food.craft.life.

Since we did very little of interest on Sunday (which was fine by me) I thought I would use this blog to reflect on my time here so far. We are halfway through our month.

Africa has challenged me in many ways. I don’t mean the heat or the bugs. (Mom had to wage war against another spider for me last night…but I won a valiant battle against the ants. At least the butterflies are pretty!) My sensibilities and values have been challenged and I find myself caught between two worlds.

Driving through the Serengeti, especially the southern bit that allowed off-roading, we often went miles without seeing a road and even further without seeing another vehicle. Yet the tracks were visible, crisscrossing the landscape. Several times a day we would notice a group of jeeps, surrounding a good find. Lions, cheetahs, whatever it may be. These poor wild animals could hardly escape the flash of the cameras, the oohs and aahs of adoring tourists. I felt guilty for being part of an industry that profits from the destruction of natural habitat. But then I also realized that perhaps the people with their cameras might be moved by the experience to give back and help protect both the animals and their land. As much as I loved what the off-roading allowed us to see, it just felt wrong.

Driving and walking through Arusha has also challenged some of my preconceptions. Arusha is a poor but bustling city with the UN tribunal for the Rwanda genocide and hundreds of safari companies based here. Watching the sidewalk is like being inside a National Geographic photo - a group of traditionally dressed Maasai men here, women carrying huge bags, buckets, or bundles on their heads there. Women selling roasted corn on the cob along the roadside and men pulling rickshaw carts overloaded with bags. By my standards, the majority of people we pass on the street look very poor. But do my standards apply here? Is poverty the same everywhere? Do these people even want our life? We may have big homes and cars and televisions, but we also live a frenzied pace, spending little time with our families and losing sight of core values.

Arusha also has a huge disparity of wealth. There seems to be little or no middle class. And unfortunately the class lines seem to fall along race lines as well. Not always, but most of what I’ve seen has been a huge racial divide. The sports club where Peace House played rugby was “a little piece of paradise” as our roommate called it. It is very nice, with workout facilities, a beautiful pool, bar, restaurant, shop, salon, and coffee shop. It’s impossible to not notice that most of the people enjoying the facility are white. The accents vary greatly from British to German to Aussie to American but the skin is mostly white. The same holds true for most of the good restaurants we’ve been to. The clientele is predominately white. The staff? Mostly black.

I can’t help but wonder how well the money trickles down. The sports complex charges only $50/month for a two person “family” membership. That’s half what the YMCA costs back home. Surely the wages for the employees can’t be much by US standards, but they are probably quite good by Tanzanian standards. Whose standards should we use - those at the top or those at the bottom? Perhaps they have settled somewhere in the middle, but something tells me that isn’t the case. I hope I’m wrong.

I have accepted that I am here to help in whatever little way I can, and that is good enough for right now. Though these three weeks of help don’t feel like nearly enough, they are more than most people will ever give. It’s easy (for some) to just write a check but time is a rare and precious gift, especially to we frenzied Americans. I hope I am making at least a small difference because the experience is making a huge difference in me.