Things I Don't want to forget

I’ve been here for nearly a week and have had thousands of experiences I don’t want to forget. Every day is busy in its own way… I attend informal meetings with Vera, Mohamed, Steven, Saumu and others around town. I meet up with Saumu and her friends almost every day to play and talk. I’ve gone to Kiomoni to check up on my old students and see the renovations to the building (it looks fantastic!) and I’ve had a few cooking lessons with Saphia at home. I walk everywhere, slowly in the heat, which takes up lots of time and leaves me exhausted too. When I leave this place in one month’s time, however, I won’t be thinking about the long walks on dusty roads, waiting for over an hour and a half for a bus to show up in the midday heat or how to make mchicha. These are things the things I don’t want to forget…

I was supposed to meet Saumu at 11am on the day after my arrival, at the Tanga Museum with Joel, who runs the Tanga Heritage program. Joel was great and we had a good talk about the whole situation and his work at the museum, but I was really just dying to see Saumu. I waited and waited and waited and by 12 she still hadn’t shown up. Everyone is always late here, but not that late, and not Saumu. Joel suggested that we go find her at Kisosora school, seeing as it was just 5 minutes away down the road. I happily agreed and we walked down to the primary school, which happened to be on a lunch time break. We found Rachael and Asia, two girls I knew from Stehmann house who were happy to see me, but who said that Saumu was not there. Following the most practical course of action, we went to the headmaster of the school to see if they had Saumu in their records and to find out what exactly was going on. After polite greetings and a gradual, respectful build-up to our actual reason for being there, the headmaster said that she was not a student there. I started having flashbacks to the nightmares from last year, wandering all over Tanga in search of this beautiful little girl. We returend to Rachael and Asia who informed us that we were not in fact at Kisosora Primary school, but at Changa Primary School  - our mistake. Kisosora was another 15 minutes down the road towards my old Nursery School in Kiomoni Village. Joel and I walked through a field amongst dozens of school children on their lunch break and every one passed on greetings of all kinds; Mambo – Poa, Shikamoo – Marahaba, Hey Mzungu!, Good Morning Madam!, How ahh youuuu – Fine thanks, how are you?,  Hamjambo – Hatujambo, Goodbye – Hello! And so on…

Finally we got to Kisosora primary and were surrounded by hoards of children in blue skirts or shorts and white collared shirts. All eyes turned up to the muzungu wandering  through their school yard. We found a teacher and went through the usual process of greetings - greetings to the family, inquiry about work, respectful welcomes and in return, thanks for such a welcome. Just as Joel was finally about to get to the point and ask about Saumu, a skinny, tiny, grinning, little Saumu came running up to me from across the yard, shouting “Keti!!!” and wrapped her arms around my waist. I can’t remember the last time I was so happy.

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As I sat on a stool in the middle of a common area between houses in Saumu’s village one mother put her small baby on my lap for a photo. He was happy and fine until he looked up and saw my white face smiling back at him. Then, he burst into tears. No amount of gentle rocking, cooing or cuddling could make him stop. At the same moment, with this baby in my arms, a little toddler, a girl maybe 3 years old hesitantly approached me. Looking up into my face for approval, she grabbed my hand and looked quizzically at it. I smiled at her and asked “Hujambo?” but she looked absolutely puzzled. Then she took one fingernail and gently scraped at the skin on my finger. The white of my skin didn’t come off to reveal black underneath, much to her surprise, so she carefully put her tongue to my finger, tasting my muzungu skin.  Satisfied with her diagnosis, she peered up at me once more, frowning and totally confused, then scampered back to hide behind her mother’s leg.

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As I walked home from school with Saumu, Rachael and Asia one day, the girls tried out their English by asking a few questions, “Sister Kaitlin, What is Canada like?”

“Well, it is very nice, but right now it is very cold because it is our winter season. I will show you some pictures some time.”

Saumu interrupts and quickly rattles off in Kiswahili how I go fishing in the ocean in Canada and I catch big fish. She giggles like crazy, holds her hands out and mimics the photo I sent her of Annie and I holding a Coho we caught last summer  - “The fish she catches are so big!” she muses.

 “Sister Kaitlin, do you have some brothers and sisters in Canada?”

“Yes, I have one younger sister named Annie. She is 20 years old.”

“Aya, and how old are you?”

“24.”

“Aya, this is young. Do you live with your mother and father?”

“Yes, my mother is Lori and my father is Sean.”

And at this point, Saumu throws her hands out in front of the group to interrupt again and says, “Na Keti ana pmenzi jina lake ni Scott, na ana binti moja ana miaka mojo na nuso, na jina lake ni Emma.” – “And Kait has a boyfriend named Scott and he has a daughter who is one and a half and her name is Emma.”

She knows exactly who Emma is. She had memorized my  writing (in Kiswahili) on the back of the photo I had sent her of Scott, Emma and I.

Side Note: The hardest question I had to answer on this day was “Mpenzi wako, anafanye kazi gani?” – What does your boyfriend do for work? How the hell do I explain that historically in Canada we had lumberjacks who  cut down trees in the forests for timber, and now Scott performs these old-fashioned lumberjack competitions on the top of a mountain for tourists? And in a language I am still trying so desperately to grasp? Basically the only thing I could muster was to say that he cuts trees. Close enough, no?

 Saumu with her sister and Auntie