As I sit here typing this post from a hotel in Zanzibar, I feel as if I have already left Tanzania. The last two weeks have gone so fast. Getting everything finished for the project has taken up most of my waking hours this week and going to bed last night I felt a burden was lifted and I could rest easily. This morning we traveled to Dar by dalla-dalla (mini bus) and then hopped on a ferry across the short stretch of Indian Ocean separating Tanzania from Zanzibar. I haven’t really even left the country, but where I am now is so different from where I’ve come from.
When I first set foot in Tanzania 10 weeks ago, I was overwhelmed by it. The heat just pounded on me, the noises of cars honking, and the hustle and bustle of Dar made me question whether I was really supposed to be in Tanzania or if I should have gotten on a plane back to the US. Though I was hesitant at the start, I am so happy I decided to come here. Spending the time to get to know Bagamoyo was more than I could have hoped for. I feel that I really understand it. I know how life works here. I think the research I’ve been doing has helped immensely in this process. Sitting and listening to mothers talk about their lives, communities, and children has opened my eyes. Life here is hard. Mothers have to work on farms, take care of their kids, walk hours to fetch water, and be everything to their family. When health issues crop up, there is no one there to help and it is almost impossible for them to take the time to travel to the doctor. This past week, I went along with a friend of mine who is a Swiss doctor into the Hospital in Bagamoyo and got to see firsthand how this really affects people. I saw this mother, likely in her 40s, who had walked several miles to the hospital because of an abscess on her foot. This wasn’t just a small abscess, this wound had eaten away the entire top of her foot exposing all of the bones. And she walked miles to the hospital on that foot.
I also really got into the routine of life in Bagamoyo. I knew which dukas (shops kind of like a ticket window) had which things. I could tell you the best place to go to get lunch or show you where and when everyone goes to play soccer. I could tell you what my favorite Tanzanian drinks are and take you to the best beach. I had a place here. I would occasionally see a group of tourists walking by and think that I am different from them. I was in Bagamoyo for a purpose. Locals respected me because of what I was doing. I wasn’t just someone there for the beach view and historic ruins, I was there because I wanted to learn about life there.
Zanzibar has been so different from that motive and goal. I feel like a tourist. Looking around it sometimes seems like there are more wazungu (white people) than Africans. Everyone is a tourist here and that’s how the locals think of them. Suddenly I no longer have a place here. I’m back in my stereotype – a rich American. At dinner tonight, our waiter told us that he was very lucky tonight because he had 3 tables of people (including us) who tried to speak with him in Swahili. The majority of the wazungu do not care enough or take enough time to truly appreciate and respect the culture. I feel like I have lost all the progress I made in Bagamoyo. I’m back to being an American Tourist.
More than anything, I think my frustration comes from the feeling that I don’t fit in with the average American. I think I have really been changed by my time here this summer. I have different goals than the majority of the people I’m running into here. I’m not here to spend huge amounts of money, I’m here to enjoy and experience life in Zanzibar, just as I did in Bagamoyo, even though I don’t have much time here. Instead, I am finding that I have landed in a different world, one much too far from the simple life in Bagamoyo that I have come to know and love. All I really feel now is that I don’t belong here; I belong in Bagamoyo doing the things I’ve been doing for the past 10 weeks: talking to mothers, listening to the community, and seeking to understand how life can be improved for them. I’m enjoying my time on Zanzibar, but I’m also not ready to leave the place that has become home for me here. All things must come to an end, and that end has come and gone. I’m sure it will be difficult to board that plane on Wednesday, but this time on Zanzibar is proving to be a good step towards reintegration into American culture. When I set foot back in the US I know the easiest thing for me to do will be to completely reintegrate and forget the time I have spent here, but that is the one thing that I must avoid. This work in Bagamoyo is what I belong doing. What I need to focus on, is how to get back here to continue it.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
50 km Out of Town
Sorry for the delay in updating. I think what has ended up happening is that instead of both Marlene and I updating frequently, we have started to take turns writing updates. For those of you who don’t know, Marlene’s blog can be found at http://katika-imani.blogspot.com.
This past week, we went farther for our focus group than anyone in the Stanford group here has gone from Bagamoyo. Fifty kilometers straight inland. We passed by Soko Jipya, Kimara Ngombe, Mtoni, and then drove onwards. We drove past Fukayosi, the farthest village in the Stanford Group study, and then finally arrived in Kiwangwa. To our surprise, the first thing we saw was a bustling street filled with dukas (small window shops), several bars, and a bunch of piki pikis (motorcycles) lined up. It looked like it could have been some of the more secluded areas of Bagamoyo town. Certainly not like the village I had pictured though there were telltale signs that life was definitely different here. On our drive into town, we saw people towing carts full of water jugs back into the village from somewhere else. It was unclear how far they actually had to travel for their water, but apparently it was far enough that they wanted to bring lots of containers on each trip. In our focus group we learned that there were no clean sources of water in the village. Most people drank from either surface water or very shallow wells. On top of that, no one treats their water. Boiling is too much effort when they are out farming pineapples all day and other forms of water treatment are too expensive. There were even some who believed that if you weren’t used to boiled water, then drinking it could give you diarrhea!
Many of the other comments we received were similar to those we heard in other communities, but this group was much more willing to explain the ideas thoroughly. Looking through the translation of the group we have really started to be able to understand some of the insights and it has started to make me think about the overarching goal of this study and the Stanford group study. What I continue to notice is that it is not that these women don’t know they should treat their water or cover their latrine. They simply don’t have the means necessary to do it. Oftentimes we think that those in poverty just don’t know as much as those of us in the “first world.” We think of them with an attitude that focuses on what we, the educated, can teach the poor people. It isn’t that simple. Yes, there are knowledge and practices that they could learn, but we are not on a completely different level from them. We are more similar than we would like to let on sometimes. I constantly find myself thinking that I would do exactly what these women are doing if I were in their situation. If I had 7 children I wouldn’t use all the fuel necessary to boil water for all of them. If I had to choose between buying food for my family and buying a latrine cover or soap, then I’m going to take the food. When the only water source I have access to is half a day’s walk from my house, washing my hands seems like a waste of water. Is each of the 10 members of my family really supposed to wash their hands every time they use the latrine? Practices like use of communal water for hand-washing make sense. There is limited water so why not use as little as possible for hand washing?
I’m also not convinced that hand washing itself is the answer. It doesn’t necessarily clean your hands completely of germs. Even if it did, the environment here isn’t going to let those hands stay germ free for long. In the US, people don’t interact with their environment very often. We have counters to set food on, stoves to cook on, bed frames to sleep on, and in house piped water to drink. In Kiwangwa, every one of these things is on the dirt floor. You can’t touch the pot without touching the dirt around it. You can’t get water that’s clean. Everything is dirty and hand washing isn’t going to fix that fact. These people in Kiwangwa don’t need someone coming in telling them they need to wash their hands; they need someone coming in to drill a bore well.
This past week, we went farther for our focus group than anyone in the Stanford group here has gone from Bagamoyo. Fifty kilometers straight inland. We passed by Soko Jipya, Kimara Ngombe, Mtoni, and then drove onwards. We drove past Fukayosi, the farthest village in the Stanford Group study, and then finally arrived in Kiwangwa. To our surprise, the first thing we saw was a bustling street filled with dukas (small window shops), several bars, and a bunch of piki pikis (motorcycles) lined up. It looked like it could have been some of the more secluded areas of Bagamoyo town. Certainly not like the village I had pictured though there were telltale signs that life was definitely different here. On our drive into town, we saw people towing carts full of water jugs back into the village from somewhere else. It was unclear how far they actually had to travel for their water, but apparently it was far enough that they wanted to bring lots of containers on each trip. In our focus group we learned that there were no clean sources of water in the village. Most people drank from either surface water or very shallow wells. On top of that, no one treats their water. Boiling is too much effort when they are out farming pineapples all day and other forms of water treatment are too expensive. There were even some who believed that if you weren’t used to boiled water, then drinking it could give you diarrhea!
Many of the other comments we received were similar to those we heard in other communities, but this group was much more willing to explain the ideas thoroughly. Looking through the translation of the group we have really started to be able to understand some of the insights and it has started to make me think about the overarching goal of this study and the Stanford group study. What I continue to notice is that it is not that these women don’t know they should treat their water or cover their latrine. They simply don’t have the means necessary to do it. Oftentimes we think that those in poverty just don’t know as much as those of us in the “first world.” We think of them with an attitude that focuses on what we, the educated, can teach the poor people. It isn’t that simple. Yes, there are knowledge and practices that they could learn, but we are not on a completely different level from them. We are more similar than we would like to let on sometimes. I constantly find myself thinking that I would do exactly what these women are doing if I were in their situation. If I had 7 children I wouldn’t use all the fuel necessary to boil water for all of them. If I had to choose between buying food for my family and buying a latrine cover or soap, then I’m going to take the food. When the only water source I have access to is half a day’s walk from my house, washing my hands seems like a waste of water. Is each of the 10 members of my family really supposed to wash their hands every time they use the latrine? Practices like use of communal water for hand-washing make sense. There is limited water so why not use as little as possible for hand washing?
I’m also not convinced that hand washing itself is the answer. It doesn’t necessarily clean your hands completely of germs. Even if it did, the environment here isn’t going to let those hands stay germ free for long. In the US, people don’t interact with their environment very often. We have counters to set food on, stoves to cook on, bed frames to sleep on, and in house piped water to drink. In Kiwangwa, every one of these things is on the dirt floor. You can’t touch the pot without touching the dirt around it. You can’t get water that’s clean. Everything is dirty and hand washing isn’t going to fix that fact. These people in Kiwangwa don’t need someone coming in telling them they need to wash their hands; they need someone coming in to drill a bore well.
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