Where Do You Go?

              I have survived another year on earth, in no small part because of all of you people! The birthday was crazy. Woke up and ran 8K for my last warm-up before the Half Marathon on Saturday. Went into The Finger (also known as Mafinga), met with some district officials, picked up the most beautiful piece of clothing any of you will ever see (go to facebook for photos). Came back to the village, transferred about 40 fruit-tree seedlings (mango and avocado) with my Environmental Club, had them sing Happy Birthday to me, then got on a 3-hour coaster ride to Iringa, during which I thought about aging, Africa, and aardvarks (it was very alliterative). Got to Iringa, was greeted by Kenzie, Tala, Stephanie, and a birthday cake! My friends are rather amazing. Went back to a friend’s house, watched the Avengers (I give it a B, maybe B+), and another birthday drifted off into the past. Which is fine, because the real party was on Saturday, at the First Annual Ruaha Half Marathon.

            We were supposed to start the race (13.1 miles, or 21 kilometers) at 9am. It is winter right now in East Africa, and at night we are really struggling (gets down to about 25 Fahrenheit, with no insulation. Four blanket evenings are not uncommon). But we’re still at the equator, and by 11am the sun is about a foot and a half above our heads. Not good running conditions. Why wasn’t the race started at a more reasonable hour, say 7am? Sijui (I dunno). Maybe so the Mgeni Rasmi (Honored Guest) could get in his/her teatime. So the race was to start at 9am. At 9am the race had not started, and the shadows grew shorter. At a quarter after our Honored Guest had not arrived, but the natives were growing restless, so they found a substitute Honored Guest, who made a short speech, which was uniformly ignored, and then they fired off the gun.

            For the whole first quarter of the race, Tanzanians stood by the side of the road, looking at this strange group of people that appeared to be fleeing some as-yet-unseen disaster. They commented upon it, to themselves and to us. There comments were not, on the whole, as encouraging as they might have been. A sample, translated for your benefit, of the motivational sentiments directed at your boy:

            “Huyu ameshachoka” (This guy is already tired (this was at Kilometer 2))

            “Hawezi huyu” (He’s got no chance)

            “Hatarudi” (He ain’t coming back)

            “Bwana! Unajua unakwenda Kalenga? Ni mbali!” (Mister! You know you are going to Kalenga (the halfway mark)? It’s far!)

            “Utashindwa” (You’re going to lose)

            ‘Win one for the Gipper’ it was not. But as I have mentioned in this blog before, Tanzanians don’t tend to believe until they have seen. In their defense, I didn’t look so hot. From the first minute my legs felt like they’d already run a marathon. I don’t know if it was stress, I don’t know if I ran too much in the week leading up, but my legs were dead from the get-go. Tried to keep up with my friend Eric, but he was flyin, and so I threw in my headphones and just started grinding. The way out was just hell. The terrain was actually not bad: it was all downhill. The race started with a gradual 2K incline, then we passed the eventual finish line, and started a long and winding 4K descent. I was being passed, by friends and strangers, and it was hot, and I was tired, and there was a lot of race to go. The scenery was beautiful. Screw the scenery. My friends started passing me, going back the other way. I felt slow, and stupid, and tired.

            Finally reached the turn, knowing that I still had the hotter half of the race ahead of me, and that it was all uphill. I grabbed a bottle of water, and turned around, and saw that my good friend Natalie was only a hundred feet or so behind me. She caught up, and we started the second half together. Thank god for friends. Since the second day I arrived in Tanzania, until now, 700 days later, I have run with a rogue’s gallery of different Peace Corps Volunteers. But I have run more miles side-by-side with Natalie than any of them. She’s relentless, both in her pace and in her optimism, and that is a hell of a thing in a running buddy, not to mention a friend. We didn’t move any faster than I had been going before, but things go by much quicker when you have someone to share them with. We talked sports and Tanzania. We laughed at the toothless mzee (elder) who asked us for a pipi (candy), and swerved together to avoid the truck that almost ran us off the road. We saw our friend Eric running ahead of us, one minute flagging, the next pulled forward by a bunch of small children who were overjoyed to run with an mzungu (white guy). And we saw all of that together. In the wonderful, informative, and amazing book “Born to Run”, Christopher McDougall writes about how all of the great runners in history were legendarily empathetic; that they cared less if they crossed the finish line than that their comrades also made it. And with 5 kilometers of umoja (one-ness), my amazing friend Natalie had picked me up off the road, and given me back my wind. We were nearing the base of the same long hill that I’d stumbled down an hour ago, and were about a hundred yards behind Eric, and I felt like I’d just woken up. I looked over at Nat and asked her if she would mind if I pushed it a little. She smiled, and said not at all. 

            I caught up with Eric, who is twice as athletic as I am on his worst day. As I pulled up alongside, he told me that he was dying. I told him, “not yet, you’re not”. And he wasn’t. We came upon a bus stop, which had a number of stores and customers and children scattered about, taking a sidelong interest we exhausted trotters. Tanzanians might not be too supportive of random unresponsive runners, but I know my people. As we passed by the crowd, I shouted out: “Pigeni Makofi Jamani! Tusaidie!” (Clap your hands! Help us out! (This is less ridiculous to shout out than it sounds...though given how white I am, and how much in Africa we were...still pretty ridiculous)). And they did. First they laughed, then they clapped, and then they cheered. Eric and I each got handed a half liter of water (our last water point), and I looked over at my man, and he didn’t look like he was gonna die any time soon. Drained my last half liter of water, and started up the hill. Because what goes down must come back up, if it wants to get back where it belongs.

            On Saturday morning, I had found a faded black marker, and written on my hand the letters: WDYG. It’s a reference to one of my favorite book series as a child, The Guardians of the Flame. It stands for: Where Do You Go. As in: where do you go to give up? As I started up that hill, I looked at my hand, at the shadowy remnants of the letters that sweat and sun and 9 long miles had mostly burned away. I didn’t come this far to stop now. I didn’t live two years without my mother, my father, my sister, a lifetime’s worth of amazing friends, and the love of my life, just to give in and give up on the side of some piddly African hill that wishes it was a mountain. A grin spread across my face and I took a look around me, at the beautiful place I’ve been blessed to live in, at the amazing life I've led that brought me to this place, and I started up that hill like I’d been shot out of a cannon.

Up and up and up I went, getting closer, going faster. Now I was passing other runners. Now I was setting the pace. At one of the switchbacks I turned the corner and saw a mob of children, looking at me. I shouted “Twende!” (Let’s Go!), and they started sprinting with me, pushing me, crowding me, each one wanting an acknowledgement, a fist bump. They all got them. When they fell behind me, I was already atop the hill. At kilometer 19 I was fresher than I was when I woke up that morning. At kilometer 20 I was sprinting. One Tanzanian runner and I spent the last kilometer pushing each other, first him surging forward, then me. Down the stretch we came, and I saw my friend TJ standing by the side of the road, hand extended, cheering for me. I slapped his hand and kicked it to the tape, my newfound Tanzanian friend turned on his jets, and the crowd saw the two of us fighting for it and began to scream. We both crossed the finish line at 1:47, about forty minutes behind the victors, yet both of us were grinning like we’d just won gold. 

Sports are funny things. It’s hard to think of something less significant than me running up a hill. Doesn’t change anything, doesn’t help anything. And on any other day, that would be it. But sports can be transcendent, if we are willing to invest ourselves in them. They can reduce us to tears or intoxicate us with joy; they can stand for things larger than themselves: pride, faith, the aspirations of cities, states, and nations. Sports become as powerful and meaningful as they are made to become. So if I choose to make my 21K run a referendum on my worth as a human, that’s what it becomes. Thank God I finished.

Peace Corps had itself a good day on Saturday. We had the first non-African to cross the finish line, seven people make it in under two hours, and the 2^nd and 3^rd place women runners (my friend Natalie took 3^rd!). So how do such speedy people relax? With ice-cold Kilimanjaro Lagers at the finish line. Don’t judge. We then got some lunch, took naps, and proceeded to dress up, make merry, and dance the night away. 

I don’t know where I’m going in my life. I know the next few months are going to tear me away from and reunite me with people that I love. Somedays I can barely sleep, and when I do I wake up exhausted, my mind buzzing with uncertainty and indecision. But for an hour and forty-seven minutes, none of that mattered. I didn’t win. I didn’t even come close. But I finished a long, hot race with a full-out sprint and a smile on my face. Was it meaningless? Absolutely. But was it also incredibly important? Absolutely.

Where do you go to give up?

Not Africa.  

Dollars and Days

In East Africa, there is a country. It is called Tanzania. And in Tanzania there is a city. It is called Dar Es Salaam (which incidentally means Harbour of Peace). And in that city there is a shopping mall. It is called The Third Ring of Hell. Or it should be. And this is where our hero finds himself, waiting. Waiting for the camera repair guy to show up. Our man got up early, with his act together. Found a new and frightening bus stand, got on the right bus, got off at the right stop (I know, these are rather minor accomplishments. But it’s a city of 8 million people (only 3 million officially, but good luck counting), and there are no road signs. You try it). Was at the mall by 8:45 on Monday morning. Of course, the store wasn’t open. Would not be open, in point of fact, until 11, this despite repeated reassurances from each and every passerby that the proprietor was “njiani” (on the way) or that the would “fika sasa hivi” (arrive right now). But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. So I waited, fumed, read “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” (...all my masculine books are finished. So it’s getting a little “Bridges of Madison County”-ish these days), listened to the Muzak version of “Kiss from a Rose” (I hate you, Seal), and wondered what I had done to deserve this. Long story short, this was my two hour and fifteen minute window into the modern world. Things looked dark. Except when they looked bleak. My days in the simpler life are numbered.

I was in Dar for a week for my Close of Service (COS) Conference. It’s always weird going to Dar, because I get into a bus in the middle of a rural African village, stuck in a seemingly endless struggle to pull itself out of poverty, and at the end of the day I’m standing in a supermarket, wondering if I got into a bus or a time machine. But the US government doesn’t really care about my delicate sensibilities, so the COS was in Dar. Which all in all ain’t so bad. A week in the sun, with my original group of volunteers, where we got information on how to retire as Peace Corps Volunteers, find jobs, and readjust to American life (which apparently involves weeping in front of tomato soup cans). There was a lot of dancing, a bunch of midnight pool parties, some rough mornings, and a fantastic awards show called The Tanzos. Awards given out included “Best Hair” (she thanked her parents), “Closet Genius” (she thanked Nietzsche), and “Greatest Poop Story” (Not sure who she thanked. Those stories tend to accumulate when you combine foreign food and a paucity of toilets). I received the award for “Greatest Tanzo Award Acceptance Speech”. No pressure.

I’ll spare you the run-up and just hit the highlights. “I look at all of you tonight, and I know I’m looking at all of the people that I will one day meet again...in hell.” I proudly and publicly announced my engagement to Stephen DiOrio (once you’ll meet him, you’ll understand my choice). And I talked about how I’m not sure I can believe in governments, or in organizations, anymore. Even Peace Corps. How all of these things succeed or fail because people make them succeed or fail. And that is what I will miss: the people. I won’t look back fondly on Peace Corps the bureaucracy: the forms, the dates, the flash drives. I’ll remember the volunteers, the staff, the villagers, my friends. My closing lines were: “I don’t miss America. I miss Americans. I will not miss Tanzania. I will miss Tanzanians. And I will not miss the United States Peace Corps. I will miss all of you.” 

On with the blog.

The woman running the conference was truly wonderful (not least in that she put up with us. What we lack in manners and calm we make up for in volume). We talked about resumes, RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) networks, interviewing, reverse culture shock, and a lot more. But I was really truly grateful that she shared with us some rather personal aspects of her life as a PCV, her work after Peace Corps in Haiti and Africa, and life as an American living overseas. Many of her stories are wonderful, and made me want to…well, to stay. But one of them struck me, and stuck with me. She was talking about a relative of hers who is always wondering when she and her husband (who is also an RPCV) will stop playing around in Africa and come home. How when he thinks of Africa he just thinks of naked children with distended bellies, crying in front of a camera, surrounded by flies, waiting for your dollar a day.

I guess congratulations are owed to all of you. If any of you felt like this, either when I began this journey or at any point along the way, you have been wise enough not to share said feelings with me. In a lot of ways the purpose of this blog is to make it clear that Africa isn’t about poverty (though poverty exists), or charity (though that is helpful, if done properly), or development work. It is about life and nature and belief and beauty. There are talented people and beautiful people and awful people and lost people. Which makes it different from...nowhere. The difference, I guess, is history. But that’s not my point either. I don’t think you need me to show you how different we can be. There are plenty of people making that point (though fewer and fewer every year, I hope. I wish). I wanted to show how all the things we know and treasure and value exist here as well, just in different packages. I’m not making sense...

...let’s try a metaphor! The kids in my village do a really fun thing. When I show up at a house, particularly if it’s the first few times I’ve been there, the little children will all scurry away around back (I am, in case you’ve forgotten, pretty horrifying). But if I stay long enough, they’ll start to peak their heads around the edge of the house, to have a good look at the scary pale giant. From time to time I’ll catch them looking, and just look back, frankly, into their eyes. The shyer ones turn and flee, but the braver ones will return my stare for a few seconds. Then the game gets too hairy, my eyes get too scary, and they pull their little heads back, just enough so that the wall once again blocks out the sight of me. Once they’re assured that they won’t be turned to stone, they peak back out, and the game resumes. I love that so much, that ability as a child to make something vanish and truly believe that it’s vanished; to be able to close your eyes and make the world go away.

I can’t do that any more, not even if I wanted to. And that’s good. I’m an adult, and I live in a varied and scary world that needs people to confront its problems, not pretend they don’t exist. The Third Goal of Peace Corps is “Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” That’s what this blog is. It’s one small piece of tape holding eyelids open, or perhaps less shit-eatingly, it’s a flashlight pointed at a part of the world that might otherwise remain unseen. But I suspect, in my heart, that all of you already knew all of this. My students are going to make it to Ruaha. They aren’t standing in the desert with their mouths open and bellies bulging. They are fun, and devilishly clever, and they like to run with me when I’m out for a jog. They are not charity cases, but they also do not have much, and they live tantalizingly close to breathtaking animals that they might never see. But now they will. They are going to see some animals. And it is all because of people who didn’t close their eyes, who cared, and who helped make a small, important difference. It’s all because of you.

Congratulations.

Ubaguzi

Thursday was Union Day. 48 years ago, Tanganyika (which is what continental Tanzania used to be known as) and Zanzibar united, to form Tanzania. Sort of a geo-political version of Bennifer and Brangelina. To celebrate Union Day (which I hope you all did in your own special way), Kenzie and I went to the regional Union Day celebration, which was conveniently nearby, at our local secondary school (which is two villages away). All the bigwigs and smallwigs were there, from Iringa Region, from the district, from the county, from the ward, from each of the villages, and probably from some other level of government that I’ve forgotten to mention. Also there were children from at least 6 different schools, both primary and secondary. They sang, they danced, and were by far my favorite part of the day (more about them later).

After the party had been officially started (every Tanzanian meeting and party has to be officially opened, like courtroom proceedings), it was time for introductions. There were perhaps a 1,000 people at the party, if not more. Well over a hundred were introduced by the Master of Ceremonies. It took some time. When you are introduced, you are expected to stand, wave, and say something followed by “Hoye!”, to which the crowd responds, “Hoye!”. For example you could say, “Muungano Hoye!” (Yeah Union Day!) and the crowd would respond, “Hoye!” (Yeah!) You could also go with “Tanzania Hoye!” (Yeah Tanzania!), “Elimu Hoye!” (Yeah Education!), or “Wafupi Hoye!” (Yeah Short People!). Any of those would get an enthusiastic “Hoye!” in response (the last one might not stir the hearts of the taller folk in the crowd, but give it a shot). Back to the introductions. After we had gone through each and every level of government (with me wondering all the things that this country would accomplish if it cut out one of the three or so levels of unnecessary bureaucracy), Kenzie and I were placing bets on whether or not we would get introduced. We clearly were not on the Emcee’s card, but we do, you know, stick out a bit. And sure enough, he was preparing to segue gracefully into the next part of the party...when someone tapped him on the shoulder and said something along the lines of “don’t forget the pasty ones”. At which point the Emcee launched into a bit about how this year they are rewriting the national constitution, and how there is no ubaguzi (racism), how nobody cares about color here, which was why he simply had to introduce the two volunteers here from America. Kenzie and I stood up, I gave a big “Muungano Hoye!”, and we sat back down, all the while me thinking one simple thought:

“What a crock.”

 I had actually decided a few days before the party to write a blog about some of the negative parts of my time here (the specific inciting incident will be explained shortly). I try and give a fairly accurate accounting of my time here, and it is mostly upbeat, because I mostly love my life here. If I had to make the choice over again, I’d do it all again with no reservations. This, for me (and for my villagers, I think), has been an unalloyed good. Yet some things still rankle. There are moments each day when I wish to be back in America. There is at least one time a month when I grow furious with someone or some situation, until I am mentally squashing them like tiny, squishy bugs. A lot of those situations come from an inescapable, infuriating reality of Tanzania: racism.

I don’t think I took too much for granted in America. I was always pretty damn grateful for being alive, healthy, shod and clod. But what I absolutely took for granted was living in a society that is heterogenous. I lived in Brooklyn, for goodness sake. They used to parade a statue of the Hispanic Virgin Mary by my window, right before they lit her on fire and cooked latkas picante (more of that is true than you might imagine). Black, brown, white, albino, Asian, you freaking name it, they were just other New Yorkers, other Americans. A bus fare was the same for me as for Yao Ming as for Samuel Jackson (not that I imagine either of them take the bus all that often). Not here. Here tomatoes cost more because I’m white. Bus fares cost more because I look different. Everywhere I walk (not in my village, but in any other town in the country), I am serenaded by choruses of “MZUNGU!!!” (Whitey!).Female volunteers are routinely asked to take young men back to America with them. We are assumed to be physically weak, ridiculously wealthy, and incredibly stupid, all at the same time. While Tanzanians are among the most welcoming people I have ever met or heard of, anywhere, there is a class of angry young men who blame many of the present-day difficulties (poverty, AIDS, etc.) on any and all white people. Which, on one hand, is understandable. Colonialism did Africa no favors, and centuries worth of harm. On the other hand, not only wasn’t I alive for that, but it wasn’t my country, and I came here to help. I try, I really do, to not let it bother me. But there’s only so many times you can be talked to like a stupid puppy before you start yelling. Which happens, from time to time.

So that is awful, and I hate it. Two points worth making for the other side: 1. It is a racial thing, but it is also a class thing. Rich Tanzanians are quoted higher prices than poorer ones. And conversely, poor rural Tanzanians are often treated like dirt by rich, urban ones. I have a much, much easier time getting a meeting at the District than anybody in my village. Tanzanian drivers will pick me up, give me free rides, but will pass by my village friends with nary a glance. So the racism goes both ways. Which leads me to 2. America doesn’t exactly have all its ducks in a row either. I don’t catch a ton of news, but I’ve heard plenty about Trayvon Martin. You cannot do the job I do and still think that one sort of people are innately better than another. We are different, yes. But it’s the height of arrogance to think that given the same opportunities that we have, these people would not do equally as well, or better.

Back to the party. After the introductions, my school’s children stepped forward. I love watching Tanzanian schoolkids perform. They do a high-pitched shout-singing that is really beautiful when done in unison. For this performance my kids danced with baton-like instruments, and they also had village-made kazoos (which made my heart glad). They sang about Union Day, about the leaders who had made it possible (Nyerere and Karume, of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, respectively). They broke it down with the traditional Hehe dance, the Dua. One of my favorite students, Ephus, ran around cheering and jumping, and everybody laughed. They absolutely killed it. The head honchos from the region loved it. Other students loved it. I loved it. I was so proud of those kids (it should be noted that I had nothing to do with it), of what they had done… and what they had endured.

On Monday I had gone down to the primary school to talk to the principal about a few things. He and I often do not see eye to eye, but we’ve managed to collaborate on a number of projects, and since I have a few more in the works, I had to go over them with him. After our meeting he mentioned that the students were preparing for the party on Thursday, and would I like to see? Of course, I said. Plus one of my teacher friends was running the rehearsal, and I had to see her about something anyway. So we went down to the soccer field, where the students were prepping, with batons and kazoos and drums and a pretty murderous noon-day sun. I grabbed a patch of grass and watched them work. From time to time my teacher friend would stop them and correct them, showing them the proper steps, yelling at the students who were doing the routine sans flair. I was happy: I was back at rehearsal. Then, during a quick stop, the principal called all of the boys off to the side, obviously unhappy with their lack of chutzpah. He said something to one of them, who ran over to where I was sitting. The child said, “Samahani” (excuse me), then reached down to where I was sitting. I moved aside, and he pulled up a long, thin stick that I hadn’t even realized I was sitting on. He ran back over to the principal, and gave it to him. At which point the principal proceeded to beat the living shit out of a bunch of 11-14 year old boys.

 This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this. Yet it is not something I’ve ever gotten used to, nor do I really want to. My friends who teach full-time in schools here see it every day, in varying degrees of brutality. I’ve seen teachers make a female student kneel and hold a large rock over her head until she was physically unable to continue. I’ve seen teachers make students roll up their trousers or skirts and kneel on gravel for as long as they deem necessary. This day with the principal was fairly typical: he had the boys get on all fours in a line. He started using the switch on their behinds. But something particularly angered him about one of my favorite students, Amos. So he started hitting him on the ribs, on the chest, until the child was lying flat on his back, crying, still being beaten.

What do you do? I know there are plenty of volunteers who see nothing wrong with raising a hand to your kid. That never happened to me, but I guess I get it. But this isn’t that. This goes way over the line of cruel, and it isn’t even effective. Tanzania’s educational scores are low, to put it kindly. The students don’t know any more after they’ve had the tar beat out of them than they did before. Yet this isn’t my place. I’m not here to impose American values on Tanzanian institutions. This man is my superior. So I sat there, digging my fingers into my ribs, not sure how I would ever look Amos in the eye again. He’s used to it, I supposed. I’m not. Hope I never will be.

One more, back to the party. I had to sneak out early. I’ve gotten good at that. I went to the bathroom, then went Viet Cong style through the woods to the road. It’s a cardinal sin to leave a Tanzanian party before eating. This, however, is not my first cardinal sin. I got to the road and started flagging down cars to get a ride back to the village (I had a date with my friend. We are doing Occupational Therapy house calls for old people, with Kelsey making scarily accurate diagnoses, and us relating her advice back to them). I got a ride from a couple of older, apparently Indian, men. They knew a little English. I asked them where they were headed. They named a city in the north of the country. I asked them where home was. They named the same city. It was then that I realized that these men, when they talked to each other, spoke Kiswahili. That they are, despite appearances, Tanzanians. There are a couple hundred thousand ethnic Indian and Arab Tanzanians. They’ve lived here all their lives. This is their home. They speak the language. And if I think that I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own house...I can’t imagine what their lives must be like. I do miss this part of America: the differences. The blend. The plurality. I'm sure something is lost when you start blending cultures together. But a lot is gained, I know that.

On to some happier thoughts at the end. We have winners! I refer you all to the photo album “The Unnamed” on my facebook profile. The naming rights for Cow #1 were purchased by Kelsey Drake for $200 (somebody should marry her). I have not yet been told its name. Cow #2 has been bought and named “Where’s Waldo” by Mr. Robert M Schwartz (take a bow). Cow #3 was purchased and christened “Leinad” (I like that my name is being incorporated multiple times) by Her Aussie Highness, Jeanne Fennell. And Cow #4 has been bought, paid for, and named “Rambo” by the distinguished John Arigot. Thank you all so much for playing along, and I can’t omba (request) enough times for those who didn’t win to still donate to the project. I am going out to Ruaha on Monday to finalize all reservations, and will provide a full budget/itinerary in a couple of weeks. This is going to be one hell of a trip, made possible by all of you. I can’t say enough times how wonderful you all are for making this possible. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Waldron, out.

The Jewish Mother Gauntlet

I woke up this morning the way I wake up most mornings: someone opening my outdoor gate and yelling, “Hodi!” at the top of their lungs (“Hodi” is what you say when you want to be allowed in). My alarm was set to go off exactly one minute later. It was 6:29am. The sun had just come up, and apparently I was already late.

It was my good friend Fute, rousing me to help him with some brisk morning exercise: moving a bull. You see, good ol’ Uncle Louie (the bull we acquired with the dairy cows), had spent his first month in a cowshed with a cow who had already been bred. So he was just cooling his jets and chewing his cud. But no more! Our local veterinary officer had come the day before my rude awakening to check if our last two cows had bred back yet (that’s technical cow-speak for “gotten knocked up”. I’m trying to impress all of you. Has it worked?). How did he check for an impending bundle of joy? By reaching his right arm into each cow (go ahead and guess which end), up to the shoulder, and feeling around. Without a glove. He said he was out of gloves. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, the vet was not certain that either of the two remaining cows had bred back yet, and he told us to bring in the bull. Bring in Uncle Louie, to do his job as a male and make us some baby cows. We tried that very afternoon to transfer the beast, with a rope and a couple of sticks, but it got messy, and he was testy, and he charged me, so we postponed it until we could find some other cow buddies for him to run with. 6:30am, other cows had been found, of the local breeds, with the funky humps. We got him out of his shed, leaving his forlorn, and pregnant, female companion behind. And we started running, herding them towards Fute’s house, keeping them out of the road, and setting a pretty good pace. We managed to avoid having any of them hit by a car, and we made it to Fute’s house, where we picked up his cow (who is a vicious, monstrous female (as if there are any other kind (I regret that comment))), and proceeded to the last cowshed, where the bull will live quite happily for the next month with two new female companions. Of course, along the way the cows kept trying to skirt off into farms and chew on maize stalks, so me or my compatriots had to go running in, ducking sunflowers as big as your head, raising a ruckus, and get them back on track. But at the end of it we successfully introduced both Uncle Louie and his lady friend to their new home, and attempted to placate the female who had already been living there by feeding her some grass. I suppose we could have tried chocolates...but they are so very far away.

So to start my blog where it normally ends, I was walking back home, having worked up a good sweat, task completed. The sun had risen, though not far, and it looked like the beginning of a beautiful day (which it was). The dew was on the grass, the golden haze on the meadow was bright, and an elephant walked by, eye level with the corn. People looked at me and wondered why I was singing. I explained to them that I had a beautiful feeling that everything was going my way. They nodded in understanding. Everybody loves Oklahoma. It was just a wonderful way to start a day. That may be what I’ll miss most: unexpected adventures. I’m not sure I’m ready for things to go according to plan. Which they probably won’t. So good!

Plans are funny things here. I start most days with one, fully expecting it to be in tatters by about 11am. If it is absolutely crucial that something happens, I leave the entire day free for that one thing. There is no other way in a land where a meeting that starts two hours late is on time. Yet because I’m forced to budget so much time for things that shouldn’t need them (because you never know what random day every person will suddenly decide to be early, and then glare at me for being 15 minutes late), I end up with a lot of free time. And there is the temptation, which I sometimes give into, to curl up in my house with books or letters. But it is so unbelievably important that I get out of the house, for a few hours, at the end of the day. I call it “showing the flag”. I just walk around the village, maybe visit some people, maybe just camp out in a spot and beckon passerby over for a word. It is how I get everything done. And there seems to be some weird benevolent karma that comes to my aid when I leave the house. More often than I can ever believe, I turn a corner and find myself face-to-face with the exact person that I needed to see. I’m out of the house, and they are out of the house, because that is what you do in the jioni (evening): you walk around and say hi to people. Every evening here is strange, happy magic, and though it’s often hard to make myself get out of my house, I never regret it, and I have gained more from chance meetings at the end of the day then from the plans I scheme up at the start of it.

Then there are the times when I give into my laziness. For example: the selfsame Fute who woke me up this morning a few months ago lost his uncle, or some more distant male relative. I’d never met the departed, he lived in Dar Es Salaam. But as is custom, he was to be buried in the village from whence he came. So they shipped the body overnight, and a bunch of his friends from the city came along. It is village custom for the men to dig the grave and the women to prepare the food: I’ve been through the routine well over a dozen times. This particular day, I knew that this man had passed away, and knew that he was a relative of one of my best friends. But I didn’t know him, and I was in the middle of a good book, and if I dropped everything I was doing to go to every funeral of someone I had never met, I would get precious little accomplished. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Around noon my guilt started pricking. By one o’clock in the afternoon it was nudging. By two o’clock it was pushing me out the door, and so I went. I figured I would get to see my friend, and maybe they hadn’t buried the deceased yet. Sometimes the coffin has to be made the day of the funeral and the carpenters are late, so we just sit and stare at each other. Today was not one of those days. I started walking down the path towards my friend’s house, and I saw them coming: every single villager I’ve ever met, leaving the funeral, walking straight at me. There are few moments where the punishment perfectly fits the crime. This was one of them. Stretched out in twos and threes, I stopped and said g’day to each and all of my village friends. Some asked me where I’d been. Some just looked at me. It was excruciating. I kept walking. It was like running a gauntlet of Jewish mothers (may none take offense). Eventually I reached my friend, and he was happy to see me, and I paid my respects (that’s literal here: you’re expected to contribute to funeral costs), and they were received. Sometimes I’m a little thick in the skull; some lessons I need to be bludgeoned over the head with. Lesson learned.

I got a very special package in the mail last week. It was letters from home, but from new homeys! Mrs. Simons’ 7th grade students had written 34 letters to my 7th grade students here. They were wonderful to read; I was incredibly proud of them. They are curious, and empathetic, and thinking critically, and it made the heart glad. But it also broke it a little. I forget, almost all the time, how little my students have here. Not cars or electricity or velcro; those things you really can live without pretty damn easily. But having teachers who teach their periods. Having teachers who are trained in the subjects they are teaching. Having lunch at school, nutritious and varied food, available every day, for an affordable price. Not having to run 4 miles and back to school. And I don’t know if Mrs. Simons’ kids take that for granted. But I know I did. I was listening to a radio interview with Bill Courtney, who is the coach at the center of the Oscar-winning documentary “Undefeated”, which I have not seen. And he was asked whether or not kids like his (largely black and poor) have a chance without the presence of extraordinary coaches and educators. His answer was well-reasoned, apolitical, and too long for me to put here. But his last line stuck with me: “the playing field is not level”.

Which brings me to the interactive portion of the blog. I have an Environmental Club at my school, called “Kijani Milele” (“Evergreen”). They have done a bunch of projects with me: composting, permagardening, soil erosion, and helping to paint Mom’s mural. They live less than a 100 miles from some of the most amazing animals ever soon on the face of the earth: lions, elephants, giraffe, cheetahs, leopards, zebras, and more. And they’ve never seen them. The cost is too prohibitive, the expense is seen as too frivolous. They’ve never seen their own nation’s treasures, nor will they get a chance to see them in the foreseeable future...without your help.

I want to take 30 kids, and 5 adults, on a safari to Ruaha National Park in July. We will leave on a Saturday morning in a rented coaster (a small bus), arrive at Ruaha around 4pm, go for a quick evening safari, sleep over, then go for a morning safari before departing. These kids will get to see animals that they’ve only ever heard of, that live in their country, just out of reach. I have every confidence that it will be an unforgettable experience. Why do I need your help? I am nearing the end of my Peace Corps service, and can no longer apply for Peace Corps moneys. So if this is going to happen, it can only happen with private funds. I am in the process of finalizing the budget, but I need to raise at least $1,000, and probably closer to $1,500 (once I have the final numbers, I will post them). That covers the coaster rental, the lodging, the food, any possible clothing rental (gets cold here in July), and the park entry fees. I’m asking you, loyal blog readers, for donations. They can be sent to 1006 Towpath Road, Hawley, PA 18428. They will be deposited into my account here and I will withdraw them, and then document the whole crazy expedition. It isn’t curing cancer and there will be no lasting monument. But there will be a whole lot of joy. And I will take many pictures. I hope that’s reason enough...

...but if it’s not, there’s more!!! I’m having an auction! For something completely made-up and utterly without value! But it will be fun! Here’s the deal: as my last post detailed, we have recently brought a number of large, grass-chewing, milk-producing, fuzzy-headed mammals into the village. There is one bull, named Uncle Louie (take a bow sir), and four cows...who are as yet unnamed! Which is where you come in! I am auctioning off the naming rights to each of these cows. We are going to do it on facebook, in the album I created entitled “The Unnamed”. I will label photos “Cow #1”, “Cow #2”, and so on. You can post your bids in the comment thread of the photos, and I will close the bidding on April 22nd at 12:01am Eastern Standard Time, at which point the winners will get to submit their names, and I will personally install a plaque bearing said name on the outside of each cowshed. This is your chance to name a sacred cow in the middle of Africa. And for the losers, donations will still be incredibly welcome, in any and every denomination. All joking aside, this is one of those opportunities. This is a chance to make someone whom you’ve never met, who lives somewhere that you’ve never been, happy.

Moo

One night in September of 2010, my best friend in Tanzania had a secret. I was over at his house for dinner, and he was being...well...insufferable. There was this big, important, game-changing thing that he wanted to tell me...but not tonight. Why not tonight? Because it’s late, and you’re tired, he said. I asked politely. He refused. I entreated. He denied. I threatened violence. He acquiesced. Turns out that in the village he originally comes from (about 30 miles north, not far from the booming metropolis of Mafinga, from whence comes the name of this blog), there are cows. Of the milking variety. The next week we went to look. The cows were real. They mooed at me.

This would be a good point to mention that there are hundreds of cows already in my village. They are a local, sturdier, hardier (read: uglier) breed of cows than the breeds we are accustomed to. They are Brahman cows, so at the base of their neck they each have a large hump, which wiggles and jiggles and giggles as they walk (I’m not sure it actually giggles. But it does look amused). Generally speaking they are used for plow duties, but they also make a tasty meal from time to time. They give out very little milk, when they give any. If you can get two liters a day from a local cow, she’s a gold mine.

The cows in my friend’s home village gave out considerably more than that: as much as 20 liters per day. For a quick idea of the economic boon that signifies, remember that the vast majority of Tanzanians live on less than $2 a day, and often much less. 20 liters of milk can be sold for about $10, and it can be sold every day, ten months out of the year. That’s not mentioning the other benefits: manure, biogas, and heifers to sell. Ah yes, heifers. These cows, you see, were part of a project funded by Heifer International. Some of you may have heard of it, but if you haven’t, it is an American organization that gives out livestock loans (and accompanying training) to impoverished villagers in developing countries. It generally works like this: you get a cow. That cow has a baby cow, and you give the baby cow to another villager. The second baby cow is yours, to keep and cuddle. The third baby cow goes back to Heifer International, and your loan has been repaid. It is an effective and brilliant system, and there are villages in Tanzania with Heifer International projects that have been running for 20 years and have spread to almost every household. A project like this can completely transform a village within a generation. We wanted one. We asked for one. We were denied.

When I say we, I’m no longer just talking about Nziku (my best friend here, and a frequent guest star in this blog) and myself. By the time we delivered our official request to Heifer International, my nearest Peace Corps neighbor had come on board, Miss Kenzie Payne. I’ll talk more about her near the end, but she’s from Wisconsin, she worked in a cheese shop, and she kicks ass. We decided to do this project as a team, requesting a Heifer project for each of our villages, combining meetings, sharing ideas, commiserating, and spending a lot of time together on cramped, unsafe buses. She brought with her an elderly sage, the leader of her cow group, named Mlonganile. He is one of the more amazing men I’ve ever met. He exudes wisdom from his pores, and without him none of this would have been possible.
Kenzie and I each formed a group of ready, willing farmers in our villages. Each group wrote up a constitution, elected officers, and filled out the Heifer applications. All of this took until the end of March, last year (so about six months). Finally, applications completed, villagers excited, we traveled to the Heifer regional offices, in Mbeya, a nearby city. We met with officials there. They told us to go to Iringa. We went to Iringa. They told us to go to Mbeya. Little did I know that I had entered into the most drawn-out rejection of my life that did not involve the Israeli army.

Here’s the thing about Tanzanians. They really, really, really strongly hate to disappoint people, especially guests. So when confronted with a sticky situation, they choose what is to them the most obvious route: tell me whatever it is that I want to hear. This is true of many things. In the bar the other night, before Liverpool played for the Carling Cup Final, a Tanzanian told me that there was an absolute certainty that The Reds would lift the cup. It wouldn’t even take 90 minutes to put the outcome beyond doubt. Well, the match went into extra time and penalties, and when Liverpool was down 2-1 in penalties I wanted to throttle him (we did win. Yay). Similarly, when I was working on the well project, people would tell me that wells were dug, that contributions had already been collected, that water was gushing out of the ground: clean, clear, and tasting of champagne. Nothing had actually been done yet, but they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Or, finally, when I approached the road yesterday looking for a bus, and saw one coming, the guy next to me told me that this was a great bus that would absolutely stop and take us wherever we wanted to go. As the bus zoomed by, the driver signaling that it was overfilled, I just looked at the man next to me, and sighed.

Back to the cows. It took Kenzie and I until the end of July to realize that Heifer was never going to give us a project (it appears that the recession really did a number on their donations. That, or they thought I looked shifty). People were dropping out of each of our groups every other week. We had two choices: abandon the project, or try to fund it with Peace Corps money. Given that the first choice would have made a poor blog post, you can guess where that went. From that point on, we were in overdrive: visiting potential ranches, wrangling district support for our project, doing a cow-shed construction training, building 8 cowsheds, buying pasture seed, planting it, and finally planning a weeklong training on all things bovine (feed, care and treatment, milking, cow dips, yogurt-making, you name it).

Along the way we encountered the usual problems: meetings starting two hours late, people dropping out, people not building their cowsheds on time, and the chosen ranch informing us (after the grant was in) that they could not, in fact, sell us our cows (this particular problem prompted an emergency meeting wherein our district superiors very kindly reached through the phone lines and slapped the ranch manager upside his large, balding head). We cajoled, we yelled, we tried to make people laugh, we threw our weight around, and from time to time we lied through our teeth. We finally got a date: on February 29th we could get our cows. The anniversary may not be easy to celebrate, but what you gonna do?

Two weeks ago we conducted our training at a local convent. I always feel nervous when I set foot in the convent, as if the sisters know if I’ve been naughty or know if I’ve been nice. Once I got past my latent guilt, however, the training was a smashing success. We milked cows, made hay (hehe), washed cows with a spray pump, and spent hours in the classroom going through every conceivable scenario. Oh, and we were fed 5 times a day by the sisters. It got a bit excessive. Then, when night fell, Kenzie and I had to wrangle up some entertainment. We decided to show our villagers some movies on my laptop, movies that were not too talky and that they might conceivably enjoy. The ones we chose: The Adam West Batman Movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Lion King, and Ghostbusters. And our villagers loved them! But there was a problem: they had no idea what was going on. So after they told me this, I spent all of Lion King and Ghostbusters narrating. If you really want to get a good glimpse at the cultural divide, just try explaining the Stay Puft Marshmallow man to a group of African villagers. You begin to question things about your own society, things you once held dear. But we made it through that obstacle, and finished the training, with speeches and certificates for all. Only one step left.

On February 29th, Kenzie and I woke up in Mafinga. On big days I always wake up thinking the same thing: in 16 hours this is all going to be over, one way or another. Make what you can of it. And so we did. We showed up at the district office. We got into the truck we would be using, which the driver proudly told me had arrived, brand-spanking-new, in 1984. We made our way out to the ranch (we’d paid the day before. Imagine paying $3000 for cows, in $7 denominations. Good times). We forced the cows onto the truck, then flipped a coin for the bull. Kenzie won. My bull is black and white and adorable. He is named Uncle Louie (that's right. In Africa there is a cow named after Matt Nied) We got a ride back to Mafinga, then Kenzie and I got into the cow truck, and rode off into the sunset, at about 15 miles per hour. An hour and change later, we arrived in my village. Nziku was standing by the side of the road, waiting. When he saw us, a slow, sly grin spread across his face.

It’s a funny thing to get what you’ve wanted. I’m not sure what to do with it. Part of me wants to believe that this project is going to change everything, but I’ve lived here too long to believe that. Tanzanians, for all their sure and certain words, know as well as I do that there is no certainty in any of this. All of these cows could drop dead one day, and that day could be tomorrow. There are a million things that could go wrong with this project, and in five short months I won’t be around to handle any of them. I wish I was confident about the future. I wish I could tell you that this is a no-doubt home run. But I don’t like to lie to all of you.

In the end, this project, my service, and development in general are as much about the process as the results. They have to be. Because you can’t make people change. You can just give them the options, then you have to respect their right as self-determining adults: to succeed or fail, to change or stay the same. And as we pulled into my village, and Nziku started running ahead of the truck, that’s what I thought about: the days we built cowsheds, the nights spent at Nziku’s discussing every idea, the long busrides with Kenzie, stupid jokes and rice and beans. I used to think that the day the cows came, I would consider my service a success. But I was wrong. These two years can’t just be about the production of things; of pushing at the ocean. My service here is more than milk and money. It’s almost as if all of this, all of the projects and the proposals and the meetings, were just a façade, an excuse for the real work to happen: people. These are my friends and my family, and if I’ve helped them acquire something that they’ll treasure and use to improve their lives, then they’ve done the same for me a hundred-fold. As Nziku jogged his way in front of our slowly moving cow-mobile, leading us downhill, a grin began to spread across my face. For as we turned the corner and came to the loading spot, I saw everyone I cared about standing there, waiting. And the grin on my face was beaming back at me from two dozen friends who were once strangers, who I hadn’t let down. That’s the victory, I think. An affirmation of the faith that these few people had put in me, the crazy white man. Today they know that they weren’t wrong, and I know that two years in Africa weren’t spent in vain. Where we go from here, who knows? But I know that on February 29th, 2012, the cows came home.

Very, very soon, so will I.

What I Learned From Liverpool

I walked out of the airport, by myself, in the middle of a hot dark night, wearing a jersey that had taken two people a full two weeks to find. It was white. It had red pinstripes. The advertisement on the front read Standard Chartered. It had a patch high on the left breast. The patch proudly declared that the Liverpool Football Club was established in 1892. And at the very top of the patch read the Liverpool Football Club motto:

“You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

If only it were true.

To begin at the beginning.

It was early evening in Africa, in March of last year. I was coming back from the tree nursery, when I espied a particularly tall and shapely tree, some ways off the trail. Having free time and spare energy (I’m like a toddler), I decided to give it a shimmy (Side note: the verb ‘to climb’ in Swahili is the same as the word ‘to plant’. Which leads to some interesting sentences where you could be talking about planting mountains or climbing sunflowers. The only area where it is actually a problem is trees. My villagers don’t understand that I actually like to climb trees. They just think I really, really, really enjoy planting them.) The tree was one of the local varieties, which generally expand outward, rather than upward, looking like delicately crafted umbrellas. But this one was at least 60 feet tall, by far the tallest native tree in my village. Definitely worth a climb. The only problem is that there was not a reachable limb until about 12 feet up, and only a small stump to give a boost. At times like these, I’m happy that most villagers head home around sunset, which is when I like to do my walking. This way, I’m spared the outcry, embarrassment, and innumerable retellings that would have resulted if one of my villagers had seen me: suspended in the air, my arms clinging desperately to an unreasonably round branch, my feet kicking wildly for purchase, my mind idly pondering how I would explain this hospital visit.

Since this was back in March, you may reasonably surmise that I didn’t die. In fact, after a little cursing and a lot of scratching, I made it up into the tree. And it was a great one, branches criss-crossing every which way, growing upwards in a helix, looking like some ever-patient artist had made this tree his life’s work. I climbed higher, maybe higher than I should have. The view was amazing, it was nearing sunset, and I was young, free, and happy to not be dead. On an impulse, I decided to carve something into the tree. Juvenile, absolutely, but I’d spent a lifetime climbing trees without once leaving my mark. What could a few letters hurt? I pulled out my Leatherman, thought for a second, and slowly carved my initials into the old, tough wood.

Mine, and someone else’s.

Fast forward. One day, sometime later, I showed up at the house of one of my best friends, an old carpenter in the village (also an unrepentant curmudgeon. He used to drive me crazy. Now I want to be him when I grow up). I had an idea, and wanted to know if it was possible to pull off. He assured me, without a doubt, it was absolutely not possible. Got it. Went to another guy, who is also doing well for himself as a carpenter (he’s got a motorcycle AND a generator. He may have organized crime connections). Any way possible to get this done, any way at all? He is unequivocal. It ain’t happening. Okay. Good to know.

The thing is, my friends here are wonderful. But one of the things that makes my job, and those of my friends, pretty difficult, is that nobody here believes anything is possible if they have not seen it with their own two eyes. They are supremely, astoundingly capable when it comes to perfecting tasks that they have witnessed and understood. But nobody here is one day going to take some cloth and some thread and put together a Snuggie (which is probably a good thing...and therefor a bad example). Show most of my friends here one, and they’ll make you a better one. Tell them about one, and they’ll tell you it can’t be done. Or at least...most of them will.

Nziku (my best friend) and I went to the tree one Saturday afternoon. I was armed with a pruning saw, love, and 7 months of informal forestry training. I climbed the tree again, this time slightly surer of how to get it done. Nziku looked like he was watching a toddler drive a motorcycle. No matter, I got up in the tree. Now came the step of finding a branch of suitable size that was reachable. I finally found one. The only problem with this step was that the branch in question WAS my step. I began to do a rip cut, which is how I was taught. I was not taught to do a rip cut on a branch that I was standing on, but no matter. I made my bottom cut, then started at the top. The branch started to go. I freaked. The branch hit another branch, and stopped, almost completely cut, hanging by a thread. Nziku was waiting, and I was sweating bullets, pretty convinced that the moment I cut this branch I was either going to be springboarded into the air, or my left foot was about to get a lot thinner. Nziku asked me if I wanted him to get up in the tree and do it. The bastard knows me too well. 20 seconds later, the sucker was down, and your boy was shaken, but not stirred.

After I got down (always an adventure), we spent a few minutes admiring our kill, then got to work. Found one live branch and one dead branch, both small and portable. We walked home, like hunters returning successfully to the pack. At his house, we employed the pruning saw, my Leatherman, his kitchen knife, and a few matchbook-sized pieces of sandpaper. It was slow going, mostly because we had no freaking clue what we were doing. We started off cutting fat discs, boring holes in them with hot pieces of iron. Eventually we started to trust the wood, and cut three thin discs, two from the dead branch, one from the live one. Using the Leatherman, we stripped the bark. We slowly whittled out the middle. Then we spent the next three days chipping them down, sanding them, whittling some more, sanding again, always afraid that the fragile things would snap in our fingers, which by now were cut to shreds and numb. I finally got too afraid to use the knife any more, and spent one whole evening carefully, cautiously sanding by the light of the setting sun. I finally couldn’t see any more. But I didn’t need to. It was done. Or at least I had gone as far as my nerve would let me. So had Nziku. At the end of the fourth day, after all that work, we had three little trinkets to show, one light in color, two darker. The lighter one was mine, my project. The darker ones were his. The next morning I applied the first coat of varnish. We put on three coats in all. At the end of it all, they shone, ready, finished. Nothing left to do but wait.

Most of the people reading this blog (assuming, I suppose, that people are reading this blog) know me pretty well, but not everybody. I don’t go all that deeply into my personal life...well, that’s not true. I talk about my personal life pretty much unceasingly. What I don’t talk about as much is being apart from my family and my girlfriend. I assume you can figure that it is pretty damn painful being away (with some wonderful intermittent breaks) from all of them for two years. And it is, as much (if not more so) for them as for me. I just don’t feel the need to write about it in this space, because some days it is awful, most days it isn’t, and I don’t have much more to say that is interesting. Yet, if she’ll permit me, I think it might be the right time to say a word or two about my lady.

Two years is a funny amount of time. It goes by quicker than you might expect, yet it holds more than you might believe. We’ve spent these last two years apart. It’s odd what you miss...or maybe it’s exactly what you expect. Kissing somebody goodnight, waking up to someone’s tousled hair, playing frisbee, brushing teeth together while dancing. Hell, just being with someone so you can watch something happen, together. I’ve seen so many beautiful sunsets while I’ve been here, but the ones I remember most were when I was with Kelsey, or my family. I don’t know what I’ve done to be so unbelievably, over-the-top, shoot-the-moon lucky...but this has worked. And it hasn’t just worked, it’s gotten better. From 7,000 miles away, Kelsey is as much a part of my life here as she was when I lived in America, and I know the same is true for her. That doesn’t happen every day. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s no way I can possibly pay back the debt I owe to the lady who let me go, and who will one day (I hope) take me back. But I’m prepared to spend a lifetime trying. Here’s how I started:

It was early evening in Africa. I had just waited a half an hour that felt like a year for the love of my life to put her gorgeous locks in a (admittedly beautiful) braid. During that time, the cautiously carved object sitting in my left breast pocket felt like it might burn a hole through my shirt. But no, shirt intact, braid in place, we set out. Ever since hearing that I had defaced an ancient tree with our initials, my lady had wanted to see the proof of my romantic vandalism. We got to the tree. It really was impressive, towering over everything around it, catching the sun beautifully at the end of the day. I showed her around it, pointing to the spot high above where I’d carved our letters, explaining that unless she possessed some serious ups (or Go-Go-Gadget arms), there was no way she was making it up that tree. After the brief tour of the tree, I offhandedly showed her the fallen limb, lying beside it. At this point my pulse was doing a cool triple time, and a dull roaring in my ears had started to make hearing difficult. Thank god I had rehearsed this moment with the cat. I explained that, as fate would have it, I was actually the one who had cut the branch down. Why? “To make something.” What? “This.” I reached into my left breast pocket.

11 days later, I had just escorted my fiancee as far as the airport security would allow. I had just said goodbye, for the last time, to the lady who had stood by me from afar as I attempted a journey that I could never have done alone. We’ve had to say goodbye far too many times, and this one was not any easier for being the last. There were tears, and hugs, and metal detectors, and at the end of the night your boy was walking slowly back to his cab, wearing his Liverpool jersey, wishing he was somewhere else. The irony, of course, is that contrary to what Liverpool fans may sing, you WILL walk alone. And right now, I am.

Except...I’m not.

If you’re not forgotten, you’re not alone, and I of all people should have figured that out by now. I just had the greatest two weeks of my life. I got engaged to the most beautiful, funniest, kindest woman I’ve ever met. And once she was done crying, I climbed that tree one last time, to take a picture of those initials (a note to would-be proposers: don’t attempt climbing a tree till your heart has calmed. The only thing that kept me from post-proposal cardiac arrest was Kelsey saying, “my fiance is in a tree!” Which was the first time I’d ever been called “fiance”). We popped champagne to celebrate our engagement (thanks, Peace Corps friends). We visited my homestay village and I watched her make ugali. We swam in the ocean and looked at paradise, and talked with two other couples, one married 20 years, one married 10, and us, a year away. We went out one last night for dinner, and ate with our hands, and were messy, and loved it. And if a few heartbreaking goodbyes are the price of the happiness we have when we’re together, then we’ll never find a better bargain.

So this was my love letter to my fiancee. It turns out you can make a wooden ring in Africa, with a Leatherman, if you’re careful, and determined, and have the right sort of friends (thank you, Nziku). You can also make it the right size, if your fiancee’s friends and your own sister are delightfully sneaky people (thank you Jenn and Chrissy and Vicky). You can even get parental blessing, both yours (thanks Mom and Dad) and hers (thank you Carol and Bob), because the modern world is a pretty connected place, after all. It’s all possible, no matter what my villagers said. The ring, the relationship, the time apart. All of it can be dealt with, in its time, in its way. And at the end of the day, if there are still a few lonely nights left, a few dusty miles to be walked without my best friend, then I’ll deal with that too. Because I’m engaged to the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, and that isn’t something that goes away when she’s out of the room, or at work, or on the other side of the world. I have her, and my family, and all the dozens of you who wished us well and sent your little bits of happiness our way. Believe it kid.

You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Stoned Cats and Bucket Heads

Little carry over from my last post...in which I talked a little about Christmas, and the celebrating of it in Africa. Kumbe (Surprise!), Village Christmas was actually pretty phenomenal. Went to mass (for the second time in 12 hours...whatever), which was in our newly refurbished (Thanks Dad and all who contributed!) church. Three different villages came to our church for Christmas (there’s only one priest for the parish, and there are about 12 churches in the parish). But before mass I got up early to make presents! I had tried baking bread the night before, but apparently my yeast was tired, and my bread, it burned. So I woke up to bake the gift of Christmas cornbread, which I then gave to some of my friends. And it was a great day, with some songs and some celebrating and a late-nite village disco (absolutely as weird as it sounds). But it was in the middle of making Christmas Cornbread that I had a small festivus epiphany.

See, I had been talking to my friends in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, and asking them if they felt merry yet. To a one, the answer was, ‘not yet’. And it was exactly the same here. Hard to feel merry when it is rainy and muddy and 80 degrees. It wasn’t until I started actually doing something holiday-related that I felt at all Christmassy. Which I think is true of everybody. Christmas has become this all-consuming behemoth, spewing joy left and right. Common sense would suggest that, just by wading into public in the month of December, you should end up with some cheer stuck on you, like it or not. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. I could be engulfed by carols and dressed solely in tinsel (a mildly disturbing image), and not feel a thing. But the second I started actually making merry...it felt like Christmas. And it was wonderful.

We’re gonna skip New Years. I hope you all had a great time, I hope you all were safe. If you want my stories...you have to call me. It was pretty freaking awesome, but the internet is not meant to know all things.

On to the events of my day today. It wasn’t particularly momentous, as days go. But enough little things were funny that I found them blog-worthy. Hope you agree.

Woke up a little early to go with my AIDS group to the health clinic. Why? Wanted to talk about doing a public health seminar with....my lovely girlfriend! I got on the first available bus with my friend...who we shall call Kally (which is kind of her real name). We got off at a nearby town, and were going to start walking towards the health clinic. But Kally was hungry, so we stopped for some breakfast. Unfortunately, at this point Kally realized that she had left her phone on the bus, and began to freak out. She had me call it. It didn’t ring. I tried again. Still no luck. Her son had just sent her money on that phone (using phone services for banking is really common here). She had no money for a new one. This is a woman who used to live in Dar Es Salaam, in the capital. She used to live with her friends, by discos and bars, with water and power and a job. But then she got into a bad car accident, and had to move back with her family in the village. And then she was diagnosed with HIV. And now her only connection with her old life is riding somewhere on a bus, in someone else’s pocket. She just stared off into nowhere, ignoring all my attempts at levity, maybe thinking about just how out of whack life can get. At one point she said to me, “now I’ll just get hit by a car”. I wasn’t sure if this was a joke or wishful thinking. I prepared myself to spend the rest of the day in a fruitless attempt to cheer her up. It was at that point that she found her phone. Women. And their purses. It’s like they have their own gravity.

Got back to the village, had a three hour meeting (in which I solved several word puzzles). And then my partner and I showed up at his store, and there were seedlings waiting for us! Little, beautiful pine seedlings, which we had planted back in March, and now were ready to be sold! We put them out in front of his store, and it was like moths to a flame. We had two customers in the first two minutes. The seedlings are becoming soldlings (unavoidable)! I was so excited that I decided to run home and get my camera.

I was striding home with a purpose, and given that I’m a foot taller than anyone in the village, it looked like I was riding a scooter. I was passing my neighbor’s house, and he was sitting on his porch with one of my best friends. I greeted them on my way by, and my one friend, noting my hasty gait, asked if I was in a hurry. I said I was. He asked if I was in too much of a hurry to sit down and enjoy a bowl of fresh picked peaches, while the sun set picturesquely in the distance. I said no, I was not. And I wasn’t. If Africa has taught me anything, it’s that there will always be enough work for tomorrow, but fruits and friends should never be passed upon. So I kicked back and relaxed with two of my best friends and a bowl of peaches. And what did we talk about? Me. Specifically, me leaving them.

In every sense of the word, this was inevitable. I’ve finally gotten sort of halfway good at this job. Which means it’s almost time to leave. And as the sun vanished, lighting only the tippy tops of the incoming thunderclouds, and we talked about how we would all miss one another, it seemed like someone was saying, “do you get it yet?” Yeah. I get it. I’m not ready for it, but I get it.

And then I went home and drugged the cat. Thanks for the catnip, Kucz. There’s a stoned cat lounging around my house. And he’s hungry.

Small but crucial addendum to the day: before my friend started freaking out about her not-really-lost phone, we walked into a mgahawa (a cafe). My friend wanted to get some beef soup for breakfast. However, on the way into the cafe I noticed a bucket by the side of the door. And in the bucket was the head of a cow. There was no body attached to the head. I asked Kally what the head was for, and she said, “the soup”. Then the woman running the place showed up with two bowls of soup. I respectfully declined. But, you know, good way to start the morning, right? Nice little reminder. Seize the day, chew my cud, all that. Because tomorrow the head in the bucket might be mine. Or yours. Yeah. Chew on that.

Happy New Year, my friends. Miss you all.