Sometimes this place is ridiculous. I mean, really. On the way home from work the other day I got a lift from a guy on his way into town (a lot of times my coworkers and I will get “lifties” from the village area out to the highway where we can get a dala-dala). Anyways, there was a serious problem with his automobile. He said he had gone to Arusha earlier and it took him four hours (it’s supposed to take one hour and a half). I’m not sure how he got the damn thing there and back and was still alive to tell me about it, but somehow it happened. People die on that road all the time in functioning vehicles. Anyways, every 10 meters or so he would have to go in reverse because the car would start to veer off to the left and head for the ditch or farm on the side of the road. It was kind of like getting one of those irritatingly dysfunctional shopping carts with the one bad wheel that makes you have to redesign your whole steering technique. Except this was a car. So while he was driving down the road he’d have to physically use his weight to push the steering wheel all the way to the right to keep the car going straight, or end up reversing to straighten out. To actually make a turn (which I was silently panicking about in my mind before it happened) he’d have to reverse a whole hell of a lot to pull it off so that the car’s orientation was all set up. Yes. Ridiculous.
Anyways, I digress. Here’s what’s been going on recently:
*A few weeks ago I met my friend Sarah (who works for Visions) in a small mountain town called Lushoto. It’s close to four hours east of Moshi, edging toward the coast. The Usambara Mountains surround Lushoto and are often referred to as “the Alps of Tanzania.” I don’t know about being comparable to the Alps, but they are really beautiful, and strangely enough, waking up at our lodge hidden away from town further back into the mountains I felt like I was in Europe somewhere like the Basque country in Spain. I met Sarah on a Friday and took the bus from Moshi (by myself!) to Mombo, where I caught a ride with a medic driving up into the mountains. Lushoto is fairly small with some old German buildings including a church leftover from the colonial period. It was definitely a nice break. Sarah and I stayed at Muller’s Lodge and spent our down-time reading old magazines in our long underwear. There was a fireplace and delicious soup and heavy comforters. We spent most of the weekend hiking with our guide Babu Francis. He’s seventy-four years old and still witty and spry/incredibly fast despite the fact that he is a smoking fiend and skinny as a stick. Babu knows all these random facts like who has assassinated who in U.S. history and he grew up in Tanzania when it was still a colony so his English is excellent. I loved the way he would eat a little plate of cookies and drink a cup of coffee back at the lodge smiling like he was so content with life. He knew all the names of the plants out in the jungle and their medicinal properties (malaria, nausea, stomach pain, etc), which was so interesting to hear about.
Together with an older man named Richard from the UK who works in the Selous, a national park in the south, we hiked and rock climbed up a crack to the top of Kivulga Point and reached Irente view point which overlooks the whole valley surrounding the Usambaras. It felt like we were up in the clouds and it made me think of friends I’ve known who’ve climbed Kili and hike above the clouds on only their second day out. The villagers were all shouting greetings at us, which made me feel like a spectacle, but my favorite villager by far was the man sitting outside his house with a tea cozy on his head. It was a perfect hat (the tea cozy was of an English country house) and it reminded me of an E.E. Cummings poem. One of the last places we went was Irente Farm which makes fresh cheese, jam, yogurt and granola and is tucked away in a mountain valley. Babu, of course, was pretty pleasantly pleased with the picnic lunch.
*On Wednesday night I went to a local outdoor bar called Glacier (again with Sarah) to watch the final game of the European cup. People here are so into European soccer/football that when FC Barcelona made their goals people would scream and dance up and down and say happy things in Swahili. I’m really glad Manchester United didn’t win as Ronaldo is a big creep (the waxing and the fake tan don’t help). He’s also a real ball hog and takes a lot of cheap shots. Ok, enough.
*I turned twenty-four last week and went out for Indian food with people from Visions and Amani. It turned out nice even though the power was out most of the time so we ate by lantern light. I was given a khanga (large African fabric with a Swahili proverb on it) and a batik purse, which were thoughtful. During the day the kids gave me a card after stampeding the art/play room singing “Happy Birthday” which another volunteer Laura arranged. It was really sweet but at first I had no idea why they were all running in there and felt like the captain of a ship facing mutiny. Most of the letters they gave me basically said happy birthday and please teach me this and that, thanks.
*Work was great last week. The kids had been driving me crazy but on Friday their craziness was actually pretty entertaining and somewhat productive. The kids once again did not have class (I’ll talk about the ridiculousness of this later) and it was a beautiful day- the sun was shining with a cool breeze, Kili had finally come out after four days or so in the clouds, etc etc. Anyways they kept asking me if they could watch a movie (psh!) and instead I brought out…the slip-n-slide! Yesss. Kudos to the donor who sent that handy contraption over this way; it is hilarious to see the kids’ sheer joy on sliding face first down that piece of plastic not to mention pretty constructive when soap is added. (Some of the kids smell real bad).
This Friday is not as exciting. This is because the last Friday of every month everyone at Amani cleans the entire compound. The kids like to wear the mops on their heads and say they’re Bob Marley haha. Last time I got the girls’ bathroom downstairs (yay…); this time I have the boys’ bathroom upstairs, which is bad enough, with the added company of some of the worst behaved kids. For instance: the teenager who orchestrated the robbing of 500,000 shillings (a little less than $500) from Amani’s storekeeper. Yea, he’s been to jail and he also wrote a rap song about me. This should be awesome.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Blog Update: Learning from poverty
I keep having these reoccurring dreams (besides the one where I’m stuck in high school again even though I’ve graduated from college) that I’ve gone home to the U.S. and regret that I’ve left my life here. It’s strange the different stages you experience adapting to a new life somewhere else, within the framework of such a different culture. I think somehow subconsciously I’m a little afraid of leaving here. This probably sounds surprising since there have definitely been weeks where I’ve just wanted to leave and get the hell out, but I guess I’m also shocked that I’ve been here for close to five months now and how fast the time has gone. I’m not sure if I’ll feel ready to leave in September and I know that if I do leave it will be very difficult to come back (because of the no income factor…kind of important) and even if I do it might not be in a long-term capacity. As much as I complain about certain things, I do like my life here, more so than I did in New York. I felt like I was waiting for my life to happen before, and now I’m not waiting anymore. I love that I get to spend my week with the kids. I love having a break from American news and pop culture and being forced to know things I don’t want to know. I love traveling here and knowing that the seasons will actually affect what I eat and buy, for better or for worse. I love that most people are willing to help me when I ask them for no apparent reason.
Of course there are a lot of things I don’t love. I don’t love my health problems (malaria et. al) or being asked for money by literally everyone and their mothers or never having anonymity. I don’t love being called a mzungu even though when I tutored immigrants from Latin America in English in the South Bronx I was called “vanilla face”. I don’t love that because I’m a woman, and only recently were women allowed to own property here, I have less of a voice. There’s no sanctuary for victims of domestic abuse or alcoholism and most people in position of power want bribes. Still, I do wish I could stay here longer. I can’t imagine having to say goodbye to the kids in four months, but I also can’t be a volunteer forever.
***
Part of the difficulty that comes with living in such a poor country like Tanzania, is the eventual and painful realization as an outsider that the world is and always will be an unfair place. I do love being able to experience the culture here and feel incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to travel half way around the world largely for the purpose of my own education and self-growth. But at times there is a lot of sadness. I think the hardest part of seeing poverty or learning the intricate details of people’s hardships, listening to their stories, and forming friendships is that it makes me feel more powerless than I ever have before.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when (say with HIV) certain people’s lives are valued more highly than others simply because of their nationality. As an example, Tanzanians are denied access to anti-retrovial drugs if they are HIV-positive. However, if their C-4 level or white blood cell count drops below 200 (a normal C-4 rate is around 1000), at which point they no longer have HIV but have fully developed AIDS, then the government is allowed to distribute the necessary drugs. I guess I always knew this before, that the health care industry is a business in the interest of making money, but to see and interact and live with people in a country where this is happening is something different entirely. The hospitals too are a frightening subject. There was a foreign volunteer who died outside of Arusha because the men who were trying to break into his home shot the lock with a gun and didn’t realize he was standing behind the door. The gunshot punctured the left side of his abdomen, but this did not kill him. What did kill him was his failed attempt to access healthcare. The first hospital he visited lacked the doctors to treat him, the second hospital lacked the equipment, and by the time he and his wife reached the third hospital it was too late.
I guess one thing that fascinates me most when reading about global poverty or war is the level of pure hardship and inhumanity which human beings are able to survive. I went on a beautiful hike a few weeks ago through the jungle and across mountain villages surrounding Kilimanjaro National Park. There were tall waterfalls and glowing green banana trees and thick mud the color of coffee. Then I visited the house of my friend Samora’s grandmother. She is close to 79 years old; her sole source of wealth being the two sheep that live with her in a small shack of wood (and these sheep are loud and smelly!). Her possessions are few. She sleeps on a “bed” of her own clothes on a mud floor. She cooks for herself, lives on her own and has little to no access to the medical care she needs. It was shocking for me to think about existing for 79 years and having so little, while still struggling so much. And here I am. Sitting on my bed, with a mattress and sheets and a roof over my head (which works most of the time but not always!).
People are not miserable here; that is definitely not the case. But they are fully aware of their poverty and the hope for a better life. I feel some sort of search for an explanation stirring inside me that will tell me why some live so well while others hang on to the edge of survival; why these great juxtapositions exist and what kind of world allows such difference to ensue. I don’t think that anyone who consumes him or herself with guilt lifts the weight of the world that others carry with them each day. But I do think that there are small acts of kindness and consideration and in turn a deeper awareness that can gradually tie together the threads among different peoples to create greater understanding and perhaps encourage more universal ideals about humanity.
Of course there are a lot of things I don’t love. I don’t love my health problems (malaria et. al) or being asked for money by literally everyone and their mothers or never having anonymity. I don’t love being called a mzungu even though when I tutored immigrants from Latin America in English in the South Bronx I was called “vanilla face”. I don’t love that because I’m a woman, and only recently were women allowed to own property here, I have less of a voice. There’s no sanctuary for victims of domestic abuse or alcoholism and most people in position of power want bribes. Still, I do wish I could stay here longer. I can’t imagine having to say goodbye to the kids in four months, but I also can’t be a volunteer forever.
***
Part of the difficulty that comes with living in such a poor country like Tanzania, is the eventual and painful realization as an outsider that the world is and always will be an unfair place. I do love being able to experience the culture here and feel incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to travel half way around the world largely for the purpose of my own education and self-growth. But at times there is a lot of sadness. I think the hardest part of seeing poverty or learning the intricate details of people’s hardships, listening to their stories, and forming friendships is that it makes me feel more powerless than I ever have before.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when (say with HIV) certain people’s lives are valued more highly than others simply because of their nationality. As an example, Tanzanians are denied access to anti-retrovial drugs if they are HIV-positive. However, if their C-4 level or white blood cell count drops below 200 (a normal C-4 rate is around 1000), at which point they no longer have HIV but have fully developed AIDS, then the government is allowed to distribute the necessary drugs. I guess I always knew this before, that the health care industry is a business in the interest of making money, but to see and interact and live with people in a country where this is happening is something different entirely. The hospitals too are a frightening subject. There was a foreign volunteer who died outside of Arusha because the men who were trying to break into his home shot the lock with a gun and didn’t realize he was standing behind the door. The gunshot punctured the left side of his abdomen, but this did not kill him. What did kill him was his failed attempt to access healthcare. The first hospital he visited lacked the doctors to treat him, the second hospital lacked the equipment, and by the time he and his wife reached the third hospital it was too late.
I guess one thing that fascinates me most when reading about global poverty or war is the level of pure hardship and inhumanity which human beings are able to survive. I went on a beautiful hike a few weeks ago through the jungle and across mountain villages surrounding Kilimanjaro National Park. There were tall waterfalls and glowing green banana trees and thick mud the color of coffee. Then I visited the house of my friend Samora’s grandmother. She is close to 79 years old; her sole source of wealth being the two sheep that live with her in a small shack of wood (and these sheep are loud and smelly!). Her possessions are few. She sleeps on a “bed” of her own clothes on a mud floor. She cooks for herself, lives on her own and has little to no access to the medical care she needs. It was shocking for me to think about existing for 79 years and having so little, while still struggling so much. And here I am. Sitting on my bed, with a mattress and sheets and a roof over my head (which works most of the time but not always!).
People are not miserable here; that is definitely not the case. But they are fully aware of their poverty and the hope for a better life. I feel some sort of search for an explanation stirring inside me that will tell me why some live so well while others hang on to the edge of survival; why these great juxtapositions exist and what kind of world allows such difference to ensue. I don’t think that anyone who consumes him or herself with guilt lifts the weight of the world that others carry with them each day. But I do think that there are small acts of kindness and consideration and in turn a deeper awareness that can gradually tie together the threads among different peoples to create greater understanding and perhaps encourage more universal ideals about humanity.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Blog Update: Things I've learned
I’ve been living in East Africa now for four months and have been an official resident of Tanzania for two, so I feel like it’s about time for some self-reflection. So…things I have learned:
-How to pick a perfect mango
-The best spots in the yard to dry my clothes
-What buses are most likely to lead to my eventual death and how to survive an African
bus ride (this one must be put into practice to truly understand)
-The recognizable signs someone is trying to rip me off (i.e. talking about the white
woman in Swahili…ha!)
-Leprosy still exists
-The happiness a hammock brings
-What to do when there’s no power in the house….for days
-Signs I have malaria…or an amoeba (both wretched)
-How to light the back-up propane stone and the kerosene lamps without burning any
appendages
-What to do when customs tries to abduct my packages
-How to avoid being peed on by little children
-African time and the realization that appointments, and most everything in general, is
never guaranteed
-How to spot street children and know where they are found
-To be more grateful for what I've been given
-The necessary and/or obligatory importance of having a sense of humor
-How to pick a perfect mango
-The best spots in the yard to dry my clothes
-What buses are most likely to lead to my eventual death and how to survive an African
bus ride (this one must be put into practice to truly understand)
-The recognizable signs someone is trying to rip me off (i.e. talking about the white
woman in Swahili…ha!)
-Leprosy still exists
-The happiness a hammock brings
-What to do when there’s no power in the house….for days
-Signs I have malaria…or an amoeba (both wretched)
-How to light the back-up propane stone and the kerosene lamps without burning any
appendages
-What to do when customs tries to abduct my packages
-How to avoid being peed on by little children
-African time and the realization that appointments, and most everything in general, is
never guaranteed
-How to spot street children and know where they are found
-To be more grateful for what I've been given
-The necessary and/or obligatory importance of having a sense of humor
Blog Update: Life at Amani
Right now it’s 8:00 on a Monday evening. The mosque is calling people to worship, while my roommates and I are writing and reading by candle light as the power has failed us, once again. (I am also eating some funky tasting cookies I made out of maize flour.) I thought that after a while I would feel somehow comforted by the mosque calling that goes on five times a day, but no. I find it irritatingly flat in pitch and it sounds more like moaning most of the time than something that should inspire people to pray.
The road to Amani is increasingly treacherous in the rainy season and everyday I feel a ridiculous sense of pride when I make it to and from work without making a butt imprint on the ground. The other day this ancient truck carrying a mountain of hay flipped over right in front of Amani’s gates. (These trucks are always driving along this road because we are out in the country). The ridiculous part is the driver popped his head out the window with no noticeable expression of surprise, like this had happened 100 times. Kind of like a “here we go again” face. All I could think about was how I would be screaming.
There have been some serious shida (problems) at Amani these past few weeks and it’s a little stressful to be around. It all started when two weeks ago three teenage kids (who live at Amani) stole 500,000 shillings. This is probably around $470 dollars U.S., maybe a little less. But in simpler terms, this adds up to about five months pay for an average Tanzanian. Shida, sana. The three kids that did it ended up steeling from the storekeeper at Amani who is in charge of purchasing general items (foods, clothes) each week. A lot of the older kids hang out down there helping to lift food items or just talking to the two men that manage incoming shipments. Rather than trying to deal with the theft internally, it was decided that the three boys should be sent to juvenile detention/jail in town for three days. Now jail anywhere can be a nightmare, but without trying to sound to judgmental, this is Africa. I’ve read reports about street kids periodically getting rounded up and thrown in jail because the police find them to be “pests”. Without going into detail, they are frequently beaten or made to due manual labor or do things like carry giant stones on their heads. This is a country where stoning and hanging are still practiced in some regions. The strange thing is, now the teenage kids are back but aren’t allowed to be in class so they’re really doing a whole lot of nothin’. They also haven’t been able to recover all the stolen money, so it’s somewhat of a mystery what happened to it. I heard today that one of the main masterminds took 30,000 shillings to his uncle, who denied it. He must be a real gem of a guy. There’s also been some speculation that this same kid spread the wealth so to speak. Then last week, a teenage boy named Damiano disappeared. He went out for a run on a Monday afternoon and never came back. Finally last Friday he made an appearance after the social workers found him in town on the street. He had some nice new clothes with him, so the staff is guessing that he sold his new running shoes (a gift from Amani) for some personal items. Last week, 3,000 shillings were stolen from my wallet, because I let a kid into the playroom to listen to music and didn’t realize he was one of the kids who stole the money.
On top of this headache, I have noticed one funky stench coming from the preschool age kids. Their hygiene problems have become way more noticeable. I can tell they are not washing their hands after they go to the toilet because I can smell their urine on them and this one little boy’s clothes smell like rotten meat. The boys’ bathroom smells incredibly foul as well. So I’m going to have to suggest some kind of solution so the little ones don’t all get sick. Really I’m hoping the nurse will talk to them about cleanliness, but I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that there are too many kids and not enough staff to be sufficiently looking out for four/five/six year old kids. (PS on Friday I am assigned to clean the girls bathroom; awesome).
In the art room lately I’ve been doing more crafty projects with the kids. I found a lot of foam letter/animal/shape stickers which are hot items for the younger ones, so we’ve been making signs with their names and drawing backgrounds for where the animals live. Another volunteer and I started a picture wall about a month ago of the kids filled with candid photos, so I’ve been periodically printing photos and adding them on. A lot of the kids are growing up there so it’s nice to have some mementos and a feeling of belonging. The keyboard was finally fixed this week so I taught a class on reading music to the older kids. I also brought my computer and played all different types of music for them from around the world. They seemed to like it but they’re kind of an intimidating group and it hurt my brain to try and teach with such foreign vocabulary.
With all of this in mind, sometimes I feel like I’m doing a disservice to the kids. I don’t really quite know how to balance being in their lives. I’ve grown really attached to many of them, and seeing their faces is the highlight of my workday. At the same time, I know that in a matter of months I have to go back to the U.S. and it hurts to know that I won’t be here to watch them grow up or to be a part of their lives. It’s actually pretty distressing. I don’t want to leave them behind. Maybe what I think of as a fear of them getting too attached to me is actually just a realization of how attached I’ve become to them.
Sometimes it’s difficult to think about how unfair the world is, and always will be. Many of these kids come from slum areas around Tanzania where they had little to eat or were beaten by their parents, while others have traveled for hours on a bus to Moshi looking for a better life. I think about myself at 8 or 9 or 10 years old and how much fear and desperation I would have to feel to be motivated to flee. There’s a little boy named Baracka who’s around 8 years old. I met him on the street in Arusha and he is such a handsome little guy. His face is like a little panther and he has the longest most beautiful eyelashes. Before he came to Amani his parents made him work a job where he had to do hard physical labor, and when he asked them if he could go to school, he was beaten. The boy who asked to live with me, Augustino, lived in a slum with an abusive father and eventually left at 7 years old with his brother, living off collecting and selling scrap metal for a year. He has lived at Amani for half his life. Zulfa, a four year-old girl at Amani, is a little firecracker (although it may have been a definite mistake to introduce her to balloons- she makes them squeal and fly around the room). She has the brightest personality and is filled with so much love, but only last year, she and her two siblings lived on the street with their mother who was both abusive and an alcoholic. Not to say that the parents are always the problem (I think that’s a real cop-out), and not to stay Amani is perfect- there are definite problems, but I’m happy to know these kids, be a part of their lives if only for a temporary period, and see all that they have to offer the world.
The road to Amani is increasingly treacherous in the rainy season and everyday I feel a ridiculous sense of pride when I make it to and from work without making a butt imprint on the ground. The other day this ancient truck carrying a mountain of hay flipped over right in front of Amani’s gates. (These trucks are always driving along this road because we are out in the country). The ridiculous part is the driver popped his head out the window with no noticeable expression of surprise, like this had happened 100 times. Kind of like a “here we go again” face. All I could think about was how I would be screaming.
There have been some serious shida (problems) at Amani these past few weeks and it’s a little stressful to be around. It all started when two weeks ago three teenage kids (who live at Amani) stole 500,000 shillings. This is probably around $470 dollars U.S., maybe a little less. But in simpler terms, this adds up to about five months pay for an average Tanzanian. Shida, sana. The three kids that did it ended up steeling from the storekeeper at Amani who is in charge of purchasing general items (foods, clothes) each week. A lot of the older kids hang out down there helping to lift food items or just talking to the two men that manage incoming shipments. Rather than trying to deal with the theft internally, it was decided that the three boys should be sent to juvenile detention/jail in town for three days. Now jail anywhere can be a nightmare, but without trying to sound to judgmental, this is Africa. I’ve read reports about street kids periodically getting rounded up and thrown in jail because the police find them to be “pests”. Without going into detail, they are frequently beaten or made to due manual labor or do things like carry giant stones on their heads. This is a country where stoning and hanging are still practiced in some regions. The strange thing is, now the teenage kids are back but aren’t allowed to be in class so they’re really doing a whole lot of nothin’. They also haven’t been able to recover all the stolen money, so it’s somewhat of a mystery what happened to it. I heard today that one of the main masterminds took 30,000 shillings to his uncle, who denied it. He must be a real gem of a guy. There’s also been some speculation that this same kid spread the wealth so to speak. Then last week, a teenage boy named Damiano disappeared. He went out for a run on a Monday afternoon and never came back. Finally last Friday he made an appearance after the social workers found him in town on the street. He had some nice new clothes with him, so the staff is guessing that he sold his new running shoes (a gift from Amani) for some personal items. Last week, 3,000 shillings were stolen from my wallet, because I let a kid into the playroom to listen to music and didn’t realize he was one of the kids who stole the money.
On top of this headache, I have noticed one funky stench coming from the preschool age kids. Their hygiene problems have become way more noticeable. I can tell they are not washing their hands after they go to the toilet because I can smell their urine on them and this one little boy’s clothes smell like rotten meat. The boys’ bathroom smells incredibly foul as well. So I’m going to have to suggest some kind of solution so the little ones don’t all get sick. Really I’m hoping the nurse will talk to them about cleanliness, but I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that there are too many kids and not enough staff to be sufficiently looking out for four/five/six year old kids. (PS on Friday I am assigned to clean the girls bathroom; awesome).
In the art room lately I’ve been doing more crafty projects with the kids. I found a lot of foam letter/animal/shape stickers which are hot items for the younger ones, so we’ve been making signs with their names and drawing backgrounds for where the animals live. Another volunteer and I started a picture wall about a month ago of the kids filled with candid photos, so I’ve been periodically printing photos and adding them on. A lot of the kids are growing up there so it’s nice to have some mementos and a feeling of belonging. The keyboard was finally fixed this week so I taught a class on reading music to the older kids. I also brought my computer and played all different types of music for them from around the world. They seemed to like it but they’re kind of an intimidating group and it hurt my brain to try and teach with such foreign vocabulary.
With all of this in mind, sometimes I feel like I’m doing a disservice to the kids. I don’t really quite know how to balance being in their lives. I’ve grown really attached to many of them, and seeing their faces is the highlight of my workday. At the same time, I know that in a matter of months I have to go back to the U.S. and it hurts to know that I won’t be here to watch them grow up or to be a part of their lives. It’s actually pretty distressing. I don’t want to leave them behind. Maybe what I think of as a fear of them getting too attached to me is actually just a realization of how attached I’ve become to them.
Sometimes it’s difficult to think about how unfair the world is, and always will be. Many of these kids come from slum areas around Tanzania where they had little to eat or were beaten by their parents, while others have traveled for hours on a bus to Moshi looking for a better life. I think about myself at 8 or 9 or 10 years old and how much fear and desperation I would have to feel to be motivated to flee. There’s a little boy named Baracka who’s around 8 years old. I met him on the street in Arusha and he is such a handsome little guy. His face is like a little panther and he has the longest most beautiful eyelashes. Before he came to Amani his parents made him work a job where he had to do hard physical labor, and when he asked them if he could go to school, he was beaten. The boy who asked to live with me, Augustino, lived in a slum with an abusive father and eventually left at 7 years old with his brother, living off collecting and selling scrap metal for a year. He has lived at Amani for half his life. Zulfa, a four year-old girl at Amani, is a little firecracker (although it may have been a definite mistake to introduce her to balloons- she makes them squeal and fly around the room). She has the brightest personality and is filled with so much love, but only last year, she and her two siblings lived on the street with their mother who was both abusive and an alcoholic. Not to say that the parents are always the problem (I think that’s a real cop-out), and not to stay Amani is perfect- there are definite problems, but I’m happy to know these kids, be a part of their lives if only for a temporary period, and see all that they have to offer the world.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Blog Update: Photos added to Facebook
Hi everyone.
I've uploaded some more photos to facebook if you're interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033671&id=14400829&l=fe150ba175
Have a good weekend....
x Whitney
I've uploaded some more photos to facebook if you're interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033671&id=14400829&l=fe150ba175
Have a good weekend....
x Whitney
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Blog Update: Amoebas and Weddings
Lately my body has been an alarmingly impressive incubator for unpleasant things. Something is definitely up. Last week I thought I might have malaria again. I’d been really tired lately and feverish and had PLENTY of stomach discomfort. It turned out to not be malaria, but I was starting to think that it might be worth it to investigate into buying some kind of at-home test because the possibility that I might have it again made me feel ridiculous.
Not to complain, but I’ve not had the best of luck lately. The day after I got back from the coast, I woke up to my room and a small lake that had infiltrated said room. The unwelcome flood came from our crap-tastic ceiling in the hallway, which has so much water damage, it looks like it may fall in any day now. Because of a slight slope, my room (and ONLY my room) was the chosen destination for all the rain water. The contractor was supposed to show up on Thursday to fix the roof (he showed up four days later) and apparently he’s “patched” things up, but I’m still skeptical. Then, that Friday, I got peed on by Zulfa, the youngest girl at Amani. I’ve been teaching a few kids how to draw on the computer and let Zulfa watch….on my lap. On Sunday I got harassed in town by two creepy men who were saying nasty things to me (in English) and ended up going home. Anyways, this past week I’ve had an African amoeba in my stomach, so that’s why I’ve been feeling tired and feared it was malaria. Now I have some weird bumps on the back of my tongue….so we shall see. A lot of the kids are sick at work so I’m sure I’ve got some kind of viral thing from one of the buggers.
The kids have finally started class again- thank you lord. Now I finally understand those “back to school” commercials with the dad happily shopping for school supplies while that Christmas song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” plays in the background. Haha. No, I’m mostly kidding, but it was exhausting trying to keep up with them over spring break. A lot of the kids went home to visit their families, but many were unable to do so, which made my heart break a little. I taught the kids perspective last week which they were surprisingly good at.
This past Thursday I went to an African wedding, which was straight out of “Coming to America,” back when Eddie Murphy didn’t have to play every character in a movie to get it made (by his own production company). It was at the local YMCA after work. Technically it’s called a “Send-Off Party” all about the bride, but it’s a bigger deal than the wedding. Most of the gift’s are for the bride’s new home (my roommates and I gave her some nice glassware). Of course, as expected, the power kept going off and on, off and on. It wouldn’t be African otherwise. Everything was decorated white and gold and there were nice little twinkly lights on the walls and real pink and white roses on the tables. Pretty snazzy! A lot of stuff went on that I couldn’t understand because it was beyond an eight-year old vocabulary. There was plenty of African beer and thick milky Chai tea, and we ate some unrecognizable roast beast with rice, bananas and fruit. The highlight for me was when they brought the “cakey” out. All the cooks were dancing behind it in a funny line, and “it” it turns out, was a roast goat. It still had all it’s fur on but the inside had been cooked, and flowery bushes were stuck in its mouth and rear area, while sliced lemons adorned its sides. Poor lil’ guy. Seeing as I had an amoeba in my tum, I did not go near that goat. There were a lot of dances that involved the bride’s family (the bride, by the way, was my home-stay sister Sophy), like when all her aunties lifted up a suitcase and shouted “ay-yiyiyi!” and brought it towards her. I thought that was kind of sad actually. Another dance was when the female family members took a colorful cloth and shook it around the bride’s mama. I took some photos, and eventually left when I had to parade up the aisle with the gift that my roommates and I brought.
Nothing much else to report….the boy from Amani, Augustino, who asked to live with me sent me another love letter. He's such a good artist and I've been tutoring him recently in English. I really do care about him and would like to stay in his life after I've left Tanzania, but I also worry about getting too attached to the kids.
Anyhow, toodles for now.
Whitney
Not to complain, but I’ve not had the best of luck lately. The day after I got back from the coast, I woke up to my room and a small lake that had infiltrated said room. The unwelcome flood came from our crap-tastic ceiling in the hallway, which has so much water damage, it looks like it may fall in any day now. Because of a slight slope, my room (and ONLY my room) was the chosen destination for all the rain water. The contractor was supposed to show up on Thursday to fix the roof (he showed up four days later) and apparently he’s “patched” things up, but I’m still skeptical. Then, that Friday, I got peed on by Zulfa, the youngest girl at Amani. I’ve been teaching a few kids how to draw on the computer and let Zulfa watch….on my lap. On Sunday I got harassed in town by two creepy men who were saying nasty things to me (in English) and ended up going home. Anyways, this past week I’ve had an African amoeba in my stomach, so that’s why I’ve been feeling tired and feared it was malaria. Now I have some weird bumps on the back of my tongue….so we shall see. A lot of the kids are sick at work so I’m sure I’ve got some kind of viral thing from one of the buggers.
The kids have finally started class again- thank you lord. Now I finally understand those “back to school” commercials with the dad happily shopping for school supplies while that Christmas song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” plays in the background. Haha. No, I’m mostly kidding, but it was exhausting trying to keep up with them over spring break. A lot of the kids went home to visit their families, but many were unable to do so, which made my heart break a little. I taught the kids perspective last week which they were surprisingly good at.
This past Thursday I went to an African wedding, which was straight out of “Coming to America,” back when Eddie Murphy didn’t have to play every character in a movie to get it made (by his own production company). It was at the local YMCA after work. Technically it’s called a “Send-Off Party” all about the bride, but it’s a bigger deal than the wedding. Most of the gift’s are for the bride’s new home (my roommates and I gave her some nice glassware). Of course, as expected, the power kept going off and on, off and on. It wouldn’t be African otherwise. Everything was decorated white and gold and there were nice little twinkly lights on the walls and real pink and white roses on the tables. Pretty snazzy! A lot of stuff went on that I couldn’t understand because it was beyond an eight-year old vocabulary. There was plenty of African beer and thick milky Chai tea, and we ate some unrecognizable roast beast with rice, bananas and fruit. The highlight for me was when they brought the “cakey” out. All the cooks were dancing behind it in a funny line, and “it” it turns out, was a roast goat. It still had all it’s fur on but the inside had been cooked, and flowery bushes were stuck in its mouth and rear area, while sliced lemons adorned its sides. Poor lil’ guy. Seeing as I had an amoeba in my tum, I did not go near that goat. There were a lot of dances that involved the bride’s family (the bride, by the way, was my home-stay sister Sophy), like when all her aunties lifted up a suitcase and shouted “ay-yiyiyi!” and brought it towards her. I thought that was kind of sad actually. Another dance was when the female family members took a colorful cloth and shook it around the bride’s mama. I took some photos, and eventually left when I had to parade up the aisle with the gift that my roommates and I brought.
Nothing much else to report….the boy from Amani, Augustino, who asked to live with me sent me another love letter. He's such a good artist and I've been tutoring him recently in English. I really do care about him and would like to stay in his life after I've left Tanzania, but I also worry about getting too attached to the kids.
Anyhow, toodles for now.
Whitney
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Blog Update: From Moshi to Pangani
Just got back from the coast this Tuesday and it was so freakin’ beautiful. We left last Friday to spend Easter on the beach, and it was definitely worth the trip. On Friday, my friend Asa and I took a six-hour bus to a large-ish village called Muheza located in the Usambara Mountains. There, we met her Canadian friend Brownwen, who is doing research on nutritional health in the mountains. African buses are ridiculous; there is no limit to the number of people on board and everyone is sweating tons and of course chucking their trash out the window. At one point we got off to go to the bathroom and the aisle was so stuffed that people were literally pushing us to our seats like we were in a human jigsaw puzzle. Asa and I switched off holding a three year-old girl, who, by the end of the trip, peed on Asa (which the mother denied). The view of the countryside was beautiful; the red earth and the Maasai men herding their cattle later contrasting with lush, tall green mountains and small houses on sisal plantations (a plant that looks like agave except it grows to about 8 feet tall and is used to make rum).
The hotel we stayed at in Muheza cost about $9 and was pretty decent, except the guy running it kept asking me inappropriate questions like if I want to have a baby (babies) with him. Of, course. I watched Sesame Street in Swahili (haha) and drank fresh cream with chai in the morning which was lovely.
On Saturday we woke up to drive to the beach (Brownwen has a car she uses to do research in local villages), and literally there was monsoon-style rain from the night before until about mid-morning. Luckily by the time we got to Tanga (which means “sail” in Swahili) the weather had improved. Tanga is one of the bigger towns along the coast, but definitely doesn’t seem like a city. We had lunch in Tanga at a nice yacht club on the beach in the wealthier area where the houses look almost Spanish and there is pink bougainvilla everywhere.
From Tanga we had a short drive to Pangani, but it felt longer because it was all dirt roads. Because of the rains, the road had flooded in places so the car had to wade through large ponds at some point. The red earth and the lush, open countryside was such a beautiful sight. It really made me want to take more road trips around Eastern Africa, preferably in a car and not a crazy bus. There were some cute monkeys hanging out on the road and also on the campgrounds where we stayed.
The place we stayed was called Peponi (only $5 per night). It’s especially nice because it’s not all developed and concrete. It’s run by a South African family and mostly has a lot of expat families. We camped out about 20 feet from the beach, under an open palm leaf shelter because of all the coconuts falling from the trees in the night. At night, there’s also a lot of bush babies, which we have in Moshi, but not as many. Bush babies are primates that are smaller than monkeys and have giant eyes and make freaky sounds in the night. Other than camping, there were less than a dozen “bandas” or cabanas, which were sweet little houses made of palm leaves, and all had porches and hammocks outside, with working bathrooms and bedrooms inside. The flowers and the smell of everything reminded me of Hawaii and I really didn’t want to leave! There was a small pool and a nice little restaurant on the property, with a bar shaped like a boat (!), that had wonderful food (lots of fish, fresh fruit, real ice cream, etc). We mostly read and took long walks and ate delicious meals, which is my idea of a perfect day. The Indian ocean is so warm it’s almost hot. I wore 50 spf sunscreen religiously but somehow still got sunburnt. In the morning, the tide goes way out (close to a mile), which freaked me out because I’ve watched too many documentaries on tsunamis. The surrounding villages mostly rely on fishing and their boats (dhows) are hundreds of years old and made completely out of wood. On Monday, we went on one of the wooden fishing boats and it was such a thrill to be on a sailboat that wasn’t made from plexiglass. We stopped a few miles off shore and went snorkeling, which was nice, but there were these microscopic jellyfish that kept biting me, and then, not so microscopic ones about two-inches tall. It must have something to do with the warm water because the last time that happened to me was when I was 16 in the Caribbean.
Monday evening we headed back to Muheza, and on Tuesday it was back to Moshi. Needless to say I am already fantasizing about this avocado, mango, prawn salad I had at Peponi….back to beans and bananas. I would love to go back there or maybe take a weekend to travel to Mombasa. I loved being on the coast and feel like I could haved stayed there for awhile. I’m also pretty thankful to have gotten out of Moshi for a weekend because I was going really stir crazy. The kids are also out of school so there has been a lot more work for me…they all want attention and tutoring and balloons and stickers and one of the 14 year-old boys wrote me a letter last week asking me to adopt him, which was very sweet but stressed me out a bit for the obvious reasons. Obviously, there is no way I can adopt any child right now, but I’ve thought about it 10 years or so down the line, although life is impossible to predict. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I’ve come into these kids lives only to eventually leave them and possibly disappoint them again like their families have. It’s hard to think about. Everyone wants a family, even if it’s a really messed up one, even if you have to construct it yourself from strangers and friends. These kids are no different. I feel like a part of their constructed family at times, but mostly I’m just busy trying to babysit 40 children.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Amani na upendo,
Whitney
The hotel we stayed at in Muheza cost about $9 and was pretty decent, except the guy running it kept asking me inappropriate questions like if I want to have a baby (babies) with him. Of, course. I watched Sesame Street in Swahili (haha) and drank fresh cream with chai in the morning which was lovely.
On Saturday we woke up to drive to the beach (Brownwen has a car she uses to do research in local villages), and literally there was monsoon-style rain from the night before until about mid-morning. Luckily by the time we got to Tanga (which means “sail” in Swahili) the weather had improved. Tanga is one of the bigger towns along the coast, but definitely doesn’t seem like a city. We had lunch in Tanga at a nice yacht club on the beach in the wealthier area where the houses look almost Spanish and there is pink bougainvilla everywhere.
From Tanga we had a short drive to Pangani, but it felt longer because it was all dirt roads. Because of the rains, the road had flooded in places so the car had to wade through large ponds at some point. The red earth and the lush, open countryside was such a beautiful sight. It really made me want to take more road trips around Eastern Africa, preferably in a car and not a crazy bus. There were some cute monkeys hanging out on the road and also on the campgrounds where we stayed.
The place we stayed was called Peponi (only $5 per night). It’s especially nice because it’s not all developed and concrete. It’s run by a South African family and mostly has a lot of expat families. We camped out about 20 feet from the beach, under an open palm leaf shelter because of all the coconuts falling from the trees in the night. At night, there’s also a lot of bush babies, which we have in Moshi, but not as many. Bush babies are primates that are smaller than monkeys and have giant eyes and make freaky sounds in the night. Other than camping, there were less than a dozen “bandas” or cabanas, which were sweet little houses made of palm leaves, and all had porches and hammocks outside, with working bathrooms and bedrooms inside. The flowers and the smell of everything reminded me of Hawaii and I really didn’t want to leave! There was a small pool and a nice little restaurant on the property, with a bar shaped like a boat (!), that had wonderful food (lots of fish, fresh fruit, real ice cream, etc). We mostly read and took long walks and ate delicious meals, which is my idea of a perfect day. The Indian ocean is so warm it’s almost hot. I wore 50 spf sunscreen religiously but somehow still got sunburnt. In the morning, the tide goes way out (close to a mile), which freaked me out because I’ve watched too many documentaries on tsunamis. The surrounding villages mostly rely on fishing and their boats (dhows) are hundreds of years old and made completely out of wood. On Monday, we went on one of the wooden fishing boats and it was such a thrill to be on a sailboat that wasn’t made from plexiglass. We stopped a few miles off shore and went snorkeling, which was nice, but there were these microscopic jellyfish that kept biting me, and then, not so microscopic ones about two-inches tall. It must have something to do with the warm water because the last time that happened to me was when I was 16 in the Caribbean.
Monday evening we headed back to Muheza, and on Tuesday it was back to Moshi. Needless to say I am already fantasizing about this avocado, mango, prawn salad I had at Peponi….back to beans and bananas. I would love to go back there or maybe take a weekend to travel to Mombasa. I loved being on the coast and feel like I could haved stayed there for awhile. I’m also pretty thankful to have gotten out of Moshi for a weekend because I was going really stir crazy. The kids are also out of school so there has been a lot more work for me…they all want attention and tutoring and balloons and stickers and one of the 14 year-old boys wrote me a letter last week asking me to adopt him, which was very sweet but stressed me out a bit for the obvious reasons. Obviously, there is no way I can adopt any child right now, but I’ve thought about it 10 years or so down the line, although life is impossible to predict. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I’ve come into these kids lives only to eventually leave them and possibly disappoint them again like their families have. It’s hard to think about. Everyone wants a family, even if it’s a really messed up one, even if you have to construct it yourself from strangers and friends. These kids are no different. I feel like a part of their constructed family at times, but mostly I’m just busy trying to babysit 40 children.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Amani na upendo,
Whitney
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