Kwa Heri Arusha (Good bye)

The word kwa heri in Swahili means goodbye.  Not the kind of goodbye that's like, see ya later but more of a semi-permanent goodbye, atleast one that lasts for a while.  When my American friends and family ask me, "How was living in Africa?"  I struggle to give a simple response because the answer is complicated.  The best I've come up with so far is, "It's been a growing experience."  Which is completely true.  The Becca that entered Tanzania is not the same Becca leaving.  It's easy to get caught up in bitterness with corruption, misplaced values and the dirty, inconvenient life that comes with living in a third world country.  My relationship with Arusha, Tanzania felt like a friendship with someone who needs a lot of attention, can be quite draining, but has been with you through thick and thin, so you're in this together.

So here is my list of how I'm thankful for my time in Tanzania:

1. infrastructure: Arusha, I spent two years despising your lack of roads, road rules or even anyone to enforce those rules.  The fact is, this experience has made me ridiculously thankful for these things coming back to the states.  When someone complains about getting a driving ticket, I'm not nearly as sympathetic as they'd like because I've experienced life without those and it's chaotic and dangerous.

2. greetings:  Tanzanians looooove to greet each other.... and everyone.  It's considered polite, and being polite is very important.  So, walking down the street is really just a long string of greetings.  The difficult part, when you're white, is differentiating between those people just trying to be polite and those trying to sell you something.  Can be quite tricky.  Anyway, re-entering into a mostly "nongreeting" culture, I seem to miss it.  The scripted interaction that allowed me to connect to strangers in a pleasantly friendly way.

3.  simplicity:  While some things weren't simple, like buying a pair of shoes, walking down the street or dealing with the bank, many things were.  Finding local produce was easy- walk to the lady on the corner selling some.  Taxis were cheap enough that a DD wasn't necessary.  No identification was needed for everyday activities.  Ever.  There were very little testing requirements in schools, so I was barely monitored in what I did in my classroom.  Most of us owned the cheapest phone available in Tanzania and were perfectly happy using it for what it was intended for- calling and texting.  I am constantly perplexed by the technology leap that has happened in the states over the last few years.  Smart phones have become cheaper and available to most Americans of various income levels.  There is a culture around them- one where people readily pull out their smart phones to communicate, search and check statuses from other pieces of technology while they're out socializing with other human beings.  I am unapologetically offended by this behavior.  This lack of etiquette disgusts me and I am worried for this new generation's ability to communicate face-to-face with another human being in the near future.

4.  fashion:  The attire in Arusha was simple- cover your knees and be respectful.  Other than that, everything else was optional, including matching and cleanliness.  I pretty much rotated through my few "weekday outfits" and then had a couple favorite outfits I enjoyed relaxing in that became my weekend-wear.  When I walk into an American clothing store, I have the strong urge to wear sunglasses.  WHERE DID ALL THE NEON COME FROM?  The 80's are clearly back.  In full force.  I walk into stores like The Gap and Target and want to ask the sales people, "Is it Halloween already?"  This severe change in style feels like a cruel joke to me.  I came back to the states to acquire quality, non-retina-burning clothing.  Not apparel that could direct air traffic.

5.  what's important:  I found that life in with Tanzanians can be simple and organic.  When you pass someone, you should greet them.  There's a lot of teasing and joking in the culture.  When someone needs help, they ask and when I needed help, people were more than willing to go out of their way to help out.  I could walk to most of my friends' houses on my school campus as well as go on safe runs in the mornings because of our trusty security guards.  Going out to meet friends meant we texted each other the plan, met up, put our phones away and had a conversation.  I enter the states and immediately become a consumer.  The shopping experience (food, clothes, medicine) is extremely appealing here in the states.  I like to call it a multi-sensory experience.  While buying things is fun, and you can get quite a buzz from "retail therapy", it's actually not very important at all.

All in all, I'm glad I spent a couple of years in Arusha, Tanzania.  My experiences there have grown me into who I am today.  And I'm okay with the outcome.

Touched

Today, I saw Tanzania's raw beauty as well as its nasty unfairness.  A few friends and I set out to hike to a waterfall.  None of us aware of difficulty level of the hike, we figured it would be an adventure.  We hired a taxi to drive us to the furthest point.  On the way, we drove through a typical Tanzanian village, with mud huts and children playing with trash as toys.  As we got close, we drove down a narrow dirt (with the rain it was mud) road, with 5 feet high dirt/grass banks to keep us in our little alley.  We literally skidded our "bumper car" to our destination.  We did get stuck in the mud a couple of times, but there was nothing to worry about.  Literally, the village children wait around this part of the neighborhood for the taxis to get stuck, then they push the car out and ask for a much-deserved tip after.  It was incredible to see this informal system at work.

When the car stopped and we were told that it was time to start the hike, we got out and were greeted by a little army of about 8 street kids, most of which were handling machetes like a pro and all children were wearing ripped, mud-splattered and smelly clothes.  Shoes were optional.  One of the kids knew one of my friends from a mentoring situation, so we were immediately at ease with this group of children.  But the interesting thing was that even though they physically were children, we quickly figured out they were anything but infants.  Many of them had run away from home at one point or another and had lived on the streets.

One of the smallest, Alexi, immediately buddied up with me and stuck with me the entire day.  He's 8 years old, but had the confidence of a young man.  At first, I have to admit, while I knew we were safe with these children with machetes, I didn't trust they were altruistic in their want to be helpful.  A lot of interactions in Tanzania between foreigners and Tanzanians involve the Tanzanians with their hand out (figuratively or literally) and the foreigner either giving out of pity or resisting it.  Living here for 2 years, I have seen what giving into this "hand out" mentality has done to the culture and refuse to take part in it.

So as the kids helped us climb down slippery, muddy slopes, I was wondering when the time was going to come when they started asking me for something.  But as time went on, and Alexi steadily held my hand and saved me from falling multiple times by either shielding me with his own little body or telling me where to step or even just using his own amazing strength to keep me balanced, he never asked for anything.  Throughout the hike, I could tell he didn't view our relationship as buddies.  He took care of me.  He seemed to like that role, so I let him.  Holding my hand the entire time, I knew he needed the kind touch of an adult to a child as much as I needed his stabilizing on the rocks and mud.  We definitely had a significant language barrier, but we taught each other words in our respective languages (he was bilingual, knowing Kiswahili and Kimaasai).

As we continued our journey to the waterfall, I decided to see what songs Alexi knew.  Not many, apparently.  He claims that he goes to school where they only speak English, but he can only sing his alphabet correctly until "g."  The public schools (where they still need to pay for school fees and bring their own jug of water to keep the gardens alive) are abysmal.  Anyway, I decided to teach him a few songs, and in those moments in song, I saw the age-appropriate, eager child inside.  That was the only time that he was truly an 8 year old.  The rest of the time, he was far too grown up for his age. Towards the end of the hike, he asked if I had children.  I said "no."  He was very confused because he considered me "very old" to not have children.  I told him that I didn't want children.  He asked "why," to which I answered that I enjoyed my freedom.  He then went to tell me all of the reasons I should have children, including the fact that they will do my dishes and wash my clothes for me.  Clearly, this was his reality with his family, and a typical reality for many Tanzanian children.

As we said our goodbyes, I was sad to leave my "too grown up" friend.  I tried to give him a hug, Tanzania being a handshake culture, with semi-successful results.  As we drove away, I chatted with one of my friends about these boys' living conditions and situations.  They most likely work more than they go to school and there's no system in place advocating for their right to get an education and be protected as children.  It saddened us to really understand the unfairness of the conditions the boys were born into and just how little influence we had over the situation but we were also touched by our experiences with these young, yet incredibly strong, boys with swords.

Commitment

I know I haven't written for a while... a long while.  Somehow, sharing my new experiences and realizations here in Arusha felt burdensome   But I'm back.  With a new commitment.  I have decided to start running regularly, which I haven't done since high school.  The commitment, specifically, is to run 5 days a week for 30 minutes each session.  This past week (my first week), I made it out to run 3 times (one of which was in the rain).  Not good enough.

It's interesting the reasons my mind finds for not running-
"I'm tired."
"I don't have enough time."
"I need to file my nails."

Pretty much anything to get me out of this torture.  But I'm learning to listen to these excuses my brain gives me, like patiently listening to a complaining friend.  Then I say, "Well, those are all nice reasons, but I still need to run."  Unfortunately, I was only semi-successful in getting out of the door in my running shoes.

Recently, I have been working with the secondary students at my school on "being authentic with your word."  In other words, do what you say you're gonna do.  Clearly, I need some improvement in this area when it comes to doing what I say I'm gonna do FOR MYSELF.

This, however, is a common cross-cultural frustration between Tanzanians and Westerners.  For example, I ask the head guy that fixes things around campus that there is a large wasps nest right outside my classroom and that it is a danger to my students as the wasps have been coming into my classroom.  He replies, "Sure.  It will be gone by the morning."  Sounds like he's going to do it, right?  NOPE.  It has now been 5 days since I told him and it's still there.  Wanna know why?  He gave me such a convincingly detailed response but Tanzanians rarely ever say no.  They say yes and just don't do it.  So how do you know if someone will actually do it or not?  I haven't figured that one out yet.  My strategies, many times, included frequent reminders to do something until it gets done.  Now, in the states, if you reminded some to do something on a daily basis, it would be considered rude and condescending.  People would ask, "What?  you don't think I can do my job?"  But here, it's just a way of advocating for what you need.

I also come across this issue with the students.  I ask them a question and they are masters at telling me what I want to hear.  I figured it out quickly at the beginning of the school year when I was asking my students why they follow certain rules or whether they like something or even whether they will get something done.  They gave me these glowing answers that any parent would be proud to hear their child say.  But here's the thing- the kids don't mean it.  I have had to break any child, young or old, that crosses my path of that nasty little "pleasing" habit because it makes the entire conversation fake.  I recently expressed my frustration to a secondary boy in his last year of school about why students felt it necessary to tell teachers what they wanted to hear instead of the truth.  He said, "If you tell the truth in a Tanzanian school, you'd get punished.  So we tell the teachers what they want to hear and don't do it."

So these youngsters, trained from an early age, grow up to be Tanzanian adults that tell everyone what they want to hear instead of the truth.