Discipline

In African schools, as you may already be aware, there is corporal punishment.  It's the cornerstone  of school discipline on the whole continent, even though in Tanzania it's officially banned.  Karibu Tanzania:  it's banned, but the teachers still must follow set rules to administer it.*  At government schools there is a job called Discipline Master, and that is the teacher who regularly administers the punishment.  (Although all teachers can do it.)  The DM walks around the school assessing infractions and calls out students, usually after Assembly in the morning.  In front of the student body, students are singled out and hit for being late, for sleeping in class, for cutting up, for not doing their homework, for cheating on tests.  They are beaten for having unpaid school fees (this seems most unfair,) for having a dirty or incomplete uniform, for leaving their notebooks out in the rain, for loitering at the toilet too long.  As many things as a school child can think of, or not think of, to do wrong, all are punishable by being hit.

Punishment is administered with a cane made of stiff bamboo, or other stiff rod.The regulations say boys and girls are to be hit on the hand.  Boys can also be hit on the bottom, but only through their trousers.  Every teacher I have met has a story to tell about a demonic, cunning, or just plain mean Discipline Master who enjoys beating the shit out of students. The corollary is, sadly, the story of the student who somehow becomes the victim of a DM and is regularly beaten for trumped up infractions.  But even the most conscientious DM is committed to the idea that hitting students is a good and proper way to ensure their compliance and proper behavior.

At SEGA, a school founded and supported by Americans, corporal punishment is forbidden.  This has led to some interesting outcomes and discussions.  The veteran teachers say that discipline at SEGA is lax because the students know they can do anything and not be hit.  They don't buy into the idea of corporal punishment as ineffective - these teachers sincerely feel that at SEGA they are  deprived of a useful and regular tool to manage students. In the staff room, they talk longingly about the need for better discipline.  They say that the girls consider SEGA a country club, and don't have good school habits, because we don't hit them.  They say that beating a student is a clear, unequivocal means of punishment, and once it's administered the slate is clean and the problem is over.  Any other form of punishment is just too fraught with ideas of suitability and efficacy.  Some students seem to believe this, too.  Nobody at school, it seems, can imagine a world with both proper discipline and the absence of corporal punishment. 

 Another form of punishment is cleaning.  School cleaning in Africa is not done by employees, like janitors.  It's done by the students.  Washing blackboards, sweeping, picking up trash, mopping, scrubbing latrines, washing  up after meals, carrying water, serving lunch and tea to the teachers, even gardening, trimming grass and bushes, irrigating with buckets, and creating hardscape (as in, carrying rocks) - all are student jobs.   Students are assigned these jobs outside of class, before the start bell rings and after school.  If they don't do these jobs, they can be beaten for it, or simply assigned more cleaning as punishment.

At SEGA, we go in for cleaning as punishment in a big way.  I am currently in trouble with the Matron (supervisor of girls outside of class) because yesterday I refused to let her take my Form 2 students out of class for yard cleaning during the middle of an important lesson.  I am an affront to good order, as they were supposed to be punished for not doing the yard cleaning earlier.  

Interestingly, the only thing that is never a consideration for punishing student misbehavior at SEGA is lowering their grades. Last year, we encountered a huge cheating ring in Form 2, during a mid-term exam.  The punishment?  A letter to the parents, and being suspended from class for a week to do some large projects on the grounds.  At no time was giving them an 'F', or even docking their grades, considered.

There may be a considerable reason for that:  In Forms 2 and 4, (9th and 11th grades) the students don't really get a final mark from the school, they succeed or fail on the basis of their performance on the National Exam.  A student could  miss every 3rd day at school, do no homework, and sleep during class, but if she makes  45 or above on her NECTA, she goes on to the next level .  The students know this, and the teachers do too.  So there is a tendency to consider grades as separate from discipline, even in the other forms.

I'm glad I don't have to witness students being beaten.  I am sometimes frustrated by the lack of support given by the school and other teachers to a commitment to a discipline model without corporal punishment.  But we have lots of policy and procedure issues that need to be worked out.  It's not the TZ-way to push through a lot of decisions and then stick to them.  The path here wanders quite a bit more than that. 

And I think about my own discipline, both now and at that age.  I was certainly not a model student;  no goody two-shoes, I.  I did things to deadline, for grades, and because I liked to do them, in that order.  I don't think I would have been different if I had been afraid of being beaten.

Our girls have done well on their National Exams, and they don't seem less disciplined than my students at the school where I did my practice teaching,  which had quite an 'active' DM.  Kids this age are irrepressible and naturally make bad choices.  I've come to believe that if they expect to be hit,  it no more changes their behavior than anything else.  Students will avoid being hit, and being caught in the first place, but some will still be lazy, or cut-up, or not do their chores.  Some are Tom Sawyer, some are Huckleberry Finn.  Consistent modeling of good behavior by the teachers, consistent reward of good behavior on the part of students, and consistent punishment for  known infractions is the answer, but it's not the solution.

 

*Karibu Tanzania, lit., "Welcome to Tanzania".  A mildly ironic phrase used by PCV's to express some of the interesting and intractable anomalies of life in the country. 

 

 

STONE TOWN

So Brian is sick.  Not so much sick as malaise, and this has been happening since yesterday.  Today, having mastered a visa to India from Zanzibar, he comes into the room, all the places on his body touched by his shirt and his backpack soaked with sweat, and simply collapses.  His last gesture of courage is to drink a beer with me, the ritual of our friendship.  But after that, he’s down for the count.  Being helpless but not whining, sick but not really sick, maybe just needing a day off, a day without unrelenting heat, the imploring whispers of vendors. Anyway, he lies down in his bed at 3 o’clock in the sweltering afternoon, and he becomes inert.

He’s down for the count.  A/C turned up to max, he’s removed his one good cut-and-sewn shirt, worn out of respect to the Consulate, and lies on the bed.  And, dear heart, apologizing.  That is Brian’s charm, he has empathy without being controlling.  He doesn’t expect me to take care of him, but he’s conscious that he is removing himself from the ‘us’ that has been traveling together for over a week, the ‘us’ that has found a solid companionship.  The ‘us’ that has felt the softness of each other's lips.

I’m not worried about him.  He turns over, drinks water, doesn’t have a fever, doesn’t need to use the choo excessively.  I myself am having a wonderful day.  I’ve found, after only a little effort in the souk, a good computer fundi to get my computer working yet again. I’ve found a couple of good guesti’s for the future.  While Brian is off dealing with the bureaucracy of travel, I‘ve cut my hair in a style that I can look at in the mirror and admire, with a little squinting.  I’ve cut my nails and washed underwear.  So it’s been a good resting day for me, and I’m content to have Brian have one, too, even if he has to suffer the giving in while I do not.  I’m not really worried about him.  Tomorrow will tell.  I watch a little TV on my newly revived machine, put on lipstick, and go out.

Stone Town is a really special place.  As I joked with my girlfriends on Facebook this afternoon: “all Babar, unfortunately no elephants”.  Cities and places in Tanzania are not usually this old, or so dedicated to the Prophet. I imagine parts of Cairo and other storied places in sub-Saharan climes have this air of antique Occidentalia.  Carved doorways, strange minarets donated by rich men of the provinces in creative and opulent homage to their wealth and their religion. Crenellated forts along the water, the ornate Victorian overlay of some official buildings, the domed palaces of the Sultan. The narrow passageways of the souk, the grasping shopkeepers, the sequined abayas of the women, the restless young men.  Two things stand out:  So small and so African. Less than a square mile, it has a preserved feeling, and indeed, modern Zanzibar Town stretches far beyond the unwalled boundaries of the original city.  And I see the Swahili thread, the link to the antique world of the first tribal men and women of East Africa who met the Eastern world with eyes wide open and sailed with it. Their emblem is the triangular sail of the dhow, drawing the eye offshore and always moving downwind, it seems; the same boats that brought the captives from Bagamoyo.  I’ve seen the slave market, seen the fort and the church that protected the commerce.  It’s all preserved here without irony, but also with very little commercialism. Tourists are now the new commodity, ready to be resourced. Ultimately, I admire the creativity and grace that abounds in Stone Town and seems missing from the rest of my adopted country, even missing on the island outside of the Town.

I walk around the perimeter of the entire Old City under a new moon. On the tack back to the hotel, I walk along the waterfront and Forodhani Park, where I can buy supper from one of the al fresco grills that line the paths. In the soft evening, I'm glad of my clean nails and clothes, my bagless ease, my new shorter hair.  Half a dozen young entrepreneurs greet me and ask softly if I need anything.  I imagine: the shops are closed, so it must be a joint, or an escort, perhaps a new relationship. (When before I've talked more with them, they always promise a relationship in a way that seems like children hoping to be adopted.  I've seen enough of these couples to know that it is a worthwhile sales technique).  I think of Brian back in the hotel room and am glad he’s there, not because I want him to be there, sick, but because I like being alone out here with the idea of a man with me, a reason not to feel vulnerable to the opportunistic Swahilis. So I walk along fearlessly, not swinging my arms or whistling, not even meeting the eyes of men, but happy, and confident. 

In the park I chide the little boys for begging by telling them in KiSwahili that they must use good English to beg properly; this is my idea of an ironic joke.  I keep my schillings in my pocket until I have reached the food court, where I easily buy a huge piece of pweza (octopus) grilled, with salad, for dinner.  It's served with the traditional toothpicks for implements and costs six bucks.  Brian showed me how to do this when we were here before. While the holiday crush is over, the park is comfortably filled with families and travelers. On my own, I seem to understand the life of the Park, the community of it, and I chat with some of the other diners, toss a bit of fish to a patient cat.  There is a cooling breeze off the sea and a place to buy a liter of cold water for the room on the way home.

On the streets walking back after it’s quiet now.  The subsiding of the frenzy created by the cruise ship passengers passing through for the day, and the New Year’s holiday makers, has left the shopping streets shuttered, de-populated. To me it seems a normal Friday night in Stone Town, as if 5 nights in a hotel for locals has given me a neighborhood. This also is a pleasure, even if a self-indulgent one.  I think, since this is the second time through for me in a week, that people recognize me, they know what I’ve bought, what I will not be enticed to buy. It’s a small place, this Stone Town. I can walk around it in less than an hour. They know I come from the interior, that I’m not looking for souvenirs, that there is a good man traveling with me, for now, and that I speak a little of the language.  I feel safe, and happy.

The Day Kennedy Was Shot

As the 50^th anniversary of The Day Kennedy Was Shot approached,  I was asked by Paulette Johnson, a writer and Facebook friend of mine, to post something about my experience at that historic time.  As one of my sisters pointed out, only 26% of the Americans alive today were alive then, and if you knock out the hefty percentage of those folks who never write ANYthing down, that leaves precious few of us to answer the call of history.  So, I wrote the passage below, and posted it.  I was only 12 at the time, and of course now I am aware of magnitude and importance of point-of-view in any writing.  So I was trying for ‘Just the Facts’, trying NOT to inform the reader with what I imagine I felt then, or what I feel now, or, worst case, what I think I should have felt.  I wanted it to be Hemingway-esque.  I am, at best, a scribbler, a wannabe wordsmith.  Still, I was moderately proud when I produced the post, below:

I was in Mrs. Smitherman's choral class at Lake Air Junior High School.  We were learning to sing "When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall", which I still love, simple, silky words in a minor key about loss and endings.  Billy Brewer, a ninth grader, came running in to the choral room and said without preamble, "The President's been shot in Dallas!"  I remember vaguely knowing that Kennedy would be in Texas that day, it was a big deal.  After Billy's excited announcement, we just stood around as Mrs. Smitherman went to the office to see what was up.  After that, we were told to go to our homerooms, where in a little while we were dismissed from school early. I think we knew then that he had died, but it seems to me now as though there was a considerable period when we hoped for the best.  Helen Lacy & I walked to her house, which was closer than mine, and her mom was playing bridge, and we told her what had happened.  Her party immediately disbursed and she got on the phone with Helen's dad and her family.  Helen and I watched t.v. there until my mom called looking for me, and I walked home.  I spent the next 4 days with my family, and we attended the funeral on television, along with the rest of America.  It was a serious time, a time when I felt myself standing just to the side of adulthood, watching it and trying on the emotions of horror, outrage, and grief.  I understood the enormous facts of what had happened, but was too young for them to resonate. It was a dawning, a crossing over.

After I posted this, a school mate of mine from that time commented in this way:

Alice, we were both in that choir class. Do you remember how emotional Mrs. Smitherman became? I don't know how we got home that day. Probably had to wait until normal dismissal time when the bus would pick up us Homers. Odd, all I remember is the moment they said the President had been shot and Mrs. S. with tears running down her face.

I went off on a field trip with some SEGA students for 3 days, but I was still thinking about what Rose had said.  So, on the morning I got back, I sent her a message.  I’ve edited it, but this is in essence what I said:

Dear Rose,  This is coming out of left field, I’m sure, but I’ve been thinking about your comment on my Facebook post about where I was the day that Kennedy was shot.  You said that we were both in Mrs. Smitherman’s choral class at Lake Air Junior High School.  You said that Mrs. Smitherman was crying, that tears were pouring down her cheeks after it was announced.  I’m writing because I don’t remember her crying.  I don’t remember me crying, or anybody crying that day or any of the days that followed.

 I don't remember anybody crying.  Not in Mrs. Smitherman's class, not at any time during that week.  Concern, and a kind of hushed solemnity, a funereal atmosphere, is what I remember, and of course the horror of LHO being shot by JR on national t.v. after church on Sunday morning.  That was like the second airplane into the Tower.

What I'm thinking about is that I don't cry very much. I never have.  I can think of only 2 times in my life when griefful tears flowed unreservedly:  When my father was killed in 1969, and when my firstborn child died at 3 days old in 1984.

I didn't cry on 9/11, and I don’t cry when I read about massacres in the Middle East (or, wherever), or tsunamis, or Katrina, or at any newsworthy tragedy.  Personally,  I was in too much pain to cry when my husband died in 1992.  He and I had cried together when our baby died, but when he died, there was nobody to cry with. When he died, I was in free-fall, and too busy trying to whistle up courage to face the future to let myself dissolve into the helplessness of tears.

Death is a serious business.  I think it's probably not good not to cry at all, but I've never seen the sense of getting overly emotional about it.  No rending of garments, no tearing of hair. My mother taught me that.  Put on your black dress, make sure your face is clean and your hair is combed.  Get out the silver and the big coffee maker, call the priest, or call your sister who will call the priest. To me, there will always be the ritual, the process, of death, the circling of the wagons, so to speak, not the  upending emotional depths of grief.  But I wish I'd remembered that Mrs. Smitherman cried.  She was such a nice lady, so into her choir and music in general.  If I'd remembered, maybe I would remember offering her some comfort.  But I didn't.

 

On the Other Hand

 

Many of you pointed out to me or have remarked that my outburst of negativity in January deserves a gut check.  If I hate it so much, why am I here?  Many have offered advice and comfort, good advice and real comfort.  I got 3 valentines, two very wonderful handwritten letters and a surprising care package from my sister Becky.  (Surprising not because she isn’t caring, thoughtful and generous, but because it came out of the blue.)  My latest bout of gastro-enteritis solved itself with Pepto-Bismol and BRAT (no antibiotic intervention required),  and, after a spate of truly horrible hot steamy days and nights, the weather is a bit cooler  now as we progress toward rainy season.  For these and other reasons I ‘m in an incredibly cheerful mood, and thought that it was time for On the Other Hand:  Ten Things about Tanzania that I Love. 

Not a complete list, and only so far.  But I don’t want to bore you, my faithful readers.

1.        Packeties.  You have to understand that booze is more sinful here in TZ than it is in the US.  There are many fundamentalist Christians and Muslims who practice abstinence, and women in general are not culturally ‘allowed’ to drink.  There are, of course, many alcoholics, and alcohol abuse is evident, especially in places where jobs and money are scarce. 

Ambivalence about liquor leads I think to a manner in which hard liquor is served in TZ that I find convenient and worthy of importation to America.  Packeties are plastic sachets (little packets) of TZ-made liquor.  The type equivalents are rough:  Konyagi is ‘gin’, Valeur is ‘brandy’, and Zed is, well, flavored ‘rum’, I guess.  The packets are 500ml, a ‘tot’ or shot.  Available in bars and by the box of twenty at liquor stores, for the Tanzanian it means that there is no ordering of ‘mixed drinks’ in a bar, or, as we used to say in Waco, liquor by the drink. The barmaid brings you a soft drink and a packetie.  As a service, she will cut it open for you, but she is not ‘serving’ liquor. For me there is the advantage of inventory and portion control. You count up how many empty packeties you have, and that’s how many drinks you’ve had.   Keeps me honest, especially when I ‘m trying to keep it to 1 at cocktail hour.

They are also cheaper to buy than a bottle of booze.  The general TZ Rule of Pricing applies:  if you have enough money to buy a lot, you can afford to pay more.  In other words, the reverse of volume discounting prevails.

The portability is especially appealing. No need to carry a glass bottle around, or transfer to a flask.  Going to a BYOB party?  Packeties can be tucked in pocket or purse, and they make excellent falsies.  By the time you are not false advertising, the guy who may be attracted by said false advertising is probably too drunk to care.  You certainly are.

Finally, they can be stored in any corner of the freezer, a boon when ice is at a premium and a cold libation a must.

The downsides are few.  The obvious one is that this is Tanzanian booze, not aged in the barrel or anywhere near that.  Kinda raw. So you need to mix with a soft drink, fruit juice, or tonic for a palatable highball.  My personal fav is Valeur with Coke and a squeeze of lime.

Also, and this harkens back to the ambivalent attitude about drinking that prevails, they are not sold in dukas or in grocery stores.  There are also not many liquor stores, although you can buy them to carry away at bars.  The advantage there is that they cost hardly any more by the piece in a bar than they do when you purchase a whole box (see:  Rule of Pricing, above).

Also, they are hard to open.  It almost takes more than teeth, and with a knife you are going to have some spillage.  The plastic is extremely durable, thick and tough, due to the corrosive nature of alcohol, I guess.  Rule of Thumb, your Leatherman or Swiss Army knife should be equipped with scissors.

 

Other things I love about Tanzania are:

 

2.       Fresh fruit and minimally processed raw nuts.  Mangoes, bananas, passion fruit, watermelon, grapes, even apples, and berries in season.  Almonds, cashews, peanuts, walnuts.   All widely available ripe and delicious.

3.       I love having clothes made to order from colorful cotton cloth.  Also purses, head wraps, and napery.

4.       Care packages from home.  Although, I think I have enough Q-Tips, thank you guys.  I have about 2 thousand.

5.       Almost all the native trees have flowers.  Jacaranda, cassia, kapok, jasmine, mlonge, flamboyant, bottle brush.  All colors, all shapes, all sizes. I’m sure you know in the abstract that Africa teems with life.  Usually, this means bugs, and maybe snakes.  But it also means plants.  They strive and compete for a place here, and for trees that means big, attractive flowers.  The accompanying birds are incredibly varied and fun to watch, too.

6.       Things really are cheap, and when you find the sweet spot between serviceable, durable and extremely affordable, that’s a good place to be.

7.       I love being part of the Peace Corps.  I thought I would, and I do.

8.       Tinga Tinga paintings.  They make me smile.

9.       I love living out in the country.  This is probably the only time I will ever do it unless I move back to the farm in Waco.  (Possible, but not likely.)  The stars and moon, the quiet, the big vistas, the rambles over trails and little country roads.  Getting up early, not watching TV, and country people all add to my pleasure.  I think a lot about the farm in Waco, and my grandparents’ life there.  All good, all extremely good things.

10.   The love I feel for my students makes my heart feel wonderful.  It may be healthy, even, but anyway, I love the love.

.        

 

 

Compare and Contrast

As many of my 16 or so readers know, my daughter Josie recently took a teaching job with a company called Maple Leaf Schools, and moved to China, to a small city of 3 million near the Russian and North Korean borders.  We’ve had a couple of Skype conversations and several really nice emails.  Of course I would be interested in her new job even if I wasn’t myself 1) overseas and 2) teaching for the 1^st time (if you don’t count Sunday school.)  Josie and I always have a lot to talk about, now it seems that we have so much to talk about that I miss her even more.

We’ve been talking a lot about settling in and first days of school.  Settling in has included some very similar experiences, like gastro-enteritis (pole Neal), smelly bathrooms (nobody does plumbing like Americans, we rival the Romans in that regard), kitchens which don’t feature ovens, and buying new stuff to outfit a new home.  In my case, I had 10 weeks of being mama’d by Flora Maringo, who the Peace Corps wisely engaged to introduce me to the mysteries of the Tanzanian household.  So when I moved into my own apartment at SEGA I was at least ready to sort out taking care of myself in the manner afforded by the country.

I also made friends with Tasmin, who is Arabic but born in Morogoro, and who keeps a shop on the Dodoma road.  Her establishment is 8’ by 8’ and all four walls and 3/4’s of the surface area are stocked to the ceiling with all manner of cooking and household wares.  I tell her what I want, she has a boy scramble up a ladder to fetch what she has to show me, I make my selections and when I am finished she gives me a little discount on the jumla (final bill). Nothing is of very high quality.  Forks bend when you eat, glassware is fragile, plastic fades immediately and becomes brittle, tupperware tops don’t fit.

Josie and Neal, on the other hand, went to Wal-Mart, and IKEA in Dailin.  On their way home they stopped at Starbucks.  They bought exactly the same stuff, dish drainers and waste baskets etc., that you or I would buy in the US.  They are living in a big apartment on the 7^th floor of their building. (Are there still any clay and wattle huts in China? There are certainly no high rise apartment blocks in Morogoro.) In their city there is all manner of American-marketed fast food, and, although I haven’t heard this, I expect that American culture is widely available:  clothes, movies, video games, music.

This is not the case in Tanzania, except maybe for the clothes.

Today, I am sporting a new outfit which I picked up, literally, at the Saba Saba Soko.  Saba means 7, and the Saba Saba is a flea market that operates on Sundays, about a mile from the big downtown soko, the main food market.  Many of the items sold at the Saba Saba are new, but mostly people go for the clothes which are sold from big jumble tables and on the ground.  The stock arrives in huge bales wrapped in plastic sheeting, as big and heavy as cotton bales.  The covering is carefully opened and hundreds of items are dumped all together, ready to be picked over and purchased for as little 20 cents apiece.  The clothes have been fumigated and maybe even washed, most have all their buttons and only once in awhile will you find anything that is too stained or ripped to be worn. A fellow PC vol and I had a fun morning recently standing side-by-side with Tanzanian girls and women, pawing through hundreds of blouses, dresses, skirts and jackets, while we tried to ignor the noisy hawking of a teenager with a battery-powered PA horn, standing on the pile of clothes and calling us ‘My Mother’ or ‘My Sister’ while shouting his wares. You try on the stuff when you get home, and, of course, all sales are final.  My rayon long skirt, made in Indonesia and marketed by Nordstrom, and my black cotton peasant blouse, made in India, cost $1.55.  I had great luck on that shopping trip:  7 tops and 3 skirts for 8,000 shillings, about 5 dollars. And every item was donated by the good folks of North America.

Everyone that I know at school and in town wears either traditional Tanzanian clothes, kanga and kitange, or, in the case of the white collar men and women, Western style clothes, in styles that Ron Burgundy would have approved.  But most of the people struggle for work, and  for money, and wear cast-off clothes.  It is hard to go anywhere without seeing a T-shirt from a major US university, or advertising a North American team, product, or clothing company.  Sometimes the results are arresting:  the beggar wearing a filthy Harvard sweatshirt, the man pulling a 2-wheel cart in a Ralph Lauren Polo T-shirt.

The difference, I guess, with China is that in Tanzania these markers of our culture have no meaning to the Tanzanian.  They are worn innocently. I imagine that, in more ways than one, China and the US are partners in the global dispersion of North American culture.  Tanzania is the end of the line, and doesn’t seem to have much say.

I often ponder the economics of the Saba Saba enterprise. Of course, it helps if the ‘source’ of the goods drops it in the Goodwill box, if you turn back the capital clock to zero, so to speak. But, imagine.  There is a designer in New York or LA.   Her company designs a shirt at a price point Nordstrom or Old Navy can sell, in a color and style that will be popular that year.  The specs are transmitted electronically to a manufacturer in Pakistan, or Guatemala, and the shirt is produced in a factory there, often using fabric from another country.  The manufactured items are inspected, labeled, priced and shipped to America, where the shirt is displayed, advertised, maybe marked down. Sold, it is worn, successfully or not, and eventually discarded.  To be fumigated, sorted, baled and shipped to Africa to be sold yet again for a pittance in a flea market.  Only then, after another life with a boy who sells packets of peanuts for a dime at the dala standi from a woven tray on his head, when it’s in rags and scraps, does that human article pass out of human hands.

So many jobs, so many stops and transactions. And someone is living on  it at every stage.  Literally around the world.  Frankly, my head spins.  Does that make China seem nearer, or farther away?  Hard to say.

 

Follow Up

THINGS ABOUT TANZANIA THAT PISS ME OFF*

1.        People throw trash everywhere, and there are no cans, at all, for waste.

2.       Woman, who appear to have most of the jobs and all of the domestic duties except hard physical labor like ditch digging  (which still leaves plenty of physical labor, believe me),  get no respect from men.

Young pretty ones will get flirted with and catered to, but that is to get them in the sack, and that’s not respect.

3.       Shopkeepers consider that the sidewalk in front of their establishment is theirs for display, customer service, excess inventory, etc.  This leaves the pedestrian in the street, not a safe place to be.  (See next)

4.       There is a hierarchy of being on the street, which goes like this:  Trucks, then buses, then cars, then motorcycles, then bicycles, then hand-pushed carts, then pedestrians. It’s as if there is a caste ststem in which not having wheels makes you an Untouchable.  No crossing, no matter how many pedestrians must use it, is safe for the walker, no consideration or even quarter is given.  To travel down the street is to be constantly shunted aside by  the merest sort of wheeled vehicle, and many times there is no safe place to be shunted aside to.  It does not matter if you are facing oncoming traffic or not, you will still be unseen, ignored,  turned in front of, in constant danger of being run down or side-swiped.

5.       No napkins.  Ever.  At nicer restaurants, they  will bring a few to the table if you ask.  Nevertheless, the country eats like Arabs, with their right hands.  Since services, especially restaurant service,  are universally sub-par, if you choose to do so, you sit with your  dirty hand

 until they bring a wash basin, which may not happen at all. Or there may be a dirty little sink somewhere, with no soap or towel.  Or, you can carry wipes, or a handkerchief, or, as I have seen many times, wipe your dirty fingers on the tablecloth.  Yuck.

6.       No toilet paper. Ever, except in the nicest places.  Not only that, but public pit latrines are gaspingly dirty, and  rarely have running water and soap  I am resigned to using them, but come on, do they have to be filthy?   Don’t these people know ANYTHING about germs, which are no respectors of the right/left hand dictum?   No wonder there’s so much dysentery, cholera, typhoid in the country.

7.       Maybe this shouldn’t piss me off, but people don’t read books.  Therefore there are no bookstores.

8.       No Scotch Tape, and duct tape is so dear as to be unaffordable on a Peace Corps salary.  Come to mention it, school and office supplies generally are just plain crappy, that means pencils, pens, paper, notebooks, greeting cards, and there is no such thing as index cards.  The exception is staplers, which are okay, and in constant use.

9.       No movie theaters except in Dar es Salaam.  This is a deal breaker for me in considering long-term residency.

10.   Boring cooking.  People,  unsalted over-milled hominy mush at every meal is just not appetizing.  Besides ugali, there are about 3 recipes of actual Tanzanian food:  Meat stew made with tomatoes and onions, pan-fried chicken, and greens cooked with onions. Oh, and I am forgetting chapatti. Everything is cooked stove-top with lots of oil. There ARE good and hot peppers, but you have to ask for them.

11.   And yet, they have satellite t.v., everyone has a cell phone, they have Beyonce and JayZ and South African Soap Operas.  They follow English Premier League Football.  Most middle-class people drink water out of plastic bottles, which they then throw in the streets. 

12.   They have something they call the internet.  Teasers.

 

*as opposed to the regular things which go along with Tanzania being a developing Equatorial nation, like heat, humidity multitudinous and/or lethal snakes & bugs, rutted dirt roads mascarading as streets and boulevards, clearly unsafe highways, no books and chalk in the classroom, and too many people living in daub & wattle huts, erected in right of ways.  These do not piss me off, as they are not solvable or unfair.  They do, however, drive me to drink.

And please remember, this is my own list of things to be pissed off about.  It's not the Peace Corps list, nor do they endorse it.  They have their own, I'm sure.

TZ 2013, Meet Soviet Russia 1965

Swimming in Africa:

TZ 2013 meets Soviet Russia circ. 1965

Okay, I know I should be telling you about my wonderful safari, full of beautiful scenery, and incredible wild animals.  I should be telling you about various swimming exploits I have enjoyed this fall, thus earning the name of my blog. Perhaps I should even be recounting Adventures in (Not) Teaching English. But first, I want to try to give you a glimpse of what life is really like in this country.  I call this Tanzania 2013 meets Soviet Russia circ. 1965.

Monday, Jan.7, 11:00 am.  April and I are in town.  We have driven in her car, a luxury for me as I don’t have the hour+ trek via foot & dala dala to arrive.  Our mission:  pick up some packages at the post office.  Mine is for Eric Huston (and that’s another story).  April’s is from her boyfriend in Berkeley.  We also have one for our VSO volunteer, Fran.  I have a secondary errand, to replace my ATM card, which I lost on Christmas holiday in the North.

We start off the 1^st errand with Bonus points; April has been once to Customs, and so knows the way.  She tried already to pick up said packages and has been told by the PO that they need to be cleared by Customs.  She couldn’t get the clearance that she needed because there was nobody in authority present in the office to do it.  So this, the second trip, my first, is directly to Customs, and we did not have to start at the Post Office, which is 3 blocks away from Customs.  We arrive in Customs, and after a little wait, are shown to the Revenue Office on the same floor of the building.

There, the young woman we deal with scolds us because the manifests of our packages are not clear enough, they say ‘School Supplies’ and thus are not detailed enough to determine if tax is due.  But with the exception of Fran’s package, which does have a detailed manifest and on which she will owe something, she clears us for Revenue anyway, without tax.  We go back to Customs, and in red pen a woman there writes on our slips of paper that we have cleared.  We walk to the PO and, after a wait for the worker there to appear, we pay the small storage and processing fee and receive our packages.

Time:  Noon.

In the meantime, April checks the SEGA PO box and finds ANOTHER customs/revenue chit, for me.  Uh oh.   I take it, but I am now thinking about my other, more important errand, and April has finished with the PO and wants to continue with her list of errands.  We put everything in the car, and she departs for the phone company and her bank.

I go back to the government building and, feeling informed, go directly to the Revenue Office.  The woman there is obviously annoyed to have to deal with me and my poor Swahili again, but she gets out her calculator, writes on a torn off scrap of paper.  She hands it to me; she has charged me 15,000 TSch on a package which manifests a value of 32,000, almost 50% tax.  When I protest, she reminds me that she cleared the previous boxes (School Supplies) for nothing.  She is clearly in payback mode, and accuses me of being ungrateful.  I have a minor coraje (outburst).  But it’s like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy, not satisfying because they just stare back at me.  Need to learn how to excoriate in Swahili.

Oh well, it’s only $10.00, let’s move forward and get her done.  I am anxious for this late Christmas/early birthday present to come into my hands.  I’ll pay, pick up the package, and go on to the bank.  I walk back to the Customs Office and wait 15 minutes for them to make out a Revenue receipt based on Payback Woman’s jotted note, and they hand me an official document, keeping the PO notice.  I am to go to the bank next door, pay, and bring back a paid receipt which will then result in my PO notice being marked paid/cleared, and then I can take that back to the PO, pay the misc fees there and then be done.   Except for my outburst in Revenue, I am in pretty good spirits.  Thinking about lunch, thinking about maybe going to my fundi to get a new dress made from the kanga I have stashed in the car.

I’d like to be able to say that things went quickly after that.  After all, it’s 12:45, and April will want to go back to School when her errands are done.  I go to the bank downstairs, the CRDB, optimistic.  But the line to the teller is out to the front door, there are at least 50 people in it.  I wait 5 minutes at the Customer Service desk to confirm that yes, I must wait in the long line to visit a teller.  The line hasn’t moved.  There is 1 teller present for all these people.  I panic, and bail.  Time, 1:00 pm.

Re-grouping, I decide to see what I can do about my ATM card.  That bank is conveniently close by and I walk there.  It, too, sports a line of dozens waiting to see a teller. (Later, I realize that those who wish to make a deposit, obtain a money order [the only 'checks' in TZ],  or retrieve more than 400,000 schillings [$250.] from their accounts, must do so inside the bank.  The lines inside ANY bank are ALWAYS long and always slowed by fewer than needed tellers.)

At Customer Service, no queue, but the more typical Tanzanian behavior of people waiting.  That is:  people maneuvering, thrusting hands in front of you, shouldering you aside with demands for attention from the single woman representative, who never just attends to the person in front of her, but stops and starts to do the easy things, like handing out balance request forms or deposit slips.  She also occasionally answers her personal cell and has a conversation.  This is, as I have said, typical.  It is all done with civility, that is, nobody shouts or pushes, they just don’t wait their turn, nor or they encouraged to do this by the service provider.

To get a new card, I am told that I must obtain a Police Report.  I try arguing.  I have lost the card, there has been no crime committed.  I lose.  I must go to the Police Station and bring back the required report.  This is their procedure.  

As I am walking out of the bank, April calls.  She is ready to leave.  I quickly change plans again, and arrange to meet her at the grocery store so I can get her to carry some needed food and other items back to school for me.  I will stay in town, returning by dala dala.  I am in siege mode, I will get both chores done.  I abandon the pleasurable thought of a new dress, and lunch.

Police Station:  Report at the desk in front, report again at an office in back. Am given a single Official police report document and told to go to the stationary store across the street, get two copies made, and bring it back.  This is either a money-saving measure on the part of this bureaucracy, or their copier is out of service. Bring back the copies, be sent down the hall to pay a chit for the report, take back the signed receipt for said chit to the 1^st office.  Receive Official report.  (Is this beginning to sound familiar?)

At the Bank, things go more or less smoothly.  I have the required documents for card replacement and, miraculously, the required 2 passport pictures to paste onto my request for issuance of a new card, and change of account to the new card.  I win my first and only argument of the day:  the passport pictures do not have the required Blue Background.  I convince the Bank Officer, another woman, to accept my American passport pictures with white background, by pointing out that my passport, an Official American Document, sports an identical picture of me, with a white background.  I am bucked up by this triumph, and leave the bank with new card and PIN number.  However, I can’t use it until 24 hours have passed.  But I am 90% done with one errand, and it is only 2:30 pm.

At the CRDB Bank, my faint hopes of the line being lessened are dashed.  I get in line, and I wait.  And wait, and wait. No one exhibits any hurry or impatience.  Now, all who know me know how agonizing waiting can be personally for me, and how poorly I can behave.  I really try to stay composed:  I send long texts, I kick myself for not having my I-Pod, or Kindle, or both. I mentally try out schemes to circumvent this line (bribes?  Using my white skin and white hair to demand special service? Fainting?  Bailing yet again and coming back another day when I have more comfortable shoes on?)  I pull out my phone and time the wait, along with service time for individuals, on the Stopwatch App.  I keep trying not to lose it when people, who have saved spots in line, swell the last few places over and over again.

After about 2 hours, my back and feet are aching, but I am before a teller.  The teller is efficient; it takes less than 3 minutes. (By Stopwatch) I am rewarded with one of the 4 copies of the customs requisition, marked paid with an official stamp and initials.  I am asked to sign yet another document for it.

When I finish, the bank is closed.  Although banking hours extend until 5:30, they lock the doors at 4:30 so nobody else can get in line. When no employee appears  to unlock the doors so that I and half a dozen others can escape, I elicit my first laughs of the day by pulling out my phone and declaring  that I have been kidnapped by CRDB, and that I am going to call the police to come and rescue me.  Seriously, folks, this is only my second meltdown of the day, and I did manage to amuse the other customers, not horrify them by my lack of meekness.  Finally, after a couple of minutes, a woman who was on her cell phone at Customer Service saunters out to unlock the door.  I bolt out first.

Back next door at Customs, the woman there remonstrates with me because, although her office hours are until 5:00, she has locked away my PO chit and must retrieve keys, and unlock cabinets, to mark it for me and give it to me.  I tell her I was waiting TWO HOURS to pay, and she looks at me mildly, as if to say, ‘what’s the big whoop, only 2 hours?’

The Post Office is Closed.  Their hours are until 5:00, too, but that apparently is advisory only, as it is 20 minutes to. 

Just over 5 ½ hours in town to accomplish 90% of two errands, each requiring an encounter with the government and a bank.

As I make my way home, my thoughts are these, not in exact order.  The intercept between the modern world and the people is clearly taking its toll on the people.  Why do they PUT UP with having their time wasted so egregiously?  What do they do with all that paper?  Every government office I visited was dirty, needed to be painted, and was populated by broken down furniture and superfluous people who appeared to be doing nothing.  With the exception of one policeman who chatted me up in English, I dealt with women, who have clearly cornered the market on customer service white collar jobs here in Tanzania.  While not ever being able to completely understand the Swahili or be spoken to in communicative English, I did not make 1 mistake:  filled out no forms wrong, stood in no wrong lines.  Thank you, April, for getting me started on the right track.

And, I have to go back tomorrow.