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.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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).
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The choices we make
I have a tough decision to make in the next few days. Unfortunately things at work have gotten really difficult and I’m considering leaving my job (but definitely staying with Visions and staying in Tanzania). But on the up side I’ve recovered from malaria! Woo! Anyways, to make a long story short, I have had problems with the other volunteers I’ve been working with and it’s come to a point where it’s forcing me to make a difficult decision. While I really do love the kids I’m working with and care for them deeply, I cannot work with people who make my life miserable. Really, life is too short, particularly when you are working for free in a foreign country (in Africa no less), half way around the world, where there are enough challenges present without bitchy, cruel co-workers. For some reason, since I arrived at Amani, these three volunteers have had it out for me and done a great job at making it clear that I intruded on their territory. Everything escalated today when the most awful volunteer returned from vacation and proceeded with her supreme bitchiness, which eventually resulted in many meetings with my boss. Why there are people in this world who make everyday life so much harder than it already is for no reason, particularly in a profession where you are trying to help people, I really don’t know. I’ve had other reservations about them besides their meanness in the past few weeks, like the fact that they segregate themselves from Tanzanian culture (and Tanzanian people) in their own elitist white bubble. While this is a more personal problem, it’s difficult to see people literally come so far, travel around the world, and move no where in terms of their interactions with others. I guess I just really don’t fit into their clique.
On the bright side, the Tanzanian staff has been great and the kids are wonderful, although not without challenges. If I didn’t have to work with the other volunteers, things would be much better. Without going into it too much because I’m so exhausted already, these other volunteers have gone out of their way to criticize me and make things difficult for no reason because they are bitter that they were not informed earlier I was coming. The worst one is this incredibly rude American girl who just got back from vacation and it just so happens I have to work the closest with her. This is the part where I remind myself that I came here, so far away from everything I know, to challenge myself in positive ways and improve the lives of those less fortunate. However, that being said, I am volunteering, and unlike the gritty world of paying jobs, I have a choice here. The choice includes whether or not I choose to surround myself with people (who are all westerners, by the way), whose personalities make it nearly impossible to feel good about myself and make the work I’m doing that much harder. The thing that frustrates me so much about this situation, is that there are so many real problems in the world, and the volunteers at Amani have created this problem out of their own bitterness. Not to mention, I am doing my job and doing it well. I love the kids, but I also love myself, and work shouldn’t be this awful. So I’m either going to leave or give an ultimatum involving refusing to work with said, supreme bitch.
On the bright side, the Tanzanian staff has been great and the kids are wonderful, although not without challenges. If I didn’t have to work with the other volunteers, things would be much better. Without going into it too much because I’m so exhausted already, these other volunteers have gone out of their way to criticize me and make things difficult for no reason because they are bitter that they were not informed earlier I was coming. The worst one is this incredibly rude American girl who just got back from vacation and it just so happens I have to work the closest with her. This is the part where I remind myself that I came here, so far away from everything I know, to challenge myself in positive ways and improve the lives of those less fortunate. However, that being said, I am volunteering, and unlike the gritty world of paying jobs, I have a choice here. The choice includes whether or not I choose to surround myself with people (who are all westerners, by the way), whose personalities make it nearly impossible to feel good about myself and make the work I’m doing that much harder. The thing that frustrates me so much about this situation, is that there are so many real problems in the world, and the volunteers at Amani have created this problem out of their own bitterness. Not to mention, I am doing my job and doing it well. I love the kids, but I also love myself, and work shouldn’t be this awful. So I’m either going to leave or give an ultimatum involving refusing to work with said, supreme bitch.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Malaria.
That's right. I have malaria. Oh joyous day. My housemate Tim had it about two weeks ago so I was able to recognize the symptoms and left work early yesterday after I had been throwing up and having intestinal problems. Lovely. The blood test took about thirty minutes and came back positive. Yesterday was pretty miserable since I had a bad fever and it's already so hot in this freaking country but I'm feeling a little bit better today- just really tired. I have aches and pains in my abdomen and feel flu-ish. It's kind of scary to realize I have it because it could be mistaken for some kind of bacterial virus or God knows what. Anyways...I'm hoping to goes away soon. I'm wondering when I got bit. It's amazing how one small nasty little bug can make you so sick. I was in a rural village last week with my housemates walking along a waterfall (where 30 Tanzanian kids followed us like the lost boys in Peter Pan). So maybe it was there. Or maybe it was when I was in that village in Arusha. Bleh. Who knows? Anyways life could be worse. I've just been lying in bed watching movies or passed out and sweating. Awesome. I was hoping to write about some funny Tanzanian quirks since my last post was more serious but oh well! I think I'm going to go to Pengane next month- a small island off the coast where there are pretty beaches and maldive forests- with my housemate Marilyn, and after this a tropical beach is sounding pretty fabulous.
Hope all is well.
xo
Hope all is well.
xo
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Arusha Street Children
It’s hard for me to communicate what a great experience it was to meet the children living on the street in Arusha. I left on Thursday afternoon around 2pm to travel by bus from Moshi by myself, which I was not too happy about considering there was another fatal accident on that death trap of a road. Especially because of my experience in Arusha the last time, I was a little negative about the whole hangin’ out on the street thing, but it turned out to be a great opportunity.
I am really coming to appreciate the time I spend with the kids at Amani and the kids themselves. That being said, there are definitely bad days and good ones with the kids in general.
Once I got to Arusha, Asa, the Visions program coordinator for Arusha, met me at the Visions house. Asa is a social worker and Swedish and decided to come with me to meet the kids. We met the field social worker for Amani who I will call X, around 4:30 or so at the main bus stand in the center of the city. X used to be a smuggler who would take sugar across the borders from Malawi and Zambia to TZ, which is mostly why I’m giving him a letter instead of a name (and my blog is public). He is a really amazing man who knows all of the street kids in Moshi and Arusha. At the bus stand he introduced us to Happiness, who is Maasai and has siblings living at Amani. The four of us got on a dala dala to a small village Duruma to go meet her prinicipal to pay her school fees that her family cannot afford. Happi has to attend boarding school because her village is close to 2 hours away and Maasai girls are expected to work very hard cooking and cleaning around the house, which would make it harder for her to study.
Even though Happi told X Duruma was close it took at least an hour by dala dala to get there, mostly on bumpy dirt roads in a remote rural area. The village is Maasai, but the villagers wear modern clothes. It was the first village I’ve visited where houses were built out of mud. There were only dirt roads and a whole lot of cows and goats being herded around like rush hour traffic. Once we walked a ways we reached the school and the principal’s house surrounded by loads of dust and mango trees. The principal wasn’t truthful at first about tuition fees, most likely because white people (me and Asa) had come along, and he had definitely been drinking. Eventually things worked out and the four of us walked back to the main part of the village as dusk turned to dark. The sunset was a beautiful pink orange that night. It was hard to see but ever so often a bike or a goat would come whizzing by. Looking up, there was an incredible amount of stars.
Once we got to the village center, there were only 2 lights lit by electricity in a few small shops…most of the light came from 5 lanterns spread out between women selling fruits and vegetables and roasting corn along the road. It was a pretty wonderful feeling to be in such a small more traditional African village where electricity and plumbing didn’t really exist. The problem was, there weren’t any buses going back towards the city. Eventually after Asa and I tried to find a toilet (a tree) and bought some bananas for everyone and roasted corn for her, X found a dala dala willing to go at least part of the way. There were two big mamas on the dala dala with their babies wrapped tight to their chests and one little girl who was scared of me and Asa. I don’t know what is up with the babies here, but they can truly sleep through anything, even a dala ride that feels like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
Fast-forward 20 minutes or so later and we are being let off the dala in the middle of a dirt road, in the bush, in the dark. A car that looked like a taxi turned and drove away from us along with the dala behind it. X ended up eventually flagging down a pick-up truck ten minutes or so later, (thank you God), and our group of 4 hopped in the back while the big mamas and the babies got in front. I’ve ridden in pick-up trucks before, but this little truck was flying along the rocky, dirt roads like nothing I’ve experienced before for more than half an hour. Asa and I woke up the next day and we were still feeling the bumps on our backs. The beautiful view of the stars helped wipe away my thoughts of impending death at least part of the way. Once we got into town people were pointing at Asa and I saying “Crazy mzungu!” in swahili.
In town we were looking for a dala dala to take Happi to her Maasai village but ended up taking a taxi to Kisongo (the village). There was no electricity so we could only see the mud huts by moonlight.
When we finally met the kids we first went to the main bus stand area where buses come from different African cities (mostly Tanzanian). X showed us where the kids were sleeping first...there were two boys who looked around 8 years old sleeping in front a storefront on concrete with no shoes and definitely no blanket. The kids often sleep in groups to protect each other and avoid rape which is disturbingly frequent. Another boy who had hurt his arm in a fight was sleeping in what looked like a city pig pen and smelled like human waste between two stores surrounded by trash. In the parking lot of the bus stand there were kids who looked around 9 years old sleeping in a group of three huddled together on top of garbage who remarkably were sharing a blanket. A boy nearby who seemed smaller but around the same age was sleeping a empty plastic straw bag people use to carry rice and things to market. This last boy had actually been at Amani and run away. Alot of the children have difficult times dealing with structure after living in the street. Not to mention, the survival skills the kids have had to learn are not valued in the real world...instead it's the skills they don't have- reading, writing, trusting and obeying adults in school that they don't have and makes it more difficult to try and reenter society. After this we walked just outside the bus area (which is all open to whatever weather happens upon the area) and met a group of about 8 kids who were awake. Although they did ask us for money/food at the end, mostly the kids just wanted our attention. It was really very touching and heartbreaking at the same time. A few of them were definitely on drugs or drunk but honestly, when you have nothing and drugs help to aid your pain and lessen your hunger and you have no access to education or anything else, it's understandable. The kids were all asking us our name and where we were from and I played this foot game/dance with them. A few of the kids wanted me to watch while they did cartwheels and X usually plays card games with them to bond. 2 of the kids decided to come to Amani the next day but most of that group has come back and forth to Amani dropping out consistently...which I think has a lot to do having never been integrated into a structured society. Most of the kids we meet are 3 years or so older than they look having never been fed properly- the impact of a lifetime of poor nutrition is incredibly affective at stunting growth, as I've noticed from the kids at Amani as well. One of the boys Tangan said he was 19 but looked 14. Most of the street kids we met that night are also Maasai and sent to cities to earn money as it is more and more difficult for tribes to survive. However a lot of the kids also just come from abusive households or their parents have died or were alcoholics etc etc.
After this X took Asa and I in taxi to the street where most of the prositutes are, most of whom look like they are all in their teens and had a late night dinner at X's hotel.
This was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had here so far and something I will remember forever. I feel really thankful to be able to experience such different cultures and the different social strata of Tanzania. It’s difficult to explain, but there’s something really freeing about being able to connect with people of all levels of society, particularly those whose lives have been so unimaginably hard, and share a common connection however simple it may be. That being said, it’s been extremely difficult to think about the kids that I met and that their situation exists throughout the world. It makes it all the more strange to look at news headlines and see how isolated they are to specific countries or think about the celebrity gossip news I read all the time while people are suffering so much. But I think everything has to be managed in moderation…if I get consumed by thoughts of suffering then I’m not helping anyone, and everyone needs an outlet for relaxation and fun and stupidity without feeling guilty and punishing themselves. I’d really love to go back and visit the street kids and bring them some food in a few weeks. We shall see…
…And now…if you are still reading this lengthy post: thanks and congrats you made it to the end!
Love,
W
I am really coming to appreciate the time I spend with the kids at Amani and the kids themselves. That being said, there are definitely bad days and good ones with the kids in general.
Once I got to Arusha, Asa, the Visions program coordinator for Arusha, met me at the Visions house. Asa is a social worker and Swedish and decided to come with me to meet the kids. We met the field social worker for Amani who I will call X, around 4:30 or so at the main bus stand in the center of the city. X used to be a smuggler who would take sugar across the borders from Malawi and Zambia to TZ, which is mostly why I’m giving him a letter instead of a name (and my blog is public). He is a really amazing man who knows all of the street kids in Moshi and Arusha. At the bus stand he introduced us to Happiness, who is Maasai and has siblings living at Amani. The four of us got on a dala dala to a small village Duruma to go meet her prinicipal to pay her school fees that her family cannot afford. Happi has to attend boarding school because her village is close to 2 hours away and Maasai girls are expected to work very hard cooking and cleaning around the house, which would make it harder for her to study.
Even though Happi told X Duruma was close it took at least an hour by dala dala to get there, mostly on bumpy dirt roads in a remote rural area. The village is Maasai, but the villagers wear modern clothes. It was the first village I’ve visited where houses were built out of mud. There were only dirt roads and a whole lot of cows and goats being herded around like rush hour traffic. Once we walked a ways we reached the school and the principal’s house surrounded by loads of dust and mango trees. The principal wasn’t truthful at first about tuition fees, most likely because white people (me and Asa) had come along, and he had definitely been drinking. Eventually things worked out and the four of us walked back to the main part of the village as dusk turned to dark. The sunset was a beautiful pink orange that night. It was hard to see but ever so often a bike or a goat would come whizzing by. Looking up, there was an incredible amount of stars.
Once we got to the village center, there were only 2 lights lit by electricity in a few small shops…most of the light came from 5 lanterns spread out between women selling fruits and vegetables and roasting corn along the road. It was a pretty wonderful feeling to be in such a small more traditional African village where electricity and plumbing didn’t really exist. The problem was, there weren’t any buses going back towards the city. Eventually after Asa and I tried to find a toilet (a tree) and bought some bananas for everyone and roasted corn for her, X found a dala dala willing to go at least part of the way. There were two big mamas on the dala dala with their babies wrapped tight to their chests and one little girl who was scared of me and Asa. I don’t know what is up with the babies here, but they can truly sleep through anything, even a dala ride that feels like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
Fast-forward 20 minutes or so later and we are being let off the dala in the middle of a dirt road, in the bush, in the dark. A car that looked like a taxi turned and drove away from us along with the dala behind it. X ended up eventually flagging down a pick-up truck ten minutes or so later, (thank you God), and our group of 4 hopped in the back while the big mamas and the babies got in front. I’ve ridden in pick-up trucks before, but this little truck was flying along the rocky, dirt roads like nothing I’ve experienced before for more than half an hour. Asa and I woke up the next day and we were still feeling the bumps on our backs. The beautiful view of the stars helped wipe away my thoughts of impending death at least part of the way. Once we got into town people were pointing at Asa and I saying “Crazy mzungu!” in swahili.
In town we were looking for a dala dala to take Happi to her Maasai village but ended up taking a taxi to Kisongo (the village). There was no electricity so we could only see the mud huts by moonlight.
When we finally met the kids we first went to the main bus stand area where buses come from different African cities (mostly Tanzanian). X showed us where the kids were sleeping first...there were two boys who looked around 8 years old sleeping in front a storefront on concrete with no shoes and definitely no blanket. The kids often sleep in groups to protect each other and avoid rape which is disturbingly frequent. Another boy who had hurt his arm in a fight was sleeping in what looked like a city pig pen and smelled like human waste between two stores surrounded by trash. In the parking lot of the bus stand there were kids who looked around 9 years old sleeping in a group of three huddled together on top of garbage who remarkably were sharing a blanket. A boy nearby who seemed smaller but around the same age was sleeping a empty plastic straw bag people use to carry rice and things to market. This last boy had actually been at Amani and run away. Alot of the children have difficult times dealing with structure after living in the street. Not to mention, the survival skills the kids have had to learn are not valued in the real world...instead it's the skills they don't have- reading, writing, trusting and obeying adults in school that they don't have and makes it more difficult to try and reenter society. After this we walked just outside the bus area (which is all open to whatever weather happens upon the area) and met a group of about 8 kids who were awake. Although they did ask us for money/food at the end, mostly the kids just wanted our attention. It was really very touching and heartbreaking at the same time. A few of them were definitely on drugs or drunk but honestly, when you have nothing and drugs help to aid your pain and lessen your hunger and you have no access to education or anything else, it's understandable. The kids were all asking us our name and where we were from and I played this foot game/dance with them. A few of the kids wanted me to watch while they did cartwheels and X usually plays card games with them to bond. 2 of the kids decided to come to Amani the next day but most of that group has come back and forth to Amani dropping out consistently...which I think has a lot to do having never been integrated into a structured society. Most of the kids we meet are 3 years or so older than they look having never been fed properly- the impact of a lifetime of poor nutrition is incredibly affective at stunting growth, as I've noticed from the kids at Amani as well. One of the boys Tangan said he was 19 but looked 14. Most of the street kids we met that night are also Maasai and sent to cities to earn money as it is more and more difficult for tribes to survive. However a lot of the kids also just come from abusive households or their parents have died or were alcoholics etc etc.
After this X took Asa and I in taxi to the street where most of the prositutes are, most of whom look like they are all in their teens and had a late night dinner at X's hotel.
This was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had here so far and something I will remember forever. I feel really thankful to be able to experience such different cultures and the different social strata of Tanzania. It’s difficult to explain, but there’s something really freeing about being able to connect with people of all levels of society, particularly those whose lives have been so unimaginably hard, and share a common connection however simple it may be. That being said, it’s been extremely difficult to think about the kids that I met and that their situation exists throughout the world. It makes it all the more strange to look at news headlines and see how isolated they are to specific countries or think about the celebrity gossip news I read all the time while people are suffering so much. But I think everything has to be managed in moderation…if I get consumed by thoughts of suffering then I’m not helping anyone, and everyone needs an outlet for relaxation and fun and stupidity without feeling guilty and punishing themselves. I’d really love to go back and visit the street kids and bring them some food in a few weeks. We shall see…
…And now…if you are still reading this lengthy post: thanks and congrats you made it to the end!
Love,
W
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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