Internalizing Externalities

“I think Africa is good for Kate!” proclaims a beaming Dr. Tekle, “You look great!”

I take a seat in his cramped office beside a bookshelf that simultaneously boasts, “Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery” and “Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about being an Alcoholic but were too Drunk to Ask”. I smile at this reflection of Tekle’s quirky sense of humor that persists through an otherwise uncompromising professionalism. His compliments renders my speech sloppy, as I begin to retort, “I think Kate is good for Africa!” quickly realizing that this is wrong and he has already said what I want to say. I am at a loss for a proper response, so my eyes turn down and I smile.

I have finally made time to check in with Dr. Tekle, who I befriended early on in my time here (the man who teased me upon first meeting when I asked him –perhaps too sternly – what time we would be meeting next. “You Americans”, he laughed, “always so concerned with time!”). A devout Ethiopian Seventh Day Adventist Christian with a charming obsession with cheesy chain e-mail inspiration, Tekle is one of many local experts against whom I check myself every time I think I have a fantastic idea. He makes sure my bases are covered as he pushes me to be on top of my game.

“You speak such good Kiswahili now!” he gushes, half in pride and praise (for he started my vocabulary back in May), and half pulling my leg – I’m approaching comfortable conversational but far from fluency! I thank him but know I still rely heavily on he and others as translators, both linguistically and culturally.

So I get down to business like a good American and catch him up with progress made on the Programme: the creation of what will be a community Event and secondary school peer education and public health initiative…(trumpets blare, drum roll, gong echo please!): “Kupima Ukimwi kwa Vijana wa Arusha”, or KUVA 2007, a youth-initiated campaign to encourage HIV Testing in Arusha.

I constructed the framework for this Programme so that my five Work the World Volunteers (WTWV) and secondary school student participants will be the true architects, and I explain the concept as I flip through loose sheets of A4 (I maintain the most glorious nature of chaotic order in so much of my work); the school workshop schedule, a copy of the Teacher-Mentor Dinner invitation, Stadium rental receipt, and a sponsorship form I threw together on a whim and need to tighten up. KUVA 2007 is no (Red) campaign, it’s no PEPFAR, it is no brilliant big plan or eternally sustainable cure for AIDS in Arusha. KUVA is a modest community led initiative to promote the recently launched Tanzania National Testing Campaign. It is an effort to translate this national brilliant big plan into action on a small scale.

[As a small child, I recall afternoons when my mom would lug the 4 Otto kids into a CVS, and once in a while (those rare days when Matthew wouldn’t bully us, Andrew wouldn’t insult a checkout woman, Diana and I wouldn’t be bickering) offer to buy us something small, something fun. I always reached for books of connect-the-dots, my favorite exercise. I’m not sure I have ever grown out of this appreciation.]

Our goal in Arusha is to link up local youth with healthcare services, specifically VCT, that exist but are underutilized. WTWV will be trained by local peer educators in a locally developed sexual health and life planning skills curriculum, and work with a Headmaster-appointed Teacher-Mentor and ten student committee at seven secondary schools and one street children’s home to train youth as peer health educators and plan KUVA into an Event on August 18th.

My first volunteer, Lauragh, arrived on Wednesday, and Tekle’s comment is not the first time this week I’ve noticed or considered personal changes. Lauragh unknowingly stood for two days as a ruler against my two months here, measuring where I began, buzzing in off my NYC high, and where I now stand, still buzzing, but in Arusha tempo.

An immediate realization as she tags along is my tendency to detour, as she playfully point out on our trip to collect pre-Programme student surveys. We walked up the long ruddy dirt road to Bishop Durning High School in Sanawari, and from the sidelines of storefronts that lined the barabara (road), a voice squeaked out loudly from atop her hill, “mZUUUngu!!” I skip up the wooden slat steps to greet baby Barbara, a child I befriended on my first attempt at finding this far-off campus. “Sema Dada Kate! (call me sister Kate!)”, I insist, but she is more stubborn than me and insists on calling me her mzungu. We buy her some caramel sweets and she giggles relentlessly as we head back on our way up the hill, waving “Kwaheri! (Goodbye!)” to her chubby smile.

I try to pay attention the rest of the day to my reactions, my mannerisms, and my assumptions, identifying behavioral luxuries that, as my role changes, I may have to give up. The Programme begins today, and my role has already changed to leader, care-taker, and customer service department as I have welcomed my team of WTWV into Arusha: Lauragh, Magda, Cat, Katie and Mathew.

I have moved out of the WTW House down to a local hostel with the team, and although I don’t mind the new inconveniences – as I type, tiny ants scramble across my keyboard, a gecko wriggles in our laundry sink, and electricity is not presently available – I remind myself that I have the added comfort of not having to mind. I am being paid, while these volunteers are paying, and have been promised certain conveniences.

I spent yesterday my afternoon chasing my landlord – loving and hospitable Mama Orpa - who does not understand an iota of my newly-developed (and uncomfortable) urgency. She chastises me, not understanding I am upset because she does not have the room availability she promised me in June. “Don’t worry! You are worried, I know your face, this is not you!” I’m not worried, Mama Orpa, I say to myself, a busy-Kate is worried, I sigh. But the problems at hand are manageable (I winced as my demand made Orpa forced a very angry Kenyan man to move out of his room) and more so than this Programme, for whose joyous challenges I am prepared to tackle for 5 weeks, I am afraid I will switch back to this busy-Kate once I leave the peaceful energy of this town (“He tries to say he will sue me,” Orpa tsks, unconcerned, “Those Kenyans are so busy busy busy…we Tanzanians, we love peace.” Imagine Orpa in Manhattan!)

The thought occurred to me late last week, that with a changed role, busy-Kate is now more likely to pass people by than Kate who is not chained to a third party schedule. [Although I do continually remind myself that this schedule is my summer job and an incredible blessing.] So with a “live-like-there’s-no-tomorrow” spirit I deliberately stopped to accept some sugarcane – despite being on my mission to pick up more surveys at Jaffery High School - from Johan, who at first I did rush by (“Hapana, asante – no thank you”). 200 shillings (about 10 cents) is an amazing deal and refreshing boost under the midday sun, and I crunched down on the cane, sucking in sticky juice as a toast to my final day ‘alone’. John flashes me a brown stained smile, clad in a faded denim shirt, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a dusty red polar fleece vest, and flimsy dress pants, and I use every word in my vocabulary to attempt a meaningful conversation. At age 15 he is not in school, he has a brother Albini and a sister Pensioza who live in Moshoto, and he wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Unnecessary and unrelated to the Programme, I find glorious satisfaction in absorbing such details.

Later that day, I begin to walk away from Sekei Secondary school once I realize the teacher will be very late to our meeting to pick up surveys– ‘too late’ for my schedule – but I nevertheless stay when welcomed to share some wali na maharagwe (good old rice and beans) that teachers Happiness and Rosie have graciously offered to me in the stuffy staff room, and I even get a Kiswahili lesson out of it as she refuses to speak in English, but graciously speaks slowly and repeats sentences to me to help me learn.

I am praised in many ways in NYC for being able to balance a busy schedule. A full resume, a daily life of academic and professional purpose, somewhere to be, something to do. But what’s so praiseworthy? I can’t help but wonder. Lofty plans, as personal as my endless to-do lists or public as UN Millennium Development Goals, are admirable efforts, but at the end of the day, are the easy way out. Check, check, check. But there’s so much behind those to-do list items, those grandiose Goals. So what if I can check off “surveys collected” for our school peer education Programme, but have neglected opportunities to explore why Johan might never take such a survey, or what Happiness as a Tanzanian teacher thinks of the Programme? The positive externalities of a detour, as long as the destination is kept in mind, are unpredictable and incredibly valuable. To maintain both an undeterred focus and a 360-degree view of one’s environment is more challenging and more praiseworthy.

“From before when we first met you are now so different,” Tekle raises his eyebrows, searching my face for specifics. I hope he means that working in Africa has conditioned me to be less focused on checking off an item and more interested in the item itself.

“What’s the difference?” I prod.

“Beauty.”

I am apprehensive that I may have less time for detours now that the Programme is beginning and I am no longer just responsible for myself but for others. I worry even more that I will become ‘efficiency’-obsessed again once I hit the pavement on 2nd and A, and no longer make time for detours, intentionally. I imagine this must be somewhat like getting married or starting a family – it’s not that you aren’t madly in love and live for the relationships, but when a bit of you gets locked into others it is no longer reserved for yourself. And I suppose it is part of growing up, learning to share not only what you have, but who you are.

“Let’s not waste any time,” Tekle says, switching gears back to expert advisor.

“Oh really?” I toss back at him, “You’re sounding American on me now!”