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