Today, I just want to tell you some stories. The weirdest thing about the World Race is how NORMAL things become. Putting band aids on your bras to keep the under wire from stabbing you; normal. Eating nohing but the color white for an entire month (potatoes, rice, bread, sugar); normal. Praying with a group of African women when one of them falls to the ground and starts writhing and screaming; alas… normal.
But in America none of these things are normal, for most people at least. And I sometimes forget that. So it is my duty to share! Here are two stories from the vault for you. Enjoy.
Month Six, Tanzania:
Did I ever tell you about the time…I Slapped that African Man Across the Face?
Setting: (Arusha, Tanzania) Public Transport (Daladala, aka stinky, janky van)
Characters: Ashlee Castle (Team Leader, Just Love), Claire Flores (fellow Squad Leader), Godson (Tanzanian translator and friend), Me (white girl that ain’t takin’ no crap from nobody)
It had been a lovely day. Godson took us into town so we could get internet. Claire and I worked on plans for the upcoming debrief and Ashlee contacted her host for the next month in Malawi. Time came for us to head back to the compound we were staying in and Godson walked us all to the daladala stop. It was chaos, as it often is in all situations in Africa. People were jumping on and off moving vans, the doors never even had time to close. Vendors were hawking all kinds of charging devices, fruit, used shoes, getting into your face and demanding that you need a banana or a charger from a ten year old Motorola.
Godson was trying to find four spots on a daladala that was heading in the right direction, and time was running out. At five o-clock the daladalas stop running and you are stuck with taxis that rip you off. So this was the last call. Which means that when we finally did find four spots, the characters aboard this van were interesting…
Claire, Godson and Ashlee were sitting in the very back row and I was in the front, backpack in my lap. This daladala was jam packed (19 people, 2 babies) and as in most places in Africa, reeked of armpit. I was trying to make my body as small as possible while trying to think good smelling thoughts; fields of gardenias, visiting a Starbucks just in time for the holiday flavors (pumpkin spice, peppermint mocha), I would even take the smell of a bucket of bleach over this. Just as I was contemplating sticking a Sharpie in my nostrils, I felt something strange on my foot. There was a belligerently drunk man on the floor of the van and he was very much enjoying playing with my toes. I jerked my foot away and like a live crap his hand scuttled over and found my toes again. “Jesus, help me” I thought. Had he never seen white toes before?
I looked to the back of the van desperately and my eyes locked with Ashlee’s. “There is a drunk man playing with my toes!”
The plot thickened. The two men sitting next to me got off the van freeing up the bench I was sitting on. And wouldn’t you believe it, that toe plucking drunk man pulled himself off the floor and plopped himself next to me. His eyes were still locked on my pink painted toes but lazily dragged their way up to my eyes. At this point I am praying, and he is yammerin’, stammerin’ on in drunk Swahili. A feel a tap on my shoulder, and the nice man behind me informs me in English that the man is boasting about how he is going to steal my camera, and cautions me to watch my belongings.
Then the situation got hairy, literally. He began leaning in and rubbing his King Tut style beard up and down my arm. “Jesus!” I am pleading with the Lord to intervene. I scoot over and press my wide open hand across his face and push him out of my personal bubble (which are very tangible things in America, not so much in the rest of the world). I tell him “No!” And pray that is the end of it. But instead, he seems to be encouraged by my rejection. I am missing my thought of how to escape African armpit smell, I am missing the moment when my nose was the only part of my senses that is being assaulted.
My eyes look back to my friends beseechingly. Godson informs me that the man is offering very sincere marriage proposals, “Marry me white girl. Take me to your home land. Just one kiss.” My hand meets his face once more and I give a very forceful shove.
And then I hear the sweet southern drawl of Miss Ashlee Castle, four rows behind me, giving me some of the best instruction I have ever received.
“Smack him.”
Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?
I did not need permission. As he leaned in the van grew silent, except for the drunk man's excited heavy breathing. And then, with one swift, powerful swipe of my hand, palm and fingers met hairy cheek and the most glorious “WHACK!” filled the air.
The dalladalla erupted. Tanzanians old and young, male and female whooped and applauded. An old man in the very back, dressed in full Maasai garb (even equipped with the traditional walking stick) croaked out, “I didn’t think she had it in her!”
I wasn’t sure if I did either. The drunk man needed one more good smack to get the point across, you know how the senses dull as the booze goes down. But when I did depart that dolladolla it was as a hero with my camera still in my pocket. That man didn’t know who he had messed with. You don’t play with a white girl’s toes.
Did I ever tell you about the time… a lady brought a chicken to the alter?
Setting: Sunday morning worship at the local Tanzanian village
Characters: Me, teams Just Love and Agape, Lady with the chicken
It was a beautiful but hot Sunday morning in Arusha, Tanzania. We were staying with a Pastor and his family and had hiked 30 minutes in long skirts and Chacos to teach kids and hear the Pastor preach.
The service was hot and lively. African worship calls for stomping and booty shakin’. I was always so impressed with how the mothers would praise the Lord with their babies strapped to their backs, often sleeping. Little heads flopped to and fro to the drum beat. After the worship I sat down sweaty and smiling and the Pastor gave an encouraging word, that I did not understand a word of. And in the next moment people began to stand to their feet and bring coins to place in the two wicker baskets that sat near the alter. The steady flow continued for about a minute, Racers made their way forward also, and then things died down. Everyone seemed to settle in their seats and prepare themselves for the next portion of the service when I noticed a woman approaching from the back. She was young and small and had a sleeping baby tied to her back with colorful fabric. And in her hands was a small brown chicken, tied at the feet.
I had never seen this before. And I am ashamed to admit, I went into panic mode.
“Crap, is she about to sacrifice that chicken? We don’t do that post-Jesus! Crap. What do I do? I am the squad leader. I am going to have to call our base and tell them to get these girls out of this place. I got to tell them this contact is sacrificing animals on the alter on Sunday mornings! Do I just sit here and let this happen?”
And as I was going into freak out mode, the small mother had reached the alter. My mind stilled as I watched her gently place the chicken on the ground between the two wicker baskets. She bowed her head and said a silent prayer of thanks under the cross that hung from the wall. And then she slowly, head still bowed, made her way back to the last row.
“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their girts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two small copper coins.
So He said, “Surely I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all of these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood she had.” (Luke 21: 1-4)
She gave all she had; a small chicken.
I sat there shocked, silent and ashamed at the road my thoughts had traveled and the way I had judged her; a tiny woman with a sleeping baby on her back. She probably slept in a small hut made from branches and leaves. And I prayed in that moment that I would look more like her, that I would be so drawn to my Lord that I would give all that I had.
It has been more than three months and my mind still travels to that small church in the African jungle, where I watched a tiny mother drift towards the alter carrying all she had; her sweet sleeping baby and a chicken.
