Riot

I was standing at the end of the walk in the threshold of the building above, talking to the assistant headmistress about the schedule of my sight visit, when the riot broke out. Minutes before, I had been admiring the new structure, noting how clean and bright the furnishings were. In less than a minute, everything had changed - the world turned upside down.
I believe something as chaotic, violent, and senseless as a riot ought to have a larger name. These four letters seem painfully inadequate. A riot has no master, has no form, has no dignity. It is a wave that gathers strength and spills out in unpredictable fashion. It is loud and crass, and yet curiously quiet. I can understand how one could be caught up, carried along, killed in a riot. There is nothing so surreal as this amorphous monster, I can see how one could be stranded staring in disbelief as the rules of man and even physics seem to evaporate in seconds. I have seen a riot, I have seen hell spill up and over a community.
I loved visiting central Tanzania for many reasons. Prince Charles had a tea plantation in the region, subsequently there were good roads. I loved the rustic country side, but being in Landrover three weeks out of each month made me appreciate the odd smooth ride. The two lane blacktop bisected a game reserve, so I got a free safari each time we travelled there. And finally, there was a beautiful lake that had been stocked with Largemouth Bass. I never forgot my fishing pole.
On this particular trip, I was checking in on volunteers, doing site visits. A site visit was fun but exhausting. I would arrive in the morning with my driver, visit with the headmaster/headmistress and other administrative personnel, observe the volunteer in the classroom, and visit and talk with teachers and students. Whenever I could, I would co opt a class, and have some fun with the students. We ate a modest lunch with the teachers, and I would finish the visit by inspecting the volunteer's living quarters. We would leave in mid-afternoon, and make our way to the next village school, sometimes hundreds of miles away. As I said, it was fun, but very taxing.
We were well back in the central highlands that day, making our way to visit a volunteer I was very concerned about. His name was William, and he was teaching secondary math at a small village school. I knew William had been drinking a lot in several months, and was away from his site far too often. I was prepared to bring him back to the capital if he hadn't made progress since last I saw him. I did end up bringing him back to Dar es Salaam, but through no fault of his own.

We arrived at his living quarters just after 7am and took him up to the school. William was awake, but not particularly coherent. John, our driver, pulled up in front of the school in the visitor's spot, and we prepared to get out. As I was unbuckling my seat belt, I noticed a group of girls congregating for assembly. Two things struck me instantly - there were far less students than there should have been, and those who were there were milling about restlessly. Something didn't feel right. I had William get out, and then asked John to take the car back halfway up the hill and park it by William's house. He did so without asking any questions.

William and I walked up the gravel walk to find the assistant headmistress standing in the doorway. She ushered us in, and William went over to sit down on a chair. We started to explain pleasantries, and she was delighted with my Kiswahili - Shikamoo, Habari za asubuhi, Habari za Kazi, Habari za familia? (You are respected, how is the morning, how is work, how is your family). This sort of ritual was very hard for me to pick up, being a task oriented westerner - imagine my chagrin each morning I came into our head office and had to repeat this a dozen or so times before I reached my desk! As we finished greeting each other, I turned to her to address the odd behavior of the students outside. By that time there were more, and they were all obviously anxious about something. As soon as I opened my mouth to ask, I thought a tornado had struck the building. I was deafened by what I thought was the sound of thunder and breaking glass. Shards were spraying from the rear of the building, and I couldn't hear anything. Amazingly, the headmistress' first instinct was to grab William and pull him into the corner where she pushed him to the floor and protected him with her body. John came rushing in the front door and yelled "It's students, they are making a fight." I realized then that noise I had mistaken for thunder was the sound of hundreds of rocks hitting the corregated steel roof, and I  looked down at me feet to see dozens of rocks amidst the broken glass strewn everywhere.

The clamor seemed to subside for a moment, and I had John take William and his guardian out to the Landrover. I told him to back the car all the way up the hill and I would be right up. As they left, I made my way to the rear of the building, partly to see if there were any other staff about, partly to find out exactly what was happening. As I  peeked out through a broken window, I saw at least a hundred students either hurling rocks or searching for new  reloading projectiles. They were moving as a mob moves, erratically closer to the school, and I knew it was time to leave. As I turned to run out of the building, I remember thinking it so odd that all these children had bothered to put on their school uniforms the morning they decided to raze their school. Later I realized many of them had few other options (for clothes, not crimes).

I ran up to the car, embarrassed to be passing others, knowing I had to get William out of the area. I had John continue to back the vehicle up the road as I walked beside surveying the mayhem below. The students were no longer advancing up to the community, they were too busy ripping apart the school. A few of them started to turn their attention to the hilltop, where all the teachers houses were. I knew it was time to leave. We put as many people as we could into the Landrover and drove out to the nearby village a few kilometers away. John, William, the headmistress, and I then drove 25 kilometers to the nearest town, where would find the police.

On the way, the headmistress provided some insight into the situation saying the students were upset because some of their peers had been suspended for drinking "pombe" - beer. She also subtlety indicated that the Headmaster (who was in town on "business") had been very hard on the students for quite some time, and that this last incident was the thing that pushed them over the top. As a matter of fact, she believed the Headmaster was out of the school deliberately, knowing there would be trouble.

When we got into town, we went to the Ministry of Education department who then notified the authorities. Once there, I sat down with the local officials and the headmaster who was conveniently there. The meeting cleared a lot of things up for me. He was arrogant, almost gloating over the news at it seemed to reaffirm whatever he had been telling his superiors about the quality of his students. When I proceeded to detail what I had witnessed, he stopped me several times suggesting I had misinterpreted something. After his third interjection, I politely asked him to refrain from interrupting me again. The room stiffened. I concluded my statements with the observation that I did not believe the events were precipitated or actualized by a small group of malcontents, instead that there were systemic issues involved. He boiled, but not over - I delivered that last bit of information as a bonus with my eyes riveted on his. When I returned to the main office a few days later, I made the decision to place no more volunteers at that school until there were appropriate changes made to the administration.

I took the headmistress back to the school, and left William at a nearby hotel. I could smell the smoke miles before we arrived. I watched her face instinctively as we crested that hill again, and saw the heartbreak and sorrow pervade that beautiful, caring face. The school was gone, as were several of the homes of teachers and staff. No one had been killed, but several cows and pigs had been butchered, as well as many pets. There was debris, dust, soot, and blood everywhere, with only a few dazed witnesses milling about. It was incomprehensible. I made sure my valiant counterpart was ok, stopped and collected William's personal effects that hadn't been destroyed, and I left to regain custody of William, my primary responsibility.

As for William, well that is the rest of the story. William was completely unfazed by the whole episode - it was as if he had been catatonic. His affect was very flat and unemotional, at least until I mentioned that he might be changing sites. That woke him up. He became very excited, and even had a suggestion for me that I place him with two other volunteers at a larger school not too far away. He rambled on and on about that contingency until we arrived back in Dar es Salaam to sort things out. Once there, I delivered my report and stayed late to write out commendations for John and my brave headmistress.

William didn't make it to his new school, nor did he return to the scene of the riot. William went home to the US. We worked with him through the week and discovered that he wasn't adapting too well to the culture or his teaching experience, and that he had been abusing drugs and alcohol in his efforts to cope. He was very angry he could not join his friends, but admitted in the end that such a move would only exacerbate his problems. I was sad when I took him to the airport for his two day odyssey back home, he truly didn't know what he was going to do once there, other than receive some professional help he so badly needed.

I never did find out what happened to the school, the children, or the community. I moved on to other pressing matters, always present when supervising a hundred or so college-aged volunteers. Most of those matters were delightful and comic, a few were tragic. We lost two volunteers in the coming year, one killed by an elephant on a cheap safari (Natalie, posted here in August 2010), the other asphyxiating on his own vomit in a drunken stupor. By in large though, those hundred "kids" loved the country and its children, and did miraculous things for them. I am so proud to have been involved.

As for lessons on riots? Avoid them.

Train Kept A Rollin

From the time I finished the 8th grade to the day I entered the 10th grade, I attended four schools in three states. For once though, the fact that we kept moving might have saved my life. For if we would have stayed at our third stop, Pontiac, Michigan I don't think I would have survived.
We moved to Pontiac in January of 1973. It was one of the toughest places I have ever been, and I was 14 years old. We only ended up staying there for six months, and I was relieved to leave. We had rented a rundown apartment in a depressed area of town. The neighborhood was mixed, poverty being the only shared culture. Before arriving in Pontiac, I had lived in smaller, less diverse towns. I had no concept of what to expect from that big city, and no preparation for what I would see.
I met some of the local kids the weekend before the first day of school. I remember Rodney and Timmy vividly, as it was their story that shocked and horrified me. To this day, I haven't heard someone relay a personal experience like theirs. And I would not care to. Rodney was a street-wise kid who was the leader of the local group of kids. Timmy, who had lost both his legs, was an affable guy who did his best to keep up in his beaten up wheelchair. They adopted me and shielded me from some difficulties while introducing me to worse things. I sometimes wonder if either of them are still alive.
I will never forget my first day at school in Pontiac. It was a very large school just for 9th graders. There were kids of all sorts, a few who made immediate impressions on me. My first incident happened an hour or so after classes began. I opened a door to leave a class and it hit another student in the arm. He was about six foot two, 185 pounds. He looked like he was 22, and had a big afro. I apologized and he just stared at me. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I turned to leave. As I walked away, a nervous kid walked beside me saying "Do you know who that was? That was Spade, the toughest kid in the school. He is 19 and only stays in school to sell drugs to the other kids." I had dodged a bullet. Later in the day, I met a very charming student named Clarence James III (or as he introduced himself, CJ the DJ). He took me under his wing and we agreed to meet at the art room after school. When the last bell rang, I made my way down to our meeting place. CJ was there smiling. He ushered me into the art room and locked the door after we entered. He then introduced me to the art teacher who promptly took out a bottle of wine from his desk and poured us each a glass. I wasn't sure where I was at that point, it was just far too strange to be real. I learned to avoid the bathrooms at the school, as they were filled with smoke, drug deals, and the occasional brawl. The girls all scared me, as they acted and appeared as if they were ten years older. The students were all very foreign to me. I do remember the one exception, a slight black kid who dressed neatly and carried a brief case. He didn't socialize, he just went to class, studied, and went home. I often wondered if his focus ever got him out of that place.
Rodney, Timmy, and I hung out on weekends with some of the other local kids. I soon learned that they all enjoyed drugs, and I really didn't want to go down that road, but I didn't want to alienate my protectors. I turned to alcohol instead. It was a crazy six months. We lived on the edge of the city, and there were woods and remote areas nearby. We spent many an hour hiding out there, doing whatever we liked. By that point, my stepfather would buy me beer whenever I wanted, so I maintained my popularity with six packs.
I had also met a pair of twin brothers name Brett and Bart Hartsoe (named after Brett and Bart Maverick). They were good kids, and I had more in common with them. One weekend, we planned on me staying overnight with them. Their parents said no, but the brothers snuck me in through their basement window. In the morning, their little sister came down into their room and spotted me. She must have been about three. To this day, I remember her exact words as she ran back up to tattle on us:
"Mommy, mommy, there is more than one head in Bart's bed." Great line, had to fit it into the story somehow........
Each morning, Rodney and I and a few others would walk to school, a distance of about two miles. When the weather warmed up, we exploited a new form of transportation, hopping a train that ran past our neighborhood and eventually the school. It was exhilarating to say the least, I had only seen it done in the movies. The train ran near the woods behind our houses, in between two large ponds we loved to fish in. It was so neat to run up to the train, grab anything you could hold on to, and haul yourself up. It was about a five minute ride, rather than the half an hour by foot. I really felt grown up doing that (looking back, I suppose I would have made a good hobo). I rode the train for almost a month before I eventually stopped abruptly.
We were over at Timmy's house one night, doing what we always did. Timmy and Rodney were taking drugs, and I shared a bottle of whiskey with Timmy's brother. Timmy had a high tolerance for harder drugs, a result of his double amputation I suppose. Strangely, I had never asked how Timmy had lost his legs, it just didn't seem necessary. That night though, it came up in the conversation, and Rodney told me the tale. Something that is still horrific to me, and if they hadn't pulled out the news clipping, I am not sure I would have believed them.
A year earlier, Rodney and Timmy were on their way to school. They were late, so they decided to hop one of the freight trains that passed the school. It was a winter morning, very cold, wet and slippery. Rodney boarded first, and reached back to give Timmy a hand up. Just as Timmy grabbed his wrist, he stumbled and somehow slipped under the train. Rodney heard the scream and jumped off the train. Timmy had fallen legs first, and the train had amputated both legs well above his knees. The next part of the story is the most incredulous, but once again supported by the newspaper article. Rodney knew he had to go for help, but that Timmy might die of blood loss. They were beside one of the ponds, and Rodney quickly fashioned a plan. He found a large stick and thrust it into the ground just inside the shore. He then dragged Timmy over to the pond, slid what was left of his bottom half into the half-frozen water and made him hold onto the stick. He took off his belt and wrapped it around Timmy's hands and the stick. He then made the eight minute trip back to his house to call an ambulance. Timmy survived, and Rodney was a hero of sorts.
That night, sitting on the couch listening to that story, was a turning point for me. I couldn't believe Rodney was still hopping trains, or that he was introducing new converts to that form of commuting. I then took a hard look at the rest of their life, and realized that no, it wasn't normal for 14 year olds to be doing drugs, and that I really didn't want to be in the environment. Luckily, my step-father got in trouble somehow, and we had to move. If we hadn't, I am sure I would not be here now writing this. I don't miss any of those friends, but I do think of that lone Black kid with the briefcase, praying desperately that he made it out, that he survived that treacherous place.
*Postscipt: Although I was only in Pontiac for six months or so, I did gain a notoriety of sorts. I came to school one day to find out that most all of the 900+ student body were looking for me. A local executive, Harvey Leach, had been found murdered (grusomely) in the woods behind our neighborhood. Somehow, it got out that I had found his body. It was rumored to be a mob hit, making it that much more sensational. It all died down after a week, particularly since I took no credit for it, but it was a strange week. Leach headed up a local discount furniture store known for its catchy commerical jingle. If you like, you can view it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljb0-08HW1g