Bonus blog -- the animals and the night
This post might not interest you, as it is not really about your kids and their experience; it is just local flavor and a long and kind of amusing story.
Like the Menlo students, I have been paired with a Banjika student – Jackson. (Poor guy) Like the vast majority of TZ kids he is slight and older than he looks. His English is probably better than he lets on, but in response to about 90% of what I say to him, he gives me the Gary Coleman whatchu-talkin’-‘bout look of consternation and confusion. So at our breakfasts and walks to school together, I don’t say too much to him. He says even less to me. But smiles and routines can cover much of what words can, and we get along well – although I wish he would not address me as “sir” all the time. It makes me feel old or British or both. We spend the mornings together, but at school he mixes with his peers while I do my own thing (mostly hovering on the periphery taking pictures of the activities), and then we walk home at the end of the day and hang out at the house – often watching soccer on TV, sometimes playing Uno, and periodically socializing with other Banjika and Menlo students -- until the dad comes home. Dad’s English is excellent, and he is outgoing and engaging, and his arrival means Jackson is off the hook having to deal with me for the rest of the day.
I did not want to share this with you earlier, as it might have made you fearful, but now that we have left rural Karatu….. Where we did our homestays is about 10 km or so from the entrance to Ngorongoro Crater wildlife park, but there are no fences around the park, so animals do at times wonder from the park into the neighboring farmland. The community trains for this, and there are protocols in place when an animal comes into the area. Water buffalo and elephants are particularly dangerous and cause some fatalities every year. Hearing and seeing hyenas is apparently fairly common (more on them below), and there are numerous kinds of poisonous snakes. Again, the risk that we would see a wild animal as we walked around was low, because if a big animal left the park and headed toward our area, it is highly likely someone would have noticed and alerted the authorities, and the rangers are trained to keep people safe. But all bets are off at night, and it would be easy to not spot an animal in one of the many dense cornfields. You would not know it was a buffalo and not a cow in the tall grass, they say, until you are pretty close and thus in danger. Last year, a water buffalo, considered one of the Big Five because they are a notoriously aggressive and short-tempered animal, came into the greater Banjika area, and the community went into a lock down. Rangers ultimately shot the animal and gave the meat to the residents. Within a herd, these animals are apparently less of a threat, but lone male buffaloes and elephants are especially dangerous. Elephants apparently can smell a human and fear that it will do them harm and thus attack. There was an elephant attack and fatality a couple of villages closer to the park last week, according to my homestay dad. Anyway, this – the low, but non-zero chance of running into an animal or snake -- is the reason our students were forbidden from leaving their house after 6:00 unless it was to visit a very nearby neighbor’s house, which they did quite a bit.
Okay, fine, I like seeing the Southern Cross and am wowed by how many stars we can see because there is so little light pollution, but I won’t go out at night.
Last week, Jackson and I – along with the other Menlo students in our immediate area (Cole, Merrick, and Andrew, along with their Banjika sibs) -- were invited to Sophia’s homestay family’s house for a lovely dinner. Sophia shared that she had heard hyenas at night. Now that got my attention. For some reason, I am less worried about large animals – it seems to me I just stay clear of them. Venomous snakes would surely be unpleasant to come across, but if I am walking on a good, wide path and have a good flashlight, I am not too worried. Hyenas, on the other hand, worry me, and my mind immediately goes to our upcoming 8-minute after dinner walk home in the dark. The dad at Sophia’s house tells me not to worry, that they don’t attack men (I am not buying it) and that they are scared of humans. I think but do not say that I have seen Richard Attenborough films featuring packs of hyenas gorging on some recent kill and lifting their blood-soaked faces for the camera. No thank on that! Doesn’t he know that hyenas have enough strength in their jaws to crush bones to get the marrow out? Doesn’t he know that a pack of hyenas can take on a lion? He said the hyenas were cowards; I thought but did not say: I would bet you a large sum of money that I am more scared of them than they are of me.
The dad was amused that I was as alarmed as I was. He asked, “You don’t want to run into a hyena?” He meant this rhetorically, but I felt it needed an emphatic response: “No. I do not want to run into a hyena.” I mean I have workman’s comp insurance, and I not a huge coward (I mean, within reason), but I prefer my hyena interactions to be via David Attenborough films or from the safety of a land cruiser on safari. Anyway, he escorted us home, which was nice, and on the walk he reiterated that hyenas were not a serious threat, but venomous snakes and rogue water buffalos were, just to ease my nerves, I guess.
Hyenas were on my mind, so for the next couple of days: I asked everyone about them. Turns out the locals think and talk about hyenas much the way we might think and talk about coyotes – they are around, not too often seen, more often heard, much more of a threat to pets and goats than to humans.
Then the headmistress of Banjika invited me to dinner. She lives near school, about a 20-minute walk from my house, and there are no street lights between the two. Nighttime in the village is DARK. Obviously, I had to accept the invitation (we school administrators have to stick together against a hostile world), but I spend the ensuing days worried about how I was going to get home. My host dad assumed that Jackson, would also come to the dinner and walking home with him would be better than walking home alone. Jackson is about 5’4” 125 lbs. (He’s going to scare off the wild animal?) So I remain in worry mode. The next day, I confirm with the headmistress that I will come – and confirm that Jackson is invited, too -- and ask her about how I would get home. She vaguely offers that a teacher will give me a ride. Later I find out that teacher is not available. Tuesday, the day of the dinner, rolls around and we are invited for 7:00 pm. It gets dark here around 6:50, so I figure we will walk to school while it is still a bit light out, hang out there (there is internet there, and a sense of safety) and then walk the last 100 yards in the dark. No problem.
That day I don’t walk home with Jackson, as I stay behind to post the blog, which takes about 5x longer than you would think due to the sporadic and weak internet connection. I get home from school around 6:00 and Jackson is not in his usual place in front of the TV, so I have no idea where he is. At 6:30 I hear his soft voice outside my door, “Hodi,” which brings a smile to my face, because it is one of the few Swahili words I know: “knock knock.” Jackson is with Samuel, who speaks English well, and tells me we have two dinner invitations that night: one from the headmistress and a new one from his Banjka friend Amani, Andrew’s sib.
I said, “You might have two invitations, but I only have one, and I must go to the headmistresses’ house.” Here is where I can draw upon my many years of school experience to know what is churning in Jackson’s head: he could have dinner with this man, who he doesn’t really understand, this man that he calls “sir”, this guy he has to have every breakfast with followed by a long, silent walk to school AND the headmistress of his school OR he could have dinner with his friends. So I do him a solid and say, “Why don’t I go to dinner at the headmistress’s and you go to Amani’s?” His face light up (furthering my theory that he knows a lot more English than he lets on).
The dinner is fine, and at the end the headmistress calls my host dad to come pick me up and take me home. Later during a post-midnight bathroom break, I hear a hyena in the distance making a long “owwww” howl, sounding like he was being tortured in a remote field.
I see Jackson at breakfast the next morning and ask if he had fun at Amani’s. Big smile. “Yes.”
