“Mama mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home.

Goin’ home, goin’ home, by the riverside I will rest my bones,

Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul.”

Due to safety and security concerns, I’ve made the excruciatingly difficult decision to leave my post in Zanzibar. Because I had already served for more than a year and because of tensions between the governments on the Islands and mainland, transferring to a different site (and therefore a separate Ministry of Education) was not possible. As such, my Peace Corps service has come to an end and I have returned to the United States.

On the bright side, I’m now able to divulge some more details about my site. My post was in the northern region of Pemba Island, the northern most island of the Zanzibar archipelago. Pemba is one of the most controversial, mysterious, and feared regions in all of Tanzania. It is haunted by its past, and crippled by corruption and conflict. The chance to live in such a (for lack of a better word) crazy place was truly a unique opportunity.

Zanzibar is actually the name for three different things in the Islands. The whole group of islands is called Zanzibar, the larger of the islands is called Zanzibar, and the capital city of Zanzibar island is called Zanzibar. To prevent confusion, Tanzanians refer to Zanzibar island by its original Swahili name, Unguja.

Pemba was once one of the cornerstones of East African trade. Arab explorers used it as a base for their missions to convert Africans to Islam, and as a portal to the slave and spice trades. The Pemban melting pot spawned the original dialects of the Swahili language—a pragmatic mixture of native Bantu, Arabic, and Hindi. As European powers explored and colonized East Africa, the Swahili language picked up some English and German words as well. Today, Pemba is home to what is considered the “purest” form of the Swahili language. I certainly could not have asked for a better place to learn Swahili.

Once a major base for Middle Eastern influence in East Africa, Pemba remains more than 99% Muslim.

When the East African slave market collapsed, a large population of unsold slaves remained stranded on Pemba. Unable to sell the slaves, Pemba’s Arab powers put them to work on clove plantations. Over the next few hundred years the island’s incredible soil was decimated by over-cloving. Today it is nearly impossible to grow anything other than cloves and cassava on Pemba, forcing the population to rely on expensive imports from the mainland.

In 1964, Zanzibar experienced a violent revolution. Over three days almost 20,000 foreigners were massacred on Unguja island. Those who weren’t killed fled, including (believe it or not) Freddy Mercury. Purportedly, the plan was for Pembans to rise up in similar fashion but ultimately they never did. The government that took power has long since resented Pemba for its lack of “sacrifice,” and today some theorize this to be the seed of the political conflict that plagues the region today. The death and exodus of Zanzibar’s foreigners (including engineers, doctors, and traders) plunged the region into an economic and public works nightmare. Unable to recover, Zanzibar was forced to give up its independence and join the newly formed Tanganyika — a union very few in Zanzibar or Tanganyika were or still are happy about. The United Republic of Tanzania was born.

Today, Pemba is a beautiful and, for the most part, peaceful island. Most of its folk are welcoming and friendly, and it has some truly good people working hard to improve the island’s situation. Unfortunately, it is also a land of political strife, corruption, decaying buildings and roads, and a critical lack of power and potable water. The island terrifies mainlanders, who try to keep away at any cost. On my trips to the mainland, Tanzanians were often shocked when I told them where I’d been living. In your average Tanzanian’s eyes, I’d been braving a cursed island… a disintegrating land of dissidents, demons, and voodoo masters. Wizards travel from as far away as Haiti to learn the secrets of Pemban witchdoctors.

Pemba is hardly as bad as its reputation on the mainland would suggest… like anywhere, it has its charms and its problems. The sad thing is, Pemba’s problems only seem to be getting worse with time. Local governmental corruption cripples schools and businesses. Indeed, the teachers college I worked at has not received its allocated money in over two years. The staff and teachers there work so hard with so few resources, and they are rewarded with nothing but apathy and even theft from local government officials.

Pemba’s public works have been gradually decaying since the 1960’s. The island is powered by poorly maintained petrol generators that routinely go offline for weeks at a time. Pemba’s water is supplied via electric pumps, which (of course) are rendered useless without electricity. With temperatures of over 100 degrees for most of the year and ridiculous humidity, scarcity of water is more than a small health concern. Every so often badly needed repair parts are imported for the power generators, but somehow the parts are always stolen and sold off before actually making it where they need to go. As Pemba’s electricity and water become scarcer and scarcer, the demands of the population are skyrocketing as many men have upwards of 15 children. It is not uncommon to see shoeless children with distended bellies.

Maintaining and teaching with the school’s computer lab was a constant battle thanks to regular power spikes and outages.

As I discussed in my most recent post, Pemba’s single major resource is cloves. As the Tanzanian government has continually slashed their monopolistic clove buying price, Pemba’s sole source of significant income has evaporated. As you’d imagine, the people of Pemba are not too happy. Indeed, loyalties on Pemba to the ruling party are few and far between.

Although technically the Tanzanian government is a multi-party system, only one party has ever won presidencies for the mainland and Zanzibar, (mainland and Zanzibar have separate presidents). The ruling party, CCM, is wildly supported on the mainland, is mildly supported on Unguja Island, and is despised on Pemba. Unfortunately for Pemba, Unguja is larger and is thus the government center for the whole Zanzibar archipelago. My town in northern Pemba is considered the stronghold of the opposition party, CUF. I’ve seen a number of CCM rallies end with violence. One rally was protested by means of CUF supporters taking down the transformer for the town… blacking out the region. I was walking home from a street-side dinner with one of my local friends (who I’ll call Juma in this post) when we saw the blinding flash and flailing power lines up the street. Had we been a few minutes faster that would not have been our night…

North Pemba is particularly pro-opposition … it’s also the region with the most problems. Cholera outbreak and famine plagued an area a ways north of me last year, and the government denied its existence for months… not wanting to have to deal with the problem. Granted, the north is pretty wild, so I can understand to some extent the government’s lack of eagerness to deal with it. Patches of seriously radical Islamists live up there, and a gradual influx of smuggled AK-47s from Somalia makes the region even scarier. (Note: the only Tanzanian participants in the 1998 US Embassy bombings were from northern Pemba). It’s just not a good situation.

Elections in Zanzibar occur every five years, and the election results in 2000 and 2005 were highly criticized, even by the UN. The Pembans are entirely convinced the last two elections were rigged, and tried to stage protests during and following the elections. These protests were not well received. I’ve heard numerous tales from local friends about the horrors that occurred.

The 2000 violence was particularly bad. After CUF supporters staged a demonstration in town, the government soldiers and police dropped the hammer. They went from house to house in Juma’s neighborhood, looting, raping, and killing as they pleased. The young son of Juma’s neighbor was shot and killed, and Juma’s own grandmother was shot in the hip and seriously injured. Juma and his uncle were forced to hide on their roof while their house was looted. A well-known CUF supporter in the neighborhood was shot and killed, his body left in his house to rot. When a neighbor entered and tried to bury the body the next day, the man was beaten within an inch of his life.

This encouraged further protest in the town’s main square (less than a mile away from my house). The CUF supporters used stones to attack the soldiers, and after gunning down a number of people the soldiers ran out of ammunition and were forced back to the police station. At least one soldier was captured and bludgeoned to death in the square. The soldiers retaliated by calling in a helicopter gunship to open fire on the crowd. The resulting violence was brutal, and dozens were killed. Juma was forced to hide in a freezer of a local shop. The violence during the 2005 elections was apparently terrible as well. One can only hope things turn out better in 2010.

Despite the whole world seeming to be against them, many Pembans are some of the friendliest and most hardworking people I have ever met. On the street, people are engaging and affable. Complete strangers often invited me into their homes. I made some true friends in my community and my school, and I will miss them terribly.

Unfortunately, as things on the island get worse, and people feel increasingly alienated and subjugated, Islamic extremism is taking hold. Aggressive confrontations were becoming a weekly occurrence, and blatant death threats have been given to the island’s volunteers. One afternoon some locals even went as far as to throw a machete from a truck at another volunteer and me.

Three bouts of malaria, a round of amoebic dysentery, devastating and relentless heat, and isolation did not dissuade me from my post. In the end I was compelled to leave due to the growing political unrest and intolerance in northern Pemba. It was a painful decision to leave my school and community, but ultimately I had to put my safety first. I have nothing but respect for the talented teachers and staff at my school who work tirelessly (and often without pay) to improve their community. I especially admire my headmaster and second master, who are forced to battle endlessly to keep the school afloat.

The isolation was no joke either… it takes not one but TWO rickety plane flights to get to the island.

I became particularly good friends with one teacher at the school named Said. Said grew up and lives in a remote village north of the school, and commuted every day more than 10k on ridiculously rugged roads with an old, rusty Vespa. He taught English and Swahili every day both at my teachers college and at a local secondary school. I use past tense because Said was recently accepted to the highly competitive Masters of Linguistics program at the University of Dar es Salaam, and he started his studies this Fall.

Said and his children at home.

In my last month on Pemba Said was kind enough to invite me and the other volunteers up to his home to meet his family and pet sea turtles. Yes, he has pet sea turtles. He keeps them in a tidal pool on an island near his home. He tends and feeds them, and often brings local primary school students over to teach them respect for endangered species.

We rode these boats to get to the turtle island.

The turtle pool.

Those close to me during my year on Pemba gave me a great sendoff. The volunteers ravenously converged on my home in my final days to pillage the place, and what they didn’t get my friend Ismael and associates took care of.

Bora leo means “today is the best.”

The little kids who spent the last year playing in my front yard were thrilled with their goodbye gifts.

In my first week on Pemba this one boy sat on my front porch singing in a raspy Bob Dylon-esque voice. I jokingly called him Bob Dylan in front of his friends, and overnight his new name in town became Bobi Deelon. I’m pretty sure Bobi Deelon will hate me for the rest of his life. Hopefully I made amends by having my parents mail me this t-shirt to give the guy.

Ismael was by far my best Pemban friend during my year there, and I truly wish him and his family all the best. He, his brother, his cousin, and about a dozen of their friends and family members escorted me to the airport in a friend’s van. I could not have asked for a rowdier entourage.

Ismael, as my father nicknamed him: the champion of hot.

Despite the challenges of living on the island, and being forced to make the difficult decision to leave, I am proud of the work I was able to accomplish there. It was very hard saying goodbye, and I really do wish Pemba all the best. My heart goes out the place. Good people working ever so hard to succeed against utterly impossible odds. As I write this in my parents’ cozy home on the beautiful Maine ocean, it’s hard to stop worrying about the friends I’ve left behind, knowing full well the struggles that lie ahead for them.

We go out in stormy weather,

We rarely practice discern

We make love to some weird sin

We seek out the taciturn

That’s the way we get by,

‘s the way we get by.

It’s been a busy “winter” here in Tanzania. In recent months I climbed Kilimanjaro, helped get a community health education program off the ground, attended a technology summit in Moshi, turned 24 (woot!), survived TWO separate incidents involving machete-wielding hooligans (…not even going to go into these stories here, if you want a full account shoot me an email), became certified in open water diving, and had tea with a notorious smuggler.

My birthday was a grand time. It just so happened that August 17 coincided with when PCV Chris and Don’s batch of home-brewed mango wine was ready for consumption. We were pretty wary when we first opened the fermentation bucket, but after filtering the stuff through a pillowcase the results were surprisingly decent! It was a good — if hazy – night.

A few days later back at site, one of my good friends and I were wandering around town on one of the island’s many power-less nights. After grabbing dinner at a street meat stand, (no electricity is the ONLY proper way to eat street meat… as it’s best if you can’t really see what exactly it is that you’re subjecting your body to), we headed over to my friend's home to hang out. Sitting on the floor drinking tea were two middle aged men. I recognized one as a local shopkeeper; the other I’d never met, but he seemed vaguely familiar. The mystery man stood up and introduced himself, (for the rest of this post I'll refer to him as Juma). The candlelight magnified massive bags under the man’s eyes, and his face twitched as he spoke. My friend informed me: “huyu ni babangu”… this was his father.

I’ve heard tales of Juma since I arrived on the island. Almost everyone here knows of the man, and many are more than eager to pronounce overwhelming respect or contempt (depending on the person’s social proximity to the Zanzibar Government) for him. Juma, clove “entrepreneur” at large, is a local legend.

Tanzania’s farming system still has socialist leanings, so all farmers must sell their crops directly and exclusively to the Government. In recent years the cost of goods on the islands has risen substantially, yet the selling price for cloves is routinely cut. You do the math.

Back when the serious clove price cuts were starting, Juma and associates started a system of smuggling cloves to Kenya, where they could be sold for much higher prices. Farmers would hide portions of their crops in underground caches, and at night the smugglers would run bags of cloves through the jungle to the shore. The loot would be loaded onto dhows, and then sailed to Mombasa. This was lucrative for a time, but eventually the Man caught wind of what was going on. Jungle runners would be met and shot by police ambushes, dhows were hunted down, caches were raided and farmers arrested. My friend has gone on runs with his father, and he has a couple stories where he just barely eluded capture. Eventually Juma became a marked man by the government, and he was forced to flee. He was one of the few major smugglers who managed to get away. Up until two weeks ago, he’d avoided the islands completely for more than a year. Clove smuggling still goes on here, but these days it’s much more dangerous and less profitable.

As I sat with Juma he was surprisingly candid, especially given the fact that I was a strange mzungu whom he’d only just met. It probably helped that he was hopped up on the East African form of speed, (called mirungi), a fact that became abundantly obvious within minutes. He told me he’d snuck back home for two reasons: to attend a relative’s funeral, and to consult a local witchdoctor on – I’m assuming — serious metaphysical issues far to grim for any mzungu to comprehend. He’d only be in the islands for a few days and doesn’t intend to return until the elections of 2010. His plan is to return to Somalia, where he’s been smuggling refuges out to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. (At one point I, perhaps ignorantly, asked if Somalia is as dangerous as the news reports; his answer: “for you.”) Seriously, whenever I think I’m getting used to this place I always get broadsided by an “I’m in Africa” moment. Drinking tea on the floor of a dark room with a tweaked out East African smuggler who views Somalia as a perfectly reasonably place to hang out struck me as one of those moments.

Even with clove smuggling on the decline, clove related violence on the island is still commonplace. A few months back a full-blown shootout took place right in my town. It seems that a group of rowdy mainland soldiers decided to leave the comfort of their portside barracks and have a merry jaunt up north.

They arrived at a farming village and demanded by means of armed persuasion that the entire clove crop be loaded into their truck. After looting the village, the soldiers headed back south to their barracks. Luckily one of the villagers had a cell phone and managed to contact the local police force, (which happens to be based in my town). The police set up a roadblock north of town and when the soldiers arrived a big ol’ shootout occurred. Eventually the soldiers were able to navigate around the blockade and continued, (minus a few men), south. The soldiers and police blasted through town, down to the port. At the port, the soldiers were surrounded at their barracks and they eventually had to surrender. I wish I could tell you with certainty that the cloves ended up back in the hands of the villagers, I really do, but as it is we’ll just have to speculate.

Now, Zanzibar’s economy is driven primarily by cloves, tourism, and foreign aid money. Very little of the latter two ever make it over to my island, so peoples’ livelihood is more or less entirely dependent on the clove industry, (let’s pause for a second and appreciate the absurdity/hilarity of an Islamist island’s primary export being a spice that is best known for its uses with ham and spiced whiskey). The northern district of the island is beyond poor, so losing an entire season’s crop would devastate already destitute communities. It is easily the least developed part of Zanzibar, lacking heavily in proper roads, schools, and infrastructure. This has driven many of the people there to political unrest (and even, historically, Islamist extremism). This has only made the problems up there worse, as the government has become wary of supporting those who almost unanimously back Zanzibar’s political opposition party. It’s not a good situation.

There is some pretty interesting stuff up there though. At the north most point is a colonial British lighthouse, which resembles something out the old computer game Myst, (no, Africa has not made me any less of a geek).

The island’s most spectacular beaches are also all up north. Because the beaches are so difficult to get to, visitors have them almost to themselves. Three weekends ago, us four Island Peace Corps volunteers joined forces with some folk from a local diving company and made the trek out to one of the more remote beaches. As we drove through one of the northern villages, (oddly enough, just as we were joking about how the people up there probably aren’t too keen on American visitors), some young boys on the side of the road pointed fingers at us and started shouting MBAYA, MBAYA! Translation: BAD, BAD! Little kids were literally pointing at us and calling us bad. This happened multiple times with multiple villages. Exactly what we wanted to hear…

At one point we took a wrong turn, (read: our guide took a long turn), and we ended up in a strange forest filled with women hauling logs of wood on their heads. No men, just tons and tons of women. At one point they sort of surrounded us and started chanting and squealing loudly, (which was most likely out of excitement/mockery, although PCV Chris and I did harbor suspicions that this was perhaps a signal to the conspicuously missing men and that impending doom was imminent). A train of the yelling women followed us out of the woods. It was weird.

Eventually, after asking a couple of country bumpkins for directions, we found the correct path to the beach. The beach itself was spectacular, and certainly worth the journey. We had it virtually to ourselves, and we spent the day lounging, swimming, and body surfing. It was a really nice break.

After the day of rest and good company we all went our separate ways. Admittedly, life at my site has been a bit tough lately. My school’s scheduling has been chaotic, the island’s scorching heat has begun to pick up again, and power and water have been consistently scarce, (the island’s power plant decided to blow a hole and spew oil and petrol into the bay… it’s been three weeks and repairs are still incomplete). I am rapidly approaching the 1-year-in-country mark, though, so my spirits are high. On September 21st, I’ll have been in Tanzania for a year. It’s certainly been a year.

As wide as all the world, great, high, and

unbelievably white in the sun, was the square

top of Kilimanjaro. – Hemingway, Snows of Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro. The roof of Africa. One of the globe’s largest volcanoes. The highest free-standing mountain in the world. 19, 343 feet above sea level. Contrary to its name Mt. Kilimanjaro is not small. (Kilima njaro roughly translates to small hill of God).

My father and I spent 8 days climbing up and down the beast. We opted for the scenic/long/difficult Lemosho route. The major advantage of the Lemosho route is that it gives your body more time to adapt to the altitude before summiting, (other routes take around 5 days). The disadvantage is that the route is much, much longer than other ones. Altitude sickness is no joke, causes a number of deaths every year on the mountain, and is the major reason people fail to summit. Of the roughly 30,000 people who attempt Kili each year, less than a third make it to the top… mostly because of acute altitude sickness. So, Lemosho may have been longer and physically more strenuous, but by keeping us on the mountain longer it probably helped us a lot when we got to the higher altitudes.

Day 0 – Prep:

Our group consisted of 14 climbers, (mostly Americans), a handful of guides, and a small army of porters. First thing I noticed at base camp was the cold. It was in the 60s. I’m sure I made a great impression on everyone during briefing as a I sat there shivering in the huge, puffy winter coat my father had brought me from home while everyone else was doing fine without jackets at all. Second thing I noticed was the English. People were speaking it. Not as in “hello Mr. Whitey, give me money” or “good morning, how are you? I am fine!” English, but actual American English.

(Notice the guns. Elephants sometimes charge hikers in the lower elevations, so the guns are for protection. I was a bit skeptical on whether or not they even worked, as they looked straight out of WWII. Seriously, I swear I remember seeing some German soldiers carrying them in Saving Private Ryan.)

It was also weird at first being around so many people who had just been in America. I felt kind of out of place. I had to hold myself back a bit from bombarding everyone with questions about life back in the Motherland.

The guide service we used was fantastic, providing all of our meals and carrying all our food and sleeping gear. Over the hike I’m the only person there I’m pretty sure who GAINED weight. Burned around 4,000 calories a day, and I still gained weight. Compared to life on the Island, Kili was a vacation.

Day 1 – The forest:

In the morning, we rode to the trail head. On the way, we passed the sites of a few villages inside Kilimanjaro National Park where the residents had been moved out by the Park authorities in view of the effect on the environment. It was sort of eerie going though what effectively were now ghost towns. Hurray for conservation!

We approached the mountain from the west. Kili is made up of three volcanoes. From the west – Shira, Kibo and Mawenzi. Shira is the oldest and Kibo the youngest. Uhuru Peak, the highest part of Kilimanjaro, is part of Kibo. Our route took us across the remnants of Shira, (which is now largely a plateau filled in with lava from the Kibo eruption), then headed east around the southern wall Kibo, and then up Kibo to its crater and peak.

At the trail head, the guides, cooks, porters and climbers assembled. It was quite a crew. We hiked for several hours up to 9,000 feet through thick forest. It reminded us a lot of the Maine forest in its density but, of course, it was tropical. That night we stayed at Mti Mkubwa camp, (which means Big Tree). This was the first night we slept in our small two person tents – they were cozy and the sleeping bags were very warm.

Day 2 – Onto the Shira plateau:

Goo goo g’joob.

Today, we hiked from 9,000 to 11,400 feet. We made our way through the forest and out onto the moorland of the Shira plateau. Shira used have its own peak until it exploded catastrophically thousands of years ago, leaving a massive crater. Sometime later Kibo had an eruption, and the Shira crater filled with the flowing lava. Result: plateau.

At the Shira camp we had our first glimpse of the summit. It was big and it was far, but we were all too mesmerized to be entirely intimidated. That night, the almost full moon made Kili seem to glow.

Tonight we started to take Diamox, which supposedly helps with acclimatization. Unfortunately it is also a severe diuretic, and thus my dad began his five-times-a-night treks outside the tent. I slept well except for one of the last nights, which I’ll get to later.

Shira seemed very cold to me, getting down into the upper 40s at night. It never gets below the high 70s, (and even those are a rarity), at my site. High 40s were not fun for me. It was here that the loving relationship between me and my big, friendly coat ol’ Mr. Puffy truly blossomed.

Day 3 – Across the Shira:

We hiked from 11,400 to 13,500 feet, spending most of the time on the heath in the crater of the Shira volcano. We could see the remnants of the rim of the old volcano in the distance, and could see just how big these volcanoes were. Today was a long day of hiking. What was surprising was seeing flowers and trees, (albeit really gnarly ones), up this high. In the U.S. nothing grows at this height. Indeed, in Maine there is nothing at this height.

These trees were weird.

By the time we arrived at camp, a number of us were starting to feel the effects of the trek. At this point the altitude started to affect some of our group, with a couple of people feeling nauseous and having headaches. My pops and I were doing ok with the altitude so far, although the dust of the trail was starting to get to us, causing sinus headaches and making for very disgusting results when we blew our noses. Also, we all seemed to be getting the Kili cough, caused by the dry, cold air.

Day 4 – The lava tower:

At this point we were to the southwest of the peak. To actually reach the summit requires approaching from the east. Today began a two-day journey around the southern wall of Kibo.

To acclimatize, we climbed to 14,500 feet at the lava tower, and then went back down to 12,900 feet to camp at Barancu. The lava tower is a 500 foot hunk of, as you would expect, lava. It was optional to climb it. As our plan was to make it to the top of Kili, and not the top of the lava tower, we declined. We wanted to conserve energy and avoid any injuries. My dad has this way of hurting himself doing unnecessary things.

If you look closely at this photo you can see a person with a red hat. I am smaller than the lava tower.

Barancu camp was cripplingly cold for me. The temperatures we experienced later near the peak were ostensibly colder, but the coldest I felt during the whole hike was at Barancu. Our camp was right in the middle of the cloud line. Cold is bad, but wet cold is the worst.

On a tragic note, Barancu marked the last camp where we were able to clean our teeth. It seems we misplaced our toothbrush bag during packing up, and as a result we went through the rest of the hike without brushing. It was a gross couple of days in the end there…

Day 5 – Two brains, one mind:

The next two days were the toughest. From Barancu to the next camp, Barafu, is a long up-and-down hike, ending at a little above 15,000 feet. Barafu means snow, and at one time there may have been a lot of snow there. No snow now though, thanks to global warming.

Reaching Barafu Camp took seven hours of hiking with only a few thousand feet of net gain. This stretch of the hike was particularly difficult, because we would get up to over 14,500 feet, and then go back down to less than 13,000 feet – repeatedly. In the end, although overall we gained over 2,000 feet in altitude, we probably climbed up well over twice if not three times that much because of all the up-and-down ridges.

Seems like hating on France is an international sport. (No, my dad and I didn’t write this.)

At Barafu, we came to realize neither of us was thinking very well, due to the altitude. But between us, we figured we had one good mind, so agreed to stick together and make sure that any important decisions be made together.

Day 6 – To Uhuru Peak

From Barafu camp on it was constantly very cold. The altitude was also beginning to give us some headaches and stomach problems. When we set out at 5 a.m., it was less than 30 degrees. I was frozen and miserable.

The plan today was to climb 19,000 feet to Stella Point (the rim of the crater), and then descend into the crater to camp for the night before summiting the next day. It was a slow climb to the top, and the altitude was really getting to us. We were hiking on volcanic ash now, so every two steps we’d take we slid back one. It was a tough day.

We split into two hiking groups. Our group reached the rim in mid-afternoon, and as noted above the plan was to go down into the crater rather than the peak. The peak, however, was only 500 feet above us, an hour’s hike away along the snow-covered rim.

There was a discussion with Mahena, the assistant guide, as to whether we could go up now. Some of us decided to go for it, as the altitude was starting to really get to us, and we were concerned about how we would feel the next morning.

The oxygen was really thin, and we were all sucking air at this point. We had to stop every few minutes to catch our breath. The views from the ridge were spectacular though, with a snowy crater to our right and massive glaciers to the left.

My dad and I were beyond excited as we approached the peak. We made it. On the top of Africa. It was great, but even greater because we made it together.

The view was grand, and we felt grander.

After hugs and pictures all around, we headed down to Crater Camp.

Part way down the snow had a bit of a clearing, and being true Mainers we saw this as an opportunity to sled down on our butts. (And speaking of Maine, if you look really close at the above summit picture, you’ll spot a Sugarloaf sticker on the sign. Those things really do find their way everywhere don’t they?)

My dad had no problems, but unfortunately I had left my Gore-Tex pants in my pack. As a result my ass got completely soaked. I paid the price for my fun… big time.

We made it down safely to the camp, which was breathtakingly situated right in front of a glacier.

Dinner that night felt particularly good, though it was hard to eat due to the altitude of over 18,000 feet. My dad and I had splitting headaches, and the nausea came on fast. During the night, I became VERY sick, and had a hard time sleeping. But hey, at least now I get to claim that I threw up on a glacier on Kilimanjaro. Not bad, eh?

Day 7 — Coming down

The nine who had not summited the prior day got up at 4 a.m. to head up. Inside our tent it was less than 10 degrees and my dad and I felt exactly like bad. We were more than a little glad we had opted to summit the previous day. We were able to “sleep in” until 6 a.m., and then went out onto the crater to head to the rim. We climbed up to the rim, then down down down.

Today was a long day, from 19,000 feet all the way down to 10,000 at Mweka camp. On the upper part, we could really haul down the gravel and scree, almost like skiing. We really made good time, although I took a spill along the way, scratching up my arm and leg.

We lunched at Barafu, in the cold wind… probably the last time I’ll feel cold like that until I return to America in a year. As we headed down, the increased oxygen made it feel like we were on steroids. The only problem we had was that at about 12,000 feet my dad’s left knee finally went out. The timing was fine as we had summited already and were most of the way down. He put a brace on it, and trekked down the rest of the way in pain. The guy’s a great sport, and he made it down ok. As he likes to put it, he’s an expert at feeling terrible.

Day 8 – Return to the World

The last day we trekked down from a little over 10,000 feet to the base. It was rocky, hard-packed trail through the forest and it rained most of the way. I stuck with my dad. We got a late start because of his knee, trailing the rest of the crew, but caught up to the back of the pack part way down.

It was great getting to trail head, tired but successful. We had not had showers or modern bathroom facilities for more than a week, and had not even been able to brush our teeth for four days. Getting to the hotel was amazing. Not quite as good as getting to the top of the mountain, but still damn good. We had a celebratory dinner before everyone went his or her separate way. We made some good friends on the hike and we hope to keep in touch. I ended up staying the night but my dad and many others headed out after dinner to catch a flight back home.

It was really hard for my dad and I to say goodbye again. We spent, quite literally, 24 hours a day together for nine days straight. Kilimanjaro was an experience neither of us will ever forget.

You pass through places

And places pass through you

But you carry them with you

On the soles of your traveling shoes

Life for the past few weeks has been a whirlwind. I realize my posts have been a bit scarce as of late, and do I appreciate all the emails asking if I’m alive. Yes, I’m still here, although one day a few weeks ago there were a couple of close calls. Since my last entry the rainy season picked up tremendously. We’re talking torrential downpours for most of the day, every day. On one particularly wet day I realized that my cash supply was dangerously low. Normally I would have simply waited a few days for a drier day, but unfortunately this was a couple of days before I was scheduled to leave the island for a Peace Corps conference on the mainland. I had a giant list of things to get done before leaving, (including my school’s graduation!), and I needed money to do them. Rain or no rain, it was off to my banking town for me!

My banking town is about an hour’s dala dala ride away on some fairly hilly roads. The trip south was relatively uneventful until we reached a low valley where the road was flooded for about 10 meters across. Not such a big deal. We all just got off our dala, waded across, and caught another dala that was waiting on the other side. I made it to my bank, got my money, and ate some tasty lunch. Life was good. Unfortunately, the rain didn’t seem to be lightening up at all. A few of the folk in town suggested I spend the night there and wait for the next day to travel, as word from the valley was that the flooding was rapidly getting worse. Any other day I would have heeded their advice and stayed. Unfortunately the next morning was my school’s graduation. I had no choice but to brave the flood.

By the time I returned to the valley it had entirely transformed. What was once a small overflow had changed into a full-blown flood. The road was completely devoured, and the water was now half a mile across. Crowds of Tanzanians had gathered on either side to watch in glee as handfuls of brave/stupid souls made attempts to cross. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which category I fall into. The locals got some entertainment out of it though. I had about 50 people cheering and clapping as I entered the abyss. Life as an mzungu.

I think my friend Jordan put it best after I emailed him the above picture: “Wow, it's just like the river in Willie Wonka, except instead of chocolate and dreams your river is made out of AIDS, poo, and despair.” And how. Indeed, as I forged across I tried to ignore the chunks of sludge that occasionally slicked across my legs. In some places the water made it all the way up to my stomach. The current itself wasn’t too bad, although I was informed after my crossing that a bit earlier an elderly woman had been swept away. Big pole.

Once reaching the other side I still had a bit of a trek. All dalas had given up on the route and had long since gone elsewhere for passengers. After I reached the shore I had to hike an hour and a half to a main road so that I could catch a ride home. It was pouring rain, I was wearing flimsy flip flops, and my legs were covered in mystery filth. Yup, it was awesome.

To make a fantastic day better, upon arriving in town I was electrocuted. I was pretty thirsty from my adventure, so after arriving home I immediately went to a local shop to grab a drink. After touching my hand to the fridge handle I felt a powerful jolt and my arm was thrown violently behind my shoulder. Apparently this was funny? At least the shop owners thought so. I told one of them to touch the handle and he had a similar experience to mine. After that he stopped laughing. The heavy rains had knocked a power line onto the roof of the shop and the current was grounding through the fridge, (and my body for a few seconds there). My family seems to have bad luck with the electricity shetani on this island.

I spent the following day at the graduation ceremonies for my school.

Here are the students from my accelerated computer class. They were a great class and I’ll really miss teaching them.

The day after graduation, a counterpart from my school and I flew off to Dar and took an 8 hour bus ride to Iringa for my Peace Corps class’s in-service training conference. It was not a small or comfortable journey. Round trip I endured 4 plane flights and two 8-hour bus rides. I was not enthused.

Iringa itself was cool though. And by cool, I mean cold. And by cold I mean high 60’s. What would have been a nice early summer evening in Maine had me shivering even in long johns and a big, thick hoodie. I’m broken. It’s pathetic, really.

It was great seeing the other volunteers again. Reconnecting with old friends from training was really nice. A few have left the country for various reasons, (we’re 34 out of 41 now), but spirits were high for most of the volunteers still in country.

It’s amazing how different everyone’s experiences have been. Hearing others’ accounts made me realize just how drastically different my island is from everywhere else in the country. I live in a strange, strange, very isolated place. But hey, at least I get Popo Bawa tales out of the whole deal. Those never seem to cease to be crowd pleasers.

Everyone had ridiculous stories to share, but the one that struck me as the craziest was an account from one of the Southern Highland PCVs about a machete war in his region. The PCV woke to people shouting near his house. After looking out the window he noticed that a large group of men with machetes had gathered and were now marching off somewhere. A few hours later a number of the men returned, machetes covered in blood. The next day the PCV learned that a tribe of herders had recently arrived, and their animals had been devastating some of the local farms. The herders refused to leave, and the farmers didn’t want their crops destroyed. Solution? Machete war. I can’t even imagine how brutal that fight must have been. Machetes here tend to be big, rusty, and not particularly sharp. Bad, bad times. (For the record, the farmers won.)

The conference itself had its ups and downs, the highlight being a session on advanced farming techniques. Some of the information from this session could make a serious difference for the folk on my island, as farming here is extremely difficult due to the sandy soil. My counterpart and I are currently planning a few workshops for the coming months. This time last year I was graduating with a computer science degree from Stanford. Now I’m teaching farming strategies on an African voodoo island and getting paid nothing to do so. Some would argue I don’t make the best life choices.

The conference ended early on its last day, giving us some time to explore the area a bit during the afternoon. A group of us headed about 20k south to Isimila, (for the record we were still in the Iringa region though, for those Peace Corps staffers reading this!).

Isimila is one of the oldest Stone Age sites in the world.

Tools as old as 100,000 years old have been found in the dried up river bed.

This places the tools in the Early Stone Age period, which is pre-fire and pre-agriculture. Men used to hunt along the riverbed with stone tools, and then eat the animals raw. Wildlife in the area back then consisted of elephants, antelopes, and now-extinct giant hogs and hippos. Those men were a lot tougher than I am. Imagine trying to take down an elephant with your buddies while armed with nothing more than sharp rocks. As I walked along the valley, countless stone artifacts were strewn in the sand. It was an eerie feeling knowing I was walking in an exact spot where 100,000 years ago early mankind was struggling to survive.

After we’d had our fill of the valley, we climbed up the opposite side and walked into the bush in search of a sandstone canyon we’d been informed of by a local guide.

During the hike I had an unpleasant encounter with a Nairobi Fly. Nairobi Flies don’t bite or sting, and are actually rather passive. Unfortunately they are filled with very potent acid. If you’re unlucky enough to have one land on you, your best bet is to calmly wait for it to leave. If you upset it, it’ll spray you with acid. Even worse, if you kill it you get covered in the stuff. Basically, they’re mini versions of the aliens from the Alien movies. I now have a nice, permanent acid burn scar on my left arm. Oh Africa.

After hiking a short ways some of us started to get a big skeptical about the existence of the canyon. Then, from the middle of nowhere, we stumbled into this:

Victory!

The canyon stretched on for miles. It was absolutely breathtaking, filled with hollowed out stone walls and massive sand pillars.

I can’t even imagine how people from 100,000 years ago must of reacted when they saw this place.

We walked through the canyon for a ways before finding a suitable place to climb back out. As we trekked back through the bush to the road we passed some fairly meager farm plots.

Eventually we made it to the road and caught a dala dala into Iringa town. I’m now on my island once again, missing the good food, friends, and (dare I say) cold. Back to isolation, but such is the life of the Peace Corps volunteer.

Literally as post this, it’s been exactly nine months since I stepped off the plane into Africa. These months just keep on flying by. Ni maisha.

The heat is on, on the street

Inside your head, on every beat

And the beat's so loud, deep inside

The pressure's high, just to stay alive

'Cause the heat is on

My parents were kind enough to pay me a visit for 2 weeks in April. It was great to see them… my first contact with people from my “old” life since arriving here in September. They’ve sent me an entry of their own to post, so here ya go:

Ma and Pa Stern, signing on…

THE CHAMPION OF HOT

Repeat after us: ni joto sana. It is very hot. Very, very hot. This is the temperature in Josh’s courtyard, (yes, that says 114 degrees). Note: it is autumn where he is now. Oh, you say, it must be cooler inside because of the many years that the locals have perfected construction techniques to maximize cooling.

Yeah, well, this is inside.

The first time we walked the 2k from Josh’s home to his worksite down Heartbreak Hill, as Paul calls it, he almost had heatstroke. Sue was fine, though. The locals thought she had lived there all of her life. She fit right in.

The heat at Josh’s site is way beyond what we have ever experienced . . . and it’s autumn. How he does this on his own after working all day in the heat remains a mystery.

Sue gave Josh a break from daily cooking and cleaning, which is often very hard to do. First, you have to go to the market and barter for food. Since Sue is Josh’s mother, people gave her extra! Next, clean food within an inch of its life and cook it forever in the heat of the kitchen area, (did we mention it was hot?). Then, clean dishes very carefully with boiled water. And during this whole process you never know if the power will go off and you have to switch to the kerosene or coal stoves, or if the water pump will die and you have to go scooping with the bucket. One time while Sue was cooking during a monsoon, lightning struck a tower near Josh’s house and came through the electric outlet onto Sue’s hand and out her foot. She lived to talk about it, albeit incoherently for awhile, but her hand hurt for a week. Doing laundry is also a trip. Water buckets in the courtyard and line drying. You have to time the drying for the hot sun times and avoid the rains. You would think things would dry in a second in that sun but NO, the humidity is so high it takes forever. If it takes too long for them to dry you need to wash the clothes again as they begin to smell like mold. And when you take the clothes off the line, you have to shake out the families of mosquitoes that hide in the folds. Great fun.

THE SHETANI

As Josh has explained, his island is populated by very nice people and very bad shetani. Popo Bawa is the most renowned, but there are others, and one of them paid particular attention to Paul. The Fan Shetani. First, while Paul was working on the window screens The Fan Shetani caused the overhead fan to attack Paul’s hand, slicing one of his fingers.

Then, a smaller fan on a stand attacked the other hand, slicing it open. Later when plugging in the fan, Paul almost got electrocuted. Finally, Paul expressed great regard for the powers of the Fan Shetani and decided to avoid Josh’s fans altogether. All was well. We were also at the whims of the ever-fickle Generator Shetani for power, which was iffy at best. This is the Island’s only power. Without it there is no way to move any air in the hot, humid house. Sleeping under netting in a hot house with absolutely no breeze is utterly oppressive. Our moods changed nightly as the power came on or off.

JOSH’S PETS

Outside of Josh’s front door you will find a motley crew of goats, cows, cats, chickens, and (at night) toads. Josh particularly likes the goats. The way they bleat loudly at all hours, with that piercing, fingernails-on-the-blackboard quality.

DALA DALA

The pubic transportation is by means of dala dalas. Imagine driving on the back roads of Maine. You see in the distance off in a field an abandoned pickup truck with a sapling growing up through the engine. Well, take that relic, clean it up a little, put some used tires on it, bolt two wooden benches along the side, weld some bars on it to hold up a roof, and you’ve got yourself a dala dala. When we were in one once, there were 33 people, a baby, and two chickens in it, along with a load of wood and various bundles of vegetables and clothes on the roof. Whenever we thought it was unimaginable to squeeze anyone else in the dala dala, Josh woefully whispered the refrain: “There’s always more room.” It is it unbearably hot, and a large amount of less-than-healthy exhaust accompanies the passengers.

THE BIRDS

They’ve got flying dogs. Josh says they’re a type of bat called flying foxes. No. They’re dogs. They’re huge. It’s like looking up and seeing a scene from a 1930s Bela Lugosi Dracula movie. Fortunately, they fly very high in the sky, which is why they survive, as explained below. The only other birds we saw in the sky were these big crows with what look like white vests. They fly very high too, which is why they survive. The ground birds are stupid, dirty chickens, which deserve to die but don’t. These are the only birds here. Why? Because the kids kill all of the other birds that are within slingshot range. Why, do you ask? Protein.

JOSH

Josh is skinnier and his hair is shorter.

He has been posted in a ridiculously hot spot and in a culture as foreign from that in Maine as you can imagine. He has withstood two bouts of malaria and one of dysentery. Through all of it, he works hard everyday and has become part of the community. Several families have adopted him as one of their own.

Josh has worked extremely hard in his school and community, and the people there truly are appreciative. And he has done it under the most difficult of conditions. We are truly proud of him, and after being with him for two weeks we now fully understand the magnitude of his accomplishments.

And, we do look forward to visiting him, and his new friends, again.

With your feet on the air and your head on the ground

Try this trick, and spin it, yeah

Your head will collapse

And there’s nothing in it

And you’ll ask yourself:

Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

Way out in the water, see it swimmin’

Swahili possesses some priceless expressions. “Pole,” (pronounced pole-lay), is one such expression. It is the universal Swahili word for “sucks to be you,” regardless of the degree of suck. Friend stubs his toe? Toss him a pole. Shopkeeper’s store is robbed? Pole! Neighbor’s mother just died? A pole is appropriate. Really, a handy word. It also happens to be this month’s theme! Pole Zanzibar. Pole, more than enough.

Without reservation I can say that this past month has been the strangest of my entire life. Remember our old pal Popo Bawa, everyone’s favorite serial sodomite bat demon? Remember how I said witchdoctors were predicting his imminent return? Well, my friends, Popo returned with a vengeance, and he went medieval on the folk of my little island.

Now, my last blog entry prompted an unprecedented flood of emails. As much as I would like to think my sharp wit and brilliant prose are to thank, I am willing to concede that it was perhaps something else that drew your particular interest. I am an engineer, after all, not a writer. No, I’m gonna go ahead and surmise that it was the universal hilarity of an anal raping bat demon on the loose that got you all excited. Sickos.

Following my last post, a couple of you were kind enough to send me a link to a BBC article discussing a recent Popo hysteria in Dar es Salaam. It seems that in late February Popo returned from exile, and his first stop was Dar. People slept in the streets and on rooftops (Popo can’t get you if you’re not in your bed), built bonfires, and were in a general state of mass panic. As it so happened, us island volunteers were going to Dar the very next week for a Peace Corps conference. Oh joy!

A couple days before my journey to Dar, one of my students approached me with perhaps the most excited grin I’ve ever seen. He was so pleased he could barely get his words out. Apparently the night before he had finally completed training his pet shetani (shetani is Swahili for demon). With its new training, his shetani could now protect him from a Popo Bawa attack. Now, as much as I wanted to let out a chuckle, by the impressed looks of the other students listening I sensed this was no laughing matter. I did manage to get a few questions out though. What does his supernatural friend look like? Hard to explain, plus foreigners are unable to see it without special training. Where does it sleep? An empty glass bottle. Can a person have multiple pet shetani? Absolutely, (gotta catch ‘em all!). What do they eat? Animal sacrifices once a month. What exactly is used in the demon training process? Green magic, (silly question I guess). Peace Corps Tanzania is rapidly turning into Dungeons and Dragons.

Green magic. And why not, right? A bit later another student offered me a longer explanation about the magical forces of the world. She’s one of the local green magic experts, a child prodigy of sorts. Very well respected. So, the world has two types of magic: Blue and Green. Blue magic is only used for evil. A powerful blue wizard is capable of telekinetic feats, flying, throwing lighting bolts, and summoning blue magic shetani. Blue magic shetani include Popo Bawa and Genies. General opinion is that Popo Bawa attacks are the result of government-trained sorcerers of the mainland trying to terrorize the islands. (There’s a long history of political conflict between the Zanzibar Islands and the Tanzanian mainland, but that’s the topic for another time). Blue magic can be countered by two forces: Green magic and Allah. Pray hard enough, and if you’re very lucky, Popo can’t getcha.

Green magic, on the other hand, is neither good nor evil. It is more subtle than Blue, and is used in charms, protection spells, curses, and possessions. A Green magic oracle is even capable of future predicting visions. Green magic is very powerful, and even prayer cannot be used to counter it completely. Cursed by a Green spell, I’m afraid it’s a trip to the local witchdoctor for you. The girl explained this all to me with such fervor and sincerity, I was actually kind of touched by her heartfelt explanation. Upon returning home I asked some of my neighbors about my new “understanding” of the world, and they concurred that, indeed, this is how the magical forces of the world operate. They all insisted that I was a damn fool for not bringing any protection, (whether magical or Islamic), with me to Dar. Popo Bawa was on the prowl, after all. Now, I ain’t afraid of no ghosts, so I was willing to take my chances.

Despite not having a spirit-in-a-bottle, I managed to avoid any Popo attacks. My Dar trip was actually really great. It was my first time in more than 3 months off the island, and oh man did it feel good. I have to admit, when I first arrived in Dar over six months ago the place struck me as kind of a hole. After three months out in the boonies, however, Dar was a glowing beacon of civilization. Restaurants. Reliable water and electricity. People who speak English. And, most noticeably, (I’m a 23 year old male, don’t judge), women without headscarves! Never before have hair, ears, and necks been so attractive.

The conference’s purpose was to provide training to Peace Corps volunteers and our Tanzanian school counterparts for HIV/AIDS education. Most of the information was very useful, and my counterpart and I have now started putting together a program to train local teachers to teach primary and secondary school students about HIV/AIDS. After a week long conference about the reality of AIDS in Africa, it’s hard to not get involved. Tanzania, in particular, has been devastated by the virus. Scientists think the virus even originated in the lake region of Uganda and northwest Tanzania. Infection rates in Tanzania are believed to be above 10%. Scary stuff. HIV/AIDS education here is an uphill battle, but hopefully we’ll be able to reach a few people. Many Tanzanians are convinced that infection is caused by an angry god or evil spirits. Take the appropriate spiritual measures, and you have nothing to worry about. If evil spirits can give HIV/AIDS, than my island is screwed. Popo Bawa gets around.

Lucky for all of us, Popo Bawa had actually already left Dar by the time we arrived. He’d migrated north to Tanga, a staging ground before the ruthless onslaught on his island homelands. (I’m not entirely sure just how his travel plans became public knowledge… Green magic witchdoctor foresight?) His attack on my island would start in the southern port town, and from there he would travel north, ultimately to my town. His arrival just so happened to coincide with our return from the conference. Lucky. (Popo Bawa Tanzania Tour 2007 t-shirts are pending.)

Admittedly, when I returned home Popo Bawa was not on the top of my list of concerns. It seems while in Dar I managed to pick up a nice case of Amoebic Dysentery. I’m ok now, but over the course of about a week I managed to lose almost 10 pounds. No good. Another surprise after coming home was the complete absence of mosquitoes. Before going to Dar mosquitoes here were a tremendous problem. Apparently while I was away the government came and carpet-bombed my town with DDT. You all remember DDT, everyone’s favorite carcinogen of the 50’s! I guess people here decided cancer later was better than malaria now. The project is actually US funded I’ve learned. The US believes it has created a less cancerous version of DDT, but before using it in the Southern USA, (where malaria has returned thanks to global warming), they’re testing it in small parts of East Africa. In terms of insect slaughtering power, the stuff works! Word’s still out on the reduced cancer though… I’ll let you know in 10 years. Being a guinea pig ain’t easy, but someone’s gotta do it.

While a decent number of people in my town were slightly nervous about Popo Bawa before my trip to Dar, by the time I returned everyone was in absolute hysterics. Many people admitted to having been assaulted by the demon in recent days. Apparently when Popo is going medieval on his victims he makes a point to tell them that if they do not tell everyone about what happened then he will come back the next night for twice as long. As such, I’ve received more than a small number of sobering Popo confessions over the past few weeks. These aren’t just from the local quacks either; we’re talking about some of the most educated people in town. When a grown man comes to you and admits to being anally raped by a demon the night before, it’s not easy to come up with an appropriate response. Seriously, what can you possibly say to that? As multi-purposed as the word may be, I feel like even the most somber “pole” doesn’t quite capture just how much sympathy these tragic victims deserve.

What’s amazing is just how prolific Popo manages to be every night. I mean, that pesky demon covers a lot of ground (and people) over the course of a single night. After some serious thought, (when you’re living alone on an isolated African island, one has a lot of time on one’s hands), I’ve concluded that there are only two possibilities. Either there is more than one Popo Bawa, (the oldest horror movie trick in the book), or Popo is rocking some space-time bending Santa-esque powers. Popo Bawa: Santa of sodomy.

Now it might have been the insides-devouring parasites making me a bit delirious, but I have to admit that after a few days back in town even I was getting a bit freaked out by Popo. Every night I would hear countless screams across the countryside. One night while biking home from a friend’s house I heard a chilling “Allah! Acha Popo, acha! Nenda Popo!” coming from someone’s home. Translation: “Oh God! Stop Popo, stop! Get away Popo!”

At this point you may be thinking that it would be impossible for the situation on the island to get any weirder. You would be wrong. I’m pretty sure I now know what going mad feels like. One afternoon I was sitting in a small restaurant in town and I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple new faces. A couple of Christian missionaries from Sweden had come to the island to do a bit of work. Needing to get a lot off my chest, minutes after meeting these people I went an on enormous rant about the current Popo Bawa invasion and how crazy the entire town seemed to have gone. Faux pas. Apparently, these two already knew about the demons of the island. In fact, part of their mission here was to help combat the demon problem. Scandinavian demon hunters. No joke. They were convinced that the main problem here is that people try to use “good” demons and Islam to fight evil demons. Apparently there is no such thing as a good demon, and by using them the locals are opening up a door for evil demons to come through. Even the power of Allah is incapable of defeating the demon onslaught. Nay, only by accepting Jesus into their hearts will the good folk of the Zanzibar Islands be able to drive Popo Bawa and his brethren away for good.

While I was listening to this, I received a text message from one my more sensible and grounded students. It seems the night before Popo paid her a visit and proceeded to strangle and beat her with his magic. Fortunately, before Popo could succeed in doing what he does best, the girl’s magic shetani managed to drive him away. Heavy.

The whole Popo Bawa scare hit its peak when storms of people began to take the streets at night in search of Popo and the evil wizards they believed were responsible for sustaining him. A couple men were stoned and beaten a week or so ago, (luckily they lived). A few nights ago, however, one accused sorcerer was killed. He was burned alive by an angry mob. The man was caught with some animal horns and other “magical” items. I mean, with such blatantly incriminating contraband, what else was there to do? I’d say the man got off light, really.

Word on the street is that Popo finally left the islands a day or two ago. (I guess the angry mob got the right guy?) People are still shaken up by the whole ordeal, but things are finally starting to get back to normal. I know I, for one, will never forget these past few weeks. I’m also proud to say that my anal sovereignty remains intact. Up yours Popo Bawa!

And now, everyone say it together:

“Pole Tanzania. Pole Zanzibar. Pole sana.”

With coco leaves along the border

Sweetness sings from every corner

Cars careening from the clouds

The bridges burst and twist around

And watching something warm and moving

Bends towards herself the soothing

Proves that she must still exist

She moves herself about her fist

Sweet communist... the communist daughter

Standing on the seaweed water.

Not exactly something you’d expect to see on a tropical island off the coast of East Africa, eh?

Zanzibar’s had just about every kind of government imaginable over the years. From African chiefs, to Arab sultans, to Portuguese, German, and British colonial rule, to socialism, to the 1 1/2 party democracy of today (there are two parties, but only one of them ever wins). There are a few crumbling buildings left over from the colonial period, but they’re all in pretty bad shape:

During the extremely bloody revolutionary period of the late 50’s and early 60’s, in horrific displays of nationalism more than 17,000 foreigners, (many of them engineers, traders, and craftsmen), were massacred. Those who weren’t killed made the wise decision to leave. As a result, very few engineers remained on the islands, and the new socialist government had to rely on foreign contractors. The Soviets were more than happy to help, and sent some East German architects to help “modernize” the islands.

The story goes that the architects came to Zanzibar with plans to construct a number of apartment and government buildings in the drab Soviet style that was all the rage at the time. After the architects arrived, however, they were so enchanted by the natural beauty of the islands that they decided to scrap their original plans. For months they toiled over new designs, ultimately producing blueprints for elegant, Middle Eastern styled buildings. Unfortunately for us all, the Zanzibar government officials of the time were quick to shoot down the engineers’ ambitions. They didn’t want stylish buildings; they wanted “modern” ones. As a result, the islands are now scattered with towering, dreary monuments to Zanzibar’s socialist stint.

While far from aesthetically appealing on their own, the buildings are down right absurd given their surroundings. Every day when I walk into town to work, on my left I see:

And on my right:

It is kind of amusing that while we are in the most opposite of places imaginable, my sister and I are both subjected daily to the same delightful Soviet aesthetics. Libby is studying abroad in St. Petersburg at the moment. As unbearable as the summer African heat is, I don’t even want to imagine how crippling the cold of Russian winter must be. Hey, at least global warming is on her side I suppose. And I’m not gonna lie, the thought of flopping around in some snow right now is more than a little appealing. My thermometer hasn’t dropped below 82 since I’ve been on site. I’m going to be in trouble when I get back home to winter in Maine at the end of this Peace Corps gig. Sometimes in the mornings here it gets down to the low 80’s… and I need to put on a pullover. Africa broke me.

So, as foreign of an idea snow may be to me at the moment, it’s something downright alien to the people here. Most people here don’t even know their own word for snow, “theluji.” It’s not a particularly relevant term. It’s pretty funny when I show some pictures from home to the locals… especially ones of me skiing. I usually explain skiing as riding down an ice-covered mountain on really long shoes. More than one person has seen this picture and asked if it was taken in Dar es Salaam:

Let that sink in for a second.

Yes, some people here think Dar es Salaam has mountains and snow. As funny as that is, it’s actually not entirely surprising. The majority of the people here have never been to the mainland, and some have never even left their hometowns. Minibuses, (called dala dalas), are the main form of transportation in Tanzania, and the ones that go through my town have big signs displaying the town name and the name of the island’s capital, (this whole having to not disclose my location thing is getting real old, by the way). More than one person I’ve encountered didn’t know where the dala dalas go after they leave town. They didn’t know the name of the capital of their own island. I’d find this absurd, but there are places in northern Maine where the residents are just as geographically impaired. I’m from a hick state.

What northern Maine doesn’t have are pink chickens:

Apparently it’s a natural condition. When the chickens grow up the tone darkens into a reddish brown. But still. Bright pink baby chickens. You don’t see THAT every day...

So overall my life’s been pretty good for the past few weeks. I’ve recovered completely from the malaria now, (thanks to everyone who sent their well wishes!), have gotten into a rhythm with teaching, and I’ve been out and about around town.

This weekend I attended an afternoon wedding party. It was nice. There was lots of dancing, and some local drummers and singers gave performances.

As you can see, all of the women here wear headscarves outside, (and some even wear full veils). During school hours, female students wear thin, uniformed scarves. Every school has its own set of colors, and when schools get out in the afternoon the streets are flooded with a whole rainbow of hooded heads. Sometimes it feels like little armies of mages have invaded the town.

Here are some of the local primary school students next to my home:

The little kids here are super cute.

Teaching at my school has been going really well. My students are great, and seem genuinely excited to be learning computers. Some days there’s no power and I have to resort to teaching theory and hardware basics, but even then the students are really attentive. I have to give them credit, whenever I had a teacher who spoke really bad English in college I just zoned right out, and to native speakers I’m sure my Swahili sounds utterly terrible. The classes are going great though. Last week I set up some of my advanced students on email, and I hope to get them each connected with an American pen pal. (So if you’re high school or college aged and want to make an African friend, shoot me a line!)

It’s really nice to be at a supportive and peaceful school. I’ve heard some horror stories from other volunteers who have to deal with dubious class scheduling, corrupt teachers and headmasters, and ridiculous corporal punishment. I’m lucky in that I haven’t had to deal with any of that. It’s probably because I’m at a college instead of the typical secondary school Peace Corps assignment, but I’m definitely not complaining.

The only truly outlandish thing that’s happened so far at my school occurred this past week. One of the students was possessed by a demon.

Yup.

That’s right.

A demon.

My week was weirder than yours.

I was upstairs teaching a class when a girl in the classroom below mine started screaming hysterically. She started running around shouting jibberish until some other students and teachers managed to restrain her. I asked one of the teachers what was wrong, and was told that the girl was being possessed by a “shetani,” or demon. Apparently this is fairly common at schools all over the island. Voodoo’s a bitch. It seems evil spirits tend to attack in waves too, most commonly around exam time. Those evil spirits sure are crafty.

Just to be safe, (apparently demons can be contagious), school was called off for the day. It’s the Tanzanian version of a bomb threat. Some of the staff and students were visibly unnerved, and one of the teachers asked why I wasn’t afraid. My (admittedly lame) answer: mzungu magic. She seemed to buy it.

What followed next was some strange session that I guess amounted to a Muslim exorcism. I couldn’t tell what was going on as most of it was in Arabic, of which I only know a handful of expressions. Oh well, sometimes it’s best not to know.

I’ve been told by numerous folk that the most feared shetani on the island is named Popo Bawa, which literally means Bat Wing. Popo Bawa doesn’t bother with trivial school time hysterics either. Oh no, Popo Bawa is far more menacing. He’s a squat, creepy looking bat creature as black as the night itself. He’s about a meter in height, and has a single giant eye in the middle of his forehead. Popo Bawa’s victim wakes up in the middle of the night completely paralyzed and sees the demon materialize through the wall and approach the bed. The helpless prey is unable to move or cry for help as he or she, (Popo doesn’t discriminate), is anally pillaged by the demon.

... Really, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

Apparently in the late 90’s Popo Bawa’s attacks became so frequent that he created an island wide hysteria. People slept outside and on rooftops in an effort to escape the creature’s sick conquests. The mass panic got so bad that the government had to deploy soldiers and broadcast radio announcements to attempt to calm people down. Eventually the island’s mightiest witchdoctors and sorcerers gathered and used their magic to drive Popo Bawa away. He’s gone for now, but word on the street is that his return is imminent. All I know is that if I get ass raped by an African demon I’m quitting the Peace Corps and going home. Yessir, game over.

Well, as of Sunday I’ve been in country for four months. September feels like it was a lifetime ago. Although the first few months here seemed to drag by painfully slowly, I have a feeling that time’s going to fly by now that I’ve started teaching. I had my first week teaching at the teacher’s college last week, and I’m really happy with how it went. There’s one group of advanced students who knows how to use computers impressively well. They have either taken classes before or have computers at home, as right off the bat they’re at the point where I can start teaching some pretty cool stuff.

The vast majority of students, however, had never touched a computer before. At first I was a little worried that I’d find teaching ultra basics mind numbingly boring, but surprisingly it’s quite the challenge. I have to break even the simplest concepts down completely (we’re talking click the left mouse button, simple… I fear for when we get to the double click)… and I have to do it in Swahili, as most of the students speak minimal English. The whole thing is kind of a head trip. The first week went well though. Many of the students were wary about using the machines at first, but by the end of each class everyone was truckin’ right along. The students were all great sports as I massacred their language, and they didn’t seem to hold the fact that I’m the same age as they are against me. I gotta say though, it’s nice to finally be doing what I came all the way out here to do. We’ll see how my sophomore effort next week goes over. No teaching for me this past week as I'm out sick with a wicked case of malaria. 104 fever, anemia, body aches, unbelievable exhaustion and nausea… basically I feel exactly like bad. Being really sick all alone in Africa was pretty scary, but I’m on the mend slowly now. Kidogo kidogo as the folks here say, (means little by little).

Teaching, the four months in country mark, and malaria aside… the real excitement of the last couple weeks was octopus hunting. That’s right, octopus hunting! This past Saturday I trekked down to the southern part of the island to visit one of the Peace Corps health volunteers in his village. Don, (and his site mate Chris), are the other two Peace Corps folk on the island aside from me and mike. I arrived just in time to see some of the locals manage to get an old wreck of a truck running and proceed to tear circles around a field. Pretty ridiculous. They were loving it. Kinda reminded me of home… oh Maine.

The next morning Chris came by, and the three of us headed off towards the ocean. Don had met some fishermen from his village who’d agreed to meet and teach us how to hunt octopus. The half-hour trek through field and forest was not particularly pleasant, (and the trek back was particularly unpleasant), but eventually we reached the water.

We met up with the fishermen down at the water, and after waiting for the tide to go down we all waded on coral until we were a good half a mile out into the Indian Ocean. It was incredibly hot out there in the open sun, (I managed to cultivate quite the sunburn by the end of the morning), but it was absolutely breathtaking. Felt like we were walking on an alien planet.

We had to take it slow getting out there, as the coral was speckled with hundreds of spiky sea urchin land mines. Don and I were fortunate enough to avoid them… Chris was not so lucky.

Once we got out a ways, the octo hunt began. During low tide the octopi take shelter in little cracks and caves in the coral. It’s hard to spot them, but the local fishermen are really good at noticing the little bubbles that rise out of the octopus homes. Whenever we found a live cave we’d stab these small metal spears into the hole. It takes a couple of tries, but you know you’ve hit the mark when the water fills with bellows of black ink. At that point it’s only a matter of time for poor ol’ octy.

Often enough the octopi were still alive when removed from their holes. To rectify these situations our guide had a nice habit of beating the hell out of the critters with the metal spears. Problem solved! Don was clearly enthused:

After a few hours the hunt was over and we headed back. On the way home our guide showed us how to gut and clean the day’s kills.

So there you have it. Octopus hunting in Africa. And now I'm off to lie down for awhile. Malaria is no one’s friend.

Mpaka mara halafu, (until next time)!

I’ll take my twist with a shout

A coffee shop with a cause

Man, I’ll freak you out

No sex, no drugs, no life, no love

When it comes to today

Mwaka elfu mbili na sita. What a year. This week a year ago I spent part of an afternoon jumping into the half-frozen ocean near my parents’ home in a perfect display of old-fashioned Maine brilliance.

A few days later I returned to my studies at Stanford, right in the middle of Silicon Valley, which is unarguably one of the most technologically advanced and richest regions of the world. Flash forward one year and I’m living in one of the poorest, (on paper anyway), districts of one of the poorest countries in the poorest continent in the world. It also happens to be one of the hottest areas in the country, less than a handful of degrees south of the equator. Funny the difference one year can make, huh? Life’s not all different though. I did spend an afternoon this week in the ocean. Sure it wasn’t the Atlantic and the water was warmer than your average bath, but hey, life’s all about drawing small continuities.

2006 was a pretty pivotal year for me. Finished college. Made the (some would say professionally foolish) decision to walk away from sensible engineering job offers and instead join the Peace Corps. Learned Swahili. Made it through the drudgery of Peace Corps training. I’ve also managed to live completely on my own in Africa for exactly one month now without death or serious injury, (I love small victories). While 2006 is gonna be hard to top, I have some high expectations for 2007. Mainly, it’s time to start actually applying all this knowledge I’ve supposedly been learning all these years. I start teaching computers full time in one week. I’m starting with some 140 future Tanzanian teachers, divided into twelve 80-minute classes a week. After regular school hours I’ll also be training school staff and community members in more advanced topics. I’ll be teaching mostly in Swahili. I’ve got a slew of secondary projects I’m hoping to start tackling as well, but I’ll describe them another time… I think at this point I’ve massaged my ego more than enough for one post.

New Year’s Eve itself is not actually celebrated on the island. The people here just don’t seem to care much about it. When midnight rolled around I was alone in my house reading. I’d set my watch alarm for 11:59, so I took a break from my book to shout out my own little countdown. It was pretty exciting, I gotta say. Doubt the neighbors appreciated it. The holidays were definitely not as lonely as I’d expected them to be though. Many, many thanks to everyone who gave me a call in the last couple weeks. It really was great hearing from friends and family. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the rest of the world is still out there. You all definitely made this first holiday season alone in Africa a lot easier. I wasn’t completely alone out here though. My Peace Corps island buddy Mike took the 3 hour trek north to my home for Christmas, and we also went to a really great beach with some local friends a few days ago. There are certainly worse ways to welcome in the New Year.

To get to the beach we traveled through a protected section of primeval jungle. There’s one road and one marked hiking trail in the entire forest. Josh Trail. Love it.

So while New Year’s Eve is not a big deal on the island, the moon cycles conspired in such a way this year as to land the four-day festival of Eid-el-Hajj, one of the biggest holidays in Islam, conveniently around New Year’s. For a place where alcohol is more or less illegal, all women wear conservative headscarves, and most folk pray five times a day, the people here know how to throw down surprisingly well. And they know how to do it for four days and nights straight.

Before breakfast on the four days of celebration, many families sacrifice a goat at exactly 7:30. The simultaneous final bleets of hundreds of goats across the countryside is more than a little unsettling. After breakfast everyone dresses up and spends the morning visiting friends and family. A number of local friends and school staff were nice enough to invite me to some of their family affairs.

Every morning of the festival, all men dress in traditional Kanzu robe. One must be culturally appropriate…

In the afternoon and evening, the streets are annexed by the local child population. Children roam in small hoards, attempting to extract gifts from adults, usually candy or a small amount of money. It’s more or less four afternoons straight of Halloween, just without the costumes, (although the children are all dressed up very nicely). Instead of “trick or treat” the kids say “siku kuu yangu,” which means “my special day.” I learned damn fast that it was downright unsafe to leave my home in the afternoon without pockets stuffed full of candy.

When the sun went down, everyone in my area flocked to a large field that had been transformed into a carnival of sorts. It contained a number of food and toy stands, a picture taking booth, a closed off dance area, and many very jovial Zanzibarians. Picture the scene of an outdoor rock festival, and then just erase the drugs and alcohol, live music, and scantily clad women, (so basically, nothing like an outdoor rock festival I suppose). At the peak of each night I’d say the place packed in about two thousand people. Two thousand or so Africans, and one very white American. Oddly enough, although I’m sure I looked ridiculous, at no point did I feel out of place, (well… except for when I ventured into the dance zone, but I’ll get to that in a minute). Everyone was more than friendly to me, and I honestly had a very good time. Sure I had no idea what half the things people said to me meant, but I don’t think they knew that. Good ol’ smile and nod… it works every time.

The only real casualty of the festival was a small portion my dignity, (most of which I left behind in college anyway, so what’s one more small piece really?). On one of the festival nights I made the less than wise decision to check out the dance area. When I first entered, things were pretty much what I expected. The dance “floor,” (which was made of sand), was packed with a few hundred, mostly male, children and young adults all dancing very energetically. The place had a fairly decent sound system, which blasted almost exclusively East African hip-hop and Shakira… Tanzanians have an undying love for Shakira. I entered and, (at least I first thought), inconspicuously found myself a nice dark corner to quietly watch the chaos. Actually… I’m sorry, I was being a bit overly modest there. Truth be told, I didn’t just watch. I busted out a totally sweet dance move I’ve spent many years perfecting: the slouching-white-guy-with-hands-in-pockets understated head nod. Dig it.

Well, it seems that my sizzlin’ moves made it impossible for me to maintain anonymity for long. After a little while of rocking out I managed to acquire an audience of a few dozen children. After a little while longer, a bunch of teenagers filled in behind the kids. Eventually, an enormous crowd surrounded me. They’d all stopped dancing and were just staring. The crowd made some room and motioned for me to come in and dance. I replied with the universal “naw, I’m cool” hand wave. At this point, some teenagers in the crowd recognized me and started shouting “Huyu ni Joshua. Anatoka Kalifornia!” – “This is Joshua. He’s from California!” Bad news for Joshua.

In the mind of the Tanzanian, California is the definition of cool, a land of movie stars and hip-hop gods. (Because no one has a clue what and where Maine is, I tell most people here I’m from California, which is partially true as I did go to college there). More and more of the crowd motioned for me to come forward and dance. They’d had only a taste of my killer moves, and oh they wanted more. I continued to play it cool, and the crowd grew and grew, shouting “Joshua!” the whole time. Eventually some local friends emerged and explained to me in broken English that everyone wanted to see some real California dance moves, (many of the teenagers here watch bootlegged discs of U.S. music videos obsessively, practicing the dances they see with their friends). This situation was not going to end anywhere good. If it’s not apparent from my rife boasting, I am a terrible dancer.

I muttered an excuse in nervous, mangled Swahili that I didn’t know East African music well enough. Bad call. Some of the boys ran up to the DJ, and after a few seconds some American music came on: (of course) Shakira’s “Hips don’t lie.” I’d have preferred the African stuff. My excuses had run out though, my time had come. By now more than half of the people at the dance had gathered ‘round, large portions of the crowd shouting some variation or another of “Joshua.” Well God damn, if a couple hundred Africans wanted to see some American dancing, who was I to deny them? A stiff drink would have been real nice at this point… but oh wait, cross that option off. Eventually I just sucked it up, muttered to myself “this is for all the mzungus out there,” and stepped forward. I went total gangsta. Heaven help any poor fool that got in my way.

Part of me would like to think that my "performance" was half-salvageable. I’m not THAT self-delusional, however, so I’ll admit that, more likely than not, the spectacle was utterly awful. Call me Napoleon Dynamite. When the song finished though, the crowd seemed satisfied enough, (although who honestly knows what they thought of my little train wreck). After I stepped back a bunch of people came over and tried to dance with me. At first it was just guys. Awkward. Then some of the teenage girls came over. Getting anywhere near involved with women in a conservative Muslim society is a big can of worms I definitely do not want to open, so I took this as my cue to exfiltrate.

In the days following my little display I’ve had a whole lot of people approach me on the street and bring up the night. My Swahili isn’t good enough to pick up on all of the nuances of what they’re saying, so for all I know they’re mocking me to my face. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt though. Zanzibarians are incredibly friendly after all. I think my ego, although maybe not my dignity, has remained intact.

Speaking of ego, Peace Corps service is truly unhealthy for keeping one modest. Simply by virtue of me being an American who speaks some Swahili, literally everyone wants to know me. The island gets a few tourists, but not a lot. Certainly not many who speak Swahili. I’ve been here for only a month and all ready if I’m within a kilometer of my home, children start pouring out of the woodwork shouting some variation of “Joshua!” Most of the time they get it right, although there are significant contingents who seem to think my name is “Joshwon” or “Just one.” Compared to the “mzungu!” shouts that children give most foreigners, (myself included for my first week or so here), “Just one” is just fine.

By the time I get to my home I’ve often accumulated a small army of local children walking and chatting with me. When walking downtown, I’m often hailed by townsfolk with dozens of shouts of “mwalimu,” which means teacher. Every day handfuls of adults and teenagers approach to me to practice English, and at least once every few days I get a marriage proposal of some sort or another. I’ve been here for a month. Sure, it’s nice to feel like a rock star every day, but it’s seriously undeserved. I’m not that cool. It’s also too bad it’s simply because I’m an American and not for the fact that I’m actually doing some good work in the community. Ah well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Eventually I’ll be back to comparative anonymity in the States. The other shoe always drops.

So, best wishes to those of you who actually made it all the way through this particularly long post, (what can I say? It’s been an eventful couple of weeks). I wish everyone a very happy start to the new year. And, again, thanks so much for those of you back home who have called and sent emails. You really have made my holiday season a whole lot nicer. Kwa heri 2006. Karibu 2007!

Have a little secret

I ain’t gonna tell

I’m goin’ to heaven and I ain’t goin’ to hell

Oh ladda me, didn’t I shake sugaree

Very strange experience the other day. I was standing in front of my house when an old woman walked by. I gave her the culturally appropriate “shikamoo,” (Swahili has a whole range of formal greetings, shikamoo being the most respectful greeting given to the elderly), and she responded with the appropriate “marahaba.” We chatted in Swahili for a few minutes and she let on that she was a relative of my next-door neighbors. After a bit she then went over to visit her family. A couple minutes later she and her family walked by my house to go wherever it was that they were going. I said hello to the family, and told the old woman that it’d been nice to meet her. She responded with some kooky hand gestures and face twitches, and one of the men in the group explained to me that she was a “bubu” and that I shouldn’t try speaking to her. Bubu means mute. He explained that she’d had a fever as a child and hasn’t been able to speak since. I tried to convince him that I’d just spoken with her, but he just kept repeating his story… probably convinced that I just didn’t understand his Swahili. The group then went on their way. Bizarre.

There are a few explanations I’ve come up with, although none are particularly good. Her affliction could be one that comes and goes, and after she spoke to me perhaps she lost the ability to speak again temporarily? Her whole family could have just decided to mess with the mzungu (means white person or foreigner) neighbor’s head? Or maybe, just maybe, the woman has been faking her muteness her whole life and occasionally talks to the random person who she knows can’t blow her cover? Honestly though, beats me. I suppose she could have just been a witchdoctor. As my father said after I told him the story, “Two words, Josh: Move. On.” He’s a wise man.

And yes, you read right. I did say witchdoctor. My island is notorious for its voodoo, and I am told people flock from all over the world to learn from the witchdoctor masters here. I’m living in the voodoo Mecca. Kinda cool, huh? After being outside at night a couple times I can definitely see why this place is thought to channel some serious black magic. The island has giant bats, a primeval jungle with sections that have never been cut down, a nightly low mist that rolls off the ocean over the empty roads and fields, foot long millipedes, bush babies (which are small, freakish looking monkeys with giant eyes who come out at night and make truly unnerving shrieks), spice smuggler and pirate hide outs, and packs of roaming dogs (people here are convinced that dogs are shapeshifters, so between that and the Muslim bias against dogs, the local dogs dare only to come out at night). The island also played a major role in the East Africa slave trade and old Indian Ocean spice trade. Some serious suffering took place in this island’s past. Now, I’m not saying I believe in voodoo. I’m just saying that if it does exist, my spice island here would be the place. I’m also sure as hell not going to declare outright that I don’t believe in it. Coming home with a witchdoctor’s curse for nonbelievers is not what I had in mind when I signed up for the Peace Corps.

Technically, practicing voodoo is illegal here. It was outlawed by a Zanzibar president years back. The story goes that his witchdoctor told him his career would eventually be ruined by a magic curse. Apparently, outlawing all witchery seemed like the logical solution. Talk about something out of a Greek tragedy! I’d go ahead and guess that more than a few local witchdoctors were angered by having their jobs forced underground by the feds, so as a result the president probably ended up with a fair share of gnarly curses. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite voodoo being illegal though, (and the 98% Muslim statistic), I’m told it’s still widely believed in and practiced. Heck, I walk by a witchdoctor’s shop every day when I walk into town. Nice guy, we chat it up from time to time. Animal tarps, bones, stick sculptures, and a whole lot of crazy stuff in jars line the shop walls. And this is an established shop in one of the island’s more modern towns. I don’t even want to know what kind of crazy shit goes down out in the villages and jungle.

In other news, we’ve had a serious heat wave lately. Well over 100 degrees in the afternoon. Real humid too. Last night at 11:30 when I went to bed the thermometer clocked in at 89. My area of town’s also been without electricity and water for the past 3 days. It’s a pretty bad scene in Josh land right now. It’s so hot that I’m drenched in sweat after spending 10 seconds outside, and I have no water to shower with or electricity to power a fan. Things are looking up today though! I did manage to finally get clean this morning by taking a shower in some rain in my courtyard. I’ve also just been told that I should be getting power and water back tomorrow. Maybe I should go ask the witchdoctor?

So, happy holidays everyone! If there’s any snow at all where you are, roll around in it. And while you're at it, hug a pine tree. Do it for me. Siku kuu njema!

Now I’ve been happy lately,

thinking about the good things to come

And I believe it could be,

something good has begun

No seriously, this IS bat country. My island, (whose name, again, I am unable to disclose due to Peace Corps policies), has these critters called flying foxes. They’re not actually foxes though, just incredibly enormous bats. My first evening here I saw some flying overhead and mistook them for hawks. I was corrected by my neighbor, who proceeded to then explain that if one ever gets near me I should hit it as hard as I can, because sometimes they get rabid and attack people. Fun. Good thing Peace Corps vaccinates against rabies. U.S. tax dollars hard at work!

It’s been a long, long week, but I’m finally settling into my home. I’m living in half of a fairly large cement duplex, (another teacher at my school lives in the other half with her husband and children). I have my own living room, porch, courtyard, kitchen, a couple of storerooms, and (of course) choo. My bedroom is fairly large, and I have 2 empty guestrooms, (any brave visitors are more than welcome!).

I’m told my home was formerly occupied by a Canadian VSO volunteer a few years back. It definitely hasn’t been lived in for a good couple of years now, as it was rocking the boarded-up basement smell when I first arrived. I’ve been airing it out though, and it’s getting a lot better. Moving in has been a slow and tedious process. Aside from a few chairs and a bed, the house was completely empty when I arrived. Needless to say, I’m getting (I think) pretty good at bartering for various things in town.

I’ve already made some very good contacts in town, and am starting to get situated at my school. There’s a huge need for computer knowledge here, as NGO’s have been pouring computers and technology into Africa during the last couple years, but have completely neglected the task of educating people in how to actually use the damn machines. I’ve got my work cut out for me, no doubt, but it will definitely be rewarding. Everyone here is really eager to learn about computers and the Internet, so student motivation is definitely not going to be an issue. It does turn out though that I’ll be doing a good amount of teaching in Swahili, as English seems to be less common here than on the mainland. It’s gonna be a steep learning curve for sure, but I have faith in my ability to conjure creative hand gestures in the meantime.

Cooking’s been the major challenge so far. When I come home I’m completely wiped out from running around all day in the heat , and the prospect of cooking dinner with a kerosene stove is more than a little daunting. Because of the lack of refrigeration food needs to be bought no more than a day before it is eaten, so cooking here takes a lot of planning. I’ll get the hang of it soon I’m sure, but right now I’m struggling a bit. Buying food is an experience in and of itself, as it requires going to the town market and bartering like a madman.

Speaking of town, I live in a pretty unique place. The town is an active port, so all sorts of goods are readily available. Staple foods from mainland Tanzania come by boat once a week and we get all manner of exotic foods and spices from all over the Indian Ocean. The island also grows a lot of spice, the major export being cloves. When evening breezes pick up, the whole island smells miraculous. Combine that with the almost supernatural sounding prayers echoing out of the (many) mosques, and the island possesses a very undeniable ambience.

The people here have been incredibly inviting as well. In recent years America has cultivated somewhat of a prejudice regarding Islam, so being a non-Muslim American arriving on an almost entirely Muslim island, I was a little bit nervous. Only a few days in, I’m already embarrassed about the preconceptions I had coming in. Everyone’s been very friendly and welcoming (dare I say, even more so than on the mainland), especially when they realize that I speak some Swahili. The culture here is so very rich, I really feel fortunate to be immersed in such a place.

After 10 weeks of being more or less on the road, it’s finally nice to be home. It’s not going to be an easy two years by any means, but something tells me it’s going to fly by. Until next time, salama.

My host family

Zanzibar islanders at the swearing in ceremony

It was tasty

Philly Staging roomies, happy to be done with training

Because she asked so nicely, this one's for Kit's mom

I don't really know what's going on here

Peace Corps puts a lot of effort into swearing in

These guys roam the earth whenever it rains. If they get scared they spray acid. This one is pretty small too. Karibu Tanzania!

Me and Cynthia

Nazia and Kavisa, making me look tall

I'm not really sure what Kris is wearing...

So long, Morogoro

P.S. I've safely arrived on my island. Settling in is proving to be a slow process, but I'll get there. The people here have been wonderful so far, and the staff at my school is great. My house needs a bit of work, but in a month's time I should be fine. I've been super busy this past week, but when I get a chance I'll post a real update.

You’re sick of hangin’ around and you’d like to travel;

Get tired of travelin’ and you want to settle down.

I guess they can’t revoke your soul for trying,

Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me;

Other times I can barely see.

Lately it occurs to me

what a long, strange trip it’s been.

What a week! Following the Kiswahili language exam a week ago all us trainees were bused off all over the country for shadow visits. Craig and I were lucky enough to stay with current PCV Eric up in Moshi. The above picture of Kilimanjaro is from his front yard. Pretty unbeatable. The mountain is utterly awe inspiring. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to climb it at some point.

It was really nice getting out of the heat of Morogoro for a few days, and Eric was an excellent host. Seeing an actual volunteer living and working out in the field was really reassuring as well. I think it’ll be a great two years.

Following shadow visits Craig and I bused it down to Dar es Salaam. It was a 9 hour trip on a very hot and stuffy bus. Not. Fun. At least we got to see a large portion of the countryside though. From the protection of the bus I was able to take some pictures of typical places I visit but normally never dare to bring my camera. Here’s a shot of a small town shopping center, (called dukani in Kiswahili). Most small towns in Tanzania have sections that look pretty similar to this. Morogoro has a number of them. They always carry lots of good, basic items. They also happen to be useful for keeping a pulse on some of the more colorful local slang.

As enjoyable as Moshi was, Dar was where the real excitement of the week took place. The suspense of site announcements has been growing since pretty much week one of training. It’s not surprising that we all were really anxious to know where we’d be spending the next 2 years of our lives. The big day did not disappoint.

The Peace Corps Tanzania staff put an enormous map of the country outside displaying the pictures and locations of all the current volunteers in Tanzania. One by one, the country director called the names of our training group. She announced each person’s site, and we then each went up and pinned our picture up near our location. I gotta say, it was pretty damn exciting.

As I wrote in my last entry, I’ll be going to a remote post in the Zanzibar Islands. I’m told my house is right near the beach, and is it just a short walk away from my school. I should get some really nice Indian Ocean trade winds, which will hopefully save me from the extraordinary heat and humidity, (which are significantly worse than Morogoro apparently).

The Zanzibar Islands were originally the portal to Africa in the Indian Ocean spice trade. The early form of the Kiswahili language was created by the Zanzibar traders in an effort to standardize the Bantu dialects of the mainland so that Arab and African traders could communicate. Needless to say, the culture and history of the place is incredibly rich. The Zanzibar Islands are almost entirely Muslim, so it seems that I’ll be more or less living the Muslim lifestyle for 2 years. Talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I’ll be working at a college of education, teaching computers to the students and staff. Apparently the school just acquired a decent number of new computers along with network and satellite internet equipment. By teaching computers to the future teachers of Tanzania, I hope to make a pretty decent impact. I’ll also have the task of setting up a network and the internet. I’ll then have the next 2 years to train the teachers and staff to repair and maintain the system. It’ll be challenging, but really rewarding I hope.

There’s one other education volunteer assigned to my island, although we’re being placed on opposite tips. Here’s Mike and I trying, (keyword being trying), to look appropriately badass, (we are going to one of the most remote Peace Corps Tanzania locations after all).

The photo was taken at the U.S. Ambassador’s house during the big Thanksgiving bash. The Ambassador was more than generous in allowing all of the Peace Corps staff, volunteers, and trainees in Tanzania to crash his front yard for a feast of epic proportions. After subsisting on mostly rice and beans for the last 2 months, I almost got tears in my eyes when I sat down to spend some quality time with my turkey platter. It was so very good. You don’t even know.

Richard, Kit, Cynthia, and I were appropriately pleased after gorging ourselves. Richard’s site will be exactly where Craig and I visited for our shadow visit earlier in the week. The man’s got a straight shot of the mountain from his doorstep. This is his 3rd tour with the Peace Corps, so I guess he’s earned it. Kit and Cynthia will be in the north near Kilimanjaro as well. The three of them are not a terribly far journey from my site, but my being on an island will make travel a little difficult. They were all great friends during training, and I’ll miss them a lot. I do plan on visiting the mainland whenever possible, however, so I should see them from time to time. Meanwhile, Craig is going down to the Southern Highlands, so he’ll be a serious trek away.

As for now, we’re all back in Morogoro for the last week of training. Next Friday, everyone heads off to the toughest jobs we’ll ever love, (old Peace Corps slogan… sorry, I couldn’t help myself). I’ve got to say, I am thrilled about where I’m going. It will truly be the adventure of a lifetime.

We got our site announcements on Tuesday. I'll be spending the next two years at a college on the Zanzibar islands. Peace Corps policy does not allow anyone to announce their exact location over website or blog, so I'm not able to disclose the exact island or school here. If you'd like to know exactly where I'm going just shoot me an email.

Needless to say I am more than excited. Two years on a tropical island that was once a center of the Indian Ocean spice trade. It's 95% Muslim, and because the site is away from any tourist areas everyone is apparently very friendly. Talk about the cultural experience of a lifetime. Because the island is mostly Muslim, many religious Muslim rules are considered law. For instance, during Ramadan it is illegal to drink or eat anything in public. It's going to be an amazing 2 years.

I'm in the Peace Corps headquarters right now, and I'm about to head over to the ambassador's house for some tasty foods so I have to keep this really short.

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

If there was a better way to go then it would find me. I can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me. Be kind to me… or treat me mean. I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine.

Last Friday was the last day of language training. With only two more weeks left until we’re sworn in and shipped off to our sites, training’s finally starting to wind down. Peace Corps has been a hell of a ride so far, certainly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Training went by at a breakneck pace, which although exhausting, in retrospect I think was very intelligently designed. Being here in these first few months can be utterly overwhelming, and by keeping us super busy the Peace Corps does a good job at getting us out of our own heads.

Seven weeks ago we arrived in an entirely foreign land with a culture we knew very little about, and were dropped into host families who spoke minimal (if any) English. I knew essentially no Kiswahili, (I knew how to say hello and thank you… my grand summer aspirations of learning a decent portion of the language didn’t exactly pan out). To call the last seven weeks a culture shock would be a vast understatement. The towns and landscape looks like nothing I’d seen outside of National Geographic, and while the people are extremely friendly it’s truly impossible to avoid attention absolutely everywhere I go. I’m constantly stopped on the street and bombarded with questions about where I’m from, and what the hell I’m doing in Tanzania. 95% of the time, this is really great. I enjoy meeting the people here, and for most of them I’m the first American they’ve ever met. It’s a very cool experience. Sometimes though, when I’m really tired and just want to get home and lie down, having to stop every 5 minutes and answer the same set of questions to every new person I pass on the road can be exhausting.

The majority of my time here has been really rewarding though. My Swahili is coming surprisingly rapidly (while disastrously awkward at first, total immersion works wonders), I’ve gotten used to the heat (as much as a Maine boy can anyway), and my body seems to finally have acclimated to the food. There are days when everything seems to come together, and I wouldn’t trade that feeling of “wow, I can’t believe I’m actually pulling this off!” for anything.

Of course, with the good there’s also some bad. I’ve been sick some, this past week especially. I spent a good part of the week feeling exactly like terrible. The general consensus among the medical staff here thinks it was a minor case of malaria. Luckily the meds I’m on seem to have done the trick. Spending five days sweating bullets while trapped in my bed was not particularly pleasant. Being really sick for the first time so far away from home gets to anyone’s head I imagine. I went through a whole reevaluation of why I’m here, and my fever afflicted brain really put up a good fight. It certainly didn’t seem to accept most answers I tried to provide. Definitely had a few despairing moments back there. Luckily, as the fever broke clarity returned.

It’s hard sometimes during the thick of training to remember exactly why I’m here, as it seems kind of silly at face value to be teaching computer science in a country plagued by larger environmental, endemic health, and economic problems. I definitely do feel like I have a good purpose though. There is a strong need here for information technology. Tanzanians are amazingly excited about the potential of computers, and in a world of rapid globalization computer technology really does have the potential to help East Africa make some very significant steps forward. I have no false aspirations of saving the world or anything grandeur like that, but I do feel like the engineering and teaching I do on site will make some worthwhile impacts. Time will tell I suppose.

Speaking of site, only one week remains until I find out exactly where I’ll be spending the next two years! All the trainees are getting pretty eager at this point… it feels like we’ve been waiting forever. There are four ICT (information and communication technology) trainees in our group, and we are pretty confident that we’ve deduced the 4 sites where we’ll be going. We just don’t know who’s going where yet. It does sound like some pretty prime real estate though: two of the sites are on the island of Zanzibar, apparently home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world; one site is near Mbeya, a town way up in the cloud based rainforests of the southern highlands; and the last site is at a university in Moshi, literally on the base slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. No one ever said being a geek didn’t have its benefits.

I’ll actually be heading up to Moshi this Thursday, as Wednesday marks the last day of training in Morogoro. Thursday through Sunday each trainee will be living with a current volunteer for a shadow session. Following that we’ll be going straight to Dar es Salaam for site announcements and Thanksgiving at the U.S. Ambassador’s house. Should be a rockin’ good time.

While I’m in the nostalgic mode, here are some random photos from throughout training, (I actually got these from Kit and Greg’s cameras, so I have to give credit where credit is due). This first one is from our last night in the U.S. A bunch of us went out on the town in Philly. A good time was had by all. It is strange thinking about staging though… it feels like a lifetime ago.

Here’s one of Richard, Kris, Jon, and I during training on a particularly hot and unpleasant afternoon, (we all look fabulous, no?):

This is Paulo, my small group’s fearless language trainer. He was an amazing teacher. Our group was really lucky to have him. Funny, funny guy too.

And here are a couple sneaky shots Kit caught of me on the bus in Mikumi. The ‘rents have been pestering me for pictures that actually prove I’m reasonably healthy, so here you go!

And finally, last week a group of us visited a local brick making operation. The place was pretty neat. Brick pyramids as far as the eye could see… literally for acres. The site has been in operation for more than 30 years. Super Mario, anyone?

This will most likely be my last real entry for a good couple of weeks. I’ll try to post a quick announcement of where my site is as soon as I find out, but I don’t expect to have significant Internet access until after Thanksgiving. So, happy early Turkey-day everyone! You all have my very best. Siku kuu njema! (Have a great holiday!)

This past weekend our training group went on a safari at Mikumi National Park, about 3 hours south of Morogoro. It was absolutely spectacular. We were lucky enough to see most of the major animals. We saw elephants, zebras, wildebeests, water buffalo, monkeys, antelope, and giraffes. I tried to take a good number of pictures, but I found I enjoyed myself most when I had the camera turned off. Kinda seems silly to look at animals through an LCD screen when they’re right in front of you, and it’s not like I’m exactly going to compete with National Geographic. That said, I did manage to get a number of decent shots. Most of these pictures speak for themselves, so I’ll keep the rambling to a minimum.

Zebras were everywhere. Bold as can be too, they’d often walk right up to the bus.

One of the watering holes we stopped at was filled with hippos. Hippos are not small. They are also inherently hilarious. I couldn’t stop chuckling for most of the time I was watching them. They just kind of float around all day, and occasionally make a prehistoric sounding snort. They look really docile, and maybe even a little cute. It became abundantly clear to us just how dangerous the critters are though when the lone 15-foot crocodile in the pond bolted away in fear from one of the grunting hippos. Unfortunately, the hippos and crocodile didn’t come above the water for very long, so it was hard to get a decent picture of them. All my attempts came out looking like floating logs. So, instead you get this sweet picture of me fearlessly standing in front of the death pond! You’ll just have to take my word though that it’s filled with hippos and a croc.

This next one is my favorite photo.

This is an Acacia tree. The branches are covered in super sharp 4 inch spikes. Africa: even the trees are made to kick your ass.

Being the knuckleheads that we are, we of course resorted to sneak attack spiking one another with fallen Acacia quills. Hey, we can’t be mature ALL the time. Poor Allen here just incurred Conor’s wrath. Conor’s face of pure sinister joy is priceless.

A few random photos now:

Peace Corps Trainee Neil looking especially prepared to take on whatever the safari throws his way.

Chacos and Peace Corps service go hand in hand.

This is Kit, a very good friend of mine from training. It really is hard to take a bad photo in Africa.

We closed out the day by all relaxing in the shade of an enormous baobab tree. Standing beside an ancient African tree while watching dusk settle over the grasslands, it’s hard not to be touched. I was flooded with a great sense of peace. This last month has been incredibly challenging. It was really nice having all the built up stress and fatigue just kind of wash away into the sunset.

Apologies in advance for how disjointed this post is. My time at the computer today is very limited, so I'm going to mostly focus on getting my photos to upload, (which is a serious task).

The big excitement last weekend was my (I like to think) courageous attempt at baking a cake. We don't have an oven, but by putting a smaller pot inside a larger one, and by putting coals on top of and beneath the large pot, I was able to make a convection oven. The name sounds a lot more complicated than the contraption actually ended up being. The family was definitely amused while I was putting the thing together though. I managed to buy some Pillsbury cake mix at the local import store, (cost me a pretty penny), so mixing the cake was really easy. I was not entirely confident that the baking process was going to work at all though, so man oh man was I relieved when the yard started to fill with the smell of chocolate cake. It took forever to cook. The shack was hot as hot can be. The cake itself ended up being a little burned around the edges. But damn, it was so good. I wanted to cry it was so good.

So, definitely something to check off on the list of things I never expected to do in my lifetime: baking a chocolate cake in a pot on a charcoal stove in the middle of East Africa.

While I was waiting for the cake to bake I took some pictures of the yard and family. Here's a shot of my host mama washing dishes:

Last Saturday we had our weekly group training session, and afterwards we got a chance to go to a local pub and hang out for awhile. We get very few chances to unwind, so the chance to just sit around over a couple beers was pretty great.

We managed to get a group shot of most of us last Saturday. We've only lost one trainee so far, (and he left within 12 hours of arriving in Dar es Salaam), so we're at an even 40 now. Not bad at all.

Our Saturday training sessions have a habit of dragging a bit near the end. Here's a shot of me and Cynth messing around in the back of the room. I think we were trying to be thugs or something. Honestly, who knows? Let's see YOU try to be attentive after 9 hours of lectures on cross cultural exchange.

This coming weekend's looking like it's going to be awesome though. To celebrate the half-way point in training Peace Corps is giving us the weekend off. Tomorrow we're all going on a safari in Mikumi National Park, which is I'm told about 3 hours away. I am ridiculously excited. I've been in Africa for over a month and have yet to see any elephants, zebras, or lions. Tomorrow, that's going to change. Hopefully I'll have some good photos to upload next week. Wikiendi njema kila mtu! (Have a great weekend everyone!)

Yesterday marked the one-month anniversary of my being in the Peace Corps’ loving clutches. It’s been one hell of a month. I’m now about halfway through training, and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been a little hard. We put in some seriously long days. About 5 hours of Kiswahili class five days a week, followed by teaching training in the afternoon. Just recently we’ve started teaching at internship schools as well. We then have safety and health training (with a few vaccinations thrown in for good measure… by the end of training we’re vaccinated against 15 different nasty diseases) all day on Saturdays. I’m really looking forward to being on site and having more than just a few hours a week to stop and breathe.

Due to popular demand, here are some pictures of my home stay. Here’s my bedroom. Note the handy mosquito net (no malaria for me thanks!) and the lantern (Tanzanian electricity is unreliable at best).

Here’s a photo of Baraka (which in Swahili means “in faith”), one of the little boys who lives in the house. He’s about 2 years old and is an absolute blast to have around. Aside from just being entertaining, he’s also a walking dictionary. He speaks no English, naturally, but all I have to do is point at something and he’ll bust out the (I hope) appropriate Kiswahili word. He follows me around the house all the time. Occasionally I’ll try to wow him with one of the amateur magic tricks I learned from a friend at college, and he seems to let it go whenever I mess up (which is most of the time). He’s a great kid all around.

Here’s a photo from just down the road from where I’m staying. They are the best of friends:

All in all I’m having a great home stay experience. My family is very patient with my Swahili, and they are teaching me a whole lot about how to cook here, (which’ll be damn important in about 4 ½ weeks). This past Sunday I cooked grilled cheese and egg sandwiches for the whole family. They absolutely loved it. I’m not a good cook by any stretch of the imagination, but with enough butter any grilled sandwich is mind-blowingly tasty. Here’s a shot of the shack where we cook and store food and chickens. Those are orange trees next to the building. Oddly enough, the oranges here are green. They taste exactly like American oranges… they’re just green. They’re still called oranges though. Even in Swahili, the word for the orange fruit and the color orange are the same. Go figure…

Speaking of chickens…. in the afternoon this past Sunday I was given the task of butchering one of our roosters. This was the first time I’d ever killed something I was about to eat, so I was a little nervous. My home stay brother (named Jonas) and I carried the bird out around the side of the shack and held it down. This was no small rooster. Easily bigger than Baraka, it was damn hefty. We stood on its wings and feet, and then I was given the knife. At this point most of the family gathered around, clearly amused by the clueless mzungu (means white person) and hapless kuku (means chicken). I was shown where to cut, and after bringing the knife down it was abundantly obvious that the knife was really really dull. We’re talking butter knife dull. The next 30 seconds were not particularly pleasant. I had to use most of my strength to saw the bird’s head off. The poor kuku really did not have a good day. Also interesting was how long it took to die. It must have taken a good 1 or 2 minutes after the head came off. Not pretty. After this we took it to the shack where we plucked its feathers, cut it up, and tossed it in a pot. While I managed to come out of the experience surprisingly unscathed, I’ve definitely gained a new appreciation for what goes into preparing meat.

While I’m on the death theme, I’ll throw in this picture just because I like it. There are many old graveyards in Morogoro, and this one is particularly striking:

All in all though, life right now is good. I’ve finally gotten into a nice rhythm with training, my Swahili is coming along well, and every day I get to walk for more than an hour amidst truly breathtaking views of the mountains and the countryside. Aside from the occasional stomach affliction and painfully hot afternoons, I really can’t complain at all. Hope everyone at home is doing well. Kwa heri na siku njema. (Take care and have a great day.)

except for me and my monkey

Peace Corps Tanzania trainees are broken into groups of 4 for the majority of training. Each group is assigned an internship school where we take intensive language classes and practice teaching to actual students. The school I'm training at has a monkey that lives on the grounds. I had to work pretty hard to get a PG shot of the thing, as the damn critter has a delightful habit of performing unfortunate sexual acts on itself whenever someone stops to stare at it.

The school I'm interning at is really nice though. The kids are incredibly well behaved, and they are more than a little excited about us being there. Whenever I walk into a classroom you'd think I was the Beatles (yes, all 4). The place kids just get that excited. It is good having a chance to interact with the kids this early in the game though, and attempts at practice teaching have gone really well so far. I'm really looking forward to teaching on site in a few months. Every morning the really young ones are released to run once around the field by the school. It's called the daily "mchaka mchaka." The site of about 100 little African children in their red uniforms screaming and laughing while they blast around a school field is pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I'll try to get a picture of it soon.

In other news, the weather here has been scorching. It's the beginning of the summer, and while I'm lucky enough to be in a relatively dry part of the country, it is still painfully hot once afternoon rolls around. Summer in ecuatorial Africa... gotta love it. The walk home every day after school is pretty brutal, (it's about a 30-45 minute hike in the heat, depending on how many people I stop to talk with on the way... which is usually a lot, as Tanzanians are big on the greeting thing). It is a beautiful route though. Red dirt roads through villages and palm tree groves.

I'm pretty entranced by Mount Uluguru too, I'm really hoping to get a chance to climb it at some point. Apparently there's a cloud-based rainforest near the top. Far out.

I'll dig a tunnel

from my window to yours,

yeah a tunnel from my window to yours.

You climb out the chimney

and meet me in the middle,

the middle of the town.

And since there's no one else around,

we let our hair grow long

and forget all we used to know

UPDATE: Ok, so it turns out the best way to reach me is to dial +011 255 773 430 916 (if you're dialing from outside the US). If that fails, the one listed below should work... probably. African cell phone networks, gotta love em.

Who knew, but Morogoro has a cell phone signal. I got out a bit early from training today and went and bought a super cheapo phone. I'm not sure if I'll have reception when I'm actually on site, but for now I'm back in the network. My number is:

0773 430 916

The country code is 255 (I think).

I can't make calls out of country, but I can receive them. There are some pretty cheap calling cards out there, so if you absolutely can't live without hearing my voice give me a call. Just remember that I'm 7 hours ahead of East Coast time.

I wake up usually at 5:30am, and go to bed at 9:30. I walk to the school I'm training at between 7:15am and 8:00. (It's about 3 miles) That'd be a great time to give me a ring. On the flip side, I get out of training at about 5:00 pm.

In other news, I did my laundry by hand for the first time on Sunday. Washing machines are my new favorite invention. The soap they use here burns your hands, and you have to scrub unbelievably hard to do a decent cleaning job. It took me about 2 hours to wash 3 tshirts, 2 button down shirts, and 2 pairs of pants. Bad. Times. My hands and wrists are still raw. My hands are going to be super gnarly by the time I come back stateside. Either that or I'm going to splurge and hire someone to do my laundry for me. Probably the latter. 2 hours of chemical burn every Sunday is not a particularly endearing proposal.

I also saw the fattest rooster ever while walking to training this morning. Holy god this thing was huge. I'll try to get a picture of it at some point. This thing will blow your mind. I know it made my day. (Yes, this is the type of excitement I've been reduced to. If you think this is bad, just wait 2 years.)

And now, I'm off. I hope to hear from some of you.

Kwa heri!

What a long, strange trip it's been.

It's only been 10 days since I arrived in Tanzania, and I couldn't even begin to describe everything that's happened since I've been here. I'm finally starting to feel settled here at my host house, and I think I'm starting to get the basics of Kiswahili down. The people in Morogoro have been wonderful, and it's an absolutely beautiful town. It's at the base of a spectacular mountain called Mlima Uluguru. A tribe of monkeys is known to live in the woods near my home. I've seen a couple of them so far. I'm definitely not in Maine anymore...

This week's been one hell of a ride. We finished up staging in Dar es Salaam last weekend. In Dar we got to meet all of our support staff in Tanzania, as well as a couple active volunteers. Strangely enough, I've met two other Mainers already: one is a current volunteer from Waterville, the other is a member of the Peace Corps Tanzania staff hailing from the County. We spent 2 days in Dar getting stuck full of needles and crash coursed on Peace Corps Tanzania basics. Here's some of us at the Peace Corps Tanzania headquarters:

Conor and Mike were my roommates during staging, and Dick (the older fellow) is in my language training group here in Morogoro. This is Dick's 3rd round with Peace Corps (Iran in the 60s, and Samoa a couple years ago). Talk about hardcore. He's one of the other ICT volunteers, so we'll be doing most of our training together. I'm sure I'll be able to learn a whole lot from the guy.

After finishing up in Dar we took a bus to Morogoro. This was my first real chance to see the Tanzania I'd been expecting. Driving out of Dar and seeing the city fade to countryside was amazing. You're going to hear me saying this a lot, so get used to it: Tanzania is beautiful.

We arrived at the training facility in Morogoro in the afternoon, and immediately after arriving we were met with a traditional African dance. Despite how deliriously tired we all were, (between the let lag, frayed nerves, and utter lack of sleep we were all pretty messed up at this point), most of us got pretty into the dance.

We spent 2 days training in the Morogoro facility learning basic Swahili and the main health issues to worry about (boil, cook, or peel everything, pit toilets suck but you'll get used to them, and don't go swimming... ever). After that, it was off to our host families. I don't think I've ever been more anxious in my entire life than I was on the dala dala (bus) ride over... (think first-date-ever anxious). I'm sure I made a ridiculous impression on my host family when I first arrived. I was sweating bullets, stuttering, and what little Swahili I thought I knew decided to completely and utterly vanish from my head. It was prettymuch a train wreck all around. (After talking to the other trainees though, we all had more or less similar experiences. It's a rite of passage I guess.)

I hope to have more pictures of where I'm living posted soon, but I don't want to look like a tourist in the first week here. These are going to be an interesting but really challenging 10 weeks of training. The other trainees are a great bunch, and I'm going to really enjoy going through this with them. I think it'll be really hard to say goodbye to them when we ship off to our actual sites.

That said, all in all I'm doing well. I couldn't be happier about being here. Hamna shida! (That's the Tanzanian equivalent of hakuna matata).

Well, I'm in Tanzania. It took about 24 hours of travelling between leaving Philly and arriving at the Peace Corps center in Dar es Salaam. The internet connection is really slow here, and there's a huge line to use the computer so I'm keeping this brief. I'm having a great time so far. My fellow volunteers are awesome, and Tanzania is absolutely beautiful. Tomorrow we're heading over to Morogoro (about a 3 hour bus ride west from the Coast I'm told) and I'll move in with a host family. Morogoro will be my home during training for the next 10 weeks. Should be really exciting.

Hopefully I'll have time to put up a longer post soon, but it looks like we're all going to be super busy for the next couple of weeks. Hope everyone back home is doing well.

Kwa heri.

So, for the next three months while I'm in training my mailing address will be:

Joshua Stern, PCT

Peace Corps Training Site

PO Box 9123

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Letters and packages will earn you a special place in my heart.

If you'd like postcards from me, email me your mailing address.

Here's some amusing mailing advice from one of the many Peace Corps guides out there:

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

"Leaves are falling all around,

It's time I was on my way.

Thanks to you, I'm much obliged

For such a pleasant stay."

One week from right now I'll have just landed in Africa. I leave for staging in Philly on Monday, and board a plane for Tanzania Wednesday evening. 19 hours later I'll land in Dar es Salaam and the adventure begins. The next 4 days are going to be extraordinarily hectic. There are so many people I need to say goodbye to, and I still have to do the whole packing thing. We're only allowed to bring 80 pounds with us, so some last minute duffel bag olympics will undoubtedly be occurring Sunday night.

Shopping this last week proved especially entertaining. Tanzania has a very formal dress code for teachers, so I had to buy a bunch of light but durable shirts and khakis. Explaining that I was leaving for the Peace Corps in Africa in a week produced a number of amusing reactions from salespeople. Most seemed to think what I was doing was cool, but I did get a surprising number of "oh man... I'm sorry" responses followed by a classic you're-going-to-die stare. Gear shopping at the L.L. Bean factory store was the highlight though. I have an undying love for all things L.L. Bean, and having an excuse to spend hours geeking out over the various survival gadgets they have there was incredible. I ended up leaving with a bunch of great loot. Reason held me back from buying the "largest and most dangerous knife Bean's sells" (salesman's words), but I did pick up a smaller more versatile blade. Oh, and apparently it's bulletproof. Seriously. Bulletproof! If apocalypse ever seems on the horizon, move to Maine. Thanks to the L.L. Bean factory store, Mainers will all survive.

Speaking of gadgets, I'm also bringing a solar powered iPod charger I found online. This thing is ridiculously cool. www.solio.com. I finally got a chance to test it out this week and it works like a charm. It made me feel dirty, like I was channeling some sort of black magic.

So aside from packing up all my gear and clothes, I plan on spending the next few days saying goodbye to as many people as possible. I said g'bye to my sister Libby last weekend. She's a junior at Brown, and it's strange to think that the next time I'll see her she'll have graduated college. She's a truly remarkable girl, and I'll miss her dearly. I also saw my grandmother for probably the last time ever last week. She's quite sick right now, so it's highly unlikely that she'll still be around in 2 years. Who knows though, she could surprise us all. My father jokes that she'll outlive him. The woman is almost 90 and has survived 2 bouts of cancer and three heart attacks. Unstoppable. I'm also sad about saying farewell to Toonces, our family's cat. He's getting on in years, (15), and is starting to slow down. I'll miss the little guy to death.

So I have no doubt that this week is going to fly by. I'm trying to get in touch with as many friends as possible over the next couple days, but if you're reading this and I haven't given you a call yet shoot me a line. While I hope to fit in a short visit to the States during my service, the possibility of this is by no means definite. This very well could be my last week in the U.S. for 27 months. Surreal.

"Hamana nale kui,

Nale kui."

Here we go round,

Go round.

- a Hadza dance

Welcome to my Peace Corps blog! Only 4 weeks left until I ship out. Until then I'll be home in Maine trying to relax, learn some Swahili, and desperately figure out what my 80 pounds of luggage should consist of.

On September 18th I fly down to Philadelphia for staging, which from what I can tell consists of three days of shots, crash courses on "what not to do in Africa," and frayed nerves.

On the 20th all the volunteers in my training group are flown to Tanzania's port city Dar es Salaam. From there I'll have three months of intense language, technical, and survival training at a Peace Corps facility. For this period I'll be living with a local host family. I never got a chance to do the overseas study/home stay thing while in college, (engineering major), so I'm really looking forward to this part.

Training ends in December, and the volunteers scatter to their various posts. Two years of living on my own in Africa with minimal, (if any), running water and electricity. It’ll be a challenge, for sure… but I’m sure I’ll get into the rhythm of things. As for the work I'll be doing, my official assignment is "information and communication technology education and development." I'm sure I won't have a realistic idea of what that actually entails until I'm on site.

So with less than a month to go before my departure date, I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to get anxious. It's not a bad sort of anxiety, but the reality of this whole endeavor has definitely sunk in. Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly excited for what lies ahead... but it is a bit surreal knowing that almost every aspect of my life is going to be completely different in only a few short weeks. I’d like to think I have an idea of what I’m getting myself into, but I’m sure most preconceptions I have are going to be blown out of the water the moment I get there. Without a doubt, I am in for a very real adventure.

(And as for the title “from Away,” it’s mildly clever, I promise. We’re clever folk, us Mainers. Wicked clever.)