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I’m a big baby wahhh wahhh.
Sorry, someone took my computer and started writing. That wasn’t me.
Anyways, welcome back to another incredible blog post from your favorite and most humble blogger. This post also commemorates the enormous milestone of 6 months in country! I’ve got quite the blog post cooked up for you all; there’s been a lot of things happening in Njombe. Between teaching, close encounters with wildlife, real life law and order, lots and lots of soccer, and trying to be original, the theme of this blog is chaos—if there’s a theme at all.
I’ll start with the general life updates. I’m still teaching physics and I think it’s going well. My students and I are getting used to each other’s teaching/learning styles, and my Swahili is getting better as I teach almost fully in Swahili. I’m getting into the swing of teaching as my friendships with the other teachers continue to develop and as I learn all the names of my students. I’ve started eating my meals with the students and every Saturday morning at 5am I wake up and we go on a run together. Teachers and students that seemed initially afraid to talk to me have started opening up and joking with me. I’ve been playing lots of soccer with the students as well. There was a school-wide soccer tournament to welcome the incoming freshman class, where we played games every day for a week and finished the week off with a talent show. I ended up playing some songs and singing with my guitar at the talent show and after I finished, my school headmaster got up and gave a speech to the whole school about how someday I might become “famous like America’s greatest musical artist of all time……….. 50 Cent!”
I saw my first live snake in Tanzania this past month. I got back to my house late one night and my headlamp was my only source of light as I was going in and out of my bathroom getting ready for bed. Eventually I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye and there was a two foot long snake curled up under my bathroom door. I jumped so high I probably could have dunked. It proved to be a worthy adversary. When it slithered towards me and I stepped back, I stumbled but was able to catch myself in time to dodge the serpent’s advances and avoid certain death. I will spare the gruesome details, but through the use of a broom handle, a half full bucket of water, and a little elbow grease, I was able to quench the flame of life within the serpent. As Thor is said to defeat the chaos serpent Jörmungandr, so too was I able to maintain peace and order within my home and expel the forces of evil.
“It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud.”
My house got robbed this past month. You may think I got a little more adversity this month than I bargained for but hey, that’s life. The lock to my house was picked, but thankfully the thief only took loose cash. A lot of my encounters in Tanzania resemble cartoons as the people are so animated in their behavior and become caricatures of what they represent. The police inspector was no exception. When I welcomed him into my house it was just like a 1940s noir crime scene, but in Swahili. It was a no jokes, only the facts interview. After he was done asking questions he conversed with his colleagues. Picture Clint Eastwood saying, “this was no amateur, the thief knew what he was doing. He entered here, opened this, and after he found the cash the punk fled that way through the woods, wasting no time to avoid the neighbors. We have a case here.” I can’t fully do the police inspector justice, with his one-liners and serious demeanor, but trust me when I say, it was just like the movies.
“He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”
It’s hard to be original. At least that’s what they say. But what is being original? Is it even important to be original? I’ve always tried to be original, set myself apart, to create, and to do different things than what I perceive others to be doing. It may even seem like the cliche “I’m not like other people, I’m unique.” Even so, to be able to have a thought, an idea, to create something that hasn’t been created, to go somewhere that hasn’t been explored, these things are nearly impossible to achieve. To this I feel that I’m discovering and find myself asking “why should it matter?” What difference is there if something has been done before?
“I have only two adversaries, time and distance”
I’d like to venture that originality for the sake of originality almost defeats the purpose. Pursuit of originality shouldn’t prevent someone from doing great things. Not everybody needs to be a pioneer. Is pursuit of greatness and the best version of yourself not an original pursuit in and of itself? My dear reader, no one else can be the best version of you except you. I propose there is inherent base originality in all of us.
All this being said, some of these restaurants in Tanzanian villages could use a little originality. In any given rural village, if you walk down a street and see 10 restaurants the odds are that the menu is exactly the same in every restaurant and they serve the same food. I just think that living in one of the most fertile, biodiverse areas on the planet would mean incredible food. But we can’t all get what we want.
Thank you for reading my blog, sorry it’s later than normal. This one ironically took a while because I wanted to be original. Only 21 more months to go!
Love,
Ryan