Tears in Tanzania

October 23, 2008

I don't cry very much here. I try to distract myself from anything sad. But sometimes you can't distract anymore. Today I taught 20 minutes of an English class at school. It was to the equivalent of 2nd graders. I counted them as the other teacher was finishing up-there was 67 of them aged 7-9. I was told 16 of them were absent. Can you imagine? In the states that would be more than half the class. I guess there are usually that many working in the farm or sick. The month before I arrived in village I was told that 12 students here died of Typhoid. Anyways, I am a horrible teacher. But the kids watched me with a lot of attention and I have been told by other PCVs that even if I am a bad teacher just having a warm body in the classroom paying attention to them is more than they usually have. So it went alright.

I am a bit sick- dizzy, headache, fever. Shouldn't be anything too serious though. There is no way I have malaria so I will be fine. But compounded with the teaching, with a staff meeting where I had no idea what was going on and watching kids get hit more- some across the face... When I went to Juster's home for chai the frustration boiled over. In me, frustration manifests in tears. I have been told by other PCVs to not cry in front of Tanzanians. They don't cry and don't know how to react when you do. (Which tells you how many PCVs have done it. )Juster handled it very well. Mostly, I expressed frustration that I am not speaking well enough to get to know people. She reminded me how far I have come, how little time I have really been here, how much I do understand. I told her that I was fearful that the village would think I didn't want to talk to them. She responded the way my mom would-" Brie, you can only be responsible for what you do. You are trying very hard. They need to try too. You are doing nothing wrong." I still felt discouraged. It is funny when things are going poorly here something always happens to entirely restore my faith in being here.

This time it occurred on the way to town. They always put me in the front of the truck in stead of in the bed with everyone else. The car leaves for town at 4 am- so it is cold and dark. I usually am squished in the cab with a man of high rank in our village and the driver. Then some child is placed on my lap. I can't imagine putting your kid on a strangers lap in the states, but here it is the norm. So I have held babies, but most of the time I hold a sick kid. And I wonder what does this kid have? And I feel relieved that I have been vaccinated for everything as you cannot fear sickness here, you can't really avoid it. This ride, however, there was no child on my lap and I sat next to a Mama who I did not know. Juster put me in the cab and told them I was feeling sick. This mama was beautiful, she spoke to me in Kibena and I told her I didn't understand, so she sang to me in Kibena instead. I apologized for not speaking Kibena or Kiswahili very well. She repeated over and over, "Utaelewa, Utaelewa" (You will understand.) It was so sweet and so patient. She held me hand, let me sleep on her shoulder and petted my hair. I felt like a child, but it felt nice to have love. When we got to Njombe, I was feeling better she made me promise I would come visit her. She makes clothes and said she wanted to make me a skirt and feed me. I am glad to have another friend.