Saturday, May 15, 2004
My neighbor tells me that he loves me. I haven’t told Myrna. Yet.
Maxxon is a teacher and discipline master at the school. I am not sure whether his statement is merely a kiswahili useage of being friendly, whether he is speaking poetically, or whether there is truly a stronger interpretation to be implied here. Whenever I see him after school hours he is slurring his words and not walking very steadily, so without doubt large quantities of beer have much to do with whatever sentiments he is attempting to convey.
Although I have certainly not seen any evidence, the culture here seems to take promiscuity for granted. If a man and a woman are ever alone in private for any reason, it is assumed that it is a sexual laison. Partly for this reason there is great interest whenever a female Peace Corps Volunteer visits Mwanza and sleeps across at my house. They do seem to make some allowances for these strange American habits though. In spite of these sexual expectations, homosexuality is unthinkable and any physical act that even suggests homosexual behavior is very severely punished. Strange then that while men or women can openly walk down the street hand in hand, a man and a woman may not physically touch in public.
So I vote for his trying to make an expression of friendship. And I’m glad to be his friend, but don’t care to be around an in-your-face sloppy drunk. So I avoid him whenever I can. Unfortunately he drinks at Frida’s banda across the football pitch from my house. Frida’s would be a nice place to hang out now and then, have a beer and try to stumble along in my pathetic kiswahili if it were not for the high probability of running into my sloshed neighbor there.
As I write this I have several strong students throwing logs into a pile in back of my house. I shared a bunch of the new vegetable seeds I recently got in the mail with another teacher. She decided I needed a fence around my next sweet corn patch to protect it from the goats and organized a brigade of students to build it for me. So materials are being delivered.
Maxxon is a teacher and discipline master at the school. I am not sure whether his statement is merely a kiswahili useage of being friendly, whether he is speaking poetically, or whether there is truly a stronger interpretation to be implied here. Whenever I see him after school hours he is slurring his words and not walking very steadily, so without doubt large quantities of beer have much to do with whatever sentiments he is attempting to convey.
Although I have certainly not seen any evidence, the culture here seems to take promiscuity for granted. If a man and a woman are ever alone in private for any reason, it is assumed that it is a sexual laison. Partly for this reason there is great interest whenever a female Peace Corps Volunteer visits Mwanza and sleeps across at my house. They do seem to make some allowances for these strange American habits though. In spite of these sexual expectations, homosexuality is unthinkable and any physical act that even suggests homosexual behavior is very severely punished. Strange then that while men or women can openly walk down the street hand in hand, a man and a woman may not physically touch in public.
So I vote for his trying to make an expression of friendship. And I’m glad to be his friend, but don’t care to be around an in-your-face sloppy drunk. So I avoid him whenever I can. Unfortunately he drinks at Frida’s banda across the football pitch from my house. Frida’s would be a nice place to hang out now and then, have a beer and try to stumble along in my pathetic kiswahili if it were not for the high probability of running into my sloshed neighbor there.
As I write this I have several strong students throwing logs into a pile in back of my house. I shared a bunch of the new vegetable seeds I recently got in the mail with another teacher. She decided I needed a fence around my next sweet corn patch to protect it from the goats and organized a brigade of students to build it for me. So materials are being delivered.
