I’m leaving for a goodbye party after I write this post.
There has been one other goodbye party before this, which took place two weeks before I left Tanzania for break and was held in honor of the Economics teacher, Mr. Nganga. Another counterpart, Juma Kiwone, was also leaving but for some reason he didn’t tell the school administration of his impending departure. I’m not terribly close with any of the other teachers but I had spent more time with Nganga and Kiwone than most of the others; Kiwone also taught chemistry and in fact had attended a brief Peace Corps teacher training session with me. He is very small, around 5’, wears western long-sleeve collared shirts rather than the local tailored variety and was contemplating buying a car a few weeks before he left. He was a miserable chemistry teacher who could not prepare stock solutions by himself, and I cannot believe he was selected to attend further science studies rather than some other, more competent candidate. The students frequently complained that he could not answer any of their questions instead yelled back at the one brazen enough to ask. Nevertheless I liked him, he helped me out when I first moved into my new home and would always smile.
Nganga hated teaching. Like so many other teachers here he was a university graduate who grabbed the first job he could find, which unfortunately meant coming to Ndanda. He had grown up in Dar es Salaam, the capital, and I don’t think he liked being in the hinterland. At one point Nganga was very active in the teacher’s union but he was disillusioned by the time I met him, and he now works as an accountant in some other province. He had a second job at the Abbey Secondary School and also owned a little shop nearby which charged exorbitant rates for basic goods. In his free time he was usually hanging out with the carving guys outside his shop or looking after his child. Nganga wasn’t at his own goodbye party, and in fact I’m not even sure if he was informed there would be a party until he had already left for Dar.
I arrived at the party with my neighbor, Mama Yamiseo, thirty minutes after the starting time. Apparently this was still too early; when we arrived the stereos were blasting music but only three of us were sitting there – Erina, my JICA besti, had arrived before we did. Us two foreigners tried to get Mama Yamiseo to tell us all the gossip about the other teacher’s wives but I don’t think she understood us. From time to time other teachers poked their heads in, realized no one was around, and left, not wanting to be the lame ones who got to the party first. The DJ’s continued keep the music at full volume.
I had been assigned to security by the party planners. Most of the teacher tasks around the school are pretty ambiguous and usually I can get out them by having no idea of what’s going on. This night I had no such luck, however, and security detail apparently meant waiting outside and collecting tickets. Other teachers, staff members, and community members sauntered in and after about an hour it was assumed all the guests had arrived and I was allowed to come inside. I’m amazed how similar the whole affair was to an American party, right down to the style of music that was played (Swahili pop music and a little Celine Dion.)
I turned 23 today.
Friday, October 17, 2008
October 9th: Ndanda
October 9, 2008: Ndanda
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
I ran into the director of the hospital today while I was buying eggs at the mission kitchen. Peter is from the Netherlands; even after numerous stints around the third-world he is shocked and dismayed by Tanzania’s health care system. Lindi and Mtwara districts, the “Deep South,” have a bad reputation across the rest of the country. My headmaster himself told me of the myth of the “undeveloped south” when he explained the teacher shortages the school was facing. The economics teacher, who has since left for greener pastures, explained the people’s laziness, “But we are Tanzanians, while the Arab influence has corrupted these people.” With underdevelopment comes poor health care and often the (foreign) doctors across the street wonder at the other surrounding hospitals; no electricity or clean water, critical shortages of sanitary equipment, absent doctors, incompetent nurses, and corrupt staff are the most common complaints.
Even before I arrived in Ndanda I had expected to hear about all these problems, which have their parallels in the school system. Peter has a new target, Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) which has invested several hundred million dollars in Tanzania. I myself must fill out PEPFAR report forms twice a year and in fact I completed my second one today, writing zeroes in every single box. The problem with PEPFAR is that such a vast amount of foreign money co-opts the local health care system. The budget of any PEPFAR program is astronomical compared to any Tanzanian scheme, so these programs have their pick of the best and brightest in country. Talented doctors will not work in the rural areas; even in cities they rarely care for patients and instead fill out the ranks of foreign aid. I believe Ndanda hospital pays somewhat better than the nearby government hospitals but Peter tells me they’ve also had a hard time keeping staff recently.
Peter also conveys a more general ambivalence about foreign aid schemes, an ambivalence which every foreigner in this country has expressed at one point or another. My new Peace Corps sitemate came to visit on Monday and wondered whether we were not just engaged in some new form of imperialism. A German dentist, who has been working on and off in Ndanda for some twenty years, believes that his presence may have been good for a few select people, but it was bad for the nation. The refrain is always the same; African problems need African solutions, development in Tanzania will take place on the country’s own terms.
The power has been out for a while and my computer is almost dead, so no more ranting.
October 2nd, Tanga
Tanga is a sweaty city on the Indian Ocean midway between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Unlike all the other sweaty African cities out there, Tanga is close to the site of Matt Summers, who was my best friend in Kenya and a Williams graduate. We spent the first day of Eid in his village at one of his colleague’s house watching kung-fu movies while our hosts finished their prayers. Thursday we left for Tanga in search of Indian food.
In Tanga I met Peter, a German doctor who has taken a liking to Peace Corps Volunteers and lets us stay at his house when we’re in town. His house is close to the ocean, a big draw for me, and at about 4:00 in the afternoon Matt and I reckoned the sun was no longer a danger and ventured out to the beach. Most beaches are populated by a handful of teenage boys working out and playing soccer, but most Africans tend to avoid the water and so I was surprised to find several hundred people of all ages swimming around. I stayed in for about half an hour and tried to teach a teenager named Omary rotary breathing.
About an hour after we returned Peter came home. He also had just come from the ocean and commented on the number of people. It was not just several hundred in the water, however; he estimated some 10 000 people dressed up in their nicest clothes and came to look out at the water. Matt and I went back out to have a look, but by then it was dark and everyone was leaving. The atmosphere was like the aftermath of a baseball game. I don’t know what the significance of this gathering was.
The Indian food was delicious.
In Tanga I met Peter, a German doctor who has taken a liking to Peace Corps Volunteers and lets us stay at his house when we’re in town. His house is close to the ocean, a big draw for me, and at about 4:00 in the afternoon Matt and I reckoned the sun was no longer a danger and ventured out to the beach. Most beaches are populated by a handful of teenage boys working out and playing soccer, but most Africans tend to avoid the water and so I was surprised to find several hundred people of all ages swimming around. I stayed in for about half an hour and tried to teach a teenager named Omary rotary breathing.
About an hour after we returned Peter came home. He also had just come from the ocean and commented on the number of people. It was not just several hundred in the water, however; he estimated some 10 000 people dressed up in their nicest clothes and came to look out at the water. Matt and I went back out to have a look, but by then it was dark and everyone was leaving. The atmosphere was like the aftermath of a baseball game. I don’t know what the significance of this gathering was.
The Indian food was delicious.
September 1st: Tanga
I got off the plane, bade farewell to my new Italian missionary friend (“what language do they speak here?”) and waltzed past customs. I looked for a bathroom in the baggage claim section but my hopes of getting one last flush in before a week on the road were dashed, and I resigned myself to a whole day of my breath smelling like microwaved chicken tarragnone and strawberry yogurt. It was 7:40 in the morning and already hot. Outside a gang of taxi drivers were looking for customers, but it seemed like most of my fellow traveller and already had rides. I was the only target. The asking price of the trip, about 25 dollars, had more than doubled since I had left last month, meaning that despite my conversational Swahili these guys took me for yet another clueless mzungu. After ten minutes I threatened to take a public minivan and one of the drivers asked his fellows if any were willing to take me for the still exorbitant price of 15 dollars.
I wanted to talk with the my new friend and get used to Swahili again, but he tried to get a more money by complaining about the rising price of gasoline and the scarcity of gullible passengers, so I got annoyed and shut up. I was tired anyway, having forgone sleep in order to watch Robert Downey Jr.’s masterpiece Ironman consecutively three or four times.
Even at 8:00 in the morning Dar is muggy and hot and a bad place to get stuck in traffic while sitting in a shaking Ford Taurus. African drivers have a healthy disrespect for traffic laws, but the lack of directions and badly-organized street network would flummox even the best group of drivers. One intersection was backed up for many blocks because all four directions of traffic had tried to go at the same time and consequently blocked the center. In the absence of a cop several drivers got out and tried to clear the way. They managed to get three or four cars out of the way before the driver of one of the minibuses decided to ignore them and drive into the center of the intersection again. The line behind him followed, so he couldn’t back up; all the other vehicles rushed to claim whatever piece of the center they could, and the directors got back in their cars and joined the free-for-all. We took another road, and I don’t know how the jam was resolved.
It took almost two hours to travel the 8 miles or so from the airport to the bus stand. I paid my driver the initial 25 dollars he had asked for – he deserved it – and inquired about a ticket to my next destination. The touts informed me that the price had also doubled but that their bus was leaving immediately. We waited for two hours for the bus to fill up. Happily I could take cheer in the the prospects for the trip, a 5+ hour affair inside a sweltering bus overflowing with stinky Africans and, if I was lucky, a couple of goats. And the music is terrible. Karibu Tanzania!
I wanted to talk with the my new friend and get used to Swahili again, but he tried to get a more money by complaining about the rising price of gasoline and the scarcity of gullible passengers, so I got annoyed and shut up. I was tired anyway, having forgone sleep in order to watch Robert Downey Jr.’s masterpiece Ironman consecutively three or four times.
Even at 8:00 in the morning Dar is muggy and hot and a bad place to get stuck in traffic while sitting in a shaking Ford Taurus. African drivers have a healthy disrespect for traffic laws, but the lack of directions and badly-organized street network would flummox even the best group of drivers. One intersection was backed up for many blocks because all four directions of traffic had tried to go at the same time and consequently blocked the center. In the absence of a cop several drivers got out and tried to clear the way. They managed to get three or four cars out of the way before the driver of one of the minibuses decided to ignore them and drive into the center of the intersection again. The line behind him followed, so he couldn’t back up; all the other vehicles rushed to claim whatever piece of the center they could, and the directors got back in their cars and joined the free-for-all. We took another road, and I don’t know how the jam was resolved.
It took almost two hours to travel the 8 miles or so from the airport to the bus stand. I paid my driver the initial 25 dollars he had asked for – he deserved it – and inquired about a ticket to my next destination. The touts informed me that the price had also doubled but that their bus was leaving immediately. We waited for two hours for the bus to fill up. Happily I could take cheer in the the prospects for the trip, a 5+ hour affair inside a sweltering bus overflowing with stinky Africans and, if I was lucky, a couple of goats. And the music is terrible. Karibu Tanzania!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
I should probably talk about all the animals here at one point. Probably the wildlife highlight so far, much more so than the solitary giraffe ambling in the desert, are the monkeys; in Kakamega and also in Ndanda, monkeys jump back in forth among the trees, looking for bananas. Last week I was cut off by a troop of maybe 25 baboons wandering through the jungle behind the mission. It was cool but also a little scary, as apparently they can be dangerous if provoked and I was on alone and on foot. I kept my distance.
Of course most of the creatures I see are not nearly as exciting. Butterflies (kipepeo or "little fan") of all colors are always flapping around, termites build tunnels of dirt up my walls, huge grasshoppers leap across my lawn and wasps with huge, threatening stingers buzz around my office. Last week I saw a small spider with a huge pair of fangs- on closer inspection i saw the fangs were on the wrong end of the body, a decoy to warn off predators. Long lines of army ants march across the jungle and occasionally swarm through people's houses ("surround your bed with kerosene and wait for them to leave...") I have three or four geckos living with me, who feast on all these little ndudus. All these bugs are at the same time fascinating and repulsive.
Back in training my next-door neighbor came to class with a good story. He had arrived home and found a great comotion around his choo (outdoor toilet). "We saw something in the bathroom," said his baba. "We don't know what it is, but it had more than a hundred legs and it was at least a half a meter long."
Of course most of the creatures I see are not nearly as exciting. Butterflies (kipepeo or "little fan") of all colors are always flapping around, termites build tunnels of dirt up my walls, huge grasshoppers leap across my lawn and wasps with huge, threatening stingers buzz around my office. Last week I saw a small spider with a huge pair of fangs- on closer inspection i saw the fangs were on the wrong end of the body, a decoy to warn off predators. Long lines of army ants march across the jungle and occasionally swarm through people's houses ("surround your bed with kerosene and wait for them to leave...") I have three or four geckos living with me, who feast on all these little ndudus. All these bugs are at the same time fascinating and repulsive.
Back in training my next-door neighbor came to class with a good story. He had arrived home and found a great comotion around his choo (outdoor toilet). "We saw something in the bathroom," said his baba. "We don't know what it is, but it had more than a hundred legs and it was at least a half a meter long."
Sunday, March 23, 2008
March 16, Palm Sunday, Ndanda - I just returned from a trip to Masasi, about 30 km away. I rode in a dalla-dalla, a minivan, with some 25 other people, threegoats, two chickens, five leaky jerrycans of gasoline, three sacks of maize flour and a six foot stack of buckets. We stopped every 500 meters so the tout could try to flag down new passengers, and the driver leaned on the horn for the entire hour-long ride. as there were no seatbelts i broke one of peace corps traveling policies, but at lease i wasn't hanging the side of the vehicle like several other passengers. the ride cost about 90 cents.
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
I'm a chemistry teacher stationed at ndanda secondary school in Tanzania's deep south. Ndanda is a mission town complete with two secondary and several technical schools, a water-bottling company, a towering white church and a modern hospital (the only functional hospital in hundreds of miles.) My school, once one of the best in the country, was nationalized in the 1970s and since has gone through a long, steady decline. The laboratories are rotting and nobody knows who has the key to the library. There are not enough school supplies and the textbooks are fourty years old. teachers often skip all their classes and then charge students extra for tuition after hours; last term there were 13 teachers for 720 students. The (ex) second master stole about 2000 dollars, so for the last three weeks of the term students ate porridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. problems here are far beyond the ability of any one person, no matter how dedicated, to fix.
When I first arrived in Africa I was repelled by what seemed to be crushing poverty and ugliness. There were no Mcdonalds or SUVs. Women here cook with charcoal and burn garbage in pits, electricity is a rare luxury and clean water does not exist. It took about a month to adopt to life here, studying Swahili by candlelight and drinking warm coca cola at the nearest hotel. NGOs here drive around in jeeps and gape at the locals, but if you ever get the chance to come here, walk around the market and drink chai with the villagers and ride dalla-dallas - its a lifestyle you'll never forget. Safari Njema! (travel well!)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
January 29, Dar es Salaam
I've taken up running since I've gotten to East Africa. In Kitui I woke up before anyone else, so I escaped both the heat and the stares of my Kamba neighbors; in Ndalat, land of the long distance runners, I (occasionally) ran in the late afternoon. One day a local athlete, Edward, invited me to his house for chai. Edward is 27 years old, married, and still lives in a little hut made of clay and cowdung. Both he and his sister are world-class marathon runners; his younger brother is a medical student at the University of Texas (?) where he got an athletic scholarship. After the usual greetings in vernacular he comments on the quality of my shoes and asks me about my training.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
-"What training?" I forgot I had ran past his house that morning.
-"I ran twenty-five kilometers this morning. Later this afternoon...twenty. Every morning, twenty or twenty five kilometers - afternoon training is optional but twenty kilometers every morning."
At no point in our conversation did Edward express even a hint of mockery, but after a few cups of chai with him and his sister I stopped running past his house, in fact I stopped running period. I tried biking once or twice (according to Edward, "Ah! Very good exercise!") but couldn't quite get into a routine. Two days before I left Ndalat I saw another runner flying past me and swore that I would get my ass in gear after christmas. In Kakamega, mainly out of sheer boredom, I ran up and down the block while riot police fired gunshots in the air. The Indian women seemed largely unimpressed but the security guard, Bernard was more conversational.
- "Ah! Mzoezi wa Mwili! (exercises for the body)" Luo people often begin their conversations with Ah!
He also never expressed anything apart from the utmost friendliness, but I never felt comfortable running around Africans. Even in Dar es Salaam where beach jogging is common and where I can keep up with the locals, I do my damndest to avoid crowds.
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