Monday, October 17, 2005
Closure. It is one of the things that we are supposed to accomplish as we prepare to leave our two year African experience. Kind of hard to get my hands around what that is supposed to mean. But I guess it is the kind of thing that seems to be happening lately:
Kathleen has been visiting this weekend, from Bunda. We were walking to the duka across the football pitch to buy a couple of beers, and on the way, met Severa. Severa is the polio-crippled one-eyed woman I helped to get a hand-powered tricycle, through the Rotary Club. She was pulling herself along the ground, flip flops on her hands – this is about a mile from her home. She was just so happy to see me, jumping up and down if that would have been possible for her. We shook hands, she was talking a mile a minute – I had to ask a passer-by to translate. She was just being friendly and saying thank you, yet again. And asking for a plastic cover for the tricycle if I had one to give her. The rainy season is coming soon. She keeps the tricycle in her house, but in the half of the house that does not have a roof.
Again, downtown yesterday, I met Johnathan on the street again. He always has a big smile for me. He is a thin kid, looks like maybe 18 hard years, but is 27. He has some scars, mouth twists a little, only one eye. He was a street kid, an orphan, and had some help along the line to develop his artistic ability, so now lives in a room that he rents through the hand-crafted cards he sells to tourists on the street. There aren’t many tourists in Mwanza. A month or so ago I suggested to him that he ought to leave some cards in the Mwanza Hotel Gift Shop to sell for him. He said that the shop owner wouldn’t talk to him. So I went in with him, and we had no trouble arranging it – it is the power of white skin here in Tanzania. Now every time I see him he greets me and wants me to come to his room to see the paintings he is doing. I want to do that, and I will leave him my art supplies. They aren’t much, but I haven’t used them in a long time now and can so easily replace them back in the States. He’s written an illustrated biography that is really strong, and has been published by a Canadian NGO. I may copy it into my diary, along the line.
And other stuff. The entrepreneurship group had another planning meeting for the graduation on Nov 5, and as part of it, they want to have a going away party for me next Saturday. I think the group is now self-sufficient, but they are quite concerned about how they will continue without my assistance. I feel as though I do so little, they have really taken over the project so very well. One of my fellow teachers wants so much to have me visit his family on Ukerewe Island. We have been trying to plan time for it, but my schedule is tight and keeps changing. My students, who have left me feeling so unappreciated so often, insist that we find time to take a group photo, and really seem to care about remembering me. The school is planning a party for the five teachers who are moving on after this year, I am one of them.
I guess this is what Closure looks like.
Kathleen has been visiting this weekend, from Bunda. We were walking to the duka across the football pitch to buy a couple of beers, and on the way, met Severa. Severa is the polio-crippled one-eyed woman I helped to get a hand-powered tricycle, through the Rotary Club. She was pulling herself along the ground, flip flops on her hands – this is about a mile from her home. She was just so happy to see me, jumping up and down if that would have been possible for her. We shook hands, she was talking a mile a minute – I had to ask a passer-by to translate. She was just being friendly and saying thank you, yet again. And asking for a plastic cover for the tricycle if I had one to give her. The rainy season is coming soon. She keeps the tricycle in her house, but in the half of the house that does not have a roof.
Again, downtown yesterday, I met Johnathan on the street again. He always has a big smile for me. He is a thin kid, looks like maybe 18 hard years, but is 27. He has some scars, mouth twists a little, only one eye. He was a street kid, an orphan, and had some help along the line to develop his artistic ability, so now lives in a room that he rents through the hand-crafted cards he sells to tourists on the street. There aren’t many tourists in Mwanza. A month or so ago I suggested to him that he ought to leave some cards in the Mwanza Hotel Gift Shop to sell for him. He said that the shop owner wouldn’t talk to him. So I went in with him, and we had no trouble arranging it – it is the power of white skin here in Tanzania. Now every time I see him he greets me and wants me to come to his room to see the paintings he is doing. I want to do that, and I will leave him my art supplies. They aren’t much, but I haven’t used them in a long time now and can so easily replace them back in the States. He’s written an illustrated biography that is really strong, and has been published by a Canadian NGO. I may copy it into my diary, along the line.
And other stuff. The entrepreneurship group had another planning meeting for the graduation on Nov 5, and as part of it, they want to have a going away party for me next Saturday. I think the group is now self-sufficient, but they are quite concerned about how they will continue without my assistance. I feel as though I do so little, they have really taken over the project so very well. One of my fellow teachers wants so much to have me visit his family on Ukerewe Island. We have been trying to plan time for it, but my schedule is tight and keeps changing. My students, who have left me feeling so unappreciated so often, insist that we find time to take a group photo, and really seem to care about remembering me. The school is planning a party for the five teachers who are moving on after this year, I am one of them.
I guess this is what Closure looks like.
