Struggles

I struggled on this trip. I had a lot of thinking time, alone on the big, white bus and I thought about many different things. It helped me grapple with several things I’ve been struggling with.

1. Being a white person in this society is hard. Though I am not exactly monetarily rich in my land I am, comparatively speaking in this land. And everyone sees dollar signs as soon as they see the colour of my skin. That’s hard. People try to take advantage, and in one regard why shouldn’t they. They have such a hard time and so little why not try to get more out of the muzungu. They are so pushy in their selling techniques sometimes though that it makes me even more determined not to buy anything. And what made it even worse was traveling around in the big white truck all alone with enough equipment for 15 people. It so definitely did not fit into the scenery. Sometimes I felt like I was a colonial madam with my servant boys doing everything for me. And then we’d drive through the little stick-mud hut villages along narrow bumpy roads and the children would jump up and down calling “Hi Muzungu!” I was often embarrassed. And then we’d pass crammed dalla dallas with people even standing on the bumpers. I had suggested taken some of them with us but that didn’t go along with the tour plan and itinerary.

2. I think I’ve talked about this before. I may repeat myself, if so, sorry. The fine line between donations that help and donations that hurt. Where is the fine line? Someone mentioned that in their part of the country people just sit around and wait for donations. They’re used to living on very little and they know that if they wait long enough the donations will come so why work at anything. But then you also see the success of donations like the vocational school of the Village Education Project in Marangu. So what does one do? How does one help? I imagine many people give and feel good about themselves but aren’t really aware what their money does for the people. Hmmm. Probably an ongoing debate in my brain.


3. I thought a lot about the quality of life. How does one judge the quality of life? We in our world have all the conveniences we can possibly imagine to make our lives easier. But so many are stressed out and overworked and many aren’t actually happy. Here in Tanzania people largely live in stick-mud huts. Or in some cases they are stick-mud-dung huts. They work hard, they take care of each other, they give from the little that they have and they seem to be happy. I’m speaking all generally here, I realize. But children smile and laugh and play with simple toys. They use their imaginations. They don’t need gameboys and playstations and action movies with violent content to make it good. And they’re happy.
I think it’s when they see the differences between our lifestyles or are told that they should have more that they run into difficulty. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have more I’m just saying who are we to judge that they’re life isn’t necessary any less or worse than ours. And the people here are generally in better shape than we are. They eat much healthier food, no preservatives, no chemicals. Very few have cars so they walk or bike everywhere. They work hard in their field doing everything by hand. Their bodies are fit and they don’t have any gyms. (One of the shocks about being in Australia, ie. back in the developed world are the number of unhealthy overweight people. They even have a gym for podgy pets here in Adelaide!) So really who is better off? Too bad we can’t just take the best of both worlds.