Home Ownership Problems

This time nothing much happened until Wednesday.

Our newest village official, who lives next door to me, tried to get me evicted. The headmaster came to see me Sunday and asked if a new teacher could live in my house. I said no. This sort of thing happens to volunteers all the time when we're put in school houses. She was a nun, and I didn't get a satisfactory answer as to why she couldn't live at the mission. Then, he came back with the neighbor village official to lean a little harder on me. He started off by having a pissing contest with me, big mistake. Ask my mom, I can out-piss damn near anyone when I feel challenged. I kept saying no, and he kept telling me to think about it and answer them later. But I already answered! If I take time to think about it, it will stay the same! Then the official took a new tactic. He informed me that I shouldn't be living in a school house anyway because I am not a teacher. (I later found out that as the mratibu, HE shouldn't be living at the school either.) He said I should have to live with my counterpart (and his extended family) at the environment/natural resources house. I told him that this was the house the village government gave me, and if he had a problem with it, he could take it up with the village chairman and the Peace Corps, but I wasn't taking a roommate. My counterpart got wind of this later and told me that I am strong. I guess the official tried to take this up the ladder and got shot down; he's the one moving so the new teacher can take his house. :)

Then, Wednesday came. This was the deadline for students to pay their contributions for the Mikumi trip. We had one full payment, and two half-payments out of 25 students. I felt like I had no choice. I called the students together and canceled the trip. They acted surprised, but I asked what they seriously expected me to do when no one was paying. I think they had to know this would happen. Every time I asked if they could pay, they said yes. I don't think they were lying to me, but I do think they were just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I was concerned that this would negatively affect their attitudes during my site visit on Friday.

An hour or so later, I got a call to tell e that my chicken project grant was rejected. They sent an email with comments (aka, rejection reasons) brought up during the grant committee meeting, but I asked the secretary to tell me some of them before I could go to town and check my email. She said, “Oh, there are a lot of them...” Not good. :( I protest some of the reasons they gave, the others I think they were making me play a game of “guess what we want to hear without us giving you any of the answers.”

Then my APCD came for my site visit Friday. He said hi at the primary school, petted my cat and we chatted in my house for a bit about my recent work problems. Then we went to my counterpart's office. He showed him the maps the kids made back in August. He thought they were as awesome as I do. He said that if the government had commissioned an environmental analysis like that, it would have taken months and cost millions of shillings (thousands of dollars). These kids did it in a few afternoons with nothing but some bi poster paper and a pack of colored pencils. He immediately called Malihai Clubs in Arusha and told them to come out and visit our club to make us official, because the kids are doing such awesome work. We also showed him the test they took (I neglected to mention the rampant cheating that took place, but the ones who did their own test were awesome). Then we went to the school and met with the teachers in the office and then the kids at the tree nursery. Eliguard gave them a pep talk about the great work they'd been doing and how what we're learning will help them in any line of work they want to do.