Living in the village

Moving to the village

When I first came to TICC I was very happy when I saw the mud huts in the nearby villages because I assumed this would be how we would live. When I saw the luxury of TICC I was quite disappointed. I wanted to experience the REAL Africa, not the tourist version. Most of the other students here had the completely opposit experience. The sight of the villages made them worry, and they were relieved when they arrived here. My supervisor and I talked about this in one of our weekly one hour coaching sessions, and we quickly agreed that I should live a while in the village to experience life there and improve my swahili. My supervisor then arranged with one of the women who work in the kitchen that I could come and stay in her house because she had a spare room. She just needed to fix the roof first, and she also decided to make a toilet (=a little house with a hole in the ground).



 

Building the toilet



The village

I lived in a very poor village. There is one water tap in the village where everybody goes to fetch water in buckets. We usually do this once a day and fill up 4 or 5 buckets. The water is for the most part safe and clean. In the village there are a few small shops that sell flour, sugar, oil, soap, soda, mandazi, bread etc. People also set up their own little shops around and sell vegetables they have grown, fish they have caught or food they have cooked. Very easy, effective, local and few middle men. People can set up a shop any day outside their house, or go to more established places and sell their things. People also rent equipment and different kinds of service. If someone has a bike they might rent it out when they don't need it. There are places you can go and pay to charge your phone, and a man who has a pump can fill up your bike tyres for a small amount. There is one place in the village where you can pay to watch movies on an old television. I was astonished that this very poor village had a cinema! People in the village are very good at finding creative ways of making money. Which they have to be. You have to be able to provide for yourself one way or another. The businesses make very little money, and what you make one day will decide how much food you ge to eat that day. My village mum said to me one day: "Kama mungu akipenda, labda kesho tutashiba" = If God wants, maybe we will be full tomorrow. She sometimes gets work at TICC to cover if someone is sick. She also sometimes sell mandazi and chapati. I was very surprised to see how much the ingredients costs, how much work it is to make, and how little profit she makes. Maybe about 50 - 100 shilling profit for per madazi or chapati =0.20-0.40 NOK=0.03-0.06 USD.



My breakfast and my bike



Making chapati


The house
The house is a standard swahili mud hut. My village mama lives there with her mother, daughter and grand daughter. Four women of four generations. The house has 5 main rooms. 2 bedrooms, a storage room, a hallway/eating area and a kitchen. The floor is just hard earth, the walls are made by a wood construction which is filled with rocks and mud. The roof is also wood construction tied together with string and covered with palm leaves. The toilet is a small mud hut about 3 square metres. In the middle is a hole in the ground covered with a piece of wood. The hole is just 10 by 20 cm on the surface, but underneath it's maybe 2 square metres and 2 metres deep.

The bathroom is a little room with a rocky floor (so the water can run away without making the gorund too muddy). The walls are made of living trees and palm leaves. There is no door, so you just hang your kanga in the entrance. The shower is easy to use, you just bring a bucket of water and poor it over yourself using a cup. Easy, effective and water saving.


L: Backyard with bathroom and toilet and mango tree. R: my bed


The fire place is very common here; three rocks, pot on top of rocks, wood between rocks and you push them in as they burn. The heat is very easy to adjust and the fire is easy to construct and easy to clean out afterwards.

Eco friendly - No electricity

There were four kittens in the house:)

Almost none of the houses in the village has electricity. It gets very dark in the night and everybody sits outside their houses and talks to the people walking past. It was quite nice in the night because nobody could see that I was white, so I had a break from the "mzungu, mzungu!!"-attention. No electricity also means no fan which means it gets very hot in the night. My supervisor's husband gave me a very good tip to help with the heat. I made one of my kangas wet and had it over me to cool me down. It was very effective, and took away my dependency on having a fan on at night. Another quick and easy way to save electricity! I quickly got used to living without electricity and just using water from a bucket. When I later moved back to TICC I didn't notice that there was a power cut in the evening and I was quite surprised when the power suddenly came back and I saw how much light there was everywhere.


Cats and chicken

 Feminine waste troubleOne problem I had in the village was getting rid of rubbish. I had my period while I lived there, and I quickly realised that sanitary towels are a bit hard to get rid of when there's nowhere to throw away rubbish. Everything is reused, burned or just thrown in nature. I hadn't really thought that much about it before how non-biodegradable sanitary towels are, and I certainly didn't want to burn them either. I ended up just having a plastic bag for my own rubbish that I brought back to TICC every day adn threw it away there. But what do they do with their rubbish? I guess it goes to a land fill somewhere, or maybe rubbish is burned in Tanzania? Sanitary towels are of course also imported goods and too expensive for normal people. My village mum said that they use cotton. Not sure if she means the natural cotton that you can pick from some trees in the village, or cotton fabric that they wash afterwards. Any way, it was an interesting conversation and a bit difficult in swahili. One thing is certain, when people are struggling to get food, they are not going to spend money on buying sanitary towels, and if they did it would just create a silly amount of waste.

Normality 

Living in extreme poverty means you're going to be hungry very often. It also means that you're forced to use your creativity to find cheap ways of getting through the day. It also means you're going to live very eco-friendly. In Norway we have a saying "deprivation teaches the naked to make clothes". It is very true. I am copletely astonished by how well people manage with so little. When I say well, I mean that they survive. It is not a life that gives you any hope for the future. Every day is a new struggle for survival. The money you get today will decide if you get food or not. But it is also what people are used to and they have worked out ways of managing. I think people in the village were generally quite happy. They all want better houses, better mobile phones etc, but when it comes to happiness, I don't think it is decided by the things people have at all. Even though their problems are much greater than what I am used to, life was surprisingly normal. And I think anything can feel normal once you get used to it. Humans are very good at at adapting to new situation. There poverty is normal, so you find a way to deal with it and survive as best you can.



Pictures from the house and through the window: Kanga drying, banana plants, palm tree roof, water buckets and neighbour carrying a kitten in each hand.



Working at TICC

I've now been working at TICC (Tanga International Competence Centre) for three months. I thought it was about time I said a bit more about my actual work here and what TICC means for the local people.
TICC is started my Ruth Nesje - here she is known as Mama Ruti - a pretty incredible norwegian lady. She wants to show everyone that it's possible to do aid work in a sustainable-non dependent-empowering way. TICC is partly hotel and conference business and partly social projects. The hotel business employs over 40 local people per day and provides a secure and comfortable working environment. Most of the guests at the hotel/hostel are norwegian student who have their placement or project work here or other people doing voluntary work. The hotel business is at the moment mainly providing for the staff salary, but the hope is that in the future it can also pay for some of the social projects.

The social projects are mainly sponsored by Ruth and her husband, their friends and relatives, and previous students. With the help of people in Norway, TICC has started a kindergarten where they pay the salary of the teacher, they give a banana every day to each of the 700 children at the primary school and kindergarten, they sponsor education for hundreds of children, paying for three family homes, started several microfinance groups, and help many families to start up small businesses, help many many children with health problems, disabilities, give out soap, food, clothes, footballs, arrange educational meeting and training sessions.. really, whatever a village or family need to develop, TICC will probably find a way to help!

My work here has mainly been focused on follow up with a young girl whos family could not provide a secure home for her. TICC managed, in agreement with the family and village leaders, to move her to boarding school, and for the holidays she gets to live in one of the family homes. We have visited her regularly and seen her develop and grow as a person.

Then we had follow up with two HIV positive girls. We've gone with them to health checks, helped their grandmother start a business (all she needed was glasses to be able to be a tailor again), visited them and arranged a nice relaxing family day for them and the grandmother at TICC.

We have started a group for 13 youths who failed their 7. grade exam and are therefor not allowed to continue with education. We've had weekly meetings with them, arranged for them to go to a english course every day, helped them make a puppet theatre and song show for the kindergarten, and developed a plan for how they can get some paid work with TICC in the future making performancees for the primary school about different health problems.

We have also had follow up with a family home where there has been some tension and lack of communication. We have had many conversation and a family meeting with them and tried to help the family create a more loving environment.

I have larned so very very much from working here. I now know so much more about health problems here (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, scabies, ring worms, fungus). There is a very strong connection between poverty and health problems- Lack of money means lack of nutritional food, soap, clean water, medicines, shoes, clothes, which quickly leads to health problems.

I've learned a lot about how corruption ruines every part of society from stealing peoples recourses, giving people wrong diagnosis and fake medicine and stopping important development, to creating general distrust, selfishness and meanness.

Masai na Wazungu

The Masai is not afraid of anything.
He wears red clothing and laughs when Amanda sings
a song from her childhood memories
as we walk to the village past the jasmine trees.

://She sings "kichwa chini, matako juu"
and the children in the village shout to the wazungu://

The Masai is not afraid of anything.
His sandals are made from tyres and string.
He will guard us from the dangers we pass
on our walk after swahili class.

://And Mama Ruti's chai dawa medicine tea
will fix anything that's wrong with me://

But flies might lay eggs under my skin.
Mosquitos with malaria are trying to get in.
Frogs climb out of the shower drain.
Mosquito bites are swelling and causing me pain.

://But we are protected both Amanda and me
By the Masai and Mama Ruti's tea://

Our friend the Masai does not feel fear.
He has killed a lion by himself with a spear.
We meet a woman in the village and say "Shikamoo Mama!"
She invites us in and says "Karibu sana!"

://We laugh and sing about the ducks, Masai na wazungu,
we sing "kichwa chini, matako juu"://

Citizen of the Earth

I'd rather see all the misery,
poverty, diseases and fear.
See people die, ask questions why,
and cry for months and years

Than live blissfully unaware,
ignorant without a care,
selfish to the bone,
not sheading a tear for the unknown

And I'd rather speak without anyone listening
than be quiet about what I've seen.
And I'd rather work hard for the things I believe in
and live with a conscience that's clean.

I'd rather give away my passport,
Become a citizen of the earth.
Nationality should mean nothing,
cause we all have equal worth.

I don't care if you say that tears are a waste;
I am still gonna cry.
I don't care if you say these things are impossible;
I am still gonna try.

You may say we're too used to our luxery,
that it's impossible to change our ways.
And that others are used to their poverty,
dealing with the problems they face.

But don't you dare think that you
deserve more than others do.
It's just a matter of luck
where you're born and where you're stuck

Wealth distribution
is a corrupt and unfair game.
where greed and power decides
and the results are always the same.

It's not skills or worth or what you choose,
cause we cheated and changed the rules
and stole their resources and their tools
so North will always win and south will loose.

I don't care if you say that tears are a waste;
I am still gonna cry.
I don't care if you say these things are impossible;
I am still gonna try.

Cause I can no longer live like I used to,
now that my eyes are open wide.
And I can not be completely at peace
until I know I have tried

To change the unfair game rules,
to give back resources and tools,
get the leaders to speak clearly,
and apologise cincerely

stop the selfish exploitation
of the southern nations.
Stop the increasing northern wealth,
secure education and health

for everybody everywhere,
stop the suffering and despair.
Cause there's enough for everyone
if we just learn to share.

I don't care if you say that tears are a waste;
I am still gonna cry.
I don't care if you say these things are impossible;
I am still gonna try.

Contrasts and choices

Sometimes when the Norwegian students here go to town at night they hire a minibus - dala dala - to take them. The dala dala plays loud music all the way to town. I came along for the first time last week and it was an experience which put me in deep thoughts about the contrasts I'm experiencing here.

Driving through the poor villages playing loud music felt very wrong to me. It felt like we were shouting "everybody look at us, we're the rich white girls!" The people in the village were out with their goats and cows, or sitting outside their clay huts making food on an open fire, and we were going "out" to eat in a fancy pizza restaurant in town - where obviously only white European tourists went.

I prefer "eating out" with the Maasais

Driving through the poor villages, flashing our wealth with Rihanna's music playing loud, and the words to her song streaming out "I want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world.." really emphasised the western selfish extravagant lifestyle wanting everything for ourselves, wanting evryone to treat us like we're the best thing that ever happened to them "..forget about the world.." -sitting in our private western world inside a party bus with so much poverty on the outside.

Out taking pictures of the sunset

Another thing that came to mind, was that the people living in these villages are the people we're here to help. Some of them desperately want to get more education or work. The children we pass might dream about having a safe home, being able to learn and go to school, have a future, not die from HIV or malaria, not get scabies, ringworms and infections and to have enough food to eat. And then the white girls drive past with Rihanna's voice shouting "I want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world".

I felt ashamed. Our fancy lifestyle could easily have paid for these children's education, medical treatments, food etc. It is already so obvious. Everybody knows that we are very rich and privileged compared to them, so it just rubs it in to show off our wealth like that. There are obviously a lot worse things we could've done, but this felt pretty bad to me still. Especially since we were doing it to the very people we will meet in the social projects. What will they think of us?

Clay huts in a village

I met another of these contrasts when I received an email from the local council in Norway where I have recently become an elected member. The email informed me that they want all information and paperwork to be electronic from now on and therefore they are giving everyone and ipad or laptop. Would I want an iPad from them or money to buy one myself? There was also a question about how I'm doing in Tanzania. In my reply I first wrote about Tanzania, the beauty and the extreme social and health problems and poverty. It felt very strange to end the email with " I will take the money and buy an iPad myself, thank you very much". Here are kids who want to go to school, but their family can't afford it, and then someone wants to just give me money or an iPad. It feels very unfair. I will have to think hard about many things and find a way to live my life so that I don't have to feel ashamed about being so privileged.

documenting with my fancy camera

I see a lot of children and youth walking around with shirts from famous European football clubs. It's quite absurd to me that the poor people here care about European football and look up to the superstar professional football players with their insanely high wages and overextravagant lifestyles. The kids here can't even afford to buy a football, but they still admire people who are the pride examples of the unfair wealth distribution which causes their misery. I don't know if it is an escape from reality which can work as a survival strategy, or if it just gives them unrealistic dreams.

Home made football from the village

Kids who just got a new football

It's a bit like what we found during the health checks. The kids seem to be coping well with being hit, abused and neglected because they think it's normal. Would it be wrong of us to tell them that this treatment is wrong, that they deserve better? If we can't offer any improvement, wouldn't we just be taking away their ability to cope with their miserable conditions? It's something we would never have to consider in Norway. On the one hand, I strongly believe that information and enlightenment always is good and right. People should know about the unfair distribution of wealth in the world and that private and governmental corruption in addition is ruining this country and causing poverty and misery. It is wrong that people live in such extreme poverty when other people live with extreme unnecessary overspending. I do believe that if everybody truly knew about the unfairness of this situation, people would want to do something about it. On the other hand, I've started thinking about the way people adapt to their situation to at least secure their mental health. Yes, their situation is extremely unfair, but is it also unfair to take away their coping strategy with of our desire to enlighten them? Will it hurt more than it helps?

Reading a poster about AIDS at the youth centre

It seems to be two potentially conflicting ways of looking at it. One way is looking at individual people's life and how to secure their short term happiness, and another is looking at the bigger picture and starting a process to get lasting long term improvements for larger number of people. The difficult task is to work with both perspectives in mind simultaneously cause they seem to be conflicting. It seems that a revolution-like process is needed to get the drastic improvements that would really make a difference to people's lives here, but it would take a long time and potentially make conditions worse for a while before (if) they eventually got better. When conditions are as bad as they are, it seems like the big improvements that are needed are so out of reach, that maybe it's not even worth trying. Maybe it's only possible to focus on individuals and slow symptom relief instead of attacking the whole unfair system which causes the problems. And maybe it's possible to get lasting improvements by fixing one little problem at the time. It is quite overwhelming to experience how unfair the world is and to feel like I'm a part of what makes it unfair. If I think of a good way of fixing it I will let you know!

I will end with a quote I read today: "There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or to accept the responsibility for changing them.
-Denis Waitley

Kanga and Kitenge

The colours and patterns of the traditional clothes here, Kitenge and Kanga, are exeptional. Kangas are pieces of fabric you tie around your waste or shoulders. They have symbols and a poetic messages written along the bottom edge which women use to show opinions, emotions or comments. They are easy to carry around in your bag if you need to cover your shoulders or knees out of respect for the traditions here. All the girls get a kanga when they arrive at TICC, but we have also bought a few more in town. They are very useful and you can wear them in many different ways. The Kangas below are the ones Amanda and I got at TICC. They are very pretty, but we're not quite sure what the text means.

the kangas we got at TICC

The one below on the other hand is made by TICC as an educational kanga.
"Kuzaa ni furaha kulea na afya ya mama je"  which means pregnancy is a joy when the mother is in good health. Around the outer edge there are healthy fruit and vegetables, in each corner images of breast feeding, health checks, and vaccination. In the inner frame there are smiling condoms, contraceptive pills etc. Mama Ruti (on the right) said that the kanga was a big success and they became vere popular among the women in the village. I thought it really shows how you can get through to people when you make an effort to understand their culture.

Amanda and Mama Ruti (Ruth Nesje) showing the TICC pregnancy kanga

Mzungu price
When white people try to buy something you usually get a much higher price than locals: "Bei ya mzungu" or "mzungu price". Mzungu is the swahili word for western/white people and comes from the word for "walking around with no purpose". I have learned to say "don't give me mzungu price", which is very useful phrase to know. When we were buying kangas in town, Amanda managed to haggle the price down from 32000 Tanzanian Shillings to 25000 for 5 kangas. We knew 5000-6000 was normal price for kangas (about 15 krones/3 dollars).

Our new kangas hanging on the drying line

It was difficult to find kangas with the right text because so many had a religious message. Being an atheist, I can't walk around with a kanga saying "only God knows about the future" etc. I'm very happy with the kangas I ended up buying. The translations are not 100% correct, but you'll get the main point:



"Maskini wa leo tajiri wa kesho" = Poor today rich tomorrow
I thought it would be a nice kanga to wear while working with the youth group. The youth group failed their primary school exam and are therefor not allowed to continue to secondary school. They could go to a private school, but it's too expensive and none of them can afford it. They have little hope for the future and desperately want education or work. We are hoping to help them create a group that can support and motivate each other.

detail from kanga

"Yataka Moyo kuishi na jirani" = The hearts desire is to live well with neighbours
This kanga I thought would be nice to wear when I go to live in the village for a week or two. They are our neighbours and I want to live with them and get to know them. It could be a way of showing my good intentions and that I have understood how to use the kanga to tell people something about myself.

detail from kanga

"Hamsemi yakaisha?" = Don't you have anything more to say?
I was was thinking about wearing this kanga after a week or so in the village if I knew people were talking a lot about me. I would have to wait until I knew people would take it as a joke and not as a negative comment. Hopefully it could be a funny way of saying "I know you're talking about me, and I don't care"

detail from kanga

Amanda chose her kanga solely because of the pattern.
The text on hers is: "Naiwe leo furaha ya harusi" = today is the day for a happy wedding. Not very suitable text, but a very nice pattern and pretty colour.
Amanda told me that guys sometimes give girls kangas as a present to tell them something. Maybe that one could've been used as a proposal, or as a wedding present? Anyway, it looks very pretty!

detail from kanga

Kitenge
Kitenge is the name of a different type of fabric that you buy by the meter, but it is also used about a two piece outfit made from the kitenge fabric. Amanda's aunt in Dar-es-salaam gave me two lovely kitenges.
I also find that it's a nice way to connect with the local people wearing their traditional clothes.

the lovely kitenges I got from Amandas aunt

I get a lot of nice comments from the locals when I wear kanga or kitenge. People here really like it when we speak swahili with them as well. Both with clothes and language, I think people in general really appreciate when you show that you're making an effort, that you're interested in their culture and want to learn their language and take part in their traditions.

Colours (swahili: Rangi)

pretty blue bird with red cheeks

Tanzania is beautiful and colourful. The wildlife here is bursting with colours. Birds are bright blue, red and yellow, crabs and frogs are orange, pink and green. Flowers and trees are beautiful too and the sun is so red when it sets in the evening.

crab with one big colourful claw

Frog who lives in the shower

Sandbank in the sea
A big group from TICC sailed out to a sandbank which is only visible at low tide. The sand was amazingly white and the water around was torquoise. We went snorkling and the plants, coralls and fish were incredibly beautiful. I wish I could've taken photos of them. There were little stripy clown fish hiding in the bright red coralls, bright blue, green, white, red, purple and yellow fish, large star fish of yellow/black, and red/white. There were so many colourful lifeforms living together in such small areas. And the water is so salty you can easily just float around without moving, and lie in the surface and observe all the small fishies swimming around underneath.

lovely sandbank

TICC crew on the sandbank at low tide

Amanda in the red sunset with her Kanga