To say that the road to Mghumbu is rough is the understatement of the century. We all pile into a Jeep, scrunched together. Sweaty. Cramped. I am excited to be getting to the village. The jeep bounces and the road winds. A few times it lurches so hard over a bump that I get that sick freefalling feeling in my stomach. A few times I am worried that it will actually tip over. We pass another jeep that has tipped and that tightens the uneasy knot in my gut. Africa is not equipped with seatbelts. We finally arrive. Locals chase the jeep, waving and smiling. I feel like the president. It’s bizarre. They stand at the gate. Watching. We ask Kieran what they are waiting for and he says nothing, they just want to see what we are doing.
The village that we are helping has never seen white people. Ever. The group before us was mobbed something harsh and we have guards to stop them from coming inside. Everyone wants to touch us and hear us talk. The camp is one big army tent. I remember seeing this movie with my dad once when I was a kid, called the Red Tent. It was about a group of people that get stranded in Antarctica and live together in isolation in a red tent, hence the title. I find it charming and fitting that we will be spending 3 weeks in sweltering, isolated Africa in a big Green Tent. It makes me smile. We get out of the jeep. I’m happy that we made it. Period.
Ciara and Kieran are the cool Irish couple that stayed on for an extra 3 weeks with us. They are teachers in Ireland and kind of like the camp authority figures. They know how things work and they show us what to do. I’m so glad that they are here. No one else is here. We all find this a little hard to swallow. We are alone. There is no HAPA rep, no coordinator, no guide. We are left in the middle of nowhere in a compound that has a wall made out of dry grass and sticks. There is a guard on at all times, who usually speaks almost no English. We are the blind leading the blind. The tent smells like dust and the military. I like it because it reminds me of cadets. I’m comfortable here.
We hang all of our stuff in baskets from Singida, so rats don’t get into it. Our mosquito netting is blue and all of our cots are lined up, military style. Home sweet home. We cover our mattresses with Kangas and get organized. Charlie and I take our mattresses outside and shake them out. I cough at all the dust that flies out and we give each other funny looks and give up. For dinner we fry toast and spread cheese on it. It’s delicious. We hit the sack and I’m out as soon as my head hits the pillow.
I wake to this horrible noise. A high pitched strangling sound and I put my ear plugs in. Meet the camp chicken. It’s this horrible thing with scary yellow eyes and mangy feathers. I’m creeped out by it. It flaps and runs and I chase it from bed to bed and it makes annoying chicken sounds at me. I was so excited about hanging out with a real live chicken. I’ve never really been around barn animals before. But as I throw the blanket over it and toss it out of the tent, squawking for the third time, I realize, that chickens….are total dicks.
We begin work on the school. Day 1 consists of filling aluminum dishes with sand from one big pile, carrying the dish on our heads to empty it in another. We do this for hours, until the sun is too hot to work. Then we call it a day and head back to camp. The air here is lighter than in Dar and it smells like dirt and smoke. If I stand really still and watch along the horizon, I can see smoke rising from small fires set by locals. They make coal and burn garbage. My clothes smell like campfire and it only serves to add the feeling of stifling heat in the camp. I close my eyes and take in the smells. I know that when I get home, that is something that I am going to try to remember when I’m sitting alone in my room.
People line the gate from morning until after dark. Usually children, but sometimes men and women stand there and watch us. We joke that it’s like a reality show. It’s very strange. We get used to it pretty fast. I am fascinated by the children. They are even more bedraggled than those from Singida town. Their clothing is in tatters. They are beyond thin and most of the 7 year olds carry babies on their backs. It’s another world here. I walk over to the gate and they jump on me. It’s much like in Singida, the kids touch my hair, tell me the names of things and hold my hand. I sit in the sand with them and they all laugh at everything. It occurs to me that these children are so happy because they don’t know what they are missing. They have this serious undercurrent in them, I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, but it’s something like wisdom. They know hardship, but they aren’t quite jaded. It’s a look that I have never seen on people before. But you know it when you see it. It’s not something you can forget.
I decide to blow up the balloons that I brought (this was an incredibly awesome tip from a guy I met at MEC back home, who had just returned from Ghana). The sun is starting to set and the children still stare longingly at our camp from the gate. I start blowing up balloons. I blow up about 30 and stuff them in an old mosquito net. I then walk casually over to the gate and toss them all into the fray of children. The reaction is instantaneous. They start screaming. I have never seen such thrill and excitement. They shriek as the balloons rain down on them. They put their hands in the air and jump up and down and look astounded. They smile huge smiles and laugh and laugh. I start to laugh and soon we’re batting balloons around and yelling. More children arrive. Some clutch their balloon like it’s a prized possession. Holding them to their chests with a look of amazement. I am SO glad I brought them. The squealing seems to last forever. I revel in it. I take photos and the kids climb all over me. I am pulled to the ground, pulled in 4 directions, tugged on. I am an amusement park. After this they stand at the gate and yell "Mapilizo!" which is "Balloon" and wait. I am the balloon lady of Africa.
On day 3 we eat the chicken. It starts out as Charlie innocently tries to catch it. I tell him to throw the blanket on her. He chases the chicken around for about half an hour and finally catches her. He hangs onto her for a while, trying to figure out how to keep her out of the tent. The guard walks over and asks if we want him to kill it. We all kind of look at each other. We all really hate that chicken. We reason that the chicken was really being suicidally annoying this morning. She really had a deathwish. I can’t watch, but Charlie and Anna go with the guard and I look the chicken in her evil, yellow eye for the last time. I can’t say that I’m going to miss her. They go off into the tall grass and a minute later she is dead. Charlie says it was really humane. I feel a bit better. We put her in boiling water for 2 minutes and then pluck her. The feathers come out with this satisfying snap. Like when you pull out one of your hairs by the root. I think I should major in chicken plucking. The guard guts her and takes the innards. God knows why, I guess he eats them. The skin on the chicken’s feet comes off like socks. I think this is strange. I’m learning a lot of weird things in Africa. We have her in stir fry. There is hardly any meat to her. When we tell the guards that back home, you can slice a chicken breast into pieces, he doesn’t believe us.
We go to visit the priest. It’s a 2hr walk in the beating down heat. We walk through sand the entire way. Everything is dead and dry. I think back to all of the movies I have seen where people get lost in the desert. I realize, as my feet slip on the sand, that walking through a desert…is exhausting. After 30mins I am soaked. I am burned. Charlie and I play questions and sing punk songs to pass the time. I play air guitar. We finally arrive and the priest gives us soda and mini bananas. We relax on his sofa and then it’s time to go. It was an uneventful visit, but we want to make it back before dark, as we don’t have any torches. Jeffert, the guy that took us there, says he will take us on a shortcut back. We agree that this would be best.
We pass a village which is so tiny, it doesn’t look real. Everything is made of grass, it looks like a movie. We walk through and EVERYONE runs up to us to touch us. I wonder if they have ever seen Mzungus here. I doubt it. No one speaks English and they all speak at once. Then about 70 kids swarm us. There are so many I feel like I’m being carried away in a wave. They follow us for miles. I wonder how far from there village they should go. It’s getting dark. Finally Jeffert tells them to go home. He grabs my hand and I feel instantly uncomfortable. I have held many strangers’ hands, but this is different. This is the “no” feeling. We walk hand in hand for a minute, I contemplate how to extricate myself from this situation when suddenly, he stops. He holds my hand in both of his and says my name a few times. I gulp. I wish the others weren’t so far ahead. Right when I can’t take it any more, I pull my hand away and grab my camera, talking so fast in English about it being broken that he can’t follow me. I walk fast and decide that last is not a good place to be in this line of people. I notice the pace quickens through the sand and Jeffert tells us “Haraka, Haraka!” When we ask why, he tells us that there are lions in this area. It’s getting dark. I run on ahead, I don’t know what’s worse, to go too far and meet a lion or go too slow and meet a Jeffert.
I run up to Carly and she makes a joke about sexual harassment we can get at home and we stick together the rest of the way. We dislike Jeffert. It’s dark when we make it back to camp. We’re almost running. In the grass I imagine white, dripping teeth. I replay scenes from “The Ghost and the Darkness” in my head. Carly and I plan which trees we could climb as we walk. I dislike Lions. We get home and I’m exhausted. We’ve walked for 4hrs through the heat and I sleep like a log all night. I feel so alive. My skin has gone a pleasant shade of tan and I can feel my muscles tightening. I’m filthy and my hair smells like desert. I’m a wild woman. The guys are all shaggy beards and ripped pants. We’re rough. We’re becoming tough. Every night I turn off my head torch and breathe deeply the desert air. I look at the million stars that I have never seen before and wonder what the rest of my adventure will be.
