Blog Update: Learning from poverty

I keep having these reoccurring dreams (besides the one where I’m stuck in high school again even though I’ve graduated from college) that I’ve gone home to the U.S. and regret that I’ve left my life here. It’s strange the different stages you experience adapting to a new life somewhere else, within the framework of such a different culture. I think somehow subconsciously I’m a little afraid of leaving here. This probably sounds surprising since there have definitely been weeks where I’ve just wanted to leave and get the hell out, but I guess I’m also shocked that I’ve been here for close to five months now and how fast the time has gone. I’m not sure if I’ll feel ready to leave in September and I know that if I do leave it will be very difficult to come back (because of the no income factor…kind of important) and even if I do it might not be in a long-term capacity. As much as I complain about certain things, I do like my life here, more so than I did in New York. I felt like I was waiting for my life to happen before, and now I’m not waiting anymore. I love that I get to spend my week with the kids. I love having a break from American news and pop culture and being forced to know things I don’t want to know. I love traveling here and knowing that the seasons will actually affect what I eat and buy, for better or for worse. I love that most people are willing to help me when I ask them for no apparent reason.

Of course there are a lot of things I don’t love. I don’t love my health problems (malaria et. al) or being asked for money by literally everyone and their mothers or never having anonymity. I don’t love being called a mzungu even though when I tutored immigrants from Latin America in English in the South Bronx I was called “vanilla face”. I don’t love that because I’m a woman, and only recently were women allowed to own property here, I have less of a voice. There’s no sanctuary for victims of domestic abuse or alcoholism and most people in position of power want bribes. Still, I do wish I could stay here longer. I can’t imagine having to say goodbye to the kids in four months, but I also can’t be a volunteer forever.

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Part of the difficulty that comes with living in such a poor country like Tanzania, is the eventual and painful realization as an outsider that the world is and always will be an unfair place. I do love being able to experience the culture here and feel incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to travel half way around the world largely for the purpose of my own education and self-growth. But at times there is a lot of sadness. I think the hardest part of seeing poverty or learning the intricate details of people’s hardships, listening to their stories, and forming friendships is that it makes me feel more powerless than I ever have before.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the world when (say with HIV) certain people’s lives are valued more highly than others simply because of their nationality. As an example, Tanzanians are denied access to anti-retrovial drugs if they are HIV-positive. However, if their C-4 level or white blood cell count drops below 200 (a normal C-4 rate is around 1000), at which point they no longer have HIV but have fully developed AIDS, then the government is allowed to distribute the necessary drugs. I guess I always knew this before, that the health care industry is a business in the interest of making money, but to see and interact and live with people in a country where this is happening is something different entirely. The hospitals too are a frightening subject. There was a foreign volunteer who died outside of Arusha because the men who were trying to break into his home shot the lock with a gun and didn’t realize he was standing behind the door. The gunshot punctured the left side of his abdomen, but this did not kill him. What did kill him was his failed attempt to access healthcare. The first hospital he visited lacked the doctors to treat him, the second hospital lacked the equipment, and by the time he and his wife reached the third hospital it was too late.

I guess one thing that fascinates me most when reading about global poverty or war is the level of pure hardship and inhumanity which human beings are able to survive. I went on a beautiful hike a few weeks ago through the jungle and across mountain villages surrounding Kilimanjaro National Park. There were tall waterfalls and glowing green banana trees and thick mud the color of coffee. Then I visited the house of my friend Samora’s grandmother. She is close to 79 years old; her sole source of wealth being the two sheep that live with her in a small shack of wood (and these sheep are loud and smelly!). Her possessions are few. She sleeps on a “bed” of her own clothes on a mud floor. She cooks for herself, lives on her own and has little to no access to the medical care she needs. It was shocking for me to think about existing for 79 years and having so little, while still struggling so much. And here I am. Sitting on my bed, with a mattress and sheets and a roof over my head (which works most of the time but not always!).

People are not miserable here; that is definitely not the case. But they are fully aware of their poverty and the hope for a better life. I feel some sort of search for an explanation stirring inside me that will tell me why some live so well while others hang on to the edge of survival; why these great juxtapositions exist and what kind of world allows such difference to ensue. I don’t think that anyone who consumes him or herself with guilt lifts the weight of the world that others carry with them each day. But I do think that there are small acts of kindness and consideration and in turn a deeper awareness that can gradually tie together the threads among different peoples to create greater understanding and perhaps encourage more universal ideals about humanity.