Livestock, Love and Bricks

It is the cows' job to stand looking radiant and expensive. It is the female guests' job to cut up onions and greens, pick rocks out of the rice, and gawk at the radiant cows. It is the male guests' job to become intoxicated and be impressed by the magnificent cows. It is the bride's job to hide in her room, pretend she has no affiliation with the groom, be completely bored with the entire event, and eat half of a fried chicken. She does not get to look at the cows. It is the groom's job to become intoxicated, pretend the bride does not exist, and to consume the other half of the chicken. The couples' parents' job is to negotiate the price that will be paid for the girl, to stomp-dance to drum music, and to become less intoxicated than the guests. At this particular bride-price-reception party it was my job to try and say interesting things about America, eat rice with beans and chewy meat, gawk admiringly at the cows while trying to pretend I was unfazed by the trade of bride for bovine, and to fry up the chicken in a smoke-filled little kitchen. I'd say it was a successful party.

Also, I have recently acquired livestock. Well, a livestock. I have a pig, which now doubles as a garbage disposal. It is the type of pig that apparently comes from Guinea. My seven-year old neighbor likes to bring his Guinea pig over and exclaim "They love each other!"

The future president of Tanzania is a 7th grade girl in my village. She revealed this to me in one of two life skills lessons I was teaching before their graduation. I'm not sure if anyone has ever asked these kids what they want to be when they grow up, but there are potential doctors, drivers, pilots, politicians, and a single scientist. We also got to play "Vichwa juu, saba juu" or "Head's up Seven up." I was also treating them as Guinea pigs, figuring out what works and what doesn't. It was the only time I've ever been clapped for at the end of a class. So I think I probably did all right.

I will never look at a brick the same way again. No, not because I was hit in the head with one, but because I now have learned the art of brick-making. It was a job that I actually did not get fired from, despite warnings from villagers that it would be impossible/hilarious for me to try. The bricks will be a drop in a bucket towards building a secondary school and a dispensary. To make bricks you need water and clayey soil. You pour the water on the soil and stomp around in it until it is a consistency somewhere between that of playdough and applesauce (much like ugali, if you are familiar with that). Then you must slap it into a brick frame and plunk it onto a flat piece of land. After the bricks have dried out a couple days, they must be stacked into a giant kiln-like structure into which firewood can be loaded. Then you have bricks!