June 10:  Jogoy School:  Questions about Donald Trump and how we keep our animals

After our meeting with the headmaster of the secondary school and the obligatory signing of the third guest book in the village, we moved next door to the computer lab.  Although classes had already finished for the semester, about 8 girls and boys were huddled around some old dusty desktop machines.   One group was looking at an art history dvd and the other was advising one of the students on his next move in solitairre. I’d estimate the students were around 14 – 16 years old, and they had a mix of muslim and christian names.  The headmaster asked the students if they had any questions for the visitors.  We received a lot of interesting questions from the students, but there were two topics that were the most memorable.  

One of the muslim students, Nusra, asked a lot of questions in perfect english   She was one of the younger (maybe just shorter) students in the group, but she was confident and super curious.  Over the course of the next hour, she was the student who volunteered to describe their science  experiements on electroysis, generating bio-gas, etc. in their  newly constructed, but rudimentary “laboratory.”   She asked thoughtful questions about drug and alcohol problems in the US, and described the problems with alcholism in their community.  In a country where girls are mostly relegated to work in the home, are taught to assume a subservient position to men,  and usually do not have the educational opportunities of male children, she was obviously working to defy the limitatons of her circumstance.  And so it was her first question that was easiest to answer, but I continue to reflect upon long after leaving the village:  Are you going to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?  I answered that I would vote for Hillary Clinton.  I didn’t tell her that Donald Trump is a misogynist.  I didn’t tell her that he is campaigning to ban people of her faith from entering our country.  We recevied a generous welcome in her school and village.  I told her I was embarrassed by Donald Trump.

The next question came from “Patrick,” who inquired about the differences in the agricultural practices in the US.  I told him that nearly everone is involved in agriculture in Tanzania, but only a very small percentage of the people in the US produce food for the rest of the population.   In Tanzania, people live very close to their cows, goats, and chickens.  In the US, there is a much more pronounced separation between where most people live and where livestock is raised.  The students seemed satisfied with my answer.   Later, after we left the school and were headed back to the government office for lunch, the school headmaster looked a bit perplexed.  He wanted to follow-up on the discussion about animals in our communities.  You don’t live next to the chickens?  People don’t have chickens at their homes?  Nope, not even chickens.