Exhuastion and Elation

“It’s four-thirty on a Tuesday, doesn’t get much worse than this, and beds in little rooms in buildings in these lives which are completely meaningless… I’m tryin’ to keep myself away from myself and me.” –Counting Crows

October 18-24, 2009

I listen to some old CD that some long gone PCV left behind, we don’t get a lot of music choices here and it takes me back to about seventh grade when Sugar Ray sings, “I just want to fly, put your arms around me, baby”. I put my arms around myself because I am cold but also because I have no one to put their arms around me, I am alone.

It is commonly believed in my village now that my attempted break-in was most likely going to be an attempted rape, I was jus in the wrong (or right) bedroom. There are a million reasons my villagers and government have come to this conclusion, and in the middle of it all is me trying to live here. I watch all the guys who used to be my friends and I don’t trust and I am fearful. I am sure it wasn’t someone I know, or one of my friends but I still let the ocean between us grow. I feel their eyes on me, and it scares me. Mary tells me when the village first found out they were getting a female volunteer the men were happy and hopeful, I guess I can understand that, and maybe now they are hoping I will settle down there, but I don’t like their eyes on me. It occurs to me that it is no wonder that women have children here. Their husbands pay no attention to them; they want something that belongs to them, something of their own. I wish their husbands paid no attention to me either.


I don’t sleep at night anymore. I doze a bit, but I move from room to room with my knife, usually starting on the living room couch, then to the inspiration room, and then in the wee hours of the morning to my bedroom. I fall asleep asleep around 5am when the village starts to stir, otherwise I wait. I read or stare at the ceiling. I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. The other night I woke up around 7.30 pm, which I still think is an acceptable time to sleep even though it is already dark here on the equator, to hear William and Mary bickering outside my door. (Since it is dark William is not allowed without Mary.) Mary is telling him, “I try to make her eat and rest.” To which William replies, “You can, you just don’t know how to deal with her, you don’t leave her alone.” I open the door at this point because I am sure Mary is pissed off, as these are the two people who consider themselves my best friends. They stand there with a pot of beans and ugali. I stare at my two best friends, their dark faces illuminated by the candle light to show off their flawless chocolate skin, their beautiful bone structures, their full lips, their dark worried eyes, and I wonder how I got here. How are these two people part of my immediate life? But I breathe in the smell that is uniquely theirs, Mary: perfume, hair oil, and wood smoke from cooking. William: motor oil, sweat, and wind. Somehow, these familiar smells put me at peace.

I think I have hidden my fear pretty well. It is really only Mary and William who detect it, but I let it out to Mama Max. In front of my village, though, this time, I don’t break down. I am still Image’s golden girl (the permanent hair dye I used in America didn’t stick) I smile, I laugh, I teach, I greet people, I hold Anna, I feed my cat- I appear put together, so I believe. I stay away from the guys, but I still go to the bar to teach. While I wait fro the guys to arrive, I go back to the brick building with a fire pit that is called a kitchen in Tanzania, where Mama Max is slaving away. She hugs me, “I have missed you, you don’t come here very often anymore.” “I know,” I say, and then because I cannot help it, I cannot hide it from my Mama, I say, “I am so afraid.” Instead of reacting like everyone else- “There is nothing to be afraid of.” She says, “I know.” I tell her, motioning to the main bar room, “I am afraid of them now.” She replies, “They miss you, they talk about you almost every night and not in a bad way.” “I miss them too,” I tell her. Out of nowhere she says, “Your mom is a very lucky woman.” “Why?” I ask. “Not every woman can have such a special daughter,” she tells me. Then I rudely say, “In America, I am not special for being white.” “Is that what you think we see?” She asks, “That is what we saw at first but no one sees that now. You still think the village thinks your special because you are an American?” She laughs a little here. “Image sees a woman who is beautiful on the outside, who smiles and greets everyone like she cares, who tries hard to fit in as a Tanzanian, who is willing to try anything. But mostly we see a woman who gives herself and her love with total freedom. And love without expectation is a rare and beautiful thing to find in another person- you are our blessing.” She holds my hand as we walk out of the kitchen toward the main bar, where I am about to come face to face with my fear. “You are brave, Brie, go in there and give them another chance. They love you, truly.” So I take a deep breath and walk into a crowed room of about 40 guys my age, ready to make amends.

My site visit from PC happened recently and my Tanzanian boss came to see how things were going in Image. I told him I should be replaced after I leave, but to make sure that it is someone really hard core, because this village is tough, which he said that he knew he had put me in a really hard village and thanked me for staying. “Why me?” I asked. “You are hard core,” he said. “No,” I said, “I mean replace me with someone who can do this.” Then he said, “Brie, you are doing this.” It dawned on me: I am, aren’t I?

I need to introduce some new characters- Felix is 35, he has one wife and three children. He just opened up a shop right next to my house. Right now he is campaigning to be our next village chairman, which it appears is a role that he will win. He is so awesome it is difficult to describe. He is so not creepy and wants to help me succeed here in everyway he possibly can. He speaks to me patiently and listens like I am important. After the break-in he upped my guards to two that are both older than 45 years. Felix has become one of my best friends and confidante, as he actually understands what I want to do here. Then there is Titu, upon first glace Titu looks fierce, plus his name sounds like an Italian mobster, however, I totally love him. He is also about 35, has two wives with five children among them. I didn’t really know Titu until I passed one of our village bars and he called me in to buy me a beer a few weeks ago. Since there were many people there, I turned the conversation towards AIDS education, like I have become an expert at turning conversations in this way. The weird thing is, I thought I was teaching but Titu was agreeing or adding even more detail to what I was saying. Finally, I was like, “Dude, who are you!?!” Surprise, surprise, he is a doctor! Unfortunately, he works in another village (the government determines who works where), but he technically lives in Image. He has helped infinitely this passed week. He is respected, he respects me, he does condom demos with me, we role-play for our village, and he has been amazing. Plus his youngest wife is an added benefit, as one of my new good friends. Mama Maria is 22 and had three little girls, Maria, Suze, and Osmonda. I love playing with them and there is something about their games that just reminds me of Shannon, Raeme and I.

So I have literally been n the campaign trail this week. As our village government gear up for voting new chair people and committees, I go along and teach about AIDS, condoms and testing. Each morning at 8 am we are in a new sub-village, we have six; the meetings take most of the day. At the meetings, I glance down at my “Fearless” bracelet, then I stand up and address crowds of Image villagers in the hundreds. I shake, I stumble, but I can feel my villagers holding out the net to catch me, tossing me a life saver- I feel the hundreds of eyes on me, but eyes who want me to succeed- when I falter, I find a villager to look to, usually, Felix, Titu, Mama Max, William, Mzee Ngoda… Someone who will silently nod me on, grab my hand before I drown. In a village so fearful of AIDS, I try to be confident as I talk about sex, semen, and demonstrate putting a condom on a soda bottle; I talk about things that are totally taboo to say out loud. But the weird thing is that they want to hear it. I get a million questions. They clap and cheer at the end and thank me for coming- I always close with, “I have now finished a year living here. Image is my home in Africa, you are all my family, I want you to be healthy because I love you.” I get cries back of love.

On the fourth day of campaigning, I am totally shocked when our village mama choir that has been traveling with us, comes out with a brand new song all about AIDS, almost word for word what I have been teaching. One of the mamas shyly tells me they wrote it for me, as a surprise. I invite them to come and sing and dance on the testing day. They are more than excited and tell me they are in the process of writing more songs for me. I can’t believe that they did this on their own, just for me.

Having no idea how many people will really show up to test, I call in for back up, in case I have to spend the night crying over my failure. Margaret and Tally come to hold my hand through it. I should not have worried. When we get to the health center in the morning, the line is out the door. I can’t believe it. All day the line is constant. People of all sorts crowd to get tested. The mama’s choir sings and dance. But I sit watching the line. This sounds stupid, but for some reason, I had only thought about getting that far. I watch people I know, my people, nervously standing in line, and suddenly I understand their fear to know. In one second your life can change. I am afraid. Two hundred and seventy-five people get tested that day before there are no more testing supplies. The line is still out the door. (I have agreed to get another one going in a few weeks.) Thirty-three people are positive. I find this encouraging, seems like a small number to me. However, Image is a village of 3,000 (a thousand are enrolled in primary school and then there are still the kids under 6), so 275 are really a very small portion. Plus the organization testing tells me this is probably not a very accurate picture of the village overall because people are more likely to get tested if they think they are negative. Also apparently this is a high number according to them.

But still I have done something. I have put something into motion here. I have started a dialogue, I have started a movement. It might be a small one, a huge planet, a giant continent filled with problems, a big country with many illnesses, a region plagued by AIDS, a small village in the middle of nowhere- but in that tiny corner of this planet the spark is trying to ignite. I did what I was afraid I could not do.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” –Eleanor Roosevelt and my personal PC motto because each day I do what I think I cannot do.