A Lesson in Community

It has been a busy month. A friend working in Uganda visited at the beginning of the month, four new Jesuit volunteers arrived on the 5th, and then on the 17th we said goodbye to our communitymate of the last year, Kate. After Kate's departure, Caroline, I, and the four fresh arrivals escaped the heat of Dar and travelled north to the town of Lushoto for retreat. Lushoto is a town built into the Usambara mountain range. At 1,200 metres above sea level it was significantly cooler than Dar es Salaam, which at this time of year is hot and muggy. We were able to hike in Lushoto to a couple different vantage points outlooking a Maasai steppe.


We continued north to Moshi after spending four days in Lushoto. The bus ride north was uneventful, although for the second time in my Tanzanian experience a window from the bus managed to unseat itself and fall onto my arm. When we arrived in Moshi we introduced two of the volunteers, Talia and Mary Beth, to their home for the next two years. JVI, our organization, decided last year to introduce another community in Tanzania and so these two pioneers will be rooting a community in Moshi while working at Maria Goretti Secondary School run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Kilimanjaro. We spent the next few days up in Moshi being taken out by our Jesuit hosts to two villages to see Mt. Kilimanjaro up close. Alas, on the 27th we, Caroline, Emily, Christen, and I, made the trek back to Dar to settle into our new four person community. In the year to come Emily will begin teaching with me at Gonzaga as it enters its second year. Christen will work beside Caroline at Loyola High School, taking the place of Kate.


At the beginning of the month our neighbour's house caught fire. I was once again given the opportunity to learn a lesson in community living. As smoke billowed out from this house, the neighbourhood gathered around, although not in a style to which I was familiar. In my own setting, a similar situation would have also produced a crowd, but the crowd, for the large part, would have been watching the fire department put out the blaze as they pondered the fire's cause. Here, however, the crowd was involved; carrying buckets of water from their own homes, older men rushing in to salvage furniture and the fridge and clothes (forget about the old rule, "once you're out, stay out"), young men on top of the, dare I say, hot tin roof pouring in the many buckets of water, women organizing all of the exiting furniture and incoming buckets. A tremendous ordeal, though amidst the devastation it was oddly wonderful to watch the community spirit come alive so quickly, both from friends and strangers alike. I recognize that at home, if a similar situation were to arise, our response would hopefully be similar; however, for better or for worse, we don't often get to witness such camaraderie. I suppose it simply acts as a reminder to care for our brothers and sisters.


All for now. I wish you all a happy new year, that it may be filled with good things.

An Election and an End to Year One

Tanzania is fully swept up in Obama's victory. Driving into town last week I was driving behind a dala dala simply named, "Barack Obama." Sitting in church this morning, I was sitting behind a woman wearing a "Hongera (Congratulations) Barack Obama!" khanga, a piece of traditional cloth worn as a skirt or as a head dress, with a giant silk-screened image of Mr. Obama's face beside the African continent. In Mabibo you may choose to get your hair cut at the new Obama Salon. The president-elect has indeed inspired many new business names here in Dar es Salaam, but what has been more amazing to witness is the way this man has inspired an entire country and a continent.

School finished on Friday and close officially marked the end of my first year as a Jesuit Volunteer. Students celebrated the last day of class with their favourite dish, pilau, and song and dance performances they performed for each other. The students have taken great steps forward this year, not only in their studies but also in their understanding of what it means to attend a Jesuit school. Watching their idea of what it means to be, "boys and girls for others," shift from helping their friend on a test (cheating) to helping their friend study for the test (helping) is something Gonzaga can be proud of. This commitment to service and the high standard in academics the students achieved in the school's first year have led to the school's warm reception by the local community and in a few years our students will begin making great contributions to our sister school, Loyola High School.

While Obama has enlivened the African spirit with hope today, it will be these students, with their hearts aflame, who will truly achieve that promised change tomorrow.

Ramadan with Mama Nasma

We celebrated Eid at the beginning of the month. As Ramadan drew to a close with the crescent moon making its appearance on the 30th of September, the mosques were filled as sheikhs prayed the sermon; their voices echoing through the neighbourhoods from megaphones perched atop minarets. The next day, a holiday, we were invited to break fast with a woman who worked down the street from us. We arrived at Mama Nasma's in the afternoon as the meal was still being prepared. Mama had recently moved out of Mabibo and was now living with her children, her mother, and her sister in another neighbourhood half an hour away.

Kate and Caroline aided in the meal preparations, dicing and slicing vegetables for the kachi mbali (sp?), a type of local salad most often served with pilau – a spiced rice. As the other women were preparing the pilau and chicken, I sat and talked with the grandmother. She had recently moved up to Dar with Mama Nasma's sister to have surgery done on her eye in hopes of restoring some of her vision. As we sat on the floor, sharing conversation, I in my broken Swahili and her in Swahili, we shared a few meaningful exchanges, but mostly just sat in silence, appreciating the company we both offered each other.

As we sat, sharing the afternoon, the other women on the other side of the room prepared the meal over charcoal stoves. Finally, as the afternoon was drawing to a close, the meal was finished. In Tanzanian tradition – let us remember, “culture is thick” – Kate, Caroline, and I ate apart from the family, who ate together on the floor mat, sharing the meal they had worked hard to prepare. As we broke bread together, I was humbled by the sacrifice this family had made, welcoming us into their home to celebrate a special meal with them while they themselves had barely enough to celebrate this most sacred of holy days. The family, all so welcoming, in openly sharing their faith with us gave us a tremendous lesson in our own, helping to teach us what the Gospel means by “loving thy neighbour.”

Pictures and Narratives

It's getting warm again. The Dar es Salaam heat is coming as summer looms and the short rains are slowly arriving, adding humidity to the mix. I write with the same feeling one might have before a snowstorm, wondering whether or not a snow day is in the mix for tomorrow. Only today, the decision won't be based on snow, but rather the moon. If the moon is positioned correctly Eid ul-Fitr will commence tomorrow, the Muslim feast celebrating the end of Ramadaan. Otherwise, we return to school tomorrow and we will have Thursday and Friday off.

As we are nearing the completion of the first year we recently held our year-end retreat - Re-O/Dis-O - up in Moshi. As Kate was dis-orienting, Caroline and I were re-orienting for the year, asking what the experience has been thus far and where it might go in the time ahead. As we were waiting to board the bus to return home, a line of women were sitting at the bus station selling vegetables and fruits. The collections of green peppers, bananas, pineapples, oranges, carrots, and coconuts provided what Kate and I considered to be a beautiful foreground to what we have come to appreciate as a Tanzanian scene. I asked the women if it would be all right if I took their picture and was asked for money in return. Unwilling to pay, the women began lambasting me for having asked and then refusing to pay. Looking back on the moment, I asked aloud what would have happened if I had simply taken the photo without asking? Would they have minded? Would it have been okay or an invasion of their privacy?

In thinking about these questions, I began to realize once again how difficult it is to capture an experience such as this. The picture would have only conveyed a small part of the reality of that street scene. It wouldn't have captured the smells or the ever-present noise. Then how to capture what I am learning and seeing and feeling everyday? As I continue through the experience, I am amazed more and more by the importance of storytelling, both for me and for them. The women at the bus station could not have had their stories told with my picture. No, I think the picture would have only been the first step, or perhaps the last. In order for the people with whom I share this experience to be carried home with me, listening is necessary. To share the experience with others, it cannot be through pictures alone or only recounting the events. It needs to be done through narrative, which might help bridge the gap in understanding between where I am and where I come from, thereby connecting the two experiences.

Shifting Locales

August has passed and it is hard to believe that third quarter is already coming to a close. This semester time seems to be passing quickly, so I suppose I am either having more fun or am more comfortable. I think it is probably the latter, which inevitably leads to more of the former.

At the beginning of the month, we relocated, something we had been anticipating for the previous eight months. Shifting, as the locals call it, is quite a process in a place where people enjoy taking careful note of everyone's next move. As this entails taking note of all the little trinkets one owns, moving twelve years worth of stuff left by past JVs only added to the excitement. What did we find when we began sifting through the treasures of days gone by?

Well, at least 13 unopened bottles of Banana Boat sunscreen and other varieties (JVs coming to Dar, check it off your list!); many litres of bug spray ranging from 5% DEET to 50% DEET (I’m pretty sure the latter is lethal); many old prescriptions, some of which expired a decade ago; three separate first aid kits, none of which contained any medicine that hadn’t expired (side note: I made the five pharmacists in my family happy when I safely disposed of all the expired medications and old prescriptions); 7 full bottles of Gold Bond Triple Action Relief medicated powder (also, none of these have been opened (future JVs again take note)); and what we estimate to be three years worth of feminine hygiene products for a community housing at least two women, most of which have arrived via mail over the last decade as a way of deterring postal workers from investigating the contents of a package. Of course, there were many other jewels, but if I continued listing the contents of our community chest, I wouldn’t have time to tell you about our dogs.

If only I’d have been brave enough by press time to take a picture of our two guard dogs, Simba and Chuky. These dogs have come with the house, but are only temporary, do their job well. Unfortunately, they scare off not only potential intruders, of which we have had none, but also they scare our Tanzanian friends. There are few dogs in Mabibo and so most of Mabiboans (?) only know the animal by their vicious bark. As a result, most of our guests either do not enter inside the gate or run directly for the inside of the house (all of this happening while the dogs are safely chained). The dogs bark or whimper through the night which impinges on the sleep of Kate and Caroline. Luckily, my mother thought it a good idea to vacuum beside my head whenever I slept as a child and so now I can sleep through almost anything (including dogs barking who may be warning, “Hey, there’s an intruder.” For this, we have housemates I am told!)

No complaining. The house is good. Dogs included.

One last note before I send off and you can return to enjoying the last days of summer. In July, I talked about Saba Saba. Caroline, my community mate, informed me that I had forgotten what she considered to be a newsworthy piece of information. And how could I forget a shout out to the scouting movement to which I belonged for so long?
We were strolling along at Saba Saba when all of a sudden two dozen scouts strolled by linked to a piece of yellow polypropylene rope, à la kindergarten. We paused to inspect the formation when Tanzania’s Prime Minister Pinda emerged onto to the scene between the two rows of scouts. Scouts, doubling as Secret Service; somewhere Robert Baden-Powell was smiling down.

Enough is enough. Enjoy your Labour Day weekend and for those of you still studying, best of luck as you return to classes!

The Five-Star Cycle, Please

This month we returned to the classroom. We opened on 8th July, following Saba Saba (Seven Seven), a national holiday here and a day reserved for an international trade fair - an event mixing something near the magnitude of the Calgary Stampede with the organization of your local county fair; a very dangerous mixture. We made it to the event after being turned away in the morning from one of the local prisons. We had gone to visit a friend who was visiting a little longer, but the guards turned us away saying we needed to check with our respective embassies prior to entering the facility. We have yet to get our passports cleared, but I remain skeptical that even then will we be granted entry. Perhaps another story for another day.

The second week of the semester Gonzaga played host to a group of students from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. They were midway through a three-week immersion trip in Tanzania and volunteered as teaching assistants for the week. It was nice to have another group of students with whom to reflect and to share the experience. Since they departed, school has begun to settle into its groove. I was reminded before the semester began to not be discouraged when my students returned to school empty-headed (it happens everywhere, I was reassured). However, my students in both Standards Three and Five are doing well and have retained more information than I think I taught last semester. Most importantly, it only took them a day to reacquaint their ears to my Canadian accent and so we are flying along now studying the past simple tense and the metric system!

I recently had what I believe to be my first five-star laundry experience. As I sit like Peter Pan rubbing soap on my shadow (or pants, in this case), I have much time to ponder life's bigger questions and so recently I came up with this five-star rating system.

The first star is based on the amount of laundry you wash. The litmus test: did I get it all done? The second star is earned if at the end of the experience you look at your knuckles and they are not bleeding or oozing. You win another star if while washing your clothes, you can say (honestly) to yourself, "Yeah, I am being effective today. These clothes feel clean." This is not always a given for as anyone who has handwashed a lot of laundry can attest, somedays the clothes just seem to stay dirty. Now we are down to our last two stars and these are in Mother Nature's hands, although you can plan for this next star. Did the laundry avoid the "extra rinse cycle" (i.e. rain) thereby avoiding picking up that odd rain-residue smell? If so, tack on yet another gold star. Now the final variable and by far the most unpredictable. As you remove your clothes from the line and inspect the day's work, to put it plainly, do you see any crow shit? No? Not today? Then you win the final star! As was the case this past Saturday, I managed to pick up all five stars and so for at least a little while, I can feel good about the shirt I wear on my back.

I hope all is going well back home and that summer is passing with fine weather, good barbeques, and a few ballgames here and there. I am thinking of you all and praying for you. I only ask that you think of me every now and again as you take a dip in the Shediac Bay!

Arusha

Recently, we traveled to the northeast of Tanzania to a town called Arusha. Arusha is home to the entrances of many national parks and is only an hour's drive from Moshi, which boasts the title of housing Africa's tallest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro. Closer to Arusha is Tanzania's second highest mountain, Mt. Meru (pictured above).

We leave again from the Ubungo bus station. This time we are traveling on Fresh Coach, a division of Air Born City Ltd. We are two hours late leaving the terminal; buses in Tanzania will not travel until they are at least 96% full. Heading northbound, city limits are reached within twenty minutes and then the Tanzanian landscape takes over. Driving through Tanzania North-South, scenery changes are as regular as traveling Canada East-West.

Outside of Dar and for the next four hours the country unfolds as sweeping plains. Long-dry-soft-slow, lion-yellow grass is interrupted by maize fields, ranging in sizes from self-suffiency to plantations. Settled beside these corn fields are houses. Adobe mud huts and cinder block houses of varying degrees of completion. Some adorned with murals advertising Speedo™ ball point pens and oXo laundry detergent (gentle on hands, tough on stains); others stuccoed and converted into dukas (stores), this year reading, “Kuburudisho murua. Coca-Cola.”; and still others abandoned or perhaps simply ran-out-of-money-not-yet-finished, but Nature doesn’t wait and She has already reclaimed her land. These housed villages are interspersed evenly along the entire road north.

As we approach these mini-towns, the bus slows, and often stops, either to let someone off or to ensure that we are still traveling in one piece. We pull off the road into a makeshift driveway and salesmen beginning running up to the windows with their latest products. Several men are carrying twenty-five oranges tightly bundled in a mesh sac; another group is selling black bags of mangoes; a boy is selling charred corncobs poking out in every direction from the top of a broom handle; a few brave men are balancing bulletin boards atop their heads from which hangs a selection of a plastic doll, a gold water gun, different pairs of sunglasses, and several wristwatches of the fake Rolex variety. It should be noted here, however, that these men are not selling to people who are coming off the bus. They are selling to the passengers who are seated high above their heads. Their goods are thus balanced in the palms of their hands outstretched above their heads while they are running in pack formation to be the first to reach the wary passengers.

From outside the window I hear, “Hey White, watch?” or “Mazungu, buy oranges me, elfu tatu [three thousand].” For everyone else on the bus, the oranges are one thousand. We buy a bundle of oranges (for one thousand) at one stop to bring to our hosts in Arusha, Jesuits living at the Jesuit Novitiate. The bus rolls out of the stop, some men drop off, but others still run along with the bus, completing any last-minute transactions that are unfinished.

We continue upwards and the air grows cooler as we rise higher in altitude. The landscape becomes greener and the level horizon is broken up with hills and fifth-grade lollipop ebony trees, which take the place of the southern plains, palms and cacti. The scenery is once again lush as we plunge into valleys, crossing narrow bridges over dry-season rivers of murky water. The hills become more regular and are no longer hills, but mountains. The heights increase until we reach Moshi, where the range reaches its zenith in Kilimanjaro. The sun has set by the time we leave Moshi and we drive the last hour to Arusha in darkness, in awe that the driver can see out of the bug-splattered windshield.

Tuesday morning I arise stiff from yesterday’s travel, but taken with the serenity Arusha provides. It is eight a.m. and early-nineties pop classics are not blaring from the club across the street. Looking out behind the refectory, the Arushan plains extend outward for miles. On a clear day, we learn, one can see Mt. Kilimanjaro from the Novitiate. Over the next three days the sky clears so that we can "only" see Mt. Meru. On Wednesday, three novices agree to take us on a hike down through a nearby gorge. Daniel and Michael (novices who lived in Dar for ten weeks at the beginning of the year) and Oscar lead us out around the compound and down into the gorge. Throughout the hike we are overtaken with amazing, you-just-don't-see-this-in-Moncton scapes provided at different vantage points. At one point we encounter a river we need to ford. Caroline and Kate dutifully take off their shoes and cross safely following the pass forged by Oscar. I, on the other hand, decide it would be a good idea to follow Daniel who has bounded across the river over the protruding rocks. I forget that Daniel has done this countless times before and I am left stranded in the middle of the river, not nimble enough to make the final leap. I too remove my shoes and trudge the rest of the way through the river.

On the other side of the gorge is another set of views and a Masai village. A man leads us along and directs us to the next point where we are both able to cross the river and scale both sides of deep valley. We safely navigate our way past the sunflower field that served as our reference point and then we make it back to the home side.

We spend the next day and a half enjoying the calm Arusha offers. As we are on retreat, we enjoy this time while also reflecting on the benefits and challenges of communal living and the value of work and whether our work is leaving us healthy and whole and indeed serving the common good. We leave Arusha town Friday morning and as is usual, the ride home is never as entertaining as the ride there. However, we do manage to squeeze in a flat tire and another mini-breakdown along the way, leading me to think that when traveling in Tanzania a bus breakdown may be the norm as opposed to the exception!

I continue to think about you all back home and I am hoping the summer is serving up fine weather to reciprocate the snowy winter you had.