Updates

School:

School has been both busy and life-giving.  This next year at Loyola is going to be a bit of a transitional year for the role of JV’s at the school. For many years, the primary responsibility of JV’s at Loyola has been teaching in the Human Development Program, which focuses on preparing students from both Kiswahili and English-medium primary schools for the rigor of an English-medium secondary school. For a number of different reasons, the board has decided to temporarily disband the program starting this January. So, my role next year as well as the role of future JV’s at Loyola will be changing in pretty significant ways. 

I’ve begun to take on additional roles outside of the classroom recently and I’ve also visited another Jesuit High School- St. Peter Claver, Dodoma- where JV’s are doing a variety of different jobs. Some of the changes or additions to my current responsibilities include coaching the girls’ basketball team, helping form Loyola’s Campus Ministry and looking into ways of adding English support and enrichment to the curriculum. I’ve also been meeting with students in an advisor role through Campus Ministry. We’re looking into ways of developing Campus Ministry into a vital and comprehensive part of the Loyola community. Of course, I am not alone in these steps, there are a number of teachers along with the Campus Minister and the Guidance Counselor involved, but since my teaching responsibilities will be decreasing significantly in January, this opens up a possibility of increasing my involvement in this part of Loyola.

Right now, I am thoroughly enjoying teaching Science and English writing to H.D.P.’s along with Form 1 Catholic Religion. We are approaching a 10 day break between the 3rd and 4th quarters which will be a welcomed respite from marking and lesson-planning. We plan to travel, as a community, to visit the other JV’s in Dodoma and also spend some time with the Jesuit community in Arusha. First, we have to finish signing and handing out report cards along with my second set of parent-teacher conferences.

Community:

Our community is preparing for the next transition in the flow of JV life. In December, Cait and Beth will return home and Kathleen and I will welcome two new volunteers into the Dar community. We have a site visit from our J.V.C. Program Coordinator coming up in a few weeks along with Re-Orientation/Dis-Orientation retreat. 

We’re planning to train for the Uhuru Day Half Marathon in Dar, which will take place in the thick of the oppressive heat of December. More than anything, it will be a nice goal to work towards as a community and I don’t plan on being too focused on my finish time as I do simply finishing. Providence in May has got nothing on Dar in December, so I will continue to extend my mindset of gentleness to this endeavor. 

Speaking of exercise- in addition to our formal basketball practices, I’ve attracted a small and informal group of girls who seem to be interested in learning new exercises and improving their physical fitness, so that has been a joyful addition to Friday afternoons. We started this past Friday with some simple yoga poses, strength training of sorts and a little bit of cardio! I hope that the interest continues as I enjoyed sharing that part of my daily routine with my students.

Spirituality:

I’ve recently begun spiritual direction with Sr. Columba, Loyola’s guidance counselor. So far, this has been beneficial and illuminating as I continue to discern God’s call for me both here in Tanzania and beyond. This practice has been important for noticing God in daily life: in the people, places and experiences which support me and love me from near and far and also in the moments of frustration and depletion.

“Obama left you behind!”

 . . . is a phrase I have been hearing the past two days since Obama returned to the U.S. after his trip to Africa and his visit in Tanzania. 

It is true; he did leave me behind, but I am also proud to say that I was here before him and I will continue to stay and live more closely with Tanzanians than he will ever be able to. His visit has been a conversation starter, a point of debate and yet another thing to draw attention to my ‘otherness’ in this country. From the traffic jams, to the celebrations, to the freshly and uniquely clean streets, Obama’s very brief visit has qualities of both a burden and a blessing to this city. With him and his family, came exorbitant fleets of vehicles, security teams and press. All of this hype got me thinking about the differences between his visit and my own. 

Home visits are at the cornerstone of Tanzanian culture. They exemplify the values placed on familial relationships, hospitality and being present to each other, often without speaking. For these reasons, Kikwete emphasized the importance of Obama’s visit in establishing a working and optimistically mutual (not exploitive) relationship between the two nations during their press conference on Monday. Home visits have also been an integral and life-giving part of my recent vacation. Mine, however, came with less hype, fewer security guards and simultaneously more authenticity. He flew. I walked. He made appearances. I hoped to be anonymous. He was guarded. I was vulnerable. He controlled the conversation. I listened. 

I’m sure Obama enjoyed his visit to Tanzania, Senegal and South Africa, but I wish he was able to experience the hospitality and humility of an honest home visit. I wish he was able to walk across the log acting as a bridge over a stream of water, down the steps made of sand bags, and into the homes of some of the most kind and welcoming people I have ever met. I wish he took his shoes off before entering their homes. I wish he sat in silence due to his own inadequacy in the language. I wish his visit aimed at accompaniment. But all of these wishes made me that much more grateful for my own experiences in this city and country.  And maybe by next week, people will realize that I wasn’t left behind or forgotten, but rather that I chose to stay here, live here and be here. After all, while he was addressing the press and posing for pictures, I was hand-washing the residual dust and dirt out of my mosquito net just a few miles away.

updates

1. I have been on vacation from school since June 7th. During this time, I have had the opportunity to do some traveling locally and to Zanzibar. Overall, vacation has been a great opportunity for getting more comfortable in our neighborhood, the city and the surrounding areas. I have been visiting different students, faculty members and friends and slowly getting more confident speaking Swahili and navigating the public transportation system independently. While Loyola is a wonderful work environment, it can sometimes feel a little sheltered from the rest of our neighborhood with the prominence of spoken English and the walls which keep its well-manicured grounds separate from the outside world. 

2. I traveled to Zanzibar with two of my community mates and one of our colleagues from Loyola and it was a wonderful break from our everyday routines. The beach was beautiful and restorative and Stonetown was historical and full of great places to eat and shop. I even ate octopus and barracuda in Forodhani Park overlooking the Indian Ocean! 

3. I have been going on home visits to the homes of students who receive scholarships from Loyola’s GIA (Grants in Aid) fund. I accompanied Loyola’s guidance counselor and director of the program and another faculty member. The visits were mostly in our neighborhood of Mabibo/Luhanga and the surrounding areas and they were both extremely humbling and inspiring. 

4. I was recently able to return to the shamba/farm I wrote about in the blog about oranges. I helped around the shamba during the day and enjoyed being in the country and living so close to the Earth and its bounty. I ate well and felt renewed and uplifted after spending time with a friend and colleague and her family. I will cherish those moments as I return to the routine of a new school term next week.

5. Obama visited this past Monday and Tuesday and sadly I did not see him, but I got to sit in the traffic jams he caused with the rest of Dar es Salaam. My friends and colleagues were mostly excited and somewhat skeptical about the intentions of his visit. I am glad he was able to spend some time in my new home, but I wish he was able to see more than the President’s home and the newly cleaned, painted and paved streets.

Dear Allison,

(The following is from an e-mail I recently wrote to my cousin, Allison. After writing it, I realized that this part of it might be important to share with others as an insight into this experience.)

Dear Allison,

Thank you for such a thoughtful e-mail . . . I’m guessing from the recent influx of e-mails from family members that Matthew communicated with others that I was missing home quite a bit recently. It’s funny, but this longing for home doesn’t really seem to be coming from a feeling of depletion, exhaustion or something that is lacking here. I’m pretty content with the relationships I’ve been forming with my students, co-workers, neighbors and community mates, but there is definitely something unnatural about being so far away from the people who have been consistently a part of my life for 22 (almost 23) years. Last Sunday and Wednesday, especially, I was acutely aware of the length of time that still lies ahead of me. On the one hand, I have been here for a while; I’m more or less ‘adjusted’ to the extent that is possible in 5 months, or at the very least, I’m in a routine of healthy habits and relationships, but on the other I’m still here for another year and a half and have A LOT to learn. For some reason, I was better at the beginning of all of this at taking things one day at a time and not looking too far down the road. It was probably out of necessity. And it probably is still necessary, or at least very important to maintain that philosophy. So, I guess your picture of me being very tired is not exactly accurate- my life here is much more balanced and even-keeled than it was in college. My commitments are far fewer; I have plenty of time for reflection, exercise, reading, eating healthy, etc., but there is definitely a part of me that thrives on busyness and productivity, so I’m learning how to translate that part of me in a cultural context in which those things are not of high importance.

It sounds counter-intuitive, because I’m living half way around the world from what I have known as home for most of my life, but my world here is drastically smaller than my world at home. It’s kind of paradoxical because my world is simultaneously getting bigger by living in a different culture and experiencing/bearing witness to life in Tanzania, but my life within this culture is much smaller in scope and in someways it feels much less meaningful or important on a day to day basis. My independence is limited (for good/safety-related reasons), my relationships are fewer and very different from friendships at home and my network is much smaller here. I think this is part of what I was lamenting. At home- at any given point in a day I could visit or talk to any number of family members or friends, read a newspaper, go to a movie, museum, park, fitness class, mall, beach, hike, rally, bookstore, coffee shop, restaurant, bar, play, library, lecture, etc. The list could go on ad infinitum, but here, my world is much more limited. I realize that this is part of the solidarity and simple living aspects of this experience, but I guess I just didn’t really anticipate missing the options as much as the people. In some ways this is really important- it’s another way I’m realizing how privileged I am, how choice, and vacation, and entertainment are all privileges which many do not experience, but in other ways it’s just hard to suddenly not have all of those options. 

In yoga, we frequently talk about being in the discomfort of a pose, noticing the places your body is tensing up, the places of strength and flexibility and the places where resistance is strong and stubborn and leaning into those places of resistance when possible, but also just letting your body be as it is without comparing it to another’s or judging yourself too harshly. This is one of those stubborn moments of resistance and even weakness in my thighs and biceps after holding chair pose for the past five months. I need to be more gentle with myself and be more accepting of the moments of weakness, stubbornness and resistance.

I’m learning to do this, but it’s a process. I also could probably seek out more options within this context, be a little bolder, but I guess I also don’t feel like it’s my place to challenge the standard of life. I feel like this is part of what I was called to- to feeling more limited, less powerful, more inadequate, less self-important,  more dependent, more intentional, more reflective and much more uncomfortable. Right now, I’m starting to ease out of this pose and into the next one in the practice, we’ll see where my body and my breath take me and we’ll see which parts of me prove to be more stubborn, less flexible, stronger, or weaker and just accept them and bear witness to the discomfort within and around me.

Love always,

Katie

Oranges

Yesterday was Union Day. Union Day is a Tanzanian holiday commemorating the union of mainland Tanganyika with the island of Zanzibar. It is also a public holiday which means . . . no school! As a student, I did not think the teachers would be as excited for vacation as the students, but on the other side of things now, I realize that they definitely are.  We frequently have responsibilities on Saturdays which require us to come to school for at least a few hours and the rest of the day is usually filled with household chores, and Mass is at either 7:00 or 9:00 on Sunday mornings (and usually two hours long), so when we have an entire day that is free- it is a real treat! 

One of the teachers at Loyola had invited myself and a few other teachers to her home and shamba(small farm) a bit outside the city for the holiday. We didn’t realize quite how far outside the city, or rather how many different dala dalas we’d have to take to finally arrive at our destination, but the afternoon was definitely worth the journey. I don’t know if I’ve fully described our own neighborhood in a blog yet, so I should probably do that as a point of reference. There are many, many beautiful parts of Mabibo, but many of those things are not physical. The area we live in is a crowded combination of concrete, polluted water, mud, dirty air and a variety of smells and sounds. The people are wonderfully kind and the sense of community is palpable, but the aesthetics are raw and harsh. While I do consider myself a ‘city person’, I do also appreciate the opportunity to spend time in nature, whether that’s the beach or the forest. I like a balanced ratio of concrete to earth. Mabibo does not quite provide that balance. So . . . keeping that description in mind, imagine the joy that I experienced yesterday as we journeyed to visit our co-worker and spend the day with her and her family on her 21 acre plot of land chuck full of cashew trees, cows, chickens, turkeys, grass, potatoes, eggplants, hot peppers, maize, pineapple plants, orange, mango and lemon trees, and beautiful vistas all around. Everything we ate at lunch (including the chicken) was from her farm and we enjoyed lunch while listening to an eclectic variety of African and western pop music. We then retired to a table outside under the shade before walking all around the grounds.

The rainy season seems to be coming to an end which has brought a beautiful combination of bearable warmth during the prime of the day and coolness in the afternoon and evening. This change made the tour of her property much more enjoyable as a cool breeze would cut the warmth of the afternoon sun (don’t worry, Mom, I was still wearing SPF 80). I’m pretty confident that I got my recommended daily intake of Vitamin C from the five oranges I ate and picked myself. I learned how cashews grow and why they’re so expensive! I ate things that she picked out of the shamba and handed me and so far I haven’t gotten sick! I smelled fragrant flowers and citrus fruits. We all took pictures and laughed, and shared stories and reminisced about the different places we call home. I really felt like I was part of the Loyola community. When I got back on the squished, rickety, slightly dangerous dala dala and the mama who hopped on while it was still moving with all of her cooking supplies handed me her frying pan to hold, I accepted gladly. I was in a good place with Tanzania. I was refreshed and revitalized without even realizing that I had felt depleted from the monotony of routines and concrete. 

So why are cashews so expensive? It’s quite possible you don’t care. I never really thought too much about this sort of thing either, but it is actually pretty interesting. Well . . . you see, the cashew nut grows from a single apple on the tree, so for each small apple the tree produces, there is just one cashew, which is then collected and roasted before it’s in a consumable state. Yesterday, I got to witness the whole process- we collected, roasted and ate cashews from Madame’s shamba and they were delicious!

This morning I ate one of the oranges I picked yesterday and there was something about the satisfaction of knowing exactly where it had come from that made it one of the most delicious oranges I’ve ever eaten. I guess it could be mind over matter, but it could  also be that this orange actually was more fresh and delicious than ones I ate at home from the supermarket or even the ones I buy from the fruit stand in Mabibo.    

When I was little and summer was coming to an end, I’d start mourning the loss of the beach, being barefoot and the carefree breeziness which shaded those precious months. When this happened, my mom would remind me to keep the memory of whatever that moment was and recall it when we were back in the routine of school, and sports, and plays, and extracurriculars. That’s what vacations are for, after all, for revitalization and renewal so that we can continue to be generous and productive and creative in our work place. That’s why labor unions fought for the weekend and holidays. Happy weekend- do something revitalizing(if only for an hour or two)!

H2O

I think at this point, most people are at least mildly aware of the social justice issues around access to water (if not, it’s likely you have consistent internet access- Google it). For many of us, it’s a given that when we open the faucet or press a button in our kitchen, bathroom, shower, washer machine, dishwasher, toilet, garden hose, etc. water will come forth. It’s that simple.  In most cases, this water is also clean and drinkable. Now, by no means do my community mates and I lack access to water- we are still privileged in this context, but we do have to think much more about our water. We have a water tank in our compound that gets filled with rain water and during dry season by pipes from the city. We then fill buckets from this tank for multiple uses. One bucket stays in the kitchen for dishwashing, cleaning vegetables and boiling and filtering for drinking water. Other buckets get filled for laundry. The dirty water from laundry is then used for flushing the toilets. Other buckets get filled for bathing. Again, remember, we are still privileged in this context. Most of our neighbors do not have a water tank, most of our neighbors have to carry their buckets to communal tanks and pay per bucket of water. So, water is not a given, it is a sacred resource.

Water has a complex identity- it’s necessary, yet commodified; life-giving, yet destructive. Before coming to Tanzania, I intimately witnessed the destructive powers of water as I rummaged through 20 years of summer memories with my brother and dad as we cleaned out our bungalow which had taken on about 3 feet of water in Superstorm Sandy. It was emotionally draining, smelly, and physically exhausting. And we were lucky. We were really lucky. Many others lost everything- all of their memories, not just the summer ones, all of their belongings, not just the beach-themed ones. On Palm Sunday, as we were preparing to leave for retreat, parts of our Luhanga neighborhood and parish experienced the destructive power of water. Rainy season began a few weeks ago and since then we’ve had periods of consistent and heavy rainfall pretty much each day. The river near the parish was quite full already and it couldn’t take any more when the rains poured down for about two hours straight, so it overflowed and flooded the surrounding area. This same area experienced a historically destructive flood last year, thankfully this one was not of the same caliber, but it caused damage nonetheless and as is frequently the case, the poor were the ones most affected. 

Now, I realize this next part might upset some people, I acknowledge that, but I want to challenge you . . . Superstorm Sandy got weeks worth of media coverage. People in Tanzania knew about it; they knew about a storm that was happening thousands of miles away from them in a land in which they could only dream of stepping foot, and yet, this river, right in their backyard floods pretty much every year and destroys homes, schools, businesses and regularly disrupts daily life. Did you know about it? I wouldn’t have. There weren’t any news reporters donned in parkas and galoshes covering the “Great Luhanga Flood” and I’m pretty certain that other small towns and villages throughout the world are regularly affected by these natural disasters which no one hears about. Now, one could argue that this flood was not of the same caliber as Superstorm Sandy, there wasn’t as much at stake, not as much money and resources destroyed, not as much valuable time was lost. In doing so, though, we are neglecting the years of back breaking work that went into accumulating just enough money to secure the small home by the river; we would be placing a value judgment on one person’s life and livelihood over another’s. We are saying, “One person’s time is worth more than another’s. One person’s health and safety is more important than another’s.” Some people might be comfortable with that assessment, but I’m not comfortable with it, it makes my heart break. In being comfortable with that, we’re saying, “Yeah, it’s ok that some people get all of the news coverage, all of the resources, all of the opportunities to create a stable, happy life for their families. They deserve it more than others.” When frequently, not always, but frequently this ‘worthiness’ is determined by an event over which we have absolutely no control- our birth. And the variety of situations into which a baby is born throughout the world varies about as greatly as the possibility of careers I have the opportunity to pursue. I am implicated in this dilemma, we all are, but that implication is cause for hope, not despair, because that means that each one of us is enabled to: 

do something and do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that’s the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. (prayer attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero)

Now, we each just need to figure out the unique way in which we are called to do something.

Just before the flood on Sunday, the congregation of Luhanga Parish raised their palms to be blessed by Holy Water. On Monday evening, I ran to the ocean and instantly felt rejuvenated and closer to home. In September, my nephew was baptized by Holy Water, a symbol of his ‘death to an old life of sin and rebirth in Christ,’ in January my grandfather received his Last Rites and his casket was blessed with Holy Water, a sign of his transition from one life to the next. If we look closely enough- God is in everything, a glass of water, a flood, a birth, a death, a shower, an ocean, a cup of tea.

Updates

A few updates and then reflections to follow:

1. Last Friday marked the end of the first quarter of the school year at Loyola. With the end of the quarter came: final marks, report cards and parent teacher conferences in Swahili (more on that later).

2. Holy Week began on Palm Sunday which our parish celebrated with enthusiasm and a procession into the Church in the rain, through the mud. Last night we had Mass and Adoration for Holy Thursday and today we will go to the parish for Good Friday services, Easter Vigil tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. for many weddings, baptisms, confirmations and first communions . . . it’s known to be even longer, more crowded and definitely hotter than Easter Vigil in the U.S. because of all of these celebrations, but it is also known to be extremely joyous!

3. With the end of the first quarter came an opportunity for rest and relaxation as my community mates and I travelled about an hour away for retreat with the volunteers from Dodoma. This retreat focused on the four values of J.V.C.: social justice, spirituality, simple living and community. Each community planned a session and we held thought-provoking, challenging and affirming conversations on each of those topics, plus a session on current events and life as a woman in Tanzania. The retreat center was run by the Carmelite nuns who were wonderful hostesses. The center was also conveniently located just about a 1 1/2 from the beach which provided great incentive to get up and run each morning as the sun rose and to walk later in the day for sunset. We were also staying about an hour away from Bagamoyo which is a historic town in Tanzania known for its port and its roots in the Eastern slave trade routes. We took a morning to visit the museum and tour Stonetown Bagamoyo.  

4. Overall, things have been going really well for me- I’m growing mentally, emotionally and spiritually each day. It’s strange to not be “working for change” in the same concrete ways I had in college, but right now I’m living in the questions I had been asking for a while as I confront my privilege on a daily basis.