On Work

11/17/11

While the content of my previous blogs may be misleading on this
subject, we do, in fact work here. Though the Tanzanian and monastic
balance of work, prayer and leisure make it more of a challenge, we
make a point to work as much as we can. Not only is that a part of our
commitment to this community, but we’ve also found it’s necessary to
satisfy our productivity-loving Yankee blood and, if nothing else,
keeping our hands busy is a wonderful distraction from feelings of
homesickness that have begun to set in.  So here’s a summary:

St. Agnes Secondary School for Girls
This has been our main assignment. Ash and I team-teach English and
computer classes to the girls in form 1 (about freshman in high school
age). Term has just ended and the girls are currently in exams. Our
success as teachers is not so easily assessed. I have no idea if I
helped them learn English and a few weeks ago a rain storm cut the
power indefinitely in the computer room making it difficult to teach.
Needless to say, the challenges have been constant. Our success here,
I think, is in the time we spend with the girls and our conversations
with them outside of class. We play games, sing songs, go to the field
and play sports with them (well, ash does anyway).  My favorite part
is probably the endless and hilarious notes we often receive from them
full of broken English and pretty inappropriate expressions of
adoration. One of my favs: “Sash and Margreth- I need the friendly
with you becouse I love u. – Jesscar.”

The Bakery
Next to school, this is probably the place where I spend the most
time. I just never get sick of baking. I love that now we know how to
do just about everything by ourselves, and they trust us to do it. We
make Maandazi (doughnuts), Chipsi (crackers), Keksi (cookies), Keki
(cake) and my favorite to make, Mikate (bread). As we bake we sing,
dance, daydream and snack on treats. Overall, a great place to be.

The Sewing Room
There are multiple sewing rooms here, as there are endless uniforms
and habits to make and mend. The one we work in makes priest’s
vestments- quite the addition to my resume. Ash and I began
cross-stitching stoles when work in the bakery became less pleasant
with the heat. I love going mostly because of the sisters who work
there- Sr. Jenista and Sr. Angelina. Both are incredibly sweet and
good to us, though Sr. Angelina speaks only a few words of English.
While sewing one day, I was surprised to hear not only an English
voice come through the tape player, but one with an Irish accent. I
have since learned that Sr. Jenista spent one year very near to where
I lived while studying in Ireland! It’s been fun having something so
important to me in common with her. What a small world it is.

The Orphanage
Though we play with the toddlers from time to time, just this week I
started going to orphanage on a daily basis, and spending time in the
baby room. It’s very difficult being there, and even more difficult to
describe. After just a week, though, I get the feeling that it will be
an important part my remaining time here.

That is our work, at least my attempted categorization of it. In
reality, it is much more sporadic and often unseen. It is helping to
peel potatoes or cassava, setting up Sister Rustica’s first email
account, teaching the novices a song to sing for English mass, or
setting the table for dinner. Really, most of what we do is not that
important or life changing. But the mere gift your hands can be
powerful, I think. And perhaps that is the best way to explain how we
spend our time here: just being our hands.

Give to the Max to BWSC!!

Just a note that today is “Give to the Max” day and my program, the BWSC is one of the organizations that is benefiting from funds raised today. This is a great way to support my work and the people in this community. Money raised will go toward making our work here sustainable, meaning that it continues after our year here with new volunteers. Since the BWSC is a new program within the last few years, we are especially in need of support ensure longevity in our relationships with the communities we serve in Puerto Rico and Tanzania. Thank you so much for anything you are able to give!

here's the link to follow: http://www.razoo.com/story/Sisters-Of-The-Order-Of-Saint-Benedict

11/1/11

October brought our first real experience with the African sun. It has
been unbearably hot, at least for us wimpy wazungu (Europeans). In
spite of this, or perhaps because of it, we have been persisting in
some of our usual fall traditions and in doing so, sharing a bit of
our culture with some of our new friends here.

So, on Saturday, we made apple pie. Though there are many delicious
fruits here, papaya, bananas, tangerines, and mangoes- apples are
difficult to find in Tanzania, since they must be brought in from
Zimbabwe. This means that the process of making the pie began with
tracking down ingredients in Songea, forced practice in Swahili, and
eventually finding a new friend who was able to speak English when our
Swahili proved inadequate- all an adventure in and of itself. But find
the apples, we did and with pride and excitement brought them to the
bakery to attempt our pie.

To say it was a success would be a gross understatement. Perhaps the
lack of variety in food here has left us with less refined palates, or
perhaps the flavor was made sweeter by nostalgia and memories of home.
In any case, Ash and I vainly agreed that it was the best apple pie we
had ever tasted. We shared with our friends at the bakery- Sr.
Jackline, Sr. Diana, and Emman all of whom gave rave reviews and
excitedly attempted to translate the recipe into Swahili. Sr. Diana,
in particular, laughed the entire time she was eating it, which we
think is just what she does when she is really happy? We also shared
with Sr. Thawabu and Sr. Mgaga who are the sisters currently working
in the guesthouse. When she finished her piece Sr. Mgaga said, “When
you make pie again don’t forget me.” Needless to say, it was fun to be
able to share something so familiar to us that they had never
experienced before.

After finishing our pie, we were talking to Sr. Thawabu about our
plans for the following day. We were getting up early to go to the
parish in the village of Mkongo, which was celebrating its 50th
Jubilee. Sr. Thawabu said, (I think jokingly?) “Bring me back a
chicken!” We laughed- good one Thawabu! As a general rule, I am
learning that the second you laugh and say or even just think to
yourself they aren’t serious, right? That can’t be for real- I am
quickly proven wrong. One example: During the mass at Mkongo, when a
woman with a large basket on her head wrapped in cloth was processing
through the crowd we assumed that in the basket was the Bible. Sr
Gotharda whispered, “It is a child.” Whaaaat? She’s not serious,
right? I must have heard her wrong. Sure enough, the cloth was untied
and a child, a large child of probably 6 or 7 years old, popped out
holding the Bible. The crowd went wild.

Similarly, Thawabu’s request acted as a prophecy. On our ride home,
when we offered to take the far back seat of the land rover, we didn’t
know that we would be sharing our seat with a third passenger: a live
chicken. Now, out of necessity people bring chickens everywhere here,
in plastic bags, in purses, with squawking heads popping out, in
baskets bigger than laundry baskets- full of chickens. They carry them
on buses, around town, and don’t blink at picking one up by the neck
and handing it over to a guest as a welcome gift. We’ve grown
accustomed to this, or so I thought. As it turns out, sharing the
backseat of a land rover on a 3+ hour drive is a very different thing
altogether. For most of the ride, it sat quiet and motionless. No big
deal, I thought, remembering the chickens we had when I was a kid,
internally exaggerating my farm girl roots. I’m just sittin next to a
chicken. Then, out of nowhere the bird began to squawk and flap its
wings. Naturally, and like perfect idiots, Ash and I began to squeal
ourselves, laughing intermittently and practically putting on a
contortionist show to avoid the flapping feathers- all of this only
seemed to provoke it. Finally Ash, regaining her senses, threw her
sweatshirt on top of the chicken. The effect was immediate; the calm
and quiet of the evening trip home was restored. The next night at
dinner, however, the chicken was permanently silenced. Thawabu got her
chicken, after all.

Kila Siku

10/22/11

I recently received an email from one of my sisters that spoke
beautifully to what it has been like for us in Chipole lately. She
said,  “things have slowed down here…everything has become ordinary,
and has intern become harder to appreciate, but of course not
impossible. I feel somewhat sad that the excitement has passed, but am
trying to remember that I have to ability to give each day
immeasurable excitement, if I so wish.” It was amazing to me how we
could be feeling such similar things in such different situations.
What a wonderful reminder that wherever you are, you cannot escape the
wanes and waxes of life.

This also prompted some reflection on the daily routine I have come to
take for granted. I realized how many things I have made a point to do
kila siku, daily. Daily rituals may not have immeasurable excitement,
as my sister says, but I feel like these are the things that in
retrospect, if not before, will have immeasurable significance. More
simply, I realized that many people at home have no idea what a
typical day looks like for me, and I thought it might be fun to give
everyone a better idea of the life that has developed for me here in
Chipole.

6:15- Wake up. Throw on a skirt. Walk down the hall for daily mass.
7:30- Breakfast, most often bread, jam and tea. BBC world news after.
8:30- Study Swahili
9:30- Work in the Bakery or somewhere in the monastery.
1:00- Lunch, most often potatoes, ugali, meat, vegetables and bananas
or papaya for dessert.
1:45- Make the mile walk out the secondary school to teach English or Computer
4:00- return from school, take tea.
4:30- read, journal, write emails, letters etc.
5:30- water our garden of cabbage, tomatoes, watermelon and carrots.
6:00- exercise.
7:00 – dinner, most often ugali, rice, meat, vegetables, same fruit for dessert.
10:30- sleep.

This is the most typical day for Ashley and I, but especially lately
we have been trying to mix it up as much as possible. In the evenings,
we do fun things- reading, crosswords, games, drawing, phone calls
back home, get a drink at the restaurant or have the occasional movie
night. I am sure this all sounds incredibly dull, but it is amazing
how exciting the smallest thing, a new food, an event out of the
ordinary, can be so exciting. The thing I love most is the time I have
to do things I am unable to prioritize at home. I spend more time
journaling or doing personal writing, reading, praying- so much so
that I worry about returning to my hectic life at home. I would love
to come back with a better sense of how to balance my life, and the
ability to incorporate at least of few of the daily rituals I find so
enriching here. The strangest thing about all this, I think, is that I
came to Tanzania very much in search of an adventure. I certainly have
experienced here to a greater degree than ever before, but somehow,
wherever I go, normal just chases me down and finds me. The strange
part is, I’m not the least bit disappointed.




P.S. a great big shout out to my October birthday loves- Amanda, Cait,
Mary and Le- I’m thinking of all of you always, but extra on your
special days. Wish I could celebrate with you!

A Rainy Day Pilgrimage

10/7/11

A while ago, Fr. Damas offered to take us (Ashley, myself and fellow
American volunteer Alicia) to visit his home parish and village of
Mpitimbi. Ventures with Fr. Damas never disappoint, so we jumped at
the chance. We eat all of our meals with Fr. Damas, and for a while
now there hasn’t been other volunteers so it’s just the four of us.
Fr. Damas is humble, faithful and shy at times. More than anything, he
loves to answer any questions we have which means that mealtimes
usually consist of his amazing life stories and a crash-course in
Tanzanian culture. We feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful
priest in residence and were rightfully anticipating this particular
outing with much excitement because it was so personal to him.

We planned the trip for Thursday, since it is our day off teaching.
Wednesday, however, unexpectedly brought the first rain we have seen
since we arrived and it continued into Thursday. Getting rain here is
more than an inconvenience. We’ve been told that during the rainy
season we will most likely be completely unable to leave and after
yesterday, I finally understand this.

In spite of the rain, we continued with the trip as planned. The drive
to Mpitimbi was about an hour and a half. This proved to be, by far,
the easiest leg of the journey. One of the stories Fr. Damas likes to
tell us is about how he used to walk to school until he was in
Standard 6 (6th grade-ish). From the home where he grew up to the
school is a two hour walk one way, about 6 miles. He did this everyday
as a kid, rain or shine, and always without shoes. When planning our
trip, he asked us if we would like to do the walk and visit his
childhood home and of course, we said yes. And walk, we did.  About 12
miles total, the whole time in pouring rain.  Though we opted for
umbrellas and rain-coats rather than the banana leaves Fr. Damas used
as a kid to keep his head dry, we were still soaked from head to toe
for most of the walk.

The spirit of the pilgrimage, however, refused to be dampened. It was
so special meeting his brother, sisters, and nieces and nephews, a few
of them even made the walk out with us. The man who now lives on the
land that once was Fr. Damas’ childhood home is his “elder brother,”
or the oldest living member of Fr. Damas’ family. This man lives truly
lives alone. There are no roads leading to his house that cars are
able to take, just the long, narrow trail we walked on. When we
arrived there we took shelter from the rain under one of his grass
huts and ate bread and fried bananas. He showed us coins he had dug up
from the ruins of his great-grandfathers house. They were old
shillings, from colonial times and probably saved for a dowry.
Needless to say, it was a pretty cool moment. The rain still coming
down, sitting in the company of people who lead lives so drastically
from our own, hearing about their ancestors- all the while physically
standing on the very ground that generations of this family has lived,
played, worked and died on. Later, Fr. Damas told us we were probably
the first white people to set foot on that ground.

The adventures of the day did not end there. After the 6 miles back
(still raining) we shared a meal prepared by Fr. Damas’ sister in her
home and visited the parish church. We were officially initiated into
rainy season on the ride home. The hour and a half drive we had taken
that morning ended up being four hours long on the way back because
the rain makes the dirt roads so slick. It was a little rough sitting
cold, wet and exhausted for that amount of time, and were happy when
we arrived back home in Chipole from our pilgrimage safe and sound.
100% worth it, but clean, dry socks have never felt so good.

Q&A

9/24/11

I spent my Wednesday afternoon this week shelling peas with the girls
of Form 3 at the secondary school. We had planned to teach, but what
are plans, really? When we got there the place was buzzing with the
excitement and work of another graduation; on Friday we would
celebrate the girls in Form 4. Sometimes I feel like we live
celebration to celebration here, the minute one is over, preparations
seem to begin for the next.

As I was sitting there, I thought, this moment is exactly what I am
here for. We just talked to the girls, helped them with their work,
experienced the everyday. We talked about music (Chris Brown! Rhianna!
Eminem!), what jobs they want to have when they finish school (a
pilot, a banker, a lawyer). We told them about our families and about
school in the United States. The most ordinary of things. It wasn’t
long, though, before the conversation shifted and the tough questions
began. They asked us about America, “Are people rich or poor? What
happen when they catch a thief, do they kill? What about women
oppression? Do you have genital mutilation? Female circumcision? Do
they beat the women? Is there racism? What your impressions of
Tanzania? Is this a rich or poor country?” Whoa. It wasn’t accusatory
or hostile in any way, they were simply filled with genuine curiosity.
Still, it was an incredibly difficult conversation to have. I wish I
could say I answered the questions with perfect eloquence and
diplomacy, but I am certain I did not. On the walk home, and even now,
I am torturing myself with “should haves.” Their interactions with
Americans are so few and the misconceptions are many, I could feel the
weight of opportunity in the conversation and it left me mostly
tongue-tied. Most of my answers were obnoxiously vague and ambivalent,
so much so that the girls jokingly began to call me “sometimes yes and
sometimes no.” I knew, somehow, that whatever I said would be taken
for truth and remembered probably for a very long time.  It may even
be the most some of them will ever experience or know about American
culture. I felt like no matter what I said, it would be inaccurate or
harmful. Yes, there certainly is poverty in America. But how could I
begin to explain how different it is? That while there are certainly
many more people with greater wealth, our social and political
structures make it nearly impossible for those who are poor to live a
life of dignity? That in America, you can work full-time and be poor
because the cost and standard of living is so high? That when they
would rely on family and community, we live in a culture centered on
fierce independence, making that less of an option? But then, with
everything I have seen here, and what I know to be true about their
lives how could I look at them and say that America is a poor country?

The questions they asked about the treatment of women were by far the
most difficult for me to answer. At one point it struck me that these
girls are probably around 15 or 16 years old. The things they were
talking about I didn’t have a clue about that age, much less have the
guts to question a total stranger about. In the end, I couldn’t bring
myself to say, “Yes, women in America are oppressed.” Having spent the
past few years of my life arguing that very thing until I was blue in
the face, this was incredibly difficult for me. I’ve always thought of
this as truth, and of truth as something absolute and concrete. I’m
learning here how contextual it is. How truth takes on different
shapes and adapts to an environment like anything else, but that this
does not reduce or dilute it.

In spite of these difficulties, as I was walking away, again I
thought, this moment is still exactly what I’m here for. Here for the
experience of being asked the tough questions, and for learning that
sometimes there isn’t a good answer.

A short post on my favorite moment thus far

9/10/11


Yesterday I, after experiencing celebrations I was sure could be
topped by nothing, ending up stumbling upon the best moment of my trip
thus far. The day was wild, crowded, over-stimulating and fun, but it
left us very, very tired. So, after dinner when most guests had left,
we crashed in our room. Shortly after, we heard a knock on the door.
It was S. Gotharda inviting us to come and continue celebrating with
the sisters. At this point, for them, they have been working immensely
hard for weeks and celebrating for 4 full days. Continue celebrating?
I can hardly be blamed for my skepticism. But the sister’s meeting
room is just across the courtyard from our room and we could hear them
so we decided to just go and check it out.


Of all the special moments I felt so privileged to be a part of in the
past few days, this one topped them all. It was the sisters in their
own, private celebration, after all the fuss was over and the crowds
had died down and we were invited. The sisters who had made their
final vows sat at the front of the room adorned with brightly colored
flowers and wreaths. Groups of sisters took turns coming up and doing
little routines. Singing and dancing of course, but it was different
than what we had seen the rest of the day. They wore costumes (over
their habits and veils), did skits, laughed and joked. They passed out
popcorn, chipsi, and pop and we just sat and laughed with them. Most
of the time, we had no idea what they were laughing about, but the
mood and sentiment was clear through all language and cultural
barriers.


Watching them, I thought to myself, this is everything a community of
women can and should be. Joyful. Strong. Supportive. Loving. Faithful.
Fun. They were truly celebrating one another and in a way none of the
visitors, including us, could. Because, at the end of the day, it is
their community, and only they can experience the full glory of it
having each made the same, outstanding commitment to God and one
another. In spite of this, I felt in no way ostracized. They welcomed
us without reservation. I felt immensely privileged to witness, what I
think was a perfect example of human beings at their best, living and
treating each other just as God intended.