Whirlwind Weeks - Part 2

The Vintons and I parted with the student group near the bottom of the mountain, with us going on to the southeast and the students planning to continue northwest to Dar es Salaam.  Little did I suspect that instead of their expected 5 to 6 hour trip, the students would end up spending 20 hours on the road due to the severe flooding and traffic problems near Dar.  In describing their ordeal to me in an email, John said that water had covered the road so far and so deeply that he was "afraid" when the driver crossed through it. In all of our many times of being in Africa over a period of 40+ years, I had never heard John express fear of anything, so I know the situation must have been dire.  The students, however, were real champions and were finally checked into a nice, clean hotel at 4:00 a.m. on Monday instead of being picked up by host families at 3:00 p.m. Sunday as scheduled.

Oblivious of the drama the others were experiencing, I rode on with the Vintons until we reached Morogoro soon after 4:00 p.m. and checked into the 4U Executive Hotel, a nice new Tanzanian establishment, with clean room, hot water, and most importantly air conditioning. After a brief shower and change of clothes, we all went to dinner at a very nice Indian-owned resort hotel, which Steve said had great food for reasonable prices--and he was correct. Nothing I saw in Morogoro seemed very interesting and it was quite hot and dusty.  Of course, I didn't really get to explore as we were only there to eat dinner, stay the night, and then continue on or journey.

While eating dinner, we saw some TV news about a bridge being flooded or washed out, and at first Steve thought it might be a bridge that was on our way.  However, it turned out that the problem was near Dar, and, in fact, a British woman who was also eating her dinner told us that she had been told not to bother trying to get to Dar to make her scheduled flight home that night.  Still, I did not connect this with the bus full of students traveling to Dar.

The next morning, after a less than ample breakfast at our hotel, we continued on toward Iringa, Mafinga, and places beyond.  The day was bright and sunny for much of the time, and we seemed to make good time.  For lunch, we stopped at a huddle of shops, cafes and toilets where passenger buses make rest stops. Such places intrigue me because they offer such a strange variety of wares for purchase, but they also scare me sh------ because they offer rows of squat toilets, which for me are almost insurmountable obstacles. If I lower too far, I risk never rising again or falling down on a far less than hygienic floor, and if I don't lower enough, I risk peeing all over my underwear and clothes. I always pray that there will be a big 5-gallon bucket of water in the stall since that is just enough of a hold for me to make it down and up successfully.  Then, of course, there is the need to always, always carry a wad of TP in one's pocket or bra.

Susan or Steve bought a packet of samosas, which we then ate as we drove on toward Iringa and the escarpment we would have to climb before reaching the southern highlands. I have always wanted to visit Iringa and was hoping we would stop there for a meal or a bit of shopping.  However, Steve was intent on making good time on the road, and since the road bypassed the town center of Iringa, I saw very little of it as we whizzed by. Somewhere along the route, the highway cut right through Ruaha National Park, and we saw giraffes, zebras, gazelles, baboons, and lots of elephants as we passed by.  (I may be confused about sequence here and if so, I will try to correct this all later.) The drive up and up the escarpment was very dramatic both for the views and the dangers.  Big trucks came rumbling around blind curves, and Steve's attempts to pass trucks going up the inclines seemed like a gamble each time.  We saw one large tanker which had gone off the edge and was barely hanging on above the drop to the bottom far down the mountainside. I was so dazed by this time, that nothing untoward seemed to faze me.

One of the typical stretches on our main road.

When we finally reached Mafinga, a tough little crossroad full of truckers and lumber yards, I thought we would be at the Vinton's home in an hour or so.  Silly me: I was thinking in terms of map distance not rough and muddy dirt road reality.  It had been raining off and on, and soon we were off all asphalt and jolting from side to side as Steve tried to find even enough patches to keep the car upright and out of the ditches. So, what I had thought would be a short drive turned into a rather harrowing slip and slide through the mud with one big landing in a ditch that Steve thought would maroon us for the night.  Fortunately, some direction from Jonathan and white-knuckle maneuvers from Steve freed us and we continued on through huge tea plantations and forests.  Unilever is the major "owner" of land in this area, and lumber is another major product, with people planting large areas with pines which can then be cut after ten years of growth. The rolling hills seemed endless, but finally after maybe four hours, we pulled into the grounds of Madisi Secondary School and next to the Vintons house.

Tea Fields

Forest area and branches of the droopy pines that are raised for lumber.

Susan surveying the mud in front of the school's administration building.

Everyone had been telling me that where I was headed would be cold, so I had bought a sweater in one of the used clothing markets in Arusha.  However, nothing prepared me for the combination of cooler temperatures and constant rain for the first three days I was at Madisi Secondary School with the Vintons.  The temperature never got higher than 65º during the days and fell as low as 60º in the nights.  Crawling into bed at night was like crawling into a pile of wet laundry, and there was no way to feel warm unless one crouched over a jiko (charcoal burner), which Susan did often.  The Vinton's house was enormous, but very sparse with concrete floors and no electricity until the generator went on sometime around 7:30 and ran until maybe 10:00 or 10:30 each evening.  There was a solar power collector setup, but that was designated for recharging crucial computers and cellphones.  On cloudy days, everyone sort of bumped about in the semi-darkness, and Susan and her niece, Janelle, wore headlamps when they had to see what they were doing.  It was a strange and eery feeling to walk about indoors with a flashlight in hand.

The main family living area.

Checking with Mama Lillian to see how the mid-day meal is progressing.

Preparing supper in the dark.

Janelle using power from the solar battery to make cake frosting.

Here I am holding a flashlight so Janelle can see what she is doing.

Even though it was wet and dreary, Susan had me out on Tuesday morning to go to see the school and speak to the English classes for Forms 2 & 4. I was scared that I would slip in the mud and completely embarrass myself, but that didn't happen.  What did happen was complete astonishment when I entered the inner courtyard of the school.  I have extolled the work of Village Schools Tanzania (www,villageschools.org), but nothing I had see in photos and videos or heard from Steve and Susan prepared me for the incredible school I was now seeing for myself.  I had absolutely no way to capture the vastness of its scale and the incredible amount of work and effort that had to be given in its construction.  Except perhaps for a very successful international private school or a college, I had never seen an African school of this magnitude--and I was told that Madisi is only mid-size among the Village Schools. All the classrooms were full of students, and all the teachers were present.  (That last part about the teachers may seem obvious, but not in Africa, where one of the biggest problems in education is absentee teachers.) It is no wonder that this school and other Village Schools earn some of Tanzania's highest success rates on state exams.  And, these are students from very poor Hehe villages and many are AIDS orphans.

The view out over the roofs of the teachers' houses.

Inside the courtyard: The administration building sits at the end of a huge horseshoe of classrooms.

A partial view of the school from the next hilltop.

Hehe Houses

Wednesday afternoon, the sun broke through briefly in the late afternoon, and so Susan took off to the nearby village to check on some of the people she monitors for HIV/AIDS care.  Several hundred show up for their ARV medication on each clinic day, but some miss or if female are prevented from coming by their husbands.  It was my first time out in the Hehe region, and because I was hesitant to take photos of most people and places, I tried to look carefully, so I could remember what I saw.  The houses were built of mud bricks, some fired and some not, and people who could afford it had metal roofing.  There were still many houses with thatched roofs, however.  Most houses were near the roads, which have been cut for the tea plantation and lumber industry. The villages were linear along the the tops of the mountain ridges.  Susan told me that the electrical line had come into the area only two years ago but has already really changed a lot of village life. I was surprised by the many dukas (little shops) that have sprung up along the road.

Janelle at her local Walmart.

Pouring gasoline into bottles for sale.

Filling up at the local gas station.

Out in the field with Susan.

Every morning a mother with a sick child was waiting for Susan.

I've already reported on Facebook about the wild rainy evening we had when Susan tracked down a mother and child who had not come into the clinic as scheduled. First, we stopped at Baba Odeko,'s house because he is the section overseer for the road on which this woman lived.  We found her and her small child, Agnes, and they both have AIDS, as does the father.  According to the young mother, her husband would not allow her to attend the clinic and get her anti-virals.  So, we went down the road to the house where the second wife lived and then on to the mother-in-law's house to find out where the man had gone.  By this time, we had Susan, Janelle, Mama Grace and her baby (She's the wife of one of the Tanzanian founders of Village Schools), the AIDS mother and her daughter, Agnes, the mother-in-law, Baba Odeko, and Odeko himself all crammed into a relatively small SUV.  Furthermore, at least the mother and Agnes had drug-resistant TB, and the mother was coughing up blood. Inside, I was screaming "Face mask!" but I remained calm as we sped on in the night, hunting the bar where the scoundrel man was hiding. Actually, he had fled into the fields and Odeko had to get his cell phone number from one of his bar mates and then call him to turn himself in.  So, he ended up in the car as well.  What a circus!  In the end, it turned out that the young man had never married Agnes' mother and was living with the wife for whom he had paid a dowry.  Furthermore, Agnes' mother had her medication but wasn't taking is in order to die and shame her non-husband in some way. The other reality was that the "real" wife and her little girl were also HIV positive and the father had already developed Karposi sarcoma on his leg.  So, we dropped off the mother-in-law at her house; Susan gave a tongue-lashing to both of Agnes' parents. telling them that their little girl needed family to take care of her; and then we took everyone including Baba Odeko back home and drove home ourselves.  Somewhere in this whole drama, Susan got a call telling her that I was expected for dinner at Immanual and Mama Chris' house, so I got dropped off there.

It was a total contrast in lives to sit comfortably with Mama Chris in her kitchen, watching her cook the chicken stew and feed her two boys, Chris and Junior.  Immanual is the second Tanzanian in the partnership that founded and now heads Village schools, and Mama Chris and I had had a great English conversation the afternoon before.  Like Godfrey and Mama Grace, this couple lives in one of the very nice houses that had been built for staff and their families.  I felt very honored to be invited to join them for dinner and had a wonderful time until I was taken back to the Vintons' house for the rest of the night.

[Like Kenyans, Tanzanians identify mothers by the names of their first children, so I am Mama Rebecca here, or if someone does not know me, they would address me as "Bibi" since I am an older woman.]

A Glimpse of Chagga Land

Before I continue on with the saga of my trip with the Vintons to Madisi Secondary School and the struggle of the others to cross over into Dar, I thought you might be interested in seeing a few photos of the area the Chagga call home.  It's on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, where water is plentiful and the flora is lush and green.  The Teshas arranged many of the details for this visit and act as the overall hosts during the week.

The view from the terrace of the guesthouse where everyone stayed

Green, green Chaggaland.

Baba Tesha and the local parish priest.

Mama Tesha serving dinner to the group at her house.

Mama and Baba Tesha, who live in Arusha but, like many urban Tanzanians, still maintain a family shamba (small farm) in Baba's home village.

Preparing to spend the morning in the fields,

Students hoeing in the banana grove.  The Chagga said they had never seen wazungu work like this before.

Out on a hike.  You can see how steep the terrain is.

John at a local waterfall.

Students climbing behind the falls--of course.

Enjoying a break along the way.

A common local sight, women washing clothes in a stream.

The ritual of pounding coffee.  The Chagga have grown coffee for many years but are now changing to other crops as disease and low prices make coffee less profitable for them.

During the day, the students had some lectures and discussions of their readings  as well as a visit to a local dispensary, a morning in the fields, and hiking.  The evenings, however, were for pounding coffee, listening to stories, and dancing--lots of dancing.

Whirlwind Weeks

So, I was left behind in Arusha for 5 days, but the time flew by far too quickly, and before I was ready, it was time to leave and travel to Moshi, where I was to meet up with the students and John and Megan when they came down from their visit to Uru Shimwe.  All of John's reports of their time in the village were laudatory of their activities and the stunning views they occasionally had of Mount Kilimanjaro looming over them.  Unexpectedly, the bus showed up on time for me in Arusha, and once we had loaded up all the luggage the students had left behind, we were on our way.  However, the group in Uru Shimwe had a more typical schedule and didn't even start down to Moshi until after we had arrived there.  My bus driver was none too pleased about needing to wait an hour and a half for his passengers.

Once we were all reunited, we took off south, driving to Lushoto, which is an former German colonialist town in the Usambara Mountains.  The drive was to take five hours or so, and we stopped along the way to visit a sisal farm we had toured in 2012.  John thinks sisal is an important part of Tanzanian history and economy, and the students seemed to go along with this passion of his.  They got to see the vast field of sisal plants, learn how it is cultivated and harvested, watch the processing and drying of the fibers, and take samples for themselves.  Two students were even given long lengths of finished rope.

Then, we drove on toward Lushoto and further up the mountain to the Irente View Lodge, where we would be staying.  Unlike 2012, this year the rainy season was in full force, so the winding, narrow road with blind curves and steep drops on the left side was often semi-coated mud from the runoff from the hills to our right. I white-knuckled it clear to Lushoto, when an even more severe problem presented itself: the main road was completely dug up and people kept giving the driver different directions on how he should continue. Every time we followed directions, we ended either on another dug up street or a dead-end.  All of us got a very thorough tour of Lushoto, but the driver was getting more and more frustrated.  Finally after maybe five or six dead-ends, someone gave us directions that seemed to work.  However, the road got muddier and muddier until finally I thought we would be stuck outside for the night.  By then, we were so late that the hotel called to ask where we were, and within another 15 or 20 minutes, we arrived safely and were checked into our nice rooms with hot water, western toilets, electricity, and bottled water.  It was like getting into Heaven.

Susan and Steve Vinton from Village Schools International (www.villageschools.org), who were to be our leaders for this retreat, had already arrived and soon joined us. As I had expected, the students quickly bonded with the Vintons and were eager listeners and questioners during the sessions they led on Friday and Saturday morning.  These sessions focused mainly on how the students perceived their experiences thus far and what model works best for "helping Africa."   By now, most students knew that almost all NGOs spend their money on themselves and their employees and very little is actually used for actual projects here.  Also, almost all established NGOs come and tell Tanzanians what they need to do instead of listening to the Tanzanians' ideas or letting them decide how to do a project.  By now, it is no wonder that many Tanzanians simply expect foreigners to come in and pay for everything and then end up with no sense of ownership or understanding of how to do things themselves. The model of Village Schools is totally different in that it was started by two Tanzanians, who still are its top officers, and the Vintons work for them, not vice versa. Nothing except advice is given to a village which wants to have a school: they themselves must make and contribute all the bricks or carry all the stones, buy all the cement and wood, and then build a minimum of at least six classrooms before VST (Village Schools Tanzania, the in-country name) will return and supply them with metal roofing, which is the only item they provide.  Since 2005, 22 schools have been completed and are currently operating with full classrooms with Tanzanian teachers, and, I think, 5 more are under construction. It is one of the most incredible success stories I have ever come across in Africa.  Now, they have even been asked to extend into Malawi and are beginning to build their first school in that country.  In addition, the VST schools consistently rank among the highest schools in national exam scores, competing against the very rich, elite private school, even though almost all VST students are from very poor, remote villages and many are AIDS orphans.

Though our hotel is at the very top of a high mountain, we never saw the incredible view from the top except for a few brief glimpses as we ascended.  We were constantly in--not even above--the clouds and it rained almost nonstop.  The students could not take the scenic hike those in 2012 had gone on,  and even though it cleared some on Saturday, when we went to the Irente Farm for lunch, it continued to rain almost constantly.  I rode on our bus to the farm, but within a few minutes it was hopelessly stuck in the mud, so I ended up hobbling the rest of the way to lunch.  It was the longest distance I have walked since I got my fake ankle in 2011, but I made it without falling.  After lunch, the students decided that since the bus couldn't take them into Lushoto as planned the would walk there through the forest.  They were told that it would be a 40-minute walk, but, of course, it took more than twice than long.  Villagers had shown up to help dig and pull the bus out of the mud, so the driver was able to get down into Lushoto in time to bring the students back to the hotel.  Meanwhile, I sat at the farm's store/cafe and had a wonderful big press full of incredible coffee, which I shared with two others while we waited for Steve Vinton to walk back to the hotel and come rescue us in his car. The coffee definitely made the initial long walk to the farm well worth it.

Our scenic view in 2014

Our scenic view in 2012

We had another session with the Vintons Saturday evening after dinner, and then Sunday morning everyone was packed and ready to leave by 8:30--sort of.  The students, John and Megan loaded back into the bus to continue on to Dar es Salaam, but I joined the Vintons for the long two-day ride back to their home at Madisi School, which is two hours (on very bad dirt roads) south and a bit west of Mafinga.  However, we had one more opportunity to be with the students when we came upon their bus by the side of the road with a flat tire.  Actually, by the time we got there, the tire had been changed, and everyone was getting ready to re-board the bus and get to the bottom of the mountain where the driver could get the tire repaired. So, we said another good-bye, and we were all on our ways again.

Watching for traffic and changing the tire

Left Behind

On Saturday morning, all the students gathered at Kundayo, saying good-bye to their host families for the months of January and March, as they prepared for all the new adventures still to come.  Because from Arusha, they were going up into the foothills of Kilimanjaro to spend five days in a Chagga village, they took only light luggage with them and left behind their larger suitcases or duffle bags to be stored here at Kundayo until this coming Thursday.  Then, I will oversee the loading of all the luggage and boxed lunches and board the bus myself for the drive to Moshi, where we’ll all be reunited and begin our trip toward Dar es Salaam.  On the way south, we will stop at Lushoto, which is high in the Usambara Mountains (http://www.irenteview.com/gallery/index.htm), for a weekend retreat with Steve and Susan Vinton of Village Schools International.

Life is very calm and quiet for me here at Kundayo without John, Megan and the students.  I am enjoying the extra reading and quiet time I have by myself, but I do miss the company of the others.  However, the staff here are very solicitous and make sure I am just fine almost every hour on the hour. They also spend much more time just chatting with me when I am on the terrace.  Yesterday, Rebekkah, the head housekeeper asked me about my house at home, so I showed her a photo.  Her eyes opened wide as she made the typical “Awwwo” of surprise and then asked, “Is school for your students”?  I tried to soften the collision of 1^st and developing worlds by telling her that while I know our house is large, we try to make sure we share it with others.  She then said, “Is nice.”

Because so little of note is happening around me these days, I thought I would copy some of the email reports I have gotten from John.  The group is staying in the Catholic bishop’s house, which is a very large McMansion place with perhaps 10 bedrooms right on the slopes of Kili.  He rarely stays there since the diocese HQ is near Lake Manyara.  So, his brother, Adolph, and sister-in-law, Ava, are the custodians and now the hosts for our group.  Here is John’s report of yesterday, the first full day in Shimbwe.

“It is now about 10:00 p.m. and I just now got to email. We have had a very full day. This morning we walked to church, taking a short cut. We walked through banana groves and corn patches. We passed a number of streams and a small irrigation channel that the Chagga people are famous for building. Because the streams are in the valleys and the people and farms are on the ridges, the Chagga begin their irrigation channels far upstream where the bottom of the valley is actually higher than the top of the ridge further down where they want the water.

Church was from 11:00 to 12:30. The people at Shimbwe village are mostly Catholic with a smatterng of Lutherans and some Pentecostals. The Catholic church we attended was built in 1959 although some of it, for example the ceiling, was just completed this year. Although the service was in Swahili, I was able to follow much of it, and I certainly enjoyed the singing and the electric organ. The students really liked the service, but only Kristin, who was baptized Catholic, could take communion. They only served the wafer to the congregation. The priest, Father Hubeth, explained to us later that since the wafer is the actualy flesh of the living (not dead) Christ, the blood is part of the wafer, for no one has ever seen living flesh without blood. While that reasoning seemed a bit strained, his follow up comment that with so many people it would be expensive to serve wine, especially since some of the cups were broken, was not a lot better. His final justification--that serving wine in a common cup raised health concerns--seemed more like the real reason. Most of the Whitworth students had never been to a Catholic mass although they noted similarities with the Anglican service in Zanzibar. I know that our long-ago Reformed and Mennonite theological ancestors thought all the genuflecting, incense bruning, and heroldry were high popery and unbiblical, but I find the ceremony and engagement of all the senses appealing. I kept thinking our church could use a bit more drama. As I later said the the students, Presbyterian services are often about as exciting as a committee meeting. We have stripped out the drama and left only the abstract and intellectual.

After church, the priest invited us to his office for chai. Father Hubert is relatively young--he completed his studies in 2016--and this is only his second parish. He talked a bit about his background and education. As all priests here, he studied philosophy for 4 years and theology for 3 years. While it is great to have such welll educated clergy, it also means that it is hard to get enough priests. From the Father Hubert's office, we walked over to Mama and Baba Tesha's house for lunch. Mama Tesha was dressed in church finery--she told me she never dresses up like that when she is in the States--and served a wonderful lunch. We had chicken, a beef stew, rice, mbogambogaa (veggies) and greens. I told her she was such a good cook she should give up her school and start a restaurant. The students ate until they were stuffed, and there was still lots and lots of food left over. I told Father Hubert, who was invited as well, that it reminded me of the feeding of the 5,000 where so much food remained.

After lunch, we went back to the church office, where the students asked questions. Ruthie pushed Father Hubert about women in the priesthood. He gave the orthodox line about women playing a most important role because as mothers they are children's first teachers. He also emphasized all women do in serving the church, such as cooking at church functions and helping the poor. I'm not sure his anwsers sastisfied Ruthie or the other girls. I was glad no one asked about gay marriage.

Because it had been raining when we were at the Teshas and also at Father Hubert's office, we could not take the shortcut back to the bishop's guesthouse. The path would have been too slippery, and our hosts feared people would fall down. Therefore, we took the road back and the walk took a bit more than half an hour instead of just 10 or 15 minutes. We passed the Shimbwe village center, which consists of a bus stop (sign painted on a building), several small shops, and a cafe where one can buy drinks. Adolph, who was walking us home, told me he owned the shop and the cafe. We may stop at the cafe for sodas after our hike tomorrow.

Back at the bishop's house, the students had a couple hours to rest and write in their journals. Then we came back to the living room, where we talked about the Catholic service and where I gave the first half of my lecture on mainline Christianty. I got them all to come on time by promising them pieces of candy that I said you had purchased for them. They all thanked you and said hello. In part of my lecture, I talked about how missionaries often tried to separate Africans from they own society and culture. I told about your exprience with Netty Berge and the importance of Xian names. I also talked about the time Elmer Neufeld went with a missionary to visit some project. When they stopped for lunch, Elmer asked where the lunch for the African driver was, and the missionary told Elmer that Africans don't get hungry. Elmer noted however that when he shared his lunch, the driver seemed quite hungry. The students could hardly belive such things had happened in my lifetime, and even Megan had a horrified look on her face when I told that and some other stories. I did also emphasize that there were many, many truly wonderful missionaries.

While waiting for dinner, we played 2 truths and a lie. Everyone had a great time. Dinner was beef stew, spaggetti, rice, fried potatoes, and veggies. Afterwar.ds, one of the young men who is assisting us gave a demonstration of how Chagga hull, grind (mortar and pestle), roast coffee, and brew coffee. He used an "African kitchen" (a fire, 3 stones, and a cooking pan) to roast and then boil the coffee. Everyone got a chance to pound the coffee, both to hull it and to "grind" it. The coffee he poured in our cups was quite dark, but very light and smooth tasting. He is selling packets of organic coffee from the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro for 5000 TSH. [about $3] I'll buy a packet or two for you, which you can either use or give as gifts.”

Host Familes

If someone asked me what I thought the most important aspect of this program was, I would have no hesitation in answering, "The host families."  The teaching that John and Megan give, the many excursions, and the demands of the internships are all crucial to a complete academic and in depth encounter with Africa, but it is their host families who each and every day teach the students about the real life of the people here in Tanzania.  Too often, we Americans have kept the Sunday School images we got of poor Africans living in mud huts in remote villages--and that is still true for many Africans--but more and more people are migrating into urban areas and pushing into middle class.  In Arusha, a city of perhaps 400,000, the professional and business groups are growing swiftly, as more children have opportunities to gain higher levels of education.  So, the six families with whom our students stay all have many modern conveniences and are almost as tied to computers and cell phones as we are.  The fathers are employed a variety of profession, from a safari operator to an official in the East African community, and some of the mothers are also employed as teachers or office workers. All the families have their children enrolled in private English-medium schools.

During January, adapting and fitting into a host family is a tremendous challenge for many of the students. The food is very different.  The mealtimes are strange:  Breakfast may be as early as 6:00; lunch, which is the largest meal of the day, is around 1:30; and the evening meal, which is very light, comes perhaps as late as 8:00.  Having "tea" in mid-morning is essential if one wants to make it through the day.  Additionally, there are people, people, people in and out of the houses.  Many families have young relatives staying with them in order to attend better schools or work in a good job.  It's hard for our students to sort out who is who and how the people in a household are connected to each other.  And, of course, so many people means that a house is almost never quiet except at night, and if students try to slip away for privacy in their rooms, it comes across as anti-social or rude. While there are western style toilets in many of the homes, some homes have only eastern or squat toilets, which also demands learning new skills.  (The direction one should face is a big concern at first.) Now, near the end of March, some of the students have admitted that in January they fantasized about pulling out of the program and returning to Whitworth.  Fortunately, they have all stuck with us.

During February, our month on Zanzibar, all the host families were Muslim, and in some households there were only women.  These placements were made through the Swahili program at the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA), so all of the homes were close to the school, either in or near Stone Town.  The students liked the proximity to both their classes and the lures of Stone Town, but they never became as integrated into these families, many of whom assist in hosting group after group of foreign students.  Our students were just more wagani (foreigners) who would be around only for a month.  In contrast, John and I have been incredibly fortunate that the family with whom we stayed both in 2012 and again this year had never hosted wagani before, and we all became attached to each other very quickly.

When we returned to Arusha at the beginning of this month, the students were looking forward to returning to the same families they had been with in January, and most felt that it was like returning home in many ways.  These were the babas, mamas, and children they already knew and the houses they had become comfortable in.  I always smile when I hear the students say "my baba," or  "mama."  They have bonded with the children in their families, and they have usually figured out that the young man staying with the family, too, is the cousin of baba's brother's wife.  So, this coming Saturday, when the students leave Arusha for good, there may be tears.

Students with some family members

This past Saturday, however, was a time of celebration.  The staff here at Kundayo catered a lovely Host Family Appreciation Dinner for our group, and all the host families came to enjoy the evening with all of us.  The stated time for the dinner was 6:30 p.m. but, true to African time, few showed up much before 8:00.   Students sat with their families, and I wandered around trying to take pictures of those at the various tables, but flash photography of dark faces does not work well.  Some of the girls were wearing new dresses that their mamas had had sewn for them, so we had a mini-fashion show.  After dinner, John made an official speech thanking the families.  Megan spoke a bit in Swahili. And, then one of the students, Jax, gave a speech she had prepared in Swahili.  If one judged by crowd response, Jax's was the best of the three speeches.  Then, John presented certificates of appreciation to all the families and the evening wound down.

Amaya provided cell phone light so Jax could read her speech.

I could end by saying what we children always wrote in our Grandma Lehman's guestbook: "A good time was had by all."  That is certainly true, but I hope, too, it was an evening that will long be remembered and have an enduring influence on the attitudes and feelings we have for others who at first may seem so different and unknowable but in time can become good friends.

Fashion models

Fussing a Bit

Because, in general, life here in Tanzania is relatively easy compared to other places I have lived in Africa, I feel as if I have no cause to complain about much of anything.  Yet, I have to admit that sometimes I become annoyed, frustrated and/or discouraged by events and circumstances.  And, perhaps it was because nothing very unusual or exciting happened this week that I had empty time for some inner fussing.

One of the biggest inconveniences I have here is the complete lack of anything resembling a department store or a vendor such as Fred Meyer’s.  There are thousands upon thousands of tiny little shops (dukas), which generally focus on one type of commodity, be it cement, backpacks, second hand shoes, or stationery, but even such shops have very limited inventory.  Ever since we arrived in January, I have been hunting for a funnel so that we wouldn’t waste water when we pour it from the big 10-liter jugs into our personal water bottles.  I have no doubt that somewhere in the deep center of one of the big markets, someone is selling funnels, but since I can’t navigate the narrow and uneven mud paths and crowds inside the markets, I have been limited to searching at shops which offer plastic ware or household items.  And, so far, I’ve had no luck at all.  Finally, today I asked our taxi driver and friend, Ray, if he thought he could find a funnel for us.  He said he could, and I think it will probably come from a shop that sells small items for cars.  Funnels for filling bottles with gas!  I would have never thought of that myself.

Then there’s the seeming contradiction between how warm and friendly most Tanzanians are and their total disregard of anything we would recognize as customer service. In the more expensive cafes which cater to many tourists most of the wait staff is very prompt and courteous, but in any other venue, clerks or shopkeepers will just stand or sit and do nothing to help a customer unless one makes a very direct request.  Even then, the response usually sounds lackadaisical, and the clerk will make no move to help. This afternoon, I went to a shop where they will cut my kind of mzungu hair.  The shop is in a high-end complex, and four young adults were inside; two young women were behind the front counter, and two young men, whom I thought were hairdressers, were draped across the chairs usually used by waiting customers. I approached the counter stated that I wanted to have my hair cut.  Without moving or even making eye contact, one of the young women told me that wouldn’t be possible.  So, I asked if I needed to wait—sometimes people are off at tea—and she said no because the hairdresser wasn’t in today, and in fact hadn’t been in most of the week.  When, I asked if/when he would be in, she said she didn’t know.  So, finally I asked if there was a phone number I could call next week to check on whether I could make an appointment.  She looked at me for a long time and finally said yes.  So, I asked her to please give me that number, and she finally did.  John was standing behind me in the doorway throughout this entire conversation, and as we left he commented to me that I had been treated as if I had rudely interrupted a private party.  Unfortunately, while this particular situation was more extreme than usual, a lack of active customer service is fairly uniform in Arusha.

And, while I’m venting, I will mention that we are often run about trying to access simple services.  So, yesterday, John spent much of his afternoon trying to wire money to Dar es Salaam to make down payments on some services for next month. He got part way done with the transaction only to find that he needed another number to complete the transfer.  He kept texting his contact in Dar as we tried to complete some other errands, and finally after he received the requisite number, he had to return to the office where he had begun the process to finish the transfer.  Then there are the shops which proudly advertise services they cannot provide.  After my failed attempt to get my hair cut, John went to a nearby shop which advertised that it provided photocopying, and prepared advertisement brochures, booklets, signs, etc. so it seemed that this would be closest thing we could find to a full service Kinkos.  John needed a color for the border on the certificates he wanted printed (He brought his own paper).  But, unbelievably this shop could not do color printing.  Ray then took John to another shop which advertised color printing, and there they got as far as loading the paper in the copier before discovering that the ink cartridge was empty, and they had no idea when they would have a new one.  Finally, John decided to walk to a nearby grocery shop which has a copier, and there of all places, he got what he wanted.  As John noted, no one who hasn’t lived here would ever understand how buying bottled water and getting a dozen certificates printed could take up a whole afternoon.

However, it isn’t just Tanzanians or local services which can be taxing, our young Americans are also surprising in some unexpected ways.  One of the biggest headaches that John and Megan face is the lack of attention the students pay to what they are told and their failure to read email messages.  I stand on the side of the academic aspects of this program, but I have seen the careful syllabi, calendar, and descriptions of assignments.  I have heard the repeated clarifications and reiterations of specific details for what is expected for each project and paper.  Yet, many of the students continue to act as if they have no idea what was/is expected of them, and whine and wheedle for extensions on assignments that could have easily been finished on time if they had chosen to manage their time better.  Even the more responsible ones often fail to read the email messages they are sent and then plead ignorance of what is expected of them. Believe me, they have been repeatedly told to read their email regularly! I realize that I may sound like an old grouch here, but I don’t blame the students for this behavior as much as I do those who should have been helping them to mature into responsible young adults.  More and more, I am convinced that in trying so hard to provide a warm, welcoming, and supportive environment for its students, Whitworth has failed to recognize the concurrent necessity of providing a balance with a clear expectation that students need to accept more personal responsibility for their lives.  Student evaluations, which frankly are blatant popularity polls, make it more difficult for professors to hold lines with students or to let the consequences for irresponsibility happen.  There should be grace and mercy at times, but not license to avoid any personal responsibility.  Quite frankly, I would not have shown the “flexibility” that John and Megan have with this group.  The fact that a small number of the students do follow though and have accomplished their assignments on time demonstrates that the work can be done if one chooses to do it.

[Note:  I wrote the above paragraphs last night and want to report that it was a pleasant to find three students here on the Kundayo terrace this morning.  They had come to spend the day on the internet working on their assignments.  The fact that these three are some of the most mature and responsible ones in the group was no surprise at all.]

Still, as much as I can feel momentarily peeved, I love being here and feel very fortunate to have this amazing opportunity to see and experience so much that is new and unexpected. We still have six more weeks left in Tanzania, and that gives plenty of time for the students to do more self-reflection and gain a better awareness of who they are. They are all doing remarkably well in their internships, and as in 2012, supervisors have mentioned that our students are far superior to what they had expected given their stereotypes of young Americans. So, a few bumps and jolts along the way in no way make the journey too onerous to enjoy.

Village Visit

On Sunday, which was yesterday, John, Megan and I, traveled with Mama and Baba Tesha to Baba’s home village, Uru Shimbwe, up in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Mama runs a big private school here in Arusha, so she had commandeered one of the smaller school buses for this trip.  The village is off to the north of Moshi, the next nearest city of any size, and the ride lasted about 2 hours.  The paved road from Arusha to Moshi was smooth riding past large fields, planted mainly in corn.  There were also fair-sized herds of cattle, goats, fat-tailed sheep, and donkeys being herded, by Maasai boys.  However, every so often there were also large commercial buildings already completed or being built and plots with large houses on them.  The city of Arusha keeps pushing outward, and Mama Tesha predicted that before long, Arushi and Moshi will be blended into one big urban corridor—somewhat as Spokane, Liberty Lake, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene are now.

With Mama Tesha

Here at Kundayo it had rained hard during most of the night, and the fields we passed were very green with healthy corn plants.  I had worried that it might rain a lot during the day, especially when we got to a higher elevation, but though the sky was cloudy and hid Kili, there was no rain all day.  Baba’ brother (but maybe not same mother/same father) had died the night before, so it was imperative for him to show up for family business.  As we wound our way through Moshi, we stopped to pick up a young man, who turned out to be the youngest son of the man who had died. I couldn’t detect any signs of what we would recognize as grief from Baba, Mama, or the young man, who was named John Paul because he had been baptized by Pope John Paul when he visited Moshi years ago. Customs around death vary so much from culture to culture that I just try to observe and not analyze much at all.

Traveling from the outskirts of Moshi up the rutted dirt road to the village was a shake, rattle and roll experience the likes of which I hadn’t had since long ago in Liberia.  The rains have already cut gullies into the road in places, and I told John by the time the students all try to get there in two weeks, things could be even worse.  I’ve only been truly stuck in the mud once—in a Land Rover in the Congo—and I can’t see how one would ever be able to pull a bus out of the ditch or a mud patch.

It’s difficult for me to describe how very dense the vegetation is along the road and how brilliantly red the soil is.  We had definitely entered a very different ecosystem than what we have down here in Arusha.  Even though much of the original forest has been cut to clear fields for banana and coffee trees or for making charcoal, there are still many large trees, vines, and plants I recognized as being like those we often buy to keep as houseplants.  We knew that Kili loomed right above us, but the clouds hid it all day.  Because John had forgotten to recharge our camera, I couldn't take any photos except two which somehow the camera decided I really needed.

What surprised me most was that the Chaga people who live in this area do not have centralized villages at all like I was used to seeing in the Congo and Liberia.  Instead, they have settled in a series of small farms running vertically up the mountainside.  This means that people do not necessarily live within the view of each other, and there is no obvious village center around which village life takes place.  John and Megan had hoped to house the students with families for several days before we all leave for Lushoto and then Dar, but with the homes so spread out, that began to seem less than optimal.  After a meal at Baba’s house, while Baba was off handling some family affairs, Mama took John and Megan on a walk to see some of the possible host homes; I stayed back at the house and took a nap.  The more Megan and John saw, the more they realized that this was not the type of place they had envisioned for the students’ village experience.  There were no young, intact nuclear families, as almost all men of working age are off at jobs in Moshi, Arusha or Dar.  Even young women have mainly left the village for city life, so the people still at Uru are old men and women, children, and some poorer relatives left behind to tend the farms for their absentee owners.  In addition, it looked like most of the adult men spend a great deal of their time at little huts drinking mgebe, the local brew made from bananas and millet.  John didn’t seem to notice, but Megan said there were drunk men everywhere.

Baba Tesha's family home

Mama and Baba's kitchen with Baba's sister cooking

It was all quite disappointing, but certainly very enlightening.  Unless one is very far from urban influence, traditional village life collapses and new types of social problems creep in.  However, since the days for a village visit are already in the program schedule, John and Megan decided the group would still travel to Uru as planned, but not stay in individual homes.  Instead, everyone will stay together at the Catholic bishop’s very large home/guesthouse and then go out to explore the village and work in the nearby fields during the days.  The total experience will not be what was originally intended, but the students will be in a spectacular rural area, get to hike on the lowest slopes of Kili, and observe a great deal about the problems destroying traditional villages today.  The final irony of the day came when John and Megan learned that the names of the married couple who take care of the bishop’s house are Adolph and Ava.  Go figure.

Our trip back to Arusha was uneventful except for the brief view we had of Kili’s top above the clouds.  By the time we arrived back at Kundayo, I felt as if I had been jarred and jerked into a million tired pieces, and all I wanted was a shower and a clean bed.  We hadn’t had dinner though, so John ran over to a little chicken roasting duka and came back with delicious charcoal grilled chicken and chipsies. I made fresh green beans from the market, too, and life was again very good.

Theft

So much happens every day, some things seem routine, but others continue to surprise me.  This blog has been harder to write and maintain than I ever thought it would be, especially since in 2012 I always wrote almost every day about people, places, and happenings.  This time is different: Maybe because I am older and less energetic or perhaps because almost nothing is completely new anymore.  Still, each day has moments of new awareness, and unexpected events.

Last week, I experienced my very first encounter with something many people fear and is all too common in African cities: Theft.  In over 40+ years living and visiting in different African countries, I had never had anything stolen from me until Wednesday.  For lunch, John, Megan, and I had gone to the New Safari Hotel’s restaurant, which has a semi-enclosed open eating area, with posted security guards.  They serve lovely, big salads for about  $5, so it has long been one of my favorite places to go for a special treat.  Plus, it is owned and operated by the Lutheran church here in Tanzania and has very competent and congenial servers.  We three sat at one of the small round tables, John to my right, and Megan directly across from me, and ordered.  As usual, I had my wonderful little string bag I bought when I first went to Moldova and Lithuania in the summer of 2007, and I hung it on a knob on my chair’s back so that it was at my side and—because of the knob--could not be removed without special effort.  We had a great lunch, and then when I stood up, there was no bag anymore.  I was stunned.  I had felt nothing; John and Megan, who both always had me in their views, had seen nothing.  Whoever had taken the bag had apparently cut the straps, moved quickly, and had somehow been able to avoid any suspicion. The food manager came and wondered if I had really brought the bag in with me or had perhaps left it in our taxi, and though I knew I had had the bag with me because I had taken out my phone to call Megan, we called Ray to come back.  He was horrified and assured the manager that I had kept my bag with me.  One of the other diner’s suggested that the video from the security camera be checked, and while I strongly suspected that the camera had not been operational, I asked the manager to do that.  We waited and waited, but eventually the manager said they hadn’t seen anything “yet,” so we left, knowing there would be no further news.

I felt betrayed and sad.  Foreign visitors so often say negative things about Africa, as though here but never at home bad things happen and people are less than trustworthy.  While it’s true that many Africans are very poor and perhaps desperate for a better life or even daily food, I’ve never felt that thievery was any more prevalent here than is major cities in America or Europe.  The news at home in Spokane is always full of burglaries, stolen cars, assaults, etc.  I actually feel much safer here—especially as a privileged white person—than I do in downtown Spokane.  So, I was stunned.  Fortunately, during our taxi drive to the café, I had given our camera to John to carry, and I had taken out my phone to call Megan, so those items were not taken.  And, I never ever carry my passport on me unless we are actually traveling, so that wasn’t taken either.  I lost my wallet with maybe $60 and my two credit cards, my sunglasses, my red cowboy hanky, a comb, a collapsing umbrella, some pens, etc.  None of that was very important to me (Well, I was fond of the hanky), but losing my little string bag was a big blow.  It’s odd which items we may cherish most: that bag had traveled with me twice to Lithuania and twice to Tanzania and was the perfect size for carrying everything I needed with me when I went into town, and yet it never looked stuffed and bulky. It had become my adult equivalent of a child’s favorite blanket.  So, I miss it acutely and feel violated that now someone else has it.  If I thought I could get it back, I would post a reward.  I really would!

Megan and I eventually left John behind to deal further with the NS manager while we went to pick up some items we had custom ordered from a group of women who do bead work under a big tree downtown.  We had cut a deal with them the week before and paid a hefty deposit, so we wondered if they had maybe cut and run.  But, there they were, sitting along the sidewalk, stringing beads.  When they saw us, the called out greetings to their “rafiki” and shook our hands and some even hugged us.  We went back to their “office,” which is really an alley in which they stack their supplies and goods under plastic coverings, and they brought out our orders.  I had only three items to retrieve, a customized bracelet and two beaded stars for my Christmas tree, but Megan had ordered a lot of beaded stars, rings, and coasters.  There is no such thing as just paying and leaving, so we sat on upside down plastic buckets and discussed how great their work was, how happy we were with what they had made, why we did not need more beaded sandals or other things, and whether or not we would return with more orders.  The young woman sitting next to me, leaned over and laid her arms across my lap as she spoke with Megan, and I was again comforted by how accepting and open people here can be.  It felt good after what had happened less than an hour before.  John finally came, and there were more greetings and handshakes before we finally left to run our other errands and return to Kundayo.

Business women

 All in all, it was a good bad day: Theft and disappointment, yes, but also concern and warmth. And, I got a bit crazy and made bread pudding in my little handmade clay pot. So, I ended the day feeling okay—though I do miss my little black string bag.

Not bad bread pudding