Village life, pt. 2

I've just managed to delete all the pictures on my memory card, because I'm an idiot, so there won't be any pictures this time which is sad because we did a photoshoot of me in my various African outfits that make me look like wallpaper. I also have have several pictures of me killing a chicken and subsequently questioning my humanity.

I'm at the start of a four week (!!) vacation throughout the northern part of Tanzania and Zanzibar. I'll document all the fun I'm having periodically so you all can be really jealous. The vacation could not have come at a better time. If anyone is interested in finding out what it's like to go crazy, just go to an African village and become bored. As a fellow volunteer described, "your brain starts to eat itself." If I had spent one more week in the village, I probably would have shaved my head and walked around with a glassy stare in my eye repeating, "the horror, the horror."

Anyway, on a brighter note:
I'd like to think I've become more a part of the Mdilidili community as time has gone on. The villagers have even given me a nickname, "Mwinyo Kwivava," which means "too salty" in Pongwe, the local tribal language. Here's the backstory: The mama that periodically stays at my house was trying to teach me new words in Pongwe. She mentioned "mwinyo kwivava" and I thought it sounded really funny so I just kept repeating it and singing it while dancing around the house. She and the other random people that live at my house were laughing so hard they almost choked on their ugali.
The next day, we had our daily meeting about nothing with the village chairman and the village executive officer. The village executive officer said something to me that I didn't understand, so instead of grinning stupidly like I usually do, I said, "mwinyo kwivava." They roared with laughter and kept saying "mwinyo kwivava" over and over. The next time they saw me, they screamed, "mwinyo kwivava!" and introduced me to their friends as "mwinyo kwivava." During the entire conversation, I just kept repeating mwinyo kwivava over and over again when anybody said anything to me. Everybody thought this was hilarious. Now when I walk down the street, people shout, "Mwinyo Kwivava!" and start laughing. I guess that's ok. The joke has evolved so that now we all shout "mwinyo kwinula," which means "not enough salt," and "mwinyo kwinoka," which means "the salt amount is just right."

Last weekend we held a community festival, (where they made me introduce myself as mwinyo kwivava) to raise awareness about HIV testing. To be honest, the festival really went off without a hitch, except that it started 5 hours late, (but that's ok, I was two hours late). I did a lot of standing around and looking confused, which is my usual job. We invited "Ngoma" dancers, which are traditional dancers. I'm not sure how traditional they really are, since half of them were jumping around blowing lifeguard whistles and the other half were chanting, "teenagers! stop having unprotected sex!"

It's been very interesting to be confronted on a daily basis with the challenges of working in foreign aid in an African country. As a white person, I'm just seen as somebody who will give away money, clothes, food, anything. I have students that come to my house and ask me to pay for their school fees because their parents are too poor. A few days ago a woman with a goiter the size of a melon on her neck asked me to pay for her medical care so she could have an operation. Last week a man came up to me and asked me to help find sponsors in America who would buy clothes and food for his orphanage. I said no. (well, first of all, I said no because this man, while he may very well have an orphanage, is well known as being kind of crazy). I told him to write a grant to a foundation and get the money himself. When I first got here and faced these types of questions I was really disturbed. We had been told not to give money to people, but when $40 can make the difference between whether a kid gets a secondary school certificate and can get a job or if he can't, then what are you supposed to do? If you can make that difference in one person's life, wouldn't it be worth it - more worth it than making the point that white people are NOT banks? I've been realizing that any amount of money I would give or help to give would just be detrimental to the problem. My mom said to me, "if the kids don't have shoes over there, can't we just send them shoes?" But if we sent everybody shoes, then what would happen to the shoesellers whose livelihoods depend on people actually BUYING shoes? Aren't we kind of messing with the natural order of things?

The real problem here is that there aren't enough jobs, (As my mother also wisely said, "It's not like the kid looking for school fees can just work at the local Burger King")...especially those funded by the government. Why aren't people building roads so that it doesn't take 6 hours to travel 60 km? Why isn't there a post office in my village? It seems that there are very few options besides running a shop and working in the farm if you don't have a university education, (and VERY few people have over a high school education).

There is an interesting story from last year about an SPW volunteer from Australia who used his father's inheritance to install solar panels so his village, (which is next to mine) could have electricity. SPW was pretty angry about it because they can't place another white volunteer there again because the villagers would expect something. In fact, Rehema told me that word had spread to our village and when the people saw me they were asking her which gifts I would bring.

more later...