Paul, the Inveterate Wanderer, Part 2: Rwanda

Rwanda---or the “Pays de Mille Collines”, as it is more romantically called---is a tiny mountain kingdom located in the heart of Africa, characterized by its lush highlands, staunchly pro-development politics, and friendly populace.  Well, I guess the term “kingdom” isn’t entirely accurate, as the Hutu monarchy that ruled the area for the past few centuries was thoroughly subdued and dissolved by the Belgians after World War I… the appropriate, politically-correct description of Rwanda’s current government is probably something more like “fledgling democracy”---which, given that this is Africa, inevitably runs more along the lines of “one-party authoritarian police state.”  In all, I guess that pretty much sums up Rwanda in a nutshell: it’s a small, beautiful, green, progressive, well-developed, friendly authoritarian police state.  Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s a small, beautiful, green, progressive, well-developed, friendly authoritarian police state with a particularly dark past.

For those of you who remember the 90s (or have seen Hotel Rwanda), the mention of Rwanda necessarily invokes one particular event in that country’s history---namely, the systematic extermination of roughly one million Tutsi by the Hutu-backed Rwandan army as well as a number of armed civilian militias (most notably the Interahamwe) in the spring of 1994.  This genocide can easily be ranked among the worst atrocities committed in recent human memory, as the sheer barbarism and hate that plagued Rwanda during that time reached a level of intensity previously unseen in that part of the world.  Indeed, over the course of about three months, Rwandans had successfully murdered approximately one-eighth of their own country’s population, all while the international community (most notably the UN) watched and did nothing.  Not to mince words, but it was… a bit of a rough patch in the history of East African development.

Surprisingly, despite the extensive devastation brought by the 1994 genocide, you actually wouldn’t know it if you visited Rwanda today, as heaps of foreign aid from a guilty international community as well as a strict, forward-thinking government have ensured that modern Rwanda is not only clean and developed but also safe and hassle-free.  Parliamentary and presidential elections have recently been held, and---although the results were a bit dubious---the country is doing a hell of a lot better than it was back in the 90s, and it’s now one of the most progressive and urbanized countries in East Africa.  As such, Rwanda has now become one of the more foreigner-friendly destinations on the continent, and, in recent years, it has seen a steady influx of aid workers, expatriates, and tourists.

And, back in March, not to be deterred by trivial matters such as “school” and “work”, one of those tourists was me.

I had always had a sneaking suspicion that not all of Africa was like Songea, and---not to put Tanzania down or anything---I had heard repeated tales of the relative safiness of neighboring countries (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, southern Mozambique, etc.).  In no way do I hate Songea or Tanzania, but I was intensely curious to see if these legends of a posh East Africa were true, and given that Rwanda was small, compact, and didn’t require a $60 entry visa, it became an inescapable detour during my aimless wanderings around northern Tanzania.

In all, I spent about a week in Rwanda, which certainly wasn’t enough time to see everything the country had to offer, but was nonetheless sufficiently long to soak in as much Rwanda exposure as possible before running out of money and going home.  Honestly, I never really had much of a game plan the whole time I was there; organization is not exactly my forte, and unless you consider “doing safi crap while putzing around Kigali” a travel agenda, I was pretty much going without any prior knowledge of what to expect.  I guess things turned out okay in the end: armed with my tattered 2003 edition of Lonely Planet: East Africa and a solid 30 minutes of internet research in Bukoba, I was able to follow what I guess could be called the “Western Rwanda Circuit”---beginning in Kigali, moving south to Butare, heading west to Nyungwe and Cyangugu, ferrying north to Gisenyi, passing through Ruhengeri back to Kigali, and returning home via the Rusumo border.  It was short, it was fun, and there were enough mini-adventures and exploits to say that, overall, it was a worthwhile trip.

Rather than bore you, the valued reader, with a blow-by-blow account of these exploits, I’ve elected to---as done before in this blog---describe my foray into Rwanda in “vignette” form, which will hopefully keep things brief and interesting (and again allow me to tell a story without writing a complete, coherent narrative).  Moreover, if there are any PCVs in Rwanda who happen to read this, karibu sana to call me out on anything that may be inaccurate/misinformed/excessively jingoistic.  I mean, you guys actually live there, and I’m just a poor country bumpkin from Tanzania, after all.

So, without further ado, here’s the Cliffs’ Notes version of Paul’s Totally Radical Rwandan Adventure:

General Impressions

Perhaps the first thing I noticed when crossing the border was the instant improvement in infrastructure.  The average Tanzanian house is usually a one- or two-room mud brick structure with a corrugated tin roof and fire pit; the average Rwandan house appeared to be a one- or two-room mud brick structure with a corrugated tin roof and a fire pit and a personal water spigot and a telephone pole connected to an electric meter outside the front door.  The roads, while still one-lane-each-way like Tanzanian roads, were largely paved, and most sported newly-painted lane dividers and passing zones, not to mention street lights---something only really seen in Dar (and then only in downtown Dar) in Tanzania.  Lastly, while I can’t vouch for rural Rwanda, there were literally ZERO power outages and water shortages the entire week I was in country, which was pretty mind-blowing given that I come from the land of outdated diesel generators and personal rain catchment apparatuses (i.e. buckets).  In all, I would say that things definitely seemed a step up from back home.

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Another major change between Tanzania and Rwanda was that all of Rwanda (but particularly Kigali) was incredibly, meticulously---and, in some ways, obsessively---clean.  I don’t think I’ve seen a cleaner capital city in my life; there was literally no litter anywhere.  In fact, I learned during my stay that possession of plastic shopping bags is, in fact, a felony, and being caught with one can incur a sizeable fine (plus, of course, confiscation and incineration of said bag).  Contrast this with Tanzania, in which the main thoroughfares are constantly lined with miniature mountains of plastic bottles, juice cartons, Styrofoam containers, and plastic bags tossed from buses… it’s pretty disgusting, to say the least.  In all fairness, I’m pretty sure these stringent Rwandan anti-littering laws are more out of concern for pleasing the international community than environmental awareness, but hey, it worked for me, so I’m not complaining.

This is Africa.

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I have no idea why, but, before coming to Rwanda, it never really occurred to me that Rwandans, in fact, speak a different language than Tanzanians---both with regard to traditional Bantu language (Kinyarwanda) and adopted colonial language (French).  As a result, literally the second I crossed the border into Rwanda, I transformed from a street-smart, worldly East African veteran into a dumb, mute tourist who spent the next week primarily communicating through a series of grunts and hand gestures.  In time, I eventually managed to work out a system for most social interactions: I would first try English, then Kiswahili… if both of those failed (which was often), I would reluctantly switch to my French, which, for lack of a better description, was absolutely atrocious.  Seriously, my entire knowledge of the French language stems from Inglorious Basterds, Tintin comics, and that week-long family vacation in Provence when I was 8… as such, the furthest my French goes is only the most basic of phrases---“bonjour”, “désolé”, “Où est la toilette?”, “Je ne parle pas français”, “Je suis un stupide américain”, and so on.  It didn’t help that many Rwandans seemed to be subject to the same general preconceptions about white people as Tanzanians (namely, that wazungu all speak the same language), and, with French being the de facto “white guy” language for the region, I had a great deal of difficulty telling Rwandans that I simply didn’t speak French, and that saying it again in French louder wasn’t helping my comprehension. 

In the end, I was able to dig deep and recall some of the more important words (like numbers), and, with the occasional strategic insertion of English and Kiswahili, I was able to broaden my vocabulary to a marginally functional level over the course of the week (“Avez-vous… maji makubwa?”).  So, in sum, I was able to get around without getting screwed over too badly.

And hey, at the very least, Rwanda marked the first time in my life I was able to say “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle” completely without irony.  So that’s plus, too.

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I could be wrong about this, and any of you reading this feel free to correct me, but… Rwanda struck me as a country that, well, maybe has received a bit too much international aid in recent years.  By no means am I saying that Rwandans aren’t industrious or that, given how much the international community screwed them over back in 1994, Rwandans don’t deserve some foreign help… I’m just saying that Rwanda seemed like a place where the local NGOs went a bit buck-wild with their grant money over the past two decades: from the hordes of white people, to the brand-new steel telephone poles lining the streets, to the children playing with actual toys (as opposed to the venerable Tanzanian bicycle-tire-and-stick combo), to the ubiquitous white Hiluxes and Landcruisers patrolling the roadways, Rwanda just seemed like it was a bit more touched by Western influence than Tanzania.

The locals gave me hints of this as well: while I am routinely asked for money in Tanzania, money was frequently demanded from me in Rwanda, often to a much more preposterous degree (“Give me 10,000 francs!”, “Give me your jacket!”, “Give me your cellphone!”).  Heck, one guy even insisted that I give him my backpack as payment for helping me get on a boat in Cyangugu, even though it was incredibly obvious that my backpack was carrying literally everything I owned inside it, and, as a result, I clearly was using it and thus couldn’t give it to him.  I can’t imagine such audacious---and, in some ways, downright disrespectful---begging arising naturally in Rwandan culture; while I’m sure there are a number of factors at work, excessive foreign influence has got to be one of them.  Again, to invite comparison: in most parts of Tanzania, the first English phrase Tanzanian children learn (or at least feel willing to yell at you) is “good morning!” (a.k.a. “goodimohn!”); in Rwanda, conversely, it seems to simply be “MONEY!”.

The guy who wanted my backpack.  After I refused to give it to him, he told me we were best friends and asked me to take a picture.  When I told him I wouldn’t be able to print it for him, he instructed me to send it to him “by internet.”  He didn’t give me an e-mail address, so here it is.  Sorry, buddy… this is the best I can do.

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Perhaps a product of all this expat presence was the fact that Rwanda, much to my dismay, was crazy expensive---so much so that I easily spent more in a week there than I would during an average two months in Songea.  At the time of my visit, the exchange rate was 1000 RWF = 3000 TSH = 2 USD, which, while not terrible for your average American or European with a full-time job, was absolutely devastating for me as a Tanzanian PCV: in addition to the exchange rate not being in my favor, Peace Corps Tanzania has one of the lowest living allowances for volunteers in the world, primarily on account of Tanzania’s being so cheap.  Thus, I was horrified to learn that, despite every franc being worth three shillings, all prices in Rwanda were numerically the same as those in Tanzania, meaning that I literally had to pay three times as much for everything: a single meal in Kigali could set me back around 6000 francs, which equated to about 18000 shillings---enough to feed me for a week (and then some) in Songea.

As a result, for the duration of my stay in Rwanda, I was forced to go into hardcore “survival mode”: eating only one meal a day, begging kindly expats to let me crash on their couches, and hitchhiking like it was my job.  Granted, it was out of this hyper-anxious penny-pinching that I had some of my more interesting experiences in Rwanda, but still, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as desperately poor as I did during that week out of country (with the possible exception of that one time when I sold my watch for passage across Lake Tanganyika, but that’s a different story).

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Exacerbating my problems with money and language was the fact that I seemed to arrive in Rwanda in the wake of an aggressive (and, unfortunately, comprehensive) nationwide campaign to rename and relocate literally everything in country… and then not tell anyone about it.  As a result, the towns of Butare, Gikongoro, and Cyangugu on my map were now known as Huye, Nyamagabe, and Kamembe, respectively; Rugege Forest had now become Nyungwe National Park; and pretty much every major landmark in Kigali had been renamed, removed, replaced, or relocated within the past two years.  Naturally, this only caused me to be even more woefully unprepared for my visit than I already was: not only was my 2003 edition Lonely Planet now completely useless, but literally NO ONE---not even the taxi drivers or the moto guys---knew where anything was in country, making getting directions nearly impossible.

This was particularly problematic when I was in the capital: Kigali, despite being clean and pretty, is clearly not a sterling example of strategic urban planning, and, accordingly, I had no fewer than three unintentional multi-hour tours of the city from the various moto drivers during my stay there, as we would invariably get lost in Kigali’s morass of alleyways, dead-ends, and one-exit neighborhoods.  In fact, most drivers never actually knew where my intended destination was in the first place (and, of course, I sure as hell couldn’t help them find it), and since typical African policy when it comes to taxis is to lie to the customer and then try to wing it by asking locals for directions (and then charge the customer more when we inevitably get lost), I ended up spending a lot more time in taxis or on motos than I would have liked.  Add this in with my desperate poorness and the inexplicable confusion most of the moto drivers seemed to have with the words “cent” and “mille”---in the end, you have a recipe for many a heated, multilingual argument concerning capitalism, justice, and the fair exchange of goods and services in a developing country.

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Perhaps the most fascinating and unique aspect of Rwanda---one that you can’t really see anywhere else in the world---was the constant juxtaposition of modern-day Rwanda (clean, friendly, civilized, happy) and its incredibly turbulent past.  While the entire country is currently wrapped up in an incredibly strong “never again” attitude with regard to the 1994 genocide, the remnants of a much darker Rwanda are still quite present in the countryside---from the strong negative attitude towards the UN, to the occasional limbless farmer, to the ubiquitous (and rather grisly) genocide memorials scattered throughout the country.

I happened to arrive a few weeks before the 18^th annual Week of Mourning (a.k.a. Genocide Memorial Day), and literally the entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but think about what Rwanda must have been like 18 years ago.  I mean, what if I had had the misfortune of being born Rwandan back then?  I’m 24 now; I would have been 7 in 1994.  That means that, Hutu or Tutsi, if I had survived the killing, I would have undoubtedly remembered it, enough so to permanently scar me for the rest of my life.  And heck, what about the locals I interacted with?  A lot of them were older than I am, and, as a result, they probably remember the genocide even better than I would have.  Actually, given the numbers, chances are that most of the older folks I met during my travels participated in the genocide in some way, whether they wanted to or not.  As a result, whenever I talked to a Rwandan over the age of 30, I couldn’t help but think that I was either talking to a victim, a guilt-by-proxy enabler, or---heaven forbid---an actual rapist or a murderer of innocent civilians.  I actually did get some stories from a the occasional Tutsis I met around the country, but, for the entire week I was there, I had to constantly bite my tongue to prevent myself from asking every random older Rwandan I met, “So… what’s your story?”

Events of Interest

Given my curiosity regarding the history of the Rwandan genocide, I found myself visiting a lot of genocide memorials whilst in Rwanda.  This wasn’t driven by some sort of perverse, voyeuristic desire to see as much carnage as possible before returning to Tanzania; rather, I figured that Rwanda was one of the few places on Earth in which one could (safely) observe some of the darker aspects of human nature and, hopefully, learn how to prevent such tendencies from manifesting themselves in the future.  Moreover, the memorials were usually free, which, admittedly, was a strong motivating factor.

If you don’t think you’ve had enough mental or emotional scarring in your life, visit a Rwandan genocide memorial; you won’t be disappointed.  The stuff I saw at Nyamata, Ntarama, and Murambi was, in short, profoundly disturbing, and just thinking about what went down at those sites back in April 1994 makes my skin crawl.  Not that I’ve been to many, but most of what I know about genocide memorials in the West (i.e. mostly Holocaust memorials) is that they tend to be at least somewhat tasteful: sure, there are pictures, video, and perhaps refurbished renditions of various torture rooms, gas chambers, etc., but you typically don’t see the direct results of the genocide firsthand.  In Rwanda, however, everything is right there in front of you---the bloodstained machetes, the bullet/grenade holes in the wall, the bloody handprints on the altar, the numerous (and still dirty) instruments of torture, the baby-smashing wall, the enormous stacks of human bones, and the knowledge that ~10000 people died in this room over the course of an afternoon… it’s unreal.  What’s worse, at Murambi, you can actually see (and smell) the lime-preserved corpses of ~2000 victims, most of whom are still wearing clothes and sporting machete wounds---something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wipe from my mind.  Have worse atrocities been committed in human history?  Yes, definitely.  Will I still watch violent movies and play violent video games?  For sure.  But still, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much death in one place before in my life.

Some of the grenade holes at Ntarama.

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On a lighter note, while in southern Rwanda, I made a brief trip to Nyungwe Rainforest National Park (a.k.a. the poor man’s Parc National des Volcans), where I took a guided nature walk with a cool German family I met in the park.  The walk itself was interesting enough: we saw a bunch of monkeys, a number of rainforest birds, and we were able to hear chimpanzees in the distance.  Moreover, it was nice to meet some folks who spoke good English (the whole “trying to speak French” thing was starting to get to me at that point).  I just think it was kind of funny how we first met up: they pulled up in a clean, rented 4x4 for our 9am hike, replete with raingear and waterproof nature books… I pulled up clinging to the side of a full cattle truck in a filthy t-shirt and jeans, my everything-I-own backpack clumsily slung over my right shoulder.  God, I’m such a dirty Peace Corps volunteer sometimes.

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I stayed in Cyangugu, Rwanda’s southernmost port on Lake Kivu, for the better part of two days, waiting for boat transport north to Gisenyi.  Aside from almost getting in a fistfight with a taxi driver over 5000 francs, I spent most of this time bumming around town and hanging out with the resident Congolese population (they tend to speak much better Kiswahili than Rwandans, and they tend to be businessmen, so they didn’t badger me for money).  This was fun enough, but the town was pretty small, and I got bored fairly quickly.

Cyangugu happens to be across the river from Bukavu, a major city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  While Cyangugu is small and unassuming, Bukavu is quite large and safi (mostly due to a large number of foreign aid workers).  Thus, in my boredom, I decided it’d be fun to do a small day trip to Bukavu, just to see what it was like on the other side.  Moreover, the Congolese guys I hung out with were mostly from Bukavu, and they gave me the lowdown on nice places to eat or things to see in town (although none of them could verify for me if I needed a visa to enter).  Lastly, there seemed to be a lot of traffic across the bridge, anyways, so it shouldn’t have been too difficult for me to cross over and take a peek.

So, one day, I gave it a shot.  I stamped out of Rwanda (again no word on a visa) just to be safe, and, given that there were no guards on either side of the bridge, I simply walked across the border.  No one seemed to care, so I walked up the hill to the main road.  Still no one seemed to care (and interestingly, there wasn’t an immigration office), so I began to walk along the main road into town.

All of a sudden, I heard a great deal of yelling behind me, and, looking over my shoulder to see what was going on, I saw an overweight immigration officer and two guards sprinting after me.  Not really knowing what to do, I just kind of stopped and waved awkwardly at them.  This seemed to irritate the officer, but one of the guards laughed, so I didn’t feel in immediate danger… until both guards grabbed me and proceeded to manhandle me into the immigration office (it was tucked behind another building, so I didn’t see it when I passed the first time).

Once in the office, my lack of French landed me in a room with the only guy who could speak some English, the commandant.  He was an older guy, maybe around 50, who looked that he had dealt with a lot of trivial crap in his life, but who was nonetheless quite displeased with my antics.  He proceeded to grill me on a multitude of subjects---where I come from, what work I do, why I was trying to get into the DRC without a visa, whether I was CIA, whether I was a terrorist, whether I was (no kidding) a professional saboteur come to reignite the war in Congo, etc.  In the end, I managed to convince him that I was just an ignorant tourist who didn’t know DRC visa policy and who had simply missed the immigration office on my way in---that I was deeply sorry for defying the DRC border authority and that, should I ever cross a border again, I would immediately go to customs as is required by international law.

Moderately satisfied with my wholesale capitulation, the commandant had me fill out an official “Formulaire de Refus”, which, again, was in French, so I had to do a lot of guesswork regarding where to fill out the proper items.  As I learned immediately after signing it, this form apparently exiled me from the DRC indefinitely, pending review from an embassy.  Whoops… I guess while I can understand their concern, I can’t help but feel a little rejected.

Once that was finished, the commandant took me back outside, where two armed guards were waiting to escort me back to the border.

Commandant: “Here is your escort.  Now leave my country.”

Me: “Okay, well, sorry about all this.  Asante.”

Commandant: [in Kiswahili] “Wait, you speak Kiswahili?”

Me: [in Kiswahili] “Yes, I told you.  I’ve been volunteering in a secondary school in Tanzania for 18 months, so I speak a little Kiswahili.”

Commandant: [suddenly cordial] “Oh, that’s good!  I feel it’s important to learn the local language when you live in another country.  You’re doing good work; Tanzania is lucky to have you!”

Me: “Well, thanks!  Um… does this mean that you might let me into Bukavu after all?”

Commandant: [suddenly dour again] “No.  Piss off.”

And so, after a brief manhandling down the hill and across the bridge (the guards wouldn’t let me walk on my own for some reason), I was unceremoniously kicked out of the DRC.  Naturally, the Rwandans on the other side thought this was hilarious… I guess it’s always entertaining to see whitey get taken down a notch.

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A random conversation with a Congolese (translated/paraphrased from Kiswinglish):

Him: “Where are you from, friend?”

Me: “America.”

Him: “Oh, Americans.  Why are you here?”

Me: “No reason.  Just visiting.  Rwanda is a really nice place.”

Him: “You aren’t trying to conquer Rwanda?”

Me: “Conquer Rwanda?”

Him: “You know, you’re a very bad people because you want to take over the world.  You are imperialists.  Your CIA does nothing but overthrow governments and cause wars.”

Me: “Um… while I won’t say that I agree with everything the CIA does, I think I’m insulted?”

Him: “Americans are responsible for all wars in the world today.  Just recently, Obama and the CIA conspired to kill Gadhafi in Libya for his oil, and they did!  And they killed Osama bin Laden before that.  This is all part of America’s attempt to control the world!”

Me: “But we didn’t kill Gadhafi.  His own people did and NATO helped.  And NATO only helped because Gadhafi was a brutal dictator who openly massacred Libyans for protesting against his regime.”

Him: [condescendingly] “You are a liar!  Or you are stupid.  You cannot believe the lies they tell you in the American news.  Gadhafi was an African hero who was killed by Europeans subservient to America, all because of greed!”

Me: “What the hell news do you read?  The ‘Crazy Conspiracy Theory Digest’?”

Him: “I listen to Radio Free Africa.”

Me: “I doubt Radio Free Africa would say anything like that.”

Him: “That’s because you’re an ignorant American imperialist who is trying to conquer Africa.  Just like all Europeans!”

Me: “Quick question: Do you like the Red Cross?”

Him: “Yes.”

Me: “Then shut up.”

Aaaand... cross-cultural snap!

[Incidentally, there really is a whole lot of unjustified (and perhaps unrequited) love for Gadhafi and Osama bin Laden here in East Africa… heck, you can even buy “Gadhafi: Champion of Africa” posters here in Tanzania.  This doesn’t make any sense to me since the former was d-bag dictator who bombed his own people and the second was a known murderer of innocent Kenyans and Tanzanians in the 1998 embassy bombings.  Oh well… cultural exchange, or whatever.]

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There isn’t really much of a story to go with it, but, due to my inexplicable (and well-documented) compulsion to cross all major bodies of water in Africa by boat, I found myself on an overnight shipment of empty beer bottles across Lake Kivu after I wrapped up in Cyangugu.  Unfortunately, this trip wasn’t nearly as fun as my other ferry experiences: since there were a number of people hitching a ride, some of us were forced to stay in the hull, lying head-to-toe atop crates of broken beer bottles stacked on shelves.  This was probably the closest I have ever been (or ever will be) to riding on an actual slave ship, and, unsurprisingly, it wasn’t comfortable.  I eventually elected to sneak back up abovedecks and spend the rest of the night on the bow.

And again, since I’m a dirty Peace Corps Volunteer, when the boat dropped us off in Gisenyi at 3am, I was too cheap to get a hotel and instead decided to wait on a street corner until sunrise.  I ended up falling asleep, thus marking the first time in my life I literally spent the night in a gutter.  Unsurprisingly, when I woke up at around 6am, I got a lot of confused looks from the local Rwandans… I doubt they see that every day.

Pictured above: a horrible night's sleep.

And that about does it.  Save for some hitching follies, another lake ferry, and a particularly harrowing 35-hour bus ride, I was back in Songea before I knew it.  Needless to say, it was good to be home.

So, what can I say about Rwanda?  It was pretty fun, and it was definitely refreshing to get out of the country a little bit and see new places.  While Tanzania (and Songea in particular) will always be my home here in Africa, sometimes you just have to get out for a bit, and I really liked that Rwanda helped me do so (and then some).  Most of all, though, I enjoyed the fact that, even though Rwanda and Tanzania are profoundly different places with entirely different histories, there is still an underlying, intrinsic similarity between the two countries---that, despite differences in culture, infrastructure, and general cleanliness, Rwanda and Tanzania are still distinctly African.  In the end, I guess that’s what makes Africa special.

Still distinctly African.

Paul, the Inveterate Wanderer, Part 1: The Great North

As some of you may know, the Tanzanian A-level school year is broken up into two major breaks, one in September-October and one in March-April.  This being April, I’ve just finished the latter break: new timetables have been drawn up, my students are slowly trickling in from all parts of the country, and the school is undergoing a thorough makeover to beat back the now-ubiquitous rainy season weeds.  Slowly, the cogs of Songea Boys’ are beginning to turn again, and, as of this week, I’m back to my normal teaching schedule, as if I never left.  In the end, I guess, things always go back to the daily grind.

That being said, I can’t say I’m not looking forward to a little peace and quiet in Songea.  This most recent recess has seen me in a variety of different places---most of them quite far from home---and it’s definitely been an exciting/hectic trip along the way.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I did more traveling during this past break than I did during my entire first year of service.

To be fair, I did do some work during this time as well, but most of it was concentrated into the first week of break, and it’s not really worth talking about: I merely procrastinated like crazy during the second term and then had to grade a semester’s worth of homework, quizzes, midterms, and finals for two 180-student classes in the last seven days of school before I had to leave for Dar.  Quite frankly, I don’t even recall much of that week… all I remember is finishing an entire box of red pens, cutting brownies into small pieces to serve as carefully-rationed mini-incentives for completing ten tests at a time, and reaching a level of efficiency I didn’t think was even possible by internet-raised twenty-somethings like me.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Peace Corps Education Volunteer Experience.

But again, that stuff---and the stuff I did in Dar---isn’t the point of this post.  This post is about my aimless wandering, and I began that in Moshi and Arusha.

Moshi/Arusha

For the more geographically inclined, Tanzania can be roughly divided into five major areas---the North, the Southern Highlands, the Deep South, the West, and the Zanzibar Archipelago.  Zanzibar, while safi, is kind of in a league of its own: it has its own president, its own government, and its own culture (very Swahili, a hybrid of Arab, Indian, and East African cultures).  The North is where most of the infrastructure is and where most of the tourists go: that’s the part with Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, etc.  On the other hand, the Southern Highlands area (where Songea is) is nice---but not too nice---cooler, and less frequently visited.  The Deep South is hot, dirty, and largely neglected.  The West---well, no one really goes to the West because there really isn’t much there.

As a staunch Songean, I had never really ventured north of Dar until this past March.  Indeed, in my previous travels, I had seen a fair portion of the Southern Highlands, the Deep South, Zanzibar, and the West, but I had never really seen the part of Tanzania that is largely considered to be “quintessential Tanzania” (and, to some extent, “quintessential Africa”), i.e., Northern Tanzania.  Granted, I still haven’t had the truly classic “African Experience”---gone on safari, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, etc.---but that crap is expensive, and it’s way beyond my monthly Peace Corps pittance.  But still, given that I was already in Dar at the beginning of my large break, I felt compelled to make a brief foray into the vast North---to immerse myself in a different environment, to see friends I hadn’t seen in months, and to indulge in the North’s legendary safi accoutrements (swimming pools, safari lodges, wazungu food, etc.).

I gotta say, as far as Moshi was concerned, I was impressed.  Paved, clean, multi-lane streets with medians.  Multi-story buildings.  Well-manicured public parks and gardens.  Grocery stores and bakeries at every major intersection, featuring frozen goods, imported Western items, and properly-butchered meat.  A cheap burger joint.  Well-dressed schoolchildren who spoke decent English.  White people everywhere.  And, despite all this, it wasn’t Dar.  It was pretty mind-blowing.

Arusha was pretty similar, albeit bigger and more chaotic.  It doesn’t surprise me that Arusha is both the tourist and crime capital of Tanzania, as it has perhaps the worst bus stand in the country… from the moment you get off the bus till about a block away, you pretty much have to beat off the touts, “certified safari guides,” and other assorted con artists with a stick.  The city, though, is nice: I’m pretty sure it boasts the only sushi bar in country (and it’s actually Japanese-run, so it’s legit), and it has a huge ShopRite at the edge of town, in which I spent---I kid you not---about an hour-and-a-half gawking at the vast array of cheeses and vegetables on display.  Unfortunately for me, many of these nice things have a price, and I only had enough money on me at the time to buy four tuna rolls and an ice cream sandwich at these places, respectively.  Not really enough for a full meal, per se, but it sure beat the hell out of Paul’s Patented Half-Assed Sushi---rice, vinegar, carrots, avocados, and SPAM hunks mashed into amorphous balls and dipped in soy sauce.

As far as the stated agenda goes, my primary reason for venturing all the way to Moshi and Arusha was to run the 10^th Annual Kilimanjaro Half-Marathon, which was located in Moshi.  I was originally intending to run the full marathon, but training difficulties (read: my being fat and lazy) precluded the fulfillment of this goal, thus leaving me with no choice but to attempt to waddle my way through the half as fast as possible.  It was actually a pretty fun event: as PCVs, we tend to make a bit of a party out of the weekend, and when I wasn’t cramming every last calorie I could into my face, I was hanging out with a lot of folks I almost never see, which was pretty fun.  The race itself was also pretty nice: it was about half uphill, and half downhill, and there were a ton of participants---well over 2,000 for my particular event.  My only real complaint (aside from the Kenyans kicking my ass) was that the ending was a bit weak: I managed to match pace with a fellow PCV about ¾ through the race, and we had made plans to do an awesome, elaborate celebration dance across the finish line… only the final stretch of track was completely congested with other participants, so we didn’t get to do anything.  Heck, they didn’t even tell me my finishing time; I think it was somewhere between 2:05 and 2:15.  Lame.

Everybody gets a trophy day!

  

Singida and Mwanza

The latter part of my break was primarily focused on getting to Rwanda, which I had heard allowed Americans in free of charge (i.e. without a $60 entrance visa).  Since I’m in Peace Corps and thus a cheap bastard, this moved Rwanda to the top of my list of countries to visit while in East Africa.  In truth, I also wanted to visit Rwanda because I had heard that it was vastly different from Tanzania… I felt that spending a year-and-a-half cooped up in Songea had somewhat warped my perception of Africa as a whole, and it was important to see how the other side (or sides) lived.  Also, I had heard the country was beautiful and that it had a… unique history, and I was genuinely intrigued, so why not go?

Rwanda, unfortunately, is a pain in the ass to get to from Songea, and I had to pass through a number of towns in order to get there.  The first of these was Singida, which, while nice, was fairly unremarkable: it’s a regional capital, it’s moderately sized, and it’s in a semi-arid desert.  Its one claim to fame (at least, according to the PCVs there) is that it has really nice rocks---an assertion that is vehemently contested by denizens of Mwanza, who maintain that their rocks are far superior to Singida’s puny pebbles.  Having been to both cities, I can now say that Singida’s rocks are, in fact, more impressive than Mwanza’s, but that’s not really saying much.  It’s like two Tanesco agents arguing over who works harder: either way, they’re both still corrupt, shiftless jerkoffs.  In all fairness, I’m probably just saying this out of jealousy, as both Singida and Mwanza are substantially nicer than Songea.  Or maybe I just hate Tanesco.  Or maybe both.

In any case, Mwanza is a pretty nice town---the second largest in Tanzania, in fact---and it’s kind of like a mini-Dar: the weather’s the same, the architecture is the same, and it’s located next to a large body of water (Lake Victoria).  It has an awesome public library (this first of its kind I’ve seen in Tanzania) and awesome, caught-that-day tilapia for dirt cheap.  It also was the place where I saw one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in my service:

My first afternoon in Mwanza, I ate lunch at a semi-nice restaurant with an open garden area and long tables.  As I was waiting for my food, I noticed a large group of Tanzanians occupying the table across from me.  Each was well-dressed and had a laptop opened in front of him or her, and one of the women was reading from a piece of paper.  One of the men, sitting next to the woman, was furiously typing on his computer while she was speaking.  It took me a while to realize, but then it dawned on me…

Whoa.  He’s taking minutes.  That must mean that this is a meeting.  But this is lunchtime.  Tanzanians never conduct business during meals, unless…  HOLY CRAP IT’S A WORKING LUNCH.

I repeat: a working lunch.  In Tanzania.

In my entire service so far, I have never seen Tanzanians work during lunchtime; in fact, I get routinely admonished for letting my food get cold at school because I’m doing work, “Chakula kwanza, Mista Paul.  Chakula kwanza.”  Not just that, but I routinely see Tanzanians literally drop everything and furiously elbow check each other out of the way to get to food when it’s served (especially on “meat day” at my school), and if I happen to be teaching during lunch break, it's pretty much guaranteed that there'll be nothing left for me when I get back.  These particular Tanzanians in Mwanza, on the other hand, were not only conducting a productive meeting with a scheduled agenda---and minutes---but they were also doing it during the hallowed hour of lunch break.  Crazy.

And the best part?  When they were actually served food, they waited.  They finished their current item of business, politely asked for spoons (so as to not get their hands dirty), and begun to eat while discussing the next point.  It was just so… civilized.

Man, maybe I HAVE been spending too much time in Songea.

The Bukoba Incident

As nice as that little interlude was, Bukoba gave me a firm reminder that I was, in fact, still in Tanzania, and that Tanzania doesn’t always take too kindly to foreigners.  Don’t get me wrong, the town is nice enough: it’s green, pretty, and fairly safi (it has the biggest freaking cathedral I’ve seen in country… like National Cathedral big).  It also serves as the kinda-halfway point between Mwanza and Kigali, and getting there allowed me to ride the ferry across Lake Victoria.  (I don’t know why, but I have a strange obsession with riding boats in Tanzania.  If there’s a major body of water with a boat that goes across it, I must ride it.  I know, it’s weird.  Don’t judge me.)

Your requisite Bukoba tourism picture.  The island in the background is Msira.

 

In any case, the reason why I only have a lukewarm impression of Bukoba is because I was robbed there.  Well, partially robbed.  Let me explain:

During my stay in Bukoba, I was sharing a hotel room with a German girl I had met on the boat (that way, it worked out super cheap for both of us).  The guesti was pretty average fare: while there were no bars on the windows, the beds were comfortable enough, and there was round-the-clock supervision from a clerk.  Moreover, our room was on the second floor of a building overlooking a major intersection, which I thought afforded us a little extra security: in order to break in, one would either have to bring an exceptionally tall ladder and set it up in the alley adjacent to the building (which, incidentally, had a bunch of fundis working in it), or sidle about 20 feet along the building’s front façade (again, in full view of a major traffic intersection) from the main balcony to the window, which locked from the inside anyways.  By no means was our hotel Fort Knox, but I still felt reasonably safe leaving my stuff there.

One day, after a fairly lame excursion to the nearby island of Msira (all we wanted was to chill on the beach, but, as wazungu, we were given a mandatory escort around the island and were forced to fuel the village head’s nasty drinking habit by paying him tribute… the guy even stole the tip we gave his son for helping us out), my roommate and I returned to the guesti to wash up and prep for dinner.  Strangely, however, when we unlocked the door and tried to get in our room, the door wouldn’t budge---it had been bar-locked from the inside.  Seeing as we had the actual key on us---and, in fact, had had the key with us the whole day---this was fairly alarming, as it proved fairly conclusively that someone had broken in at some point during the day.  Peeking through the ventilation holes above the door only served to confirm this suspicion: all of our valuable items---my computer, my Zune, her and my headphones, our cellphone chargers---were gone.  After questioning hotel staff about seeing any suspicious activity during the day (and their saying that there was none), we came to the unfortunate conclusion that we had been robbed, and, by this point, the perpetrator was long gone.

Still though, I wanted to verify beyond doubt that my stuff had, in fact, been stolen, and since there was no other way to get into the room, I asked the hotel staff if we could break the lock and enter.  After some discussion of the particulars (repair costs, etc.), the staff relented and we kicked in the door.  It was actually pretty badass, and, had I not been distracted by the whole being-robbed thing, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more than I did.  I guess all that Tae Kwon Do training ultimately paid off.

The next 30 seconds are a bit of a blur.  I remember the door collapsing, rushing into the room, and making a beeline for my bed to check my valuables (my roommate did the same for her side).  I remember muttering a string of curse words upon realizing that the thieves had taken literally everything of value I owned, and I remember quickly making plans on how to spend the rest of my Peace Corps service computerless.  I also remember hearing a loud shriek from the opposite end of the room, whipping my head around to see what was happening, and seeing one of the hotel staff dragging a terrified teenage girl---replete with dirty school uniform---out of our room’s wardrobe, throwing her on the ground.  When she tried to scurry away, he pinned her down under his knee and proceeded to methodically beat the snot out of her.  Holy crap.

As it turns out, this girl was the thief: she had broken in sometime during the afternoon (how she accomplished this, I still have no idea), and she had gotten trapped in the room when we had returned early to get ready for dinner.  Guilty as hell and with no way out, she elected to hide in the wardrobe, perhaps to forestall her inevitable ass-whooping by a few extra seconds.  Seriously, though, this girl could not have been caught more red-handed: she was literally clutching the bag with all our valuables in it when she got caught, and despite being thrown on the ground and receiving a vigorous face-pummeling, she refused to let it go… we had to physically wrench it from her grasp.  Fortunately for us, all of the important things were accounted for (computer, money, cellphones, chargers, etc.), so that afforded us some measure of relief.  There was still one item missing, however---my Zune and headphones---which was the cause of some lingering consternation on my part.

Now, to be fair, my Zune is pretty old, and it can’t really do anything that my computer can’t already do better.  I wouldn’t have died if I didn’t get it back.  But still, I use it a fair bit in country; its battery, despite four-and-a-half years of extensive use, is still better than my computer’s, and it tends to come in handy on the longer bus rides.  Also, it was pretty reasonable to assume that it was still in the room somewhere: if the thief had an accomplice or if this was a well-coordinated strike, there would be no reason for her to hold on to everything else and just steal the Zune… she would probably just have dropped the entire package out to her friend in the alley and that would be that.  No, it had to be in the room.  I just didn’t know where.

So now began the fun part---the interrogation.  First, we had to clear the area: given that the town wazungu had been robbed in plain daylight and the thief had been apprehended, a mini-mob of about 30 people was forming outside the hotel, and there were at least 10 complete strangers in the hotel room, waiting their turn to grab the thief and smack her around a bit to get her to confess where the missing Zune was. It actually got fairly intense at one point… one of the hotel staff had her pinned down and was threatening to burn her eyes out with a fully-heated immersion coil if she didn’t fess up (luckily, my roommate made a diving save to unplug the coil before this actually happened).  Regardless, we managed to get most of the randoms out of the room and lock the door, which allowed me to summon up my best gentle-but-firm/good cop Kiswahili and have a one-on-one talk with her.

The talk, unfortunately, was unproductive.  For one, she was still a bit discombobulated, as she was beaten pretty badly and thus bleeding a bit/sobbing uncontrollably.  On top of that, she was having a great deal of difficulty finding a story and sticking with it: she first denied any knowledge of my Zune, then she admitted to taking it but claimed she didn’t know where it went, then she introduced a previously unmentioned accomplice, Evarastus, to whom she dropped my Zune out the window, etc.  With her story becoming progressively more convoluted and nonsensical (if she and her accomplice apparently used a ladder to climb in the second-story window, why the hell would he (a) only take the Zune with him when he left and (b) deliberately screw her over by yanking out the ladder before she could get down?) I began to lose patience with her incoherent babbling, telling her to shut her dumb, lying mouth and listen to me.

I put forward what I felt was a reasonable proposition: she could either return my Zune to me and we would go our separate ways, or she could continue to hold out and go to jail.  I tried to explain to her that we got her, she was completely and utterly caught, and if she was a good girl and returned my Zune to me, she had nothing to fear, as I could use my white man powers to guarantee her safe passage through the mob.  I further explained that, even if she did manage to successfully steal my Zune, I had the charger, and given that my Zune’s battery is not what it used to be, the thing would be dead weight in a matter of hours (and I defy ANYONE to find a replacement Zune charger in Tanzania, much less Bukoba).  Finally, I warned her that continued obstinacy would invariably result in further beatings, if not by the mob, then by the police.  Sadly, this proposal was met with renewed protestations of innocence---“I don’t have it!”/“Evarastus took the ladder!”/“I don’t have any money, please let me go!”---and, given that nothing sets me off more nowadays than Tanzanians bitching to me about being poor (especially ones who steal from me), I took that as my cue to grab her by the arm, drag her to the police officer waiting outside my room, and escort her down to the Bukoba police station for processing.

The police station was pretty standard procedure.  I sat down with an officer to file a report, while the thief was made to sit in a corner, facing the wall.  I claimed dollar values for my stolen goods, while various witnesses were asked to corroborate my story.  I had pretty much abandoned all hope of getting my Zune back at this point, so I was pretty relaxed; I just didn’t really want to let the thief get off scot-free after she so flagrantly wronged me only thirty minutes prior.  Finally, it came time for the thief to give her testimony, so she got up, stretched, and began walking towards the table.

Little did she know that, in stretching, she had inadvertently pressed the main button on my Zune’s flywheel, causing the main display to project a bright, neon-blue rectangle directly on the center of her skirt’s waistband.  She was looking at us, so she didn't notice that she had totally given herself away... but, to the rest of us, it looked like she suddenly started sporting a giant, glow-in-the-dark belt buckle.

Naturally, this caused everyone to straight-up jump her: the guards, random onlookers, the officer who was interviewing me---everyone essentially pig-piled her trying to get my stuff back.  Fortunately, some quick-acting female officers were able to extract her from the fracas and drag her kicking and screaming back to the cells for a more thorough strip search.  My items were returned forthwith, and I went and got a beer.

So, how do I feel about the whole situation?  Okay, I guess.  In truth, this was the first time in my life that I’d ever been full-on robbed; while there have certainly been instances where I’ve had things go missing under suspicious circumstances, I had never been cleaned out like this before, and I can say without hesitation that it’s not a fun experience.  Moreover, while I’m no stranger to Tanzanian mob justice, this was probably one of the more intense beatings I’ve witnessed in country (there is one notable exception, but I won’t get into that).  Honestly, I feel bad for the girl… she’s obviously fairly poor and desperate; otherwise, she wouldn’t have tried pulling a stunt like that, and there may be outside factors that I don’t know about (maybe she was put up to it by someone, like the ever-mysterious Evarastus).  On the other hand, I’m still a bit angry: it was obviously a targeted attack, planned malevolently, and the dumb girl was either too pigheaded or too stupid to take me up on my generous, get-out-of-jail-free offer.  In the end, though, I guess I feel lucky more than anything… if my roommate and I had come back later, the thief would have been long gone, and I would have had to spend the rest of my service sans computer and mp3 player.  Damn, that would have really sucked.

In any case, that about does it for this part of the trip.  The next day, I found myself in the fertile, rolling hills of Rwanda, and that began a whole new slew of delightful anecdotes and whimsical misadventures.  I don’t know when, exactly, I will write about these delightful anecdotes and whimsical misadventures and post them up here, but probably… soon.  Maybe.  Stay tuned for part 2!

The One-Year Benchmark

The rains are back, the weather has cooled, and the roads have once again turned to mud; my Form V kids are grappling with the mysteries of surface tension and elasticity, while my Form VI students are recovering from their grueling pre-national examinations; the siafu have returned, my house’s endemic cricket population has resurfaced, and the air is once again choked with giant, winged termite drones… all this can only mean one thing:

Holy crap, I’ve been here a year.

Well, technically speaking, I’ve been in country for more than a year---going on 16 months, to be exact---but this past November marked the first anniversary of my being a teacher in Songea, which I feel is a slightly more tangible accomplishment than simply existing in Tanzania for an extended period of time.  Don’t get me wrong, the three initial months of pre-service training in Morogoro were fun, but I wouldn’t really classify them as “service”… it was more like summer camp, only with fewer sing-alongs and more cultural faux pas.  Still though, as weird as it may seem right now, I guess I always figured this day would come---the day when I’d be teaching from the same notes I wrote a year ago; when I’d be celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas in the same places I did last year; when I’d be hanging out with the same friends I’ve been hanging out with for the last 52 weekends; when things, in the end, would come full circle.  It’s a strange feeling, for sure, but not entirely unexpected.

Indeed, a quick look at my service so far shows a great deal of constancy.  My daily schedule still involves teaching, chores, exercise, cooking, and sleep, interspersed with occasional marathon concertina sessions.  My social life still involves hanging out with PCVs or the Italians in town on the weekends, or, barring that, sitting alone in my house and re-watching episodes of The Wire.  What did I do for Thanksgiving?  Cooked a big meal at my sitemate’s house and ate it.  What did I do last Thanksgiving?  Cooked a big meal at my sitemate’s house and ate it, too.  Life for me here has not so much changed as it has stayed the same, and, gradually, I’ve settled into my niche here in the Songea community, enough so that I never really question my existence here in Tanzania; it’s merely a fact of life.

I guess this habituation to the Tanzanian way of life (or, rather, the PCV-in-Tanzania way of life) is, in and of itself, a change of sorts.  Rereading a bunch of my old blog posts and journal entries, I see the naïve ramblings of a kid who was simply enchanted to be in Africa---who considered each newly-learned Kiswahili word a tremendous accomplishment, wore his pikipiki burns like badges of honor, and jumped at any opportunity for so-called “cultural exchange” with the locals.  I was enthusiastic, energetic, and far less cynical than I am now: everything bad or irritating in my life could simply be chalked up to “cultural experience,” and every challenge was met with uniform, unwavering optimism---the kind that may or may not actually be well-placed, given the situation.  In sum, I was a TZ neophyte, wide-eyed and innocent, bedazzled by the concept of life in another country and eager to soak in everything Tanzania had to offer.

I can safely say now that, after a year’s worth of routine and work, much of that initial zeal has given way to lethargic acceptance.  Most of what annoyed, confused, and vexed me at the beginning of my service has been slowly reduced to mere background noise; similarly, many of my more lofty aspirations have been curtailed to fit a more realistic agenda.  Will all 172 of my Form VI physics students pass the NECTA this year?  Probably not.  How many will pass?  Maybe five, if I’m lucky.  Is there anything I can do about it?  Not really.  Am I okay with this?  Yeah, pretty much.  It’s just the way things work down here.

This isn’t to say that I’m utterly defeated and that my life is pointless.  I have a lot of stuff to keep me going here in Tanzania, and, although much of my life at Songea Boys’ has slipped into dull routine, I still feel a fundamental motivation to get things done.  My Form V students, for example, are pretty much the reason I get up and go to work every morning: unlike my absentee, senioritis-stricken Form Sixes, my Form Fives are the students whom I snatched up and began America-izing to death literally the second they arrived on campus as bewildered O-level transplantees, and, over the past two terms, I’ve been relentlessly and unabashedly grooming them into my personal army of physics and biology prodigies.  While they’re by no means perfect, they consistently show up to every class on time, and they’ll stay in the room and wait for me, even if I’m late.  Moreover, they readily participate in class discussions, and they all laugh at my jokes, no matter how stupid they are.  And, perhaps most importantly, their English is WAY better than my Form Sixes’, and they even tolerate my occasional uncontrollable outbursts of geekiness (“So, in conclusion, natural selection says that you all came from MONKEYS!  Isn’t that CRAZY?!” or “If we believe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then one day all useful energy in the universe will turn into useless chaotic motion.  D’YOU ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!?!  WE’LL ALL BE DEAD!!!!”)  And yes, those were both direct quotes from the past few weeks of classes.  I’m such a dork.

Still though, despite these highlights, there’s definitely a general sense of fatigue that comes with staying one year in Tanzania; that is, while I can easily ignore or tolerate some of the routine inconveniences or cultural differences I experience here, sometimes things are just frustrating, and there isn’t really anything I can do about it except shut up and keep my slowly-festering insanity to myself.

A prime example of this is Tanzanian music.  After sixteen months of self-deception, delusions of acceptance, repeated reevaluations, and extensive mental acrobatics, I have come to the unfortunate but inevitable conclusion that I simply don’t like Tanzanian music.  At all.  I don’t like Bongo Flava, I don’t like Tanzanian hip-hop, I don’t like the “oldies” from the 60s, I don’t like the Kiswahili gospel music they pipe through the radio, I don’t like the witchdoctor drum circles, and I don’t like that genre of Tanzanian music where they get a bunch of fat ladies to dress up in their Sunday best and look depressed and belt out 9-minute songs about Jesus while they shuffle around a bit.  Honestly, from what I’ve seen, Tanzanian music was built on one beat, three chords, and the fake brass section found on your typical Casio synthesizer, and I’m convinced that the whole country listens to the same 30-song playlist that’s been around for the past 10 years.  It’s really too bad (and, in the end, my loss for being narrow-minded) that Tanzanians are a people who happen to LOVE their music, and that the concept of “noise complaints” hasn’t really hit this part of Africa yet… the general attitude when it comes to music---be it in bars, on buses, or at my neighbors’ houses at 4am on a Monday morning---is that turning your speakers up to 11 is actually a good thing---you’re, in fact, magnanimous enough to share your music with your neighbors, so that everyone can enjoy the richness and poetry of Sharobaro Recordz.  Again, I won’t say that American pop music is light-years ahead of Tanzania’s Top 10, and I’m certainly no Mozart myself, but, in the end, it’s the little things like this that begin to grate on the nerves after a year of continuous exposure.

Pet peeves aside, there are other more practical frustrations that arise after one year of service.  Why is my power always off?  Why is my seat never reserved?  Why is everyone always late to everything?  Why is there never a timetable for anything?  Why is my school having Form V midterms literally two weeks from Form V finals?  Why can’t we duplicate the key to the school’s physics lab?  Why does it take two hours to fry an egg at a restaurant?  Why can’t I buy spinach before 10am or after 4pm?  Why can’t Tanzanian waiters/cashiers do math, or at least use a calculator?  Why are stores always out of everything?  Why does NO ONE have change, EVER?  I mean, I guess I should be thankful that I do have power, that my school is doing midterms, and that I can buy spinach… but, after a year of this, that pessimistic little voice in the back of my head has begun to get the better of me: why do I need to be thankful for any of this?  Why can’t people show up on time for anything?  Why can’t Tanzanian Maritime Services Co. Ltd. or Tanzanian Railways Co. post their ferry or train schedules online?  Why can’t the conductors on the daladalas bring change with them when they start work?  Why can’t Tanesco Songea ration its diesel supply so I could have consistent power instead of the one-week-on, four-week-off B.S. I’m dealing with now?  Most of what I’ve listed is pretty basic stuff, and in these modern times, most other countries seem to get it right… why can’t Tanzania?

On top of all this, the one thing that’s really kind of gotten under my skin during my service is the casual racism.  On the one hand, I get it: I’m white (or Chinese… Tanzanians generally can’t really tell the difference, but I guess I’m racially ambiguous enough as it is), and everyone else is black.  I am a foreigner.  I no speak Kiswahili good.  I do weird stuff like use forks or go out jogging for exercise.  I hoe like a little girl.  I’m kind to stray dogs.  I listen to quiet, beatless music on headphones while refrying already-boiled strips of ugali paste and dumping beans and meat on top (in this biz, we call this a “Frito pie”… and it’s delicious).  But still, why does everyone feel the need to point out my eccentricities, all the freaking time?  I’m no stranger to being the random white guy in town---go out far enough in Appalachia in any country and you’ll definitely become the butt of ridicule---but while most countries like to keep their xenophobia to themselves (i.e. China, where people just quietly stare at you and mutter racial epithets under their breath), the modus operandi when it comes to Tanzanians is to point at you, shout “mzungu!” or “mchina!” at the top of their lungs, and laugh like you just slipped on a banana peel and landed in a pile of mousetraps.  On the one hand, this works in your favor, as people generally think that you’re incapable of anything and will often give you special treatment based on your skin color (free rides, tours around town, front seat on a bus, etc.).  On the other hand, you’re forced to pay mzungu prices everywhere, you’re routinely targeted by power-tripping immigration officers, and, wherever you go, you’re mercilessly mocked by annoying vijana (“Hello!  Yes!  Thank you, white man!” or “Chingchong hee-hong!”).  And then sometimes you get fun little exchanges like this (translated from Kiswahili):

Random Konda: “Hing-hong hwei-hwong!”

Me: “[English] And an ‘ooga-booga’ to you, too.  [Kiswahili] What do you want?”

RK: “I want 1000 shillings.”

Me: “No.”

RK: “Give me 1000 shillings, now!”

Me: “No.  Don’t ask me for money.”

RK: “C***!”

So yeah, being special is nice, but there are certain things that come with specialness that can really get you down after a while.

In closing, I wouldn’t say that I’ve hit the doldrums of my service, but I’m definitely WAY past the honeymoon period.  In no way am I saying that Tanzanians are a bad people or that Tanzania is a bad country; quite the contrary, Tanzania is a beautiful, peaceful place, and I feel incredibly lucky that I was selected to volunteer here.  It’s just that I’m human, and, in time, my fuse has shortened regarding some of the less-auspicious aspects of living in this country: one day, I’m doing a practical with my students and we’re getting solid data, the other, I’m inquiring my local Tanesco officer as to how his organization can possibly “suck so bad at everything.”  The Peace Corps experience goes both ways, and, in the end, it’s all about what you’ve gained as a person and how you’ve helped others, not about what trivial inconveniences tended to ruin your day.

And now that I'm done ruminating, it's time to get back to work.