What? I can't sneak at least one Lord of the Rings reference into a post during this trip?
It wasn't my intention to go the entire trip and only post twice. However, because there wasn't a lot of travel during this trip, the posts I wrote about my day-to-day here often led to talking about the current political state in Tanzania and the status of the education. It underpins much of what we do and why we do it.
And given the current political state in Tanzania, I don't want to post those blogs until I am out of the country.
I know that I am a nobody in the grand scheme of items being written online about Tanzania, but I'm on a private Internet tower Jifundishe installed. Better safe than sorry.
I have two posts that I'll post shortly after I leave - perhaps even during my 5-hour layover in Amsterdam - but in the meantime...
Looking at Mt. Meru from the main street of Ngongongare Village
It's my last night in Tanzania and it's hitting me harder than it has in previous trips. Previous trips have always included travel at the end, but this time I'm leaving Jifundishe and Tanzania on the same day. Also, I've been working at the front desk which means I've met more people and made more friends.
Emmanuel and Juma, best friends who always bring a smile to everyone's faces
My emotions started to get the best of me when Frida, my cook and cleaner who refused my request for a photo in 2016, started crying when she saw me in a kitenge dress today and asked me for a picture. When I asked for one in return, she obliged. I ended up teaching her how to take a selfie.
My Tanzanian mama. She might be paid to cook and clean for me, but the laughing at my jokes she does out of the goodness of her heart.
It was down hill from there. My last time checking and tracking who was overdue. My last time closing the library. My last time telling Anande not to stay too late. My last time chatting with our night guard, Kelvin, on his rounds. My last time watching the sunset on the porch. My last time...
Anande and Amalia came to visit me one Sunday to make mandazi.
It also doesn't help that everytime Anande and I do prep-work for upcoming events, she laments that I won't be here. I won't be here for the "End of Exams" Ceremony at the end of November. I make a note that maybe next time I can plan around being here for that. I won't be here for the Houston Scholarship selection in January. Maybe I can plan around that. I won't be here for the start of school in February, official graduation in March, the start of the A-Level program in May, so many things I will never be here for.
The Independent Study Project students who are writing exams every Monday this month.
Here's hopefully making it through Wednesday without crying; 10,000 Tanzanian shillings says I fail.
When Anande reached out about me coming back to Tanzania this year, I
picked October as the month because it gave me enough to prepare AND it was the
end of the dry season with the jacaranda in bloom.
The most important part of that sentence are the words “dry season”.
The sky should be bright and the ground should be dry!
It is supposed to be the dry season. The short rainy season shouldn’t
start until the week after I leave, with the occasional short shower leading up
to it. However, Mother Nature had other plans. Maybe it’s the cabin fever or
maybe it’s because I just think it’s hilarious and I can’t stop laughing about
it, but I began to compose those fake Civil War letter tweets to myself.
Dearest Martha,
It has been five days, 13 hours,
and 26 minutes since I last saw the sun. The solar power is getting low, and I
am now resigned to taking cold showers as a result. It would be warmer to run
naked through the rain but apparently my neighbours have a problem with that.
Dearest Martha,
Due to circumstances, I am forced
to wear proper shoes instead of my beloved flip-flops. My only hope is that I
grow webbing between my toes to make the 20-meter commute easier. No one tells
you about the out-of-season rain, Martha, and I feel that I have been lied to…
despite this not being the first time I have experienced out-of-season rain.
Dearest Martha,
Today, I told the locals that
even the mzungu was cold. They laughed. Then they told me to drink more kahawa
and chai to warm up. But drinking so much I pee on my leg every 10 minutes
isn’t going to solve the problem which is that everything is cold and damp.
Even with the downpours, patrons and students still found their way to the library.
Part of this is of my own making. Playing the odds and making room for
all the donation items I was bringing, I cut out pretty much all my warm
clothes options. Heck, it was just a last-minute decision that I’d want jeans
on when I got off the plane coming home that means I even have a pair of pants
to wear during these cold days. My jeans that I left in my knapsack because I
wasn’t going to need them until my trip home.
On the upside, while it was still lightly raining when I woke up, it
has stopped since and the sky is bright. There is still a cloud cover, but it’s
not the dark clouds we’ve had for the last week. I am optimistically hopeful
that the sun forecasted for Sunday might arrive a little early. Goodness knows,
we could all use it.
UPDATE: When I wrote this, we were without power and Internet. Since then, both have returned along with the sun! Sing it with me, folks!
The other downer is that I had to cancel my weekend trip to Kigali.
Well, didn’t have to, but it made
sense. In my jetlagged state upon arrival, I forgot to ask for a multi-entry
visa. It’s an extra $50US, but that’s what would allow me to leave for a
weekend and come back. Instead, I got a single-entry visa which means that if I
leave Tanzania, I must reapply for a whole new visa upon re-entry. That’s
$250US because I need to have a Business visa even for unpaid volunteer work.
The staff get a delivery of hot tea (chai) every morning. The milk comes straight from the cow. Luckily, the tea is brewed in the milk as the milk is heated so my stomach doesn't rebel as result.
Every time I come here, I think that maybe this is the time I just do
the paper work for a Class C Residents Permit. That would mean 5 years of being
able to come and go without getting a visa every time, but the paper work to get
a Class C Residents Permit is a pain in the rear and I’d have to go to Dar es
Salaam for part of it because I’m not actually living here for those years, and
if I have to leave before the process is done – highly likely – then the whole
thing gets scuttled and I’m back to square one on my next trip anyway.
Went for a walk today (Sunday) around Ngongongare and ran into two of my coworkers, Rena and Liz, as they were coming from from church.
At any rate, I spoke with people who know the visa situation in
Tanzania better than I do and reviewed all the options. When time and money was
factored in, they were all too much: too much time going in and out of Arusha
in the hopes they might change my
visa to multiple entry, too much money to get a new business visa for only a
week and a half of volunteer time left.
I can say with certainty that running up the escalator in your stocking feet is not something that should be on anyone's to-do list. I know this because that's exactly what I ended up doing on Saturday morning. I had such a short layover in Seattle that I got it into my head I must being going through US Customs before boarding in Victoria, like some of my previous trips.
I was wrong.
Between construction at the airport and what felt like eleventy billion flights arriving within 30 minutes of each other, my short connection time got even shorter. Which meant I spent my time in line guilting the people in front of me for security into letting me cut before running up two flights of escalators and across a SEA-TAC terminal in the aforementioned stocking feet.
Those little ridges on the escalator HURT!
On the upside, I learned that US Customs now has an app called "Mobile Passport" which means I pretty much skipped 90% of the customs queue. Highly recommend getting it if you're flying to the States, have a smart phone, and are eligible for it (US citizens, US permanent resident, or Canadian citizen).
Sunrise over the North Sea
I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at Kilimanjaro to find a renovated immigration area. Part of the renovation included ropes to help create lines of people instead of the traditional clusterf*** they had employed for so many decades. Of course, the ropes only went back far enough for about 20 people so getting to the nicely roped off areas was still a free-for-all.
Despite these improvements, I still failed to get out in under an hour. At the rate they are improving the airport, I expect to get through customs in less than 30 mins by 2035.
On the upside, I walked out to find both Paulo and Anande waiting for me. It was a nice treat to catch up with Anande as Paulo drove. Once we turned off the paved road, the rest of the drive was like this.
I arrived to find that Frida had cooked me chipsi mayai (French fry omelette) for a pre-bed snack, and I devoured it before falling asleep for 10 wonderful, uninterrupted hours.
I was visited by Big Mama and Wee Jimmy, two wild dogs that call our compound home during the day. Big Mama has been a fixture on the campus for a few years. She's part of a pack of wild dogs that roam the area, but our compound is her space and she chases off any other dogs who dare enter. Or she did until Wee Jimmy showed up shortly before my last visit. He was a very young puppy of questionable intelligence, and I think she tolerated him more because he was just too stupid to realise she was trying to chase him away.
In the two years since, Big Mama appears to have mellow and is friendlier. Where she would once move the minute you got within 10 meters of her, she happily trotted to the patio to give me a quick sniff before heading on her way. Wee Jimmy, on the other hand, tried to say hello and ended up running into the patio wall. Like I said, not the smartest dog in the village.
I headed to the library early Tuesday morning for my first day there. I'll talk more about that in a later post, but I was pleasantly surprised when one of the patrons smiled at me and said "I remember you." It was Amret who I used as my guinea pig for RACHEL-Pi training!
After a full day of work at the library and a quick meeting with Anande to discuss our focus for the grant writing, I ended today how I imagine I'm going to be ending a lot of my days: siting on the patio, eating my fresh fruit dessert, drinking tea, and watching the sunset on Mt. Meru.
I left Jifundishe and Ngongongare on October 13th. It already feels like a lifetime ago. Well, it feels longer than a week and a half, at least.
I struggle, when I write or talk about village life in Tanzania, with the idea of romanticising it. So I will say this; life here isn't easy, but it isn't difficult either. When you have never known a life without near-daily power outages, this isn't a hardship. It is simply your reality and you work with what you have.
My last night and morning in Ngongongare, I had clear views to Mt. Meru. I also had the joy of a 28 hour (at the time I left) power outage. Hey, solar power. I love you! Despite the cloudy days and draining my solar power a few days earlier so I could get some work done during the day - power was routinely cut during the day while Tanesco replaced a series of power poles - I had enough power to charge my phone and finish some computer work for Jifundishe.
Mt. Meru in the early morning of the day I left.
I headed to the office for the last time to put the finishing touches on the User Guides I created. As Anne and Deb were off doing work in other places, it was just Anande and myself seated in opposite ends of the staff house with the generator running between us. Conversations usually started with muffled shouting, followed by one of us giving up and walking to the other person's office.
My mornings and evenings were usually spent in this seat. Positioning it here meant I had a ledge to rest my coffee/beer on, I was facing the right direction to watch the sunset, and when someone called out 'Hodi' at the backdoor, I only had to lean back to see who it was.
I headed back up to the house to grab my bags and say 'kwa heri' (goodbye) to Frida. When I arrived, I found that she had still cooked lunch (although I told her I was leaving at lunchtime) and that the lunch consisted of all the foods I had commented on when she had cooked them. Frida is friendly enough but the word stoic is definitely one that comes to mind when I think of her. To find that she had done this meant a lot, and I wish I had been more diligent in my Swahili so I could have said more to her than 'thank you very much', 'I will miss you' and 'next time I will speak more Swahili'. Frida, of course, waved off my declarations of feelings as if a fly was hovering around her face, and then she walked away when I asked for a picture.
Looking at the kitchen from the living room.
Again, I don't want to romanticise village life, but I really do slip into it so easily when I'm here. As long as I have my Dial-A-Paulo when I need a ride somewhere (or a beer run on a Friday night...), I enjoy the quiet that comes with living in a small community. My time here just reinforced that I want to do an extended stay again at some point in the future. And while I enjoyed my time of Cradle of Love, my time at Jifundishe feels much more productive. I'm not just another volunteer passing through, I'm actually contributing something meaningful and lasting for this organisation.
My evening view. I'd read my book and either drink tea or beer until the sunset.
I had a few days before my Travel Companion (henceforth called TC) arrived and I really did not want to spend any more time in Arusha. I took the Friday to visit the Tanzanian Tourist Board office and get a bus ticket to Kondoa with the intention of seeing the Kondoa Rock Art. Dark and early Saturday morning, I hopped on a bus headed to Kondoa.
When I reached Kondoa, I contacted the Cultural Tour Guide I had connected with at the Tourist Office, and discovered that the price he quoted me was based on two people taking the tour. As a solo traveller, I'd have to pay the whole price myself. Even on the phone, he said "it's very expensive for one person." Yes. Yes, it is. I could arrange to visit the site myself, but I woke up Sunday morning with some stomach issues. I ventured out to grab some food and water, then returned to my room with cable. There would be no visiting the Rock Paintings on Monday as I had planned.
Despite this, I enjoyed Kondoa. I was feeling better on Monday and was able to walk around the town. It was just far enough off the beaten path that I was an oddity as a white person but everyone was incredibly friendly. It was also almost entirely Muslim which meant that my tattoo was a huge hit because they are forbidden by Islam. Everyone wanted to touch it, and one guy looked like he was going to throw up when I explained how a tattoo gun works. Pretty much everyone here is terrified of needles so the fact that I sat for 40 minutes getting repeatedly poked with one won me a few 'hardcore' points in their eyes.
As I sat on the bus to leave, I realised that I hadn't taken a single picture of the town.
Happy
Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends and family!
Suck it,
rest of you!
First, thank
you to my mom for pointing out that I had left the default settings on the
comments so you had to login to leave a comment. That’s now fixed, mom. You can
write those comments now.
On Friday
morning, Anne and I discussed my staying on at Jifundishe for this week as they
are installing Shule-Direct this Wednesday. Shule-Direct – shule means school –
is the Tanzanian government’s eLearning component of their curriculum. The great
thing about Shule-Direct is that it can be loaded onto the RACHEL-Pi server and
therefore, it is available even when the Internet is unavailable. All this is
to say that I am still in Ngongongare until Thursday.
My home until Thursday
I spent a
relatively quiet weekend in Ngongongare. Relatively quiet because the church
choir practiced all weekend. They
started Friday at 5pm, and they stopped only for power outages, sleep, and the
portions of the Sunday Service they weren’t required to sing. Normally, I would
love the idea of live music all weekend except they sang three songs. Over and
over and over and over and over. Add to that, the lead singer is tone deaf and
kept trying to hit notes well outside her limited range. I know it’s a small village
and they are reliant on the talent available, but I refuse to believe this
woman is the best this village has to offer. When they finally stopped at 10pm
Sunday night, I was tempted to go outside and start cheering.
Other than
the cacophony from my neighbours, it was a weekend where nothing really
happened. I relaxed, read a novel, went for walks, practiced my Swahili with
Frida, stopped by the local duka (shop) for Coca baridi (cold Coke), and picked
up Anne’s cold from last week.
The blue-ish duka in the middle is where I buy my Coca baridi
Okay, so
that last part wasn’t so fun but Anne passed on her cold medicine and I’m
feeling much better. It’s agreed that if I still have a sore throat tomorrow
then I’ll head to the clinic to double check. Poor Frida looked so concerned
when she saw me take the medicine at lunch today; I had to assure her that the
dawa (medicine) was not related to her cooking.
Where I spend my days
Today, I started
introducing the students and teachers to RACHEL-Pi. Well, a student-teacher
today, Amret. I had him walk through my instructions on how to switch from the Internet
to RACHEL-Pi. Initially, he was unimpressed by what appeared to be just a
regular internet page. Then I explained to him that you could use this when the
internet is down or when the power is out. I could have told him I was giving
him $1,000,000 and I think his reaction would have been the same.
Then I
showed him that he could connect with his phone.
“But then I
have to use data.”
“No. When
you connect to RACHEL-Pi, it doesn’t use your data. You are connected to their
free server so it costs you nothing.”
“So, I bring
my phone to Jifundishe, open up one of these books on RACHEL-Pi, read it, and
it will cost me nothing?”
“That’s
right.”
“So, the
computer lab is full, I can still study these Wikipedia articles on my phone.”
“Yes.”
“And it
doesn’t use my data?”
“No.”
“I have to
tell my class. I have to tell everyone.”
As I was
packing up, he was already showing other students in the computer room how to
log onto the server and I felt a small twinge of remorse that I had to take the
server away albeit temporarily. We walked out together chatting about RACHEL-Pi
and what it would mean for the students. When we came to his group of friends
studying on the lawn, we said goodbye and I headed back to Cacti House (the
volunteer quarters). He was talking to his friends too quickly for me to catch
what he said, but I did hear him say “RACHEL-Pi”.
Education is, in my opinion, one of the cornerstones to eradicating poverty. Whether in a formal classroom setting or through visiting a free library, education can improve lives. Even just the simple knowledge of how to keep a clean water source safe can help a community. RACHEL-Pi is the brainchild of a group called World Possible. In the words of Amret today, "they really do make the world possible." Please visit their page and consider making a donation.
It wasn’t
quite on the Monday as I had planned – I have the Ministry of Home Affairs
(Immigration) to thank for that – but it happened. Bright and early on the
Tuesday morning, I hopped in the cab of Paulo’s friend, stopped at MOHA to pick
up my now twice-stamped passport, and made the drive out to Ngongongare.
The
painfully slow drive out to Ngongongare.
They’re
expanding the road two a dual-carriageway between the border all the way to
Moshi – and Paulo thinks this is all going to be done by February, he has much
more faith in Tanzanian work ethic than I do! – and they’re just east of Arusha
at the moment. With no lines on the road – HA! When are there ever lines? – and
big chunks of pavement missing, driving along the road was a bit of a
free-for-all.
Plus, it had
started raining on Monday night and while it had abated after the initial
onslaught, it didn’t stop until shortly after 8am Tuesday morning.
When it rains this hard, you take shelter where you can.
Even a gas station.
I think I’m
cursed when it comes to travel weather. My first time in Switzerland in 1999,
they had the worst flooding in years, and my train into Interlaken was the last
one in or out via Thun for two days due to flooding on the track. My last time
in Switzerland in 2013, they had horribly raining weather and it even snowed ON
MAY 24TH! Last time I was in Tanzania, the locals complained about
how wet the dry season was and that they still had to mow grass that should
have been brown by then. This time? It has rained almost every day and the
locals are complaining about how wet the dry season is.
I’m sorry,
Tanzania.
But the
northern part of the country has also been in semi-drought status for a number
of years so you’re also welcome.
Two things
have happened since I was last here. 1) The library moved to a larger location
in the next village over. 2) There is now a volunteer house to stay at on the
same plot of land as the library. My previous trips have all been driving to
Deb’s and then walking to Imbaseni from there. The road to Deb’s is rough. The
road to the Jifundishe library… well, first off, let’s stop calling it a road.
Calling it a road is giving it airs. It’s exposed rock face occasionally filled
in with dirt. How we made it to the library in a car will forever be a source
of mystery for me.
This is the flattest part of the road.
It took less
than a minute of being here to undo all the stress and frustration of my week
in Arusha. I wouldn’t call my days lazy, but definitely chill. Jifundishe
recently got RACHEL-PI which is a small data hub (like a server) that contains
Wikipedia for Schools, a bunch of Khan Academy resources, Farming and Husbandry
documents created by a Kenyan company (so transferable to here), and many other
resources which will be a definite benefit to Jifundishe as a whole. The best
part is you don’t need the internet to access these resources, you just need to
connect to the hub. The hub itself can be plugged in or run off of its own chargeable battery. Just in case it’s not
abundantly clear, I’m pretty jazzed about this thing.
What I’m not
jazzed about? It’s a lot of information but it’s not exactly user friendly.
Hmm, I wonder what I, with a background as a Technical Writer and Instructional
Designer, could possibly be working on while I’m here?
Not ‘toning
down my sarcasm’, that’s for sure.
Because of
the short duration of my stay – I’m back to Arusha on Saturday – I opted to
have Frida (Free-da) cook for me instead of having to deal with getting my own
food sorted. She undercooks the vegetables and overcooks the pasta and rice,
but the meals are amazing. At first I was on the fence about having someone
cook for me because I know that I can handle doing it myself, but that first
bite of the first lunch was heavenly. She always cooks too much and it takes
every ounce of restraint I have not to gorge myself on her cooking.
Lunch time!
She doesn’t
speak much English but she’s very patient with my Swahili. I think she was
pleasantly surprised on the first day to realise she doesn’t have to shake the
coffee and tea at me when she asks “Kahawa au chai?” I also make sure that even
thought it’s technically my space she is cooking in and I can just enter, I
call out “Hodi” when I arrive and I wait for her to respond. This might not be
her house, but she’s been here longer than I have and will continue to cook in the
kitchen and clean the living space long after I’m gone. The least I can do, is
show respect in our interactions.
