In Swahili, "nimechoka" means I’m tired. I don’t mean it in the sleepy way,
though. As a matter of fact, I
seem to have developed a mild case of insomnia. When I’m actually able to sleep, I’m having dreams that are
often terrifying enough to wake me up and force me to check if they’re
real. i.e. being eaten by lions,
enormous bugs in my bed waiting to bite me, people breaking into my house. It’s like my own personal scary movie
every night. Jealous? Yeah, you have to go to the movie theater, I just have to crawl into bed and close my eyes. I save 20 bucks every time! No, this isn’t sleepy tired, this is
mental, emotional, and cultural exhaustion as every minute of everyday stretches you in all of the ways mentioned. This scenario ultimately forces you to dig deeper than you
thought you could to find that last little bit of fuel to keep you going until… well, who knows when? The thing is, you
don’t have a choice. Losing your
patience, getting upset, frustrated, and/or angry, those are all only
detrimental to you (that’s not saying that all of those things haven’t happened…
they definitely have. All of them.) and after they’ve affected your wellbeing,
it only expands to affect everyone around you. They in turn respond with an appropriately reciprocating
reaction that only makes you feel even worse. So, in ironic self-preservation, you tap into that last
little bit of fuel and you miraculously manage to avoid complete
self-destruction. One day at a
time. Even worse, you’re isolated
from the people and things you usually turn to when you’re struggling. You want to call home? Sorry. You want to go to the gym? Sorry again. You want to go somewhere else and
become completely anonymous so you can figure it all out? Sorry one more time. You want to know what you have to
do? You have to face all of your
issues head on and then you have to adjust your attitude. It’s ALL on you. That’s one thing this experience has
really done for me: it has forced me to feel. There’s no distraction when you’re sad, mad, frustrated,
jealous, lonely, etc. They all
show up at your doorstep and you have to play host until they’re ready to leave. Having said that, I usually avoid
writing a blog when my optimism is hiding behind a big grey cloud but I’ve come
to the realization that I will look back at this as one representation of my
Peace Corps experience and, whether I like it or not, my experience will
include horrible, frustrating, exhausting, and taxing times right along with
the crazy, funny, amazing, weird, beautiful, and fantastic times. It will include times when I feel like
standing on a rooftop, announcing to the whole world how amazing my life is and
it will include times when I want to crawl into a hole, scream at the top of my
lungs in frustration, and/or spontaneously combust. What I’m learning is that that’s ok. This is an enormous epiphany for
me. I’m learning that admitting
that something is difficult or that I’m struggling through something does not
make me weak and it does not mean that I’m not capable of rising to the challenge. It just means that I’m telling it
like it is. Life is hard sometimes, no matter where you live or who you are. So, here you go, times are a little
rough right now and I’m working through it. I’m sure that once I’ve had a bit of a break, I’ll be
back to new and ready to run.
Anyways, moving on.
There’s a legitimate reason as to why I’m so tired. There’s been a lot going on! Last time I wrote, I talked all about
Zanzibar. Since Zanzibar I’ve had
a regional conference, a malaria workshop, a Volunteer committee meeting, and a
girls empowerment conference. This
weekend I’m headed to Lindi for a computer seminar and next weekend I have a
training in Dar. In America, this
doesn’t seem like much but in Tanzania travel to and from each of these things
takes a whole day each and they all overlap with weekends, which is usually the
time I take to recoup and prepare for a week of teaching. I feel like I’ve been going non-stop
for quite a while and I’m ready for a break. Good thing there’s one coming! As of June 22, I’m going to get to call some of the shots
for a little bit and hopefully get the ball rolling on my Masters research. Something just for me! WOOT WOOT!
Of all of the things I’ve done in the last few weeks, the
thing that brings me the most joy is the girls’ conference. This isn’t so much because of the
conference itself as it is because of the girls that I brought with me. Words cannot describe how proud I was
to be the teacher who brought these five girls. They participated in everything; they were respectful and
attentive, and so incredibly happy to be there. At the end of the conference, each volunteer sits down with
their girls to plan a lesson to take back to their school. When I asked my girls which lesson they
wanted to present when we got back to school, they said “all of them” and proceeded to
volunteer to teach each lesson they could think of and plan respective lessons. I was blown away by their initiative
and drive from start to finish.
These girls were all Form 3 (juniors in high school) and the amazingness
of them only made my love for Form 3 grow deeper. This class is full of students that want to learn. When they are dismissed in the middle
of a math problem because it’s the end of the day, they tell me to continue to
the end of the problem; when I tell them I want to start next year’s lessons
before we’ve finished the year so that we can get a head start, they get
excited; and when I finish my lecture before the period is over, they ask me to
stay just to talk. To top it off,
they all seem to have beautiful hearts of gold. This class, without fail, brightens even the worst of days
and is what keeps me going when I’m beyond sick of everything. I am so excited and feel so blessed to
have them here with me until I’ve finished my service. I couldn’t have asked for a better
group to work with.
Every time I write one of these, I feel like I am
contemplating a new perspective change. I’m frustrated lately with the
complacency of the Tanzanian culture (a little abrupt after raving about my
Form 3s – oops). There’s a saying
here that they say frequently: “Muungu akipenda.” This means “if God wishes.” I don’t really have a problem with this, as I believe this
in my own way as well. What I have
a problem with here is that people lean completely on this ideology and,
instead of making moves to change the things they don’t like, they wait for the
change to happen “as God wishes.”
As Americans, we want to constantly be in control. If we don’t like the situation we’re in,
we believe hard work and persistence can change the situation into one we do
like and we’ll keep pressing it until either it changes or we die. One way or another we WILL be
happy even if it means working and being completely miserable until we get there. Americans are very rarely willing to just sit and wait for
something to happen. I don’t
know that this is necessarily better as our culture is one that is usually focused
only on an end result leading us to miss out on a lot of wonderful things along
the way (just as the age-old cliché says) but there has to be some middle
ground. One where people can take
responsibility for their life while holding onto the trust and faith that seems
to be required for happiness.
As an outsider
in Tanzania, I witness all kinds of things that I think are just plain silly
(like all of the sitting and waiting mentioned above). The Earth almost shattered the other
day because I didn’t want tea at teatime.
Every single teacher made a comment, which was followed by complete
surprise and then uncontrollable laughter. I couldn’t figure out why it was so appalling… I wasn’t
thirsty for tea so, I didn’t take tea. Simple as that. So, then, how often do people here just do
things because it’s the societally accepted time to do them? We, of course, have the same problem in
America. We just don’t notice it
because these silly things are the cultural norm for us. For example, do you sit at the same
place everyday for lunch? With the
same people? At the same
time? Why? No. Seriously. Why? Do you have an answer? How do
you feel when one (or all) of these things unexpectedly changes? Maybe someone is sitting in “your”
place at your lunchtime or someone uninvited sits down with your group and
starts chomping away on their sandwich completely oblivious to the fact that
they have yet to be welcomed (even though you, of course, would welcome them
anyway). It could be that a
project or a phone call unexpectedly, right before lunch, forces you to change
your schedule for a day and you have to eat *gasp* 30 minutes later. I’d like to think we’d all be flexible
and make-do but, if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, in our
culture, this would strike a nerve (as small or big as it might be). Here in Tanzania, no one would bat an
eyelash at ANY of these things and they definitely wouldn’t understand why you
would even notice.
So, if this is how it is with tea and lunch, where else in
our daily lives do these kinds of things affect us? What kinds of limitations do these things put on us? Do we really reach our full
potential or do we only go as far as society expects us to? What things should be questioned that
we’re not questioning merely because we see and overlook them every single day
of our lives? For me, it has taken
stepping out of our society and into another one to see how much we are
unnecessarily controlled by the masses and typical norms of our country. I’d
like to believe that, when I get back, I won’t fall right back into society
and settle for the norms. I want to push the limits! But, I can't guarantee that. Society is VERY powerful. All I can do is my best and try to channel who I am here in Tanzania. I’ve gotten used to being the weirdo here, the one that
doesn’t make any sense to anyone and I'm perfectly okay with that. The thing is, it’s easier to be that person here because there’s an
obvious reason. It would be more
abnormal for me to try to be “normal” here than it is for me to be strange. Therefore, ordinary is automatically not ordinary for
someone doing what I do. Did you
follow that? What I’m saying
is that it’s easy to be the person that does things differently here and
challenges ideas because it’s expected of me as a foreigner. At home, though, where everyone is implicitly expected to, more or
less, fall into line, THAT’S where it takes a seriously brave person to do
something out of the ordinary. Then, that brave person has to have massive
amounts of internal strength and confidence to stand up against everyone around
them that’s either laughing at them or telling them that they’re wrong. That’s freakin’ scary, no matter whom
you are. There are a number of people in my life that have been strong enough
to break all of the rules, go against society, and have done what they believed was
right in spite of what the world was telling them. While I respected them immensely before, my opinion of them
has skyrocketed. These people, the
ones that dare to dream, wear their passion on their sleeves, and believe in
something better, they are the ones responsible for a world that continues to
change and improve.
So, on that note, here’s to a life of dreaming and reaching
for the stars. I wish all of you ALL the best and I hope you're having a fantastic June!
