Tanzania dreaming, on such a California day...

I have felt toxic since last night. Went to a gorgeously swank place, the Hip Kitty for 'jazz and fondue' with my brother last night, and nothing to drink, but a good cry and felt hung over all night and day, with minimal movement from Elias.
It made me very depressed.
My son is perfect love in the core of my body.
My heart pains, my mind pains, my thighs grow fat,
but he is nothing but positive dreams, kicking gently to remind me.
And when I cannot feel him,
I feel fear.

Not being able to have solid, reliable communication, NOT TO HAVE TOUCH, with Augustino drives me mad. But I hold on tight, and relish the treasures.
Two nights ago, I had the delicious pleasure of hanging out with two of the sweetest boys who served as Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania while I did.

Scott, Jacob and I

Every day devirginization. That has been my motto in the past, and it felt good to pass it on to a friend. First time for Tapas, first time for saki, (no I didn't partake) first time to touch a pregnant belly, and Elias immediately started kicking.
We sat through the Kite Runner, and although I cried so hard during the book I could barely make out the letters on the page, with his sweet hand on my belly, I was all aglow and not but a sniffle during the movie.
(Usually during most movies I am a silly sobbing wet sponge, so to not cry during Kite Runner was either Jacob's blessing, or due to the bad acting.)

Other friends I have heard from include a Zambian god who I met randomly at an ag. expo then re-met randomly on facebook, and a touching email from a South African comic genius that I grew to adore during my time in Morogoro, TZ (he was teaching at the University). He read my blog and I hope he doesn't mind if I post his encouraging words below.

"so. i met up with albert on his way through dc this week and during our catchup he mentions your mail. i said yes, i'd seen it. and then says, no did you REALLY see it. and told me to check out your blog and that you were pregnant. i rarely read blogs (i'm losing my relaxed african-ness and increasingly adopted the rushed anal western approach that puts work above all else) and so didn't make an exception for yours. but my utter disbelief at albert's words made me look at the blog with the usual emotions of pity or "tough lesson learned" aimed at your direction. and what do i find instead? probably one the most empowering courageous examples of motherhood i've probably ever seen. i know you were an empowered strong female figure - but in a single unfettered way that i could never imaging you married or with child. it seems you have taken that in your stride and make mothering look like it probably should be (and was intended).

so, i say wow. and congratulations. and not really sure what else except "you, go girl".

c
p.s. if you keep the good writing up, i'll keep reading your blog."

The blog itself is a touch of journal and a touch of 'keeping in touch.'

Some of the reasons why I wasn't blogging in Tanzania was that every time I felt I truly had a story to share, like riding a motorcycle (illegal!) to a remote vanilla village where I have since dreamed of buying property, or taking an unpermitted trip, doing whatever unconventional project that didn't follow regulations etc etc, I was in constant danger of my blog being used against me...hahaha or the US government.
So I began here with the goal of scathing honesty.
But there are still lines that can be crossed.
How personal can I be?
What is too revealing, inappropriate? How. much. can. I. say. of. other. people?
I guess these are guidelines that I myself set. There are no internet laws, and internet etiquette, not a class I have yet taken.

I am disappointed in myself. My flabby thighs and my wandering mind.
I have now spent more time apart from Tino pregnant than we ever had together as lovers. I am a California girl, with all the opportunities in the world. Those opportunities create certain expectations, and I had begun to adopt the easy expectations of life in a village, where falling in love and starting a family are as natural and uncomplicated as the daily chores. Will we be able to survive together? Will I resent him, because to him, this whole situation, having a white and wealthy wife is his dream come true, prayers answered, unfailingly better than anything else, with the opportunity to come to the US and study.
Back there, it was that simple for me too.
But now I find myself afraid of the very judgment and doubt that I try so hard to avoid.
With Tino, I put the questions and the doubt on hold to allow myself to fall in love.
There will never, I thought, be a relationship that I am not ANALYZING.
Why not take this one? So true, so pure. It has the essence of everything we need, the integrity, the joy, the chemistry, the magic, the memories, shared goals. All the other challenges, cultural, financial, geographical, educational, they will be the mountains that we love to climb together.
Instead of picking apart another California boy out of boredom,
or tearing down myself because I don't measure up,
I made a decision to settle with a man with whom I felt beautiful, loved, appreciated, and confident.
But towards the end, I was anxious to get home. I was anxious to be close to family again, to see my brother in love and married, to spend time with my mother, to have a smoothie in a to-go cup, to smell the Pacific Ocean, go swing dancing, and to tell the family my news. I was pregnant and I couldn't wait to be big. Everything would work out and I wanted it all to start NOW!
After 5 months of being in California (is that all!!!??? How short it really is!!)
I am finally round, but there seems to be nothing that is closer to being known.
Will my baby be healthy and safe? Will I be able to fulfill my own goals and provide for him, being a good wife and mother? I felt for so long that I had everything in the world to offer. Now I wonder if I am really just a bitter woman. Have I gotten pregnant out of boredom? Because I didn't feel like I had ever created anything else worth while in my life, I made a baby~ might as well try that.
Daily Devirginization.
Haven't had a baby yet...
DOUBT!

Doubt is the only hindrance.
This Buddhist saying is signed to the bottom of every email I send.
Doubt is MY only hindrance it should say. It has begun to fill me and I cannot even feel Elias.
I think it will be good for me to get back to Tanzania, even if that puts us 'behind.'
Maybe Tino could have gotten here and started school while I was home with the baby, and we would take evening walks as he got to know California, and I helped him perfect his English.
But the reality is, after birthing here alone (I meet with a great woman who I hope to hire as my doula on Tuesday. She crochets plastic purses, a hobby I long wanted to start in TZ, her name is Juanita. She is bilingual. maybe a water birth, maybe a hospital birth. What family will be there and who do I want??) Then I will have six, to hopefully no more than 8 weeks of nursing and taking walks with my baby, and I will be on a plane back to TZ. Parents may join me. Will they attend a Chagga wedding, or a traditional Tanzanian one, replete with pink balloons and tapestries, and no smiling from the bride and groom? Then family will leave and I will stay until Tino's visa clears. Will it months? A year? Will I get a good job and we will stay on? Will we live in a room in a village together, where it will be like the Peace Corps all over again, but this time, I will have a baby on my back, and no prestigious org backing me? Maybe it will be the perfect opportunity to start off motherhood, without the congestion of cars and pressure from the States. Time to allow my husband to take care of me. Allow me to spend time nursing my son in his infancy. Time to make quilts, have a garden, and engage in development projects that I loved, or was never able to accomplish while I was busy doing other things. Maybe I will have time to take distance courses, like Biology, or an Ayurvedic course, and volunteer in a clinic. Maybe I will be a doula.
I hope to come home with a deep bond with my family, and a sense of well used time. I hope to come back to a job as a Spanish teacher, and/or Health teacher, and be able to spend enough time with my son and my family. I hope to earn enough money to pay for Augustino's schooling, pay off my debts, and pay rent, put double paned windows in my mom's house and buy her a new fridge. I hope to work for several years and love it, while preparing myself to enter grad school when Tino is done. I hope to be able to travel in the summers and/or winters with him and the baby.
I hope to keep a healthy mind and body throughout, and go to school to be a Nurse Practitioner. I hope to collaborate with Tino as we work towards improving health in TZ. I hope to collaborate with the Universities, to improve health education in TZ.
I hope to have some land and collaborate with others to offer a refuge for the sick and dying and their families. Here they would learn to connect to one another, to better take care of themselves and each other, to heal emotionally and make the transition peacefully to a better life or to death. I hope that this land will be able to serve the needs of farmers who can improve their lives, health care workers who can be better trained, foreign students who are looking for innovation and inspiration, healers who are looking for a new way to use their talents, volunteers and tourists who are looking for a way to be with people, and AID organizations who are looking for grassroots projects that work. That or travel the world with my family working on various health projects. Live in Cuba and Mozambique.
Most of all, I hope for satisfaction with myself.
I hope for true love and mutual admiration in my family.
I hope that the distance I feel between my brother and I can be bridged, and a loving relationship will develop with my sister in law.
I hope to not live life with a chip on my shoulder, because I am pissed off that I am not good enough.
I hope to be satisfied with who I am enough that I can be excited about the rest of the world, and not afraid of it.

Now, able to have avoided the scathing truths, I feel satisfied for the night.

Blessings and Happy New Year.

Holidays Happen

With the addition of my sister-in-law's family, there are more dinners to prepare, and more plates to put down. Stressful, not for me, but I did wake up on the 26th feeling like I was on vacation. Here are some photos from our days of Christmas...

The family in Claremont...



Two Santas,
Two Elves,
Children who got coal...


in the stockings hung from the chimney with care.



Hoping my family will soon be here.

New nephew Dylan



And that we will fit in with the rest of my wonderful family, where mothers and daughters are best friends.


Sister Lisa and her beautiful daughter Taylor.

Happy Kwanzaa!

I had to investigate what the hell Kwanza was all about, this Swahili word that I identify with, and for which wrote a tongue-in-cheek greeting card last holiday season. I am not ashamed to say, I had no idea whence this holiday came.
It was like the realization of the celebration of Cinco de Mayo. There I was, 17, living in Puebla, Mexico, where the May 5th war had been bravely fought, and lost against the invading French colonizers. In a land with so many holidays, and excuses for a party, is was virtually ignored. Day of the Student was a bigger deal.
Being whitie, living in Orange County and then Sonoma County,
Whitie, whitie, whitie.
I hadn’t a clue what was being referred to in our efforts at PC holiday greetings that attempt to include all religious (Happy Chanakah!), cultural (Happy New Year!) and seasonal (Happy Winter Break!) holidays. Luckily for Capitalist Christian America, Eid al Fetir, (the Islamic holiday following Ramadan) is always a couple of weeks earlier than it was last year, (since ours is the Gregorian solar calendar rather than the Islamic lunar one, thanks Wikipedia!) and too complicated to recognize.
So, getting into the holiday spirit, and wanting to understand a little more about American culture (I will have to know how to answer Tino’s questions!! And he surely will be curious about a holiday whose daily greeting is Habari gani?! Swahili for What’s up?) I looked into it a little bit. Anyone can google Kwanzaa like I did and get the story, the point is, that although it is a holiday that was invented by a single man, a Long Beach State Professor in 1966, and celebrates African-American culture (thus the two A’s at the end of the word, instead of the correctly written one,) now that Tino and Elias are part of the family, I can see myself celebrating it. Actually, I feel thankful for it. Sure I subscribe to the basic tenents, which I’ve posted below. But I also appreciate the fact that we can continue a tradition together that acknowledges our diversity, and how, somehow, the Swahili culture is alive and appreciated as part of an alive and appreciated culture of being Black in America.
I sometimes do fear that I will be able to raise a boy that will feel at home in two worlds. The goal is not for him to feel at home in Tanzania and the United States. That, I think, would leave one with the isolation that a Chicano relates to, neither here nor there. Rather, it is to focus on being a citizen of the world, and unique and crucial part of the Universe. Neither better nor worse than those who grow from Kindergarten to High School with the same group of kids.
I always wanted something different for myself, which is part of why I loved going to live in Mexico for a year at age 16. But it is also a way of life that I have always hoped for, for myself and for my children. Never have the wise words of those who regard stability and fences shaken my differing desire.

So, let us light our candles, whatever the reason, ‘tis the season.
Copied directly from Wikipedia, because its an easy format with good translations of the tenents.
Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called "The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa", or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba - "The Seven Principles of Blackness"), which Karenga said "is a communitarian African philosophy" consisting of what Karenga called "the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world." These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili term for tradition and reason. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:

* Umoja (Unity) To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
* Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
* Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.
* Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
* Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
* Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
* Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

(Looking at Ujamaa, the term for the socialist villages that Tanz. Pres. Nyerere enforced when he came to power, it is a highly controversial concept, especially to a western mind. But I will say, that although I was a bit struck at the ‘our own stores’ bit, sounding like a Black community excluding itself, rather than empowering itself, it is just the concept of economy that I truly love and have lived for, forever. Dedicating many years to Community Supported Agriculture and finding a beautiful town, only that which offers its townspeople the diversity and character of shops and restaurants that aren’t AnyStripMall from Anytown, USA.)

Imani was an alternate Swahili name suggested to me for Elias. It is beautiful, who knows, after all this, maybe Tino and I will change our minds at the last minute.

Elias is Pro-Choice!

To begin, an old photograph of mom, dad, uncle Gary, brother and me, chubs in my mom's arms. Isn't she lovely and petite? She had me at 31, only 14 months apart from my brother.





What a great week, connecting with old friends and new.
It is really amazing what a charge of energy and hope it can be. When I start to think of who to acknowledge, the list goes on and on.
My inquietude of last week has been resolved (for the day!!)
Tomorrow I will make an be in touch with my Congressional representatives in the last shot at sending in a rushing the visa application due to my pregnant circumstances.
Because they are now processing applications that were received last April, there is not another reason to wait around here in the US for 9+ months in order to reunite the family. Therefore, 6 weeks after baby Elias is born, if Tino still has no visa, we go see daddy! All family members who can will join Elias and I for the long trip, and we will arrive to meet up with the other half of the family.
My situation does make meeting difficult,
but holidays will possibly be easier!

I also talked to Tino for awhile today, which was so nice.
We actually talked about his penis and I felt tingly all over ;-)
But it wasn't a sex skype! Unfortunately not...
but we talked about his opinions on circumcision for our son.
He said that basically, it was Elias's choice.
(I live in a constant state of Elias's choice right now. He is very helpful with everything. Should I have a molten chocolate cake Elias? A little bit of wine?
Take a walk? Do a cartwheel? He is down for everything, this one! And well! I am obliged to follow his every whim)
Tino himself did not get circumcised until he was in 4th grade.
He gave three reasons for why he chose to.
1.) Usafi (cleanliness. Say no more, number two?)
2.) Penetration. (Here I laugh, ask how he knew and we move right on to
3.) Utamaduni (cultural influence. The most powerful argument for anyone, especially a fourth grader. And when will Elias be given the decision, and what culture will he be basing his decision on? Maybe, for his fourth grade sake, we will leave that post off when the time comes. Maybe not, but either way, I am happy for now and...
yep, so is he!)

Until the waterfall

What do I do with my days?
I spend a lot of time on hold. I now have my Congresspeople on my side, who will try to help advocate for me to expedite my visa.
But I am still feeling a sense of wrongness, in my body, in my heart, and more and more often, in my head, that, as the final days approach where getting on an airplane will be possible, I should get on a plane and be reunited with Tino.
I have the freedom to travel. He does not. It is my attachment to the safety and security that we
well, that we like to feel is around us when we are in a place. The US has better health care than TZ. Period. I am covered here. But I can still have a baby there. It is done everyday, and I am not afraid.
It amazes me how much time has passed since this video was recorded. My thoughts are there, so here is a little clip for all the world.


The other day I read an article about a man who started journaling the first year of his son's life, 18 years later, when his son was moving off to college, he found that he still could not stop. With every change, with every stage of growth, and wit from his son, he felt the need to memorialize it. I suppose this blog could turn out that way.
And from THAT perspective, there is a lot of editing to do!
Actually, when I thought about what I write, and who it is for, I realized that while it is principally for myself, for my own processing, I want to give the boy a good love story about his parents.
And my efforts to be very practical and follow the rules, endure life and do the right thing have not yielded one blog about my absolute adoration for my fiance. Fiance itself being a word only used in reference to visa applications.
That and I am not romantic.

Last night, I drove out to the old and lovely town of Pasadena, for a night of swing dancing. Every Thursday night, all ages get together for what must be one of the biggest swing parties in the area. Last night was 20bucks as opposed to the usual 7 I had in my pocket. It was a holiday party. I am getting a big belly, but felt good, felt I looked good (new clothes, new hair-do) and was torn between going to get out the extra money for the show or go home. I don't really know people in there, but I know you meet up, dance, get some exercise...
Still, a slight wave of wanting my man by my side came over me. A slight wave of feeling like a freak walking in to such a social event, on such a social holiday, along and pregnant made me wince. I left.
I had what to go home to? Decorating a Christmas tree. The only time it will be seen will be on my birthday, by my brother's family who is coming. Half-heartedly, and still feeling quite alone, I put things on the tree until I broke. I left the house, wailing. I walked to the mountains, and the more I cried, the more I cried.
The levee broke. It was fabulous and it scared me. I can be a very quite woman. I feared that the loudest and strongest that Baby Elias would hear his mother before he was born was crying. Not laughing or singing, but wailing.
How will that affect him?
What character will he have?
Will the fact that I have been unsettled make him as ADD as I am?
Will he be as happy and smiley as his father?

Thank god for herbal medicines and friends, there whenever you need them.
I realized that I have been maybe a little too complacent in my efforts to remain peaceful, grateful and strong. I distract myself by going dancing. That was not my reality. My reality is that the whole of three, my family, is divided, and it aches.
I have chosen my challenges, and I believe they make up for a beautiful, fulfilling life and will lead to more and more of the same.
But it is my life and I must continue to chose the best course of action, or the one that feels right.
God help me make good decisions.

Work is Love Made Visible

These are the types of birthing images I was really looking for. (as opposed to the Brittany Spears statue posted earlier, tho I am glad I that one too.) Thank you to the friend who introduced me the artist's work today. The artist is Mara Friedman.
They are images of the first three chakras. Those areas of the body which are highly charged and in need of strengthening while relaxing, listening to while directing postively.


This weekend was filled with:
Beautiful weather
Trying to figure out a webcam.
Delicious Vietnamese food and new clothes for Christmas.
Feelings of helplessness and dissapointment that baby daddy couldn't find a working webcam in all of Arusha. (For an accurate description of Arusha, read Tait Davidson's blog who is living there for her third year Peace Corps volunteership.)
A lovely two hour massage from a lovely new friend in Huntington Beach.
Missing out on sailing under the clearest blue sky in Southern California's recent memory.
Driving home with an exquisite clear sky view of the snow capped San Gabriel mountains the whole way, growing larger and brighter as I neared home.

Today's horoscope in the Times (thanks mom!) read:
Money is attached to projects that are progressive and pioneering. Luck focuses on new friends, foreign correspondence and Internet journeys.

Is that so?

In any and every case, I raise my white fists to the rugged white mountains before me, and cry, from the depths of my muladhara chakra,
"TUPES!"

and plan for my next progressive project contribution, no commonplace thing, but one
which, to paraphrase Jack Keroac, will 'burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding' like stars within my solar plexus.

And because,

"Work is Love Made Visible."- Kahlil Gibran

Ooh, sorry, I gotta work. Can we reschedule?

I got a job! The principal of Servite High School, and old rival of my alma matter (as if I give a flying fig or even know what that means.) They want me as a long-term substitute for Spanish III!! Impressed with my resume, he told me that the position was filling in for a teacher who was going on maternity leave at the end of February. Funny. That would be MY maternity leave. If I were to have a job. Never mind.

Oh, I do have a job! I go hired again today as a waitress at a local happening restaurant. Then I warned them of my pregnancy, and eyes diverted. Well, not exactly. The poor assistant manager was still nodding eagerly, knowing that she didn’t have enough help to do the schedule, and what with all the requests for Christmas breaks…. While the owner, who came out in her chef coat and a walker, told me that this was mighty strenuous work for someone in my condition. I thought to say the same to her, but instead, left. Who knows, maybe they find themselves desperate for my extensive food knowledge, restaurant experience, elegance, poise, and good looks.

Ok, so that’s not really a job I GOT either. But I DID get a job! I start tomorrow, working as a massage therapist in a Chiropractic Office. I am actually really excited about being their official massage therapist, with a room that I will be sprucing up a bit before I start, and then can use at my convenience. Meaning, that I can now advertise down here as a massage therapist, working in a respectable clinic, with what seems like a great team, who worries none about their clients becoming my clients. In fact, it is good PR all around.

So today I was called about a Site Coordinator position for a non-profit tutor/after-school program. $33,000/year, benefits, great experience.

And I am about to have a baby, and the teaching positions, and real work, will come when I am ready.

Birthing Partners...

I finally met my doctor, and I chose my hospital. The hospital is right down the street, is small, has lovely birthing rooms, and the halls are decorated with antique baby clothes, which I love. That and at the maternity tour, I won the raffle for the lion baby shoes, which I wanted, and when it comes down to it, there isn't a whole lot more to base the decision on!!
The doctor has shaved his mustache from the photos I saw of him. Which is a good thing for me. He shook my hand warmly and took time to listen to me cry even when I did not have an appointment with him. He offered to write a letter to the Department of Homeland Security to tell them how much Tino's absence is stressing me out, and could they please hurry up the process and get him here before I give birth??
I don't have a lot of hope in the letter, exactly, because DHS says they only consider expediting applications for immigrant visas for life or death situations. And have forgotten that birth is life. Why do we say life or death if we only mean death? Why do people who are coming here to stay get bumped to the back of the line?

In the meantime, I continue to lay the foundations for the birth.
One of those is exactly that, having a strong foundation. Staying healthy and fit for the endurance challenge of a lifetime (shame I didn’t do that Kilimanjaro marathon. Some other time I am sure!) Doing exercises to improve muscle tone, kegels and squats, and attempting to connect ever more fully with my meditation, and thus, with my body’s sensations, without the needing to react to them, or run from them. Mediation in the past has enabled me to transfer the interpretation of an intense pain, the intense pain of sitting in one position for hours on end, into simply a strong sensation that is a positive thing, because it focuses my awareness, and signifies a release, and moving through, as I remind myself that nothing is permanent.

Another thing that I have visualized is WHO to be birthing WITH.
If I were to have it my way, who would I be with?
Who had the right to be there?
For me, close female mothers would be the optimal choice. This is a female thing. Powerfully so. When it comes to who will be able to assuage my fears, a woman who has been there seems to me to be the most likely answer. Reinforcing the female ring of support, rather than competition, makes sense to me.
Maybe it was influenced by being in Tanzania for so long, but there are certain female roles which I am thankful for. I am thankful to be a woman and to be able to give birth, and I want to experience that with other women who can do the same. This to me is powerful.

Thankfully, I have some amazing friends. I know of at least three women who would be willing to be on a plane and fly down to southern California to be there for me during my birth. The difficulty being that this is not necessarily something that can be planned. No matter how great some folks are at manifesting their vision “I will be laboring for 8 hours, get on plane now and you will make it!”
These women would be thoughtful and powerful and help me to own a birth plan, own my body, and ‘Stand and Deliver’ with dignity when the time came.
If they could make it on time.

Now there is also the option of Tino. If he were here…
I would have loved to have taken the hospital tour with him, he would have been so highly impressed with the hospital, (not to mention so proud to walk around with me in there as an expecting couple!) He loves the idea of supporting me, and always sends me notes about how he wishes he could be massaging me, holding my belly and holding my hand.
But that he is not exactly sure how he can be supporting me.
He can’t do any more than he is doing.
And if he were here to fulfill his wishes, he could not be a better support person, nor a better doula.
He is a sensitive guy, who wants to study nursing, and the more I thought about it, I could see him becoming a nurse mid-wife.
I was picturing him laboring with me through my birth. Would we be traveling from a distant village to a hospital? Would we be close? How would the doctors and nurses there perceive this man who is holding me, supporting me, and massaging me through labor?

To tell you the truth, I initially thought that all this male in lieu of female support is a little unnatural. That we are putting so much pressure on the male partner to understand something that he will never understand, while instead we could be bonding with the other mothers. Bonding with the partner came when we made the baby, are pregnant together planning for the baby, and ultimately, raising the child together. But the chance to bond with our female support team is during the birthing process itself.
However, when I think of male/female relations in Tanzania, not just within the birthing process, but within the marriage relationship and co-parenting, I reconsider what it might mean to have men be more involved in the birth of their children.
Sure, it is a concept that is far from its time there. However, when a man comes to realize that his presence is helpful, and even necessary, and he learns how to respect himself in the context of the family. To support the woman and to love her in order to help her, and to become excited about being a father and forming a family, this is the change that brought about father involvement in the birthing room in the 1970’s. This is a change that developed with the desire of a man to more fully participate in the family dynamics. This may be the sort of change that needs to develop in Tanzania.
Tino would be a great example of that.

Tanzania in the news...

Students enter for World AIDS Day Matombo, 2006



Tino is too busy to call me because he is organizing events for World AIDS Day. There is no doubt that with all the money backing HIV/AIDS prevention education, WAD has come to be the biggest, most widely and lavishly celebrated holiday in the country.
I am very proud that he is spearheading the activities to acknowledge this day for the Tanzanian Farmers' Network (MVIWATA, who he works for) in his area. It is an important day and an opportunity to utilize extra dollars and attention to continue the endless discussion on behavior change that must ensue in order to experience, some degree of changed behavior. Mama Laurie told me about a PBS special AIDS Day report, focusing on Tanzania and Rwanda. I was pleased to see that this report likened the mountainous efforts towards behavior change programs (largely funded by US's PEPFAR, as mentioned in earlier blogs) to similar efforts here in the States. One never has to look far to find reports on obesity in America, the importance of diet and exercise, etc. But behaviors have changed, and smoking is down in America, (largely due to luxury taxes and the inconvenience of smoking being prohibited just about everywhere.) HIV infection rates have stayed under 1%, and I think that condoms have become accepted as what smart and responsible people do. The LA Times even reported that, wow, for the first time in several years, obesity rates have not risen. No, they have just plateaued. Just like someone putting on unhealthy weight might.
If anyone read the blog that I tried to create this time last year, they might remember that I too am guilty of spending lavish amounts of money to put on the event of a lifetime for a three day World AIDS Day extravaganza in my little village of Matombo. That day included HIV testing and counseling, Red Cross coming out and educating the public on the importance and safety of donating blood, the local health clinic making an appearance to inadvertently reiterate just how unhelpful they really are in the face of AIDS or just about anyone's health issues. Farmers groups came to show the projects that they have done on new crops, community groups came to show what resources are available, from Women's Rights Education, to micro-financing, to how to fix to the roads. Schools came and performed, local theater groups and mama's groups strutted their stuff, and it was all wrapped up with the King of Bongo Flava performing a free concert right there on a special stage we built at the primary school. In my front yard.
It was a great show of what money will do, not necessarily what people can do. It was a great show of what village leaders are capable of doing to make a few extra bucks.
What good came out of it? I found out about some amazing things that were going on in my area that I hadn't previously known about, and through this event, established a great working relationship with the amazing people making them happen.
The limelight fell on the area, testing was done, results were high (15% of women, men were below the national average, but the only ones who got tested were young high school students. Not the men who felt they were at risk), and word got out that Matombo, a district of 30+ villages and over 50,000 people living in the mountains on subsistance agriculture, had no services whatsoever to speak of.
I really don't feel so cynical about World AIDS Day, per se, but what frustrated me today was the fact that this is the only news that is available about the entire country. Maybe I need to by watching more Al Jazeera online, but I have had a hell of a time finding news stories in Tanzania. Of course, finding good news stories about news in Tanzania was hard in Tanzania. Newspapers are poorly funded and poorly written.
Then again, so is this blog.

My surrogate son, Saidi, needed me to wire him some emergency money because his three little brother and sisters and himself were unable to return on the train he had bought tickets for. He blamed the pres. Kikwete to selling the railroad to the Indians, and now, instead of picking up people who have tickets, the train was already loaded with all sorts of goods, stuffed to the point the passengers that got on early in the trip where stiffled, and one infant suffocated to death.
I did find in the news that when Kikwete came into power, he transferred more of the ownership of the railroad to the Indian company that was helping to run it. The ownership went to 30% TZ/ 70% Indian Company. There were strikes in Dar because of this. But THAT IS ALL I COULD FIND. Saidi was trapped for a week. Every morning he said he went to try to get on the train but it was already full, and noone would refund his ticket.

These are the kind of stories I like to check out.
These are the kind of stories that need to be covered as well.
It is a funny time to be saying this as most of the time, I am simply overwhelmed with the amount of shit, and follow up stories, and "for more information, check out our website at www..."

And yet, with the same laugh/cry that I am experiencing about my own situation, about my own desperation, I am reminded, once again, how many aspects of the country are so so so far behind where they should and could be.

According to me. And Saidi.

Imagining birth...

In imagining birth, and searching for stealable images of what I have not yet done myself (and don't imagine I will be taking pictures of, and certainly not posting!) I sought squatting and traditional birthing positions. This controverial statue from 2005, you may have already seen. It was actually one of the best depictions of what I am reading the midwifes propose for birthing positions, and delightfully went along with this comment summing up the general response to it:

"WTF? Who has a baby on all fours??? I'm sorry this is just fucking ridiculous. A bear-skinned rug, a nude Britney-looking girl, clay, pro-life??? What about the fuckin bear!! I can read into art just fine, and how this represents pro-life or anything is beyond me. Worthless."

:-) To continue...
When it comes to this whole back and forth that I have done half-heartedly about whether or not to return to Tanzania, and when,
What I really am putting off here is visualizing where to birth.
When I picture myself giving birth,
I have pictured myself rolling around on the birthing ball, walking around, and ultimately, squatting down as I hold onto some cloth ropes that have been hung from the ceiling. Or a tree ☺ At first, I though I would just hold onto one, but as I further envisioned it, I realized that with two loops of the sheets, I can sling my arms through to help relax, and even loop my body or legs through.
So when I went to Pomona Hospital on the maternity tour, (the one where I had to stop myself from asking any more questions, in order to get out of that painfully quiet and boring tour, and to stop looking like the annoying question asking hippie) I noticed that there were no beams on the ceiling, and no realistic place to attach a rope. When I asked if we could have the baby NOT on the bed, NOT lying down, she said yes, but seemed annoyed and didn’t offer any alternatives, or anecdotes.
I know my jerry rigged birthing fantasies sound crazy, but sheesh. So does an institutionalized supine position that has been proven over and over to be more painful and less helpful in the opening up process of the cervix.

Department of Homeland Security

This dramatic image dates from a time of world war. A time when most Americans still understood that liberty, not security, is the source of opportunity, peace and prosperity. In today’s mad rush to hand over liberty in hopes of winning security, it is time for a reminder of America’s real strength and beauty.


When I look back on many aspects of this situation, one thing is for sure, I felt that whatever happened, things would work out, and we would all be, not just ok, but all the better for it.
I have laughed and cried a lot in the past couple of weeks.
Mostly I have cried.
The scariest part, I have started to cry alone.

Little by little, tidbits of information are being revealed. Little by little, I am becoming weakened.

Awhile back I thought about putting a poll on my blog.
To stay in the States or to go back to Tanzania to have my baby?

Then I dropped it.
Here I have health coverage of sorts. The US Department of Labor is covering my birth, (pregnancy in the Peace Corps was finally filed as a workers comp case.)
After that, I can sign onto Healthy Families, children's insurance for families below the poverty line, meaning the baby would have pediatric care until Tino gets here, and I can begin to work.
Until then, I use my time to clear my teaching credential, and get hired in September.
Even if he can't get here until then, I had reached a point emotionally where this was all part of our international struggle, and in the arms of family and friends, I would have a baby, nurse an infant, and try to be outdoors, active and happy as much as possible.

Splendid. In the meantime, I try to get over having taken so long to fruitlessly and fearfully investigate another means to get Tino here faster. The lawyer had said my best option was a fiancee visa, and it was impossible to say how long that would take.

So I processed it. I paid $455 to the Department of Homeland Security. A month passed with no check cashed, no news whatsoever. I began researching a student visa. Aha! It looks like it will be a cinch to get him accepted to the local Junior College, no he doesn't have to have his TOFEL after all, and with a little rearranging of parental bank accounts, we can make it look like there is plenty of money set aside for our Tanzanian friend Tino to come to the CA to stay with us and get a degree in nursing. No problem! The first year, at a JC, will simply be around $16,000. (!) I called the school and the DHS, and everyone said that he would probably be here before February. Great! Then I am thinking, I should cancel the fiancee visa petition, so that this case is tossed in the trash, I don't have to pay $455, and we don't present a conflicting story to our beloved protectors of Homeland Security.
Nope, the check was cashed the next day. But my case still rests with no accessibility to its status nor to those who will be deciding.
So, not only did I learn that, yes, I could have gotten him here faster and cheaper, and he would have been able to start school right away, but now that I am processing an immigrant visa and asked a bunch of questions, I am afraid to try my luck on a non immigrant visa. If I get caught processing both, that will be the end of... both.
Tino can come here quickly if he is a student and school is starting. DHS simply needs to be assured that he has financial support and that he will be going home once he is done (non immigrant.)
However, because our intention is marriage, we not only need to prove our love, but we need to prove financial stability again (here, not so easy, because I need to have an income, and signing up for welfare programs that leaches off the state, like Healthy Families is a mark against us.) One way to prove our dedication is to take a really really long time processing the visa. Sometimes, a premium processing time is allotted to those applicants who are in a life or death situation. Strangely, birth does not qualify here, not the fact that, were he to get here earlier, I could work earlier, and therefore, leach off the state less. Instead of a pro-family and economically more feasible solution to expedite his visa, they see that Tino would be coming here as another immigrant, possibly financially instable, and as we all know, we have got enough of THOSE here!

So, I am back to square one I suppose. Except the guy on the phone told me one YEAR is the likely processing time I am looking at.

Back to square one, but everyday, a little more defeated than yesterday. Now I know, once again, that I COULD have and SHOULD have done things differently, and that Tino might just be here far after my longest estimated time.

So today I cried as I served up the sweet potato gnocchi with pesto sauce tonight. I could barely stand all day I felt physically ill.
Luckily, I guess, I got a letter today as well that approved my pregnancy as a workers compensation case, and I get to make an other clinic appointment tomorrow.

If I hadn't heard that news, I probably would have been using this time to research plane tickets. LAX to DAR.


I still think I will stay, do what I can to take some classes I will eventually need for a clear credential. Try to stay happy and healthy, and have my baby here.
Six weeks after the birth, a passport will have been issued to my infant, and by seemingly by all my research, we will be ready to travel together. So if Tino is not here by then, I think that will be the best decision for us. To go.

Although, half of me wants to go now.

I am no more afraid to have my baby here than there.

I am just too defeated to have any real opinions on the matter anyway.
And I don't trust myself.

Thanksgiving

It was so much fun. I am very grateful. I mean, just look at these beautiful people.
My dad, Laurie, myself, Jennifer, Marshall and my mom.

Skypescraper

Skype, how fun. Allowing the family an opportunity to gather around a time delayed computer and listen to a conversation filled with delays in sentence formation and delays in comprehension. Yet, there is something exciting about the international connection with baby daddy, a handsome man who has my love and my endorsement but whom the parents’ve never met. Everyone put on your positive face and hold back in the name of civility! Lets go!
Ok I did. I had a go: 30 minutes into the conversation, my folks thought I had taken my face off in the other room to reveal a temperamental monster, an argumentative control freak. Not so 'civil.'
It’s true. I am a little emotional these days.

The distance and the unknown are driving me crazy.


Its true, I feel actually crazy right now.
Like I cannot turn off my mind and I cannot come to my senses. What does one do in this situation? Oh, there are many options.
Swimming in the cold Pacific Ocean- Was good, but surprisingly didn’t solve my situation. Talk to friends and family? Sometimes talking isn’t venting, it just makes me come up feeling exposed and incurable.
But, taking a passionate tone with Tino, now that felt good.
It is hard for me to take a sexy tone with him, I just wasn’t cut out for phone sex. Or maybe its just what I should try, but not with the folks in the next room, whispering about my tone.
So passion becomes a temper, drivenbyallthefrustrationofbeingaloneandfiguringoutpastpresentandfutureandtryingtodoitbyadeadline,andyouaresoinnocenttoallofit,anditjustmakesmewanttowringyourneck,and AAAAHHHH!
Release.
But mama said, and the Dalai Lama said, momentary satisfaction is not a good indicator of having done the right thing.
I used that Swahili tone that I promised myself, as I learned the language I would never use. It is the patronizing tone of a teacher to a student, or a government official to a peasant. It is a tone that you hear so often. It is a tone that I found myself using with my future husband, as I insisted that paying for Saidi to go boarding school was not something I considered logical.
I don’t want to set up a relationship that leads to me, LITTLE OLD ME, becoming a matriarchal controlling bitch.
Just to let you all know.
But Tino said, no problem, we love each other. He didn’t even notice that I was getting upset.
Is that a good match or a potential problem?
I guess everything can be characterized as such.

So my conversation gave me release, but not so much relief.

I still had the craziness.

Random shots of love

All the help you can get

Thanks to all of you,
I was feeling very silly and embarrassed, not only to be in this situation, but then to publish the depths of my desperation for all to see. Thanks for being positive supporters rather than shocked pity people.

If you all don’t mind, I just wanted to paste up a couple of my favorite responses. But I didn’t get official permission for this midnight whim, so again, sorry if I am braking internet etiquette.

ÿ Since you're into being an exhibitionist these days, you could get someone to Live-Cam the delivery and he could go to an Internet cafe and... maybe you already thought of that. :)

ÿ 5 minutes on your blog and i know two times as much more about you, your ideas and your dreams. it was about time. i'll comment a lot i guess.(-from an ex lover I have known for fifteen years.)

ÿ 1)ACCEPT ALL THE HELP YOU CAN GET w/o any guilt or worrying about "paying people back" (that was a big lesson I've learned this year). Anyone, especially family, who wants to offer you help and hospitality does it because they love you, and won't need anything in return (you can double-check that from the get-go to make sure there's not funky unsaid expectation). There are times when we are able to give, and other times when we are most able to receive. Both times are important and deserve their glory.

ÿ keep your awesome attitude up, you gave me some grins today.

You are a wonderful writer. I read the whole blog…Your posting on male circumcision was thought-provoking. I still not sure I understand why AIDS is a raging epidemic in Africa, but not in the US… (this article was linked:http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/why-aids-worse-in-africa)

YEAH!!! Thanks for challenging me on the circumcision/PEPFAR issue. (With different risk factors in the states, and a different parenting culture my child will ENDURE, I have not thought that considering circumcision is an issue…if I have a son. But maybe someone has other ideas I should evaluate. Maybe I should just focus on more pressing issues, like an income. Anyway, in an exercise my Italian friend calls a Sega Mentale (mental masturbation) I attach here some more research, perspectives, and responses to the pro circumcision outfit.

All the following italics are excerpts from the article link above.

MALE CIRCUMCISION AND HIV
For years researchers have puzzled over why most West African countries have lower HIV-infection rates than southern and East African countries. They thought it might have something to do with the Muslim religion, widely practiced in West Africa, which imposes restrictions on women’s sexual freedom. However, another likely factor is male circumcision, which is ritually practiced by Muslims and many others.
Several studies suggest that male circumcision protects both men and their sexual partners from HIV infection. This is not true of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation, which is extremely dangerous. In African countries where male circumcision is common, such as Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Benin, and the entire region of North Africa, HIV rates tend to be much lower than in countries such as Botswana, Malawi, and Swaziland. In countries with high rates of HIV, provinces and districts that have high rates of circumcision, such as Inhambane in Mozambique or Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, tend to have lower HIV rates. Two African tribes with very high HIV-infection rates are the Zulu of South Africa and the Tswana of Botswana. Before colonial times, men in both tribes underwent circumcision rituals during adolescence. But when King Shaka united the Zulu tribe in the 1820s, he abolished the ritual, and when Christian missionaries settled in with the Tswana in the late 19th century, they declared circumcision a barbaric practice.
Circumcision removes mucosal tissue and cell types in the foreskin that contain special “receptors” for HIV. Some estimates suggest that circumcision may cut a man’s risk of contracting HIV by 70 percent. If true, this would mean that male circumcision may prove more effective than any of the HIV vaccines undergoing clinical trials. It would also be much cheaper, carry few side effects, and require no booster shots. Randomized, controlled trials of circumcision for HIV prevention are under way in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda, and the results should be known within three years. —H. E.

So snip it! This is my immediate reaction. 70% risk reduction, cheaper, few side effects and require no booster shots! Lets do what we can!!
Although condoms are 90% risk reduction (10% being lost to human error) it is hard to get folks to actually USE the condoms, and so the investment in circumcision, if estimated risk reduction is actually 70%, makes sense.
But guess what, I agree with Bush that the focus should be on reducing the number of partners.
Oh how shocking to say!!
I am so conservative! In the name of women’s rights, and better economics, this approach does more than to simply focus on barrier methods (circumcision being counted as such here because removal of the extra mucosal membrane creates a barrier of more resistant skin.)
I don’t mean to say that I am opposed to male circumcision as a preventative action for HIV infection.
What I unfortunately can’t find online (but surely it is out there) is an analysis of the cost difference between PEPFAR’s funding for condom use is vs. funding for circumcision education and procedures.
The issue is that family planning…that’s so politically correct, I mean WOMEN’S health clinics are not getting funding because the clinic chooses to serve (the) prostitutes (that the men are visiting.)

And check out these words in that article:
Half the Thai men in Morris’s survey (an epidemiologist trying to figure out the right mathematical equation to explain the reality of the AIDS epidemic.) said that they had sex with prostitutes but rarely the same one twice. On average they saw five prostitutes each year. Although many Thai prostitutes are HIV-positive, the men’s risk of infection was relatively low because Thai men generally had sex with each one only once. (Oh is THAT why? My, how oversimplified)
The likelihood of contracting the virus during a single sexual act is believed to be quite low, between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000. (Notice-no differentiation between m/f) So if an HIV-positive man has sex once with hundreds of different uninfected people, chances are he will infect only one of them. (Leading to this faulty reasoning.)
Anti-AIDS campaigns warn against contact with prostitutes, but Morris says simultaneous long-term relationships are far more dangerous.
I am all for facts above morals, but I don’t believe what is being presented here is hard facts.
What is being presented is a faulty reasoning. Thai men generally had sex with many prostitutes only once. His rate of GETTING infected does not relate to his rate of INFECTING OTHERS, because of the biological differences between male/female genitalia. (as you mentioned)
What is being concluded is that sex with prostitutes isn’t necessarily dangerous, it is long term relationships that are.
Again, we are investigating and talking about this backwards. In the name of HIV prevention, we are giving men yet another tool to control sex. They have Choice, Condoms, and Circumcision. While women are still the ones more likely to engage in a long term simultaneous sexual relationship in order to keep her family fed, because the man is out using these tools, and his larger income, with the expert endorsed low-risk prostitutes, who they themselves are receiving no US funded intervention. Wow. While women, in my experience, are the ones to go to the health clinics where the education programs are, or the ones willing to organize themselves and learn about community health when there is no profit motive other than…Health. The men have the tools, but are not the ones who are receiving training on the dangers of promiscuous behavior, the importance of communication and partnership in marriage, etc. (Another project that I was proud to have attempted in PC, and worked with Tino on) They get these billboard messages, and then get free condoms, free circumcision, cheap women, and control in the bedroom at home.
Little about this AIDS epidemic has really changed anything in development. Wheels are spinning to find the most effective solution, when of course it is a blend of all that we can do. Like development, HIV/AIDS prevention is still fundamentally about creating equal rights and economic opportunities. Yet, this time around, what if our financial focus was to create dialogue and counseling groups for men for behavior change? Funding another tool like circumcision, which puts them more biologically in advantageous has its pros and cons.

Here are some more fun tid bits:

Some estimates suggest that a person who has been recently infected with HIV may be as much as 100 times more likely to transmit the virus to a partner than someone who has been infected for a long time. African-style simultaneous long-term relationships may therefore be even riskier than Morris’s models assume. If one member of a Ugandan sexual network becomes HIV-positive, the virus will spread very quickly to all other members of the network in a very short time.

Actually, this seems to prove to me why the Thai model of multiple partners in a prostitution network is more at risk, yet the infections rates are so low.

One thing that was not mentioned in this article on why infection rate was so high in Africa comparatively was the lack of health services, including testing, and the lack of hope get tested and to make a plan to live HIV-free.

The following bar interview was spot-on with what I found in TZ about male perspective on female loyalty:

I asked him how many girlfriends he had, and he told me he had three, one real girlfriend and two secret girlfriends. He had been seeing all three for at least two years. He used condoms with the secret girlfriends but not with the real one. How many secret boyfriends do those secret girlfriends have? I asked. He said he didn’t know, but you can never trust women, and that’s why he used condoms. And the real girlfriend? “As I said, you never know with women, but if she has other partners, I hope she uses condoms with them.”
Several other men I met had similar sexual arrangements. Most women I spoke to denied that they had partners other than their husbands or fiancés, but the men frankly assumed that women conducted their affairs much as they themselves did.

Meanwhile, a woman may draw on more than one man to help pay her family’s bills.
It is a twisted relationship between fear of betrayal, and fear of scarcity, leading to betrayal and scarcity.
And the most devastating truth across Sub-Saharan Africa…
Girls are particularly vulnerable. Roughly equal numbers of men and women in Botswana are HIV-positive, but the HIV rate is much higher among teenage girls than among teenage boys, although boys and girls become sexually active at roughly the same age. A study in 2001 found that 20 percent of girls in one region of Botswana had been asked by their teachers to have sex; half said they accepted, fearing lower grades if they said no.

Rose tinted shades...

Jason Horn, of dentaldingrepair. Globe trotting surfer dentist comedian.
These guys look too cool. You on the other hand Jason, look like you have a secret plan for pulling their teeth out.
My my.

Jason went to Tanzania in 2004, a year before I went, with a volunteer group of dentists who did great work in two weeks. He came back suprised at the two years and general inefficiency of Peace Corps. That and that the office is full security, unmarked, with all cars going through bomb inspection upon entry.
If we weren't a bunch of pothead spies, that might be overboard.

How to write about Africa

By, Binyavanga Wainaina

Some tips: sunsets and starvation are good



Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas. The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country.

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa's situation. But do not be too specific.

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.

Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the 'real Africa', and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people.

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people's property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).

After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa's most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or 'conservation area', and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa's rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.

Readers will be put off if you don't mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps).

You'll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out.

Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

(and props to my amazing dada Diana for sending me this funny example of why I started blogging AFTER I returned from Africa.)
Diana supplied Quote:
--
"Africa has always had things that other people wanted,
thought that they couldn't live without,
and didn't want to pay for."
-John Henrik Clarke-

No problem!!!

Gorgeous photo props to Eric Peterson, RPCV TZ

Here is my situation:
1.) I am broke. No, in debt.
2.) I am unemployed.
3.) I am single
4.) I am pregnant.
5.) I have no health insurance.

Today, I spent $455.00 on a fiancee visa, $75.00 to get fingerprinted (in hopes of resolving the unemployment catch), $400.00 to get my car fixed (didn't start on my way out to job hunt yesterday), and paid off a $635.00 phone bill.

Do I sound like white trash? Sure, ok, whatever. All this goes on top of an incomeless bank account of zero, and a loan repayment of nearly $5,000.00.

As Borat would say, Welcome back to the US and A!
Ah, the good old days in Africa, where at $200.00, I was livin' large and supporting three, and traveling, and giving gifts. (I was the wealthy one. How can you not take your grandpa to the hospital, pay $5 for a family's health insurance for a year, and here and there for meds or whatever.

Truth be told, I am not complaining here.

There couldn't be many in the state of California who would envy that list. (Though, sadly some might...)

Again, I say all of this with a laugh. It is the truth! And to enter it in on the internet is certainly not a way to get dates or make friends. I did google a similar string of words however in a quest to find health care, and I found some great websites and services. But they were all in the UK. HAHA! And I still haven't seen SICKO, but I should let Micheal Moore know that one.


I suppose I am writing this because I want to log my real situation. That was part of my day.
I log it, because in some way, I want to convey the feeling that I have right now amidst all this: gratitude, optimism, enthusiasm, excitement, joy!, and just the smallest, occasional creeping in of the Doubt.
That doubt, however, I have become stronger and stronger at recognizing and stronger at quickly removing.

Still, I analyze a million situations. In 48 hours I have
1.) Considered moving back to Tanzania (buying the plane ticket with a credit card) marrying Tino, living with him, and allowing him to take care of me and the baby until papers are in order and we can return home together. Downside, I just don't know how I would pay that credit card back while I was there...

2.) Considered going anywhere outside of the US to have the baby. Didn't really think that one through.

3.) Going back to school and taking out a loan so that I can spend less time away once the baby is born, yet live off loans and get some studying accomplished.

4.) Work now and live off a credit card once the baby is born, until Tino makes it out here, or I get a job in September.

5.) Find a really cheap source of childcare and work as soon as possible and as much as possible, with 6 weeks of post natal bonding.

The final option really blows, but the last two are heading toward the finish line, and I am rooting for living off a credit card and breastfeeding and cooing as much as possible.
I mean really, I will be spending nearly as much as I am making on childcare, and at this point, feel very emotional about leaving the baby with someone (who?!!) at seven weeks of age.
Of course, there is health insurance to think about and well,

Maybe it is time to apply for another credit card...

I know, it sounds scary!
But I am convinced that when Tino gets here, (and who knows when that will be, a secret compartment in me is still harboring the hope that he will make it before the birth... but judging from average processing times, it doesn't look like it.) I will be able to work full time as a teacher and have benefits for the whole family and pay off debts, and ultimately, start paying rent, and putting him through school.
Thats right, paying rent.
Remember the grateful part of my rant? I am grateful to my mom for a rent free place to live, indefinately, with my husband and child. This may sound even more white trash than my debt to you, but I am a big fan of the family reuniting, and although I regret the fact that at 31, it is not MY house that I am providing for my mother, rather than the other way around, the relationships are really the most important part, and in my optimism, I tell myself that someday while we are all still healthy and young(ish), I will provide for her.
I am also grateful to my father. Thanks for the mini van dad! The ultimate family roadster.

Another thing, back to the job, and this is one thing that I would like to spread to the Peace Corps world... I am grateful that my Peace Corps service may apply for a Preliminary Credential. This means that I can teach in California based on my training and experience in Africa rather than going through a University credentialing program. Sure, I still must prove myself with CSET exams and whatnot, but this is a huge gift and I am grateful to whomever lobbied for this little deal.
I simply wish I had known about it in the Peace Corps. This could have affected my focus in my service, and how I drafted my final Close of Service (the official PC 'resume' that 'proves' the work you have done.) I could have started looking online and turned in forms months ago in order to process this credential.

Yet again, information that could have been more useful MONTHS ago. The theme of my days. Anyway, the wheels are in motion, things are happening, the cards will fall where they may, but nothing is permanent. Not even the negative thought patterns that we allow to dominate our minds and cement into our bodies, although, this is the biggest problem, no CHALLENGE, that an individual can face.

In my sincere belief.

Forget about debt. It's all in the mind.

Some photos

Note:
1.) Tino and I
2.) Tino and Saidi and boys swimming at river with homemade floatation device. (hehe)
3.) Sonogram at 4 mos.
4.) Zebra! ;-0
5.) Besti Erin and I. Contrary to misguided belief, Erin is in fact a NATURAL blonde, thank you very much, and is NOT pregnant. But we got some cute bellies, eh?