The unrequested opinion (for some reason)

So here's the malady: apparently Maria has ended up as a recipient of ostracizing. How did she do this, you ask? So a new guy arrives, let's call him Richard Move, and within a week Maria gets "who the fuck cares!" yelled at her. After an apology, things could have been fine. On Dick's second week, though, while getting a ride back from Karatu, drunk Dick spends a lot of time necking and loudly cursing in a land-rover packed with the teachers that we work with at Gyetighi. She and I both warn him about language, as most of the teachers know English, and the particular teacher that Maria works with at kindergarten had her kid on her lap as the fuck word was dropped yet again.

Dick's feelings were hurt because he was embarrassed. I have apparently been forgiven. But that witch, Maria, who rightly corrected a car full of drunk wazungu has not been forgiven. Apparently, the group consensus is that she has brought this on herself, because the day after being humongous jackasses, she didn't respond to their hello's in a satisfactory manner. Because we should all ostracize someone after devising the ever so accurate "hello test". Now, one would assume that the volunteer coordinator, Debbie, would see that some dude's ego is not as important as presenting the children's village as a professional place. The fraternity of male volunteers (I'm excluded) spent all of two weeks clamping their mouths in Maria's presence, lending to an aura of awkward and unwantedness. The volunteer coordinator sees this as Maria's problem, as she is being "too sensitive." Forget the fact that she was on vacation both times that these tensions arose and had to piece evidence together from "sides of the story" (excluding me curiously enough). "Too Sensitive:" The same fucking thing that was told to Maggie when she was getting a similar shtick. Now, the same silence that was once entirely volunteer-based, is shared in part by Debbie, the volunteer coordinator, and it is very specifically aimed at Maria (not me) because she likes the guys who repeatedly over-drink and offend (with whom I'm apparently "cool with") more than she likes the PERSON WHO IS TRYING TO BE PROFESSIONAL about this shit.

Dick says that he hates drama and he dropped all of this and that it is Maria's fault that he has no idea of how accept criticism from a 1.) woman who is 2.) correct in her behaviors and 3.) someone he doesn't want to have sex with. I, who promptly tattled on the drunken wazungu, have been forgiven, because guys can get criticized by guys. How Debbie can have been on the correct side of the Spot/Patches vs. Maggie and somehow have misjudged this puzzles me.

It has gotten pretty bad. The other night we floated the first ideas of seeing if we can get a partial refund and go somewhere where we are judged by our ability to volunteer like champs rather than our ability to be popular by participating in the Cancun style vacationship the frat is trying to create. The issue here is Americans. It is also in part socio-economic class, which induces a sense of entitlement that surfaces as cultural and institutional disrespect. We love everything Tanzanian about this experience, (the kids, mamas, workers, teachers, student teachers, the setting) but, we find, are angered daily by the Americans. As people who prefer to cut to the bone of an issue, we would rather be cordial and distant rather than spend our fucking time scrutinizing whether or not someone's hello is satisfactory after we have been complete jackasses and using that as the measure of how much we like someone. That sort of evaluating someone by facade is for people that have more free time than us.

I think the reason Maria gets the worst of it is for two reasons. 1.) I can give a big fake hello to someone who has lost my respect (Maria has a much lower threshold for this, as honesty really is a fundament of her personality) 2.) Maria is a girl who presents her cases very rationally, which ruffles feathers amongst misogynists, because getting corrected by a girl is worse than losing at gay chicken and sitting on your balls at the same time, to put it in terms the fraternity can understand. If Maria was a size 2 that the boys wanted to have sex with, there wouldn't be and issue right now. But the problem must be hers if she is embarrassed by their "typical American tourist" (as I've heard bragged about) behavior and corrects them in front of people she works with.

I paint a picture where all the volunteers are involved, but it really is just a couple of wealthy assholes who have the volunteer coordinator's ear, with some of the other volunteers completely or in part neutral. The problem is that happy hour starts at 4:30 for these people, for as much lip-service that is said about bonding with the kids, the two and half hour window of playing in the afternoon that Maria and I avail ourselves of everyday is apparently better spent getting ripped.

So long as the balance of laughter and hugs with the mamas, teachers and children ties the frustrations of being the exiled minority, we will stay. If the balance tips, though, we may have to inquire about getting some the money back so that we can be happy. We have been through shit like this before in Florida, my life is too short to be frustrated by American myopia everyday, yet again.