Monday:
It is not even 8:30 in the morning and it is probably already over 80 degrees outside under the Sun. Yesterday I was sure it was going to rain. The clouds gathered and some of them were even dark. The wind picked up and there was even some rumbling of thunder in the distance. But no rain came. So many people planted corn after the first couple days of rain. But that was over a week ago now. I fear they will lose their crop and have to plant again. We are lucky to have a well, but the water is tough to work with. The salty mineral in it tarnishes silverware, ruins clothes and is terrible to drink. I can’t figure out if it is killing some of our plants or if we have bacteria in the soil.
I came to the school on Sunday evening after it had cooled down. Some of the girls and I weeded old beds and replanted where seeds had not come up. I keep telling them I am leaving soon and that they have to start thinking about the garden on their own-coming up with things that they can do, remembering to water and to weed and replant.
This afternoon I had a meeting with Polly and Malopola, the SEGA board member who is a forester. He works for a NGO called “War on Want”. His office is spacious and clean, with tile floors, ceiling fans and nice furniture. He has a new flat screen computer, internet and a Blackberry phone. His secretary served coffee and tea in clear glass mugs on a tray. When we left a man was cleaning Malopola’s brand new Toyota truck, fully outfitted with roll bars and a shiny grill. I understand this country less each day.
Tuesday:
I have been riding the school bus in the mornings as the teachers fill up the small Suzuki quickly. I enjoy the bus ride as it gets me to school before all the other teachers and it forces me to get up early. I walk 15 minutes to the main road where Babu (the Grandfather) will pick me up in the large blue and white bus with white plastic covered seats. Only two students get on the bus before me. On my walk I pass so many other students on their way to school. Some wear bright red skirts with matching ties and white button down blouses. The boys wear maroon trousers and white shirts and some wear funny short fat ties. Other girls wear long white head scarves that are basically hoods, framing their round faces and falling almost to their waists. Muslim girls as young as four will wear these “hoods” as a training for the scarves that they wear as adults. The scarves are wound around their heads, protecting their ears and neck and head from sight-if you expose your ears you can be called a prostitute-and a small pin hold the scarf in place just under the chin. The hood is simply drawn over the head and stays in place by the elastic that frames the girls face.
As I wait for the bus I watch the school children of all ages and in all colors of uniform depending on which school they belong to walking slowly along the roadside. Some wait for the dalla dallas, some try and flag down a free ride, some ride on the back of bicycles or motorbikes, some simply plod along in no real hurry. The youngest wear dark blue frocks and jumpers and polyester sweaters knit with Tanzanian colors of blue, green, black and yellow despite the heat and black and white knee socks. Boys who don’t have the privilege of going to school pedal oversized bicycles with baskets full of items to sell at the market or empty water jugs that will be filled at the village tank and pushed and heaved home. Motorcycles, or Pikis as they are called here, race by carrying students on the back, or men with shiny black shoes and pressed khakis or woman in tye-dyed flowing dresses sitting sideways balancing a baby on their lap slung in colorful kangas. The piki drivers are young, handsome and wear aviator sun glasses and no helmets; often times the helmets hand from their handlebars unused. The school buses fly by driving way too fast and dangerously as the children bounce around in the seats and aisles, as there is never enough seats for everyone. They press their little faces against the glass and stare at me until they can no longer crane their necks to see the white woman on the side of the road. Men on pikis and in white taxis honk at me and flip their hand palm up towards the sky, the sign of offering a ride, I shake my head and look at the ground. Some shout at me, “Wapi-where?” or “Trende-lets go” while others make kissing sounds with their thick dark lips to get my attention. I hear Mzungu so much I have learned to ignore it. A young guy across the road stops suddenly and stares in my direction. I turn to see what he is looking at and turn back to see it is me he is watching with such amazement, such surprise. I wave at him and break his trance. He smiles goofily and waves back and walks on, but continues to stare so I look away so he won’t come over to ask me the same questions I always hear: how are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? You work here? They always laugh when they hear I am a farmer back home and most of the time they think I am joking or lying to them.
Suddenly a piki driving too fast skids around the corner onto the road where I am standing and the driver has to tip the bike so as not to completely dump. The young student on the back riding sideways jumps off just in time before the weight of the piki causes it to fall onto its side. Both the boy driving and the girl laugh-a Tanzanian thing to do in uncomfortable situations. He picks up the big bike with a lot of effort and heaves it up the hill before she gets back on. Two girls at our school were riding on the back of a piki this weekend when it dumped in the loose sand. One of them was trapped under the bike and the exhaust left a huge burn on the inside of her left leg. She told me the driver didn’t even help her pull the bike off and she had to scramble out from under it. The burn is very bad and very large and she trembles in pain and drags her leg when she walks. She has been to the hospital three times but it seems they can’t do anything for the pain.
At school today I was watering alone and by hand when one of the chickens wandered into the garden. I tried to shoo it away and nearly fell over it as it attempted to fly away but ended up awkwardly on its side. I examined the chicken closely. Her head was bald and covered in tiny black dots and the feathers beneath her wings were missing. She couldn’t walk well at all. I fed her some tomatoes and went to tell Frank. We talked about the chicken for a bit outside of the coop. Suddenly he noticed another sick chicken still inside the coop. He dragged the chicken out into the daylight. This one was worse off than the last. It head was completely bald and covered in the black scabs like the other, but its eyes were also swollen shut so that now only 2 bright red lumps remained. It stood blind and confused. I watched it for a while and found myself on the verge of tears. I walked off so Frank wouldn’t see me. Some days I feel everything is dying here. My tomatoes, the animals, the children. Everyone is suffering, sick with something, in need of money or education. I feel their weight because they tell me about it and ask me for money. Two days in a row young woman have straight up asked me for money on the street. Both were well dressed and looked well off, so I know it is just because I am white that they do this. White people before me have given away money and gifts and anything else just because they can. Now the stigma is alive and fierce and terrible. I got a ride home early today and didn’t return to the school even though I have lots to do. All of the chickens eventually died.
Wednesday:
Frank, Peter and I went shopping for supplies and tools we will need to plant trees around the boundary of the school-my last big and daunting job before I leave. We bought shovels, rope, grass slashers, measuring tape and bush knives. I have been going back to the same hardware store for my last couple of shopping adventures because the man there is very kind, helpful and he speaks good English. A woman working in his store stood outside while we bought our supplies. On the way out to the car I greeted her traditionally. She didn’t answer me. I looked her in the eye and greeted her again. Still no reply. She shifted her eyes up and away from me with a look of disgust. It is not the first time this has happened in Morogoro and every time it makes me sad and frustrated for I know they are breaking their own rules of being polite with salutations. I looked over at Frank and said, “Mama hataki kusalima mimi,-that woman doesn’t want to greet me.” When he asked her why she told him she didn’t hear me. I shook my head and looked at the ground. Frank laughed and told Peter what had happened.
We then drove out to look at a government tree nursery where we found all the trees I had hoped to plant except one variety. Yesterday I researched different trees that would yield fruit, food, fodder or wood. I settled on Teak, Mahogany, Tamarind, Miringa, and Luecana-which they didn’t have so they suggested a few others trees which I got such as Jackfruit and another tree that bears fruit and has a good strong wood. Tomorrow I will go back and retrieve 200 saplings to start with. Each tree was either 500 shillings, less than fifty cents or 1,000 shillings, less than a US $1. At the nursery I spotted their large beautiful compost pile. They directed us to a small farm, which is near my house. I was able to buy 14 tons of rich composted cow manure for less than $20. The farmer spoke English and told me he had learned to farm sustainably from an American man who was still living in Tanzania. The farmer had about a dozen cows and lots of goats. The cows were in cement stalls and they went out to graze occasionally, but not very often, but they were fed well and looked very healthy. The goats were in large wooden pen that was about 4 feet off the ground. The pen floor was slatted so that their manure fell thru to a large pile below them where it could easily be harvested. The goats are taken out daily to graze.
At the end of the day I felt fairly satisfied with all my purchases-except for some used tires that I want to put around the trees as markers and as a fence-I was way overcharged I learned later. Win some lose some.
Friday:
Frank and I got to work right away this morning. I picked up the trees yesterday. We hired a taxi so we could put the 200 saplings in the trunk-all but 2 made it successfully. I unloaded the trees under one of the only large trees near the school that provides a lot of shade and where Peter, our driver parks the car and naps throughout the day when he is not needed. I made a tire fence around them as the wind is really strong out there. Then two lorry loads of beautiful manure arrived which also went under the tree, making sure to leave space for Peter. Frank had marked the boundary with a long thin piece of nylon rope (I had spend the morning before untangling it-it's over 100 meters long…). We tried to get it as straight and accurate as we could, but without surveyor tools we could only do so much. The SEGA school property is approximately 23 acres and we are planting trees around the entire boundary five meters apart. It is a big job and I hope I can most of it done before I leave.
The rains have not come in a while and I am slightly nervous to plant all of these trees in this heat. We will only transplant them at night and the girls are in charge of keeping them watered. The long rains typically start in March and end in May. Frank and I set out to dig some holes early while it was still less than 90 and while the girls were in class. The soil is like cement-dry, hard, and lumpy. We measured along our rope marking out every 5 meters using a cheap made in China tape measure-which actually said made in Chinia in large letters across the front-it also said it was a “Rocking Tape Measurer”, though I think they meant “Rolling” as it rolled up inside a plastic circle. Typical. After the first painstaking hole we decided to get the hose out. Pretty soon we had a good system of me clearing the grass with the jembe-African hoes, then chiseling out the first six inches or so of soil (I ended up completely bending the metal piece of the hoe by the 5th or 6th hole) then Frank came behind me and used an inverted pitchfork type tool and broke up the hard, compacted soil. I would go back and dig this soil out and then put the hose and let our holes-which were all about a 2 feet in diameter-fill up with water. After the water had been soaked up by the ground we were able to dig down another good 10 to 12 inches and in the end we had nice wide, deep holes. After almost 2 hours we had about 15 holes dug and we were sweating and choking in the heat and decided to call it quits. In the afternoon the students helped us dig another 20 holes or so and they also continued slashing the grass along the next boundary line.
At around 11 am the entire school walked 15 minutes down our dirt road to the school next door. Our neighbors are a government school with the typical grey, boring building and a barren field next to it. Our girls have been practicing for a net ball match-which to me is a combination of basketball and ultimate Frisbee. You pass the ball, you can dribble it, but once you have it in your hands you can only take one step. There are two nets on either end of the “court”-a grassy area-and eight girls per team play at one time. No is allowed to talk-yelling and whopping and grunting are allowed-not even the ref who speaks “whistle”. She has a whistle and uses it to “explain” fouls as well as very dramatic body language-I found this the most entertaining. It was very obvious that our students were much better and more practiced than the opposing school. After our students scored the first goal, only a couple of minutes into the game our group of girls went nuts. They all charged the field yelling and screaming and jumping on each other, doing cartwheels and dancing as if they had won the superbowl-it was absolutely ridiculous and amazing-Sandra and I were laughing so hard. I figured this would stop after the first goal, but it continued on for 14 more girls. I think the audience was just as exhausted as the players. Our girls kicked butt and won 15 to 1. I felt bad for the other team and was glad they scored at least one goal-they also celebrated but with only about half the enthusiasm as our girls.
Saturday:
I like the weekends at the school. The girls are all so relaxed and happy. They hand wash their laundry in plastic buckets and in the watering cans-even though I am bit opposed as the soap they use is pretty chemy. They also make chai with milk, hardboiled eggs and chapattis, which they always share with me. In the morning I did a little work, but because I had gotten there close to 10 it was too hot. I had taken the headmistress with me that morning as she had a lot to do at the school. As we were driving back to Morogoro around noon we got a call to return to the school because one of the students was really sick. The girls carried one of the other students (I don’t want to use names so as to protect them-lots of people read this) out of the dorms-I already thought this was a bit dramatic. The girls love to go to the hospital and will find any reason they can to go and get loads of meds. So I thought this must be just another day of hospital fun. The student appeared to be unconscious and the girls were getting really worked up so I drove out of there as fast as possible. The matron, who is also a nurse, was up on the main road buying charcoal, so we picked her up and took off for town. She got the girl to wake up and it was obvious then that she didn’t know what had happened. I was dropped off in town where peter took over the driving as I knew it could be a long wait at the hospital and they had a matron another student and the headmistress with them so I would just be in the way. I walked the half hour home in the heat. By the time I reached my gate I was completely drenched in sweat and my shoulders hurt from the sunburn I had gotten by sitting in the sun at the netball game-like I said there are no trees anyway there for shade. Turns out the student had begun bleeding excessively-like water in the sink-the girls told me later. She began bleeding in the morning and it got worse and worse until she finally stood over the toilet with blood gushing out of her. No one told me as I drove away or when we were in the car. I still don’t know how she is today. The headmistress told me, “Somehow she is fine,” but I don’t believe her. No one knows exactly what is wrong with her but she has been sick for several months. Her stomach bloats and swells whenever she eats and she moves slowly with her eyes half closed. I really hope they can find what is wrong and treat her. I don’t trust any of the doctors here one bit.
When I got home in the middle of the day a local boy was waiting for me sitting perched on the wall outside my gate. Jonah and I had met Allen a few months ago. We went for dinner at a local bar. I noticed a young boy standing at the kitchen window staring intently at us. I greeted him and he asked if he could sit with us. In very broken English Allen was able to tell us a bit about himself. He was 16 and in secondary school-though his teachers were not very caring or helpful. Allen is a nervous and very serious. I rarely ever saw him smile. He was at the bar that night because he was waiting for his mother to finish work. She is a seamstress and had a small office around the corner-basically a cement cell where she and 2 other ladies work. It is very dangerous for even older woman to walk home on their won, so Allen was protecting his mother, which I thought was incredibly sweet and brave. Allen decided we were to be good friends and made lots of plans with us, though Jonah and I were both sure we would never see him again. About a week later he showed up at our door practically trembling. “How did you find us?” I asked alarmed and kind of annoyed. All he had to do was ask the local shop where the white people lived and of course they told him. Allen insisted on visiting us as often as possible. He would come and sit and stare at us. Mostly his conversation was him demanding me to teach him English. He would also say “That’s nice,” and “Oh my gah!” all the time. On Valentine’s Day he gave us a plastic rose and card encased in a cardboard box with a clear plastic paper on the front-it was hideous yet sweet. Whenever we told him we were going somewhere, like Zanzibar or Arusha he insisted he was coming with us, and when I gently explained that he couldn’t he would yell, “Why?” as if I had promised him some future with us. Eventually I went to visit his family and it was like many of my experiences in a Tanzanian house where you sit on the hard couch and everyone stares at you and tries their best to carry on a conversation despite the language barriers. His mother’s name is Happy and she is sweet and serious like Allen. His father Godfrey is a carpenter and he built them their grey cement house. Allen has a younger brother and sister. After the visit I thought I was done with Allen, but he kept showing up at my gate even though I told him to call first or that I was busy. I just couldn’t take his bad, commanding English anymore or his intent serious stare or any more “Oh my gahs” So the last time I saw Allen I was sweaty, tired and grumpy. “I am sorry Allen, you can’t come in today, I don’t feel well,” he looked at me with his big sad eyes and said ok, but proceed to follow me inside. “I want to sit and talk with you,” he pleaded. It was hot and I knew he travelled a long way to get here, but my patience was running out. “I will get you some water and but then you have to leave, I have a lot to do.” He made an “uh” sound, as to say, “How dare you.” “I have had a long week and I am not well,” I told him, half lying. He laughed and I cringed. Tanzanians are always laughing at people when they are mad or hurt-I think it is so they aren’t always crying since so many bad things happen. I brought him water and told him again I wasn’t able to talk today and I went back inside. About an hour later Allen was still sitting in my garden. I opened the door heavily. “I can’t help you,” I told him sternly. I knew that is why he was here. He needed money. Everyone needs money. And I am white, so why not ask me. “I have a problem…”he started, but I cut him off. “I am sorry Allen. I know you think that because I am white I have lots of money, but I don’t and I can’t help you. I would love to help everyone here, but I just can’t. I don’t have money” My voice was beginning to tremble. One because I was angry and two because I was so sad that I can’t help everyone. I probably could help Allen, but then someone else would ask, and someone else. This happened to me the last time I was here as well. (I once read that the first thing Relief Aid workers learned was to never ever give out money) I came all the way over here to help and to teach, but I can’t help with money and in a way I am glad. I am so tired of this country being dependent on foreigners and foreigner aid. Tanzanians, in my eyes, have become lazy. They know someone else will front the bill so they sit back and wait for a handout. And the stigma that whites are rich and will give everyone money has become so well known that you walk down the street and little kids in tiny voices demand it, “give me money,” they say. Allen looked as if he was going to cry. “Ok, I will go now,” he said. It was absolutely horrible. He walked slowly into the sun and out the heavy black metal gate.
I returned to the school later and we planted our first trees into the holes. The sky was filed with huge puffy clouds that turned to pinks and oranges as the sun faded behind the Uluguru Mountains. Lightening danced in the distance and the air was finally cool. The girls enjoyed planting their first trees, a future of shade, of food and of beauty.
As you can tell every day here is different and unpredictable. These are only snippets of my day….
The frogs in the photos are taken out by the pool. At night they come and sing their very, very, very loud mating song (they will keep you awake all night long). This particular night they were laying thousands of eggs into our pool. The eggs looked like long chains of black slimy beads. They are beautiful and gross. We had a ton of tadpoles, but of course they die because of the chlorine in the pool-pole sana tadpoles!
I will be home in 10 days-I hope I can everything done before I go. I am looking forward to a Vermont Spring and to seeing you all!
Many blessing and much love,
Lindsey
