A Nyoka in the Nyasi

I’m going out of my tiny little mind. Why, you ask? Because I’m trying to do too much, in too little time. And every time somebody says, “unaweza kutusaidia?” (can you help us?)...what does your boy do? Does he responsibly say that he will only be here for two years, not two decades? Does he provide a coherent outline of the ways in which he is able to help, establishing conditions and limits of assistance? Nah. He usually says, “inawezakana” (it is possible). Which it is. Which all things are. And yet...and yet. All we can do is jitahidi (do our best).

Heading to training in two days. Which I’m sure will be wonderful. I am more than a little nervous, because I have been living myself, in what is still a pretty quiet village, despite my best efforts to give all its inhabitants ulcers (welcome to “civilized” living. Maybe not all it’s cracked up to be. Enjoy the Pepto.) I am about to go to training, with 40 other Americans, most of whom are rather...well, loud. Wonderful people, left hearth and home to travel to sehemu (place/s) unknown. But still...yeah...loud. One of the things I love about my friends and loved ones is an ability to be still, to watch a sun set without talking it to bed. One of the things that would truly baffle a lot of you reading this is the sheer amount of time I spend sitting...and waiting...and that’s it. I’m expected to be early, they’re expected to be late, and while that might change one day...bado (not yet). I’ve come to enjoy the odd hour or two that I spend just thinking thoughts, preparing my mind for siku za mbele (days in front, or days to come). Likewise, one of the things I miss most about my friends are the nights where we do very, very little. Sometimes it is enough to be together, and that’s it. So many nights someone wants to go out, and someone wants to stay in. And I love going late night with the good people, but I love even more staying in, and talking, and listening, and learning about how other people live life.

Had an interesting meeting a few days ago. A certain group (perhaps farmers’ collective would be a better term) asked me to help them start an animal husbandry project, specifically of modern castes of pigs. The local breed of swine (also my nickname in college) is an older, smaller one, that does not produce swinelets as efficiently as other breeds. Myself and my counterpart, a teacher at the primary school, head to the meeting. It goes well...to a point. My counterpart is a highly intelligent guy, and understands quite a bit about modern economics. As such, he’s as qualified, if not more so, than me to lead these people. Unlike me, amekuwa kunywa pombe kabla ya kikao (he had been hitting the sauce before the meeting (perhaps not a literal translation, but you get my meaning)). He was not sloshed, but he was perhaps not as diplomatic as he could have been. All I mean is that he started pushing ideas onto the group. Good ideas, yes, but it has always been my strategy to help people discover something themselves...not rub their noses in it. It may have been an issue of cultural differences, so I asked somebody else, got some assurance that a more diplomatic way of leadership would have been better, and said those words that no partner ever wants to hear...”tunahitaji kuongea.”

“We need to talk.”

Because apparently I have entered into a bromance. We are really quite cute. We say goodnight to each other every day, we cook for each other, his children play at my house...and occasionally we share a beer after a long day at work. Great guy, just needs to remember that the way the message is conveyed matters just as much as the message mwenyewe (itself). Maybe more.

Tomorrow, nitapanda (I will plant). I wasn’t sure I could learn Kiswahili, cook, or slaughter a chicken. But I can! This is the last step. I still am not entirely convinced that if I put something in the ground, and care for it properly, that it will grow. All I ask is a few prayers, for good rain, and for good harvests. I will eat my own food come spring, Mungu Akipenda (if god wishes).

So tomorrow came (and one day it won’t, so for its coming I was grateful), and I planted. I now have a beautiful double-dug garden, courtesy of myself and two village youths, planted ultra-close with mahindi, viazi, kabichi, karoti, nyanya, and pilipili hoho (corn, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers). But before I planted...funny thing happened. As I’ve detailed in other blog posts, most mornings begin with me going into my cooking shed to heat up water for coffee and bathing. But this fateful morning I slept through my alarm, and was awakened by the dulcet tones of my fundi (tradesperson, anything from tailor to bike repairman), who had come to put on my gate, to repel those most evil of vermin, chickens. They want to eat the seeds I’m about to plant, and Danny don’t play that (hate to be called Danny). So fundi arrives. I wake up. I stumble out in my Dark Side of the Moon pajama pants, and we start talking door-stuff. He asks me where it is, and I tell him, it’s in the jikoni (in the kitchen shed). He goes in, comes out a moment later, and asks, “unafuga nyoka?”

...No, I’m not keeping a snake...

I have to say, I handled it pretty well. My response was basically, okay, what are we doing about this. And then he got a certain tool, and beheaded it, and we all looked at the dead adder which had entered my kitchen in the night, and it was already a unique, special day. However, later, as I’m sitting around, watching the sun set...I go in there every morning, bleary-eyed. And adders are apparently not very aggressive, so certainly a good chance I would have been fine, just scared witless. But...damn. That could have been last call. There are snakes and random mortal hazards in America too, so please don’t worry about me. So on this particular year, when I am not America, when I was a pilgrim on Thanksgiving in a different land, I found myself thankful for very different things. I am thankful for not being miserable, for the friends I have here, Tanzanian and American, but also for the friends I have left behind, who have not forgotten me, at least not all of them. And lastly, I'm thankful for being alive. It has been an unbelievable year since my last Thanksgiving, and the next one promises to be no less special. If I can keep my feet off adders, I have a future. But if I can't, it's been one hell of a ride.

I have recently posted a bunch of photos, which I believe my lovely family will have transferred somewhere for all to see. I took the vast majority of them in one day, one day that I allotted for the taking of pictures. If you look at one picture, of a forest (a planted forest, but still a forest) from a distance, you should know that at that precise moment, it began to rain. The rains are coming slowly this year, but they are coming. The rain began that day, and it will end sometime in late May. What was once brown shall become green, and he who was once dry shall be wet. The rains came. We depend so much on these seasons, that fall shall follow summer, that cold shall precede warm, and then vice versa. And maybe we are messing up our little planet so much that one day it will be snowing in July and hailing butterflies on Christmas. But the rains came. As they have come since time immemorial. If things do not change, or perhaps even if they do, there may be a year when we wait for the rains...and they do not come. But for now the world turns, and the snake continues to swallow his tail (and nothing else), as he will for many moons to come. Because the rains came. For this we are thankful.

Love,

Dan

Mungu ni Mwema

So this blog entry gonna be a little on the shorter side. Probably a good thing, I’ve started to trend toward writing novels. Wrote up a long entry, hated it, shan’t post it. Basically I was trying to write a day-in-the-life entry. But I kept going on tangents, and very soon the entry became a day-in-the-life-of-the-reader. And that’s no good. So here is a brief sketch of one day in my little vacation. It was Thursday, by the by:

-woke up at 6:15am to the sound of chickens and my cat.
-put on water for coffee and oatmeal
-fed cat cut up dried fish about the size of a paper clip
-took off water, poured coffee, put on water for bathing (half the water I need, I then mix it with cold water to avoid scalding.)
-do crossword, drink instant coffee, eat instant oatmeal. Instantly awesome.
-bathe (takes me about 5 liters of water…maybe less. Two to wet the body…that’s right, the body. Then soaping and shampoo, then three cups to rinse.) and shave.
-get dressed, have final cup of coffee. Leave at 8am to meet friend, we are going to his tree farm for me to look and learn.
-friend is not there.
-…still not there.
-…waiting.
-formulate new plan! My friend the witch doctor has a pine forest that he planted, and it’s quite large, and I can’t wait to go explore it…and now I can!
-Walk down to the forest, meet a few friends on the way, then point me in the right direction.
-Enter forest.
-Sit down in forest.
-Bask.
-Think about Thoreau.
-Phone rings. Thoreau never had to put up with this shit.
-Kenzie having mild crisis. I am useless to help. She figures it out.
-Bask again.
-Leave forest, go to another stand of trees, eucalyptus this time.
-Much less peaceful here. Go check out a bridge my villagers built over one of the smallish rivers. Pretty nice job actually. Might have my civil engineering buddy start working up some designs for me using just nails and rough cut pine (Kucz, this would be you).
-Head back home, stop at the store to grab some biscuits (sugar and flour…yummy), and eat them with honey and peanut butter for a snack.
-Is now about 12:30. Take a quick nap and prepare for my meeting at 2. See a friend passing, she invites me to her church later for a seminar on the word of God. She’s good people. I agree to go. I don’t know why. She’s an Assemblist of God.
-Have a meeting at 2 with the head teacher to discuss the details of my upcoming Environmental Club. There will be 35 kids (yikes!), and we will do all sorts of fun activities. Details forthcoming.
-Meeting wraps up at 3:30, I quick run to the store to buy a fungu (pile) of tomatoes for dinner, and then head to church.
-Church. There is singing, there is dancing, there may have been some speaking in tongues, but there was no laying of the hands. I would have remembered. It’s been a while…
-Free from church! Good people, the Assemblists. They sing a lot, they dance, there are drums. Little more lively than my Catholic masses.
-Friend invites me to his house. We talk for about 15 minutes, he gives me an egg and bananas. I don’t need these things. Even though my stipend is fairly low (about 190 dollars a month), it’s plenty. But I’m a guest. This is tradition. These are wonderful people.
-Go home and cook spaghetti and my homemade sauce. This takes about 2 hours, involves me grating a dozen tomatoes, chopping onions, garlic, peppers, and lighting two different stoves, one charcoal and one kerosene. It is very dark at this point, and I finish around 8pm. I use a solar lantern for light, and I listen to music. This time I don’t spill the sauce everywhere. Yay!
-Eat by candlelight. Cat purrs.
-Do the dishes (involving three basins and an orange bar of soap. Pretty easy actually).
-Write a letter by candelight. Always fun! I believe that day was to Miss Drake. This takes about a half hour.
-Read for a little by candle, then call it a day around 9:30.
-Take a half cup of water to the choo for teeth brushing and flossing.
-Change into jimmies.
-Lock door.
-Lift up mosquito net, crawl in, put on headlamp (thanks!).
-Read for about a half hour…drift off into cozy slumber.

-Repeat.

And there it is. A day in my little life. Not necessarily the normal day, but that’s only because there are no normal days. Everything before 8am and after 7pm is usually the same. In between, anything goes. Lots of days I run, lots of days I wash clothes or sweep, lots of days I show up as the guest of honor at someone’s house and get fed. It varies a lot.

Would like to return briefly to the point of the church and the forest, and the kitchen. I went to church 3 of the last 4 days. In case you are wondering, no, I have not changed that much. I didn’t necessarily enjoy all of that time spent on the wooden bench. But what I did enjoy was the singing. And the looks on peoples faces, and the happiness and relief I saw on them when we left at the end of mass. Church may not be where I get that feeling, that wonderful feeling, that realization that Mungu ni mwema (God is good), and so are we. I may not find that in church, but I do recognize it. If you could have seen my face as I sat in the midst of a farm of pine trees, you would have recognized it too. It was like being in a wooden cathedral, the columns in perfect rows marching towards the horizon, the light being filtered not by stained glass, but by pine needles and branches. It was symmetrical, it was natural, and it was beautiful. Or if you had seen me the day I cut open my cinnamon raisin bread and slathered some butter and bit in while it was still piping hot. It’s just like…alchemy. That moment when the potter and his clay interact, and when it’s over, still all you have is potter and clay, but something else is there. Something beautiful. Something gold. That’s what this experience is like for me, on the good days. And most days are good days. I think maybe it has to do with waiting so long, and working so hard, to be here, to do this. I’m just a guy, sitting in a forest, or kneading some dough. But the context, the history, the conflux of work done and work yet to be done, makes bread into gold, and pine into wine. Someone wrote me that you can't do everything in life. And that's true. You can't do everything. But you can do anything.

So I would like to address one little question that Mama Waldron has posed a few times. What am I called in my village? Sadly, I got nothing. It’s usually “Dani” or “Danieri” or “Piss Kor” (Peace Corps). Sometimes it is “Mzungu”, which is what they call all white people. Not a fan. But Daniel is not an uncommon name here, and they’re cool with it. So I have no tribal handle. Therefore, I have given myself a Tanzanian name. Not for the village, cuz they wouldn’t get it. But amongst the volunteers of my particular region, I am now known as Baba Sukari. For those asking the obvious question, Sukari means sugar. And Baba means father. Or daddy. Enjoy.

Love,

Piss Kor

The Kuku Chizi

Sitting in my dark house, lit by a single flickering candle, thinking about one of the worst things I ever did to anybody. The background: my parents moved into their current office (thought current being a relatively temporary word lately with the Waldrons. I don’t think they’ve changed their citizenships. Yet.) in the early 90’s. I was a youngin, and got to play around, a lot, in the new digs. For those of you who haven’t visited the offices of Waldron and Waldron (not true, but brings to mind my parents as Muppets in the Christmas Carol, shackled in chains and singing to Scrooge. Watch the movie. Right now), you walk inside and you are on landing, stairs leading up and down. My parents work on the top floor. The bottom floor, for many years, was vacant. My sister and I used it as a place to play on the trampoline (...why was there a trampoline in the basement of a law office, Mom and Dad?), and to pass the time as children will do. And then one day...I let my better demons get the best of me. It went something like this:

I knew my sister would be coming downstairs soon. I don’t remember why I knew, but knew I did. And this was at a point in my life where scaring people was still really, really fun (I also used to enjoy hiding a rubber snake in my parents bed. Amazing I lived till puberty). So I went downstairs, into the cave. I remember it was always very, very cool down there...and just a little dank. And it was essentially underground. No light. None. And I waited.

Waiting in pitch blackness is an exercise in relativity. After 5 minutes, time begins to flow like a river through mine. You think you hear something, you make up a story for it. It could be anything. Someone sneezes three offices down, somebody pops open a soda, and you tense. She’s coming! Now’s the moment! You forget that when the moment does come, it won’t be ambiguous. You’ll know. It’s like waiting for the subway. You get excited for every flicker of light off the walls, then when the actual train comes, you remember...it’s a train. It coming, and it’s going, and you’ll know when it does. And all you can do is ride it.

Vicky comes down the stairs, slowly, quickly, don’t remember. She reaches the landing, the doorway, then starts the descent. I get excited, giggly even. Then the guy in white on the right shoulder mentions that this is a really terrible idea, a cruel idea, even. And he’s right, and I know it. But she’s coming down the stairs, and I’m here, and it’s too late now, even if I say something, it will scare her. So I might as well go for the gold. And when my wonderful, beautiful sister reaches the bottom of the stairs, she reaches her hand into the dangerous darkness, groping for a light switch she’ll never find. Because five fingers that aren’t supposed to be down there close around her wrist, and she begins to scream.

There are certain expectations you have to have in order to survive. Every day all of you live with the expectation that the other cars will stay on their side of those thin yellow lines. But those lines are thin. And they won’t stop a car. They won’t stop anything. And the moments we recognize that fact are the moments we realize how fragile our worlds are. You have to believe that the boogie man isn’t under the stairs, or else you’d never go down them. So we all tell our kids its safe, and we all tell ourselves its safe. But one day it wasn’t. Not at all. Sorry about that Vick. I really really am.

I wrote this because I’m reading Bag of Bones, by Stephen King, alone, in the middle of the night. I’m only a little ways in, but it feels like a good one (books and football games, you can tell early on if they’re gonna be good. Relationships and baseball are different. They can start slow but go the distance, or there can be fireworks at the start...and then the crowds end up leaving early). So far, it is the story of a writer whose wife dies before they are very old, and he is being figuratively (or maybe literally...dun dun DUN) haunted by her memory. Now I’m a guy who gets into his reading. Emotional reads get me going if they are good, and creepy stories give me the creeps. But if you want to really stand up those hairs on the back of your neck, try reading a frightening story alone, your house lit by one candle, your last candle, very far from home.

Because alone, in the middle of a new and strange land, all that lights the way is your sanity, your faith that your perception of reality matches reality. And sometimes, late at night, the wind begins to blow a little, and that candle begins to flicker. And you start to wonder...could it ever blow out? How dark would it get, inside my house, inside my mind? And the answers are...of course it could. And it would be very, very dark. And if there’s not enough light to see your hand, how can you be sure it’s still there? If you’re alone, in the dark, how can you be sure you’re really alone...



Well that got dark, didn’t it? Didn’t mean to frighten anybody, but I can assure you that I’m not sitting in the dark, water dripping through my fingers, talking about snails crawling on the edge of straight razors (first person to post the movie I’ve just referenced...can adopt a Tanzanian child?). Although I must say that one of the volunteers I met the other day was talking about living on your own, and he said something to the effect of, “yeah, you do find yourself saying ‘huh, I got a little weird for those last six months there, didn’t I?’” And I see what he means. Kwa mfano (for example), I was in town the other morning to get money and bread and a package (thanks Mom and Dad and Vicky!), and I went into a bathroom, and saw my own reflection. No, I hadn’t developed a uni-brow or a lazy eye or a swarthier complexion. But it was still really weird seeing myself. I don’t have a mirror, is the thing. I see my own face about once every two weeks. And while I don’t think anything is changing...I’m also not sure I would know. No mirrors, real, or otherwise.

What I mean is that if I started wearing skinny jeans and pink polo shirts around in Paupack (like an Italian guy I met a few days ago in Africa), odds are one of the people who love me and care about me would tell me I looked like a continental idiot. But here...they all think I’m crazy anyway. So anything I do is just another crazy thing the crazy guy is doing. They have no expectations of Dan Waldron, or at least no expectations of his behavior or appearance (going to segue out of the 3rd person now). Which means...I might get weird. Weirder. There’s an off chance I’ll have some moments of weirdness. Like talking to the cat. Or eating cookie dough raw. Or maybe occasionally sitting on the floor at the proper angle so that I can only see sky through the windows, so I can pretend I’m in the movie “Up” and the house is flying (two of those happened. Maybe three).

So this section I will write in Kiswahili. Translation to follow:
Ningependa kuchukua nafasi hii kupongeza rafiki yangu atakayeolewa Jumamosi inayokuja, Bibi Brittany Scott. Najua yeye na mchumba wake (Bwana ADAM HAMWAY) wataishi pamoja, watacheka pamoja, na Mungu akipenda, watashinda pamoja mpaka watakuwa wazee bila meno. Ninawapenda sana ninyi wote wawili, na nitakuwa na huzuni sana kukosa harusi yenu. Mcheze dansi kuku chizi. Nakuomba.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulation my friend who will be married this Saturday, Miss Brittany Scott. I know she and her fiance (Massa Adam Hamway) will live together, laugh together, and God willing, will succeed together until they are old people without teeth. I love you both very much, and I will be very sad to miss your wedding. Dance the funky chicken. I beg you.

I never want to make this blog about what these people don't have, and we do have. As I see it, we are all doing the best we can, and the people I love spend a whole lot of time giving back. There are people who take advantage of opportunities in both cultures, and people who make their own opportunities. That being said...I hate you all. I spent an entire day on Thursday building shelves with a hammer that was attached to its handle by hope, nails that had the strength of linguini, and a saw that I believe was used to amputate General Rosewall Stormyside's leg in the Civil War. Adding to that...I'm a really bad carpenter. The resulting shelves look like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. I miss flat floors. I miss power tools. Hate you all. Not a lot. Just a little.

To close, I am in fact doing some work, not just sawing off my own hand for the fun of it. We had our first meeting of my secret cow group the other day (I will be sad when we tell people about the group...and it just becomes a cow group). We are a long ways away from actually getting cows from Heifer International, but I do have high hopes. And one very special goal: I fully intend, for purposes of tracking the cows, to give them names. And what better names than the names of a certain Cow Group in Northeastern Pennsylvania? Debby, Molly, Susie, Marsha, Jeanne, Susie, you get the idea :) Though, assuming all works out, there will be one bull. I’m leaning heavily towards calling the bull Uncle Louie. But if anyone has a convincing argument that I should name the bull after them, write me a letter. I’m listening.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’m not supposed to be initiating projects yet. And I’m not. This was an idea from my neighbor (there’s a similar project in his parents’ village). I’m just the token white guy (this is true in most settings). Seriously, it’s a tricky balance. Pushing projects through quickly is a recipe for disaster. But I have people who want to do something special, and are ready to get to work. They aren’t asking me for grant money or material support, at least not yet. Who am I to tell them they have to wait for me to get my adverbs in the proper order? The key, I think, is to ask as many questions as possible, and to spend every moment thinking of all the stuff that could go wrong, then solutions. Kind of like preparing for a date. You bring that spare pair of pants. Cuz something might go wrong. Or right. Moving on.

But for all my wasiwasi (worries), I had kind of a funny moment the other day. A great old Neil Young song comes on. “Cortez the Killer”. And as I’m listening to the lyrics and remembering all the lovely development work my boy Cortez pulled off, it did occur to me that he set the bar pretty low for people working in new countries and with new cultures. I’m thinking I can do better.

Keep On Rocking in the Free World,

Dan

Ice, Ice Daddy

Having a brief online chat with Michael Rudez while I write this. We’re talking about unpaid internships…and it occurs to me that I am in the middle of the ultimate unpaid internship. Except to get milk for the boss’s coffee…I need to start a farm collective and secure a loan from Heifer International. Sawasawa (the same).

There’s this funny little custom here. In the local dialect, the first time you see someone every day, you say “Kamwene”, and they reply “Kamwene”. Roughly translated, it’s “You are well?” and “I am well”. Or literally, “Whole?”, “Whole.” All that’s totally cool, and they love it that I’m speaking the tribal language a little bit. “Twiteleka ugimbi” (we are cooking corn liquor. I have some interesting days here.) But here is the catch. And oh what a catch. The SECOND time you see somebody in a day, you CANNOT say “Kamwene”. You have to say “Wheoli” (I’m attempting to spell that, I have no idea how it’s actually spelled.) And they say “Wheoli” right back. Which is great. But it’s not great. Cuz in order for you to say the correct greeting, you have to remember everybody you see in a day!!! And that’s really hard!!! It’s not so bad for the men. They wear fairly distinctive clothing (including some truly stunning floor length women’s coats). But the women wear traditional dress, and a lot of it blends together…and about four or five times a day I get this feeling like I’m being tested. Did I see them? They look familiar. Of course they look familiar. Did they pass by and greet me when I stumbled out of my house this morning, awakened by roosters and silently cursing the beautiful sunrise that I’m seeing through one bloodshot eye? So I try to cheat, and greet in Kiswahili. But they know my tricks. I can tell. It’s this damn white skin. I’m transparent.

And here’s another funky thing, which I love. There is a tradition here that you after you have kids, you are no longer called by your own name. You are normally called Mama or Baba, and then insert the name of your firstborn child. Which creates a really interesting dilemma, wherein you have to pick a name for your first kid that you want to be called for the next however many years. I wondered if this was just my American take on things. It is not. I have met Mama and Baba Flavy, and Mama Amani (peace). Nobody names their child Flavy out of love. You name your child Flavy because you want to be Daddy Flavy. And who can blame you? My parents are Mama Vicky and Baba Vicky. Nice name, but they could have been more original. I’m thinking Flash for my first child. Daddy Flash. Or Ice. Yeah. Daddy Ice.

Let’s do a short day-in-the-life (who am I kidding? It won’t be short): Woke up at 5:30 (usually somewhere between 5:45 and 7:00, impossible to sleep longer because of the jogoos (roosters)). Started the jiko la mafuta (kerosene stove, like camping style (jiko means stove, mafuta means oil or gas)) and put on three pitchers worth of water to heat for bathing. Go back inside and cut up about two dozen fish called dagaa into little pieces for the kitten to eat. She eats them whilst I chill and listen to music for about ten minutes. It’s cold, but it’s a nice cold. Get to sleep in pants and wool socks, and wake up feeling pretty damn cozy.

Give the water 15 minutes to heat up, then combine it with three more pitchers of cold water, giving me six pitchers (or maybe a gallon, give or take) of lukewarm to hot water. I won’t need all of it. It takes roughly two pitchers to wet, and three pitchers to rinse. As I said before, it’s a bit on the frosty, so you kinda gotta hurry. Finish, and use my remaining water to shave. Change, get ready, which today means dress shirt and pants. Why? Cuz I’m going to a wedding!

We’re supposed to leave at 6:30...so 7:30 actually ain’t too bad. I shouldn’t judge, I can remember any number of times I’ve left for engagements well over an hour late. So we load 30 people into the back of a truck, me into the cab (for I am fragile and liable to crack), and we set off. We stop about 3 miles up the road for a police checkpoint, which means we actually stop 2.75 miles up the road...and unload every single person in the back of the truck, who now start hoofing it by the side of the road. There are laws about having more people than seatbelts in Tanzania too...but like lots of laws, they only apply when the lawmakers are watching. So we go through the checkpoint, pay a 2,000 shilling fine, drive a quarter mile farther up the road, and, you guessed it, all the people who have been busting it climb back into the back of the truck, and off we go. Again.

We arrive in the village of the wedding. I, and all the people in our own private Grapes of Wrath truck, were invited by the chairman of our village. So it’s me, the church choir, and 20 other people the bride and groom have never met. Again, I suppose, not so different. We hang out for a couple hours before the wedding, eating ugali and beans. Then we head to the wedding. It’s completely in Kiswahili, of course, and quite beautiful. It’s also 3 hours long...but hey, they’re gonna spend a lifetime together. Give ‘em some time to think it all over. There are a half dozen different speeches, some of them given into a microphone that makes people sound like they are reporting from a rooftop in London during the middle of the Blitz. What helped me pass the time was listening to the keyboard player. You know how sometimes, when you give a kid a kazoo, they make it the soundtrack for everything. I mean everything. That’s kind of like this guy and his keyboard. When someone said something poignant, he played rockets taking off. When people clapped, he played cymbals. And I swear to you all, when someone said something funny, he played something that sounded a lot like a frisky robot becoming aroused.

So the wedding is presided over by a 60-year old Italian priest, who speaks Kiswahili with a distinctive “It’s meeeee, Maaaaario” accent, and speaks it very well. We have a very odd conversation after the wedding. Odd, because I know he speaks English, and we both speak in Swahili. Language is a funny thing, especially when it stops defining you...or rather defines you in a different way. It’s a bridge between people, and we have completely different language, completely different bridges, for every person, every circle we move through. So here we are, an elderly priest and a young volunteer, speaking their 3rd and 2nd languages, respectively, wondering just how much is being lost in translation.

We walk from the church to the reception. I’ve only ever seen Tanzanians walk fast for weddings, and for funerals. Or maybe it’s just for free food. Pick ‘em. There is an MC shouting instructions and telling jokes. They even call him an MC. He’d fit in perfectly in any American wedding. We all squeeze into the reception hall, and here’s where the real fun starts. Because a parade starts coming up the aisle, dancing. They aren’t escorting the bride, the groom, or the parents. It’s the cake. They’re escorting the cake. Love it. Except there is something I don’t really get...there’s a guy holding a log, and he’s kind of cradling it like a baby...or something. I don’t get it, so I ask my neighbor. And it turns out that the log is supposed to be a gun. And the guy is pretending to be a soldier. A soldier. To guard the cake. What really makes this moment is the look on my neighbor’s face when he explains it. Because he gets it. It’s ridiculous. And I know it’s ridiculous and hilarious, and so does he. But leaving carrots for reindeer might be kind of hard to explain (and gnawing half of them for the sake of the kids). So would hiding eggs, dressing up like Captain Morgan, or jumping off furniture at the stroke of twelve. But I hope we never lose it. Any of it. The world gets flatter and flatter, and lots of our weird, beautiful kinks become ironed out. But somewhere, in the middle of Africa, a guy is guarding a cake with a stick. And you ain’t getting to that cake. You ain’t even getting close. That stick is loaded.

Love,

Dan

Which Doctor? The Witch Doctor!

Official new name of the blog: The Man who Lives in Mafinga. This comes from “The Muppets’ Treasure Island” (classic cinema. Marooned pig, tourist rats, Zanzibarbarians, and one of the all-time movie quotes when Gonzo is talking about Long John Silver, he of the peg-leg: “look at his legs Jim. Count ‘em: One!”). Fozzie Bear, playing Squire Trelawney (he has great range for a bear. Was also outstanding as Fezziwig. One day he’ll do Lear) claims to get all his good ideas from Mister Bimbo, the man who lives in his finger. He has been to the moon. Excuse me. Twice.

And that is where my blog gets it’s name. Karibu!

About 7 or 8 months ago, I was reading about the history of Tanzania, and there was this whole thing about villagization, back in the 70’s. Basically, in an effort to consolidate basic services, and thereby bring more people the glorious benefits of unasked-for socialism (tricky thing, socialism. More another day), the government moved all the people off their farms and into a group, or village. I absolutely get the point. The problem being that lots of the basic services don’t work, and now the people get to walk an hour or two to get to their farms, and walking back with a 20 kilo bag of taters is not anyone’s idea of a good time. Good idea, in theory. But the reality of it is looking at people, deciding you know better than they do how they should live their lives, and changing their lives to fit your paradigm. Which brings me to Jay Bilas.

Same day I was reading history o’ TZ, it was college basketball season, and I was listening to Jay Bilas and others talk about the one-and-done rule. For those who don’t know already, this is a rule that resulted from the NBA imposing a restriction on players coming straight out of high school, on the theory that these guys are maybe not ready to be handed a bank vault in which to swim. Again, I get the idea. However, what you have now is John Wall, who attended class for one semester, took something like 8 credits, didn’t have to attend class in the spring semester, was drafted into the NBA, and is gone.

I know nothing about John Wall the person. Probably a real good guy, everything I’ve ever read about him has been positive. But I think it’s clear that John Wall’s experience of with higher education was not significantly improved, or improved at all, by the NBA’s mandate. In a similar vein, ARNIE DUNCAN, who I believe is still the Secretary of Education, was proposing a change in NCAA regulations that would prohibit schools with low player graduation-rates from participating in the NCAA tournament. Jay Bilas was asked about the proposed rule change, and he said something to the effect of “you change that rule, and oh yeah, they’ll graduate.”

It seemed to me that these things were somehow connected (enforced villagization and imposing penalties for graduation rates). Couldn’t really figure out how to express it. So I talked to Yoda. By which I mean Mom. And she agreed there was a problem. I think she put it like this: “At the real hearts and minds level, you haven’t convinced anybody.” So in effect all you’re doing is making the dolphins jump through hoops before you give them their minnows.

The reason I’m saying this is that I visited a village a couple days ago, and met with some teachers, and got shown the lay of the land. Now this village had a bunch of volunteers from Peace Corps, until the volunteer before me decided that my current village might benefit more from a volunteer (by which I mean she thought they worked a lot harder in my village). I’m inclined to agree. I saw wells that had stopped working years ago, a building for boiling water that is sitting unused...and I’m not sure how to say this...a school library that contained books, in English, by authors such as Tom Robbins and Plato. Authors, you might say, that some native speakers of the English tongue have a difficult time working through. You get my drift. I certainly do not want to be critical of the dedicated and passionate people that came before me, and I am certainly not critical of the people who live here, who are just trying to make ends meet. But I’m not here to make people build hoops, then make them jump through them. And until I’ve learned what they truly want, and what they’re truly willing to donate, or sacrifice (money, time, sweat), anything I start just becomes monkey see/monkey do. Thanks, Jay Bilas. And Mom.

Went to visit a couple of Volunteers from SPW (Student Partnership Worldwide), in this self-same village. Had a hard time navigating the language with them, because they alternated very officious-sounding English (“to empower the disenfranchised is the goal of every prosperous endeavor...” and stuff like that. It was kind of like listening to a pamphlet. Weird stuff.) with rapid-fire Kiswahili. So it took me a few minutes to understand, when they were talking about testing for HIV, that “robo tatu” had tested positive. Robo means quarter. Tatu means three. Ergo, robo tatu is three quarters. At which point...everything else kind of becomes academic....don’t it? There are literally no other issues on the table. Except, of course, there are.

Now this is a statistic coming through two languages and at least 3 degrees of separation. That being said, I’ve heard reports from other villages of over 50% pre-valency, and my neighbor certainly thinks inawezekana (it is possible). Robo tatu. Three quarters. 75%. I remember reading once that the point where a society begins to break down is around 25%. But this society isn’t breaking down. And they’ve asked for help. Then they got me.

But I’m new here. And rather white. I stand out a tad. More than a tad...cuz I’m like eight feet tall. I’m the Manute Bol of Idetelo. And they think I’m made of candy glass. I remember one time Damon, Me, Andy, Marc, and I think Lauren were going to Dorney. And Marc, I think, knowing full well what he was doing, said something like “really Waldo? You can’t go any faster than this?”. We did just about double the speed limit from there on out. It’s pretty easy to get me to do something. Just say I can’t. Which is what happened. I go down to the brick pit the other day. Brick pit: a pit where we make bricks. Bricks for what? For the new dispensary, new classrooms, houses for teachers, houses for doctors. All these buildings need bricks. And bricks are free...money-wise. They are hella bad to make. So I’m standing knee-deep in a mud pit, throwin mud into the brick-mold, and talking to this one guy. I was pretty sure we were putting in a four hour day. Cept’ the guy I’m working with says he stays till jioni (early evening, 4-6pm, say). And I say I’ll stay with him. And he says, “Hapana, huwezi.” (No, you can’t (or you are not able)) It was almost as if the bastard knew. So I stayed. Made bricks for 7 hours. Wouldn’t have been the worst work I’ve done...cept we had to do it without shoes (else you will quickly lose them in aforementioned mud. Though I gotta say, barefeet in mud is a pretty swell feeling). Why is that the deal-breaker? I feel like I could do any kind of work, for any amount of time...just let me wear shoes. But no shoes. Just lots of bricks. And mud. And people telling me every 5 minutes to pumzika (rest). But I can’t. Cuz the guy said “huwezi”.

Got to thinking about work. I’ve worked hard in my life. Saturday doubles in a busy New York restaurant are crazy hard work, don’t believe otherwise. I’ve worked from 7:45am in a park until 2am at a restaurant, riding my bike all over the city. But I’d be lying if I said that I plan on laying brick all my life. So it was really cool for me to walk home today, dirtier than I have ever been in my life, wearing my mud-puddle of honor. Cuz that’s what I think of dirt at the end of the day; it’s a symbol of hard work, of fearlessness. Tanzanians think I’m crazy. And maybe I am. My father works as hard as any human I’ve ever met. He doesn’t strap on boots and a machete (which I’m getting, by the way). Lots of people don’t. So what is the benchmark? This is clearly a dilettante writing. But who knows? Maybe a few more bricks, and I’ll have me a profession. My feet hurt. Think they’d think I’m weird if I just went some days to stand in the mud?

What else we got? Built a well with a bunch o’ dudes, really fun. My neighbor got his generator working, so I’ve been watching the news a lot. I baked really good banana bread!!! Met a mganga. Could be translated as healer, traditional doctor, or...witch doctor. Guess which translation I prefer. This guy is the only person here as tall as me, outweighs me by about a hundred pounds, and the first time we met was at an all-village meeting, when he walked into the middle of the stage and gave me a bear hug (maybe the first hug I’ve received from a Tanzanian). His name is Benito. He’s a character. He also knows a ton about local herbal remedies. And owns a motorcycle. And a ton of houses. Showed me around. We met lots of his aunts, and lots of his patients. In Tanzania there’s no real problem with talking about a patient’s problems right in front of them. Ok. Freaks me a lil, but ok. But then we go into this one room.

There’s a guy sitting on the ground, leaning against a wall. He waves greeting, and looks sad. One of the women says “haongei” (he isn’t talking). I realize why he’s looking sad, when Benito comes in a picks the blanket off this man. He’s chained to the wall. Actually chained to a tree on the other side of the wall. But yeah. Chained. Benito explains that sometimes he does this if people are too strong to be restrained, or if they might try to hurt themselves (actually, I think he says hang themselves). In a way, yes, I get it. I’m not sure there are psych wards here, and I’m not sure I’d want a friend of mine sent there if they do exist. But this man is chained to a freaking wall, sitting in front of me, and he can’t talk. And there are a lot of moments when I think that development is a hole that people dig themselves, expecting to strike gold. But there are moments when I realize that people have a natural-born-right to...better. Better than this.

Stealing this last part from a letter I wrote to Kelsey. I think she’ll forgive me. She better. But I got a cat the other day. I named it Kelsey. It might be a boy. If so, it’ll be Kelsey like Kelsey Grammar, without the substance abuse problems (we’ll see). And I had a moment, like many others I’ve had the last few months. It’s that moment of looking at someone new, and knowing that before long, they are going to be family. And it’s a great feeling…except it’s also horrifying. Because for that connection to mean anything…you have to give something, a part of you. And you can’t know what this person, or this cat, will do with that part of you. We choose ever so carefully to let these people into our weird little worlds, and sometimes they break stuff. And sometimes they change stuff. And I suppose that, my dear friends, is life. I take some solace from the fact that all of you are guests in my private little universe, and I still adore each and every one of you.

Tanzania, Out.

When You Can't Hold On...Hold On

Saw something today, that if I could write it right, I won’t have to write no more...

...And I’m being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow.

Asked the Mwenyekiti wa Kijiji (the Village Chairperson (kiti means chair, mwenye means a person with or on, so mwenyekiti literally translates as “the person with the chair”)) a few days ago what groups there were in the village. He gave me the full list: Vijana (youths), Wanawake (women), Wazee (elderly), and Wakulima (farmers). Then he told me there was a group of wananchi (countrymen) wenye VVU/UKIMWI (with HIV/AIDS). And they were meeting Wednesday at 10. He’d pick me up at a quarter till.

Meeting starts around 11:30, kama kawaida (like usual). No worries. I spend the hour or so sitting around, talking a little bit with one man about the difficulties in getting medicine, but mostly...just...I don’t know. What do you do? It’s moments like this I start looking over my shoulder for the Under Toad, because I realize how incredibly lucky I’ve been in my life. I knew there were people who looked like this, who felt like this. But I had not, until today, sat with them, spoke with them, heard them coughing, watched them limping. I was holding on with both hands during the meeting, trying to understand the Kiswahili, but I kept on being distracted. There was a woman sitting across from me, with her face in her hands. I kept thinking about that Dorothea Lange photo, of the Dust Bowl mother. The expression was the same. It was frightening. It was the look of someone who...I’m sorry...who was waiting for all of this to be over. And by all of this... you know what I mean, I think. She would speak when spoken to, and just a few words, maybe a quick attempt at a smile, and then eyes back to the floor, resuming her tired waiting.

Life does not work out for everybody, does it?

However, on a happier note, these people are pretty damn amazing. The man and women running the meeting were perfect for it. It was participatory, it had direction. They identified goals of the group (I think this was one of the first meetings), challenges, and project proposals. They decided to start a chicken-keeping project. You get three great things with that: eggs (to sell or eat), meat, and mbolea (compost). We are building a banda (shed) on September 14 (every time the people hear me say I’m going to do work, they laugh (and every time they see me doing work, they laugh harder (and every time they hear me speak Kihehe (the tribal language, different from Kiswahili (the national language)) they just about bust a rib laughing) they’ll get used to it.) I hope). Wish me luck (it took me 5 minutes to figure out that last sentence. I’m done with the crazy parentheses. Let the record show I reached the 5th degree)!

So, let’s back up a few steps. I now live in Idetelo (or Idetero...they mix and match the Ls and Rs here...just for fun, I think). I arrived here on Thursday, August 19. I will leave here in two years. I don’t think that filling the hours will be a problem. Washing all my clothes takes 2 hours. Cooking dinner takes 2 hours (I have cooked pasta with my own sauce, and a french fry omelet the Tanzanians called chipsi mayai. I also ate both of them like there was a hostage strapped to a bomb at the bottom of the plate. Made myself sick a little. Not the food’s fault (since I first wrote this post I have also made home fries, fried eggs, french toast, dinner crepes, and Tanzanian donuts called Maandazi)). Sweeping the house takes 1 hour. Washing dishes takes 30 minutes. And by the by, and this might sound like a realization thats coming a bit late in life, when you finish all that stuff...you gotta do it again the next day. I was extremely determined to not hire a house girl/boy to cook, wash clothes, do anything. I don’t like the patronism, I don’t like the symbolism, and I don’t like the precedent. But...I also want to get some actual work done here. And it is going to take a few weeks before I will know if it is possible to do both.

I arrived here on a Thursday. There was a village meeting on Friday. There were drums. That’s right. I arrive places and there are students playing drums and choirs singing songs. There was also, and I can’t make this stuff up, a man in a Phillies cap and a guy in a Steelers sweatshirt. And in that moment, none of you felt all that far away, and that was wonderful. What I’m also saying is...I expect all of these things when I return. Someone better start learning drums.

I live on a ridgeline in an area with a severe deforestation problem. The wind is fierce, the nights are very cold, but we’re close to the equator, so the sun is hot as ever. Very crazy days here. I go through lots of clothes. Plus, I’m trying to train up to marathon time. Ran for 50 minutes the other day, as the sun was setting behind an African hillside. If any of this sounds a bit surreal to you (for instance, if you remember that I used to drive a Subaru Legacy wagon and enjoy French Toast, walks on the beach, and a good glass of Rioja), welcome to my club. This is the craziest job you can imagine. Because it doesn’t end. Ever. But then...neither do most jobs. And I had a funky thought the other day, running, looking at the sun going down and the moon coming down. There can’t be such a thing as a full moon. By which I mean the full face of the moon completely illuminated for a single observer. Why, you ask? No full moon? Because the moment that the sun would eliminate the entire visible face of the moon for a single observer...the Earth begins to block the sun’s light, and that single observer sees only another dark side of the moon. Perfection, as they say, is unattainable.

Couple additions a few weeks after I wrote the main post then was unable to send it do to an Internet-less cafe. To begin with, I'm suddenly realizing that in life, I constantly carry on an inner dialogue, in which I talk to myself in the second person. Stuff like 'you will need to wash dishes' and 'I don't think that will work'. The only problem now...is that i'm thinking in the second person, in Swahili! It's driving me insane! Or maybe it's too late. Either way.

Just finished two amazing books, that could not be any more different: the first is Blindness (some of you may have seen the movie). It's a haunting novel about humanity and society and our nature, and I loved it. It is really, really heavy, though it's also strangely funny in parts. Big recommendation. Decided to follow that with The Tao of Pooh...which may have changed my life a little. If you haven't read this wonderful book, do so now. I loved it. I think it taught me a little about myself, and there's a chance it might do the same for you. So for whatever it's worth, that's what I got. Also finished Grapes of Wrath. I realize I'm a little late to the party...but that might be the best American novel I've ever read. Good lit here in the Tanzania.

A small shout out to a friend, who I don't think is reading these yet, so I'm gonna shoot her an email too. Anne Neczypor is an amazing and talented comedian, and if you don't know her yet, you will one day. We went to NYU together, and I remember her from when she was fresh out of the convent and still a heterosexual (weren't we all). Anywho, the only podcast I ended up with on my mp3 player was her amazing podcast from heretv.com, called Girls on Girls. The most surreal parts of my day are when I go to wash my dishes in basins, by candlelight, in Africa...and turn on a podcast that starts with a breathy voice saying “hey ladies...welcome to the podcast created with only you in mind. It's Girls on Girls podcast”. But being able to hear her voice has been nothing short of wonderful for me, and I owe her a huge thanks.

I’m here to stay. I’m gonna cook, garden, and fanya mambo mazuri (do great things) with my new neighbors. You are more than welcome to visit. My house is very small, I haven’t started gardening yet, my earthly possessions are all on the floor, I have enough spiders to start studying entomology, and I until I get my cat I think I may have to deal with a panya (rat) problem. But I have a poster of my friends, a painting of my lake, a single flying cow...and my windows look out on a very large world.

Love,



Dan

P.S. My post office address is:

Daniel Waldron
P.O. Box 469
Makambako, Tanzania

Send letters!

P.S.S. Be hitting up the comments on the posts!!! I will read them and cry tears of love!

Eau De Choo

To begin with, I am seriously considering a change to the name of this particular blog. Why, ask my loyal following (all half dozen)? Because, dammit, I’m going to live near a town called Mafinga, and I just...I just think there are too many good jokes to make about a town that sounds like “My finga”. For instance, the title of my blog could be “Pull Mafinga”. I’m just sayin.

Had my first try at being sick in Africa. It was awful, but I can do better. If thou be dhaifu of tumbo (weak of stomach), maybe skip a paragraph or two. In the lovely language of Kiswahili, they have an alternate expression for diarrhea (harisha). They say, “umeendesha” (you have been driving). Why do they say this, you ask? Because, when a certain person has diarrhea, their bodies tend to sound like a revving car. I found this expression odd. Then I laid in bed one night for nine hours, listening to my very own running of the Kibaoni 500, and remembered, once again, that funny expressions/stories stop being funny when they start being about you.

Had another example of that today. After we returned from town today (today being Saturday, when I wrote this particular part), and we found out that the local bus (which we call Rasha Baby, because it has Rasha Baby written on the back. (We’re not that creative. Sometimes we are. Not now.)) was broken (I asked “how do you break a bus with no brakes?” It might have brakes. I’ve seen it stopped. On hills...) and we had to walk back to town, one of my friends almost had her hand taken off by a passing motorcycle. And I realized in that moment that if I read a story about a PCV losing an arm while waving to a pikipiki driver, I would laugh a little. And that doesn’t make me a very good person. So one of two things need to happen: A. I need to well up with sympathy and squelch snarky comments whenever I hear about funny tragedies...and that ain't gonna happen. SO B. I need to invite, initiate, and help to propagate lots of good jokes if a humorous tragedy should befall me. Hold me to it folks.

Listening to a West Wing episode while I wrote this (this is the first of two West Wing references, the other...is hidden. First person to email me with the second gets a handwritten drawing in the mail! My money is on Vicky). Heard one of my favorite lines: “what percentage of things exploding do you think have been anticipated?" Reminds me of another saying I used to love as a kid: “eat right. excercise. die anyway” I’m becoming fatalistic. Or realistic. Or serene. Probably not. But I’m trying. The sheer reality of the situation is this: we are trying to change lives and systems that have been in place since time immemorial, and change like that takes lifetimes. It is a bit humbling to be put into a situation in which we are able to control so little, and expect to move the ocean so very far. So what do we do? Whatever we can, I guess. Stay tuned.

My little brother here drives me batty, and scares me a little, because he loves my things. Loves them. Loves to play with them, use them, maybe pee on them and claim ownership (not the last. yet). It borders on the obsessive, and it absolutely crosses over into the annoying, and I guess the real story here is that most of the people here like me for me, or at least like me because I’m different and funny. But sometimes it becomes about what I can do for them. Or what I can give them. Or sometimes, what they can use me for. And those moments are completely understandable. They are also completely excruciating. So I want to tell my little brother: “you need to not like vitu (things) so much.” Then I realize...easy to say when you’re the guy with all the vitu.

So the last part of this blog post is the text of the speech we are going to be giving on Wednesday. I also have it in Kiswahili, but not in digital form. I’ll post it later, i think. This speech was written by myself and a women named Rebeccah Steele. I’m rather fond of it, so if you don’t like it, save the constructive criticism until I return (you’ll have forgotten by then. Nimeshinda! (I have won! (I love parentheticals. This is a parenthetical to the 3rd degree. In the course of two years, how high can I set the bar? We shall see))). On Wednesday I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I thought about applying to join the Peace Corps in August of 2008, during a particularly rocky time in my life. It is because of fortune, luck, and the love of a great many good friends and family members that I made it here. So this is the part where I say thank you. Thank you. Thanks for giving me a bed to sleep on, food to eat, music to listen to, encouragement, jokes, love, hugs, kisses, and wacks upside the head. If you came to the Beer Olympics, listened to me talk about Prospect Park, taught me how to harvest a turnip, or simply care about me, thank you. I’ve never done anything alone in my life, and I never will. When I’m living the good life alone in the village, I won’t be alone then either. I am where I want to be, and I am doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Thank you all. I love you, and I miss you. I hope you like the speech.

Unajua utokako, hujui uendako. (You know where you are from, you don’t know where you are going)

It all started with an idea and a click of a mouse. We individually decided it was time. Time to serve, grow, and learn. Individually we labored to apply and get through the grueling process to become a candidate. Individually we said goodbye to our families, our friends, and our lives. Individually we boarded planes bound for the unknown. In Philadelphia we began a joint experience, united by a common purpose, and a common trepidation. Internally, we were all shagalabagala (chaos). We had no idea how quickly we were going to get “comfortable” with each other. Our first test of overcoming obstacles was getting through John F. Kennedy airport in New York City. 40 passports...40 passengers packed for a two year adventure. We were dropped off and had to figure it out on our own. With a few small hickups we proudly became a team and boarded our plane.

We flew off into the sky, watching America fade away below us. Our flight was long, the seats were short, and the food was cold, but we will never forget the moment our new friends, our new family members, awoke us, and pointed to the sandy shores below. We had literally crossed over into Africa. An idea that began a continent away was now a reality in Tanzania.
As we landed in Dar the air smelled of fire and felt sticky to our skin. We had finally arrived at our new home.

Nine weeks ago our clothes were clean and pressed; we spoke no Kiswahili, we had yet to taste ugali. We were herded quickly to Msimbazi Center, minds clouded and eyes heavy with sleep deprivation. As the night blurred past, we were hit with our first dose of culture and medication. As the light of day came upon us, our new reality set in. We had to endure hours of information overload, shots, and jet lag, but we were alive and well.

After that first week, we were integrated, we were ready. Little did we know. We had, thus far, only seen one kind of Tanzania, and it was not so different from America. The words might be different, but the cars, the goods, the life, that was similar. We were completely oblivious to what was coming. Nothing would have prepared us for that first night. We were left that afternoon with our bags, a smile, and a “hujambo, sijambo” (You good? I’m good). Nothing else. We were without language, friends, the comforts of home, the simple habits that we had spent a lifetime learning. We were new faces, they were strangers; smiling, but speaking in a foreign tongue and expecting replies. Awkward silence (pause for awkward silence). We were alone that night, alone, and overwhelmed.

Over the next few weeks, we began to grow and learn, even in ways we did not realize. There were fewer Americans, and we all knew that very soon today would come, and tomorrow there will be no more Wazungu (white people). Those first few days we did not want to leave the classroom. What good students we were. But truthfully, we were scared to go home. For home was filled with strangers and strange words and stranger food. It was a perfect trap, because we had been put into a situation where we needed to change to survive. And we did this to ourselves. But then a funny thing happened. With each faux pas: broken beds, buibui bites, phones in the choo, malaria and missed transportation, there were lessons. Haba na haba hujaza kibaba (little by little fills the container). We laughed at ourselves as others laughed at us, and our mamas taught us how to cook, our bibis taught us how to speak, our babas drew us maps and made us flashcards. Our little kakas and dadas taught us how to play. We were embraced as brothers and sisters, and showered with generosity. Before we knew it, the strangers had become friends, and then the friends became family. The weeks whistled by us as we learned how to live, work, and play in this beautiful country. We built permagardens with primary students, held community meetings with the villagers, and grew together as a team. And now, before any of us can believe it, our training is over. For the second time in nine weeks we have left our homes, to travel to a place we have only seen on a map.

Two years from today, a funny thing will have happened. That place on a map will have become home. The strangers we will meet tomorrow will become friends, then family. And we will be leaving the toughest job we ever loved. We will leave behind gardens and nurseries, clinics and health clubs, bee hives and vaccination days. But we will be leaving behind far more than that. We will be leaving friends. Because more than a list of projects completed, marks on a ledger, money spent or money earned, our goal is the learning and growth that happens when two cultures come together. We have a tremendous opportunity to live, as ambassadors of the United States of America, with the people of Tanzania. We have some things we want to teach them, yes. Things that will hopefully improve the quality of their lives. But we have so much more we want to learn, and so many relationships we cannot wait to form.

Some of us may fall in love forever, with this place, with these people, with this life. Some of us may never leave. But leave or stay, we will forever be citizens of two nations, members of two cultures.

So today, we stand here, ready, once again, to go forward into great uncertainty. It will be hard. It will hurt. We may cry. But we will also learn, and we will teach. And hopefully we will dance and sing along the way. We are where we always wanted to be, and we are doing what we always wanted to do. And for that we are thankful. The people of Tanzania have already shown us more generosity than we could have imagined, and we are ready to repay it, little by little.

There is an Irish tale of two lads who encountered, in their travels, a high wall, higher than they believed they could climb. The two lads looked at each other, took off their packs, and threw them over the wall. Now they had no choice but to follow. Today we throw our packs over the wall. We will see you all on the other side. Kawia, tufike. (Linger, you’ll get there)

Therein Lies the Shida

Buckle up for this one folks...I had too much time on my hands to scribe an email with :) Sorry. Not supposed to end sentences with prepositions, or smiley faces. Properly chastened, I endelea (continue).

For starters, shida means problem. We have all become big big fans of mixing Kiswahili and English to create Swenglish. Such sayings include: pumzika time (nap time or rest time), fua the nguo (wash the clothes), and Houston, we have a shida (the aforementioned problem word).

Writing this post from a mountain village called Malindi, near the city of Lushoto. The drive up these incredible mountains was undertaken by myself and Rebecca Steele (real name) on a vehicle called a Kosta. It’s about a 10:30pm on the Doomsday Clock of Tanzanian Transportation (midnight being the daladalas). Vehicle is actually quite sound, and the driver should go pro. We are going over one and a half-lane roads with 500 foot drops to our left, which, by the way, is the side we're driving on! Twice, when passing other speeding buses on hairpin turns, feeling like we were about to do our best Buddy Holly impersonation, she and I were cackling. For real, positively giggling. Why? Because when there’s nothing you can do to determine if you live or die...might as well laugh.

Was worth it though. Always is. I've never seen views like this in my entire life. I'm surrounded by steep mountain peaks, all covered in steppe farms. It's like being in an Incan paradise. Quite a place. Staying with Dave and Wendy Banks, an incredible couple one week away from leaving Tanzania after two years here. They’ve been married 48 years, and in the last two they've brought a library to the secondary school and electricity to the dispensary. They've also served Rebeccah and I hot dogs, beef stew, and chocolate cake. You can live the good life in TZ, and they are doing it. Amazing people.

Today I went with them to my first Tanzanian church service. Lasted a cool two hours and forty-five minutes. I'm told the record was a five hour plus confirmation ceremony. All joking aside, it was a wonderful ceremony, punctuated by Wendy and Dave saying goodbye to the congregation. I couldn't help thinking, “one day, sooner than I realize, that'll be me.” Its moments like that where I wish I'd just gone ahead and had the Serenity Prayer tattooed on both hands. The service was mostly made so long by the rockin’ choir, who combined gospel-style music with African drumming and who have one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. The service was exactly the same as an American Roman Catholic service, and when I shook hands with the neighboring parishioners during the “peace be with you” part, I had another one of those “we're not so different” moments.

Another one of those: went to a wedding a week or so back. Walked over carrying a sleepy two-year old on my shoulder, Mama had the baby. Spent a lot of the wedding dancing casually and off-rhythm, but in my defense, that was how to fit in. They have longer attention spans here; most songs at the wedding ran in the 25-minute range! I had a lot of fun getting low with old bibis (grandmothers), but it got a bit awkward when the 14-year olds were getting frisky. Had to shield myself with one of my child entourage (I think of them as my unholy army and pay them in candy. No joke), and make a quick getaway. Of course, I ran straight into a lovely man who smelled like a barrel of mangoes that was starting to turn. He was extremely happy to shake my hand, so happy, in fact, that he didn't let go for five minutes. Turns out he's the uncle of the bride, and he'd been hittin the still for a few hours. He was lovingly escorted elsewhere by some friends, long after the point where I had gotten a contact buzz. At this point Mama and I retrieved the little ones from her mother’s house, and called it a night. That's right folks: at Tanzanian weddings you drop the little ones off at your mom's and meet crazy drunk uncles. Say it with me now: "we're not so different".

Got my site assignment this week. My village is called Idetelo, it is in the Iringa Region, close to the town of Mafinga. I'm told it's pretty darn cold for Tanzania, that they have great timber, huge tea plantations, and that apparently there's really amazing horse riding (that's right lady love. I said horses). As odd as it may seem, since I moved out of Paupack to go to NYU in August of ’03, I have not lived anywhere for more than 11 months (I blame the bedbugs). This will be my longest stay in one residence since high school. So I should decorate, is what I'm saying.

Lacking a transition here, so this is the shout-out part of the email! Stacey, the couple I'm staying with is going to Spain before they return to America. Steered them towards Attic and La Sagrada Familia. Am jonesin for sangria now too. Connor and Samantha, I hope you’re staying up unreasonably late on summer vacay. Do me a favor, shoot some illegal fireworks off on someone else’s property. I’m feeling old lately. Vick, I’m getting really excited by the prospect of coming home and meeting Miss (better not get married without me!) Waldron’s class. Dad, it turns out that lots of Tanzanian vijiji (villages) are beginning to submit 10-year land-use plans. Thought of you the whole time during that session. Also, my village’s 3 main listed needs were: better animal husbandry (I may be starting bee-keeping!), poor nutrition (gotta learn how to cook something other than chicken parm), and deforestation! Might start a little zungumzo (conversation) with Peter Pinchot one of these days via email. Mama, I am missing your cooking like the deserts miss the rain (I'm also missing the art of dramatic overstatement and the joys of sarcastic understatement. All I can do in Kiswahili is state). Kels, the hat has become a full nusu (half) of my personality here. It may never come off. Ever.

.....Ever.

Speaking of seamless transitions (note the seamless transition): I am directing our swearing-in ceremony. I wanted the official swearing-in to be each of us jumping off the roof of a small domicile into a swimming pool (though any standing water would do), when the Peace Corps Director calls our names. I've got backup plans though. One of the volunteers has bagpipes. Re-read. Bagpipes.


I've never appreciated music this much in my entire life . Since my last email I've really gotten my mp3 player up and rolling, and it's amazing. I always listened to music at home, doing anything and everything: vacuuming, driving, doing the dishes, reading, you name it. But here...the gift of music is so much by itself. It's such a grin-inducing thrill to pick an old friend off the rack, wipe the dust off the cover, set the needle to the groove (metaphorically), and lie down to listen. Music takes me farther now than it ever took me before Tanzania. Though that might be because I've never had to go so far to get back home.

Couple o’ the big hits of my own private Tanzania: “Shine a Light”, “Shelter from the Storm”, anything off of Incubus’ Morning View, “Blackbird”, and Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah”. Those are the ones that take me the full 7,000 miles. Please, please, please, keep track of any new bitchin’ tunes. I want to hear everything great I've missed. That goes for movies, books, and amusing anecdotes.

Goin off music, there's this Ian Hunter tune called “When the World was Round”. It basically sings the virtues of the older, analog world. Reminds me of Thomas Friedman's book, “The World is Flat” (which for the record, I have not read, I'm just familiar with his op-eds and his general viewpoints, so take this with a grain of salt). And I wonder a little bit about what our two different societies have to offer. In America, we have this wonderful notion about leaving our children a better world than the one we inherited. Which I think is the right idea, if applied to everything (consumption, the environment, health) worldwide. But if we actually mean just leaving our personal children a better life...than it just means that this generation there’s a new group of immigrants washing the dishes. A society that is trying to scrape the sky still needs a foundation of labor, right?

Love, Lots of Love,

Dan

P.S. Since writing my last post I hiked a steep freaking mountain, followed by 5 screaming children. Great hike. Also cooked beef fajitas and guacamole, learned gin rummy, and saw an agricultural canal system that produces some of the best growing conditions I've ever seen. Greg, if you're reading, you would love this place. Rode back down the mountain in the daladala, praying for a sweet deliverance that never came in a 12-seat van holding 26 people. Off to Dar tomorrow to open a bank account, then back to training to wrap up. It's getting real.

A Place Called Choo

Just so we're clear, choo is pronounced with Swahili phonetics (rhymes with Joe). This is where we do our business here in Africa. It's a hole in the floor. I am one of the luckiest of my good friends; no creatures have flown out of the hole at me.

I am writing this email from a resort at Pangani, which is possibly the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life, and where I may retire to when I finish the Peace Corps and spend all my days bicycling coconuts to town (kidding, mostly). We got here last night, and all ran into the bathwater-warm Indian Ocean cackling and giggling like mad, feeling like we stole something shiny and got away with it. Other than a fairly nasty spider bite on one of my friend's hands, it has been the most blissful vacation I can imagine, and we got here 10 hours ago. I cannot think of a time in my life when I've needed a vacation more.

Why, you ask? Here's the heavy philosophy: I spent some time wondering why I couldn't explain anything to Mom and Dad clearly. What is it about this experience that was so damn unsettling, not just to me, but to all of us, for the first few days? Here's my thought: that first night, when a Peace Corps car drops you off at a house and drives off and you are alone with a new family, speaking a language you don't understand, eating with your hands, and shitting in a hole, you are in a perfect trap. There are two choices, and you are instantly aware of both: I can either change and adapt to this, and become a little different person, and that will hurt, maybe a lot OR I can not do that, go home, and disappoint myself forever. And the most perfect part of this trap: I made it myself. I never seriously thought of going home those first couple days...but those are the two options: adapt or run away. Both are gonna hurt. So that, I think, is what was so crazy about those first few days. Heavy thinking, done.

So here we are, four weeks into the crazy journey. As hard as it is for me to believe, I only have about four more weeks of training, and then it's time to be a big boy, and go I know not where. I speak Kiswahili! Not particularly beautifully, and I can't understand a native speaker who isn't speaking slowly, but I can get my point across, and most days, I'm getting better. We all say "Hamna Shida" (literally "there are no problem") so much it reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George's dad keeps shouting "Serenity now!". Most mornings I'm running five miles or so and watching the sun come up. I can't sleep in past 6:30 if you paid me at this point, though that is mostly the fault of the roosters (damn cocks, always get you). I stay in a house that at the moment, I believe, is sleeping 10 people. I have a very nice room, which thank god does not have a ceiling, just a roof. Thank god why? Because twice in the last 3 days I locked myself out of my room and had to climb spider-style up and over the wall to get my key. I climb a lot here, my friends laugh at me. It's also an incredibly rare day when I don't scrape, cut, or bruise myself. My friends laugh at that too. We play hard, here in Africa.

I have fully embraced the African conception of bribery, and use candy as currency to get the children to help us with stuff. I also dole it out as medicine on rough days. Life, on the whole, is pretty good. My major issues arise on the days I'm too tired (there are lots of those) to argue with my mother about the amount of food I'm gonna eat. She keeps saying "Ongeza" (add!) and I keep saying "Hapana" (no). And we go on like this, and I insist mpenzi wangu (my girlfriend) won't love me if I become mnene (fat), and we laugh and laugh and then she scoops rice and beans onto my plate, and on my weak days I just resign myself and eat it. This came to a head two nights ago, when after enough starchy foods to feed a horse, I lay awake with heartburn and gas until 2 in the morning, when, like a 13-year old girl from a bad 90's health video, I staggered out behind the choo and...purged. I assure you, it was mostly hysterical. I kept thinking about the awful "Saved by the Bell" episode when Jessie starts singing "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so........scared!"

Life is different here. Fundamentally different. You work here to exist. When you don't need to work...you don't. People walk slowly here. There will always be more time. The concept of saving money isn't real, and the concept of a vacation would be absurd. Life is cyclical, and it goes on much as it has gone on here for time immemorial. How long that will last...I wonder. These people love Shakira, and television, and Barack Obama. I'm not sure they realize all the stuff that goes with it. I'm worried that might hurt a bit, too.

So, a shout out. Damon, I think of you whenever I see a child pushing a hoop with a stick (for real, they're everywhere). Kelsey, the flying cow is my only decoration, it and you are a big hit here. Vick, the photo album was the only way I made it through the first night, they love love love pictures of me as a baby, and I love looking at it. Mom and Dad, the amount of things I use and appreciate and am happy I brought every day is huge. I think of "The Things They Carried" a lot. Nothing beats getting ready for the day and putting on a hat, boots, a bandana, and a knife. Oh, I wielded a machete!!! Niedy, I spent idle minutes daydreaming about your wedding. Brittany and Rocco, I was holding a baby the other day and singing songs from Crazy About You. Made me glad. Kucz, you gotta run in Africa. I'm seriously considering running a marathon in February on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Jamie, you could out-bicycle these Africans any day. And Will, we were digging a garden the other day and "Cellar Door" came up on my ipod. Smile time.

I sing a lot of the time here, whatever I can remember. Lots of Christmas carols, and a bunch of sea shanties and Rolling Stones tunes. I love you all, I miss you all, and good god, it is beautiful to see your pictures.

Siku Njema (Good Day) kutoka Afrika (from Africa)



Bwana Waldron