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.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
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!
...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!
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