Rob is in Africa.

The end of an "odyssey"

2008-01-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the nearly two-month gap between posts. My final few days in Dar Es Salaam before coming home were fairly hectic (I became seriously ill, nearly hospitalized). I'd written a "final" post to give a sense of closure, but the computer crashed as I was finishing it, and I was too frustrated and tired to write another. Sorry!

As things stand now, I've just moved in with my brother in Ashland, Oregon (home of the regionally-famous Shakespeare Festival). The previous two weeks were a whirlwind of travel, friends, family, and food. Seriously, I could not believe how much fudge was all over the place around Christmas time. What's up with that? Can anyone eat so much fudge..? Anyway, it was amazing to see everyone again after such a long hiatus. A week back home and a week in Seattle ensured that I had a chance to catch up with nearly everyone I'd been missing (notable exceptions aside: Kent Naegeli and Brandon Schaefer, who were in Tokyo which is a bit too far away).

It's a good feeling to finally have a solid ground to stand on, though. It will be fantastic for me to live here with my brother, whom I haven't seen that often for the past...7 or 8 years. I'll commence looking for an interim job in Ashland while I eagerly await hearing back from business schools (update: I'm a fellowship finalist at the Moore School of U. South Carolina; wish me luck!). My goal is to become an apprentice baker for the next six months. I'd dig that.

That's about all I have left to say. To everyone who has read my posts, whether you made it known or not, thanks. I really appreciate those of you who've told me how you enjoyed what I wrote. It wasn't always positive, but what a great means of expression! I wish you all the best, and feel free to email me whenever you'd like:
farris.r.s@gmail.com
(since I'm no longer in Africa, I thought a change might be prudent).

Cheers

Rob

Bad Education

2007-11-20T00:43:00.000-08:00

Scott Boyd came. He conquered, and then he left us in awe. Honestly, having such a great friend come here and see the life I’ve been living was as good as making a stew and then realizing you have enough stew to eat for two days instead of one. Maybe it was even better than that… I would write a post about his visit but for two reasons. First, words will never do Scott Boyd justice. Second, pictures always tell the story more vividly. Look at what he decides to post, you’ll find yourself satiated. Scott Boyd, you rock.

In lieu of Scott/Rob adventure tales, I want to drop one more about the education system here. I’ve almost filled my invective-quota; hopefully this will be the last. Several weeks ago, my headmaster invited to his office and presented me with an honor: I had been chosen to write the governmental mock examination for the entire Kagera region (of which Bukoba is the chief town). This exam is given to the form six students three months before they finish secondary school and take their final exams, and is meant to prepare them by showing them where they need to focus their studies. Last year’s physics mock was garbage and I often railed against my students relying on it. I kept telling my boys, “If I could write this test, I would make it much better” by making it less erroneous and more representative of the final physics test. Now, I was being given the chance to put up or shut up.

Several days later, I’d produced a massive test of which I was proud. Honestly, I believe it good enough to be used even as the final national exam. I’d researched nearly twenty physical constants (acceleration due to gravity, speed of sound in air, and so on) which would be necessary to answer many of my questions. This had been a major problem area in the previous year’s mock exam- no constants were given, yet it was impossible to answer some questions without them. Imagine being a capable physics student, frustrated and unable to answer problems which you comprehend because of an error in the test itself. I wanted to be sure that this wouldn’t happen again. With the advent of Scott Boyd, I knew I would be otherwise occupied and so I passed the completed test- constants and all- to my friend Mr. Omali, the academic master here at Ihungo.

Two weeks later, I went to visit my headmaster and to pay sympathies to his wife (she had surgery and is fine, but Tanzanians like to give their condolences for the surgery itself). Over a beer, he told me that the mock exam coordinator called him to say that the physics test I’d written was missing an instruction page. The coordinator had then talked with the other physics teacher at my school (more on this champ in a bit) who advised him to use last year’s instruction page. Why is the instruction page important? It contains the necessary physical constants. This was the most critical part of the test, the page without which the test would be impossible to complete. And my exhaustive instructions had been replaced by those of last year, those which I had repeatedly condemned. Ultimately, this means that throughout the entire Kagera region, not a single student will be able to successfully complete my test. Despite my efforts, despite doing everything I could to avoid it, my test is now the same as last year’s.

You might be asking yourself several questions, such as “why doesn’t Rob call the coordinator and give him a proper instruction page?” or “who is this other physics teacher who gave such terrible advice to the coordinator?” Let me tell you: the physics test was proctored this afternoon, and I only found out about the full extent of this problem this morning. As much as I wanted to do something to change the outcome, there was no way I would have time to get the proper instruction page to every A-level school in the entire region. Hello, helplessness.

The second half of this story has to do with this other physics teacher, whose background is necessary here. I’ve written a bit about him before, but let me refresh you. He came to Ihungo last year and began teaching conjointly with me. After several months, it became evident that he was an incorrigible drunk who would often miss class to sleep off his benders. In the evenings, he would force our students to pay him to attend tutoring in which he would cover the material which he had failed to teach during the day. Upon learning this, I resumed full responsibility for physics, and he eventually found a job elsewhere. It’s important to note that he wasn’t fired, but left on his own volition to pursue a position with a larger salary. A year passed, and he came back. He returned fresh-faced with assurances that his binge-drinking days were behind him. In retrospect, I believe he only made this claim because at the time he couldn’t afford that enough liquor for binging. Since coming back, he’s been slowly and surreptitiously returning to his former habits. I told him early on that I wouldn’t tolerate his making the students pay extra for their educations, but he still often skips class. In short, this is a man who would last roughly eight minutes as a teacher in any Western education system, but due to the severe lack of teachers here in Tanzania, he and his predilections are in high demand.

So now that we are familiar with my fellow teacher, let me continue the story. I said that he had advised the mock exam coordinator to use last year’s instruction page. As frustratingly stupid as this was, it pales in comparison to the second trick he had up his sleeve. Due to the difficulty of writing such a comprehensive and important examination, there is remuneration available to the mock exam authors. Volunteers are not allowed to receive any additional financial support outside of their salaries, so I requested that mine go towards the Positive Reinforcement Project which I initiated last year. While I was busy severely rocking the world with Scott Boyd, this other teacher was asked to proofread my test to ensure there were no mistakes. At this point, he was given the monetary reward for my work. What then followed was ajabu-ajabu kabisa (completely freaking ridiculous). Dude took the money intended for the school and went on a drinking spree to end all sprees. Two days passed and he hadn’t returned to the school. The following morning, a staff member who commutes from town told the headmaster that he saw someone resembling our wayward drunk. This person he saw was passed out on the side of the road with no shoes on, covered in bruises and reeking of alcohol. Yes, it turned out to be our physics teacher. Eventually, he made it home and slept for at least five days. When I saw him for the first time yesterday, his face still looked like hell and it was more than a week after his triumphant return. I asked him what happened, and he told me “I had an accident.” I’m sure you did bro, I’m sure you did.

To me, the most amazing thing in all of this is the fact that he is not going to lose his job. Can you believe it? The headmaster told me that he would “sit him down and counsel him to drink less.” Oh, good idea. I guess we can forget that upon my departure, all 140 physics students will have to rely on this champ. It’s a tragic truth that Ihungo would simply not be able to find another A-level physics teacher and so they can’t fire him, even if he is a drunken, corrupt thief. Welcome to the developing world…

As a final note, remember that this is a (fairly) unique situation with a particularly unreliable teacher. There are other teachers at my school, such as Mr. Omali, who inspire me on a daily basis. There are my students, who persevere despite the bad tests and the drunks. There is good in the education system here, really, but some days it just seems hard to find.

Armageddon Is Coming...

2007-11-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

...and its called "Scott Boyd".

He'll be here in t-minus 2 hours, and then we go immediately to a Halloween party. I'm sure being the fancy pants blogger that he is, he'll upload some high-def streaming video nonsense for you all to enjoy.

I think Scott Boyd and I are about to ruin this town.

Some thoughts on leaving

2007-10-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Two months. That’s pretty much all that I’ve had on my mind lately- how close I am to coming home. Over the last few weeks, Jodi and I have gone to two school graduation ceremonies (this is a bit of masochism, seeing that they tend to be six hours of bad speeches and kids trying to emulate Akon or Beyonce) and each time I found myself daydreaming about coming to America. No, not the Eddie Murphy movie, although I can dig it. Maybe I should move to Queens..? With such a short amount of time left, I feel like I’m almost in two places at once: my heart and mind are eating pizza with Andrew, while my body is still taking cold bucket showers. I try to remind myself of the aspects of life here that I’ll miss upon my return, but I find it hard not to take everything for granted when I stand on the precipice of such a drastic life change. It was the same before I left the States, I focused solely where I was going and not on what I was leaving behind. Perhaps that makes it easier to leave?

One part of my life here that I’m sure to miss is my site mate- Jodi. She teaches ordinary level (the first four years of secondary school; I teach the advanced levels which follow these), and her school term will end shortly. This means she’ll be able to head home a month prior to me, as I’ll still be in session. Jodi and I have been together since day one- we were in the same training group in Morogoro, and then we were stationed together here in Bukoba. Despite Andrew’s occasional idiosyncrasies, I’ve never known what it would be like to have a sister. I suppose I think of Jodi as I would a sister; she’s been my rock for a lot during these past few years. During the hard times, it was great knowing she was in my corner. We’ve developed all sorts of routines to make Bukoba feel like home: spicy Indian food on Tuesdays, playing cribbage on the beach, trying to ride our bikes up our respective hills. Knowing that she heads out in a few weeks is a bittersweet thought- I’m excited for both of us to be back among family and friends, but the bonds which are fostered through adversity tend to be the strongest ones (a lesson I learned by watching Vin Diesel movies) and I’ll miss my sis.

When I was asked what I’ll remember about Tanzania during that conference a few months ago, I immediately thought of my students. Even if I have profound, fundamental issues with the system of education here, even if I never truly adapted to my role as a teacher, even if I can’t stand them at times, I know how much I will miss my boys. Its ironic, but now that I’m on the cusp on leaving, I’ve begun to impart as much of my knowledge as I possibly can to them. Yesterday in class, they were complaining about an poorly made administrative decision (in their eyes, of course), and I spent half of my lesson making an impromptu speech about how they have every right to stand up for what they see as right. Since I’m not prone to being long-winded (excepting this blog, naturally), my students actually listened. They nodded, they smiled, and maybe they felt inspired. Or maybe it was that empty smile that they do when I ask them if they understand about how the terminals of an operational amplifier act as a differential input. “Sure, Mr. Masanja, we understand completely…*cough cough*” I’ve said it before, but the students at this school, and probably country-wide, really get the short end of the stick. If nothing else, I want to leave them feeling proud of themselves for how far they’ve come. I guess that means more Mr. Masanja diatribes are soon to be delivered.

By the way, one thing I know I’ll miss about my students, and about most Tanzanians, is how mellow they can be. Granted, at times the laissez-faire attitude can be frustrating as hell, but sometimes it was their saving grace. Picture this: I’m in front of the class teaching, and it’s a rainy day. There is a hole in the corner of the roof that’s leaking, and my boys are all shivering from the brisk wind coming through the broken windows. All of a sudden BAM! out of the hole comes a bat. I’ve never had any problem with bats, but many people do (especially Americans, probably thanks to legends inspired by Bram Stoker). I wasn’t sure how my students would react to this disease-bomb swooping over their heads. When I paused the lesson to see what they would do, they looked at me like “why are you stopping, is it too cold to teach or something?” They had hardly noticed the bat. I chuckled to myself and continued lecturing as the bat kept swooping and they kept taking notes. Imagine what reaction this would inspire in an American high school. I can picture the screams, mainly coming from the teacher… What a difference! The bat made several repeat appearances, and I thought about adding him to the attendance roster. Anyway, its this mellowness that I tend to take for granted. I know there are other parts to life here that I don’t appreciate as much as I ought to, and I’ll try to enjoy life here as much as I can for the next two months. But good grief, I’m so damn excited to have a cheeseburger and a porter.

Update: after writing this, I was going around town and had an opportunity to be reminded of what I'm not going to miss. I was just walking, minding my own business and a man came up to me. Somehow he knew I am teaching at Ihungo, and since he teaches at a nearby school, we are best friends. Now, since I'm white, he assumed I would give him money for his hospital bills. Of course he'll pay it back tomorrow, being my best friend and all. And when I said "no, sorry" the fifth time, he got pissed and told me how he is a good Christian and I'm going to hell. Yeeeeesh...not gonna miss that at all.

At Long Last...!

2007-10-11T02:52:00.001-07:00

Well, it finally happened. Push-reel mowers are now in action at Ihungo Secondary! It took more than six months of planning, fund-raising, and hoop jumping, but at long last, this project has reached an end. The Ihungo students now have ten new push mowers they can use to maintain our expansive grounds. We are giving them names of animals found in Tanzania: Simba (lion), Tembo (elephant), Twiga (giraffe), Kifaro (rhino), Naegeli (dogg), and so on.

Once more, let me extend a profound thanks to everyone who helped us out on this. I gave a "big speech" to the boys before presenting the mowers to them, in which I explained where the funding came from. I wish you all could have been here to hear their cheers and whoops of appreciation.

Look on the pictures page to see some pictures of the mowers that I've taken over the last few days.

Two Hundred Roads Diverged...

2007-10-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

Before my volunteer training group came to Tanzania, we were asked to name reasons why we chose to sign up. Some people came for the altruism, some as a career move, but a surprising number claimed that they’d signed up in order to have two more years to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Its interesting, the decisions we make based on the fact that we have nothing better to do (this was my rationale for co-inventing drinking Scrabble in college). While hangovers only last a day, or two at the worst, a Peace Corps contract lasts twenty-seven long months. It’s not really one of those “nothing better to do” type of choices, and yet so many of us found that to be our primary reason for volunteering. Ironically, while the past two years that we’ve been here have helped us to grow as people, they have not helped us decide what direction we choose for our lives.

Case in point: my graduate school application process. Over the last six months or so, I have spent a horrid amount of time on Bukoba’s lethargic internet researching viable options for pursuing a master’s degree. Initially I opted away from physics, remembering the grueling late-night study sessions with Ivan; physics made me want to cry. At some point, I found that Peace Corps offers fellowships opportunities with a number of universities. The only problem is that each university has its own specific degree program to be followed in conjunction with the fellowship; I had my choice from education to engineering to public service management. While variety is the spice of life, what I found during my time poring over these programs is that they were too diverse and too many. I couldn’t choose. I’m not sure I joined Peace Corps to “find myself” or to put off deciding what path my life should take, but as I neared the end of my tenure, I realized that the path in front of me is still hazy. The programs which appealed to me included political science, urban studies, international studies, and international business. It took me two months to narrow down my choices to a top five.

Then a friend clued me in to a fellowship program offered through the National Science Foundation which offers unbeatable benefits and a chance to study cutting edge technology. For example, nanotechnology has held my interest since I was in my early teens and read sci-fi stories about its possibilities. Through this NSF program, I could try to manifest those inchoate dreams into a semblance of reality. Again, there were numerous schools and programs which I had to spend weeks sifting through. By this point, I’d used about four months researching all these graduate school options, and I was pretty burnt out. Trust me, trying to find all the logistical information for these programs with limited internet access and time was an unmitigated frustration. Whenever I see tourists in the internet cafés here, I try to guess how many minutes it will take before they begin complaining of the sluggishness of our networks. The average is around five minutes. At least I had some ten schools that I planned on applying to. Now here is the true indicator that I have no idea what I really want to do- the programs I plan to apply towards are remarkably disparate. In my final listing, I have an international business school, an advanced physics laboratory with emphasis on terahertz technology, several political science choices, and a program through MIT that focuses on integrating emerging technologies. Yikes.

Oddly enough, I’ve found myself drawn more and more towards the business school option. My closest high school friends were incredulous and stunned when I told them I’d joined a fraternity. I’d imagine most people who know me will be just as flabbergasted by this new propensity of mine. Why business school? To be honest, I suppose the main reason would be to ensure that I’ll be able to support a family when I need to. I once asked my longtime roommate and great friend Nate Fisher what he thought were some of my character flaws (long story…). His first answer was that I am too prone towards wanderlust. I know that about myself, and I know that at some point I will have to choose between my desire to inveterately jump from one job to another, one country to another, and the demands of raising children. When the time comes that I settle down, I don’t want to be in a position where I am unable to provide for my family due to my past choices. Hence, business school. To be honest, I’m eager to try my hand at business, economics, and management.

With this in mind, last weekend I went to Kampala to take my GMAT, the test required for admissions into business school. For those of you planning to take the GMAT, study hard; it was one of the hardest tests I’ve taken in a long time, much more so than the GRE. Fortunately, ever since those Iowa Tests of Basic Skills which we had to take back in elementary school to prove that the American education system works, I’ve had an uncanny ability to do well on standardized tests. The GMAT was no exception, and my score was in the 99th percentile. This means that I should be able to get some scholarship offers! Or at least, my high GMAT score will offset my low GPA (thanks a lot, fraternity). As soon as I got my results, I went to a fancy Indian restaurant where I drank cold beer and ate palak korma (that’s Hindi for “bombastic creamy spinach creation”) in celebration.

I’m still planning on applying to some of the other programs I mentioned, but at this point it looks like business school is in my cards. My hope is to be accepted to an international MBA program so I can combine my inclination towards travel with such a useful degree. Wish me luck in admissions huh…?

One last thing…while I was in Kampala, I found a Mexican restaurant. Jodi and I made fish tacos once, and I’ve created some sort of burritos, but I haven’t had true Mexican food in a long time, and I miss it. The restaurant was called “Fat Boyz,” how great is that? Fajitas were on the menu, and I was getting pumped up to have some legitimate delicious food. When I ordered, the waiter looked at me for a while, then looked at the menu, then back at me. After a full minute or so, the light turned on and he said, “Oh you are wanting the chicken fajitas then!” However, I had pronounced “fajita” as fa-hee-ta. The waiter said fa-jite-uh. As soon as he spoke, my hopes for deliciousness began to ebb. When the food came, he proudly announced the arrival of my fa-jite-uhs. At this point, I tried explaining that in Spanish the “j” is pronounced more like an “h”, to which he responded, “This is a Mexican food called fa-jite-uh. In English, it is called The Sizzler.” Wow, awesome. The next time you go to a Mexican food joint, try ordering The Sizzler and see what happens. If you get slapped, blame it on the guy in Kampala.

Triumph

2007-09-21T02:43:00.000-07:00

Why triumph? I don’t know, really. Today, I decided to write to title before the post. Apparently, “triumph” is my current state of mind, albeit with due cause. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some major and minor victories which seem to have put me in a triumphant mood.

When Joseph (ex-volunteer at Ihungo) visited about a month ago, we discussed transportation around Bukoba. You see, my school is situation at the top of a fairly steep hill, overlooking the town and some five kilometers from it (Davis, five kilometers is still three miles; you stopped reading didn’t you, you fair-weather friend?). To walk to my school from town takes a little over an hour, taxis are outrageously expensive, and public transport is unscheduled and unreliable. Where does that leave those of us who are not only stingy, but also in a hurry? Velocipedes. Beautiful, 21-speed machines. Every volunteer is outfitted with a (mostly) new bike when installed at site, as my Trek 820 proves. I haven’t bought a bike since I was around 10, when I got some grey Japanese hybrid at a shop in Eugene. It’s been a comfort to have this Trek, though for a long time, I didn’t take advantage of it. You see, since my arrival at school, I’d been regaled with the legend of Joseph, Biker of the Gods. According to the tales, this man-beast was born with his feet clipped into pedals, and could bike across Lake Victoria if he so desired (he didn’t desire; too banal). For real though, I have heard the story about Joseph biking from here to Karagwe (some 120 kilometers distant) at least ten times. Let me tell you, being slammed with the exploits of another like that has one immediate effect- I stopped wanting to ride my bike after only a few weeks at site.

A year and a half passed, and then came my conversation with Joseph about getting around Bukoba. He told me it used to take him about 15 minutes to ride home from town and, more importantly, that he could bike the entire hill without stopping, wheezing, crying a little, and then falling over. By the time he told me this, I had attempted to bike up the hill, that sloped demon, only once. I stopped, wheezed, and I swear I never cried but I did fall over. Hearing his dismissal of the hill as “easy to climb” flipped the that’s-it-I’m-gonna-do-it-too switch in my brain, and I geared up for the challenge. Get it, “geared up”? That’s a joke. It’s funny because bikes have gears.

Since his departure, I have made the attempt to surmount this monster of a hill twice or three times a week. On two occasions, I’ve passed out from exertion. On others, when I arrive home, I flop onto my bed and lay inert for hours, too tired to do anything but stare at the American flag waving majestically in my window. On all occasions, I could not get past this one stretch that is like a 20-percent uphill grade for a kilometer; it was too steep, too long. Note I used past tense in that last sentence, and here comes the method behind the mayhem of my “Triumph” title- last week, I conquered that son of a bitch. I deserve to call the hill that, after being beaten by it so many times. Here’s how my victory came about: Jodi and I were hanging in town the other day, cruisin’ around on our bikes like a two-person gang (by definition, the smallest possible gang). We reached this one area with a bit of a climb, and I shifted down to 3/1. I asked Jodi what gear she was in, assuming she was rolling 3/1 also. She replied “1/1, and it feels like I’m just walking.” What’s this..? 1/1? In all my attempts of scaling the son of a bitch, I had never shifted below 3/1. I don’t know why, it just never occurred to me. The next time I reached that diabolically difficult stretch, I kept it at 3/1 until my quads exploded, then dropped down to 1/1. Ha-HA, hill! When I reached the apex and neared my house, I cheered wildly for myself in between ragged and desperate intakes of oxygen. Sweet satisfaction. Since that day, I have only had two other opportunities to try again. On one, I was in a state of minimal sobriety and I’m fairly certain that I was secreting vodka through my pores. I didn’t quite make it that day, and I do not recommend rigorous exercise after beer and vodka. The other time, I breezed up the hill in a solid twenty minutes. Rad.

Since I’ve already written a lot, I’ll try to be brief about my other triumph- climbing a tree. Don’t laugh, I’m scared of heights. Don’t laugh, lots of people have vertigo. I’d bungee jump, would you? Anyway, the rainy season is-a comin’ here in Bukoba, and if old hillbillies lived here, they would be in rocking chairs on the front porch talking about feeling in their bones the changin’ weather. So in a fit of unusual preparation and planning, I decided to clean my gutters. Recall, roughly 50-percent of the water I use is rainwater. Dirty gutters equals dirty water for washing, cooking, and bathing. I don’t have a ladder, and my roof is high (this seems to be a common trait of roofs). I had to get onto my roof to clean off all the leaves and debris, but how? Well, one of my big avocado trees has a branch which abuts the edge of the roof. I’ve seen students get up there when stealing my avocados. Again, that’s-it-I’m-gonna-do-it-too came into my mind. Having long arms is a blessing for climbing trees, but weighing 190 pounds is not. Halfway to the roof, the branch I was on started cracking. I performed a monkey-like swing grab onto a higher branch and dangled there, twenty-five feet up. Hand-over-hand I managed to secure the roof and drop to relative safety. Then I sat and trembled for a good ten minutes. Don’t laugh. Two hours later, I’d accumulated an enormous pile of dirt, leaves and fear. But mission accomplished, my gutters are now clean. I think the last time they were cleaned was during the days of German colonialism. That was another joke. This time, it’s funny because Germans colonized Tanzania over a hundred years ago. To descend from the roof, I had the opportunity to utilize all my lankiness and monkey skills. I crouched on the edge, stretched out one arm to its maximum, then leapt, soared, and grabbed a branch five feet away. It was terrifying. I wish someone would have been here to take a video, I’m sure it was the most awkward attempt to be agile, ever. Triumph.

Duality Bites

2007-09-04T02:22:00.000-07:00

One lesson I’ve taken from my time in Tanzania is how to take the good with the bad. Examples are abundant: the social openness of my neighbors (good) coupled with a severe lack of privacy (bad); my ability to solicit funding in attempts to ease the burdens of life here (good) contrasting with people viewing me only as a dollar sign (bad). I could go on. Over the last week or so, I’ve had yet another opportunity to see this dualistic nature of life and people. Ever the optimist, let me start with the good.

My previous week was fantastic. Peace Corps arranged a seminar for my training group, a chance for those of us who stuck it out to meet one last time in order to exchange stories, ideas, and advice. The seminar was ostensibly to serve as a preparation for our inevitable return to the (relatively) fast-moving and chaotic life awaiting us back in the States, but this facet was eclipsed by our joy in seeing one another one last time. One last hurrah for the battered veterans of two years’ struggle in a foreign land. As a parting gift, the seminar was held in a picturesque lodge at the base of Mt. Meru, Tanzania’s second highest peak. Each day, we were rewarded with stunning views of both Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro that would have made a National Geographic photographer green with envy. As hard as it was to know that we would shortly leave one another to pursue our individual dreams, those few days of the seminar were blissful in the company we shared. The last day culminated with a slide show of pictures aggregated from so many cameras, a visual record of the group’s two years in Africa. For the last time, we laughed and reminisced as one.

I won’t say it was easy to return to bucolic Bukoba after this brief interlude of camaraderie, but the work awaiting me necessitated my focus that I couldn’t dwell on the solitude. After a short time, I was gregarious, happy Masanja again. Talking with my brother a few days ago, I vehemently argued against the Buddhist ideal that all life is suffering; there is too much beauty in the world for it to be so, I said. I only mention this as a glimpse into the outlook I was maintaining at the time. Simply put, it was that life is inherently good. Now as I mentioned, the duality of the world doesn’t tend to accept such a polarity without producing a counterpoint: joy and sorrow; pain and pleasure (although to some…); electron and positron. Enter the bad.

Whether it was disrupted plans, a work overload, or a smelly dead rat that my cat left under my bed, nothing seemed to ruffle my feathers. Even now, I’m in that mental state of tranquility, but it is becoming harder to maintain. Let me explain: for the last six or eight months, a local boy has been coming over to my house to hang out. At the risk of sounding vain, let me say that I thought of him as a protégé of sorts. I tried teaching him as much as I could, from Pokemon (Jodi still can’t believe that one) to cooking Asian food to world history and classical music. I enjoyed the time this boy spent with me, for his focus was phenomenal. Here, I thought, was a Tanzanian unencumbered by a lack of attention span or an absent desire for edification. The boy would study my physics books and ask me pertinent questions; he would read about America in magazines and look to correct his false impressions. For over half a year, we continued this relationship, mentor and pupil. He was a sponge that absorbed all the knowledge and ideas that I immersed him in.

However, during this time, my personal belongings began to go missing. First it was a box of Aplets & Cotlets that I was saving for a guest, vanished silently from my kitchen. Then a small amount of money I had set aside as a gift for a friend joined the ranks. Over time, the list swelled, reaching an apex when my cellular phone disappeared (ironically, the phone was defunct and I had stopped using it). I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say that this same boy managed to convince me that it was my house help who was responsible. To my credit, the circumstances were overwhelming that it was she who had been slowly, cautiously relieving me of my material possessions. One day, I sat her down and told her my suspicions, and asked her to return my missing phone or hit the road. What followed were several hours of her in overdramatic throes, violently protesting that God would clear her name and strike down those who had cast this fate upon her; I decided not to fire her. In retrospect, it was an honest mistake to first suspect her and a fortuitous decision to then believe in her innocence. The question remained: who could be stealing from me? Perhaps it seems obvious to you reading this, but understand I trusted this boy implicitly. Until this last week, that is.

In Tanzania, electronics are still a luxury and therefore are sold at a premium. Any informed thief would not settle for a bicycle or basketball, but would search out an mp3 player or thumb drive. As an American, I am a gadgeteer. We all have them- our ipods, blackberrys, and cell phones. Over the months this boy visited me, he had the privilege of being taught how to use a digital recorder, an mp3 player, and even a laptop (to some degree). When I returned from the seminar at Mt. Meru, in my blithe mindset I failed to notice some things were missing. Expensive, electronic things. Things that only he and I know how to use. Worse, he came to my house recently wearing a new coat, new jeans, and toting a new CD player. As a boy from the village, those are not easily affordable commodities. When I came to the realization that my electronics were missing, and the pieces started to click, I found myself face-to-face with the ugly, vile side of life.

Even without my having any appreciable attachment to material possessions, this hurt, bad. It threatened my calm, realizing how I’d been deceived and used for such a long period of time. Here comes the bad, hunting me and my bliss, seeking to claw, rend, and drag me from this exultant state back down to reality. I’m trying not to let it, but I can’t help continuing to reflect on the time we spent together, everything that was invested in that relationship, and the now-apparent falsehood of it all. In my wool-covered eyes, it had been great, something to take pride in. Now I’m left facing a betrayal, and I hate it. Why does the bad have to bring itself to bear on the times when life is good? Is life suffering for that reason? Is that the result of what is referred to as original sin?

Everyone has his/her own answer to these questions. Georg Hegel claimed that any thesis must naturally have an antithesis, the two opposites somehow integrating to form a whole. Paraphrasing, he said by understanding and accepting these dialectic aspects, we gain a more real view of the world around us. That was his answer, what’s yours?

Fade to Black

2007-08-21T02:52:00.000-07:00

Today I have some good news to drop, but as a warning the last paragraph gets a little heavy.

Let’s start with the crowd-pleaser: the push-reel mower project. For those of you not in the know, Ihungo Secondary and I worked in concert to raise funds to purchase a number of these manually-powered mowers. The raison d’etre was to assist Ihungo students, who currently use blunted hand sickles and bent scythes to mangle the grass to death. The benefits of upgrading are too many to mention, but let me just say that after nearly two years here, I feel the mowers are a necessity for these boys. Ihungo had set the goal of obtaining ten of these push-reel mowers, and together with the school’s minor contribution, we just reached that goal. Two days ago, I went to the mercantile which carries them, and placed our official order for ten of the machines. Here at school, we’ve arranged a meeting time for all the teachers concerned to learn how and where to use them, and how to maintain them properly. When they arrive, I’ll take some pictures to share with you all. Needless to say, my sincere thanks once again to everyone who donated. For real, thanks.

Second and almost as enthusing, yesterday I got a call from the head of our grants committee. She told me that another grant proposal I’d been working on was approved to receive the full funding requested. This proposal basically was the brainchild of an elderly man who lives in a village near me. He’s one of the local leaders, and founded a small organization to try helping those in need around his community. Pretty admirable, yeah? One day I was walking into town down this rural path I really enjoy, and met and impressed this elder with my Swahili. We ended up talking for over an hour, and briefly touched on the idea that we might be able to combine forces. A few weeks later, I invited him over and we discussed different projects his organization was trying to implement around the village. In particular, a plan of chicken rearing intrigued me. Basically, the hope was to build a coop capable of holding some 500 chickens which would be under the care of the organization members. The fantastic part of this plan? Every week, most of the eggs from these chickens will go to the households in the direst need of nutrition and protein- specifically those with orphans, widows, and HIV/AIDS victims. Believe it or not, unless one’s family owns chickens, eggs are almost a luxury in the villages around here. There is more the project than what I’ve detailed here, but you get the point- eggs to help people. I’m particularly proud of this grant for the fact that I did almost nothing in getting off the ground; the organization in general, and the elder in particular, they drove the planning almost entirely, and now their efforts at philanthropy have been rewarded. Again, when the coop gets built, I’ll take some photos (imagine the maelstrom that is 500 chickens in one massive enclosure).

Personally, the chicken project helps to assuage an odd feeling of guilt I’ve been faced with from time to time during my stay here. This guilt is specifically derived from the plight of the numerous orphans around Bukoba, and from my feeling powerless to help them. Just the other day, I had my heart broken again by people’s struggles of life. A few weeks ago, I invited a local man who is HIV-positive to speak to my students about living with the virus, taking anti-retroviral medications, and about the stigmatism. It was a great lesson, and the man stressed the importance of being tested, mentioning that it might be possible to get a mobile testing unit to come to the school (I’m looking into it). The students were so supportive of this idea they gave a round of applause. Flash forward to several days ago, when one of my students approached me after class, asking if he could come to my house to “discuss some issues.” I’ve tried to be more than a teacher to my students, also hoping to fill the nonexistent role of counselor as best as I can. Later that day, he came over and we sat down to talk. He told me that he was an orphan, having lost both his parents by the age of eight. During his ordinary-level secondary school studies, the government had subsidized his school fees, but now that he is an advanced-level student, they have referred him to pursue other sources of funding. That was his first question- if there are any Western organizations which might help him pay for school. Sadly, I went down this road with other students of mine last year, and its all dead ends. For several months, I played the game of being juggled back and forth between various non-profits, all of which claimed to have no jurisdiction over certain areas of the region that my students came from. I was given too many excuses for too real a problem, and I left feeling weak and unable to help these kids. (I know that the organizations don’t have the resources to support every orphan that knocks on their door, and that sometimes con artists come along, but I couldn’t help thinking that everything they told me was bullshit. If I had aspirations towards investigative journalism, here would be where I expose the corruption or bureaucracy clouding up this system; for now, I’ll have to settle with voicing the futility.) This boy came with the same questions, and I had to give him the lame answers I’d been given. I felt like a chump, but what could I do or say? If I support these kids directly, what will they do when I go? No, that reliance isn’t something that should be engendered. But telling this boy that I couldn’t help him or even advise him wasn’t what really hit me. On top of being an orphan, he told me he suspects that he’s HIV-positive, but doesn’t know what to do. Apparently, he thinks that his mother passed away from AIDS, and that he might’ve inherited it. He asked me if I’d arranged for the mobile testing unit to come to the school so that he could get tested. I told him that we are waiting on the headmaster’s approval (I’m pretty sure this sort of this needs a green light from the government), but that there are testing facilities in around town if he doesn’t want to wait. I asked him if he’d like me to escort him to a reputable clinic I know of, one which offers free counseling and support groups. He said yes, so we are going sometime soon. I don’t think I’ll write any updates about this boy here, but just think about his position for a minute. No family members who can support him, the fear of having HIV, I wonder how lonely and hard life must be for him. That’s what hit me hard enough that I sat in a chair for an hour, staring at nothing. What a world, where a bright young boy like this can be in such an impossible situation through no fault of his own. Crap.

Let's take some time to laugh

2007-08-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

I noticed that my posts have been getting increasingly serious over the last month, so I figured it would be a good idea to use my jazz hands to create one a bit more light-hearted. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned the “origin of Asian peoples” as understood by my Tanzanian friend. While that might be the most absurd idea I’ve heard (and the funniest; I laughed until I had used up all my “fasting energy,” then I was really tired), it isn’t the only one. Not by a long shot. Here’s some of the funny, bizarre, or ridiculous happenings of my last few weeks-

Let me start with the hilarity that is Tanzanian English. Just as we developed our American English with its profusion of slang and “y’alls”, Tanzanian English has become its own brand of fantastic. Some of the more common sayings include “I say!” (which has even infiltrated into Swahili as is written “aisee”), “somehow” (I will school you all in the proper use of this underrated word when I get back), and a ton of throwbacks to British English, straight from the source (referring to “Z” as zed, for example). Just last weekend, a friend of mine used the following excuse to back out of going to a disco- “I regret to inform you that I cannot attend for the fact that my heart is beating too high. It is because I have exceeded my doctor’s weight limit.” I still don’t know what he was talking about. Beyond the grammar issues, one common struggle that people have in speaking English as an acquired language is the distinction between “L” and “R” sounds. This is the perennial scourge of most Asian cultures (when I was in Japan, I saw one sign for “Best Raundry”) and there’s even a website whose name alone might be enough make you laugh: Engrish.com. This same phenomenon occurs here in T-Zed, just as I saw last week at the town market. Some enterprising soul had begun packaging sorghum flour into small packets, clearly labeled as “Ulezi (Sorghum) Froul”. It took me about five seconds to realize what “froul” is, and then I showed it to Jodi and we busted up, drawing looks from all the froul sellers. What’s really strange about the L/R interchange is that people even apply it to their own names; I have a student who wrote his name as Kafulela on one test, Kafurera on the next, and Kafurela the third time. No one seems to notice this except me. Some of my favorite days in class are those when we discuss anything in “parallel.” Oh yeah, the way they pronounce it is at least as funny as you are imagining.

Tanzanians, socially open as their society is, tend to be hesitant in trying new things as well as pursuing unorthodox lines of thought. You could explain it as a “this is good enough for everyone else, so why shouldn’t it be for me?” rationale. Over the last few weeks though, I’ve had the opportunity to see some friends and acquaintances attempt to be trailblazers, and it is usually hilarious. The first time was at my home, when two friends of mine came over. I have a simple “solar system” text that explains about the planets in some detail and has nice pictures, so I offered it to them to peruse. Some of the questions I got were tremendous. “This book says that one year on Mercury is 88 Earth days. Does that mean if I go to Mercury is will get old really fast?” “If Earth is spinning, why isn’t it windier? And if I jump really high, shouldn’t I end up in Mwanza?” To be honest, I loved getting asked these questions, not because of their hilarity, but because it means these kids are interested in learning, and can draw basic inferences (although the hilarity factor was also good).
A day later I went to Jodi’s place to prepare desserts for a sushi night we were having at Gayle’s place (that’s right, sushi in the middle of Africa; what?). We made a bunch of sweets, including lemon bars, mocha brownies, and those no-bake oatmeal peanut butter chocolate cookies. As we walked towards Gayle’s house, a little boy offered to help us carry the plates. When we reached her road, we gave the boy one of the cookies as thanks. The way he looked at it was timeless- imagine you’ve never seen a cookie before. Some strange foreigners give you one, and it’s weird, lumpy, a little squishy, and brown. Poor kid looked like he’d lost the raffle of life, and been given the worst possible prize. After several minutes being convinced that it was good to eat, the boy finally took the smallest nibble imaginable. Immediately, his eyes lit up, he looked up at us with a sort of awestruck grin, and then he just took off running. Who knows where he ran off to with that cookie..?
When we got to Gayle’s place, we helped out a bit rolling the sushi. (For those of you who are curious, we used canned tuna, canned salmon, and lots of cucumber, avocado, and mayonnaise). Eventually, two of Gayle’s friends from her school showed up, one of whom was the school cook. Apparently she wanted to learn how to make sushi, a fact which still confuses me. Anyway, she made a totally passable salmon roll, and then we all sat down to eat. Gayle’s friends looked so scared to try anything, in particular the wasabi-soy combo. It didn’t help that everyone kept telling them “now be careful this is really, really spicy!” In the end, they both ate about three pieces and said they were full. I ate somewhere in the range of 15, and then bombed on dessert. It saddens me to say this, but I actually ate so much food that when it was time to go, I physically could not finish my beer (its ok, I came back the next morning and laid it to rest). Obviously, I have decided not to fast on weekends. Jodi says this will make me gain weight if I keep fasting during the week. I told her that it’s ok, I need to build up a squirrel-esque winter coat before coming back to chilly North America.

Earlier that day, before heading to Jodi’s to make dessert, I’d been invited to the wedding of Mama Shukuru’s daughter, whose name is Shukuru (that’s how naming works here, it’s gnarly). I almost wanted to go and enjoy the festivities, but I know well how tedious they can be, so I opted to go cook with Jodi instead. However, I wanted to give Shukuru the wedding gift I’d bought, so I swung by the reception early to drop it off, and maybe swipe a few beers. No one was there, and nothing had been set up. I asked around, and they looked at me like I was crazy. “No, there is no wedding reception here today. Try the next hotel.” So I did, and there was a reception there, but for a different wedding. What are the chances? That’s nonsense. So I gave up hope and started walking towards Jodi’s, when off in the distance I heard the cacophony of a mobile wedding procession, car horns a-blarin’. Sure enough, within minutes I caught sight of the substantial caravan, which was heading right for me. As it began to pass me, I noticed some of my friends in the cars, waving and smiling. The third car was the bridal car, and there was Shukuru, wedding gown and all. Her car stopped, and she and I had a full conversation, there on the street. People further back in the caravan started looking to see the hold-up. Great, so much for escaping discreetly. I decided not to give her the present through the car window, that’s tactless yeah? In the end, I told her that I would try to make it, but as they drove off I realized I didn’t know where they were going. So much for getting some free beer…dang.

One last thing- today is my routine day to come into town to use the internet, but at around 9am a massive thunderstorm kicked up. I have a lot I have to do online (graduate school applications, ugh), so I was chagrined, but resolute to come down anyway. When the storm abated just enough, I hopped on my bike and tore down the dirt road and into town. Yeah, it was a dirt road. Yeah, it was soaked and muddy. No, my bike doesn’t have a mud guard. Yeah, it now looks like I might’ve had “an accident” of the non-biking variety. It’s embarrassing. Peace.

Ramadan, no longer in September!

2007-08-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I had an unexpected guest stay with me. No, it wasn’t malaria, a monkey, safari ants, or a time-traveling Isaac Newton. Prior to my arrival, two other volunteers had been stationed at Ihungo- Jessica, the gregarious biology teacher, and Joseph, the “computer wizard.” I keep in occasional contact with Jessica (actually, I tend to forget to write back; sorry, Jess), but Joseph and I had never emailed. That is, until two weeks ago, when he wrote to tell me he was surprised to find himself back in Tanzania, after nearly two years away. He’d planned to pass through Bukoba en route to Kigali, and so I invited him to stay with me here at his former school.
It was both interesting and refreshing spending time with Joe. A lot of the ideas I’ve developed and judgments I’ve made about Ihungo are similar to Joe’s own. Talking with him allowed a certain level of understanding that not even Jodi and I share, her living some five miles away. I found some of my thoughts on life here being reinforced, others put under a new light, and others challenged. All in all, it was fun to see how quickly we could bond. Before he came to stay for three days, we’d never had any discourse at all, and yet the mutual understanding that comes from two people struggling through the same trials enabled us to feel at ease almost immediately. And being able to share the ridiculousness of life here with someone was a great relief. Trust me, there are times when life here is very, very ridiculous, and I have no one to laugh about it with. (Case in point: just last week, one of my students explained to me why Asian people look different than European “wazungu.” His explanation? When the atomic bombs hit, the light was so bright that it caused Asians to have permanently squinty eyes, and the different color is because of the radiation. He even told me that before the bomb, Asians and white Europeans looked the same. How awesomely ridiculous is this? I laughed so hard.)
Another ridiculousness, but one Joe didn’t quite understand, is my new “diet.” Living in a country which is roughly one-third Islamic, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a fair amount of Muslim tradition. One of the Islamic practices that highly impresses me is Ramadan, the month during which Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink anything during the day (from about 6am to 7pm). Think about it- that’s thirteen full hours of fasting, without even water passing one’s lips. I wouldn’t want to be a Muslim during Ramadan anywhere in the Middle East, where the heat would have to make the thirst intolerable. In any case, I decided that I admired this practice enough that I would attempt it myself. Since I’m not Muslim, there was no particular reason for me to wait until September (the month of Ramadan), so I started fasting about two weeks ago. I wake up every day at about 5:30 and cook myself a small breakfast to get me through the day. Usually, it’s two pieces of toast, a small banana, and two eggs. While I eat, I knock back as much water as I can, plus some life-sustaining coffee. Then I go about my daily business until 7:30 at night, when the sun has gone down and I can eat again. For dinner, I have basically the same foods as I had for breakfast, with the exception of an avocado. After roughly thirteen hours of waiting, dinner is always miraculous, but never is it quite enough.
If you are asking yourself “why in the world would he want to do that? He must be insane” then I should tell you that, no, I’m not insane yet. I suppose my reasoning went as follows: “Man, those Muslims really fast for a month. I wonder what that’s like. I wonder if I could do it…” So I decided to give it a shot. Why not at least try? I knew that once I get back to the States, I’ll never want to try this again (thanks to a little restaurant called Jack-in-theBox), so its now-or-never. I’m not attempting to fast out of any masochistic impulses, or to save the orphaned dolphins, or anything like that. I’m only trying it to see if I can do it, and what it’s like. That’s all. So how have the last two weeks been? Long.
The last day before starting “my Ramadan,” I hung out with Jodi and cooked and ate as much as possible. As a consequence, my first day was pretty easy. My body was still working on my stomach’s leftovers. The three following days were agony, pure and simple. I learned two lessons very quickly: first, the thirst is always worse than the hunger; second, my metabolism was still burning along fast enough that my energy was spent by around noon each day. I’ve never been so weary, both mentally and physically. Sure, I’ve exhausted my body during races and work-outs, but this constant and utter lack of energy was a different feeling entirely. It’s hard to run the machine without fueling it. After several days, I thought I finally realized why so many people who can’t afford enough to eat just lay motionless all day long (but I’ve since corrected that impression). For real, I would go to teach and just writing on the chalkboard and speaking would completely exhaust me. Following a lesson, I would come home and lie down on my bed and stare at the ceiling for far too much time (usually I was daydreaming about what foods I would eat as soon as I get home. The favorites: steak, bacon-cheeseburger, sushi, Thai, pale ales, cocktails, salads, berries, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and so many more). Each time I stood up after sitting for a long time, I would swoon and nearly pass out. The dizziness was killer. On occasion, I would try to play volleyball in the early evenings, hoping to pass the time until I could eat and drink again. While playing, I would only try for balls that came within about two feet of my arms; I might’ve been the laziest volleyball player of all time, if you don’t count Farkas.
Luckily, the first week was the worst. My metabolism has since realized that it was burning me apart, and has slowed down to match my new intake and output levels (which are substantially lower than they used to be). In fact, I’ve only spent maybe an hour daydreaming about food over the last few days. I have more energy in the afternoons now, as my body hasn’t wasted it in the mornings. Today, I played two hours of basketball, and never even felt dizzy. Sure, the thirst and the hunger are still there, especially around my former lunch-time, but at least now they are tolerable and I can push them to the back of my mind. This tells me that even if people don’t eat three squares per day, they can still lead active lives (squashing my earlier theory about lack of energy). The only time over the last week I've been tempted to quit was when I got a package from my mom. It had cookies, chocolate bars, and other candy in it, and I had the misfortune of opening it midmorning. Over the rest of the day, I squirmed with the knowledge that delicious chocolate was just sitting there, waiting to taste great. I managed to stave it off, somehow.
I’m not sure how much longer I plan on maintaining the fast. After only two weeks, my body has burned off so much fat that I’ve been feeling chilly all the time. Plus, the truth is, I love eating. I enjoy trying to cook new and tasty foods. Reducing my diet to bread, eggs, and fruits has taken that joy from me. So I’m not sure…do I keep it up for two more weeks to make my fast last an entire month, or do I give it up now that I’ve seen that I can do it?

Local films, local cats

2007-07-24T03:33:00.001-07:00

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...?

2007-07-16T03:05:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

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.

I Have A Visitor

2007-06-19T00:44:00.000-07:00

First, an update on our school push-mower project: fund-raising is going quite well; we have already received over 50% of our target amount. For those of you that donated, or are planning on doing so, thank you from all of us at Ihungo. We plan on ordering the mowers roughly a month from now, and I will keep you posted through it all.

I only have a short update today, as I have had a visitor over the last week. Kit arrived last Sunday from the Tanga region, and we’ve been spending some quality time together. She’s on leave from her school at the moment, and decided to come see the land of her man. As I am still in session and teaching, my free time has been fairly limited and we’ve just been hanging around my house watching Japanese cartoons and reading. I have a midterm break coming up in about a week, so I think we’ll use that time to explore the area a bit more thoroughly. Word on the street is that she digs Bukoba, with its lush green rolling hills. The Tanga region is one of the hottest in all of Tanzania (and Tanga town is said to be even hotter than Dar Es Salaam, which would mean that white people cannot go outside without melting), so the clement weather of this region has been a godsend. Also, Kit played basketball in university, so she’s been hooping it up on our humble, non-university dirt court, with our humble, non-university basketball team. Our rules are mostly nominal, so the games are maybe a bit of a departure from her past, what with the kids kicking the ball and whatnot. “They don’t have the fundamentals,” she said. It’s true, I suppose it’s a sign that I wasn’t born to be a basketball coach. The games are still fun though, and they help us burn off all the delicious food we’ve been eating (I’ve been trying to prepare her the foods that I’ve slowly learned how to cook over the last year and a half; sometimes I do a good job, other times I mix together bread, avocado, and bananas).

So yeah, that’s about it for today. It might be a few weeks before my next update, so in the meantime perhaps you should go to my pictures page and realize that the face of haute couture has changed. It is now called “short-sleeve fish coat.” Peace.

Thunder!

2007-06-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

Method 1 of producing thunder:
Make a batch of peas to eat with dinner, but accidentally make far too many.
After eating, put the remaining peas in a sealing container purchased in Tanzania and leave them on the counter.
Wait three days.
When asked if they smell spoiled by Mama Shukuru, lie and answer “no.”
Eat the re-heated, three day-old peas, which are in fact spoiled.
Thunder!

I “discovered” this method last week, using peas that I cooked on Tuesday. Friday came, and Mama Shukuru wanted to cook lunch for us. I had put the leftover peas in a “sealed” container, but I’m not certain that it did its job in preventing bacteria from entering. I am certain that, when Mama Shukuru asked me to smell the peas, I was working on lesson plans. Distractedly, I told her I thought they smelled a little off (this wasn’t true, they were pretty far gone). She disagreed, and since she was cooking and I was busy, we left it at that. That is, she cooked them and we subsequently ate them. As I ate, I thought the taste was odd, but the flavor intensity of Mama Shukuru’s cooking masked it well, much like the cologne of a sweaty man.

Flash forward two hours, and I’m sitting in the internet café, feeling woozy and nauseous, a slight stomach discomfort. I didn’t know why I the time and assumed that maybe it was just exhaustion. In fact, the nausea reached a point where I was looking through my pack for a plastic bag, “just in case.” Upon leaving the internet café, I’d planned to walk up to my friend’s house to visit and then get dinner. Did I mention that last Friday was my birthday? We had arranged a night of good food, cold drinks. By the time I was a quarter of the way up the hill, I had to call my friend and ask him to come pick me up. The pain in my stomach had exacerbated to the point where I could hardly walk.

Upon reaching his house, I flopped on his couch and attempted to remain completely motionless. As a proper friend and host, he brought me my first “birthday beer,” which I was obligated by man-code to drink. Nothing good came of that. I’m pretty sure nothing good ever comes from the man-code. Other friends showed up over the next half an hour or so, and I couldn’t even stand to greet them.

With the hope that walking might help me out, we all ambled down the hill to the restaurant, 15 minutes away. By the time we arrived, the thunderheads had formed. For the next three or four hours while my friends got drunk and ate delicious food, I was thunderstruck. Some birthday… I was in pain until two days later. Come Monday, what did Mama Shukuru cook for lunch? More peas.

Method two of producing thunder:
Take a very large cloud.
Rub its molecules together so that friction causes its electrons to be freed.
Allow the electrons to arrange themselves on the bottom of the cloud, hence giving the earth near the cloud a positive charge by induction.
Continue building electrons until there are so many the air can no longer keep them from traveling to the positive charges on the earth.
Thunder!

Bukoba is well-known as being one of the rainiest towns in Tanzania, largely due to Lake Victoria’s proximity. Ihungo tends to get lashed pretty severely as it is on the crest of a plateau, and the rain clouds often break directly over our school. Throughout the campus, one can spot several tall metal lightning rods, for good reason: I have seen more thunderstorms and lightning here in a year and a half than I had during all my previous years together. However, as luck goes, usually the storms pass to one side or another of the school, and we avoid lightning.

Yesterday, while I was sitting in the staff room preparing a lesson on, aptly enough, electrostatics, the sky began to darken. This was more than the usual deluge, we could tell that sound and fury were approaching, ready to tear our school apart. The storm seemed to pick up momentum as it continued, until as I looked out the window, rain obscured everything but the nearest five meters. For those of you who have sat in a room with a metal roof during a thunderstorm, you know just how overpowering the roar of the rain can be; it swallows all sound, leaving you in a state of white-noise confusion.

The one thing that can be heard, incessantly, is the boom of the thunder. As a physicist, its easy to calculate how far away the lightning must be, due to the time difference between the light flash and the thundering (hint: its roughly a third of a kilometer for every second that passes, therefore three seconds corresponds to one kilometer; bam! get yourself educated). My habit during storms is to always count the distance of the lightning, and I began doing so. The first few were “five seconds” away, but then they got closer, closer, until I counted one strike less than a kilometer away. That means the storm was passing directly over Ihungo.

I should mention the attitude in the staff room at this time. Even among the well-educated teachers at my school, there is a certain primal fear of lightning. Coming from the nature-taming land of technology, I just smiled and continued lesson planning while others were turning off their cellular phones and rapidly talking in hopes of forgetting their fear. Then it struck, a bolt hit no more than five or ten meters from the staff room.

I can’t describe in words the feeling of having that much raw energy released so close to me. Sparks flew through the air, metal to metal. The flash of light, combined with the terrible boom, completely overwhelmed my senses. For that instant, that split-second, we were humans at the whim of the elements, only reacting to the forces around us. Never, ever believe that you aren’t scared of lightning. When it hits near you, you will be. Sweet fancy Moses.

You know in a scary movie, when Mr. Knifey pops out from behind the fridge, you scream and jump? When the bolt hit, I did that, but I tried setting the “scream and jump” world record. I had been mid-sentence, and there was a long pen scrawl across half the page, a testament to my abject fear and shock. I showed the page to the other teachers, who could not stop laughing. Jerks...

I got home and Mama Shukuru told me that when another bolt hit, she felt the electricity go up her legs (she wasn’t wearing any shoes; can anyone give us the reason she felt it?). Then she served me that second lunch of peas, and I was sad.

Nine Hours on the Sabbath

2007-05-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

First, if you have been wondering what happened to my last post, about the request for assistance, send me an email at africanrob@gmail.com. The computer teacher and I created a separate site at which to host the request (I can't link to it here, hence the need for the email). Thanks for all of those who have shown interest in helping! Now for my nine hours on the Sabbath-

It started at his armpits. Two incongruous dark blotches in a field of pink, blotches we felt compelled to focus on as the preacher flailed his arms wildly while in the throes of his sermon. The church was crowded, standing-room only, amplifying the heat of the day. This heat was being slowly manifested as sweat blotches on the preacher’s pink shirt, blotch after blotch creeping into being as he continued to praise Jesus. By the end of his two-hour, arm-flailing sermon, his entire shirt had morphed into a different shade of pink- more of a slighly translucent purple- except for the collar and cuffs. It was a long day.

One of my favorite students invited me to go to his church last Saturday (he’s a Seventh Day Adventist) for a “day of guests.” He said he was the chairman of the event, and would be honored to bring me as his guest. Knowing the propensity of such religious days to literally take an entire day, I told him I’d go but had prior obligations in the afternoon hence would leave early. He seemed to accept that.

Saturday morning, I was showering with a cold bucket of water (I used cold to wake myself up; out of coffee that day) when he arrived to escort me into town, to the Adventist church. As soon as we’d reached the church, we were showered in warm welcomes and holy exultations: “praise the Lord, a white man has come!” We entered the already crowded church and searched for seats. Do you know that awkward feeling you get when you enter a theater, church, or classroom and the all the seating in the rear of the room is taken? You slowly proceed down the aisle, hoping to find an empty spot, gradually being drawn closer and closer to the front. Eyes begin to follow you, you feel them on you (especially if you are the only white person in the room), and yet you have to continue onward, forward, hoping in vain for that elusive open seat. I finally found an opportunity to sit at the very front of the room, next to the leaders of the congregation and the preachers; I felt out of place. During my ambling trek to the front, every single member and guest in that church had noticed me, evidenced by the constant whispering “mzungu...!”

Within five minutes of my arrival, the man at the pulpit made this announcement, in English: “…and if there is anyone, anyone at all in the crowd who does not understand Kiswahili, let him raise his hand now so that we can find a way to help him understand.” Like a wave, face after face turned to look at me, until once again the weight of those stares made me wish I had stayed home to watch “Pitch Black” again. I wanted to laugh, but felt too uncomfortable. The silence rang while the church waited for me to raise my hand and admit that, as a white person, I don’t know Kiswahili. Well, after fifteen seconds of my sitting like an inert lump, they decided I must not know English either, and just continued on in Kiswahili. This same language question was repeated at least three times by different people, each time causing a pause during which I was closely scrutinized. Finally, my student stood up and introduced me: “This is Mwalimu Masanja from Ihungo Sec., and he knows Kiswahili.” From that point on, I was no longer an issue.

The preacher in pink climbed the pulpit at around 11am, after I’d been sitting in the church for two hours, feeling it become hotter as the day progressed. During the course of his sermon, he flat out insulted Americans no less that three times (comparing us to Babylon, usually) and got so frenzied and sweaty due to the message he was delivering that I thought he would pass out from either divine rapture or dehydration, take your pick. If you remember a post from a long time ago, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in a church here in Tanzania. It’s the second time. When I went to church with Mama Mipawa a year and a half ago, I was in agony, just sitting and waiting for the service to conclude. I didn’t understand anything that was being said, and my little sister was having bladder issues. The contrast between that time and now was fodder for my reflections throughout the day. This time, I could understand the preacher when he said that “all Americans are evil sinners” in Kiswahili. Trust me, being able to comprehend his words made my day far more entertaining that it would have been otherwise.

After Mr. Pink (“Why do I have to be Mr. Pink? Why can’t I choose my color?” “Because if we chose colors there would be five Mr. Blacks.”) finished his diatribe against sinners and America, we broke for lunch. For some reason, after I’d sat with the big potatoes of the church for four hours, they decided that I was also a big potato. That meant that, while all the other guests had to go stand in line for half an hour to get their food, I just sat and gossiped with these old fellas while the church youth served us. Again, I felt awkward. Plus, everyone was eating with their hands. Have you ever tried eating beans, rice, and avocado with your hands? Try it, I challenge you. It wouldn’t have been so ridiculous if all my students hadn’t been there, watching me try to eat. In any case, eventually my food made it where it was supposed to go and the day’s festivities continued.

At this point, I went up to the student who invited me and politely told him that I’d had enough for one day. The look on his face was so devastating that I decided to stay for the second half, just to prevent having that sad face haunt me later. Having appeased him that I wouldn’t be leaving, he went and took his place on a stage which had been constructed outside the church. It seems that when he said “chairman” he meant “MC”, because for the next five hours he was on the mic, making jokes and introducing speakers. I think he was really proud to have that responsibility, and he wanted me to see him at his finest.

The highlights of those five hours were few, and I gradually retreated from the world until I was a thoughtless mass of Rob, just taking up space. I got a phone call from my mom at some point, and I was so removed from activity that I probably said a total on ten words while we talked. However, there were a number of choirs whose music was a delight, and my students performed some “educational skits” which I didn’t really understand but everyone around me was laughing pretty hard. A hapless HIV/AIDS lecturer came and gave us a lesson in which she referred to HIV as a “virus that is a bacteria” and referred to one of my twenty year-old students as “that old man over there.”

Eventually, Mr. Pink got back on stage and delivered another America-bashing sermon. This time, the literal translation of one of his quips goes: “…and Americans, they’re cowards. If I say the words ‘Al-Qaeda,’ ‘Muslim,’ ‘Bin Ladin,’ or ‘Afghanistan,’ all they can do is shiver in fear.” A point worth noting is that this had nothing to do with anything else in his sermon, he just wanted to sound tough and draw in the crowd. I was so overcome with ennui at this point, to entertain myself I decided to go confront this guy. (If you are wondering why he kept making these remarks while an American was in his audience, you should know that it’s because he assumed that I’m German). Of course, he tried to say that I was taking the meaning wrong, taking his words out of context. He had a large number of poor arguments, and I didn’t take to any of them. Finally, he admitted that he could’ve said things differently. I took that to be as much of a victory as I would get, and left him alone.

All in all, when the day ended, I’d spent over nine hours at this church. That is a long time. But it was worth it- I could see in my student’s eyes the joy he had not only in the fact that I’d come, but that I’d stayed.

About face in this place

2007-05-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived here, my head was full of anticipation of what I would find, how I would change my behavior patterns to adapt to those things, and how I would ultimately undergo changes myself. In my head, the aphorism “life is what you make of it” resounded. I sincerely believed that, with the right attitude, it is possible for a person to transform any situation, no matter how alien or discomfiting, into both an enjoyable and educational experience. True enough, within my own group of trainees I witnessed examples of this idea’s veracity on both ends of the spectrum- those volunteers who managed to maintain an optimistic and gregarious manner kept themselves in pleasant circumstances; those who continually found fault with their surroundings sooner or later also found their early tickets home.

After some sixteen months here at Ihungo, I took a step back to reevaluate my own situation. Sadly, I came to realize that my initial beliefs were not quite accurate; once again, theory and practice were disparate. What prompted my reflections was my increasingly common habit of daydreaming about returning home, which led to me counting the time, the months, weeks, and days I have remaining. At some point, I realized that this desire must be due to me feeling incongruous with my environment, feeling like the odd man out and wanting to get back to a life where I could blend in again. But why should I have felt this way? I’d spent almost a year and a half with my neighbors, students, and fellow teachers, but the bonds one tends to share with such people were strangely missing. I came with high hopes, trying to make my situation as positive as I could. Somewhere along the line, I’d lost track. In honesty, I had only one or two people, outside of my fellow volunteers, that I could confide in and share my experiences with. On the phone with Kit one day, I told her I’d decided this isn’t how it has to be, and this isn’t how I want to leave Tanzania in seven months. Briefly, you could say the result of my appraisal is that I’ve gotten a second wind, and I’m trying to re-integrate with all those people I’ve taken for granted since my arrival.

The first, largest, and most obvious step was to reconnect with the faculty and staff of Ihungo. In retrospect, I believe that I’d written most of them off due to two factors- generally poor work ethic and a willingness (perhaps even an eagerness) to inflict corporal punishment. As hard as it is to admit culture differences sometimes, I now can admit that my judgments against those teachers were premature and perhaps unfair. I still disagree with both practices, but my differing opinions don’t make me an authority. So I opened myself back up to my coworkers, spending more time with them in the staff room and at their homes. In the last few months, we’ve established a stronger rapport than we’d had over the entire past year. The most significant action I’ve enjoined is weekly visits to my headmaster’s house, where he and I discuss the school, life, and whatever comes to mind for several hours while he plies me with beer. Each visit culminates with a feast of Haya foods that Mama George (the headmaster’s wife) always apologizes for despite its magnitude. I can’t seem to convince her that my bachelor cooking holds no candle to what she serves. Maybe if I invite them to sample my typical dinner, she’ll get the point.

The major change that I’ve noticed is that I am slowly becoming a more respected voice on campus, both by teachers and by students. When I ventured an opinion in a staff meeting last year, my “crazy white man” ideas tended to be dismissed. The other day we held a computer board meeting which they’d asked me to audit, despite my status as a non-member. When I informed them early on in the meeting that I had to leave and attend a prior engagement, they made a flattering ado, complaining that with my departure no more good ideas would be presented. It was a validating moment, helping me to see that I am becoming valued here. The difference an open mind and some effort can make...

Last weekend was the first time in months where my schedule was full with activities outside my home. Friday night, I was invited to a birthday party for the girlfriend of a local businessman. I enjoyed myself a little more than was warranted, as his business happens to be with the Tanzanian Distilleries Corporation and his stock of liquor was mind-boggling. By the time the party got underway, I’d had a few and they decided that I should be the MC for the night. Without any specific details, it was ridiculous. The next day, a fellow teacher had invited me to attend a ceremony in the village in which a husband-to-be presents his fiancée’s family with their bride price. Those of us teachers who went were in effect the fiancé’s support contingent and I’m pretty sure I was invited to be a status symbol for him. “Look, we are totally serious about this guy marrying your daughter. We even brought a white guy to prove it. Look, there he is. He’s pretty white, huh?” The ceremony was the most traditional event I’ve had the opportunity to attend here, rigid formality held sway throughout the duration. I caused a titter when it was the men’s turn to thank the bride-to-be’s family, and I properly followed suit by getting on my knees and saying a florid Kihaya “thank you” to each person in the room. Actually, the laughs were probably because I messed up somehow, but I felt proud to take part regardless. My favorite part of the day was the bus ride to and from the village, during which all the women on the bus sang beautiful traditional harmonies for two hours each way. Gazing out the window at the gorgeous scenery to the cadence of these melodic songs was a fine way to spend a Saturday. Sunday, I received a visitor who I’ve run into so many times in town, it was becoming embarrassing. It was akin to the office coworker you see in the hallway everyday, always giving the head nod and a “hey,” feeling awkward each time. She had attended her secondary school studies in England, so we had an easy conversation about relative differences and such. The bonus was that she had also been a pupil of my neighbors, so we had a chance to give them a surprise visit and socialize for awhile. It was only the second time I’d set foot inside their house, and they gave me a good-natured drubbing (yeah, I said it) about only coming over when escorting other guests. Guess they had a point, and I’ll try to remedy that.

Rereading that last paragraph, I feel like I’ve missed the point a bit. I’ll leave it as it stands, but I was more trying to explain the difference that my attempts at becoming involved have made. In the past, I would have entire months without so much as visiting a single person at Ihungo, and entire weeks where I would avoid the office. (No, I wouldn’t shirk work, I’d just go directly from home to class and then back). I can see with the effort that I am putting forth, my views are beginning to change once again. Hopefully now, I won’t have to leave Tanzania with any regrets or a bad taste in my mouth.

Bonus Bonus Bonus: If anyone is interested in having a Tanzanian pen-pal, there is a form four student who has been bugging me for the last few months about wanting an "American friend to write with." Her name is Henrietta Henry (her dad's name is Henry, and since he had a daughter and couldn't name her Henry as well, he went with the next best thing, Henrietta) and she's an intelligent, devoted student. If you wanna help out and make a friend, toss me an email. No Shawn Safavis need apply.

My Parents' Visit: Round Three

2007-04-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

I had a council meeting in Dar, hence the delayed update. Its a long one (yeah, even for me).

That evening, as we relaxed before dinner, we were surprised by the weather on the rim- a sharp, cold wind was blowing incessantly, inescapable and penetrating. Imagine being in the middle of a safari and wishing you’d brought a coat; it seemed incongruous. As the wind continued, it began to bode ill for us campers, bringing with it those frightful and somber dark clouds that we in the Pacific Northwest know so well. Being at the crest of the crater, it seemed likely that the thunderheads might break above us, but when we went to bed, the ground was still dry. That was not to last.

At around midnight, the clouds gave up on holding back their shores of condensation, and a furious rainstorm erupted. Rain drops fell from the sky, cascading downwards with increasing velocity until they struck our tents. These tents were apparently not designed to be rain-proof, or even rain-resistant. After less than five minutes, our rainflys were soaked through and plastered to the roof of the tents, enabling the rain to pass through unimpeded. The first few drops that landed on my face and woke me up were the saddest thing. The saddest. Bill yelled over the din of the storm and its fury, telling me that it was like there was a person standing over their tent pouring buckets of water on them. My mom hunkered down in her sleeping bag, wrapping herself around her (and soon to be, my) new camera, trying to protect it from the deluge. Half an hour later, the rain lessened to a drizzle, and I’ve never been so happy to see a drizzle while camping. Our sleeping bags, our tents, and most of our packs were drenched, and it was only one in the morning. Have you ever tried sleeping while cold and wet? It’s a less fun experience than sleeping dry and warm. Luckily however, the rain didn’t return, body warmth eventually prevailed over sopping bags, and we were able to get some sleep. In the morning, Bill showed me inside my parents’ tent- there was at least three inches of standing water in the lower half. So yeah, you might say we had equipment problems.

Okaka, incorrigible rascal that he is, had opted to stay at a nearby cheap guest house (perhaps he was familiar with Ngorongoro rim weather patterns?) and arrived well-rested, happy, and dry. When we acquainted him with the details of our rough night, he laughed the same belly laugh that we’d heard the previous day when the baby gnu was in danger. It was the right response, and after some coffee and fruit, we felt rejuvenated enough to “tackle” Ngorongoro.

Let’s see what I can remember about the crater off of the top of my head (that my friends Ivan and Shawn won’t either mock me for or look up and correct; “friends” huh). Ngorongoro is the world’s largest dormant volcanic crater, being around twenty kilometers wide and fifteen long. The wildlife is highly diverse, largely due to the alkali lakes which are enough to sustain life year-round. Even while the great migration is taking place, the wildebeests in the crater remain; they still have access to water. All of the “big five” safari animals are visible in the crater (these being rhinoceros, wildebeest, lion, leopard, and....um...maybe hippo or eland or cheetah or buffalo, I don’t recall). One can see two of the most beautiful larger bird species: the crowned crane and the flamingo (greater and lesser). Personally, I was most excited to see cheetahs and rhinoceros, both of which are quite rare or absent in the Serengeti.

Within five minutes of reaching the crater floor (by means of a steep, winding access road), we were treated to our first cheetah sighting. Far in the distance, one crouched motionless on his haunches, apparently saving energy for one of those legendary bursts of feline speed. As we continued, we kept seeing large animals in the distance which I constantly assumed were rhinos; Okaka must’ve grown tired of repeatedly telling us that they were actually just more Cape buffalo.

The roads in the crater suffer from its moist climate and heavy rainfall it sees, as was evidenced by the profusion of mud patches, severe ruts, and stomach-lurching bumps and potholes. We began our tour by skirting the main salt lake, and immediately the variety of animals living in Ngorongoro was plain- in half an hour we’d seen hippos, four or five gazelle, antelope and cousin species, flamingo and crane, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, warthog, hyena, and various species of birds. I’m sure I’m forgetting others... My mom and Bill were in awe that the manifold animals co-existed so readily. “It’s just like Wildlife Safari!” Bill kept exclaiming, referring to a drive-through animal viewing park in southern Oregon which was designed to emulate the animals’ natural habitats. I suppose it’s an entirely different experience seeing them live together in the wild. Honestly, any direction we looked we were treated to a profusion of species; the abundance was overwhelming and beautiful.

We passed the morning cruising around, repeatedly witnessing the crater’s hoards, taking fantastic (or so I assume; I have yet to see them) pictures of it all. Sometime before lunch, we stumbled upon a small pride of lionesses (Okaka said there are some twenty prides in total throughout the Ngorongroro). What was enlightening about this particular sighting was the number of vehicles that had lined up to observe the great beasts. You can’t help but feel like a tourist when there are fifteen other vehicles exactly like yours, arranged end-to-end in a semicircle around an animal, all Tanzanian drivers, all white passengers. You can delve into that one if you want, I’ll leave it alone.

Leaving the photo frenzy behind, we headed towards a well-known hippo and elephant pool. En route, Okaka saw yet another lion pride, this time on the move. We watched them lope along, a bubble of fear forming around them as other animals moved out of their way. As we reached the pool, Okaka’s guide-sense was tingling, and he told us we could come back and see the hippos later, that we should follow the lions instead. There were maybe five other vehicles at the pool, looking at the hippos and elephants mingling in the cool water. Amazingly, we were able to spend less than five minutes at the pool before we agreed to take Okaka’s advice and move on (this is amazing due to my mother’s pure joy in taking scands of pictures). Leaving the other people behind us, Okaka raced down a rarely-traveled side road and parked near a small herd of zebra.
Sure enough, his instincts were spot-on, and shortly we spotted the trotting lions coming over a crest some two hundred meters behind the zebra.

This was the third hunt we’d had the fortune to watch, and it didn’t disappoint. One other vehicle eventually showed up and watched with us, and over the following half hour, one lioness had expertly used long grass, wind, and the terrain to position herself within ten meters of the zebra. We waited expectantly, assuming that she would lunge and nail an unwary zebra at any moment. Then, in what must be the worst luck of the day, a single, lonesome wildebeest came out of nowhere, walking directly between the zebra and the lioness. It must have been within five meters of the lioness without noticing her; the wildebeest never had a chance. Bam! The lioness sprang from its hollow with such alacrity that I hardly glimpsed its motion. The hunt was over before it began, zebras scattering in terror and the wildebeest hanging on for dear life as a hungry lioness clung to its body, raking and biting. How's that for agility? Almost instantly, other lions appeared and joined in, trying to bring their massive prey down. At one point, there were two lioness and two cubs all attacking the wildebeest, while it stubbornly stood its ground, refusing to fall, refusing to die. It all ended when a third lioness came up from behind and jumped on the wildebeest’s back, driving it to the ground with her weight. Its knees buckled, down it went, the hunt ended and the feast began.

Wow, what a thing to witness. Cross that off the list, huh? I might sound morbid, but getting to see a lion kill was one of the highlights of the safari for me. Even my mom was okay with watching it, as it wasn’t a baby. Okaka kept laughing about the wildebeest’s stupidity. Bill and I just felt gratified and lucky that we were there to see it all go down. Okaka, that immaculate guide, told us there are usually about five kills each full day (including night, remember lions are also nocturnal hunters). I had to chuckle and shake my head recalling all the other tourists who we left looking at hippos; we outdid them, yeah?

The rest of the day seemed to pass in a blur, our climax having been reached. Eventually, we saw some rhinos in the distance, and another cheetah, but the lion hunt was still resounding and jading our viewing. Other things I can say about Ngorongoro- there are more zebras than you would think is possible; the monkeys in the forest wanted to fight me; the road heading out of the crater is terrifying, and I don’t even get vertigo (Okaka told us later that many tourists “cry and are very scared” during the ascent). It was a beautiful place, not only for the plethora of unusual animals which inhabit it, but for the landscape itself. The mountainous rim provides a stunning background to the wildlife, and the alkali lakes, the forests, and grasslands are all uniquely fantastic. For anyone looking to be overwhelmed by nature’s beauty and profusion, the crater is well worth your time.

That night passed without incident; the rainstorm was not repeated (although we’d taken precautions, using Okaka’s tent and tarp as additional rainflys) and we slept deeply. Awaking the following morning, we realized our safari had reached its final day. As we were so far from Mwanza, our departure and return point, almost the entire day was devoted to the journey back. This was a grand opportunity to view the true diversity of Tanzania’s environment. We traveled from the rugged volcanic highlands of the crater to the sweeping expansiveness of the southern Serengeti, and then back through all the locales that awed us on our first day in the park. The tse-tse flies came back in full force during the second half of our trip, and I can’t say we weren’t relieved when we saw the exit gate, signaling our proximity to Mwanza. While Bill and I shared a congratulatory Heineken, my mom picked up some distinctly Tanzanian souvenirs (statues and bowls made from ebony or soapstone) at the gate; we all felt gratified.

Back in Mwanza, we had several hours to burn before taking the overnight ferry back to Bukoba. My mom and I went to the local crafts market, where she wanted to buy some gifts for friends. After having traveled all day, my nerves were shot and when I noticed that all she was bringing to the market was money and a big, fancy camera, I became unduly agitated (to be fair, theft is pretty damn common here, and nothing says “rob me!” like a camera around the neck). In the sweltering heat, the market made both of us woozy and we spent a bit less time shopping than she might’ve enjoyed on a cooler day. Nonetheless, she found a more than a few good gifts for a fair price before we headed back. My mom is the queen of bargain shopping, even in a hot Tanzanian crafts market.

We had time to catch a nice dinner before the ferry departed, so we went to the New Mwanza Hotel’s balcony restaurant. The menu at this place is like fifteen pages of Indian, Chinese, and Italian dishes; another epicurean oasis. Hot, tired, and beat, I ordered a cold Stella Artois. There are times when the first drink of a beer transcends the simple act of slaking a thirst, of enjoying its taste, and becomes more, an experience that rejuvenates the soul and refreshes the spirit. My first drink of that ice-cold Stella was one of the best drinks of beer I’ve ever had; I can still recall the feeling, more than the taste. The feeling of my heat and exhaustion being washed away under the cascade of cool ambrosia. Brilliance. I think the food was pretty good too.

The ferry ride went without incident. Our arrival in Bukoba spawned in me those homecoming feelings that we all welcome but rarely experience; my mom and Bill told me they felt the same relief. Before we’d left for the safari, my parents had bought some material and taken it to my tailor, to get some custom Tanzanian clothes made (the Bukoba Nordstrom is overpriced). We went to pick them up, and were delighted to find that he’d done (almost) exactly what we had agreed upon. I’ve heard many horror stories about miscommunications with tailors about alterations of one’s favorite dress and so on... My parents now have authentic, custom-made Tanzanian outfits; ask them to model their new styles for you. Very fancy, very fantastic.

As soon as we got home and rested a bit, Jack Bauer was back in action on my laptop, and his day hadn’t gotten any better (in fact, despite his best efforts, it kept getting worse). At four in the afternoon, Manuel showed up, and he, Bill and I went to teach my basketball players a thing or two. Let me tell you this: Bill has got some moves. The players immediately gave him the nickname “Bouncer” for his skill at wrestling the ball from other players and protecting it, and his rebounding. It was a fun game, despite the sweaty exhaustion we white folk always cultivate during the two hours of ball. If you are wondering “who won?” I should let you know that when we ball, the teams are as liquid as...well...yeah. The teams at the end of the game have only a passing resemblance to the original teams, so I guess I’d say that Bill was the winner, with Manuel being a close runner-up. After taking very critical bucket-baths and drinking about two gallons of water apiece, we made some pancakes for dinner, and let the comfort of being at home seep through our bones as we relaxed.

The next morning, we met with Manuel at the only tourism office in Bukoba. We’d planned to have a “Haya Cultural Day” in which we explored a bit of the area around Bukoba, ate some traditional foods, saw a famous local church, and watched the famous Haya drum and dancing ceremony. The tour guides, while not on a level with Okaka, were knowledgeable and pleasant. Our first stop was some mysterious rock paintings about an hour’s drive from Bukoba. I say mysterious for three reasons: first, no one knows when they were painted (the guide said “at least two hundred years ago” but maybe a lot more); second, no one knows what they were painted with (some red ochre type plant, but nothing like that is indigenous here); third, no one know what they represent (although Manuel had his highly expert guesses). On the path to the rocks, we stumbled across a bright green snake. This could have been either a green mamba (pretty poisonous) or a boomslang (very poisonous). Either way, I was glad I was wearing my highly protective teva sandals. The rocks were cool, and truly unique for the area, but sadly had been defaced to a degree we are unaccustomed to in America. Apparently the nearby village has a school, and many of the students bring the school chalk to the rock paintings. They then proceed to write their names directly over the historic paintings. How frustrating, coming from a country where conservation of such monuments is taken as a matter of course. There were precious few original drawings that hadn’t been scrawled on, and it left a bad taste in all our mouths.

From there we visited a famous church that has some ties to the Virgin Mary. I’m not sure why or what, but yearly there is a large festival that draws thousands from all over East Africa to this remote little place, to pray and receive Our Lady’s blessing. While not a staunch follower of any religion, I have to admit, this place really resonated with me. I can’t do it justice by describing it in words, but the locale of the church was so placid, it emanated true peace. It was set in a narrow dell, surrounded by a canopy of verdant trees and a thin stream twisted its lethargic way under the church. I told my parents that if I could ever be a monk or give my life to the church, this is where I could do it. We all went and received ablutions from the stream where it exited the holy church, and were on our way. I’ll try to get a picture of this place to post. Tranquility exemplified.

The traditional food and dance was next on our agenda, but we were a bit early, so we took a detour to a local waterfall. Bill was laughing as he mentioned the number of waterfalls in Douglas County (where I’m from and they live). It was fun, even to us jaded waterfall-rich Oregonians. The path going to the base of the falls was not so much a trail as it was us picking our way down a cliff. The last twenty meters down was the best: someone had come in and cut down all the shrubbery and saplings, and left them on the “trail”, forcing us to climb down this heap of branches and such, not actually ever setting foot on the ground. The view of the falls was rewarding, especially for Manuel, who basked in the spray for a good ten minutes (apparently waterfalls aren’t as common in his native Peru). Climbing back up was less fun, and by the time we were back in the car, all of us were sweatier than when we played ball the previous day.

By the time we arrived at the house where we’d be eating the Haya foods, the natural air conditioning (read: open windows) had cooled us off and reduced our sweatiness to an acceptable level. We were invited inside this Mama’s house, where we sat on rushes on the floor and waited to be served lunch. When it was ready, the lunch was laid out upon several large banana leaves. The primary food for the Wahaya people is a boiled banana and beans combination that Mama set directly on the leaves. On top of this, she had made some six or seven side dishes, including spinach leaves, boiled fish, some sort of meat, a peanut sauce, and other foods. It was a great lunch, made even better by the delicious juice she served us to wash it down (a passion-pineapple juice, made with lemongrass and ginger! Oh man...). My parents seemed to enjoy the act of eating it more than they enjoyed the food itself, which I suppose is the point.

As we exited Mama’s house, a fast, deep drum beat kicked up. We walked toward it, and found ourselves watching “ngoma”- the traditional dancing and drumming of the Haya people (actually, ngoma means drum in Swahili, but we’ll let that slide). For almost half an hour, this four person dance troupe shivered, shimmied, and shook to the persistent beat of the drummer. Manuel and I both agreed that it was “really cool” and my parents took some great video of the dancing. Some of the dances were recognizable, including one mock-up of the twist, and other dances were completely foreign to us, like this one-footed hop thing. I’m glad to have seen it, it made me feel like I know a bit more about the people who I’ve been living with for the last year or so.

After our “cultural day” was over, we returned to our standard of relaxing, talking, and watching “24”. This continued until the next evening, when another American in the area, Gayle, had invited us over for dinner. It was the only time my parents had a chance to visit with all of my friends here in Bukoba. Jodi and Manuel were there, and Gayle of course, and our Tanzanian friend John. Again my parents were eager to hear more about life here from other people, especially from Gayle, who has a different perspective than us volunteers, being a middle-aged primary school teacher with a focus on music. Gayle outdid herself and cooked some delicious food, probably the best I’ve ever had in Bukoba. The conversation was good; we delved into a lot of the cultural differences that we expatriates have to deal with in our lives here. Manuel, being the only non-American expat, kept acting like he didn’t know what we were talking about and continually repeated his mantra: “I’m foreign!” (imagine him saying like Mario would).

On our final day in Bukoba, we’d planned on visiting the fishing village which I helped with writing a grant in the morning. Unfortunately, my parents needed to confirm their reservations for their flight home, and we didn’t have the number. The next two hours were spent with my mom, Bill, and I taking turns calling every number we could find that might help, starting with the Dar Es Salaam airport (even though they were flying out of Entebbe). While we were using the local payphones in town to do this, it began pouring rain. This was a bad sign for our impending village trip. In the end, we tallied that we’d spoken to at least ten different people before finally calling the correct number and confirming the reservations. To be honest, I was amazed that we succeeded. I’m no stranger to communications in East Africa (if you are wondering why we didn’t get the number online, you are a stranger to communications in East Africa; all the internet cafes were defunct that morning, naturally). By the time we’d returned home, the rain had let up, but it was much later than when we’d planned to meet with the villagers, so we decided just to relax, talk, do some Bauer (later, it turns out that the rain had dissuaded them from coming at all, so no feelings were hurt). At some point in the afternoon, when we had about six episodes left, the power went out. This forced us to A) not watch any more “24”, B) have to use candles to pack our luggage, and C) get some of the students’ food for our dinner (this included plain rice and rock-infested beans).

We caught the bus back in the early morning, bidding farewell to Ihungo, Bukoba, and then to Tanzania itself. The driver of this bus was more…sane, but I could still tell that my mom and Bill couldn’t wait for the trip to be over. We got into Kampala in the early afternoon, got ripped off by a taxi driver, and settled into our hotel rooms. The power was out, so “24” would have to wait. In the meantime, we went for a nice leisurely walk, happy to stretch our legs after the bus ride. We meandered toward the biggest, cleanest, and best craft market in East Africa, a place that I thought my mom would go crazy over. When we first walked in, she whispered to me, “I doubt I’ll buy anything, I’ve already gotten everything I want.” She was wrong. But to her credit, despite the sheer magnitude of this place and the availability of any curios one might possibly want, she only bought a few things. When we got back to the hotel, the power was back, so we watched a few more episodes of Bauer before dinnertime rolled around. You have to understand, by this point, “24” was something we HAD to finish. I would not allow them to leave with all the discs if I hadn’t watched all of it, and they weren’t planning on leaving it behind. It had claimed us.

For dinner, we’d planned on heading to the Kampala Carnivore at Half-London, the same place I went last year with Malara and ate crocodile. After a long taxi ride with a myopic old Ugandan with a discouragingly battered car, we reached the restaurant. Rather, we reached where it used to be, that is. In the last year, it went out of business and was in the process of being demolished. Curse the day! So there we were, hungry, far from the city center and its plethora of restaurants, and with the Mr. Magoo of taxi drivers. We asked if there was anything like the Half-London nearby, and eventually ended up at a French restaurant. Crocodile....French...I don’t see the connection. But en route to the French joint, we’d passed a name I recognized from the Lonely Planet guide book I’d brought with me last year- a famous Ethiopian restaurant. My parents said “what the heck, why not?” and we went for it. I now strongly urge any of you who have never had Ethiopian food to stop whatever you are doing right now, especially if it is reading this, and drive to the nearest Ethiopian restaurant. My mind was blown by this food, and my mom and Bill agreed it was beyond delicious. Keep in mind, this is no Tex-Mex or whatever, it’s a totally different way of eating. The tablecloth is edible and the dishes you order are poured onto it, then you rip off pieces of the tablecloth and scoop up whatever tastes good to you (it all will taste good to you). In the end, I feel pretty fortunate that we didn’t get crocodile, which isn’t all that great anyway.

The next day, we caught a taxi to Entebbe, and awaited my parents’ flight home (at eleven in the evening). We all had a number of emotions stirring- my parents were looking at flying back home to work, leaving behind their son and the drastically different life they’d begun to adjust to and enjoy; I was looking at saying goodbye to two people who know me so well and returning to a country of (relative) strangers, and also it was hard to realize they were heading home and I was staying. So most of the day we spent talking, reminiscing, discussing my life plans after here, and such things. We had a long, meaningful talk that lasted throughout the day, interrupted only by meals and the last few episodes of “24” (which we managed to finish; Jack saved the day, pass it on). Before we knew it, the time came and we caught the cab to the airport, said a short goodbye, and they were on their way.

I’m not sure if I’ve felt lonelier in my tenure here than I did when I took that cab back to my (now) empty hotel room. Having my parents constantly around me was a great comfort, despite the occasional difficulties in translating or cultural oddities. I guess this is where I write “thanks” to them. Mom, Bill, thanks so much for coming and seeing me here. It meant more to me than you know.

That’s it... I appreciate ((you)) reading all of what I wrote.

My Parents' Visit: Round Two

2007-03-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry to keep you waiting...

Right away, my parents got a taste of what my life at Ihungo tends to be like- we arrived to find the house almost barren of water. There wasn’t enough even for all of us to bathe that first night, hardly enough for the toilet and cooking. However, my parents came here with their eyes open, they were expecting some discomforts, and they shrugged off the shortage without a second thought. And more importantly, once we began unpacking their luggage and didn’t have time to worry about trivial things like water. After all, they’d brought me an entire suitcase full of candy. I’ll write that again. They’d brought me an Entire Suitcase full of candy. Think about it for a minute.... In addition to the 70-odd pounds of chocolates, sour gummies, and wasabi peas, they’d also brought me my long-awaited Christmas present- a guitar. Let’s just say that I was more than a bit overwhelmed, especially after unpacking it all and forming a giant mound of candy on my coffee table. I’ll try and post a picture; you’ll be impressed. In other news, I now have diabetes.

The next morning was the weekly “Monday Morning Parade,” an hour-long fiesta where the student body stands in formal columns and gets drilled by their elected representatives and whichever teachers may have a bone to pick. It’s very reminiscent of what I’d imagine a military inspection would be like- lots of denigrating yelling, singling out poor examples, and rigid formality. I’d planned on escorting my mom and Bill to this in order to introduce them in one fell swoop, hoping that this particular parade would be calmer than some that I’ve witnessed. That was not to be the case. We arrived at the parade grounds at around 7:15 in the morning, and stood mutely for the next half an hour as name after name was called out, the “chosen” students coming forward to kneel in infamy. It must’ve been a rough week for the some of the teachers; they were on the warpath that morning. At least fifty of the several hundred assembled students ended up being summoned to the front of the columns, all patiently waiting on their knees for whatever punishment they would receive for whatever crime they committed. Before said punishments commenced, I managed to squeeze in a quick introduction of my parents. Unfortunately, the mood wasn’t very light and all my attempts at levity fell on humorless ears. Looking at my form five students however, I saw many grins and nods; they were happy to finally get a look at Mwalimu Masanja’s family. Immediately following the introduction, I saw one of the teachers bring out a stick. There are some ugly realities here, and that is not one that I wanted my parents to see, so we left as quickly as possible. As we made our way back to the home, we walked to the rhythmic cracking of the atrocity that is corporal punishment. Sorry, sometimes it really gets to me...

Back home, Bill and I made our black coffee (this became a near-ritual) and we prepared to visit Bukoba. I was excited to show them my favorite path, descending the bluff from Ihungo and winding through villages, offering great views of our surroundings. It was also an opportunity for me to show off a little bit; I greeted most people in the tribal language, causing a wake of happiness and awe (again, white folks don’t tend to know any Kihaya). It was a pleasant walk in the mid-morning sun, mainly because it was downhill rather than up, and before we knew it we’d reached town.

My parents later told me that, even though they didn’t speak any Swahili (that’s not entirely true; by this point, they’d learned the criticals: how to thank and how to say hello), the people in Bukoba were the most friendly they encountered throughout the trip. That’s nice to hear. I met a tourist once in Dar, and told her I was from Bukoba. Her response: “Oh, that’s the place where they don’t call you ‘mzungu’.” Well…yeah, they do. Just not as often as elsewhere in Tanzania, and not out of any negative sentiment. After covering almost all of greater Bukoba by foot, and after a disappointing buffet at a normally (I swear!) passable restaurant, we headed back up (this time by taxi; it was hot, and it was uphill). As the sun went down, we decided it was now or never, and put in disc one of “24” Season Five.

Four or five episodes later, Jack Bauer is having a pretty crappy day and we’re tired. As some cruel twist of fate, for the first week or so, every night only one of my parents would get a good night’s sleep, and the other...well, wouldn’t. That next morning, we decided to take the day off and rest up, to have our A-game for the fast-approaching safari. We took a short, pleasant walk around the Ihungo area, watched some more “24” (by this point we were in too deep; that show is really addictive, you know), talked and relaxed. One of the nicest parts of my parents visit was the opportunities we had to converse, and to get to know Bill on a different level. And for me, normally being surrounded by non-native English speakers, it was such a release being able to express myself fluidly and regularly (that sounds like I’m talking about something else entirely, doesn’t it?).

On the following day, our ferry to Mwanza was leaving in the evening. We’d arranged to meet Jodi and Manuel at a restaurant near the port before heading out. Most of the day prior to that was spent packing for the safari and watching Jack either get betrayed by the last one you’d expect or convince someone to help him in the pursuit of truth. Very nice. During dinner, Bill got his first taste of ambrosia- Stoney Tangawizi. This is a ginger-flavored soda that Coke produces here in East Africa. Do not be misled; Stoney has little in common with its feeble cousin “ginger ale.” My mom took one sip and did the “bitter beer face” from those old Miller commercials. Stoney has a serious ginger bite and it’s heavenly. Oh yeah, I guess it was nice for my parents to finally meet my two closest friends here, too. They said it was interesting to hear perspectives about life here, or life as a volunteer, beyond my own. Those of us living here have truly manifold experiences...

Right on schedule, the whistle blew and we boarded the overnight ferry, my favorite form of transportation in East Africa. First-class is actually comfortable (at least compared to the death trap that is a bus), sleeps two, and generally I’m out like a rock until the skipper guy smacks on the door, telling us the boat has arrived. I guess Bill didn’t sleep as well, as his bunk, the upper one, wasn’t properly fastened and the engine vibrations caused it to properly shudder throughout the night. Luckily, the safari wasn’t departing until the next morning, and we had a full day to kick around Mwanza.

Kathryn, another volunteer and good friend of mine who lives on the east side of the lake, had arranged to come meet us. In the afternoon, we got together at a swanky joint for lunch, then spent the next six hours or so talking, enjoying the warm weather and cold beer, and chilling out. In an unprecedented move, we went straight from this place to the Chinese restaurant where we planned on having dinner. Every time I swing by Mwanza, I try to eat at this restaurant. As my parents said, “This would be good even in America.” The sizzling beef and the gongbao chicken are oases in the desert of Tanzanian cuisine (read: ugali and dagaa).

Bright and early the next morning, our safari began. The driver, who would be doubling as our guide, picked us up at our hotel (the “Christmas Tree Inn”; woop!). His name was Ezekiel Okaka, and he was the man. Throughout our safari, he proved himself time and again to be one of the best guides in the park. Considering he’d been doing tours since 1978, that makes some sense. Okaka was a stoic fellow with a deep belly laugh and a “no worries in Africa” attitude. We felt fortunate to have him at the helm, with his calmness and experience. The vehicle he (and nearly every other Serengeti guide) was driving was a converted Toyota Land Rover, in which the roof could be propped up high enough for all but the very tall to comfortably stand up and look out. I am very tall.

After stocking up on the essentials (toilet paper, water, Scotch), we left Mwanza and traveled the two hours north to the western Serengeti gate, near Musoma. Our first day in the national park would be spent traversing the “Western Corridor,” a long, contracted swath of land heading east towards the park’s center. Most tourists enter and exit Serengeti from the east side, coming from Arusha, so the Western Corridor is a less-viewed (and less crowded) section of the park. As we followed the main dirt road leading eastward, we began to catch glimpses of the raison d’etre of our safari- animals! Along the Corridor, there was a profusion of zebra, antelope, Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles, and warthog. My mom kept laughing when she would ask Okaka to stop so that she could take a picture of some beast in the distance (this happened more than a few times), as she knew we would see so many of these animals in the following days, likely in more camera-friendly locations, but we stopped anyway, eager to get a taste of African wildlife. The Western Corridor ran along a narrow river, and we stopped for lunch in the shade of some acacia trees on the bank. As we ate our hot dog sandwiches, we listened to the nearby hippos bellowing and snorting. We continued making our way towards Seronera, the central “town” in the Serengeti, and as the afternoon wore on, we began to see other animals in the distance- elephant and giraffe. For all of us, one of the most striking aspects of the Serengeti was the amazing environmental variance we couldn’t help but notice as we covered kilometer after kilometer. The landscape changed from lush wooded river basin to thorn-bush scrub plains to hilly savannah (just like you are imagining a savannah ought to look) in the course of a few hours’ travel. Each region was dramatic in its own right, and we found ourselves repeatedly stunned by Serengeti’s natural beauty. The unique and unusual creatures dotting this scenery only added to our appreciation; the raisins in our tapioca pudding.

Some of the highlights of that first day, beyond getting our first taste of the land and animals, were: Okaka brazenly driving through rivers where bridges had been washed out (in spite of another car which obviously didn’t make it to the other side), finding out that tse-tse flies exist in the Serengeti, and that they can bite through clothing (these aren’t the deadly ones, I hope, as all of us were bitten at least ten or fifteen times), and getting a look at a massive crocodile sleeping among the rocks, only to realize that some of those rocks were additional crocodiles (sneaky sneaky).

We arrived at the campsite as Apollo’s chariot was taking him into Hades for the evening, and were greeted by our one disappointment during the entire safari: most other campers had large canvas tents, with cots, camp chairs, lanterns, and so on; we had two small tents that a Boy Scout might take on a weekend trip to his backyard, and no other equipment. In the end, my mom had to scour the area to find a rock to use as a chair, and we used our flashlights for illumination. How much are we paying for this..? Luckily, being the rugged Oregonians that we are, we were only temporarily nonplussed. After putting all the packs in my tent, Bill and my mom had almost enough room to share the other one, and if I slept diagonally, only my head and feet touched the tent walls.

The campsite was replete with campers from all over the world, and the social climate was laid-back and open. We had conversations with some Dutch rose-growers, a young Indian from Goa, and a French couple. Despite our deficiency of equipment, and despite the relatively basic nature of the available facilities (ask my mom about that...), we eventually decided we were glad that we’d chosen to camp (as opposed to staying in lodges), mainly due to this friendly atmosphere. As Bill later told us, he was happy we camped for many reasons, but mainly because he woke up at 2:30am that first night to the roar of some distant lions. Imagine laying in your tent and listening to the thunderous growls of the “king of the jungle,” that’s a pretty awesome, if a bit scary, experience.

Our itinerary for the next day included several “game drives” in which we would seek out lions, a hippo pool, and the elusive leopard (Matt, the British chap who lived in Bukoba for some five years, told me he’d been on four safaris and never seen “el leopardo”). That morning was a testament to the skill of our hero, Okaka. Throughout the Seronera area, many drivers were conducting a morning search for leopards. Okaka took us down on particular road where he said they tend to sleep, and we searched in the trees for the telling outline of the dozing cat. As we reached the end of the road without any luck, Okaka turned us around, to find other areas to search. Halfway back, however, Okaka’s expert eyes spotted a lump-shaped shadow on the branches of an acacia tree some 200 meters away (Bill, is that about right? You’re the hunter...). Sure enough, he’d found a leopard that was almost indistinguishable from its perch, as it lay straddling one large branch. We were treated to Okaka’s belly laugh for a good five minutes as he kept telling us how clever those leopards are (turns out they’re his favorite animal in the entire park), and shaking his finger at the leopard as if he was scolding it for trying to hide from him. When we’d finished taking pictures and staring at the big, lazy cat through binoculars, Okaka got on the “leopard channel” on his radio, and broadcast the location to the other drivers in the area who were still searching (in vain). As we headed back to the central area to look for lions, a bevy of vehicles passed us heading to where we’d come from, spurred on by Okaka’s sighting. It made me really appreciate Okaka’s instinct and skill as a guide that, out of the twenty or so other vehicles we saw that morning, he’d been the one to find the leopard.

An hour later, we had our first sighting of a lioness. Several other Land Rovers were stopped at a seemingly random place, and until we pulled up alongside them, we wondered at what they looking. Then, well-hidden in the tall grass, the lioness raised her head and looked around. Though this lioness was only ten feet away from the road, she was so obscured we would’ve driven right past her if not for the other cars watching her. Again I was impressed with the reliance that all the guides have on one another to make sure their clients have a memorable safari. For us, one lion wasn’t enough, so we continued to drive around these unique rock formations called “kopjes” that jut out of the Serengeti plains like the prows of sinking ships (think of the “Circle of Life” rock from Lion King), searching in the sun and shadows for the beast. Eventually, we came across another gathering of vehicles, and slowly realized they were watching three lionesses relaxing in the shade of a thorn bush. As we sat and observed, a topi (it’s a member of the antelope family, Davis) crested a nearby hill and stood silhouetted against the blue sky. We humans weren’t the only ones who took note of the topi, one of the lionesses caught its scent as well, and began the hunt. The whole stalking process was fantastic to watch, not just for the thrill of witnessing one of nature’s great hunters in action, but also for Okaka’s belly laughing commentary (“ohhhohohoo you topi!! Oh mister topi ohohoo noo!”) and Bill’s professional excitement (“look how she’s moving with the wind. Ok, now hide yourself for a bit! She’s getting really close now! I can barely see her in that tall grass, what a hunter!”). In the end, after stalking the topi for half an hour, the lioness missed the kill by about ten meters, when the topi finally caught its scent and bolted. According to Okaka, a lion will sprint the last five to seven meters of distance between it and its prey, so it was a close call for “mister topi”. The hunt having ended, the other tourists and their guides headed off to search for the next excitement of the day. As we followed suit, we noticed there was a lorry (big transport truck) parked right next to the thorn bush where the lionesses had been resting. The lorry’s front-left tire was missing, and some tools and parts were strewn on the ground. Pulling alongside the cab, Okaka asked the driver what happened. Listening in, I heard the driver tell him that the lorry had broken down the previous night, and they’d been trying to fix it but lacked a part. Then, sometime in the early morning, the pride of lions had come and planted itself right next to the vehicle, hindering any further attempts at repair. The driver was content putting his seat back and dozing until the lions moved on; I wondered how a semi driver in the States would’ve handled the same situation.

After a nice Tanzanian lunch (rice, beans, chicken), we were off to the hippo pool. En route, we passed through hordes of giraffe and elephant, counting them by the dozens. My mom found a new photographer’s quest: getting pictures of the baby animals alongside their parents. You’ll have to ask her to see “the collection” (word on the street is that she took a remarkable 2000+ pictures during the trip). The hippo pool, when we reached it, turned out to be well named. It was a pool of sluggish water, replete with somewhere between 20 and 40 semi-submerged hippos, bathing and bellowing. They’re hard to count; all you can see is their nostrils half the time. By the time we left to return to our campsite, it was early evening and we’d been animal watching since before eight in the morning. Our arms and necks were getting slow roasted by the sun, and my neck was stiff from standing at odd angles to see out from under the roof (however, eventually I devised a scheme of using a cooler like a booster-seat and just sitting on my “throne” instead of standing; ingenious). Naturally, after two days of sweating and getting dusty, we needed baths. Unfortunately at our campsite, hot water was only provided to the other campers (I don’t know where they got it, but we were jealous), so we had to fill up some empty bottles with the tepid water that was available, and pour it over our heads like a Gatorade commercial. The end result was that we were nominally clean.

After another pleasant night in our miniature tents, we hit the road leading us to Ngorongoro Crater (ask my mom or Bill to say this word, Ngorongoro. It’s got a difficult pronunciation, and en route I tried teaching it to them a number of times, with arguable success). The crater is one of the world’s most renowned animal habitats, and we’d planned our safari so that it would be the climax. It was a bit far from Seronera, though, and we leisurely spent almost an entire day making our way there. During the crossing, we happened upon one of the last great animal migrations: the wildebeest migration from Kenya’s Maasai Mara to the southern Serengeti and back again. Hundreds of thousands of wildebeest (also known as a gnu) smothered the plains, descending away into a mass of indistinguishable brown. In this sea of innumerable animals, the movements reminded us of the ebb and flow of a tide, the swells and troughs of waves. No pictures we took will do justice to the sheer magnitude of the wildebeest migration, and it was fantastic to look upon.

Mid-morning, we passed a wildebeest calf that had been separated from its herd, and was blindly running along the roadside, lost and scared. After expressing the requisite pity, we drove on, only to encounter a small pride of lionesses roughly a kilometer further along the road, in the direction the calf was running. In the distance we saw the remains of their previous kill, and now they rested with swollen bellies. Okaka knew what was likely to happen, and stopped the Land Rover for us to watch the inevitable hunt. Sure enough, a few short moments after we’d stopped, the calf came scampering into view, still moving without direction. The lionesses took note, and slowly slipped into “stalk mode,” laying low in the grass and slinking along to find the right location. Again, Okaka provided us with a soundtrack to the hunt (“ohhh the gnu! That baby gnu oh noooo! Ohh ooohoo no!”). As the calf neared the lionesses, I must admit I began getting excited for the kill. Bloodlust, maybe, but I wanted to witness a successful hunt. Fortunately for my mom, who held the opposite wish, when the calf neared the lionesses, they sprang too late and put forth a halfhearted chase, not being hungry, and the calf escaped unscathed. Minutes later, a jackal caught the scent and took chase. Again, the calf somehow managed to elude its hunter. Finally, it found two adult wildebeests which promptly adopted and protected it, and my mom smiled at the happy ending. So did Okaka, showing his soft side by telling us that it wouldn’t have been fair for the calf to be killed. Me, I was disappointed...

The main stop on our drive to Ngorongoro was at Olduvai Gorge, a name that might ring bells with those of you interested in archaeology and anthropology. The gorge facilitates study and dating due to the highly stratified landscape, and carries interest in researching hominid evolution (East Africa is another “cradle of civilization,” people). In the 1960’s and 70’s, some teams of researchers found distinct and telling footprints in a specific strata that indicated the presence of Australopithecus boisei, a hominid from the Lower Pleistocene epoch that demonstrated an upright posture for walking. If my memory serves, this helped fill a gap between apes and Homo erectus, the evolutionary precursor to us Homo sapiens. Apart from the historical significance, Olduvai carries strong cultural interest, being in the heart of the Maasai people’s homelands. (In fact, “oldupai” is the original name for the Olduvai Gorge, because in the Maasai language, “oldupai” means sisal, a useful plant which is ubiquitous in that area. A German researcher in the early 20th century misunderstood and wrote “olduvai,” and now the world knows it as such). Maasai tribesmen are omnipresent in the area, resplendent in their red and purple tartan-esque robes, armed with machetes and clubs, bows and spears. Their villages dot the region, small clusters of thatched huts surrounding a central gathering point. When you think of Africa, and images spring to life of partly clad men shouting and jumping around a fire, shaking spears and invoking the spirits, you are more or less picturing the traditional Maasai. These are the people who, rather than battling, decide who is correct in a conflict by a “jump-off”. Now, while continuing to live as herdsman and hunters, a large part of their income comes from selling traditional Maasai wares, from beaded necklaces to razor-sharp short swords. The Maasai cluster around tourist-heavy locations, such as the entrance to the crater, and try to make money even by offering to be in pictures (for the right price; apparently, “do it for free” wasn’t the price they were looking for). In the crater itself, a national conservation area, Maasai are still allowed to graze their cattle, which is a sure sign that the Tanzanian government values the Maasai culture and heritage.

Leaving the gorge, our vehicle climbed into the hills, higher and higher, and before we knew it we were on the peak of the crater. We skirted the rim for several kilometers before arriving at our campsite, one which was substantially more crowded than the cozy Seronera site. However, the facilities were improved (hot water!), and the view was grand. Our plan was to relax that night, and then spend the entire following day in the crater, taking our time to see it all.

Next week: the grand finale.

My Parents' Visit: Round One

2007-03-21T04:58:00.000-07:00

So...I promised to post an update of our trip soon, and here it is. Part one, at least. I need an editor or something to keep me from writing so much. Part two (and perhaps three) will be forthcoming. How's the weather where you are? Here its 75 degrees every day. Ha HA. Without further ado-

My step-father, Bill, and my mom, Terrie, after six months of meticulous planning, arranged to fly into the Entebbe International Airport on February 23. We couldn’t have possibly planned more successfully the dates of their visit, as my one-month vacation began on February 22. The morning of the 23rd, I woke up at 4am to walk into town (on a $6 per day salary, it makes sense to save money where one can, such as on early morning taxis) and catch my bus to Kampala. Having slept poorly the previous night, largely due to my nervousness of receiving my first American visitors, I thought to sleep on the 6-hour ride. However, I found myself sitting next to a young woman who was enrolled at Makarere University (the Oxford of East Africa) in Kampala. She was studying to be a pharmacologist/chemist, and we had a long (roughly 6-hour) conversation about higher education in East Africa, among other things. Unsurprisingly, she had a large number of siblings, mostly older than her. Surprisingly, all of them had graduated from university and we employed as engineers, doctors, lawyers, and so on. This is in an educational system where less than 1% of all students reach university level. How’s that for parenting? It made me wonder about the emphasis that her parents obviously put on education, and whether that same parental motivation would lead to similar successes throughout this area. Sadly, education is often not considered to be of fundamental importance here, especially in more rural areas among farmers and fishermen who rely on the work of their children to live. Slowly, the paradigm is changing (for example, the Maasai, a tribe of semi-nomadic herders and warriors, traditionally resistant to all Western influence such as education and religion, have started allowing their girls to attend school), but it will be at least another generation before most Tanzanians truly believe in the efficacy of education, in its crucial value to life.

As we talked, I occasionally glanced out the window to observe the cultural and landscape gradient passing from Bukoba to Kampala. The most immediately evident sign that I was out of Tanzania was the profusion of English-language signs, English being the national language of Uganda. I looked at the store fronts, one after the other emblazoned with a painted advertisement for a phone company, type of cooking oil, or condom brand, and thought how they resembled a retrograde Tokyo; the neon lights transformed instead into splashes of paint, yet still covering every wall and invading one’s senses. As we neared Kampala itself, that “pearl of Africa” Churchill so praised, I noticed more keenly the difference between Tanzanian and Ugandan culture, specifically in style of women’s dress. In Tanzania, traditional garb still reigns; women wear brightly colored, boldly patterned swaths of fabric that they wrap around themselves like a towel. In Uganda, many women, especially younger ones, wore jeans that must’ve required either a shoehorn or some of that cooking oil to fit into, or both. I didn’t mind so much.

We reached Kampala lagging behind schedule by only an hour, and after a nice lunch with the university student (where she ordered for us what is now my favorite East African food- matoke, or steamed and mashed bananas, and peanut sauce), I hopped on another bus to Entebbe. My parents were scheduled to land at 11pm, and I reached the airport town with a lot of time to spare. I returned to the quaint guest house I’d chanced upon last year, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the proprietor, Mama Clemence, had expanded her humble two-room establishment into an institution with six rooms, a bar(!), and a beautiful outdoor banquet hall. True to East African form, the power was down when I arrived; I could only hope that it would be back in time to provide light for my travel weary parents. I’d brought a Neal Stephenson book, and for most of the remaining time, I lost myself in his world. Around 8pm, I went for dinner at Mama Clemence’s nearby restaurant (this woman is like the Entebbe mafia, a hand in everything; she’s also highly involved with local politics…), enjoying a big fried fish, chips, and Ugandan beer, which is the exact same as Tanzanian beer.

Upon returning to my room, I found that a generator had been installed at the guest house, but that it was going to power some giant speakers at the outdoor banquet hall, where a graduation ceremony would be taking place until the early morning. Oh, that’s nice… Mama Clemence eventually found me, knowing that I’m “from” Tanzania, and demanded that I meet her other Tanzanian guests. She led me to a table at the back of the celebration area, and I was presented to two young Tanzanian fellows who turned out to be pilots from Arusha and Dar. Apparently they weren’t flying that night (or so I hope), as their table was littered with empty whiskey packets and beer bottles. After throwing out some Swahili, I was heartily taken in by these gregarious pilots, who “encouraged” me to go out drinking with them. I still had a few hours left, and no electricity in my room, so I figured a beer or two would be nice. We went to a local bar, where I realized these men were already pretty far gone, and beer was not in fact on the menu. They went straight for whiskey shots. Cool…been there before. After three or four in a half hour’s time, we backed off a bit and relaxed, and my first in-depth conversation about the sexual mores of typical Tanzanians began. These pilots were all too eager to share all their “insider knowledge”, despite the fact that I never asked. It was a hilarious conversation, made all the more ridiculous for the fact that we were speaking in Swahili and all the Ugandans around us were in the dark as to what they were vividly and vehemently explaining to me (or so I assume; this one old fella chuckled a few times, he might’ve been in the know). At 10pm, I told them it was time I went to pick up my parents. Their protestations (“the plane will be four hours late, let’s just go to a dance club instead!”) were well-received, and I managed to leave them in good humor.

I arrived at the airport with half an hour to spare, but sadly the plane’s arrival had been delayed. Apparently a passenger decided to disembark at the stopover in Nairobi without telling anyone, and substantial time was lost as the officials tried figuring out just where this missing passenger went. So what to do at an airport at 11 at night? Yeah…I went to the lounge to relax. As soon as I entered, an elderly Belgian man grabbed my arm and asked what kind of beer I would like. Seems that it was my night for free drinks. He was waiting for his family, and must’ve been pretty stressed out, judging by the alacrity with which he was putting the beers down. In a drunkenness contest, I’m not sure if the pilots or the Belgian would’ve won; a match for the ages. Not wanting to be a wreck when I greeted my parents who’d flown thousands of miles to see me, I nursed the beer, but to no avail. Each time the Belgian re-upped, he made sure not to forget me. Three beers later, I was woozy and the plane was due in ten minutes. I decided to make my exit, against the Belgian’s yells, oddly similar to those from the pilots, “that plane won’t land for another hour, have a beer!” Luckily, it did land, and quickly.

My pleasant, if disorienting, buzz made the arrival of my parents all the more surreal. Surreal…that’s a good word to describe seeing such familiar faces in such an alien environment, and it was a feeling that returned to me more than once during their stay. However, the joy I felt at seeing them arrive safely easily outweighed that oddness, and our initial hugs and greetings were like coming home. The first thing my mom said to me? “You sound different.” Yeah, I guess living in a developing country where the English is so poorly understood, my speech patterns would be altered. I’m sure that was just one of many changes my parents saw in me during their visit.

We caught a cab to the guest house, and I was disheartened to find that not only was the music from ceremony still blasting, but that the electricity was still out as well. Welcome to East Africa, weary travelers! It was nearing midnight by the time we got all the luggage into the room, and knowing that the jet lag could be fierce if they didn’t get some sleep, we allowed ourselves only a brief conversation before heading to bed. I was still awake, spurred on by the strangeness and the brilliance of knowing my parents had arrived, so I went out to the ceremony area, where Mama Clemence met me with a giant smile and requested I have a beer with her. Wow…it really was my night. It was nice to tell her and her husband that everything was fine, that they’d landed safely and were now peacefully (I hoped) asleep in bed. After the beer (final count- 2.5 litres of beer and 200ml of whiskey; it felt like I was back in university), I felt ready for sleep and the upcoming two weeks of adventure and tour-guiding.

First on the following day’s agenda were the botanical gardens, which I’d visited last year and whose tranquility was highly welcomed. Our encyclopedic guide, who knowledge made me feel as though I forgot to should be taking notes, escorted us throughout the diverse gardens over four hour’s time, during which my parents received their first taste of African wildlife- hordes of colobus monkeys littered the area, showing almost no fear of man (in fact, we had some extra bread which they intrepidly came and plucked from my hand; greedy buggers). The gardens were as impressive and varied as I remembered, with such unusual specimens as the “cannon-ball tree” and the “sausage tree”, both aptly named for the shapes of their inedible fruits. All in all, it was a peaceful way to spend their morning in such a foreign land (despite the fact that my mom forgot that we were less than a degree from the equator, not wearing any sunscreen and getting a nice little burn for her efforts).

Following the gardens, we got a local lunch at Mama Clemence’s restaurant. One of my continual fears during their visit was that some particularly feisty bacteria would attack their fragile stomachs just as we boarded a bus heading somewhere (thankfully, this fear was never realized). Their first true local meal was that same matoke and peanut sauce that the university student had shown me, and they loved it, going as far as to ask how it was made in order to try replicating it back home. Bellies full, we called the taxi which would take us from the somewhat secluded Entebbe to the scrappy, bustling city that is Kampala. Bill later said that this one-hour drive was the time he experienced the strongest feelings of culture shock, perhaps from seeing the poverty embodied in the multitude of workers and tiny businesses, equally as attached to the road and its traffic as are the yellow and white painted lines. The drive was an opportunity to gaze out at the sea of foreign people and their constructs, to take in life in Uganda in one fell swoop. The driver got lost (after professing to know “exactly” where the hotel was), and when we arrived at the hotel, it seemed a paradise with its expansive lawns and comforting simplicity, calm in the eye of the chaotic mercantile storm that encompasses Kampala. Shortly after our arrival, the heat of the afternoon was displaced by a torrent of rain, a foreshadowing of what was to be the following day’s journey to Bukoba.

The bus heading back to my home left early enough that we only had time to enjoy breakfast (the same as the previous day’s- bread, banana, and an egg) and some rest before heading to the terminal. By this point, I can well imagine that my parents were still reeling from the cultural and societal differences. While life here is truly the same as life anywhere else, once you adjust, on the surface the incongruities can be overwhelming at first. One of the major areas of dissonance between East African and American societies is that of proper infrastructure- the States have it, Africa doesn’t. This is reflected by the continual power outages, lack of running water, and poor roads. The latter is what my parents were now facing, as we hurtled down the narrow, worn road in our Greyhound-size bus. Interestingly, most people here consider the strip from Kampala to Bukoba to be one of the best in the area. Coming from America, my parents did not share that opinion. Between the driver’s outrageous speed, the potholed, pedestrian-crowded road, and the exhaust smell emanating from right under our feet, the trip was pretty miserable, and that was before it started pouring rain. It rained, and hard, for at least two hours of our ride. During this time, the driver slowly down only nominally, and I became worried when I saw that even the Tanzanian passengers wanted him to slow down. If this wasn’t frightening enough, the wiper on the driver’s side wasn’t working, so the bus would occasionally stop so that they could apply powdered soap to the windshield. Our lives were in the hand of Foma Gold, number one East African powdered soap. As we turned south and neared the border, the rain lessened. We’d escaped unscathed, despite a couple white-knuckle close calls with other cars and people; just another day here…

The rest of the trip was smooth, and we rejoiced when we finally reached fabled Bukoba. As a bonus, not a single piece of the extensive amounts of luggage (more on this later) was damaged or missing. A short taxi ride later, and we had finally arrived at my school and my home- Ihungo. If you are to ask my parents what their favorite place in Tanzania is, my guess is that they will answer “Ihungo”. Although the hotel of the previous night was tranquil in its own right, it wasn’t home. After the harrowing bus ride, compiled with the 30-odd other hours of travel they’d done to get to Africa, reaching the destination spelled better relief than Rolaids. My house is situated several kilometers outside of Bukoba, on a crest overlooking a lush stream valley on one side and the tremendous Lake Victoria on the other. Being part of the school grounds, it is removed enough to feel idyllic and serene, even when the school kids are pounding on my door asking for candy.

Post about posting a post

2007-03-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

You know, this post isn't even a real post. Its just a post to tell you that I'm working on the real post. My mom and step-dad came and went, then I finished a ton of work. Now I am working on a write-up of our adventures, to rival my longest posts. So... sorry for this sad attempt at reparations for my indolence. I'll make up for it soon.

Kihaya, Poor test results, A visit

2007-02-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

I wrote awhile back about my attempts to pick up the tribal language of Bukoba- Kihaya. Under the assumption that knowing the local mother tongue will somehow work to my advantage, I've slowly picked up enough Kihaya to properly greet people and talk about the weather. As this comprises roughly ninety-five percent of all conversations taking place in Tanzania, I'm sitting pretty. Today I caught a cab-share (really, that is glamourizing the whole business a bit; it was a decrepit post-taxi miraculously carrying seven others) from Ihungo to town. When I did the contortionist trick of taking up as little room as physically possible (as I did when I shared the bed with Jacques), I was able to slam the door closed on myself. Some pain. In an unexplained good mood while sharing the back seat of this cab with four others, I decided to wheeze out a few Kihaya greetings. Again, my theory of this language's utility was correct, and within five minutes some of the ladies were asking if I am married. (To be honest, this isn't that uncommon; some of the women in the Corps tell me that they are asked to marry total strangers on a weekly basis.) When we reached town, I paid the driver with a 2000 shilling bill, expecting change. For some reason, we were surrounded by a large number of Tanzanian men who seemed to have nothing better to do that watch me pay for my cab ride. As soon as I'd handed the driver the bill, several of the men told the driver, in Swahili, that he shouldn't give me any change. The driver and I started laughing simultaneously, and then the driver told one of the guys to guard his tongue, as "the mzungu knows even Kihaya." You're damn right. After a short exchange where he gave me most of my change and I gave him the evil eye, I was on my way having paid the proper fare. When I thanked the driver in Kihaya, the whole crowd of layabouts gasped. Gratifying... I guess all I'm trying to say is that learning Kihaya has paid off, more than just in this example. The facilitation of dealing with people in their own language here has inspired me to try picking up useful phrases whenever and wherever I may travel.

For news from school, my form six students began their national examinations yesterday. This is what they've spent the last two years studying for, and their performance will determine their fates. The examinations take a full two weeks, and are designed to rigorously test a student's ability to memorize obscure facts. I have a number of complaints against the system of examinations here, and the examinations themselves, but I'll save those for another day. The first of two physics tests was held yesterday, and I can't tell you how my heart dropped when I saw my students leaving the exam room with sad, sad faces. Not a single one of the students who I talked to yesterday told me he thought he performed well; all of them said the test was "so so difficult". Crap. Granted, I only talked to students who hadn't attended my class in months (extreme "senioritis"). Granted, the results aren't out, and perhaps some kids did quite well. But for even one of my boys to fail makes me feel that I have failed as a teacher. I can only hope that they performed better than they think they did. I'm still finding my groove as a teacher, and these students were my guinea pigs of a fashion, but I put forth a staggering amount of effort over the last year trying to prepare them to succeed on this test. I hate to see them fail...

Switching topics again, with only this tenuous segue, my mom and step-dad will be arriving here soon! They'll be flying in next weekend, and spending the following three weeks exploring Tanzania and learning about how I live here. I am truly excited to have my first visitors from the States. As much as my words might give you picture of my life here, I can really only paint the broad strokes, and with their visit, my parents will get to see all the minor details. We are planning on going on a safari in the Serengeti, among other things. If I don't update for awhile, its because my guests and I are off challenging the wilderness and taming the wild beasts. Peace...

Or am I just grumpy...?

2007-02-06T00:21:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, life here has been pleasantly tranquil as I settle back into routine. Due to my relative physical inactivity, I thought I might take some time to write a few thoughts and views I’ve garnered about my situation and the society I find myself a part of.

Where to start...? Two days ago, I was riding my bike (helmet on, of course) on one of the bumpy dirt roads, coming home from visiting an older British husband and wife who recently arrived. En route, I came across another teacher from my school, and we leisurely rode alongside one another, talking and dodging the various vehicles hurtling past us. As this was Sunday, and as Tanzanians are quite open about their respective religions, he asked me where I’d prayed that morning. How to answer…? Did I pray that morning? Probably not. But with the frequency of religious questioning I get here (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!), I’ve slowly developed "substitutes" for what they call praying, attending church, even having a set major religion. If I’m asked whether I prayed, I try to recall any action I’d taken which had a similar impact on my day as a prayer might. Perhaps this could be me crossing my fingers that I don’t burn the rice, or hoping that the internet café will have a signal when I go. Any thoughts which are somehow analogous to the act of praying, while not being a de facto prayer. My own personal religion, I suppose... In any case, having these substitutes has allowed me to avoid an intimidating number of awkward conversations about religion with people whom I’ve just met for the first time, or that I don’t want to offend. (As a side note- is this openness of religion a common factor among the former missionary colonies? When I’m asked my religion, people automatically assume I’m Christian, and so they instead inquire as to whether I’m an Adventist, Evangelist, Episcopalian, you name your branch... It seems logical that the influence of the missionaries carries impacts beyond the numbers (Tanzania is forty percent Christian), that their intrusions sowed the corn which we current ex-patriates are being forced to eat, even if we don’t like corn because it sticks between our teeth. Maybe another day I’ll write a little diatribe about the effect of both the missionaries and the colonists...)

So when this teacher asked me where I’d prayed, I thought about my day, and decided that I’d "prayed" for the morning rain to stop so that I could visit this British couple. Therefore, I told him that I’d done my praying at home (I'm not trying to be sacriligous, just practical). He stopped his bike, looking stunned, and proceeded to tell me that it is simply not possible to pray at one’s own home. According to this teacher, prayer and worship is invalid unless demonstrated in church, surrounded by other believers. This started a long discussion, near-argument, in which I cited the holiness of various monks who removed themselves from society strictly to have a closer commune with God. I wasn’t willing to agree with him that its more valid to pray in church than at home (doesn’t the Bible say the opposite, in fact?), and he was intractable in his ideas that those who pray alone are "not serious" about their religion. As an aside, its my understanding that, as Tanzanians have developed such a community-based society, they extend this social customs to their religions. Everyone prays together, no one differentiates himself from the mass (oooh double meaning!).

I mention this because it is a single facet to this Hope Diamond of an issue that has been bringing me down lately- the lack of acceptance and even tolerance that a large number of the citizens here show to outside ideas. Likely, in my own cultural arrogance, I assume my own views are superlative (as most people tend to do), and thus immediately denigrate a society in which these views are scoffed at. I suppose the frustrating factor for me in this is rationality; I’d like to believe that, via some degree of introspection, I’ve analyzed the lion’s share of my American tendencies. Whether or not I’ve been successful is moot, for what bothers me is that the counter-arguments I hear when in discussion have generally not been rationalized to any degree whatsoever; the ideas are parroted without any reasoning behind them.

An example of this was at a tea break meeting some months ago, in which another teacher and I were engaged in a discussion of media bias. This teacher informed me that, as an American, all of my typical sources of information had a pro-American bias and that I wasn’t receiving any true news about, among other things, the Iraq war. She extrapolated to say that I, and most Americans, am largely in the dark about our country’s international activities, for all we see and hear is filtered through a media which pays homage to its government. I agree that it isn’t possible to learn the reality of an event by studying only one news source, and that to understand exactly what is happening it behooves us to swallow the bitter pill that is "the other side of the story". However, when I asked her why she thought this was so, having never been to America herself, she said she knew it was true because she saw it on a Tanzanian television channel (one which has a distinctly anti-American bent). Irony, anyone? So again, I summoned the almighty forces of reason to my side, explaining that her country has its own respective media bias, therefore the truth of things is not quite so concrete as she stated them. Again with the immutable stance… She was impervious to even my highest caliber rationality-tipped bullets, and in the end I gave up and went home, frustrated.

Is it prideful of me to try and promulgate my viewpoints in these discussions? Or to assume that they will be listened to? In that last example, you can imagine how maddening it was to hear her blindly avowing her faith to her television channel, while completely dismissing ours. How to explain the fact that studies have shown that developing countries tend to have some of the strongest media biases? I suppose it’s maybe not my place to make that explanation. I suppose it is arrogant to try and force my ideas to be heard and rationalized. But at the same time, as a sometimes introspective and thoughtful person, I find it difficult to consent to the reality that most of the people I engage in discussion here are only reciting what they’ve been told they should believe, without knowing the reasoning behind that belief structure. Can television and hearsay (here, the two most common forms of information transmission) truly give profound insight into the world around us, especially with any amount of veracity? It seems to me that these methods of propagation will only foster ignorance and degradation of information, which will result (and already has resulted) in people believing things without knowing why. This happens all over the world, I’m just frustrated that I see it so prevalently here. When one seeks to adapt to a culture, one requires a certain amount of open-mindedness, and to have that be met with indigenous close-mindedness can be difficult...

I’d like to write more, but I don’t want to turn this post into a sounding board of my various societal concerns. On another note, I’d like to give my proper respects (props, that is) to my Aunt Misty. Turns out she’s signing up for the Corps. I think that’s awesome, and I hope she gets a placement that she’ll enjoy. Cheers to you, Aunt Misty.

Clap Your Hands for a Bald Man Getting Things Done

2007-01-26T05:15:00.000-08:00

If you haven't chanced upon my page of pictures, you are due for a (delightful?) surprise: I recently shaved my head. Before you ask the inevitably "why?", take a moment to hear me lament on my decision. As I'm sitting at the internet cafe, I have just finished the forty-five minute jaunt from my home into Bukoba town. In an unfortunate lapse of forethought, I chose not to weat a hat, but to be loud and proud with my baldness. The real calamity is that the sun, which was oh-so cleverly hiding itself behind clouds at my departure, feigning harmlessness, unveiled itself in all its fury some ten minutes into my trek. Under its intensity, my poor, freshly nubile scalp began to cry. I found a big leaf on the side of one particular path, which I used as a makeshift hat for some five minutes. I'm certain that I was attention-saturated even before attempting this leaf-hat feat, what with me being the tallest, baldest, whitest guy around, but the hat drove it to new levels. The open-mouthed stares... So I removed the leaf, and instead wore my backpack on my head (Andrew, I'm still using that old FSS pack you "acquired" for me; good man). Even with the protection of my backpack, my head feels like someone tried putting out a forest fire on it with a screwdriver.

So now- the "why". I've had a fair number of co-workers, students, and friends ask me that same question in the last few days. Unfortunately, I haven't thought of a good reason yet. I'm going to make one up... OK. Its because I wanted to donate my hair to a wigmaker for widows (seriously, wigs are mad popular here, I probably ought to have done just that). My dad called me yesterday, worried after seeing my baldness. My dad: "Are you angry at something?" Me: "Nope." Dad: "Sad?" Me: "Nope." Dad: "Oh. Well ok then." I guess I've never really had a chance to see what I look like bald, and I figured now is as good a time as any. If you yourself have never had a bald head, you ought to try it as well; you save $7.56 per month on shampoo. Let's start a bald revolution..!

Now, in serious news, things have been fairly productive for me these past few weeks. I learned that a grant proposal of mine has been passed, and that all the requested funds will be disseminated in the next few weeks. This is great news, as it is a proposal I've been working on for the past six months or so. Briefly, the grant benefits some fishermen in a village nearby my school, as well as their immediate dependents, by creating a self-supporting fishermen's co-op, and then providing that co-op with the equipment they will need to produce a substantial income. One month from now, if everything goes according to plan *cough cough*, the project will be well underway. Awesome. Additionally, at school I've been initiating some changes. If you recall some of my previous posts, the students here are sometimes treated as slaves instead of academics. They have no voice with which to...voice their complaints or outrages. Even if they did find some avenue, the administration tends to have closed doors and little patience for these kids. With that, I've taken it upon myself to be their voice, their defender, if you want to get dramatic. Other than fighting for the rights of these students during our daily meetings, I've been putting forth a lot of efforts at altering the school's discipline policies. Rather than trying to erase corporal punishment (in this, I would not be working with the school at all, but just projecting my own cultural sensitivies onto it; this is not a efficient way to accomplish things here), I thought establishing a "positive reinforcement" system would help. Previously, the best, most endeavoring students got no recognition or compensation for their hard work. Together with the second-master, I created a proposal for a department that would serve to reward those students in various ways. Without boring you with its details, I'll just say that the headmaster and my fellow teachers unanimously agreed to implement this plan, and that this upcoming Monday we will directly begin putting it into effect. Awesome again.

Clap your hands for a bald man getting things done. (Andrew, that would be a good t-shirt slogan).

I wrote too much again...

2007-01-16T01:26:00.000-08:00

I’m back home now, after two weeks’ travel around the country. I wrote this post on my laptop again, not wanting to forget anything, just as with Rwanda. Again, I am too long-winded.

My first stop was Zanzibar, revisiting the spice island after roughly a year. A large group of us volunteers converges each year, to celebrate the New Year’s coming. I had hoped to see more of the island, so I was a little disappointed to find that we would be staying at the same beach that I’d stayed at last year (but to be honest, it’s a gorgeous beach and my disappointment was fleeting). Once again, I flew from Bukoba to Dar Es Salaam. This time, I had a grueling ten-hour layover in Mwanza which resulted in me arriving quite late into Dar, missing that night’s party. The next day I met up with everyone at the Dar-Zanzibar ferry terminal, finding the group to be in high spirits. Last year, I’d sat inside and felt nauseous for the entirety of the crossing, so before getting aboard I was a little nervous. However, the fears were misplaced. We all sat on the deck and enjoyed a smooth, peaceful trip to the Stone Town port. I was so happy to be engaged with some of my best friends in the Corps, I hardly noticed the two hours go by.

Again, Stone Town took my breath away. It’s a different world, Zanzibar. I wandered the cramped, writhing alleyways with a friend, getting lost once again. The buildings were tall enough, and those alleys were narrow enough that unless the sun was directly overhead, we enjoyed some measure of shade during our explorations. While we walked, we discussed our relative feelings about Tanzania, its people, its customs, after being here for over a year. It was a bit surprising how drastically local environment and situation affects one’s perception of the entire country. Unfortunately, our time in Stone Town was short, and we had to abort our conversation to go meet the rest of the group. A wonderfully friendly shop owner must have noticed us pass by his shop more than once, and asked us if we were lost, as we were walking in circles. In foreign countries, especially with places as labyrinthine as Stone Town, men can admit to being lost without any shame, as we then did.

After getting even more lost following this pleasant fellow (who said it was his duty to help out travelers, to show how good the people of Zanzibar are), we stumbled into the rest of the group and caught some buses up to the beach. I’m pretty sure that within three minutes of arriving at our hotels, we all had put on our swim gear and were frolicking in the Indian Ocean, underneath the furious Zanzibar sun. Seriously, the sun here in Bukoba is like the 90-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face by the Charles Atlas beefmaster sun there on Zanzibar. There is no comparison, and I even managed to get sunburned while laying in the shade. Cheers for being white! (Kent, you can give me a half-cheers).

I’d brought a deck of cards, and the nearest bar had a happy hour. These two facts merged with a large group of thirsty people to form what I will call “perfect fusion”. By the end of the happy hour, we’d run the gamut of drinking games (except Sevens, that game is just too much), and everyone was quite lively. We’d ordered food at the bar, and it took so long to come, we all got easily drunk on empty stomachs. Our food came, we ate (I had calamari). After waiting half an hour, as responsible adults are wont to do, we went for a pleasant nighttime swim, and then off to bed.

I’ve had occasions to bless my adjustment to various aspects of this country, and when I awoke the next day, I blessed my adjustment to the malignant bacteria which sometimes come with the foods here. My stomach was a rock. I could not make that same claim for roughly 10 people in our group, who all had become violently ill from food poisoning in the middle of the night. One guy said he had never, ever felt worse in his life. In the meantime, I went swimming.

That evening, massive celebrations were planned (it was New Year’s Eve), so we toned it down a bit, not wanting to miss anything. The resort I was at had this whole entertainment package lined up, which included fire dancing, a big white lion costume that pranced around, and the worst marionette show I will ever see. It was all fun to witness, if a bit over the top. Sometime before midnight all the resorts along the beach started blasting either techno or hip-hop, and the night transformed into a big beach rave, with hundreds or even thousands of people dancing everywhere. In typical Tanzanian fashion, when midnight approached, the countdown was reversed- “One...two...three...Happy New Year!” Counting up to three didn’t seem like the most impressive way to bring in 2007, but it was funny to hear. The dance party lasted most of the night; even Morpheus would have been jealous.

Our final day on the beach we spent relaxing, talking and reminiscing. I went with a small group to get dinner at one of the more expensive restaurants. My plan when going to new places to eat is to order the most expensive, and therefore best, food on the menu. This was the seafood platter, and when it came out I knew my plan had worked. Being an island, Zanzibar is privy to some awesome fresh seafood, and I think they gave me most of it on my seafood platter- squid, tuna, snapper, a few prawns, and some lobster-type creature. All of it was delicious. If you’ve never had fresh squid, you should try it. The texture is smooth, dense, and slightly chewy, and the taste is mild yet pleasing. I wish we had squid in Lake Victoria.

My room was so hot that night, I sweated profusely for about two hours before going on a walk (I saw later the fan blades had been put on upside-down; I’m sure the ceiling was nice and cool). Earlier in the day, while I was playing beach volleyball with a German in a tiger print Speedo, some local dog pack had torn past the court, chasing some terrified little kids. I ran out and clapped my hands a few times to confuse the dogs, after which they went on their merry way. That night, while on my walk on the placid, empty beach, the dogs returned. There were four of them, several of which I recalled from earlier. Apparently I’d entered their territory, because they got ferocious very quickly, barking and snapping at me. I clapped my hands again, but it didn’t have the effect I was hoping for, and they kept attacking. I’ve heard that dogs can sense fear (is this true?), so I slowly backed away, clapping at them but trying to get away. I noticed a pile of boards and sticks and made my way towards it as they continued to lunge at me, growling and biting. Reaching around the woodpile in desperate hope while keeping my eyes glued to these mongrels, I stumbled across a nice, baseball bat-sized stick. The tables had turned. While never a massive slugger, I’ve played enough ball to know how to swing. As the next dog thrust his jaws at me, I met those jaws with the business end of my stick. You know when you get a good, solid hit in baseball, and the bat doesn’t vibrate or hurt your hands at all- a clean hit? Yeah, I gave that dog a clean hit. That dog ran so quickly away from me and my stick, it shot a plume of sand in its wake like a jet flying low over the water. The others followed it, and I returned to bed to sleep the sleep of the just.

I had no serious plans for the next few days, so a friend (Brendan) in Moshi invited me to come and hang out, to see his place for a bit. If you recall, Moshi is near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, and is considered to be one of the most beautiful areas in Tanzania. I stayed at Brendan’s place for about two days, and I think our conversation didn’t have a lull that whole time. We discussed everything under the sun, from books (we agree- The Razor’s Edge is fantastic) to college football to whatever else came up. Brendan cooked some tasty fried broccoli the first night, and I tried making a Tanzanian dish called “makande” the second. Unfortunately, I forgot that the beans and corn which go in it take roughly 800 hours to cook, so it wasn’t as delicious as it might’ve been. Seriously, why do dried beans take so long to cook? It’s a crime.

Brendan’s site was pleasant and far enough removed from major roads to feel tranquil and secluded. It is possible to see Kili’s main peak from his place, if the mountain isn’t shrouded in clouds (as it was the whole time I was there). The whole mountainside is green, covered in trees, and those of us from the Pacific NW can enjoy that. We played a lot of catch (he had two mitts!) in Brendan’s backyard, under the shadow of Kili. I miss baseball.

I left Brendan’s and met up with Dale (another volunteer living around Moshi). He had three friends from university visiting him, and we all hung around Moshi that evening, with the plan to visit Arusha the next day. The night was uneventful but for the sheer amount of cheap red wine we drank, and for the fact that the chicken wings at Indoitaliano Restaurant have apparently fallen off. The next morning, the clouds cleared off of Kili, and we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the peak carpeted with fresh snow. Clay (yep, another Moshi volunteer; they’re like a Viking horde) met up with us and we caught a bus to Arusha.

Immediately, I was put off by Arusha. In Bukoba, there is little tourism and thus, few people make their livings based on scamming tourists or convincing them to take your companies bus/tour/hotel/anything package. Arusha is near the Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, and an international airport. Besides Zanzibar, it is the major tourist destination for all of Tanzania, and this manifests itself in manifold ways, the most noticeable being the sheer amount of attention white travelers get. Clay and I had volunteered to hunt down return tickets to Dar. When we neared the ticket offices for the various companies, we were swarmed by overzealous men grabbing our arms, telling us how great their companies are, and trying to drag us in five different directions. We knew which bus line to take, and told them all that, to which several responded by telling us that our chosen line was already sold out. Naturally, I assumed they were just saying that to get us to buy tickets from their line, so I told these fellows that we would go look ourselves. This is where things got uncomfortable. While I asked one fellow for directions to the office of the line we’d chosen, one of the others who’d told me that line was sold out was starting to rant and rage in Swahili. When I noticed this and listened to him a bit, I found out he was in the middle of saying that he hated both Clay and I, and all Americans. He hated us because we killed Saddam. This was the major selling point in his rant, and several other men joined him in voicing their outrage over “the Americans killing Saddam”. All of them were bigger than us, so we both bit our tongues and walked away. As we left, the guy started yelling the only English swear word he knew- bitch. It was kind of funny, even though it pissed me off that he was such a prick, the way he said his curse word. His pronunciation caused him to sound like he was yelling “beach!” over and over. (Sadly, this wasn’t the only time during my trip where anger over the hanging of Saddam Hussein was displayed towards me as an American. A taxicab driver in Dar told me point blank that he was going to overcharge me because I killed Saddam. The man wasn’t Muslim, and had no reason to be bitter about Saddam’s death except that he read that he should be so in one of the local papers. People believe what you tell them...)

After another half an hour of finding out that not only our first choice of bus lines was sold out, but also our second and third, we had to return to the angry men and their lines. Luckily, we quickly found one company’s office around the corner from those guys and, after Clay got irked that they tried drastically overcharging us, we acquired our tickets. This was all within the first hour of entering Arusha, and we both decided a cold beer was in order. Clay knew of a place with couches and a relaxing atmosphere, so we went there, and enjoyed our beers highly. Then, Arusha redeemed itself. An elderly man who spoke decent English sat near us and asked if he could buy us both a beer to welcome us to his country and his town. It was a great gesture, and when we asked to reciprocate by buying him one, he laughed and said not to worry. Rarely do we as foreigners receive such unequivocal generosity, and I was touched.

That night, we went to the main disco in Arusha. I have discovered that, while lacking style, I do enjoy dancing. Cathartic, isn’t it? The club wasn’t so packed the day we went, but there was a large group of Indian men tearing the dance floor apart nonetheless. If you have yet to witness the spectacle of Indian men dancing, I pity you. From what I saw, these men, while being much, much worse dancers than the typical American man, give it such gusto that you can’t help but be impressed. The best example is when one of their favorite songs comes on- they all lock arms over each other’s shoulders and begin to form a big circle. This circle then begins to hop up and down together as its members chant “Oi! Oi!” repeatedly and without any rhythm at all. Dale and I enjoyed this so much that we managed to actually initiate these hopping circles a few times when Madonna or something else great came on.

We arose early the next morning bleary-eyed after a few hours’ sleep to catch our bus to Dar. Most of the ten or eleven hour trip was spent in a quest to find a comfortable position to sleep. I failed miserably in this quest, and was jealous of Dale’s seeming ability to be comfortable in any position. Tall men without that ability do not belong on cheap buses in developing countries. I do not belong on cheap buses in developing countries.

The seminar lasted only a day, and was really more of a forum for us to pass on teaching strategies and to ask any burning questions. The best part of the day was lunch. It was the first time in awhile I’ve had the chance to eat a cheeseburger, a hot dog, Hawaiian-style pizza, and use ranch as a sauce. I need to find out which caterer was in charge of this delicious feast and see if they can do one-person lunches in Bukoba. When the seminar was over, our entire training group (now 34, I believe) had our first opportunity in six months to socialize in its entirety. One major difference I noted was how quickly people dispersed into smaller groups this time. In the past, we tended to tool around town as a massive unit, but now volunteers were fractioning into groups largely based on their regions. As a result, I didn’t get to see some people as much as I’d hoped, but on the up side, it was way easier to find places to eat.

Sometime after dinner, I learned that the bowl game (Ohio State versus Florida) would be shown live at four in the morning on the Armed Forces Network, and that a marine had invited us to watch it at the embassy. All I had to do the next day was go to a dentist appointment, so I was down. Also, Brendan’s alma mater is Ohio State, so we knew it would be fun to watch him get amped up during the game. At around midnight, we arrived at the embassy and were escorted by an armed marine to this room with a full sound system and wall projector. Pretty awesome way to watch the game, right? We rooted around the room a bit, and found a VCR (yes, we still use both tapes in Tanzania- both for music and for movies) and possibly the greatest movie ever made- Braveheart. The convenience of this is undeniable: it was midnight, the pre-game started at three, and Braveheart was three hours long. Let me tell you something. As good as watching a bowl game on a projector screen might be, it cannot compare to watching Braveheart on a projector screen. I now know how true it is that “not every man truly lives”.

The game was cool, although we were all fighting to stay awake by that point, even Brendan. Personally, I thought the game went downhill after the first quarter. Brendan was quite pleased when Ohio State returned the kickoff for a touchdown, and then his face slowly dropped bit by bit with each Florida touchdown in response. I have to say, all those ESPN pre-game guys really didn’t Florida’s offense enough credit. Talk about weapons… I would write more, but if Brando or Davis read this, their superior football knowledge will make me look ridiculous.

It was a bit awkward as the game was wrapping up in the morning. Around seven or so, many people, politicians and whatnot, began arriving for their day’s work. All of them had to pass the room in which we had the game on, loud and proud. We probably looked like hell after being up all night, and got more than a few curious stares. But what is an embassy for, if not for Americans to watch some football at all hours of the night?

After my appointment the next day (no cavities!), I went to an area of Dar called Kariakoo, which is known to be a haven of cheap deals and tourist robberies. I went with Clay, and both of us really liked Kariakoo, feeling perfectly safe the entire time. Knowing Swahili allowed us to be warm and friendly to everyone we passed (well, not every single person; Kariakoo is crowded like Shinjuku/Times Square) and thus we were taken care of and helped out a lot. We found a used clothing section of Kariakoo that had giant piles of old shirts for six hundred shillings apiece (fifty cents). Clay and I made a deal to buy drinking shirts for each other (a drinking shirt is an ugly shirt that you tear the sleeves off of and make a headband out of; thanks, Jesse) and commenced to look for the most hideous clothes possible. During our searching, we both found some actually awesome clothes, stuff that would make my brother more jealous than Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky. Finally, I found Clay some horrid, evil shirt probably designed by Helen Keller. I bought it and gave it to him; he was impressed and didn’t think he could outdo it. Then we stumbled upon the windbreaker pile, which is exactly what it sounds like- a giant pile comprised of only windbreakers, mostly from the ‘80s. Before he’d even chosen and bought me my drinking windbreaker, I knew he’d outdone me. I mean, c’mon...

The next night, we were fortunate enough to have the perfect opportunity to wear our drinking shirts- we all went bowling. This might not sound like an awesome time to you, but let me be perfectly clear: it was an Awesome Time. Clay and I looked beyond ridiculous, and many hilarious pictures were taken. I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun at a bowling alley. No, that’s not true. I did grow up in southern Oregon, right? (“Roseburg, where bowling is both a sport and a lifestyle”).

For lack of anyone else available to do it, I was volunteered to be the representative on the Volunteer Action Council for my region (I represented a total of four people, including myself). We had a two-day meeting beginning the day after the bowling fiesta, in which I got to hear a lot about the issues which face volunteers in other regions of the country. It was interesting to compare my situation and my relative lack of any serious issues to the impressive amounts of drama that other regions produce. I enjoyed being part of the council, even though I said little. I suppose it made me feel more involved in this organization as a whole, rather than just as a volunteer at my school. I also learned that, being affiliated with Peace Corps and therefore the US Government, we as volunteers are held accountable for all we say and do on multiple levels. Even this post, if it strikes someone in Washington in the wrong way, must be edited or removed. Luckily, I’ve got nothing bad to say.

On my penultimate night in Dar, a large group of us decided to go to the biggest disco. It was massively crowded and a bit claustrophobic. We managed to secure a small section of the dance floor on which we tried shaking it like a Polaroid picture. Eventually, a dance-off circle (not to be confused with an Indian-man jump circle) formed, in which people showed off their moves one by one. One Tanzanian guy did just about the illest C-walk I’ve ever seen, and I followed it with the Charleston, which is now my favorite dance move. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I got robbed. I didn’t know this until Clay handed me my passport from across the dance floor. This seemed odd, that Clay should have my passport, until he told me some guy had given it to him. I checked the pocket where the passport had been, and was unsurprised to find all the money missing. Luckily, I kept half of my cash in one pocket, and half in the other, so I wasn’t devastated. Honestly, the fact that the thief was willing to return my passport made me happy enough that I didn’t really care about losing some money. C’est la vie...

Tired from my night at the club and two long weeks of staying up late with friends, I planned to rest on my final day in Dar. Clay had been invited to go swimming at the University of Dar, so a small group of us headed over to relax poolside. The pool was the nicest one I’ve seen here in Tanzania, large enough for doing laps and relatively clean. Also, it was filled with far more Tanzanian swimmers than other pools. Without being too mean, let me just say that most people I’ve seen swimming here...lack basic swimming skills. Poolside, I made the comparison that swimming is to Tanzanians as dancing is to white people. I stand by that.

The following day, I caught the early flight home with Jodi. I got home around three in the afternoon, and immediately went to bed. I woke up to eat a quick dinner and then slept until the morning. How often does one successfully sleep for nearly 16 hours? Not often enough… Since my massive sleep, school has started and my daily routine from two posts ago is back in full effect. To sum up my trip in a word- booyah.

As a bonus for those of you who read the entire post, I have a GRE update. I got my scores back the day after I got back to site. At the risk of self-promotion, let me say that I did really well. I got a perfect score on the quantitative section, and near-perfects on the verbal and essay/argument sections. Looks like all my studying paid off, huh? I’m stoked now that I have these strong scores to back me up in applying to graduate school, hoping that any university I apply to will readily admit me. Another cheers! (Kent...)

In Transit; Tidings of the New Year

2007-01-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all... I've been on the road for the last week or so, and still have another week of being away from site. I'll write about it all when I get back to sweet, peaceful Bukoba. I went to Zanzibar and Moshi again, and the next stops will include Arusha and Dar ("Dar" is the way we locals refer to Dar es Salaam; it shows that we're down). Its been good times, and Arusha is the tourist capital of Tanzania, so perhaps the good times will continue.

Word on the street is that we have just started a new year. I hope you are all in good places, and that '07 finds you happy and well. Its a bit strange for me to realize that this is my last year here in Tanzania (no, I'm not planning on extending my service; my masochism has a two-year shelf life). Our official close-of-service date is around late November. There's still a lot I feel like I need to do, so I'm hoping that the year doesn't pass me by too quickly. I haven't finished my first grant proposal yet, and I have three or four I want to complete; I still would enjoy learning more Kihaya and Kiswahili (although from spending time with the other volunteers I realized my Kiswahili isn't that shabby after all); my students are not yet all-powerful physics masters; my kitambi-prevention routine needs to be revamped (kitambi = beer belly); I've never learned to do a cartwheel. If you stay entertained by my posts over the next year, maybe you'll watch me slowly check these goals off, except the last one. I think cartwheels might be a hereditary thing.

I'll cross my fingers for you all, and whatever resolutions and such you may have made. A little effort towards self-improvement can go a long way, for all of us. I got into a little debate with a guy the other day, largely about what the purpose or driving motivation of life ought to be. We discussed utilitarians, and their ideas that pleasure or happiness is life's most desirable end. I guess I don't disagree with that, so I'll wish you all a good year, full of both happiness and pleasure.

Daily Routine, Year Two

2006-12-19T01:25:00.000-08:00

I asked my dad if there was anything he’d like me to write about the other day, expecting a man who tends to read either baseball books or serious philosophy to be interested in something more…profound than my typical posts of what I've been up to. He pulled a fast one and caught me off guard by asking me to say more about exactly that- my day-to-day routine (including all the minor challenges each day presents). It’s true that I haven’t really posted on this for quite some time, and I do tend to gloss over a lot of what makes life difficult here. So what’s in day for African Rob..?

I tend to wake up pretty early (at least by my previous university standards). Usually this is due either to monsoon-strength rains slamming on my metal roof, creating a pleasingly disturbing uproar, or to a Tanzanian’s hand slamming on my wooden door (the infamous “hodi” returns), creating a disturbingly disturbing cacophony. My roof has several leaks, one unfortunately situated directly above my bed, and so the more furious deluges tend to force me out of bed. The school has promised to “eventually” take care of the leaks; I’m not holding my breath.

My first act of the day is typically to immediately place my buckets under the gutter channels around my roof, catching that day’s water (more on water issues to come). This area produces a staggering amount of coffee for export, and as a side-effect, I can get some pretty decent grounds locally. During coffee, I usually write a few text messages to other volunteers and review the lessons I plan on teaching that day. Also, I take stock of my smattering of mosquito bites from the previous evening, the worst tending to be on the knuckles and ankles. Bukoba is also a haven for banana lovers (most Wahaya- members of the local Haya tribe- can name five of six different types of bananas), so my breakfast tends to be a few bananas and a piece of bread. As a side note, for those of you enamored with organic foods, I can get the best organic peanut butter and honey here; it’s awesome.

Following breakfast, I gather up my notes and head to the teachers’ office, which is sadly lacking in the comfort I remember from American schools’ teachers’ lounges. Our office is a big room with a concrete floor, some broken windows, and a saturation of desks. The social nature of Tanzanians is in prime display in the office though, despite the mediocre environment. The first half an hour I spend in the office tends to consist of one prolonged greeting after another, until the rounds have been made and everyone is satisfied. Luckily, the teachers are a lively bunch, more than willing to share in jokes, gossip about students, and ridiculous stories, so the time passes quickly. I listen to their conversations with half an ear, occasionally accommodating requests to compare various facets of the day’s topics to American life and customs. Concurrently, I try to do a bit of work, usually brushing up on some forgotten theorem and its consequences.

The hours of the day I most dread, also being those I most enjoy, are the hours I teach. Teaching hasn’t quite come naturally to me, and I still find it to be an awkward fit at times. Perhaps any of you who teach can relate to the odd feeling of putting on a showman’s persona as you walk through the classroom doors, of becoming an actor as much as a teacher when in front of your students. However, my students and I have established a strong rapport that allows me to spend a fair amount of our time together on random tangents, such as explaining the meaning of sarcasm or regaling them with tales from America and my “previous life”. I feel lucky in this regard; another A-level teacher told me his students are deadly serious, and his attempts to liven up his classroom have fallen flat. On an average day, I spend about two hours or three hours teaching, and about that same amount of time researching and planning lessons. Interwoven into the class hours is a daily break, where teachers take sweetened tea and students take porridge. This corresponds to the daily teachers’ meeting, which is run in a mock-democratic style. To Tanzanians, this tea break is sacred, not as much for the opportunity to voice and debate issues as for the tea itself. The tea was late one day, and a teacher dryly quipped “You see how we fight for survival?” He was serious; I think the tea is too sweet.

Class hours finish at around three pm, and everyone goes home for lunch (one of Tanzania’s customs- lunch at 3-4pm and dinner at 9-10pm). Two days a week, Mama Shukuru comes to help out around the house, and on those days, she’ll prepare lunch for me; the rest of the time, I cook for myself. When she’s here, it’s a minor feast of rice, beans, and some medley of turbo-cooked vegetables. The girl I replaced here at Ihungo, Jessica, was also helped by Mama Shukuru, and Jessica left me a note saying that Mama Shukuru “chooses from the spice rack with clairvoyance”. Replace the word “clairvoyance” with “impunity”, and you’ve got it right. Whatever looks like a spice goes into her vegetable mixture. As a result, my food is very…flavorful. When I cook for myself, lunch tends to be a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich. I haven’t gotten tired of them after a year. The perfect food? Yes. After lunch, I relax for half an hour or an hour, reading and listening to music.

Three days a week, at four pm, I go to coach basketball. Yes, I’m still at it, despite all your sarcastic remarks when I first mentioned it. Although to be honest, I use the term “coach” loosely. Initially, I showed up at the court with planned practices, established a varsity team, and really was a coach. However, basketball practice time coincides with school cleanliness time (the infamous grass-cutting again), and so my players would be unable to attend at least half the practices. This hindered my team. Additionally, there are almost no other teams in the area, so my players began to wonder why we were rigorously practicing, if not to show off by owning some other teams. Thus, over time, interest waned, some of my best players graduated, and now the team lies partly derelict. I still show up and give out advice and small exercises, but more than anything my role is now “ball provider”. No jokes, please.

On the days I’m not coaching, I have pseudo-office hours, where students can meet me in the library and I’ll help them with whatever they want. Those hours are some of my favorites, as a teacher. Working with students in small groups is far more rewarding than lecturing, in my experience. I also enjoy the less formal atmosphere, and so do the students, feeling confident to ask me any number of questions (some of which are of too delicate a nature to be written here).

I finish basketball or office hours at six pm, at which time I return home, usually to find some local kids stealing mangoes out of my trees (many Tanzanians prefer the taste of acrid unripe mangoes to that of sweet, delicious ripe ones; by the time I think they are ripe, they have all been eaten by passers-by). On the days I feel industrious, I will go for a run or a walk around this time. The sun stops beating down, people are calm, and I can see some great sunsets. While I go out, I put on a kettle of water to boil. This water will be for my bath, so that I don’t have to use cold water. I’m sad to admit it, but I never have enough water to bathe daily. It will become such a routine to only bathe every other (or even every few) days that when I come home you will all be wondering why I don’t notice the odors I generate. Promise me you’ll tell me to go shower. Water, as I mentioned before, can be a serious issue here. I don’t have running water from my pipes, ever, even though the house is fully plumbed. The rainy season is on and off for about six months, and during this time, if I’m lucky I can stay stocked up by catching rainwater. I use the rainwater for everything- drinking, bathing, cooking, laundry… On the days it doesn’t rain, I have to budget like I am on some lifeboat on the ocean: “OK, I have enough to make two liters to drink, but not enough to flush today. I’ll have to shower tomorrow, and eat only sandwiches and fresh fruit.” This is no exaggeration, even on the flushing, to my eternal sorrow. Some days I can pay random people who do work in the area to fetch water for me from a local river, but I never seem to find someone when I really need him.

After my bath, I start to cook dinner. I’ll have to cook for you all when I get home, because I’ll have cooked every day for two years (this is a lot for a man who cooked once every two years back in the States). I make a lot of stir-fry type dishes, curries (Tanzanian-style, I’m not hardcore enough to try for Indian or Thai curries), and fried rice. My coup-de-grace in the kitchen was these awesome stuffed cabbage leaves. I can also cook a carrot cake over a coil burner. Think about that. Being adjacent to Lake Victoria, I occasionally pick up a tilapia and fry the hell out of it. Whatever I cook, it tends to take me an hour or two.

By the time I’m done eating, the sun’s gone down and all that’s left to do is either study, read, or watch movies. This is assuming the electricity doesn’t go out (over the last month, I would estimate that I’ve had power roughly fifty percent of the time). If the power goes out, I just read by candlelight. I use the laptop quite a bit in the evenings when I do have power, to listen to music, write, or watch old Simpsons episodes. After an hour or two of this, I’m off to read myself to sleep, while trying to ignore the scratching sounds of rats and bats performing their danse macabre in my ceiling. On two evenings per week, I go conduct lab experiments at around eight pm (it’s the only free time the students and I could find) which last for a few hours. Then its off to bed to dream about fast food, washing machines, and running water.

On the weekends, I usually meet up with the “mzungu contingent”. Those times are a great retreat from the general stress that can build up just living here. I am still the reigning Bukoba beer pong champion, until Scott Boyd arrives to challenge my crown. The Peruvian fellow, Manuel, went home for Christmas and left his guitar with me. I haven’t really played since high school, and I’ve enjoyed picking it back up. Kurt, Ben, Scott- are you down for a Hot Carls reunion tour?

That’s the gist of my life here. I think of Bukoba as home now, and when I go to various Peace Corps trainings, I’m always excited to come back. Seriously, life ain’t bad.

UPDATE: For those of you who read the story about Joseph last post...that went bad. After I left Jodi, I went home. She called me later, saying he'd come back to her house with a note "from Partage" saying that they would have a place for him in a few days, if she could just stay with him until then. She said ok. The next day, she went and did some work at the school, and when she returned, Joseph was gone. He had broken down her bedroom door (which was locked) and rooted through her stuff, looking for money, she thinks. That's the last we've seen of Joseph. Teaches us a lesson for trying to do a good thing doesn't it? How disgusted am I at the abuse that little kid took of Jodi's good nature? Very, very disgusted.

Gripes and a Story

2006-12-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

You’ll have to forgive my infrequent posting, this last month or so. I usually try to write something, even if it’s trivial, every week. I know my family, friends, and perhaps a few others enjoy knowing that I’m still here, safe and sound. These last few weeks I’ve been pretty focused on teaching, and the rare days that I make a trip into Bukoba, the internet tends to be down. Its another of the perils of East Africa- sporadic electricity. But here I am, alive and well. However, it has been a rough couple of weeks for several reasons.

First and foremost, Steph and I split up. I know, I only wrote about us being together a few months ago. Those of you who know me well know that my relationships tend to lack longevity, for whatever reason. Anyway, without going into details, let’s just say having a relationship while living on the opposite corners of Tanzania proved too much for me to handle. It has been a little hard, because we rely on each other’s communications at times when feelings of isolation set in. I still think Steph is a damn cool girl, and I’m hoping that we’ll remain friends. Cross your fingers for me…

Also, over the last week, I have attended two going-away parties for other ex-patriots living in the area. Back to the isolation idea, recall that Bukoba is on the western shore of Lake Victoria, effectively separated from the rest of Tanzania (the roads south around the lake don’t really…exist). We have become a pretty tight bunch here, despite our varying countries of origin, and it hurts to see two of our half-dozen go. Beth is (to use “was” would feel like I’m writing a eulogy) a twenty-something teacher from New York, who I once described as a “party animal”. We relied on her to provide fun ideas for get-togethers and such; she fueled our social machine. Beth flew out on Monday. Matt is a British fellow in his 30s with a doctorate in biology, and he was working in an advisory role for the Tanzanian government. His house is the one with the big fridge, a water heater, an oven, and a panoramic view of Bukoba and the lake. Matt made sure that none of us forgot exactly what sarcasm is (its easy to forget here, Tanzanians are completely baffled by it and so we tend to stop using it, all of us except Matt). With the two of them gone, the much-needed social aspect of our lives is going to be pretty different. Jodi (the other Peace Corps volunteer), Manuel (a rambunctious Peruvian), Gayle (Beth’s former housemate, a music buff) and I are the remnants of our little network. We’ll still figure out ways to have a good time, but Beth and Matt will be missed.

Lastly, I was teacher-on-duty at my school this last week. This is the third time I’ve had this responsibility, but also the most difficult. Let me explain… Tanzanian government schools don’t have the luxury of being able to hire staff to perform a good number of the routine duties the schools need to operate (as an example, two students are serving as librarians in our slowly budding library). Therefore, these duties largely fall upon the teaching staff. We are assigned this task by what ought to be a rotating basis, but fails to exhibit any true rhyme or reason. Teachers-on-duty are given manifold tasks, from making sure students are up and in class on time, to supervising afternoon work hours (remember the grass slashing?), to making sure the staff room has hot tea at break time, to a number of other minute but time-consuming duties. Other teachers-on-duty have the responsibility of punishing (read: beating) students, but that is one task that most, if not all, volunteers shun. Here at Ihungo, the shifts are usually assigned so that there are three teachers-on-duty for a week, and then another three take over. Unfortunately, one of my fellow teachers just happened to be out of town for exactly the week we were on duty, creating more work for we who remained (this is a common occurrence, Jodi and Steph have both given me horror stories about being the only teacher-on-duty because the others have just up and left their duties, leaving behind weak excuses and nightmare weeks for the volunteers). Additionally, my previous two experiences as teacher-on-duty were during my vacations, so I could concentrate on that and not worry about actual teacher; not so this time. Trying to both plan and attend all my lessons while facing the unceasing teacher-on-duty responsibilities was a bit much. I finished up my duties on Monday, frazzled and in need of a break. I’m lucky there were no serious incidents (such as our riot, imagine being the one in charge of trying to stop that…), but it was taxing nonetheless. Especially considering what was going on outside of the school setting, with Steph, Beth, and Matt.

I would write more complaints and difficulties, but I feel like I have been bordering on ranting (or whining, as my brother would say). To be honest, I’m floating along pretty much steady by now, after the turbulence of those weeks passed me by. As I said, I’ve been losing myself in the class room lately. It has been a relief to forget myself in that routine, and also in the mental challenge of preparing lessons on digital electronics to students who live without electricity fifty-percent of the time. There is some irony to be enjoyed there, but the seriousness of my students sometimes turns it ashen. Considering the resources available to most American students, if they were as earnestly devoted to their studies as are a large number of my kids here, America would be producing an awe-striking force of intelligentsia. But at the same time, I think some of these students are sacrificing their enjoyment of life with their furious pursuit of academia…

One last story to leave you with-
Monday night was the date of Matt’s goodbye party. He lives very near to Jodi, so I stopped in to say hello. She looked flustered, and I heard the sounds of dishes being washed in her kitchen. I was immediately confused, as the woman who helps her with laundry and dishes is never around in the evenings. She sat me down in her living room and told me about Joseph. Joseph is a young lad, maybe twelve years old or so. Apparently, for the last three years, he’d been living with a Swedish couple who were doing work in some religious capacity here. Well, they left. He said they tried adopting him, but his grandfather wouldn’t allow it (even though his grandfather is unemployed and has no way to care for Joseph; Joseph’s parents have both passed away). So basically, he was kicked to the curb when they left. I guess this was a few weeks ago, and since then he has been looking around town for work to do, relying on acquaintances and strangers to house him for a night before moving along to look for more work and another place to stay. He came to Jodi’s school looking to do work for the teachers living on campus, of which Jodi is one. She agreed that he could cut her grass, and went to teach or some such. When she returned, he was finished, but was sitting on her steps crying. That’s when he told her his story, which she then related to me as we listened to him wash her dishes. What do you do when you find a kid like that who has no place else to go? Could you be just another person who tells him no? She couldn’t, and she’s got a big heart because of that. So she agreed to help him out. With our connections to the ex-pat and NGO community, we could find him opportunities that he would miss on his own. He told us he had already been turned away by the orphanages and churches, so she asked around at Matt’s party for other ideas. The next morning, we set out bright and early to follow up on the leads we were given. The first was a Belgian or French (I’m not sure which) organization called Partage, which deals exclusively with orphans and is well funded. We were given the name of the director, and so we sought him out. As we left Jodi’s, we agreed that Joseph should come with us, to tell his story first-hand if it was needed. Now here is what floored me… I should have realized it sooner, but not until we set out the door and began our way to Partage did the epiphany strike me. All this kid has are the clothes on his back. When he went to get ready to go, all he did was put on his coat. This triggered me to think about what we were doing, and how overwhelming it must be for him. This kid was a leaf on the wind, I can’t think of a better analogy. When we walked out that door, he had no idea where he might end up. Wherever we took him, whoever accepted him and helped him, they would become his future. Just that simple. The weight of that idea staggered me. Here was this boy, bravely headed with two complete strangers to an unsure and certainly capricious fate. That someone’s life, their destiny could be so…transitory, I still can’t really comprehend it. I think myself and a large number of citizens of Western nations have become used to the idea that we make our destinies, that our efforts will reward us by allowing us to achieve our goals. Goals which tend to be stable, rooted in desires from seeds we planted in childhood and which blossomed in our early adulthood. At least for myself, in one way or another I imagine that I’m always working for some bright future. And here was Joseph’s unreliable future, waiting for him as he walked toward it with only the clothes on his back. The feeling that these ideas gave me as we were en route to Partage was pretty overwhelming. Maybe I’m making something out of nothing, but I still can’t fully comprehend how it would feel to have your fate lay so much in the hands of others that you calmly follow them to meet it. (I imagine some of you might be thinking that this is all our lives, and God is controlling all our fates in that way; perhaps…). In any case, we met the director of Partage, an old French fellow named Phillipe, who told us we’d done a great job bringing Joseph to their organization, and that they would take care of everything and find him a home. The last word from Jodi was that he will be moving into his new home tomorrow. Before you think “What a noble thing they did!” you should know that all I did was to go with Jodi as moral support. She showed herself to be a benevolent soul in taking the responsibility and well-being of Joseph onto her shoulders, and I have been duly impressed by someone I thought I knew well.

Moshi Seminar

2006-11-17T23:15:00.000-08:00

I'm back to my routine of writing here at the internet cafe. A friend of mine just emailed me saying that he hasn't read my post on Rwanda because "the jury is still out on that whole 'reading' thing"... They must be sequestered at the Four Seasons. Anyway, this post will be (a lot) shorter than the previous one. Sorry..? Additionally, thanks to anyone who has written a comment, sent me an email, or used ESP to tell me that they enjoy my writings. Last week when I was at a Peace Corps seminar, several other volunteers came up to me and told me that their parents read my blog and appreciate it. Cool.

I should write about that seminar. It was last weekend, in a town called Moshi. If you all pull out your maps of Tanzania that you keep stored next to your computers, you will see that it is in the north-central part of the country. If you look more closely, you will see that it is right next to a triangle shape. What is that? Yes, consulting your legend, you recognize that is a mountain. What mountain? Why, only the tallest mountain in Africa- the notorious Kilimanjaro. Every morning I awoke, and as I staggered towards my tea and Spanish omelette breakfast, this juggernaut of a mountain loomed over me. Do a google image search for "Kilimanjaro"; its kind of an anomaly, rising solitary about the flat expanses of savannah that surround it. Kilimanjaro is a gentle mountain though, and only towards the top are there steep defiles and cliffs. From what I've been told, most of the climb is easy walking. Also, Kili accounts for the only reason that Tanzanians are familiar with the concept of snow- it is wearing a perpetual white cap over its bald grey head. In fact, most Tanzanians use the same word for 'snow' as they do for 'ice'. Contrast this with Aleutians, who have like eight words (trust me, I speak Aleut). I suppose I will try climbing it before I go home, it would seem like a crime to being Tanzania for two years and to never climb Africa's giant. Maybe I can con a visitor (ahem, Scott Boyd/Ivan Shiras) to scaling it with me...

The seminar itself was pretty mundane. We spent a couple days working over the finer points of proper reporting (paperwork!). Our seminar facilitators were relaxed though, so it wasn't as grueling as it might have been. The best part of going to Moshi was seeing some of my friends from last year's training. I might've mentioned this before, but training was a lot like pledge quarter in the fraternity- a group of people put in a (generally) challenging and foreign situation and expected to adapt. Bonds of friendship form more easily during periods of duress, and so most of our group of 37 (at first, now 34) trainees became fairly close. Then, when we were placed at our sites, we were torn from this pseudo-family we'd formed,alone once again. For this reason, the times we get to see the others from our training group are highly cherished; it's like a miniature homecoming each time. That being said, I certainly didn't get much sleep during the three days we were in Moshi. The seminar began at 8am most days, and we would be up until three, four, five in the morning, talking and venting, reminiscing and telling stories. By the end of the seminar, I was a bleary-eyed grump monster. One huge bonus for us Bukoba volunteers is that Peace Corps now transports us by plane. Oh man, what an improvement. We were booked on an early morning flight out of Moshi into Mwanza (the city on the other side of the lake from Bukoba), and I felt like evil had invaded my core as we made our way to the airport. Once airborne, I alternated between periods of nausea with feverish sweating and chills with cottonmouth. There was no doubt- I was going to be sick. Eventually, I made my way to the lavatory (is that word used anywhere outside of ships/planes?) and made it my headquarters for the rest of the flight. It was pretty funny- I was inside, getting sick, and the flight attendant was outside telling me how amazed he was with my Swahili (we had a little conversation through the door). I've never gotten ill like that on a plane before; I don't recommend it.

After getting into Mwanza, we were expected to immediately change planes and take off to Bukoba. However, Precision Air (a misnomer if there ever was one) had overbooked the flight, so they had to put us up in Mwanza for the night. I was fine with that. Mwanza has great restaurants and stores, plus I just wanted to sleep. They booked us (Jodi and I) rooms at the New Mwanza Hotel, one of the swankier hotels in town. I walked in, turned the A/C onto "maximum freeze", and fell asleep for probably six or seven hours. I woke up in the late afternoon, and turned on the TV. Hello, whats this? Yes, they had HBO. It came from Southeash Asia, right when I woke up, they were just beginning to broadcast "The Goonies". It turned out to be a pretty good day.

The next day we hopped the flight back to Bukoba. The plane with took us was piloted by a huge blonde fellow who must have been named Lars. No other name would've fit. We were in a single-prop plane which fit 12 people. I've never flown in anything that small, it was pretty cool. A passenger was even allowed to sit in the co-pilot seat (Lars rolls solo). I entertained myself by watching all the instrumentation; below, it was the same blue view of Lake Victoria- an ocean without whitecaps. The landing was fun, as the Bukoba airstrip is built adjacent to the lake, like a spoke. At first, you think "We are too low! We're gonna hit the water!" But then Lars pulls you in for a pillow-soft landing.

That's all I've got for today. My brain is tired. Also, if there are a lot of spelling errors, please forgive me. Some of the keys on this keyboard don't seem to work without being smashed by Mjolnir.

Rwanda: Short Trip, Long Post

2006-11-03T01:09:00.000-08:00

OK, as a preemptive warning- I wrote this on my laptop. Usually, I just write my posts off the top of my head here at the internet cafe, but this time I felt like I would forget something important, so I wrote everything in advance. I got a little bit carried away, and you should know that this baby clocks in at over 9 pages in Word. Sorry..? Anyway, read on, and I hope its not mundane.

Last Saturday was my scheduled date to take the graduate record examination (GRE). I might’ve forgotten to mention where exactly I had been registered to sit for it- Kigali, Rwanda. The test is offered in the capital cities of most East African countries, and if I have to travel to take this test, I might as well go somewhere I’ve never been. Thus, I would be visiting Rwanda, a country whose very name elicits images of chaos and tragedy.

I left last Thursday, on a bus resembling a hand-me-down Greyhound at six in the morning. We stayed on main roads for a little while, and I was lulled into catching up on a little sleep. When I awoke, we were on a one lane dirt road, flanked by rolling hills covered in foliage. It made me think of some of Hemingway’s descriptions of the northern Serengeti. I was enjoying this thought and complacently staring out the window, until I noticed the sky was darkening. Within five minutes, we were caught in a torrential storm. The bus was obstinate though, and pressed on. This was slightly disconcerting. Due to the prolificacy of traffic on the winding road, the dirt had been worn into two distinct tracks, much like the passage of a num
ber of skiers along the same path forms the snow into grooves. The rain was being amassing in these parallel channels and forming two impromptu yet substantial streams. At one point we crested a hill, and I could see these tracks shining all the way across the short but deep valley to the apex of the next rise. Perhaps it was due to the bus’s weight, but we managed to cleave our way through the mire, one prominence after another, until we reached a junction with a paved trucking route. We continued in our generally south-western direction for a few more hours, before reaching a crossroads town called Lusahunga at around 11am. This was my end-of-the-line, and I disembarked into a crowd of taxi and dala-dala drivers, all eager to usher me into their vehicles, knowing that my mzungu ignorance might provide them with an extra dollar above the regular fare. Before leaving Bukoba, I had asked a British friend of mine the best way to reach Kigali, and so I was relying on this instruction when I chose one dala-dala (a minibus with seating for 14, but which usually carries about 30) out of the welter. I was the last one to board, and after considerable amounts of rearranging people so that my protrusive legs would fit, we headed off. My head was stuck in a nursing mother’s armpit, and my feet were inextricably locked with about 6 others; it was a good time. Somehow through the mass of Twister-esque riders, I had a small window out of which I could view the passing countryside. After riding in this assuredly comfortable fashion for an hour or so, we came upon the first of the refugee camps. At this point, we were roughly two hours from the border. The first camp set the standard, and the following ones didn’t deviate- a sprawling grid-shaped pattern of tents, all emblazoned with the logo of whichever aid organization donated them. These tents were the size of two phone booths stacked on one another, and each was supposed be enough room for an entire family to live (provided the refugees had managed to emigrate from Rwanda/Burundi/DRC with their families). The rows of tents ran parallel with the road, and from what I could see from my musky vantage point under the arm, the rows were six or seven deep going away from the road. Every kilometer or so, a larger communal shelter had been erected, and these were invariably jammed full of people, socializing as East Africans are wont to do. I asked how these people eat (a large portion, perhaps the majority, of East Africans are subsistence farmers) without having either money or crops. Apparently, they are given small portions of the staple agricultural products once per day, and somehow they take this maize or grain into their respective tents and it is magically transformed into a meal. They rely on these daily allotments of food to survive. It’s hard for me to imagine waiting, every day, for a bus to come and deliver what I will eat that day. I might be running with my imagination, but the only knowledge I have of the camps is what I saw and what I was told. All in all, I passed about 3 of these camps, the largest of which must have been comprised of at least 500 tents, but likely quite a few more. After changing vehicles one more time, I made it to the border. For some reason, the Rwandan government has decided not to make American or British citizens pay for visas (as far as I know), so in effect I waltzed right through the border. The guards began to give my passport perfunctory glances, but when I greeted them in passable Swahili they passed me right through. The emigration office for Tanzania and the immigration (honestly, why did they have to make those two words sound so similar?) office for Rwanda were about 500 meters apart, separated by a bridge. I posted a picture a guy named Rubera (more on him later) took of me on the bridge, over the raging waterfall the bridge straddled. Seeing a picturesque nature scene was not what I had expected at a border crossing. Live and learn. Rubera and I found a car to take us the rest of the way, from the border to Kigali. The roads in Kigali are wonderful, all paved and mostly new. This is one example of the developments engendered by the steroidal infusion of money pumped into Rwanda by Western nations. As we drove along these roads, heading towards the capital, I spent a lot of time looking out the window. Rwanda is a very scenic country, hills and vales covered in verdant hues, terraced mountain sides like you would see on a picture of Thailand/Vietnam on Scott’s blog.

We arrived in Kigali at around six in the evening, as the sun began its last stage of descent. In a wonderful display of hospitality, the driver of the car who had driven Rubera and me from the border offered to let me stay at his house. This worked well for me, for as it turned out the hostel I had been planning on staying no longer existed (one of the perils of using a 9-year old travel guide). Apparently this driver, Jean-Pierre, had been impressed with my Swahili and my short-term travel friendship with Rubera. After a short, American hesitation, I told him I would be honored to be his guest. Good move. His house was quite large, and I later learned that he isn’t a taxi driver at all, but was bringing that vehicle from Dar Es Salaam for his heavy goods business. Apparently, he travels all over East Africa and even takes regular trips to Dubai. That explained his fluent Swahili, especially when I compared it to the rest of his family. He was married with five children, the youngest a newly-born, and also had taken (adopted?) three young adults into his household. Only Jean-Pierre spoke Swahili, everyone else used Kinyarwanda (the unifying local language of all Rwandan tribes, similar to Swahili in Tanzania) or French. I did take a few years of French some time ago, and tried brushing up on it before going. Unfortunately, as soon as I would use the bit that I had rehearsed and memorized, the native French speaker would spout far too quickly for me to understand. My go-to phrases became “How do you say _____ in French?” and then, “Sorry, I don’t speak French” as soon as they would begin to give me a rapid, detailed answer for the previous question. One day I was eating lunch with Jean-Pierre’s wife, a woman I only knew as Mama Onalina, and we tried to talk. There we were, two polyglots, reduced to using masterfully inflected grunts and points to communicate. We ended up just shrugging and laughing after about ten minutes of this ridiculous effort.

The praise that I can give to Mama Onalina was that the food on her table was always delicious. It was basically the same types of food available here- rice, potatoes, ugali, meat and vegetables- but that meat was the most tender I’ve eaten in a year, and the ugali was made from cassava flour instead of corn flour, a delicious change. There was another guest staying with the family, a half-Rwandan half-German kid named Jacques. He was just starting university in Kigali, and when he was around, his English was strong enough that we could talk. In fact, he was so eager to learn about America and Americans and the world outside of Rwanda (I never got his story, just that he is half-German yet grew up in Rwanda) that after a few days of his nonstop sycophantic questioning, I started giving him fairly terse answers. “Is it true that black Americans are all rich like in this music video?” “No. Many are not rich.” “Oh. But look, now is N Sync! Is N Sync still a very popular group?” “No. This video is 7 years old.” “Oh. You Americans all hate Muslims yes?” “No. You are mistaking the actions of our country for the attitude of its peoples.” “Oh. Ok.” My only complaint, which I would never voice to Jean-Pierre, had to do with the sleeping arrangements. After getting dinner and a life-restoring shower that first night I arrived, I told him and Jacques that I was getting sleepy. Jacques hopped up and escorted me to my room, a clean room with a bed somewhere between a twin and a double in size. Sweet deal. I told Jacques thanks, then became perplexed when he didn’t leave. It turned out that this was also Jacques room. “Wait, you mean we’re sharing this bed?” “Yes. It is our bed.” “Oh. Ok.” Honestly, I don’t think I’ve shared a bed with another man since my last sleepover at a friend’s house some ten or fifteen years ago, and certainly not since I grew into this tall frame of mine. But I guess I didn’t really have a choice, to refuse the bed would be to refuse Jean-Pierre’s hospitality, and he’d been so kind I couldn’t do that. So I turned off that little comfort/discomfort switch in my head and got mentally prepared to try and sleep next to Jacques. Now why is it that, as soon as you accept an awkward situation as compulsory and therefore manageable, there is always a twist? I was talking with Steph, telling her about this little predicament, and she started laughing and asked me if Jacques slept “in the buff.” I think “the buff” would be the crossing the man-comfort line, but even as it was, Jacques was treading pretty darn close to that line. Jacques slept in only a pair of Speedo-esque briefs. When he first got ready for bed and removed his pants, his shirt covered the extent of his briefs, and I think I might’ve gotten a nervous tic while briefly considering the possibility that Jacques was “in the buff.” Still, sleeping next to a man in a man-thong is terrible, especially when considering that Jacques turned out to be a “mobile sleeper,” his legs gradually, nonchalantly exploring the expanse of our tragically small bed. I managed to curl myself into the minutest volume physically possible and positioned myself in the far corner, sleeping as much on the wall as on the bed, dreaded the inevitable contact from Jacques’ five-toed reconnaissance agents. Amazingly, I fell asleep quite quickly, all the while blessing the exhausting nature of overland travel in East Africa.

My test was slated to take place Saturday morning, so I had all of Friday to explore greater Kigali. I awoke, got served tea instantly by Mama Onalina, and headed out. The plan was basically to give myself a walking tour of the city. Unfortunately, I had no map (except for one consisting of only 5 major roads that was a decade old; useless) and was given cursory instructions of how to reach the American embassy, and from there, downtown Kigali. The previous day had been balmy, so when I wore a long sleeve shirt and jeans, I was assuming that overcast, clement weather was the Rwandan standard. After about halfway into the 45-minute walk from Jean-Pierre’s house to the embassy row, I realized that I’d erred; the sun was railing down with fury, and this was at eight in the morning. My reason for going to the American embassy was that the GRE would supposedly be conducted there the following day, and I wanted confirmation I’d come to the right place. Arriving drenched in sweat after losing my bearings twice, I was glad to see a massive air conditioner unit outside the embassy. My ticket stub said I’d be taking the test in the “American Cultural Center” section of the embassy, but this turned out to be a small meeting room adjacent to the library. Lingering in the cool air, I eventually found the man who would supervise the test- fortuitously, for he told me the starting time had been moved forward by half an hour. After departing the embassy, I commenced to wander around the “downtown” area of Kigali until lunch time.

What can I say about Kigali..? The first thing that comes to mind is the serious amount of development taking place. Likely this is standard for many large cities, but every corner I rounded, I found another building/road/infrastructural object under construction. It was common to see a ramshackle, decrepit old structure juxtaposed with a shining, towering office building which was plainly raised quite recently. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, due to its small size, and this was evident in the sheer number of people and buildings I passed in my meanderings. If I stood on the crest of any of the hills comprising Kigali, I would see almost nothing but closely-packed houses in every direction. The houses were never quite destitute enough to be called a “slum,” but they were far from palatial. In fact, the city planning board must have been asleep when most of these houses went up; narrow alleyways bend and jump between the irregularly spaced homes, disappearing and reappearing according to the builders’ whimsy. One guess is that, after the genocide, people sought the theoretical security of the city in such quantities that it simply wasn’t possible to accommodate them all in any organized fashion. While I enjoyed my aimless journey through the city, there was a pervasive and slightly discomforting factor which followed me- the mendicants. From the other East African countries I’ve seen, the sheer number of beggars that are present in Kigali simply is unmatchable. Every street, every stop sign, every roundabout held a handful of people who would walk alongside me, so close I could feel their breath as they solicited my help. It was a bit overwhelming, especially considering their tenacity; some followed me for two or three blocks, asking for help first in French, then English, Kinyarwanda, and so on. I tried to sympathize, as many of these people were younger, likely orphans. Most of you are probably familiar with the sign “Homeless Vietnam vet, need help, God bless” or its similar alternatives. While a large number of veterans did incur problems as a result of the war, problems which might result in being unable to take a job, many times that sign is just used to educe pity, to engender greater earnings. Eventually, one begins to distrust anyone who invokes the words “Vietnam vet” as a possible charlatan. As heartless as this may make me sound, after being continually overwhelmed by people repeatedly saying “genocide,” I began to doubt. First off, the street children under the age of ten or so weren’t even alive during that time, and they couldn’t be orphans from the genocide, as they were born sometime after it. Additionally, while there is no job market or simple, reliable way to find employment here, one has to remember that the genocide took place over 12 years ago. Many, most, Rwandans have started new lives, and I wonder if some of those needy people who gravitated towards me in the streets aren’t using the memory of the genocide as a sort of crutch, a way to keep from feeling socially responsible. Will they be saying “genocide” 12 years from now, as well? Yes, this is an overly basic analysis of something extremely complex. Yes, I’m a terrible, evil person for thinking these things.

In any case, after a few more hours of wandering these chaotic streets, I found a great place for lunch. It was situated in the “Kigali Business Center,” which is an odd name for a small two-level strip mall featuring travel agencies, a restaurant, and a discotheque. Lunch was a buffet of the gamut of East African foods, and I ate too much, especially of the cilantro salsa and fish. With a dangerously full belly, I waddled my way to one of the highlights (if I can call it a “highlight”) of my entire trip- the Genocide Memorial.

For me, and for most Westerners, thinking of Rwanda inherently means considering the horrible genocide which took place in 1994. To honor those who were killed or those who lost family and friends, the Rwandan government built the Genocide Memorial center, on the tenth anniversary of the genocide. The site was chosen due to its fitting locale- the memorial building abuts the mass graves of many people slaughtered in the Kigali area. It was hard, if not impossible, not to be overwhelmed by the solemnity of the memorial and the travesty of the history it portrayed. Beginning with a pre-history of Rwanda and its tribes, we learned the divisive effect that missionaries and colonists had upon a previously concordant people. The in-depth presentation gradually unveiled the events which exacerbated tribal jealousies, culminating in warfare in the 1970’s, and then again in the 1990’s. If you have any particular questions about what were the main causes of the genocide, email me or read wikipedia. The first display case in the “During the Genocide” section was full of bones, and on the top on them, chains and a lock were placed. Apparently, a Hutu man had married a Tutsi woman, and during the wholesale slaughter, marauding Hutu warriors paid them both for their inter-tribal marriage by chaining them together and burying them alive. The bones were theirs. The rest of the exhibit was more examples of the atrocities conducted during the genocide, all awe striking and unbelievable, but one of the hardest things to observe was the multi-part interviews which unfolded on a number of televisions as one progressed. Watching these people talk about what they went through, or what they saw done to their loved ones, was devastating. I mean, really… To top it all off, I think the last two rooms might have been the most overpowering of all. In the penultimate room was a tribute to the children who were murdered, entitled “Lost Future.” It consisted of rows and rows of pictures that families had contributed, of the children they’d lost. Adjacent to this haunting memorial were plaques and pictures dedicated to just a few of the children, detailing their names, ages at the time, favorite things, and lastly, their cause of death. The final plaque contained the most disturbing thing I would read all day: “Cause of death- machete wielded by her own mother”… Ok, sorry to lay that on you all, but it’s unthinkable, isn’t it? Apparently, many Tutsi were offered life if only they killed their loved ones first, and this woman…well…she took the deal (the other end was never held up, of course). And finally, the last room was a general room of loss- notes and pictures covered the walls, people writing to the family and friends they’ll never see again. Glancing at some of the words on these letters, written to people who were gone, who would never read their words, I just about lost it, and had to go outside and breathe for awhile. About a year and a half ago, I went with some good friends to Europe, and while in Budapest we stopped at what was aptly named the “Terror Museum,” a museum dedicated to the horrors inflicted upon Hungarians first by the Nazi Arrow Cross, then by Communists. The whole time I was at the Genocide Memorial, I was reminded of this Terror Museum, and of the malevolence that humans have wrought upon one another, all over the globe. I bought a bracelet whose proceeds go to the upkeep of the Memorial (it is free to enter; they want everyone to know, to see) on which is written “Genocide: Never Again.” Let’s hope so, but somehow, I doubt it…

Leaving this scene and its sorrows behind me as best I could, I made my way home. The rest of my day was spent chatting with Mama Onalina and Jean-Pierre, drinking tea (they served it four times per day, every day), and studying for the GRE. Jacques called to say he was out of town and wouldn’t be back until the following day, and I rejoiced. After dinner, I was telling Jean-Pierre about my day, and especially how overwhelmed I was by the Genocide Memorial. He nodded, and cautiously told me that his entire family- two parents and six children- was murdered, except for him and his youngest brother. At the time, he was my age, twenty-four. What do you say to that? I almost lost it again. He told me not to worry, that I didn’t have to say anything. God had provided a new life for him, he told me, and for Mama Onalina, whose parents were also killed. In fact, all the people in his household except for his own five children lost some or all of their families during the genocide. Staying with this family, who had all lived through so much grief and loss and yet were so open and friendly…yeah it made me feel small. It put a lot of what I was worrying about (traveling, the GRE, teaching, life in general) into perspective, you know?

I slept well, and left early the next morning to take my test. Arriving early at the embassy, they told me to scram for twenty minutes until they opened. I had spotted a restaurant called “Chez Robert” on the walk over, so I went back to take a picture of it to waste some time (no point in cramming for the GRE), and it was at this point that my camera stopped working. Hence, there are unfortunately few pictures of my trip. I headed back to the embassy and found a crowd outside- my fellow test takers. We were about twenty in all, three Americans and the rest Rwandan. An over excitable man named Charles was proctoring the exam, and he was so fastidious in making sure everything was in order and that all the instructions were read and understood that we were quite late in starting. I’m under written oath not to give out any details of the test, but it was pretty rigorous. Generally, the GRE consists of two essays, two verbal sections, and two quantitative sections. Towards the end of each section, when Charles would tell us “five minutes”, this one tubby Rwandan guy would always look up with a shocked, wide-eyed Rodney Dangerfield face and say “Five minutes!? It can’t be!” It happened every on every single section. Awesome. By the time we reached the final section, we’d been testing for over 3 hours, and my brain was running on empty. I think I did pretty well, but I’ll let you all know the exact results in a couple months when I get them. Honestly, that test is not designed for people who use English as a second or third language, and I had to pity some of the Rwandans whose grasp of this era’s lingua franca was a bit tenuous.

After finishing the exam, I found a good local place to get lunch and hunkered down with a plateful of starches and a massive, ice cold beer. It was called “Müstzig” or some similar Germanic name, and came in a 650ml bottle (Davis- about 22 ounces of glory). I tooled around town on my post-test, post-huge beer high for a few hours, eventually coming back to Jean-Pierre’s to take a much welcomed nap. Even during my nap, the family served me tea. I woke up and it was on my bed stand, still piping hot and delicious. By the time I roused myself, Jacques was back in action. He had borrowed some pirated music video DVDs, and demanded that I watch them with him. Mostly they consisted of boy bands, Celine Dion, and soft hip-hop or R-n-B (think Usher). In other words, my musical heaven. For most of the evening, I watched these with Jacques and gave him lyrics and details about the bands. I became moderately annoyed when he played Shakira “Hips Don’t Lie” for about the fifth time, wanting to make sure he had the chorus right. I could write the words now, but I’ll spare you.

Sunday was my final day, and it was all booked up. Rubera, the friendly guy from my trip, had politely insisted that I come meet his family. He promised to arrive at ten in the morning, to escort me. At one in the afternoon (recall: we are on African time) Rubera showed up, and off we went. After a short dala-dala ride, we’d reached his father’s house, which turned out to be a church compound. He introduced me to his father, who is a church leader for the Adventists in the greater Kigali region (apparently, he presides over a church council affecting some 100 churches). I really enjoyed talking with Rubera’s father (the Deacon); he spoke immaculate English and had a degree in theology. While we discussed, Rubera ran all over the place helping his mom prepare a meal. He served us juice to whet our appetites, juice made from pineapples and red beets. It took me a while to figure out exactly what it was, and the Deacon couldn’t remember the English name for “beet”. That has to be one of the strangest tasting juices ever made, but it didn’t prepare me for the meal they made. It was strictly vegetarian (this is unusual), and included a cilantro-beet salad, some sort of soy-ball soup, and something else that tasted like paper but looked like stew. Having been here for awhile now, I’ve grown accustomed to the standard meals- rice, ugali, potatoes, beef. This, while not being the most delicious meal I’ve encountered, certainly was the most original. Right before it was served, Jean-Pierre showed up. We had planned to go around the city in his company’s car, so he could show me some sights. I kept looking at his face while he ate, hoping for some sign of either shock or approval. All I got was that he didn’t take seconds. When we were ready to go, the Deacon made everyone come stand around me while they prayed for me. Jean-Pierre, while not presiding over a large number of churches, is highly pious. As the Deacon began praying on one side of the circle, so did Jean-Pierre on the other side. I felt a little awkward, like two ladies were asking me to dance at the same time. They battle-prayed for about five minutes, if you can believe that, gradually getting louder as they struggled to be heard. It was flattering that they both cared so much.

The guided tour of Kigali that Jean-Pierre and I had planned unfortunately didn’t work out so well. Rubera had been so late on escorting me to the Deacon’s that we were only left with an hour of nominal sunlight when we departed. What I got to see that my own wanderings hadn’t encompassed- Kigali International Airport, a very 70’s looking structure; the national football stadium, where there was a game and a throng of people; the Rwandan Parliament building, which still bears marks from the fire it took during the genocide (but which I barely made out due to the waning light); and a huge roundabout that doubles as a peace park. When we got home, we socialized, shared our last dinner together, and then I gave them a token of my appreciation. Before my camera stopped working, I’d had a picture taken of Jean-Pierre and me, and of Mama Onalina and me. They had many loose photos lying around, so I bought a photo album and put those two pictures in it. They seemed happy, but I felt like it was a pretty small gesture considering how much they’d helped me out and taken care of me.

After one last night sleeping next to a mostly-in-the-buff Jacques, I was driven to the bus stand by Jean-Pierre. We said our goodbyes and I hopped the six-am bus to Tanzania. Three hours and a nap later, I arrived at the border, sped through, and caught a cab share to the local outdoor bus stand. Upon reaching this place, called Benaco, I noticed there were precious few vehicles waiting for passengers. I had just missed the departures of almost all buses leaving Benaco. Great. After waiting an excruciating four hours, a Land Rover from some religious organization pulls up; the driver had extra space and wanted to make a buck. This is a common occurrence in East Africa. Hitchhiking is rare, but it is well known that almost any driver will pick you up if he has room and you are willing to pay. Well, I wasn’t the only one that had been waiting at Benaco who was willing to pay. We fit five people (included me) in the backseat, and about eight in the luggage area. The passenger seat was saved for the armed guard. Any public transit vehicle moving around that region has to travel with an official guard carrying some sort of semi-automatic. I was told that the reason is that over the last few months, several buses have been robbed, and several cab drivers have been murdered. I’m not sure if this is hearsay, but it was slightly comforting having the guy along. I needed all the comfort I could get, considering how this guy drove. First off, I took a different, shorter route back, but the roads were terrible. This man didn’t seem to notice, and drove generally around 100km per hour down the potholed, dirt roads. The scariest part of it was that he was a fairly lecherous fellow, and made sure this young woman had the seat right next to him. While he drove, he would chat with this lady incessantly, and most of the time would look at her instead of the road. Thus, he wouldn’t see enormous holes or mounds coming up, and we actually left the ground at least five times. I’m not kidding, and I thought “this is how people die” over and over. But we were in the middle of nowhere, really, and it was this riding with a crazy man or sleeping in the middle of nowhere. As we got closer to civilization and the roads improved, he drove faster. At one point, he put on a tape of religious songs. Initially, I thought he was just playing it for us, but at one point he slowed down and I realized that he had megaphones mounted on his Rover, blaring his music for the world to hear. Imagine being some Tanzanian kid, playing by the road, when you hear this awful (it was awful), deafening music. You look to see where it’s coming from, and a Land Rover filled with people like sardines (including one white one) hurtles past you at relativistic speeds. The ensuing dust cloud which followed the vehicle looked more like thick brown fog coating the world.

Miraculously, we made it to Bukoba none the worse for wear, and in record time. When I paid the guy, I told him that he definitely showed me the way to find God on that trip. He didn’t get it. I immediately went to the new restaurant in Bukoba, which opened about two weeks ago and has a soft-serve ice cream machine, and ate three ice cream cones. Somehow that seemed like a fitting way to end such a ridiculous journey. I took a cab home, and when I got back, I saw that I looked like a coal miner thanks to the massive dust cloud, and began to heat up some water for a much-needed bath. Within five minutes of me getting in, the power went out. Are you kidding me, what is that?

Now my break is over, I’m back to teaching, and things are good. For a (more or less) weekend trip to Rwanda, I had a pretty unforgettable time. If you actually read all of this, I am very impressed.

Am I in Russia?

2006-10-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

Last week, a local shopkeeper invited me over for lunch. It was good, a ton of rice served inside banana fronds and some sort of fish stew. Every little shop around here (I'll take a post a picture of one soon, they are fairly unique) sells what they call "kiroba" and what sane people call "evil bags of cheap liquor". These pouches contain what the Monarch vodka people rejected, if you can believe that (or at least that is what I gauged by tasting them). So this shopkeeper, having access to many kirobas, served us the world's cheapest vodka during the entire lunch. He poured it straight, drank it warm and unmixed. Thus, I was forced to do so as well. Remember, this was lunch time, one in the afternoon. We must've drank 3 or 4 of these vile things apiece. I feel like I went to bed in Tanzania and woke up in equatorial Russia.

Jazzercise!

2006-10-14T02:57:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I have been here for a year, I've acclimated to a number of things that were at first quite foreign to me. One of the most major difficulties was adjusting to the types of foods available here. When I first learned that I wouldn't be able to get a good cheeseburger for two years, something inside me died. Slowly, I've found myself enjoying what I can get here more and more. Except for my food-nemesis, dagaa, those little silver death traps. But in general, I enjoy the rice and beans, the flavorless lumps of ugali, the mashed and boiled bananas, the Irish or sweet potatoes. Wait a minute, what's this? Every prevalent food in this country happens to be on a list that would give our old friend Mr. Atkins conniptions. It is simply impossible to not eat extremely starchy, carbohydrate-ridden foods. Before I left, people would joke about how many of my ribs would be visible by the time I came back, or other innuendos about my potential emaciation. Contrary to popular opinion, food has always been readily available here. So much so, in fact, that I began to "thicken" in certain areas. Yes, Africa was making me fat. Honestly, you all should see how much the typical Haya (the local tribe) eats in a sitting; it's phenomenal. Tanzanians enjoy having these giant group parties for anything important in their lives, such as to celebrate an engagement, a marriage, a graduation, and so on. I guess its not too different from our own customs, except at every party, the hosts provide a Tanzanian buffet. All those foods I mentioned above, in spades. It is awestriking to see the people on either side of you piling their plates to the point that the different foods are no longer discernible; they build giant food haystacks. So I guess this jovial eating spirit must've overtaken me, and caused the partial demise of my flat belly.

When I first noticed, it inspired me to get back into the classic exercise regime. You know- run three times a week, do pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, etc... My biggest quandary was where and when to go running. I've mentioned in the past that I tend to attract a lot of attention wherever I go, just because white people are relatively rare around here, especially tall ones that speak Swahili. I get this attention even when I am doing something normal, such as walking to town, or doing yard work. Once, and only once, I went running on the main road near my house. It was pretty awful... If there's one thing I don't want when I am all sweaty and out of breath, its to have every person I pass stare at me and ask me what I'm doing. Also, Tanzanians don't understand why my face turns bright red like a tomato, they think I'm having health problems. (This is also true of sunburns...). In every other direction from my house, there are steep hills, which I don't feel confident in tackling under this equatorial sun. My solution was to make laps around the football field in front of my house, in the evening when few people are around and the sun is blazing minimally. This worked really well for the first few days, and I got to the point where I could run and let my mind wander, instead of focusing on how much pain I was in. I had some of my neighbors, and especially their children, that would sit outside and watch me for a a little while, but since these people are my friends, I didn't mind.

What happened to my routine is pretty awesome, actually. Word must have spread, and every day more and more little kids from around the area began showing up, to watch the mzungu do his exercise. At first, they sat in one place, and cheered every time I passed them. It was cute, and a little bit inspiring. Then one day, one little fellow decided to try to run with me. He kept up for about 4 laps, so maybe 1600 meters or so (Davis- 1 mile). I was way impressed! Since that day, every day I run, all the kids that are around have a little contest to see who can keep up with Masanja (now that they know me, I'm not "the mzungu" anymore) for the longest. Yesterday, there must've been about 10 or 15 running all around me, laughing and clapping. The other teachers chuckle and ask me why all the children are chasing me. When we finish, I teach them little exercises like doing pull-ups on the football goals. I have to admit, its a big bright spot on my day. There's one kid who stuck with me for about ten laps once. After a while I was worried he was going to outlast me..! Anyway, since I've been on break, this interaction has kept me happily occupied. I've even trimmed off the unwelcome excess on my stomach. Stupid Tanzanian carbohydrate food! And yet, I can't wait to get back to the States and eat burgers, pizza, and lasanga.

Dub Ya

2006-10-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

At lunch today I was greeted with a nice surprise. My favorite lunch spot, Maendeleo Cafe ("Development" cafe), was playing a magnificent movie for everyone to watch as we ate. The movie..? "Cobra" with Sylvester Stallone. Has anyone else (besides Lance) ever heard of this movie? Or am I just not in the know about old Sly films? No, that can't be true. I've seen both "Over the Top" and "Rhinestone", both classics in the truest sense of the word. If any of you have not seen "Rhinestone", tonight is the night to treat yourself, if only to see how many awesome shirts Sly wears in that movie.

The noteworthy aspect to this showing of Cobra was the Swahili dubbing. When most people think of dubbing they think of old kung-fu movies where the main bad guy has a voice like a frog, and that voice and his lips move together only nominally. Swahili dubbing is a whole different ballgame. There is only one man who dubs the entire film. He doesn't translate what people say though, instead he simply gives a very soccer-like play by play of what the people are seeing. His voice even gets all excited during the action scenes, just like the announcer who gets pumped when there's a shot on goal. It's great. I tried listening to what the announcer was saying, and here is a rough translation of the first part of the movie:

"People are at a store, buying watermelons. Oh no, there is a bad man. He has a gun. Look he shot a watermelon! People are scared and want to run. He scares them with the gun. The police come, in their cars. They speak at the evil man, he shoots his gun at them! A new car, very nice, arrives. Cobra gets out of the nice car. He is wearing sunglasses. Cobra goes to the policemen. Now they are talking. Cobra goes into the store, he has a gun also. Cobra hides himself in the cans of beans. The evil man cannot see Cobra. Cobra sees the evil man. Cobra runs to the evil man, but they see each other first. Cobra and the evil man do point their guns at each other! Cobra is not scared. Cobra talks at the evil man, and now the evil man is more angry than before he was angry. The evil man yells!! Cobra throws a knife into the evil man's chest! But the evil man is not dead. He is wanting to kill Cobra now. Cobra shoots the evil man with his gun! Now the evil man is dead!! Cobra!!!!"

The best part is that anyone with eyes has seen all of this occur roughly two seconds before the announcer mentions it. I think the way that Tanzanians dub is to get drunk, watch a movie while a microphone is nearby, and talk about what they just saw. I feel like watching a movie with a commentator making sure you know that Cobra is wearing sunglasses only improves the experience. He yelled "Cobra!!" like the guy who yells "Gooaaaaalllll!" It was amazing.

One Year of Solitude

2006-09-23T01:01:00.000-07:00

Today as I was walking in to town, I passed some convict laborers. They were wearing the same, easily identifiable, bright orange jumpsuits that you all know (and love?). I passed them at work around a police guest house a bit outside of town. I don't know what a police guest house is, but its not important. What was ironic to me was the work these convicts were engaged in. Every one of them had a little hand-held sickle and was crouched over some grass around the guest house, slashing away. A policeman stood over them, supervising their work. I couldn't help but picture in my head those convicts wearing the school uniforms of Ihungo, and the policeman being dressed like a teacher. It would be an easy switch- swap out his club for a cane and the transformation is complete. Otherwise, it was exactly the same. To be honest, seeing such an easy comparison between the way the law treats criminals and the way school administrations treat students saddens me. What to do, what to do..? My grant to provide them with push-mowers is completed and awaiting review, but that's not going to changes any attitudes. I'm not trying to be a whiner here, just wondering what more I can do...

Anyway, to lighten up a little bit, I've got some good news. Yesterday was my training groups one year anniversary in Tanzania. My dad talked to me last week, and said something like, "Doesn't seem like a whole year has passed, does it?" My response: "No, it feels like more." Its nice to feel like I'm starting a new year. Now that I have a comfortable grip of the language, I can get more involved. I'll keep you all up to date. Happy anniversary!

You have a what?

2006-09-18T04:29:00.000-07:00

Last week was the final classes of the semester, and this week my students will be taking terminal examinations all week. I have the responsibility of "invigilating" (is this actually a word? It's used here all the time, to mean "supervising") them as they get owned by my new, more difficult tests. Then, I have another month off. I won't know what to do with myself; there's only so many times a man can watch "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick" back to back, you know? But I'm sure I'll figure out something to do, so instead of pondering let me fill you in on my last few weeks.

First and foremost, I'm not going anywhere. Or if I am, Peace Corps hasn't told me. But its been about three weeks now, so I think I'm in the clear. The second thing which is also pretty important is that my girlfriend visited me for about a week. Yes, you read that correctly. There is a certain lady by the name of Steph who tamed the mighty lion inside me in June or so, and then we made plans for her to come visit. Now, this was quite a feat, the two of us dating in the first place. The main reason being that she lives in Masasi, which is near Mtwara. (For those of you who need more reference, edumacate yourselves and look at a map). If you've successfully located Mtwara, you see that it is as far as possible away from Bukoba, while still being in the same country. When I mention Mtwara to people who live around here, their reaction is invariably "Ooh that's far!" And it is, it takes three days overland to get from here to there, if (this is a big if) none of the buses break down. Steph had to attend a conference in Moshi a few weeks ago, and managed to piggy-back a little journey up here onto her trip.

Before I continue, let me give you all a short run-down on Steph. She's from Colorado, which is basically the Northwest, just replace beaches with mountains. However, she went to University of Oregon to get her Bachelor's (in chem). That means she is familiar with my neck of the woods. She was even dragged to Glide once, to observe the majesty that is Colliding Rivers. So that's pretty interesting, knowing some of the same people and places. For fear of sounding ridiculous, I would probably say Steph is the coolest girl in Tanzania Peace Corps. And I really think most of the women I've met in Peace Corps have been awesome...

Anyway, that's the background. She came here for about a week, and we had a great time. It was nice to share a lot of the things I go through from day to day with someone else, especially someone who goes through a lot of the same things on her own. The first night she got in, I had arranged a little shindig. This shindig included two of the fraternity's staples- power hour and beer pong. I felt like I was home again! (But Sasha, its just not the same without you...). The rest of the week we relaxed, visited various people and friends, played some basketball, drew with crayons, and so on. The next weekend, we were invited to a costume party. The theme? You can wear anything besides clothes. You will see the picture of our costumes on my pictures page soon, they were pretty radical. Anyway, the whole time Steph was here we had a great time getting to know one another without relying on our cell phones. It was a (really) hard goodbye though, and a hellish trip back for Steph. Her buses broke down what must've been a record number of times, and men kept hassling her. (This can be a pretty serious issue for women in Tanzania, unwanted male attention. It seems to be more sedate here in Bukoba than other places, especially large cities. Sometimes behavior like that ruins the image you have of Tanzanians being such friendly folk.)

After she headed home, I came down with a little gut problem that rendered me immobile for about a week. The worst part was that I first got hit on the same day Steph left. Turned into a pretty bad day for me. What day was that? September 11th. I'll leave the irony at the door. One last thing- I have been trying to post a lot of pictures, and I have more. Keep an eye on my pictures page to be amazed.

Some Things Do Change...

2006-08-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

You know how if things are going pretty smoothly in your life, and someone asks you whats up, you reply "not much" or "the usual" and so on..? Or if I am writing an entry and life has been calm, I'll start by saying "so not much has happened since I last wrote." Well, this post will be the opposite of that. A lot of things have happened, and life got pretty crazy here for awhile. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I've got a lot to say.

It all started last week Saturday, when one of our students complained of feeling sick. The next day, he was taken to the regional hospital, where they diagnosed him with malaria. However, this was an incorrect diagnosis, which they realized when they saw his condition exacerbating (GRE word #1). On Monday the poor kid went into a coma, and was having trouble breathing. At this point, he was diagnosed again and found to have meningitis(!). I'm not sure which type, but thats not important. What is inmportant was that the proper medicine was in short supply, so the entire town had to scoured to find him any. Maybe it was too little, too late, for a day and night later, he passed away. This was around 11pm Tuesday night.

At his bedside, a fellow student had been present. This student immediately called his classmates to tell them the terrible news. Within a few minutes of his death, a majority of the students knew of it. Now, this is the first student death at Ihungo in five or six years, but I've been informed that the "standard procedures" when a student passes away are to hold a school-wide assembly the following day to address the issue. Well, the advent (GRE word #2) of cellular phones allowed this procedure to be circumvented, and the students were aware of the death before the administration. And they were very, very unhappy.

Shortly after getting the news, the students arranged amongst themselves to meet at their parade ground. Once assembled, the organized a plan to march en masse to the headmaster's house, to voice their grievances. Their largest concern was that the student wasn't treated properly, they thought with more attention he could have been spared. Maybe, maybe not... Well, at this gathering, another student collapsed and was taken to the house of another school official. I suppose this student's collapse was the progenitor (GRE word #3) of the events which follow. While this student was being looked at in the other house, the students decided to march, as planned. But now, rage was with them.

They arrived at the headmaster's house, roughly 500 of them, as a seething mob. Somewhere en route to his house, mob mentality had taken over and they didn't calmly present their concerns, as was initially planned. Now if you recall from my previous post about the soccer riot, what these kids do when they form a mob is throw rocks. So that's what they did. They began bombarding the headmaster's house with rocks, and the yell "Tunakufa!" got taken up ("We are dying!"). They demanded the headmaster come out and face them, and give them an explanation, but prudently he remained inside and told them via a window that he would address them if they calmed down and returned to the parade ground. They refused.

I should point out two important facts now. The first is that they arrived at his house around 1am, and that at this time, the power had gone out. The second is that Aaron's house was adjacent to the headmaster's (yes, was; we'll get to that). Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the cacophony (GRE word #4) of 500 students rioting, and then realizing you can't turn on the lights to see what's going on- the night is stygian (GRE word #5).

That's what happened to Aaron, he woke up, and not knowing what was happening, he went outside. The students saw him, and yelled at him "Go back inside! This doesn't concern you!" He did, as anyone would when faced with 500 angry students with rocks. The rioting and shouting continued for an hour or so, but eventually the mob moved away from the headmaster's house and into the soccer field, where a coalition from the school met with them.

Around this time, two things happened concurrently (GRE word #6). First, the school administration realized the students were getting more and more out of hand, and that they wouldn't disperse. Second, Aaron assumed all the students had left his immediate area, as the shouting had ceased. He decided to go outside again and see the aftermath of this maelstrom (GRE word #7). When he went out on his porch, he heard some commotion around the headmaster's car, and so he shined his flashlight in that direction. The students he illuminated immediately responded by throwing rocks at him. Maybe to avoid being identified, maybe because they were just angry... Whatever the case, two of the windows in Aaron's house were broken, and he was hit a glancing blow to his head. Don't worry; he's fine physically. But emotionally, the fact that his students he came here to help would be brazen (GRE word #8) enough throw stones at him really got under his skin. So much so, the next morning he called Peace Corps and told them the situation, requesting a transfer.

At around 3am, the administration called the police, who arrived to break up the riot an hour later. Most of the students fled into the hills surrounding Ihungo, so as to avoid punishment. They are still slowly trickling in, a week later. The riot attracted regional and even national attention, making the front page of the news in Dar Es Salaam.

What matters to you is probably my safety. If there's one thing you should not worry about, its my safety. This might sound counterintuitive (GRE word #9) considering what you just read, but my house was far from the scene. I even had some of my students tell me they had wanted to ask to sleep in my house, to escape all the riot nonsense. I've never felt jeopardized here, even during this recent debacle.

But, as I've said, Ihungo is different now. Aaron was in fact transferred. He has been placed at a school in Njombe, which is two days' travel from Bukoba. In fact, Peace Corps was considering transferring me as well. Safety issues are of prime importance to our national office, and they had trouble rationalizing the act of moving one person but not two, especially at the same site. My regional director flew to Bukoba to ascertain (GRE word #10) exactly how volatile the situation was. It took him, my headmaster, various teachers and students, and myself roughly 8 hours worth of meetings to decide that Ihungo was A) calm again, and B) safe for me to stay at. At this juncture, it looks likes we succeeded. I will probably not have to move. However, its not my decision, or even that of the regional director. The national director has to look at the reports and make an impersonal choice as to my fate. I'm still nervous. I don't want to leave Ihungo. In fact, my students even gave me a round of standing applause when I told them how I had disagreed with Peace Corps, saying I didn't want to go. That was a pretty solid gesture.

So, in summary, for the long-paragraph wary:
1) A student passed away.
2) The other students rioted.
3) Aaron was hit with a stone.
4) Peace Corps moved him.
5) I am safe, but might also be moved.

Things are different at Ihungo without Aaron. Its going to be another act of adaptation to adjust to the lack of his presence. There are times I want to call him to watch a movie or cook dinner, and as I begin to dial I remember that his house is empty now. It all happened really suddenly. He flew out last Thursday.

What's up with my students loving to riot so much? Does anyone think it might be related to their school life? (Consult my post "Saved By the Bell: The African Years" if you haven't burned out on reading today). Thats it for today, sorry for my verbosity (GRE word #11).

PS I'm studying for the GRE.

Some Things Never Change...

2006-08-22T00:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I did right in a past life, but in the last week two different people had barbecue parties. This might not sound like something amazing to you, but lets consider my normal dinner- rice. Oh, and some vegetables to put on the rice. So when I am invited to a party which revolves around a big, meat-cooking grill, it becomes a near-spiritual event. Two in one week is unheard of... Both were immaculate, and I ate roughly three paper-plate-fulls of food each time. However, the first one is notable, for reasons I shall explain.

This first BBQ was a going-away party for a Tanzanian friend who is studying at the University of Maryland. It was a little awkward at first because she had invited her family and their friends, but also us white folks, and we ended up forming two distinct groups. One circle of chair for the foreigners, one for the locals. Kind of like at junior high dances... But once the meat was thrown onto the grill, we began to intermingle. That is the power of a BBQ, it erases cultural boundaries with its universality.

Being a member of the male sex, I immediately walked over to watch the technique of the guy working the BBQ. Even here, men cluster around the grill with their arms crossed, nodding to one another. I was pretty impressed to see that they don't use spatulas here to flip the meat. The guy was using his bare hands, and all of a sudden I felt all my manliness retreat to a safer place. The food was awesome, they cooked huge goat ribs, some beef slab thing, some pork slab thing, and of course, burgers. Here is my only gripe- the burgers were not...well, big. I know what you are thinking, but let me be honest- if you get a bun which is four inches in diameter, and then you get a burger which is two inches in diameter, you feel like something is missing. You feel like the rest of your burger has been stolen away to the land of missing socks. These were smaller than White Castle sliders..! Again, I wish I would've had a camera so I could capture how...cute these burgers looked (for reference, a burger should never be 'cute'). I'd take it with me more often, but the only easy way to carry it is a belt holder which looks suspiciously like a fanny-pak. I'm not secure enough to feel confident in wearing that.

But back to the BBQ, where we'd all had a couple beers and a dance party began. It started with traditional Tanzanian music from the 60s, which was cool but didn't inspire me to get down. What was interesting to watch was, as the night wore on, our host started putting more and more American-style music on. This caused the Tanzanians to dance less and less, and us to dance more and more. I suppose the turning point of dance-floor supremacy had to be "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, that was when we really took over. To my delight, the next song after that was none other than "Like a Prayer".

I should digress here for a moment and explain my torrid relationship with this song. I don't really know how or when it came up, but for the last year or so of my living in Seattle, "Like a Prayer" became an anthem for a group of us. There were times when I drove through campus singing it at the top of my lungs with the windows down (yes, that was with Ivan, no surprises there). But I suppose it really culminated with the final summer before I came here. That guy Davis who doesn't know the metric system, he and I began singing it as a duet at karaoke nights. No matter how good the person who sang before us was, I have to say that we tended to rock the house. Probably just due to the ridiculousness of it, but thats ok. In fact, just a few weeks ago I wrote Davis saying that I miss the days of Madonna. I've talked about throwing a karaoke party here, and my friends always ask what I'd sing. Obviously, "Like a Prayer" is my answer.

So I imagine our collective surprise when that very song came on. At this point only us white folks and the lady whose party it was were dancing. As soon as the word "God..." came on, everyone turned and looked at me, with expressions like "well, here it is, prove that you love this song." Out of the habits that I never thought would follow me to Tanzania, being ridiculous to "Like a Prayer" was pretty high on the list. How wrong I was. Man, I think I became 'Riverdance' resurrected just to dance for that one song. The Tanzanians were all sitting in a semicircle, so I walked right up to middle, started belting out the words and then when the beat dropped, I got down. They seemed shocked or frightened at first, but at the end, they were all cheering and clapping. I call it the Madonna Effect.

You know the amazing thing? I wasn't even drunk.

I Scored at Nane Nane

2006-08-15T01:03:00.000-07:00

So last week, I got my first taste of how Tanzanians do holidays. I mean, Christmas doesn't really count, as people here play Christmas songs year-round and some of its thunder becomes stolen. Plus, a lot of families can't afford presents, its like Christmas is almost an elitist holiday. But last week there was the true national holiday of choice. Its called "Nane Nane", and if you would read a book, you'd see that this means "Eight Eight". Guess which day this holiday lands on? (Hint: Not August the 9th.)

So Nane Nane is also known as "Peasant's Day", which means that its pretty much a come-one-come-all celebration. You know, "for the peasants". In a shockingly unusual display of organization, the local government here in Bukoba set up this awesome festival grounds about a week before the actual holiday. Then, every day until Nane Nane itself there was some form of local entertainment, a lot of drinking and dancing, and the merchants had little booths to sell their special goods. Honestly it felt like a county fair, but without the Gravitron (I hate that thing...does anyone think that it is fun to get yourself so dizzy it takes 3 hours of drinking water and laying in a cool room to feel like you are not still spinning? I think that this is the opposite of fun).

Me and some friends met up a few days before the climax to check it out, and I ended up buying a few things, including possibly the most delicious hot sauce I've ever had. For those of you who have eaten extremely spicy pho, this hot sauce gives all foods that same taste. There were some man-thong type underwear that had the word "mwanaume" written on the band, but the price was a little steep (Mwanaume=Male). After shopping around, we found a little table in the middle of the grounds, and ordered some Kilimanjaro brand beers. To be honest, a large group of white people is always a little out of place in Tanzania. But the six or seven of us camped out in the middle of this local festival, we got more stares than usual. After half an hour or so, these three guys at the next table over called me to come talk to them. They were quite drunk, but were still sufficiently shocked that I knew their tribal language, as well as Swahili. So I chatted with them until I was thirsty enough to return to my table and my beer. A little later, one of the three started walking towards our table. Now what usually occurs at this point is that I am asked to purchase the guy a beer or konyagi (imagine the cheapest gin you've ever had. Now pour the cheapest vodka you've ever had into it. That's konyagi). Seriously, we all get asked to buy drunk guys more liquor all the time, it's become routine. So imagine our collective confusion when he just hands me a 10,000 shilling bill (this is a decent amount of money here; its the largest bill). We were with a Tanzanian girl who kept telling me to "give it back it is probably counterfeit". But the man wouldn't take no for an answer, so overall I actually came up at Nane Nane. I'm still a little weirded out, but nothing bad came of this gift. My guess is the guy was too drunk to remember he gave to me, like when Ivan gets a little tipsy and buys everyone Patron shots. But my good fortune didn't end there, the waitress was super nice to me as well, and I ended up getting a free dinner. This really just means some sticks of meat and a few fried bananas, but it was cool nonetheless.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the festival itself. Its a little harder to cruise around here with a camera than it is in most developed countries. In general, the amount of unwelcome attention that taking photographs in public places brings usually isn't worth the pictures themselves. Maybe if I get enough demand (Andrew and my parents, really) I will spend a day cruising around Bukoba taking pics of the market and such. Until then, stay in touch.

Blow Your Mind on My Tests

2006-08-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all, what's up?
On the way into town, I had some gripe that I was planning on writing about. But now, when I am here at the internet cafe and the pressure is on, I can't remember what it was. Its like stage fright, either form of it...

So instead of griping, I'm going to post the midterm tests which I just administered to my unwitting students. They were pretty hard, the average for my form 6 students was a 42% and for my form 5 students it was a 63%. I'd like to think this difference is because the kids in form 5 have only learned physics from me, and thus avoided contamination. But more likely, the form 6 test was just more difficult. The amazing thing is that one student in form 5 got a 100%..! If you read that test, you will see how impressive a feat this is. Anyway, I have taught my students all the ideas that these exams cover, so any of you that are interested in what physics I've been teaching (probably just Ivan; the rest of you just don't care *boo-hoo-abloobloo*), ch-ch-ch-check it out:

Form 5, page 1
Form 5, page 2

Form 6, page 1
Form 6, page 2

One other thing, if you are an avid reader of my rambles, then you might recall that I asked if anyone knew a good way to get push-reel mowers. Nothing came up right away, but I've kept at it and it looks like we might actually succeed in getting 10 of them. Aaron found some locally, I've written my first grant, and the school has promised its assistance. We'll see if it flies. I'll keep you posted, but if everything works out as planned these students will be spared countless hours of nonsense manual labor. Yes, I know manual labor builds character. I am content in decreasing their character.

The animals in my life

2006-07-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

OK, so for the last 6 or 7 weeks I've been living with the offspring of my cat, Kali. I originally gave her this name due to the alarming number of scratches I carried on my arms and legs courtesy of her claws. Since having kittens, she is like a completely different cat, and that is a good thing. Motherhood has mellowed her out like time does for a good cheese (which is something that doesn't exist here). I've found homes for two of the three kittens, but I can't bear to part with all three little rascals, so I am keeping the third one. I was struggling to come up with a good name for mine for awhile, almost accidentally choosing "Oliver" like that old Disney movie. Eventually, I found that in problems on naming kittens, it always best to consult one's niece. I mentioned my trouble to Grace, and she immediately gave me the name "Princess" for all three. I told her that wouldn't quite work, seeing as A) they can't all have the same name, and B) they are all fellas. She took it in stride and came right back at me with "Taco", "Nacho", and "Burrito". I was stunned. I doubt I could outdo those names even given 100 monkeys with 100 typewriters and 100 bottles of rum. So my little scamp is now official named Taco. The hilarious part of this is that the word "tako" in Swahili means buttock (yes, its singular). Everyone will think I am calling my cat "Buttock", but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Over these few weeks, I've also been dealing with the polar opposite of the animal kingdom from kittens- safari ants. At least, I think that's what they are... I remember stories I used to hear about killer ants, possibly from Tanzania, that would swarm up a person and devour him in 2 seconds if he stumbled across their hill. Perhaps those stories were exaggerated, or perhaps I was watching a movie, but whatever the case, those very ants are laying seige to my house. I first took notice one day when I was walking along the road to my house and saw this big black line lying across the road. The way these ants travel is frightening, they form what looks like a solid river, comprised of thousands upon thousands of these centimeter-sized (Davis- that's a little more that 1/3 of an inch) beasts. Roughly half of their total length is their enormous jaws, which they have no hesitancies in using to chomp on one's toes. I have made the mistake of not watching where I step around these little devils, and I will tell you that tevas are minimal protection. I wasn't too concerned that day, I just stepped over their ant-river and continued walking. That night I went to the kitchen for a late night banana, and was instantly sad that I went barefoot. The ant-river had somehow snaked its way into my kitchen, and I had stepped right on it. The next few moments involved my cats being freaked out by the spastic jumping, stomping, and twitching that their master engaged in trying to rid his feet of the little biters. The crazy thing is that half an hour later, they were gone and had cleaned my floor of bread crumbs and various other bits of food. When I went to bathe the following day, I was chagrined to see that they had takin up residency in my bathtub. While I bathed, I constantly was alternating feet so that they wouldn't get me, and due to my tall-man lack of coordination I nearly fell many times. That would have been lovely... The new guy in my house, Mr. O'Malley, got pretty freaked out when I told him they'd been assaulting my castle (I found out that Tanzanians are very scared by these ants...). His solution? Burn them. To give him credit, it worked. We grabbed some old leaves and newspaper and roasted these ants but good. This was about a week ago, and so far they haven't returned en masse. I'm crossing my fingers, these little dudes are fierce. I don't want to scrap with them any more. But in all honesty, I prefer ants than what some other volunteers have to deal with. One girl has had mouse-sized spiders terrorizing her since she arrived. I think we all know that I would have cried and ran home (home being America and its lack of mouse-sized spiders).
PS- I'm dressed like a cowboy (hat and pink shirt and all) right now.

Kwa Heri, "Bachelor Style"

2006-07-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, my headmaster called me into his office on the pretense that he wanted to discuss the laptop. He had borrowed it again for his son to use. Apparently I am unable to learn from my mistakes, because once again I have put all my music, pictures, and important documents on there. I'm following the "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" chain of logic on this one. (Strangely, I just taught my students that lightning can, in fact, strike twice in the same place and does so all the time). So I went into his office with some apprehension, thinking perhaps he had hired Mr. Old Guy to perform surgery with an axe again. Well, it turned out that he only wanted to know when I needed it back, and to tell me that the movie-ruining-line in the screen had disappeared. The line has since returned, but I was happy that all my files still existed. And that was how he got me.
My headmaster is a wily cat. He doesn't ask for things that he wants right away, he plays the waiting game, trying to manipulate a person's emotions until they are in a good state to asked a favor. For example, in the past we were having some beers together and out of the blue he brought up some requests about the library, when I was all relaxed and congenial. It works. I didn't want to ruin the vibe by complaining, so I acquiesced to his wishes. I think he pulled the same technique this time as well. He knows I am concerned with the laptop, so he decided to give me a scare followed by some positive news to bring down my guard. Then he brought up the real reason he asked me into the office, again out of the blue.
I'll give you the critical background information you might not have heard. Right now there are 16 student-teachers from the Univ. of Dar es Salaam staying at our school. They're living in several houses around campus while they complete their teaching internships. Concurrently, we have a new biology teacher who arrived yesterday and will be living on campus. But at this moment, his house is occupied by the temporary fellows from Dar. So he needs a place to stay whilst they are here, for another 6 weeks or so. All the houses on campus are made to a government standard; they are identical. If you think about it, there are 16 people in two houses (do the math) and then there is me, by myself. My whiteness does give me some breathing room in this area, but at times I feel a little guilty. Maybe the oh-so clever headmaster caught on to this, I don't know. But he asked me, since I have two spare rooms, if this permanent new teacher could stay with me for the six weeks until the student-teachers head back to school.
What could I say? I really like my privacy, which I've made it clear is not easy to come by here. But to say no would have once again ruined the vibe between me and the headmaster, so I agreed. So he moved in yesterday, and we will have the next six weeks together. I guess it will be like my home-stay experience with Mama Mipawa all over again. (I forgot, I visited her when I went to Morogoro for Mulletfest. I brought them fried grasshoppers, and they said it was the most wonderful gift...) My guest/roommates name is Malick O'Malley (perhaps spelled Omali, but he sounds Irish, its great) and he seems to be a good guy. He bought me a fried fish yesterday. That is the tell-tale sign of a good guy.
It will be hard to lose some of the freedom I had when I lived "bachelor style", as the Tanzanians have described it. "Bachelor" has somehow infiltrated into the Swahili language, the same way we use "safari" in English. If you are not married, you live "bachelor style"- which for me was cruising around in my pajamas on Sunday and making PB and J pretty often. But it will be interesting to live with someone, not as a student like during home-stay, but as a roommate and equal. He'll help me with Swahili, how to cook and live more like a Tanzanian (just so I know...) and so on.
Also, I wore an American flag as a cape on the 4th of July, I wore it to class and taught in it. I bought it at an outdoor booth that was also selling "The Little Mermaid" and "Real Ghostbusters" sheets. I bought these as well. Ah, the things you can find.... Last, "kwa heri" means goodbye. Read a book, why don't you?

"Hodi" - the worst word ever invented

2006-06-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

When you are traveling to see various cultures, the differences you see naturally beg for you to make comparisons. One of the most common ones that I've heard goes something like "People are so much friendlier here in (insert country name) than they are in America!" For me, this was true in Fiji, not that true for Japan (sorry Boyd...), true for Eastern Europe with the exception of Prague where people hate Americans, and very, very true here in Tanzania. This sense of welcoming varies from country to country, largely dependent on how tourists of the past have behaved themselves. In any case, I said that Tanzania was probably the most open and friendly country I've had the opportunity to see, at least here in Bukoba. In Arusha, the tourist capital of Tanzania (due to its proximity to both Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti), I've heard it is a bit less so. Go figure...
The way Tanzanians in general, and the Haya tribe in particular (those from around Bukoba), display their friendliness is multi-faceted. The most obvious and commonplace way is the ubiquitous greetings they will give and receive on a daily basis. There is a whole etiquette based around acknowledging friends, acquaintances, and even passers-by. This entails stopping, asking them about their days, then their families, then their work, and a myriad of other topics. It can take up to five minutes or so to properly stop and greet someone, giving the correct inquiries and responses. I've been asked about 10-15 questions by a single stranger before, just while I am walking to town. It goes something like this (translated, of course):

"How is your morning, brother?"
"It is fine and clean. How is your day?"
"Simply fine and clean. How is your place?"
"My place is completely nice. It is Ihungo Secondary."
"Ahhh! Ihungo! What do they say there?"
"They have no problems at all. How is your place?"
"My place is fresh. Are you coming from Ihungo?"
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"Town."
"It is that way." (points to the only road around, which I am already walking down)
"Ah, I see, thank you for helping me. How is your family?"
"They are completely fine. And yours?"
"They are in America, but also completely fine."
"That's good. How is your work?"
"My work is that of a teacher. It is a lot of work, but nice."
"Ah you teach at Ihungo! Which subject do you teach?"
"I teach physics to forms 5 and 6. My students are very clever."
"They must be. Physics has many difficulties."
"And how is your work?"
"Oh it is going nice and slow. I am a farmer."
"Where do you farm?"
"There in the village. I have a small farm there."
"Aha. That is nice. I have been happy to meet you, I am continuing to town."
"What is your name?"
"I am called Masanja."
(claps and laughs) "You are truly Tanzanian. I am called Rutakutalutabuta."
"Ok Rutalupahubadoo, I will see you another day."
"Yes we'll see each other later."

This conversation, or one very similar, is so common it feels rote by now. Every day when I walk to or from town, at least one or two complete strangers and I will get to know each other this way, and I always fail at pronouncing their names.
I said there is are multiple ways in which Tanzanians show their hospitality and friendliness. This is an example of one of the ways which I really like. I get to improve my Swahili a bit, meet people, and feel like I belong. Tanzanians are also very open with their homes, treating them as communal gathering places, rather than personal castles. Due to this, I get invited to visit people whom I hardly know all the time, and often I go. Usually it winds up with me drinking a soda, talking a bit, and maybe forcing down some dagaa and ugali. But of course, in giving this hospitality, they expect the same from me, with or without invitation.
This is the part of the open culture they have here that bugs me. People I have met just once on the streets that I don't remember at all will often show up at my house. Its ok, except when I want a little personal time. For example, Sunday is usually my "study, lesson plan, max-to-the-relax" day. What invariably happens is that I am in the middle of solving some difficult problem, or I've reaching the climax of whatever book I'm reading, and a visitor will call. Here is hands-down the most annoying thing in all of Tanzania- the way they announce themselves. They say the word "hodi" (ho-dee) very loudly and abruptly, and with a strangely high pitch. If there is no answer, they do so again. And again. And again. Hodi! Hodi! Hodi! Then, if five or six of these don't work, they pound on the door a bit. Then back to the hodi's. Imagine being in the middle of a nap to hear this "hodi hodi hodi". Trust me, there is almost no way to be woken up that is more annoying. The real crazy/amazing thing is the persistence which these house-callers have. Once I decided to try to continue napping, and the guy knocked and hodi'ed for about 5 minutes at the front door, then went to the back door to try the same, and then returned to the front door. All told he bothered the crap out of me for about ten minutes before I finally mustered the rage to answer the door. The guy was wondering if I'd seen a fellow teacher. That was it. My gosh... I think I might've been a bit overly-brusque that time. Seriously, if doorbells existed here in Tanzania, people would go insane daily. I would probably be the first.

But really, all in all, the hospitality is nice. Really.

Party in the Back

2006-06-20T05:12:00.000-07:00

OK, from your comments it seems that not much really needs to be said about Mulletfest '06. Just a few addendums and details to fill everyone in.

1) Andrew made "Pan-African Mulletfest" shirts with latin writing which translated to "With mullets comes life and power." You can see them in most of the pics.

2) We had "The Final Countdown" by Europe on repeat as our hair was being cut.

3) We tried to find Hamms beer to drink post-cut, but it doesn't exist here.

4) Steve got a "skullet" cut after his mullet, which made him look exactly like Gallagher.

5) Here is a photo album which we are trying to get going so that everyone can add their mulletfest pics:

MULLET ALBUM

If it doesn't work I'm sorry. I still have my mullet.

One Long Complaint

2006-06-13T01:51:00.000-07:00

If anyone ever recommends that you take a 30+ hour bus ride through several developing countries, that person is not your friend. About two weeks ago, we Bukobians took the overnight ferry to Mwanza, our city of departure. The plan was to take the Scandinavia bus line (which is equipped with AC, in theory) from there, through Nairobi, back into Tanzania then down to Dar Es Salaam. If you are at all familiar with the geography of Tanzania, you will now be saying, "But Rob, why not go directly from Mwanza to Dar, as that route is hundreds of kilometers shorter?!" Well that's true, but those roads aren't paved. On paper, a direct journey through the middle of Tanzania should take maybe 15 hours. The last person I talked to that went that way arrived 4 days late, as most of the roads were rained out and full of ruts. So that option is really not a very good one, and hence there we were, ready for our trip through Kenya.
I must say, this trip was really not as bad as it could have been. That is not saying it wasn't bad. Just that it wasn't the worst experience of my life. Leaving at 11pm, we made good time up and out of Tanzania, stopping every two hours or so for bathroom breaks. They played "Anaconda" when the trip started, which was pretty awesome. Being naive, I thought that the roads in Kenya, which is the more developed of the two countries, would be quite nice and wide. Thus I was highly chagrined when, maybe 50km outside of Nairobi, we turned onto what was the worst road I have EVER seen. I think it was paved maybe a hundred years ago then forgotten, except by the bus drivers of the Scandinavia line. I can't really describe it, except to say that luggage was flying off the racks above us, bombarding people's heads, despite the fact that we were only going about 15km per hour. It was awful, and the worst part was that we reached this point at like 10pm, when everyone was asleep. It was the most rude awakening I've ever had. We got into Nairobi at a little after midnight, so I couldn't really see much of the city. We all got the feel that it was much more Westernized than anywhere else in East Africa (this means straight roads and street lights, office buildings and billboards).
At around 2am we reached the border again. The way we cross borders here is kind of funny: You get off the bus and walk up to a little hut, which is the departing customs office of the country you are leaving. They stamp your passport and grumble a bit (the night shift must be rough...), then you leave the hut and literally walk across the border into the next country. There are no guards. I think if you wanted you could walk all over East Africa and never once get stopped at a border (but I think that could potentially not work out...). Then you go to the immigration hut in the country you are entering, get grumbled at some more, another stamp, and that's that. Its pretty laidback compared to the US, even when entering Canada. They never ask any questions, so if I'd wanted I could have smuggled in 16 giraffes without even having to lie:
"*grumble grumble* Hello Mr. American. Are you smuggling any animals such as giraffes today, sir?"
"Oh no Mr. Border, not 16 of them. I know this is a true fact."
"*grumble* OK good, as long as it is a true fact. Let me stamp and crinkle your passport, then you can simply walk across our border."
"That is very laidback of you."("I feel terrible, I shouldn't have lied about those giraffes...")

Anyway, when we all finished at the border, we expected to be back on the road right away. Well, Kenya has no laws about buses driving at night. They don't care. Tanzania does have a law, that buses cannot operate between 10pm and sun-up. This was inconvenient for us, sitting there at the border at 2am, since the sun begins to rise at around 6am. So that was our designated "sleep time" apparently. However this was delightfully ruined by a man with a baby that happened to be the world's most accomplished crier. Seriously... I finally muttered something in Swahili about rudeness at around 4 or 5am, and he took the Human Siren off the bus into a little hut or something. Three or four Tanzanians patted me on the back and then we all slept for an hour.
We got to driving again a little before six, and the drivers played "US Marshalls" with my man Snipes. That was pretty good, except for the rockin headache I had developed. I forgot to mention that we headed mostly north the first day of the trip, and mostly south the second day. This meant those on the left side of the bus got blasted by our Equatorial sun both days (think about it; its the truth). I was cursed with the left side, thus my headache.
That morning we made good progress, expecting to arrive in Dar at around 4pm. I think the saddest thing that has ever happened to me in my life was when, a mere 20km outside of the city, we came upon a massive traffic jam due to an accident on a bridge. This was at 3pm or so, the heat of the day. I think you understand that the brochures lied about the AC. So were sat there, having already traveled for 28 hours, roasting in the afternoon blaze. It was pretty rough; I was highly despondent by then. The jam cleared up about an hour later, but we moved slowly the rest of the way and got into town at 6pm or so.
What did I then do? Shower, beer, and Indian food. It worked wonders. The only depressing thing was going to buy my ticket for the return bus trip as soon as we got in. That was not easy, I felt like they should pay me for enduring that nonsense and coming back for more. In between these long marches, I actually had an awesome week seeing everyone from training. Mulletfest did occur, and I'll write about it later. I am posting pictures, of which there are many. The good times more than made up for the strife. I returned by the same route a few days ago, and this time the bus broke down for two hours as soon as we got going. When I boarded the bus this time, I bought a newspaper to look at. The front page said "52 dead in bus collision". Great... That's like watching a plane crash movie while flying. I got into Mwanza on Sunday, and the only tickets left for the ferry were 3rd class. If you are unaware, this is not the good class. I ended up sleeping on a bench on the top deck, shivering and sad. When I got home yesterday, I slept for about 18 hours. Now I feel alive again. I'll try to write a little bit about mulletfest in a day or two. All I can say is that it rocked. Peace

Here I Go Again... (on my own)

2006-05-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

Let's see...
Today I bathed with the last of my water in all of my house (the school pump has been broken for three weeks; water has been more precious than cheeseburgers lately). This water smelled like hot dogs, and since I haven't seen a hot dog in months, I'm scared to imagine what could cause a hot dog-like smell. But that is how I smell, right now, and I think the guy next to me here at the cafe assumes I'm wearing hot dog-smelling cologne.

The big news is tomorrow we catch the overnight ferry to Mwanza, and then we start a roughly 30-hour bus trip/epic journey from Mwanza to Dar. The good news is that we get to go through Nairobi, so I will be able to say I've been in almost every country in East Africa now (neglecting Rwanda and Burundi). The bad news is that its 30 hours on a bus. I couldn't get the front seat this time either, which means its 30 cramped, uncomfortable hours. We are supposed to reach Morogoro on Sunday afternoon. After arriving I plan on a) hot shower, b) cold beer, c) getting a mullet. Wish me luck!

"How Many Robocops?"

2006-05-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

So the other day one of my students asked me the best question I've gotten in class so far- "Mr. Masanja, how many Robocops does America have?" That is awesome. Apparently this kid had just seen the movie, and he thought it was real. This led to a discussion in which I learned that most Tanzanians think that all American movies are real. Yes, Terminator (that's huge here). Yes, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. They think its all real. Learning this, I regretted my first answer to his question, which was that we had five until three of them were destroyed fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger. They completely believed me, and I think that makes me a very bad teacher. I finally succeeded in teaching them about Hollywood, and that its all made up. Maybe I should have left them thinking it was real....

Saved By the Bell: The African Years

2006-05-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

A few people I talked to (just my parents, really...) thought that the most interesting post I have done in a while was where I wrote about my new students. Other than this little bit, I haven't given you an accurate description of the life of a student here in Tanzania, at Ihungo. Everyone has had a different high school experience in the states, especially when you consider generational differences, or those between rural and urban schools (some days I wish I was a Roosevelt 'Rider for life...). Compare your own high school times to what these boys go through, its pretty overwhelming.

I'll start at the primary level. There is universal primary education paid for by the government here, an initiative from the early '70s when President Nyerere (the George Washington of Tanzania) was in power. This lasts for seven years, called standards rather than grades, and is culminated by a general knowledge exam. I wish I had the exact numbers, but I can tell you that no more than 50% of all the kids leaving standard 7 become enrolled in secondary school. This isn't solely due to poor test results, although there are a lot of poor test results. When Nyerere had his master plan, he ignored secondary schools entirely (from what I know) and focused having every child getting at least some education. A few years after his plan came into effect (roughly seven or so), all of a sudden there were too many students, and not enough secondary schools. This is the enduring problem with education here, but now there are schools with no teachers to fill them. The point is, less than half of the entire populace even begins secondary school.

Now, with the secondary schools, they are not paid for by the government. The public schools give subsidizing to a moderate extent, but I would say the primary reason so few students continue their educations is monetary. Once every few weeks, a teacher will come into my class and kick out all the students who haven't paid their fees yet. This is the reason students are always late returning from breaks- they are waiting for their parents to gather enough money to continue their educations. Now, this isn't every student, but I would say an overwhelming majority fall into this category. Every term, a small percentage of students never return from break. There parents couldn't afford to send them back to school.

The public schools are generally boarding schools, allowing a few day scholars to attend. These students who live in our campus dorms are those who I will be describing. The administration has an attitude that they rule these boarders' everlasting souls, and it shows in their daily routines. I suppose the main thing to mention here is the beatings. It is a fact of life, something I can't change. Corporal punishment reigns supreme. I could give you disturbing stories, but let's not do that.

The students wake up around 6am to clean their dormitories and classrooms before the day begins. At 7:30 classes begin, and from what I have seen, anywhere from a third to a half of the scheduled teachers actually show up to teach. But if the students leave, guess what? A beating! So they sit in there classrooms and try to teach themselves, or they stare at the wall. This occurs until 11:30, when they get a cup of hot, unsweetened porridge for breakfast. It is this nutrition that is expected to sustain them for the rest of the class day, until 3pm. The teachers get sweetened tea at this breakfast time, and we have our daily meeting. The breakfast break is 30 minutes, but invariably it lasts an hour or more, so again the students have no teachers. After classes, the students get lunch, which is beans and ugali. Ugali I have already mentioned, that flavorless, nutritionless lump of food. After lunch comes usafi time (when I wrote about the mowers, it was for this). At this time, students are expected to go cut grass for two hours. If the grass is all cut (which it miraculously never is) they have to carry things around and other such inane tasks. This is also the time for sports, but usafi takes precedence and often I find myself with no basketball players. If a students area is not well trimmed, they get a nice, solid smacking. At 6:30pm is dinner, which is... beans and ugali. Same thing for lunch and for dinner, every single day. I would go insane. In the evenings, they are expected to study from 8 to 10:30, and then they are required to return to their dorms. Some go to sleep, others call home, others read or talk. The students I've asked say they get between 3 and 5 hours of sleep per night (which makes me, with my solid 8, feel very lazy). The next day it starts all over again. And then it continues for four years. During this entire time, they are expected to speak only English. They are given a one month training course at the beginning of secondary school, and that's that. If they slip into Swahili and a teacher hears them...bam!

After the second year (form 2) the students have another national exam. Again, few pass. But this time only the result matters, not money. Every year thousands of students repeat form 2 to try the test again. But its two strikes and you're out, there is no third try. Then at form 4 there is the next test. It culminates the 4 years of knowledge, and is analogous to our SAT. Except it is much, much more rigorous than the SAT, and few students pass. Those who don't are called "form 4 leavers" and manage to get jobs barely better than the norm, despite all their efforts. Those who do pass continue on to the advanced level, where its two more years of the same. I think something like 10% of students who start primary school reach advanced level. After advanced level is the fourth and final national exam. If they succeed here, maybe they can go to higher education, but only if they are lucky. The percentage who reach university from primary school? Less than one. The form six leavers usually go to a teachers' training college to become qualified to teach secondary school themselves. That's that. I guess I shouldn't really blame them for throwing rocks, huh...?

I'm not trying to incriminate the system, or the teachers. The problem is too deep-set and pervasive to allow easy criticism. The Ministry of Education tries every year to solve some of the glaring deficiencies, such as corporal punishment, but it will be another generation at the least before things begin to clear up. All I can do is teach as best I can, really. It's just too overwhelming.

Let He Who is Without Sin Rock the Casbah

2006-05-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

First off, I should apologize at that attempt of a witty title. Although, not only is it pertinent, but you have to admit that is a nice mix of idiom and metaphor. I mean really, really nice.

To the heart of the matter: A little over a week ago, the equivalent of the athletic director of my school asked me to do him a favor, me being the only other teacher concerned with sports. There would a be a soccer match that evening between our school and another, Kahororo Sec., at the stadium in town. Now, this man is downright lazy, and any time a job has actual work required he manages to shirk it. We all know a person like this, and I'll admit that at times I have been this person.

His problem was this: The stadium in town is a five kilometer walk (Davis - 3 miles) from school. Generally the school lorry drives the players there, but there were two obstacles to this, first the lorry was broken down, second the entire school had been invited. Now, he would have (<- read that with a very sarcastic tone) gone with the students himself, but he had some urgent issue needing his attention elsewhere. So I was awarded, no, hurled the responsibility of escorting about 500 students to the stadium, then back. By myself. Yay!

Shockingly, as this horde of teenage boys worked their way down the small path to town, nothing bad happened. I attribute it to the excitement they had to watch their school team play in the stadium. We arrived without incident and I was chagrined to see that the athletic director was already there (he had taken a taxi). Oh well. The game commenced, it was pretty some sloppy playing, but I imagine either team could hand an American high school team their nether regions (sorry Cal, but its true). These kids live and breathe soccer. Our students had even constructed a big Ihungo flag somehow, and were proudly waving it while never once sitting for the duration of the game. We were down 2-3 when the stoppage time was added at the end of the second half, and miraculously we managed to land a lucky shot just before the whistle blew, making the score tied. Rather than adding more playing time, the referee decided to go straight to penalty shots; the sun was beginning to set already.

Now here's where the excrement hit the air conditioning... As our students watched the penalty kicks, completely engrossed, a few brave idiots from Kahororo amazingly managed to steal the Ihungo flag and safeguard it back to their bleachers. If you have played Halo, imagine going solo on Sidewinder and getting the other team's flag on your first try. Yeah, it was an impressive feat. So what did Ihungo do? They armed themselves, and here is where my witty title comes into play. They armed themselves with stones from around the bleachers, and en masse begin to assault the perpetrators. I say all this in narrative, but at the time I had no idea what was going on, I too was absorbed in the penalty kicks, and at this time we were down by one. Just as the Ihungo students reached the Kahororo bleachers, the last of our players shot and missed. Kahororo had won. This had the unfortunate effect of exponentially increasing the rage of the Ihungo students, who thought perhaps we had only lost on penalty kicks because they had stolen our flag.

This is where I finally looked around and realized that there was massive disturbance occuring. I stood up, confused, to watch hundreds of students running in fear from where the battle had been joined. I didn't know it, but in the middle of this exodus, students from both schools were throwing the largest stones they could find as hard as they could at each other. And because I didn't know this, I decided to go try and figure out what was happening and see if I could put a stop to it. I arrived at the edge of the maelstrom on the Kahororo side, just in time to see one of my physics students across the way catch a stone directly in his face and go down. Up to that point, I was just confused. After seeing my boy take a rock to the face, I was pissed. Scared too, but more pissed.

Later, when my students would regale each other with how brave they had been in a time of danger, they would make sure to mention the actions of their teacher, Mr. Masanja. According to them, he tore into the Kahororo students, picking them up and throwing them just as they were picking up and throwing stones. He was yelling a hybrid of English and Swahili, and the only thing the students could understand was that he was royally pissed. When the students saw this 2 meter monster bearing down on them, they scattered, and the rock-throw melee ended. I think my students exaggerate a little bit, but I damn well did see red after watching that student take one to the grill.

I managed to walk across the now calm battlefield and check to make sure he was not seriously injured. I got him to his knees and looked at his face, it was bloody. But only on the lower half, it looked like the rock had hit him square in the mouth. He had a fiercely split lip which will heal and look like Angelina Jolie's, as well as a chipped tooth, but nothing more. In fact, I was amazed- there were no serious injuries on either side. I would be a liar if I said that the Ihungo students were not to blame, at least equally for this nonsense. When I reprimanded them severely, they were surprised and told me that "it is our culture to throw stones." To which I replied with the first and last curse words I've used in front of students so far. Use your imagination. After it was all over, I suddenly remembered the other teacher who was with me, who likely knew what was happening the whole time and didn't so much as lift a finger. Maybe teachers don't get involved here. That bothered me more than a little bit though. Someone could have easily been crippled, and he didn't even move...

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the troubles for the day. I now had on my hands 500 male students who had just lost a soccer match and been in a fight. They were a testosteronic mob. As we left the stadium, they wreaked havoc without pause. We decided to return to Ihungo by main roads to prevent problems, but this idea had little effect. A mob is as intelligent as its least intelligent member. Motorcycles and bicycles tried passing through the swarm of students, to be punched at, have their tires kicked, and even to be torn off of their vehicles. When we passed the police station, they threw rocks and taunted the police who came outside. For the first ten minutes, I tried controlling them, but one person cannot stop a 500 man mob. So I gave up. Maybe a better man would have stuck with them and argued for sanity for the entire 3 miles, but I said "the hell with it" and went to get dinner. The next day, the police were at Ihungo. That was no major shock, but I was surprised that they had only come for four students. These four were taken to jail on the count of stealing from various stores on the way home, but I think they were intended as a lesson. Scapegoats, if you will, but they became martyrs. The students protested, skipping classes as well as meals, until the headmaster arranged to free the four. Now they are heroes, and everything is back to normal.

Pretty crazy huh?

I Got Mad at an Old Guy...

2006-05-05T04:20:00.000-07:00

So I met with my nemesis yesterday- the bumbling computer fundi. The headmaster arranged it so that he came to the school and I used the headmaster's office to have a little heart to heart with this guy. Now, those of you that know me know that it is very difficult for me to hate people, generally (with the marked exception of Tom Selleck, but that is really just jealousy). But I'll tell you what, I really, really wanted to hate this fellow for erasing my memories. I was psyching myself up, like punching myself in the chest and getting pumped about hating him. And then I saw him, and felt really, really bad for ever wanting to hate him. This computer man was about 60 years old, and was somewhat poorly dressed (by Tanzanian standards, even). As soon as we got down to it, going over the problems, I could tell he was pretty much computer illiterate. It turns out that one of his friends gave him a Windows XP boot cd and a Microsoft Office cd, so he just goes around formatting all the computers he touches into these identical workstations, comprised only of Office products and without whatever programs and files they had before he got his hands on them. He thinks this is how computers are fixed, every time, and no one has told him different. Therefore, he had no idea that what he was doing to the computer could have negative consequences, such as the deletion of 500 pictures. The poor old fella just wanted to make a buck. I stayed mad for a grand total of about two minutes into the meeting, and then I just tried to show him different ways he could go about his business so as to not delete people's files. Due to his lack of any actual proper business, I couldn't very well ask him to fix the monitor he busted either. I told him the damage would cost several hundred dollars to replace (and at first I had been hoping that the he was working for one of the major companies here that has that kind of money) but that I knew it would be ludicrous of me to ask for reimbursement after seeing the situation. So in the end, all that really came of our meeting was that he gave me back two other cds that, in his words, "somehow ended up in my pocket" which contain all the startup programs of the laptop. That has helped a little bit. But really, you can't get mad at a moderately daft old guy just trying to make a buck, can you? Life will go on, with me feeling like a big jerk and him turning computers into Microsoft Office machines, whether with or without their original files.

Arrrgrgghhhh!

2006-05-02T03:34:00.000-07:00

I have a frustrating little story. I was loaned a laptop for use by the headmaster. This laptop was given to him by the parents of the previous volunteer at Ihungo. These parents were unaware that the headmaster doesn't know how to open it, turn it on, and also use it. So for the first month I was here, it sat unused in the computer lab, and I sat staring at it wistfully. Finally I got the gumption to ask the headmaster if I could use it until he wanted it, and he gave me full permission. This was in early February. Flash forward about two months. For awhile now I have been using the laptop to do a number of things, such as to store all my pictures and videos, to write, to listen to music, to keep track of my students' grades and my basketball strategies, a lot of uses... Well, before I left for Mwanza, he asked for it back to begin learning on it. "No problem," I thought, because I had installed separate user accounts for both of us. I became concerned when he called me a few days later when I was out of town, to ask for the password to my account. I asked why he needed it, and he said the "fundi" was installing some new programs. As a side note, I should mention that fundi here is applied to everything from auto mechanics to shoe repairmen to tailors to, oh yeah, computer technicians. This shows the amount of technical knowledge these fellows have right away. So last weekend, the headmaster gave me the laptop back, saying he hoped everything was ok. Well, it wasn't. These fundis have pulled the ultimate coup de grace, and deleted my entire user account. Goodbye, pictures of Zanzibar, Kampala, Morogoro, chicken slaughter, and everything else. The only pictures I have now are those which I've posted on my other page. It was all gone. Everything. (And for those of you who are adept at computers, don't trouble yourselves trying to help, I've tried literally every method of restoration. But thank you.) The headmaster says he gave them explicit instructions to leave my stuff alone, and that they said they had an "accident". Accident?? I told my dad that I want to "accidentally" burn down their store. How does one accidentally delete an entire user account, or even the individual 500 pictures?! Arrrrrggghhh! And perhaps the most frustrating thing of all is that beyond all this happy deletion they've done, they also dropped the laptop, or something like that. There is now a big pink line frozen into the monitor, so its not enjoyable to use it to watch movies anymore either. Its like they did everything they could to ruin all of its uses for me. So yeah, I guess you could say I have a bit of frustration. I told the headmaster that he and I need to go talk to them about the pink line, at the least, this Thursday. Wish me luck and I hope I "accidentally" don't bring gasoline and matches...grrrr.

You Gotta Help Me Out, Yea-eah

2006-04-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

I have a couple requests for assistance today, no stories about death spiders or bad English or anything.

First, our campus is pretty large, maybe the size of an average high school campus. Except where other schools have parking lots and sports fields, we have grass. Now, most schools also have groundskeepers (sometimes of the Scottish variety) to keep what grass they do have at a reasonable length. Ihungo is lacking two things in this regard: a groundskeeper, and any sort of lawnmower. Instead, we allow a travesty to occur. I'll elaborate. Every day, after classes end and the students get lunch, it is time to do what we call "usafi". This means general cleanliness, but is especially related to how the campus looks. So what ends up happening is that every day, a shocking number of students are sent to cut the grass for an hour or two. Yesterday, it was the entire enrollment out there cutting. The reason this bothers me so much is that the kids are using hand sickles to perform their task. Not sickles with long handles, no the little crescent kind that are less than a foot long. So I walk around campus in the afternoon to be greeted by hundreds of students bent over the grass, working. It is a monumental waste of time. I imagine yearly, tens of thousands of students' hours are spent cutting grass alone. This is no overestimate. So what I'm thinking is that, if my school could get several, maybe five or so, of those old rotating push-mower things, they could do this work in a small fraction of the time, and this would free them up to do things like study or rest. I don't know the logistics of finding a way to get those grass-cutter things over here, but if anyone has a benevolent soul and wants to save these kids from an insane amount of time-wasting work, any information would help me. I don't want to get a gas-powered mower because it would not last for as long, there are too many working parts. But these old things, they would be perfect... Let me know.

The second thing is again with my library. I'm in the process of writing some organizations which coordinate shipping books to African schools/libraries, but I don't really know the process, and I'm not sure how they will respond. I was talking with a girl teaching at a school nearby, and she gave me a great idea. She said she wrote home and asked her family/friends/associates/people-like-Davis to try to plan book drives, especially at places like her old elementary and high schools, churches, and local libraries, etc... What she called it was "Book and a Buck", and each person that donated a book also gave a dollar, to help pay the shipping cost. I thought this was a pretty dang good idea, largely because of the response she said she received. She has gotten dozens of boxes of various types of books, so many that her library is running out of shelf room and she had to write and say "No more!" For those of you who are looking to help me out in an easy way, this would be it. If you don't know anything about old lawnmowers, then maybe you know something about rallying people for a small book drive. If you are wondering what types of books to send, anything is good, really. Our library is really shoddy now, the most recent books were printed in the '60s. I have talked to students about it, and they are pumped. They come into the library, look around for something to read, and end up disappointed and leave with empty hands. So yeah, I don't really know what else to say. If you want to help, drop me a line if you have any questions. Thanks a lot (preemptively) for any of you who even try to help. Its much appreciated. Really. Thats it for today, lets do the thing and create some readers. Maybe this will help their English skills huh?

Meet My New Lads

2006-04-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

So the first day I introduced myself to my new form 5 students, I wrote a list of questions on the board. These were "getting to know y'all" questions, as I deftly put it. As I went through them, I thought that some of the answers were pretty interesting, in different ways. These 'kids' are mostly between 18 and 22, and have already had four years of instruction in the English language, if not more. That being said, here are some of their answers.

Question 1: What is your name?
For this one, there was a pretty awesome range. First, there were the cool traditional African names (Magesa Nwizambi, Lameck Cleophas), then there were the names where the parents must've been quite religious (Innocent Charles, Pious Paul, Praygod Bernard Sawe...awesome huh) and last were the hybrids (Colodatus Cosmos, Mgeta Danger). Yes, all of this names are amazing. But my favorite, just for the sound of it, is Shwalb Yusuph. Really just the name Shwalb. Roll it around on your tongue, see how it fits you. I hope I have given you married couples some ideal names for your future little ones...

Question 2: What are your hobbies?
By and large, all the students wrote "playing football" (Davis, this is soccer in countries other than America). But some of the more unique responses were- "Running marathons." I guess this is Africa, they've got some good runners here. "Playing music and reading novels." That's cool. I got one of my basketball players hooked on Harry Potter already. "None outside of school." Pretty fitting, these kids do study a lot more than we did in high school, but its kind of sad too. Here's my favorite- "To understand what is going on." What a wonderful hobby. I can imagine some guy who is always confused, walking around like Mike Hardesty, except when its "hobby time", when he finally understands what is going on (for Hardesty this is in math class).

Question 3: Why do you like physics? (I know, ridiculous question...)
I got a lot of responses centered around future employment. Most wanted to be engineers or doctors (one wrote "doctor of the human heart surgery"). Others maybe forgot their English a little bit- "I want to be a pharmician." and "To understand earoplanes." I'm not sure if he meant "physicist", but another who he wanted to be a physician. I guess that makes logical sense, if he is studying physics... Some clever fella also wrote he enjoys physics because it is "the simplest subject." I wonder if he is either very smart or very sarcastic. Or maybe he doesn't know that I'm about to drop the physics bomb on him. Figuratively, not like Hiroshima...sorry...

Question 4: Why do you dislike physics?
I forgot that Tanzanians don't like voicing complaints when I wrote this question. The result was that 95% of the answers said something like "I like physics only" or "I like to not dislike physics" or were left blank. One said he doesn't dislike it as it will be the "the basis of [his] life". That is a hardcore student. But the most accurate answer is because it is a "headache subject." I really couldn't agree more. Luckily when I was studying it at UW, I had a little headache cure brewed by my friend, Mr. Pabst.

Question 5: Any comments/questions/expectations?
This was the part where their English skills really shone. I'll write a few verbatim.
"I'm great to meet you Robby AKA Masanja." "My coment to you tearch I request you to have more effort, so as to make me perfect in it as you." "Your expecation is not bad is good." "I comment that it is so sweat because does not need speculated answer." Those are not my typos, I double-checked. I suppose its bad that I am highlighting my students' lack of English skills. I doubt I'm helping them with little phrases like "What's crackin" and "Are you illin?... Like a villian." One last request: "Mr. Masanja, I have a comment about getting the one who can tell me more about the world. And I would like you to be with me, in all things, so that I may learn more from you. And if possible, I would like to get more friends from your country. Thank you. The end." Isn't that kind of sweet/cool? If any of you would like to be friends with Mr. Daniel Banyanka, let me know.

Twerking

2006-04-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

Back to the grind...last week I had a conference in Mwanza, the second largest city here in Tanzania. It was awesome, just for the fact that I ate Chinese or Indian food every night. They even had a casino, but there was no Hold 'Em table for me to destroy people like Brandon. In total, over the last month I've been at my house for about one week out of the four. It was nice to walk in the door on Monday and realize that I'm stuck here until June, no more packing and unpacking, taking crazy buses or ferries. So on Wednesday I got back to work after a month and a half hiatus. When I returned from Mwanza, my headmaster informed me that the number of periods I'm teaching increased from 20 to 30, making me the second busiest teacher on campus (after Aaron, computer skills are in high demand in these parts). The reason for the addition is that we got seventy new form 5 students. The headmaster explained to me, "Robert Masanja, you could teach 50 or perhaps 60 students in one classroom, but 70 is too very much, so we must split them." Keep in mind the rooms are equivalent in size to our American high school classrooms. I wanted to ask him how 60 was cool if 70 wasn't, but since he has the laptop which I was borrowing and I want it back, I simply agreed with him, in a very obsequious manner.
So for now, I'm back to doing why I was sent here in the first place. I'll be teaching and coaching, and, if I get some time, working on the library. Excepting a short break in June, I'll be living the 9-to-5 style working man's life until September, when the first term ends. It really is nice to be working again. Without the distractions of America easily available (TV, movies, internet, video games, etc..) having vacation sometimes felt like a battle to kill time. A returned volunteer told me once that she got really skilled at "staring at the walls for way too long." I'll stare at a book instead (right now: The Brothers Karamazov...) but even that can get tiring.
And since blogs don't require segues, I feel no shame in switching topics to my plans for when I finish here. I don't mean long term plans, like grad school or the like, but immediate things. For example, when I get to Seattle I will eat a Big Cheeseburger with Ivan, then paint a house for Sasha or something. But before that, I'm making plans to do a world tour of sorts. I've found that there are sites which sell multi-stop tickets to anywhere you choose, so I've been trying to craft an itinerary for after the Corps. I'm hoping my brother will come, but the tickets aren't cheap and he is (dude, just kidding, quiet down now). The places we've talked about going are (in longitudinal order, thats right): Paris, to see some artistry; Croatia, the new Prague of Eastern Europe; Istanbul, capital of both the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Ottoman Empire...history, yo; India, its a subcontinent. That's my only reason. Oh, and food; Thailand, Scott Boyd went there and rode an elephant. Its also very cheap; Seoul, cuz I've got Seoul but I'm not a Seoul-dier; and Japan, there's this cat I once knew who lives there, name of Kento. I heard that he has learned how to "ball out of control" and that he will teach me (got you, player). That and Andrew has wanted to see Japan for like 10 years. So yeah, those are the major plans. Does anyone who knows anything about air travel have any advice? Or are there any globe-trotters (not from Harlem) who can recommend other places? I'm still in the early planning stages, but it sounds like it might be a pretty awesome trip. Oh, we're thinking of going for 2 or 3 months, dunno yet. That's it for today.

The Legend of Taco Bell

2006-03-31T07:59:00.000-08:00

So, thoughts on Uganda…
Kampala is a city built in a rugged valley near an inlet from Lake Victoria. The city boundary sign even proclaims it to be “The City of Seven Hills”, much akin to Rome I suppose. It is a developing city, but from what I hear it lost some of its charm with the advent on expansion. It was formerly quite green, maybe like a miniature Seattle, but now it is quite dirty, like a miniature Detroit. Some of the streets aren’t paved, and poor drainage systems channel water through them, creating enduring ruts and mud. This is prevalent throughout Kampala, so that the throngs of people track the muck even to paved avenues, and the result isn’t attractive.
Speaking of the multitudes of people, I should discuss traffic. I counted a total of two traffic lights in the entirety of the city. At every other intersection, there is a jumble of cars, small buses, large buses, bicycles, pedestrians, and motorcycles. There are no crosswalks, and by the end of my week there I picked up the local habit of walking into the middle of traffic and dodging and weaving my way across the street. I floated like a butterfly… There’s no other way to cross, unless you took a taxi or something, but then the taxi has to fight all the vehicular congestion, which is a nightmare. When I took the bus into Kampala, from the boundary sign to the bus depot was a distance of maybe 2 kilometers (that’s just a little over a mile, Davis). It took some frightening, adept moves by our driver to pass that distance in roughly forty-five minutes. I have decided I will never, ever even attempt to drive in that city. I’m pretty sure that the average distance between cars (front or side, they are insane) is about the width of a delicious Big Cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box. That’s less than a few inches, if you have yet to taste the rapture. They are called “Big” because they are big on taste. So yeah, traffic’s bad.
Even walking on the elusive sidewalks, human traffic was a pain. You know in some cities how everyone walks with their head down and with a purposeful stride, thus causing a few minor collisions? Yeah, its like that, except that when I was walking, a person would look right at me and then walk into me. I don’t understand. Maybe I was violating some national law by walking in straight lines and trying not to bump people. This was the most prevalent in the clothing market, which had one small alley with barely enough room for two people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. If you stop to look at a football half-shirt, or denim short-shorts, or you know, whatever you wanted to buy, people slam into you from behind incessantly. I guess it was half the fun though.
It seems like I’m painting Kampala some pretty dismal colors now, but I actually enjoyed the city very much. It was exciting and full of life, as evidenced by the frantic street crossings. When someone would bump into me, they would invariably apologize and smile, or even stop to talk. There’s hardly any animosity, even when a man is laying on his car horn he is laughing and chatting with other drivers nearby. And it was nice being able to speak English again, although American and Ugandan English are a bit different. “Do you want let’s go boss?” was one of the catchphrases of the motorcycle taxi drivers, who perch at every corner and then try swooping on the white folks who pass by, offering rides for twice the going rate. I took a regular taxi (Peace Corps put the kibosh on volunteers ever riding motorcycles; something about a high fatality rate, I dunno) one time, asking to go to Kabaka’s Palace. I asked the driver if he knew of it, and he assured me he did. I even repeated the name at least four times, slowly, because on the previous ride I took the driver misunderstood me. That time, we had sorted it out quickly and only wasted five or ten minutes. This time, he drove me in quite the wrong direction, and after half an hour, we reached a place called Backpacker’s Hostel. Hmmm… Back-pack-ers….Ka-ba-ka’s. Nope, I have no idea how he managed that one. When I finally reached the palace, he tried charging me about triple what we had agreed on, saying he used so much gas. What a chump. I gave them three snaps and walked away.
Whenever I decided to hoof it rather than face the traffic and chump drivers, I was assaulted with a barrage of “mzungu! mzungu!” that reached a level I hadn’t seen in Bukoba. Everywhere there were street peddlers, selling anything you could want (I found a book by Albert Camus at one) and when they see the great white man, they really put on the pressure. I took the wrong ATM card, so I only had available the small amount of cash I’d withdrawn before coming. Luckily it worked out, I left Uganda with 100 shillings in my pocket (about ten cents). But try as I might, I simply could not convince these hawkers that I was simply a poor volunteer ex-college student. The attention I got, and that I imagine every foreigner gets, was constant, and bordered on being overwhelming. A nice, simple, quiet night out is purely impossible. The shouts almost border on aggressive sometimes. But I found the antidote. No, not beer. Earlier I wrote that I picked up some of the local language here in Bukoba, and it worked wonders around town. Well, I copied that strategy and learned the greetings of Luganda, which is the native language and what everyone speaks before they are force-fed bad English. When I got hollered at, I hollered back (young’n) in Luganda. That made the crowded streets erupt with surprise and happiness, and all of a sudden they stopped trying to sell me overpriced necklaces. Try it out the next time you go somewhere that speaks a foreign language (except French Canada, screw that), and you’ll be surprised at how much the locals appreciate your attempts to use their language. Really.
Speaking of the force-feeding of English, that isn’t restricted only to the language. Uganda was one of the prize beauties during the European rush to colonize Africa, as it holds the legendary source of the Nile. Reason being, who ever controlled this source then had sway over every community which relied on the Nile to survive (*ahem, Egypt*). So basically, the Ugandans got it all ways, as both Germans and English vied for dominance. I hope its apparent that the English ended up prevailing, and then choke-slamming the Ugandans with their cultures and ideas, not to mention language. After a hundred-odd years of this, many of the aspects of their day-to-day life are very disparate from what you’d expect (at least from what I had expected). Naturally, they had to adopt many English customs, such as religion, style of dress, transport, habitation, government. But at the same time, it feels like a flicker of pride as to who they once were has remained, like they don’t want to forget their roots. Just ten years ago, in a huge ceremony, they re-crowned the old Kabaka (king) in his palace. He wasn’t given any political powers, but he has absolute moral precedence. I guess I would say that the entire culture seemed schizophrenic, like these two personalities, colonial English and traditional Ugandan, like they are clashing for national supremacy. The business men and college students gladly assume the role of the updated Englishman, and in fact you would be hard-pressed to realize they don’t hearken from a Western nation. Then, the taxi drivers, hawkers, and especially, villagers seem to live in a more communal, traditional sort of way. In between these extremes are the majority, and it felt to me like they were the rope in a game of tug-o-war between the businessmen and the villagers. I understand both ideas, the business men want their country to advance, to join the Westerners and perhaps to live with less poverty and hunger. The villagers want to keep Uganda’s spiritual and cultural side alive, to remember who they were and are, and to not become assimilated into the league of Western nations, just to lose their identity. Aren’t both desires valid? But I really feel like they are too disparate to exist together. Walking from the market district to the downtown hotel area was like traveling through time (trust me, I know), and I wondered how long these places would continue to survive, being so different yet only a kilometer apart. I imagine this same sort of thing is happening or has happened in many of the European colonies, and I’ve seen signs of it in Tanzania. A good analogy would be like when a fast food burger place begins to offer tacos. At first, you are excited. A fresh new type of food has arrived, and it is delicious. Perhaps the tacos are even so popular that they begin outselling the burgers. I mean, come on, everyone has burgers, but only this place has fresh new delicious tacos. So due to the popularity the burger place adds a second kind of taco, or a bigger one, or the ingredients of a taco wrapped in a tortilla (this is called a burr-i-to). You didn’t know that there were this many kinds of tacos, but you begin to learn the subtle differences between them. Soon, everyone that eats at this burger place knows that corn tortillas are superior to flour tortillas, or that black beans put refried beans to shame. People no longer crave the burger, it lost its luster. Of course, there are a few older people who remember when only burgers were offered, before all this taco nonsense. So the place keeps one or two types of burgers on its menu, to satiate these elders. But after a few more years, even these burgers lose their sway, and evolve into taquitos, quesadillas, and enchiladas. Without realizing it, this burger place has been changed into something completely different than its original state. And that, my friends, is the legend of Taco Bell...

Life is Fonder in Uganda

2006-03-27T05:06:00.000-08:00

Hey, so I just got back from Uganda yesterday. I was pretty active during this trip, so I don't think I have the literary skills to write my activities and my impressions cogently in one post. So I decided I would recap what I did, then later I'll write what I thought. Savvy?
I left Bukoba together with another German friend of mine, Malara, who was going to fly home from Entebbe. The six hour bus ride was mostly harmless, but I committed a notable faux pas at the border. You know the quip, “They must pay you to say that”, or any of its various incarnations? If I said that to an American border guard, he’d likely be in on the joke and laugh it off, knowing I wasn’t serious. However, it doesn’t go over so well with Tanzanian customs officials. I was purchasing my transit visa from this fellow, and asked him where the best place to change money was- there at the border or in Kampala itself. Naturally, he said at the border, where he was stationed. With an ironical air, I made the ill-fated quip about his being paid. To say the least, he wasn’t happy. He ranted for about five minutes about how he wasn’t given any illicit donations, that he was offended by my implications, and so on. I’m pretty sure this aggressive type of defense means that he was in fact getting bribes, and therefore my comment became even more foolhardy. Oh well, I had already finished my visa business with him before this, so everything worked out. Under that auspicious beginning, we continued on to Kampala.
We arrived in the afternoon, so after booking a hostel, we had time to explore the town. The Ugandan Parliament building is the same as the old government buildings in Budapest: scarred with bullet holes from revolutions and coups. For the remainder of the day, we ambled around, taking in the bustling feel of the city. At night, we went to this place I’d heard about for dinner, called the Kampala Carnivore. Sounded pretty awesome to me. Well, this place was famous for cooking wild game and the like, hence the name. There was a board advertising what rare meats they would throw on a giant grill, and this board included crocodile, zebra, eland, and a few others. Naturally I went for the zebra, only to find out it was sold out. Why is it that the beautiful things in life are so often only empty promises? *boo-hoo-hoo* So both Malara and I settled on croc. I’ve eaten alligator before, in Florida, and it tasted like chicken. Go figure. Crocodile was more like an unholy hybrid of chicken, fish, and lots of oil. I ate about 10 McNugget (do they still make those?) sized pieces before I felt like I would die. I would be the first man to perish by croc from the inside. But I recovered with the help of a beer, and that was that.
The next day was our cultural learning binge. We started with the Kasubi Tombs, which were formerly the palace of the early kings of Uganda. The grounds consisted of an enormous hut surrounded by a multitude of old houses. Well, the king lived in the big hut, and all his wives (listen to this: 84 of them…!) lived in the adjacent homes. The scions of both the king’s clan as well as all the families of the wives still occupy the grounds, which was cool. The hut has been defunct as a palace for about a hundred years, so they transformed it into a tomb for the four most recent kings. Malara was informed that, while we were on the grounds, she was officially considered one of the current kings wives (good thing he was out of town, eh…). From there we went to the Uganda National Museum, which had quite a few artifacts but really wasn’t much on organization or presentation. The only section we found intriguing was some first-hand accounts of life written by the early explorers who were looking for the source of the Nile. After that, we grabbed burgers and ice cream, which might have been the highlight of my day. Last on the sightseeing agenda was the Baha’i Temple, the only one in all of Africa. Baha’i is a religion founded around 1840 or so saying that every religion is right, each apostle is the next in a continuous chain of God’s messengers. I didn’t really get more into than that, for when I was reading the board with all the tenets, a man approached us. First, he handed us each a flower, and then his first words were, verbatim “I knew you were coming. I’ve dreamed of you for three months.” His smile was a bit too large, and he was a little too soft-spoken. The "fanatic alarm" went off in my head began clamoring at that point. So obviously I asked for a tour of the place from him. He seemed to think Malara and I were the heralds of some great change for his church, and after I buttered him up a bit, he started taking us into some rooms in the House of Worship which were off limits to anyone but the most devoted. Sorry, I didn’t see any altars with cows or rooms like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (the worst of the three movies). In fact, the whole of the House of Worship and its environs was really quite breathtaking. But once the head honcho saw where we were, we got kicked off the grounds, and I’m pretty sure Mr. Zealot got a good reaming. That evening we hopped an hour long bus to Entebbe, the home of the international airport. So far we’d been going by the seats of our pants, hoping that we could find boarding, but it turns out that doesn’t work in business traveler cities. We grabbed a taxi and asked to go to a nearby hotel we’d read about. The only room they had left was their nicest suite. Similar things happened at three more places, and by this point our taxi driver is practically crying with happiness at the size of our bill. Finally he makes a phone call for us, and we end up staying at the house of a woman on the city council. Being a councilor must have been a windfall, as she was beginning to renovate her residence into a guest house. Not yet having her hotelier’s license, she gave us a great deal on the room. On top of that, she owned a restaurant five-minutes’ walk from her house, where we got deals on food and beer. Not too shabby.
The next morning, Malara caught her flight home and I began my solo tour of Entebbe. First stop was the Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre, which we call in America a “zoo”. The rhinos and chimps were the highlights, and if you’ve never seen a rhino five feet away, you don’t know that they are like enormous cow-tank crossbreeds. The zoo offered a three kilometer “Forest Walk”, and I had time to kill, so I started wandering down the little trails. For one, I didn’t know that a log across the path meant “Path Closed”. For two, I didn’t know that Ugandan forests are home to a multitude of insects and the like. For three, “and the like” includes monstrous spiders, which I’ve already made clear that I am terrified of. It seems that normally, the paths are kept well-maintained and monstrous spider-free. I chose poorly, and went down the one which hasn’t been monitored in quite some time. Halfway through, I was on the verge of screaming or crying, I don’t know which. I had contemplated turning back, but I held on to the hope that I was almost through the bad part. Yeah, it got worse. Near the end, I was crawling on my hands and knees under these huge webs, and I felt like Frodo in Shelob’s cave. The spiders were the ones with a big, mottled black abdomen, long spindly legs, and fangs, and they were all somewhere in the range of three to five inches. When I saw freedom nearby, I gave up and ran with my arms like a boxer’s guard over my face. Then I tore off my shirt to find a couple two or three on my back, like in “The Last Crusade”. Brrrrrr… I asked about the path later, to find that no one has used it for months, as the guides warn most visitors about the monstrous spiders. I hate life sometimes. Anyway, after that harrowing experience, I headed to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens, 75 acres of trees and flowers. This time I took a guide… He showed me a small copse of trees where they filmed an old Tarzan movie from the 1930’s, and I even swung on those famous vines. Of course I attempted the classic yell, but all that accomplished was scaring some birds. I find a nice bench with a view of the lake, and read for a few hours ("Shadows of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, thanks Alex. It’s a gripping, fun read if you’re looking for a book). For dinner I found a local market where old women were selling fried fish balls for about ten cents apiece.
I returned to Kampala the following day, and really tried to walk around the city. I found a local clothing market that stretched for about 10 city blocks, and it was a vintage lover’s paradise (ahem, Andrew). Check this out, they were selling Diesel jeans in good condition for less than five dollars. So you can imagine old t-shirts were dirt cheap. I worked by way to the national art gallery, but again there was a problem with organization. There was more art lying in stacks on the floor than there was displayed, and only one piece out of every ten or so showed any inspiration or originality. But I’m no critic… For lunch I found a local joint serving boiled and mashed bananas (my recent favorite food) which was entirely staffed by cute 20-something waitresses. I immediately became a regular. On a masochistic impulse, I asked someone to point me to very cheap, but safe, lodgings. I specified that I didn’t need a “mzungu place”, and in doing so I’m pretty sure I sacrificed any hope of cleanliness. The place is stayed was called the China 888 Hotel, and my room was less than half the size of a typical college room, and the group bathroom put the fraternity one to shame in its dirtiness. It was perfect.
I finished up my tourist ventures the next day, when I visited the Kabaka’s Palace and Makerere University. Kabakas were kings, and I was given a tour of the palace grounds by an old fellow who had fought against Obote and Idi Amin in the revolution. He was awesome, and seemed pleased to find a tourist wanting to hear his stories. He showed me the prison where the tyrants held their political prisoners. There were five big concrete rooms, each about ten feet by twenty-five feet. In total, he said a thousand people were generally held in these rooms, and that they were in use for over ten years. The hallway outside of the rooms was filled with a foot of standing water, which the guards electrified. No escape… From there I went to the university, which was once the pride of East Africa. It was nice being surrounded by that familiar atmosphere of academia, but I didn’t see much worth commenting on. I browsed their library for awhile, and found that their literature section was immaculate. I was envious (Mr. Smith, they had “Mario and the Magician” in Mann’s original German. You know that’s been out of print for years, and I’ve yet to find it in English…) and wished I had a few days to spend there. I had lunch at the place with the foxy waitresses, and dinner at an Indian restaurant which was almost identical to Cedars, except without the awe-inspiring beer selection.
My last day I had run out of things to do, so I shopped a bit, and found a park and read. A precocious 13 year-old girl came up to me and we talked for a few hours, mainly about her conceptions of America versus the realities. A brief example, she thought that America has no crime or thieves, that there are no poor people, and so on. She was taught this in her school, which bothered me a bit. Lunch was with the ladies, and when I told them I was leaving the next morning they all asked me to take them to America. Boo-yah. That night, at the China 888, the man in the room next to me snored. At a Holiday Inn, there is insulation. At the 888, there is a cardboard wall. I wouldn’t have cared except he was the loudest snorer I’ve ever heard in my life. Yes, louder than Elliott, louder than Brandon, and amazingly, louder than Lance. In the early morning, he woke up from his deep sleeping to make a phone call. At this point I had just managed to fall asleep myself, only to be woken up to hear him say loudly over the phone “Yes, I slept very well last night, thank you.” Something snapped, and I think I developed a nervous twitch at that precise moment.
The bus ride back to Kampala passed quickly, as I was sitting between a cool fellow from Britain and an old Ugandan pilot. When the pilot sat down, he said he was ready with his “survival kit” which turned out to be a pint of cheap gin. He took half of it down, and offered me the rest. Like I said, the ride passed very quickly. The British guy was disillusioned with East African relief efforts, after working for one refugee organization and finding that the head of it made over 250K. He was traveling to find a worthwhile charity somewhere in East Africa to which he can give his assistance. Pretty noble, I thought. But I was a bit tipsy at that point. The pilot ended up procuring beer after beer for himself, and by the end of the trip he was passed out. Remind me not to fly Precision Air…
That’s it for my activities. I’ll write up a significantly shorter post in a few days’ time about what thoughts and impressions I now have. Rock like the Scorpions.

I Took A Trip...of DEATH

2006-03-17T23:29:00.000-08:00

For the past week or two I’ve been on break from teaching. At first I found it a bit frustrating, as I was beginning to settle into a pretty solid groove. I wasn’t sure what to do with so much free time and no fraternity brothers wanting to go to happy hours. Well, as luck would have it, during my previous vacation around Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, I met a German fellow, Bjorn (after the Swede phenom Bjorn Borg, of course), who was living near Bukoba. His tenure as a forestry intern was ending a few days ago, so we made plans to hang out for his last hurrah and return to Bukoba together so he could catch a ferry out of this joint.
Bjorn was staying in a community called Omurushaka, which is about 120 kilometers from Bukoba (you do the math). Of course, the only possible method of travel from Bukoba to Omurushaka is my old friend, the bus. I was given two options though- a minibus (a.k.a. dala-dala) or a big poppa like the one I rode to Njombe. The day before I planned on going, I went to the stand and asked what time either would be departing. Apparently on Saturdays they only leave at 6am or 7am. Great. I show up bright and early the next morning, and some dude grabs my arm. He remembered me from the day before, and proceeded to haul me through the throng of other dudes like him, all trying desperately to find passengers for their respective vehicles. He leads me to a dala-dala (so long, choice), kicks someone out of the front seat and in I go. I’ll tell you what, despite all my plans, the three hour ride was shockingly comfortable. For the second half the road was dirt and potholes and there were four of us up front, but I managed to hang onto the shotgun seat, so everything worked out.
When I arrived, Bjorn gave me a run-down of the plans for the next few days. Among other things, the plans included us slaughtering a few chickens for his farewell dinner. This was a bit ironic, as just a week before Aaron and I received memos from the Peace Corps office discussing that scourge, the avian flu. The memos told us not to handle live chickens and, whatever else we do, definitely not to slaughter them. Aaron and I shrugged off the warning, as we haven’t so much as touched a chicken since we arrived here. Well, I’ve got Mr. TamiFlu Vaccine flowing in my veins, so I wasn’t too worried, mabye even a little eager. In the afternoon, we went to pick out our victims from the market. Turns out live chickens cost less than three dollars here, so I could have gotten one for the Christmas exchange quite easily. Live and learn. We asked for the chickens which would taste the most delicious after frying, and were given possibly the ugliest chicken that even lived, and a normal looking one. I’ll get ahead of myself and say that the ugly one became far and away the most delicious fried chicken I’ve had since arriving here. I wonder if there’s a correlation…? That same evening was the dinner, so when we got back, we prepared ourselves for the slaughter. Bjorn had two choices of killing instruments- a big machete or his Swiss Army knife. One was sharper, but the other one was bigger. In the end he opted for the sharp Swiss Army method. I was a bit disappointed. I didn’t bring any clothes that would look good with blood spatter, so I relegated myself to the role of photographer (yeah, you should check my pictures page). He started with the ugly chicken, because it seemed easier to kill I suppose. What went wrong, you ask? Well, the goal of slaughtering a chicken is to kill it as fast as possible, by beheading it. So what happens if you only cut through half the neck? The chicken flops around like crazy, spraying blood everywhere as it struggles for life. I was a bit stunned by the spectacle of a chicken with its head hanging by a thread flopping all over the place, it was more than a bit chaotic and macabre. The Tanzanian man who was instructing us started yelling and basically tackled the chicken and ripped the rest of the head off and held onto it for its final throes. I was in awe, and also felt like less of a man. Who tackles a dying chicken? A really manly man, that's who. So that was it, one down. So what went wrong on the second try? Bjorn learned his lesson on severing the head completely, so that wasn’t a problem. I said that the man who helped us held down the first one for its final muscular spasms. The standard way of doing this is to straddle the chicken and step on its two wings. Well, Bjorn stood on the wings, made the cut, and then forgot to stand still and keep the now headless chicken pinned. What follow was one of the most unsettling things I’ve even seen. As far as I know, when a body goes into death throes, the motions are very jerky, spasmodic. So imagine my shock as the corpse slowly, deliberately rose from its spread-eagle position on the ground and gradually came to its feet, wings at its sides. It then leisurely began to open its wings again, as it stood perfectly still on its two feet, without a head. This took maybe twenty seconds in total, and the entire time blood is spurting vertically out of its neck with each heartbeat. Once its wings were spread, I think the body made an attempt at flying, but only managed to get a foot or two off the ground before it lost all control and careened off the porch and into a tree. It was amazing. During this whole time, we all had those stupefied smiles you get when something ridiculous that you don't understand is happening (like when I found out the Seahawks made it to the superbowl). The rest of the slaughter proceeded without any incident, and Bjorn’s house help (he supported the economy, too) fried them up for us. Like I said, the ugly one was awesome.
The next day we went on a little hike, through a valley near his house to a river. I have a picture of the river, which was not really a river at all. From up on the rim of the basin, it was a strange light green ribbon cutting through the middle of a sparse forest of banana trees. Bjorn explained that the color was due to papyrus growing in the river. Well, we threaded our way into the valley, past many unsuspecting farmers who were bewildered to see two giant mzungu (he is even taller than I am) crashing through their backyards. Eventually we reached the river. I have heard stories about how muddy the Mississippi is, but I’ll wager that this one has it beat hands down. The cattle trail we were following continued right onto the river and all the way across it. I don’t know if all papyrus-growing rivers are like this, but the surface was dense and spongy, like walking on a giant Twinkie. I kept wondering if some beast would jump up from underneath and carry me down with it. Maybe a hippo… Or maybe some quicksand-type hole would swallow me silently to the bottom of the papyrus jungle. Well, we made it to the other side without any incident, after treading very carefully. The scenery was bizarre in this area, the ground looking parched yet having abundant foliage. It was a nice diversion of a day.
That night, we were all excited to go to what Bjorn called “the pork place”. I don’t know why, but the slang term for pork here is “kiti moto” which literally translates as “the hot seat”. Actually, now maybe I do know why…ahem, we‘ll get to that. We show up and order us some fried pork (we ordered by the kilo, it was very masculine). It came out by itself on this big plate and it was a veritable mountain of fried pork cutlets, I wish I would’ve remembered to bring my camera. We all dug in to the deliciousness that is fried pork. That was all well and good. Flash forward five hours. Its now one in the morning, and I’m rolling back and forth in my bed with the worst stomach pain I can remember. (That’s not quite true. Once at the fraternity I was a little drunk and ate about fifteen of those long jerky tube things right before going to bed. I literally couldn’t move the next day.) I won’t go into the details, but I wasn’t able to eat for another two long arduous days. Just the thought of that mound of glistening pork goodness was enough to send me spiraling into nausea. Ugh. Well, its all over. I’ve returned none the worse for wear, although Mama Shukuru says I look too skinny now and wants me to eat lots of bananas.
That was it for my trip. In two days I go to Kampala, Uganda for a week. Let’s cross our fingers that it is just as eventful, huh? And again, if you aren’t my parents or brother and you do more than just skim this atrociously long posts, I thank you. Peace from the Corps.

Seeing Red, or WWID

2006-03-04T02:02:00.000-08:00

If you ever find yourself in a strange new environment, I have a fun game for you to play. Remember your good friends from your previous locale, and then insert them into the situations which you come across in your new one, to try and imagine how the friends would handle them. The more ridiculous the situation, the more humorous the game becomes. And naturally, some people have very memorable or vivid character traits which make them ideal for this. Well, I have been enjoying this diversion the whole time I’ve been here, without ever really thinking about it. Back when I was bested by the chickens, I recall wondering how a particular friend of mine would have responded to the entire event. The poisonous creatures turning up in my room, the evil ferry from Zanzibar, the basketball loudmouth. I can think of hilarious ways in which different people I have known would respond to each, maybe you can too. But I think my favorite person to put in any situation here, bar none, is Ivan Shiras. Most of you reading this probably know who he is to some extent, but for those who don’t, I suppose an brief explanation of Ivan is in order. First, let me set the stage by admitting that, shockingly, the fraternity had an adverse affect on my academic life. By about my junior year I was constantly debating switching majors to philosophy just so I could graduate quickly and painlessly. At this point, I’d known Mr. Shiras for several years, as he was a year under me in the fraternity. Midway through the year, we realized that we were both physics majors, and began taking classes together. I will freely declare that the support of Ivan is probably the main reason I ended up with a physics degree. Over the next two years (yes, three plus two makes five, so what…) Ivan and I became, I don’t think its presumptuous to say, great friends. During this tenure, in addition to studying together we even became coworkers. Suffice it to say I had ample time to get to know many of the aspects of Ivan’s personality. Earlier, I said that people who have more distinctive traits are the most amusing to imagine in these different situations. Well, Ivan has an unforgettable personality. Once during an interview, when asked how his friends would describe him, his reply was “salty.” But just to say that would give you a wrong impression as to the magnificence of Ivan. I’ve never known a more capable person. Our friend Ivan is devoted, earnest, intelligent, and has the potential of being very, very…shall we say…meticulous. If I use any more adjectives this will sound like a personals ad, and then I’d have to explain his resemblance to Chuck Norris (if only you grew a beefy mustache, Ivan…) and Ben Stiller. To get a feel for the full spectrum of Ivan, it will help to know that one of our physics professors once called him motivated and bright, and that one of our coworkers once asked me why he ironed his blue jeans (to be fair, he doesn‘t iron his blue jeans, only his sheets). Intellectual elite but obsessively neat, that is the essence.
So to return to my original idea, since I arrived, I have been unconsciously putting Ivan into all the various incidents which befall me. In fact, when I am teaching I tend to imagine how Ivan would explain a specific concept. Or if I become stuck on a problem a student brings to me from some archaic university text from India, I try to remember how he would attempt to solve it. Although this inspires me, its not the entertaining side of inserting Ivan into life here. For those of you who know Ivan well, or from my concise description can picture him, think of Ivan in some of the following situations.

There are relatively few restaurants in greater Bukoba, go figure. When the various mzungu factions decide to have a weekend dinner together, there are really only three places we can go. At the first one, the menu is shockingly varied, with everything from hamburgers (cheese is just too much to ask…) to perch thermidor. The downside? The menu does not correspond with what the restaurant actually serves, and usually its by about choice number four that I pick a winner. The second restaurant has the menu problem as well, to a lesser degree. But the major issue at this one is the service. It took over three hours to get our food once, and that was surprising because it generally only takes two hours. That last hour was pretty rough. The third restaurant is afflicted with the same difficulties as the first two, and even more. I remember once there were eight of us dining there. We waited for a little over the standard two hours, and when the food came, two people’s orders had been completely forgotten, and two others were just plain incorrect. Four for eight, after two long, hungry hours. The bizarre thing is that these places weren’t busy, which could have helped explain the confusion. In fact, generally we are the only ones there. How could a person whose sole job is to take an order from a table to a kitchen only succeed fifty percent of the time? Especially when that person is working so exasperatingly slowly! Ivan, you would let loose a legendary tantrum if you ever tried dining here, I‘m sure of it, and I‘m sure it would be hilarious.

Thinking of Ivan being present at my school meetings is usually the best way to keep entertained during them. These meetings have the tendency to be brutally tedious. For the opening of school in January, all the teachers met to go over the minutes from the previous closing of school meeting, as well as to cover the logistics of opening. All told, this lasted for seven hours. I’ll give you an idea of what critical issues were discussed during this time. For at least the first hour, the old minutes were read, and questions were raised. What kind of questions? Well, every time that a list of participants was mentioned, various teachers would raise their hands to say that they had been omitted. Come on, does it really matter that the scribe forgot to write that you attended a twenty-minute session six months ago on whether or not soda should be allowed at some ceremony? Is it worth then arguing over for ten minutes until your name is added? Ivan’s answer would be “no!”, and mine as well. And that was just the beginning! The rest of this meeting and most of the others have continued so much in this fashion that I began keeping myself entertained by writing physics lesson plans instead of listening. Think about that.

The last situation I have time to write about is a bit ironic, as it deals with blue jeans. I brought two pairs with me, which I am not allowed to wear on campus, Ihungo being a former missionary school. But I do wear them when Aaron and I walk into town, which is three miles away. The walk back is usually a bit rough, as I mentioned sometime earlier that the school is on a small mountain (or hill, I don‘t know the exact height requirements but I hear Hugh Grant could help me out) and we generally return at around three in the hot African afternoon. Have you ever walked up a mountain-hill in sweaty, clingy jeans? Each step is awful, like when you walk through deep snow and have to first move your leg directly up, then forward, then directly down again. Its just so inefficient, isn’t it Ivan…? But that’s not what I thought was ironic. After this uncomfortable trek home, my jeans are always dirty, so I toss them in the hamper for Mama Shukuru to wash (don’t shake your head at me; I’m supporting the economy) when she has time. All this means is that my jeans get the Mama Shukuru treatment at least once a week. And what does the Mama Shukuru treatment include? Yes, you guessed it. She irons my blue jeans. In fact, because she irons them so frequently, she has somehow succeeded in ironing into both pairs that classy line that slacks have going down the middle of each leg. Except in jeans it looks a little less than classy. Ivan, what would you do if you had blue jeans constantly ironed to look like slacks? I actually don’t know where you would stand on this one. Would you be pleased that they are so orderly, or bothered (yes, bothered) that your jeans have become terrible hybrids, "sleans"? Help a brother out...

Anyway, I’ve written way too much and I think I have mostly avoided being offensive to my certain friend so far, so I’ll call it a day. Ivan, I miss having you around, in every situation here.

A Brief Yet Triumphant Interlude

2006-02-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

So yesterday, while we were practicing, one of my players decides its a good time to sing, at the top of his lungs. What song does he choose? "Still the One" by Shania Twain. You know how it goes... "looks like we made it, look how far we've come now, baby..." and so on. I felt obligated to sing it with him. It was a pretty fun practice, despite the looks we got from passers-by. Then I got home and accidentally superglued my fingers together. So I suppose my day ended up balancing out quite nicely.

Engineers Can Be Heroes Too

2006-02-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

I asked Andrew what I should write about here, what he would like to hear about. All he mentioned was that he wanted me to write about how bad "The Ghost and the Darkness" was. His major complaint with the film (and I call it a "film" here rather than a "movie" intentionally) was that Val Kilmer's character, who was the mastermind behind the search parties which eventually saved the village from the lions, was in actuality a civil engineer. The error inherent in my brother's line of thinking is that civil engineers cannot be lion-hunting heros. Andrew, I must remind you that this film was based on a true story. Therefore, at some point in time, this engineer must have truly inspired the natives of the village to face their fears and hunt the lions. Engineers can be heroes too, Andrew. Engineers can be heroes too.
But this is a digression from what I was planning on writing about today, the coaching of basketball. The school managed to purchase two balls from town somehow, so beginning last week we started playing again. We practice three days a week, usually for about two hours or so. I suppose that my biggest problem is that I simply do not know how to coach basketball. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I was never a highly skilled player. In fact, I have forgotten most of what I knew about the fundamentals of basketball, such as where a forward is supposed to stand and what he should do. My students who come to play, they have a surprising amount of raw talent, and they keep asking me to teach them new abilities. Now, the real challenge here is keeping the respect of these students who have this natural skill when I myself am lacking a bit. Yesterday there were about 20 of us who spent an hour practicing shooting, I was trying to teach them to "shoot like Mike". The unfortunate part of all this is that I myself am unable to shoot like Mike. Now, because our school has 600 students and because there are so few diversions for them, many students come just to watch us practice. In America, we called this the "peanut gallery", and here they behave the same way. They sit on the sides and mock the players who are less skilled or make errors so that it makes many students afraid to try out. What should I do about these rascals? Its nice to have an audience, especially during scrimmages, but not one who is insulting the players. In fact, when I was attempting to teach them how to shoot yesterday, the commentators began trying to harass me, the coach. They were saying I should show them how it was done, if I knew so well. How do you respond to that? I took a ball and shot the best I could, but it rimmed out. Then, they started heckling me in Swahili. Here I must go into an aside. For those of you who have ever known a language being spoke around you that wasn't your first language, it is almost like eavesdropping. Especially when those speaking this second language assume that you don't know it. When I am coaching I use English, as is mandated by the school. The players on the "court" whom I have spoken to in Swahili started laughing, knowing that I understood everything that these others were saying. I listened to them saying how "the white man can't even score himself", "we need an African coach, he is no good", "this technique for shooting is bad" and so on. I had to laugh myself, and finally I told them I understood what they were saying. They got embarrassed and quieted down, except for one who seemed intent on challenging my authority and continued running his mouth. I am not an authoritarian by any means. I think these kids could probably learn to play almost as well without me, and I won't demand their respect just because I am their coach. But it does bother me to be disrespected, so I told this little rapscalion, in Swahili, to put up or shut up. He sauntered onto the court, took his time to set up his shot, making sure everyone was watching him. Then he took one of those shots that little children take, throwing the ball with both hands from behind the head. He airballed, badly, and it was glorious. Once the laughter had subsided, I proceeded to tell him that, if he wanted, I would teach him how to shoot sometime, but that for today I wanted him to leave. I think he would've left anyway, he was pretty ashamed. Then we continued. What do you think, did I handle this correctly? I don't want to be a harsh coach, making the spectators leave if they aren't playing. A little good-natured jabbing helps to inspire sometimes as well. So I don't want to always run these kids off, but I hope the situations won't continue to exacerbate like that. What if he had made his basket? I suppose I got lucky. Anyway, I guess I wrote that little story just to see if anyone had any advice on being a coach, especially with the particulars in basketball.
That's it for today. I'll try to do something hilarious this upcoming week so that I have a funny story to write. One last thing, if any noble person has desired to call me since I've been here, but hasn't due to cost, my mom emailed me the name of the phone card she's been using. You can buy one at the site Alosmart.com. The name of the card itself is "Desert Express" (glamorous, no?) and it is something like 12 cents a minute. If you forgot my number, in its entirety it is 011-255-748-254-271. I got one or two random calls before, but I think they were direct from a cell phone and quite expensive. My phone gets pretty good service here, but it cuts out now and again, so if you try and fail, perservere. Take care, peace out.

My Foot-In-Mouth Habit

2006-02-07T01:42:00.000-08:00

I don't want to start a post by saying "Well, not much has happened since the last time I posted" as that immediately bores people. If you are already bored, I'm apologize, but also never come to Tanzania. It took two hours to get our dinner after we ordered the other night, and they only took our order after we'd been there almost an hour. The best part? They forgot two out of eight peoples' food. The real best part? We've all adjusted to life here, so we weren't surprised and no one got particularly upset. Tanzanians aren't really known for their punctuality. In fact, if a Tanzanian arrives on time for a meeting, his fellows who arrive late ask him why he is asking like an mzungu. There is mzungu-time and Tanzanian-time. They differ by somewhere between 30 minutes and a couple hours, depending on the urgency of the business to be conducted. Are you real hungry? No problem, two hours. Need to check your back account balance? Only half an hour today you lucky lion. And so on. Our teachers meetings at school almost always start late, and then run late, which is too bad, as the students just sit in the classes wondering where we are. Ah, c'est la vie.
My weekend was eventful for a change. For those of you going to see the World Cup this year (Sasha and Ivan, curse you both with a million fleas), I watched a bit of the African Cup over the weekend. As you can imagine, the competition is quite good. Aren't their 4 or 5 teams from Africa in the World Cup this year? Anyway, I went to a fellow teachers house and watched the games with them. It was funny, they thought I was completely naive as to how soccer is played. Granted, I'm not an expert by any means, but they were telling me things like "Ok, that man just shot at the goal. If it would have entered the goal, his team would get a point." I felt sassy, so I mentioned how Senegal was playing a 4-3-3 formation, and they all stopped and looked at me. Then they offered me a beer. I think I made the crucial difference with that comment. The games were good, tonight are the semis. Nigeria v. Ivory Coast, and Egypt v. Senegal. Everyone's abuzz with anticipation. I will enjoy watching Egypt play again because their coach looks like an angry Egyptian Will Ferrell. Oh yeah.
In more meaningful news, I went to a local elder's house for lunch on Sunday. It went pretty well, I managed only one foot-in-mouth. We got on the subject of traditional foods of differing areas throughout Tanzania, and one of us brought up my archnemesis- dagaa. Dagaa are a type of fish. Each one is a thin two inches in size, and is dried and sold with several hundred of its foul brothers. If you were to spend five minutes walking around any large market, the memory you would have would be of an evil smell that pervaded every nook and cranny. That would be the smell of dagaa. Now the great thing about dagaa is that once they are rehydrated and cooked, they taste just like they smell. Isn't that wonderful? No it isn't. It is the opposite of wonderful. So the elder and myself are discussing the foods we like, and I guess it must have been him that mentioned these little blighters. Well, I took my trademark stance on dagaa, using the harshest words possible to say how much I dislike it. He took it in good humor, as Tanzanians always do. Not fifteen minutes later, his wife, who had been cooking lunch for us for the last hour, arrived with ugali and, foot-in-mouth, dagaa. Oh good. Ugali is corn flour and water, thats it. It is like an awestrikingly flavorless dumpling. Its strong point is that it is like tofu in that it tastes like what you serve with it. Well, most days this is its strong point, as there are great Indian spices here. However, when it is served with dagaa, this becomes a massive flaw. For those of you who don't like trout or steelhead or some other freshwater fish due to its "fishy taste" please empathize with me here. The fishy taste of dagaa is enough to make trout blanch and transform into lobster. So not only was I stuck eating a mound of it, choking through a mound of it, sad bite by sad, hesitant bite, I had also somehow insulted the food my host was serving me. It was like a fishy-foot-in-mouth, and thats the worst of them all. But no one seemed to care, and I must not have been too offensive. The man invited me to travel with him in March to his home village for a week. It is almost a day's travel away, and I will be the first white man to ever stay there, he says. We'll see, it sounds tempting in an uncomfortable, meaningful experience kind of way. I think Calvin's father would say that it would "build character" and its only for a week. So I will probably go.
That's all I've got for now. I heard the Seahawks took second in the Super Bowl. I would have rather they took first in that particular game, but at least they made it for once. I hope all of you who went had a good, safe (ahem) time. Peace

Sitting alone in my Pawpaw Tree

2006-01-30T03:47:00.000-08:00

As I was putting on my backpack today to roll on into town, a dead bird fell out. An ominous beginning, no? Since the internet cafe is my first stop, I haven't had anything drastic happen....yet. We'll see though. Today is the first day I will go to the TRA (the IRS of here) and attempt to thwart the customs men from charging a box I got sent. Apparently they are legendarily capricious and sometimes charge quite a lot, up to fifty American dollars, for someone (white) just to receive a package. However, word on the street is that they are -gasp!- bribe takers. Sometimes a little under the table grease gets the package over the table a bit easier. The best part is, they're not pretentious about their bribes. From what I hear, anything and everything flies. If you get a big box of candy, alright we'll take a Snickers! Some new shoes? Gimme them laces. So I guess its sort of a game to see how and what you can give them to retain the rest of your belongings. I've never tried this sort of haggling, but my Swahili has been on point lately, so I'll give it a go. I even asked Ester to give me some greetings in the local tribal language, Kihaya. I practiced them on the "mzungu" walk into town, with inspiring success (by the way, nearly every email I got since that last post has involved that word somehow referencing me. Thank you for the empathy, my fellow wazungu...). Every person whom I greeted properly stopped walking and turned around to face me with a jaw-hanging-to-their-chest amazed sort of look, which generally broke into a giant smile and some sort of response which I couldn't follow. It made me realize how much of an effect learning Kihaya could have on my stay here. Sure, a lot of the foreigners learn Swahili, thats pretty common. Some of them are even fluent. But its not every day an mzungu rolls on by with a truly local greeting. At first I was planning on not learning Kihaya, as greater Bukoba is the only place its spoken in the world, but now I'm reconsidering. Sure, I'll never use it again, but who knows what could happen while I'm here. It may even save me a Snickers bar and shoelaces at TRA. We'll see...
In other news, I've got a few questions for y'all. I mentioned sometime that I was planning on trying to implement a music program at school. The secondary schools, they are all business. There is no art program or music program (one and the same?), and I think the students miss out on something. So I'm hoping for....exposure of music I suppose. There is hope, as some of the local drum music is great. There is sadness, as most everyone prefers American rap over it. Right now my plan is to petition Peace Corps for a grant to get some sort of simple instruments (read: recorders) with which I can teach the students some basics of music. In conjunction with that, I will have a music hour once a week in the computer lab (Aaron willing...) where I show them different types of music. We'll see how it works. I already talked to the headmaster, and he gave me a "you're on your own, but that sounds great!" kind of statement. So I guess I'm looking for ideas. Despite my plans, I really don't know where to start. Does anyone have any great memories of something music-related from school? Or a method of learning about music they particularly enjoyed? Preemptive thanks for the help has been given.
Second, one of my fellow teachers, a young guy with the unfortunate name Oswald (no offense if you are reading this and also named Oswald) has been asking me a lot about how he can go to university. I have been trying to give him ideas and encouragement, but there is a real issue with funding here. He did extremely well in his biology exit exams from form 6, and is looking to go into medicine. The amazing thing about his story is that he was orphaned at the age of 7 or so, and some sort of orphans' trust fund paid all his school fees up through A-level of secondary school. Unfortunately, this fund has never had a student progess with the drive and ability of Oswald; he is the first to have attending a university as a legitimate prospect. They are not equipped with the kind of funds to send him even to public university. I tried seeing about loans or scholarships, but both are in rare supply, so that's out. I've given him the best advice I have, but as it stands unless a benefactor appears I somewhat doubt he will continue his education. So my question is this: Does anyone know of any sort of grants/scholarships/places to find funding for a case like his? Or does anyone have any advice that I could pass on to him? Again, anything helps (knowledge-wise, keep your money in your pockets for now).
That's it for now. I am in the slow process of posting some pictures of my house and whatnot. My aunt had the brilliant idea to have a caption contest. So if you see a picture that strikes you as needing a witty caption, be free and add it. Otherwise, take care, and congrats Mikey G. on getting married, big fella.