Five Months. One Dr. Pepper. A Heartwarming Tale.

             Well, it’s been awhile. After writing 30 pages for the last blog I decided to take a little hiatus of sorts. I have also been quite busy since the climb and haven’t had as much time to write something that I was content with posting. Since the climbers left July 20^th there have been a lot of different groups coming through the MAD house. We had a group of guys from Cornell who all had kidukus (Mohawks) and built the kids a basketball game and loved finishing the day with an ice cold Castle Milk Stout. A group of 4 from Canada stayed with us just before they climbed Kilimanjaro, and reminded me of our group and how nervous we were before taking off. Then a family of 3 from Bermuda came in for a couple weeks, and at the same time we had a group of 11 students from Western Washington University stay with us. The university group worked on geography lessons with the kids while the family from Bermuda I put to work painting the front of the orphanage.        

With all the large groups here I didn’t actually have a place to stay at the guesthouse because I had to give my room up to fit them all in. Instead, I moved down the road to a local families place and stayed with them for the week. The host family I stayed with was always referred to as Mamma Clara’s house. I don’t actually know the mom’s real name, because in Tanzania once a woman has a child she takes the name Mamma and whatever the first name of their first-born child is. In this case, there were two daughters. Clara was the oldest, 5, and Johan was 3. The girls were a riot and after a long day of being with the groups at the orphanage and running around I’d come home exhausted and ready for bed only to be invited to dance parties with the girls. They would play local music playing through the television and dance around the small living room and I, of course, couldn’t say no to them. I’d twirl one of the girls with one arm while doing the twist with the other one, and everyone now and then they’d ask me to pick them up and dance around the living room with them. After about an hour of that I was officially dead tired, but it was still a blast. Johan would speak baby talk in Swahili to me at the dinner table, and I would nod with a serious look on my face like we were discussing politics and say, “Absolutely, Johan. I couldn’t agree more with the United States position regarding foreign policy,” or “You got that right.” She would just smile and laugh and point her spoon at me whenever she wanted to really get the point across. I’m still not sure what we were talking about, though. I let them listen to my Ipod on a couple occasions and by the end of my week stay there they were both walking around the house singing, “Radio Gaga” by Queen and clapping their hands above their heads while saying, “Radio gaga, radio googoo.” Adorable.

While the large group was here it rained for the first time in two months. The roads became like mud pits and it wasn’t uncommon to see cars stuck and spinning their tires frugally trying to get out. Because of all the rain, three of the drains at the house became clogged, so one fine morning after the rain had stopped I was awoken by a pleasant text saying, “Three toilets have flooded at the house.” Sweet. Emma and I went there and worked for about an hour on the drains outside, trying to get the mud out with, you guessed it, a manchete. We finally had all the drains working and most of the toilets fixed, but the rain really was more of a nuisance than a blessing. Tracked mud all in the house, and after walking through it on the way back to Mama Clara’s it was like I had tennis rackets attached to the bottom of my feet from all the mud sticking to it. Our car got stuck a couple of times, but we muscled it out of there. After the university group had left, it was just me and the family from Bermuda for a few days. 

             

            As a reward to the kids for how well they handled and behaved while all the groups were here, I decided to have a group of four of them stay overnight at the guest house each week. I’ve had two groups stay with me so far, and I tell ya, those little chitlins crack me up.

            Elliona, Christopher, Benny, and Exuper were the first group to stay over. I asked for four of the kids to volunteer and step forward as quickly as possible, and because last time I did that I asked them to go clean the library at the orphanage they were all hesitant this time around, but I think they’ll be a lot quicker now. The family from Bermuda was still here when they came over so we took them all swimming at the YMCA down the road. For the most part all of them have had a couple of lessons by now and they improve each time. To help them get more comfortable with going underwater and holding their breath, I would toss a 200 shilling coin into the shallow end and tell them that whoever brought it back the most at the end of the day would get to keep it. By the end of the day they were all diving down to the bottom of the shallow end and retrieving the coin with ease, and I would have given it to one of them except that Exuper threw the coin into the deep end and told me to go get it, but the water was so murky at that end that I couldn’t find it.

            We went back to the house and the kids begged me to ride the bikes that were locked up in the shed. There was only one problem though, the bikes were locked, and we lost the key months ago. Luckily, over the last 23 years I’ve been on a hot streak when it comes to doing manly things when the time arises, and there just so happened to be an ax sitting near by. The chain was broken after several quick swings of the faithful ax, I turned to the kids who were all standing around clapping, rested the ax against one shoulder, and said, “That’s just what men do, gentlemen.”

            They rode around the backyard for the rest of the evening with huge grins on their faces. I asked Exuper if he was happy, and with a wide grin he said, “I’m not walking.” A minute later he stopped to let Benny have a turn riding the bike and when he swung off the seat he let out a loud fart. He looked back at me a combination of shocked and thinking he was in trouble, I guess, but I just laughed and said, “Dude,” and walked inside. Now we have an inside joke where I’ll ask, “Who am I?” and I’ll act like I’m riding a bike and then turn my head to one side and make a farting noise. That gets him every time.

We brought them in for dinner and afterwards the little troops volunteered to do the dishes while we got the laptop ready to watch a movie. We had them choose between some of the options on one of the guest’s computers and finally settled on Avengers. While they were watching I went back to my room for something I can’t even remember, because when I walked in I was greeted with a foul smelling, rotten odor as soon I walked in the door. At first I thought maybe something had died in the room, or the drain in the bathroom was clogged and it was just old water leaking back through, but when I made my way into the bathroom I was treated to the nastiest site I could have asked for.

            One of the kids had crapped in my toilet and not flushed it. They had got me. Pulled a quick one on their old pal Kyle. It was just sitting at the top of the bowl, not even in the water. Oh, the horror, the horror. I flushed it down, kind of muttered “those kids” to myself and went back to the movie. The following morning I had them line up and asked them all who had done it, but they all looked around confused and looking like puppy dogs saying, “It wasn’t me Mister Kyle, promise.” The investigation is still pending.

            The following week I chose the next group of four to come. It was kind of weird when I first got there. As soon as the car pulled up they immediately ran towards it, opened the door for me, asked if they could carry my backpack, and if there was anything else that they could do for me. Almost like they were on their best behavior for some reason. A couple of them even pulled me aside and said something along the lines of, “Look, Kyle. Who are you taking today? Is it me? Please say it’s me,” and every time I would just tell them I didn’t know.

            In reality, I had picked out which four it had been since the previous week. Christina, Peter, Jonasi, and Upendo were going to come stay at the house with another volunteer and myself. The entire day we kept it quiet from the four of them that they were the ones coming, and there was a weird anticipation floating around in the air. Like kids hearing there might be snow that night and waiting to see if school is cancelled. When I finally went up to them and casually asked if they would please go and get changed they all ran around the orphanage cheering and yelling that they were coming. All the other kids looked pretty bummed, but I reminded them that they would have their chance. Upendo ended up not coming because she had something to do with the church the next morning, so Juma took her place, which was good because he looked the saddest out of all of them.

            We were planning on having a movie night with the kids and dinner since it was already becoming dark by the time we arrived home. They decided to watch Curious George since we now had only a limited supply of movies with the other guest’s computer gone. About a third of the way through the movie though, the power went out, and with it, my laptop. When the power goes out here, strangely enough, people don’t freak out. Everyone just kind of sits there in the darkness for a minute, registering that it went out, and then just sighs and goes to find their flashlight and light some candles. This time, with four kids staying over, as soon as the power went out I immediately heard loud disappointed groans from all the kids. I ended up pulling at Jenga and a deck of cards, and played games with the kids by candlelight while we waited to see if the lights came back on. During one of the games Juma curiously asked me if I had any friends living in Moshi.

            “I have friends,” I told him.

            “Who?”

            I looked at him and confused, but continued. “Oh, I don’t know. There are people that live around in the neighborhood that I’m friends with. Frank and Emma. A good bit.” I asked him why he wanted to know so bad.

            “I don’t know. I just don’t think you have many friends in Moshi.”

            That kind of stung for some reason, but I let it go because it would have been hard to explain to a kid that for the most part all the friends I have made all end up leaving at some point. That what seems to be the theme of Tanzania is that once you meet someone and become friends, they always leave shortly thereafter. Locals are hard to make friends with, because you never really know if they are being sincere in their friendliness, or just trying to get money from you somehow. Just the other week a “friend” of mine asked for 35k shillings to help pay for the internet in his office so he could do his work. He was a friend and I’d known him sometime so I figured why not. Haven’t heard from him since. From the guests to people around town, no one seems to be here for longer than a couple weeks to a month. It was sad thinking about that, that the majority of people I have met and really became close friends with eventually had to leave, but I couldn’t explain that to a 12 year old kid, so I just told him, “You and the kids are my friends Juma, that’s all I need.”

            He smiled, “My aunt lives in Moshi. She’d be your friend.”



Jonasi, Peter, Juma, and Christina doing dishes



             After games the kids sat on the couch facing the laptop, waiting for it to magically click back on as soon as there was power, but the power never came. I went and laid down on one of the couches across from to the one with the kids on it and just starting asking them questions. What were their dreams, what did they want to do when they got older, what was their favorite Michael Jackson song (because everyone knows Michael Jackson), and what their villages were like. After a few answers along the lines of pilot and nice and Billie Jean, they asked me a few also. Mainly, just how many brothers I had, cousins, and all that. Out of nowhere though, during the quiet after one of my answers, Juma started talking about his own family.

            He said he didn’t know his own father. That when he was inside of his mother’s tummy his father had died. “There was something wrong with his chest. His heart, or something. The doctor gave him medicine, but there was nothing he could do. He died at the hospital.” I turned and looked at him in the pale candlelight and he was just kind of staring off into nothing, as if he was just talking to himself really and that we weren’t even in the room. “I can’t even picture his face when I try,” he finished.

I rubbed the top of his head and told him he was a good kid, and to always remember that, but it’s times like these that bring me back to reality. All the kids at the orphanage are as happy as can be, and you would never suspect that they came from such hardships to being the kids they are today, but every now and then they bring you back and remind you exactly where they came from and that they are still orphans.

            Before bed I made all the kids brush their teeth and told them that I had a strict, “No waking Kyle up before 8am” policy that they needed to adhere to. The following morning, I heard a light tapping on my door and it was pushed open by all the kids standing there dressed for the day. I rubbed my eyes and asked them what time it was.

            “6:30” they all said.

            “In the morning? What happened to my policy?” I asked groggily.

            “We wanted to ride bikes, though.”

            I guess bikes are a good excuse, so I got out of bed, put on some shoes, made coffee, and went and unlocked the back shed. They rode bikes around all morning, taking turns watching a movie on my laptop and running back outside to ride around the backyard. For lunch we drove into town for pizza and ice cream, because what kids don’t love that combination. We ate at Deli Chez, a place in town with a hand painted French chef on the outside and a bible for a menu, serving anything from chow mein and sushi, to Indian and burgers. They ordered the beef pizza, and after dousing enough ketchup on it to drown the flies buzzing around the table they ate it up with all smiles. After the meal, they all ordered chocolate ice cream and then we hopped in the car and headed back to the orphanage.

            All of the other kids at the orphanage ran outside and met the van, and immediately started asking the kids what they had done and what movie they had watched. Juma, Peter, Jonasi, and Christina all smiled and told them the stories and thanked me again for having them over and headed inside. We spent the rest of the day at the orphanage with them, playing basketball and just hanging out.

            There are still two more groups that are going to come and stay at the guesthouse over night as a treat for being such good kids over the last couple of months. I’m not sure what exactly I have planned for them, but I did go out and buy a few more movies so that our options would be a little better this time around. I’m nearing my fifth month here in Tanzania, almost to the end. Crazy to think that 5 months have already flown by and that the last leg of the journey is already here. Not sure what to think of it really, but having the kids stay at the guest house over the last couple of weeks has been one of the better experiences and memories that I’ve had in my time here. Still can’t believe one of them crapped in my toilet though, that was just uncalled for.

             I’ll go ahead and take the time to mention that because of an extremely awesome, nice, caring person back home I was able to enjoy my first Dr. Pepper that I’ve had in 5 months. I fell off the wagon so to speak, but I think I cried a little when I drank it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did cry. It was the best thing I’ve ever drank. I literally sat on the couch and just stared at the bottle in between sips and tried to savor every little bit from it that I could. It was like Christmas and Reese Witherspoon got together inside this tiny 20 oz bottle of Dr. Pepper and tell me how much they loved and missed me with every sip. The only thing that would have made it more magical would have been if Morgan Freeman were narrating the entire thing, and Kevin Bacon was there just giving me a thumbs up from the other couch. Oh, God. I can’t talk about it anymore. I might cry again.  

            I’ll close this bad boy out with a little book review recap of all the things I’ve read thus far in Tanzania.

            Game of Thrones 1, 2, & 3 by George R.R. Martin: Each 1,000 pages, all of them awesome. Can’t wait t read the 4^th.

            50 Shades of Gray: Plot summary: Girl whines the entire time. “Does he like me? I don’t know if he likes me, he bought me a car, should I keep the car, he’s crazy, I love him, I don’t love him, we broke up.” The end.

            The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Old Russian novel, 1,000 pages long, about God. Not bad, just a little bit of a struggle.

            Empire Falls by Richard Russo: Good book, very good at character development and the story is really captivating. Could have done without the ending, though.

            Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder: Read it for the little bro’s summer reading. Really good, makes me feel like I haven’t done crap with my life though.

            The Help by Kathryn Stockett: God I miss the South. Great read

            One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Awesome. Beautiful writing. Magical

            Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer: Not climbing Everest, but read it right after I did Kilimanjaro and really enjoyed it because I could “loosely” relate to being so tired, I guess?

            A Long Way Gone by Ishmail Beah: Memoir about a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Good, sad, but happy in the end. Trying to read more books about Africa since, well, I’m here and all.

            Wuthering Heights: Classics, I tell ya. Just about Mr. Heathcliff being a butt the entire time but doing it while speaking in old English. A proper butt, I suppose.

            The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway: Climbed that mountain.

            Looking for Alaska by John Green: Almost finished with it, started yesterday, but figured I’d include it cause it’ll be done today.

            Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I’ll be backpacking Europe for a month after I leave here in October as well, so something for that trip would be nice. Right now the route I’m taking looks like: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, (maybe) Munich, Florence, Rome, Tierra Cirque, Switzerland, Paris, end up in London. I’m pumped.

            Go Braves. 

            Oh, yeah. I had a custom painting made. Bam