So...breasts. There are many of them in the world, they’re all around me, and they’re often out. Not like people go running around naked or anything like that. But nursing children has gotta be done, there ain’t no formula....and the women here are, as a rule, rather charitably endowed. Which means that during conversations, or even meetings, one of the most important skills for a Peace Corps Volunteer to cultivate is the ability to maintain eye contact...no matter what. It’s gotten to the point that Cirque du Soleil could be performing naked behind whoever I’m talking with. I might not be listening, but I’m looking you in the eye.
Legs, on the other hand, are a horse of a different color. Tanzanian women do not show their legs. Not their knees, not their upper calves. Doesn’t happen. And you just kind of get used to that. Then all of a sudden your boy is back in the United States, where the Bill of Rights specifically allows for the showing of as much upper thigh as possible. Not only is he back in the United States of Amazing, but he’s at a water park. Where people where bathing suits. And suddenly the eye contact skills come in handy once again. Not that I was ogling around ogling like a degenerate (maybe a little), but more that I had to fight the urge to tell half of the people I passed by that, for the sake of communal decency, they needed to cover up. Now. There were no Victorian bathing costumes handy, or I would have been slinging those babies like it was 1799.
Have been noticing a weird dichotomy in Tanzania. My work takes me into town fairly often. When I say town, I generally mean Mafinga or Iringa. Mafinga has maybe 50,000 people, Iringa maybe double that. Both have electricity, running water, TVs in most houses, a couple halfway decent restaurants, and a ton of bars. These people don’t grow corn. They buy it. Now most of the people who live in town either came from rural villages, or have family who still live there, or both. They travel vijijini (to the villages) pretty often, they know how to swing a jembe (hoe), and they respect the rural life, even though they don’t really want to live porini (in the wild). But not all. The weirdest thing has happened to me a few times. I’ve had Tanzanians, people who were born, bred, and have lived their entire lives in cities or bigger towns, absolutely bust a gut laughing when I tell them I live in a village. What do you use for electricity, they ask? I don’t have any, I say. How do you get your water, they ask? I carry it. Then they start laughing. They make jokes. How will you call us? Do you have cell service? Or do you have to climb a tree?
No. No trees involved. Thanks.
It IS funny. I get it. I come from a fairly developed nation, and the notion of me sitting outside, hand-scrubbing me civvies, still makes me laugh, even though I do it every Thursday. But this isn’t my country. It’s theirs. And the rural life is a foreign concept to them. So is the poverty. There’s this huge and growing disconnect between rural and urban Tanzania. 50% of rural households are designated as living in poverty, compared to 38% urban. 85% of the country’s poor live in rural areas. Health care is also far worse in the villages. So is education. So, oddly enough, are taxes. Rural Tanzanians pay a ton more taxes (for schools, water systems, road services, construction of village buildings, etc.), mostly because they are much easier to find then their cosmopolitan brethren. Tanzania had 8 million people 50 years ago. Now there are more than 40 million people, and a greater and greater number are moving into town every year (urban growth rate is 5%, rural is 2%). There was even a Tanzanian television show called Maisha Plus (Life...Plus) where they sent 10 urbanites off to live in the villages for a few weeks or months, and it was hilarious, because none of them had any idea what the hell to do (Paris, Nicole, anyone?). Development is good in a lot of ways. A good education, water, light, roads, none of these are bad things. But when I, who have lived here for 14 months, have seen and experienced a side of Tanzania that some Tanzanians are unwilling to acknowledge...I see a problem. When villagers who earn well under $2 a day are being governed exclusively by people with Landcruisers and refrigerators...I see a disconnect.
If you ever want an interesting look at a part of the world not all that far from me, read What is the What, by David Eggers. It’s written pamoja (together) with a Sudanese man, Valentino Achak Deng, who had to flee his country in the 80’s because of the widespread slaughter of Southern Sudanese by the North (this is, of course, ongoing, but we’ll set that aside for the moment). He paints a beautiful picture of rural Sudan, and he talks about an argument that gets right to the heart of the problem that a lot of development workers have. One rich man in his village buys a shiny, shiny, shiny, new bicycle. Nobody has ever seen anything this beautiful. Men are ready to divorce their wives and marry it (kidding). But then a debate breaks out in the community. The bicycle is covered in plastic wrap for transport. Many men in the village don’t want the owner to remove the plastic wrapping. Because then...the bicycle will get dirty. Whereas if we don’t remove the plastic...the plastic gets dirty.
This isn’t me being funny. There are plenty of bicycles I’ve seen in Tanzania with the plastic wrapping still on, where it’s been for years. It’s tied up somehow in this belief that if the thing itself is never tarnished, it’s still perfect. Even if it looks horrible. And I get it. I got a new pair of running shoes for Christmas, and I took a picture of them, before I ran them into the ground. And my villagers don’t have cameras. But where we get into trouble is when this desire to preserve the perfection of things overrides the desire to use them. Another story (this is third hand, so the details might be a bit sketch): an aid organization, in another country, gives a village school a set of colored pencils and a coloring book for each student. The organization comes back a couple years later, and one of the reps who was there for the last giveaway asks if the kids liked using the coloring sets. The head teacher of the school smiles, nods, and leads the aid worker to the storage room, where we find, of course, all the coloring sets sitting, unused, in their original wrappers. We are saving them for a special day, he says. For kesho (tomorrow), maybe? But kesho never comes.
Would like to close this post with a little bit about a particular Tanzanian phrase that always strikes me deeply. Two or three times, when I have heard a friend talk about the death of someone close to them, they have said, “Mungu alimpenda mno”, or “nilimpenda sana, lakini Mungu alimpenda zaidi”. “God loved him/her too much” or “I loved him very much, but God loved him more”. One of my very best friends said that to me a few days ago, before going to the funeral of one of her old friends. There is something beautiful, I think, about death being treated like that, like a going home. We only have so many years, so many days, so many hours. And then they’re gone. I’m not sure what I believe. I didn’t come here to learn about faith, and yet faith is what more and more of my writings are about. Likewise, I didn’t come here to find my purpose, and yet the question following me every day is: what will I do with my given days? This time, this job, this side of life, have meant more to me than I can ever express in these many meager words. But it’s halfway over. Every new day is another step down the hill, not up it. But down the hill towards what?
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Leaving Home and Coming Home
I stepped off the bus into a dry heat. I shook a few hands, picked up my bags, and made my way up the street. My front door was locked, and the lock was rusted. Used the back door. Put my bags down, stretched, and walked up to the canyon, where I had last looked over this little slice of the world. It had been 25 days since I’d been in my village. In that time I had seen 2 of my best friends married to 2 beautiful people, been welcomed home into a house I’d never seen before, been greeted at the airport by a reception committee that I hadn’t seen for a year (except on my bedroom door), rafted down a river, lost sunglasses, kayaked down a river, got bit by a spider, healed, addressed a Rotary Club, helped stage the entertainment for Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary celebration in Tanzania, delivered a well-received speech at said celebration, knocked beer bottles off ski poles with a frisbee, watched fireworks over water, drank beer, jumped fences, gave toasts, got bought shots, won at trivia, went on roller coasters, saw the Phillies ring the bell, saw old friends, hugged my mother, lost to my father at pool, drove my sister crazy, and fell in love all over again. There were hellos and goodbyes and so longs, there was crying and laughing and, by god, there was dancing. And now...now it’s over. Until next time. Until next time.
Coming back to the village was like remembering an old song. The smells, the faces, the air. My house is still here. My friends thought I’d left them, but were happy to be proven wrong. My cat had forsaken me, but I lured him back with fish, affection, and promises I don’t intend to keep. And my work...my work. Got back on a Thursday, and after about half an hour to digest the fact that this life was not imagined (no more than my American one, anyway), I realized that it was, in theory, a work day for my tree nursery. So I thought I’d go have me a look, see how the pine seedlings are doing. I was prepared (and mildly expecting) for some regression, for some dead seedlings. Yet nothing, nothing at all, could have prepared me for how damn proud I was when I arrived, and found...people. Working. Working hard. Thrilled to see me, but as a friend, not as a savior. Green, happy, tiny pine trees. It....works. This wasn’t just some cockamamie scheme, because now they believe in the work we’re doing. And in that belief lies all the difference. I would be remiss if I did not give all the credit to one Charles Kiswaga (I call him K-Swagga), who is the unrelenting taskmaster that actually made this happen, that made a cranky, travel-sore volunteer feel like a proud papa on the hour of his homecoming. Here’s to you, K-Swagga.
I have to move again. Not far, at least. Not this time. My village, unbeknownst to me (yet knownst to them), only had a one-year lease on my house (I use the term lease loosely), and it is up. So they have built a new house at the primary school which will house myself, future volunteers, and eventually, a primary school teacher or two. Yet not eleven months after I boldly claimed that this house would be the longest standing home that I would have had since high school...out I go, once more, into limbo. I have not stayed anywhere for more than 10 months in the last 8 years. It’s not a bad thing, not really. An old mentor once told me that your first five apartments should be better stories than apartments...check. But all this moving has caused a phenomenon that I’ve noticed in myself and many of my friends. I go home both ways. When I was headed to America, I was going home. When I was headed back to the village, I was headed back home. I've got one year left in a spectacular job...but then it's time to find one home. Just one.
To finish: I was graced with an opportunity to give 4 speeches in 3 weeks. The first of these was the speech I gave at the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps’ work in Tanzania. I shared the dais that night with the Director of Peace Corps, the Ambassador of the United States to Tanzania, the Under-Secretary of the Tanzanian Ministry of Education, and my boss, the Director of Peace Corps Tanzania. It was one of the greatest honors of my life. At least a dozen people helped me to write the speech you are about to read, and without even one of them, its reception would have been impossible. Thank you Andrea, Brian, Stephen, Natalie, Anne, Katie, Paul, and all the rest. It very recently occurred to me that what I’m going through right now is not an introduction to my life...it is my life. And though I may live quite a long time, I will never forget coming down from the podium that night...and seeing people standing. And applauding. For one amazing night, in the middle of Tanzania, I was a mile off the ground. And then I got on the plane. For a whole other adventure.
Anywho. Here's the speech. I hope you like it.
Dr. Florence Turuku, Ambassador Lenhardt, Director Williams, Country Director Wojnar-Diagne. Distinguished guests, fellow volunteers, ndugu wenzangu. Take a moment to look around. We are not natural neighbors. We come from different generations, from different states and different countries, from different religions and backgrounds. But today we are united in a community of hope, brought together by an unshaken devotion to our common humanity. So it is today, and so it was at the beginning of our journey.
50 years ago a group of driven individuals arrived in what was then Tanganyika. It wasn’t a country yet, it wouldn’t be for four more months, and when they arrived, they were greeted by a sign which read “Beware the lions” And there it started. But who were these people, these reckless ambassadors? Reading the first curious accounts, the first letters home from a new frontier, one gets a sense of their characters. Who were they? They were George Schreiber, who talked about embodying “ a pioneer type of spirit”. They were George Johnson, who said “Peace Corps exists as an embodiment of a conviction that the best way to achieve global understanding is to put Americans in contact with other nations.” There were 35 of them, engineers, surveyors, and geologists. They came from Princeton, Harvard, Michigan. And they were drawn together by a man who stood on the steps of Ann Arbor and told the assembled students that based on “your willingness to not merely serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete.” 5 months later, the Peace Corps was signed into law, with Kennedy again telling us that “We will send those abroad who are committed to the concept which motivates the Peace Corps. It will not be easy:”
Across the nation, people were moved. They volunteered, they went to boot camp (Drill sergeant and all), and they became the first soldiers in an army of peace. 50 years later, that army has fought poverty, hunger, disease, and subjugation in 139 countries, side by side with peoples of every language, tribe, and religion. Kennedy’s words have outlived him. The army fights on. And though it sometimes feels as though we are pushing at the ocean, progress has been made.
Yet for all the measurable progress, so much of what Peace Corps does is unquantifiable. There is no box that shows how amazed the children were when the seedlings began to grow, no graph to measure the change in a woman living with HIV when she realized she had become a leader. And more: how many Tanzanians knew, until the moment they were proven wrong, that Americans could never swing a jembe? How many Tanzanians did not believe that we could dance? And how many of us volunteers never guessed at the number of different ways life could be lived, and lived beautifully, until we came here? We might have read about the poverty, but how little did we know about the generosity? These things may be unquantifiable, but they are no less real. Mwalimu Nyerere said "To measure a country's wealth by its gross national product is to measure things, not satisfactions." Many other organizations build more things. Yet I doubt there is another organization that builds more satisfactions.
But where do we go from here? The goal of our work is to make the continuation of our work unnecessary. We are not there yet, in fact we are nowhere near the limits of our potential. Success is based on expectations, but it is also limited by them, and we are limiting ourselves, and our communities. We are still prisoners of what Michael Gerson called “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. We must never tire of pushing ever upward. We have come so very far, Tanzanian and American alike, still we have so very far yet to go. This is a party to celebrate 50 years of friendship and accomplishment, but it can be more. Let us stand together tonight and take this anniversary as an opportunity to recommit to the spirit of the Peace Corps, to remember the sense of duty that brought us all here, to do better, to go farther, to try harder. We can expect far more from one another, but we can also offer far more of ourselves. American poet Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Today is a golden opportunity on this golden anniversary to not set limits on our potential, but rather expand our expectations.
I don’t know much. I left America a year and a week ago, and I’m just beginning to realize what I don’t understand. But I love this job. There is nothing like it. I said goodbye to everything and everyone I held dear, climbed onto a plane with a large group of strangers, got pushed out at 30,000 feet, landed, and began to plant trees, dig wells, and teach beekeeping. One day, maybe, I will get good at my job, at which point it will be time to leave. And after all of that, after the level of insanity I’ve put myself and my loved ones through, the thought that will keep me up at night: is how do I get back to Tanzania?
Because somewhere along the way, something changes. We came here as ambassadors from America, to show Tanzanians what America is really all about. But now…now we have become ambassadors to America, from Tanzania. For the rest of our days we will do all we can to represent Tanzania: its beauty and its need, its poverty and its riches, its depth of generosity and humanity. The Kiswahili word for together is “pamoja”. It literally means “in one place”. And if that’s the case, none of us will ever be together again. A part of us never left America, the land of the free, the home of the brave. But a part of us will never leave Tanzania, “nakupenda na moyo yote”. Part of us will always be Tanzanian, rising with the sun, gripping the hands of strangers-turned-family, forever exchanging with unguarded smiles the news of the morning.
Peace Corps is not for everybody. As Kennedy said, “it will not be easy.” It is painful, and it is lonely. Yet none of us here today have to be here. We could be living closer to our loved ones. We could be making more money. We could be cooler, or more comfortable, and God knows we could be cleaner. But each of us decided that there were more important things to us than comfort, that while a ship in the harbor may be safe, that is not what ships are built for. Everyone here today, Tanzanian and American, has dedicated a portion of their lives to the belief that with devotion, and kindness, and an insistence on a brighter future, change is possible. Everyone here today is part of something greater than themselves. We are all soldiers in an army of peace. An army that marches on, as our President Barack Obama said, “with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us.”
Coming back to the village was like remembering an old song. The smells, the faces, the air. My house is still here. My friends thought I’d left them, but were happy to be proven wrong. My cat had forsaken me, but I lured him back with fish, affection, and promises I don’t intend to keep. And my work...my work. Got back on a Thursday, and after about half an hour to digest the fact that this life was not imagined (no more than my American one, anyway), I realized that it was, in theory, a work day for my tree nursery. So I thought I’d go have me a look, see how the pine seedlings are doing. I was prepared (and mildly expecting) for some regression, for some dead seedlings. Yet nothing, nothing at all, could have prepared me for how damn proud I was when I arrived, and found...people. Working. Working hard. Thrilled to see me, but as a friend, not as a savior. Green, happy, tiny pine trees. It....works. This wasn’t just some cockamamie scheme, because now they believe in the work we’re doing. And in that belief lies all the difference. I would be remiss if I did not give all the credit to one Charles Kiswaga (I call him K-Swagga), who is the unrelenting taskmaster that actually made this happen, that made a cranky, travel-sore volunteer feel like a proud papa on the hour of his homecoming. Here’s to you, K-Swagga.
I have to move again. Not far, at least. Not this time. My village, unbeknownst to me (yet knownst to them), only had a one-year lease on my house (I use the term lease loosely), and it is up. So they have built a new house at the primary school which will house myself, future volunteers, and eventually, a primary school teacher or two. Yet not eleven months after I boldly claimed that this house would be the longest standing home that I would have had since high school...out I go, once more, into limbo. I have not stayed anywhere for more than 10 months in the last 8 years. It’s not a bad thing, not really. An old mentor once told me that your first five apartments should be better stories than apartments...check. But all this moving has caused a phenomenon that I’ve noticed in myself and many of my friends. I go home both ways. When I was headed to America, I was going home. When I was headed back to the village, I was headed back home. I've got one year left in a spectacular job...but then it's time to find one home. Just one.
To finish: I was graced with an opportunity to give 4 speeches in 3 weeks. The first of these was the speech I gave at the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps’ work in Tanzania. I shared the dais that night with the Director of Peace Corps, the Ambassador of the United States to Tanzania, the Under-Secretary of the Tanzanian Ministry of Education, and my boss, the Director of Peace Corps Tanzania. It was one of the greatest honors of my life. At least a dozen people helped me to write the speech you are about to read, and without even one of them, its reception would have been impossible. Thank you Andrea, Brian, Stephen, Natalie, Anne, Katie, Paul, and all the rest. It very recently occurred to me that what I’m going through right now is not an introduction to my life...it is my life. And though I may live quite a long time, I will never forget coming down from the podium that night...and seeing people standing. And applauding. For one amazing night, in the middle of Tanzania, I was a mile off the ground. And then I got on the plane. For a whole other adventure.
Anywho. Here's the speech. I hope you like it.
Dr. Florence Turuku, Ambassador Lenhardt, Director Williams, Country Director Wojnar-Diagne. Distinguished guests, fellow volunteers, ndugu wenzangu. Take a moment to look around. We are not natural neighbors. We come from different generations, from different states and different countries, from different religions and backgrounds. But today we are united in a community of hope, brought together by an unshaken devotion to our common humanity. So it is today, and so it was at the beginning of our journey.
50 years ago a group of driven individuals arrived in what was then Tanganyika. It wasn’t a country yet, it wouldn’t be for four more months, and when they arrived, they were greeted by a sign which read “Beware the lions” And there it started. But who were these people, these reckless ambassadors? Reading the first curious accounts, the first letters home from a new frontier, one gets a sense of their characters. Who were they? They were George Schreiber, who talked about embodying “ a pioneer type of spirit”. They were George Johnson, who said “Peace Corps exists as an embodiment of a conviction that the best way to achieve global understanding is to put Americans in contact with other nations.” There were 35 of them, engineers, surveyors, and geologists. They came from Princeton, Harvard, Michigan. And they were drawn together by a man who stood on the steps of Ann Arbor and told the assembled students that based on “your willingness to not merely serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete.” 5 months later, the Peace Corps was signed into law, with Kennedy again telling us that “We will send those abroad who are committed to the concept which motivates the Peace Corps. It will not be easy:”
Across the nation, people were moved. They volunteered, they went to boot camp (Drill sergeant and all), and they became the first soldiers in an army of peace. 50 years later, that army has fought poverty, hunger, disease, and subjugation in 139 countries, side by side with peoples of every language, tribe, and religion. Kennedy’s words have outlived him. The army fights on. And though it sometimes feels as though we are pushing at the ocean, progress has been made.
Yet for all the measurable progress, so much of what Peace Corps does is unquantifiable. There is no box that shows how amazed the children were when the seedlings began to grow, no graph to measure the change in a woman living with HIV when she realized she had become a leader. And more: how many Tanzanians knew, until the moment they were proven wrong, that Americans could never swing a jembe? How many Tanzanians did not believe that we could dance? And how many of us volunteers never guessed at the number of different ways life could be lived, and lived beautifully, until we came here? We might have read about the poverty, but how little did we know about the generosity? These things may be unquantifiable, but they are no less real. Mwalimu Nyerere said "To measure a country's wealth by its gross national product is to measure things, not satisfactions." Many other organizations build more things. Yet I doubt there is another organization that builds more satisfactions.
But where do we go from here? The goal of our work is to make the continuation of our work unnecessary. We are not there yet, in fact we are nowhere near the limits of our potential. Success is based on expectations, but it is also limited by them, and we are limiting ourselves, and our communities. We are still prisoners of what Michael Gerson called “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. We must never tire of pushing ever upward. We have come so very far, Tanzanian and American alike, still we have so very far yet to go. This is a party to celebrate 50 years of friendship and accomplishment, but it can be more. Let us stand together tonight and take this anniversary as an opportunity to recommit to the spirit of the Peace Corps, to remember the sense of duty that brought us all here, to do better, to go farther, to try harder. We can expect far more from one another, but we can also offer far more of ourselves. American poet Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Today is a golden opportunity on this golden anniversary to not set limits on our potential, but rather expand our expectations.
I don’t know much. I left America a year and a week ago, and I’m just beginning to realize what I don’t understand. But I love this job. There is nothing like it. I said goodbye to everything and everyone I held dear, climbed onto a plane with a large group of strangers, got pushed out at 30,000 feet, landed, and began to plant trees, dig wells, and teach beekeeping. One day, maybe, I will get good at my job, at which point it will be time to leave. And after all of that, after the level of insanity I’ve put myself and my loved ones through, the thought that will keep me up at night: is how do I get back to Tanzania?
Because somewhere along the way, something changes. We came here as ambassadors from America, to show Tanzanians what America is really all about. But now…now we have become ambassadors to America, from Tanzania. For the rest of our days we will do all we can to represent Tanzania: its beauty and its need, its poverty and its riches, its depth of generosity and humanity. The Kiswahili word for together is “pamoja”. It literally means “in one place”. And if that’s the case, none of us will ever be together again. A part of us never left America, the land of the free, the home of the brave. But a part of us will never leave Tanzania, “nakupenda na moyo yote”. Part of us will always be Tanzanian, rising with the sun, gripping the hands of strangers-turned-family, forever exchanging with unguarded smiles the news of the morning.
Peace Corps is not for everybody. As Kennedy said, “it will not be easy.” It is painful, and it is lonely. Yet none of us here today have to be here. We could be living closer to our loved ones. We could be making more money. We could be cooler, or more comfortable, and God knows we could be cleaner. But each of us decided that there were more important things to us than comfort, that while a ship in the harbor may be safe, that is not what ships are built for. Everyone here today, Tanzanian and American, has dedicated a portion of their lives to the belief that with devotion, and kindness, and an insistence on a brighter future, change is possible. Everyone here today is part of something greater than themselves. We are all soldiers in an army of peace. An army that marches on, as our President Barack Obama said, “with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us.”
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Halftime
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
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
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Badass
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.
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.
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.”
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Day of the Baboon's Death...
And if you want to know what the devil the title of the blog means...you will wait till the end.
Got robbed. The buggers took my solar lantern, my solar charger, my hiking boots, and a cell phone I brought from home. But I believe they were expecting my house to be wallpapered with leftover money...and when they didn’t find that, they took whatever looked shiny. Like my hammer. And my blanket. My sugar. Pasta. My extremely used shower flip-flops. Maybe not the brightest blokes, is what I’m saying.
They did, however, give me a unique opportunity: I got to see the inside of a Tanzanian police station. Was kind of like visiting a station in the Bronx in the late 70’s. Lots of guns. Old guns, new guns...and I’m not joking, a tommy gun. Motorcycles parked in the hallway, which is lit by (and I’m not joking) a single flickering bulb. I get to the end of the hallway, where the detective I need is working. But he’s a little busy...with a suspect...who they’re working over. So they beat him around a while, then I guess his questioning arm gets tired, and he comes out to talk with me. My man is a little overweight. His name is Alfred. Let’s call him Al. Al is a little overweight (they do have doughnuts here), got a nice little belly on here. Al is wearing a pair of rather tight dress pants, and the kicker is a real real tight blue polyester shirt doing its best on the belly. All my man needs is rockin pair of sideburns, and the 70’s are back. One of his assistants has a Hawaiian shirt to make Selleck proud. Another player has a tie with a knot as wide as a baby. But what made my morning is a photo album I noticed on one guy’s desk. He shows it to me, tells me it is the book of Most Wanted Subjects. Unsavory characters, I have no doubt. Cold-blooded fiends. But a little hard to take seriously when their pictures are inside a green plastic photo album...with a big cut-out heart on the front. For newlyweds. Or hardened criminals. What have you.
Couple of stories from my good friend Kenz, who lives a village over. We meet up once a week to teach Life Skills at the nearby secondary school. These little meetings are pretty wonderful for our mental health, though I’m sure all the villagers think we are insane with how much we make each other laugh. One of our favorite things: every week we ask the students in our class to write down a question. We choose five good ones and answer them the next week, after we have prepared detailed answers. But some of the questions are...well...awesome. And some of them are in English. Sometimes not very good English. Which is how Kenz and I ended up almost falling out of our chairs, laughing so hard we cried, wondering how you answer the following question:
“What is monkey?”
I feel like that is a Jeopardy answer. Maybe that student should get a prize. But unfortunately life is not all chai and biscuits for me and Kenz. She has a problem. Maybe a problem that stretches to the next level of existence. One that could threaten several lives, and the health of her own eternal soul. Her dog, you see, he ate the wizard’s chicken. And you don’t do that. Big faux pas. Huge.
Now of course the poor mutt didn’t know any better. He got out, as he is known to do (he’s better fed than a lot of children I know here, and the pooch could pull a plow). Ran around for a while, came back, tongue wagging, as happy as the cat that ate the canary. Which is all too apt, because at it turns out he’d had himself a snack of a lovely old gentleman, who, by the by, is also a wizard of some renown. I write about uchawi (witchcraft) mostly in jest, but our villagers take it entirely seriously, and I certainly don’t claim to have the world figured out, so who am I to say they are wrong? Kenz has apologized profusely, and we are currently trying to find some gainful employment for the dog so he can burn off his excess energy (he also ate one of the principal’s chickens. No curse there, so I’m told). But man, when your dog goes out running in America, you worry about cars, not hexes.
Another problem, little less out there. The leader of Kenz’s village is not a bad guy. Maybe a little. There was a plan when she arrived about building a zahanati (dispensary, capable of giving some health care, giving out some meds, and referring patients). Great idea, and the villagers had already made a lot of bricks (in the tens of thousands). Except the bricks are gone. Where? Don’t know, and wouldn’t want to speculate, but the villager leader did just buy himself a car. Then announced at a village meeting, without telling anybody first, that the whole dispensary idea is sooooo last year. Who needs health care? Peace Corps is going to get us a tractor!
I’m not joking. He announced this at a village meeting, without prepping Kenz even a little. So Kenz got to follow that act by standing up and explaining why she was not going to be buying a tractor, how they should use their government funding for something more sustainable, like a tree nursery or any number of useful projects. She did a damn good job too; when she finished, they applauded. Even the leader. The thing about the tractor is this: I used to be a socialist, before I got here. Just finished reading an amazing book, “The People’s History of the United States”, and am more convinced then ever that government needs to exist to help those who need help. But you work in villages, on communal projects...and they do not work. Where will the tractor stay? Who will drive it? What do they get paid? Who will plan the schedule? Who will fix it? What do they get paid? Where will the parts come from? The tools? The training? The gas (remember, this is a village without electricity, 20K from the nearest gas station, and 4 really bumpy kilometers off the highway)? And if there is even the slightest ambiguity in any of these answers, in two years the tractor becomes a very large lawn ornament for some lucky villagers. But here’s the great part: the village leader knows this! He told Kenz: “sure after three years it’s just going to sit there. But for those three years it will help us a lot!” I really want him to write a book. We can call it Leadership, by that guy. I don’t want to be pessimistic. And I’m not. But you can’t make plans pretending that humans are going to care as much about someone else’s farm as their own. Would be nice, but so would a singing gnome. Alas, alack.
Had a very odd meeting a few days ago. Was in a small office with a bunch of the sub-village leaders, discussing wells. Nothing too exciting. Then it starts to rain, heavily, on a tin roof, which as I’ve already described gets pretty loud. But the office has no windows. It is small. The wind is blowing in the door, as is the rain. So one of the guys closes the door. Now it’s pitch dark, and it is loud, and the meeting has come to a halt. As has the passage of time. For about a half hour, or maybe a few days, we sit there in silence, and we could be anywhere. Don’t want to get too weird here, but it was weird. It was like being asleep while being awake. Then the rain stops, and though we are awake, we awake, and the meeting continues. And nobody talks about it, so neither do I, and now I’m not really sure it happened, and if it did, what it meant.
About 30 hours ago I was told a saying in Kiswahili. At the time my counterpart and I were having kind of a rough day, and nothing was going our way. So my counterpart said something really deep, maybe. He said,
“siku ya kufa kwa nyanyi, miti yote huteleza”
“on the day of the baboon’s death, all the trees will fall.”
My first question was whether we were the baboon or the trees, at which point he doubled over in laughter. I then told him that some days we are the pigeon and some days the statue, and after I explained that he quadrupled over in laughter. But for the last 30 hours I have pondered his saying about the baboon deeply. And it can mean anything, everything, and nothing. Is it an important baboon? Does he live in the trees? Do the trees really like the baboon? Does this have something to do with the movie Fern Gully? Trust me when I tell you, this proverb can be said in any situation and made to fit. Just try to sound wise, and stroke your beard, and if you don’t have one...I can only do so much, I’m in Africa.
My primary school had a bunch of student teachers for the last month. A brief tangent: the 9 of them were dropped off and picked up by a large truck, containing 40 other student teachers, along with their belongings and mattresses. The truck came from about 180 kilometers away. I’ve seen mosh pits with more breathing room. Anyway, they were great to have around, and I got on well with them, and they picked up frisbee really fast. We had a farewell party for them, and then a dance party in one of the classrooms, which was really fun. The shida (the problem) came when me and my partner tried to leave. One of the ladies had taken a shine, it appeared. Or as my counterpart put it, “psychologically (he loves that word), it appears she has fallen in love.” At which point I made a Dan-sized hole in the wall.
When I tried to explain it to my partner later, he didn’t get it. He knows I have a girlfriend and that I love her...but those aren’t considered prohibitive factors here, to put it delicately. Then I realized, this is not a cultural thing. I remember in City Slickers, the Bruno Kirby character gives Billy Crystal a scenario: “you’re alone, camping out, and a spaceship lands. Out steps the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, and she wants to make the most amazing love with you, after which she will get back on the spaceship and fly away for ever. No one will ever know. Would you?” Billy Crystal responds: “no, because the exact situation you have described happened to a friend of mine, and his wife did find out. At the hair salon. They know everything there.” All men everywhere, take heed. But seriously, wasn't much of a choice to make. As someone or other said, He is a fool indeed who breaks a thing to find out how it works. I'm not that stupid. I've got something special, and I don't need a spaceship or a barbershop to remind me.
To close (sorry for the length), I return to the classroom. Asked a question of my students one day. I asked them why we do things we know are wrong. A boy raises his hand. Yes, little student?
"Shetani"
"Satan"
...Well yes...I suppose that's true...but...
...Was in church again the other day (my involuntary church-going has become a reluctant theme of this blog). Got to hear a local Swiss missionary talk about how these are the end times, and how some of us will betray each other (et tu, Rocco?), and all of these earthquakes are portents of the end of days. Also know a Catholic missionary who has been here for years, living in a region with a 16% AIDS prevalency, who still does not advocate using condoms. There are plenty of priests here who instruct their congregations to not use ARVs if you are HIV positive, just to pray. Because that's enough.
Well...no, it is not. Faith is a beautiful thing. It humbles and it uplifts. I think it is important to be subject to one another, and subject to something greater than ourselves. But I'm also a huge believer in the importance, and the greatness, of people. People rock. In all our hurried hubris we can accomplish great and terrible things, and though a reckoning may one day come, our failures are our own, and so are our successes. I find myself wrestling many days here with what I believe. The best I can do is this: there is more to this world, and this universe, than meets the eye. There is more that holds us together than pulls us apart. And, to paraphrase Edward M Forster, if I had to choose between my God or my friend, I hope I should have the guts to choose my friend.
Got robbed. The buggers took my solar lantern, my solar charger, my hiking boots, and a cell phone I brought from home. But I believe they were expecting my house to be wallpapered with leftover money...and when they didn’t find that, they took whatever looked shiny. Like my hammer. And my blanket. My sugar. Pasta. My extremely used shower flip-flops. Maybe not the brightest blokes, is what I’m saying.
They did, however, give me a unique opportunity: I got to see the inside of a Tanzanian police station. Was kind of like visiting a station in the Bronx in the late 70’s. Lots of guns. Old guns, new guns...and I’m not joking, a tommy gun. Motorcycles parked in the hallway, which is lit by (and I’m not joking) a single flickering bulb. I get to the end of the hallway, where the detective I need is working. But he’s a little busy...with a suspect...who they’re working over. So they beat him around a while, then I guess his questioning arm gets tired, and he comes out to talk with me. My man is a little overweight. His name is Alfred. Let’s call him Al. Al is a little overweight (they do have doughnuts here), got a nice little belly on here. Al is wearing a pair of rather tight dress pants, and the kicker is a real real tight blue polyester shirt doing its best on the belly. All my man needs is rockin pair of sideburns, and the 70’s are back. One of his assistants has a Hawaiian shirt to make Selleck proud. Another player has a tie with a knot as wide as a baby. But what made my morning is a photo album I noticed on one guy’s desk. He shows it to me, tells me it is the book of Most Wanted Subjects. Unsavory characters, I have no doubt. Cold-blooded fiends. But a little hard to take seriously when their pictures are inside a green plastic photo album...with a big cut-out heart on the front. For newlyweds. Or hardened criminals. What have you.
Couple of stories from my good friend Kenz, who lives a village over. We meet up once a week to teach Life Skills at the nearby secondary school. These little meetings are pretty wonderful for our mental health, though I’m sure all the villagers think we are insane with how much we make each other laugh. One of our favorite things: every week we ask the students in our class to write down a question. We choose five good ones and answer them the next week, after we have prepared detailed answers. But some of the questions are...well...awesome. And some of them are in English. Sometimes not very good English. Which is how Kenz and I ended up almost falling out of our chairs, laughing so hard we cried, wondering how you answer the following question:
“What is monkey?”
I feel like that is a Jeopardy answer. Maybe that student should get a prize. But unfortunately life is not all chai and biscuits for me and Kenz. She has a problem. Maybe a problem that stretches to the next level of existence. One that could threaten several lives, and the health of her own eternal soul. Her dog, you see, he ate the wizard’s chicken. And you don’t do that. Big faux pas. Huge.
Now of course the poor mutt didn’t know any better. He got out, as he is known to do (he’s better fed than a lot of children I know here, and the pooch could pull a plow). Ran around for a while, came back, tongue wagging, as happy as the cat that ate the canary. Which is all too apt, because at it turns out he’d had himself a snack of a lovely old gentleman, who, by the by, is also a wizard of some renown. I write about uchawi (witchcraft) mostly in jest, but our villagers take it entirely seriously, and I certainly don’t claim to have the world figured out, so who am I to say they are wrong? Kenz has apologized profusely, and we are currently trying to find some gainful employment for the dog so he can burn off his excess energy (he also ate one of the principal’s chickens. No curse there, so I’m told). But man, when your dog goes out running in America, you worry about cars, not hexes.
Another problem, little less out there. The leader of Kenz’s village is not a bad guy. Maybe a little. There was a plan when she arrived about building a zahanati (dispensary, capable of giving some health care, giving out some meds, and referring patients). Great idea, and the villagers had already made a lot of bricks (in the tens of thousands). Except the bricks are gone. Where? Don’t know, and wouldn’t want to speculate, but the villager leader did just buy himself a car. Then announced at a village meeting, without telling anybody first, that the whole dispensary idea is sooooo last year. Who needs health care? Peace Corps is going to get us a tractor!
I’m not joking. He announced this at a village meeting, without prepping Kenz even a little. So Kenz got to follow that act by standing up and explaining why she was not going to be buying a tractor, how they should use their government funding for something more sustainable, like a tree nursery or any number of useful projects. She did a damn good job too; when she finished, they applauded. Even the leader. The thing about the tractor is this: I used to be a socialist, before I got here. Just finished reading an amazing book, “The People’s History of the United States”, and am more convinced then ever that government needs to exist to help those who need help. But you work in villages, on communal projects...and they do not work. Where will the tractor stay? Who will drive it? What do they get paid? Who will plan the schedule? Who will fix it? What do they get paid? Where will the parts come from? The tools? The training? The gas (remember, this is a village without electricity, 20K from the nearest gas station, and 4 really bumpy kilometers off the highway)? And if there is even the slightest ambiguity in any of these answers, in two years the tractor becomes a very large lawn ornament for some lucky villagers. But here’s the great part: the village leader knows this! He told Kenz: “sure after three years it’s just going to sit there. But for those three years it will help us a lot!” I really want him to write a book. We can call it Leadership, by that guy. I don’t want to be pessimistic. And I’m not. But you can’t make plans pretending that humans are going to care as much about someone else’s farm as their own. Would be nice, but so would a singing gnome. Alas, alack.
Had a very odd meeting a few days ago. Was in a small office with a bunch of the sub-village leaders, discussing wells. Nothing too exciting. Then it starts to rain, heavily, on a tin roof, which as I’ve already described gets pretty loud. But the office has no windows. It is small. The wind is blowing in the door, as is the rain. So one of the guys closes the door. Now it’s pitch dark, and it is loud, and the meeting has come to a halt. As has the passage of time. For about a half hour, or maybe a few days, we sit there in silence, and we could be anywhere. Don’t want to get too weird here, but it was weird. It was like being asleep while being awake. Then the rain stops, and though we are awake, we awake, and the meeting continues. And nobody talks about it, so neither do I, and now I’m not really sure it happened, and if it did, what it meant.
About 30 hours ago I was told a saying in Kiswahili. At the time my counterpart and I were having kind of a rough day, and nothing was going our way. So my counterpart said something really deep, maybe. He said,
“siku ya kufa kwa nyanyi, miti yote huteleza”
“on the day of the baboon’s death, all the trees will fall.”
My first question was whether we were the baboon or the trees, at which point he doubled over in laughter. I then told him that some days we are the pigeon and some days the statue, and after I explained that he quadrupled over in laughter. But for the last 30 hours I have pondered his saying about the baboon deeply. And it can mean anything, everything, and nothing. Is it an important baboon? Does he live in the trees? Do the trees really like the baboon? Does this have something to do with the movie Fern Gully? Trust me when I tell you, this proverb can be said in any situation and made to fit. Just try to sound wise, and stroke your beard, and if you don’t have one...I can only do so much, I’m in Africa.
My primary school had a bunch of student teachers for the last month. A brief tangent: the 9 of them were dropped off and picked up by a large truck, containing 40 other student teachers, along with their belongings and mattresses. The truck came from about 180 kilometers away. I’ve seen mosh pits with more breathing room. Anyway, they were great to have around, and I got on well with them, and they picked up frisbee really fast. We had a farewell party for them, and then a dance party in one of the classrooms, which was really fun. The shida (the problem) came when me and my partner tried to leave. One of the ladies had taken a shine, it appeared. Or as my counterpart put it, “psychologically (he loves that word), it appears she has fallen in love.” At which point I made a Dan-sized hole in the wall.
When I tried to explain it to my partner later, he didn’t get it. He knows I have a girlfriend and that I love her...but those aren’t considered prohibitive factors here, to put it delicately. Then I realized, this is not a cultural thing. I remember in City Slickers, the Bruno Kirby character gives Billy Crystal a scenario: “you’re alone, camping out, and a spaceship lands. Out steps the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, and she wants to make the most amazing love with you, after which she will get back on the spaceship and fly away for ever. No one will ever know. Would you?” Billy Crystal responds: “no, because the exact situation you have described happened to a friend of mine, and his wife did find out. At the hair salon. They know everything there.” All men everywhere, take heed. But seriously, wasn't much of a choice to make. As someone or other said, He is a fool indeed who breaks a thing to find out how it works. I'm not that stupid. I've got something special, and I don't need a spaceship or a barbershop to remind me.
To close (sorry for the length), I return to the classroom. Asked a question of my students one day. I asked them why we do things we know are wrong. A boy raises his hand. Yes, little student?
"Shetani"
"Satan"
...Well yes...I suppose that's true...but...
...Was in church again the other day (my involuntary church-going has become a reluctant theme of this blog). Got to hear a local Swiss missionary talk about how these are the end times, and how some of us will betray each other (et tu, Rocco?), and all of these earthquakes are portents of the end of days. Also know a Catholic missionary who has been here for years, living in a region with a 16% AIDS prevalency, who still does not advocate using condoms. There are plenty of priests here who instruct their congregations to not use ARVs if you are HIV positive, just to pray. Because that's enough.
Well...no, it is not. Faith is a beautiful thing. It humbles and it uplifts. I think it is important to be subject to one another, and subject to something greater than ourselves. But I'm also a huge believer in the importance, and the greatness, of people. People rock. In all our hurried hubris we can accomplish great and terrible things, and though a reckoning may one day come, our failures are our own, and so are our successes. I find myself wrestling many days here with what I believe. The best I can do is this: there is more to this world, and this universe, than meets the eye. There is more that holds us together than pulls us apart. And, to paraphrase Edward M Forster, if I had to choose between my God or my friend, I hope I should have the guts to choose my friend.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Rainy Days and Milkmen
I spent a little time the last few weeks worrying about how I would write this current blog. Not much had happened, I thought. Would make it brief, pithy, and call it a day. Then I was reminded of an ancient Chinese curse.
May you live in interesting times.
I could write about beekeeping and sunsets and humorous little anecdotes where the dinner ends up in the dust. I could write about that shit forever. And if nothing bad ever happened to me or mine, nothing momentous, and the only consequence was me being a poorer writer for it, I think we’d all be prepared to live with that. I know I would.
I’m doing wonderfully. My life is wonderful. I do not have one single, solitary thing to complain about, not if you compare me with just about anybody. The problem with this blog is that it’s by me, and it’s about me, and while I can (and will) dedicate this blog to other people, who are in far greater need of prayers and comfort than I, the very act of writing a blog post requires a great stretch of ego to assume that anybody cares even a little about your life...and it’s all downhill from there. So I’m great, to begin with. And that’s about the least important place to start.
This morning (Wednesday), my friend Natalie and I woke up, and went for a run by the ocean. We paused when we got there, and I did my best monkey impression, crawling up a little rocky island and watching the sun rise on the bay of Dar Es Salaam. We are in the capital for training, and though I got on a bus in my village, it might have well been a time machine. Washing machines, TVs, movie theaters...are these things real? Can this possibly be a single world, let alone country? For that matter, can this possibly be a single lifetime? Apparently the answer is yes.
We returned to the house we are staying at (with a delightful embassy worker named Andrew). We went shopping. At a grocery store. It felt like a game show. I put on some Kanye West, and started cooking, and turned out some of the best french toast this stomach has seen in quite some time. And Natalie, who is quite possibly the most positive person I have ever stumbled across, remarked what a wonderful morning this had turned out to be. Running, and groceries, and music, and jokes, and french freaking toast. This, she said, was just the nicest morning. So I guess what follows would be her fault.
Got a message from a fellow volunteer to switch phone lines (I have two), and call her. She had some problems with a project. Switched lines, got that sorted. Got a message from my counterpart, there is a problem. Can’t reach him. Get a call from my sister. It’s 4:30 in the morning in America, and like milkmen and rainy days, bad news wakes up early. My aunt Marilou has passed away, of cancer, after more pain and bad luck than such a wonderful and loving person, and such a badass aunt, deserved. I don’t know who handles these things well...not me. I simply get very quiet, and don’t really know what to do. I ombaed (requested...or prayed) a hug from Natalie, and got it. Finish the last piece of french toast. At which point my counterpart gets a hold of me and lets me know my house back in the village has been broken into. At which point I begin to laugh. I now have something to write my blog about. I’d rather drink poison.
There’s nothing right to write. Any attempt at eloquence feels like dancing at a....goddamnit... Any attempt to write it less than eloquent feels dumb. It’s like I’m typing with sticks instead of fingers. I feel incredibly stupid, and incredibly useless. Someone I love has passed away, and people I love are grieving and in pain...and I’m on the dark side of the moon. You are all in my thoughts, and in my prayers...but that doesn’t... maybe I shouldn’t be writing. But this is what I do now. This is how I deal with life now. I climb trees, and I write letters to friends, to students, and to all of you. I hope they’re entertaining, but the reality of it is that I’m on my own, and things have a way of bursting if they are overfilled, and I let myself out in this space, in this way. I wish I had more to do. I wish I had anything to do. To help. But I just finished a book in which a character piercingly comments, ‘if men don’t know a guy on Essex street who can fix it, they think there’s no help to be given’. There isn’t a guy. There isn’t even a street. I still wish I was there, rather than here.
I remember one night getting a similar phone call. I finished a show, got out of costume (which involved detaching a meat phallus), and raced back to Pennsylvania, and did absolutely nothing. Me and my friend watched a football game. Nothing was better, nothing was fixed, and maybe the very act of rushing home presumed a lot about my own importance in someone else’s life. But it wasn’t about that. It was about being there, in every sense of the word. I think it’s our right, in these times, to not be alone, to be the opposite of alone. I think people help. And I wish I could. But I can’t. So thoughts and prayers and blogs will have to be feeble substitutes to hugs and help and casseroles.
There are some other things I’d like to talk about, thoughts I’ve been having, but they don’t really feel appropriate. My aunt was a beautiful person, a wonderful wife and mother, and I miss her. As I’ve said, I have little, if any, consolation to offer. Just two small things. Monday morning the kids at my primary school received an unexpected present: a soccer ball and a volleyball (they play a weird combo of basketball and ultimate frisbee with it called netball). The school has fields, and children should play, but they had nothing to play with. Except little did they know that 9 months ago my aunt told me she wanted to help some kids she’d never met play soccer, and gave me the money to make that happen. And it did, because of her. And if that’s not magic, then it doesn’t exist.
One last thing. A couple of my friends have also dealt lately with losing people they loved. I wrote to them, and I write now, that I’m really not sure what I think about death and how all of that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to be loved than not, and to that end I guess we all did our best. I’m not sure there’s any more than that. But that’s a lot, a whole lot. Maybe everything. I love you all, as much as I can. Thank you all, for the same in return.
May you live in interesting times.
I could write about beekeeping and sunsets and humorous little anecdotes where the dinner ends up in the dust. I could write about that shit forever. And if nothing bad ever happened to me or mine, nothing momentous, and the only consequence was me being a poorer writer for it, I think we’d all be prepared to live with that. I know I would.
I’m doing wonderfully. My life is wonderful. I do not have one single, solitary thing to complain about, not if you compare me with just about anybody. The problem with this blog is that it’s by me, and it’s about me, and while I can (and will) dedicate this blog to other people, who are in far greater need of prayers and comfort than I, the very act of writing a blog post requires a great stretch of ego to assume that anybody cares even a little about your life...and it’s all downhill from there. So I’m great, to begin with. And that’s about the least important place to start.
This morning (Wednesday), my friend Natalie and I woke up, and went for a run by the ocean. We paused when we got there, and I did my best monkey impression, crawling up a little rocky island and watching the sun rise on the bay of Dar Es Salaam. We are in the capital for training, and though I got on a bus in my village, it might have well been a time machine. Washing machines, TVs, movie theaters...are these things real? Can this possibly be a single world, let alone country? For that matter, can this possibly be a single lifetime? Apparently the answer is yes.
We returned to the house we are staying at (with a delightful embassy worker named Andrew). We went shopping. At a grocery store. It felt like a game show. I put on some Kanye West, and started cooking, and turned out some of the best french toast this stomach has seen in quite some time. And Natalie, who is quite possibly the most positive person I have ever stumbled across, remarked what a wonderful morning this had turned out to be. Running, and groceries, and music, and jokes, and french freaking toast. This, she said, was just the nicest morning. So I guess what follows would be her fault.
Got a message from a fellow volunteer to switch phone lines (I have two), and call her. She had some problems with a project. Switched lines, got that sorted. Got a message from my counterpart, there is a problem. Can’t reach him. Get a call from my sister. It’s 4:30 in the morning in America, and like milkmen and rainy days, bad news wakes up early. My aunt Marilou has passed away, of cancer, after more pain and bad luck than such a wonderful and loving person, and such a badass aunt, deserved. I don’t know who handles these things well...not me. I simply get very quiet, and don’t really know what to do. I ombaed (requested...or prayed) a hug from Natalie, and got it. Finish the last piece of french toast. At which point my counterpart gets a hold of me and lets me know my house back in the village has been broken into. At which point I begin to laugh. I now have something to write my blog about. I’d rather drink poison.
There’s nothing right to write. Any attempt at eloquence feels like dancing at a....goddamnit... Any attempt to write it less than eloquent feels dumb. It’s like I’m typing with sticks instead of fingers. I feel incredibly stupid, and incredibly useless. Someone I love has passed away, and people I love are grieving and in pain...and I’m on the dark side of the moon. You are all in my thoughts, and in my prayers...but that doesn’t... maybe I shouldn’t be writing. But this is what I do now. This is how I deal with life now. I climb trees, and I write letters to friends, to students, and to all of you. I hope they’re entertaining, but the reality of it is that I’m on my own, and things have a way of bursting if they are overfilled, and I let myself out in this space, in this way. I wish I had more to do. I wish I had anything to do. To help. But I just finished a book in which a character piercingly comments, ‘if men don’t know a guy on Essex street who can fix it, they think there’s no help to be given’. There isn’t a guy. There isn’t even a street. I still wish I was there, rather than here.
I remember one night getting a similar phone call. I finished a show, got out of costume (which involved detaching a meat phallus), and raced back to Pennsylvania, and did absolutely nothing. Me and my friend watched a football game. Nothing was better, nothing was fixed, and maybe the very act of rushing home presumed a lot about my own importance in someone else’s life. But it wasn’t about that. It was about being there, in every sense of the word. I think it’s our right, in these times, to not be alone, to be the opposite of alone. I think people help. And I wish I could. But I can’t. So thoughts and prayers and blogs will have to be feeble substitutes to hugs and help and casseroles.
There are some other things I’d like to talk about, thoughts I’ve been having, but they don’t really feel appropriate. My aunt was a beautiful person, a wonderful wife and mother, and I miss her. As I’ve said, I have little, if any, consolation to offer. Just two small things. Monday morning the kids at my primary school received an unexpected present: a soccer ball and a volleyball (they play a weird combo of basketball and ultimate frisbee with it called netball). The school has fields, and children should play, but they had nothing to play with. Except little did they know that 9 months ago my aunt told me she wanted to help some kids she’d never met play soccer, and gave me the money to make that happen. And it did, because of her. And if that’s not magic, then it doesn’t exist.
One last thing. A couple of my friends have also dealt lately with losing people they loved. I wrote to them, and I write now, that I’m really not sure what I think about death and how all of that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to be loved than not, and to that end I guess we all did our best. I’m not sure there’s any more than that. But that’s a lot, a whole lot. Maybe everything. I love you all, as much as I can. Thank you all, for the same in return.
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