TOP TEN REASONS THESE BLOGS ARE SO LATE!

10. TRANSPORT ISSUES. The open-ended truck with a roll bar and barely functioning brakes, which serves as the only transportation to and from Makong’onda, keeps leaving the village at 4 in the morning, instead of 5 when they are supposed to, thus leaving me in the dust (or leaving me waiting until 6am when one of the Mamas finally wakes up, laughs at me, says the car passed, and goes back to sleep (usually to the sounds of me swearing, LOUDLY)).

9. CROC HUNTING. (channel the spirit of Crocodile Dundee for this reading). We start at Makong’onda village, where we bike almost 10 miles to the Ravuma River. There we encounter the half naked boat men who gladly give us rides in exchange for a percentage of whatever bounty we capture. We sneak up on the crocs, but they are tricky to see, trickier when no-one (even the crazy boat men) will go near places where they were sited. Thus, we leave empty handed, to limp the ten miles up hill back home in the heat, defeated once again by the grinning, green, great, gargantuan lizards!

SARCASM. I’M NOT HUNTING CROCS. CALM DOWN MOTHER. J

8. CHICKEN DEPOPULATION PROJECT: MAKONG’ONDA. Here in Makong’onda, we appear to have a chicken problem. They are everywhere…and they get into everything, the gardens, the house, the classroom…We’ve decided to get back at these pesky creatures once and for all…by eating them! Chickens are delicious, and the only source of meat that you can find in Makong’onda, or any village for 10K. Because of our extensive amount of guests, combined our own primal urges for meat, we have been working on thinning the population of chickens in Makong’onda. This is a personal small project, and I believe that the chicken depopulation project has ultimately been very successful.

7. OFFICAL POLICE BUSINESS. Before the final examinations at Makong’onda Day, one of the police men (who slept at the school until exams were over) asked me if I would do him the honor of frisking my female students in their paper thin pocketless green skirts, so that he didn’t have to embarrass the girls by doing it himself. Why am I frisking them you ask? Why, to confiscate all of those high-technology gadgets that all African village girls carry on them to use to cheat on their tests. As I made my way thorough the line of girls (who were howling with laughter, possibly because I did most of it with my eyes closed so that I didn’t have to look at them) I reached the end, and Danford, the first boy in the row jumped up, arms spread as wide as the grin covering his face, “My turn! MY TURN!”. My refusal was loud and apparently devastating, as all of the boys moaned and complained (to my retreating backside) about the girls getting “more thoroughly searched”.

6. BICEP BUILDING. This is actually a personal project, involving me carrying water from my home to my garden, and then back to my home, in 20L buckets. 4 repetitions. I also routinely carry around my students’ biology and English notebooks, (all 110 of them) to and from the school. 3 repetitions. Finally, I lift daily, 20 minutes with each arm, my 6 month old friend Brian, who is just starting to eat solid foots, and thus starting to get really heavy. Repetitions dependant upon diapers and access to milk. Though my favorite buff male students still laugh and my weak arms when I try to invite them “TO THE GUN SHOW”, they are starting to get better…

5. NAPS. We have once again entered that stage in our weather where it is too hot to go out after 12, so I take naps. Lots of them. Until the sun goes away.

4. BREWING BOOZE. My buddy JB (see excuse number 3) and I decided that we would not be outdone by Luke’s homemade coconut wine (indeed, it would be hard to be outdone by this particular wine because it was GROSS!), and thus we decided to make ourselves some ginger wine. I heroically drove JB’s evil bicycle, which left scratches all over my left calve, to Nakarara in order to make the wine. We cleaned a bucket, boiled the water (truthfully, she did that before I got there), put in the ginger, 4 kilos of sugar (to the shock of her neighbors), and yeast, then mixed. We waited 3 weeks to taste…pretty potent stuff!

3. NEWBIE. We have a new girl in the vill who hails from Washington DC named Jenny Beth. She’s awesome, likes to run (and is willing to run painfully slow in order to keep up with/encourage me), and is one heck of a knowledgeable gardener. She can be found on any given day roaming the fields of Nakarara looking for something to whack with her machete or a piece of ground where she can thrust her spade. The good people of Nakarara love her, and the here students behave better for her (which is amazing). I’m super excited about having an awesome person to buddy-up with on new projects….stay tuned for our next escapades.

2. AMERICA! One of my students (Mustafa) was very blessed and lucky to get the opportunity to get into the American Embassy Young Leaders program. When we got the phone call we both jumped up and down screaming. When our eardrums and sanity were regained we realized (and by we I really mean I) that we had a lot to do, such as getting passport papers, non-exsistant birth certificates, borrowing a coat that will defend his heat hardened Tanzanian shell from the Colorado cold...it is going to be a busy month before he leaves!

1. ZA MAISHA TANZANIA (Tanzanian Life). Life here goes by so quickly. I didn’t actually realize until a message from my father (something along the line of “we were wondering if you were still alive…”) that it had been so darn long since I had written a blog. With the garden, exercise, crocodile hunting, guests that come and go, seminars, classes, tests, the library, soccer finals, and peace corps reports, its been a busy 3 months. I promise with the help of my new tiny computer I will try to give you bigger, better updates.

As you know, all updates and stories are TOTALLY worth the wait!

Peace and Love from Tanzania!

Mirinda

The Great Garden Project! October 17th

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Since the creation of the garden outside my house I have received a lot of attention both from my students and villagers alike. Many people in passing were just plain shocked that the white girl was able to actually make her own garden and many others were inspired (probably something along the lines of “if she can do it, ANYONE can do it….which is true…really). Many people began to ask me when we were going to start to make their gardens…and when I thought about it, I realized that this was a project that would require very little money, which would make it a project that would be perfect for….SUSTAINABILITY!
With the help of Jenny Beth, local garden expert from the village next door, my sidekick Musty, camera man Luke, and some awesome flipcharts (which I drew with the help of my AWESOME new colored pencil set from my cousin Verla while eating the AMAZING pork bites (PORK BITES! DELICIOUS!) that my cousin Jan sent), we were able to create a really cool nutrition/permaculture seminar. We invited 10 mamas from the village, IMPLORING them to be on time so that JB (Jenny Beth) would be able to show them how to do the digging and different garden techniques without the sun being a huge nuisance.
We were prepared to start at 8am, which means we weren’t actually expecting anyone to show until 9am…but every Mama arrived at 7:59. This was a great start! JB started the seminar in the garden while I begged/prodded/cursed the DVD player to use my gardening DVD (it didn’t work….at all, BA!). When they returned from double digging, a technique that allows the roots to grow deeper, thus allowing plant spacing to be closer, thus allowing more plants on less space, thus saving water, they were ready to hear all I had to say about nutrition.
We felt that the most important thing to get out of the way was WHY we were building a garden, and WHY other people didn’t already have a garden. The biggest problem was seeds and water, where o where were we going to get water to put on the garden (seeds they were getting from me). This was one of the biggest problems that we addressed. JB took it from a gardening point of view, saying that the compost that we could make and the double digging that we would do in the garden would help contain the water so that less would be needed. I came back with the practical point of view, saying that water used to wash dishes (soap? Please, they never use soap and in the words of JB, “nonbacterial soap is not harmful, and actually adds phosphate (A MACRONUTRIENT) to the plant), water used to bathe children, and water that is used to mop can all be saved to put onto the garden. Not to mention the dirty water that is found around the pump (from the leaks). When all of the Mamas began to nod their heads we realized we had them hooked. So we hit them with a double barrel of nutrition information.
Make a garden, eat better. Short and simple.
By the end of the seminar, the Mamas were really excited, and so were we. One by one (without any encouragement what so ever from me) they stood and gave a little speech about how excited they were to build their gardens. One Mamas speech was especially touching “We’re gonna get out there and we’re gonna make those gardens! Then we’re gonna eat better! Our kids are gonna eat better! We’re gonna plant GREEN PEPPERS (I don’t actually know why she was that excited about green peppers, but that was totally the end of her pep talk…green peppers!)!” After this speech, all of the Mamas got up, filed out, and went back to their business. Us instructors took a nap.
Two days later, every single Mama had a fence built and their beds double dug (or at least dug really, really deep). Other Mamas, having heard of my awesomeness, asked when their seminar would start. In another village, where water is better available, several Mamas asked when we would be able to teach there. The project was indeed a success, and we hope to continue to make as many gardens as possible until we have to quit because of the rain. Out of all of my projects in Tanzania, this was definitely one of the most fulfilling. I can walk about my village having already planted three gardens and peek in to see huge amounts of seedlings popping up in every direction! It’s an exciting time to be living (and eating!) in Makong’onda!

Mazoezi (exercize) Late October

“Mirinda, we see you really like Makong’onda”
“Oh really? Why is that?”
“Because you have gotten so FAT!”
It wasn’t until I learned 5 new ways of how to say “Hey Mirinda, you’re fat”, that I decided that a little exercise may be needed to spice up my life. This isn’t to say that I have blimped out, on the contrary, I haven’t gained that much weight or changed a size since I came back from my mid service checkup, where I had been shown to have gained a little weight (thank YOU America!), but not enough to reap the judgment that I have been getting in my little vill. To be sure, telling someone they are fat is a huge complement in Tanzania, often used when you are wearing a new dress or just re-meeting a past acquaintance. However, to be told by the village nurse, in front of every mama at the dispensary, that you need to start exercising and eating less at meals because you are SO FAT, goes beyond the complement stage and suggests that maybe I should do something so that people will stop telling me I’m fat.
Luckily, we have the trip to Kilimanjaro coming up in a little less than a month, meaning that we all needing to get into shape anyway. This gave me the opportunity to coerce all 11 of my students to run, sweat, and curse at the concept of exercise together with me. At first, they were all incredibly excited by the concept, we run, we laugh, we get fit. After a week, reality set in for me….”why did I eat so much in America, running is not fun, owwwwwwwwwwww I’m in pain….etc”, however the kids didn’t have any complaints at all. In fact, when I told them the first day we were only running 20 minutes they laughed and started to sprint away, until I warned them they would all be sore in the morning (HAHAHAHA, I won that battle, they could barely walk the next morning) and that we really needed to walk back to stretch.
My favorite running experience was the first 30 minute run with two of my favorite students, Jaffery and Andrew. We left right at the beginning of a graduation ceremony, so there were a lot of people in the street, and a lot of small children, none of whom had ever seen the white girl run before. Before we were out of the village limits, we had an army of barefooted, torn-shirted, shrieking children following us. At first it wasn’t that bad, there were giggles, the flap-flap of flip-flops slapping down on the dirt road, we just figured they would eventually turn around.
Wrong.
“Jaffery, tell the children to stop following you.”
“Ha, Madame they are not to be following me, just, they following you”
“No they aren’t, they’re in awe of your biceps…ask them yourself”
“Children, who are you following?”
“WE ARE FOLLOWING MIRINDA! MIRINDA IS RUNNING AND WE ARE FOLLOWING HER!”
“See I was tolding you”
“Ba!”
The next trick up our sleeve was to pick up the pace, but the boys soon realized that they would sooner lose me than lose all of the children, and they were kind enough not to let me face the screaming horde alone. There were some bright spots to having the children along. Typically the boys would veer off of the road and into the cashew fields to grab cashew fruit themselves, but now they had a small army of slaves within whom they had seniority. Children scatted to find the best fruits for Jaffery while others ran loyally at my side. We also never had to worry about a bike sneaking up on us…
“MIRINDA! BICIKELI!”
“BICIKELI! BICIKELI! MIRINDA, SEE THE BICIKELI!”
The only thing we truly worried about was one of our little soldiers taking a bicycle in the back for me, as they seemed well able to scream when one was coming, but not so adept at getting out of the way when one wizzed by. After saving the third tiny collarbone that couldn’t make it out of the way fast enough, Andrew turned around and told the children that he was just going to let them get run over…we saw it as a tough love approach. Luckily for the kids, we turned around at Mnaviera (the next village, a little under 5 K away) and began walking home, thus giving them more opportunities to search for fruit in the fields that lined the road, and stare at the huge sores that had welted up all over their feet as the result of running the entire way to Mnaviera bare-footed. The boys finally ditched me about 1K away from Makong’onda, slowly jogging so that villagers would think they had been jogging the entire time (posers). At this point I didn’t mind the abandonment, the children and I walked back hand in hand, sucking on the fruits they had brought from the bush and singing silly songs the whole way home.

On Being a Village Mama October 17th

Without Mamas, I’m positive that village life would be utterly impossible. Mamas are the true backbone of Tanzania. They care for the children, walk to their fields to plant crops, carry the water (waiting at the pump in the blazing sun for hours) for the entire household, hand wash the clothing for the entire household (including the soiled clothes that are used as diapers), feed the mouths of those who reside in or within the vicinity of their household, and they make time to visit one another while plaiting each others hair. It tires me just to write all of these chores, and while I sometimes manage to do all of these tasks in one day, it exhausts me to the point of wanting to lie in my bed and sleep for the rest of the week. I feel like I accomplish so much by doing these household chores, but really, doing all of the washing, sweeping, cooking, and gardening doesn’t help me teach the students, it doesn’t get their papers graded, or the library cleaned out, and it doesn’t help me with the various health projects I have started in the community. When I stop to think about it, the household chores are just a burden that keeps me from my actual work: but these chores ARE the ACTUAL WORK for every Mama in the vill. For this, I admire the strength and humor that each Mama brings to these tasks. Sometimes when they are feeling charitable, they allow me to come and help them with some of the more “white-person attainable” tasks. On the 17th of October, this included the cutting of firewood with Mama Semi and Semi.
There are dead trees everywhere in Makong’onda. Many of them are the direct result from the burning that farmers use to clean the dead brush off of their fields. What they don’t see (in the long term, and we NEVER see the long term here) is that they are not only killing the trees that add important soil nutrients and help prevent soil erosion, but as they leave their fields with burning piles in their wake, they don’t watch the wind blow the fire into the rest of the brush, thus starting the rain-starved cashew nut trees on fire, and thus ruining the field all together. To cut firewood, we set off for one of these desecrated fields, 2 machetes and an army of small children in hand.
When we arrived at the field, I received my first lesson in cutting the trees. Mama Semi lifted her machete, struck the branch in the same place 4 times in a row, and then pulled the tree to the ground. Once down, she up-ended the tree and neatly sliced every single small branch, leaving a clean, smart, and straight piece of wood. The entire process took less than a minute. Taking my machete and strutting to another tree, I decided that I was going to make this look every bit as easy as Mama Semi, who if, at 5 foot nothing and weighing barely 120 pounds, could make this look easy, then so could I. I was barely through the second strut to the tree before Mama Semi removed my machete and ran her finger over the blade, then showed me the finger. I looked at her and shrugged. She replied that there was no blood on her finger. Puzzled as to why that was a bad thing, I asked her why that was a bad thing. She said that the blade was not sharp enough. I amusedly pointed out that in the case I missed, at least we knew I wouldn’t completely chop my hand off. Smirking, and surrounded by the giggles of the girls, Mama Semi moved aside and allowed me to proceed.
My first chop in the wood was good, only about 1 cm deep, but low on the tree, a good start. My second chop was good too, about 1.5cm deep, and about 3 inches above the first mark. Now my third chop had a higher probability of going into one of those holes, because I had just doubled my targets. No such luck. In fact, by the end of the 7th chop, the bottom of the tree was merely filled with 7 small and distinct pock marks, its small branches trembling slightly after receiving each one, as if the tree was laughing at me with each stroke of my blade. At this point, I decided to take a more American approach, I wrapped my hands around the top and proceeded to shake the life out of the dead tree, encouraging it with colorful American metaphors to come “out of the damn ground”. At this point, Mama Semi was on the ground with the 4 girls, and all of them were convulsing with laughter, Mama Semi shaking so hard I would have assumed she was having a seizure had she not punctuated each shake with an ear splitting snort. After composing herself, Mama Semi apologized to the tree (TO THE TREE! HMMMPH!) and then with one fatal swing (that only would have worked with the help of my strategically placed small dent (just saying)) she felled the tree. She said she thought I was getting the hang of it though, and turned me loose with the army of small children while she went off to cut more trees on her own.
Semi and I proved to be an excellent team, and in less that 45 minutes, we had 19 tall trees, one of which I was able to fall in less than a minute and 10 of which I needed Semi to help me fall, at 12 years old, she is already far more proficient with a machete than I. We returned with our booty to the clearing where Mama Semi was tying all of her trees together. All together, we made a decent team, in 45 minutes, we both cut more than 18 trees (I cut 19, she cut 52). As we carried the loot back through the village (each young lady with a huge bundle of at least 15-20 a top her head, me with 7 in a hand-held bundle) the villagers hooted congratulations to me for surviving my first wood-chopping experience, and congratulations to Mama Semi, for surviving putting up with me.
Being a Mama is HARD work, REALLY HARD work.

Form Four Finale October 14th

After a stressful week of national examinations, late night cramming sessions under dull-glowing solar lamps and mid-day bean and flour stomach cramming sessions before afternoon tests, the good form four students of Makong’onda Day were ready for a little break. Actually, they were ready for a long break, as the end of their national examinations marked the end of their ordinary level school careers. Due to lack of rainfall, thus causing the lack of a cashew crop, the students were unable to pay for their graduation outfits and celebration this year, and thus it was concluded that there would be no celebration at all. Feeling the need for closure, I proposed that we have one final soccer match: Form Four students vs. the world, 5 dollars to the winner. The students agreed readily and on October 14th, the action went down.
Because this was an event of infinite importance (the pride of the Form 4 boys on the line, the rest of the school wanting to take them down), nearly the entire village turned out for the match. Before the game the traditional camp emerged, the form 4 boys crowding around the hut of one of their supporters and trying on the schools frayed jerseys and soccer shoes (though we all knew the soccer shoes would come off their feet not even 20 minutes into playing), singing, desecrating their old school uniforms with borrowed American Sharpies, and finally, marching together to the field, to the hoots and cheers of most of the village (the other half was still deluded into thinking the rest of the school stood a chance).
The game began, and with it followed the ever traditional smack talk. It is unclear to me at this point whether I enjoy soccer games for the love of the sport, or for the creativity with which the fans of one team insult the fans of the other team. The form four fan base, made up primarily of the boys who were not playing, began by singing, chanting, and synchronized dancing around the field – dancing into or through or on-top-of the other students’ fans. The other students retaliated with several dances and songs of their own, though they were rewarded for their efforts by the sounds of screaming as the form four students scored their first and second goals during the first quarter.
The second quarter should have marked a turning point for the other students, who, with help of one embarrassed teacher (who later insisted he wasn’t trying to help them as a coach but more or less give them a few tips on how to lose more gracefully), and with the help of two fresh additions to the team, should have been able to make the two goals to put them back to a tie. They were able to score one goal, which sent the form three students screaming, cartwheeling, and backflipping across the field, terrified babies strapped to the backs of the female students. Alas the game was considered over when the form four students were able to score the last goal (even though the person who scored was being guarded by two other players, the goal keeper in the goal), then it became a battle of the last man standing. By the very end of the match, two injured form four students had to be helped off the field, a league of form 2 boys screaming and launching themselves onto the field like a herd of crazed antelope at every fallen man to carry/drag them from the pitch.
As the whistle shrilled the form four boys began singing a song, beseeching me to give them their 5$ (because they had beaten the crap out of form 3…or something along those lines). Once in possession of the money, the person who held the money was hoisted to the shoulders of the other students, and bumped along the field, their song loud and probably reaching every corner of Makong’onda. The rest of the students couldn’t stay angry at the rambunctious form fours, after all, this was their official last game. Everyone joined into their ridiculous song, and most ended up callopsed on the ground, in fits of giggles, or exhaustion.
It was a finale to be remembered, and their loud singing, obnoxious jeers, and determined playing are how I will always remember the Makong’onda Class of 2009.

Library Update...the Second! October 1st

One of the huge points of Peace Corps is sustainability. This is often the point that crosses my mind the most as I do a project, as many of them would frankly just be unable to happen in my absence. With this in mind, its often hard to do a grant project, realizing that you are only reaching a select few people, who may or may not change their behaviors. Having learned this hard lesson, we none the less want to address the serious issue of teachers and learning resources at Makong’onda Day Secondary School. The children are here, they are willing to read, but where will they find the resources (especially if no-one is here to teach it to them). It is with the thoughts and goal of SUSTAINABILITY in mind that we start our new library at Makong’onda Secondary School.
After the discovery of all of the books, the building of the shelves, the screaming and complaining that accompanied the discovery of the rats, we realized that simply adding the new books into the library was not a wise decision. After all, how did the books come to be in the state they were in (the teachers placed all of the books in boxes in humid, festering, storage rooms because they didn’t want the students to steal/lose/read them), why were we missing a large number of books (the students AND the teachers stole many of the books), why hasn’t there ever been a library before now (no-one knew how to run/manage/build a library before now)? After a discussion with the student prefects and the headmaster we decided to select 3 student librarians along with several of the student prefects and do a training on how to manage/care for/ and maintain a library.
Our little seminar was attended by all of the student prefects and our three librarians on an early Saturday morning. Together we studied concepts that were easy, like “why is it necessary to have a library” and concepts that were more difficult, like alphabetization. I climbed up on my soapbox for a bit, telling each and every one of them that this library was “for the students, by the students”. We talked about ways to make the students AND teachers to care for the books, including paying a small fee (1 dollar) to use the library every year. We talked about making contracts for students to sign, saying that they would be willing to pay the price of a book should they lose it, and stating what library privileges they had. By the end of the session, I had some of the kids just and determined as me to see this library succeed, it was a promising start.
After I jumped down from the soapbox, I put them through “drills” in the library. I went in, destroyed one of the shelves (put books in backwards, upside down, in the wrong order, in the wrong subject) and then made the students put them back in the right order. I also took several of the files out of the filing cabinet and made each of them show me where to put it back (they got extra points if they could actually open the cabinet on the first try without help). By the end of the day, each of the students had gotten a grasp of book organization and had great ideas for meeting with the school administrators to ask for a little money for library books.
The entire seminar in my opinion was a great success, shown even more the next week when the three librarians punctually showed up at my house to take my keys and open the library to the students. With a small amount of guidance from me, and a lot of extra small trainings (this is why we don’t put the biology tests with the Kiswahili tests), we are starting to look like an organized outfit, and even the students are helping out, by returning their books on time and taking better care of the ones they borrow. Sustainability is what we are aiming for with the library, and I believe after 3 months of successful organization and implementation by the students, and another following 8 months of my “loose” supervision, we can realistically achieve it!

The Library Brigade! September 21st - October 2nd

The Library project is finally making big progress at the school as we finished the cleaning and sorting of the books, chased the rats out of the old book closets (the casual passerby would probably comment that the rats were chasing me….one shriek and sprint from an enclosed room and a dog-sized rodent and no-body ever lets you forget it…), we also had the carpenter outfit a small-lockable room with shelves for the books to be stored upon. After starting this project the 3 strong boys and 1 incredibly brave girl, who decided that their spring break would be best spent with their favorite teacher sorting through 3 years of disorganization and rat droppings, together we all realized that Makong’onda actually had a LOT of books. Our science subjects are the best stocked, followed closely by the number of French, Physical Education, and Home Economics (I’m not kidding, we really found these) books, and finally Finnish literature books. After we sorted through all of the books we tackled the magazines and the past exams. Each year the Form 2 and Form 4 students are required to take 2 national examinations. Our school started taking these in the year 2006, and thus we had stacks and stacks of tests that would require sorting and filing into our newly cleaned (but incredibly abused) filing cabinet. Our idea (which two of the students came up with on their own) was that all student resources, including the tests, should be kept in the library for easy access. When the filing was complete, each book was numbered and put into its correct position on the shelves, and then we did an inventory “wish list”.
We swept the library, took our final pictures, and locked the door. Andrew, one of the student helpers, followed me to our lunch and said “Mwalimu, we may not have any teachers, but we really do have the things we need to learn, for those who really work for it”.
“Andrew, you’ve always had the books, and I’m insulted that you said you don’t have any teachers”.
“You don’t count as teacher. We like you.”
“---”
Our book inventory revealed that there are no history, civics, geography, or English/African literature books in the library. This is one of the problems we are looking to remedy…stay tuned!

Bustani Bonanza...continued! September 29th

After a month of carefully watering the garden everyday, (and by carefully watering I mean scrounging to find said water, lugging it in buckets to the garden, and then carefully dumping it onto our sun baked soil with metal minnow bowls) we finally were able to start to take the fruits of our labors…or rather, vegetables of our labor. Every day since the month we planted we have been eating non-stop spinach, sweet potato leaves, and ochre. It took a lot of patience, chicken shooing, goat rock-throwing and water fetching, but everyday we have a variety of fresh foods to choose from, and that is truly wonderful. These pictures are of my house helper Joyce and Mustafa, both with things that have grown in our garden. The truly remarkable thing about our garden, is the street cred that I now have among my peers here in Makong’onda. Every day as mamas and babas are passing by on the path to go to their respective fields, they all stop and glance into my garden, “Mama Mirinda, your garden is so beautiful” or “Mama Mirinda, when are you going to give me some spinach?” or (the most popular) “Mama Mirinda, your garden is beautiful but you need to wear your khanga properly…your kneecaps are showing!”. A large number of Mamas expressed an interest in making their own garden, and so we are in the works of planning a garden-making/nutrition seminar for the Mamas of Makong’onda. Stay tuned for updates…on the seminar, and the state of my tomatoes…(THEY JUST STARTED FLOWERS!!!).

Bustani Bonanza August 2009

“Mwalimu, come back outside and help us”
“No, apparently I can’t do ANYTHING right, just DO IT YOURSELF.”
“You didn’t understand us”.
“I understand that I can’t do it right, so I might as well just sit here”.
“When we said ‘you couldn’t do anything right’ we meant it in a respectful way!”
“Ba!”

After a successful Pima day and a whirl-wind form four mock examinations week, we have finally had some time to do what we excel at doing in Makong’onda, hanging around and relaxing. In my American home and upbringing, it has always been suggested that idle hands are the devils playground. In my Tanzanian home with my new “son” and “children”, I have started to implement the same “lets always have something to do so that we never have to say the word bored” policy. Thus began, bustani bonanza.
Bustani is the Swahili word for garden, and ngumu is the Swahili word for difficult. To make anything grow in Makong’onda is NGUMU. This is mostly due to the lack of rainfall and then lack of working pump. What better way to keep us busy than to start an impossible garden that will take far more upkeep than what we will be able to grow?
The above dialogue occurred after my first hissy fit, directed at two students who wouldn’t let me dig, then made fun of the way I was watering the plants, then said I couldn’t spread manure correctly (“just go fetch water, you can do that right?”), and finally, told me I was pulling water from the well too slowly. Working with students who have much more experience working their own soil is a challenge, but I came prepared. I had read a book, sharing all the things we would ever need to know to make our soil healthy and plant our companion crops. One kid used my book as a coaster for his tea. Bummer.
After a long period of learning, listening, and 2 more hissy fits, we had a garden. We planted tomatoes, cabbage, spinach, chinease cabbage, and carrots, as well as 3 papaya trees. We haven’t yet decided if we are going to be able to eat all of the things that we planted (indeed we don’t actually know if what we planted is going to grow) but we have decided that we are going to go use this garden as a demo, and encourage the mamas of the village to grow their own as well, using the water they have available after bathing, doing the dishes, or drinking chai.
There were only 4 people who insisted I was doing a bang-up job in the garden. I decided to include these cheerleaders for your viewing pleasure. More pictures of the future garden and (hopefully) the fruits of our labor later…

NANE NANE PICTURES

Top: Laura Baker and Mirinda Gormley at the events head table

Under top: A lion preparing to pounce in an HIV/AIDS skit

Middle: Line at the door to test for AIDS

Middle bottom: SMALL CHILD ENDANGERMENT portion of the race (no children were hurt during the race...just giggle attacks)

Bottom: Sack race at the beginning of the race

NANE NANE AIDS/HIV DAY...AKA MAKONG'ONDA IDOL

The eighth of August is a special time in Tanzania. It’s a time where everyone in the community puts up their spade and farming implements and goes to the local NANE NANE (eight, eight) celebration, which in some places, consists of just looking at more farm stuff (like a county fair). In Makong’onda, we decided to celebrate NANE NANE by testing people for HIV/AIDS and having a HUGE party. The date became an excellent idea due to the amount of people who would be able to attend, and the amount of people who would give up going to the farm for the day.
As are all huge events in the village, this party was no different. By the time Thursday rolled around, I was a ball of nerves. We decided that there were 2 huge things that could go wrong:
1. The person playing the music wouldn’t show up
2. The people testing the villagers for AIDS wouldn’t show up
Musty called home on the Thursday before the event to pay the DJ for the music and called immediately after reaching Newala. I asked him what the problem was and he quickly explained that the man who was going to play the music received more money from a wedding, so he had just decided to cancel on us. As I received this news, I was handing a phone to one of my older students, my draw dropped, and I was speechless. The student, stared at me, and asked if there was anything at all he could do. I told him to get Habiba, one of my Form 3 students (and an almost constant fixture in my home) and shut the door in his face. Habiba ran into the house, and asked what was wrong. I told her what had happened, and I couldn’t help but cry when I got to the part where the guy left just because he got more money elsewhere. Habiba tsked and grabbed the edge of my T-shirt, yanking it above my skirt and drying my eyes with it. She insisted that I must stop crying, and that it would be fine. 2 hours after my fit, Musty got home, and immediately he told me that he had found another DJ. Crisis 1, averted.
The rest of the crisis were slightly more manageable. 5 students showed up to my house the night before to prepare the food and the gifts for the next day, and several boys showed up to provide firewood and game materials. By the end of the night, two peace corps volunteers had arrived to help me carry out the project (the minute they arrived, small children in the village followed them around, yelling “there are TWO Mirindas now!”). By the time the 10 of us (in my house with only 4 mattresses) laid on the floor to sleep it was after midnight. Bright and early at 5 in the morning, Habiba and Happy started to giggle, “Mirinda, are you seriously still asleep? We’re bored”. Groaning after 5 hours of sleep, I led the troops out of the bedroom and we began cooking again.
The overall day was a HUGE success. We had a relay race, we had planned to test only 150 people, but we tested over 300, and RAN OUT OF TESTS! The relay race that we planned was a huge success. The kids were told to jump in a grain sack to the end of the football field, there they had to run past the school and score a netball goal. After the netball goal they had to race around the library building to put a condom correctly on a model (Laura, who was in charge of this station, laments that many of my kids DO NOT know how to do this, I blame it on the fact they may have been in a hurry…). After they were passed they had to grab a small child and run with it around the school to Andrew, who asked everyone an AIDS question. The relay was a huge success, with tons of people crowding around each station to watch the action. By the end we realized it was a miracle that no small children were hurt as they were carried like grain sacks during the race.
Makong’onda Idol was a lot of fun, attracting many student singing groups and even singers and dancers from Mtwara. The stage was around 3 feet square as people kept pushing in to see the festivities, and the main table was constantly crowded with people. The dancing and singing was a lot of fun, and the winners each took home a coveted T-shirt.
We closed the day with a soccer game, which ended in a sudden death shootout (with Makong’onda winning), and everyone went home happy. 305 people went home knowing the status of their heath, and a little over 1000 people went home having learned life skills revolving around their health and how to prevent AIDS, (knowing the risk behaviors, how to use a condom, being faithful to one partner). The project was an overall success, and the next day the first person at my door (at 6 in the morning) was proof of this:
“Mwalimu Mirinda, when can I come to test again?”

Mama Witness August 1st 2009

On my way home from soccer game, or rather, during halftime my way home to add water to the beans I was cooking, I cut into the dispensary on the path that passes closest to my house. There, Baba Andrew, the town drunkard, and father to one of the smartest students at my school (Andrew), bounced into me, and grinned saying “it is time”. Humoring him, I smiled back and asked him what it was time for. He answered by nodding his head toward the dispensary and saying, “Miriam will soon be a mother”. Miriam, his 16 year old daughter who accidentally got pregnant by her boyfriend (who then dumped her), had been expected to give birth any day, so it was no surprise to me that her little squirt had finally decided to grace us with his/her presence.
Excited, I raced up to the stone steps of the dispensary where Miriam’s mother, suffering from a stiffness that barely allowed her to walk or turn her head, sat. I moved into her line of sight and asked how Miriam was doing. She smiled weakly and told me that she had been in labor since 7am, but all of the mamas were starting to gather, so she would soon give birth. I asked if it would be alright if I could sit with the Mamas and wait for Miriam to give birth, she smiled weakly and said that she would see me later. Torn on whether I was invited to sit or not, I raced back to the house, put water in (my now burnt) beans, and raced to the nurses house, asking her if I could sit with Miriam until she gave birth. Mama Simon (sitting on the stairs) said that I shouldn’t go, because I had not yet given birth, Mama Suzee said that I could go because nobody ever expected me to remember the “rules” anyway. When I asked them if they would go (both gave birth after all) they solemnly shook their heads, muttering that Miriam was a fornicator, and her child was sinful. I took that as the green light to definitely go.
After supper around 7pm, I grabbed my flashlight and headed to the dispensary. When I got there, three of my favorite Mama’s were there, waiting patiently with their children asleep on their laps. Mama Margaret scooted over in the dirt and made a space for me and we say quietly in the glow of the lantern, coming from the room where Miriam’s contractions were starting to come faster. Mama Omega enters the scene, and immediately expressed surprise that I was present. I replied that Miriam was my friend and I wanted to support her birth. She nodded and then apologized to me for not already having a child of my own. Mama Kihiki added on to this, stating that in America, it must be very boring with no children, and very lonely. Mama Omega added that in America, she supposed people could all go to nice dispensaries to give birth, instead of ours, which had no electricity, a dirt floor, and a (7th grade education) nurse with plastic bags on her hands and a hairnet (for sanitation purposes mind you) as an obstetrician. I explained in America many girls my age wait to have children until after they had a job. Mama Andrew immediately asked what kinds of things of things we farmed in America, and I patiently explained that many people in America worked in offices, schools, or hospitals, women were not only supposed to stay home and farm. I then added that in America many families now have a mother who goes out and works all day and a father who stays at home to tend the children. All of the mamas hooted with laughter, two called me a liar, and I’m pretty sure after they realized I was serious two of them crossed themselves. I’m sure we would continued this line of conversation, had a soft cry not sounded from the small lantern-lit room.
At this cry, all of the Mamas stood and went to the barred hole in the wall (I saw hole in the wall because window implies glass, and there is no glass in the village) and began to encourage Miriam. Push, Push, Push! Their cries were just above a whisper, and though the wind was howling, I could still hear not a peep from Miriam. I started to go to the window when Mama Margaret pulled me back to the dirt. “Later, you’re not ready to see yet”, she explained, my presence was allowed, but my sight of the birth was still not allowed. Inside I could hear Mama Scalla (the nurse) yelling at Miriam, “Why are you tired?!” “We don’t get tired, we keep pushing! God didn’t make you to be tired! Push, Push NOW!” The mamas at the hole yelled more encouragement, and then all of a sudden everything was silent. There was a 2 second pause, and then a low shrill cry, a baby girl had entered the scene.
The Mamas starting thanking god, and Mama Scalla left the room to remove her hairnet. Seeing me, she was shocked, asking why I hadn’t come into the room to see the birth. When I explained that I had not yet given birth she psh-ed and pulled me to my feet and into the room. There, lying prone on the dirt floor was Miriam, completely naked. Somewhere in a mass of dirty khangas and towels was the squirming baby, and lying on the nice bed, was the placenta. Mama Scalla stepped around Miriam and held up the placenta. “Placenta!” she cried in English. I nodded and looked at Miriam. Mama Scalla thought I had misunderstood. “Look at the Placenta” she said, saying that she herself had delivered it, and cut the cord. I asked where the baby was, Mama Scalla rolled her eyes and nodded towards the table, when I returned my glance to her she was beaming and holding the placenta inches from my face. Assuring her that I had a great look at the placenta, I turned to Miriam, and asked Mama Scalla if she was alright. Mama Scalla assured me that she was fine, and then sidestepped around her again, escorting me back outside. In that dirty little room, on the filthy floor, lay a naked 16 year old who had just given birth, her child, was lying wrapped in two old khangas, on a table, next to a kerosene lantern, where the wind and sand was flying through the open door. It was surreal.
The next day I returned to see Miriam. She smiled at me, and showed me her little bundle laying in the middle of a rope bed. I poked the little hands, which at this stage were almost as white as my own. Miriam smiled, and I asked her what she named her. Witness. Mama Witness and her daughter have a long road to hoe, its not easy being a young uneducated mother in the village, even though that is our most popular demographic . Even as I sat there Miram’s eyes never strayed from the bundle on the bed, her protective posture didn’t loosen. There is no money in Mama Witness’ mud hut, there are no beds, save the rope bed stretched under the grass porch, but as was pointed out to me by all of the Mamas at the dispensary, and then blatantly obvious by observing Mama Witness, there is family, there is love, and at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters here.

The Things I will do for a Dollar...

When I arrived back home from America, I had a grin on my face that spread ear to ear. I couldn’t wait to escape the airplane and all of the silly white tourists and get back to the bush to see my kids! Unlike the tourists, who were slightly scared by the imposing Tanzanian doctors standing next to the customs desk with white masks and plastic suits (like the silly plague was trying to enter instead of swine flu) handing out little surveys (do you have pig flu? Circle Yes or No) I breezed past them, not even having to fill out a survey or take a test (very perceptive of them to have a large mass of people and two doctors who are more impressed with their masks than the surveys they are holding) and swiped a taxi, whose driver was not happy that the white occupant spoke Kiswahili and was charging the normal fare.
When I arrived home at Makong’onda everyone was thrilled to see me, and I them. I showed everyone the pictures that I took as well as all of the fun things that I brought back with me (including taco powder and jump ropes). I also had with me 5 crisp American one dollar bills. This started a bit of a betting war with Mustafa, one of my favorite students, and Hussein, another student who stayed with me for a week after my arrival (he took care of my cat when I was gone, I felt sorry for him, Pepsi is a lot to put up with). One of my favorite American phrases is “I betcha a dollar you can’t do …”, after I said this to Mustafa one time his immediate reply was “like one of the dollars you have in your wallet right now?!” He then immediately placed a whole chili pepper in his mouth (the bet) and then tears streaming from his eyes and words I don’t think I want to know streaming out of his mouth, he accepted his prize on the way to the water barrel (which he nearly dunked his head into)
One of my chickens has become infatuated with the neighbors rooster, whom I hate, because he makes my rooster angry, causing a huge cockfight to go with my African sunset every night. Not wanting my courtyard to look like someone’s sleazy basement ring every night, I immediately decided to take action: I removed the ladder the cock was perching on each night, thinking he would move back to his home (and the chicken and chicklings he left behind I might add). The rooster took action of his own, he decided it would be much more efficient (and much farther out of that crazy white woman’s reach) to climb to the roof. I have a tin roof mind you, and a huge rooster with stupid claws struggling to keep his balance and then cawing each time he loses is LOUD. OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD. After three hours of this I finally screamed from my bed “BOYS! I’ll give you a dollar if you get that d*&^ chicken OFF THE ROOF!). At first I did not hear the enthusiasm I was hoping for, only snickers. One of them called out “Mwalimu, there is no chicken on the roof, only that rooster!”. More snickers. “GET THE ROOSTER OFF THE ROOF OR SLEEP OUTSIDE!”. Long pause. “If we sleep outside, we won’t be able to hear the roosters”. At this point I started getting out of bed, a process that causes a small squeak, by the time I had one foot on the floor I heard my backdoor flung open and the boys rushing into the back yard.
At first I thought it was going well, then I realized that I had made a grave mistake. See, the boys first started pleading nicely (in Kiswahili) with the rooster to get down so that they could have a dollar. When that stubborn rooster didn’t listen, they decided to start throwing everything they could find that was not breakable in the backyard (did I mention the roof was tin? Did I also indicate that I wanted the rooster down so that I could get to sleep). Eventually I gave up, got out of bed and went outside, being showered by dirt from the mudclot that just cleared the roof but just missed the rooster. Sitting out of missile range, I watched as the rooster dodged, dipped, dove, ducked and dodged for an HOUR before a direct hit was made. At this point I think the poor thing was just giving up. It took three more direct hits for him to abandon his beloved chicken and move to a more secure location. The three of us went back into the house and fell asleep having conquered the enemy.
You know that saying you can win the battle and lose the war? The rooster did. When I stepped out onto the front porch an unfamiliar “squish” accompanied my normal footsteps. Ah yes, he had found a new perch, and pooped ALL OVER the front porch (leaving no gray spots, except his own).
I have a feeling we will be having rooster for supper real soon…

Womens Conference -- June 2009

I realize this story is coming to some of you late in the game, after all, a lot of you heard about this from me while I was spending time at home, but now you get to hear even more specifics of the great things we did, and we all know you want that!
The women’s conference was amazing! Most of the young ladies that we took were between the ages of 14 and 21, they were all still in Secondary School (high school), and many of them (from my village at least, we’re all in the bush!) had never been to the big “city” before, it was excited just to take the death defying ride on the open bed truck to get there (and I’m not kidding about death defying, they are training new drivers, and on one particular ride I heard the driver, while on the phone going a ridiculous pace on a dirt road, complaining about how there was no brake fluid in the car, luckily there is still no working speedometer, so at least I can pretend that we are cruising at a normal pace). The ladies all arrived and were immediately introduced to the wonderful world of women’s empowerment, which of course included some rules (peace and love, behave, and Luke (the only male volunteer) is a girl) and then a lot of practice with assertiveness and HIV/AIDS training.
My favorite parts of the conference were the amount of times we spent teaching the girls about condom use, and trying to break any myths surrounding them. This included me pouring tea into a condom and sealing it, to prove that there were no “holes”, me dressing the elbow of another volunteer to show that even those well in endowed be able to fit, and me bringing 12,000 condoms for the girls to practice with. This may be excessive, but in my defense, Laura, another volunteer, told me to go to the hospital and pick up two boxes of condoms for use. She didn’t tell me (because she didn’t know) that there were two different sizes of boxes, 100 and 6000. I picked up the 12,000 just to be on the safe side. Though this was the cause of looks of shock (or utter non-surprise as Lindsey reminded Laura that I needed “special directions”) and giggles throughout the conference. To make up for it, I had the best penis models to be used by the girls, carved by my expert carver, who did a wonderful job making them according to my instructions (those instructions were “make them like yours”).
Aside from condom use, the girls learned a great deal about assertiveness, which they got to experience first hand when one of the cooks tried to steal from us and then demanded money. Though my girls were used to “Mwalimu’s kali (my temper) the cook was not, and the rest of the girls got to see first hand what that assertiveness looks like, complete with creative English (the cook claimed to be an English teacher, I was merely testing her vocabulary) words.
The games, talent show, and random sighs of “when are we coming back to learn again” made all 4 of us volunteers feel that the training was a great success. The post test at the end of the seminar was filled with complete and much more in detail answers that the pre test, and all of the girls left with huge grins on their faces. I wish derailing the AIDS grip in Africa was as easy as taking 33 girls and teaching them how to protect themselves through learning and games, but we still have a long road to hoe, especially with our next plan: a boys conference (the one big difference being the allocation of aspirin in the budget)!
More conferences are sure to be planned, and I can only hope that they will be as wonderful as this one!

Back to Africa!

Well folks, I've been home for 3 wonderful weeks in the great US, and yet I haven't had time to update my blog with all of the fun that I have been having in June and July. Luckily, I have this great video that "I" created in the US (aka my brother made it with my minimal input, I did take some of the pictures though) about the work that my fellow Masasi district volunteers and I participate in. The video is funny, and it shows a lot about what we do, you can find the link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6iKLpqRcXI&feature=channel_page

During my trip home I was amazed and truely touched by the amount of people who were willing to donate money to my soon to be awesome library in Africa (472 kids, 2 teachers, NO BOOKS -- we hope to change this by the 2010 school year!). I was also so thankful for all of you who sat and bought me dinner and listened to my (at times) gross stories. Seeing all of you and knowing that you support me means the world, THANK YOU!

For those of you who talked to me about participating with our library project, here is a recap of the information:




In Ames, I spoke with Pastor Barb about making a small envelope at the counter of the Collegiate Presbyterian Church to place donations. In Tiffin, a small envelope was placed with Pastor Bev at the Tiffin Methodist Church. If you are reading this blog and you are confused because you don't know what I'm talking about, but you would like more information about how to help with a library project, please contact my father Dennis at dgormley@netins.net, he will be handling any donations or giving out any information related to how you can help!

When I return to Tanzania I plan to get caught up on my blog (scouts honor), telling you about our Women's Empowerment conference, the tour day that my school participated in, and my small (but painful) run with Malaria at the end of May. I enjoyed seeing all of you while I was home, and I hope to see you or hear from you (remember, I can read your e-mails, its just hard for me to respond to them). For those of you who supported my library project, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart, the library that we plan to fill with books will be invaluable to my village for years to come, and it will be instrumental in giving our kids a fair shot at getting the education their parents struggle to pay for them to have.

Lots of Love from TZ!

The whirlwind of May and April

A whole month since a new blog! Sorry fans, I have been ridiculously busy…absolutely without a doubt two of the craziest months of my service to date! As you all know, I have been working very hard with my peer educators, a project that has literally required all of my time and energy since we have gone to 7 schools throughout the ward, and some of them can be up to 8 miles away. All of these trips were a rousing success, usually we were able to see the look of utter understanding in all of the kids faces, and if not, we were at least able to make them all collapse into convulsions of giggles when they watched me shake my booty in one of our songs (My name, Mama Ulia, which literally means Mama Europe, is now sang to me every time we pass through one of the villages we visit).
Three weeks ago, we celebrated my birthday, a celebration like no other. Instead of going out with American friends in the near-by town of Masasi, I instead decided to hold a small party for the peer educators, which they were of course all for, since they were “working very, very hard”. We went into town and came back with enough supplies to hold a ridiculous fiesta, including cassette tapes of rappers, whose music is not understood, but blaring it full blast through whatever media available seems to aid comprehension, and thus we (or more of less I) bared the awful noise until the batteries in the tape player ran out, 7 HOURS AFTER THEY STARTED. The up side, I now know every Akon and Psquared song by heart, so we no longer have to play them, because I can sing requests! This typical Tanzanian party was made all the more typical by the boys doing all of the dancing and the girls and I doing all of the cooking…actually the girls did all of the cooking, they told me I didn’t know how, so I was demoted to “supervisor”. The boys did make an appearance in the kitchen every now and then, to tell us that they were hungry, or to take our knives in order to fix a broken cassette tape. Since it was my house, and my house is equal opportunity, I gave the girls permission to throw things at the boys for every outburst of “I’m hungry, Hurry up!”, (whats really funny, is that one of my girls threw something at one of my boys the other day while they were in class and he told her she didn’t know…HA.)

Sorry to keep this blog so short, as I sit here in the barely air-conditioned hull of the Internet Mission, I’m trying to e-mail my superiors to close my grant, send my America Itenerary to all of my friends, and look up why Jennifer Aniston and Jon Ma yer split…even in my leisure internet time I’m busy! I will be home from June 16th to July 3rd, and I will be using my regular phone number, if you’re up for looking at pictures and hearing even more great stories, give me a call!

Stay tuned, I’ll soon send more for my Dad to post!

Mirinda

Crocodile Hunting on the Ravuma river

The boy to the right of me is my "Son" Mustafa.

Ok, this is the last picture, its me, Mozambique in the back ground, and the Ravuma river. We found no crocodiles, which is the reason we were here "croc hunting'. None the less, we had a great (though life threatening) boat ride in a hollowed out log. I even told Musty to swim so as to bring them closer....didn't work, which is good, because I don't want to clean the cats litter box myself.

Net Ball Girls

One Long Week

Entry via Letter

Returning from Dodoma and getting back on schedule with the school / life in the village was not easy. After the first week back though, I got into the swing of things, starting a netball team with the girls, and beginning my drama program with the peer educators. I had one crazy week…

Monday I taught at school all day, and gave a test to my form 4 students. Half of them failed, which was not encouraging, but a fourth of them came into the office to redo their work, which was very encouraging. I was also happy when half of them checked books out from my office and returned them on time, not only retuning them, but bringing me a list of the words they wanted to learn.

Monday night as I lay reading in bed, I all of a sudden heard a gunshot. Sure that my imagination was playing tricks on me, I continued reading, only to hear 2 more gunshots, this time closer to the house. I turned off the flashlight I was using and started to get out of bed to see what was going on (Sounds like a GREAT idea, eh?) and immediately fell back down on the mattress when two gunshots went off right outside my window. Now nervous and heart rate increasing, I laid flat on the bed with no light, hoping that my student had locked the door before he stepped out. An hour passed, and I heard my door slam, and then heard my student whistling. I jumped out of bed to ask him what was going on, and as I stumbled into the dinning room he had locked all of the doors and was pulling the thin sheets we pass off as curtains over the windows.

He explained that a group of people from Namyomo the village next door, had beaten their village representative 2 days ago, and today the police had shown up to arrest them. Running away, the police had followed them into Makong’onda but had not found them (it was dark, and there are no lights here) so they decided to shoot their guns through the village, probably to scare the people from their hiding places, but most likely because they were irritated they came all the way to the village and didn’t get to beat anyone.

Tuesday was the first day of netball, a game similar to basketball except that there is no basket, no dribbling, and no shoes, which given that we play on sand, I did not consider a problem. Wrong. Oh so wrong. By the end of playing, the soles of my feet were 2 different shades, black from soot and white from where blisters had formed. It was worth it though, to see these shy, quiet, girls from my classes who barely speak in class and never have the courage to make eye contact, fight, push, shout, and laugh, all in the name of winning a basket. Even the slightest mistake or fumble was met with loud scolding and shouts from girls on all teams, as well as the crowd that formed, which mostly included boys from the school – Their attendance undoubtedly made the girls rowdier - eager for the attention always taken from them by the boys at school.

Wednesday I went from my regular class to class at the local dispensary, a small type of hospital in my village. I went to teach about the ways to prevent HIV/AIDs and about how fluids can carry HIV/AIDS. This teaching began as a supplement to the health clinic held every Wednesday at our clinic. Women come, we test them, and we check their other general health. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of need for testing because HIV is so stigmatized here, many people are scared to test – but more scared to have their friends find out and ex-communicate them from their family and friends. We teach and test them, but mostly they remain quiet and ask no questions. Today was a good day, because we had a lot of questions.

Thursday, the people from Solar-Aid, a non-profit organization that puts solar on rural schools and hospitals, came to inspect our school. Because our head master was absent, we only had one teacher other than me scheduled to do the meetings. I did the entire 10 page application the day before (he came by to sign it), then answered the majority of questions the next day, showing my extremely skinny Canadian guest around the school. As she was leaving she looked me square in the eye and said she had a “surprise” for me. I followed her to her car where she pulled out a huge box and said, “This is for you from an old PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) who left it in our care “I’m supposed to give it to the first PCV I see”. The box was heavy, and so I took it, waved goodbye and tried to hurry to the house before break…no such luck. Our bell rang and 2 of my favorite students sprinted from their classroom to where I was on the path, insisting that the “box the mzungu (foreigner) gave you is too heavy” and each taking a corner, walked with me to the house, shouting at others to go away when they approached.

We entered the house and they set the box on the table and then sheepishly stared down at their feet. Shazimu spoke up first, “So teacher, what is in the box that is making it more difficult to carry?” Rashidi then pointed out (ever the helpful one), “teacher, your scissors are on the table, let us open the box for you”. We opened the box together, only to find the holy grail of America inside.

On the top was a HUGE bag of candy bars, below that, trail mix, gummiworms, hot cocoa, granola + luna bars, TUNA, gum, Kool-Aid, popcorn, and mashed-potato mix. I had never seen anything so random and beautiful, and the boy’s eyes grew to the size of silver dollars.

Throwing each of them 2 Hershey bars, they bolted from the house, leaving me to bask in the taste of chocolate with my tea for the first time in weeks.

Fridays are relatively calm for me; I don’t teach. I mostly run re-po for library books that are overdue. On my way back to school from grabbing books, I ran into a small group of students dragging a student dry-heaving, screaming, and crying from the classrooms. Immediately I ran over to where they were and insisted that she go to my house to lie down. Once she was lying dawn and calm, I returned to the library.

Five minutes later a student ran into the library and told me I needed to come right now, and I raced back with her toward my home where there was now a good deal of shouting and screaming, but it didn’t sound like the student…I entered to find Madame Wambora, standing over the student, hands pressing her head firmly to the pillow, screaming out an exorcism in Kiswahili. I’m not sure if I believe in demons, but if I had been possessing my student, I would have done as Madame requested and returned to hell where I belonged. Standing at 4 ft 10 with a 2-month ld baby strapped to her back, Madame was furious, and she passionately performed this ritual until the student again stood still.

Later Friday, we took the student to Newala hospital, where the admitting nurse took one 10 minute look and said my student was schizophrenic, then placed here in a ward with extremely sick women, to wait for 2 days for a doctor who would never get around to seeing her. ( I arrived to pick up this student and argued with the nurse over the un-likelihood the student had Schitz. She merely smiled and told me that she showed all the symptoms, and said her diagnosis was the same as the doctors would be (would he have been dedicated enough to show up for work).

Tanzania health care – this is why I hope I never get sick.

Saturday my peer educators held their first program at our school, a warm-up for other primary schools we hope to visit. The program went very, very, well. The students had a lot of fun, and the teachers who came to offer their critique enjoyed it a lot, and were able to give some very constructive feedback. We will start going on tours of other schools next week.

Sunday I took a group of 6 boys to a volley ball camp held at Newala Day School, where volunteers Gigi and Jenrusha were teaching first about HIV/AIDS and then about volleyball. The camp was sponsored by a PEPFAR grant similar to the one I wrote. The boys had a great time, writing all of what they learned into their new notebooks and playing volleyball as well as the rest of the kids. Gigi has a theory that sports programs are the single greatest thing Tanzanians could invest in, giving their youth something else to do / look forward to than just sex. Every time I saw the kid’s faces light up when the ball made its way over the net, I realized she was right.

So this is a not-so-typical and then all together totally typical Tanzanian week. Without a few disasters thrown in, a few challenges, or one or two major problems, it just wouldn’t make an African week.

As always, you are all most welcome to visit our madness herein the village. Experiencing your own “typical” week is far better than reading about mine!

Dodoma & Bug-O-Mainia

Entry Via Letter

Dodoma:

Sorry this set of blogs is so late. I’ve currently been tied up in a million different projects and seminars, including going to Dodoma, the capital, for a Peace Crops seminar/training. Dodoma is very small and not very interesting, considering it’s the nation’s capital. It’s surrounded by dessert on both sides, and though it contains the parliament building and the President’s home, it wasn’t that much bigger or that much more interesting than Dar es Salaam, which is huge in comparison.



Among Dodoma’s assets are stores that sell M&M’s and Snickers bars, and 2 soft-serve ice cream shops. Needless to say, those of us who attended the seminar probably gained a bit of weight. (After eating only rice and beans for 3 months, don’t judge!) The schedule for the day was never complete without a trip to the ole ice cream shops.

We went though many workshops on AIDs/HIV trainings, and administrative sessions. One of the more fun sessions was a lesson on how to make Peanut Butter, and I’m giving serious thought to purchasing a peanut/meat grinder… we’ll see.


Returning from Dodoma proved to be just as busy, if not more busy that usual. Now that my grant has passed, I’m able to start my peer educators on their tour of the ward, which includes solidifying a program for HIV/AIDs prevention and setting up a time table among all of the schools for when we will arrive. I’ve also been preparing and teaching 4 lesson plans for the 4 classes that I teach at the school. I have been trying to finish setting up our library, which consisted of moving all of the books (and there aren’t many) from the rat infested storage room to my office, where kids can come and check them out, just like a library. (The teacher at my school was against this idea for two reasons: A – It took effort (mine not his) to get all of the books in one place, B: “The students steal the books,” thus it’s better to leave them in storage closets where the rats can chew the covers off and nobody can use them – and who needs to read the book when there are so many (2) teachers at the school to teach every subject?) Needless to say, same old struggles keep coming up, and a few new ones as well, it’s been busy.

Bug-o-Mania:

When I left for Dodoma, I was aware that my suitcase had some type of gross bug living in it – every time I dug to the bottom I could find 20-30 good sized ants on every piece of my clothing. It wasn’t until I began finding the bugs everywhere – a swarm hiding in the bookcase, 50 crawling down my wall in an orderly fashion at 9 at night, thousands in the unused suitcase under the bed – that I splurged and bought a can of bug spray. My student and I went though every room in the house, looking for places where they may hide and spraying – then removing their little corpses and eggs. Normal infestations of bugs aren’t so bad, but these bugs congregate in the dozens and always set their eggs and nests where they gather.

After a successful day at school and a large supper, my student retired to the room where he studies at night and I went to bed. Around midnight I woke up with a single bug on my forehead, and annoyed, I batted him off. Before I could get back to sleep, I had a strange itching all over my head – like my pillow was moving. Thinking that my hair was the problem (I had left it down because I had just washed it) I reached back with a scrunchie to tie it back with my hair tie, and instantly recoiled when I hit 7-8 of the bugs that had decided to swarm in my hair that evening. Snapping on my flashlight I saw my pillow covered with ants, and when I sat up, ants began falling from my hair to my shoulders. Screaming, I untangled myself from the mosquito net (which had proved to be useless) and turned my head upside down, trying to shake them off. My student burst into the room (having heard the screams) and having taken a look at the situation ran for the bug spray. This then turned into a battle against the bugs and the student.
“Mwalimu, close your eyes”
“Don’t spray that stuff in my hair”
“It’ll kill the bugs”
“It’ll kill my hair too! Do not spray it”
“Why you so stubborn”
“You want to pick dead bugs outta my hair?”
It went on like that until all of the bugs (and their eggs) had fallen from my hair to the floor, and were then sprayed. Needless to say, I did not sleep well that night!

The next morning I realized as I was getting dressed that the majority of the bugs had relocated their base to my clean clothes on my desk. Annoyed and without clean clothes to wear to school, I sprayed the nest, killing nearly a hundred and allowing the gassed corpses to remain strewn about the room. When I returned from school at tea time to plug in phones, I walked over to the book case where my solar battery and outlets were and watched a solidarity ant crawl out. Cursing under my breath I picked up the power strip and gave it a good hard shake and millions of ants began spilling out of the outlets, which now weren’t working at all. After spraying these ants and taking the time to clean them up, I walked the two phones to the teacher with a solar charge next door. His laugh and look of surprise was too much for me, and I began to cry. Immediately (crying is a big deal in Tanzania, most people never cry) both teachers and a random guest of theirs followed me home to see the problem. Though I had cleaned up the bugs from the outlet, I was able to show them the ones all over the bedroom, and their eggs, and immediately both teachers said I had a “big problem”, as contrary to my belief, these bugs were not in everyone’s home as a result of the rainy season.

Amos immediately called over 3 students, brought a ladder, and told me to send them up into my flimsy roof, so that they could look for bugs, and possibly the source. They arrived without knowing what was going on, but once the heard that they would be climbing the roof the excitedly ripped off their shoes and grabbed the flashlights. One student, Rashidi, wore my headlamp, which made him look just like a miner as he entered the ceiling first.

The three of them were in the ceiling for about 5 minutes before Rashidi called, “Mwalimu, I don’t understand what we are…… Ay Jamahi!” (Kiswahili for Oh my god)

Grinning, I replied, did you find em? I was answered by the sound of shoes slamming into the ceiling tiles, and the words for “kill them” being shouted in panicked Kiswahili. Shazimu (another student) poked his head through the ceiling tiles.

“Mwalimu, they’re everywhere! Millions!” The three of them sprayed and swatted for 10 minutes, with the writing bodies of gassed ants falling from the ceiling tiles, and me and the 4th student (Bakari) dodging out of the way.

Finally, an exhausted but triumphant trio of students jumped down from the roof, all slightly dizzy from the spray fumes and all grinning ear to ear.

Rashidi flipped his school uniform shirt back on, popped the collar, and strutted to the door and said, “If you have any more problems, just let me know, I’ll spray again”.

Shazimu popped up behind him and began arguing that since he (Rashidi) got to spray this time, it would be his turn next time.

Bakari then stepped in to remind them both that he hadn’t even gotten to go in the ceiling – it should be his turn next time.

I halted the conversation and told all of the boys there would not be a next time, all the bugs were dead and I did not want them coming back.

The boys looked from one to another, and then all turned to me, giving me that “She’s white. She just doesn’t get it” look, and continued to argue about who got to kill which bugs the whole way back to school.