The guest for dinner that evening was named Shine (pronounced SHEEnay). He was a third-year Bachelor Degree student who had sticks for limbs; the largest part of him was his smile. It wasn’t my home we were having dinner at. Edda, the bursar at the Mwika campus, and her husband Godrick serve as my hosts every evening, my own house lacking cooking equipment. Edda introduced Shine as the minister of housing for the students, and I wondered why the student government needed a housing minister.
I also wondered how one might put more meat on Shine. So did Edda. She heaped his plate with cooked bananas and stew until Shine’s eyes became larger than his smile.
It turns out Shine had the monumental task of finding housing for degree students. Ever since the government of Tanzania restructured its loan program last year to provide more loans to anyone majoring in education, the Mwika campus has been inundated with degree students. Instead of 35 education students, Mwika now has 250, but doesn’t have resources and time to build on-campus housing.
Shine’s job was to go from door to door in local villages and ask if people would be willing to rent a room to a college student. Very likely not everyone would say yes although many would want the extra income. This meant Shine would have to knock on many more doors than 250. This, I thought, was not a good way to add more meat to Shine. He would dissolve into thin air. But Shine had already found rooms for 75 students. Perhaps he had begun the week a clothes-size larger.
The next morning I saw Shine on the main road on the back of a friend’s motorcycle, venturing out to knock on more doors, still smiling.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Practicing English
I did not know what my students and I would talk about at lunch, but I figured if we had nothing to say, we could at least eat.
I have learned that the opportunity to practice speaking English with me elicits two responses: terror and delight. This group of first-year Diploma in Education students had been thrilled the week before when I asked them. So thrilled they were sure that Mama Somebody who runs the off-campus canteen would bring the food to us in our classroom. It seemed a huge inconvenience for that mama, so I nixed the idea, especially after Malekea, the guy who sits in the back of the room where the sun beams the brightest, shook his head. Of the 12 or so students in the room, his feet were solidly on the ground.
I could’ve planned topics for discussion, but that seemed like work. Plus, if I plan things, it limits the possibilities of what can happen. (I do not apply this same rule to my classes, though I have abandoned parts or all of my plan after discovering students didn’t understand something critical.)
What did we talk about on the dusty road to Mama Somebody’s canteen? Njau wanted to know how I could expect to teach English and learn Kiswahili at the same time. Based on the fact that he asked this same question 26 times, I decided he really wasn’t interested in my answer; he wanted to practice asking the question. By the time we hiked up the steep short hill to the canteen, he was still asking that question, and suddenly and fortunately, he disappeared.
Outside the front door, Mama was serving food from steaming tables. Inside were about three coffee tables and one tall bar table. Ten of us joined the 3 or 4 people who weren’t expecting to practice speaking English while they ate. Neither was Mama Somebody, judging from her own startled look.
I wasn’t sure about the canteen’s serving system. People were clearly going out to the mama and ordering what they wanted. Bongole was eating rice and meat with sauce. Joseph was eating rice and banana stew. I announced I wanted rice and meat. I stood outside thinking there was a line of people waiting to order and collect food right by the steaming tables and Mama Somebody. But no, Bongole told me to sit down and after a while, the food was brought to me. (I’ve discovered if you don’t know the main language spoken in a country, events appear surprising, fraught with either divine mystery or frustration. Today it was mystery.) All of this was part of a whirlwind of excitement. Bongole, sitting beside me on the bench against the wall, launched into a series of statements about not knowing the local tribal language, he was from the southern region of Iringa, and so on. When I asked him how long it took him to travel to Mwika, he said he didn’t understand the question. Irambo, sitting across from him, did. But Irambo had a mouth full of rice and meat. And apparently, judging from the silence in the room, he was the only one who understood. So we waited.
When Bongole finally explained that it took him 14 hours to travel to Mwika, three other students began to argue, calling him a liar. Bongole, an excitable guy to begin with, could not be contained in his space on the bench. I had to tell him to be quiet three times in English and finally when I said it in Kiswahili, he stopped. Kissima, sitting at the bar table, explained that she had just made the trip from Moshi Town to Iringa and it took her ten hours. After sorting out the details, it was revealed that neither Kissima nor Bongole were lying.
From there we hopped around topics. By the time we had walked back to campus, I was explaining how our large buses in the States have toilets--I used the word “latrine” because they’d just learned it that day. Temba wanted to know where the poop went. How much were people paid to remove the poop? Bongole said he would never do such a job. Kissima said he would if he were paid good money.
At that point, our roads diverged, mine to my apartment, theirs to their next class. Next week, I will write down Mama Somebody’s real name.
I have learned that the opportunity to practice speaking English with me elicits two responses: terror and delight. This group of first-year Diploma in Education students had been thrilled the week before when I asked them. So thrilled they were sure that Mama Somebody who runs the off-campus canteen would bring the food to us in our classroom. It seemed a huge inconvenience for that mama, so I nixed the idea, especially after Malekea, the guy who sits in the back of the room where the sun beams the brightest, shook his head. Of the 12 or so students in the room, his feet were solidly on the ground.
I could’ve planned topics for discussion, but that seemed like work. Plus, if I plan things, it limits the possibilities of what can happen. (I do not apply this same rule to my classes, though I have abandoned parts or all of my plan after discovering students didn’t understand something critical.)
What did we talk about on the dusty road to Mama Somebody’s canteen? Njau wanted to know how I could expect to teach English and learn Kiswahili at the same time. Based on the fact that he asked this same question 26 times, I decided he really wasn’t interested in my answer; he wanted to practice asking the question. By the time we hiked up the steep short hill to the canteen, he was still asking that question, and suddenly and fortunately, he disappeared.
Outside the front door, Mama was serving food from steaming tables. Inside were about three coffee tables and one tall bar table. Ten of us joined the 3 or 4 people who weren’t expecting to practice speaking English while they ate. Neither was Mama Somebody, judging from her own startled look.
I wasn’t sure about the canteen’s serving system. People were clearly going out to the mama and ordering what they wanted. Bongole was eating rice and meat with sauce. Joseph was eating rice and banana stew. I announced I wanted rice and meat. I stood outside thinking there was a line of people waiting to order and collect food right by the steaming tables and Mama Somebody. But no, Bongole told me to sit down and after a while, the food was brought to me. (I’ve discovered if you don’t know the main language spoken in a country, events appear surprising, fraught with either divine mystery or frustration. Today it was mystery.) All of this was part of a whirlwind of excitement. Bongole, sitting beside me on the bench against the wall, launched into a series of statements about not knowing the local tribal language, he was from the southern region of Iringa, and so on. When I asked him how long it took him to travel to Mwika, he said he didn’t understand the question. Irambo, sitting across from him, did. But Irambo had a mouth full of rice and meat. And apparently, judging from the silence in the room, he was the only one who understood. So we waited.
When Bongole finally explained that it took him 14 hours to travel to Mwika, three other students began to argue, calling him a liar. Bongole, an excitable guy to begin with, could not be contained in his space on the bench. I had to tell him to be quiet three times in English and finally when I said it in Kiswahili, he stopped. Kissima, sitting at the bar table, explained that she had just made the trip from Moshi Town to Iringa and it took her ten hours. After sorting out the details, it was revealed that neither Kissima nor Bongole were lying.
From there we hopped around topics. By the time we had walked back to campus, I was explaining how our large buses in the States have toilets--I used the word “latrine” because they’d just learned it that day. Temba wanted to know where the poop went. How much were people paid to remove the poop? Bongole said he would never do such a job. Kissima said he would if he were paid good money.
At that point, our roads diverged, mine to my apartment, theirs to their next class. Next week, I will write down Mama Somebody’s real name.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wake, awake!
The Mwika campus is an active one. It’s a combination of two or maybe three educational institutions – Lutheran Bible School, a school of theology, and a third campus of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College. At its center is a church. There’s also a kindergarten and just beyond that past the hedges is a primary school. All of these form a collective routine.
At 5:00 a.m. the church bell rings, signaling all sleepers to wake up and pray. It rings 100 times, and then we are wide awake. At 6:30 a.m. it rings again. Perhaps that’s when our prayer should end. Or that’s when the hard sleepers should wake up.
At 7:30, the school bell is sounded. The bell is actually the rim of a car tire hanging from a tree. A teacher takes a stick and whacks away at it, but there’s a rhythm to the clanging. First, two short clangs when the rim sways. Then there’s a clang!clang!clang!clang!clang!clang!clang! finalized by CLANG CLANG.
At lunch, we hear the same clang thing all over again.
At 4:00, the primary school assembles outside and a student or two with snare drums tap out a cadence that the children sing to. All over Tanzania, children are taught to sing with all their might, which comes across as a sing-shout. This means that each song has the same melody and differs only by rhythm. At 5:00 p.m. a small brass band practices outside the church. They also have drums. By 6:30, the only ones left singing are the cicadas, who will sing all night.
At 5:00 a.m. the church bell rings, signaling all sleepers to wake up and pray. It rings 100 times, and then we are wide awake. At 6:30 a.m. it rings again. Perhaps that’s when our prayer should end. Or that’s when the hard sleepers should wake up.
At 7:30, the school bell is sounded. The bell is actually the rim of a car tire hanging from a tree. A teacher takes a stick and whacks away at it, but there’s a rhythm to the clanging. First, two short clangs when the rim sways. Then there’s a clang!clang!clang!clang!clang!clang!clang! finalized by CLANG CLANG.
At lunch, we hear the same clang thing all over again.
At 4:00, the primary school assembles outside and a student or two with snare drums tap out a cadence that the children sing to. All over Tanzania, children are taught to sing with all their might, which comes across as a sing-shout. This means that each song has the same melody and differs only by rhythm. At 5:00 p.m. a small brass band practices outside the church. They also have drums. By 6:30, the only ones left singing are the cicadas, who will sing all night.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Waiting for change
Hilary, the provost’s personal driver, had stopped the SUV at a butcher’s shop. We were on the way to Mwika, to the third campus of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College, where I would begin my second year of teaching. All of my belongings rattled in the back because Hilary still had the SUV in idle while he talked to the butcher. In a few minutes, Hilary returned, and we waited in the car still burning up fuel.
We were not waiting for meat. The butcher owed the provost money. A few weeks ago, the provost had wanted four kilos of pork, but there were only two kilos of pork available. The butcher also did not have change that day. He promised to return it another day.
Hilary had tried to get the change from the butcher on previous trips, but apparently the butcher had had enough warning to run away before Hilary’s arrival. Today Hilary had surprised him. Now the butcher left to collect the change, going from place to place asking others for donations. (He was probably telling them he’d pay them back later.)
Once I rode in a taxi and upon giving the driver my money, he said he didn’t have change. There were two other passengers in the taxi waiting to move on, and rather than argue with him, I left seething.
After about 15 minutes, Hilary turned off the engine, resigning himself to uncertain fates: the engine might never start and the butcher might never return. A collection of children arrived and stared at me for a while. Some dared to greet me and then ran away. Others with courage stayed behind. Hilary got out of the vehicle and talked to the butcher’s friend who’d been standing at the counter. Finally the butcher arrived with the change, but it wasn’t enough. This was all he could get at the moment. Hilary told him to get some more. We waited.
On another day, the taxi incident still sizzling in my memory, I rode a bus that goes up to Masoka, but I got off in Moshi Town at the Uhuru Hotel. I handed the conductor a 500 shilling note and asked for change. He said there was no change. He asked other passengers, and at that moment, no one felt like coughing up change. I said, “No change, no money!” I grabbed the money I had just given him, and repeated, “No change, no money!” I stared at him with nostrils flared and eyes bulging, waiting for a protest.
Inside the bus, the passengers were saying, “What did she say? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘No change, no money.’”
The bus roared away, the passengers roaring with laughter.
Somewhere inside of Hilary, a clock was ticking, and he decided he’d waited long enough. The SUV started with only a hiccup, leaving the remaining change to fate.
We were not waiting for meat. The butcher owed the provost money. A few weeks ago, the provost had wanted four kilos of pork, but there were only two kilos of pork available. The butcher also did not have change that day. He promised to return it another day.
Hilary had tried to get the change from the butcher on previous trips, but apparently the butcher had had enough warning to run away before Hilary’s arrival. Today Hilary had surprised him. Now the butcher left to collect the change, going from place to place asking others for donations. (He was probably telling them he’d pay them back later.)
Once I rode in a taxi and upon giving the driver my money, he said he didn’t have change. There were two other passengers in the taxi waiting to move on, and rather than argue with him, I left seething.
After about 15 minutes, Hilary turned off the engine, resigning himself to uncertain fates: the engine might never start and the butcher might never return. A collection of children arrived and stared at me for a while. Some dared to greet me and then ran away. Others with courage stayed behind. Hilary got out of the vehicle and talked to the butcher’s friend who’d been standing at the counter. Finally the butcher arrived with the change, but it wasn’t enough. This was all he could get at the moment. Hilary told him to get some more. We waited.
On another day, the taxi incident still sizzling in my memory, I rode a bus that goes up to Masoka, but I got off in Moshi Town at the Uhuru Hotel. I handed the conductor a 500 shilling note and asked for change. He said there was no change. He asked other passengers, and at that moment, no one felt like coughing up change. I said, “No change, no money!” I grabbed the money I had just given him, and repeated, “No change, no money!” I stared at him with nostrils flared and eyes bulging, waiting for a protest.
Inside the bus, the passengers were saying, “What did she say? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘No change, no money.’”
The bus roared away, the passengers roaring with laughter.
Somewhere inside of Hilary, a clock was ticking, and he decided he’d waited long enough. The SUV started with only a hiccup, leaving the remaining change to fate.
Waiting for change
Hilary, the provost’s personal driver, had stopped the SUV at a butcher’s shop. We were on the way to Mwika, to the third campus of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College, where I would begin my second year of teaching. All of my belongings rattled in the back because Hilary still had the SUV in idle while he talked to the butcher. In a few minutes, Hilary returned, and we waited in the car still burning up fuel.
We were not waiting for meat. The butcher owed the provost money. A few weeks ago, the provost had wanted four kilos of pork, but there were only two kilos of pork available. The butcher also did not have change that day. He promised to return it another day.
Hilary had tried to get the change from the butcher on previous trips, but apparently the butcher had had enough warning to run away before Hilary’s arrival. Today Hilary had surprised him. Now the butcher left to collect the change, going from place to place asking others for donations. (He was probably telling them he’d pay them back later.)
Once I rode in a taxi and upon giving the driver my money, he said he didn’t have change. There were two other passengers in the taxi waiting to move on, and rather than argue with him, I left seething.
After about 15 minutes, Hilary turned off the engine, resigning himself to uncertain fates: the engine might never start and the butcher might never return. A collection of children arrived and stared at me for a while. Some dared to greet me and then ran away. Others with courage stayed behind. Hilary got out of the vehicle and talked to the butcher’s friend who’d been standing at the counter. Finally the butcher arrived with the change, but it wasn’t enough. This was all he could get at the moment. Hilary told him to get some more. We waited.
On another day, the taxi incident still sizzling in my memory, I rode a bus that goes up to Masoka, but I got off in Moshi Town at the Uhuru Hotel. I handed the conductor a 500 shilling note and asked for change. He said there was no change. He asked other passengers, and at that moment, no one felt like coughing up change. I said, “No change, no money!” I grabbed the money I had just given him, and repeated, “No change, no money!” I stared at him with nostrils flared and eyes bulging, waiting for a protest.
Inside the bus, the passengers were saying, “What did she say? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘No change, no money.’”
The bus roared away, the passengers roaring with laughter.
Somewhere inside of Hilary, a clock was ticking, and he decided he’d waited long enough. The SUV started with only a hiccup, leaving the remaining change to fate.
We were not waiting for meat. The butcher owed the provost money. A few weeks ago, the provost had wanted four kilos of pork, but there were only two kilos of pork available. The butcher also did not have change that day. He promised to return it another day.
Hilary had tried to get the change from the butcher on previous trips, but apparently the butcher had had enough warning to run away before Hilary’s arrival. Today Hilary had surprised him. Now the butcher left to collect the change, going from place to place asking others for donations. (He was probably telling them he’d pay them back later.)
Once I rode in a taxi and upon giving the driver my money, he said he didn’t have change. There were two other passengers in the taxi waiting to move on, and rather than argue with him, I left seething.
After about 15 minutes, Hilary turned off the engine, resigning himself to uncertain fates: the engine might never start and the butcher might never return. A collection of children arrived and stared at me for a while. Some dared to greet me and then ran away. Others with courage stayed behind. Hilary got out of the vehicle and talked to the butcher’s friend who’d been standing at the counter. Finally the butcher arrived with the change, but it wasn’t enough. This was all he could get at the moment. Hilary told him to get some more. We waited.
On another day, the taxi incident still sizzling in my memory, I rode a bus that goes up to Masoka, but I got off in Moshi Town at the Uhuru Hotel. I handed the conductor a 500 shilling note and asked for change. He said there was no change. He asked other passengers, and at that moment, no one felt like coughing up change. I said, “No change, no money!” I grabbed the money I had just given him, and repeated, “No change, no money!” I stared at him with nostrils flared and eyes bulging, waiting for a protest.
Inside the bus, the passengers were saying, “What did she say? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘No change, no money.’”
The bus roared away, the passengers roaring with laughter.
Somewhere inside of Hilary, a clock was ticking, and he decided he’d waited long enough. The SUV started with only a hiccup, leaving the remaining change to fate.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Much more than an answer
I was looking for Gate F-8 at the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam on my way to Tanzania, the journey to my second year teaching at Stefano Moshi Memorial University College. On the 8-hour flight from Detroit in a seat built for someone taller than six feet, my head slanted by the neck pillow, my tray dangerously close to my boobs, I dozed enough to make me drowsy and weary. In the airport I schlepped two laptops and a back pack through moving electric walkways that ended with an automated voice that said, “Mind your step! Mind your step!” I leaped off one and leaped onto another. I followed arrows with signs that said F-H, past shops with displays of tulip bulbs, Van Gogh memorabilia, and leather briefcases. I knew that after I found Gate F-8, I would cross another 4,000 miles in an equally uncomfortable 8-hour flight to Tanzania.
Then I found myself in a room with luggage carousels. Some part of my cerebral cortex or latex or whatever up there was slowly grinding knew that this was the end, and there was no turning back. But most of my brain slept in fog. I slogged toward a group of airport personnel visiting in and around a glass booth. I put down the two laptops and said to the men in uniform, “Can you tell me where Gate F-8 is?”
One of the men spoke. “Good morning!”
And then I remembered how the rest of the world has a civility that we in the States do not have, or no longer have. While we walk up to the bank teller and say, “Can you deposit my check?”, while we yell into the drive-through speaker, “I want a Big Mac and a large fry!”, while we ask the store clerk, “Does this blouse come in shiny gold?” the rest of the world begins by saying, “Hello, how are you?”
In Tanzania, this civility is multiplied times twenty. The first 100 words I learned were greetings. One greets an elder by saying, “Shikamoo.” Otherwise, there’s, “How are you? How is the day? How is the morning? How did you wake up? How’s yourself? Any problems? Any problems with your family? How’s your home? Your mother? Your father? Your children? Your work? Are you okay? How are you since I last saw you? How are you since the day before yesterday? How are things? What else?”
Then I learned the responses: fine (nzuri), okay (mzima, poa), peaceful (salama), very peaceful (salama kabisa), clean (safi). (I can’t explain “clean” as a response.)
When I first became aware of the necessity of greetings in Tanzania, I had to practice deep breathing and counting to ten. But store clerks are much friendlier if you first greet them. People on the bus are much friendlier. The stranger on the road who is about to show you where to find the Mbuyuni bus will be friendlier if you first greet her.
These greetings would not help me get a loaf of bread or roll of toilet paper. They would not tell me whether this bus went to Rombo or Mwika. I felt I was just doing a little dance to please someone before I was allowed to ask for what I wanted.
The irony, I eventually learned, was that these greetings forced me to recognize that the store clerk was a human being, as well as the postal clerk and the stranger on the road. They had feelings, problems, mothers and fathers, and they had lived yesterday, live today. They breathed, they woke up, they slept. Even if the answers always started out positive, the truth could emerge in the next three greetings at which time I would learn that the clerk had a headache or his mother had just died.
In the two months I had been in the States, all of that civility disappeared in a snap without my notice. In the Schipol Airport, I only felt weary and lost with more hours of weariness to follow. So when I passed the group of airport officials, I was only thinking they could give me an answer, not that they were human. And when the one official said, “Good morning!” in a cheerful voice, my weariness was released like air from a stretched balloon. I laughed and replied in kind. The men said, “Where are you from?” I told them America. They said, “Yes, we can!” For the life of me, I had no clue what they were talking about until I remembered Obama’s campaign slogan.
Then I tried the question again. Yes, they knew where F-8 was: go out these doors, go upstairs, enter the big doors and walk through the entire airport. But by the time I’d gotten this news, I was buoyed enough by their good cheer and the gentler reminder of how to be a human.
Then I found myself in a room with luggage carousels. Some part of my cerebral cortex or latex or whatever up there was slowly grinding knew that this was the end, and there was no turning back. But most of my brain slept in fog. I slogged toward a group of airport personnel visiting in and around a glass booth. I put down the two laptops and said to the men in uniform, “Can you tell me where Gate F-8 is?”
One of the men spoke. “Good morning!”
And then I remembered how the rest of the world has a civility that we in the States do not have, or no longer have. While we walk up to the bank teller and say, “Can you deposit my check?”, while we yell into the drive-through speaker, “I want a Big Mac and a large fry!”, while we ask the store clerk, “Does this blouse come in shiny gold?” the rest of the world begins by saying, “Hello, how are you?”
In Tanzania, this civility is multiplied times twenty. The first 100 words I learned were greetings. One greets an elder by saying, “Shikamoo.” Otherwise, there’s, “How are you? How is the day? How is the morning? How did you wake up? How’s yourself? Any problems? Any problems with your family? How’s your home? Your mother? Your father? Your children? Your work? Are you okay? How are you since I last saw you? How are you since the day before yesterday? How are things? What else?”
Then I learned the responses: fine (nzuri), okay (mzima, poa), peaceful (salama), very peaceful (salama kabisa), clean (safi). (I can’t explain “clean” as a response.)
When I first became aware of the necessity of greetings in Tanzania, I had to practice deep breathing and counting to ten. But store clerks are much friendlier if you first greet them. People on the bus are much friendlier. The stranger on the road who is about to show you where to find the Mbuyuni bus will be friendlier if you first greet her.
These greetings would not help me get a loaf of bread or roll of toilet paper. They would not tell me whether this bus went to Rombo or Mwika. I felt I was just doing a little dance to please someone before I was allowed to ask for what I wanted.
The irony, I eventually learned, was that these greetings forced me to recognize that the store clerk was a human being, as well as the postal clerk and the stranger on the road. They had feelings, problems, mothers and fathers, and they had lived yesterday, live today. They breathed, they woke up, they slept. Even if the answers always started out positive, the truth could emerge in the next three greetings at which time I would learn that the clerk had a headache or his mother had just died.
In the two months I had been in the States, all of that civility disappeared in a snap without my notice. In the Schipol Airport, I only felt weary and lost with more hours of weariness to follow. So when I passed the group of airport officials, I was only thinking they could give me an answer, not that they were human. And when the one official said, “Good morning!” in a cheerful voice, my weariness was released like air from a stretched balloon. I laughed and replied in kind. The men said, “Where are you from?” I told them America. They said, “Yes, we can!” For the life of me, I had no clue what they were talking about until I remembered Obama’s campaign slogan.
Then I tried the question again. Yes, they knew where F-8 was: go out these doors, go upstairs, enter the big doors and walk through the entire airport. But by the time I’d gotten this news, I was buoyed enough by their good cheer and the gentler reminder of how to be a human.
Friday, June 18, 2010
A brief and fond farewell
It is the time of the semester when every brain cell I’m using has been borrowed or rented for the sole purpose of grading 250 tests, essays, revisions, etc. Those cells will remain that way until I board a plane on August 2nd for the States.
Bottom line: no blog for a while.
I could not have imagined a more glorious adventure than this year in Tanzania. I am grateful to divine, ecclesiastical and other powers that got me here and sustained me. I am also very grateful to various churches, groups, and individuals who donated money.
Gladly, I will be returning to Tanzania at the beginning of October to teach again at Stefano Moshi Memorial University College. Again, I will be serving as a volunteer, with funding from the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA. If you’re inclined to donate toward this cause, the Nebraska Synod and I would be delighted.
If you wish to host a $1,000-a-plate banquet, I would be happy to provide entertainment, but only of a dignified nature, and not on a Sunday. Don’t forget to put my name on the memo line of your $500,000 check to the Nebraska Synod.
Or you can send a check (with my name on the memo line) for next year’s venture to:
Nebraska Synod ELCA
4980 S. 118th St., Suite D
Omaha, NE 68137
If you do send money, I cannot guarantee you less time in purgatory or your own chamber in heaven with a coffee bar and 24-hour massage service, but you will get a heaping thanks from me.
Let me now give at least twenty spoonfuls of thanks to the bevy of loyal followers of this blog. It has been a treat to get personal messages from you. I thoroughly love being here, and sharing all that I love with you has been simple unadulterated joy.
Until October, adieu!
Bottom line: no blog for a while.
I could not have imagined a more glorious adventure than this year in Tanzania. I am grateful to divine, ecclesiastical and other powers that got me here and sustained me. I am also very grateful to various churches, groups, and individuals who donated money.
Gladly, I will be returning to Tanzania at the beginning of October to teach again at Stefano Moshi Memorial University College. Again, I will be serving as a volunteer, with funding from the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA. If you’re inclined to donate toward this cause, the Nebraska Synod and I would be delighted.
If you wish to host a $1,000-a-plate banquet, I would be happy to provide entertainment, but only of a dignified nature, and not on a Sunday. Don’t forget to put my name on the memo line of your $500,000 check to the Nebraska Synod.
Or you can send a check (with my name on the memo line) for next year’s venture to:
Nebraska Synod ELCA
4980 S. 118th St., Suite D
Omaha, NE 68137
If you do send money, I cannot guarantee you less time in purgatory or your own chamber in heaven with a coffee bar and 24-hour massage service, but you will get a heaping thanks from me.
Let me now give at least twenty spoonfuls of thanks to the bevy of loyal followers of this blog. It has been a treat to get personal messages from you. I thoroughly love being here, and sharing all that I love with you has been simple unadulterated joy.
Until October, adieu!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Where it stops, nobody knows
When a ball starts rolling down a mountain road with large rocks jutting out, who knows where it will go?
One might say this particular ball started with Zareke, the boy at Sinai Lutheran Church who raised his hand after my presentation of Tanzania pictures. “What kind of toys do the kids play with?” I hadn’t really paid attention to toys but I did see little boys running down the hill with a stick they used to push a wheel. Clearly all parts of it had been something else in previous lifetime. I’d also seen boys kicking a ball made of thirty miles of string.
Like that ball of string, Zareke’s idea was passed to Pastor Ostrom who thought surely it would be easy enough to send a soccer ball to Tanzania, and probably a pump. Yes, I said, that sounded good. I’d find a place for it when I returned.
When three soccer balls and a pump arrived in Tanzania, I wondered who on earth I could give them to. Suddenly the Kirima Primary School up the hill floated in my mind. Village schools often do not get the same benefits as city schools, and I decided they could use three soccer balls and a pump.
The balls and pump sat in a box in my house for about three months until one day, I was sitting in the shelter of the village bus stand, a hut with a roof made of dried banana leaves. Ferdinand, the shoemaker who uses the stand as his shop, was sewing up a shoe when I plopped myself on the bench next to another man. School children passing by greeted him, “Shikamoo, Mwalimu.“ I perked up. “Mwalimu” means “teacher.“ This mwalimu taught at Kirima Primary School. His face lit up when I told him about the soccer balls, and then it radiated like neon when I mentioned the pump. I would come on Monday, I told him.
On Monday, I decided arbitrarily that noonish would be the time to come with the soccer balls. I also had a gazillion pens from my good friend Debi, who teaches English at an elementary school. I also decided arbitrarily that Debi, formerly of Verdigre, Nebraska, where it doesn’t get more rural, would want the pens to go to children in a rural school.
Noonish was actually a good time. There seemed to be a kind of recess going on, with children darting about outside like heated molecules. Soon a small parade formed behind me. The air that had been full of shouting and laughter now quieted to hushed whispers. In Tanzania, someone always offers to carry my bag, and sure enough, one child formed the head of the parade beside me, proudly carrying the plastic bag with three soccer balls.
At the far side of the school, we were eyed carefully by four school teachers, one of whom had a short cane in her hand. When I explained that I had brought a gift from my church in America, I was happily whisked into the main office where I signed my name in a book as big as the desk. For the sake of posterity that probably wasn’t called for, I wrote a paragraph explaining that Sinai Lutheran Church of Fremont, Nebraska, USA had given a gift of three soccer balls, a pump, and many pens. Then I added, “God bless you!” because surely primary school teachers need a blessing every now and then.
I said I wanted to take a picture of the children. The teacher hostess, who had me sign my name, told me to wait, she would arrange for a picture. With a stick in hand, she beat the school bell, which wasn’t a bell but the metal inside part of a truck tire which hung from a tree. (Obviously I have no clue what you call that tire thing.)
Streams of children flowed by. The ones who had misbehaved at an earlier time were snagged by the hand of a teacher who shouted, “You!” and whapped their fingers. The stream flowed toward the assembly area, under the shade of the largest tree on the school grounds. They lined themselves up into columns, each child with his hand on the shoulder in front of him.
The head teacher now told the children about today’s guest. They were to greet me on the count of three. Then I made my entrance, following the hostess teacher, and stepped in front of 436 children. Most of them wore a school uniform--sweaters of green, blue, black, and yellow, the colors of the Tanzanian flag. Many of the sweaters had sleeves or necklines that were threatening to unravel, clearly having been passed down by older siblings. One in the front row only had horizontal threads across his right shoulder. His sweater had been worn by every generation since independence.
The children greeted me according to plan. But I wasn’t prepared for their song, something pure that could not be touched by grime and dust, by harsh words or a stinging cane. This song had a purity of 436. Which was just enough to tip me over into gulping sobs until I realized that every single child and teacher would wonder what the Sam Hill was wrong with me, and the whole event would be ruined.
When the head teacher announced the gift of three soccer balls, a great murmur moved through the sea. Another murmur after the pump was announced and another with the pens. For the picture I wanted to take, the children sat down. Actually it was five pictures in order to get all 436.
On my way out, I was escorted by three of the teachers. They were grateful for the gifts. As we stood at the road, we lingered there for the last thank you and the last goodbye. Just before I stepped into the road, one of the teachers said, “Can you help us? We really need toilets.“
And that was where the ball rolled.
One might say this particular ball started with Zareke, the boy at Sinai Lutheran Church who raised his hand after my presentation of Tanzania pictures. “What kind of toys do the kids play with?” I hadn’t really paid attention to toys but I did see little boys running down the hill with a stick they used to push a wheel. Clearly all parts of it had been something else in previous lifetime. I’d also seen boys kicking a ball made of thirty miles of string.
Like that ball of string, Zareke’s idea was passed to Pastor Ostrom who thought surely it would be easy enough to send a soccer ball to Tanzania, and probably a pump. Yes, I said, that sounded good. I’d find a place for it when I returned.
When three soccer balls and a pump arrived in Tanzania, I wondered who on earth I could give them to. Suddenly the Kirima Primary School up the hill floated in my mind. Village schools often do not get the same benefits as city schools, and I decided they could use three soccer balls and a pump.
The balls and pump sat in a box in my house for about three months until one day, I was sitting in the shelter of the village bus stand, a hut with a roof made of dried banana leaves. Ferdinand, the shoemaker who uses the stand as his shop, was sewing up a shoe when I plopped myself on the bench next to another man. School children passing by greeted him, “Shikamoo, Mwalimu.“ I perked up. “Mwalimu” means “teacher.“ This mwalimu taught at Kirima Primary School. His face lit up when I told him about the soccer balls, and then it radiated like neon when I mentioned the pump. I would come on Monday, I told him.
On Monday, I decided arbitrarily that noonish would be the time to come with the soccer balls. I also had a gazillion pens from my good friend Debi, who teaches English at an elementary school. I also decided arbitrarily that Debi, formerly of Verdigre, Nebraska, where it doesn’t get more rural, would want the pens to go to children in a rural school.
Noonish was actually a good time. There seemed to be a kind of recess going on, with children darting about outside like heated molecules. Soon a small parade formed behind me. The air that had been full of shouting and laughter now quieted to hushed whispers. In Tanzania, someone always offers to carry my bag, and sure enough, one child formed the head of the parade beside me, proudly carrying the plastic bag with three soccer balls.
At the far side of the school, we were eyed carefully by four school teachers, one of whom had a short cane in her hand. When I explained that I had brought a gift from my church in America, I was happily whisked into the main office where I signed my name in a book as big as the desk. For the sake of posterity that probably wasn’t called for, I wrote a paragraph explaining that Sinai Lutheran Church of Fremont, Nebraska, USA had given a gift of three soccer balls, a pump, and many pens. Then I added, “God bless you!” because surely primary school teachers need a blessing every now and then.
I said I wanted to take a picture of the children. The teacher hostess, who had me sign my name, told me to wait, she would arrange for a picture. With a stick in hand, she beat the school bell, which wasn’t a bell but the metal inside part of a truck tire which hung from a tree. (Obviously I have no clue what you call that tire thing.)
Streams of children flowed by. The ones who had misbehaved at an earlier time were snagged by the hand of a teacher who shouted, “You!” and whapped their fingers. The stream flowed toward the assembly area, under the shade of the largest tree on the school grounds. They lined themselves up into columns, each child with his hand on the shoulder in front of him.
The head teacher now told the children about today’s guest. They were to greet me on the count of three. Then I made my entrance, following the hostess teacher, and stepped in front of 436 children. Most of them wore a school uniform--sweaters of green, blue, black, and yellow, the colors of the Tanzanian flag. Many of the sweaters had sleeves or necklines that were threatening to unravel, clearly having been passed down by older siblings. One in the front row only had horizontal threads across his right shoulder. His sweater had been worn by every generation since independence.
The children greeted me according to plan. But I wasn’t prepared for their song, something pure that could not be touched by grime and dust, by harsh words or a stinging cane. This song had a purity of 436. Which was just enough to tip me over into gulping sobs until I realized that every single child and teacher would wonder what the Sam Hill was wrong with me, and the whole event would be ruined.
When the head teacher announced the gift of three soccer balls, a great murmur moved through the sea. Another murmur after the pump was announced and another with the pens. For the picture I wanted to take, the children sat down. Actually it was five pictures in order to get all 436.
On my way out, I was escorted by three of the teachers. They were grateful for the gifts. As we stood at the road, we lingered there for the last thank you and the last goodbye. Just before I stepped into the road, one of the teachers said, “Can you help us? We really need toilets.“
And that was where the ball rolled.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Church of the psychic pastor
On the morning we went to see the psychic pastor, Happy’s sister Neema slipped me a handwritten prayer to give him. I had been ironing my dress on the foot of her bed while she sat curled up at the head, writing.
She had heard the same stories I had from my friend Edith about the pastor. One woman had asked him to pray for her brother, and in the midst of his prayer, he understood the brother was near death, which turned out to be true. Another woman asked him to pray for her husband, and in the midst of calling on God the Father, the pastor knew the woman had threatened to leave her husband. While these stories piqued my curiosity, they spurred Neema to see if the pastor could use his divine influence on her behalf.
Happy and I took scarves to wrap around our heads before we entered the church of the psychic pastor. Edith had said covering the head was required because women did so in the Old Testament. My scarf was the nearest thing I could find: a flashy yellow and black sarong still damp from being used as a towel an hour ago. When Edith joined us at the bus station, she looked at my necklace and earrings and said no jewelry either.
On the bus toward Arusha, I unfolded my sarong on my lap. It was almost dry when the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. People got off the bus and waited for another. I found a tree on a knoll and answered a call of nature. Another bus arrived. As we mashed ourselves into it, the bus conductor counted us - 26, 27, 28... Happy and I shared half a seat. Edith shared the back row with eight others.
When the bus stopped at a lonely row of shops with two huge boulders by the road, we got off. Across the road was a mirror image of shops without the boulders. Out of the silence, a motorcycle materialized. Edith had told me we’d be riding one to the church.
As she negotiated the fare, two more appeared, rumbling loudly. The three of us stood with our arms across our chests while negotiations were in progress. Happy and Edith wore faraway looks. This was necessary lest the cyclists think we really needed the ride, giving them the upper hand. While the driver of the first motorcycle talked to the back of their heads, Edith and Happy said a few words to each other quietly, and suddenly Happy climbed onto a motorcycle and rode side-saddle. Edith pointed for me to climb onto another motorcycle with a solid foot platform while she took another.
The church itself was a solid brick building, a rectangle with a metal roof. Long open-air windows on two sides of the rectangle provided the only light, but it was plenty. The doorway too provided light since there was no door. When we walked in, the congregation was singing, rocking to the music, hands in the air, swaying and clapping.
When the music ended we searched for places to sit. On the left side of the sanctuary, people sat in plastic lawn chairs. On the right side others sat on back-less benches. Along the sides of the brick wall were rough-hewn logs sliced in half, the flat side resting on rocks piled up. Edith and I sat on one such log next to a row of little boys. We faced the side view of people sitting in benches.
The woman nearest me had eyes sunk in deep sockets. They rested on my face for a solid two or three minutes. I felt somewhere on me was a bull’s eye and somewhere in her eye was a bullet. Her aim moved to my throat, my left arm, my right arm, my chest, my stomach, my legs, my ankles and my toes. And then she repeated the same slow sweep over Edith. Finally, I had the nerve to stare at her face - long and thin with cheek bones protruding like rocks jutting out of a road.
A woman at the front led the singing. Sometimes her singing melted into wailing, and then the congregation knew it was time to stop. After all, it is difficult to follow along with wailing. Later in the service, there was more wailing when the pastor prayed what Lutherans call the Prayer of the Church. In this Pentecostal-type service, the prayers are a loud chanting with the name of God repeated in many ways, many times while we all raise one hand in the air.
As the pastor began the prayer, others whispered their own and soon there was more wailing. One woman on the bench near me began to repeat the same syllable and I’m pretty sure it didn’t mean anything in Kiswahili: “ku-ku-ku-ku-ku.” Then “chi-chi-chi-chi-chi.” She swayed. The woman beside her was overcome with sobbing.
Even though this was the prayer, I opened my eyes and saw from the woman’s mouth a string of drool lengthening. I would have been terrified if either Edith or Happy had started doing the same thing, but both had closed their eyes and seemed as they usually were.
After the service, the pastor gave a general announcement asking us to raise our hands if we wanted him to pray for us individually. Then we rushed to the front of the sanctuary and stood before the chancel, a raised concrete platform with an altar and flower petals scattered on the floor. I had clung to Edith who would translate for me, and I managed to get a front row position with Edith directly behind me and Happy beside me.
Down the row from me, the pastor had started praying over a woman, his hands on her head. Soon other church leaders swarmed around her. She was wailing and the others were shouting loudly over her in angry voices. I turned around and asked Edith if they would do that to me. “Don’t worry,” she said, “she has a demon. They are taking out the demon. You don’t have one.’” I thought, “How does she know?”
Now the woman collapsed, and luckily the church leaders, still shouting, caught her and lay her on the floor. In spite of the less than meditative atmosphere, the pastor began to pray quietly for another woman in my row. She did not have a demon. I took comfort in that. Now the pastor took a bottle of oil from the altar, put a little on his palm and placed it on the woman’s stomach. I asked Edith about that. The woman wanted a baby. Since I didn’t want a baby, I figured the hand on the stomach was one less thing to worry about.
When the pastor stood before me and put his ear next to my face, I asked if he spoke English. He pointed to Happy standing beside me to translate. I handed him the prayers from Neema. Without unfolding the paper, he explained that Neema had a vision to study in America. He prayed that her wish might come true. Then he said she had a problem with her stomach. He prayed over that. I was glad that my own stomach was not the surrogate for Neema’s.
It was late when we arrived back in Moshi. I asked Neema what she had written in her prayer. She said she wanted to get a master’s degree, but that it didn’t matter whether it was in America or Tanzania. I asked about her stomach. She said the pastor was right about the stomach problem.
Only time will tell whether she will get a master’s degree and whether the stomach is healed. If these things happen we will wonder, were the prayers of the psychic pastor so potent, or does God listen to the daily prayers of ordinary mortals?
She had heard the same stories I had from my friend Edith about the pastor. One woman had asked him to pray for her brother, and in the midst of his prayer, he understood the brother was near death, which turned out to be true. Another woman asked him to pray for her husband, and in the midst of calling on God the Father, the pastor knew the woman had threatened to leave her husband. While these stories piqued my curiosity, they spurred Neema to see if the pastor could use his divine influence on her behalf.
Happy and I took scarves to wrap around our heads before we entered the church of the psychic pastor. Edith had said covering the head was required because women did so in the Old Testament. My scarf was the nearest thing I could find: a flashy yellow and black sarong still damp from being used as a towel an hour ago. When Edith joined us at the bus station, she looked at my necklace and earrings and said no jewelry either.
On the bus toward Arusha, I unfolded my sarong on my lap. It was almost dry when the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. People got off the bus and waited for another. I found a tree on a knoll and answered a call of nature. Another bus arrived. As we mashed ourselves into it, the bus conductor counted us - 26, 27, 28... Happy and I shared half a seat. Edith shared the back row with eight others.
When the bus stopped at a lonely row of shops with two huge boulders by the road, we got off. Across the road was a mirror image of shops without the boulders. Out of the silence, a motorcycle materialized. Edith had told me we’d be riding one to the church.
As she negotiated the fare, two more appeared, rumbling loudly. The three of us stood with our arms across our chests while negotiations were in progress. Happy and Edith wore faraway looks. This was necessary lest the cyclists think we really needed the ride, giving them the upper hand. While the driver of the first motorcycle talked to the back of their heads, Edith and Happy said a few words to each other quietly, and suddenly Happy climbed onto a motorcycle and rode side-saddle. Edith pointed for me to climb onto another motorcycle with a solid foot platform while she took another.
The church itself was a solid brick building, a rectangle with a metal roof. Long open-air windows on two sides of the rectangle provided the only light, but it was plenty. The doorway too provided light since there was no door. When we walked in, the congregation was singing, rocking to the music, hands in the air, swaying and clapping.
When the music ended we searched for places to sit. On the left side of the sanctuary, people sat in plastic lawn chairs. On the right side others sat on back-less benches. Along the sides of the brick wall were rough-hewn logs sliced in half, the flat side resting on rocks piled up. Edith and I sat on one such log next to a row of little boys. We faced the side view of people sitting in benches.
The woman nearest me had eyes sunk in deep sockets. They rested on my face for a solid two or three minutes. I felt somewhere on me was a bull’s eye and somewhere in her eye was a bullet. Her aim moved to my throat, my left arm, my right arm, my chest, my stomach, my legs, my ankles and my toes. And then she repeated the same slow sweep over Edith. Finally, I had the nerve to stare at her face - long and thin with cheek bones protruding like rocks jutting out of a road.
A woman at the front led the singing. Sometimes her singing melted into wailing, and then the congregation knew it was time to stop. After all, it is difficult to follow along with wailing. Later in the service, there was more wailing when the pastor prayed what Lutherans call the Prayer of the Church. In this Pentecostal-type service, the prayers are a loud chanting with the name of God repeated in many ways, many times while we all raise one hand in the air.
As the pastor began the prayer, others whispered their own and soon there was more wailing. One woman on the bench near me began to repeat the same syllable and I’m pretty sure it didn’t mean anything in Kiswahili: “ku-ku-ku-ku-ku.” Then “chi-chi-chi-chi-chi.” She swayed. The woman beside her was overcome with sobbing.
Even though this was the prayer, I opened my eyes and saw from the woman’s mouth a string of drool lengthening. I would have been terrified if either Edith or Happy had started doing the same thing, but both had closed their eyes and seemed as they usually were.
After the service, the pastor gave a general announcement asking us to raise our hands if we wanted him to pray for us individually. Then we rushed to the front of the sanctuary and stood before the chancel, a raised concrete platform with an altar and flower petals scattered on the floor. I had clung to Edith who would translate for me, and I managed to get a front row position with Edith directly behind me and Happy beside me.
Down the row from me, the pastor had started praying over a woman, his hands on her head. Soon other church leaders swarmed around her. She was wailing and the others were shouting loudly over her in angry voices. I turned around and asked Edith if they would do that to me. “Don’t worry,” she said, “she has a demon. They are taking out the demon. You don’t have one.’” I thought, “How does she know?”
Now the woman collapsed, and luckily the church leaders, still shouting, caught her and lay her on the floor. In spite of the less than meditative atmosphere, the pastor began to pray quietly for another woman in my row. She did not have a demon. I took comfort in that. Now the pastor took a bottle of oil from the altar, put a little on his palm and placed it on the woman’s stomach. I asked Edith about that. The woman wanted a baby. Since I didn’t want a baby, I figured the hand on the stomach was one less thing to worry about.
When the pastor stood before me and put his ear next to my face, I asked if he spoke English. He pointed to Happy standing beside me to translate. I handed him the prayers from Neema. Without unfolding the paper, he explained that Neema had a vision to study in America. He prayed that her wish might come true. Then he said she had a problem with her stomach. He prayed over that. I was glad that my own stomach was not the surrogate for Neema’s.
It was late when we arrived back in Moshi. I asked Neema what she had written in her prayer. She said she wanted to get a master’s degree, but that it didn’t matter whether it was in America or Tanzania. I asked about her stomach. She said the pastor was right about the stomach problem.
Only time will tell whether she will get a master’s degree and whether the stomach is healed. If these things happen we will wonder, were the prayers of the psychic pastor so potent, or does God listen to the daily prayers of ordinary mortals?
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
At the clinic
I sat across the desk from the doctor who wrote notes on a prescription pad. He asked my name.
On the walk with Mama Happy to the clinic, Happy had called and said, “Tell the doctor you’re married to an African! He will charge you a lot of money if you don’t!”
I did not like this idea. This would mean I’d have to keep track of my fake identity if I ever went back to the same clinic again. It would become exhausting and if I were really sick, my story would surely fall apart with more probing questions.
But I also had a total of 15,000 Tanzanian shillings, the equivalent of $15. So I decided I would be married to an African. I would use Happy’s last name and say that my husband was a lecturer at a college in Masoka and that I taught at Kirima Primary School.
The doctor misspelled my first name as “Jane,” and I didn’t correct him. I could later explain to government investigators that it wasn’t my fault he’d gotten the name wrong. When I spelled Happy’s last name, the doctor corrected my spelling. He should’ve been suspicious, and maybe he was, but he neither blinked nor paused in his routine.
He asked if I had a fever. I said no. I waited for him to pull out a thermometer, but instead, he wrote, “No fever.” I was amazed I was that credible. I told him I had no appetite and was extremely tired. I told him what I thought was wrong: a tapeworm or malaria. Mama Happy added to the list: a glucose problem. He wrote these things down.
Then he sent me to the nurse across the hall who knew no English. She expertly took blood. Then taking a box of Lucky matches, she emptied it, saved one match and handed it with the box to me. She said “stool sample.”
I was mystified. Would I be lighting this one match to dynamite for stool? Outside the nurse’s office, Mama Happy sat on a bench and did some talking and gesturing with the box in hand. From that I understood I needed only a little sample in the box. I put the box under my bottom and said, “Like this?” She laughed. The teenage boy sitting next to her turned his head away.
I walked to the toilet still mystified. At least I knew the sample would go in the box. Even so, I was pretty sure nothing would happen, since this was the wrong time of day. And it was.
Back in the doctor’s office, the doctor informed me I had malaria. I did not have a glucose problem, I did not have typhoid. And if I really wanted to know about tape worms or any other kind of worm, I could return to try again with the stool sample.
We walked to another room just down from the doctor’s office and there was the nurse again, dispensing medicine. She did not charge me an arm and a leg for the malaria pills, perhaps because she thought I was married to an African. Or perhaps it was because Mama Happy had pushed me aside at the window and demanded to know from the nurse what each medicine was, how much it cost, and why did it cost that?
As Mama Happy and I walked away, I looked at the prescription slip. All evidence of my visit, both true and false, was there: symptoms, test results, failed test results, and fake name. I was free.
On the walk with Mama Happy to the clinic, Happy had called and said, “Tell the doctor you’re married to an African! He will charge you a lot of money if you don’t!”
I did not like this idea. This would mean I’d have to keep track of my fake identity if I ever went back to the same clinic again. It would become exhausting and if I were really sick, my story would surely fall apart with more probing questions.
But I also had a total of 15,000 Tanzanian shillings, the equivalent of $15. So I decided I would be married to an African. I would use Happy’s last name and say that my husband was a lecturer at a college in Masoka and that I taught at Kirima Primary School.
The doctor misspelled my first name as “Jane,” and I didn’t correct him. I could later explain to government investigators that it wasn’t my fault he’d gotten the name wrong. When I spelled Happy’s last name, the doctor corrected my spelling. He should’ve been suspicious, and maybe he was, but he neither blinked nor paused in his routine.
He asked if I had a fever. I said no. I waited for him to pull out a thermometer, but instead, he wrote, “No fever.” I was amazed I was that credible. I told him I had no appetite and was extremely tired. I told him what I thought was wrong: a tapeworm or malaria. Mama Happy added to the list: a glucose problem. He wrote these things down.
Then he sent me to the nurse across the hall who knew no English. She expertly took blood. Then taking a box of Lucky matches, she emptied it, saved one match and handed it with the box to me. She said “stool sample.”
I was mystified. Would I be lighting this one match to dynamite for stool? Outside the nurse’s office, Mama Happy sat on a bench and did some talking and gesturing with the box in hand. From that I understood I needed only a little sample in the box. I put the box under my bottom and said, “Like this?” She laughed. The teenage boy sitting next to her turned his head away.
I walked to the toilet still mystified. At least I knew the sample would go in the box. Even so, I was pretty sure nothing would happen, since this was the wrong time of day. And it was.
Back in the doctor’s office, the doctor informed me I had malaria. I did not have a glucose problem, I did not have typhoid. And if I really wanted to know about tape worms or any other kind of worm, I could return to try again with the stool sample.
We walked to another room just down from the doctor’s office and there was the nurse again, dispensing medicine. She did not charge me an arm and a leg for the malaria pills, perhaps because she thought I was married to an African. Or perhaps it was because Mama Happy had pushed me aside at the window and demanded to know from the nurse what each medicine was, how much it cost, and why did it cost that?
As Mama Happy and I walked away, I looked at the prescription slip. All evidence of my visit, both true and false, was there: symptoms, test results, failed test results, and fake name. I was free.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
A complicated course
It is Wednesday morning, and for the fourth time, I have just distributed the course outline (syllabus) for Basic Communication Skills II to about fifty students. I have made changes to the outline given to me by the College. Under “Required Textbooks” I deleted all ten book titles listed. It did not make sense to me to require students to buy multiple books that looked very similar--Practicing Communication, Communication Skills, and Basic Communication, etc. Secondly, it made no sense to require nine of the books since they are not in the library nor in the bookstore. (The bookstore clerk spends most of her time photocopying pages rather than selling books.) The book that is available--seven copies for 250 students--did not have contents that matched the prescribed weekly lessons.
In light of the textbook scarcity, I asked students a few weeks ago how they wanted to fulfill the course objectives: prepare and deliver speeches, argue and defend points in debates, write good reports, use the internet. Did they want to debate interpretations of a novel or short stories (which we would photocopy illegally)? Or, I asked, did they want to debate about historical events? Or current issues?
The majority chose current issues. None of them wanted to practice oral skills by performing one-act plays (my preference). They physically shrank in their seats when I suggested the idea. And then when I said they could invite their friends and family for the performances, they slithered to the floor.
The next week I presented on the white board a large plan that entailed group debate teams, group topics, a written speech, a test, the actual spoken debate. I pointed out that this plan fulfilled most of the objectives but not all of them. I asked if they had questions or concerns. They were quiet.
This morning the class is looking at the same course objectives that I have now typed and photocopied 250 times. Are there any questions, I ask? One young man raises his hand. “Why aren’t we doing advertisements? I don’t see any assignments for advertisements.” I explain that I can’t teach advertisements because we don’t have a text book for advertising. Further, not all Basic Communication Skills students are business majors.
One student wants to know why they are not writing memos in this course, or minutes to a meeting, or advertisements. I repeat again: we do not have a textbook that covers memos, minutes, advertisements. I do not tell them, that I am grateful I have been saved from having to read 250 memos and meeting minutes.
A third student raises his hand. “What about advertisements? Why aren’t we learning advertisements?” I wonder to myself whether he didn’t listen to what I said the first and second time, or that he didn’t understand what I said. Understanding is slow because students are translating from English to Kiswahili as I am speaking. They have not gotten to the point of fluency where they do not need to switch back to Kiswahili.
When I give a set of instructions, I have to write them on the board. Then I read them out loud, then I ask whether students want me to repeat again. Yes. Then repeat again. Maybe this student who asked about advertisements for the third time wasn’t concentrating the first two times. Maybe he didn’t like my answer. I repeat again.
Finally, a student has noticed that the course description says the course will focus on the fax, as well as oral skills, reporting, library skills. “Why aren’t we learning how to fax?” he asks. I explain that we don’t have a fax machine to demonstrate it.
I suppose I could take 250 students to visit the secretary to the provost in her office which is barely larger than her desk. She could demonstrate the fax 200 times, but that seems an improper use of time and human resources. Short of several fax machines for teaching purposes, I don’t have a textbook that shows a picture of a fax machine. I tell them they can learn how to use a fax machine on the job in two minutes.
It is the first time I have had students ask why I was covering or not covering something in a course. Unlike my former students in the States, these students take an interest in what will happen. Nevertheless, trying to make an impossible course outline possible given the lack of textbooks, no internet on campus, a library with very few books, and students with little money to spare for photocopying and internet café use take their toll on my energy. So does repeating again.
The same student raises his hand again. “But can’t you teach us the theory of the fax?”
In light of the textbook scarcity, I asked students a few weeks ago how they wanted to fulfill the course objectives: prepare and deliver speeches, argue and defend points in debates, write good reports, use the internet. Did they want to debate interpretations of a novel or short stories (which we would photocopy illegally)? Or, I asked, did they want to debate about historical events? Or current issues?
The majority chose current issues. None of them wanted to practice oral skills by performing one-act plays (my preference). They physically shrank in their seats when I suggested the idea. And then when I said they could invite their friends and family for the performances, they slithered to the floor.
The next week I presented on the white board a large plan that entailed group debate teams, group topics, a written speech, a test, the actual spoken debate. I pointed out that this plan fulfilled most of the objectives but not all of them. I asked if they had questions or concerns. They were quiet.
This morning the class is looking at the same course objectives that I have now typed and photocopied 250 times. Are there any questions, I ask? One young man raises his hand. “Why aren’t we doing advertisements? I don’t see any assignments for advertisements.” I explain that I can’t teach advertisements because we don’t have a text book for advertising. Further, not all Basic Communication Skills students are business majors.
One student wants to know why they are not writing memos in this course, or minutes to a meeting, or advertisements. I repeat again: we do not have a textbook that covers memos, minutes, advertisements. I do not tell them, that I am grateful I have been saved from having to read 250 memos and meeting minutes.
A third student raises his hand. “What about advertisements? Why aren’t we learning advertisements?” I wonder to myself whether he didn’t listen to what I said the first and second time, or that he didn’t understand what I said. Understanding is slow because students are translating from English to Kiswahili as I am speaking. They have not gotten to the point of fluency where they do not need to switch back to Kiswahili.
When I give a set of instructions, I have to write them on the board. Then I read them out loud, then I ask whether students want me to repeat again. Yes. Then repeat again. Maybe this student who asked about advertisements for the third time wasn’t concentrating the first two times. Maybe he didn’t like my answer. I repeat again.
Finally, a student has noticed that the course description says the course will focus on the fax, as well as oral skills, reporting, library skills. “Why aren’t we learning how to fax?” he asks. I explain that we don’t have a fax machine to demonstrate it.
I suppose I could take 250 students to visit the secretary to the provost in her office which is barely larger than her desk. She could demonstrate the fax 200 times, but that seems an improper use of time and human resources. Short of several fax machines for teaching purposes, I don’t have a textbook that shows a picture of a fax machine. I tell them they can learn how to use a fax machine on the job in two minutes.
It is the first time I have had students ask why I was covering or not covering something in a course. Unlike my former students in the States, these students take an interest in what will happen. Nevertheless, trying to make an impossible course outline possible given the lack of textbooks, no internet on campus, a library with very few books, and students with little money to spare for photocopying and internet café use take their toll on my energy. So does repeating again.
The same student raises his hand again. “But can’t you teach us the theory of the fax?”
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Day of the Pig
Normally at the household of Mama Happy, the first one to make a sound on a Sunday morning is Happy’s alarm clock at 5:30. She re-sets the alarm for another 15 minutes, after which there’s more silence until she realizes it’s Sunday morning and church starts at 7:00. On this Sunday in April, Mama Happy and her daughter Neema crashed around in the kitchen at 5:30, Mama Happy issuing orders.
By 6:00 when I went to shower, Mama Happy had a vat of water over the cooking fire outside. She poured some of it into my bucket which I then used for my own shower (my mother calls this a pour-bath, with a small plastic pitcher that one uses to pour water). By the time Happy and I were putting on clothes, one large pig was screaming in the raised wooden pen.
Usually in the evenings all of those pigs are screaming when they’re hungry. Mama Happy has to fight to lower a pan of pig slop from her tiptoes while I or someone else shines a flashlight. Sometimes they get too raucous and Mama Happy can’t lower the pan. I’ve learned to fool the pigs by shining the flashlight into a different corner where they scramble, giving just enough time for her to plop the pan down. By the time we walk away from the pen, my ears are ringing.
This morning, only one pig was screaming. The smaller pigs were huddled at the other end of the pen trembling. Two men outside the pen had poles that they were using to maneuver the pig into position to eventually slaughter it.
The pig would’ve been calm if Mama Happy had been right there. But today she watched from the hallway window. Normally she has guts of steel about these things. When it’s time to butcher a duck, she wanders casually near the flock and swoops down on one, grabbing the feathers on the back of the duck and marching with it to its final end. When the dog lingers too close to the food prepared outside, she’ll whip it or throw a rock at it. I usually wince at these things, but this morning, Mama Happy was wincing from the hallway window. The three-year old pig had given her 30 pigs.
Happy and I left conveniently for church at that moment. When we returned, walking through the metal gate two hours later, the pig had been butchered, now hanging in two lengthwise sections from a makeshift wooden scaffold. One butcher scraped off the pig’s hair with a razor blade.
From one of the bedrooms, Mama Happy had taken a wooden table and put it near the hanging pig sections. People had gathered to watch Mama Happy and the butcher take turns whacking away at the hanging parts of the pig, which meant chopping into the bones. All of us standing nearby soon learned to take cover from the showering bits of meat. When they weren’t whacking at the pig, the butcher and Mama Happy whacked at smaller sections on the table and plopped them onto the metal scale on the table.
Early on one boy had come to buy the head of the pig. The head had been placed on a gunny sack, steam rising from the neck. Later the boy returned with the head and asked to have it cut in two because the boy’s mother had arranged to buy the head with others.
At one point, the houseboy of Mama Kennedy staggered in through the gate. “Houseboy” is a job title that includes domestic outdoor chores, like digging a garden and fixing things. It has nothing to do with age Mama Kennedy’s houseboy appears to be 50. “Houseboy” also does not indicate sobriety, which he is not, frequenting Mama Happy’s garden to relieve his hangovers with a lime or two plucked from her trees. And usually he needs help with the plucking due to balance issues.
But today the houseboy of Mama Kennedy wanted meat. He was sober enough to help Mama Happy carry the pig’s stomach and intestines to the far back of the yard using a gunny sack as a litter, sliced off what he wanted and left the rest for the flies. The entrails seemed like something from a science fiction film, a gigantic worm larger than the pig, curled in upon itself. That evening, it was still there, but by morning, there was no sign that it had ever existed.
By 1:00, the pig was mostly gone. The metal gate was spotted with meat stains. So too was the notebook paper with names of customers. So too was the paper money in Mama Happy’s pouch tied at her waist. Within an hour, the Sunday returned to its usual self, with one less pig in the world.
By 6:00 when I went to shower, Mama Happy had a vat of water over the cooking fire outside. She poured some of it into my bucket which I then used for my own shower (my mother calls this a pour-bath, with a small plastic pitcher that one uses to pour water). By the time Happy and I were putting on clothes, one large pig was screaming in the raised wooden pen.
Usually in the evenings all of those pigs are screaming when they’re hungry. Mama Happy has to fight to lower a pan of pig slop from her tiptoes while I or someone else shines a flashlight. Sometimes they get too raucous and Mama Happy can’t lower the pan. I’ve learned to fool the pigs by shining the flashlight into a different corner where they scramble, giving just enough time for her to plop the pan down. By the time we walk away from the pen, my ears are ringing.
This morning, only one pig was screaming. The smaller pigs were huddled at the other end of the pen trembling. Two men outside the pen had poles that they were using to maneuver the pig into position to eventually slaughter it.
The pig would’ve been calm if Mama Happy had been right there. But today she watched from the hallway window. Normally she has guts of steel about these things. When it’s time to butcher a duck, she wanders casually near the flock and swoops down on one, grabbing the feathers on the back of the duck and marching with it to its final end. When the dog lingers too close to the food prepared outside, she’ll whip it or throw a rock at it. I usually wince at these things, but this morning, Mama Happy was wincing from the hallway window. The three-year old pig had given her 30 pigs.
Happy and I left conveniently for church at that moment. When we returned, walking through the metal gate two hours later, the pig had been butchered, now hanging in two lengthwise sections from a makeshift wooden scaffold. One butcher scraped off the pig’s hair with a razor blade.
From one of the bedrooms, Mama Happy had taken a wooden table and put it near the hanging pig sections. People had gathered to watch Mama Happy and the butcher take turns whacking away at the hanging parts of the pig, which meant chopping into the bones. All of us standing nearby soon learned to take cover from the showering bits of meat. When they weren’t whacking at the pig, the butcher and Mama Happy whacked at smaller sections on the table and plopped them onto the metal scale on the table.
Early on one boy had come to buy the head of the pig. The head had been placed on a gunny sack, steam rising from the neck. Later the boy returned with the head and asked to have it cut in two because the boy’s mother had arranged to buy the head with others.
At one point, the houseboy of Mama Kennedy staggered in through the gate. “Houseboy” is a job title that includes domestic outdoor chores, like digging a garden and fixing things. It has nothing to do with age Mama Kennedy’s houseboy appears to be 50. “Houseboy” also does not indicate sobriety, which he is not, frequenting Mama Happy’s garden to relieve his hangovers with a lime or two plucked from her trees. And usually he needs help with the plucking due to balance issues.
But today the houseboy of Mama Kennedy wanted meat. He was sober enough to help Mama Happy carry the pig’s stomach and intestines to the far back of the yard using a gunny sack as a litter, sliced off what he wanted and left the rest for the flies. The entrails seemed like something from a science fiction film, a gigantic worm larger than the pig, curled in upon itself. That evening, it was still there, but by morning, there was no sign that it had ever existed.
By 1:00, the pig was mostly gone. The metal gate was spotted with meat stains. So too was the notebook paper with names of customers. So too was the paper money in Mama Happy’s pouch tied at her waist. Within an hour, the Sunday returned to its usual self, with one less pig in the world.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Waiting at the depot
Being diagnosed with a terminal disease is perhaps like being at a train depot. Despite the company of friends and family who have come to see you off, you will board the train alone. And now you know the train has just left the other station to collect you.
For the 800 patients of Machame Lutheran Hospital diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, the future means waiting and wondering. When will the disease claim them? Who will take care of their children? And in the meantime, while they are still alive, how will they have the strength to care for the children?
Anti-viral drugs have worked to delay the train‘s arrival. Parents can care for their children for years, rather than weeks or months. But this life with a slow-moving train is fragile for those also afflicted with poverty. Periods of illness mean that a farmer returns home after weeks in the hospital to find all his chickens dead. Children are sent to relatives who can care for them, but who takes care of them when the relatives have died?
Palliative care and treatment at Machame Lutheran Hospital includes counseling and giving ongoing care to patients. But like the friends and family who linger at the train station, the waiting can be uncomfortable. What to tell the woman who desperately wants to know that she didn’t get the virus from sexual contact but from the blood transfusion in 1998?
What to tell the woman who asks, will I have to take this medicine if there’s a cure? How tempting it must be to tell her a cure means she can stop, praise God, dance for joy. But her thoughts have gone down an insidious trail: she’s thinking that she might consult a wizard for a cure, or someone in a white lab coat may come along and have a cure if she pays the right amount of money.
The people who offer palliative care and treatment understand that waiting at the train station does not always mean giving comfort. It means breathing in the silence of someone devastated not only by disease but by loss of a spouse, parents, and fears of an unknown future.
Palliative care and treatment at Machame Lutheran Hospital has branched into the building of homes that are simple, but warm and dry. The alternative--houses insulated with synthetic gunny sacks and thatched leaky roofs--are welcome places for tuberculosis in this damp cold climate on the edge of the rain forest.
There are other difficult questions that crop up for these patients: How can I make an income if my life’s work is physically difficult, like farming or selling banana beer?
And then there are the questions of how to be a human: Can a life extended by anti-viral drugs also mean marriage again? Can it include children? Does someone with AIDS only live partially or can one live fully?
In the month of April, during the four-month rainy season, men and women dot the mountain striking the soil with spades, planting their crops, and watching them grow. And for others, there is the waiting at the station.
Note: If you or your congregation or other group wish to donate a House for Health, please contact Rev. Martin Russell at the Nebraska Synod (mjruss@mac.com) or Bob Kasworm at Machame Lutheran Hospital (bkasworm@yahoo.com) . Currently one house can be built for $4,000. One hundred percent of the labor is provided locally and 99% of the materials used are local. Houses for Health is building its 19th house.
For the 800 patients of Machame Lutheran Hospital diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, the future means waiting and wondering. When will the disease claim them? Who will take care of their children? And in the meantime, while they are still alive, how will they have the strength to care for the children?
Anti-viral drugs have worked to delay the train‘s arrival. Parents can care for their children for years, rather than weeks or months. But this life with a slow-moving train is fragile for those also afflicted with poverty. Periods of illness mean that a farmer returns home after weeks in the hospital to find all his chickens dead. Children are sent to relatives who can care for them, but who takes care of them when the relatives have died?
Palliative care and treatment at Machame Lutheran Hospital includes counseling and giving ongoing care to patients. But like the friends and family who linger at the train station, the waiting can be uncomfortable. What to tell the woman who desperately wants to know that she didn’t get the virus from sexual contact but from the blood transfusion in 1998?
What to tell the woman who asks, will I have to take this medicine if there’s a cure? How tempting it must be to tell her a cure means she can stop, praise God, dance for joy. But her thoughts have gone down an insidious trail: she’s thinking that she might consult a wizard for a cure, or someone in a white lab coat may come along and have a cure if she pays the right amount of money.
The people who offer palliative care and treatment understand that waiting at the train station does not always mean giving comfort. It means breathing in the silence of someone devastated not only by disease but by loss of a spouse, parents, and fears of an unknown future.
Palliative care and treatment at Machame Lutheran Hospital has branched into the building of homes that are simple, but warm and dry. The alternative--houses insulated with synthetic gunny sacks and thatched leaky roofs--are welcome places for tuberculosis in this damp cold climate on the edge of the rain forest.
There are other difficult questions that crop up for these patients: How can I make an income if my life’s work is physically difficult, like farming or selling banana beer?
And then there are the questions of how to be a human: Can a life extended by anti-viral drugs also mean marriage again? Can it include children? Does someone with AIDS only live partially or can one live fully?
In the month of April, during the four-month rainy season, men and women dot the mountain striking the soil with spades, planting their crops, and watching them grow. And for others, there is the waiting at the station.
Note: If you or your congregation or other group wish to donate a House for Health, please contact Rev. Martin Russell at the Nebraska Synod (mjruss@mac.com) or Bob Kasworm at Machame Lutheran Hospital (bkasworm@yahoo.com) . Currently one house can be built for $4,000. One hundred percent of the labor is provided locally and 99% of the materials used are local. Houses for Health is building its 19th house.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Another Day
I thought the young woman who appeared in my office had come to complain about her exam results from last semester.
“Excuse me, Madam,” she said, “you have a class now.”
No, I said, the class didn’t start for twenty minutes.
“But the timetable has changed.”
“When did it change?”
“Yesterday,” she said.
When I arrived at the classroom with 51 students waiting for me, I asked them where the change had been posted.
“What is the meaning of ‘posted’?” they said.
They pointed to a central area where their exam results had been posted but it wasn’t the same location where the announcements about Easter break and the new deputy provost had been posted. I apologized for the delay to students.
Within two minutes of my lecture, the electricity went out.
While this didn’t affect the PowerPoint presentation that I wasn’t using, it did stop the ceiling fans. At 12 noon when the sun was high in the sky, when the rain clouds had gone and gathered in another region of Tanzania, the lack of air movement was deadly. Eyelids flickered and shut. It was as though a silent sniper above me picked off students.
I had a mental flashback at that moment. When I was a student at Midland Lutheran College, I taught a language skills lab directed by Pat Trautrimas. Her evaluation of each class period began with the classroom environment: “First, make sure the room is comfortable. Is it too warm? You will lose your students!”
Outside the classroom in the hallway, there were growing murmurs that I had to shout above.
A student said, “Madam, they are wanting to come inside.”
“But this is our classroom. We’re supposed to be here.”
“Perhaps you could tell them.”
I went into the hall where another group of 50 students stood. I looked at their timetable. Apparently in the middle of my lecture, between hour one and hour two, my class was supposed to shift from seminar room 1 to seminar room 2. All of us in my classroom understood this was absurd, but the students outside the classroom did not understand. I explained.
When I returned, the room was still hot. I had lost more students. I was recovering from the flu. I had begun the lecture exhausted and I would end it the same way. Time passed.
“Excuse me, Madam,” she said, “you have a class now.”
No, I said, the class didn’t start for twenty minutes.
“But the timetable has changed.”
“When did it change?”
“Yesterday,” she said.
When I arrived at the classroom with 51 students waiting for me, I asked them where the change had been posted.
“What is the meaning of ‘posted’?” they said.
They pointed to a central area where their exam results had been posted but it wasn’t the same location where the announcements about Easter break and the new deputy provost had been posted. I apologized for the delay to students.
Within two minutes of my lecture, the electricity went out.
While this didn’t affect the PowerPoint presentation that I wasn’t using, it did stop the ceiling fans. At 12 noon when the sun was high in the sky, when the rain clouds had gone and gathered in another region of Tanzania, the lack of air movement was deadly. Eyelids flickered and shut. It was as though a silent sniper above me picked off students.
I had a mental flashback at that moment. When I was a student at Midland Lutheran College, I taught a language skills lab directed by Pat Trautrimas. Her evaluation of each class period began with the classroom environment: “First, make sure the room is comfortable. Is it too warm? You will lose your students!”
Outside the classroom in the hallway, there were growing murmurs that I had to shout above.
A student said, “Madam, they are wanting to come inside.”
“But this is our classroom. We’re supposed to be here.”
“Perhaps you could tell them.”
I went into the hall where another group of 50 students stood. I looked at their timetable. Apparently in the middle of my lecture, between hour one and hour two, my class was supposed to shift from seminar room 1 to seminar room 2. All of us in my classroom understood this was absurd, but the students outside the classroom did not understand. I explained.
When I returned, the room was still hot. I had lost more students. I was recovering from the flu. I had begun the lecture exhausted and I would end it the same way. Time passed.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Muslim wedding on a Good Friday
I was walking down the semi-muddy roads of Njoro with my friend Happy. Still hanging over us was the somber mood of a Good Friday service, having crucified Christ once again. But in the distance we could hear drums and a lively song.
As the drums and song became louder, we could see a large crowd gathered at one small building where, each Sunday, we see and hear Muslim children being taught. Typically, the teacher gives an Arabic sentence and the children repeat as a chorus.
But this Friday, instead of Muslim children, there were Muslim men dancing outside, wearing white tunics. About ten of them were leaping energetically to the beat of the drums, and a master of ceremonies was leading a song through a well-amplified speaker system.
I stood behind crowd fascinated, but within seconds, the crowd became fascinated with me, heads craned backward to stare at me. I pondered their special radar that sensed me hovering behind them. Did I have a magnetic charge or had I stepped in strong dog poop? I waited a few moments for the crowd to decide I wasn’t as interesting as the dancing, but more and more heads popped around to look at me.
My head popped around looking for Happy who had taken off down the road. When I caught up with her, she explained that the master of ceremonies had improvised his song with the words: “And our Mzungu is now watching us.”
As the drums and song became louder, we could see a large crowd gathered at one small building where, each Sunday, we see and hear Muslim children being taught. Typically, the teacher gives an Arabic sentence and the children repeat as a chorus.
But this Friday, instead of Muslim children, there were Muslim men dancing outside, wearing white tunics. About ten of them were leaping energetically to the beat of the drums, and a master of ceremonies was leading a song through a well-amplified speaker system.
I stood behind crowd fascinated, but within seconds, the crowd became fascinated with me, heads craned backward to stare at me. I pondered their special radar that sensed me hovering behind them. Did I have a magnetic charge or had I stepped in strong dog poop? I waited a few moments for the crowd to decide I wasn’t as interesting as the dancing, but more and more heads popped around to look at me.
My head popped around looking for Happy who had taken off down the road. When I caught up with her, she explained that the master of ceremonies had improvised his song with the words: “And our Mzungu is now watching us.”
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Delivered
During my second hour at the Moshi Town post office, I was staring out the window with the security guard, noting that half of the vehicles driving through the parking lot were white Land Cruisers, just like the one I was waiting for. The driver of my particular Land Cruiser had taken off for other errands with SMMUCo’s systems manager and a student, with the promise that they would return. Behind me at the counter were nine boxes stacked higher than the postal clerk, all boxes packed with English-Kiswahili dictionaries and novels from Sinai Lutheran Church of Fremont.
Eight months earlier those dictionaries and novels had begun their journey as an idea jotted down by Dorothy Jacobs of Sinai just before I left for Tanzania. I was about to step into the sanctuary for the 10:30 service, and Dorothy thrust a note in my hand. Since even the idea of e-mail sends Dorothy’s eyeballs rolling, we both knew this note was her last chance of quick communication with me before I vanished into the ether of East Africa. The note said Sinai wanted to donate teaching materials to SMMUCo and estimated a dollar amount.
After finding within the first three days at SMMUCo that the library was short of books, I sent an email to someone who wasn’t Dorothy saying that dictionaries and everyone’s discarded novels would be a great help. Dorothy must’ve gotten the word--during the fall and winter, Sinai built a mountain of books in its sanctuary and collected money for dictionaries.
Now eight months later at the last leg of the trip, I waited at the post office window, the security guard beside me, pretending to help watch for the Land Cruiser. He wore sunglasses. His elbow rested on the window ledge, I think aiming for a cool guy pose in spite of the uncool hole in the thigh of his trousers.
He pointed to the next Land Cruiser. “Is this your car?” No, this one was much newer. The back door wasn’t held together with soldered parts of other doors. The windshield didn’t have a spider-web crack just above the dash. And probably both windshield wipers worked.
He made conversation. Where did I work? What kind of job did I do? Where was I from?
After three more Land Cruisers not from SMMUCo passed through the post office parking lot, he said, “Maybe you can call the driver?” I didn’t have the driver’s number, and I couldn’t really talk to the driver if I had one, the driver being a Kiswahili speaker only. The larger problem was that the post office would close in fifteen minutes. So the guard and I carried all nine boxes outside and stacked them next to a bench.
He joined me outside on the bench though technically he had ten more minutes to guard from the inside. I had told him I didn’t understand much Kiswahili, but he asked more questions anyway. If he repeated the question five times, I could get the gist.
Now he was asking me if I had a boyfriend. He knew “boyfriend” in English. Right then and there I decided I was married. It turns out the guard was married also. He wanted to know if I had children. Yes, I said, I had two, a boy and a girl. The guard also had children, four, but I wondered if he would’ve been willing to create a fictional life that erased the spouse and children if I hadn’t conjured up my own.
Just as I was working on fictional names (I had already decided on “Derrick” for a boy and possibly “Vanessa” for a girl), another Land Cruiser drove up. Again, the wrong Land Cruiser, but blessedly it distracted the guard enough to lose the previous topic of my personal, though fictional, life.
Now we were joined by three girls in school uniforms who looked about sixteen or seventeen. They arranged themselves among the boxes, me, and the guard. Again the guard spoke, and I had to say, “I don’t understand” three times. For him, it meant he should repeat his message again. I stopped saying anything and looked at the parking lot, now even more anxious for the College Land Cruiser to arrive.
One of the girls volunteered, “He is telling you that the car will come. Just wait. He will help you look.” I wondered to myself in English why I needed to know that.
I remembered that a friend of mine had the College driver’s phone number. I asked her to call him and see if he’d forgotten me. Within two minutes, the answer was no, he was coming.
I have learned that when someone tells you they are coming, it could mean in five minutes, fifty minutes or five hours. In one case, it meant five days. But at least I knew the driver still remembered me, that I wouldn’t be spending the night on the street with a persistent security guard.
At some point after the second hour, the Land Cruiser arrived. In the Cruiser were the systems manager and a student, both of them men who knew they’d be expected to carry boxes. As they stood before the nine boxes outside the post office, the security guard chose the moment to deliver a long reprimand about leaving me stranded. The systems manager politely apologized, and began carrying boxes, along with the student, the guard, and me.
After all boxes were loaded, I thanked the guard five times. He stood outside the Cruiser at my window, leaning against my door in another cool guy pose. “Could I have a soda?” he said. I asked myself what he had done to deserve the soda. I thought we had already evened out the bill, he by lugging the boxes and I by persevering for two hours in annoying semi-conversation. I handed him soda money. I wanted those boxes delivered, and I wanted to be delivered of that man.
Eight months earlier those dictionaries and novels had begun their journey as an idea jotted down by Dorothy Jacobs of Sinai just before I left for Tanzania. I was about to step into the sanctuary for the 10:30 service, and Dorothy thrust a note in my hand. Since even the idea of e-mail sends Dorothy’s eyeballs rolling, we both knew this note was her last chance of quick communication with me before I vanished into the ether of East Africa. The note said Sinai wanted to donate teaching materials to SMMUCo and estimated a dollar amount.
After finding within the first three days at SMMUCo that the library was short of books, I sent an email to someone who wasn’t Dorothy saying that dictionaries and everyone’s discarded novels would be a great help. Dorothy must’ve gotten the word--during the fall and winter, Sinai built a mountain of books in its sanctuary and collected money for dictionaries.
Now eight months later at the last leg of the trip, I waited at the post office window, the security guard beside me, pretending to help watch for the Land Cruiser. He wore sunglasses. His elbow rested on the window ledge, I think aiming for a cool guy pose in spite of the uncool hole in the thigh of his trousers.
He pointed to the next Land Cruiser. “Is this your car?” No, this one was much newer. The back door wasn’t held together with soldered parts of other doors. The windshield didn’t have a spider-web crack just above the dash. And probably both windshield wipers worked.
He made conversation. Where did I work? What kind of job did I do? Where was I from?
After three more Land Cruisers not from SMMUCo passed through the post office parking lot, he said, “Maybe you can call the driver?” I didn’t have the driver’s number, and I couldn’t really talk to the driver if I had one, the driver being a Kiswahili speaker only. The larger problem was that the post office would close in fifteen minutes. So the guard and I carried all nine boxes outside and stacked them next to a bench.
He joined me outside on the bench though technically he had ten more minutes to guard from the inside. I had told him I didn’t understand much Kiswahili, but he asked more questions anyway. If he repeated the question five times, I could get the gist.
Now he was asking me if I had a boyfriend. He knew “boyfriend” in English. Right then and there I decided I was married. It turns out the guard was married also. He wanted to know if I had children. Yes, I said, I had two, a boy and a girl. The guard also had children, four, but I wondered if he would’ve been willing to create a fictional life that erased the spouse and children if I hadn’t conjured up my own.
Just as I was working on fictional names (I had already decided on “Derrick” for a boy and possibly “Vanessa” for a girl), another Land Cruiser drove up. Again, the wrong Land Cruiser, but blessedly it distracted the guard enough to lose the previous topic of my personal, though fictional, life.
Now we were joined by three girls in school uniforms who looked about sixteen or seventeen. They arranged themselves among the boxes, me, and the guard. Again the guard spoke, and I had to say, “I don’t understand” three times. For him, it meant he should repeat his message again. I stopped saying anything and looked at the parking lot, now even more anxious for the College Land Cruiser to arrive.
One of the girls volunteered, “He is telling you that the car will come. Just wait. He will help you look.” I wondered to myself in English why I needed to know that.
I remembered that a friend of mine had the College driver’s phone number. I asked her to call him and see if he’d forgotten me. Within two minutes, the answer was no, he was coming.
I have learned that when someone tells you they are coming, it could mean in five minutes, fifty minutes or five hours. In one case, it meant five days. But at least I knew the driver still remembered me, that I wouldn’t be spending the night on the street with a persistent security guard.
At some point after the second hour, the Land Cruiser arrived. In the Cruiser were the systems manager and a student, both of them men who knew they’d be expected to carry boxes. As they stood before the nine boxes outside the post office, the security guard chose the moment to deliver a long reprimand about leaving me stranded. The systems manager politely apologized, and began carrying boxes, along with the student, the guard, and me.
After all boxes were loaded, I thanked the guard five times. He stood outside the Cruiser at my window, leaning against my door in another cool guy pose. “Could I have a soda?” he said. I asked myself what he had done to deserve the soda. I thought we had already evened out the bill, he by lugging the boxes and I by persevering for two hours in annoying semi-conversation. I handed him soda money. I wanted those boxes delivered, and I wanted to be delivered of that man.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Go fish!
As a principle, buses in Tanzania leave when the bus is full, not when it’s time. They do this to make the maximum amount of money. The bus conductor begins his pursuit of passengers as though casting a line into a lake.
Standing near the buses but not too near, conductors eye potential catches. Like wary fish, we passengers sidle through hoards of people at the bus terminal and angle to find one of about four competing buses with the most passengers. We want the bus that will leave first.
It’s best if you can hide your identity as a fish, but as a Westerner, I might as well be a whale. Unlike a whale, I am easy to reel in because I usually admit I’m going to Arusha or wherever, and then like a wriggling catch, I find myself in the hands of one conductor who ushers me to one bus, and then another conductor who points to a bus that’s fuller. I step onto the bus, and often the conductor will shout something like, "We have an Mzungu on board!"
Sitting quietly on the second bus, I overhear the bus conductor reeling in the next wary fish by telling her that the fare is only 800 shillings today, rather than 1,000. This is the Shannon Spinner of lures, three hooks with each hook made of three. Your finger or arm gets caught and sliced just by looking at it. While the lower bus fare catches quite a few fish, I realize how the conductor and driver have won once again: a lower fare means they will need more passengers to make up the difference. The fish will have to sit in the tank just as long as those in the next bus with the higher fare.
In the meantime, all these buses want the fish to believe they are about to leave. Despite the high cost of gasoline, all of their engines are running. Conductors periodically pound on the bus, the standard signal for the driver to go, but the bus goes nowhere.
Inside the bus, a catchy song over the stereo keeps the caught fish happy. And the driver needs to keep the fish happy: they can flop out at any moment, deciding they’ve been duped and the next bus is better. But it’s always a risk. The other fish tank looks fuller but it could be worse maybe five of those passengers are friends of the driver keeping him company.
As the bus begins to fill, the driver watches the progress of the conductor outside as he is about to catch more fish. When it looks like the conductor can pull in three to five fish, the driver will roar out of the parking lane and rush toward the terminal exit. This catches even more fish who suddenly hop on board. I get my hopes up. After the five are safely netted, the bus jerks us backward, and we are parked in the same place once again.
Finally, at last, when the bus is more than crowded with passengers standing in the aisle, the driver heads the bus out of the exit gate, turns the corner onto the main road and stops once again we have caught three more fish.
The journey begins. The conductor squeezes himself among the standing passengers and rests only until the bus reaches Arusha, when the conductor and driver will have to work once again to fill up the bus.
Standing near the buses but not too near, conductors eye potential catches. Like wary fish, we passengers sidle through hoards of people at the bus terminal and angle to find one of about four competing buses with the most passengers. We want the bus that will leave first.
It’s best if you can hide your identity as a fish, but as a Westerner, I might as well be a whale. Unlike a whale, I am easy to reel in because I usually admit I’m going to Arusha or wherever, and then like a wriggling catch, I find myself in the hands of one conductor who ushers me to one bus, and then another conductor who points to a bus that’s fuller. I step onto the bus, and often the conductor will shout something like, "We have an Mzungu on board!"
Sitting quietly on the second bus, I overhear the bus conductor reeling in the next wary fish by telling her that the fare is only 800 shillings today, rather than 1,000. This is the Shannon Spinner of lures, three hooks with each hook made of three. Your finger or arm gets caught and sliced just by looking at it. While the lower bus fare catches quite a few fish, I realize how the conductor and driver have won once again: a lower fare means they will need more passengers to make up the difference. The fish will have to sit in the tank just as long as those in the next bus with the higher fare.
In the meantime, all these buses want the fish to believe they are about to leave. Despite the high cost of gasoline, all of their engines are running. Conductors periodically pound on the bus, the standard signal for the driver to go, but the bus goes nowhere.
Inside the bus, a catchy song over the stereo keeps the caught fish happy. And the driver needs to keep the fish happy: they can flop out at any moment, deciding they’ve been duped and the next bus is better. But it’s always a risk. The other fish tank looks fuller but it could be worse maybe five of those passengers are friends of the driver keeping him company.
As the bus begins to fill, the driver watches the progress of the conductor outside as he is about to catch more fish. When it looks like the conductor can pull in three to five fish, the driver will roar out of the parking lane and rush toward the terminal exit. This catches even more fish who suddenly hop on board. I get my hopes up. After the five are safely netted, the bus jerks us backward, and we are parked in the same place once again.
Finally, at last, when the bus is more than crowded with passengers standing in the aisle, the driver heads the bus out of the exit gate, turns the corner onto the main road and stops once again we have caught three more fish.
The journey begins. The conductor squeezes himself among the standing passengers and rests only until the bus reaches Arusha, when the conductor and driver will have to work once again to fill up the bus.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Names Can Never Hurt Me
Generating a list of my students has been a tortuous hand-wringing affair. At SMMUCo the admissions department does not generate a list. The student appears and then one writes that student’s name down. At least, as far as I can figure out.
I decided that if I wanted to know who was in my class, I should assign something. I assigned a business letter. Without any instruction on my part, 90 percent of those business letters came with a cover sheet, complete with my name and the student’s name, the college name, the major, the class, the date, and anything else the student thought appropriate.
As I entered student names on a spreadsheet, I made assumptions. For example, if the last name written in a series was “Njivaine,” I assumed it was the surname. If “Ayubu” was written as the first name, I assumed it was the name given to the individual and not the family.
But after the second writing assignment, I began to discover some mysteries. In many cases, students left off one name and decided to include their middle name on the cover sheet. It was as though students believed they were given a whole wardrobe of names, and they could select any names on that day depending on their mood and whatever was in the wardrobe. Pesambili Pesambili decided he was now Pesambili George for the second assignment. Ayubu Hamisi felt he should be Hamisi Ayubu.
Then there were shifts in spelling. The letters in the name “Gerald” morphed into “Jerad.” “Matthew” became “Mathew” in later assignments, and “Innocent” lost an “n” and found it again in January.
On the last day of class, students reviewed my spreadsheet with their semester grades on it. One of them appeared and said, “I think I should tell you my name isn’t John Fadhili but Fadhili Salumi.” I said yes, that would be good for me to know and even better for his grade point average. Four other students announced similar name changes that day.
And when it came time to reckon my list of students with the college list, it took four of us to solve many identity mysteries over the course of three days.
I decided that if I wanted to know who was in my class, I should assign something. I assigned a business letter. Without any instruction on my part, 90 percent of those business letters came with a cover sheet, complete with my name and the student’s name, the college name, the major, the class, the date, and anything else the student thought appropriate.
As I entered student names on a spreadsheet, I made assumptions. For example, if the last name written in a series was “Njivaine,” I assumed it was the surname. If “Ayubu” was written as the first name, I assumed it was the name given to the individual and not the family.
But after the second writing assignment, I began to discover some mysteries. In many cases, students left off one name and decided to include their middle name on the cover sheet. It was as though students believed they were given a whole wardrobe of names, and they could select any names on that day depending on their mood and whatever was in the wardrobe. Pesambili Pesambili decided he was now Pesambili George for the second assignment. Ayubu Hamisi felt he should be Hamisi Ayubu.
Then there were shifts in spelling. The letters in the name “Gerald” morphed into “Jerad.” “Matthew” became “Mathew” in later assignments, and “Innocent” lost an “n” and found it again in January.
On the last day of class, students reviewed my spreadsheet with their semester grades on it. One of them appeared and said, “I think I should tell you my name isn’t John Fadhili but Fadhili Salumi.” I said yes, that would be good for me to know and even better for his grade point average. Four other students announced similar name changes that day.
And when it came time to reckon my list of students with the college list, it took four of us to solve many identity mysteries over the course of three days.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The victory of molecules
It was late afternoon, and the sun was sinking, and as I walked through the bus terminal to the Moshi-Kirima bus stand, I found Mama Vanessa standing outside the bus. But neither she nor I would be getting on this particular bus because it was packed with people, and more people were shoving madly to squeeze themselves in. There’s a time to fight for space and a time to give up.
Within two minutes, another bus appeared, and this time Mama Vanessa and I held our breath as we now elbowed and jabbed and shoved our way into the bus. Not surprisingly, Mama Vanessa took a seat first, since too many of my polite practices still linger deep within me. But she had craftily moved over in the seat to save me a space and I sank in beside her, both of us pleased with a major victory. In about two more minutes, the bus filled again, all of us like molecules of a rockno one would be moving except when bounced by the bus. However, there was one woman who complained to the man that his arm was crushing her chest. For a second he didn’t move it, but when a few more molecules adjusted, he found another place for his arm.
The bus fare from town to Masoka is 500 Tanzanian shillings. Often conductors will force passengers to pay more, claiming that the fare has gone up due to increases in fuel prices. Sometimes the entire bus complains and the conductor is cowed into relenting. Sometimes the conductor stops the bus and forces one passenger out. When I handed 1,000 shillings to the conductor and told him it was for me and Mama Vanessa, he handed it back and said a few sentences in Kiswahili which I didn’t understand. Mama Vanessa argued back. The lady behind us argued. I still held my wallet in my hand, and now Mama Vanessa put her hand on it and told me to zip it into my purse. But she unzipped her own wallet, pulled out two coins, and held them.
I knew the essence of what the conductor saidhe was telling me I needed to pay 1,500 shillings for the two of us. Since I was the Mzungu, I should pay 1,000 because I had money. This has happened many times. I try to pay for another person and suddenly the money that I hand over is not enough. I cannot argue back since I don’t have the language skills, and if the friend doesn’t have the gumption to argue back, a good deed becomes a low moment in life.
Now a second time, the conductor shook the change in his hand at me - the signal to pay - and I handed him my 1,000 bill. He threw it back. So Mama Vanessa and I stared out the window or talked, both of us avoiding any eye contact with the conductor. Since we couldn’t see him through all of the molecules, this wasn’t difficult. As the bus continued to roll closer to the college campus in Masoka, I figured that if the conductor threw us out, our walk would be shorter and shorter.
We arrived at the college campus, the molecules on the bus shifted, and we plopped out of the bus. The conductor, the primary molecule, stood outside of the bus waiting for my fare. I handed him my 1,000 bill and marched through the gate without looking back. A few steps into the gate, I asked Mama Vanessa if she had paid anything. She shook her two coins.
Within two minutes, another bus appeared, and this time Mama Vanessa and I held our breath as we now elbowed and jabbed and shoved our way into the bus. Not surprisingly, Mama Vanessa took a seat first, since too many of my polite practices still linger deep within me. But she had craftily moved over in the seat to save me a space and I sank in beside her, both of us pleased with a major victory. In about two more minutes, the bus filled again, all of us like molecules of a rockno one would be moving except when bounced by the bus. However, there was one woman who complained to the man that his arm was crushing her chest. For a second he didn’t move it, but when a few more molecules adjusted, he found another place for his arm.
The bus fare from town to Masoka is 500 Tanzanian shillings. Often conductors will force passengers to pay more, claiming that the fare has gone up due to increases in fuel prices. Sometimes the entire bus complains and the conductor is cowed into relenting. Sometimes the conductor stops the bus and forces one passenger out. When I handed 1,000 shillings to the conductor and told him it was for me and Mama Vanessa, he handed it back and said a few sentences in Kiswahili which I didn’t understand. Mama Vanessa argued back. The lady behind us argued. I still held my wallet in my hand, and now Mama Vanessa put her hand on it and told me to zip it into my purse. But she unzipped her own wallet, pulled out two coins, and held them.
I knew the essence of what the conductor saidhe was telling me I needed to pay 1,500 shillings for the two of us. Since I was the Mzungu, I should pay 1,000 because I had money. This has happened many times. I try to pay for another person and suddenly the money that I hand over is not enough. I cannot argue back since I don’t have the language skills, and if the friend doesn’t have the gumption to argue back, a good deed becomes a low moment in life.
Now a second time, the conductor shook the change in his hand at me - the signal to pay - and I handed him my 1,000 bill. He threw it back. So Mama Vanessa and I stared out the window or talked, both of us avoiding any eye contact with the conductor. Since we couldn’t see him through all of the molecules, this wasn’t difficult. As the bus continued to roll closer to the college campus in Masoka, I figured that if the conductor threw us out, our walk would be shorter and shorter.
We arrived at the college campus, the molecules on the bus shifted, and we plopped out of the bus. The conductor, the primary molecule, stood outside of the bus waiting for my fare. I handed him my 1,000 bill and marched through the gate without looking back. A few steps into the gate, I asked Mama Vanessa if she had paid anything. She shook her two coins.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Notes on an a capella tradition
As a member of a non-a capella tradition, I have made some observations of how the a capella tradition works at a church service here in Tanzania, or at least at SMMUCo.
First, before church begins, there is no organ prelude. Instead, of those who gather early in the sanctuary, one person calls out a hymn number, waits for others to look it up, and then he or she throws himself into the hymn. There is no vocal searching for a good singable key with “hmm, hmm, hmm.” The others fall into harmony as easily as swinging the arms while walking.
During the liturgy, the pastor leads the antiphonal singing in the same way, no testing out notes, no tiptoeing in, just lead onward with confidence. At SMMUCo, there’s a woman who adds harmony to the pastor’s part. If I tried to do that, there’d be that wispy first-verse-harmony, where I’m singing and learning where the notes are. No, she nails every note despite the fact that she is the only one adding harmony and the whole room is listening. As far as I can tell, she didn’t ask to do it, the pastor didn’t tell her to do it, and he didn’t tell her to stop. It happens magically and wonderfully.
In the chapel at SMMUCo, a student has brought his own electric piano, and he accompanies the church service. This is when the a capella tradition clearly stands out. No one expects this accompanist to introduce the hymn. Hymns begin the same way without accompaniment: the pastor sounds the first three notes and the rest fall in swinging with harmony. It is the accompanist who tests out the notes on the keyboard, searching for the key that was magically chosen by the pastor. After happening upon a key, the accompanist follows along.
In the Western tradition, if there’s any slight disagreement between the accompanist and congregation, the congregationlike dutiful foot soldiersfollow the organ or piano. Not here. The odd note sounded by the piano throws off no one. The congregation sticks very firmly to the first key chosen, and the accompanist sticks to his key a half-step away, and the two stomp in parallel jarring lines. Through all five or seven verses.
This is hard to do. It is one more reason to admire those of the a capella tradition.
First, before church begins, there is no organ prelude. Instead, of those who gather early in the sanctuary, one person calls out a hymn number, waits for others to look it up, and then he or she throws himself into the hymn. There is no vocal searching for a good singable key with “hmm, hmm, hmm.” The others fall into harmony as easily as swinging the arms while walking.
During the liturgy, the pastor leads the antiphonal singing in the same way, no testing out notes, no tiptoeing in, just lead onward with confidence. At SMMUCo, there’s a woman who adds harmony to the pastor’s part. If I tried to do that, there’d be that wispy first-verse-harmony, where I’m singing and learning where the notes are. No, she nails every note despite the fact that she is the only one adding harmony and the whole room is listening. As far as I can tell, she didn’t ask to do it, the pastor didn’t tell her to do it, and he didn’t tell her to stop. It happens magically and wonderfully.
In the chapel at SMMUCo, a student has brought his own electric piano, and he accompanies the church service. This is when the a capella tradition clearly stands out. No one expects this accompanist to introduce the hymn. Hymns begin the same way without accompaniment: the pastor sounds the first three notes and the rest fall in swinging with harmony. It is the accompanist who tests out the notes on the keyboard, searching for the key that was magically chosen by the pastor. After happening upon a key, the accompanist follows along.
In the Western tradition, if there’s any slight disagreement between the accompanist and congregation, the congregationlike dutiful foot soldiersfollow the organ or piano. Not here. The odd note sounded by the piano throws off no one. The congregation sticks very firmly to the first key chosen, and the accompanist sticks to his key a half-step away, and the two stomp in parallel jarring lines. Through all five or seven verses.
This is hard to do. It is one more reason to admire those of the a capella tradition.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Click!
On a visit to Tanzania, my parents wanted to see the market at Moshi. I’d been there twice with friends and when I tried to find it the third time on my own, I didn’t. My plan was to ask someone at the bus terminal and follow the pointed finger and then ask again if I needed to. I did not tell my parents this.
On the ride to Moshi in the college Land Cruiser, we rode with Spenciosa, secretary to the head of the humanities department, and it just so happened that she was going to the market. Embracing her role as market guide, she helped me buy several items at one stall. When my mother took the bag of items to carry, Spenciosa quickly took it back and explained that the mother did not carry anything, the children did. The children in this case were Spenciosa and me.
At one point, my mother stopped to admire the long row of women seated behind neatly piled mangoes, avocadoes, and oranges. My mother asked for her camera from my purse. She clicked a picture, and the row of mango sellers stood up in concert and began a long stream of angry charges with shaking fingers and hands on hips.
“Oh dear,” said my mother, “I think I’ve just started World War III.”
From the words that I could recognize, I understood that the woman whose image was now captured wanted ransom money. I could feel my mother slipping into the shadows, while my father watched in fascination.
My mother wanted to know what was wrong with taking a picture. I can only guess: to be clicked at by a wealthy foreigner is to be selected as an object of interest or fascination. If you’re tired or exhausted from carrying a huge bag of mangoes to the bus stand, tired of hauling the bag onto the bus along with 40 people crammed in there, tired of thinking of that journey back home, tired of wondering whether your ripe mangoes would be sold that day, whether you’d make enough money for that dayhaving someone merely fascinated by you as an object wouldn’t make you happy.
Then again, these women knew that foreigners will pay money for their picture, especially if they get angry. People of the Maasai tribe near Arusha have cashed in on this tendency. And everyone in Tanzania knows this. When I had friends from the States take a picture of me in class with my students, one student came up to me later and wanted to know when he’d be collecting the money. If the Maasai got money for their pictures, why wouldn’t he? (He was joking.)
Mixed in with all of that, probably, is a resentment that foreigners have money and the mango women do not. The finger of fate does not seem to care about justice when it chooses those for poverty and those for wealth.
So we were left to face charges of injustice and image theft by an irate mango woman. Spenciosa began to apologize, but it was clear that apologies weren’t enough. I walked over to the mangoes and asked the woman which one would be good for tomorrow. Immediately she began to press the mangoes one by one and selected a large one. I handed over the money. She had asked a fair price.
The camera remained in my purse for the rest of the journey through the market. We did not take a picture of the ladies now seated, clucking in contentment. We did not take a picture of the rows of small cages with chickens and roosters. We did not take a picture of enormous bags of lentils and flour, stacks of smoked fish.
The next day we ate the best mango we‘d ever had, fruit for the gods.
On the ride to Moshi in the college Land Cruiser, we rode with Spenciosa, secretary to the head of the humanities department, and it just so happened that she was going to the market. Embracing her role as market guide, she helped me buy several items at one stall. When my mother took the bag of items to carry, Spenciosa quickly took it back and explained that the mother did not carry anything, the children did. The children in this case were Spenciosa and me.
At one point, my mother stopped to admire the long row of women seated behind neatly piled mangoes, avocadoes, and oranges. My mother asked for her camera from my purse. She clicked a picture, and the row of mango sellers stood up in concert and began a long stream of angry charges with shaking fingers and hands on hips.
“Oh dear,” said my mother, “I think I’ve just started World War III.”
From the words that I could recognize, I understood that the woman whose image was now captured wanted ransom money. I could feel my mother slipping into the shadows, while my father watched in fascination.
My mother wanted to know what was wrong with taking a picture. I can only guess: to be clicked at by a wealthy foreigner is to be selected as an object of interest or fascination. If you’re tired or exhausted from carrying a huge bag of mangoes to the bus stand, tired of hauling the bag onto the bus along with 40 people crammed in there, tired of thinking of that journey back home, tired of wondering whether your ripe mangoes would be sold that day, whether you’d make enough money for that dayhaving someone merely fascinated by you as an object wouldn’t make you happy.
Then again, these women knew that foreigners will pay money for their picture, especially if they get angry. People of the Maasai tribe near Arusha have cashed in on this tendency. And everyone in Tanzania knows this. When I had friends from the States take a picture of me in class with my students, one student came up to me later and wanted to know when he’d be collecting the money. If the Maasai got money for their pictures, why wouldn’t he? (He was joking.)
Mixed in with all of that, probably, is a resentment that foreigners have money and the mango women do not. The finger of fate does not seem to care about justice when it chooses those for poverty and those for wealth.
So we were left to face charges of injustice and image theft by an irate mango woman. Spenciosa began to apologize, but it was clear that apologies weren’t enough. I walked over to the mangoes and asked the woman which one would be good for tomorrow. Immediately she began to press the mangoes one by one and selected a large one. I handed over the money. She had asked a fair price.
The camera remained in my purse for the rest of the journey through the market. We did not take a picture of the ladies now seated, clucking in contentment. We did not take a picture of the rows of small cages with chickens and roosters. We did not take a picture of enormous bags of lentils and flour, stacks of smoked fish.
The next day we ate the best mango we‘d ever had, fruit for the gods.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Wrong Person to Help
On the bus from Arusha to Moshi a few weeks ago, a young woman carrying a baby sidled down the aisle with umbrella, baby blanket, and purse. As she headed toward the back where I sat, I put up my hands to show I could hold her purse and blanket while she folded down the aisle seat. The soldier on the other side of her did none of these things, nor did the two mamas in the seat in front of me. Her face brightened at my offer, and she handed over her huge umbrella with lethal metal point at the end, the blanket and purse. She folded down the jump seat and loudly harrumphed in Kiswahili that it was a sad day when the only person on the bus to help was the Mzungu. The two mamas in front of me jerked their faces toward the window and fumed. The soldier beside her continued to look apathetic.
After she situated herself and her baby beside me, the young mama happily chattered even after I explained in cave-man grammar that I didn’t really know Kiswahili. The bus stopped, and the people in the back row behind the young mama needed to get off. She stood up and waited for the soldier to fold up her seat, but he had no idea that he was to do anything except sit in his own bubble of solitude. Perhaps it was the way she harrumphed again when she folded up the seat, but the second and third and fourth times she had to get up, he caught on.
At some point, the woman began to nurse the baby. Another someone from the back row shouted that they needed to stop at the next point, the bus bounced to a stop, and suddenly the woman unhooked the baby and stood up. By then the soldier was trained to help, but the woman was half naked in the process of getting herself arranged to stand aside. She returned to the seat again, and to nursing the baby. The mamas who had been fuming earlier now stared at her, breast and all.
By the time we arrived at the Moshi bus stand, she must’ve stood up more than five times. She charged out of the bus with the baby, leaving me to gather up the blanket, purse, and umbrella. When I found her outside the bus, she was arranging a kanga, a traditional cloth, around the baby on her back.
I’ve seen this done alongside the road. The mother bends over, while another woman holds the baby against the back. The bending mother ties the kanga in front. The helper makes sure the baby’s feet are free so that the kanga cups the baby’s bottom.
As the young mama bent over, I knew I was supposed to act the helper. But I was no more effective than the soldier and the two fuming mamas. I knew the part about the feet, but exactly where should the baby fit on the mama’s back? Below the shoulder blades? At the shoulder blades? And then the head wobbled as the woman walked away. This did not look good. I stopped another woman and asked for help. She rearranged the head, but then rearranged it again and said it was fine. The three of us parted ways, and as I turned to say goodbye, I saw the little head bouncing again.
Clearly that young mama lived in a world of apathetic and pathetic helpers.
After she situated herself and her baby beside me, the young mama happily chattered even after I explained in cave-man grammar that I didn’t really know Kiswahili. The bus stopped, and the people in the back row behind the young mama needed to get off. She stood up and waited for the soldier to fold up her seat, but he had no idea that he was to do anything except sit in his own bubble of solitude. Perhaps it was the way she harrumphed again when she folded up the seat, but the second and third and fourth times she had to get up, he caught on.
At some point, the woman began to nurse the baby. Another someone from the back row shouted that they needed to stop at the next point, the bus bounced to a stop, and suddenly the woman unhooked the baby and stood up. By then the soldier was trained to help, but the woman was half naked in the process of getting herself arranged to stand aside. She returned to the seat again, and to nursing the baby. The mamas who had been fuming earlier now stared at her, breast and all.
By the time we arrived at the Moshi bus stand, she must’ve stood up more than five times. She charged out of the bus with the baby, leaving me to gather up the blanket, purse, and umbrella. When I found her outside the bus, she was arranging a kanga, a traditional cloth, around the baby on her back.
I’ve seen this done alongside the road. The mother bends over, while another woman holds the baby against the back. The bending mother ties the kanga in front. The helper makes sure the baby’s feet are free so that the kanga cups the baby’s bottom.
As the young mama bent over, I knew I was supposed to act the helper. But I was no more effective than the soldier and the two fuming mamas. I knew the part about the feet, but exactly where should the baby fit on the mama’s back? Below the shoulder blades? At the shoulder blades? And then the head wobbled as the woman walked away. This did not look good. I stopped another woman and asked for help. She rearranged the head, but then rearranged it again and said it was fine. The three of us parted ways, and as I turned to say goodbye, I saw the little head bouncing again.
Clearly that young mama lived in a world of apathetic and pathetic helpers.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Mattress
Weary from many nights of feeling bed slats under a thin mattress, I asked Rose, the matron at SMMUCo, for a new mattress. Rose jumped on the request and informed me that I would be getting a new mattress in two days. Two or three days later she said I’d be getting the mattress in a couple more days. The next week she told me that she was waiting for money from the assistant bursar to buy the mattress. Finally a few days later, she told me she had the money, and I’d be getting the mattress the next day.
She was right the last time. At about 5:00 in the evening, she and the college driver Haji arrived with a 6 foot by 6 foot mattress. I had hauled off the old foam mattress by the time Rose entered with the new one still sheathed in plastic. We quickly slid off the plastic, plopped the new one onto the wooden slats, and saw that the mattress hung over one side by about six inches. By then Haji had entered the room, and we three stared at the too-big mattress in silence. I tried to squish the mattress down into the frame, but it was impossible. It was then that Rose decided the frame was not 6-by-6 but 6-by-5.
After some Kiswahili words were exchanged between Rose and Haji, the three of us put the mattress back into the plastic, Rose said they’d be coming back with a smaller mattress, and I made sure she repeated the word for “today” - leo.
It was well after dark and I was fighting bed-time yawns when they arrived again. We did not take the plastic off the mattress but plopped it onto the slats. Now there was more silence as we stared at the extra 3 inches of slats exposed on either side of the mattress. Rose and Haji exchanged more words. Haji and I repeated that the mattress seemed to be 6-by-5 ½. I said it wouldn’t be a problem and repeated that several times to Rose who stared and stewed at the exposed slats. Then Haji had the idea of cutting off foam from another mattress and sewing it onto the new one.
Haji, master of jerry rigging, would know. The college Land Cruiser has received much of Haji’s creative solutions that hold the thing together. The hand brake is kept in place by an oil can secured under it. There are always at least two bottles of water lodged under the hood, possibly to cool down a radiator. Above the driver’s seat, a stick is secured between parts of the ceiling frame to hold up I-don’t-know-what. The back door of the Cruiser has been an endless source of creativity for Haji. It never stays closed. After a month of almost losing the back passengers closest to the door, Haji used a strap of rubber to secure the door like a hinge. Then it only banged open and shut on the large boulders along Kibosho road. Eventually, someonepossibly Hajisoldered a latch onto the door. Now the only one who can successfully close the door is Haji.
So it was no surprise that Haji arrived at the idea to cut off foam from another mattress and sew it on. I was informed that the foam strip would arrive the next day.
And that was two weeks ago.
She was right the last time. At about 5:00 in the evening, she and the college driver Haji arrived with a 6 foot by 6 foot mattress. I had hauled off the old foam mattress by the time Rose entered with the new one still sheathed in plastic. We quickly slid off the plastic, plopped the new one onto the wooden slats, and saw that the mattress hung over one side by about six inches. By then Haji had entered the room, and we three stared at the too-big mattress in silence. I tried to squish the mattress down into the frame, but it was impossible. It was then that Rose decided the frame was not 6-by-6 but 6-by-5.
After some Kiswahili words were exchanged between Rose and Haji, the three of us put the mattress back into the plastic, Rose said they’d be coming back with a smaller mattress, and I made sure she repeated the word for “today” - leo.
It was well after dark and I was fighting bed-time yawns when they arrived again. We did not take the plastic off the mattress but plopped it onto the slats. Now there was more silence as we stared at the extra 3 inches of slats exposed on either side of the mattress. Rose and Haji exchanged more words. Haji and I repeated that the mattress seemed to be 6-by-5 ½. I said it wouldn’t be a problem and repeated that several times to Rose who stared and stewed at the exposed slats. Then Haji had the idea of cutting off foam from another mattress and sewing it onto the new one.
Haji, master of jerry rigging, would know. The college Land Cruiser has received much of Haji’s creative solutions that hold the thing together. The hand brake is kept in place by an oil can secured under it. There are always at least two bottles of water lodged under the hood, possibly to cool down a radiator. Above the driver’s seat, a stick is secured between parts of the ceiling frame to hold up I-don’t-know-what. The back door of the Cruiser has been an endless source of creativity for Haji. It never stays closed. After a month of almost losing the back passengers closest to the door, Haji used a strap of rubber to secure the door like a hinge. Then it only banged open and shut on the large boulders along Kibosho road. Eventually, someonepossibly Hajisoldered a latch onto the door. Now the only one who can successfully close the door is Haji.
So it was no surprise that Haji arrived at the idea to cut off foam from another mattress and sew it on. I was informed that the foam strip would arrive the next day.
And that was two weeks ago.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
You Must Pay the Rent
As a non-academic staff member of SMMUCo, the monthly income of Baba Samwel does not provide enough for rent. Since Baba Samwel has no land or resources to make extra income by growing and selling bananas or by raising chickens, Baba Samwel waits for opportunities. When I first arrived at SMMUCo, he offered to marry me, my sister, and then any or all of my sisters-in-law.
The other day an opportunity for rent money arrived. Baba Samwel was assigned to travel to Makumira University College to deliver a small piece of equipment to an administrator there. It’s about an hour and a half journey by bus one-way. He was given an amount of money from the College for food and travel. From the amount given, he figured he could cheat the bus conductor out of some of the fare and buy cheap food.
But his plan was foiled when he saw that the administrator from Makumira had unexpectedly arrived at the gate of SMMUCo that day. What to do? Before anyone from SMMUCo could stop him, he raced out of the gate, hid himself at the nearby bus stop, and threw himself onto the next bus out of Masoka.
On the large bus to Arusha, Baba Samwel convinced the conductor to charge him less by telling him he didn’t have the money. But about half way to Makumira, college personnel from SMMUCo began to call his cell phone repeatedly. For the first ten calls, he avoided answering. Then with certain dread, like the sentenced man walking to his execution, Baba Samwel answered the call to return to Masoka.
This did not mean he had given up entirely on the opportunity. Even though he had paid some of the bus fare and cheated the conductor out of the rest, Baba Samwel told the bus conductor that he’d received an emergency call, please stop the bus and let him off. Then he convinced the conductor to give him half his fare back.
By the time he returned to Masoka, Baba Samwel had calculated what he could add to his accumulating rent money, but he had to return some of it in order to appear honest. A week later he was ordered to return again to Makumira to deliver another piece of equipment. This time, the administrator remained at Makumira.
The other day an opportunity for rent money arrived. Baba Samwel was assigned to travel to Makumira University College to deliver a small piece of equipment to an administrator there. It’s about an hour and a half journey by bus one-way. He was given an amount of money from the College for food and travel. From the amount given, he figured he could cheat the bus conductor out of some of the fare and buy cheap food.
But his plan was foiled when he saw that the administrator from Makumira had unexpectedly arrived at the gate of SMMUCo that day. What to do? Before anyone from SMMUCo could stop him, he raced out of the gate, hid himself at the nearby bus stop, and threw himself onto the next bus out of Masoka.
On the large bus to Arusha, Baba Samwel convinced the conductor to charge him less by telling him he didn’t have the money. But about half way to Makumira, college personnel from SMMUCo began to call his cell phone repeatedly. For the first ten calls, he avoided answering. Then with certain dread, like the sentenced man walking to his execution, Baba Samwel answered the call to return to Masoka.
This did not mean he had given up entirely on the opportunity. Even though he had paid some of the bus fare and cheated the conductor out of the rest, Baba Samwel told the bus conductor that he’d received an emergency call, please stop the bus and let him off. Then he convinced the conductor to give him half his fare back.
By the time he returned to Masoka, Baba Samwel had calculated what he could add to his accumulating rent money, but he had to return some of it in order to appear honest. A week later he was ordered to return again to Makumira to deliver another piece of equipment. This time, the administrator remained at Makumira.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Staff Lessons
Staff Lessons
Twice a week, in a room that serves as the cleaning office of SMMUCo, I give English lessons to cleaning and kitchen staff members. Like large imposing sentries, two wooden cupboards from floor to ceiling stand solidly on opposite walls. (Unlike sentries, the cupboards hold linens.) A stack of foam mattresses sags against one wall.
When I arrive for class, we begin by removing various things left on our study table: keys, a pile of folded laundry, an electric tea kettle, the college iron, or someone’s forgotten cell phone. Once we clear the table, I find myself fascinated by the worn table cloth underneath-it’s covered with pen drawings. I never knew doodling on a table cloth was allowed.
Because our table sits against the only window in the office, we watch with dread when someone approaches from the other side. In middle of a drill on interrogatives (who-nani? what-nini? when-lini? where-wapi?), Innocent from the library comes to tell Catherine, the assistant cook, that he wants to buy cell phone credit. Just when I’m about to shout a big hooray after all five students have done the interrogative drill in lickety-split speed, a college student wants Anna to clean up someone’s vomit. If the request comes from a college student, I use an authoritative voice to say we are in the middle of class and they should come back later.
Despite various agents that threaten our efforts, we plod forward. After I write each lesson in a spiral notebook, after I give the lesson out loud during class, my students will pass the notebook throughout the next two days to each other. By the time the book travels from the cleaning office for Anna and Mama Vanessa, to Eliasante at the provost’s office, then to Catherine and Upendo in the kitchen, the book’s lesson has been copied and then slightly altered by grease or tomato stains and the general dust of Masoka. By Wednesday morning, hours before the next lesson, Mama Vanessa brings it to me, and I begin again on the next lesson.
Lately my lessons focus on the ongoing saga of Kimbori, the security guard rumored (falsely) to have two wives. After Kimbori asked me to be his third wife one evening at the dining hall, I had excellent material for drama: one wife is a thief, another makes horrible food, another one hates to work, and Kimbori ends each episode with a sigh. My students now know what a sigh is, and they understand how to make a possessive with an apostrophe s because the thief-wife stole quite a few belongings of the other wives for at least three weeks in a row.
The other day, I arrived earlier than my students, having whipped out the latest episode in the life of Kimbori and his three wives. With the extra time I studied the table cloth once again. Written neatly among the lines, squares, stars and circles already drawn, I found “who-nani? what-nini? when-lini? where-wapi?”
Twice a week, in a room that serves as the cleaning office of SMMUCo, I give English lessons to cleaning and kitchen staff members. Like large imposing sentries, two wooden cupboards from floor to ceiling stand solidly on opposite walls. (Unlike sentries, the cupboards hold linens.) A stack of foam mattresses sags against one wall.
When I arrive for class, we begin by removing various things left on our study table: keys, a pile of folded laundry, an electric tea kettle, the college iron, or someone’s forgotten cell phone. Once we clear the table, I find myself fascinated by the worn table cloth underneath-it’s covered with pen drawings. I never knew doodling on a table cloth was allowed.
Because our table sits against the only window in the office, we watch with dread when someone approaches from the other side. In middle of a drill on interrogatives (who-nani? what-nini? when-lini? where-wapi?), Innocent from the library comes to tell Catherine, the assistant cook, that he wants to buy cell phone credit. Just when I’m about to shout a big hooray after all five students have done the interrogative drill in lickety-split speed, a college student wants Anna to clean up someone’s vomit. If the request comes from a college student, I use an authoritative voice to say we are in the middle of class and they should come back later.
Despite various agents that threaten our efforts, we plod forward. After I write each lesson in a spiral notebook, after I give the lesson out loud during class, my students will pass the notebook throughout the next two days to each other. By the time the book travels from the cleaning office for Anna and Mama Vanessa, to Eliasante at the provost’s office, then to Catherine and Upendo in the kitchen, the book’s lesson has been copied and then slightly altered by grease or tomato stains and the general dust of Masoka. By Wednesday morning, hours before the next lesson, Mama Vanessa brings it to me, and I begin again on the next lesson.
Lately my lessons focus on the ongoing saga of Kimbori, the security guard rumored (falsely) to have two wives. After Kimbori asked me to be his third wife one evening at the dining hall, I had excellent material for drama: one wife is a thief, another makes horrible food, another one hates to work, and Kimbori ends each episode with a sigh. My students now know what a sigh is, and they understand how to make a possessive with an apostrophe s because the thief-wife stole quite a few belongings of the other wives for at least three weeks in a row.
The other day, I arrived earlier than my students, having whipped out the latest episode in the life of Kimbori and his three wives. With the extra time I studied the table cloth once again. Written neatly among the lines, squares, stars and circles already drawn, I found “who-nani? what-nini? when-lini? where-wapi?”
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