I like, live in this like, hostel? With like, quite a few like Americans and Canadians? Will this like corrupt my language?
The OT department of the YWCA (Woman's Christian Association) runs 'therapeutic weeks' for mothers and their disabled children. They come from as far as 4 hours away, stay for a week and receive holistic care and training in how to hadle their children. Some with learning disabilities (mentally retarded, as it's called here), physical or mental illnesses. After a week the pairs go home, get some outreach support and then come back for evaluation and refresher training after 3 months. What a splendid idea. And I saw how some of the mothers treat their children - they get chucked onto a chair, pressed down hard and then left their. Or one child likes to play with a white plastic lid. He's into self-stimulation and seems to have a visual impairment so he holds this lid close to his eyes and runs it through his hands a lot. But that's not the done thing in the mother's eyes.... she grabs the lid and chucks it across the room on the floor. The boy leaps after it and retrieves it, to promptly have it chucked under the bed by Mum again. And that's on day 3... But then, the euipment is ingenious, all handmade wooden stuff, like walking frames, graded standing frames, slanted boards to enable the cild to play laying on his tummy when he can't control the neck muscles ect. The tactile stuff is simply sand and some seeds (they are incredibly soft, velvet coated) - does the job fine. I'll be starting to go there the week after next for a few afternoons a week to help and to observe. Mixed feelings about that one.
Have you ever wondered through a 'ethnic minority' neighbourhood and thought, why on earth those guys don't integrate a bit better? Try to learn the lingo, mix with the locals ect? Well, I am telling you - I love being in an area where mostly muzungus (europeans) live. Africa can be such a strange place - for one, one is clearly the exception and people in the street will either stare or try to drag you into their shop. And there are no real sidewalks, thieves get burnt at the stake, driving is hair rising (or even just trying to cross the streets), liver lies next to piles of lard on wooden blocks and are getting covered in flies perpetually ect. So, coming home to a place wehy they speak your language, do your food, know what you're talking about when you mention washing mashines is a nice thing. And going to the muzungu food shop. Wow, look, Weetabix. And you don't get hit with the obligatory 'muzungu tax', i.e. three times the price of what the seller quotes a local. The price is fixed. On display. Yes it's more expensive, but it's the same for everyone and everyday. Well, I can much better grasp now why immigrants would hang around each other. BEing lonely is bad enough, being lonely in a foreign country is frankly shite.
Greetings and such things. There is a 5 minute ritual to be observed when meeting people. Depending on their age and respectability you chose (hopefully) the right phrase and then you tell them how the morning, the evening, the night ect has been. For the elders: Shikamoo - literally, I touch your feet. Teh other then will reply Marhaba - get of the floor. And if you're in a Masai village, the children will bow in front of you and expect you to touch their head. Great stuff if you don't know about it and you think the little boy is about to throw up on your feet any minute. But you get the hang of of it rather fast. Then there is mambo vip, reply poa or shwari or safi and then there is the habari list of mornings and evenings ect to which you say nzuri. Good. But then you come up with the next question ect. 3 weks in and I still get confused. Oh, and when you enter a house you call 'hodi' and wait for the 'karibu' bit. Only then may you proceed. But, hey, at least I know how to order a cold beer!
Talking of which - the beer is nice. There's the KIlimanjaro, the Safari, the Tusker and some other animal named one. All of them a re nice. The first time when I went out I wanted a Kili but in my flustered state I ordered a Himalaya. Well, a big mountain is a big mountain, right?
'Westerners have a button for everything" - statment of my friend's Tanzanian boyfriend on seeing the dryer being turned on when on his visit in America. Our laundry gets done by one of the maids. The food preparation is done by 2 cooks (peel and cut and whathaveyou veg for 22 peole, cook on 2 gas rings), the hostel also employs a gardener and 3 night watchmen. Replace all that electrical goods and you have to sack at least 4 people. I can see how the industrial revolution was a big pain in the arse for labourers. And also, where obesety comes from. NOt many people are fat here...
Fat actually is a neutral statement if not a compliment. You obviously ar wealthy and healthy and people like to see it. The girls in the orphanage wobbled my bingo wings and chirped with delight. I did not, really.
One last thing - along the lines of this continent being so damn full of opposites - you can wal around town fairly unmolested (see above) and usually nothing gets tolen. But at night - under no circumstances are we allowed to walk in the darkness. No one should, really. Machete toting Masai and other chancers are about and ready to take it all of you. Your life included. And all the muzungu houses have black watch men as an unguraded house is in invitation and to help yourself to the goods. And if you get in the way you get shot. Infuruatingly frustrating. Err, not the being shot bit, that too, but the danger in general.
Ok, that's me for today, went out partying last night and need to catch up on sleep. Nightclubs are really great, by the way. Chilled, rhythmical music, sometimes openair and everyone is boogying. They just know how to...
