AIDS week

All of Tabora is in a spin over the President's (alleged) visit which is (allegedly) to occur today or tomorrow to celebrate national AIDS week. Tabora is the region on which the celebrations are concentrated this year so there is a big festival-type deal going on at a nearby oval. The last two days have been insanely frustrating and have really revealed to me how people go nuts trying to get anything done in Africa. Yesterday there was a neverending trek between the District Commissioner's office and HAPO in order to get permission for us to take photographs of the President's (alleged) visit. No, they said, you cannot take photographs as you are not Tanzanian. But, you can give your cameras to members of the Tanzanian press corpss and THEY can take photographs using your camera. Tempting as it was to hand over our cameras to total strangers, we declined this option. Anyway, here are some more pics.

This is my bedroom - the novelty of the mosquito net has started to wear off a little, especially when I forget its there and get tangled up trying to get out of bed without untucking it first (this tends to happen in the middle of the night)

And, this is the family of Christina which I visited yesterday to make sure Mama Christina was all right. Last week I went with Sheki to check on her as Christina said she had been sick for two weeks. When we got to the house she could barely stand up, let alone walk. I asked why she hadn't been to hospital and she said she was waiting to get together some money for a taxi. We bundled her into our cab (with her younger sister who had the youngest baby strapped to her) and took her to the hospital, where I gave her ten dollars and told her to buy medicine. When we went back yesterday she was her usual smiley self and said she had had a very bad case of malaria. Anyway, here is the family.

Mimi ni fundisha wimba

This is me trying gallantly to implement our brilliant plan to teach the children the song "Down to the River to Pray". Needless to say I needed a valium at the end of it but they did get the general gist and it was great to hear, even though I felt uncomfortably like a missionary within five minutes of hearing the words "Good Lord, show me the way" being sung in Swahili accents. Seemed like a good idea at the time...

Catch my disease

Today we had the AIDS talk.

Rumour has it that President Kikwete is coming to Tabora in the first week of December to promote international AIDS day on 1 December. Kikwete has been pretty good about encouraging AIDS awareness and even started the “know your status” campaign by publicly going to a clinic and being tested (his status wasn’t publicly revealed, but the point was that he got himself tested). A larger and (for the cynics) harder-to-believe rumour is that he will come to HAPO and open the new computer room that has been built with the funds raised by Holly, a former volunteer. Anyway, we decided that in the lead-up in to this alleged visit (I am amongst the cynics, in case that wasn’t clear), we’ll try to get in some lessons on UKIMWI (AIDS). Lots of the children have been orphaned by AIDS, two (that we know of) are HIV+, several have a queried status and many, we can assume, are affected by it in some way or another, as why else would both parents be dead in the 20s? We thought: a good lesson on how you can and can’t get AIDS; what to watch out for; what to do if you have it; how you have to be tested to know you have it; et cetera. This would include a safe sex talk (obviously). Our kids range from 7 to 16 years old so many of them are definitely in the market for a sex talk. We imagined.

Selling this to Mama, however, was another story entirely. We asked her to prepare a lesson on AIDS and this morning she called us into the office to say she had been going through several AIDS education books donated by former volunteers. She wanted each of us to read one of these books to the class (in Swahili) and she would basically commentate along the way. So we had a look at these books. The first one was about how you can’t get AIDS (sharing plates and cups, hugging, shaking hands, coughing, sneezing, playing football). The second one was about who can get AIDS (fat people, thin people, babies, black people, white people). The third one was about who can get AIDS (business people, sheikhs, reverends, taxi drivers, poor people, wazungu). The fourth one was about what to eat if you have AIDS so you stay healthy (spinach, ugali, rice, meat, fish, eggs).

So…. Fascinating. Very informative. There was just one problem.

Where did it explain how you do get AIDS?

“Here it is, Mama!”, says Mama (she calls us all Mama), opening up the first book. On the second-last page, there’s a picture of two toothbrushes and two razors.

Right. Don’t share your toothbrush and don’t share your razor. Two pieces of advice that have definitely halted the march of AIDS across East Africa.

Here’s where it gets tricky, you see.

“So, Mama,” I say, pausing (totally out of character, I know) to consider how to say the following, “do you think we can take some of the older children aside and talk to them about some of the other ways you can get AIDS? Like through breastfeeding, for example?”

Mama gives a smile that says damn these wazungus, marching in here with their wazungu ideas, trying to tell me, a teacher of 30 years, how to teach Tanzanian children about UKIMWI. But they pay for this program so I must indulge their questioning.

“It is not our culture, Mama,” she says. “We do not talk about these things in a sharp way. We talk slowly, slowly. It is not in our culture to talk to young children about such things. In Form One, Form Two, then we have this kind of talk. But not with children in Standard 3, Standard 4.”

At this point I forced myself to keep going even though I was privately having the culture vs. life preservation conversation with myself.

“The problem, mama,” I said very carefully, “is that the vast majority of people who have AIDS got it either from having sex with someone who has AIDS, or from their mother. Very, very few people get it from a razor or from a toothbrush.”

(Read: bloody no one ever gets it from a toothbrush; has there ever been a documented case of someone getting it from a toothbrush?)

Ultimately she gave in and agreed that we would have a general talk with the whole group, and then take aside a select group of older children, separate them by gender and talk to them in a separate room. We did count that negotiation as a success, though, because I was there for the girls’ talk and although I could understand about one word in nine and the girls spent a lot of time giggling their heads off, it seemed like the message got through in the context of keeping safe, staying home and not engaging in activities that would invite HIV, like sleeping at the train station (here there were some pointed looks at Zawadi).

It gave me some pretty good insight into how AIDS education happens here. Even though Tanzania is one of the better African countries in terms of AIDS education and encouraging public discussion of the issues, today really revealed that culture still plays a huge part in the extent to which the accurate message gets through. I get the point that a 7 year old is too young to learn how to put a condom on a banana, but if they think that a 16 year old, by definition, has no need to know about the connection between AIDS and sex, they are surely kidding themselves. I’ve always been conflicted over the relationship between culture and human rights, but I do believe in certain moral imperatives and surely, surely, the preservation of life should take precedent over the expectations of culture. I mean, in the ’80s when the AIDS thing happened in the West, sex education wasn’t really high up on the educational agenda for us either. Can anyone imagine learning how to put a condom on a banana in Year 8 25 years ago? But that’s what the kids in Australia are doing now, right? We had to acculturate in accordance with changes that AIDS created in society. Why isn’t it right to expect that the same thing should happen in a society that has been far more ravaged by the disease than ours has? Again, credit where credit is due; they do talk about it here. But it seems like the focus (at least at HAPO, who knows what goes on everywhere else) is on decreasing stigma of people who have it, rather than being upfront and honest about how to avoid it.

Today we sent Jeni home with a temperature of 39.5C. Malaria, of course (here, all you need is one hand on your forehead and the other on the suspect to “diagnose” malaria. It seems only wazungu are indulged with a blood test). The truck is still broken down so she had to walk the whole way home (about 4 km). Mama just told her to get her Bibi to take her to the hospital tomorrow. Jeni was crying as she left and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except give her paracetomol. I have never seen a disease hit so many people in such a short space of time – not measles, not chicken pox, not a cold, not the way-overdiagnosed “flu”, nothing. Everyone has it all the time, it’s just ridiculous. It’s so debilitating; the kids end up out of school for days on end; they stay home from school looking after sick family members; they can’t concentrate when they do make it to school. It seems insane that mosquitoes could rule an entire country, and yet, indirectly, they do. Everyone send good vibes to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the hope their research finds a malaria cure soon. It’s just far too frustrating to think that life in Africa will continue to be so bloody unfair.

Malaria Tally Update

Count now stands at seven. Jason II has it now (Jason I got it last week). And the Sekasua's grandson Andrew got it on Monday (although he wasn't taken to the hospital; they just started him on meds but only after I insisted he was running a fever and was like a different child). Funny, people in the West flip out if their kid has a fever and I can't imagine what the average white mother would do if their kid contracted malaria. Yet here, people show more concern when looking for their chickens. There was 7-year-old Andrew standing about looking like death on a death and running a temperature of 39C and Mama is chatting away with all the calm in the world. It's just life here (and, for people who can't afford medicine or to keep themselves strong and healthy, sometimes death).

This is getting ridiculous. I mean, a cold wouldn't spread through this many people, and you can't even catch malaria from anything but a mosquito! I am starting to wonder if the rumour is true; that anything resembling a fever and aches and pains here is diagnosed as malaria (well, I suppose that's better than it being diagnosed as AIDS). Is there a grand national conspiracy to falsely accuse everyone's blood slide of being riddled with malaria parasites? and if there is, WHY? And possibly more disturbingly, if it isn't malaria, then what is it? Sandra has been horizontal since Friday. Somehow I don't think she's faking it. It's very strange, and even more strange is the wait for it to inevitably hit me. Seeing this many people come down with it has certainly lessened the fear I had, but let's face it, it's not something I want. Mosquitoes have evolved here to the point where you can neither hear them flying nor feel them biting. You only know there are mosquitoes around once you have been bitten. And they are tough thugs, too. They just laugh off the ordinary repellent, which means my feet have started to wrinkle and go grey from applying 80 per cent DEET every night. Vanity certainly takes a distant second to health around here.

Ex-Paticularities

Pics: Juma, my new favourite. he never used to smile when he first came to HAPO but on Friday he blew me kisses (we taught them that).

Walking back from sports day

Chris and Tom, the ex-Zim tobacco farmers, with Anne Marie on Friday night

Sunday morning and I’m drinking instant Nescafe, with boiled yellow tap water and long-life milk. Mmm, delicious. Number on my list of edible cravings: a glass of cold milk (preferably with a Mint Slice biscuit or three, which my dearest mama makambo (stepmother) is arranging to send me. Not sure she can also include the milk, though). And why didn’t I listen to Kendall when she said bring Vegemite? Why? Why?

This weekend we had a visit from the Big Cheese in the UK, Simon Headington, who began Volunteer Africa in the early ’90s and has had a working relationship with Mama and the Doctor ever since. It was his first time out to Tabora since volunteers starting working here late last year and we were all slightly on edge about his visit because we had heard that the one volunteer so far who hated the program had sent a 13-page email to him outlining all her complaints and criticisms of the project. We arrived at HAPO at 9 on Friday morning as usual and, in typical Tanzanian style, we surprised with an unscheduled and unstructured four and a half-hour meeting in which the Singida project people told us about HAPA and the Tabora project people told us about HAPO. Needless to say it was total murder, particularly when meetings here always involve us volunteers being forced to watch the Tanzanian contingent engage in their favourite sedentary activity – digital exploration of the nasal canal. Yes, nose-picking is part of the lifestyle here and the subject of endless speculation amongst us temporary ex-pats. Let’s face it, everyone does it in some form or another, but in my world, anyone who gets caught doing it within a five-mile radius of another human being is considered the scum of the earth. Here, there’s absolutely no hint that it even occurs to anyone to be private about it; no one ever tries to turn their head or use a handkerchief. I’ve even engaged in anthropological experimentation by locking eyes with someone doing it to see if that has an effect. Nope. Round and round those fingers go; when one digit finishes a circuit or two, the next one on the hand gets a look in. Combining that knowledge with the other Tanzanian cultural imperative – shaking hands with absolutely everyone and then continuing to hold hands while you ask about each other’s families, children, houses, work, days and weekends – means it is very difficult to resist engaging in the ex-pat cultural imperative – surreptitiously reaching for the pocket-sized bottles of hand-sanitiser. Obviously it makes me think twice before I bite my nails around here.

Simon and his colleague Katie visited us (unannounced) at home yesterday for a chat about the vol perspective of the program. His biggest concern regarding volunteers seemed to be how often and to what degree we socialise here. There were stories about former vols bringing men back to the house; about vols going out drinking every night of the week, and while this is problematic simply because your mind is supposed to be on the kids, not on getting paralytic, it’s also an issue because of the impression of wazungu it gives to the locals. It was somewhat unfortunate, however, that we had to talk about this after having stayed out all night the night before; none of us except malaria-ridden Sandra had had any sleep at all and had just gone down for a nap at 2pm when Mandi yelled “you guys, get up, Simon’s here!” (this was after an earlier unscheduled visit from Mama and the Doctor at 9am which involved Adela banging on my window to let her in, and then me going to the door in my shorts, not realising the Doctor was there too and then madly scrambling around for a kanga). Luckily we were able to say truthfully that we only leave the house two nights a week, and that staying out till 6 is most definitely an exception to the rule. Well, usually. Is it ok to say a lot of the time?

We go to the Tabora Hotel every Friday and Saturday night and each week it’s so formulaic… we get there at 8 or so, the food takes the requisite hour to arrive, the band starts at 10 and plays the exact same songs in the exact same order interspersed with the exact same comments from the bandmaster, we have the exact same lovely drinks waiter who takes care of us all night, and we dance to the exact same selection of Tanzanian Top 40 when the DJ comes on at about 1am. Yet it’s always fun, particularly the Hanky Dance (see picture) which none of us can understand the meaning of but is a Tabora Hotel institution (basically involves waving a white cloth around while the band sings instructions: “kushoto, kulia, kushoto, kulia… Mmechoka mmechoka? (left, right, left, right.. are you tired?”.

This particular Friday I started chatting to two ex-Zimbabwean tobacco farmers (see pic) who now live in Tabora and who the others know a little (one of them is dating an ex volunteer who is coming back here next month). Both lost their farms in the violence surrounding Mugabe’s Land Reform initiatives in the early 2000s, but wouldn’t discuss any details when I asked them to talk about it. After drinking three-quarters of a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, one began to talk about his time in the Rhodesian Army in the independence war of the 1970s. When I asked him if he had read two of the most mesmerising books I had ever read – “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” and “Scribbling the Cat” by Alexandra Fuller, the first the memoirs about the author’s life as the daughter of Rhodesian farmers, the second about her relationship with an ex-Rhodesian soldier – he told me that he actually knew all the men in the second book. He was able to tell me exactly which pseudonym belonged to which person; that he knew the tattoo on the protagonist’s shoulder and that he had served in the army with two of the others.

It was amazing to hear this because that book had a huge effect on me and I remember my heart going out to the man on whom the book was focused; that he was a broken man who had seen and done terrible things for reasons he believed in wholeheartedly at the time but that now haunted and destroyed him. Then there I was, sitting next to a man who alluded to (but would not detail) many of the same things and appeared to me to be as broken as the man in the book. We’re all broken men, he said. I’m no hero. I did things I thought were right at time but they were terrible, I did and I saw terrible things. One thing about the army, he said, is that they never teach you how to grieve. I asked him if he had ever really told his story to anyone. He said he once told a total stranger, that he broke down and cried but had never told anyone else, not even his wife. His best friend was killed in the war, his marriage had broken down and he had been chased off his land and lost his family farm and was living in Tanzania alone. He was 47 years old and looked 60. And yet he adored Africa and had never left its shores. It was an amazing interaction which obviously took my mind off the dance floor, even though everyone around me continued to get soddenly drunk and insist that Anne-Marie riverdance for us.

Yet the wazungu image is a source of internal conflict, as it always is for me. At one point the drinks bill came for the 8 or so people who were drinking and it was a whopping TzSh82,000 (about $80). I felt horrified by this, not because $80 is a lot of money but because TzSh82,000 is about six weeks’ salary here and I hated the image of wazungu that this bill must have reinforced for the staff. At another point some of us were playing pool and one of the pilot boys leaned over the table and pulled his pants halfway down his ass before taking his shot. This is certainly not acceptable behaviour here (as far as I’m concerned it’s not acceptable anywhere but you know what Aussie pubs are like) so I was completely mortified and yelled at him, then apologised profusely to the waiter who was standing nearby, then insisted that the pilot apologise to him too. The guy accepted the apology but he wasn’t happy. All this, then added to the fact that everyone except me got horrendously drunk and were the last ones in the place (by this time we had joined tables with the tobacco guys), singing Irish folk ballads at the tops of their lungs and yelling at me for not being trashed like them. The whole evening gave me much to think about and it was fairly hilarious to immediately follow it with a three-hour discussion about the behaviour of volunteers at HAPO. Granted, this night was definitely an anomaly and we are a hardworking and dedicated group of volunteers who are certainly focused on the program and not on socialising. But it’s funny that how no matter how hard I try, how sober I stay or how earnestly I apologise on someone else’s behalf, there will always be times when I will be embarrassed here just by virtue of the fact that I am white.

Malaria Tally

The malaria count between the volunteer house and the houseful of pilots now stands at six (not six currently, just six in the last six weeks or so). Rebecca got it four days before she left last weekend; Sandra was diagnosed with it yesterday; Marieke had it while she was here; Matt and Ed had it about a month ago; and last weekend we had to rescue Jason from the plane because he intelligently decided to be diagnosed with it and then do his usual 10-hour flight shift the next day. Needless to say that only lasted about an hour and we had to drag him from the plane sweating and shivering and fairly embarrassed to be doing both in front of chicks. He was also fairly sheepish when I asked him politely if he would consider being slightly more dedicated to actually taking his Doxycyclin from now on. Boys – honestly. The whole malaria thing is quite strange as we have been told it’s impossible for so many of us to have had it, and that when you get it you think you’re actually going to die. But, each person who has gone to the hospital for a blood test has been told they have malaria parasites in their blood and we can’t think of a reason we would be told that if it wasn’t true – it’s not like the hospital sells the treatment regime or that the drugs are even expensive (about $3 for a course). Sandra and a few others even looked at theirs under the microscope and the Doctor knows what he is looking for and would have no reason to tell his volunteers they have malaria when they don’t (it’s bad enough PR for him anyway). I don’t freak out about it anymore, I am basically just waiting my turn as we can only do so much to prevent it and the rest is up to Mungu (God). I’m more surprised to have not caught anything from the kids yet, as you know what kids are like with their coughs and colds… but I will stop with the disease talk now in case it tempts Fate.

More Pictures

Me with Elizabeti and Jeni

Sappy, one of my favourite kids - fierce and passionate

The girls (now minus Rebecca) at the Tabora: L - R Mandi, Sandra, Anne-Marie, Me and Rebecca

Adela making chappatis for dinner yesterday

Me with Kulwa and Iddi

Ground Zero

I’ve had a few Ground Zero experiences in the last week or so.

Last Monday the Doctor took us out to visit a village about an hour and a half from Tabora, where there is a school that Africare supports as one of its outreach projects. We rode in the back of the Africare truck on a packed dirt road for about 45 minutes, then turned off onto a dirt track and then another dirt track and then another one, which took a further hour or so. It’s pretty hard to describe the scenes we rode past – just that there were these mud huts in the middle of the biggest Nowhere I have ever seen, populated by chickens, half-naked toddlers, headscarved bent-double women and the occasional goat, all wandering about or squatting underneath leafy trees dripping with mangoes that dotted an otherwise very dusty, red landscape. Every now and then there’d be a village along the track, and by village, I can only say they qualified because there was more than one mud hut and at least one woman sitting under a tree selling tomatoes in fungus (piles of four). It was almost impossible to realise that many people who lived here would be born, live and die in the same square kilometre of land. Although that being said, we passed hundreds of people just walking, walking walking… from where? To where? I never found out, but man, did they look patient. Lucky no one in this country is ever in a hurry (and by that, I mean I trip over people walking in front of me because I am physiologically incapable of walking as slow as Tanzanians).

When we got to the village we went to the school and parked in the middle of the quadrangle. There were seven teachers at this school, seven classrooms and 550 students (yes, you read that right). We went into one classroom and all the students rose, dumbstruck, and said “shikamoo” (that’s the Tanzanian greeting to someone older than you… you say “marahaba” in return) with their hands touching their heads (more respect). It’s possible many had never seen wazungu before, living, as they were, in Ground Zero Africa (I don’t think it’s possible to get any closer to real, living Africa than the trip to this village). There were one hundred and fifteen students in this one classroom (yes, you right that right too), and walking in was like crashing an assembly, not a classroom. I tried to take a picture but I couldn’t begin to fit all the kids in the one frame, so I took three pictures (above) of the same classroom to try and at least attempt to communicate how many children were attempting to get an education in this one room. At HAPO, we work with the children in the classroom every day. We have 35 kids and there are four of us plus a teacher and every two seconds there’s a kid pulling on our arms saying “Sister Liza..... mwalimu (teacher)… mimi fundisha (teach me)”. I can’t begin to imagine how anyone could successfully teach over a hundred students at once. In case I haven’t successfully communicated the pattern here, there is a severe shortage of teachers, desks, classrooms and school latrine facilities in this region (in Tanzania in general, but I only know specifically about Tabora). The average classroom size is 45 to 50 students which is massive by Australian standards, and here I was standing at the front of a classroom with 110 kids. It blew my mind.

All the teachers came to meet us and then we went to visit each classroom, where the kids were made to stand up and say “good morning, our sisters”. Needless to say they loved the digital camera experience and were very well-behaved and quiet until the second we left the room, at which point we heard them cracking up into gales of laughter. Once all the classes were let out the entire school convened on the quadrangle to get a better look at the wazungu and line up to have their photo taken with us. The most hilarious part of this experience (and it’s a close competition) was the way they couldn’t get the hang of staying in one place to have their picture taken… so in attempting to get a picture of me surrounded by hundreds of kids, Rebecca ended up being pursued by a giant wave of miniature, uniform-clad humanity who moved in a pack while singing. I have the video, it’s hilarious. This school had less than nothing but when we left, the headmistress heaved a huge sack of peanuts onto the back of the truck as a gift. It left me feeling very small and very big at the same time.

On the way home we visited a high school at another village where the staff wanted money to build a dormitory to house all the children who want to attend high school but live too far away to attend. At the moment these children are living in one room, all together, boys and girls. Total cost of building a dormitory with separate rooms for boys and girls and provision of food every day for all: $13,000. Everything here costs an absolute maximum of a tenth of what you would imagine. Mangoes are 15 cents. Four tomatoes cost 10 cents. It’s an advantage for tourists and fantastic if you ever want to come here and feel like you are making a difference in people’s lives… but the only problem is government corruption.

Today I went to visit the home of two of our girls, Zaituni and Zawadi (zawadi means “gift” in Swahili) who live with their aunt in Kiloleni on the other side of the tracks (literally, not figuratively… the train line runs right through Tabora). Zawadi has been consistently absent from HAPO and on the weekend the kids found her at the railway station, about to board a train with a man she had met who (we found out today) promised to give her food and clothes take her to Dar. Originally we thought it was a woman she met, which happens a lot because in Swahili there is no distinction between she and he so Swahili speakers often mix them up in English. Zawadi is a real wild spirit and runs away a lot, but to me, there must be something fairly seriously wrong for a little girl to spend three days without food rather than go home or come to HAPO (our kids often don’t eat at home). Zaituni also seems troubled – she’s very bright and has been chosen to attend boarding school next year (sponsored by a former volunteer) but there always seems to be something bothering her. So Mandi and I, Mr Mwendapole (the program coordinator) and Sheki and drove out to Kiloleni to visit. When we got there Zawadi took one look at us and ran, but was hotly pursued by Sheki who brought her (sheepishly) back to talk. We were invited in to her house by the aunt, who, according to Zawadi, is a heinous abusive witch. But this woman (who seemed no older than 30 so I can’t believe she’s the older sister, and there were four other children in the house) seemed really nice and made us sit down on these wooden planks while she squatted in the corner next to a pile of charcoal and some cooking pots. This room had no ceiling and no floor, just mud on the ground and the walls. Zawadi herself seemed extremely withdrawn and answered our questions with a minimal amount of communication.

Anyway at the end of it, we went back to HAPO and discussed the possibility that one or both girls are being interfered with, to put it delicately. Zaituni is a lovely little girl but she often has these inexplicable moods, while Zawadi is running away from home and exhibiting behaviour that concerns us: last Saturday we had a sports day, and while the children were standing in line waiting, Zawadi started messing around with another girl in a sexually suggestive way. She’s only ten years old and there’s no MTV or internet or sexy magazines here for her to see that kind of thing, and Tanzanian society is very modest about sex (except on the dance floor where all bets are off, but that’s a story for another post) so we can’t imagine she just generated that behaviour without someone showing it to her. Anyway, not to keep writing about entirely miserably depressing things… the upshot is that we spoke to Mama and Sheki about possibly taking all the girls aside and talking to them about their bodies and their rights. Also, we are going to call in a psychiatrist to talk to Zawadi alone, which is something that has been planned for all the children but had taken some time to eventuate. I think the suspicion we have about Zawadi’s home life might help to speed up the process and put psychiatric evaluations on the top of the agenda.

I realise I keep writing about the sad stuff but that’s only because they are the experiences that resonate the most. It’s definitely not all doom and gloom here, far from. Every day I have a little connection with a kid, and it’s always a different kid; like yesterday, I went over to Iddi, who I’d never spoken to before, and I touched my nose to his, and we had a whole conversation and I learned his name. It’s a fantastic feeling when I arrive there in the afternoons and the kids yell “Sister Liza!” and come running for hugs and hand-holding. One of the funniest things so far is the kids’ discovery (Christina made it and then it spread through HAPO) that my legs are only smooth every third day, and that the rest of the time, they could prick their fingers on them. Africans don’t shave their legs so I had to explain this to Christina by pointing to her head (all the kids have their heads shaved every few weeks, I think just because it’s easier and cleaner) and making the shaving sign, then pointing to my legs and doing the same, while explaining that shaving is something mzungus have to do even if Africans don’t. Christina thought this was the most hilarious and ridiculous thing she had ever heard and dragged other kids over to me, grabbing their hands and guiding them to my legs to feel them. Then they all had to compare the hair on my arms to their enviously hairless skin, so by the end of this examination, I was feeling quite the hairy mzungu. But it’s worth it to see the reaction of each kid as they run their hands over my legs and literally recoil in shock, and then examine their fingers for an explanation!

Myahudi mbaya!

Just a quick one about a little incident today, which answered any questions I had about what (if anything) tanzanians know about Jews...

This morning I was hanging out with five or six kids in the classroom. I walked up to say good morning and Shela said "Salaam aleikum!" (she's never said that before and she said it in a joking way). I said "aleikum salaam!" and she and the others fell about laughing. Then the following exchange took place:

Shela: Wewe ni mwislamu? (are you a muslim?)

Me: Hapana, mimi si mwislamu. Mimi ni myahudi (no, I'm not a Muslim, I am Jewish.)

Shela and everyone else: MYAHUDI? MYAHUDI?

Me: Ndiyo, myahudi! (yes, Jewish!)

Everyone: Hapana! (no!)

Me: Ndiyo! (yes!)

Asha: Wewe ni Mchristo. (You are Christian.)

Me (pointing to everyone in turn): Hapana. Wewe ni Mchristo? Wewe ni Mwislamu? Wewe ni Mwislamu? Wewe ni mchristo? (No. You are christian? You are Muslim? You are Muslim? You are Christian?)

(everyone answers in the affirmative or negative.)

Me: Ah hah, halafu, mimi ni myahudi! (ah hah, then, I am Jewish!)

Dotto: Myahudi mbaya! (Jewish bad!)

Me: Myahudi mbaya? Nini? (Jewish bad? What?)

Dotto: Ndiyo, myahudi mbaya! (yes, Jewish bad!)

Me: Kwa nini? (why?)

(at this point everyone involved in the discussion begins an earnest pantomime. Sign one: someone being crucified. Sign two: the universal HAPO sign for piga-ing (see previous posts). then everyone shouts "Myahudi!" repeatedly while repeating the crucifixion and the piga-ing signs.)

[At this point my confidence falters somewhat as I try to work out how to introduce the concepts of historical context, stereotyping, tolerance, peaceful coexistence and biblical relativism to a bunch of swahili-speaking streetkids. In swahili. This is what I came up with:]

Me: Hapana, hapana, hapana. Hapana piga. Hapana myahudi mbaya. Watu nzuri. Mchristo nzuri, mwislamu nzuri, na myahudi nzuri. Halafu salama, amani! (No, no, no. No beating. No bad Jewish. All people good. Christian good, Muslim good, and Jewish good. Then peaceful, peace!)

Luckily, my little lecture seemed to get the point across; Dotto then said "Amani Tanzania!" (peace in Tanzania!) with which I could wholeheartedly agree.

I had to ask Sheki if we could all have a talk with the children about that perception, though. Maybe it will be yet another growing experience for them to spend time with a real live Jew... and one without a hook nose and a wad of money... actually, hold on, I do have a hook nose and I am a mzungu so I do have a wad of money... but hey, I never laid a hand on Jesus! Surely that must count for something?

Sweet Home Tanzania

After being in Tabora for a week, I realised that when I go home to Australia, I will have no job and no place to live. This realisation helps to alleviate sadness that might come with any bouts of homesickness and I came up with the brilliant idea that I would from now on think of my house in Tabora as home. I now live in Tanzania. Even though I have no actual address (the street I live on doesn’t have a name and you will find rocks from Saturn before houses with street numbers here), it helps to think of this dusty compound as home, even if just for the time being. I think of this as my life and it helps me to feel more settled.

Interestingly, I haven’t had a hard time getting used to anything that people talk about where visiting or living in a third-world country is concerned. I don’t mind the dust or the flies, I can take the heat, the food is fine and the people are lovely. Of course, I do realise that I have only eaten Adela’s tomato eggs, chapattis and cabbage salad once; have only been to the Tabora Hotel for dinner, pool and dancing three times; have only been living in a dustbowl for a week, and that my fairly benign feelings on these things may well change once the monotony of a set range of food and entertainment options sets in. The other girls spend much of their time now discussing the food they miss, having lost a total of 30 pounds between the three of them in the six weeks they’ve been here, and roll their eyes at the Tabora band which plays exactly the same music in exactly same order every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. To me it’s at once a novelty and something that felt very normal very quickly. Even though the week has gone by fast, I feel like I have been here a long time, in a familiar kind of way. Of course, it is still next to impossible to find my way around, but I’m still being patient.

Living with a group of strangers who have six weeks’ head start on me has its challenges but nothing at all to complain about. In fact in many ways, it’s amazing that five girls from five different countries can be bunged together in a house in the middle of nowhere and still want to talk to each other at the end of the day, and still have the ability to make each other laugh. The only thing I ever feel frustrated about where the living situation is concerned is how the others have absolutely no issue with leaving their dirty dishes for Adela to clean twice a day. To me, Adela is our cook and apparently our “housegirl” (if you can call a grown woman that) and we should be cleaning our own bloody dishes like the adults we are. However, the girls tell me I’ll “get used to it”. Problem is, I’m not sure I want to get used to it. I have never been able to handle the idea of one group of people waiting on another. Adela isn’t our maid, and even if she was I wouldn’t expect her to do my dishes (OMIans note: 10,000kms away and I am still harping on about the goddamn dishes!). But it’s the norm in this part of the world: Doctor and Mama have people who work for them in their house, and the pilots we hang out with on the weekends have a personal driver who sleeps in a tent in the front yard (to me, this latter example is very, very hard to accept). The average employed Taboran earns 2,000 Tz shillings (about $2) a day and supports a whole family on that wage. Most seem to be working in unskilled/domestic labour and it’s the way things are and have always been. But I don’t like it. And so I do my own dishes.

I’m getting much more used to the children and they are slowly beginning to take form in my head as individuals, rather than as a big anonymous mass of giggles and tickles. I know about 15 by name now (20 to go) and I had this pretty uplifting moment on Friday (see pictures) when I sat down with my back to the wall of HAPO and five or six kids came and sat down next to and on top of me. We were a big mass of arms and hands and kumbatia (hugs) and I felt they had sought me out specifically rather than simply responding shyly to my overtures. It was a great feeling, even though these kids are hungry for love and don’t need much encouragement at all to skip up to you, take you by the hand and say “Mwalimu! Wewe, mimi” (you and me, teacher) while dragging you off to a corner to practice saying vowel sounds. They are all fiercely protective of the volunteers so any non-HAPO kid who tries to talk to us is reprimanded while we are removed (most bossily) from the scene.

The little boy with me is Selemani, probably one of my favourites so far. Sele is deaf and his mother remarried a man who didn’t want him and used to lock him in a room, so his mother left him with his bibi (grandmother). He walks an hour and a half to HAPO every morning on his own. Apparently he can be seen taking little rests, lying by the side of the road.

Of course, Sele has had no therapy for his hearing impairment and was mute until he came to HAPO. Now he is starting to speak and it will be a long road, but I often see him chattering away in his own truncated form of Swahili which you can understand once you get to know him. He also is incredibly, incredibly bright and has developed an intricate system of sign language which he incorporates with these amazing facial expressions that well and truly get his point across, even though no one has ever tried to teach him to communicate. For instance, when he’s telling you a story, he drags his finger across his throat and then shakes it once at the ground, which means “I swear to god it’s true”. The frustrating thing is that he seems to be able to hear extremely loud sounds and may just need a hearing aid to turn his life around… but he is waiting for a place at the deaf school, where (apparently) he will be thoroughly tested. But while he’s waiting, he’s losing precious schooling time and it’s a shame because he is so bright. And very loving too. There’s something about having a once-mute, tiny, abandoned, Tanzanian 8-year old look at you and say “I love you”.

A piga and a cry

On Thursday, I had my first big test on how I would handle a significant cultural difference between Tanzania and Australia. It was 3pm and the children were gathered in the classroom for their daily afternoon lesson (Monday = Swahili, Tuesday = maths, Wednesday = health, Thursday = English, Friday = sport). The volunteers are normally supposed to take the English class, and this week the girls decided that after asking the kids to write out “hello, how are you, my name is, I come from” etc etc a thousand times over the last few weeks, that this week, we would try getting them in pairs and practising with each other in front of the class.

Giving instructions in Swahili is none of our strong points, so this is where we generally ask the local volunteers (Beatrice, Sheki or Daos) to explain. This week Daos was asked, but instead of simply giving the instructions and leaving the rest to us, he took over the class. Which involved going through each sentence painfully and embarrassingly with each pair (I don’t think they teach that way in Tanzania, so this method was a bit novel for the students and for Daos as well). Anyway, all may have been fine, except that Daos, for some reason, picked up the broom used to sweep the classroom, and started using it as a) a leaning post, b) a pointer, c) a tool with which to emphasise a point in the air, and d) a tool with which to emphasise a point on a student’s body.

I was sitting there watching and it bothered me from the start, the aggressive way he used this broom, even if he wasn’t actually touching anyone with it. But if you’re seven years old and have been called up to speak a foreign language in front of 34 other kids, I figure that positive reinforcement might go a lot further to helping the kid memorise the sentences than poking him with a broom might. I was already feeling quite tired and somewhat fed up with a few things and frustrated, so when this started happening I became really frustrated, not knowing my place, not knowing whether I should step in and say something, not knowing where that ever-elusive line is between providing “foreign expertise” – whatever the hell that is – and adapting to the cultural norms of my host country. The others weren’t doing anything and they have been here much longer than me, so it wasn’t right for me to do anything. I was thinking about how much I hated not being able to break that thing across Daos’s ass. If I saw someone being raped, I wouldn’t stand idly by, so why was I standing idly by now? My mind started to tumble down a hill and I thought, I can’t work here if they think it’s OK to hit the children. I just can’t.

While I was thinking this, one kid told on another (they love to tattle) and Daos told the criminal to stand up. The next thing I knew, the kid was holding out his hand and receiving a swift smack on his palm with the broom handle. All the volunteers went “hey! What’s happening? Why did you do that?” and we got some bullshit answer. The tears that were in my eyes as a result of my mind tumble just came cascading out and I had to leave the classroom. I went inside to the office and closed the door and just burst into tears. I felt so conflicted... I couldn’t work here if they were going to hit the kids. But it’s so part of everyday life here, they get hit in school and at home and it’s so ingrained into them that they come up to us, tell on someone and ask us to piga the offender… who was I to waltz in and impose my white moral righteousness after four days? But did I ever hate myself right then for not having the courage to make a stand.

I got myself together and walked out of the office and was immediately cornered by the Doctor, who was sitting outside with Sister Bernadette and Sheki. He took my hand and said “what is wrong?” I said “nothing, Doctor, I’m fine”. He looked at me intently and said again “what is wrong?” and I just couldn’t say “nothing” again, I couldn’t open my mouth because I was trying so hard to stop crying. He said “come, let us go and have a talk”, held my hand (lots and lots of hand holding in this country) and took me back into the office where I started crying again for real and apologising profusely through my tears (typical me… I’m the one upset and I’m doing the apologising). I said “I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m really sorry, I know I’m in Tanzania now, and I know things are very different here, and I know I must accept the differences… but where I come from, people don’t hit their children”. That was as much as I could get out because I was now weeping like a maniac.

He said “what hitting? Who is hitting the children?” I explained what had happened and that I felt really bad because I didn’t want to cause any trouble… politics, politics. The Doctor said “no. I don’t believe in hitting the children. There is no hitting here.” I was a hair’s breadth away from pointing out to him that it was Mama who is always threatening the children with piga-ing and Sheki who seems to administer them… but until now, never in front of the imported volunteers. It was hard to explain what I had heard over the last few days without implicating anyone, and I didn’t want to implicate anyone because I know they would have all been hit in school themselves and it’s completely normal for them.

Anyway, he was incredibly kind and understanding and told me about the time he was beaten in school for not collecting the students’ textbooks quickly enough… and then beaten again by the same teacher for supposedly slamming the door on the way out after the first beating. I explained that I felt so bad for these children as it is because they already have such difficult and sad lives, and that it would be nice if HAPO could be the one place they go where they are safe from such things. He agreed, and said that HAPO was supposed to be a safe place for all its children, and that the children in the program are “psychologically deranged” (I’m fairly certain he means psychologically damaged) and need to be cared for, protected and loved. He said he would speak to all the staff and make sure there’s no piga-ing. I don’t know what effect that will have or if it will actually happen, but I was very glad that he talked to me about it and was so open and understanding. I guess if I had come storming into his office and told him his program was rubbish and how dare he allow the children to be hit, it may have had a different effect. But tears can go a long way for a chick – and that, coupled with the fact that I was very careful to say I am not used to things being done this way, rather than you are doing things the wrong way, seemed to make everything work out fine. It was a good chance to bond with the Doctor too.

As it stands I think there are a hell of a lot of threats where piga-ing is concerned but not a lot of action. Regardless, even if Daos hadn’t actually hit Francis with that broom, I still would have been deeply disturbed by the aggressive and bullying way he was using it. I can’t imagine being able to learn with the handle of a broom in my face. But, I am living and working in a country where there are 45 to 60 students per classroom. It would be impossible to control that many kids (I can’t imagine being able to control one) so it figures that piga­-ing has become an ingrained part of society and of the school system. Sometimes I see whining screaming brats in the supermarket in Australia and secretly wish their parents would give them a swift kick in the ass… we were all smacked as kids and none of us are the worse for wear, right? But now we know it’s wrong, if only because all it does is teach children that you deal with difficulties with violence. There has to be a more constructive way of dealing with difficulty, and I do think the Doctor is on the same page…. I will see what happens in the coming weeks.

Tabora town and HAPO

Some pics above and around...

Houses on the outskirts of Tabora when we took the children home the other day after class. These pics are actually of the better houses (ie, they don't look like they're about to fall down, and are actually houses rather than rooms, which is how a lot of the kids live). People here don't like to be photographed (i don't blame them) so it's harder to get more intimate pictures than this.

Afternoon class at HAPO and three of the other vols: from left: Sandra, Mandi and Rebecca

Adela cooking our evening meal... I love the way Africans cook on the ground when there's a perfectly good benchtop :-) But it seems to make the food taste great...

HAPO kids getting there one daily meal provided by HAPO before starting the afternoon lesson

...and... a bad-quality picture of me with two kids whose names I don't know yet. Never shoot into the sunlight, right, mom??

Blog now private

I'm going to be writing some things about the program that may be critical or very private about the kids, so I've decided to make this blog private from now on. You all should have received invitations to view it (and wouldn't be reading this if you hadn't) so if there's anyone you know who wants to read it but can't , please get them to email me and I will send an invitation. It's better this way as I am now free to write what I want (and not get kicked out or sued).

Tried to upload more pics but had trouble so I'll try again first thing tomorrow.

Not Kansas

I am definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Day three of actual work at HAPO and today, at least, I feel like I was somewhat useful for most of the day. The first two days I kind of walked around like an idiot while the other four girls seemed to be very focused and discussing important-sounding issues like height-and-weight charts, files and the IGA (Income Generation Activities) program. Although the only instructions I was given were to “dive on in”, it can be daunting to try and do so on your first day when everyone around you has been living and working intensively and intimately for at least six weeks. That was a disadvantage to being the only person starting in Tabora at this time – at least if I was with other new vols, we could voice (what basically amounts to) insecurities to each other. As things stand now, sometimes it can be a little lonely, standing on the outer and trying to be part of the team while simultaneously trying not to barge on in and alter the way things have already been established. It’s a fine line and I am very lucky that the other girls are clearly a) very nice and genuine, and b) very good at and involved in their work with the children. Obviously I have a lot to learn and they are only too happy to teach me… but it will be a process that will take me a while to find my feet.

There are 35 kids currently in the program, selected according to a set of guidelines that establishes which children in the community are most in need of support. HAPO doesn’t only take on the children, it takes on the guardians too, in an attempt to help the families (such as they are, in many many cases) to learn about health and hygiene, education and self-reliance. I’ve read the kids’ files; none are living with both parents and many are living with their bibi (grandmother) who has the responsibility of numerous children and earns money for their keep by begging on the street. Many of the parents have run off (no one seems to know exactly where or, more importantly, why) or died (some from AIDS) and these poor old bibis, having never had to think about business and having lived hard lives raising their own children, now have to work out how to feed children who aren’t even theirs. The IGA project is designed to help the guardians generate income instead of begging and then leading the children into begging – some are making vitungua (rice cakes), others are selling charcoal, others are making shanga (Tanzanian beaded jewellery, of which the volunteers have bought at least a zillion Tz shillings’ worth). HAPO sells them the supplies and then asks to be paid back at a later time. It’s a worthwhile project and one with a real future, but of course, it’s very hard for some of these poor and uneducated guardians to work out that business means you have to sell something at a higher price than you bought it for. It will take some time and a lot of interaction – it means visiting the guardians in their homes, which I can’t wait to do (but am in line).

Yesterday I went with the children in the back of the truck to drop them all home after class at HAPO (they attend school in the mornings and then come to HAPO for the afternoon, where we teach them a different subject every day until 5.30pm). Many of the houses look like they were constructed with a few pieces of string and some mud (I’m not exaggerating… they were leaning worse than Pisa) and families live in one room in lots of cases. The roads are completely sand. That’s one thing I wasn’t expecting when I came here – I was prepared for unpaved/non-asphalt roads but I thought they’d be packed dirt. Wrong. They’re sand and you need a four-wheel drive to get through some sections. I can’t imagine what that would be like when it rains, but I guess I will find out in a few weeks when the much-needed mvuli (short rains) season starts. Anyway, the children who come to HAPO live on these roads in these mud brick buildings, and although I have seen images like this before (India, South Africa etc), it’s different when you have a relationship with the people living inside them. I mean, little Hawa gets off the truck – she’s palsied down one side and so her education was basically ignored until she came to HAPO – gives us a big smile, says “kesho!” (tomorrow) to us and limps into this mud hut. I spent this morning working with Hawa on her reading, painstakingly, slowly, and then off she goes to that house. It’s hard to imagine. And yet you can’t stop any of them from smiling.

Monday was the first day I have ever touched people I knew had AIDS. There are a few kids who have a query HIV status (it’s unclear whether there’s a definite distinction between HIV+ status and AIDS) but Maseli and Elisabeth both have AIDS and are taking medication which appears to be having the “Lazarus effect” I have read about (because Lazarus was raised from the dead). Elisabeth is still tiny for her age and undernourished, and she has the muscular wasting common to AIDS patients, but she has heaps of energy and was the first person I connected with on Saturday when I arrived. You’d never believe Maseli has AIDS, but apparently she looked worse than Elisabeth when she arrived at HAPO last year. It’s hard to look at both of them – they are adorable – and realise they won’t live like the other kids, or nearly as long. Apparently people only get tested here if they start to show symptoms, but once diagnosed, the government provides medication, so I suppose Tanzanians are luckier than Zimbabweans, for example (where Mugabe’s ministers have told people not to use condoms as they are infected by Westerners with HIV in an attempt to kill off Africans). And malaria – out of the 35 kids in the program whose files I looked at, only four showed no sign of malaria parasites in their blood slides. I’m told malaria is simply something people basically have all the time here – it never really goes away and they just learn to live with it. Despite these ongoing health problems, the kids are taught imperatives like hand washing and teeth-brushing, and it’s really cute to see them all lined up at the rainwater tank, brushing their teeth with the toothbrushes supplied by and kept at HAPO. They have a meal with us every afternoon and for most it’s the last real meal they get until the same time the next day. But it’s hard to get depressed over the poverty when they are all crowded around, laughing uproariously at my Swahili, looking at pictures of my family on my camera, and giving and receiving kumbatia (hugs) so freely. The Doctor is trying to get President Kikwete out here to open the computer lab on World AIDS Day (1 Dec) so we are going to put together an education program for the leadup to that. I am curious to see exactly what the President will be opening, since the “computer lab” is currently a pile of mud bricks and a few poles surrounded by piles of stones… but why not stay positive (no pun intended).

What I do get a little depressed and frustrated over here is the fact that the children get piga’d (beaten) by Mama Sekasua and Sheki. Not beaten like black-and-blue, just spanked, sometimes with a stick. Of course it’s a fact of life in Africa and everyone does it all the time, no politically-correct stuff like in Australia, and doing it to someone else’s kid isn’t even hesitated upon. But Mama and Sheki think it’s absolutely hilarious that the volunteers get upset (in fact, so do the children think it’s hilarious… they have factored piga-ing into their daily lives so completely that I saw four little boys on the beach in Dar bash a crab to death and then lift it up and start piga-ing it with much gusto and enthusiasm). This morning while I was tutoring Hawa, I raised my finger to her forehead to say “fikiri!” (think) and she flinched like I was going to hit her. Again, it’s the issue of the fine line between coming to “help” as a volunteer and coming to tell Tanzanians how to raise their children. Personally I can’t understand why Hadija should be beaten if Mama finds out she has been missing from her house for four days (considering she’s eleven). Wouldn’t it be more constructive to find out why? I’m hoping I won’t hear or see someone being really piga’d because I am afraid it might make me lose respect for the program and what they are doing here, and I don’t want that. I know Mama and the Doctor really, really love the children, and the children adore them too. Most of the time it’s a threat but it’s a threat that seems to work because most stay in school and come to HAPO every day.

I’m sure I’ll have loads more stories to tell about the children so I’ll leave it there and give you all an attempt at an impression of Tabora itself… this afternoon doing break I rode into town to find some kangas (material) to have some skirts made. Yes, rode. On an ancient, rattling bicycle with no brakes, through the sand. Has anyone ever tried to ride an African bike uphill through sand in the heat of the day? Yet it was weirdly rewarding once I got to one of the three bitumen roads with everyone yelling “Mambo mzungu!” at me and I joined the hordes of bikers on the main drag. In that way Tabora reminds me of Rottnest at peak hour… there are far more bicycles here than cars and I have to say that riding that bike through town today, I definitely felt like I was living in Africa (ok, so Rebecca had to take me, but one day soon I’ll do it myself… just as soon as I can find the way). All the streets are lined with flame and mango trees, and legend has it that the mango trees sprouted when slaves spat the pips out on their treks across the country all those years ago. It’s crazy to look at those trees and think about how they got there. It’s almost obscenely laid-back and calm, and all those bikes lend it a really relaxed feel. At first I was nervous about riding in town, but then I realised that everyone was riding and driving so slowly that I was unlikely to be hurt if I was actually knocked off! Tabora isn’t at all a one-horse town but it’s very far off the tourist map and it’s a dusty, windy, dusty, sandy, dusty (did I mention dusty?) place with little to see and nothing to do at night except read (glory be) and go to the Tabora Hotel on the weekends. Which suits me as I have been going to sleep before ten every night after reading for hours with the girls in the living room.,, just like in the days before television (not that I remember those). A big treat is Sunday nights when we all watch one precious episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Anne-Marie’s computer.

So, I think I am settling in slowly. Each day has been better than the last which is a good trend, even though I feel quite lonely at times… but even that is hard to get maudlin over if I just spend 60 seconds with one of the kids. Perspective, folks… it’s making a grown-up out of me.

Oh, and did I mention the dust?