“Don’t disappoint Honduras!” quips Don Obidio whenever he pressures me to visit his integrated farm. As we wind our way down to his isolated farmhouse through his beans, corn, coffee, and fruit trees, he points out a flowering tree that has, he says, mysteriously fallen over several times and miraculously resurrected itself. He’s most proud of his bees, and teases me about being scared of getting stung. “Come over and we’ll get rid of your arthritis!” he chuckles, referring to the curative properties of the bee sting. He’s got 3 types of bee colonies, two of which are stingless, therefore he calls them “your friends”. The highest quality honey is a runny blond serum known for its medicinal properties, said to be good for internal bleeding and eye problems (when dropped directly into the eye). It sells for 6 times the price of regular honey. He tells us about the problem of bee diarrhea, which can shorten a bee’s brief 15-day lifespan significantly. He jokes about taking just enough honey from the bees' storehouse so they won’t get offended and move away. He wants to serve me a dish of pure honey, a delicacy for Hondurans. I just can’t do it, but the Honduran I’m with digs in. Then Don Obidio’s face lights up as he remembers that he was going to show me two certificates he has received from trainings in tourism and bee-keeping, which he has framed and hung on the wall. These dusty prizes are typically treasured here, and often a job applicant will simply take a folder-full of certificates to an interview. The latest of them was from 5 years ago, but his pride is as fresh as if it were yesterday. The light breeze, the warm summer day, and the simple, easy-going humor of this farmer and his family are exactly what I love about Honduras.

1. You wouldn’t dream of writing an agenda for a meeting that didn’t start with “open the meeting”, then “pray to god,” and end with “close meeting.”

2. You feel a weird emptiness when a bus isn’t decked out with at least three of the following: silhouettes of impossibly busty women, bitchy instructions to passengers (“ask for security not speed” and “if you miss the bus it’s not the driver’s fault”), stickers of sinister-looking punk kids or Calvin peeing on something, soccer paraphernalia, the Honduran and American flags, signs deferring blame for accidents to religious figures (“This bus is protected by the blood of Jesus”), stuffed animals, or, my favorite, a sign that says “don’t vomit on the floor.”

3. To avoid getting sick you refuse to bathe after exercising or eating.

4. You chalk all illnesses up to “changes in climate.”

5. A meal without tortillas is like jam without bread.

6. Your bottom lip has taken the place of your index finger as the body part of choice for indicating location.

7. If you’re female, you decide you must look awful today if you pass more than 5 men and don’t get a single catcall.

8. You understand the dirty doble entendres in many of Honduras’s most favorite songs, such as El Gusano (The worm) and Arriba y Abajo (Above and Below).

9. Within seconds, you can identify a song as merenge, salsa, bachata, cumbia, or punta and know how to dance it.

10. You refer to a person with a bachelor’s degree as “el licenciado” (the licensed one.)

11. You carry an umbrella in every season, using it as a parasol for shade on sunny days (I’m never giving this one up!).

12. Upon meeting older women you know, you put your hand on her upper arm and kind of pat her a little.

13. When your tummy aches or you twisted your ankle, you go to someone who can “sobar” you. It’s a special type of massage for the affected area that sometimes requires the use of lard.

14.You can distinguish between the “ch!” noise used to shoo away dogs and the “ch!” noise used to get a pretty girl’s attention and make her fall in love with you.

15. You say things in English like “We realized a capacitation on Friday and it passed tranquilly.”

16. The remedy for a bad smell is to spit on the ground.

17. You have learned to do the dead fish handshake, and no longer crush unsuspecting Honduran mens’ hands when you greet them.

Upon hearing my name, the new Peace Corps Volunteers gushed, “So you’re worm-girl!” As if I were a celebrity super-hero by that name. Unfortunate nickname, right? I’m just glad I haven’t done a latrine project yet.

Our compost worms are happily procreating (assuming that’s an applicable term for hermaphrodites) in their new beds of manure and coffee pulp and tortilla crusts (you didn’t know tortillas had crusts, did you?). We are now embarking on phase 2 of the project: permaculture gardens.

The so-called Green Revolution sprouted in the US in the forties and fifties; newly-developed agrochemicals caused agricultural productivity to soar. One of the most famous of the pesticides from this era is DDT, which was used for malaria-control as well as crop pest-control. Of course, in the US, there has been a strong movement against the use of pesticides, and many of the systemic or “red-tag” pesticides have been banned (aldrin, dieldrin, endosulfan, several organochlorines). Environmentalists have raged against “persistant organic pollutants;” these are organic chemicals that persist in soils, and when ingested, in human fat tissue. The US still manufactures many of the banned pesticides, exports them to poorer countries where restrictions are fewer, and then often buys back the produce. In western highland Honduras, the vast cabbage fields are kept worm-free with frequent sprayings of Tamaron. When a field needs to be cleared in order to plant or if the schoolyard grass is getting too tall, the herbicide Gramoxone (Paraquat) is applied. In some countries, Gramoxone has been used as a chemical weapon, much like tear-gas. The WHO has recommended that Gramoxone be prohibited for its acute poisoning effects.

Now, forgive my tendency to compare everything in Honduras to Tanzania. But in Tanzania, people would boast when their cabbages were organic, and shyly tell you the only way they could get their tomatoes to grow in the wet season was by spraying, and did you still want to buy them? There was at least an awareness about the environmental and health effects of certain pesticides. And they were expensive! In Honduras, I feel that the environmental movement has been born, but is taking its sweet time with its first steps. Coffee is the only product that is widely grown organically.

It is extremely rare to see a farmer with adequate protection spraying his fields at a time when he has determined the weather and wind-direction are prime. More common is to send a teenager in a t-shirt and jeans to spray, and then hang the chemical backpack in the yard where the kids play, dump the chemical container by the river and have the boy's pregnant mother wash the contaminated clothes (soap helps many pesticides penetrate your skin). I’ve heard more than one horror-story of pesticide poisoning from drinking liquids stored in unmarked soda bottles. And who will ever know whether the seemingly high incidence of birth defects and cancer in the area or the fact that almost anyone you talk to is suffering from “bone aches” of some sort are related to long-term exposure to pesticides?

There is a cabbage field just above my town’s water-intake in the buffer zone of the Biological Reserve. I’m working with the water-board to buy land to protect the watershed, but buying up the land in question is a distant dream.

When I embarked on a permaculture garden project with the worm-composting group, I didn’t know what to expect. The group members all claim to know the benefits of an organic garden, and unanimously agreed to grow these family gardens without pesticides (we can’t say the gardens will be completely organic because it’s near impossible to find organic seeds around here). But whenever I’ve visited the plots where people hope to plant, they point out some caterpillars or ants and say, “I’m going to spray those.” Then, checking themselves, they say “Oh, but what can I use, because you said these are supposed to be organic, right?” I feel that they actually doubt it is possible to grow without chemicals, and ask them how their parents grew vegetables.

Organic vegetables aren’t sexy. They are often smaller, paler, spotted and pimply. Growing them isn’t very glamorous either; you may have to withstand more bug-bites, spend more time inspecting vegetables and making natural pesticides, and put up with small yields. Sadly, despite my best efforts to convince them, many members of the group may be growing organic just to humor me. On top of insisting on using several permaculture techniques, a leader of the group and I have lobbied to avoid using hybrid seeds. They have agreed, but grumble about the varieties of carrot, which will have a low germination rate, and won’t grow to be a pound each, like the monster carrots to which they are accustomed in this area.

I miss Tanzania, where the biggest challenge was water (scarcity in the dry season, its brute force in the wet season), men didn’t disdain my farming attempts because of my gender, and the default for growing was always organic.

If I could meet some people from the past, one would have to be 18 Rabbit (695-738 A.D.). He was a Mayan king at the height of a thriving civilization, which was destined to peter out beginning in the 800’s. When the Spanish arrived, in the sixteenth century in Copan, where ruins from the once-great society are found, the indigenous people apparently could not (would not?) tell them anything about the buildings. So, my main question for him would be whether he saw the end coming. Were there signs? Did people think technology would come along to save the day before things got desperate? Did he think his was the most powerful nation in the world? Did everyone just think the civilization would bubble happily along, only to be squelched along with the rest of the world on Dec. 23, 2012?

I also like him because, according to our guide at Copan Ruinas, 18 Rabbit broke with tradition and put an end to the practice of tearing everything down and rebuilding every 52 years. Some little voice inside of him might have whispered, “there’s got to be a more efficient way to do this.”

It is really amazing to walk around the ruins and see sculptures of the gods, temples, and nobles’ quarters and the statues of cross-eyed kings. (The kings were depicted as cross-eyed, as this was a major mark of beauty. Our guide said they even placed pendulums so they would touch babies’ heads and cause their pupils to cross.) A successor of 18 Rabbit, Smoke Shell, built a gigantic staircase/bible, which deteriorated enough that it hasn’t been deciphered. It’s still really impressive.

Apparently the Mayan’s invented a sacred ball game that was the precursor to soccer, but with a couple of twists. The main one is that the MVP was sacrificed to the gods (in your face Darwin! Looks like mortality of the fittest).

So what happened to the Mayans of Honduras? They didn’t just disappear completely. Their descendents are known as the Maya Chortí. Tourists visiting the ruins of Copan may not be aware of their presence in the region, but the reality is they are in a long, intense battle for land the government promised them in the 1990’s. Chortí groups do not receive any benefits from the profits made at the ruins of their ancestors; instead these funds are destined for support of other protected areas of Honduras. From my own experience, racism against the Chortí is rampant, and their attempts at taking over the Ruins in the past to demand the land they are owed has resulted in brutal police retaliation. A major Chortí leader, Cándido Amador, was murdered in 1997, allegedly by local land-owners (*Chandler & Prado, 2006). Several government employees, in charge of working with local groups, have told me of the existence of many groups registered as Chortí who are taking advantage of the label to tap government funds. Due to stigma, many who are probably of Chortí heritage do not openly identify with the tribe. It’s a complicated problem.

One thing that needs to change is the racism. One person at a time, I’m fighting the custom to use the word “indio” as an insult, which essentially equates “indigenous” to “uneducated” or “backward”. A lot more needs to be done; maybe if enough tourists realize the injustice of the system, something can be done.

*Chandler, Gary and Lisa Prado. Honduras & the Bay Islands. Lonely Planet. 2006

Here is the link to NY/Help's report from their Honduras trip in August.

http://www.ny-helphonduras.org/2009-Aug-trip-rpt-1109.htm

Also see my post from August 10 - Earwax and Bear Hugs.

On Monday I had a meeting for what my host mom calls “cooking with garbage.” Technically it’s called a biodigestor, a giant bladder filled with a slurry of organic waste, from which methane is harvested for cooking. I am waiting for funding to come through for the first biodigestor in the region.

On Sunday I met with a group interested in starting forage banks and stables for their cattle; many of the hillsides in the area resemble grassy bleachers as a result of compaction from the repeated passing of skeletal livestock in search of food. If the project works out, it will be the first project I’ve committed to in which none of the beneficiaries can read or write. The project aims to help the farmers raise healthier animals with less daily work, provide more vegetative cover in this important watershed, and make it easier to collect fertilizer.

That afternoon I met with my worm-composting/organic garden group to organize the building of compost receptacles. The compost is excellent, but even more lucrative is the business of selling worms; they go for a handsome $25 per kilo.

On Saturday I coordinated a day hike with 13 high-school students to the micro-watershed that supplies them with water and to do a mini-study on the trees in the area. 15-year-old girls amaze me the same way mountain goats impress me; they are sure-footed on even the most challenging of rocky or muddy mountainous slopes, despite insisting on wearing strappy fashion sandals. Their communications also amaze me in the same way the Khoisan languages impress me; instead of a dialect riddled with clicks, it’s punctuated with goose-bump-raising shrieks.

On Friday I helped lead a group of high school students to the Biological Reserve to teach them about map-reading, acquaint them with the reserve, immerse them in mud, and orient them for the model-biological-reserve competition coordinated by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. The kids were happy to be tuckered out at the end of the trip, but the next day one of the teachers wrote me a message saying “Girl! Everything hurts down to my fingernails!”

On Thursday I traipsed around a part of the reserve I hadn’t yet been to with the forest rangers, exploring options on where to put a trail in the reserve’s buffer zone. We were charged by some bulls, who had been happily grazing in the part of the reserve where all agriculture is prohibited. Luckily, one of the forest rangers is somewhat of a cow-whisperer, and knew they were bluffing. We passed through fields being burned in order to plant cabbage, and entered the forest, coming upon the delicate tracks of a young white-tailed deer (which is endangered in this part of the world).

On Wednesday I worked on an environmental education grant with a local teacher and got myself involved in a baseline study for a latrine project the municipality hopes to carry out (or to put it bluntly: I have to go around and ask everyone if they have toilets or if they poop on the ground). I am bewildered by the prevalence of this problem; as far as I know in Tanzania, even the poorest households would dig a hole and raise a wall of dry grass to deal with their necessities. Here, there are entire communities where latrine culture hasn’t caught on. I made the rounds to see the results of a latrine project carried out 3 months ago, and one woman was using hers for a doghouse. She kept referring to the latrine as “este animal,” or “this animal,” and saying how she just wasn’t used to it.

On Tuesday I taught an agroforestry workshop to women from a flower-growing micro-enterprise. The group is one of two flower-growing groups I work with; attempting to help their businesses become more sustainable by incorporating trees strategically into their fields, composting, and experimenting with integrated pest management techniques.

My work isn’t always this varied and exciting; I left out some days in which I get to do the mundane stuff (scaling cliffs to rescue endangered wildlife, saving babies from burning buildings and abandoned mine-shafts, high-speed car chases to escape corrupt police, etc.).

When you’re covered in a tiny 83-year-old Honduran woman’s earwax, it can really make you think. The wax is probably older than you; the woman probably started to go deaf from the buildup before you were even born. You hope that just continuing to flush the ear with a giant syringe of warm water (which occasionally jettisons the waxy-water out onto your clothes) will excavate enough gunk to let her hear things that aren’t shouted in her face. And you marvel at how you ended up in such a random situation.

Medical brigades encompass all types of short-term medical relief, from high-tech lab-equipped groups of 10 or more doctors who rush through patients at high-speed, to simple primary care brigades of 1 or 2 doctors who take their time with each patient. I just returned from a week of translating for the latter type of brigade, which is how I met said sweet, deaf, 80-pound great-grandma. The doctor snapped a picture of us, and the woman may have been partially blind as well, as she asked which one of us was which.

The brigade was up in the pine-forested mountains where people make their livings from corn and bean-farming, lack electricity, cook on open fires in their mud-walled houses, and often haul their own water and lack latrines. The majority of older patients seen were illiterate, and some didn’t know how old they were. Many people walked for 3 or 4 hours to get to the brigade, in order to tell us that walking makes them feel weak and achy. It’s much closer to the way of life in my village in Tanzania than to what I’ve seen so far in Honduras.

The majority of patients complain of chronic headaches, backaches, and weakness, while making swirling gestures around their bodies. It is rarely simple to root out the problem, except when the answer to the question of how many cups of coffee one drinks per day is “about ten.” I also got to see a quick-fix of back problems from a misaligned spine; solved in 3 seconds by the doctor with a bear-hug. Other common diagnoses were urinary infections, high blood pressure, and arthritis.

The brigade I went to is run by an organization called New York Help, which comes down twice a year. Information on how to be a volunteer can be found at http://www.ny-helphonduras.org/, and a report of this brigade will soon be posted there with pictures.

I’ve never officially done any translating before, and I was afraid it would be difficult. It turns out that it comes pretty naturally, the only problem being that at the end of the work day I have a hard time snapping out of it; when playing cards or chatting I still absent-mindedly parrot everyone in another language.

I got back from a morning run to find my host family wide-eyed and listening to the car radio at full blast. The occasion? The power was out and the president had been whisked away from his mansion in his pajamas by the army. “There has been a coup,” my host mom said, smiling as she does whenever she delivers news, good or terrible.

Like many of you, I have never been in a small isolated community in a developing country when a military coup is taking place. There is a cloud of confusion, and an ever-increasing tangle of rumors.

Ever since the now-exiled president announced his plans for the “cuarta urna,” this confusion has predominated. The streets were abuzz with opinions, but few people here could actually explain what a “cuarta urna” was. Many thought it literally meant the extension of presidential term-limits, when in reality it referred to a proposed formation of a general assembly which would have the power to change the constitution and possibly increase presidential term-limits. It was the president's unpopular push for the "cuarta urna" that eventually led to his removal from the country. BBC news has a good explanation of these events if you're really interested.

Other than a lot of interesting conversation (among the supporters of the different sides) and a slight feel of anxiety, my little community remains unaffected by the current political situation. We are all simply hoping that in the coming days events occur peacefully.

Click on the title above for a link to information on the contest.

I was one of the finalists in this story contest. Click here for my submission.

The road less traveled

Giant oaks all dressed up in red and green epiphytes hover over a graveyard of their ancestors in various stages of decay. Everything in the cloud forest is green and slippery with different species of moss. Young vines stretch up out of the ground, seeking a host. Mushrooms poke their vulnerable heads out of a blanket of damp leaves. This is a comfortable forest; you could bed down on some sphagnum moss for a nap.

Never before have my arms ached after a hike. That’s what happens when you set off up a steep trail-less mountain led by a former soldier, and a handful of fit farmers and park rangers. We ventured into the Erapuca Wildlife Refuge, first winding through pastureland, then young regenerating forest, and dodging hidden holes and scaling steep mucky slopes in the older cloud forest. We wound through the “midget forest” where you have to crouch to get through the maze of lichen-draped trees, stopping a few times to motivate those in our party who didn’t want to go on. We finally emerged above the clouds to a view of the whole valley and a lunch of veggies and pasta that tasted like pure bliss in Tupperware. Then we monkeyed our way down, swinging on the reliable trunks and slipping on the misleading terrain back to the truck. I’m left with good memories, complaining muscles, a pound of forest mud in my clothes, a bottle-full of mountain spring water, an urge to sleep for three days, and a bottomless hunger. This is my first trip to this wildlife refuge, and many who are working to manage it have never entered. It is nice to know what we’re trying to protect.

Ranchera Mornings

It’s another bouncing ranchera music morning in my kitchen, complete with sugary coffee and pale tortillas streaked with black patterns from being warmed on the crackling fire. It’s another morning of gathering the machetes, the donkey and the hoes to be taken out to the farm. It’s my host mother sternly, lovingly calling people in from morning chores to take their turns fueling up for the day’s work.

It’s her low “let’s just keep this between you and me” voice, confiding in me about worries with her family, health troubles, the latest news on the disappearance of the town’s token insane woman.

It’s my gentle old host father and his brother unraveling the secrets of the coffee farms and Honduran politics for me, celebrating the outcome of yesterday’s soccer game, reminding me proudly that Spanish has at least three different words for every object. It’s my host brother and his son hauling in red buckets of milk to be turned into four different types of cream and cheese. It’s the 2-year-old, seeing me with my backpack, asking me if I’m going off to kindergarten.

Through it all it’s the classic old-timey Mexican ranchera soundtrack on the radio which seems to have been written to accompany just this type of morning.

The World Needs More Weird People

Let’s take a putrid-smelling liquid from cow intestines and mix it into some perfectly good milk. Let’s take some ripe-looking berries, remove the fruit from the seed, dry them, pound them to remove the remaining skin, roast them, grind them up, boil them in water, and, after all that, throw them away. Let’s take some sedimentary rocks and chuck them in the pot with the dry corn to boil. Thanks to some weirdos a long time ago, we now have cheese, coffee, and tortilla flour. So if you get the urge to stir hair clippings into your oatmeal, or fry up your toothpaste with seeds of baby African-Violets, I say go for it! I’m sure when someone suggested grinding up horse bones and adding sugar, the last thing his friends were expecting was to be served Jell-o. We need to encourage creativity. Creativity, and the acquisition of very gullible sidekicks who will ingest or slather on your products.

If your invention doesn’t end up being appealing enough to make it in mainstream Western society, there’s always a market for witch-doctor potions, as long as they are backed up with a couple of convincing anecdotes. “That woman you saw walk out was here just last week with a similar rash, but after 12 bowls of this oatmeal (only $13.95 each) they disappeared in a flash! Of course she had to come back for a special follow-up hairball treatment, but doesn’t her skin just shine?” You can also demand livestock for payment if you like—you will seem more authentic. And if your cures don’t work, of course you can just shake your head and say you’re onto the person, and he’d best leave and never come back or you’ll tell his neighbors the truth about him (he’s a witch).

That was just a little bit of advice inspired by being involved in the bizarre processes that produce my food in Honduras, and witch-doctor mentality I encountered in Tanzania.

Honduran History; the Untold Story

Honduras is the little rumpled-underwear-shaped country in Central America with El Salvador and Guatemala sticking out the western leg-hole, and the fat thigh of Nicaragua stuffed in the other.

The piece of land that is Honduras and Nicaragua didn’t finish swinging into its current place until 22 million years ago—pretty recently. While the continents were bumping around the globe, getting acquainted at the geological party known as Pangea, Honduras wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. While the dinosaurs were roaming around, the pre-Honduras chunk of land was hanging out in southern Mexico (can you blame it?), and slowly broke away and rotated into place, all the while acquiring some sedimentary deposits that would come in very handy later on. It’s these deposits that make Honduras the proud owner of cement, ice cream, sheet rock, tortillas, pesticides and caves. Let me explain.

Shallow seas covered the pre-Honduras piece of land during the Cretaceous up until about 90 million years ago, very conveniently depositing evaporites like gypsum and limestone. Gypsum is added to ice cream for texture or something like that, and is the main ingredient in everyone’s favorite building material, gypsum board.

Lime is used for everything here: throw it in with corn and it dissolves the outer bran (so it can be used for tortillas), it’s painted on the bases of trees to prevent certain pests, and sprinkled on your farm it raises the pH of your soil. Limestone also dissolves readily in water which results in some awesome caves.

Throughout history, there has been a lot of pushing and shoving of different plates in Central America, which continues today. And this type of tension tends to produce faults and volcanoes. Honduras doesn’t currently have any active volcanoes, but it’s not jealous of its neighbors and their smoking mountain-tops because it has a bunch of mountains, a lake and some hot springs. But holy cow, 19 million years ago there was all kinds of volcanic action in Honduras which covered the eastern part with ash. This is responsible for the abundance of exfoliation-stones that make this great country what it is today. The most dramatic part of the national anthem brags about a volcano, but I think it just fits in the song better than the word lake.

Stay tuned for more exciting installments of Honduran history, the untold story…

If you’ve never lived in a hot, humid climate…

There are a few things you should know.

1. You may think you are eating alone, but really, hoards of ants are watching every bite you take. If you leave so much as a morsel of food or a molecule of sugar lying around, they and all their buddies will arrive on scene immediately, having activated the same mysterious system that makes sure your entire college campus knows the instant someone even thinks about throwing a kegger. I guess the Alaskan insects are uncoordinated and stingy by comparison… I grew up leaving cereal and cracker boxes open; if an ant ever did find them, he’d probably feel like he’d won the lottery. But he wouldn’t share, and he’d probably eat just enough to get a tummy-ache.

2. Your clothes and shoes are harboring a tiny odor-causing ecosystem, ready to wreak havoc on your nostrils when the temperature rises. A pair of shoes that you wore running only at -40 degrees, fooling you into thinking it was harmless, suddenly blossoms into a stunner of a stink-bomb with the 120F degree difference.

3. The people who live in these humid climates have magical sweat glands that they can close, much like their eyelids, on special occasions for which one is not supposed to sweat (conferences, festivals, TV appearances and dances). If you have not grown up here, chances are you haven’t mastered sweat-gland-control techniques. This could earn you some unpleasant nicknames.

4. If you have never lived in such a climate, you may reach a temperature in which you are no longer able to function coherently. You may become disgusted by the thought of interacting with people, even really attractive ones. People won’t take pity on you, or even understand you when you tell them that you’ve been denatured. They will look at your sweaty hair in disgust and tell you to get back to work. Worst of all they will remember everything you say as if it were said by a sane, sober person. Best to hide in your house until night-time.

5. People will tell you that you shouldn’t do certain temperature-related things, like get caught in the rain, drink cold things in the morning, or take a shower after exercising. You will scoff at them, and then promptly come down with whatever disease they said you would get. It may be karma, or it may be science.

6. Alaska has no snakes, but hot places generally do. And because indoor and outdoor temperature is the same, wildlife likes to waltz in like it owns the place. This is fine when it’s something cute and cuddly, or inherently cool, like a frog, but when a snake is doing the waltzing it’s not so great. People are supposed to have an innate fear of snakes, which makes them react even to something long and coiled that only remotely resembles the shape of a snake. You may have lost some of this reaction due to lack of use, which could be dangerous. Try having a friend place some shoelaces or hoses in different places around your house and practice shrieking with fright every time you see them.

In summary, in order to fit in when you find yourselves in steamy weather, you should probably practice obsessive cleaning, refrain from showering after exercising, keep your shoes in the freezer, and hide in your house while learning to blink your sweat-glands and screaming at your shoelaces. Otherwise people will think you are a freak.

Dear Every Sixth Man on the Street,

I know I’ve been playing hard to get, but I finally want to tell you how it touches me every time you shout sweet nothings at me as I walk by. It must have been love at first sight. How do I know? Well, it could have been the way our eyes met. Or it could have been the way you called out “I love you, little gringa” from 50 meters away from the back of a pickup that was pulling away on that first encounter. I wasn’t totally convinced, until, after calling my attention with a sound that doubles as a dog-shooing command, you said “what a beautiful little thing you are.” The originality of it just gets me you know? Every time. I know that every time you toss a “Beautiful little doll!” my direction, what you’re really saying is “I respect you for your mind.” And when you told me I looked pretty, well, that’s probably the moment I began to suspect we were meant for each other. I’ve got to say I was a bit confused at first as to who you were in love with, because you said “Hello babies” and “My loves” a few times when I was walking with my friends, but I knew you really just meant me. And of course I was SO impressed that you said it in English… I never imagined you knew English! By the way I’m sure your wife really doesn’t suspect anything when you make those kissing noises and call “Come here, my precious!” at me from your doorway while she’s washing your clothes. I have to say it wasn’t until the day you pulled up your shirt and inserted your ring-finger right into your belly-button that I knew I was smitten. And that thing with the eyebrows? Others might call it creepy, but I think it’s really one of your best attributes.

I know others probably don’t understand the depth of our complicated relationship, or might argue that you’re old enough to be my grandfather/use 2 pounds too much hair grease/view me as an object, but please just let me know how we can take it to the next level.

Love always,

Gringita preciosa

*Note: The majority of Honduran men I actually know are wonderful, bright, respectful people who are disgusted or at least amused by the actions of their peers.

Lessons I Missed

I kind of skipped kindergarten. But from what I'm told, they teach you that "sharing is caring". Hondurans are catching me up with what I missed.

Almost every day, a kid will come up to me and hand me a piece of candy, or an old man waiting for the bus will give me some bubble-gum. A neighbor will come over to give me some cucumbers or tomatoes, or a stranger will offer to pay for my internet time.

It's nice. I'm getting into the habit. But don't expect me to keep it up once I'm back in the States.

Cage of Gold

The itch must be terrible. Every day Central Americans are bombarded with the same message from the media and their peers, "The US is a paradise. Money flutters around; if you can just get there, it will fall into your hands." I imagine the idea seeps into their subconscious. It's tough to think of anything but the United Moneybags of America. Central America starts to look like some form of hell compared to the shiny pictures in their heads.

A shaggy man in a cube-truck gives me a ride and explains his plans to go to America. This job pays the bills, but to him it's not enough. He's going as a mojado, he says, using a term for illegal immigrants referring to being wet from crossing the Rio Grande. He knows the dangers; he's been to the states before. He has relatives there who are earning far more than they could in Honduras. I ask: will he go with a coyote? These are the people who will take a large chunk of your savings in exchange for smuggling you all or part of the way north. He crinkles his nose and shakes his head; he's just going to ride trains. I swallow.

He knows the danger. Train-top riders risk amputation from falls, discovery by officials who take all they have and/or send them home, violent gang-members who beat them and take their belongings and leave them to die, starvation and dehydration. The journey can take months, and require you to stop and earn money for survival. Just riding the trains is treacherous, clinging to the tops of the trains despite exhaustion, anticipating branches and thugs and la migra, migration police. Many are jailed in Mexico until their families can raise the money to get them out.

In training I helped some workers on a farm stringing up tomatoes. Soon after, they decided to try and make it to the states, but called from a Mexican jail.

I've heard so many stories of people whose family members are in the states. A few are building the lives they dreamed of, but many who made it are still struggling in a strange place. So many promise their wives or kids they will be back in a year or two, once they've made enough money, but end up stuck in a cycle of earning and spending that never lets them get ahead. Julieta Venegas has a catchy song about a family of illegal Mexican immigrants in the US in which she declares that golden bars don't mean it's not a prison.

The stories that stick in my mind are of those who failed. The truck-driver remembers the stories of glory and riches. It rings of the prospectors in my hometown, Fairbanks Alaska, during the gold rush. Just a few success stories are enough to keep the people flowing.

I can understand poor urban-dwellers who own no land and see no hope of getting a good job when they are allured by the promise of the US. But the driver of the cube truck is doing well for himself; he has a lot to lose. I ask if he has any kids. A boy, he says. I try to convince him that being there for his kid is much more important now than sending him money.

I feel the familiar ache of guilt, simply for being from circumstances most of the rest of the world envies. The ride ends and I wave 20 lempiras his way, about $1, but he won't accept it. I thank him, wish him good luck, and swing down out of his rig. I just hope on his trip people will be this generous to him.

Another man who pulls his tired trap to the side of the road to offer me a ride turns out to be a (self-proclaimed) legend. He is a coyote. According to him, he is a hero in his community for the money he has donated, all of which he has made from this lucrative secretive business. He's enigmatic; he seems almost benevolent but not quite, almost slimy but not quite. I restrain myself to keep from asking the hundred questions swirling through my mind. I want to know how he smuggles people, how much it costs, how many people he takes each year, how did he get into the business, just how dark is this business, what's his success rate, etc. Instead I nervously answer questions about the fiancé I have just invented. As I clamber out of the beater, I thank him and hope out loud we shall meet again, and hope inwardly I'll get to grill him with all my questions next time.

Creepy, Sketchy, Slimy, Cute: Thoughts on a visit to AmericaWould you spend money on nothing? It is considered normal in America for people to spend money on nothing, or rather less than nothing. I think most of the world’s other 6.7 billion inhabitants would think it’s crazy to pay someone to help them lose something. But Americans spend money on diets, personal trainers, diet pills, liposuction and magic foods that trick your body into thinking its ingesting more than it actually is. My friends in Tanzania would beg me to tell them how they could get fat. They don’t see any point in expending energy on something that’s not purely entertaining or doesn’t benefit their survival. Forcing yourself to do an activity that will land you in the same place you started without having acquired something seems an act of insanity. On my daily runs, people would ask me “what are you running from?” I might point to some cows or goats in the distance, and they’d laugh, still confused. Maybe, in order to fit in with the rest of the world, we’d be better off paying someone to convince us that it’s okay not to be skinny.

Creepy, sketchy, slimy, menace, hilarious, holy cow, freak and cute are wonderful words in English that just don’t quite translate into Swahili or Spanish. I’m really enjoying using them.

Americans tend to think they should be able to eat whatever they want whenever they want (but I think this is changing), and it should be seedless and boneless. There’s not much thought put into what is in season (at least in Alaska, but right now in Alaska it’s snow season, so maybe we’re excused). If a recipe calls for leeks, we don’t try and figure out if it’s leek season (in fact, we don’t even really need to know what a leek is), we just go to the store. Expiration dates seem like distant threats due to refrigeration. Grapes naturally have seeds, chickens have bones, but we don’t have time to pick those things out, so we buy previously de-boned poultry and fruits bred not to produce seeds. We don’t expect that there are plants that naturally produce non-fertile ovaries or boneless chickens flopping around somewhere, but we don’t associate our food much with the real world. In contrast, most people of developing countries eat fresh corn when it’s ready or avocados when they’re in season, and they acquire it in small amounts or preserve it so that refrigeration is unnecessary. They’d look skeptically at any food that was too blue or too perfectly round, wondering how it was made and if it was truly edible.

Hot showers are pure rapture. In both Tanzania and Honduras, only senior citizens indulge in hot water, and youth are expected to chatter through freezing baths.

Some Americans do Tai Chi, some play the jaw harp, some practice Voodoo, some collect rare teddy-bears, some run ultra-marathons, some hate road salt, some knit, some read Kafka, some break-dance… in short there is so much diversity of tastes, and it seems most Americans are relatively open to new experiences. My family here loves ugali from Tanzania, Honduras-style tortillas, and Canadian music (I’m still working on broadening their musical tastes).

Americans tend to rely on a cocoon of complicated things they have no hope of understanding or controlling. In Tanzania there wasn’t a thing in my house that I didn’t understand, and most things could be fixed with some cement or bricks. Village households are their own simple self-sufficient entities, built from the ground up by their owners. In my parents’ house in Alaska, the number of objects I couldn’t fix if they broke is probably a 3 digit number. In the winter in Alaska, power-outages are a matter of survival for many people. People don’t understand their plumbing, televisions, electrical wiring, cars and sewage tanks and must freak out when they break. If the experts or companies in these areas all disappeared or decided they hated you, you would be in deep yoghurt (as my Dad would say). If I am ever one of the few survivors from a monster-virus that wipes out 90% of the world, I’m headed to rural Tanzania, where life won’t be that different.

Freedom of the press is a wonderful thing. I’ve been enjoying SNL and Capital Steps skits which shamelessly mock even our most mavericky political leaders. Sure this freedom is relative, but comedians in other countries must sit on their hands even when someone with the speech-making skills of G W Bush rises to power. Imagine that.

You might be drinking coffee I picked

If, for some reason, you are ever forced to choose to do some sort of manual farm labor, I highly recommend coffee-picking. The fact that coffee farms (well, the good ones) are tucked under a mix of timber and fruit trees makes them pleasant to work on, especially for the wildlife that you won’t find in the typical farm field. Iridescent blue, orange, lime-green and yellow birds, whose names I only know in colloquial Spanish, flit overhead. The coffee itself is beautiful: bright yellow or crimson with dark green leaves. Typically in this season families go out to the farm together and pick the day away, building a fire at midday to heat their tortillas.

I was lucky enough to engage in very fulfilling intellectual conversations with my good 8 and 10-year-old-friends… “I say Gail in jail!”, “I say Nicolle in jail!”, “I say Veronica in jail, singing and dancing!” “I say Nicolle in jail, telling a joke!” and so on.

Most adults picked 3 or 3.5 buckets full of coffee. The kids picked a half or one bucket-full. I was a happy medium with 2 buckets-full. Each bucket picked will earn you $1. It’s not a great way to make a living (although I’ve heard of people who have been able to pick 20 buckets worth in a day), but it’s a nice way to pass the day if you have good company.

For me, it’s interesting to wonder who’ll end up drinking this coffee that I picked. Could he identify a coffee shrub in a line-up? Does he know where Honduras is?

The dreaded grocery-store synopsis

I’m finally going home for a visit, after 2 ½ years of Peace Corpsing. I am so excited I can’t sleep through the night. I think of all the friends and family I haven’t seen, and how incredible it will be to reconnect with them. Of course thoughts of eating bagels with salmon and going skiing bring a smile to my face as well. But I’m also filled with a dull sense of dread.

What I’m scared of isn’t the commercialism or the advances in technology or the development in my home town or my long-time friends who have joined cults or dinner clubs or become nudists or Republicans, although these things make me uneasy. I’m scared of the grocery-store.

I’m worried about all those people I’m going to run into in Fred Meyer who will ask me how “Africa” or “Tanzania” or “the Peace Corps” was. These people are asking the only appropriate thing there is to ask, fulfilling their curiosity and their duty to ask. But I’m sure they won’t realize that it would be easier for me to give a synopsis of War and Peace in 2 minutes (although I haven’t read it) than try to give a meaningful statement about my Peace Corps experience in the unspoken time limit. I’m scared of leaving these people with a generic or inarticulate or gushingly-positive or unnecessarily negative report. I think the only true thing I can say about it so far is that it has been incredibly . . . . . I’m sorry, just one sec, I should really get this. Hello? Right, just a minute. . . . I’m really sorry, that was my Mom, and she really needs me to go, we’ll catch up some other time, ok?

Party in the Dark

When you feel like the world is plagued with hypocrisy, greed, and evil, sometimes the only medicine is a little girl bringing you flowers. The community I live in boasts a high proportion of kids who are sweet to the bone.

The other night I was about to head off to teach English when the power flickered off. Thinking of how hard it would be to teach by candle-light (and admittedly how delicious it would be to stay in and read by candle-light), I headed to the school to cancel the class. I thought I was going insane when I heard voices coming from inside the classroom, which was locked from the outside.

The kids had spent all afternoon decorating the classroom, arranging refreshments, and locking themselves inside in order to orchestrate a surprise birthday party for me. The lights went out just after they were locked in. The little ones cried, but soon were mollified. I was rushed in to have a confetti-filled balloon popped over my head while they sang (in perfect English, yay!) Happy Birthday. We ate chips, drank Pepsi and played musical chairs, telephone and tug-of-war by candle-light. There hasn´t been that much shouting, laughing, screaming and even crying (inevitable when little kids play games) at my birthday party for at least a year... maybe 15.

These kids know just the remedy for feeling like you’re getting old.

Who wants pudding?

You would think these kids were lining up for free chocolate pudding, the way they get to class before me and push as I unlock the gate. It seems unnatural for children to be so excited about an evening English class. Then it’s such a mad rush for seats in the cotton-candy pink classroom that I’m scared someone will hurt himself in the chaos. These kids are, in some ways, opposite of my Tanzanian students. They are loud and bossy and outspoken and curious and they have no fear. I, on the other hand, am terrified.

I saw from the very first class how much energy they had, and I wanted to go home and crawl under the bed. I somehow got a harness on the class. Not only are they rowdy and hyper, but they can be respectful, polite, and focused.

After about a month they have learned their numbers, simple greetings, personal pronouns, days of the week, months, foods, and a handful of verbs. But they have learned also that whoever invented English was trying to play an evil trick on the world: you have to learn 2 languages in 1. You have to know that to write what sounds like “naym” you must write “name”. They learned this disappointment early on, and are coming to grips with it.

Kids know that teachers don’t like games. A teacher LOVES to give boring homework, make you repeat things a thousand times, and write, write, write. You must pry the games out of a teacher, usually by begging, whining, or making really cute pouty puppy-dog faces. As a last resort, you have to behave really, really well. My kids have tried all this, and assume it is by some amazing coercive powers on their part that we end up playing a game or two every day. My secret is that I actually enjoy having them play games, but I can’t admit it! If they find out, I’m done for.

But these kids are thirsty for education. Their teachers spend most of the time either on strike or in workshops so that they’ll be better teachers. Meaning that Honduras may have some super-trained teachers, but the kids never SEE them. Strange strategy. Last year, I’m told Honduran school kids missed 100 days of school, and that’s not including when their teachers just didn’t show up for personal reasons.

BYOB

If you walked into the room, you’d think that you were at a cocktail party (well, one in which the alcohol hasn’t arrived yet). People are milling around, talking on cell phones, munching on snacks and hitting on each other. But no, this is a typical official meeting here. It started an hour late, most everyone listened to the first bit, but then a snack arrived, and it was as if someone held up a crystal, scattering peoples’ focus points in a million different directions. People wander in and out, talk over one another, and wonder if we’re getting free lunch.

I’m not exaggerating. A man raised his hand after coming in late to the meeting, and apparently desperately needed to hear the sound of his own voice. This agitated another man who was also, apparently on the verge of cardiac arrest if he didn’t hear the sound of his own voice. Man #1 began to speak of his background on environmental issues, very, very passionately. But his phone rang. He answered warmly, then asked who was calling him. Meanwhile the other man had grasped some tiny controversial thread of the first man’s rant, and was running with it, triumphant to have the podium. Man #1 continued talking on his phone, but kept nodding and smiling at Man #2 as if he could actually possibly be listening to him at the same time. While Man #2 seemed as if he might be reaching what could possibly resemble a point, a secretary came in to deliver him a cinnamon roll. This caused him to forget that he was in the middle of a very important point, and thrust the roll in my face because he had gotten it especially for me because I was, apparently, very beautiful. I tried to decline, but he was getting louder and pushier, and I had no choice. Then, as he tried to glean my political stance on Obama vs. McCain, I luckily had my mouth full and was unable to reply, so he struck up the conversation with someone else. Soon, everyone besides the presentation-giver had had enough, and were apparently all out of passionate rants that had nothing to do with the topic. The meeting, as usual, disintegrated bit by bit, like a napkin in a bucket of water.

That was a slightly extreme case. But I have never been in a meeting with more than 1 other person here that doesn’t have the same feel to it. I need to get used to it, or it will drive me batty. I think Americans spend too much time glued to their seats come hell or cinnamon rolls during boring meetings. Looking on the bright side, at least here it’s ok to mix it up with a little refreshment, a little political chit-chat, and a little inappropriate flirtation.

Mine!

This weekend I hiked to the largest waterfall I’ve seen in my life. It is in the reserve, and the hike there requires passing coffee farms, abandoned gypsum and gold mines, and splashing from one side of the river to the other more times than I could count. It was a beautiful hike, and amazing to see the mining tunnels built over 70 years ago.

Recently residents of this area organized a protest that stopped international traffic on the highway. It was to prohibit a Canadian gypsum-mining company from entering the reserve, while the president of Honduras had given the go ahead. This is pretty amazing, and shows the power and the will of the people in this zone.

A Little Bit of Ugly

The man was well-dressed and attractive. After first handing out carsick bags to the rows of passengers on the bus and quoting raucously from several parts of the bible, he unbuttoned his shirt, causing his audience to draw a collective gasp. We were given a glimpse of his well-toned abs, with a gruesome picture that barely registered in my mind due to the chilling words “Mara Salvatrucha” inked across them in rolling blue script. Mara Salvatrucha is one of the biggest and most ruthless gangs in Central America; supposedly the only way to leave it is to switch gangs or to die. The gang originated in Los Angeles with Salvadoran immigrants in the 80’s. As they were deported, the gangs took root in Central American countries, becoming highly involved in drugs and armed theft. One of Honduras’s heavy-handed former presidents took a stab at crime; among other things making it illegal to have any sort of tattoos and over-stuffing the jails with anyone remotely associated with the gang activity, though these days the gangs are still thriving.

This man said he had found God and renounced his former lifestyle, and was asking our help with building a rehabilitation center for former gang-members. Many of those on the bus were touched enough to hand him a few bills.

This is the second testimonial I’ve witnessed in Honduras by a former gang member. The other was a friend of a friend, who grew up neglected in a poor neighborhood, where drugs were hawked like candy on the playground. Soon his only friend was crack, his allies solely pawns in getting more of it. Unspeakable crimes were the only way to feed the addiction. As he was on the brink of death, a mere skeleton sleeping in the streets, using all his stolen money on drugs, passing in and out of consciousness, his mother returned from the US and forced him into an intensive rehabilitation program. We saw him a year after “graduating,” clean and healthy-looking, praising God for saving him. I just hope it sticks.

Can Someone Just Fill Me in Please?

After a month at my site, I'm slowly getting some idea of what I dove into, what my role here is. I've come into the middle of the movie. I have to keep asking people what’s happened, and they just kind of want me to hush so they can focus on what's going on. I get filled in on bits and pieces, but the story gets jumbled, and I generally feel like I'm just pestering them.

This is what I've figured out: I'm in charge of a small but jolly crew of park rangers, I’m supposed to support a group of women flower-growers, collaborate on a project with honey-water-disposal (nothing to do with honey, it’s coffee waste) in the buffer zone, and try and bring an organic compost project back from the dead, among other things. It's not horribly glamorous, but it's busy and interesting.

Maize Again?

I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the event of the year in my municipality: the annual Festival del Maiz. It could have been a parade in any small town in the US. There were marching bands complete with tasseled caps and baton-twirlers, dancing horses and imitation N'Sync backup dancers. The floats were adorned with maize products and frowning girls perched atop wearing costumes their mothers spent half the year stitching, and towers of cotton candy. I wrestled with people for a good view, stuffed myself full of corn-based treats, and complained about the heat, just like a good spectator.

The nighttime entertainment was a well-known Punta band. If you haven't seen Punta, it's a sexy dance that was designed to make norteamericanos look ridiculous. It involves shaking your hips faster than humanly possible, balancing on your heels and then doing aerobic moves. I made the mistake of going to the event with two married couples, who left me to watch the dancers bounce around the stage like Gumbys on steroids while the town drunks used their never-failing radars to hunt me down and ask me to dance. Which I did. They would say things like "Isn’t it too bad that Punta is illegal in the US?" and then pull their shirts up to their chests and stick their fingers in their belly-buttons. I escaped and found one of my host brothers and his wife outside (he'd just spent an hour explaining to me how he wasn't going to the dance so as to avoid his friend, the mayor, who always pressures him to drink) having a beer with the mayor. All in all it was a fun night, and I learned a lot.

Storm

In a nearby town, an entire neighborhood and all their farms oozed down the mountainside and dammed up the river. There are at least 400 people left homeless. Honduras is in the tail end of a tropical storm, which, according to the locals here, has caused more damage than Hurricane Mitch, which devastated Honduras 10 years ago. Luckily people in the region are being very supportive. In my municipality there was little damage, but a lot of complaining about the rain!

Still not in Kansas

As I grabbed for a grapefruit that zinged through the air over my head in the Ambassador’s private pool in Honduras, I realized once again with a certain twist of my stomach that my life was not going to be normal again for another two years. The ambassador lends his mansion every year so that the newly sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteers may run amok (including playing monkey-in-the-middle with fruit in his pool) together for the last time before they are scattered about the country. One of the volunteers broke his nose playing volleyball in the ambassador’s beach volleyball court, but at least he’ll have a good story to tell about it.

My site is a cute little pueblo in the mountains near a beautiful cloud-forest covered national reserve. The community turns out to be far, far flung from the pictures I had in my head of grandmothers in hand-woven shawls slapping out tortillas by candlelight, wizened farmers, tired but content with their life’s work, keeping their families just afloat over the threat of hunger. Nada que ver- nothing to do with it. Rather the little town has electricity, running water, abundant cars and trucks, a handful of university degrees, a wealth of knowledge on large-scale farming, people who eat cornflakes for breakfast, and a pool. Yes, a pool. They fill its hospital-blue cement basin with water from the river on Easter and charge tourists to use it. My host brothers can talk over my head about cooperative administration and accounting. It’s an intimidating change from my village in Tanzania where having graduated high school set you apart from the rest of the world. Yesterday I helped a women’s cooperative plant lettuce and cauliflower in soil imported from Canada. The finished products will end up in El Salvador and Nicaragua in none other than that gaudy pillar of western commercialism: Burger King.

What am I going to be doing here? I’m working with an NGO that co-manages the reserve to better the farming practices in and around the park. But in short, so far I have absolutely no idea of what I will actually be doing. I’ll keep you posted.

Quiz: Know Honduras

1. Everything in Honduras—cream, soda, water, milk, popsicles—is sold in:

a. aluminum cans

b. glass bottles

c. Tupperware

d. Plastic bags

e. Styrofoam cups

f. Clay pots

2. The most normal means of transportation among large cities is:

a. VW bugs with the tops cut off so they can fit up to 8 people

b. Old school-buses from the US that didn’t pass inspection

c. Slick Greyhound-type buses

d. Over-crowded mini-buses

Answer to #1: plastic bags. One of my favorite memories is of an ice-cold Pepsi in a plastic bag served to me after I volunteered to help my neighbors raise tomato-beds all morning. This practice would never go over well in Tanzania, where strangely enough it is illegal to give away plastic bags at the store due to the environmental implications.

Answer to #2: Old school buses. It was odd for me at first to see a line of school buses on a Saturday morning on a busy road. When I got closer and saw the majority of the passengers were bearded, grey-haired or carrying babies, I got even more curious. Before long I had become one of these regular passengers, holding in the urge to start up a camp song or look over my shoulder for bullies.

Pueblo

My host mom just laughed as a stream of milk cascaded down her arm where she squatted below the cow. My first few attempts at milking gave only a few measly drops, and finally, a small squirt came forth, but unfortunately was aimed at my host mom rather than the pitcher. I stood back to let her empty the udder, bringing forth a high-speed dollop of milk at every tug- reminding me of a soda fountain at a fast-food restaurant.

I’ve never met people with such a blend of mischievous sarcasm, curiosity and unfaltering, deep-down goodness, as in my field-based training site. I lived with a middle-aged, childless couple who had converted their living room into a bedroom for me, while they slept in a tiny windowless room. Hearing the fizzle of a match in their room at midday sent pangs of guilt through me. I often robbed my host mom of a few precious hours of sleep by dragging her to the neighbors’ houses for guitar sessions or chatting with her by candlelight until her eyelids drooped.

My host dad kept busy on his cucumber and corn farms, making people chuckle, and playing soccer in the evenings. For my host mom, the world revolved around keeping the house clean, keeping bellies full and people smiling, and being up on all the latest happenings in the town, and at this I have never met someone more capable.

Before I knew it I had fallen in love with the pueblo. It’s a place where the sweat of the morning’s farm-work is forgotten with a cool drink of fresh-squeezed mandarin juice. The evening entertainment is soccer and visiting, and nobody’s too cool to visit his aunt or grandma for a kiss and a coffee. They’ve got their own charming style—every man I asked claimed to have invented the fashion of wearing a radio on a string around his neck that has been adopted by all the young men in town. The farm-work is not seen as drudgery—teams of men work together and crack jokes and whistle in their secret whistle-language to those working on neighboring farms. At our goodbye party, the men of the village (ages 13-60) kept us always on our feet as they danced us around the school lawn.

I’m gonna miss that place. I’ve never gotten so attached to a town in such a short time. I will keep many of my host mom’s lessons on hand—not hanging your underwear outside because someone might steal it, and not bathing just after eating or working hard. I’ll remember the handy lesson from my host father on how to trash-talk on the soccer field. I just hope I will feel this comfortable in my new home, way out in the West.

Americans Walk Fast (and do other ridiculous things)

I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of Americans, and I miss Tanzania. The only times you would hear "God Bless you" so many times in a day from Americans is if you were having a sneezing fit. I miss the interesting habits like keeping guinea pigs as garbage disposals and pigeons as decorations for the house. And the way everyone holds up their fingers and says “this many” instead of voicing the number of eggs he wants or wives he has. I miss the kids wondering over the weird material growing on my head (nothing gross, just my hair), and counting my toes to make sure I had the same number as them.

I may have taught them how to make a solar purifier, but they taught me the fine art of carrying things on my head. I may have shown them how to make a simple compost, but they taught me the importance of the kanga... it’s a skirt, now it’s a shawl, now it’s a diaper, now it’s a backpack!

And Americans walk fast. They don’t pick their noses in public. They don't greet everyone they meet, spending an hour inquiring about the health of each family member. You can’t judge someone’s gender based on whether they’re wearing pants or skirts. They don’t intersperse a lot of noises in their speech, and they tend to look at you funny if you do.

I’m a stranger to my own culture. But it’s ok. I just have to learn to walk all over again.

Tangles

A sweet British lady I met on the plane nearly choked on her ginger ale when I told her I was en route from Tanzania straight to Honduras. She had just been explaining that she felt uncomfortable anywhere outside of London, and looked at me as if I had just told her I eat children. She was one of many interesting characters I met on the journey—from the Caucasian girl decked out in full Masai garb, to the cheerful young couple from Benin who gave me their CD about Aloe Vera products and wanted me to go into the business with them, to the lady who yelled at me in Arabic when I asked her to get up so I could maneuver into my seat on the plane.

The highlight of the trip was definitely the pretzels on the plane to Nairobi. Just kidding, Mom, the highlight was getting to see you in Miami (but the pretzels were delicious)! Who else’s mom would fly all the way from Alaska to Miami to see her daughter for 2 hours in the airport (and bring homemade rhubarb squares)? She deserves a prize or something. The lowlight of the trip was not getting to see my poor brother and sister-in-law who waited for me at the London airport for several hours two days in a row with homemade pancakes. Sorry!

What looks like Miami, smells like Miami and sounds like Miami? It’s downtown San Pedro Sula, Honduras. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. They have all the American chains one could possibly imagine. I looked for any sign that it was not Miami, so that I could rest easy I hadn’t been duped. I saw a guy on a bike holding on to the rear fender of a pickup to catch a ride, and decided it would have to do as proof.

Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, looks a bit more… authentic. One glance and you know you’re not in the states with the colorful cement buildings stacked on the hillsides.

Now I’ve time warped back to being a new awkward exchange student at school. I live with a host family who pack my tunafish sandwiches in a lunchbox and make sure I’m up on time, do my homework and take an umbrella. I was nervous but luckily on my first day of school I made some friends, the teachers were nice, and nobody made fun of me. I catch myself before sharing any details of my previous life that would make others brand me as a weirdo. I never expected this type of routine to be a part of my life again after high school. I luckily didn’t get any zits or embarrass myself in front of cute boys.

The language is tough because nobody speaks the dialect that has taken up residence in my head, which is a mix of Spanish and Swahili, spiced with Kihehe and a pinch of Portuguese. I can understand most everything, but what tries to come out of my mouth is completely unintelligible to anyone.

My host parents are cool, as are my host brother, host Rottweiler/Dalmatian, and host parrots. It’s a different world in this affluent pocket of Honduras. Every day in training the last two years of my life swirl through my head and I come to new conclusions about them.

WeduneralMy village goodbye party was a hybrid of a wedding and a funeral. It was like a wedding because:There was upbeat church music playing and a high table decorated with a nice tableclothA party of about ten people came to escort me from my house to the meeting, singing songs about me in KiheheThey danced their presents up to me (wrapped me in a nice kitenge and put a basket on my head)They danced up money, eggs and beans to give to meThey hired a photographer and I was the only one who smiled for the cameraWe ate rice and goat meat after the meeting

It was like a funeral because:People gave speeches praising meSome people were genuinely sad and others were there out of obligationThe village leaders read a history of my life and work in NyakipamboThere were village announcements after the ceremonyI was in the process of willing all of my stuff to friends of mine (example: Mama Luti- one bucket, Mama Neema- wash basin)

Many people came to my house; those who were genuinely sad to say goodbye, and those who came to see what presents I would give them, but were never satisfied with what they got. I had decided to avoid the frustration of trying to sell my things. I gave all my extra clothes and my kitchen things to orphans. I donated my furniture to the library the priest is setting up.

I started to cry… which started the whole world laughing

“You would have given them doughnuts instead of a beating,” said a teacher as she took a break to rest her beating-arm.

“We’re beating them because they ran away from school. They ran away from school because they were starving. We don’t have any money or food for them. So we had to beat them. Now they won’t run away again. You would have bought them doughnuts.”

Then she laughs. This isn’t a cruel laugh; it’s the ever-so-common laugh that you hear when circumstances are so messed up or desperate that you have no other option but to laugh. Africa has taught me the art of this healing laugh. But this time I couldn’t laugh.

Bad things happen to good people

Why is it that 95% of all the people I’ve ever met who have HIV are unbelievably sweet, hard-working, and genuinely nice? My new friend, Dama (not her real name), invited me to her modest little house so she could ask me how long she could expect to live. She’s a widow who, four years ago, was “inherited” by another man as a second wife. Her husband tested negative, but seems to be supportive of her and was receptive of the idea of using condoms. Dama has shown no sign of giving up hope, and seems generally encouraged when I tell her that having HIV does not mean she will die tomorrow. She also cooked me some delicious pumpkin and gave me some bambarra nuts to take home. I had brought a gift of two eggs, but ended up smacking myself on the forehead when I saw the number of chickens running about in her courtyard.

On Friday I had HIV-testers come out to the village again. This time, 144 people tested, and 9 were positive. I was really encouraged by the fact that Dama came to me looking for help, and has decided to join our club of PLWHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS). Things are slowly changing.

Let them drink pombe

Tanzania’s first president implemented the idea of ujamaa, or “familyhood,” which instructs that development should be carried out in villages just as in the home, with everyone contributing to the projects in the society like one big jolly African extended family. It’s Tanzania’s flavor of socialism. Unfortunately, in my village, the idea that everyone should strain their backs for the greater good has somewhat been lost. Instead there is a bitter sentiment that arises for all the people who didn’t show up to make bricks or haul rocks, a cry for implementation of fines, and constant whining about who will bring the pombe (local brew) and when.

On Tuesday I went to help build up the village’s water intake. The men were cleaning out the existing tank, hauling cement, and whining about the lack of pombe. The women were piling rocks on their heads, transporting them to the intake, and whining about the lack of pombe. Apparently the priest had promised some pombe, but when I left the intake, a few people were still working, some were resting, and all were still whining about the lack of pombe. I sure hope in the end the pombe showed up. My villagers are completely up for this familyhood idea as long as it’s not a sober family we’re talking about.

Teeth

Of course there are many elders whose tired gums cling to only one or two remaining teeth, but in general, Tanzania seems to have an uncannily high proportion of Crest-commercial-worthy smiles. But even more surprising is what they are able to do with these chompers. They can peel and gnaw through sugarcane the length, diameter, and texture of a flagpole. I’ve been handed thick sections of it, and encouraged to beaver my way through it—a task which I see as being about as possible as reducing a 2x4 to sawdust with your mouth, if only slightly more rewarding. If I do manage it, my jaws feel as if they’ve just chewed a marathon.

The other amazing thing is what happens when there are no bottle-openers around. Tanzanians barely think twice about punching into the bottle with their canines—a sensation about as tantalizing to me as licking a chalkboard.

Fingernails

There is one weird thing about fingernails here- men tend to cultivate one fingernail, leaving it much longer than the rest. I’ve asked about it, and some people say it’s for scratching phone vouchers, but I’ve seen people without phones sporting the single talon. I think they’re hiding something.

Leg Hair

I don’t know any Tanzanians who shave their legs. They are naturally hairless! It’s unfair.

A Little Beard Never Hurt

It is not uncommon to see women, particularly ones with steady, salary-paying jobs, sporting a few tufts of wiry, black chin hair. Some let it grow right around the undersides of their jaws just as it pleases. I’ve been told it’s good luck to marry one of these whiskered ladies, and one source claims that just as long as she doesn’t have a full-out beard and sideburns, her attractiveness isn’t diminished.

Why you shouldn’t get cocky in Tanzania

Me: I just biked to Makambako and back (80 hilly kilometers).

Villager: Huh, I didn’t see you there… I just went there to visit my sick nephew. On foot. With a 60 kilo bag of maize on my head. And a baby on my back. With no shoes.

Me: Doh.

Me: I just harvested 30 liters of beans. That’s more than I could eat in a year!

Villager: I just harvested 800 liters of beans in my farm in the next village over and hauled them back to my house. And I have malaria.

Me: Sheesh.

Me: I just ran to the road and back (20k).

Another Peace Corps: You are Shira, you are God, you are my idol. Let me cook you some food.

Villager: Why’d you do that?

Me: I’m so hungry. I haven’t eaten since tea.

Villager: That’s strange. I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon and I’m not hungry.

Me: Iyiyiyi.

Me: Look at me! I’m carrying a 5-gallon bucket of water on my head!

Villager: Walks by carrying a 5-gallon bucket on head, and 2 smaller buckets, one in each hand, and (of course) a 2-year-old on her back.

Two-year-old: Sticks tongue out at me.

Me: Maybe someday I’ll bike to Mafinga (at least 100k away).

Villager: I just biked there yesterday with my sick pregnant wife on my bike with no gears.

Me: I give up. You win.

Who’s on First (in Tz)?

Note: All of the italicized words are ACTUAL Tanzanian names translated into English. The names are real but the story is fictional.

I entered the class and noticed all of my students crowding around the window.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Leaves,” said one student.

“God,” said another.

“Love,” said another.

Another student just uttered a four letter expletive meaning feces.

When I looked out the window, I saw why they were so interested. Five students were standing around looking like they were about to get into a fight. I saw that God and Sh@# were being held back by Leaves and Love. I ran down to the road where they were.

“Stop It!” I yelled. They paid no attention. But Stop It came running from the classroom.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Sorry,” I said, “I mean them.”

“Right,” she said, and ran back to the classroom, only to appear two seconds later with Them, who looked confused.

“No!” I cried. “Stay in the classroom! I want nobody to come out! And nobody should make any noise!”

They walked sheepishly back to the classroom. Just as I was about to separate God and S#*@, Nobody came out of the classroom barking like a dog.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked angrily.

“You said I should come out of the classroom and make any noise.” I sighed and sent her back.

“This is no good!” I told the students who were about to fight.

“Where? This Is No Good is my sister. What does she have to do with anything?” asked God.

“Who started this?” I asked, ignoring God.

“I didn’t see,” said Leaves.

“God,” said I Didn’t See.

“Nobody,” said God.

“Enough!” I said, “I don’t believe Nobody started it. She was in class. Let’s begin with S@#$. Why do you want to hit God?”

“He wrote a letter to let us pray.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Let Us Pray is my girlfriend!” he cried.

“Not true!” said God. “I don’t want her!”

“What?” S@#$ and I said in unison.

“I wrote a letter to I Don’t Want Her, not Let Us Pray!”

Just as I thought we were getting things straight, a couple of students bolted out of the classroom.

“Come Closer and Scare Me!” I yelled. They didn’t hear me, but Love and Leaves moved in on me baring their teeth.

“Everyone go back to the classroom,” I ordered. To my surprise, they did.

“Thanks,” I began. Maybe I could finally take attendance. But a boy stood up.

“Yes ma’am?” he asked.

“Oh sorry, Thanks. Have a seat, I was just thanking them for coming back to the classroom.” Them looked proud.

“It’s No Good, I’m Useless, I Can’t Handle It, I Don’t Care,” I began.

One student stood up and headed to the door. I asked him where he thought he was going.

“It seems you have given up on teaching. You need a break.”

I told everyone I was ok. I was just frustrated by S@#$, Regret, Problems, Grudges, and Issues. But I would try to focus on Love, Blessings, Grace, and Comfort. Today it just seemed that it was God who was acting in unusual ways. Mysterious ways, if you will.

The Blasphemous Festival

There are unspoken rules of any event here in rural Tanzania. There must be a special group of well-dressed invited guests who sit at a high table facing the audience and looking snooty, and any performance must be directed toward them, meaning the performer’s backs are to the audience. The most important person invited is the ‘special guest,’ and can talk at length about whatever he wants. The festival/party/graduation must be formally opened by a chairperson, and formally closed by the same person. If there is no chairperson available, one must be elected. If the event isn’t formally opened, it never officially happened. If you don’t officially open the meeting, people freak out. Or people will be called back with great urgency after dispersing so the meeting can be formally closed. Most importantly, all of the invited guests at a festival must be served rice, meat and soda, even if the masses leave with grumbly bellies and parched throats.

On Saturday, I held two AIDS awareness festivals, one in my village for the primary school kids, and one at the nearest secondary school, which broke all of these sacred rules.

First, I moved the high tables so they flanked the stage, meaning all performers could be seen by the audience. At the primary school, I invited the village nurse to be the special guest, as she is a strong female character who has overcome many challenges in her life, even though she was not the person with the highest status. The primary school festival was only a ghost, as it was never formally opened or closed. And at both festivals I insisted that everyone be fed the same food. On a low budget, this meant we could only afford to make ‘kande’— a mix of corn and beans. I think this was my most blatant heresy. This is funeral food. When I told people of the plan, they usually laughed out loud that I would dare to do such a thing. But after a little thought they would agree that it was the right thing to do. We had to get a 50-gallon drum to boil the kande for 350 people. We used 4 buckets of fresh corn, and 1 of dry beans (from my farm! shown in the picture), and then added some peanuts, oil, salt, and onions. It had to be cooked overnight. In the end it was delicious, and for me it went down more smoothly than the customary lump of oily rice.

The goal of the festivals was for students to show off what they’ve learned in reproductive health and life skills classes I’ve been teaching. There was a mix of plays, songs, poetry, and raps about AIDS. One of my favorite teachers performed some really stunning gymnastics. I was particularly impressed with a poem sung by a large group which included a stanza about how teachers need to stop having sex with students. How brave! And necessary! It’s a huge problem in secondary schools, as at least 50% of male teachers I know are guilty of this. To hear it from the students’ mouths gave me chills. At the primary school, the confident little 5th grade kids rapping their hearts out really made me proud. When you are used to seeing kids at their least creative and most submissive, it’s uplifting to get a taste of what they’re capable of.

The special guest at the secondary school was the most important guest there, which was a mistake on my part. He was a dinosaur who spent most of his speech warning boys and girls not to walk alone together, as that is Satanism. He urged them to forget condoms, abstinence is the only answer.

The other major thorn in my shoe was a teacher from the primary school who showed up at 10:00 am drunk (not unusual) and started beating the kids when they were inching in on the stage. I called him over and took the stick from him and told him there would be no beatings today — this festival was for the kids, and if they wanted to crowd the stage they’d do so. Unfortunately, later, when I had left, he showed up on the netball court and threw rocks at the students until they had to stop their game. I expected to have to supervise the kids rather than the teachers!

There were so many things at the festivals that would have been alien in America — perfectly harmonized 4th graders, sixth-graders unabashedly doing plays about delaying sex, and last-minute firewood runs. I was also guilty of several Tanzanian faux pas, but at last after 2 years I am finally committing them on purpose.

Head Teacher and a Way to Help

Running a school with 650 students, 7 grades, and 6 teachers is not a job I’d wish on my worst enemy. I’m certain if I had to be the head teacher, I’d surrender to the never-ending work load and problems that just keep piling up. Our head teacher at the primary school is an amazing person. He’s helped with my projects, and is a wonderful guy to debate with — open and fair. It is very common to find male villagers who treat their wives like slaves, ordering them around and even beating them. Our head teacher is a terrific anomaly. His wife sings his praises about how he helps around the house and treats her like an equal. He was very receptive to a seminar I did on how to teach kids to love learning instead of fearing beatings. He recently told me how he is looking for a pen-pal in an English-speaking country. Many of you reading this have been so helpful by sending money here for projects, and I thank you for your generosity. Here is an opportunity to help just by sending some letters to a nice hard-working guy in a little village. It would make him so happy just to exchange ideas with someone overseas. His English is pretty good, and he can tell you all kinds of interesting stories about rural Tanzania. If you are interested in having an old-fashioned pen-friend, please post a comment on my blog, and I’ll pass his address along to you.

Quiztime

These are all examples of suprising things people eat in Tanzania… except one. Go ahead, try to guess:

a. cornstalks

b. bean leaves

c. pea leaves

d. pumpkin leaves

e. tomato leaves

f. raw sweet potatoes

g. termites

h. dirt

Letter (a) saved my life. The other day I went on a long hike to all of the sites for the water project. I started to get dehydrated, but luckily this is the perfect season for migagi, or cornstalks. You pick out a juicy-looking stalk that has failed to produce corn and you munch away on its sugary pulp. It’s like a lame version of sugarcane.

Bean, pumpkin and pea leaves are perfect greens to fry up with some oil and tomatoes. But I’ve never heard of tomato leaves being edible. So the answer is (e).

People eat raw sweet potatoes much like we would snack on carrots. I don’t enjoy them.

Termites are a nice snack, raw or fried. 'Bite them before they bite you' is the only rule.

Dirt is sold in cigar-shaped moulds at the market, and is coveted by Tanzania’s many pregnant women. In some places, I’ve heard, it has become illegal to sell it due to health concerns, but I still see the reddish-brown sticks for sale all the time.

My kaka (that’s older brother in Swahili)

Scanning the herd of wazungu who streamed out from the baggage claim area, I saw a few who, from a distance, could have been my brother. Starting to sweat, I worried about not recognizing him after two years. If I ran up and hugged the wrong mzungu, how on earth would I live down the embarrassment?

But he was the same good old brother, only a fair bit thinner, with a more European style (he lives in London now), speaking with the slightest tinge of a British accent, and throwing in ridiculous words such as “crisps” and “trousers.”

With barely a moment to breathe, we hurried away to the ferry dock and just made it onto a morning ferry headed for Zanzibar. I had heard many things about the island of Unguja (the bigger of the two Zanzibar Islands), from spice heaven, to tourist trap, to rip-off, to paradise.

These were the top ten things that surprised me about Zanzibar:

1. The dhow fishing boats being thrown about on Indian Ocean waves, packed full with as many people as can fit without sinking the boat (much like the minibuses on the mainland), and the fact that net-fishing appears to involve several people actually jumping in the water

2. The irritating inevitability of meeting with street touts wanting to take you on tours for “a good price, as you are my friend”

3. Octopus: yes, it’s rubbery and tentacly, but it’s absolutely delicious

4. Meeting Masai men on the beach who have given up a life of cattle-herding on the mainland to sell jewelry to tourists

5. Chatting with these same Masai salesmen about AIDS and learning that they believe the Masai are immune to it

6. The energy and boldness of our stout taxi driver, whose confidence with the traffic police (demanding to see their identification, a preemptive strike) prevented him from having to give any bribes

7. The beauty of Stonetown, with the windy streets, ornate wooden doors, and many mosques and churches, and the ease with which we got completely lost in it several times

8. The difficulty we had when attempting to find the exact spot Freddy Mercury, the singer from Queen, was born (we found only a poster explaining he was born in Stonetown, but the shopowners dismissed me when I asked them for more details)

9. Mangrove trees: the most amazing part of the trip for me was walking down a boardwalk completely surrounded by mangrove trees with their tentacle-like roots. They’re on a floodplain of an estuary, and when the tide is up they’re immersed in seawater. The seeds are like little spears that germinate first on the tree, then fall down and stick in the mud. We planted a few on our walk.

10. Red Colobus monkeys. They’re bold, they’re adorable, and half the time I was gawking at their cute antics, and the other half I was praying they wouldn’t jump on me. They often jumped right over our heads from tree to tree.

So that was Zanzibar. I can only take so much of being a tourist and having people yelling “Jambo mzungu!” at me, so we headed back to the mainland to begin the journey to my village.

Our return ferry trip was crazy, as we got to sit on the bow, dangling our feet over the edge while simultaneously earning nasty sunburns.

In Dar es Salaam we met up with a friend for dinner, accidentally met a famous Bongo Flavor singer named Banana Zoro, and got caught in a traffic jam with the only female taxi-driver in the city.

Then we were off on a high-speed safari to Iringa, catching glimpses of elephants and giraffes, and my brother got a chance to try his hand at bus-window bargaining for bananas and cashews using sign-language.

That night my brother (finally) agreed that I was a genius. I had the idea of getting some tandoori chicken and taking it to a place that serves awesome peas and rice, and we feasted.

Then it was off to the village. I’m used to introducing all of my male visitors as “my brother,” so this time I had to stress that he was from the same mother, same father, or from the same belly.

I had to go teach a lesson at the secondary school, so I left my brother at home. When I came back I found he had already made friends and was touring the village. I found him nodding and smiling at people who would chatter away at him in Swahili, or punch out some sentences in English.

A live chicken

We were supposed to go to lunch with some friends of mine. When we showed up they hadn’t prepared the meal, and felt awful about it. So they stuffed a chicken in a basket and told us to go cook it at home. While thanking them profusely, we exchanged dubious looks, but luckily the eldest son and daughter came to help with the slaughter. It was quite an event. The result was something that resembled maktak or chewing gum in consistency, but with a strong chickeny flavor.

The next day we set out on an all-day, work-related hike, where I visited several people I needed to see about the water project and AIDS activities. I met a little woman who demanded,”Gimme a present!” when she saw me, to which I replied “You give ME a present!” in an equally loud and rude voice. I never thought a friendship would result from the meeting, but we ended up laughing and chatting. It turns out she has AIDS, and is brave enough to be open about it, and I promised to help her and others get help from the district government. She’s actually a very strong, kind lady, despite my first impression of her.

The hike was tiring, but along the way we were given little gifts, some roast corn and a gigantic custard-apple. We got home and dug up some sweet-potatoes from the farm, and cooked them up along with sweet-potato leaf sauce. As expected, we had a few visitors, who were delighted to have another mzungu to chat with.

Low-rider

The next day we set out for Lake Nyasa, meeting my friend the taxi driver, Onne, to drive us to Matema Beach. This time there was less trouble with the traffic police, but we never expected it would be a terribly treacherous ride. Just as we turned on to the dirt road about 2 hours from the beach, the road turned to a complete bog. A flock of young men were hanging around, waiting for cars to get stuck and helping to push them through for a small fee. Onne bargained with them, and soon we were off on a side path being pushed through the mucky parts. Having lived here for almost 2 years, I didn’t think that this agreement was anything out of the ordinary, but my brother was getting nervous at the thought of these people we didn’t know leading us through the bush where the possibility of getting stuck was very high. Emerging triumphantly on the other side, we picked up a teacher who was going our way. He said that last week the road was completely impassable to traffic, but he had to take some documents to town. He hired a man to carry him on his back through chest-high water so the forms wouldn’t get wet, but the man stumbled, and they both fell in, submerging the documents. We were lucky to go when we did! We made it to the beach having crossed several rivers in the car and bottoming out from time to time. The nice part was that we had the whole beach to ourselves, as nobody else dared to risk the road.

Matema was beautiful as usual, and telling stories with Onne is always enjoyable. We rode in a dugout canoe to snorkel and look at the fish, but as it has been rainy, the water wasn’t clear. At night we ate fish from the lake, but, just as last time, I “gave back the change.” I guess Lake Nyasa fish just doesn’t agree with me.

On the way out we got stuck, and my brother and I pushed while Onne steered. I fell in the mud, right in front of a big group of secondary students who had refused to help us. Finally we got towed out of that hole, and once again hired some young guys to push us through the detour at the bog. We got stares from everyone once we reached the main road, until we could make it to the carwash.

So my advice to anyone who wants to have a good time is to go into the Peace Corps in Tanzania and then invite your brother to come visit for two weeks.

A change of scenery

It’s official, in July I’m done being a mzungu, but not done being a Peace Corpse! I’m trading in my kofia for a sombrero, Bongo Flavor for Punta music, my shilingi for lempira, and my ugali for tortillas. I’m putting off actually having to figure out what to do with my life for another 2 years. On July 15th I’ll leave Dar es Salaam heading for Tegucigalpa, Honduras as a Protected Areas Management Volunteer.

My biggest fears are of becoming that annoying girl who is constantly mocked for the phrase “And this one time in Tanzania...” and being socially inept among other Americans who haven’t been immersed in Tanzanian culture for 2 years. I was complaining to my best friend the other day that while my friends back in the states are getting smarter (taking higher degrees, getting challenging jobs), I’m getting dumber (unable to construct sentences in English, forgetting everything I learned in college). He pointed out that it is ok, as I am getting stronger! By the time I get back home I’m going to be a muscle-bound mute much like a cavewoman. I jokes.

I read a book by a deaf Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia, in which the author quotes that "Peace Corps Volunteers in Asia come back spiritually aware, volunteers in Latin America come back politically and socially motivated, and those in Africa come back drunk and laughing". So expect the arrival of a drunken activist in 2010.

Slow Progress

The village’s jolly nurse and I pedaled our bikes up the hill in the heat of the midday sun, with only a vague clue of where we were headed. We were looking for two certain people and knew the name of the sub-village where we needed to go, but we had to be discrete when asking villagers where the people lived. The nurse rarely leaves the dispensary, as a pregnant mama or a sick person could turn up at any moment, so it was an odd sight to see her riding around in the bush.

On a journey that took us in a few circles, we finally ended up at a small mud house in the forest, where a very kindly couple in their sixties lives. The woman is one of those people for whom a slight smile permanently brightens her face, and the man has an easy flowing way of chatting. The couple is HIV positive.

I was worried that this visit would be awkward, as it was my first meeting with them. It wasn’t. We inquired about farming and kids. The nurse and I teased ourselves about being wimps for having our small farm plots so close to our homes. The couple has to hike far up a mountain to get to their farm, which is losing fertility.

Then we brought the subject around to their health. The man does not look at his wife or address her directly, and refers to her as "my friend." He says "I’m doing all right health-wise, but I don’t know about my friend." This is normal. She is one of his two surviving "friends," and he married her after she had been widowed. They are currently taking ARV’s, and are healthy enough that they had just come from the farm.

We gave them some sugar, salt and soap. They were gracious hosts and sent us on our way with a basketful of fresh corn to roast. We made plans to meet up again. Some places in Tanzania it is relatively easy to be open about having HIV. Not in my area. I’ve tried all kinds of things to get people who know they are positive to come out of the woodwork. Finally the nurse got some names of people and asked them if she could share them with me. I hope it will be a great first step in getting help for those sick with AIDS and getting rid of stigma.

Top 5 reasons why it will be hard for me to leave Tanzania

1. Here tooth-brushing is not confined to the bathroom and does not prevent you from carrying out other activities. You might find someone brandishing a hoe, washing clothes, or cooking with a foamy toothbrush hanging off his lip.

2. Kids are left to their own devices as soon as they are able to control their own bodily functions. I like this philosophy.

3. You can accuse people you barely know of being liars. It’s not nearly as rude as it is in our culture. A good example would be when the bus conductor tells you the price has gone up 500 shillings because the price of oil went up. Then you are allowed to call him a liar.

4. There are convenient and normal phrases to say "welcome," "where were you just now (before coming here)?," "my condolences," and "you have tried your level best." In English these phrases sound awkward/too formal/exchange-studentish, but in Swahili they are more than normal.

5. Bongo Flavor. This is the popular Tanzanian music. Many foreigners find it repetitive, boring, or whiny. But I’m addicted.

Dinosaurs

I started trying to explain dinosaurs to a friend, and before I could mention that they were extinct, he exclaimed, “Oh yeah, there are a bunch of those on the path from here to Kimilinzowo!” After sorting out that that was pretty unlikely, I decided it might be interesting to teach the seventh graders about them.

One of the quickest ways to cause villagers to doubt your truthfulness is to tell people about dinosaurs. The kids were sitting in class on a Sunday, waiting for a teacher to come. A friend of mine had taught dinosaurs before in his primary school, and had come armed with a National Geographic about them. It showed artists’ renderings of what some of the weirder dinosaurs might have looked like: some looking ferocious except for two puny little arms, some with sharp spikes protruding from their shoulders, and others smaller than a rat but with ridiculously long fingers. It felt as though we were showing them pictures of Transformers and trying to convince them that they were real. Whether or not they were convinced, they were definitely amused.

Priorities

A woman came to my house asking for money. She explained that she needed to buy corn which would then be made into “Common” (vomit-like alcoholic beverage) which she needed to take to a funeral so she could dump it on her deceased relative’s grave. Once I had heard her plea, I reiterated the statement, just to see if she realized exactly how bizarre it sounded. This particular woman seems incapable of talking about anything but sick people, hard work, and a lack of money. She began talking about how hard life was and how her kids had just washed their clothes without soap. When I heard this, I said I would give her the money, but she had to use it to buy soap for her kids, rather than alcohol to dump on the ground.

Scare-human

There is a section of my farm which I just call the “bird-feeder” now, due to the fact that all of my giant sunflowers have been completely destroyed by crows. A friend helped me construct a scare-crow, using some of my old clothes and stuffing them with dried bean-plant residue. The plants are still being attacked, but half of my visitors show up slapping their thighs and saying they’ve just greeted my guard. Most of the time I’m the one who gets startled by the scare-crow when I make my way home in the evening.

Quiz time

What would you consider the weirdest occurrence you might come across in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania?

a. People on the bus asking you if you’re married, and if so then when is your husband’s contract up.

b. People walking for miles and miles along the side of the road completely laden with live chickens which they are taking to sell to expensive restaurants in Dar Es Salaam which pay high prices and pride themselves in serving chickens which have never been transported by car or even bicycle.

c. Grown men hopping like frogs in front of the police station.

d. People walking backwards on Sundays for good luck.

e. Old women spitting on young kids they think are bright or handsome.

And the answer is… well it could be (a) or (c), depending on which you think is stranger. I’ve met several people here who are under the impression that Americans get married for a set amount of time, and after the contract is up, they divorce. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but it may be a product of our high divorce rate. Also you could find people doing a number of degrading things outside the police station, many of them forced to do so until they give in and give a bribe. Letters (b) and (d) are completely made up. I borrowed (e) from my Turkish friend who says that it is a custom there to spit on these people to bring them luck (at least in Ankara).

Dirt Blindness

If your house is constantly clean, what do you have to compare it with? What kind of sense of accomplishment do you get from cleaning up small messes every day?

My strategy is to let parts of my house sink into such a state of filth that cleaning would better be described as remodeling. It makes me feel benevolent and slightly magical to turn what could be mistaken for an abandoned crack house into a perfectly decent living area. Then I flit around the house, feasting my eyes on the shimmering concrete, stacks of books, and alphabetized spices (just kidding about the spices). I pride myself in the fact that my floor is so clean you could eat a peanut off of it (applying the 10 second rule of course). I generally don’t do this kind of drastic cleaning on a whim; it takes a special occasion. I’m like a guy who waits for a wedding to shave off his full-length beard, shocking his friends with the sight of his handsome, long-forgotten chin. Once I get wind of a potential visitor, my first reaction is a deep despair over the state of my abode. Excuses come to mind—vandals, raccoons, tornadoes, witchcraft—but upon realizing the first three don’t exist in my village, and a curse that makes your house dirty would be rather lame as curses go, I’m forced to plan out the work. The trick is to start scrubbing early enough that I have a few days to appreciate the cleanliness of my lair before guests come so that I don’t begin to hate and resent them on arrival for the chaos they bring. It also can’t be too early or I will spend days spraining toes as I leap across the living room on tiptoes and starving, as cooking inevitably messes up the kitchen. Once a grand cleaning has been completed, I usually feel as if it deserves to be noted. For the amount of energy I have expended in the effort, I could just as well have made a wedding cake, built a henhouse, or developed abs of steel (all of which merit congratulations). I used to hope that people would at least comment. Then one day a 14-year-old boy did comment on my clean house, but I just felt patronized. It was as if he had congratulated me for brushing my own teeth or dressing myself. Cleaning is such a part of life here that generally only its absence is noted.

One of my neighbors is sympathetic to my lack of cleaning skills. She knew I was cleaning up, and actually came over to help. She decided, of all things, to wash my buckets. I was under the impression that buckets that had spent their entire short lives holding water and nothing else weren’t in need of a scrubbing. Wrong. I guess sometimes I just don’t even see the dirt. This is ok, as it lends a name to my condition—dirt blindness. It sounds kind of exotic, like I’ve been stranded in the desert too long. I was very grateful for the aid of my neighbor, who is a pro when it comes to household cleanliness. She is the owner of two kids under 10 and a miniature dinosaur who teeters around on two or four limbs roaring and terrorizing the living room. It is his personal goal to knock all items on the floor and drool on them. Still, she somehow manages to erase all traces just seconds after they occur. If Tanzania had a cleaning Olympics, my neighbor would be a top contender. Until yesterday, my house had been half Jekyl, half Hyde. The living room was generally accepted, as that’s where visitors hang out, while the kitchen and storage room were vomitous. The storage room off the kitchen is where I keep my trash, but the necessity of storing a giant metal grate needed for the water project made it impossible for me to reach the garbage bag. For a month I was forced to throw wrappers and old plastic bags in its general direction. The disaster of the kitchen began when the cat knocked over a pan full of rice, and I left it there in hopes she’d actually eat it. When there’s sticky rice on the floor, are you really going to keep the rest of the room spotless? These two rooms were enough to mar my Feng shui and enter into my nightmares. But today, and for about another week to come, I’ll be able to put my dirt blindness behind me, transcending my weakness and feigning a sort of inner poise I associate with the queen, Angelina Jolie, and Norwegians (but possibly because of the small sample size I have chanced to meet).

Don’t know beans

When I was little, I made a list of the things I needed to learn in order to qualify as an adult. By the time I was five, the only things left on the list were: learn to drive, lock the front door, and cut my own meat (I hadn’t yet learned about taxes).

I sometimes imagine what my list would have been like were I born a Tanzanian child in a rural village. Most likely I would have given up completely. The list would include: learn to balance half my weight on my head, scrub clothes clean with knuckles using only a cup of water per garment, simultaneously carry a baby on my back and pound grain, learn to winnow wheat or rice without spilling half the load, etc. I still don’t think I have a remote chance at qualifying as an adult here. If I suddenly looked and talked like the neighbor women, I think they’d probably treat me with pity.

I recently realized the repercussions of my eclectic farm (which is a patchwork mix of corn, sunflowers, beans, soy, peanuts, carrots, pumpkins, cowpeas, green peas, potatoes, and more). While I proudly receive praise for my healthy crops and successful intercropping experiments, I also curse myself for planting such a random mix in random places. Orchestrating the harvest is difficult. Then there’s my bean problem—it dawned on me that I don’t really know what to do with them once they’re ready. I know you bring in a tangle of bean plants, dry them, beat them til the beans are free, and put them in a basket and pour them back and forth until all non-bean particles have been excluded. But it’s the little steps that elude me. How long must they dry for? How do you get the beans from the ground to the basket? Once done, do you really have to go to the trouble of sorting the beans by color?

At one point last year, my friend declared me a “black man,” for my ability to cultivate crops. It was a compliment. But nobody has ever called me a Tanzanian woman. That is still way beyond my abilities at this point. Babies handed to me still cry as if I’m the devil, I inevitably get soaked whenever I carry water on my head, and when I cook greens they taste like leaves, not food.

Yesterday I attended a meeting where women were told they had to set a curfew for themselves to get back to their homes. I had to sit on my hands, but couldn’t keep small noises of exasperation from escaping my throat. Finally, one of the women suggested that the men also have a curfew, at which I jumped up and clapped while the men glared at me. This idea was very hotly contested, but in the end, the men said they would set a curfew later. The women must now be home by 8pm to avoid fines. There was also a lot of debate over what punishment a woman must receive should her husband disturb the peace of the village by beating her for not cooking vegetables. Not one of the women questioned that the beating would be warranted. I feel so far removed from this type of submission, that I have to pretend it’s a joke to keep from going mad.

I think if plopped in a village looking and speaking exactly like a Tanzanian man, I’d stand a far better chance of being accepted with my current abilities and tendency to speak my mind.

Peace Corps stresses you should “Greet everyone”

This morning I called out “Hello Grandmother!” when I saw an old woman, and she didn’t reply. I figured she might be deaf. I was about to try again when I realized she was actually just a stump.

Mwalimu Peace Corpse

It happened so gradually I barely realized what was happening. Like someone whose nightly scotch gradually grows in size, going from shot glass to cup to mug, to bottle. One day I just woke up and realized that… I’m a teacher.

I’d been in denial for a while. What started as a couple of harmless school clubs gradually spilled over into several classes. You take on one class, and soon it’s “I’ll just take one more before noon. That’s it. I know my limits. I can stop anytime.” When you wake up and go straight to school, give lectures and exercises, grade papers all day, and live your life by the “bell” (actually a rusty wheel hung on a tree that kids hit with a mallet), then you’ve got to eventually accept the truth.

Once you start you can’t quit. You worry about whether the kids actually understood what you said about the renal vein, and whether they care about the main crop of Sri Lanka. You find yourself trying to snap out of the teacher voice with your friends. You constantly have chalk on your hands, in your hair, and, inexplicably, on your butt.

If I were a normal Tanzanian teacher, I’d be carrying a stick wherever I went. Instead, I’m armed with only my knowledge of kids names, which I say with my most evil angry teacher-voice when they are being noisy. For now, that’s working. But at any point they could realize there’s no threat of punishment and decide to eat me alive.

Winter, summer, spring, fall… such generic terms

Tummy-trouble season is over. Clothes-never-dry season is over. Scrape-muck-out-of-your-orifices-after-bike-rides season is over. Farm-morning-until-night season is over. Eat-giant-unripe-peaches-pretending-they’re-apples season is over.

It is sideways-rain season. It is tall-crop season. It is pear and roast-corn and fresh-bean and flamboyant-mushroom season. It is warm-morning season. I like this season.

Sadly I’ll only see one more season here in Tanzania. I call it frozen-morning, custard-apple, dust-in-your-nose, haul-your-water season. Wherever you brush against any plants, your clothes get coated in “dog decorations,” long thin black seeds that grab on like Velcro. People call me a hick for always being covered in them. They say it must be because when I decide to go somewhere, I march there in a straight line, through farms and fields, ignoring all obstacles.

Each season here has its good and its bad, so you have to learn to love the good.

I think I’m turning Tanzanian, I really think so

Emerging from the forest with a bag full of roots on my head, a hoe, and another bag of edible mushrooms, I felt more Tanzanian than some of my villagers, or at least more village than some of my villagers. People were asking me what I wanted with lidupala, a well-known local tuber that can be used as a pesticide for maize-munching bugs called luhoma, when there was chemical pesticide readily available at the store. I pointed out that this was free, and better for the environment, and probably wouldn’t slowly give me cancer.

Lacking a mortar and pestle, a friend of mine helped me beat the tubers into a pulp with a club and soak them overnight. The next day we scooped cupfuls of the substance and poured some into the tops of the infected corn plants, watching the milky liquid spiral down the stalks. I imagined the screams of the little earwig-like monsters as the fatal tsunami hit.

As a mushroom-picker, I am a complete flop. I was lucky to be with a skilled mushroom expert, adept at choosing only edible mushrooms. He had nearly filled a bag with little red and yellow mushrooms, before I found my first- a tiny shriveled pink specimen, which I insisted we take as it might be my only find of the day. Most of the rest of the ones I found were deemed inedible. We managed to get enough mushrooms for a very decent meal for 2 and a cat.

A failing system

The state of the primary school is dreadful. There are over 600 students, 7 different grades, and supposedly 7 teachers. There are supposed to be at least 17 teachers for this number of students. You are lucky to find even 4 teachers at school in any given day, and I’d have a heart attack if even 3 were teaching in the classrooms at the same time. Two of these teachers are perpetually drunk, and go to work only when they get bored with drinking. One of them was just beaten to the brink of death by a former teacher for “preferring someone else’s wife,” although he has 5 of his own. If he recovers, it is unclear whether his kidneys will work again. Two of the other teachers just took their national high school exams, and pretty much gave up teaching classes so they could study. The husband of one of the teachers lives 5 hours away, and she often visits him and, understandably, takes her time in getting back to the village. The kids are in class most of the time without a teacher. The 7th grade kids are forced to go to school on Saturday and Sunday, when the teachers can find time to work with them. I am going to start sitting in on some classes and might help teach science or math if I start to feel comfortable. I am also working with the priest to try and set up a library so that kids can study on their own.

Powdered-Milk Guitar

When I was growing up in Barrow, Alaska, I waited excitedly for my birthday or a holiday which would warrant a splurge on real milk. With a gallon of milk costing about $7, we instead bought giant boxes of Milkman powdered milk, which came in bright orange boxes with a picture of a young brunette with a milk moustache, looking ecstatic to be drinking the stuff. I choked down a chalky cup every night with dinner, wondering how that little girl on the box gained so much enjoyment from hers.

Here in Tanzania, I spend a large chunk of my monthly allowance to feed my addiction to powdered milk. It adds the necessary substance to a mug of chai, or a bowl of rice pudding. Suffice to say my relationship with milk powder has turned 180°. A can of the stuff costs about 6 dollars US, and I go through about 2 of those per month. I have built up quite a stash of the cans.

I left one can outside my house after planting some seeds that I had stored in it. A seventh grader who stopped by told me not to leave it there or it would be stolen by someone who wanted to make a guitar.

A guitar!? Cool, I said. Why don’t we make one? In fact, why don’t we do it as an environmental club session on recycling?

So I became the student. They poked a hole in the side of the can, and drove a stick into it. Then they poked a hole in the bottom of the can and fed a string through it, and tied the other end of the string to the stick. It has only 1 string at this point (but we could add more), but the pitch can be altered by increasing tension on the stick. One of the kids was a pro at plucking the makeshift guitar. I’m still working on it and planning my debut in the primary school.

Saloon

The barber nervously admitted that he’d never cut mzungu hair before. I had finally decided that I couldn’t live 2 years in Tanzania without enjoying the services of a hair saloon (it just sounds exciting, doesn’t it?). This one bragged that it specialized in “all types of hair.” I thought it was safe.

I explained I wanted about two inches off. I should have explained that this was 2 inches from my entire head of hair, evenly. The barber deftly whipped a cloth across my shoulders, grabbed a lock of my hair, and poised his scissors about 7 inches from the end. “Two inches!” I screamed, just seconds before the damage could be done. He wiped the sweat from his brow, repositioned his weapon, and hacked off 2 inches. Then there was an awkward pause, and he asked “should I continue?”, as if I seriously might be satisfied with this and walk out. He continued to grab random locks of my hair and lop off a couple of inches, pausing now and then to ask if he was done. I was tempted to ask just to borrow the scissors. Once my hair was roughly 2 inches shorter, and I’d gotten him to trim some missed spots, I freed the man from his drudgery. I was relieved that not too much damage had resulted, but a little disappointed at the lack of action at the saloon.

Burn

When my environment kids finished their little experimental garden, I noticed that the little Tupperware I had given them filled with sunflower seeds to plant was empty. I realized it was a dumb move to give them the whole container if I wanted the extra ones. I wasn’t mad—how could I be when some of these kids hadn’t eaten since the night before? But I told them I needed everyone who had eaten seeds to raise their hands immediately so I could rush them to the clinic. I told them I’d sprayed the seeds with pesticides, and we’d have to hurry up and get them treated. A few of the kids, looking rather worried, tentatively raised their hands, while the very clever ones realized it was a trick. When I admitted my fib, they fell on the ground laughing.

No More Zombies

The kids in my sex ed class shocked me last class. When I arrived, a shy but creative student had a greeting he had prepared to take the place of the normal comatose recitation. (See Saturday, Feb. 2 - Zombies entry)

“Gail Norton (clap, clap), AIDS and youth (clap, clap, clap), we are learning (x3) each and everything, YEAH!”

At first my name was pronounced so strangely that I didn’t recognize it, but once I did, I nearly choked on my own saliva. I still find it startling when I receive this little cheer session, but have learned to take it as a much-needed confidence booster before a class I still get nervous about teaching.

In the previous session three boys had volunteered eagerly to prepare a skit to perform in front of the class. I hadn’t talked to them since they had agreed, and I was convinced they had changed their minds, and were too shy to perform a play about misconceptions about sex and pregnancy for their peers. Boy was I wrong. These kids attacked the play with such enthusiasm, adding their own style and details, down to hilarious walks, that we asked them to perform a second time. I can’t wait until the next skit.