kids in crocs

[ an autumn in tanzania ]

on august 19, 2013, i embarked on a four-month trip to rural africa. i packed my life in two tangerine-colored roller bags, a big floral duffel, and a backpack. with my dad as chauffeur and sherpa and travel companion, i boarded three planes, a van, and an african “speed taxi” and found myself at the rift valley children’s village, a home for orphaned kids in the oldeani mountain region of northeastern tanzania. there, one hundred and seventeen kids took me into their family. perpetually donning colorful rubber crocs, the kids taught me lessons about life and love and friendship and family. far more than i could ever count. here, i've written just a piece of the lessons i learned from kids in crocs.

NO WHITE SOCKS

08 23 13

the rift valley children’s village is 5000 feet above the ocean. from every angle, there is mountain, valley, and short green coffee plant in sight.

it is chilly in the morning.

dark at 5:45am wake-up call.

wet and misty at 7am line-up before school.

windy at 7:15am march to gyetighi primary.

a sunny blaze by afternoon playtime.

kids in crocs don’t seem fazed by the frequently changing weather. life goes on normally. about this, and about almost everything else, no one complains. raincoats pile on, rain boots fall from off the shoe racks outside the door and find their way to little feet. hours later, raincoats sprinkle the dry ground and kids tear off their layers.

at 4:30pm bath time, everyone is filthy. shame on me for bringing white socks. kids in crocs know better. that’s the first thing i’ve learned from these little people.

Lesson Number One: Whenever possible, don’t wear socks.

when there’s no other choice, choose patterned.

MEET ELIASI

08 26 13

the daily schedule for americans at rift valley is a variation of this:

5:45 wake up, 6am breakfast, 7am school for kids aged 7 and up, 8am school for young ones. inevitably, the day continues after 8am. but for the purposes of lessons two & three, i’ll stop there.

since my arrival at the rift valley children’s village on wednesday, i’ve been assigned to toddler time from 8am-10:30am every day. while 2nd – 7th graders are at gyetighi primary school just down the road, little kids in crocs learn creatively at the village. i’ve spent the latter part of this week with four kids under four years. i’ve had evans, faith, grace, and eliasi. (in the village, the staff invents most of the children’s ages and birthdays. birth certificates not included when little people are dropped at the rift valley children’s village doorstep. so, in toddler time, we assume three or four years old, and assign birthdays evenly across all twelve months so that every time of year is equally celebratory.)

Lesson Two: Don’t play favorites.

the problem with this lesson is that it’s not possible to obey it. it is impossible because of eliasi. he is the newest addition to the rift valley family, arriving here about a month ago. he is a kid living with relatives, or klr, which means that he doesn’t sleep at rift valley and he doesn’t come here on sundays. he has a family that is relatively negligent (who knew there was relativity there) but still physically able to care for him. initially, they wanted to get rid of him. the rift valley staff convinced the family to keep him on some conditions, because it’s not possible to accommodate every child who needs rift valley. so we provide him with food, baths, education, and affection, but not a bed.

jackie, the nurse on staff, delivered eliasi to me on day one and warned me that he arrived at rift valley with no exposure to english – a great disadvantage compared to other three year olds living here. in just one month of rift valley love, though, eliasi can understand much of what i say. he has picked up some key english phrases:

on the swing set: “push please”

on a walk to the nearby village, campi nairobi: “carry me”

when we’re racing across the field: “ready set go”

and, characterizing him as a true rift valley child, “excuse me!” before every statement.

Lesson Number Three: Dirt > Legos.

on the first day of toddler time, i resorted to the big woven basket of legos like a bona fide american babysitter. within the first hour, i realized that tanzanian babies prefer filling water bottles with dirt and dumping them on each other. pouring mud into crocs is also very entertaining. unwilling to get dirty as a first day walk-on, i backed away from the dirty execution. unfortunately, backing away means losing children. panic struck when, for half an hour, eliasi was nowhere to be found. (he reappeared.) surrendering to the reality of the next four months, i subsequently jumped in the dirt alongside my little people. (see lesson one, “no white socks.”)

eliasi loves to give kisses. he runs up, hugs my knees, and makes a loud smack as he buries his face in my legs. 

he loves violently blowing out his boogers and smearing them all over his face.

he loves playing soccer. he is three years old & can beat me in a game.

he loves drawing on his clothes with purple magic markers.

he loves spinning around on the swings, in my arms, on my shoulders. he likes to feel dizzy. and he also loves dirt.

HOLD ON TIGHT

08 28 13

sundays are off days for volunteers at the rift valley children’s village. rev and i decided to spend our day with lions and zebras and hippos (oh my!) at the ngorongoro crater. the crater is the result of a huge volcano – a mountain grander than kilimanjaro – that erupted more than three million years ago. over the centuries, it has developed into a wholly functioning ecosystem, all on its own. it is home to 25,000 species of plant and animal life.

the floor of the crater spans 100 square miles. it is the largest intact volcanic crater in the world, and one of the seven wonders of africa. wonderful.

simon, our driver, fetched us from the village at 7am and drove on unpaved, bumpy roads to the entrance of ngorongoro national park. we began climbing into the clouds, bypassing maasai tribal people, baboons, and zebras smothered in wet fog. we drove around the rim of the crater until we reached the entrance. then we began to descend.

zebras, gazelles, cape buffalo, and thousands of wildebeests. coexistence.

flocks of flamingos. 

hippopotami bathing in stinky water.

a lion with a big, dark mane napping next to his wildebeest lunch. food coma.

kite birds, like big hawks, swooping up and down in search of food.

one bold kite bird found us when we stopped for lunch at the hippo pond. we had just opened our boxed lunches and settled onto the ground, strewn with spiky hay (remnants of the dry season). jaybomb was mid-bite, a grilled chicken breast held up to his mouth with both hands. a kite swooped down from behind our backs, attempting to snatch some barbecue. hungry jaybomb held on and came out unscathed. the claws of that thing could’ve scarred him.

Lesson Number Four: Hold on to your barbecue. (If you don’t, African wildlife will.)

we finished lunch inside the jeep.

GOD & MARY & ME

08 31 13

unexpectedly, and despite the dangers of cars, elephants, and cave buffalo, i was granted permission to take a walk all by myself yesterday. a treat.

being alone and silent for the first time since i’ve been in tanzania rendered me contemplative. a few days ago, a certain priest i know & love told me that the rift valley children’s village is created in god’s image. easy to believe.

a quote from lisa wingate:

“your children are the greatest gift god will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility he will place in your hands. take time with them, teach them to have faith in god. be a person in whom they can have faith. when you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered as much.”

(LESSON NUMBER FIVE: Priests know when God’s around.)

this deep thinking led me to mary oliver, a poet with words i admire and a brain i covet.

LESSON NUMBER SIX: Mary Oliver knows when God’s around.

a quote from mary oliver:

“you do not have to be good.

you do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

you only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

tell me about despair, yours, and i will tell you mine.

meanwhile the world goes on.

meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

GENEROSITY

09 04 13

india, rift valley children’s village founder, purposefully chose to build her community on the particular mountain i am atop right now. full of coffee plantation workers squatting in huts unfit for any human. trash, discarded food, mud, human and animal feces graffiti the ground.

unintimidated by this poverty, india wanted to help struggling families by adopting their children, theoretically allowing parents and relatives to leave the impoverished mountain and find work in karatu, the closest city. unfortunately, the opposite has happened: her incredible success in improved health (emotional and physical) and education has attracted more hopeful and helpless families to the area. immigration despite intended emigration.

campi nairobi is the nearest village, just outside the rifti gates. (rift valley children’s fund veterans call the community “rifti.” noted.) campi is home to about 200 tanzanians who have endured many generations of this squatter lifestyle. ancestors found refuge and work here during the colonial period.

when india first came to this part of tanzania to scope out the landscape, villagers screamed and fled into their homes. they had never seen a white person. now, little children in desperate need of bath and breakfast scamper up, desperate for a hand hold or a picture.

many of the kids living with relatives (klr) at rifti come from campi nairobi. little pumpkin eliasi included.

all the rifti children, klr or not, love to walk through the village. they tantalize baby chickens and love when the fat pig on a leash oinks. they greet every person over the age of 20 with “bebe” and “babu.” every person under that age with “kaka” and “dada.” grandma. grandpa. brother. sister. no matter who you are.

one woman, the richest in campi nairobi, has a small microfinance project in the village. next to her tiny home, she has a tiny shack filled with soda, snacks, and useful home supplies. i walked five kids in crocs through the village a few days ago. they spoke rapidly in kiswahili to this woman, campi billionaire, sitting outside her home. oblivious, i watched as she retreated into her little shack made of sticks. when she returned, she had a small package of cookies for each child.  

free of charge.

amazing generosity.

deepest riches in deepest poverty.

Lesson Number Seven: Don’t underestimate goodness.

it exists here at rifti and at campi nairobi.

and if it exists here, it’s bound to exist everywhere.

“do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

(desmond tutu)

MEET EMA

09 08 13

when american volunteers come to rift valley children’s village, they talk to, teach, work and play with african kids in crocs. they also live with them.

there are eight houses brimming with little people. two for girls, three for boys, two for young men, and india’s house. (india has three kids who live with her permanently. additionally, she takes in kids temporarily who’ve come from particularly traumatic pasts or who are struggling behaviorally and developmentally.) americans don’t live in the young men’s houses. they supervise themselves, cooking and cleaning without supervision. they live on the other side of a hedge that encircles the rest of rifti. independence, kind of.

so, volunteers end up making house in the remaining abodes. these five houses are named for national parks throughout tanzania. rubondo and manyara for the girls; serengeti, terengire, and mikumi for the boys.

i live in mikumi with ten boys aged 4 to 10. three mamas are assigned to each home. two work at a time, while the third gets a week off. cycle continues. i live with mama rozi, mama maria,and mama ella. i also live with eliaruma, who’s a student teacher at gyetighi primary school, working at rifti in exchange for free university tuition (one of india’s many signs of generosity).

in mikumi, my room cozies up to bunkroom #1, housing yohani, elias, jackson, nada, and emanueli (affectionately called big ema). bunkroom #2 down the hall houses elibaraka, rahim, micha, ally, and emanuel (affectionately called little ema).

little ema is in preschool. model student.

he is the best translator in the house, always enabling conversations to occur between me (swahili impaired) and the mamas (english impaired).

every morning he eats breakfast in his onesy and a little knitted orange cap with “EMA” stitched above the forehead.

every day at snack time, he asks for the “end piece” of bread (yes, the heel of the loaf is coveted by kids in crocs here, unlike overfed little people in america) and for the chunky remains at the bottom of the pitcher of powdered milk. bleh.

he loves to read books (pronounced: booooooo-ks). he curls up in my lap like a puppy.

he loves star wars. he thinks he’s a jedi.

he also thinks he’s a ninja.

his eyelashes are long and curly.

he is on the path to become the next david beckham. seriously talented.

he loves to dance but becomes bashful quickly. he covers his smile with his hands.

he does this when he recites the famous speech from the princess bride, too (“my name is inigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die.” but instead of “die,” he says: “prepare to jambo,” which means: “prepare to say hello.”).

every day, he asks about america.

he says he’ll go one day.

unfortunately, i am coming to terms with:

Lesson Eight: Adoption not permitted.

TESTING, TESTING

09 11 13

this week, in every school in every corner of tanzania, 7th graders take a test that determines their future. they study for the test for many years. little people seem to inherent knowledge of the test; it is not something they learn. if 7th graders pass the test, they enter secondary school, and then high school, and then, eventually, god willing, knock on wood, university. if they don’t, they don’t get another chance. choice is a word that exits their vocabulary. unskilled labor makes a place for them, if they’re lucky.

india’s goal, in creating rifti, was to pass impoverished, abused, traumatized (you name it) kids through this test and on to university.

(i saw simon, an endearingly annoying 7th grader, after his test today. “did you kill it?” i asked. his response: “how do you say in english when you put a dead person in the ground?” “bury?” perplexed. “i didn’t just kill it. i buried it.” well, at least he’s clear. go simon.)

so this week is a special week.

while the 7th graders are at school this week, studying and cramming and stressing and testing, all other kids in crocs have the week off. i happily surrendered my role as kindergarten teacher (disciplinarian, push-over, helpless babysitter, useless human) for the week to, instead, spend some time with 3rd graders.

i remember 3rd grade fondly. i excelled in spelling and memorized my multiplication table. i idolized my teacher, ms. mendez. (if you’re out there, i love you.)

i’m not confident that there’s much idolatry involved in my lesson plans this week…

(Lesson Number Nine: Boys love soccer more than they love multiplication. Or you.)

(Lesson Number Ten: Girls love soccer more than they love coloring. Or you.)

(Lesson Number Eleven: Don’t try to play soccer with Tanzanians. You’ll lose.)

…but at least there were no violent pillow fights and/or bloody noses. (fear not: stories from kindergarten will come in due time.)

i’m working with a student teacher named muchu. she’s quiet except for her kiswahili outbursts that are ill-received by my 3rd graders. she sounds angry but, much like mandarin chinese, every swahili exchange seems irritated to the foreigner.

nine kids arrive each morning to learn. today, i found them buried in a tall bush plucking “strawberries.” i’m not convinced that’s what they were. i’m not convinced they’re edible. i fear they might be poisonous. but, as I’ve come to learn, personal ignorance and cultural divides force me to trust what children say to be true.

Lesson Number Twelve: Even if he’s four years old, take his word for it.

yohani, ally, bernardi, noeli, sharifa, rahema.

magdalena, who is eliasi’s older sister. despite her lack of english fluency, she is tickled by “mags,” the nickname i’ve given her.

jacquelina, who giggles when i call her “jacks.”

juliana, who responds to “jules” with “hel-bel.”

adorable little troublemakers.

prodigious at soccer.

MAC IS BACK

09 25 13

ten days ago, whilst carelessly checking the news online, my computer took a tumble. after a traumatic experience losing its identity here, then traveling down a mountain on a bumpy road and finally finding its way to arusha, a city four hours away, my machine, my connection to the northern hemisphere, my - dare i say - lifeline, is back. praise the lord.

Lesson Number Thirteen: a little reinvention never killed nobody.

Lesson Number Fourteen: makeovers are good.

whether it was the universe asking me to dive more deeply into the desolate and disconnected (technologically speaking) mountain i inhabit (i did), or the world forcing me to truly understand gratitude for the great luxuries of affluent america (i do), or god scolding me for my reliance on materialism (it worked), or just really terrible luck, i’m happy the experience occurred and i’m certainly happy that it’s over.

THE GRADUATE

09 29 13

last weekend, thirty-eight seventh graders from rifti and surrounding mountain villages graduated from gyetighi primary school with appropriate fanfare. after their week of testing (see lessons 7-9) the tweens spent a week rehearsing for their long-winded and monotonous choreography, which characterized the four-hour ceremony.

feeling like a parent, emotions ran their course from pride to intrigue to boredom to utter rage.

that morning, school kids of all ages paraded from the school to rifti (just a soccer field’s distance away) singing patriotic songs in kiswahili at the tops of their lungs. some smiled proudly when they passed photographing volunteers, who stationed themselves in various places on the path. some showed signs of stage fright.

Lesson Number FIFteen: Relatively speaking, Rifti kids are lucky kids.

as they paraded in, it was easy to differentiate between rifti kids and kids from other oldeani mountain villages. they bowed their heads, shyly, instead of smiling and waving to the camera. fear of white people. lack of trust. most village children wore uniform sweaters whose maroon yarn was frayed and tearing at the seams and uniform skirts whose navy pleats were a wrinkled, faded gray. they were significantly shorter in stature, no matter what their age, and many had a light brown buzz cut, instead of the natural black. lack of nutrients. lack of love.

Lesson Number SIXTEEn: Don’t be fooled by Rifti mamas. They’re glam.

kindergarteners sat on the floor in front of first graders, and so on, with sixth graders holding down the back of rifti’s gymnasium, affectionately called the rec hall. rifti volunteers with little toddlers as lap dogs sat behind the sixth graders in chairs, alongside proud mamas from mikumi house (and the others, though they’re just inferior to the mikumi powerhouse) and an inspiring showing of biological relatives from campi nairobi and other villages on the mountain.

the rifti mamas abandoned their morning duties (laundry, stirring porridge, adding another pint of sugar to their chai, singing along to swahili gospel choir cassettes) to support their sweet students. they put on fancy dresses and filed in together holding hands like best friends at a middle school dance. proud to be a witness.

the seventh graders sat in chairs alongside the side of the rec hall, occasionally standing to salute the crowd, to chant, or to dance. they received rewards for academics and behavior and leadership and commitment and character. rifti kids received more rewards than kids from the surrounding villages.

Lesson Number SEVENteen: Sometimes, you gotta bail.

at 12:30, the volunteers scooted out for our daily lunchtime. india and chris, our new education director, watched from their distinguished seats at the front, frustrated and envious of our escape route.

Lesson Number eIGHteen: Abundance abounds.

after the ceremony, the children paraded back to gyetighi with loving family members behind them. in years past, rvcv has funded a catered lunch for children and their families. this year, india decided it was not in the budget to feed so many hundreds of hungry families. the regional villages came together and decided they could pay for it themselves. rice, beans, chapatti, different kinds of meats, sodas, cookies, and cakes. loaves & fishes. abundance.

Lesson Number NINEteen: Community is always there. You just have to create it.

Lesson Number Twenty: Five-year-olds are wise.

the community rallied together in an inspiring way. no one wanted to miss out. throughout the morning, as i sweat through my long-sleeved shirt (black, thank god) and floor-length skirt and grew delirious from the constant singing in a language foreign to me, i whispered to five-year-old musa, who was parked on my lap. “you wanna leave?” each time, he said no. 

BIG TRABO

10 01 13

unintentionally, in my second or third week here at rifti, i became policewoman of school supplies. the skillset of my job description is vast and impressive, but my principal duty is this: every morning at 6:45, i roll out a baby pink cart stocked with pencils, pens, notebooks – known in tanzania as daftaris – and those neon erasers we used to stick on the ends of pencils. they are definitely still a thing.

each morning at 6:50, i am bombarded by a swarm of kids in crocs, predominantly under the age of eight. older kids generally hold onto their belongings. this is the most chaotic ten minutes of my day. (recently, i performed a skit with other volunteers to demonstrate the correct and incorrect ways to greet me, policewoman, before 7am, and the polite and impolite ways to request new supplies. marginal success.)

kids who use their pencils until they’re little wooden stubs and fill up their daftaris with copious notes (neither of these situations occur very often) get their names written in my handy-dandy school supplies records and capital letter “T.” this stands for “trade.” kids whose supplies mysteriously evaporate get a big, bold “L.” this stands for “lost” and many Ls mean chores, chores, chores. most “L” situations come with elaborate stories. but i am ruthless.

rahim is a boy who lives in mikumi. he is a second grader, an avid fan of star wars, and a troublemaker. yesterday, our education director summoned me from a chaotic moment in kindergarten (saved!). he pulled me out of class to describe a little situation at school. with him was a humiliated little rahim. that morning, a teacher had approached chris about rahim’s unpreparedness for class – all classes. for three weeks, he had been showing up to class with absolutely nothing in his backpack. having lost all his school supplies (impressive), he was too embarrassed to admit it and too scared to ask me, sergeant helen, for a new stock.

chris provided, but for no small price. rahim’s toy cars were taken away until he could show a bit more responsibility. and chris asked that rahim write me an apology letter.

Lesson Number Twenty-One: When children are being punished, look scary. No giggling.

i’ve never received a better present. ever.

read & enjoy.

MEET JOANN

10 06 13

joann is the daughter of peter leon, who works with india to run rift valley. without him, the place would be nonexistent. he is the tanzanian ally in the equation. he is a wonderful man.

(india moved to tanzania after a literal and figurative mountaintop experience while climbing kilimanjaro. she ran a safari company and employed peter as a busboy, or something of the sorts. one day, a group of customers raved about their server, peter, insisting that india promote him to a more esteemed position. intrigued, india sat down with him. thus began a host of promotions and the beginning of a respected friendship. as the american woman and the tanzanian man got to know each other better, they shared their visions for their own futures. when Peter said he wanted to start an NGO to give back to his country, he had no idea that india had plans to start a children’s village. they manifested their mutual dream together and have lived as neighbors in white, flower-filled houses at rift valley ever since.)

peter has two daughters with his wife, grace, who runs the microfinance program at rifti. she has a third due in november. yesterday, grace left rifti and traveled to arusha, where she’ll spend the next three months on maternity leave. with her traveled baby judy, just shy of two years old, and miss joann. to the latter, this ode is dedicated.

joann is four years old. but she’s a whole lotta woman. her head accounts for easily half of her body weight. she likes to greet most grownups by running, headfirst, into them. she hits the average-heighted human at the crotch.

joann is a classic staff child. she does not take no for an answer. she reminds you frequently that her dad, kaka peter, is the boss.

joann loves to read books.

joann likes to kiss me all over and suck on my stud earrings.

joann picks her nose.

joann gets along right well with all the boys. she is the total boss.

she gets along so well, in fact, that i think she sometimes forgets she’s a girl. she likes to fold her shirt up over her face and expose her upper half. joann gone wild.

joann likes to face plant so that she can wear band-aids on her face. she wears a lot of band-aids.

with two loving parents who speak fluent english, joann is a smarty pants. and she knows it. she is eloquent, devious, and an excellent translator.

joann knows how to make me feel loved.

joann was the first little kid in crocs to whom i’ve said goodbye. she said "i love you" over and over again.

i’m not sure she realizes she won’t be back to her home at rifti until 2014.

she helped me realize how sad i’ll be when i have to leave this place.

15 SECONDS OF FAME

10 09 13

fame is a medical clinic run by an american affectionately known as dr. frank. less than ten years ago, dr. rrank developed this impressive facility in karatu.

Lesson Number Twenty-Three: All clichés aside, a mountaintop experience is a real thing.

Lesson Number Twenty-Four: Ego is powerful. Drink water.

(frank was a prestigious doctor living in the bay area of california when he traveled to tanzania with his wife, susan, to climb mount kilimanjaro. a middle-aged man of impeccable health, his ego triumphed as he raced to the summit. falling ill from exhaustion and dehydration, he was carried down the mountain within death’s reach. overwhelmed with gratitude for healing power and for the loving care of tanzanian porters, he and susan committed to a new, simpler life. they returned to california, sold their stuff, and began planning their pay it forward commitment.)

Lesson Number Twenty-Five: If you suffer from carsickness, don’t come to Tanzania.

karatu is the closest town to the rift valley children’s village. with american roads, railroads, or planes, it would take a fleeting moment to traverse the mountainous ground between rifti and karatu. in a white land rover holding out since 1985, with rift valley children’s fund plastered on its passenger door, it’s an hour-long roller coaster ride, simulated white water rafting excursion, or a torture session. glass half full or half empty.

typically, the ride to karatu has an extra dash of excitement (or whatever you might call it), as our rifti-employed drivers pack in as many campi nairobi and/or oldeani mountain residents as possible. hitchhiking to be expected. seatbelts not required.

when there is a nurse on staff at rifti, or someone who knows something remotely about medicine, trips to fame are few and far between. additionally, a couple of fame doctors make the bumpy trek up to rifti every other weekend for a two-day free clinic, during which they treat hundreds of patients from campi nairobi and other oldeani villages. in my time here, i’ve seen baby feet covered in funzas (stay tuned for a gripping story about these worms, coming to theaters near you); a grandmas with malaria; a traumatized brother of a murdered boy suffering from chronic fainting spells; and a father who walked an hour with his daughter, who broke her leg, on his back. so, when there’s a nurse on full-time rifti staff and fame doctors making frequent visits, only special cases result in kids in crocs descending the mountain.

when there is no nurse, nor anyone who knows anything about cough syrup or gummy vitamins or malaria or broken limbs, trips to fame happen almost daily.

when a kid in crocs insists upon going to fame (there’s hardly the american intimidation factor of the doctor; getting in a car is thrilling, even when you’re vomiting), a volunteer accompanies.

last week, i had the pleasure of taking lucia, a nine-year-old girl with slight behavioral issues (yesterday, she and her little sister, natalie, devised a plan to poop in soap dishes and place them in their bathroom, shared by twelve other girls). she had a cough & a baby fever. she was unnecessarily medicated, but that’s a discussion for another time.

we arrived at fame and were escorted to the receptionist by our driver, paskali. he introduced lucia, described that we were from mama india’s, and identified lucia’s tribe (i didn’t know she had one).  this, of course, was a blessing, as my kiswahili consists of “hello,” “bath time,” “porridge,” “kindergarten,” and “stop it.”

we sat outside, our backs to rows of fragrant rosemary plants, facing splashes of families dressed in bright maasai attire.

lucia at hour one: “i’m hungry.” praise the lord, i had quickly stashed a few white chocolate chip cookies from the volunteer house before leaving.

(Lesson Number Twenty-Six: Go nowhere without food.)

lucia at hour two: “i’m gonna leave. i’m gonna walk back to rifti.” i was afraid she actually would.

lucia at hour three: “i hate this place.”

lucia at hour four: “i hate you.”

after waiting all this time, completely unimpressed by my iphone’s music library, my book, my camera, and my water bottle (i tried everything), lucia was called in for blood work. i’m no doctor, but i do know that when a nine-year-old girl with trauma in her past and behavioral issues in her present walks in to get blood drawn, the dumbest thing to do is to show her the needle. they didn’t try to hide it at all.

Lesson Number Twenty-Seven is obvious, here.

squawking. screaming. kicking. blood-curdling sobs. her pain in simply seeing the needle was so gut-wrenching, i began to believe perhaps her psychotic mother, from whom she was rescued, tortured her with needles as an infant (on the record, i have no idea nor suspicion that this is true. but it was that bad.). finally, as she squeezed my finger and closed her eyes, with three staff members restraining her, the nurse inserted the needle that sucked from the little crease in her elbow and retrieved the vial of blood. my last bit of criticism here: they gave her a plain old beige band-aid. not even a patterned one. no lollipop. no sticker. come on, people. think.

while we waited for her prescription to be filled, a fame staff member walked lucia and me up to the staff dining hall, where they fed her a weighty plate of rice, vegetables, and goat meat. (because of frank’s friendship with india, rifti kids get special treatment.) hungry myself, i opted for my luna bar instead. after two bites, lucia was satiated. feeling utterly american, i asked lucia to explain to the chef that she was full but that it was delicious. no disposals in karatu.

on the ride back, with me in shotgun, lucia in between the driver and me, and a sardines jar of campi residents in the backseat and trunk, my patient was miraculously healed.

chock it up to fame…

…or goat meat or katy perry or white chocolate chips.

HAKUNA MATATA

10 20 13

zanzibar is paradise.

last week, four americans left rift valley for a beach brimming with exotic seashells, breathtaking sunsets, pirate ship sailboats, cinnamon farms, rastafarians, and margaritas.

Lesson Number Twenty-Eight: Hakuna matata actually means no worries, and it actually exists in the lexicon.

traveling economically, the four of us shacked up together – along with many a lizard, salamander, and mosquito – in a little bungalow at the northern tip of the 93-kilometer island. we shared a toilet with a dozen europeans and africans, snorkeled with a finnish man, and lay on the sand next to an american dreadlocked couple as they enjoyed a healthy helping of hashish. community.

we enjoyed sushi by candlelight on big, cushioned benches on the sand. we got mortifyingly sunburned on a two-hour boat ride offshore. we kayaked on water bluer than tanzanite.

we took a tour of a local spice farm and lunched on papaya, nutmeg, star fruit, cloves, red bananas, coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, and jackie fruit. we walked through the tiny, winding streets of stonetown, a world heritage site.

we spent a day in arusha before arriving back at rifti. we bargained and overspent at a maasai market. we bought bags of candy for kids in crocs. we snapped pictures of kilimanjaro on a particularly clear evening. and we polished off four thick and creamy milkshakes at a western café. please and thank you.

Lesson Number Twenty-Nine: Find a way to Zanzibar. Seriously.

“you must not lose faith in humanity. humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

mahatma gandhi

FUNZA, RINGWORM, BEDBUG

10 23 13

zanzibar was romantic, no doubt.

unfortunately, though, this paradisiacal respite was hospitable to a handful of ailments that, upon return back to rifti, are proving insufferable.

(disclaimer: no photographs is no accident; god forbid a self-portrait makes you lose your appetite.)

the zanzibarian traveling soldiers spent a night in kilimanjaro at the conclusion of their freedom. waking up under a king-sized mosquito net offered an unwelcome bout of déjà vu. much like the first time i stayed in kilimanjaro, on my first-ever night in africa, i awoke with dozens – i’d say hundreds but want to keep it realistic – of bug bites on my calves and feet. on the morning after that first night, i doused my body in toxic bug-be-gone room spray.

Lesson Number Twenty-Nine: Don’t douse toxic bug-be-gone room spray on your body.

minutes later, as i inhaled my potent smell, i realized my idiocy and quickly hopped in the shower. this time was not my first rodeo (and thank goodness, because our running water was on strike). i pushed through and have spent the last week lathering myself with anti-itch cream.

additionally, zanzibar’s generous third-degree sunburn invited an appetizing display of ringworm to emerge. lots of prepubescent kids in crocs fall victim to ringworm, or shilingi, on their scalps and faces.

Lesson Number Thirty: Shilingi is contagious.

every friday afternoon is a shilingi shampooing extravaganza, during which i offer gentle soapy head massages to mikumi boys. free of charge. unfortunately, the pandemic continues to grow. i was not spared. i contracted it from a little kid in crocs named eliasi (see lesson number two). Sitting on my lap for too many afternoons, his fungus-infested hair decided to spread the love. but applying clotrine cream and itching ferociously and being a spectacle for dozens of kids in crocs to stare at is all so, so worth it.

equally worth it are my frequent run-ins with little guys called funzas who crawl in tanzanian dirt. they particularly love a mixture of dusty earth and animal feces. they also love my toes.

Lesson Number Thirty-One: Wear socks.

Lesson Number Thirty-Two: Use a nailbrush.

Lesson Number Thirty-Three: Scrub harder.

tanzanians claim that funzas are little fleas. worms seem more convincing. they scope out the territory and find a sensitive patch of skin, most often near a toenail, to dig deep and bury a sac of their eggs. the sac grows, swells, and pusses to look like a delicious mixture of a callus, a blister, and a whitehead. it feels like a combination of these things, too. a weathered member of the rifti staff uses a safety pin to open the skin and gently pull the sac out. with a slip of hand, the pin can pop the sac, allowing the eggs to explode into the toe and multiply. when it comes to my feet, we are going two for two – no sacs have exploded in the extraction process. a sting of an alcohol swab and a splash of neosporin later, and we’re back in business.

until next time, you monsters.

STRAIGHT TO DADA EUNICE

10 25 13

five kids in crocs at rifti are in kindergarten. i have gotten to know these five little people well, as i am their (a) teacher (b) supervisor (c) disciplinarian (d) older sister (e) worst nightmare (f) all of the above every morning.

(all kids in grades standard two - most easily compared to second grade - and below go to gyetighi primary school for half the day and wreak havoc at rifti during the other half.)

teaching for the first time ever has taught me a host of things about adults and children and the education system and myself. most notably, that i should not be a teacher.

(That’s Lesson Number Thirty-Seven.)

with countless renditions of dr. seuss and richard scarry literature, boogers galore and urinary accidents, coloring inside the lines, confusing lower case b’s and d’s, and hundreds of threats to send students to dada eunice (school counselor and resident disciplinarian), i am exhausted by lunchtime.

meet the culprits:

natalie is seven years old and at the top of her class. she translates perfectly between english and kiswahili, is not afraid to tattle on her classmates, can read and spell perfectly, and loves snuggling under the library cushions. her intelligence allows for her to be extra devious, too. she is often thirty minutes late for class, claiming that the mamas in her house needed her help. she finds her way into the library’s activity closet, meant only for volunteers and staff, to choose any toy she likes. sometimes she slips toys and games into her silver sequined purse. a few weeks ago, she confessed guilty of the poop in the soap dish incident (see post entitled “experiencing fame”). straight to dada eunice.

lemomo is six years old. he is one of three kids in crocs who live in kiran house with mama india. this makes him kind of special. (his mother, habiba, cooks and cleans in the volunteer house. she formally disowned lemomo when he was an infant, giving india full guardianship of him.) every day is a new adventure with lemomo. he is an aspiring artist, some days focusing intently on shading in pages of a pretty princess coloring book (gender roles not applicable). he excels in math and, some days, boasts his ability to subtract. other days, he jumps on the table, instigates pillow fights, or tells natalie that he’s going to “slap her boobies” (he exclaimed this in swahili, natalie started crying and said lemomo said a bad word, i asked lemomo what he said, and he admitted. straight to dada eunice.)

Lesson Number Thirty-Eight: When a seven-year-old girl is crying because a six-year-old boy threatened to slap her boobies, don’t laugh.

during my first day teaching the hooligans, lemomo punched boni (stay tuned) in the face, giving him a bloody nose. straight to dada eunice.

boni is a love. one of the reasons why i should not be a teacher is because i shamelessly favor children. he is easy to favor. when i first arrived and began teaching kindergarten, boni cried every day, about anything. we have whipped him into shape now, though, and made a man out of him. no tears for boni. boni was born with severely bowed legs, so, every day, he wears the most adorable braces over his black and white striped socks, under his hefty hiking boots. when i ask boni to do a math problem or write a word, he looks up at me with big eyes and smiles. neither words nor numbers seem to be his preference. boni can misbehave, too. once, he called lemomo a chicken fucker (apologies to any refined readers who are offended by these stories).

Lesson Number Thirty-Nine: When a five-year-old boy calls a six-year-old boy a chicken fucker, don’t laugh.

much like kemomo, he exclaimed this in swahili, then translated for me, admitting his transgression. sorry, boni, you’re going straight to dada eunice.

dickson is five years old and weighs about five pounds. he can be the most and least adorable kid in crocs, all within the span of a couple of hours. it is impressive. dickson goes straight to dada eunice on average three times a week. (he crumbles on the library floor into one big, gangly spaghetti noodle and cries every time.) reasons why dickson goes to dada eunice: tipping his chair back, spitting all over the floor, kicking the cats that wander in and out of all rifti buildings, holding nuru (stay tuned) in a headlock, smearing his boogers on his classmates, you name it. dickson is an attention whore. he aspires to be the class clown. he’s pretty funny sometimes, but we lock it up and refuse to smirk.

Lesson Number Forty: When a five-year-old troublemaker actually says something funny, don’t laugh.

no gratification for you, dickson. we run a tight ship.

nuru is five years old. he idolizes lemomo and copies what he does. he understands very little english and uses it to his advantage. he’s not the most obedient kid. he’s a KLR kid, so he’s the only kindergartener who doesn’t live at rifti. he walks an hour to and from rifti every day. it’s really an hour; we’ve made the hike. he lives in a village called kilimani in a hut hardly suitable for an animal. it’s hard, then, to hold him to the same standard as the rifti kids who sleep in warm, comfortable beds every night. still, he goes straight to dada eunice plenty.

in an attempt to lower the frequency at which kindergarteners traffic dada eunice’s office, the students created five baseline rules to follow. the number has grown, and we have now have many rules, not pictured: rules against slapping and kicking and spitting and yelling and saying chicken fucker and laying down under the table and interrupting and hitting and giving bloody noses and rules for following directions and speaking english and not speaking kiswahili and being respectful and sitting in our chairs and being on time and saying good morning.

Lesson Number Forty-One: When kindergarteners earnestly create rules that include chicken fuckers, don’t laugh.

the rule count is about eighty-three, and growing.

whatever it takes.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE LANDSCAPE

10 27 13

at this time of year, when american leaves turn the color of caramel and apples and cinnamon and plums, and the cool air smells like all those things, african leaves turn bright purple, tiny specks of a crayon called lavender. equatorial climate makes no space for four seasons, four solstices, four wardrobes. but the trees still believe in springtime.

-

“when I look back on my last months in africa, it seems to me that the lifeless things were aware of my departure a long time before i was so myself. the hills, the forests, plains and rivers, the wine all knew that we were to part. when i first began to make terms with fate, the attitude of the landscape toward me changed. till then i had been part of it; now the country disengaged itself from me and stood back a little in order that I should see it clearly and as a whole.

i have before seen other countries, in the same manner, give themselves to you when you are about to leave them, but i had forgotten what it meant. i only thought that i had never seen the country so lovely, as if the contemplation of it would in itself be enough to make you happy all your life. light and shade shared the landscape between them; rainbows stood in the sky.”

isak dinesen, out of africa

ALMOSTS

10 29 13

rifti volunteers get sundays off. once a week, we leave the love-infused, chaotic bubble that is rift valley children’s village. we do real-people things: drive in cars, purchase things with money, greet strangers, wear flip-flops. this sunday, at tarangire national park, female volunteers even wore shorts. a privilege, not a right.

(tarangire national park is a crib for all sorts of flora and fauna that suddenly emerges just a few kilometers off the tarmac, or highway, in the manyara region of tanzania. its 1,100 square miles are home to the most diverse wildlife in tanzania’s northern safari circuit. during the dry season, of which we’ve become acquainted, animals arrive at tarangire at the end of their great migration.)

the day on safari was filled with almosts…

regretfully, we set our alarms on saturday night for 5:45am (on other sundays, we sleep in until an extravagant 7:30am), providing fifteen minutes to get dressed in the dark, pack our bags, and chug a lukewarm cup of coffee (we only had hot water from the previous night) before our 6am pickup. i almost didn’t wake up at all.

fumbling into mikumi’s tiny kitchen in the dark, i was locked in, almost. i escaped in time to wait at rifti’s gate for our safari guide, herry, who almost didn’t show.

Lesson Number Thirty-Four: Lefty is not loosey in Tanzania.

herry drove frustratingly slowly through karatu and toward tarangire national park. he spoke passionately about the problem of youth drug use in tanzania: certainly an important issue, but not one that seven americans were interested in discussing at 7am. we almost didn’t make it.

we arrived at the gate after a long ride filled with unsalted popcorn made by rifti chefs; melted cadbury chocolate, purchased in arusha and treated like gold; pee breaks without toilet paper; and herry’s merry african accent. as herry walked away to register our vehicle, he warned us of common monkey thievery. we bolted the windows of the jeep shut and got in a violent altercation with a mother baboon, almost.

within the first kilometer inside the park, we met a regal family of giraffes. with our incessant and painfully touristic camera clicks, we scared these amazing animals away, almost.

Lesson Number Thirty-Five: "Wild animals are perhaps a proof of the existence of God." (Isak Dinesen)

we touched a mother elephant and her baby, almost.

we saw two teenaged elephants canoodling. We saw them mating, almost.

a flock of little monkeys threatened to steal our lunch. they ran off with our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, almost… but we had herry there to protect us. we watched an indian family, a group of scantily clad british girls (shame on you), and an overweight american couple fall victim to the crime. the American couple was angry.

(see post entitled “hold on tight” for lessons about these circumstances.)

we almost got horribly sunburnt, again, and almost got caught in a rainstorm. a couple of drops were a simple tease. the wet season isn’t welcome for another month or so, they say.

we saw two cheetahs (an exceptional sight, herry claimed!) almost kill an impala. a pacifistic elephant interfered, protecting the herbivore kingdom. vegetarians unite.

we saw a couple of lounging lions get up and move, almost. they actually didn’t move at all. the alleged king of the jungle? very disappointing, dude.

we saw a wildebeest and a zebra mating, almost. well, that’s a stretch – they weren’t mating, but they were definitely friends.

Lesson Number Thirty-Six: Coexistence prevails.

those creatures might act as a lesson for kids in crocs, and big people too, about peace and love and friendship. and because, for the past two and a half months, i’ve been inundated with children’s literature, i know that there’s great merit in venturing to where the wild things are.

we, too, can learn to be wild, almost.

END PIECE

10 31 13

kids in crocs at rift valley live a routinized life, landmarked by snack breaks. at 6am, they eat two pieces of bread with a fourth of a fried egg or peanut butter and jelly (every other day, the contents of the sandwich switch). at 10:30am, kids in crocs run into their houses to drink uji, a sweet brown porridge that makes most american volunteers gag. at 12:30pm, they eat rice and beans. at 4:30pm, they eat a piece of bread and drink a glass of milk. at 6:30pm, they eat dinner. dinner varies throughout the week, but every monday is the same, every tuesday, and so forth.

adults in crocs, like me, are in charge of the 6am and the 4:30pm feeding frenzies. i’ve learned many lessons from these moments. cutting bread is more complicated than i ever imagined.

Lesson Number Thirty-Seven: Spread the peanut butter lightly, so as not to tear the bread.

Lesson Number Thirty-Eight: On bread-making days (Mondays and Thursdays), be gentle. Cut carefully.

Lesson Number Thirty-Nine: To avoid hissy fits, bread slices must be equal width, and the peanut butter to jelly ratio must be equal.

Lesson Number Forty: Powdered milk smells bad when it spills on your clothes. So don’t spill.

Lesson Number Forty-One: For error-free slicing, flip the loaf of bread over and cut bottom-up.

and, most importantly:

Lesson Number Forty-Two: Kids in crocs love the end piece.

at 5:45am and 4:15pm, a chorus of kids in crocs begging for the end piece echoes throughout rifti. on my first day at rifti, i cut off the end pieces and prepared to throw them away, clinging desperately my days babysitting little american kids as my only point of reference, my only lifeline. but, in so many ways, rift valley is far away from the united states of america.

“end piece” is used as a bribe, a threat, and a reward.

i prepare breakfast with the twenty-year-old student teacher who lives in mikumi, eliaruma. we have trained mikumi boys to say “good morning, how did you sleep?” before demanding the end piece (for many weeks, before this rule was enforced, i was bombarded by requests before i opened my eyes.) eliaruma is a sweet boy with an inquiring mind. i value his will to learn a great deal, and appreciate his ambition. admittedly, though, at 5:45am, i do struggle with the questions he asks while, half-asleep, i fail to slice pieces of homemade bread. today was: “can you explain the process of evolution?” (i did, to the best of my ability. then he asked if i believed in evolution or creationism. i said evolution, and then asked him. he said creationism.) yesterday was: “what is the meaning of halloween? is it a day of salvation?” (um, not exactly.) the days before that were a string of related questions about the amazon river. (“is it perennial or seasonal? what kinds of animals live there?”) questions about the united states government are also common. reminder: this all happens before 6am. every day.

Lesson Number Forty-Three: When you're up against a language barrier, don’t try to tackle questions about religion, politics, or the Amazon.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-four: WHEN you're up against cultural disconnects, DON’T TRY TO TACKLE QUESTIONS ABOUT RELIGION, POLITICS, OR THE AMAZON.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-FOUR: WHEN YOU'RE focusing intently with a serrated knife in hand, DON’T TRY TO TACKLE QUESTIONS ABOUT RELIGION, POLITICS, OR THE AMAZON.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-six: any time before 6AM, DON’T TRY TO TACKLE QUESTIONS ABOUT RELIGION, POLITICS, OR THE AMAZON.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MAASAI WARRIOR

11 03 13

halloween at rift valley children’s village is no small event.

the days leading up to halloween, which was celebrated on november 2 (thank gosh for saturdays), were filled with costume angst, candy cravings, questions about the traditional spooky house, and much confusion, from older africans, about what the point is. not an easy question to answer when there is no cobwebbed grocery stores, creepy commercials, or hallmark sections to reinforce the holiday.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-seven: American holidays are weird.

volunteers organized costumes in rifti’s storage units, affectionately referred to as “the containers,” gratefully received twenty pounds of candy in donations (peanut butter m&m’s were pocketed), and prepared for the perfect storm.

on saturday morning, my prepubescent alarm clock shrieked “it’s halloween!” at 5am. (saturdays are cherished because wakeup and breakfast is an hour later… theoretically). how can you blame them.

after breakfast, we spent the morning decorating mikumi’s front door, utilizing our sole artist, nine-year-old ally, to bring vampires and spidermen to life. (indeed, at the award ceremony that afternoon, mikumi won the prize for the most artistic door.) i spent two and a half hours taking scissors away from four-year-old evans, playing high school musical on repeat, and picking up wrinkled, dirty pieces of scotch tape. the mikumi mamas watched on, incredulously. (what the dickens are they doing?!)

after lunch (appropriately complete with pumpkin soup and the best chocolate cake on the continent), we sacrificed naptime to create a bone-chilling maze through the volunteer house. once all was adequately prepared, we returned to our house with baskets of costumes for our kids in crocs. selfishness prevails, though; we disguised ourselves as maasai warriors, first. costumes went well with the exception of nine-year-old nada, who wanted batman instead of superman (too bad, so sad), and evans, whose buzz lightyear belt was the cause of great anguish.

appropriately, micha (stay tuned for a biography, in a post coming soon) was a black ninja warrior.

a halloween parade around the rifti offices ended with the award ceremony. judged by three members of rifti’s senior staff, each house got their own ribbon, but mikumi won by a landslide. inevitably.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-eight: if you don't win, you lose.

by age group, starting with the littlest, kids in crocs nervously approached the entrance to the spooky volunteer house and crawled through a tunnel of terror: zombie maasai warriors with long warrior sticks, spray bottles of water and flickering flashlights, masked volunteers who popped out of nowhere, a pumpkin holding a gooey mixture of pumpkin goo, hummus, and peanut oil (gag-worthy), and the bright flash of a camera to capture terrified faces. i cameoed with the older kids in crocs confidently crawled through with an improvisational interpretation of the girl from the ring (i’ve never seen the movie).

a handful of kids, all ages, were in tears. success.

LESSON NUMBER FORTY-NINE: KIDS ARE CUTE WHEN THEY'RE SCARED.

after the spooky house, kids paraded to the office for three pieces of candy. micha gave one of his pieces to a rifti cat. 

special occasions only last so long, of course; 4:30 was a rather hyper version of snack time and at 5, after eleven little boy costumes were strewn around my bedroom, kids in crocs took their baths.

(a special treat: each night before dinner, kids in crocs watch one hour of an english-speaking movie. saturday’s movie was schoolhouse Rock, grammar Rock. after a long, special day, mikumi boys were happy, and so was i.)

HOPE (ELIASI, PT. II)

11 09 13

"the wound is the place where the light enters you."

(rumi)

--

there’s a binder with laminated pages with a special place on a special shelf in the rifti offices. on every page, it tells the story of a kid in crocs, before the crocs. it explains, as well as it is able, the history and mystery of every child who arrives at rifti broken, knowingly or unknowingly thirsty for healing.

i’ve resisted even skimming through the binder, relying instead on little cues in behavior and demeanor. trying to engulf each little person in equal, unbiased love. a recent conversation, then, led me to learn the story of eliasi and his two older siblings, raymondi and Magdalena.

(see post entitled “meet eliasi” to put this in better context, and if you feel like falling in love.)

eliasi, raymondi, and magdalena are part of the “kids living with relatives” (klr) program at rifti, which provides food, clothing, and education to particularly impoverished and/or neglected kids living in nearby villages, as well as food, clothing, and funding to their living family members. they live in campi nairobi, the village right outside of the rifti gates. i’ve known this from the start.

what i didn’t know, is that eliasi’s father is an abusive, negligent alcoholic. his whereabouts are unknown. eliasi’s mother, hiv-positive, died in april – a combination of liver failure and heart disease, undeniably exacerbated by her own alcohol addiction. eliasi’s father’s sister is mama musa; she works at rift valley during the day, appropriately called a “day mama.” she has lived in campi nairobi for many years, raising five children of her own, and, since april, three more little people. thanks to mama musa, these three were rescued from their village – about an hour’s drive away from rifti. thanks to mama musa, eliasi rocks a pair of red crocs every day.

i have refused to read the special binder because i can imagine the story of each kid in crocs is similarly sobering. to hear eliasi’s history outright confirms my refusal. though i’m breathing, eating, teaching, sleeping in this place, so much of it is beyond my capacity to comprehend. sometimes, it is too much to swallow.

Lesson Number Fifty: Take small bites. Press onward. Have hope.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

11 10 13

the tanzanian children’s fund is a wide, colorful canopy under which many projects flourish. undoubtedly, rift valley children’s village is the cutest of these. recently, i learned about another inspiring one: rift valley’s microfinance program.

i sat down with josephat, an oldeani native who studied calculus at university. he works in the microfinance office under dada grace (peter leon’s wife; joann’s mother). they oversee almost five hundred microfinance projects throughout tanzania. the program was started in 2008 by a young american and has grown since then with great success.

rift valley’s office employs thirteen community-based trainers, or cbt’s, who are assigned to different regions in tanzania. these trainers find candidates with business plans, ambition, and hope, and help them get on their feet. with each new client, rift valley assesses its microfinance budget and loans as much as two million shillings (just over one thousand dollars) to a prospective project. with varying degrees of interest, successful entrepreneurs pay back a bit of this loan every month.

Lesson Number Fifty-One: Accountability works.

each month, rift valley hosts a meeting for all clients: to check in, to ask questions, to get advice. this meeting occurs on three separate days in three separate regions, in an attempt to conveniently reach every project. additionally, the microfinance office at rifti is an open door. clients are free to enter on any day of the week at any hour. during our meeting with josephat, his partner, julius, was on site checking in on a participant or two. there is always a warm body in the office, ready to pause what he’s doing to consult and console.

Lesson Number Fifty-Two: Hospitality works.

(josephat also sits against the window of the microfinance office, just a hollow wall and an open window away from kids in crocs screaming. the man can focus.)

the program’s success stories range from making jewelry (rolling recycled magazine pages into beads) to managing a duka (a convenient store, averaging ten square feet) to middle-manning coffee planting and picking. one model student, mama kazi, runs a black-and-white striped duka in campi nairobi. she is a village celebrity. american volunteers and rifti staff members alike often make the five-minute trek to her zebra shop for small packages of tanzanian gin, called konyagi, and bitter lemon soda.

she is an example of how rifti’s microfinance program has given people – women, especially –  a voice, a presence, a purpose. for the first time, ever. (many communities throughout tanzania operate with the help of a band of female leaders known as the malenga mamas. translation: mamas of/with a vision. when things go awry in the community – sexual abuse, theft, addiction – responsible members of the community report these situations to the mamas. theoretically, these mamas take legal action when necessary. they act as law enforcement, a counseling center, and a nonjudgmental ear. in the past, many of these mamas have been ineffective in their duty, because they’ve succumbed to an inferior role, themselves: sexual abuse, abject poverty, apathy about everything. the microfinance program has empowered women, thus legitimizing their role as wise and experienced figureheads in the community.)

Lesson Number Fifty-Three: Who run the world? (Girls.)

it is a surefire way to change oldeani mountain villages, and karatu, and the arusha region, and tanzania, and maybe – forgive the cliché – the world.

LESSON NUMBER FIFTY-FOUR: NEVER DOUBT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF THOUGHTFUL, COMMITTED CITIZENS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD; INDEED, IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS.

it is the most flawless manifestation of empowerment.

it is just the beginning.

MEET MICHA

11 11 13

micha is an eight-year-old boy who lives in mikumi. he is the quintessential weird kid. having a plethora of weird habits as a child myself (a refusal to change my underwear, an irrational fear of getting my hair cut, an obsession with stickers and scrunchies and beanie babies, a special attachment to a pair of red rainboots – the list goes on), i’ve taken a special liking to him.

micha has a twin sister, gabriella, whom my family sponsors financially. together, the twins make an unruly pair. many volunteers and staff members struggle with micha and gabby, as they are often getting into trouble and pouting about something. i shamelessly favor them both.

a couple of weeks into my time at rifti, i began a handwritten list in my journal, which i entitled “micha moments.” the list continues to grow and describes micha through quote and story more effectively than a professional novelist could through narrative.

on the subject of eating things…

-       at 6:45am, kids in crocs line up in the rifti offices and, one by one, get new school supplies. if a pencil is down to a nub, it is marked down as “trade.” if a pencil is missing, it is marked down as “lost,” and chores will follow. micha’s excuse? “kelvin (angelic six-year-old who wouldn’t eat someone’s pencil) ate my pencil. but only the lead. not the eraser or the metal part.”

-       mid-morning, as i walk through campi nairobi with two four-year-olds, micha screams from the schoolyard: “excuuuu-me! end piece!” referring to snack time, which begins at 4:30pm.

-       “excuuu-me helen, do you eat snakes?”

-       “excuuu-me helen, if i see a zebra on the road that’s dead, i’m gonna eat it.” okay, micha, enjoy.

-       micha often wears a blue turtleneck with tattered, chewed sleeves and holes all over it. i ask, “micha, have you been eating your shirt?” “no!” he fervently replies. “a rat ate it!” unconvinced, but always ready to play along in the hopes of obtaining another quotable quote, i ask, “a rat?!” frustrated, he says, “no, no, i ate it.” okay micha, i'm confused. you ate it? or a rat? “no, helen, i am a rat!”

on the subject of animals…

-       micha was at the bottom of the list for choosing halloween costumes because he gruesomely murdered a lizard in rifti’s library. unfortunately, i was drinking a margarita in zanzibar when the event occurred, so i have neither photographic nor quotable proof of the matter. i heard there were tears. micha tears, not lizard tears.

-       micha points to a nondescript bird flying. “excu-me, see that?” unimpressed, i ask, “the bird?” micha smiles, “yeah!” i say, “yeah…” and micha, excited, yells, “i like it!”

-       micha crawls around in the dirt woofing like a dog

-       on halloween, every kid in crocs receives three pieces of candy. micha feeds a piece of his chocolate (which he won’t enjoy again until christmas day) to one of the rifti cats. initially, he was in trouble, but then rifti staff members felt bad punishing an animal whisperer

on the subject of going places…

-       everyday as we walk alongside campi nairobi to gyetighi primary school, with the mountains as our backdrop: “excu-me, helen? which way to america?”

-       the night before halloween, micha proclaims: “tonight, i’m gonna become a zombie. and I’m gonna get out.” confused and intrigued, i ask, “get out of where, micha?” correcting his english, he says, “i’m gonna go out.” curious, i ask, “where are you gonna go?” his obvious reply: “to kilimanjaro. do you think i can walk?”

on the subject of being blind…

-       micha walks up the library steps clumsily, with his arms outstretched. “micha, careful!” i call, noticing his eyes are closed as he walks. “micha, what are you doing?” finally, it makes sense: “i am being blind!”

on the subject of being angry with me…

-       any time i admonish micha, begrudgingly, for doing something wrong (hitting someone, killing a lizard, chewing with his mouth open at the dinner table) he gives me a death stare and yells, “don't touch me.” yes, sir.

-       one morning after i denied him an end piece at breakfast: “excu-me, look. this is you!” as he beats a squashed piece of wild fruit on the ground with a large stick. i love you too, buddy.

LESSON NUMBER FIFTY-FIVE: the weird ones are the best ones. 

LESSON NUMBER FIFTY-six: beware of zombies. and sticks.

THE TOOTH FAIRY

11 13 13

rift valley children’s village has adopted some, but not all, of the fantasies of a classic american childhood. turkey on thanksgiving and romantic cards with chocolate on valentine’s day (to every kid in your class) don’t exist, but the easter bunny does. and so does the tooth fairy.

when a kid in crocs loses a tooth, the tooth fairy comes. the little person must present his or her tangible evidence to the american living in his or her house. the foreigner (me) places the tooth under his or her pillow and is awakened the follow morning to a lumpy pillow under which lies a delightful surprise.

a couple of things are going on here:

(a)   placing the tooth under my pillow translates to discreetly discarding of the tooth; amateur volunteers will discard of the tooth in his or her bathroom trash can, only to realize that kids in crocs greatly enjoy rifling through the garbage (teeth are my least concern; no need to divulge more) and, upon finding the tooth, will realize that the fantasy is dead.

Lesson Number Fifty-Seven: Do not discard of teeth – or anything, really – in the trashcan. Choose a bush, the toilet, or the “burnable bin” instead.

(b)  americans like me must run to the volunteer house and carefully open the jerry-rigged “present drawer” to find an appropriate prize: glow sticks, patterned pencils, beanie babies, handheld pinball games, chokers, chapstick.

Lesson Number Fifty-Eight: Glowsticks are a safe bet.

(c) if americans do not proceed to the volunteer house right away, exhaustion will prevail and the american will forget to obtain the tooth fairy gift. this is very bad. this results in harassment, which, speaking for mikumi house, begins at 5am. tapping on my windows, sending notes under my bedroom door, banging on the walls and doors. the moment when they begin to doubt.

Lesson Number Fifty-Nine: Whatever you do, don’t forget that you’re the tooth fairy.

(d)   when this occurs, white lies are welcome: “the tooth fairy got lost!” “the tooth fairy was so busy last night, she left me a note saying she’d come back soon” or, a great one for young boys in mikumi, “the tooth fairy prefers molars.”

Lesson Number Sixty: Kids don’t believe your lies.

Lesson Number Sixty-One: Boys, especially, want to burst the bubble of fantasy, which Santa and zombies and the easter bunny and the tooth fairy inhabit.

(e)  because “gifties” at rifti are few and far between, kids in crocs prematurely yank out their teeth and present americans like me with bloody repercussions. an overeager receiver leads to lesser reward.

Lesson Number Sixty-Two: Blood and gore is not acceptable.

weeks ago, on a humid sunday morning, i went for a solo jog before breakfast. on my way back, i passed a band of young kids from a nearby village. i waved to them, huffed “mambo,” and ran past them. i was vaguely aware of their stares as i approached, and acutely aware of their fascination as i passed. a handful of yards away, thinking nothing of this usual encounter, i heard, “hey look! it was the tooth fairy!”

my tooth fairy was a beautiful version of tinkerbell. theirs is big, blond, and sweaty.

RUN OVER THE SKY

11 15 13

each night between 6:30 and 7pm, the sun sets. an equatorial climate guarantees it. each night, when i walk to mikumi house at some point before my 10pm curfew (and usually much earlier than that), i am astounded by the night sky. this is also a guarantee. no matter where tanzania is in the lunar cycle.

i was awestruck the first night i spent here and, all these nights later, the feeling has yet to subside. but how to put into words the ocean of stars, the beacon moon, the infinity of the darkness, the total understanding that our earth is, in fact, round, that there is no foreseeable end to any of it and there need not be one? how to do it justice?

Lesson Number Sixty-Three: When your words fail, use Isak Dinesen’s.

she writes of the african night,

"there too is infinite freedom: it is there that things are going on, destinies are made round you, there is activity to all side, and it is none of your concern. smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. you are the privileged person to whom everything is taken.

on an evening, you will see two or three fireflies, adventurous lonely stars floating in the clear air, rising and lowering, as if upon waves, or as if curtseying. to that rhythm of their flight they lighten and put out their diminutive lamps. for some reason, they keep within a certain height. it is impossible then not to imagine that a whole crowd of children of six or seven years are running through the dark forest carrying candles, little sticks dipped in magic fire, joyously jumping up and down. the woods are filled with a wild frolicsome life, and it is all perfectly silent.

there was a full moon in those days; it shone into the bare room and laid the pattern of the windows on the floor. i thought that the moon might be looking in and wondering how long i meant to stay on, in a place from which everything else had gone. “oh no,” said the moon, “time means very little to me.”

BIRTHDAY & UNBIRTHDAY

11 19 13

birthdays at rift valley children’s village are arbitrary. but, of course, quite celebratory. and rambunctious. and chaotic.

children find themselves at the threshold of mama india’s door without a family. many without a name. most without a birthday.

in this case, india takes a glance at the calendar and assigns birthdays in months with less celebration. she has effectively spread out birthdays evenly throughout the twelve months. sometimes, under certain circumstances, india reassigns a child’s date of birth.

Lesson Number Sixty-Four: Kids in crocs are resilient to change.

although each child has a birthday all to him- or herself, all a given month’s birthdays are celebrated on one saturday. the big shebang usually falls on a saturday in the middle of month; tomorrow is the big day.

in the week leading up to the bash, volunteers take turns wrapping presents in the volunteer house. each celebrated child gets exactly four presents. no more, and definitely no less. the presents are wrapped in something. wrapping paper when donations abound; some other substance when they do not.

Lesson Number Sixty-Five: Tin foil makes great wrapping paper.

the presents are loaded into army green knapsacks, labeled with the name of a kid in crocs.

on saturday afternoon, volunteers file into the volunteer house to retrieve their house cake(s). if a rifti house has no celebrated kids in crocs, that house gets an unbirthday cake with the name of the house written in icing on the cake and an equally exciting celebration. if a house has birthday boys or girls, each celebrated kid gets his or her own cake, plus a cake for the house. cakes on cakes.

at 4:30pm, after singing in english and then kiswahili, kids in crocs eat a sliver of cake (the smaller the piece, the longer it lasts) instead of their usual piece of bread with milk. at 5, when they should be settling down for an hour of an american movie, they are bonkers.

Lesson Number Sixty-Six: When an afternoon snack is sugar-packed, escape.

that’s when this volunteer slips out for a long, hilly walk or an hour of yoga. namaste, birthday boys.

PACK THE PB&J

11 19 13

Lesson Number Sixty-Seven: Every rose has its thorn.

a (figurative) thorn: about a month ago, i impulsively planned to hike mount kilimanjaro with two other americans whom i met at rift valley children’s village. we were to leave this sunday, the 17th, for a weeklong hiking excursion. in our party of three, two members (myself not included) fell ill, which led me to postpone our trip for a week. (let’s hope we make it out for round two.)

a (figurative) rose: although my disappointment was only enhanced by my packed bags and the rolls of toilet paper shoved in my backpack, i quickly jumped on the opportunity to join other americans on their sunday day-off activity: hunting & gathering. leaving rifti at 6am, we drove ninety minutes deeper into the bush to experience a day in the life of a hadzabe tribesman. accompanying us in our car was benedict, our driver, gaga (as in, lady), our datooga tour guide, eight travel mugs filled with coffee that we couldn’t drink, because of the rocky terrain, and eight peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Lesson Number Sixty-Eight: Don’t leave home without PB&J.

after seeing the sun rise over oldeani mountain, but before arriving at the nomadic hadzabe tribe’s temporary compound, we stopped at a village. all americans stayed in the car while gaga jumped out purposefully. as we talked to little kids with chubby thighs, we all shared a moment lacking clarity: why are we here? when Gaga returned to the car glassy-eyed, and with a certain stench about him, we had suspicions. when we arrived at the hadzabe tribe’s version of pride rock, we had confirmation.

Lesson Number Sixty-Nine: When you witness a drug deal in an un-policed village in Africa, let it go. 

(the hadzabe tribe is a band of hunter-gatherers exclusive to northeastern tanzania. they are the last full-time hunter-gatherers in africa; their passive tribe is quickly becoming extinct as other more modern and active tribes are encroaching on their land and food. there are fewer than 1000 hadzabe people left. over the past few centuries, many efforts have been made to colonize the hadza people and/or convert them to christianity. these efforts have failed. steadfast, they hold onto their tradition more fervently than any other tribe. they insist upon maintaining their cultural history, even at the price of eradication.)

we climbed to the top of a giant boulder to meet a handful of young hadza men and adorable hadza boys. dressed in their traditional garb, baboon headdresses included, some sharpened poisonous arrows while others created friction with two pieces of wood to ignite a flame. when smoke turned to spark, gaga handed over a small, stuffed paper tube. then the pipe came out. then a boy no older than eight years old was unraveling the paper tube and packing marijuana into the bowl. before this tiny tyke had taken his first puff, at least five more hadza elders had ventured up to the rock. the drugs had arrived.

eight americans stood, cameras in hand, staring at the smoke circle. despite frightening choruses of coughing, each individual with different intensity, the group of hadzabe nomads – prepubescents and grandpas alike - packed pipe after pipe of marijuana until the paper tube was empty. insure of the appropriate reaction, and desperately trying to be stoic and culturally sensitive, eight americans glanced at each other, wordlessly wondering what to do if the pipe was offered. crisis averted: they never offered.

an explanation: in 2001, BBC did a special on the hadzabe tribe. the hadza people decided to use this fame to their benefit, accepting the fact that their lifestyle can be effectively marketed as a tourist spectacle. in addition to the fee they charge for foreigners, or muzungus, like us to witness their culture, they expect a gift.

Lesson Number Seventy: Drugs are a great gift.

once the drugs were consumed communally and the people were sufficiently stoned, the young men and boys grabbed their bows and poisonous arrows, and they were off. gaga told us to follow, and off we went, searching for mongoose and kudu and squirrel and bird and, the ultimate prize, a dikdik, an adorable little antelope. we followed them as they captured a squirrel, a small bird, and a mongoose that lived for a least three minutes after its spearing. we watched as they climbed trees two and three stories high to retrieve tiny berries, each one offering just a droplet of sweet juice. we practiced shooting the weapons ourselves in a dry riverbed. we ran silently toward the slightest suspicion of a meaty creature.

a (literal) thorn: in an effort to keep up with speed and agility or our hadzabe huntsmen, i spent one particularly weak moment on the ground. tripping on the uneven, rocky terrain, i took a tumble, ripped my pants, and suffered a battle wound. still concentrating on the hunt, i jumped up spastically. this carelessness led me straight into a thorn bush, which my long, coarse hair took a special liking to. i crouched next to the bush as gaga untwined curls and thorns.

Lesson Number Seventy-One: Sacrifices must be made to obtain impressive battle scars.

we found a flat spot at the base of a massive baobab tree, complete with many fallen baobab fruits, to start a fire for our feast. one hadzabe broke off the tail of the mongoose and fed it to two dogs that accompanied them throughout the hunt. warranted reward. he threw the tailless mongoose on the fire to roast, then skinned him, extracted his intestines (which the dogs also ate), and laid the animal on a bed of leaves that the youngest boy had shucked with his machete.

we each tried a bite. with salt and pepper, and maybe some caramelized onion, it wouldn’t be half bad.

(please refer to lesson number sixty-eight.)

back in the car, we washed our roasted mongoose down with our hardy sandwiches.

CHAPATTI NIGHT

11 20 13

rift valley children’s village foreigners – americans, primarily, with the occasional brit – eat all their meals in the volunteer house. four tanzanian staff members cook and clean in the volunteer house, providing a welcome respite and a small taste of home. one of these staff members is a young karatu native named michael. a handful of months ago, some of rift valley’s more divalicious staff members requested that a professional cooking course take place on rifti property.

Lesson Number Seventy-Two: Thank God for divas.

a chef was transported in to spend a week teaching culinary essentials. the course was offered to cooks in mama india’s house, peter’s house, and the volunteer house. of the volunteer staff members, michael was the only one interested in learning (for free) from this professional. in this part of the world, ambition is a quality found rarely. michael learned all sorts of delicious recipes, and has since cultivated a certain fascination in american specialties. we are spoiled.

Lesson Number Seventy-Three: Americans can actually gain weight in Africa. Swear.

we dine on a mixture of american and tanzanian food groups at every meal throughout the week, except for thursday’s dinner. this is chapatti night. instead of discussing with the other volunteers what micha said, or who elibaraka hit, or why faith cried, or what wheeling and dealing elias facilitated at school, we stay in our houses and eat chapatti, beans, and vegetables with our kids in crocs. all biases aside, chapatti night at mikumi house is the best.

Lesson Number Seventy-Four: Chapatti tastes like heaven.

the mamas roll out small spheres of dough on the flour-caked countertop at some point thursday afternoon. in mikumi house, mama ella is the virtuoso. the more butter, the better. beans boil on the fire outside all day long, in preparation for the feast.

we sit down to eat at 6:30pm, but not until i have served each boy, provided a fork or spoon (we’re working on our table manners), and participated in the blessing. video footage of this amazing grace coming soon to theaters near you: “everyone please put your hands together and close your eyes,” usually led by nada or ally. then, nada or ally as cantor, “god bless us” (all boys repeat, in chant form) “with our chapatti (insert appropriate food here)” “aayyyy-men.” then, all together, “bebe welcome! [student] teacher welcome! helen welcome! (insert name here) welcome!” and we dig in.

conversations at chapatti night range from how skunks fart (which, i guess, is true) and how i’m a zombie to how airplanes work and how swallowing watermelon seeds plants watermelons inside your belly. we cover a wide range of topics and increase our brain capacity every week, guaranteed.

Lesson Number Seventy-Five: Say it with conviction, and kids are gullible.

after dinner, the boys do their nightly chores while i choose tattered and torn books from the bookshelf. a couple of sweet stories are a romantic bonding experience for both kid in crocs and for me.

this calming experience is made only slightly less romantic by micha, who tends to strip down to his underwear and become a ninja warrior, fighting off imaginary enemies. at least we’re safe and sound.

BOOK REPORTING

11 22 13

Lesson Number Seventy-Six: Six-year-old boys are heartthrobs; so are sixteen-year-olds.

this past week, i was offered the position of book report policewoman for a gang of thirteen unruly teenagers. just kidding, they’re really not unruly.

though most days at rift valley are spent changing two-year-olds’ diapers (or carrying smelly two-year-olds to their houses for the mamas to sanitize), wiping boogers off a toddler’s face, or reading dr. seuss to five-year-olds, rifti’s demographic is aging. about two dozen – that’s a guess, perhaps more – rifti kids are in secondary school. they board in karatu, arusha, or somewhere else unbeknownst to me, and come back to rifti when they have school vacation (rift valley truly is their home, and will be as long as they’re alive). though each secondary school in the region operates on a slightly different schedule, only adding to the daily bout of confusion, thirteen are home now and will be until 2014.

india has just finished designing, constructing, and furnishing two new houses for these young people. they have been appropriately named lion’s den and eagle’s nest.

Lesson Number Seventy-Seven: Be sure never to emasculate.

these houses were built on the other side of a hedge that encircles rifti for some independence and privacy. (hardly.) a mama cleans at each house during the day, but the boys live largely unsupervised, encouraged to learn cooking and cleaning skills, and how to exist on their own. a challenge. (there are a few girls in secondary school, but not enough to have their own house. instead, these girls stay in rubondo or manyara, the two girly houses, when they’re home on vacation. across all ages, there are many more boys at rifti than girls. generally, tanzanian parents abandon girls less frequently, as they can be used in labor and in marriage.)

so what to do with boys on school holiday who stay on the premises day in and day out, with no playstation 3 or movies on demand?

Lesson Number Seventy-Eight: Book reports.

and who to monitor them?

yours truly.

each morning, for an hour, eleven teenagers sit quietly in eagle’s nest, engaging in a book written in english that is at least one hundred pages long. on wednesdays, before lunch at 12:30, they turn in a handwritten report of the book, detailing main events, main characters, the setting, the climax, and an op-ed about the literature. on thursdays, they choose new books, and the cycle perpetuates. all this, of course, is theory.

Lesson Number Seventy-Nine: It pays to go to school.

not because i am a mastermind at grading book reports, or because i’ve read every book in the stacks. because i know every trick in the book. and when you copy the short summary on the back cover of the book, and use words in your report that even i don’t understand, you’re exposing yourself.

Lesson Number Eighty: Cheating is so obvious.

and yet, of course, my strict streak fizzles as i buckle under pressure; that hour of reading time forced upon me as a child in the excited heat of every summer day left a scar. it’s not easy to enforce such brutal punishment with that memory lingering, haunting, reminding.

ELEPHANTS HAVE A SECRET GRAVE

11 22 13

a few fridays ago, a smattering of americans piled onto the back of a rift valley children’s village pickup truck and drove toward the sun setting behind oldeani mountain. we shared the bumpy ride with day mamas and dadas who, when a pickup truck is not readily available, walk over an hour each way from their villages to rift valley, and back. they were grateful for the ride. americans went less out of necessity and more out of entertainment.

Lesson Number Eighty-One: Friday nights can get pretty wild.

we walked around oldeani secondary school, a functioning facility with which rift valley just signed a contract: to improve the educational standards and to (hopefully) become a respectable boarding school closer to home for rifti kids in the future. it’s a long road ahead.

Lesson Number Eighty-Two: Teachers may show up drunk, stoned, or not at all. This is normal. The show goes on.

after a short tour, a rifti driver named danieli led us down one of the tiny oldeani village streets (oldeani used to be the most populated, bustling, thriving city in the region. no longer.) to sit with a libation. a woman led us into her home, or doghouse, or work shed – all very unclear – and we ordered beers. realizing she was out of stock, she quickly ran to a nearby duka, bought the drinks, and resold them to us, marked up. resourceful.

Lesson Number Eighty-Three: Capitalism exists everywhere.

we sipped on lukewarm bubbles quietly, overcome by the authenticity of our situation.

rift valley children’s village is in the business of healing. this place we call disneyland has made immense progress in the region.

while sitting on wood benches surrounded by walls made of mud and burlap rags, a young girl, presumably an oldeani local, came into our little hut and knelt on the ground in submission. when we enthusiastically overcompensated with a chorus of mambos and jambos, she did not utter a sound. confusion turned to clarity when the capitalist woman ran into the hut and yanked the young girl out: she was deaf and mute, and wanted our cures, our blessings, and our money.

so, despite the progress, there is much to be done.

"they say that somehwere in africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end."

robert r. mccammon

there are many wrinkled bodies left to be unburdened.

GRATITUDE ABOUNDS

12 01 13

a thanksgiving spent in rural africa is bound to be unconventional; this i expected before ever arriving. unexpected, though, was the impromptu trek up mount kilimanjaro that took place during the week of giving thanks.

on saturday morning, three americans departed from rift valley children’s village for a mountain town called moshi. bustling with expats and climber hippies. on the way, we passed through arusha to pick up candy and cashews at a supermarket and indulge in a final burger and a beer.

Lesson Number Eighty-Four: Climbing Kilimanjaro? Better bulk up.

the following morning, wearing flip flops and a pair of running shorts, i greeted our guide, babu, at hotel reception. do you have boots? no. warm coats? no. sleeping bags? obviously not. gloves? nope. hiking poles? no way. is your bag waterproof? negative. (at the end of the trek, once our friendship had blossomed, babu admitted to being very concerned that first day. who are these unprepared idiots? will i be responsible for their fatality?) babu led us to a storage closet filled with secondhand gear for rent. situation salvaged.

Lesson Number Eighty-Five: Hiking, like most other activities, is all about what you look like. Fake it till you make it.

the next four days were spent ascending, slowly, toward the highest point in africa. attley joined babu as our assistant guide, the two taking turns leading us up and over rocks, waterfalls, deserts, slopes. we succeeded in beating the storms almost every day, although we all somehow became saturated in frigid mountain rain (having to urinate in the middle of the night while sleeping in a tent only halfway protected from the violent monsoon of sleet outside is no fun).

Lesson Number Eighty-Six: Despite the danger of dehydration, stop drinking water at least two hours before bedtime.

at our scenic campsites each night, we were spoiled with bowls of hot water (over the course of eight days, the closest we came to showering) and delicious dinners in a little restaurant tent. glamping, as they say.

Lesson Number Eighty-Seven: Glamping is awesome. (Why camp when you could glamp?)

one day, as we walked steadily toward a summit that did not seem to get closer, babu asked if i wanted to be a guide for kilimanjaro. confused, out of breath, and missing the luxuries of a western toilet, i confidently said no. “but you walk strong, dada!” thank you, babu (as i struggle not to trip over pebbles or wince at the blister forming on my fourth toe). “you are a mountain woman!” this, obviously, was the most prideful moment of my week. perhaps my life.

Lesson Number Eighty-Eight: An ego boost never hurts.

on wednesday we arrived at our final camp, ate dinner at 5pm, and were sent to bed. one of our team members (we had thirteen including babu, attley, a chef, a waiter, and porters) woke us at 11pm and, as icicles began to form on my face, i emerged from my tent for a midnight breakfast. then the final climb began. three pairs of pants and four layers on top left me cozy, at first. as snow flew sideways across the mountain, like tiny needles on my face, warm turned into wet and then into cold. one might say agony.

Lesson Number Eighty-Nine: If you don’t wear your hood during a snowstorm, your hood will hang off your coat and fill with snow. This snow will slowly trickle down your back. It feels very bad.

we continued climbing, stopping intermittently to choke down water and attempt in vain to take a full breath, and finally reached the first peak around 5am. gillman’s peak is 200 meters below the highest point, so, while the cup of hot chai and the congratulatory hugs were welcome, we had places to be.

Lesson Number Ninety: Keep moving.

the sun rose as we hiked along the mountain’s ridge. (do people ever die? i asked babu later. yep.) no photographic evidence of the emerging morning exists, but it’s stuck in my mind forever. i think i know what heaven looks like. at 6:45 on thursday morning we arrived at uruhu peak, where we all dropped to our knees and said a silent prayer. thank you was the operative word.

Lesson Number Ninety-One: When hypothermia is a viable possibility, keep the prayers short.

attley took a pee at the top of the mountain – an interesting juxtaposition to the breathtaking, untouched vastness – and then we headed down. during the next one and a half days, we trudged through a thick cookies and cream mixture of snow and fertile soil, then alpine desert dirt, then rocks and funny looking palm trees, big brushy bushes, forest, and jungle.

Lesson Number Ninety-Two: Going down hurts more than going up.

gratitude abounds for babu, who walked behind me to make sure i never fell, who carried my hiking poles when i was tired of them, who lent me his gloves for the final ascent (i’d be handless if not for that), who called me a mountain woman despite never having hiked nor camped before (beginner’s luck?), who never stopped smiling, whose nickname means “grandfather” for a reason, who kept us alive.

gratitude abounds for attley, who forbid us to stop (“no pain, no gain!”), who loved the fruity candy i offered him each day, who has climbed kilimanjaro more than 200 times (let’s be honest, he’s a hero.), who kept us alive.

gratitude abounds for fresh fruit and vegetables at 15,000 feet. seriously, it was glamping.

gratitude abounds for no battle wounds to speak of, save that fourth toe blister that really is quite uncomfortable.

gratitude abounds for an ipod well-equipped for a long trek like ours, with songs like “stronger” by britney spears, “that’s the way it is” by celine dion, and, of course, “the climb” by miley cyrus.

gratitude abounds for lots of contemplative silence during which i made a mental list of all my thanksgivings.

gratitude abounds for jon krakauer’s “into the wild,” which, guilty, i read while in the wild.

gratitude abounds for the hand soap provided at the hotel that i used to attempt to wash my hair after eight days of dreadlocks in the making. attempt failed.

gratitude abounds for the sprawling thanksgiving spread we returned to at rift valley on saturday night, including but not limited to turkey (imported from arusha), gravy, potatoes, and four kinds of pie. gratitude abounds for the thankful circle we initiated at the dinner table, during which english, american, and tanzanian alike could cheers to all our blessings.

there are many.

MOVE AROUND, BE NOMADIC

12 02 13

reminding myself with each and every step that i have just two weeks left of this african adventure, i used my trek up to kilimanjaro’s summit contemplatively.

this manifested itself in a couple of ways (see post entitled “gratitude abounds”). guilty as charged: when a day’s walk was finished, i wasted no time diving into my little dome, curling up in my mummy sleeping bag, and digesting some krakauer. particularly striking is a letter, written by chris mccandless (the boy who traveled into - and subsequently died in - the wild) to a man he met in his travels.

Lesson Number Ninety-Three: Wisdom has no age.

below is a compilation of all the words i'd like to say about adventure, all the words that are more eloquent and convicting than mine.

“so many people live within unhappy circumstances & yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. the very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. the joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new & different sun.

don’t settle down & sit in one place. move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.

you are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. god has placed it all around us. it is in everything & anything we might experience. it is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it.”

WHO RUN THE WORLD?

12 03 13

with rift valley children’s village’s encouragement, gyetighi primary school seeks to honor high-achieving kids (“honor” comes in many interesting forms: a widely-known ranking system, gift packages for kids with the best grades, physical punishment for kids who don’t meet school expectations).

Lesson Number Ninety-Four: This kind of “honor” would not work in America.

a few years ago, an american volunteer from rifti started girls club at gyetighi. a group of thirteen girls in standards five & six (more or less fifth & sixth grade) meets at 3:30 every monday afternoon. big girls. a group of eleven girls in standards three & four meets every tuesday afternoon. little girls. modeled after girl scouts troupes in the united states, the exclusive club grants invitation only to girls who excel academically and behaviorally. the goal is to empower girls at a young age, so that they have ample time to ensure that their dreams come true: to leave their small villages, to refuse the inferiority men assume of them, to make money, to escape sexual or physical or emotional abuse, to fall in love, to be nurses and teachers and pop stars.

both big and little girls club is comprised of a mixture of rifti girls and girls who live in surrounding villages. rifti girls are more boisterous and sassy than the others, who barely make a peep.

Lesson Number Ninety-Five: Timidity is both appreciated and resented.

for the past several months, i have made the two-minute trek across the soccer field to gyetighi for girls club on mondays and tuesdays. sometimes accompanied by another volunteer or two, sometimes alone. always, in some way, unprepared for this crew of divas. 

we’ve rifled through old copies of glamour to cut out clippings of inspiring words and beautiful women (mostly face shots, so as not to encourage thigh-high leather boots or diving necklines) to make personality collages.

Lesson Number Ninety-Six: Most children in rural Africa have never seen a magazine.

we’ve assigned adjectives to each letter in our names.

Lesson Number Ninety-Seven: Most children in rural Africa don’t know the English word “adjective.” This is a difficult concept to explain.

we’ve watched movies on my laptop starring powerful and empowering female characters.

Lesson Number Ninety-Eight: Most children in rural Africa have never seen a movie.

Lesson Number Ninety-Nine: Most children in rural Africa have never seen nor touched a laptop.

we’ve danced in circles in the courtyard, repeating “little sally walker” so loudly that throats got scratchy (maybe just mine; it was mostly a solo from this hopeless morale booster).

we’ve introduced mad libs to the girls to improve their english and their creativity and to – god forbid – make them laugh.

we’ve gone on walks through coffee fields and eaten wild fruit (this is against school rules. oops.)

we’ve created a question box into which girls dropped anonymous questions about drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll. (here, i am admittedly cheeky. the box is actually a wonderful vessel through which girls can get answers to questions about friendship, sexuality, love, illnesses, drugs, and anything else under the sun. in this culture, kids – girls, especially – aren’t encouraged to ask questions like these. this silence inevitably has detrimental effects.) we’ve giggled – myself included, and perhaps the most – about puberty and boys.

Lesson Number One Hundred: Withholding information from young people is no clever tactic. An inquisitive mind deserves to be fed.

we’ve written down our greatest aspirations and drafted notes to our greatest role models.

we’ve danced to lady gaga and katy perry. we even have a music video to “firework” in the works.

Lesson Number One Hundred One: African girls’ hips don’t lie.

sometimes, in the early evenings before dinnertime, i slip out the rifti gates and indulge in a long, hilly jog. i pass through villages dipped in an orange glow, and, despite the glare, can often make out the glowing face of a girls club gal. we wave. sometimes we hug. sometimes she runs with me for a handful of seconds, before returning home. i run through her little community, endorphins flying, blessed with the opportunity to exercise by choice, to listen to music, to have free time. she stays still, filling up heavy buckets with well water, feeding her goats, or holding a baby sibling. i am a fleeting taste of excitement, a friendly ghost arriving and quickly leaving. she will be here forever.

unless, of course, our minor influence for one hour a week – with the help of oprah and beyonce and mother theresa – does what we hope it will.

See Lesson Number Fifty-Six: Who run the world? Girls.

SHOPPING SPREE

12 05 13

despite more cultural differences than a college course could ever mention, one thing is true about every corner of the world: when school’s out, kids go crazy. craziness has been brewing at rift valley children’s village since before the november 2nd celebration of halloween. talk of santa claus and choreographed dance routines to rudolf the red-nosed reindeer and the naughty/nice list and drinking soda has crept into almost every conversation for the past month. this week, conversations are saturated by it. kids in crocs get almost a full month off from gyetighi primary school for the christmas holiday. holiday begins on december 6.

Lesson Number One Hundred Two: As a [pseudo-] parent, school vacation is to be dreaded.

beyond santa and the choreography and the naughty/nice decisions and the soda, kids in crocs who’ve just graduated from standard four (fourth grade) have an annual trip inked into the calendar. next week, eight of them will pile into a rift valley car and embark on a journey to the serengeti, where they’ll enjoy four days of safari and safari lodge living.

broken down:

a.     most of these kids in crocs have only ever been in a car to experience the 45-minute bumpy drive to fame medical clinic, if that.

b.     most have never eaten in a restaurant… or eaten in a place where they can’t yell “mama” to get seconds and can’t stuff massive hunks of chapatti into their mouths with their sloppy fingers.

c.     not one has seen animals other than cats, emaciated and rabid dogs, goats, and dr. seuss’ cartoon interpretation of an elephant.

d.     most have never left home. flashbacks of first sleepovers (crying at 2am, unable to stay the night) have incredible staying power.

e.     not one owns a suitcase.

f.      not one has the appropriate attire in their wardrobe for tablecloths, waiters, and family photos.

(e) and (f) are crises solved by american volunteers. this week, during a particularly daunting rainstorm, and after taking an inventory of each kid’s three clothing cubbies, a band of anxious travelers walked toward the rifti gates to the containers.

Lesson Number One Hundred Three: Weather empathizes.

(a note about the inventory: each kid in crocs is entitled to five tops, two sweaters, five bottoms, five pairs of underwear, and one pair of socks. that is all.)

Lesson Number One Hundred Four: American gluttony is nauseating.

there are more than ten forty by twenty by ten (or something like that) containers – glorified closets – filled with folded apparel. a container for kids, a container for adults. a container for shoes and rain boots. a container for outerwear. a container for halloween costumes. a container for christmas gifts. more options in shapes and sizes than you’d find in an american boutique.

the containers are constantly replenished by bags of donations that come principally from the united states. items are scrubbed, cleaned, ironed and folded. american volunteers often spend afternoons in the containers, rearranging piles after the tornado of tanzanian toddlers rolls in. we pale in comparison to the mamas. they might as well be machines.

a shopper can find everything from goodwill tee shirts to patagonia jackets, homemade sandals to designer flats. yet, of course, kids in crocs couldn’t care less about brands or the latest fashion trends. refreshing.

kids in crocs venture down to the containers before special events like the standard four serengeti excursion. they stock up on clothing that is meant to last for the next six months, although, after a single dusty day and a single rough wash, tattered is the most descriptive word. when a certain year brings no special occasions (standards three and five are especially resentful toward standard fours this week), kids in crocs get re-outfitted in december and in june. new crocs come more frequently than this.

Lesson Number One Hundred Five: Crocs are a worthy investment.

off they go, with new duffel bags and new clothes and packs of playing cards and books from the library shelves and binoculars (the most fascinating entity) and water bottles and even pairs of plastic bar mitzvah sunglasses.

when they return, they’ll undoubtedly tell more stories about the potato chips on the road trip than the wildlife. can’t blame ‘em.

KARIBU JOSH GROBAN

12 08 13

impressively, the mention of christmas was hushed and rare before thanksgiving came – sort of – to rift valley children’s village (apart from ten americans, one brit, and five Tanzanian senior staff members, no one knew – knows – that thanksgiving occurred – occurs – at all). those days are over. days now consist of eating, breathing, worshipping christmas.

Lesson Number One Hundred Six: No matter who or how or where you are, Christmas is magic.

admittedly, and despite a growing enthusiasm about the simple pleasures of american life that await, i am disappointed that i will not be here to experience the day in all its glory. perhaps this is why my tolerance for the obsession is, so far, rather high. in fact, i find it wildly entertaining.

christmas vacation commenced on a friday afternoon, rung in with a wild teachers’ party in rifti’s rec hall, after which a window was found anonymously shattered and two light bulbs lay broken on the concrete. must’ve been overconsumption of the lukewarm sodas.

the following morning was a decorating debacle in each and every rifti house. how do you spell Christmas? what color should the paper snowflakes be? how can we make paper chains one hundred feet long with only two pairs of kiddie scissors? why won’t the christmas lights turn on?

Lesson Number One Hundred Seven: Tune on Josh Groban, tune off complaining kids in crocs.

despite an infuriating amount of inquiry, interior decorating was fun. after an adequate, if not overindulgent, amount of time perfecting paper chains and portraits of santa, we moved on to theatricals:  first, mikumi house had to choose a song to sing for the long-awaited christmas day performance, during which each house gets the spotlight for a special feature. rumors of “feliz navidad” and “let’s clap hands for santy claus” (whatever that song is) were stale in the air from recent conversations and persuasions. after much debate, though, the boys decided on “unto us, this holy night,” an original tune by none other than the wiggles. four year olds and ten year olds could agree on this serenade. who knew. handwritten lyrics sheets were distributed during the daily 10:30am porridge break, thanks to google and youtube (things i won’t miss: websites that take hours to load). next comes the memorization and choreography – but, needless to say, slow and steady wins the race.

Lesson Number One Hundred Eight: Haste makes waste.

BELIEVERS OF HOPE

12 08 13

unpredictably, the life of nelson mandela was barely recognized in tanzania on the day that it ended. oldeani mountain region appeared generally apathetic about the passing of a fellow african. ironically, i learned of his death from an american friend’s social media post.

Lesson Number One Hundred Nine: Social media really is effective.

thus, if i wish to recognize and praise the man with any special significance, living in his continent, i must do so personally and privately. there is no candlelight vigil here.

Lesson Number One Hundred Ten: In times like these, journal.

Lesson Number One Hundred Eleven: In times like these, drink a commemorative beer and scan buzzfeed for online tributes.

(i did both of the above things. both reflective. both therapeutic.)

this corner of tanzania may not be erupting in a combination of celebration and grief. nonetheless, remembering the life of nelson is a helpful, self-serving task: in his words, how can we become “fundamentally an optimist?” how best to keep “one’s head pointed toward the sun?” “one’s feet moving forward?” how to make this optimism our religion, becoming “great believers of hope?”

his steadfast faith was superhuman.

life goes on at rift valley children’s village like no saint named nelson ever lived or died. the continued normalcy made moments in the past couple of days disconcerting for this soul-searching, analytical, emotional american.

i cope with the perplexing lack of memoriam by believing that nelson made his way into the bloodstream of every staff member, every teacher, every donor, and especially every angelic mama who makes daily – hourly – personal sacrifices to support the long-term healing processes of more than one hundred kids in crocs.

nelson’s fight for peace, his determined march toward love, and his desperate grip on freedom find their way into every crack and corner of rift valley children’s village. his hope is the seed of rifti’s hope.

in one of his frequent flits of eloquence, nelson said, “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

Lesson Number One Hundred Twelve: Listen to Nelson.

during nelson’s lifetime, if he could’ve ventured up bumpy, windy roads and navigated his way through directionless coffee fields to visit rifti, i think he would’ve gazed at this society’s soul with approval. now that he’s somewhere up in the uninterrupted african sky, and our heads point toward him, i know he can see the skeleton and the heart of this society’s soul here. i am certain he is pleased.

“i dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.”

“there is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

“if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than it’s opposite." 

“it is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

“i am fundamentally an optimist. whether that comes from nature or nurture, i cannot say. part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. there were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but i would not and could not give myself up to despair. that way lays defeat and death.”

“there can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

“i am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”

“and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

NO "I" IN "TEAM"

12 10 13

the preceding four months have hosted, amongst many other interesting social situations, a smattering of mixers. american volunteers convene with tanzanians living at rift valley children’s village, enjoying the luxuries of running water and solar power and three meals a day in exchange for their work as student teachers at gyetighi primary school. eliaruma is the beloved (yes, at times, irritatingly inquisitive) pick for mikumi house (see post entitled “end piece”). in his crew, also, are emanueli and reggie and muchu and selina.

we have facilitated happy hours, during which americans indulge in too much south african red wine while tanzanians sip politely on pineapple fanta and a local equivalent of sprite. we have invited them to the volunteer house for a dinner of their choice. they chose chipsi mayaye (stale french fries cooked into an egg. a french fry omelet, essentially). more fanta.

muchu and selina have spent several mornings combing and petting and braiding my hair. a painful cultural experience.

the friendship has blossomed and thrived since august. yesterday, it all changed.

Lesson Number One Hundred Thirteen: When obligatory niceties are done, let the games begin.

rifti’s education director, who is an american and the student teachers’ boss, and therefore the liaison between the gangs and the facilitator of all social events, arranged a volleyball game to take place this afternoon during a pre-dinner break usually occupied by some kind of exercise. volleyball is no new concept here; tanzanians are impressive to watch, as is the case with most sports. we have played (embarrassed ourselves) with the tanzanian student teachers before; today, though, we played foreigners versus locals. newbs versus naturals. uncoordinated, nintendo-playing, fast-food loving westerners versus unnaturally athletic africans. this competition created a group dynamic we’d yet to experience…

Lesson Number One Hundred Thirteen: The winner takes it all.

the bump, set, spike was perfected; americans had the advantage of height and used it mercilessly. (tanzanians had the advantage of everything else, like actually being athletic.)

three games of twenty-five points later: seven tanzanians are barefoot and smiling. seven americans are sweaty and defeated.

enemies were made on the battlefield, with the exception of one blonde athlete, whose total lack of coordination made her the mvp for the opposite team. serves were sent strictly to me (the common call on the court was a jumble of kiswahili words + helena + more kiswahili) and i was the recipient of seven hugs from the opposing force during the concluding handshake line. no other american was as lucky.

Lesson Number One Hundred Fourteen: If you can’t be a winner, be a friend.

at least i upheld the cultural bridge.

CAPITALISM

12 13 13

i held out for many weeks, resisting the retail opportunities rift valley children’s village offers. i feared i would gain the reputation of the resident big spenda. (can’t have that.) alas…

Lesson Number One Hundred Fifteen: Everyone has her breaking point.

various offices at rifti sell merchandise: mugs and tee shirts with the tasteful logo linking children and elephants, postcards, local coffee beans, and various microfinance project products like necklaces, beaded stars, and baskets. additionally, some mamas in the houses have mini-businesses of their own volition. mamas live at rifti for two weeks at a time, and get every third week off to return to their families. often, when they return after seven non-rifti days, they come with loads of goods. their best customers? american volunteers.

with a lot of coaxing from kids in crocs, especially one avid salesman, thirteen-year-old simon (sophisticatedly pronounced see-moan), i finally ventured to each house to support mamas who have so many gifts and so much perseverance. such shopping inevitably occurs in the final week of an autumn abroad.

some mamas proudly display (on the bottom of a bunk bed) homemade, handmade jewelry and baskets. some show beaded goods made by their family members, friends, or neighbors, using their resources to support people they love. some upsell fabric and clothing they have purchased in karatu. capitalism lives and reigns.

no matter how the goods were acquired, the reaction from a sweet tanzanian mama is predictable: total, earnest gratitude for our financial and emotional support.

Lesson Number One Hundred Sixteen: Customer service is everything.

AT LEAST SOME RAIN

12 13 13

in the past week, the light rains have arrived.

they crept in quietly, politely asking for a distinguished place in the season. knowingly or not, we accepted their request, and here they are.

each day a variation of wet and dry occurs: sometimes, the mornings are warm and dry, searing into a fleece or a raincoat. some mornings are chilly and wet, remnants of a nighttime rain sneaking into daytime. no matter what, each day offers diversity in weather, keeping us all unwillingly prepared for change.

clouds form around oldeani mountain and other silhouettes around us; we prepare kids (and adults) in crocs accordingly. wet earth encourages mud-flavored platforms to form on the bottom of sneakers, crocs, and rain boots. suddenly, each step feels heavier.

kids in crocs act no differently than they did two months ago, when the air and the earth and all the spirits were dry.

as we know by now, kids in crocs are much more resilient to change.

"the richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; i have always considered the rain to be healing - a blanket - the comfort of a friend. without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, i feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water."

douglas coupland

THE MEMORY OF MAGIC

12 17 13

standing in line at kilimanjaro airport, sweaty and claustrophobic and desperately needing to pee, i was, for the first time in four months, not outnumbered by six-year-olds. quickly feeling nostalgic, i found a friend in the dreadlocked german boy fascinated by my luggage (he actually had dreadlocks and he was actually no more than eight years old). it’s a demographic with which i’m familiar, of which i’m particularly fond on this december day. it’s a population i miss terribly already, one brimming with wisdom. with magic, even.

--

“you know, i do believe in magic. i was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. but i knew it all along. when i was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow i saw the past, the present and into the future. you probably did too; you just don’t recall it. see, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. we are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. we are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. but then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. we get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. we get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. told to act our age. told to grow up, for god’s sake. and you know why we were told that? because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

the truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. we get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. things happen to us. loved ones die. people get in wrecks and get crippled. people lose their way, for one reason or another. it’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. you don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. it’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” it just happens.

these memories of who i was and where i lived are important to me. they make up a large part of who i’m going to be when my journey winds down. i need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. i need to know and remember, and i want to tell you.”

(robert r. mccammon)

--

when the german homeboy assumed my friendly smiles and flirty waves meant he could proceed in front of me, i had to cut the relationship off. he was not magical.

Lesson Number One Hundred Seventeen: Blame it on the dreads.

kids in crocs, whose clean little heads get shaved once a month, are certainly magical. that’s an opinion, arguably, but arguably too, the memory of magic is so alive at rift valley children’s village, that it could be proven factual.

--

“childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

edna st. vincent millay