Week one of jewelry classes!

So this is where I work, at the Lukundane center. This week I ran classes just for the girls in the vocational school (with the exception of Monday, when a large group of adult women wanted to take a class, and by take a class I mean have me make jewelry for them while they called me mzungu instead of my name. ANYWAY...) Starting next week, I'll have a group of "mamas" from the widows' microfinance groups as well. For this week, just Rachma, Rehema, Neema and Farida. Not that they didn't give me a run for my money...

Twist bracelets in brass and nickel silver and brass rings

Monday we did a tools and materials introduction, and then they each made a twist bracelet and a ring that they got to keep.

He makes a lovely model, right?

 Tuesday we made brass pendants with text on them and texturing details, and they all chose to make hearts, except Rachma (pictured) who made both a heart pendant and a cross pendant. She is really talented and motivated, and I'm psyched to see where her work goes. It also helps that her English is by far the best.

Hard at work today

 Today (Wednesday) we made brass and fabric necklaces, which involved use of the disc cutters, delicate file work, folding, texturing, text and design. This was NOT an easy project and they did incredibly well.

Rehema and Rachma modeling some work from the week

 I'm thrilled with how far they've come this week, and I can't wait to see what happens when they start designing their own work even more than they already are. Next week we're covering sawing and then they'll start fully independent designs, with assistance of course. They haven't even complained about not getting to keep the pieces they make, at least not when they realized that they would get a portion of the profits when they sell and the rest will go to Tamiha. They're really good kids, even though it's a heck of a lot harder to battle teenage attitude when they can just switch to another language. That said, I think it's going to be a great few months, and I can't wait to see what they do next!

Adorable, right?

Ok, this is totally unrelated, but the flip side of being called Mzungu by adults who should know better after I've introduced myself is the ridiculously adorable children who will rush up to you on the street to say hi, to talk, to touch your hands. This little group accosted me on the way home and asked me to take a picture, and how could I say no? They wouldn't let go of my hand for about ten minutes. So stinking cute!

So I'll be working with the girls and mamas at Lukundane Monday through Wednesday, then helping out at the Tamiha orphanage on Thursdays, which is more of a day care/early school for kids 4-9 or so who are orphans but have extended family with whom they stay at night. Fridays I'll be up at Nicarangua, in the mountains, helping out at an orphanage that sounds a lot more dire - they have a lot of kids, including three new babies (1 month, 4 months and 6 months), many HIV positive, all of whom have nowhere else to go and sleep there as well as stay during the day. I'm excited to get some baby time but obviously worried about whether I can handle not being able to "save" them all. It's hard to know whether it's better or worse to give affection and have them form attachments and then leave, or to stay uninvolved. We'll see, I'll report back in a few days. Thanks for the comments and love, it makes me feel less far away! 

Culinary adventures?

Some (oddly, all food related) scenes from Tanzania so far:

Don't trust the innocent looking face!

 This monkey, Chelsie, far from being the gentle vegetarian she appears to be, in fact attempted to ingest me yesterday. She lives at Lukundane and was watching one of my jewelry classes, and I went over to say hi. She hopped onto my shoulder, attempted to nibble on my necklace, and then, when she realized it was inedible, decided that biting my neck might help. As you can imagine, it didn't. But she didn't break the skin so I'm probably not rabid and not going to die a horrible inevitable death. So yay?

Chips mayai

 This is a common dish here in Tanzania, known as chips mayai, which is, in fact, a french fry omelet. How can you not love a country that has a french fry omelet as one of its primary dishes?

Banana wine. NOT delicious.

 Turns out banana wine is not delicious, it is painful. I learned this on my very first night, when, coincidentally, I believe we were eating chips mayai.

Should I put it in the front or the side of my mouth?

 OK, this one requires explanation. Yesterday we discovered the joys of sugar cane. Unfortunately, it was through a small chunk that Giftie had left behind, at the end of the stalk which then required extensive chopping to process into edible form. The tip, in fact, had to be almost completely rounded and most of the outer covering peeled off, leaving it a bit... interesting looking. Then we were told to bite it and suck out the juice. It actually wasn't until I took this picture that any of us realized how incredibly, incredibly inappropriate it appeared.

Alien eggs and ugali hangman

 To be fair, we were a little desperate for culinary stimulation at that point. Dinner was ugali, a national dish, which is basically cassava flour and water, and it. is. terrible. Tomato sauce doesn't help, peanut butter doesn't help, nothing helps. Instead I used it as a medium to convey my feelings about the situation. Also we ate passion fruit from the market, which are seriously alien eggs. Back me up, anyone who has ever eaten a passion fruit? If not, make it happen immediately. You crack open the   kind of foamy weird layer inside the shell, then suck out individually wrapped seeds, kind of like pomegranate, but green and gelatin-y and thoroughly disturbing in every way. The weirdness of the entire experience makes me wonder seriously about the people who say it's an aphrodisiac, and what on EARTH else they consider sexy. Probably sugar cane.

Back roads of Tengeru

 This isn't entirely food related, but Christian and I tried to take a shortcut back to our house through the back roads of Tengeru and ended up lost in a banana field. That was kind of cool. We figured it out eventually, having a large mountain to orient oneself by is definitely helpful. On the way, though...

This wasn't an action shot.

In someone's back yard in the middle of this weird banana field we came across two dueling roosters. Except they weren't fighting. They were having a very serious, puffed up staring contest that went on for at LEAST five minutes, because that's how long it took us to get tired of watching and giggling. The house owner came out and was a little confused until we pointed at the roosters, at which point she also laughed. Aggressive, bowing, tae-bo chickens are funny in any language.

Tanzania!

 So I'm going to play a little fast and loose with the space/time continuum here and save stories from Zurich and Basel for another day, because I'm writing from an internet cafe in the middle of market day in Tengeru and Switzerland seems a little far away right now! My time in Basel was lovely, but Easyjet delayed my flight from Basel to Amsterdam for an hour and a half, while KLM bumped UP the flight to Nairobi by half an hour, leaving me an hour and a half to retreive all my stuff from Amsterdam luggage lockers, check my bags, pay my overweight baggage fees, go through security, and get to the gate. I literally ran through the airport like a crazy person, but I made it in the end. Many, many hours later...

Kilimanjaro from the plane

I know airplane pictures are a little  cliche, but seriously, Kilimanjaro through the clouds? Kind of amazing. I was utterly exhausted by this point, having been travelling for approximately 18 hours, but this perked me up pretty fast. That said, when we landed, I got an early taste of "Africa time" - there was no one there to meet me, I had no phone and 140 lbs of luggage, most of which was valuable donations. I was not thrilled. However, I had the cell phone number of Brightson aka Lema, the coordinator and the guy whose house we are living in. I got one of the staff to help me call him, and was told he would be there in half an hour, he'd had a breakdown. 45 minutes later? Another call, sorry, he'll be there in five minutes. A total of an hour and a quarter after I arrived, he showed up. Sigh. That said, we made it to Tengeru eventually.

This is the village of Tengeru on a non-market day. Market days are much more intense.

 The village is right off the highway, where you can catch a dalla-dalla or insanely packed shared van (seriously, about 20 people in a 10 person van) into the city of Arusha, about 10 minutes away. There is one main road leading away from the market area, and that's the road that we, and 90% of Tengeru, live on.

The road to our house - the paved section

Closer to the house, it looks like this

Motorcycles, or pikipiki, are a constant, dusty danger!

So the house is about a kilometer away from the main road, and to get to work or to Arusha I'll have to walk to the road, get a dalla-dalla, get off at the right place, and walk again to wherever I need to be. Those of you who have any experience of my sense of direction understand how problematic this may be. However, it help that most villages are literally a single road - even I can just about handle that.

My cohorts for the next few months - Christian and Christine.

We had lunch and then a very nice dinner that night, also with two women who were leaving the next day. The house consists of me, Christine, Christian, Lema (who is rarely there), Glory the cook, and Freddy the kind of jack of all trades 15 year old assistant. His English is kind of nonexistent and he can be a little flaky, but I absolutely adore his little sister Giftie - she's 12 and comes over to ask me to help her with her English homework - she's extremely smart.

Christine doing her best Vanna White to display our shared room - I'm on top.

My abode is now topped by a huge, princess-looking mosquito net, because I apparenty am the most delicious thing to come along in a LONG time for the mosquitos of Tengeru. I'm covered in bites already, hoping the mosquito net will help. Ouch ouch ouch.

This is Mama Gladness, Lema's mom. Is that not the best name ever?

 We also get to see Mama Gladness pretty often, who is one of the world's sweetest women. We've already started to have some long talks about religion, and she's invited me to come by soon to talk more. Her dresses are also all insanely gorgeous. Everyone has been really friendly, although the also tend to yell "Mzungu!" (slang for white person or European) in our general direction pretty frequently. Apparently it is derived from the word for spinning, and it represents the fact that Mzungus 'spin' around the world - not too bad of a description overall. You also get asked for money a lot, and little kids especially have this kind of strange attraction/fear thing going on where they want to be close to you and talk but you also clearly sort of terrify them. It's cute but it does get old pretty fast, I'm hoping it'll wane as they get more used to seeing us.

Tengeru on market day from the door of the internet cafe

Busy busy!

Gorgeous fabrics I'm hoping to incorporate into jewelry

I've already started playing a little bit with materials, including doing a quick lesson on copper cuff bracelets with Christine and Christian for practice. Today I bought some fabric so I'll be working with that to hopefully have some samples to show Crispin, the director at TAMIHA, tomorrow when we meet. At that point I'll have a better sense of what my day to day existence is going to be like for the next few months. I'm excited to get to work! Apologies for my grumpiness yesterday, it's all lifted pretty well now. If only I wasn't so itchy and I could magically get my LSE essay written by elves, things would be pretty perfect.

Roughing it

Today was a whole bunch of frustrating with some itchy thrown in for good measure. i spent an hour loading photos and writing... then the internet went out at the cafe. It wasn't even something to be reset there, it was something further upstream in the svstem. It was market day and insane in town so i gave up and headed home, grumpily, and covered in dust. After finally getting back, i was locked out for 45 minutes because the irresponsible 15 year old assistant left to go to the market and turned off his phone. meanwhile, I'm getting burned and bitten, hit up for money, and trying really hard to stay friendly and say jambo to everyone's greetings even when I'm thoroughly sick of feeling like a tourist attraction. I have almost exclusively positive things to say about Tanzania so far, i could just use a hug and a working computer right now - kindle is making simple text possible but slow and no photos. I will try again tomorrow and be in a better mood, I promise.

In Tanzania in one piece!

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I've arrived safe and sound in Tanzania, and am successfully installed in the volunteer house - with all my luggage intact, no less! The other volunteers are very nice, including the two who I met only briefly as they are leaving today - I will be spending most of my time with Christine, my roommate, and Christian, the other volunteer, both in their twenties. I'm writing from the computer that belongs to Lema, the coordinator, and he is charged per minute, so this will be very fast, I will update more thoroughly, and with pictures, when I can get to an internet cafe. Today I'm heading into Arusha to get some final tools, a cell phone, and my residency permit. Monday I meet with the head of the Tamiha project and we'll figure out a plan of action for using my time most usefully. I'm already missing home and dreaming about you all, I would love to get comments or email or something from any of you out there. Lots and lots and lots of love from sunny (ok, today it's cloudy, so sue me) Tanzania!

Pictures and tales from Holland and Switzerland thus far

For the sake of those of you who don't feel the need to see and read about this part of the trip, a single picture of me in front of the Amsterdam canals will probably suffice. Much, much more after the jump

Planes, trains and canals

I'm writing right now from Switzerland, the fourth country I've been in in the last three days. My flight from JFK was blessedly uneventful, although I barely slept and have been battling complete and utter exhaustion for the last few days. I got all my tools and equipment through to Amsterdam, though, and was able to stick my huge bags in a luggage locker there, so since Friday morning I have just been using my handbag, albeit stuffed to the brim. I expected to spend the first day by myself in Amsterdam, since my cousin Aline couldn't meet me until 5pm - however, on the way out of the airport I met a confused looking American dude my age muttering and staring perplexedly at the bus boards. His name was Josh, I rescued him from giving up and trying to walk into Amsterdam from the airport, which would have been an interesting 3 hour hike, and we hung out together for the majority of the day - more details and pictures later. At around three we split for him to find a hostel and me to go to the train station to head to Utrecht to meet Aline.

Utrecht was unexpectedly gorgeous, and we had a great day on Saturday exploring the city - again, details and pictures to follow. Then last night she loaded me on the overnight train to Basel, which trundled through Germany on the way, technically giving me my fourth country in as many days. Now I am with my lovely Swiss family, and apart from utterly embarrasing myself by falling asleep in public, all has gone smoothly.  Soon I will get pictures up and talk more, but for now, I am alive and successfully through to Basel! Onwards and upwards!

Oh dear god

Packages arrived today - I'm thrilled and also, not gonna lie, absolutely terrified. An amazing amount of stuff came through, and I may end up paying an insane amount of money to get it all to Tanzania! Definitely concerned. As it stands, I have one bag EXACTLY at 70 pounds, which is the overweight bag limit, another bag EXACTLY at 50 pounds, which is the basic baggage limit, and my carry on at 25 pounds, which is the carry on limit! The only concern is that I had to stick some weird looking tools in my carry on, which are not actually dangerous nor could they be used to inflict harm - a dapping block, some dapping punches, and a disc cutter - none of which are as violent as I now realize they sound. However, I will almost certainly have to explain them to security, and I'm not really looking forward to that. And the Contenti package hasn't even arrived yet, so I'm hoping it's lightweight things. Really, this is an embarrassment of riches, and I could not be more thrilled to be able to bring it over, I hope this doesn't sound like complaining - I'm just a little concerned, is all! Wish me luck and lenient airline staff!

Updated: Aaaand it's like Contenti read my mind - they sent over a lightweight wooden dapping block and punches, as well as a much smaller and lighter disc cutter, along with various other fabulous tools. I know I'm gushing, but seriously, this all worked out far, far better than I could ever have hoped for. Thank you, thank you to everyone who has helped, especially the wonderful owners of Contenti and Janet Haldeman at Rio. Also, my amazing family friend/artistic fairy godmother Ruth has agreed to take the items that either didn't fit or were too technically advanced for the facilities I'll have, and pass them along to other worthy causes in the area. Paying it forward!

Thrilling update

The gloriously wonderful people at Rio Grande have come through with "hammers, saw frames, saw blades, one hand drill, drill bits, steel bench block, files, lots of different pliers, some copper and brass sheet and some wire" - about thirty pounds of beautious STUFF that will translate into a real, functioning jewelry program for these girls. Contenti and Rio are my official jewelry supply guardian angels, and now the next step is figuring out how on EARTH I'm going to get all these supplies to Tanzania. I was kidding yesterday when I suggested becoming the pantsless wonder, but it's looking more and more likely as the days go by. In reality, I'm going to have to suck it up and use an extra bag and pay whatever it takes to get my materials through. However, I'm going to try to do the impossible and extract sympathy from a commercial airline to see if they'll give me some kind of break on the baggage allowance - cross your fingers (and your toes, I'll need all the help I can get) for me!

Beginning goodbyes

Yep, this captures us pretty much perfectly.

This is my family. I'm pretty sure that picture says just about everything you could possibly need to know about them. That blond lump attempting to eat my head is my brother Adam, with whom I spent yesterday, because he is a very nice Munchkin and came home from college for the weekend to see me before I leave (yeah, yeah, and to see his friends and girlfriend-type-person, whatever, I'm totally more important.) Since my parents have abandoned me on my last weekend in the country to have a romantic weekend away in Vermont (the indignity!), we decided to spend yesterday revisiting our childhood and making the trek down to Mystic Aquarium for the first time since we were approximately six and ten years old, respectively. And it was awesome for the following reasons:

• Awesome thing the first: discount passes from the public library. Yay libraries! Also fighting with the boy because libraries scare him and when I was a kid I wanted to take a sleeping bag and move into one of the shelves. Kind of still do. One of the many reasons I'm convinced we somehow inherited completely mutually exclusive genes.

• Awesome thing the second: Adam's running musical commentary throughout the entire hour-long ride down and back, including an impressive impromptu musical ode to Lenny and Joe's fish restaurant, a moderately disturbing rendition of that rap song with the "Call me Mr. Flintstone, Imma make your bed rock" line, a stunningly accurate sing-along to "As Long as You Love Me" by the Backstreet Boys (?), and, of course, an extended techno version of "Baby Beluga." Speaking of which,

•  Awesome thing tatu (which means three in Swahili, which, sidenote, I definitely only remember because I have 3 tattoos): Belugas. I essentially had the exact same reaction as the four year old standing next to us, which was to babble "Whaley whaley whaley!" in their general direction. I am pathetic but they were amazing and did all kinds of tricks, and seeing animals in general got me all geared up for Safari time in Tanzania. Although now I might be disappointed if they don't do tricks. Or make farting noises on command, like the belugas. Now that's talent.
 

That's all I've got, really, just a nice day with the munchkin before I run away to the other side of the world. It's been nice living at home with the family for the last few months, fights have been rare and generally sub-nuclear, and since I've booked my tickets the pointed comments about boomerang kids have leveled off significantly. My parents far, far surpass graceful empty-nesters - no, they are giddy with excitement at the idea of having the house to themselves again, and while it's been fun, I'm happy to oblige.

Indeed, I'm really looking forward to feeling settled again - I know it won't be for a while, since Tanzania is really a fairly short stopover at four months. I don't know, though, this is the work that I want to do, and if grad school doesn't pan out for next year, which is my assumption at this point (I'm only applying to LSE and essentially as a practice run, I expect to be out at least two years before returning to school), this seems like the kind of work I could happily return to for another year. And who knows, maybe after proving myself someone might even pay me to do it - WILL WORK FOR ROOF, MOSQUITO NET, AND FOOD. ROOF NEGOTIABLE. Stranger things have happened!

ALSO, I've begun packing, which is pretty thrilling. So far only the tools I bought myself have arrived, and I don't know exactly what else is coming yet - it appears that approximately one third of my luggage space will be taken up with tools and supplies, one third by stuff (medicines, toiletries, electronic converters, sleeping bag, sheets, rain gear, etc), leaving a third for clothes. I've got my short-list of clothes laundered and ready to be whittled down as soon as I have the rest of the jewelry supplies here and packed and can see how much space I have remaining. It might be kind of brutal. That said, I'm bringing my Kindle, so that takes one item off of my list, which usually looks like this: 1) Books, 2) Jewelry and supplies, 3) Everything else. Seriously, the purchase was worth it for this trip alone - the number of books I would have needed to survive 4 months would have basically left me with room for a single t shirt and MAYBE a pair of pants, if I was lucky. And I'm not sure how my hosts would feel about Bekka: The Pantsless Wonder. I'm already concerned about cleavagification, as my, erm, shape tends to make everything but turtlenecks look somewhat risque, which is apparently a no-no in Tanzania. So I have to restrain my mouth AND my chest, which will be a full time job before I've even started, you know, that work stuff I'm technically there to do. Whatever happens, it will certainly be an adventure. Someone should probably warn the poor country now.


UPDATE: And then today this happened. This is the kind of entertainment value we're talking about, here. Ridiculous, and also awesome. A little scary to think we share genetic material, though.

Pre-departure

So I figured since my internet access will be sporadic at best once I arrive in Tanzania, I'd start this whole chronicling nonsense now and get some of the logistics out of the way. As an introduction, I would love for any family, friends, strangers, whatever to read this, but be aware: I will probably vent, and I will certainly swear, although I'll do my best to do both as judiciously as possible - thoughtfully, as Tim Gunn would say. I'm heading to Tanzania for four months, and I'll be living the village of Usa River, working with the Tamiha foundation's Lukundane women's group. My primary goal is to develop a jewelry track as an additional option for girls enrolled in Tamiha's vocational school, which helps girls who finished primary school but are unable to afford secondary education, to acquire marketable skills. Currently, they offer sewing, cooking, tourism, and computers, so this would either be full fifth program (in an ideal world) or be a supplementary option.

In no particular order, here are the things I'm excited about today.

• Seeing my amazing European family, who have been kind enough to allow me to impose on their hospitality on the way to and from Tanzania. These people are brilliant, successful, creative, functional, AND they have to be nice to me because I'm related to them. It probably helps that they can talk shit about me in German or just really strong British slang and such right in front of my face and I stand there grinning like the dumb American I am. That said, I'm hoping Rosetta Stone will eventually teach me to swear in Swahili so I have something to offer in return.

• At my Miss Porter's reunion I met an incredible woman named India Howell who basically is everything I want to be when I grow up and runs the Tanzanian Children's Fund. I've essentially shamelessly thrown myself in the general direction of her feet, and she has very kindly and CLEARLY without knowing what she's getting herself into offered to have me visit when I'm in the country and talk to me about the pros and cons of doing this kind of work long term.

• The incredible people at the Conteni company have donated some tools and supplies for the jewelry program for me to bring. There's a care package on its way and I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning (albeit a Jewish-atheist kid, but who doesn't love Santa?). Also, Rio Grande, another company I've worked with for years, will be getting back to me on Monday about possibly donating as well. Seriously, it is the world's best feeling to throw something out into the world, not really expecting a response, and being overwhelmed by people's kindness and generosity. If any of you for any reason require jewelry or metalsmithing tools or materials of any description, buy them from Contenti. Even if you don't, go buy something or write them a nice letter or something. DO IT. 

• Safari. Baby elephant. Awkward giraffe awesomeness. Ngorongoro motherfreaking crater and Olduvai gorge, TO WHICH I WILL BE WEARING MY I LOVE LUCY SHIRT, at which point the universe might actually IMPLODE with the force of the geekdom. Need I say more? 

• Babies. This is the actual Tamiha orphanage. My heart is melting and I want to eat their chubby little faces already.

In no particular order, here are the things I'm terrified of.

• I'm not the world's most easygoing person (pause for everyone who's ever met me to guffaw). Part of the purpose of this trip is to try to force myself to slow the hell down, since I'm really, really bad at that and it's a skill I'd like to acquire so as to not die of a heart attack at age 27. 
• I'm sarcastic, and kind of prickly, and tough, and I like all of those things about myself, but I'm not sure how they're going to go down in a conservative, traditional culture. It's going to require a lot more self-censorship than I'm used to - I tend to lack any sort of verbal filter - and I'm hoping to not offend every single person I come across who understands English. That would be preferable. 

• It's been kind of a lonely summer. I have great friends from college, who've scattered and gotten insanely stressful jobs and who I miss. I ended what was one of the most functional and adult relationships I've ever had in order to hop across the globe. Even before leaving, I've found myself ignoring the phone calls of people I love and want to talk to because it's easier to begin disconnecting now, so it won't be so tough when I leave. Not sure this is a healthy tendency, not sure how it's going to work out in the next few months. 

• I have insanely high expectations of myself, and essentially no armor around my pathetic bleeding heart, and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life doing as effective, sustainable, deep work as possible with people who are suffering - and at the same time, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will shred myself into teeny tiny pieces if I can't learn to shield a little, to not be destroyed by the knowledge that there are problems I can't fix. I want to go to graduate school for nonprofit management at some point in the next few years, and I need to know that I'm capable of doing the kind of work that will make my life worthwhile before I spend another several years and several hundred thousand dollars to make it happen. And if I can't do this, then I have no earthly idea how I'm going to fill up my days without feeling like a total and utter failure. Also probably not totally healthy. 

• On a purely practical note, I suck at objects, and despite quite a bit of world-travel-adventuring, it's really just a matter of time until I have serious money/passport/ticket/computer/illness issues. I'm really talented. I once lost my keys in the fridge for two weeks. I've been known to walk directly into doors and walls, I'm constantly covered in bruises of unknown origin, I once lost my passport in the airport between check in and baggage drop. I haven't seen the floor of my bedroom in years, with the exception of a 48 hour window around each move. I've got mad disorganizational skillz. 

That said, I think I have something to offer, that I've found myself a framework that will make the situation livable and the goals manageable, and I'm excited to be surrounded by deeply passionate people.  I'm hoping that I can channel most of my massive quantities of anxiety and dysfunction in the general direction of this here electronic journal, and thereby avoid terrible offense/utter disintegration, and (bonus!) keep my mother assured that I'm still alive. So that's good.

Things I still very much need to do:

• Pack
• Take the GREs (nervous laughter?)
• Send my books out
• Find a store to leave with my jewelry
• Write an application for London School of Economics
• Restructure my psyche entirely for an east African experience

Just a few minor details. Could be worse?