I Give Up On Hate!

Pilgrimage Day 7

2009-04-30T13:13:00.002-05:00

Today was a lot more productive than yesterday, mostly because there was nowhere to go but up! We were back together again in our little pilgrimage group for a trip to the House of `Abbud in Akka, the place where Bahá'u'lláh and His family were moved after they were allowed to move out of the Most Great Prison.

Photos of the house don't really do it justice. It's a very large structure, and it was originally split in two. One half belonged to one man and the other half to his uncle (who constructed the whole thing). Bahá'u'lláh and His family originally lived in the smaller half of the house. Although the uncle was suspicious of them in the beginning, he eventually warmed to them. When he determined that the only reason `Abdu'l-Bahá was not marrying the woman he was betrothed to who had come from Persia, the uncle knocked out a portion of the partition separating the two halves of the home and gave one large room to `Abdu'l-Bahá and his wife-to-be so that they could marry.

The house has been restored, of course. The walls are bright white with the characteristic "Bahjí Blue" windows that most of our properties have. There's something I really love about open-air houses. It's one reason I loved the Sabet's home in Dar es Salaam so much - the windows were always open and a breeze was always coming from the Indian Ocean. At the House of `Abbud, the windows were always open and a breeze was always coming from the Mediterranean.

When we returned I visited the grave of Ruhiyyih Khanum, the wife of Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Faith. This was at the top of my list because I've always admired her tenacity and wished on more than one occasion that I could have even a small part of it.

For dinner, I decided to actually go out and treat myself. You can only take so many hummus & lunch meat sandwiches on pita bread before you go out of your mind. In fact, I think I have eaten a lifetime's worth of hummus for a Westerner while I've been here. Hummus in the morning, hummus in the afternoon, hummus in the evening, hummus delivered intravenously while you're sleeping...

The restaurant I went to is called Ramsis (as in the Egyptian pharaoh, although we spell it Ramses). Apparently it was the favorite of one of the Hands of the Cause of God, so I figured it should be all right for me, too. I ordered the lamb kebab. I just expected a plate of kebab to be brought to me but soon enough the waiter showed up with a massive Arab salad! Then the kebab came. All this for something like $13.00 (including a soda & Arab coffee).

In the evening, we celebrated the Declaration of the Bab. It's ordinarily held in May but at the Baha'i World Centre all holy days which originally occurred before 1863 are celebrated on the lunar calendar, which puts the day of celebration roughly 11 days before when everyone else is celebrating. I trust there's a reason for this but it was baffling enough to me without someone trying to explain it. I just showed up!

It was held in the same place as the Ninth Day of Ridvan celebration and followed the same format although it was substantially longer. I walked back to the guesthouse following the circumambulation and called it a night!

Pilgrimage Day 6

2009-04-29T16:42:00.003-05:00

Today was Independence Day. Either there is some kind of holiday or holy day every other day in this country or I just happened to hit the right season. Apparently the standard way to celebrate an independence day anywhere in the world is with fireworks. I don't know if people are following our lead or the fireworks industry has a powerful international lobby, but either way you'd think of all places Israel might tone down the whole "Let's celebrate with explosives!" thing. But much like your earlier assumption that the grocery store would be open on Saturday or Sunday or before 4:00 PM, you'd be wrong.

Oh yes indeed, Israelis love fireworks. They love them so much that I've been here on two different celebratory occasions when they've set them off. The first time they set them off they were lighting firecrackers, which to the untrained ear sounds just like gunfire. The second time was last night for Independence Day. This was a big municipal ordeal. "Where did the city gather to watch them?" you ask. Why, right under my room, of course! Oh yes, hundreds of people were packed onto Ben Gurion Avenue to watch the fireworks. The explosive thud of the first three fireworks had me convinced we were under artillery attack from Lebanon or Syria. I didn't hear anyone screaming or sirens going off, so I poked my head out the window and saw the sky light up with the fourth one.

I loaded up on cold medicine in order to get some sleep, which turned out to be a mistake. Because of the holy day, our pilgrimage was suspended, and we had the day to ourselves. I'd planned to go see some of the other sites not covered by our tour but then again I plan for a lot of things: I ended up sleeping until 12:00 noon. When I woke up I had lunch, took a shower and then took a taxi up to the Pilgrim Reception Center (the buses were running very slow because of Independence Day). I'd intended to have lunch with James & Annette, but we worked out dinner plans instead.

Back down the mountain, I took it easy until it was time to head back up for the Ninth Day of Ridvan observance. It was held in the gardens in front of the Haifa Pilgrim House next to the Shrine of the Bab. One of the members of the Universal House of Justice delivered a small address on the occasion and then nine readings were given in three languages: Arabic, English and Persian. My favorite was from Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Baha:

O ye beloved of the Lord! This day is the day of union, the day of the ingathering of all mankind. ‘Verily God loveth those who, as though they were a solid wall, do battle for His Cause in serried lines!’ Note that He saith ‘in serried lines’—meaning crowded and pressed together, one locked to the next, each supporting his fellows. To do battle, as stated in the sacred verse, doth not, in this greatest of all dispensations, mean to go forth with sword and spear, with lance and piercing arrow—but rather weaponed with pure intent, with righteous motives, with counsels helpful and effective, with godly attributes, with deeds pleasing to the Almighty, with the qualities of heaven. It signifieth education for all mankind, guidance for all men, the spreading far and wide of the sweet savours of the spirit, the promulgation of God’s proofs, the setting forth of arguments conclusive and divine, the doing of charitable deeds.

Whensoever holy souls, drawing on the powers of heaven, shall arise with such qualities of the spirit, and march in unison, rank on rank, every one of those souls will be even as one thousand, and the surging waves of that mighty ocean will be even as the battalions of the Concourse on high. What a blessing that will be—when all shall come together, even as once separate torrents, rivers and streams, running brooks and single drops, when collected together in one place will form a mighty sea. And to such a degree will the inherent unity of all prevail, that the traditions, rules, customs and distinctions in the fanciful life of these populations will be effaced and vanish away like isolated drops, once the great sea of oneness doth leap and surge and roll.

After the readings were concluded, the Tablets of Visitation - two portions of the Writings specifically for special holy days and use at the Shrines - were recited. Then we were led in circumambulating the Shrine of the Bab by the members of the Universal House of Justice and their spouses. We did so in absolute silence. The only thing you could hear was the sound of footsteps crunching on the broken tiles that made up the path below our feet, the wind blowing through the palm trees and the birds singing.

I think I enjoyed the silence most of all but I was also touched by the faces I passed when circumambulating the Shrine. I passed Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans holding hands, the children of an Ethiopian wife and Danish husband, a Korean man and his Persian wife, a Canadian boy and his new friend from India... It was truly a wonder to see so many people from so many different places walking together without so much as a single trace of enmity or prejudice. They believe one and all that no matter where they're from - Kolkata or Kampala, Vancouver or Vienna, Santiago or Sydney - that we all belong to one human family.

After the holy day celebration, I went with James & Annette by sherut to the top of Mt. Carmel for the first time. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant where I learned about a new kind of cheese - halumi. It has a firm texture and it's generally fried. We all shared a halumi salad, a pizza and some kind of delicious cake.

When we finished dinner, we took a walk along the Louis Promenade which gives you breathtaking views of Haifa and the bay (you can even see Lebanon!). They used one of the perks of being a World Centre employee - a key to most of the gates of Baha'i properties - to take us down the upper terraces on the way back to my guesthouse. We were the only ones there, and it was so quiet and peaceful in the gardens- no fireworks at all!

Pilgrimage Days 4 & 5

2009-04-28T11:02:00.004-05:00

It's all I can do to keep my eyes open long enough to type this up. The past two days have been exhausting and filled with moments of not taking it easy, as I should be. I'm not a medical doctor but I like to think over the years I've received a lot of wisdom from my mother's degree in Everythingology (a degree open only to mothers) and through my own personal experience. So my diagnosis is that I have either a mix of a head cold and allergies which got more powerful as I made the journey over here, or I have swine flu. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Al Jazeera on that last one.

Yesterday we assembled at the Pilgrim Reception Center (PRC) in the morning to leave for Bahji. Every set of pilgrims is divided into several groups of roughly 30 people, including groups for different languages (Persian, French, Spanish, etc.). Thankfully our group, "G," doesn't leave until the latest time for most of the visits. I think the person who checked me in during registration could tell I'm not a morning person. God bless her, truly, because I really want to visit these places but the good Lord knows I cannot get myself out of bed before 7:00 AM no matter what time zone I'm in.

Bahji is the home of Baha'u'llah and his followers for the latter years of His life. It's located just outside the city of Akka. The complex contains the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, the Qiblih of the Baha'i Faith (the point to which we orient ourselves when praying); a visitor's center; gardens and the Mansion of Bahji, the home Baha'u'llah lived in. The Shrine itself contains the remains of Baha'u'llah.

I have to say I didn't feel like I was appropriately moved. We approached the Shrine with two other groups. Outside, we removed our shoes and then went inside where someone read the Tablet of Visitation, a portion of the Writings which is read at the Shrines of Baha'u'llah and the Bab. Thereafter we were left to our own prayers either in the main room or the small rooms off to the side. I dismissed myself to one of those rooms and prayed for myself and others. There were Persian women throwing themselves on the ground weeping and prostrating themselves like we were in mosque together. It was a very odd scene for me, and it gave me an uneasy feeling. Maybe it was my Western sensibilities flaring up, but I didn't feel "it" as much as they were. I felt calm and detached but I wasn't moved to prostrate on the floor or kneel before the threshold to the room that contained Baha'u'llah's remains.

That isn't to say I didn't feel anything during my visit to the Shrine. I did feel I had the opportunity to unburden myself of the things I seem to always carry around with me. I generate a lot of baggage for myself, and it was nice to let go of some things. There is a particular issue that, blissfully, I haven't thought about since that point up until writing this now. And even now it doesn't feel like it's as all-consuming as it was before. It's something that will be dealt with in its own good time.

By contrast, I felt my time walking in the gardens was more spiritually productive. They are all lovingly cared for and meticulously cared for by the staff of the Baha'i World Centre and their hard work shows. You can readily identify Baha'i properties, even those that are unmarked, in Haifa and Akka by the state of their condition and the surrounding grounds. In the gardens, you're disturbed only by the sound of your own footfalls and nature - the wind blowing through the trees, birds singing, bees buzzing. I didn't have a claustrophobic feeling of being in a small building with a number of other people. I didn't have to worry about other people keeping their eyes on me, watching to see if I did something out of line. So I simply enjoyed my time in the gardens, freeing my mind of having to think about anything at all.

Prayer has never been easy for me. As a child I was mercifully never forced to go to church, read the Bible or be subjected to a preacher and church society. I attended schools which focused on the sciences (and arts to a lesser extent). My upbringing was decidedly secular, a sharp contrast to most of my classmates. I never developed the habits or rituals of prayer, only stopping to pray if I wanted something. I believed in God as much as the next person but religion was neither at the forefront of my life nor did it really play any significant part.

Now the coin's been flipped, and I often find it difficult to settle down and pray as I should or have the appropriate attitude of reverence. I balk at the concept of needing to be dressed up to go to the House of Worship in Wilmette, the thought of bowing down in front of anything makes me squirm and the worshipful, kow-towing attitude with which institution members are treated leaves me with a slimy feeling. I am far more comfortable doing or at least feeling as if I'm doing something. I will sing a prayer over saying it quietly, I will tutor a study circle over hosting a devotional meeting, I will walk in the gardens of Bahji rather than prostrate before the Shrine. I comfort myself with the thought that we are defined by our deeds and not our words, that my deeds make up for my lack of prayed words, but there's still something somewhere in the back of my mind that insists maybe I'm just not devout enough or I just don't believe enough.

After Bahji, we returned to the Arc to meet the members of the Universal House of Justice. I wasn't clear whether we were meeting with the institution or its members. I assumed it was the institution first and then its constituent members afterward. Following a small welcoming address by one of its members, the members of the House came and walked through the rows to greet each one of us. Working at the Baha'i National Center has heightened my perception of how people treat members of high-ranking institutions within the Faith. I will admit the first time I met the Secretary-General of our National Spiritual Assembly I had a reaction of awe. I felt disgusted with myself afterward because our obedience and deference is to the institution, not it's members. Separate they are merely men and women, and I keep this in mind at all times - "he's just a man, like me or anyone else."

When I met each of the House members, I felt I kept the appropriate attitude. It was nice to meet them but I wasn't tripping over myself or trudging up obscure facts to try to impress them. They are all nice people who have rendered invaluable service to the Faith, but they are just men when they're coming around shaking our hands.

The evening featured a talk by Counsellor Stephen Birkland of the International Teaching Centre, but I was in my room resting. I seem to have just enough energy to make it through the day before collapsing at night. When I first returned back to the guesthouse, I had to ask the owner to use the telephone. He invited me into his home and I had coffee and cake with him and his wife. I listened to him tell stories about a few of his more difficult guests (including 30 Baha'is from the Congo - personal experience allowed me to relate to what a nightmare this must have been!), and I shared about life in Chicago and Africa.

=-=

Today I went to Akka with 7 Persian friends - a family of two sons, one daughter, a mother and father from Vancouver and a mother and daughter from Shanghai and Adelaide respectively - and an American Baha'i from Oregon. They invited me along when I ate lunch with them yesterday, and I was very grateful for it because I didn't have a clue how I was going to arrange transportation to Akka on my own. They picked me up from my guesthouse and I learned that the American Baha'i was "Ryan." Oiy - Ryan & Bryan!

We were dropped at the Land Gate, the only way in and out of Akka in ancient (and not so ancient) times. It's very cleverly designed in an L-shape with a massive door. The walls are very thick, and it's easy to see why Crusaders, Ottomans and French alike had such a terrible time taking the city (or not taking it in some cases). We saw a number of the places associated with the stay of `Abdu'l-Baha and Baha'u'llah in the prison city, including the Sea Gate and the caravanserai where they and a number of Baha'is stayed. Lunch was at a local shwarma shop (delicious).

We did a lot of wandering around. Forgive me but I'm too exhausted to give an exhausting account of the day in Akka. It was one of the best days for me so far, just from fulfilling the dream of visiting such an ancient and important city, let alone seeing the holy sites.

Tomorrow is the Ninth Day of Ridvan celebration. The actual observance is held at 4:00 PM. I'll be having lunch with James & Annette, two friends from Hot Springs serving here, but the rest of the day is free. Assuming I'm in good health and spirits, I'll probably see some of the sights not covered in our guided tour, like the Monument Gardens, the Temple Land and the Baha'i Cemetary.

Pilgrimage Day 3

2009-04-26T00:33:00.006-05:00

"Since apparently everything in America is going into the toilet except the public's faith in Barack Obama, it seems that the way to fix everything in America is to entrust it to Barack Obama."

- Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

I am halfway up this mountain. At least, God help me, I hope this is halfway up. Whatever fool part of my brain thought it was a good idea to walk to the Pilgrim Reception Centre (PRC) was surely murdered by the rest of me a few blocks back. But once you get up this thing to a certain point you're kind of locked into it, so I will soon march onward again.

Whatever cold I had on the way over here has developed into some sort of full blown infection. I haven't been able to find a pharmacy yet, but surely someone at the PRC will be able to direct me to one. I can't really hear very well out of one ear and it hurts, which leads me to believe I have some kind of ear infection. I can't breathe out of either nostril since they've been taken over by mucous (that word is so disgusting). Hopefully I can self-medicate and be fine...otherwise walking up this mountain is sure to kill it.

A lady just passed me going up the mountain in high heels. How embarrassing.

---

Okay, what's more embarrassing is that when I stopped to write that, I was sitting right next to the Pilgrim Reception Centre, like 1/4 block from it. It was the next building over. So all that huffing and puffing was not in vain! I conquered the mountain! Or...at least I conquered it as far as I needed to conquer it. What's the sense of climbing all the way up a mountain when you only need to go halfway? Despite how "short" the walk was, I think I'll take the bus next time. And, likely, always.

I registered myself at the PRC, bought my health insurance and had a cup of tea. What immediately surprised me was that nearly everyone here is with someone. I was the only person that was alone, which really just sort of magnifies the feeling. I'm sure I will meet many people, especially in my group, but it still feels a little awkward to be by yourself. And of course as I'm typing this paragraph, another pilgrim comes into the common room of my guesthouse and introduces herself. We're everywhere! So, scratch that whole being alone business.

With the help of Andrew, the owner of the guesthouse, I managed to find a pharmacy. They gave me some over-the-counter medication for congestion and allergies, but apparently I will need a prescription or something of the sort for my ear problem. I'm beginning to wonder now if it isn't just stopped up. This happened once before and the doctor just flushed it with a saline solution, so I'll visit the clinic tomorrow and see if they can help me out. In the meantime, I'll just hear out of one ear.

Most of the rest of the morning and afternoon, I've been wandering around Haifa (read: lost). I've been trying to find a supermarket, really. I swear, things are closed here so much it's not even funny. If it's not Shabbat, then it's Sunday. If it's not Shabbat or Sunday then it's some kind of holy day. Frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if there's ever one day of consistent, uninterrupted commerce. All that aside, walking around has at least given me some exercise. It's nice, sunny and warm as opposed to Chicago's messy, cloudy, cold, rainy/snowy.

Eventually I ducked into a restaurant on Allenby. I keep hearing about these mythical shwarma/falafel shops with cheap food but I've yet to find one. I'd hoped this was one. They didn't have shwarma or falafel, but the owner asked me to take a seat and look at the menu. I ordered a Coke and the "hummus with meat" without asking or even wondering what kind of "meat" it was going to be. It only takes one question about the wrong thing in Africa to teach you to just eat what's put in front of you and not worry about it. So moments later a GIANT plate of hummus and meat was delivered to me along with a plate of pickle, olives, onion, tomato, peppers and some kind of purple thing and pita bread. It was a little expensive but I have to keep reminding myself I'm in a developed and not developing country.

Even with directions from Andrew, I still couldn't find the supermarket. I swear these things phase in and out of existence based on my positioning. There is one nearby that I know but it doesn't open until 4:00. What kind of store doesn't open until 4:00, I don't know, but apparently this is one of them. I suppose it's some kind of holy day. Or Shabbat. Or Sunday. or maybe, somehow, all three.

---

Okay, all that movement earlier was a huge mistake. I practically collapsed when I came back to the hotel to rest. I took a small nap and when I woke up, everything was worse. I took more medicine but I knew I was in no shape to go back to the Pilgrim Reception Centre for orientation. I'm going to go early in the morning with the hope that someone can give me a condensed version of the orientation, otherwise I'm sure I'll end up being lost the whole time.

So I shuffled around the room most of the afternoon, lamenting my condition and feeling sorry for myself (what else should I do?). I eventually got a little more sleep and felt a little better when I woke up. Out of necessity I had to go to the grocery store, which had finally opened. I have some pita bread, lunch meats, olives, apples and hummus for sandwiches, chips (or crisps, whichever you prefer) and sugar for tea.

This evening I have been catching up with the son of the family I lived with in Tanzania. The older I get the worse I am at keeping in touch with people, so it was very nice to touch base with him at the most unlikely of times in the most unlikely of places.

With a sandwich in my tummy and some cold medicine doing its work, Insha'Allah I will be able to fall asleep and wake up feeling like a brand new person!

Pilgrimage Day 2

2009-04-25T12:26:00.002-05:00

Right now it's karaoke night at the little bar/club across the street from my guesthouse here in the German Colony in Haifa. Some drunk man just wrapped up a rendition of Patsy Cline's "Crazy." I'll tell you what's crazy: it's me for staying here. Let this be a lesson learned - you get what you pay for. When planning a trip abroad, you should be groaning from the expense of accommodation instead of jubilant at the deal you think you're getting.

I left Chicago on Thursday evening feeling the least prepared I've ever felt before going abroad. I left half my pilgrimage information at home, and I'm sure I've forgotten something critically important and I just haven't discovered it, yet. The good news is the plane ride allowed me time to catch up on the few assignments that I still had due. I'm finished with everything except revising a draft and finishing a reflection essay.

When I was getting on board in Chicago, I fell in line behind this lady. I assumed she was by herself but when we got to the gate, she turned around and told me to hurry up. I balked at her and she gasped. "Why, you're not my husband at all!" she said in this very dignified British accent. "A bit young for you, isn't he?" the airline official at the gate asked. "Don't get cheeky," the lady said, snapping her fingers at her husband behind me. "Come on, then."

On the flight from London to Tel Aviv, there were a lot of incorrigible people onboard. I felt bad for the flight attendants. First this man insisted on holding his guitar because it wouldn't fit in the overhead. If you can't hold a purse in your lap then obviously you can't hold a guitar. The flight attendant was going to put it in the closet in first-class for him, but he refused! She tried to take it from him, but he tugged it back from her. Then she started getting pissed, so finally he let go with a begrudging, "You take good care of it," as if it were a child he'd never see again. Another man had his blanket over his seatbelt and refused to show it to the flight attendant during turbulence. Eventually she just reached over and snatched his blanket away from him!

There's been a lot of hullabaloo about the new Terminal 5 built by British Airways at London's Heathrow airport. This was my first time going through it, and I hated it. I had 1 1/2 hours to make my transfer, and it took me slightly more than an hour to get through security. Yes, security. For what, I have no idea. First of all, our 777 didn't even pull up to a gate. It just sat out on the tarmac and we were bused to the terminal. Then we were ushered upstairs and made to wait in line before going through a checkpoint where we had our passports inspected and liquids confiscated.

Then it was on to actual security. I have absolutely no idea what dangerous things they expected us to pick up between our plane and the terminal. We went through all the things we went through in the U.S. - take off your shoes, take out your laptop, etc., etc. Lucky me, my flight was departing from a terminal where I had to get on another bus and be shuttled to my plane.

Tel Aviv was thankfully easy. The passport control agent either didn't care or didn't hear me when I asked not to have my passport stamped, so I'll have to get a new passport if I intend to travel to an Arab country. They pulled me aside after immigration and a guy asked me a few questions: "Where are you going?", "Why?", "Where are you staying?", and "Do you have your letter from the Baha'i Center?". I snagged some shekels from the ATM and boarded a sherut for Haifa. I had to wait an hour for it to fill up, but eventually we were on our way.

Granted it was a cloudy day, but Israel seems pretty ugly to me. I guess there's a certain appeal to this scruffy Mediterranean look but the architecture, particularly in Tel Aviv, was extremely uninventive: one cement block after another! Haifa is considerably better but it's still sort of ugly once you look beyond the very touristy areas.

I'm staying in the German Colony, which was settled by a bunch of Germans looking for the return of Christ (somehow they missed the Baha'is the whole time they were here, sheesh). It's sense been rehabilitated and seems to be (unbeknownst to me ahead of time) a center of Haifa nightlife. There are a number of good restaurants around but my visits will be few and far between thanks to a budget.

Overnight I fought with the music from the club and my own jet lag, only getting a few hours of sleep. I ended up actually sleeping solidly from 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM. I went out and bought a few groceries so I could eat in my room and then went to get adventurous! I thought of trying to hoof it up the terraces but they seemed to be closed, so I followed signs to "Baha'i Center" and ended up getting lost. It was a health walk nonetheless, although I think Mt. Carmel will end up killing me before I leave.

Here are some little bits about Israel:

1.) Learn Hebrew. If you don't, expect to always be on the wrong bus, in the wrong restaurant and/or eating the wrong food, walking down the wrong street or otherwise doing/saying something wrong.

2.) There are approximately 3 stray cats and 2.3 children for every 1 adult Israeli. If you doubt this statistic, check the nearest dumpster or sidewalk, respectively.

3.) Any car driven by a person under 30 must be small, contain at least one person with over-large sunglasses on, have the top down and be blasting the latest in bad Middle Eastern techno pop.

4.) Hummus will be included with all meals, even if they have to somehow slip it into your drink. Deal with it.

5.) Israeli/Palestinian men might have us Westerners beat with their suave Mediterranean looks, but they don't help themselves with their dress, hair products, cologne and attitude.

6.) When thinking of taking the bus, stop and reassess the situation. Can I walk there? Do I have enough shekels to just take a taxi? If the answer to both is "no," look for a bus sign. One side will be in English, but this side will also be facing the other way and be half-blocked by another sign, the top of the bus stop, a sticker or any and everything else. Deploy a high-tech GPS beacon before getting on the bus so that you can safely track your way back.

7.) Never plan anything for Saturday. Everything is closed, my friend.

We Have Recommendations for You

2008-07-24T11:24:00.003-05:00

With the economy in the tank and the cost of just about everything going through the roof (let's not kid ourselves, people), we're seeing a downturn in business here at work. I don't mean to say I'm not busy or I have a lack of things to do, it just seems like it all comes in bursts. I could go two hours without doing anything, only to be slammed moments later with stuff that keeps me working every minute until 5:00.

So during this morning's slow period, I was tooling around Amazon.com, which feels a bit traitorous because of the way they treat small publishing companies and authors. I bought a handful of books (I'm a sucker for books) because the pocketbook speaks louder than my principles when it comes to books. But the real point is how amazed I was at the way the company tracks your purchases. These days we're no strangers to having what we do be tracked, from what we purchase at the grocery store to what university programs we might be interested in (after expressing interest in one university, I've been inundated with others offering similar programs).

I'm sure privacy advocates hate it, but I'm personally not too concerned about it. While I was going through the recommendations that Amazon.com was giving me, they made a link between the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Qur'an, saying that if I purchased one I would be interested in the other. It just makes me curious about what kind of criteria they use for this sort of thing. Is someone manually doing it? Given the volume of books they carry, I find myself doubting it. It was just an unusual connection. Not necessarily wrong, just unusual.

Last week, I went to see the Thursday night midnight showing of "Dark Knight," the new Batman movie. I didn't get home until 3:00 AM and asleep until 4:00 AM, but it was certainly worth it. Keeping the TV off and not reading the news very often for a few months has kept me somewhat isolated from pop culture and I was in Africa when "Batman Begins" was released, so I didn't fully appreciate the magnitude of the movie's release.

The theatre was packed, and there were 5 different midnight showings in addition to a 3:15 AM showing, which only a crazy fool would drag themselves out of bed to go see. All of the shows were sold out. I struggled with my exhaustion at some points in the movie, but overall it was a great, great action movie. A co-worker loaned me his copy of "Batman Begins," which I watched last night, and it was a bit disappointing after watching "Dark Knight." That isn't to say it wasn't a good movie, but it paled in comparison. I should have watched them in the correct order like everyone else in the world!

Plans for moving back to Little Rock are right on schedule. My petition for re-enrollment (a so-called reapplication application) was accepted. My FAFSA was processed by the government in record time, leaving me to wonder why they move like a sloth on everything else, and now the actual decision will be left to the university to decide (now begins the sloth-like movement). I spoke with my aunt about the whole issue of moving around, and I'm consulting with my parents about logistics (when, how to move). The only bad thing so far has been the higher than anticipated price of apartments after some more in-depth research. All of the reseafch I do online is useful but in the end I think it's going to be a feet-on-the-ground type of expedition that will be the most useful.

A Purpose Driven Life

2008-07-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

"...these Northern nights are dreary, and my Southern heart is weary...."
- "Smoky Mountain Memories," Dolly Parton

I've decided I've missed the therapeutic qualities of blogging, so I'm going to pick it back up. I never really intended to drop it in the first place, but apparently when you enter the so-called "real world" a lot of small things get sacrificed on the altar of "I worked all day, and I'm too tired to do XYZ."

Up until a week ago, everything here was business as usual. I'd drag myself across the street every morning and life went on as it always does. However, a week ago I decided this was a mistake. It was a nice, grand experiment in independence from which I've gleaned a number of insights and learned a number of lessons the hard way but all (good?) things must draw to a close. It started by resigning as the cluster institute coordinator, a job for which I was ill-suited in a cluster like this one, and then the more momentous and life-changing decision to pack up my bags and move back to Little Rock.

When I returned to Africa in May/June, I didn't really have much of a purpose in going beyond taking a vacation, visiting with Hossein & Mitra and giving May Saba a really big hug. But apparently my mind was hiding a larger purpose (it's amazing how often and how well we can trick ourselves): I was sitting near a roundabout with Mitra in Morogoro, drinking a Fanta Pineapple, waiting for the mechanic to fix a puncture in the tire and looking up the Uluguru Mountain shrouded in clouds when I blurted out that I had come back to Africa to see if it's where I belonged, where I wanted to be.

I think I surprised myself with my admission more than I surprised Mitra. My whole itinerary shifted after that. I spent more time sitting in Mitra's office grilling her about the intricacies of her non-governmental organization and the Tanzanian Baha'i community than I did traveling to exotic beaches and remote locales. I shuffled around the house in my pajamas thinking about the impact of a life in Africa - the good, the bad, the ugly - and the sacrifices it would take to pursue that life. All that isn't to say I left fun by the wayside (I can't remember laughing more) but the trip turned more contemplative than I'd anticipated.

When I came back home, all my ruminations were put squarely in the back of my mind by the daily 8:00 - 5:00 grind (who actually works 9:00 - 5:00 anymore?) and the pace and demands of the American lifestyle. In the quiet of the evening in those moments right before sleep I'd see the thoughts emerge and some energy put into sorting them out. "Sorting them out" would eventually lead to only a vague understanding of what I wanted and even that would be burned away like fog in the morning sunlight. Fruitless attempt after fruitless attempt to engage my own self in an earnest, internal discussion about the direction in which I needed to go eventually led to prayer (the Tablet of Ahmad was a favorite).

One morning I woke up with such a distinct clarity of purpose that it made me giddy inside. I've always envied those people who knew what they wanted, when they wanted it and how they wanted it and for once I was experiencing the same feeling (although those people likely have no corresponding emotional rush - they are simply who they are).

It seems like I've taken the most circuitous route to get to this point, but the burst of clarity forced me to realize that if I'm going to go back to Africa, if I'm going to dedicate my life to helping other people in any way then the first prerequisite is finishing college. Before, going to school just seemed like one of those things you did - the next step in the life you're supposed to pursue. But now that it's very clearly a means to an end for me, I feel like I've been fired and tempered with a purpose. I think the blacksmith could have been a little gentler with me, a little faster in getting me to this point but I think now when I have that paper in my hand it won't be a hollow degree.

Staying here in Chicago and finishing school was not an option. I will be assuming debt to finish my degree, and there's not much sense in amassing piles of debt struggling in a place like this when I can return to Arkansas and attend an admittedly "lesser" institution without sticking it to my future self 20 years from now still struggling to pay down all the loans. Some part of me still feels like it's giving up to tuck tail and leave after only a year here but those thoughts are usually fast trodden by the sense of purpose that's now driving me.

The logistics are now falling into place. I've informed the Baha'i Publishing Trust that I will not be here beyond the end of November, which was taken a little harder than I anticipated. I'd originally committed for two years but I don't feel the need to be overly apologetic or kowtow to that commitment when the way forward for me is so clear. I'm going to do everything I can to help the transition go smoothly for my replacement.

I've had to reapply to the university because I was not enrolled for some time, and the arduous task of filling out the much loved FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is now behind me. When I have a response on these two then I'll be able to move forward with more long-term planning. As it stands, my parents will come up to help me move (again - God bless their souls) around Thanksgiving so I'm out by the time my lease expires on 30 November. They've graciously offered some living space for me until I've secured the funding for housing in Little Rock, which I've already begun to search for. As an aside on the cost of living on the North Shore, it's appalling to see I can rent a two bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood in Little Rock for considerably less than what I'm paying for my one bedroom here in Wilmette.

It's nice to move forward. It's nice to have a purpose!

Imagine!

2008-01-25T09:11:00.001-06:00

I skipped Baha'i school today and spent the better part of the day trying to get my apartment in some sort of order. As I'm wont to do, I've let it all go to hell in the span of a month. Apparently you have to pick things up, dust, vacuum, sweep and do the dishes and the laundry or everything will turn into a dirty, intolerable mess. I think domestic responsibility is going to be beaten into me the hard way over a period of time. As much of an anal control freak as I am about just about everything else under the sun, it's beyond even me as to why I can't stay on top of this sort of thing.

Last week I managed to get two parking tickets in the same day. Officer George is now my sworn enemy. Apparently he patrols Linden Avenue without mercy! You would think my out-of-state license plate would have persuaded him to give me some slack, but apparently not. So I have to pay the Village of Wilmette $50 and see how many days I can survive on Ramen noodles until Friday (pay day). I'm about as fiscally responsible as I am domestically responsible, although I am learning the former far faster than the latter, mostly because of the difference in severity if I don't.

Sometimes it's really sort of lamentable that I work in the Publishing Trust building instead of the National Center. I don't get to see or meet all of the people over there except at general staff meetings, which is hardly a time for socializing. But one of the nice things is that the Publishing Trust houses the records and staff of the Temple Conservation Office. Last week I saw a picture of what the inside of the House of Worship was supposed to look like, according to Louis Bourgeois's vision. Although it's only a picture of one of the sort of panels that would have been inside, which would basically have followed the lace-like appearance of the outside, one of the staff members explained to me that he originally wanted ribs going up the side of the Temple embedded with sapphires and rubies, etc. Imagine!

Survival

2008-01-14T02:16:00.000-06:00

I'm having a very amusing time of living on my own. The amusement derives largely from my own overwhelming incompetence when it comes to anything that might remotely be considered "domestic." A perfect example of this is right before I sat down to write this entry I decided to get a glass of water. I use a water filter for any kind of water that goes into my body. Although I trust the water treatment people in Wilmette, I grew a little suspect when I read their Annual Water Report:

At times, the quality of the raw lake water that enters the water plant is affected by the opening of the locks operated by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC), or from runoff from the use of fertilizers and herbicides on area lawns and golf courses.

The MWRDGC owns and controls a set of locks located in Wilmette Harbor that are occasionally opened during heavy rainfall events to release sewer overflow into the lake. These contaminants, however, do not affect the quality or the safety of the finished water that is delivered to consumers.

Anyway, I digress. When I was lifting up the water pitcher to pour the water, I realized too late that I had leaned an open box of linguini against it. In the process of trying to save the box of linguini, it spilled all over the floor along with the water. And I had just cleaned the floor this morning. The moral of the story is that I can't even pour a glass of water without some small disaster occurring.

Although its followed my pathetic attempt at cooking bacon and eggs (the bacon looked like two thin strips of licorice), I do have a minor success to report. I made a meatloaf! All right, all right. I admit it's no triumph of culinary greatness but it's the most edible thing I've made to date. Also the oven did not send out billows of black smoke this time, which was really more exciting than the success of the meatloaf. The only complaint I have about the meatloaf is that it called for some brown sugar for some reason. I initially thought it would be nice, but in the end it just made it too sweet. And I also put in too much pepper. I'll figure out this spicing thing in the next decade, I'm sure.

The Great Snow of 2007-2037

2007-12-31T18:32:00.000-06:00

It's snowing to beat the band outside. It started at 12:00 noon, and it's expected to stop sometime in 2037. Just kidding (I hope). I think it's actually supposed to stop tomorrow night. The expected accumulation is 6 inches but they never tell the truth about these things. I always throw a few inches on top just to be sure. But the wind tomorrow is supposed to be worse: 20-30 mph with 40 mph gusts. [Insert any old "Windy City" joke here.]

My first day back at work in two weeks was...a let down. Sort of. I expected a few problems to be resolved and some improvements made but I have always attached too much importance to the outcome of my expectations. It's a fault of mine. Thanks to a relatively low call count, I was able to put some sort of semblance of order into our e-mail system and handle some back issues. Maybe I'm taking the job too seriously but I'm trying to do a better job of presenting a friendly and responsive Baha'i Distribution Service.

After work, I went down to the House of Worship (HoW) as I'd promised someone I would do. By that time the snow was getting a little out of hand so I decided to drive lest I turn into a snowman on the walk down and back. I was able to pray in peace and silence for a while before it was time for the evening devotional sponsored by the staff of the HoW. They're typically your standard devotional service but occasionally there's something especially nice, like this evening there was a lady who sang so beautifully that it brought me to tears. She sang one of the Hidden Words in Spanish and English: "O My Servant! Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more." It was clear that she had sung in the Temple before because she knew how to work the acoustics very well, drawing out a note here or adjusting her tone there so that it rose as high as the Greatest Name at the apex of the Temple's dome.

Since I'm off for work tomorrow for New Year's, I went to the store and bought a nice pork roast to cook in the slow cooker so I'll have something decent to eat tomorrow. There's no better time than a holiday to take a break from the Raman noodles and eat something...well...edible. Of course the last time I tried to cook some real food the oven practically burst into flames, so let's hope this doesn't turn into the same type of culinary abortion.

Yesterday I made a foray into the world of Chicagoland shopping. I went to Westfield's Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, which is pretty much the biggest monument to free market capitalism that I've ever seen. The anchor stores are Macy's, Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdales, and then just throw in probably 200 other stores, including a Loew's Movie Theater and a Barnes & Noble. It took me literally 15-20 minutes to find a parking spot. I could only bring myself to visit Macy's, Nordstrom's and Lord & Taylor. I was after a pair of gloves, a scarf and some new socks. I got most of that at Macy's, and I just wanted to swing by Nordstrom's to see if there was actually anything on sale. I quickly determined I could never afford anything in that store and moved on to Lord & Taylor.

In Macy's, I panicked because I forgot which door I came in. I could see myself wandering the mall complex aimlessly like a man in the desert. All in all I think I braved the storm pretty well, although I was acting like a bit of a slack-jawed yokel by gawking at all the stores and all the pretty things I'll never have. But to be honest, it's kind of nice to know what you want and know what your limit is and go into the store and get exactly what you want without spending more than you intended. In comparison to people who go thousands of dollars in debt chasing the latest fashions and trends, it's not really all that bad.

I have had this quote from Baha'u'llah in my head (mostly because there's a song made of the "Ye are the stars..." portion), so I guess I'll close with that:

"O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll."
- Baha'u'llah

Stranger in a Foreign Land

2007-12-16T03:03:00.000-06:00

I wish I had the energy at the end of the day to do a better job of blogging but by the time I get home and cook something for dinner I'm so tired that all I want to do is eat, watch some TV and go to sleep. It's an incredibly pathetic routine for someone my age, even considering how much of a natural home body I am. However, I do have a new found respect for homemakers!

I have to admit that life here so far has been incredibly lonely. I don't know anyone except my co-workers and only a handful of those. I have no family here and no friends in the city. For the past few weeks I have been sort of moping around. Of course I've been back and forth between here and Atlanta so much that I've hardly been allowed a grand amount of social time. Thankfully things have turned around a little bit in the past few days.

Friday was a very difficult day for me. Our trainer was heading back to Atlanta at mid-day and my co-worker was taking a half-day. This left only me and one other person in Atlanta handling calls and things. There were so many issues coming up that I wasn't trained on how to handle, coupled with our copious technical difficulties, that I was feeling a little overwhelmed and ill-prepared. In addition to that, I was instructed over lunch by the two people up from Atlanta that I'm going to find myself having to take the reins and such because apparently I am increasingly becoming more of a coordinator in addition to just ordinary customer service responsibilities (even though the coordination extends only to myself and my co-worker).

The boss came by my cubicle during one of my more despondent moods and gave me a little pep-talk for no particular reason. He is a really sincere man, so my spirits improved. I know there are too few people doing too much work for not enough pay and that has made a lot of people here very bitter, and while I don't always agree with some of the methods that are employed (already) the work we're all doing is important. It's not some mundane job in some faceless corporation.

Later, one of my co-workers came by and invited me to the movies with some other Baha'i youth. My first reaction was to decline. I told myself I would decline because I have a lot of things to get done. I haven't unpacked a lot of things and I need to go grocery shopping, change my license to Illinois, get a library card, change my voter registration, pay bills, do the laundry, etc. but I think the real reason was anxiety and fear. That is sad to admit, but it's true. I have gone so long without interacting with people my own age that I think I may have forgotten how. I've become so accustomed to interacting with people 20 years older than me that sometimes people my own age make me nervous. And then again it could be that I'm too jaded and serious minded to loosen up.

It didn't take much persistence for me to give in. We went to see the movie "Juno" which was outstanding, much to my surprise. I enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed the movie. It's unfortunate I have to force myself to do these kinds of things, especially since it's rarely disastrous.

After the movie, I came back to Wilmette for the Nineteen Day Feast, which was postponed to this weekend because of the weather during the week. Mind you it's been snowing all day so we've probably received may 3-4 inches. I walked around the corner in the snow to the Baha'i Home for the Aged, which has sort of been converted into the Baha'i Center for Wilmette. The turnout was small because of the weather (maybe 15-20 people) but it was a nice enough Feast. It really made me miss the Baha'i community back in Little Rock, namely because I know everyone there. It seemed a little awkward to be in the new community attending an event for the first time and being met with stares of curiosity. I introduced myself and I got to socialize with a few people after the consultative portion.

One of the youth (I say "youth" but it's a loose term - I should say "people in their 20's" instead) invited me to come with a group of them to The Cheesecake Factory. I intended to decline but I couldn't turn down an opportunity to get to know people in my own community. We had such a diverse group! There were two Baha'is visiting from Switzerland and New Zealand and another here on a term of service from France, in addition to maybe 8 or so other local "people in their 20's." It was a true joy to get to know some of them better, and I'm glad I went. I feel myself slowly becoming better integrated into the community and some of the loneliness and longing for community life is slipping away.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to the Baha'i Home for the Sunday shindig they have around here - a Baha'i "school" for children, classes for junior youth, study circles and a study class for adults. Hopefully I'll get to meet some more Baha'is there. I'm even mulling around in my mind teaching children's classes with one of the other youth in one of the suburbs. After you're engaged in Baha'i community life and you're away from it for a time, it feels like something is missing in your life.

A Day in the Life....

2007-11-29T10:29:00.000-06:00

I often imagine that people often wonder what a typical day might be like for me in Chicago, even though I only got here last week and people could probably care less. Nevertheless, if you decide to continue, I will subject you to just that. Except I haven't taken pictures of my apartment yet because there are still boxes everywhere, and it is, in general, a huge mess. So we'll start with me walking out the front door:

This is Ye Olde Apartment Building, better known as Linden Crest Apartments. It was built in 1924, which makes it old (my apologies if you were born around that time but my perspective on time is pretty limited). I would say which one of those windows is my apartment but I'd hate for someone to come by and try to rob me. However, I will say that the local, one woman neighborhood watch is located in the right bottom window in the center. This lady is perched by the window at nearly all times, eyeballing you as you walk into and out of the area.

This leads out to the street from the courtyard. You have to watch out for those steps there. They're very treacherous. From here you turn left toward Linden Avenue. The rich people live across the street in those million dollar homes I'll never be able to afford.

When you cross Linden which is right on the corner, you turn left toward work and this is what you see. In the distance to the left you have the Baha'i House of Worship, which I get to see every morning and evening as I enter and leave work. There's also a grocery store across the street to the left. In fact, I pretty much never have to leave a two block radius of my apartment. There's a grocery store, two cleaners, a hardware store, my insurance agent, my work place, my apartment, two Chinese restaurants, the EL stop, and the bus stop.

This is the door to the office. We're not located in the main Baha'i National Center, which is sometimes a good thing. For instance, there's a new dress code that's been implemented, which states that men must wear ties (which necessitates a dress shirt). Since we're a satellite office away from the prying eyes of the National Assembly we manage to get away with having our top button on the dress shirt unbuttoned. Such lackadaisical behavior wouldn't be tolerated over at the main office! Sure it seems minor but trust me when I say that the increase in comfort has resulted in at least a 5% increase in productivity.

This is my cubicle. I know it looks uninhabited except for the papers everywhere, but I've only had it a week. My co-worker, Sonia, shares the space to the right. Hopefully those bookshelves will be full of books soon and I'm sure I'll soon have so many papers spread out that you won't even be able to see the desktop.

Where are pictures of my co-workers, you ask? Well, you can't fault me for not making an effort but every time I tried to take a picture of one of them they vanished faster than the speed of light. Maybe with some time I'll be able to sneak up on them and catch them in their natural environment, hunched over a desk peering into the computer screen.

One of the nice things about living in Chicago is the presence of a major international airport. Of course this presents wonderful opportunities for travel so I've been watching some of the airfares online. Today I noticed that I could purchase a ticket to Montego Bay, Jamaica ($125) for less money than a ticket back to Little Rock ($199). Of course I guess that's little surprise given how important of an airport O'Hare is. It's the second busiest in the world, and it used to be the first before 2005 when Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson took over the top spot. More than 76 million passengers passed through O'Hare last year - imagine!

Things at work aren't quite in full swing yet since so much of the operation is still based in Atlanta, so I've had quite a few opportunities to read through the news. There's been plenty of interesting stuff but the most ridiculous has been from everyone's favorite crazy South American leader, "President" Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Apparently he's gotten into a spat with the leader of Colombia, who happens to be fairly pro-American in sharp contrast to President Chavez's very anti-American stance. This has led him to question whether or not the remains of Simon Bolivar, returned to Venezuela from Colombia in 1842, are authentic. "Are those really Bolivar's remains in the National Pantheon? We're going to verify this."

That's exactly the sort of nonsense you expect to see in an African paper. It always amazed me how simple-minded politicians there would be and how they would use cheap ploys like this to strum up support among the uneducated masses. What's worse is that people eat it up. However, what's more hilarious is a goof on CNN's part. Apparently their Spanish-language channel ran an image of President Chavez with the caption "Who killed him?", which led Chavez to declare that CNN was trying to incite an assassination attempt against him. CNN apologized and said the caption was meant for a picture of Sean Taylor, a football star who was shot and killed.

These are the people who are running the world.

A School's End

2007-11-21T08:37:00.000-06:00

I learned a day or so ago that Maxwell International Baha'i School was closing by order of the National Spiritual Assembly. It appears that it's no longer able to sustain itself financially and that, coupled with "other issues," is forcing the school to close. That's little surprise since enrollments have apparently fallen by half in the past 10 years. I'm not particularly well connected with the Maxwell community but of course you hear rumors in the wider community. Every school is plagued with difficulties but it's sad to see an institution of Baha'i education suffer from so many problems of the "real world" as it were.

I must be prematurely turning into a crabby old man for feeling like some fault is with the students. Then again I've never had a very rosy outlook on youth in the community. They're either extremely committed or woefully disobedient to the Cause. I know a lot of youth go through a rebellious stage where religion means nothing to them and more often than not they end up returning to some moral lifestyle. I can only imagine what faculty and staff members at the school must have to deal with when parents send their bad kids to the school in the hopes that they'll reform.

I don't know exactly how I feel about the school closing but I do commend the National Assembly for "daring" to take a bold step. Sometimes I feel Baha'i institutions allow themselves to be paralyzed to take a bold step forward out of fear of blowback from conservative community members. So maybe it wasn't the right decision but at least they made a decisive decision. Hmm...that doesn't seem like proper grammar.

Here, There & Back Again

2007-11-19T20:51:00.000-06:00

Last week, I started work. Officially I work for the Baha'i Distribution Service (BDS), which is an arm of the larger Baha'i Publishing Trust (BPT). I'll be the lead customer service representative once they close down the BDS branch in Atlanta in January but up until that point I'll essentially be in training and doing on-the-job training during the transition. In addition to filling the orders that come by e-mail, fax, phone and the website, I'll be handling some of the international accounts, which should prove to be interesting.

As for the training, they are running us ragged...

By the middle of December, we're supposed to have learned what takes most people two months, so essentially we're learning at twice the pace. Last week and this week I've been in Atlanta, but next week I'll be in Chicago. Following that we go back to Atlanta for a week, back to Chicago for another week and finally to Orlando for the Social & Economic Development Conference. At the conclusion of the conference and our Christmas break, we're back in Chicago for the foreseeable future, supposedly fully trained and fielding orders.

All of this traveling around leaves me with only this holiday weekend to move into my new apartment, unless of course I wanted to try to move in on a Saturday and Sunday only. When I arrived back home on Wednesday I have to rush to pack up the few remaining things that my parents didn't pack so that on Thursday we can begin driving the moving truck up to Chicago after Thanksgiving dinner. Naturally we won't make it all the way, but part of the way is better than nothing. That gives us Friday, Saturday and Sunday to do the majority of the moving. My parents are also staying over until Wednesday so that while I'm training down the street a few other things can be done.

So far, things are going fairly well. I've been enjoying my time in Atlanta, although the near constant traveling and stress of wrapping up things at home is wearing on me. Nevertheless, the friends here in Atlanta are all a joy and despite some tedious moments of training now that we're all getting to know one another better there's a great deal more humor involved (which of course I enjoy!).

The hectic pace is keeping me on my toes, but I'm really very much looking forward to moving into my own place! My eye is surely on that prize.

A New Beginning

2007-11-07T00:49:00.000-06:00

I've decided to pick up blogging here again. Everyone seemed to enjoy it during my time in Africa, so I thought I'd continue the tradition of cataloging new steps in my life. Next week I start work at the Baha'i Publishing Trust, which will necessitate a move to the Chicago area. It will be my first "real" job, as well as my first time living away from home. People seem to think that my time in Africa will have prepared me well for being on my own but I know it didn't provide me with the sort of practical experience that would assist in a place like Chicago. But I'm steeling myself for a lot of baptism by fire, which I know is soon to come!

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to Chicago with my parents to try to find an apartment. Next Tuesday I leave for Atlanta for training. It's a little unclear at this point how long that might take, but I was encouraged to find a place in Chicago "as soon as possible." Since I'll be working during the week starting Tuesday with only the weekends off (flying back and forth between Little Rock and Atlanta), I've had to give myself a crash course in apartment finding so that hopefully we can pin down a few leads up there between tomorrow and Sunday. Aside from scouting out the area, it will give my parents an opportunity to visit the Baha'i House of Worship and see the area where I'll be working and living, which I hope will ease whatever anxiety they may have about the move.

Incidentally, I won't be living and working in Chicago itself. I'll actually be working in a little town called Wilmette (also home to the Temple) and hopefully living in either Wilmette or Evanston. My goal is either to live within easy driving distance or near enough to public transportation that I can take the EL or bus to work. Thankfully, the office is half a block from an EL stop so that simplifies things. It's actually a great relief to me that I won't be forced to live and work in Chicago. While I enjoy the amenities of a large city, I don't necessarily think I'd enjoy living in one. The Wilmette/Evanston area (especially Wilmette) is a pleasant area, largely residential, with tree-lined streets and nice little shops and restaurants. It's far more reminiscent of my home town than a place with the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago. But it's a comfort to know that all the greatness that is the city is only half an hour or so away so that a young person like me who is supposed to be (in theory) enjoying life can partake in all that the city has to offer.

For all the excitement of leaving my home and striking out on my own for the first time in my life, it's still a little bittersweet. I've lived here all my life (save a brief jaunt to Tanzania) so I have a certain attachment to the place. The South is a very unique place filled with unique people and unique experiences, and I'll be hard pressed to find its warmth and comfort in a place like Chicagoland. I'll also be leaving the Baha'i community in which I've essentially been raised (in the Faith), where I've served side-by-side with loving people for four years now. They are very much like my family and leaving them will be just as difficult as leaving my actual family.

But still the excitement outweighs the anxiety and the worries, the sadness and the reluctance to leave behind everything you know. As `Abdu'l-Baha said, "A moving object is a living object whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead." It seems that I've been "as dead" long enough, so here's to movement and life.

Monthly Mish Mash

2007-02-17T03:45:00.000-06:00

"Work for the day of Universal Peace. Strive always that you may be united. Kindness and love in the path of service must be your means."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

I have absolutely no idea what to say but some impulse is driving me to make a post, so I guess things will come as a matter of course. And evidently I'm turning posting into a monthly affair!

The beginning of this week I actually made it to the movies with one of the Baha'i youth. We saw "Dreamgirls," which was quite good. I enjoyed the play a great deal when we saw it at The Rep, but I was afraid that Beyonce would really ruin the movie. She can't act her way out of a paper bag, and I can't stand the sound of her voice. Nevertheless, she did a good enough job that it didn't ruin the rest of the movie. She even sang passably well.

It was so nice to get out of the house without my parents or going to school or going to something that you might as well call work. My social network has collapsed in on itself like a neutron star with practically everyone I know graduated and moved away or something to that effect, even sometimes driven away or forgotten by my own lack of attention. Unfortunately, my university is so non-traditional that it's a bit difficult to forge any sort of friendship. Everyone (myself included) comes to class and then goes back to their other life. Campus life exists in an odd sort of form, but I did the extracurricular activities thing in high school and now I feel too old for them or maybe just uninterested altogether.

My damnable glasses have broken again. They broke in Africa, so I bought another pair and now these have broken. I guess the arms of glasses aren't made to be particularly durable or maybe I'm just especially rough on them. I'll go the weekend being essentially blind because our optometrist is closed until Monday. I'm supposed to be doing a theatrical sort of thing at the Baha'i Centre for our third Sunday devotionals, so now I'll be holding the script in my face and peering at the audience!

Mitra just sent an e-mail about making breakfast on Saturday morning, which conjured up nice memories. I was always hours behind everyone else for breakfast on every other day of the week but I tried to make it for Saturday and Sunday breakfasts, mostly because they were substantially later. I can recall rolling out of the mosquito net, tossing on some wrinkled pajamas and jostling down the stairs, hitting the third (?) from the top which was loose and always made a noise in the process. Put a tea bag in the cup, pour in the hot water, grunt a greeting to everyone, grab a chapati, snag a chunk of homemade cheese, spread it out, put on some eggs, put on some bacon or avocado if we had them, and slowly begin to wake up. So often life here seems to be ordered around things, appointments. It's sort of irritating sometimes.

This evening I went to dinner with my parents (Friday tradition), two aunts and an uncle. My mother had originally planned to go to Ireland with my two aunts and another friend. Then the plan changed to me and my father meeting her in Scotland after Ireland. And now things have changed altogether, and we're discussing the possibility of the whole family going to Ireland and Scotland. It will certainly be the most grandiose vacation we've ever taken and, as my aunt pointed out, probably one of the last we will take together as a family. I'm really looking forward to it myself, and I know my mother is definitely excited about it.

Today, I received a package in the mail from a friend of mine in New York. She mailed me a big batch of cookies as her contribution to my "war on homework." This was a greatly appreciated gesture, and it's these random acts of kindness that temporarily lift your spirits and keep you happy and hopeful.

At least until your glasses break. =P

Hail to the Chief

2007-01-26T17:02:00.000-06:00

"Until all nations and peoples become united by the bonds of the Holy Spirit in this real fraternity, until national and international prejudices are effaced in the reality of this spiritual brotherhood, true progress, prosperity and lasting happiness will not be attained by man."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

I have been having some really weird dreams about Tanzania. Last night I had a dream about returning to Tanzania. I guess the premise was that I'd only returned to the U.S. for a short period of time like I did in August and now I was returning to my service post. For some reason I thought I was supposed to return on January 29th but then someone told me I was supposed to have gone on January 23rd. I completely tore up my room in a horrible panic looking for the ticket and then when I finally found it, the ticket - for AtlanticAir, does that even exist? - said January 23rd. ThenI woke up!

A few nights ago, I dreamed I was elected the President of Tanzania. Apparently there was a national sensation about a mzungu (white person) being elected to the presidency. I was busy going around Dar es Salaam visiting the homes of the Baha'is trying to figure out if I was allowed to be a Baha'i and president at the same time. I remember visiting so many of the friends. Some of them were happy about it, some of them were upset and others were just flat out yelling at me, as if it were my fault I was elected.

Anyway, while I was in Tanzania I tried to keep up with the countries and states of origin of the people who were visiting my blog. It was interesting and encouraging to me to see how many "international" visitors there were because I know first hand how much of a change in attitude toward the world you can have just by exposure to people of different cultures, even if it is through personal thoughts and other sorts of exposure that blogs can provide. You can also draw a lot of conclusions by looking to see which countries visitors came from - most were in the developed world or countries where there is an emphasis on information technology (India, China, etc.). There are huge gaps when it comes to Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America and Southeast Asia. An explanation could be that the blog is in English or something to that effect, but still I think it's interesting to see what might be construed as the lack of diversity in the diversity of people who visited!

I've made some little maps here of the countries and U.S. states of origin of a lot of the people who have visited the blog. For those of you who are uncomfortable with the idea of trackers and what not, don't worry! It's not like it tells me who you are. =P It just says what country of U.S. state/Canadian province you're from and the town you're in. That's it!

Adjust Your Vision

2007-01-24T20:13:00.000-06:00

"O Man of Two Visions! Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved."

- Bahá'u'lláh

Well, I'm feeling considerably better about school now. I met with the new coordinator of my degree programme last week, and I feel confident that he's going to actually take the department places. Before, everything lacked the sort of energy, optimism and forward movement that he's been able to bring. His classes are engaging but more importantly I can tell already that he genuinely cares about the students in the programme. We've already basically remapped my degree to be more in line with what I want to do, and we're working on some programmes to where I'm not limited to the very limited language offerings at my university to satisfy the fairly hefty language requirements for my degree. The fact that he's helping the students focus themselves on creating a degree that will offer practical assistance when we get into the "real world" is one of the best things that can be done at our university with so many non-traditional students, and I'm really pleased that he's securing money for us to study abroad and attend various conferences around the country on relevant topics.

I'm going to be concentrating on education and development for my degree, and I'm seriously thinking about a minor in Middle Eastern studies. I imagine that will take me to the Middle East at some point for study abroad. The coordinator is in the process of studying Arabic, which I think would be a fantastic if complicated language to pick up. I'd much rather learn Persian, but I think the opportunities for that are fairly limited since it's probably not safe for me to go to Iran, not least of which because I'm an American and a Bahá'í.

Speaking of which, just as important to me was the professor's respect for me as a member of the Bahá'í Faith. He has included "activism" as part of the requirements for the class, which sent up a red flag for me because we're not supposed to get involved in these sorts of political charged debates and activities that seem to dominate "activism" on college campuses. After he listened to my reasoning, he explained that I didn't have to participate in anything that would put me a position I wasn't comfortable with and that the activism of the class wasn't politically oriented.

In addition, when I introduced myself to the class, he encouraged me to identify myself as a Bahá'í (I'm still a little shy to do so after returning from a country with such a large and sometimes hostile Muslim population that it wasn't always safe or appropriate to do so) and explain the Faith to the class when he discovered that so few of them had ever heard of it. He encouraged the same thing during our Model Arab League/Model United Nations team meeting this evening and asked me to specifically highlight my year of service in East Africa and my reasons for doing it. It's important to me that he's so enthusiastic about exposing the students here in the traditionally religiously conservative South to something that's different from what they've heard and seen not just because more people know about my religion now but also because it helps broaden the vision in a place where vision tends to be quite willfully narrow.

The Struggle

2007-01-18T05:05:00.000-06:00

It's 2:45 AM, and I can't sleep. Unfortunately I'm very poor at regulating my sleeping pattern. There's always something that keeps me up late and then I end up sleeping in late, which throws the whole schedule off the next day. It's a vicious cycle.

Every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day there's some depressing story plastered across the washingtonpost.com website, which serves as my home page. This year it indicated that something like 15% of college students think that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is about abolishing slavery. Maybe 15% isn't a very large number of students, but should we have anyone going into college without knowing what that speech is about? If they've managed to live 18+ years of their lives without that fairly simple piece of knowledge then it makes me wonder what else they don't know.

At any one given time at my university there are probably more remedial writing and mathematics classes than the entry-level writing and mathematics classes themselves. It's just mind-boggling to me how people have gone through at least 12 years of education without gaining fundamental writing and mathematics skills. And I do mean fundamental - it doesn't take a Faulkner to get into Composition I or an Archimedes to get into College Mathematics. What's more there are three levels of remedial classes and apparently people have had to take all three of them before being able to take the actual class itself. The obvious exception to these sorts of things is people with a learning disability, but there aren't enough people with a learning disability to account for all of these remedial classes.

Speaking of university, it's amazing how much we have to spend on textbooks. I've spent at least $250, which is cheap because some of the books I already had because my university's professors are too lazy to use updated material and stay on the cutting edge, preferring instead to use the same transparencies (not even PowerPoint) for at least a decade before realizing that information changes. I understand that some Virginia congressman is trying to create something like a digital database of textbooks, which I suppose is a good idea. What would be better would be policy makers finally recognizing the value of college education and putting enough money into helping students get there, giving them a proper foundation before they get there and insuring that there are high standards for the quality of education at the institutions themselves. I know a few tenured professors who need the boot!

I have honestly struggled to go back to school this week. I don't know if it's because sometimes it seems like an exercise in futility or I'm afraid to go back after taking the Africa break or just downright disillusionment or something else along those lines. Mitra's advice was to take the bit between my teeth and show them who I am, which really seems to be the best way of going about things if only I could find that necessary "oomph" to get going. I keep trying to remind myself of all the African friends I made who wanted so desperately to attend university, but there's just some sort of intense malaise that's settled over me that prevents me from getting fired up about anything.

Day 311: The Return

2006-12-29T16:18:00.000-06:00

"Prejudice is an emotional commitment to an untruth."

- Dr. Magdalene Carney

I've been under increasing international pressure to update this blog. People have employed various methods of coercion ranging from a comment to a phone call to threatening physical violence if I don't do it right now. Hence, I'm updating. But if you're looking for an update about my trip to western Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya then you're going to have to wait. Not only would that take most of a day to compile, I'm saving a lot of stories for a series of devotionals I'll be holding to share experiences about my trip. So if you want to hear about it all, then the first one is on January 13.

The question on everyone's mind is: "Are you happy to be home?". Unfortunately, the answer is less straight forward than one might expect. Of course I'm happy to be home and see my friends and family but I also left behind friends and family. To be honest, I didn't think I would miss Africa very much at all. I knew I'd deeply miss the Sabets but the place itself left me so frustrated at times that I was looking for a way out. The corruption, scandal and attitude of people launched a three-prong attack on the hope I had for Africa and as the days dragged on my optimism dragged down. However, now that I'm not there, it's a bad case of not knowing what you have until it's gone.

So far I've been deeply unhappy about having to leave, which brings along with it all sorts of attending depression and regrets. I'm slowly getting over that as I readjust to life in the United States, but I think I will be in a permanent state of limbo about our lifestyle now that I've seen and been in the "other" side where development is at a pace of two steps forward, one step back. And that's just not going to help things because God knows I was cynical enough in the first place! =P But somewhat uplifting was the Baha'i conference on social and economic development that I recently attended where I had the opportunity to meet some of the Baha'is who are actively working around the world to tackle the social and economic ills facing society. There is work being done but it's pace will condemn hundreds of millions to an unnecessary death.

Samir and I were discussing the other day that the supremacy of the United States is on the decline. He identified the loss of our competitive edge in sports as the most obvious harbinger of the loss of our competitiveness in other areas, but signs are already cropping up that point to the decline of economic might and the failure of our education system. The world without a dominant super power will be dangerous but far more dangerous is the fact that our social ills are eating at the vitals of every society on Earth. The decline is not just national but global.

The more contact I have with younger generations the more obvious that seems. Our youth seem destined to fail society in the long-run by neglecting to recognize the source of its illness. There seems to be a sharp disparity between the people concerned about and actively working toward social justice between just my own generation and the one reaching adolescence now, and I truly feel they will barter away the morality and vitality of humankind in exchange for the materialism and earthly comfort that dominates their everyday lives. Whether or not it's their fault or the fault of their parents for instilling those values in them is irrelevant. What's more important is the action that's taken now - which will be far more reactive than it should be - to address the situation and ensure that the world is still around in fifty years.

But, hey, it's got to get worse before it gets better, right?

I have returned to Little Rock to find out that my entire department at the university seems to have vanished. It seems that there's a single professor coordinating and teaching everything. How can one guy run a degree programme? As if scheduling classes wasn't difficult before, now it's next to impossible. God only knows when I'll be able to graduate now. I have some very specific classes that I have to take and with only one professor teaching who knows when they'll actually be offered, or if the degree programme itself will even be continued. In fact, one of the classes seems to have been reduced from an entire semester of lecture to ten days abroad during the summer. With the shift in my concentration to education & development I'll have to backtrack a few things, but it looks like it'll be independent study. And with just the one guy (I'm assuming), I'll basically be paying them to teach myself.

This is all speculation until the university reopens on Monday and I can determine the specifics; nevertheless, it's really stressing me out. How am I going to graduate now? Will I have to switch majors? Transfer schools? And why would you just up and reduce the size of a department like that, especially "international studies" in an age like this? I'm worried I may just have to settle on a political science degree. Or pay thousands of dollars to teach myself international studies. =/

Day 243: United Nations Day

2006-10-22T14:30:00.000-05:00

"By linking material progress with fundamental spiritual aspirations, by appealing to those universal values which enable the individual to transcend narrow self-interest, the peoples of the world can be empowered to translate high-minded ideals and principles into constructive, sustained actions for their own well-being and the betterment of their communities."

- "Toward a Development Paradigm for the 21st Century," Baha'i International Community

Our United Nations Day event is finally over! What a relief! There are some pictures up on the Flickr site.

At first I was convinced that the event was going to turn into a huge disaster. We'd put such an extraordinary amount of resources and the public image of the Faith on the line that I was very nervous about how things would turn out here. After experiencing a vicious African form of Murphy's Law while organizing the National Baha'i Convention and the Inter-Institutional Conference I knew that anything could happen at anytime.

Thanks to traffic we arrived a mere half an hour before the event was scheduled to start to find a few of the panelists hanging around outside the hall. We discovered that the man responsible for the halls, who has been a constant thorn in our side, had locked the hall and left his mobile number attached to it. When we first called, he didn't pick up. And then after ten minutes of constantly calling, someone appears who can open the hall for us. We'd assumed that the inside had been set up for us and it was locked to prevent someone from disturbing things, but we soon found out that wasn't the case. Besides the desks and chairs naturally found in a lecture hall there were no chairs or tables for the panelists and materials.

Mitra dashed off to take care of some of the logistical matters while I worked to get the projector and technical things taken care of. Just as we got the projector adjusted and people were starting to trickle in, the power went out. Luckily the microphones and projector worked on a battery, but there was only enough to use one of them so we stuck with the microphones. At 2:00 PM when the event was scheduled to start we'd just gotten the room arranged and taken care of but we were missing several panelists, the chairperson and attendees! The room was literally empty except for maybe six people. At that point I started to panic. But half an hour later, the room was filling up, and we had all of our panelists but one. We left one of the Baha'i youth outside to direct people inside, and Mitra got the show on the road with opening remarks.

The event was to commemorate United Nations Day, which is actually on Tuesday but it's not practical to hold something like this during the week, especially since it will probably be Eid al Fitr (عيد الفطر). The theme for the panel discussion was "The Role of Family & Youth in Establishing Brighter Communities" with a sub-theme of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Our panelists were Hon. Stella M. Manyanya, member of Parliament; Ms. Elieshi Lema, publisher and author of "Parched Earth"; Mr. Killian Nango, chairperson of the Youth of United Nations Association of Tanzania; Mrs. Sohaila Loftus of the Baha'is of Tanzania; Dr. J. Mwani, senior lecturer with the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Dar es Salaam; Dr. Adeline Kimambo, Director of the Christian Social Services Council and former member of the Board of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS); and Ms. Shalli Tumaini, Minister for Gender and Women's Empowerment of the student government of the University of Dar es Salaam.

Each of the panelists gave a presentation about 10 minutes in length (some more, some less) on the topic, and then the floor was opened to comments, discussion and questions and answers. One thing we learned was that seven panelists and 10 minutes each is way too much. Next time around we have to focus on less panelists and higher quality presentations because people were getting restless at some points through the event, although I suppose the lack of electricity and the fact that it was hot didn't help a whole lot. In fact at some point some people were asking if they were going to get paid for coming! Unfortunately, that is a culture that has developed around conferences and symposiums here - participants are paid, instead of the other way around. Everything is a handout in Tanzania.

Probably the most controversial presentation was Dr. Mwami, who argued that colonialism had broken the family system that was in place before and thereby led to many of the problems that Tanzanian society faces today. I can't speak about whether or not that's true, but Sohaila stood up and blasted that theory in the end, saying that the country has had independence for a long time now and that continuing to use the crutch of colonialism is never going to let the country advance. I tend to agree, but I also thought it was extremely important that Dr. Mwami was present and delivered a presentation that was a "dissent," at least for the sake of interesting discourse.

In the end we had about 100 people attend, which included (surprisingly) many students from the university. At the end, many of them pledged their support to a brainchild of Mitra's that we should form a team of interested parties to carry the dialogue forward and eventually refine the ideas into actionable items that can be presented to the government. I warned her that we would be taking on more than we could handle if we did that, but she plans to just get the ball rolling and try to get DARUSO (the student government) to take the reins. We'll see how that goes.

After the event there was a reception, which offered us an opportunity to touch base with a number of the organisations who attended and for the audience members to mingle with the panelists. Overall, I would call it an astounding success for us. We put a lot of hard work into it, and it seems to be paying off. We're working now with members of the press to publicize the event, and more than likely the Baha'i World News Service will also cover it.

When we finished with everything at the university, we headed to an Ethiopian restaurant to meet Susan Lamb, an Australian Baha'i who is serving as Chief of Staff of the Prosector's Office at the Rwanda Tribunal in Arusha. She was visiting her brother in Dar es Salaam and graciously invited us to dinner. The food was fantastic, especially the coffee! Those Ethiopians know their coffee. It was nice to finally meet Susan after knowing for so long that she was in Arusha but never having an opportunity to see her.

Today, I was supposed to go to Kilwa Kisiwani, but I decided against it at the last minute. I was so absolutely exhausted from the United Nations Day celebration that whatever adventurous spirit had motivated me to go was gone. There's no way I would have been able to survive in a bus of questionable quality on roads of even more questionable quality. Mitra headed to Zanzibar to spend some time with the rest of the family, who went there on Saturday morning, and I slept in.

When I woke up I decided to walk to a shopping centre a little over a kilometre away to get some cash from the ATM and that turned out to be a big mistake. It was in the mid-90's today and the humidity and sun were brutal. It was so hot and nasty that the horizon was obscured. The roads I was walking on were so dry and glaringly hot that I felt like I was trekking across the Sahara. By the time I got back home my shirt was literally completely drenched in sweat. A cold shower has never felt better! Really I don't know how people here manage to survive the summertime with all of the physical labour and walking they have to do. I guess I'm just not cut out for it!

The rest of the day I spent following up various things from the event yesterday, so it turned out to be a good thing that I'd stayed home. This evening, as I was bringing dinner to the table for Sohaila and myself, the dish simply fell apart in my hands and sent ghormeh sabzi splattering all over the Persian carpet. We opted to go out to eat after that and ended up at a place with American-inspired cuisine. It was nice to spend some more time with Sohaila, who is always full of amusing stories and wonderful insight.

The rest of the week I anticipate spending getting ready for my trip to western Tanzania and Uganda. And resting. Definitely plenty of resting.

Day 240: May Saba & Home Visits

2006-10-19T15:34:00.000-05:00

"We have a fixed time for you, O peoples. If ye fail, at the appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent hold on you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every direction. How severe, indeed, is the chastisement with which your Lord will then chastise you!"

- Baha'u'llah

The past few weeks I've really been trying to concentrate more time on May Saba. I've been putting her to bed and helping her read The Hidden Words and do her homework. What prompted the reconcentration was an explosive argument I had with her about her attitude in dealing with me and her mother, especially when we're trying to help her with something. I don't think the particulars need to be mentioned, but it still seemed unfair for me to expect her to revolutionize her attitude without playing a more active role in the development of her character myself. Not to mention I'll be leaving soon, and I'm going to miss her a lot, so it seems like a good idea to spend as much time with her as I can.

One night while I was trying to help her understand one of the Hidden Words, she started poking me in the face and goofing off, so I tried to steer her back to the task at hand. Finally she asked, "Why are you so patient with me?"

After pointing out that just a few days ago I was yelling at her, I went on to reply, "You're patient with the ones you love, right?"

After a moment of silence she finally looked away and admitted that she wasn't always, but after a little encouragement decided that maybe she could make a better effort. Then she asked me if I was bothered by people who teased me about my weight, and I told her I was sometimes but usually not. In a huff, she declared that she didn't know why I had to be so "virtuous" all the time!

The night before last I stayed up until 11:00 PM helping her with a report she had to write on Australia. Because she didn't do enough research in a previous assignment, we had to redo that assignment and then begin writing the report. Based on her knowledge and my knowledge in fifth grade I really wonder what on Earth they're teaching these children! There seems to be waaay too much emphasis on playing games and sports and having fun rather than academics. She's learning things now that I'd already covered in 2nd grade. I had to explain the three branches of government in most modern democracies and then assist her with research about Australia's particular form of government (federal parliamentary democracy, in case you were wondering), which I knew next to nothing about. It took a long time, but after laying down the ground rules about listening to me when I was trying to explain something she was exceptionally attentive and (I think) learned a lot.

I also went with Mitra to the parent-teacher conference with May's teacher, and I think I was mistaken for Dr. Sabet, which happens every once in awhile. We also went to one of her soccer matches. It was pretty amusing to watch the children who attended affluent schools running around in their well-tailored uniforms getting the mess beat out of them by the students from local schools who had uniforms and shoes that were literally falling apart. It seems that appearance isn't everything in soccer (and a lot of other things)!

In terms of Baha'i work, we've mostly been busy organizing the United Nations Day panel discussion at the University of Dar es Salaam. We've been working closely with Shalli, a member of the student government, because the event is being co-hosted with them. The other day we were going around camps glueing up posters. We scaled a hill and had a fantastic view of the city and the ocean (hills are rare in Dar es Salaam) and placed a poster on one of the main lecture halls. A few moments later we hear a bunch of scuffling behind us and yelling, including the obligatory "Hey, mzungu!".

I kept walking, mostly because I don't like being called mzungu, but Mitra turned back. It turned out that the man supposedly responsible for these particular lecture halls had taken it upon himself to march over and rip our poster off the wall! He was giving this big long ranting speech about how foreigners come and think they can do anything until Shalli appeared and really ripped him a new one. Tanzanians aren't really the type to get mad about things, but wow, she really laid into him. After she finished with him, she stomped off and we followed while she explained that he was just "a foolish old man" that saw foreigners and thought he could get some money. It really gives me hope to see brief moments when Tanzanians themselves can identify inequity and foolish behavior and boldly stand up to denounce it.

Later on, we ran into more trouble when the man whose entire job it is to put up posters and banners around the university refused to do so unless we paid him. This mentality of expecting to be paid extra when a white foreigner shows up really gets to me sometimes. Aside from being unfair, it does nothing to empower local people or uplift their dignity that each time me or someone like me comes sauntering by their immediate response is to ask for some kind of handout. Just because I may or may not have more money than you doesn't mean you're entitled to do everything in your power to extort some of it from me, especially to do your own job!

Unfortunately, we had to pay him, otherwise it wouldn't get done. The amount of money we've had to spend on stupid things like this just to put on one event is mind-boggling. We've spent more than half our entire annual budget trying to hold one relatively small event due singularly and solely to the inefficiency and corruption of the African continent. On some days when I'm feeling like a defeatist I wonder if it wouldn't be better if every single foreign person in Africa got up and went home. I know that's not the solution, but God knows people make you feel like it is sometimes.

Dar es Salaam just recently launched the fifth cycle of growth of its intensive programme of growth, so tonight we started doing our part of the plan. The cluster has been split into teaching teams based on social relationships. For example, I'm with the Sabets and another family that lives nearby and we associate with on a regular basis. We're engaging in a campaign of home visits during the expansion phase to invite people to devotional meetings and increase the community of interest, and then the consolidation phase will focus on more home visits and bringing people into the other core activities.

Tonight, we had our first two home visits. We visited two people that lived near each other, Rashidi and Janet. We're very good friends with Janet, and we drop by her house often so it wasn't so much of an unusual thing for us. The Sabets had met Rashidi before, but this was my first time seeing him. He's somehow related to one of our teaching teammates, and he owns one of the local business-oriented newspapers/publishing companies. He described himself as a person that didn't believe in prayer, but nevertheless believed God was "in everything." The way he spoke was very eloquent and touched upon many principles that he shares in common with the Baha'i Faith. As Dr. Sabet said, he was "very enlightened." We invited him and his sons to our devotional meeting at the end of the month, and also extended an invitation to our event on Saturday.

At Janet's house, we had a good time (as always). She owns a travel agency, a restaurant and cultural centre, and a few other things. She's a very good friend of the Baha'is, and she's been working with Dr. Sabet to try to find a plot for the local Baha'i Centre. She gave us the obligatory cake and tea, and we shared stories and enjoyed one another's company. We invited her to our devotional and she happily accepted (she loves coming to the house for devotionals), promising to bring her sister and also stop by the house for dinner next week to meet Hossein's sister. Before we left, she insisted that we pray together to bless her home. I chanted a prayer, and Janet prayed fervently for a few relatives, for us, and for a new plot for the local Baha'i Centre.

Two successful home visits in one night makes you feel really good about the Five Year Plan and the direction of your community, especially when they're spent with such wonderful and spiritual people.

Tomorrow the house will be stuffed with guests. Hossein's sister and brother-in-law are coming from Zambia. They're going with Hossein to Zanzibar on Saturday morning and Mitra will follow on Sunday after the U.N. Day event. We're also hosting Sohaila from Iringa, who is serving as the Baha'i panelist at the event on Saturday. Since the Sabets will be out of town for this weekend and half of next week (Monday and Tuesday are public holidays - Eid el Fitr), I decided that I would take a short trip to Kilwa Kisiwani, a World Heritage Site down the coast from Dar es Salaam. Since I'm going by myself, God only knows what sort of "adventures" I'll run into but I'm really looking forward to the trip. I return that following Saturday and then head for western Tanzania and Kampala on Monday.

Day 231: Post Office Mayhem Revisited

2006-10-10T09:45:00.000-05:00

"...ordinary people all over the world, recognizing that no-one would escape the effects of a nuclear war, have rightly asserted that peace is everyone's concern."

- Baha'i International Community, "Creating a Universal Culture of Human Rights"

Mitra and I had to go to the post office today. We ran into two good friends of ours, Mr. Crippling Inefficiency and Ms. Mass Chaos.

Mitra had to send a package to her son who is doing his year of service in the Kigoma area, and we also had to mail 119 invitations for United Nations Day. The woman at the information desk told us to go to either window 11 or 12. When we showed the letters to the woman at window 11, she told us to go outside and around the corner, which I knew from my previous trip to the post office meant she was sending us to the parcel area. Nevertheless, I have learned not to complicate things by asking questions.

At the parcel area, there were two lines. One was much longer than the other, and we were told to get into the long line by one of the postal employees loitering around doing nothing whatsoever. When we were finally called, we were told that they didn't handle parcels going to destinations inside the country and the parcel area didn't handle letters. Basically, we were in the wrong line and we needed to get in the other line. When we got to the end of that line, the woman refused to speak English. Thankfully, Mitra knows enough Swahili to converse in it on a basic level. This woman told us that she wasn't going to send the package because it wasn't wrapped in brown paper despite the fact that the half dozen other packages she had just taken weren't wrapped in brown paper.

Back at the information desk, the woman manning it directed Mitra to where she could find some brown paper and told me to go back to window 11 or 12 to mail the letters. Back at window 11, the woman decided that this time she would take the letters instead of sending me around the corner for no reason. After counting the letters (I guess to make sure I wasn't lying about how many stamps I wanted?), I paid her and she gave me 119 stamps and a dish of water. Mitra returned with her package wrapped in brown paper and offered to help, but I thought it would be better that I start stamping alone while she went and stood in line in the parcel area.

Halfway through the stamping, Mitra returned and helped me finish the rest. After being told "subili" (wait) a few times, the woman had taken her package. Back at window 11 with our stamped letters, the woman handed us our receipt and told us we should drop the letters "outside." Outside, we found a big box marked "DSM Mail Only," and after a few questions we determined that was where they were supposed to go. We hoped. After saying goodbye to Mr. Inefficiency and Ms. Chaos, we got back in our car (which thankfully hadn't been stripped and/or stolen) and headed off to finish our errands.

Speaking of Mr. Inefficiency and Ms. Chaos, it was reported in the paper today that the power situation would be getting worse, even though they've been saying for weeks it was going to improve in mid-October. The two major hydroelectric dams, Mtera and Kidatu, are scheduled to stop working in 15 days because the water in them is so low. They have a combined capacity of producing 280 megawatts of electricity but right now they're only producing 33 megawatts during the day and 48 megawatts at night. In 15 days, they'll be producing 0 megawatts and five regions in the northwest of Tanzania will be completely without power.

Although the majority of my service here has been wonderful and the friends have been especially cooperative, I have run into one consistent problem and that is that many people don't accord me very much respect, if any at all. I can't get around the fact that I'm "just" a year of service volunteer, but I'm also the Secretary of a committee of the National Spiritual Assembly. My work is constantly frustrated by people dismissing my requests and being all around uncooperative because, after all, I'm "just" a year of service volunteer. I know that I'm only here temporarily and that most volunteers don't end up on national committees or function as the secretary of anything, but that's not much of an excuse for the way I'm occassionally treated. The secretaries of the National Institute Board or the National Literature & Publishing Committee aren't made to jump through the same kinds of hoops that I have to, and I know my counterparts in Kenya, India, Ameria or wherever else aren't made to do the same thing, either.

But, as Mitra sometimes reminds me, that's a nag.

News is often a little slow here, but we found out about North Korea's nuclear weapon test shortly after it happened. I was furious, as if I had some personal stake in the whole ordeal. I can't believe that they have gotten away with it so easily when we invaded Iraq (supposedly) on the mere suspicion that they had weapons of mass destruction. Now we're just standing around puffing a lot of hot air when a nation far more dangerous than Iraq actually tests the most destructive of them all! Of course we all know now that we didn't invade Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (although everyone seems to be in denial or too afraid to say anything without being beaten over the head about terrorists, 9/11 and national security) but it's the principle of the thing.

So now the world is going to get together and slap some more sanctions on North Korea. The whole regime of sanctions laid on them before this didn't seem to bother them too much, and they still managed to develop nuclear weapons so I don't know what makes people think these new sanctions are going to affect them anymore. I guess as a Baha'i I shouldn't be advocating the use of force but the blatant hypocrisy of my own government's foreign policy really sets me off sometimes. And what makes countries think it's a good idea to do this anyway? What are you going to do with a nuclear weapon anyway? Use it and thereby guarantee your own complete and absolute destruction? Nevertheless, I'm sure South Korean and Japanese politicians are now behind closed doors discussing the very real possibility of developing their own nuclear "deterrents."

Day 230: A Day at the Beach

2006-10-09T12:33:00.000-05:00

"Pointing her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: 'By God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend not. This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His sovereignty within you, could ye but understand. This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them that perceive.'"

- Baha'u'llah

Yesterday we took an afternoon trip to the beach after everyone had finished their morning business at the Baha'i Centre. I neglected to bring the appropriate change of clothes, so I decided to just walk in the water a bit along the shore. Hossein and May were trying to convince me to get in but I held fast and decided to just play in the sand with Mitra. She was making a mountain and decorating it with shells (while I was making a dam and attempting, unsuccessfully, to keep the waves back), so I decided to go down closer to the water to find some for her.

When I got close to the water, Hossein starts walking up beside me with a look in his eye. I knew immediately he was going to try to push me in, so I better positioned myself so he knew I knew what he was up to and he abandoned his attempt. After a few minutes, he motioned me over toward a spot a little deeper, where there was a bit of a drop-off in the water, saying there were a lot of shells there. I thought surely he wouldn't try the same thing again, but I was wrong. He shoved me this time and down I went! When I'd regained my footing, I rushed and tackled him. In the process, my glasses came off and went drifting off into the ocean!! I was blind! Luckily, Mitra came splashing down into the water (an amazing feat since she doesn't like the water) and found them while Hossein and I were blindly splashing around trying to get them before they were dragged away. With the strength of the waves that day, it was practically a miracle that Mitra found them. After a few groping attempts in the water, she just reached down and non-chalantly picked them up as if they had been in front of her the whole time.

After a bit of swimming around with Hossein, I drifted closer to the shore with May Saba. Mitra had decided to walk around a little in the waves since she was already soaking wet from rescuing my glasses. Even though I was in her debt, she made the mistake of splashing at me. I leapt and grabbed her leg "like a crocodile" (according to her) and dragged her into the water. Suffice it to say, we all had a nice day of playing around at the beach.

When we came back home, we'd invited our Auxiliary Board member and husband over for dinner, and they ended up bringing along another Auxiliary Board member and his wife as guests. Mitra cooked some wonderful kabob on the grill, and we had some leftovers from the big devotional meeting we'd had the night before. It was really nice to have some of the friends over, although we found out that one of the brothers of one of the ABMs was kidnapped in Pakistan! What a terrible ordeal! I can't imagine going through a family member being kidnapped, especially so far away in a place like Pakistan. They're completely uncertain what's happened to him, but they're hoping that the security police have just mistakenly taken him for questioning or something.

Today, Mitra and I went to a follow-up and evaluation meeting for International Day of Peace at the Ministry of Information, Culture and Sport. After the obligatory finger-pointing about things that went wrong, we were able to have an honest assessment of the event and begin planning for the future. Unfortunately, the President of Tanzania decided to set aside International Day of Peace as Tanzania Sports Day, so this year we were stuck with a chaotic last minute attempt of trying to merge the two events. This year, it's hoped that the head start will help. So far we've formed two working groups within the larger committee to handle the issues of sports-related activities and peace-related activities separately and set meetings for November for the working groups and December for the whole Committee. My only regret is that I won't be here to see it beyond its initial planning stages.

Day 229: On the Road Again

2006-10-08T06:42:00.001-05:00

"I am, I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word and to pledge allegiance to My person."

- The Bab

There should be (God willing) some new pictures on the Flickr site.

This past weekend, against May's vocal protests, Mitra and I went to Iringa in the mountains of the southern highlands area of Tanzania. We were there to conduct external affairs training, and I also delivered a presentation on intensive programmes of growth and consulted with the cluster coordinating committee of Iringa.

Unfortunately the most reputable bus company in the country has been declining in quality quite severely lately. Some of the stories the friends have been bringing back about their trips have caused me to concern, and, of course, I wasn't disappointed on our trip...

In the beginning, the bus was late even leaving Dar es Salaam because we got caught in traffic related to there being no functioning traffic lights during the day and not enough traffic police to direct the flow of traffic. Then barely outside of Dar, the bus broke down. Something was wrong with the gear box so we could only go in third gear. There was some discussion about turning back to Dar es Salaam, but the driver decided to go to Morogoro (2 1/2 hours away) and "see what happens." I guess he thought if he kept driving the bus would magically fix itself. When we got to Morogoro, after driving in third gear the whole way, they did some tinkering around and seemed to fix it a little bit, but it still wasn't functioning properly, which meant a 7-8 hour trip took us 10 hours.

Along the way, Mitra and I discussed dreams, the Baha'i community, Africa, homosexuality and the Faith and women on the Universal House of Justice among other things. For the most part we dozed, read and did a little preparation for the training.

When we arrived in Iringa, we were retrieved by Sohaila, a member of the Iringa Town community, and taken to her house where we were to stay and conduct the training. Lucky for us, the jacaranda trees were in bloom in Iringa, which meant there were purple blossoms all over the place. With the beautiful weather and surroundings it's not hard to understand why Iringa held such importance to the colonialists and still holds importance to modern-day missionaries. Sohaila's house is at the foot of a rising ridge with large rock formations, which helps to block a bit of the raging wind and give you something nice to look at.

The external affairs training started on Friday evening, shortly after we arrived. In fact, the friends were basically there waiting for us when we showed up at Sohaila's house. We were able to refresh ourselves with a quick wash and some chai and fruits before getting into the material. We're trying to develop a network of public relations officers around the country that we can call on and mobilize especially for the defense of the Faith within the country and in regard to the Baha'is in Iran but also for media efforts with newspapers and radio. The training manual was based on one developed in the U.S. for the Public Information Representatives there, but it took a great deal of modification to make it fit in with local media and what we were trying to create. Iringa proved to be the training ground for the training itself since it was the first time we conducted it. There are even more modifications that need to be made before we give the training again, which will probably be in Dar es Salaam and probaby after I've already returned to the US.

Friday night, I was nearly assassinated by my bunk bed. I put on my pajamas and got ready to get into my nice comfortable bed. When I put my hand on the mattress to ease down the whole thing collapsed down on top of me! After retrieving Mitra and Sohaila we managed to fix it and I got a nice, motionless night of sleep. The next day, Sohaila said when she was inspecting it it fell apart on her again! With a bit of investigation, she determined that her house staff had broken it when they were moving it around, and they were hesitant to tell her. "What should we say?!" they exclaimed. "That we broke the bed?" I suppose so, yes, that would have been the thing to say.

On Saturday, we went to Ruaha Secondary School for its graduation ceremony and 20th anniversary celebration. Like any graduation, there were plenty of speeches but there were also a few dances. One in particular by "The Shake Brothers" was interesting. I tried to take some pictures but with the lighting it seems they were moving a little too fast for my camera. =P We got to speak with the year of service volunteers - Annais, Rahan and Ella - for a bit, as well as a woman visiting the school on behalf of the Office of Social and Economic Development in Haifa. She was working on some moral education curriculum and doing a bit of field testing at Ruaha and Banani in Zambia.

Mitra and I got a little bored with the graduation so we wandered around the school a bit. As a member of the Policy Committee, she's planning to do an environmental audit for the school so we were snooping around to see what areas she'd have to focus on when she returned for that purpose. In the kitchens, we were warmly welcomed by the women tending about 30 huge aluminum pots on makeshift fires stuffed full of food for the graduation. We asked for a taste, a little - "kidogo" - and of course we were presented with two heaping plates of pilau and meat, white rice and fried chicken. Although it wasn't quite what we wanted, it did help us avoid the enormous line for lunch later. There must have been 1,000 people there! Freed from having to eat, I was able to catch up with a homefront pioneer and consult a bit with another member of the NTC during lunch, as well as talk to the lady working with OSED about her projects and organize the cluster coordinating committee for a meeting that evening. It seems that work follows you everywhere!

At two points during the graduation, Mitra and I were completely caught off guard by being introduced during the formal programme. While Mitra technically has some connection to the school as a member of its Policy Committee, I have absolutely no connection. But still, it seems that when a mzungu shows up at some function then they must be paraded up front for everyone to see. I imagine it reflected well on the school to have visiting "dignitaries" and "experts" from Dar es Salaam, even if we aren't really anyone in the grand scheme of things. Since we didn't really announce that we were coming, I have no idea how they managed to spot us and work that into the programme. I must have been as red as a beet when they made me stand up!

On Saturday evening, I managed to accomplish my NTC project - a PowerPoint presentation on intensive programmes of growth and collection of information about the activities ongoing in the Iringa cluster. It was a bit of a task trying to assemble the cluster coordinating committee right after the graduation, but I managed to get most of them, the cluster institute coordinator and one of the other members of the NTC. The presentation itself is a bit long (described as "epic" by one of the participants) but walks the friends through the entire intensive programme of growth, from its launch to the four phases in each cycle of growth (planning, expansion, consolidation and reflection) to the end of the cycle and the beginning of the next. Especially important, I think, are the questions it provides participants to assist them in their planning phase. The friends seemed to find it helpful and it assisted in fruitful consultation afterwards when I began collecting information and "capturing the learning" from their efforts so far. Hopefully their challenges and successes can be put together with the information I'll collect when I go to the western part of the country to assist the remaining priority clusters with their own efforts.

We travelled back up the mountain (Ruaha school is at the base of the plateau thing that Iringa town sits on) to Sohaila's house, ate dinner and got a good night's sleep before the external affairs training resumed on Sunday. Thanks to the participants good grasp of English and understanding of the material we were covering, we managed to finish by the early afternoon on Sunday. Mitra and I accompanied the friends into town to the bus stand, laughing and joking all the way. Three Africans, an American and a Persian laughing and talking together managed to turn a few heads, including those of the missionaries who seemed to be wondering who we were and what we were doing on their turf. Mitra and I did a little shopping in the market, got cursed at by a tiny little street boy of no more than five years who we refused to give money to ("Fuck you!" he yelled) and then headed back home. Because there was so much food for dinner, we invited four of the friends from Ruaha school up the mountain to have dinner with us, including two of the year of service volunteers. They stayed fairly late into the night as we swapped stories about Africa, Tanzania and pioneering in general.

The whole time we spent with Sohaila at her house was truly wonderful. She's a delightful woman, and she proved to be an exceptional host. The food was absolutely fantastic but always too much to eat (Persians, go figure)!

On Monday morning, we loaded up and headed back to Dar es Salaam. After stopping at a rest stop built by Muslims to drive business away from the Christians who had built the old rest stop down the road, we heard this God awful crowing from the back of the bus. I turned around and noticed this woman had two chickens with her. On the bus. "Good Lord," I thought. This particular bus company, which I mentioned has been going downhill, seems to have taken a nose dive. Before, they tried to maintain a certain professionalism and insure that no barnyard animals and arm loads of vegetables and fruit and household items were hauled onto the bus, but it seems that policy has gone out the window. Now they're just like every other bus company in Tanzania.

Next time I take a trip, I feel certain I'll find myself sharing a seat with a goat.

Day 215: Mwizi Monkey

2006-09-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

"...man's glory and greatness do not consist in his being avid for blood and sharp of claw, in tearing down cities and spreading havoc, in butchering armed forces and civilians. What would mean a bright future for him would be his reputation for justice, his kindness to the entire population whether high or low, his building up countries and cities, villages and districts, his making life easy, peaceful and happy for his fellow beings, his laying down fundamental principles for progress, his raising the standards and increasing the wealth of the entire population."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

This has been an absolutely exhausting weekend! Because of a scheduling difficulty, the National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) ended up meeting on the same weekend as the National Teaching Committee (NTC) and then we found out that the National Institute Board (NIB) was also meeting at the same time and the Continental Counsellor had come to meet with the NSA! The Baha'i Centre was really packed full with practically the entire national administration.

Dr. Sabet, the NTC's chairman, was out of town in Ghana. I was expecting him back on Friday evening, but he called to say his flight had been rearranged to early Saturday morning. Then he called to say that his flight from Accra to Nairobi had been overbooked in Sierra Leone, so he had to schedule himself to Dar es Salaam through Johannesburg and he wouldn't be there until the afternoon. Then finally he called to say he was stuck in South Africa because his flight from Accra was late and he missed the connecting flight to Dar. Fortunately everyone else showed up!

We ended up meeting from 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM! That's the longest meeting we've had since I've arrived but we did have a lot to cover. The week before our meeting I really forced myself to work and wrap up the handful of projects that I had pending. So now we have a manual for youth year of service volunteers, a manual on how to conduct the National Baha'i Convention, guidelines for Area Teaching Committees and an in-depth presentation on intensive programmes of growth. I still need to develop a presentation on Baha'i elections and the role of the Local Spiritual Assembly in the Five Year Plan but those were lesser concerns at that point.

Among a myriad of other decisions, it's been formally decided to send me westward to begin capturing the learning that's happening in the clusters on the other side of the country. The clusters there are experiencing explosive growth with the sixth intensive programme of growth launched last week - four of the six are now in the same general area, including two in refugee camps. So I'll be visiting all of these clusters along the way, interviewing their Local Spiritual Assemblies, Area Teaching Committees and institute coordinators to discuss how they've managed to see so much growth. Hopefully we can translate that knowledge into something useful for the rest of the country and even the Baha'i world.

I'll be leaving for the west in November following an October trip to the southern parts of the country to visit another outstanding cluster in Mkululu/Masasi where a homefront pioneer has set the area on fire (figuratively!). While I'm in the northwestern reaches of the country around around Lake Victoria I'm hoping to drop into Rwanda to visit a friend and see some of the things dedicated to the genocide there. One of the members of the Committee started to question why I would want to go there but another interjected to prevent the question, saying simply that it's "an important place for Americans," which I take to mean important to us because of our failure to stop it before it was too late. After Rwanda I plan to go see the Baha'i House of Worship in Kampala and then either cross Lake Victoria by boat to Mwanza and back by bus or loop around the lake to Nairobi and come back via Arusha.

In addition to long hours dedicated to the NTC meeting, I also met with the NSA with Mitra to discuss External Affairs activities. We covered a lot of materials, determined our budget and largely discussed the issue of registering the Faith in Zanzibar, which is turning into a bit of a legal quagmire. While we were meeting the Centre staff brought in the Assembly's lunch and put it on a table. Some time afterwards, an NSA member noticed that one of the monkeys that lives around the Baha'i Centre was trying to reach through the window and steal the Assembly's lunch! Now that's definitely an experience unique to Africa!

We've had the Counsellor and a member of the NSA staying with us this weekend, so it's been a pleasure to have guests at the dinner table. Not a lot of elucidation about the Plan or our work or anything, but we've heard some wonderful stories, including how the NSA member and her family were detained for two days when first arriving in Tanzania about 20 years ago! Apparently they really didn't like foreigners too much back then.

This coming weekend, I'll be going to Iringa with Mitra for Ruaha Secondary School's graduation and to conduct external affairs training and give the presentation on intensive programmes of growth to the Area Teaching Committee there. It seems like whenever I travel somewhere I have to try to cram about a hundred different things into a small amount of time! But with the weather warming up, I'm looking forward to getting into the mountains where it's a little cooler, not to mention it will be nice to see the friends there again.

Day 212: "Expedited" Mail Service

2006-09-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

"This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue -- it affects the survival of human civilization. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

- Al Gore

My mother sent me a package from the U.S. containing my digital camera among other things. Unfortunately, she sent it to our physical address. The mail service here doesn't deliver like it does in the West. Everyone has a post office box and they send and receive their mail from there. If you send something to a physical address, you may never see it again. Thankfully, she included my mobile number, and Posta (the post office) called me to say it had arrived.

Mitra was kind enough to drive me down there because a week or so ago I hit my toe on a chair pretty hard. Luckily it isn't broken (we don't think) but it hurts enough to keep me from walking a lot. When we arrive, an employee pointed us toward another section of the post office marked "Expedited Mail Service (EMS)." When they told us to go to EMS, I knew we were in trouble because, simply put, nothing here is expedited.

Upon arriving they directed us to the one lady who is authorized to deal with incoming packages. Finding only one person in charge of something that a lot of people use is common, and as you'll see later, they're frequently not around. After producing my passport and answering a string of useless questions, she finally produces a slip of paper.

"You need to see a customs officer so they can check this," she said.

"Okay. Where are they?" I asked.

"They're at lunch," she responded, as if it were obvious. "Come back at 2."

We didn't have time to wait around and come back at 2, so I decided to go the next day. I went with Mitra's assistant, Mei Shirin, and we managed to collect the box from the woman and take it to the customs officers. Luckily they weren't on break, gone to lunch or just plain not there. After digging through the box, taking everything out and making a neat little list of what customs she planned to charge me, the woman proceeded to forcefully jam everything back into the box. She handed me a slip of paper and pointed to the other side of the room, telling me to go pay the cashier and then go back to the first woman.

When we got to the cashier's spot, no one was there. Naturally. And of course there's only one person authorized to act as the cashier.

"She's gone to the bank. Come back at 2," the customs officer said when we went back to ask her where the cashier was. Now why she didn't tell us that before sending us over there is beyond me. On top of that, it seems that everyone will be back at 2, so maybe I should just start going to places at 2.

On day three of trying to receive just one package, we finally managed to pay the cashier and then go back to the first lady. She also charged me money, which was written in the "other fees" section. I think that translates to "someone's pocket." At any rate, I finally got my box after three days of dealing with the Expedited Mail Service. And if that's expedited, I don't even want to know what the regular mail service is like.

Today is the International Day of Peace and the Office of External Affairs was involved in organizing the event with the United Nations. It was centered on children, so a bunch of primary and secondary schools were invited by partner organizers. Each school gave a presentation about peace, which included some Baha'i children. They went through the area with some banners I made that said: "We are the children of one planet. We are the children of one God. We want peace! Guess what we need from you? Be a peacemaker! Be a peaceworker!"

Originally we were supposed to assist one of the interfaith groups here (headed by a Baha'i) organize prayers at the beginning of the program, but on Tuesday we found out that he completely let us down. So on Wednesday, Mitra was scrambling to use all of her contacts to find religious leaders willing to come say a prayer. Through sheer tenacity and will she ended up with a Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim. None of the Christians were willing to come! They were running us around in circles with the need for letters and authorization from the diocese and all kinds of nonsense. I mean, come on. What does it take to come and say a prayer for peace? At any rate, we managed to find one on the spot at the event.

In addition to the banners, we made a display about the Baha'i contribution to peace-related activities in Tanzania (the core activities), and I attended the planning meetings. If anything else it was a good opportunity to network with some of the NGOs in the city and let the U.N. offices know we're here and willing to help them when we can. Our ability to put together the prayers on such short notice certainly gave us a boost with the organizing U.N. agency, although all the credit for that goes to Mitra. All in all it was a successful event for the office.

Our next big task is United Nations Day. We're planning a panel discussion on "The Role of the Family in Building a Brighter Community" at the University of Dar es Salaam. There will be panelists from the U.N., the government, civil society, the university and the Faith (representing Faith-based organizations). We're working with the student association on campus to get the event accomplished and get the word out to the students and the faculty. I can see already that it's going to be stressful, especially since I'll be out of town for most of October, but God willing it'll come together. "Somehow," as they say here.

Day 208: Lights Out

2006-09-17T02:01:00.000-05:00

"They beheld with impotent fury the disruption of their authority and the collapse of their institutions."

- The Dawn Breakers

The power situation here only seems to be getting worse. TANESCO (the state monopoly on power generation) announced a new rationing schedule: no power for residential areas from 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM every day of the week, no power to industries from 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM three days a week, and the rationing schedule now includes Unguja (Zanzibar) and Pemba. Before, industries were unaffected and residential areas were without power only during the week, not the weekend.

Unfortunately, a turbine just broke at the main natural gas plant here in Dar es Salaam, which seems to be the reason for the new rationing schedule. Also, the two major dams generating electricity for the country are only centimeters away from being depleted to the point that power generation has to stop. And if the dams go down, we just won't have power at all.

We're lucky enough to have a generator here at the house and at the Baha'i Centre, but generators aren't a sustainable solution. Now that the cuts have been extended to industry, Tanzania is more than likely going to lose the economic gains it's made in the past decade, if not more than that. Not everyone can afford a generator and the fuel to operate it, especially not the small businesses that encourage the rise of a critical middle-class. With the middle-class wiped out it'll be back to business as usual for Africa: masses of poor and a fistful of elite.

A group of businessmen in Arusha asked the government to declare a state of emergency "before it's too late," but I think it's probably already too late. Mitra is saying that in two years they may leave because things "are going to get bad." That sounds pretty ominous in a country where people don't like to fight, but no electricity, no food, no water (there are already water shortages in Dar es Salaam with more on the way) and a rapidly declining economy can lead people to anything.

And yet, I saw hope in one of the young people in a study circle I'm tutoring. In a country where no one criticizes the government and everyone has a picture of the president in their home and business, she boldly proclaimed, "Why should I keep a picture of the presidents in my house? They don't care about us. We have no power, we have no food, we have no water, we have no economy. Why idolize someone that leaves your country poor and helpless while they're getting rich?"

Why, indeed.

Day 195: The Journey Home

2006-09-05T01:11:00.000-05:00

"He, verily, shall increase the reward of them that endure with patience."

- Baha'u'llah

My trip back to Africa seemed to be going fine until I got to Chicago. As those of you from Little Rock know, it takes an act of Congress to get anywhere other than Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas from Little Rock "National" Airport. Since I was on my way to New York, I had a stop over at Midway in Chicago. If you haven't been to Midway lately, they've really improved it. It's almost as nice as O'Hare and not nearly so crowded.

Anyway, I was taking a Southwest Airlines partner from Chicago to New York - ATA Airlines - so I had to go to the counter at the gate to get my boarding pass. When the man asked if he could help me, I shoved the piece of paper across the desk and grumbled, "Boarding pass." Bear in mind I'd been up since 4:00 AM, and I'd only gotten about three hours of sleep. I know Southwest people are humorous and good natured, but it seems the employees of their partner companies are, too. "Boarding pass? What do you mean 'boarding pass'? What kind of way is that to come up to me and start asking for something?" the man asked, clearly joking. "This ain't New York. Now let's try again."

I guess I had been a little rude, so I asked for it again in a little more polite tone. I stayed and talked to him for a bit once he found out where I was going and where I was from. Apparently three employees of ATA at Midway are from Arkadelphia, which is just weird. When you meet people from Arkansas outside of Arkansas you expect them to be from Little Rock or Fayetteville, not three people in the same place from the same place with a population of no more than 10,000.

After a bit of a wait, they announce that they want us to "hurry up" and get on the plane. So we all come rushing to the gate and, surprisingly, orderly board the plane. You'd never see that kind of thing in Africa. If they told us to hurry up and get on a plane here, everyone would bum rush the gate and probably one person would be trampled to death in the stampede. Lining up doesn't exist here. At any rate, when we were all on the plane they praised us for being so quick, but then told us we had to please get back off and sit in the gate area. No one seemed to believe the man at first because we weren't moving, but then he broke down into plain English: "Seriously, ya'll gotta get off this plane."

Back at the gate, they told us that La Guardia had shut down because of bad weather. They were trying to rush us on to the plane so we could take off before they closed, but we didn't make it in time. An hour and a half later, we were back on the plane and in the air. At La Guardia, I managed to finally collect my baggage at 5:00 PM. My flight left from JFK at 6:10. La Guardia was a madhouse. With the airport closing, it had thrown everything off. I've never seen so many people in an airport pushing and shoving and yelling. The line for taxis was ridiculous and all of the shuttle buses were running late because of traffic. Add to this that La Guardia is one of the most suffocatingly nasty and pathetic airports I've ever been in (and I have been to the Flint, Michigan airport).

Even if everything had fallen perfectly into place for me, it was doubtful that I would make it across Long Island from one airport to another, check-in, go through security and make it to my gate for an international flight in an hour and ten minutes. In fact, my entire booking depended on everything running smoothly - I had just enough time to get from La Guardia to JFK, grab a bite to eat, and get on the plane - so that was clearly my fault. In the words of the shuttle bus coordinator, "Ain't no way you makin' a 6:10 at JFK." He advised me to try to call the airline and rebook before the flight left and mayve after explaining the situation they wouldn't charge me a fee. After some wrangling with my mother and the Internet to get the number, my cell phone was near death. I knew I didn't have enough battery to last through the obligatory holding period of half an hour, so I decided to save it instead of waste it.

Finally at JFK, my arms were about to fall off. It turns out lugging around two 50 lbs. bags, a backpack and a laptop bag is not an ideal way to travel. Go figure. At the KLM ticket counter, I ran into what you might call a stereotypical New Yorker. I told him I'd missed my flight, to which he replied, "And...?" He finally rebooked my flights for the next day, charged me $200 for it and then sent me on my way. All without a smile. The art of friendly customer service seems to have been outsourced to India.

I stayed the night in a nice hotel near the airport (surprisingly quiet) and then came to the airport at 12:00 Noon, which is admittedly six hours before my flight, but still. There was no one at the ticket counter. It's the middle of the day and the place is completely deserted. I know a lot of international flights depart in the evening, but come on! What kind of ship is KLM running? What hours do their employees actually work? Around 2:30 PM some people finally shuffled in and started helping. After an eternity dealing with a person equally as friendly as the one the day before, I was told to wait in a line to pay my fee. It was taking so long to process the Europeans in front of me (they were being difficult) that they were finally kind enough to pull me aside and allow me to pay someone else. While standing in line, I saw no less than three different sets of people get infuriated by the ticket agent. In other words, KLM's New York-based agents are terrible.

In Amsterdam, I noticed the difference between American and Dutch security. In Amsterdam's Schipol airport, this is one of the security warnings: "For security purposes, please keep a close watch on your belongings." In Chicago's Midway airport, this is one of the security warnings: "DO NOT leave your baggage unattended. Please report unattended baggage. All unattended baggage will be seized and destroyed by the Chicago Police Department."

On the plane from Amsterdam to Dar es Salaam, I sat next to a judge on the High Court of Tanzania. It was nice to meet a prominent person for my External Affairs work. He was returning from some victimology conference in Florida, indicated by his gigantic bright pink hat with "FLORIDA" plastered across the front of it. He proved to be good company, and offered lunch the next time I'm in Dodoma.

At the airport, I was able to expedite myself through the "East African Residents" line at immigration, which was nice. I collected my luggage, which was all waiting for me, and headed to customs. "Anything to declare?" the man asked cheerfully. "Nope," I said, and off I went. Talk about thorough! Mitra and Hossein were waiting to pick me up. They both seemed happy to see me and at that point I was happy to be back. Back at the house I said hello to our new house guest and a sick May Saba, then collapsed in bed...but not before erecting the mosquito net, a necessity once again.

In closing, a word to the wise: please don't leave your baggage unattended in Chicago.

Day 188: The Advantage

2006-08-30T01:17:00.000-05:00

"I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness. When soldiers of the world draw their swords to kill, soldiers of God clasp each other's hands! So may all the savagery of man disappear by the Mercy of God, working through the pure in heart and the sincere of soul. Do not think the peace of the world an ideal impossible to attain! Nothing is impossible to the Divine Benevolence of God."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

On my fifth day back, I'm feeling a bit mixed up inside. The jubilation and sense of relief after finally arriving seem to have faded away, and the vacuum they've left has been filled by a hundred different on-rushing emotions. I think it would be accurate to say that I'm already depressed. Unfortunately, so is Mitra. It's hard to determine whether or not one of us has caused the other's depression, but we're certainly feeding into one another's depression. We seem to be depressed, more or less, about the same sort of things. It stems from a long, on-going debate about an ordeal I'm facing that, up until now, I've pretty much kept to myself.

In all my naivete, it seems I have fallen prey to one of the local believers, who from the outset has apparently been laboring to dupe and seduce me into some sort of relationship with her. To me it was nothing more than a platonic friendship. I just assumed we were good friends; to outward seeming it wasn't anything more or less than what might exist between two friends in the United States. But in fact, it turns out she has been spreading misinformation to incite rumors about the nature of our relationship, outright lied to me, and so on and so forth. All of this has sullied my reputation with a few people here, so much so that a few people thought I was the one behind all of this, that I was the one generating the rumors, and that I was "using" this poor, innocent girl, when in fact it was the other way around. Thanks to Mitra's intervention that seems to have been corrected, but it's slightly hurtful that someone could possibly come to think that about me in the first place.

Throughout this saga, which started before I came back to America but took on a new terrible form and shape after I returned, Mitra has been invaluable to me. She tried to warn me before but, in typical American (and Bryan) style I brushed it off and assumed that I knew what was best for me. I guess I'm now reaping the fruit of that strategy. She has been kind enough to listen to me and provide words of comfort while I'm sitting there crying because I got my feelings hurt. It's not just that I've been deceived, although it certainly makes one feel stupid and gullible when you find out you've been so easily and flawlessly manipulated. It's not just that people have thought that I was capable of taking advantage of someone in such a manner and that even though this girl has a clearly established pattern of behavior in doing this to numerous people before me local believers still chose to take her word over mine. It's more the bigger picture: what am I here for?

And the bigger picture also seems to be what Mitra is depressed about, too. These people lie, cheat, steal, gossip, manipulate and deceive without a shred of remorse. They lack any small amount of loyalty, and they have a level of superstition the likes of which I've never seen before in my entire life. And I say "they" and "these people" fully aware of how racist I must sound to the reader, but it's nothing but the truth. It has nothing to do with the color of their skin but everything to do with the content - or lack thereof - of their character. "So what," you might ask, "if the society behaves this way. We Baha'is are supposed to set an example." And yet therein lies the problem because these people are Baha'is. And that is what makes it hurt ten times worse.

What are we doing here if the people seem incapable of changing? Why do people become Baha'is if they can't embrace even the most basic of its tenets? We were having a brief discussion of this at lunch and Dr. Sabet enjoined Mitra and I to heed Abdu'l-Baha's words and look for the one positive thing in people and work with that. But at this point I wonder if I can even do that. I am so disappointed in myself in so many ways. How could I have been so blind to allow myself to be advantage of in such a manner? How can I sit here and think so poorly of Africans? How can I condemn others for not being Baha'i enough and in the same breath break the very same rules of behavior that I wish they would uphold? And most important of all, how could I, who came here so brimming with liberal thoughts and optimism, have allowed myself to become so bitter and pesimistic about what I've done here and what I can do?

Day 177: Old Friends, Old Family

2006-08-21T01:50:00.000-05:00

"Your utmost desire must be to confer happiness upon each other. Each one must be the servant of the others, thoughtful of their comfort and welfare. In the path of God one must forget himself entirely. He must not consider his own pleasure but seek the pleasure of others. He must not desire glory nor gifts of bounty for himself but seek these gifts and blessings for his brothers and sisters."

- Abdu'l-Baha

On Saturday I was able to spend some time with Queena. She was in from Memphis, so we had lunch, went to a movie, ate ice cream and had some fancy, over-priced iced tea at Starbucks. The movie was "Step Up," which I ordinarily would never see, but at a certain point it becomes less about those things and more about just enjoying the company you have. She was certainly at the top of my list of people that I missed the most while I've been gone. The people who somehow seem to bring out the best in you (and, sometimes, the worst) are always the ones that you love the most. And as I get older (I'm sure that will elicit some laughs) I'm gaining a greater appreciation for the handful of good, meaningful friendships that I have. You appreciate it even more when it's endured strain and difficulty and survived. I'm planning to (finally) go have dinner with her in Memphis on Wednesday, which is somewhat of a drive, but, again, certainly worth it.

Today, my mother convinced me to go with her and my dad to pick up my great aunt and take her to visit my great uncle in Arkadelphia. They're both in their 90's. My great aunt has Parkinson's disease, and my great uncle has been having problems with his knees and feet. My great aunt is especially amusing, if inadvertantly. The way she declares things and asks questions is hilarious to me. We ate at one of those fish places on the highway that are so numerous in Arkansas. It had clocks and crosses on the walls. Afterwards we drove to Lake DeGray and looked around, observing especially how low the water level was. Summer seems really hot this year!

In five days, I'll be back on a place bound for Tanzania. Of course everyone's big question is whether or not I'm excited to go back and that's a difficult question for me to answer. The selfish side of me is very keen on staying in the Western world, but the rest of me understands the importance of service in Africa and pulls me back. Everyone's service is different, and it stands clear that mine has been heavily influenced by working at the national level and living in Dar es Salaam. Whether or not those are good things remains to be seen, since it seems premature to draw a conclusion and pass a judgement without finishing up my service.

I can confidently say that I'm looking forward to seeing the Sabets again, especially May Saba. I understand that we have two new youth living in the house now, so I'm sure the potential exists for me to be long forgotten. I'd like to think I made more of an impression than that but you can never tell with kids. They seem to kind of have wandering minds sometimes, but I guess so do adults half the time. I'll certainly find out in a few days!

Day 169: Mr. Amin Goes to America

2006-08-12T06:07:00.000-05:00

"The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home."

- Baha'u'llah

So, it's been a while, huh? Unfortunately, I had to come home in the latter part of July because of my grandmother's health. She's been in the hospital for varying amounts of time since January with all sorts of ailments. Because of her declining health, I made the decision to come home, leaving Dar es Salaam on Tuesday evening and finally arriving in Little Rock on Thursday afternoon. In between all of that, I made a 9 hour stop in Amsterdam, which afforded me an opportunity to leave the airport.

Mitra, May and Allen escorted me to the airport on Tuesday evening. The woman at the ticket office in town had told me the day before that the flight left at 9:30 PM with check-in at 8:15 PM. That seemed like a suspiciously short check-in time, but of course I didn't bother to check her quoted time against my actual ticket. Mitra engaged in some creative driving to get me there on time, including driving down the sidewalk, because we ran into a massive traffic jam on the road to the airport, which seemed to be made all the worse by the presence of the police (instead of the other way around). When we arrived at the near empty airport, I checked my ticket and discovered that the other passengers hadn't shown up yet because the flight didn't leave until 11:30 PM!

We decided that I should go inside, check my luggage, get my boarding pass and then come back out and have tea with them at the cafe upstairs and say goodbye. After I got my boarding pass, I attempted to go back outside but the security people stopped me. I argued with them for a few minutes, incensed that I wasn't allowed to leave the airport after I'd gotten my boarding pass even though I offered to just stand outside the door, go back through security again and even be monitored by one of the security personnel while I stood outside. Finally giving up, I asked the man how exactly I was supposed to say goodbye to my family, picturing a tearful May Saba waiting for me to come back. His reply? "Stand at the window and wave to them." How cold hearted!

I was already frustrated about not getting to say goodbye to the Sabets but the people in the duty free shop seemed to feel that I just hadn't had enough difficulties. I only wanted a news magazine but I didn't have any cash, so I tried to use my debit/credit card. The woman informed me that they only accepted credit cards for purchases exceeding $20, which forced me to buy two news magazines, a drink and a seriously over-priced Putumayo CD of salsa music from around the world (who thought salsa music could be global?). When I signed the receipt, she asked to see my credit card. After moments of scrutiny she announced the obvious: "Sir, your signatures do not match." Unfortunately, my signatures never match. I have the most inconsistent signature in the world, basically a line like an erratic heartbeat on an EKG machine with a somewhat identifyable "B" and "T" somewhere amonst the scribble. I told her that (in fewer words) and produced my drivers' license and passport to verify my identity but when she saw that none of the three signatures matched each other she was even less cooperative.

When her manager came over, I was starting to lose my patience as he explained that if my bank called to investigate the charge then it would be important that the signature "on file" at the bank (since when do banks keep signatures "on file"?) matched the one I'd given them. I have no idea why the Bank of America would care about a $20 charge at the duty free shop in the Dar es Salaam International Airport, and I told him as much. Given all the scribbled line signatures they get at the bank, I'm sure they know by now that I essentially don't have a signature. I don't know if it was my explanation or the fact that I was getting increasingly belligerent but he finally decided to give me my things and let me leave.

Although that was some unpleasant business, the plane ride to Amsterdam itself was nice. I was content with my news magazines and new CD (overpriced as it might have been, it was still good) and the seemingly brand new 777 we were on. As a side note I was a little disturbed by the fact that the airplane only had two engines, but it seems that it can fly for six and a half hours with only one engine so that makes me feel a little better (after the fact). Because I was in a row with a French man whose arm was broken, I was moved to a three-seat row with only one other occupant so the broken-arm man could have some extra room. Unfortunately, I don't sleep very well on planes but I managed to catch some sleep over Sudan and Libya and woke up in time to see us fly over Syracuse, Messina and the Alps.

The first thing that struck me most in Amsterdam was the airport security, or lack thereof. I saw only a handful of security personnel for such a large airport. When I was passing through immigration, I was beginning to think that maybe it was more secure than I thought when the Malaysian woman in front of me got the third degree from the immigration officer. But when it was my turn he barely looked at me. He just took my passport and without saying a word stamped it and waved me on. I suppose having an American passport helped, but I had a harder time leaving and entering my own country!

Anyway, I bought a train ticket to go from the airport to the city centre. It seems there are three distinct forms of transport in Amsterdam: train, tram and subway. I couldn't figure out any of the three. I bought a train ticket, but at one point I ended up getting off (after getting on the wrong train in the first place - talk about deja vu) and boarding the subway. At no point did anyone ask me for a ticket nor did I see one of those machines you have in most American cities where you have to insert your ticket to enter and leave the station. But before I even boarded the train, I ran into a bit of a character...

While waiting on the train, I was checking out the extremely confusing map of the transportation system, which had trains and God only knows what else heading to what seemed like all of the towns in the Netherlands and into Belgium and Germany. Standing next to me was an equally as confused older gentleman who I judged to be in his 70's. He was very neatly dressed and frankly I assumed he was a European until he opened his mouth and asked for help with finding his stop. Then I knew immediately from the accent that he was a New Yorker. He recognized that I was an American and asked me what state I was from, which was a great relief to me because people had been consistently mistaking me as being German (?) or British. When I told him "Arkansas," his first reaction - as with every single other person - was "Oh! Bill Clinton!".

Now, when someone says "Oh! Bill Clinton!" to you, you don't really know if it's a good "Oh! Bill Clinton!" or a bad "Oh! Bill Clinton!". People are so polarized about him that it could go either way. But I soon found out that John and his wife, Barbara, were both staunch Democrats from Manhattan. Imagine my shock when this seemingly polite and well-dressed New Yorker suddenly launched into one of the foulest strain of profanities I've ever heard, all directed at our reigning President.

To paraphrase: "Bill Clinton... Oh, I miss Bill Clinton. He's better than this schmuck Bush we've got now. That stupid son of a b****h just f**ks up everything that he touches, just every mother f**king thing. Me and Barbara can't even travel around this b*****d continent without someone getting all over our a** about that stupid jack**s Bush and the s**t that he's pulling all the time. Sure, Bill Clinton was corrupt. Believe me, I'm from New York, I know how corrupt the Democrats can be. But at least when they were in power everyone was eating, you know? But now these Republicans, they're using all this religious bulls**t and while you're down on your f**king knees praying they're picking your pockets clean. God d**n I hate that man."

At first, I had no idea how to respond. A nervous chuckle here, a "heh, yeah" there and then, mercifully, the train pulled into the station and we said our goodbyes. I wished them a safe trip and the best of luck with the 2008 elections.

By the time I managed to get to Amsterdam's Centraal Station in the city centre, it was somewhere around mid-morning, maybe 9:00 AM or so, but the city seemed like a ghost town! Those few people that were out and about all seemed to be smoking maijuana as they delivered goods to the various shops and cafes lining the street. I'd planned my itinerary back in Dar es Salaam bearing in mind that I would probably be tired when I got there, which was good because I was about to drop dead from exhaustion when I stepped out of the train station.

Unlike London, most people were content to use public transportation or bicycles so I didn't have to worry about being run over by some speed crazed Dutch flying around a roundabout at twice the speed limit. The bicycles were actually kind of amusing. As the morning progressed I was passed by men in business suits and woman in very proper dresses all cycling to work, which is very feasible in a city as compact as Amsterdam.

My first stop was the Dam Square, which was actually a dam for the Amstel River before it grew so large that it was turned into a town square. It houses the Royal Palace, which is just used for ceremonial purposes these days; the Dutch branch of Madame Tussauds Wax Museum; the so-called New Church, which was actually built in the 14th-century but I guess that's still pretty new by European standards; and the National Monument built to commemorate the victims of World War II. Here I was privileged to see Amsterdam's finest arresting a woman who must have been crazy given her dress and the strands of aluminum foil weaved into her unkempt hair. The old Dutch man next to me insisted on delivering running commentary about the incident even though I told him three times I didn't speak Dutch.

After taking a wrong turn and viewing some of Amsterdam's more residential areas, I finally got back on track (after walking in a big circle) and headed toward the Anne Frank House Museum. On the way I must have crossed a dozen different canals! There are canals everywhere and if I hadn't been so exhausted it might have been nice to take a canal tour of the city. But alas I was determined to get to Anne Frank's House and then head back to the airport for some sleep. On the way to the museum, I passed a sign which indicated there was a "Homo Monument" nearby. Since I everything is in Dutch, I assumed that "Homo" must have been "Human" or "Humanity" in Dutch. I made a mental note to check it out on the way back to airport.

At the Anne Frank House Museum the line was stretched out the door, around the building and down a sidestreet. I took a picture of the Anne Frank House and decided I'd go inside the next time I was in Amsterdam.

Back at the Homo Monument, I managed to locate the thing but couldn't find the English inscription. Eventually I found it and discovered that this was not in fact a monument to humanity. Instead, it was a monument to homos, as in homosexuals. Flustered and embarassed, I made haste back to the main road. I didn't even stick around to finish reading the inscription or information about it. It wasn't that I'm opposed to a monument for homosexuals, I was just so thrown for a loop that I didn't know what else to do but evacuate! I was expecting a monument to the whole of humanity, not a minority portion of it! Being such a liberal and open society, someone in the Netherlands sought to immortalize the struggle of the homosexual community, to "inspire and support lesbians and gays in their struggle against denial, oppression and discrimination." It's basically a large triangle made of three smaller triangles of pink granite, which is a reference to the pink triangle patches that gay men were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. Each point of the triangle points to a specific landmark within Amsterdam: one toward the National Monument, one toward the Anne Frank House, and one toward the COC Nederland, a gay activist organization.

I bumbled back to the Amsterdam airport on the train without being asked to present my ticket a single time. I received the same treatment at immigration (brief glance, stamp, wave) and the security was even worse going into the airport! I stepped through a metal detector once, which of course went off with my carry-on luggage, but I received only a cursory glance. No one checked my things until I arrived at my actual gate. I'm sure if our Department of Homeland Security found out about it they'd be furious!

The flight between Amsterdam and New York was on a 747, which was like a flying city. I got lost trying to find my seat after stubbornly refusing the flight attendant's assistance at the outset. When we landed at New York, I had another run in with an "interesting" New Yorker at immigration. I don't know if the immigration officials were sleeping or what but they didn't seem to know we'd arrived. I was one of the first people off the plane, so I entered the area through an open entrance but apparently not the main entrance. I was standing in line in the improper place behind this diminuitive black woman. A woman working for the airport comes and tells us that we have to go to the back of the line even though people in front of us had already passed through the immigration officer's extreme scrutiny (*tongue in cheek*).

The woman in front of me turned around and I could tell from the look on her face that she was about to unleash hell, so I stepped to the side. She asked the airport woman just who the hell she thought she was making us get at the back of the line. We'd been on an airplane for eight hours and she sure as hell wasn't getting at the back of the line, so this lady needed to just step off and let us go through because she was ready to go home. And don't even think about messing with me either because I was "with" her. The airport lady's earlier confidence just totally metled in the face of the woman's verbal assault! She just slumped away.

When I got outside the airport to the transportation area, it was a few minutes past 8:00 PM and they told me the last shuttles to La Guardia (I had to switch from JFK to La Guardia) left at 8 so I had to take an over-priced taxi. When I got to La Guardia I found that all of the ticket agents were gone and the electronic check-in was disabled, which meant I couldn't go into the airport proper. My flight left at 10:00 AM, so I had to sleep in the public area of the airport. Enter interesting New Yorker number 3. The area I was directed to had a number of benches, but they were all divided by big plastic arm rests into individual seats except one, which was already occupied. Along comes this old Cuban man, who I assume is an airport employee. He promptly tells me that I "look like hell" and that I really needed to get some sleep. I relayed to him why I was coming from Africa, so he says he's going to wake up "the broad" that was sleeping in the only actual bench. She was an airport employee and should have been sleeping there it seems. So he woke her up, ran her off, and offered me the bench, which I graciously took. After I'd arranged my baggage I tried to get some sleep but typically by the time I was asleep the door would slide open and freezing cold air would blow in from the sea and wake me up.

Despite the troubles ("adventures") and the excitement, I finally made it home. I was under the impression from my mother's description that my grandmother was in the process of dying but not quite there yet, so I wanted to go home, shower, change clothes, get some food, and then go to the hospital. But they were insistent, so I settled for a shower and change in clothes. I spent about 4 hours with my grandmother, who really didn't look much like my grandmother at all. I felt that I'd been a bit deceived about her state while I was still in Africa. Her breathing was extremely labored, her eyes literally glazed over and only partially open with one eye going this way and one going the other way, and she seemed to have no muscle control, not even enough to tighten her grip when I was holding her hand. Maybe 20 minutes after I left the hospital my mother called to say she was dead, which I guess indicated that she was clinging to life long enough to see me before she went.

The visitation was an opportunity to see a bunch of people that I didn't know, although there were a handful scattered around that I actually recognized. The funeral home had put together this very nice DVD that ran throughout the visitation that was basically a compilation of photos of her throughout her life and it was probably one of the things that "got" to me the most. I only observed her in the coffin briefly. She didn't look herself from all the fluid and swelling but then again I guess most dead people don't. I'm made really uncomfortable by funerals and whatnot, but even more so by a dead, hollow, shell of a body itself.

The funeral was held at the Baptist church she attended with her new husband. I was a bit concerned about a Baptist preacher presiding over it, but he did most of it in good taste (although there will always be too many mentions of "in Jesus's name" and "true believers" for me, which is my own personal issue with the Church and clergy). I was proud of myself for not being the hysterical mess that I was at my grandfather's funeral nor completely in denial like I was about my other grandmother's funeral. I'm sure I'll still grieve from time to time as things come to the surface or I see something that reminds me of her, but it will probably lessen with time.

This must have topped a new record for length but at least I've relieved some of the pressure to post!

Day 147: An Early Return

2006-07-22T16:22:00.000-05:00

"Man draws imaginary lines on the planet and says, 'This is a Frenchman, a Musselman, an Italian!' Upon these differences wars are waged. Men are fighting for the possession of the earth. They fight for that which becomes their graves, their cemeteries, their tombs."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

As you've noticed there hasn't been an update in almost a month. While the Sabets have been away, I've been traveling a lot across the country and general consummed with work (as I should be). That's left me with little time for putting up blog posts! Rest assured, I've been taking many notes and things and there will be some large post up in the next few weeks. I just dropped by to leave a quick note saying I'll be coming home prematurely for one month. My grandmother is sick, and it's important that I be at home to see her.

Stay tuned!

Day 123: A Short Update

2006-06-29T11:44:00.000-05:00

"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.

Day 110: Work, Work, Work

2006-06-19T13:54:00.000-05:00

"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

Day 103: Work & Waterballoons

2006-06-12T14:38:00.000-05:00

"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.

Day Ninty Four: Teach the Children

2006-06-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

"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!

Day Ninty One: Appointments

2006-06-01T15:11:00.000-05:00

"...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!

Day Eighty Eight: Tome of Zanzibar

2006-05-29T12:57:00.000-05:00

"At every moment he beholdeth a wondrous world, a new creation, and goeth from astonishment to astonishment, and is lost in awe at the works of the Lord of Oneness."

- Baha'u'llah

Because it's day eighty eight of my stay here, I'll tell a funny story that happened to me during the Institutional Conference last weekend. Because there were roughly 80 delegates, I asked one of the National Centre employees to make "eighty" copies of a document. Swahili speakers have a habit of attaching an "i" on the end of many English words, and the Swahili "i" is always pronounced as "ee." So when she heard me say "eighty," she thought I was saying "eighti." She came back later and handed me eight copies of the document. I was so stressed out at the time that I didn't immediately understand what was going on. Finally, I clarified that I wanted "eight zero" copies of the document, and then we could have a good laugh about "eighty" and "eighti."

Last week, I went to Zanzibar to visit Sally, a member of the National Spiritual Assembly and a homefront pioneer. To get to Zanzibar, you either have to take a ferry or a plane (duh). I opted for the ferry because the plane is just too expensive. So I was going to have to take the dalla dalla to the ferry terminal at the city centre, but a taxi comes pulling up and offers to take the people standing at the dalla dalla stop (three of us) for TSh 500 each, roughly $0.50. On the way into the city, I talked to a Masaai fellow named Emmanuel, who happened to know one of the local Baha'is. Having determined that we were "good people," he went out of his way to take me to the ferry terminal. He advised me that I should only buy a ticket from the ticket window and then went on his way.

At the ticket area I was immediately harassed by four or five men, each offering me a "good" price on a ferry conveniently leaving earlier than the one I was going to. One man in particular was extremely obnoxious. He kept nagging me on and on until I forcefully told him I had already chosen the ferry I wanted to take and that he was wasting his time continuing to talk to me. For some reason, he thought a more effective strategy might be to belittle me. Suddenly, he begins rambling on about how the white man thinks the black man is stupid and how we're always trying to keep them down and for that reason I wasn't accepting his assistance. Setting aside the immediate desire to just flat out punch him in the face, I told him that insulting me wasn't going to be a more effective tactic to sell me a fake ticket and that he'd do well to move on and try to dupe some other mzungu. He finally got the picture after a few other bystanders, mostly ticket hagglers themselves, intervened on my behalf because earlier I'd told them I was from Arkansas, the home of Bill Clinton. It's the oddest thing, but because I'm from the same place that he is, I'm automatically transformed into an ally of the African people or something (even though a lot of people in Arkansas would be lucky to even find the continent on a map).

There were three hours before the ferry left, so I decided to walk to the government map office. I've been asked to create maps which show the physical boundaries of all the clusters in Tanzania. When I walked into the map office, I immediately noticed a sign on the wall that said, "Please do not shout in the map office." I thought that was a little unusual, but I forgot about it as I tried to explain to the woman that I needed a map of each region which showed the districts and towns. After explaining the same thing three different times, only to find out that they didn't have what I needed, I understood why the sign was on the wall.

On the way back to the ferry, I met an odd assortment of people. One lady was obviously insane. She had Christmas tree lights woven into her hair, and she was talking into a case for her reading glasses as if it were a mobile phone. Another guy was a tour operator from Arusha who, from the look in his eyes, seemed to have a conscience as he tried desperately to get some money out of me for taking me to the fish market. I don't like fish, I don't like the smell of fish, and I've already been to the fish market so he was just out of luck. Arriving back at the ferry terminal, I found the same horde of people waiting to sell me cashews, biscuits, tea, water, sodas, newspapers, and everything else under the sun. I opted out of waiting around for the ferry with them and chose instead to cross the street and duck into one of the large cathedrals on the waterfront. It'd been a while since I'd been in a church, but I enjoyed the quiet sanctity and the prayer that I was allowed.

Before boarding the ferry, an extremely thorough check of my carry-on baggage was done. That should be read dripping with sarcasm. The lady only asked me if I had a knife, which made me wonder if explosives and firearms were permitted. The trip to Zanzibar was mostly smooth and pleasant, except for the smell of petrol from the engine room. I think I may have lost a few brain cells. C'est la vie. On the boat, I actually met another Baha'i. I was reading "Call to the Nations" by Shoghi Effendi, which has the word "Baha'i" on the front of it. I noticed the man next to me was looking at my book alot, which led me to believe he was just nosy as hell, but he got up and came back with an American college student. She asked if I was a Baha'i, and then told me that she was too and that she'd been in the country for 2 months. She was here doing some service project with her university, and they were travelling to Zanzibar for a bit of fun before returning to the United States.

At the port on Zanzibar, I was greeted by Sally's niece, Agrippina, and one of her friends. They had a sign they were holding up for me and everything. It was much better than the welcome I received when I first arrived in Tanzania, which was nothing. Literally. No one to meet me at the airport or anything. Thank God the National Centre was listed in the phone book. Anyway, back to the point, we took a taxi from Zanzibar Town to Mila Sita in the Mwera area outside of town. "Mila Sita" is because it's six miles from Zanzibar Town. I greeted the village children and women, all of which were intensely curious about my arrival, and then greeted Sally and the rest of her household. At dinner, we walked to the main road, and it had been transformed into a bit of a night market. The road was lined with many different vendors selling all sorts of food. I tried some local thing that consisted of potatoes, onions, fish, and spices mashed together into a patty and then fried. It was pretty good!

We returned back to the house for our real dinner, which was large and elaborate in honor of my visit. Following dinner, the house was suddenly filled with children and junior youth. Apparently the village children come to Sally's home every night to watch a movie. They pushed and shoved until they were all seated in front of the TV and then started watching the old American movie they'd brought. It was all in English, which none of them understood, but they watched it with rapt interest nonetheless. They adore Sally, and they're very enthusiastic about the junior youth group that she's planning to start.

That night, I slept on a rope bed, which is basically a wooden frame with a bunch of rope stretched between the sticks to give support to the mattress. I was convinced that I would break the thing, but I slept well throughout the night. It seems that when I left Dar, I brought the rains with me. It started raining hard during the first night and continued to rain off and on throughout my entire trip. The weather even turned a bit cold, so much so that it wasn't really feasible to go to the beach! In the morning, I woke up to the sound of roosters and screaming children (of course).

In the morning, we had chapatis, eggs, oranges, and cardamom tea that was so good. As I recall, cardamom is a bit expensive at home so you can't just go throwing it into tea, but because Zanzibar is a "spice island" most of the world's more exotic spices are plentiful and affordable. Because it was still raining, we each did a little work and then took a taxi into town for a bit of touring.

Our first stop was one of the larger markets where we shopped for different vegetables and spices, half of which I'd never even seen before. Among the more memorable was lychee, which is an unusual but tasty fruit. After the market, we wandered into the highly famous Stone Town section of Zanzibar Town. Stone Town is noted for its extremely narrow streets, so narrow, in fact, that a car can't even pass through them. They're lined with shops, houses, and mosques and filled with all sorts of sights, sounds, and smells (not all of which were good, mind you). Zanzibar is noted for its extremely elaborate doors, which feature master woodworking and carving skills. Each place seemed to have a larger and more magnificent door. My favorite was the Indian style doors, which had spikes on them.

In Stone Town, I purchased a kufi hat and made a spectacle while doing it. I was actually buying it for a friend, but the man insisted that I try it on. Unfortunately, my head isn't shaped very well for hats. My head was too big for the hat, but the man kept trying to jam it down more and more. Soon a crowd started to gather around as the shopkeeper tried to screw this hat typically worn by African Muslims down on top of the mzungu's head. After that ordeal, we stopped to eat some mangoes with salt and pele pele (chilis), which was surprisingly good.

When we returned home, the village children took our bags and things from us and carried them to the house, freeing us up for a more leisurely walk home. Some of them wanted me to teach them a few English words, and I happily complied. Unfortunately, they never could quite work out the difference between morning, afternoon, and evening, so they'd frequently run up to you and say "Good morning!" at 4:00 in the afternoon.

Dinner consisted of fish; cassava ugali; a mixed vegetable dish of eggplant, carrots, onions, and tomatoes; sweet pumpkin with coconut; and mango juice. Following dinner, I spent most of the evening doing my actual job: consulting with Sally about her situation and the future of the Faith in Zanzibar. The primary obstacle to her work as a homefront pioneer seems to be that the Faith isn't officially registered in Zanzibar. Because of the unusual form of government that unites the mainland (Tanganyika) with the Isles (Zanzibar & Pemba), Zanzibar has retained its own government, which asserts its authority at every available opportunity. External Affairs is working on getting that taken care of, and I think once it's handled she'll be able to freely teach the Faith and meet with a great deal of success.

The next day it rained until 1:30 in the afternoon, so after breakfast I lounged around the house and played with the resident baby. After the rain managed to stop, I went to a spice farm for a spice tour. I was able to see lemongrass, cloves, pepper, ginger, banana trees, cocoa trees, vanilla, lychee, cardamom, and cinnamon. I learned a number of interesting things. For instance, the Zanzibari government gave a set amount of land to every person after the revolution, but if your land has clove trees on it then you're required to sell the cloves to the government. I assume this means that all the cloves on the island go to the government. Another thing I learned is that the price for vanilla is so high because humans have to assist in the pollination of the vanilla plant. The flowers don't open by themselves, so someone has to come along and pry them open. Because of that, they don't really propagate themselves very well. When we came to the cocoa tree (I didn't know it grew on a tree!) our guide, Emmanuel, gave me a hint as to what it was by asking, "What makes women really happy?". My answer of "money" was wrong. =(

After leaving the spice farm, we headed for Jozani Forest, which is famous for its Zanzibar red colobus monkeys. On the way, we ran into some senseless and random police roadblock. They stopped our car and demanded to see all of my documentation. Good thing I brought it with me, sheesh. I produced my residence permit and passport, and they began talking to my friends in Swahili. My friends wouldn't allow me to speak with the police and instead assured me that they would handle it. Well, the way they handled it was probably not the best way. Looking for a bribe, the police said I didn't have the right documentation to be "allowed" on Zanzibar. They demanded that I pay money for a visa, even though I already have two different types of visas. My friends started off by explaining to them that I was family. The police promptly pointed out that a white person could hardly be the family of two black people, so they took the license of our driver, told us to go on the tour, and then told us to come back to retrieve the license. When we returned, they made us pay a TSh 3,000 fee to get it back. All this trouble for less than $3.00.

Because of the delay, it was late by the time we reached Jozani Forest. They were closing and at first they were a bit stubborn about letting us in, but we managed to convince them. It was too late to walk one of the nature trails, but we were able to go see the red colobus monkeys. It was really nice that we were able to get so close to them, but then again it was a bit worrying to see how we had disturbed their environment so much that they were totally unafraid of humans. After spending some time with the monkeys, we went for a walk in a mangrove forest. The water was pretty high, but we nonetheless ventured onto a not so stable looking network of wooden bridges that wandered through the forest. Because it was moving salt water from the ocean, there were no mosquitoes or animals. Only the wind and the water, which made it the most peaceful place I've been since I arrived here. I think I could have stayed there and relaxed forever!

Thanks to the hard work of Sally's niece, Agrippina, I was able to enjoy two of the big attractions on the island for just TSh 43,000, which is a bargain price considering we were being escorted everywhere by a taxi. He even took us back to the village, six miles outside of the city. When we arrived home, we had a dinner of sticky rice and beans with the crushed cassava leaves we'd picked up in the market the day before and watermelon for dessert.

The next day, we saw the Anglican church that now sits over one of the old slave markets (the whipping post is incorporated into the altar), the seafront, the Old Fort, the House of Wonders, and Fordhani Gardens. We stayed around Fordhani Gardens until it became dark and then the place transformed into another world. Food vendors materialized along the waterfront, breaking out cooking gear and gas lanterns to illumine their wares. We had fresh prawns, oily chapati, chips (French fries), bread fruit, mishkaki, and Zanzibar pizza. Zanzibar pizza is really sort of interesting. It's a very thin pastry that's filled with minced meat, spices, onions, and a few other things then rolled up and fried. Nothing at all like a real pizza, but very tasty. I have to mention here that I was really concerned about eating "off the street." But I've eaten off the street many times here and I've only gotten sick maybe once. It's really been very surprising. I got sick from food more in the U.S. than I have here! Of course I don't even want to think about the conditions they cook food in and the places they buy it from, but as long as I don't get sick and I don't starve then I don't have a whole lot to complain about.

There was a lot on Zanzibar that I didn't get to see, which definitely warrants a return trip, but there was a lot that I was fortunate enough to see and I'm very thankful for that. The island was beautiful and lovely, and the people were very friendly and considerate. I appreciated the care and hospitality that were afforded to me in the village and because Sally is so well known on the island I was able to meet very many wonderful people. The architecture and atmosphere are, of course, distinctly different from Dar. Then again, I relish any chance I have to get out of this city!

Day Seventy Five: The Ultimate Sacrifice

2006-05-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

"Humanity, torn with dissension and burning with hate, is crying at this hour for a fuller measure of that love which is born of God, that love which in the last resort will prove the one solvent of its incalculable difficulties and problems."

- Shoghi Effendi

There was a young girl was Down Syndrome on the dalla dalla a few days ago. She was in her school uniform on her way to school. A lot of the people on the bus were teasing her and laughing at her, making fun of her condition. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've seen this kind of thing happen. There's only one mental hospital in the whole country and if people have mental difficulties then they are teased and laughed at rather than consoled and helped. It made me so angry to see how they were treating this poor girl, but there was little I could do. I could have started shouting at them to stop it, but they wouldn't have understood me. I could have sheltered the girl, but she might have freaked out. I felt frustrated at myself later for just sitting there and doing nothing, so hopefully it will serve as an incentive for me to stand up and say something next time.

Last week, I nearly lost my temper. More than a month ago, the NTC wrote to two homefront pioneers and sent them some money. The letter instructed them to use the money to settle themselves in their new home and then report back to us when they arrived. Yesterday, Dr. Sabet asked me to check on them because we haven't heard from them yet. I asked about them at the Centre, and they informed me that the money and letters went to a post office box which was locked because no one had paid for it. God only knows how long they've known this. So these homefront pioneers are sitting around waiting on money and instructions from the NTC. In a second's time I went from completely calm to near exploding back to completely calm. I started to ask why they hadn't told me sooner, but I just let it go. It wouldn't do any good. I have no idea why people do the things they do and even if I knew why it wouldn't keep them from doing it. So I just resolved to deal with the situation I've been presented with. I do what I can with what I'm given, and what more can anyone ask?

Last week and this week have been spent preparing for the Institutional Conference, which begins on Thursday and ends Saturday. I've had little instruction as to what to do for it. I guess they thought I did a good job with the National Convention, so of course I'll be fine with the Institutional Conference. The problem is that I've never even been to an Institutional Conference so I have no idea what it's supposed to look like, and the program has changed at least half a dozen times since the end of the National Convention. I've been blundering along as best I can, essentially making it up as I go. I think it will turn out well enough. As usual, Victorina has been a big help to me. Thank God for small favours.

We have gone to Kariakoo twice trying to make arrangements for the guests to stay in a hotel, and we have to return once again in the morning to make a payment to reserve the rooms. The National Office has advised us to rent dallas dallas to take the delegates from the Centre to the hotel at night because Kariakoo is a dangerous place, apparently even to a group of 60. We were originally asked to make the accommodations on the edge of Kariakoo where it's safer to walk, but the prices were high so we went deeper into the area and found something more reasonable. After going a little over budget on the National Convention, I've been trying to be more conscious of the Fund this time around. I hope I'm not being careless with the safety of the friends for the sake of saving some shillings. Frankly, I never imagined myself in a situation where anyone's safety would be in my hands, and yet here I am.

After the Declaration of the Bab, I'm going back to Zanzibar with one of the Baha'i friends. I'll stay there five or six days and then return home for a day before leaving for Arusha for probably two months. I'm not sure if I'll actually be gone that long (the NTC seems nervous about me being away so long), but nothing shorter than a month. The good thing is that Victorina is coming with me to help me tutor the study circles, so at least I'll have a friend and Swahili speaker with me. While we're there, I plan to go to Kampala, Uganda via Nairobi, Kenya to visit the Mother Temple of Africa and spend a little time in Nairobi and Kampala. Depending on time and funds, I may try to visit the friends in Bukoba and Mwanza, too.

Because I'm going to Arusha for "so long" soon, May has been asking me to put her to bed, which involves all of laying beside her to read her a story, putting up the mosquito net, and turning out the light. One of these stories involved a duck thinking about seeking work at the "Peking Duck Factory," which he'd heard involved "the ultimate sacrifice" (being turned into a Peking duck dish). To me, putting a child to bed seems very much like my own personal "ultimate" sacrifice. However, over the past week and a half, I've found out that it isn't so bad. In fact, I've come to see that dealing with children in general doesn't seem to be so bad. Maybe I've been wrong about them all these years. =P

Day Sixty Six: The Funeral

2006-05-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

O SON OF THE SUPREME! I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve? I made the light to shed on thee its splendor. Why dost thou veil thyself therefrom?

- Baha'u'llah, Arabic Hidden Words #32

I went to my first Baha'i funeral today. A one year old child died from complications with his heart. We'd been raising money for him to fly to India for the necessary life-saving surgery. He was supposed to leave this coming Friday, but he died last Friday. We had a memorial service at the Baha'i Centre, and then everyone went to the Baha'i cemetary to bury him. After they finished digging the hole, saying the prayer, and put the coffin into the hole it began to rain very hard. By the time we left, everyone was drenched. All of the women were wearing their khangas in a way that indicated mourning, and we sang "Allah'u'abha" while they put the coffin in the ground and covered it.

The cemetary itself is a great state of disrepair. It's actually a small section of a large cemetary cordoned off for use by the Baha'is. The grass is overgrown throughout the whole place, but as Baha'is we should really be committed to making improvements in our area. We could at least cut the grass once a month or something. It doesn't have to be a garden paradise or anything, just look somewhat presentable! I'm hoping to meet with the LSA and come up with some kind of solution. Unfortunately, if we try to add any ornamentation or landscaping at all, people will probably come and steal whatever they can get their hands on.

I've been enrolled in an invitation-only group for becoming a junior youth animator. We're going through a pre-publication of the new Ruhi Book 5 and then moving through the three books developed by the Ruhi Institute for use with junior youth. I have to admit that I've really been struggling with it. The material itself isn't difficult, it's the pace at which we're working. The work is in English, but there are a number of other friends in the group who know English as a second language. Sometimes it will take upwards of half an hour discussing a quote because we have to reach a concensus on the meaning of a word and then sometimes explain the whole thing even when the people know the words.

I know, I know. How awful of a person can I be to be so impatient with people who don't speak English well enough to understand the Guardian, who I sometimes can't even understand? I'm afraid I'm not really an extraordinarily patient person. I think I have been dispatched to Africa to learn this very important virtue. We have 10 days to go through four books of material working roughly 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM and in addition to all of this I have to work on NTC things and other things from the national office. I have literally fallen asleep in the middle of the class while they're carrying on a discussion of "benign" or something. This isn't to say that I don't get anything out of the (seemingly endless) discussion but for some reason the pace of our work is really driving me crazy.

I realize that I do a lot of complaining here, but I hope people see it more as an internal struggle rather than me just being a jerk. I'm learning important life lessons but the road sometimes gets a little rough.

Day Sixty One: "Hello!"

2006-05-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, there are some new pictures of Dodoma and the National Convention on my Flickr account. I know people have been asking for more pictures and pictures of certain things, but it's not always safe or advisable to just whip out my camera and start taking pictures, not to mention sometimes I'm too busy. I do what I can, when I can!

Since the last post, my time has been consumed by the National Convention. At the last minute (my fault), I had to rush downtown to buy supplies with one of the National Centre employees. After we finished our shopping in the madhouse that is downtown Dar es Salaam, she went to get a cab while I waited in the shop. When I came out and got in the cab, the man was rambling on and on, "Blah blah blah mzungu blah blah blah mzungu." I knew he was saying something about me, but I wasn't sure what. It turns out he was complaining, and continued to complain the whole way to the Centre, because he felt my colleague had tricked him because she's an African and I'm a mzungu. He was mad because he'd already agreed to give her the African price, rather than the mzungu price, which meant he lost out on a few dollars.

Unfortunately, the inflated prices (especially for taxis) are taking a toll on my bank account, not to mention my mind. According to my calculations, I'm typically quoted a price that's anywhere from four to six times as much as a local person could get. I can usually negotiate it down to three times, but not much less because I don't speak Kiswahili. Where's the equity? Why am I discriminated against because of the color of my skin? Why do people assume that because I'm white I'm able to afford their inflated price, which in the long term only serves to destabilize the economy with real inflation? Is this payback for decades of imperialism and slavery or just plain predatory greed?

Okay, okay. I know there are plenty of good answers to those questions, but no matter how you slice it you just can't justify discrimination. Racism is not just an American problem or a European problem. It's an African problem, too. Or perhaps I should say it's a global problem, a global problem that should desperately be addressed. How can people expect there to be peace and unity in the world when people are building an entire economy around the exploitation of a people because of their color? And yes, I fully realize the irony in that statement. But just because Europeans and Americans have done it in the past and multinational corporations continue to do it now doesn't make it right. Two wrongs have never, nor will they ever, make a right. Racism as a whole must be addressed, not just racism of whites against blacks or blacks against whites. They're both wrong, they're both destructive, and they're both a serious impediment to the forward movement of development and civilization. I'm happy I'm a member of a Faith that can proudly stand up and say, backed by Writings which specifically outline the problem and its solution, "This is not the Will of God." But there is a long and troublesome road ahead before racism will be solved.

The evening before leaving for Dodoma, I took a taxi home from the Centre with the Counsellor. She decided to buy some flowers from the people on the street to give to the Sabets, so when we stopped they all came running. About 10 guys with flowers started shoving bouquets into the vehicle. We were laughing so hard that we couldn't even decide which ones to get. The taxi driver was yelling that he couldn't see and the flowers were in his eyes, but we couldn't stop laughing at the spectacle. She bought a dozen multi-colored roses for around $1.50 (imagine how much they'd be in the U.S.!), and we went home. In the morning, I had to get up early to catch the bus. We were the only ones awake so we shared breakfast and stories about the Faith. She also invited me to accompany her to the refugee camps in the western part of the country sometime in the future, so hopefully I'm able to arrange that.

After arriving in Dodoma, I checked into my hotel for the night. The staff seemed to remember me from my last visit, so they were especially nice and helpful. I spent the afternoon reviewing plans with Mr. Kazige, one of the local Baha'is, when I found out the train for the delegates arriving early would come to the station at 7:00 AM. I don't know why, but Mr. Kazige, a native of Tanzania, insisted that I be at the station on time. We both knew full well the train wasn't going to arrive on time (this is Tanzania, after all). Sure enough when I arrived at half past 7:00 in the morning I found out the train wasn't going to arrive until 9:00 AM. I messaged my colleagues who were staying in a local guesthouse and told them not to come until 9, and then I settled down for a nice wait at the train station.

The weather was actually kind of cold, so that made the stay a little more pleasant than if I were at the Dar train station. I was probably the only mzungu in a ten mile radius! Apparently the train station is where all the flies in Dodoma congregate in the morning. I've never seen so many of them! There were so many that I began to wonder exactly how they all managed to survive. In fact, the conditions were really quite filthy. Ordinarily I might balk at being tossed into such an environment, but it seems I'm adjusting because it didn't bother me too much. Besides, what can I do? Fly home? It helps to stop trying to draw comparisons between home and here. It won't ever do anything but leave me feeling disgruntled or depressed. Just living life as it presently is seems to be a good life lesson.

The train station was actually a pretty interesting place to observe things. As the morning progressed there were several traders that came along to set up their things. They all watched me the whole morning, as if at any moment I'd leap from my bench and rush over with my big fat mzungu wallet and demand to buy everything they had. Several times I struggled to stay awake. I was afraid if I fell asleep I'd wake up with nothing but the shirt on my back, and maybe not even that. I think in reality it's unlikely that would happen to me in Dodoma, but Dar es Salaam is a different situation. I'm ashamed to admit that I've finally been robbed. I wouldn't say robbed, exactly, more like pick-pocketed. I don't even know where it happened. Somewhere between the bus station and home after I arrived back in Dar es Salaam from Dodoma. They took TSh 100,000 which is something like $82. I normally don't keep money in my pocket, but it was some money that I'd been reimbursed with at the National Convention. I didn't think much of carrying it just from the bus station to the house. I guess I've learned my lesson: always be cautious everywhere in Dar.

Quite a lot happened at National Convention. I could probably write a small book about it, but I'll try to be brief for the sake of people actually reading this. There were a number of problems, but I (surprisingly) wasn't bothered too much by them. For the first time in a long time, I had two people helping me that I felt like I could actually rely on, Godwin and Victorina. Victorina, as NTC Treasurer, helped keep track of the expenditures and financial needs, and Godwin handled many of the food arrangements. They were both invaluable in helping me deal with Swahili. Victorina and I probably walked from the Convention site and the bus station and train station a dozen times. The first night of the Convention, she led the delegates to the guesthouse they were supposed to be staying in while I went to the hotel I was staying in that night. As I was settling into bed, she called and told me the man had sold the rooms to other people despite the fact that we had spoken to him on two separate occassions to reserve the rooms. I told her I couldn't come help because it wasn't safe for me to walk around alone at night, but I'd find some people to come help. By 1:00 AM, they had all the delegates settled in their beds.

I have to say I had a really good time with Godwin and Victorina. We had many discussions about Africa and the United States. I've found that people are really intensely curious about America. They want to know what America is really like, not just what they see in the movies or on television. Some of the questions they asked were humorous, like "Do you have pork in America?". I jokingly replied, "Of course, we invented pork." Victorina said, "Why do you all think you invent and discover everything? Like Mt. Kilimanjaro! This Livingstone man comes and says he discovers it, like the Chaga weren't living there already." From then on, we had a running joke of wherever I went, I was "discovering" it.

Some of the questions they asked were thought provoking, like "Why do Westerners think they're better than us?". Those sorts of questions I didn't always have an answer to. While we were eating "kiti moto" (a pork dish) in one of the restaurants, Godwin looked around and asked me, "What do you think of the economic situation here?". I told him I thought it was probably pretty poor and that people didn't have a lot of money. But then I looked around as well and said, "But they look pretty happy." He said he was thinking the same thing, and that made me start thinking of the relationship between so called "development" and happiness. Because we all have cars and modern plumbing does that make us happier than Africans? Does that make us better than them? What is better? I still don't have answers to those questions. I could write a book trying to answer them and in the end only raise more questions thans answers. Even though at times I have down right hated it here, I think everyone should make an effort to come to Africa if only because it makes you view the world in a different context.

Back to the Convention.

For two evenings, I stayed with Mr. Kazige and his family. They live on the outskirts of the city in what I would call the real Africa. The toilet is in an outhouse. It's a hole in the ground. You also bathe in that little outhouse. The first thing that popped into my head was a favorite phrase of Ms. Kamara: "HELLO!" It was a little bit of a shock for me, but I adjusted fairly well. After all, it's just a different style of living. If millions of people across Africa can do it, then I can do it, too. Unfortunately, Kazige's wife passed away a few years ago and left him with three children: Oloro (named after a famous Ugandan Baha'i); Ruhiyyih (named after the wife of the Guardian); and Amelia (named after Hand of the Cause of God Amelia Collins). They all speak English (although Millie to a lesser degree because she's young), which eased my transition into the house. Kazige's mother and cousin were also staying there. When Mr. Kazige explained to his cousin, a fairly old guy from the local Gogo tribe, that I was from America, his eyes bugged out, like, "Wow! A real American!" He said through Mr. Kazige's translation, "These Americans are a strong people," referring to my size.

After a wonderful night's rest in the room graciously surrendered by Oloro, I went out back to take my bath. So basically you've got a stool to sit on in the outhouse, on the other side from the toilet, and the maid brings out a big tub of hot water. Using a jug, soap, and shampoo, you wash yourself. It's not the most comfortable thing and I have to admit that I had a lot of problems figuring out the proper thing to do (i.e. where to put my shoes, how to get my clothes back on) but 40 minutes later I emerged clean. In one important way I think it's a lot better than a Western-style shower and that's in water conservation. You have a finite amount of water in this tub, rather than gallons of it pouring out of a showerhead. You have to maximize the use of the water that you're given, and in that way, compared to a Western-style shower, you reduce the amount of water used an untold amount. It's better for you and better for the environment.

When I came back from my bath, it seems the neighborhood children had caught on to my presence because they were all gathered in the front of the house - maybe 10 or 15 of them - waiting on me. As soon as they saw me there was a bunch of whispered "mzungu"s and a lot of giggling. I waved at them and said, "Jambo!", which seemed to delight them to no end. I went inside to change my clothes and share breakfast with the family. Millie went outside to play with the other children while we finished up. Every few minutes, she'd come back with a group of children who would peer around the door to watch me eating. One them exclaimed (in Kiswahili), "Look! He has a white hand!" Millie taught them to say "Good morning" and "Allah'u'abha" to me, so they'd peek around the corner and quickly say, "Goodee morning, Allah'u'abha" and then run away giggling. Until we left, I sat out on the porch and watched them play jumprope with a rope they'd made out of a bunch of vines.

While Victorina and I were on one of our excursions to the bus station, we had to pass the new Parliament Building that's under construction. As we passed by the workers began to shout things to us in Kiswahili. I asked Victorina what they were saying, and she smirked and said she didn't want to tell me. After some persistence, she finally told me that they were upset with her because we were walking together and they were making assumptions about our level of involvement. I guess they felt I shouldn't be taking "their" women and that she was uppity because she didn't find them good enough. We both had a good laugh about that.

The election of the National Spiritual Assembly saw two changes in its membership, which is really quite an ordeal (I thought). I was able to meet a lot of the friends from all across the country, and I have invitations to just about every city and town. I've worked out a tentative plan with the homefront pioneer from Zanzibar to visit her after the Inter-Institutional Conference at the end of the month so that we can both take the Junior Youth Animators training starting tomorrow and lasting ten days. She's also a member of the National Spiritual Assembly. I feel slightly ridiculous going to visit a member of the NSA to raise her spirits and level of awareness on the importance of homefront pioneering and the new Five Year Plan. Among the other homefront pioneers to be visited is an Auxiliary Board Member and a Continental Counsellor. It's very likely that I'm going to end up coming back from my visits with more knowledge imparted to me rather than the other way around!

Everyone seemed to be very pleased with the way Convention went, and I've received nothing but praise for planning "the whole National Convention." No matter how much I try to convince people that I didn't plan the whole thing, they seem to become all the more adamant about my central role. I did do a lot, but there were others there helping me along the way. I wasn't really satisfied with the way things went but everyone else seems to be thrilled with it so I guess I have no choice but to be thrilled, too!

I've returned from Dodoma feeling a lot better about myself and my situation here. I feel like I've really actually done something instead of sticking some paper in a file. I also feel like my presence here is doing a lot more than what I think it is. What is a measley amount of work to me seems to other people like I'm moving mountains. I think the National Convention and Dodoma have done a lot to change my outlook on things here and the things that I'm capable of doing while here. This evening at the 12th Day of Ridvan celebration one of the friends commented that I looked a lot better than I'd been looking and that I must be adjusting very well. People know me and my personality well enough to always greet me, call upon me, and laugh with me. I'm beginning to feel like I'm a member of the community. When I came back to the house from Dodoma, May gave me a big hug and everyone said they'd missed me. I was a little surprised to find myself saying that I'd missed them, too, and that it was good to be back "home."

I think I've finally been integrated.

Day Fifty Two

2006-04-23T13:21:00.000-05:00

Expect to encounter a lot of Baha'i jargon in this particular post!

We have a Continental Counsellor staying with us now. Exciting, huh? I've never even seen the Counsellors for North America, and I've been here only two months and there's one staying with us. Then again, if I worked at the BNC in Chicago I'd probably have met one by now. She happened to be on the same flight with Dr. Sabet when they were returning from Sudan. He was there for work, and she was there attending the Sudanese National Convention. So, I guess she's here until our Convention, which will be nice.

Since the last NTC meeting, I've had a ton of things piled on me. The NSA Secretary met with us and told us that 40 delegates from the western part of the country will be coming a day early for the Convention because of the train schedule. So not only have I been trying to deal with accomodations and food arrangements for them, but I'm also supposed to formulate a program to keep these delegates busy on Thursday and Friday until the Convention starts. In the U.S. I think this would be a crisis of an enormous magnitude. I still haven't adjusted to the different culture here, so of course I was freaking out. Dr. Sabet told me it wasn't as big of a thing as I thought it was; a very simple program would suffice. After consulting with the Counsellor, she made a phone call and asked one of her auxiliaries to come early to oversee the program. So now I just have to put together some documents, and the ABM will take over. Phew.

In addition to various minor details concerning the Convention, I'm also supposed to be working on a draft report/presentation for the NTC to present at the upcoming Inter-Institutional Conference at the end of May between the Counsellors, ABMs, the NSA, cluster coordinating committees, national agencies, the RBCs, etc. The report is supposed to lay out a plan of action for the next year for utilization of human resources, pioneering, and cluster development for the whole country! I've never worked on anything on a national scale at any point in my life, so I think this will be a challenging assignment. The NTC will be reviewing the presentation a week before the conference so at least I'm not doing the whole thing and then just throwing it out there.

Following the National Convention, I'm supposed to go back to Zanzibar with one of the members of the National Spiritual Assembly, who also happens to be a homefront pioneer! I think I'll have to stop back in Dar for a day or two, since going directly from Convention to Zanzibar might be a bit much, and I'll need to prepare some materials to take with me. Following the Inter-Institutional Conference, I'll have to start going around visiting some of the other homefront pioneers. They're doing some amazing work out in the field and in my story for the upcoming May issue of The Central Arkansas Baha'i there should be something about the inspiring efforts of one of these friends.

While I'm at Convention, I'm supposed to speak to the delegates from Arusha about the possibility of going there to tutor some study circles. The work of the Faith there has really been stunted because they don't have any tutors! People have only finished Books 1-3, so I'm probably going to go for a month or so to do crash courses of Books 4, 6, and 7 for those few friends who speak enough English to be able to do it with me.

There is so much work that can be done here, especially organizational and administrative. For instance, the poor Counsellor didn't even have copies of the National Convention program and the Inter-Institutional Conference program. She's supposed to be speaking at both events, and she didn't even know what about! She even told me to be sure to check with the friends who are supposed to speak at the Convention - this coming weekend - to make sure someone had notified them they were supposed to come speak. Things like that leave me totally exasperrated because they're such easy things to fix, but it doesn't seem to really faze anyone else.

When I got the program, I saw that the NTC is supposed to deliver a report to the delegates and arrange for evening entertainment on Saturday night, two things that no one ever mentioned to me. Dr. Sabet said the report is on the agenda every year, but the NTC just never does it. That's just sad. So, I guess for evening entertainment, the friends can watch my head explode. =P

Day Fifty

2006-04-21T15:12:00.000-05:00

Allah'u'abha, friends! Happy Ridvan!

I'm feeling much better than I was the rest of the week, and I'm in a way better mood. I took yesterday to just rest and relax, which seemed to work. By evening I was feeling better, except still drowsy from the allergy medication. Nevertheless, I convinced myself that I needed to go to the Annual Meeting, if only to cast my vote for the Local Spiritual Assembly (LSA).

The Annual Meeting went quite nicely. After some opening prayers, including one chanted beautifully in Kiswahili, we were treated to a presentation by the Auxiliary Board Member on "The Sanctity of Baha'i Elections." Because there are something like 200 Baha'is here, she encouraged us to think of everyone in the community, write down 20 names first, and then from those 20 pick the nine people we thought were best suited for service on the LSA. After we wrote down our ballots, we had to go to the ballot box, print our name, place our signature next to it, and then cast our ballot. It was a little different than the way we do it at home, but I'm sure it was helpful to the tellers to keep track of how many people were voting and whatnot.

Here at home, we've had a bit of a crisis with a hedgehog that May Saba "rescued" from a local boy who apparently thieved it from its mother. The poor thing was so tiny and helpless. At first, we had no clue what to do with it. I did some research on the Internet in preparation of having to keep the thing and care for it, which Mrs. Sabet tried to convince me to do (haha, fat chance). We finally decided to take it back to the school where the boy found it and ask the gardener or someone else where the hedgehogs were. The school is a local one, so a car full of wazungu (the plural of mzungu, I've discovered) sent the place into a frenzy. We ended up discovering the boy who took it in the first place, so he led us to where he took it. The mother wasn't there, but Mrs. Sabet wasn't interested in keeping it, so she convinced May to leave it there. Mrs. Sabet and I aren't sure it will live, since the mother will probably reject it now. May has been moaning about how we abandoned it and that we should go check on it, but I'm sure tomorrow she'll forget about it.

The National Convention is next weekend, and the preparations are getting a little stressful. Not helping matters is the fact that people keep reiterating how the NSA doesn't want there to be any mistakes. I've also prepared myself for the complaining of delegates. Apparently last year they got all irate about their accomodations and started getting on the case of the poor, sweet man who made the arrangements. Unlike this kind and gentle Tanzanian, I am a mean American, so I've let everyone know that I'm happy to deal with any and all delegate complaints. If it's unreasonable, they can either deal with it or hand me their vote and I'll buy them a train ticket back home. The National Convention is not supposed to be a five-star affair or some kind of vacation. You're there to cast a vote on behalf of the people that elected you to do so. That's it. Come on.

This evening, we had our Ridvan celebration. But first, I have to tell you about what we saw on the way to the Centre. As we drove down United Nations Road, we noticed a small group of people gathered around this man on the ground on the sidewalk. As we got closer, we noticed that this man was actually pinning another man to the ground. He had his hands around the guy's throat and he was choking him while bashing his head against the sidewalk. I've never been so close to such violence! A taxi came speeding up and the passenger jumped out and started pulling the man off the other guy. What courage! We have no idea what provoked the incident. It's likely they were drunk, or the man being beaten was a thief. Personally, I think they were drunk because there are a lot of drunk people on this road. In the morning on the way to work, I frequently see a person laying face down in the sidwalk with his shirt off, his pants around his knees, and his butt exposed. I have no idea why but a lot of drunks seem to end up this way.

Anyway, the Ridvan celebration was very nice. After the introductory prayers in English, Kiswahili, and Farsi, we were treated to performances by the Kinomboni children's choir and the Dar youth choir, both of which were exceptionally better than Naw Ruz. One of the young Indian Baha'is performed an Indian dance that went over very well with the audience (about 200 people). I chanted/sang the "Refresh and gladden my spirit" prayer (all by myself, yikes!) and that was followed by a skit from the youth about the oneness of religion and another short monologue about "What is Ridvan, and Who is Baha'u'llah?". Following another prayer, it was time for the chakula (food). At every public event, it's announced that the Baha'is should pick a guest to escort to the food, and then after that the rest of the friends can eat, to ensure that our guests are always fed. I thought that was particularly nice, as well as how the youth were featured so prominently in the program.

I don't think they celebrate the ninth or twelfth days of Ridvan here, so I guess this was it for me for this year. Following the National Convention, I'm supposed to visit a few homefront pioneers around the country before the Institutional Conference at the end of May and then I'll go visit the rest, as well as possible settle in the city of Arusha for a month or so to conduct some study circles. Imagine doing Books 4, 6, and 7 all in the same month!

Day Forty Eight

2006-04-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

I’ve been having a bit of a rough time since we returned from Mikumi. When I’m not feeling depressed then something is going wrong with my health. On Tuesday evening, I had a terrible nose bleed. I was dripping blood all over the room, which probably sent the mosquitoes into a frenzy. I rarely have nose bleeds, so I’m not sure what the problem was, but it hasn’t happened again since then. However, the fact that the rainy season is now fully upon us has brought a new set of problems. Since everything is getting plenty of rain – almost daily – it’s all starting to grow and bloom. For me, growing and blooming means serious allergy problems. I can’t stray far from a box of tissues, and I’ve been forced to start taking allergy medication. Ordinarily that might not be a problem, but it’s been making me very drowsy. I’m like a vegetable for most of the day. I haven’t done much work in the past two days, and I doubt they’ll get much out of me for the rest of the week.

Along with the health problems, I’ve just been in a foul mood. On Monday, we had our cluster reflection meeting at the Bahá’í Centre. I wasn’t feeling well and I said I didn’t want to go, but Dr. Sabet suggested that “it would be a good idea” if I went. I didn’t tell him I was feeling well, but I did say that it would be in Kiswahili, and I wouldn’t understand what was happening. He told me I could still contribute and someone could translate for me. Basically, I was going whether I wanted to or not. The first portion of the meeting was presentation of statistics and things like that, but then, for me, it all went downhill from there when we started getting into consultation. I’ve never seen anything like it. One of the friends put forth the suggestion that Nineteen Day Feasts should be held in the sectors rather than one for the whole city at the Bahá’í Centre in order to better empower the sectors and develop a sector identity to assist in the multiplication of the core activities. The discussion was almost entirely centered on how exactly such a thing would be accomplished, and then I stood up to have my say. I said it was a good idea, but that we’d spend the whole meeting working on logistics so we should just agree or disagree on the principle of the thing and allow the Assembly to work out the logistics. One of the other friends stood up and agreed, adding that it wasn’t within the jurisdiction of the cluster meeting to make changes regarding the Feast. Then a 45 minute discussion ensued about the validity of those statements. The discussion just dragged needlessly on and on and on until finally the person chairing the meeting called for a vote (finally). Up to this point, all the discussion had been in favor of the proposal but when the vote was called, over half of the friends present rejected it! Ahhh! Where were they when we were wasting an hour and a half talking about something that was going to be voted against so heavily in the first place!?

At this point, I was already agitated by the lack of focus. After lunch, we broke into our sectors and began consultation on what we planned to do in the next three months. We wrote down all of our goals, and then everyone met back together and the sectors shared their plans. During the sharing, it was discovered that there’s been no set way to count what a devotional meeting is. Some people follow the method we use in the U.S., where a devotional meeting is counted only once (as long as it’s regular) regardless of how often it meets. So a devotional held in my home on every Saturday during a month will count as one devotional instead of four. Apparently, some people count the four. And this inconsistency in keeping the statistics has occurred throughout the Five Year Plan here, so if you look at the statistics then you might see that one sector has eight devotionals listed and another has 60 listed, even if the sector with eight actually had more total meetings. It might not seem like too much of a problem, but successes are measured and goal-setting is done by looking at these statistics.

I couldn’t take it anymore! The older I get, the more anal I get about structure and order and the proper operation of things. It’s been five years since the beginning of the Plan, and they still don’t have a uniform way of keeping statistics! Ahhhh! I stood up and basically relayed that you couldn’t make informed and competent decisions based on statistics that aren’t consistent and uniform, and that someone should set down a national definition for how to count devotional meetings, home visits, and everything else. Someone mentioned that the local Counsellor had said the right way was to count each meeting, meaning four a month in the example I used, but if that's so then why is the U.S. doing the exact opposite? Surely there's some kind of international standard in use across the Baha'i world! I think Dr. Sabet could see that I was getting a little upset, so he pulled me back down into my seat and told me we’d address it at the next NTC meeting. Raising your voice is taboo in Tanzanian society, and in retrospect I guess I could have been a little nicer.

The outburst was a symptom of a larger problem that I’ve been struggling with since my arrival. It’s been really difficult for me to adjust to living in a society that isn’t driven by some kind of efficiency and order. That isn’t to say that Tanzania is a place of mass chaos, but time doesn’t mean anything here. People essentially get things done when they feel like getting around to it rather than when it should be done or even when they say it will be done. Employees of the Bahá’í National Centre in the U.S. would probably have a heart attack if they saw the way things operate here. I’m not necessarily saying the way things are done isn’t right, but it’s just so foreign to me that I’m not handling it very well at all.

A good example is that it’s taken me over a month to send out three letters. First, I had to harass the person that was supposed to write them to write them, which was supposed to have been done a month before. Then I had to wait for them to be given to someone who could deliver them to me. Then I had to type them (they were in Kiswahili, quite a task). I assumed I was finished with them, so I put them in the "Outbox" at the Centre to be put in the mail. A week later, I show up to the Centre and I’m presented with the letters, which someone had removed from the Outbox and corrected the mistakes in my typing of the Kiswahili and the grammar of the person who originally wrote the letter. So I had to retype the letters, and now I have to find a stationary shop – on my own – to buy some envelopes to put the letters in so I can seal them to prevent someone from deciding they’ll just go digging through the NTC’s mail again.

It’s just been a bad week for me. I think once I start feeling better then maybe things will turn around, but as it stands now I want nothing more than to get on a plane and fly back home where I know I can do some good in the Baha'i community. I’ve enjoyed my time with the friends outside of “work,” but all of the Baha’i work I’ve done and I’m supposed to be doing is driving me crazy. Honestly, it's just been a waste of time. It seems like the Cause would be so much more successful here if the administration backing it up was a little more efficient.

At any rate, I should head to bed. I'm going to get my blood pressure all riled up. =P Tomorrow is the Annual Meeting, Friday is the First Day of Ridván and the new administrative year, and Saturday is an NTC meeting. And with Dr. Sabet, the NTC Chairman, out of the country (in Sudan!), I think the NTC meeting will certainly be “interesting.”

Day Forty Seven

2006-04-18T07:14:00.000-05:00

It’s been difficult to find both the time and energy to sit down and write about our weekend safari to Mikumi National Park, but I decided I should get to it sooner rather than later.

On Friday, we left Dar es Salaam and headed west (because we certainly couldn’t head east) toward the heart of the country. It took about 4 or 5 hours to get there. The drive itself was fine. May slept most of the way, so there was some silence. In Morogoro, we stopped to see one of the vehicles belonging to Dr. Sabet’s company. One of the engineers and his driver had been in a wreck a few days earlier. The car looked pretty bad, and you could definitely tell it had rolled several times.

When we arrived in Mikumi, we went through the ordeal of paying the park fees. It turned out to be one of the less expensive parks, which is a good thing. I hear that the fees for the Serengeti have gone up so much that it’s USD $100 per person per day! Supposedly they’re actually trying to discourage tourists because the government is so conservation minded that they want to reduce the impact of humans on the area. They’ll probably make up the lost money on what the ultra-rich tourists spend in the extremely posh lodges and things in the park. I guess it’s a good thing the government is worried about the impact of humans on the parks but there are plenty of contradictions in the policy, like catering to rich Westerners and others who want to come in and shoot lions and elephants and whatnot.

We headed to our safari camp, Vuma Hills, in the pouring rain. The camp is situated on a hill above the park, which offers a fantastic view of the broad savannah. When I woke up every morning, I could step onto the deck and survey one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We spent lunch worrying about whether or not the rain would stop, but by the time we finished and socialized a bit with the other people staying at the camp the rain had stopped and the sun came out. It gave us enough time to learn that lions had been spotted along one of the roads. So, we loaded up and headed for the park.

At the gate, Dr. Sabet stopped to have a conversation with the guard. I should note that Kiswahili speakers mix up their L’s and R’s a lot. For some reason, they also add an “I” on the end of things, which is pronounced like “ee,” so “chips” become “chipsee.” Dr. Sabet went through this whole conversation with the man switching the L’s and R’s without him even noticing. “Have you seen the rions? They’re down the load? Are they beside the load? So, we go past the blidge and then we’ll see the rions by the load?”

The first things we saw were, of course, antelope, gazelles, and impalas. I don’t know how to tell the difference, really. To me they all look like the same thing, just some have horns and some don’t. They’re everywhere, so I don’t think any lion could ever go hungry in Mikumi. We also saw a bunch of really ugly birds. They kind of looked like a genetic experiment gone wrong, like a cross between a flamingo and a vulture. They liked to get in the middle of the road and then run, not fly, in front of you. It was kind of funny to watch those spindly little legs try to carry that big body.

After traveling down the road for some distance I was beginning to wonder whether we’d see the lions, but then we spotted two stopped cars, so we knew they must have been up ahead. When we arrived, the lions were right next to the road, maybe ten feet away from the car. There were six of them, all female, and they had a cub with them. We probably stayed there for an hour and a half watching them. The cub was playing with the grumpy, napping adults the whole time, and one of the younger adults was playing with her tail. She was laying on her side, so she’d dart her tail at her head like a snake and then snap at it with her mouth or try to pin it down with her paw. Apparently it’s pretty rare to see so many lions, especially with a cub, so close to the road in Mikumi, so we were very fortunate. They were just amazing to watch, especially when they turned to look at you. One of them was constantly rolling on her back and spreading her legs all awry, which led Mrs. Sabet to comment that she needed to go through Ruhi to gain some self-respect. =P

They were so beautiful and so close that you just wanted to reach out and touch them, even though you’d come back without a hand. In fact, Mrs. Sabet got a little too courageous. She wasn’t satisfied with the picture she was getting of one of the lions, which was a few feet from her door, so she opened the door a crack. The lion didn’t like that too much, so she jumped up, opened her mouth in a snarl, and hunched down in a pouncing position. If she’d wanted to, she could have jumped on the car before we could do anything, but she hesitated long enough to let Mrs. Sabet close the door and Dr. Sabet to floor the accelerator. My heart was beating a hundred miles an hour!!

Because the batteries to my camera had died, Dr. Sabet needed some medicine, and we were all a little stirred up from the lion encounter, we decided to head back to the camp for a little bit. When we returned, we decided to try to go to the Hippo Pool, which is where the hippos congregate (obviously). However, when we got to the Hippo Pool road, there was a bit of a traffic jam. Two cars had stopped and then suddenly the front one started backing up. When we got into a better position to see, we noticed a big bull elephant was in the middle of the road, flapping his ears at us. Apparently he was using the road at the moment and he wasn’t too happy about the human presence. He just kept easing forward, occasionally shaking his tusks back and forth and flapping his ears, until he was satisfied that all the cars were well enough out of the way.

Since the elephant wasn’t letting us through, we decided to drive around a bit until he was gone and then head back to the Hippo Pool. When we finally arrived at the Hippo Pool, two of the hippos were engaged in a bit of a fight. I managed to snap a picture before they finished. They stay in the water almost all day, so all we saw were a bunch of hippo backs, hippo ears, and hippo eyes. When they get out of the water at night, they’re mean, so we didn’t really want to stick around to see any more than that.

After watching the sunset, we started to head back to the camp, but we stopped to view an elephant family beside the road. They were really close, but they weren’t acting too belligerent so we were able to get some pictures. The biggest one siddled up close to the car and started eating grass, but you could see that he was watching us out of the corner of his eye.

Back at the camp, we were given two tents: one for Dr. & Mrs. Sabet and one for me and May. As May and I were getting ready for bed, she decided she didn’t want to sleep away from her parents. She was “scared.” I guess that’s normal for a nine year old, but I thought her parents might like some time to themselves, so I told her I didn’t want to sleep by myself. Turning it around so she could be self-sacrificing and seem to be the better person, she decided that she could suffer through a night of separation for my sake. The second night didn’t work out quite as well. She wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, so off she went to her parents’ tent. I settled in for a nice quiet night when she came slinking back, saying her mother had sent her back for my sake. After a pillow fight, she was content enough to go to sleep.

On our second day, we explored some more. We came upon a family of elephants with a baby so young that he could hardly walk. He sort of hobbled wherever he needed to go, occasionally falling down in a flop of ears and trunk. His ears were practically half the size of his body! They were surprisingly docile for having a baby with them, so we were able to watch them while they ate grass on one side of the road, crossed, and then munched on the other side. Sometimes they’d get a piece of grass that wasn’t good or had too much mud on it, so they’d fling it over their head and it would land on their backs, so you frequently saw elephants walking around with nests of dried grass on their backs.

In addition to seeing more elephants and some giraffes, we managed to find the lions again. They were in a little more remote spot and not beside the road, but we got to see them play with the cub a little more. On the way back from the lions, we got a little adventurous and turned down a muddy road where we promptly got stuck. May climbed on top of the car to signal some of the people near the lions, and Dr. Sabet bailed out of the car to go meet the people who were coming to help us. I couldn’t believe he did that! Just got out of the car, barefoot, and started walking down the road in the middle of an African national park! There are so many things outside the car that can kill you, not the least of which were the lions 50 meters away. A safari guide named Julius came and managed to get our car out of the mud. I hate to admit it, but I was freaking out the entire time as every bad thing that could possibly happen to us flashed before my eyes.

Before going back to the camp, we went to Mikumi Town for petrol. Mrs. Sabet wanted some lotion, so we went to some of the shops. Dr. Sabet went to look for it, and then came back with two angry Africans in tow. May translated for us, telling us that they were upset because they claimed Dr. Sabet came into their restaurant yesterday, ordered some chips (French fries), and then never came to pick them up! And they weren’t just slightly upset, they were pissed. Dr. Sabet explained that just as many mzungus think all black Africans look the same, many black Africans think all mzungus look the same, so they probably got him confused with someone else.

Back at the camp, most of the evening was spent sitting patiently in the restaurant while May tried to arrange something for my birthday, which was Saturday. She tried to convince the owner to make me a cake, and then to put a candle in my dessert, and then to give me something from the gift shop. Since nothing is free in Tanzania, she finally broke down and bought me a T-shirt from the gift shop. It was a very kind and unexpected gesture from her. I felt bad that everything she tried to do seemed to fail, but she was persistent and she wasn’t going to give up until she did something for my birthday. The rest of the evening, we all played cards and told stories on the deck.

The next day, we got to see quite a few giraffes and zebras when we took a road closer to our camp. The baby elephant and the lions were amazing, but I think my favorite animal was the giraffe. As Dr. Sabet said, “They’re so majestic, so graceful…just like Naomi Campbell.” I’ve seen them in the zoo plenty of times, but nothing compares to seeing them in the wild. They’re so curious! They just stand by the roadside and stare at you the whole time you’re staring at them. Some of the younger ones will run, which looks hilarious, but the older ones know that cars aren’t much of a threat so they just stop eating and watch you.

The trip back was shorter than the trip there. Most of the time May was asleep with her head on my shoulder or in my lap, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was messing with me. I was in a pretty good mood, so I didn’t mind too much. Dr. Sabet related yesterday that we’re very much like brother and sister, and he’s slipped up a few times and referred to me as her brother. They have all been amazingly generous and kind to me since the day I arrived, welcoming me as part of the family and giving me an experience that’s less like a year of service and more like a vacation. Although they’re financially blessed, it doesn’t diminish my gratitude for every bit of generosity they extend my way.

All in all, it was the most amazing birthday I’ve ever had! I’ve always dreamed of traveling the world, seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, and meeting the people, but I never really thought in my wildest dreams I’d be presented with the opportunity to do it. It still seems a little surreal. Be sure to check out my Flickr account for pictures of the trip.

Day Forty

2006-04-11T13:44:00.000-05:00

Well of course someone had to make a liar out of me. It seems that now we're leaving on Friday instead of today. Both Dr. and Mrs. Sabet have a lot of meetings between now and then, and even I have a lot of work to do. Despite all of the pending work, we still managed to find time to bum around today since it was a public holiday (Birth of Muhammed).

This afternoon, we went to Mwenge Market, which was my first trip to an African market. The shops at this particular market seem to specialize in wood items. In fact, some of the artisans were gathered under makeshift tents carving their wares right in front of us. You could find just about anything made out of wood that you wanted. Necklaces, earrings, eating utensils, bowls, small statues, fragile statues, massive statues, huge boxes, chess boards and pieces, etc. Most of the pieces were carved out of mpingo, which is African blackwood, and done in the style of the Makonde tribe in southern Tanzania and Mozambique. It's what mzungus like me are looking for. =P

I didn't come to do too much shopping, but I did see a chess set that I liked. The store owner saw me examining it, so she was all over me like white on rice. And then began the haggling. "It's 25, but I give you for 20." The problem with haggling is that some people are actually reasonable and will quote you only a slightly inflated price, whereas others will give you an outrageous price. For instance, Mrs. Sabet was trying to buy a khanga (a long piece of cloth wrapped around the body, usually in two pieces, to make a "traditional" sort of African outfit) and the woman quoted her 20. Mrs. Sabet haggled for a bit and then get tired of it, deciding to walk off. The woman comes running after us, waving it in the air and shouting "Okay! Okay! 8! 8!".

Anyway, I figured the chess set woman was trying to stick it to me. I told her 10, then 12, and then compromised at 15. I suspected that was still too much, so I started to walk off. "Ah! Baba! Where you going? Okay, I give you for 12! Please, don't go! I need the money for chakula (food) for my babies! They got to eat and go to school! Ah, Baba, you killing me here, please!" She was wailing and flailing her arms around and making this God awful scene like I was single-handedly condemning her children to a life of ignorance and hunger because I wouldn't buy this chess set for 12,000 shillings. I've never seen anything like it in my life! I decided not to buy anything from her since she chased me out of the shop trying to put a guilt trip on me. I can find the same thing in another shop probably for less without the hysterics! I shouldn't laugh, but in retrospect the sight of her melodramatics was pretty funny.

There are also these beautiful paintings called tinga tinga, which the Sabets didn't seem all that impressed by (probably because they see so many of them). I didn't price any of them, but I'll try to take some pictures the next time I go. Maybe I'll make a list of things to buy in case people want me to pick up some things for them. Speaking of which, if you'd like me to get something for you, you have to let me know. I don't know what to just randomly buy people. I'm happy to bring back things for you, but let me know what you want!

Day Thirty Nine

2006-04-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

[[ Note: I was in Dodoma from Monday until Thursday last week, and the Internet is just now working since my return. Not much has happened since then, so here's my post about the trip to Dodoma. I think we're going on holiday tomorrow, so don't expect to hear from me until next week. ]]

So I’ve arrived back in Dar es Salaam from my trip to Dodoma to make arrangements for the National Convention. It was quite an interesting experience. While I’m happy to be back “home,” I could certainly do without the humidity.

I wasn’t really sure how I should get to the bus station in the morning. Mrs. Sabet told me I could go with the driver. Then she added that she had been hesitating to help me in ways like that because so many people are watching and paying attention to what I do. I have no idea what that means, but it only adds to the sense I get that there’s some kind of brewing controversy over what I’m doing here. It’s really annoying to be in the middle of something and have no clue what’s going on.

The bus I took was with one of the good companies, so it was safe, and we arrived quickly. They show a movie during the drive, so on the way there we watched “Delta Force” with Chuck Norris. Considering all the Chuck Norris jokes floating around, I thought it was hilarious. On the way back, we watched a Nigerian movie about jealous lovers. It looked like it was filmed with a camcorder, and I found myself hoping that they didn’t pay those actors too much for their “skills.” Nothing too eventful happened during the drive, except they were doing some road construction on part of the highway. I looked up ahead and saw that the road was blocked, so I thought to myself, “Hmmm, I wonder what we’re going to do now?” I should have known the answer. The driver speeds up, as if to ram the blockage, and then swerves to the left and sends the bus careening onto this little dirt road, which we follow for a good distance before getting back onto the highway.

I saw a real monkey in Morogoro! At first I thought it was a really ugly dog that was walking funny, but then I noticed that it was a monkey. Morogoro seems to be like the transit hub for heading into the interior of the country from Dar. It sits beneath the shadow of this massive mountain that always seems to be shrouded in clouds. The mountain is ragged and broken, much like the country itself, but disappears into the clouds, as if holding the promise for a better, but unseen, future. In fact, the whole trip was something like what Martha Root wrote about Brazil: “It was like riding 12 hours in a Paradise whose wealth is not yet discovered.”

When I arrived at the bus station, I messaged Mr. Kazigi to let him know I was in Dodoma and ready to be picked up. Per Africa time, I was retrieved 2 hours later! But to be fair, his phone was dead, and he was unable to charge it because the power to the city was out. Apparently someone stole something from the transformer or otherwise damaged the city’s electrical infrastructure. While I was waiting, the people at the bus station were very friendly and accommodating. Basically they were making sure I wasn’t lost, I think. Not too many mzungus show up in Dodoma.

Dodoma has very different geography than Dar. It’s more like what you expect the “real” Africa to be like. The climate is semi-arid, so, thankfully, there’s little humidity to deal with. Of course the sun is high, hot, and bright, but the wind blows a lot so it’s just pleasantly warm. There’s a giant outcropping of rocks outside the city that looks like it came straight out of The Lion King. I half expected that baboon to run out on the ledge of one of the rocks and thrust Simba into the air in time with Elton John sliding out of the bush with his piano and belting out “The Circle of Life.” Speaking of The Lion King, did you know they used real Swahili? “Hakuna matata” really means “no worries”! I thought they were just making it up. And “Simba” means “lion.” I’m sure there’s some more scattered throughout the movie.

Kazigi took me to my hotel, told me to get some rest, and he’d see me in the morning. The hotel was actually a vocational training center for people going into the hotel and catering industries. It was set up like a real hotel, but everyone working there was actually going to school. I was a little leery of being cared for by a bunch of trainees, but they all did an excellent job. Well, mostly everyone. The girls at the front desk had attitude problems, but you know how the young people are these days. =P Anyway, while I was eating dinner in the restaurant, Mr. Kazigi called and told me he had malaria! Apparently he’d had it for a few days, but just kept hoping that it would get better. He wouldn’t be able to help me the next day, but he’d try to the day after that. So, I was in Dodoma four days instead of three.

Because of the power situation, my dinner was by candlelight. Let me tell you, the romance is really drained out of it when you’re by yourself, there are a hundred mosquitoes feeding on you, and you can’t see well enough to know exactly what it is that you’re eating. But there was one good thing that came out of it. On the way back to my room, I happened to glance skyward. Wow! Since the power was out you could see every star in the sky. I’ve been in some remote places in the U.S. and Canada and been able to see a lot of stars, but nothing compares to what I saw in Dodoma. The sky here is just massive because there aren’t buildings or anything to block your view. I could see the Milky Way and, I think, the Andromeda Galaxy, which supposedly you can see from the Southern Hemisphere. That’s one experience that I will never forget.

In the morning, I took the coldest shower of my life. I think they froze the water to subzero temperatures and then pumped it through the shower head when you turned on the “hot” water. I had the free continental breakfast, which was scrambled eggs, two types of bread, fruit, tea, and mango juice. I couldn’t reach Mr. Kazigi and I wasn’t about to sit around all day long, so I sucked it up and decided to try to make the Convention venue arrangements by myself. I went to the College of Business Education and after some discussion with various people, I made my way to the office of Mr. Kiwaya, Senior Manpower Development and Administrative Officer. Quite the title.

I was told to wait 20-30 minutes until he returned from lunch, so I sat down fully expecting a 2-3 hour wait. But in 20 minutes he showed up and ushered me into his office. Like so many people here, he had on this funny looking suit that seemed like something a Socialist or a Communist would wear. Many people here wear them, so they look like a bunch of Kim Jung-il clones wandering around. Apparently it's a hold over from the Socialist period in Tanzania. So, we entered into discussions about the use of the facilities. I went to the kitchen and dining hall to make a separate arrangement with the guy in charge there, and then came back to Mr. Kiwaya. After making the arrangements, he kept me in the office for a good 2 hours talking to me about where I was from, my experiences here, what words I knew in Kiswahili, so on and so forth. He gave me suggestions for getting around town and things to see and sent me on my way. He remarked that I seemed to be getting around very well for only being here a month! And here I thought I was doing a terrible job.

When I went back to the hotel for lunch, I met a few members of Parliament. They’re in session in Dodoma, so they were all milling around town. I didn’t know they were in session, otherwise I would have taken some information from the External Affairs Office about the persecutions of Bahá’ís in Iran. Kazigi called to tell me he still wasn’t feeling well, so I told him that I’d already made the venue arrangements and he seemed surprised that I’d managed on my own. With the afternoon free, I decided first to take a walk and then it turned into more of a hike.

I went to where they’re building the new Parliament Building and then circled around and went stomping off into the “bush” to see if I couldn’t get eaten by a lion or something. During my walk and hike, I met a lot of very nice people. People in Dodoma are way friendlier than in Dar, and I think it will likely be this way in many other places I’ll visit across the country. These little boys stopped me to ask if my car had broken down, and then looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I didn’t have a car and I was walking. I've heard that some people actually think that mzungus don't have feet or legs because they never see them walking! A Catholic priest stopped on his bicycle and asked me the same thing, and then rode along beside me asking about the U.S., my life, what I was doing in Tanzania, and then told me about his life. I should mention that everyone in Dodoma has a bicycle. It’s like China! I’ve never seen so many bicycles in my life.

When I deviated into the bush, following paths and dry riverbeds that led to who knows where, I met a farmer on his way to the outlying village that he lived in. He spoke surprisingly good English, so he first asked why I was walking out here and was I lost, and then went through the typical line of questioning. It was getting dark, so he invited me back to the village to meet everyone else! Imagine! “There are only 5 families,” he said, which could have been like 50 people. I would have loved to go, but it was getting dark. I had no reason not to trust him, in fact everyone here is quite sincere and kind, but I didn’t want to have to walk back into the city at night. Not to mention the mosquitoes. When I go back to Dodoma, maybe I’ll try to find the village during the day.

I walked back to the hotel feeling very refreshed. The air had been clean and fragrant and there were beautiful flowers and friendly people all along the way. I was kicking myself that I didn’t bring any Bahá’í literature or anything to give to the people that I met, all of whom were at least interested in learning about the Faith on a basic level. The language barrier made it a little difficult for me to explain to them, so I think some Kiswahili pamphlets would do a better job until I can get to the point of being able to hold a conversation.

After dinner, I watched the local news. My Kiswahili is improving, because I could understand a little (and I mean a little) of what they were talking about. Sleep was frequently interrupted by the Filipino man next door loudly enjoying the company of the opposite sex, if you catch my drift, and the drunks in the bar having a good time, but when you’re paying $10/night for a decent room it’s kind of hard to complain too much.

In the morning, Kazigi was feeling well enough to meet me and go to the guesthouses to make arrangements for accommodations for the delegates. First, I went to the bus station to confirm my ticket for the next day and then back to the college to pick up a letter from Mr. Kiwaya. I was there for another hour talking to him. He again reiterated that he was “greatly impressed” with my ability to get around, and then busted out and asked me where my wife and children were! This question comes frequently and in many forms, but it still shocks me each time. I told him I was only 22 and I wasn’t married, yet, to which he made a face like I was getting old and I should take care of that. I told him I’d see about it when I got back to the U.S. What else am I supposed to say? I guess some people do feel like they need to get married at this age, and I have felt some pressure to actually look for a girl to date. I told Mrs. Sabet that my birthday was next Sunday, and she said, “You’ll be 23.” But she said “23” like I was approaching middle age or something! Come on! I’m still young! I’m hip! I’m with it!

When I met with Kazigi, he was furious about the price we’d been given by the college for renting their facilities. It seems it was quite a bit more than last year. The friends had been forewarned that the rates would be going up this year, but it actually went up more than they’d implied. The whole thing seemed to be more about the greed of Mr. Kiwaya’s boss and the go-between between him and the director of the college than them trying to rip me off. I called the NSA Secretary before I made any firm deal and ran the price by him, and he seemed okay with it. I suggested to Mr. Kazigi that next year they may want to look around for another place to have the Convention.

We went to see the guesthouses, which were nicer than I thought but still somewhat offensive to my Western sensibilities. Of course I didn’t come here expecting a Ritz Carlton or anything. In the future, I think I’ll probably try to stay in them instead of hotels because they’re substantially cheaper and that will ease the burden on the Fund. I also need to learn how to order food in Kiswahili so I can eat on the street instead of using restaurants, which slowly but surely becomes expensive. We managed to negotiate decent prices for the 41 delegates and 16 guests.

I sent Kazigi back home to get some rest and I spent the afternoon watching terrible Tanzanian and Indian music videos. Dinner was okay. Most of the food was just okay. Except there was this minestrone soup that they served that was terrible. The taste of it would make Italians cry out “Mama Mia!” The service was always excellent, except they hovered a little too close to the table and watched you while you were eating. It was unnerving! I’d ordered a beef filet, but it was taking forever for it to come out. The chef finally emerged and apologized, telling me that when Parliament was in session they had a lot of outside orders. So when the food came he gave me two extra filets as an apology. The waiter who had been serving me since I’d arrived on Monday finally worked up the nerve to ask me what part of Europe I was from. Everyone thinks I’m from Europe, or specifically from the U.K. It’s one of the first questions they ask. Some people even try to speak French to me, assuming I can understand because I must be from Europe! Personally, I don’t think I could be any more blatantly American but I guess there aren’t enough Americans wandering around Tanzania to make them think I’m anything other than European.

In the morning, I woke up at 5:00 AM even though my bus didn’t leave until 9:00. I was half not sleepy, and half excited to be going back “home.” After breakfast I walked the mile or so to the bus station, sweating like a pig since it was humid and about to rain. The bus ride back was equally uneventful. I sat next to this girl and her little baby. The smelled like fried chicken, I don’t know why, so I was hungry most of the way back. The baby kept staring at me (being a mzungu and all) and pulling the hair on my arms, as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. One of the things I’ve yet to get used to is woman here breast feeding. There’s no warning and no attempt to cover themselves; they just break ‘em out and get down to business. Even though it’s “natural,” it shocks me every time.

So, Dodoma was described as a small and depressing city by the friends here in Dar. I went fully expecting to have a terrible time, but I actually enjoyed myself more than I have here in Dar. I think I prefer smaller places to big cities. It seems like no matter where you are in the world half the people in the cities look and act like they’ve had their souls sucked out of them or something. They’re universally rude, greedy, and pushy. Dodoma was a nice reprieve, and I’m starting to look forward to my marathon trip around the country in May.

Day Twenty Nine

2006-03-31T13:46:00.000-06:00

I had the craziest dream last night. I dreamed that I was the keynote speaker at some massive political convention being held in a big overrated hotel. I was supposed to be giving a speech praising President Bush because I was supposed to be his best friend. In the middle of my speech, I suddenly decided that I hated George so I changed my speech and started slandering him in the worst language imaginable. For some reason, at a convention that was supposed to be praising the president, my speech elicited a roaring round of applause.

So after the speech, I went into the hotel lounge and sat down to have a drink. Suddenly, First Lady Laura Bush comes in and starts telling me I need to apologize to George because those were mean things that I said. When I woke up, I started laughing first about this because my mind had recreated Laura Bush perfectly, right down to the accent and mannerisms. She managed to convince me, so I went to look for George. I found him in this booth in the corner of the lounge crying because I hurt his feelings. So I apologized and then I woke up. I don’t remember what all we had for dinner, but I hope I don’t dream like that every time we have it.

This morning, the house was full of children and food and laughing and dancing and singing. Mrs. Sabet has established an NGO to instruct young girls and boys in life-skills, moral education, English, and a few other subjects. The English teacher is leaving to go University, so they were having a party to send her on her way. The girls really like to sing! They sing on the way out of the classroom, they sing on the way into the classroom, they sing between lessons, they sing when they’re going home, they sing when they’re arriving. It’s a wonder they get anything done! Ordinarily the singing sounds kind of overly practiced, but this morning it was a little more lively and soulful with some feeling in it.

I decided instead of getting in the way while they were trying to have their party I’d go eat at a Chinese restaurant I pass every day, “The Lilylike House.” It was expensive! I spent $9.00 on an order of dumplings, some tomato-based meat dish, rice, and a Coke. I could have bought an equivalent amount of food on the street for a fraction of that price, but then again I probably wouldn’t have been able to sit down and take my time eating, nor would there have been at least the illusion of sanitary cooking practices. I fully expected to have some “gastrointestinal distress” from the food, but it tasted good and settled well.

The dala dala on the way to the Bahá’í Centre actually had a working radio in it, and even speakers in the back! That’s quite a luxury. The driver had it on a station playing Western music, so I got to hear a Backstreet Boys song and “Lady in Red.” Oddly enough, the man behind me was singing along.

At the Bahá’í Centre, I was taught the correct way to stop the dala dala, as well as the name of the stop for the house and the Bahá’í Centre. The house stop is called “macho,” which means “eyes” in Swahili, because there’s a hospital nearby that specializes in treating the eyes. I spent probably fifteen minutes trying to explain to them that “macho” was an English word, too. They told me the stop near the Bahá’í Centre was “supastah,” but when I asked what it translated into they said it was an English word! It turns out they were trying to say “super star,” but they’ve Africanized it so it doesn’t sound at all like the way I say “super star.” So the word to indicate that you want to disembark is “shusha,” which means “disembark” (duh). It also means to have an orgasm. There are a lot of words here that have multiple meanings, so I guess they just rely on context to figure out which one you mean. Otherwise it seems like there could be some serious mix-ups.

At the “supastah” stop, I was having a terrible time getting a dala dala to stop for me. After two times, this secondary school student came over to me and asked me where I was going. She said they probably weren’t stopping because they were either too full or because I was a mzungu and mzungus don’t usually ride the dala dala. She told me she’d get one to stop for me and then batted her eyelashes and smiled sweetly. I thanked her, but it kind of weirded me out. I’ve been “warned” several times that many girls will flirt with mzungus and that before I leave I’ll probably have gotten a handful of marriage proposals, but this girl couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16! It seems that many people have the idea in their minds that they only want to marry a mzungu because they think it means a better life and that they’ll get to leave the country. Dr. Sabet told me that when they were living in Zambia and Mrs. Sabet was out of town once, the maid patted her stomach and asked him, “Sir, can I have your baby?".

Day Twenty Eight

2006-03-30T08:43:00.000-06:00

I woke up at 7:00 AM this morning! Can you believe it? And I’ve made it fine through most of the day, despite doing a lot of walking. I always knew there was some hidden reservoir of energy in my body just waiting to be exploited like a multinational corporation on a newly discovered African oil field. =P Most of the day was spent dealing with NTC e-mails and members of the Committee itself, trying to encourage them to do what they’re supposed to in a timely fashion. I guess I’m kind of like a Bahá’í whip.

I had some “adventures” in the sun today. The weather is getting to where it’s almost enjoyable when the sun goes behind a cloud, but if it’s out and blazing in the sky then forget it. I had to walk to the dala dala stop to buy some credits for my cell phone, or “mobile.” The whole mobile process here is unusual. First, you buy the phone, then you buy a SIMM card, and then you buy X amount of credit and put it on the phone. When you run out, you go buy more. It’s sort of like a pay as you go plan. The traditional plans we have in America are totally unheard of. Also, most people use text messaging, or SMS as it’s called here, because it’s substantially cheaper than actually calling. It took a bit of conversation before they understood what I wanted, again highlighting the need to learn more than one word of Swahili a day. Today's word was jangwa, which means desert.

After lunch, I confirmed with Dr. Sabet what I would be doing after the National Convention at the end of April. He’d mentioned that he wanted me to visit home front pioneers, but I didn’t know he meant all of them. There are over 15 of them spread out all over the country! So if I go to visit them one after the other, I’ll basically be traveling for the entire month of May and part of June. Here’s a map of Tanzania so that you can follow along. I’ll be going to Zanzibar, Iringa, Morogoro, Mtwara, Arusha, Singida, Shinyanga, Mwanza, Kigoma, and Mfindi (or Mufindi), and that’s just what I know. I imagine there will be a few more towns along the way.

The Sabets are also discussing going to Brazil for the month of July to visit relatives. I have no idea what they intend to do with me. I’ll likely burn the house down or get robbed or something if I’m alone for a month. Maybe I’ll be able to do some traveling of my own, but it’s so expensive! You have to pay like $100-$200 to get into the national parks. Although I guess if you’re coming to Tanzania for vacation, chances are you’ve got the money to pay it. I bet I can find some cheap stuff to do.

This afternoon I met with a man who lives in Dodoma who is helping me make arrangements for the National Convention. Although he'd been described as a reluctant participant in assisting, he turned out to be very nice and friendly. Depending on his work schedule, I'm supposed to go to Dodoma on either Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday and stay for two days to make various arrangements. He's going to accompany me, which I didn't expect, and show me around Dodoma a bit, so I can see the real Tanzania instead of just Dar. While I was at the Centre, I discussed the whole work situation with the office manager. Basically it boiled down to her wanting me to work from the National Centre instead of home. While I have my own personal opinions about that, I decided it was best to just go with the flow, so I'm going to be at least dropping by the Centre in the mornings three or four times a week to see if there's anything they need help with.

Day Twenty Seven

2006-03-29T07:47:00.000-06:00

Saturday night we went to Janet’s place on the beach for dinner. Her sister from Mali is still in town, so we had food from Mali. It was delicious! A lot of tomatoes were used, so I was happy. I’m sure my parents would die of shock to see the things I’ve eaten since I arrived. I’ve probably eaten more vegetables in the past three weeks than I have in the past three years. Janet had other members of her family over, as well as some of the other Bahá’ís that she knows. Once we’d eaten and socialized a bit, we had a devotional. Imagine a non-Bahá’í organizing a devotional meeting! I sang the version of the short healing prayer that Ameria and Aisha do, which was the first time any of the Tanzanian Bahá’ís have heard me sing. They said I shouldn’t have been hiding the fact that I could sing and liked to sing for so long. One of the other non-Bahá’ís at the dinner said he and his wife would like to have dinner and a devotional, too, so we’re going there on Friday.

What’s been amazing to me is how much the friends do here, and how unafraid they are to have people in their homes. At least twice a week we have someone here at the house, or we go to their home for dinner and prayers or a simple home visit. I’ll be really happy when the Little Rock community gets to the point where we can go to someone’s house on a Thursday and have dinner and say prayers together as a spontaneous expression of our spirituality rather than a defined or laborious exercise.

Yesterday, I went to the American embassy for the first time. When Dermot came into town, he brought the tax forms of some American Bahá’ís living in Iringa and asked me to drop them at the embassy. I should have gone Monday but there was an awful storm. I also took some allergy medicine that made me so sleepy I could barely move.

I’d say the embassy is probably a little more than a mile from the house, so I set originally set out with the intent of walking all the way there. About halfway I decided that it was a terribly ill-conceived plan. It wasn't that humid, but the sun was merciless. I felt like I was being cooked, so I decided to take a taxi. Every day I must have a hundred of them honking at me, but of course they were nowhere in sight. So I had to continue walking until I found one parked under a shade tree.

At the entrance to the Consular Affairs section there’s a little banda with some Tanzanian security guards well-versed in English inside it. One of them stopped me to examine my passport, and then struck up a conversation about how I liked Tanzania, what all I had done so far, if I planned to go on safari, so on and so forth. I’m sure in the process of asking all of these questions with a big smile on his face he was sizing me up or something, but it was at least nice to encounter a friendly security guard. I had to pass through some initial security where my cell phone was taken and my passport examined, and then on to another security checkpoint. The doors are so thick that it takes some serious effort to open and close them! Considering the embassy here was blown up in the 90's, I was a little surprised that security wasn't more prominent. I expected Diplomatic Security personnel with big guns and whatnot, but no such thing. From the road, the embassy looks like a fort, though inside it's very lush and well groomed.

I was ushered into the American Citizens Services booth, which, seemingly like all public areas, is blocked off from the area containing embassy personnel by a thick pane of (I suppose) bullet-proof glass. I slipped the documents to the lady on the other side and after we worked everything out, she asked me how long I’d been here and whether or not I’d registered. I told her I hadn’t, but I’d do it online when I got home. So I have to remember to do that.

I picked up my things on the way out, and the guard at the banda stopped me when I got near the road. “Please, my friend, have a seat while I get you a taxi.” So I sat under the shade of the banda while he flagged down a taxi. On some days it’s kind of fun to haggle with people over prices, but on some days it just gets to be a bother. Just tell me how much something really is and it’ll save us both a lot of trouble. So when the taxi driver dropped me off where I asked him to, he told me, “TSh 6,000.” I said, “I’m not paying you TSh 6,000 to take me a few kilometers. I’m giving you TSh 2,000 and that’s it.” He kind of puffed up like how dare I have the nerve to pay him less than the outrageous and ridiculous price he demanded, but he held his hand out anyway. The joys of Africa. =)

I got into another little spat with May at lunch. There have been plenty of things since the last incident for me to tell her off about; for instance, we were playing checkers and she was upset about losing, so she just wipes her hand over the board and slings the pieces across the room, laughs about it, and tells me to pick them up. But I didn’t say anything. I just got up and left.

At lunch, we’d all finished eating so she was showing us her school pictures that came today. Dr. Sabet put one into a frame but was having trouble with it, so he handed it to me and asked me if I could put it back together. “You have more patience than me,” he said. I started work on it for a second or so before May comes over and tries to rip it out of my hands, saying, “Give me that, you don’t know what you’re doing.” This was one in a long serious of incidents of being treated sub-human by a nine year old girl. She can treat her parents and her servants the way she wants, but she could at least have a fraction of the decency, respect, and courtesy that a Bahá’í child should have when speaking to a guest.

“Who do you think you are talking to me like that?” I asked. “I’m not your servant, and I’m not on your payroll. Don’t speak to me like that.” She started laughing, I guess because she thought it was a joke even though the look on my face should have plainly told her I wasn’t. “Do you see me laughing? It’s not funny; I’m serious. You don’t talk to people like that.” Her parents were paying attention now. Mrs. Sabet looked at her expectantly, waiting for a response, and Dr. Sabet was demanding for her to tell him what she’d said. She didn't say anything, just huffed and puffed and stomped out of the room.

I’ll carry her around the ocean on my shoulders so she can go deeper than she’d be able to go by herself, I’ll chase her around the house, I’ll sing with her, I’ll play checkers with her, and I’ll even watch those insufferable Olsen Twins movies with her, but a person has got to draw a line somewhere. I’ve been trying through less subtle means to instill some manners and respect into her (for instance, I won’t pass her anything down the dinner table unless she says “please” and asks nicely rather than demands) but sometimes it gets to the point where you have to get upset before she realizes what she’s doing. Not only is it just downright disrespectful to treat people the way she does sometimes, but I’m also worried about her own social development. As her own brother asked her mother at the dinner table after one of her fits, “Don’t you worry about what kind of person she’s going to be if she keeps acting that way?”

P.S. - The Internet has been down for three days, and it's still acting a little funny, so please be patient if it takes me a bit to respond to pending e-mails. =) Asante sana.

Day Twenty Four

2006-03-26T13:53:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I saw a little girl who couldn’t have been more than three years old going down the street on little wooden crutches, which she had to use because she either had no feet or her feet were so shriveled that she couldn’t walk on them. It’s alarming to me the degree to which I’m able to pass things like that every day and be able to shut it out of my mind. Shouldn't I burst into tears or feel a knot in the pit of my stomach or something? I’m afraid that my mind is just processing it and storing it in some deep recess of my mind, where at some point it’s going to burst forth and break me. It’s just doesn't seem possible for someone to walk past these things every day without having some kind of major breakdown at some point.

So much has happened since my last posting. I’m feeling better and more comfortable here. I think I’m allowed a bad day every once in awhile. So during the week, I was lucky enough to attend the graduation party of Mrs. Mwahija Mandara, one of the Bahá’ís here in the city. We went to the restaurant owned by Janet, the seeker who lives on the beach that we visited a week or so ago. There was local food: cassava ugali; some kind of soup that tasted like chicken & dumplings; a banana and meat dish; and various vegetables. Both Mrs. Mandara and her husband, Gideon, have enormous families so there were a great many people there. I was able to take some pictures and post them on my Flickr account, but they’re all pretty horrible because I had the setting for the photo quality on the wrong thing. As if it weren’t obvious enough, I discovered at this gathering that I really need to improve my Kiswahili. I’m using it more in greetings and very simple sorts of things, but I’ve resolved to buckle down and really begin an earnest study of it.

On Friday, Mr. Dermot McHugh came to Dar from the Ruaha Secondary School (supported by the Mona Foundation) in Iringa for the National Teaching Committee (NTC) meeting the following day. He was my primary contact before coming to Tanzania, so it was wonderful to finally be able to meet him. Now I’ll be able to go to Iringa and actually know someone at the school. As seems traditional, he stayed with the Sabets for the weekend in exchange for ice cream, juice, fruits, and other goodies that he brought. He’s originally from the U.S., but he’s been in Africa for something like over 30 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (yikes!), Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania.

On Saturday, we had the first real NTC meeting, which turned into an all day affair. The meeting was supposed to begin at 9:30 AM. Three of the members were at an institutional conference in Kenya, so Dr. Sabet told the remaining member (besides Dermot) to be at his house at 8:30. Unfortunately, Africans are never timely. I know it’s a part of their culture and “tolerance” is the order of the day, but it has been very hard for me to adjust to the fact that saying something will happen at a certain time doesn’t mean anything at all. In fact, it’s really just a flat out lie because everyone knows they aren’t going to show up at that time. Anyway... So at 9:30 we called her to see where she was, and she told us she was in the bath! After she arrived, we all headed to the National Centre for our meeting, accompanied by Gershom Mpumbiye, an Auxiliary Board Member from Kigoma region, who was assisting us with planning the National Convention.

Even though the NTC has an official Secretary, I’ve become the actual functioning Secretary. The other Secretary is like the Queen and I’m the Prime Minister or something of the sort. Although I’ve been dealing with only filing for the past three weeks, I actually have real work to do now. The most “exciting” thing I have to do is sometime this week or next week travel to Dodoma, the official capital of the country some 7 or 8 hours away by bus, to help select a venue for the National Convention, as well as make arrangements for housing for all of the delegates and guests. There's also the prospect of being responsible for coordinating the activities of 4 or 5 year of service people coming in the next few months. I don't know how to manage people! It's going to be a nightmare.

On Saturday evening, we had guests for dinner. It was a bit of a sensitive issue regarding the External Affairs Office and the participation of the national community in an interfaith organization, so I won’t go into it too much. Everyone was tired and kind of cranky, but the meeting seemed somewhat productive. At the very least it was nice to have guests in the house and the food was good.

Today, I went for devotions at the National Centre; Dr. Sabet went for an LSA meeting; and Mrs. Sabet went for an External Affairs meeting with Peter Kabisa. Peter Kabisa is worth mentioning because he once dated Rigmor Mereness of the Russellville community when they were in school in the United Kingdom. She told me to keep an eye out for him while I was here, but it seemed unlikely that I’d actually see him. He’s going to help Mrs. Sabet with contacting government officials regarding the latest guidance from the Universal House of Justice on the steadily worsening situation of the Bahá’ís in Iran. It was gotten quite bad for them in the past few months, which I’m sure the National Spiritual Assembly of the U.S. will be informing the friends of shortly.

After devotions, we came back home for lunch and then went to the Dar es Salaam Yacht Club at the invitation of one of Dr. Sabet’s colleagues, Colin. He took us out on his sailboat, which was quite an experience! We sailed to one of the many islands off the coast of Dar (Bongoyo or something like that) and swam around a bit in the ocean. We saw the biggest, nastiest, ugliest jelly fish I’ve ever seen in my life (not that I've seen a lot)! The trip to the island was relatively calm and easy, but on the way back the wind had picked up, so we made it in about half the time it took us to get there. There were also a lot of wind gusts, which tipped the sailboat sideways (at a 35 degree angle at one point!). Mrs. Sabet and May were not amused by that, but Dr. Sabet and I were enjoying ourselves a lot.

When we arrived back at our designated moor, Colin asked Mrs. Sabet to tie these buoy type things onto the side of the boat. They're sort of like big foam cyllinders that keep others boats from slamming into the side of the sailboat when you're boarding or disembarking. We'd already lost one at the island, and then all of the sudden there was this big commotion when Mrs. Sabet dropped another one into the water as she was trying to tie it. With the wind and the current, it was quickly swept away from the boat and out of our reach. So I dove over the side of the boat and swam out to get it. That thing was really moving! I almost couldn't swim fast enough to catch it, but I did. Once I got it, I immediately regretted going after it. It's hard enough to swim in the ocean without a giant, awkward, floating cyllinder in your hand. I managed to make it back to the boat but I was exhausted! Dr. Sabet seemed amazed for the rest of the afternoon that I'd done that. Although in retrospect I guess it might seem out of character for me. I doubt many people can visualize me diving off the side of a sailboat into the ocean to retrieve something.

Dr. Sabet is in the process of applying to become a member of the Club and possibly purchasing a boat, so I imagine we’ll be fortunate enough to spend more time there. But something that bothered me was the segregated atmosphere. I have to admit that I’m definitely living the “mzungu lifestyle,” so I don’t have much room to talk. I live with wealthy foreigners in a guarded compound. Dr. Sabet mentioned that the Club seemed like some kind of distant world from what was right outside the walls, and Mrs. Sabet called it “Tanzanian apartheid.” There wasn’t a single African in that Club that wasn’t working. In fact, the Sabets were the darkest people there. There are some Indian and Asian members, but an African is almost unheard of.

I don’t mean to criticize, but despite recognizing all of that, my hosts still want to be members. May is excited at the prospect of the social status that it will confer on her, since most people in her school at members. How do we as Bahá’ís figure into this? The fact that white people can come into this Club and lounge around while Africans outside the walls engage in back-breaking labor for fewer wages in a month than the white people spend on booze at the Club in a day doesn’t seem quite fair, nor does it seem like something that we should be supporting with our participation. But then again Bahá’u’lláh does not urge us to abandon the things that our hard-earned money can purchase us, including (I guess) membership in a Club where we can enjoy ourselves.

The disparity in this country is really becoming apparent to me. It sticks in the back of my mind when I sit down at the dinner table and our African cook, who makes $80 per month, is bringing the food out to place before us. I recall it when I pass a woman with a child on her back, two massive bottles of water in her hands, and an enormous bag balanced on top of her head while I’m in the luxury climate-controlled car. It’s inescapably obvious when I reflect on the fact that I live a more comfortable life in the fourth poorest country in the world than I did in the wealthiest country on Earth. This hardly seems like Justice; and, yet, what is one to do?

Day Twenty

2006-03-22T08:25:00.000-06:00

After such a wonderful Naw Ruz, I should have known something would be lurking around the corner! Today was probably the first day that I felt really homesick and wanted to get back on a plane and come home. I woke up late this morning, so I was rushing to get to the dala dala stop. I managed to hurt my foot – AGAIN! – on the way there. Also, it seems that I am looking extra mzungu-ish today. Let me explain:

When I got on the dala dala, two Muslim women were sitting in front of me. Ordinarily the Muslim women are very shy and reserved in their behavior, but these two certainly weren’t. They both turned around and stared at me for a second and then turned back around, still watching me out of the corner of their eyes. They started speaking in Kiswahili to one another and then finally one of them turns and says something to me in Kiswahili that I didn’t understand. “Excuse me?” I said, looking confused. They both giggled and then the other one said, “Hello! How are you?” I told her I was fine, and asked how she was, to which she replied the same. They both turned back around and started speaking to one another, and then turned back again. “Where are you going?” she asked. “To work,” I replied. Then they burst into laughter and the silent one pointed at the other one, as if making fun of her. I don’t know whether they were trying to be nice and thought I might be lost or they had a bet as to where I was going or what.

Halfway through the bus ride I was dying of thirst, so I got off the dala dala before my stop to step into a café for some water and something to eat. I walked around the neighborhood just to check it out and then I made my way back to the main road to catch the dala dala the rest of the way. I’ve gotten used to every passing taxi honking at me, but some of them are so persistent that it’s not even funny. Today one of them slowed down to a crawl and followed me for a block constantly honking his horn. I finally had to turn around and curse him out to get him to move on. How ridiculous! It seems like every person in the transportation industry in this city thinks that a mzungu doesn’t know how to use his/her legs or something.

I got to a corner and stood waiting for the dala dala, which sometimes you have to flag down if you aren’t standing in the middle of a group of people who are obviously waiting for the bus. I’d never had to do this before, but I’d observed several locals doing it. One of them approached and I waved to indicate I wanted to get on the bus. The driver kind of slowed down a little bit, gave me this weird look like “Did I just see a mzungu waving down a dala dala?”, and then sped off. This happened twice before I got so mad that I just decided to walk the rest of the way. I think the problem is that I’m dressed nicely and I have a leather laptop bag. Most of the mzungu who are riding the dala dala look like poor Bohemian hippies that just took a dirt bath. So maybe I should roll around in the dirt and tear my shirt before I get to the main road so I’ll look poor enough that they’ll actually stop for me.

As I was walking up a hill to get to the National Centre, I passed a dala dala that was stopped and waiting for passengers to board. The driver stepped out of the bus and called to me, “Hey mzungu! You going up the hill?” Slightly perturbed that he’d called me a mzungu (they say it like it’s a terrible thing to be), I told him that I was going to the top. “Come, we’re going up the hill, get in,” he said. I repeated that I was just going to the top of the hill, a few metres away, and I let him know that I wasn’t going to pay him bus fare to take me up a hill when I had feet and legs that could take me there for free. He started to insist again, and I just walked away, having had just about all I could take. In Africa it seems that "no" does not mean "no."

In the alleys leading to the National Centre, I ran into the gaggle of taxi drivers that regularly park themselves there. “Hey, mzungu, you need transport?” one of them asked. “No, thank you, I only have a few blocks to go,” I said. He nodded and smiled and then they all started grinning, which I took to mean they were about to start messing with me. “Mzungu, mzungu,” one of them started in a sing-song voice to get my attention. When I turned around he asked, “Mambo?” Mambo means “things” and is sort of a slang term like “What’s up?”. The appropriate reply is “Poa,” which means “cool,” and that’s what I said to him. I could tell he didn’t anticipate I’d know the right response, so he seemed surprised that his attempt at picking on me had failed. I stuck my tongue out at him for good measure, which got a good laugh from his friends, and then went along my way.

At the National Centre, I found out that there’s been a bit of contention surrounding who I’m supposed to be working for. When I applied for service here I originally applied for an office assistant position at the National Centre. But when I arrived I was told that I would be working for the National Teaching Committee (NTC). When other people expressed an interest in utilizing me they’ve been told that I’m only working for the NTC and I’ve been told that I can’t work for any other agency except the NTC unless the NTC Chairman tells me I can. So when I arrived today the National Centre Office Manager wanted to know why I hadn’t been coming to work. I’ve been doing most of my work here at the house because most of the NTC things are here (one of my hosts is the NTC Chairman). I’m not going to waste money and put myself through the ordeal of the dala dala to go sit at the National Centre all day doing things I can do from the comfort of home.

I explained it to her, and she said that she was under the impression that I was supposed to be working for the National Spiritual Assembly, its agencies, and the National Centre, evidently under her direction. She seemed a little put off that I’d been commandeered by the NTC, and she asked me to clear things up. I’m not sure exactly what it is that I’m supposed to clear up, so I’m going to talk to Dr. Sabet this evening and ask him to speak to whoever needs to be spoken to about clearing up my status.

I personally don’t really think it’s my responsibility to have to deal with this. I came here to serve, not get involved in some inter-agency struggle of control and bogged down by massive inefficiency and a lack of proper communication. I’ve been a little bothered by the total lack of coordination surrounding my service, and I’ve been trying to be patient. There are only a few people trying to do the job of many, but it can still be very frustrating. I can only do what I’m told and the rest of the time I’m stuck twiddling my thumbs while waiting for others to get their acts together.

On days like today, when you feel singled out, vulnerable, and home sick, you want to throw your hands in the air, say to hell with it, and go back home where things operate with some level of efficiency, order, and decency and you don't stick out like a sore thumb.

Day Nineteen

2006-03-21T13:23:00.000-06:00

Late Saturday night, the Sabets decided it was time to do our baking for Naw Ruz. I thought that was a little unusual since it was three days away, but I consented anyway. Dr. and Mrs. Sabet made baklava, and May and I made some kind of banana bread cake. It proved to be an interesting experience, but it all turned out very well. While we were waiting for our cake to bake, May and I played a game of checkers. She almost beat me, and the only reason she lost was through a mistake that she made and not some kind of grand strategy that I’d pursued. She seemed a little upset that she didn’t win but she didn’t complain.

Last night, we had a mini-celebration for Naw Ruz within the family. Hossein conducted this Persian tradition that I can’t remember the name of where you gather seven things that begin with the letter “S” in Farsi. We had fruits, cookies, juices, and teas and took pictures together, celebrating the beginning of the new Bahá’í year and the end of the Fast. The Sabets gave money to their children, and we all stayed up a bit late enjoying one another’s company.

This morning, we went to the beach! After passing through the fish market (blech), we took a ferry to a rural part of Dar es Salaam called Kigamboni. Although the beaches are crawling with people on the weekends, we were fortunate in getting to go on a weekday. There were only two other groups of people on the beach, so we were able to have a banda to ourselves. Hossein, May, Maasai (friend of May), and I spent most of our time in the water. We were even able to convince Mrs. Sabet to get in the water, too. I couldn’t have been more fortunate to be at such an historic event! I took quite a few pictures at the beach, which you can see on the Flickr account under the Naw Ruz section. Dar es Salaam seems to have amazing beaches, and the water is a color of blue I've only seen in pictures.

This evening, we went to the National Centre for the Dar es Salaam Bahá’í community’s Naw Ruz celebration. It was filled with many choir performances and dramatic skits, some performed in English and some performed in Kiswahili. There were somewhere between 150 and 200 people present. At the end of the program, one of the friends was giving a performance and began encouraging the crowd to participate. Suddenly everyone was on their feet dancing and clapping. The youth materialized out of nowhere and headed to the front of the room to lead the clapping and dancing. Talk about audience participation! The spirit was wonderful and joyous.

The Patels, a Bahá’í family who are caterers, fed everyone at the event. Imagine cooking for so many people! As I understand it, they are frequently moved to make such enormously generous gestures. I was able to speak to Mrs. Patel for a few moments, and she warmed to me after I shared that a friend of mine was from her state, Gujarat. In fact it seems like almost all of the Indians in the city are from that particular state, which seems unusual. I spent most of the evening speaking with Susan, a Bahá’í from Lebanon, who’s been in Tanzania for 25 years or so. She has such a wonderful accent!

I’m exhausted! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Naw Ruz celebration in your respective communities. I missed being home for the holy day, but it was nice to celebrate it Persian/African style. Alláh’u’abhá!

Day Sixteen

2006-03-18T08:57:00.000-06:00

Last night we went on a home visit to the home of a friend of the Sabets’, Janet, who lives in the same area that they used to. She’s a businesswoman (and apparently a good one) so she’s able to afford beachfront property. We shared some prayers with her and her son and while Mrs. Sabet was visiting with her, I went with Dr. Sabet and May down to the ocean. Although we had only the moon to see by, we shed our shoes and socks and ran out into the waves. The water was cool and the sand was wonderful. We all chased little crabs up and down the beach. They’re so fast!

Dr. Sabet suggested that we go to the beach on Naw Ruz, so we’ll see how that pans out. He’s also considering joining the yacht club and buying a sail boat, and he said we should go sailing before I leave.

I spent most of today inside because it was raining until the afternoon, but once the clouds drifted away it was an exceptionally beautiful day. May had a friend over and they wanted to go swimming, so Mrs. Sabet told me that if I wanted to go I had 2 minutes to get downstairs. So 15 minutes later, I accompanied Mrs. Sabet, May, and her friend Sarah to the Golden Tulip Hotel so that they could swim and the “grown-ups” could lounge around the pool. The weather was wonderful and the sea was beautiful, although it lacked the bright blue color that it has on really sunny days.

Sarah’s mother picked her up, but it was a little early still to go home so we stayed at the hotel for a bit longer before heading to the super market. The last time we were there, the man gave us a loaf of rye bread for free to try. So when Mrs. Sabet and I saw him in the store, she told him how much we enjoyed it. “And your husband?” he asked, motioning toward me. We laughed so hard that we couldn’t even catch our breath. We explained to the poor man, who was looking more and more embarrassed, that I was a guest and not her husband. I don’t know if Mrs. Sabet looks really young, I look really old, or he thought we were slightly scandalous, but she’s 30 years older than me and standing next to each other we don’t even begin to approach husband and wife.

Day Fourteen

2006-03-16T12:58:00.001-06:00

So Norton Antivirus, which acts more like Norton Antichrist, decided to declare that the Word file containing my journal has a virus. Not only did it make such a declaration, but it also permanently removed it from my hard drive. All without my knowledge, until I tried to open the file and it prattled on about what it had done. I didn’t even know it could do that! I know I certainly don’t recall giving it that kind of authority. Thank goodness I’m keeping the journal online, too, otherwise I’d just be out of luck.

Today we went to the movies to see "Pink Panther," but on the way I had a little mishap. Mrs. Sabet and I left the house to pick up May to take her with us. We were kind enough to bring her some rice, chips, a drink, and some fruit as a snack, as well as go out of our way to pick her up. We ran into some traffic on the way and immediately she began complaining about it. Not just regular complaining, like, "Oh this traffic is terrible!" but she was actually blaming it on her mother, as if her mother were the one responsible for all the traffic in Dar es Salaam. Not only was it her fault for the traffic, but also her fault that we were going to be late and "miss the entire movie." Then she rejected the food we brought her as if it were nothing (despite the fact that Mrs. Sabet and I are fasting, doubly rude) and demanded that we go out of our way to pick up some other food for her, overlooking the fact that it would make us even later for the movie that she was so desperate to see the entirety of.

She went on and on like this for ten minutes, near tears in all of her complaining, until finally I couldn't take it anymore. In the past every time she's started in, I've reminded myself that I'm a guest in their home and it isn't my responsibility to parent their children. I can feel that anger rising up in me about to explode, but I've always had the restraint to keep it under control but not today. What made me furious is all of this complaining is about material, transitory, and totally superficial things. And when she starts criticizing her mother, it's really painful for me to see because I know how much her parents sacrifice for her. Her mother is a kind, sweet, caring, strong, humorous woman who has done so much work for the Faith and humanity that I can only hope to accomplish a third of the same. Not to mention that right outside our car window it's immediately apparent that we are in the fourth poorest country in the world. Little children are playing in sewage and trash infested rivers while others don't have enough to eat or drink or proper clothes to wear. People toil day after day after day for maybe $10 a week. And here we are in our air conditioned car listening to May moan about not getting the food she wants, the clothes she wants, everything she wants in a timely manner.

So finally I just yelled at her to be quiet and stop complaining all the time, that all she did was complain, complain, complain and it was incredibly bothersome and unnecessary. I could see from the corner of my eye that Mrs. Sabet's eyes grew a little bit, and May immediately fell silent for the rest of the trip. I know it wasn't my place to say, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I can't stand ungrateful, privileged children and it's made all the worse by them being in the middle of one of the poorest countries on the face of the planet. Mrs. Sabet didn't say anything, but I think she was sort of glad that I said it. Or at least I hope she was. The last thing I need to do is offend my hosts.

So, the Pink Panther was hilarious. Dr. Sabet is back in town. I've finished the Annual Report, and I'll finish the filing tomorrow and begin working on the National Convention. I'm very tired and still on the fence about what I said today. God is testing me with this little girl, and I don't like it.

Day Twelve

2006-03-14T12:18:00.000-06:00

There’s a new species on my hit list: Passer domesticus, better known as the House Sparrow. As with so many things, I believe I have the British to thank for introducing them to Africa. The eaves of our house are perfect for the stupid things to roost in, and they make a hellacious amount of noise in the morning. The second you turn your back after chasing them away, they’re right back at the window chirping their heads off. After waking up and eating breakfast at 5:30 in the morning all I want to do is get a few more hours of sleep before work. But the resident house sparrows always seem to have something else in mind.

I brought enough work home from the Centre yesterday to last me all day, but I took a (long) break this morning to do some research on Dar es Salaam. Most people view the city as a place to conduct commerce or, if you’re a mzungu, a place with an airport where you stay a night before going to Zanzibar or on safari. However, I’m convinced that the largest city in the country has more to offer than just hotels. So after my research I’ve produced a few places that should occupy a Saturday or two but not as much as I'd hope. Maybe this really is a city and nothing more.

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This evening, Mrs. Sabet, May, and I went to the University of Dar es Salaam for a devotional being held by one of the students, Oliva. Two of her friends were in attendance, and I was able to chat with them a bit. They’re studying urban planning, which is something that Dar sorely needs. I don’t think they’ve got a Master Plan for this place at all. I guess the British or the Nyerere government or someone paved the roads a few decades ago, but now they’ve all deteriorated into just dirt lanes. And they’re just now installing a main sewage system for the city! They claimed that no one knew that the city would grow to this size and overwhelm the current sewer system, but give me a break! How many cities don’t grow? Especially the largest one in the country!

After the devotional, we went to Sea Cliff to the supermarket to buy some bread, although we left with about 20 things. I’m currently enjoying a Cherry Coke and Snickers, all of which cost me only $2.50. It’s ridiculously priced but it’s nice to treat yourself to a luxury every once in awhile. Besides, I don’t have much of anything else to spend my money on. So far, Mrs. Sabet has been insistent on paying for mostly everything except only a few personal things that I insist on paying for. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy my own toothpaste at least!

This evening at dinner, May, the Sabets’ daughter, told me that I was the first male guest that she’s actually liked. It has been difficult to adjust to her, but over the past few days I think I’ve really put effort into it. Not only am I not accustomed to children, but she has been fortunate enough to have lived a very privileged life thus far. She is bright, outspoken, and opinionated. She is highly praised both at home and at school for her intelligence, and I think all of these things have had an...hmm…impact, shall we say, on her development that has made it particularly difficult for me to handle her at times. Nevertheless, it was a nice thing of her to say and it’s helped to diffuse some of my bottled up words and emotions.

A note to myself is to write about the local perception of Americans tomorrow. It’s a really interesting thing.

Day Eleven

2006-03-13T12:05:00.000-06:00

I slept in a bit this morning before heading to the National Centre. Dr. Sabet left for Botswana yesterday, which seems to depress the rest of the family a little bit. He’s going to be gone for less than a week but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the way they’re acting! Only Mrs. Sabet and I were eating at the table this morning before sunrise, and we did so in complete silence.

As per My Fat Aunt's request, I took some more pictures on my way to the National Centre and of the Centre itself, which you can see on my Flickr account. I would have more, but it started to rain so I had to put the camera up. The weather today was unusually cool, made even more so by the rain, and that was a welcome relief. I didn’t mind at all walking to the daladala in the rain. Well, when I say cool, I mean it’s in the upper 80’s with an even higher humidity, but compared to what we’re normally experiencing it seems like an arctic front.

I had an interesting experience with a gaggle of taxi drivers on the way to work this morning. They were all gathered up in one of the alleys between the main road and the Centre, which is an odd place to be. There’s not really all that much foot traffic going through there, especially not people who would be taking a taxi. So here I come walking along and of course as soon as they spotted me they all jumped to their feet, like at any moment I was going to come rushing over and ask for a cab. One of the bad things about being a mzungu is that people think you’re rich and that for some reason you always want a taxi. I get honked at by every single taxi driver that passes by me.

Anyway, a few of the taxi drivers were bold enough to edge over toward me. One of them asked, “How are you?” I’m not going to just ignore him if he’s making an effort to communicate in English, so I told him I was fine and asked him how he was. To which he replied, “How are you?” I gave him an odd look and began wondering if he’d understood me when all the other taxi drivers burst into laughter. One of them came over and said, “My friend that is all the English he knows!” Pretty soon, the whole alley is laughing. Whether they were laughing at me or the driver I don’t know but it was good to see some people laughing. I get tired of walking down the road and smiling at people only to get this dull look in return.

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This evening, Mrs. Sabet wanted to drive to the ocean, roll down the windows, and listen to the waves and smell the sea. So, May and I went with her. May spent a good amount of her time complaining about how someone was going to come rob us or something, and she was nearing hysterics, so we moved down the seafront away from the beach and toward the cliffs of Sea Cliff, an area for tourists. We parked, went down to the cliffs, and sat down to watch the surf roll in. There were a lot of bats flying from under the cliffs to eat the bugs gathering by the lights of the hotel. The waves were wonderful, although the moon was unfortunately obscured by the clouds. You could see the lights of maybe 20 ships out on the horizon. They seem almost ever-present in Dar es Salaam, which is a major port city. The air smelled nice and wonderful until it shifted and brought in the smell rubbish and raw sewage, a very strong reminder that we hadn’t drifted away from all the poverty and destitution right down the road after all.

Day Ten

2006-03-12T11:27:00.000-06:00

Our battle against the mosquitoes continues to evolve into an ever greater struggle. However, through various methods of combat, we seem to be turning the tide of the war. The number of bites on my hands is down from a high of 35 to roughly 20. By conducting a nightly preemptive strike dubbed Operation Kill Them Before They Kill You, we manage to reduce the initial number of combatants in the initial struggle every night. Securing the mosquito net beneath the mattress seems to reduce the likelihood of infiltration of the sleeping zone, while liberal use of DEET acts as a further deterrent. Nevertheless, the struggle continues. Outnumbered and at times outgunned, we will continue, where possible, to take the fight to the enemy and at all times protect the homeland with unwavering determination.

Let it be understood that the enemy is not just a single mosquito but the act of disease-transmitting blood-sucking itself – premeditated, biologically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents. No justification exists for such an act. We will make no concessions to their blood-thirsty demands, nor will we strike any deals with them. We will make no distinction between mosquitoes and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them. Mosquitoes will be disrupted and destroyed by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches the skin. While we will constantly strive to enlist the support of other humans, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such mosquitoes to prevent them from doing harm. Using the full extent of our influence, we will work closely with friends and allies to make clear that all acts of blood-sucking are illegitimate, so that they will be viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy, or genocide: behavior that no respectable individual can condone or support and all must oppose.

In the war against mosquitoes, we must never forget that we are ultimately fighting for our democratic values and way of life. Freedom and fear are at war, and there will be no quick or easy end to this conflict. Yet with persistence, determination, and faith, I am confident that we will emerge victorious.

But seriously, the mosquitoes are eating me alive. It seems that in the night, I toss and turn so much in the bed that sometimes my hands end up against the mosquito net. The mosquitoes are so determined to get some blood that they just line up along the net and bite me through it. Despite putting bug spray on my hands that is 30-40% DEET, they still bite me! I’ve never seen anything like it. I haven’t quite figured out what actual role (if any) they play in the environment, but I’m determined to make it a far less significant one by the time I leave.

On Friday evening, we had some guests over for a devotional and dinner. There were three American Fulbright scholars (one Bahá’í, two not); an employee of Oxfam, the British NGO; another “local” American Bahá’í; two Tanzanian Bahá’ís; and the family. The devotional differed greatly from the ones at home in its level of spontaneity. Prayers were said for maybe 15 minutes or so and then we had dinner together. The guests ended up staying for four hours! And while the Sabets and I were lagging there in the last hour or so, it was still nice to be around such lively, engaging, and intelligent people. We spent probably the last hour and a half answering questions about the Faith. The sincerity and interest of the non-Bahá’ís was really refreshing!

The rest of the weekend we’ve just been kind of bumming around the house. Today and yesterday were both really beautiful days so I should have gotten out and gone somewhere, but where? They might have two museums in the whole city, and I wouldn’t even begin to know how to get there on the daladala. I should go to the beach at some point, but I’m terrified that someone is going to mug me. In fact, I think a lot of the reason why I haven’t been very adventurous is that I’m afraid, even though I know I shouldn’t be. There are a lot of thieves and generally bad people walking around, but the same is true about Little Rock.

This evening we went out to pick up pizza, and Mrs. Sabet left me in the car. I locked the doors and every time a group of people would walk by I’d tense up, certain that they were going to bust the windows and rob me. I don’t really know if it’s some kind of xenophobia or not, but eventually I’m going to have to get over it out of necessity. I didn’t come here to sit behind a barbed-wire wall protected by armed guards. It's amazing how travel brings out things in you that you didn't even know were there, both good and bad.

Day Eight

2006-03-10T03:18:00.000-06:00

So last night I managed to fall down the stairs on the way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I accidentally missed one of the steps and stumbled down the last two. Thankfully there’s a big metal gate thing at the bottom of the steps which at night is partially closed, so I managed to catch myself on it. If it hadn’t been there I’m certain I would have broken my little toe. Instead, I just sprained it very badly. In fact, I’ve sprained it so badly that I have to hobble around the house. I’ve had sprained ankles and pulled muscles and whatnot before, but this is easily the most painful. I can still move the toe with relative ease (and extraordinary pain), so I don’t think it’s broken, but I can’t even set the foot on the floor without it being painful, which means another day of not being able to get much of anything done. I’m beginning to feel like The Comically Hapless Foreigner.

I really needed to go to the Centre today to finish the filing, but now all I can do is sit in my room and try to entertain myself. At least the power (and fan) is on. Hopefully my toe will be better by Monday, otherwise I’ll just have to suck it up and hobble down to the daladala. Of course between now and then who knows what else I’ll have done to myself.

One good thing is that last night we had a wonderful dish. Mrs. Sabet has been asking a lot of questions about what Southerners eat. After I explained, her son said, "That sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen." I had no choice but to agree. So anyway, last night we had some beef filet and vegetable dish...with gravy! We had some of the leftovers this morning for breakfast and I was sure to finish off the gravy. Mrs. Sabet seemed pleased. She explained that she'd asked the girls (the domestic staff) to leave the juices instead of draining them before plating the dish. Although it didn't come close to what you'd get at home, it's probably the closest thing I'm going to get here (it's not like there's a Mama Bahati's Soul Food Kitchen down the road). I felt it was very thoughtful on their part to do that for me.

Day Six

2006-03-08T08:44:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally managed to upload the few photos that I've taken. It's not much, but it's a start. You can see various places in London, some views from the house here in Dar es Salaam, and a few other random photos. I should have more up by the end of the week, but the problem is I'm afraid to go toting my camera around because someone might snatch it. I'll figure something out. Because I didn't do much of anything today, you can see the photos here in lieu of reading about me doing nothing.

Day Five

2006-03-07T02:00:00.000-06:00

I’m about to die right now. There’s 2 hours and 45 minutes left of the Fast, and I’m about to die. This morning, Dr. Sabet’s driver collected me from the house and took me to get a “mobile” a.k.a. cell phone. Evidently I could have brought my own from the U.S. but no one told me that. So I had to spend TSh 85,000 (~$85) to buy a new one and a SIM card for it. Doing this was a process in and of itself. He collected me around 8:30 so I assumed that all the shops would be open. Wrong. Wrong. Most things don’t seem to open until 9:30 and even then it’s a gamble. So the driver gave me a tour of a new area of town while we drove back and forth between two shops waiting for them to open. Finally one of them opened, and we went inside. The driver spoke to the shopkeeper and indicated which phone I wanted. There was a bit of an argument between them and finally he motioned to me that we should leave. Outside he explained that the man was trying to charge way too much for the phone because I was a muzungo (white foreigner). You see, there are three prices for things here: one for ordinary people; one for educated, well-dressed people with cars; and one for muzungos. I guess they’re trying to get the West back for hundreds of years of oppression. Or they’re greedy. One of the two.

We went back to the other shop and despite being half an hour past the time it was supposed to open, it was still closed. Insanity! Finally the driver decided to go into town to buy the mobile, even though the traffic is really bad. This time I gave him the money and sent him in to buy it for me so we wouldn’t have to go through this whole muzungo nonsense. Long story short, I have a mobile here now. However, don’t even think about calling me because the costs for phone calls are outrageous – $2.00 per call – so people use texting instead.

After we bought the mobile, he drove me back to the daladala stop I’m supposed to take. He instructed me as to the correct bus to get on, which I did, and then followed me to the stop near the Centre. To get to the Centre, you have to go through this maze of alleys, so he picked me up at the stop and drove me through the alleys. I stayed at the Center for about four hours and cleaned up the filing system. If I have the proper materials when I arrive at the office tomorrow I should be able to finish then. At any rate, there’s no electricity at the Centre, which means no fans. Up until today I was at home under industrial-sized fans set on high, but today I had only the wind, and it wasn’t even blowing. I’m so dehydrated right now it’s not even funny!

I took home some of the Kiswahili documents so I can use my Kiswahili-English dictionary to translate them and figure out how to file them. On the way back home on the daladala (and I managed to get to it, on it, and to the appropriate stop with no problems!) I had to stand because there were so many people. I had a shopping bag and an enormous binder in my hands, which was frustrating my ability to hold onto the bar and keep from bumping my head. So this man next to me reaches up, takes the binder, and places it in his lap, freeing up at least one hand. I was extremely grateful for that bit of unsolicited assistance, and I thanked him profusely, which of course he just waved off as if it were an every day occurrence, which it probably is here.

I had to relate my getting lost on the daladala story again when I arrived at the Centre this morning. Everyone was just thankful that I was okay, and the Secretary of the NSA was able to laugh about it. Above all they were worried about having to call my parents and tell them I’d gotten lost. “They’d have killed us!” the Office Manager exclaimed.

I just noticed that online ads must have some marketing geniuses running them or something. Everywhere I go, there’s at least one advertisement for obtaining an American green card!

Day Four

2006-03-06T09:38:00.000-06:00

So this morning around 5:50 AM, Dr. Sabet bursts into my room, flicks on the lights, and yells, “Bryan! Come!” I thought I’d slept through sunrise and I wouldn’t get to eat or drink or something, so I come rolling out of the bed and get all tangled in the mosquito net. When I got downstairs, it turns out that the cook was late this morning so we had to scramble to make and eat breakfast before the sun came up. We managed to make it, but we were really shoveling things in there at the last minute.

Yesterday afternoon, I met some of the American Bahá’ís. They came to the house to let their daughters play with May and to see the Sabets. They already knew who I was and where I’m from. Apparently the other American in the community, who I haven’t even met, told them about me. News travels fast! I have to admit that it was nice to hear a familiar accent.

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It’s past noon and I just got back to the house after riding the stupid daladala in circles for 3 ½ hours. I managed to walk to the bus stop from the house without any problems, but when I arrive there’s a mass of buses everywhere with a bunch of Kiswahili words on the front to indicate where they’re going. So, I’m supposed to get on the Msasani-K/Koo bus to go to the Bahá’í Centre. No problem. So I get on what I thought was one of the Msasani-K/Koo buses because the man was hanging out the side hollering what I thought was “Msasani.” Unfortunately, he was yelling “Masaki” which is a whole other part of town but to my untrained ear sounded just about the same. So when the bus pulls out of the stop and turns the wrong way, I knew something was wrong. But at that point I still had a sense of adventure and way too much confidence in my ability to return to the stop I started from, so I decided to go along for the ride. Plus I don’t know how to say “Stop the bus, and let me off!” in Kiswahili.

So here I am on the bus going to Masaki. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the name of the other half of the bus’s line, so that made it far more difficult to return. Anyway, we go through the bus’s whole route, and we’re on our way back to the bus stop that I started from when the man turns to me and starts asking me something in Kiswahili. I told him I only spoke English, so he managed to ask where I was going. I told him Ubunga, which he didn’t seem to understand, and then I said United Nations Road, which is somewhat near the Bahá’í Centre. He nodded his understanding and then literally shoved me out the door at the next stop, pointed at another bus down the road, said something in Kiswahili, and sped off.

I should have waited for the bus of the same line to arrive because the bus he pointed to was from a different line, Masaki-Posta. So I get on the Masaki-Posta line, which I found out goes downtown to the National Post Office. In the process of getting there we sped past United Nations Road, where apparently there is no stop, which is good because the street is so flooded after the rain that I couldn’t have walked it anyway. So we get downtown and everyone gets off. The bus driver turns to me with a questioning look, so I explained to him in this sophisticated English my situation, none of which he understands. So finally using hand gestures and very simple English I indicated that I’d gotten on the wrong bus and needed to go back to Masaki. He nodded and when the bus was loaded off we went.

I should have known better than to think this bus would return to the place that I wanted it to. So for the next hour and a half, I rode the Masaki-Posta line trying to figure out how the hell I managed to get onto this line, which seems to run independent from everything else, from the Msasani-K/Koo bus stop. During all of this riding, I noticed that we kept passing signs for the Disabled Hospital and UNESCO, both of which are right down the road from the house. We were also in an area which seemed somewhat familiar from my travels with Dr. Sabet. So after deciding that I would never figure out how to get from the Masaki-Posta line back to the Msasani-K/Koo line without walking between the two stops, I got off at the stop nearest the UNESCO and Disabled Hospital signs and walked back home. I could have continued on to the original bus stop and gotten on the Msasani-K/Koo line bus but I was sick of the things and I didn’t want to mess with them anymore. The NTC files and work will just have to wait until tomorrow because I’ve had enough adventure for now.

So, let me describe the daladalas a little bit. They’re basically shaped like those old Volkswagen minivans. Inside there are seats for about 18 people, which fills the thing up to capacity. But do they stop piling people on? No, of course not. At one point we must have had 25 people smashed in there. And when I was saying “bus stop” earlier, this is nothing like a bus stop in the Western world. There’s no sign designating it as a bus stop (except downtown). You just kind of have to know where it is, pray that there are some other people waiting for the bus, or hope that the bus will stop when you wave your hands wildly. Some of the time you’re on a paved road with a nice little extra portion cut out for the bus to pull in and out of the stop. But most of the time the bus just barrels off the dirt, gravel, or extremely poorly paved road into the grass, dirt, mud, chickens, people, plants, trees, and whatever else is on the side of the road to pick people up and let them off. Frequently whenever someone would get on the bus and see me, they’d do a double-take, like what the heck is this white boy doing on the bus with us? I guess I’m supposed to be driving my own vehicle or being chauffeured around. I saw my first cows and guineas today on the daladala, as well as the ocean and a little seaside resort for rich tourists and foreigners. I also saw some peacocks at the Bahá’í Centre on Sunday! How bizarre is that! I totally just stopped in my tracks and stared at it. I thought I might have been hallucinating from the fast or something, but Dr. Sabet explained that they were a gift from Indira Gandhi to Julius Nyerere, the former leader of Tanzania. He kept them in his garden, but they escaped and scattered all over the city, so many of them come to the Bahá’í Centre from time to time.

----

So it turns out that almost all of the employees of the Bahá’í National Centre have been out looking for me because I didn’t show up to work. No one knew that I had come back home. They started looking for me around 10:00 AM at which time I was still on the bus, riding around like nobody’s business. Meanwhile, the friends were in a state of panic, thinking someone had kidnapped me, killed me, arrested me, mugged me, or that I was just lost. Dr. Sabet was the only one that seemed to believe that I just simply got lost! So they’re all out looking for me, questioning the daladala drivers about whether I had been on their bus. They actually found the drivers and managed to trace me all the way downtown, but after that they lost my trail. Mrs. Sabet just called a bit ago and found that I was here. Dr. Sabet came home from looking for me, and I related the story to him. I think Mrs. Sabet is going to be quite upset with me, but it was an honest mistake and I had no idea that everyone would have started looking for me so quickly! Now Dr. Sabet is insisting that I get a mobile phone so that I can call. I think he was also a little disappointed that I didn’t phone the Bahá’í Centre or their home, but I didn’t have the numbers nor did I know where to stop to actually use a telephone. I feel really rotten now. I’d better go brace myself to face Mrs. Sabet.

----

Okay, so she wasn’t too upset, thankfully. I found out that they had called all the police stations in town to put out a notice for me, called the American embassy to alert them of the situation, and called all the hospitals looking for an injured foreigner. The National Institute Coordinator and the Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly were also out looking for me, and apparently the Secretary was pretty upset with the Sabets that I’d been lost, even though it was all my fault. Despite all of the trouble I’ve caused, it’s extremely comforting to know that these people care enough about me to go through all this trouble because I got on the wrong bus and they couldn’t locate me for a few hours.

Dr. Sabet said he was trying to put himself in my shoes to try to anticipate what I would be doing. He even called one of the American Bahá’ís and asked what he thought I would be doing. Of course my stubborn butt was riding around the daladalas convinced that any moment I’d be able to figure it all out. He thought I might be totally panicking or something, whereas Mrs. Sabet was a little more…um…dark in her assumptions. For example, the first thing that came to her mind was that someone tried to take money out of my pocket, I got into a fight with him, and he smashed my face in! Haha, imagine me fighting someone.

We had a little discussion about what to do in the event of an emergency and things like that so that we won’t have mix-ups like this again. I don’t want my name to be floating around the American embassy and the police stations too much! We all agreed that we made too many assumptions, so tomorrow one of the friends is going to come over in the morning and accompany me on the daladala to the Bahá’í Centre. I just can’t wait to get there so everyone can get their laugh at my expense, although who can really blame them? If someone else did this I’d probably be laughing at them, too.

P.S. – Mom, Dad, family, and anyone else prone to hysterics: Please don’t freak out reading this! I’m okay, I promise! It was just a little mix-up, and see how well the friends responded? I’m in good hands. Well, except when I'm in my own it seems. ;-)

Day Three

2006-03-05T22:11:00.000-06:00

I decided (perhaps foolishly) to start the Fast today. I had today and Monday left (or just today, depending on how you count – I tend to be liberal with it), but I decided I should quit messing around and just do it. The Sabets seemed to be pleased that I’d made that decision. While I can’t be sure, I think (for whatever reason) they were expecting me to start the day after. Today wasn’t as hot as the first day I arrived, or maybe I’m just getting used to the heat. Nevertheless, it was hot enough and I’m about to die of thirst. I could care less about the food, I just want some water!! And yet I suppose that’s how I should be feeling as it’s the whole point of the Fast. There’s only an hour or so left anyway.

Today was Sunday, so we went to the Bahá’í Center. Dr. Sabet had an LSA meeting earlier this morning so I went with Mrs. Sabet later in the morning. We arrived and one of the friends inside was saying the Long Healing Prayer, so we had to wait for 5 minutes or so before going in. For the Sunday morning devotional the friends gather in the main hall of the Center in a circle on those white plastic chairs that I suppose are lawn chairs. They randomly say prayers, sometimes in Kiswahili and sometimes in English or Persian, and then they sing. The singing is wonderful! It’s in Kiswahili so I have no clue what they’re saying, except the occasional Bahá’u’lláh or `Abdu’l-Bahá, but they still sound great.

After the devotional, we began studying the 27 December 2005 message from the Universal House of Justice. For the benefit of the few of us who don’t speak Kiswahili well or at all, we broke into Kiswahili- and English-speaking groups to study the message. I was able to relate some of the things we were doing in Little Rock, which was still relevant even though Dar es Salaam is a stage of growth ahead of us. We studied that for about 2 ½ hours, which seemed to fly by. There were probably 40 or 50 friends at the Sunday morning program, and maybe 30 or so children attending children’s classes. They were complaining about not having enough room, and I told them they should try doing things at our Bahá’í Center!

After the Sunday morning program, I stayed with Dr. Sabet and met with the National Teaching Committee, which was also fortunate enough to have Mr. Shabbani Seffu, Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly, in attendance. The Committee was meeting with one of the friends who wanted to be a home front pioneer. He made the decision after attending the National Convention, which apparently inspired him quite a bit. He’s somewhat elderly, so his family objected to him leaving his home and going to another part of the country, but he told them he felt in his heart that it was something he must do. That was something highly inspirational for me.

Speaking of inspirational, I’ll wander off on a tangent here. Yesterday, I met a non-Bahá’í who is being tutored in one of the Ruhi books by Mrs. Sabet. His name is Barnabas, and he’s a fisherman. He seems to put effort into being well-dressed and groomed, and his English is very good. He’s a polite, friendly, and enthusiastic guy. Mrs. Sabet introduced me to him yesterday, so I shook his hand, exchanged names, told him where I was from, and then wished him well. Later, Mrs. Sabet related that after I left the room he said that there is just something about those Bahá’ís that no matter where they’re from when you touch them you can feel there’s something different about them. I thought that was really a wonderful thing to hear.

Back to the meeting: Dr. Sabet only speaks a little Kiswahili and I speak none, so the conversation between the Committee and the home front pioneer had to be translated. It really bothers me that I don’t know what they’re saying, so I hope to make a real earnest effort to learn Kiswahili. Unfortunately, languages have always been difficult for me to learn (one of the few subjects I truly struggled with) so I think it will take me a lot of time, practice, and embarrassment. After the meeting, Dr. Sabet introduced me to the rest of the Committee. Half of them didn’t even know who I was! They just knew I wasn’t part of the Committee, yet I was at their meeting. So Dr. Sabet explained that I would be coming to all the meetings and taking notes, as well as helping them organize their work and files. He related that already the LSA and other agencies are asking for my help, but the Committee seems to be content thus far using me for their own purposes. I’m sure later they’ll feel more comfortable letting me loose. It’s nice to be in demand, though!

While I was at the Bahá’í Center, I met one of the Persian friends whose name I can’t fully remember right now. I want to say Hormuz, but that’s the Strait of Hormuz so I don’t think that’s right. Anyway, he asked who I was and where I was from. Then he related that some of his family had moved to the United States after the Iranian government had executed their spouses for being Bahá’ís. He said he went to visit them in San Diego and Los Angeles and found America to be a wonderful place. He was insistent in letting me know that America was fantastic and he enjoyed his time there. He said that a lot of the stuff that people outside the U.S. see on television and newspapers is distorted to make them hate America and Americans, but if only they would go to visit they probably wouldn’t want to come back! It’s hard not to identify yourself as an American when you’re in a “foreign” land, so I felt good to know that not everyone hates us.

After the meeting, we took two of the friends to one of the American Bahá’ís’ home, I guess for a study circle or something. Dr. Sabet tried to take a short cut, but we just ended up getting lost. We also stopped at the duka la dawa, which is a chemist/pharmacy/drugstore to get some penicillin for one of them. So that’s one more Kiswahili word that I know. I also learned that ya is “of” and na is “and.” I learned the word for “peace” from one of the songs this morning, but now I’ve forgotten it. I don’t know why but for the past five years or so, my memory has really gotten very, very poor. I can’t remember a lot of things the way I used to, and it seems foolish to think that at my age you could blame it on aging. Also, Dr. Sabet has revised his “two months fluency in Kiswahili” plan to four months now.
This whole servant thing is still unnerving me a little bit. This morning I left my room and came back to find that one of the servants had picked up all my dirty clothes, made my bed, straightened the room, and cleaned the room and the bathroom. I was a little apprehensive about having to take the bus to work, but now I sort of welcome it. It seems like it’s the only thing I’ll be doing for myself! It’s a small wonder that one of the drivers isn’t picking me up and dropping me off.

There’s thirty or forty minutes left until I can drink something. I think I’m going to go stare at the clock.

Day Two

2006-03-05T22:03:00.000-06:00

[ Note: Because I can only access the Internet infrequently, I've been writing entries on the laptop while I can with the intention of posting them when I got Internet access. The Internet has been hooked up in my room, but it's still difficult to get a connection. Nevertheless, I should be able to post a little more frequently now. So, these are backposts, if you will. ]

Day Two:

I woke up around 6:15 this morning to the sound of a rooster. May (the Sabets’ young daughter) had already warned me about it, so it didn’t seem too out of place. I dismantled the mosquito net, and I was surprised to find that there were in fact several mosquitoes clinging to it. Because the Sabets are fasting, I went downstairs to join them for breakfast before the sun rose. We had some kind of African bread that’s like a tortilla and rolled up inside of them fresh avocado, hummus, tomatoes, cucumber, and meat. We also had fresh squeezed passion fruit/mango juice. I’ve tried to set aside my fear of vegetables (although only the cucumbers would have been “offensive” this morning) so that I don’t seem rude or disrespectful. Or starve. Luckily the Sabets are fairly wealthy (by the standards here, and probably in the West, too), and they are very generous, so there’s usually some kind of meat on the table. But thanks to the drought and ensuing famine, most of the rest of the city probably doesn’t have any.

I hate to keep talking about something so mundane as the food, but it was truly delicious. Everything is fresh and organic! Last night at dinner, I shared some fruit with Dr. Sabet, and it was probably the best I’ve ever had in my life. The mangoes and pineapple were sooo sweet, and the grapefruit had that perfect balance of sweetness and sourness so that it didn’t need any sugar at all. Their cook is a little shy because her English isn’t very good, but other than that she’s very nice. I think I may try to get her to teach me a little Kiswahili.

Yesterday, I was picked up from the airport by Shabbani, the Secretary of the NSA. He took me to the Bahá’í National Center, and I met the employees there, as well as some of the other staff members who live inside the little compound. They have a little Bahá’í nursery school next to the Centre with about 25 kids, mostly non-Bahá’ís, attending classes there. Unfortunately, most of the people inside the Centre couldn’t do any work because the government rations electricity during the day, which means the computers, the Internet, and everything else electronic is down until night. They’re still consulting about how best to get around that problem. Thankfully, the Sabets have a generator which can power the whole house during the time the electricity is rationed, so I can do work from here or charge my laptop and do work at the Centre. I’ll actually be working for the National Teaching Committee instead of the National Spiritual Assembly, and Dr. Sabet is a member of the NTC so I think that will work out well in terms of coordination. The only down side is that he travels quite a bit. He leaves for Botswana on Monday! To me it seems kind of exciting to have a job in which you travel so extensively, but I imagine it’s gotten pretty run-of-the-mill for him now.

While I was at the BNC, I also met Sandra, a lady who lives upstairs, and an Auxiliary Board Member. I can’t remember her name right now; it was Persian. Unfortunately, non-Western names haven’t started to stick just yet. They gave me water and allowed me to rest and wait until one of the Sabets’ drivers, Fatma, could come and pick me up. We also picked up their daughter, May, who is not only a handful but I suspect will indeed keep me busy as reported.

Fatma brought us back to the Sabet compound, which is truly a compound. Everything here is behind a high wall with a gate. Most of the more affluent families (and it doesn’t take all that much to be affluent) have security at their gate, as well as a few servants in their home for at least part of the day. It all may seem somewhat alarming, but in truth it’s just the way things are. I haven’t felt that my safety has been threatened, yet, and I doubt that it ever will be while I’m here. I was a little uncomfortable at first with having other people wait on me, even in a limited capacity, but the reality is that I’ll just have to get used to it. It’s the way the economy and society works, and it’s not my responsible to roll in here and try to introduce American-style democracy, society, and civilization. I could make a political joke right now, but I won’t. =)

I spent most of the afternoon napping and resting. Dr. Sabet was home because the generator at his office was broken, so I got to speak with him briefly about what the NTC would like me to do. My first responsibility will be to get their filing system in order. As near as I can tell, most of their documents are at the National Centre in boxes. Just like everything else! It’s an organizational nightmare, but they just don’t have the staff to take care of everything. I imagine that their current work is being hindered by the electricity rationing because not all the members of the NTC live in Dar. I was a little surprised to learn that I’d be working for the NTC instead of the NSA, but it’s just as well. As long as I’m doing some good then I’ll be happy. Depending on how things go and the amount of work there is to be done, Dr. Sabet said the NTC would discuss “loaning” me to other offices.

In the evening, we went to a teaching meeting/devotional/presentation on the Bahá’í Faith at the University of Dar es Salaam. Originally, one of the Bahá’ís from off-campus was supposed to give a talk on prayer and meditation inside one of the common rooms in the dorms. But suddenly the Administration denied the Bahá’í students use of the room. They’re still investigating it, but it seems that the decision may have been motivated by only the word “Bahá’í.” Anyway, there are about 8 Bahá’í students on campus, which seemed fantastic to me. They’re part of one of the intensive programmes of growth (IPG) being launched here because Dar is an “A” Cluster. For two weeks, they’re supposed to hold devotional meetings in their dorm rooms and invite their friends and classmates to them. I’m not sure what happens after that, though. There was also prayer and consultation about the IPG and the situation on campus about being denied use of the room. It seems that there’s no registered Bahá’í club, which at times can frustrate their purposes. I was surprised that they were allowed to meet in an auxiliary room! At UALR you have to be a registered group or know somebody unless you want to pay out the ying-yang for a nice room.

Everyone has been polite and courteous thus far, and most of them are curious about me and where I’m from. I’ve been surprised at the number of people that know about Arkansas and Little Rock. I half expected that no one would know anything about it, but some people even know about the Central High crisis in 1957! And for those that don’t know, all I have to do is mention it’s where Bill Clinton is from and then it clicks for them. He is very well respected here, “a great man,” and they have no problem mentioning his infidelity. One man said that such a thing would be a source of pride for an African man because the society is still very much alpha-male oriented. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for them to overlook such a thing, and also because of everything he’s done to help the people here.

A last note about the electricity and the United States. I can tell that I’m in for a long road of getting frustration with the things I see. I’ve been warned about it several times, but despite how many times people tell me or I read it, I still find myself getting upset at my own country for not doing more to raise the standard of living here. For instance, the electricity rationing is because the primary source of power here is hydroelectric. While it’s clean and efficient, it’s not entirely feasible for a region prone to drought. While we’re spending $500 billion on defense issue, people here don’t have electricity for half the day. Why we can’t spare a few million dollars to build another type of power plant and train individuals to operate it is beyond me! We often say, “What can we do to help?”, but if you come and put your feet on the ground, you can find half a dozen areas which could use improvement before ever leaving the airport. And yet, it’s the way of life here. Am I trying to transpose my Western values and way of life here, or simply thinking of a way to help them live better? Quite a dilemma.

It’s suddenly occurred to me how much I use the Internet and how much my work and life revolve around it. Mrs. Sabet is cleaning out the bookcase. She said she wanted to relax and be lazy today, so when I asked her about it she said she didn’t know how! I’ve found that I’m becoming increasingly the same way. I don’t always want to run a triathlon or something, but it can be quite difficult to just sit around doing nothing. I tried reading one of the many books in the house, but I felt like that was a waste of my time here. Granted it’s only the second day, but I did come to serve. And I’m sure I’ll regret this paragraph a month from now. I was going to start work on a website for the Bahá’í community of Tanzania but it’s hard work without the Internet.

A hellacious storm blew in a few hours ago, and it’s been raining steadily for more than 2 hours. I thought the house was going to topple over the wind was blowing so hard! I can’t hear the sounds of the city outside, so I don’t know if everything’s stopped because of the rain or I just can’t hear because of the rain. No matter. I’m just enjoying the wind and smell of rain blowing through the house and the sound of the birds outside in the 10 million varieties of palm tree in Tanzania. The weather has turned very pleasant for the moment, but I doubt it will last all day. But I’m glad to see that’s there’s such a sustained rain while we have it because I know they must need it very badly. It’s a wonder that everything around here stays so green!

I just came back from the BNC and shopping with Dr. Sabet. At the BNC, we took a look at the files of the NTC which I’m supposed to begin organizing on Monday. It wasn’t quite the task I thought it would be. There’s a file cabinet drawer and a box full of stuff, but that’s it. I should have it done in a few days, a week at the most. The only problem will be determining what to throw away and what to keep because a good sized chunk of the material is in Kiswahili. According to Dr. Sabet, I should be able to determine what the stuff is after learning 10-20 key words. He also said he expected a “clever” guy like me to figure it out and be speaking Kiswahili in 2 months. I laughed. A lot. At least with Romance languages I could use my Latin background and common sense to figure things out, but I tried applying that here and quickly found that it doesn’t work. Luckily they use the Arabic alphabet like us, so at least I don’t have to learn a whole new alphabet. Right now I know two words of Kiswahili: Jambo=Hello (from a foreigner) and Asanti =Thank you. I think I spelled the last one wrong. It’s kind of difficult learning Kiswahili from people with Persian accents. =)

On the way to the BNC, Dr. Sabet explained that I would have to “figure out” how to use public transportation to get from his house to the Bahá’í National Center. I guess from the look on my face he gathered I wasn’t about to “figure out” anything about the Tanzanian public transportation system, so he explained. We drove the route that the bus would take, and he pointed out the bus stops. I’ll have to walk some distance from the house to get the bus stop, maybe something like half a mile and then another half a mile when I arrive at the bus stop closest to the BNC. It’s not too complicated, I don’t think, but I think I’ll have a little problem the first day because most of the stuff still looks the same to me. Unfortunately, the road nearest the BNC is very poor. Because of the rain today, I couldn’t even see a way to walk down the street without jumping in three or four puddles full of God only knows what. This going to work business will be quite trying for me, I think. Not only am I not used to walking, but when I do walk it’s on straight, well-paved roads and pathways.

On my right pinky I have 11 little rash looking things. Seven of them are in a clump near the base of my finger and the other four trail up the finger. I wonder if it’s a symptom of something? I’m probably so worried about getting a disease that my mind is actually playing physical tricks on me!

After visiting the BNC, we went grocery shopping. At first we went to the African version of a Western super market. It’s basically the same on the inside with the same types of things, except it’s African, so useless aesthetics go straight out the window. A can of extra virgin olive oil (and when I say “can,” think of a gas can) was $40! I don’t normally buy extra virgin olive oil, but that seemed quite extreme. I haven’t been able to figure out the economy here, yet. Some things are dirt cheap, but others are extraordinarily expensive. For instance, after we left the super market we went to one of the little shack things that constitute most of the stores around here and bought probably 10 bags full of fruits and vegetables for $10 after spending I don’t even want to know how much for the rest of the food at the super market. I guess now that I think about it the difference is that raw goods are relatively inexpensive but because they’re a developing country with (I imagine) little manufacturing, they don’t refine and process the goods, which means they must be imported. And everyone knows imported is just another word for outrageously expensive.

It's Hot - Real Hot

2006-03-03T08:55:00.000-06:00

Dear friends,

There is a serious drought in Tanzania and the government is rationing electricity. The home I'm staying in has a generator, but access to the Internet is not always reliable. In addition, thanks to software incompatibility, I'm unable to access the e-mail account that I set up for this. If you would like to e-mail me, please send it to bgtribble@comcast.net Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. It is ungodly hot here. I will be working for the National Teaching Committee, but I'm concerned that the electricity situation will be constrictive. Nevertheless, it's good to finally be here and I know that I'll adjust in due time.

Warmest,
Bryan

Heathrow & London

2006-03-02T17:41:00.000-06:00

Dear friends,

I'm in Heathrow Airport in London right now, so I thought I'd throw up an update while I had access to the Internet. I had to pay for it, so I'm certainly going to use it. It's nice to know that Europeans can be capitalists, too. The more I hear the British speaking, I seem to be picking up an affected accent. What I've seen of London, I've mostly liked. Although the people are a little rude. But that's true of any urban center. And Little Rock, too.

The first thing I learned on my trip across the Pond was that if you plan on travelling intercontinentally then you'd better save the extra money to upgrade to business class. They had us packed into the back of that 747-400 like a can of sardines and despite the friendly reminders provided during our in-flight entertainment that it was -70 degrees outside at 33,000 feet, it was about +90 degrees in the plane. The staff was friendly though and I'd definitely fly British Airways again. Despite all the warnings about airline food (and British airline food on top of that) it was actually really good. Also, another good piece of news is that I've been taking my malaria pills for 3 days now and I haven't had any serious reactions. Hopefully I can keep that up. We shall see.

While in London, I decided to take advantage of my layover. So after waiting an hour in line at immigration, they stamped my passport and sent me on my way. My laptop bag is packed to the max and it must weigh like 30 pounds. Foolishly, I decided to take it with me instead of stick it in a locker in case I needed anything. Lugging 30 pounds around London is not fun! My shoulder has literally been rubbed raw by the strap. At any rate, the first thing I went to see was Shoghi Effendi's grave, which is on the other side of London. The walk would have been pleasant except for the bag and the fact that I had to cross one of those roundabout things. Londoners have no respect for pedestrians! I've been to most major cities in the U.S. and sure people will honk and curse you out but they at least stop and let you go. But not here. I almost got hit three different times - like seriously very close - while crossing in a designated crosswalk. The speed limit was supposed to be 35 mph, but those people were not going 35 mph.

When I got to the cemetery where the Guardian was buried, I found out it was a big circle with the entrance on the other side. Apparently they like circles in the United Kingdom. At first I thought I was in the wrong place because the graveyard was really dilapidated. The headstones were cracked, destroyed, fallen over, over grown with vines and trees. It was just really shocking that they could let it get in such a state. Yet at the entrance there's a sign explaining that they did it on purpose to preserve the "atmosphere" in the cemetery. I must admit that the British have an unusual idea about the atmosphere of a cemetery. What with all the ravens (and there were a lot), I half expected Edgar Allen Poe to jump out from behind a bush or something. But the Baha'i section of the cemetery was, of course, well-maintained and beautiful. So, I prayed at the Guardian's grave, took some pictures, and then began my hike back to the tube station (the subway station).

On the way back to the tube station, two interesting things happened. First, I had to cross the roundabout again to get something to drink from a petrol station. While paying for my drink, the woman ringing me up had convinced herself that I had put some petrol in my non-existent car and that I was trying to get out of paying for it. She finally seemed to get the drift that I was an American and even if I did have a car, I couldn't even drive it (not on the wrong side of the road! It's unnatural.). Second, I stopped by some little row houses to take a picture of this nice little British street when some woman yells out of her window at me, "Hey, get the bloody hell away from my lawn!". I was on the sidewalk! I'm beginning to think that maybe she realized I was a tourist, and she wanted to have a little fun with me.

From the tube station, I went to Trafalgar Square, some other place I can't remember, Picadilly Circus, and the Parliament Building (with Big Ben). Unfortunately, all I had time to do was pop out of the tube station, snap a picture, and then hop back on. By the time I was at the Parliament Building it was snowing! I didn't realize it was cold enough for it. I probably should have enjoyed it while I could since I don't know when I'll see snow again (or cold weather) but I needed to get back to the airport to drag myself through immigration.

So, I've been running around London with my thirty pound bag on about 2 hours of sleep. I couldn't get comfortable enough on the plane to really do anything more than rest. The second I got a little comfortable, the girl sitting next to me would shift and fling half her body up against me. I guess she was cold-blooded or used to sleeping next to someone or something. I think the flight to Dar will be a little different. On the tube ride back to the airport, I was falling asleep so I imagine I'll just sleep from exhaustion. Not to mention there can't be nearly as many people going to Dar as there were from NYC to London.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos uploaded just yet, but I'll post them when I do! I wanted to put up a little update while I could since I'm not sure when I'll get the chance when I get to Tanzania.

Warmest,
Bryan