of my body that wasn’t covered with clothing was red and swollen. It’s Ramadan right now (actually it just ended) so the Muslim kids (there are about twenty) aren’t eating or drinking during the day. They were all exhausted during the harvest, which went on for about three hours and itching like crazy. Since then the corn has been drying out in the basement and yesterday and today the kids were smashing the corn with sticks to get all the kernels off. It looked really strange….like farm kung-fu….and oddly therapeutic.
Last weekend I went to Dar es Salaam on the coast (the commercial capital of TZ), with my roommate Anna. Her boyfriend is Tanzanian and lives in Dar. It was sort of a culture shock (i.e. there is an actual mall in Dar with thirty stores and air conditioning), but I had a good weekend and I’m glad I went considering I was thinking of writing my whole blog before I left about Tanzanian men all being pigs. Really, I cannot even begin to count how many men have either a) asked me for money or b) been sexually inappropriate. Granted, I’m pretty tired of men from all countries- I don’t discriminate. In the past eight months numerous old men have told me to buy them sodas, or pay for their bus ride, which they tell the bus conductors in Swahili and think I won’t understand. The women ask too but the men are the worst. Kids are taught to beg here from a young age as well. The most frustrating part is when people ask me for things and they clearly have jobs and are wearing nice clothes. I mean, really? When so much of the country is poor and suffering that sort of thing upsets me. There’s also this crazy old woman who yelled at me once for taking a taxi to Amani. Really I’m just sick of getting treated as a means to an end or old geezers asking me for presents or sex. Doctors also ask me for presents from America. What the hell? If so many of my relatives didn’t have access to this, I would use many expletives right now. Anyways, the nice part about Dar is harassment happens less since it’s such a big city.
Dar was a nice break though. We ate at a really wonderful Ethiopian restaurant furnished with beautifully carved chairs, old lanterns and colorful umbrellas. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before and always think of famine when I think of that country, but it was really delicious! (It really made me want to go to Ethiopia and explore). You eat as a group with your hands and the plate is delicious and edible. Best of all it was all things I could eat since the bread is this spongy sourdough type thing made from rice and other gluten-free grains. The wine was a little too sweet since it’s made with honey but the food was excellent- different meats and vegetables marinated in spices and sauces. On Saturday we took a five minute ferry to an island across from the city that only cost 100 shillings (ten cents). Dar is large and congested and reminds me of California since everything is spread out and you really need a car to get around, which is why I was surprised that this island is lined with beautiful white sand, turquoise water beaches. About eight of us went…a few Tanzanians but mostly American college students doing research on public health issues in Tanz. We rented army tents outside that looked like they were from the 70s and it was strangely freezing that night. Down the beach there was a Rasta drum circle that went on until dawn. They were all incredibly stoned and excellent at making us feel continuously slightly awkward. Because of my distrust and bitterness toward Tanzanian men as well as my disinterest in the ganga or “sticky icky” as they like to call it, I didn’t stay for long. My friend Anna wanted to go for a late night moonlit swim in the ocean with her boyfriend, which we all thought was romantic from a distance, but it turned out that she swam right into some sort of spiky anemone that stuck into her leg, hand and foot, which her boyfriend later had to painfully extract from her skin. I went swimming most of the time we were there or drank passion fruit juice, which is the idea of a lovely time in my book.
At the moment I’m pretty preoccupied trying to figure my life out for the next year. Since I’m applying for grad school in international social work for the fall it’s difficult to look for an actual “job job” as I like to say. I finish at Amani end of October/early November, but I actually think it will be a lot harder for me than the kids. Three new long-term volunteers have come who I’m sure the kids will bond with, but I know I’ll think of the kids constantly. I sort of wish I had told my boss I could stay until the end of the year...but when he asked me a few months ago I wasn’t sure financially and he found a replacement art teacher incredibly fast. But to be honest, I’m also sort of burnt out. The holidays really aren’t a big deal to me and I’m sure it would be really wonderful to spend with the kids…but I will be in California by Christmas. The kids get shoeboxes every year filled with little things like pencils and stickers, etc. I’m not really sure what to do for the eight months I have until I start the school that I’ll hopefully get into. I would love to stay in Tanzania but money-wise it’s really not possible. I also want to avoid turning into a twenty-something loser who relies on her parents constantly financially. Then again I wouldn’t want to stay in Moshi and not see the kids…it’d be too difficult. I was hoping to try and stay here longer by bartending at the ex-pat bar in town but the boss (my boss’s wife) isn’t hiring until at least January….and volunteering on the side. I met a girl from Dartmouth who somehow knows the president of AMREF and she had some good contacts…including an American PHD student focusing on street children who might be looking for a research assistant in Dar so I’ve emailed the professor and I’m still fishing around for possibilities.
I feel like I really know what I want to do and surprisingly, it makes everything harder. I know I want to be a social worker, specifically working with homeless or previously homeless kids. I didn’t expect to figure that out this year but I just sort of feel it in my malaria-affected gut that this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I’ll read this in a few years and think about how naïve I was, but for now, I feel pretty certain. The part that makes it hard is the idea of doing different things and being unsatisfied. Sometimes I think I’m so focused on thinking about the life I want to be living that I forget to live the life I have now. It’s just part of being human I suppose, but sometimes it can be crippling. I don’t want to turn into someone who is so scared of being unhappy in the future that she forgets to be happy in the present.
I feel pretty tough or at least like I have a thicker skin from working at Amani. It’s a strange feeling when new volunteers come in…just to get their perspective on what they think of Amani and the kids and I inevitably think about how much they don’t know and that I was once in their place. Just to hear the kids’ stories and see them leave and know that they’ve struggled without family or adults to lean on. Some of them are not really kids at all, more often “the child” part of them just leaves their eyes. Other times I forget what they’ve gone through, both individually and collectively, because they are still able to experience some part of childhood.
My good friend, roommate and co-worker Anna is working on a drug-intake form to be filled out by kids when they first arrive. She’s in Arusha now visiting the kids on the street. The drugs kids most commonly do are glue and “mari-ja-juana” as they say (both about twenty cents U.S.). Others include “kiwi” or shoe polish, coke (which is becoming more and more popular as it becomes more prominent across East Africa), and car petrol from fuel tanks (which is inhaled).
I know it’ll be nice to go back to the U.S., especially to see a doctor who, say…doesn’t use a flashlight from their cell phone to look into my mouth and ears. Ha! But when I really think about it, I don’t really miss the U.S. that much. I miss food at times and new music and not being a minority, but really, I like the challenge of living here. I’m sure I bitch about it a lot, but I really do feel blessed to be able to live in another country. I love speaking another language the majority of the time, unless it’s with a lot of perverts. I don’t know how much I’ve really helped the kids, and I still think at times that I’m doing more of a disservice becoming attached to the kids and then leaving them. I’m pretty sure that they’ve given me more happiness than I could ever give to them. I do know that I don’t regret coming here and a part of my heart, like any place that I live, will stay here forever.
All the best…. Whitney
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