A Promising Future Blessed with Youth

It never occurred to me that I would set foot on the African continent when I was 24 years old. Nor did I ever assumed that I would be so obsessed with something.

On April 16, 2015, I boarded an Ethiopian flight leaving my home country for Tanzania. It was the longest night of my life, a 12-hour flight in the dark, and I was accompanied by a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Spanning five time zones, I witnessed a sunrise and couldn't tell if it was the sea or the sky in the distance. Although 30,000 feet above the ground, the sea level was shimmering and the turquoise sea was vaguely visible. After a long journey of more than 20 hours, I finally arrived in Dar es Salaam.

I have been in Dodoma for over half a month now. The clock on my computer still remained the same as at home, which was the only way I could feel connected with my home. On my way to work every day, I would sit in the car and be slack-jawed, gazing at the blue sky in the distance, with clouds seemingly so low that I could just reach out and grab a piece of them. In the evening, raising my head unintentionally, I would be stunned by the sky full of stars. Perhaps that's the charm of Tanzania.

I asked myself many times why I chose this place, but could never reach an answer.

A Joyful Place

Sometimes I would stand in the hallway on the second floor of the school and look out toward the first floor. African children aged seven or eight years old would wrap their younger brothers or sisters, aged one or two, behind them in a large square scarf. They were barefoot, watching with curious eyes the Chinese people pass by hurriedly on the campus. Now they have learned to say "你好". And every time I passed by them, they would look up at me and say "你好" clearly. The voices rose and fell, and I was moved with an indefinable feeling inside. Whenever I picked up my camera to take a picture of them, they would crowd together, scrambling to look at my camera, sticking their little heads out and grinning with their white and neat teeth, waiting for the snap of the shutter. As I looked through the photos, they gathered behind me again, all trying to see themselves in the photos and giggling. The sunlight in Tanzania was so fierce that I often wore sunglasses and sometimes a mask when I got sunburned. They just stared at me as if everything seemed fresh. I would also look at them and smile, realizing that they couldn't see my expression with the mask on, so I would take it off and respond to their friendliness.

These children just sat on the brick floor in front of the school and took a nap when they were tired of sitting, or just lay down on the ground and fell asleep. They would occasionally collect some small bottle caps and play with them in small groups. Although I couldn't tell if it was interesting, they indeed enjoyed themselves. It turned out that being happy was quite simple, but I had made it complicated. I always thought that I had to gain something to be happy through obtaining or buying. But looking at them, I suddenly understood that happiness itself is pretty straightforward, and I thought I had found the answer for choosing this place -- to eat, to talk with someone, and that's all.

Though I didn't go to town often, I would discover a lot of new things when I came out occasionally to buy groceries. Maybe the way I viewed them was like the way they viewed me, just out of mere curiosity. A couple of boys played new tricks around a pile of sand, doing somersaults without the aid of hands and backflips, then falling on the pile of sand, amusing us all. They got up and patted the dust off their bodies, ready to run, again! This was their childhood.

I would pass by several schools on my way to work. The playground was dusty, but they would carry their school bags, walking along in their neat school uniforms, white shirts with collars appearing sharp. I would also see adobe houses, with no glass but just a door, pitch dark inside. This might be their home, supposedly. There were a few tables and chairs inside some houses, and then they would chat in a circle together in the dark.

Starting Again, Grow Again

In July 2017, I concluded my two-year term as a volunteer Chinese language teacher in Tanzania. In the two years that followed, I was constantly asked what Africa was like. I always said that I couldn't tell how many mattresses made of cardboard boxes I had slept on during those two years, how many buckets of cold water warmed by the sun I had used for washing, and how many times I had taken a long breath of relief when reading the blood test report, feeling lucky that I had escaped from malaria once again. But it was much more than that. I have lived there for two years, and to this day, things there still linger on my mind.

In fact, I did grow up with the children in those two years in Dodoma. Even though I was the one standing on the podium teaching them Chinese language, but after class, it was their innocence that made me realize once again how simple happiness is in life.

So, this was why I was back to this land. During the holidays in 2019, I returned to this small city full of stories, with familiar streets and familiar people, rendering me immersed in memories.

My mind has changed a lot over the years and my spiritual world has been much enriched. I am grateful that I have the courage to choose to come here and become a volunteer at the age of 24.