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!).
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)