Lost in Translation

Hello everyone.
There is a greeting here, I have learned, that can get you quite far in this culture. "Shikamu." It means, "I clasp your feet." It’s a remnant of the colonial days (although it has Arabic origins) and the proper response is "Marahaba." You use it to show respect to the "Mzees," the elderly. It’s gold. Funny enough, some of the Western Missionaries don’t like to be "Shikamu-ed" (you can make anything a verb if you try hard enough) since it shows their age.

Words here are different. Since Swahili was a tribal language transcribed by Europeans (the reason it uses the same alphabet) I wonder if the similarities between certain Swahili words with their English homophonic equivalents are of any import. Does Ugali (read previous post) sound like "ugly" or "Oh Golly" for a reason? One taste of the stuff makes me think it does. I’m also still wondering if anything of significance can be deduced from the fact that the words for White man and for God are only differentiated by one letter (Mungu = God, Mzungu = White man). Coincidence? Probably, but allows for an interesting diversion of thought in a Swahili Church service which you hardly understand. I started thinking of the contact narratives I had read over the past year, the accounts of the New World explorers interacting with the indigenous populations (which I guess were not "that" new) and how quickly Europeans moved from a state of complete incomprehension to the assumption they were being given power and authority over their hosts. Interestingly, Mzungu has a few meanings. Apart from being a European or, more generally, a white person, it can also mean an unusual or startling thing, or a face card. I began to wonder if there were any connections between these three dots: White person, the unknown, something of value. In a way, I find it startling how the word "Mzungu" might be revelatory of how this culture has dealt with the alterity of the Occident. They do not denigrate it, they revere it. Do we do that with the unknown? Have we? Perhaps there’s a good reason that the most common tragic flaw in Western Drama, from Aristophanes to Shakespeare to Miller, is hubris.

Such were my thoughts during this, the first of SIX Easter services this weekend. Each service is about three hours and they have two each day till Sunday. I’m beginning to see that the worship marathons are a pretty common phenomenon in Tanzania; in fact, for the past three weekends there have been various conferences that have called the congregation to weekend long fellowship of the saints. Each service begins with the call to worship, usually a half an hour past the formal start time. Stragglers seem to mosy into the pews throughout, so it’s not uncommon for the church to be at 10 percent capacity when it begins, and 110 percent when the service ends. Other than taking twice the time of a "normal" service (normal = 1 ½ hours) and being in a foreign language, the service is basically the same. Another difference, perhaps the greatest, is the choir. I cannot get enough of the choirs, although I’ll admit, I’ve had more than enough of their accompaniment. The choir consists of about 25-30 men and women with beautiful voices, which are often (and unfortunately) drowned out by the blaring noise of an electric keyboard hooked up to a large amp powered by a noisy generator. It’s almost amusing to see this technological aberration in a place with no electricity and running water. Priorities. What amuses me the most is that this keyboard is not really played. The "pianist" hits one of the demo selections (reggae, hip hop, jazz, etc. You’ve all seen an electric keyboard). Next, the player hits another button to set the beat. Sometimes it is maracas, other times bongo drums, today was a standard drum-set. Than he/she plays around with the tempo settings (note: they don’t play with the volume, that must be cranked) and finds the right speed and off they go. The singing, despite the 80s rock beats emanating from the keyboard, is beautiful and is combined with painfully intricate choreography. So picture 30 adults moving left, moving right, jumping up, getting down, spinning, clapping, all in concert. It’s quite the spectacle, especially when an up and coming diva takes the microphone and walks to the front and steals the show, serenading the congregation eloquently about Mungu (okay, that’s the only word I get out of it... apart from Yesu Christo the odd time as well). Alongside all this, many of the women get up and dance down the aisles waving congas and handkerchiefs over their heads. I think all the Lammers women would have no problem fitting in. It’s definitely not like Church at home, but no two snowflakes are the same, each sunset here has its own flavour, there are millions of species of insects and I’m beginning to think that if God didn’t love diversity, the heavens might declare that. That is, as long as each is according to its kind; if snowflakes stay snowflakes, sunsets sunsets, and insects insects, diversity is good. Worship must also be worship then. The basic artistic principle of having "the same in the other," probably pleases Gods ear just as it does humans’. We might even say that it pleases the human ear only because it pleased God’s first.
The pipe for the basketball nets has arrived from Mwanza, along with some Red Oxide, special paint for metal. This week I managed to buy an 8X4 foot sheet of plywood, which when cut in half, makes two decent backboards. Buying paint was a bit of an ordeal because of the language barriers.

Doug: Shikamu Mr. Oscar (the Kahunda hardware store owner).
Mr. O: Marahaba. Hujambo?
Doug: Sijambo. ...do you have any paint?
Mr. O: silence
Doug: Paint (a little louder, maybe he speaks English, but is deaf.)
Mr. O: Pent?
Doug: Rengi? (remembering the word for paint because of his time painting in Ikuza)
Mr. O: Rengi!
Doug: (thinks: Nailed it) Yes. I need white paint. Er. I need .... mzungu. (yes, that means white person, but I think he got the gist)
Mr. O: (laughing) Ah, yes. Meupe (the right word for white). No.
Doug: (confused that he has just surrounded the word "white" with an affirmative and a negative) Rengi...Meupe....Ndiyo? (Paint...White....Yes?)
Mr. O: Ah, No. Maybe yesterday. I will get some yesterday.
Doug: (assuming he has his future verb and past tense nouns crossed) Oh, Kesho? (Swahili word for Tomorrow)
Mr. O: Ah yes. Kesho.
Doug: I will be back tomorrow... (debating if he should say: I will be back yesterday, just to make the communication perfectly clear)
(Awkward silence ensues. Both are unsure of their next move. Mr. O is probably wondering if this Mzungu is going to spend some money. Doug is definitely wondering how to leave this gracefully)
Doug: Tutaonano (see you tomorrow...Perfect!)
Mr. O: Hmmm Sawa.
Doug: (not catching that flicker of understanding in Mr. Oscar’s eyes) Okay, bye.

So I came back the next day and sure enough, there was no paint. I think I fell for another common pitfall of communication between Tanzanians and Mzungus. Rather than offend someone, a Tanzanian will say yes, just to save face. A thoughtful gesture, but a little nearsighted. True, for the moment my hopes were up yesterday, when he said the paint would be there tomorrow. But today, when I realize that there is no paint and have just walked all the way to town for nothing, I’m a little annoyed. Of course I had to ask just exactly when will said paint arrive, and of course, he unequivocally responded with : Tomorrow! Sure enough, it wasn’t there again. In the end I got Otheombo (a worker for the Hamiltons) to drive to Katwe, the next closest village, on his motorbike to get a gallon of the skunkiest, oil paint I have ever seen. Once I discarded the top inch of crusty oil, the remainder of the can allowed for two decent coats on the backboards, which are drying in the house right now. I had the junior headmaster over today to take a look at the supplies, which we plan on assembling Monday (We = Andy and myself) and he seems more excited than anyone. We are now even talking of ordering enough cement to cement the entire court. Anyways, Monday will be quite the experience. My CV of handiwork includes a breadboard and toolbox, both made in grade 7 cadets, so this step to two basketball nets may be a bit of a leap, but I’ll let you all know how it goes. For interest sake, I’ve added some diagrams I’ve drawn on a state of the art drafting program some of you may be familiar with: paintbrush.
(ok, as I cut and paste the picture in, I realize that I can't put the picture on the blogsite...my apologies, but just imagine the best CG image of a bball net and you'll be halfway there)

I’m almost finished with my first few English lesson plans. I am starting with Oral reading exercises and comprehension, followed with a dose of classes on various composition techniques before the grand finale of reading a comedy entitled "3 suitors, 1husband" by a Cameroonian writer, Guillaume Oyono Mbili. It’s pretty funny and quite hostile in its dealings with white people. Should be an interesting discussion. As I have been going over the English Standard 3 textbook however, I am dismayed at the low quality of English within it. My first class deals with Crime in Tanzania and I thought of posting an excerpt from the text to show you what I am dealing with, but will save that for another time. All I can say is that the illustration that goes with the passage involves a thief with a tire around his head and the local people pouring kerosene on him and lighting him on fire (Don’t worry, it’s a poor drawing, not a photograph). It is unfortunate my Swahili dictionary has no translation for vigilante.

Also it is now officially the rainy season. The last three days have been cycles of rain, thunder, lightning, sunshine, repeat. Lily, our cat, decided to have her kittens in the middle of a storm, and on the edge of our roof no less. The kittens were precariously close to the edge, so (James Hariot that I am) climbed onto the roof and saved the little felines from imminent peril. There is one pure black one, one white and black one, and one grey and white striped one. That narrows the potential fathers to about 4.3 thousand cats in the area. I have named the black one Scipio, the white and black one is Flannery, and the Grey and White striped one is Whiskers. They are pretty cute, just crawling around blindly for now, mewing away. So with the rains there is "water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink." Although, I did try to drink the local water in Ikuza, but have been paying for it dearly the past week with a stomach bacteria called Bakardia (unsure of spelling). There is also not a drop to swim in because of a parasite in the waters from snails. The parasite hooks into your intestines and tears at them, a common disease among the people here. On another note, the worst has happened. I am out of the reading material I brought for our time here (Bible excluded), and am now scouring the local missionary’s shelves for something...anything to fill the void, but books, books everywhere, but hardly a page to read. There are lots of ornithology books, bible study guides, devotional lit and Christian romance...along with a heavy dose of Clancy, Grisham, and Crichton. The situation is bleak. Your prayers are coveted.

Well it is time for tea and coffee. While the rest of the country fails to recognize punctuality as the fifth cardinal virtue, the missionaries’ coffee breaks at 10 am and 4 pm are one of the few constants in the Tanzanian flux. So as we continue to "measure our lives with coffee spoons," (there you go Mitch) our hope is that all of you are healthy, well, and/or wise.