The Birds

So I have mentioned my morning chore, the dirt-sweeping. I have grown accustomed to this 20-minute exercise every morning, and in fact I have begun to enjoy the certain amount of skill with which I can now use a Tanzanian broom. I sweep around three sides of the house, the fourth is grass and that is a logistical nightmare. Two of the sides I sweep adjoin to the neighbors' yards. Tanzanians have not found out that it is socially tactless to grown a spite hedge. This means that there are many bushes making a perfect outline of our dirt yard. That's okay, it gives me a good boundary on my sweeping. The major downside here is that these bushes have literally at least ten-thousand leaves which fall off of them every day. On one side, this is no problem, as there is a rubbish pit (more on this to come) next to the hedge. On the other however, things get pretty ugly. I asked Mama Mipawa, the oracle of Tanzania, how to quickly remove this shocking amount of leaf-fall. She told me (more or less) to man up and use a dust pan. I tried this for one day, and it resulted in me making roughly 8 trips to the rubbish pit, and 10 extra minutes of work. So, being American, I decided to look for a more....practical solution. The next day, I swept all the leaves under the hedges into my neighbor's yard. Case closed, problem solved. After continuing this well-planned solution for a good week, one day I returned home to find my side of the hedge carpet-bombed with these leaves. "Uh-oh...", I thought, "it looks like the jig is up." But instead of admitting my solution was not after all well-planned, I decided that this was a good opportunity to test the competitive nature of Tanzanians. So the next morning I swept it all back over. That night, same thing. Leaf madness. So I a enjoying our little game of "pass-the leaves", wondering who my mystery opponent is. This continues for maybe two weeks, with me thinking perhaps one of my neighbors is slowly working up a fantastic hatred of me. One day I return home from school early to find the yard still unblemished. I decide to study outside. Now, I believe I mentioned that Mama Mipawa keeps chickens. I am not sure if any of you know what chickens do when they are looking for seeds. It is the equivalent of a dog digging to bury a prized bone. So as I watch, several of Mama Mipawa's chickens saunter on over to the hedge, walk through the gaps to the neighbor's side, and begin to look for seeds in the leaves I raked over there that morning. Guess where all the leaves ended up? In the end, it appears the high and mighty, all conquering American reached a two-week leaf sweeping stalemate with several chickens. I felt shamed. I hope all of you are sharing my shame, because I am representing our country.
On the up-side, I have not yet fallen in the rubbish pit. Rubbish pits are giant holes dug in the backyards of every Tanzanian household. They gradually accumulate trash (rubbish, if you will) until its burning time. Then, all the leaves, plastic, tires, batteries, and whatever else happened to become rubbish goes up in flames. This is the leading cause of that smoke in the air. I am sure of this. My family's rubbish pit is still very deep (maybe 10 feet), and it is slowly gathering trash. The interesting thing though, is when other things end up in there. To date, I have helped rescue from our garbage pit: 3 baby chickens, 1 guinea fowl, 1 giant frog, 1 dog, my lazy brother (when he tried to rescue the dog). So I guess the reason I brought up the rubbish pit is so you all know that, even though we are even at moving leaves, chickens are nowhere near as agile near rubbish pits as I am.
Other things of note...I had a dream (I believe I mentioned that the malaria medication causes crazy dreams) worth mentioning. For those of you who have ever either set foot in a liquor store, or perhaps enjoyed spiced rum at some point in your life, you know who a Mr. Captain Morgan is. I am not unfamiliar with him. However, I would not say that "the Captain" has had enough of an impact on my life to warrant a dream in an African country. Well, he was there, standing with one foot up on a treasure chest. I guess the only weird thing about the dream is that he was telling me, in Swahili, where I would be placed for the next two years. Now, I understand that part of the dream, thats been on my mind a lot lately. But of all people, why Captain Morgan? But in all honesty, I think my brain couldn't have chose a better messenger, because I woke up laughing about seeing him in the flesh. He looked robust and healthy, if you are wondering.
Lastly, I have a mom question. She was wondering about how the women wear their hair, and this is kind of funny I guess. First, most of the women here have very short hair, kept close to the scalp, in rows that remind me of a cornfield. I suppose this is easy to maintain, I dunno. With this in mind, they have fantastic variations of patterns, some are very creative. Now, the really interesting thing is when they go out to town or to a party to half-dance for four hours. Then, they always, always put on a wig. Its bizarre. Wigs are everywhere. I have no idea why, the cornrows look fine to me. The wigs just approximate basic American hairstyles, I suppose. Hmm... Oh well. I'm out of time now. Take care, all y'all.