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