Sharing the work of my students

At St. Peter Claver I have taken on the role of Matron for the Creative Writing Club.  The club consists of twelve dedicated students who are passionate about putting their thoughts into writing. Some of the work is being shared with parents, relatives and friends at http://spchswriters.wordpress.com/.

You are welcome to visit this site and read about the lives of some of the students at St. Peter Claver, written from their own perspectives!

An Evening Bike Ride

An evening bike ride:

a dirt road winding endlessly through fields, villages and back yards;

a small child sucking on the head of a hammer;

a white duck waddling through someone's back yard;

a middle-aged man working in a corn field;

two men pulling wooden carts filled with unidentifiable goods;

several women laughing around a pot cooking something over a fire;

children dressed in white and maroon school uniforms returning home;

a crowd of people holding baskets and bags waiting to board a daladala;

a small girl driving a motorcycle as a father sits behind;

small boys using sticks to steer bucket lids down the road;

deep ruts and puddles from last night's rain;

heavy heads of sunflowers bent over in fields;

a man landscaping a border around a house;

two young men raising a metal gate in a yard;

three women carrying full baskets on their heads emerging from a field;

two men repairing a bicycle puncture alongside the road;

a blue sky filled with white cumulus clouds that sit just out of arm's reach;

a cool breeze promising another nighttime rain;

a friendly parishioner sharing part of his story alongside me;

a sun setting behind the distant mountains;

a time for reflection.

A short story about surrender

Many of you know about my tendency of arriving five minutes late to meetings, social activities, and leisure events. I like to think that I uphold a higher standard of promptness for work and school-related priorities (like going to class) although even with these I am guilty of being late on some occasions. Sometimes I am late because I try to do just one more thing before I leave my house, other times I am prone to being late because I get caught up in a conversation with someone that I pass on the way to my destination. The bottom line is that being on time was not among my top priorities in life.

In my travels, I have learned that the value of time is very different among different cultures. My experience in Guatemala led me to understand that non-Western countries place very little importance on arriving on time, much less on arriving early like I was taught to do when I was younger. The clearest example in Guatemala was during one afternoon when I sat waiting with my service group for someone to lead us to our service site. We waited at the meeting place for at least two hours until our leader arrived, without showing a hint of awareness of our irritation. Looking back, I am grateful for the humility we showed in resisting to make our impatience known to the leader and thereby embarrass ourselves and probably cause some kind of cultural offense.

Living in Tanzania continues to test my willingness to surrender my beliefs and expectations that I have derived from Western culture and challenges me to have humility as I seek an understanding of the beliefs behind the experiences that cause me to become impatient and frustrated with the day's affairs.

Last Saturday was one of these days.

My morning began with the ambition to take a daladala to school early, so that I might arrive before lunch-time. This would allow time to prepare some things before I left with the students for community service at 2pm. We were going to a new service site to play with children who have mental disabilities and myself and the other teacher who I lead community service with were excited for the day. Around 10 o'clock, I was informed that a Jesuit was running errands in town and would be able to give me and my community mate a lift to school. This would be much more convenient than waiting in town for up to an hour for a ride on a daladala. Our Jesuit friend estimated his errands would take an hour. So we waited. And waited. And waited. At 12:30pm he came, apologized for the delay, and drove us into town to pick up the school nurse who was taking care of a student who needed special attention. The nurse said she needed just ten more minutes to finish the business. Time was nearing 1:30pm and I began to worry that we would be late for community service. I called the bus driver to see how close to school the bus was. No response. Meanwhile the teacher who I lead community service with calls me and tells me she has not heard from our service site to confirm that it was okay for our 45 students to come for the afternoon. I began to panic: What if the bus is late and we are delayed in reaching the service site on time? What if we make it to service site but they are not ready for us? What if I am late and the bus driver and students (and service site) have to wait because of it? The stress and desire for control increases. Thirty minutes later, the nurse returns with the student and declares that we need to take the student to the hospital. So we drive to the hospital and wait some more as the good nurse makes sure the student is taken care of before we leave. It is now ten minutes until two o'clock as we drive away from the hospital towards school. On the way we stopped at a mechanic shop to pick up another Jesuit friend whose truck was having engine troubles. As we drive into the shop, our friend tells us our front tire has a puncture. It was in this moment that I willed myself to let go of this innate longing for control.

You see, in the United States there is a culture that encourages punctuality. Culture is created by people in a society and society in the U.S. is very systematic. Every person has a role to play and follows a routine each day to fill that role. Before I came to Dodoma I worked in the kitchen at a shelter. Every morning I woke at 5:30, locked the door of my friend's apartment and drove to the shelter. I entered the gate with my key card, and unlocked the kitchen doors. Inside the kitchen the first step was to turn on the lights and start heating water for oatmeal, then set up the breakfast buffet by 6:15 so that the residents could eat before leaving for work or school. My work day continued with this routine of deadlines that kept food service on time for the residents. I was held accountable for this routine. If lunch was not ready at 11:30am, the residents would soon take their complaints to the central office. If I slept just five minutes past my alarm and arrived five minutes late, I would find my coworker waiting for me outside of the kitchen. In the U.S., or at least in the parts of the U.S. that I have lived in, the only good excuse for being late is if a serious accident or emergency happens. Sure, we all are late to meetings or classes or work from time to time with some excuse like sleeping in late, having just one more cup of coffee, getting stuck in traffic... but in general we strive to be prompt because this behavior is praised, even awarded in our society (if you ask the employee of the month they are probably almost always on time). This is the culture I come from. Even if punctuality is not a personal priority I know that it is expected of me by others.

Being punctual is low on the list of expectations in Tanzania, and on this Saturday I willed myself to let go of my longing to meet this expectation. As I waited in Dodoma I reflected on all of the lives that interacted with each other and the small things that happened that caused the day to unfold as it did. At first, I saw these as delays- starting with the errands of my Jesuit friend. Doing any business in Dodoma always takes longer than one might expect. Going to the bank involves waiting in a line for at least 15 minutes. Walking through the market includes greeting the friends and shopkeepers you know along the way. Buying electricity might require waiting for the seller to return from break, or wherever she may be. Then, the nurse who was delayed with the student for those thirty minutes may have been delayed because the pharmacist had to handle an emergency in the morning that delayed his re-stocking of medicines. There were other inconveniences, for example the bus driver was unreachable, I learned, because I was given his old phone number. The service site was not reachable because the matron's phone was not working. The tire had a puncture because of the rough roads it manages everyday...so many things that are well out of my control that I was labeling an “inconvenience” or “delay” to my day. But since when was this day mine? All of these people whom I interacted with were equally a part of this day. Their agendas became intertwined with mine. Their plans and mine affected each other. One person's own human error influenced others. It was futile to worry and get stressed out over these things which were out of my control. When I allowed myself to let go of my expectation for the day to unfold as I thought would be best, I could find joy in the small moments that happened. Like the rain that was blessing the dusty town of Dodoma, or the two dogs running in circles in a yard across from the hospital, or the unfortunate coincidence of having a punctured tire with so many people relying on the service of the vehicle...

We decided the puncture was not severe enough to take immediate action and continued the journey to school. When we arrived we saw the school bus pulling into the gate just before us. The students boarded the bus and we arrived at the service site. The matron welcomed us with open arms and the students shared so much love with the children.

There have been many days like that Saturday. Days when the bus is 30 minutes late to pick us up for school in the morning, days when the morning assembly extends into the first period and the timetable is off schedule for the rest of the day, days when choir practice lasts for two hours instead of an hour and a half, days when dinner is at 8:30pm instead of 7:00pm because the electricity went off, days when the tailor is absent from her sewing table and having an outfit made is delayed another week, days when the morning plans are pushed aside by a determined effort to catch a rat in the kitchen.

I am learning to surrender myself to the events and lives of people that enter my life each day and screw up whatever schedule I imagine having for myself. It is not the accomplishment of completing a lengthy to-do list that brings me joy at the end of the day. It is the student who stays in my office to chat about life. It is the companionship and compassion the students show with the students as they played with young children during service. It is the will of my Jesuit friend to kindly wait while the nurse cares for the student. It is the conversations and jokes exchanged with my coworkers as we escort the students to service without a sure plan of what will happen. I still think following a schedule is important, as it is one of the surest ways to make plans with others, but ranking punctuality as a top priority is setting myself up for unnecessary stress and worry when the day does not follow this plan. By letting go of this desire it is possible to welcome something else in its place: the lives of others. And I am learning that there is much joy to be found in doing that.