Send Eb back to School!

I need everyone's help! I am trying to send my kaka EB Shore back to school because he doesn't have anyone to pay for his high school fees. Eb was one of the kids I had the privilege of stayingwith during my time in Tanzania. He is one of the sweetest, most caring young men I've met and he was always a big brother to all of the rest of the kids. He is so desperate to be allowed to return to school, which he can't do until his school fees are paid for. I am trying to raise $630 U.S to pay his school fees ASAP! I made this playpal donation button. If everyone gives a little, we will reach our goal. :) One of my teaching partners Saidi is holding down the fort in Arusha to help look after the kids. Asante sana everyone!  

 

 

Why Not Climb that Pointy Mountain in the Distance?

This story was told in a letter to one of my most generous donors, a very kind Mr. Paley.

"One of my favourite memories with our kids happened one weekend when most of the other volunteers were in town for the weekend off. My roommates and I stayed to be with our kids and we took them on a hike, led by our director, to climb that one pointy hill far in the distance. We trekked through flat, dusty fields for a couple of hours before finding ourselves at the base of a hill, steeper and barer than any hill I've ever met before in my life. There was no path up. There was nothing to walk on but dirt that would slip beneath your weight. So we climbed. On all fours. We pushed and we pulled each other up. We used small weeds as hand holds. The kids helped each other. Some were fast. Some were slow. Some were brave. Some were scared. But not one even thought of stopping. In my mind, I kept thinking how we would never be allowed to do this with kids in the U.S. because of child protection laws. But what value to an exercise like this. Teamwork. Perseverance. Trust. Exploration. Tenacity. We made it to the top eventually, not one man or child down. We had our lunch of PB and J while surveying the sprawling African landscape around us. Then we began to descend. And we discovered that if going up was hard, going down was twice as hard. We slid on our butts and hands. Everyone was scraped. Our calves had cramps form being so tense so that we wouldnt tumble forward on our faces. But we all made it down. And we headed home. This time with the pointy hill behind us and no landmark ahead of us to give us any direction. So we got lost. All our water was gone. We had been walking for over 5 hours now. I carried Farajah on my back. We held others hands and helped drag them along. I don't think I've ever been qualified before in my life to complain of thirst until that day with the hot sun of the African equator bearing down on me and my children, a 40 pound child on my back and the last drops of water on my tongue tasted 3 hours prior.
We found little dukas (soda shacks) along the way and bought the kids sodas to help quench their thirst. Finally we found our way back home 8 hours after we had left it. And you know what the kids did right when they got home? started playing soccer in the yard.
Yes, we might have electricity and running water in the U.S. But how many of us are actually living and experiencing the world we're in? Who of our kids know how to explore and play and suffer (even just a little)?

That's the story I've got for you tonight Robert. Thanks again for your interest and support. I taught some while I was there and I certainly hope it made a little difference. But more than anything, I learned. every day. from everyone and everything. I'm not the same and I hope I can bring a little bit of those kids and their world back here because, honestly, we all need it."

Morocco Part II

Jamal took us straight to the tour company office where we discussed the matter of our missing friend, Krystal. The company told us that if we didn’t want to cancel the tour, Mimi and I would need to leave for the Sahara as soon as possible so that we could arrive at the desert before dark and make it to our Bedouin tents on camel-back. We worked it out that we would leave a message at the hostel for Krystal when she arrived to contact the agency who would instruct her how to catch a bus that would bring her to the Sahara hotel in the middle of the night. She would at least be able to catch up with us for the next day’s itinerary.

With that plan in motion we set out for the desert stopping once for lunch and once to feed the monkeys in the middle of the road. Mimi explained that she and Krystal had gotten snowed in at the Amsterdam airport and had gotten separated when Mimi had gone to the transfer desk and Krystal went straight to her gate. Mimi was lucky and got on a direct flight out to Casablanca within a few hours but her luggage didn’t make the transfer.

By the time we got to the desert we had had a couple of phone calls from a very tired and frustrated Krystal. She had missed us at the hostel by a couple of hours. Both her flights in Amsterdam and Paris were severely delayed and she had missed the last night train out of Casablanca by an hour so she had to wait for the 6AM train. Realizing that she would have to wait until the might bus could take her out to catch up with us in the desert, she tried to make the best of the situation and enjoy her day in Fes. She had an encounter with Saide as well who touted himself as “JoAnna and Mimi’s friend” but she was keen enough to see that he was a hustler and played him to get a full city tour without paying a dime. Bad luck struck Krystal again when she got to the bus station three hours early and they were already sold out of tickets. She met another guy who offered to take her to another bus company but on the way he pushed her limit by asking how much she was gonna pay him and not wanting to deal with another hustler, she pushed him away and ran back to the first bus stop.

Mimi had taken the camel trek by herself to the Bedoiun tents and I stayed back at the desert resort with Jamal to sort things out with Krystal. Jamal and I were having a traditional tangine meal when we got the call from Krystal that she was stuck at the first bus station with no ticket and was trying to evade a hustler. Jamal immediately called a friend of his who was also a licensed driver and convinced him to make the drive out to the Sahara at night. It would cost Krystal $200 and she would arrive at 3am.

Krystal came into my room and I was so impressed at how good she looked for the hell she had gone through. Smart enough to pack some clothes into her carry-on bag, she at least had some layers to keep her warm when her bag got lost too. I listened to her crazy story before we drifted off to sleep. We woke at the crack of dawn for a sun-rise camel ride on the dunes. Mimi headed back on camel-backl from her tent and we all had a huge breakfast before taking off toward Marrakesh.

The next few days felt like a road trip with old friends. Jamal fit right in and we beautiful Moroccan countryside while jamming to our African music. Morocco is stunning. I’ve never been to another country that has such a diverse and impressive landscape as the United States done. (Traveling made me appreciate my country of residence more—I quickly came to realize that the world does not look so different… if you really break it down differences come down to climate zones and the US has a good mixture of them all.) Morocco impressed me with its rolling green hills, snow-capped mountains, red-sand Sahara dunes, rocky gorges, ancient citadels, and Mediterranean coastlines. 

Morocco Part 1

On Dec. 1, Mimi, Krystal, and I all departed from Tanzania and headed toward Morocco. We would all be landing in Casablanca at different times so the plan was to just catch a train from the airport heading to Fes whenever each of our planes landed and we would rendezvous at our hostel in the Medina of Fes.

I flew on Qatar Airways and got a glimpse of just how rich and extravagant the Modern Middle East really is. As soon as I walked on the plane, I was enveloped in scented mist colored by the pink, blue, and green mood lights flooding the cabin. I sank into a leather plushy chair and got confused about whether I was indeed flying in coach like my ticket said or if I accidentally was seated in business. Qatar treats even the poorest passengers to a taste of luxury. My ride was comfortable, my meal was tasty, and my flight was on-time and hitch free.

I arrived at the airport in Casablanca at 7am and after picking up my bag rode the escalator down to the train platform. I needed to catch a half hour train from the Airport to the main train station in Casablanca where I would wait another 20 minutes before boarding a train that would take 4 hours to get to Fes. I arrived at the Casablanca station and waited outside in the freezing cold morning air with my African village clothes and blankets layered around me to keep me warm. I had left all my books behind in Tanzania. There was no wireless. My camera was broken. So I just sat and watched hooded and cloaked Moroccan’s walking by and thought about how much Morocco resembled Europe and how little it resembled Africa.

My train to Fes finally arrived an hour and a half late. On the train I met a mother traveling with her son and an older gentleman traveling by himself. They informed me that in their broken, French/Arabic accented English that there had been heavy rains for days before my arrival and it had slowed the entire train system down. I got to Fes around 4pm and the woman and man wanted to help me find my way to my hostel. It was rush hour so a taxi would be impossible to find. The man offered to help me hail a taxi and we could share it. He bought me some bananas from the road and though I was on guard in the presence if a stranger in a foreign country, I welcomed the assistance.

Driving around the outside of Fes was conjured up images of arriving at a citadel after a long camel journey across the desert. The walls of the city were high, mighty, ancient, and impressive. The road that wound around the walls of the Medina was the border of juxtaposition—modernity on your left and antiquity on your right. The taxi could only bring me as far as the Blue Gate covered in mosaics. After that point, I had to travel on foot. The gentleman was kind enough to pay my taxi fare so I strapped on my giant backpack and tugged my carryon luggage behind me through the blue gate, into the winding market alleys of Old Fes, and back into time--Arabian nights. The city looked magical and much more astonishing than I could have ever imagined. This was one of those rare cases where you go to a place and you actually are not let down by what you find but it exceeds your expectations. The alleys were bathed in the warm glow of a low, orange sun at dusk. Richly colorful spices shaped in tall cones piled up in front of spice shops. Dazzling sequined shoes and fabrics were brightly arrayed in front of clothing stalls. Detailed leather goods hung from the tops of the canopies of stalls selling belts, bags, wallets, satchels, and sandals. I was mesmerized.

But I had a task at hand: to find my hostel in this ancient labyrinth with no street signs or direct routes. I had an address but no directions. I began to ask the merchants if they knew where my hostel was. Some didn’t speak English. Some knew but couldn’t tell me directions. Finally one merchant tried to figure out how to direct me there when a lanky young man came up to us and asked if I needed help finding something. I told him I was looking for Dar Bouanania Hostel and he told us that he worked there. I was skeptical, aware that anybody could say that and jus be looking for a tip, but the merchant told me to go with him so I did. He brought me directly to the hostel and the Inn Keeper greeted both of us and said, “Oh good, you’ve met Saide. He’s the best guide. You should definitely go with him.”

 With the Inn Keeper’s stamp of approval, I set out with Saide to catch the some sights of the city before the sun set. He brought me to a carpet maker, rug maker, and jewelry maker all of whom displayed “Moroccan hospitality, inviting me into their shops, giving me a tour of how the crafts were made, pouring me a glass of Moroccan whiskey (Berber mint tea), before artfully broaching the subject of prices and purchases. I gently turned down all offers professing that I was a poor student and volunteer.

Once the sun set, shops closed up and we headed back toward the hostel. As I followed Saide through the winding alleys he mentioned to me that all the restaurants in the area near my hostel were very touristy and expensive and since I was on a tight budget I should just come to his house to eat because then I could get a home cooked meal for only a couple of dollars if I pitched in for the groceries. He said “we live very close to the hostel and we love to have guests over to cook for them.” I thought “Well, it would be nice to see a real Moroccan family and it seems like an economical choice.” As we approached his house, he gave me the run-down of the history of the building and pointed out the architectural details, He opened a huge wooden door with brass fixtures and led me inside….to a dark and empty courtyard. He then opened another door on the left that led to a small, plain single room with one bed, one small coffee table, a chair, a tv, and random Berber carpets hanging on the wall. As I processed my surroundings, I realized that he did NOT live with his family, that this was the apartment of a bachelor, and that there was no one else around in this dark, drafty building except me and this strange man Saide. Before I knew it, he said, “Just sit down and I am going to buy some food for dinner. I will be back in 5 minutes.” And off he went. I was a little stunned and scared but I headed for the door. It was pitch black in the courtyard and either I could not figure out how to open the huge ancient door or he had locked me in. I went back to the room and sat down and marveled at how I, a savvy traveler, had gotten myself into such a stupid situation. Half an hour passed and by the time Saide returned I was very cold and on guard. He quickly pulled out a clay Tangine cooker (basically a kerosene lamp with a clay plate that sits directly on top of the flame and a cone shaped clay lid that sits on top of the plate to steam the food inside. He lit the lamp and began to heat the plate while pulling out the vegetables, meat, and spices form his grocery bag. At this point, I realized that if I were to freak out and make a run for it, I would not be able to find my way back to the hostel and he would be able to catch up to me no matter what. Also, he did appear to just be cooking dinner so I went with the flow readying myself to attack should he make any funny moves. Dinner was delicious actually, albeit awkward. The silence between the two of us was masked by some shrill Arabic music he had turned on for background noise. As soon as we had eaten, I quickly announced that my friends would be arriving at the hostel soon and I needed to return. He led me back to the hostel and when I offered him a couple of dollars for dinner, he said “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in the morning to help you with your luggage when you check out.”

I was relieved to be alone but anxious about the whereabouts of Mimi and Krystal. I had figured that they should be coming in on the train that arrived at 10pm and since I didn’t want them to get accosted by hustlers this late at night, I wrapped myself in my Masai blanket and headed out to the Blue Gate to wait for them. I was joined by some cloaked and hooded young hashish smoking Berber musicians who kept trying to get me to wait for my friends in their apartment that overlooked the gate. “We can watch them from up there and we can be warm and drink some vodka and smoke some hashish and play the drums.” “No thanks”, I said and endured their presence until midnight when I gave up and went back to the hostel alone. I had to wake the inn keeper to let me in and then to let me use his computer to check if my friends had tried to get a hold of me. All I got was a message from Krystal that said:

hey girl. All flights are all delayed. I will get into casablanca at 11 at night. So i cant take the bus until morning. Try to delay the trek one day or later in the day. Meet you at the hostel either way

No mention of Mimi. No info on her exact whereabouts. I couldn’t delay the trek because we only had five days in Morocco and our trek took up three of them. It would take us from Fes to the Sahara to Marakesh where we would spend one night in Marakesh before heading back to Casablanca to catch our planes out. If we delayed our trek one day we would not make it back to Casablanca in time for our flights. I would have to just cancel our trek entirely but then I would have to pay to get from Fes to Marakesh myself and we would lose everything that we had already paid in full to the tour company for our trek. Confused and tired, I went to bed hoping that I would know what to do in the morning.

Two hours later, at 2am, I was woken by a knock at my door. It was Mimi! But where was her luggage? And where was Krystal? Mimi asked me why Krystal wasn’t here yet. I asked Mimi why isn’t Krystal with you? Still as confused as ever we both went to sleep for another four hours and woke at 6am to find Saide asking for us to join him for breakfast.

We had the most delicious pancake/chipoti/crepe-like thing with Nutella and cream and rich lattes before heading out to the tannery with Saide in the lead. The tannery was amazing and surprising. We climed to the roof of the building and looked down on and puzzle of giant stone vats filled with different colored dyes and animal skins hanging on all the walls around. Men were walking with amazing balance on the edges of the vats, dipping the skins and curing them into leather. After again being hassled to spend hundreds of dollars on “Moroccan artisan goods” we asked Siade to take us back to the hostel because our driver for the trek was arriving at 8:30. The way back seemed longer than the way there and Saide kept saying “Oh don’t worry. Your driver can wait. You shouldn’t have hired a company anyways. We could have taken you to the Sahara for much cheaper”. Meanwhile at the hostel, the inn keeper was telling our driver, Jamal, that we had left with our luggage and we were going to the Sahara with another person and that he should just leave.

Yes, the inn keeper was in cahoots with the hustler to get rid of the legit driver so that we would have no choice but to hire more hustlers to take us to the Sahara. Luckily for us, Jamal saw through the ploy and waited for us. When we arrived and loaded up the car with our luggage, Saide then hit us with the $100 bill for his services. Mimi and I looked at each other incredulously and then looked to Jamal to ask if we should pay him. Jamal didn’t say anything and we fumbled around in our wallets to give him something to make him go away. It wound up adding up to around $60 but that wasn’t enough for him. Mimi was heading to a shop to get change to give him what he wanted by I grabbed her arm and told Saide that was all we could give him and we quickly got into the car and drove off. Jamal explained that he couldn’t tell us to not pay him then because Saide could have followed him out of the city and given him a lot of trouble. He just said, next time don’t give the hustlers any attention. But we were still glad that we had gotten to see some of Fes, especially the tannery. 

Reflection from Kilimanjaro International Airport

I am a young woman alone with my roll-on suitcase (which is the bane of my existence on world travels. The thing could be empty and still weigh a hundred pounds) and my small brown knapsack sitting in an airport for the seventeenth time in the last 3 ½ months. I’ll visit nine more airports in the next 2 weeks. Really, what am I doing? …This thought emerges from time to time and never a concrete answer follows.

I’ve been in Tanzania for two months and already I’m itching to go. I think part of why I like to travel is to just be in airports and on planes and trains and in transit to the next destination. In all things in life, I am a fan of the process and don’t so much care how the results turn out. I love the part where you never know what’s gonna happen. Everything could go as smooth as the peanut butter I’ve taken to carrying around in a small tub with a handle. Or everything could fall apart before your eyes. Or, if you’re really lucky, everything will fall apart just enough for you to have a good surge of adrenaline before by fate or mercy or your own sweet cunning it all comes back together into that narrow escape. No matter what happens, it’s always a story. And collecting stories is a penchant of mine—always has been.

I like sitting in places like airports to stir my thoughts like a pot of stew. I could have made the analogy to a vegetable or alphabet soup but stew seems more fitting to me as it is a bit harder to stir, messier—your spoon seems to bump into more things with each rotation. Not that my mind is always chunky with thoughts. Honestly, sometimes that blank stare I wear can’t even pretend to be a pensive gaze into the distance on account of the real void of the brain behind it.

Anyways, trains. I rode one from China to Mongolia—the legendary Trans-Siberian Railroad. One of the more Harry Potter moments in my life, I’d have to classify. Two more trains I will ride. Casablanca to Fes and Marrakesh to Casablanca. I don’t allow myself to imagine a magical Arabian nights setting for fear of disappointment. Magical setting or no, there is something inherently fantastical about a train. Most importantly, I don’t get motion sickness on a train. If you know me and my issues with cars and boats, you would take a moment to thank the Lord for my lack of motion sickness on trains. Of course, as thankful as I am for this, it’s not numbered SO high up on my list pf blessings merely on account of the fact that I encounter trains in my life only 3 times every 22 years or so.

I can’t believe I will be almost 23 when I get home.

How untouchable are trains! No stop lights. No traffic. Yet they fit right into the landscape with the smallest disturbance of only a 7 foot-wide track. Oh, and some tunnels blasted through mountains when necessary but who is there to disturb in the center of a mountain anyways? Train windows remind me of thos old moving picture machines that you stick your face into and crank a handle on the side to make a series of scenes crawl slowly before your eyes. Trains. Travel by train.

I love the lack of attachment the perpetual traveler has toward material things. It is of utmost importance (on account of aching backs and fee-happy airlines) to keep your luggage light. In the process of elimination, you find that really a human only needs a handful of things to be happy and healthy. Things when you do not need them anymore you merely bid adieu in the place where it’s necessity expired and you do not look back like Lot’s wife did. Trinkets are another story. Curios. Those curious things that after your travels you put into your Ger or Boma or Bedouin’s tent and when someone comes over for tea, they pick it up and gasp, “ooh, I’ve never seen such a curious thing!” And then you smile a knowing smile and slip into a nonchalant recounting of the story of how such a curious thing came to reside in your Bedouin’s tent. You see, it really is all about stories.

I’ve taken to collecting small vials of sands…magical Gobi sand, Shifting sands of Serengeti, white sands washed by the Indian ocean, Sahara sands, sands of crumbled pyramid dust at Giza, black sands shiny with mica in New Zealand, volcanic sands in Hawaii….sands. Maybe I’ll put each kind into a small hourglass and try to figure out the significance of sands and travels and time. Or maybe I’ll just use them to time each team’s turn when we play Taboo. I’m really good at Taboo.

Once I get on this plane, I’ll leave Tanzania. I’m not sure if I’ll ever come back. And I’m ok with that. Did you know that I’ll be riding camels in three different countries?

Reflection from Kilimanjaro International Airport

I am a young woman alone with my roll-on suitcase (which is the bane of my existence on world travels. The thing could be empty and still weigh a hundred pounds) and my small brown knapsack sitting in an airport for the seventeenth time in the last 3 ½ months. I’ll visit nine more airports in the next 2 weeks. Really, what am I doing? …This thought emerges from time to time and never a concrete answer follows.

I’ve been in Tanzania for two months and already I’m itching to go. I think part of why I like to travel is to just be in airports and on planes and trains and in transit to the next destination. In all things in life, I am a fan of the process and don’t so much care how the results turn out. I love the part where you never know what’s gonna happen. Everything could go as smooth as the peanut butter I’ve taken to carrying around in a small tub with a handle. Or everything could fall apart before your eyes. Or, if you’re really lucky, everything will fall apart just enough for you to have a good surge of adrenaline before by fate or mercy or your own sweet cunning it all comes back together into that narrow escape. No matter what happens, it’s always a story. And collecting stories is a penchant of mine—always has been.

I like sitting in places like airports to stir my thoughts like a pot of stew. I could made the analogy to a vegetable or alphabet soup but seems more fitting to me as it is a bit harder to stir, messier—your spoon seems to bump into more things with each rotation. Not that my mind is always chunky with thoughts. Honestly, sometimes that blank stare I wear can’t even pretend to be a pensive gaze into the distance on account of the real void of the brain behind it.

Anyways, trains. I rode one from China to Mongolia—the legendary Trans-Siberian Railroad. One of the more Harry Potter moments in my life, I’d have to classify. Two more trains I will ride. Casablanca to Fes and Marrakesh to Casablanca. I don’t allow myself to imagine a magical Arabian nights setting for fear of disappointment. Magical setting or no, there is something inherently fantastical about a train. Most importantly, I don’t get motion sickness on a train. If you know me and my issues with cars and boats, you would take a moment to thank the Lord for my lack of motion sickness on trains. Of course, as thankful as I am for this, it’s not numbered SO high up on my list pf blessings merely on account of the fact that I encounter trains in my life only 3 times every 22 years or so.

I can’t believe I will be almost 23 when I get home.

How untouchable are trains! No stop lights. No traffic. Yet they fit right into the landscape with the smallest disturbance of only a 7 foot-wide track. Oh, and some tunnels blasted through mountains when necessary but who is there to disturb in the center of a mountain anyways? Train windows remind me of thos old moving picture machines that you stick your face into and crank a handle on the side to make a series of scenes crawl slowly before your eyes. Trains. Travel by train.

I love the lack of attachment the perpetual traveler has toward material things. It is of utmost importance (on account of aching backs and fee-happy airlines) to keep your luggage light. In the process of elimination, you find that really a human only needs a handful of things to be happy and healthy. Things when you do not need them anymore you merely bid adieu in the place where it’s necessity expired and you do not look back like Lot’s wife did. Trinkets are another story. Curios. Thos curious things that after your travels you put into your Ger or Boma or Bedouin’s tent and when someone comes over for tea, they pick it up and gasp, “ooh, I’ve never seen such a curious thing!” And then you smile a knowing smile and slip into a nonchalant recounting of the story of how such a curious thing came to reside in your Bedouin’s tent. You see, it really is all about stories.

I’ve taken to collecting small vials of sands…magical Gobi sand, Shifting sands of Serengeti, white sands washed by the Indian ocean, Sahara sands, sands of crumbled pyramid dust at Giza, black sands shiny with mica in New Zealand, volcanic sands in Hawaii….sands. Maybe I’ll put each kind into a small hourglass and try to figure out the significance of sands and travels and time. Or maybe I’ll just use them to time each team’s turn when we play Taboo. I’m really good at Taboo.

Once I get on this plane, I’ll leave Tanzania. I’m not sure if I’ll ever come back. And I’m ok with that. Did you know that I’ll be riding camels in three different countries?

To Teach

Since I was either 5 or 7 years old, I thought to myself, If I don't become a zoo keeper, I think I shall be a teacher.

I began working as an ESL tutor at age 9. Special ed tutor at age 13. Nanny at age 16. Literacy clinician at age 18. SAT tutor at age 19. TESL certified at age 22.

I enjoyed every one of my teaching jobs and was good at it.

Yet, upon graduation from college, I was still not convinced of my career choice. I flirted with the idea of going back to school as an architect. It might have worked out...

But then I came to Africa.

And within one week, it all became clear. I must teach. It's too late. I am already a teacher. Nothing else feels quite as right.

Even in our mock teach-backs during O-week before we started teaching in the schools, every lesson I was able to teach I wanted to make my students (mock or not) think about things they might not have thought about before. And through thinking draw conclusions they might not have realized before. I love to learn from them as they learn from me. I love to present ideas, discuss, think, analyze, problem-solve, learn. And I love making my students love to learn too.

Being in front of a class room is one of the most comfortable places in the world to me. It's my work. I can get to know each face day after day and attach it to a personality. There are the know-it-alls, there are the ones who don't know it all but try really hard. There are the "I-could-care-less" kids. There are the kids that avoid eye-contact at all costs lest they be called on in class. But all those labels slip away when you interact one on one. Curiosity and thought exists in every student, regardless of their reputation or confidence level. I like to find that well of learning and help draw it out.

Outside of class, I teach literacy one-on-one to Farajah who has struggled with reading for several years now. To teach Farajah requires that you not get sucked into the sob-story of an orphan who misses his mom. And that is the hardest part. To teach Farajah requires you to know how to wrestle a goofy and work-eschewing kid. To teach Farajah requires patience above all else. To teach Farajah requires you to know how to make him believe he can do something before you're even sure if he can do it or not yourself. Knowledge of literacy curriculum is the last, not least but certainly NOT most important, requirement to teach Farajah.

Mama Jessica and I teared up a little while Farajah bounced beaming and shouting from room to room upon successfully reading his first ever one-page story all by himself. Farajah can read. =)

I think when you find that occupation where you don't ever really feel like you're working that hard, where everyone tells you you are great at your job, where you learn new things every day, where every day feels worthwhile, where you know part of what you did will last forever in someone else's life...I think then you've found out just what you were meant to do.

And so, I must teach.

AIDS

It took a while for AIDS and its effect on this part of the world to unfurl in my experience and consciousness. And it is still an ongoing process of realization. The first people I met infected with HIV were some of the kids and mamas that live in the OHS house. Only one of the kids, however, is actually allowed to share her status with the volunteers. 4 year old Bahati who is the adopted daughter of our director, Hori, and his wife, Lena. Bahati is a diva, full of life, energy, sass, opinion, personality. She puts up with her pediatric AIDS shingles. She stoic-ly accepts injections and medicines. She is survivng and conquering. But she is only 4. She will battle for the rest of her life. And at some point, only God knows when, the quiet period of her virus will close. The virus will have killed enough immune cells in her body to leave her with a CD4 count of less than 200. She will have full-blown AIDS. And like millions of others, she too will be robbed of her precious life by a disease that cannot be cured.
There are other children in the house who are also HIV positive. They dont know their own status though and neither do the volunteers. That information is guarded by the "parents" of the house. And all the children, positive or negative, take their respective medicines and vitamins without question as to who is taking an anti-retroviral and who is not. The kids are just given a chance to be the spunky, energetic, individual kids that they are and fully live a childhood that is not afforded to so many of their comrades in this part of the world.

So HIV is here on the homefront, but day to day we see smiles and giggles and energy and tantrums and doggy piles and all the other elements one would expect in a house with 21 kids. The kids force their neighbor, the Virus, to take a backstage role while they all dominate the stage with their lively theatrics.


We had an HIV testing day in the village where we teach HIV curriculum in the schools. We advertised the testing day for a week and a half prior. Posters in hand we walked mile after mile of dusty road, climbing hill after hill to reach one Masai boma (family compound) after another. We talked to hundreds of red and purple shuka robed Masai warriors, mamas, kokos and babus (grandparents), and their dusty children. Kokos and Babus laughed and said: Why would an old person like me test? I dont do anything like those crazy young people do to get AIDS. Mamas said: If i found out I was positive, then what? There's nothing I can do about it. Besides, Jesus is the only cure. The men said: We Masai have leaves to make medicines out of to cure anything. Many made empty promises to come test. But come testing day, not one shuka-wearing Masia entered our testing tents, despite our rebuffs to uniformed concepts, our urging that testing is the only way to prevent the spread of the disease, our insistence that the test was free, painless, and quick.

Yet we tested 106 people that day. And I saw the glimmer of achievement to all that we do here in a sometimes seemingly hopeless situation. Our students came out to be tested. Masai all of them, but pursuing education, uninhibited by tradition and superstition, enlightened by not only our curriculum but their own experience and critical thinking. We tested 106. We had 106 negative results. We have a promising next generation. We have hope to end this cycle. We have individuals who care about their own health and care about the ability of their generation to stay healthy and strong. We have young people who overcome stifling fears and stigmas to take a stand against one of the biggest enemies to their countries success and prosperity.

AIDS is a hopeless case if you only look at the ignorant, the unwilling, the victims, the surrenderers of the community. But if you look far enough down the road and watch this minority of enlightened and empowered young people carry their knowledge, conviction, and motivation for change and solution to region after region, year after year, you see hope and you see a way to end  this cycle. 

Safari

We had our first 3 day weekend off this week. I went to Ngoro Ngoro crater and the Serengeti for the most amazing safari trip one could ever ask for.
First ingredient: the best safari mates. My roommates and fellow volunteers, 5 of us in all, animals lovers and adventure seekers, campers and PB and J eaters.
Second ingredient: the best tour guide in all of Africa, our friend and coworker, Rasta Reggie, funny, loving, dedicated, knowledgeable, and already a good friend of ours.
Third ingredient: our own OHS safari land rover with a pop-up roof in order to stand our our chairs and have an unobstructed view of the landscape and wildlife.
Fourth ingredient: DYI PBnJ's and spaghetti and tons of matunda (fruit).
Fifth ingredient: awesome OHS tents--what i like to call "veritable palaces"
Last ingredient: 2 reggae CD's played on repeat for 48 hours, courtesy of Rasta Reggie

Loaded up and ready to go we set off for Ngoro Ngoro, a massive crater made thousands and thousands of years ago which is home to 3 kinds of life: the Masai people, the Masai livestock, and the wild animals (all sorts except for giraffes which cannot survive at the low altitude of the crater on account of their oversized hearts). The crater introduced us to tons of hungry hyenas which we watched rounding up herds of zebras and wildebeasts. Unfortunately we missed the take-down of one unfortunate wildebeast by the pack of hyenas. We came up close and personal with 3 baby jackals that suprisingly tried to climb into our car. Reggie said in all his safari trips he's never seen any animals get that close to the car. But the most exciting up-close encounter happened, of course, when we stopped the car for me to go use the choo. As Crystal and I were in the choo, reggie and the other girls walked over to a beautiful old tree right next to a hippo pond. (The bathroom was one of the areas where you were actually allowed out of the car.) As they walked over, they heard a weird growling sound. Reggie looked up and immediately shouted, "F***!!! it's a lion!!" A large female lion had been in the tree the whole time and as they got closer, she got ready to attack. She jumped out of the tree in Reggie's direction and landed only 2 feet away from him. He fell down on a tree root in fear and thought he was dead as the lion hovered above his face and growled at him. One of the girls ran, one froze, and the other probably saved his life by shrieking "REGGIE!!!" The lion turned and ran in fear as i walked out of the bathroom to a very rattled group of safari mates.
I was very sad not to have seen it first hand but very glad that Reggie and the rest were still alive.

My time is up so i must finish this post later.

Badai!!!

Tanzania

I have been in Tanzania for 2 weeks now. I live in a mud hut with a family that has 7 children though only 4 still live at home. I sleep on a wooden cot with a mosquitoo net hanging overhead from a branch that sticks out of the mud-daubed walls. I eat plain bread out of a bag with chai tea in the mornings. I take about 7 different pills and vitamins in order to avoid malaria, scurvy, and constipation. I eat one of 4 different meals for lunch or dinner: rice with beans, beans with potatoes, beans and corn, or a grits-like mash with spinach called ugali. I have lost what I estimate to be around 4-5 pounds judging by the expansion of my clothes around me and the degree that my ribs stick out. I work on site digging trenches, gardening, hoeing, etc. I teach HIV and AIDS prevention  3 days a week in a high school to a class of 40-50 16-20 year olds. I teach a class of elementary students in the local village twice a week.
But the absolute joy of my teaching expereince is in tutoring 7-year old Farajah every day in our children's home. Farajah was orhpaned at 4. Both parents died to AIDS. He was the only person at his mom's side when she died. He has an older sister, age 10, who also lives with him at the OHS children's home. He is the sweetest boy, full of energy, physically talented, with the biggest eyes that show straight to the center of his little heart. He is in 1st grade but he cannot read. So I am teaching him. And he is learning and learning fast. I tell him I love him because I really do. And he loves me too. We get along famously.
I am always dirty here. There is no way to avoid it. We live in dust and dirt and clay and sand and mud. Those "Save the children" spots on TV in the States show the kids looking so pathetic and dirty.Well we may not be living in luxury, but dirt no longer conveys a sense of helplessness to me. Dirt is merely a way of life.
Africa is home to the most stunning vibrant and unreal sunsets in the whole world (at least the parts that I have traveled). I love to climb the hill behind our site and see the whole village sprawled out below and the mountains in the distance and the deep reds and fiery oranges washed with a rare purple.
Everyone here is called "mama" or "baba" or "brother" or "sister". And we really do feel like family. We dont know everyone. But anyone is always welcomed to anyone's little mud hut for a warm meal, some hugs, and some belly laughs.

More to come from the land of Safari, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Lake Victoria, the Masai Tribe, and AIDS.

Taiwan

So a month passes without any blogs. I am sorry my land locked friends. I momentarily forgot I was traveling the world with a loyal audience behind me. Arriving in Taiwan, I spontaneously slipped into “I’m at home doing nothing exciting but everything relaxing and fun” mode.

In telling you all about my time in my homeland, it would not be very interesting to keep a daily or even weekly journal. Days go something like this: wake up at 6:30 am when little cousin, Tommy wakes me up as he gets ready for school, go back to sleep until 8:30 am when Ah Po (grandma) calls me to eat breakfast, go do whatever activity my grandparents or aunts have arranged for me for the day, if no activity then help Ah po around the house, eat lunch, take afternoon nap, go for a stroll with Ah po and do exercises, go for a bike ride with the little cousins in the afternoon, have a shower, eat dinner, clean up, watch the news with Ah Gong (grandpa), play with the cousins, check email, go to sleep. Repeat the next day. Boring, you may think. But for me, what a balm to my soul!! To spend slow summer days with all my relatives, to talk in Hakka in large groups of chatterboxes, to eat all my favourite foods, to ride our bikes around for hours and hours, to visit night markets and cheap Taiwanese stores, but mainly, just to be with my family…I couldn’t ask for anything more.

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Instead of a run-down of activities, I offer you some reflections on my September in Taiwan as I sit at the gate in the airport waiting to fly to Hong Kong en route to Addis Ababa. It’s funny to think how apprehensive I have been all these years to come back to Taiwan by myself. I had always been afraid that on my own, I wouldn’t have enough to talk about with my family, my Chinese would fail me, I would get bored, I wouldn’t fit in, I wouldn’t know how to handle all the hard situations that come with being a member of the Liu family. Leaving Taiwan after living there for a year in 2006 was one of the hardest things I ever did. My sisters and I were a train wreck, bawling our eyes out as we walked through airport security. When we got back home, we cried and lamented for our perfect and carefree days back in our beloved little island. There was an ever-present fear too that upon returning to my little island, it would no longer be as perfect and carefree as memory would preserve it.

Still, as I sat on my flight from Beijing to Taipei, in one moment it hit me that I was finally going home. Four years I hadn’t seen my cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles who love me so. And now I was finally going home. Tears welled up unexpectedly as the man sitting next to me attempted to break through my bubble of emotion and excitement with his frivolous small talk in Chinglish about green cards and residency visas and things of that nature. In Taipei, I grabbed my baggage and ran to the exit. I set my camera to video and walked briskly to the pick-up area, scanning manically through the crowds. Not there, not there, not there, hmm….where is a familiar face? Where is my family? I reached the end of the line and very disappointedly turned off my camera and trudged to the pay phone to call my grandpa. It was midnight. He answered very groggily and told me it was my uncle that had picked me up. Just as I was about to dial my uncle’s cell phone I saw him running over with my aunt. In my excitement to see them, I left my little card wallet (containing not only phone card but also credit and debit cards) there at the phone booth, grabbed the rest of my stuff and off we went! ….To the hospital.

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My first stop after arriving in Taiwan was the hospital. One of my cousins had gotten into a motorcycle accident only hours before I landed and her mother, my aunt, found out en route to the airport to pick me up. I walked into the observation room and saw her lying there with a brace on her neck, blood all over her clothes, all her appendages in bandages and splints. When I walked next to her she opened her eyes and said “Jie Jie” (Big Sister). In Chinese culture, it’s really important for someone who is younger to immediately address an elder by their title when they see them. I was so touched that even in immense pain and shock and chaos, my cousin still made the effort to greet me. Looking at her wounds and not knowing the severity of her injuries, a sudden wave of nausea overcame me and I ran to the bathroom. What a wake up call. I had been traipsing around China and Mongolia with no worries and no responsibilities, spending money, laughing, and living it up with a good friend. Now I was home and life was abruptly raw and real.

I spent the next few weeks visiting my cousin (who lives just down the street) every day. She mainly slept while nursing her injuries which turned out to be a concussion, broken toe, whiplash, and a lot of road rash. So I spent a lot of time just sitting there chatting with my Aunt, finding out what had happened in the four years that I’ve been gone. All sorts of stories: cousin after cousin getting into accidents, marriage dramas, baby dramas, school dramas, aunts and uncles having health scares, hospital visits, lost jobs, bad jobs, money tight, arguments in the family. In short: the usual.

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I have always thought that my family could be the subject of a soap opera. Does everyone feel that way about their family. I don’t know if everyone is on their best behavior when I am around, but amidst all the drama and hardships (the stuff that I get to see at least), you can’t deny the feeling of family love. Our family is big and loud and complicated. We all are yellers and laughers. We yell one the one hand because we all think our way is best, on the other hand we yell because we care and we are dealing with people who are thick headed and don’t know how to take care of themselves (at least that’s how we feel.) Each of us think we are the strongest person in the world and don’t need anyone to take care of us but that doesn’t stop us from butting into other people’s lives and trying to take care of them.

When something bad happens to one of us (car accident, lost credit and atm card, lost job, get cancer, etc.) we try our best not to let the whole family know so that they don’t worry. But somebody always finds out and somebody always tells the rest (usually either my Second Aunt or Lizzy Liu). And then the yelling and opinion throwing begins but in the end it’s all out of love and in the end it makes us laugh because we all know that we gotta laugh our way through things because bad things are always gonna happen (especially to us) but if you can’t keep laughing and loving, then what’s the point?

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Take my littlest aunt for example (one of my favorite aunts, by the way). A woman who knows what it means to say “Life is hard”. Pregnant and married at 16, three kids by 23, stuck with a drunken and abusive husband who just 5 years ago got into a motorcycle coma that left him in coma for 3 months. The cause for the accident? Driving drunk. The cause for that particular drunkenness? Drowning the sorrow of having a runaway daughter. My uncle is woke up and learned how to walk and talk against all odds. But now he lives at home with the mental capabilities of a 5 year old while my Aunt works to support all of them. One daughter with a high school diploma working in a factory. One daughter with only middle school education working in a hair salon. And a boy, the pride of the family, a freshman in college, majoring in Ship Building. When she started going bald last year, my Little Aunt went to the doctor and discovered she had cancer in her uterus and without so much as a blink of the eye, she asked the doctor to schedule surgery that very day. She went back to work the next week. As we sat and chatted today before I left my Aunt kept lovingly punching my leg and telling me I had to take care of myself when I went to Africa. I replied, “Aunt, don’t worry about me! I can take care of myself! You’re the one who needs to take care of themselves. Take care of your health!” (She was on her way to a doctor’s appointment that afternoon for a post-op checkup.) She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye, flexed her arm, and said, “I’m the strongest!” And she laughed and laughed. So I looked back at her, flexed my arm, and said back, “I’m the strongest too!” She nodded her head and laughed, acknowledging my claim.  

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This time going back to Taiwan I feel like I was my opportunity to get initiated into the very special and exclusive club called “The Liu Women”. We are sisters, strong, stubborn, motherly, Hakka, independent, smart, funny, playful, loud-mouthed, hard-working, suffocating, nosy, unbearable, generous, dominating, and unshakeable. And we always cry when we have to say goodbye to one another. Lizzy Liu with her visit this past June and her news of her swanky job as Kitchen Manager of a fancy restaurant in Los Angeles is the newest member. Lizzy Liu is a rock star in the homeland. With her big hair, big personality, cupcake baking abilities, generosity, dimples, swagger, charm, and bangles, she has left our little island behind all abuzz with legends of her magnificence. I awkwardly failed my initiation test in 23 days. I came black as a barbarian still dusty with Mongolian sand. My acne scarred face and over-tanned skin became the main topic of conversation among the whole family. And with 20 women and girls in my family, beauty regimens and potions came flying my way as I was also pulled along to see one Chinese doctor after the other. Each medicine that was prescribed to me put me through different levels of never-ending diarrhea. In addition, I my body did not do so extraordinary at adjusting to 95 degree weather with 95% humidity after spending half a month in the deserts of Mongolia, so I just wanted to sleep all the time. Also, I am notorious for doing ditsy things like going the wrong way and clumsy things like tripping and breaking things. Thus, despite my best efforts to show my independence and grace, I was taken as the black, pimply, sickly, sleepy, klutzy, stupid one with never-ending diarrhea. And I thought I could handle myself in going to Africa??

Well Lady Liu’s, to Africa I go. I will show you all that as awkward and clumsy and sleepy I might be, I am the strongest too. I already passed the first level in just making my transfer flight in Hong Kong to Bangkok. My flight from Taipei was late so I landed in Hong Kong while my flight was already boarding. I walked off the airplane to see an airport employee holding a paper sign with my name on it. I ran up to her and she directed me down the hall to the transfer station and told me to run. As I was running with backpack and carry-on suitcase down the endless, shiny hall I thought to myself, “Why are terminals ALWAYS a mile away from each other. I reached the transfer desk and asked how I could check in to Ethiopian Air because my flight was leaving in half an hour. The attendant of course took her sweet time in checking which desk my airline was at, and then informed me it was in the next terminal and to go down that hallway. That hallway went to immigration so I ignored her instructions and followed the signs, running to get onto a tram that I had to wait for anyways, then running to the check-in desk where my ticket was already printed and waiting for me. I handed the attendant my passport and she said, “oh you must hurry! Your flight is boarding!” And I thought to myself, “well you did see me run up to you didn’t you? You do notice that I am quite out of breath don’t you? And you do know that I can’t board until you return my passport don’t you?” Then she commenced to take her sweet time leafing through my passport, looking through my visas. She finally said: “You have no visa for Ethopia.” I said, “Yes, I know. I am going to purchase one upon arrival at the airport just as the Ethipoian consulate informed me to do.” She put my passport down and began to type on the computer. After a few minutes, she looked up and said, “you must purchase a visa.” Here? “No. when you get there.” Oh my goodness, I just told you that myself. She nonchalantly handed me my passport back and then looked at me as though I was wasting time and said, “You must hurry!” “Yes ma’am,” I mind saluted and dashed off to security and ran past all the duty-free shops to my gate. I pulled up much out of breath as the last of the boarding line was sneaking through the door.

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I am the strongest, I laugh to myself as I sit in my seat looking out at the Hong Kong harbor. Maybe I am not the strongest (I admit, I usually ask some guy onboard to help me put my carry-on suitcase heavy with books into the overhead bin.) But I just keep going. And I just keep laughing. I’ll get in the club one day. Black skin, pimples, and all.

I have written a month’s worth, I believe. Now rest your weary eyes and look forward to a picture edition of my time in Taiwan and stories from a brand new continent in my next few installments.

 

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Ah-Gung and I with Cousin and her two children

Ah-Po, Ah-Gung, and Uncle on a hike in the mountains

Some of the Liu Girls

Some of the youngest Liu grandkids and great-grandkids

Cousin, former runaway, now hair stylist, responsible for my short do'

Ah-Po, in her chair

Ah-Gung, assuming the usual position

Autumn Moon Festival BBQ

Family biking holidays