You pass through places
And places pass through you
But you carry them with you
On the soles of your traveling shoes
Life for the past few weeks has been a whirlwind. I realize my posts have been a bit scarce as of late, and do I appreciate all the emails asking if I’m alive. Yes, I’m still here, although one day a few weeks ago there were a couple of close calls. Since my last entry the rainy season picked up tremendously. We’re talking torrential downpours for most of the day, every day. On one particularly wet day I realized that my cash supply was dangerously low. Normally I would have simply waited a few days for a drier day, but unfortunately this was a couple of days before I was scheduled to leave the island for a Peace Corps conference on the mainland. I had a giant list of things to get done before leaving, (including my school’s graduation!), and I needed money to do them. Rain or no rain, it was off to my banking town for me!
My banking town is about an hour’s dala dala ride away on some fairly hilly roads. The trip south was relatively uneventful until we reached a low valley where the road was flooded for about 10 meters across. Not such a big deal. We all just got off our dala, waded across, and caught another dala that was waiting on the other side. I made it to my bank, got my money, and ate some tasty lunch. Life was good. Unfortunately, the rain didn’t seem to be lightening up at all. A few of the folk in town suggested I spend the night there and wait for the next day to travel, as word from the valley was that the flooding was rapidly getting worse. Any other day I would have heeded their advice and stayed. Unfortunately the next morning was my school’s graduation. I had no choice but to brave the flood.
By the time I returned to the valley it had entirely transformed. What was once a small overflow had changed into a full-blown flood. The road was completely devoured, and the water was now half a mile across. Crowds of Tanzanians had gathered on either side to watch in glee as handfuls of brave/stupid souls made attempts to cross. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which category I fall into. The locals got some entertainment out of it though. I had about 50 people cheering and clapping as I entered the abyss. Life as an mzungu.
I think my friend Jordan put it best after I emailed him the above picture: “Wow, it's just like the river in Willie Wonka.” And how. Indeed, as I forged across I tried to ignore the chunks of sludge that occasionally slicked across my legs. In some places the water made it all the way up to my stomach. The current itself wasn’t too bad, although I was informed after my crossing that a bit earlier an elderly woman had been swept away. Big pole.
Once reaching the other side I still had a bit of a trek. All dalas had given up on the route and had long since gone elsewhere for passengers. After I reached the shore I had to hike an hour and a half to a main road so that I could catch a ride home. It was pouring rain, I was wearing flimsy flip flops, and my legs were covered in mystery filth. Yup, it was awesome.
To make a fantastic day better, upon arriving in town I was electrocuted. I was pretty thirsty from my adventure, so after arriving home I immediately went to a local shop to grab a drink. After touching my hand to the fridge handle I felt a powerful jolt and my arm was thrown violently behind my shoulder. Apparently this was funny? At least the shop owners thought so. I told one of them to touch the handle and he had a similar experience to mine. After that he stopped laughing. The heavy rains had knocked a power line onto the roof of the shop and the current was grounding through the fridge, (and my body for a few seconds there). My family seems to have bad luck with the electricity shetani on this island.
I spent the following day at the graduation ceremonies for my school.
Here are the students from my accelerated computer class. They were a great class and I’ll really miss teaching them.
The day after graduation, a counterpart from my school and I flew off to Dar and took an 8 hour bus ride to Iringa for my Peace Corps class’s in-service training conference. It was not a small or comfortable journey. Round trip I endured 4 plane flights and two 8-hour bus rides. I was not enthused.
Iringa itself was cool though. And by cool, I mean cold. And by cold I mean high 60’s. What would have been a nice early summer evening in Maine had me shivering even in long johns and a big, thick hoodie. I’m broken. It’s pathetic, really.
It was great seeing the other volunteers again. Reconnecting with old friends from training was really nice. A few have left the country for various reasons, (we’re 34 out of 41 now), but spirits were high for most of the volunteers still in country.
It’s amazing how different everyone’s experiences have been. Hearing others’ accounts made me realize just how drastically different my island is from everywhere else in the country. I live in a strange, strange, very isolated place. But hey, at least I get Popo Bawa tales out of the whole deal. Those never seem to cease to be crowd pleasers.
Everyone had ridiculous stories to share, but the one that struck me as the craziest was an account from one of the Southern Highland PCVs about a machete war in his region. The PCV woke to people shouting near his house. After looking out the window he noticed that a large group of men with machetes had gathered and were now marching off somewhere. A few hours later a number of the men returned, machetes covered in blood. The next day the PCV learned that a tribe of herders had recently arrived, and their animals had been devastating some of the local farms. The herders refused to leave, and the farmers didn’t want their crops destroyed. Solution? Machete war. I can’t even imagine how brutal that fight must have been. Machetes here tend to be big, rusty, and not particularly sharp. Bad, bad times. (For the record, the farmers won.)
The conference itself had its ups and downs, the highlight being a session on advanced farming techniques. Some of the information from this session could make a serious difference for the folk on my island, as farming here is extremely difficult due to the sandy soil. My counterpart and I are currently planning a few workshops for the coming months. This time last year I was graduating with a computer science degree from Stanford. Now I’m teaching farming strategies on an African voodoo island and getting paid nothing to do so. Some would argue I don’t make the best life choices.
The conference ended early on its last day, giving us some time to explore the area a bit during the afternoon. A group of us headed about 20k south to Isimila, (for the record we were still in the Iringa region though, for those Peace Corps staffers reading this!).
Isimila is one of the oldest Stone Age sites in the world.
Tools as old as 100,000 years old have been found in the dried up river bed.
This places the tools in the Early Stone Age period, which is pre-fire and pre-agriculture. Men used to hunt along the riverbed with stone tools, and then eat the animals raw. Wildlife in the area back then consisted of elephants, antelopes, and now-extinct giant hogs and hippos. Those men were a lot tougher than I am. Imagine trying to take down an elephant with your buddies while armed with nothing more than sharp rocks. As I walked along the valley, countless stone artifacts were strewn in the sand. It was an eerie feeling knowing I was walking in an exact spot where 100,000 years ago early mankind was struggling to survive.
After we’d had our fill of the valley, we climbed up the opposite side and walked into the bush in search of a sandstone canyon we’d been informed of by a local guide.
During the hike I had an unpleasant encounter with a Nairobi Fly. Nairobi Flies don’t bite or sting, and are actually rather passive. Unfortunately they are filled with very potent acid. If you’re unlucky enough to have one land on you, your best bet is to calmly wait for it to leave. If you upset it, it’ll spray you with acid. Even worse, if you kill it you get covered in the stuff. Basically, they’re mini versions of the aliens from the Alien movies. I now have a nice, permanent acid burn scar on my left arm. Oh Africa.
After hiking a short ways some of us started to get a big skeptical about the existence of the canyon. Then, from the middle of nowhere, we stumbled into this:
Victory!
The canyon stretched on for miles. It was absolutely breathtaking, filled with hollowed out stone walls and massive sand pillars.
I can’t even imagine how people from 100,000 years ago must of reacted when they saw this place.
We walked through the canyon for a ways before finding a suitable place to climb back out. As we trekked back through the bush to the road we passed some fairly meager farm plots.
Eventually we made it to the road and caught a dala dala into Iringa town. I’m now on my island once again, missing the good food, friends, and (dare I say) cold. Back to isolation, but such is the life of the Peace Corps volunteer.
Literally as post this, it’s been exactly nine months since I stepped off the plane into Africa. These months just keep on flying by. Ni maisha.
