And if you want to know what the devil the title of the blog means...you will wait till the end.
Got robbed. The buggers took my solar lantern, my solar charger, my hiking boots, and a cell phone I brought from home. But I believe they were expecting my house to be wallpapered with leftover money...and when they didn’t find that, they took whatever looked shiny. Like my hammer. And my blanket. My sugar. Pasta. My extremely used shower flip-flops. Maybe not the brightest blokes, is what I’m saying.
They did, however, give me a unique opportunity: I got to see the inside of a Tanzanian police station. Was kind of like visiting a station in the Bronx in the late 70’s. Lots of guns. Old guns, new guns...and I’m not joking, a tommy gun. Motorcycles parked in the hallway, which is lit by (and I’m not joking) a single flickering bulb. I get to the end of the hallway, where the detective I need is working. But he’s a little busy...with a suspect...who they’re working over. So they beat him around a while, then I guess his questioning arm gets tired, and he comes out to talk with me. My man is a little overweight. His name is Alfred. Let’s call him Al. Al is a little overweight (they do have doughnuts here), got a nice little belly on here. Al is wearing a pair of rather tight dress pants, and the kicker is a real real tight blue polyester shirt doing its best on the belly. All my man needs is rockin pair of sideburns, and the 70’s are back. One of his assistants has a Hawaiian shirt to make Selleck proud. Another player has a tie with a knot as wide as a baby. But what made my morning is a photo album I noticed on one guy’s desk. He shows it to me, tells me it is the book of Most Wanted Subjects. Unsavory characters, I have no doubt. Cold-blooded fiends. But a little hard to take seriously when their pictures are inside a green plastic photo album...with a big cut-out heart on the front. For newlyweds. Or hardened criminals. What have you.
Couple of stories from my good friend Kenz, who lives a village over. We meet up once a week to teach Life Skills at the nearby secondary school. These little meetings are pretty wonderful for our mental health, though I’m sure all the villagers think we are insane with how much we make each other laugh. One of our favorite things: every week we ask the students in our class to write down a question. We choose five good ones and answer them the next week, after we have prepared detailed answers. But some of the questions are...well...awesome. And some of them are in English. Sometimes not very good English. Which is how Kenz and I ended up almost falling out of our chairs, laughing so hard we cried, wondering how you answer the following question:
“What is monkey?”
I feel like that is a Jeopardy answer. Maybe that student should get a prize. But unfortunately life is not all chai and biscuits for me and Kenz. She has a problem. Maybe a problem that stretches to the next level of existence. One that could threaten several lives, and the health of her own eternal soul. Her dog, you see, he ate the wizard’s chicken. And you don’t do that. Big faux pas. Huge.
Now of course the poor mutt didn’t know any better. He got out, as he is known to do (he’s better fed than a lot of children I know here, and the pooch could pull a plow). Ran around for a while, came back, tongue wagging, as happy as the cat that ate the canary. Which is all too apt, because at it turns out he’d had himself a snack of a lovely old gentleman, who, by the by, is also a wizard of some renown. I write about uchawi (witchcraft) mostly in jest, but our villagers take it entirely seriously, and I certainly don’t claim to have the world figured out, so who am I to say they are wrong? Kenz has apologized profusely, and we are currently trying to find some gainful employment for the dog so he can burn off his excess energy (he also ate one of the principal’s chickens. No curse there, so I’m told). But man, when your dog goes out running in America, you worry about cars, not hexes.
Another problem, little less out there. The leader of Kenz’s village is not a bad guy. Maybe a little. There was a plan when she arrived about building a zahanati (dispensary, capable of giving some health care, giving out some meds, and referring patients). Great idea, and the villagers had already made a lot of bricks (in the tens of thousands). Except the bricks are gone. Where? Don’t know, and wouldn’t want to speculate, but the villager leader did just buy himself a car. Then announced at a village meeting, without telling anybody first, that the whole dispensary idea is sooooo last year. Who needs health care? Peace Corps is going to get us a tractor!
I’m not joking. He announced this at a village meeting, without prepping Kenz even a little. So Kenz got to follow that act by standing up and explaining why she was not going to be buying a tractor, how they should use their government funding for something more sustainable, like a tree nursery or any number of useful projects. She did a damn good job too; when she finished, they applauded. Even the leader. The thing about the tractor is this: I used to be a socialist, before I got here. Just finished reading an amazing book, “The People’s History of the United States”, and am more convinced then ever that government needs to exist to help those who need help. But you work in villages, on communal projects...and they do not work. Where will the tractor stay? Who will drive it? What do they get paid? Who will plan the schedule? Who will fix it? What do they get paid? Where will the parts come from? The tools? The training? The gas (remember, this is a village without electricity, 20K from the nearest gas station, and 4 really bumpy kilometers off the highway)? And if there is even the slightest ambiguity in any of these answers, in two years the tractor becomes a very large lawn ornament for some lucky villagers. But here’s the great part: the village leader knows this! He told Kenz: “sure after three years it’s just going to sit there. But for those three years it will help us a lot!” I really want him to write a book. We can call it Leadership, by that guy. I don’t want to be pessimistic. And I’m not. But you can’t make plans pretending that humans are going to care as much about someone else’s farm as their own. Would be nice, but so would a singing gnome. Alas, alack.
Had a very odd meeting a few days ago. Was in a small office with a bunch of the sub-village leaders, discussing wells. Nothing too exciting. Then it starts to rain, heavily, on a tin roof, which as I’ve already described gets pretty loud. But the office has no windows. It is small. The wind is blowing in the door, as is the rain. So one of the guys closes the door. Now it’s pitch dark, and it is loud, and the meeting has come to a halt. As has the passage of time. For about a half hour, or maybe a few days, we sit there in silence, and we could be anywhere. Don’t want to get too weird here, but it was weird. It was like being asleep while being awake. Then the rain stops, and though we are awake, we awake, and the meeting continues. And nobody talks about it, so neither do I, and now I’m not really sure it happened, and if it did, what it meant.
About 30 hours ago I was told a saying in Kiswahili. At the time my counterpart and I were having kind of a rough day, and nothing was going our way. So my counterpart said something really deep, maybe. He said,
“siku ya kufa kwa nyanyi, miti yote huteleza”
“on the day of the baboon’s death, all the trees will fall.”
My first question was whether we were the baboon or the trees, at which point he doubled over in laughter. I then told him that some days we are the pigeon and some days the statue, and after I explained that he quadrupled over in laughter. But for the last 30 hours I have pondered his saying about the baboon deeply. And it can mean anything, everything, and nothing. Is it an important baboon? Does he live in the trees? Do the trees really like the baboon? Does this have something to do with the movie Fern Gully? Trust me when I tell you, this proverb can be said in any situation and made to fit. Just try to sound wise, and stroke your beard, and if you don’t have one...I can only do so much, I’m in Africa.
My primary school had a bunch of student teachers for the last month. A brief tangent: the 9 of them were dropped off and picked up by a large truck, containing 40 other student teachers, along with their belongings and mattresses. The truck came from about 180 kilometers away. I’ve seen mosh pits with more breathing room. Anyway, they were great to have around, and I got on well with them, and they picked up frisbee really fast. We had a farewell party for them, and then a dance party in one of the classrooms, which was really fun. The shida (the problem) came when me and my partner tried to leave. One of the ladies had taken a shine, it appeared. Or as my counterpart put it, “psychologically (he loves that word), it appears she has fallen in love.” At which point I made a Dan-sized hole in the wall.
When I tried to explain it to my partner later, he didn’t get it. He knows I have a girlfriend and that I love her...but those aren’t considered prohibitive factors here, to put it delicately. Then I realized, this is not a cultural thing. I remember in City Slickers, the Bruno Kirby character gives Billy Crystal a scenario: “you’re alone, camping out, and a spaceship lands. Out steps the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, and she wants to make the most amazing love with you, after which she will get back on the spaceship and fly away for ever. No one will ever know. Would you?” Billy Crystal responds: “no, because the exact situation you have described happened to a friend of mine, and his wife did find out. At the hair salon. They know everything there.” All men everywhere, take heed. But seriously, wasn't much of a choice to make. As someone or other said, He is a fool indeed who breaks a thing to find out how it works. I'm not that stupid. I've got something special, and I don't need a spaceship or a barbershop to remind me.
To close (sorry for the length), I return to the classroom. Asked a question of my students one day. I asked them why we do things we know are wrong. A boy raises his hand. Yes, little student?
"Shetani"
"Satan"
...Well yes...I suppose that's true...but...
...Was in church again the other day (my involuntary church-going has become a reluctant theme of this blog). Got to hear a local Swiss missionary talk about how these are the end times, and how some of us will betray each other (et tu, Rocco?), and all of these earthquakes are portents of the end of days. Also know a Catholic missionary who has been here for years, living in a region with a 16% AIDS prevalency, who still does not advocate using condoms. There are plenty of priests here who instruct their congregations to not use ARVs if you are HIV positive, just to pray. Because that's enough.
Well...no, it is not. Faith is a beautiful thing. It humbles and it uplifts. I think it is important to be subject to one another, and subject to something greater than ourselves. But I'm also a huge believer in the importance, and the greatness, of people. People rock. In all our hurried hubris we can accomplish great and terrible things, and though a reckoning may one day come, our failures are our own, and so are our successes. I find myself wrestling many days here with what I believe. The best I can do is this: there is more to this world, and this universe, than meets the eye. There is more that holds us together than pulls us apart. And, to paraphrase Edward M Forster, if I had to choose between my God or my friend, I hope I should have the guts to choose my friend.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Rainy Days and Milkmen
I spent a little time the last few weeks worrying about how I would write this current blog. Not much had happened, I thought. Would make it brief, pithy, and call it a day. Then I was reminded of an ancient Chinese curse.
May you live in interesting times.
I could write about beekeeping and sunsets and humorous little anecdotes where the dinner ends up in the dust. I could write about that shit forever. And if nothing bad ever happened to me or mine, nothing momentous, and the only consequence was me being a poorer writer for it, I think we’d all be prepared to live with that. I know I would.
I’m doing wonderfully. My life is wonderful. I do not have one single, solitary thing to complain about, not if you compare me with just about anybody. The problem with this blog is that it’s by me, and it’s about me, and while I can (and will) dedicate this blog to other people, who are in far greater need of prayers and comfort than I, the very act of writing a blog post requires a great stretch of ego to assume that anybody cares even a little about your life...and it’s all downhill from there. So I’m great, to begin with. And that’s about the least important place to start.
This morning (Wednesday), my friend Natalie and I woke up, and went for a run by the ocean. We paused when we got there, and I did my best monkey impression, crawling up a little rocky island and watching the sun rise on the bay of Dar Es Salaam. We are in the capital for training, and though I got on a bus in my village, it might have well been a time machine. Washing machines, TVs, movie theaters...are these things real? Can this possibly be a single world, let alone country? For that matter, can this possibly be a single lifetime? Apparently the answer is yes.
We returned to the house we are staying at (with a delightful embassy worker named Andrew). We went shopping. At a grocery store. It felt like a game show. I put on some Kanye West, and started cooking, and turned out some of the best french toast this stomach has seen in quite some time. And Natalie, who is quite possibly the most positive person I have ever stumbled across, remarked what a wonderful morning this had turned out to be. Running, and groceries, and music, and jokes, and french freaking toast. This, she said, was just the nicest morning. So I guess what follows would be her fault.
Got a message from a fellow volunteer to switch phone lines (I have two), and call her. She had some problems with a project. Switched lines, got that sorted. Got a message from my counterpart, there is a problem. Can’t reach him. Get a call from my sister. It’s 4:30 in the morning in America, and like milkmen and rainy days, bad news wakes up early. My aunt Marilou has passed away, of cancer, after more pain and bad luck than such a wonderful and loving person, and such a badass aunt, deserved. I don’t know who handles these things well...not me. I simply get very quiet, and don’t really know what to do. I ombaed (requested...or prayed) a hug from Natalie, and got it. Finish the last piece of french toast. At which point my counterpart gets a hold of me and lets me know my house back in the village has been broken into. At which point I begin to laugh. I now have something to write my blog about. I’d rather drink poison.
There’s nothing right to write. Any attempt at eloquence feels like dancing at a....goddamnit... Any attempt to write it less than eloquent feels dumb. It’s like I’m typing with sticks instead of fingers. I feel incredibly stupid, and incredibly useless. Someone I love has passed away, and people I love are grieving and in pain...and I’m on the dark side of the moon. You are all in my thoughts, and in my prayers...but that doesn’t... maybe I shouldn’t be writing. But this is what I do now. This is how I deal with life now. I climb trees, and I write letters to friends, to students, and to all of you. I hope they’re entertaining, but the reality of it is that I’m on my own, and things have a way of bursting if they are overfilled, and I let myself out in this space, in this way. I wish I had more to do. I wish I had anything to do. To help. But I just finished a book in which a character piercingly comments, ‘if men don’t know a guy on Essex street who can fix it, they think there’s no help to be given’. There isn’t a guy. There isn’t even a street. I still wish I was there, rather than here.
I remember one night getting a similar phone call. I finished a show, got out of costume (which involved detaching a meat phallus), and raced back to Pennsylvania, and did absolutely nothing. Me and my friend watched a football game. Nothing was better, nothing was fixed, and maybe the very act of rushing home presumed a lot about my own importance in someone else’s life. But it wasn’t about that. It was about being there, in every sense of the word. I think it’s our right, in these times, to not be alone, to be the opposite of alone. I think people help. And I wish I could. But I can’t. So thoughts and prayers and blogs will have to be feeble substitutes to hugs and help and casseroles.
There are some other things I’d like to talk about, thoughts I’ve been having, but they don’t really feel appropriate. My aunt was a beautiful person, a wonderful wife and mother, and I miss her. As I’ve said, I have little, if any, consolation to offer. Just two small things. Monday morning the kids at my primary school received an unexpected present: a soccer ball and a volleyball (they play a weird combo of basketball and ultimate frisbee with it called netball). The school has fields, and children should play, but they had nothing to play with. Except little did they know that 9 months ago my aunt told me she wanted to help some kids she’d never met play soccer, and gave me the money to make that happen. And it did, because of her. And if that’s not magic, then it doesn’t exist.
One last thing. A couple of my friends have also dealt lately with losing people they loved. I wrote to them, and I write now, that I’m really not sure what I think about death and how all of that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to be loved than not, and to that end I guess we all did our best. I’m not sure there’s any more than that. But that’s a lot, a whole lot. Maybe everything. I love you all, as much as I can. Thank you all, for the same in return.
May you live in interesting times.
I could write about beekeeping and sunsets and humorous little anecdotes where the dinner ends up in the dust. I could write about that shit forever. And if nothing bad ever happened to me or mine, nothing momentous, and the only consequence was me being a poorer writer for it, I think we’d all be prepared to live with that. I know I would.
I’m doing wonderfully. My life is wonderful. I do not have one single, solitary thing to complain about, not if you compare me with just about anybody. The problem with this blog is that it’s by me, and it’s about me, and while I can (and will) dedicate this blog to other people, who are in far greater need of prayers and comfort than I, the very act of writing a blog post requires a great stretch of ego to assume that anybody cares even a little about your life...and it’s all downhill from there. So I’m great, to begin with. And that’s about the least important place to start.
This morning (Wednesday), my friend Natalie and I woke up, and went for a run by the ocean. We paused when we got there, and I did my best monkey impression, crawling up a little rocky island and watching the sun rise on the bay of Dar Es Salaam. We are in the capital for training, and though I got on a bus in my village, it might have well been a time machine. Washing machines, TVs, movie theaters...are these things real? Can this possibly be a single world, let alone country? For that matter, can this possibly be a single lifetime? Apparently the answer is yes.
We returned to the house we are staying at (with a delightful embassy worker named Andrew). We went shopping. At a grocery store. It felt like a game show. I put on some Kanye West, and started cooking, and turned out some of the best french toast this stomach has seen in quite some time. And Natalie, who is quite possibly the most positive person I have ever stumbled across, remarked what a wonderful morning this had turned out to be. Running, and groceries, and music, and jokes, and french freaking toast. This, she said, was just the nicest morning. So I guess what follows would be her fault.
Got a message from a fellow volunteer to switch phone lines (I have two), and call her. She had some problems with a project. Switched lines, got that sorted. Got a message from my counterpart, there is a problem. Can’t reach him. Get a call from my sister. It’s 4:30 in the morning in America, and like milkmen and rainy days, bad news wakes up early. My aunt Marilou has passed away, of cancer, after more pain and bad luck than such a wonderful and loving person, and such a badass aunt, deserved. I don’t know who handles these things well...not me. I simply get very quiet, and don’t really know what to do. I ombaed (requested...or prayed) a hug from Natalie, and got it. Finish the last piece of french toast. At which point my counterpart gets a hold of me and lets me know my house back in the village has been broken into. At which point I begin to laugh. I now have something to write my blog about. I’d rather drink poison.
There’s nothing right to write. Any attempt at eloquence feels like dancing at a....goddamnit... Any attempt to write it less than eloquent feels dumb. It’s like I’m typing with sticks instead of fingers. I feel incredibly stupid, and incredibly useless. Someone I love has passed away, and people I love are grieving and in pain...and I’m on the dark side of the moon. You are all in my thoughts, and in my prayers...but that doesn’t... maybe I shouldn’t be writing. But this is what I do now. This is how I deal with life now. I climb trees, and I write letters to friends, to students, and to all of you. I hope they’re entertaining, but the reality of it is that I’m on my own, and things have a way of bursting if they are overfilled, and I let myself out in this space, in this way. I wish I had more to do. I wish I had anything to do. To help. But I just finished a book in which a character piercingly comments, ‘if men don’t know a guy on Essex street who can fix it, they think there’s no help to be given’. There isn’t a guy. There isn’t even a street. I still wish I was there, rather than here.
I remember one night getting a similar phone call. I finished a show, got out of costume (which involved detaching a meat phallus), and raced back to Pennsylvania, and did absolutely nothing. Me and my friend watched a football game. Nothing was better, nothing was fixed, and maybe the very act of rushing home presumed a lot about my own importance in someone else’s life. But it wasn’t about that. It was about being there, in every sense of the word. I think it’s our right, in these times, to not be alone, to be the opposite of alone. I think people help. And I wish I could. But I can’t. So thoughts and prayers and blogs will have to be feeble substitutes to hugs and help and casseroles.
There are some other things I’d like to talk about, thoughts I’ve been having, but they don’t really feel appropriate. My aunt was a beautiful person, a wonderful wife and mother, and I miss her. As I’ve said, I have little, if any, consolation to offer. Just two small things. Monday morning the kids at my primary school received an unexpected present: a soccer ball and a volleyball (they play a weird combo of basketball and ultimate frisbee with it called netball). The school has fields, and children should play, but they had nothing to play with. Except little did they know that 9 months ago my aunt told me she wanted to help some kids she’d never met play soccer, and gave me the money to make that happen. And it did, because of her. And if that’s not magic, then it doesn’t exist.
One last thing. A couple of my friends have also dealt lately with losing people they loved. I wrote to them, and I write now, that I’m really not sure what I think about death and how all of that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to be loved than not, and to that end I guess we all did our best. I’m not sure there’s any more than that. But that’s a lot, a whole lot. Maybe everything. I love you all, as much as I can. Thank you all, for the same in return.
Monday, February 28, 2011
What Would Ulysses Do
Been waiting to write this blog for a long, long time. And now here we are, but where to start? Perhaps at the beginning.
I arrived in Tanzania late at night on June 16, 2010. We were staying a large religious complex called the Msimbazi Centre. I decided hey, why not get things off on the proverbial (and literal) right foot, and having been in country for about 12 hours, I got up and went for a run. It was weird, it was awkward, I spoke not a single word of Kiswahili, but when I finished, I was actually really proud of myself. I knew that the run I’d just finished would be one of the hardest I would ever go on. Not because of the distance, or the conditions. Because as the sun rose that morning on my new country, I got my first, albeit self-inflicted, experience of being estranged in a strange land. A few days later I first heard about the Kilimanjaro Marathon. From that point on, my life as a volunteer has been measured in the dusty miles of Tanzania’s byways, highways, and myways.
I woke up at 5:30 on Friday morning, having slept a few fitful hours. The day before my environmental club had successfully built its first compost pile, and I didn’t get home till late to begin packing for the trip to Moshi (a town at the base of Kilimanjaro where the marathon takes place). I left the house at 6:30, dropped off my bike and some valuables at a neighbor’s, and hiked the 8 kilometers to a nearby junction town where I boarded the bus to Moshi at 8:30am. The bus arrived in Moshi 9:30pm. In between I ate 3 sambusas, 2 yogurts, befriended a lovely mama who said she would pray for me during the race, was urinated on by a 2-year old (no biggie), vomited on by his mother (...yeah), and felt all the tendons in my knees begin to tighten like pulled rubber bands. It was lovely. Arrived alive, and that in and of itself was a victory. Moshi is a beautiful town, we went for a short run on Saturday morning to loosen the legs, and spent most of the day grazing and being nervous. Went to bed early, slept well, with the exception of a few trips to deal with the 6 liters of water I’d drank that day.
Which brings us to Sunday, and the reason for the season, 26.2 miles of awesome called the Kilimanjaro Marathon. The door guy at our hostel asked me yesterday why I was running this race. I didn’t have the language to explain it, so I had to go with “Napenda sana changamoto” (I really like challenges). But that doesn’t quite cover it. Why do people run at all? There are many more interactive, and healthier, forms of exercise, things like basketball, yoga, frisbee, hiking. All of which I enjoy more than running. But then, I never enjoy running while I’m running. I don’t presume to speak for others, but when I’m running, I’m contesting a very bitter and longlasting rivalry with myself. Was listening to Scott Van Pelt on my podcasts, and he said “ a rivalry only exists if when one team looks at the other, they see themselves.” Got that part covered. He also said, “a rivalry only exists if the other side can take something from that matters”. Which is also the case. This might be stupid. It probably is. There’s nobody but me who cares if I finish a run. But the way I work, in all things, involves this weird little duality, with a constant mental conversation between me and a part of me who is a bit skeptical. Of everything. It’s sort of like when NFL players start telling each other that nobody believes in them, even when newspapers are picking them to win Super Bowls and fans are spending millions on their jerseys and tickets. But sometimes you need a fire to fight, and if the friction isn’t there naturally, then you rub some sticks together. Which is basically how it works in my head. Whenever I go running, it’s a contest of pride and principle and self-worth, none of which have any actual connection to my exercise. But it means that every completed run is a victory, and that is what I enjoy about running. The victory of it, the triumph over the weaker parts of myself. Which makes a 5:15 marathon time an interesting thing to deal with.
Started out well enough, running with my friend Randi, with whom I have run many a morning mile in Tanzania. Ran the first quarter together, then I was not able to keep her pace for much longer. Finished the first half of the marathon in about two hours and a few minutes, runnin the whole way. Then the Kilimanjaro Marathon takes a turn, and it goes uphill, for the entire third quarter. And this is when your boy started hurting. I’ve tweaked my knee a few times training, and it started to flare up. The asphalt suddenly feels a lot harder, and each kilometer marker seems to take another year to pass. My slow-downs for the water stops became short walks, then a little longer. Around the 25km mark (there are 42km in a marathon), I slowed, and let up the jog, and began to walk. I alternated a kilometer walked with a kilometer run. Then maybe a kilometer walked and a third run. And by now my knee is screaming, and by the time I reached the turnaround point at the end of the third quarter, my running stints were about ten meters and ended with me limping and hopping on one leg. Wasn’t happening. Fell in with an Alaskan firefighter, started walking back downhill, 10.5 long and rather disappointing kilometers to go.
The verb to win in Kiswahili is “kushinda”. The verb to lose is “kushindwa”. A very small difference. A very thin line. Which is really how it works out, isn’t it? But this isn’t a baseball game. There is only one winner in a marathon, and everybody else is just another degree of shindwa. Just as I was. I lost the marathon. I wanted to run the entire race. I didn’t. I think most of you are still proud of me, and maybe so am I, but my goals were set, and they were not met. Which puts me in that funky little gray area where we all spend so much of our time. Am I a little disappointed today? Yes, absolutely. But I think that too, is ok. I’ve never understood the philosophy of expecting little and thereby avoiding disappointment. To be honest, I expect amazing things from myself, and from life. I’m often disappointed. But I believe with all my heart that those expectations make me chase triumph all the harder, and so often the chase itself, successful or not, walking or running, is the delight.
Which brings us to kilometer 35, 7km left to go, walking downhill, not looking forward to the next hour and a half’s walk of shame. And suddenly, I start to feel good again. And I start running again. Run for about two kilometers, and my knee starts killing me. Slow to a walk again, not at all happy. And ahead of me is a sign that says “kilometer 37”. Five to go. Five K. I’ve run it more times than I can count. And it might hurt, and it might hurt a lot. But tho much is taken, much abides, and it might hurt more, in its own way, to walk across that finish line. So I showed Mount Kilimanjaro, now behind me, my heels. And I started to run. Four kilometers left. I start picking up the pace. Three kilometers. A bunch of African boys are running with me, and we’re passing other runners. Two kilometers. I feel like I just started running. I feel amazing. One kilometer left. The last kilometer. And I look at the back of my left hand, where in the wee hours of the morning I wrote with a black Sharpie, WWKD. What would Kucz do? And setting aside the fact that the skinny bastard would have been done two hours and change before, I almost started to cry at the 41st kilometer of the Kili marathon.
Because nothing prepares you for the kind of friendship I have been lucky enough to find, the depth and breadth of which I never realized until I was far enough away to see the forest, not just the trees. I logged onto my email Saturday, to be greeted with 20 different messages wishing me luck. I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me that there was a tequila shot in my honor over the holidays. Being remembered like that, being present while being absent, is as touching a gift as I will ever receive. I am a part of all that I have met, and just looking at those four little letters, smudged and faded by sweat, reminded me of all the people whose cheers and thoughts were with me, even when their bodies were elsewhere. What would Kucz do? Finish the goddamn race. And at 11:45am, February 27th, I entered the Moshi soccer stadium, by myself, sweating, smiling, running…and people began to cheer. A hundred meters to go, all of my wind back, sprinting like a madman for the finish line while my friends who had been waiting in the baking heat screamed their heads off. And for every person who has ever shown a dusty mile their heels at my side, I thought of you in that moment. Debby Waldron, Tony Waldron, Natalie Struble, Anna Holland, Lauren Fink, Damon Laabs, Randi Walsh, Rocco Chierichella, and miss Kelsey Drake. Thank you all. To anyone who wished me well, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I crossed that finish line, a success and a failure, but proud as all hell. That which I was, I was, and that which we are, we are, made weak, perhaps, by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Never to yield.
I arrived in Tanzania late at night on June 16, 2010. We were staying a large religious complex called the Msimbazi Centre. I decided hey, why not get things off on the proverbial (and literal) right foot, and having been in country for about 12 hours, I got up and went for a run. It was weird, it was awkward, I spoke not a single word of Kiswahili, but when I finished, I was actually really proud of myself. I knew that the run I’d just finished would be one of the hardest I would ever go on. Not because of the distance, or the conditions. Because as the sun rose that morning on my new country, I got my first, albeit self-inflicted, experience of being estranged in a strange land. A few days later I first heard about the Kilimanjaro Marathon. From that point on, my life as a volunteer has been measured in the dusty miles of Tanzania’s byways, highways, and myways.
I woke up at 5:30 on Friday morning, having slept a few fitful hours. The day before my environmental club had successfully built its first compost pile, and I didn’t get home till late to begin packing for the trip to Moshi (a town at the base of Kilimanjaro where the marathon takes place). I left the house at 6:30, dropped off my bike and some valuables at a neighbor’s, and hiked the 8 kilometers to a nearby junction town where I boarded the bus to Moshi at 8:30am. The bus arrived in Moshi 9:30pm. In between I ate 3 sambusas, 2 yogurts, befriended a lovely mama who said she would pray for me during the race, was urinated on by a 2-year old (no biggie), vomited on by his mother (...yeah), and felt all the tendons in my knees begin to tighten like pulled rubber bands. It was lovely. Arrived alive, and that in and of itself was a victory. Moshi is a beautiful town, we went for a short run on Saturday morning to loosen the legs, and spent most of the day grazing and being nervous. Went to bed early, slept well, with the exception of a few trips to deal with the 6 liters of water I’d drank that day.
Which brings us to Sunday, and the reason for the season, 26.2 miles of awesome called the Kilimanjaro Marathon. The door guy at our hostel asked me yesterday why I was running this race. I didn’t have the language to explain it, so I had to go with “Napenda sana changamoto” (I really like challenges). But that doesn’t quite cover it. Why do people run at all? There are many more interactive, and healthier, forms of exercise, things like basketball, yoga, frisbee, hiking. All of which I enjoy more than running. But then, I never enjoy running while I’m running. I don’t presume to speak for others, but when I’m running, I’m contesting a very bitter and longlasting rivalry with myself. Was listening to Scott Van Pelt on my podcasts, and he said “ a rivalry only exists if when one team looks at the other, they see themselves.” Got that part covered. He also said, “a rivalry only exists if the other side can take something from that matters”. Which is also the case. This might be stupid. It probably is. There’s nobody but me who cares if I finish a run. But the way I work, in all things, involves this weird little duality, with a constant mental conversation between me and a part of me who is a bit skeptical. Of everything. It’s sort of like when NFL players start telling each other that nobody believes in them, even when newspapers are picking them to win Super Bowls and fans are spending millions on their jerseys and tickets. But sometimes you need a fire to fight, and if the friction isn’t there naturally, then you rub some sticks together. Which is basically how it works in my head. Whenever I go running, it’s a contest of pride and principle and self-worth, none of which have any actual connection to my exercise. But it means that every completed run is a victory, and that is what I enjoy about running. The victory of it, the triumph over the weaker parts of myself. Which makes a 5:15 marathon time an interesting thing to deal with.
Started out well enough, running with my friend Randi, with whom I have run many a morning mile in Tanzania. Ran the first quarter together, then I was not able to keep her pace for much longer. Finished the first half of the marathon in about two hours and a few minutes, runnin the whole way. Then the Kilimanjaro Marathon takes a turn, and it goes uphill, for the entire third quarter. And this is when your boy started hurting. I’ve tweaked my knee a few times training, and it started to flare up. The asphalt suddenly feels a lot harder, and each kilometer marker seems to take another year to pass. My slow-downs for the water stops became short walks, then a little longer. Around the 25km mark (there are 42km in a marathon), I slowed, and let up the jog, and began to walk. I alternated a kilometer walked with a kilometer run. Then maybe a kilometer walked and a third run. And by now my knee is screaming, and by the time I reached the turnaround point at the end of the third quarter, my running stints were about ten meters and ended with me limping and hopping on one leg. Wasn’t happening. Fell in with an Alaskan firefighter, started walking back downhill, 10.5 long and rather disappointing kilometers to go.
The verb to win in Kiswahili is “kushinda”. The verb to lose is “kushindwa”. A very small difference. A very thin line. Which is really how it works out, isn’t it? But this isn’t a baseball game. There is only one winner in a marathon, and everybody else is just another degree of shindwa. Just as I was. I lost the marathon. I wanted to run the entire race. I didn’t. I think most of you are still proud of me, and maybe so am I, but my goals were set, and they were not met. Which puts me in that funky little gray area where we all spend so much of our time. Am I a little disappointed today? Yes, absolutely. But I think that too, is ok. I’ve never understood the philosophy of expecting little and thereby avoiding disappointment. To be honest, I expect amazing things from myself, and from life. I’m often disappointed. But I believe with all my heart that those expectations make me chase triumph all the harder, and so often the chase itself, successful or not, walking or running, is the delight.
Which brings us to kilometer 35, 7km left to go, walking downhill, not looking forward to the next hour and a half’s walk of shame. And suddenly, I start to feel good again. And I start running again. Run for about two kilometers, and my knee starts killing me. Slow to a walk again, not at all happy. And ahead of me is a sign that says “kilometer 37”. Five to go. Five K. I’ve run it more times than I can count. And it might hurt, and it might hurt a lot. But tho much is taken, much abides, and it might hurt more, in its own way, to walk across that finish line. So I showed Mount Kilimanjaro, now behind me, my heels. And I started to run. Four kilometers left. I start picking up the pace. Three kilometers. A bunch of African boys are running with me, and we’re passing other runners. Two kilometers. I feel like I just started running. I feel amazing. One kilometer left. The last kilometer. And I look at the back of my left hand, where in the wee hours of the morning I wrote with a black Sharpie, WWKD. What would Kucz do? And setting aside the fact that the skinny bastard would have been done two hours and change before, I almost started to cry at the 41st kilometer of the Kili marathon.
Because nothing prepares you for the kind of friendship I have been lucky enough to find, the depth and breadth of which I never realized until I was far enough away to see the forest, not just the trees. I logged onto my email Saturday, to be greeted with 20 different messages wishing me luck. I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me that there was a tequila shot in my honor over the holidays. Being remembered like that, being present while being absent, is as touching a gift as I will ever receive. I am a part of all that I have met, and just looking at those four little letters, smudged and faded by sweat, reminded me of all the people whose cheers and thoughts were with me, even when their bodies were elsewhere. What would Kucz do? Finish the goddamn race. And at 11:45am, February 27th, I entered the Moshi soccer stadium, by myself, sweating, smiling, running…and people began to cheer. A hundred meters to go, all of my wind back, sprinting like a madman for the finish line while my friends who had been waiting in the baking heat screamed their heads off. And for every person who has ever shown a dusty mile their heels at my side, I thought of you in that moment. Debby Waldron, Tony Waldron, Natalie Struble, Anna Holland, Lauren Fink, Damon Laabs, Randi Walsh, Rocco Chierichella, and miss Kelsey Drake. Thank you all. To anyone who wished me well, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I crossed that finish line, a success and a failure, but proud as all hell. That which I was, I was, and that which we are, we are, made weak, perhaps, by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Never to yield.
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Case of the Mondays
Went into the mountains to watch my Steelers. I got that chance. And I woke up this morning roughly where I went to sleep (at about 6:30am): just a little sad. Which is how every season ends for everybody, everywhere...except when it doesn’t. Then it’s amazing, it’s anarchy, it’s ice cream. The problem is that as positive possibilities accrue so do negative ones, so we get to the point where nothing would make me sadder than the Steelers losing the AFC Championship Game, except for the Steelers winning said game, and then losing the Super Bowl. Which happened, and thus I was, and am, a little sad. It’s stupid, it’s childish, it’s just a game. I know all of it. But the way I look at it, if I choose to not care, to not be saddened to some degree or another by every season’s end, I also forfeit my right to be joyous, jubilant, and jocular in victory. And as I rather enjoy my jocularity, it is therefore today’s duty for me to hang my head, just a little bit.
We watched the Super Bowl from a hostel room with two beds and a 10-inch TV. At 4am, as halftime began, we prepared our gameday snack: chapati (sort of thick tortillas), guacamole, french fries, beef, and chili sauce. More than anything else this is what Peace Corps means to me: adaptability. Whether it is chopping up avocados on a hostel floor with a Swiss Army Knife, hacking down the Christmas tree with a machete from someone else’s forest, or performing minor foot surgery in someone’s bathroom (read on), we are what the situation demands of us here, and we make the best of it. Why? Because we were the ones who wanted to be here, made it so, and now shall live with it.
Couple of stories coming about bugs. One a little graphic, one just quirky. For those weak of stomach, maybe skip the next two paragraphs. Might as well start with the bad and work backwards. Been running and running and running forever these days, and I noticed a calloused lump developing next to my left big toe. Thought nothing of it for a few days. Error, me. Turned out to be a jigger. A jigger, you ask? Oh, it’s a lovely little creature, like all of us in search of a home, shelter from the storm. And shelter it found. In my foot. It therefore began efforts to propagate its species. At some point in this process I realized that I had acquired a guest. Efforts were undertaken to bid him adieu. By that I mean I made use of my Leatherman and my pain tolerance. Little hard to see and operate on the bottom of your own foot, in case you were wondering. Particularly if you are late in attending to the problem, and there are, I’m afraid to say, a whole lot of little eggs to remove from your foot. Also in case you were wondering, a day that begins with a few dozen tiny C-sections on your own body tends to go downhill in a hurry. Did my best, I really did. But eventually had to employ the help of an expert. Which is how I found myself sitting in the hostel room, having the great Logan Loyola doing surgery with a nail clipper, and sterilizing myself with hopes, dreams, and antibiotic cream. Just another night on the other side of life.
Speaking of insects and moving to quirky. There is a new snack-craze sweeping the region. This happens every year. It requires shelling, frying, and salting. The resulting dish is delicious and nutritious, and is also, well, insects. They are called kumbikumbi, and you catch them (not sure how yet), remove the wings, fry ‘em, and throw some salt on top. I want to try sugar one day. When I first tasted this scrumptious treat, I was impressed, and said so. My neighbor and partner wanted to know the literal translation of kumbikumbi. I tell him that I sincerely doubt that my smallish dictionary has a definition for this specific type of edible flying insects. He insists, I acquiesce. We open the dictionary to the appropriate page. The entry for kumbikumbi reads: “flying termites. Tasty when fried.” Touche, dictionary.
Proceeding moja kwa moja (directly) into the realm of the blasphemous. Went over to a friend’s house for some chow the other day. We got to talking, and the topic veers, as it often does, to mambo ya utamaduni (cultural stuff). I, at some point, make the very silly mistake of mentioning that relationships in American are extremely different. That wasn’t the slip-up. The real gaff was saying how on occasion interested men and women may live together outside the covenant of marriage. My friend is a little distressed by the fact that these men and women are living their way straight to eternal damnation. Food arrives, and we eat. Not sure if her glimpse at the godless decadence of the modern youth caused what followed, but my guess would be...yeah. Getting ready to leave, when she begins to talk to me. It’s grander talk than normal conversation, and I understand fewer words, so it takes me until I hear something about rain, a boat, and “wanyama wawiliwawili” (animals two and two) to realize that we are talking about Noah. No sweat, I know this story. Then things get a little stranger. I start hearing that in the future, “watu wazuri watapaa!” and “wakosefu watabaki duniani”. Good people are gonna take off and sinners will stay here. Something about “mpinga Yesu”. And it takes me a while to catch on. But once she starts gesturing towards the forehead, talking about a number, and saying “mia sita, sitini, na sita”, I get it. The number is 666, the Yesu in question is the Anti-Christ, and I’m being told the story of the Rapture in Kiswahili. And how was your lunch?
I have to say that it was not the message that brought out my church giggles (I successfully held myself together). It was the memory of a fantastic episode of American Dad (lots of Fox cartoon references today) about the Rapture. Shortly after the children and pure disappear, people are understandably confused. So who arrives in this episode to bring clarity and dispel uncertainty? A sock puppet named Ricky the Raptor, to explain the Rapture. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn puppet.
Had another episode of the church giggles in regards to witchery. But to begin at the beginning. Read a wonderful, engaging book before I left written by a Peace Corps Volunteer named Sarah Erdman, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha”. In it she talks often about the communal use of witchcraft to explain the unexplainable, or even just the inconvenient (poor test scores by secondary students? Witches. Poor rains or harvests? Somebody angered a wizard. Soccer team a little loose on the defense? Warlocks. Kidding on that last one. Maybe). I was excited to learn about different belief systems, and was ever-so-slightly disappointed that my villagers are rather normal, if perhaps fervent, Christians. But maybe we were just getting used to each other. In the last few weeks, couple of nice moments: across the road from me lives a charming little bibi (grandmother). She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and likes to occasionally give me bags of tomatoes. I mentioned this to my other neighbor, and he remarked, in English, “You must be careful. She is such a wizard.” I like this phrase. I can picture Vince Vaughn saying it to a down-and-out buddy: “you’re such a wizard, baby”. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the kicker: as we’re walking back from a meeting, I say hello to a guy who runs one of the village shops. My counterpart again tells me to be very, very careful. Apparently there are a few wizards/witches in the village (a coven, if you will), that are working out an unusual spell upon the village. If you buy anything from them, and you don’t have the exact cost on you, you will give them a larger bill. They will return the difference. And at some point in the near future, that returned money will...disappear. Poof. So if you take nothing else from these random musings, remember this: when dealing with wizards, always, always, use exact change.
I love you all, hope people start commenting on the posts from time to time, if there's anything you want to know (or would like not to hear about going forward). Love you all, be well.
We watched the Super Bowl from a hostel room with two beds and a 10-inch TV. At 4am, as halftime began, we prepared our gameday snack: chapati (sort of thick tortillas), guacamole, french fries, beef, and chili sauce. More than anything else this is what Peace Corps means to me: adaptability. Whether it is chopping up avocados on a hostel floor with a Swiss Army Knife, hacking down the Christmas tree with a machete from someone else’s forest, or performing minor foot surgery in someone’s bathroom (read on), we are what the situation demands of us here, and we make the best of it. Why? Because we were the ones who wanted to be here, made it so, and now shall live with it.
Couple of stories coming about bugs. One a little graphic, one just quirky. For those weak of stomach, maybe skip the next two paragraphs. Might as well start with the bad and work backwards. Been running and running and running forever these days, and I noticed a calloused lump developing next to my left big toe. Thought nothing of it for a few days. Error, me. Turned out to be a jigger. A jigger, you ask? Oh, it’s a lovely little creature, like all of us in search of a home, shelter from the storm. And shelter it found. In my foot. It therefore began efforts to propagate its species. At some point in this process I realized that I had acquired a guest. Efforts were undertaken to bid him adieu. By that I mean I made use of my Leatherman and my pain tolerance. Little hard to see and operate on the bottom of your own foot, in case you were wondering. Particularly if you are late in attending to the problem, and there are, I’m afraid to say, a whole lot of little eggs to remove from your foot. Also in case you were wondering, a day that begins with a few dozen tiny C-sections on your own body tends to go downhill in a hurry. Did my best, I really did. But eventually had to employ the help of an expert. Which is how I found myself sitting in the hostel room, having the great Logan Loyola doing surgery with a nail clipper, and sterilizing myself with hopes, dreams, and antibiotic cream. Just another night on the other side of life.
Speaking of insects and moving to quirky. There is a new snack-craze sweeping the region. This happens every year. It requires shelling, frying, and salting. The resulting dish is delicious and nutritious, and is also, well, insects. They are called kumbikumbi, and you catch them (not sure how yet), remove the wings, fry ‘em, and throw some salt on top. I want to try sugar one day. When I first tasted this scrumptious treat, I was impressed, and said so. My neighbor and partner wanted to know the literal translation of kumbikumbi. I tell him that I sincerely doubt that my smallish dictionary has a definition for this specific type of edible flying insects. He insists, I acquiesce. We open the dictionary to the appropriate page. The entry for kumbikumbi reads: “flying termites. Tasty when fried.” Touche, dictionary.
Proceeding moja kwa moja (directly) into the realm of the blasphemous. Went over to a friend’s house for some chow the other day. We got to talking, and the topic veers, as it often does, to mambo ya utamaduni (cultural stuff). I, at some point, make the very silly mistake of mentioning that relationships in American are extremely different. That wasn’t the slip-up. The real gaff was saying how on occasion interested men and women may live together outside the covenant of marriage. My friend is a little distressed by the fact that these men and women are living their way straight to eternal damnation. Food arrives, and we eat. Not sure if her glimpse at the godless decadence of the modern youth caused what followed, but my guess would be...yeah. Getting ready to leave, when she begins to talk to me. It’s grander talk than normal conversation, and I understand fewer words, so it takes me until I hear something about rain, a boat, and “wanyama wawiliwawili” (animals two and two) to realize that we are talking about Noah. No sweat, I know this story. Then things get a little stranger. I start hearing that in the future, “watu wazuri watapaa!” and “wakosefu watabaki duniani”. Good people are gonna take off and sinners will stay here. Something about “mpinga Yesu”. And it takes me a while to catch on. But once she starts gesturing towards the forehead, talking about a number, and saying “mia sita, sitini, na sita”, I get it. The number is 666, the Yesu in question is the Anti-Christ, and I’m being told the story of the Rapture in Kiswahili. And how was your lunch?
I have to say that it was not the message that brought out my church giggles (I successfully held myself together). It was the memory of a fantastic episode of American Dad (lots of Fox cartoon references today) about the Rapture. Shortly after the children and pure disappear, people are understandably confused. So who arrives in this episode to bring clarity and dispel uncertainty? A sock puppet named Ricky the Raptor, to explain the Rapture. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn puppet.
Had another episode of the church giggles in regards to witchery. But to begin at the beginning. Read a wonderful, engaging book before I left written by a Peace Corps Volunteer named Sarah Erdman, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha”. In it she talks often about the communal use of witchcraft to explain the unexplainable, or even just the inconvenient (poor test scores by secondary students? Witches. Poor rains or harvests? Somebody angered a wizard. Soccer team a little loose on the defense? Warlocks. Kidding on that last one. Maybe). I was excited to learn about different belief systems, and was ever-so-slightly disappointed that my villagers are rather normal, if perhaps fervent, Christians. But maybe we were just getting used to each other. In the last few weeks, couple of nice moments: across the road from me lives a charming little bibi (grandmother). She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and likes to occasionally give me bags of tomatoes. I mentioned this to my other neighbor, and he remarked, in English, “You must be careful. She is such a wizard.” I like this phrase. I can picture Vince Vaughn saying it to a down-and-out buddy: “you’re such a wizard, baby”. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the kicker: as we’re walking back from a meeting, I say hello to a guy who runs one of the village shops. My counterpart again tells me to be very, very careful. Apparently there are a few wizards/witches in the village (a coven, if you will), that are working out an unusual spell upon the village. If you buy anything from them, and you don’t have the exact cost on you, you will give them a larger bill. They will return the difference. And at some point in the near future, that returned money will...disappear. Poof. So if you take nothing else from these random musings, remember this: when dealing with wizards, always, always, use exact change.
I love you all, hope people start commenting on the posts from time to time, if there's anything you want to know (or would like not to hear about going forward). Love you all, be well.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Razzaq the Rascal
Would like to begin today’s post with a few tales about my friend Razzaq. Razzaq is three. When you ask Razzaq how old he is, he says “Tatu!” This means three. Very good Razzaq. When you ask Razzaq what grade he is in, he answers, “Tatu!” Not quite accurate. When you ask Razzaq how many kilos he weighs, he says, “Tatu!”. Awww...you’re cute.
And cute he is. It’s as if his father, my principal counterpart, designed a child purposely to amuse me. He is short...and funny. It is as if his cheeks have grown fully, and the rest of his body is moving at normal pace. He has the chubbiest cheeks I have ever seen on a child. They seem to be squeezing his eyes in, and his voice also sounds like it is being squeezed, like he is always talking around a muffin he hasn’t finished eating. He also waddles when he walks, and occasionally sports a three piece black suit…which he wears to the farm, and while playing in the dirt (more on this later). I find him adorable. One day when he was pretending to drive the stool he was sitting on, making all sorts of car noises, I asked him if the stool he was driving had gears. “LAZIMA ina gia!”, says our budding Jimmy Johnson (definitely the first and probably only NASCAR reference this blog will see). By which he meant, “OF COURSE it has gears!”.
He is also one of the biggest fans of my favorite greeting with small Tanzanian children: the exploding fist bump. I say, “Nipe tano!” (give me five), and hold out my fist. They give me a bump, and then we do the explode and say “ripua!” (explode). Some of the kids like it, most don’t get it, but every time I see chubby-cheeked Razzaq he walks up to me with a fist and says in his squeezed little voice, “Nipe tano!!!”. Makes me laugh every single time.
Last Razzaq story. When my partner and I talk at his house, we always do so in his living room, with a door that leads right out to his courtyard. The courtyard is also where the kukus (chickens) spend their time. Inside is the usual source of food, so the kukus occasionally try to enter. This is no good, as they might lay eggs, or other organic material, anywhere inside the house. So during our conversations about village development and cross-culture, we also spend lots of time shooing kukus outside. One day Razzaq was waddling around without purpose, so my counterpart gives him a purpose. He finds a stool (the aforementioned car with gears) and a stick. He sits Razzaq in the doorway and gives him the stick. We now have a mlinzi (guard). Attaboy Razzaq.
The rains have been getting interesting these days. Went a couple days without them last week. Then came Sunday. Am sitting in my house after church, just reading. It’s felt real quiet for a few hours, like it does before a storm. The clouds, which usually roll in slowly, one by one, are just a towering mass of gray. It begins to rain, then rain heavily. And then, for the first time, it begins to hail. I have a metal roof. This makes a drizzle sound like a shower, a shower sound like a hail storm, and a hail storm...it’s hard to describe. The storm lasted about 20 minutes. It felt like forever. The pea-sized hail hammered my roof, and it wasn’t just that I couldn’t hear. It was that the sound became so deafening it was like white noise in my head. I remember wondering if this is what Noriega felt like DOUBLE CHECK NORIEGA. It was a novelty for a couple minutes, and then it started to hurt. So this is how I ended up like a five year-old in the middle of a storm, with my head buried under the pillow, waiting for the storm to pass.
Speaking of unusual pain. Nothing here is quite as tied to my identity as a rough-and-ready Peace Corps Volunteer as my panga (machete). I love it. It’s coming back with me. So when my neighbor told me I had to build trellises for my tomatoes, I was thrilled. A chance to use the machete without chasing mice! Still have not caught one yet, got a lot of work to do to catch up with Kelsey (a naturally gifted rat-catcher). So I pull out a few bamboo poles from my fence and start hacking. It’s awesome! And then it’s not! Because I slip, and instead of delivering the final blow to a piece of muhanzi (bamboo), I deliver a rather nice blow to my wrist, leaving a nice little gash. Which is how I ended up with my very first, and very favorite, machete wound. Living the dream people. The. Dream.
To pick up my earlier point about clothes. Razzaq wearing a full suit is not all that unusual. I am never, and I mean never, the best dressed person in my village. Every day there are Tanzanian men in my village with immaculately pressed shirts and slacks with creases so sharp they don’t need machetes (but they still use them, because machetes ongeza (increase) manhood). These are not rich people, but the cultural ideal is to look your best at all times. I occasionally feel self conscious; maybe I’m underdressed (I never leave the house without a button-down shirt, but occasionally early morning visitors get a glimpse of my Dark Side of the Moon pajama pants. Eat your heart out)? Here is where it gets really fun. These beautiful dress slacks and sharp dress shirts…they wear them everywhere. Particularly to the farm. Nothing preps you for the first time you are digging up potatoes with a man who looks ready to address a jury. It’s a very different cultural thing, and I don’t completely understand it. But for Tanzanians, appearances are incredibly important, even occasionally to the detriment of the task at hand. I cannot count the number of times I have had to sign guest books. Every school, office, hospital, and hostel has one. I am a permanent guest. Does the thing matter? Not really. But its presence makes things official…and that is what matters. My cow group does not have an office, any money, any cow sheds, or any feed (though we are working on all those things). But dammit, we’ve got a sign in book. All is well.
Was out for a walk in the middle of the night to send some text messages (I only get service to send messages if I walk a few hundred feet uphill. The full moon is out, and Wow it is bright. I am looking around, and I am literally seeing colors of plants and houses in the middle of the night. It’s like the negative of the world I’m used to, and it’s unbelievably beautiful, like some mischievous god spray-painted the village with silver. It is so bright, in fact, that I have an idea. I reach into my pocket and pull out my notebook. Sure enough, I’m right. Which is how, twenty minutes later, our humble narrator finds himself outside on his folding chair, reading “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, completely by moonlight. Next time I’ll find something slightly more poetic, but even reading about clinical neurology, I was mbinguni (in heaven). No flashlight needed. Not tonight.
And cute he is. It’s as if his father, my principal counterpart, designed a child purposely to amuse me. He is short...and funny. It is as if his cheeks have grown fully, and the rest of his body is moving at normal pace. He has the chubbiest cheeks I have ever seen on a child. They seem to be squeezing his eyes in, and his voice also sounds like it is being squeezed, like he is always talking around a muffin he hasn’t finished eating. He also waddles when he walks, and occasionally sports a three piece black suit…which he wears to the farm, and while playing in the dirt (more on this later). I find him adorable. One day when he was pretending to drive the stool he was sitting on, making all sorts of car noises, I asked him if the stool he was driving had gears. “LAZIMA ina gia!”, says our budding Jimmy Johnson (definitely the first and probably only NASCAR reference this blog will see). By which he meant, “OF COURSE it has gears!”.
He is also one of the biggest fans of my favorite greeting with small Tanzanian children: the exploding fist bump. I say, “Nipe tano!” (give me five), and hold out my fist. They give me a bump, and then we do the explode and say “ripua!” (explode). Some of the kids like it, most don’t get it, but every time I see chubby-cheeked Razzaq he walks up to me with a fist and says in his squeezed little voice, “Nipe tano!!!”. Makes me laugh every single time.
Last Razzaq story. When my partner and I talk at his house, we always do so in his living room, with a door that leads right out to his courtyard. The courtyard is also where the kukus (chickens) spend their time. Inside is the usual source of food, so the kukus occasionally try to enter. This is no good, as they might lay eggs, or other organic material, anywhere inside the house. So during our conversations about village development and cross-culture, we also spend lots of time shooing kukus outside. One day Razzaq was waddling around without purpose, so my counterpart gives him a purpose. He finds a stool (the aforementioned car with gears) and a stick. He sits Razzaq in the doorway and gives him the stick. We now have a mlinzi (guard). Attaboy Razzaq.
The rains have been getting interesting these days. Went a couple days without them last week. Then came Sunday. Am sitting in my house after church, just reading. It’s felt real quiet for a few hours, like it does before a storm. The clouds, which usually roll in slowly, one by one, are just a towering mass of gray. It begins to rain, then rain heavily. And then, for the first time, it begins to hail. I have a metal roof. This makes a drizzle sound like a shower, a shower sound like a hail storm, and a hail storm...it’s hard to describe. The storm lasted about 20 minutes. It felt like forever. The pea-sized hail hammered my roof, and it wasn’t just that I couldn’t hear. It was that the sound became so deafening it was like white noise in my head. I remember wondering if this is what Noriega felt like DOUBLE CHECK NORIEGA. It was a novelty for a couple minutes, and then it started to hurt. So this is how I ended up like a five year-old in the middle of a storm, with my head buried under the pillow, waiting for the storm to pass.
Speaking of unusual pain. Nothing here is quite as tied to my identity as a rough-and-ready Peace Corps Volunteer as my panga (machete). I love it. It’s coming back with me. So when my neighbor told me I had to build trellises for my tomatoes, I was thrilled. A chance to use the machete without chasing mice! Still have not caught one yet, got a lot of work to do to catch up with Kelsey (a naturally gifted rat-catcher). So I pull out a few bamboo poles from my fence and start hacking. It’s awesome! And then it’s not! Because I slip, and instead of delivering the final blow to a piece of muhanzi (bamboo), I deliver a rather nice blow to my wrist, leaving a nice little gash. Which is how I ended up with my very first, and very favorite, machete wound. Living the dream people. The. Dream.
To pick up my earlier point about clothes. Razzaq wearing a full suit is not all that unusual. I am never, and I mean never, the best dressed person in my village. Every day there are Tanzanian men in my village with immaculately pressed shirts and slacks with creases so sharp they don’t need machetes (but they still use them, because machetes ongeza (increase) manhood). These are not rich people, but the cultural ideal is to look your best at all times. I occasionally feel self conscious; maybe I’m underdressed (I never leave the house without a button-down shirt, but occasionally early morning visitors get a glimpse of my Dark Side of the Moon pajama pants. Eat your heart out)? Here is where it gets really fun. These beautiful dress slacks and sharp dress shirts…they wear them everywhere. Particularly to the farm. Nothing preps you for the first time you are digging up potatoes with a man who looks ready to address a jury. It’s a very different cultural thing, and I don’t completely understand it. But for Tanzanians, appearances are incredibly important, even occasionally to the detriment of the task at hand. I cannot count the number of times I have had to sign guest books. Every school, office, hospital, and hostel has one. I am a permanent guest. Does the thing matter? Not really. But its presence makes things official…and that is what matters. My cow group does not have an office, any money, any cow sheds, or any feed (though we are working on all those things). But dammit, we’ve got a sign in book. All is well.
Was out for a walk in the middle of the night to send some text messages (I only get service to send messages if I walk a few hundred feet uphill. The full moon is out, and Wow it is bright. I am looking around, and I am literally seeing colors of plants and houses in the middle of the night. It’s like the negative of the world I’m used to, and it’s unbelievably beautiful, like some mischievous god spray-painted the village with silver. It is so bright, in fact, that I have an idea. I reach into my pocket and pull out my notebook. Sure enough, I’m right. Which is how, twenty minutes later, our humble narrator finds himself outside on his folding chair, reading “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, completely by moonlight. Next time I’ll find something slightly more poetic, but even reading about clinical neurology, I was mbinguni (in heaven). No flashlight needed. Not tonight.
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Ball Drops
Happy New Year!!! 2010, crazy year. 2011, willing to put some money down, gonna be crazier. I base this on the assumption that 2011, for me anyway, is the year of the Wildebeest. Africa, all year long, probably the only year of my life I’ll spend away from the US of A. Get to how I spent my New Year’s Eve in a bit, but for this particular blog post, especially since it’s going up at the same time as a rather sermon-like Christmas post, I thought I would stick to some little stories of the days and nights of Africa.
Some of you have heard this one, but it’s undeniably awesome...so bear with me. My neighbor and confidante comes to me one day and asks me if we can talk about a kitu cha siri (secret thing). I say, sawa (okay). So he tells me that he has been talking with another man, who wanted to know if I could help him out with the sale of a particular item. What item, inquires the volunteer? It appears that our unnamed villager has acquired some mercury. Mercury? Yes, mercury. How did this gentleman acquire this mercury. From a factory. Okay....we’ll go with that. Can I sell this mercury? Nope. Why not? Because I’ve lived here 2 months, and my training did not cover markets in rare materials, which may or may not be a bit hot. Ok, says my counterpart.
A month passes.
Once again, my counterpart throws a “Hodi” my way (sort of a verbal ‘knock knock’). I say come on in, the chai is fine. Have I figured out where to sell the mercury yet? Nope, haven’t knocked that item off the list yet. But you’ve asked? Sure. Why not. So my counterpart inquires as to whether or not I might be able to facilitate a transaction between our same enterprising villager and a as-yet-to-be-found buyer. A transaction regarding what item? The mercury? No no, though that would be nice. But lo, our mysterious purveyor of industrial chemicals has come across a new toy. What? Uranium. Uranium? Yeah...uranium. Where is said uranium? Like, do I need to put on my lead bib? Oh, it’s safe. Of course it’s safe. The village doesn’t have running water, but the uranium is in a controlled environment. And now I’m wondering...how long till I’m peddling homespun weapons of mass destruction? Do I have the power to get a country on the axis of evil? Could I myself get on the axis of evil? Fingers crossed.
New Year’s Day, I’m in church. Cuz I was raised right, god-fearin and church-goin. At the end of Mass (a cool two hours), we do the collection. Before the collection, the Katakista asks us all for a special, year-starting donation, for the purposes of adding rooms on to the church. So we pony up, we dig deep in the pockets. Tanzanians always announce the amount of contribution. So we have to count it. Whilst they count the money, we sing, we dance, and I notice, that in addition to the lock box of cash, someone has placed a paper bag...perhaps in lieu of a donation. And sure enough, when we read the totals, we have contributed: eighteen thousand shillings, half a debe of corn (about 10 liters), and a simbilisi. To answer the obvious question, simbilisi is a Kihehe word. It means guinea pig. At which point, appropriately, the bag begins to move...and I begin to wonder. Some days, the cat does drive me crazy. Maybe some Sunday morning your boy saves himself his usual five hundred shilling donation...and the Catholic Church gets a bona fide rat catcher. Just kidding. I hope.
Out running one day, notice a bunch of holes dug in the sand. What are these, I wonder? So on the way back, I realize that there are 10 holes, dug in two rows of five. They have a few rocks, or peach pits, in each hole. At which point I realize that I am looking at a game board. It’s a wonderful African parlor game called Mancala. And your boy just ran straight through the parlor. My manners, oh my manners.
The mbunge (basically our congressman) came into town. Fielded questions from anybody who wanted to ask them. Have heard a lot of bad stories about a lot of representatives, but everybody here seems to think he’s doing well, and he doesn’t make a habit of promising things beyond his reach. The only reason I mention the story is that one of the questions he fielded was from one of the village elders, who wanted to know what he could do about the price of sugar. In some ways, ridiculous. In some ways, a hell of a lot more relevant than the hoops we make our politicians jump through.
I have a bike! I’ve got a bike, you can ride it if you like, it’s got a basket, a bell that rings, and things that make it look good (Pink Floyd, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Really, really weird album.) Bought it in Mafinga (note Fozzie Bear). Spent a decent amount of shillings on it. Also had it shoved into the back of a Kosta, came out looking like a Dali bike. Anywho, gave it to the fundi wa baiskeli (bike repair guy). He does pretty quick work, has it ready to ride around 10 the next morning. I’m sitting in his yard, watching him work. My counterpart tells me that he is a very famous fundi. I pay the famous fundi. I board the bike, head off to visit my nearest mzungu (whitey) neighbor, a delightful Wisconsonian named Kenzie. I get about a kilometer down the road, reach the bottom of a hill, and start to pedal for the first time. At which point one pedal comes off. I put it back on, try pedaling delicately. The pedal now comes apart like a banana unpeeling itself. Thanks, famous fundi. Haven’t yet learned the Kiswahili for refund. I’m willing to bet he hasn’t either.
Speaking of Mzungu. I hear it every day, normally shrieked by tiny children in a tone of voice that grates at the molars. It’s pronounced m-ZOOn-goo. And that is exactly what I am. I’m the zoo animal. Very high end. I’m a big white polar bear, with his own spiffy cave. And the cave is safe. But I get so little work done there. Listening to U2 the other day, ‘Breathe’. Great line in the song that goes, “every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street.” And it’s...it’s actually legitimately hard. I’m a freak. A friendly one, who speaks the language. But I don’t belong. And some days that really sucks, to be stared at, to be different. On the other hand, in America, the very sight of me doesn’t induce shrieks of delight from random children. There are pluses, there are minuses. But every day I make a point to go for a walk, to see people, to have them see me. I call it showing the flag. Kuonyesha bandera.
For a few weeks, I would see flashes of light in the distance at night. Didn’t know what they were. Asked a guy in the street. He said, “sayansi” (science). Thanks. Didn’t believe that it was lightning. No thunder, really cold for heat lightning. But that’s what it is. And it comes in every night. It’s everywhere, ominous and silent. What is not silent is the nearby drummers. Most nights they start up around nine. Drums, somewhere in the distance. Children shrieking. Feels like a ritual. I’ve thought about going out one night and finding the drums. Just like I’ve thought about asking some of the science teachers to explain the cold lightning. But I haven’t. Because right now I have these beautiful mysteries. The drummers with no faces, the lightning with no voice. And maybe learning more doesn’t always make something better. There are so few mysteries left. I’m not ready to risk ruining mine.
People talk about this experience changing you. I get what they’re saying...but I don’t agree. It’s not like I’m changing. It feels more like I’m being distilled. Things seem to mean more, and I want to do more with them. It is almost like I’m getting closer to the center of me. Like I’m more Dan Waldron than I ever used to be. As my bald buddy put it, you start to feel like a round peg in a round hole. It’s taken a while, but it is a beautiful thing to feel at home in your own head, welcome in your own skin.
So New Year’s Eve. Went over to my neighbor’s house. He sparked up the generator, and we watched Tanzanian television for four hours. Clock hits midnight, we stand up and sing the Tanzanian national anthem. And it’s a nice moment. I head back to my house. It’s a beautiful night. I pull my folding chair out into the lawn. I spark up a cigar, I open a tiny bottle of Scotch. My lovely lady calls, and that’s wonderful. My family calls (the donators of said scotch and stogie), and it’s amazing. And last, my boy Kucz calls. Because the people I love are amazing. And Mom asks at some point, “I bet the stars are unbelievable, aren’t they?” And all I can say...is “yup”. Because beautiful doesn’t cut it, not tonight. Remembering that Incubus song, with the poem about the backlit canopy with holes punched in it. And I wish you were here. But what a beautiful night. Haven’t had much Scotch in a while. Which might explain why 2am finds your boy outside, dancing under the stars to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, performed by the Band, whiskey in one hand, cigar in the other, as stupid and happy as I ever hope to be, dancing the night away. It’s gonna be a good year.
Some of you have heard this one, but it’s undeniably awesome...so bear with me. My neighbor and confidante comes to me one day and asks me if we can talk about a kitu cha siri (secret thing). I say, sawa (okay). So he tells me that he has been talking with another man, who wanted to know if I could help him out with the sale of a particular item. What item, inquires the volunteer? It appears that our unnamed villager has acquired some mercury. Mercury? Yes, mercury. How did this gentleman acquire this mercury. From a factory. Okay....we’ll go with that. Can I sell this mercury? Nope. Why not? Because I’ve lived here 2 months, and my training did not cover markets in rare materials, which may or may not be a bit hot. Ok, says my counterpart.
A month passes.
Once again, my counterpart throws a “Hodi” my way (sort of a verbal ‘knock knock’). I say come on in, the chai is fine. Have I figured out where to sell the mercury yet? Nope, haven’t knocked that item off the list yet. But you’ve asked? Sure. Why not. So my counterpart inquires as to whether or not I might be able to facilitate a transaction between our same enterprising villager and a as-yet-to-be-found buyer. A transaction regarding what item? The mercury? No no, though that would be nice. But lo, our mysterious purveyor of industrial chemicals has come across a new toy. What? Uranium. Uranium? Yeah...uranium. Where is said uranium? Like, do I need to put on my lead bib? Oh, it’s safe. Of course it’s safe. The village doesn’t have running water, but the uranium is in a controlled environment. And now I’m wondering...how long till I’m peddling homespun weapons of mass destruction? Do I have the power to get a country on the axis of evil? Could I myself get on the axis of evil? Fingers crossed.
New Year’s Day, I’m in church. Cuz I was raised right, god-fearin and church-goin. At the end of Mass (a cool two hours), we do the collection. Before the collection, the Katakista asks us all for a special, year-starting donation, for the purposes of adding rooms on to the church. So we pony up, we dig deep in the pockets. Tanzanians always announce the amount of contribution. So we have to count it. Whilst they count the money, we sing, we dance, and I notice, that in addition to the lock box of cash, someone has placed a paper bag...perhaps in lieu of a donation. And sure enough, when we read the totals, we have contributed: eighteen thousand shillings, half a debe of corn (about 10 liters), and a simbilisi. To answer the obvious question, simbilisi is a Kihehe word. It means guinea pig. At which point, appropriately, the bag begins to move...and I begin to wonder. Some days, the cat does drive me crazy. Maybe some Sunday morning your boy saves himself his usual five hundred shilling donation...and the Catholic Church gets a bona fide rat catcher. Just kidding. I hope.
Out running one day, notice a bunch of holes dug in the sand. What are these, I wonder? So on the way back, I realize that there are 10 holes, dug in two rows of five. They have a few rocks, or peach pits, in each hole. At which point I realize that I am looking at a game board. It’s a wonderful African parlor game called Mancala. And your boy just ran straight through the parlor. My manners, oh my manners.
The mbunge (basically our congressman) came into town. Fielded questions from anybody who wanted to ask them. Have heard a lot of bad stories about a lot of representatives, but everybody here seems to think he’s doing well, and he doesn’t make a habit of promising things beyond his reach. The only reason I mention the story is that one of the questions he fielded was from one of the village elders, who wanted to know what he could do about the price of sugar. In some ways, ridiculous. In some ways, a hell of a lot more relevant than the hoops we make our politicians jump through.
I have a bike! I’ve got a bike, you can ride it if you like, it’s got a basket, a bell that rings, and things that make it look good (Pink Floyd, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Really, really weird album.) Bought it in Mafinga (note Fozzie Bear). Spent a decent amount of shillings on it. Also had it shoved into the back of a Kosta, came out looking like a Dali bike. Anywho, gave it to the fundi wa baiskeli (bike repair guy). He does pretty quick work, has it ready to ride around 10 the next morning. I’m sitting in his yard, watching him work. My counterpart tells me that he is a very famous fundi. I pay the famous fundi. I board the bike, head off to visit my nearest mzungu (whitey) neighbor, a delightful Wisconsonian named Kenzie. I get about a kilometer down the road, reach the bottom of a hill, and start to pedal for the first time. At which point one pedal comes off. I put it back on, try pedaling delicately. The pedal now comes apart like a banana unpeeling itself. Thanks, famous fundi. Haven’t yet learned the Kiswahili for refund. I’m willing to bet he hasn’t either.
Speaking of Mzungu. I hear it every day, normally shrieked by tiny children in a tone of voice that grates at the molars. It’s pronounced m-ZOOn-goo. And that is exactly what I am. I’m the zoo animal. Very high end. I’m a big white polar bear, with his own spiffy cave. And the cave is safe. But I get so little work done there. Listening to U2 the other day, ‘Breathe’. Great line in the song that goes, “every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street.” And it’s...it’s actually legitimately hard. I’m a freak. A friendly one, who speaks the language. But I don’t belong. And some days that really sucks, to be stared at, to be different. On the other hand, in America, the very sight of me doesn’t induce shrieks of delight from random children. There are pluses, there are minuses. But every day I make a point to go for a walk, to see people, to have them see me. I call it showing the flag. Kuonyesha bandera.
For a few weeks, I would see flashes of light in the distance at night. Didn’t know what they were. Asked a guy in the street. He said, “sayansi” (science). Thanks. Didn’t believe that it was lightning. No thunder, really cold for heat lightning. But that’s what it is. And it comes in every night. It’s everywhere, ominous and silent. What is not silent is the nearby drummers. Most nights they start up around nine. Drums, somewhere in the distance. Children shrieking. Feels like a ritual. I’ve thought about going out one night and finding the drums. Just like I’ve thought about asking some of the science teachers to explain the cold lightning. But I haven’t. Because right now I have these beautiful mysteries. The drummers with no faces, the lightning with no voice. And maybe learning more doesn’t always make something better. There are so few mysteries left. I’m not ready to risk ruining mine.
People talk about this experience changing you. I get what they’re saying...but I don’t agree. It’s not like I’m changing. It feels more like I’m being distilled. Things seem to mean more, and I want to do more with them. It is almost like I’m getting closer to the center of me. Like I’m more Dan Waldron than I ever used to be. As my bald buddy put it, you start to feel like a round peg in a round hole. It’s taken a while, but it is a beautiful thing to feel at home in your own head, welcome in your own skin.
So New Year’s Eve. Went over to my neighbor’s house. He sparked up the generator, and we watched Tanzanian television for four hours. Clock hits midnight, we stand up and sing the Tanzanian national anthem. And it’s a nice moment. I head back to my house. It’s a beautiful night. I pull my folding chair out into the lawn. I spark up a cigar, I open a tiny bottle of Scotch. My lovely lady calls, and that’s wonderful. My family calls (the donators of said scotch and stogie), and it’s amazing. And last, my boy Kucz calls. Because the people I love are amazing. And Mom asks at some point, “I bet the stars are unbelievable, aren’t they?” And all I can say...is “yup”. Because beautiful doesn’t cut it, not tonight. Remembering that Incubus song, with the poem about the backlit canopy with holes punched in it. And I wish you were here. But what a beautiful night. Haven’t had much Scotch in a while. Which might explain why 2am finds your boy outside, dancing under the stars to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, performed by the Band, whiskey in one hand, cigar in the other, as stupid and happy as I ever hope to be, dancing the night away. It’s gonna be a good year.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Yes Virginia...
i heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play. and wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Merry Christmas from Africa, you joyful band of ne’er-do-elves. It rained for three hours yesterday, and before that it was about 95 degrees and dry, and after it was 75 and humid. Not quite Bing Crosby or Parson Brown type weather, but all in all, given my housing, I appreciate the temperatures.
Just finished my two week in-service-training, where I got to see all of my friends from the beginning of my service. Was really phenomenal, in that we all got to spend a lot of time doing a lot of different things, and relaxing in ways that we often aren’t capable of in our villages. On the down side, got back into my village yesterday, and the time I have here, which was beginning to seem so short and action-packed...it’s stretched out again ahead of me. It’s all perspective, but when you have a few pizzas and hear a few carols...ugali and cement walls and mud...they lose their romantic appeal, at least for the first few days. I think after New Years I will fall back into my rhythm. Here’s hoping.
till ringing, singing on its way, the world revolves from night to day. a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
The first Christmas that I shall ever spend without my family. It won’t be the last. God willing, next year’s Christmas will be the last. But who knows? No one. No person knows where he or she will be next Christmas. ‘through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow’. Well this year, they didn’t. But it’s enough for one little man to know that his family and his friends are well, and that they love him, more than he could possibly deserve. In this year, more than any that have come before, I have been loved and surrounded by love, and it has been...a present. What we have is the something special. I don’t mean prosperity and affluence. I mean happiness, and friends, and lives without lies. It has long been my thought that there are happy people and miserable souls in every walk of life, every tax bracket, in first class and in coach. This year, and most years, I am one of them. And it is because you all remain happy.
and in despair i bow my head. there is no peace on earth, i said. for hate is strong and mocks the song, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Maisha ni Magumu (life is hard). It would not be a Christmas card from Africa without acknowledging the circumstances of the people with whom I share the yuletide. Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? Yes, yes they do. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the goals of my organization in the last few days, and the goals of so many of the wonderful organizations that do hard, unglamorous work to bring light, even Christmas lights, to a part of the world cautiously emerging from the darkness. But, in my thinking, that attitude is the problem.
I deal with dozens of Tanzanians every day. Some are smarter than me. Some are not. Very, very few were educated as well as I was, and because of that, I possess basic knowledge and processing systems that exceed theirs. I’m not superior to a one of them. Nor are they superior to me. But in the context in which we relate, and in most fundamental relations between developed nations and developing nations, I become the elder statesman. And it makes me feel...awful. I talk to African teachers twice my age, with five times my experience. I need their stories, their advice. But we don’t play on their field. We play on mine. So now it’s me playing the sage, doling out approval or wisdom...and that’s wrong. I become a parent, granting permission or denying cupcakes based on behavior. And that’s not what I am.
This new country of mine has a proud, dignified history, one that goes back far before colonialism, a history that begins with the very first steps of mankind as we know it. But they have drank of the milkshake and seen the glittering streetlights...and that history is being discarded. Ancient women, who should be lording over me and doling out their tales, their advice...they bow to me, and are afraid to speak to me, lest I disapprove. Every other teenager I meet is on his way to America, would much rather talk about Barack Obama than Jakaya Kikwete. And the playing field does not feel level. Because in reality, the playing field is not level. They want to be a developed, Western-style democracy. A TV in every living room and popcorn in every microwave. And those things are great. I know I love them, and I suspect they may as well. It is not for me to judge their desires. To get them, however, they are forced to jump through hoops, learn new rules, be punished when they err like tardy children. There is something fundamentally patronizing about all of it. I get that the fields are not equal. I am here to teach. They are here to learn from me. But maybe it’s one of those fake-it-till-you-make-it deals. Maybe if you expect people to be late to meetings or to skim from budgets, you’ve already lost. Maybe I’m not treating them as equals either. Maybe change begins with the agent of change.
On December 25th, we stop and celebrate for our love for each other. For whatever it may be worth, the people I live with in my village are as worthy of love and admiration as any I have ever met or hope to meet. There are Tanzanian heroes, villains, poets, thieves, carpenters, fathers, and mothers. Their fineries may not be quite as fine, their houses not perhaps so grand. But what we need to truly believe, not just profess but actually believe, is that the quality of a man’s possessions in no way determines or indicates the quality of the man, or woman. On Christmas morning here, we will awake in Africa, hug one another, open our small gifts, slaughter our roosters, and be happy it came. That somehow or other, it came just the same.
then peeled the bells more loud and deep. god is not dead, nor does he sleep. the wrong shall fail, the right prevail. with peace on earth, goodwill to men.
For it is this most beautiful time of year that we alter our hustle and bustle and take time to recognize each other for what we are: beautiful and loving partners in each other’s humanity. No man is an island, and the bell tolls for all of us. There are those of us who manage to survive alone, but in my heart I believe they are the poorer for it. I know the temptation; in fact I feel it often. How easy to care for yourself, to feed your mouth and no other, to win or lose on your lonesome. How hard to offer the little pieces of yourself that love requires, to put your heart on the block, to be broken or sold according to the whims of strangers. But we do it. Why? Because there is something in each of us, some wonderful goodness that it is criminal to conceal. We are not for ourselves. We are for others. To teach, to build, to lead, these are the skills we have, and they are all ways in which we participate in the same rockin’ roller coaster that is this lifetime. In this last year, I have been so damn lucky to live among all of you. I’ve been able to share the lives of my beautiful friends, my unbelievable family, and the love of my life. And they have been able to share my life. Our failures were eased by those who still believed something better lay within us, and our successes were sweeter because they were toasted among friends, high, loud, and repeatedly. On this most unusual of Christmases, I do not feel alone. I am not alone. And that is the purest, most precious present I have ever received. I love you all. Have a very Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year.
Merry Christmas from Africa, you joyful band of ne’er-do-elves. It rained for three hours yesterday, and before that it was about 95 degrees and dry, and after it was 75 and humid. Not quite Bing Crosby or Parson Brown type weather, but all in all, given my housing, I appreciate the temperatures.
Just finished my two week in-service-training, where I got to see all of my friends from the beginning of my service. Was really phenomenal, in that we all got to spend a lot of time doing a lot of different things, and relaxing in ways that we often aren’t capable of in our villages. On the down side, got back into my village yesterday, and the time I have here, which was beginning to seem so short and action-packed...it’s stretched out again ahead of me. It’s all perspective, but when you have a few pizzas and hear a few carols...ugali and cement walls and mud...they lose their romantic appeal, at least for the first few days. I think after New Years I will fall back into my rhythm. Here’s hoping.
till ringing, singing on its way, the world revolves from night to day. a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
The first Christmas that I shall ever spend without my family. It won’t be the last. God willing, next year’s Christmas will be the last. But who knows? No one. No person knows where he or she will be next Christmas. ‘through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow’. Well this year, they didn’t. But it’s enough for one little man to know that his family and his friends are well, and that they love him, more than he could possibly deserve. In this year, more than any that have come before, I have been loved and surrounded by love, and it has been...a present. What we have is the something special. I don’t mean prosperity and affluence. I mean happiness, and friends, and lives without lies. It has long been my thought that there are happy people and miserable souls in every walk of life, every tax bracket, in first class and in coach. This year, and most years, I am one of them. And it is because you all remain happy.
and in despair i bow my head. there is no peace on earth, i said. for hate is strong and mocks the song, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Maisha ni Magumu (life is hard). It would not be a Christmas card from Africa without acknowledging the circumstances of the people with whom I share the yuletide. Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? Yes, yes they do. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the goals of my organization in the last few days, and the goals of so many of the wonderful organizations that do hard, unglamorous work to bring light, even Christmas lights, to a part of the world cautiously emerging from the darkness. But, in my thinking, that attitude is the problem.
I deal with dozens of Tanzanians every day. Some are smarter than me. Some are not. Very, very few were educated as well as I was, and because of that, I possess basic knowledge and processing systems that exceed theirs. I’m not superior to a one of them. Nor are they superior to me. But in the context in which we relate, and in most fundamental relations between developed nations and developing nations, I become the elder statesman. And it makes me feel...awful. I talk to African teachers twice my age, with five times my experience. I need their stories, their advice. But we don’t play on their field. We play on mine. So now it’s me playing the sage, doling out approval or wisdom...and that’s wrong. I become a parent, granting permission or denying cupcakes based on behavior. And that’s not what I am.
This new country of mine has a proud, dignified history, one that goes back far before colonialism, a history that begins with the very first steps of mankind as we know it. But they have drank of the milkshake and seen the glittering streetlights...and that history is being discarded. Ancient women, who should be lording over me and doling out their tales, their advice...they bow to me, and are afraid to speak to me, lest I disapprove. Every other teenager I meet is on his way to America, would much rather talk about Barack Obama than Jakaya Kikwete. And the playing field does not feel level. Because in reality, the playing field is not level. They want to be a developed, Western-style democracy. A TV in every living room and popcorn in every microwave. And those things are great. I know I love them, and I suspect they may as well. It is not for me to judge their desires. To get them, however, they are forced to jump through hoops, learn new rules, be punished when they err like tardy children. There is something fundamentally patronizing about all of it. I get that the fields are not equal. I am here to teach. They are here to learn from me. But maybe it’s one of those fake-it-till-you-make-it deals. Maybe if you expect people to be late to meetings or to skim from budgets, you’ve already lost. Maybe I’m not treating them as equals either. Maybe change begins with the agent of change.
On December 25th, we stop and celebrate for our love for each other. For whatever it may be worth, the people I live with in my village are as worthy of love and admiration as any I have ever met or hope to meet. There are Tanzanian heroes, villains, poets, thieves, carpenters, fathers, and mothers. Their fineries may not be quite as fine, their houses not perhaps so grand. But what we need to truly believe, not just profess but actually believe, is that the quality of a man’s possessions in no way determines or indicates the quality of the man, or woman. On Christmas morning here, we will awake in Africa, hug one another, open our small gifts, slaughter our roosters, and be happy it came. That somehow or other, it came just the same.
then peeled the bells more loud and deep. god is not dead, nor does he sleep. the wrong shall fail, the right prevail. with peace on earth, goodwill to men.
For it is this most beautiful time of year that we alter our hustle and bustle and take time to recognize each other for what we are: beautiful and loving partners in each other’s humanity. No man is an island, and the bell tolls for all of us. There are those of us who manage to survive alone, but in my heart I believe they are the poorer for it. I know the temptation; in fact I feel it often. How easy to care for yourself, to feed your mouth and no other, to win or lose on your lonesome. How hard to offer the little pieces of yourself that love requires, to put your heart on the block, to be broken or sold according to the whims of strangers. But we do it. Why? Because there is something in each of us, some wonderful goodness that it is criminal to conceal. We are not for ourselves. We are for others. To teach, to build, to lead, these are the skills we have, and they are all ways in which we participate in the same rockin’ roller coaster that is this lifetime. In this last year, I have been so damn lucky to live among all of you. I’ve been able to share the lives of my beautiful friends, my unbelievable family, and the love of my life. And they have been able to share my life. Our failures were eased by those who still believed something better lay within us, and our successes were sweeter because they were toasted among friends, high, loud, and repeatedly. On this most unusual of Christmases, I do not feel alone. I am not alone. And that is the purest, most precious present I have ever received. I love you all. Have a very Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)