Have been trying to load this blog for about two weeks now, but better late than never. 2nd to last blog post before I head for warmer climes (it’s freaking freezing here!)
We are preparing a girls empowerment conference at the moment. This involves many things, such as life skills, confidence building, dance parties, and lots of other sessions where Dan stands out in a field playing frisbee with his fellow males...because inside they’re talkin bout lady parts. I’m cool with being in the field.
What a Girls Empowerment Conference also involves is condom demonstrations. And while we can show the young lasses how to make the magic happen on a water bottle, banana, gently tapered carrot, or (insert your phallic vegetable of choice here...yeah), nothing beats a good old wooden penis. So I went to my village fundi (in this case, carpenter) with an unusual request. I wanted an uume wa mbao (a penis of wood). To which he replied (ever the thoughtful fundi), “unataka mbao laini, au ngumu?” You’ll understand why my giggles prevented me from answering for a few minutes after you read the following translation:
“Do you want hard wood or soft wood?”
Definitely hard wood. No warping. Definitely no warping. (Thank you, Rain Man)
A word about my cat. A talented mouser is my furry Kelsey. Not a day goes by that he does not bring me in a small present of a field mouse or a bird or a lizard. Then some days he brings in rats the size of my foot. Well played, sir cat. But the problem is that he, of course, enjoys the thrill of the hunt. By which I means he likes to play with his food. Which is fine in the normal course of things, but a little disturbing when I’m trying to have a meeting and he’s slowly slaughtering a bewildered varmit underneath my feet. Nothing, however, tops the day I awoke to the sound of him knocking over stuff in my living room, which usually means one of God’s smaller pests is near death’s door. And as it turned out, I was right. Because when I entered my main room, prepared to greet the day, I found a mouse floating face down in my cat’s water dish. It looked like a feline mob killing.
Was out a walkin’ the other day, round evenin’ time. The sun had set, but the light had not yet gone. I’ve always loved this time of day, when if you’re reading something you need to hurry, because the words grow fainter literally every second. I was looking off to the east, at the first few twinkle stars. A semi comes roaring by on the road, which is maybe thirty feet to my left, to the west. A reminder, if I wanted one (I don’t), how close is the world of diesel and capitalism and profit margins and iPhones and microwave ovens. I look back to my right, to the east, and I see a small cooking fire. A fire lit by native forests that are rapidly disappearing, a flickering symbol of the way life used to be, a way of cooking ugali and beans that has been around far longer than me...but might beat me to the grave. Find myself wondering, for the hundredth time, how one world can possibly hold all of this in it. More wonderful sights and sounds and people than I could meet in a dozen lifetimes, but the little sliver I’ve been privileged to behold keeps me in awe every single day.
I wonder, as I write the last part, if I’m guilty of romanticizing the poverty I see here. I think I absolutely am. But I make no real apologies to that. I do think life here is better in a lot of fundamental ways. Or if not better, perhaps simpler, and with that simplicity comes a grace that is treasured in America. Why is it treasured? Because of its scarcity. Here, it’s just how life goes. I miss all of you more than I can say, and when my clock hits zeroes, I’m coming back. Because I miss Americans. America...I’m not sure yet. Ask me in a month.
Two birthday celebration moments (only one of them actually happened on my birthday, but I like how we’ve all started to embrace the concept of a Birthday Week. Like the queen, we all get our seven day Jubilees.) The first was the day of my birthday, which was wonderful. I got text messages, facebook messages, and phone calls from lots of kickass people (namely all of you). I also got a piece of cake, got sung to, had a milkshake, smoked a cigar on a balcony, and saw possibly the most spectacular sunset of my life (though I think that almost every other day here, and I’m usually right). The sunset presented some logistical difficulties, however. We had to hike up to this massive rock that overlooks Iringa to watch it. But I was also jonesin for a vodka watermelon on my birthday (it ended up being made with local gin that comes from plastic baggies, but who’s counting?). So here’s the shida: it’s now getting near sunset. Have to buy the watermelon before sunset or the market or close. Do not have time to return it to our hostel. Do not want to hike up a mountain with a watermelon. Solution: find a storekeeper willing to hang onto my tikiti maji (watermelon) until we get back. Another shida: no store will be open then. So I puzzle and puzzle till my puzzler is sore, and then what to my wondering eyes should appear? The local police station. Which is how we find our hero, 6pm on his birthday, humbly asking the local constabulary to guard his birthday watermelon until his safe return.
This job rocks.
Celebration moment number two. I wrote in this blog many months ago about a wedding I went to, in far away Maduma (there was a guy guarding a cake with a stick). On the way back from that wedding there were about 30 Tanzanians in the back of the truck, and it was late, and it was cold. So what did they do? They sang the whole damn way. Flash forward: Saturday night we are at a beautiful resort in the hills near Mbeya. We want to get back to town. But taxis are scarce, and it’s a good 25 kilometers (real men use metric) back to our hostel. So we manage to shanghai a passing pickup truck. Three of us go in the cab…and the other 20 go in the flatbed. Now, it has an overhead frame, so we are able to hold on. But it’s late, and it’s cold. So what do we do? We sing the whole freaking way home. Television theme shows, 80’s Billy Joel, Journey, but nothing as loud as the Star Spangled Banner. There’s nothing like belonging to a community of people that are from home, and there’s nothing like being jammed into a truck like sardines with that group of people, cruising the miles on a dark dirt road, singing about the land of the free and the home of the brave. Happy Birthday to me.
Brief comic interlude. I taught my last Life Skills class of the semester last week. And because my co-teacher was off picking up a friend in the capital, I was solo. Which of course is the week we decided to do the sex talk with all the children. What fun for your boy. You want a true linguistics test? Try having someone explain how sex works, and how AIDS is transmitted, in their second language. Not easy. Not fun. So how do you make it easy and fun? Simple. Every time they answer a question or ask a good one, you teach them a new way to say “Awesome” in English. And if you do this, and you have the opportunity to have a classroom filled with Tanzanian students shout “Badass!” at the top of their lungs, you better take it. Because trust me, it will make your week.
I was sitting with my dear friend Kenzie one morning, and we were talking about something unimportant. And something about the moment: the coffee, the omelet we’d made on charcoal, the odd African cold, something brought the realization stinging to my eyes...I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to relive this. I may even succeed, on a few beautiful mornings in the middle of a forest somewhere in America. But what it really means is that I’m doomed to forever be torn, forever in two places. In Kiswahili the word for together is Pamoja. It literally means “one place”. And from the moment I got here...until the day I die, I think, I’ll never be together. I’ll always be Pawili. Two places. In a way, it’s torture. I feel like Sam at the end of the Ring Wars, divided, unwhole, wanting to dream all his old dreams of Rosie and the Shire, but knowing all the while that the man who started down the road at the onset of the journey is not the man who has returned. But on the other hand...I’m home. And when I come back...I’ll be home. While I’m here, I never, not for a moment, stop missing all of you. But when I’m back with you all, I will never, not even for an instant, be able to forget these blessed, fleeting years, and this beautiful, welcoming village. So many people spend their lives searching for one place where they belong, where they are loved and appreciated. Many never find it. I have two. And though these choices I’ve made have broken my heart once, and will break it again, I wouldn’t change a moment of any of it for all the stars in the sky.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
As We Wind on Down the Road
In case you all are ever wondering what I’m doing, there’s a good chance the following scene transpires at about 9am Eastern time every day (4pm TZ time):
Our hero walks down a dusty road. The setting sun uses what little juice it still has to paint the ridges in a honeyed orange, and our boy’s shadow is thrown a country mile. You can see him this way every day: outback hat bent with love, loose button down shirt (maybe a little sweaty, maybe a little dirty), canteen clipped to his belt, jembe resting on his right shoulder, pants muddied, sandals. Usually he’s walking back from work with a couple of friends, maybe he’s followed by a curious kiddo or two. But if he’s alone, and he sees that shadow, sure as sin and right as rain he will start singing, “and as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls...” Because the shadows seem longer here. And the souls feel older. But more on that to come.
Hello friends and lovers! First things first. As I write this, it is 52 days till I arrive back on nearer shores. I’m getting a bit giddy. I hope you are too. I am also here to tell you that if you have never had the experience of explaining Easter Eggs to an East African, then you can’t die yet. Because you still have something left to try.
‘But rabbits don’t lay eggs.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘So...?’ ‘
Yeah.’
Easter in East Africa is just a hell of a holiday, to begin with. I was invited to a Lutheran baptism on Easter Sunday. Which was great. It was three hours and fifteen minutes long. Which is normal. I was seated directly next to the 8-foot speaker tower. Which was painful. Especially since the keyboardist apparently thought that bleeding from our eardrums was how we should all show solidarity with Jesus. I couldn’t hear for about an hour after the service. Which was fine, because as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
We go back to my friend’s house after the service. He is one of seven children. Several of those children have multiple spouses. The more barren among them have at least five kids. So what transpires over the next FULL HOUR is an introduction of every single person there, who they are related to, how, and how was the corn crop this year? And when somebody new arrived, they were introduced, and then everybody else was introduced to them. And by the time we finished, it was time to go. Really.
There was, however, a special little rockstar at the party. This was a Tanzanian grandmother who must have been 90 years old, weighed half that many pounds, and looked like she might have left her house for the party around Groundhog’s Day. She had herself a nice little chair at the head of the couch. And when she got introduced to you, she grabbed both sides of your head, pulled your head at her, kissed one side of it, then the other, then just hang out for a while, holding your head, cuz she dug the power. What really thrilled me was the reactions from the little kids who got this treatment. If you have never actually seen an aunt pinch someone’s cheeks and make various mouth-noises, the expression on the victim (child), it doesn’t change from culture to culture. The kids just want to be outside. And auntie just wants to assert her dominance. And everybody else is just happy it ain’t them.
But life is good. I know because my English class told me so. This all came up because I was teaching them greetings. Good morning, good morning. How are you? I am fine. What’s shakin playa? Not really. Next week. But then I write on the board, “how is it going?” And one student raises his hand, and asks, “what does ‘it’ mean?” And I explain how we use it to stand in for inanimate objects, or concepts. He gets it. Except then he asks me which object or concept ‘it’ was standing in for in this sentence. And I didn’t know.
I know what ‘how’s it going’ means. So do you. But to define it? I was in the struggle, as an old friend used to say. And this was my first class. So I made up something...which might be right. I think the ‘it’ in “how’s it going” stands for life. We’re asking, how is life going? And upon giving that answer, I had to teach them how to say, “life is good.” Because it is. It’s also hilarious to hear ESL students saying it. Makes you wonder what other phrases might be useful and uproarious. Something like, “what’s up doc?” or “of course you know, this means war”. I’m a Looney Tunes fan. So are you. Or maybe a song! Everybody likes songs! But how long would it take to explain chevy and levy and whiskey and rye? Ah well, ah me. Onward we go, gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily.
Life is but a dream.
A good dream.
A small rant, if I may. I was displeased to read about the recently concluded Barry Bonds trial. Not because I like Barry Bonds. I can’t stand him. I’ve often said that if the fan who had caught his record-breaking homer had had the stones to throw it back, it would be a better world. I believe to Bonds to be a cheat, and a liar, and a general no-goodnik. But he played baseball. And none of this matters. Not even a little.
I take my cue here from a Rolling Stones article entitled “Why Isn’t Wall Street In Jail?” I highly recommend it. The stories in it are disgusting, but the perpetrators are as yet unpunished. Nor are they likely to be soon. Not a one has been taken to court, let alone jail. But Barry Bonds puts a needle in his booty, lies about it, and that is more worth our money and our resources. Because he’s a much easier, less complicated symbol. Never mind the reality of it. I don’t want to push this topic too far, because I’m sort of comparing apples to orangutans, but my point is this: the most important decisions we make are about what we choose to care about. What are our priorities? And whoever made Barry Bonds a greater priority than the multitude of critical issues facing our country was far more concerned with looking good than doing good. End of rant.
On a sunny note, I’m beekeeping with the blind! We are starting work on a very promising project, and they are really a great bunch of people. As I’ve become fond of saying, they have very limited sight, but tremendous vision. The only problem is that my little sight jokes (or is that sight unseen?) almost caused me to lose it in a meeting the other day. Here’s the situation: when you want to ask someone how they feel in Swahili, you say, “unaonaje?” But ‘how do you feel’ is not the literal translation. The literal translation is “how are you seeing?”. Which is a rather peculiar question to ask a blind man. Especially when you follow it right up with “tutaonana baadaye”. The literal translation? “See you later.” When they asked me about a question I didn’t know they answer to? “Tutaona”...”We shall see”. As it turns out, this is completely normal, and not in the least bit offensive. Which is good, because I wasn’t sure how, after not doing yoga for about a year, I was able to get both feet in my mouth, and my head up my ass.
To conclude, another funeral. This time a neighbor, and tremendously old (she could have given the other old woman a run for her money...or a shuffling, stick-assisted, crawl for her money). We dug the grave, we put her in it, we ate. And then I found out about another tradition. Apparently after a death the friends and family stay up all night, sleeping inside the house, and even outside, if there’s not enough room (there wasn’t). I had never really been invited to one of these. But given that it was 40 feet from my door...when will I ever get another chance to live this life, right? So I go over around 9pm. Half the group is hammered. One man wants my advice planting trees (now they ask me). One woman is sure I’m the Swiss guy that has been dynamiting her road (I’m not). And then I’m invited inside.
The floor is filled with people, asleep, awake, in between. We enter a farther room. This is a mud hut with a thatched roof. No light comes in, no light goes out. The room is lit by a single lantern, and the light brushes over surfaces, without seeming to land on any of them. It’s a cave, lit by fire. I have the sensation, now familiar, of crossing a threshold, not just of a room, but of an age, a threshold of worlds. People are dancing, with joy. And they sing, and they drum, all with joy. I remember asking myself if I could possibly be living just a single lifetime. I clapped, I tried to sing. It’s a sad reality of my existence here that my very presence alters the things I’m trying to observe, do drink in. This is confirmed when a drunk staggers over. He wants to yell things in my ear. But someone stops him. An older woman, one I know in passing, no better than that. Some people, if you catch them in the right light, on the right night, you realize that they used to be kings, or queens, in another life. That was this woman, once upon a time a queen. And she shook the man off me, and she told him, “huyu ni wetu”. He is ours. Or, perhaps, he is one of us.
Later, when we were outside, they were singing. These songs were in Swahili, and one of the lines snuck up on me and surprised me. They were drumming, and dancing, and singing “tutaonana mbinguni.”
Which means, “we shall see each other in heaven.”
Our hero walks down a dusty road. The setting sun uses what little juice it still has to paint the ridges in a honeyed orange, and our boy’s shadow is thrown a country mile. You can see him this way every day: outback hat bent with love, loose button down shirt (maybe a little sweaty, maybe a little dirty), canteen clipped to his belt, jembe resting on his right shoulder, pants muddied, sandals. Usually he’s walking back from work with a couple of friends, maybe he’s followed by a curious kiddo or two. But if he’s alone, and he sees that shadow, sure as sin and right as rain he will start singing, “and as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls...” Because the shadows seem longer here. And the souls feel older. But more on that to come.
Hello friends and lovers! First things first. As I write this, it is 52 days till I arrive back on nearer shores. I’m getting a bit giddy. I hope you are too. I am also here to tell you that if you have never had the experience of explaining Easter Eggs to an East African, then you can’t die yet. Because you still have something left to try.
‘But rabbits don’t lay eggs.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘So...?’ ‘
Yeah.’
Easter in East Africa is just a hell of a holiday, to begin with. I was invited to a Lutheran baptism on Easter Sunday. Which was great. It was three hours and fifteen minutes long. Which is normal. I was seated directly next to the 8-foot speaker tower. Which was painful. Especially since the keyboardist apparently thought that bleeding from our eardrums was how we should all show solidarity with Jesus. I couldn’t hear for about an hour after the service. Which was fine, because as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
We go back to my friend’s house after the service. He is one of seven children. Several of those children have multiple spouses. The more barren among them have at least five kids. So what transpires over the next FULL HOUR is an introduction of every single person there, who they are related to, how, and how was the corn crop this year? And when somebody new arrived, they were introduced, and then everybody else was introduced to them. And by the time we finished, it was time to go. Really.
There was, however, a special little rockstar at the party. This was a Tanzanian grandmother who must have been 90 years old, weighed half that many pounds, and looked like she might have left her house for the party around Groundhog’s Day. She had herself a nice little chair at the head of the couch. And when she got introduced to you, she grabbed both sides of your head, pulled your head at her, kissed one side of it, then the other, then just hang out for a while, holding your head, cuz she dug the power. What really thrilled me was the reactions from the little kids who got this treatment. If you have never actually seen an aunt pinch someone’s cheeks and make various mouth-noises, the expression on the victim (child), it doesn’t change from culture to culture. The kids just want to be outside. And auntie just wants to assert her dominance. And everybody else is just happy it ain’t them.
But life is good. I know because my English class told me so. This all came up because I was teaching them greetings. Good morning, good morning. How are you? I am fine. What’s shakin playa? Not really. Next week. But then I write on the board, “how is it going?” And one student raises his hand, and asks, “what does ‘it’ mean?” And I explain how we use it to stand in for inanimate objects, or concepts. He gets it. Except then he asks me which object or concept ‘it’ was standing in for in this sentence. And I didn’t know.
I know what ‘how’s it going’ means. So do you. But to define it? I was in the struggle, as an old friend used to say. And this was my first class. So I made up something...which might be right. I think the ‘it’ in “how’s it going” stands for life. We’re asking, how is life going? And upon giving that answer, I had to teach them how to say, “life is good.” Because it is. It’s also hilarious to hear ESL students saying it. Makes you wonder what other phrases might be useful and uproarious. Something like, “what’s up doc?” or “of course you know, this means war”. I’m a Looney Tunes fan. So are you. Or maybe a song! Everybody likes songs! But how long would it take to explain chevy and levy and whiskey and rye? Ah well, ah me. Onward we go, gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily.
Life is but a dream.
A good dream.
A small rant, if I may. I was displeased to read about the recently concluded Barry Bonds trial. Not because I like Barry Bonds. I can’t stand him. I’ve often said that if the fan who had caught his record-breaking homer had had the stones to throw it back, it would be a better world. I believe to Bonds to be a cheat, and a liar, and a general no-goodnik. But he played baseball. And none of this matters. Not even a little.
I take my cue here from a Rolling Stones article entitled “Why Isn’t Wall Street In Jail?” I highly recommend it. The stories in it are disgusting, but the perpetrators are as yet unpunished. Nor are they likely to be soon. Not a one has been taken to court, let alone jail. But Barry Bonds puts a needle in his booty, lies about it, and that is more worth our money and our resources. Because he’s a much easier, less complicated symbol. Never mind the reality of it. I don’t want to push this topic too far, because I’m sort of comparing apples to orangutans, but my point is this: the most important decisions we make are about what we choose to care about. What are our priorities? And whoever made Barry Bonds a greater priority than the multitude of critical issues facing our country was far more concerned with looking good than doing good. End of rant.
On a sunny note, I’m beekeeping with the blind! We are starting work on a very promising project, and they are really a great bunch of people. As I’ve become fond of saying, they have very limited sight, but tremendous vision. The only problem is that my little sight jokes (or is that sight unseen?) almost caused me to lose it in a meeting the other day. Here’s the situation: when you want to ask someone how they feel in Swahili, you say, “unaonaje?” But ‘how do you feel’ is not the literal translation. The literal translation is “how are you seeing?”. Which is a rather peculiar question to ask a blind man. Especially when you follow it right up with “tutaonana baadaye”. The literal translation? “See you later.” When they asked me about a question I didn’t know they answer to? “Tutaona”...”We shall see”. As it turns out, this is completely normal, and not in the least bit offensive. Which is good, because I wasn’t sure how, after not doing yoga for about a year, I was able to get both feet in my mouth, and my head up my ass.
To conclude, another funeral. This time a neighbor, and tremendously old (she could have given the other old woman a run for her money...or a shuffling, stick-assisted, crawl for her money). We dug the grave, we put her in it, we ate. And then I found out about another tradition. Apparently after a death the friends and family stay up all night, sleeping inside the house, and even outside, if there’s not enough room (there wasn’t). I had never really been invited to one of these. But given that it was 40 feet from my door...when will I ever get another chance to live this life, right? So I go over around 9pm. Half the group is hammered. One man wants my advice planting trees (now they ask me). One woman is sure I’m the Swiss guy that has been dynamiting her road (I’m not). And then I’m invited inside.
The floor is filled with people, asleep, awake, in between. We enter a farther room. This is a mud hut with a thatched roof. No light comes in, no light goes out. The room is lit by a single lantern, and the light brushes over surfaces, without seeming to land on any of them. It’s a cave, lit by fire. I have the sensation, now familiar, of crossing a threshold, not just of a room, but of an age, a threshold of worlds. People are dancing, with joy. And they sing, and they drum, all with joy. I remember asking myself if I could possibly be living just a single lifetime. I clapped, I tried to sing. It’s a sad reality of my existence here that my very presence alters the things I’m trying to observe, do drink in. This is confirmed when a drunk staggers over. He wants to yell things in my ear. But someone stops him. An older woman, one I know in passing, no better than that. Some people, if you catch them in the right light, on the right night, you realize that they used to be kings, or queens, in another life. That was this woman, once upon a time a queen. And she shook the man off me, and she told him, “huyu ni wetu”. He is ours. Or, perhaps, he is one of us.
Later, when we were outside, they were singing. These songs were in Swahili, and one of the lines snuck up on me and surprised me. They were drumming, and dancing, and singing “tutaonana mbinguni.”
Which means, “we shall see each other in heaven.”
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