Missive #10: Safari njema!

April 4th, 2010

Mambo!

Having finished our last EAD, we worked through our last full week in Chamazi. Poor Deborah, sick with typhoid, stayed at home and I worked mostly alone, or with Edith who had finished her work in the office. We actually completed all of the goals set for us: we computerized all of the work camp volunteer evaluation forms, catalogued and shelved all of the library books, edited all of the documents, and spent the last few days doing miscellaneous jobs such as sorting extra books, cleaning, and helping the tree-planters dig holes. At the end of the week, we had our de-briefing which involved reflecting on our experiences, discerning what we had learned and how we had advanced, considering ways in which to continue to make a difference to issues that concern us, evaluating the program and organizations, and preparing to bid farewell to the people with whom we had become so connected.
Sunday was Colin's birthday, and we went to the beach with the Tanzanian participants from the Chamazi/Cranbrook exchange which had been held at the same time as our program only in opposite countries. On the beach, we presented Colin with his cake and we went through the ceremony of feeding each person a piece. Then we hit the water and swam for the last time in the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean.
The next day was our last in Tanzania. We spent the day preparing for our huge farewell party which was held under the trees and stars with music and a huge delicious feast prepared by Dina and her army of cooks who had toiled all day long. All of our host families, the Cranbrook CWY team, another work camp that happened to be in residence consisting of Japanese, Greek and Tanzanian volunteers, and our entire team attended. Our team, following up on an idea proposed by Sarah, all had clothes tailored in a matching kitenge pattern, which surprised everyone. “We're like zebras!” Colin and I said together and doubled over laughing. It is said that zebras, when in a herd with their identical coats, are safe from predators because they cannot be singled out. After the delicious dinner, MJ and Sarah said a few (sometimes embarassing) things about each member of the group, then Julie, Hoyce and Joel called us up individually to present us with certificates for having completed the six-month volunteer exchange. Finally we Canadians, the ones who would be leaving the next morning, were called up in a row and all of our UVIKIUTA friends came and gave us a last hug and handshake. By the time our own counterparts arrived at the end of the line many of us, and many of them, had torrents of tears flowing down our faces. We took our final group pictures, then set to work cleaning up. By the time the Everest of dishes had been washed, we'd caught a ride back to Magole, I'd finished my last-minute packing, exchanged parting gifts and farewells with Jacob, Mary and Anna, and got to bed, it was after midnight.
Jackson and I slept for about two hours before getting up again in the pre-dawn darkness to carry my things over to Sean and Suzan's place to wait for our bus. It soon arrived and we picked up the whole team to go to the Julius Nyerere International Airport. We lined up together, but we were on our way through security and had to bid our final goodbyes - “safari njema, karibuni tenaa” (bon voyage, welcome again) - all too soon. After we Canadians had checked our baggage, we gathered together and were touched to see that our counterparts were still clustered outside of one of the big windows to wave goodbye to us as we headed up to our flight. As we waited at our gate, feeling slightly empty inside, a rain storm passed overhead unleashing a downpour which set the roof leaking in a couple of places. Our flight arrived on time, we boarded, and Africa was soon becoming smaller far below us. Despite the brief rains, it was a cloudless day across most of the continent, and we flew over Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, then Kilimanjaro, then forest which blended into farmland into barren oasis-dotted desert into the unblemished sea of sand that stretched to the indiscernable horizons, the Sahara. After a long time of marvelling at the endless desert and wondering how a human could survive a passage across the surface of it, I read for awhile and watched “Angels and Demons” so that I missed my view of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, but excitedly watched the shores of Africa fall below and behind us as we flew out over the Mediterranean, over what had once been Carthage. To my disappointment, Italy was shrouded with clouds, but they broke just after the Alps and I had a fairly clear view of Austria and France. We flew over Calais and the English Channel, of which I had heard stories of being crowded with shipping, but had never realized to what extent until I saw it then, even from the air. England was blanketed with cloud which we penetrated, and I saw the land below in full detail, including an undeniable castle, before we landed in Heathrow.
We hurried through Heathrow to our next flight to Toronto, and soon we were on our way home. Having felt wide awake for the duration of the first flight, the fatigue suddenly hit when I sat down on the next. Despite that, I couldn't sleep. We landed and set off to customs and baggage claim, fooling around on the conveyor belts along the way. Our baggage arrived safely, to our relief, although Sally's was torn. A lady from CWY greeted us and booked us taxis to our hotel. After having become used to riding daladalas about the same size as our mini-van taxi with the entire group in one for the equivelent of less than 25c each, I was kind of sickened that we could only have three people in one van for which it cost over $70 to get downtown. One of the first things that struck Scott, Edith and I, who were riding together, was how bright the streets were: all of the streetlights, screens, headlights, signs, and storefronts, even those which were not open. Having become used to the brilliant moon of Tanzania which makes street-lights obsolete, to markets such as Mbagala which are lit by candles and lamps at night, and to thinking of electricity as a valuable and exhaustable resource, it seemed very strange. The next thing we noticed were the advertisements. I suppose Toronto is Toronto and I may have been shocked almost as much had I arrived from Victoria as from Tanzania, but the scale and the quantity of the ads and the seemingly omnipresent feeling of commercialism made my belly squirm. When we evaluated this observation later in our de-briefing, we agreed that there is probably just as much commercialism in Dar es Salaam as in Toronto. However, we discerned, in Dar, it is a person or at least a hand-painted sign that is trying to sell you something, so your first impression is of the people being commercial, whereas here it is walls of flashing bill-boards, store-front displays, spotlights roaming the skies, and huge digital signs and screens on the sides of buildings, which makes it feel as though the place is commercial by nature.
When we entered the lobby of our fancy Marriott hotel, I asked Scott if I deserved recognition as the scruffiest guy ever to pass through its doors. Unshaven, long-haired, wearing sandals over British Airways socks, and my mis-match of light coats all worn in layers, I didn't necessarily blend in with the suited businessmen who seemed to frequent the place. The lady from CWY gave us our keys, some money for food and gave us the low-down on the rules and schedule for our last days of de-briefing. We took the elevator up to the 5th floor where we put our stuff in our rooms, marvelled at our huge pillow-laden white blanketed beds (despite the fact that we were sleeping two of us to a bed), then headed of to pander to our first priority: a pizza parlour. Only some very small patches of snow remained outside and the weather was far warmer than we had expected. It did feel very cold, nonetheless, coming back from a tropical summer. Most of the team were disappointed to have missed the snow and cast me dark looks as I scoffed “I'm from BC, I expect daffodils!” As we sat and ate our long-awaited pizza, we stared out the window with our eyebrows aloft at the parade of oddities that walked past: people in fashionable cloathes, people walking dogs, and girls in mini-skirts and leather boots. “Whaaat?!?” MJ would say, eloquently wording what I, at least, was thinking.
Back at the hotel Sean, Colin and I, in one room, utilised the rotational bed system we'd innovated in Moshi: each night everyone would rotate clockwise one space over so that everyone had the luxury of sleeping alone in a bed once. Once we and our stuff were consolidated into one room we realized just how bad we smelt... The next morning we went down to the breakfast buffet, and I went bug-eyed. I don't know how, but I fit three plate-fuls of food – eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, granola, yogurt, chocolate milk, juice, grapefruit, hash browns, a huge waffle with whipping cream, maple syrup, icing sugar, cinnamon and nuts on top – into my one skinny little body which is used to a piece of toast for breakfast. Lunch and dinner that day consisted of little snacks. Then we began our two days of de-briefing. We began by identifying and analyzing our reverse culture-shock, then continued to analyze our experiences and the conclusions that we had formed through them. We went for dinner at a Swiss Chalet across the road from a strip club called “Zanzibar”, which we had a laugh at. After another obnoxiously large breakfast the next morning, we continued our re-entry debriefing, this time looking at our future hopes and plans and discussing how we could integrate our experiences from the program and the values and ideas that we had built therein. Although there was to be another evaluatory session the following day, Edith and I had booked our train, I to Barrhaven and she to Gatineau, before we had known the schedule and unfortunately had to leave before the session began. We were thus very reluctant to leave the session, knowing that it would be our last official Canada World Youth session. We all went out for Korean BBQ that night to celebrate the past six months together, toasting ourselves, our counterparts, and our accomplishments.
The dreaded moment arrived the following morning when we were packed and in the lobby of the hotel hugging and saying goodbye to our friends. “It hasn't really registered yet, I don't think,” I said, “I'm not going to realize what's happening until a day or two from now when I'm going to want to say something to one of you and you won't be there...” After six months of working so closely and overcoming so many challenges together we had become more close than most friends that I have ever had. On top of that, they are the few people who will understand the best what I have experienced and what has changed in me. Eventually we had to part, Sean reminding us that it would be very anti-climatic for us to miss our train and have to come back again.
We caught a taxi to the huge, neo-classical train station within sight of the CN Tower in perfect timing to get our tickets and board our train. Edith and I sat with a cheerful couple and talked and reminised. She took out her Kiswahili book and we were surprised that we could open it at random near the middle and end of the book and understand most of the paragraphs listed. The train sped past the outskirts of Toronto and eventually into beautiful snowy countryside with Vs of geese returning overhead. Eventually we entered a familiar neighbourhood and I knew my stop was coming up. Edith and I said “Tutaonana kidogo” and I disembarked to find Dad waiting for me on the platform. We embraced and loaded my luggage into the car. We arrived at the house which had been beautifully renovated since I had last seen it. The green carpeting, dark wood and vinyl flooring, and all of Dad's artwork on the white walls looked great. My room was decorated with artifacts from Vanuatu, Fiji and the Kiribati, as well as one of Dad's murals. Clouseau, the cat and the only one I had around to speak Kiswahili to, was waiting for me at the top of the steps for a cuddle. Harry arrived home from the last day of school before Spring Break and we wrestled, making me realize how much he'd grown since I last fought him. Mom got back from work a little later while I was in my room and Dad pretended that I hadn't arrived.
During the first week back we went bowling with staff from Mom's office, went for daily walks around the neighbourhood, I helped Dad with projects around the house, prepared a dinner of Tanzanian food (a pale imitation though it was) and another of beef stew for St. Patrick's Day, and occupied all of the rest of my time working on the computer on my resume, applying for jobs, looking for volunteer opportunities, researching college, university and scholarships, arranging my many pictures from the trip, and reading my 150 emails that had piled up over three months of prioritizing my internet time.
On Sunday we had a large party to welcoming me back and as a belated house-warming which had been waiting until the renovations were mostly complete. Many of Mom's, Dad's and Harry's neighbors, friends and colleagues came over so I got to meet some of the community members. One had been to Kenya and Tanzania previously, and a few knew of CWY, but most of the others were fairly ignorant, saying things like “Not many people go there and survive to come back, do they?”
The most lasting impression that I have of Canada from my reverse culture-shock is the excessiveness of our way of life. I am trying to look at this analytically, not as an overly positive or negative thing. After having come to see such a thing as cold water as a luxury and juice as something reserved for special occasions, it is somewhat overwealming to have cold (or hot) water right out of the tap and a fridge never short of juice, to mention nothing of a fridge, freezer and cupboards full of whatever one's heart could desire to eat, plus a computer, bathtub, electricity, temperature control, comfortable seats... I have come to see some things which I had once thought of as necessities as luxuries, and things which I had once thought of as treats as extravagances. One might think that I would be in heaven, and I do enjoy it at times, but most often I feel overwhelmed, superficial, guilty, unappreciative, or that others are unappreciative. I sometimes find myself enjoying a bit of honest work more than any indulgency.
In terms of the situation in Africa, though, do not let anything that I have said (or anything that you have heard elsewhere, for that matter) affect your thinking. Going there with an open mind is the only way that you can know anything, and even then you will only know of the specific place, specific time, specific cirumstances, and specific people that you see through your own undeniably specifically biased lens. I thank God that when I went to Tanzania I was utterly ignorant about Africa, and any delicate preconceived notions that I may have had were quickly shattered. When I was copying volunteer evaluations from UVIKIUTA's work camps I was astounded by the self-righteous notions and pre-conceived prejudices of so many foreign volunteers (who were there for two weeks and were living apart from any actual community). They commonly criticized the projects chosen for them by the community that they were working for, saying that they wanted to address Africa's “real” problems: HIV/AIDS, orphans, poverty, hunger, etc. From the little that I have seen, I have realized that “Africa” is not universally identical, it is a continent of many unique nations and situations and is far more complex and dynamic than modern North America. The “pet problems” the Western donors have labeled the continent with are very serious and real, but to say that they are the only problems and that everyone faces them is like saying that homelessness is the only problem that developed nations have. When our counterparts were presented with this mentality, they were understandably disgusted. I will try not to put too much weight in my own experiences, as far as my view of Africa and Tanzania goes, because I have a very limited and restricted view into one isolated community myself. Please don't form any concrete notions around what I have told you, or manipulate them to serve any notions that you may previously have put your trust in.
MJ and her boyfriend, Mo came to Gatineau from Montreal for a week, and we got together with Edith and her boyfriend, Fred, for a Tanzanian dinner, enjoying each other's company again and swapping jokes that no one else would understand. A week later Scott and one of his Quebecois friends from Katimavik were on a road trip through Ottawa into Quebec where they would visit JP among other things, and they stayed the night at our place. I've been fortunate – others in the group are jealous of those of us who've been able to get together – but we're thinking of getting a bunch of the Canadian participants on a trip to the Maritimes to visit Colin and Sally this summer. Norbert and Frank of the Tanzanian team have been accepted for Seneca College in Toronto, where they applied while in Peterborough, so we may be seeing them in the country next school season.
As for me, my current, but yet malluable plan for the coming year is to find work here in Ottawa, and perhaps do some vending in a local market to help fund my post-secondary in September. As for that, I am yet deciding whether to study anthropology in Camosun College in Victoria, or the University of Ottawa, and am looking for any scholarships, bursuries or any other funds to that end. On top of that I am also seeking a place to stay in Victoria if I do return this August, so if you or someone you know there happens to have a corner with a roof over it that they would be willing to fit me into in return for some compensation, please let me know. In the meantime, I am also trying to keep up serving the world and my current community. I am looking to continue volunteering, and am registered to do so at the Ottawa Chamber Music Society's Festival this summer, among other things.
Thank you all so much for the support that you have given me, and I pray that I will someday be able to repay you for all that you have helped me to experience. Thank you also for your patience in reading through all of these Missives of mine and for keeping in touch over the past months (they are all archived on my blog, along with photos, videos, essays and other letters: bradleyclements.blogspot.com). I may not (or may, I don't know) be doing things so exciting in the next little while, but I hope that we can continue to stay in contact.
May life be amazing! Safari njema!


Bradley Clements
Ottawa, Ontario