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…
Friday, July 17, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
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!
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