Don't be shy, let's cause a scene

I’ll take my twist with a shout A coffee shop with a cause Man, I’ll freak you out No sex, no drugs, no life, no love When it comes to today Mwaka elfu mbili na sita. What a year. This week a year ago I spent part of an afternoon jumping into the half-frozen ocean near my parents’ home in a perfect display of old-fashioned Maine brilliance. A few days later I returned to my studies at Stanford, right in the middle of Silicon Valley, which is unarguably one of the most technologically advanced and richest regions of the world. Flash forward one year and I’m living in one of the poorest, (on paper anyway), districts of one of the poorest countries in the poorest continent in the world. It also happens to be one of the hottest areas in the country, less than a handful of degrees south of the equator. Funny the difference one year can make, huh? Life’s not all different though. I did spend an afternoon this week in the ocean. Sure it wasn’t the Atlantic and the water was warmer than your average bath, but hey, life’s all about drawing small continuities. 2006 was a pretty pivotal year for me. Finished college. Made the (some would say professionally foolish) decision to walk away from sensible engineering job offers and instead join the Peace Corps. Learned Swahili. Made it through the drudgery of Peace Corps training. I’ve also managed to live completely on my own in Africa for exactly one month now without death or serious injury, (I love small victories). While 2006 is gonna be hard to top, I have some high expectations for 2007. Mainly, it’s time to start actually applying all this knowledge I’ve supposedly been learning all these years. I start teaching computers full time in one week. I’m starting with some 140 future Tanzanian teachers, divided into twelve 80-minute classes a week. After regular school hours I’ll also be training school staff and community members in more advanced topics. I’ll be teaching mostly in Swahili. I’ve got a slew of secondary projects I’m hoping to start tackling as well, but I’ll describe them another time… I think at this point I’ve massaged my ego more than enough for one post. New Year’s Eve itself is not actually celebrated on the island. The people here just don’t seem to care much about it. When midnight rolled around I was alone in my house reading. I’d set my watch alarm for 11:59, so I took a break from my book to shout out my own little countdown. It was pretty exciting, I gotta say. Doubt the neighbors appreciated it. The holidays were definitely not as lonely as I’d expected them to be though. Many, many thanks to everyone who gave me a call in the last couple weeks. It really was great hearing from friends and family. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the rest of the world is still out there. You all definitely made this first holiday season alone in Africa a lot easier. I wasn’t completely alone out here though. My Peace Corps island buddy Mike took the 3 hour trek north to my home for Christmas, and we also went to a really great beach with some local friends a few days ago. There are certainly worse ways to welcome in the New Year. To get to the beach we traveled through a protected section of primeval jungle. There’s one road and one marked hiking trail in the entire forest. Josh Trail. Love it. So while New Year’s Eve is not a big deal on the island, the moon cycles conspired in such a way this year as to land the four-day festival of Eid-el-Hajj, one of the biggest holidays in Islam, conveniently around New Year’s. For a place where alcohol is more or less illegal, all women wear conservative headscarves, and most folk pray five times a day, the people here know how to throw down surprisingly well. And they know how to do it for four days and nights straight. Before breakfast on the four days of celebration, many families sacrifice a goat at exactly 7:30. The simultaneous final bleets of hundreds of goats across the countryside is more than a little unsettling. After breakfast everyone dresses up and spends the morning visiting friends and family. A number of local friends and school staff were nice enough to invite me to some of their family affairs. Every morning of the festival, all men dress in traditional Kanzu robe. One must be culturally appropriate… In the afternoon and evening, the streets are annexed by the local child population. Children roam in small hoards, attempting to extract gifts from adults, usually candy or a small amount of money. It’s more or less four afternoons straight of Halloween, just without the costumes, (although the children are all dressed up very nicely). Instead of “trick or treat” the kids say “siku kuu yangu,” which means “my special day.” I learned damn fast that it was downright unsafe to leave my home in the afternoon without pockets stuffed full of candy. When the sun went down, everyone in my area flocked to a large field that had been transformed into a carnival of sorts. It contained a number of food and toy stands, a picture taking booth, a closed off dance area, and many very jovial Zanzibarians. Picture the scene of an outdoor rock festival, and then just erase the drugs and alcohol, live music, and scantily clad women, (so basically, nothing like an outdoor rock festival I suppose). At the peak of each night I’d say the place packed in about two thousand people. Two thousand or so Africans, and one very white American. Oddly enough, although I’m sure I looked ridiculous, at no point did I feel out of place, (well… except for when I ventured into the dance zone, but I’ll get to that in a minute). Everyone was more than friendly to me, and I honestly had a very good time. Sure I had no idea what half the things people said to me meant, but I don’t think they knew that. Good ol’ smile and nod… it works every time. The only real casualty of the festival was a small portion my dignity, (most of which I left behind in college anyway, so what’s one more small piece really?). On one of the festival nights I made the less than wise decision to check out the dance area. When I first entered, things were pretty much what I expected. The dance “floor,” (which was made of sand), was packed with a few hundred, mostly male, children and young adults all dancing very energetically. The place had a fairly decent sound system, which blasted almost exclusively East African hip-hop and Shakira… Tanzanians have an undying love for Shakira. I entered and, (at least I first thought), inconspicuously found myself a nice dark corner to quietly watch the chaos. Actually… I’m sorry, I was being a bit overly modest there. Truth be told, I didn’t just watch. I busted out a totally sweet dance move I’ve spent many years perfecting: the slouching-white-guy-with-hands-in-pockets understated head nod. Dig it. Well, it seems that my sizzlin’ moves made it impossible for me to maintain anonymity for long. After a little while of rocking out I managed to acquire an audience of a few dozen children. After a little while longer, a bunch of teenagers filled in behind the kids. Eventually, an enormous crowd surrounded me. They’d all stopped dancing and were just staring. The crowd made some room and motioned for me to come in and dance. I replied with the universal “naw, I’m cool” hand wave. At this point, some teenagers in the crowd recognized me and started shouting “Huyu ni Joshua. Anatoka Kalifornia!” – “This is Joshua. He’s from California!” Bad news for Joshua. In the mind of the Tanzanian, California is the definition of cool, a land of movie stars and hip-hop gods. (Because no one has a clue what and where Maine is, I tell most people here I’m from California, which is partially true as I did go to college there). More and more of the crowd motioned for me to come forward and dance. They’d had only a taste of my killer moves, and oh they wanted more. I continued to play it cool, and the crowd grew and grew, shouting “Joshua!” the whole time. Eventually some local friends emerged and explained to me in broken English that everyone wanted to see some real California dance moves, (many of the teenagers here watch bootlegged discs of U.S. music videos obsessively, practicing the dances they see with their friends). This situation was not going to end anywhere good. If it’s not apparent from my rife boasting, I am a terrible dancer. I muttered an excuse in nervous, mangled Swahili that I didn’t know East African music well enough. Bad call. Some of the boys ran up to the DJ, and after a few seconds some American music came on: (of course) Shakira’s “Hips don’t lie.” I’d have preferred the African stuff. My excuses had run out though, my time had come. By now more than half of the people at the dance had gathered ‘round, large portions of the crowd shouting some variation or another of “Joshua.” Well God damn, if a couple hundred Africans wanted to see some American dancing, who was I to deny them? A stiff drink would have been real nice at this point… but oh wait, cross that option off. Eventually I just sucked it up, muttered to myself “this is for all the mzungus out there,” and stepped forward. I went total gangsta. Heaven help any poor fool that got in my way. Part of me would like to think that my "performance" was half-salvageable. I’m not THAT self-delusional, however, so I’ll admit that, more likely than not, the spectacle was utterly awful. Call me Napoleon Dynamite. When the song finished though, the crowd seemed satisfied enough, (although who honestly knows what they thought of my little train wreck). After I stepped back a bunch of people came over and tried to dance with me. At first it was just guys. Awkward. Then some of the teenage girls came over. I took this as my cue to exfiltrate. In the days following my little display I’ve had a whole lot of people approach me on the street and bring up the night. My Swahili isn’t good enough to pick up on all of the nuances of what they’re saying, so for all I know they’re mocking me to my face. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt though. Zanzibarians are incredibly friendly after all. I think my ego, although maybe not my dignity, has remained intact. Speaking of ego, Peace Corps service is truly unhealthy for keeping one modest. Simply by virtue of me being an American who speaks some Swahili, literally everyone wants to know me. The island gets a few tourists, but not a lot. Certainly not many who speak Swahili. I’ve been here for only a month and all ready if I’m within a kilometer of my home, children start pouring out of the woodwork shouting some variation of “Joshua!” Most of the time they get it right, although there are significant contingents who seem to think my name is “Joshwon” or “Just one.” Compared to the “mzungu!” shouts that children give most foreigners, (myself included for my first week or so here), “Just one” is just fine. By the time I get to my home I’ve often accumulated a small army of local children walking and chatting with me. When walking downtown, I’m often hailed by townsfolk with dozens of shouts of “mwalimu,” which means teacher. Every day handfuls of adults and teenagers approach to me to practice English, and at least once every few days I get a marriage proposal of some sort or another. I’ve been here for a month. Sure, it’s nice to feel like a rock star every day, but it’s seriously undeserved. I’m not that cool. It’s also too bad it’s simply because I’m an American and not for the fact that I’m actually doing some good work in the community. Ah well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Eventually I’ll be back to comparative anonymity in the States. The other shoe always drops. So, best wishes to those of you who actually made it all the way through this particularly long post, (what can I say? It’s been an eventful couple of weeks). I wish everyone a very happy start to the new year. And, again, thanks so much for those of you back home who have called and sent emails. You really have made my holiday season a whole lot nicer. Kwa heri 2006. Karibu 2007!