It's Monday, January 13

We have an internet connection this morning.  What a wonderful omen for our first week in Arusha!

After another Kundayo breakfast of tropical fruit salad,  fresh fruit juice, coffee, mandanzi, toast, sweet bread, yogurt, and eggs and the hotdog sausage tube unique to this place, John and Megan began the first day of classes.  This trip, we are using the Moto Lounge here at Kundayo for our classroom, which while very convenient, isn't the best facility since there is little lighting and the students sit on lounge chairs and sofas.  However, it is free for us and keeps the students together for lunch, which will also be at Kundayo during January.  (Sorry, 2012 students.  This group seems to be getting coddled a bit more than you did and needn't race around at lunchtime to buy their food.)

Last night, Mazo, Kundayo's owner/manager, had given John detailed instruction on how to turn on the TV and select channels.  To do this, one needs to use two clickers--like we have for our Comcast connection--but there are multiple clicks on each one before one can even select a channel.  Exiting is equally as complicated, so by this morning, we had fouled up our whole system in a search for Al-Jazeera. So, this morning, Mazo returned and patiently went through the whole clicker dance with me as I carefully wrote notes on when and how to use the black clicker or the silver clicker.  The idea that we even have TV is amazing to me, but one that has a complex clickering control system is far beyond what my mind can process right now.

Mazo's mother, a truly elegant woman, appeared briefly in the courtyard this morning, and I remembered that I had always wanted to take more photos of her and her splendid costumes.  If I have the opportunities, I will take and post pictures of her and you will all be jealous of how she dresses and the manner in which she shows her natural dignity.  I think in 2012, I remarked how she could set up a charm school for wazungu who wanted to dress in more African styles.

All morning, I have been sitting on the terrace, sharing space with a young man named Nathan, who has come to Tanzania to volunteer with a non-profit which is building a school somewhere.  This is extremely common here with hundreds of NGOs doing all sorts of basically good things with many good-hearted volunteers.  However, I wonder why everyone needs constantly to reinvent wheels which have already been set in motion by others.  There is so little connection and such sparse contact between similar NGOs that no one seems to learn anything from others, and all are likely competing for many of the same dollars back home.  In my opinion--for which no one ever asks--I think much more could be accomplished for the dollar if there were NGO overseers of some sort who had some coordination control of all the various groups: education, health, development, women's legal rights, etc.  Having each sub-group of NGO in a local region meet together for occasional conferences with workshops and presentations seems like a splendid idea to me.

Now it is 10:00 p.m. Monday our time and I am so tired that I doubt if I can remember what happened after lunch.  I do know that John and Megan took the students downtown on daladalas, the ubiquitous taxi vans that roam the streets to pick up anyone who can pay 400TZ ($.25) to travel wherever.  We had arranged for Ray to come in his taxi at 2:00 for a trip to ShopRite, the biggest store frequented by wazungu and rich Tanzanians.  As Ray drove, we had a wonderful conversation about his family and how well all three children are doing in school.  Priscilla will be 12 next week; Goddluck is 9; and little Anita is 4.  I am very, very eager to see them again--perhaps this coming weekend.

Once we reached ShopRite, Ray insisted on coming in to help me left the hug water jugs, etc.  While I  was very appreciative to have his help, I was also embarrassed to be buying "luxury" items such as yogurt, jam, and breakfast cereal when I knew that my final bill would likely be about 30% of his monthly income.  In fact, I was so ashamed of my wanton western ways, that I skipped picking up the eggs, dish detergent, fancy rice, and several other items on my list.  John, Megan and all the students also showed up at ShopRite while I was there, so Ray ended up loading 8 huge bottles of water and sacks of groceries from all of us for the return to Kundayo.

On our way back, Ray took me down a small narrow road I never would have noticed so that I could meet his sister Julie and see her shop.  The shop was a very narrow stall in a seemingly endless street of very similar small shops, all selling almost identical cheap shoes, clothing, and accessories made in China. I saw only one tailor diligently bent over his ancient Singer.  With all the shoddy Chinese goods flooding into Tanzania, the once thriving textile manufacturing and many other local industries have been squeezed out and no longer exist.  This seems very sad to me, but it's really not any different than what one finds in the U.S. 

I am now incapable of keeping my eyes open and my head up, so over and out until sometime tomorrow.