Emily's Worldview

Glory is my roommate and my best friend in Tanzania. She is about five foot two and has a sweet smile and unassuming presence. She is my age but looks about 16. She loves to make outrageous statements about her strength and her wealth and her proficiency in English. She teases me for reading too much, for being a slob, for skipping showers, for not going to church anymore, for being sleepy. We watched the first season of Heroes on a bootlegged DVD together, me translating roughly into Swahili, and she loves to squeeze her eyes shut and pretend that she can teleport like Hiro. She has no control over our misbehaved guard dogs and when they jump up on her she screams. She won’t let me get a cat because she thinks it will eat off the stove. Sometimes, when I run into her away from the house, she is wearing my clothes.

Glory is an evangelical Christian and blasts the religious radio station every night when she is cooking. She used to speak in tongues around the house, but recently stopped. She doesn’t drink or go out at night unless I take her. Although she speaks no English, she loves to meet my foreign friends. She remembers every guest we have ever had and loves to tell stories about them—Kate who was white like paper, Ben who had a pet pig, a volunteer we called Little John who spoke his own version of pidgin Swahili.

Glory was alone in our apartment when it was robbed by men carrying giant knives in 2005. We have both seen each other when we were sickest and weakest and most out of our minds. Sometimes when I go out she tells me I am half naked; the other night I wore my most plunging top and she told me I looked nice. Some nights when I come back late she will call me from her room as I get ready for bed in mine. I've come and gone from Tanzania several times since I first met Glory, and every time we've said goodbye, both of us have cried.