This is Part 5 of a 7 part series on my experiences
in Tanzania while volunteering with a U.S. based NGO to build a library and
community resource center in the village of Nyegina, near the shores of Lake
Victoria. To read other parts of this series, please use the term “Tanzania” in
this site’s search function.
Well alright
then. After seeing other volunteers and students succumb to various stomach and
intestinal problems, I knew it was only a matter of time before it would be my
turn. And, sure enough, it struck with a vengeance - diarrhea, nausea, the
whole works.
So, I
naturally had to skip Dr. Kurt’s and his wife Jeanine's anniversary mass and
the luncheon held out in Nyegina. Several of the other sick students and I
stayed put and lounged around Epheta; reading, napping, and writing in our
journals allowing time for nature to take its course. I've learned more about
my fellow traveler's (who, up until a week ago were complete strangers)
maladies, bowel movements, and stool consistencies than I ever thought
possible. And now they know mine. Best to get this over with now before the trip
to the Serengeti tomorrow..
I’ve referred
to Epheta many times. Now let's talk about it in more detail. The Catholic
Diocese built this place sometime back to serve as a quiet retreat for priests,
nuns, and lay persons who want time for rest and reflection, spiritual or
otherwise.
The Retreat
consists of several buildings located on a well maintained campus directly on
the shores of Lake Victoria. One building holds the chapel, dining room,
kitchen and laundry area. Another is the residence for the priests and the
brothers. Two other buildings serve as residence halls for guests. Each has a
central lobby area with two wings of rooms. The whole campus is secured with
locked gates and six foot high masonry walls topped with shards of broken
glass.
The
individual rooms are very basic. They include two single beds with mosquito
netting, a sink, and a small 4x5 foot room that serves as a combination shower
and toilet. The shower is often no more than a trickle with pressure better or
worse depending on the number of others using theirs at the same time. The
switch for the hot water is out in the hallway. The one switch serves the
entire wing. You cannot take for granted that someone else has already turned
on the switch when getting in the shower. I learned the hard way one morning,
having to get out from under the ice cold water, slip on my shorts, and tip toe
dripping wet out to the hallway to flip the switch.
Bedding and
fresh towels are exchanged about every third day. Bottled water is delivered to
the lounge area frequently, as are rolls of toilet paper. The TP has become a
valued commodity as it disappears at an alarmingly fast rate. One tends to
hoard it the minute a fresh supply appears. It is kind of an unspoken thing.
But everyone understands without comment or objection.
The food is
decent, but is somewhat repetitive. Chicken, fish, rice, beans, potatoes,
legumes, and some fresh fruit are the basic menu. Much of the food comes
from the garden and animal pens that are located in a rear portion of the
campus. The roosters there regularly crow at dawn to wake us up. They
eventually pay for it.
With
laundry, one has options. Each room has a five gallon bucket. You could take
your clothes, soap you would have brought from home, and your bucket to one of
several outdoor sinks and hand wash your laundry. There are many clothes lines
to hang and air-dry your clothes. The other option is to have the staff do it
for you. A washing machine was a recent addition here at Epheta. The routine is
to walk into the kitchen right after breakfast with a bag of your dirty clothes
and simply hand it to one of the cooks. Later in the afternoon, a lady comes by
to deliver your clean and freshly folded clothes. Somehow, they know whose
clothes are whose for they never ask for your name or what room you are staying
in. The price for this service is around 5,000 TSH ($3.50 USD). I
routinely double that for the service plus tip.
The
refrigerator is regularly restocked with pop and beer. A sheet of paper on the
top of the fridge is used to mark down how many pops or beers you have taken.
Every five days or so, someone from our group will go around to the others to collect
what we owe and make Epheta whole. The 1.5 liter bottles of beer go for around
$1.25, the pop for around $0.65. Everyone found it humorous that I had drunk
the most number of beers. What’s so funny about that?
Let's talk
about the ants. They are tiny ones, like you might find in your home back in
the States. But here, they are everywhere and into everything. Open food
container inside the fridge. They find a way and they are in there. Beer or pop
bottle caps? Swarms of them. I killed a spider the other day in my room. I
returned from breakfast and the carcass was overrun with a pile of the ants,
with individuals carrying limbs and other parts to locations unknown.
There is the
occasional visitor. One in particular calls himself Jimmy. He comes by on his
bicycle around 5 p.m. He is a bright young man and wants to
practice his English with us. He says English is the global language and he
wants to learn it well so that he can be a success as he becomes older. He and
the students have made a connection and talk endlessly for hours. As per the
custom, he defers to his elders. He calls me father as in, "Hello Father,
can you tell me more about your home country?" For the ladies, he refers
to them as mother as in "Mother, can you tell me more about your
children?" We all love Jimmy's bike. He gladly lets us borrow it for a
ride around the campus while he chats away, practicing his English.
At the end
of a tortuous day, I was starting to feel better. The group arrived from their
event in Nyegina. Dr. Kurt and Jeanine were loaded down with all sorts of gifts
from the villagers. The gifts included two live chickens. Jeanine, a former
farm girl, walked up to show me the chicken held comfortably in her arms. She
and another lady took the chickens to the coop in the back portion of the
campus. We're guessing they will be on our dinner plate at some point this next
week.
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