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.

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.

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.

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.