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!