So Little To Do and So Much Time, Scratch That, Reverse It

So the last month went by fast but also there was much that I had to do, there was a large amount of napping and lounging in the hammock going on during that month. But that all soon changed. Last Saturday I went to a hot spring with some fellow volunteers. The place was beautiful and made me wish my camera was still working, but I'm sure I'll get some awesome photos from the other volunteers off of facebook. The hot springs weren't exactly hot, defiantly nothing like the hot springs I went to with my family when we were in Banff. The water went from average temperature to luke warm, the thermal vents kept the water from being cold and you knew they were there went you would feel a slight current of warm water brush by you. The hot spring was in the middle of the desert and it was an absolute oasis, there were trees with roots that looked like mangroves and the branches grew over the water so we climbed them to jump into the water. After going for a fun swim and eating lunch we went on a trek to find some monkeys which to my great disapointment had no results. When we returned to the hot spring there was a group of wazungu (white people) who had just biked in, a large amount of them being children. We later found out that they were all native Tanzanians and that they were children of volunteers who had come to Tanzania and then decided to stay. It threw me off a little to meet a white person in Tanzania who was fluent in Swahili, but I also thought about how they must have to explain themselves a lot when people mistaken them for tourists or volunteers.
So when we got back from the hot springs we were soon joined by a new batch of volunteers. They're all pretty young and so far they all seem fun, though slightly lacking in any defining personality, but that could just be because they just got here. With the new volunteers came a new person to come to juvy with me. A volunteer from the previous group, named Scott, had joined me about a week ago, but today was the first day for the new volunteer, Nicole, at juvy. She's from Washington and is decked out in tattoos so we get along well.
And with the new volunteers came the rains! Today it finally started to really rain, luckily right around the time we brought everyone in to sing, dance, and play games. We played Duck, Duck, Goose for quite a while, the kids really loved it, but here they call it Bati, Bati, Kuku. The rains mean that everyone can finally start planting their crops and it feels like a lot of tension has been washed away by the rains.
Also, thanks to the new volunteers there's now more than enough people who want to go bow hunting with the Bushmen, something which I've been trying to do since soon after I arrived here. On top of that we're making plans to go on a day trip one of these weekends to a waterfall where you can jump from the top into the pool below. The plan is this up coming weekend will be the Bushmen hunt and then the following weekend will be the waterfall trip. It feels like this last month in Tanzania is really going to fly by, as well as be action packed. Stay tuned!

Rainy Season

You know how in my past posts I talked about the rains and how I thought the rainy season was starting? I couldn't have been more wrong, the past two weeks we've been going without a drop of rain and I think it's effecting everyone here.
Although it could be the new batch of volunteers as well. I enjoy my time with them and they're all close to my age range, but that age range has also resulted in a lot of stupid drama that belongs back in high school. I'm always hearing about so-and-so kissed so-and-so, now so-and-so is pissed or Joe Shmoe likes Jane Doe, but Jane Doe doesn't like Joe Shmoe.
I feel like when the rains finally come the locals will be happier because they can finally begin growing their crops (which is the only way most people can get their food here) and/or the volunteers will be so cooped up in the CCS compound that the drama amongst each other will only get worse.
But every day I wake up hoping to see rain clouds in the sky, something which I don't normally do, because when the rains start that's when we'll be able to start the garden in the back of juvy to help feed the kids. I'm also thinking that I might teach the kids about how seeds grow with that whole thing we did in kindergarten where we put seeds in a clear plastic cup with dirt in it and watch as the seed sprouts roots and leaves, I was also thinking of maybe buying some potatoes, cutting them in half, and putting them in water. These things might seem juvenile to us, but the education system here in Tanzania never did fun things like that for young children; either because of a lack of supplies or simply because primary schools in Tanzania run on memorization. This memorization teaching style causes only a handful of children to truly learn anything and many of them are never asked to exercise critical thinking in class.

Tough Love

Before you read this post, please make sure that you read my post about the Maasai because I've updated it.
So today I came to juvy, just like most days, with the local volunteer Agnes and a volunteer from Australia, Lauren. Lauren and I have become quiet good friends in the three weeks we've been working at juvy and Agnes is quiet helpful in that she can translate for us, but tends to spend most of her time texting people on her cell phone or reading one of the books from the supply cabinet at juvy.
When we come in to juvy we usually get there before they have breakfast. The boys have been watching after the key to the supply cabinet but one boy, Modi, is always the one who has the key. Modi also is one of the boys who prepares breakfast so the first few minutes is spent waiting for breakfast to be served so that we can get Modi to open the cabinet.
Today it was about an hour after we got there that breakfast finally came, ridiculously late. Then Modi was off doing who knows what for a few more minutes until he finally got around to opening the supply cabinet.
When we opened the supply cabinet we were shocked to find only one pen. The first week Lauren was here she brought a handful of about twenty pens for the kids because they were running low. Over the past few weeks the pens have decreased slightly in number but I never thought anything of it, but then suddenly all but one were gone. We found out that someone had been stealing the pens, apparently the kids can trade in pens for cigarettes. This got me pretty mad, we sent the kids to the sleeping area to go look for some pens that one of the kids might have hidden. They came back with about three pens, not even close to all of them, and wouldn't fess up to who had taken them.
This was when I went to the Warden, Mr. Gumbu. He sent one of the workers, Brother Toll, to go look for the pens because he used to be an inmate who was reformed and began working there, so he knew all the hiding places. He turned up about four more pens and some pencils, the rest had probably been already traded in for cigarettes.
I wanted these kids punished but I didn't know a proper way, I couldn't give them a stern talking to because they wouldn't understand what I was saying. I was thinking about just not doing anything with them for the rest of the day or possibly leaving early to send them a message that I was not happy when they started asking for forgiveness. Apparently if I didn't forgive them they would be beaten. Corporal punishment is used very readily here in Tanzania and at that moment it didn't look that bad to me. I'm not a supporter of beating as a form of punishment because it never really trains better behavior, it just causes it out of fear and when there is no fear then there is no reason to behave. But I also feel like since these kids have been raised with corporal punishment, in addition to them being criminals, that sometimes it's the only way to get through to them.
I didn't want to forgive these boys, I've spent weeks working with these kids and using money out of my own pocket to give them things like soap and shoes and food and then they steal from me. They take these pens and yet almost all of them refuse to work in their exercise books with anything but a pen, they were essentially expecting that I would buy more pens not matter how many they stole. I had already felt like they were taking advantage of me in that there was never an end to the requests for things they wanted me to get for them, but this was the last straw. I sat with my back to all of them as they talked with Agnes in Swahili trying to tell her to tell me to forgive them.
Lauren and Agnes were feeling sorry for the children, especially when some of them started crying. But I didn't feel like they were actually sorry for what they had done, it was one thing to steal the pens but it was another for none of them to fess up to who did it, so I wanted them all to be punished. It felt like they weren't sorry and that they were only afraid of their punishment and even as they pleaded with Agnes a few of the boys would occasionally laugh. Yes some of the children were crying, but I can remember faking crying to get out of trouble and I know that some of these kids can be good actors so that they can get money out of wazungu.
Finally I went to Mr. Gumbu again. He said that we would forgive the boys this time, but that we would also closely regulate what the kids use. We also would no longer trust the boys with the key to the supply cabinet, that it would only be available among myself, Brother Toll, and Mr. Gumbu. He also said that if this happens again then the boys will not be forgiven. He apologized to me as well, saying that it's very discouraging for volunteers who come here out of their goodness of their heart trying to help the boys only to be taken advantage of. Mr. Gumbu really is a good man and he exactly described how I was feeling, like all my enthusiasm about helping these boys had been deflated.
We'll see how things go, but if the boys keep this up I might not be able to take it any more and have to change my placement to an orphange.

My Time With The Maasai

So I've been having a hell of a time trying to just upload the photos I took while I was in Zac's village, but now I've finally succeeded.
Zac, his brother, and I got on a bus from Moshi to Arusha and then another from Arusha to I forget where but it was headed towards the Serengeti. The bus to Arusha was extremely crowded and hot. There was a baby sitting next to me who kept on wanting to drink from my water bottle. She was an adorable baby, but I needed all the water I had for my time in the village plus her mother had a water bottle for her, it's just that her mother wasn't paying any attention to her.
When we disembarked from our second bus we then set out on an hour walk to Zac's village, it was literally in the middle of the dessert. The sun was setting by the time that we got to the village. One of the warriors handed out the notebooks, pens, and candies I had brought as gifts for the children. Then Zac and his brother and I walked over to a nearby Babao tree. While we were there we climbed these sticks that were stuck in the trunk of a tree like a ladder because the Maasai harvest the fruits from the tree, plus we saw a herd of zebra.When we returned to the village Zac's mother cooked rice for us. The sauce she put on it was delicious but apparently it was just a bunch of stuff she had randomly thrown together. The downside was the amount of rice they gave, I know it was a gesture of generosity but they gave me something close to a half gallon bowl filled up to the top with rice and I always felt I was being rude when I couldn't possibly finish it all. Maasai huts are especially good at containing the heat within them, which makes things uncomfortable since food is made over an open fire in the middle of the hut. After dinner and many cups of chai we went to sleep. A Maasai bed is made of sticks and goat skin and I shared my bed with Zac, his brother, and his half brother of whom the hut belonged to. The hut was pretty warm and the bed pretty hard, but thing that made sleeping difficult for me was the lack of space. Many times I'd be able to drift of to sleep only to be shoved into the wall of the hut by someone else shifting in their sleep.






The next day, to most of the village's happy surprise, I dressed in Maasai clothing. We then spent the day watching after some of the village's animals as they were out grazing. I thought this meant a day of chilling out under a tree, but because the rains haven't really come yet it's still very dry and so we had to walk for something like three hours to get to where the animals were.
Once we came to the herd we slept under a tree for a while. The feeling was very peaceful, it was so quiet out there in the African wild and it was a welcome relief from all of the walking. Walking back we saw giraffes, impala, ostriches, and more zebra. We stopped under another Babao tree, which is where I ran out of water. By the time we got a village that could give us some water I was feeling pretty dehydrated and so I drank the water they gave me without caring about not having put a purification tablet in it. The way I saw it , it was better to get a stomach flu than pass out of heat exhaustion in the middle of the bush.


When we got back we ate a goat and I drank some of its blood. Pictures of that have been omitted for the sake of my vegetarian readers.
In Zac's village there is a home that his father is building from bricks, his father wants a "mzungu home" and this is where we prepared and ate the meat. Women aren't allowed to see the preparation, cooking, or eating of meat because Maasai men feel that meat gives them strength and in order to gain this strength women must have nothing to do with it. So as we skinned the goat and cut off pieces to eat we put up sheets over the windows so the women couldn't see. It became difficult to keep the sheets up because soon after we started it became very windy. Whenever a sheet was blown off the men and I would scramble to put it back up, it reminded me of when you're little and doing something with "no girls allowed." What ever game you're playing becomes your second priority with you're first being ensuring that girls have nothing to do with it.
To a certain degree it can be said that it's sexist to not involve women in the eating of meat, but to what degree do you also need to respect the Maasai culture? The Maasai practice female circumcision, something I could never support, but also I slightly understood the want to eat meat away from women. It's unfair to label women as toxic or someone who will ruin what men want to do, but there's something about sitting around the fire with men, eating meat with a machete that really does make you feel stronger. It all felt very ancient to me, like eating the goat that night sent me back thousands of years.
The Maasai also drink the blood of the animals they eat. In order to preserve the blood Maasai will suffocate the animal instead of slitting its throat. Neither way is exactly humane or a way that I would want to go, but for some reason it felt better that they didn't slit the goat's throat. As I'm sure you're all dying to hear, yes I did drink goats blood and no it didn't make me the slightest bit sick, but I did gag when a little piece of liver went into my mouth while I was drinking the blood. In case you were wondering, blood tastes kinda like if you had bleeding gums and a mouth full of phlegm and then swallowed it.
After we ate the meat the left over parts were put into a stew. This includes the head which they roasted to get the hairs off of before putting in the big pot. The stew was for the young boys who were also tending to the fire. As the pot boiled Zac and I sat back and talked the night away. First he told me how his village is his father, his father's wives, their children, and the children's wives and children; so nearly everyone in the village was related to Zac. Zac was very interested in the Amazon forest because he had read about it once in a book, he asked me if the Amazon was in California, I told him no, that it was much further south. That might sound rediculous to you, but how many of you would be able to name which contries had which African landmarks. This then led to me telling Zac about various ancient cultures across the world and their similarities to the Maasai. This all took place by the dim light of the fire, with the wind blowing all around us, and dry lightning striking frequently as it does out in the bush.
After this whole experience I can without a doubt say that I'm glad that I did it, but also that I don't think I want to do it again. I learned a great deal about what life is like for a Maasai and it made me value a lot more of my western comforts. The sights of the open African desert were breath taking and something that can never fully be described in words. I came back from my time with the Maasai a different man.

Zac the Maasai

So this Friday, at noon, I get on a bus with my friend Zac to spend the weekend in his village. While I'm in the village I'll sleep in a manyatta with Zac, a manyatta is a Maasai hut made out of cow dung. I will dress the same way as the Maasai and gaurd the herds with Zac during the day.
While I was on my safari to the Serengeti, we stopped at a Maasai village, I felt like the village was more specific to entertaining tourists, I wanted to expeirence what it was really like in a Maasai village, which I think I'll be able to have this weekend with Zac. While I was at the Maasai village on my safari I bought a calabash (a calabash is a hollowed out gourd that use like a Maasai version of a canteen) but I soon realised that the inside of the calabash smelled like a dead cow and I didn't want to drink anything out of it. Zac told me that when we go to his village his mother can make a wash for the calabash to clean it out and smell really nice. A Maasai's diet consist of milk, meat, and blood (blood being used in soup and some times being drinken during a ritual) resently they've started farming corn and beans to give them a better diet. The other volunteers said that if anyone is best suited for sleeping in a cow poo hut and drinking blood, it's me. On top of this being a great experience, it's also great stuff for the paper I'm writing for Hutchins about the cultural infuences the Maasai and Chagga have had on Tanzania.
Along with getting Maasai clothing and getting a clean calabash, Zac also said he will get me a Maasai spear. I already have one spear which I bought in the village Marangu, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, but I later realised it was more just an oranmental spear and wasn't very functional. The spear Zac will get for me will be a full on functioning, authentic Maasai spear which I will use while I'm out gaurding the herds with him. Maasai men also wear a large amount of jewlery, primarily necklaces, and Zac told me that his mother makes quiet a few and he will get one for me from her. The children in most Maasai villages know about three English words; pen, book, and money. They come up to tourists asking for these three things, they ask for pens and note books because they want supplies for going to school. So when I visit Zac's village I plan to bring lots of pens and note books, along with some candies and something like rice or sugar for Zac's mother. I'm not really sure what to bring for Zac's father, but I'll ask before we leave.

Cash Cow

Some times the kids at juvy make me feel like a jerk. It started when I bought some rings from the kids. They make these rings and bracelets out of beads and fishing line, they make them to the size of their wrists and fingers so they're a little too small for anyone at CCS but people want to buy them to help out the kids. After I bought the rings one of the kids, Bonifas, would hold out his hand and just say "money" as soon as he saw me. It's important that we teach the kids to be able to take care of themselves, so we don't just give them money, instead we try to teach them various ways they can earn their money.
Then one of the children, Isa, asked for money to buy soap. I didn't give him the money because I wanted to make sure that he was actually getting soap, so the next day I just gave him a bar of soap instead. After that everyone wanted soap and something as simple as that I was more than willing to help out, I mean who wouldn't want them to be clean.
Later one of the kids, Martin, was limping around because he had stubbed his toe and the nail had nearly been torn out of his toe. I gave some money to one of the workers to buy the kids shoes. But then any kid without shoes wanted them, again not a greedy request so I wanted to help.
But it's feeling like there's no end in sight. I buy them soap, they want shoes. I buy them shoes, they want hair cuts. I buy them hair cuts, they want tooth paste. It's never anything that would be considered anything more than bare necessities, which make me feel worse if I try to deny it from them. But how to the children see me, do they see me as someone who is helping them out, doing them favors, or do they see me as a Santa Claus who will give from their endless wish list. I'm really conflicted because I feel like I'm being used and yet not wanting to help them makes me feel like some kind of scrooge.

John Jacob Jacksoni Jamila

So today at juvy I tried to teach the kids to sing John Jacob Jinglehimerschmidt (I had gotten the idea while watching I Am Sam last night). I got Agnes to help me out by writting the song down in Swahili, but the kids had trouble with saying Jinglehimerschmidt so we changed it to Jacksoni Jamila. So here is the end result:

John Jacob Jacksoni Jamila
Jina lake ni langu pia
Kila tukienda matembezu
Watu tukienda kelele
Yule pale ni John Jacob Jacksoni Jamila!
Lalalalalala!!!!!

School Days

So juvy has become a lot easier for me. A new batch of volunteers arrived on Saturday (about 16 new people, so the CCS home base is pretty packed) and they're all really interesting people. Am0ong them is Lauren, an Aussie who has been placed with me at juvy. She's helped to lighten the load of working with the children and she's a social worker back home which helps add new insight to working in juvy. And then, just today, a local volunteer named Agnes joined us at juvy as well. I can see things becoming much more managable in the near future. In addition, Lauren brought her camera to juvy today and she said she'll share the pictures with me, which means I can finally show you the place that I spend my days here.
I've also recently become friends with a Maasai who's attending school here. His name is Zac and he, surprisingly, has a facebook. He told me that he must be either the first or second Maasai he knows of that has a facebook. We've been having lots of conversations about our cultural differences and at some point I plan to visit his tribe with him.
Today at juvy I talked to the warren, Mr. Goombo, and he told me of a boy who had recently left juvy. He said that the boy's mother had said that he couldn't afford to go to school. I asked how much it cost to put a child in public primary school and he said 30,000 shilings, the equivalent to less than thirty US dollars. Thirty bucks for an entire year of primary school! It's sad that people are so economically desperate here that they can't afford that.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

So I'm finally starting to adapt to my culture shock here. I'm starting to just come to terms with the TFT and it's becoming easier to deal with because I'm meeting some wonderful people here. The tourism industry has essentially created a huge amount of people who expect money from wazungu (white people) and it's gets really irritating. Yes there are many economically desperate people here and you want to help, but you soon learn you can't help everyone and to add insult to injury there are many people here who use something like "my family is starving" as a way to get you to buy something from them and they're actually lying to you.
But recently I've been meeting people who aren't expecting money from me and just want to be my friend. Sure I might aid them financially somehow later on, but as far as I can tell they just genuinely want to be my friend.
On Friday I went to a funeral for the son of one of our housekeepers, Mama Judith. Her son had died in a car crash. The funeral was at her home and her son was buried in her yard. The funeral was both touching and haunting; a huge amount of people showed up, it must have been most of the village, and some of the mourners let out this mourning screech that I'll never fully forget.
As a turn of events, the very next day I went to a party for the graduation of Mama Changa's youngest son Steven. The party was wonderful, they fed me well and were very welcoming. They also had a local brew of banana beer in a very large cup, close to a bucket, and they had me drink from it often since I was their guest. The drink was pretty good once you got past the layer of yeast on the top.
And then today was a marathon, I didn't run but it was fun to watch. At one point I was walking along the road and two German runners asked me to join, so I just ran with them for a while. I'm defiantly enjoying myself.