Day 123: A Short Update

"We still have some drops of eager blood in our family, and we are ready to offer them in the path of God whenever it is necessary."

- The family of Mr. Hidayatu'llah Dihqani responding to a message of sympathy
from the Baha'i World Centre following Mr. Dihqani's martyrdom

I returned from Arusha yesterday. Whew, what a looong ride on the bus! I took a quick jaunt over to the Ngorongoro Crater, which was really spectacular. Arriving home to an empty house was really depressing. The place is usually so noisy and lively, but it seems dead with just me here.

When I came to my room I found a little note on my bed: "Dear Bryan, I miss you allready, I love you - Love, May." The spelling mistake is priceless. =) On the day I left, which was the day before they went to Australia, she and Mitra dropped me at the taxi stand. She gave me a hug and said, "You know, we don't have to cry or anything because we're coming back." As I was on the way to the bus station, Mitra sent me a message telling me that May was crying and saying she didn't want to go to Australia anymore. How touching!

Today, I found out that Mitra asked the cook to come on that days that I'm in town, and the maid dropped by to make sure I was all right. I also have a guest this evening, Myrte, who is on her way back home to the Netherlands. She's been doing service at Ruaha, but needed to stop over a night before catching her flight. In the morning I go with her to the airport to drop her off and pick up another volunteer coming to Iringa with me.

There are plenty of pictures on the Flickr site, so go check them out. Unfortunately not all of them have descriptions yet. I'll get around to that at some point.

Leia Mais…

Day 110: Work, Work, Work

"I say unto you that any one who will rise up in the Cause of God at this time shall be filled with the spirit of God, and that He will send His hosts from heaven to help you, and that nothing shall be impossible to you if you have faith. And now I give you a commandment which shall be for a Covenant between you and me: that ye have faith; that your faith be steadfast as a rock that no storms can move, that nothing can disturb, and that it endure through all things even to the end...."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

Since Friday we've had about eight youth and the Secretary of the NSA in our house doing the new Book 5 and learning how to become animators of junior youth groups. I was supposed to take the training with them to make up for the extraordinary portions I missed during the last study circle, but yet again my "work" has been a barrier to that. I've been getting ready for a meeting I'm supposed to have this weekend with the local Spiritual Assembly, Cluster Coordinating Committee, and cluster of Arusha. I've found this to be a real challenge because I don't have access to the same sort of resources that might be available to me in the United States. The larger picture is that I've been thrust into a position that I hardly seem qualified for. As the Secretary of the NTC, I'm expected to not only be knowledgeable about the current Plan (and past Plans) but also give insight and guidance about the direction the community should be taking. A lot of this is in my mind, of course, since no one has come to me and said these things, but I think it's certainly an implied expectation of members of national institutions. And if it's not, then it should be. =P

In addition to various NTC activities, External Affairs has kept me exceptionally busy. We had our first official meeting of the year yesterday and appointed Mitra as the Director of the Office, adding some much needed formality and structure (in my opinion). I'm really pleased that the Office is beginning to expand its role and responsibilities, which I think comes as a result of greater resources at its disposal. Not only am I assisting the Director, but we also have a young lady who just became a lawyer as a part of the office. We just finished up an annual plan that's feasible and achievable and really asserts the office's role in the national administrative structure. I think we'll be able to make a lot of headway this year in educating the public about the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran. Tanzania has a long history of voting against or abstaining on resolutions concerning the human rights situation in Iran because of their close economic ties, so I'm not sure if we'll be able to influence the government to change its vote but we're going to do our best and hopefully make some positive contacts in the government while doing so.

Two projects for the Office have kept me especially busy lately: development of a press kit and a training manual for public relations officers in clusters outside of Dar es Salaam. Both are composed of materials heavily borrowed from similar documents in the United States, but it was a real pain trying to make them locally relevant. I'm satisfied with the press kit, but the training manual is a different story. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the local government and media to make it a completely Tanzanian manual, but I'm hoping that during the "test run" training in Iringa I'll be able to get some feedback from the friends I'll be training so that it can be improved upon before being translated into Swahili. Once I finish the training in Iringa, I don't think I'll be doing any more of it. Iringa, Arusha, and Mwanza are really the only places outside of Dar that have a high enough concentration of Baha'is fluent enough in English for me to be a useful trainer. But I'll at least have a little experience under my belt.

Today, I attended a meeting of the Tanzania InterFaith Forum (TIFF) with Mitra. The organization has been trying to reform itself since before I arrived, so many of our Office discussions have revolved around making adjustments to various draft documents that cross our desk. At this meeting they finally agreed (in theory) to a memorandum which creates an organization which basically functions as an advocacy group to influence the policies of the government on economic, social and cultural issues. It may seem slightly political, but I think it's beyond the realm of those things we're encouraged to stay away from. Already, we're speaking with one of the other members to begin developing a curriculum on moral and character development from a religious perspective to offer to the government to fit into their recent attempts to incorporate religion into the national curriculum. I think if they can follow through with the mandate they've established for themselves then it could really be an effective platform for Faith-Based Organizations and the religions themselves to connect with the government.

I've also been trying to organize venues for a travel teacher to perform at here in Dar. He's a Baha'i Native American hoop dancer (who happens to not be Native American at all) who was taught the hoop dance by Native Americans in Canada, where his family is from. His grandfather was a Knight of Baha'u'llah for the Yukon, and it seems his family has a good relationship with the native people in Canada (otherwise he wouldn't be hoop dancing). Originally, the NTC passed this on to the local Spiritual Assembly of Dar for their consideration, so in turn they appointed a task force composed of NTC members! I originally resigned because I was too busy, but one of the remaining task force members asked me to return because they were uncomfortable with the fact that nothing was happening.

I actually got in a bit of a dispute about this whole issue with Mitra, which was really only raised voices for maybe half a minute. I expressed it was a little unfair for the LSA to just throw the matter back on the NTC, and I resigned not only because I was too busy but because I felt it wasn't assisting the Assembly in creating any institutional capacity if I did their work for them. When I told her that I had agreed to be back on the task force, she thought I was undoing what I had done when I resigned. As with many pioneers (and me, too), she feels that it's important that local people and institutions learn to do the work that needs to be done rather than pass it off to a pioneer, youth year of service person or someone else who isn't "from" here. By continuing to do so, they create a sort of dependency on assistance from the outside. Nevertheless, I didn't feel that it was really good for me to allow them to fall flat on their faces and slap together a half ass program at the last minute at the expense of the poor young man offering his time and services to us. I wish that a lesson could have been taught here because there's a desperate need to build institutional and individual capacity here, and maybe there's still an opportunity for it, but I didn't want it to be at the expense of the travel teacher. That's just rude!

Anyway, we've managed to book performances for him at the American embassy, two local schools, the Baha'i Centre, an Indian temple/hall, and Steers, a popular restaurant downtown. I think we could have done more if we'd had more time but it's still better than nothing. Now the challenge that remains is following up after the performances so we didn't exert effort for nothing. I'm sure the difficulties in planning will pale in comparison to that task. =P

Leia Mais…

Day 103: Work & Waterballoons

"Heed not your weaknesses and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God, the Almighty. Has He not, in past days, caused Abraham, in spite of His seeming helplessness, to triumph over the forces of Nimrod? Has He not enabled Moses, whose staff was His only companion, to vanquish Pharaoh and his hosts? Has He not established the ascendancy of Jesus, poor and lowly as He was in the eyes of men, over the combined forces of the Jewish people? Has He not subjected the barbarous and militant tribes of Arabia to the holy and transforming discipline of Muhammad, His Prophet? Arise in His name, put your trust wholly in Him, and be assured of ultimate victory."

- The Bab

On Saturday, we had our first NTC meeting since being reappointed (or appointed, in my case). I was elected the Secretary. First, they tried to just appoint me as Secretary. But the Committee doesn't have the authority to just appoint its officers, even as a so-called "Executive Secretary." They can certainly appoint an "Executive Assistant," but then they would be left without a Secretary, which can't happen. Being the total Baha'i administration nerd that I am, I was sure that it was mentioned somewhere in Lights of Guidance or Baha'i Administration but I couldn't find it, so I was just stubborn about it until they gave in and agreed to elect a Secretary (I later found the reference I was looking for, heh). It was me, of course, but it was the principle of the thing!

After I was elected, I told them I thought the Committee should elect a Recording Secretary because it's difficult for me to carry out my other duties during the meeting while trying to record the minutes, as well. They declined, but I was persistent. Finally, the Chairman told me to make a motion and he'd second it. So I made the motion and when he called for a second then everyone just turned and looked at me. No one said anything!! They wouldn't even second the motion and then turn me down with a vote. So now I find myself doing all the secretarial work and very much missing my Assembly at home who was very accommodating.

I have to admit I was a little miffed about that, but the meeting itself was productive. When we returned home, we were ambushed with water balloons by Mitra and May because it was Hossein's birthday. The fight soon moved inside the house, where we chased each other around throwing balloons and getting water everywhere inside. First he went into the laundry room and locked the door. He changed out of his wet clothes but couldn't find anything of his own, so he burst out in just his underwear and a shirt of Mitra's. Imagine the Chairman of the NTC running around like that! He high-tailed it to the bathroom and locked himself inside, so we were banging on the door for him to let us in. He opened the door and surprised us by throwing a whole bucket of water out at us, then slammed the door again! It went on until we ran out of balloons, so we changed clothes and prepared to go out to dinner. It was really a lot of fun.

On Sunday, we had a cluster meeting. It wasn't really a reflection meeting but just a meeting. The Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly shared his thoughts about intensive programmes of growth, and we covered some cluster statistics before people began to rebel at the length and demanded to be released for lunch. The whole purpose was to do a little preliminary planning for the next cycle, but that went out the window when stomachs started to growl. I learned some interesting things about the way things are coordinated and recorded here. I've kept a record of the questions I have and so I'm in the process of writing to the Tanzanian member of the International Teaching Centre to clarify some things. God willing, I'll get a timely response.

I had a lengthy discussion with Mitra about some of those things, and when we finished she asked me why I was so interested in the details of everything, including who was appointed to what and why they operated in this fashion or that. As is the case with her sometimes, I couldn't tell if it was a compliment or not. She elaborated by saying that most year of service people come through Tanzania with an ambivalent attitude and don't seem to take much of an interest in the community or act like they're a part of the community, but that I seemed to be interested in the details of things. I still couldn't tell if it was a compliment. I did my best to explain that I was supposed to work for the Faith, regardless of where I lived. Of course Little Rock is my "home" community and will always be my home community, but for now I live in Dar es Salaam. It's my community now, so I should work as I would work at home.

As far as the work itself goes, I have a lot to do! On Wednesday the local Media Committee is meeting (which I volunteered to be on, perhaps foolishly) and then on Friday I'm retaking the junior youth animator's course. I felt like I missed a lot during the first time because I wasn't able to make all the meetings, but this time I've blocked out the required amount of time so I should be able to take the whole course. Most of the participants are high school and college aged youth who will be staying at our house until the training is completed, so that should be considerably different from the previous training. I'll reserve my opinion as to whether it's better or not until after it's finished. =P

After the training, I'm finally going to Arusha from June 23-28. I'll be meeting with the cluster coordinating committee and the whole cluster to discuss their progress and plans for the Faith there, and then take a side trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro. Victorina will be coming with me as a fellow NTC member and translator, thank goodness! I'm really looking forward to seeing Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro, as well as meeting the friends of Arusha who have been anticipating my arrival for something like a month now. I think they might be a little disappointed when they find out that I won't be coming to conduct study circles, but I know my schedule doesn't allow that sort of commitment anymore.

I get one day of rest after I return to Dar before I have to pick up a youth year of service from the airport and accompany him to Iringa on June 30. I conduct training for External Affairs there on July 1-2 and on one of those evenings I'm supposed to give a presentation to the community on the persecution of the Baha'is of Iran. I come home that Monday and do nothing on Tuesday because it's the Fourth of July. The Sabets are leaving on holiday at the end of this month, so I won't have anyone to really celebrate it with. Hopefully one of the American Baha'i families will invite me to do something, assuming they actually celebrate it themselves!

On July 8 I'm supposed to meet with the NSA for NTC and External Affairs and then I have a bit of free time before heading to Tabora from July 13-17. It takes some work to get to Tabora because you first have to take a bus from Dar to Dodoma and then catch the train from Dodoma. I'm guessing because Dodoma is the "capital," they decided it would be a good idea to move all the passenger trains there from Dar. I'm not sure who "they" are but I'm guessing they don't take the train from Dar. And then when I return, we've decided to have our next NTC meeting in Morogoro on July 22-23. After that meeting I may continue on to Ifakara to visit some of the home front pioneers stationed there. I'm not 100% sure where Ifakara is, except it's on the other side of the Rufiji River, but I hear the drive is very nice and it's a beautiful place.

So needless to say things will be busy for June and July! At least I'll get to do a bit more traveling and see some of the friends I met during the National Convention and the National Institutional Conference. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to Kampala to see the House of Worship, but I'm hoping I can go in August before it starts getting hot again.

Leia Mais…

Day Ninty Four: Teach the Children

"Among the greatest of all services that can possibly be rendered by man to Almighty God is the education and training of children..."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

I've recently had another encounter with a Swahili speaker mixing up the "R" and the "L" when speaking English. I was trying to explain to another member of the NTC that a travel teacher was coming from Rwanda, but she thought I was talking about Luanda, the capital city of Angola. After spelling Rwanda and mentioning Kigali, we were finally on the same page.

I've been a little busy these past few days! May had a birthday on Friday with a bunch of spoiled rich kids from the international school she attends. Shame on me, I suppose, but the majority of them had atrocious behavior! A life of privilege really spoils a person's character when it's not accompanied by some program of moral education and discipline. On Saturday, Mitra and I attended the wedding of the niece of one of the local Baha'is. It was my first African wedding, which proved to be a really interesting experience. The groom was Christian and the bride was Muslim, so they had a civil marriage at Karimjee Hall and the reception was outside on the lawn. It was so extravagent! It must have cost millions of shillings, and in many ways it resembled a Western reception. That is until the music started and the dancing began! It was distinctly African in very many ways, but it was easy to see the Western influence.

During the mingling of the cocktail hour, I was able to meet Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim and his wife, Amne. Dr. Salim was the Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity for 12 years and has held a number of posts within the Tanzanian government, including Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defense, and Tanzanian Ambassador to India, China, Egypt and the United Nations. Since meeting him I've done a bit of investigation into his career and it's really quite illustrious. It's the sort of career I might have once imagined for myself years ago. Mitra and I were able to speak to his wife more than him, and we explained a bit about the Baha'i Faith and the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran. Surprisingly, she knew a little about the Faith but as with most people she wasn't aware of the persecution in the land of its birth. We have her address, and we've promised to call on her with more information about the Faith.

Today, I had to wake up early to go to the Baha'i Centre to teach - you'd have never seen this coming - children's classes! Can you imagine me teaching children's classes? It was actually a group of young junior youth, ages 9-12, so they weren't too difficult to handle. I knew many of them, and they were helpful to me in adjusting to the way the class operates. I actually sort of enjoyed myself, but I definitely learned to prepare ahead. I'll be teaching the classes for the next 2 months or so while the regular teacher is on holiday in the United States. The only down side is that May Saba is in the classes. I had a difficult time handling her today. Sometimes she gets a little jealous when I focus my attention on someone else, especially another girl, so in the middle of the class she was laying her head on me, holding my hand, and trying to sit in my lap. Of course it was disruptive to the class and totally inappropriate when I'm in a "teacher" role, so I had to speak with her about it when we got home. I hope that next week won't be a repeat. It's hard to teach with a 9 year old in your lap!

I'm really getting a little concerned about the intense interest that seems to be developing about my relationship (or lack thereof) with Victorina. This sort of thing really bothers me because I like to keep my private life extremely private. Go figure that someone would want privacy about their private life, right? But the more I try to be private, the more people become interested in it. It certainly isn't my first encounter with this sort of thing, but you don't expect to find rumor-mongering in the Baha'i community. It seems that people are more willing to approach Victorina to inquire about our involvement, and from what I gather quite a few people have asked her. We're going to Iringa together tomorrow (I'm going for work, she's going for holiday) and when a few people found out eyebrows were raised and insinuations were made. I suppose for the most part it's harmless, but I've seen these sorts of things spiral wildly out of control as people's imaginations get more and more overactive.

There's little wonder in a country like this where so much has to be done on foot or in person that the Treasurer of the NTC and, essentially, the Committe's functioning Secretary have to spend so much time together, especially with the National Convention and National Institutional Conference back to back. Victorina have discussed the issue at length since, invariably, a number of people have commented about it since the last time we saw each other. I have to admit that when I see a guy and a girl of comparable age walking together I draw assumptions as well, but I try to keep it to myself, especially when they're a part of my community. I think there's also some level of excitement for the friends at the prospect of two Baha'is dating one another, especially considering when the opportunities for such a thing to occur are rare.

It's not that Victorina isn't a nice and attractive girl, but really how feasible is it that I date an African girl while I'm here, especially considering the very clear guidance about relationships provided by the Writings? Not to mention I have commitments at home. I wish the friends wouldn't apply pressure in such an indirect way, constantly inquiring and insinuating. I would say I wish the friends would mind their own business, but that seems a bit harsh. And maybe I'm overreacting in the first place. Maybe I enjoy the privacy of my private life a little too much!

So tomorrow I'm heading to Iringa for a few days. I'm going to visit my friend Laura, fellow NTC member Dermot, and do a little work for External Affairs. I have to identify newspapers and radio stations, as well as government and academic officials, so that we can contact them in the future. Unfortunately, the LSA of Iringa isn't meeting while I'm there so that necessitates two return trips: one to meet with the LSA and another to train the Public Informationa Representations. I should be complaining, though - it's cold in Iringa!

Leia Mais…

Day Ninty One: Appointments

"...all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. This is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer."

- `Abdu'l-Bahá

Sometimes I worry that I'm going to get the day wrong and say it's day one hundred and five but it's really day one hundred and ten because I'm bad with numbers like that. I don't really know why I'm bad with math and numbers. I used to really excel in math, but once we hit algebra it all went down hill. I remember being put in algebra in the sixth grade and for the first time really struggling with something in school. I seemed to do better with geometry, so maybe I'm just really bad at most forms of algebraic math.

Anyway, I learned today that I've been officially appointed as a member of the National Teaching Committee by the National Spiritual Assembly. I also requested to be allowed to work with the Office of External Affairs, so now I'm part of that branch of the NSA, too. I had a two hour meeting with the Director of External Affairs (Mitra) this evening discussing what I should be doing for the office. I planned to go to Iringa and Ruaha Secondary School for a bit of a holiday on Monday, but it's turned into a working vacation after my meeting with Mitra! I'm supposed to conduct training in clusters with intensive programmes of growth (currently four) to raise up Public Information Representatives to assist the office in its interfaith and defense of the Baha'is in Iran work. In addition to a few other things, I'm hoping that also the Faith will be officially registered on Zanzibar by the time I leave.

I have to say I'm happy with the appointments, and not just for the sake of my own ego. With the NTC, I'll feel free to offer my opinions, rather than hold back in deference to the actual members of the Committee. As the assistant, I've had a lot of suggestions and comments but I've sometimes kept them to myself because I didn't feel it was my place to offer them. It'll also be nice to vote and have a say in what I'm supposed to do! We elect officers at our next meeting, and I'm a little worried, in some sense, that I'll be elected Secretary because I was basically performing that function when I was the Committee's assistant. (I hate it when officers are elected in that sort of de facto fashion.) The problem is the language barrier. Even now I feel like half an assistant because I have to rely on other people to do translation and various other tasks for me because I don't know Swahili. There has been an ongoing discussion within the community about the use of English and Swahili, mostly because of the presence of native English speakers. I personally feel its important for the friends to use Swahili as much as possible, but then again I'm part of the problem by continuing to write correspondence in English. God willing the world will decide on a universal language before I'm dead!

I'm excited about the External Affairs work, especially because it's actually related to my field of study. The experience it will provide should be invaluable in the future. Most of our work will be in dealing with human rights issues and the defense of the Baha'is in Iran and raising up capacity in the local communities to deal with local government officials and the media. The initial work involves educating myself about the situation of the Baha'is in Iran. My knowledge in that area is admittedly lacking for the tasks I'll be required to undertake, which at various times might include giving public presentations on the situation and meeting with government and media officials.

This evening, I was once again mistaken for Mitra's husband. The real one is in Bangladesh at a meeting. We decided to go to dinner with May (9) and Allen (17) at a sort of family restaurant, kind of like Chili's. The waitress asked Mitra, "What would Mommy like to eat this evening?" and Mitra told her. Then the waitress turned to me and asked, "And Daddy?". I don't even begin to approach looking like I have a 17 year old son! Come on! I might look and act a little older than my age, but not that much. I'm beginning to think that maybe black Africans have difficulty accurately judging the age of white people. According to Mitra, it's common here for older people to marry people quite a bit younger than them, so I suppose there's some cultural influence, as well. But even so! I must be turning into an old man!

Leia Mais…