Critter Entry Part 1: Outsmart the Popos

A thought occurred to me the other day while entering my quest bedroom. As I opened the door and a scorpion (1) fell onto my arm, I realized that I should write a blog entry about my run-ins with animals here in Tanzania.

It’s my understanding that the “critter story” is a quintessential part of PCV canon so, like every volunteer since 1961, it’s time for me to load up the artillery and fire away. A “critter story” is almost always best saved for the FAFBH (Friends and Family Back Home): tell your fellow volunteers and someone’s likely to steal your thunder with a story about a spitting cobra in their living room; tell a Tanzanian and they’ll likely just smile and nod. Your WILD (!!!) story about chasing camel spiders in the nude with an A level textbook and bug spray is probably, to a Tanzanian, like watching Chinese tourists rub their babies on John Harvard’s golden toe (2): it’s embarrassing so you pity them, but not enough to interrupt and give up your smug sense of superiority.

To begin, let us talk about bats or popo. In a country facing endemic malaria, I can’t think of a nicer animal. Popo fly around eating disease vectors and do it when you’re sleeping. They don’t need your wakeful approval; they’re too busy being solid dudes and dudettes. For me, this assessment changed the instant a bat flew into my hair. In such a situation, I did the only two sensible things a person could do: throw a hard drive as far as I could down a hallway and make what was a hero's call if I've ever heard one. I believe I said, “daffffFFFUUUUCCCRRRGGGGSSSHHHH^{YYYYEEEEEEEEEERRRRRR}AAAAAAAAAA!” Fortunately, the bat was not tangled in my hair.

Unfortunately, it flew into my bedroom, defiling what had been up to that point the one vermin free sanctuary in my house. Grabbing my broom, I said to no one in particular, “It’s simple, we kill the bat!”Had The Dark Knight not taught me anything about their resiliency? Despite a rather thorough drubbing, the intruder managed to scuttle and flap its way into hiding, hanging on to what seemed its last breaths. I had lost a dying bat in my bedroom.

Waking up next to a stranger is unpleasant. It's a lot more unpleasant if he or she is, in fact, a bat. Like a true procrastinator, I decided to save my problem for the following day and was displeased that my friend had chosen the mosquito net trussing above my head as an ideal roost. Like gentlemen, we each illustrated our conflicting points of view, philosophical and logical arguments were proposed, and, upon reaching an amiable agreement, he left out the front door as I cordially waved goodbye with my broom.

After shampooing my hair for the first time in over two months and locating all the holes in my ceiling, I resolved to have my house bat proofed and never relive that unpleasant evening. Of course, as with anything I set my mind to, I forgot about it the next day. Waking up two days later, I noticed a leaf floating in my water filter. Reassessments were made once I leaned in for a closer look and the leaf looked right back. It was not a leaf; a bat was clinging for dear life to my water filter. Now, I have been kind to animals my whole life, going out of my way to do no harm and spare pain in creatures with a conscious that is either simpler or completely alien to my own. However, in the moment before propelling that shivering, sodden bat into a smoldering trash pit, I looked it in its puggy little face and beady black eyes and said “I truly hate you.” It was promptly drawn apart by chickens.

I'll leave you, fair reader, with a "critter story" from a pit latrine. Struggling to position myself so that anyone’s abrupt entry would be blocked by my unseen body, while also urinating into a hole the size of a large mango, I noticed something shuffle along the wall. I refocused my attention to see a spider, so large it would be incapable of fitting in my open palm, slowly backing itself into a corner. Under my cautious gaze, it began coiling and preparing to pounce on and bite, what must surely have been, the first white penis it had ever seen.

It would be impossible to express everything I'm thankful for, so I guess I'll have to leave it at life, people, and memories. Also, that a mouse sized spider did not attack my manhood. Happy Thanksgiving! I miss and love you all :)

(1) Haters gonna hate the footnote but some things need to be said about scorpions. After spending my childhood memorizing the misleadingly named pop-up book, “Nature’s Deadly Creatures,” (shout out to blue ringed octopuses and my dearest mother), I was a little disappointed that my scorpions are not, in fact, capable of killing a human. This letdown of childhood innocence, which I’m sure is a great word in German, is slightly assuaged every time I kill a scorpion, remove its tail, and either bury it or flush it down your choo hole.  It may be dead , but it’s still capable of stinging. So scorpions, I salute you. Even if you are incapable of killing me you are still significant enough to require a funeral.

(2) The students pee on it.

A Tanzanian Party

I understand that most people are coming to this blog for stories from Tanzania so there are two posts this week. The first is something I just felt like writing and was probably brought on by post-college nostalgia. Also, I’m about to go through a entire football season without seeing a single game for the first time in five years (that’s right, went to one Bronwen’s freshman year) and miss The Game (Fight Fiercely) which I can only imagine will be a continuing pattern in my adult life. Alas. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The following was written in my journal on September 8^th, my last night with my homestay family before I traveled to Dar Es Salaam and swore in at the ambassador’s residence. I lived with my homestay family in Korogwe, Tanga Region for two months. During that time I learned Kiswahili, how to eat with my hands, Tanzanian culture, the art of butchering a chicken, and how strange I am to Tanzanians.

A Tanzanian Party:

• The Tanzanian Party starts 30 min to an hour late. Awkward pre-party schmoozing involves you standing in the middle of a room of seated Tanzanian women looking at a pile of un-inflated balloons and un-hung streamers. Sideways comments you can’t understand are made about your facial hair. The power is out so you use the stereo as a chair.
• The party is official as you take your seat at the front of the room, facing your guests. Guests of honor sit at your table but everyone else sits on a chair or the floor facing you. All the neighborhood children sit jostled together at your feet.
• Approximately 30 min of pictures are taken following no discernible order or pattern; the only constant is the presence of a baby in your arms. As your mama approaches, you are first exposed to the “mama song.” It is sung every time you mother comes to the front table. During a photo, you notice this is the first time your mama has hugged you and is, therefore, the first physical, human contact you have made in two months and five days. Unfortunately, this trend will continue long after homestay.
• Your dad shows up to take a picture and then immediately leaves, after which you realize there are no men at your party.
• You are introduced by your mama and the M.C. (a must for all Tanzanian Shindigs) asks you to sing a song. After panicked deliberation, you and your guest of honor sing “Happy Birthday Tanzania.”
• The M.C. asks you to say a prayer, which your guest of honor graciously handles, apparently an old pro.
• The front table is presented with two dish sized cakes. Major points are scored by the women who know how to bake.
• You and your guest of honor are commanded to cut the cakes holding hands. The room erupts into “Cut the Keki Today,” sung to “Happy Birthday to You.” You try not to lose your shit. You and your family and friends are made to feed each other cake with toothpicks; etiquette with eye contact is uncertain. You lose your shit. Pictures are taken.
• Your mama approaches with your gift, prompting another round of the “mama song.” It is a collarless shirt-dress of magenta fringed with vibrant green and blue Indian fringing.
• The cake is taken to the kitchen. All of the floor children make A Sound as it is lead away. If you are alone, stick your tongue out and suck in as you run it back and forth against your mouth; this is The Sound a room full of children spontaneously made.
• The M.C. checks his itinerary and begins to sing a four minute song about Jesus. My neighborhood is Muslim. No one appears to mind.
• You give your family gifts, which they love. The personal note you wrote is passed around the room to be read by all of the guests. Apparently, if something is worth doing in Tanzania, it’s worth doing in public. Positive comments are made on the quality of your Kiswahili.
• Guests come up to the front table, put gifts of money into a handkerchief-covered bowl and curtsy.
• Food is served from 5 gallon buckets in your kitchen. Mamas have been cooking outside of your house all afternoon which, you learn, they do because your mama is a good neighbor. Adults eat first and the remaining food is taken outside on a large platter for the children to eat in the dirt. Like animals. Seriously, you go to take a look and it’s like a hog farm.
• Soda is distributed to adult guests and favored children. You notice a baby sitting alone on the floor, his or her face eclipsed by a bowl, streaming rice. He is none too pleased when his mama begins to clean up the mess.
• The children rush out the door, leaving the floor covered with food which the remaining guests sweep of the tile. The party has quickly come to a close.
• The return of electricity brings with it an impromptu, nighttime dance party. Your family proves their speaker system can bump and your twelve year old brother Juma proves he can dance like M.J. Floor children flood out of the night, back into your house; Attempts at small talk are made and you assure more than one child that, although you are from California, you do not know Arnold. As you watch Hassani choke-slam another little boy onto the tile, slowly but with purpose, you feel the overwhelming welcome, confusion, and unpredictability that defined your homestay and you decide there is no better way to cap it off than with a Tanzanian Party.
• You proceed to talk to your mama on the phone every weekend.

Autumn in New England:

Autumn in New England, as I came to be familiar with it, may be the most beautiful time and place on earth. The air is clean and brisk but the leaves are rich, comforting colors. Their crackle and skittering is a little fire that skips alongside you like a bearded, red and gold dachshund; never with the warmth to thaw your chapping face, but maybe enough to crack a smile. Suddenly the dark red bricks have a companion and, like the quaint, dated homes just off the street, they cease to feel so out of place.

Finally, you find reason in sitting at your second grade desk, creating a thanksgiving that could never exist in California out of thick sheets of heavy-smelling cardboard paper which never folded precisely and were less cut than rended by scissors. Looking up from your classroom job of spraying ants with Windex, you saw the window taped with unfamiliar maple leaves of unfamiliar colors slowly bleaching in the afternoon sun and were puzzled; you could never understand you were being trained for an ideal autumn. Instead you fumed at your perceived east-coast-bias of Americana as you stood at the curb in shorts and a Pokémon t-shirt, waiting for your mom’s station wagon. At dinner, finally overcome by the indignity of it all, you asked “Mommy, where the fuck is Massachusetts?” Now as you fall against the wind (finally walking like a native!) in your snug boots and coat and hat (no one ever told you ears get cold!), you taste the clean, metallic ping of the evening’s air and look up through a window at a butter colored kitchen, smelling the two old friends, cinnamon and nutmeg, waltzing again. There, alone in a little yellow island surrounded by a sea of purpley-black darkness, it starts to make sense.

During this time, the world conspires to trim its fat and everything can be heard so clearly: others, yourself, the leaves, the twiddling fingers of barren branches, the conversation from a bench (maybe it’s even your own). Experiencing the rich, indescribable beauty of your surroundings so vividly, you find tears in your eyes and, with the stinging wind serving as your trusty alibi, you can cry in oft present, rarely noticed perfection. It’s a time when you genuinely cherish the warmth of the person you’re holding, learning ever more about the spark you so dearly love. With their heat standing in such stark contrast with the cold, you stand with your back to the vast, untapped eternity that will come to define you and hold in your arms the familiar and the ever-changing moment. Weathering the two conflicting worlds crashing like waves, you open your eyes and see something, someone that can maybe be part of both.

Thick carapaces of rock that rise out from under leaves and gnarled trees, icy to the touch but too majestic not to climb. Passing Canada geese that pause, just long enough to look into your soul with their beady black eyes and say, “I will return and when I do, I will end you.” Food shared at an unfamiliar table, the room warmed by a rising familiarity and happiness, the memory tinged orange by what was a tangible comfort. Warm, dare I say it, hot apple cider graciously welcoming a full jigger of bourbon, the newcomer billowing like a curtain in two secret lover’s bedroom, while you watch, unaware of the carnal passions unfolding in front of your eyes, licking a few spilt drops from your fingers and eyeing the front door. Autumn in New England was where I found myself, where I found love, and where I found the world; so, I will always be eying my door, hoping to recognize that special time and place once again and go out searching. There must be more to find.

Panya Buku:

My experience with Panya Buku happened during one of my school’s Shamba Days. Shamba is the Kiswahili word for “farm” and on these days classes are called off so students can show up to school armed with their hoes or machetes and go work the school’s farm. Teachers also go to the fields to supervise and I can attest that this is not some casual, educational farming project; this was some hard-core manual labor. I saw gangs of fifteen to eighteen year olds clear brush from a field, fell trees using fire, and massacre unsuspecting bush animals all in one afternoon. My students may sometimes struggle in the classroom but there is no question that they can get shit done!

During the day, I saw a flock of boys rushing across the school campus and heard what sounded like the cries of a panicking dog. The students had an unmistakable look in their eyes I recognized from earlier in the day, a combination of unguarded enthusiasm and purpose that accompanies the extermination of small animals. In the fields, girl students would be clearing brush with a hoe and unearth rats. During the brief, joyful chase, boys would immediately claim the rat and then either stomp or beat it to death.

A quick side note here, no Tanzania is scared of pests or other small things that move fast, so I manage to frequently make a fool out of myself by jumping out of the way of a fleeing mouse or flinching when a chicken goes apeshit. I know I’m just supposed to jig on top of the mouse and ignore the chicken but, when seen as something that could scurry up your pant leg or a mini-dinosaur, both require a little more fear then Tanzanians afford them.

In the afternoon, sitting in the teachers’ lounge, Mr. Ntilla, our schools Kiswahili instructor and one of the quickest wits I’ve met in Kiswahili or English, asked me if I had seen Panya Buku. Not knowing what Panya Buku was, I told him no and, knowing that panya means rat in Kiswahili, I asked what buku means. To this, Mr. Ntilla indicated that it refers to the shape of the rat and, seeking to further clarify the word’s meaning, lowered his head into hunched up shoulders and, with straight arms, made a slow waddling motion with his upper body. It could have been someone’s imitation of a cave man or a grouch minus the scrunched up face but, for this purpose, it was perfect; to this day I do not know the actual definition of buku but I certainly know its meaning.

Later on, more teachers came into the lounge and talk turned once again to Panya Buku. Apparently, the pack of boys I thought was running off to beat a dog, which is not that far-fetched because people really don’t like them here, was actually going to kill Panya Buku. This raised some interesting questions, chiefly, “how big is this rat if it makes sounds like a dog.” While this thought was sloshing around in my head, I notice Mr. Mnaida, the coolest dude around and, non-coincidentally, the only teacher with a motorcycle, saying the Kiswahili word for coconut (I promise I won’t do this every time a Kiswahili word comes up but I must make an exception this time: nazi) while making a cupping motion over his package. Now, I’m used to not understanding conversations I’m a part of, especially when they’re in Kiswahili, but for something of this magnitude I had to interupt. “You know Conor,” Mr Mnaida said, “When you’re trapping Panya Buku, you must wear a coconut over your genitals.” Never before was I so sorry for making a correct assumption. Whipped into a fervor by this ground breaking revelation, I had to ask, “why?” This question elicited much laughter and the pained smiles and hissing teeth that accompany uncertainty in wording and taste. Finally, Mr. Kishimbo, whos first name is Goodluck and speaks impeccable English, sets his forearm down on the table, hunkering down as he looks me right in the eyes; “you must wear a coconut because, if you don’t, Panya Buku will take your scrotum,” and with this response he used his free hand to make a palms up “taking motion” in my direction.

At first I was stricken with panic but, after my initial terror of beastially removed testicles subsided and I allowed myself one empathetic yelp, even more questions began to pop into my head: Does Panya Buku consciously go for the scrotum or does it just have the capability? Do you have to confront trapped Panya Buku or will Panya Buku recognize your trap for what it is and hunt down your scrotum out of spite? Can Panya Buku look its children in the eyes when they ask about its day job? Does Panya Buku kiss its spouse and children on the lips? Most importantly, where were my student’s coconuts and would I do the same thing in Panya Buku’s shoes?

These are questions better left unanswered, especially the last one. I still have yet to see a panya buku and so it remains in my head as Panya Buku, a creature of mystery, judgment, and wonder. It will continue to live in my head as a spaniel-sized manifestation of when things are better said imprecisely, raising more questions than it answers, lumbering through the bush and asking “you feeling lucky punk?” Maybe one day I will finally see Panya Buku but I fear that this may be the day when everything starts making sense in my new home and the wonder that now accompanies every day of my life will fade to yield a sharp, distinct, and unapologetic reality. Maybe it won’t but either outcome is better than the unspeakable third option.

So, now I must end with what I say every night, as I look up at my mosquito net and hear unusually large rustlings in my ceiling. It’s a prayer for the continuation of uncertainty’s wonder and the evocative power of language and the human imagination. It goes, “Please Panya Buku, don’t take my scrotum.”

Flauers!

Neeepil

- 

Not scared of rats

Pictures:

Thanks for the care package Aunt Barbara, Uncle Tony, and Grandpa! It made my week :)

Eggplant pasta and malaria prophylaxis. Dinner of champions.

Kasheshe. Chaos.

My dad, baby sister Fatuma, neighbor and fellow volunteer Riley, and mama at my going away party.

I had quests at my house. It happened!

The blue things is a water bottle cap for size reference. Spiders can get pretty big.

A cashew apple! I had my first bibu last week and they're tasty. Fun fact, the cashew is found on the bottom of the fruit. You burn the shell to get to the nut and man are those suckers flammable! The oils also cause your outer layer of skin to fall off. Just a little

My wonderful host siblings:) Mwajuma, Fatuma, Juma (twin brother of Mwajuma), little Hassani, Swadia (who has one of the greatest smiles of all time), and Mohammed (who everyone calls Moody). 

My Tanzanian family!

First day in my house.