Blessed with Capoiera, chased by fumigators and two-year olds

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I’ve been so grateful for how welcoming, kind, & patient everyone has been. The incessant greetings when I walk around are annoying, but harmless. And if I do have to go home late from THT, one of the guys walks me home.

Anyway, last week was “the breakthrough”…sort of. I’ve hinted at my main frustration about being here: that much of my time is being wasted on things that either should have been set up before I got here (the most important thing being the internet) or having to try to sort things out on my own that could have been solved easily with the help of the right people here. Sometimes this has been a hot, annoying, & sweaty drag for me. But if I can’t get my work done because I need the net, but my computer is barely functional because of all the viruses its picked up from using my memory stick at the internet café, then I just go to THT. I don’t mind spending my days learning Kiswahili songs, dancing, and teaching poi. But it would be better for THT if I spent most of my days researching and seeking out funding for THT. So I’m not frustrated on my own behalf, but just feel THT could be making better use of my time. And this sounds typical. I met the interim director of Alliance Français, and she echoed my feelings by saying that she came here with so much energy & ideas and keeps getting blocked by the simplest things. Same goes for Veena, my friend here from Ottawa.

In my case, the main problem was that I came here through Seba, the co-founder of THT. However, it’s the other co-founder, Ruge, who has the most influence at THT. He’s high-up at Clouds FM, the most popular radio station in Tanzania, and a famous music producer. Most of the big music stars here have been through his hands. But he dropped them all in order to devote more time to promoting THT artists. Anyway, what I eventually realized through talking with teachers like Sammy, and with Seba, was that Ruge was not really on board about bringing a foreign volunteer to THT. Since Seba’s been very busy with work, there are things that have just fallen through the cracks, like getting me convenient net access. These are things Ruge could have easily made happen, but didn’t. I was also mystified why I didn’t meet all key management & teaching staff in a meeting within the first few days. I met over 40 people that first week, had no idea how to pronounce some names, no idea who did what, and no idea what I could/should ask of people at THT, or what they could expect from me. This just seemed to be an obvious thing, a meeting to introduce the volunteer to THT staff, help clarify for everyone what the volunteer would be doing, and clarify for the volunteer who was who at THT. It took me two weeks to find out “Michael” and “Nykia” were one and the same person!!! Instead, I met with almost every THT staff member one on one (and the kids introduced themselves!!!). This was helpful, but I had no context to help understand THT. If I had met with EVERYONE first it would have given me the “Big Picture” - ie, meet everyone at once, find out what their position is, what the organization’s structure is, find out a bit about the organization’s “culture”. Then get the details from each staff member in turn. So last week I was a bit bummed that this meeting I had been requesting from the start hadn’t happened yet. Then Capoeira came to the rescue.

Just as I had finally managed, through several explanations being translated into Kiswahili, to explain why I didn’t think I should teach Capoeira at THT, two UK capoeiristas, Ed & Mala, came to visit THT last Monday. They are involved in several projects that try to empower youth through the arts. They listened to the singers and watched the dancers, and then they agreed to do a short Capoeira workshop. I was so happy to have other capoeiristas show up I ran around THT jumping up & down with joy (I am not exaggerating! I miss playing with my group so much!). I’m glad this teacher did the workshop, and that the kids enjoyed it so much. But the genie’s really out of the bottle now! And he showed a lot of stuff very quickly and I actually feel I should do some damage control. These guys are so talented, they could become fabulous capoeiristas, but they have no one to teach them. Being here really emphasizes how lucky someone like me has been, that I have had all sorts of opportunities that they haven’t had. As I’ve learned from teaching poi here, even if you show them something and can’t do it well, it doesn’t matter. Sammy & the kids will take the movement and make it beautiful, they will own it & improve on it. I can share some ideas because I’ve been lucky enough to have many opportunities to learn. But they are the ones with the talent, commitment, & skill to use those ideas to make beautiful dance pieces. My eccentric highschool art teacher, Fred, put it best “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.” Ie, great artists take a good idea and make it their own. I hope they steal everything they can from me!

Anyway, back to THT managerial issues: after the Capoeira workshop, the Capoeira couple, me, Edward (the key fundraising/proposal writing guy at THT) and Ruge met informally. Ed & Mala had some great ideas to follow up on, and I think everyone was really pleased with the dialogue. And I think it was the trigger for Ruge to finally realize I could be useful. So he & Edward & I met right afterwards (what a long day that was!!! But good), and it was great. Ruge & Edward have great ideas. Now we just need to follow up. Ruge finally seemed interested in getting me the resources I need to be effective, and a meeting of everyone (including the kids) happened on Wed. So things are much clearer now, and it really felt like things were starting to roll. But…still more glitches. It was just Nipa & me at Seba’s this week. On Tuesday morning, out of the blue, 2 guys show up in the middle of my Kiswahili lesson to fumigate! Seba hates cockroaches, but I’d pick them over poison any day. I won’t go into detail, but this is the only incident so far that has honestly made me angry. Furious, actually. Everything else has been annoying, while this was extremely inconvenient and harmful for my health! I had to cut the class short, we had to pack up a bunch of things, especially food, and put it out on the balcony, I have no idea what they sprayed, I refused to sleep there that night so stayed with my friends downtown. Might I add Seba was in another town, so its not like he had to deal with the toxins? So I came back as late as possible Wed night. And then, of all things, on Thursday, once again in the middle of my Kiswahili lesson, the guys show up again! Seba didn’t leave the key to his room, so they didn’t do his room on Tuesday! Of all the idiotic things, why did they fumigate at all on Tuesday if they couldn’t do the whole thing!!! So I’ve been exposed to twice as much toxins. So on Thursday I was again chased out of the house, and without my laptop so couldn’t solve the net issues. Then Friday, Peter (tech THT volunteer) & I tried to solve the internet thing, but Ruge wasn’t at his office to give us the money he told us to come get. And so on, and so forth.
Arrhhhhhhhgggggg!!!!!!! The plus side: while we waited at the Clouds office, HK showed up, and took me to his office to show me some of the videos he’d done for THT. Wow! He’s a really gifted videogragher, THT’s lucky to have his help. And I like his music, he showed me the video for one of his songs and I have the CD.

There has been some progress: I finally got the material together to make poi to teach with: sturdy string & tennis balls. I cut two holes in the balls, used wire to pull the string through, tied some knots, voila! Poi. And slightly nasty poi, they hurt when they hit you. I joke with the kids that the poi are far better teachers than I am! Well, more violent at least! The first poi class (as opposed to all the one-on-one teaching I’ve been doing) happened yesterday, and the kids were very keen and made me promise to teach more on Monday. Even though we had our first serious casualty: one of the guys really bagged himself. He was on the ground for some time (all I could do was say “pole, pole sana”, which is an expression of sympathy, sorry, very sorry). Well, I guess he won’t make that mistake again! I’ve also been asked to teach some English by Michael, and many of the kids have asked me, too. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to do that, because again, the key thing I’m supposed to be doing is researching funding opportunities.

But meanwhile, I keep hanging out with my friends at THT, learning more songs and dance. Like Salsa. Yes, Salsa. Sammy’s quite the accomplished Salsa dancer, so its part of some of the dance pieces. Yeah, I came all the way to Tanzania to learn Salsa. My life makes so much sense its scary!

It was great to go to the beach last weekend. I’m getting itchy feet - I want to see more of Tanzania. I hope to be sent off with one of the THT tours, and now I also have some friends with car access, the kids of one of my Dad’s contacts at the Canadian High Commission. I seem to move in many different worlds here, from sipping juice with members of the TZ elite, to discussing Sci-Fi & Buddhist philosophy with other wazungu, to joking around and singing with the penniless THT artists. Olivary went to Dal in Halifax, Tina did “Uni” in Australia. In contrast, Vicent & Halima can barely speak English (ie, no secondary schooling). But it also brings home the potential for initiatives like THT to level the field, to maybe bring disadvantaged people up to a decent standard of living. Alfani is a good example. He’s a sweet guy, and an amazing dancer. When THT recruited him, he lived on the street and was a thief. Now, he and Mussa have a place together, and with luck, they will be able to earn a living. Its quite something to think that a few months ago, Alfani was the kind of guy who would have snatched my bag,
and now he has proven to be completely trustworthy (I initially did some testing of the waters to see if I had to worry about my stuff being snitched - nope). It makes me optimistic about human nature.

Well, Kasmali is back now. So as I tried to write some of this under the AC in the living room, he tried to get me to sing the Mama song (he remembered it from a week ago). We kind of duetted - he’d add “Momomomy!” occasionally. Although I’m in no rush to have kids, its some of the wildly funny moments and the lovely quiet moments with him that help me understand the deep need many of us have to have children. I spent over an hour one night just dancing and running around the living room with Kasmali. I had to have another shower!
And then just now, as I was writing, he came over, tried to break my computer, then leaned on the couch to rest, so I petted his back and held his hand. Then he tried to grab my glasses, then poked me, then kissed my hand (so I reciprocated, of course) then kissed my computer screen (alas, the computer did not reciprocate).

All for now, Lotsa Metta,

Julie.

AKA Majuma (allegedly the Muslim version of my name?)

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