Although my work now is primarily in the village of Mgaraganza, I still have some important lasting relationships with the first village I lived in during the summer of 2008 – Kiganza. It’s been wild to stay in touch with people from so far away – see their faces light up when I return year after year, watch their families grow and shrink with births and deaths, share in their children’s delight over going to school and just sit in the comfortable silence of their small, humble homes with no need to say too much.
Recently, I visited mama Juma and her boys … and her brand new daughter, Hawa! After four lovely boys, Juma, Saidi, Musa and Abdul, she has finally had a little girl. When I first met her, she was two weeks old. When I took the picture below, she was three weeks old. In this hilarious little moment, Hawa smiled for me. From what I’ve heard of newborns, this was probably just gas – but we all chose to believe she was actually smiling for the camera!
The two boys in the next pictures are her sons Abdul and Musa. The chicken behind Abdul is working on some eggs and I’m sure when I visit this week, there will be new chicks running around.
The homes are so simple, as you can see in these pictures – woven grass mats to cover the dirt floor, unfired bricks stacked up to a thatch roof (sometimes aluminum), two rooms in most homes with a separate small space for cooking and yet another space for animals. They sometimes have a small wooden table as in this picture with Musa, but they usually eat together on the floor. In most houses, they offer Lucas and I a chair or small stool to sit on.
In some nicer homes, of which I’ve only visited three, there are concrete floors and walls with couches and tables, beds, sometimes televisions, radios and other luxuries – but again, this is only in the case of three families I’ve visited – and one was in town, not the village. The smaller, simpler home is by far the more common dwelling in the village.
When I sit and enjoy these simpler moments, it makes me want to go home and purge, downsize, simplify. We have so much – so many attachments. Ah, but don’t get me wrong. I like having a bed, a couch, a computer, a table, plates, silverware, etc. I like having clothes that make me feel good when I walk out the door and plenty of books to read. I wouldn’t give up my cell phone at this point and have to confess to loving watching DVDs regularly! But there are things that I own that I could stand to part with – just stuff that gets in the way of life … because it collects dust, which I hate to take care of – so it gives me stress! haha Who needs that?!
On a recent trip to the market in Kiganza, a young man tapped me on the arm and asked if I remembered him … jogging memory, jogging memory… I made a best guess and got it wrong. He was Hindu’s brother – one of the two I met last year, the only brother remaining after the sad accident that killed her other brother this past May. It was great to see him, smiling with the famous gap between his front teeth – just like his sisters Hindu and Amina. We chatted a bit about the pics and video I brought back this year from the wedding last year. He’s sitting here on my left and a new friend, William, sits on my right.
This last picture is of my friend Mack Jonas. I met her the first year I came over. I adore her. We seriously have such a limited depth of conversation because she doesn’t speak a word of English and every time I visit her, Lucas wanders off into the market to greet others … leaving Mack and I to hold hands, shake hands, laugh, smile and fail to communicate about much beyond the day, her home, her family, her work … and I mean at the “How’s your ____?” level only! But, I adore her. She’s made a few skirts for me – using this great sewing machine you see here – from China. Check out that fancy footwork!
