Culture and language, or, “What does that mean?”

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

The other day, as I was taking a Swahili lesson, one of the women who works at the place I am staying at had a brief conversation with my teacher, Jeremiah. “Did you understand what she said?” he asked. I didn’t. I am at the point where I can catch a few words here and there, but following a conversation is very difficult as they move very quickly, and I am still building my vocabulary. She said “ninakuona na kaka yetu,” he told me. I puzzled out a translation, but I was still confused. “I see you with our brother,” I said, “what does that mean?” To Jeremiah it was very clear, but as he tried to explain it I was still very confused. “I know what it literally means,” I said, “but what does it actually mean – why did she say it? What is the cultural context for it?” And as he tried to explain further, I began to understand – what he was trying to communicate was something so imbedded in Tanzanian culture and the Swahili language that it couldn’t really be communicated in English. He could use some words that might approximate the ideas in English, but in the end to really understand I will have live among and with Tanzanians to have any hope of Intimately understanding language like this.

“Swahili is a social language,” Jeremiah said. What she was doing, he said, was recognizing our existence as part of a whole, as part of a community bigger than ourselves. It was a recognition of undugu, or togetherness/brotherhood. With that, I realized what she had said was a manifestation of something I have been interested in for a few years: different ways of understanding social communities and interpersonal relationships (refer to my post on ujamaa). I still don’t really understand how Tanzanians relate to each other, and the best I can do to describe it is to reiterate things I have read about how Tanzanians value social interactions and time spent together, but I hope that this will be the beginning of my journey to more intimately understanding Tanzanian culture, and the way in which Tanzanians relate to those around them.

Indeed, I realized that Tanzanians are especially unique because of the way in which they have come to believe in the national political community of Tanzania: Tanzanians are Tanzanians before they are members of whatever tribe or locality they are from. This is largely a product of Mwalimu Nyerere’s strategy of political unification in the years following Tanzanian independence, and this is rather unique in Africa. Indeed, my teacher Jeremiah suggested that tribal affiliations in Kenya are much stronger than they are in Tanzania, though both places are products of Swahili culture and language. Further, he suggested that Tanzanians tend not to fight about these affiliations in the way Kenyans do. Instead, regional differences become a joke – one person will mimic the accent of another, as if to say ‘you sound a little different than me, but we’re really the same.’ I look forward to learning more about these differences, and to learning more about Tanzanian culture as whole. It’s a good thing I’ll have plenty of time to do so, because I think I’ll need it!

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A dirty creek and its consequences

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

As promised, this post will continue to develop on one the issues that was brought up over the course of the bicycle tour I took last weekend. During the tour, we rode over a small creek that ran through two neighborhoods in Dar. The creek was squalid. There is no other way to describe it. The smell had wafted down the path towards us (a fragrant mix of decomposing things and human waste), and you could smell the creek far before you could see it. Unsurprisingly, the creek looked as disgusting as it smelled. It was a dark brown color, and the fetid water hardly flowed downstream as a result of all the trash: it was prime real estate for mosquitos that spread diseases like malaria (which kills around one child per second worldwide) and dengue fever. Since it was winter, the water level was relatively low, but apparently during the rainy season the water rises high enough to flood the houses on both side of the creek. Toilet holes mix with wells (which are close enough to each other to begin with that it would not surprise me if ‘mixing’ occurred before the rains begin) and the river, and houses flood as well. In short, the creek causes problems for the communities living next to it. It is a prime example of how environmental issues impact social ones. And, if our guide is to be believed much of this could be changed if the initiative was taken to develop community consensus about the state of the creek.

Unfortunately, that sounds easier than it is. Creeks flow from somewhere, and the state of the creek was not just a consequence of the communities living alongside it at the juncture I saw, but also up-creek, and presumably up-river as well. It is a prime example of what has become known as the tragedy of the commons – if a common resource is available to everyone, nobody has the incentive to do upkeep on that resource, and eventually the resource is destroyed. If the water was clean it could be used not only for drinking water, but it would also prevent the growth of mosquito colonies that grow in standing water. Additionally, during the rainy reason, flooding would not spread squalid water across the communities surrounding the creek, and kids wouldn’t be stuck playing near and in such a gross body of water.

However, because of the scale of the problem it presents some difficulty. It is far easier to give out mosquito nets to families than to stop mosquitos from breeding, but the latter strategy is far more effective. While mosquito nets are a great idea, and effective, if used correctly, there are some problems with their implementation. First, most of the nets that are distributed are too small, according to our guide. Typically families sleep together on one bed, and the nets that are given out are not large enough to cover the whole area, so families simply do not use them.

Second, the mosquito nets are by-in-large not made in Africa. Health issues like malaria are often seen in isolation from development, but they are intimately tied together. If you can promote development by employing workers to make mosquito nets, you can raise standards of living in the communities hit hardest by malaria and empower and educate the people in those communities to further prevent the spread of malaria. This also would reduce the cost of manufacturing and distributing the nets, following the initial investment in the required machinery and worker education. It’s easy to give Africans mosquito nets, but the only effect of the gift is that Africans now have mosquito nets. Nothing has been done to change the power-relations surrounding those nets. The truth of it is that there are economic interests at stake in the production and distribution of these nets: aid organizations, and their manufacturing partners specifically, have a vested interest in the way nets are distributed now.

Finally, mosquito nets don’t deal with the root of the problem (malarial mosquitos). If you can combat malarial mosquitos by cleaning squalid water and spraying in those areas where they are concentrated you are truly dealing with the root of the problem, instead of simply using a band-aid. The band-aid may always be necessary, but you can’t be under a mosquito net all the time. Indeed, at dusk, when mosquitos are out in numbers, nobody is under a mosquito net. Nets do help diminish mosquito populations, because they have less to feed on, but they are far from the solution to malaria. In short, it’s important to look at health and development issues from an interdisciplinary perspective if we are to hope to make forward progress in both fields simultaneously.

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That shirt looks awfully familiar

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

I spent today on a bike tour of some of the poorer neighborhoods in Dar es Salaam, and my next couple posts will relate to some of the things I saw today, as I try to connect them to my education and bigger ideas about the world. First though, I want to thank to thank the folks at Afri-Roots for providing such an excellent, socially conscious tour. They are doing really good work, and I wish them the best of luck. If you are ever in Tanzania I encourage you to look them up.

One of the things that the tour emphasized was the significance of Tanzanian’s transition from socialism in 1985, which I discussed briefly in one of the first posts in this blog, and will not  rehash in much depth here. The tour guide did not take a stance on the benefits or downsides of this transition, but over the course of the day he emphasized the myriad ways in which this transition has impacted the lives of ‘average’ Tanzanians. One of the major effects of the transition was rapid urbanization of Dar es Salaam, as people living in rural areas across Tanzania moved to the capitol in search of jobs and economic opportunity. During Tanzania’s socialist years, people were required to stay in their rural communities working, primarily, as sustenance farmers, but with the end of socialism many people saw economic potential in moving to Dar es Salaam. These people arrived in Dar to find that jobs were (largely) unavailable. As a result, they had to create their own jobs. They did this in many ways, one of which was by selling clothes.

During the socialist years, the clothes industry was dominated by local textiles. Prior to the 1970s, presumably, women in communities across the country produced and sold traditional clothing items. In the 1970s, as part of an effort to industrialize the country, state owned textiles mills were created across the country, specializing in the production of ‘traditional’ African fabrics, known as the kanga, kitengi, kikoi and shuka. These are sheet-style fabrics that are wrapped in various ways. However, with the transition to capitalism, a new source of clothing was developed. Second-hand clothing (unwanted items from places like the Salvation Army and Goodwill) from the US and Europe began to arrive in huge bundles on container ships. Unemployed people in Dar es Salaam sensed an opportunity to eek out a living, and a new industry developed around these second-hand clothing shipments.

Bundles of clothes were sold to these entrepreneurs, who then set up stores where they would sell these clothes en-mass to other entrepreneurs, who would sell these clothes item-by-item in poor markets. These clothes would be sorted through by other entrepreneurs, who would buy the best items to sell in their own smaller second-hang boutiques at higher prices to wealthier Tanzanians. Others bought these clothes or shoes to sell at mobile locations along the street, and still more people bought clothes in Dar to bring back to their communities across the country. And thus was born a new clothing industry. This story also answers the question of “why is that African child wearing a Hooters shirt?”

However, the rise of this new clothing industry proved fatal for the Tanzanian textile industry that had been developed over the course of the 1970s. People now had access to super-cheap clothes that were in in pretty decent shape, so they did not need to purchase traditional fabrics, and many of these textile factories were closed. Of course, these traditional fabrics are still sold across Tanzania, but most people now wear these second-hand clothes instead.

I am sure by now you are wondering whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This depends on who you ask, but for me the central issue comes down to one question: what is development? People disagree about this too, but in order for development to happen in a capitalist context local industry needs to develop. This industry needs to produce something, whether it be raw materials (of which Tanzania has few), or some kind of product. The capitalist clothing industry in Tanzania I have just described is neither: essentially it’s service based. While it provides many people in Tanzania with jobs, the amount of actual wealth-creation is very minimal.

PS: There is a rousing Olympic tennis match final on right now (at least if you’re British), and I hope this has not caused any significant mistakes to be made in the drafting of this post.

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The cost of living

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

Last night I spent 15,000 tsh on dinner, or nearly $10. In the United States this would have been a very reasonably priced meal, after factoring the cost of tax and tip. And yet, as I paid I couldn’t help but think to myself “man, that was expensive.” For the past 5 days I had eaten most of my meals at the YMCA hostel I was staying at. They were rarely over 4,000 tsh (about $3), and while the YMCA food wasn’t amazing, it was flavorful, filling, and the portions were gigantic. It was a popular lunch spot for (what I assume is) the Tanzanian middle class. Much the city could probably not afford to eat there on a regular basis (or at all), despite my perception about how cheap it was.

To put this in perspective a  bit, as soon as I walked outside the YMCA and into the city center I would receive calls of “texi, texi” (the Tanzanian word for taxi – guess what language it’s derived from), and as I continued to walk down the street I would see people maimed by polio begging for change, and people hocking their wares along the street. The same people were there every day, selling shoes, wallets, belts, sunglasses, phone chargers, pens, and so on. You name something you think people could pack and unpack every day to sell on the street, and it was being sold on the street. Even at my new hostel, outside of the city center, the first thing that greets you as you leave are calls of “texi, texi” or people selling cds, movies, and almost every kind of fruit you can imagine. It’s hard not to feel a little guilty about not taking people up on their offers. The profit margin on most of the goods and services they are selling has to be nail thin. Even at the “mzungu” (white person) price, people are not making much money.

For instance, I bought an orange for 200 tsh earlier. I’m not going to bother to do the math on how much that is in USD. I was so surprised that I didn’t even haggle with the guy. And, as it the Tanzanian custom, he peeled it with his knife on the spot. Prior to this, I had walked about 1-2 miles to the Msasani Slipway, a Western-style mall to buy a Swahili-English dictionary. I had waved off all the “texi, texi” calls on the way there, but as I left the mall, a bajibaji (3 wheeled motorized car with room for 2-3 passengers in back) driver called out to me. “Bei gani?” (how much?), I asked. 3,000 tsh, he responded. I knew that there was no way that was anything but the mzungu price, so I said “bei kubwa,” (the price is too high), and began my walk. He called me back, and said “2,000.” At this price, I could hardly refuse. I rifled through my pockets, only to discover that my smallest bill was 10,000 (this is also the largest bill). He couldn’t make change. “Samahani,” (sorry) I said, and showed him all my change. It amounted to 950 tsh. He said, “sawa,” (ok), and drove me back to the hostel. I asked my Swahili tutor later on how good the price was and he said that that was what he normally paid.

The point is simply that things are cheap here, and that people somehow manage to eek out livings on what Americans would see to be next to nothing, while I spend enough in a day to feed a family for a week (probably longer). And I live cheaply compared to many of the internationals who spend time in Tanzania (though not as cheaply as some, unfortunately. I would have preferred to stay at the YMCA for the duration of my stay, but I waited too long to make reservations and they were booked up). As I left, one of the older women who worked at the reception desk jokingly said, “stay one more night, it will be on the house.” If only the house could afford it. Everywhere at the YMCA people were working as hard or harder than their American counterparts, and yet I am sure many of them struggle to make ends meet.

In the end, I think the most important thing we can do is to try and keep our lives in perspective. Almost everyone I know lives a life of relative luxury compared to the rest of the world. We are the 1% when we compare levels of income on a global scale, and we should do our best not to forget that.

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Culture shock

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

I wrote this post yesterday, and am posting it a day later, just for context. Things are going well!

It is amazing how much a few little things can change everything. Those of you who know me know that I am prone to stress out about the little things. This tendency, combined with culture shock, is not a great combination. Yesterday I looked out the window I am sitting next to with a great deal of nervous anticipation. I had to go buy a phone, change some money, and make a withdrawal from the ATM (400,000 tsh, or about $250 dollars). And, I had just switched rooms, so all my bags were sitting in my new room as one of the maids cleaned. I checked my bag of valuables at reception, but I was still nervous about them on top of the tasks at hand. Indeed, a note on the inside of all the doors reads, “WE ADVISED TO HANDOVER THE CASH AND VALUABLES TO THE RECEPTIONIST AND ISSUED WITH A RECEIPT,” which some kind soul has corrected by crossing out some letters, and adding in some words, to “WE ADVISE TO HANDOVER ALL CASH AND VALUABLES TO THE RECEPTIONIST AND OBTAIN A RECEIPT.” Still not quite right, but it’s a start I guess. Anyway, back to the point, which is that I was feeling a lot of nervous anticipation about the upcoming day. Despite my fears, everything went more or less okay, though as I prepared to go to bed I could not help but to worry about my accommodations: I was only able to make a reservation at the YMCA for a week, which left another two weeks of accommodation to figure out.

As a result, I slept quite poorly, which I was pretty bummed about because I had hardly slept at all over the past 50 hours. However, after breakfast, a cup of tea, and making reservations at another hotel I feel quite at ease, and no longer quite so tired. Talk to me at 8pm tonight, after I finish a two hour Kiswahili lesson, and I may be telling a different story. Unfortunately, winter (it is winter in Dar es Salaam despite the fact that the temperature is in the 80s and it is quite humid) is the the busy time of year for hostels/hotels, and many of them are completely booked. So, I went a little outside my price range. On July 30th, I will be moving a bit north of in the city to the Msasani Peninsula, which is apparently much quieter (the city has a lot of ‘ambient’ noise), and [unfortunately] rather more expensive. This is all a little beside the point though – what I really want to write about is what culture shock feels like, but I am getting caught up in the details of life that provoke culture shock.

The best way I can think to describe culture shock is to compare it to being stranded on the beach after the tide has come in. You can’t leave because the way you came in is now blocked by crashing waves. In fact, the tide has come in so far that you even begin to worry that it will wash over you and carry you out to sea. So, you have to wait it out, even though your anxiety is pushing you to the brink. Eventually, the tide begins to go back out, leaving you free to explore the beach, but there is no doubt that the tide will come back in again. Maybe not so far as it did the first time, but nonetheless, you will begin to feel that same sense of nervous anticipation, until, like the tides, it begin to diminish again.

A packet I got from WorldTeach describes a curve of cultural adjustment where first your level of ‘comfort and satisfaction’ are high, but at time goes  on you develop frustration and annoyance with everyday difference (culture shock). Then, you make surface adjustments and begin to feel comfortable again, before you confront deeper cultural and personal issues, which again leads to culture shock, and eventually down a path of assimilation. Indeed, the packet suggests that individuals will probably go through a miniature curve of cultural adjustment every day. After a day and a half here, I think that is probably true.  There is one important thing to say about all this – the lows are awful, but getting over them is the best feeling in the world. I expect that I will begin to feel the lows again over the next couple days, but having had this brief recovery from a rough day and night is simply a fantastic feeling, and I feel like a stronger person as a result.

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Packing & Possessions

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

As I look around my nearly-empty room, it is evident that I am about to begin a new stage of my life. I have not slept so many consecutive nights on the floor since I prepared to go to college by getting rid of everything I could not take, minus a couple boxes of things I was able to pawn off on my dad. Five years later, with the accrual of many more possessions, I have had to yet again get rid of anything I can, so that I do not put too many things that I will not need in storage. Since I do not know what the upcoming years will hold for me, I want to be as mobile as  possible. And, since I do not have a “childhood bedroom” (both my parents rent), I had either get rid of a lot of stuff, or spend money on a large storage unit. The choice was pretty obvious, though it has made me regret purchasing some of the things I have purchased over the last 5 years.

The breadmaker I got for $30 a few years ago, used consistently for a year, and then largely ignored until a few weeks ago when I dug up all my bread-making ingredients to make another loaf of delicious bread, will probably have to go. I cant very well put a bunch of semi-perishables in storage, and without all the raw materials, starting to make bread again will be an investment I might not want to make. The same goes for the jars and bottles I bought for $30 to make and store kombucha. And what about my gigantic cast iron pan that is simply perfect for making latkes or fried chicken? As you can see, the side of me that loves baking, brewing, and cooking (and the appliances that make it easier) is full of sadness as I try to pair down my collection of cooking tool. Still, I wonder how many of these things I will actually miss.

Hopefully I will pack everything I need, and get rid of everything I won’t need in the future. So many people, myself included, own so many extraneous things that I think it is useful and necessary to do this kind of culling, not only to remind ourselves that so many of the things we spend money on are not that important, but to look through the stuff we have and remember the things that are actually important to us. I like my breadmaker, but it’s nowhere near as important as the childhood book I hope to someday read to my unborn children. Well, to be honest I don’t need either, but there’s something about having possessions that is very alluring.

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Convenience

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

As Americans we are (largely) used to one of the highest standards of living in the world. Something like the wealthiest 20% (or less) of people in the world use 80% of the resources, leaving the other 80% using 20% of the world’s resources. Most Americans live in houses with running water, electricity, gas, the internet, and so on.  These utilities, as we call them, allow us to heat and cool our food in many different ways, take hot (or cold) showers, wash our clothes, flush our excrement (with drinkable water!) and occupy our free time. When our utilities fail, as they sometimes do, we experience a shock to our system. We flip light switches expecting the lights to turn on, and are met with darkness. We try to microwave food, before realizing that we are not only releasing the last of the precious cold air from the refrigerator, but are also completely unable to heat food without electricity. These moments can be embraced after the initial shock wears off, but they can also be very trying if we are unprepared for life without these conveniences.

Indeed, one of the best days I had in college was a day that my house lost power. My roomates and I spent the day outside, and as it got dark we lit candles, set up a barbecue, and cooked all the food we thought would go bad in the fridge. Many people (myself included) voluntarily give up these modern conveniences for a few days to go camping in the backcountry. In fact, I recently returned from such a trip on the coast of the Olympic National Park. These backpacking experiences, which I greatly enjoy, bring one closer to living a life without these conveniences, but the irony of them is that we acquire all kinds of gear to make these trips easier on ourselves: a stove that can boil 2 cups of water in 3 minutes, a backpack designed specifically to distribute weight evenly, a tent that can be set up in 5 minutes by one person.

My experiences without the conveniences of modern life make me simultaneously excited and nervous about the next 10 months. In all probability I will live in a house without running water, and only occasional electricity. I will have to cook my food on charcoal heat, and I will be unable to refrigerate it. I will shower using a bucket, and will wash my clothes by hand. I will not have constant access to the internet. I am excited because it will give me a genuine chance to experience a life that is not defined by modern convenience, even though my standard of living will still be far higher than most Tanzanians. At the same time. I am nervous because my whole life has been defined by convenience, and I am sure that my life next year will take some getting used to. Still, I am not so much nervous as dying to get on that plane in 10 days. See you soon, Tanzania.

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Finalized plans and a few notes on Swahili

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

My departure plans have been finalized. I will be flying out of Sea-Tac at 6:00 am on June 22nd, and arriving in Dar es Salaam a couple days later at 3:45 am on June 24th. The rest of the WorldTeach Tanzania volunteers won’t be arriving until August 14th, but, since it made a lot more sense financially to travel independently, I opted to arrive early. I think I will spend those few weeks in and around Dar taking language classes and exploring a bit.

I have found it very difficult to study Swahli independently. While I have acquired some excellent resources, and am beginning to learn some vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar structure, it is very difficult to retain it without using it on a regular basis. This is something I will have to remember when I am teaching students English later this year.

Despite my difficulties remembering vocabulary, I have found myself particularly interested in the actual linguistic structure of Swahili. Like other Bantu languages, nouns are grouped in classes with specific prefixes for noting singular or plural nouns. These classes also seem to correlate to the type of noun as well. For instance, the M-WA class is mainly comprised of words for people. Nouns that start with m- in this class are singular, while words that start with wa- are plural. or instance, mtu means “a person,” while watu means “people.” Nouns are then modified with adjectives by attaching the same prefix to the word. For instance, I could use the adjective -dogo (small) to modify mtu by adding a m, like so: “mtu mdogo” (small person). I am pretty sure there are 18 noun classes total.

I would like to be reasonably proficient in Swahili by the time I am done, so there’s a lot of language learning left to be done!

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Being sick

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

It’s been some time since my last post, which has largely been the result of me not having enough of a significant strand of coherent ideas on the same topic (and also laziness). However, yesterday I was really sick and it got me thinking: how am I going to handle illness while I am in Tanzania? I can’t help but think that the first time I start to feel ill I will worry that I have malaria, even though I will be taking antimalarial medication. My cold symptoms were a fever, chills, a headache, sweats, fatigue, and some muscle pain, all of which are also symptoms of malaria.

One of the luxuries of living in not only a temperate zone, but also in a country as rich as the United States is that most contractible diseases are relatively harmless, and/or easily treated. Malaria is not relatively harmless, but it is easily prevented and treated, which makes the fact that in 2010 around 655,000 people died from malaria especially tragic. Most of these deaths, says the  World Health Organization, “occur among children living in Africa where a child dies every minute from malaria.” This is because children have not been able to build up any resistance to malaria – most adults who have been exposed to malaria over the course of their lifetimes have developed a degree of resistance to the disease, and when they do contract it, it is easily and cheaply treated.

Basically, getting sick is an unpleasant enough experience in the comfort of American life, and I am not altogether looking forward to getting sick in Tanzania, where my standard of living will be considerably lower. That said, I am still excitedly counting the days until I leave. Being sick makes it much easier to appreciate not being sick, and I am feeling awfully good about being healthy right now.

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Some thoughts on fundraising

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Alexander Rolnick

One of the things I have struggled with as I prepare to leave for Tanzania is fundraising. On the one hand, I would love to raise money for this trip, but at the same time I feel extremely uncomfortable asking people for money, even though I believe that this is one of  the more positive ways  an individual could impact lives in Africa.

Why do I feel uncomfortable asking people for money? I feel uncomfortable because it makes me feel incredibly self interested, even though I will effectively spend 10 months in Africa as an unpaid volunteer. I feel self-interested because while I am motivated by a genuine desire to do good in the world – to work to make a difference in the world  – I would not be doing this project if it didn’t align with my life goals. I feel self-interested because I would fund this commitment by myself if nobody wanted to donate to it. I feel self-interested because ultimately any money that I raise will go directly to funding the costs associated with me volunteering in Tanzania.

Despite having these feelings, I know intellectually that I am wrong. Every non-governmental organization (NGO) I am familiar with has a budget. They must fundraise, not only so that they are able to do good in the world, but also so that the people who work at NGOs can feed their families. And, without getting into too much of a discussion about the the many failures of NGOs around the world, WorldTeach‘s model for service is relatively sustainable, and is based on local needs. Unlike, to take an example from the recent press, Invisible Children, WorldTeach’s budget is largely devoted to program expenses, and it develops partnerships with governments and schools to assess need, allowing a degree of local ownership over the role teachers like myself play. By adopting a volunteer-based model, WorldTeach actually allows its volunteers to be active advocates for an important cause across the world – education. Some volunteers do this better than others (evidence: a fellow 2012-13 volunteer’s fundraising website).

I am not entirely (at all?) comfortable in this role, despite the fact that I do believe this a worthy cause to give to. While I believe that raising awareness is extremely important, I have doubts about how effectively and accurately fundraising drives can do this (see, again, Invisible Children – I will have to make a post about this later on or this will entirely derail this post). Beyond this, I simply have too many doubts about the role of NGOs in development.

To date, I have fundraised only $100 of my $5,990 commitment. The $4,290 I have already paid is the result of somewhere over 350 hours of working in a restaurant this past year. This leaves $1,600 more that I need to raise, or over three full paychecks. My boss has generously agreed to host a fundraiser for me at work next month, and I hope to raise some more money there, but to be honest I don’t want to put a ton of effort into raising money for a project that is mostly about me (though, obviously, the effects of a donation radiate far beyond me).

Still, if you decide that you’d like to forfeit your next coffee at Starbucks, or the new shoes you’ve been looking at, I would greatly appreciate your contribution. You can make a donation before May 31 by going to the WorldTeach website, and clicking the red
‘Donate/Pay’ button on the top right. Make sure you choose‘Contribution to Volunteer Fee’ and put my name (Alexander Rolnick) in the ‘WorldTeach Volunteer’ box. All donations are tax deductible, and WorldTeach will mail you a receipt.

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