I think this may be the longest interval between entries since I've gotten here. My apologies to those of you in America that have been on house arrest the past few weeks because of Snowmageddon, you've probably been bored out of your mind and looking to me for something to read. If things still haven't thawed yet, then grab a blanket and some Swiss Miss while you read on. I was actually planning to make this entry a short one, just to tell you about the exciting things I have planned to put up here on the blog, and I will still do that. But given your situation of being perpetually snowed-in, I'll include a story to help you pass the time.
I have some exciting things planned for this blog in the coming weeks! Hopefully I've uploaded some more pictures, and you're looking at those now, but I've been continuing to take lots of film with my camera, so another video is in the works. I also have a comic planned. I'm not sure if I ever told you all about the comics I drew during PST, but I was notorious for them at our CCT days. Most Fridays we would have to break into groups at least twice to prepare some kind of presentation, usually on a subtopic of the lesson we were discussing. By the third week we became very accustomed to using flip chart paper to list bullet points, so most of us have now mastered the art of organizing and condensing our thoughts onto large sheets of paper. If you know any employers looking for this skill, tell them to search the network of RPCVs. Why the PST staff used this learning technique so much, we're still a bit baffled, but we definitely grew tired of it after we reached the halfway mark of training. The comics, however, softened the blow of these sessions for many people, so by the end I was usually handed the marker and flip chart paper no matter what group I was split into, based on the assumption I had another genius idea ready to be illustrated with stick figures within poorly drawn panels. Near the end of PST, I was even approached about putting some of the comics in future editions of the PST literature. I'm still working on that, though. Anyway, I have a comic set to hit the blog soon, along with a third video. Both will likely be about my first three months of service.
Now that I think about it, not only was I notorious for comics at our CCT days, I was also notorious for taking pointlessly long videos with my camera, many of them on the order of 15 minutes or more. Yes, they certainly do seem pointless and long at the time, but the shadow montage is an example of what you can do with pointlessly long videos when you pick out the good parts.
I guess I've rambled aimlessly enough now, maybe you'd like a story? Well, if you remember the story about Moshi (it's two posts back, I believe), I've actually been escorting him home at regular intervals since. It's usually a welcome good deed after I've majorly blown it in the classroom or I feel like I've done nothing all day. So far, the count is at 4 (counting last night, which was a special case that I will get to later), and I remember each occasion by what our topic of conversation was. I've already talked about the first. During our second walk we talked about his history in Tanzania, and how he has lived here in this town since before I was born (1985), and during the third we discussed what we think heaven will be like. He told me it's going to be one "sherehe kubwa," to which I responded with laughter, "sherehe kubwa" meaning a huge party. Certainly doesn't sound far from the truth to me.
This past occasion was special because I had a few of my fellow teachers with me. If it weren't for the fact that they too were intoxicated, it might've been another pleasant walk to Moshi's house. But most of the time I was inundated with drunken candor, be it numerous inquiries of whether I was attending church the following day or not, or explanations (coming from someone inebriated) of why Africans show respect to their elders even when they're inebriated. I was tempted to feel overwhelmed at many junctures, but I think I managed to keep a fairly good perspective on things until I reached my house, nearly an hour after we started on our stroll. While I won't remember any of the talking points from last night, I will remember it as the walk in which, out of a group of 5 people, I was the only one that didn't relieve himself in public.
I would say "only in Africa," but I'm pretty sure things like this happen in America, too.
February 21, 2010
February 7, 2010
energy with no outlet
I was planning to write this entry on the fly the other day in the Internet Cafe, but when I got to town there was no electricity. All the better, I suppose, as I can organize my thoughts a little better now.
On Friday morning, I was visited by one of the PC/Tanzania staff in the education sector. It was not a big meeting in any sense, just a friendly site visit to see how I'm doing at the school. We talked for a little bit in my house about various things, mostly semantics concerning any issues I've experienced or cultural problems I've witnessed in my first three months. Then we walked back to the school grounds where I introduced him to the headmaster and academic master. He gave me a packet at the end of our meeting, which I opened after he left to find it contained various Peace Corps newsletters and brochures. I'm not sure why, but I spent most of the next hour or two reading through most of it. I guess it was the inspirational stories contained within that got to me because after I finished, I was a ball of energy, brimming with desire to start a million different secondary projects that afternoon. I probably would have done just that if it weren't for divine intervention.
Because I recognized that my motivation and drive had no real focus or clear intentions, I decided it might be a good time to write a blog entry to organize my thoughts. Whether or not I was in control of my own actions at this point is still somewhat unclear, because I ended up on the rocks near the cell phone towers behind the school. A great idea, given the path is nearly straight uphill, and it was the middle of the afternoon. But I had come up here the previous Sunday to write a few notes in my e-journal about my pre-week prep for classes (I will address this at the end), so I figured a little peace and the view might do me some good.
Once I reached the boulder that overlooks the town, I left my bag and everything in my pockets under some tall bushes at the bottom, symbolizing, I thought, my desire to bring only myself before God for a little quiet time. I found that it was anything but quiet inside my head when I finally climbed up the rock. I tried to sit down near the front to survey the land below, but I couldn't sit still. I was still buzzing with ideas and thoughts in disarray, so tense that they literally made me pace back and forth. It was the strangest feeling being so wound up like this, maybe I was on the verge of a panic attack? But that doesn't seem like the right spirit. It felt more like things were going to burst out of me uncontrollably, and now that I was on top of a rock that had been baking in the African sun all morning, I also felt like I was going to burst into flames. After having to unbutton my shirt because I was overheating from the pacing, I decided it was better to dismount and sit on the slab of rock that was below me. At least there I would be shielded from the sun.
I should devote a little bit of time to telling you all about this slab of rock I've found near the cell towers. Last Sunday, I walked up the hill to have some quiet time and think about the coming week, and after I spent a few minutes overlooking the town, I descended to the slab below. I'm not sure how to describe it, other than it's just perfect. It sits at the bottom of this boulder that I've climbed on top of a few times (see most recent panorama), and it's sort of wedged underneath another boulder, effectively creating an overhang that graciously blocks the sun until about 2 in the afternoon. Did I mention you can lay on it like a bed? It functions equally as well as a seat, allowing your legs to hang freely in the glorious breezes that frequently pass over the rocks. Perhaps I will post pictures of it sometime. I have a feeling this rock is going to be very important to me during my service here in Manyoni.
And so, I descended to my home away from home and sat for a few minutes. It is here that I finally started to calm down. Slowly but surely, an unmistakeable Peace began to overtake my anxious thoughts, and before I knew it, I was nearly unconscious. For fear of injuring myself if I collapsed in my leaning seated position, I reclined on the rock and allowed God to continue speaking His Peace.
I tell you what, there's no quieter moment than when God speaks Peace into your heart.
And this was with huge generators running not 100 feet from where I lay, as there were electricians working on the cell towers up there (the power had gone out in the afternoon, and I can only assume they were making sure the towers were functioning properly). After about 15 minutes, I arose and considered getting out my laptop to start an entry, but decided to go ahead and walk into town and maybe write one at the cafe.
I had gone up the hill hoping to organize my thoughts and make sense of the tension I felt inside. When I came down, nothing had really been resolved. I never could make anything of what I was feeling, but I had peace. If God was telling me anything, it was to be patient and wait.
Now, about the e-journal I mentioned earlier. Since I started teaching classes, I have been keeping little notes on what I've taught to keep tabs on progress through the syllabus and to write impressions on how the students responded during that particular class. I've also been writing entries detailing reasons why I haven't been able to teach certain classes, whether it's because the students are cleaning the school grounds for the umpteenth time, or it's because they're being punished to clean the school grounds for the umpteenth + 1 time. As I mentioned above, I also write on Sundays about some of my aspirations for the coming school days as a "Pre-Week Prep", as well as reflections on how the week went on Fridays as an "End of Week Wrap-up." I'm considering ways I might make this available to you all so you can get an insider perspective on what I'm actually doing here (given the blog entries I publish seem to be about everything BUT my job), though it needs a bit more thought at the moment. I want to make sure I don't create any issues for Peace Corps before I do anything.
On Friday morning, I was visited by one of the PC/Tanzania staff in the education sector. It was not a big meeting in any sense, just a friendly site visit to see how I'm doing at the school. We talked for a little bit in my house about various things, mostly semantics concerning any issues I've experienced or cultural problems I've witnessed in my first three months. Then we walked back to the school grounds where I introduced him to the headmaster and academic master. He gave me a packet at the end of our meeting, which I opened after he left to find it contained various Peace Corps newsletters and brochures. I'm not sure why, but I spent most of the next hour or two reading through most of it. I guess it was the inspirational stories contained within that got to me because after I finished, I was a ball of energy, brimming with desire to start a million different secondary projects that afternoon. I probably would have done just that if it weren't for divine intervention.
Because I recognized that my motivation and drive had no real focus or clear intentions, I decided it might be a good time to write a blog entry to organize my thoughts. Whether or not I was in control of my own actions at this point is still somewhat unclear, because I ended up on the rocks near the cell phone towers behind the school. A great idea, given the path is nearly straight uphill, and it was the middle of the afternoon. But I had come up here the previous Sunday to write a few notes in my e-journal about my pre-week prep for classes (I will address this at the end), so I figured a little peace and the view might do me some good.
Once I reached the boulder that overlooks the town, I left my bag and everything in my pockets under some tall bushes at the bottom, symbolizing, I thought, my desire to bring only myself before God for a little quiet time. I found that it was anything but quiet inside my head when I finally climbed up the rock. I tried to sit down near the front to survey the land below, but I couldn't sit still. I was still buzzing with ideas and thoughts in disarray, so tense that they literally made me pace back and forth. It was the strangest feeling being so wound up like this, maybe I was on the verge of a panic attack? But that doesn't seem like the right spirit. It felt more like things were going to burst out of me uncontrollably, and now that I was on top of a rock that had been baking in the African sun all morning, I also felt like I was going to burst into flames. After having to unbutton my shirt because I was overheating from the pacing, I decided it was better to dismount and sit on the slab of rock that was below me. At least there I would be shielded from the sun.
I should devote a little bit of time to telling you all about this slab of rock I've found near the cell towers. Last Sunday, I walked up the hill to have some quiet time and think about the coming week, and after I spent a few minutes overlooking the town, I descended to the slab below. I'm not sure how to describe it, other than it's just perfect. It sits at the bottom of this boulder that I've climbed on top of a few times (see most recent panorama), and it's sort of wedged underneath another boulder, effectively creating an overhang that graciously blocks the sun until about 2 in the afternoon. Did I mention you can lay on it like a bed? It functions equally as well as a seat, allowing your legs to hang freely in the glorious breezes that frequently pass over the rocks. Perhaps I will post pictures of it sometime. I have a feeling this rock is going to be very important to me during my service here in Manyoni.
And so, I descended to my home away from home and sat for a few minutes. It is here that I finally started to calm down. Slowly but surely, an unmistakeable Peace began to overtake my anxious thoughts, and before I knew it, I was nearly unconscious. For fear of injuring myself if I collapsed in my leaning seated position, I reclined on the rock and allowed God to continue speaking His Peace.
I tell you what, there's no quieter moment than when God speaks Peace into your heart.
And this was with huge generators running not 100 feet from where I lay, as there were electricians working on the cell towers up there (the power had gone out in the afternoon, and I can only assume they were making sure the towers were functioning properly). After about 15 minutes, I arose and considered getting out my laptop to start an entry, but decided to go ahead and walk into town and maybe write one at the cafe.
I had gone up the hill hoping to organize my thoughts and make sense of the tension I felt inside. When I came down, nothing had really been resolved. I never could make anything of what I was feeling, but I had peace. If God was telling me anything, it was to be patient and wait.
Now, about the e-journal I mentioned earlier. Since I started teaching classes, I have been keeping little notes on what I've taught to keep tabs on progress through the syllabus and to write impressions on how the students responded during that particular class. I've also been writing entries detailing reasons why I haven't been able to teach certain classes, whether it's because the students are cleaning the school grounds for the umpteenth time, or it's because they're being punished to clean the school grounds for the umpteenth + 1 time. As I mentioned above, I also write on Sundays about some of my aspirations for the coming school days as a "Pre-Week Prep", as well as reflections on how the week went on Fridays as an "End of Week Wrap-up." I'm considering ways I might make this available to you all so you can get an insider perspective on what I'm actually doing here (given the blog entries I publish seem to be about everything BUT my job), though it needs a bit more thought at the moment. I want to make sure I don't create any issues for Peace Corps before I do anything.
January 24, 2010
god - 1 me - 0
Yesterday was a rough day.
I spent the majority of it in my house, washing clothes and attempting to work on my lesson plans, but yesterday was the day the neighborhood kids discovered I had returned. In the late morning, a couple of them showed up on my doorstep. I made the mistake of letting them in when there were three huge open boxes on the floor, filled with American foodstuffs and candy. I already knew what they wanted, but they acted coy, roaming around the boxes and stealing glances at the things inside. Eventually, one of them started picking through them, just one thing at a time, and asking "hii ni nini?" ("what is this?"). Depending on my response, he'd either look at it some more and put it back, or take some of it and put it in his pockets. He ended up with quite a bit of chocolate, maybe 3 lollipops, and a pen before I ushered them out of the house.
Don't get me wrong, I want to give these kids candy, but to me, this felt more like looting. After hanging out with them outside for a bit, I returned to my house to work on my lesson plans. Within two hours, the kids returned to my door. I told them I had to work, but they continued to knock. After a while, I started to ignore their knocking until they left. That didn't feel very good, but I wanted to get some of my lesson plans done. About 45 minutes later, they showed up again with other kids, again knocking on my door incessantly, this time attempting to open the door themselves. I knew what they wanted, and now it was clear to me that I wasn't going to give it to them. I ignored the knocking again for the first few minutes until I finally lost my patience and walked to the window near the door.
"Unaweza kupata pipi kesho, sasa nahitaji kufanya kazi." ("You can get candy tomorrow, right now I need to do some work.")
"Fungua mlango!" ("Open the door!")
"Nahitaji kufanya kazi sasa!" ("I need to do work right now!")
At one point, one of the children held up a 50 schilling piece, saying "ninanunua pipi," which you can guess meant he was willing to buy candy from me. It was at this point I knew I had to get out of the house. By this time it was nearly 5 in the evening, but I couldn't stand the torture of denying kids candy and having them continuously knocking on my door. It felt like I was running from the problem, but I just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
I walked down to my favorite duka for no other purpose but to get away from my house. I felt a little better after I arrived when I found out there was a Manchester United game on (English football, as you might imagine, is quite popular here). One by one, familiar faces started to show up, the first being Moshi, an old stroke victim I met in the first weeks at site, and then Luka, the second master at my school. I had nearly forgotten about everything else when Moshi invited me to his house for dinner. "Here," I thought, "is a sign of God's providence." I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I gladly accepted, not even remotely concerned about how intoxicated he was at the moment.
When he finished his drink, we left the duka and I immediately realized what was happening. If you think walking after a stroke is hard, imagine doing it while drunk on the worst roads in the world. I held his hand while he attempted to walk, though most of the time he was bent over at the waist, stumbling to keep his balance. All the while I was thinking, "why does he live so far away?", and "he's been drunk like this a lot, how in the world does he get home if he's alone?" A 5 or 6 minute walk at my normal pace turned into close to 40 minutes. By this time I was thinking "well, at least I did something good today." It was at about that moment that Moshi, among his slurred words of Swahinglish, told me in clear English "you are doing a good thing for me." Normally, a comment like this would make a person feel good. But it wounded me. It hurt.
Earlier that day, I had read Psalm 139, one in which David talks about the far-reaching hand of God. "If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your Hand shall lead me, and Your Right Hand shall hold me." He also talks about His far-reaching knowledge: "You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways." And in verse 16, it says "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
God knew.
He knew this was going to happen. He knew what I was thinking, where I was going, what I was doing. He knew everything. Worst of all, He knew my failures. He knew I was going to fail before I did. He knew I was going to lose my temper with those kids. He knew I was going to try to escape. That's what wounded me most of all. Tears are falling as I type this because it still hurts. I guess it was something that I hadn't really thought about before, that God knows my failures as well as He knows my victories, or at least it hadn't hit home until now. It was ordained before I was born. The other thing that hurts is that He knows me better than I know myself. It's so hard to understand how deeply personal that is until moments like these. It's logical to think that you are the self-taught expert on your own life, but all you have to go on is your past, your thoughts, and your feelings (which, in many cases, distorts your perspective). But God sees everything; the past, the present, the future. The thoughts you deny you ever thought, the feelings you suppress and ignore, the actions you try to forget. This is one of those suffering moments I talked about, when reality hits. I had one idea, and God had another. Guess who came out the victor.
Back to the dusty road I was on with Moshi, lit only with a first quarter moon shrouded by clouds, we had reached a point where it appeared that he could no longer lift his right leg enough to continue. As luck would have it, a few neighbors were out walking and saw us. One of them fetched a wheel cart (normally used for carrying large jugs of water) and we lifted him into it. Here I was met with one of the disparities between our cultures. Even drunk and being wheeled around in a cart like a victim of the plague, he was still receiving "shikamoo"s (greeting of respect shown to someone who is your elder) from passerbys. We arrived at Moshi's house after about 2 more minutes of walking and wheeling, and I respectfully turned down the offer for dinner, seeing the family had their hands full with their babu.
I stumbled back to the duka, holding back tears like a kid who didn't get his way. There, I humbly ate with my second master, who gladly paid for dinner while I told him about the 45 minute pilgrimage to Moshi's house. And there, with corrected perspective, God revealed His providence.
No one likes to suffer, but as long as God is winning in the tally...
I spent the majority of it in my house, washing clothes and attempting to work on my lesson plans, but yesterday was the day the neighborhood kids discovered I had returned. In the late morning, a couple of them showed up on my doorstep. I made the mistake of letting them in when there were three huge open boxes on the floor, filled with American foodstuffs and candy. I already knew what they wanted, but they acted coy, roaming around the boxes and stealing glances at the things inside. Eventually, one of them started picking through them, just one thing at a time, and asking "hii ni nini?" ("what is this?"). Depending on my response, he'd either look at it some more and put it back, or take some of it and put it in his pockets. He ended up with quite a bit of chocolate, maybe 3 lollipops, and a pen before I ushered them out of the house.
Don't get me wrong, I want to give these kids candy, but to me, this felt more like looting. After hanging out with them outside for a bit, I returned to my house to work on my lesson plans. Within two hours, the kids returned to my door. I told them I had to work, but they continued to knock. After a while, I started to ignore their knocking until they left. That didn't feel very good, but I wanted to get some of my lesson plans done. About 45 minutes later, they showed up again with other kids, again knocking on my door incessantly, this time attempting to open the door themselves. I knew what they wanted, and now it was clear to me that I wasn't going to give it to them. I ignored the knocking again for the first few minutes until I finally lost my patience and walked to the window near the door.
"Unaweza kupata pipi kesho, sasa nahitaji kufanya kazi." ("You can get candy tomorrow, right now I need to do some work.")
"Fungua mlango!" ("Open the door!")
"Nahitaji kufanya kazi sasa!" ("I need to do work right now!")
At one point, one of the children held up a 50 schilling piece, saying "ninanunua pipi," which you can guess meant he was willing to buy candy from me. It was at this point I knew I had to get out of the house. By this time it was nearly 5 in the evening, but I couldn't stand the torture of denying kids candy and having them continuously knocking on my door. It felt like I was running from the problem, but I just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
I walked down to my favorite duka for no other purpose but to get away from my house. I felt a little better after I arrived when I found out there was a Manchester United game on (English football, as you might imagine, is quite popular here). One by one, familiar faces started to show up, the first being Moshi, an old stroke victim I met in the first weeks at site, and then Luka, the second master at my school. I had nearly forgotten about everything else when Moshi invited me to his house for dinner. "Here," I thought, "is a sign of God's providence." I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I gladly accepted, not even remotely concerned about how intoxicated he was at the moment.
When he finished his drink, we left the duka and I immediately realized what was happening. If you think walking after a stroke is hard, imagine doing it while drunk on the worst roads in the world. I held his hand while he attempted to walk, though most of the time he was bent over at the waist, stumbling to keep his balance. All the while I was thinking, "why does he live so far away?", and "he's been drunk like this a lot, how in the world does he get home if he's alone?" A 5 or 6 minute walk at my normal pace turned into close to 40 minutes. By this time I was thinking "well, at least I did something good today." It was at about that moment that Moshi, among his slurred words of Swahinglish, told me in clear English "you are doing a good thing for me." Normally, a comment like this would make a person feel good. But it wounded me. It hurt.
Earlier that day, I had read Psalm 139, one in which David talks about the far-reaching hand of God. "If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your Hand shall lead me, and Your Right Hand shall hold me." He also talks about His far-reaching knowledge: "You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways." And in verse 16, it says "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
God knew.
He knew this was going to happen. He knew what I was thinking, where I was going, what I was doing. He knew everything. Worst of all, He knew my failures. He knew I was going to fail before I did. He knew I was going to lose my temper with those kids. He knew I was going to try to escape. That's what wounded me most of all. Tears are falling as I type this because it still hurts. I guess it was something that I hadn't really thought about before, that God knows my failures as well as He knows my victories, or at least it hadn't hit home until now. It was ordained before I was born. The other thing that hurts is that He knows me better than I know myself. It's so hard to understand how deeply personal that is until moments like these. It's logical to think that you are the self-taught expert on your own life, but all you have to go on is your past, your thoughts, and your feelings (which, in many cases, distorts your perspective). But God sees everything; the past, the present, the future. The thoughts you deny you ever thought, the feelings you suppress and ignore, the actions you try to forget. This is one of those suffering moments I talked about, when reality hits. I had one idea, and God had another. Guess who came out the victor.
Back to the dusty road I was on with Moshi, lit only with a first quarter moon shrouded by clouds, we had reached a point where it appeared that he could no longer lift his right leg enough to continue. As luck would have it, a few neighbors were out walking and saw us. One of them fetched a wheel cart (normally used for carrying large jugs of water) and we lifted him into it. Here I was met with one of the disparities between our cultures. Even drunk and being wheeled around in a cart like a victim of the plague, he was still receiving "shikamoo"s (greeting of respect shown to someone who is your elder) from passerbys. We arrived at Moshi's house after about 2 more minutes of walking and wheeling, and I respectfully turned down the offer for dinner, seeing the family had their hands full with their babu.
I stumbled back to the duka, holding back tears like a kid who didn't get his way. There, I humbly ate with my second master, who gladly paid for dinner while I told him about the 45 minute pilgrimage to Moshi's house. And there, with corrected perspective, God revealed His providence.
No one likes to suffer, but as long as God is winning in the tally...
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