So What's Normal Anyway?

Kawaida means normal or regular, and kawaida where I am is a far cry from kawaida where you are, wherever that is. Some things have become normal, some things never will never be, and some things, although normal now, bother me because they shouldn't be, ever.


Malaria. How can this be normal? Every week I ask about an absent kid, or a friend, and someone tells me, Oh, he's got malaria and I say Oh, pole, and move on. I'm amazed at how blase I've become about a disease that kills a healthy chunk of the population on a daily basis. There's programs all over Africa to give mosquito nets to every Tom, Dick and Rashid in the village, but the anopheles female, the little girl mosquito who injects parasites into our blood cells, where they replicate, explode, then find other red cells, likes to work from dusk to dawn. 

Little cafe near my house where you can get chai

 and chapati,or maandazi. Note lots of ventilation, 

otherwise called holes

in the wall.

SO if everyone got under their nets at dusk it wouldn't be such a huge problem. But they don't. Kids play till well after dark, outside, because there's nothing to do inside.

Not all nets get to the target groups, instead finding their way to maduka and sold for a tidy profit. Folks here also use them in the gardens, to keep the bugs away. The feeling is that you can recover from malaria, but starvation is a sure thing. Can't say I blame them, priorities are most certainly not universal.

Personally, I hate the things. I've tried to sleep under them but it's like having a spider net three feet from my nose. Plus the bugs land on the nets and leer at me all through the night, taunting me. I get up at night and without fail, get tangled up in the thing. Fortunately, my house is well built, there's screens on the windows, and tape on the holes in the screens. I am well protected. Besides, I'm rarely out at night because in the village there's no place to go and nothing to do when you get there.

The problem with repeated malaria is that folks run around anemic all the time, (see above re exploding red blood cells). My friend Martha has malaria now, and her hemoglobin is 5. Practically bloodless, and when she stands up her eyes roll around in her head. Also, over time, there's a chance of liver enlargement, and over time means kids as well as adults. It all depends on how often you get it, how bad it is, if it's treated... This place is a bacterial war zone.

Sitting in the shade in the afternoon, 

preparing vegetables.

This kid thinks I'm Freddy Krueger. 

About 2 seconds after I 

took this shot, the kid in front started up. 

Note laughing mom.

Less disturbing on the kawaida scale is kids screaming when they see me, which happens more than you'd think. Years ago, I took it more personally, now I join in on the fun.  I'm benign enough, I have only a minimal resemblance to an ax murderer, so it must be that I'm mzungu. In the village it's not hard to be  the first white person a kid sees.



Yesterday I went to visit Teacher Martha and passed by a family sitting outside (at dusk), cooking their dinner. Their little son took one look at me, covered his eyes, and screamed in mortal fear. I've learned to carry small candies, little sugar bribes. The kids always take it, sometimes from my hand, sometimes I have to throw it to them. But they scream the whole time nonetheless. While everyone laughs. I finally got someone to admit that parents tell their kids if they don't behave they're gonna give 'em to the whitefolks. I knew it all along, it just took a while for someone to finally admit it.

Chipsi mayaai. A local food made by frying

 up potatoes (chips) then refrying them with 

3-4 eggs. A little greasy, but filling.

Kids with weapons. I just don't care anymore.On my first trip to Africa I lived in an orphanage in Ghana, 105 kids, mostly little. And they carried razor blades. Not all of them, but many, and frequently. Too aghast to speak, I'd take them,and in the end I had quite a collection of blades, in varying degrees of rustage. They use them to sharpen pencils, shave their heads, cut their nails... Now I walk right by them in the street. They're like pennies, not worth picking up. But at the same time I yell at myself for not worrying about it. There was a great line in an old Dolly Parton movie, something about not knowing whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt. That's a fairly accurate description of how I feel sometimes.

Village kids carry pangas, long machete type things, sometimes longer than the actual kid. They use them to cut grass, and unless I want to cut their grass for them, I just say hi and continue on my way. I remember once in Ghana telling a man that he might want to wear shoes when he cut grass, steel toed if possible. That was a long time ago, and I can only smile at how dopey I must have sounded.

I don't think I'll ever be ok with a kid walking up to me, palm up, saying "Give me my money". Most times it's the only English he/she knows. My Kiswahili has gotten good enough to explain that this is rude in a multitude of ways, and besides that, it's not their money. I imagine this has worked for them at one time, and this is why they keep trying, but it just raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Local ladies doing laundry. They do a great job

 getting the dirt out, but there's a water 

shortage, so the clothes always

feel a little soapy. But clean.

Equally abhorrent is "Give me my gift". I've researched this, and in Africa it's not considered rude to ask for a gift. However it's like giving a kid a piece of candy, they tell their friends and in two minutes the entire under 8 population is banging at the door. I've even been asked by people I don't know. I'd like to meet the dumb mzungu who started all this.

Extended periods of foodlessness. Kids in America eat all the time, as they should. Grazing is good for a kid, like it's good for cows. But then the cows here are pretty skinny.Three of my preschoolers came to school today and hadn't eaten since the previous afternoon. I know I've talked about folks here having maybe 2 meals/day, but to be unfed for 16 hours when you're only 6 years old is just wrong. I have no idea how to fix it, so I just don't.

Do you see anything here
resembling a cold soda?

I have learned to drink, and halfway appreciate, warm soda. The little dukas here all sell bottled soda, but it's warm. For a long while I just never drank it, but there's not much else to choose from, so I have adapted. Now warm beer is another thing. I don't drink often or much, but when I do it needs to be cold. So I haven't had a beer in almost a year, but it's joto kali sana right now (very hot), and a cold one would go down so nice.




I love this place, but I've got a little burn out virus making its way through my head. Having a hard time getting through my day. I've never stayed in one place so long, and although it has it's good points, village life can be less than exciting. Not that anything else I'd do would be such a kick, but I like to move around. New people, new landscape, all that crap. I think I lack the commitment gene. But I have 6 weeks off in Dec-Jan. I'm going home to visit family and friends, go to the movies, and drink a cold coke with lots of ice. I was with a friend at a restaurant a few years ago and asked for ice. The waitress came back with a plate on which were 2 small ice cubes, rapidly melting in the hot African sun. I want to hear crushed Ice rattling in a 44 ounce plastic cup from 7/11. That's my Christmas wish, aside from world peace.

Oil store. Local kids round up all the old 

plastic bottles lying about,clean them up a little, 

and dump the oil in. Looks pretty in the light.

All is well at chekechea, the kids wanaendelea vzuri (doing well). They're starting to recognize three digit numbers, which is pretty amazing for kids who've grown up without books. I'm laminating like crazy, have a huge collection of useful teacher stuff, and the kids love all of it. I may have laminated a kid or two who happened to pass by at the wrong time, but then encasement is an absolute malaria deterrent.

Look at the man on the left in the brown shirt. 

Is he for, against

or just declaring his status? 

I went to Mbeya to teach three teachers at a chekechea we painted a few months ago. It went well, they like the system, and I have to say our scruffy little underfed village kids know a lot more than the city kids, most of whom have parents that speak English, have cars, and even computers. We rock.




A final word about kawaida, the locals think I'm totally abnormal. I do things at no cost, I don't have a house girl, I have been seen washing my own clothes, I don't own a car, much less drive one (although you'd have to be suicidal to drive here). Then there was that time I held an 18 foot snake. I think that's what cemented it. Must have been, cause my friend Esther told me "You are just not normal." I guess it's all relative. And in reality, who really cares?

Weighing kids at the well baby clinic at the hospital

Nakupenda