Entry via Letter
To thoroughly enjoy the African lifestyle, I have observed many “rules” that make life a bit easier, and now for your information have recorded them here. Enjoy:
Rule #1
When washing your hands after using the toilet, check the water you use before applying to hands. If there are visible worms making little homes in the bucket, the purpose of using this water for washing may be defeated. Dump bucket and start again with new pump water and less visible worms.
Rule # 2
Don’t waste decent day light hours trying to sift each bug out of the flour before you use it. Odds are the bugs won’t harm you – they even add a bit of protein to your bread, just dump it in and bake away. If we spend too much time nit-picking at the little things that cannot harm us, eventually we will find that well hidden giant coach roach, and then lose our appetites once and for all. Moral – don’t sweat the small stuff, or in this case bugs. On the other hand, if you start picking out the bugs to eat and throwing out the flour, you may have been in Africa too long…..
Rule # 3
When killing giant man-eating bugs, make sure to scrape corpse from floor and deposit outside of living area immediately. Large smashed bugs that remain on floor will in time be consumed by huge masses of smaller carnivorous bugs and then the problem of disposal of one turns into the eradication of an army. If you wish to make an example of the one large smashed bug so as to deter family members of the species from taking up residence in your home, do so on the front porch. This not only sets an example for the bugs, but also for villagers that don’t know you well enough huge bug corpses on the front porch will permanently deter those who don’t know you well from asking for money…or bug repellant.
Rule # 4
Always check for bugs before tucking the mosquito net into the mattress. After entering the bed and tucking down the net, frisking the blanket for bugs is a poor choice-should you find a bug it will no doubt go into a state of panic and frantically scurry away on which ever surface it deems possible for escape – this includes your equally panicked swing palms and lower limbs. This netted up bed of emotion will no doubt end in the insects flight to your hair, where despite shrieks and gyrations which flail your hair to and fro, you ultimately lose the culprit and spend the rest of your night worrying about bug eggs being strategically laid in your ear. To avoid these ear nests, best to pat the matt before you tuck the net.
Rule # 5
It is never a good idea to dare an African high school student to do something, and best also to keep sarcasm at bay. My form 3 students and I argued over the status of a chameleon, whether it was a mammal or a reptile. I argued that because it had no hair it must be a mammal, to which they unanimously disagreed and stated that chameleons had hair and that I was a silly white teacher who didn’t know. Exasperated, I ended the (by now very loud) argument by stating that if they could bring me a chameleon I could prove that it had no hair. One hour after I returned home from school a stampede of running feet and shouting echoed up the pathway to my door, where upon 15 students, a 10 foot tree branch, and a very confused chameleon sat waiting for my inspection. I ultimately did prove that I was right by telling the students there was no hair because they all believed me, rather than come closer to examine the reptile (they made it perfectly clear that I would be the only one dumb enough to approach that end of the 10 foot pole) they simply took my word for it. After several pictures and my blessing, the students dispersed, and the poor chameleon clung for dear life to the 10 foot branch, as it was returned to the forest by way of straining to touch each screaming, sprinting female student with in the small radius of my front porch.
Next time I’m going to argue that a crocodile has hair.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
It's that Look
Entry via Letter
Being a volunteer can be difficult at times, especially when acting as a teacher in a small “bush” school. Do the kids really listen to me as I fill their head with Biology facts, can they be expected to when none of the other teachers teach in the classrooms, and only come around on discipline days? I’ve pandered many a day (especially on boring plant biology days) why I sit here writing these notes when only one or two of the students will truly understand me. Then I get “the look”. “The look” comes in many forms and in many places, not just in the school but around the village as well. “The look” is what keeps me going on days when I wonder what the hell I’m doing here in the middle of a heat wave without air conditioning. What is this look? I’m glad you asked. “The look” is the wave of understanding that comes over a students face when he grasps the concept of photosynthesis. “The look” is also the appreciation and ear to ear grin that my neighbor gives me every time I make Chocolate cake, even when I add too much oil and we change the name to chocolate soup. “The look” is the pride and beaming glow of a student who can point out a mistake in my calculations and then show the class, in English, where I went wrong. “The look” is the high-pitched shrieks of laughter and red faced convulsions of villagers when they meet me walking around the village with my kitten Peps wrapped in a Kanga and tied to my back like an African baby. “The looks” are the stern serious faces of villagers as the stare into my camera, and the coos of approval and piles of laughter when they look at the resulting picture. “The look” is the wide puppy-dog eyes of a neighborhood girl who hasn’t yet eaten all day, but manages to sneak me a handful of cashews carried in the folds of her small shirt.
“The Look” can come from any place at anytime, and though I never expect where I will find it, I’m always thankful that I am here in Tanzania to inspire it.
Being a volunteer can be difficult at times, especially when acting as a teacher in a small “bush” school. Do the kids really listen to me as I fill their head with Biology facts, can they be expected to when none of the other teachers teach in the classrooms, and only come around on discipline days? I’ve pandered many a day (especially on boring plant biology days) why I sit here writing these notes when only one or two of the students will truly understand me. Then I get “the look”. “The look” comes in many forms and in many places, not just in the school but around the village as well. “The look” is what keeps me going on days when I wonder what the hell I’m doing here in the middle of a heat wave without air conditioning. What is this look? I’m glad you asked. “The look” is the wave of understanding that comes over a students face when he grasps the concept of photosynthesis. “The look” is also the appreciation and ear to ear grin that my neighbor gives me every time I make Chocolate cake, even when I add too much oil and we change the name to chocolate soup. “The look” is the pride and beaming glow of a student who can point out a mistake in my calculations and then show the class, in English, where I went wrong. “The look” is the high-pitched shrieks of laughter and red faced convulsions of villagers when they meet me walking around the village with my kitten Peps wrapped in a Kanga and tied to my back like an African baby. “The looks” are the stern serious faces of villagers as the stare into my camera, and the coos of approval and piles of laughter when they look at the resulting picture. “The look” is the wide puppy-dog eyes of a neighborhood girl who hasn’t yet eaten all day, but manages to sneak me a handful of cashews carried in the folds of her small shirt.
“The Look” can come from any place at anytime, and though I never expect where I will find it, I’m always thankful that I am here in Tanzania to inspire it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Animal Planet
Entry via Letter
The fun thing about being a biology teacher in a rural school is the fact that everyone knows where you live. All of the students can cluster around your home and yell for you to wake up in the wee hours of the morning (until you chase them away with a stick) and still others can come bearing gifts, some with and some without biological significance. This week, 4 primary school students showed up at my door with a huge turtle. Originally I snapped a few shots thanked the boys and then closed the door to resume cooking my supper. Not even 2 minutes later the knock came again, a little more timid this time and there stood the boys, this time flanked with 2 mothers, both of whom were balancing buckets full of water on their heads while also bending to examine the turtle, who had not moved from my doorstep. One of the mothers smiled and patiently explained that the Turtle was a gift, and that I should take him inside before someone else takes him. I smiled again at the boys and the mother, saying there is nothing I would like more than to keep this Turtle in my home, and then, Turtle in tow, again shut my door. Now, Kobe (Kiswahili name for Turtle) wanders up and down the hallways of my home, watching out for both the cat and the chicken, which pounce on him with endless curiosity. When biology students fill my home to ask questions, they now have to dodge both the ankle-attaching cat and the exploring Turtle, all the while nervously keeping out of reach from both, and shaking their heads a the crazy mzungu who has welcomed forest creatures in to her home.
The fun thing about being a biology teacher in a rural school is the fact that everyone knows where you live. All of the students can cluster around your home and yell for you to wake up in the wee hours of the morning (until you chase them away with a stick) and still others can come bearing gifts, some with and some without biological significance. This week, 4 primary school students showed up at my door with a huge turtle. Originally I snapped a few shots thanked the boys and then closed the door to resume cooking my supper. Not even 2 minutes later the knock came again, a little more timid this time and there stood the boys, this time flanked with 2 mothers, both of whom were balancing buckets full of water on their heads while also bending to examine the turtle, who had not moved from my doorstep. One of the mothers smiled and patiently explained that the Turtle was a gift, and that I should take him inside before someone else takes him. I smiled again at the boys and the mother, saying there is nothing I would like more than to keep this Turtle in my home, and then, Turtle in tow, again shut my door. Now, Kobe (Kiswahili name for Turtle) wanders up and down the hallways of my home, watching out for both the cat and the chicken, which pounce on him with endless curiosity. When biology students fill my home to ask questions, they now have to dodge both the ankle-attaching cat and the exploring Turtle, all the while nervously keeping out of reach from both, and shaking their heads a the crazy mzungu who has welcomed forest creatures in to her home.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Heat of the Moment
Entry via Letter
My students and I decided to prepare garden the day after a huge rain-storm hit Makong’onda. While trapped in my house with 12 students waiting out the storm, they all noticed a peculiar smell, and asked if the beans I had cooked for supper had gone bad. With a knowing smile I ushered them out the door after the storm and then decided something must be done about that smell. That smell was my hair. In my own defense, it’s incredibly hard to keep long hair clean in a culture where all people shave their heads; there is little shampoo and no hot running water. It’s also so hot here, that the long dripping mane of hair after a bath is utterly unappealing, and with the result of constant ponytails and braids- which breed unhealthy hair. Thus, in the morning before starting the garden, armed with a 7” round in diameter mirror and a pair of sewing scissors, I chopped my own hair 7 inches shorter, so that it rests right below my chin. Most of the Tanzanians noticed right away, and were horrified I had let myself chop that miraculous amount of hair. Others told me that I now completly looked like an American boy, what with my preference for pants and all. Still others appreciated the style, and now many students come to the house begging me to let them braid my hair. Its funny how little I care about this fashion faux-paw, I’m actually more excited about the prospect of getting my uneven hair braided than the reality of having to own-up to a pixie cut the moment I step off of a plane in America. Is she becoming assimilated into another culture? You be the judge.
My students and I decided to prepare garden the day after a huge rain-storm hit Makong’onda. While trapped in my house with 12 students waiting out the storm, they all noticed a peculiar smell, and asked if the beans I had cooked for supper had gone bad. With a knowing smile I ushered them out the door after the storm and then decided something must be done about that smell. That smell was my hair. In my own defense, it’s incredibly hard to keep long hair clean in a culture where all people shave their heads; there is little shampoo and no hot running water. It’s also so hot here, that the long dripping mane of hair after a bath is utterly unappealing, and with the result of constant ponytails and braids- which breed unhealthy hair. Thus, in the morning before starting the garden, armed with a 7” round in diameter mirror and a pair of sewing scissors, I chopped my own hair 7 inches shorter, so that it rests right below my chin. Most of the Tanzanians noticed right away, and were horrified I had let myself chop that miraculous amount of hair. Others told me that I now completly looked like an American boy, what with my preference for pants and all. Still others appreciated the style, and now many students come to the house begging me to let them braid my hair. Its funny how little I care about this fashion faux-paw, I’m actually more excited about the prospect of getting my uneven hair braided than the reality of having to own-up to a pixie cut the moment I step off of a plane in America. Is she becoming assimilated into another culture? You be the judge.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Rain, Rain
Entry Via Letter
While sitting in my friend Gigi’s house in Newala, I noticed she had large wooden shutters covering her windows, she told me that I too would need shutters, or the rain would surely wash me and my things away. I shrugged it off and told her I need not purchase shutters, we would see when the rain came. It wasn’t until after I was sweeping a small lake out of my home that I realized she might be right.
The rain came down in torrents, but forgot to tell the wind to back down, and the result was my flooded home. The rain brought not only a new source of entertainment for the cat, but also students, who had been waiting at the water pump to take water and were now ironically fleeing from the torrents in the sky. My house filled to the brim with students, we waited out the storm and I distributed copies of Si Mchezo magazine, which they quietly read while eating the candy I piled on the table. Soon the reading turned into a discussion about the difference between Americans and Tanzanians, why condoms work, and where in the village I can get my nose pierced (a common practice here). As the students left, I felt very lucky that the rain came and trapped them here, as I felt it helped me make a good connection for the first times as an advisor they can trust. Sure enough the next day students poured through my door to get copies of Si Mchezo (this is an HIV-AIDS magazine for teens), and I met more students than ever. This response excited me to start the peer educators group, a group of students who will teach and advise students on health issues, and also work with primary schools in the surrounding area. Their applications are in and I am just now finishing their oral interviews, soon I will have a large group of 14 students who will work to teach and educate their peers about HIV-AIDS, I am very excited for them to come and hang out more often, as most important discussions occur in the low pressure environment of the home, as opposed to the always uncomfortable environment of the classroom.
While sitting in my friend Gigi’s house in Newala, I noticed she had large wooden shutters covering her windows, she told me that I too would need shutters, or the rain would surely wash me and my things away. I shrugged it off and told her I need not purchase shutters, we would see when the rain came. It wasn’t until after I was sweeping a small lake out of my home that I realized she might be right.
The rain came down in torrents, but forgot to tell the wind to back down, and the result was my flooded home. The rain brought not only a new source of entertainment for the cat, but also students, who had been waiting at the water pump to take water and were now ironically fleeing from the torrents in the sky. My house filled to the brim with students, we waited out the storm and I distributed copies of Si Mchezo magazine, which they quietly read while eating the candy I piled on the table. Soon the reading turned into a discussion about the difference between Americans and Tanzanians, why condoms work, and where in the village I can get my nose pierced (a common practice here). As the students left, I felt very lucky that the rain came and trapped them here, as I felt it helped me make a good connection for the first times as an advisor they can trust. Sure enough the next day students poured through my door to get copies of Si Mchezo (this is an HIV-AIDS magazine for teens), and I met more students than ever. This response excited me to start the peer educators group, a group of students who will teach and advise students on health issues, and also work with primary schools in the surrounding area. Their applications are in and I am just now finishing their oral interviews, soon I will have a large group of 14 students who will work to teach and educate their peers about HIV-AIDS, I am very excited for them to come and hang out more often, as most important discussions occur in the low pressure environment of the home, as opposed to the always uncomfortable environment of the classroom.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Rats, Bats and Cats
Entry Via Letter
I’ve decided today that I have officially crossed the line from an American to a Tanzanian in a sense that I am now able to fight the wildlife with a passion that would make the people of Fema incredibly distressed. I originally purchased Pepsi the cat because I felt he would scare the mice away. After the first two weeks of yowling and hissing at everything that moved, I felt the rats would have packed their bags and moved on. This was an incorrect assumption, as I found one morning when I arose sleepy eyed and hair tussled to wash my face in the bucket and found a small rat, swimming frantically to keep his head above the water. The logical thing to do would have been to put more water in the bucket to drown the obviously exhausted creature, but what I actually did was run out of my house (now fully awake) in boxers (in a country where women barely show their ankles!) yelling at everyone I saw to come see the huge beast I had trapped in the bucket. After a small crowd of men armed to the teeth arrived at the back door, they came upon the bucket, then between slapping each other on the backs and falling over laughing they managed to pull the bucket outside where Mama Kihiki dumped the bucket of water and greeted the swimming creature with a large rock, which finally killed it. Mama Kihiki proved to be the hero – probably because at this point all of the males were laughing so hard they were convulsing, she even had the sense to bring me a kanga to cover my incredibly white legs which – caused more of a ruckus than the rat. Since this story wouldn’t die around my village, I decided I would have to work drastically to make up for my “rep”, and I found the opportunity two days later while building my garden with my students. The building of the garden led to HUGE arguments, as they all insisted I would never be able to finish if I kept digging so deep, alas we continued, mostly because I bought chai for everyone, until Mama Kihiki suddenly jumped from her seat shouting “nyoka, nyoka” (snake), immediately impassioned, I rushed from the garden with the large hoe I had been furiously swinging at the dirt and decided I would be the one to kill the snake, this lust for reptile blood was not only fueled by my need to up my “street cred” but was also fanned with remembrance of the cobra that snuck into my chicken coop and stole my eggs (the first two my kuku has laid). After swinging the hoe at (but not killing) the snake the first three times I shouted for my students to bring me a machete so that I could cut off the head of the snake – one managed to pick himself off the ground (where he like all the others was quivering with laughter) and brought me my weapon of choice; which I used to finish off the snake. As I held the snake to take its picture (where like the snake, my head was cut off) I realized now that I was a toughened Tanzanian woman, ready to kill all the scorpions, lizards, and snakes (as well as rats) that dare to enter my domain.
I’ve decided today that I have officially crossed the line from an American to a Tanzanian in a sense that I am now able to fight the wildlife with a passion that would make the people of Fema incredibly distressed. I originally purchased Pepsi the cat because I felt he would scare the mice away. After the first two weeks of yowling and hissing at everything that moved, I felt the rats would have packed their bags and moved on. This was an incorrect assumption, as I found one morning when I arose sleepy eyed and hair tussled to wash my face in the bucket and found a small rat, swimming frantically to keep his head above the water. The logical thing to do would have been to put more water in the bucket to drown the obviously exhausted creature, but what I actually did was run out of my house (now fully awake) in boxers (in a country where women barely show their ankles!) yelling at everyone I saw to come see the huge beast I had trapped in the bucket. After a small crowd of men armed to the teeth arrived at the back door, they came upon the bucket, then between slapping each other on the backs and falling over laughing they managed to pull the bucket outside where Mama Kihiki dumped the bucket of water and greeted the swimming creature with a large rock, which finally killed it. Mama Kihiki proved to be the hero – probably because at this point all of the males were laughing so hard they were convulsing, she even had the sense to bring me a kanga to cover my incredibly white legs which – caused more of a ruckus than the rat. Since this story wouldn’t die around my village, I decided I would have to work drastically to make up for my “rep”, and I found the opportunity two days later while building my garden with my students. The building of the garden led to HUGE arguments, as they all insisted I would never be able to finish if I kept digging so deep, alas we continued, mostly because I bought chai for everyone, until Mama Kihiki suddenly jumped from her seat shouting “nyoka, nyoka” (snake), immediately impassioned, I rushed from the garden with the large hoe I had been furiously swinging at the dirt and decided I would be the one to kill the snake, this lust for reptile blood was not only fueled by my need to up my “street cred” but was also fanned with remembrance of the cobra that snuck into my chicken coop and stole my eggs (the first two my kuku has laid). After swinging the hoe at (but not killing) the snake the first three times I shouted for my students to bring me a machete so that I could cut off the head of the snake – one managed to pick himself off the ground (where he like all the others was quivering with laughter) and brought me my weapon of choice; which I used to finish off the snake. As I held the snake to take its picture (where like the snake, my head was cut off) I realized now that I was a toughened Tanzanian woman, ready to kill all the scorpions, lizards, and snakes (as well as rats) that dare to enter my domain.
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