a more interesting blog

I think i need to make this a more interesting blog. so i am thinking, what sort of interesting thing has happened here of late. the rains have been falling and the dirt ally-ways muddy. but that's not so interesting.
the other day i was walking along down the hill admiring these three ladies' flip-flops. they were aqua-marine blue, and i'd just bought some of my own which paled in comparison. they were giving me stern looks, noticing that i was staring at them a bit. I thought, i better break the ice, and in Swahili said, i like your shoes! they burst into smiles and said, but bwana, you've got nice flip flops yourself! went back and forth like that. People look stern then you say a word in swahili and worlds open up. I like the older people who come along looking so dignified, and sometimes stern. I say 'shikamoo' "i take your feet", it 's important how you say it. Young people say this to old people with a little urgency, almost like they're asking the old person, how is the world? is it all ok? Then the older person says, 'Marahabah!' "i accept you under my feet" or one interpretation was: "delightful". That's the translation i like, because the older person doesn't just say 'marahaba' quickly, they practically sing it and draw it out. As someone said, 'they have fun with it'. So although this exchange is offensive in that it's a relic of slave-master times, the ritual way people say it back and forth i've come to enjoy, and i think it's a youth acknowledging the elder and checking in, and then the elder declares the world delightful.
Hmmm. don't know that i managed a more interesting blog.
What else. You may be surprised to know how muslim TZ is! I was. It's about a third muslim, a third christian, and a third traditional. I meet very few who've kept their traditional beliefs. in the hills massai spill out of the lutheren churches in all their blankets and so forth, praising jesus. The mosks here compete with eachother with their loudspeaker prayers. i like how the muslims pray so frequently through the day. It's like gramma and grampa stopping their day to have tea at tea-time, regardless of what's going on. When all the various loudspeakers are declaring prayer-time at once though, it gets a bit operatic. My favorite place with the brick-oven pizzas and cappucinos is closed until the end of may! I just found another corner of town where the 'wazungu' means 'european', used for any white people, also means 'those who walk in circles', hang out. These little nooks around town i've decided are 'tanzania light'. when I no longer feel like being in tanzania, I go to one of these spots and I'm almost not. They're full of US AID workers, UN Tribunal workers- the Rawanda tribunal is held here in Arusha-, etc. Another world. Then there's the English woman i've befriended who lives in my neighborhood in a $4.00 a night hotel. (that's cheep even for here) She's been dating a massai guy for four years, who has two wives. I'm going to go out to his village with them this weekend. He's coming to England for a few months, later this year, and hopes to drive a bus. She was trying to explain to him you don't just come to england and drive a bus. there are licenses, and "in England like in america people care a lot about things, like not getting into accidents, things like that"

Just back from a long weekend in Nairobi. I met with my Washington DC sleuth-reporter friend Kristina, there to do a stories on an orphanage she's been connected with over the years in the Kibera slum (of 'Constant Gardener' fame), and Baraka Obama's interesting tribal background, the Luo tribe. (for one thing the Luo don't believe HIV exists- but i had to leave before she did her interview on the fantastic luo women we met there) She and I had a great time sampling the budget hotel offerings of the city, -actually she didn't take to them quite as readily as myself. We also had endless interesting interactions with the people she's connected to there in Kibera. At first glance Kibera was actually a vibrant and appealing place, with all sorts of life and bustle, open markets, people frying fish and dishing out chai, vegetable stands, little winding allies full of business and life, no sense of 'ghetto' danger you might expect. Our first day at the orphanage the director sat me down with a group of neighborhood women who volunteer there, for me to talk to them about HIV. I've learned from my earlier days doing this sort of thing not to preach about condoms, etc, which they've all heard, but rather try to open up discussion. I think it's one of the most important areas for improvement- open communication about this taboo subject.
The second day we met with an HIV positive group- all but one of them women. They talked about how they had fallen ill and so tested and discovered their status. All but one said when she told her husband, the likely source of infection, he left her and the kids behind without himself testing. So then there they are in Kibera with 5 or so kids to provide for. I realized eventually that most of them were confessing that they prostitute to raise the money they need. Their clients won't pay full fare if they use a condom, so they don't. They get ARV medication for free, but no food, and no business initiatives that they are aware of. with all the money pouring in for AIDS in Africa, and especially to famous Kibera, is there really no initiative to address poverty? they and the orphanage director were unaware of any. Isn't that amazing. All that money going to ARV's. Not even to food. Meanwhile, as long as poverty is not addressed, the recipients of the ARVs may feel no option but to knowingly spread the disease! I've read it and heard it before, but as it slowly sank in it was shocking to be sitting there with these women and realize what they were saying! They were fresh-faced bright young women, some with toddlers in tow. Some of them counsel in their neighborhoods, educating about HIV and encouraging others to test. They said if they could have some other way to make money they would stop the prostituting. Since they have no land available to cultivate i asked if they knew about 'sack gardens', we promote for urban settings- a 3 foot tall narrow sack filled with soil and poked with holes, out of which grow veggies. They said they have no room even for this. Walking around we saw that's not true, there is room. But the orphanage director said she'd tried growing veggies but with all the open sewage the flies contaminated her greens and it wasn't safe. Kibera was starting to feel less like a paradise. Indeed the latrine we used was one of my more shockingly unsanitary experiences. I feel like it's Kenya's shame not even to provide proper sewage construction for this place. It's also such a tough situation there that many residents are trapped without any land to farm, which sustains so many other east Africans through hard times. Well that's my social commentary for the day, address poverty, not just AIDS infections. Or you're getting nowhere. To end on a positive note, Kristina and I had a great time, nice to have some female bonding. The women we met there who were locals volunteering (in hopes of eventually getting paid) were some of the most vibrant women I've met, and we had a truly great tea party one afternoon. They wanted us to sleep over there in their actually very cozy house, then said next time we come back they'll have fancier houses so we don't have to stay in hotels. We described our hotel accommodation to them and assured them we weren't fancy. Kristina and I also managed one night out on town for live music. I want to end on an assurance note that we were being very security conscious through all of this and not doing anything unnecessarily risky!