Not one for the Literati
30/6/2008
It's a strange business. When reading Wilde, Asimov, or Bryson's 'Brief History of Nearly Everything' I could happily dip in and out. Now I'm reading the original Bond, Casino Royale, which with the best will in the world is trash. Significant trash, certainly, but trash nonetheless. Yet I can't bear to go to bed without at least a few more chapters. I wouldn't even say I'm enjoying it more, simply that it's compulsive, perhaps impulsive. Minds...
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Mental
29/6/2008
Someone with more imagination than sense (I think it was Caroline, in fact) suggested that what the Yamba kids really need is a chess club. Tom bought a set in Tanga, but given the degree of effort required to explain Go Fish (and that in 8 weeks), getting chess across in a fortnight seems an impossible task. As ever, the way to tackle it is to break it into a series of merely very difficult tasks, so first up has been teaching Cosmas so he can translate. Indeed I think Tom's already more or less done that - I played Coasmas tonight and, although he needed occasional reminders, he largely had all the pieces moving.
Strategy may take a little longer, but that might just be a chance for an interesting study. If we were to teach the kids all the rules, but not give one single tip, I'd love to come back in 5 years and see whether the strategies that developed were the same ones I'd recognise. In reality, though, even Yamba isn't as remote as that now. If nothing else, some volunteer will bring a copy of the Torygraph and leave the chess column lying around. I probably shouldn't be surprised if those who go to secondary school (few, but there are some) come back with some familiarity with the game. Universal freedom of ideas? We're not there yet, but perhaps there's yet hope.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Physical
28/6/2008
Yesterday I walked down to Mili for the night - it seemed only fair since Ele and Flo had walked up to Yamba for lunch - and had a relaxing evening playing poker and chatting shit. Today, therefore, I planned to climb back up, which by all reports is a bit of a job. Oddly, despite being quite fond of walking, and although more or less everyone else has done the walk (Ele's probably done it 4 or 5 times), it's taken me until now to give it a go.
2 hours and 5 minutes (the times are a matter of some competition) after leaving the Mili house I reached the Yamba football pitch, still perhaps 15 minutes away from the accepted finish line at Mzizma. While that's probably a respectable first time, there was never any danger of me matching Ele's record (2hrs8, door to door), and if I'm honest I was particularly glad there was a match in full swing when I arrived, as it gave me an excuse to sit down for half an hour before doing the last leg. As an added bonus, Yamba beat Mwenze (?) 7-0, which made Cosmas (our Kiswahili teacher, who's admitted he likes football TOO much) very happy.
We played cards this evening - nothing unusual in that, we do it most nights. But for the first time Sybil wasn't there to be chairman for a particular game, so it fell to me to utter the magic words
This game is called Mau. There are 3 rules you can know now. Jokers are the same as the 9 of diamonds; you can draw a card at any time; there is no further discussion of the rules.
It felt very odd. Sybu taught - or perhaps taught is the wrong word, caused us to learn - the game, and her chairmanship felt integral. In the end, though, we had a great game, involving hopping round the table, repeated stroking of my face, and riverdance. The evening ended with Vic despairing of our inability to do the running man dance, and launching into a practice session. Oh, and some more stargazing - we had a particularly fine shooting star, indeed.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
School's out
27/6/2008
Today was, I think, the first day I've been in Yamba but not working while school was open, so I popped in to help out. Unfortunately, the messade that school was open today hadn't really made it around the village - there were 4 standard 7s, and one person from standard 4. Most of the morning, as a result, was spent playing french cricket (which they picked up much quicker than I'd feared) and verb pictionary (at which the kids drawing skills put me to shame).
Since there were almost more staff than students it was a good chance to do some one-on-one reading too, so Yakobo read to me about Jim Wilson's aeroplane trip to Aberdeen, and the new bicycle Bert got for his birthday. To be honest, I don't expect Yako really understood the jist of what he was reading, but his pronunciation of 'bicycle' was exemplary. Which made it all the more odd that he struggled with 'her'.
I'd love to go into school again at some point, when there are actually normal lessons going on, but it looks rather as if I'm not going to be in quite the right place at the right time again. After all, there's only going to be 1 week of term time before we all leave - the kids who were in today, and the rather more who've come most other days for the last 3 weeks, are doing so of choice in their holidays. Do you suppose I should suggest that to influential figures when I get home?
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Parents
26/6/2008
If the children got their own post, I don't see why the parents shouldn't ;-)
Today Freddy's baby son, Joseph, was on site again, and I was struck by Freddy as a dad more than ever before. Little Joseph may have been playing on a building site, but that didn't mean Freddy wasn't being really protective of him - steering him away from the really dangerous parts of the site (where men were breaking boulders with sledgehammers) to the merely mildly perilous parts (where women were breaking smaller rocks with ordinary hammers). Probably the best photo I haven't taken was of Freddy sitting on a half-built wall (clearly on a building site) with his red helmet on, holding Joseph who was wearing a yellow helmet 5 times to big for him.
Tom and Miranda were also particularly struck when they visited the house of one of their students (a Francis, I think). There's no reason why you shouldn't, but somehow you don't expect to walk into a mud hut and see the children's artwork from school stuck up on the wall. It's amazing how wonderfully good natural parents some people are.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
A roof over your head
25/6/2008
The roof seems to be by far the most significant stage of building something. I hadn't considered it before, but it feels to me very much as if without a roof, whatever else there is, you have a building site; with a roof, whatever else there isn't, you have a building. The building team I call my own - Freddy, Epi, Paul, Lucas and Edward - don't do rooves, though. It's contracted out, as it were, to carpenters, and as a result we've been working on the kindergarten while someone else is putting a roof on the kwemshi store. I went down after lunch to take a photo for my time-lapse video, and realised that it doesn't really feel like my site anymore.
At first that sounds awfully negative, but in fact it only highlights a real joy - Kwemshi may not feel like my site any more, but it's something to be cherished that it did. It might very well not have, if I'd just found myself standing round while the professionals did the real work, as I suspect was a very real risk. Fortunately I had the right people - Freddy to teach me, Paul to make me feel at home in the team, Will to push me to always get involved. Now I can have the luxury of nostalgia. Oh, and on the way back I did take a few more photos than usual. Still much work to be done, but it's a start.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Never means Never
24/6/2008
Today I noticed something deeply disturbing. I don't seem to have taken any photos of sunsets while I've been out here. Given how spectacular they often are that's frankly criminal, but also symptomatic of a bigger problem. As a rule, I take photos of things which are out of the ordinary, and my brain has adjusted far too quickly to certain things being ordinary. So, although they'll be the memories I'll most cherish, I don't yet have many photos of the children playing at Mzizma, of evening meals by huricane lamplight, more than anything of random smiley Africans throwing out greetings. It's quite mad what you subconsciously take for granted - even when you're consciously arguing fairly determindly against it. I shall be making a big push to record a 'normal' day in the course of the next few, and I'll try to actually act on the advice of my signature.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
My regime
23/6/2008
plus of course my Lariam on Fridays. And this for a boy who'd never taken a pill successfully 3 months ago, and who still often needs 3 attempts to neck one. Just slightly more charming are the paper wallets the drugs are dispensed in (I think "buscop" might be short for "buscopan" - whatever it's called I was told it's a strong-ish painkiller):
What remains slightly puzzling is where I managed to get it. The received wisdom is that it can take up to 6 months to show its head, but annecdotally it seems to be much more usual between 1 and 4 weeks of the bite - and I don't think I've been bitten for more than 6. Maybe my body just likes to incubate a parasite for a while. Maybe indeed that explains the high count.
Looking on the bright side, though, I still don't feel all that ill. I have downward swings, of course, but for the most part I'm pretty normal (for me, I mean ;-)). Work was good today, too - we've finished digging the foundation trenches, so now we're building upwards. Going in the right direction again. And Clemencia's touched up my braids, with a cool new design. Plent of positives. Oh yeah, I'm also IN AFRICA ;-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Dammit...
22/6/2008
...I have become predictable. On Friday I repeated myself on the subject of stargazing, yesterday on the joys of the Indian Ocean, and today is going to be the unpublished entry redux. Only this time it's slightly less hypothetical - I've got malaria. I felt a bit crap early in the week, attributed it to some dodgy food and felt better by Wednesday, but I had a swing down again this morning. John Samweli noticed when he picked us up from Pangani, and said that since we were near a hospital now I should get a test. I think I mostly went to put his mind at rest, but it turns out I've got a count of 10.
That probably requires a little explanation. The malaria test isn't exactly complex - they just put a drop of your blood under a microscope and count how many parasites they can see. It's therefore a little subjective, and counts of 1 or 2 can either be mistaken or insignificant, but apparently if they say I've got 10 I should pay attention. It seems to be a useful number in terms of judging your success fighting it off (Roger had a count of 1 on Tuesday, but was up to 7 today, which is taken as showing that he wasn't having any success on the first set of meds), but not much use as a comparitive between people: of the 4 of us tested today India had the lowest count, but was illest. She's staying in hospital for a few days, whereas Natalie (also 10) and I were just given some tablets and sent home, for which I'm heartily glad. I'd far sooner be ill in Yamba with people I know than in a dull hospital room in Tanga.
The really odd feeling now is that it's my duty to my fellow men not to be bitten. Before, if I got bitten by a mosquito I had a 1 in 4 chance of getting malaria (apparently 1 in 4 mozzies carry it). That's crap, but only for me, and I can afford to deal with it. If I'm bitten now, though, there's a 75% chance I'll be infecting a previously clean mozzie, and unless that individual insect never bites anyone else, then someone who otherwise wouldn't have been will be infected because of me. Unless I'm really careful and quite lucky there may be someone out there, who I'll never know of, who dies because of me. Shit...
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Wheee!
21/6/2008
I actually caught myself excalaiming as much as I jumped waves in the sea today. At first I thought of it as catching myself, anyway - as though it were something irredeemably childish and uncool to have said. Then I remembered that I am irredeemably childish and uncool - and that I'm quite glad of this.
The cause of this peculiar jokularity was that a great weight had been lifted from my mind. I hadn't realised how much it had been bothering me, but when my mum called me to say she'd changed the flight I was tremendously relieved. It did mean that I'd been unable to do in 5 days what she'd sorted out in 20 minutes, but then mothers are wonderful creatures. Everyone should have one. As a direct result of mine I've now got plans in place which could, if I'm up to it myself, see me on the roof of Africa almost exactly a month from today.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
If this is progress
20/6/2008
I've been more or less out of contact with what people call a modern world while I've been here, for a number of reasons. But that's meant that, as well as being detached from family, friends and world news, I've also missed out on such things as call centres and customer services. I've now been in one of the classic circles of hell for 3 or 4 days, and umpteen phonecards, to try to change a flight. I wanna stay in Africa, where I don't have to worry about such bollocks...
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Different place, same Space
19/6/2008
It may get a little tedious if I keep telling you about the sheer wonder of stargazing. Every time I do it, tho, I wonder why I don't find a few friends with whom I can lie in comfortable silence, find a beach to lie on, and just look up every night.
OK, that was a turn of phrase that well described my joy, but I do know really why I don't do it every day. It rains, it's cloudy, I'm away from my friends - an annoyingly high proportion of the time I'm nowhere near an ocean. And it's just possible it might lose a little of its impact as an everyday occurence. But you get the point. This is the stuff a life - rather than a mere existence - is made of.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Sunspots
18/6/2008
I am more convinced than ever that there's some chemical in the human body which is released by sunlight, and causes feelings of contentment and wellbeing. I can think of no discernable difference in structure between today and the rest of the week, indeed there were a couple of little things which might be expected to make it a worse day. But at 3:30 the sun came out - for the first time since Friday, really - and worked its magic.
I'm not even a particularly big fan of sun - years of burning and a love of snow make it somewhat anathema to me - yet it still has this effect. That's one reason why I suspect a chemical explanation. The other is that I don't remember it having such an impact when I was younger - I was as excited by anything - which suggests that the sun's miraculous side-effect is only felt after that notable change to the chemical composition of your body known as puberty.
It's just a thought: indeed it may already have been proved, and publicised widely in learned journals. If not, though, I expect the finest scientific minds in the world to devote their time to studying the possibility. It wont be hard for me to check up on them - after all, the finest scientific minds in the world will be concentrated in the best university in the world, where by some absurd stroke of luck or other, I'm going in a few short months.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Catching up
17/6/2008
I sure as hell owe one - it must be a month or more since I started introducing my characters, and I never did finish. If I'm working my way down the hill, and I'd just left the doctor's house, then next comes John Shekuamba. Caroline's deputy is a lovely, charming man, but he had what's now reckoned to have been some sort of stroke a year ago. As a result he's become famous for his "umm... sorry...", eventually making some point or occasionally wandering off. On the basis of trying something every day that scares you, we once considered the idea of running naked (yes, knees showing and all) through Yamba... with no DEET. The image of meeting John on the path and just hearing "umm... sorry... sorry" before you ran on eventually convinced us against the plan :-)
Next person on our little jaunt would, I think, be Caroline herself. It's odd to describe her, I find myself focussing on the negative - she seems to have somewhat lost her ability to relate to people on a friendly level, and her sense of humour, while occasionally seen, is rare enough to be always unexpected. But all this overlooks the really obvious - that she's come to an out-of-the-way little village, which she'd never heard of, and decided to spend the rest of her life trying to make life better for the people of it. And that in 2 years she seems to have made a fair bit of progress. In the face of what she deals with every day, one can perhaps forgive a slightly over-serious outlook. Perhaps focussing on the negatives is something my mind does so that I don't have to judge myself against that level of selflessness.
It's a bit of a jaunt now before our next stop, the garage at Kwemshi. Here I'll introduce John Samweli and Edmuni Senkunde, two of the most astounding men I've ever met. They do have houses in the village, but Village Africa's drivers spend so long out and about that it seems apt to introduce them here. I say 'drivers', but in truth they're also mechanics, translators, managers, the welcoming face of VA, and a thousand other things. But more important than all, the car is the Ambulance - probably the only transport for a days walk - and as paramedics John and Edmundi save lives almost daily. Small wonder that they are the ultimate role models for local kids. And even after a weekend of near-constant ferrying to and fro, they still maintain reserves of good humour far beyond most people with much less reason to be tired and stressed.
Since we're at the garage now, we might as well brave the collection of bumps known locally as a road and head on down to Milingano. Here we'll meet the ever welcoming Mili girls, ready with their rejuvenating hugs each time we see them (of a style familiar to anyone who understands what I mean by 'hug-a-steward day').
The girls are quite adept at partying - it was to Mili, after all, that Will and I turned for our ultimate unwinding weekend - but I think of all of them India would be the last standing. Indeed mixing Will and India was, just occasionally, a slightly risky business, simply because with the other there to bounce off they don't seem to recognise any limits. But I certainly wont permit you to take that away as your main impression of her - not only is she extraordinarily caring of the children (it's always first to her that they turn when they call, whether asking for bubbles or delivering letters and gifts), but she's also just a little bit gorgeous. No, I wont grow up and control my hormones, thank you.
Ele has just come through the rough world of Cheltenham Ladies College - would you believe it, I coume to Africa and get popped down next to a CLC girl. In a way that faintly heythrop, rural middle-class-ness is the closest thing I have around that reminds me of home, which on balance I'd rather be without. I've avoided feeling homesick so far by assiduously avoiding thinking about home at all... Leaving for now my little insecurities, if all goes to plan in a few weeks I'll be looking down from the roof of Africa with her, and I can think of few people better.
I've probably seen Flo least of anyone - not only does she live in Mili, but for a long while she was in and out of hospital with the dreaded M word. I think I can fairly judge now that even a healthy Flo is less boisterous than her housemates, but that hardly sets her apart from the majority of the world. And indeed I might yet be proved heartily wrong - something about her just yells 'Dark horse' at me...
And now I'm up to date. Except of course I'm not: I waited so long before getting round to this that we've now lost T, Will and Fi, and gained Nat, Roger and Maya. Never procrastinate until tomorrow what you can put off for a fortnight.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Sportsday
16/6/2008
Today the teachers had organised Yamba primary sportsday, with all the necessary excitements - tug of war, egg (or rather ball) and spoon, 3-legged race et al. And clearly someone approved of the plan, since the two hours set aside for the events were about the only hours free from torrential rain. Touchwood there'll be some good photos to follow*.
The kids certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves - though not as much as the night watchmen did when we got them in for an exhibition race at the end. Cosmas' face was a sight I hope to take to my grave, although I haven't captured it for posterity as a result of camera battery depletion. But despite all the participants' excitement, I have a nagging feeling that perhaps this afternoon was really more for our benefit than theirs. Depending how your mind is wired you go away thinking either "see, things aren't so bad, they do get some fun" or "wow, I've brought something amazing into these children's lives". Maybe I'm too cynical of myself, but given my general outlook it would be hypocritical to be otherwise ;-)
Later note: my sportsday photos begin here.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Hosana
15/6/2008
Mtakatifu bwana, bwana mungu wama Jeshi
Mbingu na dunia, zimejaa Utukufu, wako
(Hosana) Hosana, hosana jumbinguni
(Hosana) Hosana, hosana jumbinguni juu
Mbalakiwa ajae, kwa jina la bwana
kwa jina la bwana, hosana jumbinguni juu
(Hosana) Hosana, hosana jumbinguni
(Hosana) Hosana, hosana jumbinguni juu
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Inspired
14/6/2008
Tom had a plan. An excellent one, in my humble. It split the night (6pm to 6am) into 3 roughly equal parts. For the first 4 hours we did all the usual things - had dinner, chatted with the collected wazungu, listened to music. Then around 10 o'clock, when the other volunteers had gone off to bed, he and I became night watchmen for the night. The first chunk was to be spent with Martin, th Mzizma watchman, before coming down to the Dr's house to finish the night with Herbert. He reasoned, quite rightly, that there are lots of opportunities to bond with the housegirls - we see them throughout the day, every day - but very few chances to get to know our watchmen. Besides which, it must be rather a tedious job, so hopefully some company would be appreciated.
The night was never fated to go entirely according to plan. For reasons unknown, although Sunday is usually Martin's day off, today (Saturday) he was replaced by Michael. Nothing wrong with that, except that he speaks probably less English and (far more importantly) initially seemed uncomfortable for us to be joining him - we almost called time on the evening before it had even begun. Fortunately, once we moved out of the wind to the kitchen, got a fire and a game of "go fish" going, things settled down nicely. By 1:30 we were alternating between hands conducted as nearly as possible entirely in English and those in Kiswahili, and feeling rather a success.
Around ten to two we left Michael and headed down the hill, arriving at the Doctor's house a little after 2 to a delicious piece of irony. I don't know for sure whether the night watchmen are technically allowed to sleep, but it's something that has certainly happened before tonight - and I certainly would never want to wake them. So it was that at quarter past 2 we, theoretically the ones being watched, were the only ones awake.
There, I'm afraid, the story ends, Not quite the grand achievement of staying up all night and really getting a handle on the job of our watchmen, but neither has it been anything I would consider a failure. Michael started smiling a few minutes after we moved to the warmth of the kitchen, and didn't stop until we'd left, which is a fairly good measure of success. And I'm going to bed happy ;-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Utapenda kwenda kucheza Club Chica leo jeoni?
13/6/2008
A particularly excellent Kiswahili lesson today, learning all those phrases you wish you had the balls to use but probably never will. The above is one I'll never forget, asking if you want to go dancing at Club Chica tonight :-) Club Chica, I should explain, was the cause of the entry entitled TIA - it's either the worst or the best club in the world, depending on how you look at it, but either way it's the only club in Tanga, so we were very excited to discover it. In the pre-victorian sense, we may have been its discoverers - on the basis that locals don't count as discoverers in that world, and we were certainly an exciting and unusual attraction as wazungu in the club.
Now, of course, I'm thinking about language again. I think I can say that I've learnt and use just about enough Kiswahili and Kisambaa to keep face, but I know I ought to be better. A few hours spent learning verb construction (whci is, by all accounts, quite straightforward) would probably give a pretty chunky kiswahili payoff. But I fear I'm not the only one who looks at that few hours as peculiarly unappealing - even after working in various distinctly rural parts of Tanzania for seven years, Caroline speaks very little. Although in her case I suppose you could look at it as an educational tool - if the villagers have to learn English to speak to mama Caro, then their opportunities beyond the village broaden greatly. Tenuous, I know, and not an argument she herself has propounded, but more excuse than I've got. However, I do know that tuna ngodjea mchanga - at the building site, we are waiting for sand :-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Vision
12/6/2008
Milingano market really is ridiculously photogenic. We've seen a couple of pretty major markets - and got seriously into shopping in them, since otherwise we'd have had no food - in Tanga and Lushoto, but they're very utilitarian. Dimly-lit, corrugated-iron barns, largely containing rice, flour and beans. Definitely centres of commerce, and arguably pretty lively, but not exciting.
This background meant that the market was more an excuse to pop down to Mili to see the girls than an end in itself, especially when we were told that Mili market was a particularly small and uneventful one. I suppose that may be true, but I wouldn't have thought you could have packed much more into the square if you'd tried. The life, the bustle, the colour - such colour that, when a white pigeon flew across the road, I felt it was such a contrast I had to get a photo. This is a good example of how little I know about photographic composition - on a scale of 1 to 10... that photo really didn't work - but even I managed to get a hint of the down onto film. Or rather, onto memory card. The digital age really must update its turns of phrase.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Sound
11/6/2008
Today I am quite certain I heard the sound of some clangers, lasting for several minutes, as I walked to Caroline's house.
That is all.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
In Remote Part
10/6/2008
I'd definitely account that as odd. Will was in my mental space in relation to Africa for longer than anyone else, but yesterday, which in a pre-internet world might've been the last time I spoke to him, went unremarked here. Perhaps because he'd been in the process of leaving for a few days, and his last hours in Yamba felt more significant, or perhaps because (as the first of the people I knew of pre-departure to leave) Will going feels like the beginning of the end, and I want to avoid thinking about it.
By now he'll be nearing Nairobi (he had to go through Kenya just to get 1 last stamp on his passport), then spending a day smoking alone in his hotel room before flying home at midnight tomorrow. The fact that, even in the jet age, it'll be nearly a week between his leaving Yamba and arriving home probably says a lot about the remoteness of these few thousand people. I suppose that now how remote a place is would be measured more in money and infrastructure investment than in miles, but either way it would be hard to be further from the world I knew without being in a completely unliveable climate. There is something quite glorious about not knowing which series of celebrity love factor is getting most attention this year...
Instead, I've been having real fun. The fun of destruction. Before we can rebuild the kindergarten building at school, the old one needs to be torn down, so we spent the morning hitting things with hammers until they came apart. There were a couple of slightly nerve-wracking moments when I realised the roof beam I was pulling apart was the same as the roof beam my ladder was leaning on, but that's just exciting enough to keep the adrenaline pumping. I certainly approve of the fact that, rather than sweating and puffing for half an hour to get back from work, we're now only thirty seconds from my house. (New boy Roger isn't on the deeds yet - only moved his bags in this afternoon, but he can now get his feet properly under the table, since he isn't leaving for 11 months). Tomorrow I shall swing a sledgehammer again, beyond that I know no more of the future than I ever have. But I can guess I'll love it :-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Expectations
9/6/2008
are distinctly odd things. I woke up nice and early today, thinking that, since I'd have to start quite early to pack and leave, I might as well push the time back a little further and watch the sunrise. Sunrise over the Indian Ocean, thought I, wow! Better bring a camera, it could be quite spectacular. Of corse, once you've set youself such a great expectation, the reality will always struggle to keep up. As indeed I found out the last time I woke myself up for a sunrise, now I come to think of it (back in the UK, on my favourite hill above Cheltenham).
This time was certainly less of a let-down than that: although I didn't get the epic photos I was hoping form there are a few good ones. It was just a little frustrating that somehow the sun managed to sneak from under the earth to above the cloud, through a band of clear sky, without ever being visible. Still, even if it had been completely overcast, sitting on the beach, listening to my favourite tunes... contented. Definitely contented.
I even confounded a negative expectation today: I had to get some travellers cheques changed, which last time around took more than 2 hours. So the hour-and-a-quarter in the bank today felt like a great achievement - really merits signing off in the usual way:
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Maybe Tomorrow
8/6/2008
'I want to swim in the ocean
want to take my time for me' (Stereophonics)
Swimming in the Indian Ocean is one of the most singularly pleasant things I've ever done. It could scarcely have been better designed for it, and I've definitely been in pools designed for swimming that were infinitely less well suited to it. It did take a little effort to achieve - the sand here stretches flat for so long that you start to get the feeling you could walk across to India without the water ever getting above your knees. But, though I did set out aiming to swim, being forced to paddle for a while first was hardly a hardship ;-) My only slight regret now, of course, is that I could have found this out at Kipepeo, and savoured the knowledge for 5 weeks longer.
There is a nagging doubt in the midst of his tropical paradise, though. I'm now used to living in Africa - real Africa, which unsurprisingly is largely full of Africans. Here the only black people are bar staff or cleaners, and there's definitely something wrong with that. At first I thought it was simply a manifestation of a huge wrong that I'm already so familiar with I scarcely saw the point in mentioning it: if in the main only white people have lots of spare cash, then wherever you are the prime spots will have been bought by, and be filled with, white people. Unfortunately I get the feeling there's a little more to it than that - whether they know it or not, most wazungu I've met who live and work in Tanzania talk as if they're stuck in a colonial mindset. Nowhere has that been more evident than here - understandably, since the proprietor seems to have been in Country since colonial times ;-)
Perhaps I'm being unfair on old Denys - he's certainly been more than friendly to us, so I I don't want to speak ill of him without good cause. But whatever the truth, I do look forward to getting back to Yamba tomorrow, even if it does mean leaving the ocean behind...
'So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home'
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Moods
7/6/2008
Tonight I'm doing a lot of thinking about moods, and how one tiny thing can completely knock you sideways. I'm not sure how much I feel up to putting on paper, though, and I owe you a catch-up for the last couple of days anyway.
It's been 72 hours since I wrote anything here, fo which there really is no excuse. It's hardly been a dull time - although in fact dull would be the wrong word. No day yet has come close to being dull, the only risk is that my retelling of events becomes bland and boring. Anyhow, we've had Will's last days in Yamba, and some wonderful moments on the site, up high on the scaffolding (as cut in a previous installment). Then another occasion to marvel at John Samweli's skills as an off-road driver, as we slid our way to Tanga and then on to Pangani in some pretty sticky conditions.
Now we're safely ensconsed in a little collection of beach huts a touch North of Pangani, and I'm beginning to see the attraction of this tropical island paradise idea, which previously had really left me pretty cold - give me 6 foot snow drifts every time. Now I understand. Which makes it all the more odd that I'm lying alone, on the floor of our beach hut, as sober as hell, wondering why I haven't been able to recover from a perfectly innocent and well-intentioned conversation half an hour ago. The human brain is both immensely complex, and finely balanced.
Hopefully a sleep will make me snap out of it, and maybe I'll watch the sunrise over the ocean tomorrow :-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Friends
4/6/2008
It's a strange business, this liking people mularkey. You find yourself enjoying spending time with them. Before you know it you've stayed up til 20 past 11, just talking, which (as I've said) is obscenely late in Yamba.
I could probably get away with pretending that I'd had a wealth of insightful thoughts, and that I'm only not retelling them here because I need sleep. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether they believe it.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Norm
3/6/2008
I'm really priveliged to be able to say that there's no real news today. Days like this feel like the norm, and that's quite remarkable. It may not make for riveting reading, but that's only because I've grown to expect such contentment. And, I suppose, because it's always more fun to read about other people's misfortune, or hardships and misery, than to hear that everyone else is having a great time.
There is one mitigating factor, which might cheer up that evil voice in all of our heads which hopes for others' downfalls. One of the luxuries we bought in Lushoto was a garlic and chili pasta sauce, and another a chili and extra chili variant. Apparently the one we tried today was the former, milder of the two, but quite frankly I think it might be better used as a weapon of war. Certainly none of us foolish enough to investigate it survived long without our eyes streaming and sweat pouring from our foreheads. I'm not sure what use we'll find for the hotter one, but it probably shouldn't be allowed to come into contact with living tissue.
Other than that, there's little to report, except that I will never tire of opening my window in the morning to see strange green-rimmed purple flowers in the foreground, cloud-wrapped mountains in the background and, somewhere between the two, Africa.
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder
Upping the average
2/6/2008
Funeral number 2 today, and for all sorts of reasons I felt better about it. Firstly, and most importantly, it actually felt like a ceremony of some sort was being held - last time we sat around for a while, then almost as soon as the body arrived back from hospital we were sent home. I think most of it actually happened the following day, since it was getting dark at that stage - but by morning we were off to Lushoto.
This time, although we did sit around for an hour or so, we weren't so detatched. There were more familiar faces around us, and crucially we weren't presented with chairs while young and old around us sat on the ground. Then there was a clear service as well - prayers were read, hymns were sung, and the coffin lowered into the ground. Then slowly people came from amid the gathered crowd to fill soil into the grave - and not just a symbolic sprinkle of earth, but by the shovel full.
Over time the energy built up until the process was quite frenzied, almost as if people hoped to get the job over and move on. I'd just begun wondering whether this was something everyone should be involved in, or just those who were related to or knew the lady (in Yamba those 2 groups would probably be roughly equivalent) when I was offered a shovel. That's not something you can easily refuse, however you feel about it, but I have to say it was a little reassuring. A very simple action, but it was an action. If you don't share a language then you can't offer any real condolences, you can't respond to the prayers or join in with the songs. All you can do is stand there, looking aloof. Almost anything that dispells that feeling is welcome.
It no doubt sounds rather poor that I discuss a funeral in terms of how easy it was for me, how I felt about it, with no reference to the bereaved or the woman herself (not considered that young to die, having reached the ripe old age of 35). But in truth there's little else I can describe it in terms of. I had probably never met the lady. The grave, dug on the family plot, was in a part of Yamba I've never visited before. I couldn't even ask 'is such-and-such here son, then?', since no-one who knew would have understood the question. So it remains rather a voyeuristic experience, but not one that I could ever consider turning down. Not only would I offend, but I'd miss a powerful and rare experience of the barest nerve-endings of Africa. Tho please, no more for the next few days, OK?
This is Africa
1/6/2008
The weekend has been really perfect, with all the best bits I was expecting or hoping for from this year. If it was all distilled into 48 hours, this might well have been about perfect.
We came down to Mili on Saturday morning, all the Yamba lot, to have a bit of a farewell do for Fi with the Mili girls. And Mili is exactly the image you have of an African village. In Yamba the power comes from the similarities, constantly reminding you that you're all on this same speck of space dust, that I could just as easily have been born in Africa with none of the unearned bonuses a Western life confers on me. In Mili you feel in a whole new world. In reality there's not much difference between the two villages, so I'm not sure why they hit me so differently, but there it is.
After saying goodbye to Fi the first thing we did was to get the guided tour of Mili. It always amazes me that, just by leaving your front door, you're welcomed into everyone's life. Before long all we were doing was walking, with no particular place to go, and playing. Kids everywhere, making me feel very much as though I were back with my beaver pack - the infectious energy that makes everything a game. Will has been insistent that he doesn't do kids, but after he'd been in Mili for an hour I had half a dozen photos on my camera that could pass for Chris Martin's publicity shots. The rockstar in Africa surrounded by smiling kids, running and holding hands. It's not hard to see how he was won over.
Then we moved over to the other side of travelling. It's become clear to me that where you go and what you do says more about you than I'd ever realised, and as a result you'll be thrown into a situation half across the world with people you've never met or heard of, and have a very good chance of making friends for life. I hope that's true of the people I spent yesterday evening with: I want to be able to pop in to see any of them in 40 years, and laugh about how naive we are today.
I wouldn't be surprised if the last 24hours form the basis of a lot of that laughter. We started on the gin and sprites at 2, and ended the evening pouring coffee over each other, before hitting the mellow 3am feeling around 9:30. All that left today as a perfect hangover day - lying around, listening to mellow tunes, surfacing occasionally to discuss the nature of passions in life, or tell blonde jokes - all the good stuff, except I don't have even a suggestion of a hangover. Clearly gin & sprite is a wonderful cocktail.
So I come to the end of my Milingano weekend. I don't think it could've been much better designed if I'd tried :-)
NeverLoseYourSenseOfWonder