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.