HELP!!!

28 April 2004

 

My sincerest apologies to everyone waiting to hear from us in Africa.  We have been very busy, and we still do not have internet hookup at home.  First, we are all fine.  School is going well for the kids and Rob is actually starting to be too busy at work.  I’m also able to fill my days, although sometimes it’s hard to determine whether I’ve done anything at all.

 

We had the perfect safari – well, perfect except for the camping part.  The kids had 10 days off from school over Easter and we decided we should go on a safari.  We thought we’d stay near Dar and do some of the central Tanzanian parks, but we talked to a guy that said we shouldn’t miss the “Great Migration” in the Serengeti which is in full swing, and that the rain has made all the animals go south in the central parks which are all too muddy for driving.  Adding this to the fact that we really needed to “scout out” the northern parks for our summertime visitors (it sounded convincing when we thought it up), we decided to go to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater.  I can die now, I’ve seen all I ever dreamed of seeing in Africa.  We took 2 hours of video and a whole digital camera card full of photos.  We saw the “Big Five” (Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino, and Buffalo) two days in a row.  These were the most frequent targets of the Great Hunters.  I’m still amazed that anyone could see these magnificent beasts in the wild and think of pointing a gun at them and killing them.  I much prefer the camera.  We saw much more than just the Big 5; Cheetahs, Wildebeasts (1.6 million of them), Zebras, Giraffes, Hartebeasts, Topi, Waterbucks, Hyenas, Jackals, etc.  When you see these places and animals on National Geographic, you are actually seeing what we saw.  We even saw Dung Beetles – very exciting!  We started identifying birds as the varieties and quantities are so great.  We identified over 75 different birds within about 72 hours.  Colors and sizes and feathers you’d never believe.  Even the kids started looking for them and racing to try to identify new ones.  Rob is working on getting a web site worked up so he can post some of our photos (thanks to Mark Heringer!) so I’ll start bugging him soon to get them up and we’ll let you know where to go on the internet.

 

The camping part was the only bad part of the trip (not really bad, but not my favorite).  As luck would have it, it only rained when we were sleeping in tents.  The campsites also have the old hole in the ground with 2 footprints facilities, and if there was water, which there wasn’t, the showers are cold.  Now, I realize that I am a bit of a princess, but this stuff is really  - what? Rustic?  The third night of the safari was the first night we slept in a lodge and we all took long, hot, wonderful showers.  Thank goodness the lodges don’t add that much to the cost of the trip as a whole, as I don’t think we’ll do the camping part again.  When you camp, you also have to take along a cook and all the food you’ll need, so although the food was fine, we’ll skip it next time and save the space in the car.  The other thing that was bad, but was my bad, was that I packed for the kids and me and took what one would normally take on a vacation lasting a week.  Long pants, shorts, shirts, socks, undies, sneakers, flipflops, books, towels, games, etc.  You get the picture.  Anyway, when you are on safari, you don’t need to look good, or smell good, and you certainly don’t need entertainment. There is also a limited amount of space in the vehicle.   The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to sit with on your lap.  

 

I could go into great detail about the safari, but I think I’ll save it and torture everyone with the video when we get back.  I’ll also make a blanket invitation to everyone that gets this e-mail to start saving and come on safari with us.  I’m so glad that we’ve gotten the opportunity to do this for our kids, and for us.  Fantastic!  The best money we’ve ever spent.

 

One thing that was particularly great for us was that on the last day, after we’d left the guide and were driving back to the hotel, Mount Kilimanjaro came out from behind its perpetual cloud cover and shone its snowy cap off long enough for us to buy more batteries for the camera and get a good family portrait.  They say Kilimanjaro is a “shy” mountain, it hides behind clouds most of the time.  The best time to catch a glimpse of the snow capped peak is in December or January (we saw it from the plane!).  It is very rare for the peak to be uncovered in April.  What luck – perfect!

 

Other than safari, life goes on.  Rob and I are taking Swahili lessons, as are Wes and Austin in school.  (Madie stuck with French since that’s what’s available at home.)  The dog is having obedience training (we’re hoping to boost his confidence).  We’ve been making friends and have been fairly active.  We did finally get our shipment on the Tuesday before we left on safari, so I quickly put things away for the house-sitter. We’ve been sorting through and trying to find things ever since.  I was so happy to see our towels, and the kitchen stuff was great too.  The kids appreciated the sports equipment and books, and of course the boys are thrilled with the PS2 games.

 

On the day the shipment came, I had a number of things going on so Letitia, the cleaning lady, tried to put things away for me in the kitchen.  She kept asking me what things are for.  Open up your junk drawer in your kitchen.  Take a look at all the things you have that have a single purpose and no other use.  I have lots:  corn plates, corn holders, an egg slicer, a pumpkin carver, ice cream bowls, a tomato knife, a tomato slicer, a cheese slicer, a grapefruit knife ... I could go on.  Letitia had a knack for picking out the single purpose items and asking what they were for.  I was embarrassed.  After a while, I just told her to put the stuff in the cupboards and I’d sort them out later.  I’m glad I decided to unpack the non-kitchen items myself.

 

One aspect of life here that we’ve been talking about and thinking about a lot is the necessity for “Help” here.   At present, we have two gardeners (not both here on the same days), a cleaning lady 3 days per week, a night guard, and a second night guard that only comes 1 night per week to give the other one the night off.  This drives me crazy.  I’m never alone at home.  Even if the cleaning lady isn’t here, there’s someone in the yard.   Furthermore, one of the gardeners comes running whenever I go outside – even if I’m just going to put the trash in the trash can.  I have to nearly fight him for the right to throw away what I scoop out of the cat box, and he races me to what the dog deposits in the yard.  They say “Good Morning Madam” through the kitchen window – 7 days a week.  If I park the car in the garage and put the alarm on, they’ll wash it and set off the alarm.  If I don’t put the alarm on, they wash the inside of the car so the seat is wet.  I’ve instructed the cleaning lady to NOT make Madeline’s bed (or the boys’), but she insists.  I think the kids should take care of their own rooms – both for the sake of  privacy and for the responsibility.  As you can see, “Help” is driving me crazy. 

 

Since we’ve been talking about this so much lately, I’ve been hearing lots of reasons and excuses for why I should just get over it.  Rob thinks that it is part of our responsibility as foreigners to provide employment.  He wants me to give the cleaning lady more jobs – like making juice from the fresh fruit.  I don’t even let her do the laundry.  I’m not complaining about having to do laundry, it’s a fact of life, you have laundry and someone has to do it.  In our family that’s me.  One friend says that I should consider this my vacation from household responsibilities and appreciate it while I have it, and it’s insulting to the employee if I don’t let them do what some other foreigner has trained them to do.  Another says if I don’t like the lady I have, for whatever reason, just fire her because there are plenty more looking for work.  The South Africans generally are used to having household help and can’t understand how we can ever live without it.  Some people think that we should be saving the leftovers from dinner and handing them out to the guards.  How degrading.

 

Furthermore, whenever you ask a question of the “Help” or a salesperson in the shops, the answer is usually what they think you want to hear, not necessarily the truth.  Here’s a typical conversation between me and one of the gardeners as he’s preparing to put chlorine in the pool.  “Did you test the pool?” “Yes, Madam” “Was there still too much chlorine? Yesterday there was too much, it was hurting the kids’ eyes.”  “Yes, Madam.”   Rob thinks this is cultural.  I wonder if they do this with other Tanzanians.  My friend Lisa says they do this because they want to please me and keep their job and get a good recommendation for their next job.  I’d be more pleased with them if they told me the real truth.  I went to the store and bought some “fresh” milk.  I have a hard time with milk because it has to be delivered that day for it to really be fresh.  The stock clerk in the store was filling the milk fridge so I asked “Was this delivered today?” “Yes, Madam” so I bought 10 half-liter packets (at about 30 cents each).  I got home and had to throw away 9 of the 10 as they were spoiled.  Rob says that I have to stop asking yes or no questions, then I’ll get closer to the real truth.

 

Here’s another example.  Madeline saw a dress in one of the outdoor markets that she thought would look nice on me – it was my colors, looked cool, etc.  I asked the woman if she had made the dress “Yes, Madam”  I asked what size it was “Your size Madam” I looked all over it for a label – nothing.  We negotiated a price and I bought it.  When we got home, I went to try it on and there, way down the bottom of the side seam, was a label:  Marks & Spencer, size 20.  Neither hand made nor my size.  I don’t know how to feel, like an idiot or proud of myself for not being as cynical as my friend Merle, who says everyone here just lies all the time and you just have to start any conversation with that in mind. 

 

I realize this is a sensitive topic.  By talking about “They” or “them” I automatically become the kind of person I don’t like.  Some of the “Thems” I don’t like are the ex-pats.  I hate hearing a group of ex-pats talking about Tanzanians.  They make me understand how it is possible for a kid at Madeline’s school to write an article about how she felt when a taxi driver got out of his car and said “Muzungus are Pork!” , meaning “Foreigners are Pigs.” She wrote about how bad she felt, as just because she was white didn’t mean she was a Muzungu.  She has lived all of her life on the continent and feels that she is an African, not a foreigner.  In fact, there is a large population of “Asian” Africans, who are the nth generation born in Tanzania of immigrants from India and Pakistan from before the German or British colonial period.  Many of the “Asian” Africans are the shopowners.  They are also very pleasant, usually speak very good English, etc.  One day I was buying vegetables from the man at the corner and he said Hello to me, Ohio gazaimus (that’s my inventive spelling) to the Japanese lady, etc.  We had our usual chat about veg and fruit and all the while he was listening to a very loud radio broadcast in ENGLISH saying things about 3500 children being murdered in America every day and that the Americans are trying to control the world by reducing the population  through women’s rights and birth control, etc.  What??  Amazing!  The combinations of cultures, races, religions here is amazing, but the separateness of each group is also amazing.  The “Asian” Africans don’t mix with the other Africans, although they do employ them.  According to Rob, he often hears black Africans speak of “those Asian people...” followed by your choice of racial generalization.  The foreigners mix with both, but still employ only the non-Asian Africans in their homes.  Wealthy (and even middle to lower middle class) Africans of all races employ people in their homes, another reason nobody can understand why I don’t want help.

 

I feel differently here than I did in Russia and Lithuania.  I am embarrassed by the things I have, I’m embarrassed by how my friends talk about the Africans in their employ, I’m embarrassed that I don’t like to have Help, I’m embarrassed that I have to fight my gardener to throw away my trash.  I remember a conversation I had with Alexander in Moscow (he was my driver).  At the time I had 2 kids and was pregnant with my third, we had Marty, a huge dog, and I was missing my cat Buddy, who had recently died, and talking about finding another one, preferably a Siamese.  I hated my flat far from the center and was working on moving into another one near the Kremlin, we were talking about dachas and I said I would love to have one we could go to on the weekends, as other expats we knew did.  Alexander laughed at me and said something about how really American I was, I wanted everything!  Wow, but Alexander had a flat and a car and a dacha and 2 kids, somehow it didn’t seem so striking the differences between us.   Alexander’s life was how it was because of the Soviet system, and he and I could have a normal relationship based on a mutual need.  We were friends and he happened to be my driver.   We didn’t have a real social relationship, but we were more than just an employer and an employee.  I needed him because of the language difficulties and because I had small kids and no car and traffic was so crazy.  He needed me because the country had just fallen apart and he couldn’t get a job as a journalist and he had to feed his family.  He spoke 7 languages, he’d done 2 tours in Afganistan.  I remember hearing him talk to other drivers about me, he was proud that I spent my time going to museums and learning about Russian Culture and History rather than just having tea like a lot of the other ladies. He is now working as a journalist. 

 

I guess the bottom line is that here I’m treated like a princess and I’m expected to behave like one.  I’m supposed to hand off the dirtiest jobs to someone else because they are simply beneath my dignity.  Well, other than the shower and camping thing, I’m not a princess.  Even other American expats expect me to act like a princess.  Regarding Help, I’m told “you’ll get used to it” or “take advantage of it while you can” or “stop messing it up for the rest of us.”   What happens when those princesses go home?  I can’t imagine how they will be able to afford the amount of Help they have here, and who is going to do the jobs they’ve decided are beneath them?  For me, I hope I never get used to it, I plan to tell Letitia that I only want her 2 times per week (I’ll pay her the same) and I don’t care if I mess it up for the rest of the expats.   Rob says we need the security of the guards and the gardeners, so we’ll keep them.  Hopefully as we get better at Swahili, we’ll be able to explain better what we expect of the gardeners, like pool cleaning and  gate opening, not princess tending.

 

So there it is.  I’m often asked what it’s like to live here.  For me, it’s both really great – the safaris, the art and culture, the pool, what my kids are learning about the world! – but also frustrating.  I used to joke when we were in Moscow that “we aren’t in Kansas anymore!” like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  I’m really glad it’s not like this in Kansas.

 

I hope you are all well.  With any luck, we’ll have some form of internet hookup at home next week and I’ll be a lot more regular with e-mail.  All our best to everyone.

 

Barb