Joshua Philip Levens, Ph.D.

Debating Tanzania

Every Friday at the end of the school day, the students of UL Secondary, bring their chairs into the Dining Hall for the week’s scheduled debate. A student committee chooses the motion to be discussed and moderates the proceedings. It is an English-only event, although the administration has decided to allow a Kiswahili debate sometime in the upcoming term. Although secondary schools are supposed to be English-only (with the exception of Kiswahili class), the weekly debate is the one-and-only time you only hear English spoken at my school. This most certainly includes English classes. It also includes all of my classes. My own proportion of Kiswahili-to-English in biology teaching goes from 90-10 (Form I), 80-20 (Form II), 75-25 (Form III) and 50-50 (Form IV) - to make up some numbers on the spot. In short, the students have a rough time with the debate.

Last year, I started attending these debates somewhat regularly out of my own curiosity. What do these young people believe? What do they consider to be a valid argument? What counts as evidence and what counts as a convincing explanation? Sometimes, the answers to these questions come out. Other times, it is work simply deciphering their attempts at complete answers to the questions at hand. When the confrontation is intense, the logic gets even more undecipherable. Having had my share of heated arguments in Kiswahili, I can sympathize. Recently, for example, I was involved in a bus-wide discussion concerning the claim that the American government infected condoms with HIV in order to kill black people. Personally, I believe there are enough real examples of bad American foreign policy decisions (including malicious ones) to mention without resorting to this kind of conspiracy-mongering.

As for the school debates, however, past motions have included:
Teachers are more important than doctors for society.
Life in the village is better than life in town.
Single-sex schools are better than co-educational schools.
Domestic work is a woman’s duty.
It is better for a country to be self-reliant than to depend on other countries.

It has truly been fascinating to see (particularly the harder-working) students out-reasoning one another on issues that range from moral to practical to political to cultural. Of course, these debates also mirror the larger problem with the country’s entire secondary school system: the central problem of English language instruction. Until this country decides to offer Kiswahili-medium secondary instruction, rural students at schools such as mine are getting cheated out of a truly higher education. Some students can excel at math and the sciences without necessarily having a gift for languages. Since English instruction really only begins at secondary school for more than 90% of my students and since this is the 3rd language (after Kibena and Kiswahili) for these students, it is safe to say that their language-skills are already being taxed far more heavily than most American (including 1st generation immigrant) students.

The government should experiment on a limited basis with Kiswahili-medium secondary schools.
I’m suggesting this for the next motion of the next debate. It would be appropriate if the students got to articulate their thoughts on this subject in at least their second language.

Joshua Tanzanian Society & Culture No Comments »

Cheating

Tanzania is not the first place I’ve ever had to deal with the issue of students cheating. As a university professor, I have received research papers that were copied in full from articles available on the internet. The thinking must be that historians don’t know how to use search engines. As an adjunct professor, however, my protocol in such matters was rather straight-forward. I assembled the evidence, turned it in to the department chair, and recorded my grade sheet accordingly. At that point, everything was out of my hands; case closed.

The situation is a bit different in a Tanzanian secondary school. For one thing, there seems to be no standardized policy on cheating. With 60+ students crammed into a room that would accommodate 20-30 in the United States, stopping students from stealing glances at other’s test papers is difficult to enforce. Moreover the combined lack of adequate teachers along with lax invigilation of examinations only exacerbates the problem. I have for some time taken an austere view of the problem and stalked the classroom aisles, telling students to cover their papers and occasionally taking away tests from obvious cheaters. However, this only stops one classroom from cheating (or else simply makes it more difficult).

While grading weekly tests from my Form II students (about 180 in total spread out over three streams: A, B and C) I found 16 that seemed to have obviously copied from their neighbor. Wrong answers that used the same awkward phrasing and bad spelling were a fairly obvious tip. The only guideline I had observed before involved students that were caught in the act. They generally received 3 strokes with the fimbo (thin stick) and a zero on the test. Not a fan of beating (nor a believer in its effectiveness), I took an alternative approach. After writing all the correct answers on the offending students’ tests, I wrote which student/s I believed they cheated with. I then brought the test papers to morning assembly.

This period of the day before the first classes is usually reserved for cleaning up the environment, receiving announcements, short English-language speeches by the students and punishments. I decided to start with a speech of my own on honesty and the problems associated with cheating. I made a particular point about cheating on the national exams, which could cancel out a year’s worth of hard work and which are invigilated by local police and are more difficult to cheat in as well. I then explained my methodology for catching the cheaters. “Kumbe! Wamekosa kwa kamili na jirani!” (How about that? They made exactly the same mistakes as their neighbors!) I then called the students to the front and handed them their examinations. Explaining that we would have to meet together as a group to discuss this problem, I said that to remind them to show up after school, I would need to take one shoe from each student.

The students balked. Some immediately started trying to talk me out of it. Others made a break for it. I realized that this type of unorthodox punishment required some back-up from the teacher-on-duty (the teacher-of-the-week in charge of all discipline and general rule enforcement). The teacher was feeling more generous than I and he asked me to instead take a sweater or belt to ensure they would meet with me later. Getting trumped on this made me question both my choice of punishment and the seriousness with which other teachers viewed this problem. I told them they needed to come to the teacher’s lounge during tea time to apologize (or defend their case) and to retrieve their belongings.

I took my case to all the teachers. They agreed that an inquest needed to be conducted and demanded the students to remove one shoe and return to class while individuals were questioned one-by-one. Interrogations elicited confessions from everyone, though some initially denied it, until the logic behind the similarity in their answers was shown to them. All apologized and spent the remainder of the day cutting grass and cleaning up the environment. I tried to also talk to each one-by-one to stress the danger of falling into this habit.

So, instead of using corporal punishment, I tried shame. Even as I write this, I feel ambiguous about the appropriateness or effectiveness of my method. I was especially concerned that the new Form I students see what fate could await them if they didn’t stop this behavior right away. Have I dissuaded anyone from cheating? Have I simply encouraged others to use more effective cheating methods? Is shame any less distasteful in education than corporal punishment? I’m still mulling over all this. I feel like something (other than talk) was needed to address the cheating culture. We never got any good suggestions from our Peace Corps trainers on this issue. I’m playing it by ear. Any ideas? I could use the help. By the way, I don’t mind if you copy your suggestions from someone else.

Joshua Tanzanian Society & Culture 2 Comments »

Year II, Term I, Part I: Done

After a number of technical difficulties, adjustments and readjustments, I’m back. Thanks again to Brian Hart for his tireless and cost-effective (free) labors. This blog is now being brought to you by the letter S (Solar Power) and the number 2 (2 solar collector panels and 2 computers in year 2).

In conjunction with the Olive Branch for Children NGO, headed by Deborah (Mama D) McCracken (www.theolivebranchforchildren.com), *Undisclosed Location* Secondary will be entering the computer age. To all of the private donors who earmarked funds for this project, thank you. Karibu Tanzania.

I have returned from Dar-es-Salaam where I purchased 2 85 Watt Solar panels, 4 solar batteries, 35 metres of wire and a charger controller, all of which will be set-up in the next couple of weeks to provide an electricity source in the school’s library to power lights and at least 2 desktop computers. I should be able to get both the DC-AC inverter and the new computers by May at the latest. However, there should be one computer immediately available to begin staff training when the school re-opens at the beginning of next month.

We just had a visit from our member of parliament a couple of weeks back. Among other messages, he told our assembled teachers and local community leaders that a school without a computer was not a school. On the right track maybe, but counterproductive given that he knew nothing of the current project. As I told him about the project, I made sure he knew that many Tanzanian schools suffer not for lack of resources as much as for lack of utilization of existing resources.

Case in point, our school has a nice library. It could still use more books, especially textbooks and Kiswahili language materials. However, when I got to the school the main problem with the library was that the students hardly used it. It was open during school hours only, when they were supposed to be in class. It was closed at all other times. What I have done with our library over the last year and a half has been simply to make the library resources available in the evening study hours and to train students in its proper use. This cost only labor and did not need any outside grant.

Before coming to UL Secondary, I trained at a school in Morogoro that actually had a couple of computers. However, no one knew how to use them and they remained in the headmaster’s office, unplugged and taking up space. I took the time to remind our parliamentary representative as well as the assembled school and community leaders that this computer project would not be a success just because of the financial resources. We needed commitment, time and talent or it would become no better than a locked library and unplugged computers.

All that being said, I am excited and optimistic. While every teacher, staff member and student with whom I have discussed the project has assured me of community-wide interest, I personally feel confident that 3 of our teachers will take the necessary time to train according a regular schedule in order to become proficient in word-processing and spread sheet use. It also appears quite likely that after my departure in late November, the Peace Corps will replace my site with another education volunteer to continue with this work. As I said, all realistic pessimism aside, I am happy about our prospects.

As for the gardening projects, I have had a couple of small successes but have had most of my goals delayed. The orphans’ vegetable garden has been put-off by scheduling logistics. However, I plan on getting some seeds in the ground by the end of the month and having a full-training session with the students in permaculture and bio-intensive farming by the middle of next month. The rains have not been ideal up to this point anyway (sour grapes?). Heavy rains with no sunshine (lots of mold problems) have been followed by 10 days periods of drought, hardly ideal. We usually get substantial rain in my region until June. Since I’m planting vegetables that mature after 1-2 months, all is not lost. I’m still counting on eating broccoli by May.

On a personal note, I healed up quite nicely in South Africa. My collarbone (sans metal plate) is about 95% back to normal. I’m still taking a little easy when it comes to doing ju-jitsu with my students, but am otherwise back to my regular exercise routine.

As for teaching, things are hectic but well on course. As the only biology teacher available, the students are not getting as much class time as they ought. In particular, my Form III students have only one double-period, once a week. On the other end of the spectrum, my Form IV students have already finished the biology syllabus and will be reviewing the past four years of biology until they take their national exams in September. We got through quite a bit of material last year when we had two biology teachers and they are now enjoying the benefits of being ahead in their studies.

I have found that in my second year, I am much more qualified to teach the Form I students. Most of these students know absolutely no English until they reach secondary school. This means that I need to teach everything throughly in Kiswahili before I teach them in English. Last year the words for nuclear membrane (utando wa kiini cha chembechembe), catalyst (kimeng’enya) and liver (ini) hardly rolled off my tongue. I can answer most of their questions now in class rather than writing everything down and getting back to them later. Right now they are using the microscope (Thanks again to Ma and Pa Levens!) and learning about the parts of the cell. This is probably my favorite topic and the one that I use to launch into every other topic: Nutrition, Digestion, Genetics and etc. It all starts with the cells, right?

The other fun new project this year has been a peer-education project. A group of about 8 Form IV students (male and female) go with me every Monday to the local primary school to teach life skills and material about HIV/AIDS. This is my favorite project because I do none of the work. The kids prepare the lessons and do all the teaching. I go with them, watch and meet with the later to talk about what went well, what did not, and why. It has also been the first time that i have found students talking freely and bluntly about issues of sexuality. They discuss the issues with each other. I mostly listen and only occasionally interject.

Well, I’m running out of time and need to be getting back to the village. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to town next, but I promise another update before 3 more months slips by.

Peace, Josh

Joshua Uncategorized 1 Comment »

Permaculture and Bio-intensive Farming

Before coming to Tanzania, I never so much as tried to grow a houseplant. Although tolerant of roommates’ needs for greenery over the years, I paid these unwelcome lifeforms as much attention as I did the various vermin that managed to cohabitate with me. Oh, and by unwelcome lifeforms and vermin, I don’t mean my roommates. While nothing other than the prospect of fresh basil ever managed to peak my interest in living with plants, I was no stranger to green-thumbed enthusiasts.

Growing up, I watched my mother experiment with any number of green projects in and around the house. I have vague recollections of her tending a vegetable garden in the backyard, and even vaguer recollections of the occasional home-grown tomato and carrot accompanying a salad I would try to avoid eating anyway. A typical overweight, junk-food craving American kid, I failed to share my mother’s wonder with harvesting nature’s bounty in our own backyard. It’s not like we were raising a herd of cattle after all. My principal memories about the short-lived vegetable garden were that my mother was the only one interested in the project and that it took up valuable real estate for backyard football. “American” football, I would be forced to add here in Tanzania.

After that, I watched my mom gradually pick away at the lawn, replacing one edge with some bushes, another with flowers, leaning more and more towards bulky, tropical, indigenous varieties. Then one day, she snapped. Her benign displeasure with the typical suburban lawn broiled into an all-out holocaust. All grass in the front yard was ripped out, exposing the chemically-sauteed soil beneath. Like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, she moulded the earth into strange ridges and shapes as the neighbors struggled to find a genuine compliment. “It looks like a really big project!” The rest of the family was equally unnerved, though we knew far better than to intervene. It’s not like any of wanted to get recruited with “You think YOU can do better?!”

And so, we stayed tentatively optimistic watching as week after week went on, with bare patches of dirt gradually giving way to long ridges of dirt mounds. It was some kind of botanical scultpting project that we were better off keeping quiet about. And yet, little by little, there was progress. Surrounded by clean-cut, chemically saturated, suburban lawns of St. Augustine grass and neatly groomed hedges, our house sported a wild assortment of local vegetation, unruly to be sure and all the more pleasant for it.

Here in Tanzania, the typical yard is something else entirely: rows and rows of maize (not be confused with juicy American sweet corn), widely spaced and occasionally intercropped with beans. You can also find a number of scattered fruit trees: lemon, avocado, blood fruit. Farther away from the house, people also grow a good bit of tea, pineapples, potatoes (Irish and sweet), tomatoes, and greens (eg., spinach, cabbage, cassava greens). As I have come to learn however, the typical Tanzanian yard could use as much of an overhaul as suburban America. Ok, not really, it’s nowhere near as poisonous and wasteful as chemically-treated suburban lawns.

If the typical Tanzanian yard could use an overhaul (at least judging by those at UL Secondary), it would begin with soil improvement. In the arid badlands of Dodoma and Singida, it’s an easy case to make. There’s little rain and quite sandy soils. Down in the southern highlands it’s another story entirely. Everything grows … rapidly. Gardening seems far more about weeding than fertilizing. That being said, there’s still a number of benefits - even with such loam soils - for permaculture and bio-intensive farming.

Permaculture or Permanent Agriculture is really all about putting in perennial plants: fruit trees, fruit and vegetable vines, medicinals such as aloe, natural fencing through trees and bushes, and erosion-control grasses in a structured way so as to maximize water collection, contributing to improved soil structure and also providing fruits and other agri-goodies year in and year out.

Bio-intensive farming, on the other hand, focuses on digging deeply, amending the soil with compost and manure, spacing plants closely together and using intercropping techniques so that different species help one another. Practically speaking this means more food on less land. This is especially valuable for people living with HIV/AIDS and frankly anyone else physically unable to travel a long distance to do farming. Close plant spacing and deep (double) digging also translates into less weeding as the microclimates between plants suppress unwanted competitors. So, it’s really a great system, even if water and good land are as abundant as they are in my region. The only real hinderance is that double-digging is labor-intensive and time consuming. Although it saves a great deal of work later, it involves a substantial initial time investment. The only way to really sell the system is to use it yourself and let the results speak for themselves.

Unfortunatelty, with teaching and everything else, I’ve been able to do very little. As far as gardening goes, the only thing I have managed to do over the last year is composting, all of which became overgrown with fallen bamboo from my decaying fence and covered in vines and grasses. Turns out I couldn’t have planned it better. In preparation for the upcoming rainy season, I started cleaning up the yard and setting up new compost piles only to find that 18 discarded avocado seeds had germinated into roughly 12 inch seedlings. I have grafted high-quality branches onto this root stock. I’m now developing a new backyard gardening plan based around composting, soil improvement, mulching and natural fencing.

As my garden stands right now, I’ve got passionfruit vines, oregano, garlic chives, rosemary, carrots, tomatoes, irish potatoes, songu (a local fruit bush whose leaves make a medicine for typhoid), maboga-maboga (a form of pumkin plants with edible leaves) and ununu bushes (thorny bushes that makes good natural fencing and produce very few but very tasty blackberry-like fruits). I’ve also done some tree maintenance on the lemon and avocado trees in my yard. I think I’ve brought the lemon tree back to production, but we’ll see.

The real bright spot for the upcoming year however comes from an idea my headmaster floated at the end of the last term: a vegetable garden for the school’s roughly 30 orphans. (HIV prevalence in my region is between 13 and 20% depending on whose statistics you believe.) Using my site-mate’s farming expertise and exemplary demonstration garden, we will be training the school’s orphans in permaculture and bio-intensive farming techniques and giving them seeds to start a garden for their own nutrition as well as for sale (profits to offset their school expenses and their guardian’s living expenses). As I told the headmaster, as long as we give the students a break from the other chores of the school to work on their garden, it should be an easy sell. After all, if you have to work anyway, who wouldn’t choose to eat better and get some more money in the process?

On a personal note, I’m back in South Africa for the time being getting the metal plate removed from my collarbone. This means I’ll be online every day for at least the next week or so. So, feel free to drop me a line.

Peace, Dr. Josh

Joshua Secondary Projects 1 Comment »

Year One at *Undisclosed Location* Secondary

The new crop of education volunteers just arrived for their site installations and I’m feeling sentimental.  It was this time last year that I constructed my water filter, struggled with lighting my charcoal stove, and first learned to keep myself reasonably clean and fed without the benefits of electricty and running water.  My early days were spent cleaning up mounds of 2-year old decaying trash and trying to make my surroundings as livable as possible. 

These days I’ve got a well-structured kitchen, stocked with all the basic appliances and accoutrements, a solar panel generating electricity for my laptop, a decent sized vegetable and herb garden-in-progress and a thorough familiarity with my community and its facilities, as well as a fluent knowledge of Kiswahili coupled with a working familiarity of the local Kibena.  Over the last year I faced the daunting task of teaching students 2 year’s worth of biology in a single year.  Next year, all my students will start off with one syllabus topic already completed.  Living well in the bush has been no small feat and one that I will undoubtedly continue to work on until the end of my service next year.  It is my hope that the next volunteer (hopefully there will be a next volunteer here) gets to start off a few steps ahead because of what I’ve done.  For example, my only “gardening” work this past year was composting.  Right now, however, I’ve got about 15 avocado seedlings ready for transplanting and grafting, 3 hearty indigenous fruit bushes (Songu - whose leaves are also used as Typhoid medicine) cleared and surrounded with mulch, 4 major compost piles, natural fencing construction, 6 passionfruit vines growing from cuttings, a small herb garden (generously supplied with cuttings by my site mate and farmer extroirdinaire Jason Maglaughlin) and a number of double-dug beds in-progress for vegetable planting.  (Thanks to Katy Wettengel for the recent package with seeds!)  But more on my gardening projects for a subsequent blog (and after more of it’s finished).  Anyway, hopefully the next volunteer will have a decent garden to build on in their first year.

As for the year-in-review, I have also learned a great deal from my fellow volunteers and have had to say goodbye to far too many of them.  I also continue to learn from Tanzanian friends in the village as well as those I meet in towns and while traveling.  A prescient observation I made early in training has proven to ring true, that those volunteers and other foreigners with negative attitudes towards Tanzanians are those who have failed to learn Kiswahili beyond the elementary level.  Effective communication breeds understanding and understanding breeds affection - hardly surprising.  Of course in keeping with the mission of the Peace Corps, I continue to find aspects of Tanzania that could benefit from American influence (e.g., aspects of the educational system, LGBT tolerance and gender rights, consumer rights) as well as those aspects of the United States that could benefit from Tanzanian influence (e.g., aspects of the community/family structure, religious tolerance, respect for seniors).  There are practices common in the U.S. that I wish more Tanzanians would adopt (e.g., better business auditing and management) as well as practices common in Tanzania that the U.S. could use far more of (e.g., households growing some their own food, instead of chemi-polluting their yards for mere ornamental grasses). 

While I am sure that, when the time comes, I will be ready to move on from UL Sec. for new opportunities and challenges, I am equally sure that I will never be completely finished with Tanzania.  In the best of all possible worlds, I will be able to continue to return here for the rest of my life.  This country has gotten way under my skin. On that note, I do have another project in the works for post-Peace Corps work in Tanzania.  But, more on that for another blog.

For those who have continued to keep up with me, in emails, letters and delicious candy-filled packages, I cannot thank you enough.  I will do my best to keep the blog updates coming along with the pictures.  For the next couple of months, my work is moving from that of teacher to farmer.  But more on that later.

Peace, Dr. Josh

   

Joshua Peace Corps Tanzania, Personal, Tanzanian Society & Culture, Uncategorized 4 Comments »

HIV Testing with a side of Bongo Flava

Once again, it’s been a while. But, I’ve got a good excuse. I’ve spent the last month in the village without coming to my banking town. If I hadn’t run out of money, every one of my luxury items (coffee, cheese, powdered milk, cocoa, peanut butter, jam), and had my computer not broken again, I probably would still be there. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have a hot shower, someone else to cook for me, and, of course, precious internet time.

Let’s start with some really good news. The government came to my village last month to do HIV testing. Tanzania’s president Jakaya Kikwete has been telling every Tanzanian that it is their civic responsibility to get tested. He’s backed up this admonition with a huge testing drive, sending physicians and supplies from village to village for free testing, counseling, and HIV/AIDS education. Perhaps more importantly, the government is now promising free CD4 count readings as well (a reading of less than 200 is the clinical definition of AIDS and the requirement for receiving free anti-retroviral medicines, ARVs in the lingo). Although NGOs have been testing for HIV in Tanzanian villages for sometime (though certainly not often enough), most HIV positive villagers could not afford to come to town and get their CD4 count read (this is the number of helper T-cells fighting off the body’s secondary infections) in order to qualify for free meds. HIV Testing without transport costs and CD4 count readings thus poses many problems. However, with American help from PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) and USAID, the Tanzanian government seems to be doing what it can to make this relief effective.

Here in *undisclosed location* village, all the bigwigs came out for the event: government officials, medical professionals, tribal leaders and church representatives all showed up to stress the importance of getting tested and the effectiveness of condom use in stopping the spread of the disease. Even more impressively, people crammed in to the event, and rushed to be the first ones in for testing. In a culture where many people readily admit their fear of knowing their HIV status, this was a wonderful sight.

For my own part, I feel as though this is ideal sort of venue for a Peace Corps volunteer.  Rather than completely orchestrating an event from the ground up, I was able to simply insert myself into the pre-arranged activities.  There was a DJ from Dar es Salaam spinning Bongo Flava music in an attempt to turn an otherwise frightening experience into a community dance party.  Local drum and dancing groups came equipped with drums, masks and instruments of all sorts.

Along with fellow volunteer “Bomba Mbaya,” we wandered around the event doing impromptu condom demos, games, answering questions about HIV/AIDS and otherwise dancing and having a good time.  I’ll try and get some pics of the event up in the near future.  Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ve got to cut it short again.

Peace, Josh

Joshua Uncategorized 1 Comment »

Monkeyshines

Between the end of the school day at 2:30 and the 6:00 dinner bell ( by which I mean the hubcap hanging from a rope that gets hit by a stick), I usually get at least two student visits. Dinner, by the way, is the same as lunch (ugali and beans *lather, rinse, repeat* - I used to comment at home how the dogs always seemed excited to eat the same food every day, twice a day, I suppose it beats the alternative). First, 2-3 students, sent by the student leaders-on-duty, arrive in their role as unpaid manual laborers. If I’m hammering or sawing away at one project or another, I toss them some tools and work alongside them for an hour or so. If I’m low on water (typically the case now, during the dry season), I ask for one bucket per student, and assuage my guilt by paying them in fruit or candy.

My other reliable visit is from (at least) my two most reliable yoga/ju-jitsu students. Even if I’m busy doing work, they drop by to pick up the exercise mat, which they set on a thick chunk of grass near the boy’s hostel. They return later, guzzle down some water, take some bit of fruit and patiently listen as run on about the importance of good nutrition, proper stretching, studying hard or somesuch teacherly thing. These are my typical visits after school, as I explained to Jessica, who was passing through my village after leaving her own to finish her Peace Corps service (see previous post). And then, Murphy’s Law and all that, I got an atypical visit.

When I first heard the screaming horde of young male students, it hardly registered with me as something out of the ordinary.  School was out; maybe a rival soccer team from a neighboring village had just pulled up in a Chai Truck.  However, the horde got louder and closer, finally bursting through the door of my courtyard leading a colobus monkey by the arm, ensnared in a homemade trap.  *Mental note to self* Be careful around mysterious bunches of bananas left invitingly in the middle of the road.

Whooping, hollering and quite proud of their catch, the whole group gave me a self-evident “This is pretty cool, huh?” look.  Part of me shared their fascination.  I had heard about and seen evidence of monkeys in this area, but had yet to get a good look at one, much less 2 feet away in my backyard.  Part of me wanted to grab my camera and really get a good look at the thing.  However, the rest of me was somehow horrified.

Like a small child being led by the hand, the poor creature dutifully kept apace behind the lead boy and probable crafter of the reed-snare.  The monkey remained downcast and passive, moving only when necessary.  I struggled to come to grips with what was going on and ran inside to tell Jessica.  “They’ve brought me a monkey!” was all I managed to blurt out.

“Kwa nini mmemkamata?” (Why did y’all capture him?) I asked the group.  They collectively looked at me with a quizzical smile, as if I were being rhetorical.  Clearly they were expecting a different reaction.  As I transitioned from shock to understanding, I led the group outside, urging the immediate release of the animal with repeated pleas not to kill it.

“It’s hand will heal won’t it?” I had asked one of the students.  He reassured me with all the sincerity of a parent explaining doggy-heaven to a 5 year old.  Like a brave little kid at the doctor’s office, the monkey held out its left hand, looking down and to the right as the trap’s creator undid his handiwork.  After a brief pause of realization upon its release, the monkey shot off towards the thick vegetation at the rim of the valley.  The assembled masses resumed their leaping, screaming, laughing chase.

One of my more serious-minded Form III students explained to me (after watching my response to most of the incident), “They are happy to have captured what they think of as a dangerous animal.” “So, they will kill it?” I confirmed.  “Yes, they will kill it.” It’s nice to have those students who will cut to the chase and not bother with trying to give you what they think you want to hear.

I watched from my side yard as the monkey and lynch mob disappeared into the valley.  I think the monkey got away.  At least, that’s the memory I’m sticking with.

While the mythical indigenous ethnic group that respects life in all its forms would have been appalled to see one of our genetic cousins paraded about in torment, even the most serene of yogis would have understood the carnage of the next day.  For what, I believe, has now been the fourth time, I fended off a siafu attack at home.

Known in English as army ants and in Kiswahili as siafu, these creatures are at once one of the most fascinating and one of the most troublesome lifeforms I have so far encountered here.  In the Congo, siafu are known to swarm entire villages, completely wiping out everything edible in their path, including any animals that may be tied up and unable to escape.  In Tanzania, you are more likely to see long caravans of them, with larger members linking limbs at the edges of the march to protect the procession.  If you jab a stick through the caravan and lift it up, you will collect a good foot of attached guard ants, hanging together like the “Barrel O’ Monkeys” children’s game.

When the siafu attacked my house from the rear last week, I had a small group of female students (who had come to ask questions about Life Skills, read: sex, the previous day) waiting in my courtyard.  “Siafu!” they said, and huddled together on my deck looking on as the ground was covered in a black, moving mass, spreading to the walls and heading towards my back door.  They seemed shangaa’ed (think: surprised/shocked) as I used up almost 2 liters of kerosene covering all entrances and attempting to find the source of the rampage.  Kerosene does the job better than just about anything else, killing the little bastards as well as sending the borg-hive-mind into a retreat.  I swept up thousands of them after the kerosene went to work.  Although, a few members came back later to collect their remaining dead.  Fascinating.  Oh yeah, and creepy.

Joshua Uncategorized 3 Comments »

Saying Good-Bye to the Village

First, a brief word about misleading titles. I will not be saying farewell to the good people of *undisclosed location* village any time soon. That being said, I have had cause to think about this eventuality quite a bit lately. Peace Corps Tanzania volunteers leave the country (COS: Close of Service; an important bit of the PC-TZ alphabet soup to remember) during two times of the year. Education volunteers, such as myself, leave between October and December. Health and Environment volunteers COS between June and August; in other words, right about now. So, I have had a chance lately to observe a number of the volunteers in my region go through this process: Throwing Good-Bye Parties; finishing up their Peace Corps projects; seeing their villager friends for (possibly) the last time; making plans with other volunteers to meet up in the United States (”You live in Minnesota? I’m in Ohio, we’ll see each other all the time!); passing along their material goods to other greedy volunteers (”Non-stick pan? All-right! Wait, you don’t have any vanilla or nutmeg do you?) and, of course, mentally preparing themselves for returning to the fast-paced American lifestyle. I have seen tears, protestations of eternal friendship, and even the outright refusal to leave. A number of volunteers opt to exend with the Peace Corps in Tanzania, extend with the Peace Corps in another country (such as the newly opened office in Ethopia), and even to find work with another organization in Tanzania.

Egotistically, my main thoughts concern my own fate. Will I be ready to leave? Or, will I be eager to stay in Tanzania by any means necessary? What anxieties will I face when confronted with the prospect of moving back to the States? For the time being, fortunately, I can see how others are coping with these issues well in advance of my own departure. I even recently had the chance to discuss these matters with some returned Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs, for those keeping up with the jargon) who were going back their sites for the first time in roughly five years. “When I got back to the States, all my friends had the nerve to get on with their lives without me,” I heard from one self-deprecating observer. Pessimistically, he also commented that “All those people, I said I’d keep in touch with . . . well, life goes on.” On the up-side, the return visits to the village yielded some positive results: improved farming techniques continuing to be practiced, former students holding prestigious jobs near their home communities, and the especially rewarding finding, that people remembered you, and fondly at that.

In addition to simply hearing outgoing volunteers relate these farewell stories, I recently had the chance to see the whole process up-close. Now that my collarbone has fully healed (thanks to you well-wishers), I am back on my bike and once again exploring the region. I therefore took the opportunity to travel to a fellow volunteer’s site (Jessica Stephens lived, of late, in a village 50 km. outside of my own) to attend her farewell party. Jessica had not yet begun to pack up her house; she was still unsure whether or not another volunteer would be moving into her village; and, as she confessed, “It doesn’t feel like I’m really leaving yet.” As she lived in a much smaller village than my own, I was curious to see what kind of shindig her friends and neighbors would put together.

In typical African fashion, everything started late. At 11:00 someone came to let us know that the 9:00 party would actually get started around noon. And so, at around 12:15, our escorts to the party arrived. Leading the front of the pack, 6 young women in identical t-shirts, skirts (in the yellow and green colors of the leading political party: CCM) and baseball caps (reading: ENGLAND) sashayed through the wooden gate to the house in synchronized rhythm, joined in their singing by a dozen or so others, waving tree branches and banging on drums. After assembling in the courtyard, they grabbed Jessica and I by the hand and led us with them on their parade to the office of the village chairman. We moved slowly and were allowed to walk only in dance. Hand waving, periodic chanting or hooting, and singing songs about Jessica seemed to be the norm. Jessica and I fumbled for our cameras, trying to document all of this even as we were thrown in the midst of it. One man held onto my hand, swinging it back and forth over our heads, as I tried to capture some pictures and video, continuing with my dance steps and trying to sing along with the refrain (dah-dah-dih-dah-JESSICA-dah-dah-dah-dih-dah-dah).

Our parade route ended at the offices of the village government, with a table and chairs for the guests of honor (of which it turned out I was one) and groups of villagers assembled before us, sitting on the ground, women and children on one side, men on the other. After the mandatory round of formal introductions, people got up to give speeches. Jessica had warned me in advance that I too would be expected to give a speech. The village leaders extolled Jessica’s work in the village: a fish pond project, a chicken project, milking goat project, an AIDS seminar and a water project (they even thanked her for a cow project that she had no part in).

By far the best part of the presentation, however, was the giving of gifts and singing of songs. In addition to the typical Kiswahili celebration songs, the small choir tried their hand at a couple of English-language selections (especially impressive as no one in the village speaks any English - actually most of the villagers speak a mixture of Kibena and Kiswahili that can be difficult to follow). This means, of course, that some of the lyrics lost or occasionally gained new meanings in their translation. Witness the following sample:
“When I think of Sister Jessica, I am very sorry.” This was the sole lyric for a song and dance that lasted roughly 5 minutes. As I have mentioned before, “Pole” or “sorry” is used far more broadly and with more frequency in Kiswahili than in English. I don’t believe the villagers intended to imply their regret at having known sister Jessica, for example.

The giving of gifts (mostly a barrage of baskets of various size, shape and color) was also accompanied by songs and dances. With each single basket, a small group stood up, sang, played drums and a horn and danced the gift up front. Jessica and I began to stand and dance on these occasions as well. When one woman put a basket on my head as I danced, the women smiled and ululated loudly. The whole affair was concluded by a meal prepared for Jessica, myself and a few of the village leaders. While I had been impressed with the preparations and the turn-out, Jessica was somewhat let-down: “I had 500 people at my AIDS seminar. Where were they?” As it turned out, the funeral of a prominent elder was being held at the same time.

When Jessica had her village tested for HIV, she came up with a percentage rate of around 11%. This, mind you, is in a tiny village that is relatively isolated from other communities and major roads. And, of course, rates in towns and heavily trafficked villages is higher. All of which makes the official statistics of around 7% hard to swallow. Almost any party, therefore, may well be in competition with a funeral. When my parents came to visit my own village, we had planned a party for the whole school community. It too was postponed by a day because a young woman and member of Parliament, who had grown up in my village, was being buried.

Saying good-bye to the village, it seems to me, means not only saying good-bye to the life you have built over the past two years; it also means saying good-bye to people who may not be around when you come back to visit even 5 years later.

Joshua Uncategorized 1 Comment »

Protected: Password Protected Entry 5

Joshua Personal, South Africa Enter your password to view comments

Misery Loves Company

T (Tragedy) + t (time) = C (Comedy) may not qualify as a scientific law in the Newtonian sense.  However, it has proven to be a fairly effective approximation of my experiences thus far in Tanzania (at least the ones in which I was the victim).  Since the incident relayed below happened back in January, before classes had even started at UL Secondary, I have safely recovered from any and all injuries here relayed: physical, moral and psychological.  It is my sincerest wish that my past pain may now become your present pleasure.  I had originally written up this little piece for a dear friend of mine who was going through a rough patch for a little while, operating under the assumption that a little Schadenfreude can be good for ails ya.  Enjoy!  (This one’s for you Speedwagon.)

It began with an unusually loud scratching noise in the middle of the night.  The first time I had heard this particular sound, I could not for the life of me figure it out, pacing throughout the house, periodically glancing outside and even craning my ear towards the ceiling boards.  By this time, however, I well knew what I was hearing.  There was a rodent in my house.  Somewhere in my wooden cabinets, it was rooting through my pots and pans, dishes, spices and preserved foods, chewing through plastic bags of flour, nuts and fruit, shitting on my silverware.  I well knew what I was up against and the price of failure on my part seemed truly unbearable.

I sat up in my bed, pulled back the mosquito net and slipped into my house shoes.  Armed only with a broom and flashlight, I crept out of my bedroom and into the main room towards the cabinet and the source of the somehow deafening grating, fingernails on chalkboard disguised as rodent claws on wood.  I was ready to beat the son-of-a-bitch to death if given the chance.  Using the broom handle, I gently pried open the cabinet doors.  The screetching stopped.  I became aware of a gentle rain hitting the aluminum roof overhead. 

Cautiously lowering on bended knees, I peered with flashlight into the simple two-compartment cabinet.  There simply seemed to be no place to hide amid the handful of tupperware containers and tins of powdered milk, instant coffee and jars of honey and jam.  I stabbed blindly with the broom handle at the interior, giving up all pretence of stealth.  With the instantaneous conduction of an electrical charge, The Rat (definitely not the mouse I had been secretly hoping to encounter) leaped from the cabinet almost bowling me over as it recaptured the element of surprise.  It charged half-way around the room before I had managed so much as one feeble swing of the broom.  Long before I could even think about rearing up for a second assault, I had to watch in sheer horror as the consequences of my actions dawned on me.  The Rat finished encircling the main room and headed directly into my bedroom, with its multi-compartmented closet, piles of clothes in three of the four corners, and innumerable other far-superior hiding places and vantage points.

I cursed myself aloud with the sudden realization of the inevitable course of events I had set into motion.  Try as I might to rationalize, the inherent inefficacy of so-called free will was no salve.  If only I had stayed warm and in bed and given The Rat its rightful share of my plentiful resources.  I could have perhaps kept time to the rhythm of its scratches, rocking myself gently to sleep.  But now, my bedroom, anywhere but my bedroom!

It is now 1:30 AM (or 7:30 at night as the locals say).  I stalk back into my bedroom, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other.  Of course, Now I have the good sense to leave the door leading outside to the courtyard wide open, hoping The Rat will accept the invitation.  After twenty futile minutes of haphazardly poking and proding about my bedroom, however, I despair that the case is hopeless.  I have already blown my cover in a display of sheer oafish boobery.  It is dark, my solar flashlight has begun to lose its charge and fade, and the guerilla war always favors the native.  I am the colonizer in the bright red “shoot-me” coat and I know it.  Crushed, dejected, I sulk back into the main room, propping myself up in a chair facing the bedroom door.  Stubbornly, I convince myself that I can wait out the enemy, lure him back to the treasures of the cabinet and perhaps see him out the courtyard door or at least cede back the original territory and sleep soundly in a gentle Rat-free bliss.

By about 3:30 AM, it was again time to reassess the strategy.  The Rat could gnaw on my face while I slept for all I cared at this point.  I might have even voiced this judgment aloud, although the haze of historical memory still clouds this period of the night.  At any event, I had surrendered.  The Rat had won.  I would return to bed, tucking my mosquito net tightly into the space between the mattress and the frame.  I would pretend the creature that feared neither wood nor plastic would somehow be repelled by thin netting.  In any event, this would all still be preferable to camping out in the chair, fully exposed and sleeping poorly.  As I cautiously returned to my bedroom, I listened for any sounds of The Rat and, hearing none, dozed gently off to a much deserved sleep.

It was maybe around 4:00 AM when I lept out of bed and rushed headlong into the courtyard.  For this part of the story, however, I need to back up a bit.  Not having any electricity in my house and therefore not having any proper refrigeration system has taken some getting used to.  For example, eggs and pineapples last quite a long time in the cool temperatures of Tanzania’s southern highlands.  Some fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, may turn rapidly and must be consumed during a shorter time frame.  The real issue, however, has been with cooked food.  I have long grown accustomed to cooking in bulk and freezing, enjoying the time I spend cooking but recognizing that my slow pace makes daily preparation something of an excessive commitment.  Here in Tanzania, I am also more conscious of wasting food, which has truly taxed my ability to cook just enough for maximum work efficiency without dumping out kilos of food in a land of significant malnutrition.  So, I have learned, for example, that I can cook a meal and re-cook that meal the second day with a minimum of effort.  The lesson I learned the hard way is that you cannot re-cook again, saving your stir-fry with steamed vegetables for Day 3.  No matter what. 

In my case, it was on this “Night of the Rat” that I had eaten rice and greens on the 3rd day, to which I had added additional fresh vegetables and curry.  I’m still having a hard time even smelling curry powder.  Returning to my story, my self-inflicted food poisoning kicked in right after I’d resigned myself to the Rat-occupied bedroom and drifted off to sleep.  My irrepressible urge to bolt out into the courtyard was quickly followed by a long and protracted bout of what I can only describe as projectile vomiting.  I you’ve had the occasion to experience this phenomenon, you’ll instantly recognize the descriptor.  In case you don’t know, there’s (1) Vomiting (2) Intense Vomiting and then there’s (3) Projectile Vomiting.

When my body had satisfied itself that the contents of my stomach were sufficiently empty, priority then shifted to the lower tract.  I had barely managed to race to the pit latrine and pull off my pants when a virtual waterfall of diarrhea errupted out of my ass.  On the bright side, there was very little I could do to consciously control the situation.  I could easily resign myself.  I simply cleared a path and my bowels took care of the rest.  I suppose it would be equally accurate to refer to this particular episode as projectile diarrhea as well, but there was really no opportunity to “project” anywhere but into the pit latrine (which the locals call a “choo,” pronounced ch-owe).  Therefore, I think I’ll leave it with the metaphor “Waterfall” and leave it at that.  But no matter.  Nor do I intend to dwell simply on the scatology of the scenario.  After all, it was not long after exercising my colon that I resumed projectile vomiting, at least until the mass failed to keep up with the force. 

Now I should point out that it seemed fairly clear to me at this juncture that my body was desperately trying to void everthing I had deigned to introduce into it.  Also, by my shivering uncontrollably at the mere thought of curry (although obviously not the culprit, guilty by association nonetheless), I assumed rather unproblematically, it seemed to me, that I had fallen victim to food poisoning.  But more on that in just a bit.  Needless to say, when I dragged what was left of my body to bed, my concern about the rat had completely vanished (no thanks for small blessings).  I would have no happily kept the animal as a pet, furnishing it with its own cabinet playground and guest room if it meant I would once again be able to keep food in my digestive system.

I was already thankful, though I had no energy to make use of it yet, that I had several packets of powdered chicken soup mix and bouillion in the cabinet, the rat cabinet I mean.  As a brief aside, I had won these prized food items in a 5-round game of Texas-Hold-Em with three other volunteers.  When one of our colleagues unexpectedly ET’ed (Early Terminated, in other words went back home to the United States) we had gambled her possessions away - far more valuable to us at this point than to her what with her imminent return to the land of malls and supermarkets.  I had been lucky enough to win her solar flashlight (a Christmas gift that had been given to all volunteers from the U.S. Ambassador) as well as these several packets of soup and bouillion.  But anyway, back to lying in bed, a mere shell of a human being.

As expected, the Fundi (think handyman, although the word refers to any skilled person) showed up at my house by 9:00 AM to continue his work fixing the doors in my courtyard.  As I had given him some avocados from my tree the previous day, he was kind enough to bring me a bag of carrots, fresh from his garden.  It was all I could do simply to walk outside, inform him that I was sick, thank him for his gift and promptly return to bed.  Something as basic to my life here as speaking Kiswahili was almost beyond me.  I did not even bother to lock the door to my courtyard as I threw myself back into bed.  Naturally, the Fundi reported to the teachers that I was out for the count, or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom.  Of course, they came by individually to visit, spacing out their housecalls just far enough apart to ensure that I could not get back to sleep.

When Tanzanians are sick, apparently, they love nothing more than to be visited all day long by a procession of friends and well-wishers.  I have tried to grasp this cultural incongruity.  “I look and feel like shit, need bed rest to recover, . . . what a perfect time to have company over!” And so, I found myself sitting and keeping company with my array of individual guests over the span of the morning and afternoon, in the very room where I had stalked The Rat not several hours earlier.  “Pole sana.” (I’m very sorry) I heard many times.  Asante sana (Thank you very much) I continued to reply.  This actually represented the bulk of my conversations.  What else to talk about?  Well, there’s vomiting, diarrhea, rodent infestation, what do you want to talk about?

Eventually, I would express how little sleep I had gotten (Pole sana, Asante sana) and excuse myself to bed, neglecting to see my visitors out or even close/lock the door for that matter.  I had at the time no patience for playing host and was still dumbfounded that I would be put into the position.  Nevertheless the sincere looks of concern from my guests kept my frustration from turning into bitterness or anger.  They meant well; we just were not on the same page - or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom.  However, the spontaneous attempts at diagnosis almost pushed me over the edge.

“You probably have malaria,” was the first bit of good cheer my guests spread with their arrival, engaging in helpful conversation.  “I don’t have malaria,” I insisted, “it was food poisoning.” Yet their zeal for misdiagnosis continued unabated.  “Maybe it is cholera.” Charming.  Just what I needed with my hair-trigger vomitous stomach, the taste of bile in my mouth and a possible rat infestation: the doomsday doctors to keep me from much needed sleep.  Of course, the malaria diagnosis I had come to expect.  Tanzanians tend to assume that the first sign of sickness is malaria.  Frankly, it’s not a bad impulse.  Treating yourself for malaria when you don’t actually have the disease is still preferable to death-by-malaria.  Then again, Tanzanians, in my observations, might call a general sickness malaria without bothering to take it seriously enough to treat.  Stigmatized diseases like HIV/AIDS are also usually disguised as malaria.  You don’t go to a funeral and hear that the cause of death was AIDS; it was malaria. 

As I said, the malaria thing I expected.  However, over the subsequent days, whenever discussion of my sickness arose (long after it had abated), the teachers refused to accept my diagnosis.  “I think maybe you were very tired from working in the garden,” I heard.  Fed up with this bizarre obstinancy, I finally snapped.  “Being tired from working in the garden doesn’t make you puke and shit your guts out!  My body was clearly getting rid of rotten food that I had re-cooked one time to many and it’s my own damn fault.  Trust me.  THIS WAS FOOD POISONING!”

“But, if you tell the Peace Corps that you had food poisoning,” one of the teachers said to me, “they will think someone has tried to poison you.”

“Oh,” I said, everything finally becoming clear to me.  “No,” I now calmly assured him, “food poisoning is just the name we use for describing the symptoms that come with eating rotten food.  The medical officers at the Peace Corps know this.  No one will think I was deliberately poisoned.”

How sweet.  They were worried I would be sent home.  Who could stay angry and dwell on such a thing?  In fact, I’m feeling better about it already.

Joshua Peace Corps Tanzania, Personal 7 Comments »