July 30: Recovery in Pommern.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

My day of rest. I sleep deeply for most of it - with a few little breaks, starting with chamomile tea (oh, blessings on the volunteer who brought it!), dry toast and the other two oh-my-god-I-am-beyond-glad-I-brought-it chicken noodle soup packets.

Today is the first cloudy day we've had in Pommern, and I can feel a rainy day restlessness set in - I wake off and on to hear the kids constantly nitpicking, arguing, sticking things in the fire - and then getting yelled at for it. Joann has come down with a terrible cold - later I learn she is 74!  I get up at one point to brush my teeth and it's enough effort to prompt a nap. I obsess all day, at any point I wake up, about the need to feel better soon - now - faster - there's only tomorrow and Thursday left! We leave Friday for Dar. Saturday night we fly away.

I read a little bit, finally finishing up with Paul, and I am happy to be done with him. At least I like when he says, "The best writers are scrupulous and pitiless observers." I've long known that "not much gets past me" but it is nice to hear Paul speak of that as a common trait among the writerly species.

The smell of cooking fires has already been a little gross to me - and today I can't take it. The smoke drifting in, and the oil I experience as rancid-smelling, though it's probably not - there were fried doughnuts for breakfast, more greens stewed in it for lunch. I've moved back into my little solo room which is great - but it is also closest to the cement-room kitchen, where cooking is half inside and half in the backyard. I think of Kimi and Bradley, and how tired of oil they are after two months in India each time, something I couldn't truly understand before - and now I can't imagine more of this, much less another six weeks. Every wafting wave of smoke or oil turns my stomach.


Mamatony brings in some mandazi at one point. "Eat! You need to eat." I want to scream at her - get that oil-soaked dough out of my face! I say, "Oh, no, Mamatony, I'm ok."

"No, no, you need strength. Eat - eat." She pushes it at me. I point at my dry toast and tell her I'm starting with that and soup. She looks at my powered soup very skeptically. I tell her that American stomachs always heal with that kind of soup, and I promise I will eat her food when I feel a little stronger, but I need to start here.


Marie gets me a Sprite from the little pop stand up the dirt road, and it is the best thing I've ever tasted. (She gets me a Coke too; also freaking delicious.) I manage to get up for dinner - a feat! - and thank god Mamatony has included plain white rice on the menu tonight. Although nothing is really plain - there's some margarine or cooking oil in this, I can feel a little sheen. I can't stop thinking about Shelly's Vegan Wrap from Elephants Deli in Portland - something tart and vinegary, with sweet grapes and crunchy apples. I lean against the wall during dinner and am happy to get back to bed - with high hopes for tomorrow.

And because if you're my mother, or happen to be someone else who is wondering... no, I didn't attempt a sun shower. So I've been lying in the same outfit, with the same dried sweat, since 4 PM on Monday, and it's now 9 PM on Tuesday, and I'm just going to ride it out until tomorrow.

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 4.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

The feeling of being in the right place, at the right time, lasts all day. There were two more working events. First, a clothes-sizing and second, the latrine again. The clothes-sizing was for the 13 orphans at the other primary school (not the one near the mission house, where our fellow volunteers have been working).

I have visceral trouble, coming from the land of 25-cent BINS at Goodwill and corner sidewalk FREE BOXes and even piles of clothes strewn near homeless encampments, with this first task. How can I understand the importance of two pieces of clothing per child? We're told many of these orphans have one single outfit. These orphans live with grandparents or aunts, and a shirt might be 1,000Tsh, Edward says. It might take a month to save that up, after buying food and cooking oil and fuel and matches and salt.

So Meggie, Marie and I slapdash our way through the kid's clothes Marie tossed in a suitcase back in New York (and some very small adult clothes chipped in from the rest of us).

We hold things up to each child, lined up by size, erring on the side of "too big" so they can grow into it. I'm able to give one of the big girls, maybe 12 or 13, a training bra - a thin, grey, shelf bra, a castoff of the girls in our volunteer family, and as much as she'll let herself express emotion, her eyes light up at it.

This is also the nicer part of Pommern, I'm shocked to discover. The school grounds are really quite pretty, the homes are neater, all the grounds are kept up, fences are more common. The school was built by the Roman Catholics, and there's a big difference between it (below, in the background) and the buildings built by Global Volunteers. Interesting to find out we're in the poorer section of a poor village. And I resist making jokes about things Catholics build versus things Lutherans build.

(After giving away clothes:)

For some reason, I like the picture below of us talking after giving away the clothes; it shows the intensity of conversation among volunteers the whole two weeks. Experiencing, analyzing, discussing, stretching - a lot. Beyond comfort. 

And I wrap up the day's work with a couple hours back on the latrine - and how much progress we've made! I also find out that Thomas and Moses call me The Commander. They're busted by a bilingual person who tells me this at the construction site, and I turn to them in mock insult, eyes wide and mouth open in shock. Then I laugh and they laugh, and Moses says, "Commander njema!" But our bilingual companion says, "Oh no, not true! When you walked up they said, 'Oh no! The Commander is back and now we'll die!" And here I thought I was working slow and matching their pace. Apparently, as my pal at home Mikey says, I've been mushing their butts uphill! 

As we're wrapping up, as the mortar is running out, around 4 PM, I start to feel - a little  - off. 

I walk slowly back to the mission house alone. I hope it's that I didn't drink very much today, or that I pounded my lunch of peanut-butter-sauce-with-local-cabbage over noodles (yes, it was that weird). Maybe it's the smell of the latrine, especially pungent today. 

I come home. I pound some water. I take a half-bag-shower and then absolutely MUST lie down. I'll feel better if I just rest through this terrible weighted feeling.

I get up a couple hours later for dinner, which I don't really want to do. I take only a slice of papaya - papaya!  Good for the digestion, too, right?! And I heat up a cup of the powdered chicken noodle soup I brought from home. The packing list recommended soup packets for "homesick tastebuds" and though I was sure that would never be me, I said to John, "If someone gets sick, wouldn't it be nice to give them chicken noodle soup? I'm bringing four of these."

I have to leave dinner early and lie down.

And at 7 PM, it begins. Truly violent vomiting and top-of-the-line diarrhea.

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 3.

Not written in my journal, but a couple quick stories. First, stool samples. Meggie and I did not witness one. We saw the slides, and we saw the specimens. They keep a couple formaldehyde jars of examples, either to impress visitors or to illustrate to parents the importance of treatment - or both.

Also, when urinalysis was ordered by the doctor, the man or woman had to give a sample. And what are you given to collect your urine in? A now-empty insulin jar. As pictured above (small ones on the left) with worms in it. Think of the size of the opening on those little jars. Have fun peeing in that! Oh and I'm sure hands get washed...

Also during our day, one of our cases negative for malaria, negative for typhoid fever, was an old woman - oh, probably about 300 years old. To my eyes. Her grandson was with her and he was in his late teens, so that would make her in her 70s at the oldest - if he were the youngest child of her youngest child.

The woman was asked to give a stool sample and when she left, Patricia engaged in a long conversation with her grandson. As an observer with no language, I relied on body language and tone of voice. It appeared like she was lecturing him. He didn't want to argue with her, he maybe even knew she was right, and he felt ashamed, but stuck. She showed him a Bible passage. Once he left the room, she explained to me. "He has completed his secondary school and it is time for him to go teach. To go away to a new place and to have a job. But every time he has made plans and found somewhere to work, she gets very sick. But no tests come back. Sick with what? Sick to keep him home? I tell him he needs to go; he cannot cancel again his plans and his life. Again and again."

Nurse Patricia:

The rules:

July 25/26: Before the break, Part 2.

Before our two nights away, this is part two of my last evening of journaling in Pommern - after the first full week. I may be repeating myself a bit here, but it's as-written, knowing the next day I'd work a half day on the septic and then go... on a safari! 

After dinner.


My companion Paul writes about how he believes all of rural and poor Africa - as well as much of urban and poor Africa - is smellier and dirtier than it used to be. I can't make a comparison but I can it is so dirty, and so smelly. Is a small pan of water heated over the fire, and one small rag, too much? Maybe it is. But this is days, even weeks, of not washing. Some people not changing clothes at all, not since we've been here. I can't get over it; our pal Moses from the construction site can literally be smelled across the house. Meggie and I exchange glances when we smell him headed to the fireside for a warm-up.

The self-imposed no-alcohol while working/in the village/actively on the journey - i.e., not till tomorrow when we are on safari! - was hard tonight. Smelling it tonight, at a meal with meat - with beef! (Edward had to go to town today for veterinary supplies for Joe's volunteer work; he picked up a slab for us. Delicious.) It's the old Weight Watchers hold-out-aaaaalmost all week, but now it is Thrusday. And I'm tired of holding out!

But then, in the universe's lessons, always present, if you want to look - there were folks who drank too much tonight. And that's a screaming baby on a plane for birth control. It was what I needed to remember why I'm choosing to abstain. Why the luxury of a pre-packaged experience is to be put to good use, the best use, with total attention paid, with my own feet held to the fire.

No escape, no relaxation, no cheating to numb out even a bit. If I've had to learn this week to set boundaries (again!), and if I've had to let go of my illusions about African education, I at least owe ruthless honesty to the Pommerini by paying full attention.

Does me experiencing this make the world better? I try down to my teeth to not infantilize the non-worldy people, try not to condescend about the simple, happiness-loving folk who really know what's important in life. I try to meet square in the eye - and be always realistic - and always be ruthless. That's my motto. I know it's never been easy to be one of my friends, but I intent to be as hard on myself as I am on those I care about. But what is emotionally ruthless here? And is it in too much supply already?

What should I take away, when I go? At the near-halfway point, I'd tell you today I am fine with never coming back to Africa, and I'm constantly haunted by feeling like no mzungu should be here at all, least of all me. The best and brightest minds welcome us - but why? For more money? For prestige? Is it truly from a sense of service? Or a love of many worlds, and wanting the good from our world to come into theirs? Can it be enough to connect with a person, or two or three, and call it good at that? Is that what tentatively being a Unitarian Universalist is for me? Is that what I say it is?

Days ago I felt that I owed the women of Tanzania a big reach back at home, to balance our worlds. I was so happy to feel an achievable responsibility of creating connection far and wide, to weigh against the few connections they'll get to make just due to duties of food, water, and fire. But tonight my fears feel real and I'm no longer there. I am in that place I dreaded - where all I ever want is a small family of my own, to care for, and no more. No wider world. No big shadow, no community of hundreds. I want... ah shit. I realize - I want control. Total control. Because I guess this is groundlessness. And it's really scary.

July 24 & 25: Onalina

Not written in my journal in-country; this entry is filling in the 5 W's, post-travel. I met for two different class periods, both days after the English class, with Onalina - the general secretary of the school.

Because "executive assistant" is a first world job title, when people ask what I do here, I tell them, "I'm the secretary to a man who runs a company." That satisfies their curiosity; no one has asked what that company might do.

Edward told us that people in his country do not believe, cannot believe, that Americans ever sweat. Meaning: we never have to work hard. We are all secure. And I assume that when they hear "company" they assume a successful, thriving, easy-street company where nothing ever goes wrong, no one has get their hands dirty with labor, and we sell all the widgets our hearts desire. And while I work at a successful and growing company, I also work with people who physically build and configure lots of different computers and servers every day, and our sales goals are assuredly NOT a guarantee each quarter. Explaining any sort of first-world stress though, is an impossibility and I wouldn't even attempt it. So here, I'm a secretary, and that's a nice, soft work that's easy to understand.

I assume this is why Edward assigns me to meet for two days with Onalina, the secondary school's only secretary.

Her little office is outside the headmaster's office; she literally keep the keys to his. She keeps the school calendar, the students' permanent records and teachers' applications, diplomas and pay schedules. There is a fat folder housing permanent records, and it is labeled "Pregnant Students".

She has a cell phone - a certain sign of reliable income and wealth - and lives about five houses down from the school grounds. The first day we meet, neither of us are sure what we're going to do. She has to hand me a stool to sit on through the window of her office; the door can't open all the way because the stuffed and dusty cabinet is too big, it blocks the door. She shows me how to file a piece of paper. There does not appear to be ongoing work; just little piecemeal assignments and in between those she texts, she goes for a walk to visit the librarian, she rests. She'd like computer lessons, but it has not been sunny enough for the solar power to be fully charged, so I can't assist her there - the lab is down.

She processes a petty cash request - gasoline for a trip to Iringa to purchase school sundries (rice is on the list), and she does a beautiful set of three bureaucratic Tanzanian steps to get it approved (we walk from one building the next, getting various signatures and stamps from people who don't even look at the piece of paper, and then take it back to the door right next to hers, School Treasury, where the applicant can return to pick up the cash; we take the paperwork back with us and add it to a stack comically high and disorganized).

Over the two days we meet, for about 90 minutes each time, we speak a bit about our lives - she has two boys, which is the ultimate achievement and she is so happy when I congratulate her, hugging me into her bosom. She is confused that I am married but have no babies. "But to be a happy wife, you must have babies in the house," she says, and I don't say out loud that I think to be a happy mother you must have babies, but to be a happy wife you probably need other things.

We speak a bit about our jobs - she tells me that sometimes the headmaster is available when someone comes to see him. But if she can tell they are hot, and upset, she will say he is not available yet - and she will invite them to speak a little first to her, to get them cool, before she will allow them in. I tell her it's 100% exactly the same as a secretary in America, and she laughs and laughs. She leans in to hold my hands, squeeze them, and half-hugs me again as she laughs. Connecting with someone in Tanzania is not just an intellectual or emotional experience; it's a full-body one.

The second day, she takes me to see where the mandazi is cooked for teacher 10 AM teatime. I was not comfortable taking photos, or asking to take photos, of either Onalina or of the woman who makes the daily mandazi. So these Google Image photos are approximations...

Picture a blackened and battered pan, similar to below, but about three times bigger. Filled with a couple gallons of cooking oil, brought to a boil over thick, long logs on fire, and then the triangles of mandazi are dropped in. Inside the hut near this cooking fire, I see the hundred or so triangles laid out on a dirty wood table, ash drifting in and settling, bugs granted full access, waiting to be fried. But I know that perceived dirt is not a problem - the boiling oil will kill anything. So when I am offered a mandazi by the older, toothless chef (who smiles proudly when I tell her how beautiful they are, and how beautifully she cooks them to a perfect, consistent golden brown) I take one.

Onalina and I walk back to her office, each holding a hot mandazi in a scrap of newsprint. We sit to eat them, and I finish mine first, mimicking the way she eats hers - ripping off a small piece to blow on and then consume.

It is incredibly tasty. I mean, how can it not be? It's Indian fry bread, it's puff puff, it's vada, it's sopaipilla, it's beignet, it's elephant ear! It's the delicious, hot, oily doughnut-like food you find all over the world when flour, fat, sugar and salt are the only shelf-stable and affordable foods. 

Onalina offers me her last chunk. Knowing that this is all some people get to eat between waking and supper, I wave it away, "Oh no, that is yours, you have it, you enjoy it." She is somber and says, "It's OK." She mimes pulling it apart. "You can have. I only touch with my hands, not my mouth." As if I was saying no because I was afraid of her germs, of her saliva. Rushing to apologize, I take it gratefully, smile as I finish it, and mmmm over its goodness.n

After our first meeting, I tell Edward, when he asks how it went, "Oh, fine, I guess. We didn't do anything, though. I'm not really sure what we can teach each other about our jobs. We just visited and spoke in English and talked about our lives a little." He lit up.

"Yes! That is exactly what I wanted. She is a leader here, but she does not know that always. She has not been much out of the village. I want her to be exposed to the world, to have your world shared to her. That is why I send you."

Ah! Understanding that visiting WAS the purpose lets me go back happily the second day. I can enjoy my time with her. I don't have to DO anything. I don't have to check off a box or train anyone or keep notes. Talking is the assignment, and if I can do anything after watching a bunch of kids get the shit kicked out of them, it's talk slowly - kindly - calmly - to a woman exuding maternal warmth.

I tell her what happened in class and she just nods, "Yes, it is normal here. Not for you?" I tell her no, in America, we (almost) never hit schoolchildren - and many, many parents never hit their kids at all. It is growing out of our culture in many places. She looks like she hears my words, but I must be mistaken in what I say. Couldn't be.

The recommended packing list for Pommern included "photos from home to show the local people". I brought nine random photos, now embarrassedly stuffed into the bottom of my suitcase. But today I was grateful to bring them to Onalina so I could show her my John, Oregon, our wedding, my mother and aunt, my brother and his fiance.

"So green!" she says of all the Oregon photos, even ones I don't think of as very lush. "So handsome!" about John.

She is confused by the photo of Bradley and Kimi; "Your brother. Yes, handsome man. Tall. But who is this?"

"His wife." I see the gears turning, as she studies the picture, regarding an interracial relationship. Amazing. "And babies?"

"Ah, no, no babies yet."

Then, "Very young - and very smart?" she says about my mother. I think she says smart because my mother wears glasses. And that she looks young because people in their 40s here look like they are in their 60s at home. My mother must look like a model to her, and Onalina cannot believe her age when I tell her.  "She's beautiful, isn't she?" I say. She nods her head and she laughs, so impossibly young looking. She grabs my hands and leans in, touching foreheads.

July 24, Pommern: What about the rose?

So that was the thorn of the day (see post below). But what about the rose?

First, let me say that when I get scared or vulnerable, as you might have, ahem, noticed... I get angry.

When Meggie gets scared or vulnerable, she cries.

We left the long 100-minute class and I stomped home ranting, with an arm around her, as she sobbed. "That isn't how you teach! They're failing those kids!" As an educator, as a Master's degree holding teacher with a lifelong passion for the spirit of learning and connecting with students, that day broke her.

And yet, at lunch, we got our afternoon assignments. I was to work on the septic tank. And Meggie was back to the secondary school - to teach Zumba for afternoon PE Class. They've never taken it, much less heard of it, before - but Edward has a desire for his people to learn about physical exercise and the benefit of using your body well, and often, in pursuit of health and heart conditioning.

The plan was to teach girls first for 30 minutes, then boys. But really, friends, don't plan things in Africa. Consider everything a loose suggestion.

It ended up being 45 minutes with the girls, and then a slapdash basketball/soccer/kickball session with the boys. And those 45 minutes started almost 30 minutes late because we needed a generator. Then an adapter. Then a second one for the iPod. Then petrol for the generator. Then a cord from a closet. Then, and then, and then.

But with pain in her heart from earlier, and fear in her eyes, I plunked myself down in front of Teacher Meggie - in my clodhopper hiking boots and stretchy gray skirt - in the middle of her Zumba class in the reading room. (The reading room is attached to the library; neither has seats or desks.) The reading room is a cement room, labeled that way. I helped scrawl on the chalkboard:

And with absolutely no idea how this was going to go, or if she'd be laughed out of the room, she began.

The videos we have are NOT from that first, amazing, magical class. The girls begged Meggie to come back every day - so she did, almost every single afternoon we remained in Pommern. We eventually felt comfortable, as did the girls, with a bit of filming...

And every day we had class, someone part of Global Volunteers would claim Meggie's Zumba as their rose of the day.

The only video I am in is found here; Blogger has kept me foiled for an hour trying to upload the one I'm in - it just won't have it. So click here for that one; the other three are below!

And then the only girl who agreed to wear track pants rather than her school skirt begged to dance to Shakira's "This Time For Africa" - AGAIN.

Meggie said she could teach it, instead. And how my heart soared to run the iPhone camera here and watch her teach it - and there's Meggie in the background, dancing in her own place, now a student of these girls.

July 24, Pommern: Preview Post.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Today is the day I don't want to write about. So before I start, a couple notes...

• When Mamatony cooks us a chicken for dinner, it is a plucked, chopped-up and complete hen. Lungs? Still shriveled in a little duo, inside the tiny skeleton chicken ribcage, sitting in the pot, staring at the last person or two in line, too late to get decent meat. How happy I was tonight to be in the line a bit earlier and have a dark meat leg available! Unlike 11-year-old Michael, I could find the meat. And it was wonderful. Protein, my friend. 

• In case you remember, and are wondering about, the solar repairman who rode all day with us from Dar... well, he fixed it! But no one knew that while he may be a solar expert, he is not also a plumber. So the heater part works - but it can't be hooked up to the house, and alas, no hot water will be flowing from our faucets any time soon. We're told it could be next week, but that's our last week, and I find the optimism amusing. It must be to keep us quiet?  

I realize I haven't filled you in on showers and water yet. We have a bathroom with two Western toilets behind stall doors, and two shower stalls beyond that. There is another little sink near the dining room table. That one gets a lot of use - hand washing whenever we enter the house, before we eat, before we make coffee or eat peanut butter from the tea table. The sinks all have pump soap - Tanzanian soap with English writing, something along the lines of DOUBLE EXTRA SUPER CLEAN XX SCRUB YOUR SKIN OFF IT IS SO TOUGH! Or similar. 

I started calling the toilets "magic toilets" after the first morning. The water comes from a gravity-flow system, so it works best when the big black tanks, high up on a tower outside the house, are very full. But I don't really know when this happens. All I know is: the magic toilets are thus named because a flush gets rid of the water, but nothing else. Everything in the bowl stays there, and the water just drains away slowly, and then refills. Magic! Right?! Replace the water but keep the contents! Within minutes of walking in the door on the first day, I had to put away my inner clean freak. The toilets have dried chunks of... stuff... on the outside, and each has a couple brutally strong developing-world mothballs behind them (probably made by the XX SOAP COMPANY). We're cryptically told these help "with the smell". What smell? I don't want to know. I only smell mothball. 

And if you've never used TP in the developing world, well, suffice to say the world's great paper processing IS great - and it is saved for the Western world, most especially for America. This stuff is far closer to cardboard and it flakes onto your pant leg and the ground around you just unwinding it off the roll. 

When it comes to the two slightly spongy-floored showers, with random nails for hanging your items, they do indeed turn on - with cold water. And here I would point out again how cold we've all been each night and well into the morning, just to say this isn't tropical "cold" water; this is truly cold! The lone male volunteer tried to shower the first morning, and he made us laugh with an imitation of trying to force his body under the water. He couldn't do it. He got a slight shampoo but that was it; no other body part would endure the discomfort. I'll spoil the shower surprise to say that our fantastic family of volunteers brought FIVE sun showers! (Six actually, but one broke.) 

We put them out on the cement block each morning and by about 4 PM, they are anywhere from 90 to 110 degrees - amazing. We end up sharing a bag with a friend about every other day - for example, I hang a bag in the shower stall (and by the end of next week, we've broken a few nails with the weight) and go first for about 3 minutes with a "navy shower" and then Meggie goes next, with the final 3 minutes of water. It's a weak spray, and it's navy style - and I have hands-down never been so refreshed by running, splashing water in my entire life as I am on the days I take one here. We take them in the afternoon and I feel like a new person. Meggie takes one in the morning one day - by adding cups of boiling tea water to the now-cool bag to get tepid water. And you guessed it. She runs out of water with a head full of shampoo! I, on the other hand, don't waste water on my hair, sheesh! So this is six days of no hair-washing, just before I get back to Dar and a real shower and wash it twice:

Pictured are the blessed sun shower bags in the backyard on the left side of the frame. Useless solar power machine is center/rear, behind the pole.

• You know how you always think of a thing to say in response... too late? This time I got it in real time! The adult helping our teenage volunteers and young villagers on the brick project today (water tower base to add gravity flow and water storage tanks to the secondary school kitchen, pictured below, completed brickwork) said that the village young men were so slow - and our Global Volunteers kids were faster. "This is why things here take so long! This is why they don't get done, or done on time. I mean, we were working much harder than they were." I replied, "Well, you did have a warm shower and a hot meal, with more than enough to eat. I don't think those other guys did." And I'll say this - she took it with total grace and kindness. She was truly thoughtful and said back to me, "Huh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that," as she wandered away. 

And now, rather than go two days without posting to the blog, I'm leaving this as a cliffhanger. 

As I wrote in my journal in the first line - and it's there, you can ask John, he saw it - this really was the  first day I didn't want to write about. It was too hard, and I made too many mistakes. So I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post the real journal entry, and hope you enjoyed this Preview Post. 

July 23, Pommern Intro Day.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Breakfast: oatmeal (already sugared and margarined), toast, jam, peanut butter, bananas, a thin delicious omelette with green onions in it.

We start with a tour of the secondary school, introduction to the entire staff and greetings from the headmaster. That is followed by a tour of the primary school, and introduction to the principal there. Then we visit Edward's home, the kindergarten/pre-primary school, and have lunch.

Primary school-age kids... after classes in the first pic, and in uniforms in the second:

Inside the secondary school classroom: the smell is the kind that you'd describe as knocking you over. I'm one of the first volunteers to walk in, so I get to watch all the other faces when the smell hits. How do you teach in this? Hormonal 10th graders in dirty shirts, sweaters, wool skirts or pants, socks, shoes - with unbrushed teeth and unwashed bodies. All the cliches are here today - rows of well-behaved, eager looking students. Primary children with snotty noses, ugali-smeared mouths and flies flitting in their eyes. Classrooms with crumbling walls, stained and incomplete books, old and uneven desks. The vat of ugali is hissing and steaming in the late morning, in the school kitchen (the secondary school is a co-ed boarding school, as all in Tanzania are by law). The porridge for the primary school (non boarding) looks like a thinner, watered-down version of the ugali to me. This brings it home - the food. I am intensely struggling with the guilt of being taken care of so well - we have more than enough food, bottled water, beds, clothes.

At the secondary school, we meet all the teachers during their teatime - mandazi and hot tea. Mandazi is  like a fritter, like a lump of fry bread, a doughnut - it is what you make the world over when you have flour, fat, sugar and oil. The headmaster, Haran, used to have Edward's job with Global Volunteers and   we are told he rules the school with a tough approach. Many of the teachers are in their first job, and all board here with the students; few are from the village. 

At the primary school, we only peek into a classroom but meet with the principal. We find out the wells have been turned off here because the handles have been broken off, again and again, but the students playing with them, or pushing on them, causing them to leak. When a leak is spotted, the water is turned off, but then they can't wash their faces or get a cup of water after lunch. 

At school, breakfast is porridge (corn, sugar, water). Lunch is porridge (corn, sugar, water). Teachers have no breakfast but have mandazi at 10:30 AM teatime. Dinner, if available at home for primary school kids, is ugali (corn, water, salt) and greens, or ugali and beans. (Secondary school kids get the same, and a piece of banana, at school.) At the secondary school, they get rice rather than corn on Sundays, and an orange rather than bananas with dinner, for a treat. Meat gets a passing mention to me, but I can't really tell if it served every Sunday, or less often than that. 

The drinkers take out a bottle of wine at lunch today. I find it fascinating; this is a sort of drug against the intensity of what we just saw. I didn't partake, per the pact with Meggie (neither did she), because I don't want to be relieved of the experience intensity at all. But then again, my struggle seems likely to be about allowing myself any relaxation with, or enjoyment from, the billion Western conveniences in my little suitcase pile.

Here's a building in the village... and some tough chickens. How tough? Tough enough that our 11-year old fellow volunteer, at one point, holds his drumstick up to his dad and says, "I can't find the meat!" I guess these chickens work hard to stay alive too and are not slaughtered until they're probably a couple years old. They largely run wild, but some folks keep them fenced in (if they can afford to build and maintain a fence).

Another building; no one living in the crumbling part on the right, but living in the part on the left.

The carpenters, using hand tools. Each night we scoop up some shavings to get our fire started.

Earlier this morning, four of the other ladies continue telling us how they never wear skirts at home and how unusual it would be to even OWN one (we've been hearing this since our first night dinner, as we discuss what we've packed to wear, and how well we hewed to the directions - which asked us to wear knee-length or longer skirts/dresses in the village). I am overcome with anger. This community agrees to host Global Volunteers all the time and they are a people deeply uncomfortable with a woman in pants - and you can't relent on that one single fucking point? You like pants, so you can't give at all? When the imbalance is so enormous, how can you not feel ashamed for your unwillingness?

After lunch, we tour the clinic, then the orphan center (see brief description below), and meet the Roman Catholic priests. I'll save the clinic description and photos to go along with the journal entries from the days I worked there (next week). 

In the village there are two churches - Roman Catholic and Lutheran. The Catholics include real friars - men in long burlap-like brown robes who go barefoot. The Roman Catholic church is also a whole lot nicer than the Lutheran one - as are their schools and centers, when we walk up there to say hello and later to share donations. Both churches divide all volunteer supplies - clothes, medications, school supplies and entertainment - with each other. 

The Roman Catholic volunteers are all Italian (as are many of the friars and priests). This explains what the little children have been yelling to us since we arrived, whenever we walk through the village... either "Hi!" or "Ciao!". They don't know if the mzungu are Italian or American, but one of those words will work! In fact, I find it easier to hear "Ciao" than I do "Goot Even Eng" - which is "Good evening". 

On the walk back, we pop into a small shop selling skirts, purses, baby carriers, aprons and hairbands. They are made in the back room on sewing machines by young women; we find out that single motherhood is a "growing problem" in Pommern, and this was started to give them a job and income. I speak with Edward about this on another day; he asks what Americans do about the same "growing problem" in our country. The sewing is beautiful and while there are only brief tourist-volunteers like us to shop there, they are clearly modeling the shop and process on something like Neema Craft and are starting to, with the help of energetic Italian Roman Catholics, sell in other villages and towns, and take special orders.

Nighttime. I'm exhausted. I moved today to the unused single room; no one else wanted it and Meggie assured me she didn't feel hurt or abandoned by the move.

The just-before-dinner visit to the center for orphans and disabled kids pretty much broke me for the day. (It's a day-only drop-in care center for those being raised by aunts or grandparents who can't afford to feed them all three meals, and for disabled kids who need attendance while family works in the fields.) Stop having babies! Stop for ten years and imagine how we could solve some problems! But the visceral experience of poverty is even more overwhelming that I thought. That's not even a fair assessment because I didn't think I was so blind to it - the totally decrepit conditions in which is almost feels like a joke to try and learn in.

What can one old Acer laptop teach a child about thriving in today's work world? And the schools are more highly attended by girls than boys - good. The people here are happy about this! But this one primary school of two in the village, and the lone secondary school, in a village of 4,000.

There are a billion other people living this way on this continent and all day I felt it was superficial to want a warm shower and to have clean hands before dinner, but tonight I'm understanding the puritanical roots of the American cleanliness obsession, and the best intentions behind all the bizarre cleaning products, douches and personal hygiene products - heck - even Febreeze! You can build someone a house here but it'll still get tracked with red dust and filled with cooking smoke because it's not like NW Natural is coming in to hook up the gas stove, or like they'll suddenly know how to cook well over a modern stove.

Watching the sunset. Again tonight, I think that Africa's wild beauty - and it is so beautiful and expansive and vibrant in all the natural wonders - mocks me. The beauty isn't doing a damn thing to save any children or protect their health. It seems to have only drawn in money that never reaches the people, and has brought in jerks who want a piece for themselves and to put up a wall so no one can see in. I can't even appreciate the beauty. It feels like a theft - I have all the medicine, all the clothes, all the education, water, footwear, health, money and opportunity - and I greedily want to soak this up too???

The rural beauty of Pommern, in the late afternoon light:

But is that, I realize, an us versus them model of thinking, perpetuated? Is that saying the pie of natural beauty is only so big and can only serve so many, and that if I take some to enjoy, it will leave others without? Will it be stealing a moment of contentment and relaxation from a Pommerini?

That's crazy, I know - and yet knowing it's crazy still doesn't stop it. I can't write anymore, I know this negative thinking will spiral. Off to bed.

Picture Post!

A few from Meggie's camera that just came in...

More dried fish in the Iringa market:

On July 22 in Iringa, and two proud women NOT using the wireless hotspot, but just resting our feet. All around us? White tourists, checking Facebook. We resisted!

One of my numerous conversations, after firmly saying I wasn't going to buy anything, about living in America. I think I'm saying here, "Yes, yes, Barack Obama! We love him where I come from in America."

Women. With babies. Everywhere.

And if not babies, then carrying things - firewood, water, food, baskets. Sometimes TWO buckets of water. And usually a baby, too, but not this time.

The right side of the mission house, where we stayed in Pommern, and the big tree and bench out front:

Me in front of Neema Craft, where the disabled artisans live and work.

The peas! Someone is sitting there, shelling them, at the market. You can spend more and buy them shelled, or spend less and buy them in pods.

Spices at the market.

And on the drive from Dar to Iringa, about 30km of the road arcs through Mikumi National Park. If you stop the car, you have to pay $30 USD per person, as a park visitor.

But if you drive verrrry sloooowly, you don't have to pay - you're just transiting through. We saw herds of giraffe, elephant, impala - and so many baboons! With babies!

On the other hand...

I've been obsessed in recent months about the connections between our gut bacteria and food allergies, asthma, eczema, even autism. The research coming out about being too clean, and too sanitized, is fascinating, and there's a whole subcategory of this research about dairy (which I personally react to in various ways) and skin/digestive/bacterial issues. The superbugs and fecal transplants and microscopic curing of insane food allergies in children... this stuff is the Best. If I was fifteen, I really might go into medicine or biology; that's how much this fascinates me.

But. There's a line. My great-grandmother said we all have to eat a bushel of dirt before we die, and she was right, no doubt. But this article about changing stations that are never cleaned, and the norovirus that brought down most of the employees of an auto dealership after a little kiddo had an epic, explosive shit situation in their bathroom... that's the line. That's too much dirt. That was enough to make me want to use Purel! And the force of nature no further can go.

Trick or Treat!

Pretend you are 9 again. This is my own meme...

Best candy overall? Reese's peanut butter cup.

Best candy for school lunch? Sugar Daddy - it lasts the longest.

Worst candy? Raisins.

Candy your brother is dumb enough to trade for? Smarties.

Candy Dad steals, but you don't mind? Almond Joy.

Candy Dad steals, but you do mind? Butterfinger.

Best candy-gathering bag? Pillow case, of course!

You get an apple. You do what with it? Believe it or not, never happened.

Best book about Halloween? Blubber by Judy Blume, of course. It taught me the word flenser and made me realize how quickly the tides can change when teasing is concerned. It also made me endless jealous that there were places in the world with dried, crunchy leaves on Halloween, rather than drifts of snow.

Candy Mom steals? Trick question; she never stole any - she's Mom!

Date upon which Mom throws out Halloween candy if not all eaten? The weekend before Thanksgiving.


And yes, I was a kid who meted out my own candy, to myself, a couple pieces in my lunchbox each day, to make it last and last and last... and be at risk for parental theft... and then I eventually tired of it - or was left with nothing but suboptimal Mr. Goodbars and Three Musketeers and Raisinets and plain ol' raisins by Thanksgiving, dried out in a crumb-covered pillowcase on the pantry shelf. Happy Halloween!

Rattling Around

Rattling around in my head today is an article from Scientific American about this gene, called CHRM2, whose various expressions appear to be correlated with depression, unruly childhood behavior, high intelligence and alcoholism.

Wha-a-at? Yes. Fascinating.

The theory goes that when this gene is confronted with unstable, uninvolved, volatile parenting... well... it is more likely to result in alcoholism or aggression in teenagers. And when this gene is confronted with engaged, positive, nurturing and involved parenting... it results in wildly successful and intelligent citizens.

It is truly being called the orkidebarn or maskrosbarn theory (Swedish for... orchid child or dandelion child). Dandelion children are the resilient children... they can, and usually do, thrive in any kind of environment. But the orchid children - they are delicate. They have the capacity for incredible beauty, for outshining others - but they also have the capacity to wilt beyond repair without tender, careful care. They're not to be stepped on. Mistakes weigh on them.

I suspect we'll learn more and more and more in my lifetime about various genes, and the effect nurture has on them in each person, depending on the variance in the gene we happen to be housing. But isn't it fascinating!?

(More here.)

Babies Abound

Friends and family all around me seem to be raising babies, having babies, expecting babies, and even making babies with the help of modern science. All these babies got me thinking about the old nursery rhyme, and so for a little Day Zero/New Year fun, go here first and find out what day of the week you were born. Then let me know if you're indeed the correct child...

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day

Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

As for our house, I'm supposed to be full of grace and John is loving and giving. So one is a goal and one is a reality - but what else are New Year's Resolutions for!?

Briefly: November's Re-Read

I'm re-reading Little Women - for the first time ever. I read it at age 10 or 11, and never went back to it. I'm not sure why; I think it may have been a little religious for my taste?

The fun part so far is that I assumed everyone was a Jo, everyone loved Jo the most, and everyone wanted to hang out with Jo - but now, in my (ahem) old age, I'm seeing that in fact, no - Jo is not the only way to be. That's something new to contemplate. The ways I was Jo, or am, and the ways I'm not, or wasn't - it's the classic standby in literature for young women that divides a personality into characters, giving us a lens through which to grow. That never stops being enjoyable, no matter how old I get, and it's nice to get Alcott's lesson almost two decades after it was intended!

The other bonus is that I don't really remember what happens (other than a few major events), so it's a combination of nostalgia and discovery - a more pleasant November re-read, I can't imagine.

Coda #2 - ! ! ! ! ! !

Ok, the plot thickens.

We've now found out this group of kids pulled a dine-and-dash this week at the 1 of (only) 3 restaurants in my neighborhood.

And the ballroom where I dance? There is a church group that meets there on Wednesday nights. They were stolen from by the same group.

It is on.

Tell me how to heal this.

At Zumba class tonight, 4 kids showed up a bit after it began, and stood in the back of the room. One was little, 7 or 8, with her older sister, maybe 14. They were tapping their toes. The teacher invited them in to be in the ballroom with us.

The older sister seemed to have a very sweet boy with her, who was crushing on her enough to dance Zumba with us! And the 4th one - maybe 13?, maybe 14? hard to say with boys that age - sat in the back, in the lone chair in the ballroom. Which is right behind the computer where the music is played from.

He watched, he laughed when we tried to get him come dance. I admit, my inner control freak wanted to give them the boot - what if they got hurt and hadn't signed a waiver? What about how they didn't pay, which is a loss to our amazing teacher? But I let the part of me win who respects authority - and I let the teacher, or more senior folks in the class, make the decision.

They left as we did our cool-down stretches.

I got a round of high-five's from my classmates on the 15-pound weight loss I'm now up to, combining Weight Watchers and Zumba.

And then I walked out, and picked up a water bottle that had fallen on the ground.

And another woman picked up a wallet that had fallen on the ground. She flipped it open, "Whose is this?"

And I looked at the ID. "That's R's. That's our teacher's wallet."

Sure enough, the kid in the back kept his eyes on us while he fished out her wallet and stole $20. He left her ID, her credit cards, her health insurance card - which is pretty important for a cancer survivor turned Zumba instructor.

I am enraged. This foments distrust in my neighborhood. This foments fear of teenagers, roamin' around in packs like they do. This encourages a really nice teacher, who was embracing the experience of letting some kids come dance with us - one of whom could certainly benefit from a good cardio class even at a young age, as she was rather heavy, and see that working out can be fun - to become hardened and wary.

Look, I don't care if he needed the money (and I don't believe for a second he did). I don't care if he has parents at home who ignore him or no parents at all. I don't care if he is teased for being a slow reader, a bad football player or too feminine. He came into our little fun workout world and stole money. And for the cost of $20, he sent home a room full of women with negative feelings, increased distrust and a reminder to not be kind, open, loving, or soft with the rules once in a goddamn while.

And don't you dare tell me our teacher could have made a better decision and not let them in, or made them sign their names, or not let him sit in the chair. She could have. But that comes awfully, awfully close to victim-blaming. And to use a more typical victim-blaming line: a short skirt did not a rape create. This kid stole. End of story.

So tell me. How do I heal that hurt? Sure, we students could pay our teacher back - but that's not the real loss, that's not her real pain, and if I come across that kid in my neighborhood, he better be fucking ready.

A not-real Monday-morning quiz

Which is worse?

This article? (Including the fact that it is posted in Fashion and Style?)

Or that the little girl in the ice cream shop yesterday was named July?

What are you afraid of?

I am really, really afraid of teenagers. Boys and girls. Packs of them in movie theaters. Lone ones who want to have an awkward conversation. Passing a group, laughing on the street. Watching them in a documentary.

You think I'm kidding - but I am not. Once children reach the age of reason, and really once they start to mature into semi-deep-thought-thinking beings, I want to run away from them.

Tonight, I watched an episode of This American Life (from the Showtime TV series) that focused on teenagers getting their photographs taken as high school sophomores. It was all there: their embarrassing ideas of what is cool, their pimples, their braces, their conviction that they'd remember the hot guy forever, their ability admit they'd make a mistake with no knowledge or ideas about how to fix it... I cringed. I kept saying, "awwww" and "ohhhhh" and my eyes actually got a little teary. My husband, on the other hand, laughed. A good-natured laugh, but he still chuckled at their growing pains. Not me. I shuddered.

So if anger masks fear... what does fear mask? Why am I so afraid of teenagers? Is it... could it... might I be totally in tune with that teenage part of myself still? Might I remember sharply, precisely how they feel? Might I avoid them like the plague... because... what I really want to do is swoop them up in my arms, erase their Facebook profiles and internet tracks, tell them to stop talking for a second and make them know they'll get out the other side of high school. Where they won't remember half the details, but they will remember every single one of the feelings.

*Thank Anne Shirley for the use of italics.*

2 things.

Two things I've learned so far at work this week:

If you have outstanding child support, you can't get a passport. Call me an a-hole, call me a conservative, but I am all for this one. Rights and privileges of being a gilded and certified American citizen need to come with responsibilities - and child support seems one of the most righteous to me.

You can spell it "gauntlet" but you can also spell it "gantlet"! And some grammarians even say that it should be "gauntlet" when you're throwin' it down and "gantlet" when you're runnin' it. This is 100% brand new spelling and grammar news to me… and you know how I love spelling and grammar news! So cool!

Good Thing Friday: Referral

You thought I forgot my Good Thing Friday, didn't you?

But I am taking the easy way out with my very first blog referral! (But not my last.)

Jen is a friend-of-a-friend, a writer, a mom of three girls, a wife and an utterly delightful person. This sort of feels like an @ mention on Twitter, but really, she's great. And even greater for you, 'cause you might not ever meet her, is her blog.

It's called The Short Years (the years have seemed short, but the days go slowly by). It is wonderful observations about life as mother of young children, as a freelance writer, as an Oregonian and a modern woman. Go read it. She posts more than I do. You will like it; you can't help but like writing that good.

This sort of endorsement is in no way a plea for ReTweeting, or, uh, re-referring. It's Good Thing Friday, people! Paying it forward, as it were. :)