A Winter Solstice in the Summer

Today is the first day of winter at home, and though those seasons don’t apply down here, it is still hard to think that it is mid-December.   The countless inconstancies with the current season have me wondering what time of year it really is.  When you’ve lost your time-markers, time seems to stand still. In fact, I haven’t even registered fall yet.  I missed the state fair for the first time in years, Halloween slipped by without even a tootsie roll, and Thanksgiving was relegated to chicken soup (though it was good).

The days here are as long as ever – the sun always sets at the same time and in the same place.  It’s nice to be able to wake up with the sun and walk home before dark, but it is amazing how much constant-length days distort one’s sense of time. 

It doesn’t help that the landscape is an emerald Minnesota only experiences in the spring.  There are roses outside our front door and flowers are blooming everywhere, though the poinsettias in our front yard are on the decline.  Much to my delight, there are even dandelions blooming in our backyard.

Furthermore, there isn’t a trace of snow anywhere except up on the mountain.  Actually, I’m sitting around in shorts and a t-shirt.  We’ve been here over three months and its pretty much still looks the same (if anything, it’s greener, which just confuses my mind more).  Now we are on the verge of Christmas and I highly doubt that it will be a white one. 

No snow is just the beginning of the lack of holiday decorations.  The only Christmas tree I’ve seen was a four foot plastic tree slung over the shoulder of a sidewalk pedestrian.  There are no inflatable Santa Clauses, window decals, and worst of all, no Christmas lights.  Our festivity has only extended to the paper snowflakes in our living room. 

Though summer in the winter is confusing, I can’t say it isn’t appreciated.  I have no remorse for not having to bundle in so many layers that you are forced to waddle like a penguin, or shovel wet, heavy snow, or loose sensation in your ears and toes trekking to and from class.  Though I can’t go sledding and I miss Christmas lights, I could get used to long, sunny days. 

Send the Ark

Living on a mountain, I never would have though I would need to worry about floods. However, life has a funny way of dealing out the unexpected.

One day, coming back from the Secondary School, I thought, “A nice, refreshing shower will be nice when I get home.” Ten minutes later, hot and sweaty, I arrived home. But upon opening the door, I was welcomed not by a shower, but a bath. The entire entry was flooded with water and the damage continued on to the other rooms. A good inch of water stood in the entryway, hallway, both bedrooms and the bathroom had closer to two inches. From the outside of the house, you could see the water coming out of the bathroom outside wall.

I quickly surveyed the damage. Nothing seemed too bad – a few wet pairs of shoes and a wet laundry basket. I grabbed a broom and began the slow and difficult task of sweeping the water out of the house. The problem with water is its fluidity. When you sweep the water in one direction it has a tendency to fan out and end up where you didn’t want it. You learn to sweep fast enough to keep the water somewhat together but slow enough to be able to beat the water to the end of the hallway where you have to change it’s direction to keep get the water out of the house instead of into the kitchen.

No, it wasn’t the rains that had flooded our house, but our hot water heater. The heater, little more than a rusty tin can, had started to leak after I left in the morning and had nearly flooded the house by the time I had returned home in the afternoon.

Since that incident, we have been forced to take cold showers and keep a bucket of water under the heater to catch the drips. We have been informed that a new heater will be installed soon, but ‘soon’ on a Tanzanian timescale is tantamount to ‘eventually’. At least we will be conserving more water and energy this way.

The Dance

In memory of John Boniphace Mwakilasa

7 December 1984 –8 December 2009

Professor Cindy Johnson

I am a professor of biology. Teaching is my calling, my passion and love. It is through teaching that I am freest to express my true self. I can play. Teaching is a playful dance staged in the wonders of biology. As the student learns the steps, the dance becomes a thing of beauty. Teacher and student, both rise to new ideas, inspirations and questions. The probing is deep and the awe is profound. The dance contains elements of a spiritual quest for a deep connection to one another and to the study of life.

The dance transcends culture, language and politics. We are all dancers, swirling around in a kaleidoscope of images, colors and discovery. I am dancing in Tanzania, teaching at the College of African Wildlife Management in Mweka as a Fulbright Scholar. My students are a mix of tribal heritages, Chagga, Maasai and Meru; all are African. I am American. They take me in with my broken Kiswahili. Few can withstand the temptation of the dance and soon they are swirling enthusiastically.

In so many ways these students are a world apart from my students in the United States. Few own computers or other electronic gadgets. Almost none have earplugs and iPods dangling about. Few have pierced body parts or tattoos. Most are better dressed than American professors; ties, dress pants and skirts are the norm here. The thought of showing up in pajamas or sweat pants is unfathomable. They are courteous and frequently offer to carry my class materials to and from class. There are no textbooks and they share a few precious library books. Few have traveled outside Tanzania.

Yet, at the same time they are like students anywhere. Some are curious and motivated; others go through the motions only because it is required. An embarrassed student gropes to find the errant ringing cell phone as others look on with annoyance. They whisper to their friends, secrets that professors don’t and shouldn’t know. They linger to talk biology, ask questions or teach an impromptu lesson in Kiswahili. A question after class gathers them like moths to a light.

Like students around the world, they laugh hard and dance hard. They hang out with friends, teasing one another. They groan when assignments are long and hard. They cringe or seek high 5’s with assessment results. They struggle with concepts and rejoice when it all comes together. The excitement of discovery and new ideas motivates them and the sheer drudgery of learning discourages them. They beam with the smallest bit of attention.

I am blessed. Over the years of teaching I have come to understand my calling. Though plants are my passion, it is education and working with young adults that is my calling. I am privileged to work with the best and brightest of our youth as well as the confused and conflicted. Perhaps it is the eternal optimist in me that relishes this work with young people. They are indeed full of hope, promise and energy. It is they who see the way where no one else has succeeded. It is they who abandon reason and follow instinct. It is they who are fresh and not jaded by life. It is they who step forward laughing with a mischievous spark. It is they who embrace life, full of promise and adventure.

Yesterday one of our students died in a car accident. I knew him only for a short while, but my heart grieves for his family and friends. As an ‘elder’ I have experienced the death of friends and family; it never gets easier. The loss of this young man perched on the edge of the world ready to launch hits me especially hard. As a biologist I know that juvenile mortality is a fact of life, but as a dancer I grieve the loss of the promise, the vitality, the very essence and joy of life.

I cannot say anything about his life or whether it was lived fully. I know nothing about his family. I know nothing about his dreams. But, I do know that this young man was hopeful, expectant of life and full of promise. Seeking answers we pose questions. Why? What are the lessons here? What have we learned? Time and community will help us process this loss, but each of us must seek meaning independently. For me, I am reminded that the promise and joy of life doesn’t belong solely to young people. We must carry it throughout our lives. To do otherwise is to denigrate those who didn’t have the opportunity.

I can think of no other dance I’d rather do. I am a teacher of biology and a student of life and death. I’ve learned many new steps in this dance. It is an eternal celebration of the relationship between teacher and student, mentor and mentee, elder and youth, parent and child; a celebration of life and all that we have to learn about living and dying. To dance is to embrace life, to honor the sacred. Our time is brief, the music is sweet, let us dance.

What’s in a name?

As would be expected, names here are different than ones you might find in the United States.  I’ve compiled a short sampling of some more common and unique names of my students bellow. 

• Philbert
• Wilbard
• Baraka
• Godlove
• Mary
• Restituta
• Amani
• Goodluck
• Norberth
• Heavenlight
• John
• Novatus
• Chrispin
• Lukresia
• Frida
• Innocent
• Peter
• Khalid
• Urbani
• Emmanuel
• Happy
• Boniphace
• Benedict

Though at first, some of the names like Innocent and Goodluck may seem strange to an English-speaker, consider some the fact that many American names have meanings in other languages.  For example, my own name means ‘times’ in Swahili.

Graduation

A few weeks back, the college had its annual graduation ceremony.  Though Mweka College has the familiar schedule of a August-June school year, graduation is in the fall. 

This graduation was very similar to an American one.  The campus was decorated with green, yellow, blue and black, plastic lawn chairs were arranged in neat rows, and parents lined up to take pictures of their graduates.  There were even long speeches (though not all in English), restless children traditional and graduation robes and hats (though the Tanzanian ensemble included a coloured sash corresponding to the diploma type).

Before the ceremony began, women with plastic flower leis lined a sidewalk to sell to friends and family members of the graduates.  The leis were then presented to the graduate, sometimes with a gift, after the graduate had gotten their diploma.    

After the ceremony, more sellers lined up with freshly printed pictures of the graduates for the families to purchase.   

Pass the turkey

Consider that Thanksgiving festivities you enjoyed last week. It probably included getting together with family and friends for a big home-cooked meal, maybe some card games and parade viewing or football playing or watching.  Now what would you do if you had half of a kitchen (the half without an oven) your friends and family were thousands of miles away and the Macy’s Parade wasn’t broadcast on any of the local channels?  Why, you would improvise of course. 

What to do about that turkey dinner.  Hmmm?  We couldn’t exactly have a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner seeing as we were missing quite a few ingredients, namely a turkey.  And had we a turkey, what would we have done with it?  We had no stuffing, a limited repertoire of spices and our cooker would not even have been big enough to accommodate a small bird.  So, what to do?  Let’s see, we have some chicken.  That's a bird.  Close enough.  Don’t even think about pumpkin pie or cranberries; there’s no way that could happen.  We ended up making ourselves a lovely meal of chicken noodle soup (which was actually quite good) and peanut butter cookies.  Not exactly a feast, but it worked. 

Since I haven’t a good handle on apparation yet, spending Thanksgiving with family was out of the question.  We settled for inviting a group of students from the college over for a few games of cards.  Twelve of us crowded around our rickety dinning table sitting on a variety of chairs and foot stools.  There are only a few card games you can play with so many people but there is one suited for large groups.  Spoons.  Since our limited kitchen only had four spoons we needed to acquire more in order to play.  Luckily the students were able to scrounge up some and dutifully whipped spoons out of jackets and pants pockets on cue.  What ensued was a rather intense session of Spoons, including fervent concentration, cross-table diving, and bent cards.  The game quickly became quite competitive but was enjoyed by all. 

Though are Thanksgiving was far from traditional, it was very agreeable. 

Driving

Driving in Tanzania is an experience in itself. Despite the overall laid back manner of people in Tanzania, they drive like maniacs.

When driving in Tanzania, there are a lot of things to pay attention to. The most obvious is that to remember to stay on the left side of the road. Thanks to a brief stint of British colonialism, Tanzania is in the minority of left-sided-driving countries

Once you’ve conquered staying in the correct lane, you have to watch out for speed bumps. Speed bumps here come in many flavors and can be found around every corner. Some of them are low and wide and can be crossed at high speeds. Others are only a few inches wide but quite tall and require a creeping pace. There are even little speed bumps to warn you of upcoming bigger speed bumps. And of course none of the speed bumps are marked in anyway so you have to be on a constant lookout for weird shadows on the asphalt.

When you’re not looking for speed bumps, you have to be aware of the daladalas. The public transportation of Tanzania is the daladala. These are Scooby-doo vans with windows and are invariably crammed with passengers. They often stop to unload and pickup passengers and will pull out in front of oncoming traffic whenever they feel like it.

Luckily, there are a series of signals to indicate driver intention, though they can be a bit complex. There are light signals to say, “You can pass now” or “If you pass, we’ll both crash.” Tanzanian drivers also use the car horn frequently, though I’m not always sure why. There is is an additional cohort of signals that I have not been able to decipher so far.

Also, you have to mind the pedestrians and bicyclists. Unlike in the States, it is common for people to walk along the road. And though they won’t pull out in front of you like a daladala might, they are yet another thing to be conscious of. Bikers are more dangerous. They often have long bundles of lumber tied on the back or a big pile of grass strapped behind the seat. They also have a tendency to weave in and out of traffic making them an unpredictable variable.

It doesn’t help that traffic rules are suggestions. Speed limits are flexible. A sign may say 50km/hr but 100km/hr is close enough. And when there is no one else on the road, why not just drive down the middle? A few years ago, a stoplight was put up in Arusha. The result was not better driving, but more accidents as no one paid attention to the newly installed stoplight.

Though traffic rules hold little sway, police officers are prevalent and often pull drivers over for periodic vehicle checks. Vehicles are required to have multiple stickers and also be equipped with safety flags, and a mini fire extinguisher in case of emergency.

We have been slowly adjusting to Tanzanian driving and have not gotten into an accident (yet).

Hello?

As part of our journey down the long path of Swahili fluency, we have been trying to master greetings.  Though this sounds simple enough, I assure you, it is no simple task.  Everyone tells us that Swahili is an easy language to learn, but I’m not yet convinced. 

In English, there are a couple greetings that work for all occasions and a few standard responses.  In Swahili, things get a little more complicated.  Greetings depend on the time of day, and the age of the person being greeted.  Additionally, each greeting has it’s own answer that cannot be interchanged with any other greeting-answer.  Time-based greeting are easy.  It’s a simple matter of inserting the right time word (asubuhi, mchana, jioni, etc.) into the sentence. 

However, when you get to greetings based on age, you really have to think.  If the person is older than you, you say, “Shikamoo”, to which the correct response is “marahaba”.  Younger people greet each other with “Mambo vipi” (and the reply ‘poa’). And remember, don’t mix the responses! 

Though learning the phrases is easy enough, using them is more difficult.  When you pass someone on the street who is slightly older than you, should you use the formal ‘shikamoo’ or is appropriate to say ‘mambo’? Should you wait for a child to address you with ‘shikamoo’ or can you initiate with ‘mambo’?  Keep in mind that these are the greetings that we have mastered – there are even more we are less familiar with. 

Once you get beyond greetings, you find that Swahili is a very structured language.  There are a lot of rules, but very few exceptions.  Swahili is like Spanish in that the verb has to be conjugated to fit the person along with the tense.  Fortunately, in Swahili the conjugating is nearly always the same and doesn’t vary with the verb like Spanish. 

Though verbs are relatively easy, adjectives can be tricky.  Adjectives take a certain prefix  depending on the noun class and plurality of the noun being described.  Unlike in English where most plural nouns  receive an ‘s’ or ‘es’, Swahili nouns fall in to various classes which are pluralized multiple ways.  For example, ‘kitabu’ (book) becomes ‘vitabu’ in plural form but ‘mtoto’ (child) turns in to ‘watoto’  and ‘mbwa’ stays ‘mbwa’  no matter how many dogs there are.  These examples are just three of many noun classes.  Once you figure out the noun class and plurality of the noun, you have to conjugate the adjective to fit. 

Swahili, as you may have noticed, is packed with double consonants.  There are a lot of words with mw, mb, ng, kw, mn, or mt.  People say that Swahili is pronounced like it sounds (which I maintain can be said by any speaker of his/her native language.  Think about it.).  I don’t know about you, but I was never taught the pronunciation of ‘mk’ words when I was a toddler.  Though Swahili and English share a similar alphabet (there is no q in Swahili), some Swahili words are difficult for an untrained English mouth. 

Fortunately for us, good-byes are limited to a couple variations.  ‘Kwa heri’ is the standard ‘good-bye’, ‘Usiku mwema’ means ‘good night’, and ‘baadae’ is the slang  for ‘later’.  With that in mind, kwa herini until next time!

Type to Learn

A few days back, I headed to the Nsoo Secondary School for another day of teaching.  I was running a little late and once reaching the school, headed straight for the classroom.  Before I reached my destination, I was intercepted by the school’s secretary, Mary.  She said the headmaster wanted a word with me.  I told her that I had class then, and perhaps I could speak to him afterwards?  No, she said, it’s urgent. So off I go with Mary. 

Upon entering his office, I saw the headmaster squished behind his desk which was pilled with messy stacks of dog-eared papers.  Head in hands, he motioned me to sit at the  chair in front of the desk which is always facing the wall, perpendicular to the headmaster.

The head master sighed once and said, “We have a problem.”  Uh-oh, I thought, this doesn’t sound good.  Hundreds of possibilities flooded my head.  What could this be about?  They weren’t going to fire me, were they? 

“Yes?” I asked, mentally rifling through all of the possibilities in my head.

“Final exams are next week and our typist is gone.  We need someone to type them up.  Could you do that?” he asked, fiddling with a blue pen.  Much relieved that I wasn’t going to be fired from my volunteering job, I eagerly agreed to the task and went to class.

Later that afternoon, I was flagged down by Mary again.  She led me to a backroom, unlocked a heavily padlocked cabinet and pulled out a huge stack of papers.  Warily, I eyed the thick pile of exams.  It was a lot more than I had bargained for.  She cheerfully handed over the papers and thanked me profusely.  I had the notion that if it wasn’t for me, she would have had to type all of the exams up. 

Once home, I settled in to type exams.  The work was more interesting than I had expected it.  Knowing little about the Tanzanian school system and curriculum, it was interesting to see what these students were learning and compare it to my high school education.  Though  the material covered is similar, the delivery method is different.  Unlike in an American high school were you can choose which classes to take, in Tanzania you have no choice.  The courses are also maintained throughout the year and repeated at higher levels in subsequent years. 

I returned to the school the following day with half of the papers typed only to find that they didn’t have power and I couldn’t give them the typed exams. 

“Come back tomorrow,” Mary said. “Hopefully we will have power then.  Oh, and here are some more exams.”  She handed me another stack, though this one wasn’t as large. 

All in all, I typed up over 20 final exams (which were no little tests, by the way) on every subject ranging from Math to Bible Study to English (which, surprisingly, had a few grammar mistakes).

Tales from Safari (edition V)

Mud in Tanzania is unlike any other mud I have experienced.  After a good rain, the lowland roads on the coast turn to sticky black molasses.  The soil absorbs extreme amounts of water and grab at everything that passes.  Especially vehicles.  On our return to Mweka, we found ourselves stuck in the mud several times.

Driving in the mud seems to be even more difficult than driving on snow or ice.  Luckily we had exceptional drivers that could keep the momentum going while still keeping the vehicle in control.  We bounced along, fishtailing and soon our white Land Rovers were brown.  We were doing good until the vehicle in front of us got stuck and we had to slow down.  Then we, too, found ourselves stuck.  After a few minutes of spinning tires and moving inches we were freed.  Unfortunately, the supply vehicle behind us was in deep.  After moving to higher, dry ground, we unloaded and hiked back to free the stuck Land Rover.  It took a good deal of time and manpower, but the students were able to push the Land Rover out of the mud and back on the road.  Cheers and high-fives were cut short as the Land Rover quickly found its way back into the mud.  The process started over and was repeated a few times that morning. 

     

Once we made it back to the main road, which was paved, we were safe.  But as we passed through the Pare Mountains, which had early that day experienced heavy rains,  parts of the road were flooded with murky orange water and gullies appeared where none had been previously.  In the more arid Northern regions, when it rains deforested areas are prone to heavy erosion, as we saw.