Kipilefti

An absolutely wonderful early birthday present yesterday: Every Sunday night (midday there), my family calls to chat. Yesterday, unbeknownst to me, my parents invited three of my good friends over for brunch, and then they all called together, like a long-distance surprise party! It was wonderful to hear their voices and to eavesdrop on their happy conversation. I miss them all a lot.

Jess and Bret came yesterday to celebrate my birthday early. It was a lot of fun: we made pirogues (delicious!) and chocolate cake (which turned out more like brownies because I got distracted and forgot to put in the salt and baking powder) and then watched Hot Fuzz and then somehow it was one in the morning and we sat around and chatted. We assembled my guest bed around two in the morning and slept in. I hadn’t seen any wazungu for two weeks and I definitely needed it. It was great.

But: they’re now semi-officially dating (although they haven’t told their villagers yet). I was expecting it and I think it’s great, and I’m pretty sure it won’t change the dynamic of our interactions (they’ve been quite close for a while) or how often they visit (not often), but…! I’d been sort of hoping that by coming to Africa I’d get out of the all-my-friends-are-couples thing! Wishful thinking, I guess.

I woke to the screeching of crows fighting on my tin roof; looked out the window to see a cloud sailing through the valley. The day passed uneventfully; I taught my classes (I have four more periods now that the Form Is have split back into four streams instead of two), went to the post office. The mail hasn’t come since I was there Thursday; Posta Mama said maybe tomorrow.

Dinner was pumpkin, four different ways. I roasted it with cinnamon and gulped that down, starving; chopped and boiled the rest. Half went into pumpkin bread and half I ate with salt. I fried the pumpkin seeds and had them as a snack between the courses. The bread burned (amazingly, since my problem is usually undercooking) but it’s still pretty good.

If you’ve friended me on Flickr and I’ve friended you back, you should now be able to see a picture of Bret and Jess, my two sitemates. This is as good a time as any to tell you about the Americans I live closest to.

Jess is a health volunteer who’s been in country since July and at site since September. Health and environmental volunteers here have to formulate and execute their own projects, and their first three months at site are supposed to be dedicated to integrating into the community, so she’s just starting to do stuff. Right now she’s teaching English at the elementary school and teaching “life skills” (sex ed and also how to make good decisions) at various schools in the area. She’s from upstate New York and majored in communications in college. She’s very sociable, very dynamic, very friendly. Walking around with her is as bad as walking around with a Tanzanian: you have to stop every five feet to greet someone and have a conversation. All the neighborhood kids greet her by yelling her name and running up to hug her. She loves to dance (hilariously) and sings, too. She’s also very short: maybe 5’2″. Bret’s very tall, and so is Philip. One of her favorite activities when she’s at his house is to stand on a chair so she’s taller than he is.

Bret’s an ed volunteer from my training class, teaching physics and computers. He also studied electrical engineering in college, and we’ve had a couple enjoyable geeky conversations about it. He’s quietly friendly and speaks very good Swahili. He tends to engage one person in conversation for a long time, whereas Jess would chat with a lot of individuals or groups. He also dances hilariously, and plays the guitar. While we’re in Njombe for training I want to buy a cowbell, and then we’ll have everything we need to start a band.

Living in the other half of Bret’s house is Philip the German, who’s been there since October. He didn’t have any training in Swahili and for the first few months (somewhat inexplicably) didn’t try to learn, so he’s in the halting basic statements portion of the Swahili-learning experience. As mentioned, Philip is very tall, and also very thin. The Tanzanians identify Philip as “the tall one” and Bret as “the fat one” even though Bret is far from fat (and has been complaining of losing too much weight at site). Philip has finished the German equivalent of high school and is taking a year off before going to college. He teaches the A-level students at their school history and something else…maybe computers. His English is pretty good but when we speak fast sometimes he has to ask us to repeat ourselves. He, like me, does not really dance.

So those are the wazungu in my immediate vicinity (within a four-hour walk) who I know of. I’ve also met some Swedes who are living somewhere around here and one of the Italian doctors who volunteers at the good hospital in the area, a little more than an hour’s drive away. There’s a Swedish nun who works at the hospital in Bret’s town who’s been here forever, and I’m sure there are other folks around as well. Makete’s AIDS rate (the highest of any district in the country) makes it a hotbed of NGO activity and that brings foreigners.

The water in the tap in my backyard is brown with large black flecks in it, more like very thin mud than like water. As I watch it flow into the bucket, I’m very glad that the only thing this water is destined for is to be used to flush my toilet. Even the seemingly clear water, after it sits for a while, has an impressive amount of dirt settle out of it; I shudder to think of the inch or two of silt that will be at the bottom of this bucket.

Despite the awful water I bathe today, a water-intensive maneuver that takes ten to fifteen liters. I’m not too worried about the water: two out of my three twenty-liter buckets of water in the kitchen are full, and the ten-liter bucket of clean rainwater I use to brush my teeth and wash my hands was filled from the rain earlier today. If the mud in the tap persists it’ll probably be because of rains, and if it rains I can put my buckets and basins under the roof to collect water. As long as I’m home to put them out it should be fine. Still, looking at the contents of the bucket I carry back inside, they remind me of nothing more than what my toilet looked like before the plumber unclogged it yesterday. Not a very appealing thought.

The teacher in charge of teaching the chemistry lab sessions is taking advantage of the good weather. The classes are too big to fit in the lab, so they stand in a U shape outside my computer lab, facing the teacher. As he holds up objects, they say the names in unison. Young voices yellng “beaker!” “test tube holder!” are my company throughout this week.

This week has had its ups and downs. Up: I made my first successful bread. Down: my margarine was stolen from my kitchen–they pried open my kitchen window, which I’d thought was firmly closed. Up: I enjoyed teaching some of the classes. Down: they stole my margarine! It’s ruined two days, I’ve been brooding and raging about it for a while. It’s much easier to replace than the potato masher, but I felt so sure that I had solved the problem and the room was secure.

And so now, like I do every week, I’m killing time in the lab before I go to teach, putting in some school time so they don’t forget I exist. “Buret. Buret. Buret.” the students chant outside my window like some strange cult of chemistry. I have two eighty-minute periods left in the week, one in fifteen minutes and one at the same time tomorrow. I like my schedule, the way it ends on a relaxed note, only one period on Thursday and one on Friday. And I like that the periods are both before chai: I can teach, drink my chai (if the school ever buys more sugar), and then do errands.

My lesson for the weekend: if a Tanzanian gives you directions and tells you you won’t get lost, don’t believe her.Friday after I finished teaching my morning class (I only teach in the morning on Fridays) I went home, switched my skirt for a pair of pants, put on sunscreen and a hat and my backpack, and headed out towards Bulongwa. On my way out I ran into my headmaster and told him where I was going; he said that he’d be going out that way in the afternoon, and if I was still walking he’d pick me up. A far cry from stories I’ve heard from other PCVs about headmasters who lecture teachers about how they have to be at school for the whole school day. I’m happy to have a laid-back headmaster (for the most part…I do wish repairs to my house were done in a more timely fashion! The back door has been broken since I arrived!)

The weather on Friday was beautiful, sunny and breezy, maybe 75 degrees. I had planned to walk on the road, but I knew that there were shortcuts that would significantly shorten my hike, so when I started chatting with a woman carrying firewood that was on my mind. She asked where I was going and I told her; she told me not to walk on the road and pointed down into a valley. “You see that child there?” (I did: he was hard to miss, wearing a bright red sweater) “He’ll tell you how to get to Bulongwa. Don’t worry, you won’t get lost.” So I went down into the valley, lush grass and tall pine trees, and caught up with the child.

“Where are you going?” I asked. “Far.” “Far where?” He named a town I’d never heard of. “Do you know how to get to Bulongwa?” “No.”So much for that idea. I decided to see if I could find the shortcut myself. Long story short: the valley was beautiful, and I got totally lost. I wound up wandering through farms on a mountainside, patchwork-disorganized, just trying to get back to the road. Eventually I climbed up a steep slope covered in long grass, grabbing on to the grass to keep from falling back down, and reached the road again.

Shortly after I made it back to the road I met a student of Bret’s, a Form IV girl who was in Makete on a school day to post a letter for the school. She kept me company for the rest of the hike and showed me the (steep!) shortcut over the tallest mountain between Makete and Bulongwa. We chatted in English and Swahili. Not too far away from Bulongwa she said, in English, “I want fruit” and then went and spoke to an old woman threshing grain for a little while. I guess the old woman said karibu fruit, because we filled her bag with pears from a nearby tree, and later picked pears as well.It took a little more than three hours, counting getting lost, to get to Bret’s house. He had to teach, so I sat around and drank water, which was all I wanted to do at that point.

The weekend was wonderful, as it always is when I get to see other PCVs. Going back on Sunday I hoped to get a lift, so I went down to the village the vehicles pass through and started waiting. After a couple hours of waiting it was lunchtime, and I was hungry, so I got some beans and rice at a restaurant in the town. Of course, as soon as I started eating, a lorry came by. I wanted to finish eating and figured that there would be another car, so I let it pass.And then waited for a few more hours. There wasn’t another car. So I decided to walk back.

The weather on Sunday was even better for walking than Friday’s weather. It was cloudy and cool, with occasional sun and no rain. I set out on the road and walked for a ways with two little girls who were heading home. I guess the way they took me wasn’t the best, because when we turned off the road and into a village a woman chastised them and handed me off to an old man, who showed me the beginning of the shortcut over the mountain. “Go straight,” he said. “You can’t get lost.”I got lost. And wound up back in the same village, saying hello to the same old man. He and another woman delegated a few kids to show me the way across the mountain, which they did with gusto. They had enormous amounts of energy (and weren’t carrying backpacks) and a couple times I had to tell them that we needed to stop so I could catch my breath. After an hour or so of going up we made it and, after getting some change to give them, I continued on the road.

Clouds began to threaten rain. I started chatting with a man also walking to Makete. He was studying at the seminary (I think). He showed me the shortcut I should have taken on Friday. When we got close to town we ran into some students, and he left without saying goodbye as I got bogged down in conversation with them. “I like your hat.” “Thank you.” “Can I have it?” “No, I need it or I’ll burn.” “If I come to your house now, what will you give me?” “Right now? Water. I’ve just spent the weekend in Bulongwa!” And so on. Everyone wants something.As soon as I unlocked the door to my house it started to rain. I went inside and drank a liter of water. Some students came to visit and we talked for a little while, but I turned them out by telling them I needed to sleep, then retired to bed with mashed sweet potatoes and a book.

And that was my weekend, less the fun social parts. We cooked a lot and talked a lot and Bret played his guitar. That’s the time I spent in Bulongwa.

Because “ndiyo”, the Swahili equivalent of “yes”, is long and literally means something like “it is so”, Swahili speakers tend not to use it that much. Even after I picked up on this I kept using it, out of laziness and because I liked saying it. But I started to feel weird, not because anyone seemed to judge me for it but because they used it so infrequetly.

They grunt instead. It can be best phoneticized as “eh” (although they write it as “ee”). It’s actually a really useful word, if you want to call it that: it indicates vague confirmation without the certainty of “ndiyo” and can also be used as “uh-huh” or if you can’t figure out what someone’s saying because they’re talking too fast. So I’ve been working on my “eh”. I think it’s getting pretty good, and it’s becoming natural to stick an “eh” in if someone pauses in their monologue or looks at me quizzically. I’m rather enjoying it.

One of the things I was happiest to receive in the bag my parents sent to me was a very nice potato masher, the one we’d been using at home for the past couple years. I felt guilty for depriving them of such a good potato masher but at the same time was very pleased to have it.

Today I decided to use the potato masher; I boiled my sweet potatoes, mixed in powdered milk and margarine…but the potato masher wasn’t there.

It had been in a container of other tall cooking implements: chapati roller, spatula, breadknife, that was sitting in front of the window until the second time someone stole bread out of the window, at which point I moved it to remove temptation.

Looking back, the potato masher wasn’t in the container when I moved it. Temptation had already been given in to, and my potato masher had disappeared.

The disappearances of the bread left me disappointed, and sad, but that someone stole my potato masher makes me downright angry! Bread can be rationalized–he or she was hungry. My emotions were diminished by the fact that it was pretty terrible bread. But there is no conceivable reason for someone to steal my potato masher besides a desire to mess with me. I think I know what student did it, and I think she knows that I know, but there’s nothing I can do besides keep the window closed and be rude to her. And mash potatoes with a fork.

As I walked from my house to the school buildings this morning, my ever-wandering brain began to dwell on my time in State College two summers ago, at an REU. Now it’s hard for me to even remember what I was researching, something about the conductivity of ultra-cooled somethingorother. The research never really grabbed me like my holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal research at Drexel did, and so I went to work, did my tests, and stayed no later than I had to. I was living in an apartment with three other girls and we chatted but didn’t really get close: I didn’t mind being alone and they didn’t mind leaving me alone. Most of what I did that summer was drive my beloved decrepit ’88 Volvo station wagon around the mountains of State College, admiring the views and visiting the local thrift stores (which are pretty fantastic). I spent a lot of time online, watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books. I visited the library once or twice a week. It was a nice, if not particularly stimulating, way to spend a summer.

I was in State College for ten weeks over the summer between junior and senior years of college.

I’ll be in Tanzania for 110 weeks between graduating from college and the rest of my life.

And yet so far, the situations are very similar to me. There are definite differences, of course: in State College, when the mood struck me, I could drive home to visit my family and see a concert in D.C., drive up to Philly to visit my college friends and see a concert there, and be back at work without missing more than two days. Here, family and college friends are an ocean away, and I have no car, but there are other friends nearby, my fellow PCVs with whom I am already close. In State College I had roommates living in the same apartment but chose not to socialize much; here I’d love to socialize more but don’t have the time, money, or energy to visit more often than every other weekend.

But the experiences are shockingly similar. Both here and in State College I love the environment, really enjoy being in the mountains, but am somewhat apathetic about the work (horrible to say but completely true). Both here and in State College I’m being paid by the government to live in a place I enjoy living and do work I’m willing to do. I don’t often talk to other Americans (talking to Tanzanians, although enjoyable, is not the same); I indulge in a lot of hobbies that I can do alone in my room: reading (both here and there); playing the mandolin (here); watching movies (both); sewing and knitting (both); chatting online (not here, and although I feel its lack I think it’s a good thing). In both places I am content to be solitary, I don’t mind spending time by myself, in my own space, doing what I want.

The main difference is the span of time. Already I’ve spent more time here at site than I spent in State College, and although the feeling of temporariness is lessened with a longer span of time, I’m still very aware that my presence here is not permanent, that there will be a time in the not-that-distant future when I start sentences “when I was in the Peace Corps in Tanzania…” rather than “well, here in Tanzania…”

Weeks here pass by so quickly, days so slowly. The cognizance of the limits of my time here is good and bad: even as it keeps me sane, setting bounds–I measure time by the next time I’ll see other Americans, the next time I’ll see friends, the next time I’ll see family–it justifies my remaining at home, inert, doing only the job I was sent here to do. But for me, for now, that’s enough. As I remind myself when I feel like a terrible teacher, when I wish I wanted to do more for the students, I’m better than nothing. And that much, at least, is true.

(Several of you have expressed concern over my mental state. I’m quite fine, but I tend to write blog posts only when I’m thinking about things and need to work them out, which means that you only see the side of me that’s discontented. By and large I’m quite happy here, I do love the mountains, and I’m adjusting to the cold.)