Conversations with Barnabas: Namelock, Samwell and Marco

May 06, 2019

Before I get started with this week's blog, I want to tell you about my trip into town today so I could post it. Our rainy season is finally here a bit late but here. So it rained a couple of nights in a row which means I have swept bags full of dead termite swarms and moths out of my house. I had been at the site for a week and half so I was also out of food good for a diabetic. So I was ready to come to town. I arranged my motorcycle taxi as normal and left just after morning devotions at the school. He had apparently eaten his wheaties this morning because it was a fast trip to the normal dala dala stand. Only no dala dalas and he kept going. We get a mile past the normal dala dala stand and about 100 people are standing around a larger bus that is stopped. So we get off and go look to see what is up. The road is flooded. Never fear we decided to cross it anyway on the motorcycle. Twice I had to get off and help keep the motorcycle from floating off. So I am in town, soaking wet with shoes that will not dry out for days, but I am here to post this blog and get some food.

That is Kassimu, my piki driver.

My shoes are oozing river water this morning.

School has started back up after the mid-semester break over Easter. In typical fashion they returned on Monday and then had another holiday on Wednesday of the first week back. I have finished up my travels to find builders and meet with playground equipment suppliers. Got the chance to run into a group of Peace Corp workers in Arusha at my favorite hotel there, Raha Leo. I did not really know any of this group, but it was nice to talk with folks in my native tongue even if we speak different cultures because of the age difference. They spent a lot of time doing quizzes to find out which Hogwarts house they would belong to. At least we had Game of Thrones to talk about. Unfortunately, none were football addicts like me.

When I got back to site a couple of days before School starts, I was not surprised to find the Headteacher’s family at the house but no headteacher. He likes to take off the moment school closes. Unlike many men I know from the USA who like to be at home with their family when they are not at work, the majority of Tanzanian men prefer to be away from the home.

Families here are different in many ways. For one it is common that children are sent to boarding schools. They continually request we build dormitories so they can house students in 1^st and 2^nd grade. It is also common for children to live with other members of the family rather than their actual parents. For example, until this year I did not know the headteacher and his wife have a daughter, named Namelock, because she was living with other family members. This is very common in my limited understanding of the Tanzanian culture. She came back to live with them when she was old enough to enter Pre-Unity grade so about 6 years old.

Yes he is playing with the fire for cooking

Now that she is here, she has become the primary caregiver to her younger brother, Marco. Marco is old enough that he can walk everywhere and there seem to be no limits to where he can go exploring. Marco is not old enough to form words yet. Again, this is common in Tanzanian culture. One of the running jokes is when a group wanting to visit Tanzania and put on a Vacation Bible School they asked about safety scissors for the children and I told them the same children would be carrying a machete that afternoon or cutting up vegetables with a kitchen knife for dinner.

Marco with machete they use to cut firewood and vegetables

Marco after I took it away. He was loud enough that his mother who had to walk 15 minutes back to the site could hear him.

This is why I took it away-he falls a lot

Before you see the next picture in this discussion, I feel I must give you the story, so I don’t hear everyone complain I did not take it away from him. Marco was walking over to my house by himself as normal carrying the machete in the picture above. Then he put it in his mouth, so I took it away from him. This of course made him cry. So, his mother showed up about 15 minutes later and gave him the machete back. He immediately put it back in his mouth as he walked around. It was then that I snapped the next picture.

Both kids spend a lot of time at my house along with Samwell who is a student they are housing because his parents needed to board him. You know the African saying about it takes a village to raise a child. I say the next part somewhat jokingly, but it is because the parents don’t. Everywhere I go here children are off by themselves without adult supervision. These are the young ones from 2-7 that I am talking about. I told you over a year ago about Haji who was 4 and walking by himself over two miles with his cup to go get some porridge at the Compassion program. It is not uncommon to see kids home by themselves at these ages doing chores around the house (once they get older, they get chores outside the home). They are setting up cooking fires, caring for younger kids including having to clean them constantly. That is the life here.

As you can tell from some of the photos, that Namelock likes to put things over here eyes. Marco loves to hand me things then take the item back almost like I have to inspect it for him. I have trained him to wave and he has gotten pretty good at it. Samwell tends to spend his time by himself even at the house so I spend our time together making him participate with everyone else.