Let The Wild Rumpus Start

"And now," cried Max, "Let the wild rumpus start!"
-Where The Wild Things Are

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is one of my favorite quotes, and when I saw it strut across my facebook hompage news feed, I was reminded of how jealous I am that it's opening in American Theaters tonight. At least I think it's tonight. Either way, I'm just hoping it's still playing when I get home for Thanksgiving. Can you believe that I saw a commercial for it playing in a restaurant last week? The song "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire is the music for the trailer, and it's one of my all time favorite songs. I used to dance around to it outside the Nature Center when no one was at Rock Polishing, and it was a symphony stuck in my head for most of Ultimate Nature Night- good memories all around.


This morning I moved out of my beautiful little home in Tengeru, and into a new homestay in the heart of Arusha.

Mama Salome handled the whole thing with the same grace that she brings to everything. She's a tough lady, and I was terrified at the prospect of offending her, but she took the whole thing in stride. Last night she invited over her sister and a few little cousins, toasted me with a cold beer (straight up luxury in that neck of the woods) and gave me her blessing with a few small gifts. She was gone early this morning for an errand out in Moshi, so I made a quiet departure.

There were a few things I had to do before leaving.

First, I went next door to visit Jackie Chan (an uber skinny dog that looks like a chihuahua was stretched to five times the normal size) and her five puppies. Jackie Chan was my first friend in Tanzania, and Mama Salome surprised me when she started feeding her occasionally- "She must feed her babies!" The puppies are fat and happy, Jackie is skinny and miserable but oh so sweet. Jackie and her puppies have been a huge moral dilemma for me. Do I tend to that suffering? Do I feed them so that they are happy for a little while, survive, and the pups grow up to be one more generation of un-fixed starving dogs to get rocks thrown at them? This continent needs a frickin Veterinarians Without Borders program- not instead of human welfare, but as a tangent. It's so incredibly easy to sterilize male dogs by a non-surgical process called banding. A week of moderate discomfort, and then BINGO no starving offspring from that Papa Pup. In the end, I just loved up Jackie and the puppies, cringing as their baby skin crawled with bugs. When I went to leave today, I was ready to say "screw it" and buy the biggest slab of steak I could find at the market and give it to Jackie Chan, but I didn't have the faintest idea where to look in the market, so I failed on that point. Meh.

The hardest part about leaving was saying Goodbye to Neema. She works in the house for Mama Salome, but I hate the housegirl system, and she is way too smart to be stuck in a house. She loved school and she always made me smile. We would laugh at each other as we tried to give simultaneous Kiswahili/English lessons. Before I left I asked her if she liked working or if she wanted to go back to school. She immediately said school and I said I would try to help. There is no reason for a 14 year old girl to work as hard as she does, especially not when she's so excited about learning and would make so much of a completed education. We exchanged information, I got the name of her primary school, and I gave her a Swahili-English dictionary and a GSC Swahili pamphlet on HIV and Nutrition. I don't have the faintest idea what I can do for her, but it will take very little effort to find out, and would probably take very little to put her through high school. I can afford $10 a year for my Tanzanian sister.

I know I'm just another bleeding heart Mzungu, but feeding a puppy isn't going to do anything- sending a girl from a rural area to Secondary School very well could.

So I went up to Tengeru town to catch a taxi for the move, stopping along the way to say goodbye to my horses, and getting blatantly ripped off on daladala fare (damn mzungu prices.) The last couple of days in Tengeru have been picture perfect. Absolutely beautiful, to the point where I seriously reconsidered moving... more than once. It was like Tengeru was trying to seduce me into staying. The trees there that I love so much, stretched and yawned and sang over the useless dirt road. The kids all chased after me yelling "Daniella!" and I truly wondered why I was leaving. Unfortunately for my favorite trees and little friends, I did know and I do know why I had to leave Tengeru.

And so I did.

Today was grey and muggy, and overall terrible for picture taking. It was like Tengeru was saying, "Fine, go. We tried to convince you but clearly you don't care. Who needs you?" The last thing I did before leaving was hunt down my friend Edie- a boy who I originally met because I wanted to take a picture of him wearing his Michigan State t-shirt. He wants to go to college and study international law, so it's my mission to bring him with me to the Rwanda Tribunals being held at the U.N. Int'l Criminal Court in Arusha. We exchanged email addresses, said goodbye, and I really hope it will work out for him to come with me.

The cab took me up the road and all the way to the GSC office in Arusha. We passed through Market Day in Tengeru and I waved to the people I knew and the ones who waved to me.

My new homestay baba (father) picked me up at the GSC office and brought me down the road to his house. I was psyched to hear that he owned a Safari company, because I figured that meant that there was a real toilet in the house. True story. The house is smaller than Mama Salome's, but it's gated and oh my word the CONVENIENCE. It is a 10 minute walk from GSC and 15 or 20 minutes from La Patisserie (internet!) There are the parents, two girls ages 6 and 10, and a housegirl who is not 14. I have a big bed in my new room, a small table, and a retired refridgerator. And that's it. I'm going to buy some baskets to use for storage, since they're fairly cheap and easy to come by. I might get a cheap rug too. They took the vegetarian thing in stride, and I begged for vegetables. Fresh. Raw. Veggies.

So I'm a city girl now. Remember that book Town Mouse Country Mouse? Me either, but I thought of it today when all of a sudden I realized that I was living right by one of the busiest intersections in Arusha- it's the only stoplight in town, dude. Did I mention they have a DVD player? I'll admit it, I'm a little excited to buy a cheap ripoff DVD on the street and watch it sometime. I haven't seen a movie since the plane ride from Amsterdam five weeks ago, and it's not like I watch T.V. normally never mind here.

In a few hours I'm meeting up with the new GSC volunteers- Jenna, Mary Ellen, Nadia, and maybe Jessica- to go to the Circus (again! it's that good!) and out to dinner. I'm thinking I'll like living in town, especially with people to enjoy it with. It's been kinda cool to help the others with a few things around town. It's nice to be in on the loop for once, instead of being randomly plopped down in East Africa. I'm so glad that they're here. I'm also really grateful for those five weeks of being on my own, living out in Tengeru. It was really good for me. I learned a lot- perhaps most importantly that I could do it, I could just show up in a new country and not have a full on panic or meltdown. I spent plenty of time as a borderline hermit, but I also explored and was willing to embarrass myself with my Swahili attempts. It was fun. I would do it again.

So bring it.