Back to Business

It's Monday, 8:53am and in a few hours I'm headed back to the vil. I plan to stay at site for 2 weeks and reconvene in town for a wild Halloween party! Saturday was a ridiculous going away party for just finishing education volunteers. About 25 PCVs hired a lorrie and hopped in the back. We cracked open our crates of beer and belted out an enthusiastic medley of Disney, 80s, and classic pop music en route to the Flower Farm.

The Flower Farm is an absolutey gorgeous farm about an hour from town where roses are grown and sold to European markets. The owners are a young, married couple who have always had a good rapport with PCVs. It was a wild party-to say the very least. Imagine about 40 people, generally unkempt and a little strange after months to years living in a rural village. Lots of beverages, great music, and wide open spaces. I think I'm still recovering.

As for the series of random events that punctuates my new life, this week included a wood chopping session. I was greeting some farmers on the road and having seen them 2 days in a row chopping trees apart with axes, decided what better opportunity than to integrate with new people? I began chopping (sometimes missing the tree altogether) and soon had a crowd of people cheering me on as the sweat began to pour and my hands quickly lost feeling. Eventually a bibi (grandmother) took the axe from my hand and showed me how to really cut timber. Ha, she was probably 60+ and showing ME correct wood-chopping form. Oy. Suffice it to say, after my brief forray into farm labor, my right hand (my TEXTING hand!!) was completely frozen in a most unsettling, claw-like manner. My body was so sore that night that it was hard to sleep. Take home story: Go me, I chopped wood! It was extremely empowering and I look forward to investigating more opportunties to play farm hand.

This week was really busy. I hesitate to use the word productive because, well, that word has a very different meaning in Tanzania. I did, however, conduct a village meeting! Only about 25 people showed up but I was content. Speaking to really large groups in KiSwahili isn't quite a feasible option just yet. The meeting was a needs assessment program in which men and women sat in separate groups and anaylzed their entire day from morning to night. Dear lord, a woman's job is never done!

Sample schedule for a Tanzanian woman:
6:00am: Wake up
6:00am-7:00am: Light jiko, boil water for chai, sweep house, sweep dirt outside house
7:00am: Drink chai
7:30am-8:30am: Walk to the spring or water pump (if it's working), fill up bucks of water, carry them back in hands and on head
8:30-10:00am: Mop floor, wash clothes by hand (obviously), tend to children, and any livestock or chickens
10:00-1:00pm: Walk to the shamba (field) and tend to farm
1:00-2:00pm: Cook and eat lunch (ugali and maybe, MAYBE some leafy greens)
2:00-3:00pm: Rest
3:00-6:00pm: Back to the shamba or walk around selling tomatoes/eggs/etc
6:00-7:00pm: More household chores, bringing in goats from grazing, beating corn, etc
7:00-9:00pm: Cook and eat dinner
9:30pm-10pm: SLEEP

Rinse and repeat. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Except Sunday, then you pray too.

This rigorous schedule gets me back to the most interesting topic of all in a place like the village: Time. The people of Mhaji aren't working for the weekend. They're not saving for a Disney Cruise with the kiddies or for their annual summer trip to San Diego. In fact, most are only growing enough food to feed their children. In Tanzania, a meeting may start 3 hours late and no one bats an eyelash. I'm beginning to understand why. I've mentioned this concept before. People are the constant in Tanzania and time merely the variable. If you see your neighbor in need of help on the way to a meeting, you help your neighbor. If you are late for a meeting and you are invited to chai, you're going to be very late for your meeting. It sounds completely inefficient and in fact, it is! But when everyday is the same and emotion only really heightened for weddings and funerals, what's the point of planning for the future, right?

I now see clearly the 'logic' behind the difference of time in America and Africa. In hte hustle bustle of the American work place time is quite truthfully, money. But in Tanzania, no one has money! Time is people. Truthfully, I think both concepts of time are flawed. I'm obviously not here to help people start a 401K or invest in mutual funds, but I am hoping to broaden the world perspective of my villagers. I have only started thinking this through, but I want to shape a curriculum of sorts to get my community seeing beyond the day to day.

First and foremost, I must begin teaching geography! I am asked daily if I can get to America by car, how far away it is, and where in Europe America is. Ahhh. There is something to be said about being able to visualize the entire world, if only vaguely and marked by continents. Even that smallest exercise can push the mind to wonder what's out there beyond corn fields and poverty. I'm often asked what's the English word for said object. I giggle and say, Marekani, hamna! (In America, there isn't any). I tell them, no, we don't eat ugali, and they gasp. What do you farm in America, they wonder. Tanzanians also happen to think Americans are extremely wealthy (generally true in comparison) and also lazy because machines do every thing for us. They can't really imagine what these machines look like or how they work, but they know we must not be able to handle any labor. They also refuse to believe there are homeless or poor people who are white. Sometimes when I'm going for theatrics, I tell them I drive a car, ALL BY MYSELF. Now that is just madness, right!

Anyway, to build on this curriculum of sorts, I am beginning English for adults next week. It's going to be a really big challenge, but I figure after the first few weeks only the really dedicated people will stay. I even promised to buy anyone who stays in the club for 2 months their very own notebook! Trust me, that is a huge incentive here.

I taught 6th grade English last Wednesday. Whew, teaching is hard. Especially with Tanzanian primary students. I swear they're like obedient robots. They speak in unison, say they understand everything, and refuse to ask questions. I have absolutely no clue how much they retained or even understood from my lesson. I tried to be a cool mwalimu (teacher) and play a game. They said they understood the rules but when I asked for the answers I got blank stares. Not one student had done it correctly.

I begin teaching 5th and 6th grade lifeskills this week. I haven't prepared my lesson yet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

This blog is getting REALLY out of hand in length, pole (sorry/I pity you).

I have 2 more thoughts rolling around in my increasingly scattered mind. First, I am in Tanzania to be a health teacher. What does that even mean? I don't know if I'm actually capable of making health education a full time job. Right now I don't even know if that's the most productive way I can spend 2 years in the bush. I'm realizing education period is where all of the shagala bagala (chaos) starts and ends. Most students can't progress to secondary school because there is no money to send them. They become substistance farmers. They are forced into a life of poverty and food/livelihood insecurity. They then have children and the cycle continues. Let's not even get started on the type of trouble a 13 year-old can find once they've finished their academic career. That's where unprotected sex, AIDS, alcoholism, and abuse thrive.

Quick side note: gas is expensive in America, right? Right. Well, in Tanzania too. That shouldn't matter because who in a village drives a car let alone sits in one? Almost no one. We should be safe from the uncertain economy in our little niche of forest. Not so. The cost of fuel has increased the cost of fertilizer to about $100/acre for potatoes and about $70/acre for corn. People do not have this money. How are they going to eat when they can't plant their crops? Honestly, I don't know and I'm really worried. This means that even less children will be going to school in the coming year and it also means a looming food crisis.

I'm 22, with 2 debatably useless college degrees, and not even a single economics class under my belt. On the flip side, I know that drinking liquor and breastfeeding is a VERY bad idea, brushing your teeth is important, and AIDS is not a curse. I also know that with a little duct tape and a few twigs, anything is possible in the village. This is why I'm starting a "Women's Business Association." :) I'm working on getting a group of mamas together to produce items that are easily and cheaply made and can be sold for modest sums. My goal is to find a niche product that can be sold in towns and in America to friends and family. I use really great purses and coin pouches made from vibrant African fabrics and want my mamas to replicate them. The labor will all be logged and the money will be distributed by hours worked. $1 can go a very long way here. (For instance: I bought a kilo of rice for about $1 (which is expensive and considered rich people's food generally). That 1 kilo will last me several weeks.)

By having a supplemental income, I'm hoping more children will be able to progress to secondary school. I also want women to have more options. By giving them the opportunity to be self-reliant income generators, they can potentially be empowered to consider things like family planning, not cowering to abuse, and pursuing their own further education.

And FINALLY, last order of business. Our health clinic is currently a foundation of bricks. The village simply ran out of money. The bricks are only plastered about 6 feet high and what will be the floor is weeds and dirt. The current health clinic is a joke with no furntiture and about 2 rooms. I asked a village leader how much money it would take to finish the dispensary and he said about $2000. That would provide a roof, windows, floor, labor, and furniture. To a village like Mhaji, $2000 may never come. While I am a health EDUCATION volunteer and therefore my job is to provide information, not money, I simply cannot find a reason why my village would be better off not having a functioning health clinic! Unfortunately I won't be learning to write a grant until January and even then it's an uncertain and slow process. Nonetheless, I am determined to get this thing built.

Okay, I really have to stop writing. In a future entry: why medicine is free but no one has access to it.

Thanks for hangin in there to the end. Have a wonderful week and I strongly encourage you to skype me!

Lots of love,
Katie