Living Like a Tanzanian! (Saturday 5/30)

After a restful night, I was woken by Paul to show me that he boiled me a decent amount of water to take a bucket bath! Thanks to the electricity, he used an electric kettle to boil the water quickly. I had to put a good amount of cold water in so it wouldn’t scald me! Considering I only brought my backpack with a few things so I had no towel or soap, yet you can’t say no to the warm water someone’s worked hard to make. Thankfully Paul gave me some soap and a towel and I proceeded to have my first bucket bath. 

Essentially you go to the bathroom which is a small room with a pit toilet and you pour small cups of water on your body to bathe! It is best to stand over the toilet to not splash water everywhere. Of course I only know this after essentially flooding the small bathroom and needing to use a squeegee to push the water into the toilet. Seeing that this whole process was very unfamiliar it took me a bit to get accustomed to it all! Even though the endless hot water in the US is quite the amenity, the bucket bath made the act of getting clean so much more deliberate and special. It meant that someone cared enough to spend the time to get you hot water. Even with the little time I’ve spent here, I’ve noticed the insane amount of work life out here requires. You feel so much more connected to the surroundings and develop a deeper understanding of what it feels like to be a Tanzanian. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty fun experience!

After, I was sent up to go back to the main building we arrived at the evening before. I met up with the group and waited for mzee (m-zay) to show up. Mzee means “old man” in Swahili and is what Steve, Jonathan’s dad, is called in the village. He showed up late and we went into a small room for training. We went over many things such as VST (Village Schools Tanzania) goals, principles, and beliefs along with countless stories. I should note that VSI and VST are the same. Village Schools International was created as a response to the fact that Village Schools Tanzania was going to be in other countries and must be named accordingly. VST was the very start of it all! From this point on, I’ll often reference VST as just “Village Schools” as that’s what Mzee calls it. Nevertheless, what makes VST so unique is its many philosophies and history. To order the fantastic philosophies, they are community participation, sustainability, local leadership, reaching those at the bottom, access for all, and living incarnationally. 

(photo taken 6/5)

Community participation means that us volunteers are living with Tanzanians, living Tanzanian life, and being a part of the village. This means staying in a hotel that a Tanzanian could stay at and afford, travelling all the way to Madisi via transportation that a Tanzanian would take, eating the food that Tanzanians eat, and living with Tanzanians to experience everything they do. This is very uncommon for most volunteers or missionaries in Africa. 

“Voluntourism” has become a very big industry in Africa and especially within Tanzania. Foreigners will come to “volunteer” for a week to feel good about themselves but are obviously only there for their 10-day safari afterwards. It makes the volunteering feel impersonal and disrespectful which is felt by the locals. Therefore, foreigners and volunteering in general  has gotten a bad reputation here. 

In other cases, most organizations have their volunteers come “help” for the day and go back to their regular, first world amenities at night. In fact this is what I did when I went to El Salvador in high school. We’d go out and see how the people of El Salvador lived and to spread the gospel, but go back at the end of the day to our rather cushy hotel. I never ate with the people I was helping let alone live with them. This way of volunteering can feel less connected, less genuine, and can lack authenticity. 

Comparing this trip to the one I went on in high school is more different than words can describe. I don’t feel separate with these people like I did in El Salvador, but rather very connected. I have begun to understand them for who they are and therefore develop a perspective that is respectful and actually beneficial to helping. How can you assist a group of people without understanding who they are, especially when their culture is what defines them? The best way is to live with them! Sure it’s not as comfortable as having many unlimited amenities but it preserves the dignity of those who live here and shows that we genuinely care and respect their ways of life. 

The foreigners who used to inhabit this region were incredibly disgusted and set themselves apart from the locals here. They wouldn’t dare eat with a Tanzanian let alone touch one. Mzee told us many stories where foreigners might’ve come to Africa dozens of times to help the people here but never have sat down and eaten a meal with a local. Therefore, the relationship between rural Tanzanians and foreigners is a little shattered. By living and being with them, we’re rewriting the narrative of foreigners and mending the hurt that has been done. So far I’ve loved getting to live here!

Sustainability for us volunteers means that the projects we work on are to be continued after we’re gone. Whether that means leaving extensive guides to reference or deliberately teaching others to learn one’s project to teach in the future, we’re developing our projects in a way that does not need us after we’ve left. Additionally, the work that we’re doing is meant to be all behind the scenes. In other words, we’re not here to do some grand work and put our names on it for everyone to see. We’re to work with humility and the purpose of contributing to something far greater than ourselves. Yes I love my project and think it’s so cool, but it’s not for me or my pride or my goals back home. My project is to assist teachers and students to learn better and nothing more. I’m dedicating my time for the hopes that I can add value to the Village Schools system and the ones who will come after me. 

My hope is that after my two months here I’ve done a good enough job teaching those at Bukimau how Kolibri works that they can continue the project once I’m gone for years to come. I want a student that’s using my project to not think of me and how much I’ve helped, but be grateful that the resource is there and ultimately not know me at all. Doing volunteer work this way removes the “savior” aspect and ensures that the help is genuine and will last.

Local leadership is quite simple. The leaders that surround you, no matter their background or who you are, will be respected as your leader and you will do nothing to change that. Who are we to lead anyone when we are the guests here? How can we lead people when we don’t intimately know their culture? The answer is you can’t and you never will. Mzee who has been around since the very beginning of Village Schools still falls under those who started the entire program. In most cases with non-profits in Africa, a foreigner will be the one to lead everything and the volunteers will only respect the authority of someone that looks like them. Here that is not the case. If someone asks you to do something, you do it. If they ask you to jump, you jump. You don’t ask questions, you don’t chip in your two cents, you simply obey. This concept can be hard for me as I usually want to be the one that leads or gives my opinions on a decision. I’ve been mindful of this and make sure to just listen and do. The benefit of this is that if what you do ends up going wrong or causes trouble it’s not your fault as it was the decision of the leader and not you!

Reaching those at the bottom explains the simplicity of who Village Schools wants to help; the poorest and most disadvantaged individuals. Village Schools will only build schools where they’re wanted and needed the most. No schools for the rich or the middle class regardless of requests. This also means that Village Schools try extremely hard to get as many girls as possible into their schools. They do this through offering a large scholarship for student fees and accommodating dearly to girls.  A scholarship here doesn’t mean that the rest of the fee is paid, rather the teachers will get paid less (they are fine with this as a paying student is better than no student at all!). The opportunity for girls to learn in Africa is still a new concept, and therefore hard to convince parents to do. However, girls deserve an education just as much as the boys do and therefore need more help to get into the school doors. A very noble and important thing to do.

Access for all stands for the fact that Village Schools lets everyone have at least the opportunity to go to secondary school. As you’ll find out shortly, education after the 7th grade is not a right, but a privilege in Tanzania. There are no academic requirements to go to a Village Schools secondary school, which means that there is a wide variety of students. Teachers must teach better and students must be extremely driven to do well. As a testament to how hard both the teachers and students work and how grateful they are to give and receive an education, Village Schools’ schools have a >99% pass rate on the national exams. This is essentially unheard of for an organization with this philosophy and is incredibly impressive when the organization has over 10,000 students! The reason for this success comes down to the fact that the only way to escape poverty is education and the kids and parents know this. These students suffer to get their education and work insanely hard as their future relies entirely on this. 

Last but not least, living incarnationally is a summarization of all of the previous philosophies into one. To live incarnationally is to become a Tanzanian. In order to reach the poor, you must become poor. We live on the same amount of money, eat the same food, live in the same houses, (try to) speak the same languages, and everything else. After much thinking, I don’t believe there’s a better way.

When it comes to the history of Village Schools and how it all came to be, I will keep it short as Mzee spent hours telling us stories. To summarize, Steve’s grandfather was a missionary in the Congo for his entire life in the early 1900’s. On a trip to visit his grandfather, Steve saw the impact his father made on the people of Congo and was inspired to continue his grandfather’s fulfilling work. 

Steve became a teacher of math and physics before coming back out to the Congo. There, Steve began to live and give his time in Congo where he eventually met his wife Sarah who was a Peace Corp volunteer. After getting married, they both spent more time in the Congo until fleeing the country when war broke out.

They fled to Tanzania where Steve began teaching math to a local village. When it was time for national exams, Steve was confident that almost every single one of his students would pass. To preface, the national exams are extremely important and essentially determine a kid’s entire life. If you don’t pass, you don’t get to move onto the 8th grade and are essentially stuck in poverty. 

After anxiously waiting to get the scores back, he was informed two students passed. Two! Two students got the opportunity out of 46 to go to the 8th grade. Furious, Steve went to the local education director and exclaimed something had to be wrong, he knew most of his students should’ve passed. 

To his delight, there was something wrong, 43 out of 46 did indeed pass. Steve was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to go back to his students and tell them they passed! However, there was one more thing the education director had to clarify-  only 2 out of the 43 were selected to go to secondary school. 43 students met the mark, but due to a lack of secondary schools, only two at random were allowed to go. 

Steve was devastated. How could this be? The students studied so hard and the rest of their education and life was decided by chance? It was inconceivable to him. Defeated, yet fueled with a passion to get his students the chance to go to secondary school, he rallied the entire village for a meeting. There he proposed a secondary school for the students. However, it would need to be built by the village as there was no money to build one. Knowing how important education is, they built that first school brick by brick. 

After the school was established, two of Steve’s students Godfrey and Emmanual (who each have their own fascinating histories I will omit), eventually came up with the core principle of Village Schools; build schools and provide a secondary education for all. Steve loved the idea and wanted to support, not lead, the endeavor. The first school to be built under Village Schools Tanzania was here in Madisi where I’m staying! To make a long story short, 20 years later they have over 96 schools with 13,000 students and are in 5 countries and are growing more and more every year! 

What has made Village Schools so successful (besides the blessing of God as this is a Christian organization), is their belief on how schools in these rural parts of Tanzania must be run. 

First, a village must have an expressed collective want and need for a school. VST does not simply build a school for any Tanzanian village that asks, but rather helps the process. The village must make all of the bricks and gather all of the sand and stone and then build the entire school. VST helps by providing trucks and paying for expensive things like concrete foundations and metal housing. Nevertheless, the village must put sweat, blood and tears into the development of the school. 

Second, every student must pay school fees. $110 USD a year for boys and $35 USD a year for girls. Having school cost money is key. This is often a lot of money for families to pay, but still way less than any other school in the area. 

When a student is paying to go to school they are going to go to class. They know that their parents, if they have any, are working tirelessly to pay for them to go through school, especially if the student has siblings. The sacrifice is what keeps the students learning. The parents have to work even harder to pay and the student works even harder to make it worth it. The student fees are what pay the teachers, therefore the teachers have a deep connection to the students. 

This system ensures that everyone is very connected to the school and passionate about getting an education. It’s extremely difficult for everyone involved but is what works and is sustainable to better the lives of everyone. I truly believe that the American public school system could learn a lot from the schools here. As I’ll say many times, I wish every American student could see and understand how school works in a country where education isn’t a right, but something that is earned.

Many things about Tanzanian culture were taught to us and I learned a ton! For example, Mzee purposefully showed up late to our 7:30am time to show that punctuality isn’t something that is very important out here. In his words, “you show up when you show up and no one asks any questions. They are simply happy you’re there”. 

Life here in Tanzania can be unpredictable and having strict times when things happen just doesn’t work out here. I know many of you reading this blog would probably explode if this way of life made its way to the US. 

Additionally, we learned about the two most important values of Tanzanian culture, respect and humility. Respect for elders is imperative. If you see someone older than you carrying something you run over to them immediately and carry their stuff, ensure they are the first ones to eat, and address them with the formal and respectful Swahili phrases just to name a few things.

Humility is also very important. To be flashy or brag is looked down upon severely here. Everyone here is very humble and therefore leads humble lives. Being a Christian majority group, they understand how pride is deadly and unproductive to their society. I’m very glad these are their most important values as they are values I need to work on and better! As I’m here I pray that I’m able to mold my character into being more respectful and humble. 

Tanzanian culture is also big on community! Everyone is very connected to one another and is always there to help a neighbor out. Mzee told us that in areas that are poor it’s the only right way to live. In these poorer areas, if a neighbor needs money for medicine, neighbors who already have very little will chip in. They do this as they know that if they’re experiencing a difficult time, their neighbors will help them. In other words, everyone relies on each other out here and to see that type of connection is odd compared to back in the United States. 

Another big part of Tanzanian culture is hospitality. As I’ve mentioned before, guests are a big deal and they’ll go out of their way to spoil us and make sure that we’re doing well. It’s cool to feel special out here since we’re so far away from home. I don’t think I would’ve adjusted as quickly as I have if it weren’t for how welcoming everyone is. Everyone has such a great demeanor and a smile on their face. You can’t help but laugh with them and become friends immediately! 

At the end of the day, I learned a lot and am not dogging on the United States. There are simply many great things that we could learn from Tanzania and apply them to our society, community, and lives to lead lives that are more thankful and fulfilling! 

During training we had breakfast where Mzee showed us how at a typical meal there is a tradition to which we wash our hands. Instead of going individually to the bathroom to wash our hands, we instead wash our hands with a pitcher full of water and bowl. The first person pours the water while another washes their hands. The pitcher and bowl is then passed to the person who just washed their hands and the cycle repeats until everyone’s hands are clean. This routine happens as it allows everyone to see that your hands are clean which is very important if you’re all eating from the same large plate (very common to eat a meal at one, shared plate). 

For breakfast we had mandazi (fried dough) and hard boiled eggs with salt. Learning and stories continued until we took a brief walk around the campus. As a reminder, there is a large forest all around the school which was hand planted when the school started 20 years ago. The trees have since grown immensely and actually hold an impressive amount of value. For a single acre of trees of this maturity one could get tens of thousands of US dollars. In other words, there is a lot of value sitting on this property and for that reason (along with the inherent beauty of the trees) every school that is opened by VST plants many trees. 

When the walk ended it was time for lunch! We had rice, meat, beans, cabbage salad, and fruit; a very impressive spread. According to Mzee, 20 years ago when they started this school a meal like this would be unheard of. In other words, this spread of foods is a testament to the wellbeing of the village and the ability to provide these foods for guests. Mzee described that when a school is built there is often an economic boom in the village. Due to the fact that students must pay school fees, the parents must make the money to pay the fees. In order to make money, there must be a good way to travel in and out of the village to sell goods like corn or beans so roads must be improved. With better roads means more access to outside business, more outside business brings more money and the cycle repeats. A good sign of economic wellbeing here in Tanzania is metal roofing on houses. 20 years ago in Madisi no house had metal roofing while now almost every house has metal roofing. A cool insight! 

Once we finished training, I went back with Miraclin and her host family Josea and Masha. We spent time in their living room learning Swahili and playing with Josea’s daughter. I forgot how fun it is to learn a language. Being at Mines that offers very little language classes, I haven’t been learning another language for an entire year now. Swahili is difficult to spell and pronounce when all you hear is a word. For example, the word for water is “magy” yet it is pronounced “mahdge” and has no y pronunciation! Josea had a lot of patience and grace teaching us what we should say in front of the church on Sunday. I learned that the best way to describe being from the United States is to just say America which is how I’ll reference the US from now on.

"Jina langu naitwa Evan Keppy. Nimetoka Colorado, Marekani. Kwa sasa nipo Madisi. Ahsante kwa kuwa pamoja nami leo. Ahsante, Mungu awabariki." → “My name is Evan Keppy. I’m from Colorado in America. I am now in Madisi. Thank you for being with me today. Thank you, God bless”

Eventually Paul showed up and we practiced even more Swahili primarily vocab words like rice “wari” or cold “biriti”. The daughter, Calini, was showing her English and Swahili skills which was very impressive! After lots of joking around we determined that Paul’s nickname is Mr. Popular as he is always receiving phone calls. He seems to love the name. Paul also got a kick out of British accents and American slang that I was teaching. When it was time for dinner we had ugale, beans, and meat for dinner! It was very delicious. At this point in the trip, it was finally time to use a pit toilet. To spare the details, I enjoy our toilets back at home. 

As to not stay over our welcome (it was 10:30pm at this point), Paul and I left and went back to his house! There we found Andrew in Paul’s room, where he often is, not on his phone but screaming at a soccer game! It was all very exciting. Turns out his favorite team won and had money on the line. 

Soon enough, Farista invited us over for chips (essentially french fries) which were very good. There was a ketchup looking sauce that turned out to not be ketchup at all but rather a very spicy chili sauce. Dipping my entire french fry into the sauce and eating it was quite the surprise. Being able to hear our music from inside Farista’s house Paul and I began to dance while eating the chips. Of course Farista thought this was hilarious and could not stop laughing while filming us. What a contagious laugh. Considering we had already eaten an entire meal, we only ate a little bit of the chips and took the rest back with us. We listened to more music and by Paul’s standard “make memories”. This meant dancing around and Paul sitting on the plate of chips and chili sauce by accident. At this point I was very tired so I went to bed. 

After sleeping for most of the night, I awoke to something scurrying on my face while Memories by Maroon 5 played in the background. I didn’t believe it at first until I grabbed my torch (flashlight) and saw the rat droppings near my pillow. Safe to say I was pretty startled! There were also several more spiders in my room from the last time I remembered… Here in Tanzania there are a lot of bugs and subsequently, a lot of spiders. These spiders can be pretty huge (dinner plate sized)! While I’ve seen a couple of big ones, nothing comes close to the ones inside of Michael’s host’s house. Luckily, Micheal lives in the village which is a far walk away from me! He’s told me that they’re about the size of a plate and that there are hundreds of them around in and inside of the house, but luckily they don’t move much. I assume they work as a natural way of pest control which is definitely pretty cool. The same can be said for the rats as they help clean up any spilled food in the house which is something I never thought about. Additionally, I now understand why we play music so loud; you don’t hear the rats scurry under your bed! Nevertheless I was tired and went back to bed.

I should mention that I am not complaining, just merely explaining what I’ve experienced. If I come off as complaining, I sincerely apologize. Complaining in Tanzanian culture, among many other things, is seen as very disrespectful. While I’m here, I’m living like any other Tanzanian would so I can truly understand their culture and way of life. They’re living on a couple dollars a day, so I’m also living on a couple dollars a day. There are no special amenities that I get because I’m from America here to volunteer. To complain about these conditions would undermine the millions of people who live like this for their entire lives here in Africa. These conditions are very different than here in America and I’m very thankful to have the few amenities I do have like a mattress and electricity (electricity is very new here)! That’s not to say the first few days were not a shock. There were several times I thought to myself, “what in the world am I doing here?” and kind of wanted to go home to be completely honest. 

Experiencing Tanzanian life for these few days has shifted my entire perspective of living and how easy we have it in America. To sound cliché, we take a lot for granted. It’s very easy to say these things, but until you’re actually living here in Tanzania as a Tanzanian there’s no way for any American to truly understand. 

For example, the amount of sacrifice and hard work a student must make to go to school is nothing but impressive. I wish every student could see how difficult it is for kids in Tanzania to go school and feel a little more grateful for the free education we get in America. 

The piece of chicken on my plate came from someone’s chicken they spent hard work on feeding and taking care of. The warm water I bathed in meant someone started a fire and waited for the water to get hot. The speaker someone worked for months or even years to listen to music. The food in my mouth was deliberately prepared by someone for hours. Here you are intimately connected to the resources that keep you alive. In America we are so disconnected from where we get our food from and even our own mother or father that is preparing a meal for us. You don’t think about the work it took for the massive chicken breast to make it to your plate, but here it’s impossible to not see the effort. 

In Tanzania you are fully present. I would implore everyone to try living in the shoes of a Tanzanian. It puts an amazing perspective on everything. I feel so blessed and grateful for the opportunity the Lord has given me to experience these things. I hope that through this blog you feel more inclined to be in the present and truly be grateful for what God has provided for us. I pray that I continue to spend more time here so I can understand and internalize the beautiful gems of life. Nevertheless, as each and every day passes, life here feels more and more normal!

(comment below with any questions or insights!)