One night in September of 2010, my best friend in Tanzania had a secret. I was over at his house for dinner, and he was being...well...insufferable. There was this big, important, game-changing thing that he wanted to tell me...but not tonight. Why not tonight? Because it’s late, and you’re tired, he said. I asked politely. He refused. I entreated. He denied. I threatened violence. He acquiesced. Turns out that in the village he originally comes from (about 30 miles north, not far from the booming metropolis of Mafinga, from whence comes the name of this blog), there are cows. Of the milking variety. The next week we went to look. The cows were real. They mooed at me.
This would be a good point to mention that there are hundreds of cows already in my village. They are a local, sturdier, hardier (read: uglier) breed of cows than the breeds we are accustomed to. They are Brahman cows, so at the base of their neck they each have a large hump, which wiggles and jiggles and giggles as they walk (I’m not sure it actually giggles. But it does look amused). Generally speaking they are used for plow duties, but they also make a tasty meal from time to time. They give out very little milk, when they give any. If you can get two liters a day from a local cow, she’s a gold mine.
The cows in my friend’s home village gave out considerably more than that: as much as 20 liters per day. For a quick idea of the economic boon that signifies, remember that the vast majority of Tanzanians live on less than $2 a day, and often much less. 20 liters of milk can be sold for about $10, and it can be sold every day, ten months out of the year. That’s not mentioning the other benefits: manure, biogas, and heifers to sell. Ah yes, heifers. These cows, you see, were part of a project funded by Heifer International. Some of you may have heard of it, but if you haven’t, it is an American organization that gives out livestock loans (and accompanying training) to impoverished villagers in developing countries. It generally works like this: you get a cow. That cow has a baby cow, and you give the baby cow to another villager. The second baby cow is yours, to keep and cuddle. The third baby cow goes back to Heifer International, and your loan has been repaid. It is an effective and brilliant system, and there are villages in Tanzania with Heifer International projects that have been running for 20 years and have spread to almost every household. A project like this can completely transform a village within a generation. We wanted one. We asked for one. We were denied.
When I say we, I’m no longer just talking about Nziku (my best friend here, and a frequent guest star in this blog) and myself. By the time we delivered our official request to Heifer International, my nearest Peace Corps neighbor had come on board, Miss Kenzie Payne. I’ll talk more about her near the end, but she’s from Wisconsin, she worked in a cheese shop, and she kicks ass. We decided to do this project as a team, requesting a Heifer project for each of our villages, combining meetings, sharing ideas, commiserating, and spending a lot of time together on cramped, unsafe buses. She brought with her an elderly sage, the leader of her cow group, named Mlonganile. He is one of the more amazing men I’ve ever met. He exudes wisdom from his pores, and without him none of this would have been possible.
Kenzie and I each formed a group of ready, willing farmers in our villages. Each group wrote up a constitution, elected officers, and filled out the Heifer applications. All of this took until the end of March, last year (so about six months). Finally, applications completed, villagers excited, we traveled to the Heifer regional offices, in Mbeya, a nearby city. We met with officials there. They told us to go to Iringa. We went to Iringa. They told us to go to Mbeya. Little did I know that I had entered into the most drawn-out rejection of my life that did not involve the Israeli army.
Here’s the thing about Tanzanians. They really, really, really strongly hate to disappoint people, especially guests. So when confronted with a sticky situation, they choose what is to them the most obvious route: tell me whatever it is that I want to hear. This is true of many things. In the bar the other night, before Liverpool played for the Carling Cup Final, a Tanzanian told me that there was an absolute certainty that The Reds would lift the cup. It wouldn’t even take 90 minutes to put the outcome beyond doubt. Well, the match went into extra time and penalties, and when Liverpool was down 2-1 in penalties I wanted to throttle him (we did win. Yay). Similarly, when I was working on the well project, people would tell me that wells were dug, that contributions had already been collected, that water was gushing out of the ground: clean, clear, and tasting of champagne. Nothing had actually been done yet, but they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Or, finally, when I approached the road yesterday looking for a bus, and saw one coming, the guy next to me told me that this was a great bus that would absolutely stop and take us wherever we wanted to go. As the bus zoomed by, the driver signaling that it was overfilled, I just looked at the man next to me, and sighed.
Back to the cows. It took Kenzie and I until the end of July to realize that Heifer was never going to give us a project (it appears that the recession really did a number on their donations. That, or they thought I looked shifty). People were dropping out of each of our groups every other week. We had two choices: abandon the project, or try to fund it with Peace Corps money. Given that the first choice would have made a poor blog post, you can guess where that went. From that point on, we were in overdrive: visiting potential ranches, wrangling district support for our project, doing a cow-shed construction training, building 8 cowsheds, buying pasture seed, planting it, and finally planning a weeklong training on all things bovine (feed, care and treatment, milking, cow dips, yogurt-making, you name it).
Along the way we encountered the usual problems: meetings starting two hours late, people dropping out, people not building their cowsheds on time, and the chosen ranch informing us (after the grant was in) that they could not, in fact, sell us our cows (this particular problem prompted an emergency meeting wherein our district superiors very kindly reached through the phone lines and slapped the ranch manager upside his large, balding head). We cajoled, we yelled, we tried to make people laugh, we threw our weight around, and from time to time we lied through our teeth. We finally got a date: on February 29th we could get our cows. The anniversary may not be easy to celebrate, but what you gonna do?
Two weeks ago we conducted our training at a local convent. I always feel nervous when I set foot in the convent, as if the sisters know if I’ve been naughty or know if I’ve been nice. Once I got past my latent guilt, however, the training was a smashing success. We milked cows, made hay (hehe), washed cows with a spray pump, and spent hours in the classroom going through every conceivable scenario. Oh, and we were fed 5 times a day by the sisters. It got a bit excessive. Then, when night fell, Kenzie and I had to wrangle up some entertainment. We decided to show our villagers some movies on my laptop, movies that were not too talky and that they might conceivably enjoy. The ones we chose: The Adam West Batman Movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Lion King, and Ghostbusters. And our villagers loved them! But there was a problem: they had no idea what was going on. So after they told me this, I spent all of Lion King and Ghostbusters narrating. If you really want to get a good glimpse at the cultural divide, just try explaining the Stay Puft Marshmallow man to a group of African villagers. You begin to question things about your own society, things you once held dear. But we made it through that obstacle, and finished the training, with speeches and certificates for all. Only one step left.
On February 29th, Kenzie and I woke up in Mafinga. On big days I always wake up thinking the same thing: in 16 hours this is all going to be over, one way or another. Make what you can of it. And so we did. We showed up at the district office. We got into the truck we would be using, which the driver proudly told me had arrived, brand-spanking-new, in 1984. We made our way out to the ranch (we’d paid the day before. Imagine paying $3000 for cows, in $7 denominations. Good times). We forced the cows onto the truck, then flipped a coin for the bull. Kenzie won. My bull is black and white and adorable. He is named Uncle Louie (that's right. In Africa there is a cow named after Matt Nied) We got a ride back to Mafinga, then Kenzie and I got into the cow truck, and rode off into the sunset, at about 15 miles per hour. An hour and change later, we arrived in my village. Nziku was standing by the side of the road, waiting. When he saw us, a slow, sly grin spread across his face.
It’s a funny thing to get what you’ve wanted. I’m not sure what to do with it. Part of me wants to believe that this project is going to change everything, but I’ve lived here too long to believe that. Tanzanians, for all their sure and certain words, know as well as I do that there is no certainty in any of this. All of these cows could drop dead one day, and that day could be tomorrow. There are a million things that could go wrong with this project, and in five short months I won’t be around to handle any of them. I wish I was confident about the future. I wish I could tell you that this is a no-doubt home run. But I don’t like to lie to all of you.
In the end, this project, my service, and development in general are as much about the process as the results. They have to be. Because you can’t make people change. You can just give them the options, then you have to respect their right as self-determining adults: to succeed or fail, to change or stay the same. And as we pulled into my village, and Nziku started running ahead of the truck, that’s what I thought about: the days we built cowsheds, the nights spent at Nziku’s discussing every idea, the long busrides with Kenzie, stupid jokes and rice and beans. I used to think that the day the cows came, I would consider my service a success. But I was wrong. These two years can’t just be about the production of things; of pushing at the ocean. My service here is more than milk and money. It’s almost as if all of this, all of the projects and the proposals and the meetings, were just a façade, an excuse for the real work to happen: people. These are my friends and my family, and if I’ve helped them acquire something that they’ll treasure and use to improve their lives, then they’ve done the same for me a hundred-fold. As Nziku jogged his way in front of our slowly moving cow-mobile, leading us downhill, a grin began to spread across my face. For as we turned the corner and came to the loading spot, I saw everyone I cared about standing there, waiting. And the grin on my face was beaming back at me from two dozen friends who were once strangers, who I hadn’t let down. That’s the victory, I think. An affirmation of the faith that these few people had put in me, the crazy white man. Today they know that they weren’t wrong, and I know that two years in Africa weren’t spent in vain. Where we go from here, who knows? But I know that on February 29th, 2012, the cows came home.
Very, very soon, so will I.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
What I Learned From Liverpool
I walked out of the airport, by myself, in the middle of a hot dark night, wearing a jersey that had taken two people a full two weeks to find. It was white. It had red pinstripes. The advertisement on the front read Standard Chartered. It had a patch high on the left breast. The patch proudly declared that the Liverpool Football Club was established in 1892. And at the very top of the patch read the Liverpool Football Club motto:
“You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
If only it were true.
To begin at the beginning.
It was early evening in Africa, in March of last year. I was coming back from the tree nursery, when I espied a particularly tall and shapely tree, some ways off the trail. Having free time and spare energy (I’m like a toddler), I decided to give it a shimmy (Side note: the verb ‘to climb’ in Swahili is the same as the word ‘to plant’. Which leads to some interesting sentences where you could be talking about planting mountains or climbing sunflowers. The only area where it is actually a problem is trees. My villagers don’t understand that I actually like to climb trees. They just think I really, really, really enjoy planting them.) The tree was one of the local varieties, which generally expand outward, rather than upward, looking like delicately crafted umbrellas. But this one was at least 60 feet tall, by far the tallest native tree in my village. Definitely worth a climb. The only problem is that there was not a reachable limb until about 12 feet up, and only a small stump to give a boost. At times like these, I’m happy that most villagers head home around sunset, which is when I like to do my walking. This way, I’m spared the outcry, embarrassment, and innumerable retellings that would have resulted if one of my villagers had seen me: suspended in the air, my arms clinging desperately to an unreasonably round branch, my feet kicking wildly for purchase, my mind idly pondering how I would explain this hospital visit.
Since this was back in March, you may reasonably surmise that I didn’t die. In fact, after a little cursing and a lot of scratching, I made it up into the tree. And it was a great one, branches criss-crossing every which way, growing upwards in a helix, looking like some ever-patient artist had made this tree his life’s work. I climbed higher, maybe higher than I should have. The view was amazing, it was nearing sunset, and I was young, free, and happy to not be dead. On an impulse, I decided to carve something into the tree. Juvenile, absolutely, but I’d spent a lifetime climbing trees without once leaving my mark. What could a few letters hurt? I pulled out my Leatherman, thought for a second, and slowly carved my initials into the old, tough wood.
Mine, and someone else’s.
Fast forward. One day, sometime later, I showed up at the house of one of my best friends, an old carpenter in the village (also an unrepentant curmudgeon. He used to drive me crazy. Now I want to be him when I grow up). I had an idea, and wanted to know if it was possible to pull off. He assured me, without a doubt, it was absolutely not possible. Got it. Went to another guy, who is also doing well for himself as a carpenter (he’s got a motorcycle AND a generator. He may have organized crime connections). Any way possible to get this done, any way at all? He is unequivocal. It ain’t happening. Okay. Good to know.
The thing is, my friends here are wonderful. But one of the things that makes my job, and those of my friends, pretty difficult, is that nobody here believes anything is possible if they have not seen it with their own two eyes. They are supremely, astoundingly capable when it comes to perfecting tasks that they have witnessed and understood. But nobody here is one day going to take some cloth and some thread and put together a Snuggie (which is probably a good thing...and therefor a bad example). Show most of my friends here one, and they’ll make you a better one. Tell them about one, and they’ll tell you it can’t be done. Or at least...most of them will.
Nziku (my best friend) and I went to the tree one Saturday afternoon. I was armed with a pruning saw, love, and 7 months of informal forestry training. I climbed the tree again, this time slightly surer of how to get it done. Nziku looked like he was watching a toddler drive a motorcycle. No matter, I got up in the tree. Now came the step of finding a branch of suitable size that was reachable. I finally found one. The only problem with this step was that the branch in question WAS my step. I began to do a rip cut, which is how I was taught. I was not taught to do a rip cut on a branch that I was standing on, but no matter. I made my bottom cut, then started at the top. The branch started to go. I freaked. The branch hit another branch, and stopped, almost completely cut, hanging by a thread. Nziku was waiting, and I was sweating bullets, pretty convinced that the moment I cut this branch I was either going to be springboarded into the air, or my left foot was about to get a lot thinner. Nziku asked me if I wanted him to get up in the tree and do it. The bastard knows me too well. 20 seconds later, the sucker was down, and your boy was shaken, but not stirred.
After I got down (always an adventure), we spent a few minutes admiring our kill, then got to work. Found one live branch and one dead branch, both small and portable. We walked home, like hunters returning successfully to the pack. At his house, we employed the pruning saw, my Leatherman, his kitchen knife, and a few matchbook-sized pieces of sandpaper. It was slow going, mostly because we had no freaking clue what we were doing. We started off cutting fat discs, boring holes in them with hot pieces of iron. Eventually we started to trust the wood, and cut three thin discs, two from the dead branch, one from the live one. Using the Leatherman, we stripped the bark. We slowly whittled out the middle. Then we spent the next three days chipping them down, sanding them, whittling some more, sanding again, always afraid that the fragile things would snap in our fingers, which by now were cut to shreds and numb. I finally got too afraid to use the knife any more, and spent one whole evening carefully, cautiously sanding by the light of the setting sun. I finally couldn’t see any more. But I didn’t need to. It was done. Or at least I had gone as far as my nerve would let me. So had Nziku. At the end of the fourth day, after all that work, we had three little trinkets to show, one light in color, two darker. The lighter one was mine, my project. The darker ones were his. The next morning I applied the first coat of varnish. We put on three coats in all. At the end of it all, they shone, ready, finished. Nothing left to do but wait.
Most of the people reading this blog (assuming, I suppose, that people are reading this blog) know me pretty well, but not everybody. I don’t go all that deeply into my personal life...well, that’s not true. I talk about my personal life pretty much unceasingly. What I don’t talk about as much is being apart from my family and my girlfriend. I assume you can figure that it is pretty damn painful being away (with some wonderful intermittent breaks) from all of them for two years. And it is, as much (if not more so) for them as for me. I just don’t feel the need to write about it in this space, because some days it is awful, most days it isn’t, and I don’t have much more to say that is interesting. Yet, if she’ll permit me, I think it might be the right time to say a word or two about my lady.
Two years is a funny amount of time. It goes by quicker than you might expect, yet it holds more than you might believe. We’ve spent these last two years apart. It’s odd what you miss...or maybe it’s exactly what you expect. Kissing somebody goodnight, waking up to someone’s tousled hair, playing frisbee, brushing teeth together while dancing. Hell, just being with someone so you can watch something happen, together. I’ve seen so many beautiful sunsets while I’ve been here, but the ones I remember most were when I was with Kelsey, or my family. I don’t know what I’ve done to be so unbelievably, over-the-top, shoot-the-moon lucky...but this has worked. And it hasn’t just worked, it’s gotten better. From 7,000 miles away, Kelsey is as much a part of my life here as she was when I lived in America, and I know the same is true for her. That doesn’t happen every day. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s no way I can possibly pay back the debt I owe to the lady who let me go, and who will one day (I hope) take me back. But I’m prepared to spend a lifetime trying. Here’s how I started:
It was early evening in Africa. I had just waited a half an hour that felt like a year for the love of my life to put her gorgeous locks in a (admittedly beautiful) braid. During that time, the cautiously carved object sitting in my left breast pocket felt like it might burn a hole through my shirt. But no, shirt intact, braid in place, we set out. Ever since hearing that I had defaced an ancient tree with our initials, my lady had wanted to see the proof of my romantic vandalism. We got to the tree. It really was impressive, towering over everything around it, catching the sun beautifully at the end of the day. I showed her around it, pointing to the spot high above where I’d carved our letters, explaining that unless she possessed some serious ups (or Go-Go-Gadget arms), there was no way she was making it up that tree. After the brief tour of the tree, I offhandedly showed her the fallen limb, lying beside it. At this point my pulse was doing a cool triple time, and a dull roaring in my ears had started to make hearing difficult. Thank god I had rehearsed this moment with the cat. I explained that, as fate would have it, I was actually the one who had cut the branch down. Why? “To make something.” What? “This.” I reached into my left breast pocket.
11 days later, I had just escorted my fiancee as far as the airport security would allow. I had just said goodbye, for the last time, to the lady who had stood by me from afar as I attempted a journey that I could never have done alone. We’ve had to say goodbye far too many times, and this one was not any easier for being the last. There were tears, and hugs, and metal detectors, and at the end of the night your boy was walking slowly back to his cab, wearing his Liverpool jersey, wishing he was somewhere else. The irony, of course, is that contrary to what Liverpool fans may sing, you WILL walk alone. And right now, I am.
Except...I’m not.
If you’re not forgotten, you’re not alone, and I of all people should have figured that out by now. I just had the greatest two weeks of my life. I got engaged to the most beautiful, funniest, kindest woman I’ve ever met. And once she was done crying, I climbed that tree one last time, to take a picture of those initials (a note to would-be proposers: don’t attempt climbing a tree till your heart has calmed. The only thing that kept me from post-proposal cardiac arrest was Kelsey saying, “my fiance is in a tree!” Which was the first time I’d ever been called “fiance”). We popped champagne to celebrate our engagement (thanks, Peace Corps friends). We visited my homestay village and I watched her make ugali. We swam in the ocean and looked at paradise, and talked with two other couples, one married 20 years, one married 10, and us, a year away. We went out one last night for dinner, and ate with our hands, and were messy, and loved it. And if a few heartbreaking goodbyes are the price of the happiness we have when we’re together, then we’ll never find a better bargain.
So this was my love letter to my fiancee. It turns out you can make a wooden ring in Africa, with a Leatherman, if you’re careful, and determined, and have the right sort of friends (thank you, Nziku). You can also make it the right size, if your fiancee’s friends and your own sister are delightfully sneaky people (thank you Jenn and Chrissy and Vicky). You can even get parental blessing, both yours (thanks Mom and Dad) and hers (thank you Carol and Bob), because the modern world is a pretty connected place, after all. It’s all possible, no matter what my villagers said. The ring, the relationship, the time apart. All of it can be dealt with, in its time, in its way. And at the end of the day, if there are still a few lonely nights left, a few dusty miles to be walked without my best friend, then I’ll deal with that too. Because I’m engaged to the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, and that isn’t something that goes away when she’s out of the room, or at work, or on the other side of the world. I have her, and my family, and all the dozens of you who wished us well and sent your little bits of happiness our way. Believe it kid.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
“You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
If only it were true.
To begin at the beginning.
It was early evening in Africa, in March of last year. I was coming back from the tree nursery, when I espied a particularly tall and shapely tree, some ways off the trail. Having free time and spare energy (I’m like a toddler), I decided to give it a shimmy (Side note: the verb ‘to climb’ in Swahili is the same as the word ‘to plant’. Which leads to some interesting sentences where you could be talking about planting mountains or climbing sunflowers. The only area where it is actually a problem is trees. My villagers don’t understand that I actually like to climb trees. They just think I really, really, really enjoy planting them.) The tree was one of the local varieties, which generally expand outward, rather than upward, looking like delicately crafted umbrellas. But this one was at least 60 feet tall, by far the tallest native tree in my village. Definitely worth a climb. The only problem is that there was not a reachable limb until about 12 feet up, and only a small stump to give a boost. At times like these, I’m happy that most villagers head home around sunset, which is when I like to do my walking. This way, I’m spared the outcry, embarrassment, and innumerable retellings that would have resulted if one of my villagers had seen me: suspended in the air, my arms clinging desperately to an unreasonably round branch, my feet kicking wildly for purchase, my mind idly pondering how I would explain this hospital visit.
Since this was back in March, you may reasonably surmise that I didn’t die. In fact, after a little cursing and a lot of scratching, I made it up into the tree. And it was a great one, branches criss-crossing every which way, growing upwards in a helix, looking like some ever-patient artist had made this tree his life’s work. I climbed higher, maybe higher than I should have. The view was amazing, it was nearing sunset, and I was young, free, and happy to not be dead. On an impulse, I decided to carve something into the tree. Juvenile, absolutely, but I’d spent a lifetime climbing trees without once leaving my mark. What could a few letters hurt? I pulled out my Leatherman, thought for a second, and slowly carved my initials into the old, tough wood.
Mine, and someone else’s.
Fast forward. One day, sometime later, I showed up at the house of one of my best friends, an old carpenter in the village (also an unrepentant curmudgeon. He used to drive me crazy. Now I want to be him when I grow up). I had an idea, and wanted to know if it was possible to pull off. He assured me, without a doubt, it was absolutely not possible. Got it. Went to another guy, who is also doing well for himself as a carpenter (he’s got a motorcycle AND a generator. He may have organized crime connections). Any way possible to get this done, any way at all? He is unequivocal. It ain’t happening. Okay. Good to know.
The thing is, my friends here are wonderful. But one of the things that makes my job, and those of my friends, pretty difficult, is that nobody here believes anything is possible if they have not seen it with their own two eyes. They are supremely, astoundingly capable when it comes to perfecting tasks that they have witnessed and understood. But nobody here is one day going to take some cloth and some thread and put together a Snuggie (which is probably a good thing...and therefor a bad example). Show most of my friends here one, and they’ll make you a better one. Tell them about one, and they’ll tell you it can’t be done. Or at least...most of them will.
Nziku (my best friend) and I went to the tree one Saturday afternoon. I was armed with a pruning saw, love, and 7 months of informal forestry training. I climbed the tree again, this time slightly surer of how to get it done. Nziku looked like he was watching a toddler drive a motorcycle. No matter, I got up in the tree. Now came the step of finding a branch of suitable size that was reachable. I finally found one. The only problem with this step was that the branch in question WAS my step. I began to do a rip cut, which is how I was taught. I was not taught to do a rip cut on a branch that I was standing on, but no matter. I made my bottom cut, then started at the top. The branch started to go. I freaked. The branch hit another branch, and stopped, almost completely cut, hanging by a thread. Nziku was waiting, and I was sweating bullets, pretty convinced that the moment I cut this branch I was either going to be springboarded into the air, or my left foot was about to get a lot thinner. Nziku asked me if I wanted him to get up in the tree and do it. The bastard knows me too well. 20 seconds later, the sucker was down, and your boy was shaken, but not stirred.
After I got down (always an adventure), we spent a few minutes admiring our kill, then got to work. Found one live branch and one dead branch, both small and portable. We walked home, like hunters returning successfully to the pack. At his house, we employed the pruning saw, my Leatherman, his kitchen knife, and a few matchbook-sized pieces of sandpaper. It was slow going, mostly because we had no freaking clue what we were doing. We started off cutting fat discs, boring holes in them with hot pieces of iron. Eventually we started to trust the wood, and cut three thin discs, two from the dead branch, one from the live one. Using the Leatherman, we stripped the bark. We slowly whittled out the middle. Then we spent the next three days chipping them down, sanding them, whittling some more, sanding again, always afraid that the fragile things would snap in our fingers, which by now were cut to shreds and numb. I finally got too afraid to use the knife any more, and spent one whole evening carefully, cautiously sanding by the light of the setting sun. I finally couldn’t see any more. But I didn’t need to. It was done. Or at least I had gone as far as my nerve would let me. So had Nziku. At the end of the fourth day, after all that work, we had three little trinkets to show, one light in color, two darker. The lighter one was mine, my project. The darker ones were his. The next morning I applied the first coat of varnish. We put on three coats in all. At the end of it all, they shone, ready, finished. Nothing left to do but wait.
Most of the people reading this blog (assuming, I suppose, that people are reading this blog) know me pretty well, but not everybody. I don’t go all that deeply into my personal life...well, that’s not true. I talk about my personal life pretty much unceasingly. What I don’t talk about as much is being apart from my family and my girlfriend. I assume you can figure that it is pretty damn painful being away (with some wonderful intermittent breaks) from all of them for two years. And it is, as much (if not more so) for them as for me. I just don’t feel the need to write about it in this space, because some days it is awful, most days it isn’t, and I don’t have much more to say that is interesting. Yet, if she’ll permit me, I think it might be the right time to say a word or two about my lady.
Two years is a funny amount of time. It goes by quicker than you might expect, yet it holds more than you might believe. We’ve spent these last two years apart. It’s odd what you miss...or maybe it’s exactly what you expect. Kissing somebody goodnight, waking up to someone’s tousled hair, playing frisbee, brushing teeth together while dancing. Hell, just being with someone so you can watch something happen, together. I’ve seen so many beautiful sunsets while I’ve been here, but the ones I remember most were when I was with Kelsey, or my family. I don’t know what I’ve done to be so unbelievably, over-the-top, shoot-the-moon lucky...but this has worked. And it hasn’t just worked, it’s gotten better. From 7,000 miles away, Kelsey is as much a part of my life here as she was when I lived in America, and I know the same is true for her. That doesn’t happen every day. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s no way I can possibly pay back the debt I owe to the lady who let me go, and who will one day (I hope) take me back. But I’m prepared to spend a lifetime trying. Here’s how I started:
It was early evening in Africa. I had just waited a half an hour that felt like a year for the love of my life to put her gorgeous locks in a (admittedly beautiful) braid. During that time, the cautiously carved object sitting in my left breast pocket felt like it might burn a hole through my shirt. But no, shirt intact, braid in place, we set out. Ever since hearing that I had defaced an ancient tree with our initials, my lady had wanted to see the proof of my romantic vandalism. We got to the tree. It really was impressive, towering over everything around it, catching the sun beautifully at the end of the day. I showed her around it, pointing to the spot high above where I’d carved our letters, explaining that unless she possessed some serious ups (or Go-Go-Gadget arms), there was no way she was making it up that tree. After the brief tour of the tree, I offhandedly showed her the fallen limb, lying beside it. At this point my pulse was doing a cool triple time, and a dull roaring in my ears had started to make hearing difficult. Thank god I had rehearsed this moment with the cat. I explained that, as fate would have it, I was actually the one who had cut the branch down. Why? “To make something.” What? “This.” I reached into my left breast pocket.
11 days later, I had just escorted my fiancee as far as the airport security would allow. I had just said goodbye, for the last time, to the lady who had stood by me from afar as I attempted a journey that I could never have done alone. We’ve had to say goodbye far too many times, and this one was not any easier for being the last. There were tears, and hugs, and metal detectors, and at the end of the night your boy was walking slowly back to his cab, wearing his Liverpool jersey, wishing he was somewhere else. The irony, of course, is that contrary to what Liverpool fans may sing, you WILL walk alone. And right now, I am.
Except...I’m not.
If you’re not forgotten, you’re not alone, and I of all people should have figured that out by now. I just had the greatest two weeks of my life. I got engaged to the most beautiful, funniest, kindest woman I’ve ever met. And once she was done crying, I climbed that tree one last time, to take a picture of those initials (a note to would-be proposers: don’t attempt climbing a tree till your heart has calmed. The only thing that kept me from post-proposal cardiac arrest was Kelsey saying, “my fiance is in a tree!” Which was the first time I’d ever been called “fiance”). We popped champagne to celebrate our engagement (thanks, Peace Corps friends). We visited my homestay village and I watched her make ugali. We swam in the ocean and looked at paradise, and talked with two other couples, one married 20 years, one married 10, and us, a year away. We went out one last night for dinner, and ate with our hands, and were messy, and loved it. And if a few heartbreaking goodbyes are the price of the happiness we have when we’re together, then we’ll never find a better bargain.
So this was my love letter to my fiancee. It turns out you can make a wooden ring in Africa, with a Leatherman, if you’re careful, and determined, and have the right sort of friends (thank you, Nziku). You can also make it the right size, if your fiancee’s friends and your own sister are delightfully sneaky people (thank you Jenn and Chrissy and Vicky). You can even get parental blessing, both yours (thanks Mom and Dad) and hers (thank you Carol and Bob), because the modern world is a pretty connected place, after all. It’s all possible, no matter what my villagers said. The ring, the relationship, the time apart. All of it can be dealt with, in its time, in its way. And at the end of the day, if there are still a few lonely nights left, a few dusty miles to be walked without my best friend, then I’ll deal with that too. Because I’m engaged to the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, and that isn’t something that goes away when she’s out of the room, or at work, or on the other side of the world. I have her, and my family, and all the dozens of you who wished us well and sent your little bits of happiness our way. Believe it kid.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Stoned Cats and Bucket Heads
Little carry over from my last post...in which I talked a little about Christmas, and the celebrating of it in Africa. Kumbe (Surprise!), Village Christmas was actually pretty phenomenal. Went to mass (for the second time in 12 hours...whatever), which was in our newly refurbished (Thanks Dad and all who contributed!) church. Three different villages came to our church for Christmas (there’s only one priest for the parish, and there are about 12 churches in the parish). But before mass I got up early to make presents! I had tried baking bread the night before, but apparently my yeast was tired, and my bread, it burned. So I woke up to bake the gift of Christmas cornbread, which I then gave to some of my friends. And it was a great day, with some songs and some celebrating and a late-nite village disco (absolutely as weird as it sounds). But it was in the middle of making Christmas Cornbread that I had a small festivus epiphany.
See, I had been talking to my friends in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, and asking them if they felt merry yet. To a one, the answer was, ‘not yet’. And it was exactly the same here. Hard to feel merry when it is rainy and muddy and 80 degrees. It wasn’t until I started actually doing something holiday-related that I felt at all Christmassy. Which I think is true of everybody. Christmas has become this all-consuming behemoth, spewing joy left and right. Common sense would suggest that, just by wading into public in the month of December, you should end up with some cheer stuck on you, like it or not. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. I could be engulfed by carols and dressed solely in tinsel (a mildly disturbing image), and not feel a thing. But the second I started actually making merry...it felt like Christmas. And it was wonderful.
We’re gonna skip New Years. I hope you all had a great time, I hope you all were safe. If you want my stories...you have to call me. It was pretty freaking awesome, but the internet is not meant to know all things.
On to the events of my day today. It wasn’t particularly momentous, as days go. But enough little things were funny that I found them blog-worthy. Hope you agree.
Woke up a little early to go with my AIDS group to the health clinic. Why? Wanted to talk about doing a public health seminar with....my lovely girlfriend! I got on the first available bus with my friend...who we shall call Kally (which is kind of her real name). We got off at a nearby town, and were going to start walking towards the health clinic. But Kally was hungry, so we stopped for some breakfast. Unfortunately, at this point Kally realized that she had left her phone on the bus, and began to freak out. She had me call it. It didn’t ring. I tried again. Still no luck. Her son had just sent her money on that phone (using phone services for banking is really common here). She had no money for a new one. This is a woman who used to live in Dar Es Salaam, in the capital. She used to live with her friends, by discos and bars, with water and power and a job. But then she got into a bad car accident, and had to move back with her family in the village. And then she was diagnosed with HIV. And now her only connection with her old life is riding somewhere on a bus, in someone else’s pocket. She just stared off into nowhere, ignoring all my attempts at levity, maybe thinking about just how out of whack life can get. At one point she said to me, “now I’ll just get hit by a car”. I wasn’t sure if this was a joke or wishful thinking. I prepared myself to spend the rest of the day in a fruitless attempt to cheer her up. It was at that point that she found her phone. Women. And their purses. It’s like they have their own gravity.
Got back to the village, had a three hour meeting (in which I solved several word puzzles). And then my partner and I showed up at his store, and there were seedlings waiting for us! Little, beautiful pine seedlings, which we had planted back in March, and now were ready to be sold! We put them out in front of his store, and it was like moths to a flame. We had two customers in the first two minutes. The seedlings are becoming soldlings (unavoidable)! I was so excited that I decided to run home and get my camera.
I was striding home with a purpose, and given that I’m a foot taller than anyone in the village, it looked like I was riding a scooter. I was passing my neighbor’s house, and he was sitting on his porch with one of my best friends. I greeted them on my way by, and my one friend, noting my hasty gait, asked if I was in a hurry. I said I was. He asked if I was in too much of a hurry to sit down and enjoy a bowl of fresh picked peaches, while the sun set picturesquely in the distance. I said no, I was not. And I wasn’t. If Africa has taught me anything, it’s that there will always be enough work for tomorrow, but fruits and friends should never be passed upon. So I kicked back and relaxed with two of my best friends and a bowl of peaches. And what did we talk about? Me. Specifically, me leaving them.
In every sense of the word, this was inevitable. I’ve finally gotten sort of halfway good at this job. Which means it’s almost time to leave. And as the sun vanished, lighting only the tippy tops of the incoming thunderclouds, and we talked about how we would all miss one another, it seemed like someone was saying, “do you get it yet?” Yeah. I get it. I’m not ready for it, but I get it.
And then I went home and drugged the cat. Thanks for the catnip, Kucz. There’s a stoned cat lounging around my house. And he’s hungry.
Small but crucial addendum to the day: before my friend started freaking out about her not-really-lost phone, we walked into a mgahawa (a cafe). My friend wanted to get some beef soup for breakfast. However, on the way into the cafe I noticed a bucket by the side of the door. And in the bucket was the head of a cow. There was no body attached to the head. I asked Kally what the head was for, and she said, “the soup”. Then the woman running the place showed up with two bowls of soup. I respectfully declined. But, you know, good way to start the morning, right? Nice little reminder. Seize the day, chew my cud, all that. Because tomorrow the head in the bucket might be mine. Or yours. Yeah. Chew on that.
Happy New Year, my friends. Miss you all.
See, I had been talking to my friends in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, and asking them if they felt merry yet. To a one, the answer was, ‘not yet’. And it was exactly the same here. Hard to feel merry when it is rainy and muddy and 80 degrees. It wasn’t until I started actually doing something holiday-related that I felt at all Christmassy. Which I think is true of everybody. Christmas has become this all-consuming behemoth, spewing joy left and right. Common sense would suggest that, just by wading into public in the month of December, you should end up with some cheer stuck on you, like it or not. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. I could be engulfed by carols and dressed solely in tinsel (a mildly disturbing image), and not feel a thing. But the second I started actually making merry...it felt like Christmas. And it was wonderful.
We’re gonna skip New Years. I hope you all had a great time, I hope you all were safe. If you want my stories...you have to call me. It was pretty freaking awesome, but the internet is not meant to know all things.
On to the events of my day today. It wasn’t particularly momentous, as days go. But enough little things were funny that I found them blog-worthy. Hope you agree.
Woke up a little early to go with my AIDS group to the health clinic. Why? Wanted to talk about doing a public health seminar with....my lovely girlfriend! I got on the first available bus with my friend...who we shall call Kally (which is kind of her real name). We got off at a nearby town, and were going to start walking towards the health clinic. But Kally was hungry, so we stopped for some breakfast. Unfortunately, at this point Kally realized that she had left her phone on the bus, and began to freak out. She had me call it. It didn’t ring. I tried again. Still no luck. Her son had just sent her money on that phone (using phone services for banking is really common here). She had no money for a new one. This is a woman who used to live in Dar Es Salaam, in the capital. She used to live with her friends, by discos and bars, with water and power and a job. But then she got into a bad car accident, and had to move back with her family in the village. And then she was diagnosed with HIV. And now her only connection with her old life is riding somewhere on a bus, in someone else’s pocket. She just stared off into nowhere, ignoring all my attempts at levity, maybe thinking about just how out of whack life can get. At one point she said to me, “now I’ll just get hit by a car”. I wasn’t sure if this was a joke or wishful thinking. I prepared myself to spend the rest of the day in a fruitless attempt to cheer her up. It was at that point that she found her phone. Women. And their purses. It’s like they have their own gravity.
Got back to the village, had a three hour meeting (in which I solved several word puzzles). And then my partner and I showed up at his store, and there were seedlings waiting for us! Little, beautiful pine seedlings, which we had planted back in March, and now were ready to be sold! We put them out in front of his store, and it was like moths to a flame. We had two customers in the first two minutes. The seedlings are becoming soldlings (unavoidable)! I was so excited that I decided to run home and get my camera.
I was striding home with a purpose, and given that I’m a foot taller than anyone in the village, it looked like I was riding a scooter. I was passing my neighbor’s house, and he was sitting on his porch with one of my best friends. I greeted them on my way by, and my one friend, noting my hasty gait, asked if I was in a hurry. I said I was. He asked if I was in too much of a hurry to sit down and enjoy a bowl of fresh picked peaches, while the sun set picturesquely in the distance. I said no, I was not. And I wasn’t. If Africa has taught me anything, it’s that there will always be enough work for tomorrow, but fruits and friends should never be passed upon. So I kicked back and relaxed with two of my best friends and a bowl of peaches. And what did we talk about? Me. Specifically, me leaving them.
In every sense of the word, this was inevitable. I’ve finally gotten sort of halfway good at this job. Which means it’s almost time to leave. And as the sun vanished, lighting only the tippy tops of the incoming thunderclouds, and we talked about how we would all miss one another, it seemed like someone was saying, “do you get it yet?” Yeah. I get it. I’m not ready for it, but I get it.
And then I went home and drugged the cat. Thanks for the catnip, Kucz. There’s a stoned cat lounging around my house. And he’s hungry.
Small but crucial addendum to the day: before my friend started freaking out about her not-really-lost phone, we walked into a mgahawa (a cafe). My friend wanted to get some beef soup for breakfast. However, on the way into the cafe I noticed a bucket by the side of the door. And in the bucket was the head of a cow. There was no body attached to the head. I asked Kally what the head was for, and she said, “the soup”. Then the woman running the place showed up with two bowls of soup. I respectfully declined. But, you know, good way to start the morning, right? Nice little reminder. Seize the day, chew my cud, all that. Because tomorrow the head in the bucket might be mine. Or yours. Yeah. Chew on that.
Happy New Year, my friends. Miss you all.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Note How the Hand Never Touches the Spoon
Which is the funniest line from Muppet Family Christmas, wherein Grover demonstrates, with vigor, how he is NOT stirring ("as in, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse").
Hell of a thing happened the other day. It was getting a bit late in the day, a little bit dark, and I had forgotten to pick up fish for the cat (a treat I like to give him if I’m not cooking dinner). So I wandered my way down to the club, and made my way to the fishmonger’s den (entering any of these drinking chambers feels like you’re going into an orc’s lair). The lantern was lit, the lighting was eerie, but familiar. The fish were almost gone, but there were enough for the cat (he’s not overly picky). I walked in, took a look around, said a quick hello, and started picking fish. Then....slowly....I realized that something momentous had happened, in that very instant.
Nobody stopped talking. Nobody was staring raptly at the white dude. No one, in point of fact, seemed to care very much that I was there.
My mother takes pride in the fact that she (and all mothers) knew, long before scientists verified it, that children don’t grow gradually every day. They do, in fact, grow in spurts, and come down some mornings longer than you left them the night before. Somehow, that night, my villagers and I were just a little taller. In some ways, it isn’t the greatest story in the world. It probably means that my villagers are finally bored with me, that I have truly become old news. But to that I say, humbug. To become old news in an African village is the aspiration of every Peace Corps Volunteer. But it is even more than that. My friends in that room were talking about politics, and religion, and how they fit together in modern Tanzania. It was an engaging, interesting discussion, and I was ever so happy to eavesdrop in on it (another feat that was once impossible). In other words, what they were talking about IS a hell of a lot more interesting than me, and I was thrilled that they agreed. In the end, I’m talking about inclusion. I’m talking about belonging. I don’t fit in. I may never fit in. That does not mean that I do not belong.
I am currently reading a book called “Will in the World”, about the life and times of one William Shakespeare (or Shakeshafte, as he was also called). One of the earliest passages struck me. The writer was talking about how even though the language was English, anybody who was anybody spoke Latin. Latin was the language of instruction, the language of the elite, the universities. The queen and her advisers all spoke it. If you didn’t know Latin you probably weren’t worth the time to teach it. And if you take English and Latin, and substitute Swahili and English, respectively, you have the exact same condition in Tanzania.
I hate it. A lot. Swahili is a beautiful language, descending from the Bantu family of languages and heavily blended with Arabic. When it is spoken properly, it has a musicality to it that is remarkable. But what language are secondary school students and university students taught in? English. What is the language of the courts? English. What language do I hear brokenly screamed at me whenever I walk anywhere, at anytime? English.
On one hand, I appreciate the effort. Being bilingual is an admirable goal, and Tanzanians are a lot closer to it than other peoples I could name. On the other, actual hand, I hate it. What English really does, in my mind, is enforce and reinforce the idea that anything “African” is inherently inferior. Why, in God’s name, should a Tanzanian boy be learning African History in English? What purpose does that really serve? If the goal is that he learn another language, then make sure he has some great English teachers and that he does his homework. But the purpose of History is not to learn English. It’s to learn History. Let him learn that. There are all sorts of students, quick and bright, who fail Math, Science, and Civics, just because they don’t understand English, the language of instruction. Even worse, to my eyes, is the pandering to tourists, which I realize is not limited to Tanzania. Isn’t it the job of the tourist to know how to get around the country which he/she is visiting? I love any Tanzanian who automatically greets me in Swahili, expecting me to know his language, because dammit, we’re in his country. I wish more felt that way. There’s still this weird, lingering, debilitating colonial aftertaste...and it makes me sick. I’m happy to be treated well, as a guest. But it almost feels to me like it is time for some self-righteousness. I take solace in the fact that there aren’t a whole lot of English walking around spouting Latin. Perhaps these things just take time.
My pigs have arrived! I started planning a pig project with my AIDS group back in March, and 9 months later, we’re hog wild in Idetero. Before I get into any of the salient details, the pigs have the following names, courtesy of myself and one Kelsey Drake: Evil Dr. Porkchop, The Uncultured Swine, The Baconatrix, Rooter, Wilbur, Babe, Hamlet, Spider Pig, Miss Piggy, Harry Porkchop, Piglet, and Oprah. They are each being kept by a member of a group called Jipe Moyo, which is made up exclusively of people living with AIDS/HIV. I’ve written plenty about this group, so I’ll skip to the project itself.
On Monday, December 12, we had a pigkeeping training. It was done by my local livestock guy, who is the most metrosexual man you may ever find in a Third World village, fond of cashmere vests and tight white pants. Everybody passed (there were no tests). I also had everybody sign a contract, agreeing to the rules and regulations of the project (I’m my father’s son). Three or four of the group can’t read, so I read it aloud and then they put their thumbs in ink and signed it. On Tuesday, December 13, I went into town and bought over a metric ton of pig feed (mostly corn meal and sunflower cake). Then, along with help from some truly lovely people, I loaded it into the back of a beat-ass truck and somehow or other got it to the village. At that point each group member had to get it back to their own house. One member relied on two village drunks to load a 100-kilo bag onto a bicycle and push it a kilometer. I may never have laughed so hard. I had to run yelling after random villagers asking for help, but everybody got their food home. On Wednesday, December 14, I brought back medications for mange, worms, and bacterial infections. And on Thursday, December 15th, I brought home the bacon.
It wasn’t easy. The district loaned us a truck, but we had to fill it with sawdust and build something so the pigs wouldn’t jump out (in case they had tired of this world). We then picked up the swine, which involved wrangling. I caught a pig!! I was so stoked! Having loaded all the pigs (who then started biting each other), we set off. The Tanzanians with me told fart jokes. I laughed. And then we got to the village, and I hopped off to show the way, then hopped onto the back of the truck. Why the back of the truck? So I could stand up, above the truck, as we pulled into view of my group. So I could take off my hat and wave it over my head like a cowboy bringing in the herd. So I could yell “Sooooiiiiiieeeeee!”, and mean it. These are the happy times. The pigs are doing well, I visit them often. Wilbur is probably my favorite. He’s a happy pig.
It’s Christmas. Odds are strong that you knew that before you clicked on my blog. I’m not really sure what to write here. My house will have two stockings, a plastic Christmas tree, one cat, and a tall guy. Merry it will be, crowded it will not. I don’t have anything profound or germane to add on to what I wrote last year. If anything, the thing that most strikes me now is how quickly a year can leave you, how quickly this one has left me. I blinked, and it was gone, and it seems that so much of what I did, or tried to do, was just keeping up, running as the world turned, trying not to be flung off of it. But for a moment, just before the end of the year, I have a chance to catch my breath, to look backwards and forwards, unsure of what I’ve done and unsure of what I’m about to do. Because that’s what Christmas is to me. A time to reset, a time to just be joyful, and figure out how to be happier, to be better, in the year that’s to come. I’m sitting in a Tanzanian hostel. I just finished watching The Muppet Family Christmas (technology is wonderful). At one point Kermit says to Robin (his tiny protege), “Life would pass in a blur if not for times like these.” The frog speaketh truth.
I love you all. I’ll never be happy about the prospect of leaving Tanzania, but I am giddy at the idea of spending next Christmas surrounded by my wonderful friends and my incredible family. I miss each of you, and I miss all of you. Yet for this last Christmas in Africa, I’m quite happy to be here, now. These are also my friends, and I love them dearly. I’ve never known less what a new year might bring, but I’ve also never been so excited by not knowing. Thank you for reading. May your holidays be merry, may your troubles be forgotten, and may your hopes burn ever brighter. God bless us, every one.
Merry Christmas.
Hell of a thing happened the other day. It was getting a bit late in the day, a little bit dark, and I had forgotten to pick up fish for the cat (a treat I like to give him if I’m not cooking dinner). So I wandered my way down to the club, and made my way to the fishmonger’s den (entering any of these drinking chambers feels like you’re going into an orc’s lair). The lantern was lit, the lighting was eerie, but familiar. The fish were almost gone, but there were enough for the cat (he’s not overly picky). I walked in, took a look around, said a quick hello, and started picking fish. Then....slowly....I realized that something momentous had happened, in that very instant.
Nobody stopped talking. Nobody was staring raptly at the white dude. No one, in point of fact, seemed to care very much that I was there.
My mother takes pride in the fact that she (and all mothers) knew, long before scientists verified it, that children don’t grow gradually every day. They do, in fact, grow in spurts, and come down some mornings longer than you left them the night before. Somehow, that night, my villagers and I were just a little taller. In some ways, it isn’t the greatest story in the world. It probably means that my villagers are finally bored with me, that I have truly become old news. But to that I say, humbug. To become old news in an African village is the aspiration of every Peace Corps Volunteer. But it is even more than that. My friends in that room were talking about politics, and religion, and how they fit together in modern Tanzania. It was an engaging, interesting discussion, and I was ever so happy to eavesdrop in on it (another feat that was once impossible). In other words, what they were talking about IS a hell of a lot more interesting than me, and I was thrilled that they agreed. In the end, I’m talking about inclusion. I’m talking about belonging. I don’t fit in. I may never fit in. That does not mean that I do not belong.
I am currently reading a book called “Will in the World”, about the life and times of one William Shakespeare (or Shakeshafte, as he was also called). One of the earliest passages struck me. The writer was talking about how even though the language was English, anybody who was anybody spoke Latin. Latin was the language of instruction, the language of the elite, the universities. The queen and her advisers all spoke it. If you didn’t know Latin you probably weren’t worth the time to teach it. And if you take English and Latin, and substitute Swahili and English, respectively, you have the exact same condition in Tanzania.
I hate it. A lot. Swahili is a beautiful language, descending from the Bantu family of languages and heavily blended with Arabic. When it is spoken properly, it has a musicality to it that is remarkable. But what language are secondary school students and university students taught in? English. What is the language of the courts? English. What language do I hear brokenly screamed at me whenever I walk anywhere, at anytime? English.
On one hand, I appreciate the effort. Being bilingual is an admirable goal, and Tanzanians are a lot closer to it than other peoples I could name. On the other, actual hand, I hate it. What English really does, in my mind, is enforce and reinforce the idea that anything “African” is inherently inferior. Why, in God’s name, should a Tanzanian boy be learning African History in English? What purpose does that really serve? If the goal is that he learn another language, then make sure he has some great English teachers and that he does his homework. But the purpose of History is not to learn English. It’s to learn History. Let him learn that. There are all sorts of students, quick and bright, who fail Math, Science, and Civics, just because they don’t understand English, the language of instruction. Even worse, to my eyes, is the pandering to tourists, which I realize is not limited to Tanzania. Isn’t it the job of the tourist to know how to get around the country which he/she is visiting? I love any Tanzanian who automatically greets me in Swahili, expecting me to know his language, because dammit, we’re in his country. I wish more felt that way. There’s still this weird, lingering, debilitating colonial aftertaste...and it makes me sick. I’m happy to be treated well, as a guest. But it almost feels to me like it is time for some self-righteousness. I take solace in the fact that there aren’t a whole lot of English walking around spouting Latin. Perhaps these things just take time.
My pigs have arrived! I started planning a pig project with my AIDS group back in March, and 9 months later, we’re hog wild in Idetero. Before I get into any of the salient details, the pigs have the following names, courtesy of myself and one Kelsey Drake: Evil Dr. Porkchop, The Uncultured Swine, The Baconatrix, Rooter, Wilbur, Babe, Hamlet, Spider Pig, Miss Piggy, Harry Porkchop, Piglet, and Oprah. They are each being kept by a member of a group called Jipe Moyo, which is made up exclusively of people living with AIDS/HIV. I’ve written plenty about this group, so I’ll skip to the project itself.
On Monday, December 12, we had a pigkeeping training. It was done by my local livestock guy, who is the most metrosexual man you may ever find in a Third World village, fond of cashmere vests and tight white pants. Everybody passed (there were no tests). I also had everybody sign a contract, agreeing to the rules and regulations of the project (I’m my father’s son). Three or four of the group can’t read, so I read it aloud and then they put their thumbs in ink and signed it. On Tuesday, December 13, I went into town and bought over a metric ton of pig feed (mostly corn meal and sunflower cake). Then, along with help from some truly lovely people, I loaded it into the back of a beat-ass truck and somehow or other got it to the village. At that point each group member had to get it back to their own house. One member relied on two village drunks to load a 100-kilo bag onto a bicycle and push it a kilometer. I may never have laughed so hard. I had to run yelling after random villagers asking for help, but everybody got their food home. On Wednesday, December 14, I brought back medications for mange, worms, and bacterial infections. And on Thursday, December 15th, I brought home the bacon.
It wasn’t easy. The district loaned us a truck, but we had to fill it with sawdust and build something so the pigs wouldn’t jump out (in case they had tired of this world). We then picked up the swine, which involved wrangling. I caught a pig!! I was so stoked! Having loaded all the pigs (who then started biting each other), we set off. The Tanzanians with me told fart jokes. I laughed. And then we got to the village, and I hopped off to show the way, then hopped onto the back of the truck. Why the back of the truck? So I could stand up, above the truck, as we pulled into view of my group. So I could take off my hat and wave it over my head like a cowboy bringing in the herd. So I could yell “Sooooiiiiiieeeeee!”, and mean it. These are the happy times. The pigs are doing well, I visit them often. Wilbur is probably my favorite. He’s a happy pig.
It’s Christmas. Odds are strong that you knew that before you clicked on my blog. I’m not really sure what to write here. My house will have two stockings, a plastic Christmas tree, one cat, and a tall guy. Merry it will be, crowded it will not. I don’t have anything profound or germane to add on to what I wrote last year. If anything, the thing that most strikes me now is how quickly a year can leave you, how quickly this one has left me. I blinked, and it was gone, and it seems that so much of what I did, or tried to do, was just keeping up, running as the world turned, trying not to be flung off of it. But for a moment, just before the end of the year, I have a chance to catch my breath, to look backwards and forwards, unsure of what I’ve done and unsure of what I’m about to do. Because that’s what Christmas is to me. A time to reset, a time to just be joyful, and figure out how to be happier, to be better, in the year that’s to come. I’m sitting in a Tanzanian hostel. I just finished watching The Muppet Family Christmas (technology is wonderful). At one point Kermit says to Robin (his tiny protege), “Life would pass in a blur if not for times like these.” The frog speaketh truth.
I love you all. I’ll never be happy about the prospect of leaving Tanzania, but I am giddy at the idea of spending next Christmas surrounded by my wonderful friends and my incredible family. I miss each of you, and I miss all of you. Yet for this last Christmas in Africa, I’m quite happy to be here, now. These are also my friends, and I love them dearly. I’ve never known less what a new year might bring, but I’ve also never been so excited by not knowing. Thank you for reading. May your holidays be merry, may your troubles be forgotten, and may your hopes burn ever brighter. God bless us, every one.
Merry Christmas.
Monday, December 5, 2011
R.I.P. Terrance
It’s another morning in East Africa. One of my best friends and favorite people here just got on a bus. She’s going to Kenya, then Uganda, then the good old U.S.A. I don’t know when or where or, for that matter, if we will see each other again. Another reminder, as if I needed one, that time is slipping quickly, and inexorably, into the past. Before too too long I myself will be getting on a bus. And I’m not ready. The only problem with that is that 8 months from now, I will still not be ready. It’s worth mentioning that some people have asked me what I’m planning to do after this. Even more of you might have thought of asking of me. The answer is, I don’t know. I have a million ideas, and not a single answer. Which is both horrifying and exciting. But, since there’s naught to be done, I have more fun stories to relate.
Thanksgiving happened! It was such a great day! I had spent the preceding week tracking down a turkey (in the business sense, not like I was in the woods actually tracking anything). I found one. I went to pick him up the day before Thanksgiving with 2 other volunteers. We chose a nice fat one. We named him Terrance. Tom seemed too predictable. We then put him in a box, put the box in the back of a taxi, and drove 45 miles over a horrible road with the turkey in the back, and 7 people up front (in a car about the size of a Honda Civic). Halfway there, I wanted to be with Terrance in the back. But we got there (there is the beautiful Mufindi Highlands. It’s like the Sound of Music hills, but prettier). And we let Terrance graze for a while (his legs were tied up). We also started calling him Tayshaun, T-Money, and T-Pain, as if by giving him lots of names we could lessen the inevitable shock when we...you know...ate him.
But before you could say “apocalopalypse” we were putting him on the scale, sharpening the knife, and boiling the water (for plucking). He weighed in at 5.5 kilos (not large, but everybody got plenty of meat, so who cares?). And he was calm, almost accepting. We took him off to a grass knoll, and we had a basin. The Tanzanian with us was ready to do the slaughter. But no. I asked for the knife, telling the Tanzanian “nilimfahamu bora” (“I knew him best”). Geneva held the legs. I held the neck. I reassured Terrance that all would be well. And then I cut his head off.
For those playing the home game, I have now chopped down a Christmas tree with a machete and slaughtered the Thanksgiving turkey with a dull knife (it took a bit of doing). I’m thinking of marketing Dan’s Hands-On Holidays. We could make our own gunpowder for July 4 fireworks, and dress up a hen as a rabbit for Easter. Any other ideas?
The holiday itself was nothing short of marvelous. It felt like Thanksgiving, which is, in and of itself, a monumental achievement. There were 16 people, American, Canadian, German, and British. There was turkey, there was stuffing, there was green bean casserole (made by me and Glenn and Meredith), there was pasta salad (made by me), quiche, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, rhubarb tort, scalloped potatoes, cheesecake, and more. We played football and frisbee. We played Celebrity and Mafia. When we finished eating, we passed out like a bunch of wolf cubs on the lawn. I was the Toast Master for the entire 3-day party (my favorite toast was when we actually had toast for breakfast. We toasted toast). And I got to stand in front of some of my dearest friends, some of my newest friends, all of whom I like more than I would have thought possible, and raise a glass to friends, family, and home, wherever they might be found. Then we got back to work.
Work, in this case, was a 4-day boys empowerment conference, called Mabadiliko Yanawezekana (Changes are Possible), put together by my fellow volunteers and I. There were 41 boys from 8 villages, and we taught them about goal-setting, business planning, reproductive health, gender equality, AIDS/HIV, and many other subjects. Highlights: there was a condom demonstration at a nearby soccer field. We had a wooden penis (actually several). But some of the boys, bless their hearts, were worried that the condoms might be too small. So what did we do? My good friend Geneva took one for the team, stepped up, and allowed another volunteer to properly pull a condom down her entire forearm. The picture is visual poetry, the boys were stunned to silence, and I may make t-shirts. There was a talent night, where I got up and led the volunteers in a camp song that I have been using since 1997. The boys loved it and got up to do the second verse with us. I also got to lead my favorite session, the Q and A. We put a box out at the beginning of the seminar, and let them write all sorts of anonymous questions. Then we answer them, or if possible, throw it back to the boys and let them answer themselves. A lot of it was fairly in-depth sexual stuff, as they get very little education in these things. We did our best to answer them. But there was one question that gave us pause: “what are the dangers of having sex with animals?”
...
We were flummoxed, unprepared, bamboozled. We were thrown off our game, so we threw it to the crowd. One kid, who is about 5’ and maybe weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, stood up, and said, in a bold, clear voice,
“utaumizwa”
“You will get hurt”
At which point we went to lunch.
After the conference was over I went to a World AIDS Day celebration in a nearby town (it was organized by one of my fellow volunteers). It was a hell of a party. The guys running it worked the crowd beautifully. They had a speed-eating contest (rice and beans followed by a soda), tongue twisters (Asha Osha Uso (Asha clean your face)), and lots of crowd interviews about AIDS. There was one fairly heinous moment, when the master of ceremonies had 3 little girls stand up in front of the crowd. He started asking each one about their parents. All their parents are dead. He asked them where they live now. At this point the one answering questions started crying. But under no circumstances are we going to allow a child in misery to disrupt the narrative, so he just kept asking questions. How do you feel about your parents being gone? How the hell do you think she feels? I hated it. It nearly made me physically ill. I suppose, to his credit, I should mention that they then raised money for the girls school supplies and uniforms. But there are better ways of doing that. These are humans, and they’re young, and they’re scared. They are not textbook examples of suffering, they are actual examples of suffering. There’s a difference, and one demands empathy, not exploitation. Lord save us from well-intentioned people.
Anyway, the real reason I was there is that my AIDS group was performing a couple of songs. And they knocked it out of the freaking park. I was sitting there, and I was near tears. Not because the songs were sad. They weren’t. Because I had lived in this village for 3 days when I went to the second meeting that this group had ever had. I wrote about it in my blog, I remember. There was an air of finality, of morbid acceptance, that pervaded that room. I know I wrote about looking at one mama, with her face in her hands, and me thinking of Dorothea Lange and writing “life doesn’t work out for everybody, does it?” But here’s the thing: that woman’s name is Mama Dennis. And she’s pretty damn awesome.
I’m not sure what happened, but somewhere along the way these people, who had been brought together by a terrible epidemic, started really enjoying being together. And watching them sing and dance, remembering how they never used to speak above a whisper...I’ve never been so proud of anybody in my entire life. My best friend in the group told me the other day that she wanted to live until she was 50. I laughed at her, because she’s about 35. Until I remembered that she is living with HIV, and 50 is a hell of a goal. I hope, I pray, that she gets there. But she isn’t going to live forever, and neither am I. Yet until then, she is singing, with a clear and beautiful voice, about a disease that has found her but not stopped her, in the hope that others might be free of it forever. I love her. I love all of them. For them, and you, and the opportunity to live this life, I am thankful.
Thanksgiving happened! It was such a great day! I had spent the preceding week tracking down a turkey (in the business sense, not like I was in the woods actually tracking anything). I found one. I went to pick him up the day before Thanksgiving with 2 other volunteers. We chose a nice fat one. We named him Terrance. Tom seemed too predictable. We then put him in a box, put the box in the back of a taxi, and drove 45 miles over a horrible road with the turkey in the back, and 7 people up front (in a car about the size of a Honda Civic). Halfway there, I wanted to be with Terrance in the back. But we got there (there is the beautiful Mufindi Highlands. It’s like the Sound of Music hills, but prettier). And we let Terrance graze for a while (his legs were tied up). We also started calling him Tayshaun, T-Money, and T-Pain, as if by giving him lots of names we could lessen the inevitable shock when we...you know...ate him.
But before you could say “apocalopalypse” we were putting him on the scale, sharpening the knife, and boiling the water (for plucking). He weighed in at 5.5 kilos (not large, but everybody got plenty of meat, so who cares?). And he was calm, almost accepting. We took him off to a grass knoll, and we had a basin. The Tanzanian with us was ready to do the slaughter. But no. I asked for the knife, telling the Tanzanian “nilimfahamu bora” (“I knew him best”). Geneva held the legs. I held the neck. I reassured Terrance that all would be well. And then I cut his head off.
For those playing the home game, I have now chopped down a Christmas tree with a machete and slaughtered the Thanksgiving turkey with a dull knife (it took a bit of doing). I’m thinking of marketing Dan’s Hands-On Holidays. We could make our own gunpowder for July 4 fireworks, and dress up a hen as a rabbit for Easter. Any other ideas?
The holiday itself was nothing short of marvelous. It felt like Thanksgiving, which is, in and of itself, a monumental achievement. There were 16 people, American, Canadian, German, and British. There was turkey, there was stuffing, there was green bean casserole (made by me and Glenn and Meredith), there was pasta salad (made by me), quiche, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, rhubarb tort, scalloped potatoes, cheesecake, and more. We played football and frisbee. We played Celebrity and Mafia. When we finished eating, we passed out like a bunch of wolf cubs on the lawn. I was the Toast Master for the entire 3-day party (my favorite toast was when we actually had toast for breakfast. We toasted toast). And I got to stand in front of some of my dearest friends, some of my newest friends, all of whom I like more than I would have thought possible, and raise a glass to friends, family, and home, wherever they might be found. Then we got back to work.
Work, in this case, was a 4-day boys empowerment conference, called Mabadiliko Yanawezekana (Changes are Possible), put together by my fellow volunteers and I. There were 41 boys from 8 villages, and we taught them about goal-setting, business planning, reproductive health, gender equality, AIDS/HIV, and many other subjects. Highlights: there was a condom demonstration at a nearby soccer field. We had a wooden penis (actually several). But some of the boys, bless their hearts, were worried that the condoms might be too small. So what did we do? My good friend Geneva took one for the team, stepped up, and allowed another volunteer to properly pull a condom down her entire forearm. The picture is visual poetry, the boys were stunned to silence, and I may make t-shirts. There was a talent night, where I got up and led the volunteers in a camp song that I have been using since 1997. The boys loved it and got up to do the second verse with us. I also got to lead my favorite session, the Q and A. We put a box out at the beginning of the seminar, and let them write all sorts of anonymous questions. Then we answer them, or if possible, throw it back to the boys and let them answer themselves. A lot of it was fairly in-depth sexual stuff, as they get very little education in these things. We did our best to answer them. But there was one question that gave us pause: “what are the dangers of having sex with animals?”
...
We were flummoxed, unprepared, bamboozled. We were thrown off our game, so we threw it to the crowd. One kid, who is about 5’ and maybe weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, stood up, and said, in a bold, clear voice,
“utaumizwa”
“You will get hurt”
At which point we went to lunch.
After the conference was over I went to a World AIDS Day celebration in a nearby town (it was organized by one of my fellow volunteers). It was a hell of a party. The guys running it worked the crowd beautifully. They had a speed-eating contest (rice and beans followed by a soda), tongue twisters (Asha Osha Uso (Asha clean your face)), and lots of crowd interviews about AIDS. There was one fairly heinous moment, when the master of ceremonies had 3 little girls stand up in front of the crowd. He started asking each one about their parents. All their parents are dead. He asked them where they live now. At this point the one answering questions started crying. But under no circumstances are we going to allow a child in misery to disrupt the narrative, so he just kept asking questions. How do you feel about your parents being gone? How the hell do you think she feels? I hated it. It nearly made me physically ill. I suppose, to his credit, I should mention that they then raised money for the girls school supplies and uniforms. But there are better ways of doing that. These are humans, and they’re young, and they’re scared. They are not textbook examples of suffering, they are actual examples of suffering. There’s a difference, and one demands empathy, not exploitation. Lord save us from well-intentioned people.
Anyway, the real reason I was there is that my AIDS group was performing a couple of songs. And they knocked it out of the freaking park. I was sitting there, and I was near tears. Not because the songs were sad. They weren’t. Because I had lived in this village for 3 days when I went to the second meeting that this group had ever had. I wrote about it in my blog, I remember. There was an air of finality, of morbid acceptance, that pervaded that room. I know I wrote about looking at one mama, with her face in her hands, and me thinking of Dorothea Lange and writing “life doesn’t work out for everybody, does it?” But here’s the thing: that woman’s name is Mama Dennis. And she’s pretty damn awesome.
I’m not sure what happened, but somewhere along the way these people, who had been brought together by a terrible epidemic, started really enjoying being together. And watching them sing and dance, remembering how they never used to speak above a whisper...I’ve never been so proud of anybody in my entire life. My best friend in the group told me the other day that she wanted to live until she was 50. I laughed at her, because she’s about 35. Until I remembered that she is living with HIV, and 50 is a hell of a goal. I hope, I pray, that she gets there. But she isn’t going to live forever, and neither am I. Yet until then, she is singing, with a clear and beautiful voice, about a disease that has found her but not stopped her, in the hope that others might be free of it forever. I love her. I love all of them. For them, and you, and the opportunity to live this life, I am thankful.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Ragamuffins
This blog is in memory of Anita Box. She taught me a lot, but mostly she taught me that being smart didn't mean you couldn't be exciting, and perhaps more important, excitable. Thank you teach. I'll miss you.
Was on my way into Dar one day last week, to see some very special people. Had to be there, left early to make sure I would be. Then, on the way, our bus hit a cow. Cow didn’t die. My timetable kind of did. We were udders-up for a while, but in the end I made it. It’s just always this stuff, the ridiculous and the unexpected, that gets me. I was in my friend Tala’s village making compost. And we had all the little kids out and gathering leaves. We thought we had enough leaves...until the little buggers started eating them. And you’re just never prepared for that. At no point when you are preparing yourself to leave your home and hearth, your country and your countrymen, in order to build a better world, do you think about what you’ll do when the kids start eating the compost leaves. It’s a gamechanger. And then the cow gets up and walks away. And you sort of think to yourself...”cow, you just made me late. I kind of want to eat you.” But then you remember, to err is human, to forgive bovine. (cue rimshot)
There’s a great example of the differences between our cultures, and I’ve been meaning to mention it forever. I was talking on Skype with my lovely lady one day, and she told me that I looked thinner. This very well might be the case, but either way, sweet of her to say. I came back to my village the next day, and all my villagers were very happy to see me. They said, “hongera! Umenenepa sana!” Which basically means, “Congratulations! You’ve swelled up like a balloon!”
See, in Tanzania, being fat is a symbol of prosperity, of wealth. In America, it is generally a symbol of laziness, I guess. But we are one of the first societies in history where the poor people are fatter than the rich people. And that’s actually pretty damn weird. Tanzanians think it’s crazy. They might be right. But they take the flattery to a bit of an extreme. I twisted my ankle one day playing frisbee. One of my villagers told me that I couldn’t walk because I had become admirably obese. Sweet lady. But the kicker was a few weeks ago. A village health worker told a friend of mine that she hadn’t recognize me, I was that fat. At which point a part of me just wants to go, “Really? Really? You really didn’t recognize me? You thought, perhaps, that another 6’2” white man, this one deliciously plump, had moved into the village, and everybody had forgotten to tell you? You thought that was what happened!?” This rant would then be followed by a swift flick to the very center of her forehead. But I do and say none of this. Why? Because I’m fat. And we are a jolly people.
Every time I walk into a classroom, the students are required to all stand up, and intone, (with varying levels of intensity, depending on the teacher, the temperature, and the time of day), “Elimu ni bahari, shikamoo mwalimu”. This means (as always, roughly), “education is the sea, we respect you teacher”. Each school has its own motto, most revolving around a central theme. I have seen all of the following: “elimu ni taa” (education is the light), “elimu ni unfunguo” (education is the key), “elimu ni kazi” (education is work), “elimu ni ukombozi” (education is salvation), and “elimu ni nanasi” (education is a pineapple). One of those is a lie. Well, actually, all of them might be lies. Which is my point.
Kiswahili has a ton of sayings like this. Not just about education. “Water is life”, “togetherness is strength”, “food is good” (made that last one up). Which, on one level, are true. And on another level, they are at best unnecessary and at worst plain stupid. I like writing. I like using similes and analogies and symbolism. If we all just said exactly what we mean...blogs would be shorter, I suppose...but subtlety and understanding would be in far shorter supply. The problem is that words are innocent little ragamuffins, and they can, against their will, be put to all sorts of daft, or even nefarious, purposes. Kwa mfano, for example, i.e., I really like this one baseball podcast. It’s smart, incisive, and often hilarious. But it is also sponsored by a company called RainEx, which makes wiper blades. The company’s tagline is “RainEx. It’s like weather never even happened.” Which is just a really stupid thing to hear somebody say out loud. As is “Travel should take you places” (Thank you, Hilton).
The ability to simplify is great, and necessary. The ability to oversimplify is dangerous. We see this in our candidates. Running our country is an immense task, incalculably complex. Infants are probably not up to the task. Yet that is the level of debate that we most often see. If the issues being debated are too complex for our understanding, why is that the fault of the debaters? Why would we want the person who is best at speaking Bumper Sticker? Education is learning, studying, expanding mental horizons, challenging your own prejudices, and a million other complex concepts. It isn’t the sea (that’s the big blue wet thing), a key (which opens stuff), or a pineapple (which tastes like sunshine).
October 29, 2008, I sent in my application to the US Peace Corps (the Phillies also won the World Series). October 29, 2011, I woke up before dawn in the middle of Tanzania. I packed my bag, walked 6 miles to the next village, and got on a bus to go get my family. There’s a Kiswahili song I love. It says, “milima haikutani, bali watu hukutana”. It means that mountains can’t meet with one another, but people can. In just a few hours, my two separate lives came together. Little bit like having your parents meet your girlfriend. Except that it’s really having your parents meet your entire other life. The mountains stayed where they’ve always been. But my father ate ugali with my best friend, my sister spoke to church leaders born 7,000 miles from her home, and my mother made Tanzanian children laugh, by pretending to be a lion. In a small village in East Africa, there’s a beautifully painted wall, with lions, and elephants, and a long-necked giraffe. And the next time a kid asks, “chui ni nini?” (what is a leopard?), the teacher will take him or her outside and show him the handsome cat lounging on a tree branch. And then they’ll know.
It’s easier than you might believe to be cynical here. We have so very far left to go. Yet if you climb the mountain and look at where we started...we have come so very far. Some steps are larger than others. Roads bring people closer to global markets, health clinics keep children alive. But the path that will unite us is long and unfinished, and not all the paving stones need be enormous. My mother can’t stop malaria, and she can’t draw water from stone. But she managed to paint a mural with three family members, a gifted, dedicated teacher, and 35 primary school students. Clinics don’t tell stories, and wells can’t make anybody laugh. We’re in the business of development. Not development of things, but of peoples. Making each other laugh, bringing color to a bare wall, bringing happiness, even for a moment, is not insignificant. Development is hard, slow going. But we’re a little closer today than we were the day before.
Was on my way into Dar one day last week, to see some very special people. Had to be there, left early to make sure I would be. Then, on the way, our bus hit a cow. Cow didn’t die. My timetable kind of did. We were udders-up for a while, but in the end I made it. It’s just always this stuff, the ridiculous and the unexpected, that gets me. I was in my friend Tala’s village making compost. And we had all the little kids out and gathering leaves. We thought we had enough leaves...until the little buggers started eating them. And you’re just never prepared for that. At no point when you are preparing yourself to leave your home and hearth, your country and your countrymen, in order to build a better world, do you think about what you’ll do when the kids start eating the compost leaves. It’s a gamechanger. And then the cow gets up and walks away. And you sort of think to yourself...”cow, you just made me late. I kind of want to eat you.” But then you remember, to err is human, to forgive bovine. (cue rimshot)
There’s a great example of the differences between our cultures, and I’ve been meaning to mention it forever. I was talking on Skype with my lovely lady one day, and she told me that I looked thinner. This very well might be the case, but either way, sweet of her to say. I came back to my village the next day, and all my villagers were very happy to see me. They said, “hongera! Umenenepa sana!” Which basically means, “Congratulations! You’ve swelled up like a balloon!”
See, in Tanzania, being fat is a symbol of prosperity, of wealth. In America, it is generally a symbol of laziness, I guess. But we are one of the first societies in history where the poor people are fatter than the rich people. And that’s actually pretty damn weird. Tanzanians think it’s crazy. They might be right. But they take the flattery to a bit of an extreme. I twisted my ankle one day playing frisbee. One of my villagers told me that I couldn’t walk because I had become admirably obese. Sweet lady. But the kicker was a few weeks ago. A village health worker told a friend of mine that she hadn’t recognize me, I was that fat. At which point a part of me just wants to go, “Really? Really? You really didn’t recognize me? You thought, perhaps, that another 6’2” white man, this one deliciously plump, had moved into the village, and everybody had forgotten to tell you? You thought that was what happened!?” This rant would then be followed by a swift flick to the very center of her forehead. But I do and say none of this. Why? Because I’m fat. And we are a jolly people.
Every time I walk into a classroom, the students are required to all stand up, and intone, (with varying levels of intensity, depending on the teacher, the temperature, and the time of day), “Elimu ni bahari, shikamoo mwalimu”. This means (as always, roughly), “education is the sea, we respect you teacher”. Each school has its own motto, most revolving around a central theme. I have seen all of the following: “elimu ni taa” (education is the light), “elimu ni unfunguo” (education is the key), “elimu ni kazi” (education is work), “elimu ni ukombozi” (education is salvation), and “elimu ni nanasi” (education is a pineapple). One of those is a lie. Well, actually, all of them might be lies. Which is my point.
Kiswahili has a ton of sayings like this. Not just about education. “Water is life”, “togetherness is strength”, “food is good” (made that last one up). Which, on one level, are true. And on another level, they are at best unnecessary and at worst plain stupid. I like writing. I like using similes and analogies and symbolism. If we all just said exactly what we mean...blogs would be shorter, I suppose...but subtlety and understanding would be in far shorter supply. The problem is that words are innocent little ragamuffins, and they can, against their will, be put to all sorts of daft, or even nefarious, purposes. Kwa mfano, for example, i.e., I really like this one baseball podcast. It’s smart, incisive, and often hilarious. But it is also sponsored by a company called RainEx, which makes wiper blades. The company’s tagline is “RainEx. It’s like weather never even happened.” Which is just a really stupid thing to hear somebody say out loud. As is “Travel should take you places” (Thank you, Hilton).
The ability to simplify is great, and necessary. The ability to oversimplify is dangerous. We see this in our candidates. Running our country is an immense task, incalculably complex. Infants are probably not up to the task. Yet that is the level of debate that we most often see. If the issues being debated are too complex for our understanding, why is that the fault of the debaters? Why would we want the person who is best at speaking Bumper Sticker? Education is learning, studying, expanding mental horizons, challenging your own prejudices, and a million other complex concepts. It isn’t the sea (that’s the big blue wet thing), a key (which opens stuff), or a pineapple (which tastes like sunshine).
October 29, 2008, I sent in my application to the US Peace Corps (the Phillies also won the World Series). October 29, 2011, I woke up before dawn in the middle of Tanzania. I packed my bag, walked 6 miles to the next village, and got on a bus to go get my family. There’s a Kiswahili song I love. It says, “milima haikutani, bali watu hukutana”. It means that mountains can’t meet with one another, but people can. In just a few hours, my two separate lives came together. Little bit like having your parents meet your girlfriend. Except that it’s really having your parents meet your entire other life. The mountains stayed where they’ve always been. But my father ate ugali with my best friend, my sister spoke to church leaders born 7,000 miles from her home, and my mother made Tanzanian children laugh, by pretending to be a lion. In a small village in East Africa, there’s a beautifully painted wall, with lions, and elephants, and a long-necked giraffe. And the next time a kid asks, “chui ni nini?” (what is a leopard?), the teacher will take him or her outside and show him the handsome cat lounging on a tree branch. And then they’ll know.
It’s easier than you might believe to be cynical here. We have so very far left to go. Yet if you climb the mountain and look at where we started...we have come so very far. Some steps are larger than others. Roads bring people closer to global markets, health clinics keep children alive. But the path that will unite us is long and unfinished, and not all the paving stones need be enormous. My mother can’t stop malaria, and she can’t draw water from stone. But she managed to paint a mural with three family members, a gifted, dedicated teacher, and 35 primary school students. Clinics don’t tell stories, and wells can’t make anybody laugh. We’re in the business of development. Not development of things, but of peoples. Making each other laugh, bringing color to a bare wall, bringing happiness, even for a moment, is not insignificant. Development is hard, slow going. But we’re a little closer today than we were the day before.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Ambapo Pana Moshi, Pana Moto
“Ambapo” means “where”, “pana” means “there is”, “moshi” means “smoke”, and “moto” means “fire”.
I wanted this particular job for a lot of reasons. Travel, service, knowledge. But I’d be lying if I told you that a big reason I wanted to join the Peace Corps wasn’t because of adventures. I wanted them. I’ve gotten them. This is the story of one of them.
We were building pigpens (that’s how all good stories start). It was about 3pm, the afternoon of a hot dry day, at the tail end of a string of hot, dry days. Everything in my village was brown, and will be for a few more weeks, until the rains start. We were building pigpens. When I say we, I mean my AIDS group, along with the two carpenters donating their time to help out the community. We were just about to finish Pigpen #8. Then the village chairman (my boss, a human shark lookalike, and just generally one of the greatest badasses I’ve ever met) comes by with some news. There’s a fire. And we’ve got to put it out. Me, two carpenters, and 8 HIV-positive women look at each other for a moment. Then we put down our tools and start walkin.
It’s a good 3 kilometers from where we were building the pigpens to fire. In those 3K most of my friends from the pigpen group fall back a little ways. While the chairman told us that everybody was going out, this seems to be more on the male side of the work spectrum. I fall in with an older babu (grandfather) that I know pretty well. He sells fish in the small village market. I ask him whether or not we are going to pick up some buckets for water. He laughs at me. I’m a little taken aback. Was just askin, after all. He says something about branches. I don’t get it. I will later.
The sky has seemed hazy for a while now, but I don’t get a real good idea of the fire until we come over a ridgeline...and it’s smoke. Everywhere. And we’re still a ways from the fire. But this is clearly not some lark. This fire can, and probably is, taking out farms, tree nurseries, maybe even houses. I found out later that it came right through where our beehives had been hung up (luckily they were hung with wire). This fire is the real deal. I’m not really sure whether or not I’m supposed to be nervous about this. I just keep walking. I hear something that sounds like a wrapper being crinkled. The wrapper gradually starts to sound bigger and bigger. All of a sudden, we’re there. Somebody is cooking with gas. Flames are all in front of us, and white smoke is billowing over our heads. I’m suddenly conscious of just how little water there is in my immediate reality. It feels like I’m standing on a hay bale while playing with matches. But second thoughts would have been more useful first. The babu stops in fronts of me, grabs his machete, and cuts down two 4’ branches, leaves and all. He hands one to me, keeps the other himself, and heads on in. I pull my bandana out of my pocket, tie it over my mouth and nose, grab my branch (not that I know what it’s for yet), and walk into a forest fire.
It’s hot, and I can’t breathe. The babu ahead of me is beating something with his branch. I get it. We’re going to beat this fire, like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. Real men fight fire with sticks. Of course, at some point all your leaves burn off and the stick catches on fire, but that’s what you bring the machete for: to cut a new fire extinguisher off of the nearest tree. This is simple. This is brilliant. I wish I’d invented the stick.
Couple of problems though. This fire is not small, everything is absurdly dry, and the wind is blowing at full force today. I see flames get as high as 10 feet (pretty high in grasslands), and more than once I see flames just roast an adult tree in a matter of seconds. Obviously running head on into an inferno isn’t going to work here. Me and the babu seem to have been given the left flank. Of course, that means that the wind is blowing straight at us. And so is the fire. We look at it for a second. The wind gusts. The fire jumps. We run away. The wind dies down. We cautiously return. If we wait much longer the fire is going to enter a pretty thick stand of trees, and we’re going to have a hell of time. Perhaps it would be best to do the thing.
Somehow or other, we get started. It feels sort of like charging the battlements of some tiny, hot castle. I start just beating the ground with my branch, trying to put out all the sparks, stamping on embers. Then it gets too hot, or the wind picks up, or enough smoke enters my lungs that I turn away for a few seconds, try to remember where I am, and start over. It basically works like this, we put out a spot and then move along the flanks of the fire, putting it out in a straight line, moving from side to side. The area that’s already has been burned holds no real danger, so the actual fire is only a few feet deep. Me and the babu leapfrog each other, occasionally cutting down a new branch. Then we have to double back, because of course we missed some sparks. Then something on fire is on my arm, and then it’s off. Then the wind picks up for a minute, and a 5 year-old pine tree goes up like a bonfire. Some part of me becomes aware that this is not a part of my normal routine. Then it’s back in again.
I literally have no idea how long me and the babu were beating out the fire. It might have been an hour. It might have been half that. I know at one point I was yelling at the babu that we would drink free pombe (booze) tonight. I also know that my eyes were tearing and my nose was running the entire time, so badly that my bandana clogged up and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. At some point babu gave me the machete. At some point I realized that I could hear a lot less crackling, and that I’d been doing this for a while. It was around then that I realized that most of my clothes had been covered in black.
Babu leads us down into a little gorge. There are a few sparks to be put out here. We knock ‘em out with our fire-whackers. Then...it’s over. Babu just turns around and walks back up the hill. I’m not really sure what to do, or where to go. I do know that I’ve got a rock concert’s worth of adrenaline still kicking, and that I’m barely able to breathe through my bandana. I pull it down around my neck, and start walking up after my old man, the fishmonger.
What follows next is one of those moments I hope I never get old enough to forget. I come back up out of the gorge, and see that the fire is out, hopefully completely, on all sides. I walk a little farther, following my guy, and then I see, a little ways ahead, my boss. The chairman. There’s other people standing behind him, and a bunch of them clearly did not know that I was in there, because they gasp (hot crowd. Get it?). But the chairman doesn’t gasp. Doesn’t make a sound. Far too much of a badass for any of that. I realize how I must look to him: grimy, blackened, holding a machete in one hand and a burned-out branch in the other, bandana hanging round my neck, walking out of the smoke. All he does is grin, in the most wonderful sort of way. This is the man that picked me up on my very first day, that watched me butt my head against so many walls, that was there to advise me and correct me, that has seen some of what I’ve tried to to begin, ever so slowly, to catch hold. And in that moment, in that little, tiny, half-smirk of a grin...I see he’s proud of me.
I walk up to him. He says, “Kazi”. That means, “work”. I reply, “tuko hai”.
That means, “we’re alive”.
I wanted this particular job for a lot of reasons. Travel, service, knowledge. But I’d be lying if I told you that a big reason I wanted to join the Peace Corps wasn’t because of adventures. I wanted them. I’ve gotten them. This is the story of one of them.
We were building pigpens (that’s how all good stories start). It was about 3pm, the afternoon of a hot dry day, at the tail end of a string of hot, dry days. Everything in my village was brown, and will be for a few more weeks, until the rains start. We were building pigpens. When I say we, I mean my AIDS group, along with the two carpenters donating their time to help out the community. We were just about to finish Pigpen #8. Then the village chairman (my boss, a human shark lookalike, and just generally one of the greatest badasses I’ve ever met) comes by with some news. There’s a fire. And we’ve got to put it out. Me, two carpenters, and 8 HIV-positive women look at each other for a moment. Then we put down our tools and start walkin.
It’s a good 3 kilometers from where we were building the pigpens to fire. In those 3K most of my friends from the pigpen group fall back a little ways. While the chairman told us that everybody was going out, this seems to be more on the male side of the work spectrum. I fall in with an older babu (grandfather) that I know pretty well. He sells fish in the small village market. I ask him whether or not we are going to pick up some buckets for water. He laughs at me. I’m a little taken aback. Was just askin, after all. He says something about branches. I don’t get it. I will later.
The sky has seemed hazy for a while now, but I don’t get a real good idea of the fire until we come over a ridgeline...and it’s smoke. Everywhere. And we’re still a ways from the fire. But this is clearly not some lark. This fire can, and probably is, taking out farms, tree nurseries, maybe even houses. I found out later that it came right through where our beehives had been hung up (luckily they were hung with wire). This fire is the real deal. I’m not really sure whether or not I’m supposed to be nervous about this. I just keep walking. I hear something that sounds like a wrapper being crinkled. The wrapper gradually starts to sound bigger and bigger. All of a sudden, we’re there. Somebody is cooking with gas. Flames are all in front of us, and white smoke is billowing over our heads. I’m suddenly conscious of just how little water there is in my immediate reality. It feels like I’m standing on a hay bale while playing with matches. But second thoughts would have been more useful first. The babu stops in fronts of me, grabs his machete, and cuts down two 4’ branches, leaves and all. He hands one to me, keeps the other himself, and heads on in. I pull my bandana out of my pocket, tie it over my mouth and nose, grab my branch (not that I know what it’s for yet), and walk into a forest fire.
It’s hot, and I can’t breathe. The babu ahead of me is beating something with his branch. I get it. We’re going to beat this fire, like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. Real men fight fire with sticks. Of course, at some point all your leaves burn off and the stick catches on fire, but that’s what you bring the machete for: to cut a new fire extinguisher off of the nearest tree. This is simple. This is brilliant. I wish I’d invented the stick.
Couple of problems though. This fire is not small, everything is absurdly dry, and the wind is blowing at full force today. I see flames get as high as 10 feet (pretty high in grasslands), and more than once I see flames just roast an adult tree in a matter of seconds. Obviously running head on into an inferno isn’t going to work here. Me and the babu seem to have been given the left flank. Of course, that means that the wind is blowing straight at us. And so is the fire. We look at it for a second. The wind gusts. The fire jumps. We run away. The wind dies down. We cautiously return. If we wait much longer the fire is going to enter a pretty thick stand of trees, and we’re going to have a hell of time. Perhaps it would be best to do the thing.
Somehow or other, we get started. It feels sort of like charging the battlements of some tiny, hot castle. I start just beating the ground with my branch, trying to put out all the sparks, stamping on embers. Then it gets too hot, or the wind picks up, or enough smoke enters my lungs that I turn away for a few seconds, try to remember where I am, and start over. It basically works like this, we put out a spot and then move along the flanks of the fire, putting it out in a straight line, moving from side to side. The area that’s already has been burned holds no real danger, so the actual fire is only a few feet deep. Me and the babu leapfrog each other, occasionally cutting down a new branch. Then we have to double back, because of course we missed some sparks. Then something on fire is on my arm, and then it’s off. Then the wind picks up for a minute, and a 5 year-old pine tree goes up like a bonfire. Some part of me becomes aware that this is not a part of my normal routine. Then it’s back in again.
I literally have no idea how long me and the babu were beating out the fire. It might have been an hour. It might have been half that. I know at one point I was yelling at the babu that we would drink free pombe (booze) tonight. I also know that my eyes were tearing and my nose was running the entire time, so badly that my bandana clogged up and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. At some point babu gave me the machete. At some point I realized that I could hear a lot less crackling, and that I’d been doing this for a while. It was around then that I realized that most of my clothes had been covered in black.
Babu leads us down into a little gorge. There are a few sparks to be put out here. We knock ‘em out with our fire-whackers. Then...it’s over. Babu just turns around and walks back up the hill. I’m not really sure what to do, or where to go. I do know that I’ve got a rock concert’s worth of adrenaline still kicking, and that I’m barely able to breathe through my bandana. I pull it down around my neck, and start walking up after my old man, the fishmonger.
What follows next is one of those moments I hope I never get old enough to forget. I come back up out of the gorge, and see that the fire is out, hopefully completely, on all sides. I walk a little farther, following my guy, and then I see, a little ways ahead, my boss. The chairman. There’s other people standing behind him, and a bunch of them clearly did not know that I was in there, because they gasp (hot crowd. Get it?). But the chairman doesn’t gasp. Doesn’t make a sound. Far too much of a badass for any of that. I realize how I must look to him: grimy, blackened, holding a machete in one hand and a burned-out branch in the other, bandana hanging round my neck, walking out of the smoke. All he does is grin, in the most wonderful sort of way. This is the man that picked me up on my very first day, that watched me butt my head against so many walls, that was there to advise me and correct me, that has seen some of what I’ve tried to to begin, ever so slowly, to catch hold. And in that moment, in that little, tiny, half-smirk of a grin...I see he’s proud of me.
I walk up to him. He says, “Kazi”. That means, “work”. I reply, “tuko hai”.
That means, “we’re alive”.
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