December 10, 2011. I lie on a fuzzy brown blanket on the hard Indian grass, birds crowing and chirping and flying and singing, darting in foggy sky from flowered tree to bushes dancing in the breeze. Tombs stand over us, centuries of sunlight and tourists gazing and taking, and we talk of past volunteers and brassy lovers sitting near. Is this India, I ask myself, and I feel opened by the trees.
Nick and Sally stretch out, hands occasionally finding each other, he writes and she reads and I sit up, the third wheel that watches the old and young men that walk in pairs on the snaking paths, and they stare at me too, at my blonde hair illuminated in a world of black and brown, but gold means more. I am wealth, I am beauty, I am valued, but not like the women courted lying strides away. She is veiled in black, and he looks at me and at her and back at me, and I wonder how to love someone without seeing their face. Children run and fall in long-sleeved shirts and sweaters because it's winter to them, and white kids roller-skate in small shorts and straggled hair. I watch them all, and hold in my mind the beautiful and the serene and I remember all else too.
I rode a motorcycle yesterday, for the first time,in the chaos of Delhi roads where rickshaws honked at the swervings of my unexperienced driver and the shouts of men who shout at girls like me and the approach of small children carrying fake roses, and Nick dismisses them, but I'm still new enough to care.
I felt free and scared and I held onto his shoulders and waist and loosened my hold as time went on, and I know we all chase that feeling, the myriad of ecstasy, the setting Indian sun burning orange through smog and domes of temples.
We passed under the Bridge of Despair, fires cooking meals for whole families, and I wondered where the children slept, do they have blankets for the chilly nights to barrier from the cold concrete, and part of me said, it's just India, that's the way it is.
My mom says angst comes through, tucked in between words and in the gaps and holes of letters, but I feel calm now, but not as simple as before.
I miss home, especially when voices of my friends come through my iPad in crackled jumbled phrases, the connections lost somewhere.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Not my words, but I feel them too
The chrysanthemums are late this year, as are my cold quilt covered winter nights. Moonless, still hazy after a fire-crackered diwali, frenzied wedding season. My city of elegance, refinement, grace, sitting silent on the ruins of many who thought they owned it, seems to be giving away again, to the crass, mundane, political bureaucratic businessman morass. Where new money, noise, glitter seem to be the only way to herald an arrival. Bollywood babies clogging headlines. Feudal. Headless. Lost in my first city. Nothing less than an Audi will do. A table for two, rooftop, fine-dining chic. Please.
Dilhi. Where my heart finally rests. My body, restless, will find no peace here it seems. Jamuna reti, my loose grey sand, upon which my city stands. Sand in which nothing will hold. Slipping through my fingers with every grasp. This is the city too, of djinns, of the Sufi, where a grasping, clutching, will only choke. Suffocating the many dynasties that moved here to rule.
Dilhi, my city of the heart. Of a fine-ness of being. Elegance. Generosity of spirit. Grace. To let the moonlight play with the silver of my reti, of my waters. My first city of the night, of much more than that which my eyes call real.
In this issue, through food, music, we explore the night. To lead us too from our stomachs to our heart. To be in flow, as it were, with my river divine.
--editorial from First City magazine
Dilhi. Where my heart finally rests. My body, restless, will find no peace here it seems. Jamuna reti, my loose grey sand, upon which my city stands. Sand in which nothing will hold. Slipping through my fingers with every grasp. This is the city too, of djinns, of the Sufi, where a grasping, clutching, will only choke. Suffocating the many dynasties that moved here to rule.
Dilhi, my city of the heart. Of a fine-ness of being. Elegance. Generosity of spirit. Grace. To let the moonlight play with the silver of my reti, of my waters. My first city of the night, of much more than that which my eyes call real.
In this issue, through food, music, we explore the night. To lead us too from our stomachs to our heart. To be in flow, as it were, with my river divine.
--editorial from First City magazine
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Flies land on dry arms and no one notices
Colder here. December 6, 2011. Day three in India, first day at placement. We drove thirty minutes away from our flats, passed laborers in colorful silks and cottons waiting to be picked up from work, past bony cows eating trash and past torn posters and billboards on dimpled tin walls. We turned into a large tract of land in the middle of Delhi, where the smog still seeps in but flowers of gold and pink and orange line the road, vines hanging between columns and fields of vegetables in parallel and perpendicular lines. We walked into Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying and Destitute, anxious and excited and scared and wishful and all the other adjectives fluttering around in heart and stomach. A large walkway goes straight through the nearly all outdoor center, men on the left, women on the right, Lalet, one of the staff members for CCS, told us. We hear crying, screaming and sobbing and little laughter, and we scuff across the tiles, and meet the mother nun, patients coming us to us and talking grunts or Hindi or babble, indiscernible to me, and all around there are women and men in various states of mental chaos and I don't think I can do this, but I must, I say to myself, I must.
And so in my new Indian dress that we are required to wear, a pale green silky tunic, I sit with the women for hours, and hold their hands, and rub their backs when they cry and almost cry myself.
Mother Teresa's center in New Delhi is a recent institution that takes men and women with either physical or mental disabilities and gives them a place to stay, food to eat, comfort, and maybe even love, until they die.
Most do not have family. I would be surprised to see you not shocked, Bella said.
The light streams down allies at steep angles, hitting the garbage and curbs through refractions of smog. Birds chirp all night, and fly overhead from palm to tree to wire to paint chipped balcony. I sit in our living room, peering out through barred windows and cracked screens and I watch from the backseat of our compact car at the fruit stands and cloth shops and toothless men crossing the road, motorbikes tearing past and automated rickshaws scurrying in cracks of fast moving exhaust.
I miss Tanzania, my children, my coffee shop and laundry buckets. Here is foreign, still, unknown. I cough and I miss the clean air and I miss the sweat and the oppressive heat and the classrooms with no textbooks and part of me wonders why I'm here.
I can't imagine being anywhere else, but here, on this wide golden couch, legs perched on a glass coffee table.
"In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."-Mother Teresa
And so in my new Indian dress that we are required to wear, a pale green silky tunic, I sit with the women for hours, and hold their hands, and rub their backs when they cry and almost cry myself.
Mother Teresa's center in New Delhi is a recent institution that takes men and women with either physical or mental disabilities and gives them a place to stay, food to eat, comfort, and maybe even love, until they die.
Most do not have family. I would be surprised to see you not shocked, Bella said.
The light streams down allies at steep angles, hitting the garbage and curbs through refractions of smog. Birds chirp all night, and fly overhead from palm to tree to wire to paint chipped balcony. I sit in our living room, peering out through barred windows and cracked screens and I watch from the backseat of our compact car at the fruit stands and cloth shops and toothless men crossing the road, motorbikes tearing past and automated rickshaws scurrying in cracks of fast moving exhaust.
I miss Tanzania, my children, my coffee shop and laundry buckets. Here is foreign, still, unknown. I cough and I miss the clean air and I miss the sweat and the oppressive heat and the classrooms with no textbooks and part of me wonders why I'm here.
I can't imagine being anywhere else, but here, on this wide golden couch, legs perched on a glass coffee table.
"In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."-Mother Teresa
We played Taboo last night
December 3rd, 2011. I have stopped writing for myself, to remember.
Yesterday, as I stared crying in front of the bitchy counterwoman who was, ironically, also named Grace, wishing only to get on the flight to India, I measured my breaths. I started to hyperventilate, standing in front of a smudged mirror, the door partly open and cleaning lady peering in worried, and counted. I sat in a taxi, standing in the middle of a crowded highway, men selling opened water and American girl dolls, lollipops and clinking coins and kissing the air, and I stopped crying.
I missed my flight because I did not have a yellow card. I stayed in Josh and Jessica's house, he a connection through my mom in a convoluted direction, both strangers. The house was beautiful and white and airy with the fans on, clammy and dark otherwise. The beach blew salty air, the bagagi driver friendly and young, talked of tacking and sailing and Somali pirates.
The ferry was hot, sweat glowed on necks and sunk through clothes of men carting food and crates of glass bottled soda, and Swahili surged around metal poles and between steaming cars.
I slept on a mattress with one sheet, mosquito zapped at my feet. I had an omelette for lunch, and talked of American politics and the Peace Corps and of sex tourism and my grandfather.
Yesterday, as I stared crying in front of the bitchy counterwoman who was, ironically, also named Grace, wishing only to get on the flight to India, I measured my breaths. I started to hyperventilate, standing in front of a smudged mirror, the door partly open and cleaning lady peering in worried, and counted. I sat in a taxi, standing in the middle of a crowded highway, men selling opened water and American girl dolls, lollipops and clinking coins and kissing the air, and I stopped crying.
I missed my flight because I did not have a yellow card. I stayed in Josh and Jessica's house, he a connection through my mom in a convoluted direction, both strangers. The house was beautiful and white and airy with the fans on, clammy and dark otherwise. The beach blew salty air, the bagagi driver friendly and young, talked of tacking and sailing and Somali pirates.
The ferry was hot, sweat glowed on necks and sunk through clothes of men carting food and crates of glass bottled soda, and Swahili surged around metal poles and between steaming cars.
I slept on a mattress with one sheet, mosquito zapped at my feet. I had an omelette for lunch, and talked of American politics and the Peace Corps and of sex tourism and my grandfather.
Before all hell
December 2nd, 2011. We drove through the dark and the first tendrils of sunrise, the mama Kilimanjaro uncovering her scarves to wish me a happy journey. My flight is canceled, the flight attendant corrupt, and the airport is empty except for a static filled TV channel and two women gesturing with their hands as they talk. Jafet and I sat in near silence as we drove to the lonely airport, come again, have a nice journey, in breathy words, eyes crinkled at the edge.
I left my new roommates as they slept, a sheet only for fear of the blankets, Sue in a white satin eye mask and earplugs, walked down the coiled metal staircase, and said goodbye to my home in Tanzania.
I thought of the blacksmiths crafting swords with leathered sooty hands, of the night guard, Joseph, of Ester who works at the equipment shop. I though of my children, my children, their laughs and tears, both of which I shave shared with them. I though of Aika, her elegance and power and tenderness and tiny freckles on her cheeks. I thought of the waiter at Union cafe, a falsetto in his voice, of the other volunteers and their kindness, their arms willing to contract in maternal gestures when an exhausted and feeble girl knocks on the wooden door in the middle of the night. I thought of Brenda, her spunk and the cuts on her arms, in the crease of her elbow, and deep voice when she tries to sing Waka Waka. I thought of those climbing, the summit night at an end, with the orange glimmer on the horizon milked into the sky slowly.
I wait to check in, a packet of cheap cookies and a nearly empty water bottle in hand, raincoat stuffed in the bottom of my backpack, and I can't say goodbye to Africa.
I sit in Dar, a man holding a dirtied white paper glued onto plastic, a picture of a man with black lettering under. Written in English, when he comes to my chair to show me, the eighth in a series, it talks of nothing, a letter addresses to a royal highness. His eyes don't make contact but stare above my left shoulder, blank. I shake my head, not sure the response, and he passes by, and I wonder. He limps, and there is a little pool of spit gathered at the side of his mouth. He holds his left arm with his right, a bend and unmoving hand, a dolls, it would seem. He wears a Kennybunkport shirt from 1989, and one of his tan plastic shoes lies discarded below his chair.
The roof of the outdoor airport is three stories up, and rain blows in, misty, coming through the cracks too. I sit facing forward in maroon metal chairs, connected with other seats. The people siting near come and go, children to covered girls to Indian men with large cell phones.
I left my new roommates as they slept, a sheet only for fear of the blankets, Sue in a white satin eye mask and earplugs, walked down the coiled metal staircase, and said goodbye to my home in Tanzania.
I thought of the blacksmiths crafting swords with leathered sooty hands, of the night guard, Joseph, of Ester who works at the equipment shop. I though of my children, my children, their laughs and tears, both of which I shave shared with them. I though of Aika, her elegance and power and tenderness and tiny freckles on her cheeks. I thought of the waiter at Union cafe, a falsetto in his voice, of the other volunteers and their kindness, their arms willing to contract in maternal gestures when an exhausted and feeble girl knocks on the wooden door in the middle of the night. I thought of Brenda, her spunk and the cuts on her arms, in the crease of her elbow, and deep voice when she tries to sing Waka Waka. I thought of those climbing, the summit night at an end, with the orange glimmer on the horizon milked into the sky slowly.
I wait to check in, a packet of cheap cookies and a nearly empty water bottle in hand, raincoat stuffed in the bottom of my backpack, and I can't say goodbye to Africa.
I sit in Dar, a man holding a dirtied white paper glued onto plastic, a picture of a man with black lettering under. Written in English, when he comes to my chair to show me, the eighth in a series, it talks of nothing, a letter addresses to a royal highness. His eyes don't make contact but stare above my left shoulder, blank. I shake my head, not sure the response, and he passes by, and I wonder. He limps, and there is a little pool of spit gathered at the side of his mouth. He holds his left arm with his right, a bend and unmoving hand, a dolls, it would seem. He wears a Kennybunkport shirt from 1989, and one of his tan plastic shoes lies discarded below his chair.
The roof of the outdoor airport is three stories up, and rain blows in, misty, coming through the cracks too. I sit facing forward in maroon metal chairs, connected with other seats. The people siting near come and go, children to covered girls to Indian men with large cell phones.
Archives
Demons. November 20th, 2011. We were sitting at the tables, talking about my climb to come and dreadlocks passed, and I head screaming. Simran and I look at each other, the others still talk. It sounds like a child being beaten, piercing, repeated cries. Some ask, is it a bird? No, it sounds like a person. The noises stop, and we talk again.
Suddenly, as Madison and Sarah chat next to me, I hear the sounds again. They come from the other side of our garden wall, straight ahead. Aryian and I jump up, because it's apparent that some one is in pain. We walk then run down the cobbled driveway to the gate, and poke the dozing watchman. We should do something, what is going on, we say, and open up the heavy wooden door to the pebbled and dirt street. A crowd is gathered, and we walk toward the congested center. A slender figure is held down by four people, one on each limb, back on the hard and rough ground. She thrashes, screaming and yelling and laughing and crying, beautiful Swahili words mutilated in muffled and pained sounds. We don't know what to do, how to help. We ask what is the matter, and Joseph, one of the other night watchmen with curved kind eyes when he smiles, says she is sick. Madison asks, does she have an illness, is she having a baby, like what is the problem. And I ask, pointing to my head, is she sick up here. And Joseph says, yes, I think you understand.
The only thing that is clear to me is that the slight girl in pain needs to be taken to a hospital. Baba comes out, and we all ask him to call an ambulance for her. He says, no, the only way to help her is to call the pastor, and he will pray for her. She has demons inside of her, and spiritual, said sp-ir-it-u-al healing is the only way to save her. They are calling the pastor on the mo-bi-le phone as we spe-ak Dada. (meaning daughter)
I am floored still. A fourteen year old girl, dripping sweat even apparent in the dark, is thought to be possessed by demons. Some from the home base think, oh, it's just cultural, that's just the way it is.
Jenna, a licensed nurse/mother figure from Ohio, came out, and asked the girl questions, calmed her down, after forty-five minutes of the crowd laughing, jeering. Small children ran around the gravel, enjoying the community spectacle. Jenna walked her back to her house, down the street from us. Her father says he might take her to a clinic. Baba says, no, that is not what she needs, she needs a church. (the pastor was called, and the girl continued to flail and cry) What can I do to help a child who doesn't understand why she is out of control of herself, happening since nine months before? To be told that you have the devil inside, and not be able to get it out, to have your neighbors, your community, laughs t you as youa re writing on the ground, speaking nonsense like TAKE MY BLOOD and I WILL COME LATER, translated for us by Joseph, to have your only salvation lie in the hands of God?
The Masai girl Jenna was seeing at KCMC, with burns all over Hrbody, died yesterday. She would have survived in the United States. She's in pain, staggering breaths, they said, and there's not a good chance she will make it. Jenna received the call last night, two days before she leaves to return to America.
Mary Cellen sits on my lap in the pouring rain. We stay under the awning, on unstable wooden benches outside my school. Clara takes a metal pencil box from her backpack, on which is a map of the world. I show where I'm from. And I say, I am going to be leaving soon, to go back home. And they say, why? You are leaving?
My nerves and mind are scattered and rushing and I'm climbing tomorrow and I hope I make it up but what if I don't and does it matter? Peace, come please. I think about so much.
Suddenly, as Madison and Sarah chat next to me, I hear the sounds again. They come from the other side of our garden wall, straight ahead. Aryian and I jump up, because it's apparent that some one is in pain. We walk then run down the cobbled driveway to the gate, and poke the dozing watchman. We should do something, what is going on, we say, and open up the heavy wooden door to the pebbled and dirt street. A crowd is gathered, and we walk toward the congested center. A slender figure is held down by four people, one on each limb, back on the hard and rough ground. She thrashes, screaming and yelling and laughing and crying, beautiful Swahili words mutilated in muffled and pained sounds. We don't know what to do, how to help. We ask what is the matter, and Joseph, one of the other night watchmen with curved kind eyes when he smiles, says she is sick. Madison asks, does she have an illness, is she having a baby, like what is the problem. And I ask, pointing to my head, is she sick up here. And Joseph says, yes, I think you understand.
The only thing that is clear to me is that the slight girl in pain needs to be taken to a hospital. Baba comes out, and we all ask him to call an ambulance for her. He says, no, the only way to help her is to call the pastor, and he will pray for her. She has demons inside of her, and spiritual, said sp-ir-it-u-al healing is the only way to save her. They are calling the pastor on the mo-bi-le phone as we spe-ak Dada. (meaning daughter)
I am floored still. A fourteen year old girl, dripping sweat even apparent in the dark, is thought to be possessed by demons. Some from the home base think, oh, it's just cultural, that's just the way it is.
Jenna, a licensed nurse/mother figure from Ohio, came out, and asked the girl questions, calmed her down, after forty-five minutes of the crowd laughing, jeering. Small children ran around the gravel, enjoying the community spectacle. Jenna walked her back to her house, down the street from us. Her father says he might take her to a clinic. Baba says, no, that is not what she needs, she needs a church. (the pastor was called, and the girl continued to flail and cry) What can I do to help a child who doesn't understand why she is out of control of herself, happening since nine months before? To be told that you have the devil inside, and not be able to get it out, to have your neighbors, your community, laughs t you as youa re writing on the ground, speaking nonsense like TAKE MY BLOOD and I WILL COME LATER, translated for us by Joseph, to have your only salvation lie in the hands of God?
The Masai girl Jenna was seeing at KCMC, with burns all over Hrbody, died yesterday. She would have survived in the United States. She's in pain, staggering breaths, they said, and there's not a good chance she will make it. Jenna received the call last night, two days before she leaves to return to America.
Mary Cellen sits on my lap in the pouring rain. We stay under the awning, on unstable wooden benches outside my school. Clara takes a metal pencil box from her backpack, on which is a map of the world. I show where I'm from. And I say, I am going to be leaving soon, to go back home. And they say, why? You are leaving?
My nerves and mind are scattered and rushing and I'm climbing tomorrow and I hope I make it up but what if I don't and does it matter? Peace, come please. I think about so much.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Alone
November 16, 2011. The wind blows in gusts. Tiny florescent lamps, the ones we have in our frightening laundry room at home, hang from trees and cast small eerie glows around the dark yard. One of the plastic chairs is turned, resting on the small white table. Gravel surrounds, and i walk tenderly on the sharp rocks to reach a tranquil place. A cicada sounds in the blush next to me, others tap in the manicured lawn. The small tent above me shakes, creaking, and I wonder if it fell.
I don't have anyone to talk to, to be silent with. I have drawn into myself more, and find it's hard to be alone too. I wish I could cry, to release something caught in my throat, my nose, my chest, cry to someone. Lives here are smashed together for hours a day, meals taken communally, bunk beds shared between strangers and friends. Our days and talk focus on our placements, our frustrations with the Tanzanian government, gossip about other volunteers, food at home. Nothing is ever told. No personalities discerned. I wonder what people are like back home, in real life, Simran says to me. We piece together stories and histories from passing comments, from articles of clothing and bags bought at the local market.
I've been told that I search for connection, but I have little idea about how to achieve. I transform myself to fit other people's perceptions of who I should be.
In essence, I act.
And even with hours of self-reflection, nights spent in chapels, kneeled at the wooden altar, and walk around a serene and familiar New England pond, I still can't rest within myself. I can't just Be.
Rain starts to fall, tapping out rhythms on the tent's plastic, and humming out the cicadas. I sing notes to myself, and they for into Amazing Grace, on their own, I feel. I sing all the verses I know, the occasional dog cry joining, and I sit and shiver in the African night.
I don't have anyone to talk to, to be silent with. I have drawn into myself more, and find it's hard to be alone too. I wish I could cry, to release something caught in my throat, my nose, my chest, cry to someone. Lives here are smashed together for hours a day, meals taken communally, bunk beds shared between strangers and friends. Our days and talk focus on our placements, our frustrations with the Tanzanian government, gossip about other volunteers, food at home. Nothing is ever told. No personalities discerned. I wonder what people are like back home, in real life, Simran says to me. We piece together stories and histories from passing comments, from articles of clothing and bags bought at the local market.
I've been told that I search for connection, but I have little idea about how to achieve. I transform myself to fit other people's perceptions of who I should be.
In essence, I act.
And even with hours of self-reflection, nights spent in chapels, kneeled at the wooden altar, and walk around a serene and familiar New England pond, I still can't rest within myself. I can't just Be.
Rain starts to fall, tapping out rhythms on the tent's plastic, and humming out the cicadas. I sing notes to myself, and they for into Amazing Grace, on their own, I feel. I sing all the verses I know, the occasional dog cry joining, and I sit and shiver in the African night.
Long, the parade
November 14th, 2011. Sarah had a breakdown. We think it's physiological, causing her to scream in pain for hours on end, starting yesterday morning in the middle of brunch as we talked over toast and cold eggs. A few volunteers took her to the hospital, and nurses who speak little English ask her, are you pregnant? Are you in labor? You have a Urinary Tract Infection. (The general diagnosis for white women, who are seen as promiscuous.) Your appendix may have burst. You have gastritis. She screamed, of knives in her stomach, shrill sounds following Simran, Natasha, and Aryian down the street, echoing outside the building to a man selling water across the lane. She doesn't eat, cries in her room alone, emerging this evening in dirty sweatpants and straggled hairs sticking up at odd angles, face chapped. Her roommate, Madison Miami, is on a rampage against the staff, especially Baba who takes off his glasses and lays them gingerly on the plastic table, rubbing his wrinkled temples, confused how to proceed. Madison struts around the tiled floors in tinght red shorts and a baggy trendy tshirt, reminding me of a TRex conquering Pangaea. We talk, those sitting, watching, at the dinner tables, of night leading up to this, of blackouts and boy-crazed obsessions, of the danger in being taken to hospital in Nairobi, of the missed Mafia game played with Phase Ten cards.
Before coming here for three months, Sarah had never left the state of North Carolina. She rarely speaks at meals, dragging Claire instead to pour over short texts wishing her a good morning beautiful, sent by a local, your face make me smile, I want see you tonite. I worry about her, but there is a part of me that if not saw it coming, is at least not surprised.
I have not felt drama, nor had a crush, in months. I read books, edit essays, sit in internet cafes and watch people pull wheelbarrows full of fruit and corn. I talk to my children, photograph them and watch videos of singing recorded in early morning as the brisk air still lies heavily on the valleys of Kilimanjaro. I read in my bed, on the porches surrounding the house, on the couches looking onto clothes lines and vegetable gardens.
We are the same age, and I see in her a reflection of myself months ago. Lydie says to me, we always see in others our own insecurities, impose on them our faults, strengths too.
Lydie says I'm too conventional, too boring, afraid to be different.
I wonder if she's right. I dwell on those statements, questioning myself.
Maybe not in my clothing, my political affiliations, my music choices. My differences come out in writing, I think, in paintings, the the way I talk with my hands, my continent-shaped birthmark on my calf, my inclination towards listening and silence.
My slightly turned out ears, my skin that bruised like a peach. My high and then low laugh, always loud, the way I pat my cheeks when I get excited. The way I sit in chairs, my observations on those that hum around me.
Before coming here for three months, Sarah had never left the state of North Carolina. She rarely speaks at meals, dragging Claire instead to pour over short texts wishing her a good morning beautiful, sent by a local, your face make me smile, I want see you tonite. I worry about her, but there is a part of me that if not saw it coming, is at least not surprised.
I have not felt drama, nor had a crush, in months. I read books, edit essays, sit in internet cafes and watch people pull wheelbarrows full of fruit and corn. I talk to my children, photograph them and watch videos of singing recorded in early morning as the brisk air still lies heavily on the valleys of Kilimanjaro. I read in my bed, on the porches surrounding the house, on the couches looking onto clothes lines and vegetable gardens.
We are the same age, and I see in her a reflection of myself months ago. Lydie says to me, we always see in others our own insecurities, impose on them our faults, strengths too.
Lydie says I'm too conventional, too boring, afraid to be different.
I wonder if she's right. I dwell on those statements, questioning myself.
Maybe not in my clothing, my political affiliations, my music choices. My differences come out in writing, I think, in paintings, the the way I talk with my hands, my continent-shaped birthmark on my calf, my inclination towards listening and silence.
My slightly turned out ears, my skin that bruised like a peach. My high and then low laugh, always loud, the way I pat my cheeks when I get excited. The way I sit in chairs, my observations on those that hum around me.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Elaborating
November 13th, 2011. We alternate between coffee lounges and local restaurants, between placement and home base, stalls full of cloth and some full of cereal. Last night we played a game where one person writes a sentence on a piece of paper, another draws a picture depicting the sentence, and a third writes a sentence describing the picture, and so forth. A sort of pictionary telephone, we laughed at the mistakes made, signals crossed. Phrases of our time here, I love you more than banana soup, mzungus hunters and local stalkers found their ways into our childlike game. The evening was short, dark, illuminated only by floresent lights and bowls of unsalted popcorn, but more invigorating than any bar or nightspot. We waited the hour and a half for a YouTube video to load, laughed at lacking artistic ability, and listened to Jeff, a master storyteller and twenty something teacher from Colorado, talk of haunting men in white outfits terrorizing his suburban neighborhood.
I skyped with my mom today, (hi mom!), and though I loved being able to share my experiences, and see her face, I closed the conversation with mixed feelings. Seeing a dog on a plush bed, a house heated and with electricity and wallpaper and computers is foreign to me. I live now in a third world country where fifty dollars can fund an education for a year, where a meal is less than a dollar and cigerettes are sold individually. I live in a world where one of the most respected jobs is taxi driving, where women carry shopping carts and bushels of bananas and buckets of murky water on their heads. And I know that when I return home, I will be enveloped back into the comforters and dances and cocktail Christmas parties. I'm excited to go home, part of me aches to go back to what I know and love, but I wonder if I will ever be comfortable in the ignorant extravagance with which I grew up.
I skyped with my mom today, (hi mom!), and though I loved being able to share my experiences, and see her face, I closed the conversation with mixed feelings. Seeing a dog on a plush bed, a house heated and with electricity and wallpaper and computers is foreign to me. I live now in a third world country where fifty dollars can fund an education for a year, where a meal is less than a dollar and cigerettes are sold individually. I live in a world where one of the most respected jobs is taxi driving, where women carry shopping carts and bushels of bananas and buckets of murky water on their heads. And I know that when I return home, I will be enveloped back into the comforters and dances and cocktail Christmas parties. I'm excited to go home, part of me aches to go back to what I know and love, but I wonder if I will ever be comfortable in the ignorant extravagance with which I grew up.
Skyping is bittersweet
Friday, November 11, 2011. Another week has flown, marked only by a jar of dark honey gone. I finished War and Peace yesterday, will start Anna Karenina today. I practiced yoga on the back balcony, waves of burnt garbage only occasionally soiling my concentration on breathing, the feel of my stomach rising and falling beneath my hand. Our roommate, Zoe, from Cyprus, leaves tomorrow, and I feel as if I have yet to know her. Romances have budded between volunteers, new ones are coming, some going, but I keep little interest. I look forward to the occasional yogurt in the morning, mixed with cereal, a delicacy in this porridge filled world. I walk down roads with a scarf wrapped around my hair, trying to cool from the heat that comes into every corner. I sit alone now, on a couch outside, listening to the hum of Swahili from the cleaning ladies perched on buckets in the shade of pillars. Little to report, except the progress of my children. They run up in the gravel path every morning, chanting, "TEACHA TEACHA TEACHA," surrounding me on all sides, little arms covering my dusty skirt, fingers surrounding my hands, smiles covering all. "Go to class, go to class," I say, feebly, my hands pulled in three directions, fought over for area, and fingers, and attention. I write their homework, play games, watch endless graduation rehearsals, sit with Tesia and Melisa Benedict on my lap, as they high five my palm and Diana and Ester play with my hair. They aren't just African Children, the media cliche created by commercials of wide-eyed boys and girls, indistinguishable from what we think children from Africa should be. I say to Alex, who visited my placement for the second time today, it's like they're little people, and she says, I know, it's scary. Why am I surprised? I walked into Bridge for the first time, a sea of black faces and toes and cream plans, and I will leave, seeing raceless classes, individual features, Hilda's beaded hair, Irene Melisa's scars from her burn, Samir's furrowed brow, Bridget's flat forehead and light blue backpack. Kids from other rooms, Proxetta's snub nose and tiny braids, Nikolas' pout and Hagai's wide gapped smile, Faraja's green wellies, Sebra's dimpled chin and pointed ears. Moses's love for playing ball, big Gilbert's pronunciation of stone.
Portraits of men hang on the walls, crooked
To describe Moshi in three words: dirty, dusty, patterned. November 8th, 2011. Sitting in Union cafe on an open terrace, floor painted burgundy, cream walls and grey green chairs create a decidedly European feel. The city roars around us, cars twisting around the dirty corner, but the whites of Moshi find a haven in the clean and crisp spring air. A storm is coming, the clouds covering the sun, cooling the dogs and men that lie under trees beside the roads. I get more than my coffee fix here. I can watch the colors of the kangas and batiks twisting on the voluptuous women carrying shoes and fruit and the children running barefoot, adroitly avoiding daladalas and pikipikis, some with uniforms still from school. A table of blonde Sweeds with braided hair and tanned forearms sit a table away, Australians with fitted tshirts leave a tip on another near. We start to feel drops of rain. The metal roof pounded this morning, dimming all words and blurring floors. Strings of laundry drip and sway in rain, and the whole country feels blessed. Centipedes find residence and sanctuary under our tables, scurrying over Allison's feet. She drops a plate and it crashes in little plastic pieces over the ground as I wash my dish and make toast. She seems embarrassed, trying to explain the mishap. She self-consiously enters and exits vehicles, and sits with her legs crossed and arms folded, covering her body. She stares out the window pensively, as if begging someone to ask her what she's thinking about. She rarely speaks.
One room in the building across from the cafe has no curtains and windows open. A lavender ribbon is tied to the thin bars, and it lifts with each sea-like gust of wind. The cill is brown, residue of dust from the street.
One room in the building across from the cafe has no curtains and windows open. A lavender ribbon is tied to the thin bars, and it lifts with each sea-like gust of wind. The cill is brown, residue of dust from the street.
Taste the Mountain
November 7th, 2011. Jenna and Monica went to the hospital today, to visit the child they are sponsoring to undergo skin graphs needed due to a severe burn years ago. They walked in the halls, the air smelling like rotting flesh. Jenna, a licensed nurse, offered her assistance to a struggling woman working at the hospital. I have to see three patients, she said, so go ahead, could you please change this girl's dressings. The little girl had fallen on a fire, and was offering from third degree burns all over her body, on her face, legs, arms, and vaginal area. Her mother could not pay for the clean dressings, so the patient's gauze was removed, and then she was washed, her burns scraped at and cleaned, with a bar of soap. Her mother can't pay for pain killers, so instead of being given morphine or put into an induced coma, as in the US, the child stays without anesthesia, cortisone, or proper treatment.
The story made me sick to my stomach, but after living here for a month and a half, I am not surprised. There are hundreds of children here, many of whom are not getting the proper nutrition and medical care, and most of whom do not practice, or cannot afford, basic hygiene. What am I to do? I can't fix them all, I can't help everyone. I get accustomed to the wispy arms and bony fingers, the rotting and missing teeth and the tattered clothes. Everything is dirty here, the ceilings are highways for lizards suctioning and scurrying over the white space, and ants crawl over the plastic tablecloths. I forget the taste of chocolate, the feeling of a shower with power more than a faucet, the silk of a new dress worn one night for pictures and a dance.
The story made me sick to my stomach, but after living here for a month and a half, I am not surprised. There are hundreds of children here, many of whom are not getting the proper nutrition and medical care, and most of whom do not practice, or cannot afford, basic hygiene. What am I to do? I can't fix them all, I can't help everyone. I get accustomed to the wispy arms and bony fingers, the rotting and missing teeth and the tattered clothes. Everything is dirty here, the ceilings are highways for lizards suctioning and scurrying over the white space, and ants crawl over the plastic tablecloths. I forget the taste of chocolate, the feeling of a shower with power more than a faucet, the silk of a new dress worn one night for pictures and a dance.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
We wish for real fans
Peace, at last. November 2nd, 2011. The days don't fly by, nor do they crawl. They lope, a steady pace through school and the quiet afternoons, filled with coffee and cards and light. I visited Alex's placement yesterday. A low-funded government school for people with disabilities, it lies a fifteen minute walk from our house down a dirt path partly shrouded in quiet shadow. We walk though a small cluster of houses, of fields of dead corn, along a muddy stream winding its way across yards and under roots of overgrown trees. Dominicki comes running up to us first, shakes my hand with a "goodmorninguh," brown eyes almost golden in the early morning. He is thirty-five, and can sometimes recognize the number six. He shakes my hand again and again, laughing all the while with teeth missing and the other ones rotting, and we laugh together, at eight in the morning, and he smiles and smiles, neither of us knowing why, and I say, nice to meet you. Gina lako ni Grace. He laughs, and we walk toward two nuns standing in front if a beige and turquoise building. Alex and Rianna introduce me to the head of school and the cook. How are your children, how is your mother? Nzuri, nzuri, always. I meet Patricki, drool marking trains down his green uniform sweater. "Ni ni ni ni ni nininini ni ni," he says. I am told that he cannot for words, and since he is also thirty-something, we assume he never will. I meet Shamzi, the seven year old epileptic with a behavioral problem and teeth that stick at 110 degree angles, shown often in both smiles and sullen moments. Prosper is malnourished, receiving one meal a day, at school, unless his neighbors decide to be generous. He stares at me silently throughout the day, a smile playing at his lips as he wraps his graceful and lithe fingers around pencils or a cup of chai. Peter, pronounced Peetah, has ADD, yet remains in a class with Lu, short for Lukresia, a woman with Down's and a shaved head. Some in the class will never speak, or learn how to add, while others have disorders that in the US, would be kept under control with medication. Godi has Epilepsy, but is otherwise a healthy teen. When we have music time, he shakes an improvised tambourine of soda bottle caps to the discordant beat of Old McDonald. We dance together, or Shaky Shaky, in a circle, Lu and Peter cracking sticks on the bottom of cadmean water buckets, Samsoni, son of the cook, on my hip and sleeping on my shoulder as fourteen students make as much noise as they can in the small classroom.
In my class today, we colored masks I made a few days ago, in celebration of Halloween. I tied twenty seven crayoned plates to heads, taught the song, "Skidamarinkydinkydink," corrected homework, and watched between fits of laughter as Brianson gyrated to traditional music. I sat with Tesia and Melisa Benidict as they held my hands, highfiving my dirty palms again and again. I gave candy, pipi, after porridge, and took away sticks from little boys that they scoured the dark ground to find. I acted the story of the Three Little Pigs, substituting the wolf for a lion. I traced my hand on the blackboard with Brian, a boy with a tiny nose and long eyelashes, and Fides, and we read sentences for the first time.
I have not thought about my body, my looks, my outfits, my friend circles. I don't criticize myself, and I don't look in the mirror or put on makeup. I think of simple things, of dinner, of dirt roads, of characters in a novel that live far from my situation. I think of clotheslines, of white sheets hanging in the afternoon sun, of colorful patterns in a window, of mangos in a pyramid on the side of a dusty street. I think of burning garbage, of lizards, of the man that hangs a leg of cow in the butchers shop down the lane.
In my class today, we colored masks I made a few days ago, in celebration of Halloween. I tied twenty seven crayoned plates to heads, taught the song, "Skidamarinkydinkydink," corrected homework, and watched between fits of laughter as Brianson gyrated to traditional music. I sat with Tesia and Melisa Benidict as they held my hands, highfiving my dirty palms again and again. I gave candy, pipi, after porridge, and took away sticks from little boys that they scoured the dark ground to find. I acted the story of the Three Little Pigs, substituting the wolf for a lion. I traced my hand on the blackboard with Brian, a boy with a tiny nose and long eyelashes, and Fides, and we read sentences for the first time.
I have not thought about my body, my looks, my outfits, my friend circles. I don't criticize myself, and I don't look in the mirror or put on makeup. I think of simple things, of dinner, of dirt roads, of characters in a novel that live far from my situation. I think of clotheslines, of white sheets hanging in the afternoon sun, of colorful patterns in a window, of mangos in a pyramid on the side of a dusty street. I think of burning garbage, of lizards, of the man that hangs a leg of cow in the butchers shop down the lane.
Save Sandy Salmon
And the world spins madly on. October 26, 2011. I write homework in each child's tattered notebooks, and recognize their handwriting. Each backpack has a significance to me now, many imported from Korea, some new, most old and worn, passed down from sister to brother to brother. I correct the painstaking answers, penciled in dark marks, work erased to leave a clear number, surrounded by rubber marks, the traces of effort. I write the next letter in the alphabet twenty-eight times, and redraw hundreds of lines down pages. I rejoice in their successes, in the sounding of words, the one hundreds on a quiz taken today. I also feel their embarrassment in walking up sheepishly to the opaque chalkboard, avoiding eye contact, not knowing now to write "eight". (This proves to be the most difficult number to spell.) Fedisiana failed the quiz today, a 2 out of 16, and cried before she handed in her paper. Sarah finished within thirty seconds, check mark after each. Queen finished shortly after. She is one of the brightest, but so eager to be first that she rushes though, accidentally writing 17 instead of 71. Samir, cunning and difficult yet somehow most endearing, with a closed mouth smile and shining eyes, held up his hand quietly, and I collected his perfect paper. Irene Melissa, built like an underdeveloped mother with different sweaters every day, asked my approval. I said, good, very good, bending down over the sturdy and worn knee high wooden desks. Eustance, Ester, Robine, all the top of their class. The girls grab my hand when I help them with answers, the boys hide their smiles. Aika placed all the struggling students in the last three tables, so they would not be tempted to cheat. Yet cheat they did, pretending to grab for the shared eraser while scouring the paper next to them for hope of help. Turning their colored plastic chairs away from the two teachers, they whisper. Aika scolds them in Swahili. Diana, one of the worst culprits, is moved to work at the teacher desk. She is Western looking in her facial features, with caramel skin and long limbs she doesn't know how to carry. Gilbert, Bashir, and Denis look at me with saucer eyes, seeing only blanks on the photocopied workbook page. All friends, they are the bottom of the class and follow Brian and Samir's rule on the playground. Denis is the darkest in the class, tall, and bound to be handsome. He is soft-spoken and reserved and carries a darkblue cloth satchel instead of a backpack. Gilbert is thin, with a small mouth and big eyes. He sits in the back of the class, in front of the fruits and vegetables and the "wild animals" poster. Bashir, out of class my first two weeks at placement, wears orange Halloween socks and hunches, his drawn face and mooning eyes looking at the ground. He picks at spots of grass alone when the children go out to play.
I can see myself in this age still, can understand their sorrow at being left out of the swinging, the urge to be the top of the class, the crushes on boys sitting across the room. I can see it all, from my view four feet higher. I can feel the blush across my cheeks when they fall off swing sets, the pinky swears and the singing of nursery rhymes and the love for my teacher. The quickening of the heart before taking up the chalk at the board. The pride at finishing a drawing, and having someone praise you for it.
I can't understand their words, but in many ways, I don't need to. I wish I knew more Swahili, if just to be able to catch their passing comments, funny and silly and insightful, I imagine, but most importantly, to be able to impart even a little of the love and hope I hold for all of them.
I can see myself in this age still, can understand their sorrow at being left out of the swinging, the urge to be the top of the class, the crushes on boys sitting across the room. I can see it all, from my view four feet higher. I can feel the blush across my cheeks when they fall off swing sets, the pinky swears and the singing of nursery rhymes and the love for my teacher. The quickening of the heart before taking up the chalk at the board. The pride at finishing a drawing, and having someone praise you for it.
I can't understand their words, but in many ways, I don't need to. I wish I knew more Swahili, if just to be able to catch their passing comments, funny and silly and insightful, I imagine, but most importantly, to be able to impart even a little of the love and hope I hold for all of them.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Sweltering. Flies dance in pairs around the city.
Days of idleness and new friendship. October 24, 2011. Lydie and I moved this past weekend from our much loved front room, where light streams golden bands in the late afternoon, to a cool, dark, and cozy back room on the same floor. We moved in with Alex, a blonde elfin-like girl from Bozeman, Montana. She went to Thatcher and then GW, but before the start of her junior year is trying to transfer to a small college in Washington State. She and I talk about parents, divorce, boarding school, our tendencies to keep problems buried as to not upset the flow of the easiest path. In her I've found a new companion, one to share insignificant misfortunes of the day, small triumphs too. Lydie plays an out-of-tune guitar and sings softly and I read on the couch outside or in my bed, then I take turn plucking simple chords, easily remembered melodies of my childhood. I draw on the floor, posters for my classroom, of musical instruments and insects and road signs, and write out nursery rhymes to teach my children. I look forward to the time spent with all of them, even today, proctoring Fidesiana, a struggling slight girl with absent eyes and delicate features, in a Primary One entrance exam. She sat in an empty and barren classroom while her friends played on the swings and slide outside, looking to me for the answers. Aika, my ever-poised and brilliant teacher, knew she wasn't ready, but Fides was still required to take the test, one the class had taken last Friday while she was home sick. Her nose ran the entire test, the remnant of a severe cold, her doe eyed look not portraying embarrassment or confusion, but a lack of thought as she sang me the first fifteen letters of the alphabet, unable to go farther, writing twenty-one as twelve in painstaking hard pressed pencil lines on the photocopied paper. We took our porridge (uji) together, she sitting silently drinking from a cracked green mug with white apples decoding the outside, and I looking out at the empty schoolyard through colored bars, thinking of things very separate from those that occupied my mind when I first arrived. I find that I can sit without dwelling on concrete thoughts, thinking instead of ideas, concepts, novels, instead of people in the same way I used to. I don't believe that a person's mentality can change in a month, but in my free time it feels more comfortable to philosophize about war and religion than the other volunteers or the staff or myself. I read in my free time, and I'm two thirds of the way through War and Peace. I don't want it to end, but want to follow the characters though their sometimes exciting, sometimes joyful, but most often confused, lives forever. I sit on the couch all afternoon, except for an occasional trip to town. Today, I got my shoes fixed in minutes for less than a dollar on a street corner by a man missing three of his teeth, something that would have been a week long ordeal in the states, and picked up vanilla and passionfruit yogurt from an Indian grocery store called Aleem's. The day was miserably hot, comfortable only in shade and in our dark airy room. The fan shakes my mosquito net now, and drowns out the dogs howling outside.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Days ago but I reel still
NAFGEM network against female genital mutilation. NGO. Fight for human rights in Kilimanjaro. Founded in 1998. A tradition out of ignorance. When men are going to fight, from tribe to tribe, they can control the sexual drive. The women will be there when they return. Mechanism to control the women. Cure a fungal infection, based on lack of cleanliness and clean water. Common thought that to cure the fungus, remove the clitoris. Equate female and male circumcision. Removing the clitoris is like cutting of the penis. Looking at genitals, even for married people, is taboo. Women and girls demand the practice, because if you don't undergo the practice, your chances of getting married are slim. Women who have not done it are excluded and become isolated. Bring wealth t the family, higher dowry. In tribes, cattle is equal to weath. Cows come in dowry. Pain, excessive blood loss, infection. May result in infertility. Elasticity of the area is diminished, when giving birth incredible pain and tearing. Urethra and vagina become connected, urine infects the vagina. Seen a misfortune when a girl dies. Sex becomes painful. Wives pretend to have abdominal pains, because it hurts. When the men are turned away, the men look for HIV inadvertently. They bring the disease home, and because of the bleeding, transmit to the women. 18% in Tanzania. 35% in Kilimanjaro in 1998. Now dropped down to 21.8%. Prevalent in pockets, especially in tribes. Not related to Islamic religion. Black shirt, thin white tie, he talks to us in a charismatic smooth voice. Three pens in shirt pocket. Manara region, 71%. In some places, one hundred percent. Their simple justification: women who are married are mutilated. And all women are married. Government has enacted a law against mutilation. Now a movement to circumcise babies under five. Less to do to prevent the young children from being mutilated. Need shelters for girls to run away from getting cut. No place for them to go. Three types of mutilation. To make clean, remove the excessive parets. Type one, is Suna. The clitoris is cut. In Islamic, it means clean. type two is removing the labia major and labia minora. Everything is gone. Excision. Type three is sewing it all together. No aesthesia is used, the mother or aunt is holding the girl down. The wedding night is like a hell. If the hole is too small, use a cow horn to enlarge the hole. If still too small, the circumsisioner is called in to remove a few of the stitches so the man can fit. In some places, the clitoris is pulled to elongate it. In some cases, the scar continues to grow, eventually covering the entire vulva. Bloodied head coming out.
Facts and figured mean nothing. A little girl a little girl, on film. He showed us a short movie, titled, "beliefs and misbeliefs." I saw a girl marked with tribal symbols, blood coming from the scalpel on her stomach. Her legs and arms held down, crying "mommy mommy no no no mommy no mommy no no no mommy mommy no." it was on a side street in Nigeria, done by a local doctor. He then prepared his tools, rubbing the simple knives over a yellow stone to sharpen them, and her legs were spread, and she was circumcised. I saw it, I saw a little girl, old enough to talk and scream and young enough to be held down like I was for my flu shots. Most people ran from the room to go throw up, I stayed and squirmed and covered my eyed but I could hear her for those minutes and the minutes after and I still hear her, screaming and crying. I'm having a hard time reconciling this warm, loving African culture with so much brutality, Lydie says to me. I haven't spoken since. My hands are sweaty.
Facts and figured mean nothing. A little girl a little girl, on film. He showed us a short movie, titled, "beliefs and misbeliefs." I saw a girl marked with tribal symbols, blood coming from the scalpel on her stomach. Her legs and arms held down, crying "mommy mommy no no no mommy no mommy no no no mommy mommy no." it was on a side street in Nigeria, done by a local doctor. He then prepared his tools, rubbing the simple knives over a yellow stone to sharpen them, and her legs were spread, and she was circumcised. I saw it, I saw a little girl, old enough to talk and scream and young enough to be held down like I was for my flu shots. Most people ran from the room to go throw up, I stayed and squirmed and covered my eyed but I could hear her for those minutes and the minutes after and I still hear her, screaming and crying. I'm having a hard time reconciling this warm, loving African culture with so much brutality, Lydie says to me. I haven't spoken since. My hands are sweaty.
Paper lanterns overhead, unlit
Day of the never-ending day and the cucumber condom. October 19, 2011. Went to placement today, as usual, and the children rehearsed their graduation ceremony songs. I sing with them, but my voice has less resonance, and so even though I sing the correct notes, my words are drowned out by forty kids blasting the glory of god across the school yard. I laugh harder and smile more with them than I do with people at the home base. Dan, the driver that now picks Madison and me up after we switched routes, makes me sit up front in his van. He often holds my hand. I feel nothing towards him except a sense of disgust for the men in this country. I don't talk, but listen to the Swahili radio on his stiff blue seat, lined in white. After lunch, Leah, Lauren, Claire, (both the ginger one and the Mormon as they are identified by all at home base) Jacob, Emma and I were driven by Imma to an orphanage outside of Moshi to paint the walls and draw murals. I drew cartoon characters that are fat and happy and completely out of proportion on the baby blue walls in white chalk. I will start painting the mural soon, covering dirt and handprints and hairs on the wall. Children walked in to see our progress, took a pencil and a sharpener, and napped on the soiled yellow matress below our feet. A group of us went to watch the sunrise from Kibo Tower, the highest building in Moshi that overlooks the whole city (standing at an impressive 10 stories high, not accessible by elevator due to the frequent power outages). Kilimanjaro was in full view, a rare occurrence, and we sat and talked while a group of Sweeds smoked shisha behind us. The sky looked watercolored, the air was breezy and cool, and I watched the fruit sellers from the cream railing as they sa on corners, children on laps, waiting for someone to buy a tomato, one indistinguishable from the vendor across the road. We went out to dinner with guides from Pristine, the safari company we've used for every weekend trip so far. They laugh at our jokes, and make us feel noticed again, witty charming, and interesting.
I am tired, of writing, of myself, of the bubble that we lie in, night after night. My battery drains, my heart does too. Fulfilling day. I feel like I made a difference, but I know I should be happier than I am.
I am tired, of writing, of myself, of the bubble that we lie in, night after night. My battery drains, my heart does too. Fulfilling day. I feel like I made a difference, but I know I should be happier than I am.
Hot hot sun. Dusty too.
Day of recounting. October 16, 2011. What a weekend. Our safari group consisting of: Sarah, a nurse from the Midwest who is twenty eight and pudgy, Daniel, an eighteen year old from Concord NH who is on the straight track to becoming an alcoholic and drug addict, Jacob, a monotoned small Jewish boy who went to school in Utah and is from DC, Lea, the recent grad frm Georgia who is well off and pretty and dark harked but friendly smiled, Lauren, the sweetheart from Texas with strawberry blonde hair and a surprising taste for large quantities of wine, Caroline, a Duke graduate who now lives in New York and is looking for a job in the nonprofit world with a completely unabashed personality and germaphobia, Madison, from Miami who brought hipster clothes to Africa and an attitude to match, Madison from Vermont who plays tennis and tans easily and wears flannel and Toms, Monica from Canada who played soccer in high school and has an infection in her esophagus and a naturally raspy voice, Lydie and me. We drove two hours to Arusha from Moshi in a van, them switched into a safri car, our new home, as it would come to be. Our guide's name was Iso. Someone, I think Lydie, cracked the ipso facto joke. No one really understood it, even her, but we all laughed anyway because we were going on safari. I listened to my ipod for nearly the entire drive, and I came to the conclusion that there is fee music that can hold its own against the African landscape. Vast, vast vast. I kept repeating the word over and over as we passed miles of savannah under the IMAX sky. We stopped in Arusha briefly, to get gelato, mine mint chip dipped in melted chocolate, and to get food for the upcoming camping days. I got Jackers, the Tanzanian form of Pringles, snickers, in addition to the granola bars, nuts, and chocolate we brought from home base. We drove into the campsite, inside Terengheri National Park as it was approaching nightfall. Within minutes, we saw blue-balled monkeys, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, antelopes, impalas. We reached our campgrounds minutes later, or tents already set up, astonished. We had dinner and a campfire following, while we watched rangers trying to drive elephants away from the small open area. Supposedly, Mussa, the guide for the other car, snored so loudly he competed with the lions roaring during the night. We woke up the next morning at 7, had toast, eggs, fruit and coffee, as usual, and then embarked on our tour of the park. The top of the vehicle converts into an enormous sun roof with a cover, so we stood on our seats for days as we watched the animals, sans enclosure, living around or dusty and rugged rover. Lydie sat next to me, Jacob and Daniel behind, and Madison from Miami in front of me, next to Iso. We drove for hours on end, taking hundreds of pictures of eating elephants, braying zebras, our own smiling faces, the entire ride like a boating adventure, all the while proclaiming we had never been happier. We ate lunch by an enormous plain, where wildabeasts and dik-diks moved thorugh dirt from one patch of grass to another. We saw a leopard in a tree shortly folioing. Iso suddenly stopped the car. We asked him, what do you see? About two hundred yards away, an outline could be seen in a massive tree with crawling branches of little cat ears. I still have no idea how he spotted that animal. Even with binoculars, the weak muzungus could hardly see a thing. We saw a pair of lions, deep into their mating season,sitting as a couple on a ridge close to the trail. The male yawned, looking deceptively in our cameras like the middle of a roar. I held my hands out to scoop the wind and to savor the feeling of being free under s massive sky, with uncaring animals singing noises around me. We drove to our next campsite again as the sun set. Will write more tomorrow. Our lives are documented so that it seems useless to write a thing. But you never remember sometimes the real things that are more than images.
Names have been changed
Day of the girl drama and Daniel's departure. October 17, 2011. Daniel was terminated from CCS today. He's done every drug in the book, save for crystal meth, and he's addicted to cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes and weed. I wonder how a kid from a small home and town becomes so messed up. I don't think I've ever seen him sober, but I remember the first time I met him perfectly. all the new volunteers were ushered into the common room after being picked up from the airport, and Monica, Jacob and Dan stood out as the slightly more confident and assured in their place in this tiled house. I thought he was cute, shaggy blonde hair and hunched shoulders, a blue baseball cap on his head. They were going out, it was Saturday afterall, and I resolved to get to know him. We became acquainted the next day, and he took Miami Madison, Lydie and me out to sketchy cool bar where we listened to eighties music under a twirling disco ball. He offered us acid and coke, and I thought he was strange. I lost all attraction for the weird, sad creature that pretended like he knew everything. Dan doesn't have a plane ticket home, and seventy five dollars to his name. He's eighteen, and paid for this program by dealing drugs. Lauren thinks he came to Africa with good intentions, to get clean, but as some say, your problems follow you wherever you go. I think everyone here is running from something. Dan reminds me of the little grey cat that begged for food at the second campsite we stayed at this weekend. No one liked the cat, it was mangy and covered in fleas and ticks. People shoved it away from the table, ran it over with plastic chairs in an effort to get it away from Madison Vermont who is allergic to felines. It turned turned away from bits of pineapple tossed into the sandy brown dirt. I'm not sure why I connect Bakka, cat in Swahili and the name that Jenna gave it, to Dan, other than I both dislike and feel sorry for the wretchedness of their situations.
I loved our safari. I saw lions mating, elephants pooping, birds swooping, hippos flapping their ears in a rare display of movement. I visited a Masai village and was confronted with tradition. We drove off the main road back to Arusha onto a dusty one lane path, crossing desert to come to a collection of thirteen huts in the middle of a large grey and gold plain. People are called from the huts, arranged in a circle with a pen for animals in the middle. About fifteen Masais, both male and female, form a horizontal line in front of our disheveled and weary pack. They bounce in place, jump, and chant in a foreegin dialect. All are wearing bright cloths, Masai blankets as they are known to tourists. Men and women wear jewlwery, and the women come to put their large stiff beaded white necklaces onto our sweaty necks. We jump and dance with them, and then are divided up into two groups to take a tour of the huts. Our guide speakslittle English, but talks slowly and deliberately in a soft, creepy tone. He explains that one man owns the village. The man has eleven wives and fifty two children. He himself is married, twenty six, and no children. The hut was tiny, and hot. I sat with Lydie on a bed made of cow hide. We could barely see the faces sitting two feet away, but our eyes adjusted and we watched the man wipe his forehead, the sweat reflecting the red of his draped blanket. They eat only meat, milk and blood. Very little water. They do not eat vegetables because to them, that would put them on the same level as the cows. The man who owns the village is out to see a friend. The women build the huts and make the jewelry to sell. They may not marry outside the tribe. People may go to university, but must return. Female and male circumcision is practiced. For males, it happens at twenty, and he wrote the numbers with a stick in the dirt so as not to get them wrong, and female at seventeen. Women marry at twenty, men later. There is a doctor here, a witch doctor, who does the circumcisions. We asked him question after question. We squirmed with answers, from the heat as well. He asked, are you hot? Is it different in your culture? Yes, yes. Very. We left the village, some buying beaded bracelets and Christmas ornaments, feeling disconnected and powerless. How do you change someone? How do you change a nation, a culture?
I loved our safari. I saw lions mating, elephants pooping, birds swooping, hippos flapping their ears in a rare display of movement. I visited a Masai village and was confronted with tradition. We drove off the main road back to Arusha onto a dusty one lane path, crossing desert to come to a collection of thirteen huts in the middle of a large grey and gold plain. People are called from the huts, arranged in a circle with a pen for animals in the middle. About fifteen Masais, both male and female, form a horizontal line in front of our disheveled and weary pack. They bounce in place, jump, and chant in a foreegin dialect. All are wearing bright cloths, Masai blankets as they are known to tourists. Men and women wear jewlwery, and the women come to put their large stiff beaded white necklaces onto our sweaty necks. We jump and dance with them, and then are divided up into two groups to take a tour of the huts. Our guide speakslittle English, but talks slowly and deliberately in a soft, creepy tone. He explains that one man owns the village. The man has eleven wives and fifty two children. He himself is married, twenty six, and no children. The hut was tiny, and hot. I sat with Lydie on a bed made of cow hide. We could barely see the faces sitting two feet away, but our eyes adjusted and we watched the man wipe his forehead, the sweat reflecting the red of his draped blanket. They eat only meat, milk and blood. Very little water. They do not eat vegetables because to them, that would put them on the same level as the cows. The man who owns the village is out to see a friend. The women build the huts and make the jewelry to sell. They may not marry outside the tribe. People may go to university, but must return. Female and male circumcision is practiced. For males, it happens at twenty, and he wrote the numbers with a stick in the dirt so as not to get them wrong, and female at seventeen. Women marry at twenty, men later. There is a doctor here, a witch doctor, who does the circumcisions. We asked him question after question. We squirmed with answers, from the heat as well. He asked, are you hot? Is it different in your culture? Yes, yes. Very. We left the village, some buying beaded bracelets and Christmas ornaments, feeling disconnected and powerless. How do you change someone? How do you change a nation, a culture?
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
From a week ago I suppose
October 12, 2011. Nasika afa dahali. My counting of the days has gotten off. I don't know how to fix it, or if it even matters. Yesterday, we made batiks, a form of African art that involves dieing, waxing, and painting fabric. Mine is of a Masai warrior herding cattle. Most did theirs of lions, elephants, and trees. I couldn't stand for the hours while it took--still sick-- so instead drew while seated on the white tile, listening to the hum of Swahili, a rhythmic language in which every word ends in a vowel. Swahili is a language marked by its simplicity--there is one word for good/great/jolly/jovial/fantastic/excellent: "nzuri," and bad/unhappy/uncomfortable/homesick is simplified to, "mbaya." No one uses this latter word, however. I feel restricted in the same was as Orwell's characters in 1984, yet here, many seem all too aware of their desperate situations. Mzungus, or white people, are all the same to locals. We are assumed to be wealthy and ready to buy cheap goods at a grossly exaggerated price. I am indistinguishable from any of the other volunteers. It's a foreign feeling, to be unacknowledged.
(Feel free to skip this part if dry, boring writing is not really your thing). Today, as one of our cultural activities, we went to the ICTR, or International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, located in the heart of Arusha, a town larger than Moshi located about an hour and a half away. The building is one of the biggest I have seen yet in Tanzania, yet does not inspire intimidation. We left our bags, water bottles, and cameras in the van, and walked into the center of the world for bringing war-criminals of the Rwandan genocide to justice. We were ushered into the press room overlooking the trial of a well-known military leader during the genocide. Listening to the trial was fascinating, yet vastly dissimilar to the Law and Order episode some many in our group were picturing. The witness being interrogated by the defense team was anonymous, yet we heard his crisp French over the flimsy black earphones. He was also a high ranking military official during April of 1994, was was illustrating, using colored pens, the routes that were advised for civilians during the year. Questions were asked, objections made, and crushed developed on the defense lawyer with a British accent. We were then taken to a room where we watched a short documentary about the history of the court, its difficulties in sustaining years of trials, and the tribunal's planned development. The film was outdated and boring, but I remained interested. A few days ago, packets were passed out containing information about the court, and in my free time, (we have so much), I read the history of the court as well as the details of the 92 accused. A minister, (of what, I'm still not sure), then came to answer questions about the courts. Mine were about the Witness Protection Program created for the ICTR--how do you protect people from another country from persecution while trying to avoid external relocation from country to country-- and the remaining court system in Rwanda, in which there are two parts: the traditional, equipped with judges, jurors, defense and prosecution, and the community court, in which the accused is judged by peers.
Many were nodding off, having little interest in foreign policy, but I found the day fascinating.
The Internet works sporadically here, but in a moment of Firefox power on the computer's part and vanity on my own, I checked the stats of my blog: viewed 465 times since creation. In all likelihood, 400 are from my mom, but the notion that anyone besides my parents would read my words is odd. The power of language, the power of words; I want to master them all. We go on Safari tomorrow. I'm sorry if I repeat. Life is repetitious here. Men watch day after day their goats graze on similar patches of grass, as they sit in crouched positions. Women listen to the same four songs and children spin the same weathered tire up and down the road. I hear crickets every night, I laugh the same, smile the same. Trace the same scar on my arm and birthmark on my leg, around and around and around.
(Feel free to skip this part if dry, boring writing is not really your thing). Today, as one of our cultural activities, we went to the ICTR, or International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, located in the heart of Arusha, a town larger than Moshi located about an hour and a half away. The building is one of the biggest I have seen yet in Tanzania, yet does not inspire intimidation. We left our bags, water bottles, and cameras in the van, and walked into the center of the world for bringing war-criminals of the Rwandan genocide to justice. We were ushered into the press room overlooking the trial of a well-known military leader during the genocide. Listening to the trial was fascinating, yet vastly dissimilar to the Law and Order episode some many in our group were picturing. The witness being interrogated by the defense team was anonymous, yet we heard his crisp French over the flimsy black earphones. He was also a high ranking military official during April of 1994, was was illustrating, using colored pens, the routes that were advised for civilians during the year. Questions were asked, objections made, and crushed developed on the defense lawyer with a British accent. We were then taken to a room where we watched a short documentary about the history of the court, its difficulties in sustaining years of trials, and the tribunal's planned development. The film was outdated and boring, but I remained interested. A few days ago, packets were passed out containing information about the court, and in my free time, (we have so much), I read the history of the court as well as the details of the 92 accused. A minister, (of what, I'm still not sure), then came to answer questions about the courts. Mine were about the Witness Protection Program created for the ICTR--how do you protect people from another country from persecution while trying to avoid external relocation from country to country-- and the remaining court system in Rwanda, in which there are two parts: the traditional, equipped with judges, jurors, defense and prosecution, and the community court, in which the accused is judged by peers.
Many were nodding off, having little interest in foreign policy, but I found the day fascinating.
The Internet works sporadically here, but in a moment of Firefox power on the computer's part and vanity on my own, I checked the stats of my blog: viewed 465 times since creation. In all likelihood, 400 are from my mom, but the notion that anyone besides my parents would read my words is odd. The power of language, the power of words; I want to master them all. We go on Safari tomorrow. I'm sorry if I repeat. Life is repetitious here. Men watch day after day their goats graze on similar patches of grass, as they sit in crouched positions. Women listen to the same four songs and children spin the same weathered tire up and down the road. I hear crickets every night, I laugh the same, smile the same. Trace the same scar on my arm and birthmark on my leg, around and around and around.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sick. Written yesterday but still applies.
I've been sleeping all the time, for the past three days, or lying in bed reading War and Peace. Tolstoy is unparalleled in capturing the essence of his characters, who could easily be walking around today, in simple, succinct words. I admire him, yet wonder if he was alienated from others due to his understanding of the true nature of people. It's nine at night, my stomach aches, and I've barely eaten anything the past few days. The only things I can keep down are boring, white starches. All I have to comfort me is Russian literature about one of the greatest wars of all time, and a half-doughnut shaped grey pillow. I woke up at five-thirty this afternoon, and seeing that it was going to rain, as it has the last few evenings, I took my clothes down from the lines and ironed them. There is a Tanzanian horror story about mango flies laying eggs in your wet clothing, so we are told to iron everything. I sing while I iron and wash, as to try to drown out the dogs that howl, crying of manginess and loneliness. It's raining now, and though I am warm in my blanket, the power flickers and the tin roof drums heavily. The light around me is amber and gold, and I pull down my transparent white mosquito net, which covers me with protection for another night. We've left so much this year: friends, family, two homes, one in Charlottesville and one in Concord. There's very little to do here in the afternoons, and I'm forced to confront the thoughts in my hear, and sometimes I find that I disappear into my mind, under sheets and away from the do-gooders that talk around me.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Lazy Sundays, and Saturdays too
We hand wash our clothes here, in an outdoor sink behind the guest house. Banana trees hang overhead, and roosters crow and dogs bark behind the walls of vine and stone. It's easy to forget where we are when we sit on mattresses made up by maids, with drivers on call and cooks to serve us. One step outside the perfectly manicured lawns, and you enter a dusty, sad, yet somehow joyful existence in the heart of a third-world country. There are two huts across the tiny dirt road, where two families and seven children live. Brenda, by far the favorite of CCS volunteers, ran up to us yesterday, spat in her hands, then rubbed them together to clean off, then after deciding her own saliva wouldn't suffice, rinsed off in a muddy pool. She then jumped on us, asking for "Pipi" (candy). Her clothes are tattered and mud-stained, and she has snot running down from nose to mouth. Her mother is never anywhere close by, and I have not seen a father at all.
Lauren, a lovely twenty-five year old from Texas who teaches special education, Lea, a girl who went to Georgia and graduated last May, and I went shopping to pick up gifts for people at home. Every trip to town is mentally and physically exhausting, being constantly bombarded by people and smells and heat. We walked back to the home base, about an hour under the African sun, and then turned in for dinner. Every night here is an early one, unless we go out to bars or clubs, and we talked about past relationships and family until falling asleep. Lydie should get back from Arusha at some point this afternoon, and our schedule will begin again. Days are shorter and more fulfilling now, having finally gained my sea-legs. Someone is waiting for the computer now, as always, and so I don't have time to edit, or read over. Love to all at home/to anyone who actually reads this thing.
It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~Herman Melville
Lauren, a lovely twenty-five year old from Texas who teaches special education, Lea, a girl who went to Georgia and graduated last May, and I went shopping to pick up gifts for people at home. Every trip to town is mentally and physically exhausting, being constantly bombarded by people and smells and heat. We walked back to the home base, about an hour under the African sun, and then turned in for dinner. Every night here is an early one, unless we go out to bars or clubs, and we talked about past relationships and family until falling asleep. Lydie should get back from Arusha at some point this afternoon, and our schedule will begin again. Days are shorter and more fulfilling now, having finally gained my sea-legs. Someone is waiting for the computer now, as always, and so I don't have time to edit, or read over. Love to all at home/to anyone who actually reads this thing.
It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~Herman Melville
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The colors of fabric are beautiful, the dust covers everything else
Day 9 at CCS. Homesickness creeps up on me daily. Emerging from its constant place in the back of my mind, it comes with the smell of coffee, a CNN news report, a familiar shampoo. I think of the breakfasts I crave, the people I want to hug, the comfort and ease of the States. We leave the home base to forget we're not actually home, and we wash our hands constantly to erase the dirt of children that cling and beg. The tears are close for me, recent for others. We pass by miles of poverty every morning, and back again every afternoon, and feel ungrateful for wanting ore. Would you rather be happy be happy in Tanzania, or unhappy living in America? Our experience here differs from the other volunteers. As a group, we talk about the tints we I'll do when we get home, but for us, the youngest no less, there's no end date, no bath or candles or chocolate to look forward to. Our time in third world countries stretches out live a never ending road from poor village to poor village, with only dirt speed bumps to mark the passage of time. We long for people who understand, for our parents, old memories becoming more real and vibrant, and dreams more important. I wish mealtimes would last longer, and wish sleep longer too, and I wish, I wish, I wish. I day dream on long car rides, and I they to tune out the radio played at high volume, and the voices of sleazy men trying to sell me bracelets. I watched blacksmiths crouched over tiny fires, making traditional spears. Their arms, with veins like attacking vines, pump the bellows hour after hour, day in and out. We've hit a wall, a friend says.
When the summer's ceased its gleaming,
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure's lost its meaning,
I'll be homeward bound in time.
-Martha Keen
When the summer's ceased its gleaming,
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure's lost its meaning,
I'll be homeward bound in time.
-Martha Keen
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Debating the pros and cons of exotic airlines
Day 7 at CCS. October 1st, 2011. Hard to believe it's already October. No more crisp, fall days, leaves fiery then cool, a new year just begun. Yesterday, I brought photocopies of a coloring book for the children to color. They loved the bird I drew in their drawing packets before, and the teacher requested that I do something like that again. The children loved it. When I first showed them what they we going to be doing, there was a universal exclamation of joy and excitement. Although I'm trying to budget for nine months, I think I was happier watching the little boys and girls use stubby crayons to color multicolored rhinos than I have been yet on this trip. At the end of the activity, after each and proudly shown their works of art, the teacher, a woman I have come to adore, taught them a new chant. In African schools, songs are used as much as paper to teach. She instructed them to clap three times, then say, "you are blessed." I did it along with everyone, trying to help the kids pronounce the last word. They spoke it with a heavy accent, ble-SED-uh. Then, they were instructed to turn to me, hold up their hands, palms forward, and say, you are blessed, you are blessed, you are blessed. I almost cried.Last night, we went out to Glacier, the local bar/night club that's good on Friday nights. We saw more expats than black, and it was an odd feeling to not be stared at constantly. We danced to American hop hop and pop, and I talked to a teacher from Minnesota with a closely shaven haircut and kind eyes. He was surprised to learn I was only eighteen. Sat around a string campfire in plastic red coca cola chairs, and listened to a live reggae band that did Bob Marley covers badly. We left in a white van that served as a taxi at twelve thirty, and returned to the house to eat peanut butter and popcorn. I've been in bed all morning, except to grab a small breakfast of an onion omelet. I've laid and daydreamed about New York, and love. I fear I'm becoming a hopeless romantic. Our room smells like smoke from the garbage that they burn out in the garden. Lunch is being set out. Lydie just drew a penis on my foot in blue ink. We often sit on my bed, and read the two month old tabloid magazines. I have a view of the common area from my bed, and we sit behind the curtain, pretending like don't care about what those in the other room think.
The sun is going down and the light is broken by the head-like hole in the window
Day 4 at CCS. September 28th, 2011. After lunch today, we visited WEECE, or the Women's Education and Economic Center. (Not sure what the other E stands for). One of our roommates, Janice, works there as her volunteer assignment. We were toured by a large, proud looking woman, Valeria Marema. She was not handsome. In fact, she looked very masculine, but like many of the women here, her beauty exuded through every pore, stemming from the way she carried her body, and her melodic voice which told story after story. In her organization, she teaches women to learn trades like sewing and cooking and she teaches them about their rights as human being. The phrase that is most often used here when talking about female rights is, "women's rights are human rights."
The two vans drive down the narrow road lined with hushed laced with purple flowers touching each door. Like nearly all roads in Tanzania, the lane is narrow, bumpy and dusty, with speed bumps constantly impeding the drivers. Dan likes to zoom over them, while John tries as hard as he can to not make the passengers in his car uncomfortable. Our vans enter through the gate into a small courtyard surrounded by low-celinged buildings. Splashes of aqua and red permeate the brown that is trademark of every square inch of Tanzania. Valeria takes us back out of the compound to shops that look out into the tiny lane where a man and women make cloth and bags. W then tour the kitchen and office where she meets women who come to talk to her. Finally, we sit, some on green plastic chairs and others, including me, on cushioned couches under porches that have laundry lines running between pillars, while she talks of the inequality between genders that seem to lie in every relationship, not only in Africa, but in the world. She talks of female circumcision, of the expectation that women must clean, chop the firewood to cook the meals, take care of the children, while remaining submissive and obedient to their husbands who then in turn, come to the cities from small villages to cheat on their wives, and then go back to infect the women with HIV/AIDS. Abortions are illegal here, and men are allowed to leave their wives if they fail to proide children. Women are brought up to become good wives, rather than educated. There is little sex education outside of the few cities, and in the Masi tribe, men take multiple wives.
I don't get affected by human rights causes in most cases, and perhaps it was Valeria's deep, sincere voice, or the slight Africa breeze, bringing with it particles of dust and wishes of change, but I found myself planning out how I could change not only the rights of women in this city, or even this country, but in the world. And for a moment, and maybe even still, I think that I can. Call me a raging feminist, a bitchy dyke, a hard lesbian, but I am convinced that once I get a degree, and financial stability, that I can change the world, one woman at a time.
The two vans drive down the narrow road lined with hushed laced with purple flowers touching each door. Like nearly all roads in Tanzania, the lane is narrow, bumpy and dusty, with speed bumps constantly impeding the drivers. Dan likes to zoom over them, while John tries as hard as he can to not make the passengers in his car uncomfortable. Our vans enter through the gate into a small courtyard surrounded by low-celinged buildings. Splashes of aqua and red permeate the brown that is trademark of every square inch of Tanzania. Valeria takes us back out of the compound to shops that look out into the tiny lane where a man and women make cloth and bags. W then tour the kitchen and office where she meets women who come to talk to her. Finally, we sit, some on green plastic chairs and others, including me, on cushioned couches under porches that have laundry lines running between pillars, while she talks of the inequality between genders that seem to lie in every relationship, not only in Africa, but in the world. She talks of female circumcision, of the expectation that women must clean, chop the firewood to cook the meals, take care of the children, while remaining submissive and obedient to their husbands who then in turn, come to the cities from small villages to cheat on their wives, and then go back to infect the women with HIV/AIDS. Abortions are illegal here, and men are allowed to leave their wives if they fail to proide children. Women are brought up to become good wives, rather than educated. There is little sex education outside of the few cities, and in the Masi tribe, men take multiple wives.
I don't get affected by human rights causes in most cases, and perhaps it was Valeria's deep, sincere voice, or the slight Africa breeze, bringing with it particles of dust and wishes of change, but I found myself planning out how I could change not only the rights of women in this city, or even this country, but in the world. And for a moment, and maybe even still, I think that I can. Call me a raging feminist, a bitchy dyke, a hard lesbian, but I am convinced that once I get a degree, and financial stability, that I can change the world, one woman at a time.
Sitting in a coffee shop across from an outdoor market hoping I won't get sick from my drink
Day 3 at CCS. September 27, 2011. Started our placements today. Woke up at 630 as usual, after having very vivid dreams that I promptly forgot. Apparently, it's an undocumented side effect of the Malarone, the malaria medication that most of the volunteers take. I have to remind myself to send an email back home to arrange my second month of pills to be sent to me. Even though we've only been h a few days, it feels like years. This morning, after dropping off a few volunteers at their respective placements, Madison and I were taken to Bridge, where upon we were immediately hounded by fifty pairs of eyes. I felt like a celebrity. The children would run up to hold our hands and pull on my black jersey skirt. They sang a song about God and his greatness, and sang it with as much vivacity as a chant about holding and smelling a flower and blowing out a candle. We were told yesterday that we would have the opportunity to tour all the classes and then pick which one we wanted to stay in. I walked into the Hope A class, a year before primary. The children are five to six, and absolutely precious. They are working on learning to add numbers and write and pronounce three letter words. The main teacher was one of the women I met yesterday, Aika, Mama Mary's daughter. She threatened to beat some of the children, but the closest I saw her get to to corporal punishment was tapping a little boy's head with a ruler. In practicing writing the letter G today, they were required to rewrite the word gun over and over on their paper. I wonderedif that would ever be the example word in America. We came back that afternoon, after being picked up first by John, my favorite driver. Lunch was delicious--comfort food. Mac and cheese, grilled cheese, fruit, and milk. We then went out to get local phones to use only in Tanzania. We also went into the clothing store to look at cloth. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about the women's dress here, and how much I adore it. Now, I'm just sitting under my white mosquito net, feeling very much like an African princess, only wearing a beat up white tshirt that was once my dad's, and blue Nike shorts. Lydie and I sit up here often and eat my chocolate that I was supposed to be saving for nine months, and watch the other volunteers from the window that looks out on the common area. I can hear them still, and even though I'm about to go to bed, their voices lull me to sleep.
Day one. Out of order.
Day 1 at CCS. Happy to be here--everything's nicer than I expected. Missing home still. Two days ago, we got on a plane bound for ethiopia and now, we're here and it seems surreal. We transferred to Dar es Salaam, and got into the airport at 1:20pm. We emerged from baggage claim and customs, overjoyed to be on solid ground and out of small, confined places. We took an airport taxi, marked by a green stripe on the side of the white car. When we got to the hotel, after driving by streets of one stories open aired concrete shops, we were slightly underwhelmed. Our room had air-conditioning and a tv that worked sporadically with a high content of static, but our toilet would only flush on occasion, and our beds didn't have blankets. We were told that the Scandinavia Bus Company, the line that was referenced to be the best, was in fact, no longer in existence. So we took another taxi, with a man who would prove to be instrumental in getting us to TZ, and went to an outdoor stable, where in each stall, people were crowded in fighting over pricesin order to get a seat booked for the following day. We were charged 55000 shillings each, roughly equivalent to 40 USd, and because we dint have enough Tanzanian money, I gave the man a US twenty. So all told, after I did the calculation, and told our stunned driver, we paid 136600--FAR than it should have been. So our driver turned around, he seemed collected but angry, and helped me to get most of the over hares fee back. Sixty thousand was returned to us, and we had our ticket fir the following day. We were told to be prompt at six thirty the next morning, and the bus would leave at seven. That night, neither Lydie nor I could sleep, so we got up at two in the morn gin, and got an hour of Internet, wrote to our moms about what was going on, and packed our things and waited for five-fourth five to come so we could check out of our hotel and leave for the bus station. We got to the station at six fifteen, and the bus didn't leave until 9. The same four songs played the entire twelve hours that we were on the bus. The first, a pop song about, we think, a guy who cheats on his girlfriend and wishes he could doe it all again, because she gets hit by a car and dies. So in the end, he asks for her hand in marriage and then they go upstairs to the bedroom, we presume. The second, and by far, the worst of the songs, was twenty mintues long, and utterly abrasive to the ears. The woman singing had no appeal (there were videos playing to go along with the songs) and she had a shrill voice, which lacked the ability to hit and sustain notes. The third was a part of a poorly made soap opera, and the fourth, a man singing while women in tracksuits and bad makeup belly danced in the Vermont fall. We got to the airport at six thirty and proceeded to walk from the main road, to the airport, which we were told was only three kilometers from the stop. Instead, we found out that it was seven, but luckily, a group of guys in a white van picked us up and dropped us at the airport, where we met with CCS volunteers who then contacted the drivers. We waited for another group to come for three hour s, then made our way to home base.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Heaven is a place on earth...
...but you leave with mosquito bites and dirt in every possible crevice. A little more than a week into our time, and we've gradually sunk into a routine. My work at Bridge Nursery School is going well--I love the children, and I know most of the names in my class. Names from Brian, Irene, Melissa, to Farashia, Queenie, and Ninali, (which means, literally, "to have God," from Nina, which means to have, and Ali, which means God), and distinct personalities to match. My Swahili is improving slightly, and I can now ask someone their name, say hello, how are you, fine, thank you, crazy cool like a banana, and, stop, please get off me. This last phrase is especially useful in the school. Many children come up to Madison (a girl placed with me from Miami) and me, and touch my hair, and are particularly fascinated with my watch, which is a novelty item as Tanzanians run on a completely different clock. They tug on my hair, skirt, shoes, and fingers. I've already developed a deep affection for a few.
This weekend, many of the younger girls in our program took a trip to the Hot Springs, a local and tourist destination an hour and a half from Moshi. Our van arrives, with stickers and pictures of Jay-Z, Kayne, Lil Wayne, and other rap groups plastered onto every available surface. Our two guides and cooks love loud music, and the bass was shaking the car, drowning out all lyrics for the entire drive.The first half hour was on paved roads, which are infested with speedbumps and contain no traffic lights or limits. We then turned onto a dirt path that snaked its way though the rural countryside of desert Africa, passing hut after hut, and miles of uninhabited bush. After finally arriving, I almost kissed the ground, and swore to never ride in the very back of that van again. We were brought to our campsite, stationed next to a crystal blue lagoon, with monkeys and bushbabies hiding in the trees, and locals staring from the bank at the troop of white girls in one-pieced bathingsuits. We swam for an hour to scrub the dirt off our bodies, and swung on the rope swing into the perfect water. Later, Lydie, I and a few other girls went adventuring into the desert, searching for elephants, due to a faulty tip from some mischievous Swedes. We then drank boxed wine into the evening, ate better food than I've ever had while camping, and danced to hip hop on folding chairs. We woke up the next morning at eight, and went on a scorching hike to visit waterfalls and caves, and cross a bridge out of an Indiana Jones movie. We returned, jumped into the beautiful abyss again, tried to get a little of the dirt off our bodies, and headed home, bass still pounding across the safari land. Unfortunately, some of the girls, me included, have over fifty mosquito (or some insect) bites all over our ankles and feet. I'm running out of hydro-cortizone cream, and am very uncomfortable. Hopefully, they'll get better in the next day or two.
Still haven't had a chance to upload my posts from the past week; I'll put them up soon.
Looking at the top of Kilimanjaro, visible for the first time since our fateful bus ride: the harmony of celestial ghosts, the oblong expansion of stardust.
This weekend, many of the younger girls in our program took a trip to the Hot Springs, a local and tourist destination an hour and a half from Moshi. Our van arrives, with stickers and pictures of Jay-Z, Kayne, Lil Wayne, and other rap groups plastered onto every available surface. Our two guides and cooks love loud music, and the bass was shaking the car, drowning out all lyrics for the entire drive.The first half hour was on paved roads, which are infested with speedbumps and contain no traffic lights or limits. We then turned onto a dirt path that snaked its way though the rural countryside of desert Africa, passing hut after hut, and miles of uninhabited bush. After finally arriving, I almost kissed the ground, and swore to never ride in the very back of that van again. We were brought to our campsite, stationed next to a crystal blue lagoon, with monkeys and bushbabies hiding in the trees, and locals staring from the bank at the troop of white girls in one-pieced bathingsuits. We swam for an hour to scrub the dirt off our bodies, and swung on the rope swing into the perfect water. Later, Lydie, I and a few other girls went adventuring into the desert, searching for elephants, due to a faulty tip from some mischievous Swedes. We then drank boxed wine into the evening, ate better food than I've ever had while camping, and danced to hip hop on folding chairs. We woke up the next morning at eight, and went on a scorching hike to visit waterfalls and caves, and cross a bridge out of an Indiana Jones movie. We returned, jumped into the beautiful abyss again, tried to get a little of the dirt off our bodies, and headed home, bass still pounding across the safari land. Unfortunately, some of the girls, me included, have over fifty mosquito (or some insect) bites all over our ankles and feet. I'm running out of hydro-cortizone cream, and am very uncomfortable. Hopefully, they'll get better in the next day or two.
Still haven't had a chance to upload my posts from the past week; I'll put them up soon.
Looking at the top of Kilimanjaro, visible for the first time since our fateful bus ride: the harmony of celestial ghosts, the oblong expansion of stardust.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Day 2
In Tanzania. It seems unreal. It's beautiful here, luscious and dry at the same time, and the house is amazing and clean. There's a huge garden that surrounds the property, and there are many people that work for us here. We have three cooks, three housekeepers, gardeners, and drivers. It sounds excessive, but that's the way things work here. Apparently there's a happening nightclub that we're going to go out to at some point. We start work tomorrow after two days of orientation, and I'm excited to start. I met the woman who runs the nursery school, Mary, and her daughter, Aika, who teaches there, and they are friendly and passionate about the work they do. I've made quite a few friends, and the local people are really lovely. We've gone to the local market, where we were immersed in smells of tomatoes, fruit, and freshly slaughtered livestock. We also took a tour of Moshi, the town next to Karanga. The only thing to detract from the experience is the men... they're all very forward and most of them believe that women are inferior to them, and therefore treat us as such. Also, there's no sense of a personal bubble.. it's like your body is free to touch, which is definitely something that's hard to get used to. Less homesick than before... will try to get my blog post from yesterday from my iPad onto this. It's less hurried, and more detailed about our journey (and I do say journey because I believe I gained years in the spaces of hours) to Karanga.
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." - Bill Bryson
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." - Bill Bryson
Monday, September 19, 2011
Three Days Until
I was given a book today, "The Great Railway Bazaar," about Paul Theroux's journey across Asia on train. On one of the starting pages was a quote:
"I decided that travel was flight and pursuit in equal parts."
I don't know what I pursue; knowledge, life-experiences and "reevaluation of life goals" are vague terms, ones I can't take to heart, or actively seek.
I know what I flee.
The autumn leaves are falling like rain / Although my neighbors are all barbarians / And you, you are a thousand miles away / There are always two cups at my table. -T'ang Dynasty Poem
"I decided that travel was flight and pursuit in equal parts."
I don't know what I pursue; knowledge, life-experiences and "reevaluation of life goals" are vague terms, ones I can't take to heart, or actively seek.
I know what I flee.
The autumn leaves are falling like rain / Although my neighbors are all barbarians / And you, you are a thousand miles away / There are always two cups at my table. -T'ang Dynasty Poem
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Tickticktick: One Week
Tomorrow will be one week before I leave. I've done my shopping (dressing down my wardrobe, so to speak), picked my essential electronics and books to bring, and now I'm just combatting the worries that arise when friends and family members offer suggestions like, "don't be the girls from Taken." Noted, thanks! I'll be in Tanzania nine weeks, eight of which will be spend in a program working for Bridge Nursery School, teaching children aged 2 1/2 to 7, a time when I hopefully won't be abducted and forcefully addicted to drugs, all while trying to maintain my virtue and innocence before my dad rescues me and takes me back home to meet a pop-singer.
Last night, Alex came over to ask my mom, who apparently contains psychic abilities according to a raspy Atlantian fortune-teller, to read her tarot cards. Skeptical though I was, I was intrigued. This summer, I've been reading Michael Shermer's "comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished": The Believing Brain. (Amazon) Look it up--a great read. Anyway, with a skeptic's voice in my head, I wanted to know what Tarot card I would be.
There, on our worn and rustic kitchen table, sitting on patterned seat cushions with fruit cleared to make way for our reading, it was revealed, by divine coincidence or a stroke of luck, that I am the traveling fool, haphazardly bumbling through places, and young enough to continue to metamorphose.
I asked of love, of course, and I am bound to the king, continually rejecting the pages that will not suffice.
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Last night, Alex came over to ask my mom, who apparently contains psychic abilities according to a raspy Atlantian fortune-teller, to read her tarot cards. Skeptical though I was, I was intrigued. This summer, I've been reading Michael Shermer's "comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished": The Believing Brain. (Amazon) Look it up--a great read. Anyway, with a skeptic's voice in my head, I wanted to know what Tarot card I would be.
There, on our worn and rustic kitchen table, sitting on patterned seat cushions with fruit cleared to make way for our reading, it was revealed, by divine coincidence or a stroke of luck, that I am the traveling fool, haphazardly bumbling through places, and young enough to continue to metamorphose.
I asked of love, of course, and I am bound to the king, continually rejecting the pages that will not suffice.
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
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