Canada Day, Away from Home

I am Canadian. I was born there. I have lived most of my life there. God willing, I will die there.

Its history is my history. Its politics are my politics. Its culture is my culture. I love the music. I love the literature. I even love the movies, when I can find them.

I am happy to be Canadian. I have no desire to be anything other than Canadian. I am Canadian. So what am I doing half a world away on Canada Day?

Road Portrait: The Gemini Girls

Every once in a while you come across people that teach you important lessons even if they are not aware they are doing so. Betsy and Sarah fall into that category.

The two are twin sisters from Colorado who were volunteering at the orphanage with me. Self-proclaimed "best friends", they attend universities on opposite sides of the country -- one on the Pacific Coast, the other on the Atlantic -- and as a result, they enjoyed every minute they had together. In fact, they enjoyed every minute they had apart.

I can't remember the last time I met anyone who "lived life to the leas" as much as they do. They were singing so constantly that it occasionally felt like I was living in a Broadway musical. They also raved about the food to the extent that I made a mental note to check out if they were being forcibly starved back home. Most importantly, they loved constantly and whole-heartedly.

Love comes easier for some than for others. The twins definitely fall into the former category, for their love of the girls was both readily apparent and sincere. They spent countless hours teaching the orphans new songs, ranging from "Down in the Valley" to "Be My Baby". They got to know the girls on a personal level that would be hard for me, at least, to copy.

They also displayed that good-natured optimism that is characteristic of Americans but all too often unrecognized by the rest of the world. Betsy and Sarah did not try to remake Tanzania in the image of America. They did not complain about cold showers or dust or unfamiliar foods. Instead, they accepted and embraced the differences entirely without judgment.

At the customary farewell ceremony, the twins got choked up when they said goodbye. They also promised to come back in a year's time. Both gestures were entirely heart-felt and genuine. It was a heart-warming and ulimately uplifting moment.

They may not know it, but Betsy and Sarah are great ambassadors for America and great models of generosity of spirit.

Adios, Antonio

There was a text message waiting for me on my cell phone when I woke up this morning. It was from my friend Antonio, he of the beautiful ghosts. He says he is sad to be leaving, but it is a different kind of sadness because he also feels content and complete. I think I know how he feels.

Adios, Antonio. Vaya con Dios mi amigo.

Poem: Maji Maji

Maji Maji

When Kinjikile found his spring
Did he really believe
He could turn men
Into Achilles?
Did he really believe
That his magic could transform
Bullets into water?
Or did he lie,
Convinced that courage
Will always trump
Cold German steel?
Would he still have tried
If he'd known about
Wovoka
And the Ghost Dance
Or would he have left
His gospel to die
A bastard orphan
In a savage land?
It's hard to say
When a man lives as much
In the spirit world
As he does
In the world of men.

(c) J S Phillips

A Tale of Religion and Resistance

Once upon a time, about a century ago, a powerful Mganga (shaman) named Kinjikitile Ngwale discovered a spring that had the power to make German colonial forces more vulnerable than they had ever been before. By drinking a potion containing this magic water, warriors would become invincible as German bullets turned into maji (water) and fell harmlessly to the ground.

They did. They weren't. They died.

Kinjikitile's Jwiywila movement relied on more than just a promise to turn men into Achilles -- it also preached that departed ancestors had not actually died but rather were waiting in a sort of limbo to come and assist in the removal of the Germans. If the people only took up arms against their oppressors, an army of ancestors would join in the fight.

They did. It didn't. They died.

The maji-maji wars were a major effort at resisting German colonialism in Tanganyika. Unlike previous armed struggles, maji maji transcended tribal boundaries as a number of different tribes employed a number of different strategies and techniques to regain their independence. Like previous armed struggles, the maji maji resistance failed. It failed spectacularly. The German forces in Tanganyika displayed a casual brutality that would become commonplace in another war some three decades later.

And yet, maji maji was not entirely a failure. The widespread rebellions forced the Germans to improve conditions to the point that Tanganyika was arguably the best-run colony in East Africa when the First World War broke out. More importantly, by emphasizing the futility of armed rebellion, Tanganyikan nationalists turned to the kind of political activities that eventually led to uhuru (freedom) under the British.

I Have Been Forgiven

It would appear that the geckos do not hold me personally responsible for what I took to be the demise of their brother.

Unlike Lisa, I have never seen a gecko in my room since getting here in mid-May. However, this afternoon I looked up as I was reading on my bed and I saw a gecko navigating the wall of my bedroom. This made me almost as happy as seeing the one inch baby gecko on the door when I walked back from helping the girls with homework last night. I quite enjoyed watching him slowly patrol the blue wall in search of prey.

A Possible Case of Geckoslaughter

As I mentioned in a previous post, I love geckos. Big geckos, little geckos, even sort of in-between geckos -- I love them all. In fact, one of my favourite things about Tanzania is the fact that I get to see geckos practically every day. And unlike Agama Lizards, they do not masquerade as a new species waiting to be discovered and named by unsuspecting volunteers.

Not everyone shares my love of geckos. Lisa, one of the other volunteers falls into the "I don't like geckos" camp. In fact, she enthusiastically does not like them to the point where she had trouble sleeping one night because she had seen one of the little fellows on her bedroom wall. I tried to explain how beneficial the tiny reptiles were, but she was not persuaded. As she put it, "If it isn't human, dog, or cat, I don't like it." I was shocked at such an anti-geckite comment, but Tanzanians and Canadians are both pretty tolerant peoples, so a Canadian in Tanzania is doubly expected to be tolerant.

Yesterday, she came to me in an agitated state because a particularly big (by gecko standards) member of the species was in her room. I told her that his size was an indication of his prowess as a hunter of mosquitoes, but she was not convinced and she asked me to try to get him out of her room. Since I knew she harboured ill-will towards the species, I agreed to try to relocate him.

There was a slight problem, though -- the gecko was running between the top of Lisa's walls and her ceiling. The solution was to use the long-handled squeegee that we keep around for moving water to the drain after showers. Using it as a barrier to his path, I attempted to herd the little fellow along the ceiling towards the open door and the freedom of the hallway.

Having once heard about the holistic cowboys of southern Africa, I decided to try to move the my little rafiki (friend) in the least stressful manner possible and I started talking to him as I slowly maneuvered him from the bathroom to the bedroom towards the hall. Unfortunately, I forgot that he was a Tanzanian gecko and therefore a speaker of Kiswahili, not English. My attempts to reassure him that I meant him no harm obviously fell upon deaf ears for he got scared and started tearing across the ceiling, only to fall to the floor. He got up and scrambled beneath the table and into a collection of bags that Lisa was keeping out of the way. This was not good.

I briefly considered leaving him hidden where he was, reasoning that what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. In the end I decided that while that was probably the most ethical decision in terms of the gecko's psychological well-being it was decidedly not the same for my friend, and while I know for a fact that geckos do not bite humans, I was not sure the same applied to an angry volunteer.

I moved the table and was able to maneuver him along the floor and into the hallway, where he promptly stopped moving. This was not good either. Normally, when a person approaches a gecko, it runs away, a habit which makes it difficult to get good photographs. My little friend did not move, even when I tentatively touched his tail. This was definitely not good.

I picked him up and held him in my palm. (If you have ever wondered what geckos feel like, they rather resemble a living gummi bear.) He did not move at first, but I was able to see his chest expand and contract as he breathed. Eventually, he moved in an attempt to escape. I gently took him outside and put him on the ground, where he moved two feet and stopped. Once again, this was not good.

A few minutes and a touch of his tail later, he moved with refreshing speed -- for a grand total of a metre. At that point, he laid on the ground again. A few more minutes later and he made another one metre sprint, this time making it to the shade of the big plastic water tank. He was still breathing and flicking his tongue, but I was worried because he only moved when he felt totally in danger. I decided to let him recover in peace, without the shadow of a giantic mzungo looming over him.

I was just heading back in the house when I saw the crow land by the orange tree fifteen metres away. This was so not good. I felt bad enough about frightening and possibly causing the gecko to have a fatal fall that I sat on the verandah until the crow left. By then it was supper and I had to come in.

I could not find the little guy when I went back to check on him after supper. I hope that the reason I couldn't find him was because he had scurried away to safety, but I didn't like the way that crow kept looking my way earlier. In the absence of a body, I am going to cling to the theory that he survived, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I am guilty of geckoslaughter, if not geckocide.

I do know one thing for sure: I refuse to attempt to move any more geckos from volunteers' rooms. After all, the geckos were here before we were.

The Top of the Charts

I've been listening to a lot of East African religious music lately. It kinda comes with the territory -- the Head Mistress is a nun, the orphanage was established with the aid of a Roman Catholic charity, and its biggest supporters are practicing Christians.

Now, there are worse things in life than listening to East African contemporary Christian music. For one thing, it is all Afro-pop, with guitars tuned high and a beat you can dance to. In fact, the singers and musicians invariably do dance to it. For another thing, even though the songs that air on East Africa TV and on the radio are sung exclusively in Kiswahili, they almost always contain hooks that even the most marble-mouthed mzungo can sing along to. Even I can sing 'Yesu aokoa' or 'Amen, Amen, Amen' with a passable East African accent.

There is non-secular music, of course. Some of it is rap, some is soul, and some is really upbeat Afro-pop like the church music. And then there is Siku Hazigandi, a great song by a local Tanzanian singer named Lady Jaydee. To say Siku Hazigandi is popular is an understatement -- everybody loves it. All of the volunteers I have met love it. The dala dala passengers and teksi (taxi) drivers love it. Servers and patrons at restaurants love it. Even the ladies who run this orphanage love it -- conversations stop abruptly when it comes on and the volume of the television or radio goes up.

I am one of the Siku fans, too. I loved it from the first day I heard it and I still love it. If I get into Dar again before I leave, I am going to try to find a copy of it, although that may be easier said than done considering there are no HMV or Future Shop stores to pop into. Somehow people seem to get their hands on copies of it, though, and I am sure I will be able to acquire it too, somehow. If worse comes to worse, I know that Lady Jaydee sings at one particular club every night, so I just might get my buddy Samora to check it out with me in hopes of being able to buy the CD there.

In the meantime, check out this link if you want to hear a truly cool song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lJLxkofaAbs. (At least, I hope it plays the song for you -- the computer at the orphanage lacks a sound card, so I am trusting YouTube on this one.) This is not the official video -- the real one is quite professional and was shot largely on Zanzibar -- but it does give the words, if you happen to speak Kiswahili.

I Have Discovered the Culprit!

The mystery of the reptile formerly, if briefly, known as Phillips' Yellow-Headed Lizard has been solved. It appears that a young male Agama Lizard maliciously masqueraded as a new species in order to play a joke on the new guy in town.

There are a number of species of Agamas. The one in my guide book described the heads of males as bright orange or orange-red, but this youngster had different shadings. It was this difference in head colouring that was obviously the reason I mistook him for a new species.

A Whole Different World

I really like it here in Tanzania, but every so often I see things that remind me that I am in a whole different world than the one I normally inhabit. Take nose-picking, for example. It is generally considered poor form to pick one's nose in public in Canada, at least if one is older than a first grader. That does not seem to be the case over here.

I have witnessed dozens of Tanzanians, ranging in age from two to somewhere in their seventies, pick their noses in public. In fact, I have had several conversations with people when they commenced an enthusiastic bout of "booger mining", as we used to call it when I was a child. It is a bit disconcerting at first, but it is really a harmless practice, so one adapts.

There is a limit to how far one can adapt, though. I had no problem eating critter innards soup with Samora, but I really don't feel comfortable sticking my finger up my nose in public. However, I still have about a third of the trip left to go, so perhaps you may one day see me picking my nose on the streets of Toronto.

Petanews

IBM and Sun Microsystems announced yesterday that they have created a computer system that has the capacity to reach petaflop speeds. Petaflop is just a twenty dollar word for the ability to do one quadrillion calculations per second, which is approximately 100,000 times faster than the ordinary home computer. In fact, IBM's Blue Gene/P supercomputer reportedly functions at a speed of 3 petaflops.

This is enormous news. For one, the new supercomputers are up to seven times more enegery efficient than the current generation of supercomputers. For another, the ability to process so many calculations in such a short period of time has huge implications for organizations that process large numbers of data, organizations like banks and national security organizations.

It makes a fellow wonder what the next generation of supercomputers will be able to do.

Victory is Mine

I have won a victory in my on-going struggle to learn Kiswahili.

We arrived early at the church on Sunday and we had to wait for the people attending the first service to leave. Liz and I were standing with a few of the girls, who sang church songs in Kiswahili. When it was my turn to sing for them, I decided to teach them "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus". Imagine my surprise when Lillian asked me, "Do you know this song?" She then proceeded to sing the same song in Kiswahili. I love the way it sounded, so I asked her to teach me the words. Within five minutes, Liz and I were singing with Lillian in both languages.

The words are really simple to learn, which probably helped, although the last line holds the last syllable in the second word longer than we do in English. In case you were wondering, here are the words:

Nime a mua kumfata Yesu
Nime a mua kumfata Yesu
Nime a mua kumfata Yesu
Sita rudi
Sita rudi

Last night, the girls held the traditional welcoming ceremony for Lisa, our newest volunteer, and Lillian and I sang a duet in Kiswahili and English. I know it is not a great huge victory, given the fact that all I did was memorize two lines, but it was a victory nonetheless and if I had a manaical laugh like those supervillains in James Bond movies, I would laugh it right now.

I'm Moving on Up

That's right, folks, I have officially joined George and Weezie Jefferson, and I've moved up to the big times. After mass ended, we stayed at the church for a special event: the wife of the President of Tanzania was coming to make a speech and to participate in an auction to raise funds for the new church building.

Now, just attending an event at which a member of a nation's elite attends does not move anyone into the big times. Were that the case, I would already be there because I once saw Queen Elizabeth wave from a moving car on the streets of Regina. No, I am in the big times because Liz and I were taken from our seats in the back half of the assembled chairs to the table where guests of honour were seated.

(To be completely honest, we did not actually sit at the table of honour. Rather, we sat in the second row of chairs immediately behind the big shots, making us either "medium shots" or "upper middle shots", depending on how you view the class structure of big shots.)

Our new seating position put us within 15 metres of the President's wife. This gave me, at least, an an excellent view of her two female plain clothes bodyguards -- one stunning in a chocolate brown suit with vibrant pumpkin-orange blouse; the other severe, yet somehow sexy, in a dark pinstriped suit and charcoal grey top. It also ensured that we were filmed when the news crews were filming the crowd for reaction to the speech. And guess who was on the 8 o'clock news later that day?

(Once again, in the interests of complete honesty, the news clip showed a full picture of Liz, but only my right arm and shoulder. I knew I should have sat behind the short woman in the first row, rather than the tall guy. However, since the rest of my body was there with my arm and shoulder, I guess I can still say that I was on Tanzanian television. I do hope I don't get mobbed for autographs the next time I am on the dala dala, although that would be a damned sight better than having my pocket picked.)

Alone With God

Yesterday, Liz and I accompanied the girls to mass and a special post-service event. Imagine, if you will, a dala dala filled with 59 young women and 4 adults (Maristela, the Head Mistress, and Christina, the orphanage's major domo, were also there, although they attended a service at a different church). That's right -- we managed to fit 63 people on a single vehicle. See if you can beat that, Abbotsford berry farm owners!

Mass was entirely in Kiswahili, but it didn't really matter because there was so much else to experience. In fact, the only time I really missed not being able to speak the language was when the monsignor, who was an engaging speaker even if one does not understand Kiswahili, made humourous points to illustrate his homily.

Singing was led -- perhaps "dominated" is the better word -- by a choir of nearly 30 people attired in a plum/burgundy colour combination that looks much better in real life than it sounds when written on the page. One of the really cool things about church music in East Africa is that it is not the staid, "bums in seat" singing that one often gets in North America. Nope, church singing is meant to express joy, and joy can only be expressed by dancing or making wild and high pitched shouts or, in the case of one older gentleman in the choir, blowing into a trumpet made of a cow's horn whenever the spirit moves you, even if it does not strictly fit in within the flow of the song.

I enjoyed the church music, as I always do, but once it was over I settled back -- in my seat and in time -- and concentrated on the sensory experience that is the mass. Sometimes I closed my eyes and concentrated on the smell of incense. Other times, I looked at the paintings of familiar Bible stories and unfamiliar stories of the saints. Often, I looked at the congregation.

Some of the things I saw are played out in any church in any country: little girls in pretty white dresses; little boys swimming in over-sized suits; men and women dressed in their finest to praise the Lord. Other sights were less familiar to me: elders in bright yellow sashes patrolling the aisles and ensuring that communion and the offering went smoothly; a row of nuns singing the liturgy from the pews; men in short-sleeved suit coats.

At times, I could not help but concentrate on individual people, like the young novice nun in the light purple habit who could not have been any older than some of the girls I had accompanied. Or the woman sitting two rows ahead of me, whose simple gold chain highlighted and was highlighted by the rich, dark brown of her skin. Or the grandmother, bent with age, who shepherded her two young grandchildren between pew and washroom several times during the service.

But my favourite person to watch was the elderly woman -- old even by North American standardss -- in kimtambaa chakichwani (a piece of cloth matching that of the skirt that is wrapped around the head). For a moment, I wished I had brought my camera, even if it would have been entirely inappropriate to take her photograph during a church service. Then I realized that no photograph could ever capture the sublime beauty of the way the lines and folds of the cloth on her head mirrored and honoured the lines and folds on the skin of her face.

Humans, however, were not the only creatures attending mass yesterday. Because of the climate, churches in Tanzania are built out of hollow cement blocks, resulting in a strong structure with plenty of holes through which light and air -- and sparrows -- enter. As the sparrows flew about the altar, adding their chirps to the voices of the choir, my mind went back to the Gospel story of Jesus talking of God's eye being on the sparrow.

Now, I don't know what heaven will be like. (If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you know I don't even know if heaven exists.) I suspect, however, that I glimpsed a preview of heaven: a group of people gathering together and joyfully praising God with singing and dancing and sounding of trumpets, while birds sing and fly all around them. And even though I didn't understand a word of the service beyond Mungu (God), Yesu (Jesus), penda (love), and asante (thanks), I found it a very moving spiritual experience, for it gave me a chance to contemplate God and man and creation and worship in the presence of others. By the time the service ended, I was both happy and tired, for I had been comtemplating God and existence throughout the entire service. It was as if I had been alone with God in a crowded room.

A Second Front

A few weeks ago I declared a temporary cessation in the war between Kiswahili and me. Today I have opened up a second front in the battle to learn the language: I am writing a beginner's guide to the language for other volunteers at the orphanage to use.

Now, you may be asking yourself, didn't he say he was having problems learning the language himself. The answer, unfortunately, is yes. However, that does not mean that I do not understand the grammar and syntax of Kiswahili. In actual fact, I find the language to be far easier to understand in theory than the other languages I have attempted to learn. The problem, as always, is being able to identify what people are saying to me and being able to remember the vocabulary to allow me to speak to them.

This time I have an ace up my sleeve. Every night the girls at the orphange study in the great hall from dinner time to 9:30. Once I complete my beginner's guide, I am going to spend me evenings studying hard and being tutored by 90 Kiswahili-speaking orphans.

The Global Gourmet

Dar Es Salaam is an interesting city. In fact, I can honestly say that Dar is like no place I have ever been. It inhabits a world with one foot in Africa and one foot in the West.

Take food, for example. Today I went into Dar with Liz, a fellow volunteer at the orphanage. We left the orphanage shortly after breakfast and we spent a very busy day running errands and attempting to rectify a problem that Liz was having with the airline on which she had flown to Tanzania. By the time we finished Round 1 of Liz versus @#$%^& Airways, it was 1:00 PM and we were hungry, so we headed for that fine Tanzanian establishment -- Subway.

That's right, the submarine sandwich franchise is in Dar. In fact, it is going strong in Dar, with at least three locations that I have personally seen. There were, of course, a few changes. There was no turkey, for example, and there were some local foods on the menu, but for the most part the foods were the same Western fare that you could get on the corner of Mulock and Davis in Newmarket. Even the wall paper was the franchise-wide New York subway system wall paper.

After indulging in only my second Western-style meal since I arrived, we went on to Rounds 2 and 3 of Liz versus @#$%^& Airways, before a truce was called and the venue for Round 4 was changed to the Airways' ticket department at the Nairobi airport. Although the dala dala ride had been perhaps the least painful experience I have ever had, I really didn't want to face a crowded mini-van full of sweating people and large shopping bags, so I contacted my acquaintance, Samora, and successfully mooched a ride.

Somehow, talk turned to food on the drive home, which in turn turned to vegetarianism and meat, which turned to beef and pork, which turned to goat. At this point, Samora discovered that while I had eaten (and enjoyed) goat, Liz had not. This was clearly a situation which could not be allowed to continue, so Samora took us to a favourite restaurant of his whose speciality was goat.

Now, I have discovered a lot about myself this trip, and I am happy to say that I am a much tougher, less squeamish person than I had previously known myself to be. This was just as well. The goat meat itself was not the problem. That had been well-cooked and was tasty, especially when dipped in the pili pili sauce. The challenge was the soup that preceded the roasted goat.

The soup was also made of goat meat. Actually, to be technically correct, I think I should have said, "The soup was made of goat by-products" because the meat in the soup was goat tripe and intestines, or at least that is what it looked like to me. Samora dug into his soup, so I gave it a shot. I salted the soup, something I seldom do, ladled a big spoonful of pili pili (hot pepper) sauce into the bowl, and squeezed a quarter lime into the broth. Then I added the hot yellow-green chili peppers that I later found out were called "goat peppers" in Tanzania because people usually eat them with goat meat. Having dressed the soup the way Samora had, I took a bite of the tripe, chewed, and swallowed.

It was not too bad. In fact, it was rather good. I cannot really say the same for the intestines, although the issue there was not a bad taste but rather a lack of taste. Eating the boiled intestines was rather like chewing tasteless, rubbery noodles, so I was glad for the lime, pili pili, and goat peppers. Anyhow, I finished the soup and even considered having some of Liz's. (Despite the fact that she is a southern girl and an heir to a cooking tradition that includes chitlins, she was not terribly interested in eating the soup.) In the end, I opted to stick with the single serving and glad I was of that decision when the plate of roasted goat arrived.

There was one interesting similarity between the two dining experiences, though. In both cases, I accompanied the meal with a Coca Cola. Once again, I fell under the sway of that most imperialistic of sodas.

And Then There Were Six

Sometimes I feel like I am in a parallel universe, a place cut off with the rest of the world. It is not true, of course, but that is the way it feels. If I didn't have access to the internet, I would feel even more cut off.

Sometimes, though, I am reminded that I am not very cut off at all. There is a television channel called Pulse that shows leads from a number of international broadcasters. Depending on the time of the day, you can watch content from CNN, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and South African and Chinese networks whose names I do not know.

When the news was announced that three NATO soldiers died in southern Afghanistan, the headline ran on the "ticker tape" that each network runs at the bottom of the screen. Even though the nationality was not announced, I suspected the soldiers were Canadians. A quick visit to the CBC website last night confirmed it.

This brings the number of Canadian servicemen who have died in Afghanistan since I have been in Tanzania to six:

• Master Corporal Anthony Klumpenhouwer
• Corporal Matthew McCully
• Master Corporal Darrell Priede

And, most recently:

• Sergeant Christos Kangiannis
• Corporal Stephen Bouzane
• Private Joel Wiebe

Every day that new casualties are announced becomes a mini-Remembrance Day for me. I think about the lives that had been lived and the lives that had been lost. I think of the families and friends that the dead have left behind. I wonder if the dead and the survivors know that the terrible sacrifices are appreciated. Most of all, I pray that one day peace comes to Afghanistan. But until that day, I can only remember the men and women who serve, and be grateful that they are willing to do what they do.

And Then There Were Two

It is funny how fluid the volunteer situation is here at the orphanage. On Sunday, there were six volunteers staying here. In addition to myself, there were:

• Betsy and Sarah, twins from Colorado
• Liz, a volunteer from North Carolina
• Marla and Sarah, a mother-daughter team of volunteers from North Dakota.

Today, there are two volunteers at the orphanage: Liz and me. The twins flew home to the States early Tuesday morning, and Marla and Sarah left yesterday to spend a few days in Dar Es Salaam. Liz is leaving Monday, but a new volunteer from New Zealand will be coming the same day to take her place, so I won't be alone.

And as for me? Well, I will be here for a long time still. I won't be going home until the second half of July.

The Drought is Over

I am pleased to report that the dearth of monkeys has ended.

Sangu, the biology/chemistry/math teacher here at the orphanage, was kind enough to take Liz (another volunteer) and me on a walking tour of the University of Dar Es Salaam from which he recently graduated. Ostensibly, the purpose of the trip was for Sangu to finish some final paperwork, but he spent a great deal of time taking us through the wooded grounds of the campus.

At first, it appeared to be another failure. We searched them here. We searched them there. We searched for monkeys everywhere. Were they in heaven? Were they in hell? We did not see them, thus couldn't tell. (Sorry, I was talking to somebody about The Scarlet Pimpernel the other day, and parts of the story remain embedded in my brain.)

It was actually quite funny how Sangu kept telling us that usually the grounds were swarming with monkeys. His theory was that they were gone because it was summer break and they therefore had less easy pickings since there were fewer people eating on the campus grounds. I prefer to stick with my theory that they went home, like other students, to share what they had learned about chemistry, engineering, law, and social work with the monkeys back in the jungle.

We had given up the quest and were walking back to catch the dala dala back to the orphanage, when there he was -- a male vervet monkey sitting in the crotch of a tree, displaying the brightest blue scrotum imaginable! It was as if he were holding two robin's eggs in his lap. We soon saw a whole troop of monkeys, including a little fellow climbing the fence post. And thus, I can happily announce that the dearth of monkeys has ended.

Poem: The Properties of Matter

The Properties of Matter

Class, can you tell me,
What is matter?
"Matter is an object,
Any object,
That occupies space
And possesses mass."
Mass, you say?
So matter is Catholic
Like us?
I'll see you after class, Rosetta.
Yes, Mwalimu.
Class, can you tell me,
What are the states
That matter takes?
"Solid state."
"Liquid state."
"Gaseous state."
But Teacher,
We learned this in chemistry.
I thought this was physics.
I'll see you after class, Rosetta.
Yes, Mwalimu.
Class, can you tell me,
In what state of matter
Do objects possess
A definite shape?
In what state of matter
Do objects possess
A definite shape?
"Solid, Teacher."
Class, can you tell me,
In what state of matter
Do objects possess
Weak forces of attraction?
In what state of matter
Do objects possess
Weak forces of attraction?
"Gaseous, Teacher."
Class, can you tell me,
In what state of matter
Are molecules
Very free
To move around
Randomly in any direction.
"Gaseous, Teacher."
Sometimes I wish
That I were a gas.
I'll see you after class, Rosetta.
Yes, Malimu.

(c) J S Phillips

Seeing Poetry

I don't always see things the way other people do.

Sometimes I see things as photographs. I may be walking down the street and all of a sudden I see a photograph perfectly composed before me. Sometimes I just stand there, taking in the beauty of the scene. Other times I attempt to capture what my eyes have seen on my camera. I am seldom successful. I keep on trying nonetheless.

Sometimes I see things as poems. I may be sitting in a classroom listening to the teacher and all of a sudden I experience the scene as a poem. Sometimes I just sit there, taking in the beauty of the scene. Other times I attempt to capture what my mind has seen on paper. I am seldom successful, but that doesn't matter. I keep on trying nonetheless.

There are times when I think this way of seeing is a curse, and I hate it. I wish I could see the world like other people do. Most times, though, I consider myself blessed. On this trip, I definitely feel blessed, because I have been seeing many poems.

Poem: For a Melancholic Friend

For a Melancholic Friend

Beautiful Antonio,
Mi amigo,
Mi hermano,
Is cursed no more
By sleeplessness.
Tonight he is haunted
By beautiful ghosts --
His words,
Not mine.
Perhaps he is in Chiapas
In his dreams,
Joining the heart
He left behind.

(c) J S Phillips

Road Portrait: The Man Who Saw Beautiful Ghosts

One of the best things about the past month has been the opportunity to meet a diverse and interesting group of people. Some are fascinating, and I enjoy every minute I spend with them. Others, I must confess, occassionally drive me nuts. All have made up the rich cast of characters in this movie that is my adventure in Tanzania.

One of my favourites is a young Mexican student whom I shall call "Antonio", for that is his name. Antonio is from Mexico City, but he lives in London where he attends graduate school. Although he lives in Mexico City, Antonio's true home is Chiapas province, where he has done work with indigenous tribes.

Unlike most of the people whom I've met on this trip, people who are either locals or volunteers, Antonio came to Tanzania on a personal quest: he came to bury his friend. Or rather, he came bearing the ashes of a Zanzibar-born friend who died in a traffic accident in Mexico. The purpose of his trip was to scatter the ashes on his friend's island home.

I met Antonio on my safari, and I saw him again on the weekend I visited Zanzibar. On both occasions I was lucky enough to be his roommate, a match that was perfect since both of us suffered from insomnia. Since neither could sleep, we talked a lot. We talked about novels and poetry and plays; we talked about movies we had seen; we had talked about music and songs that we knew.

Antonio was a font of the good, old-fashioned Mexican songs that came out of the Revolution, and he did his best to teach me the words to Cielito Lindo, my favourite of such tunes and the unofficial anthem of the group that gathered in Kendwa. I may not be able to sing the verses, but I still can sing the chorus - Ay, ay, yay yay,/ Canta y no llores,/ Porque cantando se alegran/ Cielito lindo los corozones - without resorting to the alternate lyrics that feature the Frito Bandito.

Antonio is also the subject of a poem, For a Melancholic Friend.

I Stand Corrected - And Chagrined

I am afraid that Phillips' Yellow-Headed Lizard is no more.

No, I do not mean the species is instinct within days of being discovered. If only that were the case. No, what I mean is that somebody beat me to the punch and named it already. I do not, as of yet, know who the dastardly glory hog is, but I have it on good authority (the biology teacher here at the orphanage, actually) that the species has been known for some time. In fact, he offered to take me to the university the next time he goes so I can do some research in the university library.

I may just take him up on his generous offer. Or I may stay here on the orphanage grounds, looking for a new species to discover.

A Mystery Solved

In Tanzania, as in the United Kingdom, cars travel on the left side of the road and on-coming traffic travels on the right. At least, that is the case on paved roads. That is not the case for Abdul Wakill Road.

The road outside the orphanage is an unpaved stretch of dirt that is dusty when it is dry and slick with greasy clay when it is raining. Even at the best of times, drivers seldom follow the official rules of the road. Instead, they drive on the left, on the right, or in the middle -- whichever side is least like to snap the vehicle's suspension by hitting potholes that resemble ravines.

When I first got here I asked someone knowledgeable why the roads were so bumpy. He looked at me as if I were an idiot and replied, "Because the rains wash the dirt away." It was a good lesson in framing questions effectively. What I should have asked, "Why does nobody repair the roads so that they are not so bumpy?"

Today, I discovered the answer. It is not, as I suspected, because Tanzania is a poor country with little money to spend on repairing country roads. Nor, as I discovered, was it that the orphanage is too far out in the sticks to make it worth the politicians' while to repair the road. The truth is that they do make at least a token attempt to repair the road.

I discovered this as I headed down Abdul Wakill to a duka to buy some Coca Cola for Mama Christina and me. As I walked down the road, I noticed it was far dustier than it should have been, even considering that it has not rained in over a week. The more dust I kicked up, the stranger it seemed, until it suddenly dawned on me that the dirt I was kicking up had a different consistency than the hard, packed earth that formed the rest of the road. The soft, sifted soil was only found in the mini-arroyos, which meant that someone had attempted to fix the road.

A Great New Discovery

I saw a beautiful little lizard on Thursday. It was less than 3 inches long. It had a cornflower blue body and a bright yellow head. I asked a couple of the workmen what the lizard was called, but nobody knew the answer. (Either that, or their command of the English language was no better than my command of Kiswahili.)

I can only assume that I have discovered a new species and I have decided to follow in the footsteps of a long line of western explorers and scientists and name it in honour of the gentleman who discovered it. I shall therefore name the lizard Phillips' Yellow-Headed Lizard. I shall await assigning it the appropriate classification until I have reviewed that particular topic in the biology text book. In the meantime, feel free to pencil it in on your lists of African reptiles.

Poem: Olof Palme Orphans Education Centre

This is a poem that is based on some of my travel journal entries, a journal which already consists of 124 ledger-sized pages of hand-written musings.

Olof Palme Orphans Education Centre

The sun hangs high
In a cloudless blue sky,

Drop of amber

In sapphire sea.
For the first time in days
Beads of sweat
Assume formation on my brow.
My newly laundered shirt is dry,
At least, for now.

The fresh bug bites
That scar my wrist
Itch like the devil.
A breeze blows softly
From the east,
Causing the fronds
Of coconut palms
To rustle

And shiver,
As if being kissed
By invisible lips.

For once,
The sounds of songbirds
Overwhelm

The caws of crows
And cackles of hens.
The maize in the field
Behind the school
Is brown

And ready to pick.
Orange trees hang heavy
With sour-sweet fruit,
While pawpaws wait to fall.
Only the bananas
Refuse to offer
Themselves to the cook.

A rooster crows,
Challenged, no doubt,
By the previous lines,
Reclaiming dominance
For domesticated fowl.
Let him crow all he wants,
He’ll soon be on the plate,
Swimming in a sauce
Of fresh coconut milk.

Girls in the classroom
Next to mine
Laugh at something
The teacher does

Or says.
The cock crows again
As I scratch a bite
With absent-minded ardor.
A golden bug
Crawls across my sandal
While in the distance

The tea-time bell rings
Calling the girls

To the dining hall.

The wind picks up,
Then dies,
Ebbing and flowing
Like unseen tides of air.
Goats bleat

With barely heard voices
While outside the door
A student beats
A chalkboard eraser
Against a handy palm tree,
Raising a cloud
Of fine white dust
That settles on her dress.

In the classroom someone coughs,
Then coughs
And coughs again.
Sangu lectures on,
Undisturbed by the tea-time bell.
The air is still,
Then winds swirl
And songbirds trill
And students

Bang erasers
On a tree.

This is Africa.
This is Tanzania.
This is Olof Palme.

(c) J S Phillips

A Dearth of Simians

There is a lot of insect life here, but no monkeys. Where are the monkeys? I was promised monkeys! (Well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I was told that the primary reason I needed a rabies vaccination was because of monkey bites.) So far, the only monkeys I have seen have been in the parks in the north country near Arusha, and this is clearly not acceptable. I want monkeys and I want them now!

The Magnificent Beast

One of the advantages of having no set itinerary is that I get to do a variety of different tasks, depending upon what is happening in the classrooms or how I feel or, more often than not, simply identifying what needs to be done. It goes without saying that each day is different. In fact, I have been doing so many things this week that I feel like a milk-giving, cart-pulling, egg-laying, wool-bearing sow.

So far this week I have:

• demonstrated the difference between physical and chemical changes in chemistry class;
• attended physics class to help the girls if they had questions about determining relative density (thankfully, they did not have any questions);


• taught an introductory English lesson on poetry in which I read a number of poems by East African authors;
• spent four hours cleaning up the orphanage's computer, in the process boosting available memory from 4.9 KB to 835 KB, and perfoming maintenance tasks that had not been done in the past year-and-a-half;
• created four reading exercises and corresponding answer keys for some of the books I purchased on Friday;
• washed the blackboards in the three class rooms (another task that does not appear to have been done in ages).

Of the tasks, the poetry class was the most fun and cleaning the blackboards was the hardest. One nice thing about conducting the poetry class is that I was able to become familiar with some absolutely beautiful poems by local poets. If you are into poetry, try to get your hands on any of the following:

• Building the Nation, Henry Barlow
• The Crack, Sheika A. El-Miskery
• Just a Word, Sheika A. El-Miskery
• Kisenyi, John Butler
• Slum Day, Jim Chaplin
• Poem in Four Parts, William Kamera
• Blind, Joseph Kariuki
• The Splash, Yusuf O. Kassam
• The Crucified Thief, John S. Mbiti
• The Town Beauty, Magemeso Namungalu
• The Woman I Married, Edwin Waiyaki
• Kimbe Mines, Timothy Wangusa
• Wild Horse of Serengeti, B. Tejani

The War on Terror - Another Perspective

It was great sadness that I read the news on the CBC website that another Canadian soldier had been killed in Afghanistan. This makes the third soldier to die since I have been in Tanzania and the 57th to die since the mission began. We don't get any Canadian news over here, so I do not know how people are reacting to the losses. I do, however, know that what the men and women of the Canadian Forces are doing over there is important. That is something the local Tanzanians understand.

Last week I visited the National Museum in Dar Es Salaam. Many of the displays were exactly what you would expect from a national museum, but there was one exhibit that caught me completely off guard. In the open courtyard between the various halls of the Museum was a collection of broken metal -- a car, a bike, and other scrap -- that had been salvaged from the scene of the bombing attack of the 1990s.

That is why I am not surprised when some of the Tanzanians I have met speak approvingly of George Bush. Tanzania, like Kenya, experienced the horror of terrorist attacks long before the terrible events of 9/11. They understand what it means to be attacked.

Canada has remained relatively unscathed by the war on terror, and for that I am grateful. I am also grateful that there are men and women who are willing to put their lives on the line to ensure that the people of Afghanistan have a chance to create an alternative way of life to the Taliban regime they had lived under. I just hope that the sacrifices of Afghan, Canadian, and allied service people are not in vain.

Wild Kingdom, Tanzanian Style

I can hear the orphanage's goats bleating outside the open door as I sit in front of the computer. I am not goofing off by writing this post, I am waiting for the latest update of the anti-virus software to finish loading. The sound of the goats reminds me that Tanzania is known as being one of the most bio-diverse countries in Africa. In particular, the guide books speak about incredibly diverse populations of birds and plants.

I don't know about plants, and the only birds I have seen around the orphanage are crows, purple grenadiers, and the scrawny chickens that will eventually end up on the supper table, but I can state with certainty that there are a lot of bugs around here. I have seen a millipede that had to be at least 8 inches long, a grasshopper that was the size of my thumb, and wasps and bees that make their counterparts back home look like dwarfs in comparison. Some nights, we are visited by a moth that is larger than the bats that pick off insects that hover around the porch light. I have seen incredibly beautiful and strange insects like the green creature that looked more like a space alien than a terrestrial animal and incredibly ugly beetles scurrying on the ground. Much to my regret, I have become intimately acquainted with bedbugs and other biting insects that have decided I am the main item on the daily smorgasbord. (I hope the goats appreciate how I am diverting the nasty little buggers from biting them.)

My favourite animals, however, are the skinks and geckos that live in and around the big house here at the orphanage. The skinks live outside the house and patrol the walls and grounds in search of insects to eat. They generally run away when you approach, but if you are patient they sometimes come close to you. The geckos, in contrast, live inside the house. They generally only come out at night, but once in a while they go hunting during the day.

Geckos were involved in a rather unexpected sight the other night at dinner time. We were just finishing supper when I saw the tiniest gecko I have ever seen. It could not have been more than an inch-and-a-half long and, judging by the tentative way it was making its way down the wall, it was clearly not very old. I had just pointed it out to the twins who are volunteering here with me when a larger gecko appeared on the wall that was perpendicular to the youngster. Blame it on Disney, but we assumed that it was the mother gecko coming to shepherd its baby back to the nest. Instead, the bigger gecko suddenly attacked as soon as it noticed the baby. I swear I heard the baby gecko cry out in fright as it tried to run down the wall to evade its attacker. The chase continued down the wall, onto the floor, and behind a cabinet, so I was spared what I imagine was a bloody climax to the encounter. It was a a fitting reminder that even on the walls of a residence, life can be a jungle over here.

Public Transit, Tanzania Style

Having lived in Vancouver and Toronto for most of the past 23 years, I have become accustomed to taking buses, subways, and light rail public transit. Although there are sometimes service delays or periods of waiting between connections, one can usually get where he needs to go with relative ease.

Dar Es Salaam is another world entirely. There are no subway systems. There is no Skytrain LRT. There are not even city buses. There are, however, dala dalas. These converted vans are the workhorses of the public transportation, such as it exists. All appear to be privately owned; to the best of my knowledge, there is no government-run urban transportation system.

I have mentioned dala dalas several times, but I have never really described them in all their glory. As is the case with most vehicles in Tanzania, dala dalas are inevitably of Japanese make, usually Toyota or Isuzu. As is often the case with larger touring buses and commercial trucks, dala dala owners frequently give their vehicles names that are proudly displayed on the windshield. My all-time favourite name for a dala dala is "Beware of Dog", a name whose significance is lost on me.

Passengers enter and leave the dala dala through a sliding door on the side, although in some cases (i.e. at crowded dala dala stations), limber young men enter through open windows in order to get a seat. Dala dalas are fitted with three full rows of seats capable of holding 4 to 5 people each to the rear of the sliding door as well as one 2-person seat adjacent to the door. Sometimes as many as 3 passengers are crammed into the front seat next to the driver. That, of course, leaves enough room for up to a dozen standing passengers. When the dala dala is full, the result can only be compared to the infamous vans of the Fraser Valley which transported up to 20 berry pickers at a time.

Most dala dalas have had handles installed on the interior walls so that standing passengers have something to grasp when the road gets bumpy, as it so often does. Unfortunately, the handles are often broken, so many standing passengers steady themselves by holding onto edging on the walls or by bracing themselves on one of the seats. When the dala dala is really packed, there is little need to brace oneself at all because people are so jammed in that you couldn't fall even if you wanted to.

Dala dalas are not a bad form of transportation if you are lucky enough to get a seat, and that can be a difficult feat to accomplish. At busy dala dala stations like Mwenge, a flood of people attempt to board the van to claim a seat even as the passengers are departing. It is hard to describe the flow of people getting on and off of the vehicle except to say they are two short, powerful floods of frenzied people that collide at the door of the vehicle. Think of it as a rugby scrum held in a van and you'll have a pretty good idea what I am talking about.

It would seem to make sense for departing passengers to be allowed to get off before new passengers get on, but that is not how it works. Given the obvious desirability of getting a seat rather than standing, passengers tend to push themselves forward with little regard for manners. Elderly people, parents with children, and the handicapped are left to fend for themselves, both entering and exiting the vehicle. I once saw a young mother with an infant swept towards the back of the dala dala by the incoming flood of passengers. She was only able to squeeze her way through the mob when people realized that if she got off, they just might be able to get on.

I used to try to use my size to block other passengers so that elders and mothers could get on, but having been slammed against the van by the pressure of the mob, I now attempt to navigate myself onto the dala dala in time to get one of the precious seats. Sometimes, the local passengers are kind and they hold a seat open for me, even though my broad shoulders mean that I take up space that two Tanzanians could share. I am not sure that it is a reflection of the hospitality that Tanzanians always seem to display or whether it is a pragmatic assessment that one mzungo sitting means room for three locals standing.

Sometimes, however, I am forced to stand and this is truly an unforgettable experience. The first time I took the dala dala from the orphanage to Dar was at 5:30 in the morning. Since it was the first dala dala of the day, it was especially packed and I was forced to stand on one foot since there was no space on the floor for me to place the other foot. It was hot and cramped, and I felt as if I was going to have an anxiety attack because it felt so claustrophobic. I have since learned to plant both feet on the floor and to use my feet to move other people's feet.

As I mentioned in another post, standing on a moving dala dala is rather like playing a standing game of Twister. Tanzanian roads are sometimes paved, but often they are dirt roads that have been ravaged by deep potholes caused by the rains. Standing passengers feel each bump as the dala dala hits it. Bodies lurch against each other, and faces are pressed into fellow passengers' backs, shoulders, or armpits. Even sitting passengers are not immune, since standing passengers often wind up falling into them after a particularly nasty bump. That is how I have become far more familiar with the fleshy attributes of Tanzanian derrieres than I would otherwise have hoped to become.

As you may well imagine, there are no seat belts on the dala dala. (In fact, I have only been in one vehicle that had seatbelts in the entire four weeks I have been in Tanzania.) I imagine that an accident would result in a number of injuries. However, when your options are to take a dala dala to the city for less than TSH 1,000 or take a taxi for TSH 75,000, there is really no choice but to get on board the dala dala and join the Muslim passengers in saying, "I will arrive safely, inshallah" (if Allah wills it).

A Good Traveller

A good traveller has no fixed plan and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu

I am not sure if Lao Tzu is correct about travellers, but I do know that his comment applies to volunteers in Tanzania. Today I found myself in the awkward position of being the fifth wheel on a tricycle. It is hard to be believe that an orphanage that lacks practically everything would have a surplus of teaching staff, but that was the case. With one full-time teacher and four volunteers to be split between less than 60 girls, it was apparent that we had too many people in the classrooms. Bearing another ancient bit of wisdom in mind -- "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping" -- I decided to head into Dar Es Salaam to see if I could find some books to augment the rather meagre library.

This was to be my first solo trip from the orphanage into the city, and for the most part it went well. It took me three different dala dalas and two-and-a-half hours to travel the 30 kilometres from the orphanage to downtown Dar, but I wasn't doing anything of value anyways, so the waiting and gridlock did not bother me. When I arrived downtown I was able to post a handful of post cards that had been written out, addressed, and stamped a week ago. That critical bit of business out of the way, I had an entire day to myself.

I decided to see the National Museum on Samora Avenue before I did any of the shopping tasks. It rather reminded me of the local museums that one visits in North America, rather than the huge edutainment mega-complexes that pass themselves off as national or provincial museums in Canada, but it made a valiant attempt to address the sometimes complicated history of this beautiful country.

After the museum, I began my foray to find books for the girls. I went to no less than four book stores to come up with a good (albeit tiny) start to to a decent school library. For the younger readers, I bought a variety of books for various reading levels including some abridged versions of classic novels such as A Tale of Two Cities, Tom Sawyer, and Alice in Wonderland, along with locally published books of stories. For the older girls, I bought a volume of East African poetry, as well as novels by African authors such as Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

The business part of the trip completed, I proceeded to find the downtown ice cream parlour, where I had a delicious "Hawaiin Delight" concoction of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, fresh oranges and pineapple, and passion fruit juice. It was the first Western food I have had since I got here, and I couldn't have been happier. After lunch I went to the local version of the supermarket to pick up cookies for the three full-time staff members and chili sauce for me and the other volunteers.

The ride home was another exercise in enduring uncomfortable positions while on public transportation, this time livened up by a pick pocket. But like the locals say, Hakuna Matata. When the rest of the day was productive, who is going to worry too much over the one dark cloud in the sky?

Waiting for a Train

I wonder if I'll end up like Bernie in his dream,
A displaced person in some foreign border town
Waiting for a train, part hope, part myth
While the station changes hands.

Bruce Cockburn
How I Spent My Fall Vacation

I can say without a doubt that the verb that best describes my three-and-a-half weeks in Tanzania is not "to thirst" or "to hunger". It is not "to work" or even "to sing". It is not even "to perspire", although that is a close second. No, the dominant verb in my life at the moment is "to wait".

I wait for the dala dala to arrive. Once I am on it, I wait for that standing, sweaty version of public transit Twister to end, hoping against hope that the circulation returns to hands and feet. I wait in line at the currency exchange house when I wish to cash in traveller's cheques, and I wait even longer while the clerk processes them. Sometimes, I wait for the rains to come. Most days, I wait for the students to come up with questions that I can help them with. Rain or shine, weekday or weekend, I wait.

This is a new experience for me, and I must confess that I am not always comfortable waiting. I suppose that is natural since I am the guy who used to work 14 hour days and not take breaks. Sometimes I really enjoy my waiting time because it gives me a chance to think about things I would otherwise not think about. Other times, I feel that this is what prison must be like, although without the gang fights and sodomy to liven things up. Most of the time, though, I just sit and wait like Bernie in his dream.

The First Condition

"The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it." Rudyard Kipling

I am usually the last to agree with Kipling's take on anything, but in this case I think he may have a point. I had a South Asian friend who always used to say that he knew he was back home when he got off the plane and was hit with the wall of smells that is India.

Tanzania has its own unique collection of smells. In Dar Es Salaam, the air is filled with a combination of diesel, gasoline, and charcoal from the cooking fires of the street food vendors. Out here in the country, gasoline and diesel are replaced with the smells of earth and plants and, on occasion, goats. Everywhere you go you are likely to recognize a slight undersmell of perspiration, unless it is so cool that nobody sweats.

Even church smells slightly different. I went to Mass with the orphans today and I experienced a not unpleasant mix of perfume, perspiration, and incense.