Life without the Bridge

Life Without the Bridge

It's been a while since the bridge washed away, and I am noticing a few things.

1. The small, local dukas have less on the shelves. Which is a drag as we only have small, local dukas to buy what we need, unless we're willing to travel to Morogoro, or another smaller village which may or may not have something worth the trip. 

2. There are very few eggs in the village,and those that are here are almost double the price, but yet the same size. And if it's a bad egg, no refund.

3. Monday Market is a bust. There is a roving market, and our day is Monday, hence the name. There are always onions and tomatoes, greens and okra, which I would rather die than eat. Usually there are bananas, and sometimes mangoes. But because everything needs to be walked across the river, and you just never know if it will be high or low, most of the vendors stay home. Yesterday I saw Sion and Alec, two docs from the UK,coming back from the market, and I rushed up with my newly repaired basket (ever hopeful I would fill it with goodness from the earth). They had some wilted greens, lemons, some chili peppers and okra. I turned around and put my basket away.

4. Going to Morogoro is now an ordeal with a fairly high gruel factor, a term coined by my friend Janet in reference to travel in Africa. It's never easy, but now it's got a few additional steps. The first two are walking down to the river, and crossing it. Then, depending on the water lever, changing your pants. The rest of the trip to Morogoro is the usual 2 hours. On the way home you get to walk from the road to the river laden with your purchases. Then you repeat the crossing and getting back up the hill. I take a pikipiki at this point. It's a long day, but at least you have food.

5.When the water level is up, kids living across the river miss school. 

6. Admissions at the hospital are about half what they should be. Isaac has enough trouble paying the employees on a regular month, so this is a disaster.

7. Folks who rely on the bridge to transport their charcoal,maize, and whatever else they sell now either don't go, or need to pay men to carry it across. I just had the school courtyard cemented in, as it's a mess during the rainy season, and every bag of cement needed to be cried over, as well as all the other supplies.

8. I have hit a new personal low food wise. Yesterday I opened a can of Egyptian tuna, which is all the bits that don't make it into the good tuna cans, drained the oil, mixed it with ketchup, and had it on crackers. 

Re: the rains

8. All the roads that were previously just really bad are now impassable by car and the more rural villages can only be accessed by pikipiki. 

9. On a positive note, everyone who has a maize crop, which is everyone, is growing a ton of maize. So everyone will be eating. Ugali is made from ground maize, and free from most of those pesky nutrients we in the US all worry so much about.  It is, however, filling, as only a soccer ball sized  lump of carbs can be, so no one will be hungry.
10. When it really rains hard, the classrooms get so dark we can't read or see the board, so we send the kids home before the lightning comes, and it does. More school missed.

11. We lose electricity during rainstorms, and this is the rainy season, so power goes out frequently.

But in the end, there is the maize, so no matter how bad it is, there's always ugali. This year should be a bumper crop, and they don't have electricity anyway, so my personal woes are immaterial to them, as they should be. Sion, Alec and I are going into Morogoro on Saturday, planning to load up on fruits and veggies. I may be sitting in the dark, but I'll have mangoes.

Yet Another Conversation I Will Only Have In Africa

Just the other day I was thinking I hadn't written in a while. It's been pretty humdrum of late, nothing new or exciting; school, sleep, bad food, the usual. But God does provide, doesn't he?

We were in class this morning, happily correcting grammar and getting hungry for lunch, when Teacher Beatrice stuck her head in and said there was a problem outside, in front of the school. A group of locals were shouting and disturbing the students. Apparently they had caught some thieves, and the crowd was trying to decide whether to beat him or fire him. To the uninitiated, getting fired means losing your job, at least it does in America. Here it means having a gasoline soaked tire thrown over your head and lit, while the crowd stands around watching, cheering, and reaffirming their belief that the son of a bitch had it coming. Marshmallows optional.

On approach I saw three dirty, shirtless men, with their hands tied, surrounded by about 50 folks, including the pastor. Seems the vote was split 3 ways, some opting for firing (or necklacing), some just wanting to beat the holy hell out of him, and a kinder, gentler portion wanting to take him to the village elders.

This is what is left of the bridge to Berega. It was washed away in the flash flood.

My concern was for the kids, as this was happening right in front of the school, and it was coming up on lunchtime and recess. I approached and greeted everyone (greetings mandatory, even if murder is imminent) and requested that if they truly planned to beat or God forbid, fire the men, possibly they could move the venue up or down the road, just anywhere away from the kids. All that smoke, screaming and charred flesh right in the middle of the road when the kids get out of school. Life is tough, but this is ridiculous. I can't believe some of the conversations I have here. And you are all welcome to volunteer, where you, too, can have bizarre discussions about things that would never concern you anywhere but here.

A few minutes later Mbuli told me, in very good English, that yesterday, in Morogoro, there was an unsuccessful attempt to heist a motorbike. Pole sana for the thief, mob justice did prevail and he was fired. I guess he lost his job as well. The judge and jury did, however, take this poor schmuck about 30 km out of town, where they beat him to within an inch of his life, piled wood on him, and set him ablaze. It's technically illegal to fire up a human, so they left town to avoid the police, who normally do nothing unless it's right under their noses. Ruth later confirmed this story, they were driving home when it happened, and saw the flames.

Don't get me wrong, I would neither encourage this, nor want to witness it, but hearing about it does not horrify me anymore. This should be obvious by the way I talk about it. Most of my warm fuzzy has been rubbed off, and this is what's left. Besides, there's not a person here who doesn't know what can happen if they get caught, and from a very young age.

We discussed this with the kids, and a majority think it's definitely wrong to beat a man to death over something sometimes as insignificant as a watch. Now a bag of maize is another story, steal a family's food and you should only hope to live, in whatever shape they leave you. But there is hope, the younger generation seems a little less bloodthirsty. This may change with time, though, when they find out it's impossible to get a policeman to respond without paying him. I say this secure in the knowledge that no policeman will ever read this, or make the effort to come up here to confront me.

Preparing to cross the river.

Most folks here are gentle and reasonable, but all it takes is a few… I will remind you that the pastor was there, although in what capacity I am unsure. What was stolen was some musical equipment used for church services, and according to Ruth, you can still be counted a Christian and be part of the mob. Ruth is my source of all things cultural, and a good Christian. The thieves were eventually taken to the village elders, after a sound and satisfying beating by anyone caring to participate. Ruth said they also pinch the thieves' penises, which seems a bit excessive, but mob rule is just that, a group of normally decent folks who have temporarily lost their brains.

I personally have had three phones, a wallet, money, batteries, my bicycle handlebars, and countless slippers stolen from my house/ bag/ yard. A friend once offered to kill anyone who stole from me in his village (about a 10 km range). I declined, however if they stole a bag of maize…. So that was yesterday, and I have had time to think. Although I have never been a proponent of capital punishment, I do understand that all countries have their ways of dealing with criminals. In America, we try and convict people before killing them, and still sometimes an innocent person is executed. Here, where the law is ineffectual, corrupt, and just generally doesn't give a damn, the judge and jury is frequently the folks who catch the bad guy. Again, sometimes the wrong guy is killed. It's really not that different. Just because we exact justice in a more "humane" manner, doesn't mean the guy is any less dead. Personally, I don't agree with it anywhere, but I understand the frustration which drives people to such extreme measures.

Crossing on a good day.

So let's move from what happened outside the school to what's happening inside, which is by far more life affirming. We spent the last week reorganizing, trying to fit 110 kids into the same space we've had since we started. We're full to the gills, but functioning. The kids are doing so well, and having a great time. Our methods are far removed from the norm here, but that's why it works. Generally we do the exact opposite of what the govt schools do, and as I was perusing the syllabus the other day I realized that we have, for the most part, accomplished all the goals set up by the Ministry of Education. So it's going to be a great year. We do have a few kids who need extra help, but it's only 3 months into the year, so I have no worries. We have amazing preschool teachers, and by the time these kids get to Std 1 they can add, subtract, read and write (in 2 languages). So asante sana Teacher Martha, Teacher Pasiana and Teacher Pascalina.

Ann was here for a couple of months, and she found scholarships for 19 kids who need them. Those, added to the ones we already have, give us about 1/3 of our student body on full or partial scholarship. So tunashukuru sana for all those who donated. We also got donations for books, so all of Std 1,2 and 3 have textbooks. A woman from the UK ran a marathon last year and donated money for the tables and chairs we desperately needed. Why all the books and extra desks, when kids in other schools in Tz have no books and sit 4 to a desk? Why are we so fortunate? Should I be sharing the wealth? Is that fair to them? I don't care. Those schools are failing, and we are not, and don't intent to. We would love to help the govt schools, but that would be like reviving that thief under the pile of wood 30 km outside of Morogoro.

I teach all the Math an English for Std 1,2 and 3. Teachers Gile and Beatrice teach everything else. Our interactive methods were new to them, but they're liking it just fine, and are happy here at St. Mary's. The day goes by fast, the kids laugh and enjoy themselves, and nobody is afraid of their teachers. Some of the warm fuzzy does come back everyday as I teach, which keeps me here.

St. Mary’s School, 2014.

One snag is trying to get the parents to get up off the school fees. We've been forced to get tough with the parents, and at the end of the month, if a parent hasn't paid, we send the kid home. Then, by some miracle, the money comes in the next day. We don't like to go that route, but we have teachers to pay and kids to feed. So there you go.

Our toilets are unearthly. There are 2 choos and 110 kids. But Brad has agreed to let us construct additional toilets outside, which should alleviate most of the pushing and shoving, and some of the smell. Thanks Brad.

Some great news! My son Asa, his wife Sarah, and my grandkids Ayla and Jove, will be here mid April. Asa will stay 3 weeks, but Sarah and the kids till July. This is gonna be fun. The kids will go to our school, and Sarah will help teach. Sarah, I've got a couple of kids in dire need of one on one math help, you're gonna love it. I imagine Ayla won't be here but a few days before they've got all her hair in plaits, and possibly Jovie as well.

It has been made clear to me, by everyone in Berega, that I got very, very fat in the US, which is a source of pride here (theirs, not mine). Being fat is preferable to being thin, as being fat means you can afford to eat, and you are healthy. So I am rich and healthy, very rich and healthy, but that's ok, in a few months it will be gone. Priscilla's mom invited me to eat with them this afternoon, as I was walking home. They were eating ugali and dagaa, a ball of starch and small, pungent dried fish with eyes. She offered in jest, it's well known in the village that I would sooner starve than eat dagaa. I tried it once, and inatosha (it was enough).

Still looking for travel buddies for July, August and September. Just let me know.

Have fun, eat well, and can someone possibly send me some marshmallows? I've been craving s'mores.

Karibu Ifunde

Maasai guy

     We have a Maasai boy in our preschool named Ima. He's beautiful, about 13, and starting Std 1 in January. He was in Std 5 at a govt school but not learning anything, so his brother David sent him to us, and he has started over from preschool and is doing fine. Although having a teenaged kid in preschool does present its own unique set of problems, so far so good. His brother David is in his mid 20's, handsome, tall and long limbed, like most Maasai, and works as a tour guide about five hours from here.

The barbecue pit

     David called me the other day to invite me to a sherehe in his village, and promised we would be welcome to take pictures and join in as we wished. Hamna shida. I've been wanting to visit a Maasai village, and my friend Ann also wanted to go. It's not something most people get to do, except on arranged tours, which is a totally different thing, so we jumped at the offer. David arranged for two pikipikis, and off we went, 45 minutes of beautiful scenery over a very bad road. There's lots of beautiful rides over very bad roads here, because the roads are, in general, very bad. Main roads are fine, but I don't live on a main road.

     This village is called Ifunde, and it's in the middle of no place at all. I too live in the middle of nowhere, and this is many miles past me. I always wondered what was behind the mountains. Now I know it's more mountains, tree stumps, and thorny bushes. There's something wonderful about going someplace very few people go, and despite the rough patches in the road, we enjoyed the trip. I have yet to figure out why the driver left the main path for the detour through a million grasping thorn bushes, but such is life.

Ima’s brother, Ima and his mom

     We arrived mid afternoon, and were greeted with big hugs by Ima and David's mother. Most Tanzanians greet in a friendly manner, but with little physical contact. Maasai, however, are not most Tanzanians. She's a lovely, happy woman, with 7 boys, 2 girls, and a ancient husband. Traditionally, Maasai men marry late, and marry young girls. Ima is her youngest, and he was home for the sherehe.

     This was a circumcision ceremony, but Ima is too young and will join the next group. The ceremony before this one was in 2008, so I guess some years from how he will get his turn, along with his age mates.

No celebration is complete without one or two enormously drunk guys. This was early afternoon, so you have to admire his diligence.

     We did not witness the actual circ, nobody does. The boys sit in a hut and wait for a man with skills in this area to do the deed. I was talking to a moran, (young Maasai men about 18 to 30 years of age), and he was telling me that the boys are not allowed to cry, moan or even flinch during the cutting. I asked what would happen to a boy should he disgrace himself in this manner, and he really had no answer because apparently, it's unthinkable and will not happen. They stay in the hut for 2 days, and during this time their adult female relatives stand outside the hut singing, dancing, and shouting encouragement. Everyone is dressed in their best, and everyone has a good time, with the possible exception of the recently snipped.

Moms and aunts and grandmas singing and dancing for the boys inside

     Men and women celebrate in separate areas, the women singing at the door of the hut, the older men butchering and cooking the meat. The morans (warriors) gather in a circle, singing, grunting and jumping. Just like the NatGeo specials. It's amazing to watch. They stand ramrod straight, arms at their sides, and jump about three feet in the air, using only the balls of their feet. Their heels do not touch the ground. It's a competition. Two moran will go into the circle and face off. Young marriageable girls stand around the periphery and join in the singing.

Meat storage system

Meat, meat and more meat

     Then they walked us down the hill to the food preparation area, featuring rice, some kind of beef stew, and about six cows worth of cooked and barely cooked meat. Large chunks of beef were resting on an elevated handmade wooden platform designed to keep away the dogs, while still making it available to the flies. They dangled long strips of barely cooked meat in our faces, streaks of fat congealing before our eyes. A Maasai diet is primarily meat, and like the NatGeo says, they do cut the vein in the cow's neck and drink the blood. They prepare it in various ways, sometimes just letting it clot, or mixing it with milk. Their red meat diet hasn't hurt them, they are a truly healthy looking people.

     It's impolite to refuse food at a sherehe, so we took a few small pieces. Fortunately the blood and milk mixture was not the soup du jour. I had a few chunks of beef while Ann, that sissy, pretended to nibble a piece then carried it around for a while before conveniently dropping it in the grass. It was ok, very tough and needed salt, but killed just that day so safe to eat. The flies certainly seemed to like it. I got meat stuck in all my teeth and was finally forced to do the unthinkable. I flossed in public. I couldn't stand it anymore, had to do it. I did offer a mint flavored string to my guides, but they didn't know what it was and anyway they have teeth like rocks and chew through just about anything pretty easily.

Ima’s sister

     Ima came by to say hi, and we met the rest of his very large family. We offered to bring him back to Berega on the pikipiki but he said he'd rather walk in the next morning. We were on a wheeled vehicle for 45 minutes, so I figured he'd be walking most of the day. Maasai are pastoral people, and spend most of their time walking and herding their cattle. Many live in villages now, no longer nomadic, but their cattle range far and wide. The feel the entire country is pastureland, and occasionally this leads to conflict. A while back, a Maasai was killed over a grazing dispute.

Ann and her future husband. That she already has a husband was no problem, he has no cows, so who cares?

     My friend Ann is originally from Korea, but everyone here thinks she's Chinese. Anyway, she's in her early thirties, old for a Maasai bride but still young enough to produce many offspring and received numerous marriage proposals. My Kiswahili is reasonable, certainly good enough to bargain with the men over how many cows I expected to receive for her and her childbearing hips. He offered 10, I countered with 200, he laughed and agreed, asking if we could seal the deal immediately. It was all in fun, just passing time, and I only told Ann about it after we had reached an agreement. She laughed, but then looked at me and asked what would happen if there were 200 cows in our backyard the next morning. Hamna shied, she moves to the village to breed, and I am a wealthy cow owner.

Handsome Maasai guys

     We came home, washed the dust off our feet, and took a nap. It was a great day, everyone was so welcoming and happy to have us there. We took hundreds of pictures and got a peek into a totally different culture. Many Tanzanians look down on the Maasai, for their old style ways, and sometimes tease Ima for being Maasai. When the newspapers report an accident, they might say that ten people were killed, and two Maasai.We were discussing it in class one day, because the kids said Ima was beating them, neglecting to mention that they had been harassing him. So we talked about it, and I asked how they'd like it if Ima ragged on them for being Kaguru and not having any cows. Ima has 12. As my parting shot I reminded them that tourists spend enormous amounts of money to visit Africa, but they're not here to see Kaguru ( predominant tribe here in Berega).

What can I say? Is this cool or what?

      What I like about the Maasai, is they don't care what anyone else does, they just do their thing. Even if they come in and get regular jobs, as some do, they are still very much Maasai. They saunter through the village in their Maasai garb, jewelry, and weapons, head and shoulders above everyone else, myself included. They are supremely cool, and they know it. I hope to go back again, maybe for a wedding or some other sherehe. Good to have friends in cool places.

An African Hospital

 I live near a hospital, just across the bumpy dirt road from my house. The same bumpy dirt road that the pikipikis (motorbikes) use to transport patients. Imagine being in labor and traveling down a road that's horrible for a car, and then even worse on two wheels. But this is the way here, and without the pikipikis some folks would never get here at all.

 

Men's Ward at Berega Hospital
 

 This is a hospital with problems, like all hospitals, and like all hospitals everywhere, we have healthcare issues. But our problems are different. Sometimes there is not enough medicine, or not the medicine required. We have machines in our lab, but we don't always have the reagents to run the tests. Maybe if they had been able to zero in on Jackie's problem, he could have been helped. Maybe.

 Sion, a doctor from the UK, has been here for seven months, and has done incredible work, but it is taking a toll on him. This is not a preventive society. Prevention is a western idea, and a luxury here. So this man is trying to prevent in a place that knows only to react, and it's frustrating. I've been here a long time, so I know all about this, and my skin is thicker. But he gets up every day and soldiers on, and I have immense respect for him.

Nursing station

 We also had David and Anne visiting. They come here every year to help out. David is a pediatrician in his sixties, so he has a mountain of experience, and Sion is getting all he can from him. So that's my intro.

 Very early one morning they got a call from the orphanage to come immediately, one of the babies was in trouble. Triplets had been born ten days prior, and the mother died, so the girls went to the orphanage. This orphanage does a very good thing; babies come after a mom dies in childbirth, and Ute, the manager, keeps the them for two or three years, with family to help and visit. After those years, the babe goes home. Here in the villages, if a mom dies, it's a very real possibility that the child will also. So she keeps them 'til they are strong enough to live in this hard, hard place.

 Two of the girls were fine, eating and growing and lying there looking cute. The third was only one kilo, with some genitourinary issues I don't need to go into at this point. But she was looking bad, and not gaining weight. As I was going into Morogoro anyway, they asked if we could transport her and her caregiver Vienna to the hospital in Morogoro, to see a specialist. Hamna shida. I decided to stay until the baby was seen, as sometimes a very sick person can wait a long time to be evaluated.

 We arrived at the hospital, which looked ok to me: relatively clean, and happily not crowded. There were only about three of us in the under five waiting area, so we sat and waited.

Labor room at a local clinic near Berega

 Around this time an ambulance pulled up. So who has been to the circus? Remember how the tiny car drives into the ring and 9,000 clowns get out? Well, an ambulance arrived, a couple of guys jumped to the ground, dragging out a very ill man and threw him onto a gurney; limp, dirty and moaning. Then more men got out and dragged out yet another man, also unconscious, and threw him onto another gurney. Then a third. Vienna and I just looked at each other and wondered how many clowns were actually going to emerge from this ambulance. One more, as it turned out. Unfortunately there were no more gurneys so they just dragged him into the center of the ER and plopped him down. Then the clowns who could walk jumped into the ambulance and left.

 These guys were truly a mess. I was only able to get part of the story, as it was in Kiswahili, so I found an English speaker and she told me that these men had been put into a closed metal crate to be smuggled from Somalia to possibly South Africa. Apparently this is common. They go for work. But as it's illegal, they are transported this long way in a closed container. If there are problems on the road, or any delays, which are bound to happen here, they stay in the hot crate and suffocate, starve, dehydrate, or a combination thereof. This happens in America as well, but the Somalis are Mexicans, and the results are frequently the same. I asked what would happen to them. She said they would be treated, and those that lived would be sent back to Somalia, to try again. Somalia is a rough place; I wouldn't want to live there either.

Pharmacy and Cashier

 It was our turn to see the doctor/nurse; I wasn't sure which as no one introduced themselves or explained anything. This is typical in here, a patient sees a provider, they get medicine, and leave without knowing any more than they did when they came in. The baby had a temp, so I removed her wraps, which is not usually done here. Babies are wrapped here and the sicker they are, the more wraps they use. The intake nurse didn't try to stop me, to her credit, but the next nurse who came by told me to cover her, which I did not.

Dental clinic in Magubike

 To have a baby exposed to the air is a sign of bad mothering here, and I have to say, as a mom and an RN with many years experience, I felt the pressure to cover her. Strange that I can live in a culture long enough to feel like a bad mother for doing exactly what I am supposed to do.

 We made it into the ward, and there ensued a lengthy argument over the correct feeding schedule and amount to be fed. She is tube fed, and the doctor seemed to feel that the problem was that the feeding schedule was wrong, and the abdominal distention was due to gas. Personally, I was more concerned with her ragged breathing, her gray color, and her fever. She looked very bad. I've seen that look on many people; generally they are dying. It was also a concern that the doctor was doing the feeding calculations by counting on her fingers.

Dental tools

 The specialist arrived, and I left the hospital to do some business. I came back about an hour later and she was in a little crib in the same room as the baby warmers so it was very hot. She was on oxygen, but even grayer, with dark rings around her eyes, taking a gasping breath about every ten seconds. They had failed to insert an IV for fluids and meds, but that's no surprise, there wasn't much to her. They gave her antibiotics IM.

 Remember that she was pretty fresh from the womb, tightly packed in there with her sisters, and now lying naked in a crib with nobody near. It's been proven that any attention is better than none, and as a nurse I know an unconscious person can still hear and respond. So I leaned in and started to talk to her, mostly about nothing, and she did respond. Her breathing quickened, she moved her little chicken arms and legs. I did promise her that if she lived, I would pay her school fees, which could get expensive as there are three of them.

 Vienna had gone to get a soda, and when she returned I told her I was leaving and asked her to talk to the baby. She looked at me like I was crazy, but I explained and she agreed. That was Saturday, and on Sunday she was still alive. We hoped the meds would take hold and she could be stabilized. Her genitourinary issues would be dealt with when she was not so fragile.

 Her name was Emalie, and she died on Monday.

 Two more babies died over the next few days, here in Berega. If you consider that most hospitals are understaffed, poorly equipped, and too few to be readily available, then multiply that by the thousands of villages in this country, and in most countries in Africa, possibly you can see the depth of the problem. It's truly staggering, and depressing.


Clean water mural at Berega Hospital

 Sometimes what I write is depressing, but then, sometimes this place is depressing. But good things happen, right now some very good things. About two months ago, we painted part of the pediatrics ward and turned it into a play area for the kids who are well enough to use it. Then just a few weeks ago a volunteer arrived, named Ann, and she commissioned John to paint the hospital walls with information for the patients to read while they wait. One wall is about clean water, two are about nutrition, and currently the maternity wing is being painted with pictures of fetal development. So much of what happens here could be prevented if people just knew some simple facts. It's all very basic information, but that's where we are here. Basic.

Nutrition wall at Berega Hospital



Being Badoed

There's a word here, bado, it means not yet, or wait a bit. I'm being badoed, which is grammatically poor but does succinctly describe what Immigration has been doing to me since my first trip to Africa. I have always tried to do what they asked, when they asked, but only once have I gotten what I needed. Why do they do this? Same reason dogs pee on trees. Because they can. There's some territorial issues as well. These guys have way more power than they need, certainly more than they can handle without acting like  a pack of imbeciles.

When I got here in January of 2011, we applied for my work permit through our lawyers, to whom Brad pays a hefty retainer for just this type of thing. In his first trip innocence he assured me we would have it in no time because "we have lawyers". I said fine, ok, you bet, and three months later in April I made my first trip to Malawi to renew my visa. I made yet another border run in July, because there were some issues, but bado, it will come. Just about the time I was ready to make my third run, it arrived. O Happy Day. I was legal in Tanzania, which I hadn't been in Ghana and twice in Tanzania, despite my efforts. 

Earlier this year I mentioned to Brad that although it was about six months until my permit expired, we should probably get on it. Having lost his virginity on my first permit, he readily agreed. Well, my permit expired in August, and as of this day, October 13, I am without a permit. We almost had it but bado, there was no paper at Immigration. Only in Africa would this be offered as a legitimate excuse, and only here would it be accepted as one. I fell for it. I was laughing, but since nothing here can be headed off at the pass, we just wait till something happens then run around trying to fix it.

Apparently the paper shortage was severe, because two weeks after they ran out of paper, I still had no permit. I did have, however, a letter from the lawyer stating that I had paid my fee and turned in my paperwork. This was signed, and did have a stamp, just not they stamp I needed. I was planning a trip to Nairobi, so I called the lawyer, now and forever to be referred to as Otilia, that moron, and asked if I could take my valid passport along with this note, and cross into Kenya. She said of course, hamna shida (that should have been my first clue). Before I made my bus reservations, and before the Somalis attacked the mall near the place I was going, I called the other lawyer to double check. He laughed and advised me not to try it. He would call around and get to the bottom of the issue, so bado, he would call me the next day. That never happened, so we called the head guy of the firm and he said hamna shida, he would talk to the others and have an answer for me in a day or two. That was the last we heard from him.

I go on vacation in six weeks, so I'm a little nervous. What if they don't let me out of the country, and if I do get out, what if I can't get back in? We called Otilia, that moron, again, and got the number of someone actually at Immigration. Ruth called and hamna shida, I can use the note to get my permit endorsed. Apparently my permit is AT Immigration, but now I need to bring the note to them. Also I need to bring another letter asking if I can use the note to ask for my permit. Please, if any of this makes sense to any of you, let me know.

I have another mgeni (guest) arriving on Thursday, so will go in early in the am to Dar and sit at Immigration, with my valid passport, my letter, and my letter asking to use my letter, and await my fate. I try to be optimistic, and if I succeed you will hear the ASIFIWE BWANA JESU all the way to the US, but in my heart I know will leave Dar  dejected, shoulders slumped, letters in my backpack, with the promise that hamna shida, come back tomorrow or the next day. Bado kidogo, you will get your permit, Mungu akipenda na Inshallah (if God wishes and if Allah sees fit...I try to cover all the bases).

Just in case you were wondering, Curly, Larry and Moe are not dead, far from it. They are here in Tanzania, running the Department of Immigration. 

Update: well, it's Thursday night, I'm home and wonder of wonders, with a valid visa. Waited at Immigration for about an hour, and they gave it to me. Up until the last minute, I was sure they would refuse for some reason, no pens, no ink for the stamp… O me of little faith.

Just Trying to Get Home

     I've been feeling a little beat up by the village lately, it's not always easy living here. The food is monotonous and sometimes hard to get, there's no place to ride a bike, and just really nothing to do. Our two restaurants, The New Florida, and the Jesus Is Lord New Restaurant, are less than appealing and would be more aptly named Ptomaine Ptowers and The Dysentery Diner. There is no rain. The riverbed is sand. Kids die.

     My students are great, but the parents can make me want to poke my eyes out. It seems word has gotten around that if a parent doesn't feel like paying school fees, in spite of being offered work at the farm, that dumb mzungu will pay, that dumb mzungu being me. So I decided to get away from the village for the weekend and go to Dar for a little time to myself when nobody, and I mean nobody, would need a thing from me. This is not what happened. This is a sad story.

     I boarded the bus in Morogoro, wanting a seat on the shady side. There were none, but I noticed the last row had a window seat. The back row is the last picked, as the suspension on these buses lack any actual suspending properties and you can arrive quite bent and sore. I walked toward the rear seats and noticed what looked like a scarf or scrap of fabric on the seat, so I figured a woman had left her kanga. As I got closer, it looked as though something was under that bit of fabric. I got to the end of the bus and there was a man lying under the wrap, a young Massai man. At first glance I thought he was dead, but there was life in his skeletal face. Not much life, but life nonetheless. He looked straight at me with his sunken eyes and I was just stunned that someone should leave a man in such distress alone on the bus.

     Very soon a tall young man walked up behind me and said this was his cousin, who was very sick and wanting to go home to his parents. He had become sick a while back and had recently begun refusing treatment. It wasn't helping anyway. His cousin had no English, and my Kiswahili is poor, but there was a nice Rastaman sitting nearby to translate and we all began talking.

     Isaya, the dying man, was only 19 years old, from a village many hours from Dar es Salaam. He had left his village to see some of the country, as young men will do. This is not acceptable behavior among some Massai, and a family can disown a man for abandoning his family, his tribe, and not helping with the cows. He was, at this point, suffering from TB and typhoid. TB is very common in the end stages of AIDS, and many people here who die of TB are HIV positive. 

     His cousin said that in fact, his parents would welcome him home, they knew how sick he was.The brother, however, had been left with the care of the cows, and wanted nothing to do with him. So the young man, I think his name was Joshua, was charged with bringing him home. He thought he would be able to get Isaya home by nightfall, when in reality they would not reach his village until the next night. 

     Isaya was unable to sit or stand, so he was stretched out along the five back seats. Joshua had paid for three seats, one for himself and two for Isaya. But Isaya, being Masaai, was well over six feet tall, and using the entire last row by himself. 

     This left two unpurchased seats, and I will tell you that they would be filled before the bus departed. So I bought the two seats so Isaya could stretch out for the six hour trip to Dar. Massai are beautiful people, especially the men, tall and elegant, with stunning bone structure and a regal, dignified bearing. You cannot help but notice them. 

     This poor kid was a skeleton, weighing no more than his bones. There was nothing else to him. He had been having diarrhea and vomiting, and there was a blue bucket near his head should he need it. He was dehydrated. His lips were chapped and parched, he hadn't taken anything by mouth in quite some time. I bought some water, and helped lift him so his friend could slip in behind him for support. He drank the water, then started vomiting. I bought him some lollipops to take the taste away, and for a bit of sugar. 

     We got underway, and Isaya lay there sucking on his lollipop, and dozing. I asked Joshua where he planned to stay the night since there would be no bus until the next morning. He just looked at me, and it was obvious he hadn't even thought of this, and had no idea what to do. He wasn't much older than Isaya, and not city bred. So he said they would probably spend the night at the bus station. About this time I looked out the window and started to cry. I have three sons, and this was too much to bear. Mothers internalize, it's what we do.

     He had not planned for this, and was totally unprepared a trip of this kind.  He had no idea what it would take to get Isaya home. I told him I would set them up in a "guestie", a small inn with cheap rooms. They could sleep there and get the bus the next day.

     We got to Dar, but there was no guest house in the bus station, so we found a cab, and planned to find a room somewhere. His friend had a hard time picking him up, he was light, but very tall and it was awkward in the very narrow bus aisle. As he picked him up it was obvious Isaya was naked under the wrap. I pulled out my brilliant pink kanga, and we covered him. 

     We got him into the cab and the usual african discussion ensued. There were four of us actually involved, but somehow about ten people gathered to weigh in regarding where to go, how much to pay for the cab, and whether or not to buy tomorrow's tickets tonight. At one point I looked at one man and asked what the hell he had to do with this, how he was even involved, and why didn't he just go away. Then I pointed to a hotel across the street and told the cabbie to take us there. Enough already. 

     So we took a two minute taxi ride to Mic Hotel, and I booked a room. It's a very modern hotel, the room was beautiful, the bed soft and clean, and we got him comfortable. He gestured me closer to say asante and then asked for a pair of captula,(shorts). Poor kid, bad enough he's dying on a bus, but he's naked but for his Massai wrap and my fluorescent flowered kanga. 

     I asked  Joshua to show me his money, and there was not enough for Isaya to have the last row on the bus. So we got that squared away, I gave him some travel money and some extra for his shorts. In the old days, a Massai would wear nothing under his robes, but nowadays they wear shorts. I showed Joshua how to use the key card, and the toilet. It was very plush and I admit I spent a few minutes myself figuring out the shower. 

     So I left, and hopefully they had a comfortable night, got clean, and made it home so he could die with his family nearby. I told you this was a sad story. He may still be living, though I doubt it. Looked to me he was just holding on till he could see his Mom and Dad. 

     The rest of the weekend was fine. Had a few good meals, found a coffee bar with iced mochas and brownies to die for. Got some books for myself.

     I'm back in Berega, getting beat up by the village again. There's just no escape, other than escape out of here, which I'm not ready to do.  Still have not heard about Isaya. I hope he made it home. Hope his brother came around and was happy to see him. Hope he died comfortably, not laid out on the back of a bus in the hot african sun.

L

You Can't See Kansas from Here, Toto

I'm here to teach, not to tell folks how to live, so if the kids are well educated, it follows they will figure out the rest by themselves. As Maya Angelou says, folks who know better, do better. I am mindful of this as I go about my day, correcting pronunciation, introducing grammar concepts and generally failing to adequately explain our bizarre English spelling. I have yet to approach the six ways to pronounce ough, I just don't see it ending well.

Evening classes continue, folks coming and going as work and family life permit. Amon is one of my adult students, a sweet, gentle, hardworking guy who can't remember a pronoun to save his life. Our routine is to talk about our day, our families, just generally converse together, and here's what happened a few days ago.

Me: Hello Amon, how are you?
Amon: I'm fine teacher, and you?
Me: I'm fine. So, how was your day?
Amon: Ah, Teacher, today was bad.
Me: Why, what happened?
Amon: Today I beat my wife.
Me: Really? And why did you do that?
Amon: I came home and there was no food, so I beat she.
Me: You beat her. Was she sick?
Amon: No, she was not sick, so I must beat she.
Me: You must beat her. Did you beat her badly?
Amon: Teacher, I am making a story. I did not beat she.
Me: You did not beat her. So how was work?

Like I said, I'm just here to teach English. Other than the above, adult education moves along at a steady pace. The kids are a lot more exciting, and know their pronouns. 

What happened to the poor chicken who didn’t lay fast enough.

All of the kids are reading so well, easily above their grade levels, and they love picture books. The ones we get here are mainly of the Aesop's Fables genre, a story with a moral, and bright, pretty illustrations. We were reading about the chicken who laid golden eggs, geese not being common here. As the story unfolded, the farmer became greedy and decided that instead of waiting for the hen to lay, he would just cut the gold out of it's stomach. There followed a full page picture of the farmer and his wife, a boning knife dripping blood onto the floor, and one mortally wounded chicken on the kitchen table. I was taken aback, and even the kids went a little wide eyed.

Even more egregious than the pictures are the spelling and grammar errors. These books are published by Vika, a company out of India, and as I read to the kids I correct the spelling and grammar with my black pen. Every time. Without fail. 

And out comes my red pen, as well as my blue magic marker. Does anyone edit these things?

American books present their own problems, although not with grammar and spelling. They like the Sesame Street books, but Oscar lives in a garbage can and we are fresh out of them here. We actually never did have them, which accounts for the garbage strewn all over hell and half of Berega.

So nothing is perfect here, but we love our books, especially the ones about Africa. I found a bookshop in Dar specializing in English and Kiswahili versions of african themed stories, and I buy them up as fast as I can. They're all about village life, animals, and the kids' favorite, Kaka Sungura, which is Kiswahili  for Brother Rabbit. Kaka Sungura is a very bad rabbit, stealing maize and other crops from the hardworking zebras, monkeys, and lions. He gets into all kinds of trouble and is in constant conflict with the other wanyama. The kids read both the English and Kiswahili versions. I read only the Kiswahili, and I'm about at level 5 now. These are much loved books, and already re-stapled and now duct taped.

What can I say?

When a person grows up speaking a language it's easy not to see the gray areas. We know what to say, we know the right answers, we just don't think about it. The kids have made me aware of the many shades of gray in my mother tongue. We've been discussing opposites and I asked them the opposite of full. Dani said hungry. I was actually looking for empty, but here hungry works just as well. Dani is a very bright kid, but the opposite of buy is not don't buy, although it was a good try.

We were discussing rhyming words, and the word to rhyme was cat. Samweli said bat, Mbuli said fat, but Jenny was stumped. I tried to help her out so I said, "You put it on your head'" to which she said "a bucket". True, but not quite what I was looking for.

Two plus two is four, now and forever, the answer is the answer. Not so in cross cultural English. We were doing some fill in the blanks the other day and the sentence was "Amina has long black_____. " The correct answer, according to the book, is hair. Well here, nobody has hair and everyone is dark skinned except me so Susy got points for fingers. And she does have long black fingers. Long black legs and arms as well. She's a very tall girl. The answer to "We eat with____, " here in the village, is hands, or even fingers. Not one kid wrote fork or spoon. 

V is for Vika Publishing that can’t think of another word to use for V.

There has been good progress with r and l, although nobody except Std 2 can say ruler. Sometimes I ask Std 1 to say it, just for kicks. They think it's hilarious, and it's good to be able to laugh at ourselves. "Long Live Rock and Roll" is going to take some time, and if they concentrate, they can say sixty. I kind of miss the old sikisty though, but preschool is still mangling it pretty well for me. 

In the govt schools, kids who make a mistake can be beaten or humiliated by the teacher. We just laugh and correct. Nobody is safe, even the teachers. So the kids laugh at themselves and each other and the teachers (who can't say ruler either). I hope and pray that none of these kids ever transfers to a govt school, because we've ruined them for anything else.

What is strange about this picture is that most of our kids have never used a toilet with a seat.

There are still some uniform issues, mostly involving buttons and panties, or the lack thereof. Folks who wouldn't think of leaving their house without decent clothes will send their kid to school with a shirt that has one, and only one, button. Some of the girls come without underpants, which is a real problem in a country where girls wear dresses. We've collected a large bag full of chupi, (thanks Janet and Sarah), and have sold some, and will give away others. One of the teachers suggested we do like they did when she was in school, which is to line the girls up once a week and have them lift their skirts. I'm not easily shocked, and at first I thought it was a joke, but nope. All the teachers said this is just normal, and we need to check the boys as well. I had to laugh, just thinking about how fast an American teacher would be fired, or even jailed, for pulling a stunt like this. But then, here it's common for the headmaster of the upper grades to send the girls for pregnancy tests. This is done without consent from either the students or the parents.

This is where I live, where I chose to live. As I was correcting Amon's grammar it occurred to me that I was less concerned about him beating his wife than his total inability to to use the proper pronoun. Have I crossed over to some other universe? Probably not, but I guess it's like that AA prayer. Grant me the strength to change what I can…….And the brains to know the difference. Something like that. 

L