destruction of panya 2

April 17th (part 2) This week has been very interesting. It started with no rain and gorgeous days of sun shine. My garden grew really nice while I was away and continued throughout the week. I can’t eat the food from it fast enough! I’ve been making many deliveries to neighbors which they greatly appreciated. On Thursday, we woke to a torrential downpour. And the rain hasn’t ceased too much since then. All day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we did not see the sun. On Sunday it only rained in the morning and evening but the sun was hidden behind clouds so it was still dark and chilly. As a result, the garden stopped growing and I started spending more time indoors. Occasionally the rain would break and I would go running or walking but the paths and roads were (and still are) awful to walk or run on. Most of my clothes are muddy from falling and I can’t wash them because they won’t dry. On Saturday Lindsay and I escaped to Isoko and spent the afternoon watching movie’s at Enea’s home. Yesterday the sun finally emerged but the rain and cold came back today. We were told the rain stops after Easter…it’s gotten worse. :-( I am proud to announce that I have captured and then made someone else kill the panya (rat) today. Panya number 2 is dead and it’s about time! I have been waking up all week to him eating in the kitchen. Each day I have made new discoveries to which food he likes to eat. You would think triple bagging food would be enough to deter the scent! I cleaned out the kitchen of all his favorites last night and wrapped up and placed in a new location anything I thought he might like. I discovered Saturday night that he ate through three bags that I used to cover up my cereal. That is what he was crunching on every night! I brought so much fruit back from Mbeya that I hadn’t touched my cereal…now the remaining cereal is in a bag which hangs from one of the ceiling beams. On Sunday, I found out that he ate some of the seeds from the garden that are kept in a storage room. That discovery made me call in the reinforcements: the cat. I would have brought in the cat a long time ago, but Lindsay is allergic. I went to Mbughi’s house to find that the cat ran away. The cat returned later but Mbughi was worried that it would eat the poison we had in the ceiling and wouldn’t bring her over! So much for the reinforcement. This morning I was stretching when I heard movement in the kitchen. I went in with my flashlight and the rat leapt from the flour bag towards me! I screamed and watched him run into the door. I grabbed the rice sorter (closest thing to me) and captured him. Lindsay told me to shake it around. I did but all that helped with was cutting his tail off! I decided it was too much for the morning and I didn’t think I could kill him so I put my boot on top of the rice sorter and went to school. This afternoon I returned home for some lunch to find the rat was still captured and alive. I started thinking he would eat through the rice sorter (it is made out of woven dried grass) and got worried. I took my boot, got his tail to stick out, and pressed down. I opened the rice sorter and with one jump he ran free. I screamed quite loudly then followed him into the back of the compound. He ran into our cooking room where I cornered him and again threw the rice sorter back on top. Luckily he was injured and couldn’t escape me. I heard the primary school teachers (who heard me scream and thought I was in trouble) and asked them to help. Two women (one pregnant) came into my home, closed up the cooking room, and attacked. With a wooden spoon, the rat was beaten to death. The rat was already limping at this point and obviously had no chance. Hopefully he is the last rodent to make an appearance while I still live in Kafule! This week is sports week and the teachers play the students in netball today! Now that I understand the rules, I enjoy the game very much. I only need to find a team to play on in Delaware when I return home! Love, Gretchen

bad return to kafule

April 17th I’ve been back to my home in the mountains for a little over a week now. The first day of my return was quite awful but I’ve luckily rebounded quite fast. Easter Day was spent on a bus for 12 hours. It all started at 9 AM in Mbeya on a smaller, more crowded bus and ended in a larger bus where I was seated in the front with the driver. The drive, in general, wasn’t bad but I was ready to get home. At one point we stopped for over two hours in Isongole (a neighboring village that is about a three hour drive away) because the gas tank fell off its hinges and a hole was punctured in it. So much for those pot hole filled roads. When we did reach Kafule (at 9 PM) I was met by Mr. Mbughi and his daughter who helped me to carry my bags home. After dropping off my bags, I enjoyed a nice dinner at their home before retreating for bed. Unfortunately, sleep wasn’t as relaxing as I had hoped. It all started with the smell of rat urine that was overwhelmingly present in my room. All over my clothes and bed I found little bowel movements and discoloration. Not just one or two droppings, but probably around a hundred or more. I did as much cleaning as I could that first night and left the deep cleaning for the next morning. I spent Easter morning cleaning all my clothes and scrubbing the floor in my room and kitchen. Now, my clothes are being safely kept in my luggage and my bed is under a mosquito net. With the rat problem and an ear infection that got progressively worse, I had a bad return to Kafule. In the afternoon on Easter Monday I called my friend Enea to ask for medicine from the hospital. While on the phone with her, I informed her of the rat problem and she was upset that I was having such a bad day. A few hours later some students arrived to help de-rat my home. Enea sent them with poison that they placed in some burnt meat and placed in my ceiling. Supposedly the burnt meat sends a nice scent that the rat would enjoy. I was very grateful for her help and my day started to look up from there. That, and a look at my grandiose garden, quickly turned my return to Kafule into a more positive direction. The week started bad but was pretty positive after that first day. Keep reading to find out about the rest of the week! Love, Gretchen

panya kubwa

April 4th (part 4)

Lindsay kept informing me that our mouse friend returned. She heard noises in the roof at night. I believed her but thought it was a little odd that he wasn’t eating any of our food. Wednesday morning I got a pleasant surprise in the kitchen. It wasn’t the little mouse that we scared off in January, it was a full grown rat the length of my hand! I screamed and woke Lindsay. Throughout the day Wednesday and Thursday we had students and neighbors climb into our ceiling to investigate things. Unfortunately, the rat was not seen. This, inevitably, led to stories about the rat. Teachers and villagers informed Lindsay and I that the rat is actually a person. The person transforms into a rat at night to scare us. If we killed the rat we are actually committing murder. Since I don’t want them to think I am a murderer and kill me in turn, I will get someone else to kill the rat!

On Friday morning I woke Lindsay a second time when the rat ran out of my clothes when I was trying to pick an outfit out for school. I jumped into my bed, hid under my mosquito net, and didn’t get out for about twenty minutes. I would have stayed in longer but I would have been late to school. I jumped out and threw things around my room looking for his hiding place but I couldn’t find where the rat escaped to. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

On Saturday morning, I woke to a noise in the kitchen. I yelled to Lindsay but there was no reply. The new panya was making his rounds. I entered the kitchen in time to see him in the food shelf. I started throwing food off when finally I realized he was hiding in the hole where the shelf is leaning against the wall in a triangular shape. He was trapped. But how to get him out was the next issue. I started banging things against the shelf but he just stayed where he was. Eventually, I got on my phone and asked Mbughi to send his son to help. Two phone calls and 20 minutes later Noeli arrived. I asked Lindsay for my machete and for the next twenty minutes Noeli and I chased the rat around the kitchen. At one point I trapped him in a pot and was quite proud of myself but then Noeli lifted the pot and the rat ran free. He ran right under the kitchen door, over Lindsay’s waiting feet, and then ran back into the kitchen. Eventually we cornered him again and Noeli hit him with the flat side of the machete a few times until he stopped moving. After that Lindsay emerged from her room to see Noeli hold the dead rat by the tail. I got a picture, don’t worry.

The rat is gone and we are happy, right? Wrong. On Thursday evening I spotted his cousin in the kitchen. We left on Friday and I hope I return to a clean and rodent free kitchen this weekend! Blah!

Love,

Gretchen

praise yehova!

April 4th (part 3)

Students are finally realizing we won’t be staying in Kafule for much longer. I have had many invitations to homes and events. It was three weeks ago now that a student invited me to her church in Kapelekase. I didn’t ask any details but figured it was the Moravian church and agreed to go. Since such a small portion of the population is not Moravian it is pretty safe to assume everyone is Moravian. I was wrong. During the 45 minute walk to Kapelekase I found out that I was indeed walking to a Jehova’s Witness Church or Synagogue or Temple or whatever you call them. My Moravian song book and Bible that I carried were quite useless. For an hour and a half I sat through the most boring church service I have attended in Tanzania. I usually enjoy the singing and dancing so much that it doesn’t bother me that I don’t understand the words being spoken. Unfortunately, the songs (all two of them) that we listened to were recorded, static, and out of tune. There was no dancing, and I didn’t understand what was being said. The only entertainment came in the form of a 4 year old brother of my student, Mboka, who I teased and played with during the service. During the first half of the service a man stood in the front and read from a binder. He read some Bible verses and occasionally had others read them and then (I think) summarized these verses. The second half of the service was a bit (small bit) more exciting. Everyone took out a booklet which has the weekly lesson in it. I believe a booklet is printed out every 3 months and then shipped all over Tanzania. I was more excited that the date was accurate and not from the 90’s than the random photos from the 90’s that appeared inside. We spent an hour reading and then stopping to answer the questions found throughout the reading. Occasionally we would read from the Bible. The Sunday I attended was about artwork and what the art depicts (I think)…it was a blessing because I spent the hour pointing out the photos to the 4 year old Filemon. He was happy to have something to do just as much as I was. At the end of the service, I was coaxed into buying biscuits for Mboka and Filemon before returning home. Home was a long journey. Filemon was tired and the sun was high and mighty. I offered to carry Filemon a few times and he would run and hide behind Mboka. In the end I was tired of walking so slow and I picked him up and carried him back up the mountain to Kafule. He cried for about two minutes and then realized it was fun. He gave a great big smile to everyone who passed us. It was very difficult but I managed to make it back to Mboka’s house and then soon after left to go home. I decided that I need to get my muscles ready for carrying Julius in two months’ time. The rest of the evening I relaxed.

The following Sunday, I decided to go to the Moravian Church in Kafule. I hadn’t been to the church in some time and figured it would be good for me especially since I departed for break the following weekend (this past weekend). It happened to be Women’s Celebration Sunday and there was much dancing and singing to enjoy. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a white woman, Jo, attend the service. I met Jo on the previous day when I went for a walk with Umbege in Isoko. Jo is from England but grew up in Tanzania. Her father flew the planes that brought donations throughout the country in the 80’s. For the past two years, she has lived in Tanzania helping the process of translating the Bible into the vernacular languages in the Mbeya area. Her specific task is to work on recording the already translated material. Since the vernacular languages are more oral than written it is the best way to really get the message across to the locals. She spent two weeks in Isoko working on the recording of the book of Matthew into Chindali. Jo got me out of the church service at a reasonable time so I was very grateful for he (she told them she was hungry so they prepared us food at the pastor’s house and escorted us out the back door). She had a colleague travelling to Isoko on Monday and asked her to bring Lindsay and I some food. After a long day of marking exams on Monday, I didn’t make it to Isoko to pick up this food. On Tuesday, I still was busy marking exams but made sure to leave early. I am so glad I did. Her colleague brought us Nido (powder milk), and 15 or 20 pounds of potatoes, 2 pounds of carrots, and a dozen green peppers. Linday and I ate well last week with that and the thriving garden. While picking up the food, Jo informed me they would have an extra space in her car on Friday when they leave for Mbeya. They planned to leave in the afternoon which was perfect: I could proctor the last exam and have an hour to clean up the house before leaving. The ride to Mbeya was the most enjoyable and safest ride. I wasn’t in the car with a speeding Tanzanian! On Friday night, Jo invited me to stay in her house before departing for Matema beach on Saturday. Her roommate, Suzanna, has lived in Mbeya for the last 30 years so it was interesting to stay at their home. The home wasn’t of someone who took up the building for a year or two but actually lived in Tanzania for an extended amount of time. It was a real home. It was very comforting. Saturday morning, Jo drove me to the bus station and I hopped on a bus for Matema beach. I met my fellow volunteer friend Lisa at the bus station and we’ve stayed together on the gorgeous beach resting from the last two and a half months of teaching.

Tomorrow, I am traveling back to Mbeya for a few days of refueling. I will spend some quality time on a computer and at some restaurants before returning back to Kafule. Not sure if this will be in time for Easter or shortly after it. Depends on how much I can get done in the days ahead.

One more post to go, please keep reading!

Love,

Gretchen

sad news

April 4th (part 2)

I am going to fill you in on random stories of the last two weeks.

I ate duck. Yes, the first time I ate duck was in the home of a local doctor that lives up a mountain. My friend Hawa, the student teacher from last term whom I’ve spoken about in previous posts, promised me that her mother would cook duck for me. On a Wednesday afternoon, Lindsay and I walked fifty minutes to the home of Dr. Kibona. Dr. Kibona was not around (he never is when I visit) so we spent some quality time with his wife who does not speak English. The duck was the driest meat I have ever had in Tanzania. It was good but definitely missing a sauce. We ate it with ugali which is a lump of boiled flour and very dry as well. Luckily it didn’t have its neck or much fat still attached so I was happy. After the meal Lindsay and I thanked her, waited for the rain to stop, then returned home down one muddy mountain and then up another slippery one.

The Saturday before the duck feast we ran into Dr. Kibona and his wife in Isoko under some awful circumstances. That morning, I was out in my garden doing work when students walked by in their school uniforms. It is not unusual for students to go to school on Saturday, but to wear uniforms is a bit weird. They informed me that a student was killed on Friday evening. Don’t worry, the student wasn’t killed but died. I can’t imagine a Tanzanian killing anyone let alone a student so I knew they just mixed up the word. They told me something was wrong with her heart. Atukuzwe was a form 1 student from Isoko. I actually don’t know many of the form 1 student’s names and didn’t even know until after the funeral that Atukuzwe was a girl (there are boy’s in other forms with that name!). Lindsay and I went with the second headmaster to Isoko following after the students who were singing as they walked to Isoko. The service was very short and sad. Many students were crying and Lindsay and I sat next to the sobbing mother. The service continued into the forest outside of the church where the burial took place. We sat with some of our friends from the hospital who informed us of the happenings behind this mysterious death. Enea told us that Atukuzwe was at the family shamba (farm) collecting maize for dinner. While returning she collapsed, died (instantly—who knows) and then was brought to the hospital when she was discovered. Atukuzwe had a history of heart trouble (found out later this just means she has high blood pressure) and that became the reason for her death. I think she just fell and hit her head and before anyone found her she died but one will never know. Later that day, Lindsay and I shared dinner at Dr. Kitta’s residence but he was just as informative as Enea and we didn’t learn anything new.

Between our random adventures of the week and the fact that all of the new teachers were just given over to new leading roles at school, Lindsay and I again were some of the only teachers actually teaching. The new teachers have taken up positions as academic master or disciplinarian or whatever else the headmaster has assigned for them. They return from their week of getting paychecks in Itumba to a week of adjusting to their new positions. And Tanzanians wonder what is wrong with their education system.

Love,

Gretchen

working hard or hardly working?

April 4th

Sorry I haven’t written in the longest time. The last two weeks have been very stressful and I wanted to stay away from writing an angry post.

After my trip to Malawi I recovered by going on long runs in the village. My muscles are definitely getting stronger and I have been able to endure more strenuous runs. I have kept a twice daily back exercise routine which has aided in my strength. Throughout these weeks I have also spent a lot of time working the garden. I am happy to announce that the first vegetables have been cut and eaten. Nyanya chungu translates to bitter tomato. I don’t think we have an American equivalent and I don’t foresee anybody wanting one. When Umbege and I first planted the eggplant he brought plants of nyanya chungu for any spare holes we dug. At that time I knew I was not a huge fan but my neighbor’s love nyanya chungu so it would be a nice gift whenever it grew. Nyanya chungu happened to be the first vegetable to take fruit in the garden. As a good omen Lindsay cooked it in with our supper of beans that evening. Now we’ve had a pretty steady supply of the nyanya chungu and my neighbors are very happy about it!

I am on vacation now but I had the pleasure to eat more than nyanya chungu from the garden before I left. Last week, I had a few dinners with lettuce and other dinners with mchicha. Mchicha is any kind of plant in which you can eat the leaves. This, of course, does not include lettuce or cabbage. I have three different types of mchicha growing in my garden and have been experimenting with them throughout the week. Like the nyanya chungu, mchicha grows really fast so I have done a lot of sharing with my neighbors. Other plants have been growing really well and I plan to start eating more when I return this weekend. Two eggplants started emerging with lots of flowers on the other plants. I am more excited about the eggplant than anything else. The eggplant is what started my garden back in November…took a couple of months but I am finally going to see the end result of all the work!!

This week I am taking a much needed vacation and hope the garden continues to prosper while I am away. I have set up camp at a resort on the northern shores of Lake Nyasa this week. The first two days were very warm and comforting and then the rain decided to kick in the last two days. I was hoping to eliminate some of my farmer’s tan appearance before returning home but I guess I must wait until June to do that! Tomorrow I am headed back to civilization (Matema ended up being a village similar to Kafule but without cell phone network) and enjoying a few days of good food in Mbeya before returning to Kafule for the final stretch.

Love,

Gretchen

hello kwacha

March 11th

I have had a busy schedule of working out since my last blog post. On Tuesday the headmaster returned from a ten day trip to Mbeya and we celebrated with a three hour long staff meeting. All I understood was that something is happening this Friday but I don’t know what. After the meeting I asked one of the new teachers and she informed me that ‘Worker’s Day’ holiday is on May 1st and we must have a celebration for it. This Friday we will be planning the celebration. Also, the school wants to plan a goodbye party for Lindsay and I. Lindsay is leaving before our contract is over (her parents are coming) so it will be interesting if the headmaster makes the celebration after she leaves or before. The two of them don’t get along very well… After the meeting everyone left for the day and the headmaster left for another trip somewhere and I haven’t seen him since. Maybe he will return on Friday for our next staff meeting.

On Monday and Wednesday I went for long runs on the main road. On Wednesday I did an hour run up and down the hilly road which I was proud of. The students saw me and said I looked like a police officer. Not really sure why I looked like a police officer but I am thinking it is because of the blue and black clothing I was wearing and not that I was running. Everyone now knows that I like to run and I get comments almost every day. On Thursday, I tried to get Mbughi’s daughter to run with me in the rain but she wasn’t home when I arrived. At first, I wasn’t running in the rain which made it very difficult to find a time to run but now I go running in the mud and come home a mess almost every day. On Saturday I took exercise to the next level and walked to Malawi with my friend’s Umbege and Elizabeth.

At 6 AM on Saturday, I walked to Elizabeth’s house where I met Umbege and we prepared for the long walk ahead of us. We finally departed at 6:30. It was still dark out and we had to use flashlights for the first twenty minutes of the walk but that wasn’t the only hindrance. Mud. Lot’s and lot’s of mud. Luckily it wasn’t raining, but it rained all night which made the footpaths horrendous. Luckily, I only fell once the entire day but it happened to be right at the beginning so Elizabeth stood behind me the rest of the day to help if I fell again. The day was perfect for walking. It was overcast all day but the only rain we got was a drizzle here and there, nothing to take cover from. I am glad the sun never showed its full strength because I didn’t take into account the lack of drinking water I could buy. After a thirteen hour round trip adventure, I have made it safely home.

The walk to Malawi was supposed to take three and a half hours… I wasn’t expecting it to take five hours for us to reach the market. We did, however, run into a few obstacles on the way that probably set us back at least an hour. One thing was the mud as I already mentioned. After three hours of a mostly main road walk we headed into the footpaths. The footpaths were a good four or five inches deep in mud. Elizabeth had to take off her sandals to walk through and I should have just taken off my sneakers as they didn’t do much to help. Along the river runs a river that we must cross to enter Malawi. I was expecting one river; we crossed six rivers. Four of them were very small and we crossed over rocks or just walked through them without a problem. Two rivers were quite large. The first large one had a local bridge constructed for its crossing. The bridge is made out of bamboo shoots and dangling branches from the trees. In some sections there was nothing for me to hold on to. Not the safest structure in the world. When we arrived at the bridge, there was a line thirty deep of women ready to cross. Each of them had a basket full of various foods they wanted to sell at the market. I figured if they could cross with a thirty pound basket on their heads then I shouldn’t have a problem. Since I am white I was escorted to the front of the line as soon as we arrived. Umbege went first and then I followed shortly after. I explained to Elizabeth that I was fine to walk across as long as she waited until I was over before she started to walk. She didn’t. She was right behind me. I didn’t turn around to check, but I could hear her plenty well which made the crossing unnerving. At Savage in 2013 I will construct a bridge very similar to this for all of you to try and see the ingenuity in it!

After crossing the bridge, we entered Malawi. This first sign of Malawi: lots and lots of tobacco plants. I explained how it was illegal to grow tobacco in America and Umbege and Elizabeth thought it very funny. I hoped crossing the bridge meant after four hours of walking we were only ten minutes from the market, but I was wrong. It took us another hour to reach the market. The conditions of the path and walk in general declined once we crossed the bridge. The path grew muddier and we hit another large river that we weren’t expecting. Because of all the rain, one of the “creeks” increased in volume about a hundred fold. We reached this creek to find three women standing and staring at it. Umbege was the first to jump in using his umbrella to measure the depth. I was next which shocked everybody considerably. I figure I am a better swimmer that Umbege, who has never swam before, and thought it could be fun. The river got stronger and deeper as we crossed but I was able to keep my balance throughout the walk. We made it across safely with a group of seven women following close behind us. The water rose to my hips about 2/3 of the way across so I was drenched by the time we reached the opposite bank imagining how we were going to return that evening if it so happened to rain while we were at the market.

The market in Malawi was fairly large but I was a bit disappointed in the selection of goods. Most of the food and accessories could be bought in Tanzania. The prices were also significantly higher (and the currency was in Kwacha--hence the title). I was happy to buy a head of cabbage (not so happy about carrying it back) and a few packets of Malawian tea. Both Umbege and Elizabeth bought soap to bring back to Tanzania to prove they traveled to Malawi (the soap said nothing about Malawi on it…but they insisted!). We stayed for about two hours before beginning the trek back home. The paths were a lot easier to walk through on the way home and the walk took us only 4 hours and 40 minutes (20 less than the walk there) at which time I was completely exhausted. Before I could bath and go to sleep I got a picture of Umbege, Elizabeth, and I after the long day hike. I also ran down to Mbughi’s house to give him some Malawian chai. We have already made plans to travel back next month!

Today I am tired and very angry. A student came knocking at 6 AM this morning! Then returned at 8! I didn’t answer either times but I was wide awake after the 8 AM knock! The student just returned again asking me to help with a mathematics problem…I am teaching at 4 PM today, she can wait two hours!

I don’t have many plans for the week but I am sure something exciting will happen and I will let you know about it in the next blog! Oh, I did find out about the wizard! His wife was cooking dinner one night and someone walked into his house and shot him. So much for the burning story!

Love,

Gretchen