Town

Better late than never- here are some pictures from around our town. We go in from time to time to buy food and other supplies, to pick up mail or to fill up the car with gas. It’s only a ½ mile from our house so we sometimes walk there. Along the way is a troop of baboons who live on the side of road and are always foraging for grains that fall off the passing trucks or scurrying back and forth between the farms and the forest with stolen sugar cane in their mouths. Occasionally, you might see a group of red colobus or sykes monkeys or hear an elephant! Once you get there, this is what you find:





It’s not like going to the market in the US! There are no coffee shops, no movie theaters and no grocery stores and only maybe one or two other cars. It’s like a migrant town from the old west. Sort of like Deadwood without Al Swearingen, gold or horses. Not many white people either so of course all the kids stop and yell wazungu and everybody stares openly. Some parents go and get there kids and point out the wazungu to them like we’re some kind of strange animal. There’s one old man in the village that is usually drunk off his ass and is a major impediment to getting shopping done. He always opens a conversation with talk about Obama, but then inevitably dives into darker topics like blaming all of his troubles on white colonialism which of course can only be cured if I give him $ or if I buy one of the village girls, happening to walk by, from him. The worst is when he spots us as we pull up to fill up on gas since it takes 10 or 15 minutes to transfer the gas from the oil drum to the tank using a 5 liter milk pitcher. You know you have to just sit there and bear it for the duration. I think this guy provides entertainment for everybody else since he is never even restrained or discouraged by the business people who he interferes with when he gets between them and a paying wazungu customer. Everybody just chuckles and so we take it in stride as well and even if we have to completely ignore him or physically hold him back from getting in the car with us like when Carolyn and Caitlin were here there are no smiles turned upside down.

We buy most of our produce in the farmer market which can be reached through narrow little alleyways between the stores lining the road. We had trouble finding it the first time and were confused as we seemed to be passing through peoples’ yards to get there but sure enough within this warren of buildings there was a secret magical tunnel lined with fresh produce. This is where we get our food.




Finally, we had a chance to give away some more of those awesome soccer balls that Josh and Carolyn sent. Leonardi, who works at the monitoring center, and Ruth and I gave Josh’s old ball to the Mang’ula primary school. I really didn’t know what to expect, but when we told one of the teachers that we wanted to donate a ball, he rang the big school bell and hundreds of students poured out of their classrooms and ran to the assembly yard.



Then, he told us that he would like for us to give our gift in front of all the children and that they would sing us a song. At this point, while I was walking up to the assembly with the teachers, I began to have flashbacks.

It can’t be…. not again-


Flashbacks from the time that Maura, Bill, Julie and I visited a primary school in Fiji and at just the same type of assembly, after the one hundred or so children sang their school song and their National Anthem, WE were asked to sing the American National Anthem in return. It was considered polite, as we four were visitors, to sing a song in return for our hosts who had so honored us. So, as the whole school waited breathlessly for the Americans to display their pride and patriotism we huddled together and whispered in panic and realized that none of us knew the words beyond a few phrases like ‘this land of liberty….fields of grain….from sea to shining sea…’. We didn’t even know how to begin. It was pretty much the single worst moment of my life. There was no way to bullshit it. We couldn’t even hum it. We were complete losers. You could see contempt in the kids’ eyes. The music teacher caught on eventually to our dumbfounded looks and to add salt to our wounds, the Fijian children led us in our own National Anthem which they sang out loudly and clearly for us to follow. ‘Surely though, you can find one song that you know to sing in return?’ the teacher then asked us. Another panicked huddle ensued and we came up with ‘old macdonald had a farm…E..I…E..I..O..and on this farm he had a ------…’ sinking to the depths of our shame from which I never quite recovered. So what went through my head at this moment was….CRAP….I STILL haven’t learned the damn words to the National Anthem and lightening can’t strike twice can it?

The band was ready


The stage was set


And the kids sang out their welcoming songs beautifully (click to play the video)-



And just at the moment where GOD was going to strike me down hard for the comments I made two posts ago, my karma was instantly reversed by handing over Josh’s soccer ball to the head teacher and BUDDHA rescued me. I was asked only to say a few words- which I boldly enunciated in toddler Swahili, and the children cheered. Whew!

At the second school that we visited, Mlimani Primary, I made sure that Ruth was carrying the soccer balls! Maybe she knows the words to the song? Maybe she’s a better American? Just kidding, it was her turn anyway.



They called another enormous school assembly and the kids and teachers were super excited and grateful and no songs were sung and we were all very happy. One of these balls is from Carolyn and one is also from Josh.

Teacher accepts the balls from Ruthie-


Smiling on the inside-


One went to the girls and one for the boys-


This teacher looked mean but was really very nice and Ruth hugged her-


The kids cheered and Leonardi whipped them into a frenzy and gave a shout out to the Udzungwa Mountains Ecological Monitoring Center- Whoooop! Whooop! (click to play the video):



There’s one more ball from Carolyn to give away to Katarukila. Forgot last time, but here’s the Wadudu of the day. Thanks for discovering it Ruth!