We Are Family

Gedamar B How long does it take for someone to become family? Months? Years? Is it possible to feel inseparable from someone after only a few weeks? Just the other day my Tanzanian teaching partner and I were finishing surveying dukas (shops) in the village to see where condoms were available. I would state our purpose (“Hi, we’re from SIC…) and she would translate. Rather business like work, but important, nonetheless. We found ourselves walking down roads unknown, asking passerbys if we might stumble across a kiosk in the next quarter mile. Eventually I removed my sandals and let my bare feet embrace the red earth. Children pointed in confusion at the crazy mzungu (foreigner) walking without shoes. Dhulfa, my teaching partner, simply laughed. One of the dukas (shops) we surveyed welcomed us in with a friendly “Karibuni!” and handed us a bag of freshly shelled peanuts. On the walk home we discussed English grammar and goals for the future. Flash forward but 48 hours and we are faced with the shocking possibility that Dhulfa and the other teaching partners will have to enlist in boot camp, and in the not-so-distant future; they have been ordered to be present for the mandatory draft by the 24th of this month. This means, in all likelihood, we will be saying goodbye several weeks sooner than originally thought. If they don’t enlist, the government will take away any opportunity of entering university, receiving a student loan, or even finding future gov...
Source: Support for International Change : HIV AIDS - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news