The Stuffed Animal

I’ve been lying down in my bed for the past twenty minutes. What have I been doing? Mindlessly stroking my stuffed animal that I got for Christmas when I was two years old. Let me tell you a little bit about Rudolph. Besides having the most creative name in the universe (I was TWO), Rudolph is a fucking champion. He’s survived his head getting ripped off and sewn back on multiple times. His nose was ferociously torn away, swallowed and then crapped out by the family dog (that shit-stained red nose wasn’t deemed important enough to sew back on. Heartless.). My friends in college had a freakin' phobia of poor Rudolph. Sure, the color in his pupils rubbed off decades ago, leaving only yellowish, creepy-as-fuck slanted demon eyes, but he’s a STUFFED ANIMAL, get over it. The weirdest thing about Rudolph, though, is that he’s still around. I am twenty six years old.  TWENTY SIX. I have lived in three countries, four US states, gone to two colleges, and have had way too many jobs.  Rudolph is always there. Not in a box or a closet. He’s hanging out by my pillow, or sleeping bag, or mattress on the floor (thankfully, now it’s a full-sized adult bed. Makin’ moves).  Yes, I am approaching my late 20’s and I still display my stuffed animal for the world to see, like a badge of honor… or shame... I can’t tell. Sometimes I wonder whether or not some asshole psych major has been dying to recruit me as a prime subject for a Freudian Complex case study. But for some reason… I don’t think I’m alone. At least, not in my desire for something comfortable and secure during a time of complete uncertainty.

I’m not pointing out anything original or profound when I say: This time of life is weird as hell. And I’m not sure if anything ever gets clearer. I’m not settled, I don’t have any romantic prospects, I don’t WANT any romantic prospects… and then I find myself joining online dating sites and chatting with people who tell me I’m pretty so that I can boost my confused and unsettled mid-20’s ego and then I never meet them in person anyway because I remember that I don’t want to date. But I do? But I don’t. I don’t think…?

 I haven’t been a crazy college student in over four years, but just last week I was playing an embarrassing game of beer pong, mixing way too many types of liquor, and eventually puking my guts out. The night before that, I ate a classy dinner with my roommate, had a glass of wine that cost an amount that would have sent my college, beer-pong-playing self into a fainting spell, and went to sleep at 9pm. I often eat cereal for dinner.  I work from 9-5, 40 hours a week, and drive a car that I own the title to while wearing business casual clothes. Some weeknights I stay up until 2am at a bar living out my rockstar dreams and listening to other unbelievable rockstars living out their dreams while clouds of smoke and guitar melodies remind us that we’re all the same age and at the same spot in life, whether we’re 18 or 40. But then I go home and I’m 26 again, and I don’t know what the fuck is happening.

At this age, it's not surprising that every weekend my Facebook newsfeed is almost entirely made up of another 12 or so acquaintances getting married, engaged, or announcing babies. Sometimes I feel jealous and single and behind... then I realize that I'm wearing a moo-moo, doing yoga on a chair, and watching action movies with three super cool dogs, and I'm like...nah, I'm cool with this for another decade or four. But THEN, within a few days, I’m back to wondering… should I be doing something different?

That’s one of the reasons why, every so often, I spend time lying down and rubbing a stuffed reindeer. I’ve done it since before my brain was strong enough to make memories, and it’s one of the most instinctual forms of comfort that I know. The circular motion of feeling the totally unique, matted, clumpy texture of Rudolph’s 24 year old fur is the DEFINITION of calm for me. But it’s not acceptable to be using childhood comforts anymore, they say. Well, fuck 'em.

If those 20 minutes of mindless calm can help me confidently say that it’s ok to not settle into security until I want to settle into security, then I’m keeping Rudolph around. If those 20 minutes keep me calm when every other aspect of my life ISN’T calm, but a dynamic, shifting, confusing, painful, hilarious serious of question marks, then I’m alright with it. Frankly, I’ll take the stuffed animal mixed with the question marks than color-coordinated throw pillows to match a settled life. The interesting part is… life never really becomes settled. At least, I don’t think it will for me, or for many other people. I know that someday, Rudolph will have to go. My calm will become my family. My community. My kids. My something. Shit, maybe he’ll never go. But I’ll probably still have nights when I stay out until sunrise playing music and drinking beer, and I’ll probably still be confused as to what to do next and what life is. The mid-20’s are difficult because we think the 30’s and 40’s and beyond have their shit figured out, and we are scared as fuck to get there while simultaneously drooling at the dreamy image of our put-together future selves. Don’t live with that kind of pressure. Life isn’t meant to be figured out. It’s meant to be lived, now, doing what you’re doing if you’re happy doing it and being aware of unhappiness so you can work to change it. This whole rant started because I was trying to define my motivations for not throwing this old rag of a reindeer away. I think I’ll just be happy he’s here, and happy I’m here, right where I am, at least for right now. 

The fool on a tree

When I went to South Africa about four years ago, the first phrase that I learned in Afrikaans was “Klum en die boom”, which means “Climb the tree”. It was my first day at Lynedoch Primary School, where I wound up spending two days a week during my 5 month semester “teaching” third grade students (aka, having an ENTIRE week to plan one hour of goofing off with students while their class teacher maintained discipline and I was flanked by two other co-teachers. A bit different from what teaching looks like now).  A student named Brighton was hanging on a tree limb and speaking really great English to me, and I asked him to teach me something in his language. So he did. Climb the tree.

That phrase became meaningful to me during my study abroad experience, and was part of my motivation to seek out what I thought would be a similar experience in Tanzania. Climbing trees is what you do as a kid. It’s foolish and reckless and pointless from an adult perspective. There are no marketable skills gained from climbing trees, at least not any that are easily slapped onto a resume. But there’s something about the thoughtless scramble from branch to branch, not knowing your route or where it will end, not knowing when you’ll have to backtrack or shift your weight in order to avoid falling on your ass, that makes climbing trees thrilling and attractive. That’s why I came to Tanzania, originally. I thought being in South Africa was a thrill, and I wanted more. “A bigger tree!” I thought, “The flimsier the better!” So I came to Tanzania. And immediately realized what an idiot I was.

Two years later, it has been a thrill, but to label it as such cheapens the experience and the daily life that I have come to adopt as my own. I had completely forgotten about the tree metaphor. I fumbled on branches for a long time before settling onto a sturdy one, but then I felt like I found it. One of the reasons why I haven’t written a blog in so long is that for the past year, things have genuinely felt normal. I don’t think to share many of my experiences because they no longer feel like shaky, hilarious balancing acts.

But something happened during my final days in Tanzania that made me reconsider this perspective, and it woke me up from my false feelings of normalcy. I was at English mass, which is offered daily by the Jesuits. I pop in a few times every month (it’s about 30 minutes long compared to the typical Tanzanian 2 hours). Anyway, one of my favorite Jesuits, Father Joe, gave a homily about the story (which I had never heard before), about this awful tax collector guy who was pretty much the miser everyone loved to hate. Fat, taking tons of money, living like a king while all the other folks suffered. But then he heard that Jesus was walking through town. Moneybags, probably all sweaty and ridiculous looking, pushed through the crowd full of people who hated him, and scrambled up a sycamore tree in order to try to see Jesus. Fr. Joe painted the picture of the townspeople taking full advantage of his compromised position… throwing rocks, laughing, yelling at him, anything to get back at this horrible snake of a man who was foolishly and precariously hanging from a tree in order to get a glimpse of something special. But Jesus called out to him, told him to come down, and spoke directly to him, obviously with more love and forgiveness than any of us humans could muster. When Moneybags’ feet touched the ground, he was completely changed. Gave all his cash away, made promises to fix all of the crooked deals he glibly cheated his way through over the years, all that stuff that happens when you turn your life around.

The point that Father Joe was trying to make in his homily, and the point that really stuck to my gut, is that we all need to keep trying to climb up on trees in order to see Jesus, no matter what kind of shit we've done, and no matter how many people try to stand in the way or throw potatoes at us while we’re clinging to the branches. Now, when I say Jesus, I don’t necessarily mean JESUS the guy. We have to climb in order to see love; a new perspective; any person or experience that will change us or make us different from who we were when we were still on the ground. Without looking like a fool and taking the risk to just get up there, we’re just living on the ground as a part of the crowd and standing on tip toes.

I returned back to the crowded, freezing cold ground about two weeks ago. It’s weird, having been up on a tree for so long, but just like the fat dude, I feel different. It’s not something I’ve processed yet or think is very important to talk about right now, but the point is, I’ve been thinking a lot about my last few weeks in Tanzania. After over two years of becoming acquainted with the culture, I still had multiple moments, every single day, in which I screwed up and felt like a publicly humiliated fool. Some anecdotes for proof: I went to a rural area about 2 hours away from Dar during my last month, confidently riding on the mini buses, listening to the stops being called out and chatting with the conductors in Swahili. I then hopped out five stops too early because I misheard the name, and had to chase after the bus waving my arms like an idiot while the conductor called me back on and shook his head like a disappointed grandfather. Impressed with my ability to jump back onto a moving vehicle, I smiled a bit when I re-entered, until I had to face all of the Tanzanians staring at the fool on the tree, their eyebrows raised into looks that asked me what the hell I was doing there by myself. But I didn’t feel ashamed.  The next day I accidentally said “I will remember me forever” instead of “I will remember you forever” during an impromptu farewell speech to my choir. Damn fool. That evening, my roommates and I decided to finally kill the giant spider that had been growing in our compound, and I’m sure the neighbors were shaking their heads when they heard the most girly shrieks of 2013 (in all fairness though, the spider was bigger than my hand and I had to chop it with a gardening hoe, so that one was a little less foolish). I tripped and left pools of sweat and constantly made grammatical and cultural errors up until my very last day in Mabibo. But there’s something to be said for all that failing. I’m a human. We all are. And we’re fools. If there’s anything I’ve gained, it’s a confidence to laugh at myself when I do something unbelievably stupid. Because when you’re up on a tree, you look ridiculous, but you can see things. And people, life changing people, can see you.

A couple days ago, I was able to call my choir at 11:30 pm (Tanzania time) from my house in Connecticut, when they were singing their final song during the New Year’s Eve mass. The final song just so happened to be my favorite song, and I sang it with them via phone one last time. The final line says “Kwa kuwa umeniona, asante”, which roughly translates to “thank you for seeing me” (or more like… because you have seen me, thank you).  In 2011, I scrambled up a sycamore tree, looked around, and stayed up there. I saw my students. I saw my neighbors and my choir and the banana trees and the chickens. I climbed the tree and learned how to dance, I learned a language, learned how to operate at a different pace, I found love and I gave love. And I was seen by people who forgave me for my foolishness and forced me to face my weaknesses in order to become more human. 

Thank you for seeing me.

Keep your eyes peeled for your next tree to climb. That's what I'm going to be doing. 

Trust

A few months ago, I went to the beach with my housemates, Michael the American Jesuit (he's wonderful, we just call him “Michael” though), and two British volunteers who had just arrived and were en route to Dodoma for their service placement. It was a spur of the moment beach visit, so I was wearing a floor-length kitenge dress (think traditional “African”), which is not ideal for swimming in the ocean, but whatever. I hiked up my skirt and walked right in as the others sat on the beach and Michael was off swimming somewhere, and in the process, saw a young woman around my age who was also wading into the water. Our eyes met, and in her blunt Tanzanian way, she grabbed my skirt without so much as an introduction, tied it into a sumo-wrestler style diaper, and pulled my elbow further into the ocean. We just sort of stood there for awhile, exchanging simple words in Swahili, and then I invited her to sit with us on the beach. More silence. We sat. Michael returned from his swim with some little creature/pricker stuck in his finger. Without many words, she shook her head at our meager attempts to dig it out gingerly with a pair of tweezers, took Michael's hand, jabbed the instrument into his poor finger, and the obstruction was removed swiftly, and probably painfully. And then we left, and I gave her my phone number.

The next day, she called and invited me to visit her home in the more rural area of Dar es Salaam. All of my other housemates were busy, but I was free. Sure, why not. She told me what bus to get on and the name of the stop, and without asking any other questions, I was on my way to visit this stranger I met on the beach, carrying a pineapple to offer as a gift and a dictionary just in case I ran into trouble. After a 45 minute Daladala ride with a few transfers in between, I was in unfamiliar territory. Realizing she hadn't given me directions past “Get off at Temboni”, I gave her a call. She started yelling in rapid Kiswahili, and all I could make out was that she wanted me to give the phone to a pikipiki driver. A group of about 10 of these cat-calling, motorcycle-driving, rough-looking guys had been trying to convince me to ride with one of them since I dropped from the bus, so I reluctantly handed the phone over to the most adamant one, and after a few second conversation, he jerked his head backwards in a way that said “C'mon! Climb on!”. So I did. And then we were off.

Now, while sitting on the back of this motorcycle, which had just turned onto a muddy, rural dirt road and was currently climbing up a pretty treacherous looking hill, I started to wonder if this was a very good idea. I was all alone, completely at the mercy of this man driving a motorcycle, on my way to the house of a woman I hardly knew, who couldn't speak English, in a district about an hour outside of my home, in a foreign country where I could just barely squeeze out a conversation. And all I had was a pineapple to defend myself with. Was this really how my life was going to end?

To spare you the suspense, I reached Husna's house in 15 minutes after sharing quite a pleasant ride through the countryside with Samuel, the intimidating motorcycle pikipiki driver, who passed the time schooling me on the pronunciation of all the villages in the area. He also honked his horn whenever he passed his friends on the roadside and pointed his thumb back at me, saying “Look guys! I've got a Mzungu!”. I quickly learned that that was my cue to wave and yell out a Swahili greeting to the thrilled onlookers, who would respond with a squeal of joy. What good fun we had, Samuel and I.

Husna met us as soon as we reached her home, beaming and insisting that she pay for the the pikipiki ride. She took my hand and brought me to about three houses to meet her neighbors, and then we climbed up a small hill to sit on her porch, which overlooked an amazing view of the rest of the village (I say village but don't think about thatched roofs and monkeys and all of that George of the Jungle stuff. Village just means that we were now a fair ways outside of the city, and there are trees and hills and plants. LOVELY!). We sat for a moment on her porch as she stirred the ingredients for pilau in her little coal cooking pot (which happens to be my favourite food here), and I chatted with the two women who live in the rooms adjoining hers (it's common for a person or a family to just rent out one room of a unit and then cook in a common space with a small coal stove). The dictionary was a hit, considering they didn't know any English and my Swahili is shameful. Husna and I then walked to the small market down the street and she bought me a mango. We sat with a group of bros who were smoking under a tree and Husna clicked her tongue when they offered a smoke to me. “Eh, we don't smoke”, she said, and I nodded curtly in support. “Yeah, we don't.” We were a we already! I met her sister who owns a medicine shop, her brother who was passing through the neighborhood, some older people who were sitting by a church, and pretty much the whole village. Unfortunately, in addition to the pilau, she cooked cow stomach, which is just as appetizing as it sounds and tastes exactly like the way a deodorant-less arm pit smells, but I ate it with a smile and achieved the most amazing feat of stomach expansion by taking on a second full plate of Ugali and Beans, cooked by her sister, just to prove that I knew how to eat with my hands. That sure sent them into a riot.

Before leaving, Husna took me into her room and we rested on her bed, like two girls at a slumber party. She started gossiping to me about how she once had a boyfriend who was a Mzungu from Italy who is still living in Dar es Salaam but won't call her anymore. I did all the things I would have done if this was a conversation with a friend from home. “You mean he isn't even picking up the phone? Girl, you don't need him anymore. You want to call him now? You want me to call him? Teeheheheh ok ok ok ok gimmie the phone gimmie the phone IT'S RINGING teheheheh oh OH he didn't even pick up! NO he didn't I think he hung up! Ohhhhhhh yeah I know I know he's lousy but shh sh sh don't worry don't worry you'll find someone else, really, REALLY you will!” ...Ok, so maybe my limited Swahili resulted in the ultra girly exchange, but OH MAN! I'm gossiping with my new best friend! Things are great! Then she hopped on a bajaji (a rick-shaw like motorized tricycle thing) with me back to the bus stop, sent me on my way, and that was that. This visit happened in early January (I know I know, really delayed on this one), and I just visited Husna for a second time this week with Kathleen, the new first year volunteer. Husna and I are in regular phone conversation, and we're planning on a day for her to come visit Mabibo.

The transition from “I could very well die right now.” to “This is the best day ever” was a nice experience in faith and trust. Faith is one of those words that turns me off. I don't know why, either. It's a really wonderful and beautiful and picturesque-sounding thing. I just don't like it. I don't know, maybe I have control issues, maybe it irks me that “putting it in God's hands” seems like an apathetic cop-out, maybe (definitely) it's my culture telling me that if I'm not doing everything in my power to get to where I want to go at the speed I want to get there, I'm not doing enough. I'm not working hard enough. Tanzania is a VERY faithful place. There have been moments when I'm completely in awe of how wonderful it is, and just as many moments when I want to shake every person who shrugs and says “Well, there was another awful road accident, it's such a shame, but we cannot know God's ways, and we just have to keep praying.”. Praying? No. You should try to regulate traffic laws, or pave more roads, or NOT pack minivans full of 50 people and babies and chickens. Faith? What about initiative?

I think that's what the me of last year would have complained about. Now, I'm starting to kind of get faith and trust a little bit more. Obviously, it's important and safe to have doubts about people sometimes, but if I hadn't trusted Husna, I would have completely missed out on the opportunity to meet someone amazing. I would go completely crazy in this country if I didn't just put my trust and faith in something, or someone, else. There isn't nearly as much control in this country, and that used to make me so frustrated. But now, it's freeing. I'm not saying I'm going to make a habit out of jumping onto strange motorcycles, or that I'm going to sit around doing nothing and say “it's in God's hands”. I just think it's important to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to go with the things thrown at you. Sure, you could run into bad situations. But you could also run into something good.  

Falalalala

It’s been awhile since I last wrote, and let me just say that A LOT has happened in that time… SOOOO this post will only cover up to Christmas, and I’ll try to share some stories about New Years in a few weeks (one of my New Years resolutions was to post more frequently… we’ll see). After saying a tearful goodbye to Cat and Shea, who taught Cait and I everything we know about Tanzania, comforted us during bouts of homesickness and stomach sickness, and boosted our spirits with laughter and support, we welcomed four more lovely ladies into the country. Two would be joining Cait and I in Dar es Salaam, and the others would be working in Dodoma with Cristina and Hannah, the other rockstar volunteers that started this journey with us back in 2011. I knew this moment was bound to come—the moment when I would cease to be the dependent, know-nothing newbie pattering along aimlessly while my more knowledgeable second years took care of daunting tasks like buying onions and flushing the toilet with used laundry water. Time to buck up, kiddo.  Now I was to BECOME that more knowledgeable second year. Yikes.

But so far, so very very good. Our new cohort of eight TZ volunteers (all girls this year) spent Christmas together in Dodoma (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05owRVdI2E4&feature=youtu.be).  We went to a Christmas Eve mass at 9pm that included flags, dancing, smoke/incense, and flashing lights (not even kidding), followed by a hang-out session with the Jesuits and sisters of the Dodoma parish. We drank beer, ate samosas and popcorn, and chatted about everything from South Sudan (where one of the Jesuits once lived as a child soldier before it became the planet’s newest country) to Euro league football teams (I don’t even know if “Euro league” is the correct term. Ah, well).  The following morning, feeling groggy and a little cranky, we went to Hannah’s work site, The Village of Hope, which is a community that includes an orphanage, primary and secondary school, and dispensary. The village serves youth who are deeply affected by or infected with HIV/AIDS. Hannah works at the primary school at the village and it is a BEAUTIFUL place. We attended another mass when we got there that was kicked off with a performance of the Christmas Pageant in Kiswahili, which definitely cured my groggy mood. The kids who played the angels literally walked around in circles flapping their arms. Precious. After the pageant, the mass started, which reminded me of the mass we had attended the previous evening—mostly because it included a lot of smoke, dancing, and drums, BUT this one featured a baby being marched down the aisle in a basket that was perched on a woman’s head. The basket had The Bible and some incense, and the baby looked confused as hell. I’m not sure if that ceremony would have gone over very well in the states, but it was pretty awesome, and no babies were harmed in the process.

Following mass, we spent about two hours leading the children of the village in some “Christmas” activities. Basically that just looked like the eight of us splitting up among the kids and making sailor hats out of newspaper (“I saw three ships come sailing in”… too much of a stretch?), drawing Christmas trees (which, believe it or not, aren't very prevalent around these parts), and playing Simon Says (absolutely no connection there). I brought my small travel guitar with me, so I was in charge of the MUSIC station. I formed the chords with my left hand, and let the kids take turns strumming the body of the guitar, which made them feel like they were the ones playing the Christmas tunes. Most of the children don’t speak English, so it was interesting trying to get them to mimic the words of “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls” (fun fact: L’s and R’s are a BIG struggle to distinguish in this country, so the level of hilarity during the “Falalalala” refrain was even better than the end of “A Christmas Story”.  Pure gold), but they did great, all things considered.

One of the most enthusiastic singers and guitarists, Vincent, is a boy of about 9 or 10 who thrust himself to the front of the line at every opportunity, saying “Na mimi sasa! Mimi tena!” (My turn now! Me again!), and when the other kids slowly started to walk to the main hall for lunch, he stuck around to get maximum playing time. His small fingers struggled to push the strings down hard enough when I finally allowed him to try forming the chords himself, but that didn’t stop him from scream-singing in his best rockstar voice and jumping around—strumming off-pitch, muted and dinky notes. When it was finally time to turn in, I let him carry the guitar ahead while I followed a few yards behind, holding the hand of a young girl who was about the height of a mid-sized puppy. Thinking he would forget to leave the guitar at the front of the building, I tried to call out after him, but forgot his name. Something… Italian sounding, was it? “Francisco! Francisco, wait!”

Clearly, Vincent didn’t turn around or acknowledge the crazy American teacher behind him shouting a random Italian name, and so I asked the girl beside me to help me out. Vincent. Right. Maybe he didn’t notice. I kept quiet until I eventually caught up with him and, thinking I was in the clear, smiled as he handed me the guitar. Vincent raised his eyebrow with a smirk and said, “So, Teacha Betha, what’s my name?” Shit. Hoping there was still time to recover, I replied confidently, “Why, you’re Vincent, of course!” in my best Swahili.  He chuckled. “Right. Vincent. Not Francisco.”  And with another amused smirk and shake of the head, he turned around and joined his friends for lunch.

I’m not sure if I’ve expressed this before, but I get called A LOT of names in this country. Mzungu. Bertha. Bettah. Suzie. Katie. Berrrrh (seriously, it’s happened more than once). Catherine. Sistah. Beybi. Sometimes, it’s amusing. Usually, it’s frustrating. Beth. BETH. My name is BETH. How hard can that be to remember? Why can’t you pronounce it correctly? HOW can you be mistaking me for Catherine right now, even though I’m wearing her old clothes, we have the same skin and hair colour, and my glasses resemble hers? So. Rude. But Vincent helped me realize how silly my frustrations in that regard are. If I confuse the names “Vincent” and “Francisco” just because they’re both kind of Italian and share the letters “n”, “c”, and “i”, I can’t even BEGIN to imagine how difficult it is for someone to keep our wacky western names distinct. And Vincent wasn’t angry, he thought it was funny. Bless him.

All in all, Christmas this year was a great success, and not just because Dodoma has 0% humidity and I got to sleep comfortably with a sheet covering my body for the first time since July (bonus: my hair also didn’t look like it came out of an 80’s fashion magazine, which has become the norm for me in Dar). Christmas was great because I got to spend it doing what I love most—sharing music. And so what if I failed to remember Vincent’s name? I fail at a lot of things here. I fail at Swahili everyday. I fail at being present in countless would-be awesome moments. I fail at keeping my patience and being culturally sensitive when I’m pissed off at the motorcycle cruising down what I thought was the pedestrian sidewalk. I fail at keeping in touch with people from home. I just FAIL. But we’re not meant to always succeed, and my failures help remind me that we’re all just TRYING. The guy who calls me “Berrrrh” or “Suzie” is calling me SOMETHING, is acknowledging me as a person, as an individual, with a NAME. And that feels really, really good.  

(Vincent is the boy looking very sharp with the yellow shirt and red tie)

Locks of Lunacy

(written November 25^th)

I have never in my entire life had even the slightest inkling of a desire to put little tiny corn-row-like braids in my hair. Frankly, I think they look great on dark skin and dark hair, but for white people, they just look ridiculous. I remember back in school, friends would return from trips to the Dominican Republic or Florida with a hair-do that just begged the question “Oh! Where did you GO?! You look so TROPICAL!”, and of course I would ask the question and pretend to be impressed, but really I was just internally laughing at the person’s choice to look like a fool. Even when I went to Belize during my senior year of college and I egged on some friends to get the hair-do, I was secretly thinking “Thank GOD it’s not me in that chair.” Your scalp turns bright red with sunburn, the hair gets frizzy within days, and I’m sorry, but most white people were just not meant for that kind of look. There are some exceptions, but I am not one of them. I can’t rock it.

I feel like I need to give you a good explanation, then, as to why I am typing this as my head is pounding with a throbbing, freshly braided style. My first justification: this was not my choice. My second justification: I only got about six braids done, not the whole head. The rest of my hair is carefully pinned into a Marge-Simpson-meets-honey-comb hybrid of a monster. Like I said, this wasn’t my choice. But I guess I should start at the beginning.

About three months ago, I joined a parish choir at our nearby church. Some volunteers have done it in the past, I love singing, and I figured it would be good for me to get a regular hobby here. The choir meets anywhere between 3-7 times a week depending on upcoming concerts or competitions or whatever, we sing at mass almost every Sunday, and everything is completely in Kiswahili. Choir has been keeping me BUSY, to say the least, but I love every minute of it. At first, I was just a novelty, the Mzungu trying to fit in with the big guys. I had no idea what was going on, couldn’t pick out the words to rapidly write down for the life of me, and I basically just listened to everyone else sing with a dumbfounded look on my face for the entire first few weeks. But then things started to click. Choir members started to call me “Dada Beti” instead of “Mzungu”, and I started to learn some of their names. I still don’t know the meaning of most of the words I’m singing, but I recognize a lot of the themes and words now, so it’s a much easier for me to pick up a song and memorize the words after a few rounds of singing it. I sang at three weddings and was invited to two wedding receptions because of the friendships I made in the choir. And, tomorrow, I will be singing at the annual KWAYA TAMASHA (choir concert/competition), which is something that I DID NOT expect to be ready for.

I didn’t think much of this competition at the beginning. Back in October, I just remember hearing about  a far off “keep in mind” date at the end of November, and I thought, great, count me in. But then I started noticing the hair. It began about a week ago, when Dada Rehema, a young woman who sings alto (sauti ya pili) with me, came to rehearsal with a scarf wrapped around her head. Women wrap their hair in scarves all the time, but the funny thing was that her head had grown about three sizes. When I asked what was under there, she removed the scarf to reveal a complex network of fake hair, bobby pins, and scalp-wrenching braids in the shape of a giant globe. I was awestruck. I thought she had just gone crazy with her choice of style. But then the fire spread. Each rehearsal, one or two more women would come to practice with the melon-scarf look… and I knew.  I was next. Women started coming up to me and touching my hair with concerned looks, consulting each other in too-quick-to-understand Kiswahili about what to do with my head. Finally, on Friday, Dada Mbiki, a sassy lady who usually sits next to me and laughs lovingly (I think?) at my failure to pronounce certain words correctly, told me to meet her the following morning, EARLY, to take care of business.

So, this morning, I woke up early, brushed my greasy hair, and walked the 15 minutes to Dada Mbiki’s house. On the way I passed a few other members of choir, and when I told them I was going to “suka” my hair (Swahili for “braid”), they cheered me on in encouragement (and also laughed, which I’m assuming meant they thought the idea was as ridiculous as I did). Mbiki slapped me on the back when she saw me, scolded me when she found out I forgot to buy my own bobby pins, and marched with me about 20 minutes in and out of neighborhoods that I had never seen before, periodically hawking impressive morning spit-balls. We met up with Priska, another choir member who is equally as feisty, and the three of us arrived at a small house with a number of families living in it. An older woman brought out a straw matt, told me to sit down on the ground, and the adventure began.

I am so thankful that I only had to sit through about 6 excruciating braids. I’ve always had pride in my level of pain tolerance. Shots don’t faze me, and the processes of getting a tattoo and a pierced nose and eyebrow back in college were relaxing. Braids? Hell no. It felt like my brain was being slowly sliced out of my head with white-hot razors. It was all I could do to hold it together in front of all these ladies, who have to sit through this torture almost weekly. I managed to keep a mild manner, and after about 45 minutes of suka-ing, I sat for another 2 hours while my hair was twisted into little circles and a literal cage was built on the top of my head. All the while, children and women and men selling fish were walking by and gawking at this crazy white girl getting a crazy African hairstyle. When all was said and done, Dada Mbiki walked me home like a proud parent, after taking off her scarf so that it was clear to strangers that we had the exact same hairstyle. It is a give-in that any time I walk or go anywhere, children or adults will point and yell “MZUNGU!” at me. Well, today on that walk home with Mbiki, a child pointed at me and yelled “ALBINO!”. I wasn’t really sure how to react, so I didn’t, but I looked THAT African.

I still don’t quite understand why every woman in my choir is doing this to her hair. I still think I look like a bit of an alien. But today, I couldn’t help but think how awesome it is to feel like part of a group here. I am still the odd Mzungu out, and choir members still refuse to address me by my name from time to time, but I’m a part of it.

The concepts of “belonging” and “accompaniment” have been toying with my mind recently… what do these things really have to do with social justice? I’m not really DOING anything. I’m not teaching kids on the side of the road how to speak English. I’m not volunteering my free time looking into the NGOs that exist in Dar es Salaam, I’m not researching statistics that would broaden my understanding of economic growth patterns, or figuring out the relationship between education and infrastructure. I’m not off “saving the world”. But is that my job? Do I even have a right to do that? I don’t view my community as a struggling, hopeless third-world area full of people who need our help. It’s just home. All I know is that I never understood the care, work, or hours that go into hair-styling here. I sat through ONE grueling style session, and while I don’t think I will ever do that again, I understand a little bit more. And for now, I think that’s what I’ve got to keep trying to do. 

Semi-close up of the Simpson Globe

Dance-walking up to the stage with Kwaya

The "melon scarf" look

Learning

(written on November 16^th)

Today it is Friday. It is 8:35 in the morning. On any other Friday, I would be at school teaching religion to Standard 5, but today, I’m home sick for the second day in a row.  Malaria and amoeba double-smack. But I’ll get to that later. With all of this extra bed-rest time, I decided to go through my ancient “My Documents” folder on my computer, just to see if I could clean some things out, and it turned into a marathon of me reading old college papers and biology lab write-ups. I don’t know what happened between then and now, but I can’t understand a WORD of what I wrote. In an eleven page paper arguing the holes in the philosopher Kant’s rationalizations of Happiness and Respect, I used the phrase “qua rational beings” instead of “as rational beings”, in addition to a few dozen words that I obviously looked up in a thesaurus during the writing process to make myself sound more intelligent when I didn’t actually understand their meanings. QUA rational beings?! Talk about being a snobby college student. After reading my argument, which I think earned me at least an A- on my Ethics final during my senior year, I couldn’t tell you a thing about what I was actually trying to say. It was absolutely ridiculous, and the madness continued with every sickeningly wordy document I opened. Don’t even get me started on all of the Civ papers I have stashed in there (PC students, you know what I’m talking about). It was like a dictionary drank too much and vomited all over my screen. Gross.

Anyway, after laughing at my former self who knew nothing of the real world other than how to bull-shit complex papers, which actually turned out to be a really great college skill in terms of grades, it got me thinking… what did I really LEARN in school? I don’t remember a thing about Kant, Darwin, Faust, or Drosophila Melanogaster (it’s a type of fly that I killed with alcohol exposure my freshmen year for a biology experiment, but I had to look at the lab report to trigger my memory). I was notorious for being able to crank out a 20 page paper in one night and have it at least resemble something that took weeks of preparation, but what did that process actually TEACH me? The information left my head as soon as it was rapidly typed out.

Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t worry. The purpose of this post isn’t to conclude that my mountain of student loans is a complete waste. It’s just such a bizarre transition, which so many people make—the transition from being a student to NOT being a student anymore. My job in life was so simple. Study. Do well. Build your extra curricular activities. Learn. LEARN. And I did learn. Maybe I didn’t learn derivatives well enough to remember how they work, and maybe I didn’t learn about Newton’s Laws to the point of being able to recite them, but I learned how to balance A LOT of activities with studying and a social life. I learned how to be confident. I learned how organize. I learned how to communicate better. I learned a lot about myself, which prepared me to tackle this experience.

Now, back to the present. Life is really different. I am no longer a student. I am a teacher, a foreigner, a community mate, a choir member, a person who’s got a lot of privilege. And I am learning everyday, in ways that are hilariously different from writing a college paper. Just two days ago, I had a miserably high fever, blurred vision, and felt sicker than I ever had in my life. My awesome roommate Shea turned into a dad and walked with me to the nearby clinic, about two blocks from our house. It was my first time at a Tanzanian dispensary, and while my head was too spacey to notice all of the details, it was pretty clear that I wasn’t in “Kansas” anymore. Blood was taken from my hand, I had to poop in a little matchbox, I was given a shot in my butt to bring the fever down, and while I was resting on a sheet-less bed, two of my students who live nearby were running around and playing under the bed to keep me company while I was staring at my (luckily) empty vomit-bucket and trying to seem happy to see them. The standards were different, but when all was said and done, it was concluded that I had malaria and a type of parasite or amoeba or something in my stomach resulting in dysentery-like symptoms. I was given medicine, charged 30,000 shillings, which is extremely exorbitant in this context, but only translates to about 20 USD, and sent on my way. The following night and day were pretty miserable, but now it’s Friday, and I’m feeling almost completely back to normal.

I am learning everyday here. I am learning that malaria absolutely sucks, and that it is so easy to cure if you have access to the correct medicine. I’m learning that if I didn't feel better today, I could have easily gone to a western medical clinic on the ex-pat side of town, which is a place my neighbors could never go to, and I’m learning how to deal with the realities of that disparity between me and the people I am supposed to be accompanying. I am learning that hospitals can make you better even if they aren't sterile-white. And I’m learning other things, too. I can cook food that isn’t Ramen noodles or a microwavable burrito. I can wash dishes without running water. Naweza kuongea Kiswahili kidogo, lakini bado ninajifunza (I’m able to speak a little Swahili, but I’m still learning). I am learning how to teach, and to enjoy teaching. It doesn’t really matter what Kant says about happiness… even after reading my paper, I still don’t really know what his problem with it is. I’m learning that I’m happy here, and I’m happy to be finishing up my first year with all of the new stuff I’ve learned. Bring it on, year two.

Mansion

((I spent the last week alone in our volunteer house while my roommates were taking a trip to Nairobi. During that week, I thought a lot about how much space and privilege I have as a volunteer here. Houses, even small ones, seem ENORMOUS when you're the only one living in them. This is a reflection I wrote on the subject.)) 

I live in a mansion.

This mansion has four bedrooms.

This mansion usually has no running water.

This mansion has two couches, two bathrooms, and many wonderful books that have been collected and passed down from decades of volunteers.

This mansion houses four, but would probably comfortably house twelve if occupied by the neighbors, using their definition of “comfortably”, not your average American suburbanite’s definition.

This mansion often loses electricity.

This mansion is surrounded by a concrete gate, with spikes and bits of broken glass menacingly threatening any potential plunderers from attempting a hop over.

This mansion is a sanctuary, where English is spoken, athletic shorts and tank tops can be worn, computers can be used, and I can feel good about the “sacrifice” I’m making by boiling a few liters of water to make it drinkable, by washing clothes by hand. “Wow, you’re so badass.”

This mansion is a trap, where I can forget that I live in Tanzania and get lost in a world of books or boot-legged, $1 movies bought on the street.

This mansion is a fun house, where children in the neighborhood eagerly knock on the gate as if entering Disney World. The toys sent from random relatives back in America make their soda-bottle footballs and “roll the wheel with the stick” toys seem like, well, sticks and bottles.

This mansion is so close to the neighboring houses that it seems like the Kiswahili conversations are happening right beside by bed.

This mansion is a symbol, a symbol of simple living and commendable sacrifice from the eyes of many westerners, and a symbol of immense privilege and luxury from the eyes of  the neighbors who walk past this mansion daily, hawking peas and vegetables to make a living.

This mansion sits in stark contrast to the house I just visited with a small group of neighbors after we attended the early morning mass. One room, one mattress, one sick woman who couldn’t afford a cast for her broken arm. We prayed with her, we sat with her, we were just with her. I felt like part of something.

I am part of something.

And then I crossed the dirt path and turned the key to unlock the dark black gate that shines as white as my skin and stepped into my mansion, into my trap and my sanctuary. I turned my head and smiled abashedly at the small group of Tanzanians, my friends, as they waved me into my home, and I thought… why do I deserve this more than you?

You may think it’s a hovel. You may congratulate me for my work. You may think I’m off saving the world. But the world has fences. The world has gates. The world has mansions sitting in the midst of shacks.

Sometimes it’s difficult to see the good in that.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why my skin affords me that luxury.

I guess all I can do is try to keep the gate unlocked and not get trapped inside.