Local films, local cats

Last week, I was at the shop of one of my favorite local merchants, an old Arab electrician named Jaffar, and we got on the subject of movies. He began talking all about his cassette collection (over two thousand of them, apparently) and was wondering if I had a player. I only have the laptop and its internal DVD player available to me, but his son has recently begun sending him films from Canada. These include recent DVDs, and he asked if I would like to borrow any of them. When I said sure, he brought out a case with 15 or 20 movies, one of which was The Last King of Scotland. Being only an hour from Uganda, Bukoba was highly affected by Idi Amin’s reign, so I figured I ought to watch the Oscar-winner.

What did you all think of that movie? Being here, and having been in and around Kampala, I probably had a different perspective on it than you. The first thing that surprised me was to hear Idi Amin addressing people in Swahili. I didn’t know Swahili was ever spoken in Uganda; now, they use either Kiganda or English. (The subtitles weren’t so accurate, by the way). The second surprise was how sweepingly the East African life they depicted from the 1970’s resembles life here now. Honestly, the only difference I could spot was the type of cars people drive. The groups of kids in tattered clothes running alongside cars and yelling at foreigners still occurs just as it did in the film; in fact, they probably didn’t even have to plan or edit that footage at all, instead just filming as they drove around.

About the movie itself…it was powerful, huh? Forrest Whitaker really made the dictator come off as capricious, egomaniacal, and terrifying. I’ve heard James McAvoy has a pretty big cult following (wasn’t he the satyr in the Narnia movie?) and he was adept in his role as the Scottish doctor/advisor of Amin, showing the doctor’s inner turmoil as he slowly realized the evils of the regime with which he was so involved. But Whitaker stole the show, both physically and in terms of presence. I’m not sure how well the plot stuck to history, but I’d imagine it was more factual than Titanic. That’s good enough for me.

After watching it, I talked to various people around Bukoba who’d been here during that time. They had interesting things to say. When I asked Jaffar and his wife if Amin was truly as crazy as the film portrayed him, Jaffar’s wife replied, “Much, much crazier he was in reality” and shook her head sadly. Jaffar then informed me of Amin’s claim that “all of Kagera was his” over public television as an illustration of the megalomaniacal insanity. Kagera is the region of Tanzania where I live. While we were discussing Amin’s time in power, Jaffar informed me that even in Bukoba, people were killed and bombs were dropped. The building we were standing in had been hit by one bomb and his employees had been seriously injured. Amin’s troops never reached Bukoba, but other fanatics killed people in town in support of him, Jaffar told me. At Ihungo, I asked our old chemistry teacher, who’s been teaching here for almost forty years, what he remembered. Apparently, at all areas associated with the government, even public schools, they had to dig trenches and prepare for invasion by the Ugandan army. I asked Jaffar about this, and he too recalled Bukoba’s various preparations for war. (The army never reached Bukoba. The Tanzanian army stopped it at Mutukula, which is now the border town between Tanzania and Uganda. It was the only war Tanzania has fought in since its independence).

A little over a year ago, I wrote about a trip I took to Kampala. While there, I took a tour of the old kabaka’s palace. (Kabaka is the title the chieftains of Ugandan tribes used to have, and the Kampala kabaka was basically the king of the country). The palace was a disappointment- an unfinished mansion, still being built and lacking any historical significance- but the tour guide I had was fantastic. He had been a soldier in the kabaka’s army, which struggled against Idi Amin. This old veteran told me a few stories about the war, including one in which he’d been at the palace when Amin’s troops stormed it. The guards, including my guide, were sorely outmatched and he was one of very few that made it out alive. Halfway through the tour, he asked me if I wanted to see something Amin left behind. You know I did. He took me down a small overgrown path behind the palace and led me to what looked at first glance like a bunker or warehouse. There was a gaping opening leading to a wide hallway, slightly sunken and made of concrete. Two large steps ten meters apart each led up to concrete rooms with no doors. The rooms went far back into the hillside, under the palace, and had no other exits. The kabaka’s former guard told me this was where Amin had kept his prisoners of war. There was no way in or out of the rooms except through the sunken hallway. Apparently, about a foot of standing water was kept in the hallway at all times. This water was highly electrified, such that any prisoner trying to escape would be electrocuted to death. Despite the size of the two rooms, the old guard told me that both had been so full that there was no room even to lie down. I’m not sure how much of this was hearsay and how much was truth, but after talking to Jaffar, it seems clear that Amin was capable of any number of hard-to-believe atrocities.

I feel fortunate being able to hear these stories first-hand, to discuss how peoples’ lives were affected by the tyrant. It reminds me of when I went to Rwanda and stayed with Jean-Pierre, and heard about his family. As strongly as a film may affect you, hearing someone who lived through a tragedy recant it to you will always affect you more, and have a deeper, more permanent impact. I’ll never forget going to the genocide memorial and listening to Jean-Pierre’s story afterward, nor will I forget about Amin’s prison and the old guard.

When I returned his DVD, Jaffar asked me if I’d like to borrow another. Without asking what I’d like, he brought me out Darwin’s Nightmare, an expose in the guise of a documentary that showcases the Nile perch fishing industry of Lake Victoria. Guess it was my week for watching intense films which concern my immediate surroundings. To be completely honest, I didn’t like this movie at all. At times it reminded me of a Michael Moore film- designed to prejudice the viewer by showing only negative aspects of a situation.

Let me explain a little more about the film. Its title derives from the extinctions which are occurring in the lake due to the introduction of the perch some 30 or 40 years ago. Apparently, as a foreign species, it has already begun wiping out many of the natural inhabitants of the lake. This is partly due to it reducing oxygen levels in the lake and thereby killing certain types of algae and microorganisms that other fish survive on and partly due to the perch just eating the other fish. I guess Darwin must’ve had really bad dreams about this happening. However, the film only discussed the ecological impact of the fish briefly, instead focusing on the socioeconomic issues which are related to the fishing industry. My first problem with the movie is that it never cohesively linked these two areas together; there was no connection shown between the environmental and the social crises which stem from the Nile perch’s existence in Lake Victoria. It was more like the filmmaker wanted to condemn the fish to hell, and thereby showed it’s every negative aspect, whether or not they were even tenuously related. I hope no one ever makes a film like that about me, huh?

On top of this, some part of the movie were highly suspect. There is one narrator/guide who takes the filmmaker all around Mwanza. This man is introduced as a night watchman for some offices, a common enough job here. What stuck out was the man’s amazing English ability. Having talked to lots of guards around Tanzania, I feel confident in saying that if that man was really who he claimed to be, then he is the most educated guard in Tanzania. His vocabulary even exceeded that of the university students who are currently at my school. Hmmm… Beyond this guard/professor anomaly, many of the Tanzanians who were interviewed were led to make statements that they didn’t even understand. The filmmaker would ask them questions in English, and as they struggled to respond coherently, he would prompt them to answer a certain way by asking another question. In Tanzania, you can say almost anything you want in English and get the average person to agree with it completely. I’ve done this many times to entertain myself (yes, I’m an immoral person). Jodi and I watched the movie together, and both of us started getting pissed at the inaccurate comments he was soliciting from the Tanzanians.

It’s a filmmaker’s prerogative to show whatever aspects of a situation that he might choose, but it was hard for me to swallow such a pessimistic pill. Rather than showing normal life in Mwanza, he chose to only film crippled street children who fight each other for food. Well yeah, this does happen here, and its terrible. But at the same time, this happens all over the world, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the introduction of a foreign species of animal into their environment. Lastly, he kept juxtaposing scenes of all this fish which would be exported to foreign consumers with shots of these emaciated children, or with vignettes of people discussing a soon-to-come rice famine in Tanzania, as though saying that keeping the fish from being exported could halt the incipient starvation. He neglected to show that the area which reported the possible famine is so far away from Mwanza, separated by such terrible roads, that it is simply not viable to transport fish there before it rots. Learn the logistics before you make a movie, chump. If I write much more about it, I’ll just get more worked up.

On a sad but funny note, today I saw the town veterinarian. He was on his motorcycle, leaving my school and heading towards town. Hanging from the back of the motorcycle was a bag that was "meowing" in a very forlorn manner. Don't worry, the cat was ok, I think that is just the vet's way of transporting cats to his clinic. Welcome to Tanzania.

Is it ok if I ramble a bit...?

About a week ago, twenty student-teachers arrived at my school from the University of Dar Es Salaam. They’re all pursuing degrees in education, and their stint here as teachers is an improvised internship. The Ministry of Education did well in implementing this student-teacher program- for the two months that they are here (and elsewhere throughout Tanzania), the constant pressure from the shortage of teachers, especially in upper levels, is relieved. Ihungo was provided with biology, chemistry, geography, math, history, economics, English, French, and Kiswahili teachers. Reread that last sentence. Yes, we were provided with teachers for every subject except physics. While the rest of Ihungo’s normal A-level teachers are enjoying a two-month vacation thanks to these student-teachers, yours truly is plodding along same as always. Honestly, I’m pleased that I don’t have to share my periods; I believe no one will prepare my students for their examinations as thoroughly as I do (more on this in a moment).

Additionally, it’s been nice having them around, socially. When I came here first, I found that the staff room was filled with older, well-experienced teachers. Unfortunately, what comes with their experience is often intractability to new ideas or undertakings. It would happen that I would speak up during a meeting with an (in my eyes) important viewpoint, only to get immediately shouted down by the elder teachers- “Well, that’s not how we do things here.” Yeah, that’s fine. With the arrival of the university students, I’ve found a group of dynamic, open people who want to become involved during their short stay. So far, this has only manifested itself in daily volleyball matches, lots of card games, and interesting discussions. While I’ve enjoyed this breath of fresh air in my social life, it seems that while these students are here, perhaps we can work together to foster structural changes in Ihungo’s environment. For once, the young, idealistic crowd has the majority over the middle-aged teachers and their static mindsets. It’s an opportunity…

With seeking to implement changes, however, a constant debate rears its head: should we try to alter the existing structure of an education system simply because we are products of a different one? That is, Tanzania has its own methods of instruction and discipline which are largely influenced by its cultural patterns and the behaviors of teachers and students alike. Perhaps ideas which are highly lauded in the US would find a poor breeding ground here, just due to these social differences. This is something I’ve had to consider and reflect on before bringing anything new to the staff. Even a concept and simple and fundamental to us as positive reinforcement (remember the star stickers that teachers put on the best papers?) was met with an amazing amount of resistance- “If we treat them nicely, the students will take try to take advantage of us.” Sadly, this can be sometimes true.

The main battleground for this debate tends to be the area of corporal punishment. To beat or not to beat… When teachers ask what discipline methods we use in the States, I usually mention detention, suspension, Saturday school, and the like. Invariably, the teachers will respond by laughing, telling me how ridiculous Americans are and that such methods would never work in Tanzania. Strangely, perhaps they are right. What would be the use of detention in a boarding school where the students have already been stripped of all their free time? In the international Peace Corps monthly magazine, I read an article titled “Punishing Lessons: How some of us whipped those kids into shape” that shocked me. Here, in this magazine which gets sent to every Peace Corps country in the world, reaching a minimum of 7,000 volunteers, was an article endorsing the use of corporal punishment, not only by local teachers but by us volunteers as well. The main argument stems from the debate I mentioned earlier- we as American guests never know the education system as well as the people who live there, and therefore it isn’t our prerogative to come in and try to affect changes. We don’t know what works, and the locals do. There was testimonial in this article from several past volunteers explaining their rationale for beating the students (one- “my students didn’t respect me until I hit them.” Another- “my head of school rated me as the best volunteer in the country after I started beating the students”). Does this give you a queasy feeling? It did me, when I read it. These volunteers seem to have followed the doctrine “if you can’t defeat them, join them,” and hit their students simply because they didn’t have any better solution. What the author of this article seems to have forgotten is that there are certain objective truths which transcend cultural beliefs and education systems. Studies have shown that corporal punishment is demeaning, engenders animosity, and hinders development. Granted, these studies were conducted in Western nations, but if one can believe their veracity, then it seems that one universal truth ought to be “beating is an ineffective, inhumane form of punishment.” Corporal punishment used to be the norm in American schools as well, and we gave it up when we realized its negative effects. Just because beating still occurs in some developing nations does not mean that it is the proper form of punishment for those nations. It means they haven’t yet realized, as we did, the absurdity of hitting those we are trying to teach. What do we hold onto when we travel from culture to culture and attempt to adapt? If we just give up all our values to follow the current customs, we lose sight of those objective truths and we never grow from our travels. In a sense, choosing to enjoin corporal punishment is choosing to turn a blind eye to a truth which we as Americans have already been exposed to: corporal punishment is wrong. Those who beat their students in order to adapt more readily to their society shouldn’t be congratulating themselves; they should be mourning the loss of their humanity and their values.

While I’m on morality, I should mention my own current crisis. Last year, for several months there was another teacher on the Ihungo staff that was capable of teaching A-level physics. The administration asked me to share my periods with him, and I did so, albeit reluctantly. During the short time he stayed here, this teacher developed a reputation for being a lazy drunkard. Without telling the school, I began teaching during the periods he was supposed to be in class. I didn’t care that he wasn’t responsible, I just wanted to help my students. After several months, he found work elsewhere and moved on. Now, a year later, he’s back. I’ve been told by several another teachers that he has changed, this is a different person altogether. Uh-huh. As it happens, again the school asked me to share my periods with him. The next topic we cover is electromagnetism, which is the same topic he was supposed to teach last year. This means I have no experience at all with how to present electromagnetism, how to prepare my students in it. So I agreed to give him a few periods per week, on the condition that he will finish electromagnetism and then give them back. My moral dilemma: did I make a mistake in giving this guy a second chance? He’s shown that he is an unreliable teacher, but he does know the topic we asked him to teach more thoroughly than I do. I didn’t really have time to go through my options when the administration asked me to give him periods, so only now am I reflecting on whether I made the right decision. Perhaps if I work closely with him, so that he feels me breathing down his neck, it will keep him on task. Let’s hope so, I don’t want to let these kids down.

Finally, on a sad note, I forgot to mention in my last post that my best friend of the last year left a few weeks ago. Manuel, the Laurel to my Hardy, got a job in DC working for a branch of the World Bank. Apparently, he’s working on international economics and development. Hats off, but Jodi and I are missing him something fierce. Over the year we all had together, the three of us became really close (as tends to happen in small town Africa). Jodi, cool as she is, just does not appreciate some of the ridiculousness that Manuel and I brewed up. I’ll miss him a lot over my last few months, I’m sure of it. Manuel- ulikuwa mbwa wangu wa kwanza kabisa. Sasa siwezi kujamba mara kwa mara kama zamani, tulipokuwa pamoja. Tutaonana siku nyingi, mtu wangu.

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.