Half the Fun

[Note: This particular blog post was specifically written for the YCI blog.]

Travelling alone. As a girl. In East Africa.

If you want a genuine reaction when you are informing people about your upcoming travel plans, open with some arrangement of the above.

Shock value aside, there are considerable challenges and rewards that come with working alone as a YCI Innovator.  This is especially true when working in a city that is new to both yourself and the organization you are representing.  YCI’s programming is still relatively nascent here in Mwanza, as there has only been one YCI volunteer in the city before me. Partnerships with local organizations are still fresh and unfamiliar. My YCI Program Manager and I are still learning how to navigate Mwanza’s dala-dala interpretation of public transportation. So far, all things considered, I have encountered many challenges- from coordinating and scheduling trainings to finding someone to hang out with during my time off.  But one of the true joys of travelling and volunteering abroad is turning challenges into adventures, and adventures into rewarding experiences and memories.

This week I facilitated my first Gender Training workshop with the MYCN staff.  This training session was a general introduction to gender and gender issues, and was meant to act as a standardized foundation for all staff members, as well as an open forum for staff members to discuss their questions and hesitations with regards to gender equality in Tanzania. There is a common misconception that discussions on gender only relate to women, so one of my primary goals in the training was to clear this up and explain how incorporating gender into MYCN’s programming will benefit boys and girls, men and women.

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The session was very enlightening for me, and I did my best to approach it with an open mind.  Tanzania is a much more conservative country than Canada, so I knew going into the training that cultural sensitivity would be very important.  Between preparatory research and informal discussion, I have learned a lot about the extreme challenges that gender roles and expectations pose for both men and women in Tanzania. 

At the end of the training, one of the MYCN staff members raised their hands and stated the obvious:  adjusting social norms to accommodate gender equality in Tanzania will be extremely challenging.

“Yes,” I replied, “Absolutely it will be a challenge. But that’s half the fun.”

Introduction to Tanzania

“This is a reconstruction. All of it is a reconstruction…It is impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavours, in the air or on the tongue, half-colours, too many.” 

– Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’sTale

Although the above quote references the re-telling of living in a totalitarian Christian theocracy, I find it highly relatable with regards to recounting tales of life abroad.  Whenever I travel, I always wish that the people I love could be with me simply because I know that my stories will never do the experience justice.  Furthermore, people generally add their own nuances as they listen along and consequentially the experience can come across as larger than life when really it was all just living. 

[I wish I could describe the smells- smokey, rotten and sweet. I wish I could explain the way the sun turns everything gold and the dust makes everything sepia-toned. The way the primary school children smile in their socks and wool sweaters despite the 30 degree heat. The way the banana leaves rustle in the wind and it sounds like rain.]

I’ve now been in Tanzania for a week. It’s Monday night and I am sitting at my host mama’s dining room table sipping a cup of camomile (to ease the side effects of my Malaria pills) and swatting at mosquitos with an electric tennis racquet (Roger Federer get at me).  The past week has been rather PG- nothing spectacular or life changing or monumental- but I’ve only just arrived in Mwanza and I anticipate that things will pick up soon.

The upcoming week will be filled with meetings with our local partner organizations and private Swahili lessons. The maid that works in my homestay does not speak a lick of English and thus I have major motivation to communicate properly with her as she is the one cooking my meals.  I don’t miss home yet but I definitely miss the food. A summation of my Tanzanian diet thus far: flour, salt, sugar, oil, fat.  After being bedridden for the weekend, with only Margaret Atwood and Sun Tzu to keep me company while I lay in the fetal position, today I opted for fresh squeezed papaya/banana/carrot/avocado juice (with a side of fresh veggie pizza) for lunch and more papaya and banana (with a liiiiittle piece of deep fried bread) for dinner.

I’m looking forward to discovering more of Mwanza.  I rode in a dala-dala today (a Tanzanian rite of passage) and ate at a restaurant that was set up by an NGO to employ street-youth. I saw Brad Pitt’s young Tanzanian doppelganger and read under a flowering tree. I've stood at the top of a hotel in the city center and taken in the aerial view of the lake and the hustle and bustle of the dusty streets below.  I find the local Mosque's call to prayer comforting. I realize (again...again and again) that quality of life is relative and most people have zero interest in travelling to Canada. I realize (for the first time while abroad) that home is where the heart is- so my heart will forever be stuck in suburban Ontario, much to my own chagrin.