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!
4.20.2014
4.02.2014
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.
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