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.

Love List

In the beginning of the year, one of our first community nights was lead by Cait, and it was AWESOME. We each made a “Love List”, which is strangely similar to my favourite game in college, “The Glad Game”. It’s, as you probably guessed, easy to figure out… all you do is list things that you love, things that make you glad. Back in January, my community mates and I each hung up our loves lists on the wall, and 8 months later, I still look at it from time to time. If you don’t have a love list, I suggest making one, because they rock. I know I haven’t updated you all in a REALLY long time, but there have been ups and downs in the past 4 months (as expected), and when I’m feeling the downs, this little Love List hanging by our kitchen helps to remind me of things that I really do love… silly things and people and places. Unfortunately, most of these beautiful things, people, and experiences are ones that I do not have in this context. But anyway, here is that original Love List… the bold selections are things that I still have over here:

BETH KILLIAN’S LOVE LIST- January 2012
Crunchy Leaves
Baseball Fields
The sound of a rock thunking against a big tree trunk
Tap Dancing
Fresh mozzarella cheese
Community Theatre- TOH
Driving silently with a friend
Small tiny music venues
Listening to an album the whole way through for the first time
“House at Pooh Corner” when sung by Mom and Dad
Insects and plants
Planetariums and Museums
Mom and Dad singing anything
First snow angel of the winter
Dance walking and running
Holding other people’s chins
Tsitsikamma National Park
Strictly Speaking
Muffin Day
Cuddle Puddles
Bon Fires
Catching someone or being caught rockin’ out at a stop light
Nana
Comfy Lying
The Weekenders
Merbeth and Merkate
The Cub
Rudolph- The movie and the stuffed animal
Festivals and Parades
Head scratches
Guitars and singing
Imagining things
The smell of Home-Depot
“Resurrection Fern”
Brothers
“Home” themes in music or poems
Ray Cafeteria on a Sunday afternoon Junior Year
Thunderdome and Krista

It’s weird to reread this list, especially since almost everything and everyone on it is still back in the USA. It makes me miss home a lot, but after thinking about it, I realized that there are so many things I love about my new life here. Many of those same things used to make me really angry or frustrated in the beginning. I guess it shows that I really HAVE gotten used to the culture here to a point where I can say I’m generally…happy. That fact alone should go on my Love List.

Anyway, I figured it was time to make a new love list, focusing on the things I love here. Feel free to send your love lists my way… spreadin’ the love is always cool. Here we go:

BETH KILLIAN’S LOVE LIST- AUGUST 2012
Gonzaga Primary School
Washing laundry by hand while listening to music and seeing all of your clothes hung up on the line when it’s finished
The Nandi Family
The Godi family
Singing in Choir
The rare moments when our sink has running water
My housemates
The smell of our laundry powder
SOS children’s village
Long bus adventures
The Indian Ocean
Mwanza
Listening to an album all the way through for the first time
Receiving and sending hand-written letters
Encouragement via prayer by Kelly Hughes
The sing-songy njegere man
Dancing every week with students
Songs written by Caitlin O’Donnell
Hearing the kids in our neighborhood scream “DADA BETI!” instead of “MZUNGU!”
Riding Isaya’s Daladala
Receiving new CDs or music in the mail
Wearing Mu-mu’s
Banana Trees
Playing guitar and singing
Running to Ubungo and back as the sun rises
Getting letters from Leslie
The feeling of the floor of my room on my feet after I sweep it
Loyola students
Chapati
Cooking a legit Tanzanian meal correctly
Playing jenga with students
Understanding a few words of a nearby rapid Kiswahili conversation
njegere na nasi (coconut peas… so good)
Mbullya Mtigi’s crazy antics in class (the tiniest student in grade 3 with the tiniest attention span and biggest sense of humor)
When students call me “Teacha Bertha”
Jacqueline’s husky laugh (a 50 year old Mama trapped in a 9 year old’s body. I’m so lucky to be her teacher)
Catching up with other JVs
Conference call skyping with my whole family
Rudolph… the stuffed animal
Tanzanians’ reactions to my eyebrow ring
The phrase “Jamani!”

I could probably go on for a LONG long time. I could also easily make a “Don’t Love List”, because this experience isn’t just warm and fuzzy sunshine dust. The rainy season sucks. The concept of time and efficiency here is aggravating beyond belief. My role as a white volunteer still begs a lot of questions about what GOOD my presence is actually serving. Primary school students are energy-draining nightmares as much as they are affectionate bundles of life-giving affirmations telling me that this is what I should be doing. But without the bad, there wouldn’t be a good. If I didn’t miss things from home, I wouldn’t be able to recognize the new home forming around me. I’d rather have an up and down experience than a stagnant one, and the past eight months have been anything but stagnant.

And, unfortunately, while “writing blogs” is on my Like List, “buckling down to actually write a blog” is sadly on the not-so-love list. Sorry about the massive delay, but maybe I’ll kick myself into gear more often. All of you are constantly in my thoughts as I continue through this experience… thank you so much for the support and KNOW that I LOVE ALL OF YOU.

The Best Birthday Gift :)

This is going to be a super short post because I just posted one, but I figured since I’m still on break, I should take advantage of the free time I’ve got and give you all another story.  Last week, on March 30^th, I turned 23… so yeah, I’m now in my mid-20s officially. CRAZY!  That particular Friday was the last day of our term, so Cat and I only had to go in to work for a few hours for our staff meeting, and by 1:30 we were home.

I have been teaching guitar lessons to a few of the students in Standard 7, and so when we got home, there were about 6 boys in that class hanging around near our house. We let them in to visit and spent the bulk of the day with them. I worked with a boy named Wenceslaus on his chord techniques as he added 3 more chords to his guitar knowledge, and all of us played multiple rounds of Jenga , scrabble, and Uno. As part of their PDS class, I have been teaching the 7^th graders a Beyonce dance called “Move Your Body” (check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP4MgxDV2U), so at one point, we all went outside and did the dance about 5 times. That’s right… 13 year old boys WILLINGLY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY performed a dance. It was mind blowing. We listened to music outside and kicked a football around (and I seriously need to perfect my skills), and when we all came back inside, Wenceslaus strummed a G chord repeatedly on the guitar as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me…off key by music-snob-standards, but SO JOYFUL. I don’t remember what I had planned for that day, if anything, but I cannot imagine a better way to have spent my big step into adulthood than dancing, listening to music, and playing games with those students. There are COUNTLESS times during the week when I lose my patience with students, or feel frustrated and exhausted, or simply do not want to be around kids because I’m “just too old for that” now. But it was a really awesome reminder that I don’t have to grow up as quickly as my “age” number suggests. Yeah, I’m in my mid 20s now. Yeah, I can still act like a goof ball with the best of them. I think helping me realize that was the best birthday gift my seventh graders could have ever given.

After the students left, Cait and Shea returned home from a long day at Loyola, and the four of us spent time together. I was completely overwhelmed by the generosity of these beautiful and thoughtful people. The gifts they gave that day in addition to their constant support and presence with me during our shared experience here makes me feel so comfortable and loved in this country… not just on my birthday but ALL THE TIME. Hearing birthday wishes from family and friends back home also reminded me of the love and support that I have from all of you ALL THE TIME. Needless to say, it was a fantastic day, and I want to thank ALL of you for continuing to support me from home with letters, thoughts, and by the simple act of reading my ramblings. You’re the best J. 

The Great Rain Adventure

Greetings friends,

I know it has been awhile since my last post but things have been ridiculously busy. School is going VERY well—we’re finally on our midterm/Easter break, and it’s SUCH a nice, well deserved break for the four of us. My students are AWSOME, and I really feel like I’m starting to connect with my class of third graders. They are so funny and we’re able to joke around with each other more than we were in the beginning. After school a few weeks ago, a boy named James who has made up a handshake with me already, was holding something in his hand and motioned for me to come over. Without even talking, he did that thing with his eyes that said “Teacher, I have the COOLEST thing to give you, you’ll never believe it, come here and give me your hand, this gift is going to be EPIC.” Extending my open hand, he grinned slyly and placed something in my palm, closing my fingers around it and then laughing hysterically and high fiving his friend. James gave me a rock, accented with some clumps of dirt. Teacher got SERVED. I couldn’t stop laughing with these third grade boys, the trick was so silly and juvenile but it is EXACTLY something that a kid would do in the states and it just made me feel good to get that kind of humor here in my new home.

So yeah, things are pretty awesome but I have never felt more exhausted. Don’t get me wrong… in college I had a habit of biting off more than I could chew, running frantically from one event to the other and constantly answer emails and writing papers and yadda yadda. But here’s it’s a different kind of tired. I’m in a routine that I am still navigating and figuring out. As a new teacher, lesson planning does not come easy to me in the least. At school, I’m spending my free periods marking exercise books and trying to remember what I planned for my next lesson and helping students who are confused, so that leaves all of the “next day lesson planning” to when I get home. My responsibilities at home also include cooking twice a week, dishes once or twice a week, laundry when the need comes (and like I mentioned before, laundry is almost a full day’s work), and spending time with my community during community night, spirituality night, and just general presence with each other. But with all this work, I still feel more balanced than I have in a long time. If I spend all afternoon cooking, it’s that much more awesome to eat it with my community that night. Lesson planning takes me a long time because I want it to be GOOD, and there are tons of kinks I need to work out until being “good” at teaching comes more naturally. My community and I just returned from a 4 day retreat in Morogoro and I had the opportunity to reflect on how I’ve been spending my time… and I think I’m ok with it. Teaching will get easier as my feet get wet, so to speak. And I want to be as present for my children as possible.

SPEAKING of feet being wet, it’s raining right now, and my feet were wet just a few minutes ago as I was finishing up a load of laundry outside (my clothes are getting a second rinse in the rain which means I didn’t have to work as hard scrubbing… WOO). But the rain and the dampness of Mabibo today reminded me of a story that I want to share, something that happened a little over a month ago (I know I know, I need to be better at posting frequency, but I guess my style is going to be one MASSIVE post every month or so. Accept it).  The rainy season is just kicking off this week, but during late February, we got a GIANT, flash rain storm one early Thursday morning. I was extremely excited to go to school on this particular Thursday, because the night before I had written a song about prepositions to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, and I was eager to teach it to my English classes. The rain woke me up at around 5:20, just minutes before my alarm, and I sprung into action throwing things from my desktop into my drawers. Heavy rain + wind = pretty substantial quantities of water flowing into my room and getting anything left on my desk nice and damp. After I had storm-proofed the room, I began covering my soft guitar case with plastic bags to protect it during the 15 minute walk to school. I also was planning on bringing my ipod and speakers to school that day because Thursday afternoons I teach a dance club period, and it’s always more fun with music. I wasn’t going to let the rain ruin my plans, so I also threw the electronic things into a plastic bag and then into my school bag with my many exercise and lesson plan books. Slinging the bagged guitar over one shoulder, my school bag over the other, and wrapping a Khanga (cloth that is used for pretty much everything) around my back, I was ready to go. I looked ready to climb a mountain with the amount of things I was carrying. Cat and I grabbed an umbrella to share and we were on our way.

As soon as we left the house, we started laughing with amazament. The rain was INSANE. Monsoon was the first word that came to mind, and it was difficult to see further than a few feet. I took one step onto to dirt-path-turned-river and immediately resigned myself to the fact that we would be walking through about 6 inches of rapidly flowing water the entire way. Unable to hear anything above the pounding rain, we began our journey. We ran into two coworkers of ours on the walk there, and after about 5 minutes of waiting out the worst of the storm under a lean-to of sorts, we continued, getting wetter by the minute. Our group soon welcomed one of my third grade students, Matthew, who was walking to school as well, with a rain jacket on and carrying his shoes so that he wouldn’t get them ruined. We trudged along, and soon our two coworkers were picked up by a car belonging to a number of our students. It was just Cat, bare-foot Matthew, myself, and a few others students walking the final leg to school. We had to wade through a particularly deep area of road, a narrow strip of about a foot of water, and Cat and I heard a wince from Matthew when we reached the other side. Not a scream or a cry, just a little boy looking down at the bottom of his bare foot, out of which stuck a long, rusty nail. Not really knowing what to do, Cat gave her bags to some students and scooped Matthew up on her back. I could not believe how optimistic Matthew was—I would have been screaming and crying, but he just sang right along to “Old McDonald” when we began a rousing chorus of “Moo Moos”  to take his mind off the fact that he had a big nail stuck deep in his foot. A few minutes later I felt a sinking sensation and realized that I was stuck in the mud, about a foot deep. I was able to pull my legs out pretty quickly, but lost my shoes in the process. Fishing my mud-caked shoes out of the ground, I completed the journey, guitar and giant bag still flopping by my side, holding dripping wet, muddy shoes, and looking pretty comical I’m sure. We reached the school about a half hour behind schedule, and one of the Sisters who ran the school casually plucked the nail out of Matthew’s foot and wrapped it in a bandage. Still, not a tear left this boy’s face.

Gonzaga is a two story building, with class rooms facing into a central courtyard. The classes of the youngest students are located on the bottom floor. The rain was still coming down strong, and the courtyard had already flooded about 6 inches. Grades Pre-Standard  1 to Standard 3 were taken upstairs in case the rain continued to flood, and since my class was included in that mass, I went to join them in a large empty room as soon as I peeled my bags off my back. If you can imagine a room with about 100 students ranging from age 3-9 all dancing, singing, and playing drums to try to be louder than the rain outside, imagine it just a bit louder and just a bit cuter, and that might give you an accurate picture. Still a little confused and flustered about the events of the morning, I took my guitar into the room and just sang and danced with the students for another 10 minutes or so, until the rain stopped and the sun came out. Students were able to return to their rooms just in time for the first period to begin, and the day continued, completely normal. The only difference was that a few students were later than usual, and some did not make it to school.

When a rainy day like that happens at home, our cars can protect us. Our roads are paved to prevent excess flooding. Our windows have glass to keep whatever we have under our roof safe and dry. Walking usually is not considered a viable option. But here, for me, and for many of my students and coworkers, walking IS the only option. Rain can shut down a full day of work or school. No one asks for an excuse if you’re extremely late to work on a “rain day”. Rain can wreak havoc on houses, roads, and feet, in the case of Matthew. Rain can sweep piles of trash into neighborhoods. But rain also is a source of joy. It relieves us from the stifling heat, it provides extra water for planting, drinking, and washing clothes, and it’s a little reminder of how POWERFUL and beautiful nature is. The walk to school that day was nothing like I’ve ever experienced, but when I got to school, the very first thing I felt was the contagious and overwhelming JOY given off by the singing and dancing students. Cat and I agreed later that day that the morning’s adventure was unbelievably rejuvenating, exciting, and peaceful (albeit a bit scary at certain moments). Rain reminds us that we CANNOT control everything as humans, as hard as we try. Nature is just going to go on doing its thing.

LOVE, in many languages

Two blog posts in a day, WHOAAA!!! I’m feeling especially type-y, though, because the keyboard on my laptop is VERY old and the 3edc keys rarely work anymore… .which are pretty crucial letters when you want to express yourself in words. BUT, the keys have been working for the past few days so I wanted to take advantage of that. This post is more of a reflection than an update of “this is what my life is like”.

JVC is a program that focuses on spirituality, simplicity, community, and social justice, which I’ve probably said a bunch of times. Every week, on Monday night we have community night, where the four of us do a community building activity, which can range from watching a movie to carving potato stamps (Shea’s idea, it was pretty epic), to reflecting about certain community-related topics. Wednesdays we come together for spirituality night, which can be just as versatile. Listening to profound music, reading scripture, meditating, or just chatting about an issue and tying it to spirituality somehow are all cool, and the four of us are on a rotation, so each week is different depending on the person leading the night. This past Sunday morning, we decided to have “Spirituality Morning” instead of our regular Wednesday night slot, and Cat led us through a reflection on the five languages of love. Appropriate for the Valentine’s day, TODAYYY. Good timing, Cat.

Anyway, the five languages of love represent the ways that different people show and express love for another person in intimate relationships, friendships, and within a family. It was really amazing to understand and put into words the ways that I show love for other people, and important for me to realize that everyone is DIFFERENT. Learning about how my community mates each express and expect to be shown love was such a beautiful way to understand each other better. Here are the five languages- try to pick out the one to identify with the strongest.

(taken from http://www.5lovelanguages.com)

·         Words of Affirmation

Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

·         Quality Time

In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.

·         Receiving Gifts

Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures.

·         Acts of Service

Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.

·         Physical Touch

This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.

After thinking about it for some time, I realized that my love language is TOTALLY quality time. I think my Dad’s might be too, because we spent A LOT of time just sitting outside together during the summer before I left, and I think it was really important to just be present in each other’s day for an hour or so. The weekly phone calls that I receive from my parents while here have been so incredible for me, as have the emails with my mom. I have so much love from home, and that’s how I remember it. Each week, like clockwork, they drop everything and call, and I can ramble about absolutely anything, and they’ll listen. Their presence in that way has already helped me process the initial weeks of this experience. Getting letters in the mail, knowing that someone took TIME out of their day to think about me, mean SO MUCH, and I am overwhelmed by a feeling of love every time I get mail. Before arriving in Tanzania, I felt the most loved when I felt heard, or TRULY seen, by another person. Good conversations, or even just good silent time with my friends, mean the world, and if I am interrupted, or someone is distracted when I want to tell them something important, or even a silly story, it really hurts. I am the absolute WORST person when it comes to buying a gift for someone, but there are few things I love more than making a gift to show someone how much he or she means to me. The time put into the gift, be it a card, a story, a song, a homemade wind chime, or a carefully planned surprise, shows how much I love the receiver of the gift. I often find myself literally following people around, even if we are not in the middle of a conversation, just because I want to be present to them. I’m sure it gets super annoying, but that’s just what I do. When reflecting on when I have felt the most loved, I automatically thought of my time in South Africa, when every morning, my roommate Vanessa would come into my room and eat a bowl of granola and yogurt on my bed while I sat at my desk. Sometimes we would talk, sometimes listen to music, sometimes just sit in silence as I checked emails or read and she crunched on her breakfast. Having someone present, and being present to another person, is probably the most comforting feeling in the world to me. Figuring that out about myself this Sunday was really special, and also very validating.

What was more special, though, was hearing about the ways other people express and receive love. Some people do not like physical touch, while others thrive off of it. I get extremely awkward when complimented, but others express love primarily through affirmations. When I forget to sweep the floor, it is nothing more than a moment of absent mindedness, but to another person it could be understood as a moment of neglect for the community.

I urge you to think about your own love language, and the languages of those you love, this Valentine’s Day. There is a book written by Gary Chapman that goes more into detail about these languages, so definitely read that if you are interested. I wish you all a happy and friendship-filled February 14^th, and know that my love goes out to each of you, even if my presence and quality time cannot.

You know, just being a teacher.

(I started writing this post about two weeks ago, but computer troubles have delayed its completion… but it’s done finally, thanks for waiting.)

“Those who can’t do, teach”- the misconception of a lifetime

I heard it on the movie “School of Rock”, which features Jack Black portraying a washed up musician turned substitute teacher. If you can’t do it, teach it. Har har, how funny, they’re right, teaching can’t be that hard. SHOOT.

Well, you’re looking at a four-week-in teacher, and it is pretty crazy. It’s an amazing challenge and one that I am super pumped to be tackling, but I catch myself just LAUGHING, at myself, multiple times every week simply because I know so LITTLE. Talk about humbling. I teach English to two classes of Standard 3 (third grade), communication and technology (ICT) to two classes of Standard 4, Personality Development and Sports (PDS) to Standard 7, and Religion to two classes of Standard 5. WHEW. Each class has about 30-40 students, and I teach 22 periods per week. So those are the logistics, but let me take you back to the beginning.

A bit of background- Gonzaga Primary is an English Medium school, which means that all of the classes (except for their Kiswahili classes) are taught in English. The students have a very good grasp on the language, which makes it much easier to teach, but I need to remind myself that English is their second language, and patience is the most IMPORTANT thing to remember while teaching. I am the class teacher for the standard 3A class, which means that I am with them every Tuesday and Thursday morning for a half hour, and also whenever a teacher is not in the room to teach them. I’ve really grown to love the little crazies already, but we still need to get used to each other. My accent is THICK to them, and theirs is to me, so sometimes a whole lesson is spent just trying to understand one another. It’s really frustrating, to say the least, but there are also awesome moments of understanding when we just GET each other. The biggest struggle has been discipline, and since Cat and I do not beat the children for misbehaving (which is common here), it’s a little more difficult to gain control when things get out of hand, and for the students to take me seriously. Not that I’d rather be hitting them, but it’s hard when that’s the discipline go-to here. The thing that’s been the most difficult to deal with is how often class is interrupted by a student who will tug on my shirt in the middle of the lesson crying and saying “this one took my pen” and “this one is beating me” and “this one has broken my ruler” and “my pen has stopped working”. It happens at least 3 times a class, usually more, especially in standard three, and at first I was so confused… just DON’T hit people, it’s really simple. After countless gentle talks about how bad it is to steal and hit, I realized how precious and important the possessions of these children are. When I was in third grade, I never really thought to take another person’s pen or hit a classmate for taking mine, because I had a pencil case with about 5 pens, 3 pencils, a sharpener, a set of crayons, markers, and two rulers. If my pen ran out of ink, I could just get another one from my classroom or my mom. It just wasn’t a big deal. Here, the resources aren’t so plentiful, and there seems to be a lot of value in taking SUPER good care of what you have. If a student loses a pen or the ink runs out, they usually do not have 5 extras sitting in their desks, and if they are bold enough to take one from a classmate, they risk getting hit. That’s the way it works. I’m planning on bringing a BUNCH of pens in next week to try to avoid this common conflict, so hopefully there won’t be as many class interruptions.

That being said, teaching is WONDERFUL. The students are so bright and are so happy when they understand something. The most successful lessons have been those that involve creativity and fun, and it took me a little while to finally understand that. These children are YOUNG, and if I just give them notes and class exercises to complete, their attention goes right out the window, and that’s when it gets harder to control. But, singing songs about how to spell “favourite” (yes, there’s a ‘u’, they do the british spelling here), drawing pictures that describe when to use “many, some, a, or an”, and asking students to act out “Brian went to the blackboard, and then jumped two times. Rahim jumped two times, too” and then choosing when to use to, two, or too, it’s just fun. These activities cannot happen all of the time, but yeah, that’s when I’ve felt the most confident so far.

At a staff meeting two weeks ago, I volunteered to take over the Drawing Club, which Gretchen had run during her second JV year. Clubs meet twice a week for 40 minutes each time, and the teacher pretty much has free reign as to how the club functions. Good thing, because I am an awful artist and cannot draw for crap. I enjoy arts and crafts, though, and if you know me at all, you know that dancing is my THING. Totally love it. So now the club has switched to “Creativity Club”. Every Tuesday we’ll do some form of craft, and every Thursday is DANCING. The first Thursday was a little rough… about 50 children came into my room during club time because there was music playing, and I was so focused on showing them a few steps that I did not even bother figuring out which club they were supposed to be going to. Try to picture 50 children between the ages of seven and thirteen trying to follow choreography in a small classroom with over 30 desks. Chaotic, to say the least, but these students can keep a BEAT, man oh man. That’s what this year will be like, I think. Mostly chaotic, but falling into a rhythm when it has to. Sometimes I feel just RIDICULOUS, like, I am in no way prepared or qualified to be doing this job, but then I’ll get a note from a student or have a really successful lesson, and there’s the rhythm.

(Speaking of notes from students, here’s a gem that one of my standard three youngsters gave me after I taught a few consecutive days with a grossly hoarse and sore voice… I just told them that I was sick and jokingly threatened to stop teaching if they continued to disturb the class:

“Dear teacher Bethany,
Sorry for sicki. I love you bat not live me and ather peopl. I will not stab you in a class thank you asante kwa ku pokea”

Translation (or what I think he meant): Dear teacher Bethany, my condolences for your sore throat. I very much enjoy being in your class, please do not leave me and my fellow classmates. I will not disturb the class. Thank you, thank you for somethinginswahili.”

To top it off, he did a great drawing of a butterfly in the background and hand-delivered the note to my office in a paper-envelope decorated with an ostrich stamp that he drew, cut out, and pasted to the front. Made my day.)

In other news, HAPPY TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY, TANZANIA! My house mates and I celebrated by going out to a little bar/restaurant place about a 10 minute walk from our house to get chips mayai (basically an omelet with French fries inside) and a beer, both of which were delicious and very, VERY well deserved after we completed our third full week of teaching for the year.  Other fun news, just before writing this blog post, I went outside to the water cistern in our compound to fill up a bucket for doing dishes, and discovered a giant dead crow floating in a bucket of old laundry water. Apparently it drank some of the water and was poisoned. SO CREEPY. Figuring out how the remove it caused a bit of a stir in our house, but we just burned the dead bird in our trash area. The vegetarian (or, at least the former vegetarian) in me felt a little bad for the bird’s fate, but after being chased by a flock of crows while running around a nearby field last week, I don’t have much sympathy for them. That’s just life here. Giant grasshoppers in the house, chickens and goats roaming around the neighborhood, crows or other loud creatures getting stuck in our REALLY LOUD tin roof, and salamanders that scurry up the walls at random intervals. It’s different, but I LOVE IT.

Sorry for the ridiculous length, hope you enjoy!