At 11 pm on Valentine’s Day of 2006 I was greeted by Sister Virginia (A sister I knew from San Diego), two smiling (phew-they’re nice!) Austrians, Fae and Kathi, very humid and hot weather, and the news that my luggage did not arrive in the Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania with me.
I was convinced I’d control how jet lag effected me, so when Sister Virginia suggested I would spend the week adjusting my sleeping patterns to the Eastern African time zone I eagerly informed her I’d be ready to begin teaching English in the morning.
I got up the next morning at 7:30am, got fully dressed, and then gravity got the best of me as I collapsed to sleep soundly under my mosquito net and layers of sweat until I was awoken by a Kenyan Sister poking at me at 4pm that afternoon. Sister Anisia had come on behalf of the other volunteers and sisters who were hypothesizing as to why a volunteer would sleep in tennis shoes in Tanzania heat. You pretty-much only wear sandals here, but I dressed not knowing what to expect.
I spent the first couple of weeks praying (and unsuccessfully exhausting any other method I could think of) to fall asleep before the 4am calls to prayer that sound every four hours from the Mosques surrounding Don Bosco Educational Center. It is the location where I teach in Temeke Mikourishini,outside of Dar Es Salaam-the capital of Tanzania. After I accepted that heat was unavoidable, I found I could borrow (x-large) underwear from the Sisters until my luggage arrived, and after adjusting my sleeping patterns I began to really enjoy the noises of Tanzanian nights. There wasAfrican Reggae Music, children’s voices as they played in the streets, frogs croaking, rain pouring down, Muslim calls to prayer, laughter that accompanied conversation with Kathi and Fae (not in German when I’m lucky), and shouts of joy from the people in the evening anytime we are lucky enough to have power.
During the day the Don Bosco Center where I live is a Vocational school for girls, ages 14-25, who have completed grade school but do not have the money or education for high school. Here they pay reduced fees in exchange for cleaning the grounds each afternoon after classes. Classes include Sewing, Swahili, English, Math, Religion, and Computer (for an extra charge).
After school I teach basketball and private English lessons. At 4pm Wednesday through Friday there is group tutoring for the poorest kids of the area when children of many ages come for free lessons.
Three groups of 30-50 young children gather under outdoor cabanas to learn English and Math while older children learn in the classrooms. The first day I was here a girl of about 6 years was watching her baby sister while she was trying to learn English. The baby who was maybe a year old, was crying and someone gave her to me to hold. She stared back at me for a while, breathing heavily and sounding congested, and then fell asleep in my arms. After class the 6 year-old took the girl from me and swung her onto her back, tying a cloth around them both to carry her sister home. Babies are carried in brightly colored cloths called Khanga’s.
Khanga’s are very popular in Tanzania and are also worn as skirts and used as a stylish way to block the sun when draped over the head and shoulders of women here. Today we walked around outside of the walls that surround the center and saw a small girl intently attempting to wrap a khanga around a rock she was balancing on her back. (She was pretending this rock was her baby).
After-school tutoring groups are necessary in Tanzania because of corruption in educational systems. Teachers slack on teaching in the day so students are forced to pay them privately in the afternoons for adequate instruction. Our tutoring children cannot afford this and many of the children we tutor can’t afford to attend regular school during the day.
At the center organized activities include; futbol (soccer), a boy’s basketball team, a lively group of dynamic altar servers, a choir, and a talented steel drum band. There is also a motivational youth group developing to promote better choices among the young adults of Temeke. The Center serves so many functions and people and is run by only 3 Sisters, each with work ethics that exhaust me just to see -forget keeping up with them(not possible).
And there is more…..
On the weekends there is Oratory. In Africa you quickly realize people are really late to everything-and you join in this laid-back lifestyle (I fear I adjust to this a little too readily). An exception to this is Oratory where 300-500 children gather at the gates ready to burst in at 4pm when they are unlocked. It is crazy to see so many thin African children pour in at full speed, yelling with excitement as they dart to various areas to play with each other and with us. There are beautiful and enthusiastic children everywhere- Children who are poor, friendly and so alive. There are excited for the opportunity to play because outside of our walls there is so little for them to do. The kids happily wait in line for one turn at a tire swing because their other option is to lie around outside their homes (its too hot inside them). Oratory is amazing, exhausting and refreshing all at the same time.
On the weekends I go out with Sr. Anisia to visit the homes of families. We maneuver in and out of dusty roads and homes with the sun beating down on us. It is common for a family to share a house with 8 other families. The homes are missing roofs, walls, food, and often people as a result of sickness or broken families. Although I’ve become more accustomed to the living conditions of people here, poverty in Africa overwhelms me.
I think about how miserable the scene we walk through would look if there weren’t the brightly dressed African people decorating the slums. They stand along the walls flashing smiles sometimes calling out our names or “Monzungu” (White person). Tiny voices repeatedly call out in a musical tune “Sister” (Seese—sta) to earn a response from Sr. Anisia or one of us. Eyes open wide if the children have not seen a white person before and the children who are not speechless utter a “Shikamoo!?” (respectful greeting) to beg our response of “Marahaba.” Any person who holds eye contact gestures and says “Karibu.” This must be the most commonly used word here. It means “Welcome.” Tanzanians earn their reputation for being a very welcoming people. I have never felt more welcomed than here. I am continuously brought into homes of strangers and my students and if they can manage it they will go and buy a soda if we accept their offer. People are eager to practice their English on me and greetings are extended. People take the time to interact with other people. Time does not dictate what a person does here as it does in other places. When I leave a home I am walked out – to the end of the street, to the dala-dala( a chaotic bus where you have no comfort zone), or even home. I am welcomed to sit near people on the street, into shops and welcomed to share food, pictures, and conversation. It is so surreal here- I feel like I’ve been welcomed into a dream.
Kati, Faye, and I fight for turns to hold the babies but they cry when they see our fair complexion-To them we must look like giant moving blobs of Ugali, a common food here made from flour and water that can be molded into different shapes. The children follow us around in groups as big as 30, while the older people try to disguise their stares. I constantly think about how God out-did himself when he created the Africans.
And yet, there are too many desperate situations, too many people being raised by grandparents, too many without food, too many with the drive for education but without the opportunity, too many without the money, too many with Aids. There is too much to be done and not enough people or resources to help.
The other day I visited the home of a thin lady with AIDS. She was the first I’ve seen in such an advanced stage of suffering. It was sad. But there was nothing to be done. I thought of a 14 year-old girl named Asha. She is a thin student at our vocational school who is not in my class but likes me for some reason. Her English is not good (and my Swahili is nonexistent) so she just stands near me and softly smiles. The other girls say Asha smiles at everything. The other girls and the other volunteers were not told by Sister Anisia that Asha has AIDS. I think of how she will one day reach the advanced stages of AIDS and the medicine she takes will delay this process. I think of how Asha gripped my hand on a 3-hour hike through a rural area of Temeke to visit another student. Asha lives on the opposite side of town and went on the hike just to spend time with us. She was breathing heavily but denied being exhausted. A large portion of the time I spent concerned about how I had cut my hands falling at volleyball the day before. I worried that had not healed and was trying to make sure her hands had not been cut. But then I thought of how she must feel to be living with a death sentence that is so common here. Many of the children who come to play here may not know they have AIDS. So many people here die from weakened immune systems due to AIDS.
On Sunday afternoon Sister Anisia introduced me to a middle-aged woman with a washed out complexion whose daughter died of AIDS in January. Sister Anisia told me the woman does not sleep at night and described her leg as being eaten from the inside-out. The woman invited me run my hand over a large lump the size of a softball protruding from her neck. The woman explained she tested positive. The woman told Sister Anisia she lives alone. Sister asked me how the woman could be well-dressed and not have a man who is earning money. Sister told me it is not acceptable for woman here to work, so they work privately, at night. It is common for them to survive by getting men to take care of them- and in turn spread the disease. At dinner that night Sister Anisia stated, “AIDS will kill people here 'nicely'.” That’s Kenyan English for “It is spreading quickly and effectively running it’s course.” Sister Anisia also said, “If you try to give a talk on AIDS you will be talking to yourself.” There will be no one in attendance because of the stigma of the disease.
Another girl, Maria Nicholaus, is a bright student with an amazing attitude in my “advanced” English class. She translates what I say to the rest of the class (thank goodness!). She apologizes when the other girls are talking in class. We went to visit her home where she takes on the responsibilities of her mother who left the family to be with another man. Her house was so small, a curtain for a door, flies everywhere, and her sister said they eat once a day. She was unsure of what they could make for dinner that night. Her family is beyond poor and yet one day after class Maria waited until the other students had left and quickly slipped a small thank-you card she had bought into my hand, smiled, and dashed away. In the card she wrote, “To my sister, Gina.” And she signed it “It’s me, love, Maria.”
Maria Nicholaus told me, “Life and education are friends.” She only studies 15-minutes a day because of her home responsibilities but she excels. She cannot understand how people who live in other places can go to school when they do not even like to study but she cannot go because she does not have the money. I tell her if she works hard that she can go to study. She agrees, but neither of us are convinced. I am floored at the discrepancies in opportunities between our realities. My students touch me every day and motivate me to work harder because they must work so hard for opportunities I take for granted.
Sister Anisia tricked me into helping her care for one of her gardens. Okay, actually I was too exhausted so I mustered all the energy I had left to lean against the rake she gave me. She asked me what could improve poverty in Temeke. I was as mentally blank as physically tired and offered no real answer. She told me of an idea that works in other areas. It is to begin teaching families that show the potential to handle responsibility to start their own small businesses selling food.
You can’t just give handouts because money will not solve the problem and it teaches dependency. So, they buy food for the family to start selling what they can make from it outside their homes or in a small stand. This would cost only about 20 U.S. dollars but the Sisters here do not have an income (quite the opposite) and also rely on donations. I explained to Sister Anisia I don’t ask people for money but could post on my website a link to the Sister’s e-mail address for anyone who may want to donate. People can address e-mails to Sister Virginia who handles financial matters. You can specify if you’d like a donation to be used in a particular way (To be used toward a family, to sponsor a child for school, for fixing home, improving the grounds here etc.) and it is kept confidential to reduce jealousy among people receiving it and in case you may want to visit without being hassled. They ask the individual receiving support to work at the Don Bosco Center when they can to monitor the person so they do not take the support for granted or misuse it. Often they ask families to meet donations halfway to avoid dependency. Sister Anisia visits the homes 2-3 times a week to determine who has the greatest need and together the Sisters assess who’d benefit the most from assistance. If you have any questions you can also address them to me. The best way to get in touch with me is either to call me or by the same e-mail address the Sister’s have which is:
FMADAR@africaonline.co
If it’s an email to me just put my name in the title box (remember anyone can read it so don’t write anything that clues the sisters the type of person I really am). Thanks to everyone who has influenced me to come to Africa through encouragement, inspiration, advice, gifts, hand-made rosaries, journals, jobs before I left, and anything else I may forget to mention. It is truly amazing. It is also amazing if you read to the end of this entry. I am very thankful for this experience and I miss you all a lot! Sorry for the lack of communication due to limited internet access!
-Gina
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