48 Hours Remaining

It is now Monday night, and in 48 hours I will be on an airplane to Amsterdam. I have very mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, I must admit, I will be happy to eat something other than banana soup, ugali, and overcooked goat meat. I will be happy to have regular computer access with reliable internet, happy to have a shower that works, air that is not thick with dust and mosquitos, roads that are paved, and all of the other luxuries of the developed world. But more than that, I will be happy to see my friends that I miss so much, and share these experiences that I have had here in Tanzania through stories and photos. At the same time, I am deeply saddened. When I had started planning this trip, I had envisioned volunteering during the day, and socializing with other American and European volunteers in the evenings and on weekends. I was also very ambivalent to go and work for and with devout Catholics, as I had many of my own preconceived ideas about religious people. My time here has been very different than I had feared and planned. The religious community has embraced me with open arms, and brought out a spirituality in me that was not there before. Also, other than the first two weeks that I was here, and the time on my safari, I have spent my time exclusively with local African people. And of these, I have many people that I have developed a deep friendly affection for. Three months ago, if you had told me that my best friend in Africa would be a Catholic priest, I would have thought you were crazy. But, that has turned out to be the case. Father Antipas, one of the Holy Spirit Fathers, has turned out to be a great friend, with whom I love to spend time. We laugh, and joke, and he is incredibly smart, so we talk about cultural differences, and learn from one another. He, and the other priests, have gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable and at home here, and to help me experience Tanzania as fully as possible, taking me deep into Maasai Lands, touring different schools, eating local foods, and teaching me Kiswahili. I will remember these men for a very long time.
The last couple of days, I have started my rounds of saying goodbye. When I returned from Pangani, I made a list of several people that I wanted to see before I left. So, yesterday, with the help of Frs. Innocent and Antipas, I started traveling around the Kilimanjaro region, ticking people off the list. We set out yesterday for Sabuko, the priest house that I spent my first two weeks at with THE Mission. Everything in Tanzania is about hospitality, so when we arrived, Father Beatus had lunch waiting for us. It was nice to be back there, although I missed Sarah, Jehane and Pam a lot. The place just wasn't the same without them. We had lunch, and shared some good conversation, with Father Anitpas, myself, Father Beatus, and a very nice German visitor named Monica. After lunch, I said my goodbyes, and Father Antipas and I made our way to Karansi, which is on the edge of the Maasai community of Lekremuni. There, I met some of the Maasai that I have befriended here in Tanzania, and we each said our thank you's and goodbyes. After Kiransi, we drove back toward Sabuko, and greeted the Sisters of Charlotte. These nuns are incredible, such fun spirited women, doing amazing work. They are not at all what I would ever picture nuns to be, not at all uptight or strict. They laugh and joke with me in the most affectionate way. After also being served a second lunch by them, they became very serious, and Sister Josefa, the nun in charge, stood up and made a speech to me. She talked about how grateful they were for what THE Mission has done for them, and how grateful the people of Tanzania are for men and women like me that come over to provide service to them. The talk that she gave clearly came from her heart, and stirred me at the core. With each thank you that is given to me, I want to explain that I am the one that should be doing the thanking, for the small amount that I have brought to Tanzania, I am bringing home a man that has been forever changed, a heart that has been softened, and a deeper understanding and love for other people. But, I am happy to sit and appreciate the gesture of grattitude. I was really surprised when my favorite nun, the 6 foot tall Sister Lucianna, came from the kitchen with a wrapped gift. They had me open it, and they had bought a beautiful African style men's shirt for me. It is a gift that I will honestly treasure, and remember them by! At this point we were leaving, and right before I got in the car, the nuns told me to wait. They all gathered around me, with outstretched hands over my head, they blessed me through a song. In the past, this is something that probably would have made me very uncomfortable, but it had quite the opposite effect. While I do not share the same faith as these women, I felt the gesture of love that they were bestowing upon me, and started to well up. My spirit was moved, and I did feel blessed! When they lifted their heads, I noticed that Sister Lucianna was crying, and she took my hands and made me promise that I would not forget them, and that I would return to Tanzania soon - and I made that promise. As I'm writing this, I notice that I am struggling to find the words to describe the emotions of these experiences, and I will tell you this, there are no words. I can only do my best to describe what took place, but I know that if I had read some one else writing about these kinds of things a few months ago, I probably would have scoffed. They are the type of experiences that only can be EXPERIENCED! (I'm also tired, so writing is tough for me when I'm exhausted). From there, Father Antipas and I returned to Soweto. Father Antipas and I have spent a lot of time together. As I write about each event, I see that I write we went there, and then there, and then there. But this is Africa, and from here to there is always very far, so we have spent hours upon hours in the car together. It's been amazing, as I have said, getting to know eachother, and developing a friendship. Back at Soweto House, I had made a plan to meet up with my friends Rose and her husband Paul. Rose is the sister of my friend Tino from America, and I had met her once before a couple of weeks back. I really enjoyed her and her husbands company, so I went out of my way to make sure that we met up again. We sat down and talked at length about my time here in Tanzania and my trip to Rwanda. Both Rose and her husband are very well educated, and very interested in hearing about different places, especially Rwanda, and seeing pictures. Midway through our conversation, Paul asked me if I had been to the war tribunal court in Arusha, and I told him I had not. So he invited me to go with him tomorrow! That should be really interesting. The UN has an international court set up in Arusha, where they are trying the genocidaires from the conflict in Rwanda (that the world stood by and watched, doing nothing), and the proceedings are open to the public. So that is tomorrow's activity. It should take all day. Today has been a bit of hits and misses. The morning went very well. Today was my last day teaching, as there is just so much to do over the next couple of days, and not enough time. After talking things over with my friend Erin at home, and a couple of people here, it became apparent that trying to prepare a bunch of third graders to have a debate in a foreign language (for them) was just too much, especially in three days. But the day started out on a more serious note. The two young orphan boys that I have been working with went with me to the hospital to get an HIV test. I was really nervous about it. One of the boys' parents died of AIDS, so I was not optomistic about the outcome. We got the boys into the hospital where the test is performed, and my heart almost melted when one of the boys became completely terrified when he saw the little needle to prick his finger. But, after seeing the other little boy do it with no problem, he calmed down. The HIV tests here in Tanzania are provided by the US government (thanks taxpayers), and are the ones in which they get the results right away. I stood anxiously over the two test strips, praying that only one line would appear, not two. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see one line materialize on each strip. Here in Africa, it is not okay for a man to cry, and this was yet another situation where I had to really focus on keeping my composure (when I got back to my room and was alone, I let go). We returned the boys to school, after I bought them each a lolipop. Monica, the visitor from Germany that I had met at Sabuko, turned up that morning wanting to see me teach at the Moshi Airport School. So the two of us headed to class. I decided that todays lesson would be a fun one on sounds. I spent the class asking each student to tell me the name of an animal, and then I asked the entire class to make the sound. It was great. I also linked some other vocabulary words to it through baby names, i.e. the name of a baby cow is a....calf. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and best of all, Monica sat in the back with my camera and got some great photos of me teaching! After my lessons, Father Antipas was supposed to meet me at 1 PM. There is a saying here in Tanzania that translates to say that time is not measured by hours, but by events. I have seen this, and it can be very frustrating! So, finally at 3:30, Antipas was at Soweto, and ready to go. There is a school for the Maasai that I saw on my way from the airport called The O'brien School For The Maasai, and I contacted the woman from Chicago that started the school a few days ago. She invited me to tour the school while I am here in Africa, so we were supposed to be there today at 2. Nevertheless, we drove there, but lo and behold, the school children had left for the day. But, as I mentioned before, I have so much fun with Father Antipas, I really didn't mind. As we were driving back with the windows open, the insurance sticker blew off the inside windshield and outside the car, so we had to pull over and spend about a half of an hour searching for it. The roads in Tanzania are pretty frightening, with huge trucks roaring down, at any speed they choose. After about a half an hour, we found it, tattered and run over, but salvageable. A new sticker would have cost 5,000 T Shillings, about 3 US dollars, or the average day's pay here for a worker, thus the reason we took so long to look for it. We have a plan to go and see the Maasai school on Wednesday, so hopefully that will work out. I had a really nice dinner tonight with 6 of the priests, where we sat and discussed the history of Tanzania. I learn so much through each interaction here. So, it is Monday night. I will wake up very early tomorrow morning, and meet Paul at the bus station at 6:30 AM, and we will take the dala dala to Arusha and watch the UN proceedings. In the evening, I have invited my friends, the priests, to have dinner with me at a restaurant in town to show my appreciation. Wednesday, Father Antipas and I will go to Boma Ng'ombe to meet some of our Maasai friends, and discuss the different schooling opportunities for them, and then try to visit the O'Brien Maasai school again. I will return to Soweto, pack, and say my final goodbyes, and head to the airport. My plane leaves Kilimanjaro at 10:30 PM on Wednesday night, stops briefly in Dar Es Salaam, and lands in Amsterdam on Thursday morning at 8:30.