"I saw my first monkeys up close and personal that day at the beach: I was wondering up the path from the beach to try to get cell phone reception, heard a rustling to my left, looked up, and saw a grey monkey with a black face staring at me from about 15 feet away. There was another one to his left, and as I looked around, saw another, and another, and... hey wait a minute. I was surrounded by about 30 of them."
This blog is written some white American chick in the Peace Corps living in Kigoma, Tanzania, for two years. She's working for the Jane Goodall Institute (but with villagers, not chimps!). Here are a few tales...
Saturday, April 09, 2005 Mzungu Diary #2
Hi everybody,
Sorry it?s been a while?been on the move a lot lately. After Kigoma, I had to go back to Dar for a week to settle some business stuff, then was back to Kigoma for a week. My shipment from home arrived Easter morning, and it?s nice to have real sheets and good knives.
Francesca, Fallen Women of Pisa I?ve yet to meet the Scotsman whose house I?ve moved into, but I?ve managed to pick up and Italian girl who?s staying in the house until June. Her name is Francesca, she?s a volunteer for JGI/Italy, and comes to Kigoma for 3 months/year to work with the orphanage they run here for AIDS orphans, and it?s been nice to have the company. She?s very Italian: lives on strong coffee and cigarettes, and I?m constantly after her to cover up around the house and not invite the Congolese mask salesman into the house. She harvested some lake mussels from the ?beach? (on the lake) one day while snorkeling; she made a valiant effort with white wine and garlic, but they were big and tasteless. The shells were gorgeous, though, deep bronzey mother of pearl?they?re scattered about the house now. I look forward to getting back so she can teach me how to use the pasta maker I picked up in Dar.
I saw my first monkeys up close and personal that day at the beach: I was wondering up the path from the beach to try to get cell phone reception, heard a rustling to my left, looked up, and saw a grey monkey with a black face staring at me from about 15 feet away. There was another one to his left, and as I looked around, saw another, and another, and... hey wait a minute. I was surrounded by about 30 of them. A young one ran up a tree branch reaching over my head to get a closer look at me. It was amazing at first, then that creepy feeling of ?wow, i?m really outnumbered here, and the big one must weigh, oh, 45 lbs. And monkeys have what, 7x the strength of men per pound?? But they were equally curious as nonplussed, and didn?t pay too much attention to me. I did notice one striking feature: the males have bright blue boy bits. I mean neon blue, as in, can?t-miss-it, robin-egg blue. Evolution is nature?s acid trip.
The house The house is shaping up: the office is donating a larger bed for one of the bedrooms (the two downstairs rooms had children?s beds in them), I?ve put up the larger mosquito net over my bed so I dont have to sleep in the exact center of the bed, and i?m having a dresser made. I plan on getting some new curtains and slapping up some paint when i get back too. There are four colors to chose from: Light Blue, Dutch Blue, Grass Green and Yellow. I think i?ll get a bit of each and some white and see what i can mix up.
There?s also quite a menagerie of living things in my house, mostly in the roof, including Goliath the Geiko, who?s so fat he falls down from the ceiling with a slap. I?ve got birds who nest in the overhang over the porch, the snakes that eat them, the geikos that eat the bugs, the cats that eat the geikos, and the chickens that chase the cats. Kind of like living on a farm, only condensed. People tell me there are even zebras around kigoma you can sometimes see from the beach. That would be a site.
I?ve taken on a house keeper (the sister of my neighbor?s house keeper; funny how that works). Her name is Mama Aldophina, she?s short and squat and the mother of four and I do not mess with her. She cooks and cleans and does the laundry 3 days/week, and is handy for chasing away panhandlers from the kitchen door. Before i left for language school, she asked me what kind of food i like. She explained she can cook all kinds of mzungu food?Danish, Swedish, Dutch, German... i?m not sure I would know the difference amongst these, and am curious to see what she whips up, but at the time i told her whatever she cooks is fine. I should meet the Scotsman when I get back, and just hope there?s some olive oil left after leaving Francesca there alone for a month ;-).
So two anthropoligists walk into a bar... Before I left, Francesca and I went to the only restaurant to speak of in town at the Lake Tanganyika Beach hotel. It also doubles as the town?s only disco on Friday nights. We sat out by the lake, and i?m still amazed at all the sounds of the African night. The noises are sharp and loud, no subtlety about it. At almost every one, i try to figure out if it?s a bird, and insect, a child or some machine. There?s an African kind of goose here that sounds like someone strangling your grandmother- it?s awful, but in a funny way. We even heard a fight between a dog and a monkey; the dog won.
Francesca and I shared dinner with a french-canadian guy who works for MSF/Congo (doctors without borders). Turns out both he and Francesca are anthropologists by training; he ended up in refugee work, she in children?s. Funny, that. He was in Kigoma for a week with one of his colleagues to interview the 100,000+ Congoloese refugees in our area to see if the rumours were true, that the refugees will return to Congo as ordered to vote in this summer?s upcoming election. We all thought that was a crazy assumption, being that there?s no food or work in the Congo, only lawless militia and drugged-up child soldiers to go back to, and the refugees told them as much. They fear for their lives to return, and suspect the plea to come back is a trap, which it very well may be, as it?s been done before. He had all kinds of mind-boggling stories of what?s happening there, and i won?t repeat them here as they are quite greusome, but suffice to say the Congo has lost 2 generations?this adult one completely slaughtered or scattered in refugee camps across Africa, and the children already lost to war and drugs. The current ?government? passed Article 15, known as the ?tough shit? law, saying the govt has no responsibility and will make no reparations for any ?misfortunes.? The ?president? even told complaining soldiers who haven?t been paid in a year, ?you have guns, the villages are there?what more do you want?? It will be 20 years before any semblance of a functioning state reemerges there. And it?s just across the lake....
Spent a weekend in Dar on my way to Arusha, and Jen (the girl who?s pictures we saw on the web before I left) took me out to a birthday party on someone?s roof. The hosts were two Kenyans who have a local safari company called Afri-roots, and they specialize in off-the-beaten path places, and I plan on finding a week somewhere to go on one of their trips and see parts of TZ I wouldn?t otherwise see (that?s an invitation, Lou). We went out dancing one night, and ended up getting a ride home with some South African mercenaries on R&R from the Congo. These guys must?ve been on horse steroids- i haven?t seen veins popped like that...ever, really. I was afraid to ask too much about their work. So bizaare.
