Many, Many Wonders

Dearest friends, family, and followers,

This will be my last communication from Tanzania. Four months have passed with alarming speed, and I will be departing this beautiful country on Wednesday, set to arrive back in the ole’ US of A on Thursday morning. I will put massive deserts, and ocean, and various nations in states of varying political turmoil between me and the family I have come to call my own, and return to the family that eagerly awaits me.

The Tanzanian Education Project has accomplished much in these past four months. We have established a reliable water-catch system to ensure the availability of water at Fanaka Memorial Secondary School, we have assessed our past projects at ELA, Olof and Fanaka, ensured the continuation of the Stationary Shop, and begun the “Raising a Future” chicken coop project. We have also put plans into place which will help us to establish more self-sustainable projects in the future, such as a garden at Fanaka. It has been another incredible journey.

I can’t honestly say that I’m not ready to go home. I have a lot of business, personal and career-related that I put on hold even a year ago, at which I can now fully set myself to task. I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. My body hasn’t been working properly in months, but I can’t seem to identify the problems here. I’ve been subject to massive mood swings, a wide range of intestinal troubles, and I’m convinced my hair is falling out. I am a radical feminist living in a patriarchal society, where even my best friends think its funny when I relate how flooded with terror I am when strange men take the liberty of touching me, simply because I am a female mzungu, because those friends are male, and don’t understand how invasive a touch or a comment can be. There is something to be said for learning to adapt, for stepping out of your comfort zone, but to deny ourselves the occasional comfort of like-minded contemporaries can be wearying after a time.

Contrarily, I can’t say that I’m entirely ready to leave. Life is much more tenuous here. Though I intend on returning for a visit in a year, there’s no guarantee that even to most robust and healthy of my friends will be around at that time. Anything could happen, and the availability and access to healthcare (especially in an emergency), makes health issues all the more dangerous. Also, though I’ve done a lot of work, personally and for the Tanzanian Education Project, it never feels like enough. I know that it is part of my nature to never be completely satisfied with my work, and being in Tanzanian is no different. I’ll always wish I had spent more time with one student or another, asked another question, given another gift, pushed a little harder one way or eased off in another. Because I will never be able to thrive and live in this place and culture as a native, there will always be an element of regret, a lingering aftertaste of remorse. My Babu is getting old, and I want to spend as much time as is humanly possible for him. He has been one of my greatest teachers, my most faithful guardians and funniest companions. He is a model of generosity and wisdom, hospitality and warmth. I adore him, and it is with no little sorrow that I will leave his home in just two days.

I would again like to thank all of the generous donors and friends of the Tanzanian Education Project, who have made it possible for me to travel to Tanzania in the first place, and who have donated their time and money to our projects. We are doing good together, and we are doing it well (English majors, you’re welcome for that sentence). Let’s continue to support these wonderful people, generous families and eager students in the future. Thank you for following me again as I detail the absurdities and commonalities of living in Tanzania, its drawbacks and its many, many wonders.

I have often thought of Shakespeare’s Miranda, heroine of The Tempest, during my time here. Often I have murmured to myself, “O brave new world, that has such people in’t!” when surprised by another poverty-stricken but still generous family, by an eager child hungry for education despite being orphaned and destitute. There is such a wide world of color, music, voices, noise, chaos, calm, sweetness, bitterness, anger, elation, joy and sorrow out there, and I have but seen a small corner of it; a single pebble at the foot of a great mountain. The more I travel and experience these different people and places, the more I realize how entirely clueless I am, and yet how lucky I am to have had the chance to try understand these small moments and fascinating places.

So, back to The Tempest, I leave you with the words of Prospero, at the close of my time here in Tanzania for his parting words as he leaves his island for Naples ring true even for an impetuous, well-meaning yet disillusioned twenty-something woman prone to flowery prose and no flair for subtle sarcasm. With the Bard’s much better chosen words, I release myself as your narrator, and set sail for star-spangled shores...

Now my charms are all o’erthrown
And what strength I have’s mine own
Which is most faint...
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Much fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieve’d by prayer
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.