So sorry, girls, no new material here!
From my window through the orange morning, I see the campus guard patrolling the parking lot in his fumbly navy blue uniform and nylon purple jacket his mama probably gave him when he was a schoolboy. Surely it's the scarlet pin stripe down the leg that makes this ensemble official. The morning light is gentle filtered through leaves and dust and exhaust fumes. Beautiful pollution. Before this massive wooden desk, through the screen and past the white criss-cross bars on the window, the cars and trucks scramble and honk, nosing for a position in line on the road. There's a blackbird in the tree. Maybe he flew in from Munich a few days ago. Regarding each other, perhaps we're both thinking, and why are you here?
Part of the reason that I have been so MIA is because internet access is spotty at best (right now I'm writing this offline to cut and paste later), and, well, I don't know what to say about it all, really. As I look out the window, I see my household helper, Esther, hobbling down the road towards campus. She has a clubbed foot. She is the angel who stumbles in a few times a week and does her juju to my apartment and it's clean and she brings me mangoes and cabbage. Last week she got a little carried away and brought me 4 mammoth heads. Cabbage, I've found, is difficult to give away.
Everything here is different. I can't explain it. And everything's sloooooooooowwww to get done. It's dirty – rubbish and unspeakable things. Small piles of trash are eternally burning on the side of the road. The side roads are dust and rocks and holes. The car exhaust looks like a colony of dementors searching for Harry on the main roads.
The people seem innocent, happy and friendly. They are beautiful.
Last weekend I went to the beach and if squinted my eyes a little bit to blur the people, it looked like a scene from any castaway movie you've ever seen. Stunning! Spectacular! Men so black they are like silhouettes of themselves pushing bicycles through the pale sand; cut coconuts with drinking straws dangle from the handlebars.
Flowers drip from every branch, pop out of every shrub and just sort of hang out everywhere. Most kinds I've never seen before.
Fred is one of my lizards. He's the green one who shares my kitchen. I haven't yet named the opalescent gecko that lives in my bathroom. Any suggestions? I've been told to celebrate their presence in my life because they reduce my risk of malaria. Sometimes it's hard not to squeal when they dart out from behind something, though. In addition, an alarming number of tiny red ants also call this little apartment home. Much to my great joy. I've become a mass murderer of the highest order; nonetheless, they are winning this war and I'm actually getting used to them crawling over my toothbrush, my clean dishes and, like PacMan, weaving in and out of the keys as I type.
It's Spartan living. I'm shaking my head as I write. How can I illustrate what I mean? On our first shopping trip, we, the new teachers, went silent with shock when we saw how much imported items cost. And everything that makes our life comfortable is imported. I paid the equivalent of 23 dollars for a bottle of contact lens solution. So I was paralyzed at the store. All I could bring myself to purchase was dish soap, some household cleaner, shampoo (15 dollars), Pepto-Bismal colored body lotion, toothpaste and "mielie pap", what's call grits in the States.
My apartment is okay; at little dismal, since I have just the basics. I have been living from a couple of suitcases for, oh, a few months anyway. I can't even remember what I own anymore! Honestly, it would be pretty dismal anyhow. One thing I like is that we are squeezed between a church, a mosque and an African school, so it's aural candy everyday between the bells and ululations of the church, the haunting calls of "Allaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Akbar!" from the mosque and the happy, rhythmic clapping and singing from the school.
My assistant at school, Mary, is lovely and competent, but I can't help wishing she was named "Gift" or "Happiness" like some of the other Tanzanian teachers' assistants. Can't have it all, can we?
Here's some just random things I've encountered...
This evening I was walking along the road and came across a hole in the sidewalk, 3 ½ feet deep, just enough to kill your kid or break your grandma's legs. Just there. No workers, no danger sign. Can you imagine? Nobody's responsible for things like this, or perhaps everyone's responsible. That's one of the biggest differences and the hardest to get my head around – the seemingly complete lack of accountability.
At about 5:30 each evening, the traffic backs up to the front of my apt, which draws all manner of beggars and sellers. In particular, I'm fond of the tinkling ice cream man, who provides a bit of comic relief to the screeching and flatulating cars by juxtaposing a tinny "dum dum dum di dum dum" come-buy-my-ice-cream song.
And I smile at the Tanzanians because it's polite and respectful and to see their lovely white teeth, but it makes me feel shy. I don't know why. Perhaps I'm afraid they'll speak to me and I won't know what to say. Maybe I'm afraid they won't smile back because I don't belong here.
Anyway, my impressions so far are pieced together through isolated events and encounters. I'm not really sure how I feel about it and I can't state whether I think it's good or bad or if I like it or not. It's strange to me still.
(Can you guess what I'm eating for breakfast right now? Cabbage!)
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