A Fantastic 4th of July (and my last night in Madisi!) (Saturday 7/4)

With no music blasting or loud talking during the night, Michael and I both slept in! My alarm woke me up early and I had to snooze it several times before turning it off entirely (I could see a disheveled look on Michael’s face). I decided to finally get out of bed around 8:45am while Michael was still sound asleep. Quietly getting up, I grabbed all of my dirty clothes and got to washing. There was a ton to wash as I had been planning for this particular Saturday to be the day that I catch up on laundry. In total I had my travelling clothes from a month ago, sleeping clothes, and my week’s clothes. I figured I wash as much as possible here in Madisi as I have no idea how laundry works in Bukimau (it’s also nice to start with a fresh slate of clothes going somewhere!). 

My soap had been completely used up from previous washes, but thankfully Paul left out a piece for me to use! I washed until Eli came down to grab the WiFi router from me to use back at the office. He was the only one there and wanted to be productive! We talked for a bit about random things until he left me to continue to wash. 

At this point I needed to grab a fresh set of clothes to change into so I could wash the dirty clothes that I already had on me. This meant waking up Michael as I had to pull out my checked bag and unfortunately make a lot of noise. The moment he got up, he packed up everything pretty quickly as he unfortunately did not sleep well and needed to get chores done at his house as well. I said farewell to Michael, put on the new set of clothes, and went outside to wash the dirty ones I was just wearing. The clothes washed quickly and I wanted to clean my towel as well. Right before I placed my towel in the water I realized I still needed to take a shower and that I shouldn’t have put on clean clothes on my dirty body before bathing.

I saved myself from a wet towel and went inside to immediately start boiling water. I would wash, wring, and hang and go inside every 8 minutes (timer on my watch) to pour out the hot water into a bucket. While I was working, a local man named Niko was working on the trench for the new water system this row of houses is putting in. The water hose originally filled up a large basin in front of Paul’s house, but now comes from a spigot from the ground a little ways instead of into the basin. I’m not sure how this is much of an upgrade and honestly seems worse! I suppose that even though it’s easier to scoop a bucket of water up, having sitting water is dirtier than flowing water!

Paul had installed a clothes line between our house and the neighboring one and I figured if I wanted my clothes to dry by tomorrow, I would need to hang them up outside (I had helped Paul set it up while I was brushing my teeth). The reason I’ve been hesitant to hang my clothes outside is that Paul has no way to fix the clothes to the line. With the frequent gusts of wind we get here, I don’t want my wet clothes landing on the dirt below! I took the chance and just barely fit everything I washed onto the line. 

Right as I finished, Eli came back down again! The WiFi was taken by Josea as it is the Vinton router after all and needed to return to its rightful place. With nothing left to do and still no one at the office, Eli needed something to do! I needed to take a shower, but figured I could talk with him and pack my bags for tomorrow. Once I finished up and Eli was on his way out, a neighbor came by and knocked on the door asking if he could take pictures with us as we’re leaving tomorrow (I did not catch his name)! We of course agreed, took a couple of photos, and I went on my way to take my bucket bath. I prepared myself a lot of water and felt very grateful for it. I don’t know how the bathing situation is going to be like in Bukimau and want to make the most of what I have here!

After the bucket bath, I got dressed, and found a random dirty shirt hiding underneath one of my bags. Since I stunk up the new shirt I put on this morning and could now wash my towel, another round of laundry was in order. As I started the two new shirts and towel, Hosea came down and made sure that I knew breakfast was waiting for me at his house! I lost track of the time and made sure to finish up the little bit of laundry I had, grab my stuff, and head up the hill. When I got to the office, everyone was there besides Michael! The four of us watched work being done to a truck before I asked Eli to come with me to go get breakfast. We arrived at Hosea’s home and had mandazi and tea at 11:50 (oops!). While drinking, we both noted how you never taste the same tea twice! Everyone has their own ways of preparing it! Here it has more lemon, at my house it has more ginger, and at Eli’s house it has more cinnamon!

With tea finished, we went back up and got to work. With the original router we used gone, we had to use the other router that was placed in front of the office. We all moved our stuff to the front and it felt like how we were set up a month ago! To be honest, Eli and I didn’t really work. In my opinion, Form 4 was done and spending 8 hours a day on it for the past four weeks has got me feeling quite sick of it! However, Henry, Miraclin, and Michael were being nit picky and finding small things to change. 

Eli and I scrolled Facebook Marketplace and talked about what we wanted to get. He was looking at skis and I was looking at trucks (there are some funny looking rides out there)! With the free time, I decided to mend my shoe. Some of the rubber had been peeling from the sole and with Eli’s massive stash of super glue, I could fix it. The only problem was that the super glue exploded and got onto my pants, hands, and seat. What a mess! I got my shoe fixed and watched the super glue chemically react with the seat cushion and smoke… 

Anyways, lunch time came around 2:30pm for Miraclin and I (2:00pm for everyone else) and we walked down to the house. I learned that Hosea and his wife Masha are fasting this weekend! For lunch we had a delicious meal of spaghetti that had scrambled eggs and other vegetables in it! We ended up eating all of it! When we were finished, we said our thank yous and goodbyes and went back up to the office.

Michael had been sent down to the area near the shop (there is a large garage with vehicles there) and I wanted to see what he was up to and buy some stuff before going to Bukimau (I’m not sure what kind of access I’ll have to a shop for snacks or drinks). I got down there with Miraclin and bought a ton of stuff with my 10,000 shilling bill (I had no smaller denominations and couldn’t get change). I bought a bunch of snacks and some soap for laundry. Eventually Eli and Henry showed up to watch Michael as well. He’s working on a car’s transmission that he’s certain is completely broken. Besides getting absolutely filthy in car fluids, being a mechanic out here looks like a lot of fun! There was also a motorcycle in the garage that needed fixing. If I was staying in Madisi longer I would’ve loved to take a look at it. While giving it a once over, Michael tipped it over and caused quite the crash (nothing was broken).

We didn’t want to distract Michael any longer so Eli and I began to play soccer with the little boy we met a couple days ago (the one Henry and I were launching after the soccer game). The boy’s name is Alfa (short for something very long and hard to say) and he’s quite good at soccer (and English too!). During our play time, Michael needed some of Eli’s super glue so Eli and I went up to the office to grab it and set my goodies down. We went back and proceeded to play football with Alfa until a little past 4:00pm. 

I was playing easy but the kid was definitely showing me up. The soccer ball was very tiny and hard to kick accurately. Out of nowhere Alfa tells me, “you need to practice more”! Hilarious to Eli and him, not so much to me! Alfo was a very sassy player and made sure to express when you made a mistake.

We were playing on the main road and used two large rocks to mark our goal. The only problem with playing on the road is because the road sits on the top of the hill, every time you kick the ball to score it goes all the way down to the bottom (lots of running up and down)! We had to stop when the village dog came by as Alfa told us if we play around the dog, the dog will bite us or pop the ball. In order to “protect” us from the harmless dog, Alfa held a stone in his hand and was ready to throw it at a moment's notice! When the dog finally decided to leave, we played some more. Something Alfa kept doing to me was “nutmegging” me which essentially means successfully quicking it between one’s legs! Eventually Michael was finished with his work so Henry and Miraclin came up to the top of the hill to let us know it was time to go! Johnathan had invited us to the Vinton home at 4:00pm to enjoy the fourth of July. 

We were playing football right by the house so we gave the ball back to Alfa, and went up to the Vinton home for the first time (even though their house is very close to the office)! We were welcomed by Susan (most people here call her Mama Vinton) and came inside to see Mzee and Jonathan! They were so excited to see us! The inside of the house was very nice and more akin to a home back in the States (still very Tanzanian influenced, but has commodities like running water!). Immediately we were told that we would be enjoying the fourth in a very special way. Usually they invite everyone in the area to celebrate, but this time it would only be us (it’s the special 250th and they just got back from a ton of travelling). We were also told we were going to have HOTDOGS, CHIPS, and S’MORES for dinner! Some of the best news I’ve ever heard!

Mzee sat us all down in the main room to tell us the story as to why they came so late. As a reminder, Mzee and Susan were only supposed to be gone for two weeks, but ended up being gone for almost a month. The original plan was for them to leave, get to the States to spend time with family, go to a wedding, and get some health checkups. The reason why Mzee and Susan were even going back to the States for a wedding is because Mzee missed his sister’s wedding 40 years ago when he was in the Congo. He wanted to be a good brother and make it up by going to his nephew’s wedding! In total, they had a ton to do in a very short amount of time! They would’ve stayed longer, but wanted to get back to Tanzania in a week to make it in time for the United States Embassy’s 250th fourth of July celebration. It was a big invitation and for some reason on June 17th instead of the fourth. Mzee explained that this grand plan would work if they were younger, but now that they’re over 60, the hustle and bustle of travelling takes quite the toll on their bodies. However, he didn’t realize this until he was unpacking his things in a hotel in Texas and saw the troubled look on his wife’s face. 

As the realization set over him, a call came ringing from their phone. It was their son, Josh, who had some of the best news the couple could’ve ever received. Over the phone Josh explained that a very wealthy friend that had known the Vinton’s for over a decade had just called him with an unimaginable offer: two spots on an all inclusive National Geographic cruise to go to the Galapagos Islands completely paid for! Just moments ago the couple was stressed and not looking forward to the rush of events ahead of them. Now, they could slow down, enjoy all of the family time, and get an experience of a lifetime in the Galapagos (the trip didn’t leave until Wednesday of the next week). If anyone deserved this trip it was Mzee and Susan. They’ve done nothing but serve others their entire life and God knew that they needed this experience!

When Mzee explained the trip, it sounded wonderful. As he put it, they got to experience what it’s like for the 0.00001% of the population to live. Since Mzee and Susan have spent their entire lives living extremely poor lives, they had to go and buy several outfits so they would fit in and “look rich”! The funny thing was that on the vessel, many of the rich guests thought that Susan’s African cloak was so cool and wondered where she got it (in the middle of Tanzania of course)! During the process of the trip, one of the things that bewildered them, and us listening too, is how luggage works for the rich. You leave your suitcases out front of your hotel room and they magically show up across the world at the next hotel you’re at! No hassle or stress!

The cruise itself had around 40 guests with a crew of 60 taking care of them on an amazing national geographic resource vessel! They ate amazing food, saw SO much amazing wildlife, learned how to scuba dive, and so much more. I’m so happy that they got to go on this trip and enjoy themselves!

Jonathan also had a mix up and was back in Tanzania early (he was supposed to be gone for a full month). The reason why Jonathan was in the States at the same time was to finalize his visa to study in France for the upcoming school year. He’s going to get his masters (I think) in AI Applications and Management to help VST expand their efficiency and effectiveness with the power of AI. In order to get your visa, Jonathan had to mail in his passport to an embassy office that could finish the paperwork and send the visa back to him. Jonathan explained that the process can take 2-4 weeks and therefore planned to not get back until he got the French visa. The only problem that he ran into was that the visa got lost in the mail when it was sent back to him! To make a long story short, it was a very hectic process with lots of back and forth with UPS and USPS, and he finally got the passport and visa several days after it was supposed to get there. 

After story time it was time to eat! We had the director’s daughter over to join us and we started roasted hotdogs over charcoal fire with sharpened sticks. The daughter’s name is Gracie and Mzee was telling her all about American traditions and why we celebrate the way we do. I found it funny to listen in as Mzee made us Americans seem quite silly for the things we do! The concept of camping to Tanzanians is very odd and all of the unhealthy food we eat! 

When our hotdogs were finished cooking, there were buns made from homemade bread, condiments (mustard, relish, mayo, and thousand island dressing), onions, avocados, home made chips, drinks (I had a cool purple soda), American red apples, and American music. It was quite the feast! I loaded my hotdog with all of the condiments I could. When I get back to America I’ll need to put avocado on my hotdogs, it’s amazing!I cannot overstate how amazing this meal was. If you don’t know, I’m not a big fan of hotdogs, but proceeded to eat four of them! 

Everything tasted wonderful and satiated my feelings of missing home. In the middle of our meal, the power went out which made it feel even more like camping! We all chowed down and ate so much (even blogging about this makes me feel so hungry). I had many conversations with everyone and we all talked about everything! We learned that Henry is going to Malawi (neighboring country) with the new volunteer Sam (short for Samantha) who’s coming in next week on Thursday! She’s coming late as she had an internship for the first part of the summer. Gracie is going to be the one to pick her up which explains the driving practice she was doing while we were playing football! For us going to Bukimau, it is unclear right now how and when we’re going back to the United States (I’m sure we’ll learn soon)!

It was now time for s’mores! We grabbed our sticks and began roasting our marshmallows. Of course there were many conversations about the best way to roast a marshmallow. For Eli it’s scorching it to eat it as soon as possible, for me it’s trying to get it to be golden brown! With my marshmallow toasted, I assembled my s’more and enjoyed the sweet treat. Funny enough, I also am not a fan of s’mores but here it tasted wonderful!

If you’re wondering how we got all of this American food, to my knowledge they purchased it while they were in Dar Es Salaam as that’s truly the only place to buy these American eats. They also had a cooler to keep things fresh for the overnight bus ride! 

The power came back on and we naturally split off into groups to talk. It was Mzee, Michael, Eli, Henry and I sitting around charcoal fires in the living room and Gracie, Miraclin, Johnathan, and Susan were sitting at the dinner table. Both groups had some amazing conversations and talked for hours! Mzee spoke about so many great things, and while I won’t write everything we talked about (even though it was so fascinating), I’ll summarize what I can  (if I don’t, this blog post will be a dozen pages long!).

We started with talking about VST which sparks many, many tangents. 

1- Questions about the future of Africa (ranging from economic, to cultural, to peace). Africa is developing at unprecedented speeds. While the media might portray this continent as a hopeless, disease and poverty ridden place, many regions are growing incredibly fast (that is not to say that there aren’t very unfortunate regions in Africa, there certainly are, but there are also very successful regions as well). Africa has modern technology combined with impressive, untapped resources that allow for countries to modernize faster than the west. As long as governments continue to support and foster this change, it’s not a wild prediction to see an African country become a world super power in the next 50 years (to get technical, it all comes down to resources. Africa is the most resource dense continent and has trillions upon trillions of dollars of resources ready to lift up any African country to prominence). It’s also important that foreign countries do not take this opportunity away from Africa as they have in the past with colonialism. It is fascinating to see someone who has lived most of their life here in Africa to be so excited for the future of this place!

2- The destructive nature of voluntourism. Essentially, thousands of foreigners come to African countries to participate in voluntourism which is the practice of volunteering for a portion of your trip and then vacationing the next. The problem with this is that it leaves both sides empty. The people they are “helping” obviously can tell their hearts are here for tourism and the tourists feel good emotions that have no substance. The people who are suffering are changed the very slightest as the “help” they are given is unsubstantial and does nothing to get them out of poverty (the idea of give a man a fish and he’ll be hungry in a day, but teach a man to fish and he’ll never go hungry). In a month, every volunteer isn’t going to remember the horrible slums they went to, but instead the magnificent view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. If anything, the tourist is going to feel guilty about how they live which demeans the lives of the people they feel guilty for. The act of feeling guilty strips all dignity from those people and perpetuates a feeling of hopelessness. It also reinforces the idea that foreigners are the only ones that can come and save them from their situation which strips their ability to believe in themselves. 

A very powerful message that Mzee extrapolated from this is that you should never feel guilty, but rather inspired. You should feel inspired that amidst all of the adversity they unrelentingly work to provide for themselves and their family. You should feel inspired that they are sacrificing so much to improve the lives of their children. You should feel inspired from the continent of Africa, not hopeless and guilty. The adversity and suffering this continent and its people have endured is unimaginable. The fact they are bouncing back at all shows how much perseverance and desire they have to succeed. I implore you to change your perspective of Africa and feel inspired. Feel inspired to contribute to change this world for good!

The final sentiment of this talk was that Mzee believes, and I do too, that volunteering and tourism should be completely separate. You should focus your attention and heart on one thing! If you’re ever planning a trip out to Africa, come here for one purpose and one purpose only!

Unfortunately, the problem is that voluntourism is never going to stop. When voluntourism first began, the hubris of foreigners clouded their vision to see the damage it causes. The industry has been alive and well for decades that many communities rely on the industry. It brings in so much money that removing it would disrupt many local economies and cause tons of harm if it completely disappeared. Therefore, Mzee hopes that as the country becomes more developed and people more aware of the harm it creates, it’ll die out. I hope so too.

3- Michael’s host, Msafuri, and his life. (I’ve only now written his name as I didn’t know how to spell it). To sum up the story, Msafuri went to the school that Susan taught at (I believe this was before Village Schools was a thing). The only problem was that the school was 8 kilometers one way to his village of Mafunda! Therefore, he and his two friends would only go to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (understandable). It turned out that their absence actually helped Susan teach English better as it was a common saying that the “Mafunda boys never went to school”. After secondary school, Msafuri got his medical training (only a year or so of training to know enough) and he continued his own life. It wasn’t until at a random bus stop one day a member of VST was making small talk and mentioned Susan’s name. Msafuri recognized it and shared that he used to be a student of Susan! With the VST member intrigued, she learned more about Msafuri and found out about his medical training. Since VST was just about to open an AIDs clinic in Madisi, they needed someone to run it and Msafuri has been the head guy ever since. Everyone in Madisi calls him doctor and he is an incredibly hard, entrepreneurial man! The reason why he is so wealthy is that he’s made some amazing investments and worked very hard at starting up and growing many businesses (restaraunts, farms, trees, ect). It was amazing to finally know who this man was as he’s always travelling around (funny as Msafuri literally means travelling man). 

4- More of Luka’s journey.  If you want an inspiring story and the power of education out here, Luka’s story is just that. You could easily write an amazing book about his life and the progress he’s made, but I’ll sum it up as best I can. 

Essentially, Luka is from a village that is near Madisi and was around when the first Village School’s school was being built. In fact, he himself helped construct the school buildings. Luka came from a very hard upbringing. Both of his parents were dead and he was now being taken care of by his grandparents. He was the type of kid that had no money for shoes, let alone food and persevered his way through secondary. Against all odds, he passed the Form 2 National Exam and then the Form 4 national exam and then the Form 6 exam and then went to VST college. It’s impossible to say that God did not allow him to succeed against all of the adversity that he’s been through. 

During college he was sent out to other villages to advertise the amazing growth Village Schools brings to any village. Like any normal person, he was terrified to go and do this, but would do it anyway. Eventually he met his now wife at church, and coming from nothing, he was originally not allowed to marry her. The future wife’s family was a higher class and would never marry someone like Luka. However, the wife simply explained that she would not marry anyone else but Luka and the rest is history. Now Luka has an amazing family: a beautiful wife and lovely daughter named Comfort. The life that his daughter has is infinitely better than what he experienced. She is incredibly smart and is at the top of her class already at the age of four! Luka has been building his wealth with tons of hard work and very smart investments. Right now he is getting tree saplings ready to sell to buy himself a motorcycle that will then further propel his ability to invest. In a year or so, he’s going to be moving to a house that he built! He knows what he needs to do to be successful and does it!

Luka knows how blessed he is and is one of the most devout Christians I have ever seen. I am inspired by his faith, love, and joy for the Lord. It is beautiful to see how God has worked through him and blessed his life.

If you would’ve seen Luka when he was young and see how his life is now, you wouldn’t believe it’s the same person! The power of education is life changing and incredibly inspiring! If someone who came from nothing, literally nothing, can be successful after being educated, you can clearly understand that education is the key to unimaginable opportunity here! 

5- The power of investment here in Africa. Due to how fast everything is developing here, investments are wickedly profitable. In America, unless you get really lucky, to double anything you invest, is rare. As Eli put it, most people are just trying to beat inflation with their investments. Here in Africa, if you invest any amount of money, you are merely counting the months it takes to double it. If you invested 100,000 shillings into anything and worked hard with the investment, you’ll have 200,000 shillings in a couple of months. The growth of wealth here is exponential as no one here is afraid to do the hard work needed to succeed and the circumstances allow for such growth to happen! As proof of this concept, most people who work under VST have become, relatively speaking, very wealthy. This is not because VST pays them well, in fact most make no more than $100 a month, but because they have the knowledge and foresight to invest the money. As Mzee put it, the key to wealth is to not change how you live when you earn more money. Instead, change how you invest it. Instead of buying more meat now because you can afford it, you’re going to buy a plot of land and start growing trees. It is so incredibly inspiring to see such improvement and gave me nothing but hope for this region/country!

6- How the world is so messed up. How can I spend thousands of dollars on a computer to play video games when there are millions of girls who can’t go to school in Africa? This inequality surely does not please God. Mzee argued that the modern Christian is too focused on themselves and helping others. Jesus came down to serve, not be served. This is not to say that every Christian needs to hop on a plane and go help Africa, of course not. It means that we need to be more cognizant of how we can be the most helpful to the most people. If that means serving your local community that’s great. If that’s going to Africa to help kids, that’s great too. At the end of the day it’s impossible and wrong to compare the value of serving others, but it’s important to live a life that can impact the most amount of people for good!

7- Mzee is going to Ethiopia at the end of July! Him and the directors of VST are going to Ethiopia to possibly start up Village Schools Ethiopia. The reason why I bring up this part of our conversation is the fascinating dynamic that foreigners, specifically white people, have in Africa. Due to colonialism, people of Africa only truly believe in the validity of something if it is endorsed by a white man. In other words, if a white man supports something, it must be good. In Ethiopia, Mzee is expecting to preach and talk about VST on a Sunday to thousands. If the directory Godrey were to do the same thing, no one would come. It is sad that it’s the case, but how things work out here. This same concept can be applied to Henry who is going to Malawi. Mzee plainly stated that hundreds of more kids will go to school when they know that a white person is coming to teach. VST of course has to give into this fact to be successful and launch things, but is trying very hard to rewire the brains of the people here. And it’s working! In Tanzania, VST is able to just send out people who have been incredibly changed by VST and their testimony alone is enough to inspire villages to build schools! Twenty years ago that would have never been the case!

I should also add that Village Schools only go to other countries if they’ve been explicitly invited. Even then if no one wants to take on the massive challenge of being a director for the next Village Schools [insert country name], that chapter of Village Schools will not start. It is a core belief of Village Schools that it only makes sense for those who have lived in a specific country for their entire life to be the ones leading schools in that specific country. It takes a lot of courage and even more hard work to believe in the possibility of success with Village Schools. It requires a special individual to see the vision of success and have the passion to give access to education for the bottom. It’s how Village Schools started in the first place and it’s how Village Schools will always be!

8- God has the power to work through EVERYONE. To add to the prior point, many people here have a pessimistic opinion about themselves and that God works through people, but not them because they aren’t special enough. Village Schools wants to instill the very true and powerful idea that God works through EVERYONE! Not just the successful business owners or white volunteers, but each and every individual in the world. When someone can understand this, it gives them hope which is imperative to success out here.

9- The power of belief and how people here must see to believe. To believe in yourself is the most important thing in succeeding in life. In America, we are inspired and told all of the time to believe in ourselves, making it hard to not. I can’t even begin to count all of the posters in school that say “You can do it” or some other positive affirmation. Here in Africa, the destitution of many people’s situation strips this ability to believe in themselves to be any greater than they already are. If your father didn’t go to school and none of your friends go to school, you can’t believe that education will change your life because you’ve never seen it change anyone’s life. You can’t know what you don’t know. 

Therefore, it is Village School’s mission to instill belief and hope into each and every student that comes through their school. Education out here has the ability to change lives in ways that are unimaginable, and therefore all that anyone needs is to see it! So when they hear the stories of people from VST and can visibly see that they are living better lives, they believe in the importance of education. All you need to do is get a village to take one step forward and believe and an unstoppable snow ball effect will happen where every generation afterwards will believe. 

After hearing this, I’m whole heartedly convinced of the power of hope for everyone. I hope (no pun intended) that I can help others believe in themselves and have hope for a great future through the power of kind words and selfless actions; in other words, live like Jesus!

10- The power of unity and being working towards something. The reason why VST is so successful comes from how unified Tanzania is. Even though there are 100+ tribes and languages here in Tanzania, the national language is Swahili. When everyone speaks the same language, and more specifically an African language, it’s easy to communicate and understand each other despite large tribal differences no matter where you are in the country. This expands commerce and relations by large magnitudes.

To us foreigners, it’s hard for us to see different tribes, but for people here it’s obvious when someone is from the Hehe tribe or the Skuma tribe for example. Thankfully, those differences melt when you’re able to have a conversation and work together under the same flag and language. Imagine going to a school where everyone else spoke a different language and you didn’t. You’d never want to go to school since you couldn’t make friends or build any sort of relationship! 

At the end of the day, the most important identifier for many people is their tribe, but it’s now also being a Tanzanian. The reason why Village Schools are not taking off so quickly in other countries is the lack of unity there due to not having a national language. In Tanzania, all of the students come to school not understanding the teacher’s English, but since they all speak Swahili, they at the very least understand each other no matter the tribe they’re from! 

To add, with Village School’s philosophy of building schools it is so significant to have the village and the students themselves literally build their education. As an example, Mzee had recently received a video of a hundred plus students working in tandem to pull out sand from a river and bring it up to the school grounds to build an exam hall. When you pour sweat and effort into something, you’re going to believe in it. The fact that 100 children can build a school better and faster than their own government empowers them to believe in themselves and want to be successful!

11- The war and suffering that Mzee and Susan experienced with their time in Congo and here in Africa. To summarize, Mzee and Susan had to flee the Congo when the war started there in Congo in the late 90’s. So much suffering, terror, and pain that we cannot and will never understand. What stuck out to me was Mzee describing young boys carrying guns bigger than themselves and knowing what their fate would be. It seemed to have quite the emotional toll and they were glad to flee to Tanzania which is an incredibly safe and peaceful country. Unfortunately still to this day, there are many regions in Africa that are strife with suffering.

12- How National Identity Cards work! Since Paul did not do a good job explaining what the national identity card does for, I asked Mzee. Basically birth certificates were not a thing until the last 6 years and therefore many people simply do not exist to the Tanzania government. Therefore in order to travel, get licenses, or other documents, you must have your National Identity Card that gives you your National Identity Number (basically SSN) and certification that you are a citizen of Tanzania. The funny thing about the process is that many people are encouraged to change their name! Essentially, people here are typically named from the experience they give their mother during pregnancy or when they’re little. Therefore some kids will be named, Stress or Death which are objectively not good names! 

I’m sure I’m still missing some of the stories and completely lack the ability to demonstrate his amazing story telling ability. He is so rich in wisdom and it is nothing but a privilege to listen to him speak with us; we learned so much!

When we got into the conversation about food, Eli made a very true comment, “ugali is a tortilla waiting to be cooked”. I never thought about it that way but it’s true! Since Ugali is just water, salt, and corn flour it’s exactly how you would make a tortilla from scratch in Mexico! He wants to try to make tortilla chips and guacamole as we have all of the ingredients here to do so! It was brought to my attention that I haven’t had peas or mushrooms here which I’ve heard are absolutely amazing. I hope that while I’m in Bukimau I’ll have the chance to try them. 

Throughout the conversation, we ate watermelon and the rest of the chips. I noticed that Johnathan was teaching Gracie how to make homemade spaghetti! Mzee insisted that once you’ve had homemade spaghetti, you can never eat it from the box ever again. He says the same thing about the chips and I’d have to agree, I’ll never look at a regular Lay’s chip the same again! 

Soon enough, there was a knock on the door and it was Paul! He had raced all the way back here to see me before I left. It was hard to understand his texts he sent to me throughout the day, but from what I could tell, he was very worried that he would not make it back in time to say goodbye to me. His original plan was to stay a night or two in the other region after he got his national identity card. From the moment he got my text that I was leaving, he got on the back of a motorcycle and started heading this way. I’ll be honest, I was not expecting him to make it back in time as, to my knowledge, he had quite the long journey to make to get here. Paul came to the house to fetch the keys from me as there was no other way to get in! However, he arrived just in time for us to watch the videos of Mzee and Susan’s amazing trip. 

There were two videos for us to watch. The first one was a live snorkeling video documenting all of the amazing creatures they saw. The second was a compilation of all of the photos the guests took during the trip. Since these were very rich people, they had some amazing cameras and took some impressive shots of all sorts of birds, reptiles, and sea lions! It was like we were experiencing the trip first hand. Paul thought all of the photos were very cool and quite “expoditious”! 

With the videos over, it was time to start heading out. We talked a bit more and Texas was one of the focuses (there was some Texas decor on the wall). Michael was of course very interested. When the Vinton family is not in Tanzania, they are in Texas where the rest of their extended family lives! 

We also talked about the horrible effects of the colonization of the Congo that Mzee and Susan saw first hand, some depressing and heavy stuff. The Vinton’s home is filled to the brim with books and Miraclin and Eli both took one to borrow (“The Body Keeps The Score” and “King Leopold’s Ghost”). I wanted to take a book, but have several on my phone that I need to read! I commented on the amount of books in the house and learned that Johnathan and his brother Josh, had way more in their rooms (we’re talking thousands of books). Reading is a great pastime out here and I can see why the family is so smart (I’ll make sure my kids read a lot!).

Before we left, we all realized that we had left all our stuff in the now locked office (it was 10:00pm afterall). Thankfully a couple phone calls later, it was unlocked. On the way outside of the house, we all said our goodbyes and began walking to the office. To my surprise, both Simba and Luka were on the front porch sitting around, presumably using the WiFi connection that the Vinton’s have. We all said our goodbyes to them and thanked them for keeping us safe and playing great soccer with us. As we walked away from the house, even though it was dark we all took in the beautiful greenery that surrounds the Vinton home! So many beautiful trees, plants, and flowers!

We got to the office, grabbed all of our stuff, and parted ways! In the light of the office, I noticed Paul’s new shirt that he got during his travels. It was a super nice Grateful Dead shirt with alien bears! I never thought I’d see such a shirt out here! Paul and I walked back to the house before stopping at the kitchen to say goodnight to Luka once more. I had my purchased snacks in my hand and he asked for a package of crackers. I of course gave him one. We exchanged WhatsApp information and were on our way!

On the way down to the house, Paul explained that the girlfriend needed to go back as it was against the rules of VST for him to have a girl over for so long and not be married. To be honest, I’m confused about his relationship with her. He would explicitly not say that she was his girlfriend if asked by anyone else and would completely avoid the question. Yet now he’s saying that she is his girlfriend? They would flirt and even sleep in the same bed so I would think they’re in a relationship. If that’s the case, then Paul isn’t a very good boyfriend as he was kind of disrespectful. Perhaps there’s a cultural thing I don’t understand. At the end of the day, I truly don’t know and think it’s very odd!

When we got back to the house, we danced to some music, looked at his computer, and went to our rooms to go to bed. He was exhausted and I was ready for bed too. Paul kept the music playing in the front room at a tolerable level while I sat in bed and blogged. For the entire month of June I was planning on eating the Sweet Tart Ropes I’d been saving in my backpack on the Fourth of July to make up for my lack of celebration. However the amazing feast we had tonight meant I could save them for a later date (hopefully they’re still good by then). 

As I sat in bed, I could not help but feel that this was the perfect way to close out my Madisi chapter here in Tanzania. The sense of home that I felt for those six hours revitalized my passion and energy to keep going until the end of July (if you would’ve shown me a year ago that small snip bit of today, I would’ve thought I was in America spending time with new friends I met in college!). That’s not to say that I’m tired of this place, but honestly feeling a bit home sick. Now that feeling is gone and I can keep focusing on being in the present here! From Mzee’s wisdom, to the amazing friendships, to playing soccer in the street, to washing my clothes in the morning, today encapsulated what it’s like to live here in Tanzania. At this point in my adventure, I only have 23ish days of time here before I hop back onto a bus to Dar Es Salaam! 

When I look back to the beginning of my time here, I thought time might never pass and that I might never see July. Here I am a couple days into July and I feel like time has never passed faster. There were moments where I was pushed out of my comfort zone and did things I never thought I would do. Now the things that have pushed me feel normal and I feel more acclimated to life here than I ever thought I would be. There were moments where I had limitless fun and learned so much. I know that this sentiment was shared in my one month reflection, but my goal moving forward towards the end of the month is to keep getting uncomfortable and being present!

As I finished blogging, Paul’s speakers began to play Sacrifice by Elton John. While the true meaning of this song that Paul showed me is about the harsh reality of adult marriage, there is one group of verses that stuck out to me, “It's two hearts living, in two separate worlds”. Moving from here, that’s what our friendship will be! Living in Tanzania has opened my eyes to the fact that there are so many amazing people spread across this massive world and I had the privilege to meet many of them. I’ll make sure to keep in contact with Paul via WhatsApp when I’m back in the States!

Tonight is my last night in Madisi; something that was never planned for in the first place! God knew how much value and perspective this month would add to my experience. For example, there were many moments that revealed to me what it’s like to be a parent and understand my parents and how they feel. To make a long story short, my empathy and compassion grew magnitudes larger. Additionally, due to the nature of Madisi, it was a lot more relaxed. Sure we had things to do, but it felt more like summer break than volunteering (something that I am so thankful for). Now that I’m leaving, there will be no more loud music, Paul antics, Math Club generating, walks to the village with our small group, or beautiful rainforests to look at. I soaked in everything I’ve experienced here and could feel nothing but gratitude. Through all of the tribulations with Paul, I’m going to genuinely miss this place a ton. When you truly miss something or someone, that means you truly loved in the first place! Sweet dreams in Madisi. Bukimau here I come!