So this is Zanzibar. A tourist paradise, a cultural consummation, a paradisical reststop in the international highway of the Indian Ocean. Mainland, homeland, soft sand, far away lands…the intrigue of this mysterious woman of an isle has been well adorned by the authors, artists, historians and travelers of the world. She is like a concubine whose mystery and allure perseveres even if she has bedded every king on two continents. Her streets are narrow, winding and seemingly unmappable. Her waters are of that ethereal crystal blue quality that keeps photographers and sea divers salivating. Her stories throughout history have captured the keen, spotlight attention of the growing international community, even as those of the mainland countries wash into one another in the primitive public eye. Spicy trade routes, robed sultans, veiled women, blundering colonialism, decadent diversity a la international trade, impenetrable anguish a la slavery, and the haunting Muslim calls to prayer ringing off of the waves at their regular times of day. History is not kind to the Europeans here, like most places in Africa. And especially here, the blunt, primitive fist of the fat colonial hand on the wrist of a delicate, exquisite and cavernous eastern culture left unsightly marks, the most grievous of which sometimes seems to be the lobster red bodies of white tourists like ours milking the later fruits of those colonialists conquests - poverty, inequity and gross economic disparity.
Please don’t think me ungrateful, especially as I flock here with the rest of them like seagulls in oversized sunglasses. Quite the opposite actually. But along with a wash of thanks and respect, I am constantly inclined to ask those questions without answers that end up plaguing many third world house guests like travelers’ diarrhea - what and who got swept into the mortar foundations of our white suburban houses? What dark and complex pieces of history have paved the way for us to click away in skyscrapers and order our delivery food imported from every part of the world that lives on what they can grow in the backyard? What have we learned about imperialism and do we recognize it when it looks us right back in the face in our grocery store staple exports, in our all-inclusive tropical getaways, in our bulldog immigration policies, in our manifest destiny daydreams that seem to come from some other time. Are the lives we lead our birth right? From who? And how did they attain it - did they ever own it in the first place? And this isn’t just about my life as an American - that means you too, Europe. As I politely decline the people that approach me and ask me for money, elude petty thieves that have me on lock from a mile away assuming I am rich, pay a sobering visit to the old slave market in Zanzibar and try over and over again to refine my response to the astonishment we receive when we tell people we are here to work for free (“but how do you have the means?“), I see an ironic new twist to the old saying - who died and made us kings?
Consider these thorns of reality on the path to humility - but it doesn’t benefit anyone if I bleed to death from them. Blame (even on those long-dead explorer imperialist buggers or modern exploitative emperors of enterprise who deserve it, blast them) is a silly undertaking. Guilt makes me too weak to be of any use to anyone. And sweeping generalizations about the quality of life here versus there, but what about poor people in the U.S. etc just turn into faulty perspectives on the whole entire world that are riddled with holes. So what is left? Learning. Considering, for a moment, not what I know but what I don’t. And feeling that the only truth available to me is those precious beads I can scrape off of conversations with locals that are often muddied with what they think I want to hear. Swallowing the understanding that nothing - really, nothing -- exists in a vacuum.
There is no mistake that almost every culture in the world, in its own way, pays homage to tradition, roots, ancestors. The respect and acknowledgement that we came from something else and we always stand on something else. Respect for the earth, for our elders, for our religions, for great works of historical literature. Here on the Swahili coast this is expressed when you meet someone who is older than you. Instead of the usual “mambo”, or “what’s up?” you say “shikamoo” - which translates into something like “I hold your feet”, a sign of respect for your elders whether you know them or not. I think, whoever or whatever you “pay homage” to in your own life, the act of it can be enriching for the soul - bowing or nodding to something that is older and maybe wiser than you, something that has rich knowledge that you might not ever tap into completely. And with that bow, you are also bowing to its inevitable faults. Its inconsistencies, its unexplained idioms, or in the case of imperialism, its selfish mistakes made with cruel cuts of a knife far away. Those too are included in a legacy - even the ones we think of as sacred, those that define us. It doesn’t mean we don’t pay homage - in fact it means bow deeper, first with a commitment to be as good as we can as people and second to pay homage also to those well-hidden, sour and suffering secrets that may never come to the surface. But we still know that they are there somewhere, under the feet of the alter angel. And that - I think - is the point.
Zanzibar is the perfect place to pay homage. The beauty of the world seems washes up ,on its shores carrying on its waves the little wooden dhow ships that have helped to transfer knowledge, people, language and goods between continents for centuries. Its buildings are old and some caving in on each other, floor boards exposed like skeleton ribs but still with a sense of grace and wisdom. Islam is the main religion here, and it keeps the women and the windows of the city swathed in privacy and the streets seemingly quieter except during worship times. Virtually all of the local women cover their heads, bodies and some faces with scarves and robes. But other religions have been historically well tolerated here alongside Islam and it shows - mosques, churches, Hindu temples - Zanzibar’s religious history adorns it beautifully. And the colors of mainland African dress are set aflame in Zanzibar by Indian and Arab influence, so that the cloths fill the stone streets like thousands of multicolored butterflies. The history, the colors, the goods, the religions, all of them are quite rich here. The people of course, are not, at least when it comes down to the daily dollar. But their way of life alongside bare-legged tourists, taking each day as it comes in with the tide, is to be respected. They are like many of the people I have met so far in Tanzania - friendly, alert and calm, “salama”, like the sea when it is pacified.
We wandered the streets and bargained with the shopkeepers, who usually smiled the whole time, and so did we. We ate the local food which ,despite the resulting parasitic encounter, proved interesting, especially the traditional coconut-infused Swahili coast cuisine. We attended a music festival at an old open fort in stone town featuring African artists from all over the continent. We rolled in a dinky old dhow over huge topaz waves to visit prison island and the giant turtles (kobe in Swahili) that live there. We swam briefly in the soup-warm, clear blue sea but came aboard soon after rolling in the post-storm waves. I managed (barely) to keep my breakfast on the rolling ride back to the island but wasn’t so lucky on the ferry back to Dar - another story in itself that I will safe for another time. Ultimately we came away with the Zanzibari flavor we came for. And we appreciated the time it gave us to reflect on our time in Africa, miss our kids and our friends like Ian, Furaha, Leana and Sylvie in bagamoyo, and try not to file away the things we have seen into westernized categories in our minds, as I feel so often tempted to do in order to feel “right” about it. There will be more, so many more, things to see. We are now in Dar staying with a kind friend. Tomorrow we will board a bus to Arusha to start the trek up Kilimanjaro. We are dingy and dogged and a little skinny to be starting such a trek, but ready, I think, nonetheless. Goodbye, Zanzibar, oh you devout and beautiful mistress to every continent.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Birds of Paradise
And so we arrived in Zanzibar. A brilliant white communal terrace, with a second story view of coconut and pink flowering treetops over rusty, ribbed tin roofs. To my right, the stony guts, of a half demolished building, tropical birds flying in and out of the severed rooms letting sunlight pour in. We arrived in the pouring rain, our taxi in Dar swamped by hustlers selling tickets and looking for tips. Then running aboard a damp ferry alongside cardboard crates full of chirping yellow chicks. We left Dar drowning in its own misery on that choking, pouring hot day. The seas were calm and foggy, and we slept the entire 3 hours over in first class, by a lucky break we hadn’t paid for.
Five hours later we were pouring konyagi into a coke and swaying to an African music festival outside in stow town. We got lost in the dark on our way home, certain we would get robbed on the lonely streets but turned up just fine at our sweet little budget hotel just in time to crash out on the bed under the white whir of the fan. It felt like heaven to us, sea breezes through the window, slightly better foam mattresses than in Bag, a double sized bed instead of a twin and - for the moment - both water and electricity. This morning we have a few minutes to sit out here and reflect and enjoy, regroup nod talk about those we have met.
Traveling is tough. They aren’t joking when they say it takes a certain kind. The learning is large and it does not always come easy. The best thing about this kind of travel is that you find truth in backwards ways - most especially the truth about yourself. You may find that - to your dismay- you are not a spirit that is so free of that which you take for granted. Or that you were born to travel. Or that you can shake free the marking of first world philosophy and the citizenship of privilege for long enough to open your mind completely. Here, to your own disgust, you might find that you are simply without a passport. But your mind still misses hot showers, your body an endless selection of food, your heart both solitude and familiar company. You have dismissed convenience for this adventure but it stalks you when you are not looking, pulling at your mind that should be focusing on the moment. And so, there are so many moments you spend apologizing to yourself and to those that believed you when you pretended to be flexible, selfless, capable, rugged. But here under the splendor of queen-like palm leaves, dressed in colorful local fabrics and dogged by weeks of diarrhea, you wake up tired. And then you plead guilty to fraud. There under the eyes of a rippling white sky, you ask for forgiveness for that trespass on its honor. Because you cant wait for a clean shower, a big salad, a big ole bed to yourself, even while you walked among those who sleep on the floor or mud huts and eat the same three staples for every meal for their entire lives. You try to wean yourself from that indulgent mother, America. To quite the voice that spends these precious, living moments wishing and missing like a pathetic fool, like the Blanche who lives in you clutching her petticoats as you wander the heat of this streetcar named desire.
Now on a break from mainland life, you straining to get used to an island of paradise, you get ready to try again. On up the continent you will chase what made you come here. Always in search of true, real humility that you can drink like homemade wine and not wake up sober and superfluous once again. Always in search of the current moment that is coiled underfoot the whole journey through.
Five hours later we were pouring konyagi into a coke and swaying to an African music festival outside in stow town. We got lost in the dark on our way home, certain we would get robbed on the lonely streets but turned up just fine at our sweet little budget hotel just in time to crash out on the bed under the white whir of the fan. It felt like heaven to us, sea breezes through the window, slightly better foam mattresses than in Bag, a double sized bed instead of a twin and - for the moment - both water and electricity. This morning we have a few minutes to sit out here and reflect and enjoy, regroup nod talk about those we have met.
Traveling is tough. They aren’t joking when they say it takes a certain kind. The learning is large and it does not always come easy. The best thing about this kind of travel is that you find truth in backwards ways - most especially the truth about yourself. You may find that - to your dismay- you are not a spirit that is so free of that which you take for granted. Or that you were born to travel. Or that you can shake free the marking of first world philosophy and the citizenship of privilege for long enough to open your mind completely. Here, to your own disgust, you might find that you are simply without a passport. But your mind still misses hot showers, your body an endless selection of food, your heart both solitude and familiar company. You have dismissed convenience for this adventure but it stalks you when you are not looking, pulling at your mind that should be focusing on the moment. And so, there are so many moments you spend apologizing to yourself and to those that believed you when you pretended to be flexible, selfless, capable, rugged. But here under the splendor of queen-like palm leaves, dressed in colorful local fabrics and dogged by weeks of diarrhea, you wake up tired. And then you plead guilty to fraud. There under the eyes of a rippling white sky, you ask for forgiveness for that trespass on its honor. Because you cant wait for a clean shower, a big salad, a big ole bed to yourself, even while you walked among those who sleep on the floor or mud huts and eat the same three staples for every meal for their entire lives. You try to wean yourself from that indulgent mother, America. To quite the voice that spends these precious, living moments wishing and missing like a pathetic fool, like the Blanche who lives in you clutching her petticoats as you wander the heat of this streetcar named desire.
Now on a break from mainland life, you straining to get used to an island of paradise, you get ready to try again. On up the continent you will chase what made you come here. Always in search of true, real humility that you can drink like homemade wine and not wake up sober and superfluous once again. Always in search of the current moment that is coiled underfoot the whole journey through.
The Cats are out of the Bag
We finished our last days in Bagamoyo slowly and thoughtfully, alongside the friends we had made there. It was hard to believe that it was time to leave - it felt as if we had just arrived. I was still waking up every morning surprised and sticky with sweat before at last remembering where I was. The days with the kids seemed endless, and yet the day we had to leave them jumped up on me before I had any time to prepare for it. The days were dense and the nights dark, as the village was frequently without power.
Yesterday we went to school to teach an English class to the high school and say our goodbyes to the primary kids, now demure and happy as ever under their new Tanzanian teacher, Furaha. We and Furaha had became fast friends upon his arrival. He was smart and soft spoken, spoke meticulous English and was very interesting to talk to. He felt comfortable with us and seemed to enjoy our company, which is not always the case in a place where you are so visibly socially conspicuous on the fringes of a community that is not yours. Along with the privilege that comes with being white and a debutante of the first world order also comes that constant sense of standing outside looking in. The locals keep you at a friendly but protective distance and even when you try, it seems you are always a mzungu first and a person second. And can you blame them? Visit, stay, live here if you like…you will keep on a-knocking at the door and never get past the parlor, which of course they don’t have anyway. This feeling of isolation and the longing to belong runs constant through most of my first month. Always as if you are outside the screen windows looking in - but language and your color keep you out in the dusk with the power out inside, straining to know what’s happening behind the eyes of Tanzania. Here, you can but wont understand it all. See, you will in pieces and try to remember. Guess, go ahead and try. But know, you can never. Furaha was one of those brave exceptions to the rule. Extremely friendly like most Tanzanians, but with seemingly little or no alternate agenda. A sincere interest in who we were, where we came from. We liked talking to him, comparing cultures, comparing traditions, asking questions. He gave us little insights into his life and we listened hard.
On our last day, we asked him if we could come say goodbye to the kids and he could explain to them in Swahili that we were going away. He agreed and even helped us organize one last class picture. I felt certain that the kids wouldn’t really understand and, just as kids are, would hear the news and move right along - in kid world, permanence doesn’t register as easily and living moment to moment is so much easier as you move from one mango tree to the next. They joyously riled around the camera with giggles as Furaha herded them into a somewhat orderly line. As we took the pictures, they never seemed to get tired of waving at the camera and squealing “bye! bye!”, which would collectively excite them into such a wave of delight, cheering and energy that even Furaha stopped attempting to quiet them. Their little personalities bloomed as usual for the duration of the exercise - funny faces, one pushing the other off a chair, some hiding behind the legs of a teacher. Finally it was time to go. I hugged a few of the kids and a bunch of them mauled me as they like to do, pulling my hands and crowding around repeating “bye! bye!”. Some of them planted kisses on my arms and petted my hair. I was welling up and thought it was best to get out before the sprinklers went off. On my way to the door, there was only one threat left to my game face --my favorite little girl, Josephine, and I was wary not to look her too long in the face to keep my composition. Leaving is just like ripping a bandaid off, right? She hadn’t made a move toward me and had a blank, absorbed look on her face. I thought, all the better that way and tried not to look back.
I trudged across the sandy courtyard heavy hearted and tottering on the brink of tears. But so far so good - I was as bone dry and dogged as the hot sand paving the way home. I made it almost to the school gates when I heard Furaha calling my name, “Kathryn! Kathryn!” (Tanzanians have a hard time pronouncing Kate so I have been introducing myself with my full name to make it easier for them, which they noddingly pronounce as “Kaserin”). I turned to see him standing in the doorway - little Josephine by his side. He motioned for me to come. I was as close to running as I could while walking. May day. May day. Looking at her sad little face my esophagus shrunk at least 3 sizes and I thought my diaphragm would surely rupture to make room for my exploding heart. When I got there she was crying and repeating something in Swahili I didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t return my hug in protest. Furaha was trying to comfort her on the other side. At last he asked - “do you think it would be alright for me to lie to her? To tell her you will be coming back?” The last thread my bastard heart was hanging on to split like a hair in my chest. “Yes, yes of course.” He said something soothing to her in Swahili and at last her little head turned, chin tucked, and she obligingly went inside.
We were soon biding our friend goodbye in the teachers lounge, shaking hands and promising to keep in touch. We told him we hoped for him to come to the U.S. someday or maybe we can come back and visit Tanzania. It was the kind of talk that you hope brightly will come to be someday but that the world would mostly likely swallow up like a fly on its way to the moon. We thanked him for everything and told him to keep us appraised of how the kids were doing. “I’m sorry to call you back today. ” he said, “Josephine, when you left, she cry.” I told him sorrowfully I couldn’t understand what she was saying in Swahili, but that I was glad to hear she was doing fine come lunch time. “She’s fine now, yes.” he said. “She can sense how much you love her.”
We are on our way into town for beans and rice on our last night. As we pass the ragga-wood shop fronts, the power throngs once, wavering like a single light bulb hanging in the cabin of an old ship on its way over a wave. Then the town plunges into a familiar darkness. The shop keepers keep on without a peep, and you can hear them scuffling slowly about, retrieving their candles. The speckles of a few dim gas lamps flutter to life and obscure the streets from view by keeping your eyes from adjusting to the dark. Colors of women’s khangas sometimes flash in front of the lamplight and the smell of cassava leaves burning reaches you in the dark. You can hear the entire village moving in the dark behind them, just steps away. I am a ghost here, retracing my phantom steps, hoping that those who have seen my apparition around these parts will remember me. My heart is heavy from goodbye, but too heavy to bring along with me tomorrow on a crowded Dala Dala into Dar. So now its on down the road, an elephant in search of shade through the grasslands. It’s a searching life that is still somehow so full of finding.
Yesterday we went to school to teach an English class to the high school and say our goodbyes to the primary kids, now demure and happy as ever under their new Tanzanian teacher, Furaha. We and Furaha had became fast friends upon his arrival. He was smart and soft spoken, spoke meticulous English and was very interesting to talk to. He felt comfortable with us and seemed to enjoy our company, which is not always the case in a place where you are so visibly socially conspicuous on the fringes of a community that is not yours. Along with the privilege that comes with being white and a debutante of the first world order also comes that constant sense of standing outside looking in. The locals keep you at a friendly but protective distance and even when you try, it seems you are always a mzungu first and a person second. And can you blame them? Visit, stay, live here if you like…you will keep on a-knocking at the door and never get past the parlor, which of course they don’t have anyway. This feeling of isolation and the longing to belong runs constant through most of my first month. Always as if you are outside the screen windows looking in - but language and your color keep you out in the dusk with the power out inside, straining to know what’s happening behind the eyes of Tanzania. Here, you can but wont understand it all. See, you will in pieces and try to remember. Guess, go ahead and try. But know, you can never. Furaha was one of those brave exceptions to the rule. Extremely friendly like most Tanzanians, but with seemingly little or no alternate agenda. A sincere interest in who we were, where we came from. We liked talking to him, comparing cultures, comparing traditions, asking questions. He gave us little insights into his life and we listened hard.
On our last day, we asked him if we could come say goodbye to the kids and he could explain to them in Swahili that we were going away. He agreed and even helped us organize one last class picture. I felt certain that the kids wouldn’t really understand and, just as kids are, would hear the news and move right along - in kid world, permanence doesn’t register as easily and living moment to moment is so much easier as you move from one mango tree to the next. They joyously riled around the camera with giggles as Furaha herded them into a somewhat orderly line. As we took the pictures, they never seemed to get tired of waving at the camera and squealing “bye! bye!”, which would collectively excite them into such a wave of delight, cheering and energy that even Furaha stopped attempting to quiet them. Their little personalities bloomed as usual for the duration of the exercise - funny faces, one pushing the other off a chair, some hiding behind the legs of a teacher. Finally it was time to go. I hugged a few of the kids and a bunch of them mauled me as they like to do, pulling my hands and crowding around repeating “bye! bye!”. Some of them planted kisses on my arms and petted my hair. I was welling up and thought it was best to get out before the sprinklers went off. On my way to the door, there was only one threat left to my game face --my favorite little girl, Josephine, and I was wary not to look her too long in the face to keep my composition. Leaving is just like ripping a bandaid off, right? She hadn’t made a move toward me and had a blank, absorbed look on her face. I thought, all the better that way and tried not to look back.
I trudged across the sandy courtyard heavy hearted and tottering on the brink of tears. But so far so good - I was as bone dry and dogged as the hot sand paving the way home. I made it almost to the school gates when I heard Furaha calling my name, “Kathryn! Kathryn!” (Tanzanians have a hard time pronouncing Kate so I have been introducing myself with my full name to make it easier for them, which they noddingly pronounce as “Kaserin”). I turned to see him standing in the doorway - little Josephine by his side. He motioned for me to come. I was as close to running as I could while walking. May day. May day. Looking at her sad little face my esophagus shrunk at least 3 sizes and I thought my diaphragm would surely rupture to make room for my exploding heart. When I got there she was crying and repeating something in Swahili I didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t return my hug in protest. Furaha was trying to comfort her on the other side. At last he asked - “do you think it would be alright for me to lie to her? To tell her you will be coming back?” The last thread my bastard heart was hanging on to split like a hair in my chest. “Yes, yes of course.” He said something soothing to her in Swahili and at last her little head turned, chin tucked, and she obligingly went inside.
We were soon biding our friend goodbye in the teachers lounge, shaking hands and promising to keep in touch. We told him we hoped for him to come to the U.S. someday or maybe we can come back and visit Tanzania. It was the kind of talk that you hope brightly will come to be someday but that the world would mostly likely swallow up like a fly on its way to the moon. We thanked him for everything and told him to keep us appraised of how the kids were doing. “I’m sorry to call you back today. ” he said, “Josephine, when you left, she cry.” I told him sorrowfully I couldn’t understand what she was saying in Swahili, but that I was glad to hear she was doing fine come lunch time. “She’s fine now, yes.” he said. “She can sense how much you love her.”
We are on our way into town for beans and rice on our last night. As we pass the ragga-wood shop fronts, the power throngs once, wavering like a single light bulb hanging in the cabin of an old ship on its way over a wave. Then the town plunges into a familiar darkness. The shop keepers keep on without a peep, and you can hear them scuffling slowly about, retrieving their candles. The speckles of a few dim gas lamps flutter to life and obscure the streets from view by keeping your eyes from adjusting to the dark. Colors of women’s khangas sometimes flash in front of the lamplight and the smell of cassava leaves burning reaches you in the dark. You can hear the entire village moving in the dark behind them, just steps away. I am a ghost here, retracing my phantom steps, hoping that those who have seen my apparition around these parts will remember me. My heart is heavy from goodbye, but too heavy to bring along with me tomorrow on a crowded Dala Dala into Dar. So now its on down the road, an elephant in search of shade through the grasslands. It’s a searching life that is still somehow so full of finding.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Polaroids
It is our last week in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Three weeks of settling in and the last played out with a bang of activity. We scrape the barrel for every last drop, experience, image, walk, conversation, kitengue purchase. What an incompetent scribe memory is - with only room enough for the most splendid and the most wretched and so little to spare for what’s in between. It bends like copper in the fire around self perception, takes liberties under the interrogation of time and holds no loyalty to anyone. I am afraid that there is nothing sturdy in my human brain to lash those memories to, nothing to make them stay and keep them from rotting away to a few select polariods. Maybe the only way to know them someday will be to trace the way they will have carved me like a canyon, in the red, rough rock layers after all the water is dried up and gone. I hope I will be worthy enough of their then archeological narration. Just a passerby called upon to recite a great chief’s eulogy. What a shame, because there can be so much said about villages like this one and only so much time, only so many words with which to use. For now, these paragraphs and glimpses will have to suffice in the current moment and the rest to fare as best it can when thrown to the dogs of my memory.
The Real African Queen
Today, a chicken. Sashaying down the path between the houses ahead of me as if the path was forged by big strong arms only for her. Feathers ruffling in the breeze like many a fine silk petticoat. The queen of the barrio is she. Always a step ahead while underfoot, she wanders the neighborhood just as she pleases, whenever she pleases, thank you very much. We are still not sure, with so many like her ruling the roost of this African neighborhood, how their alleged owners tell them apart or track them down. Her prince in waiting, that rubber necked, ugly as sin rooster, competes for her affection in a cacophonous symphony along with all the other many roosters in town, promptly every morning. His personally selected podium? Rudely, Right under our open screen windows at dawn. She just clucks with unaffected indifference and goes about her royal beaky business. And here she is now ahead of me, left to survey her kingdom when all her serf humans have retreated from the midday heat indoors. She pretends not to hear me behind her but eyes me distainfully with one beady eye. After concluding that I’m not really anything to cluck at, Baroness of Bagamoyo, the Lady of the Lane, continues on her way down the dirt road swaying her hips, while the huge banana tree leaves flutter her as she passes, like the fans of ladies in waiting. She rounds the bend and I just have to laugh out loud.
Younger Days
Her name is Josephina. She is five years old but thinks she is six. She is missing a front tooth in a row of her tiny baby teeth that, when she laughs, give you the same feeling in your chest as the soft inside of a puppy’s ear flopped up when it sleeps. A squeeze on your heart as if it were a little ball of foam. She does not speak a word of English, except “teacha”, “toilet” and the universal language of a child’s many facial expressions. And as those go, hers are nothing less than exquisite. She tries hard in class, talking to herself in a hushed voice in Swahili as she diligently copies English words from the board that she doesn’t understand. When she gets tired, one eyelid will droop to almost close and she will sway in the effort of keeping her little head upright while. Her hair is always braided neatly into fuzzy little braids, the tiny tails of which all end in a little flower shape at the back of her head. She has exema or some other kind of skin condition that keep her little fingers in a constant state of roughness and peeling layers of skin. When she is nervous, she tucks her tiny chin in her chest and covers her mouth with her hands, looking up at you with huge center less lemur eyes. When she cries, she merely sniffs quietly and tucks her head away - a sight that could very well kill you on the spot from a weak heart. She does not misbehave often but when she does she responds to your reprimand immediately and sheepishly. Sometimes she is sick at school. And then you will find her lying in the sand outside and she will not come into class when called, an out of character behavior for the little miss Josephina who usually comes bounding in. You cant understand her almost inaudible complaints but she never wants to go home. In Africa, the lines between daily life, sickness and death are thin and skated across without remark. And so you watch her like a hawk but don’t have any cards to play in her favor, because in Africa someone else holds nearly the whole deck and most definitely all the aces. And that person you most likely wont meet again until you’ve played and lost. But the next day she is once again running to meet you at the gate with arms outstretched and that heart-attacking smile in full beam. To know her, this Josephina, is to wring every drop from your heart loving her and not even wonder if she will remember you when you are gone as she moves precariously toward African adulthood.
His name is MickDadi. Not kidding. That is his name. He is arguable one of the smartest kids in class and one of the most disruptive - isn’t that always how it works. Disciplining him, or trying to, is more tiring than chasing bunnies around a meadow. Getting him to do his work is one thing, but keeping him busy after he finishes with perfect scores and gets to climbing up the shelves and sending supplies crashing down is another. When the new primary school teacher came to teach the other class, he gave MickDadi a talking to in soft but curt Kiswahili. And after that MickDadi came up to all the teachers, pulling our arms saying “I’m solly teacha, I’m solly”. Don’t get to thinking that the chat turned his collar up or made him vanilla. The next day we caught him hoarding crayons under his butt and chasing the other kids with a massive, heavy stick. We are not sure why he does what he does. But when one of the more popular kids stayed behind in class crying because we made him finish his work, MickDadi stayed back with him, tugging at his arm, stroking his face and soothing him in Swahili. After the kid stopped crying and rejoined his friends in line, he was back to excluding and swiping at MickDadi, who sits at his own table in class alone. We have to put MickDadi in time out a lot. Sometimes its for not doing his work, sometimes for grabbing supplies without asking, sometimes for hitting other kids. Sometimes he does it for attention, sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of his feeling of exclusion, and who knows why else. A smarter six year old, you will be hard pressed to find all across the world. We wonder what he will grow up to be. Which of his qualities - stubborn, sweet, obstinate, sensitive, sore, or smart- will follow him to adulthood and how they will define his life. When you are a teacher, you can’t separate that long list of qualities into good or bad. Not like you can in business when each has a price tag hanging from its ear. Because each one is both innate and herded through life by from those that surround us. To accept some and deny others would be to excommunicate all of humanity. When MickDadi marches over to Abduli and hits him hard, you should scold him. But hopefully you were watching closely and saw the look of loneliness and isolation in his eyes when Abduli refused to be next to him and hold his hand in a game. Look closely at the kids you know; they will show you on their little diorama stage what you are not seeing in the adults you think you do. So whatever your religion or opinion of human life, I think its obvious that once the lunch bell rings, we are all forgiven. Godspeed MickDadi.
His name is MickDadi. Not kidding. That is his name. He is arguable one of the smartest kids in class and one of the most disruptive - isn’t that always how it works. Disciplining him, or trying to, is more tiring than chasing bunnies around a meadow. Getting him to do his work is one thing, but keeping him busy after he finishes with perfect scores and gets to climbing up the shelves and sending supplies crashing down is another. When the new primary school teacher came to teach the other class, he gave MickDadi a talking to in soft but curt Kiswahili. And after that MickDadi came up to all the teachers, pulling our arms saying “I’m solly teacha, I’m solly”. Don’t get to thinking that the chat turned his collar up or made him vanilla. The next day we caught him hoarding crayons under his butt and chasing the other kids with a massive, heavy stick. We are not sure why he does what he does. But when one of the more popular kids stayed behind in class crying because we made him finish his work, MickDadi stayed back with him, tugging at his arm, stroking his face and soothing him in Swahili. After the kid stopped crying and rejoined his friends in line, he was back to excluding and swiping at MickDadi, who sits at his own table in class alone. We have to put MickDadi in time out a lot. Sometimes its for not doing his work, sometimes for grabbing supplies without asking, sometimes for hitting other kids. Sometimes he does it for attention, sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of his feeling of exclusion, and who knows why else. A smarter six year old, you will be hard pressed to find all across the world. We wonder what he will grow up to be. Which of his qualities - stubborn, sweet, obstinate, sensitive, sore, or smart- will follow him to adulthood and how they will define his life. When you are a teacher, you can’t separate that long list of qualities into good or bad. Not like you can in business when each has a price tag hanging from its ear. Because each one is both innate and herded through life by from those that surround us. To accept some and deny others would be to excommunicate all of humanity. When MickDadi marches over to Abduli and hits him hard, you should scold him. But hopefully you were watching closely and saw the look of loneliness and isolation in his eyes when Abduli refused to be next to him and hold his hand in a game. Look closely at the kids you know; they will show you on their little diorama stage what you are not seeing in the adults you think you do. So whatever your religion or opinion of human life, I think its obvious that once the lunch bell rings, we are all forgiven. Godspeed MickDadi.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Songs of Strangers
Come hear the music moving the hot air out of the way through the village on this Friday. Come see the hips in colored skirts swaying to the beat under the loads on their heads as they saunter down the path. Sit here and eat your fill of mishkaki beef skewers, rice and cooked leaves while the smoke from many a cooking fire swaths your senses. Meet these hard working people, this one wants to be your friend hoping you will pay for his school, this one to get you home with him on a lunch break and that one just maybe to be your friend just because? Smile at those who scowl in swahili at you and sneer, and also at this young stranger girl who comes without a word to hold your hand and walk with you for a while before departing in silence on your way into towbnn. Miss home, make meals last long. Compare, but not too much. Make sense, but not all the time. Believe you are here for some reason other than just the ones you made up. Hope you can remember everything. Send pieces of your heart home to your loved ones accross the wavelengths of the world and hope that somehow, they can hear the music too. Happy Friday
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Left, Right, Left
The rains came to our village last night. And it seemed the entire earth cooled under our feet for a few short hours in the early morning. The sun slept in until noon behind an overcast sky and it felt like a huge breath of fresh air. The morning marked two weeks in Africa, and, even walking the path to our full classroom of squirrelly seven year olds, we felt the calm in the cooled air.
We walk the town now with steadier feet. Remembering the turns through the houses on the path home, even at night when the village is in complete moonless darkness. We know the friendly parts of town that always greet us and the kids running up to shake our hands. We know the silent parts of town that simply watch us with serious eyes as we pass. We know the patch of sandy path where the drunks and the gamblers hoot and holler and laugh as we pass, some of them approaching us stumbling and leering but harmless. We pass easily through the narrow market on the way to town, brimming with the hot smell of rotting vegetables and sunning piles of fish and gaurded by the vendors who turn over their produce in their hands over and over to shoo away the hovering cloud of flies all day long. We no longer wake up or cover our mouths at the smell of burning plastic when it wafts into our window or through our classroom multiple times a day. I even had my first cup of black instant coffee ever - and I drank it like it was the finest champagne I’d ever had. Yeah, I’d say we are getting along nicely --school kids on our arms and friends who come around, all of us together sipping slowly on our lives.
The dogs here all appear to be the same breed, a small, skinny version of a short-haired Shepard of some kind and keeping them as pets is not a usual practice here - dogs make most locals quite nervous. The few restaurants in town sell most of the same stuff - meat kebobs, chicken on the bone, fish soup (broth with a whole fish limply draped into it) and beans and rice. All drinks come in the glass bottle with a napkin to wipe off the lip and they leave you with the bottle cap to keep the flies from falling into your drink. The nights outside are cool, breezy and balmy and we seize them for all their worth with a walk to town, a Tanzanian beer at a dim local thatch hut restaurant under hanging gas lamps or a nice long languid sit out on the front porch watching the massive mango trees shimmy in the dark. After the crucifying sun and hard work with the children during the days, we are reborn at night, swinging through the hours slowly and carelessly before turning in early for an bedtime date with our new fan. Life is so slow and yet so full, exploratory and hot here, it hardly feels like we have time or energy for anything else, even each other. Life, love, work, romance, its all simpler here and the people do it all with casuality and enormous presence. Your family members are partners in getting through life as pleasantly and graciously as possible. Your job or your daily work, just the price you pay for a cool evening of doing nothing in the cool sand in front of your house. Your lovers, vendors in obtaining the things you require and your wives, business partners in survival and what pleasantries you can create in the meantime. The culture allows for the fact that surviving is hard enough with its low expectations and casual turn of phrase. There are of course hierarchies, distinct differences between the cement houses and mut huts, teaching jobs and selling hard boiled eggs out on the heat through the windows of dala dalas, families who speak purposeful English full of effort and send their kids to school with a few different outfits instead of just one and families who don’t send their kids to school at all. School costs money, just like anything else, and cash is king, only granting you entry into the community court when its hot in the palm of your hand.
In this world, your relationship with others morph as your image of yourself and your life do- as in a convex mirror at the circus. Suddenly you aren’t who you thought you were. Your motivations get all garbled like internet automated security codes that only slightly resemble the letters you usually know. The people in your life take on new meanings, new masks, new roles on the stage of your journey even as they stand in front of you. And the questions you normally ask of yourself start asking questions of you. So, like the people in our small village, I try not to get too far out ahead of my sandals on a sandy road. Live the days, Savor the nights and cherish the early morning rains in between.
We walk the town now with steadier feet. Remembering the turns through the houses on the path home, even at night when the village is in complete moonless darkness. We know the friendly parts of town that always greet us and the kids running up to shake our hands. We know the silent parts of town that simply watch us with serious eyes as we pass. We know the patch of sandy path where the drunks and the gamblers hoot and holler and laugh as we pass, some of them approaching us stumbling and leering but harmless. We pass easily through the narrow market on the way to town, brimming with the hot smell of rotting vegetables and sunning piles of fish and gaurded by the vendors who turn over their produce in their hands over and over to shoo away the hovering cloud of flies all day long. We no longer wake up or cover our mouths at the smell of burning plastic when it wafts into our window or through our classroom multiple times a day. I even had my first cup of black instant coffee ever - and I drank it like it was the finest champagne I’d ever had. Yeah, I’d say we are getting along nicely --school kids on our arms and friends who come around, all of us together sipping slowly on our lives.
The dogs here all appear to be the same breed, a small, skinny version of a short-haired Shepard of some kind and keeping them as pets is not a usual practice here - dogs make most locals quite nervous. The few restaurants in town sell most of the same stuff - meat kebobs, chicken on the bone, fish soup (broth with a whole fish limply draped into it) and beans and rice. All drinks come in the glass bottle with a napkin to wipe off the lip and they leave you with the bottle cap to keep the flies from falling into your drink. The nights outside are cool, breezy and balmy and we seize them for all their worth with a walk to town, a Tanzanian beer at a dim local thatch hut restaurant under hanging gas lamps or a nice long languid sit out on the front porch watching the massive mango trees shimmy in the dark. After the crucifying sun and hard work with the children during the days, we are reborn at night, swinging through the hours slowly and carelessly before turning in early for an bedtime date with our new fan. Life is so slow and yet so full, exploratory and hot here, it hardly feels like we have time or energy for anything else, even each other. Life, love, work, romance, its all simpler here and the people do it all with casuality and enormous presence. Your family members are partners in getting through life as pleasantly and graciously as possible. Your job or your daily work, just the price you pay for a cool evening of doing nothing in the cool sand in front of your house. Your lovers, vendors in obtaining the things you require and your wives, business partners in survival and what pleasantries you can create in the meantime. The culture allows for the fact that surviving is hard enough with its low expectations and casual turn of phrase. There are of course hierarchies, distinct differences between the cement houses and mut huts, teaching jobs and selling hard boiled eggs out on the heat through the windows of dala dalas, families who speak purposeful English full of effort and send their kids to school with a few different outfits instead of just one and families who don’t send their kids to school at all. School costs money, just like anything else, and cash is king, only granting you entry into the community court when its hot in the palm of your hand.
In this world, your relationship with others morph as your image of yourself and your life do- as in a convex mirror at the circus. Suddenly you aren’t who you thought you were. Your motivations get all garbled like internet automated security codes that only slightly resemble the letters you usually know. The people in your life take on new meanings, new masks, new roles on the stage of your journey even as they stand in front of you. And the questions you normally ask of yourself start asking questions of you. So, like the people in our small village, I try not to get too far out ahead of my sandals on a sandy road. Live the days, Savor the nights and cherish the early morning rains in between.
The kids are alright
Nearly two weeks gone now and it feels like twenty. I can hardly remember leaving new york now, feeling like a bug being carried in a jar, not knowing what the next day would look like but knowing I was going somewhere. My jar tipped over and now I’ve got four rotating outfits, geckos living under my bed and 28 primary school kids that don’t understand English (oh, and I have the WORST sandal tan you’ve ever seen). So like any bug would do, Im just attempting to hack it and trying not to bug out.
Most days, after sending the kids out shrieking and tumbling to the school gate at 4pm, I feel like konking myself on the head for getting us into this. Teaching little kids is kind of like being a doctor I should think, you win some battles and you lose some, but most of the time you lose before you even get a round off because the poor kid doesn’t understand a word you are saying. All the usual teachers’ tools I could remember being effective on me when I misbehaved are out the window - ultimatums, isolation, humiliation, threats, you know, all the good stuff. Without English they cant even call your bluffs, they just sort of sit there and stare at you like you’re a big white polar bear attempting to sell mittens on the beach. And well, you are big and you sure are white. Sometimes you get so tired of pulling this one off of the shelves, putting that one in time out for kicking someone in the face, sharpening a pencil because they chewed off the graphite, calling after the one who is hightailing it out of the classroom in your scariest and most matronly voice, cleaning up spilled Ugi with your skirt, preventing one from impaling the other one with a stick, and peeling them off of every square inch of the place that you forget you actually have to teach them something. Usually I get tired of repeating the only Swahili words I know and resort to just gesticulating wildly with my hands. Sometimes it even makes me feel better to drop in a “ you little brats!” out loud. That’s just about the only time its nice to be misunderstood.
But even with my thoughts of suicide throughout the day, the little guys inspire me. Their social systems are so sophisticated, their personalities so distinct and they are so easily made so very happy. All the while they are murmering in Swahili sweet sounding little words and I am so very sorry I cant understand them enough to catch these little unconscious windows into their lives. Like reading a dream catcher over a small, silent sleeper. What are their parents like? Where do they sleep? Will they ever leave Tanzania? What do they hope for in each coming morning? They are the purest form of good intentions and forgiving them is so easy. After you put them in time out, they still come to rest their heads in your lap and hold your hand and want to sit next to you during duck duck goose. They don’t know you but they love you. Even if you are different. Teaching school to all these powerful future people wrapped up into small, inquisitive and laughing little packages is the only place I don’t feel like a complete stranger in this country.
Most days, after sending the kids out shrieking and tumbling to the school gate at 4pm, I feel like konking myself on the head for getting us into this. Teaching little kids is kind of like being a doctor I should think, you win some battles and you lose some, but most of the time you lose before you even get a round off because the poor kid doesn’t understand a word you are saying. All the usual teachers’ tools I could remember being effective on me when I misbehaved are out the window - ultimatums, isolation, humiliation, threats, you know, all the good stuff. Without English they cant even call your bluffs, they just sort of sit there and stare at you like you’re a big white polar bear attempting to sell mittens on the beach. And well, you are big and you sure are white. Sometimes you get so tired of pulling this one off of the shelves, putting that one in time out for kicking someone in the face, sharpening a pencil because they chewed off the graphite, calling after the one who is hightailing it out of the classroom in your scariest and most matronly voice, cleaning up spilled Ugi with your skirt, preventing one from impaling the other one with a stick, and peeling them off of every square inch of the place that you forget you actually have to teach them something. Usually I get tired of repeating the only Swahili words I know and resort to just gesticulating wildly with my hands. Sometimes it even makes me feel better to drop in a “ you little brats!” out loud. That’s just about the only time its nice to be misunderstood.
But even with my thoughts of suicide throughout the day, the little guys inspire me. Their social systems are so sophisticated, their personalities so distinct and they are so easily made so very happy. All the while they are murmering in Swahili sweet sounding little words and I am so very sorry I cant understand them enough to catch these little unconscious windows into their lives. Like reading a dream catcher over a small, silent sleeper. What are their parents like? Where do they sleep? Will they ever leave Tanzania? What do they hope for in each coming morning? They are the purest form of good intentions and forgiving them is so easy. After you put them in time out, they still come to rest their heads in your lap and hold your hand and want to sit next to you during duck duck goose. They don’t know you but they love you. Even if you are different. Teaching school to all these powerful future people wrapped up into small, inquisitive and laughing little packages is the only place I don’t feel like a complete stranger in this country.
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