It didn't take long once I made the La Aventura Project blog on wordpress.com for me to realize I liked it a lot better. And change is good once in awhile. So, I bid adieu to blogger and you can continue to follow my adventures on wordpress HERE. I hope you'll make the switch with me!

It's been exactly one year since I left Tanzania. Wow, time flies. I'd be hard pressed to decide if this year or the year I was actually in Tanzania was crazier. Probably the year I was there, but this year has been pretty darn close. So much has happened. I think I'm finally at a place where I can celebrate all the awesome things I've done this year that I wouldn't have gotten to do if I had stayed in the Peace Corps.

1. I watched my best friend get married and stood beside her as Maid of Honor. She was the first of my group of friends to tie the knot, and I'm still oh-so-happy for her! Her marriage brought a lot of changes to our friendship and a lot of learning about this new phase of life we find ourselves in. Marriage changes all your relationships and married/very committed friends seem to live increasingly different lives from single/still-mingling friends. It's taken some getting used to and kind of makes me feel old that many of my friends (and myself, kind of) are settling down. But it's a good thing.

2. I went on so many awesome road trips! First, there was the super spontaneous "I'm-not-going-back-to-Africa-so-let's-drive-to-California" road trip. Before we left, Zach’s mom (who I had just recently met) commented, “Well, I guess you’ll know if you really like each other after 2 weeks in the car together.” Our response: “I think we already know that since we spent 9 months on opposite sides of the globe.” Hahaha. Needless to say, we survived 2 weeks in the car together. Highlights included our first couchsurfing experience, my first visit to California, falling in love with the city of San Diego, and spending time at the house in Williams, AZ (Zach starting to sneakily convince me to move there).

Then for Memorial Day weekend we drove to Chicago and took in that ginormous city. We went to Cleveland for the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros show and talked to the lead singer on the street. We had an awesome camping/rafting trip with lots of friends in West Virginia.

The second big road trip was the Northeast and Canada. I got to catch up with many dear old friends from college days and introduce Zach to New York City. Then we hit all the great cities in eastern Canada, learned a few words of French, and met awesome people through couchsurfing.

After that was another drive to move to Arizona. Since here we have visited Lake Havasu, Sedona/Jerome, Durango, Colorado, Verde Hot Springs, San Diego again, and Tijuana, Mexico (for a few hours).

And the road trips will only continue!!!!!!

3. I’ve learned about cultivating and sustaining a loving relationship. For the first time in my life I’m in a relationship that I know is totally right. I’m not worried about getting bored and I don’t miss being single. I’m in it to win it and loving that “I finally found my person” feeling. It doesn’t mean that every day is hearts, stars, and rainbows though. Living together has definitely taken some getting used to. I think it’s been made harder by the fact that we’re new in this state and don’t have friends close by to turn to when we need to release tension. I have nowhere else to go with my moody side and he doesn’t have the alone time he used to get sitting on his roof in Columbus. So yeah, we get on each other’s nerves sometimes. But we’re learning to understand each other more and more each day. I’m realizing that I may just have to get used to telling him to do the same thing 100 times, and he’s realizing that sometimes him cleaning the kitchen means more to me than a hug.

4. I’ve become more honest about who I am. I’m definitely still a bit of a people-pleaser but I think I’ve become a lot more open over the past year, especially with those closest to me. I’m allowing myself to accept that many disagree with me but it’s okay. If I was exactly the same as all my family and friends what fun would that be? I’m genuinely happy with my life and my choices, even if they are “against the grain.” I no longer hide anything about my life in an attempt to keep everyone happy. The people who really love me will love me no matter what.

5. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but one quality I think I've exhibited this year that I'm proud of is "actually doing what I say I'm going to do." I know so many people who are always saying "Someday I'll go here..." or "Yeah, I said I'd find a new job this year but then x and y came up..." I hate that! Don't talk about it unless you're really going to WORK to make it happen!!! I said I'd drive to California and back on $600. Check. I talked about the east coast road trip for months before and then did it. Check. I said I'd move to Arizona and find a new job. Done. And this will continue! I've talked a lot about going to South America now and I am not full of hot air! It is happening, October 2011! Just 8 short months from now! Because you all know I can't stay put in America for too long! ;-)

I'm sure the next year will be even crazier than this last one!!!

Hey everyone!

Please check out the new blog/website for my awesome new documentary project! CLICK HERE to go to the official website with it's own domain name and everything and then bookmark it!!!

The project is going to be amazing and fundraising will be starting soon!

Thanks!

I love to eat. I am vegetarian, but meat is pretty much the only thing I won't chow down on. I especially love bad-for-me foods like cheese, french fries, chocolate, and ice cream. This love of food is (I believe) the main reason I've struggled to lose weight ever since the dreaded "freshman 15" took hold of me six (ahhh, can't believe that number!) years ago. Well, I also love beer and margaritas. Those definitely don't help. Additionally, I have come to believe that my metabolism moves at a snail's pace. No matter how much I work out, I could never just eat whatever I wanted and not get fat. I loathe those people who can munch down on anything, never hit a treadmill, and stay skinny as rails. How are they so lucky??? Zach (my boyfriend) is one of those people. AHHHHH!!! He has always been skinny and he actually loses weight without trying. So now that we live together it's a constant struggle between trying to fatten him up and slim myself down. Since I love baking, I bake him all sorts of goodies and then try not to eat them while they hover under my nose. Does this work?? Not very well. Case in point, the delicious Grandpa's Chocolate-Rum Cake with Mousse Frosting that I made for Zach's birthday cake. It was AMAZING. I wish I had a picture.

A couple nights ago we watched a documentary that highlighted another food issue that's related to but ultimately more important than my weight-loss problem. It was a saddening but welcome reminder of how my food choices have an effect that extends far beyond myself.

Food, Inc. websiteI had been wanting to see this for awhile but part of me kept putting it off because I knew it would challenge me. And it definitely did. The film illuminates the scary reality of large-scale, corporate agriculture. Rather than go into all the arguments it presents myself, I'll just highly recommend that you rent/Netflix it. But be prepared. For me, the documentary reinforced many of my reasons for choosing to avoid meat entirely. But the HUGE problems of the food industry extend way beyond just meat. The overriding message, of course, was that local, organic, sustainably grown food is the only way to go. Yes, it's often more expensive, but the only way to bring change in practices and prices is to use your money as your vote. Zach and I both felt guilty about repeatedly choosing the lower prices of non-organic Safeway/Kroger groceries over the ridiculously-priced organic alternatives at Whole Foods-type. Food, Inc. made us realize that although we might be saving money now, the savings are not worth all the health risks, loss of jobs for small farmers, and environmental destruction caused by factory farming.

So, we are challenging ourselves to buy everything organic and (if possible) local for at least the next month. We want to see if we feel any health changes in such a short time. I bet we will (even if it is mostly due to the "expensive organic cheese=eating less cheese" effect). Unfortunately we had just done a big Safeway haul the very same day we watched the movie. So it will take some time to phase out all the cheap non-organic food we have in the house (c'mon, I'm still not going to give away food I spent $ on). But everything from now on is going to come from either the wonderful Flagstaff Farmer's Market (which actually has a storefront that's open every day year round) or New Frontiers Natural Marketplace (our version of Whole Foods...and they always have samples!). I'm actually really excited to begin this challenge. I know that changing my food purchasing habits is absolutely the right thing to do both for my health and for the earth. I'll be excited to report back on how things are going with our new food mindset!

When I was an emo high-schooler and had a xanga blog at the end of December I used to always fill out and post this super-long questionaire about all my firsts, achievements, highlights, song lyrics describing the past year, etc. Since I'm trying not to be that emo anymore but I'd still like to write something to conclude the year, I've decided to go with a list of PLANS (not resolutions, because I never keep those) for 2011:

1. We'll start with the obvious one: weight. Ugh, I hate this. Over the past few years I've pretty much realized that my natural "eat-whatever-I-want-and-occasionally-exercise" weight is a good 20 pounds more than I would like to be. That sucks! Oh, how I hate those people who can eat whatever they want and never gain a pound! (Like my boyfriend, argh.) I am SO TIRED of fighting my cravings and trying to lose it. I know that if I could just suck it up and stick to a diet it would only take a few months to lose that pesky 20. I've done it before, around junior year of college. But of course I gained it all back a year or so later with my pre-Peace Corps feasting. So this year, I've gotta do it! I have the gym thing down (surprisingly, I never thought I'd be able to make myself a morning exerciser, but I've gotten in the habit thanks to sharing a car and Zach's early work schedule) so the diet is the missing piece. I'm going to try to really discipline my calorie intake and only splurge for special occasions. My goal is to be high-school weight again by the end of March. So now it's on the internet! Anyone who reads this better hold me to it!

2. Get some nifty camera equipment. It has been far too long since I've done anything with my major and my passion for documentary. Now that I've at least got a steady paycheck, the goal is to pick up a few big things I need in order to start churning out work again. This plan is also an integral piece of my latest big scheme (below).

3. Be happier and less whiny. I'm afraid to say the tumultuousness of the past year has too often made me into an unpleasant grump. Zach faces the brunt of this, which is not at all fair. Sure, my life took a complete 180 this year and I went through a lot of huge changes and emotional turmoil. But I'm feeling more settled now and focusing a lot less on what I gave up (Peace Corps). Sure I don't love my job now but at least I have one! And, I have a grand escape scheme (below) to look forward to so I'm going to start looking on the bright side and being more cheerful in my day-to-day life!

4. Study Spanish. I have so much free time at work that I need to use for something other than internet surfing. This also relates to the upcoming big shebang (below...don't you love how I leave it to last?).

Okay, here it is:

5. Continue planning and begin LA AVENTURA PROJECT!!!!!!! "What," you may ask, "is that?" Well, friends, La Aventura Project is the latest, greatest, and biggest travel scheme which Zach and I have come up with. As you all know, I can't stay in the US for more than a couple years straight without going nuts, and Zach has never really left the country (I don't count Canada and the Bahamas). Add our good friend Melissa, who is also feeling a bit bored with the 9 to 5 and itching for an adventure. Then add the cheapest other continent to fly to from the US, and thus, most appealing destination at this time. You guessed it: South America! Here's what's going down: In October of 2011 the three of us are going to take one backpack each, my camera equipment, our (sure to still be) very limited knowledge of Spanish, and $6,000 each and fly from Columbus to Colombia. The rough plan is to spend an entire year and travel around the whole continent on $17/day each. We will volunteer on organic farms (through WWWOOF.org), orphanages or other NGOs, and couchurf in order to get free accomodation and spend less money. I will also make a sweet-ass documentary about our travel experiences and all the awesome stories we're sure to find. So yeah, that's the big plan. It's going to take a lot of fundraising, saving, and planning. And it's going to be awesome. We are setting up a blog for the trip, which can be found here. So bookmark that now, yo! I'll be sure to post updates as we get more prep done and get closer to the trip. It's gonna be awesome.

So those are my basic plans for 2011. Let's get to it!

Last weekend Zach and I took a mini-trip 2.5 hours from home to the Verde Hot Springs. The springs are located just outside of Camp Verde but the dirt forest road you take for the last 30 miles of the journey takes at least an hour to traverse. The road was not at all well-maintained, really rocky and full of potholes. Also the fact that it ran up and over hills right on the cliff's edge made it quite white knuckle! To say that it reminded me of roads in Tanzania would NOT be an exaggeration at all. The only difference was at least we were not in a huge rickety bus packed with people and chickens! We saw one abandoned car that had run over the edge and crashed into a tree part-way down a hill. Who knows how those poor people fared? We had a truck and I would say a high-clearance vehicle like that is totally necessary, although we did meet a couple people who somehow made it there in their compact rental car (they figured "it's a rental...we can trash it.")

The natural hot springs are right along the Verde River. In the 1920s someone built a huge resort and hotel right on top of the springs and it existed until being destroyed by a fire in the 1960s. It was never rebuilt and now all that exists is the concrete foudations along the river. We parked our car in the "campground" (no amenities and only a few other people) and hiked about 1/2 mile upriver to the crossing. Yes, the campground is on the opposite side of the river as the hot springs so you have to ford the river to get to them. No bridge! We found the best place to cross with the help of a random old man and plunged in. It was COLD!! This is December after all, even if we were in the desert part of Arizona. The water was a little above our knees and the current was stronger than we expected. On our first time crossing I totally fell in and got soaked up to my neck and Zach lost a flip-flop to the current. (He needs Chacos!) As soon as we made it across we were totally breathless from the cold water! Luckily, the hot springs were only a few bends and steps away! Here they are in all their glory, the Verde Hot Springs:

(the stone wall encloses another pool inside with lots of cool artwork all over the inside walls)

The springs were soooooo pleasant and relaxing!!! The pool inside the stone structure was A LOT hotter, probably because it's smaller. It was basically a hot tub. The outside one was still plenty warm and the view from there was stunning. So we basically had to alternate between one tub and the other every half hour or so to maintain perfect temperature. We did meet a few other people there since this place is still quite popular among hippies. Despite the resort being gone for 50 years now apparently volunteers still come down several times a year to clean and maintain the pools. I'll try to post some pictures of all the cool grafitti and murals once we upload them. One other note: this would be a perfect place to get rid of your tan lines, seeing as one of the steps has the phrase "No clothes required!" painted onto it, and people do indeed follow this instruction. So be prepared.

Overall, we had a great time at the hot springs and I am excited to explore some more natural hot springs since they are all over the west!

So I have realized recently that just because I'm back from Tanzania doesn't mean my blog has to die a slow death. There are many more adventures in my future and I intend to write about them so why not keep this going? I decided that I'll try to post more frequently, whether it be film reviews, blurbs about weekend trips, or whatever. So here goes...

Despite being semi-settled in full-time jobs in Flagstaff, Zach and I get "the hunger" to travel quite often. We try to resolve this with weekend trips to places we can get to in a few hours. Never having lived in the southwest, there is SO MUCH new stuff for us to see. This past weekend we had an awesome time in and around Durango, Colorado!

We left as soon as I got out of work on Friday at 5. It was about a five hour drive, straight through the Navajo and Hopi Reservations and diagonal across Four Corners from Arizona into Colorado. All we could see before it got dark was the reservations...which basically is super-desolate-looking land with a few "towns" which are basically clusters of shacks with a couple gas stations and liquor stores around. You can definitely tell the US government strategically picked the worst land possible and was like "Here Navajos, you can have ALL THIS!!!!" Go us. Anyway, we stopped and got a $5 Little Caesars pizza which filled us both up for cheap and drove on. We arrived at our couchsurfing host's house around 10:30, dropped our stuff of, and went downtown. It was FREEZING. But we found a couple cool spots to check out. Saw a band and observed the unique Colorado style...warm but trendy clothes, leather boots and knit hats. Everyone looked like "outdoorsy folk," for good reason. We went back to our host's house and finally met her when she got back slightly after us. We stayed up talking and getting to know each other then crammed onto the tiny couch where we slept like rocks despite the cramped space.

On Saturday we woke up and headed straight to Mesa Verde National Park. It was nice to actually SEE where we were in the daytime! We were basically surrounded by mountains and streams. The gorgeous San Juan Peaks were snow-capped and glorious. They looked so big it's hard to believe the Rockies dwarf them! We drove up this awesome windy road to the top of Mesa Verde with excellent views all around us. Being the off-season, there was hardly anyone in the park but we still got to drive around and see different cliff dwellings and archealogical sites around the park. We went on the tour of one specific dwelling and actually got to climb down into one of the lower rooms. It was awesome. I was super mad at myself for completely forgetting my camera (not at all like me)!

We got done with Mesa Verde around 3pm and booked it back to Durango cause we were STARVING!!!! We had only eaten the cookies and pumpkin bread I packed as snacks. Luckily Durango is known as "the Napa Valley of beer" and is home to four awesome microbreweries. We randomly decided on one because it was the first to pop up on my UrbanSpoon iPhone app. It must have been fate cause this place was AWESOME. It was called Steamworks Brewery and we loved it. Great decor and atmosphere. The floor was chalkboard painted so kids were coloring on it despite how shells from the free peanuts were dropped everywhere. They had more brews than any microbrewery I'd been to. And the food was AWESOME. I had a Southwest Veggie Burger with Cajun Fries and Zach had a Cheesesteak with Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes. SO GOOD!!! And every beer on the list sounded amazingly unique. The ones we tried were definitely stellar. The best one was one Zach was really unsure about getting but it turned out to be crazy good. It was called "Prescribed Burn" (southwest reference!!!) and was brewed with chiles in it. So it left this awesome subtle but spicy flavor on your tongue while still being refreshing. Seriously, we were in love with this place. I would drive to Durango once a week just to go there, haha. Steamworks, you won us over. After stuffing our faces we walked around town poking into all the cool shops. Lots of outdoors stuff and hippie-style jewelry and clothing shops. I got a good hat for snowboarding. We did hang out with our hosts a little at their house and tried to do stuff in town that night but we were SO TIRED we went to bed at like 11.

Sunday was another really awesome day. We finally got to spend some time with our hosts. Let me just say, I LOVE couchsurfing. I've never had a bad experience. Really, almost every experience I've had has been awesome. It's such a great way to meet awesome people and share experiences and make friends all over the world. Our hosts in Durango were no exception. There were 4 housemates that we really met: Naima-a really cool outdoorsy girl who had done a lot of traveling and WWOOFing and had great stories. Sage-what a CHARACTER! He was one of the biggest hippies I've ever met...he was literally like a yoga master and a self-taught herbalist. He had all these jars of herbs he'd gathered in the woods and he knew how to use them all for natural cures to ailments and stuff. He was really interesting. Matt and Brittany-they were two hardcore rockclimbers who had just gotten done living out of their truck for the whole summer and fall traveling around the west climbing. They were working for a couple months in Durango and then heading off on a drive all the way down through Mexico to Central America, climbing all the way. All of them did yoga to wake up in the morning and were the kind of crunch-granola-nature people that I LOVE. That's just scratching the surface. I love how many awesome people we've met in our couchsurfing travels. So on Sunday we ate breakfast with everybody and then went on a hike on the Colorado Trail. It runs from Durango all the way to Denver. It was Naima who took us and Sage came along "to gather herbs" (I'm not kidding!!!! He actually found a redroot bush and talked to it to assure it he wasn't going to hurt it then sang a Navajo song while digging up a root). So we took about a 2.5 hour hike that led us across this beautiful rocky Colorado creek then about 1 mile up switchbacks to the top of this mountain. There was a lot of snow on parts of the trail and it was beautiful. Words can't express how beautiful the view was once we got the top and sat with our feet off the cliff. I wish I had had my camera!!! But pictures can't express it either, really. It was breathtaking. We then jogged back down the mountain to warm up and get down faster, found Sage behind a rock and went to get free lunch in a Durango park thanks to the awesome organization Food Not Bombs. I had never heard of it but it's apparently a big organization present in most US cities that collects donations from restaurant leftovers and gives out really good free vegetarian food once a week. So we filled up on pizza, soup, and bread and met some of Naima's friends in the park before we had to jump in the car to head back. So all in all, Durango was AWESOME!!!! We were so grateful to our hosts for putting us up and showing us a good time.

We of course didn't want to go home so we turned the drive into another cool thing. We decided to add about 25 miles and drive through Monument Valley in Utah. Oh man, we weren't sure we would make it by sunset so we had to drive pretty fast and pray we'd get there. But the drive was spectacular. So many awesome rocks. We kept thinking "Oh, this must be the famous part" but then a few minutes later it would get even better. When we passed the Mexican Hat rock I remembered it! I know the last time I was there I was so young but that silly sombrero-shaped rock formation stuck with me. We drove through the Valley of the Gods and then got to the most famous area, Monument Valley, just as the final light was fading from the sky. The sunset made all the different layers of rocks on the horizon different shades of purple as we approached. So awesome. I sound like a broken record with my "awesome"s and "amazing"s but I really cant find words to describe it. Monument Valley, you gotta see it.

So all in all a fun-filled and refreshing Colorado weekend!! It reminded me of why I'm glad to be out here---so many new and unexplored (by me) western desitinations are only a few hours away!

Any kid growing up in America hears it constantly…”The sky’s the limit…Reach for your dreams…Nothing is impossible…You can do anything you set your mind to…You can be anything you want to be…”

BUT what if you grow up, get good grades, follow the rules, go through college, and one day realize that you don’t want to BE any “thing” in particular. What if instead of BEING an occupation, you want to BE a person? What if your dream breaks the traditional rules of American adulthood? What if your dream is not to follow any one set path but to keep wandering off in different directions until you’ve explored the whole forest? Then “NO NO NO!!!! That is not okay, that is not what your elementary school teachers meant!!!! Get back on the path!!!!!” Thus the whole idea is proven hypocritical. It’s okay to dream of being a doctor but not a waitress. It’s okay to want to go to law school but not to cosmetology school.

Our whole system is training us for a career. Intelligent, well-adjusted American adults are given 18-22 years of schooling to choose a career, and then spend the next 40-50 years stuck in a Monday-Friday 9-5 box while they desperately scramble “up the ladder.” The average person gets excited about two vacation weeks a year and spends the other fifty weeks working to pay off their new Corvette and save for “retirement.” How do they even know they’re going to make it that far? If you were going to die tomorrow do you think you would be happy about all that money you put towards your chance for a cushy slide into senility? Or would you wish you had spent those countless working hours watching the sun set over the French Riviera, climbing Machu Pichu, or driving across America with the love of your life?

Many of us do have boundless opportunities in America. We can travel anywhere, learn anything, see and do so many things. Where is the logic in rushing into one job and staying there forever? What a waste of the options we have! Why don’t we question this concept of “the ladder to success” more? Why don’t we think more about “living like there’s no tomorrow”? If we really believed all the talk about “Carpe Diem” we wouldn’t be dutifully clocking in and out for 50 years. We’d get on a plane to anywhere, play some music loud, go swimming in the sea, fall in love. Explore this world and do everything we want to do NOW! We never KNOW that there will be a tomorrow. The idea that we could die at any time is confirmed in every major religion. Yet so many religious people seem to have so little life in them!

I’ve yet to hear a good argument for why life has to be boring. No person in history worth emulating has ever gotten there by following the rules. If living life the way I believe will cause me to be seen as a failure by society’s standards than so be it. I’ll have much more fun as a happy drifter then as a stressed-out runner of the rat race. So I’m a “f***-up.” And I’m embracing it.

9 months of my life. And it's taken me another 3 to even force myself to sit down and write about it. What happened? I was supposed to be there for 2 years...

There were days of magnificent highs, spent climbing through waterfalls, spotting elephants through bus windows, or even just sharing a meal and laughing together with Mama Maua, happy about the slightest victory over the language barrier. There were other days I could barely hold myself together, boiling over in frustration with strage bus kondas trying to cheat me in a country where nothing ever gets done easily or on time, or ignoring everyone because I was so homesick I would cry at any moment and you can't do that in front of Tanzanians. Moments were I felt on top of the world and couldn't imagine doing anything else. Moments I would've traded it all in a heartbeat for an old friend's hug and a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. "The hardest job you'll ever love." Hmm. You can't understand how true that is until you experience it. In the end, I decided life is too short not to be with the people you love. That's the oversimplified explanation of why I left, but it gets the point across. That being said, I wouldn't change a single moment of the time I spent there. And not a day goes by that I don't think about the people I left, both the Peace Corps Volunteers and my villagers, and feel the sadness of missing them along with a stabbing guilt for abandoning them too soon.

Readjustment is so weird. Most of the time I feel like it's over, and it kind of saddens me how quickly I seem to have rejoined America. Then at moments I'm overcome with visions of Africa. I'll be at a bar or party in America, someplace full of careless fun. Next thing I know my brain will be back in Dosidosi, picturing the happy toddlers in their torn clothes, bellies distended, playing with sticks in the dirt. I get irrationally angry at the injustice between what I'm seeing here and what I saw there. I have to run away to go cry. How could I have left? I don't know if I helped there, but at least I lived meaningfully, with a pure purpose and no excesses. It's hard not to feel purposeless now, floating around empty with no idea where to go. I can only tell myself that I'll be back again, that this is only a brief intermission between adventures. Reentry...kind of makes me feel crazy.

Clearly Africa changed me. How could it not have? The thought of trying to sum up what I learned is daunting. How do I put 9 months of living/speaking/eating/breathing/sleeping Tanzania into a neat 500-word moral? Even now the tears are running as I remember all the amazing people I miss. Poverty is complicated and human. It is not statistics on a graph or images on a website. It cannot be solved by voting in elections or putting checks in the mail. Maybe it can't be solved at all. I lived in poverty alongside my villagers for 9 months and I've only begun to understand the factors at play. Everyone wants to save the world before they even experience it. The world is a crazy quilty of cultures and people who are all made of the same stuff no matter how differently they live. We can't make any progress without getting to know each other first. Peace Corps was the hardest thing I ever did because I was completely immersed in Tanzania. I learned their language, their foods, their work, their celebrations. I tried to teach a little bit but that will never compare to what they taught me. People are people no matter what and people are beautiful and amazing all over the world. I have family in Africa now. If you want my advice on how to help Africa, I would say to go and see it first. Go live and play and let it change your world. They say once your feet touch African dirt you'll always be back. I believe it.

Tupo pamoja.

Hello everyone,

I hope you all are doing well, my devoted readers! As you may or may not have heard, many things have changed since I began developing that project. Namely, I am now back in America! For a variety of complicated reasons I made the difficult decision a couple months ago to end my service early. I struggled a lot with loneliness and lack of creativity in my job while serving in my village and while I miss it every day, I now know that I made the right decision for my mental health.

I've recently received a huge and amazing opportunity that confirms that belief. Through a video job in Columbus I recently made a connection with the newly-founded nonprofit organization UKUWA. UKUWA is a program still in it's beginning stages that aims to raise awareness about poverty in Africa among youth in America and works to alleviate that poverty in targeted villages in Kenya. Their mission statement reads "To promote healthy youth development in the US and social and economic empowerment to forgotten children in Africa." (www.ukuwa.org) Since getting involved with UKUWA, I've been using my unique experiences working on grassroots development in East African villages to serve as a project advisor and developer. I've also been able to share my stories and experiences with the high school students involved, painting them a clearer picture of the places their efforts are helping.

This July UKUWA's founder and myself are planning to lead a small group of students on a two-month trip to Mombasa, Kenya. Specifically, we will be working in the impoverished coastal village of Likoni. While there the group will continue to identify needy families for UKUWA's food-assistance program, lead youth sports camps while incorporating health education, and renovate a classroom in order for computers to be installed. We will also be identifying ways in which to expand UKUWA's efforts. My secondary role, however, will be to serve as a trip videographer in order to make a documentary film about UKUWA and the trip. Those who know me will realize that this type of filmmaking is exactly the type of work I have always dreamed of doing. I'm so excited to be able to use my creative talents and expertise on East Africa to make a difference! The main thing Peace Corps helped me learn about my career goals is that I would much prefer to travel to Africa on shorter-term projects to work with others on CREATIVE projects which still further development.

However, I need your help. Because of UKUWA's low budget, I need to pay for many of my own trip expenses. I must raise $2000 in only two short months in order to go on the trip. If you, or anyone you know, would be willing to donate to this cause, I would greatly appreciate it. You will be able to follow our trip through UKUWA's website or becoming a fan or UKUWA on facebook and see how your money is helping! And of course, you will also get to see the documentary I'll create about UKUWA! If you'd be willing to donate, please contact me via email to let me know what amount you'll be able to give. Thank you so much and watch for a better update later on how my transition back to the US has gone!

"I'm wide awake and so alive. Ringing like a bell. Tell me this is paradise and not someplace I fell, 'cause I keep on fallin' down. I wanna feel the car crash. I wanna feel the capsize. I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop 'til I'm satisfied. I wanna let go and know that I'll be alright, alright." -Matt Nathanson

What is UP? I apologize for the lack of entries lately! I've been busy! I've actually finally gotten a few things up and running in my village with much more in the works. I started teaching Life Skills to the 7th graders and my first lesson went excellently! I continue that and start with my Peer Education/Health Club at the secondary school this week. I also have had several meetings about my orphans' chicken-keeping project and my goal is to have the grant submitted before I come to America (in just 2 weeks). Once I submit it it's up to Peace Corps how long it takes for them to post it online to be open for donations but I'll definitely update on here when it's up. Should be less than $2000 to start a sustainable project so kids can keep going to school! I also went to Iringa for a PEPFAR-sponsored HIV/AIDS training and got some good ideas there while having fun with the other PCVs. After that Bill (an Environment volunteer friend) traveled back to my village with me to help me start a tree nursery in my village. It went awesomely...we prepared an area, built a fence, gathered tons of dirt/sand/manure, prepared planting tubes, and planted 500 seeds in 3 days thanks to help from my school teachers and free child labor! That's how you get things done around here! I have awesome pictures of all the kids working away and hopefully in a few months we'll have a lot of seedlings. Doing that made me feel really great, it was awesome to finally SEE something I helped create happen in my village, even though it was really all Bill! We also are culinary masters and made calzones, enchiladas, french toast, chili and corn bread, Asian coleslaw, carrot cake, and many other things. Several included spinach from my garden which actually is growing! It DOES give you a weird hillbilly sense of pride to eat food you grew yourself. So also this week I'm going to hopefully teach permaculture gardening with my counterpart for some People Living w/ HIV, some Mamas, really anyone who wants to learn! And maybe finally get around to building a solar stove to see how it works and if I can start teaching that.

I just got back from a work trip to Arusha in the Kilimanjaro region with Keith and Heather. We went to visit with a couple NGOs that we had made contact with in order to find out about possible collaboration. Arusha was amazing but getting there was quite interesting. We got to our banking town, Kibaya, thinking that there was an afternoon bus we could take that day to continue on the journey. Of course it had crashed earlier that week so was no longer running. So after getting distracted in town by beer and soap operas for a few hours, we set out kind of late on an attempt to hitchhike. We walked about an hour outside of town and started sticking our thumbs out (actually in TZ it's this other weird arm motion). Of course, no luck, the few trucks that do pass us aren't going as far as we need to go. So we head back to Kibaya for a night and get up at 4:30 am the next morning to catch the bus to Arusha. We'd never been there before so we didn't know the route. Well, apparently there is a road directly from Kibaya to Arusha that goes right through the Maasai Steppe, pretty much the most wild and remote area in Tanzania. The bus was a piece of crap, of course, and the road was HORRIBLE. There was no way to sleep because we were bouncing all over the place for 8 hours. My arm was banging into the window so much I bruised my shoulder. But we were LUCKY because we had seats. The aisle was also packed full of standing people of course. Just to maximize casualties should there be a crash. At one point we got stuck in a pothole and had to get pulled out w/ chains attached to another truck while we almost tipped over. That's travel in Tanzania. But it was awesome in some ways because we saw SO MANY zebras!!!!!!!!! We were basically in the middle of nowhere with only tiny Maasai villages- just clusters of tiny dung huts out on the plains. So there were herds of zebras everywhere really close to the road. We also glimpsed giraffes, baboons, and dikdiks. And at no time were we in a national park. It was really cool. I love zebras. And of course we did eventually get there and met some awesome expats doing amazing work for this NGO called The Flying Medical Service. Definitely some possibilities for them to come do work in our villages, which means Keith and I might get free wine delivered via airplane and free rides in these prop planes if we feel like hopping in w/ the pilot/paramedics who fly into villages in our region to do free clinics. It's gonna be awesome. Arusha was also a really cool city although I was severely disappointed by the 12,500 shilling "Kilimanjaro nachos" which were huge but lacking adequate cheese. So REAL nachos are def on the list for my foodfest in America in just 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I am super excited for OHIO, the wedding, food, friends, and everything! But things are looking up here so I will definitely be back for more Peace Corps....8 months down, 18 to go.

See ya soon (some of you!)

Village Situation Analysis Carrie Hoffman, Health Education Volunteer, 2009-2011 Dosidosi Village, Kiteto District, Manyara Region Introduction Purpose: The purpose of the Village Situation Analysis (VSA) is to gather information about the village of Dosidosi and then to analyze that information to identify resources, needs, and potential projects for the Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). The VSA process also is intended to help the PCV gain knowledge and understanding of the community and vice versa for the community to understand the purpose and intentions of the PCV. Information Collection: The information contained in this VSA was collected using a variety of methods. A total of ten formal house-to-house surveys were conducted in four different sub-villages. The interviewees were of both genders ranging in age from 31-49, and of varying economic status. Three Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA) were held and attended by men and women, a majority of whom were under the age of 30, although villagers of all ages were invited. Questionnaires and surveys were also answered by the Village Executive Officer (VEO), local nurses, and primary school teachers. Meetings of the village government and several village committees and groups were attended. Numerous questions were also answered through informal conversations with community leaders and villagers. Village historical background was provided by elder Kiondo Maguruko. Outstanding assistance with conducting house-to-house surveys and PACA meetings was provided by Hadija Omari. Information Sharing: The completed VSA will be provided in both English and Swahili to the Peace Corps office, Kiteto district officials, Dosidosi village officials, and any other committees, organizations, or leaders who might find the information helpful. Community Profile General Information: The village of Dosidosi is located in Kiteto district just inside the southern border of Manyara region. Dosidosi is made up of mostly Wagogo, Mnguo, and Maasai tribes. In 1948 while Tanzania was still a British colony many Wagogo people began settling in the area to open businesses and establish farms. The first man to open a shop in the area was Ismael Ibrahim. Dosidosi officially became a village in 1976 after Tanzania gained independence from Great Britain. The village name comes from a Maasai word for the particular type of soil found in the area. Community Characteristics: Dosidosi is located on the main road south from Kiteto-town, about 40 kilometers south of Kiteto (also called Kibaya.) Dosidosi consists of six different sub-villages spread over 3420 acres. The main sub-village of Dosidosi Madukani contains the government office and most businesses. Each other sub-village varies in distance from two to six kilometers away from the village center. The village is rural, dry, and semi-arid. It stands at an average elevation of 1000 meters and is surrounded by several small mountains. The weather is cool during the dry season and hot during the rainy season with consistent strong winds. There are no nearby lakes or rivers and lack of rain several months of the year poses challenges for agriculture and basic survival. Transportation, Communication, and Basic Services: There are no buses originating in Dosidosi, however coasters and buses pass through three times a day in either direction to go to Kibaya (two hour trip) or Dodoma (three hour trip). All roads in the surrounding area are completely dirt and thus can be difficult to traverse during the rainy season. Transportation to other parts of Tanzania can be boarded in Matui (15 kilometers away) or Kibaya. There are also many motorcycles in the village which people hire for transportation. The majority of villagers, however, travel by bicycle or on foot. There are no power lines in the village. Only a few private homes have electricity powered by generators or solar panels. There are no land telephone lines and until recently was no reliable cell phone service. A new Vodacom tower opened in November, providing coverage for the few villagers who have cell phones. Population: The population of Dosidosi is 2752, approximately 62% female and 48% male. 43% of the total population is under 18. There are 12 identified single-parent households and nine completely orphaned children. Population Breakdown by Age Age (Years) Population 0-2 156 3-5 167 6-13 593 14-18 268 19-44 1486 45-60 43 61+ 24 These numbers indicate that Dosidosi may expect to encounter shortages of farm space and work in the near future when the currently under-18 population reaches adulthood. Education: There are two primary schools in Dosidosi- one in Dosidosi Madukani and one in the sub-village Mguli. There is one secondary school which was opened in 2008 so as of now only has Form 1 and Form 2 students. The costs for schooling are for uniforms, shoes, notebooks, pens, and other fees. For primary school the total expense for one year of schooling ranges from 38,400 shillings to 59,700 shillings depending on the grade level. For secondary school the total expenses for one year range from 176,000 shillings to 313,000 shillings depending on the student’s form and whether they are a boarder. Student and Teacher Population School Number of Students Number of Teachers Dosidosi Primary School 502 8 Mguli Primary School 224 5 Dosidosi Secondary School 180 11 School Leavers 284 -- All three schools suffer from lack of resources such as more teachers, desks, supplies and equipment. The secondary school is lacking teachers’ housing and dormitories. A few students do leave the community to attend other secondary schools. There is a very high population of school leavers. The majority of these leave school after Standard 7 due to failing their exams or being unable to afford secondary school. Most school leavers continue to live at home and help with their parents’ farms. There are currently no alternative education or vocational training programs in the village for school leavers. Lack of work for the out-of-school youth is a huge problem that villagers agree needs to be addressed. Each school also has a farm on which the students work. The products are then sold for income, with a small amount being used for the provided meals at the secondary school. At both primary schools students return home for chai break and lunch. The secondary school also has several organized sports and clubs for students. 31% of the secondary school students are from other villages and thus live in dormitories. Economic and Agricultural Assessment: There are no major employers in Dosidosi. There are a few small family-run shops, vegetable stands, cafes, and one bar. A few people make money delivering water, charcoal, or firewood door-to-door. There are also a few skilled laborers such as carpenters, tailors, and mechanics. Land is used mostly for subsistence agriculture. The average farm size per family is 3-10 acres. Most families’ farms are located 1-3 kilometers outside the village in the surrounding area. The main crops are corn, pigeon-peas, and sunflowers, with a few people also growing potatoes or cow-peas. Very few families plant vegetable gardens. Most families consume the majority of their harvest and sell any excess on the road or at the twice-monthly market in the village. Villagers must go to Kibaya to buy seeds although variety is limited. Most do not use any fertilizer and the few who do use cow manure. Villagers reported they are unable to afford chemical fertilizer or advanced farming equipment. All family members assist with farming by hand. The main types of livestock in the village are chickens, goats, and cows, with a few donkeys and pigs. Many Maasai keep large herds of cows and/or goats as their main subsistence activity. A fish farm is in the planning stages however as a collaborative project between the Environment Committee and the PCV. A few people are involved in apiculture. In addition to the Environment Committee, there are several economic committees/Non-Governmental Organizations involved in farming activities. Environmental Assessment: The environment of Dosidosi consists of farm and grazing land with many lightly wooded hills. There are no nearby lakes, rivers, or protected or tourist areas. Many villagers cut down nearby trees and shrubs for use as firewood. This practice may possibly have a harmful effect on the ecosystem. Wild animals in the area include snakes, lizards, meercats, and monkeys. There are currently no projects to preserve the environment taking place. Villagers get water for drinking, bathing, and cooking from a large reservoir during the rainy season and from small hand-dug wells during the dry season. The primary school also has one water catchment tank connected to a tap which is full during the rainy season. There are no water taps in the village so people are forced to walk long distances to the wells to carry water. During the dry season wells frequently dry up and new ones must be dug. Due to the water shortage during this season, villagers must pay 100 shillings per bucket for water. The water available is not sanitary for drinking and often not clean, however most villagers do not boil their drinking water. This likely contributes to the frequency of gastro-intestinal illnesses among villagers. The majority of households in Dosidosi have hand-dug dirt pit latrines. Often several families share one latrine and some households lack one completely. All trash is disposed of by being burned in small pits outside homes. There is no organized waste management system and currently no regulations requiring households to have latrines. Villagers also lack knowledge of basic hygiene practices such as hand-washing. Health and Well-Being Assessment: The most common non-communicable diseases in the village are malaria and pneumonia. These especially affect children. In January of 2010 the village government plans to begin distributing free bed nets to children under five years old to help prevent malaria. The most common communicable diseases are typhoid, eye diseases such as trachoma and conjunctivitis, stomach problems and diarrhea, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Children are especially affected by eye diseases which villagers believe is due to the dusty environment. Most villagers only admit to STDs being a problem among the youth, although they are likely much more widespread. According the village officials, there are 25 people in the village who have tested positive for HIV. The number of infected people who have not been tested is likely much higher. A recent baseline survey of HIV/AIDS knowledge showed that a majority of villagers know what HIV/AIDS is but lack understanding about how it is transmitted. There is a People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) group in the community but it is unable to be very active due to lack of funding and poor attendance. A majority of villagers also feel that the nutritional status of their families is inadequate due to lack of food diversity available most of the year. Dosidosi has one private clinic, one government clinic, and one drug store. The private clinic has one doctor and a laboratory for diagnostics. It provides outpatient treatment for common diseases and testing only for HIV. However testing and treatment at this clinic is too expensive for most villagers. The government clinic has two nurses on staff who treat all types of illnesses and injuries. Most health services are available at a low cost and pregnant woman and children receive malaria prophylaxis and many other services for free. HIV/AIDS testing is available in the village, however for patients to test their CD4 counts they must travel to Kibaya and to receive Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) they must travel six kilometers to the village of Engusero. Thus the cost and inconvenience of transportation prevents many HIV/AIDS patients from acquiring ARVs. HIV is largely a taboo subject to villagers and their unwillingness to discuss the problem likely perpetuates ignorance about prevention and treatment. Community Resources/Assets: There are many committees and groups present in Dosidosi. These include environment, health, economy, safety, schools, and livestock committees, a PLWHA group, and an elder’s group. There are also several different organizations working to improve agriculture and provide small loans to farmers. The government also plans to open a product bank where villagers can pay a small fee for storage of their harvested products while they wait for the price to go up to sell them. These are mostly run and participated in by women. There is one sports field behind the primary school which is enjoyed by children and adults. There are several traditional healers in the community treating all types of health problems. About half the villagers believe in the ability of the traditional healers and half do not. The NGO FINCA has a microfinance program in the village providing loans for small businesses to men and women. The World Food Program has promised to begin school feeding programs at both the primary and secondary schools but the facilities are still under construction. Other NGOs present include Kinapaa Development, AMCOS, and Pukamaudo. These groups are working on development of health, education, and community, although their exact strength and impact in the village is not yet known. Almost everyone in Dosidosi Madukani is Muslim and there are two mosques in the village. There are no churches in the main area of the village but a few Christians attend Anglican or Catholic churches in other nearby sub-villages or villages. Analysis Dosidosi faces many challenges which need to be addressed in order to improve life for the inhabitants. The following are the main problems determined by the PCV and community members. Water: Lack of water during the dry season is a huge problem for Dosidosi. During this season water is only available from distant wells which constantly dry up due to heavy usage, causing new ones to need to be dug. Villagers must also pay on average 100 shillings per bucket of water during this time. The long walks to carry water are a particular drain on the time and energy of women in the village, leading to decreased productivity in other activities. Solving the water problem would give villagers more money and time to spend on things like education and income generation. Solving the problem is difficult, however, because it would likely require installation of a central mechanical well with a storage tank. Such an undertaking would require large amounts of money, labor, and maintenance training for certain villagers to prepare for inevitable repair needs. Agriculture: As mentioned, most villagers are farming on a mere subsistence level and struggling to feed their families. Recent drought has had a degenerative effect on harvest yields and put even further strain on the village’s economy. Villagers recognize that lack of agricultural progress is a huge problem but believe that acquiring expensive modern equipment, such as tractors, power tillers and more farming tools, is the solution. More realistically, agriculture could be improved through educating villagers in permaculture techniques to improve crop yields, since permaculture requires no specialized equipment. Farmers could also benefit from practicing crop diversification to improve both soil quality and nutritional status of their families, who consume a majority of the products. Education: Lack of basic equipment in the schools is a huge issue for the students of Dosidosi. The primary school has desks for only three out of the five classrooms and lacks other basic supplies. The secondary school needs to complete construction on several classrooms, dorms for boarders, and housing for teachers. Currently both boarding students and teachers are sharing extremely crowded houses near the primary school. The secondary school also needs equipment such as a laboratory for improving science education. Work for Youth: Due to the thigh rate of students leaving school after completing primary school, there are many young adults in the village without jobs or any viable job options for the future. The lack of activities for these youth contributes to the problems of alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, and spread of STDs. This problem could be addressed by finding funding for interested school-leavers to attend agricultural or vocational training programs in other towns and by setting up apprenticeship/mentorship programs partnering interested youth with local tradesmen. Health: Dosidosi’s health problems stem from two main sources – a lack of resources and a lack of knowledge. The local clinics are understaffed and overburdened. They lack basic supplies such as functioning scales, diagnostic testing equipment, vaccine storage, and many other items. Although the nurses reach out regularly to local mothers with health education information, many other villagers lack basic information about disease prevention and transmission. This problem can be addressed by initiating further health education programs in the schools and community groups. The enveloping problem of nutrition in Dosidosi could be addressed by teaching permaculture and encouraging villagers to grow vegetable gardens, something which almost no one does. The PLWHAs also face problems in regards to nutrition, lack of income, access to ARVs, and stigmatization. These problems could be addressed through engaging in income-generating activities to allow money to be available for better food and transport for getting ARVs. Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs): The 21 orphans and many other vulnerable children in the village, including the children of PLWHAs, face challenges in regards to getting adequate care at home, finances to stay in school, and emotional support. These problems could be addressed by setting up a sponsorship program to assist with OVCs’ school fees, and a support club to teach skills such as gardening, basic health, and engage in income-generating activities. Possible Projects In the face of the numerous and complex needs of Dosidosi, narrowing down project options is very difficult. The following are projects which at this time seem most achievable within two years and which have the most possibility to create sustainable development which will continue after the PCV leaves. Education: Life Skills Education: Due to the lack of health knowledge in the general community, the PCV feels that reaching out to youth will have the most future impact. Weekly Life Skills lessons for the upper levels of the primary school will offer a fun and interactive way to impart knowledge of sex education, HIV/AIDS prevention, and positive decision-making to youth. This requires no funding.Peer Education: To reach out to secondary school students, the PCV feels that a partially student-run, interactive Peer Education Club will be most effective. The PCV will first focus on teaching selected Peer Educators about health knowledge and Life Skills with an emphasis on girls’ empowerment, and then to train them to similarly educate their peers. This group could include activities such as weekly meetings, guest speakers, and possibly group field trips, which would require outside funding. Health: Clinic Data Management Support: The nurses at the government clinic in Dosidosi are doing an excellent job with the resources they have but need more assistance. The PCV will offer assistance two times per week at the clinic during mother and child clinic day and pregnancy clinic day. The PCV will help by recording data during clinics and supporting education sessions as requested. Securing outside funding to purchase some of the equipment the clinic is lacking would also greatly improve the function of the clinic.PLWHA Assistance: Due to the poor nutritional status of HIV/AIDS patients, the PCV hopes to assist the village PLWHA group in planting a community vegetable garden, implementing permaculture techniques. The products will help to improve nutrition of the PLWHA and any excess can be sold for group income. Additionally, the PLWHA group is interested in starting income-generating activities. The first proposed project is a bicycle-rental business. The group will acquire 20 bicycles and then charge villagers a fee for daily rental. There is a demand for a service like this in the village due to many people traveling long distances on foot to their farms or to visit neighboring villages. Part of the income from this project will go into a fund for bicycle repairs when needed. This project will require outside start-up funds for purchasing the bicycles.Care Groups: The PCV plans to work with one of the nurses at the government clinic to form a Mama’s group for health-related peer education. The Mother Leaders will be chosen by the nurse and meet once a month to learn about various health issues such as nutrition, HIV/AIDS, communicable diseases and sanitation, and prenatal health. They will then be responsible for teaching the other Mamas in their neighborhoods. The PCV also plans to place a health question box at the clinic for anonymous questions and answers to improve adult health knowledge. Youth Development: OVC Support: Since many OVCs struggle to pay school fees, the PCV has begun developing a PCPP grant to start a chicken-raising project. The OVCs at the primary school will learn to raise and care for chickens and also manage a small business. The profit made from selling eggs and chickens will pay for their school fees and possibly also a portion of the secondary school OVC’s school fees. Additionally, the PCV is seeking to start an OVC support group. The first goal of the group will be to identify the main problems faced by the children on a day-to-day basis. These will then be addressed, possibly by teaching skills like permaculture or engaging in other income-generating activities. Environment: Mamas’ Garden: A group of 25 Mamas have already secured an area of land and several types of seeds to plant a communal vegetable garden. This garden will improve nutrition and provide an income-generation opportunity. Also, the PCV and counterpart plan to teach and help implement permaculture techniques in making this garden so that it may serve as an example to villagers of the benefits of permaculture. Conclusion It is the hope of the PCV that through implementation of these projects the lives of Dosidosi villagers will begin to improve through a process of sustainable change.

"Well there's not a lot for you to give if you're giving in. And there's not a lot for you to feel if you're not feeling it. You bring it up and bring it in and we'll get you fixed up in no time..."-Tegan and Sara

Not gonna lie, this week has been tough. I've been going through a bit of a crisis of confidence as far as what I'm doing here. For some reason I just got in this really homesick, depressed mood that I couldn't shake. When I'm in the village I try to be productive and usually am but there's still a lot of downtime and if you know me you know that a bored Carrie is an unhappy Carrie. So as of right now I'm just taking it day by day, sometimes moment by moment, trying to remember that it's not about me.

On Sunday I had a slightly revalatory moment. I went to church w/ a few of my neighbors, about a 40 min. walk away in the next village. It was good to go but church services drag on forever here so I eventually realized I was going to have to leave early to be on time for a scheduled meeting. As I was trying to decide what time to sneak out, I kept hearing thunder getting closer and closer, obviously it was about to rain. So of course I left at the most inopportune time possible and the rain started about five minutes into my walk. So stubborn me, I am not going to turn around and spend all day at church waiting for it to stop, and of course I'm completely unprepared w/o umbrella or raincoat, but I keep going. Now when it rains here, it rains Biblically. So I'm walking down this dirt road as fast as I can in my skirt and Birkenstocks, and the heavens just unleash a DOWNPOUR. I was completely drenched in about 10 minutes and still far from home. At 1st I felt like the world's biggest idiot but then I realized, "You know, there's nothing you can do to prevent this so just give up!" And I started to embrace it. I took off my glasses which were useless and carried my shoes, and kept walking barefoot down the road which instantly became a muddy river. It was the most soaked I'd been since the beach and closest thing I've had to a bath in 5 days. I actually wished I had my shampoo! So it was good for something. Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it because it was marvelous to witness with every pore and every sense how hard it can rain in this place that was a dry desert just a couple months ago. Now everything has become green and lush! As I finally neared home I was splashing through huge puddles and sure my cell phone was drowned (it still works, knock on wood!). I was soaked to the bone but feeling strangely renewed. 'Cause really, Idk when the last time I didn't try to avoid or get through a rainstorm as fast as possible was. How often do we ever completely surrender ourselves to nature and the elements? Not that I want to make a habit of taking long hikes in monsoons with no protection, but this one time it was exhilarating. And maybe exactly what I needed.

Happy New Year!!!!! I truly hope it's been an awesome one for all of you out there! I beat you to it by 8 hours though! I don't have much to update but I did have an amazing Christmas and New Years and am now ready to start getting some serious work done in my vill (aside from a Dar trip and an Iringa trip already scheduled for this month for meetings and trainings). First up is hopefully a community garden Hadija is helping organize now, starting to teach Life Skills at the primary and secondary school, and hopefully a chicken project to raise money for my orphans' school fees. So for those of you who were interested in contributing to help out with that, I'm planning to write a grant for start-up money for the project ASAP. As soon as the grant gets through it will be posted online and you will be able to donate. I'm hoping that raising chickens and selling the eggs for income-generation will give the kids a sustainable way to raise their school fees rather than just relying on donations from America year after year. So as soon as that is up for donations I will let everyone know. May take a few more weeks though. Things move slowly in Africa and in Peace Corps bureaucracy.

Well, that's about it, time to go waste time on facebook until my Internet time runs out!

Mwaka Mpya Njema!!!! (Happy New Year!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE HOT LAND OF AFRICA!!!

Real blog later. But know this, everyone:

I AM COMING HOME IN MARCH FOR JUSTINE'S WEDDING!!! March 2-16, Cbus.

Get excited. Get ready for Graeter's trips.

So! It has been awhile! Sorry I tend to be ADHD when I get to Internet and spend all my time putzing around on facebook instead of gathering my thoughts to write blogs. And now I only have 15 minutes left so this will have to be short. I'll try to highlight the craziness of the last month with a few main points:

Thanksgiving-- we celebrated early and did it up as best we could for being in TZ. It was a great time full of laughter. Although it does NOT feel at all like the holiday season and it's starting to sink in that I probably just won't really have Christmas spirit for the next 2 years. It's too opposite from how Christmas-time is supposed to feel here!

"Murder! In the Village"-- (like "Panic! at the Disco" Erica haha) So I had a crazy experience in my village recently. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I had just gotten home and around 8:45 pm I heard a loud bang outside my house. I thought "Wow, that sounded like a gunshot." then immediately thought "No....this is Dosidosi, it couldn't have been, it was a car or something." Then went to bed. The next morning I was casually working in my garden when my neighbor came over and I asked him why there was no school on a school day. He proceeded to be the 1st to inform me that one of the teachers from my school had been SHOT AND KILLED right between my school and the row of teachers houses where I live the night before. So I was FREAKED OUT. It was so upsetting and more so by the fact that he was a friend of mine, I had had dinner at his house and everything. And it just came out of nowhere to me. So of course I left the village for a couple days and hung out at Keith's and talked to Peace Corps about the situation. It basically came down to whether I felt safe in the village or not. Obviously I don't feel as safe as I used to but changing sites would be horrible. As much as I might have wanted to had this been week 2 or something, a site change after how far I've come would just suck. And as far as the alleged reason for the crime, it has nothing to do w/ me so I'm not fearing for my life or anything. But it was a terrible couple of days, and to top it all off when Keith and I returned to my house on Thanksgiving Day to cook and hide out from gunmen we found that sadly Sloopy had passed away. So Buttercup is now the lone ranger. I was really sad. Sorry this is terribly written but I'm running out of time.

IST--So NOW life is great again because I am in Morogoro for In-Service-Training with my whole group! It has been awesome to see everyone again, celebrate a bunch of people's birthdays, hang out at a pool, eat pizza, and stay up til 3 am just laughing like crazy. I missed certain people from other regions SO much and it is so great to hear their stories and experiences and just catch up. Also we are learning some awesome stuff about grant-writing, project implementation, and cool things like how to make batiks and plant trees. After a session today I am totally pumped to go back home and teach people how to make solar cookers! They're gonna think I'm crazy bu it is gonna be AWESOME! So looking forward to more useful info, more fun times, and our counterparts arriving on Sunday.

So just in time I think I'm done with this completely scatterbrained update. So lots of ups and downs but things are now on the upswing! Peace out!

"I always believed in futures...I hope for better in November."

So occasionally when I'm bored at the Internet cafe I browse my other PC buddies blogs, some of which are linked on the right. I think this entry by my friend Cessie so perfectly describes what being here can be like that I wanted to link it directly: http://cessieintanzania.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/homesick/

So yeah, I totally empathize with what she's talking about there. I think many things in this country come down to the problem of "Survival Mode." Most Tanzanians, definitely most of my villagers, are so poor that each day is a struggle for survival...getting water, putting food on the table and keeping a roof (and often not a very good one) over their heads are difficult enough tasks that they consume everyone's time, energy, and thinking. Lack of electricity, water, good roads and all that make everyday tasks take up much more time than they do in the western world. So basically, very few Tanzanians are ever encouraged to have goals, plans, dreams for the future. Most of them don't think further ahead than the next day. And who can blame them, because the life expectancy is so short here, and every day they do more hard work than most Americans just to SURVIVE. But how do you get people to realize the importance of making plans and having dreams? Ni shida kubwa (It's a big problem.)

On the other hand, I have realized I have also been living in a kind of "Survival Mode" since getting to site. Not in the same way as Tanzanians because my life is definitely not as hard as theirs since I have enough money to live decently here and don't have to do hard physical labor on a farm all day. But these first few months at site I have been focused mostly on just survival. Mainly this is a mental thing. I got used to no electricity and bucket baths during training, and I can deal with the bugs and I like cooking for myself. But being the only outsider in a tiny village and trying to fit in with a completely different culture, make friends in a new language, trying to make people understand what I'm even doing there, trying to decide for myself what I'm going to do there, and at the same time dealing with homesickness and loneliness has been what is hard to survive. Some days in my village I've wanted to go home so much I don't think I can deal with it anymore. And some days in my village are great. Most are in between. But for the last few months I have been basically just trying to get through the days and make the time pass...whether that means I have a productive day or whether I need a day where I just read a book and make myself some brownies and ignore all the kids at my door. And of course there have been many "mental health" excursions to town. Basically, I've been getting through it. But I think that I'm finally coming to the point where I'm sick of survival mode. When I think about the big picture and get myself out of the day-to-day mindset I realize that being here is pretty awesome. Of course it's challenging, but two years in perspective is not a long time. And I get to spend it in a beautiful country, speaking a language hardly anyone in the west ever learns, and being welcomed with open arms into a village of amazing people who will appreciate anything I can do so much. So it's time to give myself an attitude adjustment and start seeing the positives more. I'm in freakin' Tanzania, in Peace Corps, getting opportunities to do so much amazing work and see the world. It's pretty amazing. So from now on it's time to get down to business, get my projects started, get out of my house and start enjoying every day, whether I'm in my village or not.

Whew, it’s HOT! It is getting to be that time of the year when I guess I am going to sit in my house sweating no matter how physically inactive I am. And to think that back home it is probably nice and cool and fall-like, even cold by now perhaps! Don’t take it for granted people! I’m sweating enough for all of us over here!

So let’s see, what has happened since my last update? Well, I got TONS of packages I had been waiting for all w/in 2 days and it was just like Christmas! I now know that I’ll never starve no matter how broke I get because I can always live on granola bars. And Hershey Kisses arrived intact so send that chocolate people! Just make sure you put anything open-able inside Ziplocs because magazines soaked in exploded shampoo or iced tea powder are stickier to read. Seriously though, you should have seen Keith and I after we went to the PO and both got packages. We were SO happy we just ran to the bar at 9:30am to bask in the glory of People magazines and Crystal Lite powder (I have been much better hydrated now that my water doesn’t taste like mud). So THANK YOU Mom and Aunt Dawn!

Other news- I finally got all the bat holes in my house sealed up and my choo doors fixed (hoping the junk will be out by the end of November), my boss visited my site and met all my people, I barely saved Sloopy from drowning in my water drum, and I survived my first bout of some horrible sickness/may’ve been giardia. On Halloween, conveniently. So that was a great holiday.

On the work front, I finished writing the 1st draft of my VSA and am working on the presentation of it for IST. Keith and I are planning an event to have at my market day on Dec. 1 since that’s World AIDS Day. That will be our first big project. Also translating penpal letters, studying Swahili, getting a teaching schedule set up for next year. I also started some vegetable seeds inside although I think my garden is going to be a miserable failure; I’m too much of a city girl. So basically everything is in the planning stage still but I’ve at least decided a lot of what I’m going to try. Still looking for people to sponsor kids’ school fees (let me know if you wanna) and hopefully early next year I will have some other projects you can contribute to. Also found out none of the potential sites for new education volunteers in our district were ready so it will be just me and Keith still until at least next August! Woo, rockin’ it w/ no other friends!!!! And also, my villagers are trying to convince me to get a goat for some reason. I’m trying to resist, but part of me is like, “When else in life will I be able to say I have a goat?” So I’ll let you know if that ever happens.

All that and I’ve still had plenty of time for evening runs, cooking/baking sprees, and reading voraciously. Next week I’m going to bust out my camera and try to make a little video either for my VSA presentation or just for facebook to show people my new ‘hood. No promises how soon it will be done though.

So overall life is good. If you read this leave me a comment at least, or better yet email me! I miss my friends and I want to know what you’re up to!

Mambo marafiki!

First of all, a big thanks to Uncle Ken, Stopa, and Pascale for sending me stuff! I LOVE YOU!

So since last time I have gotten a LOT of stuff done. I finished both my house-to-house surveys and 3 community meetings which involved doing a needs' assessment and a couple other activities to analyze gender roles and resources in the community. Oh, and I think I got rid of the scabies. And Sloopy killed the 1st rat! I also filtered my banana wine which is delicious, hung out w/ people in the village a lot more, met the District Med. Officer and my People Living with HIV group (PLWHAs) again. So I am basically brimming with project ideas but first I need to sit down and write my VSA to organize my thoughts and prioritize. So that's what I will be working on next. Otherwise I have been spending my days playing w/ the cats, wandering the village talking and mooching chai off people who invite me over, hanging out w/ Hadija and trying to jog every night to counteract all the chapati I end up eating while mooching. Trying to study Swahili too but I'm ADHD when it comes to that. Even with all the above activities I have oodles of reading time and am absolutely BLOWING through books (4 in the last 2 weeks) so keep them coming! I will read anything!

Other than that, bear with me through my first shameless plug. 1 thing I'm trying to get off the ground right now is getting support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children's school fees. Education is technically free in TZ but the costs of uniforms, supplies, and activity fees is still a hindrance to struggling families. And if they can't pay, then the kids don't learn. I already have done a census of the children of parent's living with HIV and am getting a list of orphans and other at-risk youth. The total yearly cost varies depending on what grade but for primary schoolers is no more than $50 a year! That's so cheap compared to America! The secondary schoolers pay a little more but I don't have the data yet. So if anyone has any way at all of being able to commit to one year of school fees for one child here, it would help SO MUCH. Not having to worry about school fees would allow these kids' caretakers to free up some of their little income for other things everyone is struggling with- food, water, buying seeds and farm equipment. And for the parents living with HIV, they have to pay bus fares to go to another village to get their Anti-Retroviral drugs. And for the kids, education has been proven time and time again to be the key to getting people thinking outside the box, out of the trap of hopelessness! So tell your parents, tell your friends, your church, anyone you think would want to help. Dosidosi appreciates it! Then if you're serious about it, shoot me an email so I can start making a list. I hope to get this started by the time the new school term starts in January. Asante sana!

Mabojola: the primary school Headmaster and my neighbor. He’s a short little man with lots of energy and a good guy, helps me out a lot, speaks English, and always drops by to ask me random questions about American history or current events other things. He’s the one who helped me order all my furniture and get my cats and everything when I first got here.

Mwajuma: His wife. This lady is awesome. She’s pretty much my new mama. She feeds me whenever I wander over to say hi and feeds my cats when I leave for weekends. She taught me how to greet in Kinguo and pretty much helps me out anytime I need help with any chores or getting anything. If she doesn’t see me for a day she always stops by the next day to check on me. Also, her baby, Maua (Flowers), is the fattest baby I’ve seen in Tanzania so she definitely is a good mom!

Annette: new teacher who’s my age and just moved here from Kilimanjaro so she’s staying with my headmaster and his family. We’ve hung out a few times and we’re getting to be good friends. She’s really cute and trendy and funny. When she first arrived she was crying because of how remote Dosidosi is compared to what she’s used to, so we definitely empathize about that. She already invited me to come home with her in April to see Moshi-town and then again sometime later to climb Kili together.

Wilson: My closest neighbor, another teacher, he’s a young guy, still single. He’s helped me teach the couple times I did and get the penpal thing started. He’s a huge talker and we’ll end up having 2-hour long convos where he just asks me all these questions about America. It’s good for my Swahili, for sure.

Joeli: Wilson’s 18-year-old brother who lives with him. He’s starting secondary school next year but for now I guess he just does all the housework for the 2 of them. He’s a cool kid, always lets me know when my cats run off somewhere they shouldn’t be. They’re both from Lushoto but Wilson got moved here to teach. So they also invited me home with them sometime next year to see Lushoto which is supposedly gorgeous so I’m excited!

Paulo: the Headmaster of the secondary school, another neighbor. He’s been away a lot but from the few times we’ve talked while going to church, I know he’s super smart, super Christian, and really good at English. And he is an absolutely GORGEOUS man. But he’s married and just had his 1st kid born this week actually. Pretty much the only teacher at the secondary school who does anything I think.

The Frat Boys: These are about 5 young guys, single secondary school teachers who all share 1 side of Paulo’s house since the secondary school doesn’t have adequate teachers’ housing yet. I call them the Frat Boys because they’re basically as close as you get to that in Tanzania. They don’t seem to take their jobs seriously at all, or me for that matter. Whenever I hang out with them it’s just a bunch of questions about why I’m not married and don’t I want a TZ boyfriend? Since the government assigns teachers to where they will work I basically think since Dosidosi’s secondary school just opened they sent us all the most inexperienced and unmotivated crew. Oh well, they’re sometimes fun to hang out with.

Stephen: He lives with the frat boys but not really like them. Also new in town, goes to church w/ me and really smart and good English. But he's a huge nerd. He wants to be an accountant instead of a teacher. He asks me the dorkiest questions all the time and I just laugh because I konw I can make fun of him w/o him realizing it. I'm so mean.

Asha and Levasha: 2 married women teachers who live in the middle of the village. I basically go over to school every day and just talk to them while they're grading. They're super sweet and they both also have generators so I've been to each of their houses at night to chill and watch TV.

Maganga: The Ward Executive Officer (gov't guy) of Dosidosi. He got all the official PC scoop and everything. He's a silly-looking man w/ crazy muttonchops but he has a good heart and has taken me around the village and helped me out w/ tonsof stuff. Tracking him down is always an issue since he's never in the office. But usually he can be found cavorting around on his motorcycle or sipping chai and chilling in some cafe.

Stella and Mwanamvua: the 2 nurses at my clinic. They are AWESOME ladies who work so hard. They're always going to conferences and trying to learn more and really committed to improving health. BAsically, they're doing all they can w/ NOTHING and NO HELP so I'm really gonna try to help them out however I can.

Hadija: my Counterpart! This girl is really shy but she's got it goin' on! She's my age and graduated from Secondary School in Kibaya in 2005. She wants to go to college and be a womens' rights lawyer but $ is a problem so she's just at home helping with her family's farm now. She is great at English, so smart and motivated, and has such a progressive mindset and such awesome goals. So she went with me to do all my surveys and my community meetings, and she's coming to IST in Dec. w/ me for official Counterpart training. So basically I have high hopes for what we'll be able to accomplish here together.

Joyce: She's Keith's counterpart in Matui, but I lover her just as much as he does. She's a homebased-care volunteer and speaks no English but she does everything! And knows everyone important around. For income she runs a little soda and beer stand and also brings crates to sell in a tent every 2x/month market in my village. So needless to say she keeps us set on drinks whenever we're with her! One time I came to Matui Keith mentioned that later we were planning to climb this big rocky hill to get a view of the valley, so she just charges us across town and leads us up the steep slope in her flipflops and khanga. And she's like 40! She also loved one of the brownies I made and gave her once! Now she wants to climb 1 of the bigger mountains around Dosidosi with us sometime. Needless to say, I can't wait til IST! I think Keith and I, Joyce and Hadija, will be the Fantastic 4 starting PC in Kiteto!!!

First of all, a warning: Don't read this if you ever want to consider me attractive ever again in your life. You've been warned.

So I’ve realized a lot of you are probably wondering what a typical day is like in PC TZ. Well, the answer is that there is none. Each day is full of incredibly random occurrences that either frustrate, amuse, or inspire. To illustrate this point, allow me to tell the tale of October 7, 2009, or as I like to call it: WAR ON SCABIES DAY. I wake up at 6 am after a fitful night due to bats squeaking and my skin itching and realize it’s time to face facts. The facts being, unfortunately for unlucky me, that I have scabies. I’ve come to this conclusion finally after almost a week of itchy red hives on my knees, waist, and elbows, countless consultations w/ my medical handbook and Where there is No Doctor, a speculative conversation with the PC Medical Officer, and several days of popping Benadryl trying to deny reality, all to no avail. Since I just had my sheets washed, I’m sure I caught this lovely gift from one of the guestis I’ve stayed at in my travels. Oh, thank you TZ. So despite my revelation, I still have to do something productive, so at 7:30 I’m off to do the last two surveys with Hadija in one of the sub-villages. It turns out to be an hour walk each way, so that’ll be my exercise for the day. I struggle to pay attention during the surveys because there’s some really cute puppies playing at the house next door and I’m so tempted to ask if I can have one. I resist the urge though and we walk back. Before going home I run some errands, ordering a sweet outfit from a tailor and buying some beans and veggies. So I get home, still procrastinating dealing with my skin problem, and start sweeping my house. And what should I sweep into my dustpan but a random half-paralyzed bat that must have fallen from my roof behind my cothes cupboard last night. So that’s gross, but I take it outside and watch my cats have fun playing with it, although apparently they don’t eat bats, or they’re full. Next thing I know Mwajuma (my school headmaster's wife...basically my BF here) comes over and I figure it’s time to do something. So I ask her if she can help me get my sheets washed again because I have “a bit of a rash.” And she freaks out, of course. They cannot have the white girl being sick you know. So for 4000 shillings she washed my blanket and all my sheets again, as if she had no other work to do, bless her heart. So since that’s happening, I figure I need to go all out TODAY and get this problem solved. So I drag my mattress, pillows, and all my couch cushions (which I stole from the junk room rather than buy my own so they could be the culprit too) into my yard to lie in the sun all day. Then I douse myself in some medicated lotion I got at the only drug store here again and start laundry duty. I already had tons of dirty clothes but now I realize that anything I’ve worn since rashville prob needs a rinse. So I put my iPod speakers on loud and start doing my least favorite chore, washing by hand with my 2 little plastic basins and bar of soap, sitting outside my back door. Even if I wanted to do everything I couldn’t because a) someone “borrowed” half my clothespins and b) I pay a pretty penny for water in this drought land and need to save some of the little I have for the rest of the week’s cooking and dishwashing. Plus the last time I had water delivered it was basically Mississippi mud so I’m not excited to pay for that again. So I wash enough clothes to last a few days (heck, this is PC, a few weeks) and am starting to get my hopes up that I will get this infestation eradicated once and for all (knock on wood.) By now it’s afternoon and all of what was going to be a productive day working on my VSA has gone to my battle plan. When I do sit down to start tabulating survey results, my friend Annette, one of the teachers who’s my age shows up at the door and says she’s come to help me “piga deki”- basically mopping the floor except no one has mops so they just bend over with a piece of fabric and wash the floor. So basically people are talking about my little problem and are probably concluding that I’m an incompetent mzungu living in filfth. So I tell her I can do it myself but she insists and basically has my whole room scrubbed in 5 minutes. Then she makes me spray everything down w/ my bug poison even though I already did. So she’s awesome. So later that day she comes back with my neighbor friend Joeli to listen to Celine Dion and the Backstreet Boys on my iPod (TZs love their 90s American pop), look at my pictures from home, and hang out. I show them the Michael Jackson People my mom sent and they marvel at the picture progression showing all the stages his face went through. We all agree that he was crazy, but still the King of Pop. So after that I bring all my stuff inside, hoping the sun has worked its magic and killed all insects, please please please. Then I realize I’m starving and I have vegetables I have to use before they go bad so I make some delicious salsa and start cooking beans to make homemade refried beans. That’s like a 2 hour process so in the meantime I finish my survey writeup and Mwajuma comes over with my sheets all clean. She basically tells me she feels horrible that I’ms ick, tell her if I need help with any other chores any time, or if I ever am too busy or don’t want to cook tell her and she’ll bring me food. “Sasa sisi ni ndugu, wewe mdogo yangu” she says. “Because we’re relatives now, you’re my little sister.” I freaking love that woman. So to end my long day of battle I eat my delicious dinner (trying not to miss Chipotle), then heat up some water and take a bucket bath by lantern light because I had to leave the lotion on for 8 hours before washing it off, according to my handy books. So finally through with my arduous day of pest control, I look up at the sky. Maybe it’s just the exhuberant hope of a scabies-free future making me delusional, but I swear the stars are more beautiful then I have ever seen anywhere. There’s no moon so I can see millions of them SUPER bright. One of the benefits of no light pollution from land. So basically, I can deal with a night sky like that for as long as I live, but I cannot be itchy like this for 2 years. So here’s hoping my efforts succeeded. And I know, TMI, I know.

EDIT: So last night I talked to my dad (a daktari) and he said he does not think it sounds like scabies, probably just an allergic reaction. and it's going away now. but i had already written this so i figured might as well post. more later.

“It’s when you cry just a little but you laugh in the middle that you’ve made it.” – Jason Mraz

First of all, I want to give my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Joseph Chow. Peace Corps TZ suffered a horrible loss this week when Joseph, an Education volunteer in Songea, passed away after a rock-climbing accident. I never met Joseph but PC TZ is just one big family, so I’m still deeply saddened to lose a brother. My heart goes out to all the other Volunteers in his class and region who I’m sure knew and loved him a lot. RIP.

It’s weird to be in the village and get news like that via text message. It’s like business carries on as usual except you can feel the shock waves vibrating throughout the entire PC population of the country and the sadness everyone shares. So that news was really hard.

Other than that, this has been a productive week. I was pretty much a culinary genius and made PB-Choc Brownies and an excellent loaf of bread jiko-style. It’s amazing what baked goods will do for your mental health. I also made a bucket of banana wine, so if all goes as it should that is fermenting now and will be delicious in 3 weeks! My villagers probably thought I was crazy buying 80 bananas to make “juice.”

I also am starting a penpal exchange between a class of 5th graders here and a class of 5th graders in America through the World Wise Schools program. So I went to the class to introduce the idea and ended up basically teaching a lesson on what students do in America and what the similarities and differences are. And of course this was all in Swahili except for when they made me sing the US National Anthem solo for them. Great.

I also went back to help out at the clinic, where I can’t believe how overworked the nurses are. I basically just weigh people and fill out their charts. But they need so much help I’ll probably end up going there 2x a week as a main project to help them with Monday baby-weighing and Thursday pregnancy exam days.

This week I also started House-to-House surveys to help complete the VSA. I’m working with Hadija, a 23-year-old girl who finished secondary school and wants to be a lawyer someday. So she speaks great English and is wonderful help. She’s also pretty cool to hang out with. We’re both quiet but I’m hoping we’ll get to be friends. We’ve visited 4 households so far asking questions about the village schools, health, agriculture, what they do for fun, etc. Just to get some baseline info on the village stats.

I also met Mariam, this lady who was sitting outside her house making beaded rings. So I told her I loved jewelry and she said she’d teach me how to make them! And she gave me a ring as a gift which I love. So possible income-generating-activity for a Mama’s group? Or just a fun craft hobby either way!

So in other news my cats like to run away to school and the neighbor’s houses, I eat an inordinate amount of peanut butter because I’m too lazy to cook more than 1x a day, and it has gotten HOT. Nights are still comfortable but in the daytime the sun is intense. Also, I’ve realized my biggest animal problem is bats; they keep me up all night squeaking and every morning I have to sweep up all their poop. Gross. I’ve also had a cold for the last 2 ½ weeks which is annoying. The overriding theme of this month has been just trying to handle the extreme mood swings of being here. Every time I see another PCV and get to speak English and hang out Marekani style it’s awesome, but then it makes the return to the vill that much harder. My worst days have been the ones I’ve returned from hanging out w/ Keith in town or something to being by myself. It is really lonely and difficult sometimes. There are definitely days where I’d rather lie in bed reading than get up and speak Swahili and integrate. But every time I get out there it gets better and easier. I’ve never had more than 1 bad day in a row so that’s good. And I always knew this settling-in period would be the hardest part. I just wish I could fast forward to after IST in December when I’ll have friends, better Swahili, and project ideas. But this is Tanzania, “polepole ndiyo mwendo” (slow and steady wins the race). Well that’s about it. Know what makes me the happiest person in the world? Getting mail!!! So write me letters or send me trashy magazines or postcards or anything!!! My address is on my facebook group, or you can message me to get it. If you write me a letter I’ll have your address and I’ll guarantee to write you back!!!!!

And HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!

-Mboza (my Kinguo name...yeah, I'm not a fan either...)

Mambo! So here I am, alive and well, trying to collect my thoughts enough to give you all a decent update on my life for the last 3 weeks I've been at site. There have been some ups and downs for sure. I really am really remote, even by Peace Corps standards. There's 1 spot on the main road I can walk to to get maybe 1 bar of cell reception to check text messages, but other than that I am off the grid! My feelings about this are mostly "Well, it IS what you signed up for..." I've definitely had some moments of extreme loneliness in which I can't believe how long 2 years seems. But I'm starting to get settled and things are looking up so let's focus on the highlights:

1. My house is becoming a home! This week I got all the furniture I ordered delivered so I actually have my own bed, a clothes closet, some couches, and some tables. So I got to UNPACK for the first time in 3 months, woo!!! I also put up a ton of pictures on my wall to remind me of people back home, but if anyone wants to send me more or anything else to decorate that would be awesome!

2. Exploring the mountains and environment around my village has been pretty cool. There are several small mountains right around my house and Keith and I are determined to climb them all eventually. I also found an awesome little hilly trail to jog on where I only pass a few people herding cows usually so I don't have to deal with THAT many weird looks and people asking me why I'm running. Oh, and there are MONKEYS!!! Tons of them, actually. There are also apparently hyenas but I'm not trying to go walking around at night by myself to find them.

Yesterday I took the bus to Keith's village, almost passed out because I was standing with 2 heavy bags packed into the aisle and wasn't feeling too good. So I had to ask this guy to give me his seat which thankfully he did since I'm the wimpy white girl. But then of course I got to Keith's house (an hour bus ride) and we went and climbed a huge boulder-y hill in his village. It was really cool, we could see for miles around the whole valley. Also saw some naked Maasai guys bathing in the water holes which was scandalous. So yeah, there will be lots of mountain climbing in the next 2 years.

3. Making friends in my village is going well. All of my neighbors are teachers and they're all really nice (except for 1 stalker who I am doing my best to shake). The headmaster of the primary school is my main guy so far- he speaks English and is really smart and helpful. And his wife is HILARIOUS and feeds me so much and visits me every day if she doesn't see me. She taught me how to greet in Kinguo, the local language, so now I'm considered like the smartest person alive by all the villagers for knowing those few words. So she's like my best friend so far. The other female teachers are also awesome and I talk to them a lot to practice Swahili and there are 2 woman nurses who I'm also probably going to work with a lot. And of course the kids are constantly at my house trying to talk to the weird mzungu. So yeah, I have friends.

4. I HAVE KITTENS! Now those of you who know me know that I'm not a cat person, but as soon as I realized how many critters my house has, I was like "I need a cat." So my headmaster started looking for a kitten for me. So one day I get back from Keith's village and all of a sudden I'm presented with not one, but TWO little black kittens. So at first I was like "Crap, I don't know how to take care of cats..." but they are now like my best friends and they definitely know I am their Mama. They follow me everywhere and jump on me constantly. Sloopy is the girl (cheesy Ohio pride) and Buttercup is the boy (Keith picked the name in hopes that a girly name would produce a super-ferocious rat killer...so far it's working 'cause Buttercup is CRAZY.) So now I'm obsessed with my cats since they provide entertainment and companionship. The other day one of them wandered over to my neighbor's yard and he was like "Carrie...Mtoto yako yupo hapa." (Carrie...one of your children is here.) So that confirmed that I'm totally the crazy cat lady but I'm fine with it.

5. Getting stuff done! So I'm actually trying to follow the suggested schedule for what to do each week in order to complete the VSA. So I've been to village government meetings, introduced myself at both schools and to all the teachers, and basically just sat and talked with anyone who invites me in. I'm just starting to learn about all the problems in my village and trying to figure out what I can do here that will bring sustainable change for the better. On Monday I went to the clinic to help the 2 overworked nurses with the baby-weighing day. So I was weighing babies, writing charts, and giving polio medicine. It was crazy busy but awesome 'cause I feel like I actually helped a lot just by being an extra set of hands. So I definitely plan to help out at the clinic a lot.

6. So basically just hanging out in my village trying to survive and actually do something productive. I see Keith about once a week which is good...any other PCVs I see only when I feel like at least a 3 hour bus ride. But we're planning lots of fun holiday trips and outings so it'll be great. And apparently, I will be home in March to be there for Justine to get hitched! So get excited for that!

Peace out, leave me comments!!!

So I have survived the 1st week in my village! There have been ups and downs as to be expected, but so far I'm adjusting well the life completely opposite from training- being completely by yourself with nothing but free time! As far as starting work goes, Peace Corps really doesn't want us to do any big projects for our first 3 months at site. And believe me, that is a good decision. Every PCV who's been here for awhile has told us things like "In your first 3 months, all you should do is learn to cook beans." or something like that. Really, it's a time to adjust, really learn Kiswahili, get your house set up, and develop relationships with your villagers. Without that basis, any projects you try to start will probably fail. That's the theory at least. So I'm really glad there's no pressure to change the world right away because all of a sudden being on my own is pretty overwhelming!

My house is right next to the primary school in my village, so all my neighbors are teachers who are really nice and helpful. My house is also on the edge of the village so I have pretty awesome views of the small mountains that surround the village right out my back door. Everyone says if I think it's pretty now just wait until everything turns green during the rainy season. My house itself has some issues to work out...namely some critter infestations (lizzards and rats I believe) and one whole room is full of furniture and junk from the last teacher that needs to get removed so I can use the space. And the choo looks like it's about to fall over. And there's a random pile of bricks in my yard where I'd like my garden to be. But this is only the first week and everything will get solved Tanzanian style- pole pole (slowly slowly). The school headmaster has promised me the stuff will get removed, he's working on finding me a cat for free, and I've already started ordering my own furniture from the village carpenter. So soon enough I will make my house a home! So for anyone who wants to visit me, I promise I will have a bed for you, there are plenty of sexy Maasai men to look at, we can go climb a mountain in my backyard, and then we can make homemade wine! What could be better????

So the one thing I will be working on eventually during these 1st 3 months is the VSA- Village Situation Analysis. It is basically a big report on the status and needs of my village that I will write after researching through house-to-house surveys, village meetings, talking to leaders, and basically just asking tons of questions. Then I'll formulate a report along with my analyses of what projects could be done to help my village, I'll translate it into Swahili to give to the local government, and I'll present it to Peace Corps in December at our In-Service Training. At that training we learn to do grant applications and other more concrete things so that after that we can start the main projects we've decided on through doing the VSA. So if that makes any sense whatsoever that is what I'll be doing officially for the next 3 months. Although I don't plan to even start having meetings officially for at least a month because I just need to get settled, make some friends, and learn how to survive. But yeah....life in Dosidosi....it'll be cool, man!

So here's the speech that a bunch of us wrote for our Swearing In ceremony and that Marshall and I read in English and Swahili. I'd say we did a much better job of writing it then I actually did of giving it, so here for your reading pleasure:

"We stand before you now at the dawn of our Peace Corps service. We arrived in the night, and in spite of our preparations we were still in the dark about what to expect. Many awoke to an unfamiliar noise- a beckoning call to prayer. We rose to the burning expectations of the African sun, full of exciting uncertainties.

From the outside looking in you could never understand the jam-packed buses, roosters before dawn, and survival through child-like communication- sema tena pole pole (say it again slowly). Or the traditional healers, bats in the choo, and cross-cultural exchange. From the inside looking out, you could never explain it. These are things at first we might have feared but now we have come to appreciate and embrace.

In this dawn of service we have been welcomed into unique families. Each hosting village came together to guide and protect us. With lessons in culture, life skills, and survival we became kakas and dadas (brothers and sisters), children to Tanzanian parents who held tightly to our hands. They have shown us one path that can lead us to overcome challenges and then another to follow safely back to their homes.

Through the efforts of our government working amicably towards improved quality of life at home and abroad, we have this unique privilege. Working with our counterparts on the front line of this grassroots movement, we will strive towards sustainable change.

If our claustrophobic peers can survive daladalas, if our vegetarian friends can make it through preparing a chicken, if the germaphobics can tolerate public choos, and if each of us is willing to readjust to exams and schoolbells, then surely we are capable of more than we know.

Today is the first day of the most fulfilling job we may ever know. We are embarking on an experience we are sure to love which will challenge us in new ways we could never foresee.

E.E. Cummings once said, "It takes true courage to become who you really are." We would not have the courage, nor the skills and abilities to begin our service without the guidance and support of the entire Peace Corps staff here in Tanzania. We would like to thank them for their patience, understanding, acceptance, and support. These qualities which they have so generously shared with us we hope to extend to our future villages.

To our fellow trainees- In a short period of months we have gone from strangers to family. Thanks to this shared experience we now have a unique bond, not only to each other but also to a large and diverse Peace Corps family. We will walk these days of service together with a unifying desire to accomplish our Peace Corps mission. It is our hope, that through our service, we will be able to contribute to sustainable growth and the continued prosperity of the people of Tanzania."

So I'm not even at my site yet so no real big news, other than that Swearing In was awesome, I totally skipped a paragraph during the speech and said "Oh crap" into the microphone in front of the ambassador and all these important people, so I'm pretty much a legend just for that for the next 2 years. It was awesome. But I'm still here so apparently I'm a real volunteer now despite that. Going the rest of the way to my village tomorrow and it will be awesomely in the middle of nowhere. If you want my address I'm going to be able to use the PO Box of another volunteer out here until I get my own. I'm technically not supposed to post it on here but it's on the facebook group I made, or email me and I will tell you. So get those letters coming!

PST in 1 word: indescribable. I don’t even know where to start since so much has happened in the last 2 months and I’ve barely been able to write. Basically, I lived in a tiny village with a Tanzanian family who spoke only Kiswahili for the last 8 weeks. I woke up at 4 am every morning when the rooster living in our house started crowing. I walked down red dirt roads lined with palm trees, farms, and mud huts to go anywhere and gazed at mountains on every horizon. I shared a “bathroom” with 20 people, bats, cockroaches, and scorpions. I washed clothes in the river and saw more boobs than ever before as women bathed. I saw more chickens get killed then necessary and then proceeded to eat them for dinner. I cooked, talked, played, and got my hair done sitting under the stars. I carried stuff on my head. I constantly made a fool of myself singing and dancing with kids. I made numerous cultural faux pas and went on many frustrated venting walks with me fellow trainees. I ate more rice and beans than anyone ever should. I learned to love the sound of rain pouring on a tin roof. I became the secretary for a witch doctor. I learned to greet grandmas in Kibondi. I played with babies. I learned to tell age by number of teeth. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes, got sick and then got better, and got fat from eating all carbs all the time. I learned Swahili and I joined 2 new families-my Tanzanian host family and my Peace Corps bonded-for-life family. Basically, its been a blur of the biggest challenges and greatest moments of my life so far. And it’s only about to get crazier.

A couple of hilghlights in greater detail from the last 9 weeks: Pangani Beach and Shadow Week. We all went to a beach resort a couple hours away for a fun weekend after week 5. Of course to get there as economically as possible we crammed all of us into a mini bus and were sitting 5 to a row with some standing. And someone definitely peed in a water bottle rather than asking for a stop. We had the whole resort to ourselves, stayed in these HUGE luxury “tents” with furniture, electricity, and modern bathrooms. Yes! We ate the most delicious food ever and spent the whole time in the pool or the Indian Ocean. There were tons of sand dollars and at night these crazy little microorganisms that glow in the water. Had amazing midnight girl bonding talks in the ocean under the stars. One day we walked down the beach 4km into town, but no one told us it required some serious rock maneuvering, and of course my flipflop broke so I was scaling limestone boulders through crashing waves with 1 bare foot. But it ended well so it made a good story. On the way home we went to Amboni, this cool cave system. I fanyone wants a beach vacation, I’ll meet you at Pangani!

Shadow week- The 12 of us going to shadow volunteers in Iringa got picked up at 3:30am and driven to another town to catch the bus at 8 am. Watched the sun rise since sleep was impossible on a bumpy road. Got to the public bus and drove a long 12 hours to get to the Southern Highlands. Passed through Mikumi National Park so we saw giraffes, gazelles, baboons, and elephants. Bill (my shadow buddy) and I finally got off around 5 pm and met Cory, our Volunteer. He was completely crazy in a hilarious and awesome way. After waiting an hour or so we threw all our stuff and jumped on top of an already full back of a pickup truck to ride to his village. Held on for dear life for the 20 min. drive while we watched the sun set, and of course stopped to add 2 more people. The 2 days at Cory’s were basically Top Chef Tanzania- he had bought so much food for us! We made homemade mac n cheese, carrot cake, grilled cheese, and apple crisp, all TZ charcoal jiko style! Cooking took forever but was so worth it for the cheese and dessert! His village was also gorgeous to explore, his house was a great setup and just all around a great time to relax and speak English. The 3rd night everyone in Iringa and all our hosts met in Njombe to stay in a guesti before the 6 am bus departure. We went to this awesome waterfall and climbed all around the rocks on it. Me, Cory, and Bill were all just lying on rocks having total Zen moments. Transcendental. Then we got ice cream! And hung out w/ everyone at the guesti talking about how jealous we all were of the Volunteers living in Iringa region. It’s kinda the sorority/fraternity of the PC. I’m glad I at least got to visit.

Now PST is over and we’re in Dar! Our village threw us an awesome goodbye party with a drum/dance circle, and then had an all-night disco later on. I tried my best to shake it like a black girl! It was soooo fun. Pictures will be on facebook someday, I promise. Tomorrow is swearing in at the house of the US Ambassador. Marshall and I for some reason got picked to write/give a speech in English and Swahili. So that won’t be at all nerve-wracking. And we’re all performing a crazy musical we made up about PST. It’ll be great. Then Thursday I’m off to the boondocks!!!!

Congratulations to Justine and Bryan on getting engaged! My bestie is gonna get married!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so happy for you guys!!!!!

Peace out from AFRIKA!!!!!

So I know where I'm going! It's a tiny village, less than 1700 people, 40km from the town of Kiteto. That's in Manyara region, central Tanzania. Supposedly it's hilly and cold sometimes and I have a picture of my house (small) but with a cool mountain view out the backyard. It's in the Maasai Steppe so should be pretty. The thing that's kinda scary is that myself and my friend Keith are the 1st and only PCVs of any kind getting sent there! So we're gonna be 15km apart but we're a pretty good distance from any other PC people! Gonna be out in the STICKS with no electricity. It's gonna be super scary when I first get there, I'm gonna freak out. But hopefully I"ll end up loving it!

Right now I'm on shadow in Njombe, having a great time! Bill and I came to visit a PCV down here named Cory, and he has an awesome house in a beautiful village and we had a great time. Ate SO MUCH food. And we just walked to this beautiful waterfall and explored all around it. Tomorrow we go back to Dar (14 hour bus ride) then stay 1 day there to open bank accounds. Then we go back to homestays for 1 more week!!! Then Swearing In! Ahh! It's all happening so fast! Okay, 1 minutes left on the Internet so peace out.

Hey all my fans!!!! I don't really have time to post a detailed blog right now, and I don't think I could accurately recount all that's happened in the last 3 weeks even if I tried. So I'll try to be concise yet hilarious using handy dandy bullet points:

Interesting Things That Have Happened to Me in TZ So Far

Getting charged by a water buffaloScorpion in the choo (pit toilet) my first day at my host familyBat living in the chooSeeing a crocodile in the river while sitting on a rock washing clothesTeaching my host family how to make spaghetti and them loving it(Cultural exchange woot!)My host family me telling me every day that I'm "numba moja kwa Kiswahili" aka the best at speaking Kiswahili in my village and they're proud of meGetting my hair braided by my aunt while sitting on the ground outside looking up at a million starsWatching crazy Swahili music videos called "Taarab" and listening to Bongo Flavaeating ugali at EVERY meal....ughhhhhhnaming a baby after my brother...that's right Timeating everything with my hands out of communal plates (including the aformentioned spaghetti)being the daughter of Mama Bonge (aka Big Mama), a witch doctorgetting to watch Mama Bonge heal people using herbs, smoke, chickens, chanting, and all this crazy stuffwatching a "scanner" ceremony in which people were speaking in tongues and going into comas due to "evil spirits" being in themcooking everything over a fire and taking bucket baths every morningriding my bike in a skirt and khanga because only prostitutes wear pantshearing about people in my village being attacked by pythons and crocodiles at the aformentioned riverteaching all the little kids at my house the hokey pokey, the shark song, peace like a river, if you're happy and you know it, and any other song I can remember from childhood. THE KIDS HERE MAKE MY LIFE!!!!! learning tons of kid songs in Swahili from themcarrying my baby nephew on my back in a khanga like a Tanzanian woman and everyone loving itlearning Swahili from our teacher Chacha Busada (aka Chacha the Wise) every dayspeaking all Kiswahili with my family and actually being understood most of the time (though understanding them is harder)it being absolutely BEAUTIFUL everywhere!!!!!!!!making up songs with my fellow traineeseating a whole plate of chocolate peanut butter soup on the day we did experimental cooking34 Americans singing the National Anthem together in the middle of a field in TZ on the 4th of Julytotally impressing the Country Director when she came to visit by showing her my house and Mama Bonge telling her that I'm "like her own daughter and she can't imagine me leaving"haven't been really sick yet, but my GI tract is definitely on constant high alertbasically just being a total DBA living with no power, water, anything, and loving it (most of the time)Basically, I've survived a month in TZ! This week I have my placement interview and my Swahili midterm (not worried) then we are going to the beach for a mini vacation Friday-Sunday! It's awesome but hard living with a host family and having them constantly checking up on me so a break is definitely in order! After that we have 1 more week of language, 1 week of tech training, and then we find out our placements! CANNOT WAIT to know where I'll be for the next 2 years. After that we shadow current volunteers for a week then come back to Dar for Swearing-In on August 19th. So the time is ticking down!!! I promise I'll try to post pictures soon but I haven't busted out my camera with my host family yet so I don't have too many. Life is good, crazy, and I love it. Miss you all so much though and hope all is well back home! Write me!

Dar es Salaam

The beach at Kigamboni, near Dar

The first part of this blog is directly from my journal entry of June 21:

"So let me tell you about the craziest day ever. After 2 days of travel and 5 days of learning we finally got a day off! That meant that instead of getting up at the usual 6 am, I got to sleep until 7:30! Of course I still heard the Call to Prayer at 4:30 and the roosters start crowing around 6:30, but it was great just to lie in bed!When I get up, I take my usual "shower" with a bucket since my showerhead is broken. I am still in the lap of luxury though compared to where I'll be going. After getting all nice and safi (clean), I perfume myself with the pleasant aroma of 30% Deet bug spray. Ooh lala. I put on my usual below-the-knee skirt, shoulder-covering shirt, and sandals outfit and set out to breakfast in the canteen. Breakfast is fried bananas, hard-boiled eggs, bread, and chai as usual. After breakfast we girls get a quick lecture on choo (hole-in-the-ground toilet) techniques by Emilia (Current PCV who's helping us this week) and then we set off to explore Dar es Salaam for the first time. We all went with our Cultural Based Training groups (the 5 people we'll be sharing a homestay village and going to school with for the next 9 weeks) and a leader; ours was Emilia, who is awesome. We walk down the road for a ways, dodging bikes, piki pikis (motorcycles), cars driving on the walkway, and other people. Since it's Sunday today is supposedly a quiet day in Dar, but it's so crowded I'd hate to see it on a weekday. We've all hidden our money in bras and underwear which turns out to prove necessary when 1 guy grabs Harry's arm and another tries to reach into his pocket. Maureen literally smacks the guy in the chest, they back off, and we've survived our first Dar robbery attempt. Walking through Dar is sensory overload- people yelling at you, staring at you, cars almost hitting you, exhaust choking you and fish smells from the street vendors. All the while dust si coating your feet and legs and teh sweat is soaking through your clothes but you feel exhilarated because you're surrounded by life, color, danger, work, happiness. Finally, this is Africa. At least if you're me, that's your reaction.We finally catch a dala dala (small bus, pronounced as in "dolla dolla bill y'all") and head downtown, crammed into aisles and onto laps; the heat would be unbearable except for the merciful ocean breeze coming through the windows when we drive. We get out and Emilia walks us around pointing out restaurants, guestis, stores, and currency exchange places, anything we might need to know. We stop to get ice cream and for 600 TSh, 60 cents, I get the last chocolate cone I'm sure I'll see for a long time. So delicious and such a perfect reprieve from the heat. After that we journey to a supermarket to linger in the AC, then we stop for a soda at "The Red Onion", a famous wazungu restaurant. They're playing nothing but the Backstreet Boys. Emilia and I discover we were both obsessed teeny-boppers and have a great time singing along and reminiscing while the other 3 make fun of us. She even knows the chair dance to "Everybody" which is amazing. ( I miss you Justine.)For lunch we meet everyone else and go to Steers, a South African chain that's like a food court with many western options. I got a small Margherita pizza and ate the whole thing since it will surely be my last for awhile. Delicious. After that we are off to the beach! We have to walk to the ferry to go over to Kigamboni, this island where there are good beaches. The view of Dar from the ferry is great and so is the ocean air. When we get off, we walk thruogh a crowded village up a hill, attracting tons of attention as 30 wazungu would. We all have a "buddy" to keep track of which is incredibly kindergarten but necessary. Randy (another current PCV) finds 2 dala dalas and negotiotes with them to take us all to the beach, yay! Crazy African driving as usual, but it's nice to get out of the city. The beach we go to is some resort with a restaurant, hotel, and bar, and we're supposed to pay 8,000 TSh to get in but Randy knocks it down to 2,000 by telling them we'll be repeat customers if we like it. We dump our stuff and hit the water, most of us girls in 1 pieces which is good since tons of people there wear skirts and full shirts. The Indian Ocean feels amazing and it's so salty you barely have to try to float. So there are about 20 of us PCTs way out from the beach just hanging out treading and swimming around because it's so easy and relaxing. We were in heaven. Being in the water was exactly what we needed after a long hot walk. We chill at the beach for hours- swimming, frisbee, relaxing. It's great.The trip home is slightly crazy since it's dark by the time we get to the ferry and you don't want to be in Dar after dark. Everybody's wearing their backpacks in front and of course none of us could bring cameras because it's too risky. Walking through the town we hear the 1st annoying pickup lines like "I love you, kiss me!" by random strangers who barely speak English. But Randy gets us 1 huge dala dala and we're safely back to Msimbazi Center by 8 to go eat dinner and pass out. It was an amazing day to get to know Dar and a much-needed adventure in Africa!"

Alright, so if you got through that novel and are still reading, I applaud you! I'm sure it will be rare that my blogs are that thought-out and descriptive, so enjoy it. As for now, we just finished our last day of class and training as a whole group at Msimbazi Center. Tomorrow we load our stuff and drive 5 hours north to Muheza, where we split up into 7 different CBT (Cultural Based Training) groups that each go to a separate village. I'm happy with my group and excited, because we're the only group that gets bikes right now! Our village is the closest to MATI (the center where we'll meet as a whole group every Friday for trainings) so we get to bike the 4k there every week while everyone else gets picked up in vans. Should be fun and good exercise! For my homestay family, I was only given the name of 1 woman, so it could be either a grandma or a widow, I'll find out! I just hope there are kids! We know there's no electricy in our village so we'll be getting used to that right away! For the next 6 weeks we'll be going to language classes from 8-5 every day 6 days a week and learning more by living with families who don't speak English. Then once a week we all meet at MATI as I said for other types of training. I think we're all equally nervous and excited. I know I am! It's definitely going to be a challenge. But I think (hope) I'm ready. So yeah, gotta go pack, that's about it for this marathon blog entry.Baadaye! (Later!)

So here I am, sitting in a humid Internet cafe at the Msimbazi Center hostel in Dar es Salaam, TZ! I have arrived! And life is good. Except for the fact that I've begun the poor Peace Corps life so I feel like I have to budget every second I spend on the Internet so as not to spend my entire 3,000 TSh/day allowance (about $3 a day is what we get from now til we swear in and become actual PCVs). Life has been crazy and busy so far! I love everyone in my group and we're all getting to know each other quite well since we spend 24/7 together. Unfortunately we already lost 1 person who apparently got cold feet in NY and disappeared right as we were boarding the plane w/o telling anyone. So thanks to him our flight ended up being delayed a good 1.5 hours. So 36 become 35. Hopefully the rest of us all stay! Flights were long, and unfortunately I hurt my ankles before leaving but never got time to ice/rest them, so they were swelling to high heaven on the plane and once we landed and I had to carry all my masses of stuff. They're FINALLY getting better now, though I'm still living on Advil. So until Tuesday we all have our own rooms in this hostel and we're spending long days together studying PC policies and missions, TZ culture, the schedule for our training, starting Swahili, how to not die here, and many other things. We visited PC Headquarters yesterday and had a little language test convo w/ one of our teachers. I was nervous but she said I did great with it and had a lot of good vocab. Then once we started learning survival language in groups I felt so confident because I realized that I really am leaps and bounds ahead of everyone just from taking those 2 semesters in college. Lots of people didn't even do any Rosetta Stone so they're starting from scratch. So I feel a lot better about that.

Sorry this is really rambling. I should've organized my thoughts before coming here. But I didn't. Alas. There are 2 other girls here from Columbus! They're both environment volunteers but they're both awesome. Mary and I decided when we're home we're going to go to the bars in Columbus and sit there speaking Swahili to be totally awesome and impress everyone. Hahaha. I love all the other volunteers so much because it's the 1st time in my life I've been surrounded by people who so completely GET me. We all have the same doubts and fears and everything, but we're all still so passionate and determined to do this anyway. So awesome to be around 34 other people with the same outrageous goals and life philosophy!!! Also, we've gotten to talk to several current volunteers who are here to help with this 1st week of training and picking their brains helps us realize more of what it's going to be like here. And hearing them speak Swahili fluently after only 1 year is awesome.

Today was interesting. First we talked about our technical training schedule, then we had a session on malaria and how to prevent it. Blablabla, take your medicine and use your mosquito net and you'll be fine basically. But of course since every day PC makes you do something you never thought you'd do, we had to learn how to do malaria self-tests. So we're all sitting in this sweaty classroom stabbing ourselves in the finger trying to draw blood and put it on slides and mix it all up w/ this chemical indicator thing. Never thought I'd have to do THAT! It was quite hilarious when you think about it but not at all a natural thing to have to stick yourself like 25 times to get enough blood. Pleased to say none of us have malaria. Then of course after that we had to get shots. Some people got 4 all at once, I only had to get 2...the 1st rabies one and renewal of meningitis. Woot. Done with that til more next week.

More language later today then dinner and hanging out time. It's definitely tiring...waking up every day at 4:30am when the Call to Prayer goes off. But it's good not to have much time to miss people yet. Everyone's nervous because Tuesday is quickly approaching and that's when we go 5 hours north to Muheza to go to our homestays. I'm really nervous actually. But I'm sure it will be good and a great way to learn Swahili really fast. This is the 1st time they're doing homestays in that area so no one knows what the Internet situation will be like. I might not have it at all for the next 9 weeks. I'm going to get a phone ASAP though and when I do I'll text everyone with my number. I'm not going to be able to afford to call internationally but if you call me it won't cost me anything. Apparently there are cheap calling cards available for you to use to get a better rate. Google it.

Anyway, life is good, sorry for the rambling, but my time's about up on the Internet. Love you all and thanks for the support. Send letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys,

This is gonna be quick 'cause it's late and I have an early morning tomorrow. Right now I'm at a Holiday Inn in Philly for the beginning of our orientation. Which means that last night and this morning I said goodbye to everyone, and needless to say, I was an emotional wreck. I cried a lot, and I still get really sad, especially when I think about missing my favorite 2 people (Justine and Zach.) But I figured that as soon as I started Staging I'd be okay, and so far so good. We basically sat in the hotel for 6 hours getting lectured about rules and policies, but after that we finally got to hang out with each other and go to dinner and stuff. There are 36 people in my group, mixed between Health Education and Environment volunteers. Definitely a majority female, and a majority of us recently out of college. Only 2 married couples and only 4 people over 40 I believe. I've been so nervous and edgy all day, but as soon as we actually went out and talked to each other, I've felt so much better. I went out to a burger/beer joint w/ about 8 others and it's so clear that these are the kind of people that I'm going to get along w/ so well. After dinner we walked around a little bit, past the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin's grave and stuff. Woot. As if we came to see American History, not. After that we sat at the hotel bar for a while and the bartender serving us asked if we were Peace Corps. When we said yes he immediately told us he was going to buy us all a shot because he respected PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) so much. So he brought over these HUGE shots of tequilla, they were seriously almost 1/2 a wine glass full. As soon as that happened and we were all just getting along so well I was like "Ok, I am definitely doing the right thing." So yeah, now I need to go to bed because we have to get up at 5:30 am tomorrow to start our long day of travel. Love you all though, and know that so far the 1st stage of my journey has been awesome!

So this is what my packing list boiled down to...I'm still amazed I was able to fit everything in just 2 bags and 2 carry-ons. Below are pictures of my attempts and eventual success:

Clothing:

2 pairs jeans

Pajamas

2 sweaters/sweatshirts

Stocking cap?

Railroad hat

2 pairs sunglasses-aviators and regular

Windbreaker

3-5 skirts/dresses

2-3 dressy shirts (shoulders covered)

1 nice dress

Socks

Underwear

Slip

Workout capris

5-6 t-shirts

1 pair nice/comfortable

1 pair dress

Hiking boots

Water sandals

Sneakers

2 swimsuits

Sports bras

Tank tops/undershirts

Bandanas

Jewelry

Belts

Watch

Sleep mask

Purse

Toiletries:

Hand sanitizer

Shampoo

Soap

Deodorant

Lotion

Razor and blades

Nail clippers

Hairbrush

Tootbrush

Pads

Baby Wipes

Earplugs

Sunscreen

Floss

Birth control

Hydrocortisone cream

Hairties/barettes

2 pairs glasses

Contacts and solution

Makeup

Burts Bees

Hand mirror

Face soap

Toner

Eye makeup remover

Max Deet

Towel?

Entertainment:

iPod w/ USB and charger

small speakers

2 cameras

Cards

Laptop w/ charger and dongle

External HD and flash drive

Books

Tons of batteries

Battery charger

Journal and pens

Colored pencils/crayons/coloring books

DVDs

Gear:

Plug adaptor

Sheets and pillowcase

Leatherman

Headlamp

Duct Tape

Sewing kit?

Nalgene

Money belt

Alarm clock

Ziplock bags

1 empty duffel

Forms and passport pictures

Umbrella

Lonely Planet guide

Bike helmet

Food:

Seeds

Protein bars

Gifts:

Poppers for kids

Lion puzzle for kids

ONE bracelets for kids

Sidewalk chalk for kids

Photos of friends/home/family

1. Successfully complete Peace Corps. Duh!

2. Travel back to Nkubu, Kenya and visit the Huruma Center orphanage where I volunteered in 2007 and fell in love with Africa and the kids there3. Travel to Victoria Falls on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia and go bungee jumping there!4. Make a documentary about my experience in Tanzania5. Travel on my way home to the US, either through Europe or Asia6. Master Swahili

Random hodge-podge of ideas that were in my head...these are of course missing all the deeper, more meaningful goals of Peace Corps, such as having a positive influence on my village, making a difference, etc. Rest assured, those are definitely foremost in my mind, but thinking about all the awesome side things I'll hopefully be able to do also gets me really excited!

I finally got the information about my Pre-Departure Staging today! So my travel plans are solid and I leave Columbus in exactly 1 month!

Sunday, June 14

9:45am Fly from Columbus to Philadephia -- 2 hours

1:30pm Register and check into a Holiday Inn in Philly, meet the rest of my training class!

3-7pm Training and info sessions

Monday, June 15

6:30am Check out and go to a clinic to get shots

9:30am Bus ride to JFK airport in New York City (so I will be back on Long Island again) -- 4 hours

5:40pm Fly from JFK to Amsterdam -- 7.5 hours

Tuesday, June 16

10:20am Fly from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro then Kilimanjaro to Dar Es Salaam -- 10.5 hours

9:40pm Final arrival in Tanzania!!!!!!

So with all the time changes and layovers and long flights, I will be traveling for 2 full days. I'm going to watch so many movies on the planes because I can never sleep on planes and it will probably be my last chance to see any good ones for awhile! I'm excited about the stop in Amsterdam; even though the layover isn't long enough to even leave the airport at least I'll be able to say I've been to a new country (sort of)!

So yeah...ONE MONTH!

Today I feel so ready.

It's a gorgeous spring day in Ohio; the sun is out, the wind is blowing just enough to be fun, the ice cream truck is tinkering around the neighborhood, and the flowers are out in full force in my front yard.

It's one of those days where I'm so happy to be alive, inspired to get outside and do something positive for the world. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to go and live my dream in Africa.

I'm ready for bucket baths and squat toilets and dusty red paths. I'm ready to speak Swahili and plant a garden and read a book a day during monsoon season. I'm ready to learn as many ways possible to make rice and beans (but I'm eating tons of all the delicious American food I love right now to prepare for this). I'm ready to meet amazing people with the same goals as me and amazing people who live so differently from me that my world will be rocked. I'm ready to do my best to change the world for the better and fully prepared that the world is going to radically change me.

53 days. I'm pumped. Bring it on.

This will be my mailing address during my Pre-Service Training in Tanzania. I will be here from June 16-August 26, then my address will change when I move to my permanent site.

Carrie Hoffman, PCT

Peace Corps Training Site

PO Box 9123

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Supposedly packages take 3-6 months surface mail, 3-8 weeks airmail. So if you want to send me something at training, you probably should do it as soon as I get there! Also, letters will be much faster, so send lots of those!!!!!

Less than 2 months to go and I still have so much work to do to get ready! Where did the time go????

Two big shocks I found out about today:

1. Peace Corps is evacuating from Madagascar due to political upheaval. Madagascar is one of the countries I could have been invited to and actually REALLY was hoping for. Of course now I'm really glad I wasn't invited there because it looks like I wouldn't be going. It's just crazy that this happened in December of 2007 with Kenya, a place I've been, and now it's happening again with Madagascar. Both places where the Peace Corps has been forever and were considered very stable. Makes me even more glad that Tanzania is considered one of the most peaceful countries in all of Africa.

2. A volunteer in Benin, West Africa, Kate Puzey, was murdered. I'd be lying if I said that didn't scare me a little bit, but I'm going with the logic in my brain that knows that it's a horrible but RARE event, and that I am actually statistically safer as a PCV in Africa than as, say, a normal person living in Manhattan or something. It's just so incredibly sad. She will be missed.

As for me, I am continuing to work on my Swahili using Rosetta Stone, and also starting to think about the daunting process of packing. Two years of my life need to fit in 2 bags weighing less than 80 pounds and measuring less than 107 inches all around. Eeesh. So far I've made a trip to Dick's for a few things I know I'll need, and have decided to steal my brother's hiking backpack as my main luggage piece, since I already used it in Kenya and can lift it most of the time.

I'll close with a lovely picture of me being a huge dork after excitedly buying a new rain jacket, headlamp, and Leatherman multi-tool. Never dreamed that this would be me after all those family camping trips I spent endlessly complaining.

Sooooo I have to work during the Oscars....boooooo. And it's gonna be hard to top winning the Oscar pool last year, but I guess I'll try. Here we go.

CAPS=Will win

*=Should win (in my opinion)

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Richard Jenkins

Frank Langella

SEAN PENN*

Brad Pitt

Mickey Rourke

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Josh Brolin

Robert Downey Jr.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

HEATH LEDGER*

Micheal Shannon

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Anne Hathaway

Angelina Jolie

Melissa Leo

Meryl Streep

KATE WINSLET

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Amy Adams

Penelope Cruz

Viola Davis*

Taraji P. Henson

MARISA TOMEI

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Bolt

Kung Fu Panda

WALL-E

ART DIRECTION

Changeling

Benjamin Button*

The Dark Knight

The Duchess

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Changeling

Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

The Reader

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE*

COSTUME DESIGN

Australia*

Benjamin Button

THE DUCHESS

Milk

Revolutionary Road

DIRECTING

BENJAMIN BUTTON*

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Betrayal

Encounters at the End of the World

The Garden

MAN ON WIRE*

Trouble the Water

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

The Conscience of Nhem En

The Final Inch

SMILE PINKI

The Witness

FILM EDITING

Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

Frost/NixonMilk

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE*

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

WALTZ WITH BASHIR

The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Class

Departures

Revanche

MAKEUP

BENJAMIN BUTTON*

The Dark Knight

Hellboy II

ORIGINAL SCORE

Benjamin Button*

Defiance

Milk

Slumdog Millionaire

WALL-E

ORIGINAL SONG

DOWN TO EARTH from Wall-E

Jai Ho from Slumdog*

O Saya from Slumdog

BEST PICTURE

Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE*

ANIMATED SHORT

don't care

LIVE ACTION SHORT

no idea

SOUND EDITING

THE DARK KNIGHT*

Iron Man

Slumdog Millionaire

Wall-E

Wanted

SOUND MIXING

Benjamin Button

THE DARK KNIGHT*

Slumdog Millionaire

Wall-E

Wanted

VISUAL EFFECTS

Benjamin Button

THE DARK KNIGHT*

Iron Man

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BENJAMIN BUTTON*

Doubt

Frost/Nixon

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Frozen River

Happy-Go-Lucky

In Bruges

MILK*

Wall-E

There ya have it!

PC (Peace Corps) was nice enough to give me a free online subscription to Rosetta Stone, so I've recently been using it to jump-start my Swahili skills. I'm supposed to complete 40 hours before leaving, and I'm already at 11. I'm hoping to surpass the 40 and just do as much as possible because I know the more I can cram in before leaving the better off I will be when thrust into a homestay with a non-English-speaking family for PST (Pre-Service Training) in Tanzania. Rosetta Stone is so repetitive and immersing that I can definitely see that it's helping me. So far it hasn't been too hard thanks to the 2 semesters I did take of Swahili in college, but I just finished Unit 2 and I can tell it's definitely increasing in difficulty. Some of the sentences are just so dumb it makes me laugh. When am I going to need to say "The dog is not a man"???? Or my favorite so far: "There are 2 balls in the right hand of the woman and 2 balls in the left hand of the woman." Wow, so many balls! She's got her hands full! (Oh, the places my mind takes me...) Obvsiously the hardest part is the actual speaking. I'm sure I can understand a lot more than I could say right now, which is normal with language learning. Some of the words just get me so tongue-tied though...especially when a 3 syllable word somehow has 4 'Z's in it. Crazy.

Here are my plans for the rest of the day in the best Swahili I can muster:

Nimesoma Kiswahili. Sasa Mama yangu ni mimi tutatembea mwenye mbwa yangu. Nitaenda kucheza ngumu na kunywa bia mwenye rafiki yangu Justine.

Salama! (Peace!)

"Facing the Giants" and "Fireproof" are two movies which have recently been released into theaters and on DVD after being made by Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia using low budgets and volunteer actors. I am a Christian, and I appreciate their attempts to get the Christian message out there, but there are many reasons the idea of these films makes me roll my eyes and sigh.

First of all, both movies offer Christ as an easy answer. As if accepting Christ and following Him will automatically save your football team from defeat and your marriage from divorce. Does anyone really buy that? Christians have the same divorce statistics as non-Christians. My relationship with God hasn't prevented me from facing problems and failures in life. I doubt there's really anyone out there whose sudden conversion really resulted in a spontaneous solution to all their relationship problems.

Secondly, the campy and cliche quality of these movies makes them laughable where they try to be serious. I am a strong proponent of spirituality in the movies, but I believe that the most effective examples of this are movies that embrace artistic excellence, genuine writing, and originality. Aesthetically brilliant films like "Fight Club" and "The Thin Red Line" have deep spiritual resonance despite their secular settings and true-to-life violence. In his book The Hollywood Project, Christian film buff Alex Field states "For too long, Christians have been judging film through a narrow moral lens that forsakes the value of aesthetic excellence while dismissing the reality of the world we live in and the true spiritual searching in which our culture is engaged." The nature of life is a search for truth, and art should be a reflection of this search, not an easy-answer movie with all the gritty realities filtered out for a G rating.

Also, I disagree with the separatist ideology of "Christian" media- we have our own world of music, movies, books, magazines, everything - overtly labeled as "Christian" and thus separated from the mainstream, even though oftentimes these products are merely sub-par imitations of what is mainstream. Jesus said to be "in the world but not of it", so why can't Christians produce art which reflects their values and still release it in the mainstream? Doesn't that give us a higher chance of actually reaching someone who would steer clear of products overtly labeled as Christian? Separation into camps of "Christian" and "secular" only divides people and allows Christians to avoid confronting the realities of the world. Some things in secular culture are awful and wrong, but this doesn't make them any less real. This brings me to my next point. The two Sherwood movies are mostly just preaching to the choir. I highly doubt anyone went to see "Fireproof" without knowing that it was a Christan movie. If what they wanted to do was make a preachy movie for an already-reached audience, then that's great. But as an outreach tool, it's ineffective.

Even if a non-Christian saw "Fireproof" and was moved, is that enough to really begin life as a Christian? Developing faith is a complicated journey, one that involves intense personal reflection, reading the Bible, and prayer, over an extended period of time. Seeing a movie may help, but saying it's going to convert people is an overestimation of it's power. "Is there anyone who ever remembers changing their mind from the paint on a sign? Is there anyone who really recalls ever breaking rank at all for something someone yelled real loud one time ?" one of my favorite songs questions. It takes more than a sporadic jolt of Christian message to make a lasting change in someone's life. Instead, I agree wholeheartedly with the philosophy of Christian filmmaker Buzz McLaughlin, who has chosen not to make overtly Christian movies. "Our films are aimed at a different target. We want to reach the person who would have trouble relating to an overt faith-based approach. We want to create films that deal in an artful and truthful way with struggles and moral dilemmas, and hopefully we will leave the audience considering answers that point gently toward forgiveness, healing, and life-affirmation. We’re trying to reach an audience that is willing to ponder difficult questions, but doesn’t want to be led by the hand—an audience that will, if we’re successful, accept the invitation and begin the search themselves." This philosphy of filmmaking allows for much more truthful, artistic, and relatable films, which will ultimately be more effective in prompting searchers toward the truth.

Lastly, a question which I don't have the answer to: What could Sherwood Baptist have spent the $550,000 it cost to make "Fireproof" on which would have had a greater and more lasting impact on our world? And what did they do with the $33 million that the film grossed? If anyone knows the answers to this question, I'd really love to know.

In conclusion, I'm not hostile to the motivation to make these movies; in fact I think it is quite noble. However, the films are mistaken in their portrayal of Christianity as an easy answer, their poor filmic quality, and their overt, proselytzing approach.

More on "Fireproof": http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/fireproof/

I just got my invitation in the mail! And it's for Tanzania!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll have staging in the US on June 14-15, then I'll be serving in Tanzania as a Health Education Extension volunteer until August 18, 2011!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I'm the first person to get invited to this program, because it wasn't on the timeline and I haven't heard of anyone else in it yet. That just makes it even more exciting! I'm so happy because had I known that Tanzania was an option for me, it definitely would have been 1st or 2nd on my list of places I wanted to go! Now I have to read all the Peace Corps handbooks and information they sent me and start filling out some more paperwork to get everything finalized. I'm so happy that I finally have closure on where I'm going!

Reasons Tanzania is Awesome:

1. Birthplace of the Swahili language! (I took 2 semesters, used it in Kenya, and now I can hopefully become fluent.)

2. Wildlife. Home of all the Big 5 safari animals, the famous wildebeest migration, and tons of amazing national parks.

3. Mt. Kilimanjaro. The tallest mountain in Africa. Doubt I'll have the guts or physique to climb it myself, but it's still pretty badass.

4. Swahili coast/Indian Ocean. I love the beach!

5. Zanzibar. Famous island archipelago off the coast with an awesome blend of Indian and African culture!

6. Directly south of Kenya! So hopefully on one of my vacations I can go back and visit Nkubu to see the kids at Huruma!

7. Many, many other reasons I will be learning more about as I start my pre-departure research!

S0, maybe creating this blog was good luck, because today I got a phone call from my Placement Officer telling me that my official invite to serve in the Peace Corps is in the mail! This will tell me what country I'm going to and when I'm leaving! She told me to expect it within a week but honestly, regular mail from Washington D.C. to Ohio should not take that long, so I'm hoping to get it on Thursday or Friday! Once I get it I have 10 days to accept or decline...I know I'm going to accept no matter what, but I'm still so anxious to find out what country! And still keeping my fingers crossed for Kenya or Madagascar. This is all beginning to feel so real, which makes me so nervous but so excited! I'm going to be staking out the mailbox until it comes!

After much deliberation, here is my top 10 list, in order, out of all the new films I saw in 2008!

10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall directed by Nicholas StollerSure, it wasn't deep, but this movie was still hilarious and creative. I loved the Dracula musical, the crazy surfing instructor, and all the satirical pretentiousness of Russell Brand's character. It definitely shows the funny side of getting over a breakup.

9. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist directed by Peter SollettI'm definitely a sucker for Michael Cera's cute awkwardness. But all the characters in this movie were equally quirky and fun, making it highly enjoyable. Not to mention the indie-punk soundtrack was great, it was set in Manhattan, and I found it highly relatable.8. Henry Poole is Here directed by Mark PellingtonA pessimistic loner has to deal with a group of Catholics who see the image of Jesus in a stucco stain on his house. This movie was definitely a thinker, all about religion, life, loss, grief, and the power of faith. The artistic shooting style and intensive focus on Luke Wilson's character development made it even more intriguing.7. Pineapple Express directed by David Gordon GreenA stoner James Franco in the sexiest pajama pants imaginable. Need I say more? Hmm, how about "Um... heat-seeking missiles... bloodhounds... and foxes... barracudas... " I almost peed myself laughing at this movie.6. Doubt directed by John Patrick ShanleyThe highlight of this is definitely the acting. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are stellar as the two leads. The film succeeds in leaving both the characters and audience in doubt which is never fully resolved, causing the viewer to leave the theater with a head full of questions without answers. The film is very well done, but I suspect that the story was even more powerful as the stage play the film was adapted from.5. American Teen directed by Nanette BurnsteinThis documentary follows five different teenagers through their senior year in a small Midwestern town. Although each character fits a different teenage stereotype ("jock", "artsy girl", "preppy girl", "band geek", etc.), this documentary is anti-MTV in that it actually reveals important truths about their lives, thoughts, and problems. Definitely brings back memories of all the important decisions and changes that happen to us at the end of high school.4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button directed by David FincherAll the critical acclaim this has gotten is well-deserved. A highly implausible story manages to beautifully communicate universal truths about the fleeting nature of life, but the lasting importance of love.3. Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny BoyleThis film reminded me so much of City of God, but I definitely liked it even more, especially because it expresses a distinct "love over money" message. The protagonist is the only one who seems to be pure of heart in his world, and when he's finally rewarded it's so gratifying.2. The Dark Knight directed by Christopher NolanI don't think there's much to say about this that hasn't been said. And I think almost everyone in the country saw it, so I'll leave you on your own to remember how great it was.1. Australia directed by Baz LuhrmannI'm really annoyed that this got such mixed reviews, because I thought it was EXCELLENT. Sure it's kitschy and old Hollywood and uses every film convention possible to pull on your emotions, but why not let it? Honestly, this film was exactly what it claimed to be, an epic Australian love story. The child actor who played Nullah outshone both Jackman and Kidman, but they both were ridiculously great as well. Just go to the theater, stop analyzing, let yourself get swept up in the music, the stampedes and explosions, the close-up kisses, and everything else. This film epitomizes the unchanging power of cinema to intrigue, move, and inspire, and is therefore the best film I saw all year.Keep in mind, there is a whole list of films I haven't made it to yet, including Milk, Gran Torino, Burn After Reading, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Valkyrie, Changeling, and many others. I realize they might deserve a place on my list, but hopefully I'll see them all by Oscar season and include them in my predicitions if they deserve it!

So this will be my new blog, mostly dedicated to documenting my Peace Corps experience. For info about how I decided to join PC and came to be nominated, you can visit my other blog, "Carrie in Kenya." It's all about my time working at an orphanage in Kenya (summer 2007), which led me to decide to pursue the Peace Corps!

Right now, I'm kind of in PC limbo. My original nomination was to leave in January 2009 (haha, that's now, and I'm still here!) to work as a Health Extension volunteer in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, due to the state of the economy, governmental budget cuts (as I see it President Bush's failure to prioritize a vital piece of how America gives back to the world), and a surplus of applicants, many people, myself included, are having their departures postponed and moved to later dates. This is what happened to me and nearly everyone else I know who was originally nominated for January, as our spots were filled with people originally nominated for Fall 08, and we get pushed back to Spring 09. It's a domino effect.

Anyway, I'm still optimistic because when I talked to my Placement Officer (on December 17) the conversation went very well and she basically told me that I would make a good volunteer and would get to go, although probably not until June. I told her that was fine with me as long as I got to go! She also told me that even though I was getting pushed back, I should still get my invitation soon because I had been waiting so long and now had priority. She told me to call in 2 1/2 weeks if I hadn't heard from them. Well, of course, 2 1/2 weeks passed and I left her a voicemail on Friday. No reply from her yet though. What her assistant told me is that I am qualified for service and that right now they are looking for a country and job post that fits my skills and language experience.

So basically this tells me that my invite could be coming any day; and I'm hoping that it's sooner rather than later! As of now I'm home with my family until leaving; I found a job but it doesn't start until February, so right now I'm anxious and bored. That boredom is what inspired me to create this blog so far in advance to bore all of you! Enjoy!