The Trouble with Opposable Thumbs

I left Capetown at 4:30 Sunday morning, with a small farewell committee- Steve, Claire, and Skipper were all there to see me off, none of us having gone to sleep. I missed the hostel as soon as I left, and wished I'd taken a bit longer to say goodbye. But does it really help? I think it makes things harder.

The flights to Tanzania were uneventful. I kept falling asleep and slumping into the aisle so that the stewardesses had to wake me up. After one of my naps, a weird Afrikaans guy next to me informed me that he had read my journal. I sat bolt upright, thinking of a gajillion things in there that I would NOT like strangers to be reading. His only comment was on how much things could change in a generation.... Oh well.

Ujamaa Hostel is in Arusha, Tanzania, not too far from Mt. Kilimanjaro. It houses volunteers, feeds them breakfast and dinner, and provides them with volunteer opportunities for no additional fee. Yesterday, I worked at an orphanage called Tumaini (Too-MY-nee) for children ages 5-7ish. They only have 19 right now, but as soon as their new house is ready, more will be coming. The manager, Beatrice (called Bebe by the children, which means "grandmother" in Swahili), has grand plans for the place which she outlined for me. They've had chickens for a year, they're just getting cows, and soon we'll be digging fish ponds so that these too can be a source of food and revenue for the children. Beatrice wants Tumaini to be as self-sufficient as possible.

So yesterday I worked with Jade, an Aussie girl, to build an enclosure for baby chicks and to put a chicken wire roof over the chickens which will keep the kites out. I was actually able to use my experience in Ecuador to suggest a way of connecting the strips of chicken wire together. We did have the inevitable difficulty: the children were done with school for the day, and were naturally curious about what the white girls and the two field workers (Ezekiel and William) were doing. Soon there was a small cloud of them playing with the wheelbarrow and the tape measure (I do remember those being fun when I was little, though I can't recall why), scaring the chickens (who doesnb't love that?), running off with hammers, and my personal favorite, a little boy called Musa was intent on stealing the wirecutters and snipping chicken wire in inappropriate places. He was very bright- if he spoke more english, I could have explained to him that he was endangering his own egg supply, and he might have cut it out. As it was, he just enjoyed the game of trying to avoid my evil eye upon him.

This is something the animals never did. Some of them might have, given opposable thumbs to play with, but children definitely have too much of an advantage. The only comparison I can think of is when the capucchins at Santa Martha unscrewed the light bulb that was supposed to keep them warm at night, smashed it, and went running around with the metal base and jagged glass in their hands. So I would state that the trouble with opposable thumbs... is that children have them. Maybe that's something that ought to develop later in life?

Today, that last night of not sleeping at the hostel finally caught up with me, and I've been dragging myself around. Decided not to volunteer today, but to make myself more peppy and useful in days to come by sleeping and pulling myself together. I'm also a week behind on my journal, and I won't really be able to concentrate on Tanzania until I've written down everything I want to remember from before. And, of course, the third mission of the day- write to you lovely people. You are officially my favorite chore.

Tanzania is very green and junglish. Mosquitos have made a feast of me- yes, they ARE worse than Carlisle ones- and I'm very grateful for that blue capsule in the morning that fends off malaria. Nevertheless, the people are friendly, and I'm fascinated by the tangle of leaves and vines everywhere. Also, the food is great. Simple, tasty, filling, and doubtless more healthy than what I eat at home.

Since Ujamaa runs a number of different volunteering sites, I'll be visiting a number of them, so stay tuned. Or don't, whatever your fancy! As usual, I'll be trying not to remember that I miss you all!