There and Back Again

Time to break out the defibulators and bring this blog back to life.

We are back from our journey. Finally. It is funny how a two day grocery run to Mwanza evolved into a two week sojourn into Kenya. When we were planning to go in with Andy to top up our supplies in Mwanza – things you can’t get in the bush, like eggs, syrup, lettuce, oil, dish-soap, etc. – we originally planned to be away for two to three days. The morning before we left, however, Margaret called to inform us that Vanessa’s visa application was rejected and we would need to leave the country and re-enter in order to extend it for a month, and we had till May 3 to do so. Since it would cost 50 dollars each to leave, Margaret (the CRWRC head of Tanzania) suggested taking a tour of the CRWRC operations in Nairobi, especially now that the country was somewhat at peace. Our tickets were scheduled to leave on the Wednesday (and not just our tickets, we also) and return the Monday, which was just in time to catch a ride home with Josh who was making a stop in Mwanza before heading to Kahunda. Well, that was the plan and everything seemed to have fallen into place quite perfectly. Unfortunately Josh’s plans changed and he was held up in Nairobi (in fact, he’s still there) and we were on the verge of bussing it back until Bob offered to save us the 8-12 hour ordeal and drive us back to Kahunda. So, here we are. Again.

The trip to Nairobi was great. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking. But where pictures fail, I’ll fill in. It was definitely a badly needed/desired break, even if it turned out to be much longer than we anticipated. I think too much time in a place like Kahunda could lead one to insanity. If anyone has seen the Sean Penn flick Into the Wild (an adaptation of Krakauer’s novel) one will know what I am talking about. The boy’s final epiphany comes as he is reading a short story by Tolstoy and sees that the main ingredient for the good life is (no, not good books) the society of others. Not that there is no society in Kahunda, it is just that we are somewhat excluded from it based on our language, and now that the Andersons and Hamiltons are oot and aboot, Kahunda is down to Vanessa, MaryJane, and myself.

But back to Nairobi. Going to Nairobi was a reverse-culture-shock. Cityscapes and suburbia, highways with traffic, rush hours and the smell of early morning exhaust, street lights and street sweepers, underground sewage and underground parking, coffee shops with Mochas and Japanese restaurants with Sushi, theatres and bowling alleys, museums and art galleries, pubs and bars, life beyond sunset and before sunrise, and everywhere you looked or listened, the sweet music of familiarity: the English language. It wasn’t just reverse-culture-shock, it was cultural relief. We could not believe we were on the same continent. No one stared at us or called out Mzungu. Sweet anonymity. To be able to communicate freely and easily with people on the street, to ask for directions and make plans without pantomiming, and to decipher a large part of the corpus that comprises the unwritten dictionary of the non-verbal communications of head nods, hand gestures, and eyebrow aerobics was exhilarating, albeit short-lived. Our time was spent walking the city parks, enjoying numerous cups of Kenyan coffee and Tea-masala, checking out the Kenya national museum, going on a walking safari, and driving around with John (our taxi driver) and Amy (a CRWRC employee from the Kansas).

After four days, the blur that was Nairobi faded into the dark clouds of the rainy-season as we ascended into the inverted world of airplanes. The flight was pretty spectacular; we flew between the peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, then headed West over the Ngorongoro Crater and the vast expanse of the Serengeti plains. We were too high up to see, but the biggest wildebeest migration in the world was beginning 20,000 feet below us as thousands of wildebeest begin their trek across the Serengeti grasslands and into Kenya. We landed in Mwanza and later that week had a chance to tour the Bugondo hospital with an American doctor who is doing his residency here through Cornell University. The hospital has 850 beds (which is huge, even for an American hospital, according to our guide) and largely understaffed. We met a whole bunch of interesting missionary families who are constantly flowing into and out of Mwanza. The highlight of my week was eating a large Fillet Steak, my first steak in three months. (Question: why do some Americans pronounce this “fill-it” steak?)

Now we are back in Kahunda. And like I said, it is quiet. I’ve been back to teaching this past week, and I am amazed at how time has sort of slipped by. It feels that I’ve finally been able to get things started up and now it is almost time to wrap up. I jumped ahead in my syllabus and noted that I have only 2 more lessons for the different classes I teach. Unfortunately, with the unexpected Nairobi trip, I’ve had to take off our fiction courses; however, after asking the students every class for the last 2 and a half months how many had even begun to read the play I requested, 0 people had started. Yet after each class, it never fails, two or three students will come and ask me why I don’t start looking at fiction, rather than spend class time learning how to read it (and write it). Frustrating. A similar thing happened with the basketball, so I should not be surprised. Each Tuesday I go to coach a 2 hour session of basketball fundamentals, but the students only want to play games rather than learn basics. So I’ve compromised. I realize that I’m only hear for a short time, there is very little chance they are going to pick up how to run different set offenses; therefore, we spend about 30 minutes doing lay-ups and shooting and 3 man weaves, and then begin a game. It’s fun, and on non-Tuesdays I have been going to the school from 4:30 to 7 just to play pick-up with some of the guys who really like Basketball, and have become quite good. One particular student, his name is Vincent, must have played somewhere before since he is quite a bit better than all the other students. He is hilarious. Every time I come to play he makes sure he is not on my team and gets to guard me. Last week he took the bus to Mwanza and came back with a brand new pair of Air Jordans and a Lebron James jersey. Too bad the Muram court will do a number on them.

Class is interesting though. If the students are not learning all that I hoped they would, at least I am gaining an appreciation of the English language from the “other” side. My recent lessons have turned to creative writing and explaining a list of various literary devices, which has made for some amusing in-class discussions.

Doug: Satire is a mode of writing where one can be critical while also being humorous and witty. (Deciding to scrap his original intentions of explaining the differences between Horatian and Juvenalian Satire).
Student A: What is critical?
Doug: Well in this context it means to expose problems.
Student A: And what is humorous?
Doug: To be funny, or to make jokes.
Student A: What is funny?
Doug: (thinking) To make someone laugh.
Student A: Of course.
Doug: So, for an example, let’s talk about the road from Kahunda to Mwanza. If I were to satirize it I might say, “The road is great; it only takes the bus eight hours to travel 100 kilometres”
Student A: (confused) But sir, how is a road great if it takes a bus such a long time to travel a distance that is so small?”
Doug: (realizing that sarcasm is lost in translation). Well, that is my point...
Student B: No, Mr. Doug means that the road is very long. Great means very big, so the bus takes a long time.
Student A: But 100 kilometers is not a great distance.
Doug: First, great can mean a large size, but I am referring to the road’s quality. It is “great” or very good. So my second sentence undercuts the first one, but it’s subtle (maybe too subtle I’m beginning to regret)
(a moment of silence as the students digest this new information)
Student A: Mr. Doug, you said that Satire has to make someone laugh. Why do you think criticizing the roads in Tanzania is funny? We are poor and the roads are also poor. It is not funny.
Doug: (thinking: why is this getting so tough?) Alright, point taken. But there are different types of Satire, in some instances the writer chooses to laugh at his readers, but in other types he laughs at himself and the readers. (Remembering a grad paper he wrote on the different employments of Satire in Ben Jonson’s drama...) So, depending on the type of Satire, you, as a writer, can be aligned with your audience or alienated from it.

Blank stares ensue....

So that is one of many discussions we get into. The discussion around Litotes, Hyperbole, and Onomatopoeia were also humorous, but too lengthy to get down. Much of the class involves laughter at how these words are pronounced and me trying to draw or enact how they work.

So, two more weeks in Kahunda! The countdown is in earnest. We are trying to continue carping the diem, while we are here, but with the end so near at hand, it is hard. I have just finished writing up the questions for the English end-term examinations; a symbolic full-stop of our work here. This week to come will involve exam review and then as the students write their exams, we pack up and head for Mwanza. This may be the last post for a long while, but hopefully when we get to Dar, I can update you on how our travels from Mwanza to Arusha and to Zanzibar have gone. If you do not know, our original plans were to take our midterm break at the end of our time here rather than in the middle, so we could maximize our time in Kahunda. So we booked a four day hike to the summit of Meru with our friend Geoff (the other volunteer teacher here). This was, of course, pre-visa trouble and pre-Nairobi. Anyways, taking off on the 22nd proves to be quite convenient for both of us since the school will not be running due to exams and the clinic is shut down for meetings.

(By the time this is posted, we are now already back in Mwanza and have said our goodbyes. I will update on all the recent adventures of the past 2 weeks, our farewell parties etc. soon)