Gardening in Tanzania

“What’s her name?” I ask.

“Whose name?” She replies, breast in hand.

“The baby” I say “your baby.” The question hangs in the air with the smoke from the cooking fire.

“She doesn’t have one.” She says, lifting the other side of her shirt to switch breasts.

“Well, what should I call her?” I have the strange desire to help her try to get the child to latch on, but that’s probably inappropriate.

She laughs distractedly and exchanges amused glances with the woman next to me. “Greta, why would you call a baby?”

“A baby needs a name.” I say, “Especially one that’s already a week old!”

“I haven’t thought of one yet.” The baby makes a few gasping noises and finally takes hold of her nipple.

“What were you thinking of for nine months?” This is one of those this makes perfect sense to everyone in the village but Greta conversations.

“Thinking? I don’t know, I just haven’t thought of a name.” She smiles completely lost in her nursing child.

“When will you give it a name?” I persist, “see, doesn’t it sound bad calling it it?”

“Sometime next month when I get her weighed at the clinic, I have to give her a name then.” This seems to be the definitive answer, as if I asked what time the bus was leaving and she told me.

“You should start a list, every time you think of a name you like you can put it on the list, then next month you can look at your list and choose one.” I say as if I’m a baby naming expert.

She gives me a since when are you a baby naming expert look and says “Thanks for the advice Greta.”

I laugh. Though Agnes is five years younger than me, the tables in our relationship have been suddenly and irrevocably turned by this five minute conversation.

. . .

Agnes was the first girl I met in my village. She was outfront gardening as the village car pulled up and dropped me off in front of my new residence. “Really?” I said, “this house is for me!?” The place was less I live in a hut in Africa and more I summer in the Southern Highlands version of Versailles; I’d hit the Peace Corps jackpot. The leaders beamed with pride. “Yes,” they said, “this is your house, and this is your live-in house girl, Agnes.” She stepped forward and smiled. I took a step back. I had no intentions of having a maid; besides the fact that I’d joined Peace Corps to help people, not hire them, I was also afraid of getting my ass kicked by other volunteers. If another Peace Corps volunteer ever came by and saw me in my castle, having my breakfast on the terrace as Agnes mopped the floor, there would be trouble. I tried to politely decline and was politely ignored. After a brief struggle with my basic Swahili a compromise was made: they would give me a month on my own to do my own house work, then Agnes would pick up what I couldn’t handle. I went back to my “I live in paradise” bliss.

The next morning I awoke to Agnes knocking on my door at 6 a.m. I declined her offer to help unpack, and went straight back to bed. She showed up the next morning, and the next. Each time she agreed that she wouldn’t start for a month, but everyday she’d sneak around behind my back and tidy things within her reach: sweep the dirt off the rocks out back, churn up the soil in the flower bed, pickup sticks from the terrace. After two weeks of covert cleaning I caught her in the act of removing leaves from the gutter at 7a.m. “Ok,” I said, “You start on Monday.” I could hear her continue to remove leaves as I lay in bed.

She started coming around every few days. She’d show up at 7a.m. in high heels and kanga wraps. She tended the garden in her heels while she waited for some direction. Having no prior experience as mistress of a house, I had little to offer her. While I’m not the cleanest person in the world I felt pressure to keep my house tidy so as not to be judged harshly by Agnes. The night before “Agie days” I’d clean up the house, then dirty a few dishes, and strip the beds so she’d have work to do. It occurred to me that it was more work to have a house girl than to live like a happy little pig in my own private pen.

After a few months we fell into a rhythm. Ag would show up a few hours too early, laugh at me while I did yoga while she did the dishes, watered the garden, and did the laundry. I was meticulous in my laundry sorting so as not to include anything in Agie’s bag that might embarrass her. One day I wandered outside to find Agie hanging a pair of my chupies (panties) on the cloths line. I quickly apologized and promised her it wouldn’t happen again. She giggled, “I’ve been wondering if you wear them. These ones are nice! I don’t mind washing your chupies.” From then on she washed the chupies, I often caught her twisting and pulling the lacier ones with a confused look.

We had a few miscommunications; the most fatal was the case of Bob and Mkude, the guinea pigs Agnes sold me for three dollars. Bob and Mkude lived in a room off of the courtyard which they shared at night with Betty and Wilma the chickens. Many people in my village keep guinea pigs to eat, I kept them because they pooped a lot and Agnes said it was great manure for my garden. They were kind of cute; admittedly, I grew attached. One day I discovered Bob was pregnant. When I told Agnes she wasn’t surprised. “But why didn’t you tell me she wasn’t a boy when I named her Bob?” I asked. She shrugged. A month later I opened the door to let the chickens out and found three little guinea pig carcasses pecked clean. When I explained this to Agnes she said “of course, chickens eat baby guinea pigs.” I asked her why she didn’t tell me, or move the chickens herself, she shrugged. A few months later I left Agnes in charge while I spent a few weeks training new volunteers in the Northwestern region of Tanga, Tanzania. I returned to find poor little Bob and Mkude dead beneath their bamboo leaves. Agnes, still smiling said “Greta, it’s the cold season, you need to keep guinea pigs in the cooking room where there’s a fire.” I believe she then shrugged.

Agnes’s favorite expression to welcome me home after a trip was “Greta! Ka! Umenenepa!” Translation: “wow Greta, you’re fat”. Agnes wasn’t’ the only one who said this to me, it’s sort of a compliment in Tanzania, plus compared to a 5’ tall, 90lb villager, I am fat. Late August I returned to Ujindile after a few months of on-off traveling and found a somewhat rounded out Agie. I beat her to the punch line, “Wow Ags, you look like you put down a few dozen kilo’s of ugali flour.” She smiled the Greta’s crazy smile and shrugged.

. . .

To an outsider, life in the village can appear to be a somewhat monotonous affair. Catching up with people after a month or so of travel usually goes something like this:

Me- “How are you?”
Village Friend- “Fine, you?”
Me- “Good. How were the many days?”
Village Friend- “Good. You?”
Me- “Great. How’s mama? The kids?”
Village Friend- “Everyone’s good.”
Me- “Alright, good to see you, catch you ‘round.”
Village Friend- “Great, come by for chai sometime.”

It’s when you make the cross over from an outsider to a somewhat observant resident that life begins to get more interesting. When I got home from travels last August my first greeting went something like this:

Me-“How are you?”
Village Friend- “Good. How are you?”
Me- “Good. Does Agnes look fat to you?”
Village Friend- “She’s five months pregnant.”
Me- “Ka!”

. . .

There comes a point in every volunteer’s service when the honeymoon is interrupted. The place you’ve come to think of as home slowly reveals itself to you, and sometimes it’s not the colorful paradise you’ve come to love. The dry season drains the life from the rainy season; the dark side of a close friend exposed. In a small village where the favorite past time is gossiping, it doesn’t take much digging to find the trash buried in a garden. Agnes’s garden had one big piece of trash in it, his name was Pizza*.

Pizza is the Village Executive Officer, aka big man on campus. He’s the most charismatic man in our village, and was at the time my supervisor and best friend. He’d been my right hand man on every project I’d done, and he was my favorite social outlet: two beers on Tuesday nights, which got us both a little giggly. He got my sense of humor, and made great fat jokes “Greta’s so big, soon she’ll need her own sub-village.” Not to mention he was a devout Christian, husband, and father of four. When I found out Pizza was the father of Agnes’s baby my heart sank.

One thing about digging around in other people’s trash is that you never know what you’re going to find. In August Agnes asked me for money to rebuild her house. When I asked her what happened to her old house she said “fire”; I assumed it was a casualty of the dry season. When I started talking to a close friend about Agnes’s relationship with Pizza he had more to share than I was ready for. It turns out that Pizza is sort of the Genghis Khan of our village; he’s got children all over the area. Agnes was the latest and most public affair. As retribution for her relationship with Pizza someone lit her roof on fire in the middle of the night while she was still in there. The revelation was shocking! Adultery, pregnancy out of wedlock, revenge arson—and that was just from scratching the surface. A landfill of mischief had been buried in my backyard and all I had seen was a slightly bloated Agnes, and an irritated Pizza.

I spent a few month confused and hurt. I expected more from both of them. Agnes was set up to go to school in town in January, an opportunity most girls past the age of twenty don’t get. We’d been planning for months, and I was excited to see her get out of the village, I thought she was just as excited. Pizza was my go-to guy. I held him under a different standard than other Tanzanian officials, who can be prone to lying (what politician isn’t?), and other Tanzanian men who are prone to adultery (as are men from many cultures).

. . .

Eventually you stop trying to fit the realities of your village into what your own image of the village is. You stop trying to control and contain your garden. American seeds are thrown away and local shrubs (the kind that sustain all seasons) are planted in rusty paint cans and that are placed outside your door. You focus your energy on seeing things a new way, instead of trying to get people to see things your way. You invite people to share your garden, and learn from each other. You don’t go looking for other people’s trash (we all have something buried back there), instead you appreciate the beauty of their flowers.

. . .

Agnes may not have the things that I want for her: an education, a secure future, and empowerment; yet when I see her smile at her baby I question whether any of those things were ever what she wanted for herself. I see things in Agnes that I never recognized while she was hiding behind the façade as my binti: she’s strong, she focuses on the positive,and she never loses her sense of humor, even with a silly mzungu who thinks she knows what’s best, though it was Agnes all along who taught me to tend my Tanzanian garden.

*Name has been changed to protect the identity Pizza

Dust to Dust

By the end of the dry season the dust is so deep you’d think you could plow it and pack it into strange dark snowmen. You drive through it and erase the road behind you as it envelops in a dirt curtain. You trudge through it and it gently yields, cushioning each step like a walk on a thin layer of clouds. By the end of the day your feet are stained, your tissues covered in dark snots, and your hair lets dust like a carpet being beat in the sun.

It’s the season of struggle. The water tap runs dry for days. Women and children are sent down to the river to carry buckets of water back on their heads, their necks thicker than a football player. Deep hacking echoes across the fire-blackened farms as women tear at the parched earth—the hacking coming from their chests, the widespread warm-season cold.

Death, ever the opportunist, hovers nearby. In the past two weeks she’s visited four of our neighbors. Early Tuesday morning she knocked on another door. We all heard it—a visit from Death is always announced with the beating of the drums. The music is bittersweet; as clearly as it’s a sad song that signals the mourning which the entire village will partake in, it is also a song of relief that someone’s suffering is finally over. Death here is undignified and as painfully slow as the drip from the dry tap. Life here is as delicate as the dust and as easily displaced.

The funeral started first thing in the morning. While the uniformed school children marched one by one up to the school, small groups of women and men started to shuffle down the long path to Fuka, the farthest and smallest of our sub-villages.

I stayed in bed, not out of disrespect, rather out of exhaustion. I’d heard the drums in the pre-dawn hours but was half awake and concentrating on the last chills of a fever. I wasn’t so much concerned with the infection, more annoyed; when you live and work with people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and see the disease claim every aspect of their life you develop a new perspective on what it means to be sick, REALLY sick. Everything else you treat, continue with life, and know how lucky you are that it’s defeat-able.

It was mid-day by the time I heard that the drums were Rehema’s. She was a member of Tupambane, a group of PLWHA whom I work with on a daily basis, mostly in the community garden. The name ‘Tupambane’ literally means ‘we are fighting’. Rehema was a fighter. Looking through the mid-day sun I could see the smoke from the cooking fires trickling up from her home on the second far hill. It was just under an hour’s walk, a walk she made to my house several times a week.

I made it there as the last of the hundred or so family and friends received their plate of ugali and greens. Everyone sat scattered in the smallest slivers of shade on the hillside. They sat in silence, exhausted by the hike to the family burial ground, the piercing sun, and the weight of their mourning. The silence was pregnant with solidarity, not solitude, the mourning was collective, never a weight for an individual. The closest relatives were collected together in a small room surrounded on the outside by other close relatives. Had I arrived in the morning with everyone else I would have been escorted into the room to sit or lay with the body. Since I was late I was instead given a spot to kneel with Rehema’s sisters and daughters who cried in unison as Rehema’s mother prayed.

When I got up from the circle and left the room the sun blinded me a moment. As I refocused I met eyes with Rehema’s youngest daughter. I remembered her shyness when my own mother tried to greet her last summer, she covered her mouth and ducked behind Rehema. Though I know the Tanzanian concept of family means that Rehema’s two daughters will automatically be absorbed into an aunt’s family, or given to the charge of their grandmother, this is always the hardest part of Death for me here, she erases the path for the young living, their options in life are undeniably fewer as they join an ever-growing group of orphans and vulnerable children in the far reaches of the village. I smiled at Rehema’s daughter and her friend (both about five years old) and they fell over each other giggling—small gestures receive BIG reactions from kids here, it was generous of her.

One does not know the depths of generosity until they’re a guest in a Tanzanian’s home. Even at this funeral where I tried to blend into the back round I found myself given the best stool in the best shade next to my closest female friends. Rehema’s daughter showered me with shy smiles. When I gave a 1,000 shillingi contribution (which is standard) I was thanked by every single member of Rehema’s family, which shocked me by the great number of individuals in the small sub-village where I’d spent little time. When my close friend Christian, her cousin and the village chairman, thanked me I felt embarrassed. “It’s only a little” I said to him. He replied “even a little comes from a big heart”, one of the most gracious men I know.

The funeral continued all day until the evening prayer service at the Lutheran church. As the drums opened the day, the gong of the church bell closed it. The setting sun cast a deep rust color against the low clouds of dust which trailed the church goers.

At this time of day you can always find me sitting parallel to the mountain where the sun sets, alone with my thoughts. On days like that, the hard ones where you experience something that changes you and your course, like the dust closing the path behind you, it’s the lessons you learn from your friends and neighbors, like the one I learned about generosity, that shows you the path to take in the future.

Frustrations and Graduations

One of the most difficult aspects of life here is that you can not hide from your frustrations. You can't grab a pint of Ben & Jerry's and relax on a nice comfy couch in front of Season 3 of The Office (sigh). You are living together with everyone else, and usually the things that frustrate you are the things that you rely on the most. Here are my top three frustrations:

1. Tanzanian men. Seriously? You think that if you shout mzungu and ask me to be your 2nd or 3rd wife I'll oblige? I'm at least 1st wife material. Or that you can ignore me and talk to my friend because he's a guy, even though my swahili is ten times better? And, what's up with the wiggly finger..is that really suppose to turn me on??? SERIOUSLY?!?! Jesus.

2. Transportation. There are no words.

3. Formal Tanzanian events. You can count on a few things: it will start late, you will be a VIP--required to introduce yourself and give a speech (if you're at the wedding of someone you've never met, they will boot out the mother of the bride for you to get a good seat..for a funeral you will be given the best seat next to either the body or next of kin), you have to wear uncomfortable traditional clothing that makes your ass sweat, there will be at least one man who can't get enough of hearing themself talk, also, it will end much later than seems possible.

That said, there are many exceptions to these frustrations. You never know when you're gonna bump into a really polite, educated, considerate conda (bus attendant) on a super plush, comfortable 12 hour bus ride back from Dar, and they give you mango juice instead of soda and play "Crocodile II. Death Role" on the video screen while you're comfortably shaded from the sun. It's the unexpected things that make this life worth the frustrations. However, the one day I knew I would be unable to avoid sitting in a sweaty pool of ohmygodyouvegottabekiddingmeishereallystilltalking was October 1st, 2009-Darasa la saba graduation (primary school graduation).

Graduations are my version of village hell. It is an all day event of village leaders giving long-winded speeches, terrible student performances, and oh god the giving of diplomas!! It's just awful. It goes on from 11 a.m till the sun comes up the next day (seriously, last year the graduation disco went til the sun came up). And, the whole time I'm held hostage. I can't leave. Too hot in the sun? Too bad. Nothing to say for a speech? We're makin you go first. Ever since last Septemper I've dreaded the return of Darasa la Saba graduation (primary school).

After a long morning of lying in bed willing myself diahhrea (the only beleivable excuse my teachers will accept) I put on my brandnew over-sized kanga-gowni I had specially made to hang off my body--extra breathable should I be sat in the sun again. I fed Tusker and arrived right on time, knowing this would be far to early and that I would be waiting for at least an hour. Low and behold, I was seated in the shade as the head master announced over the speakers that he fully intended on starting on time, even though half the village hadn't showed up.

During the dreaded introductions I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of women who held positions in our village government. The long-winded speeches? Hysterical. The sub-village chairman of Ipogoro forbid the 7th graders to buy sterios and cell phones, while the head of the Assemblies of God church talked about personal hygeine and good cooking. I was proud to be able to give the best on-the-spot speech yet (it actually made sense and had some heart, and ended with "kwa hiyo, usisahau kupiga mswaki" therefore, do not forget to brush your teeth).

After all the diplomas were given and the soccer match was played and the food was eaten came the highlight: the DJ with the giant speakers. While the DJ was setting up the photographer came around and everyone in the village got a picture of me in my kanga-gowni, a resume bonus should I ever apply for a Minnie Mouse position. The other highlight of the evening was free beer. I had a few beers then learned the TZ version of the macarena (double right step, double left step, jump forward, bend over, shake your ass in the air as you hop back to where you started, clap, start over). The kids were actually dancing with me, like it was cool. What American 7th grader do you know who would dance with their teachers at the school dance?!

It was some strange combination of the macarena and the beer that got me to volunteer for all night disco duty, something I would regret a few hours later when all the beer was finished and we'd already done the macarena three times. It was a wonderful, unexpected evening. The unexpected: something that keeps all of us volunteers on our feet, and addicted to the crazy lifestyle when really ANYTHING could happen. You never know, and it's a lovely feeling.


A few pictures from graduation performances and diploma giving:

It's just...I mean..ummm...It's hard to express yourself when you dream in Swahili and speak 1st grade english. My year in TZ.. SCROLL DOWN FOR PICS!

The past few months I've spent alot of time traveling outside of my village (for work, and family vaca). When I finally got back to site last week after a 16 hour bus ride (gotta love road work and breakdowns) I found the members of the community garden group double digging (a technique my counter part and I taught) in the garden near my house... i know it sounds silly, but it brought a tear to my eye. I was exhausted (thoroughly, fall asleep sitting-up exhausted), and had felt guilty for being away so long that when I got back to site and saw that what I've been doing is making an impact, even a small impact--like double digging--it brought this wonderful, warm feeling.

The next day I went to a town meeting and followed my typical rounds of greeting the masses. This time, however, I actually recognized almost all the people I was greeting. The town was no longer random groups of dark people in bright clothing. I found myself greeting by name and asking How's your daughter joani doing? Is she ready for the mtihani? and How was your sister's send off party? Is your wife back from the hospital? Did we kick Igosi's ass last week in soccer? I even caught my self once asking Where did you get your hair done?! It is Beautiful! and meaning it.

My 8 month old puppy is still quite a puppy, and even though he's crazy and ate my neighbor's goat, a chicken, and my folder full of grant receipts, I still love sitting next to him in the court yard as he scratches his fleas and I scrub my dirty socks.

You're saying to yourself...Greta, you've lived there for a year, it should feel like home! And though my house has felt like home for quite a while, the village now, more than ever, really feels like home. My neighbors invitations for dinner no longer feel like politeness. Sitting with the women under one small tree in the middle of the village wondering if a meeting is ever going to start is not such a bad way to pass the morning. When I laugh with my neighbors it's not always myself, but at some joke they've made that I actually find funny.

It's really hard to explain. Amongst volunteers there's a silent understanding of this shared experience, we can take one look at each other after weeks of not seeing each other and know exactly what's on each other minds (usually, lets get a drink). The flip side of this is how we fumble and struggle to put the experience into words for all of you back at home.

I love it here, most of the time. The frustrations are very real, and at times I've wondered if I'm doing the right thing by being way over here while my friends and family and life carries on back at home-- am I making that much of a difference to make it worth it?? I wondered this a lot after my family's visit. They weren't as impressed with Tanzania as I think we all hoped they'd be. I was really frustrated at not being able to show them all the things I love about Tz. I wondered if maybe I'd just been here too long, and if being away from the 'real word' for so long had tainted my perception of my experience. Maybe it has, I mean, no one really loves almost peeing on their feet every time they go to the bathroom. The way I feel about my experience, and my value to my community changes as I learn more about myself and more about the realities of Tanzania. But, what I can tell you for sure after a year in my village is this: coming home everyday to my neighbor's 2 and 3 year olds, dusty and dirty, in the same clothes as yesterday, with HUGE toothy smiles, jumping up and down screaming my name and dancing, makes all those small frustrations and questions disappear, and I know that at those moments that there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be.

I'm still here. I'm still loving it. I'm still hating bus conda's. I'm still constantly surprised. I'm frequently disappointed. Frustration has become my middle name, and "can sit idly for up to 12 hours on a bus" my last. My first name has become Semblyni (I've been dubbed a true mBena--my village's tribe). It's a ride, that is for sure. Thanks for coming along--and Karibu for the real thing, ya'll are always welcome at Chez Ujindile--I've got a beautiful guestroom, and an extremely friendly dog.

Cheers,
G

Pictures of my last few months in TZ. They posted in reverse order of upload..so I would recomment scrolling down first..then back up!

1- No picture blog is complete without an Ujindile sunset. Always stunning.
2- The community garden is sprouting all over the place. We've got several varieties of local spinach, and chinese cabbage growing strong; as well as recently transplanted tomato, cucumber, eggplant, squash, cauliflower (fingers crossed), and carrots!!
3-And the best part is that I hardly do anything!!! The group has completely taken the care of the garden upon themselves. Most of the greens will be sold at the village market while some of the greens and most of the other vegetables will go to the gardeners to enrich their diets.
4-Frolla watering the transplanted chinesi and spinachi...she told me she was charging me for this picture..so, if you'd like to make any donations to the "Frolla wants Fedha Fund" , please send them to "Frolla Wants Fedha" at P.O Box 939 Njombe, TZ. East Africa. ..Though I believe she was kidding.

1-Bajaji, a cheap and somewhat dangerous, but convenient (and did I mention cheap) way to get around in dar. It's a three wheeled tin can with a driver who doesn't need any kind of driver's licence. But, THIS one, is safe, as it is protected by the blood of jesus (notice sticker in the upper left hand window).
2-This is apparently the only picture I took on Zanzibar from my family vacation, my mom wanted a picture of an animal driven cart going down the road with the cars...here you go mom : )
3-A giant baobob tree in Ruaha National Park. That elephant to the right of it was HUGE!!! Now look at that tree again and really appreciate how big and beautiful it is.
4-My mom, on safari in Ruaha Nat. Park. Just to the left of her next to the tree are about 12 lions, feasting on a fresh baby giraffe. My mom, dad, sister, and both brothers came all the way across the world to TZ to visit my site, go on safari, head to Zanzibar, and make a few stops in between. While it wasn't say, a walk in the park, it's was an amazing experience having my family share this world that I love..even if drop choo's aren't for everyone.
5-At Fox Farm in Mufindi, a nice family horseback ride through coffee and tree plantations...OK, so I guess this day of family vacation was a walk in the park.

1-Me on top of Kili- 5898m.8:30a.m. Day 5
2-A trailmarker hovering like a beacon above a sea of clouds.
3-Ellie (my sis) sipping on a mango juice box at lunch on day 4.
4-Even though there were tourists there from just about every european country, and a huge group of very fit, song loving, South Koreans, the mountain was big enough for all over us to share. Here we walk on day 4 without a soul, or a sound in site.
5-View of Kili from camp day 3.
6-Once we'd climbed out of the rainforest day one we had 180 degree views, and wide open paths. It's weird doing touristy things in TZ. I'm so use to being treated like a member of the culture and community that stepping outside of that where people say things like "JAMBO!" to you (greeting used only with tourists) and the waitor attentively serve you at expecting a fluffy tip (Mano brought us all our delicious meals in a big white tent)can be weird and uncomfortable. Luckily we had a great group of porters and guides that I could joke around with in Swahili and feel a little more at home with. My sis and I wore spandex, all spandex, when the weather allowed, and speedily scrambled up the first few days, until the altitude slowed us down. In all we walked 5 days. We started as 4 people, lost one to altitude sickenss on day 3, while 2 of us attempted the summit, 1 made it to the tippity-top...then we all went back down that same day--day 5--to hot showers on a sunny afternoon in Moshi.