habari za siku nyingi?

...how is the news of many days?

it's been a while since my last post. what has happened to me over the last 2 weeks?

I got violently ill and threw up all over the road and my house. Am pretty sure it was food related. My first time getting sick in over a year, so I really can't complain. The first time I barfed was around noon, I was coming back to my town from a nearby secondary school, and simply hoping against hope that I could make it until my bus stop before projectile vomiting all over the place. I did, by about 10 seconds - as soon as i got out of the car, my breakfast got out of my stomach. Which is a shame, because I had eaten like 2 big bananas and 5 of the little tiny sweet bananas [which are way better, by the way - some people here only eat the little ones, and use the big ones, the ones we're used to in the States, to make banana beer]. So my appetite for bananas has been pretty much non-existent for the past week. It's a shame.

Getting sick is not fun, but nothing has made me feel more loved and accepted here in the community - my neighbors immediately came to my support, cooking me sensitive-stomach foods (uji -porridge, soup broth), checking up on me, etc. Well ok, my neighbors cook for me a lot on a regular basis anyways, but they were EXTRA concerned now. And since all of Thursday and Friday i was stuck at home, by the time I got around to the market and walking around town on Saturday, everyone was asking 'where've you been?' and, upon hearing that I was sick [for those who hadn't already heard - not many white folks hunched over puking on the side of the road by the Catholic Church on a regular basis, so when it does happen people talk], giving me their regrets (i'm so sorry! pole sana!!).

When not getting sick, I have been continuing to bump my shins on stools and burn my hands with wax while fumbling around my house by candlelight in the evening. Electricity is still a problem - enough said.

My coworker here in Misungwi, who is also my boss and good friend, left this past week. She got a job helping to ensure delivery and proper use of ART drugs (anti retroviral therapy for people with HIV/AIDS). I'm happy for her, as this job makes good use of her doctor background, and she's working on behalf of my personal hero - the job she got is with the Clinton Foundation.

I started working again with a new club at the Teachers Training College in Mwanza - the members from last year have left to go do practice teaching out in the field, so we've started up again with new college members. I wanted ideally 15-20 people, but 45 came to the first meeting - started off right away with some interesting discussions, when I gave them the 'Question of the Week' - should condoms be available free at secondary schools? Lots of hands shot up, and got some very intelligent and well-defended answers on both sides. After the discussion I began relating what it was like at my high school, and then began wondering if the changing political climate has affected policies like these....

RAIN!!! It's rained a few times in the past weeks, enough for me to collect a ton of sweet, sweet drinking water (rain is really the best here, and much cleaner - just boil, dont even usually have to filter). Of course this is also good news for the farmers, who while mostly giving up on rice, will hopefully get decent crops of 'hunger' foods like sweet potatoes, cassava, and millet. Not sure how this perception came to be, since maize and rice are not native crops here, but they are really revered by almost everyone, even in villages - if you have money, you eat this, if not, you eat the others (what i called 'hunger foods'). Which is sadly ironic, because as i have seen first hand this year, the corn and rice crops are SO sensitive to weather conditions, if the rains are not enough or late or whatever, harvests are seriously affected.

One last moment that still sticks out in my mind - I went to visit a friend of mine, a 'fundi' (carpenter), who I hadn't seen in a few weeks. He made almost all my furniture in my house for me (pictures soon, I promise!) and recently, just in time, helped me install shutters on my windows to keep out the blowing rain. And he's fun to talk to - very lively and energetic, likes teaching me Kisukuma, and though he only studied in primary school (imagine stopping at grade 6), he loves having intelligent conversations with me about development here in Tanzania, global environmental issues, you name it. He doesn't feel too comfortable stating his own opinions, but he loves hearing me talk about things, and usually I just end up saying what he hints at in more concrete and clear language (my kiswahili is sweet these days).

So I went to visit. He was busy with his apprentices, making a coffin for a nearby villager whose father died, and who was sitting there watching them make it. I of course felt that I had intruded, but he invited me to a chair and was very excited to see me. Soon we began talking about death ('you mean in America, you don't go to your neighbors funeral unless you are his friend?! why?!?! you mean it's possible to not know your neighbors?!'), the current economic condition here, and a myriad of other things. We got to talking about how the old man who had passed away lived in dirt house with thatched roof, but had over 100 cows - which, sold at 100,000 shillings apiece, would build a really kick-ass house here [think mansion, or wealthy chicago suburbs]. The son then told me, translated through my fundi friend since he only knows kisukuma, that at home there are sacks and sacks of rice and corn, but that the family still doesn't eat enough.

Anyways, we started talking about a ton of differences between TZ and USA, many stemming from budgets/planning/cultural differences such as importance of home-ownership vs. cow-ownership, etc. At which point my fundi friend asked - so, if we have so much here, why are so many Tanzanians still poor? It must be laziness and stupidity.

Now, there are certainly a few people I have met in my time here that, yes, their main problem is that they are stupid and lazy. But i'm talking about a VERY few people here - a lot of the population is incredibly resourceful, and does some remarkable things with limited capital and education (like my hotel-owner friend, who is doing spectacularly for himself, also based on a primary school education). So i immediately disagreed that no, the problem is not stupidity. What then, asked the fundi - why do people here still own 100 cows while they sleep on dirt floors without even a mattress?

That's a hard question. I said it's all about perspective - a whole lot of people act simply on what they know, and until they are able to hear or see a different perspective, only then will they see reason to change. That didn't register, so I gave an example of a farmer and a livestock owner. The farmer just keeps farming by hand, without fertilizer, until the livestock owner one day comes and asks, in disbelief, why the farmer doesnt use cows to plow, and manure to fertilize? The farmer, in the meanwhile, sees how the livestock herder struggles and walks for miles to find adequate food for his emaciated-looking herd - why doesn't the herder plant a small field of leaves and grasses for the cows to eat?

It clicked, and both the fundi and the son, waiting for his fathers coffin, smiled. We went on from there - the whole conversation lasted a good hour and a half, and the time flew. It was the best time I've had in months.

One day puking, the next having life-defining, cross-cultural, essence-of-humanity moments. Good thing my life seems to balance itself out.