July 26: Ruaha Hilltop Lodge

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

Coming back up to speed on Friday, we work a half day - Meggie and I spend from about 8:30 to about 12:30 working on the septic.

I see why those who go to do this work keep going back. With gestures and a couple words in each language, we make great progress - almost three corners complete by lunchtime! And I don't need to be a mason. I can be an attentive pair of helping hands and that is totally enough. And rather than repeat the words that "I care, I want to help" instead here the people know that our Western money bought the bricks, the mortar, and clearly we care - we're here helping put it all together. This septic may be the only good thing I take away from the entire trip - well, that and if I don't get sick, I can leave two courses of antibiotics and an honest course of Cipro could save a life here that would otherwise be over. That medicine cabinet on our tour was bleak.

A side note and a few pictures from septic day with Meggie... all the schoolchildren run out during recess to watch the ladies working in the pit, it is hilarious and mesmerizing to them. 

I like Moses here, on the right with his hands on his hips - in his same outfit, we're on day five - telling them to keep back. 

The kids (boys) also, on these cold mornings, dig in the ash pile for coals to warm their hands.

They find things to burn, and thing to ignite from smolder to flame. Then they throw them like toys. Meggie is having a heart attack at this, Ms. Safety Officer.

And this young man found a pen to burn. Smells wonderful. 

The ask pile's intended use - one on each side of the latrine - is to carry ashes into the toilet, and scatter them after you do your business, to cut down on the smell and attempt a little composting. I did not see anyone do this. 

So after lunch, we journey back to Iringa via hired coach (Jeep with no shocks, no AC, windows that may or may not roll down, which is good, or not, depending on the dust, and a sweet driver Joseph who speaks no English other than "Photo?" It is nearly two hours to Iringa Town - for a hilarious meeting with Mr A., the lodge owner who I've emailed with from Oregon to set up this one-day safari. The story of Mr. A can only be told in person; ask me about it! 

And on to Ruaha National Park. Tarmac roads till they give out for more gravel, and again past the place where electrification ends - another 2 hours past Iringa. For the first time when we drive through a small village, I hear the children cry, "Mzungu! Pipi! Pipi!" White person! Candy! Candy! which is not new. But what is... "Give me money! Money!" We all pretend not to hear it and wave back, smiling, as Joseph speeds us on by, laughing himself. Uncomfortably? Or in ignorance?

I struggled with posting about this; the entire weekend excursion cost $400 per person. But I feel, and felt, guilty that we let ourselves leave Pommern - and that we let ourselves have this tourist experience when the majority of the trip was funded by generous friends, family, coworkers, neighbors. However, to be true to this trip journal experience, to the national park we went, at a cost of $400 each outside the funds we raised - and in a much-needed gentle nod from the universe, we were a group of five (that's the most efficient way to price a safari, it turns out). And the gentle nod was that the three women from the Denver area, to whom Meggie and I have grown closer and closer this week, were the ones to commit to to going with us many months ago - and our little Fearsome (Fearless?) Fivesome was ready for a couple nights on a smaller scale of intimacy than with the full group of volunteers.

First things first at Ruaha: our wine is fantastic. Four of us share one bottle and it's perfect. And our little unelectrified safari camp dinner is lovely, no refrigeration needed! But the conversation between the five of us kindred spirits is even better. It warms me. (Good thing too because there are little solar hot water heaters here in each little twin-bed lodge - but - oh - don't get excited - Meggie and my heater is broken! No hot showers for us in Ruaha.)

I am the only one who feels I may be doing actual harm and can't even see any good from the joyful children's faces. I only see colonial, imperial reverence for white faces - I only see them touching us as a mzungu totem, not making or seeking to make any human connection. Although, to be fair and as Leslie reminds me, Meggie's Zumba class may be the lone exception to that feeling I have about the kids - the joy of dance IS so pure, and the involving of everyone through a class and choreographed format, is admittedly worth a whole lotta bad. 

Sunset from the deck at Ruaha Hilltop Lodge; that's the largest national park in Tanzania there, and the second largest in Africa behind the famous Kruger National Park. Tomorrow - to the park!

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 25/26, Before the break, Part 1.

Before our two nights away, this is part one 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! 

I find that having secure shelter, safe food, clean water and English speaking friends means I can remain in a heightened state of observation more often than not. There's nothing rote here; there's no single unconscious action, from food to sleep.

Also: the showers that Joe and Marie and their family brought might be the greatest possession ever and I vaguely feel like I OUGHT to be ashamed of the daily 3 minutes of waist-height better-than-lukewarm water. But it's one thing I'm not embarrassed about. it's too powerfully restorative to feel guilty.

So during my peek into Lutheran choir practice today, and then hearing "Hey Ho" on Mamatony's battery-powered tinny kitchen radio - both bring me to tears. It's that heightened state, and I write this after working, after showering, feeling reborn. The tears come for scope of Africa's problems that I can't help - like how these women, their girls, and their girls' girls will live almost this exact life. I know I won't be able to fix anything of consequence for them, the ones right in front of me, even. Tears for the health, their hopes, for how they get smitten and fall in love but it probably does not make life much better. Again and again the beauty continues to pain me - more literally at times when I see this gorgeous place, with vibrant life humming in the very air, as also the source of their pain - geographically isolated from the power, but rich in natural resources ripe for the thieving.

And it becomes, over these days, apparent how we'll each divvy up the personal resources when they get scarce. Fellow volunteer Joe is wildly generous - having brought not just the sun showers for us all to use, but thousand (truly) of dollars in medical supplies. But when they are sorted and divided to take half to the clinic near us, and half to the Roman Catholic clinic across the village, he comes back harshly certain it was not only done wrong - ah, our attachment to literally giving the gift, to seeing the joy or appreciation or the reverence for the plenty we bring, the plenty we think we innately are - but that even more importantly, his personal medications were accidentally given away.

Now, look, I don't want to lose my Ciproflaxin either! But the pure possessiveness is both funny and part of the constant state of high alert I'm in, this constant open wound I am.

I see suddenly, my God, exactly what you would do with two servings of porridge and three kids.

And perhaps, at some point, what you would do with those two servings when one child becomes ill. And then gravely ill.

How Joe - and all of us - love our little things, things, things - and how our fresh-showered good humor and ability to poke fun at ourselves is there - until a very genuine threat arises. Someone gave away my pills, vitamins, medications. Then the entitlement to OUR items flares like Bilbo Baggins clutching after his ring, baring his fangs at a dear nephew.

And with that - Mamatony says dinner is served. I peel myself off the back deck and away from my rumination, away from my imagining of scarce, scarce food and what it would do - to me.

July 25 & 26: Septic.

Also not written in my journal; written from home in the name of chronology and linear story-telling.

After bamboo sticks and time with Onalina, I go back to the mission house for lunch and change out of my skirt. It's time for the overalls, the famous overalls!

I got these at the semi-annual clothing swap. My friend Beth eyed them, and a couple other things I was thrilled to try on and take from the swap in early June, and said, "Um, Emmy, I don't think those are really your style."

"Oh! No! For Africa!" I laughed, and she was very relieved that I didn't suddenly decide to wear weathered and stretched and too-big fashions as my new look.

After the disaster of the classroom punishment, Meggie pulled it together to teach Zumba in the afternoon when I went to the septic project. But no one remembered to tell her that practice exams - sort of like the PSAT - were taking place, so alas, there was no Zumba on Thursday.

At dinner later on Thursday night, Edward says, "Emily and Meggie, you need a good day. Tomorrow, to the construction site." We are beyond relieved. The next day, July 26, is Friday - we will work all morning on the septic and then we will leave the village for the weekend. Stay tuned for where and what!

On Friday: we are ready for a good day, indeed:

The largest project that Global Volunteers is undertaking in Pommern right now - and thus, the project that our program fee (and our fundraising!) - is paying for is the primary school bathroom.

Currently, the primary school bathroom is a squat brick hut with four holes in the ground on each side. There is no boys side or girls side; there is no toilet paper and to dream of running water is just that - a dream. There are hand water pumps nearby but no one washes after using the toilet. And there is no soap to be found.

Standing relatively near, or anywhere downwind, of this current latrine is like standing in a vault toilet at your local campground. The holes in the ground are foul; I stepped in to see what we're replacing, but didn't stay long enough to take a picture. Before this current and aromatic brick hut latrine, they used what Edward called "banana holes" in the field beyond the school - dig a hole, use it till it fills up, then dig a new hole. Repeat and repeat.

So... Global Volunteers is providing the money and support labor for real flush toilets for the primary school. It will be a gravity flow system like the mission house has; there will be two boys' and two girls' toilets. But before the building that will house these thrones is built, the giant septic tank must be built.

It took a week for another set of volunteers to dig the septic hole, with Thomas and Moses, the village mason and lead construction worker. When we arrived, the brick bottom of the septic had been built, and the walls were started - 11 bricks high, all the way around. Here I am working in the tank, handing bricks to Thomas, Moses watching over us both form above and lowering in buckets of mortar - and in this photo we're already about 50 bricks high, our volunteers having put in about 15 hours so far this week, starting on the corners!

There is a brick-making machine in the village - purchased and maintained by the Roman Catholic Church - but the bricks are made of the crumbly red dirt that surrounds us. They're brought in by the truckload and the school children help move them close to the edge of the pit. Then we toss them into the pit, thudding and rarely breaking on the bottom. Then, we stack them to each side. Then I move along behind Thomas as he puts the mortar down, and I lay the bricks in alternating patterns, always the missing chunk or imbalanced side facing toward the strongest part of the structure.

There is no measuring. Thomas knows by feel how much sand we have to shovel from this pile (that's the primary school behind it) to the worksite, and how much cement mix to stir in. Then we carry buckets of water - by hand like men, not on our heads like good Tanzanian women - and stir that in. Again, Thomas feels when it is right. And then we construct. No words required here.

We work until the mortar is gone; that signals the end of the day. Thomas and Moses don't break for water, they don't break for food. In fact, I doubt they have any; they're unmarried men. Who is going to be starting a fire and cooking while they work? It's not like Clif bars are for sale on the corner. It's not like you can pop into a bakery or a deli for a wrap. 

On Friday, here's Meggie learning from Thomas and Moses about how to make mortar:

Meggie and Thomas stirring sand and cement:

Thomas, as you can see, was clearly malnourished as a child, and is likely malnourished now. He has the sweetest disposition; he spoke as many words of English as I spoke of Swahili but we worked in a nice rhythm in the pit - he'd give me a little "nuh-uh" or "other" when I messed up the brick pattern. He'd be gossiping away with Moses and then say sweetly, in a singsong voice, "Hello!" when he needed my attention - to move out of the way of incoming bricks, usually, to replenish our in-the-pit pile.

He was also a very exacting worker - his long yardstick and level came out after every row of bricks, to both gently tap errant ones into place, and to ensure the bubbles show a plumb line. You don't want to build a septic tank that's about 6 feet by 14 feet by 26 feet only to have the walls cave in because it's not truly level!

The work was deeply satisfying on Thursday and Friday for me - the restorative soulcraft of physical work I needed after the pain of the classroom. My fears of not being able to keep pace were soon put to complete rest. Part of Global Volunteers' explicit mission is to work alongside - not on behalf of - local people. We were directed to work as hard, but no harder, than villagers. We didn't come here to build a septic FOR them; we came to build it WITH them. And it turns out, the pace of working in Tanzania is nothing like the pace in America, and I was more than capable of keeping up. If you're not getting enough to eat, if you're not on an hourly timetable or have a boss breathing down your neck, sure, you work - but you don't race. Also, G.V. does not allow more volunteers than villagers to work on a project; there was Thomas and Moses, and so there was Meggie and me, matching them arm for arm but not exceeding.

When the breeze picked up, or when you were down in the pit, the putrid latrine smell went away. It was bearable, honestly.  And it was meditative. I worked on Thursday all afternoon, and on Friday Meggie and I worked until about 12:30 PM, when Edward came to get us, saying,

"It's time for lunch and it's OK for you to take a break. Come eat. Two Kilimanjaro plates for each of you! Fill up, fill up!" Always trying to feed us, that Edward, to take care of us when he could.

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 25: The Best Laid Plans

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

Before Edward excused himself last night to go home, he warned Meggie and I that tomorrow, the headmaster would be gone from the secondary school.

"Things may not be as well there tomorrow. When he is gone, Madame Sbarra is in charge, and she can like to hide. She pretends not to see things, her head in the sand, like the ostrich bird. So just be aware of this. And when teatime comes, do not have tea with the teachers. Come back here to the mission house. It won't be good there, and you shouldn't be there at that time. Have some tea and toast here, and then you go back for your next assignments with Onalina in the secretary's office and Adrian for planning the physical exercise."

We walk down early, for a 7:30 AM class of different English students (one 50-minute period, not a double period this time!).

And? Mr. Msugu is out - but his substitute sure is ready for us to take over. And this is in fact the same class of students as yesterday (we were assured it would not be).

!!!

I freak out - inside. I get wide eyed and silent; the sub does not know what lesson we taught yesterday or where this English class is in their curriculum. I think he said he's been teaching for about five months?

But Meggie steps up. She sets the expectation - no, sorry, our plan is to observe and observe only, and here is what we taught in the Standard 3 book yesterday. He says, "Oh, ok, yeah, and then you'll teach the next lesson?" She is firm and says we'll be sitting by, but we can mark the papers - if the homework was indeed done.

It was extremely unclear at the end of yesterday's class whether any homework was assigned. The pat little lesson about Mr. Tortoise included a homework assignment. If you recall, the tale of Mr. Tortoise was a fable about how he ended up with a bumpy and cracked-looking shell. The homework assignment was to write a creative and original story that ends, "And that's why the snake has no ears." 

No small task in your first language, if you ask me - much less your third! However, homework was a vague concept to us - sometimes done at home, sometimes done in class, but always corrected/marked during class time. The sub wanted to know if homework was assigned and we shrugged. It was explained (sort of) while the bell was ringing yesterday; did the students take that to be an assignment due today, or a suggestion? I guess we'll find out - and the sub doesn't seem overly worried about it. 


Teachers are dressed down. The bell rings. Students are slipping in, late to class.

"Good morning teachers!" That rigamarole.

And of yesterday's two star pupils (the two that understood), just one, the boy, has done the homework. The rest of the class just blinks back at us. And his story is wonderful - the Frog convinced the Snake to trade over his ears so that all animals could see and hear equally well, but then took the ears and hopped away quick - not trading in his own eyes to the pile of senses. (Never mind that frogs don't have ears either; the basic concept of his story is there and has enough logic to stand.)

The sub asks who understood the story (it was read by the boy in English, of course). No hands go up. No nods. No eye contact.

The sub has been switching between Swahili and English and now says to the students, "I want to understand why the assignment was not done - what part did you misunderstand? Is it not understanding what creative writing IS or did you not understand what this one assignment was asking, about the snake and the ears?"

So at the sub's direction, our start pupil reads his story again in English, and then paraphrases it in Swahili. I'm soaring, watching eyes light up around the room with comprehension of this specific story and what the assignment was - and perhaps even the very basic concept of creative writing - making up a story from your own mind! - and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we can explain the 5 W's now, using HIS story! This could be a tiny piece of helpfulness; heck, even writers and journalists in America can use a brush up on the 5 W's from time to time.

And literally as he finishes the Swahili recap, and heads for his seat in the back row among the tallest boys, two young women come in, with tall bamboo sticks. With a swagger. Swinging the sticks. I realize they're teachers, and though dressed very informally they're impressive and intimidating, and I say later to Meggie I thought right away, "They do a very good SS officer impression."

Then they ask all the boys in the back to stand up, shouting at them. Meggie and I are seated in the front and between us is a woman teacher who had a prep period, and rather than work in an office, asked to observe this class so she could, as she whispered to me at the start of the class, "get all the wisdom from you." She whispers to us what they yelling is about.

"The headmaster is gone, and they did not clean their rooms, you know, their dorm areas, this morning, so they have to be punished."

The women begin beating the kids with bamboo sticks. It's not fair to call them sticks; but neither are they quite bamboo poles. Somewhere in between.

They hit them - hard. Full, lean-back and put your back into it, get-a-good-grip and a fulcrum point hitting. Go-all-out beating. A beating that breaks the bamboo sticks eventually - in a few pieces, leaving shards behind and leaving students crying in their wake.

I look away pretty quickly and take in only the sounds - sticks hitting, kids screaming, other kids laughing, some gasping. The women teachers yelling. Ostensibly, it looks like corporal punishment is normally doled out on the palms - but those who don't volunteer their palms up at about head height are beat about the shoulders, back, head.

I look up as the women leave the room, sticks fairly demolished, and many of the children are pointing at each other and laughing, even with tear-stained faces of their own. A couple are quietly crying; many are blowing on their palms to take the sting out. I had to look down as the beating worked toward the crescendo - to not cry, and also because I didn't want to appear to condone it. I ask the teacher sitting with us, "Is this common, is this a regular thing?" and she says it is, but these women are wrong to do it without asking the presiding teacher's permission.

I think I can make it through the rest of class. I haven't looked at Meggie yet.

But then the sub asks us to go. "The students... the students they have a fever now. From this. They cannot learn well now. You go, and you come back another time." I'm a little confused and affirm with him - we should leave? Now? I point outside. Out the front door of the classroom? I point at our own chests. Us? Now? He nods.

We don't make it down the four stone steps before Meggie's losing it; it'll be a little later for me. Instead, you might have guessed, I'm angry at these women - these backwards, gleeful, power-hungry teachers. So ror a second day in a row, we walk up the long red-dust path from the secondary school to the mission house, my arm tightly around Meggie as she sobs and I clench my teeth in anger so hard it hurts.

What'd you wear?

People sometimes ask - what'd you guys wear?

This is pretty much what we looked like every day. Note my beloved Danner boots. And my clothing-swap and/or Ross-clearance fashion. (This is us on July 23, ah, the innocence! The smiles! I kid, I kid.)

July 24: a post script.

Not as-written in my journal... but context for what happens next.

As part of last night's mental machinations, Meggie helped us make a plan for tomorrow. Why do we need a plan? Because we're going back - back to Mr. Msugu's classroom. At dinner, after we shared our roses and our thorns, we got our assignments for the next day. We go back to class together, then Meggie meets with the P.E. teacher to plan that day and all next week's afternoon classes; I'll go to meet with the school secretary/headmaster's assistant. In the afternoon, Meggie will run the P.E. classes and I'll go back to working on the septic tank. Other volunteers will be in various primary school classes, the kindergarten, with the secondary school librarian, or with scary and cranky Academic Office Mistress Madame Sbarra.

So we talk through it. We talk through our mistakes of the day, and plan how to avoid making them again. We don't want to continue undermining Mr. M by letting him have us teach; we need to empower him by observing how he teaches, but saying we want to learn his style of teaching now that he saw our American style of teaching. I tell Meggie I don't know if I can even tell him this; I tell her that reentering the classroom might be all I have within me and verbally setting a boundary may be beyond me at this point. She says she's able to do the heavy lifting for us tomorrow, and I am grateful. Armed with a plan, and a possible apology to Mr. M for not taking the time to assess the level of his students and sit back in the classroom, I am able to fall asleep.

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 - Real Post.

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

Picking up where I left off with yesterday...

Edward asked us for the day's rose and the day's thorn at dinner tonight.

Well, thorns first... so Meggie and I were assigned last night to our first real job: the secondary school. This morning, despite the pained glances last night and anxiety all through breakfast, we were delivered to Mr. Lemphoid Msugu (or at least that's what Edward thinks his name is; Edward is not great with names and I said to Meggie that if he struggles with pronouncing "Lemphoid" then I am perfectly fine calling him Mr. Msugu the whole time, which I can at least pronounce). 

He is an absolutely handsome young man in a sharply tailored narrow suit. The male teachers wear suits here - though they usually don't match coat to pants. And I saw more than one young man with the label still affixed to the outside cuff; I am guessing it looks cool, English writing, rather than incorrect, as it does to me.

With high cheek bones, almond eyes set wide, and a hefty dose of cologne (but hey, considering the alternative, it smells great), Mr. M is so eager to talk with us, to learn from us. We spend the prep hour or 75 minutes he has in the English Department office, talking. (The office is so small that we have to move the lone desk to sit in the two chairs. Then we pull the desk back over our laps, and Mr. M gets another chair to join us. There is now no room to walk in or out of the office, but perhaps the sign on the door is what keeps students away. "No English, No Service." The other English teacher is prepping - by reading a newspaper about futbol. He asks us if we know Thierry Henry and we try to describe America's MLS soccer and how there are few teams nationwide and we're watchers of the NFL (or I am at least), but on in our city, to have a popular team, is very rare... none of it lands. We clearly must live in a place where every city has professional futbol and everyone loves it; Americans are smart and it's a great game; you all love it, right?? Sure.) 

Mr. M asks me how people apply for jobs in America, and not being sure what he means, I stumble to explain that most jobs are posted on the internet, but that you would find one you liked and could do well, and then send in a resume and a cover letter. He doesn't know the word resume - but he does know curriculum vitae, of course, the British version! Then he shows me the lesson he designed on how to apply for a job, and it was excellent. Not only did it teach the proper steps of how to respond to a Help Wanted Ad and how to craft a CV, it was creative enough to teach persuasion (convince the business why you are a good fit), as well as some descriptive and instructional writing. He showed me his lesson on poetry, and a poem he wrote about love using a prompt in the syllabus (book) - and it's not Keats but it's not bad at all! Sprinkled through our time together, he says he is starting a unit on creative writing with his students today - who are about 9th/10th graders.

Since he first mentioned it, Meggie has been furiously writing ideas on how to talk about creative writing - what goes into it? How do you describe such a vast concept to students totally new to the idea? I'd rather ignore the ticking clock. But Meggie is making an outline. Character descriptions, motivations. The 5 Ws. Mr. M has never heard of the 5 Ws and really likes the idea. He asks if we will teach the lesson.

Pause.

Edward told all of us - except those on the water tower base construction project - that today was observation day. We'd be in classrooms (everyone else is at the primary school or the kindergarten; only Meggie and I are at the secondary school) to watch the teachers, and get a sense of the pace, the lessons, the students, the process.

But we stumble. We don't communicate with each other. I answer quickly and suggest we observe for ten minutes, and then take over. I believe the class is 50 minutes long. It's not until we're in the middle of one of those anxiety attacks where everything feels simultaneously sped-up and slowed-down that I realize it's a double period, and class is 100 minutes long.

We go as a group of three to the Academic Office to pick up the books. This is a pink book: English for Tanzanian Classrooms, Standard 3. Madam Sbarra, second in charge behind the headmaster, glares at us from behind her walled-in Academic Office, covered in dust and stacked with messy papers, and checks out the books for two days, begrudgingly. We get eight books - they are beat-up paperbacks in a totally British style, plodding from one little lesson - title, objective, reading, conversation questions, homework - to the next. English in a box, from literal language to concept.

We go to the Standard 3 classroom with the ringing of the bell.

"Good morning, teachers!" greets us all, in a shout.

Mr. M introduces us. There is a bit of giggling and lots of staring. There is a world map painted on the abck wall. Meggie speaks in her teacher voice. "Hello and thank you for having us. We are from America. Here is where we live in America..." and she walks back, through the deep rows, and puts her finger on a green bit of land on the far side of the United States. Boisterous and hysterical laughter erupts. I'm not sure still why this was funny. Was it because it is even farther than the side of America close to Africa?

Mr. M recaps the previous lesson to blank stares (it was about how to identify and complete those various types of writing - descriptive, instructional, persuasive, expository) and then turns to us, sitting on the side, in the front. "Now, you want to teach creative writing?"

"Oh God." Explosively, but under my breath. Just to Meggie. And away we go.

So many things we did wrong, and so much was laid bare. We were fooled yesterday by the uniforms, the polite and well-behaved room of about 56 students (my count was a little shaky; 53? 56?). All, all, ALL the talk of education so far as the only savior from the greater minds around us.

We begin our lesson by reading the story out loud as a group - thank god for Meggie the teacher knowing how to at least start off a lesson; I stand there frozen - and it's like me reading Spanish. I can do it, all day long, reasonably well. But do I know what I'm saying? No, and neither do they. The reading has hit or miss inflection and zero comprehension.

We get to the questions (the best part of class so far was the every-other-paragraph that I read, in an overly animated theatrical style, making them laugh at my expression even if they don't know the words) and it rapidly becomes clear that this is rote memorization at best, and bureaucratic plowing through a fucking British style textbook at worst.

In the next day or two I learn that they say, "Good morning, teachers!" And we say, "Good morning." They reply, "How are you?" and we respond, "Good, and how are you?" and they say, "Fine, thanks for asking!" But if I were to say, "Good morning," and then they asked how I was, and I said, "Why don't you go shit a brick?" they'd say, "Fine, thanks for asking!"

45 kids don't what is going on at all. 10 are muddling through, at 30-40 %. 2, one boy and one girl, get it nearly all of it. 2 of 56. Sharing seven books because sadly, Meggie and I take one to share so we have something to cling to, to teach from. "Teach" from.

The structure of class, the homework and the marking (Brit for grading) - it's all a goddamn sham. At least in America we don't lie to kids. We straight up tell them that money, fame and athleticism equals success and happiness. These lies... that this English class and this joke of an education system is the path to safety, security, income and success? Please. It's just another imperial/colonial trick. Well done, us. Too bad for you.

We're supposed to teach creative writing based on a fable about Mr. Tortoise - and how his selfishness and trickery landed him the bumpy, cracked-looking shell he has today - but they don't understand the fable's actual words, much less their metaphorical meaning or lessons about being kind to others. I don't think they know what a tortoise is. During the vocabulary section - structured AFTER trying to teach metaphorical language!!!! - Mr. M asks me what "great orator" means. Jesus. We need to go back to fundamentals. But these are 9th and 10th graders. That ship sailed. They learn in English all day - WHY!? Teach them about similes, characteristics, and proverbs in fucking Kiswahili! Get the concept in your second language before your third.

And this is one class in one school on one day in all of Africa.

A good school! (They tell us.) A respected school! (They tell us.) But when I give it up as my thorn, even Edward first asks if we marked papers today, or will need to tomorrow.  Bureaucratic habits. They can't go to their next class, see, until marking is done. So you're telling me (I say this in my head, not out loud) that they do the reading, learning, homework AND wait for grading of 56 assignments to take place during class? Well that's a great use of class time. Great use of limited teaching resources. Glad the teachers have hours of prep time each week to pull some non-sensical shit out of a book handed to them by the government and not expand on it at all - but they'll be godddamned if they don't get a 30 minute teatime break with hot mandazi, yes sir. I come to realize all the teaching and learning happens in the classroom and not a minute happens outside of it. Think how hard your teachers worked, and work, outside of the classroom!? My brain hurts. 

But it's not their fault either, and I know it - but to see the entire show, the entire joke of a system in concert with each ridiculous moving part at once, and how generations of this crap got us here... in a single moment... is... overwhelming. Dejecting. Anger and guilt inducing. And then the blame sets in, elsewhere, off the kids and off the teachers and off the system.

I never should have said OK to leading the class after ten minutes (that was actually two). How did I not see the true level they were at? Was the wool pulled over my eyes - as I feel - or is that a cover to protect myself? Why didn't I listen to my intuition when he asked for ten minutes of observation, then teaching? I cry a lot tonight; I hate the lesson of the great pain that comes from ignoring my intuition - but this lesson comes again and again and again, so I have much to learn.

And I ignored it because I can't say no here.

Sure, I can say no to giving away all my money. I can say no to food or water I know will make me sick. I can say no to things I'm too afraid to try - walking outside at night. But I can't say no to an emotional ask - there are no boundaries when it comes to a rural African teacher with just a year and four months' tenure asking me to pick up a book, in English, and teach it, in English.  I don't get to say no to that. That's an entitled person's boundary to set.

But then here I am, having not let myself set it, sobbing to Meggie, and in so doing failed myself and failed Mr. Msugu.

We let him show the kids that he thinks we're superior - and what? After two weeks, we go, and the next white American volunteer is also superior? We all are? There's my imperial system. It was our job to empower him by observing, encouraging, and maybe later suggesting. Our job to build him up and assist and serve him. I failed at it, because I couldn't listen to my inner voice and because I couldn't set a boundary, and that first world issue results in me causing hard to the third world. And with the tiniest bit of time I get to spend here, using it to hurt?... that feels significant enough to make me want to run away right now.