I took a long bike ride the other day, about as far as I've been from my village yet without a bus. I was asked for money somewhere around 10 times, which is a lot especially when you consider that I was on a bike and listening to my iPod, not walking and engaging everyone in conversation.
At one point I was having a bit of bike trouble (several points actually, one of my brake cables kept poppping out) and while I was working on getting it back in a mama came up to me, and she really wanted money. I was hot, tired, and frustrated with my bike at that time. She told me that she had called me as I rode by. Not that I'm uncaring, but even if I had heard her I wouldn't have stopped. 3/4 of the children I pass feel absolutely compelled to shout "Mzungu" -- white person -- when they see me. It doesn't really bother me most of the time, but I definitely don't stop for every person who sees me and recognizes that I'm white.
She began explaining how of course I know that the people here have become very accustomed to drinking ulanzi (the local bamboo-wine) and that the price is so small, but some people still just can't afford it... I interrupted her at this point to say that I don't hand out money, especially not for booze. Then she said that she was just talking in general, and that she herself doesn't drink. No, she wants assistance for her family. Even 10,000 shillings would help (a lot of money, about $8.50-- more on how much money is worth later). I explained that I just was out for a day ride so I really only brought 500/=, (about $0.40) enough for chai and a snack in the village I went to.
But this mama was persistent. I told her where I was coming from, and she got very excited, because her son is a student at my school! Now it doesn't matter that I don't have money on me, I can give it to her son! I tried to explain that her son was at my school, the school where I'm freely giving 2 years of my life to teach--that this is the assistance that I see as really helping, not some money because you got lucky and saw a white person, but teaching! providing education to her and many other children. I tried to explain that she was the 10th person that day to beg money of me, and it's not even 1:00 in the afternoon yet! That there is no way I could give money to even 1% of the people who ask me for it. She didn't get it. She kept asking for money. But what she kept saying, and which did get to me later, is that I have to keep seeing the people.
She really annoyed me. I was in a bad mood for hours afterwards, feeling like there was no point in leaving my village at all when wherever I go people just want money from me. But what the mama was saying was right, sort of. I'd completely lost sight of the people; I was feeling that the poor people were there for the purpose of bothering me. So my goal has been, for the few weeks since then, has been to not blame people for their problems, even if, as Annie put it "everyone has a problem that a little of your money will solve." The only reason me and the poor villagers are in our respective places is the accident of where we were born.
All that said, the cultural attitudes towards begging here are frustrating. There's no shame at all connected with asking for money, accepting money, borrowing money and not paying it back, etc. I can't help but think that if there was a little more "pride" in that area, if people were a little ashamed of needing assistance, or even if there was just a bit more pride shown in doing something by yourself, without help, that would motivate people and speed up development considerably.
Also, check out the next post back for an article by a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Tanzania in the 60's and came back in the 90's.
Salama,
Gregor
Friday, October 26, 2007
Socialism in Tanzania
This is probably illegal without getting permission first, so please notify me if there are any objections and I'll take it down. I want to share with you an essay by an ex-Peace Corps Volunteer, Leonard Levitt. This is an excerpt from Mbeya Dreaming, which was published in Going Up Country: Travel Essays by Peace Corps Writers, edited by John Coyne and published by Charles Scribners Sons, 1994. I am taking this excerpt from the September 2007 issue of Worldview, the magazine of the National Peace Corps Association. The author was a teacher in Tanzania, near my region, in fact, from 1963 to 1965.
The Party Secretary
"Do you know, Levitt, that one of your students is also here in this village?"
"Who is that?"
"Peter Mwakyusa."
"Peter Mwakyusa!" Peter Mwakyusa, who durin gthe Saturday night debates had fired up the school with his wild burst of African nationalism.
"Yes, he is the party secretary for Icolo. His office is just down there." Mwandunga points down the dirt road we have come on. "I will send word to him that you are here. He will want to see you."
Like Mwandunga, on the surface Peter Mwakyusa has not changed. He is sill short and stocky, and has the same short haircut he had as a schoolboy.
"So, Levitt, you have returned to us," he says paternally, almost patronizingly. He says this matter-of-factly, with no emotion, and though my returning here to his village at this remote corner of the country is the most natural of events.
We shake hands. He takes two or three steps back and literally looks Susan and me up and down, as though appraising two animals. "Are you still teaching, Levitt? I remember your teaching. You were a fine teacher. A fine teacher."
"No, I am a journalist. A writer."
"A writer? Why not a teacher? Why did you stop? Hakuna maua. No more buds, no more flowers."
Taking me by the hand, he begins leading Susan and me about the village. "I am the party secretary here", he explains in English as we walk off the road, past his office, and through fields as villagers appear and stare at us. He explains he is the secretary of one of three local areas, responsible, he says, "for knowing everything of the 25,000 people in my district."
"I am interested in knowing the will of the people," he adds, "so I can determine their needs."
"And what of //your// life, Peter?" I ask. "Are you married? Do you have children? How long have you been here in Icolo?"
He shakes his head. "No, I am the party secretary. Personal matters are not important."
There is a mkutano, a meeting, in progress that Peter says he must attend, and invites Susan and me to accompany him. There, in a clearing some yards away, under tall, leafy trees protecting the people from the afternoon sun, is a long table with wooden benches at which a dozen or so officials are seated. Beyond them are perhaps a hundred villagers seated on the ground, old men in varying states of dress, from Western trousers to cloths slung over their shoulders to turbans wrapped around their heads.
Leaving Susan ehind with our driver, Peter leads me to an open space on one of the benches and we sit down together. Peter points out the official at the center of the table--a tall young man in a white Mao shirt that hangs outside his trousers.
"That is our Area Commissioner," says Peter approvingly. "He is very radical."
"You mean he is against the government?" I say facetiously.
"Oh no, no." Rising from our bench, Peter walks up to the Area Commissioner and whispers in his ear. The Area Commissioner nods his head. Meanwhile, one of the officials at the table has finished speaking. Seated on the ground, the old men have raised their hands and are asking questions. They are speaking both in Swahili and Nyakusa, the local dialect. I cannot understand what they are saying, but they appear to be growing angry, with more of them reaising their hands.
I am struck by this scene, this picture-postcard version of the Mwalim's Ujamaa, the African equivalent, perhaps, of a Vermont town meeting, and I wonder if Susan might take a picture of it. But first, I realize, I mus obtain permission from the Area Commissioner. Taking out my notepand, I scribble in Swahili, describing myself to the Area Commissioner as Peter's former teacher, and ask Peter to and the note to him.
Too late, i realize I have made a mistake, fr in writing the note in Swahili I have implied the Area Commissioner does not know English. By then, Peter has passed on the note. I watch the Area Commissioner pick it up, glance at it, and jot something of his own on it. He places a pin through the note and passes it back to Peter.
Peter hands it to me, unopened. I pull out the pin. Scrawled on the back of my note are three words, in English, all capitalized. They are: "Is Not Allowed."
The meeting continues. The old men continue to raise their hands The questions appear interminable. but finally, it is over. The Area Commissioner stands up and walks straight to his car. Without a glance at anyone he drives off.
Peter does not mention the Area Commissioner's refusal, but begins leading me through the village, past the mud huts and the kraals where the cattle are lying amidst the banana trees.
Like the area commissioner, he does not speak to anyone.
When I ask him whether Susan can take his picture with some of the villagers, he says, "But I am the party secretary! Why should I be taken with them? IT is not dignified. You should know this, Levitt. You know Africans better than anyone."
I have no idea what he is talking about. "Peter," I laugh, "You are the first politicianI have ever met who does not want to have his picture taken with his constituents."
But Peter does not respond to this. Instead, he begins berating me for not understanding him, for not understanding Africans. "What we believe, Levitt, is that if a man is rich and has much land, he exploits the others who have less land than he. Why should one man have so much land and others have none? The land belongs to everybody. Shouldn't they all be equal?"
I wonder where he has picked up such nonsense.
"You see, Levitt," he continues, "We are not like the Chinese. The Chinese have to be taught about socialism. They had it imposed on them. With Africans socialism is natural. We have a word for it. It is called Ujamaa. The word is new, but to us Africans it is natural."
"But what if a man works very had and sells his crops and makes money from them?" I say for the sake of argument."And another man does not work and produces no crops. Why shouldn't the first man take his money and buy the land of the second man and produce more crops and make more money?"
"But that is not the African way, Levitt. You know Africans. You taught us. You know this about us."
Again, I have no idea what he is talking about. He is mad, I find myself thinking. They are all mad. What is it that he thinks I know of them? That equality does not mean equal opportunity but equal ends? That being equal means being the same? That there are no differences between people, in their character, in their intelligence, in their motivations?
Is this what is meant by African Socialism? IS this the logical conclusion of the //Mwalimmu's Ujamaa//? Here in this remote village, is this the final mutation of Fabian Socialism, as interpreted by none other than my former student, Peter Mwakyusa?
And it is so sad. They have worked so hard. They had believed so much, the Mwalimu as much as any of them. For the first time I fiind myself feeling sorry for him. Yes, he had truly wanted to help his countrymen. He had truly wanted to eradicate poverty, ignorance, and disease. Yet it is now all a pretense, a sham. I think of the organizational chart on the wall of the Mbeya Hotel, the walls of our room covered with ants eating away at them, the single can of Raid. I recall the line of decrepit cars and buses creeping up the hillinto town; the ridiculous signs on the walls of the stadium across the road. //Nchi-Maskini Haiwezi Kuendelea Kwa Msingi Wa Fedha//. A poor country will not progress if it depends on aid. //Nchi Maskini Haiwezi Kujitawala Kama Inategemea Misada Toka Nje//. A poor country is unable to rule itself if it relies on foreign aid.
I recall the boarded up Indian-owned stores, the bottles of Neva Shampoo, Junior Aspro, Sloan's Linament, and Galloway Cough Syrup that now pass for medicines. The schools on the roadside with no pupils inside them. The overturned truck that has lain for years. I imagine the corpus of Tanzania, lying inert beside it, with all the transfusions of foreign aid unable to resuscitate it. I suddenly have the premonition that in not too long a time the grass and weeds will grow up and cover everything.
It is growing late in the day now and time for us to depart. Peter escorts Susan and me to our car. But the car has a flat tire. While we and Peter watch, our driver replaces it with a spare tire. Now the driver says we must hurry. If another tire goes, there is no spare. He says he is afraid of the darkness. We must, he warns, return to Mbeya before nightfall.
We say our goodbyes to Peter, who stands expressionless behind us in the road as we pull off.
But at the bridge over the brown river Songwe, two soldiers stop us. They are young, in their teens perhaps, boys really, in green fatigues and high black boots, with rifles slung over their shoulders. They want to see Susan's and my identification. They want to examine Susan's camera.
They search our belongings--the camera case, Susan's pocketbook. They pat under the dashboard. They say they want to see if we are sending messages across the Malawi border. To whom? Why?
They want to know about the package of rice Mrs. Mwanduga has prepared for us. They say they are checking smuggling from over the border. There are shortages of rice around the country, they say. Speculators--Indian businessmen--have driven out to the rice-producing areas. They then return to the cities where they sell the rice on the black market.
Our driver is nervous. he speaks to them so quickly I cannot understand him. The soldiers say they want to send us to Kyela so that we can report to the Area Commissioner. The Area Commissioner is the last person I want to see. Our driver continues talking, gesturing, pleading. In the end they let us go.
The Party Secretary
"Do you know, Levitt, that one of your students is also here in this village?"
"Who is that?"
"Peter Mwakyusa."
"Peter Mwakyusa!" Peter Mwakyusa, who durin gthe Saturday night debates had fired up the school with his wild burst of African nationalism.
"Yes, he is the party secretary for Icolo. His office is just down there." Mwandunga points down the dirt road we have come on. "I will send word to him that you are here. He will want to see you."
Like Mwandunga, on the surface Peter Mwakyusa has not changed. He is sill short and stocky, and has the same short haircut he had as a schoolboy.
"So, Levitt, you have returned to us," he says paternally, almost patronizingly. He says this matter-of-factly, with no emotion, and though my returning here to his village at this remote corner of the country is the most natural of events.
We shake hands. He takes two or three steps back and literally looks Susan and me up and down, as though appraising two animals. "Are you still teaching, Levitt? I remember your teaching. You were a fine teacher. A fine teacher."
"No, I am a journalist. A writer."
"A writer? Why not a teacher? Why did you stop? Hakuna maua. No more buds, no more flowers."
Taking me by the hand, he begins leading Susan and me about the village. "I am the party secretary here", he explains in English as we walk off the road, past his office, and through fields as villagers appear and stare at us. He explains he is the secretary of one of three local areas, responsible, he says, "for knowing everything of the 25,000 people in my district."
"I am interested in knowing the will of the people," he adds, "so I can determine their needs."
"And what of //your// life, Peter?" I ask. "Are you married? Do you have children? How long have you been here in Icolo?"
He shakes his head. "No, I am the party secretary. Personal matters are not important."
There is a mkutano, a meeting, in progress that Peter says he must attend, and invites Susan and me to accompany him. There, in a clearing some yards away, under tall, leafy trees protecting the people from the afternoon sun, is a long table with wooden benches at which a dozen or so officials are seated. Beyond them are perhaps a hundred villagers seated on the ground, old men in varying states of dress, from Western trousers to cloths slung over their shoulders to turbans wrapped around their heads.
Leaving Susan ehind with our driver, Peter leads me to an open space on one of the benches and we sit down together. Peter points out the official at the center of the table--a tall young man in a white Mao shirt that hangs outside his trousers.
"That is our Area Commissioner," says Peter approvingly. "He is very radical."
"You mean he is against the government?" I say facetiously.
"Oh no, no." Rising from our bench, Peter walks up to the Area Commissioner and whispers in his ear. The Area Commissioner nods his head. Meanwhile, one of the officials at the table has finished speaking. Seated on the ground, the old men have raised their hands and are asking questions. They are speaking both in Swahili and Nyakusa, the local dialect. I cannot understand what they are saying, but they appear to be growing angry, with more of them reaising their hands.
I am struck by this scene, this picture-postcard version of the Mwalim's Ujamaa, the African equivalent, perhaps, of a Vermont town meeting, and I wonder if Susan might take a picture of it. But first, I realize, I mus obtain permission from the Area Commissioner. Taking out my notepand, I scribble in Swahili, describing myself to the Area Commissioner as Peter's former teacher, and ask Peter to and the note to him.
Too late, i realize I have made a mistake, fr in writing the note in Swahili I have implied the Area Commissioner does not know English. By then, Peter has passed on the note. I watch the Area Commissioner pick it up, glance at it, and jot something of his own on it. He places a pin through the note and passes it back to Peter.
Peter hands it to me, unopened. I pull out the pin. Scrawled on the back of my note are three words, in English, all capitalized. They are: "Is Not Allowed."
The meeting continues. The old men continue to raise their hands The questions appear interminable. but finally, it is over. The Area Commissioner stands up and walks straight to his car. Without a glance at anyone he drives off.
Peter does not mention the Area Commissioner's refusal, but begins leading me through the village, past the mud huts and the kraals where the cattle are lying amidst the banana trees.
Like the area commissioner, he does not speak to anyone.
When I ask him whether Susan can take his picture with some of the villagers, he says, "But I am the party secretary! Why should I be taken with them? IT is not dignified. You should know this, Levitt. You know Africans better than anyone."
I have no idea what he is talking about. "Peter," I laugh, "You are the first politicianI have ever met who does not want to have his picture taken with his constituents."
But Peter does not respond to this. Instead, he begins berating me for not understanding him, for not understanding Africans. "What we believe, Levitt, is that if a man is rich and has much land, he exploits the others who have less land than he. Why should one man have so much land and others have none? The land belongs to everybody. Shouldn't they all be equal?"
I wonder where he has picked up such nonsense.
"You see, Levitt," he continues, "We are not like the Chinese. The Chinese have to be taught about socialism. They had it imposed on them. With Africans socialism is natural. We have a word for it. It is called Ujamaa. The word is new, but to us Africans it is natural."
"But what if a man works very had and sells his crops and makes money from them?" I say for the sake of argument."And another man does not work and produces no crops. Why shouldn't the first man take his money and buy the land of the second man and produce more crops and make more money?"
"But that is not the African way, Levitt. You know Africans. You taught us. You know this about us."
Again, I have no idea what he is talking about. He is mad, I find myself thinking. They are all mad. What is it that he thinks I know of them? That equality does not mean equal opportunity but equal ends? That being equal means being the same? That there are no differences between people, in their character, in their intelligence, in their motivations?
Is this what is meant by African Socialism? IS this the logical conclusion of the //Mwalimmu's Ujamaa//? Here in this remote village, is this the final mutation of Fabian Socialism, as interpreted by none other than my former student, Peter Mwakyusa?
And it is so sad. They have worked so hard. They had believed so much, the Mwalimu as much as any of them. For the first time I fiind myself feeling sorry for him. Yes, he had truly wanted to help his countrymen. He had truly wanted to eradicate poverty, ignorance, and disease. Yet it is now all a pretense, a sham. I think of the organizational chart on the wall of the Mbeya Hotel, the walls of our room covered with ants eating away at them, the single can of Raid. I recall the line of decrepit cars and buses creeping up the hillinto town; the ridiculous signs on the walls of the stadium across the road. //Nchi-Maskini Haiwezi Kuendelea Kwa Msingi Wa Fedha//. A poor country will not progress if it depends on aid. //Nchi Maskini Haiwezi Kujitawala Kama Inategemea Misada Toka Nje//. A poor country is unable to rule itself if it relies on foreign aid.
I recall the boarded up Indian-owned stores, the bottles of Neva Shampoo, Junior Aspro, Sloan's Linament, and Galloway Cough Syrup that now pass for medicines. The schools on the roadside with no pupils inside them. The overturned truck that has lain for years. I imagine the corpus of Tanzania, lying inert beside it, with all the transfusions of foreign aid unable to resuscitate it. I suddenly have the premonition that in not too long a time the grass and weeds will grow up and cover everything.
It is growing late in the day now and time for us to depart. Peter escorts Susan and me to our car. But the car has a flat tire. While we and Peter watch, our driver replaces it with a spare tire. Now the driver says we must hurry. If another tire goes, there is no spare. He says he is afraid of the darkness. We must, he warns, return to Mbeya before nightfall.
We say our goodbyes to Peter, who stands expressionless behind us in the road as we pull off.
But at the bridge over the brown river Songwe, two soldiers stop us. They are young, in their teens perhaps, boys really, in green fatigues and high black boots, with rifles slung over their shoulders. They want to see Susan's and my identification. They want to examine Susan's camera.
They search our belongings--the camera case, Susan's pocketbook. They pat under the dashboard. They say they want to see if we are sending messages across the Malawi border. To whom? Why?
They want to know about the package of rice Mrs. Mwanduga has prepared for us. They say they are checking smuggling from over the border. There are shortages of rice around the country, they say. Speculators--Indian businessmen--have driven out to the rice-producing areas. They then return to the cities where they sell the rice on the black market.
Our driver is nervous. he speaks to them so quickly I cannot understand him. The soldiers say they want to send us to Kyela so that we can report to the Area Commissioner. The Area Commissioner is the last person I want to see. Our driver continues talking, gesturing, pleading. In the end they let us go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)