“Let us go, then, you and I.”
From “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
Going in Tanzania is mostly communal. A small bus bouncing on a rocky road groans with the weight of too many people packed elbow to cheek, cheek to cheek, stomach to chin. Men and women march together by the road balancing freight on their heads.
If people are not going, they are waiting, and their waiting becomes going.
One day I arrived at the college campus in Moshi Town expecting to teach at 8:00 a.m. and learned from students that the schedule had changed, that our classroom had changed, and now I had four hours to wait. I graded essays under the canvas roof of the makeshift canteen, situated on the only grass on campus, until my feet were so bitten by insects that I had to move. I needed to shop for Christmas gifts, and I had time. Going seemed to be the thing to do, but it meant some uncertainty. While I knew where the closest bus stand was, I did not know what bus to take to return back to the campus. When my colleague James stopped to ask me a question, I asked him for directions.
James is basically a snake in character, which isn’t being kind to snakes. In the past four conversations I’ve had with James, nothing he has said turned out to be true. At tea time once, he stopped our conversation abruptly to say he had a class to teach. Two minutes later I found him in the hallway of the administration building pacing outside an office. Another time, he had informed me that the new schedule for teaching was posted on the bulletin board. I found no such schedule.
But the real reason not to trust James had to do with a much earlier incident a couple months ago when I was having tea with a student worker. James came into the dining hall and reminded the student, Sarah, that as his African sister, she should serve him some tea. She did it. I asked James what he did for her as her brother. He came up with a good list and I asked him how many of those he had already done for her, which brought about a change in topic. At another tea time when he told the student again that he wanted her to serve him tea, I reminded him that he had a healthy set of arms and legs to serve himself. And then at another tea time, James walked to my table where I sat sipping tea and told me that since Sarah was not there to serve him, he would go out and find her. I knew then that James did not like me.
Last week I found out James would be my tutor for my seminars. This means I have to work with James. I will tell him what material he should cover with my students who will be grouped into sections much smaller than 160 students in my lectures. It also means that when James told me he had a master’s degree, he was lying because people with master’s degrees are lecturers, not tutors.
When I asked James what bus to take for the return from bus terminal to campus, I knew James would not recognize the truth if it struck him down. James’s instructions were long and tortuous, but when I started to write down place names he mentioned, the instructions became more focused: take a bus that says “Mbuyuni.”
To worry about whether James’s advice was good or not—that would’ve been a definite refusal to go for the ride.
At the bus terminal, I stopped and asked a man and woman seated on a bench where the Mbuyuni bus was. They pointed to the end of the terminal. Then the woman said a few words, some of which I understood: “wait” and “let’s go.”
She took me by the hand and led me across the street. The person who takes me by the hand, despite the sweat and dust of my fingers, is the one who wants me to find the way, the one who walks the distance in the hot sun to make sure that I have gotten what I asked for. This woman who took my grimy hand would not let go until we had crossed the street, until she had hailed the Mbuyuni bus, that is, the second Mbuyuni bus because the first one took off after briefly stopping for two seconds.
The bus traveled to the right section of town, but I did not see the Moshi Town campus anywhere. I saw the Tanzanian Breweries Limited factory near the Moshi Town campus. But I didn’t know what to ask for. Maybe the bus would arrive at a place that I would recognize. Soon enough, I was the only passenger, and the conductor said another word that I recognized: “mwisho,” “the end.” The end was a little subsection of Moshi with chickens and goats and a field of some crop I didn’t recognize and a road and shops that I didn’t recognize.
The conductor pointed to another bus headed in the opposite direction. I boarded it and after greeting a friendly woman beside me, I managed to ask about the Moshi Town campus. A man in the front seat seemed to know it and after the bus made its first stop, he told me to go with him. Though he did not take me by the hand, he led me through long passages between houses at a very fast clip, and after we managed to exhaust our foreign language supply, we walked at a fast clip in silence and burning sun. Suddenly the Moshi Town campus appeared. I was led once again by someone who merely said, “Let’s go.”
“Let us go, then, you and I” is a call to go to the unknown, to knowingly follow the advice of a snake, not with trust but out of the yearning to go. The call is also a hand that takes my grimy one because it wants me to go where it takes me. To answer the call is to discover what love is.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cheated and blessed
Arusha is a big tourist city near Moshi. When I take the bus from Moshi to Arusha, I take a huge bus at the terminal where small and giant buses roar in and out, all of them blowing black smoke behind them. In the huge buses, there’s an aisle down the middle, and when seats are filled, middle seats are folded down. When those are filled, the conductor orders people to share the fold-down seat. Sometimes it’s done thoughtfully. That is, the conductor has taken into account the size of bottoms that need to share. Other times, the conductor has ordered two people with very large rumps to split a one-rump space. Usually the two passengers complain and figure out how to rearrange themselves, and everyone is mildly content.
Buses don’t follow a schedule as far as I can tell. I climb onto a bus, and when it is full, the bus departs. Time is not of the essence; money from passengers is. While the first passengers wait, vendors walk around with goods to sell: bottles of water, cookies, sunglasses, underpants—whatever can be carried over to a bus and thrust through a window.
A few weeks ago, I wanted a bottle of water, normally five hundred shillings, the equivalent of fifty cents. I handed the vendor a ten thousand bill. He left to get the correct change and when he returned, he handed me the bills and disappeared. I looked at the change, subtracted in my head, and realized I had just paid two thousand shillings, the equivalent of two dollars rather than fifty cents.
Local customers here are very savvy about any transaction. They scrutinize any shoe, any bucket, pushing and prodding at potential weak joints. They argue prices down, or they walk away in disgust. If I get a fair price out of anything, that’s because the Tanzanian standing with me has done all of the work. Or the merchant wants me to return for future business.
But these roaming vendors figure I won’t return. I’m on a bus, I’m clearly a tourist, and they can get away with taking an extra two thousand shillings. So I sat on the bus seat and stewed about being cheated, but only briefly. I was sitting on a bus after all, and the cheater had to work every day pushing his goods on people who mostly didn’t want to buy them.
About a week later, I took another ride to Arusha, boarding the huge bus. On the way, we stopped at the bus terminal in a nearby town called Boma. For reasons that remain a mystery, the bus to Arusha always stops at this terminal, and some official-looking person at the gate is handed money. In the meantime, while the bus waits in line before the gate, vendors swarm about us.
That day I decided I wanted a package of sweet cakes, which cost five hundred shillings, but I had only a thousand shilling bill. The vendor—who looked like a teenaged boy—shook a second package at me and gave a look of pleading, but I shook my head, I only wanted one package. As I handed him my bill, the bus started to roll. He slapped his packages onto the chest of the guy standing beside him, dug into his pockets, and jogged beside the bus. I hung my head out the window, and the bus shifted into second gear. The boy now shifted into a sprint. Just as I mentally let go of the five hundred shillings, he thrust a bill into my hands.
I poked my head out of the window even further. The boy stood behind a cloud of black exhaust, his body heaving with each breath. And I did the only thing I could do at that moment—I blew him a kiss.
Buses don’t follow a schedule as far as I can tell. I climb onto a bus, and when it is full, the bus departs. Time is not of the essence; money from passengers is. While the first passengers wait, vendors walk around with goods to sell: bottles of water, cookies, sunglasses, underpants—whatever can be carried over to a bus and thrust through a window.
A few weeks ago, I wanted a bottle of water, normally five hundred shillings, the equivalent of fifty cents. I handed the vendor a ten thousand bill. He left to get the correct change and when he returned, he handed me the bills and disappeared. I looked at the change, subtracted in my head, and realized I had just paid two thousand shillings, the equivalent of two dollars rather than fifty cents.
Local customers here are very savvy about any transaction. They scrutinize any shoe, any bucket, pushing and prodding at potential weak joints. They argue prices down, or they walk away in disgust. If I get a fair price out of anything, that’s because the Tanzanian standing with me has done all of the work. Or the merchant wants me to return for future business.
But these roaming vendors figure I won’t return. I’m on a bus, I’m clearly a tourist, and they can get away with taking an extra two thousand shillings. So I sat on the bus seat and stewed about being cheated, but only briefly. I was sitting on a bus after all, and the cheater had to work every day pushing his goods on people who mostly didn’t want to buy them.
About a week later, I took another ride to Arusha, boarding the huge bus. On the way, we stopped at the bus terminal in a nearby town called Boma. For reasons that remain a mystery, the bus to Arusha always stops at this terminal, and some official-looking person at the gate is handed money. In the meantime, while the bus waits in line before the gate, vendors swarm about us.
That day I decided I wanted a package of sweet cakes, which cost five hundred shillings, but I had only a thousand shilling bill. The vendor—who looked like a teenaged boy—shook a second package at me and gave a look of pleading, but I shook my head, I only wanted one package. As I handed him my bill, the bus started to roll. He slapped his packages onto the chest of the guy standing beside him, dug into his pockets, and jogged beside the bus. I hung my head out the window, and the bus shifted into second gear. The boy now shifted into a sprint. Just as I mentally let go of the five hundred shillings, he thrust a bill into my hands.
I poked my head out of the window even further. The boy stood behind a cloud of black exhaust, his body heaving with each breath. And I did the only thing I could do at that moment—I blew him a kiss.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
In spite of the dust
This morning, I am teaching Basic Communication Skills to at least 100 students at the Moshi Town campus of SMMUCo. The campus opened last week, a month after classes started.
Three buildings on this campus, a former brewery, are still being transformed from beer-making activity to learning activity: the administration building, the cafeteria/library/classroom building, and a large lecture hall. The other buildings have not been transformed at all. An architect has yet to inspect one building to see if it has potential to be a dormitory.
The streets in this area of Moshi are a fine powdery dust, with large manufacturing enterprises making up most of the activity. Large lorries barrel in and out, stirring up large clouds. The campus grounds are also the same powder. Workers shovel the makings of concrete. Others pound away at old concrete, throwing out more dust. The small act of walking stirs up small billows.
When I dressed this morning, I thought of wearing a handkerchief over my hair. I thought of wearing worn-out clothes that I could easily wash and wouldn’t worry about preserving. If I had goggles and a face mask, I could wear them also. I chose instead a simple wrinkle-free skirt and wrinkled blouse.
The large lecture hall where I teach looks more like an airplane hangar with at least two sides open to the air and sunshine and dust. A chapel service is still in progress when I arrive, so I sit in a seat and discover that there’s a fine layer of dust on the desk, and I imagine that my skirt has nicely removed a layer for the student who takes my place. The evangelist says a final prayer, and I move to the front of the class arrangement. I would call it a classroom but it’s more an island of desks and chairs in a sea of concrete floor, all of them facing a white board.
The white board still has the previous class’s lecture on it. As students begin to wipe off their seats and chairs, I wipe off the white board and realize that really I’m erasing two or three lectures underneath the current one, plus the latest layer of dust. Finally one kind student takes the eraser from me, moves just beyond the hangar, dips the eraser in a water puddle and returns to wipe off the board. Now the board has smeared into it a layer of puddle. Later a second volunteer student will take the eraser to a room in the next building and return with a cleaner, wetter eraser. That will wipe out three layers of letters. And by creating a film of blue and black gray, this latest smearing will give a nice contrast to my blue letters.
Very little can happen in an airplane hangar with over 100 students. Surely the last row cannot read my handwriting mixed with dust, three lectures, and puddle. Surely they cannot hear me shouting above the workers pounding in the unfinished building next to us. Surely the dust already clinging to their fingers, their pens, and papers drives them nuts. Surely they have better things to do than wait ten minutes for me to wipe off the board.
But they have come wearing their finest clothes, the men in pressed shirts and ties, the women in dresses and scarves. Somebody’s perfume wafts pleasantly from the front row.
I am telling them the parable of the talents because I have witnessed two weeks before a pathetic set of student presentations. I tell them that as future teachers, they will be given five bags of talents and they should understand how powerful and life-giving those bags are. Their focus in preparing these presentations should not be fear, but the importance of what they do.
And in saying this, I see them lean forward. Some of the students in the back have turned one ear toward me. After I finish telling the parable, I will begin a painstaking process of writing on the board a sample essay rather than giving them a handout because circumstances discourage me from making over a hundred photocopies. And they will write patiently. The students in back will occasionally stand up to get a better view of what I’ve written on the board. Other students will help the ones beside them by showing their notes. Someone will ask me to explain something again. And afterward, students will come to me with drafts of the next assignment even though I hadn’t finished explaining it.
Next Monday, I will take extra care in pressing my skirt in spite of the dust.
Three buildings on this campus, a former brewery, are still being transformed from beer-making activity to learning activity: the administration building, the cafeteria/library/classroom building, and a large lecture hall. The other buildings have not been transformed at all. An architect has yet to inspect one building to see if it has potential to be a dormitory.
The streets in this area of Moshi are a fine powdery dust, with large manufacturing enterprises making up most of the activity. Large lorries barrel in and out, stirring up large clouds. The campus grounds are also the same powder. Workers shovel the makings of concrete. Others pound away at old concrete, throwing out more dust. The small act of walking stirs up small billows.
When I dressed this morning, I thought of wearing a handkerchief over my hair. I thought of wearing worn-out clothes that I could easily wash and wouldn’t worry about preserving. If I had goggles and a face mask, I could wear them also. I chose instead a simple wrinkle-free skirt and wrinkled blouse.
The large lecture hall where I teach looks more like an airplane hangar with at least two sides open to the air and sunshine and dust. A chapel service is still in progress when I arrive, so I sit in a seat and discover that there’s a fine layer of dust on the desk, and I imagine that my skirt has nicely removed a layer for the student who takes my place. The evangelist says a final prayer, and I move to the front of the class arrangement. I would call it a classroom but it’s more an island of desks and chairs in a sea of concrete floor, all of them facing a white board.
The white board still has the previous class’s lecture on it. As students begin to wipe off their seats and chairs, I wipe off the white board and realize that really I’m erasing two or three lectures underneath the current one, plus the latest layer of dust. Finally one kind student takes the eraser from me, moves just beyond the hangar, dips the eraser in a water puddle and returns to wipe off the board. Now the board has smeared into it a layer of puddle. Later a second volunteer student will take the eraser to a room in the next building and return with a cleaner, wetter eraser. That will wipe out three layers of letters. And by creating a film of blue and black gray, this latest smearing will give a nice contrast to my blue letters.
Very little can happen in an airplane hangar with over 100 students. Surely the last row cannot read my handwriting mixed with dust, three lectures, and puddle. Surely they cannot hear me shouting above the workers pounding in the unfinished building next to us. Surely the dust already clinging to their fingers, their pens, and papers drives them nuts. Surely they have better things to do than wait ten minutes for me to wipe off the board.
But they have come wearing their finest clothes, the men in pressed shirts and ties, the women in dresses and scarves. Somebody’s perfume wafts pleasantly from the front row.
I am telling them the parable of the talents because I have witnessed two weeks before a pathetic set of student presentations. I tell them that as future teachers, they will be given five bags of talents and they should understand how powerful and life-giving those bags are. Their focus in preparing these presentations should not be fear, but the importance of what they do.
And in saying this, I see them lean forward. Some of the students in the back have turned one ear toward me. After I finish telling the parable, I will begin a painstaking process of writing on the board a sample essay rather than giving them a handout because circumstances discourage me from making over a hundred photocopies. And they will write patiently. The students in back will occasionally stand up to get a better view of what I’ve written on the board. Other students will help the ones beside them by showing their notes. Someone will ask me to explain something again. And afterward, students will come to me with drafts of the next assignment even though I hadn’t finished explaining it.
Next Monday, I will take extra care in pressing my skirt in spite of the dust.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Communication Failures
At SMMUCo, I teach Basic Communication Skills. Since failure is an excellent teacher, I assigned students the task of writing about a communication failure. Here are a few samples that I have modified and added fictional names and place names:
Poor eyesight
A Tanzanian man who worked in the States was contacted by his parents in Tanzania to send money. They needed it to pay the electricity bill which was about to be cut off. At the Western Union station in Tanzania, the parents read back the control number of the receipt to the agent, who told them the number was incorrect and sent them away. After they called their son again, they learned that due to their poor eyesight, they had misread an 8 for a 0. In the meantime, the electricity had been cut off, and the parents now sat in the dark, their poor eyesight reduced even more until the next day when they could return to Western Union with the correct number.
The daughter from Dar es Salaam
Mama Linda received a letter from her daughter Helda in Dar es Salaam, but she did not know how to read. She called upon her neighbor to read it. He then informed Mama Linda that her daughter in Dar had died. Soon Mama Linda’s granddaughter came home and found her grandmother sobbing. Now the granddaughter read the letter and discovered that the letter was announcing Helda would be coming to visit the following week. At this point, the neighbor confessed he too was illiterate.
Thief!
One night in the village of Kirima, a woman shouted, “Thief, thief!” Amani told his son to get up and help catch the thief. Other villagers appeared with sticks and long bush knives. The thief ran quickly but not quickly enough. Villagers soon gave him a royal beating until Amani persuaded them to stop by telling them that they should call the police. But when Amani called the police, they did not answer. When Amani tried again, his cell phone did not have enough battery charge in it and failed to make contact. Upon learning this, the fury of the villagers came upon them once again, and now they beat the thief to death. Having killed the thief, they turned on Amani who fled successfully.
Fire!
There was a fire accident at Majengo. The fire caused much loss because after the villagers called the fire extinguisher, the fire extinguisher was confused about the specific direction to reach the fire. Accordingly, the fire extinguisher used much time on the way to reach the fire, which caused some of the houses and all the property to be destroyed. It would be better for citizens to get different seminars on how they can overcome different accidents regarding their environment.
(Take note that the author has absolutely no confidence in giving a seminar to fire extinguishers.)
Poor eyesight
A Tanzanian man who worked in the States was contacted by his parents in Tanzania to send money. They needed it to pay the electricity bill which was about to be cut off. At the Western Union station in Tanzania, the parents read back the control number of the receipt to the agent, who told them the number was incorrect and sent them away. After they called their son again, they learned that due to their poor eyesight, they had misread an 8 for a 0. In the meantime, the electricity had been cut off, and the parents now sat in the dark, their poor eyesight reduced even more until the next day when they could return to Western Union with the correct number.
The daughter from Dar es Salaam
Mama Linda received a letter from her daughter Helda in Dar es Salaam, but she did not know how to read. She called upon her neighbor to read it. He then informed Mama Linda that her daughter in Dar had died. Soon Mama Linda’s granddaughter came home and found her grandmother sobbing. Now the granddaughter read the letter and discovered that the letter was announcing Helda would be coming to visit the following week. At this point, the neighbor confessed he too was illiterate.
Thief!
One night in the village of Kirima, a woman shouted, “Thief, thief!” Amani told his son to get up and help catch the thief. Other villagers appeared with sticks and long bush knives. The thief ran quickly but not quickly enough. Villagers soon gave him a royal beating until Amani persuaded them to stop by telling them that they should call the police. But when Amani called the police, they did not answer. When Amani tried again, his cell phone did not have enough battery charge in it and failed to make contact. Upon learning this, the fury of the villagers came upon them once again, and now they beat the thief to death. Having killed the thief, they turned on Amani who fled successfully.
Fire!
There was a fire accident at Majengo. The fire caused much loss because after the villagers called the fire extinguisher, the fire extinguisher was confused about the specific direction to reach the fire. Accordingly, the fire extinguisher used much time on the way to reach the fire, which caused some of the houses and all the property to be destroyed. It would be better for citizens to get different seminars on how they can overcome different accidents regarding their environment.
(Take note that the author has absolutely no confidence in giving a seminar to fire extinguishers.)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A Passport
This past Sunday I went with Happy, the bursar’s assistant at SMMUCo, and her sister Neema to church. Since it’s impossible to pretend I’m not a visitor, Happy accurately anticipated that I would be asked to introduce myself, as is the custom. But my nickname at Happy’s home is “Sija elewa” which means “I don’t understand.” At times Happy, with hands wringing, announces it’ll take me ten years to learn Swahili.
On the walk to church at 6:45 a.m. Happy reminded me of key phrases I would need. Since I was familiar with these phrases, I rehearsed them a few times mentally, a few times out loud, got them wrong, and Happy corrected me. In a few more steps, Happy led us into the front of the church, five inches from the pulpit. I looked back and saw 400 people facing me.
After the sermon, the congregation filed to the front to give their offering. At this point, the pastor seated at Happy’s right called her over for a five-minute conversation. Happy returned to report that the pastor wanted me to introduce myself. He did not know enough English to help me, and so the two of them decided I would do it myself, but only briefly. The briefly part was Happy’s idea.
I had spent the length of the hour sermon picking out words I recognized, much like chasing butterflies. Neema had brought an English New Testament, so at least I could get the gospel for the day. So when the pastor invited guests to stand up, my only clue was the word “wageni” and the fact that he now stared at me. I stood up, faced the sea of 400 and performed three sentences, mixed with English prepositions, all with confidence. The congregation applauded enthusiastically. As soon as I sat down, Happy let out the air that her lungs held during my three sentences and then collapsed in my lap.
All of that had been thoughtfully orchestrated by Happy. She had helped me rehearse to the point that I was confident when the time came. And she had made it possible for me to reach a congregation who were truly pleased and grateful that I had managed to say something to them in their own language. Maybe it seems like a pocket-sized gesture, but multiply that times 400, and it opens up a whole world.
On the walk to church at 6:45 a.m. Happy reminded me of key phrases I would need. Since I was familiar with these phrases, I rehearsed them a few times mentally, a few times out loud, got them wrong, and Happy corrected me. In a few more steps, Happy led us into the front of the church, five inches from the pulpit. I looked back and saw 400 people facing me.
After the sermon, the congregation filed to the front to give their offering. At this point, the pastor seated at Happy’s right called her over for a five-minute conversation. Happy returned to report that the pastor wanted me to introduce myself. He did not know enough English to help me, and so the two of them decided I would do it myself, but only briefly. The briefly part was Happy’s idea.
I had spent the length of the hour sermon picking out words I recognized, much like chasing butterflies. Neema had brought an English New Testament, so at least I could get the gospel for the day. So when the pastor invited guests to stand up, my only clue was the word “wageni” and the fact that he now stared at me. I stood up, faced the sea of 400 and performed three sentences, mixed with English prepositions, all with confidence. The congregation applauded enthusiastically. As soon as I sat down, Happy let out the air that her lungs held during my three sentences and then collapsed in my lap.
All of that had been thoughtfully orchestrated by Happy. She had helped me rehearse to the point that I was confident when the time came. And she had made it possible for me to reach a congregation who were truly pleased and grateful that I had managed to say something to them in their own language. Maybe it seems like a pocket-sized gesture, but multiply that times 400, and it opens up a whole world.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Clawing hands that pull you down
At tea time, I sat next to Mama Nasari the other day, not necessarily because we could say a whole lot to each other. My Swahili has not moved beyond basic caveman gruntings. Rather, I sat beside her because I learned a few weeks ago that she is envious of the women who have socialized with me at tea time since I arrived in August. These are secretaries, like Mama Nasari, who were part of daily life on campus when no faculty or students were around. At that time, Mama Nasari was on leave and, upon returning, found that others had developed friendships with me as well as greater ease in speaking English.
One day I listened to some of them encourage her to speak with me. But, she said, she felt foolish speaking broken English. Yes, they admitted, and so did they, yet no one made fun of them, and it was more important just to practice speaking English, broken though it was. You can’t get past broken to whole without the broken part. And, they pointed out, one could observe my own enthusiastic Swahili gruntings.
A few conversational topics later, Mama Nasari told me she wanted to learn Excel. I said I could teach her quickly in a half hour, maybe at the beginning of the day. No, she said, that wouldn’t work, she’s too busy at the office. What about after tea? No, she’s too busy, too many interruptions. She suggested I come to her home on a Saturday. I could take the bus, and she has a computer.
Using the bus requires waiting a half hour up to an hour. And then a half hour ride to the bus stand near Mama Nasari, and then a little walk to her housing compound. This seemed a little extreme to me for a half hour lesson on Excel, but I said nothing.
Tea ended and Mama Alfa, who runs the internet café, followed me out apparently with an ulterior motive. As we walked farther away from the administration building, she explained that the real problem was that if I taught Mama Nasari at the college, the other secretaries would criticize her for trying to rise above the rest.
I have seen only glimpses of this in action, but it has incredible power among a group of people who are miserable. Women here are second-class citizens in many ways. I don’t know how it’s fostered exactly but I do know that all of the administrative leadership at SMMUCo is comprised of men. Of the faculty, the large majority is men. And those who serve at the socially lower ranks are women. Men seem to enjoy a freedom from criticism. In a marriage, a woman is expected to serve the husband and not the other way around. A man will leave his wife in his rural village home to care for his parents while he takes a job and a mistress or second wife in a big city.
I do not know how prevalent this is, but it is prevalent enough to have dug a deep pit of misery for women. This misery is intensified when others try to get out of the pit.
Education can be a powerful tool in raising the status of women. But the woman who sacrifices to save for a refrigerator or an education falls prey to the criticism of other women. While women can mouth words of encouragement, they are also capable of dragging another back down. Mama Nasari is therefore terrified of those who will claw at her with words.
After telling me of Mama Nasari’s fear, Mama Alfa turned to me and said, “So what will you do?” I can and will help Mama Nasari learn Excel. I can and will take the bus on a Saturday. But I do not know if my help will give her what she really needs: the courage to rise out of the pit. Each time she allows her fear of petty criticism to pull her down, the fear itself accumulates power and so do the clawing hands.
Mama Nasari could use a prayer for courage and a lesson on Excel. Hopefully the lesson can become another lesson on refusing to give in to clawing hands from the deep pit of misery.
One day I listened to some of them encourage her to speak with me. But, she said, she felt foolish speaking broken English. Yes, they admitted, and so did they, yet no one made fun of them, and it was more important just to practice speaking English, broken though it was. You can’t get past broken to whole without the broken part. And, they pointed out, one could observe my own enthusiastic Swahili gruntings.
A few conversational topics later, Mama Nasari told me she wanted to learn Excel. I said I could teach her quickly in a half hour, maybe at the beginning of the day. No, she said, that wouldn’t work, she’s too busy at the office. What about after tea? No, she’s too busy, too many interruptions. She suggested I come to her home on a Saturday. I could take the bus, and she has a computer.
Using the bus requires waiting a half hour up to an hour. And then a half hour ride to the bus stand near Mama Nasari, and then a little walk to her housing compound. This seemed a little extreme to me for a half hour lesson on Excel, but I said nothing.
Tea ended and Mama Alfa, who runs the internet café, followed me out apparently with an ulterior motive. As we walked farther away from the administration building, she explained that the real problem was that if I taught Mama Nasari at the college, the other secretaries would criticize her for trying to rise above the rest.
I have seen only glimpses of this in action, but it has incredible power among a group of people who are miserable. Women here are second-class citizens in many ways. I don’t know how it’s fostered exactly but I do know that all of the administrative leadership at SMMUCo is comprised of men. Of the faculty, the large majority is men. And those who serve at the socially lower ranks are women. Men seem to enjoy a freedom from criticism. In a marriage, a woman is expected to serve the husband and not the other way around. A man will leave his wife in his rural village home to care for his parents while he takes a job and a mistress or second wife in a big city.
I do not know how prevalent this is, but it is prevalent enough to have dug a deep pit of misery for women. This misery is intensified when others try to get out of the pit.
Education can be a powerful tool in raising the status of women. But the woman who sacrifices to save for a refrigerator or an education falls prey to the criticism of other women. While women can mouth words of encouragement, they are also capable of dragging another back down. Mama Nasari is therefore terrified of those who will claw at her with words.
After telling me of Mama Nasari’s fear, Mama Alfa turned to me and said, “So what will you do?” I can and will help Mama Nasari learn Excel. I can and will take the bus on a Saturday. But I do not know if my help will give her what she really needs: the courage to rise out of the pit. Each time she allows her fear of petty criticism to pull her down, the fear itself accumulates power and so do the clawing hands.
Mama Nasari could use a prayer for courage and a lesson on Excel. Hopefully the lesson can become another lesson on refusing to give in to clawing hands from the deep pit of misery.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Cutting a cake
My African friends here have difficulty believing I can do anything practical. I cannot carry a bucket of water on my head. I do not chop wood for the fire to cook with. I do not mop my own floors (the cleaning staff does it). I do not cook since I don’t have a kitchen. Mostly they’ve observed that I read and write. So when I announced that I knew how to bake bread and a cake, they double-dared me to teach them.
Baking bread and a cake seemed possible here at the college because it has a degree program in Hotel and Tourism Industry, which comes with a classroom full of ovens, stoves, and sinks. Unlike this very convenient set-up, many or most kitchens in the homes here are nomadic. The charcoal or wood-burning container travels from inside to outside as does the cooking pan that rests on top of it. The water is already outside, having been carried by a member of the family from the nearest outdoor tap. And when the meal is over and the dishes are cleaned, all of that moves back inside.
The regular kitchen staff here at the College also work in a large kitchen with plenty of electric stoves (no ovens), but with the frequent power outages, the staff continue to use charcoal burners outside to fry donuts, cook rice, etc.
The three of us—Rehema, Mama Catherine, and I—planned to do the baking on a Saturday when the classroom was free. But we all understood that the plan would only work if God willed it. I’m beginning to understand this. Getting the ingredients for bread and cake was a challenge. I carried sacks with two bags of flour, sugar, baking power, yeast, vanilla on a bus so crowded that I did not have room to carry the bags where I stood, wedged between a hip and a stomach. As is the custom, a polite seated passenger carried the 20-pound bag on her lap, and after 30 minutes, with a deep groan she passed it on to me as I squeezed out of the bus. That was the first grocery shopping trip. The second shopping trip, I was lucky—a bus seat was open.
The key to the classroom was in the hands of a student named Doris, but on Saturday at the appointed time, Doris was nowhere to be found. After texting her on my cell phone, I learned she’d had a family emergency and had to be away. She had arranged for another student to unlock the kitchen.
Then the bus that brought Rehema to campus broke down somewhere after Moshi Town. After an hour of waiting for the bus not to be repaired, Rehema boarded another bus and arrived a half hour after that.
At the classroom kitchen, the Rehema, Mama Catherine and I found an electric mixer, pans, bowls, mixing spoons and more. I texted Doris to ask where the measuring cups and spoons were. Doris texted back to explain that they only measured using a scale, and so I returned to my apartment to find other possibilities. I decided that one of my coffee cups was about the same size as a measuring cup by imagining a measuring cup, something I haven’t seen in three months, and comparing it to the cup in front of my eyes. It seemed close enough to me. So did the non-measuring spoon that I used for stirring tea.
Back in the kitchen, the first step for the bread was to melt butter with milk, sugar and water in a saucepan, but none of the stoves would offer any heat after I turned, pushed, and pulled knobs. Once again, Doris came to the rescue long distance by asking a fellow student to help. The student appeared, turned on a button behind the stove, and soon we were heating up butter, milk, and water.
After finishing the bread dough, we started making the cake. The first step was to cream the shortening with the electric mixer. The electricity went out just as Rehema plopped the butter in the bowl. My mind suddenly moved forward twenty steps to the part where we actually needed to bake the bread and cake. At that moment, I saw everything falling apart.
Rehema saw all of the things falling apart in my mind and announced loudly that we would continue and worry about the baking part later. Really, we had what we needed at the moment: two women accustomed to chopping wood and carrying water who could whip the hard butter into fluffy cream, no problem. After a half hour of whipping, it was good.
At that point, Nickson showed up. Nickson is a third-year student here at SMMUCo who wants to be a gospel rap singer in the States. His first week here, he asked me if I would give him lessons in English to prepare him for his career, and he has faithfully appeared every week. He is the rare kind of student who asks twenty more questions than the teacher. Nickson reviewed the recipe and wanted to know the definitions of “shortening,” “beat,” “yeast,” and so on. Plus each word reminded him of something else he’d always wondered about.
Before we succeeded in throwing Nickson out, we’d arrived at the moment when baking was imminent and electricity was not. Someone who shall not be named said that if the American (Jeanne) went to Mlay, the security guard, and asked to turn on the generator, he would do it. But I did not want to ask for the generator. It’s extremely expensive, and the College struggles to make ends meet. But the shadows were lengthening, Rehema needed to be home before dark, and we’d done so much to arrive at this point.
Nickson accompanied me to translate. Mlay said we had to ask the campus manager. Then he would find Kimbori, another security guard, to turn on the generator.
Getting deeper into unethical waters, I went back to the kitchen to make sure that this request was really worth pursuing.
Absolutely, this was important. I was teaching. Wasn’t teaching how to make a cake important? If it wasn’t important, why had I worked so hard to get there?
I made Nickson go with me to the campus manager’s house, even though the campus manager speaks fluent English. The campus manager was eating dinner with his family and graciously invited me to join his family six times. But when I asked permission to have the generator turned on for one hour, his enthusiasm fizzled. Reluctantly he agreed, and off I went with Nickson, wondering how I would pay for this misdeed. When we returned to the security guard’s station, Mlay was nowhere to be found, Kimbori was off in the village, and so we left a message with the only person there, a student worker.
By now the bread had risen well above the loaf pans, and I punched it down, and it seemed a good time to eat at the dining hall. Through the dining hall windows, I could see Kimbori walk into the maintenance building to turn on the generator after I’d taken three bites of food. I zipped back to the kitchen to heat up the oven.
Both the bread and cake needed to be baked at 375°F. The oven knob had numbers 1-11, most of them faded or invisible. I turned the knob to the random number of 8, zipped back to finish my dinner, and after returning, decided 8 wasn’t hot enough and moved the knob to 11.
Not surprisingly the heat was uneven, and both the cake and the bread developed black blobs on top. Several times during the baking, we shifted pans. The public electricity returned after an hour of expensive generator power. As we pulled the bread and cake from the oven, fully cooked with black blobs on top, we declared it all to be good especially after tasting the layers underneath.
And then it was time to cut the cake. We cut a piece for Kimbori and Mlay who caused the generator to turn on. We cut pieces for the campus manager, his wife and two children. We cut a piece for Doris, one for Nickson. We cut a piece for Esther who had saved us food from the dining hall. We cut some for Rehema’s family and Mama Catherine’s family, one for me. The cake was now totally claimed by all who had helped to make it work, not including the bus drivers and the one passenger who had to carry my 20-pound bags of groceries, or the student who turned on the stove for us. We also excluded the fifty or so students who walked past the kitchen all afternoon, stared at the cake I carried to the various people around campus.
I have now accepted an invitation to teach the same lesson again (God willing), this time using the charcoal stove with a closed box that serves as an oven. If I can get an oven to bake bread at the temperature of number 11, I can surely make a box over charcoal do the equivalent. I also have the comfort of knowing that if the electricity goes out, we will not have to resort to unethical means.
Baking bread and a cake seemed possible here at the college because it has a degree program in Hotel and Tourism Industry, which comes with a classroom full of ovens, stoves, and sinks. Unlike this very convenient set-up, many or most kitchens in the homes here are nomadic. The charcoal or wood-burning container travels from inside to outside as does the cooking pan that rests on top of it. The water is already outside, having been carried by a member of the family from the nearest outdoor tap. And when the meal is over and the dishes are cleaned, all of that moves back inside.
The regular kitchen staff here at the College also work in a large kitchen with plenty of electric stoves (no ovens), but with the frequent power outages, the staff continue to use charcoal burners outside to fry donuts, cook rice, etc.
The three of us—Rehema, Mama Catherine, and I—planned to do the baking on a Saturday when the classroom was free. But we all understood that the plan would only work if God willed it. I’m beginning to understand this. Getting the ingredients for bread and cake was a challenge. I carried sacks with two bags of flour, sugar, baking power, yeast, vanilla on a bus so crowded that I did not have room to carry the bags where I stood, wedged between a hip and a stomach. As is the custom, a polite seated passenger carried the 20-pound bag on her lap, and after 30 minutes, with a deep groan she passed it on to me as I squeezed out of the bus. That was the first grocery shopping trip. The second shopping trip, I was lucky—a bus seat was open.
The key to the classroom was in the hands of a student named Doris, but on Saturday at the appointed time, Doris was nowhere to be found. After texting her on my cell phone, I learned she’d had a family emergency and had to be away. She had arranged for another student to unlock the kitchen.
Then the bus that brought Rehema to campus broke down somewhere after Moshi Town. After an hour of waiting for the bus not to be repaired, Rehema boarded another bus and arrived a half hour after that.
At the classroom kitchen, the Rehema, Mama Catherine and I found an electric mixer, pans, bowls, mixing spoons and more. I texted Doris to ask where the measuring cups and spoons were. Doris texted back to explain that they only measured using a scale, and so I returned to my apartment to find other possibilities. I decided that one of my coffee cups was about the same size as a measuring cup by imagining a measuring cup, something I haven’t seen in three months, and comparing it to the cup in front of my eyes. It seemed close enough to me. So did the non-measuring spoon that I used for stirring tea.
Back in the kitchen, the first step for the bread was to melt butter with milk, sugar and water in a saucepan, but none of the stoves would offer any heat after I turned, pushed, and pulled knobs. Once again, Doris came to the rescue long distance by asking a fellow student to help. The student appeared, turned on a button behind the stove, and soon we were heating up butter, milk, and water.
After finishing the bread dough, we started making the cake. The first step was to cream the shortening with the electric mixer. The electricity went out just as Rehema plopped the butter in the bowl. My mind suddenly moved forward twenty steps to the part where we actually needed to bake the bread and cake. At that moment, I saw everything falling apart.
Rehema saw all of the things falling apart in my mind and announced loudly that we would continue and worry about the baking part later. Really, we had what we needed at the moment: two women accustomed to chopping wood and carrying water who could whip the hard butter into fluffy cream, no problem. After a half hour of whipping, it was good.
At that point, Nickson showed up. Nickson is a third-year student here at SMMUCo who wants to be a gospel rap singer in the States. His first week here, he asked me if I would give him lessons in English to prepare him for his career, and he has faithfully appeared every week. He is the rare kind of student who asks twenty more questions than the teacher. Nickson reviewed the recipe and wanted to know the definitions of “shortening,” “beat,” “yeast,” and so on. Plus each word reminded him of something else he’d always wondered about.
Before we succeeded in throwing Nickson out, we’d arrived at the moment when baking was imminent and electricity was not. Someone who shall not be named said that if the American (Jeanne) went to Mlay, the security guard, and asked to turn on the generator, he would do it. But I did not want to ask for the generator. It’s extremely expensive, and the College struggles to make ends meet. But the shadows were lengthening, Rehema needed to be home before dark, and we’d done so much to arrive at this point.
Nickson accompanied me to translate. Mlay said we had to ask the campus manager. Then he would find Kimbori, another security guard, to turn on the generator.
Getting deeper into unethical waters, I went back to the kitchen to make sure that this request was really worth pursuing.
Absolutely, this was important. I was teaching. Wasn’t teaching how to make a cake important? If it wasn’t important, why had I worked so hard to get there?
I made Nickson go with me to the campus manager’s house, even though the campus manager speaks fluent English. The campus manager was eating dinner with his family and graciously invited me to join his family six times. But when I asked permission to have the generator turned on for one hour, his enthusiasm fizzled. Reluctantly he agreed, and off I went with Nickson, wondering how I would pay for this misdeed. When we returned to the security guard’s station, Mlay was nowhere to be found, Kimbori was off in the village, and so we left a message with the only person there, a student worker.
By now the bread had risen well above the loaf pans, and I punched it down, and it seemed a good time to eat at the dining hall. Through the dining hall windows, I could see Kimbori walk into the maintenance building to turn on the generator after I’d taken three bites of food. I zipped back to the kitchen to heat up the oven.
Both the bread and cake needed to be baked at 375°F. The oven knob had numbers 1-11, most of them faded or invisible. I turned the knob to the random number of 8, zipped back to finish my dinner, and after returning, decided 8 wasn’t hot enough and moved the knob to 11.
Not surprisingly the heat was uneven, and both the cake and the bread developed black blobs on top. Several times during the baking, we shifted pans. The public electricity returned after an hour of expensive generator power. As we pulled the bread and cake from the oven, fully cooked with black blobs on top, we declared it all to be good especially after tasting the layers underneath.
And then it was time to cut the cake. We cut a piece for Kimbori and Mlay who caused the generator to turn on. We cut pieces for the campus manager, his wife and two children. We cut a piece for Doris, one for Nickson. We cut a piece for Esther who had saved us food from the dining hall. We cut some for Rehema’s family and Mama Catherine’s family, one for me. The cake was now totally claimed by all who had helped to make it work, not including the bus drivers and the one passenger who had to carry my 20-pound bags of groceries, or the student who turned on the stove for us. We also excluded the fifty or so students who walked past the kitchen all afternoon, stared at the cake I carried to the various people around campus.
I have now accepted an invitation to teach the same lesson again (God willing), this time using the charcoal stove with a closed box that serves as an oven. If I can get an oven to bake bread at the temperature of number 11, I can surely make a box over charcoal do the equivalent. I also have the comfort of knowing that if the electricity goes out, we will not have to resort to unethical means.
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