Home, home, home! I’ve been home for three weeks now, and I don’t even know where to begin. I find that when I’m in a new place, or newly in an old place, things change about every five minutes. It is sometimes weird to be back, sometimes it’s not, and then sometimes it’s weird because it’s not weird. I haven’t talked about my experience much yet, but it comes out when I accidentally apologize in Swahili after crashing into someone on the dance floor, or say, “Oh at home we had – wait this is home!”
I’m trying to be really intentional about what habits and attitudes from Tanzania I hang on to (if that’s possible). I’d like to think that having seen so many different things, and things that were sometimes painful, has deepened my compassion in general. I hope I’ve been humbled by this experience, as oppose to having become self-righteous or judgmental. Every once in a while I find myself wanting to tell people that I think they are stupid, ungrateful, spoiled, or that their problems don’t matter. I honestly believe, though, that an individual’s experience – their issues, values, happiness – is valid and important no matter who they are. Your experience is really all you have. Just because most of the people in Tanzania don’t have the luxury (or burden) of worrying about which one of eight pairs of shoes looks best, or whether or not their house will fit a 100 person party, doesn’t mean all that isn’t important. Coming to terms with relativity is definitely a challenge for me, though.
There are some things that will just never be the same. Take movies for instance. I can’t just enjoy dumb movies. Women are over sexualized (or only sexualized) constantly, money is thrown around like it’s normal, and the movies make their way to Tanzania or who knows where else where the people have no idea that America isn’t actually like that (and worse they often try to be that). And I hate to be the girl that always points that stuff out, but it’s serious. We have no idea how we are affecting the rest of the world.
A lot of people that I’ve seen since I got back have been telling me to make sure I take care of myself, or other versions of that piece of advice. I really do appreciate it. The thing is that on some level I don’t see myself as separate from anyone else. It’s difficult to explain, but I guess I would say that I don’t necessarily believe in a “self.” I view “me” as just a piece of something that is completely interdependent and inseparable with the other pieces, kind of like one vantage point in something that has many vantage points.
So when I look at the world, I don’t look at it as “other” to “me.” This all sounds rather romantic but it’s actually very practical. We are inseparable. I think when people hear about the things I’m passionate about, like “peace studies” or whatever you want to call it, they think of some kind of do-gooder savoir attitude that is simultaneously idealistic (even unrealistic) and a lot of emotional responsibility. That’s not how I see it though. I’m just trying to play a role in the world that I feel comfortable with. I haven’t quit figured out how to articulate it yet, but I guess I just think that things are the way things are and I am a part of it no matter what. In order to contribute in a way that I want to, I need to both have a positive impact on other people and be happy myself. So it’s not like I see other people as needing to be “saved” or as me being someone who could ever do that. I don’t take it as a responsibility to change to world, I just want to transform the situations I’m in intentionally because I’m in them either way.
That being said, it is a little difficult to when people put me up on a pedestal. It’s like now that I have been to Africa and people have pigeon holed me into the “doo-gooder” role, what if I don’t live up to it? I dunnnno.
Anyway, since I got back I have been roped in to choreographing the musical at the high school I went to. It’s in three days, so I really only had two weeks. It’s fun, though, and it’s reminding me of how much I love choreography and dance, not just lindy hop. Oh, how I do love lindy hop, though. That’s for another post.
I have been thinking really hard about what to do with this blog. I would like to keep it going while transitioning into normal life, but it is very weird now that I realize how many people are reading it (and that I am around a lot of those people now). I think I will keep it going, though. Thanks to al of you that have been reading it. It helps a lot for me to articulate things that are hard to articulate and to feel like I have an outlet to voice my thoughts.
Until Next Time,
Sarah
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
On My Way
It's the last day! It's so crazy! I'm really sad, actually. Yesterday was great, though. Alainna, Kaliya, Melendy and I went to Njiro and smoked hookah after dinner. We had a really good conversation about a lot of different things, including how we have all grown up so much this semester and how it will be weird to go home. When we got home we watched a movie and then Melendy and I had pillow talk before going to sleep. It was a pretty great last night.
One of the things we talked about yesterday was the wealth/race issues that we have encountered while being here. The two people at the Center who work under Martha (one is in charge of us and one is in charge of the administration side) both essentially asked us for money this week. One of them emailed a few of us and one directly asked Alainna. Basically they want us to sponsor them or find sponsors for them to continue school.
At first I was pissed because I had the feeling that one of them (who I'm not too fond of) was heading in that direction ever since he came to the Center. I don't think someone in an authority position should be asking us for money, both because of the power dynamic where they have control over our grades and experience to some extent, and also because the Center used to be the one place besides our rooms where we didn't have to be 100% on our toes about people looking at us as the wealthy white kids.
It's hard though, because there are like 10 different perspectives that are all pretty valid. At home I take certain jobs or meet certain people for the purpose of making connections and creating more opportunities. And even here, on an individual level it might be the same thing. People need money to go to school so they set themselves up with jobs that will lead them to opportunities. On a large scale, though, so many people perpetuate this relationship of dependency. To give away money enforces the idea that white people will give Africans money.
No one really asks why it is that some people have obscene amounts of money and some people have none. Why is it that I have so much more money only because I was born into this skin and this nationality? All of a sudden I came here and people listen to what I have to say as if Barack Obama himself were giving them advice. Relatively, I'm a little kid. And yet, because I'm white I am treated like a royal voice of authority. They think white people are so nice because they "help" people here.
So when it comes to the people at the Center, it's a really difficult situation. on one level I'm really against them asking us for money. It feels like it reduces us to paychecks yet again, it's hard to say no when you feel like they have power over you, and it doesn't put you on an equal level. At the same time, though, economically we aren't equal. And we know a lot of wealthy people in the States, so it's only natural for them to try and take advantage of the opportunity (just like I probably will ask people for money when I want to do research or something).
How do we work together to address the root causes of the issues without perpetuating a dependent relationship and without disregarding the experiences and needs of individuals? I don't have the answer, but I think that it would be really valuable for someone here to lead a conversation around the issue amongst Arcadia staff and students. I also think I might start a group around it at school (there are a lot of other people who studied in Africa).
Overall, I'm just amazed at how every one of us grew up so much this semester. I'm really proud of the ways that I've been able to conquer my own racism and prejudices (don't judge, it's subconscious until you are forced to look it in the face - if you grew up in the US you can't avoid having had racism ingrained into you on some level). I also feel like we have all gotten really good at things that seem simple but aren't. For instance, dealing with people trying to sell us stuff on the street. I didn't want to be rude in the beginning so I was really, really nice. Honestly, though, it's kind of patronizing to be overly nice to people because you feel bad for them (which, as much as I don't want to admit it, I did in the beginning). Now I'm always nice, but I'm firm, and it's not weird anymore. If you treat people like people then it's a lot easier to be respectful in way that isn't rude or overly nice. Some of my favorite friendships came out of meeting people on the street, and it's sad that I probably won't ever talk to them again.
I'm excited to go home and I'm sad to leave. I'm most excited for being able to go out without having to be on or constantly aware of the fact that I'm white. I will miss people here, though, and I imagine that the learning is only beginning.
See you on the other side...
Sarah
One of the things we talked about yesterday was the wealth/race issues that we have encountered while being here. The two people at the Center who work under Martha (one is in charge of us and one is in charge of the administration side) both essentially asked us for money this week. One of them emailed a few of us and one directly asked Alainna. Basically they want us to sponsor them or find sponsors for them to continue school.
At first I was pissed because I had the feeling that one of them (who I'm not too fond of) was heading in that direction ever since he came to the Center. I don't think someone in an authority position should be asking us for money, both because of the power dynamic where they have control over our grades and experience to some extent, and also because the Center used to be the one place besides our rooms where we didn't have to be 100% on our toes about people looking at us as the wealthy white kids.
It's hard though, because there are like 10 different perspectives that are all pretty valid. At home I take certain jobs or meet certain people for the purpose of making connections and creating more opportunities. And even here, on an individual level it might be the same thing. People need money to go to school so they set themselves up with jobs that will lead them to opportunities. On a large scale, though, so many people perpetuate this relationship of dependency. To give away money enforces the idea that white people will give Africans money.
No one really asks why it is that some people have obscene amounts of money and some people have none. Why is it that I have so much more money only because I was born into this skin and this nationality? All of a sudden I came here and people listen to what I have to say as if Barack Obama himself were giving them advice. Relatively, I'm a little kid. And yet, because I'm white I am treated like a royal voice of authority. They think white people are so nice because they "help" people here.
So when it comes to the people at the Center, it's a really difficult situation. on one level I'm really against them asking us for money. It feels like it reduces us to paychecks yet again, it's hard to say no when you feel like they have power over you, and it doesn't put you on an equal level. At the same time, though, economically we aren't equal. And we know a lot of wealthy people in the States, so it's only natural for them to try and take advantage of the opportunity (just like I probably will ask people for money when I want to do research or something).
How do we work together to address the root causes of the issues without perpetuating a dependent relationship and without disregarding the experiences and needs of individuals? I don't have the answer, but I think that it would be really valuable for someone here to lead a conversation around the issue amongst Arcadia staff and students. I also think I might start a group around it at school (there are a lot of other people who studied in Africa).
Overall, I'm just amazed at how every one of us grew up so much this semester. I'm really proud of the ways that I've been able to conquer my own racism and prejudices (don't judge, it's subconscious until you are forced to look it in the face - if you grew up in the US you can't avoid having had racism ingrained into you on some level). I also feel like we have all gotten really good at things that seem simple but aren't. For instance, dealing with people trying to sell us stuff on the street. I didn't want to be rude in the beginning so I was really, really nice. Honestly, though, it's kind of patronizing to be overly nice to people because you feel bad for them (which, as much as I don't want to admit it, I did in the beginning). Now I'm always nice, but I'm firm, and it's not weird anymore. If you treat people like people then it's a lot easier to be respectful in way that isn't rude or overly nice. Some of my favorite friendships came out of meeting people on the street, and it's sad that I probably won't ever talk to them again.
I'm excited to go home and I'm sad to leave. I'm most excited for being able to go out without having to be on or constantly aware of the fact that I'm white. I will miss people here, though, and I imagine that the learning is only beginning.
See you on the other side...
Sarah
Monday, May 25, 2009
Flashbacks: A Plethora of Lists Revisited
I’ve decided to look back at the things I wrote right before I came here. I made lists on this blog of what I was nervous about, what my goal were, etc. Now I’m going to go back and look at them in their full hilarity and embarrassment and comment on the comments made by the old me (via italics):
Things I am most Excited and/or Nervous About that will Probably Obsolete in Four Days (Hopefully because they aren't issues, not because I have bigger issues :D )
-The other students I'm going with: I have been blessed/cursed with a school and major full of people who are somewhat like-minded. I think I'm more nervous about how I will handle the culture shock of being with new Americans than how I will handle the culture shock of being in Africa :)
Oh, how wise I was. Luckily it all worked out, but that was one of the hardest parts, hands down.
-The first pangs of homesickness
They didn’t come nearly as badly as I expected. I’ve come a long way since I was the girl that couldn’t have a sleep over until seventh grade.
-Getting know Arusha
It happened. We were intimate.
-Something happening at home that I can't be here for
Plenty happened at home that I couldn’t be there for. That was another thing that was really hard, but a major part of the learning. Usually I would bail and fly home if something that I wanted to be there for was happening. But I didn’t! Or I couldn’t…
-The fact that I can't carry Elham, Ailish, Seble, Fran, John, and all my other professors, friends, and family in my pocket, even though I know I wouldn't really want that
Who? Oh, I didn’t end up needing them. Apparently my opinions were hiding in there all along!
-Having to eventually leave
Shouldn’t this be on the wild fantasies list below? Just kidding! No, I really am sad to leave, but I think the harder parts will come once normalcy sets in at home.
-First impressions
You just gotta let them go. No matter how hard you try people decide about you almost irrelevant of how much you try to control their opinions. Especially when you are in a group of 8 white kids that everyone knows as a group. I’m really glad I had to deal with that, though. I learned a lot. Also, sometimes it's good to have enemies because it means they aren't creepin on you)
-Nervous that I will be with a group of people who want to "save African children." Sorry if that is brutal...
Well…I didn’t think about how people who think that can learn. And they learned really quickly. Even though we all still have different opinions, I don’t think anyone in the group is disrespectful.
-Being the "girl who talks too much" in my classes
It happened. It changed, though, and turned out well.
-Learning to be without a car and perpetual internet availability for the 3,000 times a day when I wonder about things and want to look them up online
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t wait to drive. The internet thing sucks, but you get used to it. I didn’t even think about driving until a few weeks ago when I realized that at home I drive hours and hours every week. That’s my alone time. It was good to not have those, though.
-Not knowing lots of stuff (which of course is actually a good thing)
I still don’t know most things.
Wild Fantasies That Have Very Little Basis in Reality
-One starlit night I go to a club with my friends to dance. A jam breaks out, the best dancer in the room grabs me, and we wow everyone to tears with our powerful yet sophisticated moves. Later, he invites me to learn all sorts of new dances, become really good at them, and spend all my free time traveling with the dance company I get asked to join.
You know, I might have been able to make this happen actually…but I’m glad I didn’t because things would have turned out differently.
-My new dance partner wants to devote obscene amounts of time to learning Lindy Hop, but he doesn't have to because he is naturally good at it. So we start teaching free classes, running free dances, and create a Lindy scene that quickly spreads to neighboring countries.
This too…I easily could have done this one, but I made a choice not to. Yay!
-I buy a bicycle (hopefully this one is plausible)
Booooooo. It’s ok, though. I would have gotten hit by a car if I had gotten one right away (now I’m a street pro).
-I learn more than I could imagine about peace, law, life, and Arusha. I also get to know all sorts of government/nongovernment people that take me as their humble apprentice,teach me their ways, and invite me to stay in Arusha indefinitely. I tell them I would love too, but I must first return to my Goucherian roots and finish my last year of school. I will return immediately after finishing grad school in Stockholm.
Well…I got fairly close to this actually. But what I realized is that all those government/nongovernment people are just people and they really aren’t all that fancy.
-I become a Kiswahili master in a matter of days.
Hm…there were fleeting moments.
-Although I become best friends with all the people on my program, I also make lots of friends that live in Arusha.
Proved much more difficult than I would have thought. I do have friends, but not in the way I imagined.
-While climbing to the top of a volcano, it erupts over Arusha causing mass amounts of non-harmful ruckus, but everyone escapes just in time, no one is hurt, and nothing is destroyed.
Not quite. Dante’s Peak was on TV the other night, though. I think that counts.
-I become great friends with a local family that I begin to babysit for because at some point during the past few years my maternal instincts kicked in and I became someone who likes kids.
We babysat for our Dutch neighbors a few times. And I have a family here. That’s good enough I would say.
-My new Tanzanian fiancé invites me to stay for the summer and live with his family, though before I leave we decide we are too young to marry and break it off indefinitely in hopes that we will someday meet again. We stay great friends and visit often via the new environmentally friendly airplanes that are invented while I am there.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that whole fiancé thing…haha, actually I did have PLENTY of proposals. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to choose!
-Every weekend I take a bus to the coast where I meet up with my new group of surfer friends and ride the waves late into the night. We build a sailboat.
No waves.
-I go to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Didn’t happen…but it will someday.
-I find a wonderful community organization to work with and remember that I'm not going to Tanzania to surf, but to learn. I surf anyway, but maybe a little less.
I found three organizations to work with!
-The local karaoke bar has thousands of songs in English, although it doesn't matter because I'm fluent in Kiswahili. One night after throwing a few back, I decide to give it a shot. A member of a local band spots me and asks if I will sing with them. In between my classes, surfing, lindy hop, volunteering, and such, I tour with the band.
Let’s never think about Friday night karaoke again…
-I play basketball and soccer on the side and create a Purple Rain sister team.
Didn’t happen.
-I run "The Pilot" with Tanzanian students.
I decided against this one.
-I am humbled.
Hell yes. I’m also a lot more sure of myself, though.
Four months is a long time. It's also not that long in the big picture, though. I'm just really grateful.
Things I am most Excited and/or Nervous About that will Probably Obsolete in Four Days (Hopefully because they aren't issues, not because I have bigger issues :D )
-The other students I'm going with: I have been blessed/cursed with a school and major full of people who are somewhat like-minded. I think I'm more nervous about how I will handle the culture shock of being with new Americans than how I will handle the culture shock of being in Africa :)
Oh, how wise I was. Luckily it all worked out, but that was one of the hardest parts, hands down.
-The first pangs of homesickness
They didn’t come nearly as badly as I expected. I’ve come a long way since I was the girl that couldn’t have a sleep over until seventh grade.
-Getting know Arusha
It happened. We were intimate.
-Something happening at home that I can't be here for
Plenty happened at home that I couldn’t be there for. That was another thing that was really hard, but a major part of the learning. Usually I would bail and fly home if something that I wanted to be there for was happening. But I didn’t! Or I couldn’t…
-The fact that I can't carry Elham, Ailish, Seble, Fran, John, and all my other professors, friends, and family in my pocket, even though I know I wouldn't really want that
Who? Oh, I didn’t end up needing them. Apparently my opinions were hiding in there all along!
-Having to eventually leave
Shouldn’t this be on the wild fantasies list below? Just kidding! No, I really am sad to leave, but I think the harder parts will come once normalcy sets in at home.
-First impressions
You just gotta let them go. No matter how hard you try people decide about you almost irrelevant of how much you try to control their opinions. Especially when you are in a group of 8 white kids that everyone knows as a group. I’m really glad I had to deal with that, though. I learned a lot. Also, sometimes it's good to have enemies because it means they aren't creepin on you)
-Nervous that I will be with a group of people who want to "save African children." Sorry if that is brutal...
Well…I didn’t think about how people who think that can learn. And they learned really quickly. Even though we all still have different opinions, I don’t think anyone in the group is disrespectful.
-Being the "girl who talks too much" in my classes
It happened. It changed, though, and turned out well.
-Learning to be without a car and perpetual internet availability for the 3,000 times a day when I wonder about things and want to look them up online
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t wait to drive. The internet thing sucks, but you get used to it. I didn’t even think about driving until a few weeks ago when I realized that at home I drive hours and hours every week. That’s my alone time. It was good to not have those, though.
-Not knowing lots of stuff (which of course is actually a good thing)
I still don’t know most things.
Wild Fantasies That Have Very Little Basis in Reality
-One starlit night I go to a club with my friends to dance. A jam breaks out, the best dancer in the room grabs me, and we wow everyone to tears with our powerful yet sophisticated moves. Later, he invites me to learn all sorts of new dances, become really good at them, and spend all my free time traveling with the dance company I get asked to join.
You know, I might have been able to make this happen actually…but I’m glad I didn’t because things would have turned out differently.
-My new dance partner wants to devote obscene amounts of time to learning Lindy Hop, but he doesn't have to because he is naturally good at it. So we start teaching free classes, running free dances, and create a Lindy scene that quickly spreads to neighboring countries.
This too…I easily could have done this one, but I made a choice not to. Yay!
-I buy a bicycle (hopefully this one is plausible)
Booooooo. It’s ok, though. I would have gotten hit by a car if I had gotten one right away (now I’m a street pro).
-I learn more than I could imagine about peace, law, life, and Arusha. I also get to know all sorts of government/nongovernment people that take me as their humble apprentice,teach me their ways, and invite me to stay in Arusha indefinitely. I tell them I would love too, but I must first return to my Goucherian roots and finish my last year of school. I will return immediately after finishing grad school in Stockholm.
Well…I got fairly close to this actually. But what I realized is that all those government/nongovernment people are just people and they really aren’t all that fancy.
-I become a Kiswahili master in a matter of days.
Hm…there were fleeting moments.
-Although I become best friends with all the people on my program, I also make lots of friends that live in Arusha.
Proved much more difficult than I would have thought. I do have friends, but not in the way I imagined.
-While climbing to the top of a volcano, it erupts over Arusha causing mass amounts of non-harmful ruckus, but everyone escapes just in time, no one is hurt, and nothing is destroyed.
Not quite. Dante’s Peak was on TV the other night, though. I think that counts.
-I become great friends with a local family that I begin to babysit for because at some point during the past few years my maternal instincts kicked in and I became someone who likes kids.
We babysat for our Dutch neighbors a few times. And I have a family here. That’s good enough I would say.
-My new Tanzanian fiancé invites me to stay for the summer and live with his family, though before I leave we decide we are too young to marry and break it off indefinitely in hopes that we will someday meet again. We stay great friends and visit often via the new environmentally friendly airplanes that are invented while I am there.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that whole fiancé thing…haha, actually I did have PLENTY of proposals. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to choose!
-Every weekend I take a bus to the coast where I meet up with my new group of surfer friends and ride the waves late into the night. We build a sailboat.
No waves.
-I go to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Didn’t happen…but it will someday.
-I find a wonderful community organization to work with and remember that I'm not going to Tanzania to surf, but to learn. I surf anyway, but maybe a little less.
I found three organizations to work with!
-The local karaoke bar has thousands of songs in English, although it doesn't matter because I'm fluent in Kiswahili. One night after throwing a few back, I decide to give it a shot. A member of a local band spots me and asks if I will sing with them. In between my classes, surfing, lindy hop, volunteering, and such, I tour with the band.
Let’s never think about Friday night karaoke again…
-I play basketball and soccer on the side and create a Purple Rain sister team.
Didn’t happen.
-I run "The Pilot" with Tanzanian students.
I decided against this one.
-I am humbled.
Hell yes. I’m also a lot more sure of myself, though.
Four months is a long time. It's also not that long in the big picture, though. I'm just really grateful.
And Then There Were Four
Josh is in Uganda. Trevor, Sara, and Rose just left. So now it is only Melendy, Alainna, Kaliya, and me. I've said bye to almost everyone. I only have one more errand tomorrow, and that's to pick up a couple dresses I'm having made. I have sufficiently spent the majority of my funds, and I think I spent more on stuff to take home in the last few days that I did the rest of my time here. It's all very surreal.
Since my major responsibilities ended and I stopped having to deal with the issues we have had with the program, I have remembered how much I love Arusha. I'm going to miss it! I also can't wait to do laundry, though. I'm nervous about going home, as I'm sure I will have that anxious-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself feeling that I get after every semester, except way worse because everything will be new again. Who knows. In 48 hours I'll be on my way :D
Since my major responsibilities ended and I stopped having to deal with the issues we have had with the program, I have remembered how much I love Arusha. I'm going to miss it! I also can't wait to do laundry, though. I'm nervous about going home, as I'm sure I will have that anxious-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself feeling that I get after every semester, except way worse because everything will be new again. Who knows. In 48 hours I'll be on my way :D
Thursday, May 21, 2009
A Series of Ups and Downs
It’s the end, and it’s weird. On one hand I can’t wait to get home. On the other hand I’m really, really sad to leave. I don’t know if I will ever see a lot of these people again, and they have really changed my life.
Wednesday was my last day volunteering at Emusoi (the Maasai girl school). We danced a little bit and then they performed two dances that I taught them. One is a line dance to “Another Saturday Night” and the other is a Charleston dance to “A Well A Take ‘Em A Joe.” It was so great! I kind of realized that they have really enjoyed it and learned some sweet dances. I also realized that I speak half Kiswahili and half English to them and we have developed a really great relationship. After they performed (which they actually insisted after the first performance that they perform the songs again) they sang a Maasai song for me. They did Charleston to their Maasai song! It was amazing!
I think Kate, one of the women who runs it, took a lot of pictures that I will hopefully get later. Also, I want to write to them when I get home. They gave me a beautiful beaded cross. Even though I think maybe they don’t know that I’m not Christian, it was really beautiful and sweet. And then when I left a few of them cried! I felt so bad! I am going to miss them a lot.
Tuesday was a little rough in the morning because I saw a young girl (probably 12 or 13) get hit by a car. I don’t know how bad it was. She was alive afterwards, but she definitely wasn’t ok. I think to some extent I was horrified, but I think that after being here for a few months I’ve kind of…gotten my empathy under control? I don’t know if my heart has frozen a bit, or if maybe I have just learned the difference between positive and destructive caring. I just hope the girl is ok.
That happened on the way to Makumira where I had my music practical exam. It was so fun! I can actually play amadinda now! And it’s so hard! We performed two dances that we learned. The first we all kind of look like idiots doing, but the second one was pretty much the sweetest thing ever. Basically what happened was there were five or six people, a mix of students and teachers, playing drums while we danced. Liwewa would kind of chant things telling us what was coming next, and his performance skills are BANGIN. It was sweet. I am just really, really grateful for the students at Makumira. They are Tanzanian adults who took this class and spent time teaching us young white kids who can’t dance and don’t understand the meaning of the dances. It was such a fun class.
My other finals weren’t quite as wonderful, but they are wonderful now because they are over. I have one more take-home exam to finish. AND THEN I’M DONE! The unfortunate thing is that I literally don’t have any other thing that I have to be here for after today. That means that I am missing Frankie’s birthday in New York (frankie95.com) for nothing (except you know, getting the opportunity to live in Africa and all that…;) ). I imagine that flying back for it would be the biggest culture shock that has ever happened though, so I’m just going to try and focus on being here. Now that it’s all over the things that were frustrating before are hilarious (I mean, I’ve always thought it was hilarious) and I cannot wait to get home and tell everyone how simultaneously amazing and ridiculous this whole thing has been. Like honestly, Americans experiencing Tanzania for the first time has to be one of the funniest things that has ever happened.
The one unfortunate thing about right now is that I am about to kill the other students. I just want to chill and enjoy the last few days in Tanzania but I can’t even just sit in my own room without them bringing preteen drama into it (not all of them…but enough). I discovered that my door locks, though, and I will definitely be utilizing that function for the next few days :)
I’m so close! And then I get to see my cats and do laundry and hang out with Beth and Alec and dance and be outside at night and not always have people staring at me because I’m white…
Wednesday was my last day volunteering at Emusoi (the Maasai girl school). We danced a little bit and then they performed two dances that I taught them. One is a line dance to “Another Saturday Night” and the other is a Charleston dance to “A Well A Take ‘Em A Joe.” It was so great! I kind of realized that they have really enjoyed it and learned some sweet dances. I also realized that I speak half Kiswahili and half English to them and we have developed a really great relationship. After they performed (which they actually insisted after the first performance that they perform the songs again) they sang a Maasai song for me. They did Charleston to their Maasai song! It was amazing!
I think Kate, one of the women who runs it, took a lot of pictures that I will hopefully get later. Also, I want to write to them when I get home. They gave me a beautiful beaded cross. Even though I think maybe they don’t know that I’m not Christian, it was really beautiful and sweet. And then when I left a few of them cried! I felt so bad! I am going to miss them a lot.
Tuesday was a little rough in the morning because I saw a young girl (probably 12 or 13) get hit by a car. I don’t know how bad it was. She was alive afterwards, but she definitely wasn’t ok. I think to some extent I was horrified, but I think that after being here for a few months I’ve kind of…gotten my empathy under control? I don’t know if my heart has frozen a bit, or if maybe I have just learned the difference between positive and destructive caring. I just hope the girl is ok.
That happened on the way to Makumira where I had my music practical exam. It was so fun! I can actually play amadinda now! And it’s so hard! We performed two dances that we learned. The first we all kind of look like idiots doing, but the second one was pretty much the sweetest thing ever. Basically what happened was there were five or six people, a mix of students and teachers, playing drums while we danced. Liwewa would kind of chant things telling us what was coming next, and his performance skills are BANGIN. It was sweet. I am just really, really grateful for the students at Makumira. They are Tanzanian adults who took this class and spent time teaching us young white kids who can’t dance and don’t understand the meaning of the dances. It was such a fun class.
My other finals weren’t quite as wonderful, but they are wonderful now because they are over. I have one more take-home exam to finish. AND THEN I’M DONE! The unfortunate thing is that I literally don’t have any other thing that I have to be here for after today. That means that I am missing Frankie’s birthday in New York (frankie95.com) for nothing (except you know, getting the opportunity to live in Africa and all that…;) ). I imagine that flying back for it would be the biggest culture shock that has ever happened though, so I’m just going to try and focus on being here. Now that it’s all over the things that were frustrating before are hilarious (I mean, I’ve always thought it was hilarious) and I cannot wait to get home and tell everyone how simultaneously amazing and ridiculous this whole thing has been. Like honestly, Americans experiencing Tanzania for the first time has to be one of the funniest things that has ever happened.
The one unfortunate thing about right now is that I am about to kill the other students. I just want to chill and enjoy the last few days in Tanzania but I can’t even just sit in my own room without them bringing preteen drama into it (not all of them…but enough). I discovered that my door locks, though, and I will definitely be utilizing that function for the next few days :)
I’m so close! And then I get to see my cats and do laundry and hang out with Beth and Alec and dance and be outside at night and not always have people staring at me because I’m white…
Saturday, May 16, 2009
11 Days...?!?!?!
The past few days have been marked by inexplicable (or explicable by such a multiplicity of things that it is rendered inexplicable :) ) stress. It was partially cured yesterday when I went paragliding. I know, poor me, so stressed out. It was so sweet! Basically it's a couple of guys that have a truck and a parachute that drive us to the top of a huge hill, strap us on with them, and ride the wind over the canyon. I'm sure people will have pictures on facebook soon. It was awesome and only cost $25 a ride. In the States it would be a big, annoying, expensive endeavor involving training and signing things and scared to death with all the potential risks. Here it was more like driving up a tiny dirt road at 40 miles an hour and jumping off a mountain without any idea of how it was supposed to work. But it was still totally safe; the guy new what he was doing. I think I might have to devote my life to that too. If the wind is good, you can just use it as free, environmentally- friendly transportation.
In other news, my camera is M.I.A. and therefore every picture that I have taken this trip is also M.I.A. It will be really unfortunate if it doesn't turn up, but I'm trying not to freak.
Also, apparently there was another miscommunication (or lies...hard to tell) between Martha and the people who asked her about moving up the closing ceremony. She is now saying that we can't change it, even though only two people can go because everyone else has changed their flights and will be gone. :-/ oh well
It is really bizarre to be leaving. I'm realizing that I'm a pretty different person from when I left and going home is going to be wonderful and difficult. Also, I need to make money/find money that people want to give to me for doing the stuff that I want to do. I have been researching grants and scholarships for research or travel writing or something. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Also, I'm really sorry that people haven't gotten letters or post cards. I have some, but any that I have sent haven't made it and I have just been hording them here. I think about you all a lot and I am really grateful for the letters I've gotten!
Lovely quote that I have thanks to Fran's sending a book along with Dad (Thanks so much Fran! I love you!):
"Sometimes happiness is a blessing, but, generally it is a conquest." - Paulo Coelho
In other news, my camera is M.I.A. and therefore every picture that I have taken this trip is also M.I.A. It will be really unfortunate if it doesn't turn up, but I'm trying not to freak.
Also, apparently there was another miscommunication (or lies...hard to tell) between Martha and the people who asked her about moving up the closing ceremony. She is now saying that we can't change it, even though only two people can go because everyone else has changed their flights and will be gone. :-/ oh well
It is really bizarre to be leaving. I'm realizing that I'm a pretty different person from when I left and going home is going to be wonderful and difficult. Also, I need to make money/find money that people want to give to me for doing the stuff that I want to do. I have been researching grants and scholarships for research or travel writing or something. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Also, I'm really sorry that people haven't gotten letters or post cards. I have some, but any that I have sent haven't made it and I have just been hording them here. I think about you all a lot and I am really grateful for the letters I've gotten!
Lovely quote that I have thanks to Fran's sending a book along with Dad (Thanks so much Fran! I love you!):
"Sometimes happiness is a blessing, but, generally it is a conquest." - Paulo Coelho
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
More Thoughts
I don’t know if I have spent any time on this blog discussing how it has been to be around missionaries here. It’s bizarre. A bunch of my professors also teach at Makumira, which is a Lutheran University. One of my music professors is an American missionary with the Evangelical Lutheran church.
Alright. I don’t quite know where to start or how tactful to be about my opinions of missionaries. When I first got here I was open-minded about the missionaries that are here today. A lot of them talk about old missionaries in terms of their bad policies and consider themselves different. The role of missionaries has become much more complicated for me, but my experiences here have led me to the current opinion that I fundamentally disagree with the missionary role in Africa (and anywhere else).
Now, to all my Christian family members and friends, I’m not trying to be offensive. I have thought through this a lot. And to all you heathen ( :D )or not Christian family members and friends, please don’t use my opinions to strengthen a fanatic attempt to demonize Christianity or other religions. Although I disagree with missionaries, I don’t think religion or Christianity as a whole is wrong (in fact I think the opposite).
This is my struggle. I think that during colonization colonial governments were acting out the physical war and missionaries were acting out the ideological war. They were a tool, whether they knew it or not, that was meant to assimilate Africans into Western customs, erase the indigenous ones, and subjugate the population so that the European governments could use them for land and labor. Of course there were always exceptions to that extreme.
It seems as though the general missionary population that I have met agrees that the missionaries during colonization did a lot of bad s***. Missionaries today seem to try and evangelize without totally erasing the “not so bad” aspects of indigenous cultures. I don’t know that they would agree with my opinion that they were part of an ideological war, as my opinion is extreme.
So, what of the missionaries today? Most of them don’t outright say the words “uncivilized” or “primitive” and will actually talk about how awful those words are (except the other day a pastor I know did say that when he first got to the Maasai boy he knows, he gave him a toy truck – his first “real toy”…no more playing with “goat terds”). They don’t use violence to convert people. They build schools, have capacity building projects, and encourage the use of traditional African music in churches.
These things are inherently patronizing and conditional, though. First of all, we have definitely not reached the level of mutual respect. Even if we don’t use the words “uncivilized” or “primitive” we do use “undeveloped”. They are the same thing. Why don’t the missionaries try to convert me? I’m not Christian. I’m not complaining, but the only people that have ever pushed about my not being Christian were Tanzanians. So how come missionaries will convert Tanzanians and not me? Because I’m white? Because I can make up my own mind about things?
Today my fellow classmate and my professor referred to the large number of Maasai converts as “progress”. Progress towards what? Civilization? This is where my biggest problem is. Evangelism inherently brings the idea that the people who are doing the evangelizing are right and others are ignorant to the truth. I don’t believe in telling someone else that my culture or religion knows better than theirs, but I also don’t know what it is like to honestly believe that it is my duty to save people. How do you have a conversation about the effects of missionaries with someone who deeply believes that anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus is going to hell? You can’t argue with G-d.
This is another source of struggle for me. I do have things that I think are right and wrong. I do believe that it’s my duty to do what I can to save someone’s life if I see them dieing. If I knew that millions of people were going to a horrible place for all of eternity unless I did something to stop it, I probably would. That just doesn’t happen to be what I believe. I am a universalist when it comes to human rights, though, so I do think that every human being should have certain human rights that are the same no matter the culture they are in. But who decides those rights? Who am I to say that I know the way people should do things in terms of human rights and then turn around and say that acting like you know more than other people is wrong when it comes to religion?
I could go on and on about my problem with missionaries and why I think they are more destructive than not. That’s not really my point right now, though. My point is that I’m really struggling with how to engage with all of this. I have pretty much sat through it with my mouth shut for the whole semester. I feel kind of guilty for not saying anything, but I also don’t want to alienate people before I have figured out how to best approach it.
One of the most interesting (and difficult) parts about all of this is that most Tanzanians either don’t share the same opinion as me or don’t say it to me (remind me, that’s a whole other story). For some reason I guess I expected African culture (whatever that means…I guess I mean I expected African cultureS) to be more similar to African American culture. They are SO different. Like, as weird as it feels to say, I truly feel like I connect with African American culture in a lot of ways. Those points of connection, though, are not things that are shared with Tanzanian culture. There doesn’t seem to be any anger here. Hardly anyone talks about colonizers very negatively, and it is really, really rare for anyone here to say anything but nice stuff about Westerners.
So all this time I feel like screaming, “DON’T ANY OF YOU SEE?! They came in and destroyed things, how can you not be mad? How can you keep the religion of the colonizers?” But that’s equally patronizing. It’s not like people here can’t see that and can’t choose their own religion. So I am just constantly stuck in between all these different ideas and I’m so hesitant to say anything even though deep down I know there are certain people that I want to punch in the face (not that I would do that, I’m a Peace Studies major ;D ).
As much as I hate to sound like that “F the po-lice”-stupid-hippy-girl, I don’t think colonization is over. I don’t mean this only in terms of missionaries; I am talking about a lot of things (including “development”, many NGOs, and corporations). I know this all sounds negative, but I am not saying any of this lightly or without serious consideration. I’m sure my opinion will continue to be fluid, but as of now, that’s what I think.
I haven’t written for a while because Dad came to visit! It was really, really awesome, and I want to write about it, but I’m tired of writing. The highlight, I would say, was going to Ngorongoro Crater. On the way home, I was taking a little nap in the car. We stopped at the entrance of the park as we were leaving to go to the bathroom, and I stayed in the car. I was half asleep when I suddenly realized that I was no longer dreaming and a giant baboon had climbed into the front seat and was right in front of me! Now, baboons are some scary animals. It probably weighed as much as me and it was hungry. Really hungry. Ok, I don’t really know that, but it was persistent. I got out of the car and was laughing and freaking out when out of the corner of my eye I see it try and make a break for it. The car door was open, Kaliya was still inside, and she starts screaming, “Don’t let it in here!!!” Dad and Peter, the driver, jumped in front of it and blocked its way. It was close, though, and the thing was pissed. As we were leaving we saw him jump into another car and all of those people freaked out too. I think Dad was satisfied with his trip to Africa after that and we pretty much watched movies for the rest of the time :)
What’s that you ask? How many days until I return home and grace you all with my soothing, enlightened presence? Oh, I don’t know…ONLY 15! And in this country today is almost over. So really I am coming home in two weeks. What’s up Massachusetts.
Alright. I don’t quite know where to start or how tactful to be about my opinions of missionaries. When I first got here I was open-minded about the missionaries that are here today. A lot of them talk about old missionaries in terms of their bad policies and consider themselves different. The role of missionaries has become much more complicated for me, but my experiences here have led me to the current opinion that I fundamentally disagree with the missionary role in Africa (and anywhere else).
Now, to all my Christian family members and friends, I’m not trying to be offensive. I have thought through this a lot. And to all you heathen ( :D )or not Christian family members and friends, please don’t use my opinions to strengthen a fanatic attempt to demonize Christianity or other religions. Although I disagree with missionaries, I don’t think religion or Christianity as a whole is wrong (in fact I think the opposite).
This is my struggle. I think that during colonization colonial governments were acting out the physical war and missionaries were acting out the ideological war. They were a tool, whether they knew it or not, that was meant to assimilate Africans into Western customs, erase the indigenous ones, and subjugate the population so that the European governments could use them for land and labor. Of course there were always exceptions to that extreme.
It seems as though the general missionary population that I have met agrees that the missionaries during colonization did a lot of bad s***. Missionaries today seem to try and evangelize without totally erasing the “not so bad” aspects of indigenous cultures. I don’t know that they would agree with my opinion that they were part of an ideological war, as my opinion is extreme.
So, what of the missionaries today? Most of them don’t outright say the words “uncivilized” or “primitive” and will actually talk about how awful those words are (except the other day a pastor I know did say that when he first got to the Maasai boy he knows, he gave him a toy truck – his first “real toy”…no more playing with “goat terds”). They don’t use violence to convert people. They build schools, have capacity building projects, and encourage the use of traditional African music in churches.
These things are inherently patronizing and conditional, though. First of all, we have definitely not reached the level of mutual respect. Even if we don’t use the words “uncivilized” or “primitive” we do use “undeveloped”. They are the same thing. Why don’t the missionaries try to convert me? I’m not Christian. I’m not complaining, but the only people that have ever pushed about my not being Christian were Tanzanians. So how come missionaries will convert Tanzanians and not me? Because I’m white? Because I can make up my own mind about things?
Today my fellow classmate and my professor referred to the large number of Maasai converts as “progress”. Progress towards what? Civilization? This is where my biggest problem is. Evangelism inherently brings the idea that the people who are doing the evangelizing are right and others are ignorant to the truth. I don’t believe in telling someone else that my culture or religion knows better than theirs, but I also don’t know what it is like to honestly believe that it is my duty to save people. How do you have a conversation about the effects of missionaries with someone who deeply believes that anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus is going to hell? You can’t argue with G-d.
This is another source of struggle for me. I do have things that I think are right and wrong. I do believe that it’s my duty to do what I can to save someone’s life if I see them dieing. If I knew that millions of people were going to a horrible place for all of eternity unless I did something to stop it, I probably would. That just doesn’t happen to be what I believe. I am a universalist when it comes to human rights, though, so I do think that every human being should have certain human rights that are the same no matter the culture they are in. But who decides those rights? Who am I to say that I know the way people should do things in terms of human rights and then turn around and say that acting like you know more than other people is wrong when it comes to religion?
I could go on and on about my problem with missionaries and why I think they are more destructive than not. That’s not really my point right now, though. My point is that I’m really struggling with how to engage with all of this. I have pretty much sat through it with my mouth shut for the whole semester. I feel kind of guilty for not saying anything, but I also don’t want to alienate people before I have figured out how to best approach it.
One of the most interesting (and difficult) parts about all of this is that most Tanzanians either don’t share the same opinion as me or don’t say it to me (remind me, that’s a whole other story). For some reason I guess I expected African culture (whatever that means…I guess I mean I expected African cultureS) to be more similar to African American culture. They are SO different. Like, as weird as it feels to say, I truly feel like I connect with African American culture in a lot of ways. Those points of connection, though, are not things that are shared with Tanzanian culture. There doesn’t seem to be any anger here. Hardly anyone talks about colonizers very negatively, and it is really, really rare for anyone here to say anything but nice stuff about Westerners.
So all this time I feel like screaming, “DON’T ANY OF YOU SEE?! They came in and destroyed things, how can you not be mad? How can you keep the religion of the colonizers?” But that’s equally patronizing. It’s not like people here can’t see that and can’t choose their own religion. So I am just constantly stuck in between all these different ideas and I’m so hesitant to say anything even though deep down I know there are certain people that I want to punch in the face (not that I would do that, I’m a Peace Studies major ;D ).
As much as I hate to sound like that “F the po-lice”-stupid-hippy-girl, I don’t think colonization is over. I don’t mean this only in terms of missionaries; I am talking about a lot of things (including “development”, many NGOs, and corporations). I know this all sounds negative, but I am not saying any of this lightly or without serious consideration. I’m sure my opinion will continue to be fluid, but as of now, that’s what I think.
I haven’t written for a while because Dad came to visit! It was really, really awesome, and I want to write about it, but I’m tired of writing. The highlight, I would say, was going to Ngorongoro Crater. On the way home, I was taking a little nap in the car. We stopped at the entrance of the park as we were leaving to go to the bathroom, and I stayed in the car. I was half asleep when I suddenly realized that I was no longer dreaming and a giant baboon had climbed into the front seat and was right in front of me! Now, baboons are some scary animals. It probably weighed as much as me and it was hungry. Really hungry. Ok, I don’t really know that, but it was persistent. I got out of the car and was laughing and freaking out when out of the corner of my eye I see it try and make a break for it. The car door was open, Kaliya was still inside, and she starts screaming, “Don’t let it in here!!!” Dad and Peter, the driver, jumped in front of it and blocked its way. It was close, though, and the thing was pissed. As we were leaving we saw him jump into another car and all of those people freaked out too. I think Dad was satisfied with his trip to Africa after that and we pretty much watched movies for the rest of the time :)
What’s that you ask? How many days until I return home and grace you all with my soothing, enlightened presence? Oh, I don’t know…ONLY 15! And in this country today is almost over. So really I am coming home in two weeks. What’s up Massachusetts.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
:)
As my time here is coming to a close, I’m realizing that I am going to miss it so much. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that my study abroad being over marks a new phase. I have been thinking about being here for so long, and now I’m remembering that more stuff happens next. I don’t know if other people can relate, but the fact that this is my last summer is a big deal. Of course there will be other summers, and there may be other summer breaks, but this might be the last year that I think of myself as a child on summer vacation.
I find myself thinking that I have one more year to be a kid, and even though I know that largely depends on the way I choose to look at things, I start to panic. This semester has helped me see (I think) that I’m kind of an adult already. Yesterday a music video came on the television and I realized that the pop singers are almost all younger than me now. It’s not like I am looking at the TV and thinking, “Oh, when I’m there age…” Now I’m just like, where are these kids’ parents? How badly could your 15-year-old heart have been broken? And, do these people have any idea how their little play-time filming an extravagant music video is impacting the culture here? But, I digress.
My point, if I have one, is that one of this semester’s themes has been growing up. I’ve noticed that every semester has a theme or two that describes what area of life I learned the most about. It’s like I’m in an old “Seventh Heaven” episode where all the subplots relate and conveniently tie together at the end. Some past themes have included attachment, death, love, time, privilege, and priorities. This semester has had a few, but growing up is a huge one. When I get home I am going to be almost done with college.
I’ve noticed that everyone has ways of organizing their personal history and future in their minds. Little kids in the States often say things like, “But that was when I was 4-years-old, now I’m 5-years old,” or, “I’m a second grader now.” Some people mark it with religious ceremonies, prom, graduations, or marriage. Some people organize their lives around tragedy and spend the time in between torturing themselves with the past and bracing themselves for the future.
Even though I have been learning to stay in the present, nearing the end of college has forced me to come face-to-face with the time line I have put my life on. It ends after college. That may sound naïve, but everything up until now was laid out for me. I have made choices that have lead me to where I am, but at age 10 I probably could have told you that I would go to school the next year, have a summer beak, go to school again, have a break, and continue that until I was 22. My choices became obsolete after a few months because another year of school came. But next year, I’m stepping into groundlessness.
I’m not that stressed out about it, I’m just more in awe of how I got here. And I don’t have any way of predicting the future. I can’t count on another summer break or another year of school. The time after I graduate isn’t divided into clear chunks – it’s an abyss (“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” – Yeaahh Nietzsche). I don’t know what I’m going to do after I graduate, or if I’ll get married, or how much more school I will do. Even if I could know the things I'll do, I have no way of determining when.
Being here, or maybe being anywhere but in the realm of close familiarity, has definitely solidified who I am. I know what I care about, what I want, and what I believe. It’s also a lot clearer what I don’t know, and that’s a lot. It’s SO weird being the oldest out of the group. I know I keep saying that, but it is really weird. (Side note – I’m so happy Melendy and I are roommates. I love her. We are both the oldest and I have never been in a situation where the age gap was so exaggerated. I feel weird saying that, as I have a long history of not associating age and maturity, but I think we have all agreed that it’s true)
I was doing a project for a class last year that involved me interviewing people close to me about my own strengths and weaknesses. One of the things Mom told me was that she thinks I sometimes don’t recognize that older people have experience and know a lot that I don’t know they know. I think I have changed that at least a little, and I’ve realized that everyone does things for a reason. People don’t just go around doing things. I feel like I’m on the opposite end now, because some of my friends here don’t seem to realize that there is more to a situation beyond what they can see. That’s not just culturally and in terms of age, but in all circumstances. Someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you does not make that person stupid. At the same time, though, I’m learning that my friends have reasons for not yet being able to see other people’s reasons.
Anyway, enough ranting for one post. Dad is coming! I feel like I’m about to have a child and experience life all over again through their eyes. Ahaha, it’s true! Everything will be new to him and I will discover new things because he will see things differently than me. I even feel really protective. It’s bizarre.
A really good quote that my professor, Ailish, told me a few years ago. I forget who said it, “Transformation is not about what you get, it’s about what you give up.”
Random things about Tanzania that don't want to forget:
-Everyone goes out to the clubs, and it isn’t weird that professors and students are both there.
-Personal space doesn’t exist. Privacy doesn’t exist.
-There is a very, very small number of girls that wear pants, and a lot of them wear congas over their pants.
-“Ninakupenda” means both “I love you” and “I like you” in Swahili, so people tell you they love you all the time (and I never really know if they really mean they LOVE me, as I hear it, or if they mean they like me, or if maybe neither of those concepts exist in a way that is comparable to home). They also say they miss you all the time.
-Everyone is your brother and your sister. If a child’s parents die, the friends, neighbors, or family members raise them. Most families have at least a few orphans (or kids who’s parents can’t support them) living with them.
-If you say that you will go to someone’s house, you go to their house. None of this, “Oh yeah, that’d be cool…”
-Everyone holds hands. So much hand holding.
-If I go somewhere – like to the school I volunteer at, for instance – people want to carry my bags for me.
-If I am sweaty someone else will wipe it off. Not a joke.
-If you ask someone how old they are, they often have to think about what year they were born and count. Birthdays aren’t really a thing here.
-I've been asked if I'm Black American more than once or twice.
-The other day I was walking home from school and a couple started talking to me. They introduced themselves and asked me to come see their home so that I know where they live. It was getting dark, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t be walking into a back alley with strangers, but they were really nice. We talked for a minute and they really wanted me to come have dinner with them at some point. They walked me home and were really, really nice.
I find myself thinking that I have one more year to be a kid, and even though I know that largely depends on the way I choose to look at things, I start to panic. This semester has helped me see (I think) that I’m kind of an adult already. Yesterday a music video came on the television and I realized that the pop singers are almost all younger than me now. It’s not like I am looking at the TV and thinking, “Oh, when I’m there age…” Now I’m just like, where are these kids’ parents? How badly could your 15-year-old heart have been broken? And, do these people have any idea how their little play-time filming an extravagant music video is impacting the culture here? But, I digress.
My point, if I have one, is that one of this semester’s themes has been growing up. I’ve noticed that every semester has a theme or two that describes what area of life I learned the most about. It’s like I’m in an old “Seventh Heaven” episode where all the subplots relate and conveniently tie together at the end. Some past themes have included attachment, death, love, time, privilege, and priorities. This semester has had a few, but growing up is a huge one. When I get home I am going to be almost done with college.
I’ve noticed that everyone has ways of organizing their personal history and future in their minds. Little kids in the States often say things like, “But that was when I was 4-years-old, now I’m 5-years old,” or, “I’m a second grader now.” Some people mark it with religious ceremonies, prom, graduations, or marriage. Some people organize their lives around tragedy and spend the time in between torturing themselves with the past and bracing themselves for the future.
Even though I have been learning to stay in the present, nearing the end of college has forced me to come face-to-face with the time line I have put my life on. It ends after college. That may sound naïve, but everything up until now was laid out for me. I have made choices that have lead me to where I am, but at age 10 I probably could have told you that I would go to school the next year, have a summer beak, go to school again, have a break, and continue that until I was 22. My choices became obsolete after a few months because another year of school came. But next year, I’m stepping into groundlessness.
I’m not that stressed out about it, I’m just more in awe of how I got here. And I don’t have any way of predicting the future. I can’t count on another summer break or another year of school. The time after I graduate isn’t divided into clear chunks – it’s an abyss (“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” – Yeaahh Nietzsche). I don’t know what I’m going to do after I graduate, or if I’ll get married, or how much more school I will do. Even if I could know the things I'll do, I have no way of determining when.
Being here, or maybe being anywhere but in the realm of close familiarity, has definitely solidified who I am. I know what I care about, what I want, and what I believe. It’s also a lot clearer what I don’t know, and that’s a lot. It’s SO weird being the oldest out of the group. I know I keep saying that, but it is really weird. (Side note – I’m so happy Melendy and I are roommates. I love her. We are both the oldest and I have never been in a situation where the age gap was so exaggerated. I feel weird saying that, as I have a long history of not associating age and maturity, but I think we have all agreed that it’s true)
I was doing a project for a class last year that involved me interviewing people close to me about my own strengths and weaknesses. One of the things Mom told me was that she thinks I sometimes don’t recognize that older people have experience and know a lot that I don’t know they know. I think I have changed that at least a little, and I’ve realized that everyone does things for a reason. People don’t just go around doing things. I feel like I’m on the opposite end now, because some of my friends here don’t seem to realize that there is more to a situation beyond what they can see. That’s not just culturally and in terms of age, but in all circumstances. Someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you does not make that person stupid. At the same time, though, I’m learning that my friends have reasons for not yet being able to see other people’s reasons.
Anyway, enough ranting for one post. Dad is coming! I feel like I’m about to have a child and experience life all over again through their eyes. Ahaha, it’s true! Everything will be new to him and I will discover new things because he will see things differently than me. I even feel really protective. It’s bizarre.
A really good quote that my professor, Ailish, told me a few years ago. I forget who said it, “Transformation is not about what you get, it’s about what you give up.”
Random things about Tanzania that don't want to forget:
-Everyone goes out to the clubs, and it isn’t weird that professors and students are both there.
-Personal space doesn’t exist. Privacy doesn’t exist.
-There is a very, very small number of girls that wear pants, and a lot of them wear congas over their pants.
-“Ninakupenda” means both “I love you” and “I like you” in Swahili, so people tell you they love you all the time (and I never really know if they really mean they LOVE me, as I hear it, or if they mean they like me, or if maybe neither of those concepts exist in a way that is comparable to home). They also say they miss you all the time.
-Everyone is your brother and your sister. If a child’s parents die, the friends, neighbors, or family members raise them. Most families have at least a few orphans (or kids who’s parents can’t support them) living with them.
-If you say that you will go to someone’s house, you go to their house. None of this, “Oh yeah, that’d be cool…”
-Everyone holds hands. So much hand holding.
-If I go somewhere – like to the school I volunteer at, for instance – people want to carry my bags for me.
-If I am sweaty someone else will wipe it off. Not a joke.
-If you ask someone how old they are, they often have to think about what year they were born and count. Birthdays aren’t really a thing here.
-I've been asked if I'm Black American more than once or twice.
-The other day I was walking home from school and a couple started talking to me. They introduced themselves and asked me to come see their home so that I know where they live. It was getting dark, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t be walking into a back alley with strangers, but they were really nice. We talked for a minute and they really wanted me to come have dinner with them at some point. They walked me home and were really, really nice.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
25 Days!
How crazy is that?! It would be 30, but due to some scheduling changes I am now leaving on the 27th of May and getting home the 28th. I am SO excited!
This morning I ate breakfast with Rich Conroy, the logistics manager at Arcadia's study abroad office. Martha is possibly going to a conference in London this week, so he came to hang around while she is gone. I only had one meal with him, but he seems like he is totally awesome. He is really cool and genuine and they should probably just have him run CEA. It is weird to have someone from the States here because it makes me remember how different everything seemed when I first got here.
And Dad comes on Monday! Woohoo! It looks like this will be my busiest week so far, but once I get through the work I have to do today, I think I will be good.
Thursday night my friends Marjana and Laura slept over. Marjana is from Finland and Laura is from Chicago. They are studying theology at Makumira for the semester. I really, really like them because they have very similar understanding of the role of missionaries (historically and today) as me, but they are religious. I think it's important that there are people here who are both religious and not on a mission. Also, we have a lot of interesting conversations because they are having totally different experiences than I am because they live on campus.
Mostly I'm just really excited that Dad is coming and I am going to see everyone from home soon. If there is anyone out there who wants me to teach them Swahili, please tell me because I am going to need a way of practicing.
<3
Sarah
This morning I ate breakfast with Rich Conroy, the logistics manager at Arcadia's study abroad office. Martha is possibly going to a conference in London this week, so he came to hang around while she is gone. I only had one meal with him, but he seems like he is totally awesome. He is really cool and genuine and they should probably just have him run CEA. It is weird to have someone from the States here because it makes me remember how different everything seemed when I first got here.
And Dad comes on Monday! Woohoo! It looks like this will be my busiest week so far, but once I get through the work I have to do today, I think I will be good.
Thursday night my friends Marjana and Laura slept over. Marjana is from Finland and Laura is from Chicago. They are studying theology at Makumira for the semester. I really, really like them because they have very similar understanding of the role of missionaries (historically and today) as me, but they are religious. I think it's important that there are people here who are both religious and not on a mission. Also, we have a lot of interesting conversations because they are having totally different experiences than I am because they live on campus.
Mostly I'm just really excited that Dad is coming and I am going to see everyone from home soon. If there is anyone out there who wants me to teach them Swahili, please tell me because I am going to need a way of practicing.
<3
Sarah
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Ninapenda Kiswahili!
Safi! Ninaweza kusema Kiswahili sasa. Sijui kwa nini, lakini ninaelewa sana. Ninafikiri kwamba nikifanya mazoezi, nitasema vizuri sana lini ninakwenda nyumbani. Leo ninafikiri labda nitakwenda Amsterdam kabla ya nitarudi Merikani. Kwa sababu, rafiki yango ataondoka baadaye 25 Mai. Sijui nikitaka kukaa hapa au kwenda nyumbani...hm...Hivyo, ninafanya kazi sana na ninastarehe na Arusha. !!! Lakini sisubiri kucheza dansi! Woohoo! Ninapenda Arusha lankini nitafurahi nyumbani.
Upendo Sana,
Sarah
Upendo Sana,
Sarah
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Let the Whirlwind Begin
So much work. But before I get to that...
For those of you that don't know, Frankie Manning, the original Lindy Hopper, passed away yesterday at age 94. It is a great loss and truly marks a new era in Lindy Hop. I am so grateful that I got to be around him while he was alive (although I wish I hadn't let my being intimidated stop me from knowing him well or dancing with him). http://web.mac.com/stubbsrcs/Blog_3/Aug_08-July_09/Entries/2009/3/31_Arcadia_University_%26_Making_Drums.html
There was a 95th birthday event for him being planned in May, and I am pretty sure it's still happening (you should all go...it's in New York...www.frankie95.com) Although I can't go, I will there in spirit!
It is an interesting experience being so absent from anyone who knows what Frankie means for tens of thousands of people all over the world, and not having lindy hopped in somewhere around...95 days. I'm actually really glad that I had a sort of forced fast from lindy hop, as I am pretty sure my new awareness of how important it is to me will mean that I dance 3 million% harder when I get home.
Right now though, mo' work. Like really...I'm stressin'. It actually isn't anything compared to Goucher, but there are a few added stresses on top of it:
1. I'm in Africa. Please. Homework?!
2. I'm in Africa. Just thinking about the internet makes my whole body twitch.
3. Dad comes next week, and I just want to hang out with him. I'm teaching two lindy hop workshops on top of everything and it's the most work I have had yet.
4. My first big internship assignment is this week and it's so scary!
5. Thesis proposal. Arg.
Otherwise, I'm back to having a good time and I love Tanzania. I'm also ready to go home. I don't think that would be the case if I knew that I were staying for another year or something, but I guess I'm kind of feel like things are winding down and I'm ready to be out. I've spent most of my money, sufficiently ruined most of my clothes (such a pain in the a**, actually), and exhausted myself on most fronts. I'd say my work is done.
I don't know if I ever mentioned finishing the drum that I (painstakingly)(agonizingly)(joyfully) slaved away on and spilled much blood over (literally). Well, I finished it a few weeks ago and, not to toot my own horn, but it's pretty much the sweetest drum to grace this planet. It doesn't have a name yet but I'm thinking either 'busara' which means wisdom, 'kujituma' which means self-drive, or maybe something that means agony (not really, but it was only fun for the first few hours). We'll see. One of my professors posted pictures on his blog:
http://web.mac.com/stubbsrcs/Blog_3/Aug_08-July_09/Entries/2009/3/31_Arcadia_University_%26_Making_Drums.html
We moved our closing ceremony up a week, so it looks like I'll just be chillin' around Tanzania for the last week. I might try to do some kind of travel either here or in Europe...we will see. I'm so close to being done. And then I get to dance...ahhh I can't wait to dance!
Sarah
For those of you that don't know, Frankie Manning, the original Lindy Hopper, passed away yesterday at age 94. It is a great loss and truly marks a new era in Lindy Hop. I am so grateful that I got to be around him while he was alive (although I wish I hadn't let my being intimidated stop me from knowing him well or dancing with him). http://web.mac.com/stubbsrcs/Blog_3/Aug_08-July_09/Entries/2009/3/31_Arcadia_University_%26_Making_Drums.html
There was a 95th birthday event for him being planned in May, and I am pretty sure it's still happening (you should all go...it's in New York...www.frankie95.com) Although I can't go, I will there in spirit!
It is an interesting experience being so absent from anyone who knows what Frankie means for tens of thousands of people all over the world, and not having lindy hopped in somewhere around...95 days. I'm actually really glad that I had a sort of forced fast from lindy hop, as I am pretty sure my new awareness of how important it is to me will mean that I dance 3 million% harder when I get home.
Right now though, mo' work. Like really...I'm stressin'. It actually isn't anything compared to Goucher, but there are a few added stresses on top of it:
1. I'm in Africa. Please. Homework?!
2. I'm in Africa. Just thinking about the internet makes my whole body twitch.
3. Dad comes next week, and I just want to hang out with him. I'm teaching two lindy hop workshops on top of everything and it's the most work I have had yet.
4. My first big internship assignment is this week and it's so scary!
5. Thesis proposal. Arg.
Otherwise, I'm back to having a good time and I love Tanzania. I'm also ready to go home. I don't think that would be the case if I knew that I were staying for another year or something, but I guess I'm kind of feel like things are winding down and I'm ready to be out. I've spent most of my money, sufficiently ruined most of my clothes (such a pain in the a**, actually), and exhausted myself on most fronts. I'd say my work is done.
I don't know if I ever mentioned finishing the drum that I (painstakingly)(agonizingly)(joyfully) slaved away on and spilled much blood over (literally). Well, I finished it a few weeks ago and, not to toot my own horn, but it's pretty much the sweetest drum to grace this planet. It doesn't have a name yet but I'm thinking either 'busara' which means wisdom, 'kujituma' which means self-drive, or maybe something that means agony (not really, but it was only fun for the first few hours). We'll see. One of my professors posted pictures on his blog:
http://web.mac.com/stubbsrcs/Blog_3/Aug_08-July_09/Entries/2009/3/31_Arcadia_University_%26_Making_Drums.html
We moved our closing ceremony up a week, so it looks like I'll just be chillin' around Tanzania for the last week. I might try to do some kind of travel either here or in Europe...we will see. I'm so close to being done. And then I get to dance...ahhh I can't wait to dance!
Sarah
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Five Weeks Left
It looks like getting to the point where we need mediators with Martha may have been worth it just to get such sweet mediators. Josh and I would know them anyway, as one of them is our internship boss and the other also works for the African Foundation for International Law and the ICTR. We met with them yesterday to talk about the ICTR and it was so awesome! Josh and I also got our first major assignment yesterday. Up until now we were just going through all the Peace and Security Council decisions from 2004 to 2006 and creating an index by country. This week, though, we are starting real stuff. Basically, I was assigned Angola and Josh was assigned Sierra Leone. Decisions were made about each country in 2004 and we are going to write a summary of the conflict and interests of parties involved up until that decision. Then we review the decision in relation to the interests of the parties.
I’m a little terrified because these are for the journal that gets published every year. Because this internship is actually intended for graduate students, it’s possible that Roland will decide we aren’t actually very good at it and assign us something else. If it works out, though, Josh will be writing for every decision pertaining to West and South Africa and I will do every decision pertaining to East Africa and the Great Lakes Region. That is sweet because it will help me with my thesis, is exactly what I’m interested in, and will be fairly impressive when I am applying to grad school and have a bunch of published law reviews. Also scary, though, because if it does get to the point where my work gets published, I will be under public scrutiny of people who actually know what they are talking about.
After the meeting yesterday I went to Emusoi to teach the girls some more dances. I’m a little bit uncomfortable with my role there because even though it’s really fun to teach them soul line dances and charleston, I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily beneficial to them. They have fun and get physical activity, but they are already awesome dancers. I want to do more facilitating discussions about peace and gender roles, but it’s so hard because my Swahili is so bad. And I am pretty sure they are putting pictures of me on the website, which is kind of weird. I am uncomfortable with the paternalistic attitudes of volunteers that come here to “help teach the Africans” and I wonder what it looks like to both the girls and the people looking at the web site. Yesterday was fun, though, and I think they are at least enjoying it.
Dad comes to visit in a week and a half! I’m really excited to have him here and show him around. It will be good for all of us to have a Dad here I think. And then there are only three weeks left. Crazy!
I’m a little terrified because these are for the journal that gets published every year. Because this internship is actually intended for graduate students, it’s possible that Roland will decide we aren’t actually very good at it and assign us something else. If it works out, though, Josh will be writing for every decision pertaining to West and South Africa and I will do every decision pertaining to East Africa and the Great Lakes Region. That is sweet because it will help me with my thesis, is exactly what I’m interested in, and will be fairly impressive when I am applying to grad school and have a bunch of published law reviews. Also scary, though, because if it does get to the point where my work gets published, I will be under public scrutiny of people who actually know what they are talking about.
After the meeting yesterday I went to Emusoi to teach the girls some more dances. I’m a little bit uncomfortable with my role there because even though it’s really fun to teach them soul line dances and charleston, I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily beneficial to them. They have fun and get physical activity, but they are already awesome dancers. I want to do more facilitating discussions about peace and gender roles, but it’s so hard because my Swahili is so bad. And I am pretty sure they are putting pictures of me on the website, which is kind of weird. I am uncomfortable with the paternalistic attitudes of volunteers that come here to “help teach the Africans” and I wonder what it looks like to both the girls and the people looking at the web site. Yesterday was fun, though, and I think they are at least enjoying it.
Dad comes to visit in a week and a half! I’m really excited to have him here and show him around. It will be good for all of us to have a Dad here I think. And then there are only three weeks left. Crazy!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Pushin' on Through
I am in this very weird place of conflicting emotions. First, I am trying to move on from the events of this past week, but I know that is what is bothering me. We haven’t seen Martha yet because she has been away on a trip. Things are getting better, but I know that a lot of people, or rather I think a lot of people (like Martha, the woman from Arcadia, and whoever else heard their versions of the story), have a bad impression of us as a group. It’s frustrating because on one hand I am really pissed at how we were treated on a couple of occasions. On the other hand, I do think that the other people on the program can be rude sometimes (I’m sure I can too, but I at least have control over that). So even though I don’t necessarily want to apologize for the way I acted, I also have inadvertently been associated with the entire group. And as much as I love them, there is a general tendency to act just a bit entitled without recognizing it.
Even though I am nervous about the entire semester being tainted by the past few weeks, I also think that all this is probably what I am supposed to be learning. Sometimes, you can’t help who you are associated with, and sometimes you can. You can never control what someone else thinks of you, which is really, really hard for me to accept. Knowing that there are people out there who might in the slightest bit not like me or think that I am a spoiled American (even if I am) is really hard. So, I’m just caught between a lot of groups that I both like and disagree with. Most of all, I’m pretty homesick. I don’t want to leave Tanzania because I love it, but I also really, really want to be home.
On a good note, this morning we took a trip to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). I’m really glad we got to do that, and hopefully I will go back and watch trials a lot. Basically, it is a UN international court that was set up for the Rwandan genocide and the Arusha International Convention Center hosts it. My school is a little house behind the convention center, so I am in there a lot to get lunch or just kind of hang around. This morning we went and watched some court proceedings, then watched a movie about the ICTR, and then the spokesperson (very important I think) gave us a talk.
The trial that we got to see part of is actually a pretty famous one. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was the Minister of Family and Women Affairs in Rwanda. She supposedly organized the rape of thousands or women. Rape, if done during war against a population, is now considered a crime against humanity and (I think) genocide. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be charged with crimes against humanity for rape. Her son is also being charged. I only watched for about two hours, and most of it was in French, but it was an experience. There are a lot of problems with the ICTR (like only Hutu are put on trial and they are moving so slowly that it would take something like 200 years to convict everyone at this pace), but it is changing a lot of things in international law. Not that wikipedia is credible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Nyiramasuhuko
Dad comes in just a little more than one week! Perfect timing I would say.
Things I am worried about that will hopefully become obsolete once I get them out in writing:
-People back home who are having a hard time
-Not being good enough at Swahili
-My senior thesis proposal that’s really hard and not done yet even though it should be (this is a biggy)
-Not taking advantage of being here
-Martha or anyone else having been hurt or thinking I am a bad person
-Being a bad person
-Not meditating enough and therefore worrying too much
-Not having visited my host family again
-Being associated with rude Americans
-Gaining so much weight because I don’t get any exercise and I only eat carbs
-Letting the fact that I might be gaining weight make me vain while I should be grateful for being in Africa and not worrying about how much I weigh
-Friends who worry about what they weigh
-Wanting to go home
-Not wanting to leave
-Dad moving out of our house
-3 pending papers, internship, thesis, volunteering, not doing enough, doing too much
-Feeling like the oldest of the group by 800 years and being a little fed up with it
-The fact that I hardly ever really worry and now I can’t stop worrying even though I designated plenty of time to make sure I pay attention to my worries and let them pass, so something must be wrong with me
-My worries making me worry more and getting in the way of experiencing Africa because I am walking around under a cloud of worry
-No one wanting to read my blog because it turned dark and angsty
I’m probably just going insane because I haven’t danced in approximately 85 days. That’s a whole lot of days and I’m not likin’ it one bit. The weekend is ahead, though, and things are looking up!
Even though I am nervous about the entire semester being tainted by the past few weeks, I also think that all this is probably what I am supposed to be learning. Sometimes, you can’t help who you are associated with, and sometimes you can. You can never control what someone else thinks of you, which is really, really hard for me to accept. Knowing that there are people out there who might in the slightest bit not like me or think that I am a spoiled American (even if I am) is really hard. So, I’m just caught between a lot of groups that I both like and disagree with. Most of all, I’m pretty homesick. I don’t want to leave Tanzania because I love it, but I also really, really want to be home.
On a good note, this morning we took a trip to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). I’m really glad we got to do that, and hopefully I will go back and watch trials a lot. Basically, it is a UN international court that was set up for the Rwandan genocide and the Arusha International Convention Center hosts it. My school is a little house behind the convention center, so I am in there a lot to get lunch or just kind of hang around. This morning we went and watched some court proceedings, then watched a movie about the ICTR, and then the spokesperson (very important I think) gave us a talk.
The trial that we got to see part of is actually a pretty famous one. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was the Minister of Family and Women Affairs in Rwanda. She supposedly organized the rape of thousands or women. Rape, if done during war against a population, is now considered a crime against humanity and (I think) genocide. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be charged with crimes against humanity for rape. Her son is also being charged. I only watched for about two hours, and most of it was in French, but it was an experience. There are a lot of problems with the ICTR (like only Hutu are put on trial and they are moving so slowly that it would take something like 200 years to convict everyone at this pace), but it is changing a lot of things in international law. Not that wikipedia is credible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Nyiramasuhuko
Dad comes in just a little more than one week! Perfect timing I would say.
Things I am worried about that will hopefully become obsolete once I get them out in writing:
-People back home who are having a hard time
-Not being good enough at Swahili
-My senior thesis proposal that’s really hard and not done yet even though it should be (this is a biggy)
-Not taking advantage of being here
-Martha or anyone else having been hurt or thinking I am a bad person
-Being a bad person
-Not meditating enough and therefore worrying too much
-Not having visited my host family again
-Being associated with rude Americans
-Gaining so much weight because I don’t get any exercise and I only eat carbs
-Letting the fact that I might be gaining weight make me vain while I should be grateful for being in Africa and not worrying about how much I weigh
-Friends who worry about what they weigh
-Wanting to go home
-Not wanting to leave
-Dad moving out of our house
-3 pending papers, internship, thesis, volunteering, not doing enough, doing too much
-Feeling like the oldest of the group by 800 years and being a little fed up with it
-The fact that I hardly ever really worry and now I can’t stop worrying even though I designated plenty of time to make sure I pay attention to my worries and let them pass, so something must be wrong with me
-My worries making me worry more and getting in the way of experiencing Africa because I am walking around under a cloud of worry
-No one wanting to read my blog because it turned dark and angsty
I’m probably just going insane because I haven’t danced in approximately 85 days. That’s a whole lot of days and I’m not likin’ it one bit. The weekend is ahead, though, and things are looking up!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thoughts in Between
I feel like I’m running out of time here. Of course, that is all in my head. I have two weeks until Dad comes to visit for a week. Then I only have three weeks left. Then Alec graduates. Then we have a big party where I cook everyone Ugali (yes, you're invited). Then it is my last summer as I have known them to be for the past 15 years. One more year of college. The time between now and when I was 12 is the same amount of time between now and when I will be 30. And I’m not fluent in Swahili.
I can’t believe I’m in Tanzania. Sometimes when I am walking around the city alone I try to focus on really being here. I so easily get in the mode of looking straight ahead and trying not to attract more attention than I already do that I sometimes just see the streets as a transit point that I am trying to make it through, not be in. In the beginning I learned so much because I felt so ‘other’ in some ways and such solidarity in others. Now I hardly think about it and I don’t know if it’s because I am used to it or because I have been in my own little world.
Everything that happened last week really shook me up. For the record, the woman (I won’t say her name even though I realized I did in a way earlier post) from Arcadia is following up and helping us (we are having a mediator come in and help us and Martha…that will be interesting). It may be because she was going to anyway, or it may be because a certain father called the president of a certain school and got s*** done (thanks Dad). Either way, I’m trying not to define what happened or what I think about all of it because I want to leave space for me to discover new things about it as I’m mulling over it in the future.
I feel really grateful for a lot of stuff, but especially for having come here this particular semester. Last semester was really hard in a lot of ways, and so was this one, but I learned things that I probably wouldn’t have learned otherwise. I was kind of lecturing Melendy the other day about her desire to take care of people. She feels bad for not being home while her family and her boyfriend are having a hard time. I have thought a lot about that this year while half my friends were gone last semester and half of us are gone this semester (plus I’m away from my family). Of course, as soon as I lectured her about it I started worrying about people at home and really wishing I could be there for them. What could I really do, though? I think it probably has more to do with a desire to feel needed than truly thinking I can help anyone.
I love it here, but I really can’t wait to get home. It’s not that I want to leave - in fact now that I am here I think 4 months is a really short amount of time to live somewhere. Still, though, it will be good to be home and be with the people that I really, really miss. And I can’t wait to dance. And I miss my guitar so much. Oh, and Jewish people – new found appreciation. Alec and Beth’s sense of humor. Mine and Abby’s designated complaining time. Dan’s bro talk. Becca’s horribly offensive metaphors. Purple rain. Surfing. Fish tacos even though I’m going to be a vegetarian again when I get home. Being outside at night. Driving stick. Manual labor. Cynthia Terry. The kids I babysitt. I’m so privileged…
It has definitely been good to establish myself as a person without everything that usually defines me at home. No one here likes me because I’m good at swing dancing or because I have a pool or because I listen to such-and-such band. I’m the oldest, and at home I am usually the baby of groups. I don’t have much of a choice about what clothes I wear because the ones I brought are all falling apart. I don’t have much makeup. I can’t walk around with my ipod and my phone doesn’t have a varied selection of Sam Cooke ring tones. We don’t have spontaneous dance parties. There are no underwear parties. I didn’t really even have much of a choice in who my friends are. Not that those things were ever what I considered to be me, but I definitely play different roles here than I did at home.
It will be weird to go home and see when I fall into normal patterns and when I don’t. I am definitely going to be really, really different this summer than I was last summer. I call french-fries chips and I expect cars to drive on the left. I have opinions and I voice them. I’m cool with moments being fleeting.
I can’t believe I’m in Tanzania. Sometimes when I am walking around the city alone I try to focus on really being here. I so easily get in the mode of looking straight ahead and trying not to attract more attention than I already do that I sometimes just see the streets as a transit point that I am trying to make it through, not be in. In the beginning I learned so much because I felt so ‘other’ in some ways and such solidarity in others. Now I hardly think about it and I don’t know if it’s because I am used to it or because I have been in my own little world.
Everything that happened last week really shook me up. For the record, the woman (I won’t say her name even though I realized I did in a way earlier post) from Arcadia is following up and helping us (we are having a mediator come in and help us and Martha…that will be interesting). It may be because she was going to anyway, or it may be because a certain father called the president of a certain school and got s*** done (thanks Dad). Either way, I’m trying not to define what happened or what I think about all of it because I want to leave space for me to discover new things about it as I’m mulling over it in the future.
I feel really grateful for a lot of stuff, but especially for having come here this particular semester. Last semester was really hard in a lot of ways, and so was this one, but I learned things that I probably wouldn’t have learned otherwise. I was kind of lecturing Melendy the other day about her desire to take care of people. She feels bad for not being home while her family and her boyfriend are having a hard time. I have thought a lot about that this year while half my friends were gone last semester and half of us are gone this semester (plus I’m away from my family). Of course, as soon as I lectured her about it I started worrying about people at home and really wishing I could be there for them. What could I really do, though? I think it probably has more to do with a desire to feel needed than truly thinking I can help anyone.
I love it here, but I really can’t wait to get home. It’s not that I want to leave - in fact now that I am here I think 4 months is a really short amount of time to live somewhere. Still, though, it will be good to be home and be with the people that I really, really miss. And I can’t wait to dance. And I miss my guitar so much. Oh, and Jewish people – new found appreciation. Alec and Beth’s sense of humor. Mine and Abby’s designated complaining time. Dan’s bro talk. Becca’s horribly offensive metaphors. Purple rain. Surfing. Fish tacos even though I’m going to be a vegetarian again when I get home. Being outside at night. Driving stick. Manual labor. Cynthia Terry. The kids I babysitt. I’m so privileged…
It has definitely been good to establish myself as a person without everything that usually defines me at home. No one here likes me because I’m good at swing dancing or because I have a pool or because I listen to such-and-such band. I’m the oldest, and at home I am usually the baby of groups. I don’t have much of a choice about what clothes I wear because the ones I brought are all falling apart. I don’t have much makeup. I can’t walk around with my ipod and my phone doesn’t have a varied selection of Sam Cooke ring tones. We don’t have spontaneous dance parties. There are no underwear parties. I didn’t really even have much of a choice in who my friends are. Not that those things were ever what I considered to be me, but I definitely play different roles here than I did at home.
It will be weird to go home and see when I fall into normal patterns and when I don’t. I am definitely going to be really, really different this summer than I was last summer. I call french-fries chips and I expect cars to drive on the left. I have opinions and I voice them. I’m cool with moments being fleeting.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
AFGO (look it up)
This post is a little harsh. If you are going to read it, please read the whole thing and try to recognize that I am one perspective in the situation. I am simply trying to make sense of my experience and I recognize other people involved have experienced it in other ways.
We met with the vice president of Arcadia and the head of CEA (whose name I won’t mention because this is a public blog – not that you can’t figure it out) today and, at the risk of sounding dramatic, it was pretty bad. Definitely the one “cultural experience” that I have had since I got here that I really wish I hadn’t.
I’ll start at the beginning (or kind of). Yesterday we asked her if we could have a meeting with her in private. Martha was not in the room and it was in no way rude. She got flustered, stand-off-ish, and rudely ran out saying she would see us at the dinner tonight. We tried not to be discouraged because she was right, we would see her at the dinner. At the dinner we didn’t get a chance alone with her and at the end we jumped on the opportunity of being around her and asked her again, insistently, for a meeting. It was uncomfortable because Martha was in the room (I don’t know if she heard), but we have been in a lot of situations where we conveniently don’t get a chance to talk to other resources alone. So, we weren’t very tactful but we felt we had no other choice. We also felt like we had a right to meet with her alone.
Today we met with her. We started off the meeting (I did) saying how grateful we were for the experience of coming to Tanzania and some nice stuff. I segued with something like, “That being said, there have been some issues that you may or may not have heard about…but the main issue is that we don’t feel we have any resource available to us that we can go to.” She jumped right in with something like, “Oh I know why we are here.” She said that she knew about the letter. You three have seen the letter, and one woman at Arcadia has seen the letter. I am pretty sure that everyone was instructed to keep it to them selves, and I think (we are checking) that everyone did. So she must have been mistaken or simply trying to discredit us.
After I gave that little introduction she told us that we had embarrassed ourselves, her, and ALL OF AMERICA by how we had acted last night after dinner. Now, we may have appeared to not have tact, but we did not embarrass ourselves, especially considering how Martha has acted towards others and us in the past. This woman had decided who we were (young American kids who don’t want to accept that we can’t have everything handed to us), and what the problem was (cultural differences and suffering from “group think” – no joke…and she looked at me as if I were the ring leader when she told us that) before she came into the meeting.
There are some issues she might resolve, which is good (they are primarily academic, although we also need some American money to renew our visas). Really, though, she was patronizing and rude. She talked for a really long time about how hard it must be to be in one of the “poorest countries in the world” and not feel like we can do anything about it. That isn’t the issue at all. Yes, we have had those experiences come up, but we don’t expect people from Arcadia to talk to us about that. Honestly, I feel like the fact that she refuses to see Martha as anything but wonderful is really patronizing towards Martha. Ok, I’m going to try and stop talking about her like this.
Possibly the most offensive part of the meeting was when we were talking about the photography class needing another camera (doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is because they were told they didn’t need to bring their cameras). She asked how much it would be, took out $100 from her purse, pushed it towards us and said, “There, that should go a long way…that’s my contribution to the program.” And she acts like we represent America badly! She literally threw money at the situation. We made it clear that we just don’t have any way to get a camera on our own and that we didn’t want the money. Throwing money at us was offensive both coming from someone who is an authority figure (it was almost like she was buying us off), and coming from an American accusing us of not understanding Tanzania while wearing a skirt suite that was, in my oppinion, too tight and short for a largely Muslim, conservative city.
Now, of course we have had problems dealing with the culture here. Of course it isn’t Arcadia’s job to baby us. I am 100% confident, though, in my ability to adapt and my persistent attempts to uncover my own cultural biases. What is happening here is not because I – or anyone on this program – is having “cultural” problems. We all love Arusha and recognize when we are struggling because things are different. The problems here are with the fact that we have paid thousands of dollars (not even that…just the fact that we are students trying to work with Arcadia) and don’t even have someone who pretends to listen to us.
I could go on and on, but I’m not going to. I feel embarrassed and guilty because it got turned back around on us and some of it really hit the spot (I mean, I am a young idealistic American). I just don’t like the fact that she managed to turn Martha into a victim because Martha is just as much of an intelligent adult as she is. I’m happy, though, because I have heard so many other Peace Studies majors that graduated complain about not having ever been shown how to deal with people in the “real world.” I’m lucky enough to experience and learn to work with the difficult side of people – and America - while I am here. I feel like I have tried my best to transform the situation and now I’m just going to work with Martha as best I can and make the most of things.
I’m really nervous that we could have done something differently or that the problems really are all ours. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t really matter, though, because we didn’t manage to get her to see beyond what she had already decided about us before we got there (and we wouldn’t have been able to no matter how right or wring we were). Of course, I could be way off base on that, but that’s the way it appeared. I feel a little better knowing that the one professor that pointed out our age and American-ness the most is also the one that is most vocal about how he isn’t going to work for the program again (because of the way it’s run). It’s a shame for future students, but at least it gives me a little confidence that I’m not crazy.
I just received an email from the woman we met with as I was writing this. She is following up on some of the issues, and that is good, although I don’t think it excuses the meeting yesterday.
I feel weird posting all of this online, but I’m trying to be honest about the experience I am having here and I think that this particular moment is one that will be largely influential in how I approach situations in the future. I don’t know how yet, but it will.
All the Best,
Sarah
We met with the vice president of Arcadia and the head of CEA (whose name I won’t mention because this is a public blog – not that you can’t figure it out) today and, at the risk of sounding dramatic, it was pretty bad. Definitely the one “cultural experience” that I have had since I got here that I really wish I hadn’t.
I’ll start at the beginning (or kind of). Yesterday we asked her if we could have a meeting with her in private. Martha was not in the room and it was in no way rude. She got flustered, stand-off-ish, and rudely ran out saying she would see us at the dinner tonight. We tried not to be discouraged because she was right, we would see her at the dinner. At the dinner we didn’t get a chance alone with her and at the end we jumped on the opportunity of being around her and asked her again, insistently, for a meeting. It was uncomfortable because Martha was in the room (I don’t know if she heard), but we have been in a lot of situations where we conveniently don’t get a chance to talk to other resources alone. So, we weren’t very tactful but we felt we had no other choice. We also felt like we had a right to meet with her alone.
Today we met with her. We started off the meeting (I did) saying how grateful we were for the experience of coming to Tanzania and some nice stuff. I segued with something like, “That being said, there have been some issues that you may or may not have heard about…but the main issue is that we don’t feel we have any resource available to us that we can go to.” She jumped right in with something like, “Oh I know why we are here.” She said that she knew about the letter. You three have seen the letter, and one woman at Arcadia has seen the letter. I am pretty sure that everyone was instructed to keep it to them selves, and I think (we are checking) that everyone did. So she must have been mistaken or simply trying to discredit us.
After I gave that little introduction she told us that we had embarrassed ourselves, her, and ALL OF AMERICA by how we had acted last night after dinner. Now, we may have appeared to not have tact, but we did not embarrass ourselves, especially considering how Martha has acted towards others and us in the past. This woman had decided who we were (young American kids who don’t want to accept that we can’t have everything handed to us), and what the problem was (cultural differences and suffering from “group think” – no joke…and she looked at me as if I were the ring leader when she told us that) before she came into the meeting.
There are some issues she might resolve, which is good (they are primarily academic, although we also need some American money to renew our visas). Really, though, she was patronizing and rude. She talked for a really long time about how hard it must be to be in one of the “poorest countries in the world” and not feel like we can do anything about it. That isn’t the issue at all. Yes, we have had those experiences come up, but we don’t expect people from Arcadia to talk to us about that. Honestly, I feel like the fact that she refuses to see Martha as anything but wonderful is really patronizing towards Martha. Ok, I’m going to try and stop talking about her like this.
Possibly the most offensive part of the meeting was when we were talking about the photography class needing another camera (doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is because they were told they didn’t need to bring their cameras). She asked how much it would be, took out $100 from her purse, pushed it towards us and said, “There, that should go a long way…that’s my contribution to the program.” And she acts like we represent America badly! She literally threw money at the situation. We made it clear that we just don’t have any way to get a camera on our own and that we didn’t want the money. Throwing money at us was offensive both coming from someone who is an authority figure (it was almost like she was buying us off), and coming from an American accusing us of not understanding Tanzania while wearing a skirt suite that was, in my oppinion, too tight and short for a largely Muslim, conservative city.
Now, of course we have had problems dealing with the culture here. Of course it isn’t Arcadia’s job to baby us. I am 100% confident, though, in my ability to adapt and my persistent attempts to uncover my own cultural biases. What is happening here is not because I – or anyone on this program – is having “cultural” problems. We all love Arusha and recognize when we are struggling because things are different. The problems here are with the fact that we have paid thousands of dollars (not even that…just the fact that we are students trying to work with Arcadia) and don’t even have someone who pretends to listen to us.
I could go on and on, but I’m not going to. I feel embarrassed and guilty because it got turned back around on us and some of it really hit the spot (I mean, I am a young idealistic American). I just don’t like the fact that she managed to turn Martha into a victim because Martha is just as much of an intelligent adult as she is. I’m happy, though, because I have heard so many other Peace Studies majors that graduated complain about not having ever been shown how to deal with people in the “real world.” I’m lucky enough to experience and learn to work with the difficult side of people – and America - while I am here. I feel like I have tried my best to transform the situation and now I’m just going to work with Martha as best I can and make the most of things.
I’m really nervous that we could have done something differently or that the problems really are all ours. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t really matter, though, because we didn’t manage to get her to see beyond what she had already decided about us before we got there (and we wouldn’t have been able to no matter how right or wring we were). Of course, I could be way off base on that, but that’s the way it appeared. I feel a little better knowing that the one professor that pointed out our age and American-ness the most is also the one that is most vocal about how he isn’t going to work for the program again (because of the way it’s run). It’s a shame for future students, but at least it gives me a little confidence that I’m not crazy.
I just received an email from the woman we met with as I was writing this. She is following up on some of the issues, and that is good, although I don’t think it excuses the meeting yesterday.
I feel weird posting all of this online, but I’m trying to be honest about the experience I am having here and I think that this particular moment is one that will be largely influential in how I approach situations in the future. I don’t know how yet, but it will.
All the Best,
Sarah
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Just and Little Rough Patch!
Oh wow. The past week and a half has been a blur. I think that as soon as I let go of my denial about Martha and the program I unleashed a sea of uneasiness and have perpetually felt as though I just woke up from a deep nap to find fifty huge papers due tomorrow. That sounds horrible, but I'm ok. A lot of good things have happened, but most of the past week was dedicated to painstakingly writing a letter to Arcadia laying out our issues and requesting (politely demanding) that they send someone from the US here right now. I wrote a draft and then the 8 of us sat down for an hours-long groups editing process. It was stressful and also amazing that we managed to do it. I was just about to send the letter - literally typing in the email addresses - when we found out (coincidentally) that the Vice President of Arcadia (who is also the head of the study abroad department) was arriving into Tanzania the next day.
She got here last night and I just met her an hour ago. We are having a dinner with her, Martha, and our professors tonight. The woman seems completely unaware of the fact that this program is far from wonderful. I asked her if we could have a meeting with her privately and she seemed to be caught totally off-guard (why you would need a guard against students asking that you do your job, I don't know...sorry, I may be totally wrong on that...but my point is if she was caught off guard she shouldn't need a guard :D ). She tried to figure out why we needed a meeting and we made it clear that we had specific things we need to talk about. She basically said, "Well, I will see you all at dinner," and ran out. I'm not going to lie and say I'm ok with that (in fact part of me is about to run to her hotel and throw-down), but I'm trying to stay optimistic. Plus we are going to insist. Anyway, this has been draining most of every one's energy and we have been sleeping a lot, getting sick, taking out our anger on each other, and talking about going home. But it's all going to be ok! I think this was just a rough week that will soon end.
On another depressing note, Melendy's grandmother died yesterday. I think she is having a really hard time not being able to help her family. Kaliya's dad works for Northwest and is going to try and find a way to fly her back for the funeral, but we don't know if that will happen. Her grandmother was in her 90s, but it is still tough and poor timing.
Surprisingly, I think we are all ok. There is hope that Nicolette (the Arcadia lady) will help us, and if she doesn't then at least we did all we could do (aside from telling the truth to Goucher when I get home - which I fully intend to do). Josh and I met with Roland (our internship advisor) today, and it's so exciting! I'm reading a book and writing a review for the African Foundation for International Law's yearbook, we are organizing and publishing all the AU and UN decisions in Africa, and I am going to be compiling everything that has happened in DRC and writing an analysis. We are essentially joining the team of people who publish this yearbook: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=33557 He is also just a cool guy in general and is probably going to have us over for dinner.
Today I am going to Emusoi and teaching the girls a soul line dance to a Sam Cooke song. It's kind of random, but I think it will be fun. I have extraordinary amounts of work to do with school, internship, and my thesis, but I'm kind of happy about it.
Anyway, sorry this was all about me. You are all missed.
Love,
Sarah
She got here last night and I just met her an hour ago. We are having a dinner with her, Martha, and our professors tonight. The woman seems completely unaware of the fact that this program is far from wonderful. I asked her if we could have a meeting with her privately and she seemed to be caught totally off-guard (why you would need a guard against students asking that you do your job, I don't know...sorry, I may be totally wrong on that...but my point is if she was caught off guard she shouldn't need a guard :D ). She tried to figure out why we needed a meeting and we made it clear that we had specific things we need to talk about. She basically said, "Well, I will see you all at dinner," and ran out. I'm not going to lie and say I'm ok with that (in fact part of me is about to run to her hotel and throw-down), but I'm trying to stay optimistic. Plus we are going to insist. Anyway, this has been draining most of every one's energy and we have been sleeping a lot, getting sick, taking out our anger on each other, and talking about going home. But it's all going to be ok! I think this was just a rough week that will soon end.
On another depressing note, Melendy's grandmother died yesterday. I think she is having a really hard time not being able to help her family. Kaliya's dad works for Northwest and is going to try and find a way to fly her back for the funeral, but we don't know if that will happen. Her grandmother was in her 90s, but it is still tough and poor timing.
Surprisingly, I think we are all ok. There is hope that Nicolette (the Arcadia lady) will help us, and if she doesn't then at least we did all we could do (aside from telling the truth to Goucher when I get home - which I fully intend to do). Josh and I met with Roland (our internship advisor) today, and it's so exciting! I'm reading a book and writing a review for the African Foundation for International Law's yearbook, we are organizing and publishing all the AU and UN decisions in Africa, and I am going to be compiling everything that has happened in DRC and writing an analysis. We are essentially joining the team of people who publish this yearbook: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=33557 He is also just a cool guy in general and is probably going to have us over for dinner.
Today I am going to Emusoi and teaching the girls a soul line dance to a Sam Cooke song. It's kind of random, but I think it will be fun. I have extraordinary amounts of work to do with school, internship, and my thesis, but I'm kind of happy about it.
Anyway, sorry this was all about me. You are all missed.
Love,
Sarah
Saturday, April 11, 2009
51 days and (patiently and happily) counting
Today I met with my Peace and Conflict professor to talk about my senior thesis. Before getting to the coffee shop I tactfully brought up the problems we are having with the program. His response was less concerned with tact and included the word "incompetent" more than once. Apparently he was supposed to teach during the summer program and ended up turning them down after dealing with a certain someone during the course of my class. It's a shame because he is hands-down the best professor we have had, but it also makes me feel like I'm not crazy and imagining the problems. He also said we can include his email in the letter we send to Arcadia and he will talk to them. I don't like feeling like we are staging a coup, but I'm looking forward to (hopefully) something changing. We are also learning a lot...maybe Arcadia intentionally put 8 strong-willed people who have to be together 24/7 in a random country with only one resource who is really difficult to work with. It's like Real World: Tanzania, conflict resolution edition.
I'm doing my thesis on the role of outsiders in the DRC conflict. I'm SO happy that my professor is helping because even though I have done a lot of research in the past, I have never written a proposal for a 100-page paper. He is going to help me get in contact with scholars that I can hopefully invite to speak at Goucher. He also helped me think about what I want to do after college, which I unfortunately realized today is coming up pretty quickly. Peace Corps? Law school? UN volunteers? University for Peace in Costa Rica? At least make an attempt at making money?
On a less stressful note, there is one funny thing that happened last weekend when we were staying with families that I forgot to mention. Kaliya, who is mixed (and no one here seems to know what to make of her), was having a conversation with her host mom about African Americans. She explained that some can be really light skinned, and apparently as they were going to bed that night her host mom asked if I am African American! I'll leave it at that so that I don't sound too much like one of those girls who wishes they were black...except I'm not going to pretend that it didn't make my life complete. Also, it was hilarious.
Thursday night I went out to ViaVia thinking I would just stop by and ended up not getting home until 3:30 am. This wasn't because I was being crazy. Two of my friends went to the bathroom at one point and there was a British girl in there who was completely hammered. She introduced herself and started talking about how her friend had been raped earlier that day and how she was alone and stuff. Later I kind of eaves dropped on this conversation she was having with two guys who were trying to tell her she needed to find a way to get a friend to come and bring her home. I went and asked what was up and the guy told me she was drunk and that she shouldn't be alone. So we spent about half an hour trying to get her to come home with us. It was kind of scary because the guys brought over all sorts of girls who had frightening stories. One girl's friend had been raped, and another girl came over and had half of her head shaved because someone had jumped out the trees and hit her and her friend with a machete. Tash, the British girl, finally decided to come with us, except she wanted to go back to her house. At this point we didn't really know if she knew where that was, but we got in a cab and she ended up being able to tell the guy where it was. Of course, it was in the middle of the woods about 20 minutes away and the cab got stuck in the mud. I wasn't upset, though, because we managed to push it out and I would have been worried about the girl if we hadn't brought her home. It's pretty scary to find out how violent Arusha is at night, but it makes me really thankful for having so many people here so that I don't ever have to go anywhere alone at night (so don't worry about me).
I miss home a lot! Even though I'm having mostly a really good time, I know I'm going to be ready to go home when the time comes.
Some things that I know I won't die without but would rather never have to live without again:
-Lindy Hop
-Abby Becker
-Philosophy classes
-Sam Cooke
-My family
-Jews (that's a biggy...who would've thought?)
I'm doing my thesis on the role of outsiders in the DRC conflict. I'm SO happy that my professor is helping because even though I have done a lot of research in the past, I have never written a proposal for a 100-page paper. He is going to help me get in contact with scholars that I can hopefully invite to speak at Goucher. He also helped me think about what I want to do after college, which I unfortunately realized today is coming up pretty quickly. Peace Corps? Law school? UN volunteers? University for Peace in Costa Rica? At least make an attempt at making money?
On a less stressful note, there is one funny thing that happened last weekend when we were staying with families that I forgot to mention. Kaliya, who is mixed (and no one here seems to know what to make of her), was having a conversation with her host mom about African Americans. She explained that some can be really light skinned, and apparently as they were going to bed that night her host mom asked if I am African American! I'll leave it at that so that I don't sound too much like one of those girls who wishes they were black...except I'm not going to pretend that it didn't make my life complete. Also, it was hilarious.
Thursday night I went out to ViaVia thinking I would just stop by and ended up not getting home until 3:30 am. This wasn't because I was being crazy. Two of my friends went to the bathroom at one point and there was a British girl in there who was completely hammered. She introduced herself and started talking about how her friend had been raped earlier that day and how she was alone and stuff. Later I kind of eaves dropped on this conversation she was having with two guys who were trying to tell her she needed to find a way to get a friend to come and bring her home. I went and asked what was up and the guy told me she was drunk and that she shouldn't be alone. So we spent about half an hour trying to get her to come home with us. It was kind of scary because the guys brought over all sorts of girls who had frightening stories. One girl's friend had been raped, and another girl came over and had half of her head shaved because someone had jumped out the trees and hit her and her friend with a machete. Tash, the British girl, finally decided to come with us, except she wanted to go back to her house. At this point we didn't really know if she knew where that was, but we got in a cab and she ended up being able to tell the guy where it was. Of course, it was in the middle of the woods about 20 minutes away and the cab got stuck in the mud. I wasn't upset, though, because we managed to push it out and I would have been worried about the girl if we hadn't brought her home. It's pretty scary to find out how violent Arusha is at night, but it makes me really thankful for having so many people here so that I don't ever have to go anywhere alone at night (so don't worry about me).
I miss home a lot! Even though I'm having mostly a really good time, I know I'm going to be ready to go home when the time comes.
Some things that I know I won't die without but would rather never have to live without again:
-Lindy Hop
-Abby Becker
-Philosophy classes
-Sam Cooke
-My family
-Jews (that's a biggy...who would've thought?)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Half Way Through(!)(!?)(...)
Oh, oh, oh, so many conflicting emotions. Here is a quick run-down of what is going on and I will follow with an elaboration:
-The weekend was simultaneously a great learning experience, partially fun, and upsetting on a couple different levels.
-This program pretty much sucks. I know I haven’t written about this much yet, but today was the last straw (is that the expression?).
-I have an awesome internship.
-I’m joining a choir.
-Volunteering might possibly be going really well.
The Weekend.
I don’t think I have processed it enough to fully elaborate, so I’m going to be brief and leave a lot out. There is a Lutheran choir that my music professor knows. They live about two kilometers from the center of town, and they are an amazing choir. We went to see them perform and then each of us went and stayed with one of the families for the weekend. Saturday we went on a hike to this amazing waterfall (that part was sweet), and Sunday we went to church (kind of sweet music-wise, but the only word I recognized through the whole thing was “konyagi” which made me feel a little guilty because that’s the cheap Tanzanian alcohol…we did get introduced to the whole congregation, though, and the Pastor apparently said it was a miracle that we addressed them in Swahili).
I stayed with a family that was really nice at first. The mother is in the choir and doesn’t speak English, but her 21-year-old daughter does. At first it was wonderful. I hadn’t been feeling well all week and I was sad about not being with my friends while we were all thinking about Dana, and this family welcomed me into their home. Tanzanian hospitality is incredible, and they honestly see it as a blessing to have a guest (I mean really, they like people to come to their house). At first, it was wonderful and I loved it. Then, though, it was like…I couldn’t say no to food because I didn’t want to be rude. No joke, I wish I knew how to make myself throw up. I had been sick and then I ate the most obscene amount of food that whole weekend. Very quickly it went from me feeling embraced to me feeling like I was a doll. I got walked 85 miles around Arusha meeting every single family member that they have, which was wonderful and totally normal here, except that it kind of turned into, “Come look at my white girl.” Juliet (the daughter) kept telling me to say stuff in Kiswahili (like, “Sarah sema poa! Sema poa!”) or telling her friends to say things so that I could respond. It was cute at first, but then I didn’t feel like a human being, I felt like entertainment. Plus, I’ve been here for two months and I know how to say hi in Swahili. There were a lot of things that I don’t feel like going into. And I feel guilty feeling this way because they invited me into their home and gave me so much of the little that they have.
Anyway, I know I sound a bit…I don’t know, like I’m not adapting or I’m ungrateful. Not the case. I am really thankful for them inviting me into their home, I just felt like there were a lot of dynamics going on that made me really uncomfortable and I completely fell apart when I got home. I learned a whole lot though, and for better or worse I have a family here now who wants me to come live with them (not kidding, Juliet spent SO long trying to convince me to come live with them). I learned so much about Arusha and the way people live and my new family’s life. But to all you people out there who do home stays for study abroad – nothing but respect from this girl.
This Program is Really Bad.
Alright, so I signed up for this program knowing that it is the first semester it is happening, so it is obviously going to be disorganized. Up until recently, I was ok with the fact that it is really disorganized, there is no communication between Martha (our program director) and the professors and us, Martha didn’t give us our syllabi or tell us to get our books before we came to Tanzania (so we have been making due without any books), almost none of the trips that they told us would happen have happened, they changed the end of the program and will only reimburse the people who leave Tanzania on exactly on June 1st for their flights (so people are stuck here either having to pay for a place to stay or change their flight and pay), and almost nothing changes when we request something to change. I was even ok when our program director at Arcadia got fired and we didn’t find out until we needed him and got a response that he was no longer there because no one told us. I was even ok when they restructured, fired Ethel (the one person that we felt like listened to us here), hired two new people in her place, and didn’t tell us about it until a week after they started working. Obviously we knew, but only because we figured it out.
I know that none of you have any background on what has been going on with which you can trust what I’m about to say, but I’m going to be honest. At the beginning of the program the other students didn’t (in my opinion) appropriately deal with their issues with the program. Some of the problems were cultural and some were real problems with the program. They emailed the administration too much, didn’t pick their battles, and were outright rude at times. Martha and the administration were alienated. Honestly, though, as much as I hate to say things that are mean, I do not think that Martha is doing a good job. I don’t feel like I can go to her with any of my problems. When I ask her anything she gets defensive, never just says, “I don’t know,” and tells us not to take the things she says, “Like the Bible.” I pride myself on my ability to talk to people and make requests respectfully without blame. In the beginning it worked (I compiled everyone’s requests, typed them up, and sat down with Martha to discuss them – and it worked at first). I honestly feel completely powerless, patronized, and uncomfortable at school. This has only happened in the past few days. We have a new guy working in Ethel’s place and all of us feel uncomfortable around him. Martha showed up at our hotel yesterday and asked me to tell everyone that the photography trip today would start at 10:30 (cutting out half of our Swahili class) and that they were going to a waterfall. I told her that I’m not in the class, not going on the excursion, don’t know anything about it, but would pass on the message. I passed it on and got questions like, “Why are we leaving at 10:30? Wait we are going to a waterfall? They said blah blah blah before.” I of course didn’t know the answers and when there was confusion today Martha insinuated that she did her job and I didn’t pass on the message well enough.
I feel immature placing blame on Martha. Honestly, though, we do not feel safe talking to her (not safe emotionally I mean – I don’t mean physically). I like my classes for the most part, I’m having fun here, I’m learning, but most of all this has been despite the Arcadia administration here and in the States, not because of them. Obviously Martha’s hands are tied on some things, but I honestly don’t care if nothing changes but the fact that I feel like if I say something someone listens. I’ve accepted that I have to make this the experience that I want it to be (I knew that before I came), but I just want Martha to pretend like she is listening to what we are saying and trying to change it. It doesn’t require actually doing anything other than using empathic listening skills. Just stop talking, nod your head, and rephrase what I say so that it seems like I understand. It’s not that hard. There are books on it.
Anyway, my intention is not to be snide. I’m just upset. We have a plan to write a formal letter to all sorts of people at Arcadia and get the study abroad offices at Goucher and other schools involved. The only thing that I can possibly think would help right now is for Arcadia to send someone from the States here PRONTO. I feel bad because it’s not like I want Martha to be out of a job (her daughter goes to Arcadia for free and I wouldn’t want to screw that up for her daughter); I just don’t foresee her doing it well enough that anything changes anytime soon.
Internship Madness
Josh brought me to meet our new internship boss today at the AICC. Before I talk about real stuff, let me just say that it is nothing but a shame that he is wearing a wedding ring. First of all, he is not bad on the eyes and wore a SLICK pin stripe suite. He is really nice, funny, smart, and as far as I can tell is a good guy with a lot of power. Also, he bought us lunch. Big points.
I think I explained before that he is basically trying to create a database both in the form of a book and a website with a compilation of legal and other procedures that have taken place in terms of conflict in Africa. He and the Foundation are also trying to create a network of African lawyers and scholars. Africa has a lot of them, but a lot of them study abroad and don’t come back. There is no network as of yet, and it isn’t like successful things don’t happen here, it’s just that not a lot gets recorded so it’s hard to learn from the past (in terms of conflicts and wars).
Josh and I are working on the beginning stages of that database and then we are going to focus on one or two specific conflicts and document everything that has been done. I’m going to do DRC because it will help me with my senior thesis (tomorrow I’m meeting with one of my professors here and he is going to help me to write my proposal). Also, there are a lot of books that Roland (our internship guy) needs to be reviewed. So we are going to review some of them and if our reviews are good then they will be published. I know that sounds like a lot, but this is an internship that I can have all this semester, the summer, and my entire life if I want. It sounds like I’m going to meet a lot of cool people and get a really good understanding of whether or not law is for me. Basically: sweetness.
I’m Joining a Choir
Makumira choir. Right now they are learning about African American music. That’s my jam so I’m pretty psyched.
Volunteering
Today I started my experimental peace building stuff and it was a success as far as I can tell. I played this game with them where a statement is read and if it is true for you, you stand up. Then you see how many people feel similarly (because they are the ones standing up) and then sit back down until the next statement is read. Now, I wrote the statements, my Kiswahili professor helped me translate, and then the girl that helped me by reading them had to explain a little. So I have no idea how close to what I originally wrote the statements they got were. It was interesting, though, and definitely a lot of them took it seriously. Almost every girl stood up at the statement, “I almost always feel uncomfortable around men.”
Then I had them divide up into groups and write on a piece of paper everything they thought of when they thought of ‘amani’ which means ‘peace’. I also had them do it with ‘not peace’ (bila amani) and they wrote everything up on the board.
Anyway, that was a lot. And I’m half way through! On one hand I feel like things are only starting to pick up, and on the other hand I can’t believe I have another two whole months before I get to go home. I love you all.
-The weekend was simultaneously a great learning experience, partially fun, and upsetting on a couple different levels.
-This program pretty much sucks. I know I haven’t written about this much yet, but today was the last straw (is that the expression?).
-I have an awesome internship.
-I’m joining a choir.
-Volunteering might possibly be going really well.
The Weekend.
I don’t think I have processed it enough to fully elaborate, so I’m going to be brief and leave a lot out. There is a Lutheran choir that my music professor knows. They live about two kilometers from the center of town, and they are an amazing choir. We went to see them perform and then each of us went and stayed with one of the families for the weekend. Saturday we went on a hike to this amazing waterfall (that part was sweet), and Sunday we went to church (kind of sweet music-wise, but the only word I recognized through the whole thing was “konyagi” which made me feel a little guilty because that’s the cheap Tanzanian alcohol…we did get introduced to the whole congregation, though, and the Pastor apparently said it was a miracle that we addressed them in Swahili).
I stayed with a family that was really nice at first. The mother is in the choir and doesn’t speak English, but her 21-year-old daughter does. At first it was wonderful. I hadn’t been feeling well all week and I was sad about not being with my friends while we were all thinking about Dana, and this family welcomed me into their home. Tanzanian hospitality is incredible, and they honestly see it as a blessing to have a guest (I mean really, they like people to come to their house). At first, it was wonderful and I loved it. Then, though, it was like…I couldn’t say no to food because I didn’t want to be rude. No joke, I wish I knew how to make myself throw up. I had been sick and then I ate the most obscene amount of food that whole weekend. Very quickly it went from me feeling embraced to me feeling like I was a doll. I got walked 85 miles around Arusha meeting every single family member that they have, which was wonderful and totally normal here, except that it kind of turned into, “Come look at my white girl.” Juliet (the daughter) kept telling me to say stuff in Kiswahili (like, “Sarah sema poa! Sema poa!”) or telling her friends to say things so that I could respond. It was cute at first, but then I didn’t feel like a human being, I felt like entertainment. Plus, I’ve been here for two months and I know how to say hi in Swahili. There were a lot of things that I don’t feel like going into. And I feel guilty feeling this way because they invited me into their home and gave me so much of the little that they have.
Anyway, I know I sound a bit…I don’t know, like I’m not adapting or I’m ungrateful. Not the case. I am really thankful for them inviting me into their home, I just felt like there were a lot of dynamics going on that made me really uncomfortable and I completely fell apart when I got home. I learned a whole lot though, and for better or worse I have a family here now who wants me to come live with them (not kidding, Juliet spent SO long trying to convince me to come live with them). I learned so much about Arusha and the way people live and my new family’s life. But to all you people out there who do home stays for study abroad – nothing but respect from this girl.
This Program is Really Bad.
Alright, so I signed up for this program knowing that it is the first semester it is happening, so it is obviously going to be disorganized. Up until recently, I was ok with the fact that it is really disorganized, there is no communication between Martha (our program director) and the professors and us, Martha didn’t give us our syllabi or tell us to get our books before we came to Tanzania (so we have been making due without any books), almost none of the trips that they told us would happen have happened, they changed the end of the program and will only reimburse the people who leave Tanzania on exactly on June 1st for their flights (so people are stuck here either having to pay for a place to stay or change their flight and pay), and almost nothing changes when we request something to change. I was even ok when our program director at Arcadia got fired and we didn’t find out until we needed him and got a response that he was no longer there because no one told us. I was even ok when they restructured, fired Ethel (the one person that we felt like listened to us here), hired two new people in her place, and didn’t tell us about it until a week after they started working. Obviously we knew, but only because we figured it out.
I know that none of you have any background on what has been going on with which you can trust what I’m about to say, but I’m going to be honest. At the beginning of the program the other students didn’t (in my opinion) appropriately deal with their issues with the program. Some of the problems were cultural and some were real problems with the program. They emailed the administration too much, didn’t pick their battles, and were outright rude at times. Martha and the administration were alienated. Honestly, though, as much as I hate to say things that are mean, I do not think that Martha is doing a good job. I don’t feel like I can go to her with any of my problems. When I ask her anything she gets defensive, never just says, “I don’t know,” and tells us not to take the things she says, “Like the Bible.” I pride myself on my ability to talk to people and make requests respectfully without blame. In the beginning it worked (I compiled everyone’s requests, typed them up, and sat down with Martha to discuss them – and it worked at first). I honestly feel completely powerless, patronized, and uncomfortable at school. This has only happened in the past few days. We have a new guy working in Ethel’s place and all of us feel uncomfortable around him. Martha showed up at our hotel yesterday and asked me to tell everyone that the photography trip today would start at 10:30 (cutting out half of our Swahili class) and that they were going to a waterfall. I told her that I’m not in the class, not going on the excursion, don’t know anything about it, but would pass on the message. I passed it on and got questions like, “Why are we leaving at 10:30? Wait we are going to a waterfall? They said blah blah blah before.” I of course didn’t know the answers and when there was confusion today Martha insinuated that she did her job and I didn’t pass on the message well enough.
I feel immature placing blame on Martha. Honestly, though, we do not feel safe talking to her (not safe emotionally I mean – I don’t mean physically). I like my classes for the most part, I’m having fun here, I’m learning, but most of all this has been despite the Arcadia administration here and in the States, not because of them. Obviously Martha’s hands are tied on some things, but I honestly don’t care if nothing changes but the fact that I feel like if I say something someone listens. I’ve accepted that I have to make this the experience that I want it to be (I knew that before I came), but I just want Martha to pretend like she is listening to what we are saying and trying to change it. It doesn’t require actually doing anything other than using empathic listening skills. Just stop talking, nod your head, and rephrase what I say so that it seems like I understand. It’s not that hard. There are books on it.
Anyway, my intention is not to be snide. I’m just upset. We have a plan to write a formal letter to all sorts of people at Arcadia and get the study abroad offices at Goucher and other schools involved. The only thing that I can possibly think would help right now is for Arcadia to send someone from the States here PRONTO. I feel bad because it’s not like I want Martha to be out of a job (her daughter goes to Arcadia for free and I wouldn’t want to screw that up for her daughter); I just don’t foresee her doing it well enough that anything changes anytime soon.
Internship Madness
Josh brought me to meet our new internship boss today at the AICC. Before I talk about real stuff, let me just say that it is nothing but a shame that he is wearing a wedding ring. First of all, he is not bad on the eyes and wore a SLICK pin stripe suite. He is really nice, funny, smart, and as far as I can tell is a good guy with a lot of power. Also, he bought us lunch. Big points.
I think I explained before that he is basically trying to create a database both in the form of a book and a website with a compilation of legal and other procedures that have taken place in terms of conflict in Africa. He and the Foundation are also trying to create a network of African lawyers and scholars. Africa has a lot of them, but a lot of them study abroad and don’t come back. There is no network as of yet, and it isn’t like successful things don’t happen here, it’s just that not a lot gets recorded so it’s hard to learn from the past (in terms of conflicts and wars).
Josh and I are working on the beginning stages of that database and then we are going to focus on one or two specific conflicts and document everything that has been done. I’m going to do DRC because it will help me with my senior thesis (tomorrow I’m meeting with one of my professors here and he is going to help me to write my proposal). Also, there are a lot of books that Roland (our internship guy) needs to be reviewed. So we are going to review some of them and if our reviews are good then they will be published. I know that sounds like a lot, but this is an internship that I can have all this semester, the summer, and my entire life if I want. It sounds like I’m going to meet a lot of cool people and get a really good understanding of whether or not law is for me. Basically: sweetness.
I’m Joining a Choir
Makumira choir. Right now they are learning about African American music. That’s my jam so I’m pretty psyched.
Volunteering
Today I started my experimental peace building stuff and it was a success as far as I can tell. I played this game with them where a statement is read and if it is true for you, you stand up. Then you see how many people feel similarly (because they are the ones standing up) and then sit back down until the next statement is read. Now, I wrote the statements, my Kiswahili professor helped me translate, and then the girl that helped me by reading them had to explain a little. So I have no idea how close to what I originally wrote the statements they got were. It was interesting, though, and definitely a lot of them took it seriously. Almost every girl stood up at the statement, “I almost always feel uncomfortable around men.”
Then I had them divide up into groups and write on a piece of paper everything they thought of when they thought of ‘amani’ which means ‘peace’. I also had them do it with ‘not peace’ (bila amani) and they wrote everything up on the board.
Anyway, that was a lot. And I’m half way through! On one hand I feel like things are only starting to pick up, and on the other hand I can’t believe I have another two whole months before I get to go home. I love you all.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Remembering Dana
As some of you may or may not know, two years ago today my friend Dana died after being hit by a car near our school. There aren’t enough words to say what all of us who knew her want to say. Dana taught me how to embrace the people I care about in all their wonderful and not wonderful-ness. She loved her family and friends in all their awkwardness and was completely beautiful, even with her ability to make disgusting faces.
Both Dana’s life and her death helped me learn what is important and what really isn’t important when it comes down to it. Today, please think of Dana and her family, along with those families that you know that have lost someone. Try to stay focused on who you really want to spend your time with, and embrace people for all that they are – not just the parts you like :) Most importantly, make a lot of jokes.
Both Dana’s life and her death helped me learn what is important and what really isn’t important when it comes down to it. Today, please think of Dana and her family, along with those families that you know that have lost someone. Try to stay focused on who you really want to spend your time with, and embrace people for all that they are – not just the parts you like :) Most importantly, make a lot of jokes.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Sorry, I Don’t Speak Drum…
I discovered a few more life callings this week. Can you have more than one life calling? I’m pretty sure I have about 8. The first that I discovered was drum making. We made drums in music class. They didn’t mention to us that if we don’t make the whole thing in one day the cowhide dries. So on Monday we started them and when we got back on Tuesday morning we found that Mwalimu Kijugo (mwalimu is teacher and Kijugo is his name) had taken them all apart to re-soak the hide. So Tuesday we worked for about 5 hours. In the beginning I was really into it, and by the end I had numerous blisters and a make-shift finger cast from when I tried to use a knife to get fancy on my drum and instead got fancy on my finger. My drum is awwweeessoommmeeeee. I didn’t actually kill or skin the cow, and I didn’t carve the tree trunk, but I threaded in all the stringed hide and stretched it out. It’s so hard!
At one point I asked our other professor, Stubbs, at what point we would know to stop stretching the hide. His response was, “Well, Mwalimu Kijugo said that the drum will speak to you and tell you when it’s ready.” That’s a fairly typical answer here I would say. Melendy’s response was, “Well, I don’t speak drum so it’s going to have to tell Kijugo and he can let me know.”
I went into Emusoi (the Maasai girls school) again yesterday and it was really fun. I have developed a plan for what I’m going to do with them. Kate, the woman who organizes volunteers, asked if I could teach them line dances. I said yes, but of course the only line dances I know are soul line dances. So the first thing I’m going to do is introduce them to my much neglected friends Sam Cooke and the Jackson 5, teach them some line dances, and throw in some soul train action.
In a more serious manner I am figuring out how to do what I did in Baltimore last year with kids in the city. It’s called HIPP (help increase the peace), and it’s a bunch of activities that get kids to think about different issues and deal with them nonviolently as a group. Now, there are a few obstacles. First, there are about 80 of them and one of me. Second, my Swahili is lacking lately and most of them don’t speak English (some don’t even speak Swahili, they speak Kimaa). Third, I have virtually no idea what their lives are like and how they view some of the things we will be talking about. I see these as minor details, though. A lot of the girls will be going to secondary school with kids from all over the place. I don’t know how much emotional and psychological preparation they have for entering a totally foreign environment, so I think it’s important to at least have some designated time to think about stuff (like fear, loneliness, where they feel safe, etc.).
Something else that’s awesome happened yesterday. Josh (one of the guys on my program and my new best friend) got internships for us at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. How great is that?! We won’t actually be working with the ICTR, but the guy we are working for is a lawyer there. He works for (or runs maybe) the African Foundation for International Law. He is developing a research internship for the graduate program here, but since there are no graduate students right now, we are doing it instead. The project we are working on is called “Programme of Support and Assistance for the Peaceful Resolution of Internal and International Conflicts in Africa.” As I understand it we are essentially building a database of records of all sorts of legal decisions, case law, and history of conflicts. Kind of like conflict mapping along with a giant annotated bibliography (shout out to my human rights class from last semester – Seble isn’t insane! Annotated bibliographies are really important!). It seems like kind of perfect timing for me because I both love doing that stuff and am considering law school, so this will be a good introduction.
Last night we went to this place called Njiro Complex. It’s pretty much like a weird mini Californian mall thrown in the middle of Arusha. I don’t like it much, but it’s a good escape sometimes. Some of my friends wanted to see Benjamin Button, but Sara, Kaliya, and I wanted to do homework so we went to the really cool hookah café. We had ice coffee (huge luxury) and hookah and just as we sat down to do homework our friend Ali who lives down the street and his friend Will came in and were like, “Yeeaahhhh let’s drinnkkkk, close your computers!” I was a little annoyed because they tried to peer pressure me into not doing my work. It stayed strong, though, and worked for a while (I can’t say the same for Sara and Kaliya :D ). Afterwards I went and hung out with them and a bunch of us ended up going to ViaVia and staying out too late, but it was fun.
Today I’m finishing my law paper and starting my internship work before we go to the Maasai village for the weekend. I know, tough life. I’m pretty homesick, though, so I hope everyone is doing well!
Love,
Sarah
At one point I asked our other professor, Stubbs, at what point we would know to stop stretching the hide. His response was, “Well, Mwalimu Kijugo said that the drum will speak to you and tell you when it’s ready.” That’s a fairly typical answer here I would say. Melendy’s response was, “Well, I don’t speak drum so it’s going to have to tell Kijugo and he can let me know.”
I went into Emusoi (the Maasai girls school) again yesterday and it was really fun. I have developed a plan for what I’m going to do with them. Kate, the woman who organizes volunteers, asked if I could teach them line dances. I said yes, but of course the only line dances I know are soul line dances. So the first thing I’m going to do is introduce them to my much neglected friends Sam Cooke and the Jackson 5, teach them some line dances, and throw in some soul train action.
In a more serious manner I am figuring out how to do what I did in Baltimore last year with kids in the city. It’s called HIPP (help increase the peace), and it’s a bunch of activities that get kids to think about different issues and deal with them nonviolently as a group. Now, there are a few obstacles. First, there are about 80 of them and one of me. Second, my Swahili is lacking lately and most of them don’t speak English (some don’t even speak Swahili, they speak Kimaa). Third, I have virtually no idea what their lives are like and how they view some of the things we will be talking about. I see these as minor details, though. A lot of the girls will be going to secondary school with kids from all over the place. I don’t know how much emotional and psychological preparation they have for entering a totally foreign environment, so I think it’s important to at least have some designated time to think about stuff (like fear, loneliness, where they feel safe, etc.).
Something else that’s awesome happened yesterday. Josh (one of the guys on my program and my new best friend) got internships for us at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. How great is that?! We won’t actually be working with the ICTR, but the guy we are working for is a lawyer there. He works for (or runs maybe) the African Foundation for International Law. He is developing a research internship for the graduate program here, but since there are no graduate students right now, we are doing it instead. The project we are working on is called “Programme of Support and Assistance for the Peaceful Resolution of Internal and International Conflicts in Africa.” As I understand it we are essentially building a database of records of all sorts of legal decisions, case law, and history of conflicts. Kind of like conflict mapping along with a giant annotated bibliography (shout out to my human rights class from last semester – Seble isn’t insane! Annotated bibliographies are really important!). It seems like kind of perfect timing for me because I both love doing that stuff and am considering law school, so this will be a good introduction.
Last night we went to this place called Njiro Complex. It’s pretty much like a weird mini Californian mall thrown in the middle of Arusha. I don’t like it much, but it’s a good escape sometimes. Some of my friends wanted to see Benjamin Button, but Sara, Kaliya, and I wanted to do homework so we went to the really cool hookah café. We had ice coffee (huge luxury) and hookah and just as we sat down to do homework our friend Ali who lives down the street and his friend Will came in and were like, “Yeeaahhhh let’s drinnkkkk, close your computers!” I was a little annoyed because they tried to peer pressure me into not doing my work. It stayed strong, though, and worked for a while (I can’t say the same for Sara and Kaliya :D ). Afterwards I went and hung out with them and a bunch of us ended up going to ViaVia and staying out too late, but it was fun.
Today I’m finishing my law paper and starting my internship work before we go to the Maasai village for the weekend. I know, tough life. I’m pretty homesick, though, so I hope everyone is doing well!
Love,
Sarah
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Zanzibar aka Heaven
I’m back in Arusha! It’s only been five days, but we managed to fit so much in that I feel like it’s been a year. On Sunday we got up and left at 6 am. The bus came to our hotel where the 8 of us met with Martha (our program coordinator), the driver, a friend of the photography professor who came to take pictures (he was nice but the picture taking was not very welcomed at 6 in the morning), and Frank who the son of our tour organizer. He goes to university in Nairobi but took the week off and came with us instead.
The first place we went was Tanga. It is on the coast, about three hours north of Dar Es Salaam. It took around 5 hours to get there with a stop for lunch in the middle, and the drive was beautiful. There aren’t a lot of roads here (in fact it’s pretty much just one regular two-way street the entire way) so it takes a lot longer to get anywhere than it would at home. The scenery is absolutely beautiful, though, and the villages that we passed through on the way were really cool to see. I started the vacation off right by leaving my camera battery at home, so I didn’t take any pictures. It sounds rough, but it actually meant that everyone else was taking pictures and I just got to experience it all.
We freaked out when we got to our hotel in Tanga because even though it wasn’t that nice relative to hotels in the States, it had air conditioning! And the beds were comfortable and the room was really pretty! So, we settled in there and then went to these caves that Tanga is famous for. On the way we stopped at an orphanage, which was interesting. Our professors/coordinators don’t seem to understand the concept of exploiting people. That sounds harsh, but we literally stopped into this orphanage (without them telling us first) to look at the kids on the way to our vacation. I can kind of get the idea of showing us a good place to volunteer, but the man running it gave us a talk and then our photographer had us take pictures of the kids. Honestly, we didn’t do anything for the kids, or even know their names. We don’t have the right to have a picture with them that Arcadia (our school) can use for their website. Sorry, tangent…but that made me really, really upset. I’m going to talk to Martha about it, though.
On a lighter note the caves were so sweet! They connect for miles and miles to other cities and are supposedly haunted. I climbed up a vine (or maybe a root since we were underground). There were tons of bats flying all around us. For dinner we went to go swim at this restaurant on the water. We got there, all ready to swim in our (now I can see) extremely skimpy bathing suites, and found hundreds of guys swimming. There was literally not a single other white person there. I saw maybe five girls and all but one were swimming almost fully dressed. I was really hot, though, so I basically told my friends to speak up quickly if they wanted to leave because I wanted to get in. I wore a tank top over my suite and just ran from our table to the water. It was so worth it! It seemed so much more buoyant than the water at home and the sun set while we were floating around.
We woke up at 5 the next day and drove to Dar Es Salaam where we took the boat to Zanzibar. This is where the real adventures began. First, we missed the ferry. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but we were all tired, cranky, and unimaginably hot. I mean…Dar and Zanzibar are hands down the hottest places I have ever been, EVER. We eventually got on the ferry and I sat with Frank. I looked up at the movie that was playing at one point and it was Congo. I don’t know if that is a popular movie, but from what it looked like it’s pretty offensive and a bizarre choice for a ferry in East Africa.
I forgot to mention a detail earlier: we didn’t bring our passports. Now, Zanzibar is part of Tanzania so we wouldn’t need them, right? We are well-trained young Americans, and we have always been taught to leave our passports in a safe place in the hotel unless we absolutely need them. Well, apparently we needed them. Martha says she assumed that it was common sense to bring them (people who aren’t Tanzanian don’t think so I don’t think). Needless to say, we got to Zanzibar but didn’t get into Zanzibar right away. It took about an hour of Frank, Martha, and our tour guide (who apparently knew the guys) to convince the border control to let us in under the condition that the three of them would go to jail if anything bad happened.
The first two nights in Zanzibar we stayed at a hostel that used to be…a church? Or something like that. It’s built on top of what used to be chambers that kept slaves before they were sold. The church next door was built on the whipping platform. We got a tour and it was really interesting to compare our slave trade to the one that affected East Africa (if you separate them). That first day in Zanzibar we went on a walking tour of Stone Town, which was really cool and yet extremely hot. It’s a beautiful city where Arab sultans built palaces. Now it is kind of falling apart and it only costs $10 a month to rent and apartment! I briefly considered moving there for the summer, but decided against it because I would feel far too guilty living in such a beautiful place without anything productive to do at this point in my life.
After the tour we went on a tour of some spice farms. Spices are huge in Zanzibar, and the farm we toured was essentially a forest and a bunch of neighborhoods with spices that grow everywhere. I think I met some of the nicest people I have ever met. It rained in the middle of the tour so we waited around under a hut and I talked to one of the guys. We compared what I grow on the farm at home and what he grows here and how all of it works. It was so cool!
That night some of us walked – yes, at night, we walked outside at night – to a bar down the street. It was kind of empty due to the fact that it was Monday, but it was so awesome to be outside at night and not be afraid of being robbed! Arusha isn’t the best for Mzungu at night so freedom of movement is a luxury. We did have a bit of a scare on the way back, though, when Sara, Alainna, Frank, and I accidentally didn’t read a street sign that said not to walk where we were walking. These two police officers with giant guns stopped us and started talking to Frank in Swahili. I figured out what was going on and they made Frank walk back and read the sign, but there were a few minutes there where I had all sorts of police brutality stories flashing through my head and was planning what to do if they were going to shoot Frank. We made it through, though.
After spending two nights in Stone Town we got up early again and drove north to Nungwi, which is at the Northern tip of the island. It is weird because our hostel was pretty much in a residential neighborhood (and thinking of it full of tourists in high season seemed bizarre), but it was pretty and there were lots of school kids running around and playing with us. I had one of the best days ever there. We started off hanging out on the beach (look up Zanzibar in google images…there are no words) in the water and the sun and on the hammocks at the bar. Then we jumped off this little cliff with some of the local teenagers that were hanging around. In the late afternoon we took a sunset ride on a traditional sailboat. We went snorkeling, jumped off the boat, and then one of the guys (about sailors came with us) got us up dancing. At sunset we watched the horizon and then mooned a huge crowd of tourists that were on shore. Looking back, that may have been a bit disrespectful, but it was also hilarious and I’m not sure anyone saw us.
After dinner we went back to the beach and hung out under the stars for the evening. It made me think about how in the cities, or even just areas more developed than East Africa, you can’t see the stars at night. I wonder how much impact that has on our psyches, or even just on how we view ourselves in relation to our environments. At home I can sometimes see the stars clearly, but I am not constantly aware of how small I am. It would be interesting to do a study on people based on how well they can see the stars (and maybe whether or not they are religious).
Overall it was a wonderful trip and I really enjoyed seeing different parts of Tanzania. Zanzibar is almost a whole different country. The call to prayer was much louder there (because it’s something like 90% Muslim) and I thought the guy might be singing in my room at 5:30 in the morning. The people in Zanzibar treated me a little differently…I guess maybe they weren’t as pushy? I don’t know if it’s because their livelihood is less dependent on me buying things or if it’s because they see white people more often. I definitely have gotten to the point where I am not constantly aware of being white anymore. I sometimes notice when I see another white person, but for the most part race is much less of an issue for me than it was when I got here.
I think the part of the trip that had the most impact on me was the drive through the country. I got to be in neighborhoods with houses made out of mud and sticks and realize that I still look at people who live here through a set of standards that come from home, don’t apply here, and don’t necessarily need to apply at home either. For instance, front yards. I realized that subconsciously I largely view wealth through how a house looks from the outside (as much as I don’t want to admit that). In the States we all dress up our houses with nice front yards for our neighbors to see and our kids to play in. Here front yards are used for the animals to graze or vegetables to grow. It doesn’t really make sense to paint houses because it’s so dusty that they get really dirty anyway. And if it’s hot out why do you need a thick front door? I think my point is the same one that I made a few posts ago. It’s so easy to walk around here feeling bad for people because they “have so much less.” Sometimes that is the case, but I think usually it is more the case that things are just so different. What people have is different, and not everyone’s goal is to have a pretty front yard and painted house.
Until Next Time,
Sarah
The first place we went was Tanga. It is on the coast, about three hours north of Dar Es Salaam. It took around 5 hours to get there with a stop for lunch in the middle, and the drive was beautiful. There aren’t a lot of roads here (in fact it’s pretty much just one regular two-way street the entire way) so it takes a lot longer to get anywhere than it would at home. The scenery is absolutely beautiful, though, and the villages that we passed through on the way were really cool to see. I started the vacation off right by leaving my camera battery at home, so I didn’t take any pictures. It sounds rough, but it actually meant that everyone else was taking pictures and I just got to experience it all.
We freaked out when we got to our hotel in Tanga because even though it wasn’t that nice relative to hotels in the States, it had air conditioning! And the beds were comfortable and the room was really pretty! So, we settled in there and then went to these caves that Tanga is famous for. On the way we stopped at an orphanage, which was interesting. Our professors/coordinators don’t seem to understand the concept of exploiting people. That sounds harsh, but we literally stopped into this orphanage (without them telling us first) to look at the kids on the way to our vacation. I can kind of get the idea of showing us a good place to volunteer, but the man running it gave us a talk and then our photographer had us take pictures of the kids. Honestly, we didn’t do anything for the kids, or even know their names. We don’t have the right to have a picture with them that Arcadia (our school) can use for their website. Sorry, tangent…but that made me really, really upset. I’m going to talk to Martha about it, though.
On a lighter note the caves were so sweet! They connect for miles and miles to other cities and are supposedly haunted. I climbed up a vine (or maybe a root since we were underground). There were tons of bats flying all around us. For dinner we went to go swim at this restaurant on the water. We got there, all ready to swim in our (now I can see) extremely skimpy bathing suites, and found hundreds of guys swimming. There was literally not a single other white person there. I saw maybe five girls and all but one were swimming almost fully dressed. I was really hot, though, so I basically told my friends to speak up quickly if they wanted to leave because I wanted to get in. I wore a tank top over my suite and just ran from our table to the water. It was so worth it! It seemed so much more buoyant than the water at home and the sun set while we were floating around.
We woke up at 5 the next day and drove to Dar Es Salaam where we took the boat to Zanzibar. This is where the real adventures began. First, we missed the ferry. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but we were all tired, cranky, and unimaginably hot. I mean…Dar and Zanzibar are hands down the hottest places I have ever been, EVER. We eventually got on the ferry and I sat with Frank. I looked up at the movie that was playing at one point and it was Congo. I don’t know if that is a popular movie, but from what it looked like it’s pretty offensive and a bizarre choice for a ferry in East Africa.
I forgot to mention a detail earlier: we didn’t bring our passports. Now, Zanzibar is part of Tanzania so we wouldn’t need them, right? We are well-trained young Americans, and we have always been taught to leave our passports in a safe place in the hotel unless we absolutely need them. Well, apparently we needed them. Martha says she assumed that it was common sense to bring them (people who aren’t Tanzanian don’t think so I don’t think). Needless to say, we got to Zanzibar but didn’t get into Zanzibar right away. It took about an hour of Frank, Martha, and our tour guide (who apparently knew the guys) to convince the border control to let us in under the condition that the three of them would go to jail if anything bad happened.
The first two nights in Zanzibar we stayed at a hostel that used to be…a church? Or something like that. It’s built on top of what used to be chambers that kept slaves before they were sold. The church next door was built on the whipping platform. We got a tour and it was really interesting to compare our slave trade to the one that affected East Africa (if you separate them). That first day in Zanzibar we went on a walking tour of Stone Town, which was really cool and yet extremely hot. It’s a beautiful city where Arab sultans built palaces. Now it is kind of falling apart and it only costs $10 a month to rent and apartment! I briefly considered moving there for the summer, but decided against it because I would feel far too guilty living in such a beautiful place without anything productive to do at this point in my life.
After the tour we went on a tour of some spice farms. Spices are huge in Zanzibar, and the farm we toured was essentially a forest and a bunch of neighborhoods with spices that grow everywhere. I think I met some of the nicest people I have ever met. It rained in the middle of the tour so we waited around under a hut and I talked to one of the guys. We compared what I grow on the farm at home and what he grows here and how all of it works. It was so cool!
That night some of us walked – yes, at night, we walked outside at night – to a bar down the street. It was kind of empty due to the fact that it was Monday, but it was so awesome to be outside at night and not be afraid of being robbed! Arusha isn’t the best for Mzungu at night so freedom of movement is a luxury. We did have a bit of a scare on the way back, though, when Sara, Alainna, Frank, and I accidentally didn’t read a street sign that said not to walk where we were walking. These two police officers with giant guns stopped us and started talking to Frank in Swahili. I figured out what was going on and they made Frank walk back and read the sign, but there were a few minutes there where I had all sorts of police brutality stories flashing through my head and was planning what to do if they were going to shoot Frank. We made it through, though.
After spending two nights in Stone Town we got up early again and drove north to Nungwi, which is at the Northern tip of the island. It is weird because our hostel was pretty much in a residential neighborhood (and thinking of it full of tourists in high season seemed bizarre), but it was pretty and there were lots of school kids running around and playing with us. I had one of the best days ever there. We started off hanging out on the beach (look up Zanzibar in google images…there are no words) in the water and the sun and on the hammocks at the bar. Then we jumped off this little cliff with some of the local teenagers that were hanging around. In the late afternoon we took a sunset ride on a traditional sailboat. We went snorkeling, jumped off the boat, and then one of the guys (about sailors came with us) got us up dancing. At sunset we watched the horizon and then mooned a huge crowd of tourists that were on shore. Looking back, that may have been a bit disrespectful, but it was also hilarious and I’m not sure anyone saw us.
After dinner we went back to the beach and hung out under the stars for the evening. It made me think about how in the cities, or even just areas more developed than East Africa, you can’t see the stars at night. I wonder how much impact that has on our psyches, or even just on how we view ourselves in relation to our environments. At home I can sometimes see the stars clearly, but I am not constantly aware of how small I am. It would be interesting to do a study on people based on how well they can see the stars (and maybe whether or not they are religious).
Overall it was a wonderful trip and I really enjoyed seeing different parts of Tanzania. Zanzibar is almost a whole different country. The call to prayer was much louder there (because it’s something like 90% Muslim) and I thought the guy might be singing in my room at 5:30 in the morning. The people in Zanzibar treated me a little differently…I guess maybe they weren’t as pushy? I don’t know if it’s because their livelihood is less dependent on me buying things or if it’s because they see white people more often. I definitely have gotten to the point where I am not constantly aware of being white anymore. I sometimes notice when I see another white person, but for the most part race is much less of an issue for me than it was when I got here.
I think the part of the trip that had the most impact on me was the drive through the country. I got to be in neighborhoods with houses made out of mud and sticks and realize that I still look at people who live here through a set of standards that come from home, don’t apply here, and don’t necessarily need to apply at home either. For instance, front yards. I realized that subconsciously I largely view wealth through how a house looks from the outside (as much as I don’t want to admit that). In the States we all dress up our houses with nice front yards for our neighbors to see and our kids to play in. Here front yards are used for the animals to graze or vegetables to grow. It doesn’t really make sense to paint houses because it’s so dusty that they get really dirty anyway. And if it’s hot out why do you need a thick front door? I think my point is the same one that I made a few posts ago. It’s so easy to walk around here feeling bad for people because they “have so much less.” Sometimes that is the case, but I think usually it is more the case that things are just so different. What people have is different, and not everyone’s goal is to have a pretty front yard and painted house.
Until Next Time,
Sarah
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