Yes, it’s true—even though I teach at an international school, it is primarily an English-speaking school. But that doesn’t mean that things still don’t sometimes get lost in translation.
Take this conversation I had with Anine Pier, our school’s art teacher. Anine grew up in Ghana and the Netherlands, and she speaks great English. The thing is, it’s that British style of English that I don’t really have a hold of yet:
BM: So I know I’ve only been here three days, but everyone keeps telling me that there are monkeys all over the campus.
AP: Oh yeah, they used to be all over the place.
BM: What do you mean ‘used to’?
AP: They’re all over by my house and the rest of the duplexes.
(The majority of the younger teachers live in the “duplexes”, a series of houses just off campus)
BM: What happened?
AP: They got a little cheeky. Started getting close to the kids. So they had to catapult them out.
BM: Really? A monkey catapult?
AP: Oh yeah. Took ‘em right out of here.
8 hours later, Anine and I were on the school trip for the weekend, hiking in Arusha National Park. I was still fascinated with this idea of a giant catapult that flung entire families of monkeys all the way across the football field and over the fence to staff housing:
BM: Tell me more about the monkey catapult. Is it like, the size of catapults they had back in the medieval era? Or smaller? How do they round up all of the monkeys and fit them onto the catapult without them jumping off before they fire it?
AP: No, not one of those catapults. It’s like, the kind that shoots little stones.
BM: Oh, you mean a slingshot?
AP: Yeah, yeah. A catapult.
BM: Oh…okay, I get it. Wow, that’s a disappointment.
My dream of the International School of Moshi staff collecting all of the monkeys at once and flinging them hundreds of yards through the air had died 8 hours after it had begun. Monkeys are apparently kind of like squirrels are in the U.S., so I guess it’s completely acceptable to chase them off with small weapons. Clearly, this is not as effective as the model I had in mind. And yes, another instance of me learning British English in another “you dumb, stupid American” type of fashion, innit?
It’s been a surreal first week. One of the teachers and I went for a jog a few days ago up Libo Road, which is the street our school is on. Kilimanjaro was in clear view the entire time, and at one point, a group of at least 6 school children in full sweater/collared shirt uniforms from a different school started running along with us. I thought that only happened in Madonna videos. Later that day I went for a swim in the pool and stared up at the behemoth of a mountain. “Things could definitely be worse,” I said to my co-worker. “Bloody right,” he said back.
Third world life comes with its issues too, of course. The power tends to randomly go out, usually when I am about to send out an important e-mail or order something or finish up a lesson before I save it. Or the power will kick when I am in the shower. Speaking of which, the shower in Kisanduku has featured warm water exactly one time so far. It will get warm when the water is on the bath setting, so I have even stooped to crouching under the tap a couple of times. Another issue is that because I am here for a little while, I am taking malaria medicine. This is of course better than catching malaria, but the meds come with a side effect of sun sensitivity. Over the weekend I got fried on the back of neck. As if my Irish/Eastern European complexion was not burn-worthy enough, it has become more so. Finally, an issue with being third worldly is the speed at which information travels, especially within government circles. I was a victim in this case of TANAPA, the TAnzania NAtional Parks Asssociation.
Our school is known for a very extensive outdoor pursuits program. Each student that participates goes on weekend trips starting with the easiest (level 1), with the idea being that they will eventually be able to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. Up until less than a week ago, TANAPA had always given all Tanzanian schools free permits to take these trips. Then they decided any school with tuition, such as ours, would have to pay a ton of money to secure permits. So I had been asked by our P.E. teacher to chaperone the trip under the condition that we would find out at the last possible minute if we had gotten the permits. Well, the permits ended up going through, but when we got to the gate at Arusha National Park, a new rule had been communicated via e-mail to our P.E. teacher back at the school—only two chaperones were allowed per permit; I was of course chaperone #3. So I talked to our trip leader Isaac, who, being fluent in English and Swahili, is kind of the go-between for us gringos and the park department. I said to him “Look, man…I don’t know the next time I’ll be at Arusha National Park. I’m here, I’m packed, how much do I have to pay to go?” I didn’t have much cash on me, but he worked it out with the park people and I paid back the 200 or so dollar charge for the entry fees, lodging, etc. It would have been nice to go for free with the school, but hey. The point is, TANAPA just kind of seemed to be making up whatever they wanted. In fact, they also hit us with an “evacuation vehicle fee” upon entry for $20 a person, so all staff and students had to pool their money together to even get into the park.
The point of the weekend-long trip was to summit Mount Little Meru, which was actually about 13,000 feet. The group consisted of sixteen children, us three adult chaperones, Isaac and his mountaineering partner Salim, and Mr. Usechu, the park ranger who led the way and carried a rifle. Right as we got into Arusha National Park, before the two-hour fiasco at the entry gate, two giraffes were hanging out just beyond our land cruiser. Eventually they were joined by a few more giraffes and a herd of zebra. Pretty awesome. At one point I looked back towards where we came in and saw a giraffe just standing in the middle of the road, and a truck had to stop for it. The driver got out and shouted angry Swahili at it, and eventually, taking its sweet-ass time, it moseyed across back into the park.
We started at about 2000 feet above sea level, and over the course of the first day’s hike, we went up to 8,250 feet where there was a set of little cabins. There were some cool moments (a hike across a small river, a water buffalo staring down the group from about 15 feet away and Mr. Usechu springing into action), but mostly it was hot and pretty miserable—somewhere between 90 and 95 degrees in the sun. We had porters that walked ahead of us, carrying our meals and supplies on their heads like it wasn’t anything. Meanwhile, I’m sweating, panting, and obtaining sunburns.
Day two was much better. We were in the forest and there were all types of cool trees and foliage, and best of all it was gray as we were basically covered by clouds. The parks had built a series of stairs that basically looked like wooden railroad tracks on an upward incline. One of the girls counted all the stairs and came up with 3,006. At about 2 o’clock, we got to our next set of cabins, at about 11,500 feet. We ate snack, dropped off our bags and then climbed the remaining 1,500 feet to the summit of the mountain. I had never climbed to the top of a mountain before, and I have to say it was pretty excellent. We could see in all directions and had incredibly scenic views of Kilimanjaro off in the distance and also Little Meru’s partner mountain, Big Meru, about 17,000 feet. We stayed up there for about a half an hour and then descended back down to the cabins for the night.
I woke up at 5:30 and watched the sunrise. This was probably the coolest view of all because I was literally looking down onto a mass of clouds and the sun coming up over Kilimanjaro to the East.
We made good time on the way down until one of the girls decided to roll her ankle and we had to wait for about an hour and a half to get her ride out of there settled. This incident really took the steam right out of the ol’ Mulhern engine. This stupid course of events also allowed it to turn to afternoon and for the sun to get blazing again. So the last 3 hours or so were once again pretty miserable, and anyone who has ever gone mountain hiking will tell you that the descent is in many ways much harder than the climb up. I had to stop and wrap duct tape around my two big toes and they still killed most of the time.
But we made it down, and then came one of the crazier things I’ve seen happen thus far. Here’s the set-up: We were promised pizza upon our return, and the kids found the prospect of said Italian delicacy to be outstanding. We were served the pizza a little picnic area that had a roof, but with open air windows. The food was pretty good (hard to screw up a pizza, I guess) and as we started eating, Isaac began to give his congratulatory schpiel. In the background, I noticed a couple of baboons walking around and beginning to congregate. Most of them looked our way and went on into the woods, but one of them decided to get a little cheeky. I watched as he got closer little by little, perched on a nearby rock, and then…bam! He jumped onto a branch and swung into the windowsill, taking a swipe for the pizza. One of the girls grabbed the entire pizza and carted it to safety. Then Isaac, as if it were nothing at all, grabbed a broom and took a swing at the baboon. The big monkey jumped back a few yards and began to scream for reinforcements. “You’re on your own, bro,” was the general consensus from the woods. A few seconds passed and the baboon, sensing he was no match for Isaac and his broom, retreated to the woods. Just think if Isaac would have had one of those handy monkey catapults!
…I guess I must be in Africa.
Until next time,
Ben.
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