Home Sweet Home

Good rain means more toys for the kids.

I'm nomadic by nature, I think that's obvious, but I've had enough for a while. In five weeks I've visited three states, crossed three continents (twice), I don't know how many time zones (twice), and the International Dateline (again, twice). Eventually I was waking up disoriented, and had to remind myself who and where I was. I'd make a lousy rock star. Got back to Berega, rested one day and then went to Mbeya.

Dad driving kid home on pikipiki. He stopped for the picture, 

no helmet, no nothing. The kid just hangs on, if he knows what's 

good for him. 

The large bus system here has been at times adequate, at times less than adequate, and often damn scary. But I've been on enough of them to know which to avoid. Sumry was, at one time, very nice but had become one of the more depressing rides, rude drivers, dirty, sticky seats, passing on a curve/hill at 150 km/hr... But Green Star and Mbeya Express are very nice.
So I went to Mbeya on Green Star. New, clean seats, two by two seating (you really want to avoid a three seat row), movies, and they turn off the movies passing through Mikumi National Park, so we can watch the animals. They even gave us water, soda and biscuits (cookies of a sort, they taste like pesticide but who's counting).

Early Saturday morning in the village. We eat a lot of goat here.

If I was them I'd probably not hang around just waiting.

Mbeya was good, I paid off the school fees for Martha and Christina, they're doing well. Also arranged for Ahadi, Violet and Rosie to attend VETA, a govt sponsored vocational school. These are kids I've known for years, in fact, I lived with them at the orphanage in Idweli. Visited friends, ate Indian food, stocked up on fruit I can't get in Berega, which is almost any fruit.
I purchased my return ticket on Mbeya Express the day after I got to Mbeya, because I wanted a window seat. On Saturday morning I arrived at the bus station at 0600, looking forward to a very comfortable ten hour ride home. Wrong, the bus was broken but the ticket agent said hanma shida, Mommy,I have booked you a nice window seat on SUMRY, the bus of death. Went through all the stages of grief, denial, bargaining, acceptance, but when I got on the bus it was lovely. All the goodies of Green Star and Mbeya Express. The guys even wore uniforms. Looks like competition for passengers has finally forced the buses to clean up their acts, seats and aisles.

Dogs here don't move. This is the third dog who looked right 

at while we drove around him.

So ten relatively pleasant hours later I arrived in Morogoro, to catch the coaster (medium sized bus) to the junction where I would be met and taken to Berega. THERE ARE NO DIRECT ROUTES IN AFRICA.
Found a coaster with seats still available, which is good and bad. The good is you don't have to stand while these guys careen along the highway. The bad news is now we sit in 90 degree heat till the bus fills. This generally takes about three hours.

Umeme poles. Electricity is coming, maybe next month, maybe

next year, but the poles are up. Isaac has promised me the

school will have light. 

It was Saturday, so when we passed the bimonthly Massai Market, we acquired six very tall Massai, complete with walking sticks, eighteen inch knives, and wooden knobs, which look like a humerus and I think are used to hit cattle on the head. Needless to say they took up all the remaining room on the bus, and were, as always, fascinating to watch.
I always wonder what would happen if one of these guys were to get on a bus in America, because they don't go anywhere without the stick, knife and knob. Can't imagine an American bus driver trying to disarm them. I'd like to bring one or two across the ocean just to watch. Massai have a presence. There's just something about them, aside from the fact that they take up twice as much room as other people, but seem to spread out in comfort, unlike the rest of us. They just exist on a different plane.

sunrise on Lake Malawi

Was met at the junction by my friend Isaac, the hospital director, who has just recently learned to drive. Our regular driver has a broken arm, so Isaac collected me. It was about the third time he's driven, and his first night drive, He drives like an old lady, but given the state of the road, the dark, the lack of electricity, the cows in the road, he did just fine. I did have to tell him that it's road courtesy to pull to the side so the bikes, cows, and pedestrians can pass.
School has resumed, and we have a bunch of new kids. We spent the first week reviewing, they didn't forget much. Before likizo, I amassed a couple hundred blocks, just ends from the carpenters, different sizes and shapes. I painted them, then decorated them with numbers, letters, sentences, shapes, math problems. The kids love them, but they mostly don't have anything, so they're not hard to please.
Brought some movies and animal videos back with me, for Friday. Friday is our play day, we work for an hour or so, then I put a DVD in my computer. We invited the kids from the Kiswahili school and watched Milo and Otis, a personal favorite. The kids were transfixed, but then so was I. Seems I find Dudley Moore irritating as a human, but I like him just fine as a dog.
There's so much of everything in the First World that there's not many surprises left for most of us. But here, wow, you show kids a video of animals or fish and they're just stunned. Remember, all they see is what's in the village, or another village, or maybe Mororgoro. The exposure level here is minimal. So if anyone wants to send me your kids old DVDs, feel free, just contact me athiloliz@gmail.com and I'll give you the info. Adult movies as well, my afternoon students like them, and it's good practice listening to English. By adult movies I refer to movies for grown people, not Debbie Does Dallas or Naughty Nuns.

Massai with cows. 

 Check out the horns.

Most Massai have maintained the old culture, very few have 

adopted western dress or occupation. Some have gone into 

tourism, but cows are still the measure of wealth.

So it's time for my next shameless plea for funds, only two in a year, not bad. If you got this on my gangmail, just skip over it. Thanks. We need more chekechea students, we can't just teach kids who come from affluent parents. Strictly speaking, nobody is affluent here, but in the village it means you can afford to pay 200,000 tsh/ year for tuition. That's about 130 USD, or about 11 USD/month. For Isaac,and the doctors, this is hamna shida. But for Aissa, Mary, or some other parents, it's a stretch. Most of the kids in our class have parents who work at the hospital so even if they don't get paid much, they get paid regularly. Christina's mom is the cook for the nursing school, she makes 65,000 the/mo, about 44 USD.


It's been on my mind to get some scholarships started, and now is a good time. Normally I would just add them to the list of school kids I pay for, but frankly, I can't afford any more kids. SO, anyone wanting to help out, karibu. My friend Sharon already gave enough for one kid, thanks cutie. I'd like four or five more, if possible.

This is a private school, and it was started in an effort to keep the hospital staff from leaving to go where there are good schools. We are understaffed, and can't afford to have staff bailing on us for lack of decent schools. But even a private school is part of the community and we should be taking in kids pro bono, just because.

You can go to the www.Hands4Africa.org site and either donate by Paypal, or send a check. Either way, mark the funds for me, and it will get to me. The laminating project was a huge success, we are festooned with math time tests and alphabet cards. Please don't think you need to donate the entire tuition fee. It all adds up, so thanks in advance.

It rained a lot while I was gone, everything is green and lovely again. My yard is a wild mess of grass, trees and what have you, much to the horror of my neighbor who likes his grass cut military short. But I'm from the tropics, I like it a little wild. The butterflies are back, and the goats and cows come by regularly because I have lots of grass. Spent most of this Sunday reading on the porch, watching the rain. All the locals are happily planting, anticipating a good harvest. Lots of ugali for everyone. Maisha ni mzuri.

nakupenda

Likizo

Rains have arrived, asante Mungu. Everyone

 is happily planting mahindi (maize). 

They're talking a good crop.

December. Pre likizo.It's Friday in Dar, and the beggars are out in full force. Islamic tradition, actually Islamic law, dictates Muslims give alms each Friday. Dar es Salaam has lots of Muslims, and probably an equal number of beggars. They congregate on street corners, between cars, in the street.

There was what appeared to be a beggar convention sitting palms up on the corner, asking for msada, msada dada. Help, sister. There's really no social services to speak of, people come to Dar to escape the poverty of the village, but find city poverty even more grinding, plus it's hotter, so much hotter.

Steamed Ginger Chicken at my favorite Chinese 

restaurant in Dar. It's expensive, flavorwise not worth

 the money, but then you get to look at the head while you eat. 

You can eat the head as well, but I'm not ready for steamed 

cranium and beak.

What's different here is that most people born with deformities can't get them fixed.There's folks with no legs, there's folks dragging their lower bodies along the street with rubber slippers on their hands. Just about any skeletal malfunction you can think of, and some you can't. There's one man with no lower body at all, someone props him up against the Post Office wall every day with a can and there he sits.

Enough aid comes here to help, but then using it to help the disabled (that's PC here) would cut down on the fat white cars these govt bigwigs drive around in, or actually, are driven around in. Like most places, there's status in having a driver, but also, here most people don't have drivers licenses.

Deceptively appealing Giardia lamblia. How can something 

 that cute do what it did to my gut?

Having used up all my small money on the beggars I went into one of my favorite restaurants for lunch, asked for maji baridi, cold water. Alas, there was none. Then the waiter smiled and told me I could have ice if I wanted. ICE, ICE, it's been a year since I've had ice. I've been fantasizing about ice for weeks now (it's been in the 90's in Berega). As I was pouring my bottled water into the glass it crossed my mind that the ice was probably made with tap water. Beads of sweat formed on the glass, a few ran down the sides, and I didn't care anymore. It was spectacular, but just to be safe I bought some Cipro for the varied and virulent bugs trapped in the ice cubes, now entrapped in my gut. O well. I always try to have a small pharmacy on hand. In Africa we can buy drugs without a prescription, so I'm all set. I've got my malaria pills, just in case, my Cipro, just in case, and some Valium, just because.

What you do when you don't have bus money.

I wish you could understand the scope of the problems here. I promised myself I'd never take pictures of the beggars, I know NatGeo doesn't have a problem with it, but I do. Most people just walk by them, occasionally walking over them, because they get right in front of you. There's no end to it, you could give them all the money you had and there would just be more. Even to me this sounds like a cop out, so don't bother commenting. I don't even want to think about what Jesus would do. O hell, now it's raining, which should be a good thing but now all the beggars will get wet. I'm a moral mess.

Street vendor selling chai. I guess the army has nothing 

better to do.

I got up early sana to buy some trinkets from the Rasta street vendors. People sell almost anything on the street here, food, juice (pronounced jweece), baubles of all types, books, you name it. I left the hotel at 0800, because it was gonna be a hot one so anyone with a brain was out early. There was a series of piercing whistles, and a slew of ladies streaked by carrying pots of hot water, beans, chai... They all ran into an alley to hide. So I asked one of the cabbies and he told me the askaris (the army) come by regularly to round up the street vendors. They throw them in the back of the truck and haul them to jail, where they pay a hefty fine and go back to work on the street until the next time. The whistle was the lookout. All this time I thought there was no problem with the street vendors. The book and fruit merchants don't seem to have a problem, just the food vendors. Possibly it's a health law, although you can get just as sick eating in a local restaurant.

If you can't read the T shirt, it says Living The Dream. 

Still looking for trinkets, I heard weeping and gnashing of teeth from the street ahead. There was a large crowd, ogling and commenting, and I assumed there had been an accident.  But it wasn't an accident, it was the army guys, who had run down a bunch of beggars and were manhandling them into the back of the truck. I was confused, yesterday you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a beggar, and nobody seemed to mind, but today...


I didn't have my camera, which was probably a good thing. The army doesn't like being immortalized while they abuse the locals, and I'd probably have ended up in the truck with them, paying a much larger fine.

New preschool room in Msalama John will be painting soon.

I went into a toy store and was talking to the proprietor, who said the beggars actually make pretty good money, 10,000 to 15.000/day (6-10 USD) so can well afford the fine. But he said the same thing I said, there's no social services, and not enough jobs, so begging and street vending are their jobs. The govt doesn't help them, they'd rather the poor just quietly starve to death, so when they do what they must to live, they get penalized. Go figure.


On the way out of the store, I saw, to my horror, Hanna Montana paraphernalia. I turned back to the owner and asked why he promoted that teenaged floozie. It's bad enough kids in the US think they're no good unless they look like a14 year old rock star, now little African girls can feel just as bad. A woman customer looked at me and said,"Tell that to my daughter."  She's not a happy mommy, says her daughter is just nuts about her and wants to be just like her. And so it begins.

Ruth, Lumuli and Mbuli on a road trip through Mikumi. 

I guess progress is progress, if you can call it that. Seems it's hard to take the desirable and positive without the less desirable and positive sneaking in under the wire. I don't see it much in the village, they don't know Hanna Montana from a sack of cement. But to come to the city and see old African ways combining, sometimes not too fluidly, with new western ways, it's too hard to watch.

There's a lingerie store right on the main street, with all the thongs and such on display through the window. A few years ago this would not have been allowed in this conservative, largely Muslim city where some women can't even show their faces. I'm a liberal sort, but I'm just not ready for this.


I wish there was a way to filter the stuff that comes over, but there's not, and who are we to say what folks should and shouldn't accept. I am most definitely a village girl. In a village near the Malawi border I met a kid named Adolph, whose parents had never heard of Hitler. I imagine, I hope, they haven't heard of Hanna Montana.

Had to come inside before ten, too hot out. Still no trinkets, the Rastas are probably still rolling joints, getting ready for their day.

Where we had lunch on the road trip. Note sleeping dog.

It's night, I ran the Rasta gauntlet and got my zawadi, those guys are persistent. Off to the US in the am.


January.I'm back, It was a great likizo, saw all my kids, most of my friends, ate everything on my list (and then some). Refreshed and ready to work. Thanks Brad.

Halfway through my visit I started experiencing gut pains, bloating, all the signs of my old friend giardia lamblia, that cute little bug I most likely swallowed in my ice water before I left. This is why I travel with my pharmacy.

Mommy and baby crossing the road.

Abdallah picked me up at the airport and we ran a few errands and left town. We were stopped at a red light, and noticed five guys on the corner refining their pickpocketing technique. Very interesting to watch. They were pretty obvious, so I'm assuming this was the beginners class. I hope so, given the fact that if caught, they'll most likely be beaten to death. AND one was an albino. What does he think, he can just blend in with the crowd?. Anyway it's good to see young folks learning a trade, especially since there's no help coming from the govt.

It's good to be home.

Nakupenda