When the change was made uptown
And the big man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
Just a thought before I get into the body of this post. Listen to Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, by Bruce and the E Street Band. Listen for the above lines. After “the big man joined the band”, Clarence Clemons plays a quick little riff, just so we all know real sure who Bruce is talking about. And it’s perfect. It’s fun, and cute, but it endows that little stretch of music with a personality. We feel like we are a part of something. Clarence Clemons passed away a couple of days ago. Bruce Springsteen said, “with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.” And he’s right. Because in that little splice of music I described, and in a hundred others, Clarence Clemons still exists, as mighty and as marvelous as ever. And that is as close to immortality as we can ever hope to come. I will miss you, Big Man. But you’ll always be just a needle and a record away.
On to the news of the week. We did a Girls Empowerment Conference! It was really phenomenal. Ran around like a chicken who’s head had been cut off and then set on fire. This was mostly due to the fact that I did the lion’s share of the guest and site prep for the conference (transportation is easier for me than a lot of people). So when push came to shove, only I knew what was going on for some stretches of the conference. And when guests decided not to show up, it was me burning up the phone lines to find replacements. But it was really an amazing experience. Highlights include:
Me needing two hours and five different nurses at the district hospital before somebody will give me a wooden penis.
Said wooden penis being for the purposes of demonstrating circumcisions, and therefore having a little wooly hood, which the nurse demonstrated to great effect.
Me being used as a self-defense dummy. Turns out everybody, everywhere, finds a man being kicked in the groin hilarious.
Getting up and running with five of the girls for the first two mornings. It was freezing, and they had never done distance running, and they were awesome.
Jumping rope with teachers, students, Peace Corps Volunteers, everybody mixing in and out of the double dutch. Just an amazing scene.
A student asking a Tanzanian policewoman why so many cops take bribes. Trust me when I tell you, this took at ton of confidence for a Tanzanian female student to ask this question. I was blown away.
Another student asking a Tanzanian headmistress why so many male teachers impregnate their students, and what is to be done about it? See my previous note. Was real, real proud.
Me doing a Matt Nied-inspired booty dance for about 20 seconds as part of our talent show skit.
Watching the girls do their disco on the last night. Awful speaker, horrible lighting…and plain, unadulterated joy.
There are more stories, but lots of them are more disastrous. Best saved for face-to-face conversations…which just might be around the bend.
Also did a beekeeping seminar and a tree-grafting training. The beekeeping seminar was bombin’; the experts came in and gave a 3-hour seminar, then built a beehive right in front of my villagers (some of whom were blind…but they have great vision). The tree-grafting was all me, but the group got a bunch of people together, and once they got the hang of it, I couldn’t stop them, they wanted to do it for hours. It is amazing how excited people get here once they acquire a new skill. You can see them almost swell up a little bit. My tree nursery is also coming along swimmingly: we have about 8,000 pine seedlings (they grow a lot of timber by me), and we will be selling in December. My AIDS group has gotten together enough money for pig sheds, and once they build them I will be helping them to buy some superb swine. The milk cows is the last main thing, but I have several ideas for that, and I’m also doing it in conjunction with the great Kenzo, who is my nearest Peace Corps neighbor. She will lead us to the promised land, the great Kenzo. So that was the state of my village when I bid it kwa heri (goodbye).
Said goodbye to the village while my potatoes were boiling, went up to this amazing ridgeline which overlooks a 40 foot drop or so, and from it you can see for, as the Who said, miles and miles. The full moon was just coming up, and it felt like I was standing on the edge of the world. Which reminds me of something Yoda wrote me (Mom) not so long ago, that the feeling of being on the edge, of living a life of excitement and unpredictability, and even danger (rarely danger here), is addicting for a lot of people. I know it is for me. In some ways, I can’t wait to get back to my village. But I think it can take care of itself for a few weeks. I have more pressing matters to attend to…which brings us to:
I said goodbye to most of you on June 12, 2010. I said goodbye to my sister on June 13, my parents and my lady on June 14, and America herself on June 15. I never, in all my life, thought I would do a lap around the sun without seeing all the people I love. But here we are, one lap down, one to go. But first, a brief halftime. I’ve never been this excited for anything, ever. I’m jumping out of my skin. But I wanted to clear up a couple things before I saw all of you, so there would be no awkwardness:
1. I will not start weeping the first time I see a light bulb. We are definitely a little behind here, but no need to worry about me fleeing technology like a hermit. I am, after all, keeping a blog.
2. That being said…there might be a few moments during this trip when it is all a bit too much for me. I don’t get to see any of you, and suddenly I’m going to see all of you. I haven’t had root beer or a fridge in a year…now there is a fridge, and it’s filled with root beer! These are all wonderful things, but I certainly might get a little overwhelmed at times. If I do, no worries. I will simply wander outside, breathe some air, mutter in Kiswahili, relax, and rejoin the moment. So if that happens, do not fret, do not fear, I shall return.
3. The last night I was in my village, it was 35 degrees. Fahrenheit. It’s freezing. So no jokes about how hot Africa is. I’m coming home to get warm.
4. The final thing. Please don’t ask me a stock question, unless you want a stock response. I’ve been keeping this blog for a year, in an attempt to convey some part of what I’m experiencing, but so much of it I don’t even go into. This is has been and still is an unbelievable, life-changing experience. So if you ask me, “how’s Africa?”, I’m not gonna have much to say to that. It’s just kind of a hard thing to put into general terms. Whatever you want to know, I’m more than happy to talk for days about. But this has been a really important thing to me, and I’m not sure of my ability to condense it into an easy answer. I hope that makes sense.
So there it is. The last post. The buzzer-beater before the half. As Led Zeppelin wrote:
Its been a long time since I rock-and-rolled
Its been a long time since I did the stroll
Let me get back
Let me get back
Let me get back
Baby where I come from
Slaughter a pig, roll out a keg, prep the good china and the plastic plates. Time to rock and roll, time to strut the stroll. It’s been far, far, far too long. I cannot wait to hug all of you, I cannot wait to hear your stories and see your faces. I’ve been missing my old life for a long time now, and it’s hie time for me to hie my ass back where I belong. Break out the good whiskey and the pointy hats, tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.
Sweet bird of freedom, take me home
