Week 5 - Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Poisoned Fish

There are some basic food rules that we’ve been told to follow to avoid getting sick in Bagamoyo. We’ve been instructed to try to avoid eating outside of Homebase – the food at Homebase is great, and they always use filtered water when cooking so we can eat everything knowing that we won’t get sick. If we have to eat outside Homebase we’re told to make sure that we eat it hot. We’re to stick to vegetables and avoid seafood especially. Men often ride past on bikes trying to sell “fresh” seafood that has been sitting out in the sun and is covered in flies.

Our visit to see Madam Rachel at her house had been arranged for weeks. We went with Monica, another volunteer who was working in Max’s class. We had discussed it beforehand, and prepared ourselves for the possibility that she might want to feed us. We knew that we couldn’t refuse.

When we arrived at her house, it became clear that the food was just for us – she had only prepared enough for her visitors. Everyone else at the house (including her sick mother) just sat and watched us eat. She presented us with chapatti (similar to roti or naan), vegetables and a small fish each. All were lukewarm, bordering on cold and looked like exactly the sort of food that we should avoid.

We were each given soda (very generous since each bottle costs about a dollar), but the top of Monica’s bottle was completely rusted, and no amount of wiping could clean the neck. We would all cringe every time Monica took a swig from the bottle.

The three of us sat in the garden with pasted on smiles as she brought the food. We thanked Madam Rachel politely as she served each of us a sentence to at least a couple of days of vomiting and diarrhea. We started to eat, and when Madam Rachel popped back into her house, we whispered to each other about how long it would be before the nausea set in (concluding that some poisons act more quickly than others).

We didn’t even have the option of leaving any food on the plate. Madam Rachel’s mother was sitting on a seat in front of us, and anytime we put an unfinished plate onto the side table she would gesture to us that we’d missed some. To avoid offending anyone, we polished off the lot.

Despite our fear of being poisoned we didn’t get ill and we ended up having a really nice time at Madam Rachel’s. She was so generous, and welcomed us into her home so warmly that we felt lucky to have experienced some authentic Tanzanian hospitality (as well as guilty about fearing the worst).

Saying Goodbye - Max

The schools that Anne and I teach at close for summer on the 11^th of June. This was one week before we were due to leave CCS. We both feel that this worked out well for us. Saying goodbye to the children in our classes was very emotional because we had grown attached to them. We still had one more week in Bagamoyo and we arranged to volunteer at UKUN, the HIV/Aids support centre. Although UKUN could be very intense for many volunteers, we were doing administrative work in the office. UKUN was like a decompression chamber for us, allowing us to wind down and gradually get Bagamoyo out of our systems.

On our last day at school, I needed to leave early because we had arranged transport to a safari at Selous at 9.30AM. Madam Rachel was particularly late, and as Monica and I taught the kids in the sand outside the classroom, I was wondering if she was even going to show up.

Madam Rachel arrived at 8.45AM and she quickly got down to the business of getting the class to say goodbye to me. I had taught the children a couple of songs in English and they loved to sing them – so we started with these. Madam Rachel then addressed the kids in Kiswahili and reminded them that I was leaving today. There were some prescribed lines that that children chanted back to her in unison, and she translated for me, telling me that they were going to miss me, that I was a very good teacher, they wished that I would never leave, etc.

Next came a presentation ceremony. I gave Madam Rachel a katenga (piece of dress material) and also I gave sixty pencils to the class. I was pretty embarrassed about the pencils because Madam Rachel had previously gone to the trouble of pointing out which type of pencils were good, and which were bad. No shop in Bagamoyo stocked more than around thirty pencils, so I had been travelling from shop to shop, buying up their entire stock for myself, and a similar gift from Anne to her class. Ninety percent of the pencils fell into the ‘bad’ category. On top of this, I had tried to sharpen them the day before, and many of the pencils had lead that was so badly broken I had had to sharpen them down to a couple of centimeters long. Nevertheless, Madam Rachel paraded the gift around the classroom, making sure that every child looked inside the envelope of pathetic pencil stubs.

Then Madam Rachel presented me with a katenga for Anne, and a card with roses on it. She asked me to read out the printed message on the card that she had chosen for me: “I’m so grateful for your special thoughtfulness and your kindness too, that’s why this brings a big and bright bouquet of special thanks to you”. And then in her own handwriting she had added “says Madam Rachel”. The children sat in silent confusion through this part of the ceremony.

Next Madam Rachel had the children stand at the front of the classroom. She got them to start singing a slow, sad song with just two lines in Kiswahili. The lines were repeated over and over. They each put one hand to their face and tilted their head to rest on it. As they sang the verse over and over, they worked themselves up into some kind of heightened emotional state. Their eyes welled up and they seemed to feed on each other’s misery. By the time they finished, half of the kids had tears streaming down their faces.

Next, the children had to come up to me individually and shake my hand while I knelt down to receive them. Two of them were so upset that they could not even look at me while I said goodbye (Madam Rachel was on hand to force them to do it again).

It seemed like the goodbye was finally over as I stepped outside the classroom. But Madam Rachel had the class follow me to the school entrance to say another round of goodbyes and wave at me as I walked off across the playing fields and into the distance.

The morning had seemed torturously long, and slightly ridiculous at the time. But after it was over I found it all quite sweet, and I was actually really moved by it all. I walked back to CCS thinking about how much I would miss the kids.

Saying Goodbye – Anne

My last day was not quite as dramatic as Max’s. The teachers had decided that there would be no class that day – we would just play outside. This meant there was no proper forum for me to say my goodbyes. All that I could do was walk around outside saying goodbye to my kids when I could actually find them. I don’t think they quite got it – and probably just couldn’t understand why I was making such a big deal. When I said goodbye they would reply “kesho” meaning “tomorrow”. Unfortunately, my Kiswahili doesn’t extend to “No, I won’t be here tomorrow, or ever again. Please say goodbye now”.

I was beginning to think that the day would be just like every other, when the teachers (there are four of them in total) called me and the two other volunteers into a classroom. In the room they had arranged bottles of soft drink and biscuits, and we proceeded to have a little party. They thanked me and gave me a gift (a kanga which is a piece of clothing/cloth that women wear here) and then insisted that we drink lots of soft drink and eat biscuits. So, that was my goodbye – sweet and simple.

Fortunately, I got to see my kids one last time before we left Bagamoyo. Max and I decided to go to my school for an hour on our last day in Bagamoyo (a week after I had finished my placement there). My school had decided to stay open for the holidays. I thought it would be nice to visit them one last time, and also Max would be able to meet them.

As we walked to my classroom, the kids saw me and ran towards me screaming “Mwalimu Anna” (“mwalimu” means “teacher” in Kiswahili, and Kiswahili words always end in vowels - people tend to add a vowel to any word ending in a consonant, so instead of calling me Anne they call me Anna). It was so lovely – they were so happy to see me that I couldn’t help but get a bit teary. It was another “play outside” day, so Max and I got to play with them for an hour before I said my goodbyes (again). This second goodbye was sadder than the first – the kids seemed to understand that I was leaving this time, so they were pretty upset and would hold tight onto me when I hugged them. So very sweet.

Safari in Selous

Max and I went on our first safari in Tanzania at the end of the week (immediately after saying goodbye to our kids for the last time). We went to a game park in the South of Tanzania called Selous (pronounced “Sell-oo”). Selous is a little less popular that the parks in the North of the country, but we liked the idea that we could do a river safari where we could see crocodiles and hippos.

It was great to take a trip outside Bagamoyo, and we really enjoyed seeing a different part of Tanzania. The camp was lovely – we had a “tent” with a proper shower, it was so much better than the cold trickle at Homebase.

All the camp staff were lovely. We know very little Kiswahili, but we enjoy trying to speak the few words that we’ve learned – and the staff seemed to really appreciate our efforts. Our waiter in particular took it upon himself to teach us more words, which was great.

Selous is a huge game park – they told us that it was the same size as the Netherlands. However, less than a quarter of the park is for regular tourists. The majority, in the South of the park, is for hunters. We didn’t find out too much about the South, except, for two facts. Firstly, according to our guide, most hunters are wealthy Arabs. Secondly, there is a price list for hunting the animals. The most expensive item on the list is a lion, at fifty thousand dollars. Hunters pay their fifty thousand dollars whether they hit the lion or not – if they miss, and want to try again, that will cost another fifty thousand.

In our lodge, as with many lodges, the guards are Masai. They would just appear from out of nowhere whenever we walked anywhere in the camp. They were like Jedi – we would try to shake them, but it was impossible.

The only television in the camp was at the staff quarters. So when we wanted to watch England play the USA in the world cup we had to go to the staff dormitories. When we arrived to watch the game, the staff insisted that we sit at the front. So the two of us, plus one American guest, sat on the first bench of six. We peered at a tiny portable set, surrounded by Masai with their spears, and about fifty very enthusiastic local guides, drivers, cleaners and cooks. We felt pretty guilty to be intruding, but everybody was so generous and welcoming that we had a brilliant time, despite an abject performance by England.