Back on track

I won't write much because it's been an emotionally draining day, but in case anyone does read this, Joseph is now back at school and in Gemma's house just a couple of yards away. It's hard to know what he is feeling. He's the kind of child that always smiles, no matter how he's feeling inside. But I think he's happy. He's probably become quite accustomed to being moved around since the tragic events of the last few years.

When I got to the house, he was dressed and ready to go with a small suitcase - one of those old-fashioned ones covered with tapestry. Inside he had his school uniform, a pair of shorts, two t-shirts and one fo those jackets that we wore in the eighties. And, in true Tanzanian style, a jar of vaseline to put on his skin every morning.

He went back into class and hopefully didn't get asked too many questions. After school, he came to the office and did his homework. Then, Gemma and I both did his spellings with him, not realising the other had done it. The poor kid must be stressed now living with teachers! Afterwards, we went out for a cycle into the village and then came back and played football.

So it's all fine, on the surface. I really have no idea WHAT the child is going through now and there is only so much I can do. All I can do is hope that we can lead him to a path that will give him choices and options in life, that he otherwise wouldn't get. Only time will tell! Sliding doors...

On another note, my beloved mother has been in hospital for a week now after a heart-scare. She didn't have a heart-attack but showed the symptoms of being very close to one. This afternoon, after they discovered that she had some blockages in her arteries, I was told that she would either need stents in her heart or by-pass surgery. I spent the night with bated breath waiting to hear. Thankfully, she needs neither - just tablets. Thank you St Jude!

I am VERY relieved tonight and just want to sleep.

Joseph

You may remember that I once wrote about a student in our school called Joseph. I have meant to update my blog about Joseph’s situation but it has been ongoing and as yet is unresolved. I have been waiting for my happy ending (ever the idealist) but I don’t know what will transpire, so instead, I’ll update you as often as possible on his situation.

Joseph is on the left hand side of this photo.

Joseph was in my class last year. He is around eleven years old. He’s quite tall for his age though it’s entirely possible that he’s older than he admits to. He’s fairly quiet though after almost a year in the school, he was coming out of himself by around August, September and making a LOT of progress. He was around tenth position in a class of twenty nine and that’s pretty good considering most of the other children had been in the school for a year longer than him.

All of the above may sound fairly ordinary but when you consider that Joseph had been lying in a bed beside his mother a couple of years ago and witnessed her murder, as thieves cut her to death. He then had to learn that his father had hung himself after discovering he was HIV positive only a few short months later.

Joseph and his elder sister were sent from Moinze (around ten hours away from Arusha) to live with their aunty a few miles away from our school. Somehow Joseph got through our rigorous exams and got a place in Standard 2 (most of the children we take are in Standard 1 – we only allow around 30 exceptional children into Standard 2 every year as their classmates have quite advanced English by then, so it’s hard for newcomers to catch up). Nonethless Joseph got one of the coveted places and was doing fine.

Near the end of the year, Joseph missed a week of school and then returned. Then, near the end of the term, in November, he missed another week. I noticed this fairly quickly, given his previous recent absence. I asked the Deputy Headmaster to go to his house to find out what was wrong but when Joseph saw Ben coming, he ran away and hid. His auntie promised that he would return to school the following day but he didn’t.

I decided that I would go to the house with another teacher and try to coax him back to school. Eventually and in spite of everything, we found Joseph and his house (remember, this is a country where there are no street names beyond the major arteries that run through the towns). Indeed, our only directions were “they live in the house near some cows in a field”. After a discussion with Joseph, who was petrified of his aunt because she said he didn’t deserve to come to school because he woke up late some morning, he agreed to return to school which he did two days later.

I felt that there was a distinct lack of love for Joseph in the home, so I asked our “Parents 'committee” to investigate. In this case, one or two parents of our students who have been elected to this committee, go out to a house and assess it from a local perspective. They often speak to neighbours, the village chief and do whatever else is necessary to try to find out what’s really going on.

The report that came back said that Joseph was being mistreated, that he was sleeping outdoors, undernourished and it recommended that we find him a more suitable home.In this case the parents' committee find a family with another child in the school, and they house an extra child, often at no charge. The child stays there during term time and then, where possible, goes home for holidays. The parents' committee recommended this course of action for Joseph. Although it's rare, if there is an objection by the child's family, they show them the report and tell them they will go to the police if they do not let the child stay with another family.Mostly the families are happy to have one less mouth to feed but in the case that a child is a "workhorse" they are often reluctant to let them go. I suspect Joseph is one of these cases. In any case, we are led by our Parents' Committee so we agreed to find Joseph a suitable hom in January since we received the report just before the Summer holidays in December.

When Joseph’s aunt came to collect his school report in December, before school holidays, she talked about her schitzophrenic son and her chronic back pain. I think I might have felt sorry for her were it not for the fact that she showed utter disinterest in Joseph and no pride in the fact that he had passed his exams, despite missing three weeks in the last six weeks of term. We told her that we would find Joseph a house closer to school so that he could get there on time, and so that she wouldn’t have as man “stresses” in her life. She didn’t seem very happy with the offer though Joseph seemed pretty excited.

When I returned from Ireland last week, it was the beginning of the second week of school. I was anxious to have Joseph placed with a local family who would care for him more. But I couldn’t find Joseph anywhere. He hadn’t returned to school at all.

So, Peter our Deputy Welfare teacher and I returned to Joseph’s house to find out the situation. But Joseph wasn’t there. His aunt explained that he had gone to see his family in Moinze and that there had been a hurricane while he was there and had not returned. It was an odd story, littered with contradictions but we humoured her. We explained to her that Mama (Gemma who rns the school) wanted him to live with her for a while and that he was very important to the school. We also repeated the point that St Judes was a certain way that Joseph would get a priary, secondary and if he chose, a tertiary education. In so doing, Joseph could then repay her love when he got a good job since he could support her in a country that has no social welfare or means to care for the eldery. The thought of her nephew living with a woman who has a LOT of kudos in Arusha, along with the prospect of having a breadwinner in the family, seemed to change her attitude. She got on the phone to Moinze promptly and told the family to send him back. They told her he had problems with this teeth but we said we would take care of that. She then said that she had a pain in her ear. We listened sympathetically but weren’t drawn in.

That was last Tuesday. The chairperson of our Parents' Committee called her on Thursday and I called her on Friday. We were reassured that Joseph was coming on the bus. When I called last night, they said that he was on the bus but it had broken down and he was due later that night or today. It’s entirely likely the bus did break down since it travels along the worst road in Tanzania. Today, aunty called and said Joseph was home. I offered to go and get him immediately but she said he would come tomorrow.

So tomorrow morning, we are going back to the house to take Joseph and his few belondings to the school. If he is indeed there, and we can take him, he will stay with Gemma for a few weeks and then stay with a local family. Auntie isn’t keen for him to stay with just any family, especially if they are Masai. We’re just going to take it one step at a time. On the strength of our Parents’ Committee report, we will go threaten to go to the village chairman and police and tell them how he had been mistreated and that should be enough to keep the aunty quiet.

I have no idea how guilty this woman is. I'm sure that she has a very tough life. And hopefully she doesn't have malevolent intentions toward the boy. After all, her sister was brutally murdered. I don’t know what to believe anymore and I can't judge people when I have NO IDEA what it's like to live their life. I just care about this boy getting a chance in life, after the hideous start he has had. He’s clever and although emotional happiness is far more important than intellectual ability, this is a start. We are not just a school that focuses on academic learning. We try to teach self-confidence, morals and ultimately, that through education you are automatically advantaged. We also now have the benefit of two trained psychologists who come on a weekly basis and they will be able to give Joseph the counselling he has never ever had.

I’m afraid to be hopeful because this has been an uphill battle all the way. But, I won't give up. So cross your fingers, say a prayer... whatever... that Joseph will be in school within twelve hours from now and sleeping in a warm bed tomorrow night.

I’ll update this in the next couple of days. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Joseph, December 2006 (centre, smiling)

I'm Back

After almost a month in Ireland, basking in the luxury of a warm open fire, lots of fish (scallops...ahhhh), retail therapy (too poor to buy anything and there's just too much choice), running hot water on tap (pardon the pun), parents, relatives and friend who utterly spoiled me, roads that are mostly (though it depends on where in ireland you are driving) that are fully paved and devoid of enormous potholes, generator-free (though definitely not free) electricity... well, it was nice.

but you know, Ireland is RICH! And people are SPOILT. Not in a spoilt child way though not far off it.... We have SO much and I'm not sure that the gratitude is there but you could say that for most if not all developing countries. It doesn't make it right though. Shops are just full to the brim of products, people are in a spending frenzy. Okay, it was Christmas so spending had reached epic proportions. And although this is the society in which I grew up in, though it wasn't nearly as rich until around ten years ago, it still shocked me to the core for the first time in my life.

I sat in my parent's bed (I'm still a child), on the second morning home, and was able to look fairly objectively around the room - from the lush bedspread covering me to the matching curtains, beautiful pictures, coloured TV, built in wardropes, electric blanket etc etc etc and I can honestly say that no Tanzanian, that I have met anyway though I am sure they must exist, lives a life of such luxury. My parent's house is not opulent or decadent in any way - they're just comfortable and very typical of any middle class family. But it's a very, very comfortable lifestyle.

Although I could certainly look at my old world in a new perspective, it never felt alien to me. in fact I fitted in pretty quickly and became immune to my cozy surroundings within a very short time. And I know when I go home, it will become that way.

But I would like to think and I certainly hope that I will never, ever forget how very lucky we are. I hope that I can always look at the world I was lucky enough to be born into and appreciate that not everyone lives this way. I hope that I can give a little more than I used to and know that by doing so, I will be far richer. I am not a different person for having lived here - hopefully I'm just a little bit more enlightened and appreciative and fingers crossed, just a tiny bit wiser.

Confession

I have a confession to make. I've kind of been sort of using God's name in vain... or rather, in a sort of manipulative way.

I find that Tanzanians can be VERY insistent when they want to know or get something. Not being the best at saying no in an awkward situation, I find this difficult. Let's face it, in this world of haves and have nots, and being a very clear "have" (if only because of my race), it's not easy to reply with an outright No (okay, I'm a coward, I know).

But I recently discovered a reply that seems to get me out of any situation where I don't want ot say No but I DEFINITELY don't want to say yes and commit to something. I say "Mungu akipenda" which means "If God wishes".

You see, most people in Tanzanian have the most genuinely beautiful trust in God. I know that probably seems like a complete farce to any doubting Thomas and especially in light of the fact that the Africans I'm speaking of are so poor, they seem to be utterly foresaken by God. But I have personally witnessed the genuine sense of peace that they get from God. On Sunday, it's a family day, spent in church and with the family. They dress up in the most elegant way, no matter how poor they are. In fact, unlike the Western world which discussing religion with a friend let alone a strange is simply not done, it's just a fact of life here. God exists and there's nothing to discuss. I think it's nice. And if I didn't believe in God myself, I think I would envy their blind faith.

And yet, I must confess to manipulating this knowledge ever so slightly for my own purposes.
So, for example, the other day, someone asked me whether I think I will spend the rest of my life in Africa, and clearly I won't. I really did try to explain that my home is in Ireland, but they just wouldn't listen. I was told that I am old, I have big hips (neither of these are insults, simply facts) and I should be getting married and producing offsprings pronto since time is clearly not on my side. Again, I tried to explain that in my world, I'm pretty average and not in any hurry to do any of the above. I have plenty of time. All in vain. In the end, I looked resigned, a little sheepish but still accepting and said "Mungu akipenda".

End of discussion! I was greeted with an equally accepting nod and no more was said on the matter.

Somehow, and though I know it's not very nice to abuse such a lovely expression of utter acceptance to get myself out of one of those endless conversations, it was soooo effective and utterly conclusive! But in my defence, when it comes down to it, I do believe that if something is meant to happen it will, and if it's not, it won't. So why not!

Yeah, okay, it was the easy way out of a discussion that I have had many, many times in the last year and will never win - I'll only use it as a last resort in the future! Ahem...