You know, I never told you about my journey to Kondoa. About three weeks ago Fr. Lucas suggested going to the celebration Mass for the new and first bishop of the region Kondoa, a neighbor of Dodoma. To be honest, we (the volunteers and our Jesuit scholastic friend Martin) had no interest in the consecration/ordination/whatever-ation for the bishop, but the area of Kondoa itself had some appeal. Kondoa is home of a World Heritage Site showcasing rock paintings from about 6,000 years ago. Now that’s something to see! We all agreed to use the bishop’s celebration as an excuse to travel together and see the paintings.
We planned to meet at the parish uber early on Saturday morning, 7am right after Mass. Unfortunately (or fortunately, really) our vehicle got a flat before we even left so we were delayed a little (though if we got the puncture throughout out trip there would be a good chance we’d be in deep doo-doo). Jana and I were the only volunteers who went – Thomas was away and Sean was ill (again! This time malaria, poor guy). I knew Martin, Fr. Lucas, Br. Vincent were traveling with us, but I was excited to find that Sr. Christine, Mama Milambo (my friend from choir), her two sons, Mama’s friend, Agnes (the cook I made turkey with), and Rose (a cook for the Jesuits at the school) all climbed into the vehicle. Fr. Lucas, Martin and Br. Vincent all squeezed in the front and the rest of us sat on the two bench seats that lined the walls of the back of the car.
Now Kondoa is really not that far from Dodoma, but the only road to get there is dreadfully unpaved. Thankfully we were all in good spirits and excited about our journey that the first hour or two of the constant bumpiness (and occasional head bump on the roof) was almost humorous.
Oh I had an incredible time laughing with the women in the back of that car. First of all, I adore Rose – often when I don’t have anything to do at school I run to the Jesuit residence and hang out with her, help her cook or clean up or just chat over a soda. She’s a mother of two young teenagers, so she must be around 40 but I’m not exactly sure. (I should probably know this!) She knows about 5 total words in English and she’s been a real reason I keep trying so hard to learn Kiswahili. She’s the type of person that wakes up laughing till she cries, and just hearing her laugh makes your heart lighten. I always joke around with her and make her teach me things like how to tie a khanga properly around my head like an African woman. That was one of the topics of conversation that morning. The women love watching me tie things around my head or mimic them in ways that make me “more Tanzanian.” These things definitely help bridge the gap between language/culture/age.
This journey there was great – I think I’ve monumentally improved on my Kiswahili just from joking around with them the whole three and a half hour ride. And it was great to be able to communicate more with Agnes – the last time we spent time together was when we cooked the turkey and I was still pretty horrible at the language at that time. Mama Milambo was a great help and so were her boys – they all speak English fairly well. Though my legs felt like jelly and I had a significant bump on my head (and headache!) when the ride was over, I enjoyed the laughter. I also delighted in the quiet time when I just stared out the back door window taking in all of beautiful Tanzania. At times we passed huge plains, other times we passed through jungle, and still other times we climbed through the mountains. Tanzania truly is a magnificent country.
We finally arrived and went straight to the parish. There were decorations (yellow and white of course, the colors of Rome) everywhere and hundreds of religious people dressed in full garb. We greeted the people there and Agnes and Rose showed me around. Both of them are familiar with the place because they have family near Kondoa. They really wanted to take a picture together in front of the bishop’s house, so we called Martin over for the opportunity. We soon left and headed to the home of a St. Ignatius teacher (St. Ignatius is the Jesuit primary school in Dodoma – hence the connection). They graciously offered their home for us to stay. It was a simple house but with many rooms and enough beds for us to share. We had chai there and then set on our next adventure.
We all loaded up again in the hardtop and drove to a museum of sorts that showed pictures and artifacts people have found in the area surrounding the rock paintings. That was where we picked up our guide. The ride took about an hour and we traveled another bumpy, unpaved road, but this journey was interesting. The terrain was different, traveling over a number of bridges which unfortunately crossed rivers not recently dried up. In fact, many times we passed right through these dry sand banks which were sad reminders of how much water used to flow through this area. We had to get into four-wheel drive to make it up the rocky mountain to where the rock paintings were hidden. Talk about an adventure!
Now we needed to climb. It was actually a pretty intense hike up this mountain to reach the paintings and I was quite impressed by Br. Vincent’s endurance. Br. Vincent turned 75 this year and he has some problems with his legs, but he kept up with the rest of us (and at times shuffled right on past!). We reached a big rock first where you could climb onto and it felt like you were literally sitting on top of the world. It hung out past the rest of the mountain and below sat miles and miles of green mountains. It was beautiful. We acted touristy for about 10 minutes snapping pictures of ourselves and then continued our climb. We finally found the first site of rock paintings. I have to be honest, they weren’t quite as impressive as you’d think but you couldn’t not be in awe of how they have stayed on this rock for all these years. I thought about my own chalk drawings and I can’t imagine how they created a paint that could outlast the elements.
After visiting all three sites, we headed back home. We were famished at this point so we headed straight for a restaurant to get some chow. I took a little intermission outside and called home for about an hour (for a really nice conversations with my big brother, Greg!) but I enjoyed sitting and chatting with the bunch over a few beers and some nice food. We stayed there for the rest of the night, actually – chatting and laughing and enjoying each other. I amused them with a silly hand trick I probably learned from my Uncle Joe (always the jokester) where you hit a finger to the other hand and hit it back again, making it look like magic. They were all amazed – I thought it was hysterical! We headed back probably later than we should have, considering we had a long, long Mass to attend the next day.
The next morning we woke up, had our breakfast and packed our things. Our first stop was to see the only source of water in Kondoa – a well that has never run dry. The well is now surrounded by walls and a roof, but according to the well keeper, the roof has never been able to stay on. Every time people have sealed it in, the next day it will be blown off. The legend is that there must be some spiritual or mystical connection that needs the space directly above the well to stay open. Weird, eh?
After we went to the parish where hundreds of people have already taken their spots. The Mass was held in the foundation of the new church that is still being built. Hundreds of people crowded into this roofless, wall-less structure and the rest surrounded it. The Jesuits had a spot with the other religious, and the other women rushed and pushed into the “church” but Jana and I thought it best if we found out own spot on the grass somewhere around the mass of people. It was a beautiful day – hardly any sun with a cool breeze hinting on rain. Despite the clouds I still managed to get a little sunburn on my cheeks and a tiny triangle right beneath my neck. I managed the snap one photo of the bishop as he processed around the church blessing everyone at the end.
After a really, really, really long Mass, we found each other again (eventually) and went to the same restaurant as the night before to grab a quick lunch before heading home. It really was a quick lunch – I think everyone was really tired and not too excited about our journey home. The ride back was just as bumpy (maybe more because Lucas drove a little faster, we all just wanted to get there!) and much more quiet. We got home just as the sun was setting, in time for a quick dinner and an early bedtime. It was an exhausting but terrific weekend get-away.
29 May 2011
Hakuna Mungu kama Wewe
One of my friends at school is our gate keeper, Naomi. She’s probably about 35 or early 40s but she I thought she was a little older. She wears a purple pant suit matching the other guards. She lives in the village of Ihumwa where our school sits. Ihumwa is a village far from Dodoma– about a 30 minute ride. The farther you get from the city center, the more likely you have less and less. Ihumwa has a market of its own, but the village has very limited access to electricity and most of its houses have walls made of cement and mud, roofs made of grass or a sheet of aluminum or other metal and floors of either soil or cement.
I don’t get the chance to spend much time with Naomi because the gate to our school is pretty far from our classrooms. But when I go in late to school on Mondays and I greet her as I pass through. I stop, say the little I know in Kigogo (the language of the tribe Wagogo who reside in Ihumwa) and we laugh together. She’s a sweet woman. She often walks me partway through campus, chatting with me despite my little understanding. I ask about her family; she asks about my home and I tell her what I did that weekend. I always make a point to wave to her out the window of our bus on our way home.
Naomi has been asking me to visit her and for a while I was hesitant. It is a little stressful visiting someone for the first time, especially when you have to take a daladala (small bus) to a place you’ve never been and try to find her (and not understanding the language so much!) But it had been about a month since I said I’d come that I finally decided I’d take the journey out there on Sunday. My Kiswahili is better so I can at least navigate more easily. Sean came along – we always take advantage of each other’s invitations so we can see new places and meet new people.
We went to the first Mass (I sang with the choir) and then took our first daladala into town. We walked to a place called SabaSaba where we can find the dala that takes us to Ihumwa (the same one we use to go to school when we go in late or come home early). The people in SabaSaba are getting used to us moving through there – I don’t think there were any wazungu passing to Ihumwa before we came. The people we ride the bus with now know, “the wazungu are traveling to the Site.” The Site is what people call the place our school is being built. I don’t think any of them expected us to stay on and drive right past the school to their home village.
We finally arrived, got off the dala and looked around not sure what to do. We thought Naomi would be waiting but she wasn’t so I called her and she said she was on her way over. We must have looked lost to the people in the market there. Naomi finally came around and was dressed like a Mama! That’s the first time I saw her without her purple pant uniform. She was thrilled to see us. Sean gave her the cake we bought from the bakery before we came (it’s comparable to Grandma’s pound cake but obviously not as good). (Later she told me how much her kids enjoyed it – I don’t think they ever bake cake or even taste it).
She walked us first to her church where I thought we might meet some of her friends. They welcomed us inside and sat us in the plastic lawn chairs sitting up near the pastor. This was a TAG parish – Tanzania Assembly of God. The church was small; it fit maybe 50 people. The walls were mud/cement, the roof was a metal sheet, and the floor was dirt. There was a single podium and an electric keyboard sitting on top of a speaker up front. The back of the church was draped in yellow, white, and purple cloths. There were flowers growing right out of the ground and branches of bushes with flowers hung along the wall. The pews were simple wood benches. The men sat on the right, the women on the left (even Christian churches in TZ are influenced by the Muslim practice of separating the sexes). It was beautifully simple.
I soon came to realize that the service was just starting, for we ended up staying there about two and a half hours. There were a few men that would come in front, sing some songs while dancing around and the pastor would pound away at the keyboard in time to its artificial electric beats. After some singing, the children marched in single file while singing a song. They finished in front, sang another song and then processed back out. After, the “choir” (anyone who wanted to go up front) congregated and sang their own song. It was a lot of singing, but I didn’t mind.
The pastor eventually opened his Holy Book and read at least ten different scripture passages in a very loud almost yelling voice, squeezing his eyes shut, moving his arms very prophetically, and sometimes jumping around to pound in his point. He sometimes switched only one line to English which was interesting because I’m most sure that Sean and I were the only English speakers there. He would sometimes interrupt his preaching starting a chorus of “Alleluyas.” When he finished, he stood quiet and then started praying loudly and soon everyone in the church was also praying, their own words, their own voices. It became a drowning of prayers in Kiswahili, something sounding almost like what I would imagine talking in tongues sounds like. It startled me, scared me a little, but then I looked at Naomi quietly saying her own prayers and holding a small girl (who I later realized was her youngest daughter) and realized I was in the midst of a living, breathing prayer. It was incredible.
Later there was another prayer session such as this, except women came to have the pastor pray over them. One woman presented her young baby, another her toddler, and the last was a Bibi (a very old grandma). The pastor placed his hand on each of their heads and yelled things into their ears, pressing their heads down and down. I was shocked, but the baby, the child, and the Bibi didn’t budge or blink an eye. This was something holy for them, so I tried to keep my true feelings off my face. It ended as if this was something that happened every week and they walked back to their benches.
I so much enjoyed being here, despite the length of the service (I was a bit confused why we were there and how long it would last, and I hadn’t eaten anything since 6:30am so I was on empty). But there was a moment when we were all singing “Hakuna Mungu kama Wewe” (No God like You) and I was staring at the metal sheet that shields these Christians from the hot sun that I felt more connected to the people here than I have since I’ve arrived. It’s an image and feeling that still sticks with me – no matter which Church I enter, I can find Home.
The Mass finally ended, but not without an introduction from the wageni (visitors). I said a few brief words about where I came from, why I’m here, where I work, etc etc, and then Sean did the same. They were so kind for greeting us when we all left the church.
Finally we started walking home with Naomi. She held my hand as we walked and talked excitedly about how happy she was to have me at her home. (Women hold the hands of their female friends and men hold the hands of their male friends, but you hardly ever see men and women holding hands even if they are married.) Sean chatted with Naomi’s first child, a girl of 16. Naomi has five children: this girl, two boys who are currently studying in Kenya (her father was Kenyan – but studying there is very expensive because the education is much better than in TZ, so Sean and I are unsure how this works for her), another daughter of about eight and her youngest who is a charming two year old girl.
As we walked, I hollered a few “mihanyenyi”s (Kigogo for good afternoon) to the neighbors in their shambas (farm/garden) and they surely stared as the wazungu walk where none (or very few) have passed before.
I don’t get the chance to spend much time with Naomi because the gate to our school is pretty far from our classrooms. But when I go in late to school on Mondays and I greet her as I pass through. I stop, say the little I know in Kigogo (the language of the tribe Wagogo who reside in Ihumwa) and we laugh together. She’s a sweet woman. She often walks me partway through campus, chatting with me despite my little understanding. I ask about her family; she asks about my home and I tell her what I did that weekend. I always make a point to wave to her out the window of our bus on our way home.
Naomi has been asking me to visit her and for a while I was hesitant. It is a little stressful visiting someone for the first time, especially when you have to take a daladala (small bus) to a place you’ve never been and try to find her (and not understanding the language so much!) But it had been about a month since I said I’d come that I finally decided I’d take the journey out there on Sunday. My Kiswahili is better so I can at least navigate more easily. Sean came along – we always take advantage of each other’s invitations so we can see new places and meet new people.
We went to the first Mass (I sang with the choir) and then took our first daladala into town. We walked to a place called SabaSaba where we can find the dala that takes us to Ihumwa (the same one we use to go to school when we go in late or come home early). The people in SabaSaba are getting used to us moving through there – I don’t think there were any wazungu passing to Ihumwa before we came. The people we ride the bus with now know, “the wazungu are traveling to the Site.” The Site is what people call the place our school is being built. I don’t think any of them expected us to stay on and drive right past the school to their home village.
We finally arrived, got off the dala and looked around not sure what to do. We thought Naomi would be waiting but she wasn’t so I called her and she said she was on her way over. We must have looked lost to the people in the market there. Naomi finally came around and was dressed like a Mama! That’s the first time I saw her without her purple pant uniform. She was thrilled to see us. Sean gave her the cake we bought from the bakery before we came (it’s comparable to Grandma’s pound cake but obviously not as good). (Later she told me how much her kids enjoyed it – I don’t think they ever bake cake or even taste it).
She walked us first to her church where I thought we might meet some of her friends. They welcomed us inside and sat us in the plastic lawn chairs sitting up near the pastor. This was a TAG parish – Tanzania Assembly of God. The church was small; it fit maybe 50 people. The walls were mud/cement, the roof was a metal sheet, and the floor was dirt. There was a single podium and an electric keyboard sitting on top of a speaker up front. The back of the church was draped in yellow, white, and purple cloths. There were flowers growing right out of the ground and branches of bushes with flowers hung along the wall. The pews were simple wood benches. The men sat on the right, the women on the left (even Christian churches in TZ are influenced by the Muslim practice of separating the sexes). It was beautifully simple.
I soon came to realize that the service was just starting, for we ended up staying there about two and a half hours. There were a few men that would come in front, sing some songs while dancing around and the pastor would pound away at the keyboard in time to its artificial electric beats. After some singing, the children marched in single file while singing a song. They finished in front, sang another song and then processed back out. After, the “choir” (anyone who wanted to go up front) congregated and sang their own song. It was a lot of singing, but I didn’t mind.
The pastor eventually opened his Holy Book and read at least ten different scripture passages in a very loud almost yelling voice, squeezing his eyes shut, moving his arms very prophetically, and sometimes jumping around to pound in his point. He sometimes switched only one line to English which was interesting because I’m most sure that Sean and I were the only English speakers there. He would sometimes interrupt his preaching starting a chorus of “Alleluyas.” When he finished, he stood quiet and then started praying loudly and soon everyone in the church was also praying, their own words, their own voices. It became a drowning of prayers in Kiswahili, something sounding almost like what I would imagine talking in tongues sounds like. It startled me, scared me a little, but then I looked at Naomi quietly saying her own prayers and holding a small girl (who I later realized was her youngest daughter) and realized I was in the midst of a living, breathing prayer. It was incredible.
Later there was another prayer session such as this, except women came to have the pastor pray over them. One woman presented her young baby, another her toddler, and the last was a Bibi (a very old grandma). The pastor placed his hand on each of their heads and yelled things into their ears, pressing their heads down and down. I was shocked, but the baby, the child, and the Bibi didn’t budge or blink an eye. This was something holy for them, so I tried to keep my true feelings off my face. It ended as if this was something that happened every week and they walked back to their benches.
I so much enjoyed being here, despite the length of the service (I was a bit confused why we were there and how long it would last, and I hadn’t eaten anything since 6:30am so I was on empty). But there was a moment when we were all singing “Hakuna Mungu kama Wewe” (No God like You) and I was staring at the metal sheet that shields these Christians from the hot sun that I felt more connected to the people here than I have since I’ve arrived. It’s an image and feeling that still sticks with me – no matter which Church I enter, I can find Home.
The Mass finally ended, but not without an introduction from the wageni (visitors). I said a few brief words about where I came from, why I’m here, where I work, etc etc, and then Sean did the same. They were so kind for greeting us when we all left the church.
Finally we started walking home with Naomi. She held my hand as we walked and talked excitedly about how happy she was to have me at her home. (Women hold the hands of their female friends and men hold the hands of their male friends, but you hardly ever see men and women holding hands even if they are married.) Sean chatted with Naomi’s first child, a girl of 16. Naomi has five children: this girl, two boys who are currently studying in Kenya (her father was Kenyan – but studying there is very expensive because the education is much better than in TZ, so Sean and I are unsure how this works for her), another daughter of about eight and her youngest who is a charming two year old girl.
As we walked, I hollered a few “mihanyenyi”s (Kigogo for good afternoon) to the neighbors in their shambas (farm/garden) and they surely stared as the wazungu walk where none (or very few) have passed before.
Misa ya Kwanza
So I finally sang with the choir at Sunday Mass. It was, interesting. One of the Mamas insisted I finally sing with them at Mass instead of just the practices. Makes sense I guess, but it was like diving into a hot tub you didn’t know was full of ice cubes. Okay, maybe not that extreme but it was.. interesting. This Mama and her husband own one of the dispensaries in Dodoma called “Upendo Dispensary.” She lives in my neighborhood in a beautiful, large house. After practice went late one night and it was too dark to walk home, she insisted on driving me home. That’s when she decided to also pick me up that Sunday morning at 6:50am for Mass at 7:30am. (You have to get there really early for this Mass. It sometimes starts early. Plus the choir sings before it starts. The church is always packed full by 7am).
The night before, I decided to wear my kitenge dress (a traditional dress I had made here) so I’d “fit in”. People always put on their best for Sunday Mass. Mama picked me up, we drove 3 minutes to the church, and snuck in next to the other choir members. Apparently sopranos stand in the first row, so I was lucky to be dead center, perfect view for everyone to see (I hope you are sensing sarcasm). Okay not everyone, but a lot of people – the choir sits in the seats facing the left wall of the church. But I don’t think you could miss the only mzungu standing in the middle of the choir, not to mention I was wearing bright blue from head to toe. This was one of those moments that I was severely aware that I wasn’t black. Go figure – I don’t look like everyone around me – who knew? But honestly, sometimes I forget. And sometimes I forget that every face I look at every day is a different shade from my own. I see people, not colors. Though sometimes I do think some of them are more blue or yellow or red than black or white. If I came out a different color I think I’d be a brighter green.
As Mass started and I began silently praying to God to become invisible, the women around me moved rhythmically to the beats of the organ, swaying their hands and moving their bodies in sync. We definitely didn’t practice this. I had to choose – figure out this dance and move along with them, or stand still and try to keep up with the words on the page in front of me. I chose first the dancing figuring it would be less noticeable to not sing, and slowly found myself singing along to the chorus. Talk about multitasking.
First song over – Lord, please let this go fast – we sat a little as usual then rose again to sing some other things that weren’t on my page. You know, those songs that everyone knows because we sing them every Sunday. Singing in English doesn’t quite cut it, so again I found myself pretending like everything was normal. Pretending I was supposed to be dancing there not singing. Pretending like I looked like everyone around me and no one cared I was there. And the fact was, once Mass started people didn’t really stare as much. I mean, there were a few but most just looked ahead at the altar where the real action was happening. That helped cool my nerves a little, thankfully. I just kept repeating a mantra in my head the entire Mass, “This is normal; no one cares. This is normal; no one cares.”
Most songs went by okay. I knew a few from our practices but some I had no idea. Most of the dancing I caught on eventually, but there was this one four step thing that was near impossible. I use “four step” loosely considering we’re squeezed into a pew, but it was a four point movement nonetheless. I was concentrating so hard on moving like the women next to me, I must have been wearing one of those “thinking hard” faces. The Mama next to me caught my eye and we laughed. It was so stressful. That one I gave up complete hope of singing the words considering I couldn’t even keep up with the movements. I was glad when the words slowed down signaling the end of the song, and more importantly the end of the dancing.
The end of Mass came and the women to the left of me began moving out of the pew as they were singing. I followed along and realized that we are now processing out of the church, down the main aisle, singing and walk-dancing in step to the little outdoor gazebo where we have our practices. I might have liked that the most because eventually the organ stopped and it was just the choir singing. They sing so well the organ almost ruins their voices. We sat in the gazebo making announcements for almost an hour (I was so hungry and tired at this time, it was a little painful). But when everyone was leaving, many of the Mamas who previously had been a little stand-offish congratulated me on my great dancing (hah!) and singing.
Though it may have been two of the most stressful hours of my time here, it was totally worth it. I feel the people at the choir have been engaging me much more, joking, teasing, laughing with each other. I’m so glad. (The Mama with the car told me the choir was afraid to approach me because they just didn’t know how we’d communicate. I think they now realize that I’m trying my hardest at the language and that we may not say much but we can get our points across!)
The night before, I decided to wear my kitenge dress (a traditional dress I had made here) so I’d “fit in”. People always put on their best for Sunday Mass. Mama picked me up, we drove 3 minutes to the church, and snuck in next to the other choir members. Apparently sopranos stand in the first row, so I was lucky to be dead center, perfect view for everyone to see (I hope you are sensing sarcasm). Okay not everyone, but a lot of people – the choir sits in the seats facing the left wall of the church. But I don’t think you could miss the only mzungu standing in the middle of the choir, not to mention I was wearing bright blue from head to toe. This was one of those moments that I was severely aware that I wasn’t black. Go figure – I don’t look like everyone around me – who knew? But honestly, sometimes I forget. And sometimes I forget that every face I look at every day is a different shade from my own. I see people, not colors. Though sometimes I do think some of them are more blue or yellow or red than black or white. If I came out a different color I think I’d be a brighter green.
As Mass started and I began silently praying to God to become invisible, the women around me moved rhythmically to the beats of the organ, swaying their hands and moving their bodies in sync. We definitely didn’t practice this. I had to choose – figure out this dance and move along with them, or stand still and try to keep up with the words on the page in front of me. I chose first the dancing figuring it would be less noticeable to not sing, and slowly found myself singing along to the chorus. Talk about multitasking.
First song over – Lord, please let this go fast – we sat a little as usual then rose again to sing some other things that weren’t on my page. You know, those songs that everyone knows because we sing them every Sunday. Singing in English doesn’t quite cut it, so again I found myself pretending like everything was normal. Pretending I was supposed to be dancing there not singing. Pretending like I looked like everyone around me and no one cared I was there. And the fact was, once Mass started people didn’t really stare as much. I mean, there were a few but most just looked ahead at the altar where the real action was happening. That helped cool my nerves a little, thankfully. I just kept repeating a mantra in my head the entire Mass, “This is normal; no one cares. This is normal; no one cares.”
Most songs went by okay. I knew a few from our practices but some I had no idea. Most of the dancing I caught on eventually, but there was this one four step thing that was near impossible. I use “four step” loosely considering we’re squeezed into a pew, but it was a four point movement nonetheless. I was concentrating so hard on moving like the women next to me, I must have been wearing one of those “thinking hard” faces. The Mama next to me caught my eye and we laughed. It was so stressful. That one I gave up complete hope of singing the words considering I couldn’t even keep up with the movements. I was glad when the words slowed down signaling the end of the song, and more importantly the end of the dancing.
The end of Mass came and the women to the left of me began moving out of the pew as they were singing. I followed along and realized that we are now processing out of the church, down the main aisle, singing and walk-dancing in step to the little outdoor gazebo where we have our practices. I might have liked that the most because eventually the organ stopped and it was just the choir singing. They sing so well the organ almost ruins their voices. We sat in the gazebo making announcements for almost an hour (I was so hungry and tired at this time, it was a little painful). But when everyone was leaving, many of the Mamas who previously had been a little stand-offish congratulated me on my great dancing (hah!) and singing.
Though it may have been two of the most stressful hours of my time here, it was totally worth it. I feel the people at the choir have been engaging me much more, joking, teasing, laughing with each other. I’m so glad. (The Mama with the car told me the choir was afraid to approach me because they just didn’t know how we’d communicate. I think they now realize that I’m trying my hardest at the language and that we may not say much but we can get our points across!)
09 May 2011
Charlotte is MIA
This is just terrible. I was only cleaning the cobwebs in the corners of our house. The troupes of spiders that dwell among us create these elaborate webs – great for trapping those darn mosquitoes (said, moss-squee-toes) as well as all the dust that lingers in our Dodoma home. I haven’t touched Charlotte’s web since we last reconciled our differences, so her bed was especially dusty. My intent was to just tear down the dusty parts, you know, like help her with her spring cleaning, but I accidentally moved my broom thingy too close to her. She dropped to the floor, or some other place, and disappeared. I looked around the sink, on the floor, behind the light – nowhere to be found. I’m now realizing how attached I’ve become to her. (I am recognizing the insanity of this – if you can recognize you’re losing it means you’re not actually losing it, right? Right.) I think she’s been kind of a pet to me, like a goldfish. They are there solely just to look at – you can’t actually play with them and you don’t really want to touch them. I feel really bad. So bad, in fact, that I felt the need to announce the bad news to Jana. She’s also sad. I’m just going to say some prayers to the spider god that she returns to us. I promise to leave her alone from now on!
Speaking of bugs (or mdudu in Kiswahili – that’s a funny word, don’t you think?), we have an insane amount of cockroaches in our kitchen. That’s mostly where they dwell but sometimes I find a little one in my bedroom closet. They live in our cupboards, crawling all over our spoons, forks, plates, bowls, spices and flour. At first I found this disgusting, but now I find it disgusting that they don’t really bother me anymore. Usually when I open our drawer for a fork, at least five scurry around. I bet John, Carrie, and Greg find this amusing – remember when I used to wake you all up in the middle of the night to kill the spiders next to my bed? And now I comfortably share my bedroom with at least three spiders per ceiling corner, and my kitchen with well over 50 tiny roaches (and a mystery animal that leaves droppings at night). Oh life.
Since I’ve last wrote I’ve done more traveling. I was back at school for about a week after our midterm break trip to Uganda. Sean and I were planning to leave on Wednesday, April 20th to Lushoto, a place up north in Tanzania to meet the other JVs for our “spring” retreat. Unfortunately, Sean starting feeling unwell Monday and by Tuesday evening, he had a horrible fever and was feeling really achy. He didn’t feel well enough for traveling, so I had to decide to go on my own or stay back and wait for him to feel better. To be honest, at first I was really nervous about traveling to Lushoto on my own, mostly because I had never been there and I had to get off at one stop, find a smaller bus, and then get off at another stop and find the place where we were staying. But now after six months of living in Tanzania, my Kiswahili is good enough for me to ask questions and find my way. I figured it best to just go, in case he doesn’t get better as quickly as we’d hoped –and it turned out he didn’t. Sean got typhoid and was pretty ill for about a week. Poor guy. Don’t worry – I didn’t leave him home alone. Jana was still around!
Wednesday morning I woke up at 5am, took a daladala to the bus stand for our 6:30am departure. It was still dark at this time – a really eerie time of day, cold and quiet. But I made it to the bus stand without problem, and drank a shot of coffee with a man from Saudia working for my Shabiby bus, and eventually our bus arrived. My new friend helped me find my seat and put my bag away. I sat a few minutes just sorting out my travel bag (you know, the one that you sit with that includes tissues, snacks, books, music, sweatshirt), when into the bus walks my good friend Redempta. Redempta is the secretary at our school – she’s about 30 and is going to university for a business degree. She was as shocked as I was to see her. She was on her way home to see her family for Easter. She took Sean’s seat and we enjoyed each other’s company for the long trip.
The bus was actually traveling all the way to Arusha, where Redempta was going, but I was getting off in the town of Mombo, cutting the whole trip short by about 4 hours. Redempta helped me find the stop, and at Mombo a nice man turned me over to a small boy who walked me to the coaster bus that I needed to take to my next stop. I told the driver where I wanted to get off, and a nice little Bibi (grandma) sat next to me. Her teeth were mostly tiny and yellow and she had very worn clothes, but her smile was beautiful and she was absolutely delighted as I talked to her in Kiswahili.
The journey from Mombo to Lushoto was a beautiful ride up and through the mountains. Our coaster drove slowly around the narrow bends, and I saw one of the most beautiful sides of Tanzania. It actually reminded me a lot of our trips through the mountains when I studied in China. It’s amazing how peaceful you can feel when viewing nature untouched.
Another friend from the coaster helped me find the Rosmini hostel where we were staying. I’m always amazed at how helpful Tanzanians are, their intentions (most of the time) purely to show a warm welcome. (They don’t take the word “Karibu,” welcome, lightly.)
On Wednesday evening, Thursday, and Friday the other 7 volunteers and I (minus Sean), enjoyed catching up with each other, doing some reflection, sharing experiences, and enjoying the peacefulness of the retreat center. As communities, we take turns running the retreat. The Moshi community was on for this one – Dar and Dodoma will share in planning the next. These retreats are really helpful to give you a space to step back and really examine how life is going. This time helped me recognize how much I have grown already, though I hadn’t realized it, and also helped me to see the changes I needed to start making. I am really grateful for those days.
Saturday morning, in the rain, we waited at our bus stop for about an hour to travel to Moshi for Easter. The trip took about three hours. We stayed at the Moshi volunteer house. Saturday was restful, just enjoying each other, playing games, reading, chatting, cooking meals. That night, four of us slept in tents in the living room – the tents act like a mosquito net. Past volunteers had brought them and left them – thanks, they are quite handy!
Sunday morning we went to Easter Mass but it didn’t seem much different than a normal Sunday Mass to my surprise, considering our Dodoma parish was building much excitement about the day. In the afternoon, a few of us took a nice walk into town and the rest of the day was filled with more chatting and enjoying a lazy Sunday together. We all got excited as each of our phones rang to wish Happy Easter to our families. Liz made us a delicious dinner of veggies, rice, and peanut sauce. Throughout dinner we shared our gratitude ABS’s – each of us listed something we were grateful for for each letter of the alphabet.
Easter Monday I travelled back home very early. My trip had no problems, and I ended up sitting next to a fundi (repairman) who is building our laboratory at school. (I didn’t recognize him – there’s a lot of workers! – but he recognized the mzungu!). Seems like I always meet someone along the way – it’s a small world, isn’t it?
I had school off on Tuesday for a National holiday, so I stayed around home with Sean who was still recovering on our couch. I did some intense cleaning of our living room – I figured it would be something to do while keeping him company. I finally set up our tv/stereo/dvd player that had been sitting around unused for the past 7 months we’ve been here so Sean wouldn’t be so bored. We were so excited that it could play movies! The only one we had was Legally Blonde 2 in the drawer, so we watched it that evening and enjoyed every minute of it! I always forget how nice watching a good movie is – it’s really relaxing and a good way to get your mind on something new. Since then we’ve been searching for movies to watch, but only some work on our dvd player – not sure why. The others come up unrecognized, so we’ve resulted in watching from my tiny computer. It gets the objective accomplished though!
Back to school on that Wednesday and I’m much happier this midterm. At retreat I had come to the conclusion I needed to stop dwelling on the “what could be/ what should be” and instead just find joy in the “what is.” Our students are still the same spoiled brats (okay, not all of them, but some of them!) but they make me laugh and we have fun together. I’m now teaching “speech class” instead of study skills and because I took a class like this in high school, I at least have an idea of how this whole thing can play out. And we’ve (Sean, Madam the English teacher, and I) switched from group teaching a couple English classes every week to pulling out the students who need the most help and giving them one on one (or two on two is more the reality) help with their lessons. We don’t have another holiday until our term break at the end of June, so I’m hoping I can keep up this attitude until then!
Missing everyone from home, as always!
Speaking of bugs (or mdudu in Kiswahili – that’s a funny word, don’t you think?), we have an insane amount of cockroaches in our kitchen. That’s mostly where they dwell but sometimes I find a little one in my bedroom closet. They live in our cupboards, crawling all over our spoons, forks, plates, bowls, spices and flour. At first I found this disgusting, but now I find it disgusting that they don’t really bother me anymore. Usually when I open our drawer for a fork, at least five scurry around. I bet John, Carrie, and Greg find this amusing – remember when I used to wake you all up in the middle of the night to kill the spiders next to my bed? And now I comfortably share my bedroom with at least three spiders per ceiling corner, and my kitchen with well over 50 tiny roaches (and a mystery animal that leaves droppings at night). Oh life.
Since I’ve last wrote I’ve done more traveling. I was back at school for about a week after our midterm break trip to Uganda. Sean and I were planning to leave on Wednesday, April 20th to Lushoto, a place up north in Tanzania to meet the other JVs for our “spring” retreat. Unfortunately, Sean starting feeling unwell Monday and by Tuesday evening, he had a horrible fever and was feeling really achy. He didn’t feel well enough for traveling, so I had to decide to go on my own or stay back and wait for him to feel better. To be honest, at first I was really nervous about traveling to Lushoto on my own, mostly because I had never been there and I had to get off at one stop, find a smaller bus, and then get off at another stop and find the place where we were staying. But now after six months of living in Tanzania, my Kiswahili is good enough for me to ask questions and find my way. I figured it best to just go, in case he doesn’t get better as quickly as we’d hoped –and it turned out he didn’t. Sean got typhoid and was pretty ill for about a week. Poor guy. Don’t worry – I didn’t leave him home alone. Jana was still around!
Wednesday morning I woke up at 5am, took a daladala to the bus stand for our 6:30am departure. It was still dark at this time – a really eerie time of day, cold and quiet. But I made it to the bus stand without problem, and drank a shot of coffee with a man from Saudia working for my Shabiby bus, and eventually our bus arrived. My new friend helped me find my seat and put my bag away. I sat a few minutes just sorting out my travel bag (you know, the one that you sit with that includes tissues, snacks, books, music, sweatshirt), when into the bus walks my good friend Redempta. Redempta is the secretary at our school – she’s about 30 and is going to university for a business degree. She was as shocked as I was to see her. She was on her way home to see her family for Easter. She took Sean’s seat and we enjoyed each other’s company for the long trip.
The bus was actually traveling all the way to Arusha, where Redempta was going, but I was getting off in the town of Mombo, cutting the whole trip short by about 4 hours. Redempta helped me find the stop, and at Mombo a nice man turned me over to a small boy who walked me to the coaster bus that I needed to take to my next stop. I told the driver where I wanted to get off, and a nice little Bibi (grandma) sat next to me. Her teeth were mostly tiny and yellow and she had very worn clothes, but her smile was beautiful and she was absolutely delighted as I talked to her in Kiswahili.
The journey from Mombo to Lushoto was a beautiful ride up and through the mountains. Our coaster drove slowly around the narrow bends, and I saw one of the most beautiful sides of Tanzania. It actually reminded me a lot of our trips through the mountains when I studied in China. It’s amazing how peaceful you can feel when viewing nature untouched.
Another friend from the coaster helped me find the Rosmini hostel where we were staying. I’m always amazed at how helpful Tanzanians are, their intentions (most of the time) purely to show a warm welcome. (They don’t take the word “Karibu,” welcome, lightly.)
On Wednesday evening, Thursday, and Friday the other 7 volunteers and I (minus Sean), enjoyed catching up with each other, doing some reflection, sharing experiences, and enjoying the peacefulness of the retreat center. As communities, we take turns running the retreat. The Moshi community was on for this one – Dar and Dodoma will share in planning the next. These retreats are really helpful to give you a space to step back and really examine how life is going. This time helped me recognize how much I have grown already, though I hadn’t realized it, and also helped me to see the changes I needed to start making. I am really grateful for those days.
Saturday morning, in the rain, we waited at our bus stop for about an hour to travel to Moshi for Easter. The trip took about three hours. We stayed at the Moshi volunteer house. Saturday was restful, just enjoying each other, playing games, reading, chatting, cooking meals. That night, four of us slept in tents in the living room – the tents act like a mosquito net. Past volunteers had brought them and left them – thanks, they are quite handy!
Sunday morning we went to Easter Mass but it didn’t seem much different than a normal Sunday Mass to my surprise, considering our Dodoma parish was building much excitement about the day. In the afternoon, a few of us took a nice walk into town and the rest of the day was filled with more chatting and enjoying a lazy Sunday together. We all got excited as each of our phones rang to wish Happy Easter to our families. Liz made us a delicious dinner of veggies, rice, and peanut sauce. Throughout dinner we shared our gratitude ABS’s – each of us listed something we were grateful for for each letter of the alphabet.
Easter Monday I travelled back home very early. My trip had no problems, and I ended up sitting next to a fundi (repairman) who is building our laboratory at school. (I didn’t recognize him – there’s a lot of workers! – but he recognized the mzungu!). Seems like I always meet someone along the way – it’s a small world, isn’t it?
I had school off on Tuesday for a National holiday, so I stayed around home with Sean who was still recovering on our couch. I did some intense cleaning of our living room – I figured it would be something to do while keeping him company. I finally set up our tv/stereo/dvd player that had been sitting around unused for the past 7 months we’ve been here so Sean wouldn’t be so bored. We were so excited that it could play movies! The only one we had was Legally Blonde 2 in the drawer, so we watched it that evening and enjoyed every minute of it! I always forget how nice watching a good movie is – it’s really relaxing and a good way to get your mind on something new. Since then we’ve been searching for movies to watch, but only some work on our dvd player – not sure why. The others come up unrecognized, so we’ve resulted in watching from my tiny computer. It gets the objective accomplished though!
Back to school on that Wednesday and I’m much happier this midterm. At retreat I had come to the conclusion I needed to stop dwelling on the “what could be/ what should be” and instead just find joy in the “what is.” Our students are still the same spoiled brats (okay, not all of them, but some of them!) but they make me laugh and we have fun together. I’m now teaching “speech class” instead of study skills and because I took a class like this in high school, I at least have an idea of how this whole thing can play out. And we’ve (Sean, Madam the English teacher, and I) switched from group teaching a couple English classes every week to pulling out the students who need the most help and giving them one on one (or two on two is more the reality) help with their lessons. We don’t have another holiday until our term break at the end of June, so I’m hoping I can keep up this attitude until then!
Missing everyone from home, as always!
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