I Miss Bethsaida

I have been feeling a bit down for the past while, and I have just come to realize that it is because I really miss the girls and staff at the orphanage.



It is funny how a place like that can get under your skin.

Ten Weeks of Freedom and Counting

This may seem like a silly thing to celebrate, but in the past ten weeks I have only worn closed toe shoes twice. When I was in Africa, I generally wore sandals or flip flops. Since coming back to Canada, I have only worn sandals.

I don't want to say I dread the thought of having to put on dress shoes, but let's just say that my cowboy boots are firmly ensconced in the back of my closet.

The Flood of Photographs Begins

I took something in the neighbourhood of 2,300 photographs when I was away in Tanzania. Some were photos of the children; others were taken on safari. Some were portraits; others were abstract shots of sea shells. I even took a couple of photos of people taking photos of me taking photos of them.

Now the fun begins -- editing the photographs.

I don't know how long it will take to go through every one of the photographs, but I have already started to add them to a few of posts that I did when I was in Africa. You can now see the little fellow that was once (temporarily) known as Phillips' Yellow-Headed Lizard. Or, if you are of a more gory bent, you can see the Great Snake Hunt of 2007 as it actually occurred.

Hot Baths and Cold Showers

One of the luxuries that I missed most when I was in Tanzania was hot water. You know: hot water for shaving or bathing or doing the dishes. There was, of course, hot water, but it was boiled and did not come from taps. We did have running water, though, so I was able to indulge in daily showers with cold water.

I am old enough to recall when cold showers were prescribed as a means of preventing blindness and acne, so there are perhaps deep psychological reasons for my aversion but the main reason I have always hated bathing with cold water discomfort. There was something harsh and sharp about cold water hitting one's skin. Hot water, on the other hand, seemed comforting and therapeutic.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I actually enjoyed the cold showers. Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it was a sense of adventure, but I didn't find showering with cold water to be any sort of an inconvenience. And imagine my surprise when I discovered that I actually prefer cold showers to the near boiling heat of the hot water in my bathroom pipes.

Now if only I could figure out a way to reduce the water pressure to a trickle.

Home At Last

After nine weeks away, I am home.

I left the ground in Dar at 11:05 Monday night and landed in Toronto at 3:32 yesterday afternoon. (That would be 10:37 Tuesday night in Dar.) Even though I got off the plane and through Customs faster than normal, I didn't leave the baggage area until about an hour-and-a-quarter later. My luggage, it seems, are still working on Swahili time.

Leaving

Before I came to Africa, my wife told me that when it came time to leave one of the girls would break my heart.

She lied.

All 84 of the girls have broken my heart.

The Countdown Begins

I still have over 24 hours here at the orphanage, but time is beginning to slip away.

I went to Mass with the girls again. It was the last time for me and the first time for four other volunteers. As is often the case, the walk back was an exercise in singing as some of the girls attempted to teach me worship songs in Kiswahili. Ironically enough, I seem to finally be able to pick up phrases in Kiswahili. Better late than never, I guess.

I would have liked to have spent more time with the girls this afternoon, but they are practicing for the farewell ceremony that they will put on for me tonight, so I didn't feel like bothering them. Instead, I was alone with my thoughts and reflections on going home and leaving this place.

The Great Snake Hunt of 2007: Coda

Further to my previous posting, I have been able to confirm that the serpent that was killed by our mighty hunters was a puff adder (Bitis arientis), an extremely piece of work if you are unfortunate enough to be bitten by it.

The puff adder is considered by many to be the most dangerous snake in Africa because it is widespread, extremely poisonous, and prone to bite. It is a thick snake about a metre long, so the example the workers killed was a little smaller than average. Although the puff adder causes more human deaths per year than any other snake in Africa, a bite is not necessarily fatal. Loss of limbs due to gangrene or necrosis is, however, a very possible outcome.

Opoa

I have a problem.

I have been at the orphanage for about eight weeks and I am soon heading back to Canada. This is good. This is not the problem. I miss Canada and I want to go home.

Unfortunately, I have become really attached to the staff and children here at the orphanage at Bethsaida School. I know it seems silly, but I wish I could adopt all of the girls here. I would never do that, of course. Madonna got in trouble for adopting one child so I can imagine the outcry that would arise were I to adopt over eighty kids.

A recent addition to the welcome ceremonies that the kids put on for new volunteers is the Bethsaida Welcome Song, which includes the lines, "We know that we will learn from you/We hope that we can teach you, too". They succeeded in teaching me -- they have taught me the power of hope. In fact, if I had to create a motto for this place, I would use Opoa, the Kiswahili word for "hope".

These girls have had difficult lives, but they still have high hopes for the future. I have been videotaping some of the girls over the past few days, and one of the standard questions I ask in the interviews is what they wish to be in the future. Many of them want to be doctors, nurses, or lawyers. When I ask them why they want to follow those careers, they almost always say that it is because they want to help people. Often they say it is because they want to help orphans like them.

Now, I know that they won't all become doctors, nurses, or lawyers. Some will not have good enough grades; others will not have the money. Still others may find another calling entirely, a calling that is radically different from what they currently have in mind. I just pray that they always keep hope alive.

The Rebirth of Profanity

Sometimes I have topics for blog posts that never quite make it to print. One topic that I have been meaning to post for the past four weeks has been "The Death of Profanity", for I found myself on a roll with week upon week of profanity-free conversation. Perhaps it came from living in a house with a nun down the hall, or perhaps it came from a relative lack of stress.

However, I cannot talk about the death of profanity because I have found myself swearing more over the past week-and-a-half. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that we went from two volunteers to twelve volunteers, most of whom are young university students. Still, I rue the return of foul language.

My Secret Life As A Tekkie

For someone with an ideological bent towards Ludditism, I spend a lot of my time dealing with technology. You already know my bent towards harnessing the Internet to communicate via blog. I am an avid email and SMS text message user. I love my digital camera, video camera, and digital recorder. I write a tremendous amount on my computer. (On second thought, perhaps i am not a Luddite; perhaps I am merely an automobilophobe.)

Today I find myself in Dar Es Salaam at the orphanage's administrative offices, working away on the website redesign project. As was the case with the databases, my particular skill is not in coding and designing the layout, but rather in creating content. However, I have discovered that necessity is a good motivator for learning new skills. Happily, I will not have to actually do the hard lifting -- the layout and page design and linking of pages -- but I do get to learn more about website design.

The Great Snake Hunt of 2007

Today I witnessed a snake hunt.

I was down with the construction team when word came that a snake had been seen in the pasture behind the compound walls. Four workers and seven volunteers headed down to hunt the snake. Or rather, the workers went to hunt; the volunteers went to watch. It did not take long before the snake was found hiding in a clump of bushes and dispatched with a sharp hoe.

The workers brought the trisected snake out for us to check out. To be honest, I was torn between fascination and revulsion. The part of me that loves reptiles was appalled by the fact that the snake was killed. However, the workers described the poison as being so nasty that a person would die within minutes of being bitten. On the other hand, it was interesting to look at the internal organs and to recognize the eggs that the snake was carrying.

As for species, I am still trying to work that out. I took a picture of the head, but it was in the shadows and is too indistinct to really see. I was originally leaning towards a puff adder, given the description of the deadly effect of the poison, but it doesn't really match the picture in Wildlife of Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda. I will continue to investigate and will update this post as soon as I have nailed the species down.

Kinks in the Wired World

They say it's a global, wired world and that is true. I mean, here I am in an orphanage outside of Dar Es Salaam and I am updating a blog that is read primarily by people in Canada and the United States. I have also been in email contact with family and friends. But there do seem to be a few kinks in the wiring.

For example, I can get onto Blogger and create new posts. However, for the past few days I have been unable to assign them titles. (As you can see, I am now able to assign titles to posts. July 11, 2007)

I have also been able to keep in touch with events back home thanks to http://www.cbc.ca/. However, back around the time that the French Open was being played out, the version of the CBC site that I was able to get to was five days old. The same went for a hobby site that I check every two weeks.

And cell phones are both a blessing and a source of extreme confusion. I was able to send text messages back home right from the start. My friend Sukh could get them but could not send them to North America. About a week ago, I lost the ability to send text messages to Canada. There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to it.

However, I cannot complain. I read somewhere that merchants doing the India to Zanzibar run had to plan to be away for an entire year, due to the way the winds blew -- or didn't blow. At least I am not stranded for a year.

The Down Side of Friendship

One difference between the griot at home in Canada and the griot here in Tanzania is that I have been far more ready to accept people as "friends". Back home, I think I defined friends far too restrictively. Here, some people became friends on the very first day we met.

There is a down side, though, to having friends. Over the past week, I have found myself going through a ritual that has been surprisingly sad. As friends depart for home or other countries, I delete their numbers from my cell phone. What was once a very filled contact list is constricting back to its original form: two phone numbers for Janet, a number for the orphanage and one for the director, a number for the Canadian High Commission, a number for my bank, and a number for the insurance company.

Once, my contact list included numbers of friends, but they have all left. Amanda is back in the United States. Antonio left for Europe. Betsy and Sarah have been home for a while, as are Marla and the other Sarah. Deepa has been back in Canada for over a month. Hannah is en route to the United Kingdom via North Africa. Liz is in Nairobi and thence back to the United States. Sukh is en route to Canada via Ghana and Europe.

In a way, it has been good to remove the numbers as my friends depart. It has gotten me used to the idea that I too will be heading home soon. It's kind of like Labour Day and how it tells you that summer is finally over.

Six of One; Half Dozen of Another

I'm am really torn by conflicting emotions these days.

On the one hand, I am ready to go home. I miss Canada. I miss my family. I am conscious of missing summer, and summer is one of my four favourite seasons. I am also anxious to get on with my life. I have made my peace with some of the demons that have haunted me for the past few years. I want to start the next stage of my life.

On the other hand, I really have gotten to love this place. The orphanage is a very magical place and the staff are great. I like where I am and I like Dar. Tanzania is beautiful and Tanzanians are gracious, beautiful hosts. Most important of all, though, I will really miss the girls.

I have had a lot of time with them over the past week or so. I've helped them with algebra, chemistry, and physics homework. I have gone to Mass with them twice. I have eaten with them when all the other volunteers went to Bagomoyo. I have taken photos of every one of them for the school yearbook that I am working on. I have also been taping them as they sing. They are great kids and I really like them a lot. Leaving is going to be as tough for me as it has been for everybody else who has had to go home.

But until then, I will continue to help them with homework and sing with them.

The Secret Lives of Volunteers

Foreign volunteers in Tanzania have a dirty little secret they don't want you to know about -- they are obsessed with food. Believe it or not, every volunteer whom I have met who has spent more than three weeks in country has confessed to having a list of foods that they intend to eat when they return home. For some, it is a mental list. For others, it is a journal entry. (In the interest of total disclosure I must admit that I fall into this category.) For one individual who shall remain unnamed, the list went beyond a mere listing of food to cover the restaurant at which the foods would be consumed.

My list is considerably shortened from the one I had a month ago. In fact, it is limited to:

• tacos (if you are going to have cheesy burgery stuff, have something with sour cream and refried beans too)
• (Ben and Jerry's) ice cream
• salad (garden, Greek, cucumber -- I don't care, as long as there are vegetables)
• watermelon, blueberries, cherries, and apples
• miso soup and sushi

The first three on my list are pretty universal. In fact, tacos and ice cream are surprisingly popular. The fruit is less so, and the Japanese food is limited to my list.

But the funny thing is that I don't really crave anything. The food has been extremely tasty -- even the goat innards soup was OK. I don't want to say that I am oblivious to the charms of a well-cooked hamburger smothered with sauteed onions and a semi-melted slice of Emmenthal cheese, but it is not my obsession.

The Cost of Nationhood

I was saddened to discover yesterday that six more Canadian soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan. The six, along with their Afghan translator, were travelling outside of Kandahar when an improvised explosive device destroyed their vehicle, killing them all.

Each death in Afghanistan makes my heart ache, but I know that the friends and family of those who died hurt ten thousand times more than I could ever feel. All I can say is that your loss is appreciated and your loved one is remembered.

But it is not the survivors of the casualties that I wish to address -- I want to speak to Stephane Dion and Jack Layton. Specifically, I want to tell them: grow up!

Nobody likes the casualties that we are facing. The soldiers don't. Their families certainly don't. The prime minister does not. The public doesn't. A little nobody like me doesn't. It's a high price, and unfortunately it is likely that the price is going to continue to rise. It is also a price that must be paid if we are to be a sovereign nation. Especially if we are to be the sort of active force for good in the world that average Canadians would like their country to be.

We have committed ourselves to helping the government of Afghanistan. We have committed ourselves to helping the people of Afghanistan. We have seen a truly shitty situation in Afghanistan and we have committed ourselves to helping make it a better place.

I have spent the past two months in a country that has one huge asset -- hope. In a continent where genocide and political strife has happened all too often, the people of Tanzania are hopeful. That is what makes Tanzania such a wonder place. That is what makes Tanzanians such beautiful people.

To pull out our troops immediately as Mr. Layton would have Canada do might save a few Canadian lives -- all of them precious -- but how many Afghans -- each of them just a precious -- would die because they didn't have Canadian troops to help them? Abandoning the people of Afghanistan would rob the peole of hope that life will get better. That may not be a crime, but in my books it is surely a sin.

My Readers Request -- I Respond

A few posts ago I wrote about a great Tanzanian song called Siku Hazigandi and I got a comment asking for a translation of the lyrics. I knew that the song was basically a woman telling off friends who were complaining about her boyfriend, but I didn't know the actual words so I asked one of the girls here at the orphanage to translate it for me. This is what we came up with:

For all you’ve said, you’ve done,
I forget them and I look forward.
How many words have been said?
How many things have I seen?
Mmh, you’ve said.
Ahh, I look forward.
Eh, I have been talked about
By others a great deal,
Don’t you get tired?
(Repeat)

You don’t care about the sorrows
Inside of my heart.
You dislike seeing good
Happen in my life.
That’s what I think.

Even for those who I believe,
Today you ignore me.
And those that I respect,
Today you judge me.

Everybody has sins –
Never think you are innocent.
You talk about me.
I dislike no one who is clean.

Me and Blanche Dubois

I went into the city today with a friend who is leaving Tanzania early tomorrow morning. After a nice lunch and some shopping for treats for the orphanage staff, I decided it was time to head for home. And therein hangs a tale.

I was going to walk back to the same spot that I had gotten off the dala dala at, but my friend insisted that I ride in the taxi since they were going right past it. The taxi driver felt that it would be safer to take me to a busy station on a main street than to leave me in the relative wilds of that neighbourhood, so he dropped me at Morocco Station.

After a short wait, a dala dala arrived with the sign indicating it was going to Mbezi station -- my ultimate destination. The ticket tout was saying something in rapid Kiswahili and when I asked if this was the Mbezi dala dala he nodded his head yes. I got on, got a seat, and got comfortable. The vehicle drove back over an unfamiliar route, but I was not concerned since I had only gone that route once before (in the morning) and that was going the other direction.

When it stopped in the middle of an unfamiliar neighbourhood, I got concerned.

I asked where we were I was told it was the end of the line. I spent five minutes trying to find out what was happening before a gentleman named Allen got on the bus and was able to translate. It turns out the dala dala was the Mbezi vehicle but it did a different route (presumably because it generated more fares). Allen got off the dala dala, escorted me to the place where I could catch a bus to a station from which I could get to Mbezi, and waited until it actually arrived.

When I got on the new dala dala I asked the fellow sitting next to me if it was going to my station. He replied yes in English and didn't say anything else the entire ride. However, when we got close the the station, the traffic was so jam packed that they told us it would be faster to get off and walk. My new friend told me what was happening and told me to follow him. I did know this area, so I knew I was close to the station, but he insisted on taking me to the very bay where the Mbezi dala dala departed from. When we got there the next bus just arrived, so he pushed me into the crowd so that I could get on the vehicle, thus avoiding a wait for the next vehicle. I never got a chance to thank him.

Once I was on the dala dala, I found myself standing squished in the crowd with barely any room to put down my backpack. A fellow in the seat next to me grabbed my pack, got up, put the pack on the seat, and motioned for me to sit down. I motioned for him to keep his seat, but he replied in rapid Kiswahili. I did not understand much of it, but I did recognize the word hapana (no) so I sat down.

There was no reason for these people to go out of their ways to help me. Two of them walked me distances even though it complicated their travel plans and probably kept them longer in the Friday night rush hour. The third was forced to stand for 20 minutes on a bus crammed with sweaty people. They just did it out of pure hospitality. That is what I love about Tanzanians and that is what I will really miss.

I know that I once had my pocket picked while riding on the dala dalas of Dar Es Salaam, but overall my experiences have been positive and pleasant. Whenever I had problems (or even looked like I might have problems) someone or some people have offered assistance. Like Blanche Dubois, I have come to rely on the kindness of strangers.

I Am Lost in a Sea of Volunteers

It's hard to believe, but I am now one of fourteen volunteers here at the orphanage. On Sunday it was only Lisa and me here, but on Monday we got one returning volunteer and eleven new volunteers who are here to build a new school building. Rumours abound as to the purpose of the building -- whether it is a library or a science laboratory.

My money is on the science lab for three reasons. First, there are not many books in the library at the moment, but the building has been planned for several months. Second, the girls will be required to conduct actual hands-on scientific experiments next year. Lastly, the science teacher went with me to check out the progress and he told me how many students he thought could fit in.

I wonder if any of the new people read this blog? If not, I may just be on TShilling Street. Hahahahaha. (That was a maniacal laugh a la any number of James Bond villians.)