October 28 & 29

I thought I'd never get bored in Tanzania, or working in this program. But it's slowly happening. I arrived at GSC HQ this morning dreading another day in Montessori Infinity. The other volunteers are also becoming discouraged with this setup, we just look forward to where we'll gather for drinks after we get back to town. However, I have decided to concentrate my attention to gathering as many observations about Arusha and take advantage of being in town so much.

For starters, this morning on the dala dala I got a glimpse of what could potentially be a statement about the election this weekend. Everyone always says Tanzania is a peaceful democracy-absolutely true relative to Kenya up north. Every election that's happened since Tanzania's independence has always gone peacefully. However, I think in town more people are itching for a serious change, and there is so much discussion for changing the political party in power since independence, CCM. In town, more people have been waving Chadema flags on their cars (especially dala dala) and businesses, however CCM is the clear favorite, I've noticed when we've been out in the villages with the Maasai and the Meru. This morning at the Mianzini stop where the dala conductors always hustle to fill the vans, a man wearing a CCM hat tried to get near my dala and announce something to the passengers inside. No one was interested in listening, and shooed hum away shouting 'Toka!'-swahili for piss off, what Swahili speakers usually say to dogs and people they want to go away. The dala driver even stepped on the gas a little to move up (not only for the CCM guy, sometimes they make room on the stand for other dalas to pull up). After this, he came back to the entrance of the dala and pointed at me 'mzungu', and said something I didn't understand in Swahili, and the dala driver said something back in Swahili and asked me a question. I had no idea what was going on, but just put a thumbs up and said Chadema. Everyone in the dala laughed, and the CCM guy, defeated, walked away. I did wonder what would have happened if I put up the thumbs up for CCM, there would have been consequences I'm sure my travel health insurance wouldn't cover.

As soon as I got to the office, we headed off to the school where today we were slated to demonstrate how to dig a double dug bed. Long story short, and as expected the girls refused to grab a shovel or forkhoe, fetch manure, touch dirt, or pretty much anything of a laborious nature. So us GSC volunteers and counterparts did a lot of the digging. As we prepared to leave, our counterpart who had been working with ys on translations commented that this was the future of Tanzania. He called these women the 'dot com' generation. I debated that this wasn't even the right name; as an American, as a New Yorker I've never farmed and I would certainly farm or have a garden. I think these women are just lazy, and don't care about learning anymore because they think they are preparing for a life of always teaching. It's also a huge contradiction to one of Kikwete's initiatives in Tanzania- Kilimo Kwanzaa (agriculture first, you get the alliteration in Swahili). It's the government's action to continue agricultural programs and pass on agricultural practice to the younger, 'dot com generation'. I wonder if the bulk of that work is being done in southern Tanzania which is far less developed, and where a lot of produce is grown.

I joked that us as a whole in the SA group are having a fairly productive week, but the HIV/AIDS prevention group has had an interesting couple of days. I've known that despite what most people think about Africans and HIV/AIDS, and that many times cultures rule out ever speaking about the disease because of stigma--is untrue. Many people in the villages we've worked with have asked very open questions about sexuality, disease and protection. Today, one of the HA volunteers was telling me of her experience working in a community group outside of town. One villager asked her if it was ok for a woman to sexually please another woman. She responded through translation that it was okay, depending on your comfort and sexual preference, you still have to protect yourself, but it is possible. Afterwords, she was told by a counterpart that he disproved of that question, and said these "bad" questions are caused by globalization--blaming it on sources like televisions, movies, the internet that has caused questions about homosexuality in their trainings. The volunteer debated with him that it's often perceived in America that homosexuality can be innate, not influenced by media, culture or even westernization. I don't blame her for refuting his response, but Tanzania is fairly un-friendly to homosexuals and is very conservative. It was difficult for him to hear her side, and he pretty much did not want to accept that having homosexuals in the country would happen regardless of western influence in movies or television, and he's a college student! I'm now very curious to look at the perception of homosexuality in Cambodia, and if it's stemmed from religion like it is here.

When we arrived at the GSC offices that afternoon, we saw in our demo garden were the speakers for Gardening Gods Way, kneeling and holding hands with some of our trainers, praying before the soil. Everyone in the LandCruiser laughed out loud. As a practicing Catholic, even I thought it was unusual. I've been teaching agriculture the past 7 weeks, and have seen so many people's farms and gardens. I have never even thought of praying before the soil asking God to give high yields. It was such an abstract action, and slightly bizarre.

The elections are drawing nearer, and the trucks that go by blaring the CCM and Chadema party jingles are passing more frequently. This really is proving to be unlike any election in my lifetime in America, and I'm actually waiting to see what happens this weekend!