UPS and DOWNS

Internet in Misungwi sucks these days, thus the sporadic posts. This also means that my mind is pretty well clogged with a ton of random events from the past few weeks, and once again I find myself lacking any coherent thread with which to string my various scattered thoughts together.

So better to admit that up front and go for bullet-point, no-flow, points-over-prose, [in the spirit of George W. Bush] black-and-white, up vs. down, good vs. bad, basics. Right? Maybe? Bueller?
I just hope that, were I to do a scientific poll of readers of this blog, my approval rating would more than a cool, paltry 30%.

+ I met a man from the Congo! DRC, that is, for the politic-savvy. Not sure why this is a ‘plus,’ he’s just a normal guy, not a pygmy, but it seemed pretty cool at the time when I met him.

- I have been cutting up and drying hot peppers for use in my cooking [on the rare occasion I prepare something other than fruit]. I went outside to rearrange the plate and better expose them to the sun, and stopped to pick out a piece that was too big. I think we can see where this is going. About 5 minutes later, as I was reading, I rubbed my eyes. About 1 minute after that, I was officially crying. Another minute, and I was enjoying my second bath of the day, this one unexpectedly cold.

+ It rained a few days ago, so I have 60 liters of fresh drinking water. This is something I’ve raved about on this blog at least 5 or 6 times, but still warrants mention, as it is truly fantastic every time it happens….

- I got into, shall we say, a ‘heated discussion’ with an accountant from TANESCO, the electric company here. They had overcharged me 900 shillings, and I wanted them to remove that from my bill. The accountant had a stunned look on his face and said something to the effect of ‘come on, white guy, that is such a small amount just pay it and let’s get past this, huh?!’ To which I replied ‘hey, jerk, that 900 shillings buys me a nice cold beer at the end of a long day of work, so f*&$ you, fix it.’ Well, I wasn’t that mad at the beginning, but towards the end of the exchange….. Anyways, I got it taken care of, and immediately went for not one, but two beers to calm my nerves.

+ My alma-matter search is complete. After seeing a shirt from P.J. Jacobs Junior High Choir waaay back when during training in Morogoro, and then seeing several University of Chicago shirts in Mwanza, I finally spotted a bright red ‘SPASH Phy Ed’ tshirt yesterday. It was worn by a driver of one of the many bike taxis, the most common form of transport in a town where the only cars are for the purpose of going into Mwanza, but people [myself included] still don’t feel like having to walk around everywhere.

- I gave students at the secondary school a debate topic during our ‘Lifeskills’ period – should the Tanzanian Government make the production and sales of alcohol illegal? I was very pleased that many good points were raised, including the social costs [domestic violence, rape, unsafe sex] and economic pluses and minuses [lost labor time, jobs created, etc]. Yet at the end of the day, globalization reared its ugly head. A good majority of these kids are proud of Tanzanian beers, and think their production should be continued as a great symbol of the industry of the nation. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that half of the ones they listed as examples were owned by South African companies, though they may be bottled in Mwanza. Kinda goes along with people thinking the cell-phone companies are Tanzanian [Vodafone is English], or that Fanta Orange has real Tanzanian oranges in it….

? Speaking of beverages, but unsure whether to call this a plus or a minus – the yogurt that I’ve been enjoying almost every day, so I hear, is produced with milk from African Buffaloes. Well, not wild buffalos in the Serengetti or anything, but cows that were interbred with buffalos on a farm about 20 km from here. The yogurt is damn good, but those ‘Nyati,’ as they are called in Kiswahili, are some scary looking beasts.

+ Breakthrough at my neighbors house. It is rare here for a house to be occupied by just a nuclear family [or should I say nukular, if I’m writing in the spirit of W?]. So at my next door neighbors, where I often eat dinner, there is at any given time between 7 and 15 people staying, even though the family of the owner consists of just himself, his wife, and their 3 children. Sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews [some are orphans], and other relatives [‘ndugu’] fill up the other spots. So a few weeks ago, a young woman who is a relative of the father came, after being kicked out of the previous house where she had been staying. She came with her two small children, aged 2 and 4, even though she herself doesn’t look much older than 20. The two year old is a small boy named Michael who, like many other Tanzanian children, was terrified of me when he first saw me!! ‘Mom, I’m scared of the white guy!’ ‘Mom, he’s close to me!! He’s close to me!!’ Those are actual direct translations from what this little guy said. So anyways, it took about a week and a half, but Michael and I finally got each other figured out. I don’t make any sudden movements or loud noises, and he tries to steal my phone, hit me, or just sit there and laugh at me. It seems to be working out. Thank goodness, because it’s not very pleasant to know you are responsible for making small children cry so hard that they can’t even eat dinner.

- On the way to TTC the other day, which was a big + as it was the last period before summer break and club members were there in force, eager and excited to learn, I saw a young woman on the side of the road who looked like a large dwarf. As in, she was short but not really short, and her body structure [arms and legs] showed signs of dwarfism. Behind her were some children, who had just gotten out of primary school, who were laughing at her. She was walking slowly away, and had an expression on her face that registered a terrible mix of emotions like sadness and resignation. I almost started crying in the car. I had to tell myself that what I saw was a short glimpse of her life, and it is entirely possible [and perhaps likely] that she has some great friends, a husband, a family at home. Disability is more common here, and more noticeable – there are many people with twig-sized legs, who do without wheelchairs by pulling themselves around with their hands. And there are albinos, and blind people, and people without disabilities but with rather noticeable scars or deformities or untreated medical conditions [goiter, anyone?]. And when I think about it, I almost feel that they are treated better here than at home, because at least here people in any given neighborhood are expected to know each other, help each other out, greet each other, in other words acknowledge each other as fellow human beings. Is that the case in the States, in large urban centers? I dunno, I can't remember.

+ I’m working with a community drama group to prepare skits to present to the public, often with an HIV/AIDS message. But they were looking for help/advice on some short humorous skits to get people laughing [non-stop ‘AIDS kills AIDS kills’ is kind of a downer]. So I thought about it for awhile, and have done my best to try to translate ‘Who’s on First?’ into Kiswahili. Without, of course, the baseball reference, since they don’t know baseball here.

? Um, this is a questionmark-bordering-minus I think, as it raises serious questions regarding my mental stability. I had a bizarre dream last night [once again thanks to anti-malarial medications], that involved a crude, somewhat explicit, let’s say R rated version of the song ‘You are 16 going on 17’ from the Sound of Music. I mean, what’s up with that?!?! I can’t remember the lyrics, but they were pretty scandalous. Since it’s an awful movie, and rabid fans whom I met when traveling near Salzburg further repulsed me, I seem to have blocked out all details of the film. I know it’s a boy serenading a girl, whom he later tries to round up for encampment [way to go man, you know how to please the ladies]. In my dream version, the person playing the part of the girl was a 30-year-old or so refugee from Burundi [this is a character from a Tanzanian movie that I saw at a neighbors house] and the guy playing the soon-to-be-Nazi role was, um, the same guy who does Harry Potter in the movies. yikes!

+ I am not typically one to cheer against people. I dislike many, but hate few. I applaud winners, but always feel bad for the silver medalists, the losers, their friends and their loved ones. I often prefer passive-aggressive scowling, combined with passionately unenthusiastic gestures of disregard and disapproval, over direct confrontation. Last week the neighborhood hooligans, frequent recipients of aforementioned scowls, finally, after a drawn out battle, were forced to leave the house they had been renting. I had written about them before – they have a church choir which plays, loudly, the same songs over and over and over every day. At top volume. At about 5 pm, which is typically when I get home from work. And lately, on top of that, they had added a good 30-45 minutes of just plain goofing off after the rehearsal [while still relying heavily on their amplifiers]. Well, they’re GONE!! The house is DESERTED!! They moved, and I sat in my yard reading and watching while they packed up. And I celebrated, openly, joyously, with an obnoxious grin on my face that even my other neighbors couldn’t help noting. So the next day, when some of the no-good punk youth [probably inebriated] returned to the house and proceeded to scream, bang, slam doors, pound walls, climb the roof, etc etc, I decided enough was enough and stormed out of my house to tell them off. Except that my guard beat me to it. Yes, he’s still there, and I appreciate him more and more daily. He seems tired/slow/stoned but is actually a rather feared man – they say it’s his tribe, a warrior bunch. So he also pounced, and really told these guys off. Words were exchanged, mothers were insulted, and all-in-all it was quite a spectacle. After about 3 minutes these guys shut up, clearly aware that my guard 1) is mkali [fierce] and 2) knows their father. No empathy at all, serves them right.