Work Shmerk

When I typed in blogspot.com on this computer at the internet cafe, it immediately opened to my account, all signed in and everything...which is really weird because I have never used this particular computer before. Hmm...

My days have started to blend together. Lucas and Evalina and I had a very sincere debate last week about what day of the week it was, and all seven possibilities were up for consideration. We couldn't even eliminate weekends.

The fact that weekends are no different from weekdays here brings up the concept of "work" and what it means in this cultural context. In some ways, the people here work harder than we as Americans can even imagine. Washing clothes by hand in a bucket, planting, tending and harvesting crops, pounding cassava into flour and making flour into food, building homes from thatch and mudbrick...Evalina sometimes asks me about "machines in America," and I try to explain washing machines and ovens to her. They are almost impossible to imagine here. And this is all accomplished while raising eight or ten or twenty kids; I've even heard of families with over thirty children. In their homes and gardens, the people--or more accurately, the women--of Kiganza work tirelessly. But as far as actually having a job outside the home, or working for money rather than subsistence, I have seen no evidence, at least not in Yared's family compound (inhabited by about 30 people.) Many of them are supposedly employed by GOSESO (whether in a full-time or paid capacity I don't know), but apart from the lovely garden, I really don't see evidence of much work being done. Lucas, for example, seems to be the organization's Number Two, or at least its Number Three, but it really appears as if he does nothing but walk me around the forest in the mornings and hang out on the patio with the other local men in the afternoons and evenings. Someone with his local knowledge could surely be creating valuable progress for the organization, but whether from a lack of direction from the upper management or from a dearth of ability or motivation, he really doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. When I asked him how many trees he plans to plant this year, his rather enigmatic response--"fifty thousand hundred"--left me puzzled. I asked him to write the number, and he scratched 500,000 into the dirt...which would mean well over 1000 trees per day. Since I've been here over a week and have witnessed the planting of precisely none, it seems likely that they will fall short of this ambitious goal. (It is also possible that Lucas didn't know the answer and was just making something up, as I get the feeling he does sometimes.) I can't judge the situation. My American work ethics simply don't apply. There is just a marked difference in the way work is done here.

I taught some of the villagers hopscotch the other day. I was meandering through the garden by myself one evening because I didn't have anything better to do and didn't want to seem antisocial by reading all day (though that option really would have been fine with me.) As usual, two half-naked toddlers began following me at a safe distance, giggling and murmuring about the mazungu. I ducked behind a giant banana tree leaf and played Peek-a-Boo for a minute, and then, encouraged by their laughter, I grabbed a stick and drew a hopscotch board in the reddish dirt. When I began drawing I had an audience of only two. Around the third square I heard a shuffle, looked up, and was surprised to find that the crowd around me had quintupled in the past sixty seconds. By square five a young teenage girl was standing over me and shouting to Mama Fubusa a play-by-play description of what I was doing, and before I reached ten Mama was there herself. I then began a completely wordless demonstration of how to play, using a rock as a beanbag. The game didn't last long, as only a few children were brave enough to give it a try (though Mama Fubusa was daring enough to play up to the second square!) I think that, for the gathered audience, I was more of an attraction than the game was. I left wishing that it had caught on a little better but still really satisfied that I had been able to interact with the children and some of the villagers with whom I don't have much contact.

For the past three evenings, Lucas has taken me to watch the Catholic church's choir practice in the dried-up cassava fields behind someone's house. On the second day, he informed them that I would return the next day and bring a Moving Camera, and it would be a Very Big Deal. This caused quite a stir, making me feel awkward about the fact that I will have no way to share the video with them, since they don't have computers or TVs. I did take a short video with my camera, though, and it turned out really nicely.

On the way home from the practice on the second night, Lucas took my by the home of an older couple. The man spoke very good English, and while the woman didn't, she made up for it with the gusto of her welcome. As the four of us were walking from their front door, through the house, and into the backyard/shed/cooking area, the woman suddenly reached out and caught my arm with such force that my camera flew out of my hand; it was only by some miraculous and uncharateristic instance of bodily coordination that I was actually able to catch it midair with my other hand. I thought she was preventing me from stepping on a snake or a baby or off a cliff or something. Instead she compressed me to her chest, my back arched by the strength of her vicelike hug and by the fact that I was trying to keep my feet back so as not to step on hers (and also, if we're going to be honest, from an effort to stay back as far as possible.) With her ample bosom crushed into my stomach, she wrenched her face from my collarbone and looked up at my confused and somewhat alarmed face with what may have actually been tears of joy in her eyes. In her thickly accented voice, she emotionally proclaimed, "I love you!" I managed a lame "Thank you," and a smile that was part honored, part frightened, and part I-can't-wait-to-tell-people-about-this. Most people here have been very--though luckily not equally--welcoming to me.

I can't wait to hear update from all of you--I look forward to your emails!!