Kit-colored Glasses

So Kit went home a few days ago, now the house seems a bit empty. I’m still in the habit of cooking enough for two and am forced to eat all of it myself (I have no fridge), then I reach that point of uncomfortable fullness. Once when I was maybe 10 years old, after eating at a big buffet, my brother and I were taken to Dairy Queen by my grandmother. If you are familiar with buffets, you should know that you always, always leave full. If you are familiar with children, you should know that they always, always want ice cream. Naturally, we ordered the largest, and on the ride home tried cramming the cones, chocolate dip, and ice cream into our stomachs. By the time we reached my grandmother’s house, I was so full that I was worried about keeping it all in; in fact, I’d begun to sweat and have that warm saliva that precedes the inevitable. Before she could park the car, I pleaded for her to stop, and then flopped out of her car onto the lawn. I proceeded to lay there in overfull-belly agony, rolling back and forth and waiting for the food to digest. I’ve had that same agony twice since Kit left, just by cooking too much and feeling required to eat it all.

Having had her as my guest for the last month, I picked up some new insights into Tanzania- one charming and one ugly. Let me start with the former… I noticed this slightly when my parents visited four months ago, but when Kit and I visited acquaintances and casual friends, the courtesy and friendliness with which we were received was outstanding. Tanzania tends to be an open, social country, so this isn’t really a departure from the norm, I was just surprised at the level of hospitality we were given. I didn’t know that I had ten best friends around Bukoba until she and I wandered the town over a week or two. The Arab electrician never gave me a cold soda to drink while we talked when I was by myself, and the Indian shopkeeper never gave me a Bounty bar. I wonder what spurs this exaggerated benevolence..? I suppose its partly a way to show fondness for a friend by treating their guests well. Perhaps also, people wants their visitors to leave with the best impression they can bestow, and thus the gifts and maneno matamu (literally “sweet words”, can be used to mean “pillow talk”). Whatever the reason, it brought a smile to my face to have us both treated with such courtesy by the people here that I’ve come to care about.

On the flip side, Kit and I did get to see one of the dirtier facets of society here- degradation of women. I’d rather not go into particular details, but as man and woman going around together, this bias was constantly thrown in our faces, sometimes subtly and sometimes blatantly. An example of the former: as we walked and talked to people we would pass, unless Kit specifically greeted someone first, they would always address me. I would be engaged in entire conversations about Kit while she stood there, trying not to feel the sexism. Why ask me, why not just ask her? Probably because people assumed that we were married, and that therefore she was my “property” and addressing her would be tantamount to insulting me. I’d imagine only a portion of the people who treated her this way actually have such archaic beliefs, but who knows? In any case, it was the latter form of degradation was the one that got me in “fightin’ Rob” mode- catcalls, gestures, and comments that make American construction workers look like celibate monks. At one point, a group of some young punks (yeah, I said it) prattled on in Swahili, not realizing both of us can understand it. Finally, I told them to calm down and back off, or else I’d beat them. The loudmouth of the group said “yeah, how?” and I flexed and said “with this thunder and this lightning.” However, in Swahili thunder and lightning are combined into one word, so what I ended up saying was more like “this thunder and this thunder.” I’m pretty sure I said it as a joke, so if you are shaking your head and thinking that I’ve gone from being a pacifist to a man carrying around two loaded thunders, don’t worry. Most of us, Kit and I included, started laughing after I said it, and a couple of the punks claimed to have their own thunders. Back to the point of it, the vocal and flagrant harassment of women, especially white women, wasn’t something I’d really come face to face with before her visit. I’d like to think that most of the people here aren’t that way, but judging by the regularity of it, maybe I’m wrong. It’s sad, and it’s ugly.

So yeah, you can see what a polarizing effect having Kit as a guest had on the way I see life here: my acquaintances became good friends, my good friends became blood brothers, but random male strangers became insulting and bellicose. Now that she’s back home (safe and sound and melting) in Tanga, my interactions have reverted to normality, and there is no more cold soda to be had from Mr. Jaffar.

Being alone again and still being on break has given me time to try putting my experience here into context. For example, it’s odd for me to realize that my contract expires in less than half a year. Maybe this sounds like a long time to you, but my parents were just here yesterday, and now yesterday is four months ago. Two thoughts tend to follow that one. First, how is the readjustment going to be; will I be too different to pick up where I left off? Then, what can I do here during my last five months that will let me leave with a sense of completion? The second question is the scarier of the two; there is so much that I’d like to do and sometimes I feel stretched so thin that I can’t possible take on anything else. But I’ll try, I’ll keep looking for ways to feel useful that fit into my teaching schedule. For those of you who helped or are planning on helping with the push-mower project, thanks again. Sometimes our efforts seem so small when we put them into a greater picture, but for each student here who sees and feels what we are trying to do, I guess it’s not small at all. OK I’m starting to sound like a Hallmark card.