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

Photo album of our latest adventures

So, the last post was a little of a downer....

Here is something to lighten the mood. It is a photo album of a few different trips that we have gone on.
Enjoy!

Maji Moto and Pangani

The Nitty Gritty--not for the faint of heart

It’s 4 am and I am wide-awake yet exhausted at the same time…so I figured that I might as well be useful and work on a blog post.

*Please note that this is a fairly graphic post about female genital mutilation.....

Our days are busy. This week we are doing a few more field visits which are very interesting. It is always nice to get out of the classroom and see how effectively (or not) theory become practice.

Yesterday we visited a district health center in Arusha. Essentially it is a public clinic that does all out patient treatments. I am still learning how their health care structure works and at 4 a.m. on little sleep, the details are fuzzy.  Lets just say that we are lucky in the United States.  One of the main issues is that the country only allocates about 3% of its budget towards the health care system and even less to the educational system—but that’s a topic for another day.

The problems are sort of predictable. There is a shortage of nurses, infrastructure is lacking and they have nowhere near the capacity to serve all the people in need of health services. Plus, each district has only one health center, which makes accessibility very difficult.  There are private health facilities, but they are very expensive.

From there we went to visit a NGO called HIMS. One of the main missions of the organization is to raise awareness and put an end to female genital mutilation, which is a common practice among many tribes. It is very prevalent within the Maasai Tribe, of which there are many in the Arusha region. I know that I have learned of it in the past, but learning about the gritty details in the area where it is still ingrained in the culture of certain tribes is a whole different story. The cultural myths, the misogyny, the gender marginalization and the brutal reality of what happens to a woman/girl when she gets mutilated are a lot to comprehend. I might as well share them with you for some nice light reading:

So first of all, it is considered a right of passage. A girl is not considered a woman until she has been mutilated (also referred to as female circumcision), even if she is 50 years old. Essentially the clitoris is regarded as a penis and if a woman has her clitoris, it is as if there are two men in the household. Another myth surrounding the clitoris that I was told—I believe as a scare tactic—is that during childbirth, if the woman still has her clitoris, it will grow very long and wrap around her throat and kill her.

There are three types of genital mutilation and it can happen as early as the age of seven. The type of mutilation depends on how sexual the girl appears to be. The more sexual she appears to be, the more extreme the mutilation. Let me remind you that these are observations of a young, developing, prepubescent girl. If she seems to show few signs of having a high level of sexuality, then just the clitoris is removed. This takes away her ability to receive physical or sexual pleasure. If she shows signs of a higher level of sexuality, then the clitoris and the labia are removed. Not only does this take away the ability to experience sexual pleasure, but it also takes away the bodies ability to produce fluids that are necessary for lubrication during intercourse. So, not only is sex not pleasurable, but it is also painful as there is lots of friction and they commonly have to use lard as a lubricant for the husband’s ease of penetration. Below is a picture of the tools used to perform the task. 

The third type is the most invasive, which includes actually stitching up the opening, leaving just a small hole for urine and menstruation. This is to ensure that she is not able to have sex at all. The stitching is then removed when it is time for her husband to have sex with her. 

All of these practices are done in a very unsterile way. It is hard to know how many women get infections and/or die from this practice because if it happens, it is meant to be a secret and goes unreported. If you thought it was bad enough, wait, because it gets worse.

Another repercussion of the genital mutilation is that it decreases the body’s ability to expand during childbirth. I am not going to go into those details because I think that you can connect the dots. Most of us know about the physics and necessary body mechanics involved for childbirth. So, one practice to lessen the burden on the body during childbirth is that once a woman becomes pregnant, she begins to be extremely underfed for the duration of her pregnancy. The purpose is to keep the child as small as possible in order to ease the birthing process. The reasoning makes sense, but the reason that it makes sense is so hard to comprehend that we are back in the realm of not making sense again.

I remember learning about this practice in the past and trying to understand it through a cultural lens, hearing about it more in the context of a right of passage for the woman. However, as I learn more, there is no part of me that does not see this as an extreme abuse of human rights.

Here is a poster in the clinic that is being used to educate and encourage the ending of this practice:

Education is key. I think that a lot of them do it because of the myths, beliefs and stereotypes that are ingrained in their culture. For instance, the girl must sit on a cowhide for the circumcision procedure. It is believed that once she sits on that hide, if she does not get circumcised, she will die…

I realize that this was a bit of a harsh and graphic post. I didn't really enjoy writing this or reading this myself. However, I do believe that the more honest we are, that faster and more appropriate change is possible. I have no solutions. I am just sleepless in Tanzania and this was what I felt I needed to write about.

At the very least, may this make you feel gratitude for the freedoms that you do have. I don’t know what else to say…I don’t think that there is really an upbeat way to end this post.

So, I will just say goodbye.

Love,

Sadie

Kleopa's Machame Shamba

On Friday, our Kiswahili teacher, Kisanji, took us to the village of Machame. It is about 45 minutes from our school. We had no idea what to expect and we were blown away. This land is at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and is the land of the Wachugga tribe. It is mountainous, but VERY lush and so untouched.....except for the seemingly endless winding, rocky dirt roads that weave up and over and around and through the landscape. It really was incredible. You just get lost in the mountains.

We visited the home and farm (shamba) of Kleopa--pronounced Clay-Oh-Pa. He is the son of a Chugga Tribe Chief and he has an incredible home and farm. It is considered a blessing to have guests and they love to feed you. The food was amazing. Here is Kleopa and just a sample of all the food that he served us: I believe that it is all from his farm, including the coffee. For our first meal, we had sweet potato, wild yam, corn and some other kind of potato. And coffe. Always coffee. For our second meal, we had slow roasted beef, banana soup, beans and veggies! So delicious. Straight from the source. It just makes you feel so good.

They took us all over. In this picture is Kleopa and our Kiswahili teacher, Kisanji. Kisanji is just a gem of a human being and such a delight to be around. I am so grateful that he arranged to take us on such a wonderful adventure. It really is a great way to learn about the country, culture and people. 

It was funny, because in this picture, we were at the base of one of the main trails to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. There were muzungos (white people) everywhere. We smiled, but didn't really talk to any of them. Kleopa explained to Kisanji that our culture is very weird. He said that in his culture, if you saw another one of your "kind"...so to speak....that they would great one another. He thought that it was strange that we were ignoring one another. Yep. We are a bunch of weirdos. That made me feel a bit funny....and not funny haha. 

So.....he took us all over. I have a link to the full photo album at the bottom and it explains more of the day. We did so much. He took us all over the place and it was incredible. Literally jaw-dropping gorgeous. I felt truly euphoric when we were walking through the jungle to the swimming hole by the water fall. The land is amazing, lush, dense, untouched and so, so vibrant. It feels amazing. The land that we are walking through in these next few pictures in owned by Kleopa and his family. 

We totally swam here. It was amazing. After the second waterfall visit, he showed us the coffee farm behind his house and also took us through the whole process from harvest to the cup. So much work goes into a cup of coffee. No wonder it tastes so good. We all bought coffee from him. 

In this picture is the fist step after drying the beans. He made this contraption. I love his daughter in the background. She was beautiful but very shy. 

Then, after winnowing the beans, you mash them up in here. 

Then the roasting. That is where we left off because we were running short on time. Speaking of short on time, I have to run!

 If you want to see more photos, which I highly recommend, just click on the title below:

Kleopa's Machame Shamba

I hear the Midwest is snowed in. I feel like apologizing for posting these tropical pictures, but maybe it will just help transport you to a happy place! Hey, being snowed in has its perks too as long as you have plenty of good food and a good book to curl up with. 

Much love from Tanzania!!!!

Sadie

Wait!! One last photo. The clouds parted and Mount Kilimanjaro is literally his view from his front yard! Incredible!!!!!