A Series of Unfortunate Events

The day before Christmas really was a bad day; comical in retrospect, but at the time, cause for a much-needed breakdown. The day started off with a bleeding puppy. Some of the other puppies had recently taken to attacking the runt, and on this particular morning they attacked her so badly that she was gushing blood from the neck and head. She was born with a lame leg and was much smaller and weaker than the others, but she had been getting much better at moving around and fighting her way in for food. I guess, as happens with animals, the other puppies sensed her weakness and were intent on proving survival of the fittest. Aleya and I didn’t really know what to do in this situation – we didn’t know where the vet was, nor did we think they would be open anyway, and neither of us had ever had to do first aid on a dog before. So, we called Baba Ngowi, who agreed to bring over some alcohol later on, and in the meantime, we let Mama dog clean her up. That was just the beginning.

A recurrent leak under the bathtub had been causing puddles of water to form in the bathroom and was seeping through the walls into the next room. When we called the Ngowis (several times) to explain the urgency of the problem, they didn’t seem to understand what we were telling them, thinking we were talking about another problem we had been having with the sewage tank. When the fundis (handymen) finally came to check it out, they decided that it was necessary to punch a hole through the outside wall to get at the leak, as well as tear apart our toilet to fix a problem we hadn’t even noticed. While they were busy outside working on it, the water leakage inside was getting worse and worse, and the house slowly began to flood. When we finally noticed what was happening, the water had run down the hall and into our bedrooms, and there were now about two inches of water on the floor! I quickly tried to salvage what I could off of my floor, but a lot of my stuff got soaked, including papers and books belonging to WOY and TCC. We screamed at the fundis to stop the water, but apparently it could not be stopped until they had finished what they were working on. So, basically, nothing could be done but watch our house fill with water.

As this was happening, a friend of mine from WOY, came to visit me. Somehow not realizing that this was a bad time (it took him a while to see that no, we were not cleaning, our house was flooding), he asked for water (oh so ironically) and decided to stay awhile to chat. He had come to tell me that his mother had said she won’t be able to send him to tour guide school, as he has been planning, because she doesn’t even have enough money for his younger siblings’ primary and secondary school. He would just have to wait longer. Under normal circumstances, I would have been more sympathetic, but I was beginning to worry he had come to ask me for money, and I would not have been able to handle that at this point. I told him I was sorry and was trying to muster up some words of encouragement when, to my relief, Baba Ngowi arrived. The fundis had turned the water off and had gone to town (both of them, for some reason) to buy another part, leaving us wondering if they would really be back at all. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they didn’t come back, but they did, just in time to deal with Baba Ngowi. He explained to us that there was still nothing we could do to stop the water while they were fixing the pipe, and that’s when I had to excuse myself.

I am the type of person, emotionally speaking, that holds things in until the dam breaks. A flooding house was enough to break it this time. I started out crying about the slowly rising water in my bedroom, and before I knew it, I was sobbing about everything that has happened over the past 3-4 months. The miscommunications, the misunderstandings, the AIDS crisis here, the apathy, the huge inequities in this world, the stress of being asked to shoulder so many burdens – the fact that so many of my friends cannot do what they want to do with their lives because they cannot afford to get the training, and here I was, crying about water!

Since our rooms were small ponds by this point, there was nowhere to go for privacy, so Aleya and I took turns quietly breaking down in the kitchen. All the while, poor Sheby just sat in our living room, oblivious until I finally told him I would have to see him later. Baba Ngowi, I think, was starting to panic – he immediately got on the phone to Mama, saying, “Where are you?! Come now, your children are crying!” They really are great; I don’t know what we would do without them at times like this.

The fundis were eventually able to fix the pipe, and mop up the water (making a mess in the process and ignoring the sign on my door that says ‘do not close, usifunga, door is broken!’, locking me out of my room for the fifth time that week), but they weren’t able to finish the job or patch up the hole in the wall, since it was now the holidays and they wouldn’t be able to get cement or parts until afterwards. (Note: holidays are now over; we are still waiting for them to come back to finish the job.) So, we were left with muddy floors, a filthy, ripped apart bathroom, and all of our linens now soaking wet and dirty from mopping up water. The fundi for my door showed up briefly (after being called numerous times and yelled at by Baba Ngowi), only to pry it open, examine the handle, and declare, “It’s broken.” Mm hmmmm. That’s why you’re here. The door would also have to wait until after the holidays (and it’s still waiting, as well).

The next day (Christmas Eve), Mama Ngowi had another mama come over to clean up the mess the fundis had left. While we were waiting for her to finish, so we could head over to the Ngowi’s house to celebrate Christmas, there was a commotion outside and Haika (the Ngowi’s daughter) came in and told us that one of the puppies was dead. We did our best to keep the runt away from the others, but one of them finally killed her. So, Aleya and I had to dig a hole and bury her in the yard. When we came home later that evening, after a delicious meal and a lazy afternoon of good Tanzanian beer and bad television (and Mama Ngowi insisting that we eat more and go take a nap), we came home to find one of the other puppies missing. Naturally, it was the one we were thinking of keeping. She still hasn’t turned up, and we’re not sure what happened to her. But, now there are only four, and Brendan and Christy will not be happy when they come back to find their two favorite puppies gone. We need to get rid of these dogs. They are becoming much more trouble than they’re worth. And you can’t even pet the filthy things.

So, my Tanzanian Christmas got off to a rocky start, but happily, it was nothing a good cry and Konyagi couldn’t fix. It’s certainly more effective than a fundi.

The Safari

This country is unbelievably beautiful. Last week, I was fortunate enough to see some of the best that Tanzania has to offer – definitely at the top of my list of the most incredible sights I have ever seen. My two sisters were here to visit me for a couple weeks before the holidays, as was Aleya’s friend who is working in Rwanda, and as our Christmas present from our parents, to each other, and to ourselves, the five of us went on a 5-day safari to three of Tanzania’s most acclaimed national parks: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater.

Day one was Lake Manyara. This is the place they show on the Discovery Channel with all the flamingos everywhere. While the lake itself is quite a sight (even though we weren’t able to get close enough to see the flamingos very well), this is really only a small part of it. After arriving and setting up camp (we opted for a camping safari, since it is much cheaper than staying in the lodges and also pretty sweet to be sleeping out in the African bush with the animals), we headed out for a game drive and immediately ran into a pack of elephants and a forest full of baboons. By the end of our first day we had seen these plus giraffe, zebras, warthogs, impalas, water buffalo (they are enormous!), dik diks, mongooses (mongeese??), and even a hippo or two. The afternoon light cast an indescribable beauty that not even my camera could fully capture. We went to bed happy, despite the thunder, lightening, and pouring rain going on outside our tents most of the night. At least it covered up the sounds of whatever animals might also have been lurking on the other side of the canvas.

Day two, we got up early and headed for the Serengeti. It’s about a 3 or 4-hour drive from Lake Manyara and, to my delight, it involves a drive through the Crater highlands and sneak peak at Ngorongoro Crater from the rim. Again, the lighting and the last two months of rain made for scenery so beautiful that I actually found myself tearing up once or twice – lush rainforest and endless green, rolling hills scattered with Maasai bomas (their small villages of round, mud huts surrounded by stick fences to keep their cattle in). The Maasai are all over the highlands, where they are allowed to maintain their traditional pastoralist culture, freely herding their cattle over the hills. The sight is mesmerizing: the vivid reds, oranges, blues, and purples of their robes against the bright green of the hills as they – some of them just young boys – walk with their cattle for who knows how many miles a day. It was impossible to get a good picture without treating them like an attraction (which I am sure they are used to and, actually, they make good money from it with all the ‘cultural tourism’ programs, but I hate it), so I had to resign myself to blurry, stolen shots out the window. The rest are in my head.

As we drove further, we soon found ourselves in the midst of the Great Migration – hundreds and hundreds of wildebeest and zebras, everywhere you looked. It was awesome. During this time of year, the animals are migrating out of the central Serengeti to the northeastern part and western Ngorongoro, where they give birth and enjoy plenty to eat. We stopped to have lunch along the roadside, with giraffe and zebras grazing quietly just 50 feet away. By late afternoon, we were heading out of the migration, into the Serengeti, and into a rather ominous-looking storm. Luckily, the weather moves pretty fast here, and by the time we reached the campsite, the storm had left us with the makings of what would be a gorgeous sunset. We would get to enjoy that later, though – for now, we had to unpack the jeep as fast as we could. A leopard had been spotted.

We left Goodluck (our cook) to unpack and set up camp, and we sped off with Isaac to find the leopard. Isaac proved to be a fantastic guide – 21 years of experience, a wealth of knowledge, and an unbelievably skilled driver. We did find the leopard, sleeping up in a tree next to the remains of a freshly killed something, as well as a cheetah, two lionesses that came right up to our vehicle, hippos, hyenas and jackels, more water buffalo and giraffe (they just stare at you, it’s hilarious), and one breath-taking sunset. We made Isaac stop so many times to take pictures of it, that we were late getting back to the campsite and had to outrun the park rangers so we wouldn’t get in trouble. This campsite, unlike the one at Lake Manyara, was a public site and thus crowded much noisier. It felt a bit like camping at home, though there were constant reminders that we were still out in the wild: the advisory to not leave our tents at night, the sign warning people not to leave the campsite, or else risk being attacked by animals, the unfamiliar snorts and growls throughout the night, sounding uncomfortably close. And instead of waking up to see a deer or a raccoon in camp, there would be a giraffe or an elephant, going about its business like we weren’t even there. It was surreal, but extremely cool.

Day three was a full day roaming the Serengeti. It was much different than I had pictured – much greener, thanks to the rain. The Serengeti is 14,763 square km of pure, wild beauty. It’s immense. Even Isaac, in all his years of driving around it, says he hasn’t even seen half of it. We woke up early for a sunrise drive, revisiting the leopard (still in the tree, but this time with a new treat to munch on), and more of the same – giraffe, elephants, warthogs, baboons, waterbuck, gazelles, hartebeest, water buffalo, a lion sleeping on the rocks, and a secretary bird (Zazou in The Lion King). I couldn’t help it; all day, all I could think of was The Lion King. Couldn’t get the song out of my head. It’s sad sometimes, how we relate everything to TV and movies…

We returned to camp for meals, and then headed back out to see what we could find. The afternoon was full of reptiles – a green mamba snake, a small crocodile, a huge monitor lizard, a tortoise – and babies of all kinds! Baby elephants, giraffe, warthogs, hyenas, and baboons; disgustingly cute, all of them. We visited a river so full of hippos, there couldn’t have been much room for anything else. It was one of the most entertaining sights I’ve ever seen – their constant bobbing up and down, the occasional giant mouth opening for a yawn, bizarre noises and smells coming from everywhere, and their massive, blubbery bodies just floating there. What odd animals they are.

It was later that afternoon, on our way back to camp, that we came across the most exciting moment of the entire safari: a lioness hunting a baby giraffe! Now, I like giraffe, I like babies, I don’t want anyone to get hurt…but, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to see a lion take down a giraffe right outside my car window. This is the wild, people! I wanna see something get eaten! Fortunately for the giraffe, but not so fortunate for us, the attack did not ensue. The mama and baby giraffe knew the lion was there and were on high alert. Besides, Isaac told us that there is no way a single lion could take down a giraffe, even a baby. (He did, however, once witness 16 lions take down an adult giraffe; it was an hour-long battle, but they eventually won.) It was disappointing, but a very exciting and intense few minutes.

On day four, we headed back to Ngorongoro (and back through that gorgeous stretch of land) to visit the famous Crater. 2.5 million years ago, a huge explosion inside the volcano caused it to collapse in on itself, forming the world’s largest unbroken and unflooded crater (600 meters deep, 19 km across, and approximately 300 square km). It is now home to thousands of animals – most exciting to us, by this point, being the black rhino; the only member of the ‘Big Five’ that we had not yet seen (the term refers to the five formerly most prized game animals, the other four being the lion, the leopard, the elephant, and the water buffalo). It took us some searching, but we eventually found three of them. That is the nice thing about the Crater – you will come across them eventually – but it does also make it feel more like a park and less like the wild. It was, once again, incredibly beautiful. We saw our first male lions there, just lazing about with about 8 to 10 other females, so, so close to the vehicle. Apparently, they sometimes jump up on the hoods of cars…I think I would have wet myself.

It was here, in the Crater, that I bore witness to the reason Land Rovers were invented. The rains had created some rather large mud pits and made some roads impassable to any lesser vehicle. But, the Land Rover, in all its glory, forged those streams and glided through that mud with no problem. And any road judged a little iffy, we simply went around it. They really are amazing vehicles, and this is what they were made for – not the impeccable, paved roads of suburbia. That’s like keeping a wild animal in captivity. It’s cruel.

We left the Crater that afternoon and headed deeper into the highlands, and deeper into Maasai country. We were going to Olmoti Crater, a shallower crater higher up in the hills. We were driving into another storm and this time it looked like we would be spending the night together, so instead of going all the way to the campsite, we pitched our tents at the edge of Nanokanoka village, right outside some Maasai homes. It was pretty comical, actually. We arrived, and within minutes about 5 or 6 Maasai men appeared (out of nowhere, they just emerged from the forest or something), and helped us set up camp, staring inquisitively at us the whole time. The rain came soon after, so we set up our table and chairs on someone’s front porch, under the eaves, and sat there sipping hot chocolate and tea, shivering, and waiting for dinner to be ready. It was a surprisingly cold night, but we ate a huge, steaming hot meal (as usual; they fed us tremendous amounts on this safari), had an awkward but interesting conversation with the Maasai man living inside the house we were camped in front of, and after several more cups of tea, we ran for the cover of our tents and below-zero sleeping bags.

The morning of our last day, we woke up early to sunshine and after breakfast, we began our trek to Olmoti Crater. After 4 days of doing nothing but sitting in a car and stuffing our faces 3 meals a day, hiking had never felt better. It was embarrassingly exhausting, though, and I think our Maasai guide (they require you to have an armed Maasai ranger accompany you on treks, just in case…no gun, but he did have a pretty big knife) doubted whether we were going to make it. (Not Stacia, though. Everybody loves Stacia. She just climbed Kili. She’s a forest fire fighter. She’s tough, she’s strong, she’s cool, she can do anything. She’s the sister that gets a marriage proposal from the hot, armed Maasai ranger… I love you, sis.J) Once at the top of the Crater, we paused to take in the view and then headed down to a waterfall below. It was lovely, but unfortunately we were in a hurry. We had to be out of the national park by a certain time, and we were going to be late. We quickly packed up (or rather, we watched the Maasai men, who once again appeared, quickly pack up) and headed back out of the Crater, and then back to quiet, boring, giraffe-less Moshi.

We returned home exhausted, never wanting to eat again, and in desperate need of 5 hot showers (something our water tank cannot handle). It was a fantastic 5 days, and by far one of the most memorable times I’ve had with my sisters. I feel so lucky and guilty at the same time for getting to see parts of this beautiful country that most Tanzanians will never get to see. They have so much to be proud of.

World AIDS Day

December 1st was World AIDS Day. Every year, the various HIV/AIDS-oriented NGOs in Moshi host some kind of community event, and this year it was a march and an activity day. This was also the day after my older sister arrived from the States, and I threw her, jet-lagged and culture shocked, right into Tanzanian reality – the intense sun, the crowds of people, the music, the dancing, the smells, and of course, AIDS. That’s really the best way to do it, like jumping in a lake or ripping off a band-aid.

We met up with the other volunteers from White Orange Youth, sporting our WOY t-shirts and carrying signs with phrases like, “You have the power – Stop the spread of AIDS” and “HIV/AIDS does not remove humanity – let’s support our brothers and sisters!” (both in English and Kiswahili, thank you very much). Together, we headed to the gathering point for the march and were met with dancing, drumming, singing, and dancing. This is Tanzanian culture at its best. Not only the lively music and dancing that everyone participates in, unabashedly, but also the fact that this is how to get people’s attention. People will rush from blocks away to see where the music is coming from and watch what is going on, and as long as you have their attention, they will listen. This is how businesses advertise, artists promote their concerts, groups announce events, and this is becoming the most effective way of educating the public on critical issues like HIV/AIDS. It works like a charm, and there are many youth groups that travel around putting on shows to entertain and educate – they call it ‘Edu-tainment.’

The march was a blast. We carried our signs, danced, and shouted all the way to the fairgrounds. People lined the streets to watch, and many even joined in, the kids especially. We didn’t march very far, but it lasted much of the morning, since we stopped every few yards for drumming and drama groups to perform and the people holding the megaphones to talk about HIV/AIDS. It was a punishingly hot day, and my poor sister (fresh out of Idaho winter) was feeling it for sure.

We got to the fairgrounds and set up our WOY info table and signs. We had two main activities throughout the day: condom demonstrations and a risk level assessment activity (i.e. look at the scenario depicted on the card and say whether you think it is a high, low, or no-risk activity). They both seemed to go fairly well, and we had a steady crowd throughout the day participating. While I was roaming around looking at other groups’ booths – more performances, testament s from PLHAs, and even a booth where you could get tested and counseled – or helping with WOY’s activities, my sister was being smothered by children and sunburned to a crisp. I think she may have been a little overwhelmed, but she didn’t let it show.

It is hard to know just how effective an event like that is. It did draw a lot of people; many joined the march, came to listen to the speeches, watch the drumming, participate in the activities, and many people wanted to wear AIDS ribbons. But the question is, did all that make a difference? Did it actually sink in? Were people moved, inspired, angered, and informed enough to actually change their behaviors? Will all those youth so interested in learning how to put on a condom actually use them in the bedroom? Will wives that question their husbands’ fidelity decide to go get tested and stand up for themselves when their husbands refuse? Will people who fear they are infected actually take responsibility for themselves, or just continue to live in denial? That’s the most frustrating part about the situation here – people don’t seem to understand that it is only themselves, as individuals making personal choices, who can stop this disease. Many people would rather go on pretending that AIDS doesn’t exist than to simply use a condom. It’s not up to the government or the NGOs to stop AIDS – they can only provide information and prophylactics. It’s all about behavioral change, and that’s our own responsibility. But so much stands in the way of behavioral change here, culturally. It’s tradition, it’s religion, it’s the general mentality toward sex. And it’s myths; but those, at least, we can dispel more quickly with information.

It’s a start. I guess we just have to look at it that way for now. The first step is knowing the facts. It is just so frustrating to listen to people argue with, what is in my mind, reason – “If condoms are only 98% effective, why should I use them? There is still a risk. I don’t trust them.” Some just don’t seem to hear you when you explain to them that 2% risk is much better than 100%. At a testing day WOY helped put on the other day, Stefanie (a volunteer from Germany) and I did an impromptu condom demonstration on a water bottle for people waiting to be tested. It came about after a 10-minute circular argument with a young man who was refusing to accept condoms as an option. He kept asking, “If I know that, as a man and a human being, it is not possible to abstain from sex, how can I prevent getting HIV?” And we kept telling him, “You can use protection – use condoms.” But he was stuck on the fact that they are not 100% effective. He asked me, “Do you believe in them? Do you carry them with you?” And as luck would have it, I just happened to have a bag of them. I pulled them out of my backpack and handed them out. He watched the demonstration intently, but returned the condom I handed him.

Conversations like that are as infuriating to me as talking about religion – after someone already has their mind made up, there’s no getting in. They won’t hear you. That’s why we try to target youth, because they listen and they ask questions, and they are less likely to have their minds made up about these kinds of things already. As frustrating as it is, though, I have to give people credit for getting tested. That is also a step in the right direction.

I just wonder, how bad do things have to get before people admit there’s a crisis and decide to do something about it? By 2015, millions of Tanzanians will be dead.

more TG pics