I am a teacher!

Hello family and friends! It has been a long time since my last post, and I am sorry for such a delay. I look back on the past three weeks and can’t really believe everything that has changed in my life. I am a TEACHER. The magnitude of that statement continues to surprise me because a short three weeks ago, I had never even imagined the reality of teaching children. I am a teacher; I can say it not necessarily with a lot of confidence or authority yet, but I can say it with a large spoonful of humility. I am already falling in love with my kids. They have produced in me incredible energy and exhaustion; tears and laughter; frustration and patience; sadness and joy. They are incredible. I am learning about their lives, worries, struggles, joys, and loves (believe it or not, Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber make the list of loves for many of my kids).The energy, positivity, and naivety that I encounter everyday at school reminds me of the joys of childhood and the blessing of working with children.

For example, I was surprised on one of my first days of Standard 3 (third grade) science class when I was approached by one of my students in the middle of a lesson. I was fumbling through teaching the class how to clean their “private parts” when this little girl got out of her desk to tell me that her neighbor had stolen her pen (or scribbled in her notebook, or poked her arm, etc.) Pen stealing is the biggest grievance in my classroom that often dominates my 40 min lessons. I usually spend a great deal of time consoling the students lacking pens, while playing detective to try to find the thieves. These worries amuse me GREATLY at my best, and baffle/frustrate me at my worst (and after the tenth student has tried to get out of his/her desk to complain of a stolen pen).

So while I am reminded of this universal innocence of children, I am also astounded by the lives of Tanzanian children outside of the classroom. I teach science for standard 3, English for standard 5, and Religion for standard 4. Most of my students could navigate themselves around the alleys and lanes of Mabibo (the neighborhood/area of Dar that I live in) far better than I could. They could also probably cook a meal better than I could, and they could get their school uniforms cleaner every night by hand-washing than I could. These children are resilient and adept at working hard. They know responsibility in their day-to-day lives in a way that I am trying to “adjust” to. I am still adjusting to hand-washing clothing, bucket showers, and the process of preparing food here. I am adjusting to the almost daily power-cuts and to getting water from a spigot outside and boiling and filtering it before it is drinkable. These kids could teach ME a lot on how to live a life that requires a lot of intentionality and work in the everyday basics. The porridge in the morning and the beans and rice that these kids receive at lunch everyday is, for many, the only food that they will see that week. My kids can spend hours playing with sticks, stones, and make-shift toys from the garbage on the roads. When these toys are lost or destroyed, their acceptance and seeming indifference, without tears or complaints of the loss of their great joy that day, is profound. I both admire it and am saddened by it. Many of my students know the pain of loosing parents or immediate family members very early in life. Many are orphans, and many are living with relatives because parents have passed away.

While these are troubling notes to leave this post on, I think that the most important thing to relay to you is that these children are changing my life and I'm so happy to be able to share their lives with them.

Thank you for reading and I hope that you are doing well wherever you are at!

I miss my friends and family so much, and think of so you all constantly.

Amani na upendo,

Cat

Gratitude

“Sanctity has to do with gratitude. To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less” (The Holy Longing).

I came across this quote recently while reading The Holy Longing: A Guide to Christian Spirituality, and found so much truth in these words. (I recommend the book highly!) I have been learning so much about GRATITUDE here, especially gratitude for the privileges that I have had within my life. What shocked me at first about my lifestyle in Tanzania is now becoming routine. I am learning to love the intentionality and simplicity of my lifestyle. I am grateful for the life that I am living now, and for the life that I have always known in the United States. As a prayer/journal entry the other day, I wrote about all of the things that I was grateful for in that moment. I decided to share it here because I think that it can give you all a taste of my life and my transition here:

In gratitude for loving parents.

In gratitude for family and friends (especially conversations on Facebook chat!).

In gratitude for the CHOICE of this life of voluntary simplicity (of limiting my choices), and recognizing this choice as the greatest privilege of all. **For a long time, I have been so focused on my own personal comfort/discomfort here that I’ve forgotten about the privilege that is wrapped up in a decision to be able to choose not to have: reliable electricity; running water (hand-washing dishes, laundry, bucket showers); the ability to contact whomever I want, whenever I want; the ability to be surrounded by people of my culture, language, and race; the ability to wear whatever clothing that I want; the ability to have choices about the food that I eat; the ability to have the support structures that I know and rely on; etc. All of these choices that are limited for me right now have allowed me to deeply examine my own privilege as a privilege of choice. To have the choice to “give up” these privileges for a while is the greatest privilege of all. My neighbors, students and friends here do not have this same privilege of choice. I am grateful to be able to attempt solidarity with them for the next two years.

In gratitude for this more intentional and simply lifestyle.

In gratitude for letters and packages (especially with Peanut M&Ms!)

In gratitude for community.

In gratitude for challenges.

In gratitude for the Muslim call to prayer that I hear in the mornings at 4:30 am.

In gratitude for running around a soccer field.

In gratitude for Jesuits.

In gratitude for children.

In gratitude for tea, and rice and beans.

In gratitude for all of my beautiful, loving relationships.

Jambo!

Shea and I in our new Ketange (African fabric made into clothing) + braided hair!

Jambo! (Response: Sijambo!)

Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope that you are all doing well in your respective places. Life has been incredibly busy for me lately, and I apologize for any lack in communication. I wanted to update you all on the major points in my life in Tanzania thus far:

I had a homestay with a wonderful family about four weeks ago. They overfed me, taught me more Kiswahili than I can remember, gave me LOTS of gifts, and showed me incredible hospitality. It was beautiful and their generosity is astounding; so much so that during my second week in country, it was beautiful, but a little overwhelming. For example, I really tested the stamina of the muscles in my neck and the pain-receptors in my head when they insisted that I have my hair braided in the African fashion. I had 35 little tiny braids on my head that took about 6 hours to complete. It was fun, but they didn’t last long and I took them out about a week later. My homestay went so well that my Tanzanian family asked me and the Jesuit who organized the whole thing if I could live with them for the full two years! While I had to decline, I have been able to see them a few times since my stay there, including a delicious Christmas dinner, and a visit to the shops that my Tanzanian mama owns.

Two weeks ago we met up with the Jesuit Volunteer (JV) communities from Dodoma and Moshi for a retreat in Tanga, a city on the northern coast. The retreat center was beautiful and a perfect spot for reflection and solitude in nature. The Indian Ocean has incredible tides that allow you to walk out on the ocean floor for about a half of a mile in the morning without getting even your toes wet, and then to swim in water high above your head on that same path in the afternoon. It was such a beautiful and rejuvenating retreat space.

After the retreat, all nine of us boarded the bus and went back to Dar es Salaam. We celebrated Christmas, explored the city together, and generally introduced our new home to the other JVs during this time. It was wonderful to have the other communities see our home and our schools, and thus have a basis for supporting us throughout our time here. One fun activity that we did was to visit a sort of museum that had life-size replicas of homes from the different tribes in Tanzania. Tanzania has MANY different tribes, and people still highly associate with and take much pride in their tribal ancestry. In rural places, one can still find Masai and other tribal villages existing in ways similar to life one-hundred years ago. In the cities, while all tribal rituals and customs cannot always be practiced, a sense of the culture seems to be cherished and kept by people from each tribe. I sometimes get asked what tribe I come from in the United States. It can be quite an ordeal to explain that I do not come from a tribe in this Tanzanian sense.

After our time in Dar, the nine of us went to Dodoma for a short trip to celebrate New Years and to see the new school that Sean and Laura (two other JVs) will be working at. Dodoma is a beautiful place and I am so excited for the new school and Jesuit Volunteer presence there. The weather is decidedly cooler and drier in Dodoma than here is Dar... and it was a little bit of a luxury to feel cool enough at night to want to use a sheet!

It was crazy to celebrate the holiday season in such heat. Christmas didn’t quite feel like Christmas without some snow, hot chocolate, and a fire in the fire-place (not to mention being without my family for the first time in my 22 years).  However, I was able to celebrate in this climate with a more extended idea of family, while still missing mine terribly! Our JV community exchanged Christmas cards, listened to Christmas music, and brought in the New Year with some games and dancing. We also were able to celebrate this time with our new Tanzanian community that will become like family over the next two years.

I start school on January 10^th! Exactly a week from now I will be standing in front of 3^rd-5^th graders, expected to teach English, science, and religion. I am pretty nervous for this task of exciting little minds to learn, especially at such a young age. However, I am also INCREDIBLY excited! I can’t wait to fall in love with my students, their families, my co-workers, and the larger community. I look forward to getting into a more established routine and diving into what will be my life for the next two years.

A few last thoughts:

PLEASE READ my community-mate’s blog (Shea) if you would like a beautiful and much more creative spin on our lives thus far: www.sheapatrickintanzania.blogspot.com

If you would like to send a package, here are a few tips to ensure that it gets to me: 1) Keep it under 4 pounds, otherwise I will have to pay an arm and a leg for it 2) Try to put it in plastic packaging rather than paper. This will make it less likely for it to “accidentally” be broken-into. 3) When declaring the items in the package, put the lowest possible pricing for each item (think, “garage-sale prices”), again so that the package is less likely to be tampered with.

Life here has been an intense adjustment that I am still gently working through every day. I am starting to be able to do little things on my own, such as walk to the duka (little corner store or colmado for those that have been to the Dominican Republic) and buy food for us to cook for meals, walk to the Jesuit residence for the occasional morning run, and do the general tasks of personal-care and up-keep of the house. I am starting to make friends in the larger Tanzanian community and am making a plan to learn much more Kiswahili (the word for Swahili in Swahili... much like Espanol for Spanish) to help me build relationships. I am becoming more and more excited about this experience as the initial shock and trepidation wears off.

Please keep sending me letters and e-mails! Keep the conversation alive! I LOVE hearing from you all, and I will hopefully be more consistent in responding while stepping into a more structured lifestyle.

Thank you for reading and have a WONDERFUL day! Loving and missing you all.