Two Days of Work

We are currently back in Mwanza for a week’s break from language school, and each of us have spent the last two days at our respective worksites. As you may remember, I will work with Mrs. Constansia Mbogoma at Capacitar Tanzania, a health and wellness program. Now, theoretically, I was recruited to assist with several women’s cooperatives, a side project of Capacitar, but this effort is new and thus my job has been pretty nebulous up to this point, and pinning down an exact job description has been a challenge. I’ve been OK with this, but it’s been kind of hard to mentally prepare for my ministry when my MKLM folks are talking about women’s co-ops but most of the info I’ve received from Mrs. Mbogoma was about Capacitar and the wellness work. Ostensibly, the two are connected (the groups I’ll be assisting have all received Capacitar training), but I just didn’t really know how the two would mesh in reality.

At this point, I should state that breathing exercises, relaxation techniques, and meditation all have traditionally held very little interest to me. It’s just not something that “grabbed” me, and anytime the option to attend a meditation workshop or exercise group arose, I opted to be somewhere else. We had several workshops on this type of stuff at our MKLM training, and I just didn’t like much of it. So when the focus of my work seemed to be shifting to exactly that type of stuff, I did get nervous that this was not the placement for me and even talked with Katie about whether I should bring this up. But I committed to it and resisted the urge to make a snap judgment without giving it a chance, so I said a prayer and took a leap of faith, and here I am. After two days of working with Mrs. Mbogoma and getting a glimpse of what I’ll be doing, my concerns have largely subsided and I’m very excited about the work that lay ahead.

Though I am still not 100% sure exactly what I’ll be doing, working with women's groups will be the bulk of my work, though I have gathered that I will likely have my hands in many different projects, and that is exciting. I was happy to see how much of Capacitar’s work dovetails with Social Work goals and methods. Mrs. Mbogoma welcomes any new ideas and suggestions I can provide, and she has welcomed into the organization with open arms. I think I will receive a lot of in-depth exposure to Tanzanian culture through this ministry and will learn an incredible amount from these experiences as well as Mrs. Mbogoma’s mentoring. As a bonus, I also think my own health will likely improve from learning the wellness exercises (for the last two days, we began the day with about 15 minutes of Tai Chi in her garden. It was quite enjoyable, and I was reminded that, despite my general reticence for this type of thing, at one point I was really interested in Tai Chi).

On my first day (yesterday), I spent the day hearing more about Capacitar’s work. I was able to practice my Swahili quite a lot- Mrs. Mbogoma used to teach Swahili so she made sure I was using it. Additionally, I met another of my colleagues, Mary, and the three of us continued speaking about projects. We also talked about the differences in Tanzanian and American cultures then strolled around her garden and she explained what plants were growing. The day was pretty short, and after a dalla-dalla ride I was home by about 2pm.

Today, day two, (Wednesday), I was able to get a first-hand glimpse at what my post-language-school work will entail. After more Tai Chi in the garden*, Mrs. Mbogoma, Mary, and I set out to catch a dalla-dalla to the outskirts of the city to visit the Buswelu Women’s Cooperative. Great experience. The women were very welcoming and excited that we were there. I met each woman, looked at their vegetable stalls where they sell their produce, then we all went out to see two the women’s farms. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve been a little shy here lately- performance anxiety, if you will. Yet today, out in this more rural setting, with all these women, I was completely comfortable (could really talk with them, but it was never awkward being the lone mzungu and the only guy). My brain was spinning with questions about the co-ops, and as I walked through the fields (mashamba) I felt all my fears lifted from my shoulders and the excitement take hold. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but suddenly that wasn’t scary anymore, but an opportunity to get out there and learn. This was it- this was what we were called here to do, this desire for this type of experience was what made us want to come here. It was a great day. So praise the Lord**, I think I’m gonna like my job!

*My MKLM colleague Caitlin told me I was going to be the most zen person she knew after enough time at my placement.

**Seriously, praise the Lord!

A Confession

I have something to confess. It’s not something that I ever thought would happen to me, but it did, so I’m going to just put it out there for everyone to know.

I like Glee.

No, I love Glee.

Now, I know I have some of my friends out there are now shaking their heads and thinking “Downloading REO Speedwagon was bad enough, but now this?” This can seriously do some damage to whatever cred I may have as a bona fide music snob*, but it’s true. I genuinely like this show. But man did I not think I ever would.

My mom loves Glee and would always make me watch clips when I went home for a visit, but I never saw the appeal. She always just showed me the song segments, but without any context, it was just a show of pretty people doing karaoke versions of pop songs I didn't much like to begin with. However, here in TZ, one of our fellow missioners had the first two seasons on DVD, so Katie started watching the show as a way to zone out at night after studying Kiswahili all day. I’d watch a few minutes here, then a few minutes there, and slowly but surely I got pulled in. I still don't like a lot of the song selections, but they'll bust out some good stuff enough to keep me hooked (they love some Queen). I think the show has some really good messages in it, and I’ll be damned if watching a bunch of good-looking, highly-talented actors unrealistically being portrayed as high school outcasts singing songs about being losers doesn’t actually resonate a little with my own memories of feeling out of place in high school.

So I love Glee. Unironically. I guess I'm a Gleek. I just needed to put that out there. Don’t hate on me too much, because I can’t sing well enough to use today's Top 40 hits to put on a show-stopping number to express my innermost feelings of rejection.

* My music philosophy is that people should listen to whatever music makes them happy. Love what you love. Just know that, at the end of the day, my music tastes are still better than yours. BOOM.

Creature Feature (AKA Wild Kingdom)

Since we’re living in an area that’s populated by a fair amount of people, we don’t actually see many wild animals (though we see tons of goats (mbuzi), cows (ng’ombe), chickens (kuku), ducks (bata), and dogs (mbwa). And many different birds (ndege). And lots of bugs (wadudu)). But every now and then, we stumble upon something cool. The western entrance to the Serengeti National Park is on the road to Musoma, and while driving by on the way to language school, we saw lots of zebras and wildebeests, and that was really cool.


Then a few days after arriving here, we saw a monitor lizard that was over three feet long dozing without a care in the world while sunning itself on a path. I actually thought it was dead at first, but it was indeed breathing and would readjust it's snoozing position over the TWO DAYS it was just laying there. Lazy bugger. (Full disclosure: Katie was the voice of reason when I stated my intention to poke it with a stick.)


Anyway, that’s been about it for animal excitement...until yesterday! The day started in the typical way. Woke up. Went to mass. Ate breakfast. Zoned in the room cramming for class. Then start class at 8:30am. I was slowly strolling to class in a bit of a stupor when something caught my eye- some movement in the distance. Lo and behold, a monkey was running down the driveway about 100 feet from where I stood, right through our campus. It was perfect, too, tail up, in a slow run so we got a good look at it as it passed. Being the adult that I am, I handled this is the most mature way I could, by rocking up and down on my toes pointing an yelling “A MONKEY!! EVERYONE LOOK!! IT’S A MONKEY!! A MONKEY!! OOOOO A MONKEY!! MONKEY!!” Luckily, I was not alone in this excitement. Thankfully, someone had a camera to capture this moment on film:


I can assure you that starting the day with a real live monkey running across your yard is a pretty badass way to kick off the day. But there’s more…

Later that day, my MKLM colleague David comes running in the building yelling that our fellow student Sister Maria has caught a chameleon. So off I went to see a real live, wild chameleon. Pretty cool little critter. It tried to look scary, but I eventually mustered up the nerve to hold it, and it was very docile and chill. Really neat experience.



We head back down to Mwanza for a break on Saturday, so we’ll pass the Serengeti again. Maybe we’ll have a few more animal sightings to report.

Alive and Well

So this is just a quick post to get something up here on my blog other than my doom-and-gloom culture shock post. I realized that since that was my last post, its vibe kind of holds steady until I counteract it with a new post, and many people have perhaps been concerned that I fell into a black hole and disappeared into despair. While that makes for a great, dramatic mental image, I'm actually doing fine (see the picture for visual proof, taken two days after the culture shock post). Alive and smiling, to boot. I did very much appreciate all the nice comments and messages I received to cheer me up and boost my spirits, and it did help me feel better. So that smile may have something to do with you, dear readers.

Actually, the weekend following my lousy week was quite amazing, so I had an immediate mood improvement. That Saturday we were helping out with Lisa’s Pride again, and it’s always great to hang with kids, and then the following Sunday we were able to participate in a celebration for the Maryknoll Sisters that have worked in Tanzania since the early 1950’s. Katie wrote a nice blog post about it HERE, and there’s a short video of an awesome drum circle HERE. Quite an amazing experience.

And THAT was over a week ago. Last week was pretty good. I had some typical frustrations associated with doing something hard (ie, learning Kiswahili) but overall the week was good. And last weekend we hung out with Liz Mach for a weekend of movie watching and relaxing (except with a lot less electricity and movie watching than we originally anticipated).

So things are quite nice here in Tanzania, and I hope things are going well for you, too.

In The Doldrums, or My Exciting Adventures In Culture Shock

I haven’t given an update on our day-today life here in Tanzania in a few weeks, and I’m committed to giving you the good and the bad, so here’s a very real and honest post for you. Things are going well, but this last week has been a hard one for me.

Now, let it be noted that I am VERY happy with my decision to move to Tanzania and have no plans to pack up and come home anytime soon. However, a move like this is not without it’s emotional toll, and that’s what I am talking about today. A very common theme that popped up in our trainings in New York was the cycle of culture shock and the transition and adjustment to a very different environment. Everyone who has made a move like ours talked about the periods when you’ll be down in the dumps and sort of casting about for normalcy. And that’s where I’ve been this last week. I’ve had a few moments of vague sadness hit me now and then, but it came up on me full-force this week, culminating in a mini-breakdown yesterday. There are five of us new folks here, and while there’s no one in the group that stands out as a candidate for hitting the culture shock wall first, I am surprised it was me.

My little freakout has been slowly creeping up on me over the last week or two. Lots of various things have been manifesting in a recipe for an emotional crash. First, the weather here is like a warm spring/early summer day everyday. Sunny, cool breezes, 80 degrees give or take a few. It’s great. It’s also the “season” that gives me terrible allergies, so I’ve been sneezing and coughing with watery eyes, runny nose, an itchy throat for weeks now. I’m used to allergies, so I’ll live. BUT, the way people dispose of all trash here is to burn it, so there is constantly smoke in the air. Now, I like a good fire and have spent many an hour around a bonfire, but when there’s NO break from the smoky air, my allergies and my asthma really get going. So I haven’t felt very well for the last few weeks.

Also, Kiswahili is hard to learn! Everyone who speaks it say “it’s easy!” but it’s not. Certainly not the hardest language to learn, but it is another language with very different rules, and it is hard. I’ve been doing pretty well at it, but this week we hit some new grammar rules that are just beyond me right now. I’m sure I’ll get it, but sitting in class for hours a day and not understanding a lot of what is being discussed will wear you down. I think I’ve been overly hard on myself, setting unrealistic expectations for where I should be at this point in time, so I have been beating myself up a bit. So now I’m in a bad mood and I don’t feel good. More ingredients added to mix…

I’ve also noticed a few bad habits forming, all centering around “avoidance.” I was wasting time I could have been studying, and instead procrastinating and playing Connect Four online. I’ve been reading a lot, but at the expense of other things I should have been doing. I need to be out practicing my Swahili but instead I found I was holing up on campus, avoiding going out and having to speak to anyone beyond the gates of the school. Pretty much avoiding the “African” part of my African experience, seeking out familiar.

Three nights ago, we tried to load up more credits to access the internet and we did something wrong and we couldn’t get online that night. No big deal, but boy I freaked out. I thought everyone was blaming me for the mistake and I got really defensive and threw a little tantrum. I talked about how I guess it was dumb for me to freak out over such a stupid little mistake because “Africa itself was nothing but a long line of stupid mistakes” that we’ll have to deal with, but that I didn’t feel good and “people should just leave me alone!” Katie and I had a fight, and I fully admit I was acting like an ass. The overly critical attack on “Africa itself” is also a classic symptom of culture shock.

We’ve been pretty rootless the last 6 months, jumping from place to place, and I think that has been wearing on me, too. I want a routine, and I want to be doing something.” So yesterday afternoon, I’m sitting in our language lab after a particularly frustrating day of classes and a rough week in general, and I am suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness. Now, I mentioned a few weeks back that I don’t really get homesick, but this was without a doubt full-blown homesickness. And not a general feeling of missing the United States, but a very specific pang of missing Columbia and my old life. I didn’t want to be in Musoma, Tanzania anymore. I missed my house. I missed my cats. I missed the Horseshoe in the middle of USC’s campus. I missed Pizza Man. And I wanted desperately to ride our bikes up to the Yoghut on the corner of Blossom and Main Streets and eat frozen yoghurt and sit outside at sundown and watch the students mill about campus. It hit me hard, and I immediately just packed up and walked back to my room, lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. And then I cried a little.

And that, my friends, is culture shock!

Now, I feel much better today. After my little breakdown, I holed up in my room and just zoned out online. Then I exercised, had dinner, watched some TV, and read a book. I didn’t look at Swahili at all. And that night, the students here all gathered in the community room to watch an episode of The #1 Ladies Detective Agency. Now, reading the series of books on which the TV show is based was one of the first things that piqued my interest in Africa a decade ago, and I’ve read all 12 of the books. Seeing all my favorite characters on screen, with the great music, and shots of the beautiful people of Africa, and images of the true beauty that exists in Africa reminded me why I’ve wanted to live here and why I’ve worked so hard to get here for all these years. Something about watching that show was the just the salve my soul needed.

So I had a bad week, and I’ll have bad times again. It’s part and parcel of the experience, and I am sure the good times will vastly outweigh the bad. So I'll just chalk my culture shock up to one of the requisite experiences of my move to Tanzania, and I’ll pick myself up, say a prayer, and take stroll outside those front gates and see what’s out there waiting for me.

People of the City (1954), by Cyprian Ekwensi

This was a good but dated novel written by Nigerian author Cyprian Ekwensi (also part of the African Writers Series). This novel was evidently one of the first works of African literature that was widely read outside of Africa circles (according to the book jacket) and Ekwensi is an author of much acclaim. However, it’s a strange read: there are some aspects that are distinctly “African” but remove the African names and such and it would read like a Beat Generation novel. The protagonist (Sango) is a reporter and jazz musician trying to make his way in a big, unnamed city in Nigeria; he’s caught up in a romantic problems with several attractive women. Kerouac could have made an appearance in this story.

The story moves along and it kept me interested, but the author uses some amusing and contrived literary devices to develop and resolve plot points. There’s just a huge pile-on of bad luck on the main character. Sango will do something and a chapter will end and he’ll say something like “Trust me, this is a great plan.” Then inevitably the next chapter starts and with a sentence like “Sango’s plan was not a good one, and he lost his job because of it.” It’s quite amusing it its predictability. There’s also the way the author resolves certain plot points involving both major and minor characters. A character will have some big part in the book, they’ll get dropped for a chapter or two, then later their name will come up and another character would go “Oh, didn’t you hear? They died.” And that’s that. Seriously, two major characters were resolved in this manner, and a few minor characters were bumped off this way, too. And then there’s, of course, a happy ending. Upon a quick review of a few articles about Ekwensi's writing style, he was evidently an author of quite a few short stories, which explains a lot about this novel's structure; it's full of short little plots that are loosely strung together as a whole. It was also his first novel, so his style for longer works was likely still development. I enjoyed reading it. It’s a fun, easy read.

White Genesis / The Money Order (1965) by Sembene Ousmane

I recently read two short stories written by Senegalese author Sembene Ousmane (published in a single volume as part of the African Writers Series). The first story (White Genesis*) tells of the social fallout resulting from an incestuous relationship involving the village chief. The story is interesting as it contains a lot of cultural touchstones for village life as well as life in an Islamic community. The second story, The Money Order, is about the trials and tribulations that one man faces when he attempts to receive a money order from a relative in France. I liked this one more than White Genesis and it was almost comical in its depiction of the double whammy of bureaucratic red tape and the demands society places on us. I say almost because it’s ultimately not very funny at all.

A few thoughts: While this is a story of fiction, it holds many truths that resonated with me. I’ve only been here in Tanzania for 3 weeks, but I can already see how hard it can be to do something as simple as picking up a money order. Again, it’s fiction, but this story made me appreciate the lengths some of my international students had to go through and some of the bureaucratic hoops they may have had to jump through just to get to the US to study. Secondly, the story delves a lot into the conflict between “traditional” and “modern” values, both for African values as well as Islamic values. There is a great expectation among people in the story that if one can help another person, there’s a moral obligation for them to do so (like “in the old, more traditional” days). But the author also sees the darkside of this value and creates a scenario where everyone is so desperate to demand their share that no one ever gives a thought to the wellbeing of the person who is fortunate enough to offer anyone else help. The protagonist is totally at the mercy of social expectations and in some cases the manipulations of others. There’s a lot to unpack in this little story (such as the conflict between keeping traditions alive vs changing social norms that actually may hinder society) as well as some interesting parallels to the modern welfare state (both pros and cons) that would be worth exploring, BUT I’ll digress for the sake of brevity. Incidentally, there’s also a movie that was directed by the author himself, so that may be an interesting film to hunt up.

* After finishing the story, I still have no idea why this story was called White Genesis.