The Project

A lot of us who are usually nocturnal animals have learned that it's quite difficult to stay in bed when you know that a beautiful Tanzanian morning awaits you outside.  So, many of us rolled out early and spread ourselves throughout the dining area to focus on our journals.  Every student writes an individual journal as one element of the Reflection (the "R" in DIRT) part of our undertaking.  We had a pensive and quiet morning as many of us caught up on our entries.  A few others were working on video or photos, as there is always work to be done on a DIRT trip. Kenja produced coffee and tea water, warm milk, porridge, fruit, and omelets as we wrote.  Eventually Simon arrived and we headed to the Mweka school to get started on our main project.

As most readers know, one primary purpose of the DIRT program is to Immerse (the "I" in DIRT) ourselves in communities to try to learn more about our hosts, our world, and ourselves.  Usually we learn that communities have aspirations and needs that our available resources (including our labor) can help to meet.  In Mweka, one of the next stated needs is for a kitchen at the primary school.  They have priced out what they want, done designs, and appealed to the ministry of education for permission to proceed.  Simon has offered us as one available resource to help pursue this project.

As with most community projects, things begin with a whole lot of sitting and around and talking, in this case translating between Swahili and English and trading ideas about the best way to support a roof, etc.  Things get even more complicated because the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Tanzanian shilling (tish) is 1 to 2200, making a not-so-large project easily run into the millions when converting to tish.  Shawny and Jesse were gathered around a table with community leaders, furiously typing into their iPhones to see what the costs of the project were going to be, all while keeping track of the conversation unfolding in both English and Swahili.  Once they got over some of their decimal point problems, we realized we can pretty easily complete one whole phase of the project and possibly more.

All the while, the students were interacting with the school kids, who were totally fascinated by this group of strangers suddenly in their midst.  They love giving high fives and posing for photographs, and we love getting high fives and taking pictures, so things went well.  At certain points, either we or the young Tanzanian students would sing to each other to help make connections in different ways.

We finally got the go-ahead to start filling the already-dug foundation with some available stone, so we organized a quick bucket line and got the pile moving.  We have a foreman named Barnabas who will be our boss and we have two master craftsmen (haven't gotten those names down yet) who will help to instruct us on how to do things correctly.  If everything goes perfectly (no reason to expect that it will), we could finish phase one by the end of the week.  We'll see.

We're only working until (late) lunch today due to Barnabas' schedule, but there is work to be done at camp once we finish our lunch break.  We'll check in later to let you know how we spent the afternoon . . .

_____

Well, it took Barnabas quite awhile to get to the worksite, so we moved some rocks, hung around for awhile, and then started engaging with the kids as much as we could without interrupting their classes.  Because of the language barrier, we had to use lots of hand games and gestures to make our connections, along with handing over our hats and gloves, which looked spectacular with their school uniforms.  (We didn't let them go into the classrooms with them, violating the dress code.)

Once Barnabas came, we only expected to have about an hour and a half before we had to leave for lunch.  But after the hour and a half passed, there was still work to be done, so lunch got pushed later and later and later.  We were filling the foundation with rocks, mixing concrete, and breaking up some big rocks to fill in some gaps.  It was true hard labor.

Even though we have a "jobs have no gender" policy -- which means that we all do all of the jobs that we are capable of doing and not following gender stereotypes about what males should do or females should do -- the Tanzanians do not seem to ascribe to this perspective.  They routinely turned to the males in our group with every job and even took things out of the women's hands, saying that things were too heavy or too hard for the females to do.  Our guys stood up for our women very properly and our women kept just proving the Tanzanians' expectations wrong.  We'll keep negotiating these difficult differences and we hope that one of the transformations (the "T" in DIRT) that we experience is a change in our hosts' expectations about our capabilities.

When we finally got home for lunch (at about 3:20pm), we were FAMISHED.  But Kenja was ready with broccoli soup (we have soup almost every day for lunch, always great), rice, lentils, pork, and fruit.  After lunch we were too tired to do more work so we took the opportunity to reposition our tents to save the grass underneath them.  We are partially hoping to help the grass stay green and healthy but we are also aware that termites are drawn to the yellow/brown grass over green grass, so we want to keep the area around us as green as we can.  We can move our main bags out and pick up our tents and move them around even with our air mattresses and sleeping bags still in them.

Once our tents were moved, several of us decided to take Simon up on an offer to hike not too far from camp to swim and bathe in a nearby river.  It turned out to be about a mile away and we arrived to find a big group of blue monkeys there already.  They vacated and left it to us, meaning that we could swim and frolic in some little waterfalls (and, of course, bathe -- in our swimsuits).  We stayed for a bit even though the water was chilly, as we were glad to no longer be sticky and hot and covered in dust.

When we returned to the camp, Simon and his two sons were there playing soccer with the rest of our group, who showered either in the camp showers that we brought with us or in the new shower house that is still under construction. Our dinner of vegetable soup, macaroni (with or without cheese), and fruit was just right after our super late lunch.

We gathered for our evening meeting and discussed any regrets that we have so far.  People made a lot of jokes about things that they don't really regret, though we had one shared regret: not learning more Swahili before we came.  As we discussed our current perspectives (while telling stories that demonstrate our lines of thinking), we realized that we are pretty content with where we are, what we are doing, and how we are doing it.  We'll keep questioning and reflecting, but we'll also keep up with the basics of what we are doing.

One of our team members was recognized for what SHE is doing by getting inducted into the Order of the Purple Bike.  (See yesterday's entry if this makes no sense to you.)  Lindsay stood out today because she was a great example of overcoming the stereotypes that were being placed upon her by others.  When the male villagers with whom we were working told her that they were not accustomed to working with females on these kinds of jobs, Lindsay was bothered but didn't challenge or correct them.  She just kept working, kept doing a bit more than her share, and kept impressing the locals with her strength and skill.  We were all aware that the little girls at the school were particularly fascinated by the females on our team and we think Lindsay gave them a lot to aspire to.  Even apart from her status as a gender role model today, Lindsay is a wonderful component of our experience here, as she is full of fun and laughter and she is a warm and friendly ambassador as she reaches out to the locals in the community.  Yay, Lindsay!

 A bug we found on Scott’s shirt during dinner. Nate thinks it’s called a rhino bug.

 The local school kids representing Nor Cal and So Cal.
 

Olivia’s feet after a long day of dirty work.

 Hammer time!

Enjoying the beautiful Tanzanian scenery after bathing in a nearby river.  

 Scott getting ready to go to the local school and start our work project.

 Lindsay and Aidan playing hand games with the students.

 Student momentarily keeping his distance from the DIRTies, due to shyness.

 Ali and Francesca meeting before they play hand games.

Francesca and her friend posing for the camera that they were interested in.

 Josh was climbing a tree to get the perfect shot for a time-lapse video of the building going up

 The children were peeking into the kitchen wondering if lunch was ready for them.

 The kids really enjoy watching us work.  They stand near the worksite and scatter back to class when the head master emerges.

 The boys like to pretend to fight Scott and constantly laugh at the funny faces we make while carrying heavy stuff.

Abi is one of the girls who frequently hangs out with us at the work site.  She loves wearing our hats and bracelets.