Harambee!

Wow. The response to my last post was incredible. Your emails, comments, facebook messages and texts lifted my spirits and made me feel like, even if I can’t stop the painful things I’m dealing with here, at least I can bear witness and bring attention to them. I’ve passed on your warm thoughts to the family the post was about and they send their love and appreciation. Thank you.


About once a month here, I have something like a breakdown. I don’t know what else to call it. Usually I handle it in private, sit in my house and sob my eyes out as I think of all the things I’ll never be able to fix in this world and how desperate and pointless and tiny it makes me feel.

Last week, for the first time, I let myself go to pieces in front of a Tanzanian. I was standing in the middle of my backyard with my neighbor, ankle deep in mud as we transplanted vegetables into warm, wet, inviting earth. The rains had finally returned. I looked down at the soil and thought about how dry it had been just days before. I thought about the mercilessness of weather. I thought about my own complicity in the matter. The droughts in this region have been linked to climate change, among other human factors. I saw my American life flash before my eyes--hours spent spewing carbon out of my car, lights left on all night, computers eternally plugged in, hours in the library printing out ream after ream of tree flesh.

Sobs of laughter and pain forced tears down my cheeks. The tears mixed with sweat rain, still lightly falling like post-coital caresses on exhausted but satisfied maize stalks. I sobbed and laughed harder, started to hum to myself and dig into the earth with my bare feet. I tried to dig myself roots. I stared up at the sky and let the rain fall in my eyes; I stared out at the crops and felt their relief flooding my body and mixing with my own; I stared at my Mama and realized that she seemed confused and sort of embarrassed for me.

All I could say was mvua -- rain.

And then she understood. Having lived her whole life at the whim of the rain, Mama Hawa is not thrown into hysterics by its irregular behavior. But for me, this was a novel and incredible feeling. After a terrifyingly dry January, the rains were back. But were they back for good? The corn lifted up its browning leaves, tentatively promising to give it one last shot. The village elders shook their heads and told me that God was tricking us; He made us think we were going to starve this year. But may He be praised! He wouldn’t really do that to us.  

Maybe God wouldn’t, but climate change, deforestation, and desertification would.

Two years is a very short time. If I’m lucky, the students I teach will protect themselves from HIV and pursue their dreams of being nurses, doctors, pilots, and teachers. If I’ve done my job properly, the groups I organize will keep planting trees after I leave. If I can break through the stigma, the young women I hang out with will feel empowered to choose the number of babies they bring into this world. If I give it my all, this village might be a little bit greener and a little bit healthier in the years to come.

I know I should think about all that and feel good. And sometimes I do. But it’s all about perspective and my particular brand of perspective is, to be honest, not well suited to this job.

I’ve been told before that I’m the kind of person who sees the forest and doesn’t realize that it‘s made up of trees. I’m a big-picture person. Yet here I am in the middle of Africa, literally and figuratively planting tiny little seedlings that will hopefully one day be part of a global forest of change. And it sucks. I feel like an idiot most of the time. Every class I teach or tree I plant feels like a stupid little drop in an infinite ocean of problems.

But that’s how it has to be. That’s how we’re going to repair the world. Poverty and inequality and cruelty and climate disaster and corruption and hunger and AIDS and preventable death and overpopulation and environmental exploitation and insane republicans who think that the road to freedom is paved with the blood of our nation’s natural resources … these problems won’t be solved by one person with a sudden revelation about the path to a feasible and sustainable utopia. If we’re going to save this world--and I’m assuming anyone reading this understands that the world as we know it is in danger and needs to be saved--it’s going to take a lot of seedlings of all different sorts. It’s going to take people all over the world planting seeds of knowledge, seeds of peace, seeds of trees and seeds of nutritious and affordable vegetables. Sometimes it‘s going to be fun, sometimes it‘s going to suck, and most of the time we‘re going to feel like we‘re just running in place. But we’re not. What we’re doing is planting a forest whose canopy we won’t live to see.

But we have to keep planting. We can’t afford to give up. My neighbors can’t afford for you to give up.

As you read these words, a Mama just a few yards from me is worrying about whether she’ll have enough corn to feed her children in June. If her vegetables grow, she’s going to have to decide whether she’d rather sell them to buy shoes so her kids can go to school, or keep them so her kids can eat nutritious food. I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I’m hoping that you can imagine me, a fellow First World-er, hanging out here and being friends with that woman. I’m hoping that will make her more real to you.

A few of you have asked me what you can do, specifically, to help my village. I don’t really know what to say. I’ve spent the last 9 months staring at bone-dry water pumps generously donated by the Danish people, so I’m not going to ask you for money. At least not right now. For now, I’ll ask you to think about your impact on the planet. When the snow melts or if it‘s the appropriate time wherever you are in the world, I’d also like you to plant a tree. I know you know that climate change is a problem, but take a moment, close your eyes, and imagine what its like to live at the whim of the rains. Then plant another tree.

Swahili has a nifty word with no good English translation. Harambee -- it’s sort of like “Let’s all pull together and get this job done!” That’s what we need right now. A worldwide Harambee. Harambee isn’t about people coming together with one mind and similar skills--its about the whole community, each person contributing what she has to give.

Now, when I have my breakdowns, I take a deep breath and imagine the tiny seedlings, the little efforts I’m making here, joining up with the efforts of people all over the world. I imagine them growing into a beautiful, better world. I imagine three generations from now looking back and thanking us as a collective era for saving the world from destruction. And then, when I’m ready, I stop looking for the forest and focus in on the trees.

learning how to grieve

I’m sitting on a mat on the floor, eating oily rice with my fingers and trying not to cry.

A stream of old women walk past to greet me and the girls I‘m sitting with. One has her head resting on my legs and her shirt open as she breastfeeds her newest baby.  Maimuna, my best friend and surrogate sister, is stifling a sob and wiping a tear as she rests her head on my shoulder. I keep shoveling in the food, even though I‘m full and I don‘t like the taste. Maybe it’s a Jewish thing. Grief makes me hungry.

I want to vomit. I want some water. I want fresh air. I want to be anywhere but here.

But this is exactly where I need to be today. I need my Tanzanian friends to teach me how to grieve for a child. I need Maimuna to teach me how to go on living and laughing and working to make this village a better place when a tiny, lifeless body lies before me covered in a shroud. A tiny body that used to be a tiny person I knew, a tiny person I exchanged high-fives with and made funny faces at. I’ve never had to do this before, but my Mamas and sisters are old pros. They will show me how it’s done.

Step one is wailing.

Step two is eating some pilau and accepting that it’s a fact of life.

Step three is going back to the farm because there are weeds to pull and beans to plant.

It’s been a week now since the funeral. The official mourning process is over. But I can’t get past that empty space between step one and step two. The space where you are done crying and done feeling angry and done wanting to vomit, but you can’t yet accept that we live in a world this cruel.

“It’s God’s work,” my Mama keeps saying. “Praise him.”

Those words don’t comfort me; they make it worse. They make me want to scream.

I try to say, “No, Mama, it’s not God’s work. It’s the work of malnutrition and dirty water and broken promises by NGOs and governments and water pumps that have been dry for a year and Mamas that have to carry their babies in the hot sun for hours to fetch water and babies that don’t even have the strength to complain and men who are supposed to be leading this village but actually spend all day in the bar. It’s the work of years of people watching babies die and saying ’it’s just the work of God, what can we mortals do?’ rather than saying ’no, really, what CAN we do?’”

I wanted my words to have an impact, to rally her, to catalyze a movement of angry Mamas that would fight for food security and nutrition, stop blaming God, save the babies and hold the real culprits responsible.

But the Swahili that stumbled out of my mouth sounded feeble and broken. Or maybe my argument was feeble and broken, regardless of the language. Mama just gave me that “Are you seriously questioning God right now?” look, and we switched topics.

We talked about what the harvest might be like this year. We talked about the rains and we whispered in nervous tones about drought. Mama didn’t acknowledge my little rant against the “it’s all part of God’s plan” theory. But if she did, she might have said there’s no time to search for root causes and start a movement. She might have reminded me that there are weeds to pull and beans to plant. Maybe she’d tell me that if we don’t get over this and get our asses back to the farm, more babies will die. And she would be right and I would realize I was wrong.

Time passes slowly in the village, but it passes. The rainy season makes the mountains bloom, bursting into greenness like they are finally waking after months of brown, rocky sleep. My Swahili improves and I get closer to my village friends and slowly, painfully, I start to understand this place a little better. I also start to realize that there are things I’ll never understand.

I came here to change lives and make a small corner of the world a slightly better place. I came here to teach and to mobilize. In the classroom I’ve had fun watching my teenage students gain confidence, beamed as I’ve overheard them explaining important details of HIV/AIDS to their younger friends.  But I also came here to learn.

In the classroom, I am a teacher. At the funeral, I was the newest kid in class. This week I learned how to bury a child and go back to the farm with tears still wet on my cheeks, grateful that the hot sun will dry them.

Lions and tigers and wazungu... OH MY!

I'm now connected to the internet from my house in the village!!! I bought a mobile modem last week and it has pretty much changed my life. I still don't have electricity, so don't expect me to be much more accessible, but from the time I get to town and charge my computer to the time the battery runs out, I am truly straddling two worlds. I read by candlelight, cook outside on a charcoal stove, and carry water (or rather, pay my neighbor's kid to carry water) from 2k away, yet I can keep updated on Natalie Portman's pregnancy and Lindsay Lohan's shenanigans if I so choose (which I don't). WEIRD.

So here are some updates...

First of all, I made it home safely from my in-service training in Morogoro and a week of rest and relaxation in Dar Es Salaam. Dar is a big city that has all sorts of exciting things, most notably in the part of town where diplomats and ex-pats live and shop, officially known as "the Peninsula" but (sometimes fondly, sometimes sarcastically) referred to as "America" by me and my friends. During my time in "America," I visited a few grocery stores. They are probably small by real American standards but they were scary nonetheless. I know you all think that the life I'm living out in the village is tough, but I'm more impressed at those of you that can stare at a wall of toothpaste and know which one you want. Keeping in mind that I live in a place where the nearest loaf of bread to buy is a 1 hr bus ride away, I'm sure you can understand why I caused some stares by the amount of time I spent gawking at the toothpaste selection.

I'm super pumped to be back in my village now. I've been gone waaaay too long. My counterpart (Mama Ashura) and I are geared up to start projects, though most of them will have to wait until after the planting season (April). Tomorrow, my neighbor is going to help me prepare to farm the plot of land I didn't realize I inherited along with my house. I'm also getting ready to begin two projects with the secondary school, both of which I'm really excited about. Starting mid-January, I'm going to be teaching Life Skills (aka how to not get HIV, pregnant, addicted to drugs, etc) to the Form 4s, mostly 17-19 year olds. I'm nervous about it, because I haven't had the best luck with teaching (zoom in on the preschoolers who, after two months of my tutelage, can sing the ABCs up to G, at which point it all goes to hell), but I seem to do better with older kids and the topics are sexy enough that they'll actually pay attention.

The second project has the eventual goal of getting a water tank and/or pump installed at the secondary school because right now the kids spend an ungodly amount of time fetching water rather than studying. Rather than just whipping off a grant for them, I've decided to take a painfully slow but hopefully more sustainable route. Along with the Headmistress, I'm in the process of selecting 5-10 top students to form a "water and development taskforce." Over the next semester, I'm going to teach them about grants, NGOs, aid, etc. I'm hoping to engage them in more than just project planning, but also to discuss sticky issues, like the sustainability of aid. The ultimately aim of the taskforce is for the students themselves to come up with a solution to the school's water problem. Whether they decide to fund raise in the community and build it themselves or write a grant, I'm going to do my best to support them while still granting them full ownership of the project, whether or not it succeeds.

That's the plan at least. But over the past 6 months I've learned that the only thing I can definitely count on is that nothing will happen as I expect.

Finally, I want to share with you all a funny situation I found myself in today. My neighbors, Mama and Baba Mdogo, just got home from a long journey that took them on a bus passing through a few of the national parks. I remember when my Dad and Amy got back from their safari last year I was kind of rude to them about their picture slide-show--saying it was dehumanizing for them to show off pictures of the Africans they passed on the bus the same way they show off pictures of animals. Keeping that in mind, here is what Baba Mdogo told me when I asked him what they saw on their journey: "So many animals! We saw giraffes and hippopotamus and zebras and elephants...and the wazungu [white people]! You wouldn't believe how many wazungu we saw!! They were wearing these funny hats and they all had cameras and they were speaking English so fast and some of them were speaking other languages, too. There were so many of them and they all looked so excited to see the animals. You should go to the national parks because you will have lots of wazungu friends there, Lauren!"

So there you have it, Dad. They think you're just as fascinating as you think they are.

Khanga v. Bucket: The Ultimate Standoff

Living without electricity or running water makes you appreciate things in a different way. Before I hopped on that Africa-bound plane, I had never seen, let alone wore, let alone mopped my floor with, a Khanga. Today I can safely say that I would be dead without it.

The khanga is just a thin piece of fabric. It is most frequently used as a wrap or headscarf. The internet here isn't fancy enough for me to upload a picture right now, but you should google it if you're confused.

My friend Sativa is convinced that the bucket has more uses than the khanga. Buckets are useful, don't get me wrong. You should definitely read her blog post about them (www.sativamarie.wordpress.com) and make up your own mind. But I feel, in the name of fairness, you deserve to hear the khanga's side of the story. Sativa says I'm copying her by writing this post. She is a bully. That is why I call her "Dada Mkubwa," which means "big sister," because big sisters are bullies. I think. I've never actually had one.

Anyway. The many uses of a khanga:

- The Classic (wrapping around your waist)
- Tablecloth
- Carpet
- Drapes
- Poster/general wall art
- Get your local tailor to make you a: dress, shirt, pants, skirt, hat, dira, headscarf, etc etc etc)
- Cape to wear to the Harry Potter movie in Dar Es Salaam ("I'm so not going with you to that," - Jen)
- Any/all articles of clothing for kids
- Grocery bag
- To cover up your luggage if you don't want people to see how fancy your bags are
- Menstrual pads (if anyone wants information on how to do this, attend your local Peace Corps girls conference)
- Oven mitts (but be careful, I've already burned holes in 3 khangas doing this...)
- Head wrap (all styles--the bigger the better)
- Apron (kinda synonymous with "the classic")
- Filter for water (but not a substitution for boiling!)
- Diaper (if you believe in that kind of thing, most Mamas just let the kiddos run free)
- Blanket and/or sheets
- Bathing suit cover
- "Farm clothes"
- Prayer rug (I'm actually not sure this would be allowed--I'll ask a Mama and let you know)
- Yoga mat
- Covering up your tanktop when you can't stand the heat
- Really cheap sunscreen
- Hijab
- Sending subliminal messages (each khanga has a saying on the bottom in Swahili, usually it's things like "God's word is the final word" but sometimes it's more sassy and less religious.)
- Face mask when the dust and/or body odor takes over your nasal passages
- Make-shift curtain when you have to chimba dawa* on a bus ride
- "Mattress mambo" (if you have to ask, you're too young to know)
- Travel pillow
- Door mat
- Umbrella
- Required uniform for any village funeral or wedding
- Fanny pack (Sativa's favorite)
- To strap a child to your back (he ain't going nowhere)
- To shield yourself when breastfeed--though open-air is the preference in my village
- Jifunga-ing** when you're wearing scandalous things like jeans or a knee-length skirt
- When it gets old, it becomes a rag/mop/etc
- Automatic hand-dryer (minus the automatic)
- Bathing suit (or so I hear, this sounds kind of impractical)
- If you're in a really hard spot, toilet paper
- Gauze and pretty much any other medical supply 

I'll keep adding if I think of more things... let me know if you come up with any I haven't thought of!

* "Chimba dawa" is literally "dig for medicine," but it's a euphemism for pissing on the side of the road
** "Jifunga" literally means "close yourself"

- Campaign

TZ Twins

I’m in Morogoro right now at in-service training (IST), which is kinda like Camp Peace Corps Part 2. After spending the past three and a half months alone in our villages, all 39 members of my training class are back together for training and to share our site experiences. The first day we all drew creative, artistic, or graphical interpretations of our experience over the past six months. I drew a color coded line graph that depicted my happiness, feeling of success, and integration. Apparently I'm a little left brained. The lines were all over the place, and also tended to be pretty aligned with one another--I can't integrate if I'm not happy, I don't feel happy when I don't feel successful, etc.

Some of the more creative volunteers drew pictures. Katie, who spent a lot of time traveling due to medical and administrative issues, drew a map of Tanzania and outlined her emotions on each of her many bus rides. My friend Justin titled his y-axis "craving for taco bell." One girl just balled up her paper and taped it to the wall. And we all knew what she meant by that, because we've all felt that way too at some point or another. It was comforting to realize that we're all going through this crazy experience together.

Last night, our “counterparts,“ people  from our villages that we’ve chosen to be partners and advisors over the next two years, arrived. This next week seems likely to be a sort of “worlds collide” type experience.

The first activity we did was for each PCV to introduce their counterpart and then be introduced by her or him.  It was immediately evident that we have all chosen what can only be described as our Tanzanian clones. Quiet people choose quiet people, class clown types used their introductions as an opportunity for a duet standup act, the academic types tended to choose students or teachers, and a girl I’ve always described as an “old soul” chose an adorable and sprightly 70-year-old man.

I’m no exception. My counterpart, Mama Ashura, was the first woman in the group to talk (in this culture, women are usually pretty quiet in groups when men are present). Like me, she has a tendency to dominate conversations, always has an opinion, and frequently raised her hand when a question was asked, eager to show off that she had an answer and unafraid to give a wrong one. We did a group activity that involved writing on big poster papers and I looked over from my group and saw that she, like me, had taken on the role of scribe. And anyone who’s been in a class with me also knows that I have a nasty habit of chit-chatting to my neighbors during lectures. Mama Ashura was constantly leaning over to whisper things to me, give her opinions, giggle over inside jokes, or ask me for translations when the speaker lapsed into English.

Creepy, right?

During the session today, our counterparts had an opportunity to list some of the myths they have heard in the villages about Peace Corps. Among the highlights (and lowlights) were:
- We are CIA spies (the classic)
- We are photographers intending to take pictures of Tanzanians to either sell in America for large sums of money or to share with our friends back home so we can laugh at how poor people are here (if you laugh at the pictures I post online, unless they are of people being funny, I will be very angry at you)
- Our parents lived in Tanzania many years ago and we have come to retrieve the things they left behind (this weird myth exists in my village, apparently--Mom, Dad, anything you need to tell me?)
- We are here on a bioterror/business venture in which we will spread strange diseases, and later return with an expensive cure (this terrifying rumor was also a Mama Ashura contribution)

Most of today was spent clarifying what Peace Corps is and what it isn’t. For the record, none of that is true.

After this training, I'm heading to Dar Es Salaam (the capital) for a few days to do some administrative stuff, shopping, and most importantly to see the new Harry Potter movie!!! I'm taking a slightly longer route back to my village (the shortest possible route would be 2 days anyway) because apparently the rains have started so once I'm there, I'll be stranded in a muddy mess of roadlessness for a good long time. Hopefully I'll be able to be in touch somewhat, but if I seem to have gone quiet for a few months, that'll be why. (And now I can't get "I bless the rains down in Africa" out of my head. Awesome.)

Reality

I haven't spent a lot of time in this blog talking about the difficult times. Maybe I've been misleading you, in which case I'm sorry. So here's the truth: At least once a day, the thought runs through my head--"I could go home right now. I could call it quits and be eating a goat cheese salad [or pizza, or thai food, or mint chocolate chip ice cream, or...] in 72 hours." That's the sort of thing we're not supposed to admit, but it's true. It doesn't mean I'm going anywhere anytime soon. At least once a day I also think, "I'm the luckiest human being in the world." The combination of these two thoughts, and the short time frame within which both of them float through my mind, is referred to by volunteers as the "roller coaster." The thing about roller coasters, even emotional ones, is that they are simultaneously thrilling, terrifying, fun, and nauseating.

Some days I would rather sit in my house and stare at the wall than attempt to have a coherent conversation in Swahili. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the cultural barriers separating me from my new friends--it has become apparent over the past few months that there really are some things that can't be understood cross-culturally. As close as I am to my Mamas, there is so much about me they will never understand. And I'm sure they feel the same way about me. And sometimes I just want to sit in my house and sob hysterically about the things I've witnessed here, and the fact that there is so, so little I can do to help. Other times I just feel totally numb. I find myself making really off-color jokes, which I guess is my way of trying to deal with things that are just beyond my comprehension. AIDS? Food insecurity? If I can't laugh, I'll cry. Sometimes I do cry. The realization that, statistically, at least a few of the children I play with on a daily basis are going to die of preventable disease. How are you supposed to deal with that? Everyday, I rotate between feelings of anger so intense I think it might eat me alive and numbness to the point of boredom and sadness so deep I might get lost inside it.

The roller coaster has been getting faster. The twists are more nauseating, the rails a little rickety-er, the drops are more dramatic. I find myself overwhelmed by the simplest decisions -- do I hold on or throw my hands up? Do I scream with joy or scream with fear? And really, is there even a difference?

Eid Mubarak and reflections on integration and success...

I pull the hem of my dira over my bare feet and hide my hands beneath my shawl. My hijab is tight and itchy around my neck but I don't pull my hands out to adjust it. Even if I wanted to, I'm practically sitting on top of the women next to me so any unperscribed movement is a poor choice. As the service begins I mimic my Mama's actions--standing, kneeling, endlessly repeating "Allah Akbar." I try to pay attention, stay open and aware of the culture, spirituality, and beauty of this event I am honored to have been invited to. But all I can think about is keeping my white hands hidden and how, for the first time in 5 months, I might, maybe, blend into a crowd. The kids in front and to the side of me can still see my pale face, but to the rows and rows of women sitting and kneeling behind me, my colorful hijab and dira won't warrent a second glance. I feel relieved, free, and human in a way I suddenly realize I haven't felt in a very long time.

But for every other hour of my life here, I will never blend in. And if anyone was watching closely they noticed me fumble over prayers, motions, the itchy hijab situation.

I'm doing what I can to integrate here, but there are some barriers I will never cross. One minute I feel like one of the gang, laughing and drinking chai with my Mamas, and the next minute I notice that a kid has burst into tears at the sight of my strange pale eyes and freckly nose, or a teenage boy is staring at me like I'm a dirty picture in the bathroom who can't see his objectifying gaze.

One story which nicely illustrates the stage of integration I'm at took place last week as i was returning home from a long and poorly planned thougrh, thankfully, safely fexecuted hike up Mt. Hanang with, no joke, 50 secondary school students. I was exhausted and grumpy and ready to be home, alone, far away from the nearest teenager. As we reached the base of the mountain, we still had another few hours of walking back to the village. So, please don't judge me for this, I left the kids with their other chaparone and made my way to the main road to try to catch a ride. (Yes, I hitchhike here sometimes, but if you saw our busses, you'd understand why.) So a young man finally picked me up and immediately started doing what most men here do upon first meeting me--talking about marraige. Usually I just laugh it off and let him off gently by saying something like "That's very kind of you, but right now I'm focused on my studies." (Which has led to a running joke in my village where the young men ask me everyday if I've learned everything there is to know yet.)

But that day, I was in a particularly irritable mood. So the driver ends up asking if I have a husband, but instead of saying "mume" he says "mzee," which works in context but literally means "old man." So I decide to mess with him and tell him I'm married to a wonderful mzee named Saidi Jumanne*. Saidi Jumanne, in reality, is my favorite "mzee" grandpa in the village. So the driver and I have this long chat where I make up all sorts of ridiculous stuff about my fictional marraige.

Finally we reach the village and I hop out of the car to a crowd of the same young men I mentioned earlier, who like to joke about when I'm going to stop studying and settle down. So they're all boisterously welcoming me home and the driver turns to them and asks if it's true that I have an mzee named Saidi Jumanne. It turns out the real Saidi was standing about ten feet away, perfectly in sight and very much in his mid-70s. The men, laughing hysterically, point in his direction and vehemently affirm that he is, in fact, my husband. The driver drove off, utterly confused.

During Peace Corps staging (the three days of logistics before we boarded the plane to TZ), we were asked to write what would make us feel like we've "succeeded" in the Peace Corps. Knowing my tendencies to be a stressed out ambitious freak, I decided to write something simpler than "when climate change halts and all of Tanzania is reforested." I wrote, "When I laugh with my neighbors." Mission accomplished, now on to deforestation...


*Not his real name, but it's equally Tanzanian