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I've been waiting to publish my last blog post until I finished my strike video. I had some trouble downloading the footage, so it has taken a while. Also, editing over 2 hours of footage took me longer than I thought. I hope there aren't any big mistakes. There are about 2 minutes of meetings in Kiswahili that I didn't feel comfortable writing subtitles for. I will be eternally grateful to anyone who wants to help me with translation. The song at beginning is the melody of the national anthem of Tanzania, South Africa, and several other African nations.

And here is the much awaited, closing article:

“Striped of language, stripped of work and routine—stripped even of the racial obsessions to which I’d become so accustomed and which I had taken (perversely) as a sign of my own maturation—I had been forced to look inside myself and found only a great emptiness there.”

-Obama, Dreams From My Father, pg 302, describing traveling through Europe before reaching Kenya

Suspending my skepticism of political memoirs, I borrowed Obama’s first book during my trip to Rwanda. As I traveled through the hills, I related to his dependence on language, work, and his “racial obsession” while he visited Kenya. I realized that I, too, journeyed to Africa hoping to learn about the world and myself. I had imagined returning home with coherent answers to questions about the significance of my ethnic identity and how I could most effectively contribute to the world.

Instead I’ve come back to Lakeside with more questions than answers. Is my presence in Africa helpful or part of the colonial legacy? Am I able to do anything to meaningfully aid the continent? Should I be working in my own community instead? What is my community?

My head spins as I try to neatly answer these questions and conclude my story.

Despite my questions, as my last days in Dar prove, I have learned and matured during my six months away. I ran errands and visited, retracing my steps from the first months with more confidence. I bid goodbye to the orphans and my students in the wood carvers market. I smiled as I heard employees at the orphanage brag about how much Swahili I’ve learned the wood carvers thank me in English. I surprised myself with my ability to converse, to push in front of lines or on to a crowded dhala dhala, and to bargain for a fair price.

Still, I wonder if my semester abroad was little more than a short distraction, a vacation from myself. I wonder if I will be any more adept at surviving my remaining three semesters in college. When I think about returning to cold Amherst, I long to see colorful fabrics, taste sweet fruit, and hear the lyrical Kiswahili language. I wish I could stop thinking and talking about Tanzania all the time. Instead, everything I hear or see, I compare to Tanzania. I see my orphans in each passing child and wish that they, like Tanzanian children, had never been trained to ignore strangers. I feel out of place here and uncomfortable with the barriers we Americans put up between ourselves.

Since high school, I’ve felt destined to work somewhere in Africa. It’s only after going there, that I feel a seed of doubt. Can anything meaningful be accomplished when fighting against such bureaucracy and government corruption? I do want to return—to use my Kiswahili and help improve standards of living in beautiful countries like Tanzania. But reading Obama’s memoir, makes me wonder whether I belong in Africa or whether I need to find a way to serve my own community—whatever that may be.

Wrapping myself in a khanga instead of a robe after showering, I think about Tanzania and am filled with admiration for the people I met. I admire the mamas carrying heavy loads on their heads and babies on their backs, the Muslim and Christian neighbors who respect each other’s faiths, and the students who dream of education and job opportunities unavailable in their country. But as much as I want to return as soon as possible, I find myself unable to conclusively fit myself into that narrative. Because I have no answers, I have to rely on Tanzanian conventional wisdom and believe that if god wishes I will return.

Kwaheri (goodbye)

"Milima haikutani, lakini binadamu hukutana"

This Tanzanian proverb means that mountains do not meet, but people do.

Hello All!

Sorry for my lack of blogs about the beautiful land of Argentina. I didn't have internet and that greatly discouraged my blog contributions.

For any of you that don't know, I am currently in the Dominican Republic. I have only been here three days, but I love it already. The weather is pleasantly warm with a little bit of humidity. I am living with a host family made up of a mother, her two daughters, and an abuela(grandmother). They are all super friendly and have told me that I am now to act as if I were one of the daughters. I have a gigantic room with a closet that covers the one entire wall of my room( Finally! I have enough space.)

I have internet in my house and I am feeling ambitious this semester so....(hopefully) more entries to come soon.

best wishes to all for a beautiful

"The Land of a Thousand Hills"

Almost a year ago, I watched a documentary about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Between the images the breathtaking country side and brutality, I vowed that I would see it for myself someday—the green fertile hills and how a country rebuilds after it has torn itself apart.

After two days of bus rides, Julie and I found ourselves in Kigali, the capital city. We were surprised how many people spoke English or Kiswahili (the official languages are French and Rwandan) and how many people helped us find the right buses and change money. We met other American friends of ours from Dar who had gotten to Kigali a few days before us and went out for dinner to celebrate one of their birthdays. We hailed eight motorcycle taxis on the street to take us to the restaurant. Cruising through the cool evening, up and down hills along small streets felt like a good beginning to the end—my last adventure on this trip to Africa. Even the motos didn’t go to the right restaurant and go lost several times on the way to a suitable substitute, the ridiculousness of eight Wazungu (the word seems to be the same in Rwandan) with lost, confused motorcyclists, compensated for the lack of preciseness.

In Kigali, we visited the Genocide Memorial Center, a small well-organized museum that clarified many of the questions about the genocide, that Julie and I had been asking each other on our way. We also went to Ntamara, the site of a small church where 5,000 Tutsis were killed. After a sunny walk, we entered a quiet church, not prepared to see the rows of skulls and bones along back and clothes along every wall. Numbly I took pictures, feeling callous, but desperate to capture the moment.

The next day we went to Murabi, where thousands of people were slaughtered in a school. After the bodies had been excavated from the mass graves, they were preserved in lime. We peered into about half of the 24 classrooms filled with white-coated bodies, contorted and mangled spread out across tables. We saw bodies with broken bones, smashed heads, and pained expressions. The faces of men, women, and children looked like they were trying to scream. But the rooms were silent and outside the sun shone and small children played with pinwheels in a field. When I held up my camera they cheered and posed.

We spent the rest of the trip on cramped buses or Dhalas, visiting different cities, photographing kids through the windows. I’m not sure why, but I was more affected by beggars in Rwanda and found myself handing over small change and snacks more frequently than in Tanzania. When I bout a pack of cookies to hand out to a crowd of dirty kids, Julie told them that I was a malaika (angel). I felt uncomfortable, aware that I only fed them to appease my guilt.

We spent two nights in Kibuye, a town next to Lake Kivu, the lake bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. We walked around searching a convenient beach to swim, but only saw fishermen on boats in the lake. Rwandans seem more concerned with farming than encouraging tourism, but we enjoyed walking around the small town.

The food was also a welcome slight variation. Although most food is similar to Tanzanian standards, many restaurants have buffets with rice, French fries, salad, beans, green beans, spinach and cooked bananas for about $2. Even better, cheese is cheaper and more flavorful than in Tanzania. We think its their connections with France.

Throughout traveling in Rwanda, I never heard anyone mention tribal affiliation, but I heard many people refer to the genocide. A stranger on a bus told us that Rwanda had a sad history, but that the sadness was finished. When I took pictures of the DRC border and a man wanted to take my camera from me, I showed the camera to a female police officer to prove I had erased the offensive pictures. She saw the pictures from Murabi and shook her head, saying “so much bad.” The people say that the problems are over that they are one pople now. I have trouble believing that decades of ethnic strife can end so quickly. But looking over green hills dotted by small memorials decorated in purple, the color of mourning, I want to believe that this peace can last.

Now I'm back in the dorms for a few days, running the last few errands and packing before I go back home. I'm already worried about feeling cold and culture shocked in America, but am listening to Christmas music to get excited.

I'm at an internet cafe in Rwanda right now, but I feel like if I don't post this now I never will, so here is a brief update on security issues on campus:


Sunday: One of my friends was almost robbed just off the main campus near her homestay house at dusk. She sprayed the guys with mace and screamed until her neighbors chased them away.
Monday: Two of my had their locked room and closet broken into. The police were unhelpful, ineffective, and thought they were the Scooby gang solving a mystery.
Tuesday: The police try to arrest my friends Ugandan boyfriend for living in the dorm in the middle of the night. He shouldn't have been staying there, but had been for weeks and other boyfriends were staying there. The difference: he's black and the other guys are white. You wouldn't think that a black man sleeping with a white woman would be such a threat in Africa. They actually asked my friend if she wasn't scared that he would beat her. They also didn't have to wake us all up and scare the poor kid who doesn't speak Swahili half to death.
Friday: I had tickets to a Boy II Men concert, but they didn't show up because one was sick. I never got a refund. (Not related to security, but a pretty upsetting occurence nonetheless).

Campus just didn't feel safe without Tanzanian students there. Walking home from teaching English at the carver's market at night, I used to know I could shout and people would come running. But after the students left, it was totally different, empty, quiet and intimidating.

I'm really glad to have finished my finals and traveling through Rwanda. Stay tuned for a post about Rwanda someday...

Malaria

Over the last week some things some things cleared up. Although no one knows when Tanzanian students will return to campus, foreign students met with professors, who agreed to condense classes so we’ll probably have enough time to travel before Christmas. So much smaller classes have resumed and we actually have homework for the next two weeks to fit all the material in.

Even though some stability had returned, I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling so exhausted and frazzled. I had more trouble waking up every morning until Thursday, the morning of my seminar presentation. Then I woke up with such a bad stomach ache, that I didn’t want to get out of bed at all. Convinced I had food poisoning, I dragged myself to my seminar then, on orders of several friends, to a nearby clinic to get malaria tested. I’m glad I listened.

We had been here for months and knew few foreigners on anti-malarial medication to fall ill, but over the last week at 7 international students have been diagnosed with malaria.

It’s basically a bad flu. There are so many symptoms that diagnosing it can be difficult, especially because anti-malarial medication often covers them up. I am taking my medicine, even though Mefloquine occasionally gives me anxiety attacks at night (To Poisonwood Bible fans: no, I’m hiding my pills behind my bed). That’s why I wandered around with malaria for a week before the lab technician told me that I had “plenty of malaria.”

But at least I went to an off-campus clinic and tested positive the first time. Two of my friends tested negative at the free, on-campus clinic, waited a few days, then got tested off-campus and were positive. By that point, they were so sick they both ended up in the hospital on IVs because they couldn’t hold down liquids—or their medication. The test is simple--a doctor pricks your finger then examines your blood under a microscope—but the margin of error at the on-campus clinic is enormous.

After a few days in bed, I’m almost back to myself. Malaria is completely treatable. The real people at risk of dying of malaria are children and pregnant mothers. Almost everyone I’ve ever met from Africa has had (and survived) malaria. And Tanzanians seem to think that fruit cures malaria, so my favorite fruit vendor gave me a free mango.

In summary, having malaria was a very Tanzanian experience, but it wasn't much fun and I don’t think I want to do it again.

I know I haven't written in a long time, and I'm not sure why. I've been meaning to.

Lately I've been dwelling on the topic of language- something that's obviously been in the forefront of my mind ever since I got here, and I guess still is. I'm still spending a lot of time thinking about the complexities of language, of different accents and different ways of expressing thoughts.

Some weeks ago (or was it months now, even?) a friend of ours asked Rachel and me if it's strange for us to hear friends of ours here from other countries speak English. Most of our Erasmus friends here don't speak English very often, just German, but I have heard it once in a while. The answer to that question is that their accents really don't sound strange to me, something that I found surprising the first time I realized it. I got used to all of their accents in German long before I heard them speak English, and because of it, a friend speaking accented English just sounds to me like they're using their own personal way of speaking, which makes sense when I hear it.

Maybe it's because I have little experience with foreign languages, other than German, but I've been discovering new things about languages all the time- German, but also other languages. I remember, at Oktoberfest, the difficulty I had at first explaining to Italians my aunt's relationship to me: no one understand the word 'aunt.' After a little while, I started introducing her as my father's sister, to which the response was always, "Oh, she's your uncle." Eventually I would just answer, "Yes, my uncle," however strange I felt saying that. While my Italian skills are pretty limited (or pretty non-existent, except when it comes to food) I guessed, and then found out, that the word for aunt in Italian is similar tothe one for uncle. It's interesting because our words, 'aunt' and 'uncle,' are so distinct that they almost seem like entirely separate concepts- the connotations are very different to me, whether or not they should be.

When it comes to classes, I can understand almost everything my professors say, even when they speak quickly. Speaking in class myself is another issue, mainly because I'm still a bit intimidated, but I'll work on that. If there's anyone who's difficult to understand, it's actually the other students, who often don't enunciate clearly, but I'm getting better at that, too.

I usually hear a few English phrases in every class, usually because a phrase is more popular in English, and so not translated. Many classes (in German) here include reading in English, because most of the field's research is published in English, but I didn't end up taking any like that. I do have a professor, though, who loves to use English phrases in his lectures. It doesn't really affect my understanding one way or another, but I find it interesting.

I had a dream last night where I was speaking German. It's the first time that's happened, although I do often find myself thinking in German, especially when I've been spoken little to no English all day. My German has improved here greatly, especially my accent, although there's still a huge divide between the way I understand things in German and in English. I still have a hard time visualizing things I read in German, or remembering specific phrases that I've read, rather than just their meaning. English words just hold so many connotations for me that German ones usually seem less powerful.

On another subject, election night here was interesting, but certainly less climactic than it seems to have been for everyone back home. Wherever I went to watch the returns (the English department party, and two different bars) everyone was tuned into CNN, watching it in English. I celebrated, of course, and stayed up to watch it become official around 6 am, missing my first class the next day. Come Wednesday, though, it was back to life as usual here, I'm glad to report. I can't say for certain what went on at home, but I did hear some reports of Obama-mania/worship gone overboard. I'm hope, at the least, that everyone's keeping their heads and thinking about what 'change' actually means.

Obama Ameshinda! Obama has Won!

Later, I will try to reflect on the significance of an Obama victory and how people have reacted in Tanzania. For now, I just want to say this is a great day. Right now, I really am proud of America.

Have a nice day!

love,

Megan