I haven’t written in a while since things have been pretty busy at work, but now I finally have a chance to just lay like a vegetable for a moment. This week the education department was conducting midterms so I gave a short art test...really just drawing still-life and animals. I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll most likely leave here in September. At first I was just going to be here until June, but that’s really too short of a time, and 8-9 months feels better to me than a year, at least at this point. It’s been a long couple of weeks and I’ve been a bit homesick off and on the past few days. Sometimes the level of ignorance here due to lack of education is really frustrating. When I was walking home from work today all these kids kept telling me to give them money then chanted “Albino, Albino!” This really is not funny because albinos are persecuted here and really discriminated against. It’s been in the news off and on internationally because witch doctors here, yes, witch doctors, are encouraging people to kill albinos because apparently their body parts hold magical powers.
Anyways, I just tried to watch a movie that takes place in LA and had to turn it off. I’ve been watching a lot of pirated American TV shows lately for comfort purposes, but I guess this was just too realistic and the urban-ness was disturbing. It was too weird to see such a different city, even in a movie, and I couldn’t relate to any of the surroundings or the clothes or all the highways and felt really bizarre. I felt the same way looking at a People magazine from the inauguration that had photos of people reacting to Obama being sworn in around the world. The images from Japan, Europe and the U.S. confused me; everything seemed so luxurious and absurdly nice. But the image from Kenya made perfect sense- people standing on the seats of their old bicycles in their brightly colored rubber sandals that everyone wears here, watching TV from a dirt road in a village. Even when I went to Arusha I felt like I was in an urban metropolis. It will be incredibly weird to go back to the U.S..
The rainy season was supposed to start in mid-March, but now it is April and we’ve only had a few days of heavier rains. It seems pretty clear that this is because of global warming and all the deforestation going on around the base of Kili. It’s a bit scary. I don’t really feel forced to think about global warming or food supply when I’m in the U.S., but here a huge majority of people rely on farming for food and for an income. Amani has a shamba (field) near the center but the seeds were all planted weeks ago and nothing is growing. It’s also concerning because vegetables and fruit are by far the cheapest and most readily available food around, not to mention you don’t need to cook them for hours on an open fire like they do with sorghum/millet/maize here, using up fuel and money. Most people here make under $5 a day and Tanzania remains one of the top ten countries in the world with the lowest GDPs. Even nurses make 5,000 shillings per each 8 hour shift; less than 4 dollars a day.
On another note, sometimes transportation here is ridiculous. Today I got in a dala-dala (mini-bus) and every time we stopped the side door fell off. I mean, really? A few months ago this would have been shocking but now I just breathe out and think…typical. Yesterday I went further down the road I walk every day to get to Amani to pick up a little guy’s uniform, out in the sticks. His name is Manuel and another volunteer and I are trying to enroll him in preschool. Anyways, because it is a long freaking walk into the bush and I was going on my own I decided to ask Petro, my coworker who takes care of the grounds, to borrow his bike. Maybe I’m just more naïve than I’d like to admit, but this was not the breeze I thought it would be. The bike was big and heavy and too tall for my feet to touch the ground. To top it off, I kept wiping out. The road is all dirt and rocks…and holes. So I’d hit a few rocks and gradually, or sometimes suddenly, topple over. School kids were not so compassionate about this. And the seamstress wasn’t even there. Awesome. But no cuts or bruises so that’s great- although I no longer want a bike in this country/continent, maybe ever.
On Sunday, I went for a hike with a Tanzanian friend named Samora. He’s a really nice kid who’s in secondary school right now. We walked from my house in town to a village called West Uru where he goes to school in the mountains, to another village Shimbwe, to another village called East Uru, and all the way back to town. Samora was raised by his ancient bibi (grandmother), after his parents abandoned him and his mother died. He told me all about how he had worms all the time as a kid and they would exit his body through his feet. Yeah. Most kids have worms at some point, especially kids like Sam who grow up in houses with dirt floors and don’t own shoes. He told me you’re supposed to cover the ground in your house with hot water but most people don’t do that because they don’t want a muddy house (literally). He really is like a mountain goat the way he walks up hills, but this time I could actually keep up with him because he had a bike accident and had a lot of bruises and open wounds. I had some extra ibuprofen in my pocket because I figured I might be in pain after/during the hike (which lasted 7 hours), and ended up giving it to him, along with some Neosporin and band-aids for all of his wounds. I feel a little guilty because I didn’t realize he had never taken western medicine before, and wow did he love ibuprofen! He kept saying “Winnie, I feel like my old self now.” He said in the village they treated his worms with tobacco leaves and other herbs. Even when you are in the hospital here they only give you 100mg of Tylenol because they are so freaking paranoid about people getting addicted. It was funny because at one point Sam said “just one more hill” since I told him I had to get back, and the “hill” was basically a small mountain. Somehow I still kept up with him the whole time and at the end he told me “You are very strong and you can climb Kili no problem.” Now, not that I’m going to climb Kili most likely this year, because it costs about $1,000, but it was really nice to hear him say that. Sam worked as a porter on Kili at 15 when he couldn’t afford school, and is really strong. Ever since I got evacuated (twice!) on the second NOLS trip I did in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I’ve been caring this feeling of failure around, so it was really nice to erase that for a day. Anyways the villages are beautiful, especially the jungle/rivers, but it is hard to see the poverty. Oh, I also went into this big underground dirt tunnel built by the Chagga tribe to hide from the Maasai when they were fighting. There are small vents that they made to lead up to the surface so the could cook, and the actually kept animals down there in the dark. This old Tanzanian man guided me through it and because his flashlight didn’t work he kept lighting matches and holding them up to his face. A little freaky and a little Indiana Jones.
On Wednesday, I took a day off of work (going in Saturday instead), to visit another village, Marangue, which is much more jungle-like because of the higher altitude. Marilyn took me there to meet her close friends that live in the mountains. (She goes back to Oregon on Monday and I am really heartbroken- she is such a good friend). Once we got off the bus it took about an hour walking up these back roads into the jungle to get to their house, where we could see the Usambara mountains. Most houses I saw had a cow or a few chickens, and were made of wood. Very beautiful but poor.
Last week I went back to Arusha to see the street kids with X the social worker and my Swedish friend Asa. This time was a little different- no truck rides into remote Masaai villages, but still great. We mostly played cards with the kids and bought them some bananas, porridge and mandazi (sweet breads). It’s so great to meet these kids. This might sound strange but I think it’s good therapy, in a way, for them to be able to get healthy attention (and not from a stupid tourist who gives them money). It was sad too, a lot of the kids are addicted to glue, which basically costs 20 cents and curbs hunger, but I really love being able to hear their stories. It’s nice that even though we come from such drastically different backgrounds, we can share a bit of time and a bit of our lives together. If that’s not the point of life, then what is? I was able to ask them more questions this time because my Swahili is better, and most of them beg, steal or collect and sell scrap metal to survive. Most are fleeing poverty, starvation, child labor or abuse. Abandonment and death of parents is also prominent.
I’m starting to recognize a lot more of the street kids in Moshi. On Wednesday I saw a kid who was living at Amani a month ago, (his name is Bahati), sitting in the main area of town, alone and staring into space. I recognized him and he said he remembered me from Amani. He’s probably about 9 or 10. I bought him a big bottle of water and a loaf of bread, mostly because I knew he would take it back to his friends. Some people would say this isn’t good, and I agree it’s not something that should be done all the time. But at the same time, these are kids, who have nothing and are always hungry and never completely safe. It’s not something I would do too often because I don’t want kids to come up to me and ask for money and things all the time, but at that moment, seeing this kid I knew with no one helping him or talking to him, I couldn’t just keep walking. Thursday night I also saw about 6 kids, Bahati was one of them, and another kid named Rashidi, hanging out in the center of town where it is safer for them at night. I was really happy to see Rashidi- he used to live at Amani and is probably around 13. He may live on the streets, but somewhere inside of him there is just this goodness that is present when you look at him. He’s also a really sweet artist and I’ve missed seeing him at Amani. Anyways, I’m just happy to see and talk to the kids when I can, because most people apart from the few social workers, really just ignore them. It makes me sad to think that some of them will probably be on the street forever, more will end up addicted to drugs, and others may end up HIV positive and die before they ever know it. Honestly, no one can make a huge difference somewhere in six months or a year or even a few years, but it does make me happy to know these kids and spend some time with them, listen to them, and not make them feel like criminals.
Anyways…most likely heading to the coast next weekend for Easter break. It was nice to get out of Moshi and be in Arusha last week, surprisingly. We went to this bar with a bonfire outside and African huts and a dance floor and a reggae band….which was a pretty nice change from small town life.
Ok, well I hope everything is having a nice spring and thanks for reading.
Kwa upendo wa Africa/With love from Africa,
Whitney
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