Stuck in the Middle

The events of this week had me thinking back to the first few days after I arrived in Tanzania. Why, you ask? The first few days in country the medical office gave every volunteer a host of shots, including rabies, and I am now so glad they did. Despite being vaccinated I still found myself, once again, making the long trip to Dar. This time for post exposure shots to rabies.

How did it all begin? Well on Monday night around 8pm I was in my house and I heard a cat crying outside my back door. Thinking it was my cat, I opened the door and in came a mangy kitten. After spending about 20 minutes trying to get it out of my house, I stupidly picked up the kitten out of frustration and exhaustion and it bit me as I went to throw it out the back door. Immediately after I realized I was bleeding from my pointer finger I called the the PC medical duty phone, my father and another volunteer. The office told me I had to come to Dar for a post exposure shot as fast as I could. I was not too traumatized by the situation, actually my dad and I had a great laugh after the incident.

The next day I found myself on a bus to Iringa and then the day after on a bus to Dar. The whole trip took about 30 hours, but I am glad I came-- better safe than sorry. During the 30 hours of travel I realized that I would not be in Dar for one night like I thought, but rather four nights for a series of two shots. Really glad I was prepared with enough clothing-- not, but thankfully the expats who let me stay at their house are also nice enough to let me do some laundry. I landed at the office around 3pm received my shot and went on my way. Since then I have really just been bumming around. I ventured to the only mall in Dar which has a supermarket and a big store, ala Walmart. At the grocery store I mainly just cruised through the aisles looking at all they had to offer and buying a kilo of cheap oatmeal. In one of the aisles I ran into four Tanzanian teenage girls. It was funny to hear them speak in English and to see them acting like teenagers in America, “Can we get tuna?? Do we really need canned corn? Ah! I love pickles.. I'm getting a jar”. I couldn't help but listen to their conversation and laugh to myself. A far cry from the village, but not from America. I have also been catching up on Downton Abbey. I now see what all of the fuss is about!

As some of you may know this is not my first trip to Dar, so I should express to you all how much I hate traveling to and staying here. Most volunteers would think that I am crazy because Dar has nice American food, air conditioning, iced coffee, grocery stores and lots of other Americans, but those are are the things that cause me to feel like I am in limbo. In the village, at my site, I am comfortable knowing that I will be eating rice and beans for dinner, the electricity may go out, I have to get a bucket full of water to wash clothes and take a bath and when I am craving food I cannot have it. In Dar all of those things have been “westernized”. I can turn on a tap and water comes out. I can walk down the street and pick up gum, a diet coke or a box of cereal. In these ways being in Dar is just like being home, but in many ways it is also torture. There are things that are not American about Dar, such as the price and availability of goods, transportation, security and the lack of familiar faces. My use of Swahili also usually goes unnoticed here and I end up looking like a stupid white person trying to impress Tanzanians. I either want to be in America or at my site. I hate the limbo of Dar- half village life, half America.

On the upside I do get to do some nice things in Dar, like watch TV, go to the beach, visit the PC staff, eat great food and have a proper hot shower. However, when I am here I think about home and how much I miss it or the things/ work I am missing at site. Thankfully this past week my school had exams and this coming week is Easter vacation. After that there is about two months until my mom comes to visit for two weeks!! Super excited!!

Well I best be off. Need to get my last rabies shot this afternoon, then I am on a bus home tomorrow. I hope everyone is doing well. Best of luck to my brother Jordan and the Holy Cross Men's Crew Team who open their season today and to the Brown Women in their home race against Radcliffe.

All my love from TZ

Breaking and Entering

As with anything there is a point when things seem to lose their novelty and get, well... – old. Much like in the 3^rd grade when my father, through no fault of his own, made my brothers and I baloney sandwiches for our schools lunches for over a month straight. Honestly, I could not complain because there was probably no way in hell I was going to pack my own lunch, but that was a rough month.

Similarly my experience here is beginning to feel like the baloney sandwich incident all over again. I feel like I am just going through the motions here and not necessarily at school, but with life in general. I think the problem lies mainly in the fact that I am still a novelty to people here who do not see me regularly, i.e. people in town. Going to town has become a burden. I no longer feel like a novelty because my fresh view on my situation has faded; however people who are seeing me for the first time are, as one expects, excited. Unfortunately, my excitement is hardly ever returned and patience, for people who want to make conversation with me just because I am white, is short. I find myself thinking, this must be how celebrities feel when people approach them and say things like, “I love your work” and “Can I take a picture”. All in all, Groundhogs day? You betcha.

Then there is the other side to this whole baloney sandwich situation. Just like I was lucky I didn't have to make my sandwiches, I am lucky enough to have this whole experience. Many people don't get an opportunity like this in life. I honestly try to remember this when I am being grabbed, corralled and yelled at in the bus stand, but it is not easy. Lately, I have been craving American culture. I am grateful for the other volunteers and the fact that I can be “American” around them, but I wish that just once I was invisible when I am just out and about minding my own business. I wish I could walk around and no one would stare at me, ask me for money, try to rip me off or speak to me in horrendous English because they assume I do not speak Swahili. I should probably clarify that all of the things listed above are not only because I am white, but also because of the Tanzanian culture. It is customary to greet the person next to you on a bus and ask them a bunch of questions. In America if you sat next to someone on public transport and they started asking you a bunch of questions you would either stand up and move seats or look at them as if they were crazy, put your ear buds in and turn up the volume on your iPod.

And so here I am, stuck in a kind of limbo between frustration and appreciation. I know I can bear a few more months of it, but I am concerned it is slowly chipping away at my appreciation for this country and other HCNs.

On a similar note last week I was waiting for another teacher to finish her lesson. She ran about ten minutes into my period and I knocked on the door to ask her to wrap it up. She asked for five more minutes, I agreed then I heard her say it as she resumed her teaching – Mzungu. I could not believe it. The teacher referred to me to the students as “the white person”. I admit I was pretty hurt and realized I had two options: I could ignore it or I could confront her about it. I decided to confront her because whether she meant it or not I find the word “Mzungu” derogatory and racist. I think I was more upset with the fact that called me the name behind my back, although I heard her, and that she used it in front of the students. Since coming to Isongole, I have tried to show my colleagues that all white people are not the same. One way in which I do this is by refusing to answer to “mzungu” and explaining I am not a “person who walks in circles”. I also reprimand the students if I hear them using that word. I know it is an uphill battle because these people do not even know they are being racist and it is culturally acceptable.

So again I find myself fighting the good fight. If I have learned one thing here breaking habits and stereotypes is not easy. I fear I will always be “mzungu” to some of the teachers at my school. At least I know that the teachers who I am very close with would never call me that or even refer to me as that to others who know me. Blind faith maybe, but it makes me feel better.

If it is not a water or a rat problem here it is an electricity problem. Somehow a few of the teachers' houses are wired to a very fickle breaker, which decides to switch off whenever it sees fit. Regrettably this seems to happen at the worst times, i.e 10 pm or during a down pour. This weekend it was raining and the breaker switched. Per usual I walked to the headmaster's house to get the key to the room that houses the box. He and the keys, however, were not at home. My next door neighbor, Erasto, was also on a hunt for the keys when we both realized no one had the keys. We could either wait until morning or take matters into our own hands. We chose the latter. I came up with the idea to break the lock on the door and replace it with one I had in the house. Erasto found the metal crowbar and under the cover of rain and dusk we "MacGyver-ed that shit". Afterward we both promised not to rat each other out, high-fived and went on our merry was to our lit houses.

Lastly I have some great news to share with you all! My cat caught a mouse and spread its blood on my back porch after eating its innards and...... The grant for our new school library was recently approved! What does this mean? It means we will be renovating two existing classrooms by joining them and painting them. The grant specifically will cover the cost of new NECTA books, tables, chairs and book shelves. Our currently library is about the size of Harry Potter's cabinet under the stairs, so we are all very excited to expand! (When I told my headmaster he went for the handshake and I went for the high-five, awkward, but it turned out well...yeah teamwork!)

I hope every one is doing well at home and that you all have filled out a March Madness bracket. No excuses. If I can fill one out in Africa, you can fill one out at home. With two No.2 seeds bumped already this is making for an exciting tournament. Shout out to my family who send an early Easter package. I made Peep Smore's. They were great! It also sounds like spring is on its way back home. This means two things. Summer is also coming closer and the spring racing season has started. Best of luck to the Brown Women and the Holy Cross Men this season! Kill it, Face!

All my love from TZ!  

Jacque, the engine...start the engine!

Remember that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indie has just escaped the temple in South America, he is running over the hill yelling at his friend to start the plane. All of a sudden the camera pans out a little and we see that he is hauling ass because he is being chased by the locals with spears and blow darts? That was me this morning.

Of course I was not running for my life, but I was chased – by village children. On this particular Sunday I was feeling pretty active so I decided to go for a run. I spiced up my regular routine by running in the opposite direction to a neighboring village, but I forgot one key thing.

In the eyes of most people here I am something they do not see everyday, thus I am stared at where ever I go. I sometimes forget I am a novelty, so I fooled myself into thinking I will just have a nice relaxing run. Unfortunately that will never happen here. The kids were waiting for me to come back and I tired to outsmart them by taking a back path, but they got the jump on me. As I picked up my pace all I could hear, giggles, screaming, yelling and laughter over my techno running mix blaring through my headphones.

Unwanted attention is strange. At first you feel like a celebrity. You think to yourself, wow...so this is what fame feels like. After a while the novelty wears off for you and you begin to realize why we constantly see celebrities flipping off the paparazzi (I do no envy them). Admittedly, now, I have no patience for it. I will deliberately avoid situations if I am not feeling up to dealing with the extra attention. Foolishly I believed that after a little while the people around the area I live would get used to my presence and see me as one of them. In someways, this has happened. I have friends in the village, most of the people in the immediate neighborhood know my name and what I do and I am rarely asked for money. On the other hand I feel far from integrated outside my village. I go to town and am still treated like a tourist. I run to a neighboring village, am mistaken for a deity, placed on a thrown, fed apples and Diet Coke and fanned with palm leaves. I walk on the street and am still called things like, Baby, Sister, White Girl, Dada, Hey You, Whitie, Mzungu, etc. I try to buy something at the market or a store and the price is immediately marked up 5,000 shillings. If I do not pay exact change on the public bus I have to remember to ask for my change back. It is the small things like this that make me still feel and remind me that I am an outsider. Anyway... this is something I have been struggling with lately and something I cannot change. It is part of this whole experience.

Yesterday another interesting thing happen on my way to Tukuyu. I jumped on a coaster around 11am. I was pretty hungry and so I bought a piece of grilled corn out of the window at one of the bus stands. Venders set up little grilles, shuck corn, grill it and sell it on sticks to people passing on buses and in cars. It is 200/= and it is a really good snack. Occasionally you get a piece of what I would consider “cow corn” and you sit on the bus chewing very methodically, like a ruminant, and after a while you cannot feel your jaw. As with any food item here, it is customary and culturally appropriate to offer it to others. So, you split the piece of corn in half and offer it to the person sitting next to you or behind you. Sometimes I am really hungry, pull the “I'm white card” and keep it all to myself. Yesterday I was feeling particularly generous and offered it to the older woman, “bibi”, next to me. She unexpectedly declined and when I asked her if she was sure, she opened her mouth, pointed to her infant like gums and said, “Sina Meno” or “I don't have teeth”. Hmm. That would pose a problem/ how do you repond to that? Pole (sorry) is what I said, as I tried not to laugh or look too surprised. I guess I would label that experience as “something that would never happen in America”. Never a dull moment here...

Well that's all I have for today. Just thought I would share those two interesting/ funny experiences. Hope you are all having a great Sunday and enjoying the first days of March!

All my love from TZ.