Nancy McCarthy's blog

Jobama's Death

It has taken me a few days to be able to write about this. After the Masaai symposium described in the last blog post, when we returned on Christmas Eve, Jobama greeted us warmly as he always did. We had left him with plenty of food and water in our enclosed courtyard and of course, he could sleep in an adjoining room if it rained or to get out of the sun. The next morning, it was apparent that something was wrong. His downhill slide consisted of not being able to retain water no matter how much he drank and when advised to bottle-feed porridge, that came up immediately also. The vet came to give him shots over two days. For three days we tended him and we were with him when he died. He was 5 months old and a thriving, delightful, smart, affectionate, well behaved dog. Selection in Africa has resulted in dogs that are different than American dogs, or at least different than the dogs I know in the U.S.

 

I am writing about this not only because we miss him, but because we believe he was poisoned. Tanzanians poison cats and dogs. I had been fearful of this so he was never out of our courtyard or home unless attended by me. Even when he was chained to the clothes line so he could run and play in the yard, I sat out there with him in a chair to prevent any harm coming to him. Tanzanians, without provocation, will throw stones at dogs or kick them. It is a cultural phenomenon, possibly based on the fact that rabies still kills people here. Although we live in a fence on hospital grounds, I was still vigilant in case of any mistreatment.

 

Of course, everyone has expressed their sympathy, although they do not value animals other than how they serve humans, i.e., cats are for killing mice, dogs are to scare potential thieves, etc.

 

There have been a few theories offered as to why he was likely poisoned. They are:

1. Others witnessed me sitting with him outside and he was obviously such a nice dog, they were jealous that I had a nice dog, so they killed him.

2. Thieves wanted to rob our home, so tried to kill the dog prior to entering. This could easily be accomplished by throwing a poisoned piece of meat over the courtyard wall, which is about 10 feet high. Since he did not die after their attempt to poison him, they did not try to break into our house, still afraid of the dog. Many Tanzanians have dogs for the sake of preventing break-ins.

3. There is a family nearby who lost a grandmother and 4 year old daughter in July. I wrote about the funerals here a few blog posts ago and specifically described the next door neighbor's repeat funeral for the loss of their 4 year old daughter and mother. The prior blog entry described the 3 days of the wailing choir punctuated by loud screams, which lead way to music being played for 24 hours louder than I have ever heard music played in my life. We could not sleep it was so loud. So, after 3 days of noise of untold decibels, I went and asked a hospital employee to ask them to turn it down since we had hardly been able to sleep. The music stopped. It is possible that they considered my request to reduce volume as an assault on their grief and wanted to hurt me, so I would hurt as they understandably do. This type of thinking is not unusual here. Poisoning our dog was a way to hurt me.

 

We will never know what truly happened, but Mike buried the dog. I am refusing another dog, although many have wanted to get me one, based on the grounds that I believe any dog will be poisoned here. I do have to say that this event has been very difficult for me to handle as we have given so freely of ourselves to all Tanzanians who approach us. So our Christmas and New Year have not been very merry. We sincerely hope yours has.

Wamasaai Christmas

The Masaai are a well-known pastoral tribe of Tanzania due to their striking clothing, personal ornamentation, and thin, tall statures. They value cows highly, following where they can graze their cows, and tend to be seen as resistant to changes imposed by the national government. They are said to be reclusive and not welcoming to outsiders. In this region of Tanzania, there are about 4,000 Wamasaai, who are not nomadic, believe in very good education for their boys and girls, and are currently struggling to determine which cultural practices are good for their tribe and which ones are not and need to be abandoned. I first met two members of this tribe when they were home-base care volunteers in the May training I partially funded through a PEPFAR grant. Then, I met the community members when we went to do quarterly monitoring and supervision of the volunteers a few months ago—it was the only community that 40-50 of the community volunteers showed up for the quarterly monitoring and supervision visit of their HBC volunteers. The village executive officer, or as close as they have to a chief anymore, was quite engaging and almost immediately asked me what he needed to do to obtain a Peace Corps volunteer for his community. He wanted a teacher for the secondary school that had not been built yet! I asked about the community’s problems and he listed them as water, a balanced diet for his people, and fruit trees. I told him that he really needed an environmental volunteer to assist the community with these problems.

 

Enough background. Surprisingly, we received an invitation to attend their annual symposium to discuss the challenges facing their community as they look to the future: enough land to graze their cattle as annually their access is reduced, education for their youth, the battle they face with disease particularly HIV/AIDS with their past sexual practices, and the rapid pace with which their educated youth are leaving their community for easier lifestyles. They requested that I come to talk to teach about HIV/AIDS and that Mike video their symposium so they can review and prepare for next year’s symposium. They plan ahead, beyond today’s food needs, which seems all too common here! It all took place under a huge tree. They came from as far as Arusha (an 18 hour bus ride) and a man from Morogoro, Adam, who has traveled all over the world representing pastoralist societies was in attendance. They used fast-paced Kiswahili and Kimasaai languages, so neither Mike nor I understood most of what we were witnessing.

 

As I did an HIV educational activity with their youth dividing them into groups (one group being HIV+), we were told that an elder of the village, an 80 year old man, almost cried as he thought some of his “children” were HIV+; that somehow the white person could pick them out without a blood test! He was a lovely old man and I apologized for upsetting him. He replied that he was just so upset that he might lose some of “his” children to this disease.

 

The youth present were all the brightest and those with promising futures-those who have been able to excel in their classes to attain the coveted entrance into what would be high school in the U.S. Their parents have to pay for this further education and all go to boarding schools, leaving their families for perhaps months at a time. The youth were encouraged to freely express their views on a wide range of topics. Pregnant girls in Tanzania are not allowed to continue formal school attendance with no tutoring provided or available, while the males face no reprisals or losses. The girls suggested that the pregnant “couple” be forced to go to “community court” to discuss their situation and that the double standard should not exist. Historically, the Wamasaai men have not abided by restrictive relationships in terms of marital fidelity, so it was surprising that one young man stood up to say that he thought monogamous relationships should be mandated by community elders and that those not adhering to that mandate should be called to face some form of imposed justice.

 

The elders pleaded with the educated youth to return to their communities to assist with community progress and development after they complete their education.

 

They asked that the youth marry other Wamasaai. There are Wamasaai across Tanzania and Kenya, with the greatest concentration of them near the Serengeti, or Arusha. There are differences across communities though as some are very progressive as this one is and some are very rooted in the practices and culture their tribe has lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. Health and hygiene practices vary. Some areas have clans that won’t allow their children to go to school, as they don’t see education as necessary to the care of their cattle.

 

I loved the response one old woman gave me when I asked why women are more likely to contract HIV than men. She said, “Because we do all the work.” I laughed and answered in Kiswahili that where her statement was absolutely true, that, in and of itself was not one of the reasons women are more prone to be infected with HIV.

 

The girls wanted to ask me questions about reproductive health as the elder women do not know. The mandate has been for women to produce as many babies as they can in typical African style, thinking that children will help care for you when you are old. The child mortality rate has been high historically with malaria and a host of other diseases that afflict children with weaker immune systems than adults have been able to develop over  repeated exposure to all the illness that exist here. I had passed out some materials on adolescent issues and the girls already had read some of it. They knew the American word “period” referred to your menstrual cycle. So, I spent some time educating these bright, beautiful young women about menstrual cycles, planning pregnancies, and young men and their lies! They asked if it was true that semen are protein, as this is an argument that young men use to obtain sex. “You need protein and my semen are protein.” Now that is a new one for me after all my years in psych practice! They understood that the reproductive system is not anatomically connected to the gastrointestinal system so that report was false. The boys tell them that they must have children early, or they will not be able to have children and will have no value to the community. But also they expressed their own fears of the impact of multiple abortions on their future reproductive health, their fears about heavy menstrual periods or frequencies of different than the standard 28 day cycle. They seemed to be very unaware that personal illness, worries, or travel can change a young woman’s menstrual cycle. Of course, they had no idea, just as young American girls don’t, during what time of your cycle fertilization occurs. As usual, one thought it was when you bleed, as I’ve heard from so many young American girls.

 

I was surprised how trusting they were. I was surprised that the elder women sat around the girls and I and the makeshift calendar I’d made to show them the time of month that pregnancies occur. The elder women were hardly paying attention at all to us.

 

Mike will be working on editing his video for their uses in various venues. We now have pictures of over 100 Wamasaai youth in their traditional dress in addition to hours of their filmed discussions about the future of the tribal communities and which cultural norms to keep or abandon. One or more of them will work with Mike to edit all these hours of discussions we truly have no ability to understand.  I met Dinwa or “Sophia” as she calls herself in English, who said she wants me to do more work with the girls of Matebete. I look forward to the opportunity to work with such bright, promising young women who are not only future leaders of their community, but of Tanzania.

 

At one point in the closing ceremonies, they asked to use my Obama kanga. They had a high stool that various individuals offered money or goats to pay for school tuition for their youth. The Obama kanga served to keep the money from blowing away in the wind. They raised about $800 and a few goats, which should pay the tuition of several of their teenagers to continue their education. Although I do not understand why, they said that the Obama kanga helped raise more money. I do understand why when I say, “Obama, Oye!” they love it. They know Obama does not like war, but does like people. So, they enjoy when I say the equivalent of “Yea! Obama!” in Kiswahili. I really don’t completely understand why using a piece of material that says “yes, we can” with Obama’s picture raises more money from their community members for their children to go to school.

 

The end of the symposium included presents for Mike and I. They had asked where we pray. Mike received a cross handcrafted in Wamasaai beads and I received the full costume of a Masaai woman: the dress, necklace, and earrings. We both received notice that we were now Masaai although the color of our skin may be different. We were asked to return to their communities to be with them whenever we could find the time.

 

So that is what we were doing while you were opening up Christmas presents, eating all that wonderful food and enjoying the beautiful snow. We miss you all.

Funerals and Noise

Not 2 items you would think would go together, huh?  It is interesting that the funeral is not the completion of formalized culturally-promoted grieving here. The family can choose to grieve again after a few months or more. Usually this involves some food, some alcohol, and people just sitting around for days at a time. Other families have quite extravagant events as they revisit the loss of loved ones.

 

This is the third day that our neighbors have been grieving the loss of their 4 year old child and mother who died in March during the same night. It was truly tragic. They had no idea why the 4 year old died; probably malaria would be my guess. There was quite an outpouring from the community at that time as it is a well-liked and respected family. Two churches were involved, the Catholic and the Lutheran, the 2 largest denominations in town, with the funeral procession walking and singing from one church to another across town.

 

This grieving period involved wailers the first night. A man told us that you can hire wailing choirs. I suspect our neighbors had hired a wailing choir. They went on all night without any let up. Loud. Hour after hour. The next night was wailers, but not quite so many screams and high pitched “jar you out of your sleep” sounds. Last night, I barely slept because they were playing music so loud you can’t hear yourself think. Right now, I just want to scream at them to shut off the music. It is not as loud as last night, but still there must be hearing loss going on over there. I am not exaggerating to make this funny. Another factor is that it is the same few songs over and over. Songs we’ve heard so often since our arrival in Tanzania, I want to scream when I hear them at regular volume, not at 1,000 decibels like now.

 

I tried to lay down to take a nap after 3 days of interrupted or no sleep and I could not. The sound of a fan running does nothing to cut into the volume. Ear plugs bother my ears. Now, I try harder than most to be culturally sensitive, but I’ve had it. I just got dressed and went to the hospital to find someone who can get them to turn down the volume. The only person I could find who might do something since almost everyone was gone, was the dentist. He agreed to go to talk to the hamlet leader after work today to ask for them to turn the volume down some.

 

Funerals are a big problem in Africa, probably not everywhere, but in many places. The expectations of the family are that they feed hordes of people, regardless of their income level and that they visibly show their grieving, particularly the women. Whether this be by wearing all black for 6 months as we witnessed in the Muslims of Mtwara, or other short-lived funeral rites, funerals are very big in Tanzania. This, despite the number of deaths that occur. Not disrespectfully, they must cut into the development of the country due to the loss of productive work time, the high costs of the funerals, and so on. So much time and expense is spent grieving. In some areas the women do not bathe for a month or do not eat at all for days. Some do not intake fluids, which is medically dangerous. Their ragged physical appearance is intended to reflect the level of their distress. It is all just part of the culture of certain tribes. Much disease and illness is associated with funerals. Such huge crowds come family and neighbors cannot accommodate them indoors, so they sleep under trees only to be bitten by the mosquitos and contract malaria. Sanitation is problematic as locally available restrooms are not adequate to meet the needs of the huge numbers of people. To do differently than what your tribe subscribes to is to indicate that the departed one was not loved, or that you don’t know how to show respect to those who have passed, a great character flaw on the level of something quite onerous, like viciously hitting a newborn.

 

Rather repugnant to Americans, there are bathing rituals which include the women drinking the fluids used to bath the dead body. There are other practices that are clearly assaults to the health of the living, again all undertaken by the caregivers of Tanzania, or the women. Generally, to change the pattern requires a change in the tribal laws. Such an intervention was undertaken by the DMO in 2001 in his native Kyela. For a week, they gathered every influencial person in the community to discuss the extremely high malaria rates: all the chiefs, subchiefs, doctors, nurses, politicians, clergy, principals of schools, police, on and on. The first step was to try to hang bed nets under trees to reduce the malaria rate. You can imagine how poorly that worked. The next step was to make a law that funerals could only last 3 days, instead of the 30 that was the norm. The malaria rate plummeted.

 

Americans think individually and your reaction to hearing this is that Americans would never tolerate 3 days of loud wailing or music 24 hours around the clock. Well, Africans do. I am probably the only one who will complain. There is such collective thinking, that they would not shorten funerals unless mandated to do so by those at higher positions than they are in the community. Some Africans say, “We do not know our rights”, yet they never complain about anything as a result. So everyone does what they want to do without thought of the impact it may be having on others. The people next door are grieving the great loss of their daughter and mother. This, I respect. I just can’t stand the noise. 3 days is enough. They need to turn the volume down some.

 

Random Acts of Islamic Kindness

Due to the split of religious affiliations in Tanzania, both Christian and Islamic holidays are celebrated as national holidays. The past two days have been an Islamic holiday, Id al Adha according to the calendar, although the locals call it by a different name. We were invited to dinner yesterday at Abdul’s house. We thought that it was going to be a large extended family gathering, but were quite surprised to find that only 4 places were set on the table, one for Abdul and his wife, one each for Mike and I. Abdul explained to us that he could not leave us alone in our house by ourselves on this Muslim holiday. That it is not seen as “right” to leave others by themselves on this day. He asked us for forgiveness of any transgression on his part. He said he had never offended us purposely, but if he had he wanted to apologize and ask forgiveness. Abdul has always been very kind and welcoming to us and I thought the Islamic practice he was describing was beautiful. Where I knew Abdul is a kind man, I was still quite surprised of this great kindness he was showing Mike and I. I rarely have been the object of such thoughtfulness in my life, although I have been very well treated throughout my life. He is well aware we are not Muslims and that we attend the Catholic Church.

 

Abdul explained that the day had started by going to the Mosque and praying. Then, the people of the mosque went from person to person who had been unable to go to the mosque due to illness or age, asking for forgiveness for any unknown offenses.  Each visited individual offered “bites” of cake or some small amount of food to visitors. He and his fellow Muslims had visited about 25 homes of those who had not been able to go to the Mosque.

 

After dining, his wife dressed up in her finest and went to her sister’s house since she had not seen her yet that day to offer her apology for any slight or offense she had unwittingly inflicted. 

 

What a lovely tradition. Maybe us Christians should adopt a similar practice?

Jobama and Mike-Dogmates

About a week ago, Mike said he and Jobama had a special relationship. They speak dog together. I thought he’d lost his marbles and might need to ask for more Brown marbles from his brother, Patrick.

 

He explained that in one of the Mel Gibson Lethal Weapon movies, Mel is faced with 2 Rottweilers and gets down on all 4s and talks “dog” to them. He has started an abbreviated version of this (he doesn’t get down on all 4’s) with Jobama and thinks Jobama believes he is a dog. Jobama’s reaction is to jump up and lick Mike’s beard. Mike pointed to the fact that he has whiskers like a dog does and Jobama recognizes this and concludes he is a dog too. I asked Mike for a demo and sure enough, the dog talk elicited Jobama jumping up and licking Mike’s face whiskers. I tried the same, but alas, I have no face whiskers. My dog talk doesn’t work; Jobama does nothing.

 

So we have our roles with the dog. I feed him and he follows me around everywhere. One volunteer who was visiting said Jobama has “dependency issues”, which is an accurate psychological observation. But Mike is his dogmate.

 

Do you think the Tanzanian sun has gotten to us? Maybe just Mike?

Jobama and Thanksgiving

Jobama is a good dog who learns quickly, although Mike calls him “girly”, like the old Arnold Schwarzeneger expression. Jobama doesn’t like to go outside in the rain. But, on the positive side, he immediately determined exactly where he wants his urine and feces to go, which is in our courtyard (easily hosed down) and not our house. Can’t beat that.

 

I really am writing about him because he was very, very sick. I took him to Mbeya with me to stay at the German docs’ house for a few days vacation before Thanksgiving, which was very nice by the way. The German docs live in a house that was formerly inhabited by American docs, who brought many exotic plants to Tanzania for their yard. They even have strawberries! Must be the only strawberries in Tanzania. They have the only swimming pool (heated even) in Mbeya.

 

Jobama had almost a full morning of seizures. It was awful. Of course, Mike was great with him using the First Aid Training from Red Cross. One seizure went on for about 20 minutes, no exaggeration. I thought he was dying. The docs here think he ate some poisonous leaves, as this behavior results from dogs eating poisonous substances here. Sadly, one of the docs at the hospital said that someone poisoned his dog and had the same symptoms. He thought his dog was fed rat poison and died. A volunteer in Mafinga said his dog got into some rat poison and had the same symptoms. It took his dog 3 days to get over it. Jobama slept a lot, but was pretty much back to normal within 2 days. Now, he is fine.

 

It is another event that you would never anticipate. I don’t hear of dogs being fed poison or eating poisonous leaves in the U.S. I’m sure it must happen, but not as commonly as here. Again, it is reminiscent of how fragile life is here—even for dogs.

 

Thanksgiving was about as American as it could be. Traditional food except a big chicken instead of turkey. I made mushroom-sausage stuffing, Kaitlyn made the mashed potatoes, Charles made the green beans. Mike poured the South African wine. Everything turned out very tasty. Kaitlyn made a deep dish pumpkin pie from some pumpkin I froze during pumpkin season here. Pumpkin isn’t exactly like it is in the U.S., but any American cook would have been proud to produce the pie that Kaitlyn made. It was delicious. We ate the whole thing. No leftovers of anything really.

 

So we are thankful Jobama is OK. Thankful people still are reading about our Tanzanian adventures. Thankful that people are donating to the PCPP grant for caesarean equipment on the PC website. Very often, the docs here say, “If I’d had that suction pump, I would have been able to drain that infant’s lungs” or “If I had that suction pump, I would have used it for that woman’s abdominal surgery last night.” They are really looking forward to having caesarean equipment that does not fall apart mid-caesarean procedure. They will be thankful for that even more than we are thankful that Jobama is OK and all the other things I listed above. And thanks for remembering us when we have been gone so long.

 

Jobama

I just got a email from someone who read my blog suggesting that our new dog, "Joe" aka "Obama" be named "Jobama". I really like it! It even fits with Tanzanian cultural-social etiquette that dictates it is not acceptable to name an animal after a person. If any of you know of any "Jobama"s, don't tell me. From now on the dog is "Jobama". :-)

Community Theatre Outreach Schisto Surprise

A few months ago, I took a local man who is the teacher of the Community Theatre Group here to a seminar in Morogoro, funded by PEPFAR and sponsored for Peace Corps Volunteers and their communities. Community Theatre is used in Tanzania to educate communities about various issues. The training in Morogoro was the next evolution of community theatre and involves doing research and designing a theatrical production for specific communities in order to address specific community problems after researching what may work in that community. The theatre production is both entertaining, informative, and solution-focused.  A few blogs ago, I wrote about the children urinating blood here and Mike and I both wrote small $500 grants for the CT group to go to high incidence areas to perform re: the schisto problem.

 

Monday, 2 community theatre group members and myself left early for Ruiwa, which is THE BUSH, more than I even knew. The incidence is highest here--69%--because of the rice fields. The parasites enter the children’s feet when they work in the water of the rice fields, causing bloody urine and feces. When we went to some classrooms almost 100% of the children raised their hands when asked if they have bloody urine. Water is infected when people urinate or defecate in the water. This is in an area where nomadic tribes graze their cattle and the temps are hot. There is no rain from April until December. It is just a mix of bad conditions: heat causing children to play in the water to cool down, unsanitary water, children who must work in the rice fields to contribute to the family income to eat, an impoverished health system, remote locations, including bad roads, or rather no roads.

 

Arriving at Ilongo on the main highway, we found out the only way to go to Ruiwa is to hire a bicyclist and have him transport you there. I was surprised as I did not know, even after living here since January, that any villages were so remote that no 4 wheel drive vehicle could easily go to them. 12k on the back of a bike on a small flat hard seat, over bumps and rough paths, including one ravine with water trickling at it’s bottom. 5 rocks allow the bicyclist to haul his bike across the bottoom of the ravine without having to enter the water. Riders such as myself, pick their way down the ravine, balance on the 5 rocks and pick their way up the other side of the ravine, only to mount the bike again to continue the ride. These bicyclists do this 7 days a week to support their families, from 6 am to 7 pm. Back and forth. Omari was thrilled to make arrangements to pick me up at 4 pm at the dispensary in Ruiwa to make another 2000 Tsh, or about $1.80 for an hour’s work, which was my way back to the highway. We chatted. His father died and his mother was not able to pay for him to go to secondary school. He tried what English he had on me and was understandable although they do not really teach English here until after 7^th grade. He was able to complete 7^th grade because schooling is free through 7^th grade. He seemed to be a nice, smart man with a wife and a baby. His eyes didn’t quite seem to focus together sometimes and I wondered what vision issues he has. Certainly he has not been able to afford to go to any eye specialist. He was a true gentleman with me.

 

I wondered how many of these men are HIV+ and wondered what we might do for these hard-working men who just ride bikes all day in the hot African sun, transporting people or whatever people will pay them to transport back and forth from these bush villages that have no roads. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Life shouldn’t be so hard.

"Joe" aka "Obama"

“Joe” aka “Obama”

 

Those of you who have read this blog since the beginning may remember Mike and I had a typical African-issue dog in Mtwara before we moved to Rujewa. He was a smart dog and I have missed him despite the short period of time we had him.

 

Last week I had gone to the secondary school to make arrangements for an education volunteer to visit there while he was here in Rujewa “shadowing” for 5 days. Volunteers “shadow” other volunteers for a week or so prior to being assigned to a site of their own. It is just a way to expose them to the life of a volunteer before they do it on their own at their own site. We had a young man from New Jersey, Taylor, a biology teacher, who we liked very much, gave him some American foods he had not had for a few months, and he slept a lot! Learning Kiswahili at the rate you do in training is so tiring and shadow is the first opportunity you have to truly relax. Mike and he made spaghetti together and let me sleep through his last night here when I had a huge green salad planned for him—it would have been his first since leaving the U.S.!

 

So, on the way home from the school, I passed three pups that looked very healthy. They were wet, so I thought they’d be treated for fleas as they use a spray here sometimes through the livestock division of the local government. Quite unusual for Tanzania since people cannot afford to feed their dogs anything but leftovers, buy flea powder, etc. Dogs are used mostly here to keep thieves away as most Tanzanians are afraid of dogs. Rabies is still present here, so children are taught early to hit a dog, which they do without any provocation, as being better than being bitten by a potentially rabid dog. So this pack of 3 pups were sleeping in the road—where else since there is so little traffic anyway? They all growled at me and wagged their tails simultaneously. One of them approached me more closely and I noticed how he was marked differently than  the others.

 

When we first arrived here, Dr. Mwakapalala told me that there could be no animals/pets on hospital grounds. He thought it would be a problem if any animal ever bit a patient or family member here. Then, as he has gotten to know us, he offered to get me a dog. I still don’t understand that one.

 

The next day Mike said that we should go looking for the dog and took the chain we used with the other dog in Mtwara. We went in and out of the area I thought I’d seen the dog. We found some very cute 2 month old pups, but they were flea bitten and were not the dogs I’d seen the day before. Well, if you want to find anything in Tanzania, put the inevitably present local group of children on the job. They escorted us to Dr. Joel’s house. Dr. Joel is the hospital administrator and apparently he and his wife love all creatures—they even mentioned birds! Dr. Joel had picked up these two dogs recently in Mbeya.  Although he also had slightly older dogs and mature dogs, cats, and who knows what else, I saw the dog that I had seen in the road. Dr. Joel insisted we take him. After some coaxing from Mike, we now have a dog! I wanted to name him Obama as the election was just over and all talk was of Obama here. In Tanzania, it is viewed as disrespectful to name a dog after a person. There are designed dog names like Tiger, Bobby, and Simba that everyone uses.  Dr. Joel suggested that I should not name the dog “Obama” but rather “Joe” after him. So, now we have “Joe”. Taylor remarked that Joe has some dependency issues for a 3 month old dog—wants to be with us every minute, wants constant attention. As much as I’d like to say he is just a very social dog due to the love he received in Dr. and Mama Joel’s home, Taylor is right! He is learning fairly quickly though and actually stood still as a statue when we gave him a bath. So, thanks, Mama Joe for having bathed the dog so often that baths are just part of his life.

 

So, Joe and I are sacking out in today’s heat waiting on Mike to come home from the bush. It is a day when I am between projects, so can relax a bit. It will start raining in December, the heat will reduce, and Joe and I will not nap as much. Such is life in TZ lately.

US Election from Tanzania

I found an Obama kanga in Dar last week, so I was ready for the election. Talk about appropriate dress! The Tanzanians loved the kanga and several people said they wanted to know where to find one; they absolutely had to have one. I feel certain that they will become more available soon since he was elected and Tanzanians feel so excited about him being the next American President. I laughed about how just today, the day after the election, that they have found a connection between Tanzania and Obama. The claim is that his grandfather was raised in a village near the village where their first President, beloved Mwalimu Nyerere, was raised. I really doubt this is true because Obama’s father was from the Luo tribe who has resided in the northern part of Kenya for generations.

 

Yesterday was election day and coverage here started about 2 hours before the polls closed in the U.S., which was 5 a.m. here. We arrived to the wall-size projected television screen about 6 a.m. or so. It was about 8:30 a.m. here when Obama topped the 270 mark. In the audience were many Germans as Germany gives a huge sum of international aid to Tanzania. Also, many Tanzanians were in attendance, mostly governmental officials or hospital staff from Mbeya, the nearest largest city (where the viewing occurred). It was interesting that they truly seemed interested in understanding the electoral college, the terms of senators, etc. I happened to sit near some Germans who asked so many questions, I had to turn to the younger Peace Corps volunteers and say, “Do you know the answer to this question? I took American Government as a senior in high school and that was 40 years ago!” The German was asking about the staggering of electing senators.

 

It is interesting to see how excited the Germans and Tanzanians were to see Obama elected. One African man said that this was so good for the whole world to see that America, the most powerful country in the world, did not care about the color of a person’s skin. He anticipates the impact of that alone will be huge. Others commented on how they knew Americans were really smarter than they had shown in the past 8 years. Others said that they hoped that his Presidency would lead the world to a more peaceful existence. So, there is great hope that this President will lead the world to a better place on multiple levels. I have never really appreciated how much the rest of the world looks to the U.S. for leadership and movement on worldwide issues. It is as if when the U.S. is not doing well, they have no hope for themselves. That is the impression you get from many others of various ethnic origins here in Tanzania. So, it makes sense that they are so hopeful for some changes in the world given their faith in the fact that Obama is a man of the world, not just a man of the U.S. Expectations are high, but I get the sense that the people are not being unrealistic that changes will be fast, just hopeful that progress can occur again.

 

Everyone commented what a gentleman McCain was and how gracious his speech was. But they firmly believe that the world does not need more war and McCain brings the fear of more violence and warfare.

 

Lastly, I will tell you that the recently elected district council member from this ward in rural Tanzania attended the event. He has always been interested in world politics, but loves studying the U.S. Presidents. He reads books on their lives and is a fountain of details about each of them. He was delighted to meet the U.S. Embassy representative. He later told all the younger PCVs how fortunate he felt to be able to watch such historic U.S. election coverage and how thrilled he was to meet an Embassy representative. I think that the younger vols looked at him with stunned expression, almost “Like are you kidding?” But he was not. He was as sincere as he could be and I wondered if they reflected on his statements later. I hope so.