Assault on the allies

Recently some friends of the family visited and brought three motion-censored cameras for Nani, Chris, and the boys.  They are an older couple and used to live nearby in Tanzania but have since relocated to the states after they lost their land resulting from an argument with their village.  A year or so ago they decided to buy some of these cameras for themselves to track the animals in their area, however since they now live in Tucson, Arizona (only about a half hour from the border) they largely ended up with pictures of illegal immigrants passing through with the occasional bird or small mammal.  Nonetheless, they thought it would be really neat for around here and the boys couldn’t wait to get their hands on one, already having scoped out numerous places to put it.  I have to say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them too, and putting up the cameras at dusk has become sort of a ritual around here; last thing before sunset and first thing in the morning the cameras are put up and taken down.  I always look forward to the boys running to school in the morning and telling me what pictures they got during the night: bushbuck, dik-dik, bushpig, anteater, aardvark, civet, what have you.  But if things went according to plan they’d be boring.

            On the third day of having the cameras the boys came panting into my house, barging in on the middle of my breakfast and frantically shouting over each other. 

“Did you get the camera this morning?” Dylan finally asked.

They had gone to get theirs on the way to school where we had placed it the evening before on a tree near a waterhole roughly 100 yards from my house. 

“The camera is gone,” he continued.

But sadly I hadn’t gone anywhere that morning which could only mean one thing: someone (or something) had stolen the camera. 

We searched everywhere, looking for traces and clues, and thought about every possible way it could have disappeared.  The only viable explanation seemed to be that one of the cowherders or village kids gathering grass must have seen it and stolen it.   We knew they had passed there in the morning from seeing tracks and half-eaten palm nuts, but Chris and Nani allow anyone to pass through their land and who’s to say how many people could have come though by 9 in the morning.  Whoever it was, we knew it would be near impossible to catch them, but I was trying to remain optimistic for the boys and tried to convince myself that Nani had retrieved it earlier and was hiding it to play a trick on the boys to teach them a lesson about taking care of their things.  Still, I knew the chances of this were slim to none. 

Disappointed and defeated we headed back to school and attempted to concentrate.  I fittingly changed the Word of the Day to “distraught”. 

I texted Chris and Nani to ask if they had heard anything but as Murphy would have it, the texts didn’t go through and the first they heard of the camera’s disappearance was when we headed over to their house after school.  They were really disappointed and couldn’t imagine why someone had stolen it, but agreed that was probably the case.  What angered them most was that without a computer or another camera, it has absolutely no use to anyone.  Besides the fact it was $150 down the drain… Chris quickly got all his workers to ask around, but they were just as clueless as the rest of us.  They brought some farmers and cow herders in for questioning and Chris was even about to call the police. 

Nani had gone out to look for herself and see if she could do a better job than the boys and I had.  Amidst all the chaos, she came running back. 

“I’ve got our thief,” she shouted.

About 10 yards from where the camera was securely tied to a tree stump the night before she found about half of the camera completely chewed up.  For the next few yards the pieces were scattered about.  We put the chip into the computer and there she was. 

At 2:00am, the pictures show a beautiful striped hyena approaching the water hole, then walking towards the camera and, alas, approaching it from only inches away.  The next series of pictures and white light, whiskers, and grass.  The camera was completely ruined, but at least the chip stayed intact. 

What a day.  At least it wasn’t a person who had stolen it, but I felt bad that we had accused so many people and in the end it was just another animal revolting.  It appears to me as if this little game against the animals has widened.  At least I now have an allied front.  

Teaching

I came here to teach but I realize that I’ve pretty much neglected to talk about school.  I swear I’m actually working out here…

Monday through Friday the boys come over from 9-12:15 for school.  Although they’re only two years apart by age, they are at completely different levels for school.  Kian is 11 but is maybe at the level of a first grader.  He doesn’t even have the whole alphabet down and still can’t distinguish b from d, g from j, and y and q might as well be squiggles in his mind.  With his SID he gets really frustrated with himself, but all in all he’s one of the sweetest kids in the world.  Some days he’s great, but then others he can’t even read the word “the”.  Or sometimes it varies by minute.  Every day I have him read outloud a few pages from a book, and if the same word appears in one sentence twice, he often reads it perfectly the first time, but then completely makes up a word for the second time.  When I tell him to sound it out and not to guess, he often freaks out screaming, “It doesn’t make sense! These letters don’t make up a word! Why would they spell it like that?! Just tell me what it is!” And when I point to the same word earlier in the sentence he often can’t even tell that the two are identical.  Once I make him calm down and take a deep breath he usually can get the word correct in a second.  It makes me so sad to see him get angry like that.  But then there are other days where he gets so excited and hugs the books saying, “I love reading!”  He has certainly taught me a thing or two about patience, something I don’t have much of (which I’m sure many of you can attest to).

Dylan, 9, is wonderful and very advanced for his age.  He loves to read and learn, which is a blessing for me.  In fact, my problem with him is finding new, age-appropriate things that he doesn’t know about!  In the mornings while I’m suffering through a book with Kian I usually just give Dylan things to do on his own (reading, worksheets, etc) which he probably likes better anyways because then I’m not hovering over him.  I have a “Word of the Day” for him, which he loves, and always points out when he hears them in conversations or films, which certainly excites me.  He asked me to teach him Morse Code (he read about it in a Hardy Boys book) so thanks to Wikipedia we had a few lessons on that.. Other than that I’m working on spelling difficult words with him and dictation, division, fractions and so on.  When I give him a book to start reading for a half-hour, he’ll be done with the whole thing in 20!  But I guess that’s a good problem. 

For the first hour and a half we do reading and writing things, and then it’s time for snack! Woohoo!  During this time I pretty much just keep pestering Kian to actually eat because he’s so busy day-dreaming and telling about his nightmares that make no sense and go on for about an hour. 

After snack we do math.   Kian is working on addition and subtraction up to 20.  Although he loves to guess and often tells me that 7 + 8 = 3, or something to that effect.  Dylan is essentially perfect with his times table, and we’re now breezing through division and fractions.  We have these fun computer games that test their math skills, so we often end the schoolday with that.  Pretty sweet deal.  Also, Friday after snack has now been dubbed “Flag Friday” and we each pick a flag to draw and learn about which are now making up a boarder of flags around the classroom.  Nothing like a little coloring and geography to welcome in the weekend. 

In the afternoons on MWF they come over for an hour or two for “activities”.  We watch National Geographic videos, color, play games, look at things under their microscope, do crafts such as making the giant snake, etc.  It’s tons of fun.  Thankfully they both really like school!  So that makes my job easier and Nani seemed relieved that from day 1 things went well. 

When I meet guests at the tented camp they often ask if the kids are actually learning anything out here and assert that it’d probably be best to put them in an actual school with other kids.  But honestly we are absolutely in the middle of nowhere… there’s a town about two hours away and Arusha is the closest main city and it’s about 5 hours away.  Other than that there’s just bush and small villages around, mostly huts made of sticks, mud, and cow poo.  So, eventually they might send the boys to Arusha for boarding school for highschool, but who knows.  I doubt Kian will ever get to that point, sadly.  Although my teaching may not be the best since I’m not exactly qualified (which I told them before they offered me the job!) I truly believe that they have learned more living out here.  They speak three languages fluently (Kiswahili with their friends who are all village kids, German with their dad, and English in school and most of the rest of the time) and know so much about plants, animals, and survival in the bush.  As far as I’m concerned, as long as they can read, write, and do simple math they’ll know so much more living out here.  Dylan wants to be an archeologist, so this is the perfect place for him.  Kian on the other hand would probably receive so much harassment from the other kids if him and Dylan were to go to boarding school in Arusha (the only other viable option) so I think it’s best that he stays out here at least until he has more confidence.  All the village kids treat him so well, but as Nani explained, “He’s white, so he’s automatically weird.  It doesn’t matter if he has a learning disability, in their eyes he’s already different so they don’t care.”

It’s definitely been interesting teaching, and I have learned a WHOLE LOT.  I’ve definitely started thinking like a teacher, because everything I do and see I think to myself, “how could I make this into a lesson??” It’s fun, but I have no idea how people can do it for a lifetime.  Thankfully I have the weekends off to relax and prepare for the next week.  

Backseat Surprise

I’ve been getting complaints that I’m not updating the blog enough.  Apologies, but honestly not too much happens living in the middle of nowhere.  Or perhaps I’m just getting used to the crazy things that go on around here to the point that they fail to seem noteworthy.  I’m also enjoying not getting on the internet very often, and when I do gather up my things to go online it takes so long to load that I quickly get discouraged.  But, with all that said, I’ll do my best to post more often and I’ve decided to rack my brain for interesting/comical/gross things that have happened that I’ve failed to write about thus far.  Let’s start with the latter. 

            First let me explain a little bit more about Nani and Chris.  They help everyone in the entire area.  They are honestly two of the most amazing, generous people in the world and put a huge portion of what they make back into the land, people, and culture.  They’ve lived here together for about 15 years (Chris has lived in the area his whole life) and truly love the land.  Unfortunately much of the area has been taken over by onion farmers (which often leads to the pungent smell of onions wafting all the way to my house when a huge gust comes through) and the natural landscape has been demolished.  Fortunately the land that Nani and Chris bought has poor soil so there aren’t onion farmers right next to us.  This is also the reason that the village was willing to sell them the land, and luckily it is the most beautiful property within miles as it has a huge lookout rock (excitingly similar in appearance to Pride Rock) and a beautiful winding spring. 

Side note: Acquiring land here in an interesting process.  When you want to buy land here, you first have to go to the village and get their blessing to do so.  Otherwise when you go to the local board they will fight against you.  Once you pass that, you have to go through another board or two and it’s a long bureaucratic process.  But essentially if the people in the village don’t like you, you’ll NEVER be  able to get the land no matter how much money you have.  Luckily for Nani and Chris, they have a wonderful relationship with the people in the village, and both parties with go to endless lengths for each other. 

            Back to their never-ending generosity… They also pay for a bunch of kids to go to school, Nani secretly has about all the women on the pill, they pay for pretty much any medicine that anyone needs, they have a foundation for a local high school that they’ve put thousands of dollars into, and they loan their car out to basically anyone who needs it (or have one of their workers drive people where they need to go).  As I said, Nani and Chris are amazing and so genuinely selfless. 

But let me get to the gross story.  About a month ago one of the women from the village (possibly also employed here, but it’s hard to know since they seem to give jobs to nearly half the village in order to help them out) went into labor.  Since they take people to the hospital anytime day or night without question, the woman and her husband took Chris’ giant Land Rover.  However, she didn’t quite make it to the hospital and gave birth in the backseat.  Thankfully the baby and mother are healthy, but let’s just say that canvas seat coverings don’t clean up as well as leather ones. 

The next week we headed to Arusha with a full car so Nani and I piled into the backseat with the boys.  About an hour into the trip Nani got a strange look on her face and we realized that there was a huge, mysterious stain underneath us, stretching across the whole backseat of the Land Rover.  It didn’t take us too long to put two and two together.  We tried to politely explain it to the boys (without going into too much detail about childbirth), somewhat laughed it off, and sucked it up for the rest of the weekend.  Lovely. 

another attempt at pictures

These don't exactly cover it, and are definitely delayed, but with such a slow and unreliable internet connection, it took over an hour to add the three of these.  At least I was able to show what an amazing house I have and get one picture up of the boys.

my house

Dylan and Kian at the snake park

Afterschool Special: Africa style

Without TV and with only having electricity from 6:30 to 10:30 each night (and being completely in the middle of nowhere) the boys have come up with some pretty creative things to do while not at school.  In a similar predicament, I often join them on their adventures and always enjoy whatever shenanigans they and their friends from the village get into. 

So here are some of the things we entertain ourselves with:

Racing poo

            Really.  There is a beautiful spring on their land and farmers come from miles away everyday to bring their cows for a drink.  The result: cow poo EVERYWHERE.  Literally you can’t go more than one step without encountering a huge cowpie and the occasional goat crap.  After tea, the boys and I often take walks to the spring and pick up the old, dried-up cow poop to make “boats” that race down the stream.  The goat poops often serve as bombs and last time we even constructed sails out of feathers as we raced down the stream to the flamingos.  You have to be strategic in your choosing though because otherwise it will become completely saturated and sink.  I am so refined. 

Torturing animals

            The other day Nani came upon a huge monitor lizard (about 4 feet long) that someone had attempted to kill and tie to a tree.  However, it was still barely alive so she brought it home and the boys gladly threw giant rocks at it to finish the job and put it out of its misery.  Once it was dead, the real fun started.  Although, I will point out the fact that from here on out I simply watched.  They hung it to a tree where it was left to drip blood from each and every orifice (sorry, that’s graphic) and then it became a new target for their bow and arrow practice.  Finally a giant fire was started and they burnt it to a crisp.  Mice are also a favorite to burn, often as a sacrifice in some game they’re playing. 

            Other times we find ants and put then in the ant-lion’s holes to watch them get trapped and eaten.  Or there’s the ever amusing termite fights, where we poke around the termite holes, catch them, and then pit them against each other. 

Arts and crafts time (and I don’t mean drawing flowers)

            This week we are in the process of making a life size Black Mamba snake, presumably to scare every poor Tanzanian within a ten mile radius.  Black Mambas are one of the most poisonous, terrifying snakes in the whole area, and are about 3 meters long.  We gathered, cut, and painted fabric and once I’m done hand sewing all 15 feet we’ll fill it with sand and attach some strings to help it slither along.  Oh the things we do to keep ourselves occupied.  Nothing like sitting on my back porch watching the sunset over the mountains stitching up a giant cloth snake. 

And I thought that The Magic Schoolbus was an exciting thing to do in the afternoon when I was their age… 

Animal update:

Dylan cornered the squirrel, but it just ran under the fridge.  So he grabbed it by its tail and pulled (as per my advice) and the tail just popped right off.. oops, didn’t see that one coming.  Since then, I haven’t seen him around but I have discovered a new mouse living in the pantry.  I found his escape route after I chased him around and plugged it with a towel.  Don’t worry, he managed to chew it up and has returned, seeking none other than my beloved peanut butter (which has since sought refuge in a giant plastic tub).   But the monitor lizard has got to count for something…

Also, the other day at school Adam came running in saying, “sister Liza, hyena! Come look!”  So we ran outside but I couldn’t see the hyena anywhere, so I asked him to show me.  He pointed out a twig snake about 10 feet in front of me.  I couldn’t help but laugh at his mistake, but I suppose in his eyes they’re easily confusable: two dangerous animals; what’s the difference? 

But then I realized that this perfectly camouflaged 5 foot snake looking ready to strike is poisonous… Thankfully Adam grabbed some rocks and sticks and did away with it pretty quickly.  So back to school we went. 

For anyone keeping track I think the score is about 8-5, Animals.  Make that 9-5… one of the cows pooed about 3 feet from where I was eating breakfast this morning.  

The Never-Ending Game

Round one

There’s a squirrel in my house.  We tried to catch him in my pantry but failed.

Two monkeys pooped on my porch.  I threw a rock at them but missed.

A giant spider was hiding on my conditioner bottle yesterday. I settled for only shampoo. 

There’s a hyena lurking in the woods by my house.  I’ve been advised to walk a different way home. 

A Blacksmith Plover bird came screeching down at me while I was on a walk and got within inches of my head.  I turned and walked in the other direction. 

This round:

Animals- 5

Liza- 0

I need to work on my Eliza Thornberry skills. 

Round two

The squirrel trap has been set, but I think he already died from a heart attack.  Hopefully my house doesn’t start smelling now. 

As usual the monkeys were trying to drink from the sprinkler that is set up in my yard, so I decided to turn it on.  Nothing like a blast to the face to scare you away. 

I’d been given mace the first day to protect myself from rabid animals, and lately it has stayed much closer

Narrowing the gap, but I have at least 50 bites on my legs and arms from tse-tse flies as a result of our camping trip. 

This round:

Animals- 6

Liza- 3

Thankfully I’m not even to the end of the first quarter.