More kids in the Usambaras

In the Usambara Mountains

Our first days in Tanzania were spent hiking in and around the Usambaras. We stayed at a small hotel (we seemed to be the only guests...) called the Executive Lodge (not an executive in sight, although there was a patch of grass with a hole in it, I think meant for golf balls of executives). It was lovely in many ways, like in the way that hot water in the morning is lovely and how electricity is lovely sometimes, too. This was to be the last of these nice things for a while.

People love the Usambaras for many reasons. The weather is lovely and it is lush. There are breath-taking views of the land below, like with many mountains, and there are villages that seem caught in time (except for the cell phone shacks that appear everywhere, all of a sudden). What I loved about the Usambaras were the kids. We were there on the weekend and so the kids were out. There were kids everywhere. They were playing and working and eating a lot of sugarcane. They followed us around, spoke in school-perfect English, asked us for pens and wanted to have their picture taken. We walked through villages, passing out pens, talking with people, visiting schools and trailing a million kids.

Sunny in Africa

our crew

me & my traveling companions

where we went

(to view photos larger, you can click on them. at least i can. i hope you can, too)

A brief warning: I know blogs can be boring, with too much tedious writing. Teacher’s blogs especially have this tendency and I hope to spare you that experience here.

It’s here that I apologize to my friend Peanut, who is a great blog critic. Peanut: I am going to write more in this first entry, to give a little background, so that I don’t have to do it again later. Feel free to scroll down. Way down. I hope to have photos of our journey up here, email addresses for my students to use to chat with Tanzanian youth and a tiny bit of commentary. So, here it is:

Earlier this year, myself and a few other lucky Chicago teachers were awarded a “teacher travel grant” from the generous & inspired folks of the Fund for Teachers and Chicago Foundation for Education. The goal of this grant is to offer public school educators a chance to travel, learn something new, and rejuvenate themselves and their teaching practice. If you are a teacher and reading this, you should apply (www.cfefgrants.org). It’s a great chance to get out into the world, out of your comfort zone and be reminded how hard learning can be.

My grant application was inspired by a lifelong dream of traveling to Africa (and yes, I also took gymnastics and loved horses) and by my students. Although Africa has always been a dream, I don’t really know why I hadn’t yet figured out how to get there. Money is a likely excuse, but not a very defensible one. My students, indirectly, pushed me to finally pursue it.

For those of you who don’t know me and don’t have to endure my constant stories from the front line: I teach visual arts at a Westside Chicago high school. My students have been described in a million ways and by countless sad statistics but I’m going to give you a little of what I know about them (portraits of some of them can be seen at www.sunnyneater.com).

They are: mostly African-American, really funny, whip-smart when it comes to what they need to know, very cool, sweet and polite, bold, creative and talented, parents, artists and performers, drug dealers and gang members, church-goers, loyal to friends and family and tough as can be. They live in apartments, their grandma’s house, projects, suburbs, cars and sometimes nowhere. They teach me something new everyday and to them I’ll always be indebted.

While many of my students were genuinely excited and curious about my trip to Africa, many expressed discomfort & skepticism with Africa, as a place and as an idea. In my naivety, this surprised me. What about their history, our history? What about all of the art, science, music, culture, history, everything? What about the African in African-American?

Some responses when I told them I wanted to go to Africa: You what? G, you must be out your mind. You know Africa is hot, right? You know it’s dirty, too, right? Does your husband know about this? It’s crazy there. There’s no water. There’s no soap. Nobody wears any clothes and they speak that crazy way. You gotta get all them shots. You better not touch anything either cause AIDS is on everything. Why don’t you just go to Cancun like every other white person does? White people love Cancun.

I have already been to Cancun

And so, challenged by my students, I applied for the grant. I wanted to meet African teenagers and young adults and talk to them about their lives, their hopes and dreams and their ideas about African-Americans. I was curious to hear what they thought about African-American youth culture. I also wanted to meet artists and traditional crafts-people and see how art is made outside of studios and art schools. And I wanted to visit a few schools, if possible, to see what classrooms looked like, see how other teachers are doing it.

It seemed kind of impossible, but with help from my friend Carolyn, I found a guide in Tanzania who promised that he could help me do all of these things. And then those lovely people at the Chicago Foundation for Education and the Fund for Teachers gave me some money to actually make it happen.

I then found a couple of great, up for anything, traveling companions: Shane and Lee. We planned it all out, bought traveler’s insurance, tried to memorize how to say hello, thank you and I’m sorry in Swahili, and finally, shot full of vaccines and armed with lots of sunscreen and hand sanitizer, (Ms. Neatah, it’s dirty in Africa and your white @#% is gonna get burnt up) we took off for a three-week Tanzanian adventure.

And here is where I admit that a lot of what my students said was true. Like I said, they teach me something new everyday. Tanzania is hot, except at night and in the morning and in the mountains and in the showers. I got real dirty, which is one of my favorite things to do. That's how I tell I am having a good time. Water wasn't exactly everywhere, but women and girls find it and carry it in all kinds of containers, including 5-gallon buckets, balanced on their heads. Soap was at a premium. Those little hotel soaps that you steal, but never really use, come in handy, and play a bit part in local commerce. People did wear all kinds of clothes, beautiful fabrics wrapped around women and t-shirts sporting logos from Midwestern Fun Runs were everywhere. Americans like to send some real lame clothes to Africa, apparently. I got more shots than I care to talk about, but never got sick and I ate and drank all that was offered, including things that had been buried in the ground, fermenting.

And AIDS was not on everything, as reported, but the devastation of AIDS was everywhere. Tanzania is fighting back, despite the continued expense of education and meds. Tanzania has a big public health/ AIDS education thing going and it was great to see billboards and pamphlets everywhere suggesting that you protect yourself and your loved ones. There were more safe sex pamphlets in customs than I've ever seen at Planned Parenthood (or laying around my desk at school-- just kidding. I would never, ever talk to my students about safe sex or condoms or birth control or any of those terrible evils. Never. Not me. No sir.)

Okay, this is where the bulk of the writing (aka to Peanut, the boring part) ends and the photos (hopefully not so boring) begin. From this point on, I’ll be regularly posting photos and commentary about our trip. I realize that it is not in real time (did you know that there is no wifi in the bush? This came as complete news to me.) but invite you to suspend your disbelief and follow along.

africa bound

This is not an African kid. This is James, a fabulously talented artist and my student. I just put this up because I love this kid. He's one of the reasons why I set my alarm for that ungodly hour of dawn. In the future this blog will document my travels throughout Tanzania this summer.