One Side of the Coin

Look, here’s the truth. Sometimes it is hard being here. I wish that I could tell you that everyday is amazing and inspirational, but frankly a lot of the days are extremely draining.

There are so many challenges here and life can often be uncomfortable. The problems can get overwhelming. I am, by nature, a sensitive person.  I also like doing. I like answers, communication, solutions, clear understandings and I like fixing things…it is so hard to find the answers here. Especially when you barely speak the language. It is also a challenge to know how or what to do to make any sort of difference. Where are my tools?! It seems at times as if there is no way out. I feel ineffectual and useless and it is driving me mad!

At the beginning, I was in awe of the landscape and the people and all the different ways of interacting with and experiencing my environment. Now I have moved more into the day-to-day reality of life, the day-to-day reality of life in Africa. Coming from the lens of my experience growing up in a first world country, it can be downright shocking at times…and I consider myself a laid back person!

I have been immersed in learning about the bad: the gender inequalities, the dismal health care system, the corruption, and the lack of infrastructure—just to name a few. I know that somewhere amidst all of the struggle and injustice is resilience and love and progress. So many times I have read about these things in books, but here…after learning about it…I go step out into the world and am surrounded by the reality of what I have been reading about for so long. I am in that book about poverty. I am in that book about gender inequality. I am in that book about maternal mortality. I am in that book, but what character am I? What can I do? I can often sense the acceptance of defeat around me and I don’t blame them. Don’t get me wrong; people are not blind to the problems here. There are many intelligent and educated people, especially at MS-TCDC, who love their country and their people and are actively working on finding solutions towards sustainable development and a higher quality of life for everyone.

I have been thinking a lot about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in relation to the day-to-day lives of people here in Tanzania. One of the things that has been eating at me is that so many people here are still struggling for the basics: shelter, food, water. Being stuck at that level of existence is keeping them from self-actualization and other intellectual and emotional aspects of life that come after you have secured the basics. However, we are still emotional beings, so how does that emotion manifest itself? What form does it take? I can’t imagine that they are on the emotional repeat of just simply being happy or sad whether or not they have had enough to eat for the day. They still are living in a world made up of human relationships. They still have eyes that can observe their world and a nose that can smell the sewage, car exhaust and burning trash and ears that can hear the feral dogs and incessant honking of the traffic. How does this resonate on an emotional level? Or is it perhaps just so normal that it fails to activate the senses? I do believe that a person can find peace and acceptance no matter what their living condition is, no matter what their lot in life may be. At times I think that acceptance of the situation is the problem standing in the way of growth and progress. Complacency and disenchantment are at the root of stagnation. However, in some situations, it seems that acceptance may be a justifiable means to finding peace with the situation that you are in. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

It is so hard not to look at the way of life here and make comparisons through the lens of life back home. I am trying so hard not to be too ethnocentric in my observations and opinions of what I am taking in. I feel like I need to observe and learn before I can make any relevant criticisms. I have been trying to avoid writing about how frustrating life here can be. I feel as if it is somehow a critique of the people that have welcomed me into their homes and their lives. It is not, or perhaps it is, but that is not my intention. I just feel like I am receiving so much stimulation in so many forms and it has to go somewhere. So, the page is a fairly benign place to put it.

I am not here by accident. I made this happen. I wanted to be uncomfortable. Really. I did. And I still do. I am still glad that I am here. It is an amazing opportunity to experience a country and a culture in the way that I am. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wanted to know more. Sometimes you don’t like what you learn. The unfamiliar is only unfamiliar until it becomes familiar. I think part of the pain and confusion is born from my perspectives being challenged. I am learning and experiencing things about the world that I wish didn’t exist. Thanks for putting up with me. I will continue doing what I do. Also, I am not uncomfortable all the time! Far from it. This is just one side of the coin…or one side of a 14 sided die!

Personal messages are also appreciated. I realize that you all have your lives going on back home and you have your own struggles, stresses and obligations, but hearing from loved ones never gets old. Believe it or not, I still wonder about you all.  

Connect with me on facebook or email: sadiegannett@gmail.com

Now I am going to go join my family for dinner. I can hear my brothers laughing. I’m gonna go see what’s so funny. 

Experiencing the Maasai

The part of Tanzania that I am living in has a large population of the Maasai tribe. A few weekends ago, one of our teachers, Mackrine, took us to visit and stay overnight at a Maasai village. It was an incredibly unique opportunity to have an invitation such as this. It is common for tourists to visit Maasai villages on arranged safaris, but I question how genuine of an experience those are as they are geared towards receiving tourists and essentially putting on a “show”. This particular village has been working with Mackrine and her organization in regards to ending female genital mutilation. They have agreed to end the practice in their village. Mackrine’s approach to gaining access and opening the dialogue with the Maasai has been to compensate and empower the women for their willingness to change their cultural practices. She does this through education and also each woman who agrees to give up the practice of performing the circumcision is given three sheep. Traditionally women are not allowed to own animals.

The women were so happy to see Mackrine. She is on the far left in the purple dress.

We still got quite a show. This is how the women greeted us, singing and dancing all the way...

Jumping is a part of their traditional dance

Culturally, the Maasai are very rich, however, if you were to look at their way of life from a western perspective, you would see them as extremely impoverished. Their possessions are few. Extremely few…in fact, they seem to not have possessions except for the clothes on their back and their beautiful jewelry that they make. However, if you were to ask them, they see themselves as very rich, because they have cattle and goats. That is their bank account. They live with the land. Their furniture consists of a bed, often shared by many, and some small carved wooden stools. 

In this picture is the bed in the hut of the youngest wife. The bed and a single candle were the only things in the huts that we saw. It is possible that they put away some of their belonging for our visit, but I can't imagine many more possessions as they are traditionally a nomadic culture. We slept in this hut but none of us felt comfortable taking her bed. They gave up many of their huts for us to sleep in. We are not sure where they slept...

Their shelter is traditionally a mud hut constructed out of sticks and mud with a thatched roof. The mud is similar to a cob mixture. What I observed was a mixture of clay, ash and water. The sticks are woven together and then mud is applied to the sticks. Each wife builds her own hut and that is where she sleeps with her children. It is a polygamous culture so the husband chooses which wife he will sleep with and if she is chosen, he will come to her hut. 

Here is an example of the women showing us how they apply the mud to the stick structures. They really got a kick out of watching us do it. One of the female guest in this picture is disabled. I will talk about that later on. 

This woman kept smiling at me. She is beautiful. 

And here you go...a finished hut. We slept in one of these huts. 

For our visit, they slaughtered a goat. I learned that on a daily basis, the Maasai eat very little. They may just have one meal a day of porridge. I know that they drink the milk and the blood of the cow, however, I am not sure if that is part of their daily diet. My assumption is that milk would be part of their daily consumption, but my assumptions have often been wrong. They collect blood from the cow by piercing a vein in the neck and then they cover over the wound with mud. It is rare that they actually kill a cow or goat. I was told that they may do it about once a month. When we were there, they slaughtered a goat for us to see. 

Traditionally, women are not allowed to witness the killing or the butchering. However, since we are form a different culture, they let us watch. I did not see the whole process, so my pictures are limited. They killed the goat by suffocation. I am assuming this was to keep the process cleaner and conserve the blood for drinking. They then moved the goat onto this bed of leaves to keep it from the ground. There is so much dirt and dust in this part of the land.

This one Danish woman really wanted to try her hands at the slaughtering. I think that it was a learning experience for both. I wonder what it was like for the Maasai men to see a woman doing something that is forbidden in their culture...

Yes. They do eat all of the goat. Organs, blood and all. At the time of the slaughter, they ate the lungs and liver and other organs raw along with drinking the blood, which they added salt to. 

Our teacher brought along our own cooks and food since our diets and way of eating are so different. They cooked our food over this trench of fire.  

Another aspect of this trip was that Mackrine works with disabled people. It is believed in the Maasai culture that if a person is born with a disability that they are cursed and they are not welcomed into the community. Mackrine works with a folk school in Denmark and part of what they do is work with people with varying degrees of disabilities. She organized an 11 day trip (I think) for them to come and learn about Tanzania. They came along to the village with us. I believe that there were about 6 disabled people. Each person had one to three attendants depending on their degree of disability. It was very interesting to observe the Maasai interacting with people that their culture casts out. 

The man in this photo was not born with a disability, but he got into an accident later in life which left him with brain damage. He was very mobile and could communicate fairly well. 

I am not sure what disability this woman had, but she was unable to communicate and was dependent on her wheel chair. She was surrounded by the Maasai. 

After the slaughtering of the goat, Natalie and I took a look at their jewelry. Well....it was not a casual 'just looking' sort of thing because multiple women surround you and just start putting jewelry on you. This is a good picture that shows the extent of adornments that they wear. The beaded collar signifies that a woman is a wife.

Here is their jewelry displayed...

Here I am being, somewhat willingly...okay...willingly, adorned. It was just too cool so I decided to give myself to the situation. It is good to know when not to resist. 

TaaaaaaDaahhhhhh!!!!!

As the sun was setting, the scenery just got more dreamlike. It was such a trip to just sit back and observe such a different way of life. I just want to share some pictures of that...

Here is a woman and her sheep.

Just hanging out...

A young Maasai man in the foreground...the 83 year old chief in the background...

Two old goats....

I believe that the man on the right is the chief's oldest son. He was herding the goats for the night. 

As the sun set, the outline of the huts looked so cool

Here they are roasting the goat around the fire. You can see the Maasai men leaning on their sticks on the right. 

And...this is where we slept. To be honest, none of us really slept. I am not sure why...we were sort packed like sardines and weren't quite warm enough...but so be it. It is all part of the experience. 

So that was our visit. It sure was an interesting way to get a closer look at a culture that has such a different way of life.  

  It is hard not to look at the ways of the Maasai culture and see the extreme gender violence and oppression towards women. They face genital mutilation, they are told when it is their turn to have sex with their husband, they are not allowed to own animals, they are not allowed to slaughter or witness the slaughter of an animal, they are not allowed to speak at meetings, they are not allowed to have any part in the burial if a child if one dies. It goes on and on. Men are seen very much as superior to women. It is a hard pill to swallow. I also have to remind myself that it is dangerous to make across the board stereotypes and judgements about an entire culture. The answers are not simple.

However, there is still something beautiful about the Maasai. There is an extreme simplicity to their way of life. They seem to get genuine joy from living with the land. There is something romantic about how untouched their culture remains to this day when we life in an ever globalized world. 

If you would like to see the whole album, click on the title below:

Experiencing the Maasai

Sight Seeing

Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater
(just scroll your mouse over the above title and you will be able to click and open the link)

Visiting Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater was included in our program fees and, WOW, what an amazing part of the country. The crater was absolutely breathtaking. There were so many animals everywhere you looked. It was surreal.
Enough talk! Check out my photo album above.

The Predictable Eventual Reaction

I feel sensitive from the day. 

Generally I try to look for the beauty and strength and joy amidst the filth and suffering and pain...but today I must look at it straight in the face and call it by its name. I suppose that it was only a matter of time before I wrote about the extreme poverty. This is probably a predictable reaction that we all knew was coming. That doesn’t make it any less real or vital. The state of poverty here is so overwhelming that I practically feel numb…as if there is so much to feel and react to that my body doesn’t know where to start. It is more than a thought. It is more than a feeling. It's a whole body sensation; it's a feeling of helplessness and separation. Problems so large that you don’t know where to start.

This is a picture of people purchasing water in the slums. It is 300 shillings for 60 liters, which is about $0.19. That may not sound like a lot, but it is still common to find people living on less than $1 a day, so $0.19 can really cut into the budget. This water will still have to boiled to be safe for drinking. Fuel- whether wood, charcoal or gas- takes more energy, more time and more money to get. 

For a house in the slums, this one is actually pretty decent because it is built out of bricks. If you look closer, you can really see a lot of traces of the everyday life. This is a very common scene. 

It is staggering the number of people who struggle on a daily basis just to acquire the basic necessities of life. It seems as if most have a shelter. I can’t even call it a home because it may just be a 10 x 10 room constructed out of sticks and mud. They are not sitting in their nice bedroom being cooled by a fan wondering whether or not they should go on to get their Master’s Degree or where next in the world they should travel (yeah…I’m referring to myself here). They are just dealing with fetching water and figuring out their next meal. And that is on repeat.

Here are some pictures of the woman that we visited. Her home is tiny and has no electricity. It is a single room that is maybe 10x10 or 15x15. She pays 30,000 shillings a month to live there which is about $20. She is 73 and had six children. All but one have died and she has many grand and great grandchildren. The one sitting next to her on the bed is her great-grandchild that lives with her.

Always smiling. She has even worked to make her little place more like home by having flowers planted in buckets. 

It is so hard not to feel guilty for all that I have. I was grateful for all that I have before I came here and I tried to express that gratitude often, if not daily, but being grateful doesn’t take away from feeling almost shameful for what I have when so many people all over the world have so little. Hot water that comes out of the tap is like magic! I realize that guilt is not an appropriate feeling and probably not a very productive one either. I just want to make the world a better place and I don’t know how to fix these problems and it is infuriating. It’s like this crazy itch on the inside of my body that cannot be reached, no matter how hard you scratch the surface. I have resources and I have talents and the challenge is figuring out how to make the best use of them. No one said that this was going to be easy.

 

I am an optimist. I do believe that we can work towards positive change that will improve each other’s lives. I’m talking about sustainable change that truly creates upward mobility for not just this generation, but future generations. You have to look at the big picture and get overwhelmed, before you can find the smaller problems that need fixing first. A house is only as strong as its foundation and there is no one size that fits all. Each situation is unique and you have to understand what you are dealing with before you can start building.  

This last picture is for the family. Hello! I am tired and dirty and sad in this picture, but I have learned from the locals to keep smiling. 

Love, Sadie

P.S. Here is a link to a new photo album:
Face to Face with the Everyday