Mice and Honey

Last week I gave myself a haircut, my first haircut in ten years that wasn’t given to me by my sister.  Since I have yet to see a mirror, I still don’t know how it looks but I am sure that my blind attempt at a coiffe would make sister balk.  Beyond not having a mirror, my house is still very unfurnished.  I have some orders in at the carpenter’s that are already tardy, but I have low expectations for any timeliness in this country anyway.  I also still have a mouse problem.

I got a cat after one week here.  I walked across the village and chatted with some old Gogo ladies, and after about 10 minutes one of the ladies slipped into another room in the hut and came out with a hissing and mewling sack.  It was about a 10 minutes walk home and once in the house, the cat timidly made its way out of the bag (there is a pun here somewhere but I’m not up to it right now.)  It seemed distressed at the lack of furniture to hide behind, but it quickly found a nook between my bed frame and mattress.  I fetched it some fresh cow’s milk that it didn’t touch, and I eventually went to bed with the kitten hiding behind the mattress.  I woke up in the morning and lit the stove for tea, came back inside and the cat was nowhere to be found.  I’m not that surprised that the cat would run away, it was a pretty old kitten, but I am dumbfounded as to how the cat escaped.  The door from my house to my courtyard was open for all of 2 minutes as I lit the stove, and even so I should have seen a cat darting out.  And the only way out of my courtyard is the drain in the shower.  The cat could have fit through it, but it is a pretty long tube, and I’m convinced this kind of jailbreak would have required some calculated premeditation.  Now three weeks later, I still wake up to the sound of the mouse eating giant millipedes behind my desk, and I still expect any day to see this cat come sauntering out of its hiding.  If I ever do, I will call it Houdini.

I’m trying to learn basic Kigogo and Kisandawe, the two main languages that are spoken here.  Of course everyone speaks Kiswahili as well, but it really tickles people if I greet them in their tribal language.  Kisandawe is truly a click language, and I can really crack people up when I attempt to make those impossible sounds. 

A lot of my job right now is to wander around the village and talk with new people.  This often means going up to a house and saying “Hodi! Hodi!” I don’t knock, I just say these words and if people are about, they say, “Karibu!” to welcome me in.  If they are cooking, they will invite me to eat.  If it isn’t mealtime, they will likely send a kid out to buy a soda for me.  Or, if I am visiting a beekeeper, they will bring me a bowl of honey.  The first time this happened, I didn’t really know what to do—about ½ a liter of honey and a spoon!  That’s gluttonous, but if I only take a few spoonfuls, not only might it be rude, but the precious stuff might go to waste.  Well, after a few bites, I wasn’t worried about any of that because I knew I could easily eat the whole bowl.  I had been told that my Peace Corps service would change me forever; I had no idea it would just be Type II Diabetes.

A particularly industrious beekeeper had me taste the honey from nyuki wadogo, little bees, which I think are some species of dwarf honey bee. The plastic water bottle hissed releasing pressure as the beekeeper opened it, which would normally be a red flag alerting me to Something I Shouldn’t Eat, but being a profligate lover of honey, I sallied forth.  It had a texture and buttery sweetness like warm caramel, a slightly tart taste like an apple, and it was curiously bubbly with carbonation.  It might have been slightly alcoholic.  It was delicious.

 Last week I made an attempt to climb the tallest mountain in my beautiful skyline.  (I told everyone I wanted to go in order to see the surroundings but really I just wanted to try and catch a glimpse of the chewi a.k.a. leopard) Unfortunately we departed too late in the afternoon, so we didn’t make it all the way to the top.  News of my excursion spread, as all news does in the village: like wildfire.  Now when some people ask me about my plans, they’ll say, “Are you free Thursday?  Or are you going to go climb another mountain?” 

When I go to visit houses, I try to ask them survey questions about what problems they are facing and what sort of work they would like to see in their village.  This is an important yet frustrating exercise because their suggestions are very valid, but often too big for me to help with, which I think this is a common struggle at the start for Peace Corps volunteers.  For instance, many people want me to help their group get a tractor, or access the international honey market while circumventing the price-slashing middleman in Dar es Salaam.  Some of the other things they suggest are very feasible, like setting up beekeeping workshops, creating other income generating projects, and etc.  Nonetheless, I am trying to do research on all these ideas so that I can tell them just how realistic the possibilities are.