24th to 26th of April, 2018.
Volunteer work in Tanzania: first days in Dodoma
There’s something odd about J. and I can’t help but feel weird about him. He makes me too many complements; everything I do is a great thing to him, as anybody else couldn’t do it. And I know that it is not true, it is just because he hasn’t met / stayed with some foreign / not African citizen before. I mean, I am not try to be humble here, neither I am saying that I am not intelligent as he says. I just know that there are so many people further more intelligent than I, that every time he makes me a compliment, I feel bad. And of course because of the whole uncomfortable thing with the compliments. I will tell him.
The first thing we do together is going to the college. So, you see, after this point, everything start to look different than I had thought about coming here to help in a school.
The college run by J. it is a private one, for those who do not attend to the university, to have the opportunity to have a diploma. The students are usually around eighteen years old up to twenty something. He has another school, also not for kids but for teenagers up to the ones who can go after there to his college. So, I am a little disappointed with the whole system because I was expecting to help a simple school, with simple kids who cannot afford to pay a private education but still deserve a good quality of teaching. J. might have a good intention but, at the end, he is still a rich man who is running projects that are not for everyone.
We go to a few schools where I make a little speech to the kids about a better way to speak English, faster and easier. The kids like, the directors of the schools like, and J. also likes. But in the end, it is just to attract more students to J. projects and I do not feel good about that. I feel guilty. He really want to bring more kids to his project because he believes he can help them to become someone better in the future or he just want to increase his numbers?
We also go to the university, where he teaches some classes. I also talk to the students about improving their conversation in English. Middle time, I correct a dissertation from one of his students and, what at the beginning made me feel good, made me feel so guilty later, when I saw he simply giving the work back to the girl, without even check my notes. I mean, I might have helped her because there were so many mistakes involving grammar, but at the end who am I to tell her anything? He is the one who has been helping her with the work (at least should be) not me. Also, she has been writing things for the past few years and nobody correct her properly, making her get at this point with such big problem to write in English, and then I come and correct her whole work, with my methods and ways, changing all her conception of writing overnight? No way. That it was wrong and I regret it. I was even shocked when after I explained all of this to him, he said I would be helping him (not exactly her, but him) because her work could go to some important place and since everybody would know he was the one supervising her, if the work looked bad with a lot of mistakes, what they would think about him? Ow, excuse me, the truth, maybe? If you are not good in something that you need in your work / life, you work on it to make it better, you do not put a Band-Aid on an open fracture.
We supposed to have pizza for dinner but the place is full and it is late. That because he have always something to do or to pick up somewhere, so we pass so many time walking around in his car and most of the times I have to wait for twenty up to thirty minutes! Anyway, at the place we go to eat, at least I had another Tanzanian beer, Kilimanjaro.
Last night, during dinner, J. tells me some big and totally unexpected news: we would go for a travel. Over one week, passing a few cities and going to the schools to invite them to his project. And he thought it would be OK just tell me the night before we should go. He does this a lot actually, always waiting until the last minute to communicate me about something. Well, it is not exactly in my plans but I like to travel and to be in a few cities, where I would not go before, it does not sound so bad, so I agreed.
Unfortunately I have to finish this chapter with some bad news. Today is the “Union Day” of Tanzania. In 1954, the country of Tanganyika got unified with the country of Zanzibar to form what is known nowadays as Tanzania. There is a huge event about it and we decide that would be nice for me to go.
Things start wrong because the event is in a stadium. How can most of the people fit in a limited place? Then, J. uses me as an excuse (as a white person) to get us inside. Once inside, there is no place to sit but he figures out one for him. I say I am OK being standing but he pays, yes ladies and gentlemen, he pays the boy beside him to give me his seat. I wanted to leave the place immediately (and I should) but I do not. Big mistake. After one hour of so many uninteresting people coming in their fancy cars, the whole kind of military people, about eighty groups I guess, marching in the stadium, I am exhausted. What was nice at first, after two hours, it became almost unbearable. They dressed some kids as soldiers, gave them guns, and they were performing some combat stuff. What? Yes. Shocking.
I show J. that I am uncomfortable and want to leave. I even ask him for how many hours more we should stay otherwise for me we could leave now. But then, when I tell him I am leaving and would wait for him at the car, he says he was there just because of me. Bullshit!
It is when it happens: I have the worse luck ever to pick the moment to leave. They have opened one of the gates for people go inside the grass. A disorder starts; people start to push in, and security guards are pushing out. My feet get stomped a few times just making my scratches worse and bleed. When I lose control and say something like alright people, I want to leave, I don’t want to go into the grass…, they let me pass. But I am stopped by rude guard, in suits, who yells at me, pushes me back and say I could not leave. I was almost crying already, so sad with the whole situation, so many different police officers, and that kind of disorder and disrespect? People clapping hands to the president on the back while just right here we were being treating like shit.
When the other guards from the gate see me almost crying, they do not say one single word and just let me pass. At this time J. is trying to keep me near to him, as I needed him to leave the place, but I am already running away. When he came closer, I just say I needed some time alone.
10 Years Around the World 