It's a Hard Knock Life for Them

They have all had very rough lives in their short time here on earth. They've been sexually, mentally, and emotionally abused. Many became orphans before the age of 10 causing them live on the streets or  couch surf for weeks/months on end. Some were thrown into prostitution before the age of 15. They have walls up. Even the girls that have been here for 6 years still struggle daily. They have seen so many people come and go that they don't warm up to nearly anyone. And why would they? I am here for 6 months and I am no different than everyone else that has come through. I'm here and I, too, will leave them. I'm 7.5 weeks in and they are JUUUUSST now warming up to me. During 'guest season' in the summer these girls have 100 volunteers a year. They meet 100 new people a year that come for 5-10 days. These girls are ice cold. and who can blame them?

It reminds me of a short 2 minute video I just saw on a friends facebook this morning. 

Click below to watch...

Are you Happy and in Love? Here's why that makes you so sad. 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling a bit lonely and neglected over here. It's so hard to comprehend how they're feeling. And selfishly I want to be wanted and needed and I feel hurt by them but don't i remember how it feels to be hurt by someone close to me? don't i remember putting a wall up and not letting anyone close for years after that? 

I want the girls to be so thrilled that I am here and I want them to love me, but like in the video above... Maybe they are already sad because even though I am here now... they know whats coming. 

I will leave. 

Africa Is Not For Sissies

Reasons you should live in Africa...

 If you:

- don't enjoy air conditioning

- like slugs in your sink at night

- like ants crawling on your food

- like spiders/snakes/bugs/creepy crawlers of all sorts in every room of the house including your shower 

- don't enjoy your blood and want to share it with mosquitos

- want to kill bugs on the screen of your laptop while staying up at night to blog bc the generator is only on for a couple more hours
- don't mind not having power, because said generator broke

- don't get hot sleeping at night

- want to tuck a mosquito net around your bed every night

- like to step on lizard poop in your house

- want a snake skin hanging in your bedroom

- don't need fast internet EVER
- like being primitive

- aren't scared of ABD’s (African Brown Dogs)

- aren't racist

- want to be a Mzungu

- don't want to get in the lake and would rather just look at it (Unless of course you like brain eating amoeba)

- want to meet a lamb or cow, befriend it, love it, then witness it being slaughtered

You should also live in Africa if you:

- like adventure

- want to see the most amazing night skies/sunsets/sunrises of your life

- want to meet people who truly exemplify “salt of the earth”

- want to meet people who know what humility really means

- like the warmth of the sunshine

- like seeing smiling beautiful children

- like fresh tropical fruit

- like eating the worlds largest avocados

- like learning new languages

- like running and playing soccer with really ridiculously cute kids
- want to meet people with a similar passion for kids and helping alleviate poverty

Listen, heres the deal... A good majority of that stuff was me being a bit sarcastic... If you didn't notice. But for real... as my good friend Jacques says, "Africa is not for sissies."

Well, because... Life in Africa is hard.

But couldn't life in America be hard? or life in Asia? or life in Antarctica?

Is it hard for me? Not really. Not if I'm being honest with myself.

and maybe its not that life in Africa is hard, but that a life of poverty is hard.

I am so spoiled.

Everything is so easy back home in my nice little life in beautiful San Diego, California. I want to go to the store? I get in a car and drive 5 minutes down the road to get all the things I need from one place. (Target, duh!) I want to listen to music? I stream pandora through my tv. I want to watch movies? I want to use my computer for more than 2 hours without it dying and then not having electricity to charge it? I want to FaceTime my friends or family on the other side of the country? I want to run to In and Out for a burger and fries? I want to do pretty much anything... I can do it without much stress. The biggest "problems" I have while being in America are probably dealing with traffic, long red lights, long lines in the store, slow servers, cable going out, food being cold, ignorant people...

I mean, do you hear me?

Almost everything I complain about at home is impatience. and everything is a convenience. A convenience that people in Africa and almost everywhere else in the world know nothing of. It took me 10 minutes to even remember things I complain about when I'm back home, because it seems so silly that I would ever complain about anything. I mean seriously? Think about your life... What do you have to complain about? Your boss is a jerk. Your iPhone is cracked. Your car ran out of gas. Your boyfriend won't do the dishes.

Now, I'm not saying these aren't things to be upset about. I'm just saying... Lets look at the bigger picture. and try not to sweat the small stuff. and isn't almost all of it SMALL stuff??

Even here... Right here in Kitongo, Mwanza, Tanzania. Isn't it still small stuff?

I complain about not having electricity, hot water, a comfortable bed, a fan to keep me cool at night, a microwave, a washer and dryer, among other American conveniences.

Here at JBFC we are transitioning to solar power, but still working out the kinks, so sometimes it works and sometimes we have no power for days. I complain about having to walk to the school 1/2 a mile away to plug in my Mac Laptop and my iPhone to charge. I complain about the ice cold showers. I complain about sweating in my bed under my mosquito net in my private bedroom in the guesthouse at night. I complain about having to use the gas stove and oven and lighting it with a match and always almost blowing up the house when I have to warm up my food. I complain about doing my laundry in the heat of the day outside with buckets and detergent and water from a hose and hanging my clothes to dry.

#firstworldproblems to the max.

So even here, I have to remind myself that I STILL live a very cushy life. Although its tin and so loud when it rains that I cant sleep, I have a roof over my head, and although my mattress is made of foam and I sink to the bottom and always roll to the middle, I have a bed to sleep in, and although the water is cold, green, and smelly lake water, I have running water. Life is good.

But how about the life of poverty outside this cushy world I live in?

How about real life problems... illness, disease, lack of hygiene, lack of knowledge, science, and technogology that saves lives, HIV AIDS, Malaria, starving children, 18 month old babies dying in Tanzania and not ever knowing why they were "just sick" their whole very very short life, kids walking miles barefoot in sweltering heat, child prostitution, no running water... and the list goes on and on.

Thats heavy stuff. Thats real stuff.

And even though I'm right here in Africa I still feel so far away from that.

It's happening all around me. I can't fathom dealing with problems like those. I'm still spoiled. I'm still sheltered from the real reasons why Africa is not for sissies.

Africa isn't not for sissies because I have a foam mattress and cold water. Boo hoo.

Living a life of poverty is not for sissies. No matter where in the world you are.

Women that walk miles to a community water pump at 6am and then carry jugs of water on their head back to their families every day. They are not sissies.

Men that walk cows for 4 days over night, a distance that would take 12 hours in a car from Mwanza to Arusha are not sissies.

Kids that wake up and work the streets all day selling anything they can, including their bodies, to help feed their parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins are not sissies.

Orphans that couch surf after their parents die and just live to survive are not sissies.

Cleaning up after wealthy wazungu every day of your life and being treated like you are the help living in Jackson, Mississippi in the year 1960 is not for sissies.

I started writing this blog with the idea that I would discuss why Africa is not for sissies and how life here is hard and tell all about my experience, and then I realized that I have never lived a hard life. I have never known a hard life. and that no matter where I travel I will still never know a hard life, like those that are poverty stricken.

Forget Africa not being for sissies...

The real issue here is that poverty is not for sissies.

Ready

Imagine someone came to visit you from a far off land, one you had never and would never have the opportunity to visit. All you’ve heard of this far off land is that it is much better in every way than where you come from. Only the luckiest of people from your home will ever travel to these far off lands and you would be so blessed to hear first hand stories of the land of the free and home of the brave. Now imagine that this person said something to the extent of… “I suppose I’ll leave this place you call home whenever I’m ready to go back to the greatest place on earth and leave you in the dust.”

That is essentially what I did. On my first day. In my first hour of arriving.

The conversation went a bit like this…

Eva (Who, need I remind you, was vomiting and very ill with Malaria when I arrived): How long will you be at JBFC? ((Janada Batchelor Foundation for Children: www.jbfc-online.org))

Elisa: Mmmm… About 6 months total. I’ll leave at the end of December for a month to travel with a friend and then I plan to spend a few more months at JBFC before returning to the states. I may or may not travel for another month of the end of the trip. Just depends… I may just be “READY” to go home.

There it is. There’s that word. Ready.

Eva: Ummm… ??? Oh. You mean. You might be READY to go home because my home is so different and not so cushy as your home and you might be over it and READY to return to your perfect little life? Oh I understand… Ya. Peace out Africa. That must be nice. To just leave whenever you are READY.

Okay, so Eva didn’t say that. But she should have. And she should have slapped me across the face, too. But she didn’t do that either. Maybe Eva didn’t even notice because she is the assistant guest coordinator. Maybe she is so used to people coming and going and leaving when they are “ready”. But holy insert foot in mouth batman.

Its been 34 days since I said that to Eva and not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought of that moronic comment I made and felt guilty about it. Every moment I cringe over a snake skin in my bedroom, a lizard in the shower, a slug on my ceiling, a spider in my living room, a mouse in the oven, the heat of the day, the smelly green lake water in the shower, or the slaughtering of the weekend feast I remember that this is home. This is home to a lot of people. They’re not READY to leave because they don’t want to leave.

Barcelona on a budget

Sunday morning I woke up and with the help of my new friend, Allasia, ventured to my hostel. Goodbye fancy living. It’s back to the slums for us.

Okay, not the slums. But I did pick the cheapest hostel in El Born… 16 Euros a night on the weekends and 11/12 Euros during the week. Not bad. Equity Point Gothic was the name. and little did I know… I was in for a good time.

I moved into a 14 bed coed dorm… Room 205. The sweet spot.

I had no idea how long I would be staying in Barcelona…. Maybe a few days, maybe a month. So I decided to pay for a 3 nights and feel it out.

After an easy day of walking around and brunch with Allasia, I headed back to the hostel to see if I could make some friends. I know how hostels work. Everyone pre-games in the common area before going out so I thought Id scope the place and see how I felt…

I took my laptop down and started checking email and getting caught up now that I was out of Africa.

I squeezed in at the only spot there was hardly room at in the middle picnic table surrounded by about 10 german guys. They were all speaking german and looking me up and down and talking about my tattoos etc etc. I was fresh meat. Oh dear. Is this how hostels in spain are gonna be? I was over it. I was texting my new friend, Allasia on whatsapp telling her all about the happenings in the hostel.

I was just about to pack up my things when finally someone came in and started talking TO ME. Not at me. In a language I knew.

Julian, from Germany also. Whats with the germans? But he was nice. And funny. And convinced me to put the computer away and join the group that was going out for the night.

I went up to my room about 4 times and kept changing my mind. I didn’t know if I was up to go out. Everyone had already been drinking and making friends. I was the newbie. And I was dead sober. And on a budget.

Julian had to stay in to babysit some drunk friends with an early flight the next am so I was really on the verge of bailing.

But something told me to go at the last minute so I caught the group and we headed into the Gothic.

The night was random, the bars were dead, but my new friends were the shit.

I met the frenchies that first night. Oooo the frenchies… Max, Charlie, and Nick are from Paris and theyre probably the only reason I’ll visit paris now… well to see them and the Eiffel tower I suppose.

Our crew developed quickly. Magic Mike, who’s Russian but lives in Philly now. Jonas from Munich, Germany. The Frenchies. And Me (Beefy). We were the originals. Our crew grew and shrunk with every day in the hostel. The best days were of course when we were one big family with the german girls whose names I never could remember, Katie and Chelsey from Manchester, Roman and Stephen from California!, and of course our friends we made that work at the hostel or in bars around town. We had the best hostel crew ever. We would wake up around 1pm, meet up and discuss plans for the day and night. Which was always pretty much the same. Beach at 4pm. Champagnaria (Champagne area as the frenchies called it). Hostel to clean up and play card games, we made up rules for as we went, and then out into the gothic, el born, wherever the wind blew us. Although the wind did blow us in the same direction most nights, there were also the nights we ended up at some pretty wild clubs. I was convinced that Jamboree was everyone who had never been to California’s idea of what a club in California is like. Early 2000’s hip hop and the craziest light show I’ve ever seen. But that was tame compared to the 5 story madness with tons of different djs and different music in each room at Razzmatazz.

Most nights turned into mornings. 3am/6am/7am… But you always have to remember… We were living the Spaniard way. Up for a bit. Then siesta in the afternoon. Then up all night. We made bets who would stay up for breakfast at 8. I would have lost a lot of money if we had to pay out on those bets every day. I made it to breakfast once at Equity Point Gothic and it was after sleeping for about an hour first. I showed my face, drank about a gallon of OJ and went back to bed.

Oh and then of course there was the night I was telling my poor sweet AND very sober roommates to “STOP YELLING AT ME”.

Me oh my.

I can definitely say Barcelona lasted so long because of the friends I made.

But I can also say life in Barcelona was not real life at all. Living in a hostel like that never is.

After 2 weeks, I was exhausted. The partying stopped (Thank God) after the frenchies left. It was just Jonas and I. Besties in Barcelona. Allasia joined us, too. We would go to the beach, sightseeing, lunch, dinner, ice cream, hikes. Things were calming down, but Spain was still needing to come to an end.

I was starting to feel worthless. I needed to get on with the trip. The reason for the season, if you will.

Time to go back to Africa. Time to help some kiddos. Time to make a difference in the world. Time to quit screwin around.

Barcelona with Brudder

 One night in this fancy airbnb apartment could have afforded me about 3 more days of eating and sleeping in Chefchaouen. But I wasn’t going to be a debby downer. This place was nice. And I was excited to let my brother show me around.

I was already blown away at the architecture and it 10pm. I couldn’t wait to see it in the daylight.

We dropped our bags, freshened up and headed out for the evening. It was a Friday night in El Born and our balcony overlooked the center. We had to get out for some grub and a glass of vino of course.

After some salmon tar tar, a plate of ham, and a small bowl of green olives with our wine, we ventured to another bar and checked out the scene. We ended up calling it a night pretty early. We were exhausted from our long day of travel.

The night day I woke up late only to realize B had already gone to his favorite café. Alsur Café El Born… I put myself together and joined him there. We rented bikes and rode all over town. We had a big brunch at Picnic. (Breakfast was as much as one day in Chefchaouen) I know know… We are in Europe now, but it was hard not to compare everything we paid for to how far it would get us in Chefchaouen.

But for real… It was such a fun day. We were biking up to North Barcelona when it started POURINGGG cats and dogs. We stopped for a Sangria, because in Spain.. That’s what you do. You go somewhere. Then stop for a drink. Then walk/bike a bit. Then stop for a drink. At this rate, I was not going to make it to dinner. By the 3^rd stop, I opted for green tea instead of a cocktail.

We were going to let the rain pass before we continued, but after a while we realized… This rain wasn’t letting up. We biked as fast as we could back down to our neighborhood. Laughing the whole way. We were drenched!

We returned the bikes and stayed out in the rain for a bit longer. We weren’t melting.

B realized he was needed back in Cali and his place wasn’t being rented anymore, so we he was going to leave the next day. We went to check out some hostels so I knew where I was going the next day after he left. I decided I needed more time in Barcelona so I would hang out for a while even though he was heading back to the US.

That night we met up with a mutual friend we knew that was living in Barcelona. I was excited to have someone I would know while I spent some time there. We went to have drinks and spent most of the evening hating on our mutual friend (all in good fun, of course) We love you, Piercey. ;)

B and I said our “I love you”s and “adios pinche”s that night and headed to bed knowing he had an early flight to catch and I wouldn’t see him before he left.

It was a great 9 days. I’ll never forget the time we traveled through Morocco and over to Europe together.

Chefchaouen

 We were only supposed to stay 1 night. We had a good time in Marrakech, but we had seen all we needed to see in Morocco. Or so we thought. We got in late at night… a couple boys about 10-12 years old helped us carry our bags once the taxi couldn’t go any further down the narrow blue alleys of the village. We gave them 20 dirham to share and they didn’t argue. When we got to the hostel, the man running the place was high as a kite. Glassy eyes. Cool, calm, and collected. He gave us a key to our double room with two twin beds against one wall with the foot of our beds touching and a little bathroom with a shower. It was all we needed. It was more than we needed. And we were paying 200 Dirham a night… 100/person. (About $12/person) We were laughing our butts off at the place already. We had a good feeling about Chefchaouen…

We were still thinking we would spend one night and leave late the next evening to drive to Tangier and catch a flight to Barcelona. My brother convinced me while I was so close it was something I needed to see. A photographer’s dream. He told me how much he had enjoyed his time there and all about his favorite places so we looked up flights and booked it that evening.

After we got settled in we went to the roof terrace to check out the view and that’s when we met Abdel Jabar. He and his friends were up there having some avocado shakes and chatting about the day. I think they were enjoying some of what the land had to offer as well. They told us all about the Akchour Waterfalls and everything we needed to know/do/see in “Chaouen”. How much to pay the taxis, guides, etc. And that we would definitely need a guide to take us to the waterfall. He wasn’t kidding. 

Abdel Jabar also told us about a place called Sofia’s to eat...The next morning we woke up and started the search through the blue colored walls trying to find Sofias, but we had not been able to find it in the morning for breakfast so we fell upon Munir’s Café instead. And boy, were we glad. Steak, eggs, tomatoes, mint tea. I was a happy camper. And brother, too. And hes the hard one to please ;)

Then we took a petit taxi to the grand taxis where we found another guy going to the waterfalls from Rabat. We decided to split the cab between the 3 of us instead of waiting for 3 more plus the driver to fill it. after 45 minutes winding through the riff mountains, we were at the bottom of the mountain we needed to hike to get to Akchour. We joined forces with Rabat and thought maybe we didn’t need a guide after all… about 5 minutes in we realized we had no idea where we were going. This was no straight shot. Back down to the bottom we went to find ourselves a guide. 50 dirham from the other guy, and 50 dirham for my brother and I. unbeknownst to me, Rabat told the guide to get us up to the big waterfall and as fast as he could. We had been told the hike would be 2-3 hours. After a lot of sweat, blood, and tears (okay, I’m being dramatic), but there was a fair share of yelling, pushing, pulling, sweating, and wanting to quit… We made it… And it. Was. So. Worth it. 

oh and I didn’t go all that way not to get in this damn water… Even though once I sat down for a few minutes I was cold from the breeze of the falls. I had to do it. Id kick myself later if I didn’t. I stood up on the ledge… Braced myself for the cold, Held my breath. And Jumped!  IT WAS SOOO COLD. About 5* Celsius. BRRRRR. My brother took a few pictures before I jumped in, but when I got out and dried off I realized I didn’t take any pictures of me INNNN the water… So back in I went. I screamed like a little girl this time… Knowing what was coming. Ice Cold… But it was cool and refreshing. I felt so good and so proud of myself for hiking up there. And for jumping in the water. And even though I wanted to punch my brother in the jaw for hiking up on my heels and yelling in my ear “GO! FASTER! CMON!!!” more than half the way up… I was so glad he was there. 

We sat to have our first Tajine in Morocco… and boy was it delicious. The veggies were cooked to perfection. I barely even noticed there was chicken in the pot. We chowed. Going back down was much more enjoyable. We talked, I took pictures, we took our time, and enjoyed the beauty around us. B was so disturbed by all the trash. People come to enjoy the park, but they don’t care about anyone else getting to enjoy it. They leave it in shambles. Who knows what the place will look like in 5, 10, 15 years from now. It was so sad how people left their camp grounds.

We got back into town and were desperate for showers and a nap. And honestly, we both would have enjoyed a Hamam ((Read Marrakech by day, if you dare)), but in Chefchaouen the girls can go to the Hamam in the am and boys in the pm or maybe vice versa. But either way, we couldnt go at the same time, so we opted out. How selfless of us.

When we got to the room B checked the status of our flight to Barcelona… We still had a chance to cancel for 100% refund. Flight was canceled. We planned to book again the next day.

That night we found Sofia’s and it was right under our nose all along. We ordered about 100 Dirham ($12) worth of food and it was way too much. We over ate, but it was delicious, we said Hasta Manana to Lucia, the restaurant owner, when we left. We knew we weren’t leaving just quite yet. The next day we wanted to go to the beach. We were pretty sure that was all there was left to do in Chefchaouen. We took a petit taxi to the grand taxi and ventured to Oued Lao Beach squeezed in a 1989 Vintage Mercedes with 5 other people in the car including the driver. We got to the beach and it was quite a disappointment. I definitely take for granted all the beautiful and CLEAN beaches I’ve seen in my life. Oued Lao was covered in trash. It didn’t help that it rained the day before so the rivene right in the middle of town was spitting out off the nasty water right in front of the beach.

We spent a couple hours there, enjoyed some kefta tajine, walked around through the market, bought some fresh fruit, then headed back to Chefchaouen crammed in the backseat of the Mercedes with 5 strangers.

Although the beach day was somewhat of a bust, we still hadn’t had enough of Chefchaouen. We wanted to enjoy the village a while longer. The next day we arranged to have a guide take us to the other side of the mountain to the plantations. Not before having breakfast at Munir’s café, of course.

We ventured over the mountain, both of us with shin splints from the hike two days prior, but were promised this was an easy one. The view from this side of the mountain was spectacular. We could see the entire blue city. Blue is such a peaceful color isn’t it?

Another peaceful color we came across was green.

Lots.  Of.  Green.

Apparently a big reason why the people in Chefchaouen are so much more peaceful than the people in say…. Marrakech has a lot to do with the GREEN.

(im speaking of marijuana)

We were skipping through fields of green. There were horses carrying freshly cut marijuana on blankets over their back. There were women carrying pounds and pounds of marijuana on their back. It was a sight. Marijuana as far as you could see.

Do you get the picture?

If not… Head to my flickr page to get a better idea.

Flickr.com/photos/bmasso

Life was good in Chefchaouen. Simple.

We had a routine.

Breakfast at Munir’s Cafe in the plaza. Lunch was a protein shake from the smoothie shack in the alley by our hostel. And Dinner at Sofia’s. Days were filled with hikes, adventures, the medina, and playing with the kids in town. We were happy. We like routine. Conversations consisted of jokes that we’ll leave tomorrow. And we would be saying that for 6 months to come. We were laughing til we nearly peed our pants every night at dinner. I think Lucia at Sofia’s thought we were taking to the Chefchaouen way and smoking the green. Nope. Just brother n sister. Living the good life in Morocco.

Our daily budget including our hostel, all 3 meals, and the occasional taxi to anywhere new was averaging at $44 USD/day per person. Why would we ever leave? We could live there forever for $1300/month or less once we started cooking our own meals. And if we moved into an apartment it would be even cheaper/monthly than the hostel at $12/night per person. We laughed, and talked, and day dreamed about our lives in Chefchaouen forever. We checked airbnb and where we would live and how we would get involved at the school on the mountain. Live off the land. Happy and Simple.

But after day 6 we decided it was time for a new adventure.

I think we could have both stayed there forever.