Gil is home from a month of language school on Zanzibar island. Hooray!
In between filling his brain with Kiswahili, he took pictures. Zanzibar is right off the coast of Dar es Salaam, and is an inhabited island of 1 million people. It is technically part of Tanzania, but very Arab-influenced, very Muslim, and full of history.
It also happens to be one of the most beautiful, intriguing places on earth.
Enjoy his pictures with me….I had a hard time narrowing them down!
Kyungho was 11 years old when he first came into my life. He was in fifth grade, and it was my first year teaching at HOPAC. Then I went on to be his sixth grade teacher too.
He was the class clown, and really only interested in soccer and making people laugh. But that smile was infectious and he wormed his way into my heart.
Kyungho is Korean in ethnicity and culture and passport, but born and raised in Tanzania. He attended HOPAC for all thirteen years of his education, which gave him an American accent. Truly a Third-Culture-Kid, if there ever was one.
Throughout all of high school, Gil was his Bible teacher. And basketball and soccer coach. And youth group leader and mentor.
Gil and Kyungho shared a love for Manchester United and photography. They spent a lot of time together. And sometime around 10th grade, Kyungho got serious about life. And God. And loving people. And he got really good at all of those things, including his school work.
We had the joy of seeing him graduate in 2009, and Gil had the joy of presenting him with the Christian Character award that day.
Then he went off to Wheaton College in Illinois and studied business. Most people were probably convinced that he was American, except for the couple of times he instinctively used his Tae Kwon Do and accidentally landed a couple of big football players on the ground.
Kyungho would always come and visit us in the summers. I can remember the time he sat in our living room a year or so ago and told us about this girl he liked named Shelby. We cautioned him, Make sure she’s internationally-minded. Make sure she is not set on living her whole life in the States. Make sure she understands that you are part Korean and part African and all TCK.
Then he married that girl just a few weeks ago in Michigan. And just a few days after, she picked up her life and moved with him back to Tanzania. And she’s learning Korean and wants to attend an African church and she loves that he is international. She is perfect.
Last weekend, we got to celebrate with them at a reception here in Dar.
Such an amazing, incredible joy, to see this young man loving God and loving people, serving Tanzania and now starting a new life with a girl who loves all of that about him.
HOPAC is a young school–only 20 years old–and it has only graduated 5 classes. So it’s only now that we are starting to see our alumni, now college graduates, find their way in the world. How it satisfies our hearts to see so many find their way back here, to the country that raised them, with the goal of making it a better place!
Because there were others there that night too. One who wants to start a business to help other businesses learn customer service. One who is working for a TV station here in Dar. One who still has the goal of becoming Tanzania’s president someday.
And there’s this one who was there that night, but I’ve already told you her story.
I think of all the years we spent investing in these students, and now we have the pleasure of standing back and seeing the fruit. How great is our God.
There’s a story in missionary lore about a family who moved to a deep, dark jungle. The natives were fascinated by the family’s food, which came in cans. They soon figured out that the picture on the outside of the can showed what was inside it. A picture of tomatoes meant there were tomatoes inside; a picture of corn meant there was corn inside.
Imagine the natives’ dismay when they saw cans with pictures of babies on them.
Culture influences everything, doesn’t it?
This week, this video has been showing up a lot on my Facebook feed.
It’s two African guys and a pile of sand. They are shoveling the sand into a wheelbarrow, and then dumping it into another, smaller pile…..about six inches away.
It looks ridiculous. It looks idiotic. And the person who took the video, and offers a some narration, obviously thinks it’s one of the dumbest….and therefore, funniest, things she has ever seen. It’s labeled, “Only in Africa.”
It has 374,562 shares and over 13 million views. So I guess a lot of other people think it is funny as well.
Then, two African friends of mine offered an explanation:
When mixing concrete, and you don’t have a cement mixer, you use the wheelbarrow to measure–this many loads of sand, this many loads of gravel, this much cement.
Oh. So these guys are not idiots after all. They are measuring. OH.
Guess I’m the idiot now.
This realization hit me hard. It cut to the heart. It made me wonder, How many times have I done this without realizing it? Complained, criticized, mocked, (written about!) something in another culture, when really I just needed to look at it with different eyes?
Why do we always assume the worst? When people do something we don’t understand, why do we always assume that they are ignorant, lazy, or backwards, especially when they come from a culture we perceive as less civilized than our own?
We do this! We do this! I do this!
In America, we do this when our immigrant neighbors park their car on their lawn. Or when they don’t cut their lawn. Or when they paint their house an atrocious color. Or when they drive too slow. Or when their parties are too loud. Or when they put their garbage cans out too early. Don’t they know anything???
Okay, so I get that all cultures do this about other cultures. Just like the natives who assume the missionaries are eating babies.
I’m quite certain that my house helper thinks I am nuts because I ask her to iron the girls’ simple cotton dresses and put them in the closet, whereas their fanciest, frilliest, laciest dresses are stuffed into a basket in the toy room and used for playing.
A friend once reprimanded me because I threw away the chicken neck and after all, that’s the best part.
But the difference is that I don’t feel condescended about these things. And yet I do feel that often there is quite an air of condescension that comes from those of us who might be called civilized about the practices of those who are uncivilized.
Ugh. Ouch. Amy, we don’t use words like civilized and uncivilized anymore. That was back in the days of imperialism. This is the 21st Century and we are enlightened.
Except, when I see that 13 million people are laughing at two African guys who are shoveling sand, it does make me wonder how enlightened we really are.
We must ask ourselves, Why do we assume these guys don’t have a reason for what they are doing? Why do we assume they are just being idiots?
“People usually don’t act randomly or stupidly. Those from other cultures may think it random or stupid, but from the local person’s perspective, they’re thinking or acting out of a larger framework that makes sense to them….Too often we assume others are foolish or illogical simply because their reasoning is not self-evident to us.” (Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood)
I
am
ashamed.
And I am forced to look deep into my soul and examine what I really think about people who do things differently than me.
Since I am in Africa, determined to help and not hurt, determined not to repeat the mistakes of those who went before me, I must
examine
my
heart.
Root out ethno-centrism. Put condescension to death. Look for the good. Assume the best. Choose humility.
Of course, sin is there. Some people really are idiots–in any culture. I was driving with a Tanzanian friend the other day, and a guy was yelling in the middle of the street. Yeye ni lewa, my friend muttered. He is drunk. And many times, there is inefficiency and ugliness or just plain evil.
But can I first realize that sin is in my heart, and will be coloring my view of how I see things? Can I stop assuming that my way is the best way, that different does not equal wrong (or stupid, or lazy)?
In humility, consider others better than yourselves.
Even if it means giving the benefit of the doubt to two guys shoveling sand.
Where you live, the leaves are probably starting to change color. But down here in the southern hemisphere, things are heating up.
So since the kids had the day off from school, we headed to Wet n’ Wild.
Yep, Dar es Salaam’s very own water park. And it’s only a mile away from our house.
We got there at 11:30. We waited in line. This was the line. Needless to say, the wait was not long. Well, except that no one was in the ticket booth, so we had to yell into the window for a minute until someone heard us.
One adult + 4 kids (Zawadi was with us) = 32,000 shillings or $19.20.
The crowds were overwhelming, as you can see here. In fact, I think there might have been a whole 12 people there besides the other HOPAC friends who joined us.
I mean, look at the lines the kids had to wait in!
And Lily could practically barely move around the swarms of other kids!
But before you start thinking that this place is too good to be true, well, don’t.
It may look amazing from distance shots, but when you get up close, your Mommy-radar may give a little shudder.
Especially when you realize that the wonderful kiddie-pool is really just an ordinary playground cemented into the water on large concrete blocks with sharp edges.
And even though this set of slides may look picture perfect,
on closer inspection, you may notice this sign.
Which was probably unnecessary considering that the whole front of the structure is covered with scaffolding.
And when the children climb to the top of the slides, you notice large cracks running through the bottom of the stairs.
And you notice that there are workmen, with drills, working on the scaffolding.
But apparently, none of these are reasons to close down the slides to small children!
In all the years we have gone to this park (over 13 years), the kitchen has never actually served the items listed on their rather extensive menu. I stopped being disappointed years ago, and have learned to ask, “So what are you serving today?” instead of even bothering to look at the menu.
Today, it was burgers and fries.
And of course, ice cream!
The truth is, that even though this park’s lack of safety standards gives me a few heart palpitations, the kids always have an absolutely fabulous time. Why shouldn’t they? They don’t have to wait in line, they get the slides all to themselves, and they wear themselves out by running up the stairs.
Sure, you know, Mom wants slides that aren’t held up by rusty poles, but I guess I’m just picky like that.
I have a college degree and a teaching credential and half of a master’s degree. I love words–speaking them and writing them.
Yet learning Kiswahili has reduced me to the status and knowledge of a two-year-old. Except when a two-year-old says, “Play wif me?” or “I want hot gogs,” people think it’s cute. It’s not so cute when you are 37.
Yes, we’ve lived in Dar for 10 years. We do not speak Swahili. I studied with a tutor for about a year when we first got here, and obtained a working knowledge of the language. I can communicate with shopkeepers, mechanics, taxi drivers, and the people who work for us. I can talk about the weather and the time and how much things cost. I have even done some some fast negotiating with customs officials at the airport. But not enough to build relationships.
Our entire ministry was in English, and our ministry was all-consuming. We had relationships with many Tanzanians, but they were all English speakers. English is common here, and sought-after. All private schools, even public high schools, and all universities are in English. I tried in vain for years to find a Kiswahili pre-school for my kids, but anyone who can afford pre-school wants their kids to learn English.
But now, our lives are different. Though we are still working with mainly English speakers, they are all Tanzanian. And the way to get to their hearts, and understand their culture, is to learn Kiswahili.
So here we go.
Learning another language, while you are living in that language, essentially means that you are choosing humiliation.
You often say things that you don’t mean to say, and often, it’s the wrong thing. You agree to things that you don’t mean to agree to. You don’t get the inside jokes. You are the inside joke. People talk about you behind your back, except they’re actually right in front of you. People laugh at you, and even if you are laughing along with them, you feel like an idiot.
We are diving into a Kiswahili church. We threw our kids in head-first. Grace cried after the first week. We bribed them with soda. It worked. We bribe them with money when we hear them using new words. That’s working too. Hey, you do what you gotta do.
But it’s exhausting. I sit in church with my dictionary and my notebook and frantically look things up and write them down. Last Sunday, they announced a coming potluck and that everyone should bring food. I got that much, but not when it would be or for what purpose. It’s kind of scary. And vulnerable. And humiliating.
Thankfully, Tanzanians tend to be very gracious. They love it when foreigners attempt their language. They are happy to help.
This is Lucy. She is my Kiswahili tutor and she comes to my house three days a week. She is sarcastic and mischievous, and very, very funny. She loves Jesus too, and recently told me how she learned to bake a cake over charcoal (yes, it can be done!) just so that she could invite her neighbors over to tell them the simulizi (stories of God). She’s pretty cool that way.
If there’s anyone who’s going to come my house and make my brain hurt, I’m glad it’s Lucy.
Gil, on the other hand, decided to flee this English-infested community and head to Zanzibar island for language school. So he is there for this whole month, living with a local family and studying Kiswahili full-time. Of course, it helps that in his spare time, he gets to take amazing pictures like these, since Zanzibar is one of the most amazing places on earth.
[He] made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled himself.
I’m sure glad He was willing to humiliate Himself for me. I will do it for Him.
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