For prospective Peace Corps volunteers, I highly recommend the following book: Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village, by Sarah Erdman.

I read a few PCV memoirs (this plus Mango Elephants in the Sun and Living Poor) while I was in Tanzania, and Nine Hills was not only my favorite of the three, but I also thought Erdman perfectly encapsulated a lot of the emotions and frustrations that I (and probably other PCVs) felt during service, in a much more eloquent way than I could ever have written. She was in Coite d'Ivoire and there are definitely a lot of differences between TZ and Coite d'Ivoire, but her experience as a volunteer was shockingly similar to mine.

I also totally got some ideas for health projects and teaching methods from her.

This post is a little late, but I finished my Peace Corps service on August 4th (just a little short of 27 months), and left Tanzania on the 13th, so I won't be posting here anymore. Quick update on a few of my projects I have blogged about:

-Water pump project: All seven water pumps in the village are now working, and dirty water and sand were flushed out of the pumps to help prevent future problems. Toolbox and tools for the village were purchased so that the village technicians can fix the pumps in the future. Pumps that did not previously have "pump-masters" were assigned them to ensure that children don't play with or break the pumps.

-Chicken project for PLWHAs: Chicken coop is built, the group has 14 hensand 1 rooster, and as of the beginning of August, 4 of the chickens have started laying eggs..

Also, in a previous blog entry I wrote about some indicators of success that I personally thought would show if I had had a successful stay in Nanganga. Some of the goals, such as someone naming their child Raula, or people being able to correctly identify which continent America is on, or for people to understand sarcasm, were sadly not accomplished. I did, however, succeed in my goal of not being called mshamba by a child again, which was probably the most important goal.

On a more serious note, when I first came to Peace Corps, I had a few modest goals. Learn Swahili. Make friends in the village. Make a difference in at least one person's life. Done, done and done. Will the projects that I worked on continue in the future? Will people remember some of the information I have taught about sexual and reproductive health? Will Peace Corps' presence in Nanganga make a difference in preventing HIV infections and combating stigma? I don't know, but I really hope so.

Thanks to everyone that has read this blog or commented or emailed me, and to the people of Nanganga, you have been great (if really frustrating at times) and I really appreciate you all letting me live with you for two years and putting up with my bad Kiswahili and seemingly crazy ideas.

I don't know what is next for me, but if anyone has any questions about PC/Tanzania, feel free to email; I'll leave my email in my profile.

Kila la heri.

Some more favorite moments recently:

Girls Empowerment Conference:

-Taking fifty girls to the beach (most of whom had not been to the beach before), especially when they freaked out at the sight of boats, and when they picked up and tore apart some jellyfish trying to figure out what they were, and when they looked disgusted after tasting the ocean water and realizing how salty it is.

-When some high energy and some hand-clapping games at dinner spontaneously turned into a two-hour singing and dancing party, with no other music besides their voices and buckets being used as drums, and relieving PCVs of the responsibility of having to plan a night activity to entertain them.

-The girls singing for the entire three-hour bus ride back home, and comparing that to the first-day bus ride which was completely silent

Making a difference? A month or so after teaching budget-making and saving money to my PLWHA group, I was sitting with a couple of the members and one was saying how she took my advice and started putting a little aside each day, and one day she didn't have any money to buy vegetables for lunch so she looked in the place she had been keeping her money and discovered she had saved 2000 shillings. (Around $1.50...But enough to buy food that day, anyway).

When my neighbor who has known me for almost two years and who is much more educated than most people I know here, asked me if America was in Europe (I gave him a map later).

Learning about devils and possession:

-According to my students:

1) Incense is the cure for possession; it makes the devils go away, at least temporarily.

2) "Wanachangamka wakiona bahari." (They get excited when they see the ocean).

-According to my neighbor:

1) Only Muslims get mashetani (devils)

2) Only females get mashetani

3) "A lot of people get possessed when I am the teacher on duty, but not when the other teachers are on duty. I don't understand why."

4) Only Muslims get possessed because they believe in possession; Christians here don't believe in it.

Boys Conference:

-When a photographer showed up at the beach and at least half the boys wanted their picture taken with me and another female PCV... Glad to know I am popular with male Tanzanian teenagers.

-Having some good discussions about the meaning of love and if girls & boys can be friends without having sex

-Having the students cook dinner the first night, and one group somehow managed to make their white rice look a very non-appetizing shade of gray. They then said that they had cooked pilau (a spicy rice dish which is usually brown). It did not taste like pilau.

-Teaching yoga, and hearing the boys compare the cobra position to "popo bawa," which is, legend has it, a large bat that lives on Zanzibar and rapes men.

Some of my favorite moments lately:

-Exact quote from a secondary school debate: "Please explain your truth."

-Some members of my PLWHA group looking at the pictures in my photo album and exclaiming about how beautiful I look... in my graduation cap and gown

-While staying at a hotel in town with another PCV: It's about 7 pm and getting dark. My friend goes to shower, comes back and is confused why I am sitting in the room in the dark...I have gotten so used to not having electricity, it honestly didn't occur to me to turn on the light.

-Talking with a traditional healer in my village, and getting some medicine from her that is supposed to bring me good luck

-My PLWHA group and their chicken-building project: the members are super-motivated and have been doing a lot of work, like walking 5 kilometers to talk to someone that sells bricks, carrying water in order to make the cement, making food for the carpenters

-Having a serious conversation with some secondary school teachers about what they can do to help prevent teen pregnancy and STDs

Not-so-favorite moments lately:

-Village politics in all aspects, particularly when it makes getting things done a lot more complicated than necessary, and even more particularly when people accuse me of doing sketchy things with money.

- Going over budget on projects: Do chickens really need a seven-foot tall house with a metal roof? Pretty sure they wouldn't notice if they had a grass roof... But what do I know.

-Fourteen hour bus-ride to Dar that should take 8 hours... It's amazing that they have been working on that road for say, the past five years, and it still seems like not much has been accomplished

-Planning for conferences = stressful, particularly when water is suddently unavailable in the town were are doing the conferences in and we are probably going to have to spend over a hundred dollars just on water for bathing and cooking

150 people tested for HIV. 200 tubes of toothpaste. 200 toothbrushes. Four boxes of bar soap. 18 counterparts. 3 PCVs. 2 community theater/drum groups. 50 maandazi (fried dough snacks). Over 3000 condoms. Two guests of honor. One soccer game. One cardboard cut-out of a condom man. One pig that ran through and destroyed some flipchart stands.... Just some of the things present at my village health fair, or, as my villagers decided to interpret it, INTERNATIONAL HEALTH DAY (I don't think there is such a day, but who knew all you had to do was announce you are doing a health day, and suddenly everyone thinks it is a worldwide thing, and they decide they want to do it every year).

Ngoma group from a neighboring village

Pin the toothbrush on the mouth!

Nutrition table

Condom demo table

Flipcharts, and the awesome flipchart stands my counterpart made, prior to the pig running through them.

Condom man cut-out... if anyone working for Si Mchezo is reading this blog, it would be awesome if you would publish this picture in your magazine...

For Peace Corps, and any development agency I presume, it's necessary to have ways to determine whether or not you are making an impact, "indicators of success" and ways to "measure outcomes." The health project has its own set of indicators that presumably show whether or not volunteers are doing successful work (ie reduced rate of teen pregnancy at a PCV's school). After some consideration though, I have come to the conclusion that these indicators are not adequate for determining my true level of success in the village. I have come up with some indicators of my own that I will use to evaluate how good of a job I am doing in my last five months of service:

-For me not to be called mshamba again (see March blog entry)

-For someone to name their child Raula after me

-For at least 25% of my village to be able to do the hokey pokey

-For at least 25% ofm y village to be able to identify which continent America is on (ie for them to realize that I am not, in fact, from Europe, and that Europe and America are not the same place)

-For at least one person in my village to understand sarcasm

-For people to be able to identify which mzungu is me if I show them a picture of me with other wazungu

-For little kids not to bawl or run away screaming in terror when they see me

I was making a list of random things. Not sure what the list is of exactly, but these things are on it. I think it's things I like. Or things I am grateful for.

-The other day I was on my porch and I saw a complete rainbow in the field in front of my house. The entire arch was visible. I've never seen that before.

-Two health workers I have been working with asked me to give them a test on what I have taught them. And then spent five minutes talking about how excited they were to take the test and how well they were going to do.

-New found appreciation for: toast and hot chocolate. (Ie you know you are in Peace Corps when toast is about the most delicious food ever, and something you look forward to, like I can't wait to get home tonight and eat my toast for dinner and listen to the BBC).

-Had a good conversation with my neighbor the other day. And realized that we are actually in really similar situations. That is, neither of us are from Nanganga but we came here for work. We are both often frustrated and confused by some of the customs in this area. And we both miss and fantasize about food from home frequently. (Apparently food in Northern Tanzania is better?)

-24-box of crayola crayons I bought on the street

-Walking through my village and randomly stumbling upon a guy selling hundreds of organic flavored instant oatmeal packets

-The boys from one of the schools that came to our boys' conference started teaching the other students what they had learned at the conference, with absolutely no prompting from the PCV at their school

-My PCV family, especially the volunteers in my region. And dance parties and bonfires and smores on the beach.

One of my minor but more enjoyable activities in the village is posting answers to health-related questions that people put in the question box I recently installed at the dispensary. It's interesting to me to see what people ask questions about. Here are some of the questions I have gotten so far:

-Who gets more enjoyment out of sex, men or women?

-My wife cheated on me with someone who has HIV, but since I found out I have not had sex with her. If I have sex with her will I get HIV?

-If a person does not have sex for a long time does it lead to any damage or sickness?

-What should we do to stop the spread of AIDS?

-What is the relationship between TB and AIDS? I have had TB twice and now people are saying that it is possible I have AIDS. Is this true?

-In Nanganga there are a lot of HIV-positive people but they hide and are not open about their status. Try to educate them.

-A lot of people say that condoms don't prevent HIV. What should we believe? Or are there people that have had sex with an HIV-positive person without being infected?

-Can a person that has not yet gone through puberty still get HIV or STIs?

-If a lot of communities are affected by HIV, why aren't all people just given ARVs in order to prevent infection?

Nothing important/witty/insightful to post today, just some things that have happened lately:

-I ran (jogged really slowly) a half marathon!

-Went to Ngorongoro Crater and saw a pride of lions, and some black rhinos, and baby zebras and baby monkeys

-Got called mshamba (hick/redneck) by a child in Moshi, for throwing a mango peel on the street. (How was I supposed to know Moshi is the one city in Tanzania where people actually use garbage cans???)

-Found a place that has awesome banana splits in Dar. (This is more exciting than it sounds, believe me)

-Possibly had malaria.

Promise a longer and more interesting post next time!

I was recently going through old papers and notebooks and came across several things I have written to blog about. So today I bring you not one, not two, but FOUR new blog entries. They are in order from most funny to least funny.

ALSO: MY PCPP GRANT WAS FULLY FUNDED!!

Many thanks to everyone who donated, especially the kind people who I have never met in my life. You all make me feel a little better about humanity. I will post updates about the project on here from time to time, assuming I can get to the internet. Hopefully we'll be getting starting on pump-fixing and well-building in a little while after the rains have died down and people are not busy at the farm every day.

As to my life in general, it goes on as usual. The price of tomatoes has sky-rocketed, leaving my food options even more limited. I tried making mango wine, results to be seen in a few weeks. My cat is pregnant again. My house floods on a semi-regular basis now that it has started raining. Bad for me, good for people's corn. Tomorrow I am heading to Iringa to help do a training for the new group of volunteers that arrived last june. School opened this week, so when I get back I will commence teaching again. Other projects going on: starting a PLWHA group; piloting "office hours," ie sitting in the village office at a designated time each week in case people want to ask questions or get condoms; building an information board and question box at the dispensary; hopefully continuing with the testing days and community theater in my area; freaking out because I only have 7 months left in the village and I finally know what things I want to do there.

The Guide to Getting Things Done in Tanzania

Want to work in Tanzania? Have you had the (dubious?) honor of receiving a Peace Corps invitation to TZ? Curious about what some of my daily activities usually entail? This guide is for you!

So you want to...

Plan and put on an event of some sort

First you must get permission from the ward government/ headmaster/ district official/ drunken village leaders, etc. Don't make an appointment since you will inevitably be stood up. Go to the office of one of the aforementioned people and tell them your plan. They will ask you to write a letter regarding your request. If you have planned ahead you will have already written this letter; if not you can just step outside and write it provided you have brought a pen, white paper, a stapler, carbon paper, inkpad and personalized namestamp. Give the official your letter. If your letter's not favorably received, the official will say something like, "We'll see" or "We'll talk about it another day." If you do in fact get permission, the official will tell you to wait, and then in your presence write, stamp, and staple a letter saying that you indeed have permission for this event.

For the actual event, you must invite as many important or not-so-important government officials as possible. You must furthermore pay them at least fifteen dollars for attending the event, even if they are not doing anything besides sitting there. These "special guests" must sit at a "high table" covered with a kanga and fake flowers, and must be provided with several sodas and bottled water. They may give a speech, but will more likely just sit there and fall asleep. They must be provided with lunch. A goat or other animal has to have been slaughtered for this lunch. The "special guests" will eat and then leave immediately after, regardless of whether the event is over. The day/event is not over until someone officially announces that the event is closed. If your special guests are satisfied from their lunch, your event is considered a success, regardless of whether you actually accomplished what you set out to do.

If your event is a graduation, students must sing songs and dance while people throw kangas and other gifts at them, wrap leis around their necks, and stick coins in their mouths. Then half the women in the audience join in the dancing.

Plan a village meeting:

The day before the meeting, hire a village drunk to walk around the village playing a drum and announcing the meeting. For the actual meeting, find a large cashew tree, mango tree, or another kind of tree that provides a lot of shade. Set up a table for the village officials, a straw mat on one side for the male villagers, and a straw mat on the other side for the female villagers. Start meeting at least two hours after the planned starting time. If district officials are coming, add one hour to the wait time. To start the meeting, a government official must say that the meeting is opened. This official then reads the agenda for the meeting, which usually goes something like this: 1) Open Meeting. 2) Introduction. 3) Discuss issues. 4) Close Meeting. Follow agenda for meeting. When introducing a new topic or making sure you have everyone's attention, say the name of the village you are in followed by "Oye!" Villagers may only speak if they raise their hands, but government officials can talk whenever they want. When the meeting is over, a government official must say the meeting is closed.

Teach in a classroom

Show up in any classroom at any time of the day, because there will inevitably be no teacher present no matter when you decide to go. The students will stand up to greet you. Tell them they can sit down, or they will stand up for the entire period. Begin teaching. Do not use participatory methods or activities that require critical thinking, because the students will not understand what to do. Ask them if they have understood everything. They will say yes. Ask again. They will say yes. Move on until it becomes clear that they have not understood you at all, then go back and explain again everything you have just taught. When you are finished teaching, greet all the teachers that are sitting in the office, doing paperwork or, more like, staring off into space.

Have a party

Set up is similar to other official events, in that you need tables with kangas, fake flowers and soda. Before the party, send "invitations" to the guests telling them how much money they need to contribute in order to attend your party. Cook pilau (spicy rice and potato dish) and chicken or goat. Eat and drink in silence. Have everyone stand up and give a speech. If there is a DJ present, play music and start dancing awkwardly, preferably with everyone walking around in a circle and sort of shaking their upper bodies.

Recently I was hanging out with several other volunteers, and a friend of a PCV who had just come here to visit. We were doing what most PCVs do when they get together (complaining), when the visitor from America asked, "Is there anything you all like about Tanzania?"

I don't know about the others, but I was kind of embarrassed by that question. Surely we don't complain THAT much right? We just don't get to see each other or speak English very often, we need to vent, etc etc. But could I come up with a lot of things I like about Tanzania? I could probably name hundreds of things that annoy, anger, puzzle, frustrate, worry, bother, perplex me, and/or make me want to commit violent acts. But could I come up with ten things I really, truly, without qualification, like about Tanzania?

Well, I am a master at making top ten lists. This task cannot vanquish me!

Behold, 16 things I like about Tanzania. In no particular order.

-Mangoes

-Pineapples

-Cashews

-Topetope (a weird fruit that I don't think has a name in English)

-In general, Tanzania is a beautiful country. Landscape-wise.

-The way Tanzanians dance. Hilarious.

-Kande: one of the few Tanzanians food I like. It's just corn and beans but it's delicious.

-Afternoon nap time. It's too damn hot to do any work at two in the afternoon anyway. Why not nap under a tree.

-Telling time by looking at the sun. I don't like wearing watches.

-The things you can buy on trees. Like a wide variety of used and almost-new clothing.

-The plethora of things you can buy out of bus windows. (See one of my other top ten lists for examples).

-Being able to just sit in silence with people without it being awkward. Sometimes it's just not necessary to fill the air with empty words. Sometimes you just don't feel like talking, and that's ok. I particularly like when you have been sitting with someone for a long time, and they will just say a random word out of nowhere.

-Tanzanian love for awesomely bad things- Music (ie Celine Dion, boy bands, soft rock radio). Dance moves. Kitenges with chicken heads.

-Not to romanticize poverty, but kids' creativity with toys. They can make a car out of a few sticks and some mud. Or they are entertained for hours chasing bike tires. Kids in the US just aren't entertained that easily.

-Not to romanticize poverty again, but Tanzanians' resourcefulness in general. They hardly ever throw anything away, use the same plastic bag over and over and over, and can fix/rig anything

-Huge generalization: People are really friendly and helpful, for the most part. Most people in my village are incredibly welcoming and generous. I don't think Americans are that nice to foreigners that move into their communities.

Something I often finding myself wondering: Is there just something wrong with the people of Nanganga?

Other villages just a few kilometers away from Nanganga have groups that start projects, and actually succeed at carrying out and finishing these projects. To my knowledge, there are no active groups in Nanganga. Groups start and then die after a month. Other Peace Corps volunteers talk about the numerous groups that they have started or work with in their villages, while I can barely succeed at getting five people to show up to a meeting. Other communities build schools or wells by getting villagers to contribute money or labor, but the district government had to cancel a water project for Nanganga because the villagers wouldn't contribute to the project. Recently, I even told a group that I would GIVE THEM MONEY TO START A PROJECT if they would just come up with a project they want to do, and submit a project plan. No one showed up to the next meeting.

Is there something wrong with what I am doing?

Well, I am a minor celebrity in my village, and I have decided that as a celebrity it is my prerogative to blame things on others. Therefore, back to blaming the village. But there being something inherently wrong with the villagers doesn't make sense either. There are a few good, motivated people. And people aren't just born to be lazy thieves. So what is the deal here?

For awhile I thought it had something to do with the village being on the main road. People don't have to work as hard here as if they would in a village in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? The lure of pool tables and buses and other distractions and income opportunities at the road has somehow made people uninterested in development activities? That doesn't make sense either. There are plenty of villages on this same road with active groups, with villagers that contribute to community projects, with motivated people. So it's not the road.

Is it just that Nanganga is a big village, and getting projects done and trying to do anything communally is always a tremendous challenge, and I am just having a hard time finding the right people? Maybe.

But all of these explanations don't seem to quite add up. Surely there must be a bigger explanation.

Two days ago I finally found out the reason. I present you with-

THE REASON WHY NANGANGA SEEMS TO BE FULL OF LAZY ASSHOLES:

German missionaries were in Nanganga from the 1920s to the early 2000s. Since the 1920s. I am competing with 90 years of handouts and viewing wazungu as walking banks. No wonder I can't get shit done. No wonder when I tell people I am not rich and can't give them money they just don't get it. In the past people could just go to the missionaries if they were having problems, and it seems the missionaries would just help them out. Now the missionaries are gone and they don't know what to do.

Other contributing factors (told to me by a friend, who didn't grow up in Nanganga, so the accuracy of this information can be disputed):

-In old times (not sure what year), Nanganga was populated by only the Makua tribe (now it is Makua, Makonde, Mwera, and maybe a few Waio). The Makua chief was apparently a greedy bastard and stole a lot of stuff from his citizens, and people were required to pay him bribes all the time, and stuff like that. Other villagers saw that the only way for them to get ahead was for them to be greedy corrupt bastards too, and their children followed suit, and their children followed suit...

-Apparently people's income for a long time was based on "kuchimba madini" (digging for minerals) and not on farming. (This explains why people come up to me every month trying to sell me gold. I was always wondering where this gold was coming from. There seems to be a mine of some sort not too far from Nanganga). So a lot of people just aren't used to farming, and I guess even though these days there aren't too many minerals to be found, people still don't want to farm because they haven't for so long. This combined with the fact that Nanganga has a large youth population, and, in general, youth these days don't really want to farm for a living either.

So now I know some of/most of the reasons it is so fucking frustrating and difficult to get things done in Nanganga. What do I do with this new knowledge?

I wrote the following several months ago with the intention of submitting it to one of PC TZ's newsletters. Haven't done that yet, but am posting it here anyway.

Giving credit where credit is due: The ideas and quotes in this essay are all taken The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb. Which in turn was given to me by an awesome college professor, Sherryl Kleinman. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it, by the way.

Is anything I am doing here making a difference?

This is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. I have been at site for almost a year and a half, and what do I have to show for my efforts? Sure, I've been teaching and starting groups and doing workshops and trainings and conferences, but to what avail? Does all this work have any tangible effect? Or do people just come to listen to the crazy mzungu speak bad Kiswahili, then continue on with their lives as before? The problems we're working on as Peace Corps volunteers, HIV/AIDS, poverty, malnutrition, even helping kids pass secondary school, are so big and complex and beyond our ability to solve, and we're working on them alone in our villages with a handful of motivated villagers. Is it possible for us to make a difference at all?

I don't think I am alone in wondering these things. At mid-service conference in August, it seemed like a lot of my fellow volunteers were feeling frustrated and burnt-out. (And I doubt Peace Corps staff were encouraged by a half-hour long question session about the advantages of finishing one's service versus ET-ing). I remember one volunteer asking, "Is there any hope in combating HIV/AIDS in Tanzania? Because I'm tired, and I need to know that there is hope."

I didn't respond to this volunteer's question during the conference, because it was a question I didn't want to think about too deeply, but I've thought about it now and I'm answering: I do think there is hope. Maybe not hope in the conventional sense. Not hope that we will see resulrs now or by the end of our Peace Corps service. The kind of hope I'm talking about isn't dependent on results. Vaclav Havel (former president of the Czech Republic), defines hope as this:

"I understand hope above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul; it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit; an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons."

"Hope in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as job that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

I think we PCVs all have a little of this kind of hope within us, or we wouldn't be here in Tanzania right now. Something in us made us choose Peace Corps instead of something else, because we saw something meaningful in this kind of work. This work is hard and frustrating and even impossible at times, but as journalist I.F. Stone says, "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins."

Resigning ourselves to the possibility that we are going to lose may seem scary and counter-intuitive, like we are resigning ourselves to despair. This seems especially dangerous if one is working on literally life or death matters, like HIV/AIDS or hunger. Letting go of the desire for success, though, can be liberating. Social activist writes about Havel's definition of hope, saying:

"Havel seems to be describing not hope, but hopelessness. Being liberated from results, giving up outcomes, doing what feels right rather than effective. He helps me recall the Buddhist teaching that hopelessness is not the opposite of hope. Fear is. Hope and fear are inescapable partners. Anytime we hope for a certain outcome, and work hard to make it happen, then we also introduce fear. Fear of failing, fear of loss. Hopelessness is free of fear and thus can feel quite liberating...Thomas Merton, the late Christian mystic, clarified further the journey into hopelessness. "Do not depend on the hope of results...you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no results at all, if not perhaps results

opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more toconcentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself."

Let us do our work as volunteers not because we expect to save the world or our villages or even one villager, but because we find this work meaningful and important. Let me work on HIV/AIDS education because I think the HIV/AIDS crisis is a problem and something needs to be done about it, and I need to do what I can, in my own limited way, to try to solve the problem. Let us enjoy our work not for any successful outcomes we have achieved, but because we know that there is value in our purpose. Let us focus on gaining insight and enjoyment from our everyday experiences, instead of binding our happiness to whether we meet all the goals we set for ourselves. Let's cherish small successes and victories when we achieve them, and let's not get down on ourselves for not achieving bigger and better things.

In college I was part of a small, semi-radical feminist student group. One of our goals my senior year was to put plaques by certain buildings on campus, drawing attention to the fact that the people the buildings were named after owned slaves or participated in racist activities. This campaign never took off, however, because our group got bogged down by lack of experience and a small membership and inter-organizational politics, and we never succeeded in putting up any kind of plaques. Does this mean that I view our efforts as a failure? No, because I learned a lot about myself and group organizing that I didn't know before, and so did the other members of the group, and I think that there is value in this knowledge, regardless of whether we achieved our goal.

Peace Corps expects us to account for our efforts with tangible "outcomes" and "indicators" and "results" and numbers of people and concrete goals reached. I understand the need for this, and that we need to contstantly examine what we are doing in order to find ways to work more effectively, but I don't think these "results" and "outcomes" should be the sole focus of my work, especially if it means that I get overwhelmed and depressed when I think about the huge scope of the problem and what little difference I am making.

Moreover, I think the effect of a lot of what we are doing, especially in HIV/AIDS prevention, is something that can only be measured over a long period of time. One of my friends is the third volunteer at her site. HIV is openly talked about in her village, and a fairly large number of people get tested every month. In a village a few kilometers away from her, however, HIV/AIDS is highly stigmatized and rarely talked about. Could this difference between the two villages be attributed to the presence of Peace Corps volunteers? I think so. I also think that we are making differences in our villages that we simply aren't aware of. I have done several week-long camps for secondary students. After the camps were over, none of the students came up to me to thank me and tell me how much they learned at the camp, like I was fantasizing that they would. But does that mean that they didn't learn anything? I don't think so.

I think the best we can do is to just keep trying. Keep trying and be there for each other, lame or trite as that sounds. In the words of that popular bonga flava song, "Bado nipo nipo sana." I need to stay here and keep trying, because the other option is to give up and not try, and that is not really an option at all. Mary Wynne Ashford says, "Since you cannot see into the future, you simply put one stone on top of another, and another on top of that. If the stones get knocked down, you begin again, because if you don't nothing will get built...Whether or not we succeed in pushing the rock up the hill, there is meaning in the journey, not in the hope that one time we'll be able to shed the rock forever and live in a perfect world."

Let's enjoy and learn from this journey.

"We can redream this world and make the dream real."

-Ben Okri, The Famished Road

Top Five Reasons You Haven't Heard From Me in Awhile

5)Avoidance. Peace Corps is now having volunteers report on their activities using this Excel application that I am estimating will take me 17 years to fill out. I have been avoiding doing these reports and thus avoiding internet/computers.

4) Life/Being Busy, Part 1- Kuuguza. In November I was at the hospital for awhile helping take care of some students that were there. Let me just say that I don't know what hell is like, but I am pretty sure that being in a Tanzanian hospital for an extended period of time is like being in one of the first circles of hell. Or purgatory, if you think I am being dramatic.

There are maybe two doctors in an entire hospital of hundreds of patients, and don't know what they are doing a lot of the time; a lot of nurses do little more than yell at and berate patients; there are eight or ten patients in one room and no privacy; a quarter of the beds don't have mosquito nets, and there are hundreds of mosquitoes and flies and it is impossible to sleep; people with broken bones or other serious injuries ar elucky if they get a couple of tylenol per day. It is the job of the patients' families/caregivers to essentially do everything besides dispense medicine and medical advice, such as: cook for the person/make sure the person is fed and has drinking water; bathing him/her; getting and emptying the bed pan; buying supplies that the hospital should have but doesn't; getting water for the person to take their pills with; doing anything else that the nurses don't feel like doing themselves.

If someone in your family is in the hospital and you are taking care of them, you essentially live at the hospital until they are discharged. At night you sleep on the cement walkway outside the patients' room, along with everyone else that is taking care of sick family members and friends.

I could make an entire new blog entry analyzing the problems I see in the Tanzanian health care system, but I'm not going to right now.

3) Life/Being Busy Part 2- World Aids Day Projects. One of my latest projects has been doing a series of HIV-testing days in my village and surrounding villages. Testing in the village isn't available, so people have to go to the hospital if they want to get tested, which is often impossible because they don't have the money for the bus fare to get to the hospital. The idea with the testing days is to make testing available and break down the stigma about getting tested, and to provide accurate information/education about HIV. 423 people tested so far, 2 villages to go.

2) Life/Being Busy Part 3- The First Annual "Boyz to Men" Conference. Some volunteers in my region and I just did a five-day camp about health and life skills for secondary school boys from our villlages. Highlights included: teaching them how to play basketball; having a co0k-off; having the boys pretend that eggs were babies and that they had to take care of them the entire week; doing a talent show by the light of cellphone flashlights; teaching about a variety of tuff, like: goal-setting, resisting peer pressure, how to save money and budget, what is love and having healthy relationships, how to study better, how to manage stress; and doing yoga, aerobics, and step.

All of this in Kiswahili by the way.

1) This is Tanzania. This is what I do when I want to use internet: I go to the road and wait for a bus, which will inevitably be packed with 20 more people than should be on it. After about an hour and a half or two hours we arrive in town. In town there are theoretically two internet options. In actuality, there is no internet. The internet at the government office only works if 1) there is electricity (which there usually isn't),and 2) if the Japanese volunteer that keeps the internet working is there (which he often isn't), and 3) if they have paid their bill (which they usually haven't). The other internet option is outside of town and a far walk or kind-of expensive taxi ride, but they have a generator so they are (in theory) not dependent on sporadic electricity. However, most of the time there is no gas for the generator, and the place is often closed when they are supposed to be open because the people that work there don't feel like coming to work.

Lately I have been deciding it's better for my mental health if I don't even try to use the internet.

The Year In Review: Top Ten Nanganga Moments of 2009

10) Condom demos: Anytime I do a condom demo is hilarious, because whenever I pull out the penis model people start laughing hysterically, even if it's a group of 50 year olds, or a group of all men.

9) TOT: I did a teacher training about HIV for about 50 teachers in my area, which I was originally dreading, because teachers are generally assholes and don't do their jobs and expect money if they go to trainings. However, a majority of the teachers that came to my training were awesome and complimented me and the PCV helping me on doing a good job teaching, and asked a lot of questions and thanked us for doing the training.

8) Singing debut. I do not sing in public. Until I was desperate for creative teaching methods and sang a song in Swahili about STDs in front of 100 secondary school students. I don't think I will do this again. Although the students seemed to enjoy it.

7) Finding a counterpart. I was really frustrated for a really long time about not being able to find good, motivated people to work with in my village that weren't just after money. After being at site for more than a year I have finally found someone to work with that is awesome and trustworhthy. Finally.

6) Talk Sex with Doctor Laura. A lot of people in the village come to me when they have random health questions they are too embarassed to ask other people, apparently. Like when a secondary school girl came and was describing to me what I thought were symptoms of a yeast infection, but I said I wasn't sure, so she kept insisting that she show me her vagina in order for me to diagnose her. Or when a secondary school boy was asking me why people's nipples get swollen during puberty, but I wasn't entirely sure if I had understood his question so I asked him to repeat it, and he lifted up his shirt and pointed at his nipple, saying "Do you see this? Do you know what this is?"

5) My three-year old bestie using my courtyard as his choo. My friend Tino was hangng out at my house awhile ago, and I was in the kitchen and he was in the courtyard. After awhile I was like, "Tino, what are you doing?" "Nakunya." (Translation: I am pooping). Tino was taking a shit in the middle of my courtyard, the bathroom two feet away from him.

4) Bride price offer. There is this guy in my village that asks me to marry him pretty much every time I see him. The best was when he offered to give me 600 shillings (about 50 cents) and a palm tree to marry him. Another time I told him I couldn't marry him because I was worried about getting HIV, and his response was: "But there are condoms." Good answer. Still not marrying you though.

3) Birthing five kittens. I had never witnessed anything give birth before, until my cat had kittens in september. Apparently she didn't know what she was doing either, because she wouldn't chew off the umbilical cords and was dragging the kittens around in the dirt and not licking them off. Luckily, a PCV friend who knows about animals served as a birth attendant via text message, so after a lot of running back and forth between the courtyard, where the cat was giving birth, and my front door, the only place i get phone service in my house, I cut the cords with dental floss and all of the kittens survived.

2) Peer education skits. My peer educator group is ridiculous, to say the least. I wanted them to come up with skits teaching about HIV/AIDS. In one skit they wanted to teach about condoms. To do so they wanted to strap the wooden penis to the male lead in the skit and use it to show how to use a condom in the scene before he and the female lead are going to have sex. They were then supposed to perform this skit for the prime minister when he came to my village, but this (fortunately?) did not happen.

1) Ridiculous dance party at the secondary school. The teachers at the secondary school where I live had a party awhile ago for one of the teachers who was recently married. This was a typical tanzanian party, in which everyone sits at different tables eating and drinking soda in silence. Then they cranked up the music and danced for about three hours. I had never seen any of the teachers dance until this moment, and I could barely keep from cracking up the entire time. One of the teachers did the running man the entire night. One of them swayed awkwardly back and forth by himself in a corner. One of them did this weird gorilla-like walk the entire time. One of them looked like he was pretending to ride a bucking bronco at a rodeo. My favorite part was when they made the guest of honor and his wife leave, and then everyone else stayed and continued dancing for another hour.

Peer educators singing about malaria

Peer educators doing skits about malaria prevention

Kikwete, TZ's president, when he came through my village

Masasi District Health Volunteers, one year anniversary of being at site

Kittens!

Kitten!

In my free time, I like to make up pedantic, slightly obscene songs in Kiswahili.

The Condom Song (To the tune of Rihanna's "Umbrella")

Verse 1:

Ukitaka kujua

Jinsia ya kutumia

Kondomu ya kiume

Basi sikiliza

Wimbo huu

Halafu utajua

Chorus:

Kwa nini tunapenda kutumia kondomu?

Kwa sababu nyingi sana.

Hatutaki kupata UKIMWI au magonjwa ya zinaa.

Hatutaki mimba pia, kwa hiyo tunatumia

Tunapenda kutumia kondomu

Tunapenda kutumia kondomu, kondomu, kondomu

Hey, Hey, Hey, kondomu, kondomu, kondomu,

Hey hey hey hey hey hey

Verse 2:

Hatua ya kwanza

Angalia paketi

Kama imepasuka

Usitumia

Halafu angalia

Tarehe ya kwisha

Kama imepita

Tumia nyingine

Fungua paketi

Kwa uangalifu

Usitumie

Meno au kisu

Chorus

Verse 3:

Ukishafungua

Valisha kondomu

Kwenye uume

Uliyosimama

Minya chuchu

Ya kondomu

Ili kuhakisha

Hamna hewa ndani

Endela kuminya

Wakati wa kukunjua

Ukishafanya ngono

Vua na tupa

Chorus

Verse 4

Watu wengi

Wanafikiri

Kwamba kondomu

Hazinogi

Lakini ni bora

Kutumia kondomu

Kuliko kupata magonjwa

Au VVU

Chorus

Want to help my villagers have better access to water? Of course you do!

Here's the deal: I did needs assessment meetings in the five sub-villages of my village, and every single sub-village identified water as a problem. My village is pretty large, over 4000 people. There are nine wells and seven pumps where people get water from. However, five of the seven pumps are currently broken. That means that there are only eleven water sources serving a population of over 4000 people, in addition to two neighboring villages. Thus people have been resorting to getting water from unsafe sources, such as nearby rivers, which are unsafe for drinking and sources of water-borne diseases, breeding grounds for mosquitoes and thus malaria, and also potential sites for crocodile and hippo attacks.

So, I have written a grant to help my villagers fix these broken water pumps. The pumps have been broken for over a year but the village does not have the resources to fix them, which I why I am helping them out. This project will also buy tools for the village mechanic, who has received training on fixing pumps but does not actually have the tools to fix them. That way in the future the village mechanic will be able to fix the pumps without having to call mechanics from the district, which is costly and time-consuming.

Basically, fixing the broken pumps will help improve the health status and quality of life of the villagers. I need yall's help though; the community is contributing 25% of the costs/labor, but the other 75% comes from you all. If you want to help them and me out, I have posted the link for making donations at the end of this blog. Even five dollars would help out. Or if you were thinking about sending me a package, don't do that; just use the money you would use for sending a package as a donation to this project.

FAQ:

Isn't this just promoting african dependence on western aid? Yes, and I am generally opposed to reinforcing this cycle of dependence. However I feel about that though, the reality of the situation is that I am the "rich" mzungu living in a village of not-so-rich people. And even though I myself am not particularly wealthy, I do have access to resources that people in my village don't have access to. And people in my village never believe me when I tell them I am not loaded, so since this idea they have of the wealthy foreigner isn't going to go away, I might as well try to use what resources I do have to help them out a little.

Is this sustainable? Like I said, the village mechanic is getting tools so that if the pumps break in the future, he can fix them. The villagers will also get training on pump maintenance and how to prevent future break-downs. The broken pumps will also be cleaned and flushed out before being repaired, which will also help prevent them from breaking in the future.

I haven't heard from you in like a year and now you're hitting me up for money? How dare you? I know, I feel bad about that. But it's really hard for me to access internet most of the time, and I don't have time to send as many emails as I would like. Sorry.

Donate here!

All we own, at least for the short time we have it, is our life. With it we write what we come to know of the world. I believe the Earth s good. That people, untortured by circumstance or fate, are also good. I do not believe the people of the world are naturally my enemies, or that animals, including snakes, are, or that Nature is. Whenever I experience evil, and it is not, unfortunately, uncommon to experience it in these times, my deepest feeling is disappointment. I have learned to accept the fact that we risk disappointment, disillusionment, even despair, every time we act. Every time we decide to believe the world can be better. Every time we decide to trust others to be as noble as we think they are. And that there might be years during which our grief is equal to, or even greater than, our hope. The alternative, however, not to act, and therefore to miss experiencing other people at their best, reaching toward their fullness, has never appealed to me.

-Alice Walker, "Only Justice Can Stop a Curse"

It's been a hard week in Peace Corps Tanzania this week... PCV Joe Chow was killed in a rock climbing accident on Tuesday. Joe was 23 and less than two months away from being done with his Peace Corps service. He taught advanced level chemistry, physics and math at Ndanda Secondary School.

Joe was my nearest PCV neighbor. We both shared a love of awesomely bad movies. He brought the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space" to one of our in-service trainings for us to watch, but we never got around to watching it together. I wish we had.

One of the last text messages I got from Joe that will always make me laugh: "The drunk teacher at my school just drooled on me."

If Joe's family stumbles across this blog, I just wanted to send you my condolences. I know there is nothing I can say to make this better. But Joe was my friend and I'm glad I had the chance to get to know him. And I really wish this hadn't happened.

Follow-up on my last entry: The districts in my region are giving out food aid, a certain number of kilos of corn for each household. Someone in a village near me supposedly died of hunger...I don't really believe this is true though.

It's been awhile since I've posted about what I've been doing. So: in addition to my regular teaching around the schools and at baby weighings and distributing condoms, I went to a community theater workshop in July, did a HIV/AIDS and life skills training for 52 primary and secondary school teachers, and am planning a variety of activities, including: a teacher training in another PCV's village, a camp for secondary school boys, an HIV education week and testing day in November, a first aid training for the community health workers in my area, and a grant to fix the broken water pumps in my village. I also just went to the Mid-Service Conference for my training group, where I got to catch up with everyone I haven't seen in a long time, had a five-minute dentist appointment, and learned some more about HIV (and I thought I knew everything already...). So that's my life in a nutshell.

One of the things we talked about at our Mid-Service Conference was behavior change, specifically how to promote behavior change through our education programs. Despite some of my qualms with the behavior change framework, I thought this portion of the workshop was really interesting (and would have been a lot more useful had we learned it sooner, Peace Corps...). We divided into groups and picked an example "target audience" that we want to work with. My group decided to discuss ways to work with men that have multiple sexual partners in addition to their wives. After some discussion we decided that it would be imposible to expect that men would be faithful to their wives, and also impossible to expect them to use condoms with their wives, so we decided our goal would be for men with multiple partners to use condoms in their extramarital relationships. We already felt like our expectations were pretty low, but then the facilitator said maybe we should set our expectations a little lower and have our goal be for the men to simply discuss condom use with their partners. Because in behavior change programs, change takes a long time and you have to set realistic, small, attainable goals that gradually build on the past education efforts you have done.

This is fine and logical, but part of me wants to know: Is that really all I can expect from the work I am doing? I know you have to start somewhere, and changing attitudes about anything, but especially about sex, is extremely difficult. But good god if the only thing that comes out of my two years here is that people will have had discussions about condoms...Is this really all the millions of dollars being spent on HIV/AIDS prevention is accomplishing.

A lot of the volunteers at the MSC seemed tired and frustrated and discouraged. A major topic of discussion was: "What are the consequences if I decide to leave before completing my two years of service?"

And I'm tired too. I'm tired of feeling like I'm doing no good. I'm tired of being seen as a walking dollar sign. I'm tired of people telling me that they want me to teach them or help them do things, when what they really mean is, "We want money and/or presents." I'm tired of people saying they will help me do projects and then not showing up. I'm tired of people thinking that they need to be paid for listening to me teach. I'm tired of the fact that it seems impossible to motivate people to do anything if they aren't getting some material benefit. I'm tired of teachers and health workers that never do their jobs and then complaining to me about how their lives are hard. I'm tired of convincing myself that there really are good, motivated people in this village. I'm tired of people making me feel like I'm useless because I haven't lifted everyone out of poverty.

Sometimes I want to yell at everyone: "This is why there is no development in this country! No one wants to do anything to help themselves! You just want handouts!"

In my head though, I know I need to take a step back and stop putting all the blame on the villagers. I know Tanzania has been receiving foreign aid for a long time, and it's not wonder that people see a white person and automatically see a dollar sign. And I know that poverty creates a disempowered mentality among the poor and that is probably why people here feel like they can't do anything to change their situations. And I know it must be horrific to farm every year of your life, only to see your crops fail half the time because there's been no rain, or bugs or birds or rats ate them, or hippos walked on them, or someone stole them. Or the crops didn't fail, but the price of whatever you are selling did, so you still don't have any money. Or maybe you have a little money, but one of your kids is sick and the other four are in school and need new uniforms and shoes, and it's several months until harvest season, and last years' supply of corn has run out, and you don't know what your family is going to eat for the next few months. And then some white girl who speaks weird Swahili tells you that you should be worried about AIDS, because you can get really sick and die after ten years. Why should you worry about what your health status will be in ten years, when you don't have anything to eat today? So you ask this white girl for money, since she's from America and clearly has money. She gives you a disgusted look and tries to explain that she can't help every single person in the village, and you say, it's not every person, just help me.

I'm still here though. In the words of a popular bongo flava song, "Bado nipo nipo sana." (Roughly, I'm still very much here.)

Peace Corps' motto is: "The toughest job you'll ever love." I don't know if I love it, but it sure is challenging.

This article has some information about my region. Like it says, most families in my region depend on cashew trees to survive, but this year we had very little rain, so the cashew trees aren't producing, which means people won't be making money this year. So I don't really know what's going to happen. Cashews/farming are the main source of income for almost everyone in my village. If there is a shortage of rain this year I think there is going to be a major food shortage.

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/feature/?n=1761&cat=feature

Mtwara strategies to counter potential food shortage

For a region that has 88 per cent of its population depending on agriculture for food and income generation, any situation that might lead to the underdevelopment of the sector is something they can’t afford to tolerate.

With an area of about 16,720 kilometres, Mtwara harbours around 1.3 million people most of them very poor. Only one per cent of this population involves in fishing and less than one per cent keeps livestock. Majority grow cashewnuts as an income earner.

According to the office of the Regional Commissioner, a food analysis done early this year shows that Nanyumbu district faces food shortage to about 219 tons in the early months. Generally, the region needs a total of 374,000 tons to feed the above mentioned population. Many a time the region sufficiently produces its own food with surplus.

However, this year’s shortage in Nanyunbu and Masasi districts is attributed to delay of 2008/09 seasonal rains. As a result of these crops; like maize, rice and cassava have been adversely affected and in some areas they have dried altogether. Because of this, the region predicts food shortage beginning October this year.

Nevertheless, government through the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) gave the district of Nanyumbu 246 tons of maize grains to help curb the situation. “Of the mentioned amount, 148 tons were distributed free of charge to the public, that is unable to buy their own food and the rest were sold at 50/- per kilo to those who can afford,” says Mtwara Regional Commissioner, Mr Anatory Tarimo.

He adds that the authorities have urged the business community to buy food from areas with surplus and resell it in those with shortages. Likewise, the region identified the need for food grains to cater for those farms affected by drought. According to him, the Prime Minister’s office has disbursed about 2.6 bn/- to Nanyunbu district and as a result, 1.3 tons of Macia millet grains in addition to 42 tons of cassava stems have been procured.

Moreover, Masasi district council has procured and distributed 3.2 tons of millet grains and 450 pieces of cassava stems. Otherwise, the region has plans in place to revolutionize agriculture and priority areas identified include; market development for farm and livestock produce, food processing and packaging, use of technology particularly hand-driven tractors, pesticide spraying pumps, tractors and other farm implements.

According to the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), Mr Yusuf Athuman Matumbo, in order to attain this kind of revolution, his region has the following strategies worked out: Every family should have at least one and a half acres of food crops depending on the availability of rainfall and arable nature of the soil.

He says every farmer needs to use big hoes (they natively call them Ngwamba) and develop the urge to use modern farm implements such as power tillers and heavy duty tractors. “Villages should enact by-laws guiding modern farming and every village should make sure that youth get pieces of land for farming,” he points out adding that wards in each council need to have ‘study farms’.

He also says agricultural officers should make it a time table to visit farmers in his or her duty area. Moreover, in cashewnut, which is a major economic crop in the region, subsidies in terms of fertilizers have been scaled up from four bags in 2005 to six in 2008. In farming seasons beginning 2006 to 2008, cashewnuts farmers were supplied with 6.4 bn/- worth of insecticide and pesticide subsidies, that accrued from five per cent of revenues collected from the export of raw cashewnuts.

This year’s farming season, from five per cent of the exported cashew- nuts, the region is to get a total of 1.9 bn/-. According to authorities, for the 2009/10 already 10 companies that will procure and distribute farm inputs for cashewnuts have been identified. However, it is predicted that the availability of farm inputs in Masasi district will be a bit tricky due to the on-going management conflict of the farm input fund, that led to the refunding of the members contributions.

Production of cash crops in the region has been on the increase season after season. For example, cashewnut production has risen from 38,000 tons in 2004 to 62,000 tons last year. For the 2008/09 season, production reached above 50,000 tons amounting to 34bn/-. Cashewnut has surely proved to be a major income earner for people of Mtwara but recently, during his short visit of the region, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda challenged them on this income.

He said this is big money but it should be seen in the development of region. “When one moves around this money should be visible from an individual perspective to the region as a whole,” says Mr Pinda. Contributing to the issue of food shortage, Mr Pinda says seriousness is needed on the production of food crops, particularly drought resistant ones such as cassava and millet.

He says irrigation farming need to be given priority as it ensures constant supply of farm produce all year round. Another area of possible promotion is fishing. Since 2006 to last year, about 262 tons of fish worth about 193m/- have been sold. There are plenty of potentials in the industry and plans should be put in place to support the industry.

New mailing address:

SLP 65

Ndanda

Mtwara, Tanzania

If you send stuff to the old address I'll still get it though.

My friend Mirinda made this cool video about the health volunteers in our district. Check it out.

Pictures from our girls' conference.

Everyone on the last day. Aren't we cute?

You can stand under my umbrella. Ella. Ella. Ella.

Condom relay races.

Lindsey and me doing a skit on how to negotiate condom use.

Condom demo!

Kickboxing!

Teaching yoga. Note that a) the confused look on the face of the volunteer next to me, and b) the fact that I have never done this before.

Me and my students.

At the talent show, we PCVs sang the ridiculous songs I wrote. And Mirinda did an awesome dance to go along with it.

Talent show by candlelight. Have we mentioned we love the electric company here in Masasi?

Volleyball. Most of the girls hadn't played before. Their way of playing is similar to mine: stand there and hope the ball doesn't come near you.

Not only are we health teachers and camp counselors, but we serve the food too.

Practicing self-defense.

The human knot. AKA an american game that didn't really translate well. But they tried.

A peace corps seminar isn't a seminar without tons of flipcharts.

I came to the realization recently that I have been in Tanzania for more than a year. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to do some reflecting/processing on my first year here. I think the best way to process my year here, rather than some trite, cheasy, trying-to-be-more-insightful-than-I-actually-am blog entry, is to round up the year with some top ten lists. (Or top five lists, for stuff that I couldn't think of ten entries for).

Top 10 Favorite Swahili Words/Phrases

10) Mji wa mimba: literally "town of pregnancy." The word for uterus.

9) Haifai: It's not suitable. Said kind of like hi-fi

8) Habari za kupoteana? If someone hasn't seen you in awhile, they say this. What is the news of us losing on another?

7) Kitimoto: Pork. Literally "Chair-fire"

6) Kupiga stori: Shoot the shit.

5) Chapuchapu: Quickly! (Chop chop!)

4) Matako: Buttocks

3) Matiti: What do you think? Breasts of course.

2) Shaghalabaghala: Disorderly. Synonym for Peace Corps training.

1) Wowowo: Large butt. Said like it's written: woWOwo.

Top 10 Books Read While in Tanzania

Honorable Mentions: You Shall Know our Velocity, Dave Eggers; Sophie's World, Jostein GarderRichard Russo; Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson; House of Spirits, Isabel Allende; Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver

10) Blink, Malcom Gladwell

9) The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

8) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Richard Pirsig

7) I Know This Much is True, Wally Lamb

6) Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

5) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire

4) The Impossible Will Take a Little While

3) The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

2) Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

1) The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

Top 5 Forms of Transportation

5) Daladala: Let's fit 30 people in a car slightly bigger than a mini-van.

4) Riding on the back of someone's bike: A lot better than being the one who is riding the bike.

3) Cell phone company cars: Note to future PCVs- make friends with people that work for the cell phone companies. They usually have nice cars.

2) Tractor: Preferably if there is a big cart attached to the back and there are a ton of people and everyone is singing.

1) Bajaji: Small tuk-tuk like vehicle. Can hold 1-9 people.

Top 10 Pick-up Lines People Have Used on Me or My Friends

10) Unanitega: Nice and straightforward.

9) Let's have sex: Also straightforward.

8) "Do you have a fiance?" "Yes." "In America or Tanzania." "America." You need a Tanzanian fiancee."

7) "I want you to take me to Europe." "I'm not from Europe." "Ok where are you from?"

6) "Raula...Raula...Raula..." "What?" "I love you."

5) You've gotten fat. Tanzanian compliment.

4) "I love you." "You don't know me." "So let's get to know one another."

3) If you marry me I'll give you 600 shillings (like 50 cents) and a palm tree.

2) I want to marry an mzungu (white person).

1) So...tutasex?

Top 10 Foods Made Using Tomatoes and Onions Because Those are the Only Vegetables Always Available in My Village

10) Regular beans

9) Tomato curry

8) Chili

7) "Spanish" rice

6) Tomato soup

5) Baylor's Bread

4) Kachumbali (basically onions, tomatoes, salt and lemon juice)

3) Salsa and Chips

2) Scrambled eggs (provided I can find eggs)

1) Spaghetti (provided I remembered to buy pasta when I went to town)

Top 10 Forms of Insect Removal

10) Not doing anything, just hiding from them in my mosquito net

9) Pretending they are not there

8) Using a lint roller to remove ants when there are a ton of them on the floor

7) When out of bug spray, spraying the bugs with bleach

6) When out of bug spray, spraying the room with PC-supplied insect repellent intended for use on your body

5) Spraying down the house with probably-carcinogenic bug spray

4) For larger bugs, attacking them with the broom while screaming like an idiot

3) Sweeping them outside

2) Sic-ing my cat on the bugs

1) Having one of my neighbors come and removing them

Top 10 Things People Have Brought To My House to Sell To Me

10) Sweet potatoes. For this and other items on the list, remember there is not a lot of food available in the village.

9) Spinach

8) Bananas

7) Charcoal

6) Candlesticks

5) Eggs

4) Barack Obama kanga

3) A live turtle

2) George Bush kanga

1) A monkey. "Where did you get him?" "The bush." "What is its name?" "John."

Top 10 Challenges

10) Few forms of entertainment/distraction. Especially when I run out of things to run and have to resort to reading the Peace Corps newsletter.

9) Food. Or lack thereof.

8) Critters in my house. I'm getting better though. I don't freak out at spiders anymore (as much)

7) The amount of time it takes to accomplish things; meetings starting late or not at all

6) Tanzanian men

5) Trying to reconcile community needs/wants with what I personally have the desire and ability to do

4) Not having a structure job

3) Loneliness. PC loneliness is a hard-core different kind of loneliness than I'm used to. My friends in the village are great but sometimes not very helpful if I'm having a bad day, and you can only accomplish so much from texting other PCVs.

2) Trying to change people's perception about my role: ie it is not my job to bring money into the village, nor do I have the resources to do so

1) Language.

Top 10 Favorite Projects/ Work-Related(?) Activities

10) Making flipcharts for the dispensary.

9) Scolding random people for being alcoholics

8) Sort of helping my mama friends cook at their "restaurant"

7) Trying to teach my two-year old friend English

6) Playing silly games at the primary school (hokey-pokey, duck duck goose and it's variations (vegetable vegetable fruit, mosquito mosquito malaria mosquito)

5) Informal teaching in which my friends come over and look at all my random books laying around

4) Teaching community peer education group about malaria and HIV

3) Teaching secondary school students. Usually ends up being about sex.

2) Girls' camp (see previous post)

1) Condom demos- anywhere and everywhere

5 days and 4 nights. 4 Peace Corps Volunteers. 3 1/2 tanzanian counterparts. 33 secondary school students. 90 kilos of rice. 50 kilos of beans. 12,000 condoms. 6 wooden penises. 50 candles. No electricty. Best week ever(?). Most stressful week ever.

Pictures coming in a few weeks. I forgot my camera cord today.

(Why did we have 12,000 condoms, you ask? I told another PCV to go to the hospital and get a couple boxes of condoms. The small boxes that are given out at the hospital usually come in boxes of 100. She didn't know what boxes I was referring to, so she got two boxes that each had 60 of these small boxes, for a total of 6000 condoms per box.)

Lesson learned in Tanzania: You can write a song about anything to the tune of "My Heart Will Go On".

I have started writing stupid songs to use when I teach, so the students will pay attention. They probably just think I am ridiculous, but I am at least amusing myself. The following are the lyrics to my song about STDs:

Verse 1:

Klamidia na kisonono

Ni magonjwa ya ngono.

Dalili zao ni sawasawa.

Usaha au maumivu

Wakati wa kukojoa.

Hizi ni dalili,

Lakini wengi hawana dalili zozote.

Chorus:

Klamidia, kisonono, kaswende na kankroidi

Haya ni magonjwa ambayo hatutaki kupata.

Usifanye ngono, uwe mwaminifu,

Au tumia kondomu kila tendo la ngono

Ukipata ugonjwa nenda kwa daktari mapema

Na waambie wapenzi wako ili watibiwe pia

Verse 2:

Kaswende ni ugonjwa

Wa madhara mengi,

Kwa mfano kichaa au kifo.

Inaanza na kidonda

Ambacho hakiumi,

Halafu kidonda kinapona.

Verse 3:

Kankroidi ni ugonjwa

Wa vidonda pia

Lakini vidonda hivi

Vinaumia sana.

Rough English translation:

Chlamydia and gonorrhea

Are sexually transmitted diseases.

Their symptoms are the same.

Discharge or pains while urinating

These are symptoms

But many have no symptoms at all.

Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphillis and chancroid.

These are diseases that we don't want to get.

Don't have sex, be faithful,

Or use a condom each time you have sex.

If you get an infection, go quickly to the doctor

And tell your partners so they can be treated too.

Syphillis is an infection

Of many consequences

Such as insanity or death.

It starts with a sore

That doesn't hurt.

Then the sore heals.

Chancroid is an infection

With sores also.

But these sores hurt a lot.

Want to find out what I ate for dinner last Thursday? Let me tell you...

At the end of the week I usually find myself wondering, "What the hell have I been doing with myself this week?" So I decided to keep a record of my daily activities for a week and so I could see what in fact I have been doing with myself. (The conclusion: LOTS of condom demonstrations and distributions. And not much else.) Also some of you in America are under the impression that you can't email me or write to me because you have nothing to tell me, since what I am doing is so much more exciting than what you are doing. After reading this you will see that is definitely not the case.

Thursday 4/16:Taught about immune system at primary school; pretty sure students didn't understand me as usual.Took bike to get fixed twiceBugged fundi about when he is going to finish my furniture, and asked if he knew someone that can make me a wooden penis. Conversation was slightly less awkward than anticipated. Gave his assistant some condoms and did a condom demo.Went to this "restaurant" where I am friends with the mamas, and helped kuna nazi, or grind coconut. Ate lunch.Ran into the Village Executive Officer (VEO). He gave me some peanuts.Talked to this Red Cross volunteer, because after being here 8 months I still can't figure out if they actually do anything here or not.Came home, prepared teaching materials, made spaghetti for dinner, listened to radio, read, went to bedFriday 4/17Taught HIV basics at dispensary and helped weigh babies.Came home and ate boiled peanuts for lunchWent to the village, where an NGO from a nearby town had come at my request to do an HIV testing day. Kind of got into a fight with someone from the NGO because their org is apparently funded by the Catholic Church, which I didn't know, and they apparently don't really teach about condom use as a way to prevent HIV, and he was trying to accuse me of giving out condoms without explaining how to use them.Showed up half an hour late for a meeting with a mama's group, which is usually on time in Tanzania, but almost everyone had left by the time I arrived. I explained for the 50th time that I cannot give them money to start their chicken-raising project, but if they each contribute money each month they will have enough money. Desperately tried to think of other things I could teach them, because they were just staring at me like I was useless, and tried to explain the concept of team-building exercises, which they didn't get at all.Came home. Some guy brought 70 eggs to my house. Contemplated buying all of them then only bought 4.My friend Omari came over. I tried to explain to him the concept of sarcasm after he was like, you know, there is this thing called HIV. I was like, no really? And he didn't understand that I was joking. Apparently there is actually a Swahili word for sarcasm: Kejeli.Took a shower after it got dark, had my cat kill all the roaches in the choo before I showered. Went to bed.Saturday 4/18Went to Omari's farm with him, his mom, and his two neices. They gave me 3 pumpkins ad 6 ears of corn.Me and Omari came back to my house and listened to my ipod for awhile.I waited for my VEO to come to take me too this meeting we were supposed to go to. He never showed up so I went to the village to talk to him, talked to some other people in the village for awhile, got my bike fixed again, came home eventually. Ate some candy for dinner bc I didn't feel like cooking.Sunday 4/19

Nothing much: laundry (why did I ever complain about doing laundry in the US?). Made pumpkin casserole. My boss from Dar who was doing meetings in my region came and dropped off some books for me.Monday 4/20Walked to a neighboring village to pick up surveys I had given to primary school teachers to see what they know about HIV. Took bus to next village. After going to the schools hung out with my mama friend at her "restaurant" for awhile. Waited for bus again, gave some condoms to student while I was waiting. Went to another village to pick up some books from another volutneer's house. By the time I got back home it was almost dark. Fundi brought me my penis model. Read and went to bed.Tuesday 4/21Taught at secondary school; they decided to ask me every single random question they have ever had about sex. Explained what oral sex and the clitoris are.Got into an argument with some of the teachers because they seem to think that if they attend a training I am planning about HIV/AIDS, then I need to pay them and/or give them ridiculous amounts of food and soda.Did a "needs assessment" meeting in one of the sub-villages. I am trying to see if there are any big projects that the village wants done, and if so I will write a grant to help them get money. They decided either a well or a "modern" market would benefit the village.Came home, baked pumpkin bread, read, bedWednesday 4/22Taught at secondary school again.Guest teachers at the school talked to me for a long time about American politics. Did you know what "Obama" stands for? "Originally Born in Africa Made for America." This is a direct quote. I told the guy that Obama wasn't actually born in Africa but he didn't believe me.My friend Zeituni who I haven't seen in ages came over.A bunch of students came and asked for drinking water. Then a bunch more came and asked for condoms.NappedTaught some life skills stuff at the primary school, which I swore I'd never teach, until I got dropped off alone at my village with nothing but my HIV/AIDS manual and Life Skills manualCame home, watched the students play soccer. Omari and another teacher decided to come over and the other teacher decided to tell me I don't know how to teach and that I am generally ridiculous. I contemplated once again how I wish that all my neighbors were not complete assholes.Thursday 4/23Was about to leave to go teach at primary school in the morning, when my counterpart Esha came over. I felt bad that she had walked all the way to my house, so I went to the priamry school really late. Taught about hygeine.Got condoms from dispensary. Ate lunch at Mama Rama's "restaurant". Came home and napped.Fundi delivered my furniture that has taken like 3 months to build. I was sitting on my porch preparing some teaching materials and one of the teachers I don't like came and blathered on about marriage and other things I wasn't paying attention to. Hung out with Tino for awhile. Finished preparing teaching materials and went to bed.Friday 4/24Taught HIV/AIDS biology, disease progression, transmission and prevention at a secondary school in a neighboring village. These students actually listen to me unlike the students at my school.Came home, made orange juice and roasted peanuts, cleaned my house, worked halfheartedly on grant for the teacher training I am planning.Omari came over for a little then left. Then his younger brother Yassini came and we sat in silence for awhile. Then he started asking me random questions about HIV. Apparently he is never going to have sex or even kiss anyone because that is the most effective way to prevent HIV. He thinks it's possible to get HIV if you're making out with someone and accidentally bite them and make them bleed. I tried to explain that the chances of that are very small and I don't think that generally happens, and maybe you should be more gentle if you're making out with someone. He said people should just stop having sex and that would solve the problem of HIV. I tried to explain why I don't think abstinence-only education is very effective (ie we do that in the US and it doesn't work; people still get unwanted pregnancies and STDs because they don't have the information they need to protect themselves). He asked me if I was a virgin and I got really mad and wrote "NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS" on the ground and stopped talking to him. He continued to sit on my porch for half an hour. Some students came and got condoms. Yassini eventually left. I played with my cat for awhile then went to bed.

This is me and one of my best friends in the village, Tino (short for Valentino, which by the way is not a very common Tanzanian name). He is the son of one of the secondary school teachers and one of my teachers. I think Tino was slightly confused by what I was doing with the camera. Also in the background is one of the secondary school students, Mudi.

I rarely use my camera, otherwise I would post more pictures. Happy Easter everyone. I'm trying to bring the fantastic American concept of the Easter Egg Hunt to my village. The only problem is we don't really have eggs.

You know you're in Peace Corps Tanzania when:

-you rejoice at rain because it means you don't have to buy/chote water, and you scramble around your house trying to find every bucket, pot, cup, hat that will hold water

-you go on a trip and buy vegetables and spices to bring back home with you, because they don't have any in your village

-you enjoy looking around markets in different towns to see what food they have that isn't available where you live

-you beep someone in America and then wonder why they haven't called you back

-you have bought one or more of the following out of bus windows: phone voucher, shoes, produce, roasted corn, juice, a hat, cashews

-you get REALLY excited about cold soda

-you receive marriage proposals on an almost daily basis

-a two hour bus ride is considered close

-people tell you that you've gotten fat after a trip

-you and other volunteers buy a cake and eat it with your hands like ugali, because that's the logical thing to do when you don't have silverware

-you're ecstatic when a meeting starts an hour late, because that's much more on time than usual

-there is an occasion at least once a month where you have to sign a guestbook of some sort

-you've started saying random words during lulls in conversation, like "Obama" or "Marekani"

-you've started doing the above with other Americans and not just Tanzanians

-your conversations with other Americans revolve around food, sex, and bowel movements (but mainly food)

-a certain level of perpetual confusion has become normal

-you're slightly weirded out when you're not the only foreigner around

-you can convey a wide variety of responses and emotions through different forms of grunting

-you drink hot tea when it's 90 degrees outside (and people think it's strange if you don't drink it)

-you have integrated the following words/phrases into your vocabulary: processing, soda and bites, needs assessment

-You know what the following acronyms mean: PST, PCT, PCV, IST, MSC, COS, OVC, PLWHA, PCMO, PEPFAR, RPCV, HCN, HBC, VAST, SPA, PCPP, PACA, PDM, APCD, VSS

Note: why is Microsoft 2007 so confusing? I am going to be computer illiterate when I get back to the US.

The following is an excerpt from a report I had to write for Peace Corps, about the needs in my community and potential projects. This is a list of my project ideas:

Health-Health clubs: There are currently no health clubs in the community or at the primary or secondary school (apart from the life skills education at Mkang’u primary).

-Nutrition education: I think that providing basic nutrition education about balanced meals and the importance of certain nutrients and vitamins could help improve the nutritional status of the community. Providing mothers with this education could be beneficial since women are usually the family members responsible for preparing meals. This education could be done on a community-level or at the dispensary when mothers bring in their children to be vaccinated

-Permaculture projects: Nutrition education would be useless without providing people with education about growing vegetables and growing food in a more efficient manner.

-Health question box/bulletin board: There are many myths surrounding sexual/reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and these issues are not usually talked about openly. One way to address this would be to provide a box at the secondary school where students could anonymously put in questions they have about STIs, HIV/AIDS, condoms, etc, which could be answered on a weekly basis. In addition, a bulletin board (or several) placed in the center of the village could provide basic information and answer people’s questions.

-Education about alcohol abuse

-Education about water sanitation and basic hygiene (boiling water, washing hands with soap, etc)

-Start some sort of communal health resources library

-Initiate more latrine construction

-Starting a lunch program at the schools

HIV/AIDS-Training of Teachers (TOT): This could be done on a village or ward-wide level.

-Large events/testing days to encourage more people to be tested

-Education to reduce stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS

-Encourage condom use and perform condom demonstrations

-Look into possibility of making condoms available at bars, pombe clubs, and guesthouse

-Start peer education groups at schools

-Educating men about behavior change (since most of the PLWHAs in the village are women that got it from their husbands/boyfriends)

-Show HIV/AIDS-related videos at the video places in town

-Working with OVCs: I do not know if there are many OVCs in the village, but if there are, then possible projects with OVCs include income-generating projects, psychosocial support projects (ie memory book), and making sure their basic needs are provided for

-Working with PLWHAs: Income generation and permaculture to improve nutritional status and provide funds for transportation to hospital once a month

Agriculture/Environment-Teaching about compost-making to improve crop yields

-Starting a seed bank so that people have enough seeds to plant, and a variety of crops to choose from

-Permaculture

-Training people to build water-catchment tanks, particularly those that live far away from a water source

-Building fuel-efficient stoves, which will both cut down on the amount of trees used for firewood, and potentially encourage people to boil their water since they will not have to use so much fuel

Community Development/Other-Literacy project: I have observed when helping out at the dispensary that many women are unable to read or write. I don’t know if this is a large-scale problem in the village or if these people want to learn how to read or write, but if they do, a literacy project could be beneficial.

-Income generation projects and vocational training for out-of-school youths-Women/Girls’ Empowerment: Women and girls are grossly underrepresented in government and in secondary education, are often very shy and afraid to speak around men, and carry the brunt of the household work. While gender inequality is a very hard thing to change, the following projects could be done to help meliorate this gender imbalance:-Starting girls’/women’s/mamas’ groups

-Income-generating projects for women

-Finding mentors for young girls

-Having professional women or women with businesses to speak to girls about possible careers

-Life skills education

-Educating men about behavior change

-International Women’s Day celebration

-District or regional girls’/women’s conferenceBasically I have a lot of project ideas and not a whole lot of ideas about how to start these projects. Y'all should check out my friend Meesh's blog, who I have linked on the right-hand side of this page. She already has some cool projects with OVCs (0rphans and vulnerable children) going at her site.

I have determined that if I were living in any time period other than the modern age, I never would have survived. How did people figure out how to make fire? I can barely get my charcoal stove started even when I douse it in kerosene. And how did people figure out what foods to eat, or what foods could be eaten after you cooked them? Like rice. Let's beat these little brown pellets until the brown stuff comes off, then shake out all the brown stuff and cook it in water until it is soft. Who the hell figured that out?

Speaking of rice preparation, the amount of time that it takes just to live here is absurd. People grow the rice on their farms, beat it so the husks come off, shake out the husks, pick through the rice so there aren't any rocks, wash the rice, and then cook it. Of course, this is after they have cut down trees and carried loads of firewood to their house, and after they have choted water to their house from the well. And this is all just for one meal. And of course, it's usually the women that do the water-choting and the firewood-carrying and the cooking and the cleaning the dishes.

A lot of people tell me that they want to go to America, because life in Tanzania is hard and they think they will have easier lives in the US and they will get more money. I usually try to explain to them that there are a lot of poor people in the US, and that life there is not easy for everyone, particularly if you're an immigrant that doesn't speak English. But then sometimes I wonder whether being really poor in the US would be a step up from Tanznia. Because even if you were really poor, you would probably still have running water in your house, and electricity.

For those who were wondering, I survived the 56k bike trip and it only took around 8 hours. This included my pedal falling off halfway through the ride, walking 1 km to get it fixed; resting for an hour and a half for lunch; having a random guy try to sell me a Makonde wood carving, and then giving it to me as a gift after i refused to buy it; then taking a short nap under a tree before gearing myself up for the last 10 km of the ride. My ass was sore for about a week.

The following are things that I have been thinking about for a long time. I don't really have anyone here to discuss these things with, so I'm releasing these thoughts into cyberspace.

-Is Peace Corps, and the idea that a foreigner can come help communities "develop," inherently imperialistic? Or is it possible for Peace Corps Volunteers to effect, positive, albeit small-scale, change? Or is Peace Corps something that privileged Americans do to feel good about themselves, that in the end has very marginal effects on the communities, either positive or negative?

-For that matter, Peace Corps has been in Tanzania since 1961. What exactly has been accomplished?

-As an employee of the US government working in the Global South, on a project partly funded by PEPFAR, how am I perpetuating the very systems that I want to get rid of?

-Tanzania was colonized by Germany. My family heritage is largely German. Am I perpetuating the domination carried out by my ancestors? Or is it possible that I can try to rectify some of the damage they caused?

-Why are the overwhelming majority of PCVs white?

-Peace Corps talks a lot about being "culturally appropriate." What exactly does this mean? Tanzania has over 100 tribes adn 35 million people. I'm still learning about TZ, but surely the idea that there is one, homogenous culture and a uniform conception of what is appropriate is ridiculous.

-Why do I get upset when people ask me for money? I'm American and a foreigner and still making more than a lot of people in my village (even though PC living allowance is supposed to put you at the same standard of living as an "average" Tanzanian). So of course people are giong to ask me for money. I know I shouldn't get upset, but I still do. Is it because it happens every time I leave my house, which gets old after awhile? Or is it simply because I feel uncomfortable at my privilege being pointed out constantly?

-As part of my job in health/HIV/AIDS education I'm supposed to educate youths about "life skills," ie communication skills, decision-making skills, relationship skills, in hopes that such life skills will prevent youths from making "risky" decisions and participating in "risky behavior" that causes the spread of HIV/AIDS. I have a few problems with this approach:

1) By blaming an individual/an individual's "risky behavior" on HIV/AIDS, this framework ignores the role that structural/social and economic inequalities and inequitable access to services and resources have in affecting one's health and behavior.

2) Blaming the spread of HIV/AIDS on risky behavior ignores the fact that many girls/women are coerced/forced into sex or are unable to negotiate condom use with their partner.

So. What is a more effective method of HIV/AIDS prevention? Any input on this or my other questions is appreciated.

New phone number: 0714000743

Am attempting to bike 56 kilometers tomorrow, from my banking town to my village. Being that I haven't ridden a bike in about 5 years, I think this is a fantastic idea.

My activities lately: going to lots of endless government meetings, which usually take place under a cashew or mango tree. The men all sit on one side and the women all sit on the other. Me and the government officials sit in chairs at the front. I generally give a short, terrible speech introducing myself in Swahili, then the people in the village talk about what problems they are having, which mainly have to do with access to water, and people stealing cashews off of other people's cashew trees.

i'm probably the only person that finds this interesting. but whatever. so Kiswahili has noun classes. People and animals, or "living locomotive things" as my kiswahili teacher would say, are in one noun class, the m/wa noun class. Exept there are some people that are not in the m/wa class. These people are:

vijana: youths

vipofu: blind people

viwete: lame/handicapped people

viziwi: deaf people

vibarua: day laborer

vibiongo: hunchbacks

vibogoyo: toothless people

vibushuti: very short people

vijakazi: slave-girls

vimada: concubines

vimwana: pretty young girls

virukanjia: prostitutes

kisura: a beautiful girl, a looker

kifunguamimba: first-born

kitindamimba: last-born

kitoto: infant

kipusa: rhino horn; slang: pretty girl/woman

kizee: old woman

I don't think it is a coincidence that the people that are not included in the people noun class are women, prostitutes, and people with disabilities.

Although then I found out that the word for leader, "kiongozi" is also not in the m/wa noun class. So maybe that blows my theory.

In other news, I dropped my phone in the choo today, fished it back out and it still works.

On Saturday I was hanging out at my house and a guy on a bike showed up with a letter for me inviting me to a government meeting the following day. I went to the government meeting and found out that next week I am going to be going to a bunch of neighboring villages and doing something, not sure what. I asked the WEO (Ward Executive Officer) what I was going to be doing, and he said we would walk to his house and he would explain it. He took me to his neighbor's house and left. I sat in the living room by myself for a little while and then left. I still have no idea what I'm doing next week or where these villages are.

My days consist mainly of: going on random walks in my village, stopping to talk to people, who then either: laugh at me, stare at me blankly when i try to speak swahili, offer me food, or ask me for money/food/presents. Or all of the above.

I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer now and have been at my site for a little over a week. For those that don't feel like reading a long blog entry, here is my first week at site in a nutshell:

Government officials that came with me to site: 3

Bottles of water that the government officials bought for me: 36

Number of people that welcomed me upon my arrival: about 250

Buckets of water I have used: 6

Times I have cooked for myself: 2

Rats in my choo: 1-2

Spiders living in my bedroom: 3

Spiders living in my choo: 2

Number of times people have had to translate my terrible Swahili into something that makes sense: at least 20

Number of culturally inappropriate things I have done: At least 8 that I am aware of, and probably a lot more that I am not aware of

Number of times I have had to say "Sema tena pole pole" (Say it again slower): incalculable

Number of times I have felt ridiculous: incalculable

We had an awesome ceremony officially swearing us in as volunteers, in which my entire training group performed a song in Swahili to the tune of "My Heart Will Go On," while wearing ridiculous slash amazing Tanzanian outfits that our host families made for us. Then we took an oath of loyalty to the US Constitution. I must say, of all the things I imagined doing in life, taking an oath of loyalty to the constitution was something I never imagined myself doing. Then about 10 minutes after the swearing-in ceremony, me and the other people going to my region had to immediately leave to start heading to site, because our region takes a long time to get to, or something.

So i arrived at site on Friday of last week. I rode in a car with three government officials to the secondary school where I am living, and when we arrived there were about 250 people waiting to give me a welcoming party. This welcoming party involved a lot of singing and dancing, including a song that was about me and how they are glad that their teacher has arrived; the district supervisor lecturing the village for ten minutes about how Americans like to be on time; and then me trying to give an impromptu speech in Swahili in which I'm sure no one understood what I was trying to say. All I could think the entire time was that Peace Corps is by far the most ridiculous thing I have done in my life.

My house: is kind of like a Tanzanian-style duplex; on one side live two teachers, and I live on the other side. I have three rooms, a courtyard, a choo (bathroom, and by bathroom I mean a cement room with a porcelain hole in the floor), and two other rooms off of the courtyard that I haven't figured out what to do with yet. I don't have electricity and water is 1 k from my house but I haven't had to carry water on my head yet. There are random people on bikes that I buy water from. There is a humongous spider that has taken up residence in my bedroom, and since I am too terrified of it to get close enough to remove/kill it, we have been peacefully coexisting for now.

Health volunteers don't have to actually do anything during their first three months at site; we are supposed to spend the first three months settling in and learning about our community and figuring out our community's needs. So this week I have mainly been walking around my village and talking to random people and trying to figure out how to live in Tanzania. My neighbors are convinced that I am incompetent and have been feeding me a lot. When I tell them that I know how to cook they just laugh at me.

Everyday I wake up and think: Is this my life? I am I really living in this random village in Tanzania? I barely know how to live here or speak Swahili, and they expect me to help people? How absurd.

If you want to mail me things, my address now is PO Box 531 Masasi, Mtwara Region, Tanzania. I'll probably be able to check email 1-2 times a month, so sorry if it takes me awhile to respond to emails.

Things that Tanzanians love that I do not quite understand:

-Shania Twain

-Ugali: Aka a very popular food. The closest translation I have seen for this is stiff porridge. It's corn flour and water and it tastes like nothing. And they love it.

-George Bush: I have seen several people wearing kangas with George Bush's face on them, with a slogan underneath that said something to the effect of "We Cherish Democracy." I have also met a Tanzanian that owns a hat that has pictures of both Bush and Kikwete on it.

-WWE: My host mama watches this every Saturday night.

-Fried dough in any form: I may not know more than 20 verbs in Swahili, but I do know the names of the plethora of fried dough snacks- andazi, chapati, half-keki, donuti, kitumbua.

Things that Tanzanians love that I find highly amusing:

-Celine Dion

Dear friends,

I am almost done with training. Today I found out where I will be living for the next two years. I will be going to Mtwara Region, which is in southern Tanzania, near Mozambique. It is apparently a few hours away from the beach and very pretty. We are in the capital right now, then we have one more week with our host families and then we move to our sites.

In other news I shadowed another PCV this past week and a Massai family slaughtered a goat for us. I have also bought a cellphone: My number is 785-034-702. The country code for TZ is 255.

Recent news in my life:

We went on a mini-safari this past weekend and saw elephants, giraffes, and zebras. Slash the highlight of the trip was being able to take a hot shower, use a western toilet, and eat cheese. I have been enjoying bucket baths, but I have never enjoyed a shower so much in my life.

Being here is basically like being a child in that someone cooks for me and gets my bathwater for me, I have to be home before dark, and I don't get dirty jokes. It has been my quest to prove to my host family that I am not in fact incompetent, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. So today I decided to cook American food for them. I decided to cook spaghetti, which seemed like a fantastic idea being that I have never made spaghetti sauce from scrath before. I didn't feel like making garlic bread as a side dish so I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead. (Yes, there is peanut butter here. But my family still didn't know what it was).

This week we had a very interesting visit to a primary school and learned about their sex education and HIV/AIDS curriculum. I haven't been nearly long enough to understand Tanzanian cultural attitudes about sex, but the little bit I learned this week was super-interesting and contradictory. For example, the government-directed standardized curriculum has kids starting to learn about HIV/AIDS the first year they're in primary school. Kids in Standard 6 (i think around 12-13 yrs old) have to learn how to use condoms correctly. I asked the teacher if there was any resistance to kids learning about sex in school and he said no; that in this town a few people may be unhappy but they haven't complained to the school (but there may be resistance to it in other parts of TZ). We talked to our LCF (language/cross-cultural facilitator) later and she said that parents here rarely talk to their kids about sex; they will get an aunt or uncle to give their kids a sex talk. Our LCF said that she has been struggling with how to talk to her kids about sex, because she wants them to be informed, but if she talks to them about sex, her kids will tell their friends, their friends will tell their parents, and their parents will think that she is trying to ruin their community's morals/culture. She said she has been thinking about hiring someone from an organization that specializes in sex education to talk to her kids, like one of her friends did with her kids. Our LCF is an educated woman living in the capital city, and her friend that hired someone to talk to her kids is getting her PhD.

My question is: where as a PCV do I fit into all of this? I didn't come here to change Tanzanians' cultural values, but doing HIV/AIDS and health education necessitates confronting cultural attitudes about gender and sex.

Well I am still here and alive. I apologize if I haven't responded to your emails; the internet has been very slow the past few times I have been here.

I think if you feel compelled you should write me a letter, because receiving mail during training has been surprisingly efficient. And every week when they give us our mail I always get my hopes up because they call out my name, when it is really the other Laura here that is getting mail.

I had been wanting to write a fantastic, witty, insightful blog entry before coming here, but since I haven't composed one yet, I will leave you with this list.

Random things I enjoy about Tanzania so far:

-Chai breaks every morning

-Passionfruit juice

-Tanzaznian TV, ie soap operas from other countries dubbed in terrible, awkward English

-Meetings with government officials in which everyone is an hour late and the government officials wear flip-flops and answer their cell phones during the meeting

-When I walk home and the neighborhood kids run and jump on me to get hugs (I admittedly am not a huge fan of children, but this always cheers me up)

-That you are supposed to greet everyone you know, and that initial greetings are supposed to last several minutes before the actual conversation starts

-Bucket baths: they conserve a lot of water

-The fact that Whitney Houston, Phil Collins and the Backstreet Boys have been playing on the stereo in the internet cafe

Greetings from Tanzania! I am alive and have been in TZ for two weeks. After two days in Dar es salaam and two days in Morogoro we arrived at our homestays at our training site. (Peace Corps advises against me giving away my location in my blog, so I'll leave that a secret for now.) My family is very nice, although I think they just spend a lot of time laughing at me. My father and sister speak pretty good English, so communication is not as difficult as it could be. There are about 8 or 10 people in my family, I haven't quite figured out how everyone is related or who actually lives in the house. We have electricity and eat dinner around the TV, which struck me as so very American. We usually watch soccer, the Tanzanian version of C-SPAN, or these fantastic telenovelas dubbed in awkward English.

We are divided into groups of about five PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) for training. Here is what an average day in training is like:

8 am: Class

10 am: Chai break

10:30/11 am: Class

12/1 pm: Lunch

2-4ish pm: Class

4-6ish: Hang around town, play frisbee or duck duck goose with neighborhood kids

6 pm: Come home and help with dinner or play with the kids

9/9:30 pm: Dinner

9:30: Bath, bed

My dreams of being a dirty hippie while in TZ have been squashed, as a lot of Tanzanians bathe twice a day; my family gives me hot water to bathe in twice a day. I have not been sick yet, knock on wood, and the squat toilets are not as bad as I had imagined. The food is not bad, mainly rice and beans and spinach and bananas.

Highlight of my week: Yesterday we met with local government officials to ask questions about Tanzanian government structure. My training group wrote a song (in Swahili) about our village, and performed it for them. Since then we have been performing the song for anyone who is willing to listen, along with a lot of people who probably don't want to listen.

I am almost out of internet time so I will write more later.

My bags are packed and I'm leaving for the airport in about two hours. After staging in DC, I'll be leaving for Tanzania on the 10th and arriving on the evening of the 11th. I don't know how much internet access I'll have once training starts, but I will try to keep you all updated.

I hope everyone that's reading this is doing wonderfully. See you all in 2010.

After much frustration, packing and repacking, and getting on and off the scale, I have at last finalized my packing list. Peace Corps requirements are no more than 80 pounds and 107 inches (total length, height, and width measurements) for checked luggage. I am somewhat skeptical about the accuracy of my scale (I apparently gained 5 pounds in a period of ten minutes), but I think I have gotten it so that my bags are just under 80 pounds. I am scared of measuring my bags and finding out that they exceed the inch requirement, so I'm just not going to measure them.

Luggage

-REI Ridgeline 65 Backpack

-REI Beast Duffel Bag

-Messenger bag as carry-on

Clothing

-Shirts (4 short-sleeve button down, 1 blouse, 6 t-shirts, 2 long-sleeve shirts)

-Skirts (6 just below knee, 1 calf-length)

-Pants (1 jeans, 1 quick-dry, 1 cargo)

-Tanktops/camis (3)

-Sleepwear/loungewear (1 long pair sweatpants, 1 capri sweatpants, 1 gaucho, 4 cotton t-shirts)

-Hoodie (1)

-Fleece jacket (1)

-Exercise shorts (1)

-Bathing suit (1)

-Lightweight raincoat (1)

-Belt (1)

-Slips (2)

-Bras (4 regular, 1 sport)

-Underwear (23 pairs)

-Watch (1)

-Sunglasses (1)

-Bandanas (2)

-Socks (7 pairs, plus 1 pair slipper socks in case it gets cold)

Shoes

-Sneakers (1)

-Chacos (1)

-Keens: 1 closed-toe slip-ons, 1 waterproof sandal

-Rainbows (1)

-Old Navy flip-flops (1)

Electronics

-Ipod and charger, extra set headphones

-Shortwave radio

-Camera, extra memory cards, SD card reader

-Mini Maglite

-Headlamp

-Solio solar battery charger

-AAA batteries, AA batteries, rechargeable batteries and charger

-Plug adapter and converter

-Travel alarm clock

-Flash drive

Books and Entertainment

-Tanzania guidebook and travel map

-Crossword puzzle book

-Swahili/English dictionary

-Book of yoga poses

-Cards; UNO; book of card games

-Journal

-Drawing supplies and sketchbook

-Frisbee

-Photo album

-Several novels and non-fiction books (This is probably why I’m so close to the weight limit. I’ll probably have to take a few of these out.)

Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (b/c so many people have recommended it to me) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (had you heard the term "non-profit industrial complex" before? Me neither)The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende (one of the many books I’ve bought but haven’t gotten around to reading)Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia (same)Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (same)Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden (same)The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (same)Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov (gift from someone I like)Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy (gift from someone I like)The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizens Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (gift from someone I like)Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut (a favorite)

Toiletries etc

-Shampoo & conditioner 2 in 1, bar soap (3), facewash

-toothpaste (2)

-Extra toothbrushes (3)

-Floss

-Contacts & contact solution, eye drops

-Glasses (2 pairs) & Glasses cleaner

-Deodorant (3)

-Small mirror

-Comb

-Hair ties

-Diva Cup and a few tampons

-Razors & razorblades

-Tweezers

-Nail clippers

-Band-aids

-Hand sanitizer

-Toilet paper

-Q-tips

-Vitamins

-Advil/Tylenol

-Benadryl

-Pepto Bismol

-Benadryl cream

-Small thing of insect repellent that doesn’t have DEET

-Sunscreen

(Peace Corps also provides us with a medical kit that has a bunch of stuff in it)

“Office” Supplies

-PC paperwork

-File folder

-Extra passport photos and copies of immunization records

-Pencils and pens, paper

-Envelopes

-Day planner

-Address book

-a few blank CDs

-Superglue

-Packing tape

-Duct tape

-Folders and notebooks

-Paper-clips

-Post-its

-Sharpie

Home and Kitchen

-Knife and sharpener

-Non-stick pan

-Can opener

-Ziploc bags

-Tupperware

-Rubber gloves

-Plastic egg carrier

-Water purification tablets

-Kitchen towels and washcloths

-Hot sauce

-Granola bars

-Pepper grinder

-Garlic powder

-Emergen-C

-Tea

-Crystal Light powder mixes

-Laundry bag

-Stain remover

-Lint rollers

-Sewing kit

-Safety pins

-Clothesline and clothespins

-Quick-dry towel

Miscellaneous

-Money belt

-Umbrella

-Extra backpack

-Leathermen tool

-Extra cash

-2 water bottles (steel so I don’t get cancer)

Gifts

-TBD: probably some little bottles of lotion, small toys for kids, calendar?, NC souvenirs?

EDIT: Just got an email that I have to bring a bike helmet. Apparently PC issues us a bike and requires us to wear a helmet when we're riding the bike, but does not provide us with a helmet. I do get reimbursed for the helmet though.

Since it is technically Sunday now...1 week from today I will be on a plane to DC. (Well, I am flying from North Carolina to Philadelphia, then from Philly to DC. Talk about THE most indirect way to get there. Oh how I wish I could teleport.)

(For the people that may love me enough to send me things. Don't worry, I'm not expecting anything.)

I stole this from other blogs:

-“There are a few things you can do to help hasten and secure the passage and delivery of your mail. Have anyone sending you a care package scribble religious symbols and biblical quotes all over the outside of the box. This sounds silly, but it works. Though many of the countries in which the Peace Corps serves are largely animist in religion, superstitution runs high and even corrupt postal workers are wary of intercepting religious parcels. Along every step of the way, your mail will be subject to the whims of postal officals, customs officers, and delivery personnel who often take the liberty of rummaging through care packages in search of goodies from the U.S. If you mail is embellished with religious symbols, the odds of keeping it intact are improved. You may even want to ask the sender to write “Sister” or “Brother” before your name, the heighten the effect. Another trick is to have your mail addressed to you in red ink. I’ve been told red ink is somewhat sacrosant in many third world societies and is reserved for only the most official of letters and correspondances. Though I’m unsure about this explanation’s validity, I can vouch for the trick’s effectiveness, having seen serveral packages addressed in red ink delivered safely and expeditiously.”

Also:

-Make sure you're using Airmail

-Number your letters so I know if one has been lost

-I've heard that padded envelopes have a better chance of making it than boxes

-It can help to include "educational materials'" or "feminine hygeine products" on the package in writing that looks official

Email me your address if you want me to mail you a postcard, note, doodle, etc.

When I log into my Peace Corps online toolkit, there is a box that has a blurb about a "notable" former Peace Corps volunteer. On several occasions, Chris Matthews has popped up as the "notable" volunteer. Do you really want to be advertising that fact, Peace Corps? Is this what you're trying to say: "Join the Peace Corps and you too can become a racist, sexist, ignorant asshole."?

No thanks. And I'd appreciate if Matthews' obnoxious face were removed from my toolkit.

On a happier (scarier?) note, I am leaving for staging in DC two weeks from today. Crazy crazy crazy.

I got my travel itinerary in the mail a few days ago. I'm flying from:

Washington DC to Frankfurt, Germany

Frankfurt to Zurich, Switzerland

Zurich to Dar es Salaam

18 hours and 25 minutes of flight time and about 8460 miles.

View Larger Map

I also recently discovered that my birthday is the same day that Tanzania (well, Tanganyika) became independent from Britain. I don't believe in signs. But if I did, that fact would be really cool.

PC's official description

Program: Health Education Project

Job Title: Peace Corps Volunteer Health Education

Description: To assist the Tanzanian government to improve the health of Tanzanians by promoting healthy behavior among community members, particularly teachers and students. This will be achieved by: 1) empowering young people to make healthy decisions about their lives; 2) increasing teachers' ability to make healthy life choices; 3) increasing teachers' ability to integrate HIV/AIDS into their classrooms; and 4) helping communities access health information information about disease prevention, especially HIV/AIDS/STIs.

Pre-Service Training (in Tanzania): June 12-August 22, 2008

Dates of Service: August 24, 2008-August 27, 2010

January 6: Submitted application

January 12: Received forms in mail saying PC had received my application

January 14: Called to schedule interview

January 18: Interview

January 25: Nominated to Health Extension, Sub-Saharan Africa, June 2008

January 30: Received medical kit in the mail

March 12: Mailed medical kit (note- I was kind of lazy about setting up all of my appointments- I think if I had finished my medical stuff sooner I would have gotten my assignment earlier)

March 20: Toolkit updated saying that PC had received my medical kit

March 21: Dentally cleared

March 27: Received letter from PC saying that my physical form was not legibly signed and dated and that I had to re-send it

April 2: Faxed re-signed and re-dated physical form to Peace Corps

April 3: Medically cleared

April 8: Contacted by Placement Officer about sending a final transcript to PC after graduation. Asked her about changing my departure date to a later date. She said that if I did not leave in June I would probably not be able to leave until February. Decided to keep my original departure date.

April 19: Toolkit updated saying I am an invitee

April 23: Received invitation to Tanzania

April 24: Accepted invitation