My kids

Pictured here are my new students at Tumaini Center - all orphans - displaying their collages, our Lesson #1 - meant to serve as an identity and empowerment exercise. I asked them to select and paste pictures to exhibit who they are now and/or to reveal who they want to be (goal-setting is one of the most paramount life skills!)

*Godfrey - wants to be a Mechanic*

*Leyeyo - wants to be a Welder*

*Alex - wants to be a Welder*

*Neema (my only girl - a rockstar, this one) - wants to be a Secretary or Businesswoman*

*Ally - wants to be a Mechanic*


*Iddy - wants to be a Mechanic or own a Garage for Auto Mechanics*

*Ibra - wants to be a Welder*


*Azizi - wants to be a Mechanic*



*Samantha, our NGO's Assistant Director, visiting from Chicago, joining us for our monthly Talent Show. She oh so gracefully walked on her hands while I juggled. Talent, pure talent...:)*


*Soitoti, Samantha and me at the Talent Show. Soitoti is one of my best students, a Maasai, and is set on teaching me Kimaasai. We had our first lesson last week - Metti Inyoo Torono Tukul means "There are no worries, no problems"*

I hate to be so downtrodden and depressing in my blog entries of late, but we had yet another student pass away last week – this time, a suicide. Merely eighteen years old, she was known as Anita. Her friends tell me she was living with her grandmother and grandfather, who beat her incessantly. She decided to take her own life with poison.

With these three recent student deaths, particularly the last one being a suicide, I have felt so helpless, confounded with the question: How does one instill hope in another? As a result, I texted several of my fellow PCV’s the same question to collect their thoughts as they certainly face similar struggles. Here were some of the responses I received (and I welcome your contributions):

•“It helps to identify something they are proud of, passionate about to live for”
•“By always having hope oneself and by loving unconditionally, especially children”
•“Guess all you can do is believe in them strongly and hope that will be contagious”
•“Oh man, to instill hope in another! It’s hard enough to instill hope for ourselves!”
•“Seems like the answer should be, ‘show them there’s something worth living for’ but that’s so obtuse, impractical…”
Word. Thanks friends.

This sentiment of helplessness was only exacerbated yesterday, Sunday afternoon, when following a really uplifting service at Vineyard Church, I wandered to the downtown post office to check for mail. On my way, I uncovered what seems to be the hangout for Arusha street kids (at long last – had been searching for it actually). Emerging from a staircase leading into sleeping quarters of some kind, a group of these ruffians encircled me seemingly high and messed up, sniffing the infamous glue that keeps them platonic, free of worry and pain (*I highly recommend the French produced documentary Darwin’s Nightmare, filmed in Tanzania, which touches on glue-sniffing and its production near Lake Victoria. Note: this film has been banned in TZ due to its apparent bias - you should see it to decide yourself*). They were partially hiding these plastic bottles in their shirts, but would bend their heads down intermittently for a sniff. Shocked but curious, I wanted to explore, know more, but just wobbled down the street, stiff and saddened by the scene. I didn’t want to believe what I had viewed in the documentary was really true and there it was, in my face. These same kids I will now see every time I go to the Posta - kids I wish I knew and could helpbut can I? Should I?

I was rocked. Utter helplessness rushed over me as I jumped on the daladala back to Njiro, my neighborhood consisting mostly of wealthy Indians, Africans and Europeans, most of whom are working for the United Nations, living in mansions, employing handfuls of Tanzanians for mere landscaping and spending money kama maji (like water). I felt like an absolute shmuck, in every sense of the word. The dichotomy of my two contradictory roles living here as an American Peace Corps volunteer slapped me upside the head again. I feel like I’m constantly struggling to balance my two selves – 1. as a mzungu, a foreigner or mtajiri, rich person and 2. as an ‘integrated’ (at least, I hope so) volunteer, living and working with Tanzanians, striving to be on their level. Although this was a struggle in the village, it’s more poignant here in Arusha where the difference between the classes, between rich and poor is so evident.

Welcome to my life. I like to call it the Teeter Totter. I guess it’s fitting for someone nicknamed Tater Tot, eh? And so, I continue to teeter here between highs and lows, between being the well-off one and the pseudo-Tanzanian, which is exhausting, yes, but a lot can be learned from this tension, both internal and external. I am a Gemini, so I guess this balancing act should come naturally, somehow.

Below, that other self - being silly with Peace Corps friends on a weekend (from left, Megan, me, Jen and Pami). Megan and Pami were "baptising" Jen and me to the Northern region of TZ with mitumba trucker hats as we both recently began our extensions up here, transferring from the South.