Sitting here in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, what now feels like a massive space ship after a year in a small East African town, I feel more like a foreigner than I’ve ever felt before. It’s strange to have more than twelve hours pass and not feel the earth beneath my feet. This land of constant electricity and six-dollar cups of tea and crisp new stacks of books and newspapers amid an airport with a casino and a museum featuring the works of Rembrandt feels like it has nothing to do with me. I expected to miss the Amani kids; to miss my friends, but I didn’t think about missing Tanzania. After you’ve experienced eight-hour plus bus rides in Africa with dust and sweat and two adults sharing one seat with a child on your lap who may or may not choose to pee on you (it’s happened twice!), air travel just isn’t as exciting. A cold soda never tasted so good. I’m hoping this means my fear of commercial planes (I like the little ones), is past.
I think my favorite thing about East Africa is the way people greet you and take you in despite the differences. Yes, there are the people who ask you for ridiculous things or feed you harassment identifying your differences, but there is a different way of facing the new and the foreign. It is direct and honest and optimistic. Sometimes you’ll want to scream walking down the street and hope to have no one notice you, desperate for anonymity like a peaceful release, but in the end, the humanity of daily interactions will win your heart. To suddenly be thrown into a world where I’m no longer the minority after a year of the opposite is a strange experience to say the least. I keep wondering where all the black people are and reminding myself not to say “asante” instead of “thank you.” Why are there no chickens on public transportation?
Particularly upon arrival in Nairobi, my mouth hangs open, distended for minutes. Kenya is facing severe drought, on-going political problems and a dangerous shortage of water, yet the Nairobi airport is flooded with so much wealth in every corner it is hard to believe it is still Kenya. Only weeks before I saw pictures of children bathing in brown water, most certainly filled with schisto, and read about squatters in the village Mau searching desperately for water. I have heard so much about Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi and East Africa, which I hope to see someday, that it is all the more shocking to walk into an airport that resembles a palace, where calls to Tanzania are two dollars per minute. It is frightening to think what two dollars can do for people with in Mau. Looking out the airplane window at night, the electricity is overwhelming as the cars quickly pass with an aerial uniformity reminding me of robots. I find myself wondering where all these food products come from in the store windows; flour for shiny pastries and tropical fruit in a place so cold. Where are all the beautiful African mamas selling tomatoes on the road? Their vibrant reds and sunshine yellows guarding them from the mid-day sun. December is the season for mangoes and pineapples. It’s literally the sweetest time of the year.
Then there is the unbelieveable. Chocolates from Belgium, giant bags of m&ms and cigarettes, pink plastic dollhouses and, the most thought-provoking of all, shops filled with diamonds.
My heart will forever be tied to my Africa- the world I experienced and the friends who turned into family along the way; a beautiful surprise and an immeasurable gift. Even my taxi driver, Nondo, became one of my most trusted friends, introducing me to his family and his home. The day before I left our beautiful country house in Moshi, our three-legged dog Shy who we were all convinced would die in July after being maimed by a panga (machete), gave birth to four healthy little puppies. After visiting the seamstress, Mama Esther, next door, I came home to find Shy waiting at the gate for me. As I followed her, she lead me straight to the chicken house where she had made a small den to give birth and protect her babies. She happily wagged her tail and showed me her four beautiful blessings. All so tiny they hadn’t yet opened their eyes. One, fittingly, was all white with black eyes. After a year of being called “mzungu” for the foreign color of my skin, we finally had a little mzungu of our own. Gone was the frustration and impatience, and all I felt was the warmth within my heart.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Blog Update: Mombasa Peke Yangu and Being like a Baobab Tree
The thing I hate about blogs is that it’s all so very self-centered. Who really gives a crap what I had for dinner on Monday or who I saw on Tuesday? And this Twitter thing really frightens me. Still, there’s something wonderful about being able to share an experience from around the world. The rains have been so heavy the past few weeks. I have a picture of our yard, flooded, ironically where we dry clothes. This and so many other things are really so African it’s wonderful and worth sharing.
This week I’ve mostly been trying to organize and pack up a year of my life. (Someone is herding goats up our road again. Where they’re going, nobody knows. It’s funny because there’s not much grass here and it’s all residential). The fun part has been stopping into Amani and helping Anna to organize gift boxes for all the kids. This coming Saturday each kid will get a decorated shoebox with gifts inside. It’s a huge job and Anna is the only volunteer working on the project so I decided to come in and help her. We always feel like we’re gonna pass out after a few years being locked up in a incredibly disorganized claustrophobic storage room with not much air supply. The kids have been really cute peeking in the windows. The boxes are fun to tailor to each kid though. The younger boys all get tiny toy cars, stuffed animals and tennis balls, and everyone gets paper, stickers and markers or colored pencils. The older boys get baseball caps, toiletries and stationery sets for school. I think the boxes for the four girls are the best though. They get bracelets, dolls, a girly shirt, fancy soap and drawing materials. Just imagine having ninety brothers and not being able to celebrate you’re a girl, however sexist people might think those gifts are. Believe me, if you lived with all those smelly boys, you’d want some pink in your life.
***************************
Last week I went to Mombasa, Kenya and learned a new phrase in Swahili: “peke yangu” or “by myself.” There’s also “peke yako,” by yourself, which was thrown quite popularly in my direction. I think it was a bit weird for people to see a woman traveling on her own, especially a white one. “You are not meeting anyone here miss? Can I take you to the club?” Needless to say, by the second day I made up a boyfriend. “Girl where is your boyfriend?” “Oh he’s sleeping, he doesn’t feel good.” “Girl why is he sleeping so much?” “Uh…blaheasjkdsk see you later.” The bus ride was ok- extremely hot, dusty and sweaty. It only took one hour to get to the border, where I had to stop and buy a Kenyan visa for twenty bucks. The Kenya officials were nice enough. I thought it was really funny that they had posters about sexual harassment in the workplace, since I can’t think of too many places here where it doesn’t exist. It’s just part of life.
Mombasa city was fine. The city itself is a small island, although it’s the most congested island I’ve ever been too (not counting Manhattan). There are so many cars and petrol stations. Kenya is definitely more expensive than Tanzania, which was somewhat unfortunate. I stayed in an Indian-run hotel with air conditioning (wtf?) and a television and I actually ordered food up to my room. Anyways, I kept getting lost walking around and since Mombasa is seventy-five percent Muslim, I sort of stuck out just a bit. Since the tourist areas are all on the beach, I was really the only foreigner around. A disturbing part of the city was all the warning signs about child trafficking and sexual exploitation. Apparently just north of Mombasa there is a growing problem of child sex workers. I don’t think anything in the world is more heartbreaking or tragic. It was definitely a view into the reality of Mombasa, realizing the frequency in which trafficking takes place. I did end up going to the market to buy spices and Kenyan coffee beans. I visited Fort Jesus (an old fort the Portugese built where slaves used to stay), and walked through old town Mombasa, which is sort of like Zanzibar except it feels a bit more gritty and a bit more real.
For the rest of the time, I decided to stay in a nice hotel outside of Mombasa on the beach since the city was too intense on my own. I was one of the only guests who spoke Swahili so it was fun to talk with the staff and it felt really comfortable being on my own. There were ups and downs though. Ups being swimming in the beautiful ocean, which was so warm it was almost hot, and the camels dotting the beach beside the wood carvers and women selling silks and khangas. The downs being the beach boys looking to be my holiday prostitute, and the ancient blubbery white men mostly from England accompanied by high-class call girls. This was strange considering how freaking obvious it was these perv-balls were paying these women to be with them. The hotel was really beautiful though and relaxing. In general, Kenya feels like a different world. There is still the poverty of Tanzania, but it is accompanied by disturbing political arrest. The week I was there, the new Constitution had just been drafted, though I doubt problems are over. From what I saw, it seems notably separated by tribes. Whenever I brought up the president, Kibaki, the first thing anyone said about him was that he’s Kikuyu (“Out of Africa” anyone?). The weird part about all of this is that there’s a much larger wealthy class and a bigger divide between the two. This made me think about Tanzania and fear that the wealthy class will grow and just create more problems.
Anyhow, I was happy to come back to Tanz. A strange man with a mustache from Arusha sat next to me on the way back and told me how he was coming to Moshi to drink milk from a camel’s “teet” for a week because it’s very good for “you know, the constipation.” It was like sitting next to Borat, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although no, sir, I do now want to visit the camels with you.
***************************
My stomach is starting to flip and my pupils are getting all wiggly and bowled over with thoughts and questions and uncertainties. This always seems to happen whenever I have to pack up a life I’ve made for myself and leave. I suppose that’s what your twenties are for. I’ve felt a little crazy this week saying goodbye to such amazing people. I keep having to remind myself why I’m leaving and that I have no money to stay and that even if I had taken the job I applied for in Arusha, I would have to say no to grad school in the fall since the organization will only take someone for a year. Still, I’m slowly starting to feel like I’m always leaving. There’s been California, Ohio, London, New York and Tanzania. If you count three-month stays then there’s been Wyoming, Mexico and Washington as well. Most of the time when I think about this I feel confident and thankful. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in several places and lead different lives. But maybe underneath it all I’m running from something I can’t define. Oh! That’s an Ani DiFranco song. Haha. I think the line is “living for something I can’t even define.” I don’t feel exactly like that, but sometimes I wish I could be happy staying in one place for longer than a few years. It would definitely be easier. Of course easy is not equal to happy.
Then again, maybe restlessness is underrated. The freedom of leaving your created comfort zone for something different is quite a beautiful circumstance. I do feel sort of strange about going back to California, where particularly compared to here, there is really no collective community welcoming a stranger back. I will be happy to see people, but I know my thoughts will constantly come back to here in a way they never have before. I was in Kenya for four days and I missed Tanzania. The longest I’ve ever been away from the kids is two weeks.
There’s a wonderful story about the Baobab tree, which is now my favorite tree on earth besides those drippy upside down trees across the south. I want to get married under a giant tree adorned in candle lit lanterns. As for the Baobab, it’s somewhat fierce and uninviting although it manages, somehow, to survive in very arid places, standing alone in its own strong yet delicate silhouette. In the story that was told to me while I was here, the Baobab is constantly trying to find the perfect soil to dig its roots into to call home. It wanders aimlessly always looking for the optimal home, until at last the wind blows it over so that its roots point towards the sky and it becomes stuck in that position. So in some ways, the damn tree was so picky and indecisive, it didn’t get to choose the perfect home. But at the same time, the tree never gave up searching for a beautiful home and eventually surrendered its roots to the sky. I guess in many ways, without sounding completely out there, that’s how I feel. My roots are always on the move; afraid to get too comfortable or to feel too stuck. Maybe I like to wander, but in the end, without sounding too cheesy, the same sky is always above me to make me feel at home.
This week I’ve mostly been trying to organize and pack up a year of my life. (Someone is herding goats up our road again. Where they’re going, nobody knows. It’s funny because there’s not much grass here and it’s all residential). The fun part has been stopping into Amani and helping Anna to organize gift boxes for all the kids. This coming Saturday each kid will get a decorated shoebox with gifts inside. It’s a huge job and Anna is the only volunteer working on the project so I decided to come in and help her. We always feel like we’re gonna pass out after a few years being locked up in a incredibly disorganized claustrophobic storage room with not much air supply. The kids have been really cute peeking in the windows. The boxes are fun to tailor to each kid though. The younger boys all get tiny toy cars, stuffed animals and tennis balls, and everyone gets paper, stickers and markers or colored pencils. The older boys get baseball caps, toiletries and stationery sets for school. I think the boxes for the four girls are the best though. They get bracelets, dolls, a girly shirt, fancy soap and drawing materials. Just imagine having ninety brothers and not being able to celebrate you’re a girl, however sexist people might think those gifts are. Believe me, if you lived with all those smelly boys, you’d want some pink in your life.
***************************
Last week I went to Mombasa, Kenya and learned a new phrase in Swahili: “peke yangu” or “by myself.” There’s also “peke yako,” by yourself, which was thrown quite popularly in my direction. I think it was a bit weird for people to see a woman traveling on her own, especially a white one. “You are not meeting anyone here miss? Can I take you to the club?” Needless to say, by the second day I made up a boyfriend. “Girl where is your boyfriend?” “Oh he’s sleeping, he doesn’t feel good.” “Girl why is he sleeping so much?” “Uh…blaheasjkdsk see you later.” The bus ride was ok- extremely hot, dusty and sweaty. It only took one hour to get to the border, where I had to stop and buy a Kenyan visa for twenty bucks. The Kenya officials were nice enough. I thought it was really funny that they had posters about sexual harassment in the workplace, since I can’t think of too many places here where it doesn’t exist. It’s just part of life.
Mombasa city was fine. The city itself is a small island, although it’s the most congested island I’ve ever been too (not counting Manhattan). There are so many cars and petrol stations. Kenya is definitely more expensive than Tanzania, which was somewhat unfortunate. I stayed in an Indian-run hotel with air conditioning (wtf?) and a television and I actually ordered food up to my room. Anyways, I kept getting lost walking around and since Mombasa is seventy-five percent Muslim, I sort of stuck out just a bit. Since the tourist areas are all on the beach, I was really the only foreigner around. A disturbing part of the city was all the warning signs about child trafficking and sexual exploitation. Apparently just north of Mombasa there is a growing problem of child sex workers. I don’t think anything in the world is more heartbreaking or tragic. It was definitely a view into the reality of Mombasa, realizing the frequency in which trafficking takes place. I did end up going to the market to buy spices and Kenyan coffee beans. I visited Fort Jesus (an old fort the Portugese built where slaves used to stay), and walked through old town Mombasa, which is sort of like Zanzibar except it feels a bit more gritty and a bit more real.
For the rest of the time, I decided to stay in a nice hotel outside of Mombasa on the beach since the city was too intense on my own. I was one of the only guests who spoke Swahili so it was fun to talk with the staff and it felt really comfortable being on my own. There were ups and downs though. Ups being swimming in the beautiful ocean, which was so warm it was almost hot, and the camels dotting the beach beside the wood carvers and women selling silks and khangas. The downs being the beach boys looking to be my holiday prostitute, and the ancient blubbery white men mostly from England accompanied by high-class call girls. This was strange considering how freaking obvious it was these perv-balls were paying these women to be with them. The hotel was really beautiful though and relaxing. In general, Kenya feels like a different world. There is still the poverty of Tanzania, but it is accompanied by disturbing political arrest. The week I was there, the new Constitution had just been drafted, though I doubt problems are over. From what I saw, it seems notably separated by tribes. Whenever I brought up the president, Kibaki, the first thing anyone said about him was that he’s Kikuyu (“Out of Africa” anyone?). The weird part about all of this is that there’s a much larger wealthy class and a bigger divide between the two. This made me think about Tanzania and fear that the wealthy class will grow and just create more problems.
Anyhow, I was happy to come back to Tanz. A strange man with a mustache from Arusha sat next to me on the way back and told me how he was coming to Moshi to drink milk from a camel’s “teet” for a week because it’s very good for “you know, the constipation.” It was like sitting next to Borat, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although no, sir, I do now want to visit the camels with you.
***************************
My stomach is starting to flip and my pupils are getting all wiggly and bowled over with thoughts and questions and uncertainties. This always seems to happen whenever I have to pack up a life I’ve made for myself and leave. I suppose that’s what your twenties are for. I’ve felt a little crazy this week saying goodbye to such amazing people. I keep having to remind myself why I’m leaving and that I have no money to stay and that even if I had taken the job I applied for in Arusha, I would have to say no to grad school in the fall since the organization will only take someone for a year. Still, I’m slowly starting to feel like I’m always leaving. There’s been California, Ohio, London, New York and Tanzania. If you count three-month stays then there’s been Wyoming, Mexico and Washington as well. Most of the time when I think about this I feel confident and thankful. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in several places and lead different lives. But maybe underneath it all I’m running from something I can’t define. Oh! That’s an Ani DiFranco song. Haha. I think the line is “living for something I can’t even define.” I don’t feel exactly like that, but sometimes I wish I could be happy staying in one place for longer than a few years. It would definitely be easier. Of course easy is not equal to happy.
Then again, maybe restlessness is underrated. The freedom of leaving your created comfort zone for something different is quite a beautiful circumstance. I do feel sort of strange about going back to California, where particularly compared to here, there is really no collective community welcoming a stranger back. I will be happy to see people, but I know my thoughts will constantly come back to here in a way they never have before. I was in Kenya for four days and I missed Tanzania. The longest I’ve ever been away from the kids is two weeks.
There’s a wonderful story about the Baobab tree, which is now my favorite tree on earth besides those drippy upside down trees across the south. I want to get married under a giant tree adorned in candle lit lanterns. As for the Baobab, it’s somewhat fierce and uninviting although it manages, somehow, to survive in very arid places, standing alone in its own strong yet delicate silhouette. In the story that was told to me while I was here, the Baobab is constantly trying to find the perfect soil to dig its roots into to call home. It wanders aimlessly always looking for the optimal home, until at last the wind blows it over so that its roots point towards the sky and it becomes stuck in that position. So in some ways, the damn tree was so picky and indecisive, it didn’t get to choose the perfect home. But at the same time, the tree never gave up searching for a beautiful home and eventually surrendered its roots to the sky. I guess in many ways, without sounding completely out there, that’s how I feel. My roots are always on the move; afraid to get too comfortable or to feel too stuck. Maybe I like to wander, but in the end, without sounding too cheesy, the same sky is always above me to make me feel at home.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
In the news
Hi everyone.
Since I don't ever really get a chance to search the internet, I just came across an article on street life for children in Kenya. Kenya has a huge problem with homelessness, poverty and trafficking in the face of ongoing political unrest. While my experience has been limited to meeting kids on the streets of Arusha and Moshi, I am not as familiar with conditions in Kenya. However, this article is a very honest account, although short. But I was still happy to come across it and thankful (Happy Thanksgiving) that these issues are appearing more in the news. I can only hope that childrens' rights and exploitation will be given more attention with time. Here's a link to the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8376714.stm
In other news the rains have come back in full force and our front yard is now a lake. I've heard rumors of desert land in the west and the south flooding and there have sadly been a few deaths. Pretty crazy to say the least.
All the best...
Since I don't ever really get a chance to search the internet, I just came across an article on street life for children in Kenya. Kenya has a huge problem with homelessness, poverty and trafficking in the face of ongoing political unrest. While my experience has been limited to meeting kids on the streets of Arusha and Moshi, I am not as familiar with conditions in Kenya. However, this article is a very honest account, although short. But I was still happy to come across it and thankful (Happy Thanksgiving) that these issues are appearing more in the news. I can only hope that childrens' rights and exploitation will be given more attention with time. Here's a link to the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8376714.stm
In other news the rains have come back in full force and our front yard is now a lake. I've heard rumors of desert land in the west and the south flooding and there have sadly been a few deaths. Pretty crazy to say the least.
All the best...
Monday, November 23, 2009
Blog Update: Goodbye Par-tay
So my goodbye shindig went well. I was completely dreading the whole thing but it worked out fine. I wanted to sneak out but realized that was impossible. I really don’t like the attention or saying goodbye to people- I much prefer avoidance. But I think it was a good thing- it sort of made everything more real. Everything happened after lunch. The head teacher thanked me for everything as well as Rovina the nurse and a reluctant social worker. The kids put on a gymnastics show for me (“Whitney today we do show for you”) and I passed out lollipops. The education department gave me this dark brown outfit that’s basically Capri pants and a shirt with little white zebras. It’s REALLY Tanzanian and I thought it was really sweet. I was given an Amani shirt as well. I expected to be really depressed and thought the whole thing would be awful, but I was actually just really touched from all the love from the kids. It made me feel much better about the whole thing. Anyways, I started crying, which was so awkward and embarrassing, but I felt really touched standing in front of all the kids. I told them I’d miss them all and I’m so very grateful for their friendship. The best gift of all was a huge stack of cards that Anna came in to make with the kids last weekend. I’m hoping to make a book for myself out of drawings and thank you letters. It’ll be a really great booster to look at when I’m feeling crappy about life. I feel like a little part of me is missing knowing that I’m leaving the kids behind. They’re my family. I’m not afraid of change as much as I’m afraid of feeling incomplete.
Here’s a list of my future plans:
-Apply to grad school
-Plant a vegetable garden
-Go kayaking regularly
-Listen to new music
-See my dear friend Ang when she comes to visit CA from NYC
-Sell African fabrics at the Ojai Farmers’ Market
-Get a job (boo)
-Take a dance class or some kind of fitness thing
-Be an amazing pen pal to the kiddos
-Find some inner peace daily
-Eat a lot of tacos
-Bake a pie
-Make a sandwich
-Send my dear friend Anna some care packages
What I’ll miss about my life in Africa:
-Waking up on the weekends reading and drinking tea in our little country house and doing my laundry by hand & letting it sun dry (surprisingly)
-Speaking Swahili
-The kids (of course)
-Cheap travel
-Phones that don’t have voice mail (it’s a beautiful thing)
-The calls to the mosque that go off five times a day
-Our three-legged wonder dog
-Milk tea
-Mangoes
-African beaches and long weekends spent exploring
-All the beautiful walks to hidden waterfalls in the villages
-Not having shitty/depressing news pressed upon me in my apt/house or on the street
-Barbeque for less than $2
-Being able to buy an EMS fleece-lined jacket for $2.40
-African fabrics and the beautiful women that wear them
-People who say hello and are friendly and dress colorfully
-Greeting every elderly person I see to show respect
-Little TZ kids in the boonies who randomly give me high fives and scream in my presence (like I’m Elvis)
-Vegetables and fruit sold everywhere
It’s coming down close to my departure date, December 3rd, and while I do feel like a dark cloud might soon be following me, right now, I feel at peace. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt at peace in my whole life, so this is definitely a new beginning after twenty-four years. I am worried about my transition back- all the luxuries and somewhat feeling detached from the land (i.e. buying food without having any idea of where it’s coming from and even washing my clothes in a machine will seem so separated). One of my favorite things about living here is feeling connected to things. I have clothes I own that I physically labor over to be kept clean. I buy fruit and vegetables from the people that grow them, or at least know the farmer in some way. When it doesn’t rain, there isn’t much produce for anyone to eat. I really think the world would be in such a better state if we were all more connected to our lives and the land we live on. Maybe it sounds trite, but I think everyone would just be happier. There would be an unwavering sense of balance. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to buy some fruit in New York, but because it came on a plane, I couldn’t afford it. This is clearly something people can avoid going to farmers’ markets, but it still doesn’t seem the same as having almost all your food products come from the country you live in. You want to eat a chicken- you need to know someone who has some chickens to sell and kill that day. It’s so strange that the most self-sufficient countries are the ones that struggle so much. I hate how eating in the U.S. is so solitary and so taken for granted and so unappreciated. No wonder it leaves you feeling a little more lost.
I’m so grateful for this year, partly because I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. So many people have this image of Africa as a place filled with AIDS and misery and hunger. Not that those things don’t exist, but they are definitely not defining. People are so proud of where they come from, so unshakingly optimistic, so honest in their welcoming. It’s hard to say that about many other places, particularly ones with money. Even in the face of all the difficulties, most of the men and women and children I know are so thankful that they are survivors. Death is so much more common here, but in my opinion, so is life. People celebrate their life as a gift so much more than I’ve seen in richer countries, and there’s something incredibly genuine and embracing about that.
I will definitely miss going into the villages and walking through the jungle and finding a beautiful waterfall somewhere and going swimming with friends. I think I’ll miss those moments that feel so pure. Purity is a rare thing in this world. It’s definitely worth celebrating. In the end though, I feel like it’s okay that I’m moving on. I will always feel connected to life here. This place will always feel like home; more so than any other place I’ve lived. But I feel okay saying goodbye to a place that’s given me so much and made me realize what’s important and what is worth hanging onto.
Here’s a list of my future plans:
-Apply to grad school
-Plant a vegetable garden
-Go kayaking regularly
-Listen to new music
-See my dear friend Ang when she comes to visit CA from NYC
-Sell African fabrics at the Ojai Farmers’ Market
-Get a job (boo)
-Take a dance class or some kind of fitness thing
-Be an amazing pen pal to the kiddos
-Find some inner peace daily
-Eat a lot of tacos
-Bake a pie
-Make a sandwich
-Send my dear friend Anna some care packages
What I’ll miss about my life in Africa:
-Waking up on the weekends reading and drinking tea in our little country house and doing my laundry by hand & letting it sun dry (surprisingly)
-Speaking Swahili
-The kids (of course)
-Cheap travel
-Phones that don’t have voice mail (it’s a beautiful thing)
-The calls to the mosque that go off five times a day
-Our three-legged wonder dog
-Milk tea
-Mangoes
-African beaches and long weekends spent exploring
-All the beautiful walks to hidden waterfalls in the villages
-Not having shitty/depressing news pressed upon me in my apt/house or on the street
-Barbeque for less than $2
-Being able to buy an EMS fleece-lined jacket for $2.40
-African fabrics and the beautiful women that wear them
-People who say hello and are friendly and dress colorfully
-Greeting every elderly person I see to show respect
-Little TZ kids in the boonies who randomly give me high fives and scream in my presence (like I’m Elvis)
-Vegetables and fruit sold everywhere
It’s coming down close to my departure date, December 3rd, and while I do feel like a dark cloud might soon be following me, right now, I feel at peace. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt at peace in my whole life, so this is definitely a new beginning after twenty-four years. I am worried about my transition back- all the luxuries and somewhat feeling detached from the land (i.e. buying food without having any idea of where it’s coming from and even washing my clothes in a machine will seem so separated). One of my favorite things about living here is feeling connected to things. I have clothes I own that I physically labor over to be kept clean. I buy fruit and vegetables from the people that grow them, or at least know the farmer in some way. When it doesn’t rain, there isn’t much produce for anyone to eat. I really think the world would be in such a better state if we were all more connected to our lives and the land we live on. Maybe it sounds trite, but I think everyone would just be happier. There would be an unwavering sense of balance. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to buy some fruit in New York, but because it came on a plane, I couldn’t afford it. This is clearly something people can avoid going to farmers’ markets, but it still doesn’t seem the same as having almost all your food products come from the country you live in. You want to eat a chicken- you need to know someone who has some chickens to sell and kill that day. It’s so strange that the most self-sufficient countries are the ones that struggle so much. I hate how eating in the U.S. is so solitary and so taken for granted and so unappreciated. No wonder it leaves you feeling a little more lost.
I’m so grateful for this year, partly because I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. So many people have this image of Africa as a place filled with AIDS and misery and hunger. Not that those things don’t exist, but they are definitely not defining. People are so proud of where they come from, so unshakingly optimistic, so honest in their welcoming. It’s hard to say that about many other places, particularly ones with money. Even in the face of all the difficulties, most of the men and women and children I know are so thankful that they are survivors. Death is so much more common here, but in my opinion, so is life. People celebrate their life as a gift so much more than I’ve seen in richer countries, and there’s something incredibly genuine and embracing about that.
I will definitely miss going into the villages and walking through the jungle and finding a beautiful waterfall somewhere and going swimming with friends. I think I’ll miss those moments that feel so pure. Purity is a rare thing in this world. It’s definitely worth celebrating. In the end though, I feel like it’s okay that I’m moving on. I will always feel connected to life here. This place will always feel like home; more so than any other place I’ve lived. But I feel okay saying goodbye to a place that’s given me so much and made me realize what’s important and what is worth hanging onto.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Blog Update: The End of a Beginning
I’m freaking out. I’m freaking out because this is my last week at Amani and I can’t believe how fast time has gone. This past month hasn’t been easy. I think I’ve been suppressing my feelings about leaving just a bit and the kids have been expressing their feelings with ferocity. Fierce anger or fierce love; hate notes and love notes. Either way I’ve been getting a lot of mail.
For Halloween I dressed up like a Masai woman. I was a little worried about being culturally inappropriate but then someone came to the ex-pat bar (The Watering Hole) as a Mormon man selling bibles.
This past weekend was interesting to say the least. I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday morning to a little voice saying “Whitty! Whitty!” I’m the only one in the house who can see the gate from my bedroom window, and looked outside to see three little boys waiting outside the gate. Since I know a significant amount of kids now living on the street my head was spinning in circles thinking of who could be outside my gate. As I opened all three of our locks to go outside the kids started to get skiddish and walk away. It turned out there was only one kid I know, Zawadi (14), with two of his friends. One of the kids (Rama) looked around 8 or 9, and the other (Amani) closer to 12 or 13. I was shocked and sort of heartbroken to see Zawadi since I had yelled at him the day before for not listening to me and repeatedly entering the playroom. It’s hard to admit, but I think I’m so scared of imaginely the next chapter of my life without these kids that I’ve been really irritable. It’s always easier to leave a place if you’re pissed off- I guess it makes it easier to start over. At the end of the day I have to remind myself that I’m working with kids who’ve been through incredibly difficult circumstances and that when they act out, it’s not personal. Zawadi refused to talk to me at first, so he told Anna (my best friend here and co-worker) that he was scared of being punished at Amani for his behavior. (I’m terrified to leave Anna as well- she protects my heart here and I truly love her friendship). The two other kids were covered in petrol and it was very obvious they live and sleep outside in parking lots and markets. The littlest one had a water bottle full of petrol that he told us he uses to keep the mosquitoes away, but I still wonder if he inhales it since it’s a popular drug abused by kids here living on the streets. We live within walking distance of the YMCA, where we took the kids to get early morning Chai, mandazi (donuts) and hard-boiled eggs. I’m sure that if the staff knew we took the kids there we would probably get in trouble but I don’t regret it. We have some kids books in our house which we brought with us and the littlest kid Rama kept staring at me in a way that said “Should I trust this person?” The YMCA isn’t the nicest place in Moshi but it was clear that it was one of the nicest places all three kids had ever been to- they sort of just stared around in wonder. Zawadi kept washing is hands at the sink and reading the paper like an old man with his tea. When I asked him if he wanted more mandazi he said “More everything!” I love Zawadi and I apologized to him for yelling at him on Friday and explained to him that it’s frustrating for me when kids refuse to listen. It’s not that I approve of Zawadi running away, but I think it must be nice for the kids to just get the hell out of Amani sometimes. It’s a good place for them but I’m sure it feels constricting compared to the freedoms they’ve had. Once the kids told Anna and I they wanted to go to Amani we took a taxi at eight in the morning to Magereza. The kids were more than surprised to see us on a Saturday morning and all very happy to see Zawadi was back. Anna and I stuck around until lunch playing games and organizing art for the kids (Anna opened the health room for the sick kiddos). One of the new kids we brought with us had such filthy shorts infested with bugs that they had to be burned.
I think it’s important that I’m leaving Amani and Tanzania although it’s been difficult to come to terms with and not feel completely depressed to be leaving kids that feel like my extended family, some of whom are my best friends and others, my heart. Another volunteer put in well that I can’t give anymore of myself to the kids until I have the chance to reenergize again and invest sometime in taking care of me. I guess to some people that might sound selfish, but I know in my heart that it’s true. I’m hoping to call Amani every few weeks and talk to the kids and write letters when I can. I don’t want to consider this goodbye.
Friday is my last official day at Amani, although I plan to come in on the weekend and relax with the kids. I officially leave the country December 3rd and plan to travel to Mombasa and Pangani and come back for both Thanksgiving and Amani Christmas weekend (the last weekend of November). It’s been difficult to get notes from the kids that say “Don’t go,” or “Please stay a little longer.” Sometimes all I feel like doing is crying, but somehow I just can’t make that happen. I’m sure that I should have kept my boundaries a bit better with the kids- not coming in on the weekends as much and getting as close, but I can’t say I regret that either. So I guess, no regrets. I’m sticking to my choices and standing up for my actions and I’m not going to give myself a guilt trip about leaving. That would be the wrong feeling to come away with, and really, I can only feel thankful to the kids for allowing me to be a part of their lives. That is not an easy decision after the kind of trauma and betrayal they have experienced, and I will be forever grateful for their openness. I hope they all know that they have changed my life for the better and helped me realize who I want to be and what is truly important. I don’t expect the future to be perfect but I do know that I am a better person from my experience here. As for the kids, I can only hope for their safety and good health, and if there is any justice in this world, I hope for them to be able to dream and feel comfortable in their own freedom to imagine a better life, a holistic and tangible happiness that every child deserves.
For Halloween I dressed up like a Masai woman. I was a little worried about being culturally inappropriate but then someone came to the ex-pat bar (The Watering Hole) as a Mormon man selling bibles.
This past weekend was interesting to say the least. I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday morning to a little voice saying “Whitty! Whitty!” I’m the only one in the house who can see the gate from my bedroom window, and looked outside to see three little boys waiting outside the gate. Since I know a significant amount of kids now living on the street my head was spinning in circles thinking of who could be outside my gate. As I opened all three of our locks to go outside the kids started to get skiddish and walk away. It turned out there was only one kid I know, Zawadi (14), with two of his friends. One of the kids (Rama) looked around 8 or 9, and the other (Amani) closer to 12 or 13. I was shocked and sort of heartbroken to see Zawadi since I had yelled at him the day before for not listening to me and repeatedly entering the playroom. It’s hard to admit, but I think I’m so scared of imaginely the next chapter of my life without these kids that I’ve been really irritable. It’s always easier to leave a place if you’re pissed off- I guess it makes it easier to start over. At the end of the day I have to remind myself that I’m working with kids who’ve been through incredibly difficult circumstances and that when they act out, it’s not personal. Zawadi refused to talk to me at first, so he told Anna (my best friend here and co-worker) that he was scared of being punished at Amani for his behavior. (I’m terrified to leave Anna as well- she protects my heart here and I truly love her friendship). The two other kids were covered in petrol and it was very obvious they live and sleep outside in parking lots and markets. The littlest one had a water bottle full of petrol that he told us he uses to keep the mosquitoes away, but I still wonder if he inhales it since it’s a popular drug abused by kids here living on the streets. We live within walking distance of the YMCA, where we took the kids to get early morning Chai, mandazi (donuts) and hard-boiled eggs. I’m sure that if the staff knew we took the kids there we would probably get in trouble but I don’t regret it. We have some kids books in our house which we brought with us and the littlest kid Rama kept staring at me in a way that said “Should I trust this person?” The YMCA isn’t the nicest place in Moshi but it was clear that it was one of the nicest places all three kids had ever been to- they sort of just stared around in wonder. Zawadi kept washing is hands at the sink and reading the paper like an old man with his tea. When I asked him if he wanted more mandazi he said “More everything!” I love Zawadi and I apologized to him for yelling at him on Friday and explained to him that it’s frustrating for me when kids refuse to listen. It’s not that I approve of Zawadi running away, but I think it must be nice for the kids to just get the hell out of Amani sometimes. It’s a good place for them but I’m sure it feels constricting compared to the freedoms they’ve had. Once the kids told Anna and I they wanted to go to Amani we took a taxi at eight in the morning to Magereza. The kids were more than surprised to see us on a Saturday morning and all very happy to see Zawadi was back. Anna and I stuck around until lunch playing games and organizing art for the kids (Anna opened the health room for the sick kiddos). One of the new kids we brought with us had such filthy shorts infested with bugs that they had to be burned.
I think it’s important that I’m leaving Amani and Tanzania although it’s been difficult to come to terms with and not feel completely depressed to be leaving kids that feel like my extended family, some of whom are my best friends and others, my heart. Another volunteer put in well that I can’t give anymore of myself to the kids until I have the chance to reenergize again and invest sometime in taking care of me. I guess to some people that might sound selfish, but I know in my heart that it’s true. I’m hoping to call Amani every few weeks and talk to the kids and write letters when I can. I don’t want to consider this goodbye.
Friday is my last official day at Amani, although I plan to come in on the weekend and relax with the kids. I officially leave the country December 3rd and plan to travel to Mombasa and Pangani and come back for both Thanksgiving and Amani Christmas weekend (the last weekend of November). It’s been difficult to get notes from the kids that say “Don’t go,” or “Please stay a little longer.” Sometimes all I feel like doing is crying, but somehow I just can’t make that happen. I’m sure that I should have kept my boundaries a bit better with the kids- not coming in on the weekends as much and getting as close, but I can’t say I regret that either. So I guess, no regrets. I’m sticking to my choices and standing up for my actions and I’m not going to give myself a guilt trip about leaving. That would be the wrong feeling to come away with, and really, I can only feel thankful to the kids for allowing me to be a part of their lives. That is not an easy decision after the kind of trauma and betrayal they have experienced, and I will be forever grateful for their openness. I hope they all know that they have changed my life for the better and helped me realize who I want to be and what is truly important. I don’t expect the future to be perfect but I do know that I am a better person from my experience here. As for the kids, I can only hope for their safety and good health, and if there is any justice in this world, I hope for them to be able to dream and feel comfortable in their own freedom to imagine a better life, a holistic and tangible happiness that every child deserves.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Blog Update: Villages, Gunshots and a weekend with Masai
It’s been a hell of a month.
A few weeks ago I went to Arusha for the weekend to see friends and get out of Moshi and while two of us were eating dinner one night two gunshots went off. The first about 75 feet away; the second closer to 20. All the other tourists around us just carried on la-dee-dah like nothing was wrong. I especially liked how a worker at the restaurant just said “oh it’s just the neighbor making sure everyone knows he has a gun.” Sure. To make a long story short, we got home fine but lied down in the back seat to be sure. The cab driver, like most Tanzanians, just kept telling us “no worries,” and my favorite “everyone has a gun in Arusha, it’s so easy!”
*Amani Update*
I also got the chance a little while back to go on a home visit with a social worker and a fourteen-year-old boy at Amani I’m very close with. His family lives two villages or so down the road from Amani, near Bonite, the Coca-Cola bottling plantation. I love seeing the Coca-Cola staff buses along the roads in Moshi since the bus is so ancient it’s a miracle it’s not falling apart, trailing in pieces. I have to say though Coca-Cola really is ingenius. When small shacks/shops decide to sell their products they give them printed signs of the shop’s name in exchange. Plus the transportation among other things. They really have it down. Anyways, it seemed like this village was really built around this bottling plant, which is pretty much out in the sticks. The area is pretty poor- mostly mud huts- and from what I’ve heard there’s a good amount of street kids and alcoholism. When we went to see the boy’s house (mud hut), his parents were absent since his father was at work and his mom was at a funeral (very typical here). We did see instead the mother of a child out on the street who I know who used to be at Amani about four months ago. It was pretty heart breaking since she was clearly drunk so early in the morning and hadn’t seen her son in so long. Her son is a great little artist and addicted to drugs. Since the parents weren’t there we went to visit the little brother at primary school. Because we were in the bush, at one point I looked behind me at the school and literally saw one hundred kids behind me chanting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” which means foreigner or white person. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like a Rolling Stone, and I’m pretty okay with that.
On the walk back the little brother kept saying “tunaenda wote?” or “are we all going back?” It was clear he’d really missed his older brother and wanted to come visit him which isn’t really done. Although of course the following weekend he showed up at Amani to play with bicycles and the next day his father angrily took him back. Unfortunately, I’m sure he was beaten since that’s what’s done here. This entire country is silently crying out for anything resembling a movement against domestic violence. There really is nothing and nowhere anyone can go when they are abused. The police are pretty worthless other than anything outside of bribes, which isn’t fair to say, but it’s mostly true.
By the time we got back the mother had returned (by the way the whole walk back the social worker was trying to get me to agree to marry him- not fun). The mother is blind from years of cooking over smoky fires and from what I can tell can only see shades of light and shapes. She was angry we had brought her son back since before he left he was going down to the river to help fisherman clean fish to sell to make some money for himself and his younger brother since the father was using his money on pombe (beer). This of course brought the boy to tears. The father came home around lunch and in typical Tanzanian fashion the two told the social worker that there are no problems at home. Ten minutes later they were yelling at each other so I took the kids to get a soda. In retaliation the mother stopped cooking for the husband, who refused to give her money to support herself for her disobedience. There were really hard any possessions in the house other some buckets and coals for a fire so I’m really hoping my little friend isn’t being reunified anytime soon without financial assistance and some much needed family counseling. The whole process was really interesting since really, this is what I want to learn about and eventually do.
A lot of the kids behavior has been really erratic lately. They love me one hour, they hate me the next. Many are pissed that I’m leaving them and I don’t blame them. They’re entitled. It must be confusing since I’ve been here close to a year.
There are a few new children this week, although one I’m pretty sure will leave soon. He’s got that look in his eye and it’s easy to see. The littlest one is pretty adorable and in love with the tiny keyboard we received as a donation recently. Personally, I want to chuck that thing out the window. It’s got prerecorded songs like “Jingle Bells” and….oh, wait, one other (!) and the kids love to listen to it on repeat and pretend they’re playing the songs. It was pretty heartbreaking today since I was standing over him and noticed a scar on his arm beneath his t-shirt line. As I pulled up the t-shirt sleeve I saw a cigarette burn (on a child less than ten years old), and four letters including K and L written out on his arm. The terrible part about it was the letters were scars from burns, and he tried to convince me he did it to himself when he can’t write. Whoever this child’s father was essentially branded him as a form of punishment. I’m continually shocked and disgusted on new levels of what humans can do to humans; what adults can do to children.
One of the best parts of my week are Thursday mornings when I go pick up two wonderful kids called Kalisti and Zainabu at a special needs school the next village over. I think they really love that they get to show off their school and have someone come pick them up since people don’t really do that here with kids. Even preschool kids make the long walk alone. Zain has pretty intense ADD sometimes, and let me tell you, they don’t sell daily drugs for that here. She is one slap happy child truly living on her own planet. I call it “The Zai Show” or “The Hurricane.” Anyways, I really love them and walking down the village road alongside the banana trees and the skinny stream and the wandering chickens to go get them is always so fun.
*Lake Natron*
After hearing of Amani’s death last week, I really needed to get away for the weekend and be distracted. Of course, I have still been thinking about him every day and really feel like it wasn’t properly explained to the kids. It’s difficult since they truly are so much more used to death here. It is much much more commonplace. His picture was taken off the website and it’s sort of just not being talked about.
My wonderful friend Anna’s mom and brother (plus girlfriend) are visiting her this week so I decided to go with them this past weekend to Lake Natron. If you’ve seen “Out of Africa,” Lake Natron is mentioned when Meryl Streep’s character ventures with her own safari party to go meet her husband, although it never actually shows the lake. Anna’s boyfriend (Josh) is Tanzania and was able to rent a large SUV for the six of us to drive out there. Of course when we got the car, it turned out the back seat was missing so yours truly sat in the trunk for six hours. It actually wasn’t too bad and I felt like I was in the womb being rocked to sleep on the backcountry road haha…yes, I know that sounds weird. On the way out there the car kept stopping and Josh would have to start it again, and the car was tilting a lot since the road was so crappy, which made Anna’s family less than pleased. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to terrible buses in this country or because I was clueless spacing out in the back, but it seemed like a pretty decent ride. Along the way Masai (kids mostly) kept appearing from across the desert asking us for water, which we had since we brought a few boxes of our own.
The drought that’s going on in this part of the world right now is incredible. I can’t tell you how desperate people were for water and I have never seen so many dying cows in my life. Masai depend on cows for their life and it is said that Masai believe all the cows in the world are their own. It was grim to see half decayed carcasses and cows that weren’t getting up to go to the bathroom, who according to Masai we met, would die the same day or the next. I don’t know how people are living out there, but it’s incredible.
The camp we stayed at was an oasis in the desert with trees and grass, right near an active volcano. We each stayed in a stand up tent with beds inside and lantern light. It was beautiful to wake up in the morning and see goats and sheeps and donkeys grazing on the camp grounds. The bathrooms reminded me of the Flintstones since the sinks were made of rock and the showers were rock covered by Masai blankets. There was a small sort of restaurant open to the elements, all run by Masai.
We took a short walking safari (only a few hours) from the camp ground through dried lava ash, across a river through the Masai bomas (villages) and finally to the lake. It felt so special to be able to walk in Masai country and see things like the bush they use (or the branches) to brush their teeth. The lake was beautiful and filled with pink flamingoes who shy fairly easily away from people. Because of the drought, the lake is much smaller than normal and the salt in the water was drying out the mud. At some point I felt like I was walking across a brownie, sort of crispy on the top and fudgy inside.
That same day we hiked up a canyon through a river to a waterfall. On the way back baboons were crawling up the hills like something out of “The Wizard of Oz” and there was a massive dust storm that at first made us think the volcano might be erupting and then just made me feel like I was traveling in north Africa. The waterfall was very picturesque and reminded me of “Swiss Family Robinson” since you had to lift yourself into one waterfall and then you could walk back to others hidden from plain view. At the end we were able to slide down a rock (a mini water slide) which was more than beautiful.
This all sounds fine and lovely until you hear about what a pain in the keister it was to come home. On the way to the campsite (the first day) we were running on empty for forty minutes or so and just made it in before night fall. Because we were out in no man’s land we had to buy gas through a deal with villagers and I’m pretty sure something was fishy with those forty-five liters of petrol….possibly diluted or dirty. Needless to say, the car broke down two hours outside of Lake Natron on the return trip, in the middle of endless desert. Josh tried fixing the car but I could tell nothing was gonna help this lemon. Luckily since there is only one road to Natron some safari cars passed us and tried to help. Of course, they all had clients and couldn’t really help us for long, and instead told us they’d radio for help. Stupidly not one safari car had a SAT phone which I sort of thought was necessary for trips like those. Eventually an ancient safari car from the 50s or 60s was driving our way and agreed to tow us…..10 kilometers in about an hour…to the next village. By the time we got there I really had to pee and this Masai chick flipped out at me and wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount for using the building that said “toilet.” We then had to pay since the rental car we were ditching was next to her house and she was talking about destroying it in retaliation. Honestly. I also forgot to mention that when we were stranded in the desert for hours Masai came out of nowhere (who did NOT speak Swahili) and were pinching our skin and looking at us like we were total aliens. Eventually I shut my door since I felt like I was on display at the zoo and the started drawing pictures in the dirt on our car. Back in the village, I convinced Josh we ditch this piece of crap rental car and pay these two Tanz dudes to take us to Mtu Mbu- Mosquito River- a village 2 to 3 hours away where there is cell-phone service and paved roads. We all climbed in the trunk of the hollowed out ancient safari car and made the slow crawl back to Mtu Mbu, were we had to get yet another lift to Arusha, at which point it started pouring out of nowhere. The good news is were alive and back in Moshi and we’ve survived.
A few weeks ago I went to Arusha for the weekend to see friends and get out of Moshi and while two of us were eating dinner one night two gunshots went off. The first about 75 feet away; the second closer to 20. All the other tourists around us just carried on la-dee-dah like nothing was wrong. I especially liked how a worker at the restaurant just said “oh it’s just the neighbor making sure everyone knows he has a gun.” Sure. To make a long story short, we got home fine but lied down in the back seat to be sure. The cab driver, like most Tanzanians, just kept telling us “no worries,” and my favorite “everyone has a gun in Arusha, it’s so easy!”
*Amani Update*
I also got the chance a little while back to go on a home visit with a social worker and a fourteen-year-old boy at Amani I’m very close with. His family lives two villages or so down the road from Amani, near Bonite, the Coca-Cola bottling plantation. I love seeing the Coca-Cola staff buses along the roads in Moshi since the bus is so ancient it’s a miracle it’s not falling apart, trailing in pieces. I have to say though Coca-Cola really is ingenius. When small shacks/shops decide to sell their products they give them printed signs of the shop’s name in exchange. Plus the transportation among other things. They really have it down. Anyways, it seemed like this village was really built around this bottling plant, which is pretty much out in the sticks. The area is pretty poor- mostly mud huts- and from what I’ve heard there’s a good amount of street kids and alcoholism. When we went to see the boy’s house (mud hut), his parents were absent since his father was at work and his mom was at a funeral (very typical here). We did see instead the mother of a child out on the street who I know who used to be at Amani about four months ago. It was pretty heart breaking since she was clearly drunk so early in the morning and hadn’t seen her son in so long. Her son is a great little artist and addicted to drugs. Since the parents weren’t there we went to visit the little brother at primary school. Because we were in the bush, at one point I looked behind me at the school and literally saw one hundred kids behind me chanting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” which means foreigner or white person. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like a Rolling Stone, and I’m pretty okay with that.
On the walk back the little brother kept saying “tunaenda wote?” or “are we all going back?” It was clear he’d really missed his older brother and wanted to come visit him which isn’t really done. Although of course the following weekend he showed up at Amani to play with bicycles and the next day his father angrily took him back. Unfortunately, I’m sure he was beaten since that’s what’s done here. This entire country is silently crying out for anything resembling a movement against domestic violence. There really is nothing and nowhere anyone can go when they are abused. The police are pretty worthless other than anything outside of bribes, which isn’t fair to say, but it’s mostly true.
By the time we got back the mother had returned (by the way the whole walk back the social worker was trying to get me to agree to marry him- not fun). The mother is blind from years of cooking over smoky fires and from what I can tell can only see shades of light and shapes. She was angry we had brought her son back since before he left he was going down to the river to help fisherman clean fish to sell to make some money for himself and his younger brother since the father was using his money on pombe (beer). This of course brought the boy to tears. The father came home around lunch and in typical Tanzanian fashion the two told the social worker that there are no problems at home. Ten minutes later they were yelling at each other so I took the kids to get a soda. In retaliation the mother stopped cooking for the husband, who refused to give her money to support herself for her disobedience. There were really hard any possessions in the house other some buckets and coals for a fire so I’m really hoping my little friend isn’t being reunified anytime soon without financial assistance and some much needed family counseling. The whole process was really interesting since really, this is what I want to learn about and eventually do.
A lot of the kids behavior has been really erratic lately. They love me one hour, they hate me the next. Many are pissed that I’m leaving them and I don’t blame them. They’re entitled. It must be confusing since I’ve been here close to a year.
There are a few new children this week, although one I’m pretty sure will leave soon. He’s got that look in his eye and it’s easy to see. The littlest one is pretty adorable and in love with the tiny keyboard we received as a donation recently. Personally, I want to chuck that thing out the window. It’s got prerecorded songs like “Jingle Bells” and….oh, wait, one other (!) and the kids love to listen to it on repeat and pretend they’re playing the songs. It was pretty heartbreaking today since I was standing over him and noticed a scar on his arm beneath his t-shirt line. As I pulled up the t-shirt sleeve I saw a cigarette burn (on a child less than ten years old), and four letters including K and L written out on his arm. The terrible part about it was the letters were scars from burns, and he tried to convince me he did it to himself when he can’t write. Whoever this child’s father was essentially branded him as a form of punishment. I’m continually shocked and disgusted on new levels of what humans can do to humans; what adults can do to children.
One of the best parts of my week are Thursday mornings when I go pick up two wonderful kids called Kalisti and Zainabu at a special needs school the next village over. I think they really love that they get to show off their school and have someone come pick them up since people don’t really do that here with kids. Even preschool kids make the long walk alone. Zain has pretty intense ADD sometimes, and let me tell you, they don’t sell daily drugs for that here. She is one slap happy child truly living on her own planet. I call it “The Zai Show” or “The Hurricane.” Anyways, I really love them and walking down the village road alongside the banana trees and the skinny stream and the wandering chickens to go get them is always so fun.
*Lake Natron*
After hearing of Amani’s death last week, I really needed to get away for the weekend and be distracted. Of course, I have still been thinking about him every day and really feel like it wasn’t properly explained to the kids. It’s difficult since they truly are so much more used to death here. It is much much more commonplace. His picture was taken off the website and it’s sort of just not being talked about.
My wonderful friend Anna’s mom and brother (plus girlfriend) are visiting her this week so I decided to go with them this past weekend to Lake Natron. If you’ve seen “Out of Africa,” Lake Natron is mentioned when Meryl Streep’s character ventures with her own safari party to go meet her husband, although it never actually shows the lake. Anna’s boyfriend (Josh) is Tanzania and was able to rent a large SUV for the six of us to drive out there. Of course when we got the car, it turned out the back seat was missing so yours truly sat in the trunk for six hours. It actually wasn’t too bad and I felt like I was in the womb being rocked to sleep on the backcountry road haha…yes, I know that sounds weird. On the way out there the car kept stopping and Josh would have to start it again, and the car was tilting a lot since the road was so crappy, which made Anna’s family less than pleased. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to terrible buses in this country or because I was clueless spacing out in the back, but it seemed like a pretty decent ride. Along the way Masai (kids mostly) kept appearing from across the desert asking us for water, which we had since we brought a few boxes of our own.
The drought that’s going on in this part of the world right now is incredible. I can’t tell you how desperate people were for water and I have never seen so many dying cows in my life. Masai depend on cows for their life and it is said that Masai believe all the cows in the world are their own. It was grim to see half decayed carcasses and cows that weren’t getting up to go to the bathroom, who according to Masai we met, would die the same day or the next. I don’t know how people are living out there, but it’s incredible.
The camp we stayed at was an oasis in the desert with trees and grass, right near an active volcano. We each stayed in a stand up tent with beds inside and lantern light. It was beautiful to wake up in the morning and see goats and sheeps and donkeys grazing on the camp grounds. The bathrooms reminded me of the Flintstones since the sinks were made of rock and the showers were rock covered by Masai blankets. There was a small sort of restaurant open to the elements, all run by Masai.
We took a short walking safari (only a few hours) from the camp ground through dried lava ash, across a river through the Masai bomas (villages) and finally to the lake. It felt so special to be able to walk in Masai country and see things like the bush they use (or the branches) to brush their teeth. The lake was beautiful and filled with pink flamingoes who shy fairly easily away from people. Because of the drought, the lake is much smaller than normal and the salt in the water was drying out the mud. At some point I felt like I was walking across a brownie, sort of crispy on the top and fudgy inside.
That same day we hiked up a canyon through a river to a waterfall. On the way back baboons were crawling up the hills like something out of “The Wizard of Oz” and there was a massive dust storm that at first made us think the volcano might be erupting and then just made me feel like I was traveling in north Africa. The waterfall was very picturesque and reminded me of “Swiss Family Robinson” since you had to lift yourself into one waterfall and then you could walk back to others hidden from plain view. At the end we were able to slide down a rock (a mini water slide) which was more than beautiful.
This all sounds fine and lovely until you hear about what a pain in the keister it was to come home. On the way to the campsite (the first day) we were running on empty for forty minutes or so and just made it in before night fall. Because we were out in no man’s land we had to buy gas through a deal with villagers and I’m pretty sure something was fishy with those forty-five liters of petrol….possibly diluted or dirty. Needless to say, the car broke down two hours outside of Lake Natron on the return trip, in the middle of endless desert. Josh tried fixing the car but I could tell nothing was gonna help this lemon. Luckily since there is only one road to Natron some safari cars passed us and tried to help. Of course, they all had clients and couldn’t really help us for long, and instead told us they’d radio for help. Stupidly not one safari car had a SAT phone which I sort of thought was necessary for trips like those. Eventually an ancient safari car from the 50s or 60s was driving our way and agreed to tow us…..10 kilometers in about an hour…to the next village. By the time we got there I really had to pee and this Masai chick flipped out at me and wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount for using the building that said “toilet.” We then had to pay since the rental car we were ditching was next to her house and she was talking about destroying it in retaliation. Honestly. I also forgot to mention that when we were stranded in the desert for hours Masai came out of nowhere (who did NOT speak Swahili) and were pinching our skin and looking at us like we were total aliens. Eventually I shut my door since I felt like I was on display at the zoo and the started drawing pictures in the dirt on our car. Back in the village, I convinced Josh we ditch this piece of crap rental car and pay these two Tanz dudes to take us to Mtu Mbu- Mosquito River- a village 2 to 3 hours away where there is cell-phone service and paved roads. We all climbed in the trunk of the hollowed out ancient safari car and made the slow crawl back to Mtu Mbu, were we had to get yet another lift to Arusha, at which point it started pouring out of nowhere. The good news is were alive and back in Moshi and we’ve survived.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Blog Update: Goodbye Amani Eduardi.
Saying goodbye is difficult. Saying goodbye to a child whose life ended much too soon is something that cannot be described with words. This week, Amani Eduardi, along with three of his friends living on the street, traveled by bus to Dar to try life there. Dar is a much bigger city where more money can be made. All of the kids had been to the center but Amani had spent the most time there. This whole year he’s been in and out, in and out. At some point he’d always return a few months later after running back to the street. I don’t know Amani’s story, but I felt like I knew who he was for the short period he stayed (one month at a time).
Amani, fourteen, died in a bus accident this week. His friends survived. I look at his photograph and feel beaten. I wanted him to have so many things and for some reason I always hoped he would pull through. Life is not easy here and it’s sometimes possible to lose sight of that. It’s terrible to think that more kids I know might die before me, might die before adulthood. I feel sick and shocked and saddened all at once so that it makes me not feel anything. I know Amani had a difficult life but he was always so appreciative and joyful. His eyes expressed such raw emotions that can’t possibly be revealed unless someone has experienced so much they do not have the energy to consciously conceal their state of mind.
To Amani Eduardi I say: I’ll miss you. I’ll miss seeing you. I’ll miss drawing with you; spending time with you. I hope you found some peace in your last few moments and I hope you know you will be remembered. Most of all I hope you know this is not your fault. While many people look down on children living on the street, I admire you for escaping a situation that felt unsafe. Not everyone is brave enough to do that. And I admire you for still embracing your childhood after everything that happened. I wish you could have grown up and finished school. I wish you could have had many things. I’m glad I got to meet you and I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m not sure what I believe in; all I know is that I don’t know much at all. I think atheists are as stubborn as fundamentalists, and stubbornness never solved anything. If I believe in one thing, it’s that a person’s spirit stays with us long after they’re gone. I think it’s what you do with this person’s influence that determines whether you’ll continue to change your life for the better. Amani: we’re thinking of you and you are loved.
Amani, fourteen, died in a bus accident this week. His friends survived. I look at his photograph and feel beaten. I wanted him to have so many things and for some reason I always hoped he would pull through. Life is not easy here and it’s sometimes possible to lose sight of that. It’s terrible to think that more kids I know might die before me, might die before adulthood. I feel sick and shocked and saddened all at once so that it makes me not feel anything. I know Amani had a difficult life but he was always so appreciative and joyful. His eyes expressed such raw emotions that can’t possibly be revealed unless someone has experienced so much they do not have the energy to consciously conceal their state of mind.
To Amani Eduardi I say: I’ll miss you. I’ll miss seeing you. I’ll miss drawing with you; spending time with you. I hope you found some peace in your last few moments and I hope you know you will be remembered. Most of all I hope you know this is not your fault. While many people look down on children living on the street, I admire you for escaping a situation that felt unsafe. Not everyone is brave enough to do that. And I admire you for still embracing your childhood after everything that happened. I wish you could have grown up and finished school. I wish you could have had many things. I’m glad I got to meet you and I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m not sure what I believe in; all I know is that I don’t know much at all. I think atheists are as stubborn as fundamentalists, and stubbornness never solved anything. If I believe in one thing, it’s that a person’s spirit stays with us long after they’re gone. I think it’s what you do with this person’s influence that determines whether you’ll continue to change your life for the better. Amani: we’re thinking of you and you are loved.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Blog Update: Cheeky rat invasion and other news
Our house has turned into a fancy campground. And by this I mean that we haven’t had power in 4 days so all six of us are sharing the propane stove. On the plus side we are really contributing to the East African candle and match industry. A big percentage of Tanzanians don’t have electricity so I’m a wuss to complain but I’m spoiled and appreciate the spoils I’m spoiled by. The dogs have chewed a giant hole where the butt goes on the hammock and we also have a massive colony of rats living in our roof that sounds like WWF-Rat at night. We wanted to believe it was lizards, but no. Apparently, the bastards have been playing with the wires attached to the electricity meter accelerating the measuring process, which explains why our electricity bill was so high last month.
Luckily when the fundi was over at the house investigating the rat sabotage situation, me and my new roommates Max and Zahra went for a hike in Marangu (a village at the foot of Kili.) It’s a lot cooler up there and very green, with banana trees and coffee plans everywhere. The waterfall we hiked to (Nduru) with a guide named Frank, was really beautiful. We walked through residential areas first with small farms and then reached the top of the river valley where there were some hiking sticks. Other than a german couple we passed on the way down, we were the only ones there. The jungle was so beautiful colored with every different type of green you can imagine. The way down was pretty steep and on the way back I felt like I might pass out with the altitude change. It was raining off and on during the hike, which felt really wonderful to walk in. The rain let up when we reached the 80 or so foot fall where we decided to go swimming. The water was cold but bearable and swimming under the fall made my heart beat and beat and beat faster than I can remember.
Amani update:
This week is my last week at Amani without my replacement. Scary! I’ve been so sad for months thinking about this but now I actually feel ready to move on. This week was fun- we drew hippos and watering holes and street scenes. I’ve learned a lot and love many of the kids but I’m burnt out. I’m unsure about the future. I do feel like I am much more creative now, or can at least think of new ideas quickly. I applied for a job in Arusha and got an email last week about having an interview but don’t know how I feel about it. I also don’t really have a desire to live in Arusha. Anna has become a really amazing friend here and is like a sister to me so I’ll be incredibly sad to say goodbye to her. Either way I’d really like to do more with street children issues in Tanzania and would love to come back and do some research in Dar sooner rather than later. My dream would be for someone, maybe me maybe not, to develop a drop-in center for street kids where they can get a shower, rest, eat a meal, and play some games. It would be great too if there was an addiction specialist and a psychologist- I would want any kid to be able to come in off the street but in order to use the facilities they’d have to talk to the psychologist first. I don’t know how realistic that is. There should also be some first aid supplies and someone there to chaperone sick kids to nearby clinics for malaria/STI tests. I would also want a literacy program and some vocational training classes. This is just the dream in my head but there is really no place like this in this area.
In other news my darling Ibrahim Simon came back on Thursday. I didn’t want to come in because some of the kids have been so rude lately, but when Anna called to tell me he was back it was a no-brainer. I had written him a letter and we ate juice and cookies together. This probably isn’t really encouraged since the kids are usually punished for running away but he’s a child and I love him. (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be a kind of crappy social worker). Anyways, Anna took him to the clinic the next day and it turns out he has really bad malaria from a week sleeping out on the street so it’s good she caught it in time. David, the kid with the toxic urine, actually has schistosimasis (SPPPP), the disease you get in poorer countries from bugs that live in dirty water crawling into intact skin, etc. So it turns out those idiots at the clinic didn’t need to order all those shots for him. The nurses were terrible at giving him his injections and used the biggest needle I’d ever seen on any child or adult, jammed right into the vein. Poor David was miserable and I wanted to body slam the nurse who told him there was no reason he should be crying. Another one of the kids has had swollen limbs and especially feet for the past few months especially and when I asked him, he said it’s been bothering him for a year. The clinic gave him medicine, which of course hasn’t been working, so he needs to go to KCMC for more tests this week with Anna. It’s possible his liver is failing. We hope it’s not too serious, but something is really wrong with him.
Anna has been working incredibly hard and I really feel like she is sort of taken advantage of as a volunteer. She’s the nurse right now! She, another volunteer Peter and I were all talking and we’re interesting in setting up a dental fund for the kids. This wasn’t very well received but I really think it should be implemented. It was all Anna’s idea after she took a kid to what sounds like the worst dentist ever and instead of doing a root canal for 70,000 shillings they pulled his tooth out for 2,000 because Amani couldn’t pay. Of course, they numbed his tooth and didn’t wait long enough so the numbing kicked in after the agony. There’s also another girl that needs braces and more kids that need teeth pulled. The kids don’t have any annual dental check-up at all, and many of their teeth are deteriorating due to poor water quality in villages and in Arusha.
Unfortunately, on Friday when I took a day off because some of the kids’ behavior has been truly awful, a girl who had been kicked out of Amani and sent home to her village showed back up at the front gates. Because she abused the other children she is not allowed to come back to Amani but apparently told Anna that her family murdered her grandmother in front of her and then blamed her when the police showed up. Both she and her family have serious mental problems so I’m not sure how much to believe, but whatever happened she is traumatized and alone with nowhere to go and no school or home that will take her. As Anna said, her life is ending in her early teens and it’s awful. No matter what she’s done, it’s an injustice that help cannot be found and I’m fearful that she’ll turn to prostitution.
That's it for now...the new art volunteer gets here this week! Crazy. Tomorrow I'm going on a home visit with a social worker to see where my best friend Zacharia is from. I love love love him and I'm a little apprehensive about seeing his home situation. I hope it's not too disheartening.
Hope everyone is enjoying the fall...
Luckily when the fundi was over at the house investigating the rat sabotage situation, me and my new roommates Max and Zahra went for a hike in Marangu (a village at the foot of Kili.) It’s a lot cooler up there and very green, with banana trees and coffee plans everywhere. The waterfall we hiked to (Nduru) with a guide named Frank, was really beautiful. We walked through residential areas first with small farms and then reached the top of the river valley where there were some hiking sticks. Other than a german couple we passed on the way down, we were the only ones there. The jungle was so beautiful colored with every different type of green you can imagine. The way down was pretty steep and on the way back I felt like I might pass out with the altitude change. It was raining off and on during the hike, which felt really wonderful to walk in. The rain let up when we reached the 80 or so foot fall where we decided to go swimming. The water was cold but bearable and swimming under the fall made my heart beat and beat and beat faster than I can remember.
Amani update:
This week is my last week at Amani without my replacement. Scary! I’ve been so sad for months thinking about this but now I actually feel ready to move on. This week was fun- we drew hippos and watering holes and street scenes. I’ve learned a lot and love many of the kids but I’m burnt out. I’m unsure about the future. I do feel like I am much more creative now, or can at least think of new ideas quickly. I applied for a job in Arusha and got an email last week about having an interview but don’t know how I feel about it. I also don’t really have a desire to live in Arusha. Anna has become a really amazing friend here and is like a sister to me so I’ll be incredibly sad to say goodbye to her. Either way I’d really like to do more with street children issues in Tanzania and would love to come back and do some research in Dar sooner rather than later. My dream would be for someone, maybe me maybe not, to develop a drop-in center for street kids where they can get a shower, rest, eat a meal, and play some games. It would be great too if there was an addiction specialist and a psychologist- I would want any kid to be able to come in off the street but in order to use the facilities they’d have to talk to the psychologist first. I don’t know how realistic that is. There should also be some first aid supplies and someone there to chaperone sick kids to nearby clinics for malaria/STI tests. I would also want a literacy program and some vocational training classes. This is just the dream in my head but there is really no place like this in this area.
In other news my darling Ibrahim Simon came back on Thursday. I didn’t want to come in because some of the kids have been so rude lately, but when Anna called to tell me he was back it was a no-brainer. I had written him a letter and we ate juice and cookies together. This probably isn’t really encouraged since the kids are usually punished for running away but he’s a child and I love him. (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be a kind of crappy social worker). Anyways, Anna took him to the clinic the next day and it turns out he has really bad malaria from a week sleeping out on the street so it’s good she caught it in time. David, the kid with the toxic urine, actually has schistosimasis (SPPPP), the disease you get in poorer countries from bugs that live in dirty water crawling into intact skin, etc. So it turns out those idiots at the clinic didn’t need to order all those shots for him. The nurses were terrible at giving him his injections and used the biggest needle I’d ever seen on any child or adult, jammed right into the vein. Poor David was miserable and I wanted to body slam the nurse who told him there was no reason he should be crying. Another one of the kids has had swollen limbs and especially feet for the past few months especially and when I asked him, he said it’s been bothering him for a year. The clinic gave him medicine, which of course hasn’t been working, so he needs to go to KCMC for more tests this week with Anna. It’s possible his liver is failing. We hope it’s not too serious, but something is really wrong with him.
Anna has been working incredibly hard and I really feel like she is sort of taken advantage of as a volunteer. She’s the nurse right now! She, another volunteer Peter and I were all talking and we’re interesting in setting up a dental fund for the kids. This wasn’t very well received but I really think it should be implemented. It was all Anna’s idea after she took a kid to what sounds like the worst dentist ever and instead of doing a root canal for 70,000 shillings they pulled his tooth out for 2,000 because Amani couldn’t pay. Of course, they numbed his tooth and didn’t wait long enough so the numbing kicked in after the agony. There’s also another girl that needs braces and more kids that need teeth pulled. The kids don’t have any annual dental check-up at all, and many of their teeth are deteriorating due to poor water quality in villages and in Arusha.
Unfortunately, on Friday when I took a day off because some of the kids’ behavior has been truly awful, a girl who had been kicked out of Amani and sent home to her village showed back up at the front gates. Because she abused the other children she is not allowed to come back to Amani but apparently told Anna that her family murdered her grandmother in front of her and then blamed her when the police showed up. Both she and her family have serious mental problems so I’m not sure how much to believe, but whatever happened she is traumatized and alone with nowhere to go and no school or home that will take her. As Anna said, her life is ending in her early teens and it’s awful. No matter what she’s done, it’s an injustice that help cannot be found and I’m fearful that she’ll turn to prostitution.
That's it for now...the new art volunteer gets here this week! Crazy. Tomorrow I'm going on a home visit with a social worker to see where my best friend Zacharia is from. I love love love him and I'm a little apprehensive about seeing his home situation. I hope it's not too disheartening.
Hope everyone is enjoying the fall...
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Hearts and Health
The Big Picture:
My departure is becoming more real. And I’m scared. In some ways I’m looking forward to certain things. I started making a list to give myself a more positive perspective: being able to talk to friends on the phone or in person, seeing doctors who don’t ask me for gifts from America, smoothies and sandwiches and driving and bookstores. Pie. Sterilized bathrooms and doctors’ offices. I’m still scared, but it helps. Today is October 2nd and the new art teacher at Amani arrives October 15th. I’m terrified of this because it will make my departure real. The kids will know I’m leaving them and I don’t want to. I know at some point, I have to move on. I have to get paid and be an adult. I do get tired and burnt out here more intensely than in the U.S. but I feel like I live here now. My life is here and it will be so hard to pack up and go. I want to come back as soon as I can, but still it will never be the same as living here. There have been times where things have been really difficult at work and just day-to-day, but in some days I feel like I’m just getting started. I look around at the kids and think, what will I do when I have to leave you? Life will certainly feel emptier. Multiple kids have become like surrogate children to me. It’s beautiful but heartbreaking to be told I am their mother. I hope to be in a loving relationship some day and I would be surprised if I didn’t adopt, but right now, in these moments, being with these children is enough. I feel guilty for leaving. I like myself less.
The thought of going back to the U.S. (so far away) where I may not find a job is difficult as well. Even so, I’m thankful I’m not from here. Maybe that sounds awful. It’s incredibly beautiful and resourceful and conservative and I want to come back immediately, but life here is incredibly hard. Kids begin to scrub and soak and carry bucketfuls of water on their heads by the time they are in preschool. It’s a wonder they don’t have arthritis by the time their twenty. And the women. The women are one thousand times stronger than I am or ever will be. Imagine giving birth eight times with no option of pain killers, ever. Eight sets of arms and legs and shoulders. Eight little donut-shaped butts to clean. Seventy-two months of pregnancy. PREGNANCY. Cleaning, cooking, children, farming, sewing. It’s really close to incredible. It’s hard to keep in mind the big picture and stay positive when I know how hard it will be to break away, but at least if I have to leave I can appreciate my luxuries a little more.
*****
Updates:
This week was a mighty long one. Since the nurse is not here for three weeks, my friend Anna has taken her place. Mind you, she’s a volunteer. She’s been working twelve-hour days and on Tuesday I helped her to take eight kids to the clinic for malaria tests, stomach spasms, etc. Along with that, today we went back to the clinic with kids (but really, Anna has had to go multiple times a day every day this week). Did I mention, she’s a volunteer? One kid’s urine is so toxic he has to get shots twice a day. I don’t know how that happened but he has lived on the street for a while. His friends also all went back to the streets and took his clothes, so he now owns one Bart Simpson t-shirt and one incredibly tight pair of blue pants that look like they are for someone half his size. The storekeeper at Amani is out of pants and shirts for the older kids so I gave him a pair of sweats I don’t really need. The injections look so painful and he’s so tough, yet he still asked me at the end of the day today when the toys and games would be taken out again. He’s still a child inside.
Anna and I went to immigration today since some agents stopped by Amani to check our papers, and we both realized that even though we have resident permits we don’t have the resident stamp you need inside your passport. Bleh. By two o’clock all was well as we were heading back to Amani along the main highway from town when we saw one of the Amani boys walking down the road. Anna miraculously spotted him so we turned the taxi around and got out to talk with him. I talked to one of the street educators over the phone hoping he would have some words of advice for Frank but he was busy at the main hospital and instead told me “You know what to do, you can do it.” This was a little overwhelming. This is not my culture or my language. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Tanzanian boy without a family. The taxi driver helped us talk him into going back to Amani and Frank admitted he likes school (and is a great artist). At first he was pretty against the idea but slowly started to warm up. Apparently he was fighting with another boy who hit him. Who knows what really happened, but I do know his eyes looked very lost. Two younger boys left earlier this week, which has been really difficult. I love them both, and one in particular, Ibrahim, is the most well-behaved, kindest child at Amani. He’s young and scrawny and kids pick on him because he is so helpful to teachers. The thought of him out on the street is painful. Every morning he would greet me with a big hug and a “Good morning, Whitney!”. I don’t know what happened, but something must have gone wrong to force a child to leave his home and his school. He absolutely loves being in school. Frank claimed he knew where the two boys were so we turned the taxi back around and went into town to explore. I know one of the boys (Bahati…which ironically means lucky) living on the Moshi streets, who is sadly very addicted to glue and will probably stay on the street for years to come. He came to Amani once this year but only lasted a week, and considering there is no drug rehabilitation program in this country for any age group, he doesn’t have a lot of hope. I visit him sometimes and buy him bread or juice. He only looks around ten but I’m sure he’s older. Anyways, he and his friend Nemes were the only ones we saw, and I had already visited them this week to look for the two missing boys. There’s been no sign of Ibrahim or his friend Baracka, but I am thinking of them constantly and hope to see them soon. *
All and all it was quite a busy day/week and ended with me holding Zacharia’s hands as Peter, another volunteer, drained a giant sore in his knee. At this point at Amani, I am closest to Zacharia. He’s fourteen and came to Amani around the same time I did. His father is abusive and his mother is blind but his energy is so contagious and his love of life. He’s my friend and my family and I would give my life for him if it came down to it. I love him with my whole heart and that’s not an easy task. I remember reading this quote once that said something like children teach you how to love and how much love resides within you to share with others. It’s very true.
Oh also! I saw a monkey at my house in the front yard for the first time. And a wonderful little kitten who I was hoping to take home and feel sardines and milk too was taken by a crazy man. The kitten followed me home from the garden down the road from our house and I was trying to get him to jump in my purse since he was scared of our dogs but alas, he was captured.
* Anna and I went to Arusha for the day on Saturday with our new roommates. We saw former Amani kids who live in Arusha now (they’ve graduated), but no sign of Ibrahim or Baracka.
My departure is becoming more real. And I’m scared. In some ways I’m looking forward to certain things. I started making a list to give myself a more positive perspective: being able to talk to friends on the phone or in person, seeing doctors who don’t ask me for gifts from America, smoothies and sandwiches and driving and bookstores. Pie. Sterilized bathrooms and doctors’ offices. I’m still scared, but it helps. Today is October 2nd and the new art teacher at Amani arrives October 15th. I’m terrified of this because it will make my departure real. The kids will know I’m leaving them and I don’t want to. I know at some point, I have to move on. I have to get paid and be an adult. I do get tired and burnt out here more intensely than in the U.S. but I feel like I live here now. My life is here and it will be so hard to pack up and go. I want to come back as soon as I can, but still it will never be the same as living here. There have been times where things have been really difficult at work and just day-to-day, but in some days I feel like I’m just getting started. I look around at the kids and think, what will I do when I have to leave you? Life will certainly feel emptier. Multiple kids have become like surrogate children to me. It’s beautiful but heartbreaking to be told I am their mother. I hope to be in a loving relationship some day and I would be surprised if I didn’t adopt, but right now, in these moments, being with these children is enough. I feel guilty for leaving. I like myself less.
The thought of going back to the U.S. (so far away) where I may not find a job is difficult as well. Even so, I’m thankful I’m not from here. Maybe that sounds awful. It’s incredibly beautiful and resourceful and conservative and I want to come back immediately, but life here is incredibly hard. Kids begin to scrub and soak and carry bucketfuls of water on their heads by the time they are in preschool. It’s a wonder they don’t have arthritis by the time their twenty. And the women. The women are one thousand times stronger than I am or ever will be. Imagine giving birth eight times with no option of pain killers, ever. Eight sets of arms and legs and shoulders. Eight little donut-shaped butts to clean. Seventy-two months of pregnancy. PREGNANCY. Cleaning, cooking, children, farming, sewing. It’s really close to incredible. It’s hard to keep in mind the big picture and stay positive when I know how hard it will be to break away, but at least if I have to leave I can appreciate my luxuries a little more.
*****
Updates:
This week was a mighty long one. Since the nurse is not here for three weeks, my friend Anna has taken her place. Mind you, she’s a volunteer. She’s been working twelve-hour days and on Tuesday I helped her to take eight kids to the clinic for malaria tests, stomach spasms, etc. Along with that, today we went back to the clinic with kids (but really, Anna has had to go multiple times a day every day this week). Did I mention, she’s a volunteer? One kid’s urine is so toxic he has to get shots twice a day. I don’t know how that happened but he has lived on the street for a while. His friends also all went back to the streets and took his clothes, so he now owns one Bart Simpson t-shirt and one incredibly tight pair of blue pants that look like they are for someone half his size. The storekeeper at Amani is out of pants and shirts for the older kids so I gave him a pair of sweats I don’t really need. The injections look so painful and he’s so tough, yet he still asked me at the end of the day today when the toys and games would be taken out again. He’s still a child inside.
Anna and I went to immigration today since some agents stopped by Amani to check our papers, and we both realized that even though we have resident permits we don’t have the resident stamp you need inside your passport. Bleh. By two o’clock all was well as we were heading back to Amani along the main highway from town when we saw one of the Amani boys walking down the road. Anna miraculously spotted him so we turned the taxi around and got out to talk with him. I talked to one of the street educators over the phone hoping he would have some words of advice for Frank but he was busy at the main hospital and instead told me “You know what to do, you can do it.” This was a little overwhelming. This is not my culture or my language. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Tanzanian boy without a family. The taxi driver helped us talk him into going back to Amani and Frank admitted he likes school (and is a great artist). At first he was pretty against the idea but slowly started to warm up. Apparently he was fighting with another boy who hit him. Who knows what really happened, but I do know his eyes looked very lost. Two younger boys left earlier this week, which has been really difficult. I love them both, and one in particular, Ibrahim, is the most well-behaved, kindest child at Amani. He’s young and scrawny and kids pick on him because he is so helpful to teachers. The thought of him out on the street is painful. Every morning he would greet me with a big hug and a “Good morning, Whitney!”. I don’t know what happened, but something must have gone wrong to force a child to leave his home and his school. He absolutely loves being in school. Frank claimed he knew where the two boys were so we turned the taxi back around and went into town to explore. I know one of the boys (Bahati…which ironically means lucky) living on the Moshi streets, who is sadly very addicted to glue and will probably stay on the street for years to come. He came to Amani once this year but only lasted a week, and considering there is no drug rehabilitation program in this country for any age group, he doesn’t have a lot of hope. I visit him sometimes and buy him bread or juice. He only looks around ten but I’m sure he’s older. Anyways, he and his friend Nemes were the only ones we saw, and I had already visited them this week to look for the two missing boys. There’s been no sign of Ibrahim or his friend Baracka, but I am thinking of them constantly and hope to see them soon. *
All and all it was quite a busy day/week and ended with me holding Zacharia’s hands as Peter, another volunteer, drained a giant sore in his knee. At this point at Amani, I am closest to Zacharia. He’s fourteen and came to Amani around the same time I did. His father is abusive and his mother is blind but his energy is so contagious and his love of life. He’s my friend and my family and I would give my life for him if it came down to it. I love him with my whole heart and that’s not an easy task. I remember reading this quote once that said something like children teach you how to love and how much love resides within you to share with others. It’s very true.
Oh also! I saw a monkey at my house in the front yard for the first time. And a wonderful little kitten who I was hoping to take home and feel sardines and milk too was taken by a crazy man. The kitten followed me home from the garden down the road from our house and I was trying to get him to jump in my purse since he was scared of our dogs but alas, he was captured.
* Anna and I went to Arusha for the day on Saturday with our new roommates. We saw former Amani kids who live in Arusha now (they’ve graduated), but no sign of Ibrahim or Baracka.
My beef with the Peace Corps Tanzania
I have to say, without trying to be a rain cloud, Peace Corps people (at least in this country) really rub me the wrong way. I know that that’s pretty much a gross generalization, blah blah blah….but I don’t care. They always try to play the p-card (p as in poverty) “oh my life is so tough I live in a village.” Dude. You get stipends, you get to travel, you get time off, you get paid thousands of dollars at the end. The villages (at least the ones I know about) are incredibly beautiful. I’m not playing the p-card and I drained the majority of my savings to come here. It sucks but the sacrifice was worth it. I think I’m mainly just annoyed because they act like an elite club and isn’t that the opposite of the point PC is trying to make? I also am not really a fan of JFK’s foreign policy (Bay of Pigs, anyone? Anyone?), which I always think of when I think of the PC (since he started it). Maybe they’re apples and oranges, whatever. So yea, I’m a little biased. At least it exists and they try to do wonderful things and no one’s perfect, lord knows.
I’m sure this sounds bitchy but imagine you’re me. You’ve lived here for nine months- not an eternity but not a tourist jaunt. Enough time to grow a baby inside your phantom uterus. You work with locals, you speak the language and you’ve finally stopped getting harassed in town because you look like you know where you’re going (oh sweet sweet victory!). It just makes it doubly insulting when these Peace Corps people who have been “at the site” for three months think they know how it all works here and say, like tonight, talk on and on in my face drunkenly about how tough they are. I mean, just because I’m white and not PC I don’t know what I’m doing? It’s also insulting to the people that live here. A person can live in a village for two or three years here and still not fully know what life is like for the people living in these isolated rural communities. Maybe they’ve lived there, but have they grown up there? Have they made families there? No. It’s possible I’m just bitter because when I meet PC volunteers they always assume I’ve only been here a few weeks and I always want to tell them to shut their pie hole. I guess it’s just frustrating because you can make a difference anywhere, it doesn’t have to be in East Africa or Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t have to be with the poorest of the poor. But if all people get out of helping others is bragging rights, then what’s the point? If that greater message is missing, then it’s all in vain. I feel pretty proud sometimes that I’ve gone out into the streets and met kids and criminals. I love that some of the Amani kids have become my best friends (and they’re fourteen). It feels liberating to bridge those connections, but I also think it’s so so important to keep in mind that what I feel lucky for is this window of observation and eventual interaction that I’ve been granted. In no way can that experience be romanticized because the lives of the kids, the criminals, the scavengers, are their own. Others can’t claim them. And the Peace Corps, volunteering, it’s definitely romanticized. If I don’t come out of my experience with a greater understanding of the unknown, then the lesson has been lost. If all I think about it is me and what I’ve done at the end of this, then I’ve failed. That’s not the point. I think the point is gaining a greater understanding of the human condition, of the relationships we make, the lives of others and what we choose to do in those seconds before our choices are made.
I’m sure this sounds bitchy but imagine you’re me. You’ve lived here for nine months- not an eternity but not a tourist jaunt. Enough time to grow a baby inside your phantom uterus. You work with locals, you speak the language and you’ve finally stopped getting harassed in town because you look like you know where you’re going (oh sweet sweet victory!). It just makes it doubly insulting when these Peace Corps people who have been “at the site” for three months think they know how it all works here and say, like tonight, talk on and on in my face drunkenly about how tough they are. I mean, just because I’m white and not PC I don’t know what I’m doing? It’s also insulting to the people that live here. A person can live in a village for two or three years here and still not fully know what life is like for the people living in these isolated rural communities. Maybe they’ve lived there, but have they grown up there? Have they made families there? No. It’s possible I’m just bitter because when I meet PC volunteers they always assume I’ve only been here a few weeks and I always want to tell them to shut their pie hole. I guess it’s just frustrating because you can make a difference anywhere, it doesn’t have to be in East Africa or Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t have to be with the poorest of the poor. But if all people get out of helping others is bragging rights, then what’s the point? If that greater message is missing, then it’s all in vain. I feel pretty proud sometimes that I’ve gone out into the streets and met kids and criminals. I love that some of the Amani kids have become my best friends (and they’re fourteen). It feels liberating to bridge those connections, but I also think it’s so so important to keep in mind that what I feel lucky for is this window of observation and eventual interaction that I’ve been granted. In no way can that experience be romanticized because the lives of the kids, the criminals, the scavengers, are their own. Others can’t claim them. And the Peace Corps, volunteering, it’s definitely romanticized. If I don’t come out of my experience with a greater understanding of the unknown, then the lesson has been lost. If all I think about it is me and what I’ve done at the end of this, then I’ve failed. That’s not the point. I think the point is gaining a greater understanding of the human condition, of the relationships we make, the lives of others and what we choose to do in those seconds before our choices are made.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Blog Update: Manual labor and white sand beaches
I’ve been out of touch for a while…so here it goes:
Right now I’ve been nursing the flu for a while, which is unfortunate because the weather is changing and it is now blazing hot in East Africa again with wind and dust. I also had a bad infection over the weekend which gave me fever and chills. This country…. Anyways, the older kids have at Amani graduate this Friday as they’ve taken their test to get into secondary school. Kids trying to get into secondary school have one chance to take the national exam to be able to go on in their education. One chance. If they don’t pass, their only option is vocational training for jobs like plumbing, electricity or sewing. I can’t imagine a single test I took at sixteen determining my life’s path. The test is in English and not easy. Fro Friday, I’m working on the slideshow I’ve been making as a present to them, which I’ll show at graduation. However since my body has decided to turn against itself with another regional illness, I’m a little nervous about making it the best version of what it could be.
In other news, a few weeks ago the volunteers, a few staff members, and mostly all of the kids went to the Amani shamba (farm) to harvest corn. It’s about a twenty-minute walk or so into the bush from the center. I wish I had brought a camera. The kids looked so beautiful set in a background of dried yellow cornhusks. I wasn’t sure how to harvest corn. It’s strange how we eat all these foods in the U.S. we don’t know how to cultivate or properly take care of from scratch. Anyways, the dry husk covers the corn, and there are about two to three on every stalk. Once you find the corn you peel off most of the husk and twist it off the stalk, then peel off the rest of it. It was pretty fun and exciting at first and I felt like an African Mama, but then the bugs started. There are these microscopic bugs that live in the fuzz at the top of the corn and eat away at the kernels. You don’t notice it at first but then the itching intensifies and every part of my body that wasn’t covered with clothing was red and swollen. It’s Ramadan right now (actually it just ended) so the Muslim kids (there are about twenty) aren’t eating or drinking during the day. They were all exhausted during the harvest, which went on for about three hours and itching like crazy. Since then the corn has been drying out in the basement and yesterday and today the kids were smashing the corn with sticks to get all the kernels off. It looked really strange….like farm kung-fu….and oddly therapeutic.
Last weekend I went to Dar es Salaam on the coast (the commercial capital of TZ), with my roommate Anna. Her boyfriend is Tanzanian and lives in Dar. It was sort of a culture shock (i.e. there is an actual mall in Dar with thirty stores and air conditioning), but I had a good weekend and I’m glad I went considering I was thinking of writing my whole blog before I left about Tanzanian men all being pigs. Really, I cannot even begin to count how many men have either a) asked me for money or b) been sexually inappropriate. Granted, I’m pretty tired of men from all countries- I don’t discriminate. In the past eight months numerous old men have told me to buy them sodas, or pay for their bus ride, which they tell the bus conductors in Swahili and think I won’t understand. The women ask too but the men are the worst. Kids are taught to beg here from a young age as well. The most frustrating part is when people ask me for things and they clearly have jobs and are wearing nice clothes. I mean, really? When so much of the country is poor and suffering that sort of thing upsets me. There’s also this crazy old woman who yelled at me once for taking a taxi to Amani. Really I’m just sick of getting treated as a means to an end or old geezers asking me for presents or sex. Doctors also ask me for presents from America. What the hell? If so many of my relatives didn’t have access to this, I would use many expletives right now. Anyways, the nice part about Dar is harassment happens less since it’s such a big city.
Dar was a nice break though. We ate at a really wonderful Ethiopian restaurant furnished with beautifully carved chairs, old lanterns and colorful umbrellas. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before and always think of famine when I think of that country, but it was really delicious! (It really made me want to go to Ethiopia and explore). You eat as a group with your hands and the plate is delicious and edible. Best of all it was all things I could eat since the bread is this spongy sourdough type thing made from rice and other gluten-free grains. The wine was a little too sweet since it’s made with honey but the food was excellent- different meats and vegetables marinated in spices and sauces. On Saturday we took a five minute ferry to an island across from the city that only cost 100 shillings (ten cents). Dar is large and congested and reminds me of California since everything is spread out and you really need a car to get around, which is why I was surprised that this island is lined with beautiful white sand, turquoise water beaches. About eight of us went…a few Tanzanians but mostly American college students doing research on public health issues in Tanz. We rented army tents outside that looked like they were from the 70s and it was strangely freezing that night. Down the beach there was a Rasta drum circle that went on until dawn. They were all incredibly stoned and excellent at making us feel continuously slightly awkward. Because of my distrust and bitterness toward Tanzanian men as well as my disinterest in the ganga or “sticky icky” as they like to call it, I didn’t stay for long. My friend Anna wanted to go for a late night moonlit swim in the ocean with her boyfriend, which we all thought was romantic from a distance, but it turned out that she swam right into some sort of spiky anemone that stuck into her leg, hand and foot, which her boyfriend later had to painfully extract from her skin. I went swimming most of the time we were there or drank passion fruit juice, which is the idea of a lovely time in my book.
At the moment I’m pretty preoccupied trying to figure my life out for the next year. Since I’m applying for grad school in international social work for the fall it’s difficult to look for an actual “job job” as I like to say. I finish at Amani end of October/early November, but I actually think it will be a lot harder for me than the kids. Three new long-term volunteers have come who I’m sure the kids will bond with, but I know I’ll think of the kids constantly. I sort of wish I had told my boss I could stay until the end of the year...but when he asked me a few months ago I wasn’t sure financially and he found a replacement art teacher incredibly fast. But to be honest, I’m also sort of burnt out. The holidays really aren’t a big deal to me and I’m sure it would be really wonderful to spend with the kids…but I will be in California by Christmas. The kids get shoeboxes every year filled with little things like pencils and stickers, etc. I’m not really sure what to do for the eight months I have until I start the school that I’ll hopefully get into. I would love to stay in Tanzania but money-wise it’s really not possible. I also want to avoid turning into a twenty-something loser who relies on her parents constantly financially. Then again I wouldn’t want to stay in Moshi and not see the kids…it’d be too difficult. I was hoping to try and stay here longer by bartending at the ex-pat bar in town but the boss (my boss’s wife) isn’t hiring until at least January….and volunteering on the side. I met a girl from Dartmouth who somehow knows the president of AMREF and she had some good contacts…including an American PHD student focusing on street children who might be looking for a research assistant in Dar so I’ve emailed the professor and I’m still fishing around for possibilities.
I feel like I really know what I want to do and surprisingly, it makes everything harder. I know I want to be a social worker, specifically working with homeless or previously homeless kids. I didn’t expect to figure that out this year but I just sort of feel it in my malaria-affected gut that this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I’ll read this in a few years and think about how naïve I was, but for now, I feel pretty certain. The part that makes it hard is the idea of doing different things and being unsatisfied. Sometimes I think I’m so focused on thinking about the life I want to be living that I forget to live the life I have now. It’s just part of being human I suppose, but sometimes it can be crippling. I don’t want to turn into someone who is so scared of being unhappy in the future that she forgets to be happy in the present.
I feel pretty tough or at least like I have a thicker skin from working at Amani. It’s a strange feeling when new volunteers come in…just to get their perspective on what they think of Amani and the kids and I inevitably think about how much they don’t know and that I was once in their place. Just to hear the kids’ stories and see them leave and know that they’ve struggled without family or adults to lean on. Some of them are not really kids at all, more often “the child” part of them just leaves their eyes. Other times I forget what they’ve gone through, both individually and collectively, because they are still able to experience some part of childhood.
My good friend, roommate and co-worker Anna is working on a drug-intake form to be filled out by kids when they first arrive. She’s in Arusha now visiting the kids on the street. The drugs kids most commonly do are glue and “mari-ja-juana” as they say (both about twenty cents U.S.). Others include “kiwi” or shoe polish, coke (which is becoming more and more popular as it becomes more prominent across East Africa), and car petrol from fuel tanks (which is inhaled).
I know it’ll be nice to go back to the U.S., especially to see a doctor who, say…doesn’t use a flashlight from their cell phone to look into my mouth and ears. Ha! But when I really think about it, I don’t really miss the U.S. that much. I miss food at times and new music and not being a minority, but really, I like the challenge of living here. I’m sure I bitch about it a lot, but I really do feel blessed to be able to live in another country. I love speaking another language the majority of the time, unless it’s with a lot of perverts. I don’t know how much I’ve really helped the kids, and I still think at times that I’m doing more of a disservice becoming attached to the kids and then leaving them. I’m pretty sure that they’ve given me more happiness than I could ever give to them. I do know that I don’t regret coming here and a part of my heart, like any place that I live, will stay here forever.
All the best…. Whitney
Right now I’ve been nursing the flu for a while, which is unfortunate because the weather is changing and it is now blazing hot in East Africa again with wind and dust. I also had a bad infection over the weekend which gave me fever and chills. This country…. Anyways, the older kids have at Amani graduate this Friday as they’ve taken their test to get into secondary school. Kids trying to get into secondary school have one chance to take the national exam to be able to go on in their education. One chance. If they don’t pass, their only option is vocational training for jobs like plumbing, electricity or sewing. I can’t imagine a single test I took at sixteen determining my life’s path. The test is in English and not easy. Fro Friday, I’m working on the slideshow I’ve been making as a present to them, which I’ll show at graduation. However since my body has decided to turn against itself with another regional illness, I’m a little nervous about making it the best version of what it could be.
In other news, a few weeks ago the volunteers, a few staff members, and mostly all of the kids went to the Amani shamba (farm) to harvest corn. It’s about a twenty-minute walk or so into the bush from the center. I wish I had brought a camera. The kids looked so beautiful set in a background of dried yellow cornhusks. I wasn’t sure how to harvest corn. It’s strange how we eat all these foods in the U.S. we don’t know how to cultivate or properly take care of from scratch. Anyways, the dry husk covers the corn, and there are about two to three on every stalk. Once you find the corn you peel off most of the husk and twist it off the stalk, then peel off the rest of it. It was pretty fun and exciting at first and I felt like an African Mama, but then the bugs started. There are these microscopic bugs that live in the fuzz at the top of the corn and eat away at the kernels. You don’t notice it at first but then the itching intensifies and every part of my body that wasn’t covered with clothing was red and swollen. It’s Ramadan right now (actually it just ended) so the Muslim kids (there are about twenty) aren’t eating or drinking during the day. They were all exhausted during the harvest, which went on for about three hours and itching like crazy. Since then the corn has been drying out in the basement and yesterday and today the kids were smashing the corn with sticks to get all the kernels off. It looked really strange….like farm kung-fu….and oddly therapeutic.
Last weekend I went to Dar es Salaam on the coast (the commercial capital of TZ), with my roommate Anna. Her boyfriend is Tanzanian and lives in Dar. It was sort of a culture shock (i.e. there is an actual mall in Dar with thirty stores and air conditioning), but I had a good weekend and I’m glad I went considering I was thinking of writing my whole blog before I left about Tanzanian men all being pigs. Really, I cannot even begin to count how many men have either a) asked me for money or b) been sexually inappropriate. Granted, I’m pretty tired of men from all countries- I don’t discriminate. In the past eight months numerous old men have told me to buy them sodas, or pay for their bus ride, which they tell the bus conductors in Swahili and think I won’t understand. The women ask too but the men are the worst. Kids are taught to beg here from a young age as well. The most frustrating part is when people ask me for things and they clearly have jobs and are wearing nice clothes. I mean, really? When so much of the country is poor and suffering that sort of thing upsets me. There’s also this crazy old woman who yelled at me once for taking a taxi to Amani. Really I’m just sick of getting treated as a means to an end or old geezers asking me for presents or sex. Doctors also ask me for presents from America. What the hell? If so many of my relatives didn’t have access to this, I would use many expletives right now. Anyways, the nice part about Dar is harassment happens less since it’s such a big city.
Dar was a nice break though. We ate at a really wonderful Ethiopian restaurant furnished with beautifully carved chairs, old lanterns and colorful umbrellas. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before and always think of famine when I think of that country, but it was really delicious! (It really made me want to go to Ethiopia and explore). You eat as a group with your hands and the plate is delicious and edible. Best of all it was all things I could eat since the bread is this spongy sourdough type thing made from rice and other gluten-free grains. The wine was a little too sweet since it’s made with honey but the food was excellent- different meats and vegetables marinated in spices and sauces. On Saturday we took a five minute ferry to an island across from the city that only cost 100 shillings (ten cents). Dar is large and congested and reminds me of California since everything is spread out and you really need a car to get around, which is why I was surprised that this island is lined with beautiful white sand, turquoise water beaches. About eight of us went…a few Tanzanians but mostly American college students doing research on public health issues in Tanz. We rented army tents outside that looked like they were from the 70s and it was strangely freezing that night. Down the beach there was a Rasta drum circle that went on until dawn. They were all incredibly stoned and excellent at making us feel continuously slightly awkward. Because of my distrust and bitterness toward Tanzanian men as well as my disinterest in the ganga or “sticky icky” as they like to call it, I didn’t stay for long. My friend Anna wanted to go for a late night moonlit swim in the ocean with her boyfriend, which we all thought was romantic from a distance, but it turned out that she swam right into some sort of spiky anemone that stuck into her leg, hand and foot, which her boyfriend later had to painfully extract from her skin. I went swimming most of the time we were there or drank passion fruit juice, which is the idea of a lovely time in my book.
At the moment I’m pretty preoccupied trying to figure my life out for the next year. Since I’m applying for grad school in international social work for the fall it’s difficult to look for an actual “job job” as I like to say. I finish at Amani end of October/early November, but I actually think it will be a lot harder for me than the kids. Three new long-term volunteers have come who I’m sure the kids will bond with, but I know I’ll think of the kids constantly. I sort of wish I had told my boss I could stay until the end of the year...but when he asked me a few months ago I wasn’t sure financially and he found a replacement art teacher incredibly fast. But to be honest, I’m also sort of burnt out. The holidays really aren’t a big deal to me and I’m sure it would be really wonderful to spend with the kids…but I will be in California by Christmas. The kids get shoeboxes every year filled with little things like pencils and stickers, etc. I’m not really sure what to do for the eight months I have until I start the school that I’ll hopefully get into. I would love to stay in Tanzania but money-wise it’s really not possible. I also want to avoid turning into a twenty-something loser who relies on her parents constantly financially. Then again I wouldn’t want to stay in Moshi and not see the kids…it’d be too difficult. I was hoping to try and stay here longer by bartending at the ex-pat bar in town but the boss (my boss’s wife) isn’t hiring until at least January….and volunteering on the side. I met a girl from Dartmouth who somehow knows the president of AMREF and she had some good contacts…including an American PHD student focusing on street children who might be looking for a research assistant in Dar so I’ve emailed the professor and I’m still fishing around for possibilities.
I feel like I really know what I want to do and surprisingly, it makes everything harder. I know I want to be a social worker, specifically working with homeless or previously homeless kids. I didn’t expect to figure that out this year but I just sort of feel it in my malaria-affected gut that this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I’ll read this in a few years and think about how naïve I was, but for now, I feel pretty certain. The part that makes it hard is the idea of doing different things and being unsatisfied. Sometimes I think I’m so focused on thinking about the life I want to be living that I forget to live the life I have now. It’s just part of being human I suppose, but sometimes it can be crippling. I don’t want to turn into someone who is so scared of being unhappy in the future that she forgets to be happy in the present.
I feel pretty tough or at least like I have a thicker skin from working at Amani. It’s a strange feeling when new volunteers come in…just to get their perspective on what they think of Amani and the kids and I inevitably think about how much they don’t know and that I was once in their place. Just to hear the kids’ stories and see them leave and know that they’ve struggled without family or adults to lean on. Some of them are not really kids at all, more often “the child” part of them just leaves their eyes. Other times I forget what they’ve gone through, both individually and collectively, because they are still able to experience some part of childhood.
My good friend, roommate and co-worker Anna is working on a drug-intake form to be filled out by kids when they first arrive. She’s in Arusha now visiting the kids on the street. The drugs kids most commonly do are glue and “mari-ja-juana” as they say (both about twenty cents U.S.). Others include “kiwi” or shoe polish, coke (which is becoming more and more popular as it becomes more prominent across East Africa), and car petrol from fuel tanks (which is inhaled).
I know it’ll be nice to go back to the U.S., especially to see a doctor who, say…doesn’t use a flashlight from their cell phone to look into my mouth and ears. Ha! But when I really think about it, I don’t really miss the U.S. that much. I miss food at times and new music and not being a minority, but really, I like the challenge of living here. I’m sure I bitch about it a lot, but I really do feel blessed to be able to live in another country. I love speaking another language the majority of the time, unless it’s with a lot of perverts. I don’t know how much I’ve really helped the kids, and I still think at times that I’m doing more of a disservice becoming attached to the kids and then leaving them. I’m pretty sure that they’ve given me more happiness than I could ever give to them. I do know that I don’t regret coming here and a part of my heart, like any place that I live, will stay here forever.
All the best…. Whitney
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Blog Update: Glue, scrap metal and other educational stuff...
Last week I was sitting on the benches outside Amani and Frances, who’s around 11, kept pointing at the metal parts of the bench and saying “Hey Whitney, mia tano!”. At first I thought he was just sort of talking to himself and speaking nonsense. Then I realized “mia tano” means 500, as in shillings, and he was talking about how much the metal on the bench would sell for. I asked him if he used to sell scrap metal when he was on the street and he was like “Oh yea! I know all the good places you can sell it.” Then all the kids chimed in about where they thought was the best place to sell it. It turns out a lot of the boys have a background in sales. Surprising, eh?
The discussion then led to what they would buy with their money, which then led to a discussion of glue. I finally understand enough Swahili so that when their babbling on about things I know what they’re talking about. At least 80 percent of the time. It also turns out that most of them had a glue habit at one point. It’s pretty damn cheap, 200 shillings or 16 or some odd cents, and suppresses hunger so I guess sort of the appeal is survival. Even so I told them now it’s not good for them to do it because it will mess up their brain and because of all the theft in the play/art room I’m locking up the glue.
I’m also locking up the stickers and the balloons. On Thursday morning I had to go to each classroom and collect the kids keys to their cubbies. It was pretty awful and I felt like I worked a juvenile detention center. Even though it’s not like that at all, I felt pretty awful having to raid each kids square foot of space they get to call their own. Three kids had stolen close to 100 balloons, a coloring book and some scissors, which may not sound terrible, but if I let these kids get away with it they’ll keep stealing. So now they aren’t allowed in the play/art room for at least a month.
On Saturday I went into Amani with some new toys for the kids that I bought at the only fancy supermarket we have outside of town on the way to Arusha. I bought two Barbie scooters, one batman costume, one spiderman mask, and two spiderman boxing gloves. The scooters had to be put together and one of the kids already manage to break a wheel off. I had considered going to Arusha that day to do some food shopping for myself, but it was actually pretty nice to bring the kids new things instead.
Augustino has been acting more quiet around me these days. I can’t really describe the guilt I feel that I will eventually be leaving him. I love him so much and I know he could never be my son but I still want to be part of his life. It’s painful to know that once I leave Tanzania I can’t come back until I have $2,000 to fly me round trip. I’m scared to imagine the emptiness I’ll feel not being part of the kids’ lives.
In other news, I keep having this dream where I’ve gone to Whole Foods to meet my dad and I’m waiting for him in a cookbook section away from the food since I’m so overwhelmed (does Whole Foods even have a book section by the way?). Anyways I’m so overwhelmed by all the food in one place coming from so many different places that I faint, come to, and then have a panic attack. This could be a real possibility. I’m sort of terrified of adjusting back to a place with super markets where canned food isn’t the main option and book stores and music stores and set prices on top of everything. It all sounds really scary. Although one thing that sounds really amazing is nice bedding- like a big comforter you can sink into like a cloud, and constant electricity to beat. But still, that’s one nice thing. I can’t imagine having all these nice things, all these insane luxuries, in one place. There’s the fancy bedding, television, super markets, access to a car, high-speed internet, and clothing stores with NEW clothing since it’s really only possible to find second-hand clothes here from rich countries. Let’s not forget potable water, toilets that don’t leak sewage into your backyard, and trash that gets carted away from your house instead of burned right in front of it for you to smell on Sunday morning.
I watched this movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy” the other day and it was about a bushman in the Kalahari Desert (in Botswana) who sees an empty Coke bottle drop out of the sky one day. He brings it back to his village and at first everyone thinks it’s a wonderful gift from the gods. They find out they can use it as a great new tool for just about everything, even as a musical instrument, and eventually they begin to fight over it. Whereas before they got everything they needed from the earth, here is this one item that they can’t share equally. It can’t be reproduced and just one person can’t own it. Everyone becomes so unhappy that the bushman who found it, Xi, decides to take it to the end of the earth. Along the way he meets some white researchers and a teacher from South Africa looking to escape her life in the city. Anyways it’s pretty funny and it’s a good story I think. It got me thinking about possessions and ownership. How complicated our lives are and how we contribute to make them more complicated. Not just wanting for certain material things, but becoming so isolated in our own outlook that we start to push away the things that matter most, like our relationships with other people. I think that’s really what I’m afraid of going back to. I know that eventually I want to practice social work in different countries, but it’s unsettling to think about going back to live in a big city without a real sense of belonging with anyone. Even though I’m reminded I’m an outsider here, close to everyday, I share a house with volunteers and I go to work to see the kids who’ve welcomed me with open arms. Together, they form some sort of community, and if there’s anything worth fighting for, it’s the companionship and love you share with others.
The discussion then led to what they would buy with their money, which then led to a discussion of glue. I finally understand enough Swahili so that when their babbling on about things I know what they’re talking about. At least 80 percent of the time. It also turns out that most of them had a glue habit at one point. It’s pretty damn cheap, 200 shillings or 16 or some odd cents, and suppresses hunger so I guess sort of the appeal is survival. Even so I told them now it’s not good for them to do it because it will mess up their brain and because of all the theft in the play/art room I’m locking up the glue.
I’m also locking up the stickers and the balloons. On Thursday morning I had to go to each classroom and collect the kids keys to their cubbies. It was pretty awful and I felt like I worked a juvenile detention center. Even though it’s not like that at all, I felt pretty awful having to raid each kids square foot of space they get to call their own. Three kids had stolen close to 100 balloons, a coloring book and some scissors, which may not sound terrible, but if I let these kids get away with it they’ll keep stealing. So now they aren’t allowed in the play/art room for at least a month.
On Saturday I went into Amani with some new toys for the kids that I bought at the only fancy supermarket we have outside of town on the way to Arusha. I bought two Barbie scooters, one batman costume, one spiderman mask, and two spiderman boxing gloves. The scooters had to be put together and one of the kids already manage to break a wheel off. I had considered going to Arusha that day to do some food shopping for myself, but it was actually pretty nice to bring the kids new things instead.
Augustino has been acting more quiet around me these days. I can’t really describe the guilt I feel that I will eventually be leaving him. I love him so much and I know he could never be my son but I still want to be part of his life. It’s painful to know that once I leave Tanzania I can’t come back until I have $2,000 to fly me round trip. I’m scared to imagine the emptiness I’ll feel not being part of the kids’ lives.
In other news, I keep having this dream where I’ve gone to Whole Foods to meet my dad and I’m waiting for him in a cookbook section away from the food since I’m so overwhelmed (does Whole Foods even have a book section by the way?). Anyways I’m so overwhelmed by all the food in one place coming from so many different places that I faint, come to, and then have a panic attack. This could be a real possibility. I’m sort of terrified of adjusting back to a place with super markets where canned food isn’t the main option and book stores and music stores and set prices on top of everything. It all sounds really scary. Although one thing that sounds really amazing is nice bedding- like a big comforter you can sink into like a cloud, and constant electricity to beat. But still, that’s one nice thing. I can’t imagine having all these nice things, all these insane luxuries, in one place. There’s the fancy bedding, television, super markets, access to a car, high-speed internet, and clothing stores with NEW clothing since it’s really only possible to find second-hand clothes here from rich countries. Let’s not forget potable water, toilets that don’t leak sewage into your backyard, and trash that gets carted away from your house instead of burned right in front of it for you to smell on Sunday morning.
I watched this movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy” the other day and it was about a bushman in the Kalahari Desert (in Botswana) who sees an empty Coke bottle drop out of the sky one day. He brings it back to his village and at first everyone thinks it’s a wonderful gift from the gods. They find out they can use it as a great new tool for just about everything, even as a musical instrument, and eventually they begin to fight over it. Whereas before they got everything they needed from the earth, here is this one item that they can’t share equally. It can’t be reproduced and just one person can’t own it. Everyone becomes so unhappy that the bushman who found it, Xi, decides to take it to the end of the earth. Along the way he meets some white researchers and a teacher from South Africa looking to escape her life in the city. Anyways it’s pretty funny and it’s a good story I think. It got me thinking about possessions and ownership. How complicated our lives are and how we contribute to make them more complicated. Not just wanting for certain material things, but becoming so isolated in our own outlook that we start to push away the things that matter most, like our relationships with other people. I think that’s really what I’m afraid of going back to. I know that eventually I want to practice social work in different countries, but it’s unsettling to think about going back to live in a big city without a real sense of belonging with anyone. Even though I’m reminded I’m an outsider here, close to everyday, I share a house with volunteers and I go to work to see the kids who’ve welcomed me with open arms. Together, they form some sort of community, and if there’s anything worth fighting for, it’s the companionship and love you share with others.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Blog Update: Chaos and kiddos
The big news is I’ve decided to apply to grad school for international social work next year. I’m really excited about this and really have my heart set on going to Boston College (they have an amazing program for international work). I really hope to specialize in child services as well.
Work has been busy. The kids today were debating my race. That’s always interesting and funny. Whitney is “my mzungu” aka “my white person.” Whitney is black. No she’s not black she’s white. No she’s not white she’s yellow, red and white. Great. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s strange but most days I feel like a mother of sixty children, or an incredibly underpaid nanny. I never thought that I would know what it feels like to have children this young. I don’t have a career and I’m definitely nowhere close to being in a long-term relationship, but somehow I have a second family. I know I don’t technically have children and that it might seem like I’m exaggerating my role to sound more self-important, but I do feel like a guardian or a kind of surrogate mother to many of the kids I see each day. The kids come to me when they’re sad, or they’re angry, or they need clothes and shoes repaired. They want me to hold their hand, to read to them, to hold them close. They’ve missed out on some much positive attention and guidance. I am like the Pied Piper when kids follow me around waiting for games or hoping to draw.
There’s Zacharia, 14, who is always asking to read English books and was irked when I went on safari; Charlie, 10, who has six fingers and six toes and an abscess on his head but is one of the sweetest children you’ll ever meet and is always holding my hand trying to snuggle or take naps on my lap. Augustino, 14, goes to school outside Amani but writes me little love letters and draws beautifully. Sometimes I wish more than anything that he was my child. Elbaricki, 13, pretends to be crying whenever I see him so I’ll call his bluff and make him laugh. Victor, 14, loves Jamaica, red, green and yellow, and saying funny things in broken English. There’s Kalisti, 11, with his big lips and unfortunate love for the song “Down by the Riverside,” which he listens to on repeat sometimes for hours; Zainabu, 12, with her small head and Mickey Mouse ears (she is always humming so pleased with herself). Zulfa, Amina and Asha’s shiny little faces are missing each morning when I come to work. They left Amani a few weeks ago. They use to dance around so sweetly in their bright African blankets like three little fairies.
I visited Zulfa, Amina and Asha again today at their nursery school and tried to “teach” drawing to their class. The school is out in the country amongst all these sunflower and corn fields. They were out of control. They kept putting their tiny hands in my pockets and trying to squeeze my boobs (“oh very small teacher!”). I was trying to teach them how to drawn flowers and gave each little gal and guy two crayons. Every time they would draw a line or circle they’d shout “ANGALIA mwalimu!” (Look teacher!). Later we tried drawing Kilimanjaro and a house and a chicken and a cow and a cat and a mama and a mtoto and by then it was chaos. They were all holding my hands or hitting each other by the end. So basically I have no control forty five year olds. They drank their porridge and were happy as clams.
On Thursday I also visited Augustino and his three friends at primary school down the road further into the bush at Shrimatunda, after picking up Kalisti and Zainabu and the special needs school with Anna. I think he was a little mortified to have all the extra attention but I was so proud to see how studious he was taking notes while everyone else was just looking at the alien (me).
The kids are stealing a lot, which I get really tired of. I get pictures printed and they steal some of them, or they steal toys, or they steal pencils, etc etc. I can sort of understand it since I know how difficult it would be to have so few things to call your own, but I figured since I’ve been at Amani for close to six months the rate of stealing would…depreciate.
Old habits die hard.
Last Sunday my house mates and I went to dinner at Mage's house (she's the woman who takes care of our house). She doesn't have any electricity and she, her husband and her daughter all sleep in the same bed together, but they were so welcoming and, as is the Tanzanian way, served us loads of food.
It’s still overcast and cool in Moshi but I can’t complain. I keep having bad dreams, particularly one where I wake up in the U.S. and don’t know how I got there and want to go back to Tanzania. So maybe this place is becoming more of a part of me than I thought. I really have no idea what is going on in the news/world but really, I’m okay with that.
Work has been busy. The kids today were debating my race. That’s always interesting and funny. Whitney is “my mzungu” aka “my white person.” Whitney is black. No she’s not black she’s white. No she’s not white she’s yellow, red and white. Great. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s strange but most days I feel like a mother of sixty children, or an incredibly underpaid nanny. I never thought that I would know what it feels like to have children this young. I don’t have a career and I’m definitely nowhere close to being in a long-term relationship, but somehow I have a second family. I know I don’t technically have children and that it might seem like I’m exaggerating my role to sound more self-important, but I do feel like a guardian or a kind of surrogate mother to many of the kids I see each day. The kids come to me when they’re sad, or they’re angry, or they need clothes and shoes repaired. They want me to hold their hand, to read to them, to hold them close. They’ve missed out on some much positive attention and guidance. I am like the Pied Piper when kids follow me around waiting for games or hoping to draw.
There’s Zacharia, 14, who is always asking to read English books and was irked when I went on safari; Charlie, 10, who has six fingers and six toes and an abscess on his head but is one of the sweetest children you’ll ever meet and is always holding my hand trying to snuggle or take naps on my lap. Augustino, 14, goes to school outside Amani but writes me little love letters and draws beautifully. Sometimes I wish more than anything that he was my child. Elbaricki, 13, pretends to be crying whenever I see him so I’ll call his bluff and make him laugh. Victor, 14, loves Jamaica, red, green and yellow, and saying funny things in broken English. There’s Kalisti, 11, with his big lips and unfortunate love for the song “Down by the Riverside,” which he listens to on repeat sometimes for hours; Zainabu, 12, with her small head and Mickey Mouse ears (she is always humming so pleased with herself). Zulfa, Amina and Asha’s shiny little faces are missing each morning when I come to work. They left Amani a few weeks ago. They use to dance around so sweetly in their bright African blankets like three little fairies.
I visited Zulfa, Amina and Asha again today at their nursery school and tried to “teach” drawing to their class. The school is out in the country amongst all these sunflower and corn fields. They were out of control. They kept putting their tiny hands in my pockets and trying to squeeze my boobs (“oh very small teacher!”). I was trying to teach them how to drawn flowers and gave each little gal and guy two crayons. Every time they would draw a line or circle they’d shout “ANGALIA mwalimu!” (Look teacher!). Later we tried drawing Kilimanjaro and a house and a chicken and a cow and a cat and a mama and a mtoto and by then it was chaos. They were all holding my hands or hitting each other by the end. So basically I have no control forty five year olds. They drank their porridge and were happy as clams.
On Thursday I also visited Augustino and his three friends at primary school down the road further into the bush at Shrimatunda, after picking up Kalisti and Zainabu and the special needs school with Anna. I think he was a little mortified to have all the extra attention but I was so proud to see how studious he was taking notes while everyone else was just looking at the alien (me).
The kids are stealing a lot, which I get really tired of. I get pictures printed and they steal some of them, or they steal toys, or they steal pencils, etc etc. I can sort of understand it since I know how difficult it would be to have so few things to call your own, but I figured since I’ve been at Amani for close to six months the rate of stealing would…depreciate.
Old habits die hard.
Last Sunday my house mates and I went to dinner at Mage's house (she's the woman who takes care of our house). She doesn't have any electricity and she, her husband and her daughter all sleep in the same bed together, but they were so welcoming and, as is the Tanzanian way, served us loads of food.
It’s still overcast and cool in Moshi but I can’t complain. I keep having bad dreams, particularly one where I wake up in the U.S. and don’t know how I got there and want to go back to Tanzania. So maybe this place is becoming more of a part of me than I thought. I really have no idea what is going on in the news/world but really, I’m okay with that.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Blog Update: Safari Njema
I’ve been back in Moshi for a few weeks now. My parents, two Amani volunteers (Laura and Jennifer) and Laura’s friend Joe visiting from New York and I went on safari for five days to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. The trip started off pretty rocky when my dad collapsed outside Laura’s house. I thought for sure he was having a heart attack but he was just extremely dehydrated. The first park we went to, Lake Manyara, was really lush and green with big Baobab trees dotting the landscape every now and then. We saw a lot of bald butted baboons crossing the road and a whole family of elephants. I loved the elephants wrinkly paper like skin. We camped out the whole time we were on safari although the first night was the nicest with actual beds and a campfire. It was a lot of time to be in the car but still worth it. The Serengeti was the best place to view lions, and zebras and impalas were everywhere. We also saw cheetahs, leopards, monkeys, hippos (smelled awful), hyenas, giraffes and a rhino.
The last day of safari I was really sick and by the end of our trip I had definitely lost weight. I had what I can only guess was something between giardia and ecoli for four days. I felt like a dog that needed to be put down, which was pretty unfortunate luck since I’d been reading about Zanzibar since January. My parents went on a spice tour in Stone Town and then we spent three days in Kizimkazi on the south of the island at this place called Karamba Resort on the beach.
I didn’t realize how much I missed the kids while I was gone and I’m so happy to see them again. They are real pests some times but at the end of the day I really love them.
There’s a new little boy at Amani named Naftari who’s around four years old I would guess. He wasn’t speaking at all at first but has opened up a little. I want to find out more about him from the social workers because he doesn’t say much and I’m wondering what happened to him. He’s super cute but super quiet. I don’t think he had ever colored before because I sort of had to explain to him how to use the markers to decorate the teddy bear on the paper. Today he was running around and ran straight into the wall so he had this big whopper bump on his head, so Christina (the new special ed volunteer) and I put ice on his head and wrapped a big kanga around him. He couldn’t really see out of it to well while he was playing since he’s just so darn small. It’s great to sort of see him realizing how to play and have fun. He was chatting for a bit the other day when I showed him how to use a kazoo. Eventually I had to kick him out of the playroom because that kazoo was really starting to get to me. *
We have a new roommate named Anna who was living in Dar es Salaam. She’s working at Amani also as the health educator, which is desperately needed.
On Friday I went to visit the two little girls who left Amani (Zulfa and Amina). I’ve missed them a lot so it was really sweet to see them. They would always be running around in kangas like little fairies in the morning. They are living with Suzie, a night mama at Amani, whose husband runs a nursery school right next door to the house. The kids in nursery school are adorable. Amina and Zulf were really shy at first but opened up later on. They were so quiet and focused on practicing writing letters I was really proud of them. They showed me their beds and brought me some chai. I gave them a My Little Pony coloring book and crayons and some paper, and two little black cloth dolls wearing little dresses. Zulfa named hers “Whitty” and was combing the little gal’s hair a little rough. It’s amazing what different people they are out side of Amani- so quiet and collected. Not that Amani isn’t great but there are so many kids the little girls really had to be aggressive and assert themselves.
That’s about it for now. I still get a little lonely here sometimes but all in all things are going well. This week I taught art classes on drawing trees with the older kids and made paper dolls with the younger ones, which turned out really cute. A volunteer who was living in Moshi went back to Germany and donated his guitar to Amani so that is pretty great and I’ve started teaching the kids some chords (they’ve already broken a string!).
*I wrote this a few days ago and Naftari has disappeared with his older brother James. They might be in Moshi or Arusha but I haven’t heard anything.
The last day of safari I was really sick and by the end of our trip I had definitely lost weight. I had what I can only guess was something between giardia and ecoli for four days. I felt like a dog that needed to be put down, which was pretty unfortunate luck since I’d been reading about Zanzibar since January. My parents went on a spice tour in Stone Town and then we spent three days in Kizimkazi on the south of the island at this place called Karamba Resort on the beach.
I didn’t realize how much I missed the kids while I was gone and I’m so happy to see them again. They are real pests some times but at the end of the day I really love them.
There’s a new little boy at Amani named Naftari who’s around four years old I would guess. He wasn’t speaking at all at first but has opened up a little. I want to find out more about him from the social workers because he doesn’t say much and I’m wondering what happened to him. He’s super cute but super quiet. I don’t think he had ever colored before because I sort of had to explain to him how to use the markers to decorate the teddy bear on the paper. Today he was running around and ran straight into the wall so he had this big whopper bump on his head, so Christina (the new special ed volunteer) and I put ice on his head and wrapped a big kanga around him. He couldn’t really see out of it to well while he was playing since he’s just so darn small. It’s great to sort of see him realizing how to play and have fun. He was chatting for a bit the other day when I showed him how to use a kazoo. Eventually I had to kick him out of the playroom because that kazoo was really starting to get to me. *
We have a new roommate named Anna who was living in Dar es Salaam. She’s working at Amani also as the health educator, which is desperately needed.
On Friday I went to visit the two little girls who left Amani (Zulfa and Amina). I’ve missed them a lot so it was really sweet to see them. They would always be running around in kangas like little fairies in the morning. They are living with Suzie, a night mama at Amani, whose husband runs a nursery school right next door to the house. The kids in nursery school are adorable. Amina and Zulf were really shy at first but opened up later on. They were so quiet and focused on practicing writing letters I was really proud of them. They showed me their beds and brought me some chai. I gave them a My Little Pony coloring book and crayons and some paper, and two little black cloth dolls wearing little dresses. Zulfa named hers “Whitty” and was combing the little gal’s hair a little rough. It’s amazing what different people they are out side of Amani- so quiet and collected. Not that Amani isn’t great but there are so many kids the little girls really had to be aggressive and assert themselves.
That’s about it for now. I still get a little lonely here sometimes but all in all things are going well. This week I taught art classes on drawing trees with the older kids and made paper dolls with the younger ones, which turned out really cute. A volunteer who was living in Moshi went back to Germany and donated his guitar to Amani so that is pretty great and I’ve started teaching the kids some chords (they’ve already broken a string!).
*I wrote this a few days ago and Naftari has disappeared with his older brother James. They might be in Moshi or Arusha but I haven’t heard anything.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Blog Update: Life as of Late
After experiencing a sufficient amount of rage resulting from the daily bullshit that goes on at times while living here, my friend Sarah and I checked into a nice hotel in Arusha a few weekends ago where I was actually able to take a bubble bath. A freaking bubble bath. I forgot those existed. I had a different kind of culture shock at this really nice hotel; watching tv, having so many lights in one room, showering in a sterile enclosed area, etc etc. We also saw “Slumdog Millionaire” at the one movie theater in Arusha but it irritated me somewhat. Not that it wasn’t a good movie and a nice story, but I also work with former street kids and know current street kids and kept picturing all these Hollywood bastards in their designer dresses feeling happy after seeing this movie. In reality a majority of kids don’t get rescued, and those who do get help aren’t living fairytales and are navigating their lives alone. They are abandoned by relatives at bus stations or beaten by the police and fairytales are not in the cards for them. Although another volunteer and I did find it pretty hilarious that one of the twelve year old kids left over winter break to be a pool hustler and was able to make a pretty penny/shilling.
One thing that is kind of strange is I spend all day with neglected kids and then come home to a bunch of neglected dogs. Our useless “guard dog” Luna is becoming fatter and lazier each day. She used to be really “street” and skinky and desperate and stand offish. Now she is a fat snob. Her three friends hang out here, and all smell pretty funky except for one we call Shy Girl who got her leg chopped with a panga/machete. We had to get Shy’s leg amputated and the idiot vet didn’t give her any antibiotics or pain killers. I forget if I’ve written about this already. Coming home to all these unclaimed dogs after being at Amani all day is a little exasperating at times.
Anyways; on to something positive. A few weeks ago Sarah and I also went flying in a four-seater plane to West Kilimanjaro which was so amazing! Flying over Moshi was so surreal, especially seeing the big market (Mbuyuni) which looks a bit refugee like from above. Once the plane landed we were out in the middle of open land and could see Kenya in the distance beyond the grass where the farmland met red earth. It’s hard to put into words but I felt really blessed to be hanging around in such a beautiful untouched part of Africa, while the pilot was sipping his whiskey (yes, a little disconcerting).
We had a field trip at Amani a few weeks ago and went to a place called Mweka, which is a wildlife college. I thought my immune system would be better by now but I seem to be picking up most viruses the kids have maybe because they are always trying to braid or pull out pieces of my hair like little monkeys or trying to sit on top of me. Lately they’ve been asking if they can give me hair cuts or shave my head. I say no. The kids were mostly excited about seeing elephant bones and beastly heads. Their vacation has officially started for the next month, which means I get most of the kids during the day and they all demand to watch Power Rangers or vampire movies. Joy. My dad sent me some more animal coloring books for the kids, which they love, and they are basically like currency along with the dancing monkey pens he donated.
Some of the kids were circumsized last week (about 15), which I really don’t feel like going into for my own personal psyche. It’s a process most East African kids go through at a later age, and most of the kids have been recovering together in one of the classrooms. In other news, a few of the kids are playing in the East African soccer youth cup this week and I’m excited to see them play.
Really I’ve just been working and busy preparing for my parents to come. I truly cannot eat any more rice that has a slight taste of intestine to it or other lovely Tanzanian delicacies. My stomach is just refusing to do it anymore. It has officially rejected the funk at the six-month mark.
Today I looked at the “Daily Nation” headlines at the local grocery store. The “Daily Nation” is a Kenyan newspaper in English (significantly more Kenyans speak English than Tanzanians) and it tends to be much better written than any of the Tanzanian gems. Thank heavens I do not live in Kenyan, although at some point I’d like to go to Nairobi to see this elephant/giraffe orphanage and eat Thai food (Nairobi is six hours away). Nairobi also has the largest slum in East Africa, which I wish I could visit with the company of an African of course but that probably won’t be happening.Anyways the main headline was about the gun trade in Kenya and how it costs 3,000 Kenyan shillings per hour to rent a pistol and 15,000 k shillings per hour to rent an AK-47. Granted, Kenyan shillings are worth more than TZ shillings, but still. I’m sure the police and the government help this to happen. No wonder organized crime squirms like a snake through Nairobi’s crowded streets.
I feel pretty cut off from the world here, but I have to say sometimes it’s a relief. Sarah lent me a Time magazine yesterday and reading the news can be such a downer.
On Sunday mornings I’m usually rudely awakened by the fire and brimstone preacher who lives next door. Today, it turns out, some idiot gave that fool a microphone and I don’t think Jesus would mind if a big rocket fell out of the sky and smushed him. Speaking of Jesus some obnoxious missionaries (high school girls and their teachers) came to Amani on Friday and were preaching to the kids about accepting Jesus into their lives under the guise of Bible themed coloring books and Dora the Explorer frisbees. Did I mention some of the kids are Muslim? At the end of the day I tried to tell some of the kids it’s okay to believe in Jesus or to believe in Mohammed; you don’t have to be Christian to be a good person. I’m not Christian but I believe in God, and I don’t think Jesus has any beef with me volunteering in Africa. I did not approve of the high school girl’s pro-life sticker-ed guitar case either, or the bracelets given to the kids with the different color beads on them. Black represented sin and white represented purity. Give. Me. A. Break. These kids know that the group talking to them have white skin, how is a kid supposed to interpret that? Not too mention the talk about sin and guilt. If one of those missionaries even slightly influenced the kids to believe that their misfortune is their fault, I would not hesitate in directing my rage towards their insolence. Really, they don’t know the kids or how these kids have suffered, and instead of using the one day they have at Amani to tell the kids how to live their lives, maybe they should take the time to find out what their lives are like. That’s probably what infuriates me the most about missionary work. It really makes me wonder about the foreigners here.Anyways, my parents are coming tonight, so we’ll be taking two weeks together to see the Serengeti and Zanzibar (the island Aladdin and Alia Babba’s stories were set in). I’m excited to see some lions, and cheetahs and hippos (oh my!).
One thing that is kind of strange is I spend all day with neglected kids and then come home to a bunch of neglected dogs. Our useless “guard dog” Luna is becoming fatter and lazier each day. She used to be really “street” and skinky and desperate and stand offish. Now she is a fat snob. Her three friends hang out here, and all smell pretty funky except for one we call Shy Girl who got her leg chopped with a panga/machete. We had to get Shy’s leg amputated and the idiot vet didn’t give her any antibiotics or pain killers. I forget if I’ve written about this already. Coming home to all these unclaimed dogs after being at Amani all day is a little exasperating at times.
Anyways; on to something positive. A few weeks ago Sarah and I also went flying in a four-seater plane to West Kilimanjaro which was so amazing! Flying over Moshi was so surreal, especially seeing the big market (Mbuyuni) which looks a bit refugee like from above. Once the plane landed we were out in the middle of open land and could see Kenya in the distance beyond the grass where the farmland met red earth. It’s hard to put into words but I felt really blessed to be hanging around in such a beautiful untouched part of Africa, while the pilot was sipping his whiskey (yes, a little disconcerting).
We had a field trip at Amani a few weeks ago and went to a place called Mweka, which is a wildlife college. I thought my immune system would be better by now but I seem to be picking up most viruses the kids have maybe because they are always trying to braid or pull out pieces of my hair like little monkeys or trying to sit on top of me. Lately they’ve been asking if they can give me hair cuts or shave my head. I say no. The kids were mostly excited about seeing elephant bones and beastly heads. Their vacation has officially started for the next month, which means I get most of the kids during the day and they all demand to watch Power Rangers or vampire movies. Joy. My dad sent me some more animal coloring books for the kids, which they love, and they are basically like currency along with the dancing monkey pens he donated.
Some of the kids were circumsized last week (about 15), which I really don’t feel like going into for my own personal psyche. It’s a process most East African kids go through at a later age, and most of the kids have been recovering together in one of the classrooms. In other news, a few of the kids are playing in the East African soccer youth cup this week and I’m excited to see them play.
Really I’ve just been working and busy preparing for my parents to come. I truly cannot eat any more rice that has a slight taste of intestine to it or other lovely Tanzanian delicacies. My stomach is just refusing to do it anymore. It has officially rejected the funk at the six-month mark.
Today I looked at the “Daily Nation” headlines at the local grocery store. The “Daily Nation” is a Kenyan newspaper in English (significantly more Kenyans speak English than Tanzanians) and it tends to be much better written than any of the Tanzanian gems. Thank heavens I do not live in Kenyan, although at some point I’d like to go to Nairobi to see this elephant/giraffe orphanage and eat Thai food (Nairobi is six hours away). Nairobi also has the largest slum in East Africa, which I wish I could visit with the company of an African of course but that probably won’t be happening.Anyways the main headline was about the gun trade in Kenya and how it costs 3,000 Kenyan shillings per hour to rent a pistol and 15,000 k shillings per hour to rent an AK-47. Granted, Kenyan shillings are worth more than TZ shillings, but still. I’m sure the police and the government help this to happen. No wonder organized crime squirms like a snake through Nairobi’s crowded streets.
I feel pretty cut off from the world here, but I have to say sometimes it’s a relief. Sarah lent me a Time magazine yesterday and reading the news can be such a downer.
On Sunday mornings I’m usually rudely awakened by the fire and brimstone preacher who lives next door. Today, it turns out, some idiot gave that fool a microphone and I don’t think Jesus would mind if a big rocket fell out of the sky and smushed him. Speaking of Jesus some obnoxious missionaries (high school girls and their teachers) came to Amani on Friday and were preaching to the kids about accepting Jesus into their lives under the guise of Bible themed coloring books and Dora the Explorer frisbees. Did I mention some of the kids are Muslim? At the end of the day I tried to tell some of the kids it’s okay to believe in Jesus or to believe in Mohammed; you don’t have to be Christian to be a good person. I’m not Christian but I believe in God, and I don’t think Jesus has any beef with me volunteering in Africa. I did not approve of the high school girl’s pro-life sticker-ed guitar case either, or the bracelets given to the kids with the different color beads on them. Black represented sin and white represented purity. Give. Me. A. Break. These kids know that the group talking to them have white skin, how is a kid supposed to interpret that? Not too mention the talk about sin and guilt. If one of those missionaries even slightly influenced the kids to believe that their misfortune is their fault, I would not hesitate in directing my rage towards their insolence. Really, they don’t know the kids or how these kids have suffered, and instead of using the one day they have at Amani to tell the kids how to live their lives, maybe they should take the time to find out what their lives are like. That’s probably what infuriates me the most about missionary work. It really makes me wonder about the foreigners here.Anyways, my parents are coming tonight, so we’ll be taking two weeks together to see the Serengeti and Zanzibar (the island Aladdin and Alia Babba’s stories were set in). I’m excited to see some lions, and cheetahs and hippos (oh my!).
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Kids Aren’t Always Alright
I am stressed. Definitely stressed. Almost like my body is a test tube and the stress is the liquid rising slowly to the top. Some people might not think that volunteering for nine months in East Africa in the land of Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti ever gets stressful, but I assure you, they are wrong. Without going into too much detail, I’ve felt pretty overwhelmed and alone at work lately sometimes taking care of thirty kids at one time and I don’t feel like the kids are getting even close to enough attention as they both need and deserve.
More so than the stress, I am silently in shock. The shock shows itself gradually like an entity unto itself. I used to feel guilty seeing small children carry giant water buckets from the village taps, but now I just feel grateful that I had such a labor-free childhood without the early onset arthritis, etc. There are things that are harder to confront: the lack of healthcare access, the pain and excessive work that comes with being a woman, the inequality of life on a global scale and of education, or hearing stories of people dying that didn’t have to day after day after day. I mean, there is a point where my emotions just can’t handle anymore stories, anymore tragedy, anymore outrage or either my mind will burst or there will be nothing left to feel.
The thing is, I love the kids I’ve come to know here. But I want better for them and I feel so powerless and so terrible sometimes. I’ve gotten in the habit of visiting the kids living on the street in Moshi every week or two and buying them some bread and water or some bananas. It’s really not too often, and it doesn’t make that much difference in the end, but it’s something. At Amani, I don’t feel like I can do anything after a certain point, and I think that’s the worst feeling of all. It’s not that I’m trying to be God or something but I do want to feel like I am helping. I didn’t have high expectations before I came here. I can feel myself starting to submit to pessimism with a side of cynic. There are people that come to poorer countries and because they are white or educated or comparatively wealthy, they think they will institute social change, like they are entitled, which when you think about it is really pretty racist of them. There are plenty of people like this living in Moshi now. But I really just thought that I’d come here and be a friend. I didn’t want to become too emotionally involved with the kids although I already have, but I don’t know how to stop caring for these kids, how to leave here and go about my life and forget that I’ve stopped fighting for them. Stopped being a mother to them. Stopped hugging them. Stopped teaching them. Stopped listening. I am so heartbroken for them sometimes. Comparatively of course, I know that their lives are much better than before. Street life is not easy, particularly when you have nowhere to go but an alcoholic father or a relative that doesn’t want you. But still, I want so badly for each of them to have homes and loving parents and happy days at school and hopeful futures, and the security and success that comes as a result of a nurturing environment. But the world doesn’t work that way for everyone. I can’t be their parent. With the amount of kids at Amani right now (93), it’s really not possible that each child is receiving enough care both emotionally and simply in terms of logistics. It’s not right; I feel it in my gut that it’s not right. But is it better to turn a child away? I don’t know. I do know that their hygiene, their education; everything could be improved. Nothing is perfect and this is how we learn as we live. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I want to leave the kids lives better than they are now.
There is an eleven-year-old boy at Amani named Kalisti whose mother died of AIDS when he was a baby. With his father gone, he lived on the street with his grandmother until she was too weak to take care of him. His smile is a little funny because of a bad case of malaria he had when he was little which paralyzed part of his face, but when he smiles, he really smiles. He never gets angry or impatient. He loves to play the piano and draw and he has this inner warmth that is so contagious and comforting and calming that it makes you feel more beautiful. He deserves to have someone constant in his life that returns this beauty too.
More so than the stress, I am silently in shock. The shock shows itself gradually like an entity unto itself. I used to feel guilty seeing small children carry giant water buckets from the village taps, but now I just feel grateful that I had such a labor-free childhood without the early onset arthritis, etc. There are things that are harder to confront: the lack of healthcare access, the pain and excessive work that comes with being a woman, the inequality of life on a global scale and of education, or hearing stories of people dying that didn’t have to day after day after day. I mean, there is a point where my emotions just can’t handle anymore stories, anymore tragedy, anymore outrage or either my mind will burst or there will be nothing left to feel.
The thing is, I love the kids I’ve come to know here. But I want better for them and I feel so powerless and so terrible sometimes. I’ve gotten in the habit of visiting the kids living on the street in Moshi every week or two and buying them some bread and water or some bananas. It’s really not too often, and it doesn’t make that much difference in the end, but it’s something. At Amani, I don’t feel like I can do anything after a certain point, and I think that’s the worst feeling of all. It’s not that I’m trying to be God or something but I do want to feel like I am helping. I didn’t have high expectations before I came here. I can feel myself starting to submit to pessimism with a side of cynic. There are people that come to poorer countries and because they are white or educated or comparatively wealthy, they think they will institute social change, like they are entitled, which when you think about it is really pretty racist of them. There are plenty of people like this living in Moshi now. But I really just thought that I’d come here and be a friend. I didn’t want to become too emotionally involved with the kids although I already have, but I don’t know how to stop caring for these kids, how to leave here and go about my life and forget that I’ve stopped fighting for them. Stopped being a mother to them. Stopped hugging them. Stopped teaching them. Stopped listening. I am so heartbroken for them sometimes. Comparatively of course, I know that their lives are much better than before. Street life is not easy, particularly when you have nowhere to go but an alcoholic father or a relative that doesn’t want you. But still, I want so badly for each of them to have homes and loving parents and happy days at school and hopeful futures, and the security and success that comes as a result of a nurturing environment. But the world doesn’t work that way for everyone. I can’t be their parent. With the amount of kids at Amani right now (93), it’s really not possible that each child is receiving enough care both emotionally and simply in terms of logistics. It’s not right; I feel it in my gut that it’s not right. But is it better to turn a child away? I don’t know. I do know that their hygiene, their education; everything could be improved. Nothing is perfect and this is how we learn as we live. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I want to leave the kids lives better than they are now.
There is an eleven-year-old boy at Amani named Kalisti whose mother died of AIDS when he was a baby. With his father gone, he lived on the street with his grandmother until she was too weak to take care of him. His smile is a little funny because of a bad case of malaria he had when he was little which paralyzed part of his face, but when he smiles, he really smiles. He never gets angry or impatient. He loves to play the piano and draw and he has this inner warmth that is so contagious and comforting and calming that it makes you feel more beautiful. He deserves to have someone constant in his life that returns this beauty too.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Blog Update: Lushoto, an African birthday and Amani life
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)