The Songea Boys’ Escapades (Or, How I’m Constantly Reminded That I Indeed Work at a Tanzanian All-Boys Secondary School)

By Tanzanian standards, Songea Boys’ Secondary School is a good school.  We have ample, well-maintained facilities, a sizeable staff who are relatively good at what they do, and a large, active student body.  We rank fairly well academically, we have a decent athletic program, and we have a number of well-established extracurricular groups---Christian groups, Muslim groups, HIV/AIDS awareness groups, choir practice, English clubs, FEMA (gender equality) clubs, etc.  We even have some really fun events dedicated to school spirit, such as the annual faculty/student football (soccer) match we played this weekend (and we totally won… 2-1 teachers).  Granted, Songea Girls’ beats us in nearly every one of these categories, but we still take pride in the relative non-dysfunctional-ness of our school community, and I will freely admit that this place has really grown on me over the past six months.

That being said, there are definitely moments here when I am sharply reminded that I am not in America.  It doesn’t have to be a negative experience, per se, but it definitely triggers my “Um… what the hell are you guys doing?” reaction, sometimes to the point where I feel inclined to discretely ask my fellow teachers if this is truly a normal occurrence in Tanzania.  Now, because I work at a well-off, mostly A-level, all-boys school, I manage to avoid many of the common incidents that form the standard initiation procedure for new education volunteers---lack of food or water, pregnant students, fataki (pedophile) issues, demon possessions (usually done by girls to get out of tests), and so on.  However, the following examples have made it abundantly clear to me that---despite our school’s being on the “enlightened” end of the Tanzanian public school spectrum---we, well, still are a Tanzanian public school, and with that come some of the more peculiar aspects of being a Peace Corps volunteer in this country.

Corporal Punishment and the Disco Fiasco

In most schools in Tanzania, caning is the preferred method of dealing with troublesome or uppity students, closely followed by public humiliation or forced labor, should the beating be insufficient in driving home the point.  Indeed, students typically begin to get hit with sticks for their infractions by the time they reach secondary school, although some overzealous primary schools begin the practice even earlier.  As it turns out, corporal punishment is such an integral part of the learning process in Tanzania that there is literally a “rule of thumb”-esque clause in the national public school charter, although I’m pretty sure they use the metric system instead (you know, to add a little more preciseness to the term “light, flexible rod”).  Regardless, the general support in Tanzania for institutionalized whoopings has had a major effect on the way schools are run and classes are taught in this country, as students are forced live in constant fear of their teachers, or, barring that, they are motivated to become increasingly sneaky in their misdeeds.

Songea Boys’ is no exception to this rule, and the kids here are beaten something fierce on a daily basis.  Seriously, we don’t go an hour each day without a few students being rounded up and hit for some stupid reason, and, trust me, it is not a fun thing to watch: the discipline master typically makes the condemned kneel on the ground with their hands behind their heads---as if they’re about to be executed by firing squad---and summons them up one by one to bend over and receive their beating, typically three to five hits with a fimbo (switch).  For the particularly bad infractions, these canings can increase to up to ten or fifteen hits, and they are usually held in front of the school during morning parade.  It’s not like these kids get hit lightly, either: the fimbos often break mid-punishment, and students are constantly sent on “fimbo detail”, i.e., going out into the woods to cut new switches to replace the ones broken that day.   Moreover, depending on how enthusiastic the discipline master is, the kid may get smacked around a bit before or after the punishment, I’m assuming just to make sure that the student gets the message.  It’s not a pleasant experience.

What kills me is not so much the beatings, but the inconsistency of the punishment.  Students are frequently beaten for being late to class, but this is only when the discipline master feels like it.  A student may show up to a class thirty minutes late one day and five minutes late the next, and he’ll get beaten the second day because the discipline master that day just happened to be walking by with a fimbo handy.  This is particularly vexing for me since I tend to teach my classes “college style”; that is, I hold a class at a particular time and it’s up to the students to show up and listen to what I have to say.  I’ve gotten in numerous arguments with the academic master regarding this issue, as he frequently feels compelled to drag kids out of my class and have them punished for being late, even if I had already notified the students and teachers ahead of time that I would be holding class later that day (and, to be totally honest, I don’t really care if my students are late or not).  The situation is even worse for the new O-level students, who pretty much get beaten at random on a daily basis.  The reason?  According to the academic master, “to show them who’s boss.”  Unreal.

In fact, I find the reasoning behind most punishments here somewhat discomforting.  For sure, I understand why the kids get hit for major breaches of school code---truancy, fighting, disrespecting teachers, etc.---but, more often than not, it’s something utterly trifling, or, even worse, out of their control.  I would have to say that the most common reason for a beating at Songea Boys’ (aside from sneezing out of turn) is lack of adherence to the dress code---dirty clothes, mismatching socks, no belt, improperly tied tie (although I would contend that the whole country doesn’t know how to tie their ties properly), or something else trivial.  This is followed by perhaps my least favorite reason for punishment here, which is falling behind in school tuition payments.  Never mind that it’s the parents who are responsible for paying school fees… the punishment for being poor is placed squarely on the kids, who usually suffer a caning proportional to the amount owed to the school by their families.  Call me crazy, but that seems incredibly unfair to the students, and despite my unabashed disagreement with said practice (I’ve made it no secret among the teachers and administration that I think it’s stupid), it continues unabated here at Songea Boys’.

While canings are a daily occurrence at my school, the weeks following the end of break in April saw a particularly high level of disciplinary measures around campus.  During this time, the administration, for whatever reason, felt the need to punish students who were arriving late for the semester (remember, we’re a boarding school) as well as administer punishments that had been left unfulfilled from the previous term.  The result was non-stop, round-the-clock beatings---so many that we effectively didn’t have class until after Easter (I held some impromptu physics sessions, but most of my students were too busy getting caned to attend).  It was a huge mess, and it took a whole other week after Easter for school to finally resume its normal pace.

While many students ultimately fell victim to “Caning Week” for one reason or another, most managed to scrape by with simply a perfunctory beating.  Among the particularly screwed during this time, however, were a group of eight or so boys who had unwisely decided to go AWOL for about four days after break, electing to spend most of the time hanging out at a local discotheque in Songea town.  Now, why they would ever decide to spend their precious hooky time at a Tanzanian dance club is completely beyond me: those places totally suck, and what two or three women are present there are almost invariably prostitutes.  Regardless, Songea is a small place, and, unsurprisingly, they were caught by a few teachers in town, who promptly delivered them to the headmaster the following Monday during flag raising.

What followed was perhaps the most prolific beating I’ve seen in a long time.  Over the course of about ten minutes or so, the headmaster (and, by extension, the secondmaster since the headmaster got tired) went through about ten switches on eight kids, reducing nearly all of them to tears (remember, these are 17-18 year old guys).  One of the kids begged the headmaster to stop because he was bleeding.  Another one fainted.  Most of the students here tend to take their beatings with stolid resolve, but by the end, these kids were a complete wreck.  And, to top it all off, the headmaster expelled all of them.  It was pretty crazy, and I have the distinct feeling that no one’s going to make a run at that disco for a long time.

In any case, that’s a brief look at discipline in my school.  Granted, this particular incident was more brutal than normal, but whenever I see something like this happen, it serves as a jarring reminder of where I am and, unfortunately, what the realities of living here are.

The Children of Songea Boys’

While I may not like the way that students are disciplined at my school, they are far from saints themselves.  This was clearly illustrated to me during my first few weeks at site.

One of the cool things about my school is that both the teachers and the students get fed every weekday, and, at least for the teachers, the food isn’t half bad---bread and maandazi (Tanzanian donuts) for chai break (i.e. the standard 10:15am coffee break), and rice, beans, and mchicha (spinach) for lunch.  On Thursdays, we even get meat, although it’s boiled and mostly gristle (I actually prefer the rice and bean days, although I seem to be in the minority on that point).  The kids definitely get the short end of the stick on this deal, as they primarily get uji (boiled corn flour porridge) for chai break, and they get beans and ugali (a slightly different form of boiled corn flour) for lunch and dinner.  Life isn’t fair in the Tanzanian school system.

Anyway, after about three weeks of being at site, I began to notice that there were a bunch of little kids who were always hanging around the kitchen, usually begging for scraps.  This is a pretty common sight around Tanzania, so I didn’t think too much of it at the time.  I found it peculiar, however, that these kids seemed particularly unkempt and dirty, and there were way too many of them to say that they were simply from the surrounding village.  As a result, one day after lunch I inquired as to their origin from the school cook:

Me: “Hey, every day I see these same kids outside the kitchen.  What’s their deal?  Do they live on campus or something?”

Cook: “They are beggar children from the village.  They like to come here because I give them the leftover ugali the students don’t eat.”

Me: “Don’t they have parents, though?  I don’t think our village is nearly large enough to have that many orphans.”

Cook: “Yes, they have parents, but they don’t feed them.  These kids are mostly the children of prostitutes.”

Me: “But who are the fathers?  Again, our village is really small… how can these prostitutes turn a profit?”

Cook: “Isn’t it obvious?  The fathers are our students!” [laughs]

So yeah, apparently there is a burgeoning prostitution ring outside my school that is single-handedly supported by my students’ “donations.”  I’ve since seen some of these girls, and, well, it’s pretty messed up: these girls are always decked out in their best plastic jewelry and horrendous makeup by the main daladala turnabout, and none of them look a day over 16.  It doesn’t help that my students aren’t too much older, either---for A-level, roughly between 16 and 22 years-old.  I understand that the kids here tend to start early, but that there’s now such a large population of unwanted and abandoned offspring roaming the school campus… well, that just doesn’t sit right with me.

The Dog Dilemma

Dogs and cats are all over Tanzania, and since most owners don’t bother neutering or spaying their pets, there are strays everywhere you go in country.  For cats, this isn’t a big problem, as most strays are solitary, and the only time they become particularly annoying is when they’re in heat.  Dogs, however, can be a little more difficult to deal with, mostly because they tend to roam in packs, thus increasing their annoyance factor exponentially.  For example, since dogs tend to get a little wild after the sun goes down, I’ve spent many a night in country being lulled to sleep by some random group of dogs who have decided to gather outside my window at 3am for their nightly fight club/howling session/orgy.  Pro tip: no matter how loud the dogs are or how curious you may be, don’t look outside to see what they’re doing.  You’ll only come away scarred.

This general inconvenience is compounded by the treatment most animals receive in Tanzania, which, at times, is downright cruel, leading to highly antisocial behavior.  Under normal circumstances, dogs and cats live on nothing more than table scraps (or whatever they can find and kill), and most are beaten on sight by Tanzanians, usually with sticks and stones.  I had never seen a cat punched in the face until I lived with my host family, nor had I ever seen a dog get his leg broken by a stick until I moved to site.  Perhaps the clincher was the time at the daladala stand when I saw a group of five year-old children kill a kitten and then kick the carcass around like a soccer ball.  It’s, well, kind of horrifying (at least by our American standards), and it ingrains a strong aversion to humans in all cats and dogs at a very early age.

As a result, there’s nothing worse in country then walking home alone at night and encountering a pack of emboldened, sociopathic mutts that think you’re trespassing on their territory.  I’ve had some pretty narrow escapes in both in Morogoro and here in Songea, and it’s one of the main reasons why I always try to find a makeshift fimbo to bring home with me whenever I’m coming home at night.  If there’s one thing dogs always respond to in country, it’s a large stick, undoubtedly due to the beatings they received as puppies.

Now, the strays at Songea Boys’ are actually pretty cool.  There’s a few I see pretty often, and they often elect to just leave me alone.  There’s also a couple that like to hang around (non-menacingly) when I’m outside my house doing chores and whatnot.  There’s also one particular dog, “Gili” (short for giligilani, or coriander, since she likes to sleep between my coriander plants and thus always reeks of cilantro), who’s actually really sweet: she likes to wait for me at my house, and when she sees me, she gets really excited, wags her tail a lot, and runs around me, but she won’t let me touch her for fear of getting hit.  It’s a classic example of a dog that would have gotten along great in America, but is now completely warped due to a lifetime of abuse.  It’s kind of sad, to be honest.

Back in February, however, we had a new arrival---“Bastard.”  You know that quote from the “Bart Gets an Elephant” episode of The Simpsons… how, like people, some animals “are just jerks”?  Well, this guy was a textbook d-bag.  His preferred pastimes included---but were not limited to---beating up on other dogs, scaring local children, and hanging around the staff quarters, barking and snarling at anyone who was trying to get back into his or her house, including me.  In fact, it was he who gave one of my favorite mutts, “Popeye,” his namesake: after seeing the two of them get in a particularly physical altercation one day, I noticed that Bastard had torn off part of Popeye’s left eyelid, leaving Popeye with a new, “googly eye” look.  Granted, Popeye’s face was already pretty messed up and gross, but this made him even uglier than he was before.  Yeah, Bastard was a real piece of work.

Things got to a head in April, when I got back from break.  Bastard had apparently been busy when I had been away, quickly climbing the social hierarchy to alpha position.  As a result, he now had a small squad of strays at his command, which only served to embolden him further.  Over the course of the week, I heard reports from my neighbors of his killing chickens, attacking goats, and harassing cows, and in some rare instances he had even tried to bite some of the neighborhood kids.  Moreover, on the same day as the discotheque caning, I had to extract myself from a particularly tense confrontation with his little posse when leaving the house in the morning; I think it really speaks to a dog’s self-confidence if he’s willing to mock charge you in front of your own house, especially if his subordinates aren’t really helping (I guess all of those days of feeding them my meat scraps paid off).  Luckily, after a well-aimed rock and some discretionary use of my panga (machete), I convinced him to leave me alone and go pester someone else.

Clearly, something had to be done regarding this issue.  In America, this would be the time we would call Animal Control to perhaps take the dog to the pound where, after a little bit, he may get euthanized discretely.  In Tanzania, however, the standard course of action regarding this situation lacks such subtlety: namely, you get your mkuu (headmaster) to hire a guy with a gun to hunt the little S.O.B. down.  As a result, for the next week or so, we had some mzee (elder) with a .22 caliber rifle patrolling the school grounds, ready to act if Bastard decided to make another appearance.

So, one fateful morning a couple weeks ago, the inevitable happened: I was in the middle of describing the First Law of Thermodynamics to my Form VI students in the main lecture hall when I heard a gunshot, followed by a whimpering sound, followed by about thirty seconds of silence, followed by another gunshot.  After about a minute, my curiosity got the better of me, and I stuck my head out of my classroom to see what was going on.  Sure enough, there was Bastard, dead as a doornail, slung over the shoulder of a particularly proud-looking mzee, who was heading to the main office to collect his bounty---not really your average physics lecture experience.  Bastard had had the misfortune of being the only white dog in the vicinity, which had made him an easy target for disposal.  And, now that his reign of terror over the good people of Songea Boys’ was over, a small crowd of teachers and students ran out to congratulate the heroic dog-slayer for his noble deed, which, while kind of cool, still ended my class prematurely.

So, in closing, it’s tough being a dog in this country.  I still like seeing the other strays around, and I feed them if I have any bones or gristle left over from dinner, but I also realize that they live day-to-day, and there’s a good chance I won’t be seeing them again.  In any case, as long as they don’t make a ruckus outside my window, I’m happy to live and let live.

The Cellphone Controversy

Perhaps the quintessential example of my school’s not-American-ness is the now-infamous cellphone controversy, which, like the dog issue and the disco caning, happened shortly after A-level break ended.  First, a little background:

Cellphones, while extremely prevalent in Tanzania, are still generally considered a luxury among the general population.  This, in fact, makes sense: your average non-crappy cellphone will cost you about 40000/= (~$27), which typically separates your average, middle-class Tanzanian with the truly impoverished people.  Regardless, it’s safe to say that most Tanzanian families have at least one cellphone, and although the technology may be a good seven or eight years behind what it is in America, cellphones (and, by extension, how fancy they are) are considered a major sign of wealth in this country, almost as much as excess sofas in the living room.  I can’t tell you how many offers I’ve had from Tanzanians to buy my American-bought cellphone… most Tanzanians are simply awestruck that it’s a flip phone and are willing to pay any price for it, despite the fact that it’s a lower-end, four year-old Samsung which is full of dust, half-broken, and generally less functional than their “inferior” non-flip Nokias.  Were it not for the fact that both transferring contact lists and unlocking new phones were major hassles, I’d be sorely tempted to take some clueless Tanzanian to the cleaners and sell my phone at an exorbitant price, just so I would have a little more breathing room with regard to my ridiculous Peace Corps living allowance.  But no, I doubt “exploiting Tanzania” is on the Peace Corps Tanzania mission statement, so I guess I’ll hold off for now.

In any case, cellphones, due to their relative worth here, have had a storied (and non-flattering) history here at Songea Boys’.  As of last year, all students were allowed to have cellphones on campus, although there were certain restrictions regarding their use; that is, the students could only use them on the weekends or when they were on leave in town.  Failure to adhere to these restrictions would result in a caning, followed by confiscation of the cellphone until the end of the term.  Most of the time, my counterparts tell me, this system worked well, and students were largely willing to accept the responsibility of owning a cellphone and making sure that it didn’t interfere with work or the school environment as a whole.

There were, however, incidents.  For the years that students were allowed to have cellphones, all confiscated cellphones were locked in a special contraband closet located in the main office to await return at the end of the semester.  Unsurprisingly, this closet soon became the number one priority of any enterprising student with basic door-smashing skills and a general distaste for authority.  As a result, every year the contraband closet was subject to repeated break-ins coordinated by disgruntled students, sometimes clandestinely under cover of darkness, and sometimes overtly during the course of a student riot (I’ve since learned that my students have quite a reputation for rioting).  By the end of last year, the school carpenter was sick of making replacement doors for the closet, and the administration’s patience with the student body was wearing thin.

Then, a couple months before I arrived in Songea, THE incident happened.  One particularly dense student decided that it would be a good idea to steal his classmate’s cellphone, despite the fact that all the students live together and they all see each other on a daily basis.  Predictably, it took about two seconds for him to get caught, and the students, like most good Tanzanians, decided to take the law into their own hands.  I’m still not clear about what they did to this kid exactly, but the general account (or, rather, what my headmaster told me) is that they used a knife to do something horrible to his genitalia.  Needless to say, when news of this broke, there was a big hullabaloo, including police involvement, multiple expulsions, and (I assume) lots and lots of caning.  Also stemming from this event was the school’s total ban on cellphones, which was enforced by sending letters to all the students’ respective households informing them of this rule before the new term (i.e. this current one) began.

Fast forward to mid-April.  All the students have slowly filtered in from their respective hometowns, and---surprise, surprise---they all have cellphones with them.  I don’t really know what their parents were thinking, but many students have told me that their parents gave them the cellphones and simply told them to hide them from the teachers.  Regardless, you’ve already started the semester, and a good 500 out of the 870 new students have blatantly disregarded school policy by bringing cellphones with them… I mean, what do you do?

The answer is simple.  You send a message.

Songea Boys' doesn't **** around.

Yes, apparently re-confiscating and breaking five hundred cellphones in front of the students isn’t enough.  You have to call a giant assembly on the main road of the school, give a brief lecture on the evils of cellphone usage, and incinerate all traces of temptation in a giant bonfire.

School spirit, Tanzanian style.

Mercifully, there were minimal beatings as a result of this punishment (to beat more than half the school would be pretty impractical, even by Songea Boys’ standards), and the kids took the loss of 40000/= (or more) remarkably well.  It was all quite fair, to be honest: the school sent out letters beforehand telling parents not to send cellphones, the kids came with cellphones anyway, the administration gave the students a chance to fess up, the students who did fess up were spared the fimbo, the kids who didn’t fess up received a light beating, and all cellphones---whether relinquished willingly or forcibly taken---were thoroughly disposed of.  The administration was even conscientious enough to remove he batteries from the cellphones beforehand, lest any explosions or acid leaks occurred during the burning (of course, it was the students who were forced to remove said batteries… teachers don’t do manual labor here).  So the whole disciplinary issue went quite smoothly, all things considered.

Incidentally, the kids still totally have cellphones here.  The school turned the dormitories inside-out in their search (even checking under the floorboards and in the rafters), but somehow a few crafty individuals managed to get away with their cellphones still intact.  I hear them every now and then when I walk by the dormitories, and when I do some tutoring in the class president’s office (he gets a freaking office and I don’t), I sometimes hear muffled ringing under a pile of old textbooks or clothes.  I don’t bother reporting these infractions because I think the rule is kind of silly, and I think the kids know that their secret is safe with me.  However, a couple of kids have asked me to hide their cellphones in my house, and that isn’t happening.  I’m trying to make a good impression here… I don’t want to be an accessory to anything duplicitous.

In any case, these are some of the more extraordinary events that have occurred here at Songea Boys’ since my arrival.  It’s not every day that a dog gets shot or a pile of cellphones gets burned, and, believe it or not, I actually spend most of my time here teaching and grading papers… at the end of the day, school is school wherever you go.  That being said, there’s a definitely a certain uniqueness to working at a Tanzanian public school: sometimes it’s shocking, sometimes it’s uncomfortable, and sometimes it kind of works out nicely.  Either way, I guess it’s all just part of the ride.

The Grand Tour, Part 2: The Road

The following is a summary of my trip home from Masasi, Mtwara Region, to Songea, Ruvuma region, via the town of Tunduru.  It was not a fun or easy journey… in fact, it was perhaps one of the most arduous trips I’ve made in Tanzania.  That being said, it was also one of the most unique experiences I’ve had in country, so it’s only fitting that I share it with you guys.  Note that, for ease of reading (and to save myself from forming a consistent, coherent narrative), I’ve written this story in “timestamp” format, although, to be fair, most of these times are approximate.

Phase 1 -- Masasi to Tunduru

7:30am: I show up at the Masasi stendi, and hop on my bus.  It’s just a small, Chinese-made coaster, but it seems to be in good condition.  My ticket is honored, and my seat has been reserved.  Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.

8:00: At the edge of town, we stop at another bus stand to pick up additional passengers.  As is customary in Tanzania, we jam six people in a five-person row.  Despite my protests, one of my bags is relocated to the roof of the bus to make room for a huge mama to sit next to me.  I am scrunched up against the window, and my left leg is pinned under her right butt cheek.  It goes numb in about a minute.

8:30: Only thirty minutes in and we hit construction.  The paved road is blocked off, and we’re forced to zigzag our way across the main thoroughfare on a secondary mud track created by passing lorries.  It’s like driving through a swamp.

9:30: Our bus has joined a long, fishtailing line of cars, all of whom are stuck behind a slow flatbed.  Every now and then our driver attempts to pass a few cars by going on the grass; I really wish he would stop.

10:00: It has begun to rain.  Our speed is now halved.

10:30: After a few harrowing bus acrobatics, we manage to pass the flatbed and pull away from the pack.  We’ve also managed to pass the construction as well.  The road, now dirt, has regained some semblance of a highway, and even the rain has stopped.  The driver takes this as a cue to gun the engine and go as fast as he can to make up for lost time.

10:35: We spin out on a sharp turn.  I almost have a heart attack.

11:30: We all stop on the side of a road for a bathroom break.  Most of us just eliminate quickly and move on, but an mzee (elder) figures this would be a good time to take a load off as well.  He decides that trees and bushes are for suckers and commits the act right in the middle of the road, in full view of everyone.

11:38: The conductor yells at the mzee to hurry the hell up since there’s a big, muddy hill coming up and another storm is approaching.  The mzee insists he’s not done yet.

11:40: We’ve all been sitting on the bus watching this guy take a crap for the past ten minutes.  The conductor gives him one last warning.

11:41: The conductor tosses the man’s bag off the top, yelling at him to catch the next bus as we all drive off.  The man comes running after us with his pants down.  We don’t stop.

12:30pm: We cross the first of many rivers.  The bridge is wooden, one lane wide, and looks like it was built in the 1930s.  There’s no actual “road” part to the bridge: we’re forced to cross on two struts that span the length of the scaffolding.  I can hear the planks creaking, and when I look out my window, I see nothing but water.  I close my eyes and pretend that this isn’t my life right now.

The road may suck, but at least the view is pretty.  This is Mt. Mkoela.

1:30: We stop in a village for lunch.  I grab a couple ndizi (bananas) and maandazi (Tanzanian donuts) and chill while the conductor and driver check up on the bus.

1:32: I’m approached by a beggar.  He is repulsive.  He reeks of konyagi (papaya gin) and body odor, and his right hand is mutilated from some sort of accident.  To top it off, his forehead and nose are covered with these weird boils, all of which ooze green pus into his eyes and down his cheeks.  He asks me for money; I politely decline.

1:35: This guy won’t leave me alone.  He follows me all around the village, insisting that I’m holding out on him.  I finally decide to be rude and tell him to piss off.

1:36: In an act of crazy vagrant vengeance, the beggar grabs my arm with his good hand and---in one, lightning-quick motion---wipes his face on my shirt.  My shirt now has a giant smear of green pus and saliva across it.  I am too shocked/horrified/disgusted to properly respond.  Luckily, a few villagers see this go down and come after the guy.  He runs screaming into the bushes, but not before one of the guys gets a solid hit in with a piece of firewood upside the head.

2:45: After some further journeying, we come to our fifth or so river of the trip.  The bridge, unfortunately, has been washed away by the rains.  Some of the locals have taken it upon themselves to build an old-school ford, which looks like it came directly out of Oregon Trail.  We attempt a crossing.

2:46: Our bus is not good at fording.

2:48: The bus is stuck; we are forced to get off and help push it out of knee-deep water.  In the process, my bag falls off the roof.  I am forced to run downstream and grab it.  Everything inside is soaked, although, luckily, all of my electronics were in my other bag.

3:15: Flat tire.  It takes 45 minutes to fix.

4:20: I see the town of Tunduru on a neighboring hill.  I get really excited… there’s only one more gully to go.

4:30: On the last uphill, the bus hits a particularly nasty bump and slams into a ditch, snapping the front axle in two.  After having my head smacked into the window for the last time, I say “to hell with it” with the rest of the passengers and schlep the last mile or so to get into town.

Phase 2 – An Evening in Tunduru

5:00pm: Hot, sweaty, and exhausted, my shirt still smeared with green face goop and my bag still dripping water, I arrive in Tunduru town.  It is like the Wild West---one main strip, lined with stores and saloons and raised porches, all of it exceedingly dusty (even in rainy season).  The denizens seem to be of a generally unpleasant disposition, as all of them are glaring at me as I walk down the main avenue.  I instantly dislike this place, and I hurry to the bus stand to buy a ticket so I can get out as quickly as possible.

5:05: I am being heckled mercilessly during my short walk to stendi---solicitation from prostitutes, people asking for money, or people telling me to “go home to China” (apparently I’m Chinese here).  I guess this is typical Tanzania, but, even so, the harassment in Tunduru seems particularly acute.  I try to bust out my best vulgar Kiswahili, but I’m still not good enough to keep up with these guys.

5:10: I make it to stendi and buy my ticket back to Songea for tomorrow morning.  It costs a lot more than I thought it would.  I come to the discomforting realization that I am now very short on cash, and the nearest bank I can use to get more is back in Masasi.  I stuff a contingency 10000/= note in my shoe, but I really, really don’t want to make that trip back to Masasi again.  I vow to spend as little of my dwindling reserves as possible in town.

5:20: I decide it’s time to find a guesti (hotel), and, after a bit, I find one of the less rundown ones.  It’s in my price range, so it will do.

5:21: The check-in lady shows me my room.  There is a used condom on the floor.  The sheets also have some weird stains on them.  I politely ask her to find me another.

5:22: The check-in lady shows me another room.  There are two used condoms on the floor, and the sheets have stains as well---these ones dark brown.  Again, I ask to relocate.

5:23: The third room is clean and has a bed, but no mattress.  I ask if she has a spare.  She doesn’t know.  I ask if she has another room.  She says no.  I guess I’m sleeping on bed boards tonight.

5:30: After dropping off my bags and settling in a bit (i.e. changing my filthy, filthy shirt), I decide it’s time to have a look around town.

Beautiful, scenic Tunduru.

6:30: I’ve come to the conclusion that Tunduru sucks.  The entire male population is comprised of truck drivers, prospectors, and coolies, all of whom are more cruel and ruthless in their taunts than a roving pack of 6^th grade girls during recess.  All the women I see are either barmaids or prostitutes---or both---and they are relentless in their continuous demands for mzungu charity.  The sun is hot and the road is dusty, and, aside from the string of gem dealers, there’s nothing really to see here.  Still, though, I have to kill some time before dinner, so I go into a gem store.

6:35: I smell him before I see him---that distinct, pungent aroma of konyagi mixed with local-brewed pombe (alcohol) that smells like downtown Songea on a Sunday night.  I whip around to find a short, young Muslim guy standing no more than two feet behind me, grinning at me like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.  Given his close proximity, I balk a little bit: his teeth are stained brown, a product of too much sweet chai and not enough brushing, and he has perhaps the most prolific and untamed nose hair I’ve ever seen on a person his size.  He is also wasted, swaying ever so gently from side to side… like a dust-covered banana leaf in the Tunduru breeze.  He initiates conversation:

Him: “You are a long way from home, mzungu!”

Me: “Well, I’m going there tomorrow.  I live in Songea.”

Him: “So you’re a teacher!”

Me: “Yeah, at Songea Boys’.  You know it?”
Him: “Know it?  I went there!  Form V and Form VI… I’m a graduate!”

Me: “Well, that’s certainly interesting.  I think I’ll be going now…”

Him: “No, you must stay!  Let’s go get dinner.  I know a good place.”

Me: “No, really, it’s okay.  I’m not even hun---”

Him: “I want to be your friend.  Will you be my friend?”

Me: “Uh… sure, I guess, but really, I need to…”

Him: “Great!  We are brothers now!  Man to man!  Let’s go have a drink!”

Me: “Look, uh… whoever you are, I don’t even have money to buy drinks.  I spent it all on a bus ticket home.”

Him: “Who cares?  I’ll buy you dinner.  Come on, let’s go drink!  Man to man!”

[At this point, I realize that eating dinner and enduring a conversation with a drunk Tanzanian guy may be better than my original plan---lying on the bed boards in my hotel room in the dark and starving quietly---so I decide to take him up on his offer.]

Me: “Okay, let’s go, then.”

Him: “Excellent! You are now my brother.  We are friends for LIFE.  Man to man!”

Me: “That’s great.  Can we go now?”

Him: “Wait!  We need to celebrate this occasion.  I need to buy you a gift!  Wait one minute.”

6:40: The guy turns to the gem dealer and starts arguing with him in fierce, rapid-pace Kiswahili.  I barely understand any of it.

7:00: It’s been twenty minutes.  Both parties are still arguing intensely.  At long last, the dealer sighs, throws up his hands, mutters what I assume to be a curse, and goes into the back room.  He comes back out shortly thereafter with a little baggie filled with gems.  My new acquaintance, handing over payment, is elated: “For you, my friend.  Man to man!”

7:30: We’re at the bar.  My new friend is downing konyagi packets like it’s his job, periodically screaming at the waitresses for more booze.  I counter his drunken exuberance by meekly eating my chipsi mayai and sipping my beer.

9:30: The night has devolved into me sitting there and watching my companion drink.  There is no conversation, no cultural exchange.  Our only form of communication is occasional high-fives or outbursts of “Man to man!” from him.  I can barely understand a word of his slurred speech, and, now that I’m no longer hungry, I feel the strong desire to extricate myself from this situation.

10:00: My gracious host, who at this point is so drunk he can barely keep his eyes open, has now turned his interest to the women of the bar.  To this end, he is calling the waitresses over with fake beer orders just to see if he can cop a feel.  The waitresses are wise to his tricks, and most of them are too fast for his wild, grasping swings at their backsides.  One particularly wild swing causes him to lose balance and fall off his chair, causing him to faceplant on the floor.  The whole bar laughs, even me.

10:15: One of the prostitutes in the bar has taken an interest in me.  She is gross… overweight, missing teeth, you name it.  Never mind that she has a baby with her, or---perhaps the clincher---a full-on beard.  Like, seriously, she had more facial hair than I did.  She smiles and winks at me; I respond by avoiding eye contact and hoping that she’ll go away.

10:20: She sneaks up from behind and leans in to whisper something naughty in my ear.  I can feel her bristly goatee tickling the side of my face.  I want to vomit.  I tell her in polite Kiswahili to “please, never touch me again.”

10:30: I notice that my host is passed out on the table, a small puddle of drool collecting at the base of his mouth.  The whole bar is laughing at him.  I take this opportunity to leave.

10:45: I arrive back in my hotel room, and, after a cleansing shower, collapse on my bed boards, dreaming of the journey to come.

Phase 3 – Tunduru to Songea, the Home Stretch

4:30am: I can’t sleep.  The bed boards aren’t comfortable.  The bug net is full of holes and I have spent all night being dive-bombed by mosquitoes.  I decide to give up on sleep and head out to stendi early.

5:00: I arrive at the bus stand.  There are no buses there.  This is a little disconcerting, as my bus is supposed to leave at 6am.  However, buses are late all the time in Tanzania, so I’m not too worried.

5:30: The buses heading east to Masasi have arrived. A couple of the private, safari-style 4x4s headed to Songea have pulled in as well and people are getting on.  Still no sign of my bus.  I check the office where I bought my ticket, but it’s still closed.

6:05: All the Masasi buses have left, and most of the 4x4s have pulled out.  My bus still isn’t there, and the office still isn’t open.  I realize that I have enough money to either go to Masasi or stay in Tunduru another night, not both.  This means that, if I have already missed the last bus to Masasi and my bus to Songea never shows up, I’ll have to spend another 24 hours on the streets of Tunduru---not staying in any hotels and not eating any food---before I return to Masasi, get money, stay the night, return to Tunduru, buy another ticket, stay the night, and then go to Songea.  This is NOT acceptable.

6:20: I panic.  One way or another, I am getting home to Songea today.  I run around to the remaining 4x4 drivers, desperately trying to hash out a deal in which they take me home first and I pay them when I arrive (otherwise known as the time-tested “look-at-my-skin-color” dodge).  They all refuse.

6:30: The clerk at the ticket office finally arrives.  I ask him where the hell the bus is.  He informs me that, during the rainy season, they don’t even bother with buses on the Songea-Tunduru road; the only type of car that can possibly make it is a 4x4.  He says that the bus company splits the profits with the private cars, and so my ticket should work with them.  I tell him that I have already tried using my bus ticket with all the cars here, and none of the drivers have accepted it.  His response: “Hm… too bad.  I guess you missed the correct one.”

6:31: This is not okay.  I am furious.  I go off on the guy---demanding another car this instant, telling him he’s an irresponsible putz, asking him how I could have possibly known about this situation, informing him that he has disgraced the people of Tanzania with his incompetence, threatening police involvement, vowing that my mzungu friends are coming to beat his ass, doubting his manhood, etc.

6:35: After a couple of minutes, he concedes and agrees to set me up with one of the remaining cars in the bus stand.  At this point, the only car left is a pickup, which is almost entirely full.  There is only room in the back; i.e., the cargo bed.  Right now, I’m thankful for anything, so I hop in.

6:36: The clerk asks 5000/= for his services.  I tell him to go **** himself.  One of the mamas in the back with me covers her child’s ears.

6:40: We’re on our merry way.  The initial part of the road just passes through Tunduru suburbs, so it’s not so bad.  My awkward position in the back (by the way, there’s at least ten of us back here plus luggage) is uncomfortable, but bearable for now.

7:30: The folks in the back start singing to pass the time.  This makes sleeping in the back of a pickup even harder than it is normally.

8:30: The car breaks down the first of twelve times during our trip.  How do I know?  I kept a tally on the back of my left hand the entire ride.

This scene would repeat itself many times throughout the course of the day.

9:30: We stop for chai in a village.  I have my first jackfruit ever.  It’s delicious… it baffles me how we don’t have more of these available in the States.  The downside is that my face and hands are sticky for the rest of the trip.  Still worth it.

I get bored during the stops, so I take pictures of the kids.

11:00: The scenery is growing increasingly wild… villages are farther apart, and those that do exist are nothing more than a few thatch-roofed huts with a fire pit at the center.  The road has essentially become two deep ruts in the ground, so deep that the front end of our car has begun to constantly scrape along the middle protrusion, as if we are riding on the median.  We periodically have to stop the car and scrape the mud buildup off the hood and grill, which only serves to slow things down further.

11:30: We pass an abandoned bus.  Its entire front end is encased in mud.  It looks as if it has been left for weeks.  I take this as a sign.

12:30: All semblance of a road is lost.  We’re essentially traveling down a giant slip’n’slide, the only traction coming from the trash, gravel, and other crap previous lorry drivers have thrown down to increase their grip.  I have no idea why lorry drivers would even take this road in the first place.

Fig. 1: Mud.

1:00: We blow our first shock.  The driver tries to fix it, but can’t.  We continue on with our rear left wheel periodically scraping against the body of the car.

1:30: We blow our second shock, our front left wheel.  The pickup now lists significantly to the left.  The driver has to constantly correct his bearing to ensure we move in a straight line.

Fixin' shocks.

2:00: While we stop for more engine maintenance (Breakdown #4), our radiator cap explodes, covering the driver and the entire front of the car (while sprinkling us in the back) with dirty, hot water.  We send a couple kids to go get replacement water.  They come back with a big bucket of mud.  The driver doesn’t care and fills the radiator up.  That can’t be good for it.

Before finding children to do the work for us.

2:30: At the top of a hill, we see a bus coming our way, ostensibly from Namtumbo (the next town over from Songea).  We wait for it to attempt the hill before we make our descent.  I watch the bus as it guns the engine, almost makes it to the top, fails, slides back down uncontrollably, and lodges its rear wheels into a ditch.  Well, they aren’t going anywhere fast… chances are they’ll be spending the night on the road until a lorry comes by.  We shout a sympathetic “pole!” as we drive past.

3:00: The road has become a graveyard of derelict vehicles, all of which seem to be at least partially embedded in silt.  The majority of these seem to be buses and lorries, which doesn’t surprise me because they’re big and unwieldy.  Still disconcerting, though.

4:00: We pass a sign: “NOW ENTERING THE SELOUS-NIASSA GAME RESERVE”

6:00: Dear God, there is NOTHING out here.  I haven’t seen another person---or any signs of development---for the past three hours.  At this point, the road is straight-up nonexistent: I believe that some pioneering soul must have taken a steam shovel to it back in the 80s, and no one has ever touched it again.  It’s like driving on a goat path, only with more mud and a lot more hills.

Hills and dirt.

6:05: We pass another car graveyard.  This one consists almost entirely of 4x4s like ours.  If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.

6:15: Each hill---and there are many---has become a trial of herculean proportions, testing every bit of our strength, endurance, and willpower.  A successful attempt sends us careening over the top, our pickup’s tires suddenly catching and the torque of the engine catapulting us so that we slide uncontrollably down the other side.  A failed attempt results in our shamefully sliding down to the beginning of the hill, sometimes into a ditch (which we first have to get out of before attempting the hill again).

6:30: We approach a particularly tall hill.  I have a bad feeling about this.

6:31: We floor it to get to the top, and we almost make it.  Just before we reach the crest, however, the tires get stuck, and the car begins to slide.

6:31: We are sliding backwards.  Fast.  From my view in the cargo bed, I can see that we are rapidly approaching a large depression with a number of trees and pointy rocks at the bottom.  I feel fear.

6:31: We’re going at least 20mph.  There’s no way we’re stopping in time.  We are going over a cliff.  Everyone else in the car is panicking.  This is it.  I’m going to die out here.

6:32: Our rear wheels go over the edge.  I bail out.

6:32: By some miracle of God, our front wheels catch, and, combined with the friction from the undercarriage and the front part of the rear wheels, the driver is somehow able to stop the car.  All the Tanzanians laugh at me for my cowardice.  I tell them that I'm sorry I lack their lust for danger.

6:50: Night has fallen in the wilderness.  Using nothing but flashlights, the car engine, and a lot of manpower, we are somehow able to get the car back on the road.  I spend the whole time scared I’m going to be eaten by lions.

9:00: We leave the Selous-Niassa Game Reserve and are well on our way to Namtumbo.  We have blown both our other shocks, so at least the car seems a bit more level.  Our engine has started smoking, and our rear bumper has fallen off (we stowed it in the back with the rest of the passengers), but we are still moving, albeit slowly.  We also blew a tire, but luckily we had a spare.

10:00: We arrive in Namtumbo.  Some of the passengers get off, meaning I get a seat inside the car.  Yay!

12:00am: We blow another tire.  For whatever stupid reason, we didn’t get another spare in Namtumbo.  Our pickup once again lists heavily to the left.

2:20: I see the big “Karibu Songea” placard outside my school.  I’m so happy I could cry.

2:30: We arrive in Songea town after nineteen long, painful hours.  Our pickup, caked in mud and still smoking profusely from the engine, is effectively totaled---four blown shocks, two broken headlights, two flat tires, one warped wheel, a cracked windshield, a snapped-off rear bumper, plus unknown engine damage… yeah, it’s not probably going to be making that trip again for a little while.  I thank the drivers, hop off at the main bus stand, grab a quick meal (save for the jackfruit, I hadn’t eaten all day), and head home.

3:00: I arrive back at my house.  I am so relieved to finally be back home.

3:01: The first thing I see as I open my door is a large wheel a cheese that I forgot to throw out before I initially left for Morogoro.  It’s been almost five weeks.  There are weevils and ants everywhere.  Half the block has turned into an unrecognizable sludge.  The image---and the smell---still haunt my dreams.

Afterword

As I’ve learned from my counterparts back at school, I actually made pretty good time as far as typical experiences on the road go.  Given that I was traveling in the late rainy season (i.e. during the long, gentle rains), the average car ride between Songea and Tunduru usually takes around two days, or three if you’re riding in a lorry.  This means, in effect, that you simply have to tough it out and sleep in the car for a night or two.  The dry season (June-November) is a completely different story: apparently the road conditions improve significantly, and regular buses are able to make the trip in as little as 8-9 hours.  And for the truly suicidal, there’s the early rainy season (December-February, during the short, fierce rains), which can take as long as 4-5 days in a 4x4 due to mudslides, flash flooding, and a whole bunch of other unpleasant natural phenomena.  Don’t think I’ll be trying that one.

But yeah, regardless, this was quite an experience.  My curiosity is sated, my classes have started, and I’m happy to be back to the old Songea grind.  For the next few months, at least, most of my adventures will be of the professional, educational kind, and, to be honest, I can’t wait to see what happens next.