Elizabeth and Hannah have been gone for four days doing the loop (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda). I should have gone, because I'm bored as can be in Dar right now. I also have Hannah's computer for the week, meaning I've been spending way too much time by myself, althoguh I have managed to watch all but two episodes of The Hills. Streaming is hard work!
Once I discovered the joy of buying media illegally off the streets, I haven't really been able to stop. So yesterday I pried myself off the computer and set out for Kariakoo in search of The Bourne Trilogy (although I only came back with the complete Leonardo DiCaprio collection, don't ask me how this happened). I have no problem gettingm yself to Kariakoo, since all I have to do is get on the bus that says KARIAKOO!, but Kariakoo itself is big, dirty, and wildly intimidating market and after one step in I was completely dioriented and had absolutely no idea how to get out. I found the center and then walked outwards in concentric circles for a while until I finally stumbled across a DVD store, bought the goods, and then spent an hour trying to get out. Once I finally hit a main road I had no idea which side of it I was on, so I just hopped on a dala dala. As luck would have it, it was going in the completely opposite direction from campus so I ended up at the beach somewhere and when the dalla dalla emptied I was the only one sitting. It took me four dala dalas to get back to Ubungo, and I was so relieved to get on the bus back to school that I fell asleep as soon as I got on it. You know how sometimes dala dalas randomly change direction with no prior indication that they're going to do that? Mine did, and I woke up to find myself in the bush somewhere. I decided not to tempt fate again and end up in Congo this time, so I just hiked through a small jungle for forty-five minutes. Then I watched a lot of Leonardo Dicaprio and felt better.
Today is gorgeous but I'm frustrated with myself and Dar, me for not doing anything and Dar for not having anything to do. I need to at least eat something, because it is 2:30 and I have not done that yet today, but I'm 8 flights up and once I go down I'm only coming back up once. It's hot, don't judge me. Actually, Steers (South Africa McDonald's) just opened close to campus, and I think I will do that. Maybe I will go see a movie, and just kind of wait for Alex Good to get here in two weeks.
I like East Africa, but I don't like sitting in Dar. Blah!
Oh, and America.
LOVE: New Britney, Kanye, and that Pretty Rickie / Sean Paul song.
HATE: MC postponing her album release (tease!)
MISS: wearing shorts. God, you have no idea. Upon my return I will never wear pants again. Ever.
11.11.07
4.11.07
Mombasa!
The title says it all, really. Elizabeth and I were wandering around the bus station on Wednesday, and we saw that there was a bus leaving at 4 pm for Mombasa. An hour later we were sitting on that bus, high-fiving and mentally commending ourselves for being the type of bad a** girls that would just hop on buses to Mombasa with no forethought, not a care in the world.
WELL. Things did go swimmingly, but it turns out that Mombasa is exactly like Dar. As in, essentially the same city, just ten hours away in a different place. A place where we don't have residency, and therefore have to pay $50 for the single-entry visa. I'm still a little grumbly about visas, but it turned out to be a good time, even if most of what we did we could have accomplished in Dar. We went to a Swahili museum in old town, where the tour guide awkwardly outfitted us in burqas and hijabs and then took pictures of us, in which we instinctively smiled even though no one can tell when you're veiled. Thoughts on this forthcoming, since my opinions mean so much.
Then we went to the aptly named Fort Jesus and sat near the waterfront until we met two very nice Muslim men who were, in short, hilarious. They immediately called dibs and told us how attractive we were since we appeared not a day over sixteen. Then mine lied and said he was 24, only to show me his tour guiding license moments later that had his 1969 birth year on it. Mine told me he had a very rich father and that I could never spend all his money even if I stayed for one year. If we married, he would allow me to enter through the front door since his mother, with whom he still lives, is old and senile and probably wouldn't notice. Then he espoused the advantages of creating a "cocktail" baby, since they are proven to be smarter and are among the most beautiful in the world. These men, so charming!
We spent the rest of the evening walking around, found areally amazing used bookstore (any bookstore would have been really amazing, since books are really hard to come by in Dar), and ate ice cream and talked on the patio of this fancy shmancy hotel.
I have a surprising amount of work due on monday, so we came back yesterday evening and were too exhausted to do anything fun. While in Mombasa we did manage to by several bootlegged CDs and DVDs for about a dollar a pop, including all three seasons of Desperate Housewives and some Bongo Flava hits. Place orders now, please.
Other than that, things are good but uneventful. I actually live here now, and even though I stick out like a sore thumb everywhere I go, I feel like I belong more or less. My bastardized Swahili is good enough that I have no problem expressing myself in a basic way, to the point that my English has suffered greatly. I think this is going to make reassimilation a problem, since none of us really remembers how to speak casual American English. Sometimes I forget the English words for basic fruits, and we've all taken to saying, "How did you find it?" instead of, "How was it?" and "It is finished," meaning "It's all gone." It's going to be a trip.
Plans in the works to do India over Christmas break since flights are relatively cheap (about $600) and we have two months to travel in between semesters. I'm super pumped, because everything is going to be nonstop until then. I've got three weeks laden with papers and seminar presentations, then Alex Good comes (OMG!) and we travel for two weeks, then I have two weeks of exams and then Xmas break and I'm off to...wherever I end up going. I had a moment earlier today where I detached from the whirlwind and realized how much I'm missing at home and how difficult reentry is going to be, and I think that's the closest I've gotten to my version of homesickness. I miss knowing exactly what's happening with everybody, but that's the trade-off for getting to do something like this. I wouldn't give this up for the world, because while Tanzania hasn't revolutionized my core person in any essential way, it's been extremely enabling in more subtle ways. I just feel more capable than I ever have in my life, which is really, really important.
I'm supposed to be working on a group presentation now, which means plagiarizing a paper and then reading it aloud to the class (I have more to say on the integrity of Tanzanian academic institutions later), but my group refuses to call me and hasn't shown up for our two scheduled meetings. So...? Oh, and my first midterm, in Linguistic Theory, looked something like this:
The _______________, _________________, and ________________ of the ___________________ are essential elements in _________________________ ______________.
What? You take that test, you'll do about as well as I did.
ANYWAYS. Alex Good, get here soon. I miss you guys something awful. Let me know what's UP!
WELL. Things did go swimmingly, but it turns out that Mombasa is exactly like Dar. As in, essentially the same city, just ten hours away in a different place. A place where we don't have residency, and therefore have to pay $50 for the single-entry visa. I'm still a little grumbly about visas, but it turned out to be a good time, even if most of what we did we could have accomplished in Dar. We went to a Swahili museum in old town, where the tour guide awkwardly outfitted us in burqas and hijabs and then took pictures of us, in which we instinctively smiled even though no one can tell when you're veiled. Thoughts on this forthcoming, since my opinions mean so much.
Then we went to the aptly named Fort Jesus and sat near the waterfront until we met two very nice Muslim men who were, in short, hilarious. They immediately called dibs and told us how attractive we were since we appeared not a day over sixteen. Then mine lied and said he was 24, only to show me his tour guiding license moments later that had his 1969 birth year on it. Mine told me he had a very rich father and that I could never spend all his money even if I stayed for one year. If we married, he would allow me to enter through the front door since his mother, with whom he still lives, is old and senile and probably wouldn't notice. Then he espoused the advantages of creating a "cocktail" baby, since they are proven to be smarter and are among the most beautiful in the world. These men, so charming!
We spent the rest of the evening walking around, found areally amazing used bookstore (any bookstore would have been really amazing, since books are really hard to come by in Dar), and ate ice cream and talked on the patio of this fancy shmancy hotel.
I have a surprising amount of work due on monday, so we came back yesterday evening and were too exhausted to do anything fun. While in Mombasa we did manage to by several bootlegged CDs and DVDs for about a dollar a pop, including all three seasons of Desperate Housewives and some Bongo Flava hits. Place orders now, please.
Other than that, things are good but uneventful. I actually live here now, and even though I stick out like a sore thumb everywhere I go, I feel like I belong more or less. My bastardized Swahili is good enough that I have no problem expressing myself in a basic way, to the point that my English has suffered greatly. I think this is going to make reassimilation a problem, since none of us really remembers how to speak casual American English. Sometimes I forget the English words for basic fruits, and we've all taken to saying, "How did you find it?" instead of, "How was it?" and "It is finished," meaning "It's all gone." It's going to be a trip.
Plans in the works to do India over Christmas break since flights are relatively cheap (about $600) and we have two months to travel in between semesters. I'm super pumped, because everything is going to be nonstop until then. I've got three weeks laden with papers and seminar presentations, then Alex Good comes (OMG!) and we travel for two weeks, then I have two weeks of exams and then Xmas break and I'm off to...wherever I end up going. I had a moment earlier today where I detached from the whirlwind and realized how much I'm missing at home and how difficult reentry is going to be, and I think that's the closest I've gotten to my version of homesickness. I miss knowing exactly what's happening with everybody, but that's the trade-off for getting to do something like this. I wouldn't give this up for the world, because while Tanzania hasn't revolutionized my core person in any essential way, it's been extremely enabling in more subtle ways. I just feel more capable than I ever have in my life, which is really, really important.
I'm supposed to be working on a group presentation now, which means plagiarizing a paper and then reading it aloud to the class (I have more to say on the integrity of Tanzanian academic institutions later), but my group refuses to call me and hasn't shown up for our two scheduled meetings. So...? Oh, and my first midterm, in Linguistic Theory, looked something like this:
The _______________, _________________, and ________________ of the ___________________ are essential elements in _________________________ ______________.
What? You take that test, you'll do about as well as I did.
ANYWAYS. Alex Good, get here soon. I miss you guys something awful. Let me know what's UP!
25.10.07
On falling down in Tanzania
I woke up the other morning and panicked at the idea of leaving in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS, so I'm just not going to. I feel pretty good about it since it was such a gut reaction.
In other news, I was running around campus last week, as I am apt to do about once every 20 days (we'll talk about getting fat in Africa later - it's awesome!), when I rounded a corner and, quite literally, ran into our resident female baboon, who is a huge b****. We both stopped dead, and made eye contact for twenty seconds. Then I Macaulley Caulkin screamed, and the baboon Macaulley Caulkin screamed, and we both turned and sprinted off in opposite directions. I'm a little worried she might remember me, though, because my friend Hannah has been attacked by three baboons and I'm afraid that just can't be coincidence. The most recent attack ocurred when she was munching on some golden raisins, which we miraculously found in a grocery store, and as the baboon charged her with its formidable opposable thumbs, instead of taking steps to ensure her personal safety she shoved the baggie of raisins down her shirt and tried to make a run for it. She was looking over her shoulder wildly and running as fast as she could, but the incident ended tragically with some barbed wire and men waving sticks. Well, that's how I remember it.
Last weekend my friend Nate and I went to Sunrise Beach which is on Kigamboni, a tiny little island a ten-minute ferry ride away from city center. It was a perfect day, and the only people on the beach were us and some little Asian tourists (no offense, Leigh - it made me miss you all the more). The whole day went off without a hitch, until we got ready to board the night ferry back to the mainland. First, let me explain that there is no such thing as a "queue" in Africa. People here do NOT line up. If you try to line up for something, like say, Immigration Services, the post office, or the hospital, you will immediately be branded a tourist and you will never get anything done. So we've learned, we've adapted, and after too many buses leaving without me on them, I've learned how to throw 'bows with the best of 'em.
So Nate is relaxing on a bench while I'm huddled on the dock with about 4,000 Tanzanians, waiting for the officials to open the gate so we can charge the ferry in hopes of landing one of the 20 seats they have for the ride instead of having to stand for, oh, fifteen minutes. I've got my backpack on third-trimester style to avert pickpockets while I'm scoping out the competition when suddenly the gates fling open and we're off, like the running of the bulls. I'm sprinting as fast as my foot-long legs will take me and I'm gaining on some of the mamas with the kilos of rice on their heads, but in the pitch black of night I don't see the RANDOM CHAIN HANGING FIVE INCHES OFF THE GROUND that the Tanzanians somehow have the body awareness to avoid. I hit the chain hard and pitch over the top, soaring through the air for about ten minutes until I hit the metal floor of the ferry. Because the ferry allows vehicles but boards passengers first, there's basically a big bowling lane down the middle of it, and thanks to my backpack I skidded on my stomach like a penguin on ice for fifteen feet, to the shouts of "OH NO! MZUNGU FELL DOWN, MZUNGU FELL DOWN!"
There has really never been a more concerned crowd of people, and looking up and seeing the silhouettes of about ten Tanzanians standing above me and scratching their heads at my clumsiness was a beautiful combination of humiliating and hilarious. Fortunately, though, because they all felt bad for me and couldn't figure out why that crazy mzungu just COULDN'T SEE that obvious black chain in the dark of night, several of them offered me seats and I sat happily, munching a bag of peanuts for the ride.
I have to go to "class", but we've organized a sting operation to retrieve my stolen laptop later today. I'll let you know how it goes.
In other news, I was running around campus last week, as I am apt to do about once every 20 days (we'll talk about getting fat in Africa later - it's awesome!), when I rounded a corner and, quite literally, ran into our resident female baboon, who is a huge b****. We both stopped dead, and made eye contact for twenty seconds. Then I Macaulley Caulkin screamed, and the baboon Macaulley Caulkin screamed, and we both turned and sprinted off in opposite directions. I'm a little worried she might remember me, though, because my friend Hannah has been attacked by three baboons and I'm afraid that just can't be coincidence. The most recent attack ocurred when she was munching on some golden raisins, which we miraculously found in a grocery store, and as the baboon charged her with its formidable opposable thumbs, instead of taking steps to ensure her personal safety she shoved the baggie of raisins down her shirt and tried to make a run for it. She was looking over her shoulder wildly and running as fast as she could, but the incident ended tragically with some barbed wire and men waving sticks. Well, that's how I remember it.
Last weekend my friend Nate and I went to Sunrise Beach which is on Kigamboni, a tiny little island a ten-minute ferry ride away from city center. It was a perfect day, and the only people on the beach were us and some little Asian tourists (no offense, Leigh - it made me miss you all the more). The whole day went off without a hitch, until we got ready to board the night ferry back to the mainland. First, let me explain that there is no such thing as a "queue" in Africa. People here do NOT line up. If you try to line up for something, like say, Immigration Services, the post office, or the hospital, you will immediately be branded a tourist and you will never get anything done. So we've learned, we've adapted, and after too many buses leaving without me on them, I've learned how to throw 'bows with the best of 'em.
So Nate is relaxing on a bench while I'm huddled on the dock with about 4,000 Tanzanians, waiting for the officials to open the gate so we can charge the ferry in hopes of landing one of the 20 seats they have for the ride instead of having to stand for, oh, fifteen minutes. I've got my backpack on third-trimester style to avert pickpockets while I'm scoping out the competition when suddenly the gates fling open and we're off, like the running of the bulls. I'm sprinting as fast as my foot-long legs will take me and I'm gaining on some of the mamas with the kilos of rice on their heads, but in the pitch black of night I don't see the RANDOM CHAIN HANGING FIVE INCHES OFF THE GROUND that the Tanzanians somehow have the body awareness to avoid. I hit the chain hard and pitch over the top, soaring through the air for about ten minutes until I hit the metal floor of the ferry. Because the ferry allows vehicles but boards passengers first, there's basically a big bowling lane down the middle of it, and thanks to my backpack I skidded on my stomach like a penguin on ice for fifteen feet, to the shouts of "OH NO! MZUNGU FELL DOWN, MZUNGU FELL DOWN!"
There has really never been a more concerned crowd of people, and looking up and seeing the silhouettes of about ten Tanzanians standing above me and scratching their heads at my clumsiness was a beautiful combination of humiliating and hilarious. Fortunately, though, because they all felt bad for me and couldn't figure out why that crazy mzungu just COULDN'T SEE that obvious black chain in the dark of night, several of them offered me seats and I sat happily, munching a bag of peanuts for the ride.
I have to go to "class", but we've organized a sting operation to retrieve my stolen laptop later today. I'll let you know how it goes.
17.10.07
Where did all the classes go?
I, for one, have no idea. My Bantu Language Structures class was supposed to meet this morning at eight, and I showed up but no one else did. And then it was supposed to meet today at four, and no one showed up again. So I'm on the internet. Haya.
We went to Zanzibar this weekend for Eid-ul-Fitr (it's the end of Ramadan, which translated into a big party since Zanzibar is 99% Muslim). Zanzibar is my favorite place, and I think for the first time I achieved some kind of zen-like state, induced by the purchase of a tiny marble elephant. I'm not sure how to explain that.
The weather was gorgeous and about 20 of us ferried over (about an hour and a half boat ride, now throw uppers this time!) early Friday morning and spent the day absorbing Zanzibari culture. Stonetown is a virtual labryinth of sorts and you can spend all day wandering around the tiny streets haggling with shop owners. I bought a ton of jewelry and scarves and spent about three hours in this amazing antique shop. We ate on the waterfront (I emerged with the correct number of eyelids this time), spent Saturday on the beach, and partied with the locals until 4 am Sunday morning.
BUT we got our stuff jacked twice. Hannah, Elizabeth, and I were waking along the waterfront in broad daylight, in a crowd, on Saturday afternoon and a 16-year-old-ish boy ran up and pushed me really hard and nabbed Hannah's purse. He was probably still pretty new at it, because Hannah held on for dear life and he only got away with her purse strap - and only for a little while. As soon as she realized what was happening, she started screaming, "MWIZI, MWIZI" and I got really caught up in the excitement and started hopping around and screaming and pointing, "MWIZI, MWIZI!" and about fifteen Zanzibari men emerged from out of nowhere and took off after him. One came back with the purse strap and all the bystanders were SO mad at him, apologizing profusely and making sure that we didn't think all Zanzibari people were like that. We didn't see the boy again, and the fact that vigilante justice is still the norm here makes that a little bit disconcerting. I'm just not going to ask questions.
Then, as we were coming home from the club on Sunday morning, we stumbled across this pizza shop. I was clapping my hands and jumping and squealing at this beautiful beacon of hope in the middle of a barren wasteland of rice and beans, and we ordered and sat around a table on the patio. For some reason the clerk wouldn't take our money immediately, so we had about fourteen bucks sitting on the table, which was dumb on our part, admittedly. Some teenage boy came by and made a big show of high fiving everyone and acting really nice, and then he simply snatched up the money and took off sprinting. We were all confused because I'm fortunately still not disillusioned enough to believe that anyone who is nice is probably stealing from me, but when we realized what happened it was pretty upsetting.
Tanzania, I understand that you're incredibly impoverished, but the instances of petty thievery are too much to handle sometimes. Having to be constantly on guard is exhausting, and every time it happens I'm a little more embittered, which I hate because I really don't want those few terrible experiences to taint my whole trip. I'm grateful that violent crime isn't so ingrained into the culture here like it is in America, but the complete lack of respect for personal property is really disheartening.
That being said, I had an awesome weekend. I really, really needed it because with classes starting (still, after five weeks, "starting") and these few but hurtful instances of being targeted for whatever reason, the weekend helped me get back on my game. I'm still struggling with whether or not to stay for the year, but I really do like it. I'm growing, at the very least.
We went to Zanzibar this weekend for Eid-ul-Fitr (it's the end of Ramadan, which translated into a big party since Zanzibar is 99% Muslim). Zanzibar is my favorite place, and I think for the first time I achieved some kind of zen-like state, induced by the purchase of a tiny marble elephant. I'm not sure how to explain that.
The weather was gorgeous and about 20 of us ferried over (about an hour and a half boat ride, now throw uppers this time!) early Friday morning and spent the day absorbing Zanzibari culture. Stonetown is a virtual labryinth of sorts and you can spend all day wandering around the tiny streets haggling with shop owners. I bought a ton of jewelry and scarves and spent about three hours in this amazing antique shop. We ate on the waterfront (I emerged with the correct number of eyelids this time), spent Saturday on the beach, and partied with the locals until 4 am Sunday morning.
BUT we got our stuff jacked twice. Hannah, Elizabeth, and I were waking along the waterfront in broad daylight, in a crowd, on Saturday afternoon and a 16-year-old-ish boy ran up and pushed me really hard and nabbed Hannah's purse. He was probably still pretty new at it, because Hannah held on for dear life and he only got away with her purse strap - and only for a little while. As soon as she realized what was happening, she started screaming, "MWIZI, MWIZI" and I got really caught up in the excitement and started hopping around and screaming and pointing, "MWIZI, MWIZI!" and about fifteen Zanzibari men emerged from out of nowhere and took off after him. One came back with the purse strap and all the bystanders were SO mad at him, apologizing profusely and making sure that we didn't think all Zanzibari people were like that. We didn't see the boy again, and the fact that vigilante justice is still the norm here makes that a little bit disconcerting. I'm just not going to ask questions.
Then, as we were coming home from the club on Sunday morning, we stumbled across this pizza shop. I was clapping my hands and jumping and squealing at this beautiful beacon of hope in the middle of a barren wasteland of rice and beans, and we ordered and sat around a table on the patio. For some reason the clerk wouldn't take our money immediately, so we had about fourteen bucks sitting on the table, which was dumb on our part, admittedly. Some teenage boy came by and made a big show of high fiving everyone and acting really nice, and then he simply snatched up the money and took off sprinting. We were all confused because I'm fortunately still not disillusioned enough to believe that anyone who is nice is probably stealing from me, but when we realized what happened it was pretty upsetting.
Tanzania, I understand that you're incredibly impoverished, but the instances of petty thievery are too much to handle sometimes. Having to be constantly on guard is exhausting, and every time it happens I'm a little more embittered, which I hate because I really don't want those few terrible experiences to taint my whole trip. I'm grateful that violent crime isn't so ingrained into the culture here like it is in America, but the complete lack of respect for personal property is really disheartening.
That being said, I had an awesome weekend. I really, really needed it because with classes starting (still, after five weeks, "starting") and these few but hurtful instances of being targeted for whatever reason, the weekend helped me get back on my game. I'm still struggling with whether or not to stay for the year, but I really do like it. I'm growing, at the very least.
16.10.07
Randoms
I haven't updated anything in a very long time for a number of reasons.
1. I have no laptop with which to update and intaneti costs me way too much money.
2. Not a whole lot has changed.
Actually, only two reasons. Classes started and there's just no way I can accurately convey what that means. Before we were white and it was a big deal, now we are white and it is a BIG DEAL. I've been called on three times in my 200-person lecture (no one else has been called on), and in my political science classes every time we talk about slavery or colonialism all heads swivel around and, as America's envoy, I'm forced to answer for several centuries of my country's sins. When I'm in a good mood the absurdity makes it hilarious, but sometimes I can't handle it and I miss anonymity something awful. This story comes to me secondhand, but in my friend Katie's African Political Thought class one of the professors was talking about what it means to be an Africa, or who is an African. He made a point of singling the two wazungu out and saying something along the lines of, "These people are trying to be African, but they never can be because they are not black." Katie passed her (white) friend sitting next to her a note that said something along the lines of, "And we respect their culture, but we're not trying to be."
WELL. The African girl sitting on her other side snatched that note up and furiously wrote, "And we don't want you to be. You pork."
The shock of being called "A pork" was too much and Katie didn't even respond, but the next time the class met that same girl passed her a note that said
To all you white bitches talking shit about Africa [sic]: You better sleep with one eye open or we'll practice our voodoo on you and you will be floating in the Indian Ocean. Signed, Black Ossama.
I, personally, think that they're both hilarious. That being said, the sentiment behind them is not, and while I'm sure a very small portion of the population actually feels that kind of animosity towards us, it's still mildly disconcerting. But I've made a point of not updating when I'm either ecstatic or depressed because even though I experience both ends of the spectrum daily, I don't think that journaling during those extreme highs and extreme lows would paint an accurate picture of what it's like to be here. Likewise, I posted those notes because that is one aspect of my experience, but certainly not the whole experience. And they're nothing to worry about, Mom.
I've got two roommates, they are both fantastic. My friend Sam has three roommates named Ernest, Milk, and Cha Cha. My friend Anders does not know his roommates' names, but he walked into the communal bathroom one day and one of them was air-drying post shower. Standing there, arms akimbo, AIR-DRYING. Quite frankly, that's basically a metaphor for greater Tanzania. Air-drying for twenty minutes when a towel would do just fine. I love this country.
1. I have no laptop with which to update and intaneti costs me way too much money.
2. Not a whole lot has changed.
Actually, only two reasons. Classes started and there's just no way I can accurately convey what that means. Before we were white and it was a big deal, now we are white and it is a BIG DEAL. I've been called on three times in my 200-person lecture (no one else has been called on), and in my political science classes every time we talk about slavery or colonialism all heads swivel around and, as America's envoy, I'm forced to answer for several centuries of my country's sins. When I'm in a good mood the absurdity makes it hilarious, but sometimes I can't handle it and I miss anonymity something awful. This story comes to me secondhand, but in my friend Katie's African Political Thought class one of the professors was talking about what it means to be an Africa, or who is an African. He made a point of singling the two wazungu out and saying something along the lines of, "These people are trying to be African, but they never can be because they are not black." Katie passed her (white) friend sitting next to her a note that said something along the lines of, "And we respect their culture, but we're not trying to be."
WELL. The African girl sitting on her other side snatched that note up and furiously wrote, "And we don't want you to be. You pork."
The shock of being called "A pork" was too much and Katie didn't even respond, but the next time the class met that same girl passed her a note that said
To all you white bitches talking shit about Africa [sic]: You better sleep with one eye open or we'll practice our voodoo on you and you will be floating in the Indian Ocean. Signed, Black Ossama.
I, personally, think that they're both hilarious. That being said, the sentiment behind them is not, and while I'm sure a very small portion of the population actually feels that kind of animosity towards us, it's still mildly disconcerting. But I've made a point of not updating when I'm either ecstatic or depressed because even though I experience both ends of the spectrum daily, I don't think that journaling during those extreme highs and extreme lows would paint an accurate picture of what it's like to be here. Likewise, I posted those notes because that is one aspect of my experience, but certainly not the whole experience. And they're nothing to worry about, Mom.
I've got two roommates, they are both fantastic. My friend Sam has three roommates named Ernest, Milk, and Cha Cha. My friend Anders does not know his roommates' names, but he walked into the communal bathroom one day and one of them was air-drying post shower. Standing there, arms akimbo, AIR-DRYING. Quite frankly, that's basically a metaphor for greater Tanzania. Air-drying for twenty minutes when a towel would do just fine. I love this country.
2.10.07
My laptop was stolen.
And after four days of wailing about living in this land of thieves, I have come to terms with it. Still kind of pissed, but I'll live. I'm lucky to be here.
Also, I tried logging onto the University website to register for classes the other day, and this is what I got:
See now, that DOESN'T work. At all, actually! You win some, you lose some. That was a definite win.
Also, I tried logging onto the University website to register for classes the other day, and this is what I got:
See now, that DOESN'T work. At all, actually! You win some, you lose some. That was a definite win.
28.9.07
ZIMZAM
God did something and there is INTERNET in my DORM. I have to wiggle a little bit and hold one leg in the air with my laptop perched on my knee, but I am getting internet, and it is relatively fast, and I will never leave. I will be here all day, everyday. Because I have internet. Plus I just got back from Zimbabwe and I’m tired. I have peppermint tea in one hand, courtesy of my new electric kettle, and am juggling SD cards with the other. Life is good sometimes.
So, Zimbabwe. I’ve already misled you - I was in Zimbabwe for all of 30 minutes, but it sounds much more intense to say I trucked off to Zimbabwe for a week than Zambia - Zambia, don’t you know that relative peace and (sort of) prosperity is uncool! Even though Zambia isn’t nearly as Bad A as its run-into-the-ground-by-a-terrible-dictator neighbor, I had the most amazing trip of my young life. I use a lot of superlatives in everyday speech because I think a lot of things are the coolest or a lot of days are the best of my life, but this week was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. My friend Hannah and I were daladala-ing home from the orphanage Monday evening and she mentioned that she’d like to see Victoria Falls someday. 20 hours later, after picking up Elizabeth and moving into our new rooms (they finally got this worked out - I am in the same room, two floors up) and checking visa requirements ($25, said that lying piece of you know website) on the internet, we were sitting in the train station and congratulating ourselves for how well things had worked out thus far considering our utter failure to plan one single thing. They boarded the train (on time, surprisingly) and everyone rushed to their cars. Tanzanian women don‘t play around. Mom, you need to learn how to do this with your suitcase so you can fit in when you come here:
We hopped into our compartment, noted its cleanliness, and were delighted to find a seemingly nice, mild-mannered Zambian woman who was to be our roommate for the 43-hour journey. She sat in a mound of shopping bags stuffed with cheap Tanzanian goods that she was smuggling across the border so she could jack up the prices and extort the Zambian public, but her maternal smile put me at ease. First impressions are deceiving. She was not nice. She was not mild-mannered. She was not maternal. I am shaking my head violently right now. No no no. Children, cover your ears: this woman was a heinous bia. Throughout the course of our journey, I came to realize that she was nothing good at all, just karma for every terrible thing I’ve done manifesting itself in the form of a pushy, bosomy Zambian.
We took some obligatory we're on trains! pictures and then staked out spots and happily settled into our reading material. Here is a little fact about me: I am very content to just sit and be transported. I love riding airplanes, buses, trains, cars, whatever. I don’t get bored, I don’t need to play cards or be actively engaged all the time. Sometimes I like to just sit. When I’m traveling across the continent and have the opportunity to see exotic terrain, I like to sit next to the window, but that a-hole Zambian lady immediately started squawking at me for stealing “her” seat, never mind the fact that she, in her own words, makes this journey 6 times a year. Whatever, that’s okay, I’m not picky and I was going to do nothing anyways, just in a different spot. Three hours passed without event. Around dinnertime the three of us left for the dinner car, taking all of our belongings with us so she wouldn’t feel obligated to watch our stuff, and when we got back 45 minutes later she started barking at us for holding her up and not watching her stuff so she could go to her friend’s compartment. She’s a little temperamental, also okay. She left to go talk with her friend, probably about being a terrible person, and we were exhausted so we went to bed around 9 pm. I was abruptly awakened when she forcefully flung open the door and flicked on the light at 11 pm. Fine, the old bat needs to get her bearings. She proceeded to hang her girdle from the ceiling, about six inches from my face, and be as loud as possible before finally turning the lights off and going to bed. I fell asleep. I woke up, to lights again, at midnight. She was lumbering around the room, braying like a donkey about being cold (it was hot) and I watched her shake Elizabeth awake so that Elizabeth could close the window for her. Elizabeth did this. She turned off the lights. We went to sleep. At 1 I woke, lights on, to her screaming at the attendants outside the door to run and get her more blankets. Lights off. I fell asleep. At 2 I woke because many people were screaming right next to my head. I will give you sixteen guesses to figure out what was happening. That’s how many it took me.
Whatever you guessed, you are wrong. Our a-hole roommate was bargaining for rice out the window of our compartment. At 2 am. She was shouting prices and slamming her meaty fists on the table with each price named, to prove that she was mean and terrible, I think, and village women were yelling back, and I was just so, so sad. The banshees were going at it for an hour and a half, and I was not sleeping for an hour and a half, and finally she swindled them out of, like, 50% of their annual income, and laid down with a satisfied I-just-ruined-some-lives smile on her face. And we slept. Until 5, when she was up and bumping into things. I hate this woman. Here is a picture of Hannah hating this woman:
Wednesday we napped while she went to her friend’s car to discuss ruining our lives, and when she came back around dinnertime we simply moved our things to the drinks car and refused to deal with her. That was a great plan, I thought, especially when a darling 5-ish year old boy came and sat by me. His dad was drinking with his buddies at a table nearby, and the car was relatively full of men enjoying nightcaps. We were sort of but not really conversing in Swahili - I can barely understand it when real people speak Swahili, a tiny person version is out of the question - but all of a sudden he grabbed my boob and said Maziwa, maziwa! Milk, milk! And that got everyone’s attention. All the men were laughing really loudly, and I do not know what was happening exactly, except that it was very awkward and lasted a very long time. Here is that tiny person scrunching my face up so that I have a lot of chins. Isn’t he precious?
Border patrol came around shortly before we crossed the Zambian border Thursday morning and, having checked the $25 visa fee for American citizens, we handed him everything without a second thought. Mmm, wrong. The Zambian visa for American citizens is $100 USD. And we….did not have that. They were telling us they had to kick us off the train and throw us into the bush and whatnot, and Hannah was pleading with them, and it was a huge ordeal until we eventually ironed out a deal. We gave them $187 + the equivalent of $13 in Zambian kwacha (+ some bribe money, because this is Africa), they gave Hannah and I visas and handed Elizabeth deportation papers with the understanding that she had to get a visa in the next two days. It wasn’t such a big deal in the end, except that that is a lot of money, and the transaction wiped us clean of all our USD and all our kwacha. When we finally pulled into the train station at New Kapiri around noon, we had to walk downtown (no money for taxis, haha), withdraw kwacha from the ATM and then, in what was the most painful experience of my life, BUY American dollars at terrible exchange rates. I love exchange rates. I take full advantage of them when I convert dollars into Tanzanian shillings, but it’s a horrible thing to suffer the other way around. I BOUGHT my OWN money. I’m still very sad about this, especially since we’d have to buy more dollars to get back into Tanzania, since this country knows nothing of efficiency (for better or worse, in my opinion) and after two months still hasn’t processed our residence permits.
Anyways, we’d arrived in Kapiri more or less no worse for the wear, and had to bus our way to Lusaka and then on to Livingstone. The bus ride to Lusaka was supposed to take two hours. It took six. As with most things in Africa, I do not know why. The bus kept stopping for whatever reason and they kept making me get off the bus for whatever reason. The driver would yell at me and point at the door (this is in Bemba, which I don’t even sort of speak) and I would climb over people and stand just outside the bus while no one else moved. The driver would do nothing, the assistant would do nothing, no one would do anything. Then after three minutes they would say Okay! And let me climb back on the bus. This happened at least three times. Again, I haven’t a clue. We got to Lusaka around dusk, and a really nice lady let us stay in “the executive cottage” for a 40% reduced rate since it was all we had to spare. We made it to the bus station the next morning with little trouble and met some really friendly ticket guys. “You want baby? I can get you one. No, don’t be scared! I have a Bemba woman at home.”
This bus ride was a lot nicer. We had seats up front, and even though a tiny African baby kept scissor kicking my head through the seat cracks, they played the entire Backstreet Boys collection, on repeat, for all six hours of the trip. Dad, you would have been in heaven. That being said, the trip was a pleasant surprise, and our hostel added to our glee. Jolly Boys, as we found out later, was founded by “two queers” (political correctness is a purely American invention, I am sure of it), and is wonderful considering it’s only $8 per bed. It was clean and pretty and the staff was really friendly. And they had a really cool reading den:
Saturday morning we took our time, and hit the falls around 11am. It’s dry season so it’s not very green right now and instead of a mile of falls, it only pours in a few places. Still, it was beautiful and I don't want to sell it short. We hiked down to the bottom (Boiling Pot):
And then up around the top:
And I will explain my good friend Hannah to you later, but this Gator flag was obviously not my idea:
Then walked over to the Zimbabwean side about 300 meters, hit the Welcome to Zimbabwe sign, and turned around. $30 visas are too expensive sometimes.
We got back to Jolly Boys that night and I became obsessed with a flyer I’d found for what I thought was a ropes course over the gorge, basically. We signed up for the next day, and it was better than I could have imagined. We paid for a full day including breakfast, lunch, and free drinks. They picked us up at Jolly Boys at 8:30 in the morning and soon Hannah had rappelled to the bottom of a cliff and I was harnessed at the top trying to talk the assistants into letting me stay at the top. As with most everything else, I did it, I just needed some coaxing. After that we couldn’t get enough. I did the flying squirrel:
And then Hannah and I did the gorge swing tandem:
Before we did the gorge swing tandem, Hannah shotgunned one of the free beers. Her first words once we got to the bottom, "Wow, I think I can feel that beer!" Yeah, I bet she could, because if you watch the video you'll notice Hannah start counting down AFTER we began the freefall. Nevertheless, I was the happiest I've ever been, even though after 10 minutes of being instructed to KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN YOU WILL GET WHIPLASH KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN YOU WILL GET WHIPLASH the first thing I did as I felt myself fall was pop my head up and look around. You can kind of see my head jerk back at the bottom if you zoom in and squint, and my neck was sore for days. But it was absolutely worth it.
And this was just the kick off for what turned out to be an unimaginably absurd day, but we met some Peace Corps boys who have the night off tonight, so we're going out for dinner and dancing so I'll have to continue tomorrow. Problematically, the water in my dorm shut off yesterday evening and I have been unable to shower since...drumroll... Monday night! But Africa is a land of resourcefulness, and we'll...see what I come up with?
So, Zimbabwe. I’ve already misled you - I was in Zimbabwe for all of 30 minutes, but it sounds much more intense to say I trucked off to Zimbabwe for a week than Zambia - Zambia, don’t you know that relative peace and (sort of) prosperity is uncool! Even though Zambia isn’t nearly as Bad A as its run-into-the-ground-by-a-terrible-dictator neighbor, I had the most amazing trip of my young life. I use a lot of superlatives in everyday speech because I think a lot of things are the coolest or a lot of days are the best of my life, but this week was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. My friend Hannah and I were daladala-ing home from the orphanage Monday evening and she mentioned that she’d like to see Victoria Falls someday. 20 hours later, after picking up Elizabeth and moving into our new rooms (they finally got this worked out - I am in the same room, two floors up) and checking visa requirements ($25, said that lying piece of you know website) on the internet, we were sitting in the train station and congratulating ourselves for how well things had worked out thus far considering our utter failure to plan one single thing. They boarded the train (on time, surprisingly) and everyone rushed to their cars. Tanzanian women don‘t play around. Mom, you need to learn how to do this with your suitcase so you can fit in when you come here:
We hopped into our compartment, noted its cleanliness, and were delighted to find a seemingly nice, mild-mannered Zambian woman who was to be our roommate for the 43-hour journey. She sat in a mound of shopping bags stuffed with cheap Tanzanian goods that she was smuggling across the border so she could jack up the prices and extort the Zambian public, but her maternal smile put me at ease. First impressions are deceiving. She was not nice. She was not mild-mannered. She was not maternal. I am shaking my head violently right now. No no no. Children, cover your ears: this woman was a heinous bia. Throughout the course of our journey, I came to realize that she was nothing good at all, just karma for every terrible thing I’ve done manifesting itself in the form of a pushy, bosomy Zambian.
We took some obligatory we're on trains! pictures and then staked out spots and happily settled into our reading material. Here is a little fact about me: I am very content to just sit and be transported. I love riding airplanes, buses, trains, cars, whatever. I don’t get bored, I don’t need to play cards or be actively engaged all the time. Sometimes I like to just sit. When I’m traveling across the continent and have the opportunity to see exotic terrain, I like to sit next to the window, but that a-hole Zambian lady immediately started squawking at me for stealing “her” seat, never mind the fact that she, in her own words, makes this journey 6 times a year. Whatever, that’s okay, I’m not picky and I was going to do nothing anyways, just in a different spot. Three hours passed without event. Around dinnertime the three of us left for the dinner car, taking all of our belongings with us so she wouldn’t feel obligated to watch our stuff, and when we got back 45 minutes later she started barking at us for holding her up and not watching her stuff so she could go to her friend’s compartment. She’s a little temperamental, also okay. She left to go talk with her friend, probably about being a terrible person, and we were exhausted so we went to bed around 9 pm. I was abruptly awakened when she forcefully flung open the door and flicked on the light at 11 pm. Fine, the old bat needs to get her bearings. She proceeded to hang her girdle from the ceiling, about six inches from my face, and be as loud as possible before finally turning the lights off and going to bed. I fell asleep. I woke up, to lights again, at midnight. She was lumbering around the room, braying like a donkey about being cold (it was hot) and I watched her shake Elizabeth awake so that Elizabeth could close the window for her. Elizabeth did this. She turned off the lights. We went to sleep. At 1 I woke, lights on, to her screaming at the attendants outside the door to run and get her more blankets. Lights off. I fell asleep. At 2 I woke because many people were screaming right next to my head. I will give you sixteen guesses to figure out what was happening. That’s how many it took me.
Whatever you guessed, you are wrong. Our a-hole roommate was bargaining for rice out the window of our compartment. At 2 am. She was shouting prices and slamming her meaty fists on the table with each price named, to prove that she was mean and terrible, I think, and village women were yelling back, and I was just so, so sad. The banshees were going at it for an hour and a half, and I was not sleeping for an hour and a half, and finally she swindled them out of, like, 50% of their annual income, and laid down with a satisfied I-just-ruined-some-lives smile on her face. And we slept. Until 5, when she was up and bumping into things. I hate this woman. Here is a picture of Hannah hating this woman:
Wednesday we napped while she went to her friend’s car to discuss ruining our lives, and when she came back around dinnertime we simply moved our things to the drinks car and refused to deal with her. That was a great plan, I thought, especially when a darling 5-ish year old boy came and sat by me. His dad was drinking with his buddies at a table nearby, and the car was relatively full of men enjoying nightcaps. We were sort of but not really conversing in Swahili - I can barely understand it when real people speak Swahili, a tiny person version is out of the question - but all of a sudden he grabbed my boob and said Maziwa, maziwa! Milk, milk! And that got everyone’s attention. All the men were laughing really loudly, and I do not know what was happening exactly, except that it was very awkward and lasted a very long time. Here is that tiny person scrunching my face up so that I have a lot of chins. Isn’t he precious?
Border patrol came around shortly before we crossed the Zambian border Thursday morning and, having checked the $25 visa fee for American citizens, we handed him everything without a second thought. Mmm, wrong. The Zambian visa for American citizens is $100 USD. And we….did not have that. They were telling us they had to kick us off the train and throw us into the bush and whatnot, and Hannah was pleading with them, and it was a huge ordeal until we eventually ironed out a deal. We gave them $187 + the equivalent of $13 in Zambian kwacha (+ some bribe money, because this is Africa), they gave Hannah and I visas and handed Elizabeth deportation papers with the understanding that she had to get a visa in the next two days. It wasn’t such a big deal in the end, except that that is a lot of money, and the transaction wiped us clean of all our USD and all our kwacha. When we finally pulled into the train station at New Kapiri around noon, we had to walk downtown (no money for taxis, haha), withdraw kwacha from the ATM and then, in what was the most painful experience of my life, BUY American dollars at terrible exchange rates. I love exchange rates. I take full advantage of them when I convert dollars into Tanzanian shillings, but it’s a horrible thing to suffer the other way around. I BOUGHT my OWN money. I’m still very sad about this, especially since we’d have to buy more dollars to get back into Tanzania, since this country knows nothing of efficiency (for better or worse, in my opinion) and after two months still hasn’t processed our residence permits.
Anyways, we’d arrived in Kapiri more or less no worse for the wear, and had to bus our way to Lusaka and then on to Livingstone. The bus ride to Lusaka was supposed to take two hours. It took six. As with most things in Africa, I do not know why. The bus kept stopping for whatever reason and they kept making me get off the bus for whatever reason. The driver would yell at me and point at the door (this is in Bemba, which I don’t even sort of speak) and I would climb over people and stand just outside the bus while no one else moved. The driver would do nothing, the assistant would do nothing, no one would do anything. Then after three minutes they would say Okay! And let me climb back on the bus. This happened at least three times. Again, I haven’t a clue. We got to Lusaka around dusk, and a really nice lady let us stay in “the executive cottage” for a 40% reduced rate since it was all we had to spare. We made it to the bus station the next morning with little trouble and met some really friendly ticket guys. “You want baby? I can get you one. No, don’t be scared! I have a Bemba woman at home.”
This bus ride was a lot nicer. We had seats up front, and even though a tiny African baby kept scissor kicking my head through the seat cracks, they played the entire Backstreet Boys collection, on repeat, for all six hours of the trip. Dad, you would have been in heaven. That being said, the trip was a pleasant surprise, and our hostel added to our glee. Jolly Boys, as we found out later, was founded by “two queers” (political correctness is a purely American invention, I am sure of it), and is wonderful considering it’s only $8 per bed. It was clean and pretty and the staff was really friendly. And they had a really cool reading den:
Saturday morning we took our time, and hit the falls around 11am. It’s dry season so it’s not very green right now and instead of a mile of falls, it only pours in a few places. Still, it was beautiful and I don't want to sell it short. We hiked down to the bottom (Boiling Pot):
And then up around the top:
And I will explain my good friend Hannah to you later, but this Gator flag was obviously not my idea:
Then walked over to the Zimbabwean side about 300 meters, hit the Welcome to Zimbabwe sign, and turned around. $30 visas are too expensive sometimes.
We got back to Jolly Boys that night and I became obsessed with a flyer I’d found for what I thought was a ropes course over the gorge, basically. We signed up for the next day, and it was better than I could have imagined. We paid for a full day including breakfast, lunch, and free drinks. They picked us up at Jolly Boys at 8:30 in the morning and soon Hannah had rappelled to the bottom of a cliff and I was harnessed at the top trying to talk the assistants into letting me stay at the top. As with most everything else, I did it, I just needed some coaxing. After that we couldn’t get enough. I did the flying squirrel:
And then Hannah and I did the gorge swing tandem:
Before we did the gorge swing tandem, Hannah shotgunned one of the free beers. Her first words once we got to the bottom, "Wow, I think I can feel that beer!" Yeah, I bet she could, because if you watch the video you'll notice Hannah start counting down AFTER we began the freefall. Nevertheless, I was the happiest I've ever been, even though after 10 minutes of being instructed to KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN YOU WILL GET WHIPLASH KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN YOU WILL GET WHIPLASH the first thing I did as I felt myself fall was pop my head up and look around. You can kind of see my head jerk back at the bottom if you zoom in and squint, and my neck was sore for days. But it was absolutely worth it.
And this was just the kick off for what turned out to be an unimaginably absurd day, but we met some Peace Corps boys who have the night off tonight, so we're going out for dinner and dancing so I'll have to continue tomorrow. Problematically, the water in my dorm shut off yesterday evening and I have been unable to shower since...drumroll... Monday night! But Africa is a land of resourcefulness, and we'll...see what I come up with?
11.9.07
Miss Tanzania
I forgot! I need to update you on Miss Tanzania. There’s a huge controversy right now because some Indian chick won and doesn’t exactly represent the face of the average Tanzanian woman (I tend to agree), but the final five questions were too too amazing:
1. Q: Imagine you are in a beautiful, beautiful garden. It is SO beautiful! There are so many trees, and flowers. Look at the BEAUTIFUL flowers! What is your favorite color?
A: White. (I am horrified)
2. Q: Who are you?
A: I am a beautiful, beautiful girl! (I am thrilled.)
3. Q: Nature has blessed Tanzania. HASN’T it?
A: Yes… (I am…just confused.)
4. Q: Imagine that you have been invited to go to an Indian party. What would you wear?
A: (What?)
1. Q: Imagine you are in a beautiful, beautiful garden. It is SO beautiful! There are so many trees, and flowers. Look at the BEAUTIFUL flowers! What is your favorite color?
A: White. (I am horrified)
2. Q: Who are you?
A: I am a beautiful, beautiful girl! (I am thrilled.)
3. Q: Nature has blessed Tanzania. HASN’T it?
A: Yes… (I am…just confused.)
4. Q: Imagine that you have been invited to go to an Indian party. What would you wear?
A: (What?)
soapbox, sailors
All last week I found myself mounted firmly atop my high horse and unable to climb down until I finally just fell off as a result of a lot of sailors and too many margaritas (by this I mean 2 total, Mom) at the US embassy. My summary makes the night sound far more debauched than it was, but I did hit the dance floor way too early and way too hard. Before that I’d been slowly simmering in my own self-righteousness and penning wild tirades like this one (careful, it’s long):
(04 September 07) Saturday was the month mark, but I think I missed my culture shock cue. I don’t care what I do or where I go from here on out, but this is my favorite place on EARTH. A lot of people here are already craving comfort foods and yesterday Hannah was bemoaning the distance between her and Gator football, but the only things I really miss are people, and Gainesville’s gotten me used to living without those (save for those three friends I accidentally made there) a while ago. I’ve written everyone who’s given me addresses at this point (Swahili class is as dull as the limits of your imagination will take you) so this might get painfully redundant, but I want to say something about the hardest part of Tanzania - it isn’t cold showers or squatter toilets, but rather coming to terms with being white.
Because here’s the thing - my country (most countries) has robbed this continent blind and left it for dead. A half a century of bad to terrible African leaders with too few exceptions doesn’t erase the fact that white people have been doing much worse for much longer. The only fairly elected leader Congo-Kinshasa (my neighbor to the west) has ever known was assassinated in a CIA-orchestrated coup. Damn commies, right? Except Patrice Lumumba pushed non-violence as a means of effecting change, and his US-installed successor siphoned billions of dollars off of the Congolese economy and became the 4th richest man in the world. Now 80% of that country lives on less than 50 cents a day. 50 cents a day! I lose as much to couches.
AND YET everyone here is so nice. I can’t even explain. The woodcarvers taking care of us in Mwenge and showing such unabashed gratitude, Mama Kaya pulling Elizabeth aside when she was crying from homesickness and just wrapping her up in a silent bear hug, schoolgirls telling us we’re beautiful (which is an entirely different animal). It’s true - we have at least four or five men a day come up to us wanting this or that favor, and some are uncomfortably pushy - but wouldn’t you be? Tanzania isn’t a golden ladder of opportunities - neither is America, but the two don’t compare. And how do I shrug my shoulders and smile apologetically, explaining that no, even though I have this nice iPod and this nice laptop and have five shirts for every one of yours, I don’t really have the means to sponsor this or fund that. A lot of drama just went down because our Swahili discussion leader, Elisha, kept asking to borrow things or if we knew of scholarship opportunities or if we could help him in his search for financial aid to support his higher education. The long and short of it is that he was almost fired because of cultural misunderstandings, and although everything more or less worked out, the fact remains that people see us as moneybags with legs. And it’s easy to see why.
And no, I didn’t personally enslave Africa, but every day I revel in the benefits made possible by the people who did. I’m so impressed by the monumental effort by this nation to forgive and move forward, but if anything that‘s only added to my sense of shame. It’s not that I hate America, or white people, or my life - I love all those things. It’s hard to explain, except to say that I feel like a walking reminder of a whole continent’s extremely painful past. But where in the hell does that kind of awareness get you if you’re still unwilling to change? Because here I sit, happily click-clacking away at my laptop. One of the most memorable things I’ve ever read was a quote by Paul Farmer (the book about him is called Mountains Beyond Mountains, /shameless plug) that basically says that you don’t get to change the world without changing your own life. Real progress means real sacrifice. And I’m not that big of a person yet.
And this is not what was supposed to happen to me in Africa. I was not supposed to get so preachy, flailing my arms and screaming down from my soapbox. The plan was to find some cool, subversive tactics to slowly turn people on to the idea that we need to right some wrongs (or have we meddled enough?), but here I am and I cannot stop myself from wanting to yell at everybody and everything. The shock of my return to America will be much worse than anything I’ve experienced here, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach the contrast. And I’m so stupidly irrational, because this is not the stuff change is made of. I don’t respond well to unprovoked attacks on my moral fiber, and no one else should either. I’m just going to sit here and pout and get mad at people for having money. All in a productive day’s work.
ANYWAYS. This weekend wasn’t a change of heart so much as a reminder that things happen slowly, and that being a petulant child doesn’t make me any friends. After stepping onto technically American soil Friday evening and having a really, really good time, I remembered a lot of good things about America and rediscovered my own fallibility, courtesy of “Brickhouse” and a live band. I would not have traded that night for the world. Everyone else in our program left for Bagamoyo, a tiny coastal city just north of Dar, Friday morning, but Hannah and Elizabeth and I stayed behind to take care of some errands and avoid the mess of traveling in such a huge pack. The Indiana girls on the floor above us tipped us off to a party at the American embassy, so we went out to dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant and then hit that up afterwards. As previously mentioned I danced my little heart out with moves to rival Elaine’s, and met a lot of really…nice (i.e. tall, dark, handsome!) people. We’re so used to 8 girls to 1 (highly pretentious) boy that it was nice to be on the flip side, not to hate on my gender or anything. In fact, I love every single girl in my program, and the best part of the night Friday was hanging out with Hannah and Elizabeth and just laughing and talking. Tanzania is not in any way stressful, but it was nice to go home for a little while.
The bus rides to our mandatory cultural excursions have been my favorite part of the mandatory cultural excursions so far because I just sit by the window with my iPod (this is what I’m talking about, awareness with no motivation to change) and watch the countryside. When the three of us stragglers finally got there early Saturday afternoon everyone else was already biking around town in 90 degree heat for some heritage tour, so we sat on the beach and talked to some locals for a while. Some of the children started crying when they saw us, so the women revealed that when children are behaving badly they’re told to straighten up or the mzungu will get them. We’re boogeymen in Tanzania. Which explains why Nyandula, a precious two-year-old at the orphanage, starts screaming every time we enter the room. Actually, that could also be because Hannah, impervious to the “subtleties” of Kiswahili, keeps calling her Ndovu. Which means ugly elephant.
That night we rode piki piki (motorcycles) to dinner. We were riding 11-deep on a two-lane dirt road and literally WEAVING in and out of traffic. It was a lot a lot of fun, and afterwards we watched Tanzania v. Mozambique on the All in the Family retro tv set. What?
So that brings us to this week, registration. Basically, campus is a circus and NOBODY, not even administration, has any idea what is going on. When do we register? Where do we register? When do we move in with our Tanzanian roommates? Why is my name not even on the list to get a room? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, come back tomorrow . Okay…what time should I stop by? I don’t know. This is how all conversations in Tanzania go. So wish me luck with all this and cross your fingers so that I don’t end up homeless. In Tanzania. Because there are few worse fates to befall me. Although I guess I’d probably be in good company (there I go again!).
Happy Birthdays to Andy, Mom, Mallory, Natalie, and Fast Alex. If I don’t have your address, it’s your own fault you’re not getting anything.
(04 September 07) Saturday was the month mark, but I think I missed my culture shock cue. I don’t care what I do or where I go from here on out, but this is my favorite place on EARTH. A lot of people here are already craving comfort foods and yesterday Hannah was bemoaning the distance between her and Gator football, but the only things I really miss are people, and Gainesville’s gotten me used to living without those (save for those three friends I accidentally made there) a while ago. I’ve written everyone who’s given me addresses at this point (Swahili class is as dull as the limits of your imagination will take you) so this might get painfully redundant, but I want to say something about the hardest part of Tanzania - it isn’t cold showers or squatter toilets, but rather coming to terms with being white.
Because here’s the thing - my country (most countries) has robbed this continent blind and left it for dead. A half a century of bad to terrible African leaders with too few exceptions doesn’t erase the fact that white people have been doing much worse for much longer. The only fairly elected leader Congo-Kinshasa (my neighbor to the west) has ever known was assassinated in a CIA-orchestrated coup. Damn commies, right? Except Patrice Lumumba pushed non-violence as a means of effecting change, and his US-installed successor siphoned billions of dollars off of the Congolese economy and became the 4th richest man in the world. Now 80% of that country lives on less than 50 cents a day. 50 cents a day! I lose as much to couches.
AND YET everyone here is so nice. I can’t even explain. The woodcarvers taking care of us in Mwenge and showing such unabashed gratitude, Mama Kaya pulling Elizabeth aside when she was crying from homesickness and just wrapping her up in a silent bear hug, schoolgirls telling us we’re beautiful (which is an entirely different animal). It’s true - we have at least four or five men a day come up to us wanting this or that favor, and some are uncomfortably pushy - but wouldn’t you be? Tanzania isn’t a golden ladder of opportunities - neither is America, but the two don’t compare. And how do I shrug my shoulders and smile apologetically, explaining that no, even though I have this nice iPod and this nice laptop and have five shirts for every one of yours, I don’t really have the means to sponsor this or fund that. A lot of drama just went down because our Swahili discussion leader, Elisha, kept asking to borrow things or if we knew of scholarship opportunities or if we could help him in his search for financial aid to support his higher education. The long and short of it is that he was almost fired because of cultural misunderstandings, and although everything more or less worked out, the fact remains that people see us as moneybags with legs. And it’s easy to see why.
And no, I didn’t personally enslave Africa, but every day I revel in the benefits made possible by the people who did. I’m so impressed by the monumental effort by this nation to forgive and move forward, but if anything that‘s only added to my sense of shame. It’s not that I hate America, or white people, or my life - I love all those things. It’s hard to explain, except to say that I feel like a walking reminder of a whole continent’s extremely painful past. But where in the hell does that kind of awareness get you if you’re still unwilling to change? Because here I sit, happily click-clacking away at my laptop. One of the most memorable things I’ve ever read was a quote by Paul Farmer (the book about him is called Mountains Beyond Mountains, /shameless plug) that basically says that you don’t get to change the world without changing your own life. Real progress means real sacrifice. And I’m not that big of a person yet.
And this is not what was supposed to happen to me in Africa. I was not supposed to get so preachy, flailing my arms and screaming down from my soapbox. The plan was to find some cool, subversive tactics to slowly turn people on to the idea that we need to right some wrongs (or have we meddled enough?), but here I am and I cannot stop myself from wanting to yell at everybody and everything. The shock of my return to America will be much worse than anything I’ve experienced here, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach the contrast. And I’m so stupidly irrational, because this is not the stuff change is made of. I don’t respond well to unprovoked attacks on my moral fiber, and no one else should either. I’m just going to sit here and pout and get mad at people for having money. All in a productive day’s work.
ANYWAYS. This weekend wasn’t a change of heart so much as a reminder that things happen slowly, and that being a petulant child doesn’t make me any friends. After stepping onto technically American soil Friday evening and having a really, really good time, I remembered a lot of good things about America and rediscovered my own fallibility, courtesy of “Brickhouse” and a live band. I would not have traded that night for the world. Everyone else in our program left for Bagamoyo, a tiny coastal city just north of Dar, Friday morning, but Hannah and Elizabeth and I stayed behind to take care of some errands and avoid the mess of traveling in such a huge pack. The Indiana girls on the floor above us tipped us off to a party at the American embassy, so we went out to dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant and then hit that up afterwards. As previously mentioned I danced my little heart out with moves to rival Elaine’s, and met a lot of really…nice (i.e. tall, dark, handsome!) people. We’re so used to 8 girls to 1 (highly pretentious) boy that it was nice to be on the flip side, not to hate on my gender or anything. In fact, I love every single girl in my program, and the best part of the night Friday was hanging out with Hannah and Elizabeth and just laughing and talking. Tanzania is not in any way stressful, but it was nice to go home for a little while.
The bus rides to our mandatory cultural excursions have been my favorite part of the mandatory cultural excursions so far because I just sit by the window with my iPod (this is what I’m talking about, awareness with no motivation to change) and watch the countryside. When the three of us stragglers finally got there early Saturday afternoon everyone else was already biking around town in 90 degree heat for some heritage tour, so we sat on the beach and talked to some locals for a while. Some of the children started crying when they saw us, so the women revealed that when children are behaving badly they’re told to straighten up or the mzungu will get them. We’re boogeymen in Tanzania. Which explains why Nyandula, a precious two-year-old at the orphanage, starts screaming every time we enter the room. Actually, that could also be because Hannah, impervious to the “subtleties” of Kiswahili, keeps calling her Ndovu. Which means ugly elephant.
That night we rode piki piki (motorcycles) to dinner. We were riding 11-deep on a two-lane dirt road and literally WEAVING in and out of traffic. It was a lot a lot of fun, and afterwards we watched Tanzania v. Mozambique on the All in the Family retro tv set. What?
So that brings us to this week, registration. Basically, campus is a circus and NOBODY, not even administration, has any idea what is going on. When do we register? Where do we register? When do we move in with our Tanzanian roommates? Why is my name not even on the list to get a room? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, come back tomorrow . Okay…what time should I stop by? I don’t know. This is how all conversations in Tanzania go. So wish me luck with all this and cross your fingers so that I don’t end up homeless. In Tanzania. Because there are few worse fates to befall me. Although I guess I’d probably be in good company (there I go again!).
Happy Birthdays to Andy, Mom, Mallory, Natalie, and Fast Alex. If I don’t have your address, it’s your own fault you’re not getting anything.
2.9.07
It's all fun and games until someone gets body checked by a prostitute.
This weekend was AMAZING amazing. Friday we had a test in Swahili so after I wrote down some jibber jabber we headed to the roof to hang out since it’s 9 stories up and has the most beautiful view of the city. It was locked, but Elizabeth and I hacksawed onto it last week in what was probably the worst idea I’ve ever co-developed. Now it’s just a giant mockery house since I’m apparently the only logical person in this country. I’m not even afraid of heights, but I am afraid of plummeting to my death, so god only knows why these senseless lunatics keep making fun of me for army crawling all over the roof. Honestly. But besides some scrapes on my stomach, it was a chill afternoon, although I started panicking when I realized that all the other programs were on organized excursions this weekend so Elizabeth and I had to teach the woodcarvers without any help whatsoever. When we got there she seemed to be doing fine right off the bat, but the advanced/intermediate group utterly floored me. They came in with lists of words they’d encountered and needed defined and I was up there fumbling through English definitions of “condemned” and “hustler,“ thanks to 50 Cent, Tanzania‘s favorite musical artist behind Tracy Chapman. I encouraged everyone to try to make sentences demonstrating knowledge of their vocabulary and I got things like, “I was condemned when I was eight years old,“ and “Lajabu is a hustler”. Good job, guys. Then I accidentally said something about diarrhea in Swahili, and realized that people in glass houses shouldn‘t throw stones. Still, I had a great, great time and even though Elizabeth and I were left circling the Ubungo-Mwenge loop on the dala dala system a good hour longer than usual, it left me with an unbeatable sense of accomplishment. Then I went to bed.
But it was okay! We had a free weekend to do whatever we pleased, so we split in half and four of us went to the Miss Tanzania pageant (I’m awaiting news) and the other five of us went to a beach a ten-minute ferry ride from Dar. I was part of beach crew, and it was the best decision ever. The dala dalas were too packed so we ended up having to split, so Hannah and Elizabeth hopped on the first dala dala that came through. Unfortunately for them, the crew decided not to follow its usual route and we watched with horror as their bus turned left and head up a mountain in the opposite direction. C’est la vie Tanzanian. The rest of us made it in good time (survival of the fittest, dawg - and they got there eventually), and about forty babies later (people just hand them to you when they get tired of them), we paid Tsh 33, 000 (About $29) for all five of us to get a room, and then spread our towels out and watched this camel tote people up and down the beach. Really sweet, but not eventful. That night was better, because they played “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “Waiting for Tonight” at the beach bar. We were all on the dance floor having a good time, when this nutso prostitute attacked me. I was minding my own business and shimmying with Megan, and in the blink of an eye I was face down on the floor, limbs flailing. I WISH I were exaggerating:
...
Then we crammed four to a bed with Elizabeth on the floor (sorry, tall girl) and…didn’t really sleep at all. Because we were crammed four to a bed with Elizabeth on the floor. But the sunrise was pretty? And we went to breakfast (milk! They had milk!), and met this ex-Marine (Ted, I want praise) who’s in TZ laying fiber optic cables with some Dutch company. He ended up driving us back to the ferry port, which was incredibly nice, but more importantly he’s going to get us an in with the embassy because next week is FLEET WEEK. Squeal squeal squeal. Oh I can’t even tell you how much I love this country. Friends, relatives, countrymen - come visit:
1. Things are cheap. CHEAP. $29 for a beach-front tiki hut, $19 on Wednesdays? Come ON.
2. Prostitutes aplenty.
3. It’s TanzaNIA. Think of all the street cred.
But it was okay! We had a free weekend to do whatever we pleased, so we split in half and four of us went to the Miss Tanzania pageant (I’m awaiting news) and the other five of us went to a beach a ten-minute ferry ride from Dar. I was part of beach crew, and it was the best decision ever. The dala dalas were too packed so we ended up having to split, so Hannah and Elizabeth hopped on the first dala dala that came through. Unfortunately for them, the crew decided not to follow its usual route and we watched with horror as their bus turned left and head up a mountain in the opposite direction. C’est la vie Tanzanian. The rest of us made it in good time (survival of the fittest, dawg - and they got there eventually), and about forty babies later (people just hand them to you when they get tired of them), we paid Tsh 33, 000 (About $29) for all five of us to get a room, and then spread our towels out and watched this camel tote people up and down the beach. Really sweet, but not eventful. That night was better, because they played “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “Waiting for Tonight” at the beach bar. We were all on the dance floor having a good time, when this nutso prostitute attacked me. I was minding my own business and shimmying with Megan, and in the blink of an eye I was face down on the floor, limbs flailing. I WISH I were exaggerating:
...
Then we crammed four to a bed with Elizabeth on the floor (sorry, tall girl) and…didn’t really sleep at all. Because we were crammed four to a bed with Elizabeth on the floor. But the sunrise was pretty? And we went to breakfast (milk! They had milk!), and met this ex-Marine (Ted, I want praise) who’s in TZ laying fiber optic cables with some Dutch company. He ended up driving us back to the ferry port, which was incredibly nice, but more importantly he’s going to get us an in with the embassy because next week is FLEET WEEK. Squeal squeal squeal. Oh I can’t even tell you how much I love this country. Friends, relatives, countrymen - come visit:
1. Things are cheap. CHEAP. $29 for a beach-front tiki hut, $19 on Wednesdays? Come ON.
2. Prostitutes aplenty.
3. It’s TanzaNIA. Think of all the street cred.
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