Ummmm...wow! Hello NY!

I've been sitting here for the last hour trying to think of what to write. I'm sitting in a friend's apartment, using her laptop, occasionally glancing at her flatscreen TV, and I can't get over how out-of-body the whole experience feels. Part of it is the jetlag...instead of sleeping I wandered around the Dubai airport/immediate surrounds, and 40 hours of more/less continual wakefulness is probably taking a toll. Still.

I'm pretty damn sad, truth be told. It's to be expected. It was inevitable. I know that. But it doesn't keep the tears from welling at the silliest little things. At the realization that I can't waste things now- every god-damn thing they gave us on the airplane (all that crap- napkins, toothpicks, toothbrushes, socks, etc.) I had to keep it. I couldn't just throw it away. Same with the food; they always give you more than you can eat and I was agonizing about what to do with the leftovers. Then there are the memories of the going away party with my students; it was the most ridiculous hodgepodge of silly, heartbreaking, maudlin moments and while I can't think of some without a mental eye-roll, (like the fact that anytime I spoke they played Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker") the enduring imagine is of my students surrounding me until the secretary finally had to pull me away- "You won't forget about us?..." So greatful for what should be a right by this point- access to quality education. Anyway, it's temporary, I know that. I'll be back to my old self soon. In far, far too short a time, it'll seem like I'd never left New York. Maybe that's the hardest thing of all to accept.

There are good things going on- most notably, I don't have to go to all those interviews after all as UNICEF called during my last afternoon in Dar (reading Nadine Gordimer, drinking a spritzer, looking out over the ocean) and offered me the job! I'd talked to them a few times, sent them some references and writing samples, but was set to meet with them this Monday for a formal interview. They apparently decided that that was unnecessary, thus saving me loads of trouble, and ensuring that my trip back to New York would be filled with anticipation and no small amount of nervousness (I...uh, start on Monday. Yeah, the next few weeks will be something else, to say the least.) The job itself is a bit complicated to explain here but will involve HIV/AIDS education, curriculum development, and a lot of online/website content work. I'll keep you posted....er, actually, maybe I won't. I think this'll be one of the last posts for me, seeing as I've made it back safe and sound and all. On the plus side, I anticipate that I'll be much easier to reach by email from now on, so please feel free to get in touch. Thanks for all your support...much, much love,

Katie

home again, home again, jiggity jig....

Just a quick update, though hopefully I'll have time to write a bit more in the next few days...

I'll be back in the U.S. (in New York) on Thursday, June 7th. I'll spend Friday and Monday frantically interviewing-I have 5 interviews in 2 days (jet lag? what jet lag?) and will then hopefully be heading back to the Midwest for some quality time with the family. More soon, lots of love,

Katie

Lazy afternoons...

Hooray for Easter Break! I'm on vacation now and just made it back to lovely Ndanda after a brief trip to the coast to celebrate Christ's miraculous return to the land of the living. Life is good, though you might be wondering what I do with all my free time now that school-work doesn't take up 10-12 hours of each day. So below are my top 3 ways to spend a free day in southern Tanzania; any suggestions you might have for additional ways to kill time would be much appriciated!

1) Snorkling! I have a wicked sunburn on the back of my legs/bum thanks to a weekend spent snorkling in Mtwara and Msimbati, though it proved a small price to pay given the amazing coral/fish. A large group of us decided to stay at the Benedictine beach house (ah the perks of working with the Benedictines!) which is right on the Indian Ocean, so come low tide you can just grab your mask and go. The best part was when Sheena (a Lab Tech from Boulder, CO who works near me in Ndanda Hospital) and I decided to follow a shelf in the fish-hook shaped bay next to us out to deeper water. Suddenly, with no warning, the shelf on our right-hand side dropped off hundreds of feet into dark blue, forming a canyon with the huge coral formations on the left. Floating out over the trench felt like jumping off a cliff to discover flight: reckless and suicidal- and exhilerating when you discovered you could fly after all. Swimming down the canyon over that rift of deep blue was like entering a photo from National Geographic- corals the size of boulders, blooming like flowers; the cobalt blue to my left, fathomless and filled with a terrible sense of possibility; (it was probably NOT a wise move to read the "Ocean Dangers!" section of my underwater field guide right before heading out; I kept expecting to see jaws suddenly emerge from below) and of course the fish, a thousand strong, weaving through the coral and around me (and my hands which, like a 3 year-old's, kept trying to verify their reality.) They were amazing, I wish I could describe the colors, the sheer variety of the life down there...ah, what I wouldn't give for an underwater camera :)

2) Hiking! Living at the base of the Makonde Plateau has its perks, one of the big ones being all the trails that lead up onto the Plateau. My favorite one involves hiking uphill for a little over an hour until you get to a tiny lake (or a large pond, depending on your view) built by the Germans 60 years ago when they were looking for ways of using hydropower to supply electricity to the hospital/abbey below. It's in a gorgeous setting deep in the hills and, despite being man-made, looks entirely natural being surrounded on all sides by boulders and trees. The hills rise straight up around the lake, and if you get up early enough, you can watch the morning mist drift through the tangles of trees on the slopes. It's also one of the few freshwater places in TZ that's safe from Bilzaria, so I've taken to doing laps in the morning or early evening, depending on my schedule for the day. It's a bit surreal seeing lizards the the length of your arm swimming next to you, but the coolness of the water (it's always quite cool given how deep it is- the current guess is over 30 meters!) makes it all okay :)

3) Kittens! Francine and Sheena have decided to adopt 4 abandoned kittens that were found outside the hospital lab a few weeks ago. Given that none of us have owned cats before, we're having fun trying to figure out how to raise them/what to do with them ("Is it hungry? I can't tell...does it look hungry? How does a cat look hungry?") Two are gradually submitting to our efforts at socialization, while the other two remain mostly feral. I'll get to cat-sit for 3 weeks when Sheena and Francine head off to intermediate language training, and am thrilled at having animals to play with and a real kitchen to cook in. While I don't think I'll ever get into cats all that much, (give me a dog any day, right?) I can't deny that when all 4 start playing together, they're pretty damn cute. It's a sign of the relative lack of stimulation in our lives that we can watch them for hours and hours without tiring...sort of Tz's version of cable TV. :)

Okay, more soon, lots of love!
kt

I think I sounded a bit bitter in my last post; a friend of mine here told me I should take the edge off a bit, and I think he's right...just get so angry irritated sometimes. It reminds me of when I was visiting home in Decemeber and I started venting to Dad about an editorial in the paper that pledged continued support towards the Iraq war. After listening to me for about 5 minutes, he was like "Kate, you've gotten get a life, babe." So, so true. In this case as well, no doubt.

Moving on, life is progressing at its usual ambling pace. I managed to have a beer in my hand for St. Patrick's Day- a small miracle as the people here are not big drinkers, to say the least. I've also been reading loads of good books of late- G. Greene's "A Burnt-Out Case," "The Brothers K," (I read it around this time last year, as I recall) Z. Smith's "White Teeth," and a Kenyan author- Ngugi- who's my new favorite of the month. If you can hunt down a copy of "Weep Not Child" or "A Grain of Wheat," you won't be disappointed.

More soon, much love,

kt

Pulling the "I've been in Tanzania for 19 months so I know" Card

Okay, I just can't help myself; below is an article that's been making the rounds here with the volunteer population, thanks to Dan and the folks at home who sent it to him. I've left out some names and cut some parts of it for brevity (nothing important, I assure you.) But first, have at it:

L. T.'s on a Mission to Help Children in Africa

Forrestville Valley Superintendent...is taking the road less travelled to Africa. He wishes more people would follow his lead. T, who worked in the far reaches of Zambia and Tanzania during two summer vacations, said few things work and very few people care, particularly about children. He was introduced to the regions through miliary friends stationed there and immediately felt a call to feed and provide for them. "You've got to get over the notion that it's wrong. They can't connect the dots. They're on an elementary level, there," T said. His three to four week mission trips have allowed for plenty of first-hand reflection on the poor conditions in Lusaka, Zambia, and the hills north of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Thatched roofs collapse, roads don't exist, and children lack enough food, medicine, proper clothing and school supplies to survive beyond 25 years of age. The population, he said, is on a different plane, concerned mostly with simply staying alive. Villagers who don't die from malaria, AIDS or tuberculosis are often eaten by wild animals. "Thirty is pushing it...There is no innate desire to care for children, as in the United States." His transformation from a small-town administrator to a trailblazing humanitarian is evident in the rigors of his daily routine: climbing on charter planes, hiring African workers, floating across rivers on rafts and changing multiple tires each trip...Sometimes they just walk. T, no slack with a weapon, has provided some 5,000 pounds of meat per trip. It sounds impressive, but can usually be obtained with a couple of hippos. The meat is carved and dried over a fire...T then transports the dried jerky-style strips back into the hands of children. T also brings paper, pencils, and soccer balls for the children from larger cities..."I figure if we can eventually talk to one another, maybe we can stop shooting each other," T said.

It goes on like this for awhile, peppered liberally with testimonials from a school board member he works with about how amazing he is. Most volunteers (Peace Corps/VSO's) crack up upon reading this. The laughter comes easy- if two summer vacation trips of three to four weeks is all you need to be a "trailblazing humanitarian" then we're all in the running to be the next Albert Schwitzer (a typical exchange after reading said article: "So blazed any new humanitarian trails today?" "Nah, I'll do it after lunch, just as soon as I finish working on that pesky world peace thing.") Hell, that whole paragraph is great- he gets to use charter planes, a car, he can hire people to work for him, and he's talking about rigor? The best part has to be the last line though- "sometimes they just walk." Because, I mean, people never just walk places in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter.

Okay, enough with the cheap shots, so the reporter's spent a bit too much time reading Reader's Digests' "Drama in Real Life" articles. No big deal, so it goes. And if that were all, I wouldn't be wasting your time here. But the real concern isn't some unfortunate use of borderline hyperbole, it's everything else; the condescention, the dangerous implications, and the loads of facts that are just plain wrong. For instance, yes, life expectancy is lower here than in the States, but there isn't a single teacher under the age of 25 in my school, and any almanac can show you that most Tanzanians not only manage to make it past 25, but even to 30 and (gasp!) 40! Also, while AIDS and Malaria are responsible for a huge proportion of deaths, very few people are ever eaten by wild animals; this is Africa, not Jurassic Park.

Similarly, while some of his comments aren't completely wrong, they're pretty damn close- his quotes about the conditions in the areas he visited ("thatched roofs collapse, roads don't exist...") are only applicable to the area he's visited; it's ludicrous to think that they apply to the country as a whole based on a short visit of 3-4 weeks. Think about it, if someone visits only Tribeca in NYC or Cabrini Greens in Chicago, do you think they're going to have a basis for making broad generalizations about the country as whole? Of course not! This goes back to one of my big issues with the article; one can't generalize about a country or a people based on the experience of a few weeks, months, or even years. I've become more and more careful about this the longer I've been here- avoid broad generalizations. Indulge in them, and inevitably you'll come perilously close to racism.

Oh, I know good ole' L.T. would protest hugely if I told him he was racist- I mean who's he shooting the hippos for, right? But how else do you explain comments like "very few people care, particularly about children"? Christ, all you have to do is visit one hospital, one time, see one mother lose a child to malaria, and then you realize, "oh, right, most people do probably care about their children here, the same way they do in every other frickin' country in the world."

And speaking of children, the last thing (seriously, THE LAST THING) the children of Tanzania need is another bumbling white person coming in to pass out goodies before jetting back to his regular life. Now I know what you're thinking ("aren't you being a little hard on the guy, Katie?") and yes, I am, but if there were only one thing I could change, it would be people who give things (anything- hippos, soccer balls, pens, etc.) to children. Adults...well, that's a harder issue, but with children it's more clear cut; if you give them things, then you degrade the child, and you risk turning them into lifelong beggers (you also reinforce traditional racial stereotypes- "I am white, and hence wealthy, and your success/happiness is dependent on my handouts" but we'll leave that topic for another time.) There is nothing more heartbreaking here than listening to a child say "mzungu, give me money" because you know that some well-meaning tourist a few years back gave them 500tsh, and also took away something in the process.

Right, so if you can't do what he did, what can one do to help people in Africa? My first bit of advice would be to direct your attention to the literally hundreds of Non-profits and NGO's working in Africa right now. Criticize the NGO scene all you want, but most of them are doing good things, and they usually have far more knowledge of the local dynamics/ development issues than any one person could gain. I'm out of time here, but please feel free to respond/fight back as you see fit. I don't hate T...I just wish he'd think a little more about the implications of his actions. Spending time in Africa has become very cool of late, and most of the long-term volunteers are already starting to experience the implications of that. Making a donation to WorldVision, VSO, etc. isn't as sexy as having nouveau "white hunter" articles written about you, but it does a hell of a lot more for the children.

Katie

I'm online! Yay! Twice in one week!

I feel like I have to post now that I'm online- It's become one of those steady rountines now, like brushing one's teeth, or searching the room for lizards at night. Even getting online has acquired an element of routine to it. Generally, I sneak into Fr. Tuzunde's office, sometime when I think he'll be out, armed with some sort of errand (today I'm returning keys for some friends who visited this weekend) and then piddle around on his computer while I wait for him to show up. It's a good deal for both of us actually- I get some sort of tangible reminder that there's a world outside of Ndanda, and he has me out of his hair when he's trying to do work here. Fr. Tuzunde is one of the best parts of living here- He's a portly, serene father with an air of both competence and absolute contentment. Just sitting in the same room with him make the accumulated stress (How am I going to finish grading those papers if the power goes out!? Is that cut on my hand ever going to heal?) gradually dissipate- leaving only a mellow smile in its wake.

This weekend was nice; I had two friends from Mtwara unexpectedly visit, and we spent the weekend catching up, watching movies on Tariq's laptop, and eating out. Ndanda has only two eating establishments (both bars) serving two different dishes (chipsi kuku- chicken and fries, and wali nyama- rice and meat) so the culinary options were exhausted early, leading us to prowl through the local market in search of delicacies. We returned triumphant- a whole kilo of passion fruit for only $1.25! Have you ever tried passion fruit? It's best if you cut off the top and then scoop the seeds out with a spoon, sucking on them for a bit before swallowing them whole. They taste kinda like a pulpy Sweetart- amazing :)

Life here is ambling on at an easy Tanzanian pace. More soon,

Hugs,
Katie

Back in the Bush

One of the things I remember most clearly from college is sitting in a dingy corner of my senior seminar class listening to Prof. Gordon Thompson tell us that if we had one good friend by the time that we were his age, we were doing all right. It seemed impossibly depressing, and, well, just downright unlikely. I had loads of friends! I didn't want to lose any of them! And you're telling me that when I'm...oh, say, 60 or 62...I'm only going to get to have one? If it were anyone other than Gordon, I think I'd have dismissed the comment offhand but, like most things Gordon said, it had more than a grain of truth to it. Only one might be an exaggeration, but...

Where is this coming from? Well, I was in Dar this week, for a number of conferences, one of which was a workshop designed for people who had nearly finished their two years in country and would thus be leaving soon (yes, it was mostly an excuse to hang out with old friends...sort of a "you've served your time" pat-on-the-back type thing.) It's a rough group to say goodbye to- Bart, Jamie, Kendra, Ruth, Tariq...loads of people that have been here with me from the start. Seriously, I wanted to crawl into bed with a good book and a mug of tea after we had all split off to return to our separate lives, particularly since I've been here long enough to have figured out the truth- that none of these relationships'll be maintained, at least not at their current level. Oh, sure, you'll have the odd email or two, and one might even last the distance and stay a "real" friend, but as all of them are from Holland, England, or Canada, it's unlikely that you'll be bumping into them in the supermarket next week. It's hard to explain how quickly friendships solidify and become intense here- what would take a year in the States takes two months; secrets, confessions, favors you would ask only the closest of friends- all come pouring out to these people who in some ways seem more real than those you've known all your life. And then they leave...and it feels almost like they've died in some strange, terrible way. You get over the first few, but then you find yourself closing up, less willing to befriend the new, sunburnt, bewildered faces coming to replace the old...and before you know it your friends are mostly memories, simply because it gets to be too hard to say goodbye. I suppose its no surprise that most of my friends now are Tanzanians; you catch yourself hoping that they'll always be here, that you'll always be able to return and take up right where you left off, should circumstances allow.

Despite what the above would have you believe, my time in Dar was mostly great. I caught up with people, got to eat loads of food that I never see down south (cheese! curry! processed food of any kind!) and even managed to do some work. I also experienced some drama- something that holds a morbid sort of appeal given how tranquil life has been of late.

I'd stayed up all night with two friends, Bart and Phillip, as Bart was leaving in the morning and none of us wanted to be the one to say "last round." Sunrise said it for us, and while Bart and Phillip went back to catch some shut-eye, I headed off to "Posta," the local daladala stand, to catch a dala to the VSO office for an 8 a.m. planning session/meeting with my Program Manager. I'm usually pretty aware of myself there, particularly in the mornings/evenings when Posta is at its most hectic. It really is something that has to be experienced to be believed- crowds of people coming and going, vendors selling chappatti, chai, and a hundred-thousand different knick-knacks, (think of an open-air Dollar General and you get the picture) and the occasional lost tourist who's almost certainly getting conned out of his/her money. Like I said, I'm usually pretty aware of myself, but I occasionally get caught in difficult situations, as I did last Wednesday. The dalas I were waiting for (a "Masaki" dala- recognizable by the purple stripe running down its sides) were late, so when one finally did show up about 20 minutes later, there was a huge crowd of people waiting to get on. (Now the smart thing to do in this situation is to wait it out- the dalas usually come in groups, and by the third or fourth one, you can usually get on.) I don't know whether it was the lack of sleep, or the thought that I had an edge on the crowd, but instead of waiting when the dala drove up, I went for it (as did roughly 80 other people.)

Have you ever been caught in a mob? It was the strangest sensation- like being dragged by a tide in the ocean; you suddenly have no power to choose your own course. What had before been a busy street became a wave of people, yelling, pushing, hurting each other- all to get on a silly, striped mini-van. A woman in front of me was trampled; all you could see/hear of her were pathetic whimpers. Two men to my right got into a fight- fists flying, hitting each other, hitting people unfortunate enough to be located next to them. And I? I got pushed against the side of the dala while strong, disembodied hands emptied the pockets of my jeans. It was surreal. Later, people asked why I didn't yell out for help while my pockets were being picked, but even then I realized how futile that would be- who are you yelling to? These aren't people anymore...no, we've all gotten swept up into some terrible force of nature, as bleak and dispassionate as the wind. It wasn't a bad experience per se, just...well, surreal pretty much sums it up.

Life has, otherwise, been markedly less surreal of late. I'm now teaching Book-keeping, along with English and Math, which is keeping me happily busy. The students are still great, and the weather has been blessedly cool, especially in the mornings and evenings when low clouds and fog make the surrounding hills look like the Smokies. Every day I see a new insect; today I saw a butterfly that was the most beautiful color of teal- shimmering, irridescent, with black and orange stripes and a bright orange body. Yesterday it was a black Rhinocerous beetle half the size of my hand. Seriously, between the stripped lizards rustling the vines around my door, and the hoards of toads that take to the sidewalks in the evening, this place would be an 11 year old's dream come true.

Much love, more soon,
Katie