The other evening as i was walking home from work along the street i often walk, full of people, out of nowhere a street kid with a knife came up behind me and cut the strap of my small bag- i heard nothing but felt something (the knife), wheeled around and yelled- he backed off without the bag- i looked increduously at him and he looked like he was about to try for another lunge! i unthinkingly yelled mwizi! ' thief'. luckily people didn't react! and after thinking about another dash for me/my bag he disappeared-
hmmm. it's sobering how i didn't hear or sense a thing until he was upon me- good wake up call. Seems theft with knives is up since high tourist season has begun- my gentle thoughtful organic trainer colleague keeps insisting the answer is to kill them all. Round up the street kids who've been given no opportunities in the world, and kill them\? yes i think so, he says. i am trying to appeal to his organic sense. if farmers have pest problems we ask them about their compost, rather than prescribe pesticides. soil health = plant health = fewer pests. So what about all these people walking by the four year olds on the street with no home and no hope of education complaining about street kid crime? on the otherhand, the villagers have no working police protection, and deserve to defend themselves from those terrorizing their villages- bands of theives showing up with machetes at night. A cheery post today!

venders line the streets here outside hospitals selling avocados and bananas to the visitors - it's nice hospital fare- (may be one of the few nice things about the hospitals). generally here we eat avocados and bananas on an almost daily basis- the towering avocado trees are everywhere, as are of course many different varieties of banana trees. We eat them chunked up and mixed in with the food- no plate of rice beans and fish would be complete without it.

heading into my final stretch i'm seeing the obvious finally before my eyes -all the work yet to do- i.e. on our demonstration plot no one could find our records/garden plan when a volunteer ventured to ask. When same volunteer wondered outloud who was actually in charge on the plot we were also hard-pressed to answer. just around the same time i realized we have no assessment system in place for new farmer groups. so we've been creating records, assigning responsibilites, putting together assessment systems- just assessed a new group for the first time the other day- makes me wonder what we've been doing all this time! we've been working just without a lot of structure- been super busy as we had a great farmer/teacher visiting from an organic group in kenya- common ground- kindred to us, but perhaps a decade ahead?- he trained us farm staff and volunteers for the week- but i was also managing the training. As we hadn't really had an official curriculum, we'd been scrambling to assemble one-
I think i'm bringing the missing german element into our work - structure and rules- We here have chuckled imagining how the germans coped trying to colonize this country with its disregard for european ideas of time and rules- how they must have thrown their hands up shrieking and fleeing the country crying 'take it! take it back!' There little trace to show they ever were here.

immediately tailing on his visit friend celia arrived with all sorts of adventurous energy- somewhere along the way my bed became infested with fleas meaning i took up my flooring bombed the room with a toxic spray and cleared everything out to be washed, washing much of it myself.

Elifasi

Farmer, Elifasi in backround, HIV awareness trainers 'Placid' and 'Daphne' in foreground.
Life here's continuing along nicely.. Much to my friend Celia who's visiting from DC's dismay the rains are continuing longer than I was told by everyone they would. OF course people like to tell you what you want to hear, and i was assured that we're in the cold dry season now- finally today we've gotten a glipse of the sun. Last night celia and i were in a local bar and met a massai man 57 years old who was well versed in history, politics, and geography, telling us all his thoughts on religion, Nyeyere Tanzania's liberation president, Zimbabwe, Bush and Iraq- he was very interesting. and had refreshingly independent ideas. We regretted he wasn't just a bit more sober, but Celia was thrilled to find such a kindred spirit here.

I just had a conversation with a local guy who helps run HIV awareness training for students, which includes condom instruction. He’s born again. Does your church prohibit condoms? I asked. We can’t talk about them, he replied, because that would bring sex into people’s minds. If a woman in your church was married to a man who is HIV positive what would you advise her? She must pray to Jesus, he replied. And she should have unprotected sex with her HIV + husband and pray to Jesus? Yes. All things are possible with Jesus. What if the woman was someone you really cared about and wanted to live, like your mother or sister- someone you’d really be sad if they died. There are two ways to die, one of the flesh, the other if you’ve accepted Jesus, you go home to Jesus. So if the woman has unprotected sex and prays to Jesus but then dies of AIDS then goes home to Jesus it’s not that sad? Yes, that’s right.

I had to ask, of course; doesn’t your job conflict with your religious beliefs? But he’d found a way that it didn’t (of course people here desperately need work)

I remember us Americans having such conversations with nuns and priests that we came across when we first got here, and being so outraged and exasperated.

Feeling that same outrage now, but then I think, well maybe it’s good he’s working in an HIV awareness NGO even if a contradiction, because he represents what I think a majority of people here believe. They are what people are hearing every week in church, at funerals, in schools, at home. it's not fringe, it's mainstream. So getting exasperated seems a futile reaction. Be happy someone’s enlightening you to how people here are thinking about things.