“Kwite kukechenn” (Kimeru)
“Mi casa es su casa” (Kihispania)
All the volunteers and teaching partners moved into their homestays on Thursday, October 4th.
We were placed into teaching groups according to our work and homestay preference sheets as well as the strengths of in individuals as teachers. I’m in a group with Gaby, a girl from England, Stefanie, a fellow Bruin, Joey, a volunteer from Claremont, and two teaching partners, Jonas and Fatuma, both native Tanzanians.
We were placed in the village Maroroni, the centrally-located village of the Maroroni Ward. Jonas and Joey would be living with the Mwenye Kiti (the village chairman) and his family near the ‘center’ of the village, while Fatuma and I would be living together with a family not too far away, and Gaby and Stefanie would be living with a family an hour’s walk from either of us.
The drive out to our village was bumpy, dusty and rough, as usual. When we’d been driving for a while, Steve—the Volunteer Programs Manager in training and our driver for the trip—pointed out Mount Kilimanjaro. I wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t pointed it out for us. We could barely see the snowy peak above the clouds—pretty high up there—and when we re-oriented ourselves along the road in relation to the mountain, we could only see the base of the mountain. It must have been a clear day, because I haven’t seen it since.
I was told that the village would be very dusty. So my expectation/mental image was a barren landscape characterized primarily by volatile dirt. Driving in, I saw more trees (small trees) than I had envisioned. The landscape became more populated—mostly by plants—the closer we got to the village.
I started loving the village when we first entered it. The only way I knew we had entered it was because Steve had said so. There are no clear boundaries between villages—that I know of—except the train tracks on one side. I wondered when we crossed them if any trains actually used the tracks
The first thing we did was drop me and Fatuma off at our homestay. Our homestay is beautiful. The front yard of the house is enclosed by plants taller than I am and characterized by bougainvillea planted here and there and growing over a small shade made of sticks, creating a colorful garden of red, purple and pink flowers for the chickens and chicks to peck in.
When we pulled in, the Mama and Baba came out to greet us—the Mama from the house and the Baba from the back. I met each one and was showed into the house. The baba introduced himself as Baba Stella (a Swahili tradition—referring to someone as the father or mother of their oldest child) and the Mama as Mama Marth (not in keeping with the tradition? I’m not sure…). The village knows my baba as Ruben, or Baba Ruben, and apparently he’s quite wealthy. When we pulled up, there were three trucks in the back yard. I later found out that two are his, and I’m still not sure that either of them work. I see him and other men spend hours every day working on the trucks. Besides trucks, the family has a wealth of animals (cows, goats, some sort of fowl, chickens, a few dogs I don’t trust much, ducks and two donkeys). I live on a small animal farm.
The front of the house has a small, quaint porch—a great place for reading—beyond which is the front door. I was expecting packed-dirt floors, but to my surprise, my homestay house has more comforts than that. The front door leads into the living space of the house with many colorful and welcoming green, yellow, red and blue velvet fabric cushioned chairs surrounding a coffee table, which would become our dining table for every meal.
Now, my village has actually been visited by SIC before, three years ago. My family has also hosted SIC volunteers before, one of which I know by acquaintance at UCLA. It’s interesting that she was one of the most inspiring past volunteers who spoke at info sessions and pre-field training, and now I’m living with her old homestay family. The Mama talks about her and the other volunteer that stayed with her, calling them Dada Natalie (sister Natalie) and Dada Nicole, but is very welcoming and says, now we have Dada Carrie, which she has called me since.
Baba Ruben carried my luggage from the truck onto the porch, and Fatuma helped me carry it into the house and my room. Fatuma and I have the luxury of having separate rooms in the house—which has turned out to be good for us. My room is about a 12’x12’ (not sure of the dimensions) square, cement room with one window (no glass) covered by a sheer veil and a knotted curtain and no furniture but a full-sized wooden bed with a foam mattress. The window looks out to the back yard, directly at where they cook every day. Through it I hear chickens clucking, roosters crowing and ducks hissing (not sure what noise that is) at all hours of the day and night, as well as the occasional dog bark or bleat of an escaped goat. The walls in my room were painted white-ish a while ago, and are smudged with dirt at all hights and some elementary-looking writing in red pen here and there. By the door it says “Jesu” (Jesus).
Mama invited me and Fatuma in to the living area for food. “Karibu chai,” she said, welcoming us to tea and food. Apparently they had expected us in the morning and had prepared breakfast foods for us, but we didn’t arrive until the afternoon, so we had both breakfast food and a lunch meal prepared for us. A young woman a little older than I am came in and poured warm water for us to wash our hands with, and the Mama came in and prayed before leaving, and we ate. We ate some sort of fried banana that lost its natural sweet taste in the cooking process, fried potatoes (called “chipsi” here) and a sort of fried dough, the name of which I can’t remember right now. The lunch food that followed was rice, boiled beans, and a cooked cabbage dish that somewhat resembles cooked cole slaw.
An interesting part of many of the volunteers’ experiences in the homestays so far has been the uncertainty about who is a part of the family and who isn’t. I knew right away that Mama Marth and Baba Ruben were married and had a daughter (about 10 years old) named Stella. Other than that, I am still placing everyone else I see on a regular basis. It doesn’t seem to actually matter who they are in relation to the family, but curiosity strikes. There’s a young man (17 years old) in Form 2 at the secondary school who studies in the living room almost every night, especially on weeknights. I think he’s a nephew of Baba’s. There are some other young men—21 years, give or take, and 11 years—that are consistently around but don’t actually sleep in the house at night. I think they live in a building very close by. In the back of the house is an area that resembles a wing of a building that I think Baba’s sister (unmarried, no kids) and very old mother live in. The mother is very hard for me to understand, and I don’t know that she understands that I don’t understand. Further, I think I hear her walking around in the back yard and talking loudly to herself at wee hours of the night.
For now, I’ll leave describing the family in order to describe the schools and teaching a bit. But before I do, I’ll explain the title of this post. “Karibu, jisikia nyumbani” is Kiswahili for “Welcome, feel at home.” Of course, I heard that many times in the beginning and still hear it from time to time. Somehow Fatuma told the Baba over dinner one night the meaning of “Mi casa es su casa,” which you’ll recognize as Spanish for “My home is your home.” The Baba—and now the daughter, Stella—say it at least once a day to me. Often several times in one sitting, to the point of being comical from my standpoint. The Baba then was excited and taught me “Kwite kukechenn,” which is Kimeru (a local language that many people in the village speak) for… something. I don’t have a direct translation yet, but I assume it means something parallel to “Karibu, jisikia nyumbani” and “Mi casa es su casa.”
