Mungu at Mulbadaw

The road to Mulbadaw is a rough road to travel. Tell any Tanzanian you took a weekend excursion to this rural community in Hanang district, tucked into the dry savannah about 170 km south of Arusha, and they will laugh at you, “Oh! You survived the journey?” They know we wazungu prefer cruising down Tanzania’s largely unpaved roads in hired 4x4s en route to safari in Tarangire or to trek up Kili (both of which have been my only reason to ride these roads outside Arusha so far). Any attraction to we wageni (visitors) is relatively unimaginable.

Nevertheless, our Work the World team arose at 5 am on Friday to board the Mtei Express Coach to Mulbadaw, which creaked and clunked atop battered tires and weary axles, the driver barging down dirt paths, face masked from the billowing dust clouds with a red bandana. Acquiescing to the unbearably truthful plea of Mama Janet Wema, the manager of the Hanang Orphans Support Fund (HOSF) who I met recently in Arusha, I agreed to bring our HIV Testing programme to Mulbadaw Secondary School in her rural home, as truly, “No one comes with this knowledge to us. Everyone works in Arusha, but we are forgotten.”

And certainly not with cruel intentions, I quickly realize. Though the vehicle is six times the size of a daladala, the proportion of people per square foot (approximately 2.75) remains unchanged. We are fortunate enough to have actual seats, ripped plastic upholstery labeled with black marker, but the aisles are crowded with passengers who need to get home to Katesh (riders who know that with a small bribe to the officers who stop us along the road, disapproving of the overcapacity, they can complete their journey). A chicken squawks from under the seat beside me, a woman crushes her batik-wrapped butt against my face as she shifts heavily to allow someone to pass. The rough terrain – as so many roads in Tanzania are unpaved and undriveable - makes for a 7-hour ride, our vibrating bodies racing over roads riddled with pebbles and potholes.

Despite the discomfort I am deep into Bill Easterly’s “The White Man’s Burden” and for once, defy my desire to spend the entire trip gazing out the window to absorb atmospheric details into my brain. Preoccupied with Easterly’s analysis of Planners and Searchers, and considering its application to KUVA (Kupima Ukimwi kwa VIjana wa Arusha, the HIV Testing Programme we are conducting), my brain cannot handle the sensory overload of vast savannah horizons yawning to life as the sun rises overhead. I pause only momentarily to follow Barabaig children prancing up and down the roadside; some twirling miniature herding staffs, some busy chopping grass with machetes as long as their bodies, some biking furiously with dingy jerry cans clunking haphazardly behind. (Barabaig: the most populous tribe of the area’s Datoga ethnic group) As always my mind begins to wander along with them – where have they come from, and where are they going?

But a new sense of focus puts a vice on my wonder. Instead of absorbing the world outside the cracked windows, I am fiercely conscious of my travel companions (no, not the chicken) on my side of the glass: Magda, Mat, Katie, Lauragh and Cat: our team. I worry - is Katie eating enough? Does Mat feel as though he has been able to contribute his opinions as much as these outspoken ladies? Is Madga’s unbreakable positivity a mask for any subtle insecurity? Will clearly ‘knackered’ (I’m picking up British slang too) Cat survive this painfully jarring ride? How is Lauragh coping with missing Ben, her boyfriend, for these days away from town? After even a few intensely intimate days with the team, their incredible talents, strengths, and skills are obvious to me and I cannot help but zoom in directly past this surface image they present, into the personal difficulties I can recognize and intently track. I want the best for each of my volunteers and through their own security, the best for our team and our Programme.

I had agreed to the terms of our visit to Mulbadaw knowing full well that it would be challenging, (that’s before being greeted by over 300 students in the yard) and unlike our Arusha Programme – a more daunting language barrier, no previous relationship with the students or staff, a first dive into the curriculum we have just compiled and designed. Unlike the 8 schools at which we will work with for the next 3 weeks – where we have already conferenced with teacher-mentors and selected ten student volunteers (with English proficiency) to undergo what will be peer health educator training across six planned and practiced one hour sessions - Mulbadaw represented an opportunity to get our feet wet before taking the dive. With few expectations or regulations – besides, as Easterly describes ideal attempts at effective foreign aid, “first, do no harm” – we realized quickly the day was more like taking the dive and learning to swim once we hit the water.

Doggy-paddling through introductions and initial explanations of the programme, we tried to create a comfortable social atmosphere and soon warmed up into a steady stroke. Individual students stepped up to participate in sessions and organically began to lead themselves. Though on paper we conducted the same instructive interactive role-plays, condom demonstrations, casual discussions and mini-dramas, as I have done in America, the receiving end here in Hanang is quite different. Baraki, one of my group’s natural leaders, politely pulls me aside as I try to organize students to create a mini-drama about reaching goals and adhering to values. He whispers to me, “There might be a problem, you see: we are all of different tribes – Barabaig, Iraqi, Samburu – and we all come from different traditions, and do different drama” Baraki suggests allowing students of the same tradition work together on acting teams, instead of the groups I have otherwise arbitrarily arranged. “Kabisa!” I exclaim, a bit disgusted at my unintentionally colonial behavior, “Definitely!” I sit back and watch their masterpieces, wide-eyed, as generous Michael translates for me in a whisper. With relatively minimal motivation from our team, these students have adopted our curriculum of “life-planning” – which builds up to HIV/AIDS education and encouragement of testing – and made it their own, become peer educators without having to say so explicitly. Had we tried to force this identity upon them, we probably would have failed, our agendas void of careful cultural considerations and intangible trust in another’s abilities that were realized only by getting to know these individuals and more about their lives we were encouraging them to plan.

We could have well spent this day in Arusha, diligently planning for the Arusha programme. We certainly lost valuable planning time on the long round trip, and evident in our group debriefs, lost a lot of patience with the difficulty of the day.

We dragged our tired feet back to HOSF to spend the remainder of the late afternoon – a stunning magenta sunset melting into a calm, chirping twilight - with Mama Janet’s ‘children’, 22 orphans (many from AIDS) from little Steven aged 8 up to Mary, my big sister of 21. A few of the orphans are students at Mulbadaw, and Salome (19 and reminding me of Diana) and I hold hands and chat in all the shared Kiswahili-English we can muster. She wants to be a teacher, she shows me where some of her best friends live (which means a finger pointing into the distance), and knowing her for only one day, I feel a powerful sisterhood between us, two young women, two strangers, who clearly each have some void yearning to be filled, finding fulfillment in one another.

After arrival at Mama’s modest home, the children performed two songs for our team as a welcome, and I find myself wrapped somewhere within the plait of bold, rhythmic harmonies, sweetly intentional melodies, and the beauty of their gracefully unified sway: I am overwhelmed with happiness at their unconditional hospitality. (We were never once asked to pay for food or accommodations, but certainly left a large gift with Mama) Feeling so fulfilled by the peace I have found in Salome and her siblings, I wondered if perhaps this trip was an unconsciously selfish abuse of my programme manager powers, as I am always eager to escape Arusha and see more of Tanzania. My volunteers are still so new – was it right to take them on this difficult journey only a few days into their arrival? Will I be tainting their experience of Tanzania by bringing them down this rough road?

As is customary, there is an announcement issued by Mama before we dig into the delicious chakula (food). Our traveling companion, legendary Oddo of CCF who initially introduced me to Janet, translates her welcome: “We give you pole (‘sorry’/apologies) for the long journey - bad road, a lot of dust”. Her soft, careful voice pauses to collect her next, seemingly heavier, bundle of words, “Happy are those who have a good heart for they will see Mungu (God)… One way of seeing Mungu is visiting these orphans. They wish you to see Mungu.” Just before I think I can hold myself together, she concludes:

“May Mungu give you back anything you may have lost in coming here”.

My eyes well up involuntarily, my heart acting without warning my brain, at Oddo’s poignant translation of Mama’s well wishes. What have I possibly lost comparable to the loss of parental love and attention that each of these children suffer? Uncramped legs? A clean nasal passage?

Sure we have lost some time, for which there is always an opportunity cost. Our team collectively (though still considerately, I must add!) lost patience at certain points. But I rack my brain and cannot think of what else I could have possibly ‘lost’ on this trip, realizing how much I feel I have gained so much since we arrived.

On the continuum of pain that loss incurs from inconvenience to tragedy, sensitive and responsible human interaction becomes increasingly more important as we progress down the line…yet is increasingly less available, oftentimes. In NYC I lose my keys. This is an inconvenience. I can get my brain together and find them, call Vicky and borrow her set until I find mine, or quite easily call a landlord or locksmith. In Hanang, hundreds of children have lost their parents to AIDS. This is a tragedy. These orphans cannot replace their parents nor the love, security, and confidence of which they have consequently been robbed. For 22 of them, a Mama Janet might come along and transform their future. A team of wazungu might pass through and share a meal and some songs. But few people take the rough road out to Katesh, and the human interactions necessary to solve our generation’s biggest tragedies are left unsupported and as Mama said, ‘forgotten’.

At Mulbadaw Secondary, we had to create opportunities to lose parts of ourselves in order to better define and find those parts. I had to (gasp) allow sessions to run overtime to realize what the most important and crucial sections of the curriculum should have been implemented in that time. Cat had to lose a sense of security to find her creativity when sub-group session discussions grew spontaneously and had to stay solo. It’s not that the loss is necessarily the tragedy. It’s when one – whether unwilling or resource constrained - is unable to find after having lost.

A rough road should never been interpreted as necessarily having a disappointing destination, a loss never as an automatic synonym for sadness. Although the loss causes sadness, the unpredictable ways in which we will fill the loss, or be given it back, can bring the greatest fulfillment.

And so I emphasize that the road to Katesh, Hanang, is a rough road to travel. Students of Mulbadaw live 3 bumpy hours away from the nearest hospital when can raise the fare to go for an HIV test - if transportation faster than donkey or foot is even available. Mama Janet is in the midst of building a new compound on donated land to avoid currently debilitating rent payments, but must turn away Hanang’s hundreds of orphans until she has the facilities to house them and resources to support them. I correct Mama, but only in my heart, May Mungu give your children everything back they may have lost. Rather, may you and the children have every opportunity to which I am privileged to ‘find’.