Final Week in Mwanza

 

Final Week in Mwanza

As I write this blog, I am coming to the end of my final Thursday in Tanzania.  We are flying out of Mwanza on Monday morning, and only have three more days left to say our goodbyes, celebrate, and enjoy Mwanza.  Today I handed in my final project to the MikonoYetu staff, and yesterday Sima and I submitted the final report to Kivulini.  Handing in both those papers was such a relief, because I was able to see something tangible that I had created, and also had a weight lifted off my shoulders now that I am able to relax and enjoy the last few days in this country. 

I want to mention a wonderful experience that Sima and I were able to share with the Kivulini staff.  We came into work on Wednesday, and after an hour or so at work, the staff told us that they were closing the office for the day and were taking us to a special goodbye lunch at a beautiful beach resort/restaurant.  We all drove out (at least 20 staff were there) to the restaurant, and had such a wonderful time.  The food was great and the company was even better.  When the waiters brought giant Tilapia fish to the table, I was a little thrown off because we were given the entire fish with a face still on it.  However, once I started eating it I quickly got over it because it was delicious.  After the meal, we all stood up and made a giant circle and had a mini dance party.  The staff at the restaurant were taking song requests, and everyone was dancing together.  I loved this experience because it was one of those moments when you are able to see people who are normally your coworkers, as more than just work colleagues.  Instead they become more like friends and more easy to relate to.  I think my favourite part of the goodbye lunch was when the staff sung us a goodbye song, and then gave small speeches about the time we spent with them.  I almost cried when Grace, a woman I have become very close with at Kivulini, said goodbye to us and told us how she was going to miss us.  Kivulini also presented Sima and I with these wonderful African print bags as a send-off gift.  The entire day was so wonderful and I am so happy that I was able to experience it with the staff who I have been spending the past three months with.

The same night, we had a potluck dinner with a lot of our friends who live in town.  We all played board games and hung out until two am.  It was a really nice night, and made me realize that I am going to miss a lot of the friends I have made here.  Thankfully, we still have a few more days left. On Saturday, along with the other interns as well as our friends from Mwanza , I will be going to an Indian wedding! One of our friends is lending us all Indian clothes and I am wearing a beautiful turquoise saree.  Tomorrow I am going to go get mendhi on my hands.  I can’t wait for Saturday. I love how I came to Mwanza expecting to learn a lot about the Tanzanian culture, but never realized that I would be getting to partake in different cultural experiences from other groups of people as well.

We just got home from being in town, and Gabriella, Tara, Gavin and I took part in a karaoke night at one of the local hotels. On our way to the hotel we were singing all the songs from the Grease soundtrack while walking down the street, so we decided it was only fitting to sing one at karaoke.  We sang Summer Nights from Grease, and although we were terrible, it was so much fun. 

My next blog will most likely be my final blog, because it will be a conclusion of my experiences in Mwanza and final thoughts I have had.  However,  I will make sure to post photos from the wedding we go to. 

I am going to sleep now… we are waking up early to go and pick up skirts that we got tailored for us by a local tailor!

 

Wide Awake

It’s currently 4:24am and I am wide awake.  I tried going to sleep five hours ago, and spent hours staring at the top of my mosquito net, so I am allowing myself to open up my laptop and start writing a blog.  For the past week I have been having difficulties sleeping, always falling asleep hours after I first climb into bed.  I feel like I am falling back into the sleeping pattern that I have during the school year – my mind racing all night and being exhausted during the day.  I think it might be because I am going home in 22 days.   When we first arrived in Tanzania, I was sleeping at 8 pm every night. I didn’t have worries about the future, and I didn’t get anxious about all of the things that I need to do back at home.  However, as August 17^th approaches, my brain it seems has designated the hours between midnight and six am as the hours where I figure out my life. There are appointments I need to book, my trip to Texas I need to plan, O-week and sophing, things I need to buy for the new school year, races I want to run and need to sign up for, applying for jobs in the school year, and the list goes on.  This crazy jumble of things that I need to plan are making me realize how much I am going to miss the relaxed pace here, the same relaxed pace I was initially frustrated with when I arrived. I love the nature here, the friendly environment, and the beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I am going to miss going on two hour walks with my roommates through Mwanza, buying bananas from people sitting on the road, and taking in the beautiful rocky landscape without worrying about so many of the details that trouble me back in Canada.

Field Study in the Mara Region

Last week I had an amazing opportunity with Kivulini.  I was able to travel with them for six days to three different rural districts in Tanzania.  We spent two days in Magu, two days in Bunda, and two days in Tarime, gathering research for an evaluation on their training program.  I was lucky enough to get to go and sit in on interviews and focus group discussions about gendered violence, HIV, and power in communities. I learned so many interesting, and also unsettling things.  Some of the responses in the interviews shocked me… they were responses to questions about violence that I had never even considered before.  For example, one woman told me about the Musoma tribe she was a part of, and how in that tribe beating your wife means that you love her. She told me that if a woman is not beaten, she feels insecure because she doesn’t think her husband loves her.  I have been trying to wrap my head around this concept for a week, and I still can’t grasp the belief system behind it.  I also heard many stories about female genital mutilation, and was surprised at its prevalence in some villages.  A key reason that female genital mutilation occurs, according to many of the men I spoke to, was that they believe if a woman has part/all of her clitoris cut out, she will no longer be interested in sex and therefore won’t cheat.  Apart from the health consequences that negatively affect a woman who has been circumcised, the process of female genital mutilation is unjust and cruel in that it prevents a woman from enjoying sex.  By doing this, it makes the act of sex entirely for the male’s pleasure – giving the male a clear power over the woman.  As well, one of the reasons behind FGM (to prevent a woman from cheating), means that FGM not only harms a woman physically and sexually, but it is a way of controlling her.  Hearing so many stories of FGM really struck a chord with me. 

From this six day field study, I am writing a report for Kivulini on the results and improvements that can be made to the training to make it more effective. I am also currently working on a paper for an independent study I am doing for a course credit, and am struggling with writing it.  I have experienced so many things that I don’t know where to begin or how to be concise.

Conversation with a Law Student

I had an interaction the other day that I feel like I should share.  I was walking on the SAUT university campus and a male student came up to me and started talking to me. He asked me many questions about Canada, and then began asking me more personal questions.  When he asked if I was married, I laughed and said no. He then asked if I had a boyfriend, which I also replied no to.  He then asked me if he could be my boyfriend.

I told him no, and then asked him why he wanted to date me when he had only known me for two minutes.  He told me that it was because I was a mzungu.  I proceeded to tell him that if he wanted to date me because I was a mzungu, that was a ridiculous reason.  It’s just skin colour. I could be the worst person in the world, but he wanted to date me solely for my being white.

THEN, his response is what struck me; it confused and infuriated me.

“You are from the Western world. You have brains. Tanzanian women have dormant brains. They can’t think.”

I have been made very aware on this trip of the low respect and lower status that women have in Tanzania. However, I would have thought that this low respect would apply to all women globally (as horrible as that is), but instead here was a law student explaining to me that white women could have brains, but Tanzanian women were not able to think.  I have to admit that I got into a bit of a debate with him here… I told him that maybe Tanzanian women here don’t have as much access to school, and therefore can’t be educated and use their brains (which are the exact same as mine) to learn as much as I am able to. I also told him that on the SAUT campus I see MANY students who are girls, and that I was positive they were intelligent and could easily be smarter than him or me 

I think this situation really bothered me because of the positive attention he was giving to me, while he spoke so lowly of the people of his country. It made me once again question the way I am viewed by people while I am here.  It also made me realize how real the after effects of colonialism are.  Initially coming here, I would have never argued back with him, but now that I have been here for over two months I felt like I could. And I’m glad I did – women in Tanzania deserve respect just as much as any other person internationally does. 

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It’s coming up for 5 am so I am going to try the sleep thing again (hopefully with more success than I had earlier).  I’ll be seeing you in 22 days Canada.

 

Kids

On our way home from dinner at a friend’s home, I experienced a situation which left me with mixed emotions.  Tara, Gabriella and I managed to take the last dalla dalla of the night into town, and from there we were going to grab a taxi to take us back to our house.  The dalla dalla dropped us off in town, and we were about a block or two away from the hotel that taxis wait outside of.  We always try to travel in the day time for safety reasons, but because of the location of the dalla dalla stop we had to walk a short distance to get a taxi. On our way to the Gold Crest Hotel, we passed by a large group of street children.  At first they were in a standing huddle, but as we passed by, they spread out to surround us and started following us while asking for money. Since I have been in Mwanza, many people have warned me to be careful of the street kids at night because they will try to rob you, especially if you are alone. I’ve learned some common tricks used to steal money, so I was very alert, and made sure not to get distracted while I held onto my bag.  The kids followed us down the street, and there were about ten of them.  I was pretty nervous.  I don’t think that they would have done anything harmful (other than try to take our belongings), but I was still really uncomfortable being followed by a group of street kids through town, in the dark.  We crossed the street and made it to the hotel, where we got our favourite cab driver to take us home. 

So, my initial feelings were fearful and nervous.  But once we got into the cab and I had a sense of security, I was overcome with another emotion; I was upset.  I started thinking about the street kids and processed the fact that these kids were most likely orphans, or children who, for one reason or another, couldn’t go back to their home.  They might have been abused or neglected in the past. Maybe they didn’t have a home they could go to. Some of the kids looked as young as nine years old.  I cannot even begin to imagine being nine years old and having to try to fend for myself and survive on the street.  I can’t blame these kids for wanting money, or stealing to get it – their life situation pushed them into that lifestyle. 

 Later on in the week I was doing sprints and a resistance training workout in the soccer field near my home, and some of the local kids were watching.  After laughing at me for quite some time, a bunch of the kids started copying me, and it more or less turned into a gym class I was running unintentionally “Pushups, ishirini! (20) Tunakimbia! (Run).”  These kids were so fun and I had such a laugh working out with them.

 I’m mentioning these kids in the soccer field because they were roughly the same age as the street kids I had encountered, and were in a similarly sized group.  However, they have had the opportunity to be children.  They can play and go home to their parents (many of who were watching us workout in the field).  These kinds of lifestyle differences are what tug at my heart.  Why did one group of kids end up with one situation, while the other group are living alone in a city, trying to get whatever money they can to survive? The same can be said for all different situations.  Why was I fortunate to have a university education, when some kids don’t even go to elementary school? Why am I lucky enough to get to travel? Why is no one in my immediate family sick, when so many others I know have been surrounded with illness and death in their families?  Even on this trip I have experienced two friends who have lost their parents. And on this trail of questions, there are so many more, with answers that I don’t think will ever satisfy me. 

Day to Day Life and Christmas in June

Tara, Gabriella, and I were living in a guest house for the first month of our stay in Tanzania. We were waiting for our current house to be ready to live in, and we finally moved in on Friday! We now have a kitchen and are able to cook our own meals. What makes me most excited about the kitchen is that now we can buy healthy food, and I can cut up as much pineapple as I want (aka A LOT of pineapple). We’ve also gone through at least 5 pineapples in under a week. Our first few attempts at dinners have been really time consuming, especially because we need to boil all the water before we use it and we aren’t used to cooking everything in the silver pots they use here. We discovered a really easy recipe for a guac/hummus by just using beans, avocado, garlic, onions and seasoning. I have been living in a house in London for two years and haven’t learned to cook, yet in the past few days here I have already learned how to make three different dinners.

Having our own kitchen also means we need to venture into the market more frequently to get vegetables, beans, rice, and fruits. I still find the market overwhelming whenever I go to buy things. There are hundreds of people milling around, kids who surround you in circles looking for money, and of course the “mzungu price” we have to pay because we aren’t locals. People also grab onto you and try and pull you to their stands. The constant pushiness to buy things (for lack of a better word) is very much a part of the culture, and as a mzungu I feel like I am hit with it a lot harder than most. Tara and Gabriella are much better at navigating the market than I am, so I like going shopping when I am with them.

In our new house we can also workout in our living room without disturbing anyone. At the guest house, we had to work out in the main hallway and always had to be really aware of others around us. I lucked out with my roommates because they both want to and like to exercise, so we always motivate each other to keep fit during this trip. The “weights” we use right now are 1 litre water bottles filled with mud.

A current drawback of our new house is a lack of running water. Our sinks run from 5am until 7pm, and then the water is cut off. That isn’t a big deal because we fill up multiple plastic buckets full of water during the day so that we have lots of water during the night to clean dishes and wash our hands, etc. The problem is that we currently don’t have running water in our toilet or shower. We still have a key to the guest house which is a short walk down the road, so we can shower there, but we don’t know how long we get to keep the key for or how long we will be without water for. So in the near future, we may be showering with buckets for the rest of the trip (I hope not though!). As for the toilet, we figured out that if you pour water from a bucket into the toilet quickly, it puts enough pressure to flush the toilet. That discovery has been really convenient.

Whenever I have internet access and go onto my social media, I keep having moments where I find my Canadian “normal”, so foreign. For example, I checked my snapchat yesterday and apparently there was a blackout in London, because over 10 of my contacts posted snaps about the blackout. I have adjusted to having 1 to 3 blackouts a day here that it doesn’t even affect me when they happen. However, I know that if I was in Canada right now, blackouts would be a big deal because there is so much technology that requires electricity.

We’ve been doing a lot of work for our projects during the week, but on the weekend we were able to go on a boat ride around Lake Victoria with a really large group, including the other Western interns. It was really fun and the view was beautiful. Watching the sunset never gets old. On the boat ride, we met two guys who were my age and from London, England. They have been here for the same amount of time that we have, but are going home next week. We had them over last night and had a chill night where we all hung out and drank wine. I wish we had met them earlier, because it is always nice to have friends when you are travelling in a foreign place.

I have 48 more days in Tanzania, and when I get home I can’t believe how little time I am going to have to adjust and settle back into my normal life! During the week I get home, I need to do my G driving test and I need to pass the first time because it expires 7 days after I get home. I’m feeling a little nervous for that test because I won’t have driven in three months, and the driving here is so aggressive that I think I am going to forget how to drive according to the rules in Canada. I have my birthday on August 25th, and then am heading to Texas with my two older sisters for my birthday trip (woohoo 21 in the States). We get back from Texas on the 31st at night, and then I need to head back to school for Soph training and pre-o week the following day on September 1st.
That’s about it for the update on my daily life – I hope you are all having a wonderful summer thus far!
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I wrote this days ago and forgot to post it, so we have had a few more adventures. We made a friend from Switzerland and she came over the other night and we had “Christmas in June.” We watched The Holiday, ate Nutella and crepes, made hot chocolate and also ate Swiss Chocolate. I got Christmas cards for the girls and it was a really cute night!

The morning after Christmas in June, we all woke up at 5:15 am to go and see the sunrise on a hill. We also didn’t check what time the sun rose at, so we were REALLY early. While waiting the extra hour, we went on a walk in the dark around the university campus roads and were able to see a lot of the early morning joggers and people exercising at 6 am. We started climbing the hill at 6:15am, and made it to a beautiful lookout point for the sunrise. We had an incredible view of “rock city” and the sunrise was remarkable.

-Rhi Rhi
(at my internship at Kivulini, no one can say my name, so my name here is Rhi Rhi, and some of the younger staff call me Bad Gal Rhi Rhi. Probably one of the funniest things to happen here, because never in my life would I have guessed that during my three months in Tanzania I would acquire the nickname Bad Gal Rhi Rhi)

^ Gabriella, Tara and I, and another new friend Tiina from Finland at the other interns house warming party

 

Mzungu, give me money

“Mzungu, give me money.” A few weeks into this trip, I decided to get off the dalla dalla early at the Nygeze corner stop, and walk the rest of the way home. Two girls heading to elementary school began following me, and eventually gained the courage to say hi. We had a short but sweet conversation in broken English and Swahili, and then I kept walking. The girls continued to walk behind me and were whispering, when finally one of them caught up to me and said “Give me money.”

A few days earlier, I was walking in Mwanza and a boy who was maybe 5 years of age came up to me and said, “Mzungu, give me money.”

These are not isolated incidents, but are experiences I encounter multiple times a day. People ask me for the water bottle I am drinking from, to pay for their dalla dalla ride, and even for really large sums of money to fund their projects I am not a part of. When we go to the market, we are given the mzungu price instead of the normal price. Another intern was using a hotel washroom, when an employee closed the door to exit and said “Sister, I want a soda.” Students from the university have even approached us and asked us to give them money. My roommates were invited to a wedding they could not attend, and when they informed the bride-to-be, she asked that they give her money to support her wedding instead.

I am used to this in a smaller degree in Canada. Social inequality is rampant. It’s unjust and unfair, but it is everywhere. I volunteer with women who are struggling economically, and try to give money or buy food for the homeless I encounter. However, in Canada I am not viewed as a privileged minority every time I leave my house. There are thousands of students in my socioeconomic bubble who live in a similar area and do the same daily things I do. What I am grappling with in Tanzania, is trying to understand the image people see when I go outside and interact with the public. I remember the day the young boy said, “Mzungu, give me money,” very well. I came home and discussed it with Tara and Gabriella because it was then that I realized how the majority of people probably view me. You know how kids say whatever is on their mind and have few barriers? That’s exactly what this child was doing. But that means, that as young as five, he had learned that mzungus/white people, had money and he could maybe get some from them. I also realized that if this child was just speaking what he had learned, a lot more people were probably thinking it without saying anything. I know that I am fortunate and that compared to a lot of people I meet here, my level of income and the opportunities I have are much greater. I am hesitant while writing this, because I don’t want it to seem like I am complaining about my opportunities. Instead, I just want to get my thoughts out on paper, and see where they go. I think what I am finding difficult about all of these interactions is the expectancy. I have been asked to go back to Canada and raise money for communities and to try and fix problems of corruption in Tanzania. I feel like this constant request for me to give money and fix problems relates to the type of dead aid that has developed post-colonialism. Some (of course not all) people have learned to depend on and expect things from “the mzungu.” And it makes sense - in colonial times, the mzungus came, took, “conquered”, and fostered dependency. I don’t have a conclusion for this, or a solution. I do however, have a mix of emotions – guilt, frustration, annoyance. I don’t know if I should have the right to feel annoyed or frustrated, but I do because I didn’t ask to grow up where I grew up or have the nationality that I do. It’s just what I am. I also don’t want to feel guilty, but I do, because I recognize there are a lot of basic needs which I have, that many people don’t. I realize that to many people I look like a walking symbol of wealth. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it seems to be the reality. So for now, I am going to try my best to accept it and try to see what I can learn from it.

I remember the day the young boy said, “Mzungu, give me money,” very well. I came home and discussed it with Tara and Gabriella because it was then that I realized how the majority of people probably view me. You know how kids say whatever is on their mind and have few barriers? That’s exactly what this child was doing. But that means, that as young as five, he had learned that mzungus/white people, had money and he could maybe get some from them. I also realized that if this child was just speaking what he had learned, a lot more people were probably thinking it without saying anything.

I know that I am fortunate and that compared to a lot of people I meet here, my level of income and the opportunities I have are much greater. I am hesitant while writing this, because I don’t want it to seem like I am complaining about my opportunities. Instead, I just want to get my thoughts out on paper, and see where they go. I think what I am finding difficult about all of these interactions is the expectancy. I have been asked to go back to Canada and raise money for communities and to try and fix problems of corruption in Tanzania. I feel like this constant request for me to give money and fix problems relates to the type of dead aid that has developed post-colonialism. Some (of course not all) people have learned to depend on and expect things from “the mzungu.” And it makes sense - in colonial times, the mzungus came, took, “conquered”, and fostered dependency.

I don’t have a conclusion for this, or a solution. I do however, have a mix of emotions – guilt, frustration, annoyance. I don’t know if I should have the right to feel annoyed or frustrated, but I do because I didn’t ask to grow up where I grew up or have the nationality that I do. It’s just what I am. I also don’t want to feel guilty, but I do, because I recognize there are a lot of basic needs which I have, that many people don’t. I realize that to many people I look like a walking symbol of wealth. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it seems to be the reality. So for now, I am going to try my best to accept it and try to see what I can learn from it.

Museum

At MikonoYetu, Sima and I are currently working on an information/tour guide book and business plan for a woman’s museum.  The idea behind its creation is the concept of role modelling, and how difficult it is for women to have powerful women role models if they never see or hear about them.  The layout for the future museum is going to be outdoors, with different pavilions covering different sections on women: Powerful historical women, women in the last century who have impacted East African society, traditional dress and food, a section on land rights, and (my favourite), a section dedicated to sexuality, childbirth, disease etc.  When speaking with Samantha, another woman who is working on the project with us, she had a vision of the museum not just being a museum, but also a place for women to access information.  For example, in the section on sexuality, it might dispel myths, or talk about consent and contraceptives. I gravitated towards this idea immediately because I think education and information is the best way to create change and encourage empowerment.

 I have been doing a lot of reading and research over the past few days, but I am finding it difficult to find a lot of valid information on women in East African history.  The library is amazing and has so many textbooks on different subjects, however a lot of them have been donated from Europe or North America and cover history or research done in those areas, not in East Africa. As well, finding information on women is difficult…there is that saying that history is written by the victors, and it relates to this research because in a lot of societal systems, men held more power and were able to write their histories.  Thankfully, Maimuna (one of my project directors here) told me she has quite a bit of information on powerful historical women that she can provide me with soon.

The museum is a large work in progress and will be nowhere near complete once we leave in August, but I am pleased to contribute to its foundation.  

Midnight

Written on one of those nights where my thoughts wouldn’t let me sleep

For those of you who don’t know me well, I’ll let you in on a few aspects of my life that take up most of my time, thoughts, and emotions.  .  I am sensitive, and get riled up and upset at social justice issues.  My background in Sociology has increased my awareness of the struggles those with marginalized positions in society have to face. In other words, I have a really big soft spot for those who are excluded, discriminated against, and who suffer at the hands of our institutional and social systems.  Next, I am also constantly on the lookout for new adventures.  I get bored easily in most areas of my life, and will spontaneously make plans to go on a weekend trip to Texas, to challenge myself to compete with myself (the first race I ever decided to run was 30km in distance), and I hate the idea of staying in the same environment and not experiencing new and incredible things.  I have three sisters who I can easily say are my absolute best friends.  I couldn’t ask for better siblings; they mean the world to me.

Why am I writing this in my blog? To begin with, my interest in social justice issues has really shaped how I am experiencing my time in Mwanza.  I am paying special interest to abuses of power, corruption within authority, and the gender imbalances I am witnessing. Social justice issues are present worldwide, but when you live in your hometown, you tend to ignore, turn a blind eye to, or accept them because you are accustomed to them.  Since I am in a brand new environment, living in a different continent, my senses are heightened to my surroundings, and I am doing a lot more research into the issues I hear about.  When I was in high school, I lost interest in fantasy books, and took a liking to memoirs and stories that were real.  For some reason I was attracted to stories where people faced struggles and sometimes overcame them, and sometimes didn’t.  My choice in books are often heart wrenching and difficult, yet they are important to me because they show the reality of many people’s lives.  In relation to my almost month in Mwanza so far…  When I hear stories about street leaders accepting bribes from men to ignore the complaints their wives are raising about abuse, or street police who use their authority and rape women or kids on the street, I can’t help but care.  What bothers me is my conscious awareness that I can’t change these situations.  I wish I could, but I don’t have abilities to change a hierarchical system that is engrained in a culture.

Secondly, my constant urge to travel, to be spontaneous.  This trip in itself is travel.  It is me experiencing a new culture and seeing a part of the earth I have never seen before. However, three weeks in and I already feel a little anxious.  Unlike when I am in Canada, I can’t decide to go on a road trip to the States and see a new state or drive to a different city and visit friends for the weekend.  I guess technically I could fly to different countries within East Africa, but unfortunately I don’t have the money for that (I wish!).  In Canada it is so easy for me to take a greyhound somewhere (even to Toronto) and go to a concert or explore the city.  In a way, I guess I can do that here... I have gone to museums and scenic places, but it’s different because I don’t have the comfort level and knowledge that I have at home.  When I want to go somewhere here, I am dependent on someone driving me, a tour guide, or someone who is fluent in Swahili.  I don’t have the comforts of being in an area or atmosphere where I am completely comfortable and confident.  I think I am just finding it more difficult to be spontaneous in an area where I am not confident in my abilities to navigate and feel completely safe.

Finally, it has only been three weeks (almost a month if I count the day I left for the airport), but I feel homesick, especially for my sisters.  When I am in London, I know that two of them are close enough that I could take a train and be with them in less than two hours.  In September, my little sister is joining me at Western and I will be able to see her as often as I want!  Georgia lives in Toronto and is a twenty dollar greyhound away.  My oldest sister lives in Calgary, but even then we are in the same country and we take turns visiting each other (my family went and saw her for her law school graduation the week before I came here).  I am struggling with the seven hour time difference and the definite understanding that I physically cannot be with any of them until August 18^th.  When I want to skype with them, they are usually at work or school, and when they finish it is late at night here, and I don’t have internet access in my house.  We Facebook message frequently, but I am really missing being with them in person.  I’ll admit that I am probably biased because they are my sisters, but they are such funny, loving, kind and amazing people that I don’t know how I am going to go over two more months without them.

 It’s crazy… next May after graduation I am planning on packing my bags and moving to Alberta.  I fell in love with the West earlier this year, and the adventurous part of me wants nothing more than to go and explore the mountains and incredible natural sights Alberta has to offer and start a new life somewhere where there will always be places to explore.  But now during this trip, I am thinking about how scary it might be to start a new life in a province away from everything I know.  The good thing about Alberta is that I will at least have one sister there – now I just need to convince the other two to move out there with us!!        

This blog really didn’t touch on my current experiences in Mwanza, but in my defence, it is midnight, I can’t sleep, and my brain just won’t stop racing.  I think I just wanted to express that although I am enjoying my time here and starting to really adjust to my environment, I am feeling ­­homesick and a little anxious.  I’m really glad that the group of interns I am with are so incredible.  We are a really good support system for each other.  We have all gotten really close and are much more open with each other than what I would have expected for three weeks in. 

I’m just rambling now, so I am going to attempt to sleep again.  I have a meeting early in the morning and need to be on a dala dala at 7:30am.    Lala salama.  

Gender Scripts

My inner sociology student has become obsessed with observing how people interact with each other here and cultural similarities and differences I am witnessing.  Every society has gender scripts and roles assigned to both males and females.  For example, in Canada, as “progressive” as we like to believe we are, there are still deep rooted beliefs in male hyper masculinity and overly sexualized, delicate images of females that are constantly advertised to us.  This is where I would like to describe a contrast between what I have seen in Mwanza, and what I see back home.

In Tanzania, homosexuality is illegal.  Not just gay marriage, but any acts of homosexuality are illegal.  In Canada, I am happy to say, this is not the case. Gay marriage is legalized and we are slowly making waves in cultural acceptance of homosexuality.  So coming here, I was really interesting to see the dynamics between people of the same sex, and to see if the gender scripts of men emphasized their heterosexual masculinity in the same way that the gender scripts in Canada do.  Instead, I have witnessed something I was not expecting, that I think has become one of my favourite interactions between people in Mwanza. Hand holding.  People hold hands all the time.  Not just girls or children, but grown men walk down the streets holding hands because it is a sign of friendship.  In Canada, I know very few guys  who would do this – males are too often afraid to touch each other affectionately or engage in any interactions that might reflect poorly on their heterosexual image.  I don’t have an analysis for these two differences, instead I just wanted to share this contrast.  In a country where homosexuality is illegal, males hold hands with their friend in public.  In Canada, where homosexuality and gay marriage are legal, males appear to have stricter guidelines on how they present themselves (perhaps in this area only, but it shows that our gender scripts have not changed as progressively as our laws have).      

I Am A Mzungu

Mzungu: those who wander aimlessly, usually a white person.

I want to write this particular blog because I think it is necessary, yet I don’t want to write this blog because I don’t want to put on paper what I have come to terms with. I started my blog talking about voluntourism and how I wanted to avoid that type of outcome as much as possible, however as I begin my third week in Mwanza, I am really starting to feel like I am a (close to useless) voluntourist.  Here I am in Tanzania getting to experience an entirely new culture, work on learning a new language, and enjoying the new opportunities I am faced with on a daily basis.  I am SO energized at the thought of working with Kivulini and their goals of empowering women and preventing violence against women.  People are more than hospitable, and I am so grateful for all of these things. The problem is – what am I doing for them? How am I actually improving anything with the two organizations I am working with for the next three months?

I started noticing and feeling incompetent once it really hit me how little Swahili I knew, and how important a language is. When you are used to living in your own country with your own language, it never crosses your mind that language is that important – it is just something you have. When I go to Kivulini, they are so kind and really make an effort to speak to me in English when I don’t understand, but that’s the point…they have to go out of their way to accommodate me. Sima and I went to a training day with the Kivulini staff and there were some parts we were able to participate in, however the majority of the 6 hour session was in Swahili.  One member of the team was trying to help translate for me, but after a little while I told him it was okay, because I didn’t want him to miss out on the training due to my inability to understand.  As well, I will be doing a program review for the SASA! project at Kivulini.  I have read all about it, but I am now worried that when it comes down to doing the review, interviewing people, and going to training sessions in the villages, I will be more counterproductive than anything.  I really do want to be invested in this report and the organization, but I keep feeling like my participation in this internship is fundamentally selfish. I am going to learn so much and take away amazing experiences from opportunities I am passionate about, but am I really doing anything that benefits the organization?

 

On a more positive note, I do think I can do a good job of the projects Sima and I were assigned at MikonoYetu.  We are working on a tourism guide for Mwanza and a training manual for tour guides.  This involves research, a tourist guide appealing to tourists (and I am one so I can relate to the target audience).  It involves creativity and captivating an audience. I feel less meaningless in this project area, and that makes me feel better about my 12 week stay in Mwanza.

Something that I have found humbling about this trip is realizing how little I know.  I don’t know what a good price is to buy fruit at the market, I have difficulties using public transit, I even face issues when trying to find a bathroom I can use. It’s funny… throughout the end of high school up until very recently, I always thought that when I grew up and began working in a field related to sex trafficking, I would work internationally. International development.  I am realizing now that I would be a lot more productive and a lot more comfortable if I did it within Canada, or somewhere where I did not stand out as the person who knows nothing.

At the end of the day I am going to put my full efforts into being the best intern I can be at Kivulini. I really think they are an incredible organization and I want to be a positive asset to them.  I also realize that they have had past interns before from Western, and they definitely knew what they were getting themselves into when they accepted me as an intern.  Thinking like this gives me a small shot of hope that maybe I can bring something new to the table that makes this internship more of a collaboration than what it is now.  I don’t want to seem so negative, but I figured it was only fair to write about issues and negative perspectives on my trip, rather than simply creating a blog about the wonderful things I am doing as a volun(tourist)eer.

  

Creating domestic violence free communities

Around the world and living in a different continent, and I am thrilled to say that today I began working with an organization who embodies the values and beliefs I have, as well as ignites my passion for gender equality, finding a balance in power relations, and preventing gendered violence.  Today, after a few miscommunication errors over the past week, Sima and I were able to go to the Kivulini Women’s Rights Organization office and begin our orientation with the organization. Kivulini means in the shade in Swahili - with the vision being a place of safety in the shade where people can gather and be a community.  Kivulini focuses on community mobilization, as they understand that domestic violence is not to be blamed on one person or type of person, but involves entrenched societal norms that condone violence.  For example, in a report  we read today on Tanzania it was noted that 56% of women in rural Tanzania have experienced domestic violence (whether that be physical, sexual, psychological, economic).  A statistic like this is a key reason to try to engage an entire community and change the currently accepted norms.   Therefore, by mobilizing entire communities and starting conversations about power imbalances and the positive effects of respect and gender equality, gendered violence is more likely to decrease.  Kivulini works in a few different areas in order to empower women and offer diverse methods, all with the same outcome in mind.  These areas are: Community Mobilization, Legal Aid, Capacity Building, and Policy Advocacy.  I attached a more detailed map which shows the different goals associated with each subtitle. 

 

This morning was my first official day with Kivulini, and the feeling I had while being in that office was incredible.  You know when you know you are passionate about something, or you know you really care about the cause? That is how I have been feeling all day.  Sima and I have quite a few readings to go through, and the SASA! book to go through (which shows the different training and activities Kivulini does in communities, as well as teaches people how to advocate for preventing gendered violence).  The SASA! website is listed here: http://raisingvoices.org/sasa/

What really struck me today was Tanzania’s Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act of 1998 (the most updated act of this kind on rules about sex, consent, sexual assault, etc).  It stipulates that rape can be measured in many different ways, however it will not be considered rape if the partners are married.  This makes me upset and frustrated – it is 2015 and there are places not recognizing rape as rape due to a marriage agreement. Marriage should not entitle anyone to non-consensual sex.  I think that this has/will lead many people to continue using rape within marriage because it is not illegal and it provides the image of a man’s wife having to obey him. 

Tomorrow we are meeting Yassin, the executive director of Kivulini, to follow up on what we learned and read today, and to begin creating a schedule for mine and Sima’s upcoming goals and the program evaluation I will be responsible for.  Over the next week we will be travelling with Kivulini to different regions around Lake Victoria in order to see training programs and sessions that Kivulini has developed within these regions.  What I really think has been a great outcome of Kivulini’s efforts is their paralegal program.  They have set up 275 paralegal volunteers to help women learn their rights and deal with conflicts and find resolutions. 

If you haven’t gathered, I am a feminist.  I believe in the equality of all and I don’t think it is something that can be accomplished with one gender against the other.  It is something that occurs when entire communities work together and work on balancing power in order to benefit all.