A blurred moment of frightened chaos

The other day me and Maggie were walking down to the Kanga shop when we saw this HUGE mob of people who all of a sudden started sprinting toward us. A few seconds after they started sprinting we heard 3 gunshots fired and all at once the whole street of people started sprinting in every direction hunkering down and covering their heads as they ran. Cars were stopped as people were running into the street to get away from the gunshots and mob of people sprinting away from where the shots were fired. Me and maggie naturally feeling the chaotic, scared energy of this huge crowd sprinting everywhere started sprinting down the street. The street the gunshots were fired was a dead end street that blocked the area where our guest house was and where the main street was so i thought it would be smart to go down the next street over (parallel to the dead end street) to get to the main street. As we were about to turn some guy grabbed Maggies arm and was like "no not that way bad things happen there" so we kept running with him one block further to figure out what had happened. When we stopped we asked him in Kiswaenglish what had happened and apparently some guy had tried to rob the bank at the end of the dead end street. The big mob of people were people throwing rocks at him and the gunshots had come from the police trying to break everything up. Although I don't think anybody was actually shot I'm pretty sure the big mob of people originally sprinted because the police were pointing their guns at them as well as the thief. Although looking back I realize that we weren't in any real danger because it is almost impossible for regular people to get guns but in the moment with everything happening in the Islamic community, being the only two white people in the crowd we were a little afraid that we were an extremely easy target.

It's interesting here in Tanzania because instances where civilians mob up together to beat up a thief happen a lot. Even our swahili teachers saw two banana thieves getting beat up on their way to school one day. In a way it is kind of cool the way people will come together to help each other punish people trying to steal. In the states I feel like a lot of times some people will call 911 and watch from a safe distance but here people come together to help each other protect their livelihoods which in a way kind of makes me feel safer...as long as I don't try and steal any bananas or rob any banks.

Mazumbai ISP prep days

Just got back from Mazumbai doing ISP prep stuff and it was definitely an experience getting there and back. Me and my friend Maggie went to go buy the bus tickets which was completely chaotic in itself but once we finally found the TINY little office we bought the bus tickets and showed up there the next morning at 530 am. What we thought was going to be somewhat like a greyhound in the U.S. turned out to be more or less like a glorified Dola Dola. Getting out of Arusha to Moshi, which is usually an hour, took 2 hours because of the amount of stops we took to pick up more people along the way. To pick up people sometimes the bus would stop but more often than not it would slow down enough for people to make a running start and hop on. There were even three people who took piki pikis up to the door of the bus and jumped on the bus when it was stopped waiting to turn. By the time we got to Moshi to have our one and only pee break, every seat in the bus had been filled yet during the next 4 to 5 hours we kept picking up more and more people until the bus was PACKED. There were people standing and sitting in every possible area and at one point I realized the woman standing next to me had three chickens in her purse. Basically everybody and their chickens were on this bus. Whenever we passed or got near a police outpost the ticket guy would make this "shh shh shh" sound and motion for everybody to sit and crouch down so that we wouldn't get pulled over by the police. By the fifth hour all of us were exhausted from a very limited amount sleep the night before, a early and stressful morning, and we were hot, carsick, cramped, our butts were sore from a constant stream of speed bumps ( the only form of speed control in Tanzania) and ready to be off that bus but we still had two more hours on a cramped hot bus with a bag of beans falling on me and Maggies head (some guy had put his plastic bag full of beans on the shelf about our head but bump after bump after bump the beans kept falling through the cracks). But after 7 hours of traveling on that bus we finally made it to Sony were this guy picked us all up and took us another 2 hours up the mountain. (not exactly the best drive either but at least it was pretty and not stuffy).

            Mazumbai as usual is beautiful and the eight people who are up here with me doing their own research are some of my best friends on the trip. We work so well together and interact like a little college family. Its so nice to be able to come home after a morning of work and feel totally comfortable to do whatever I please. Were all doing such different projects that its also been super interesting to learn about other peoples projects while also doing your own.

So my project is looking at the Valley bottom cash crops of Mgwashi and Sagara Villages and seeing how the growing of cash crops is affecting the soil quality of their farms as well the economic livelihoods of the farmers. Because cash crops usually take up more nutrients even with crop ration I’m hypothesizing that they have to use a lot more fertilizers and pesticides to combat nutrient and pest issues. This in turn I hypothesize is taking a big economic toll on the farmers because market prices aren’t the best. In doing only two days of research I think a lot of my hypothesis will be true. I have found that farmers who can’t afford fertilizers can only grow beans and if they can afford fertilizers they either use Dap, Uleah (both solid forms of fertlizer), or booster (a spray). Also because water flows along fault lines, the Valley bottom is the natural flow of water and because of this farmers are having problems with erosion. Because the crops they plant now can’t hold down the soil when the big rains come the soil is eroding very easily. To gather information I will be making the 1.5 hour trek down the mountain with my translator Abe and conducting mostly interviews with both the women and male farmers from Mgwashi and Sagara villages, then hiking 2 hours back up the mountain. I will also be taking soil samples from their farms to see the soil sizes and types and see if the soil is unanimously spread throughout the valley bottom or if there is a mix.

            Also mom I got you letters and since you have been asking I have gotten maybe 2 or 3 mosquito bites here…weird I know. But I did get my first bout of food poisoning and threw up with a fever for about 12 hours. I had been craving a pepper all of homestay because I was chopping them up everyday and in my exhausted hungry haze I bought and ate one forgetting that the number one rule here is don’t eat raw food… oh well live and learn! 

Chameleons were EVERYWHERE, literally dropping out of trees onto our laps, we saw chameleons turning color, having sex and sunbathing on our heads. One of my friends is doing his project on chameleons and knows a lot about them but he was super excited at the sheer abundance of them in Mazumbai and in the forest. 

            

Pictures from Homestay

Pictures from catching crabs and making them fight the first weekend 

Crab caught on the root. 

My Baba

the 3rd kid is my brother Amon

In and around the house: 

about a third of the kids who hang around my house. They loved showing off for the camera. 

Junior on Babas piki piki. he would get on it and make "vrroom vrroom" noises. although he would do this all around the house with sticks or chairs or anything really. 

Momma Junior

 Denise playing frisbee with his baby brother  

strapped to his back. He was really good. 

 My view on the way to school

Me and my friend Maggie

My friends Maggie and Bergen

My Momma

Momma and Baba

Coolest Brother 

Chawdema flag

Our favorite little bar we named the "meat hook" becuase there was a giant meat hook in it. There were many traditions and rules made for it but one of them was no smiling in pictures hence all the straight faces. 

Mazumbai crew

Homestay: the middle and end

Government:

            While we have been in Bangata the two political parties ( CCM, the current party, and Chadema the young party) have been campaigning up and down the streets everyday.  This campaigning consists of supporters driving up and down the main (only big road) road with a big microphone and music playing the parties theme song or chanting their moto’s. There have been rallies, parades and the daily cars driving by blaring music and chants. It has been really interesting to witness the election process of Tanzania and talk with my family and other people about each political party and why they like them. For the most part the majority of people that my friends and I have talked to don’t really know exactly why they support a certain party they just do. For instance most people here supporting Chudema support it because it brings a change, although they can’t put into words what that change is or what they represent. CCM supporters on the other hand for the most part are the same only supporting them because they feel they have done a good job and they hand out baseball hats and kangas every election year. And although the majority of the people don’t really know what each party stands for there are people who really know whats going on and they provide interesting takes on each party. CCM supporters for the most part say yes they have their flaws but so will Chadema once they take office while Chadema supporters have a lot of Beef with CCM which basically all surrounds the corruption.

For me not knowing much about either party I feel CCM is definitely corrupt with the NGO’s and other fiscal issues, but they know how to run a government for the most part while Chadema although new, fresh and young will also be persuaded to be corrupt and because they are young and none of them have ever held any office position I feel they will not know how to run a governmental system as big as Tanzania. This being said I think for Tanzania at this point the fact that they even have an oppositional party is a HUGE STEP! A friend and I were talking to a Chadema supporter named Barnabus and he was saying how to run for a governmental position you could have never been in jail. In Tanzania it is incredibly easy to put somebody in jail aka you just put them in there, therefore CCM in the past has figured out ways to put any hint of an opposition in jail and thus cut them from the race, this happened to Barnubus. Coming from America where this blatant of corruption never happens it was incredibly interesting and eye opening to talk first hand to a guy who had experienced this kind of direct corruption. Although America has its issues surrounding the election process, witnessing and learning about Tanzania’s elections has made me incredibly thankful to live in such a democratic society.

Other random corruption regarding the voting process

1.     The voting system in place makes it so you have to vote where you are registered. So people who work outside of where they live are left to dry coming voting day if they aren’t home.

2.     Schools will register kids of voting age but CCM has closed those schools on Voting day so that the students can’t vote.

Homestay lasting thoughts

            Homestay overall was an amazing experience. It definitely had its rough patches and has without doubt been the hardest part of this trip but I think it will be the part of the program I take away the most from. Although my homestay family was amazing and I will really miss them it was hard to ever feel totally comfortable at home unless I was falling asleep. I was never totally sure what I was doing and not being able to eat when I want, take a break and just lounge around or not feel bad because I wasn’t helping mamma, playing with the kids or doing something to help with the household work definitely took it’s toll on me. Being away from home but also in a home definitely reminded me a lot of everybody at home and the little things would make me homesick. Especially when I had to go pee and couldn’t open the door I really missed having toilets inside the house… Around mid homestay I was getting mentally exhausted from 4 hours of Kiswahili in the morning then other school stuff in the afternoon, then going home and having to communicate solely in Kiswahili while also playing with kids or helping momma so by the end of the day my brain hurt and my body was exhausted. It was hard to constantly be around people and have the only alone time be while I was going to bed or the occasional visit to the toilet when I didn’t have kids talking to me through the door. It was crazy to live in a reality where even among us students the girls had to do a lot more work while the boys walked the cows or got drunk with their Baba’s. There would be days when I felt like I couldn’t speak Swahili, I was frustrated that I couldn’t peel tomatoes, I couldn’t poop, I couldn’t talk to my friends back home, I couldn’t eat coco puffs or the normal part of a cow and I couldn’t lounge on the couch doing nothing and not feel bad about it. Those were the days in which it was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel (I know it’s a cheesy saying), but that being said the last few days at homestay has been awesome. I felt closer to my momma and brothers, I could peel tomatoes like a pro and I didn’t even crave coco puffs.

            Also on a random note, to all the Frisbee players I have a new conception of what the term “carb up means”. Literally in one day I will have 4 pieces of white bread for breakfast, fried donut things for chai time, rice/ chipati/ spaghetti/ ugalli/ some big empty white carb for lunch and then for dinner more empty highly processed carbs. All we eat here is carbs, spinach, some other vegetables and sometimes some type of meat from usually somewhat questionable parts of the animal. I have never eaten so many carbs in my life.

Momma:

I became extremely close with my momma and I will miss her a lot and she has said she will cry when I leave. Although we could never talk about anything of true significance because of the language barrier I feel that she considered me one of her own kids because of the way she treated me. She held my hand in the crowded market so I wouldn’t get separated from her, she arranged play dates and people to walk me to school, she taught me how to cook and do laundry and when I thought I was having an appendicitis (long story but thanks America mom for reassuring me that it wasn’t) she tried everything in her power to help me feel better. And although eating more food wasn’t exactly the solution to that problem it is the cure all for Bangatans and the fact that she exhausted her ideas for remedies meant a lot.

            Momma was my teacher and honestly probably helped me learn the most Swahili. She was an incredible source of knowledge about bangatan culture and even bought me fabric at the market to have a dress made for me. Momma couldn’t have been much older than me but she always worked her butt off and every time I felt annoyed or tired I thought about Momma and realized I shouldn’t be complaining. 

Brother and his friends:            

I finally figured out who Amon is, he is my moms little brother and I grew way closer to him as well. because he has so much responsibility around the house and does so many different chores I sometimes forgot that he was only tweleve but when we would play and I would tickle him or goof off with him I realized that he was still just a kid. Kids here are given so much responsibility from such a young age and are expected to do SOOO MUCH! Amon alone wakes up around 6 starts sweeping the yard then helps make the morning tea then goes to school. Once back intermingled with play he feeds the cows, watches junior, helps cook, fetches fire wood, washes his cloths, gets supplies from the Duka, and in general does anything Momma needs him to do. This culture of work among the children exists with every kid I have met. There is one boy Denise who is ALWAYS watching his baby brother, I never see him without him and Denise is probably 10 or 12 and seems to be in charge of this kid. Kids as young as 5 are expected to help out around the house an incredible amount. Parents of kids now, when every your kid starts complaining about the few chores they have to do tell them that as soon as kids get home from school in Tanzania they get straight to work doing “childrens work” which consists of but is not limited to: fetching water and wood, cooking, watching their siblings, sweeping the yard/house, washing dishes by hand, washing cloths by hand, getting whatever momma needs from the store, or feeding the animals and they do this everyday. ON average they probably spend close to about half their free time after school doing chore work.

Trash:

            The idea of waste management in Tanzania does not really exist. To throw any trash I might have away I throw it in the “garbage can”  which is literally a tree that they then burn every once in awhile. When not at home, to throw away banana peels, orange peels, or even plain old trash you just throw it on the ground. My whole life it has been so ingrained in me to throw trash away in the trashcan and recycle everything I can, yet here even thinking about recycling is useless when they don’t even have a system in place for trash. It takes almost all my will power to throw trash on the ground or on a tree because I have such a moral dilemma/ block to throw trash on the ground. Even tossing fruit peels feels so incredibly wrong. So far for the last three weeks I have saved all my trash in my room and have yet to figure out what to do with it, who knows maybe I’ll just end up coming back to the U.S. with it?

Everybody else:

            I think one of the most tiring parts of being here was the 30 minute walk to and from school having to say high to everybody I passed. It definitely got to you to constantly greet EVERYBODY. Coming from the west coast I am used to a friendly smile from total strangers and the occasional hello but here a regular greeting to almost everybody you see is as follows: (older person)

1. Muzungu (white person)
2. Shikamo ( May I touch your feet)
3. Marahaba, Hujambo (yes, ____)
4. Sijambo ( no ____
5. Habari za asubuhi/mchana/jioni ( whats the news of the morning…)
6. Nzuri, na wewe (good and you?)
7. Nzuri, pole (good, sorry (for walking))
8. Asante pole ( Thank you, sorry for walking)
9. Asante, kwa heri ( thank you, bye)
10. Kwa heri. (bye)

And when it wasn’t this it was something else along these lines, sometimes shorter sometimes longer but normally something of this length. At first it was charming and really nice to feel a part of a culture that values personal face to face relationships so much but after a long day, being watched by everybody and talked to by everybody because you’re a white student got hard. I think the hardest part was being called Mzungu every freaking day. It got to the point where people who knew my name would still call me Mzungu and I would retort back nina itwa ABBY! ( my name is ABBY!). While it was increadibly hard to deal with I think it was a really important experience for me to have to be in the minority and feel like I was always being watched, judged , evaluated, and  picked out of the  crowed because of the color of my skin. I have never in my life been in a minority to this extent and it was definitely hard to deal with at times. By the end of the homestay I had to hold back at shouting NINA ITWA ABBY at anybody who called me Mzungu.

A statistic becomes a reality

On a completely different note. On Thursday morning one of my classmates found out that his little one 5 month old sister had died. He doesn’t know the cause or anything like that but she was sick two days ago went to the hospital and died there last night. You always here about baby surivival rates and how even now their declining but I never realized that I would be connected to this statistic, and even though I had never met baby Bill Gate it was still a huge blow to hear about that this morning. It was interesting because Dylan (the kid who lives there) said when he woke up he said the normal greetings “habari za asuhubui” and they replied back “Nzuri”. Its so ingrained in their culture to never say Mbaya (bad) that even when something this tramatic and devastating happens they without a second thought reply “Nzuri” (good). 

 There was a funeral for the Baby on friday and it was an all day event where people were in and out of the house paying their respects to the parents and then they buried her on the farm. 

Random Pictures from the whole trip

Masaii 

First church experience 

Hornbill

Masaii

Forester

Maasai Jewelry 

Tarangeri

Normal Mode of Transport

Tarangeri

West Usambara Mountain house (Supported by sticks)

Mayo village transport

Mayo farmers

Mayo/ Mazumbai

hut on the edge of a STEEP hill

Sign at the entrance to Lake Minyara

Last night

This is really embarassing story but i thought id share it anyways. So last night I made the mistake of drinking two glasses of water before I went to bed so this morning at about 5:30 I woke up and HAD TO PEE!!! This had happened before and I knew the back door was almost impossible to unlock so i tried the front door and after opening the 2 locks i realized that I needed the key to actually open the door so I ran to the back door opened the first lock then squatted down to try and unlock the second really hard lock. As i was squatting down i realized i couldn't hold my pee in anymore as I literally started peeing my pants a little bit so I started freaking out and ran into the "dirty dishes" room and grabbed a bowl from last night and proceeded to relieve my bladder. The bowl kept filling up more and more and I realized that the bowl wasn't big enough so I made myself stop and tried to throw some of the pee out the window the only problem was the windows are bared from the inside so as i tried and throw some of it out it didnt' work and I had pee dripping down the wall. So at this point I was kinda freaking out and a little embarrassed so I changed out of my sweatpants and decided that all I could do was go back to bed.
So i woke up this morning and ran to the bathroom then walked back to my room and decided the best thing to do was empty the pee bowl into a ziplock bag, but I still had the problem of the now REALLY dirty bowl. In the mornings I usually do the dishes for momma so this morning I made sure that i was able to wash them, snuck into my room and sneakily got the pee bowl outside to wash. All in all it turned out fine but it was one of the most embarrassing nights I'v had here yet.

A day in the life

Everyday is getting better and better as I can communicate better and better with my family. I have gotten a pretty regular schedule down during the week but this weekend I had no idea what to expect and realized my whole weekend was pretty much in the hands of my host family. On Saturday at 645 my momma knocked on my door saying “mambo Abby!” and so I realized that it was probably time to get out of bed. That morning I helped momma clean the WHOLE house meaning washing all the windows, sweeping both the inside and outside of the house, watering down the inside and outside floors, cleaning the bathroom and shower, washing dishes, doing laundry, and chopping wood all before breakfast which was around 8ish. After breakfast I went with Baba to Bibis house and met 1 of my Babas 3 or 4 sisters and 1 of Babas 7 brothers. As we were leaving they asked me if I had a camera, I said yes, so we grabbed it and proceeded to scramble down a mountain to this awesome waterfall. At the waterfall my brother, Baba and a bunch of other boys got sticks and this root thing and started to catch crabs. After they caught the crabs they put them near each other on the beach so they would start fighting, it was definitely an interesting cultural experience to say the least. After the crab ordeal we went back home and I went and hung out with a few friends, returned home, finished up the laundry and helped momma with dinner.

            On Sunday I was able to sleep in a bit (7am), showered, ate, did dishes and then went to church with my momma. We got to church which was basically a building made out of half logs with some benches in it. The men were all on one side and the women on the other and the whole sermon was in Kiswahili. At one point the pastor started talking to me and he made me come up to the front of the congregations and in Kiswahili and English for some reason explain who I was, where I came from and what I was doing here. After that throughout the service the pastor would say praise the lord and only I would have to say praise the lord back, it was a little embarrassing. After church we went home cooked lunch ate and then my momma took me on a long walk to a couple of my friends houses. We decided that our mommas had literally planned a play date for us. After “playing” with all my friends momma and I headed home. On the way home I said “shikamo” to a old man and he invited me into his backyard to show me all his ducks. After letting them all out he was trying to tell me how to say duck and got 2 inches away from my face over pronouncing duck (badu) it was definitely a Tanzanian experience to be invited into a random strangers house to be shown all their ducks and have him so close to my face, but I was totally comfortable the whole time.

            After learning all about his ducks we started walking to what I thought was home but ended up being a 2 hour walk through town visiting and running into about half of my Babas brothers, conversing and having chai with most of them. Once we finally got home there were about 20, 10 year olds waiting to play so we played tag for about an hour the only catch is I am always it. Always. The day ended with junior pooping on me so I cleaned my kanga helped make dinner and went to bed.

           Its been really interesting being here and observing the gender and age differences. My momma definitely does WAY more than my baba and I'm always so surprised how much work my twelve year old brother does. I always forget how young he is until we play and he giggles and plays like a regular twelve year old. But my momma wakes up way before Baba, works all day and then stays up later while baba just goes into Arusha and is a motor cycle taxi driver. And not to say that baba doesn't work hard because he does do a fair amount of work around the house but in general the women and kids here have to do so much more than the Babas. 

Also random note im pretty sure my momma arranges to have people walk with me everywhere because whenever I go anywhere ( school, friends, dukas (shops)) my momma has a “companion!” to go with me.