merry christmas

merry Christmas from Mama E!


we spent December 23rd decorating the church and this baby Christmas tree with balloons :)

i find it ironic...walking by a shop playing "White Christmas"...

my life has been really random lately, so this is going to be pretty random as well...

school closed for the year last week (academic calendar runs January - December), so until mid-January I won't be teaching anymore. I already miss the kids! They make my life much more colorful...

I was the designated photographer for the closing ceremony and prize-giving as students who performed well were presented with pencils, notebooks and packs of laundry detergent.

It has started to rain (read: mild torrential downpour) every afternoon here. By 'afternoon', I literally mean after-noon -- once it hits 12:00 pm (or the 6th hour, in Swahili time) the thunder rumblings start to make their presence known. Gutters turn into rushing rivers, you see ducks swimming in the road (no lie) and crowds of people hide out under every storefront, pressing against the walls as the water rises ominously higher and higher towards our toes… 

Pros: because the running water hasn't been working for 2.5 weeks, this means we can put our buckets outside and get fresh water, woohoo! 

Cons: oceans of midnight black mud that makes my feet look African.

Been hanging out with the youth a lot…they're way mad gangster.

Desi, me, Miriam

Miriam & Sam (my African siblings, Mama E's 2 youngest kids). This is nothing, you should see them at night when she's got her do-rag on blasting gospel music or when Sam is rapping while washing the dishes, switching between Swahili and English, wearing a beanie and baggy sweats lookin' like a jewel thief…

Really, how much badder can you get…?

A lot of high schoolers go to boarding school, so there's a lot more of them around right now since school is out. Currently, about half the worship team is actually made up of youth - Samuel is the drummer, Miriam sings and Desi is the keyboard player/co-worship leader. 

I find the presence of a USPS mail box especially ironic…not sure how that got here… (We keep mics and music equipment in it)

We all took a bus out of town on Sunday to visit our friend at his boarding school. They are seriously funny and good-natured people

at a restaurant, this tremendously tasty plate of food + soda can be bought for $1

I'm telling you -- gangster.

Speaking of being hardcore…

African women are impressive in much different ways than American women, such as proficiency with a machete. Mama continually leaves me in a state of wonder, carrying a pot of boiling oil with her bare hands, nonchalantly munching the head off a fish, skeleton and all, or dragging a bag of rice the size of a adolescent cow into the garage. Or when I calmly come into the living room and inform Miriam that in my bathroom there is a palm-sized spider that I'd like to get rid off and without blinking she tells me to pick it up and put it outside. Have you ever read Proverbs 31? Yeah, that's definitely referring to African women -- ones who literally buy fields and make linen garments and work by the light of an oil lamp. Culturally American Proverbs 31 would probably read differently…"She rises while it is yet night to get her sons to their hockey games on time. She puts her hand to the electric stove to cook Thanksgiving dinner for thirty friends and relatives. She writes a best-selling book and her family lives off the royalties for five years," something like that.

"Huwakunjulia maskini mikono yake; Naam, huwanyoshea wahitaji mikono yake…"

"She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hand to the needy…"  (Prov. 31:20)

I'm pretty sure Mama Elisikia is the most fantastic African woman on the continent. The church family adores her, they're always bringing her gifts -- just in the last couple weeks, different people have sent her a set of 12 tea-mugs, clothes and a hair-dresser to the house to braid her hair (no small ordeal -- a 14-hour, multi-stage process!) And she is always exceedingly thankful and humbled by it. But as I tell her, this is because she herself is mtoaji, a giver. I've been living at her house for two and a half months now, literally as an adopted daughter! (And she always says I'm a blessing…psh.) 

Last week my parents gave her some money as a gift to say thank you for taking care of me. She was incredibly blessed, and over the weekend we went to the market to buy some things for them for Christmas. But it touched me that the first thing she bought with her gift was some clothes for the girl who helps her clean the house…she was so excited telling me about how much she loves this girl and how gratefully she would react to getting a present…

That day, I was confronted by the most fruit I've ever seen in my life. This was like the Sam's Club of fruit. Otherwise known as Soko Kuu, "Big Market." We bought a bag of mangoes the size of a small child for about $2. I learned many valuable things there, such as that you need to buy unripe fruit a few weeks before Christmas before the prices go up, and that shop keepers offer discounts to you for being beautiful. ("Hahaha Mama, I need to come with you to the market more often…" "Yes! I get-y good price!")

In the market there are these massive carts filled with second-hand clothes that people come and rift through -- think Goodwill bins. Apparently this is a huge blessing; before the government allowed these to exist, it was really hard for people to afford clothes from the stores. Mama said that some people would just walk around with no clothes on at all! But now everyone can afford some sort of clothes. It really is like Goodwill -- shirt for $0.75, blazer for $2…And guess where these clothes come from? Yep, our dear home, America.

I suspected as much, because surprisingly often I see someone wearing an item of clothing that I know one of my brothers used to wear from Target. A lot of times you just know they have no idea what they're wearing -- a referee uniform, nurses gown, a tacky Christmas sweater in October to a church service, a t-shirt that says "Moses Was A Foster Parent" (you mean "child"?)… I love seeing all the "New York papherphanialia -- I always have the urge to yell over to them, "Hey! I <3 NY too!" The cheerleader t-shirts really crack me up, especially because they're usually worn by guys.


i'll leave you with this...

in America, everyone is happy & rich…?

I will continue with my customary opening topic -- insects. Cockroaches that are large enough to have a significant amount of guts are not cool. It makes it a lot less fun to smash them. Not that it was fun in the first place…we're starting at zero fun and this brings it down into the negative. Negative fun. Observing their agility and the way they lift their heads (enabled by super long arms) and smell the air like those little prairie dogs that pop out of holes in the Midwest, I truly begin to feel like they each have a little animal brain and feelings… I can smell his fear as he realizes my presence. As I move in for the kill, stabbing with the longest available object, he swerves and dodges like a quarterback, hiding behind things the same color tone as his glossy hide and becoming increasingly distressed at my persistence. Kind of feels like Jurassic Park. Except I'm the T-rex, not the poor little boy in the car watching the rippling cup of water as the footsteps of the monster approach.

Last week on Friday (sports day) I found my 3rd graders behind the school in gender-typical polar activities: the girls wrapping their sweaters around their heads like crowns, tucking flowers all over it and the boys sword-fighting. After I also donned a sweater crown, the boys called on me to be the referee for their fights. I drew an official battle-circle in the dust and filmed them, disqualifying over-eager combatants for swiping too hard (aka Rama), until  You've already been introduced to this dear child...

accomplishments of the week:

- eating fish bones (yes, they're edible.)

- painting 4 bedrooms in 2 afternoons to the utter awe and astonishment of Mama, who originally painted their entire house in 10 days using a 4-inch wide hand brush, unaware of the existence of paint-rollers

- through painting, days of cleaning and scrubbing walls, and eating a heaping plate of plain white rice with nothing but a tomato garnish, winning the respect of my associates and the designation of 'fully African strong hard-working woman, worthy of an African husband'

- moving to a new house, aka the guest rooms at the church, where running water and electricity are as capricious as a 16-year old girl (capricious n. given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior)

- engaging in an afternoon-long city-wide hunt for a pharmacy that carries my malaria meds. Want to know what the Indian pharmacist said at the place I finally found them? "Make sure you drink lots of water when you take this -- we don't want to have a dead person on our hands." Super encouraging. I now apprehensively drink approximately 1 liter of water at dinner on Mondays.

There's kind of a word for boyfriend here, mpenzi, but it's not really specific (means lover) and can be used in different contexts. So because I'm in a Christian community that doesn't believe in dating, most people think I'm like minutes away from getting married. They're all trying to get me to come have my supposed wedding here in Tanzania.

Apart from the Christians, because of my promise ring a lot of other people think I'm engaged or married… Good for me because having a boyfriend doesn't seem to be enough to keep them away. Literally every conversation I have, the 2nd, 3rd or 4th question is whether or not I'm married. I can't imagine the trouble I would have completely single…I'd have to lie my face off. Mama E protects me from the more legitimate ones, aka boys in the church. The other day she's like, 

"Oh my dota! [**note: this is both the way she pronounces it, and the way she spells it in texts**] You know there is sister [**meaning brother**] this day says to me, 'Oh, I am single…Mama, what about this white girl? I see she is different than other white people! She is helping you move, she is strong…' I say--"Ooooh no! This one is-a booked!"

The other ones are usually random people -- bartenders, hotel guards, etc. I end up in conversation with these people because 1) it's fun to have friends at every hotel in the city, 2) I can then sit and use wireless for free, and 3) sometimes I'll get free drinks or cookies. 

The prevailing opinion is that it's a good idea to have both an American and Tanzanian boyfriend. When I disagree, I'm usually accused of not liking black men. It's pretty funny to hear their arguments trying to convince me. One guy's like, "You know, even cars have a spare tire!" Another was super serious trying to convince me, until I showed him the picture of James & I on the background of my computer and he's like, "Ohhhh (disappointed)…I will have hard time…If you change your mind, you come tell me!" Everyone shamelessly wants to marry me so they can come live in America. They just say it outright: "I want to marry you and we will go and live in America." I don't think I can really impress upon you how often this happens. Almost every unmarried man I come in contact with. And at least once a day.

More sobering is the woman who puts her baby into my arms and asks me to bring it back with me to Europe. Her light-hearted earnestness is disarming…expecting me to take him with me at that very moment, her demeanor is identical to the woman down the road who cheerily gave me some free biscuits the other day because I always say hi to her. Is it that simple to give away your child? And how do you counter the nation-wide persuasion that moving to America will solve all your problems...

Walking back from school the other day I was overtaken by a few of my students, one of them Rama, who invited me to come see his house. I followed him just a couple hundred yards away from the church into his home, a small dark room off of a communal courtyard. My heart intensely went out to this sweet, simple boy as he solemnly showed me and explained every object and its purpose in his home--the couch for people to sit on, the cupboard to keep dishes in, a carafe for tea, the bed where he sleeps with his sister, the little plastic chair where he studies and bedside table for school books, a broken computer keyboard he found to play with, old birthday cards. Behind a locked door was the one other room of the house, where his parents and another sister slept. I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and why, and he said he wants to work at a bank so that he can help his mom and dad. His mom came back from the mosque, so I realized that he was Muslim. She chastised him for not inviting me to sit down and brought me the customary soda. After some introductions, his mom and aunt looked at me seriously, telling me that I would help Rama go to America. I'm not yet experienced in how to respond to these propositions… I told them that he needs to study hard, and they repeated that to him to make sure he heard… "Umemsikia? Lazima usome kwa nguvu…."

Everyone thinks that if they make an American friend, one day that person will buy them a ticket or help them go to America. Everyone thinks that if you're out of work in America, the government will pay you and take good care of you. They ask why in the world I want to live here--when you're out of work, you're on your own. They might make $100 a month…though renting one bedroom is just $15. A teacher at school asked if it's hard to come study in America, and told me how he wants to finish his bachelors degree sometime in the next 3 years. He smiled dreamily at the idea and sighed, saying, "that will be nice." I can see in his wistful, unfocused eyes the fantasy of what it would be like…not fathoming what it means that 80% of international undergraduates in the US pay their own way and that a year of school might cost as much as he makes in 15 years working here.

Though this area is probably what would be considered a slum, but living here myself (and spending a lot of my time in town) I don't think of it like that. Only in certain moments like these do I realize that people really live here, the bed 10 inches away from your knees when you're sitting on the couch, no electricity or running water, opportunity already unavoidably restricted by the country and the home to which you were born. The freedom in which I live seems gratuitous.