Blessing the Rains Down in Africa

Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
there's nothin that a hundred men or more could ever do
I blessed the rains down in Africa

As you may or may not know, East Africa has been in a horrific drought. There was hardly any rain during what would have been the long rainy season, so I can hardly complain that I spent most of the day walking around in the rain. Besides, I've really wanted to say I bless the rains down in Africa (thank you, Toto.)

While walking around town yesterday, I slipped and my left foot went squashing into what I am pretending was mud. GAH. I sloshed a few steps wondering what to do until I remembered my Klean Kanteen in my bag, and sat down on some steps to try and do damage control. Before I had fully situated myself on the steps two Tanzanian men swooped in with a bowl of water and a sponge. I sat there dumbstruck as they washed my flip flop, and in failing swahili attempted to protest when they cleaned my foot. I realized that not only were they not going to stop, but that I didn't really want to spend the rest of the day with my foot like that. So I gave up, waited for them to finish, handed them a few bills, and walked away as quickly as possible from what I hope will be my only public foot washing in my lifetime. Hmm...

That is one thing I have learned about Tanzania: she provides.

Twice now when I've gotten really down on not knowing anyone, I've bumped into this random college student named Joseph who I first met when he visited the GSC demo plot on his college orientation last week. I just looked up Saint Joseph on google out of curiosity and he is the patron saint of (among other things) the New World and workers. Well I'm definitely in a new world, and it sometimes feels like work. Joseph's a pretty funny guy. I told him to never call anyone mzungu.

Yesterday, after Joseph and I split paths, I got frustrated with not knowing much Swahili. You see, everyone here wants two things: 1) To help me learn or chide me into learning Kiswahili, and 2) To practice their English if they know any. Every day "you should learn Swahili!" and every day "Believe me, I'm trying!" And it is getting better, but it IS frustrating. So I was thinking this over, beating myself up a bit (because obviously that's going to help, right?) when I ran into Nemma (sp?) a little ways from home. She took my hand and we walked together, laughing at our lacking communication, she carried a broken flip flop in her other hand. Then she started naming things in Swahili and had me say it back in English. Vundi... dust. Mawi... rock. Kitali... shoe. When we got home she said something along the lines of "little by little" and she was right.

It can be exhausting to live here.

Little things you take for granted at home like knowing the language, easy access to safe water, trash cans. That's a big thing for me. Littering isn't even a concept, it's just how things work. It's beautiful land covered in little bits of trash. Normally I pick things up and put them in my pocket for later disposal, but here? Here I wince and try to look away. I sleep a LOT. Eight hours bare minimum, and sometimes as much as 12hrs a night. It takes a lot of energy to just "be."

This afternoon I'm going with a few of the other GSC interns to visit, of all things in all places, a cemetery for WWII Polish refugees in the village of Tengeru where I'm living. Random, eh?

What I'm really enjoying in my downtime (in between swahili study sessions) is reading a book by Dr. Paul Farmer called Pathologies of Power. It's all about the political economy of public health and it's very well researched and written. The other day Senais, a Tanzanian intern for GSC, asked me what I want to do after school. I said I want to make Public Health more like health for the public, restructure policies and such. His response, "That's all? Policy?" I was baffled and said "That's all?! That's everything!" And I really believe that.

Public health isn't a doctor's office. It's roads, public transportation, safe water, waste management, sex ed, women's empowerment, education, bridging political divides. I've already learned more in one week of GSC than an entire semester of classes. I'm so excited to carry on with this for the next two months and I'm estatic that I'll get to go to Geneva in January.

Okay, time to walk up for the daladala- a little toyota motorbus that they squeeze at least 15 people into to get in and out of town. They love overcharging me so I've started handing exact coins instead of expecting change.

Life is beautiful. Don't forget.