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.