Welcome back, sports fans. Just another month in our hobbled blogger’s (having some minor foot problems, but they did let me use the phrase ‘hobbled blogger’) existence. I’m currently in Dar Es Salaam to design the training curriculum for the next group of volunteers on their way to this fair country. Because, after 15 months, I am apparently expected to know what the hell I’m talking about. And in 10 months, I’m expected to be gone.
However, in the meanwhile, nipo (I’m here). I had the unusual experience in the last month to attend two different dowry-paying parties. While I’m sure most of you require no explanation, a dowry is the price that a prospective groom (or more likely, his parents) pays to the bride’s family, in order to buy her away from them. Let’s set the obvious criticism of this practice, that it’s really not a great idea to sell women, aside for the moment. Because the ceremonies themselves were pretty interesting. For one party, I was invited on behalf of the groom (I know his uncle very well). For another party, I was invited by the mother of the bride. When we are going to the party on the groom’s side, we say we call it “paying the dowry”. When we’re throwing the party at the bride’s house, we call it a “Send-Off”. Works like this: anywhere from 3 months to 3 years ago, the respective parties have met and negotiated the dowry to be paid. Anything is on the table, even the table. By which I mean you can pay in livestock, cash, shovels, sheets, buckets, furniture, and probably other, more ridiculous stuff. First negotiation takes place in a 10’x14’ room, with approximately 30 people. They pay up about $400, couple of shovels, 2 cows, and a goat. Only problem is that they agreed on 4 cows. Shida, ipo (there is a problem). There is a flurry of negotiation (present is a representative of the village government, as well as a negotiator for each side (not a direct family member of bride or groom)). It is finally agreed that the remaining two cows must be paid within one year. The deal is sealed. And then everybody starts screaming. So that’s fun.
We go outside, we dance a really fun dance called the “dua”, which is a lot of stomping. I’m a big fan. We eat (always must eat). We dance some more. And then I get some of the more delicate background on the dowries. For instance, if the bride dies before there are kids, or (in rare cases) divorces him...yeah, they’re gonna want that cash back. And those cows. But if the husband dies, and there is still an outstanding balance on the dowry...they gotta pay that...or he doesn’t get buried. I’ve actually been around for one of those days. We sat around for 4 hours after we dug a hole, just waiting for someone to put into it.
The second negotiation is more about me than it was about them. I got invited to a party at 8am. I teach class at 2pm, and I need to leave by 1:30. No problem, right? Of course there’s a problem. But I stubbornly think that I can make this work. I show up, help set up, learn how to cook pilau (an indian spiced rice, pretty tasty). I sit around, talking shop with some friends. And then the negotiations start. Small problem here is that there were 2 cows agreed on. And they only have one...and a half. Which is how they say it. They actually have some cash that they scraped up, because they have no cow. There’s a lot of fighting over this. They promise to pay at the end of the month. Course, that’s what they said last month (if this sounds like a discussion you’ve had with your landlord, then yeah, that’s about right). Lots of posturing, lots of yelling. Then suddenly we agree, and start stomping around again. But it’s now 1pm. And because I’ve been invited by the send-off side, I’m supposed to participate in the ceremony. Never mind that I’ve never met the girl in my life, somehow I’m the guest of honor. Two things to do there: 1. Call the school and tell them I can’t teach today (this is not a big deal in Tanzania) or 2. Leave the party right now and risk offending my villagers. What do I do? Neither, and both, and nothing well. I stay long enough in a side room for them to fill me up with rice and potatoes and onions and tomatoes. I make some small talk. Then I bolt like hell out of the party at 2pm, ignoring the questioning looks (they don’t think I’ve eaten yet. What kind of a batshit crazy madman leaves a place without eating?) I get to the school at 2:20pm. They say I can’t teach. I fume. Still can’t teach. Ask to address the assembly and to meet shortly with my students. They say sure. Where’s the assembly? Oh, it’s over, there go the students now. And so once again I left one party too early to get to another party too late. I did this in a misguided belief that I could please everybody. I managed to please nobody. Some lessons keep unlearning themselves in my mind.
On to cheerier stories. Couple fun anecdotes of Africa. Went to a beach while I was in Dar. There was a public bathroom, and when I entered it, I noticed a sign. It was asking us not to throw our sanitary napkins into the toilet. Perfectly reasonable request. But why should we not do this? “To preserve the natural harmony of the septic tank”. Which is possibly the greatest use of the English language of all time, anywhere.
Sitting at my table in my house, having a meeting with a church leader. On my table are a number of knicknacks and paddywacks, including a very special item from home. It’s a snake, his body is made out of a bike chain and his head is a bottle opener. He also has a short, maybe 1” tongue. And apparently my buddy, the church leader, was dealing with some wax buildup. Because in mid-conversation, he reaches down, picks up my snake bottle-opener...and inserts it into his ear. I do not know, I can not possibly remember another word that was said in that meeting. It is lost for all time. In one ear....and out the other.
A different meeting, a different church leader. Little background: in February, my darling mother was nice enough to send me the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. I’m not sure this was such a good idea. It was like giving a thirsty man just a straw. Anywho, back to the meeting. My table has some knots in it, so when we set out to make a schedule for the upcoming weeks, the church secretary reaches under my table to the shelf, in search of something to write on. He picks up something and places it on the table. Looking up at us is the Green M&M. She’s crawling on a beach, looking sultry. This is the back cover. The front cover, if exposed during this meeting, might get me excommunicated (or it might make all the church leaders want to emigrate to America. Either way, bad news). Again, there was a schedule made. Again, I do not remember one thing we talked about. The second he lifted up the paper, I grabbed the magazine, hid it under the table, and later took it outside the house and buried it under 6’ of dirt. Maybe not that last part. Should have, though.
Two final items, both a little serious. I was at a meeting with the district government to present our upcoming milk-cow project. They were receptive and helpful...as long as we didn’t ask for any material assistance, and as long as we did everything they told us to. Since we needed some material assistance, and we wanted trainers to come to our villages who were outside the government structure, there was a bit of conflict. That, in and of itself, was not even a little surprising. There was some posturing and some compromising, and then stuff got done. What was remarkable was that there were 7 people in the meeting: Myself, my counterpart, Kenzie (my nearest Peace Corps neighbor), her counterpart, and three district livestock officers. And there were two sides in the meeting: Us, and them. But when I say us, I don’t mean just Peace Corps, white people, outsiders. I mean the village against the district. The people on the ground versus the bureaucrats. Two Tanzanians and two Americans trying to make change happen, together. It was a wonderful realization, when I looked back on it later, that here is this village, with these people, who trust me, in their own way, to have their best interests in mind, even more so than their government. Humbling, but pretty freaking awesome.
I was in church two Sundays ago. It was a peculiar morning, giving that it was September 11th. I just wasn’t entirely certain how I felt, or how I was supposed to feel. It’s everywhere. It’s in things I never even think about. It’s in friends we’ve lost, that day or in the days that followed. It’s in our music, our movies, our books. So I go to church. And this is the day the Italian padre decides to join us. And he sees me, and he always calls me out when he does. It’s not a bad thing, he just likes to single me out for the congregation. I privately hate it. Today he says that we should say a prayer, because ten years ago today the American people began “tabia ya kuogopa”. It means “a behavior of being afraid”. And I may not like the man. But he was probably right. I sat down that night to write in my journal. And I tried to figure out a way that the world had responded well, a way that things had, by the strangest path imaginable, gotten better. I remembered that the September 12th edition of Le Monde had the headline “Nous sommes tous Américains”.
“We are all Americans”
"Sisi Wote ni Wamarekani"
But they don’t write that anymore, do they? I couldn’t think of something, I couldn’t find a silver lining. Probably because there isn’t one. I’m not a believer that things happen for a reason. I think sometimes awful things happen in our lives. And maybe the kindness and dignity and bravery shown that day was a way in which we could compare all the goodness we are capable of with the evil we’d been forced to confront. But even if that’s true...it’s a comparison we all could have done without, isn't it? I wish it had never happened. Yet wishes aren’t horses, and I can’t ride. We live with the world we live in. We do the best we can. We roll with the punches. And whatever happens next, we'll deal with that too.
