Last Day

I woke up today on my last morning in Tanzania seeing things in a new light as I tried to absorb some last details of life in Mbezi Beach. I waved good-bye to Upendo at our gate, as she nervously laughed and I understood that meant she's going to miss me, her crazy mzungu friend. As we drove downtown, I was noticing all the parts of the scenery that have become part of my daily life and existence here. The morning sun shining on the dirt road. The boy spraying down the road in an effort to control the dust. The stands selling fruits and phone cards by our daladala stop. The children in school uniforms walking on the side of the road. The guys on bicycles, loaded with more bananas or loaves of bread than would seem possible. The boy running, pushing a lone tire down the road. The men cutting grass with machetes. The speed bumps, some so big that they cause us to let out a collective groan when the bottom of the car scrapes them. The women in their brightly colored clothes, and us as well--me in the blue dress Dorrah gave me as a good-bye present, and Dorrah in the dress I gave her. We passed the place where I first lived, and I remembered cluelessly boarding my first daladala. I couldn't have known then how much Tanzania would mean to me and how by the time 6 months had passed, I could truly call it home. I arrived at the clinic to excited greetings and exclamations over my new dress. Last night we had dinner at home, and once again I was reminded of how beautiful and simple things can be in Tanzania. It was so easy to talk to Dorrah in Kiswahili and openly express what this has all meant to me as she did the same. I think that my mobile lifestyle has finally caught up to me. All this moving, learning, being touched by people and touching them only to set oneself up for difficult farewells--I would call it worth it yet anything but easy. I think I want today to be over, because saying good-bye to Tanzania might be one of the hardest things I've faced.

Our very own disco

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Originally uploaded by em wroe.

On Saturday night was my big going away party--awesome is the only word for it. We were at least 30... and we had an entire disco to ourselves. My boss's husband here owns a few discos, so we were quite spoiled. Good food, good drinks, good friends all around--the party didn't stop until 5am. :) It was awesome to see everyone outside the clinic, letting loose and dancing all night. I'll post a few action shots of the dance floor. And, of course, there was my speech in Swahili. I had about 5 seconds warning, but I think I managed to make them understand what good friends they've all been and how much I'm going to miss Tanzania. And I made fun of Joseph's dancing, which got some laughs. We had an amazing time, but I couldn't help feel a bit sad too. Talking to Riwa and Salum, they were agreeing that "There's no one like Emmy." As they elaborated, I understood what Evelyn meant when she laughed at me and said "Emmy, you are so... different! (I think she was laughing at me for insisting on doing the dishes.) They said i'm different than all the other wazungu--other wazungu all stay so separate, but we've worked together and learned how to interact. They said they've learned a lot from me and that they will miss me and wish i could stay here in Tanzania with them forever. I was so touched, and I tried to express what this has meant to me and how much i've learned from them too. I'm not sure I could even express that in English though. Never have i met such open kind people. They adopted me readily as one of them, delighted that I was willing. The balance between this kindness and warmheartedness but also everything that my white skin means to people here and the conflicting feelings that come along with that is something I have battled every day that I woke up in Tanzania. Feelings that I don't know will ever be resolved. But what I do know is that these guys are some of the best friends I've ever had. It isn't going to be anything less than heartbreaking to leave Tanzania next week, something that hit me Saturday night talking and dancing with my friends. Because I know that it won't ever be the same. I'll be back, but the kinship and level of understanding I've reached with the Tanzanians I've worked with is something truly special and rare. But now that I know how awesome that can be, I'll be constantly working toward that in all my experiences in an international setting for the rest of my life. Hopefully many more of them in Tanzania! I'm only 23, but I can say that I know this has been the experience of my lifetime, and a has helped define how I see the world, myself, and what role I want to play. To anyone reading this who had anything to do with making this possible for me and supporting me--thank you so much. In my overwhelmed and confused state, I am rambling a bit... I expect I'll be processing all this for quite some time. For now, it's my last day in the clinic, but I still have a week to say good-bye.

This isn't the desert

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Originally uploaded by em wroe.

Here's Evelyn on a camel at the beach... I have extra photo space this month! This camel is HUGE. Animals everywhere--this same day at the beach these guys tried to sell me a turtle they found. Those wazungu, they'll pay for anything!

It's just too awesome

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Originally uploaded by em wroe.

Kilimanjaro, again. This is a photo I took from a moving bus last week. Just to give you an idea what a presence the mountain is up in Moshi. We went up there for a bioethics conference that Dartmouth Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and Duke Medical School put on for Tanzanian healthcare professionals. I learned a lot at the conferences, and hearing Tanzanian perspectives on ethical issues was immensely informative. The west tends to make all the rules about all this stuff without a lot of regard for different ways of thinking. I did a lot of the leg work organizing the one in Dar...helped my Swahili and also helped me learn about how crafty Tanzanians can be. The hotel pulled so many tricks that we wonder if we should go back there next year... but then again, now I know all their secrets! P.S. for anyone traveling in Africa, reserving a hotel room means that you are going to get a room if there is nobody else staying in your room when you arrive to the hotel. Even if you reserved the room in 1999 and confirmed it every week. And even if Julius the manager is your best friend and wants you to marry him.

Braids,

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Originally uploaded by em wroe.

braids, and more braids. Well, I finally did it. The women here are constantly changing their hair into these complicated braiding patterns with rasta and fake hair and all sorts of fancy stuff. It's unreal. So when we had a day off on Friday Evelyn and I headed to the salon, and I actually managed to sit still for 5 hours while they braided my whole soft-haired head into tiny little braids. It was actually a really amusing and social experience. And now I look like a Tanzanian! Right. The difference being that 5 hours of patience for them gets them around a month of hassle free hair. Me, well, these things are going to fall out by Wednesday. At any rate, here's a photo where you can kind of see what it looks like.

From the water

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Originally uploaded by em wroe.

A view of downtown Dar from the ferry that takes us to the south beaches. I think I was holding the camera a bit crooked. Oops.

Just more funny stuff

I've been laughing a lot lately... here's some of the reasons:

-Upendo, Dorrah's house girl, is hilarious. Apparently I'm the first mzungu she's EVER seen. (Except on television, which she LOVES). She was shy at first, and scared, but now is quite chatty. We like to watch late night cheesy soaps from Peru together. She knows the story line better than I do despite the fact she doesn't know much English at all. Tanzanian women love to touch my hair, exclaiming how soft it is, and Upendo is no exception. Dorrah says the first night I was there, she told them she was going to "wait until the mzungu is sleeping and then go hold her hair!" One day she asked Evelyn if all wazungu everywhere speak English. Evelyn laughed but admitted to thinking the same thing when she was little. (And that all black people speak Swahili). Last night I found out Upendo knows some English phrases. She looked at me and said "I am very serious." I burst out laughing because she's anything but serious--I'm not sure she knows what the phrase means.

-I recounted this story for Dorrah at dinner last night: On one of our home visit days we searched and searched for this one patient. Riwa kept asking around for him... and how did they describe him? Short, and black. Funny because that is everyone to me here. Dorrah couldn't stop laughing. That would be kind of like describing an mzungu as white, with soft hair.

-Dorrah's brother used to have a guard at their house that was always sleeping while on the job. One night he came to work really drunk and passed out. They went outside in the middle of the night and stole all his clothes while he snored away. (These are adults playing this joke). The poor guy woke up naked in the morning and hid behind the house, hoping to get help from someone exiting. He was still there hiding when they all came home for dinner. That particular guard doesn't work there anymore.

-Yesterday I explained the "beer" game with headlights... the first person to yell "beer!" and hit the roof when you see a car with just one headlight is owed a beer. We laughed because one could be nonstop wasted here for free if good at that game. And about the cars with no headlights (they're all over the place)--those should be worth a 6-pack.

-They have all these wazungu jokes here. Kind of like blond jokes in the States I guess. One goes something like this: a mzungu hires a Tanzanian to sweep all the branches and leaves that fall from a big tree in his yard. One month the Tanzanian had to keep sweeping every hour there were so many leaves falling. He grew very tired and told the mzungu that he didn't want to sweep every hour. The mzungu said, "Alright, what shall we do?" The Tanzanian replied that he wanted to cut down the tree. The mzungu agreed, and the tree was cut down. "Ok," said the mzungu. "Go home, there's no work now!" This one might be harder to appreciate without understanding how Tanzanians tend to think, but I cracked up.