Rhythm

Today was was the very first day since I arrived that it really hit me – I’m in Africa.

My day started with waking up from the light of the sun shining through my window ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  Though most mornings I wake up feeling slightly disoriented because of an odd, yet vivid dream I had and I forget where I am, this morning, I felt completely rested, except for the numbness in my arm that resulted from sleeping on it.  I finally had one full day alone at my site and in my house, so I was starting to get into the rhythm of things, or at least what I think most days will be feeling like for the next two years.  I went about my typical household duties of cooking my breakfast via charcoal “jiko” [stove], washing my clothes by hand, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor and porch, and going down the hill to my school to check in with my “mkuu” [headmistress].  I felt very much like Snow White living in her cottage in the forest minus the seven dwarves.  It was really quite nice to finally have my own space, at least for a little while until Eric comes back tomorrow, so I have been taking full advantage of the peace and quiet of alone time.

When I went down to the practically empty school save my mkuu, she had a surprise for me (aka told me about an event that was happening in a few hours that we were going to).  We were going to a traditional drum festival!  This was indeed a stupendous surprise and I had no idea what to expect, so I made sure to block off the rest of the day for it, which was incredibly easy since I had nothing else to do anyway.  :D

After much anticipation, I got a tap and a “hodi” on my door and we headed off to the drum festival.  My mkuu, Susan Kipangula, herself accompanied me to the festival.  It was quite an experience!  We arrived late since it had already started a few hours ago and the crowd was largely populated with children and intoxicated Tanzanians.  As expected, I was the only “mzungu” [white person] there, and I was the center of attention, even though there was an entire drum and dance performance going on in the center of everything.  It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time because as I was watching the performers, I could feel the eyes of every person on me, including the performers.  To be honest, I did not feel as uncomfortable as I would have expected the 3-month-ago-me would have felt, because I had already grown accustomed to the Fish Bowl Effect – me as the fish.  That being said, my initial discomfort did not last long and was replaced almost immediately by the thrilling realization of “OH MY GOD, I’M IN AFRICA!”

It may seem slightly cliché that it took a traditional drum festival to make me feel like I was in Africa, but it was definitely the tipping point from an accumulation of things.  This was the first time I truly felt like it was me with only Tanzanians, and a whole lot of them too.  Most other times, it is just a few host country nationals (HCNs) or I am with another volunteer.  But this was different…  I was both overwhelmed with what was going on and overwhelmed with pure joy at getting to experience this during my first week at site!

A couple of Tanzanians led me to the front of the audience and I was standing inside the bamboo fence at one of the corners of the square performance floor.  As I took pictures and a couple of videos on my borrowed camera (thanks, Jen!), I was beaming like crazy.  It was surreal to actually be seeing a traditional drum festival in real life and not in documentaries or pictures!  I greeted a few men near me in the local language, Kinyakiwsa, which they were thoroughly surprised and impressed, and they continued to pass along the information that I am the new teacher at Mwatisi Secondary School.  I caught only parts of conversations about me in Kiswahili because I was so engrossed in the performances.

I was in my own little world as I watched the dancers (or what my mkuu called “drum players”) moving to the rhythm of the beating drums.  It was a competition between seven villages in the area and each performance had a different essence that reflected the origins of each village.  The first group we saw consisted of only males and their movements were very powerful and aggressive, whereas the second group consisted of male and female drum players who were more gracefully intense.  Dust from the stomping feet of the performers was kicked up into a massive cloud that hovered above us and I was close enough to feel the vibrations from the drums and the ground beneath me.  Not a single performer faltered in keeping with the rhythm or the other drum players, even when people from outside the square unexpectedly joined in and weaved between the performers.  I wished we could have stayed longer to see who won the competition and to enjoy the festivities, but the crowd was getting rowdy and the sun was setting.

As we walked back to the school and I alone to my house, I could still hear the sound of the drums bouncing off the mountains around me as I saw the sun fade into the night, and I thought, “I am going to love it here.”