Much to my relief, my parents, as it turns out, do not live in a tiny grass hut. Seriously, I really had no idea what kind of living conditions to expect, but I definitely was not expecting them to live in a big, nice house with drinkable water, a normal kitchen and two bathrooms (one with a huge tub). I also had no idea their property was basically a large multi-building compound including several cabannas for visiting guests (we got to say in the house proper on a bed my mom had custom made to be long enough to fit me :).
One of the cabanas for guests.
There's also a schoolhouse, where my Mom teaches kids in direct competition to the local school system (where the teachers cane the kids. Eeek). There's a hut specially made for a giant hammock, and various other buildings whose purpose wasn't explained. They have a large staff as well. I'd heard about this, and wasn't quite sure how I felt about it until I saw the real situation. The people who work for my family literally love them, and feel very much part of the family. It was awesome seeing them giving my dad shit in swahili all the time, and laughing at his bad jokes...it's pretty cool. Also very reassuring since it's obvious they'd do anything for them if something bad happened.
The village itself is very safe which was also reassuring, but I did learn that it's not entirely safe late at night and especially on the weekends when people have been drinking. Apparently these are the circumstances which encourage "thieves armed with machetes" behavior. Also to be considered is the villagers' tendency to "collect" things. No one considers it stealing; if a person needs a thing and that thing is just sitting there for the taking, one would be crazy not to take it home, right? As a clearly prudent precautionary measure, the Wiggins compound is surrounded by not one, but two fences, forming a kind of dry moat. But the coolest part is that at night, they let the dogs run around in that perimeter (evidently dogs are a really large deterrent in that part of the world, even the slobbering playful kind like these) and they have a security guy named Sampson who patrols the perimeter all night long armed with a fucking handmade bow and arrow. No kidding. He also has a hellofa badass look about him which, by itself, would probably cause a would-be hammock thief to drop his machete and bolt.
Bunda the village wears it's poverty on it's sleeve for sure, but there are some really big differences between poverty here and poverty I've seen elsewhere. A lot of poor places are filled with really cranky, pissed-off people who just radiate oppression and bitterness. I'm not judging them; I know I'd definitely be like that if I was living in a slum below the poverty line too. For some reason you don't see that in the people in Bunda at all. They are all incredibly easy-going, visibly happy and content, and even though their lives are difficult they honestly seem to really be enjoying them. The children are even happier and seem incredibly optimistic.
Being the only white people in the entire village (aside from my parents) made us beyond conspicuous. It was palpable everywhere we went, way more than what I felt in Japan. It made getting candid shots very difficult, especially since the middle-aged adults (especially the women), aren't at all keen on getting their photo taken. Part of the problem was that we hadn't done our homework and learned enough swahili; definitely a mistake we will correct the next time we go. The kids loved it though, and the older folks were very accommodating and good-natured as long as we were respectful; in fact there is a separate, more gracious greeting in swahili for older people and they clearly appreciated our butchering attempts to use it.
One trick we discovered to get around the candid shot problem was that our favorite bar in town (ironically, the "Yankee Hotel & Bar") had these outdoor booths that were like little thatched-roof huts with small windows so we could sit in there hidden in shade, sipping our Kilimanjaro beers with our new local friend Thomas (not everybody has swahili names), shooting out the little windows. It was like a kind of hunter's blind and worked great!
Brenda shot John shooting some smirky children from our "blind"
We still definitely missed out on tons of opportunities because we didn't know enough swahili. Next time. But even so, we had an incredible time in the village and of course it was fantastic hanging with my family again. They were also meeting Brenda for the first time and that went great, but I knew it would. The best part about the entire trip has to be the fact that they are so obviously happy and loving life there, especially John. I was really nervous when they moved but I feel a lot better now that I've seen it first hand.
Thanks for putting up all the pics so I can travel vicariously through you!! Fantastic!
Posted by: Anita | March 15, 2008 at 11:18 AM