Here is a link to an album of my photos from Tanzania:

www.picasaweb.google.com/bchelcun/Tanzania

Thanks to all who shared this incredible journey with me!

Peace,

Brian

Peace Corps Volunteer - Tanzania

Health Education Project

2004-2006

I have been back in the US now for about 2 weeks, and I think it is starting to feel normal again.Tanzania had become home for me, I felt comfortable in my house and with my friends and at my job, and honestly coming back has left me feeling a bit lost. There’s no turning back – I could have extended my time in Tanzania had I wanted to, but I chose not to, and really am ready to move on with my life here. But I feel like I’m stuck somewhere in between, not fitting in there nor here.After a few days back with my extended family, who were very supportive and a joy to see again, I went to pick up my new cell phone at the store. My first bizarro moment was, well, that it was a store and not a kiosk on the side of the street. The second was seeing about 100 phones that I would be expected to choose from, and each phone with 2 models and 5 colors. But what really messed me up was speaking to the salesperson – a nice, busy young man who clearly had quite a bit of experience at his job, and who was thus able to rapidly fire off about 10 questions and give the standard spiel about what they had to offer, all in about 30 seconds. I was left stunned, overwhelmed, and felt like what I imagine a speed junky would feel like after coming down from a high [I can imagine this thanks to Requiem for a Dream]. I miss fruit, I miss fresh food. I miss children. I miss cell-phone and soda and soap commercials, since that’s really mostly what’s advertised in Tanzania [certainly no car, erectile dysfunction, or pizza commercials – but oh wait, there IS beer]. I miss talking to people, my friends, riding buses with people [but not with the slobs who smack on sugarcane the whole ride], eating with strangers, going to the market. I don’t miss goats, but somehow miss chickens and cows walking in front of my yard or down main street. I miss most of the things I liked about Tanzania, and many of the things I didn’t. I realized just yesterday that my hair has grown quite a bit. This came as a shock to me. Why, you ask, would this be surprising? Especially since there are mirrors EVERYWHERE here, whereas there were very few in Tanzania, and none were big enough to see more than an eye or your teeth so you can floss, so noticing these small details about oneself should be even easier? The main method in which I have judged the length of my hair and need for a haircut over the past two years has been as follows: after soaping up my head, how many small pitchers of water do I have to pour over myself to get all of the soap out? If it’s very short, 1 will do. If medium length, it takes two. And I know I need a trim when it takes 3 or more pitchers. Well guess what, I don’t need any pitchers here, I sit under the hot shower for about 5 minutes when I feel like it, 2 minutes when I’m in a rush, without any hesitation of ‘oh shit it’s going to be freezing cold’ and without psyching myself up to actually dump the cold water on top of my head. The water just flows, it is warm, and it is wonderful. And while I don’t need a haircut anymore, to conserve water or prevent dust build-up or cool things off, I still want one. I’m not sure why. The other day I went to the dentist. I went to the dentist AND got a sandwich in town AND fixed up my resume at home. That is, count ‘em folks, 3 things done in one day. I felt like a superman speed demon task master champion. Then I told someone that, and they said, ‘that’s it?’ One thing a day doesn’t cut it here, I now remember. So what is next? My immediate plans called for a couch and netflix subscription, but I am tired of sitting at home watching TV, and constantly catching myself looking for a place in town where they might sell roasted corn or porridge on the street. I enjoy the hot showers, but not fetching water from outside, which only took about 5 minutes, seems to provide me with more free-time here than I know what to do with. I need to get a job, get a life, move to someplace with enough noise and traffic and if I’m lucky live chickens as well, to flood my senses and get me back in the swing of things. This will be the final entry of my blog, How do you spell Misungwi? I am done with my Peace Corps service, and starting a new chapter in my life. I could write some sort of paragraph here, about what I have learned and what I will take with me, the way forward, deep and profound life changing moments, yada yada blah blah and all that crap. Actually, I wish I could do that, but it’s not my style. Mostly because my brain hurts from all the TV I’ve been watching. But also because I don’t believe I could ever be able to adequately summarize what I know were and imagine will be two of the most amazing years of my life, in a nice neat concise anecdote. The life lessons, the memories, the profound [and more frequently not so profound] moments are the entries in this web diary, and I look forward to rereading it in the years to come. I choose to end the same way I started – with a question. How do you spell Misungwi? Missungwi? Is there one S or two?From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misungwi "Misungwi is often spelled with an extra 's' to make it Missungwi" And from the Mwanza-Shinyanga highway, about 50 meters from my house:Only one s....

Whoops, maybe 2? And this is the Coke sign, which means I hold it to high standards, since Cocacola is responsible for half the signage in the country - literally, without Coke, Pepsi and the cell phone companies, you'd never know where you were. Don't understand the punctuation though, a period before the word?? The verdict - a single S confirmation? PEACE-brian

I am sitting in the Peace Corps office for the last time [hooray free fast internet], as it is pretty rainy out today and I am, well, just incredibly anxious to get out of here already.

I'm glad I decided to hang out in Dar es Salaam for a few weeks after leaving site and before going home - it's given me a chance to do a bunch of stuff I've wanted to for awhile, but also has given me some time to gather my thoughts about leaving my village and made me more excited to go home. Dar is great but it is not Misungwi, and I've done what I've wanted to do here, so I'm ready to move on.

On Friday I walked around downtown Dar to breathe in the sights sounds smells one last time before going. I walked down Uhuru street and saw hundreds of women [well, tens] selling thousands [literally] of brightly colored fabrics and khangas. Then I walked down India street and saw women wearing these khangas, which is ordinary in the village [traditional funeral wear] but uncommon in Dar - I think they were poorer women from the village, who came on a given day at a given time to a given place to be given assistance.

I walked down Kisutu street with it's Indian places of worship [not sure WHAT they're called], Indian places of dining [they're called restaurants and they're terrific], and finally reached the Kisutu market which is a bit sadder now that the street fruit vendors are gone, but you can still get some fantastic bananas and mangoes, which I did, and can now proudly declare I've met my goal of eating one mango a day until I leave. Mangoes, I will miss them so much.

While downtown is nice [another example - the AZAM ice cream shop. SOOO good frozen cone globe thingees only if they had peanuts could it be better] I wanted to explore Kariakoo market one more time before I left as well. Kariakoo is the CRAZY market/street area where residents of Dar go to do their shopping, and the thieves of dar go to do their thieving. Seriously, I got tons of warnings before I went not to take anything, to hold my bag to my chest like a baby, etc etc. I personally think it's a lot safer now that the street vendors are gone and it's just shops and roadside huts. So yeah, I walked around there up and down streets [including Sukuma street] for an hour or so to get my final African-market fix. I think I'm ready for department stores and supermarkets again, though I might miss the feel and hustle and bustle and noise and rotting fruit on the ground of markets here, after a few months maybe.

Lots of great Christmas bargains too. I.e., sellers are desperate for money to buy Christmas presents and meals, and are willing to drop the price as low as it goes, instead of trying to rip me off royally. Nice change of pace. Gotta admit I somehow miss the pre-christmas environment too, though I got a good fix of fake trees and music yesterday - my favorite was what apparently is a Chinese rip-off of xmas classics, my favorite being Jinger bells.

And speaking of the holiday spirit, I spent 4 hours of my Christmas eve at the New Africa casino in Dar. I drank beer, I had a great free buffet of mashed potatoes and turkey and christmas cookies, I talked to a lot of nice lady dealers who were very impressed by my Kiswahili [I imagine the last time I will be able to easily impress women for QUITE awhile, though I don't know how the 'oh yeah, I just got back from two years in Africa with the Peace Corps' line will work], and though I stunk at roulette I managed to end up ahead thanks to blackjack. Oh, and I was surrounded by Chinese men and Phillipinos. Non-traditional, but not a bad day.

But Christmas even wasn't all gambling and cheesy music. I was very fortunate to be able to visit a friend of mine from Misungwi, Alex. He was in town on business - both of his parents have passed away, and as his dad was in the military, the 7 surviving children have a right to claim his pension. Well, he was in Dar going through the processes of getting the money, and unfortunately but not unexpectedly, the government is dragging its heels. Basically, the trip was a long and expensive journey to facilitate a 10-minute 'drop-in' at the appropriate offices to say 'hey, i've got 6 younger brothers and sisters who need food and tuition, so what do you say' and then they responded 'oh, ok, thanks for the reminder, we'll try to get that to you in the next few months.' Alas, government red tape can be extra thick, especially when there's money on the line.

So I got on a few daladalas that I had never even heard of before [mbagala mtokijichi?!] to get out to his aunts house, which is in the outskirts, dare I say 'suburbs,' of dar. I also had to take a 15 minute walk on footpaths through streams and backyards to get there. But it felt comforting to get out of the downtown area for an afternoon, and to see where I imagine many of the newcomers to Dar relocate themselves, where land is still somehow available, and where one might honestly feel they are in the village and not 1/2 hour out of the biggest city in the country [wealthy newcomers, I should say. I imagine quite a few others end up in the more crowded areas like mwananyamala, close to downtown, which I went through on a sketchy daladala ride at night on my way to the University to visit a good friend of mine. That was a whole different experience, the highlight of which was definitely a 10 minute standstill at an intersection due to 3 stubborn drivers, ours included, who were all bumper to bumper and refusing to reverse - real mature. When I finally got to the final stop, it was dark and the lights at the stand went out. I was a tad afraid of being robbed, but on the bright side the black market guys instantly came out so I was able to buy a handkerchief that I needed, but really I digress].

After visiting his aunt, Alex and I came back to civilization and went to the Dar handicraft market to buy what a friend of mine refers to as 'Afri-crap.' Paintings, sculptures, masks, carvings, trinkets, and the like. I picked up a few gifts, had fun bargaining [and was definitely aided by having a Tanzanian friend around], and saw more ebony wood carvings then I will ever see again. It was very interesting to see the carvers working in the background, though many of it still seemed generically produced. To date, my favorite ebony carving is the model penis that Michelle had made for me, which aided in many a condom demonstration [I left it behind in the name of further condom mobilization, but I did take a picture for memory - inappropriate to post here however].

That was Christmas eve - I said goodbye to Alex and then the cards began. Today I tried to go to a casino to change my money, misinterpreted the cashier that I had to play to exchange, and after some lucky 4's at the roulette table 5 minutes later I got denied, though I left 50 bucks richer.

TONIGHT I FLY HOME - next, and perhaps final, entry will be from the states. Peace and happy holidays to all.

Several of my most recent entries have been incredibly verbose. So here is a brief description of my trip over the past week to the Southern Highlands to participate in a training for a newer group of volunteers, and a stop in Morogoro to visit my homestay family from 2004. Dar. Infection on my ankle hurts like hell, luckily I had a physical with Jean-Luc the doctor. Very in-depth physical. Now know my urine acidity and blood sugar-level. Iringa. Rain. Bus ride. 10 minute dash to scarf down nasty fried food before the bus leaves you, which it will without hesitation. 2 minute dash for it to then leave your system, about an hour after the food stop. More rain. Nuns = bread meat cheese jam yum. Passed on a small bit of my experience and knowledge to the new group, very rewarding. Cold! Car ride back = every stop my bosses buy something else. First potatoes, then tomatoes, then onions, then bananas….

Morogoro. Mountains! See picture. See short homestay parents. They are healthy and doing well. More rain. Two turkeys, 3 cows, goat died, but otherwise livestock well and roaming the neighborhood. Host brother John not there, Herman there, little Japhet has grown up, and still remembers me! Hike with Herman through jungle to waterfalls. Mama Derrick – John tried to hook me up with her during first stay, she remembers but now has cute kid and big husband. Went up mountain, hidden beautiful neighborhoods, listened to 10 hail marys on the radio before going to the bar to have ‘a few for the road.’ All major flashbacks to my first week in TZ.

japhet in 2004

japhet in 2006

He's grown up quite a bit, but if you needed another indicator, check out the shirt. Ironically, it's the same one, just very very worn.

And a few pictures of the dense vegetation up in the mountain, on a hike with Herman.

Dar. Annoying salesman selling Chinese shit on the bus. Annoying passenger dropped bag of bricks on my head while disembarking the bus. Tanzanians in a rush to get on/off any form of public transport but then just stand around and get in my way on the street. Back to YMCA for final few days - but i'm not the only one looking for a place to stay.

CHAIRS!!! Look at them all, 4 of them and a coffee table on the back of a bike! This is my clearing out my house, selling my belongings to a nearby primary school teacher starting up his life. While he took the large majority of my stuff, I also gave some flowers and big water tanks to my neighbors, and pots to Mama Leo and Sato my housegirl. Those weren't carried on a bicycle though. Actually, one of the flowerpots was carried on my neighbor girl's head, which made quite a sight [see her a few pictures down with water on her head].

FRIENDS!!! One last picture of the gang, me with Dominic and Deus, two of my best friends in Misungwi. Backdrop = my passion plant, pretty much ALL of my pictures over the last few weeks were with a beautiful green background, which is NOT typical [that would be bare empty farms/fields], but anytime you want to take a picture here they find the greenest area around and that's the spot.

BANANAS!!! Although it took the entire length of my stay, I did manage to successfully grow and harvest a big bunch of small, but oh so sweet bananas. And then ate them all in one day, with the help of my neighbors and guard. Baba Leo joked that I must have been planning it from the beginning, since we harvested only a week before I am scheduled to leave. FYI - 88 bananas in total, give or take a few.

FLOODS!!! The rains have come, but perhaps too much? Many farms are flooded, and this was before I left - apparently the rains, and flooding, has gotten worse since then.

MEAT!!! This is at the big weekly market in Misasi [will write more about this in future entry, well, future entry about my last week at site]. The woman in the picture is the head of the ward, and she is in charge of a big stand with MEAT. Lots of goat meat, goats, goat heads, goat stomachs, etc...

MAPOSI!!! That means poses. And I had some nice ones during my last week at site, took a ton of pictures - here I am with my friend Anton who runs a guesthouse, and his wife and children and younger brother. His eldest daughter [in yellow dress to the left] is a top student in 1st grade - I know, I looked at her homeworks and exams for about 10 minutes. Nice picture, though the shocking whiteness of my upper arm is disturbing.

MORE MAPOSI!!! This time with some of my favorite people at the Misungwi market. Same day, same shirt, same white inner-elbow showing up clearly...

TIRES!!! This guy makes sandals out of old car tires. I bought a pair, though I expect they will be somehow uncomfortable to wear. Creativity and resourcefulness, however, that I expect I may miss once I get back to the land of plenty...

WATER ON HEAD!!! This is my neighbor Kabula carrying water on her head, a big bucket of it. This, actually, is not a big deal, but is something that I will miss seeing when I go back to the States [though I do NOT like the idea that Tanzanian women expend considerable time and energy just to fetch water, a service that should be more accessible to all].

HUSTLE!!! This is my favorite daladala from Misungwi to Mwanza, in part because the conductor guy is really funny [picture of him later, maybe], and in part because the wording is priceless. Indeed, hustle never DOES sleep. There are about 8 of these in total, others reading 'On my way to Church' or 'Machavelli.' They all park in the yard across from my house, and it's fun to watch the parade of them drive off on the mornings I manage to get up before 6am.

FEET!!! I was taking pictures of some of my Masaai friends, who guard the resthouse that I stayed in for the first 3 months in Misungwi. After taking the pictures, I showed them on my digital camera how they turned out. At that point, I really wished that someone could take a picture of THAT site, me surrounded by 10 Masaai in traditional garments, laughing and being amazed about their pictures. Well, noone to do that, but I snapped a few pictures of our feet to give some sense of what was going on. I count feet belonging to at least 7 people in this one, including my self [guess which feet belong to me?!]

More pictures coming soon, when I get back to the states, that is if I can find someplace with connection better that at my parents house, which is still a dialup, a SLOW dialup connection...

It has been about 2 weeks since my last entry. Since then, I have cleaned out everything I owned, said goodbye to pretty much everyone I know, and left my house in Misungwi.

I spent a night in Mwanza with a great goodbye party from my coworkers at AMREF. There was good food, good company, presents for me!!, and lots of laughing when I told them all I don't do goodbyes, so we'll just say 'see you later.' I especially like hanging out with one of the younger guys there, JC, who most resembles where I am in life, well, except that he just had a baby boy named Elvis but other than that we see eye to eye a lot. The next day was the flight to Dar, where we got a ride from a Peace Corps car from the airport, which is good, because cabs are expensive and Dar is RIDICULOUSLY HOT these days [summer here]. Well, Dar is ridiculously hot all the time, but especially so now. So we dropped our bags off at the office, bought tickets for the Zanzibar ferry the next day, and got some rest. And some chicken. Chicken tikka, at a place called who knows what since all the volunteers just call it 'street chicken', one of the tastiest restaurants in town. I got spicy prawns and a half a chicken baked in the tikka box thing, I don't know what they do or how they spice it but it sure tastes nice.

Last Friday we [myself and my friends Meena and Ness] headed to Zanzibar, the spice islands, for some much needed R&R at the beach. We took the morning ferry, which was a pretty calm ride, though the ferry tickets make sure to point out that the company is not liable for any 'acts of God' which I would imagine being natural disasters. No disasters, we arrived ok. We had MORE good chicken, this time in soup form, with plenty of zanzibar spices mixed in to really give it a nice kick.

If Dar is hot, Zanzibar is a steamroom but outside. It is hot as hell, I would imagine, unless you are right on the beach with a breeze. Luckily there IS a breeze in the daladalas there, which are basically pick-up trucks with benches in the back and a roof on top. So we all piled into the bed of the truck and made our way to Kendwa, the chillest beach I've ever been to.

http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~rvddool/kendwa.html

This is not the hotel we stayed in, but the one next door.

We went next door to try to get a deal, and sure enough they 'punguza'-ed or lowered the price from 80 dollars a night to 50 dollars a night, so for the 3 of us it was not bad. It helped that it wasn't high season yet, not until Christmas and New Years, so the beaches, and most of the hotels, were relatively empty.

Highlights from the beach:Fish. Every night we got to walk around and decide where to eat, and what fabulous food to eat. I had burgers, and chips, etc etc, but the best was by far the kingfish and snapper in coconut or tamarind sauce. Very tasty.I had fun walking on the beach for several reasons. One, my feet got very clean thanks to the fine coral sand. Second, I got tan in places that hadn't seen the sun for awhile [I NEVER wear shorts or go shirtless anywhere in Misungwi]. Third, I talked to a bunch of beach vendors that I had met in June, some of whom remembered me!! One guy was thrilled that I knew his name, Mkude, meant he was from Morogoro, and I sat and watched him work for awhile. He got me a great deal on some paintings of a friend of his, so that'll make a nice souvenir. I also helped out by correcting some poor English on one of the paintings. And of course, just like last time, any conversation where I mention the work that I do eventually led to a brief review of HIV prevention and condom usage. These guys spend the week away from their wives in town, if they have wives - if not they sleep with tourists or locals. High risk environment, big surprise.

One rather shocking example of this was a couple we saw on our second day. A 35 year old, 200 pound white Italian woman was getting rather cuddly [kissing, hugging, rubbing on suntan lotion] with a 20ish, 100lb skinny-ass black Tanzanian man. Love comes in many shapes and sizes, true, but this pairing was a little eye-raising. Jack sprat. Whatever, to each his or her own, as long as they are protecting themselves and each other and no-one else gets hurt. Though this sort of thing makes it difficult for other white female tourists to come, or female PCVs, as some Tanzanians get the impression that white women are easy. I got a massage the last day, on the beach. Half an hour long, about 3 dollars. Perfect.

After two wonderful nights at the beach, Ness and I headed to stonetown. Stonetown is insane. I think i've written about it before, but it is basically a MAZE of small little alleys with tall buildings on either side to complete the disorientation. We decided to play a game - at the first intersection, I made the call - left, right, or straight. At the following intersection [i.e. after about 20 seconds], Ness made the decision. And so on and so forth. The result is that we managed to cover a LOT of ground and get THOROUGHLY lost after about 10 minutes. But we found some neat finds, old trees, a shoe fundi to fix my sandal, some guys painting tingatingas who allowed me to take pictures and ask questions about their work [they bust their asses for little pay, considering they sell a painting for 3 dollars that a tourist will buy for 30]. But we weren't always entirely lost, I actually REMEMBERED a few of the passages from the last time I was here. I'm not great a directions, and stonetown is impossible, so I was impressed with myself.

After wandering around the old part, touristy shopping part, and buying some scarves and spices, we walked past the main market [imagine tons of people and tons of oversized fruits] to look for sarongs that old muslim men wear. We ended up being escorted by a somehow annoying man into the Zanzibar town, the newer part that few tourists ever get to but that is filled with tons of shops, stands, and things being sold on the street. Mwanza the street vendors were kicked out ages ago, even so in Dar, and it was nice to have one last chlaustrophobic African-market crazyness experience before I go back to oversized supermarkets. We got the sarongs at a shop run by a muslim man who liked joking with us, and sold lots of islam caps and full body gowns for men [kanzous].

He actually gave us a decent price too, which was nice. I decided to use the paintings my friend Mkude sold me as a standard to judge how much other store owners were jacking up their prices, and the 3 that I purchased for 10,000 shillings were quoted to me for 45,000 almost everywhere I went. 4x plus!

At night we went to Forodhani gardens to eat a ton of freshly grilled fish and mussles and shark, something called 'zanzibari pizza' which is dough filled with meat veggies mayo and egg and then fried [delicious], and then munched on sugarcane for dessert. There was lots of meat and chips too, which mostly the Tanzanians went for as fish was somehow pricey - kind of a bizarre segregation of dining that turned out to be linked to economics.

One who did not discriminate on prices or types or anything were the cats: they were EVERYWHERE, and they were having a ball.

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Now I'm in Dar es Salaam, and of course there's stuff to write about here but I'll wait for another day. I'm going to try to go back and update on the last few days at my house in Misungwi, as they were packed with excitement and emotions, and things that I don't want to forget. So from here on out, I'm writing more for myself than for you. But I still welcome to you read, view pictures [will try to add soon], and enjoy.

Note: the last week has been incredibly boring, but only because it’s early January and most of the time I’ve been spent in a car or on the couch. This post reflects my thoughts, feelings, and describes the flurry of activity that was my last week in Misungwi.

Addendum to note: It is fantastic writing this at home, where electricity is NOT an inhibiting factor. I spoke with a few friends from Misungwi on new years day, and got a report that the electricity rationing has somehow lessened in severity. My last week in Misungwi was plagued both by the ongoing electricity issue, in combination with the fact that several transformers were dead as a result of people stealing the oil. As a result, I fell asleep at about 9pm on several occasions. Power out = me passed out on couch. Though I did usually manage to wake up around 1am, when the lights came back on.

Wednesday at the Market with Sam

A week before my departure date, I went to the nearby town of Misasi with my friend Sam to go to the largest weekly market in my district. I had meant to go over the past two years, but had still not gotten around to it.

STOP.

That was a recurring theme of my last week. ‘Well I meant to …. but time just ran out.’ I can’t count how many times I said that. And I knew that my last week would be insanely busy, with lots of things to do, and were I not organized I would not finish. Thus, I wrote a list of everyone that I wanted to say goodbye to and trade contact information with. And though I have doubts that I will be in touch with many of them, I did manage to say so long, farewell, and thanks to the people that mattered to me the most in Misungwi.

GO again.

The Misasi market. Here’s a written walk through. You enter gates off the main road, passing hoe sticks [pieces of wood on which the hoe blade goes]. Then you encounter hundreds of cows and goats. And stands selling cow and goat meat, soup, bbq. Beyond the meat stands is the stand where the cars pull up to, piles of various grains continually covered and uncovered depending on the rain. Knife sharpeners are upside-down bicycles with a blade hooked up by cable to the pedals in order to turn the sharpening wheel. Despite this, most knives used in Tanzania are dull, including, by all indicators, the ones I saw used to kill the goat we ate. Beyond knives are piles and piles of used clothing, several tailors ready to alter purchased clothes or create new ones out of plentiful fabric, piles and piles of cheap Chinese plastic shit, and my friend Sam’s fellow traditional medicine healers. And a small little table for really sketchy gambling, gambling that allows OTHER people to take the money that I bet and play it on a different number [1-6 is written on the table, you bet on a number and die are rolled]. When I called them out on how this was wrong, they clearly realized that I had figured out their scheme and quickly gave me my money back and told me to go away.

When the day was done, Sam and I bought a goat and named him Brian.

I am a fantastic person

My last week was filled with lots of ego-boosting compliments, though I accepted them with modesty and credit due to all those who helped me. I got lots of praise for my Swahili and Sukuma language skills – thanks to Dominic, my neighbors, and all the other stubborn Sukuma people for basically refusing to speak to me in any other language. I got praise from my carpenter friend in regards to my new pants – ‘you used to dress like shit, but now you’re looking a little better. I didn’t want to say anything before but really…’ He’s a good guy though, and his openness wasn’t mean-spirited [read observations regarding physical appearance below]. After two years of practice, I was deemed an expert at peeling mangoes by my old Arab Bibi [grandma]. The first time she saw me peel a mango, she laughed and ridiculed me, but now I’m an expert. I’ve grown up. I was congratulated, somehow, for being late all the time – I’m a ‘real Tanzanian’ in regards to my tardiness. I continued to bring joy with my camera, though I can claim little credit for it. It will be nice to have so many pictures of my friends. I made people’s days in ways that I can never repeat again: 1) I called a woman FAT [she has HIV, started using ARV drugs but was worried that she hadn’t gained much weight like others she knew, and I comforted her by telling her not everyone has to gain weight and that she looked pretty chunky to me] and 2) I received God’s blessings from a woman because I included my sheets and pillowcases when I sold her my bed and 3) I gave my two favorite mamas at the market a bowl, a plate, and a spoon apiece. Small gestures, but it meant a lot to them, and to me.

Finally, I cannot count how many times people complimented me by saying ‘hey, you can’t go, we’re USED to you!’ I don’t care about being a good person, about doing good work, about giving people gifts, being a language whiz, being the ‘mzungu from misungwi’, etc etc. The biggest compliment I could ever get is that I am just a normal part of life in Misungwi, that they are used to me and I’m used to them, and that my leaving will disrupt the status quo. That was one of my few main goals when I arrived, to just live and fit in and be a part of the community, and I succeeded. It felt fantastic to hear. Two years is a long time

I saw a young man recently, as shown in picture, that works as a bike taxi driver. I distinctly remember hiring him shortly after arriving in Misungwi, to take me to my office. Well, my office is uphill, and he couldn’t make it way back when – I had to get off the bike and we both walked up to the top of the hill. Instead of getting mad, I gave him twice the going rate [about 50 cents] and told him to go eat a big meal to gain weight and strength. Fast forward almost 2 years, I had rarely seen him in the meantime and had never gotten on his bicycle, but after all this time I hired him to take me once again to the office – and we made it. I gave him a compliment, he gave me a smile, and I realized how time flies. I also saw a young child that, 2 years ago, I dragged home to his mother for a beating. He had been bugging me relentlessly at my house, climbing on my gate and demanding money – so I chased him and when he fell down, scooped him up and took him home. My last day in Misungwi, I ran into him at his new house – he is two years older, and was the most respectful and courteous little boy I’ve ever met in Tanzania! If only he had been that way when I first got there – guess he’s started growing up.

More final observations

Most, 90%, of Tanzanian men have really skinny chicken legs. No judgment behind that, just fact. Though maybe it explains why they almost all like women with big booty. Men sleep everywhere. In cards, under cars, in stores, outside of stores, in parks, everywhere. Men also PEE everywhere too. So, one can thus conclude that men potentially sleep in their own piss. Or pee in their beds. Often storeowners are sleeping in their stores when I arrive. Or they went out for an errand and left the store unguarded. But that’s not a big deal, because everyone knows each other and no one even thinks that there is a potential for theft. I will confess that I only stole once, a 1-cent piece of candy from a guy who sold me expired powdered milk. Jerk deserved it. I am getting older – young people, TOO young, are talking about sex when I pass them on the street. Hell, the boys’ voices are cracking while telling dirty jokes!! I was shocked to hear stories, as I was just hanging out with a few of my friends, about a young boy that walked by us. They told me ‘hey, you see that guy, he is famous for sleeping with lots of girls.’ I asked, ‘who, that guys father?’ Nope, it was the young man. He comes from a rich family, and $ = power = women. All that = recipe for HIV pandemic. I went to a soccer game. The Misungwi team lost, and the game wasn’t incredibly interesting. That is, until a goat got stuck in the goal net, and bleated pathetically for about 5 minutes until being pried out by a group of no less than 5 men. I appreciated that the visiting team had jerseys which stated ‘mikasi noma’, street language for ‘unsafe sex isn’t cool yo.’ Tanzanians are far less sensitive about physical appearance than people in the states, and also more INsensitive, well at least uninhibited, in pointing out flaws in others. I recently took a trip to the shores of Lake Victoria to ride in a tiny boat. Well, a few outcomes of that ‘visit’ were a sunburnt nose and an infection on my ankle. Another sign that many people in Misungwi know me, and are used to me – upon seeing my nose, I got a lot of ‘what the hell happened to you, why is your nose so freakin red?!’ Way to be subtle, guys. At the same time, there is no shame or sense of insecurity about that! When I was talking to my tailor friend, a larger woman came in to be measured for a dress. And, in front of a store full of people waiting and working and chatting, another tailor announced with little hesitation the full measurements of this woman – and I heard a couple of 40s in there. But that was no big deal. I imagine this is what facilitates the bizarre sight of people selling, and buying, underwear and bras [and mens underwear too] at the bus station. Healthcare is ‘free’ in Tanzania [except for bribes to get services, which hopefully are in decline] but it is a different world. Relatives are responsible for providing food for patients, who are often 20-30 in small beds in one common room, and occasionally more than 1 to a bed.

And final goodbyes

I said goodbye to my friend Jumanne [Tuesday], who always wears a manskirt similar to the one I own, by having my last cup of rice porridge with him. At first I couldn’t figure out where the mama who sold the porridge was – turns out she was wearing pants, and I mistook her for one of the men who was a regular [only men spend their evenings out for roasted maize or porridge – the women are home cooking]. I said goodbye to my neighbor Mzee [left in picture], which means ‘old guy’ but he’s actually about 20. He works as a conductor on the daladala buses, and so I sat down with him recently to teach him about condoms, as I am well aware of the risky behavior his peer group engages in. I bought him a wife-beater, and one for myself. I said goodbye to the other daladala conductors by, well, giving them condoms and joking around as always. Given their demographic and high-risk environments, I became rather close to these guys and invested in seeing them protect themselves. One spent a few years in Yemen, and thus understood my outsiders experience like few others could. Another a card shark to trade strategies with. One a 6’5" bouncer-built young man nicknamed ‘bad bug’ who was the most soft-spoken and gentle of them all. Of everyone I know, this was the most final ‘goodbye’ I exchanged – they are all young men, in a difficult and dangerous job, with risky behavior and high mobility. I will probably never see or correspond with any of them again, and that is life. I said goodbye to my coworkers at the district government in the canteen, over a huge breakfast of beef soup, chapatti, and fruit salad. We also, as is typical, had one last discussion about differences between Tanzania and the USA, and why I was looking forward and NOT looking forward to returning. I said goodbye to one of my neighbors who has lots of chickens by, well, saying goodbye, and then graciously accepting 2 eggs. I said goodbye to two of my best friends, the electrician Alex and his brother Godi, by doing what we always do – hanging out and cracking jokes. When I visited them at their store to say farewell, they were talking about the ‘stuff’ and ‘goods’ and ‘cash.’ So I asked if they had started selling cocaine – turns out they were referring to donuts. I also had a good chuckle watching them get excited about the combination lock that I had given them. We must have opened it and relocked like 10 times. I said goodbye to Babuu, Juma, Hamisi [first picture], Mayunga, Dullah, Adolph, Sato [second picture], Selestini, Singsbert literally – ‘goodbye zachayo’ or ‘goodbye ndebile’ – just because I know it’s the last time I’ll get to say most of these names ever again.

Without fail, goodbyes were said both verbally and physically. Physically often involved hugging, and ALWAYS involved a final, 5-minute handshake. It is difficult to describe a Tanzanian handshake. It starts off like a typical handshake, then moves to more of a hands clasping, then back to handshake, then back into hand clasping, and so on and so forth, until after a few minutes you move into thumb-war position and start thumb-snapping each other for a good minute or so until final disengagement. I said goodbye to Misungwi – the women fetching water from the wells, the old men and women walking to the farm with a hoe over one shoulder and a radio over the other, young children with bike-loads of sweet potato plantings, young girls setting wet laundry out to dry, young men sweeping dirt in the yard and gambling in the corner of an abandoned building, the young children playing and pelting each other with balls made of plastic bags and stealing fruit from the trees – from the front seat of my favorite daladala, escorted by my best friends.

I'm going to miss random stuff just sold everywhere, and carried on people's heads to and fro after being purchased. Examples include 20 liter buckets of cooking oil, huge and very colorful mattresses, couch cushions, fish, etc. Spontaneous markets are nice, and they're not in America.

When they don't carry it on their heads walking, they tie it to the back of a bicycle. Everything on bicycles, beds, doors, 20 foot antennae poles, 100 kilos of flour or tomatoes, or 100-kilo fat African lady wearing brightly colored clothing. See pictures - daladala bike taxis, and a local expert who actually carries the stuff on her head WHILE biking...

Speaking of daladalas, I gave a couple of my favorite guys some of my old worn out jeans and shirts. They really appreciated it. Nothing fancy, but given the hard sweaty work they do, it was exactly what they would need and appreciate. Really, these guys sweat a lot, and some do a not-so-hot job of bathing. But these 2 are pros, so I was glad to pass along my worn-outs. Red shirt guy in the middle is wearing jeans, he made them cut-offs.

Africa is about 100 times more sensory stimulating than the states. Well, maybe not New York or Chicago, but what I mean is that the LITTLEST things here can still cause sensory overload. Colors, smells, noises - I've written about them before, but now that I'm close to leaving my brain is having a harder time tuning out. I'm trying to take everything in, remember every smell, cry, crazy outfit scheme [plaid red/black shirt, green striped pants, just walked by in the internet cafe]. In otherwords, I'm drowning. Speaking of drowning, it has been POURING lately, even more so than the last time I wrote. All the rice paddies are filled TO THE BRIM with water now, rivers are flowing [they dry up the rest of the time], people are farming like crazy. And things slow down, as hour-long waits for downpours to end become the norm again. I sat in a house yesterday for about 45 minutes in silence, because it was raining so hard we couldn't hear anything anyone was saying [metal roofing]. There is a big swamp near Misungwi that I've never seen, well, swamped, but now it looks like the Lake itself has crept a bit closer... Farmers must be glad for the rain, but others aren't. I visited my friend Jonathan who draws cards that my mom is selling back home [this guy has moderate talent but INTENSE devotion and perserverance]. He lives in the mountainy rocky outcroppings that surround Mwanza downtown. He lives in a small room that floods because the roof is leaky. It is the dankiest place I've been here yet, but he seems to keep his spirits up, and is hoping to use some of the money I gave him for the cards to seal the leaks.

The rain smells nice, but not when mixed with the trash. Here trash is strewn about EVERYWHERE. That's a sensory experience I'm not sad to leave behind.

The rain has also brought grasshoppers, who are noisy, and yet another unpleasant stimulant. Luckily, my cat seems to think they are tasty. The rain has also somehow made things 'cold' here, or at least chilly. I own no jacket, but it doesn't bother me. Tanzanians are bundled up like January in northern Wisconsin, and then when the sun comes out and I start sweating they sort of, well, don't seem to notice and just keep walking around wearing these Starter-jacket poofy things that must make it feel 200 degrees out.

I had some African shirts made. They blend in very nicely hear with all the other colorful figures, and will surely look ridiculous when I return home. But a nice reminder, and I like the fundi [tailor] who made them for me - he has HIV but is living a positive life.

I went to the Lake with my friend Babuu the other day. It's about 7km from Misungwi, but 2 years and I still hadn't made it. We went, shocked some villagers with my whiteness and his vulgarity, took some pictures of me in a SHAKY, TIPPY boat [I would never be able to use it as an actual form of transportation, which they do], saw the devastation of the water hyacinth on the lake environment, and enjoyed a nice non-rainy day. I had fun greeting some teachers at a really bush school near the lake, whom I attended a seminar with, and felt proud that I'm able to distinguish tribes of Tanzania when I noted that one of their fellow teachers looked like a Mmeru [he was, the teeth gave him away]. Not as big a fan of the custom when, after asking for a glass of drinking water, a young girl brought it to me, knelt down to the ground to give it to me, and stayed their until I finished, before she got up and went away. A little too subservient for my taste, though if it were done out of AGE respect and not GENDER respect, I'd be all for it [I love how the kids here fetch stuff for me, or for their parents. American spoiled brats, that'll be a shock...]

After the Lake, we went to my friend Ray's house. Visiting people here means one thing - FOOD. We were welcomed with a big bowl of HUGE, RIPE, DELICIOUS mangoes [that's right, the season just started. Not a bad way to leave the country, plentiful rains and buckets full of mangoes]. We also had chipsi mayai, which is french fries fried in egg. Delicious. Other highlights, or things of note: We brought a mkeka, a woven mat, outside and sat around. That is what people do here, and I love it. Actually, when we came, my friend Ray had been outside SLEEPING on this thing [I'll give him credit, it WAS a Sunday so there was no work]. His brother is sort of a jack of all trades, a trained driver who was selling charcoal the first time I met him, then went to sell potatoes in Dar es Salaam, and is now burning bricks while contemplating a return to the driving world. Oh, he also recently just became Pentecostal.

And finally, we posed for a picture on the village 'mountain':

Talk about a pose, huh?

I wrote recently that I went to the Folk development College to teach some lessons on STDs and HIV/AIDS, along with Condoms, to about 100 of the 200 total students. Their behavior is a tad notorious, and notorious is never a good word, is it? They apparently sleep around a lot. Well they seemed to enjoy our presentation, especially THAT video [its so good i'm dubbing copies as we speak]. Apparently yesterday one of the young women who attended went to the hospital and spoke with a nurse and got some services regarding her reproductive health. I suspect treatment for an STD. ONE PERSON, that's all I needed. I was feeling a bit angry about the whole thing because a few of the students showed up late to one period incredibly drunk. But I guess I can't expect to rid the world of assholes and idiots.

The question box that I had put up on the health bulletin board at Misungwi secondary school is infested with bees. That's unfortunate, and sort of a sad ominous sign of what might happen to many of my projects after I'm gone. But at least this is temporary - the headmaster says they've arranged to have it fumigated. continued below....

.......

I've been talking to a lot of my former students lately. They are all scrounging around for jobs/money, or some are just hanging out. One, whose name means 'premature' but he's a big guy now, he is one of the best and most dedicated in his class. And about a week after graduation, his father passed away. He just came back a few days ago, and I had a good chat with him. He seems to have taken everything in stride, and is now working on making some money so he can continue with his studies [I am sure he passed his exams, he's a sharp kid].

A few other students, again a nice pose.

Another student asked for a condom demonstration at the store he works at, so I agreed. People don't like thinking that students have sex, but they're all almost 20 years old already.

Another came and visited me at my house for some advice. We talked a lot, mostly about sex. He is 20 and has not has sex, and is the second student in his class. Apparently some of the girls at the school don't like this, so they pooled their money to try to get someone to finally tempt him into agreeing. He stuck to his guns and they started giving him a hard time. But he's the son of a pastor at one of the, um, further-out denominations. He asked his dad for advice on how to 'avoid impulses and urges,' and his dad yelled at him that 'you're going to get AIDS' and didn't have much more to say. So I filled in the gaps, taught him condom usage for when he's ready, reassured that abstaining or masturbation is perfectly healthy and won't cause impotency, etc etc. He's a good kid, his wife will be a lucky woman.

He also told me all kinds of stories about the school - teachers sleeping with students, teachers giving male students hard time because they are both [the teacher and the student] pursuing the same girl, a group of boy students essentially gang-raping a girl student because she wouldn't agree to sleep with any of them, so when she finally agrees to one he calls all the rest of them and they take turns in the dark so she apparently won't notice, stuff like that. Stuff that, yeah, I'm just sort of numb to at the moment, because I want to leave on a high note and I want to believe that stuff like this couldn't actually be happening.

The picture fests continue. I recently took 100+ pictures just walking around Misungwi, with the great assistance of my friend Alex who is an electrician [have written about him before, right in the picture below, with his brother Godi].

These guys are some of the funnest guys I've ever hung out with, and remind me a lot of some of the crazy antics from high school that we used to pull. Godi, for example, likes to dress up in bizarre clothing and walk around like everything is as usual to get reactions out of people. And we consistently have a good time hanging out at their house, though it is just a TINY two room affair that is jammed with all of their crap, mostly electronics stuff for their work. It's just too bad that they're classic Tanzanians when it comes to picture taking - funny all the time, but dead serious in front of the cameras.

The main result of this picture extravaganza is that now EVERYBODY knows my name [Masanja] and is greeting me, and wants to chat. And that means a LOT of people, everywhere I go there seems to be a crowd.

More evidence of picture fest - me with a fellow teacher at Misungwi, his wife, and the brightest little kid I've met here in TZ named Katisa.

I taught my neighbors how to gamble with dice. Exciting! I actually played cards with my 13 year old neighbor boy while talking with his mom, and decided to play for money. He got up to 3,000 shillings [2.50 dollars] before walking away, though I wanted to go double or nothing. HE stuck to his guns too, and I made sure to give him a little lesson on gambling, the dangers, etc etc. He's since bought a pair of shoes, and refuses to put up his own money to try his luck again...

I had an interesting conversation today at a bank here in Mwanza with a friend of mine who was in Misungwi and is now working here. We were sitting in the banks lobby catching up, and we started talking about his tribe, which is from the Eastern part of the Lake region and is in the same family as the Masaai tribe. Suddenly the topic turned frankly to circumcision. He was circumcised when he was about 8, along with 400 other boys in a large, traditional ceremony [which he says is better, it 'looks nicer' than how they do it at the hospital, he claims]. I knew he was proud of his heritage, but not ready to discuss genitalia in a bank lobby. Good guy though.

And on that rather bizarre note... those are just a sample of my thoughts, things are really quite intense these days. More observations will follow, but they will most likely be written next week after I have left my house and am relaxing in Zanzibar. Until then.

Well, actually, a lot of it. things are getting crazy, cleaning up and selling off stuff in my house, having big picture-taking extravaganzas and saying goodbye to institutions and friends, and all the while the rain continues to POUR.

As I left off in my last post, I was about to go to try and purchase some pants to wear. By the way, Jo, I resent your most recent comment because I think I speak English very good. So I met my friend Alex and, of course, it started to rain. And when I say 'shopping', I certainly don't mean at a mall or in a department store, but rather about 20 different small little shops, most of which carry EXACTLY the same thing [that is a universal phenomenon here, all shops carry goods identical to those in their corresponding, eg clothing shops or foodstuff shops]. And each little shop has about enough room for 3 or 4 people to stand inside and try things on in the middle of the store, and I only say 3 or 4 people because I am use to personal space bubbles of Africa, but in the states it really wouldn't even be enough room for one person alone.

So after 2 hours or so, and lots of stripping, and the disheartening but as far as i'm concerned unconfirmed-until-I-reach-the-states news that I now wear a size 34, I managed to find a nice pair of jeans and another pair of khaki-ish pants. Mission accomplished, at least a month until I have to go clothes shopping again, thank goodness. It did really help to have my friend though, the prices automatically dropped a few dollars and he, like most Tanzanians, seemed to know about all the little shops that NOONE just passing by would ever see, or be aware of, let alone enter. 'Kumbe' [what do you know?!], they're tucked in little alleys and corners all over the city.

With the new purchase underhand, I went home and continued the slow but steady process of purging myself of all my crap. The posters/maps came off the walls, documents and teaching materials that were way over-used were burned [one hell of a bonfire, that was fun]. My bed and mattress have been paid for and my couches are going later this week, so I will be chilling on the floor on my mkeka floor mat for the remainder of my time here. It is somehow thereaupeautic [YIKES, ok jo, maybe you have a point. the word beuaraucractic gets me all the time too...]. And i'm hoping it will cut down the stress of the last few days here.

What else is new.

With the rains, all the rice paddies are filled with water. It is a really beautiful sight, and one that I haven't seen since I first got here. The people of Tanzania can be incredibly hard working if there is work to do, so I'm hoping the weather stays in their favor and the rains continue. In the car coming from town last week, I busted out a HUGE grin when, just outside of Misungwi, I saw a TRACTOR farming a big plot!!! A TRACTOR!! Machines! Not hand hoeing!!

Another plus to the rains is that they seem to have provided the final kick needed for my bananas to finish growing. I'm not sure what the English word is [point 2 to jo], but the bananas must first reach final size, then you cut the bunch from the tree and take them inside to ripen, or they take FOREVER on the tree. So they are sitting in a bag in my kitchen, and i'm hoping to eat at least one before I leave. Picture will be forthcoming.

Yesterday I had a terrific afternoon of 'maongezi', which means also 'piga story' which means shooting the shit, chatting with my friends. It seemed everytime I said goodbye to someone, I ran into another good friend 2 minutes later and we talked for another half an hour. I went to a folk development college near the hospital [like a technical school, somehow] and met my friend Deus, and also planned to teach a few periods on Friday on STDs [not a bad way to wind up my work here, showing that graphic video again]. It was nice to see how he lives there, way better conditions than at the TTC in Mwanza, though still too reminiscent of dorm life for me to be in any way jealous of all the young people to hang out with. After that, hung out in the market for an hour, ran into a young woman who translates for Belgian girls when they come for studies, talked to a few of the daladala conductors about topics varying from clothing to religion to, well, just 'the shit'. At one point we talked about my facial hair which was a little bizarre, but turns out some of the conductors had a bet as to my age, and my 'beard' was cited as a reason for assuming I am older than all of them. Nope, same age as a few, older than a few, younger than many. The ones I talked to all older, 25, 27, 28. Good guys, but in Kiswahili we'd say 'hawajatulia', which translates to 'they haven't chilled out yet' which means they are somehow rascal, punk, no-good youth [well, that's what the old folks would say]. After that, had a GREAT cup of uji, porridge, made of rice and milk and cardamom. I'm going to miss Uji, and more importantly, i'm going to miss being able to buy roasted corn or porridge or food ANYWHERE you go. Seriously, every corner there's a mama selling something, or a fried fish, or a little restaurant to get a snack, or the best yet, french fries and grilled beef.

Evidence of the maongezi, and the photo-fests:Picture 1 = me and my friend sam at his shop, he sells traditional medicines [in the bottles at the back]. Also a big fan of the blue box of CONDOMS hanging in his shop!!Picture 2 = my fundi friend Selestini and his wife and four children - and some white guyPicture 3 = my masaai friends who guard at the office of an NGO where I hang out and where I used to get my internet access [props to belgian Debbie for the picture]

Oooh, one final bit. Yesterday there was a 'situation' in Misungwi that sounds direct from a overly dramatic Nigerian movie, or a dramatic Indian movie [but the bollywood movie would be less scandalous since this is about sex], or maybe even the Jerry Springer show. There is a businessman in Misungwi who has a wife and a few kids. Well, for many men here, having a wife doesn't really imply or imbue any sense of monogamy or fidelity. So this guy decided he wanted his mistress to visit him. Well, apparently he's not the brightest guy, since he decided to rent a room in a guesthouse IN misungwi town, and called his mistres over. He told his wife he was going to Mwanza, then shacked up for the night.

The next day, they continued to hang out at the guestie and apparently decided they were having too much fun and thus added a second night. He called his wife to inform her of this. In the meantime, SHE decided that SHE had HER friend, i.e. another guy whom she apparently regularly hooked up with, and who is somehow a coworker/acquaintance with the husband. So she decided, 'hey, my husband is in Mwanza, let me call my lover and we can have a nice evening together.' He agreed, sounded like a good idea, so they met up and headed to.... a guesthouse. THE SAME guesthouse that her husband was at.

Well, by now of course, the story's ending is self evident. Each of the two heard scandalous sounds coming from the next door room [that's right, next door] but neither thought anything of it. Until the husband left his room, wearing a towel, and ran into his acquaintance, also wearing a towel. That got him thinking. Then he saw his wife. Apparently there was almost a fight but people prevented it. Wonder what will happen to that marriage, sad thing, probably not much will change except they'll be bitter to each other more openly. Perhaps more disturbing is the reaction many men of Misungwi had to this whole shenanigan. They all seemed disgusted by the actions of the woman, but the husband? Well, that's his right, isn't it? They used the argument a lot that the husband was probably using a condom but the wife probably not, though I don't see where they would get that idea. I doubt either was using protection.

Whew, that was the big drama of the week. Hoping things chill out for my last week there, though it seems things have already died down [except for the rumors and gossiping].

Gotta run and take care of errands, might be my last time in Mwanza - PEACE.

Yesterday, with my friend Michelle visiting me, we went to visit my old Arab grandmother in Misungwi town. She has been away with health problems for several months but has returned with lots of energy, though not as many stories ABOUT her health problems as I expected to hear. While we were there, we got some really, REALLY nice juice - mango!! Tis the season, back in the states the season of cold blistery snowy wind-chill conditions, here it's still raining and the mangoes are increasingly abundant and increasingly cheap. Not a bad way to leave.

So Michelle [check out her blog, link at the right, and congrats to her since she is officially done with her PC service!] was here for about a week and it was nice to share some of my experiences in my town with another volunteer. I don't get a whole lot of guests. And boy did we hit the ground running, the first day she got here we went to a wedding in a nearby town. It was scheduled to start [the party] at 6pm, and wedding parties here follow a VERY strictly organized schedule, with time allotted for greetings, gifts, cake cutting, etc. That is, everything is planned down to the minute when it is supposed to take place.

Of course, the kicker is that this is Tanzania. So most of the guests arrived around 8pm, a good 2 hours late, and the party didn't actually get started until 10pm. UGH. We were both very tired, her moreso due to the travels, but once it started it was pretty nice. The happy couple, of course, looked miserable, since that's what brides and grooms are supposed to look like here. But the GUESTS, we had fun, drinking soda and beer, clinking glasses and giving gifts [everytime you go up to the head table to give a gift or something, you have to sort of 'dance' your way up to local TZ music]. The food was nice, although it was at about 1:30 am, and there was a bit of dancing. I didn't know a whole lot of people there, but the groom is a good friend of mine and I have worked closely with him on several projects, so he was happy to see me there and I was happy to see him. Granted he's lived with his wife for 15 years and they have 3 kids, but they'd never actually had a wedding. One of the guests described this as 'fixing things up', as in, he had sort of stolen his wife and now he was setting things right. Oh yeah, they got 3 cows and some goats and chickens in addition to dishes and cloth as wedding gifts.

The next few days we hung out in Misungwi, greeting my friends and checking out all a small TZ town has to offer. Not a lot, but we had fun. She helped me teach my last period at the Secondary school [we reviewed STDs and then watched a powerful, GRAPHIC, but I think very educational video on STDs which shows up-close shots of syphillis, chancroid, gonorrhea, etc]. We also went to the TTC for my last period there, where I taught the most whirlwind lesson on condoms ever, but despite the rush it went well and I think they got something out of it, or at least I hope ONE person at least got ONE little thing out of it, I think that would be enough for me to be content.

The week before Michelle came I finished up my MEMA kwa Vijana seminars with AMREF. I wrote a bit about this last week, but feel the need to elaborate a bit. I stayed mostly with the teachers who teach in the primary schools right in Misungwi town, so it is nice now seeing them around on the street and exchanging greetings and ideas. I was a bit of a firecracker during our lessons, and I must say that 2 years of experience here that will be shortly winding down has led to me boiling up pretty quickly and being pretty open about a lot of topics I would previously have danced lightly around. But it's good, I think, for an outsider to give his or her thoughts every once in a while, because otherwise we just take for granted the environment we live in, and don't ask questions like 'why is it this way' or 'why don't we change this?'. For example, many of the teachers were complaining that American/Western culture, namely clothing and music and videos. Yes, I agreed, the culture is not as conservative as it is here. People get divorced all the time, women where short skirts, many of us watch porno. But, for example, grown American men RARELY have sexual relationships with 14 year old girls. Here, that is still considered deviant and gross and inappropriate, but is certainly not unheard of.

So yeah, I've been running into them now and some of the teachers, especially the younger ones who just finished their trainings, are really fun to talk to. We talk about the difficulties facing them in their schools and classrooms, many of which I've written about before [student numbers, lack of facilities, lack of resources, lack of books, um, even RAIN messes things up since they have steel roofing with no ceiling boards]. Many would like to come visit me in the states, and requests for sponsorships and addresses and contacts have grown exponentially as people [not just teachers] are aware that I am close to leaving.

GOTTA GO. I need to buy new pants, all my pants are SHOT and I want to look presentable for my last few weeks here. I am getting some kick-ass African shirts hand-tailored for me, so that will complete the ensemble. The only problem is that pants here are hard to find as there are not exactly any department stores, and certainly no price tags, so everyone tries to rip me off. Thus a friend of mine [who just called me] is meeting me in town to take me shopping. Plus, those of you who know me know that I hate clothes shopping, but 'inanibidi' that is 'it is making me', it being some condition like, for example, the disgustingness of my current wardrobe.

PEACE

ps. my cat is apparently NOT a beneficiary of my lessons on lifeskills, hiv/aids, and family planning. for the second time in i swear 4 months, she has had kittens. only two this time. so now i have 3 cats to try to get rid of before i leave. nice.

pps. i don't brag a lot, certainly not as often as I could because, let's be honest, i'm good at a lot of things and especially here in Tanzania i'm pretty freaking special. But i have to today - there was a really really drunk guy in the market a few days ago, in Misungwi, when michelle and I went to buy meat at the butcher. though i'm not sure of the connection between language and masculinity, this guy kept repeating over and over, "that guy - listen to him. he knows swahili. that guy, he's a MAN. he's a MAN, a real MAN. listen to him."

so among the names i've been called here: sir, doctor, 'real man', father. lots of respect. which i ain't gonna get when i get back home....

Time is flying. Whoosh.

And the rainy season has actually come this year. Double Whoosh. For every day the past week or so, there has been at the least a slight drizzle in the early afternoon, at the most torrential downpours accompanied by huge gusts of wind that basically prevent anyone, or anything, from staying completely dry.

But we are all very pleased, as it was getting dusty, and more importantly as last year it just didn't rain at all and food is thus becoming problematic and expensive.

Speaking of food, I conducted my final of 3 seminars on nutrition and balanced meals for PLWHA groups. It was a nice day, sort of routine as I've already facilitated this seminar 4 other times so I had it down pat, but the food was as usual plentiful and tasty and, fitting with the theme of the day, well balanced. And the people were EXCITED, and interested, and active and involved, and appreciative, and receptive, and it was a pleasure to be with them though only for one day.

Today I am in Mwanza town after a visit from my boss, which went well. I don't get a whole lot of visitors at my house, i.e. NONE other than my regular friends whom I don't view as 'visitors', so it was a pseudo big deal [i.e. involved some cooking, the first instance of such in several months].

But the big news is that, after this week, I will essentially have wrapped up my work in country. We are winding down a 12 day seminar for primary school teachers on using participatory methodology to teach about HIV/AIDS, and all in all it has been a fantastic experience, with me contributing a lot of input and ideas from a foreigner's perspective that has been well recieved by these local teachers. This is the longest in a line of seminars, for health workers and head teachers and subject teachers, which has featured a LOT of interesting and passionate conversations and what appears to me as some genuine progress toward development and improvement at these schools and health facilities. So it is definitely a positive note.

My plans for the remaining month at home [that's right, one month left] are to just hang out with my friends, enjoy and soak up life here, and begin to say goodbyes. I anticipate writing on the blog a few times over the course of this coming month, and then a few good final entries from Dar before I head back to the states. I am both excited and sad to be winding down my time here, but mostly looking forward to seeing my friends and relatives, i.e. you guys who are reading this. It's really starting to sink in that I will soon be home, and it feels good.

Peace, sorry for the rather unwitty entry, but we all have our days, huh?

As my time here winds down, i've been in a very congratulatory and congratulated-atory [??] mood. That is to say, lots of back patting going on between me and people around me.

A few days ago, I got a visit from whom I would say are two of the most promising students who just finished form 4, Solo and Sengerema. We had a great discussion for about an hour [I was very late to work but couldn't care less], talked about their future plans and what they want in life, etc. I of course stressed the importance of them having goals and plans to help guide their further studies and career searches, while in the meantime when I return home in a little over a month I plan on doing....what? We had a good laugh as well when I reminded them that the guest speaker at graduation had welcomed them to 'citizenship,' which I translated by taking them out to a REAL breakfast of chicken soup and chapattis instead of the nasty crap uji [porridge] they drank every day at school. Now I just hope that they manage to get themselves together and find some odd jobs so that they are able to pay school fees. Both of these two I am 100% sure will pass and be given an opportunity to continue studies, but sadly the 60-70 dollars a year school fees are a potential barrier.

On Saturday I got the opportunity to have a final meeting with the teachers I work with at Butimba TTC. We agreed to have a final emergency meeting since their schedule had changed and this week they will be going into the field to do a teaching practical. So we met at 8pm and, well, it was just a great time. I have been with these folks, about 40 in all, for the entire year, and we just have a blast during our sessions. We have interesting and thought-provoking debates, teach each other funny games and songs ['icebreakers'] to prepare the students before beginning a lesson, and then learn some really interesting topics. As I final lesson I decided to talk about the importance of self-esteem, and we literally did a 'pat-on-the-back' exercise where each person taped a piece of paper on his/her back, and then we all walk around the classroom and write positive things about each other on our backs. They got a HUGE kick out of it, and who doesn't like being told how great you are, you look, you teach, etc? It was very confidence building, and a nice way to end our time together and get a little reminder of the group. I joked to them that 10 years from now, if they are having a shitty day or their boss is an asshole or something, they can take out these pieces of paper and say to themselves, "oh yeah? well for your information, i'm attractive and creative and ask good questions in the classroom and play soccer well too, so shove it."

At the end of the period we all had sodas and distributed teaching materials, which they were INCREDIBLY grateful for. We finished at 11:30pm, and I slept in a room at the college. I will try to post a picture of all this in the coming days. All in all it was a very rewarding experience, and I'm hoping as I wind up other projects in the coming weeks that everything is as positive as this was. I know a lot of these folks will go on to do great things, and to help thousands of students, and I really couldn't help being very proud of that. I could tell they were excited to get out and get some real teaching experience, too. The environment of the teachers college is beautiful, right on the lake, nice weather, lots of rocks and trees, but the living conditions are - well - think about colleges in the states, and then imagine a developing country. My best friend Domi, who is now studying there, lives in a 'room' that has 15 bunk beds basically just lined up along the two walls, with a few tables and desks scattered around the room. So basically he has 29 roommates. Not much privacy. And his is the better situation, another of our friends was late registering and so he is in a room that, for all practical purposes, is simply a barracks. Total of 40 bunk beds, 80 people, no tables or chairs or desks or dressers. The food at the college is, well, it's food that is prepared for 1,000 people so I think that says it all. And the rules are pretty strict, monday-friday the entire day is scheduled, and friday/saturday night they have to be back at the college by 5pm. But all in all, these people seem motivated and excited for an opportunity at further education, and it's really fun for me to be surrounded by urban, intelligent, young people [no offense to all you old, stupid hicks].

To end on a random note - I have become accustomed to seeing men, old young and middle-aged, bathing in the lake. In the afternoon, in the middle of Mwanza city. Just bathing. Completely naked, surrounded by people, cars zipping by [although they are somehow far from the road], LOADS of mamas nearby doing their laundry... This, for me, is NORMAL. Oh boy, am I nervous to go back home...

... ate yet ANOTHER one of my papayas. oh so good. only 2 left now, then I move on to passion and bananas.

... crashed 2 big church revivals in town. it happens a lot, you hear loud music and see lots of people gathered around a rather spartan looking building, but the unmistakable signs [hands in the air, man on platform sweating profusely, most people just walking by] tell you that it's a churchy thing. well, these churchy things, i didn't 'crash' them, but mainly was there to make sure nothing incorrect was being said about AIDS, condoms, etc. I almost had to step in during one of them, which would've created quite a scene, but the preacher-guy [who was very angry, loud, and hoarse] changed the topic.

... i had a 15 minute conversation, at 10pm, with 2 masaai dudes who guard a resthouse near me. one of them, willy, has really good kiswahili, so we had a nice conversation about a variety of interesting, though not too complex or wordly, topics. the thing is, this entire conversation felt NORMAL, even though he has the big saggy earlobes, and wears traditional clothes, and carries a big stick and knife, and is what one sees in national geographic pictures. it was completely, totally mundane.

... celebrated Eid-al-Fitr with my muslim friends, many of whom [example a conductor of one of the daladalas], have noticeably lost weight after a month of fasting. I may not have been successfull in actually fasting along with them, but that doesn't mean I can't help eat the feasts they prepare to celebrate the end of Ramadhan. pilau, goat meat, salads, fruits, sodas, good times.

... also celebrated Eid by going to a disco and spending about 3 hours having drunken conversations [well, I was sober], with my neighbor the driver and my neighbor the electrician. Does this sound like something a 24 year old does or a 45 year old whose name is Jim? But to my credit my friends are my age, and we talk about fun youthful things [take a guess], and laughed quite a bit.

... ALSO celebrated Eid by making the tisk-tisk noise of shame and disgust at little children. you see, in the afternoon, before the 'grown-ups' disco, there was a kiddie disco. well some of these kiddies are pubescent and pre-pubescent young boys, and they have dirty mouths. really dirty mouths. i can only hope they don't do even a quarter of the stuff they say [i doubt they do, i seem to remember having a big mouth at some point too...]

... started exercising by bicycle since my foot hurts. not bad, only it's pretty hilly here. one day i got into a fun race with some of the bicycle taxi guys, i was coming up a hill and passed one of them, and he clearly decided 'oh no, this white guy is NOT going to just pass me up a hill like this' so he started hauling, and then we passed about 5 more guys and they all thought the same thing, so we ended up looking like some sort of rabid pack of wolves on bicycles [odd image] busting our asses up this hill, and then down, and then up again, all the way back to my house. in the end I won, though can't gloat too much because if you compare my Trek to their, um, "bicycles", i clearly had the advantage. oh, and i think i've said this before, but their legs really really do look like horse legs. all muscle, no fat. scary.

... reunited with an old friend, 'icy-hot' [due to foot pain]. oh, how I love thy aroma, and the shock it brings to other people's faces since any room I enter the strong, STRONG smell comes with me.

... had a good chuckle at the kiswahili/english mixtures i've heard, including: magrupu [groups], kutiki [to 'tick'], majonsi ['jones' aka to be sad], etc.

... attended the graduation at Missungwi Secondary school. It was a very nice celebration for the 72 students who had just recently finished their national exams [which, I must say, featured several questions on topics which i had taught them, most prominently - no pun intended- the male reproductive system]. When i arrived at the school, I was ushered into the principal's office with the 'special guests', the district commissioner and other big potatoes, even though I don't consider myself special at all since I go to the school on a regular basis. joys of being the lone foreigner. There, at about 10am, we were treated to sodas and liver. No, it was actually really really tasty! so I did my best to schmooze with these people for half an hour before we entered the large [unfinished] hall for the ceremony. In brief, the graduation featured lots of very nice songs performed by students, though many were excessively long, and all featured a separate song to usher the students up to the front, then the actual song, and then a 'leaving' song to be sung as, well, as they were leaving. A tad excessive. The graduating students presented a muslim chant-thing to thank their teachers and fellow students, and I was humbled and shocked and really happy [almost teary] when they referred to their 'American' teacher and all the students started hooting and clapping. A feel-good moment. Then there was a clever drama about the importance of education, the choir sung out the names of students to receive their certificates, thousands of pictures were taken, kilos upon kilos of bananas and rice and meat were consumed, and all-in-all a good time was had. I couldn't help thinking though, and i shared this with another volunteer who agreed, that I feel much more scared for these kids than I did even when I was graduating. It is a tough life here, and they are in for some hard times. But I do my best to encourage, and am thrilled to see several of them talking positively about their next steps.

... continued to enjoy myself, as my time here winds down. the next week has lots more in store, including a final lesson and party at the Teachers Training college on saturday night. parrrty!

Oooh, pictures! More of them!This is clearly a sign that I am in Dar es Salaam, at the Peace Corps office, with fast computers. Because it only took 10 minutes and not 10 hours to upload these shots.Descriptions:Top: Nutrition seminar for a PLWHA group. That is the group, and the other picture is of the FANTASTIC food we ate that day. We had tea, chapatti, eggs, and sweet potatoes for breakfast; yogurt mid-morning; lunch consisted of rice, pilau, potatoes, fish, meat, beans, spinach, tomato salad, a nice dish made of cassava leaves and peanuts called 'kisamvu', and fresh fruit; and then for an evening snack we had juice and peanuts. We were stuffed by the end of the day, but it was all for the sake of learning about balanced diets and food groups...Bottom: A picture of Dominic and Deus, my two best friends, at the home of their parents. I wrote about it in a post called 'Ng'ombe' or 'COW.' In the photo, we were mocking the door to their shed where they store drying tobacco - a grass shed with a padlock on it. Right.The last one is the back of the head of the daladala bike driver who took me on a one-hour+ ride to a nearby [well, relatively nearby] secondary school. It's a pretty wild ride, but this guy really did a good job of getting me there, quickly, and comfortably.-----------------Ok, so as I said, I'm currently in Dar-es-Salaam. We call it Dar, which in English kind of sounds like a noise meaning 'duhhhh' but here it's a normal part of our vocabulary. Peace Corps flew me down here from Mwanza so that I could attend, as an official PCV 'delegate', a party that celebrates the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps. This was a fairly special event, since Tanzania [then Tanganyika as it had not yet united with Zanzibar] was one of the first countries to become involved with the Peace Corps.It's nice to be in Dar, one last time before I come to, and leave from for good, the biggest city in the country. The party last night featured lots of special guests, including some of the volunteers from 40+ years ago, who were really fascinating to talk to and hear their thoughts on how the country has, and has not, changed. The party also featured a pretty fabulous buffet of delicious foods, salads, and desserts. And an open bar. Woo-hoo!The trip has also given me a chance to take care of a bunch of admin stuff, forms to fill out etc etc, before coming back in December. I'm still in the process of looking for work as I apply for and then wait for graduate school [if you know of any good jobs, preferably not behind a desk, let me know please please i will thank you so much please please].Dar is a bustling city, as evidenced by what can be described as a semi-brawl trying to fight for a spot on the daladala bus to get to the office this morning. And the nightlife is nice too, last night I went to a casino with one of my friends, where we managed to play blackjack for a good hour or so. In the last 10 minutes of that hour I had amazing luck and managed to walk away with about 50 bucks!It's also a small world - yesterday I ran into, I mean just randomly bumped into, a really good friend from Missungwi. It was surreal, think random Stevens Point bumping-into in NYC.I had some other stuff to write about in an entry, but it was about Missungwi, and despite seeing this guy I am still in big-city mode, so will wait to write about the nuances of village life until I actually return to it, which will be this evening when I get back on the plane and head home....

I forgot an interesting cultural observation in my last entry. Last week I kept feeling really tired in the early morning. I told this to one of my friends, Sam, at the Misungwi market, and he gave me the clearest, most logical, occam’s razoresque answer anyone could have given – obviously, he said, there are witches who are waking me up at night and taking me to farm in the fields without my being aware of it. That accounts for me being so tired when I wake up – I’ve been digging with a hoe all night! Of course I dismissed this as silly, but a LARGE portion of Tanzanians here believe in ‘uchawi’, which means something along the lines of witchcraft. Mostly doing bad things to other people, no ‘good’ witches. So I told him the following day about my sweating in the middle of the night. “See!! See!! I told you. You are getting your ass worked out in the fields, but you still don’t believe it!”------------Speaking of scary people, fictional or otherwise. Well, the otherwise. There are always young men in Mwanza who do daily labor work – lifting heavy objects, carrying bags, selling bus tickets. Lots of manual labor. But there are a handful of guys who, it seems, specialize in loading and unloading corn and wheat flour from trucks into a few big wholesale stores that then sell these huge [100 kg? 80kg?] bags to smaller store owners. Well, these guys by the end of the day look pretty terrifying; if I were a kid who had never seen them before I would cry. They are, of course, really big and burly given the heavy, labor intensive work they do. But they are also covered, head to toe, in white flour. They don’t look Caucasian white, nor albino white. They look SCARY white, like they have been possessed by the Pillsbury doughboy or the Michelin man or something.--------------Mwanza is an interesting contrast in terms of activity and relaxation. Even with the street vendors gone, it is still very lively in the downtown and there are people everywhere. They seem to be pretty evenly mixed, however, in what they are doing. Half are REALLY working their assess off to make a little money. Like the flour guys, like the store employees, like the people inside the main market selling foods and fruits and the like, and like the bus stand guys trying to find potential travelers. Well, sometimes the bus stand guys. Because the other half of the people in the city seem to be asleep, literally. In between carloads, or bus departures, or when there just isn’t any work to do, or maybe just when they are TIRED, lots of people here sleep. Under a tree, on a bench, under a parked semi truck [seriously], anywhere where there is shade and a little breeze and no one who’s taken the spot yet. It’s sort of depressing sometimes, both in respect to the lack of employment opportunities, and the fact that it looks so tempting and nice and comfortable that I have a hard time preventing myself from going and sleeping too.---------------My good friend the carpenter, Sele, has about 10 young men who work with him at his workshop, sanding wood, building tables and chairs and stuff, and cutting hair in a small salon/hut next door to the carpentry stuff. I trained about 5 of these guys on condom usage so that they could sell condoms in the haircutting booth, since I noticed that these booths [and there are many of them] are a popular place for young men to 1) get their hair cut, which is frequently, and 2) hang out and, well, just hang out. So what better place to put condoms, somewhere they will feel free and comfortable to purchase them. Plus, they usually sit around the barbershop at around 4-7pm, which I presume is right before the time they all split up to go look for girls. So the main guy I trained on condom use – well, he ran away. Why run away? To avoid 30 years in jail. 30 years for what? For getting a primary school [grade 4] girl pregnant. Whoops. I’m 90% sure he knocked her up before our little lesson on condoms, and granted she started school late so she’s older [about 16-18] than everyone else in the school. But still. I try to advise these guys as often as I can, ok, if you must have sex, use a condom, and come on use some common sense, DON’T sleep with students! We’ll see if he is able to come back….--------------------I am in Mwanza, and tomorrow am going to Dar for a celebration of the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps – no silver 50, but still not bad. It’ll be a nice few days away from Missungwi, a change of scenery, and then when I get back on Friday I’ll be ready to settle in for the last 6-7 weeks of my service here before I leave for good. Time is flying, emotions are increasingly mixed, but it’s feeling good to know that I’ll be moving on. Friday will be graduation for the form 4 students I work closely with at the secondary school, so that will help, I think, as some closure for myself too. It’ll be nice to see some other people moving on to bigger and better things too, not just me.

YIKES, who is that guy, and what is he doing?! Oh, it's me, i'm sweaty, but that can't stop me from being happy because i'm holding a papaya from a tree that I planted myself, with a seed from a nice fruit that I ate. And since taking this picture, I have eaten, along with my neighbors, the papaya in question. It was delicious, red, sweet, smooth, perfect. I wanted to show how big they can get, this one would probably sell for maybe 40-50 cents at the market [vs way expensive in the states, from what my mom tells me]

ANYWAYS,

I’m in a better mood than I was when I wrote my last post. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t still believe most of what I wrote, or that it wasn’t accurate, but that I’ve consciously made an effort to put it aside and look for the positive, even when I’m faced with constant reminders of the not-so-nice sort. Today I had a good chuckle, which I needed. Last night I felt hot and tired, and woke up in the middle of the night DRENCHED in sweat. It was really, really disgusting, it felt like I had just got out of a bath and hadn’t dried off. Except sweat, not water. I was too tired to take a bathe [not as easy here as just jumping in the shower, i.e. no running water] so I took off the sheet and put a towel down and was just about to fall asleep again when I heard a loud drumming. We are in the middle of the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan, and the commotion I was hearing was a group of people who walk around at midnight and wake people up to remind them to eat again, since as soon as it hits 5am they have to fast until about 7pm. Important for them, but kind of annoying for me. But I was so tired it didn’t really matter anyways, I passed out after a few minutes. This morning I woke up early and went running again. It was nice, my friend Alex whom I run with was sick yesterday and so I ran by myself, which is NOT nice. I was trying to explain this to someone, and they asked ‘oh, so you talk a lot and stuff while you run?’ and the answer, honestly, is no. After about the first 3 minutes, I’m huffing and puffing too much to talk. But just running with another person, especially someone who is a bit better than you, is very encouraging and pushes you to go faster, farther. And let me be honest, if I’m stuck doing something that’s exhausting [exercise] or boring [some classes, for example] or tedious [some work meetings, for example], I like knowing that I’m not the only poor soul being tortured, but that I have company. So the laughing part – we had just gotten back from our run, about 40 minutes, and were stretching in the soccer field while greeting students passing by on their way to school [kind of embarrassing for me as their teacher, but oh well, I just greet them in English and they get nervous and embarrassed too and we’re all in the same boat]. We were stretching and we saw, for about the 5th day in a row, two young men working together to push a trolley loaded with pretty large bricks. We had spoken to them a few days ago, and discovered that they were hauling 3,000 bricks from our neighborhood up to a plot near the school [‘up’ being a key word here]. Each load they can carry 60 bricks, so do the math – 50 loads. They start at 4am and go until maybe 10am. One of the guys said they’ll probably finish tomorrow or the next day. But today, I had a question for them. You see, they had challenged us after our run a few days back that what we were doing wasn’t really exercise, but that their work was real exercise. I agreed that they had very hard work, and just watching them you can see their muscles straining while pushing the trolley. However, yesterday I saw something which puzzled me – a young man pushing a trolley DOWN, from an area up near the school, to a plot in our neighborhood. He was having quite a difficult time, but mainly in trying to slow the card down so it wouldn’t get away from him. In other words, the young men we had been speaking to are busting their asses to take bricks up, and someone else is hauling bricks down. This struck me as very comical, stupid, and kind of sad. This morning I asked them why they don’t just trade bricks with the other guy, so that the bricks ‘up there’ get moved to the plot ‘up there’ and the ones in our neighborhood get moved to the plot nearby. They looked baffled at the logic of this, and finally answered that ‘well, some of the bricks differ in size’ which I guess was true, but still. At least, I guess, some people are getting a little bit of income and keeping themselves busy in the meantime – better having them do SOMETHING than just sitting around all day, right? Even if it means hauling bricks/crossing paths… Yeah, the run was good this morning. Alex joked to me that my leg muscles are starting to develop, I joked back that they’ve always been there I just hadn’t been using them so much. Which I think is actually true. Yesterday I was too tired to ride my bike around after the run, so I spent the day hiring bike taxis. These bike taxi guys, whom I’ve written a little about before, have SUPER muscle legs. Yesterday one of these young men reminded me of the movie The Triplets of Belleville, which by the way is very good and you should see it, which parodies the Tour de France and shows the crazy bicycle guys and their skinny but very toned legs. Kind of freaks me out, looks to much like a horse or something, skinny ankles but huge thighs… Other news/highlights: Fresh juice is now available in Misungwi! Despite a plethora of great fruits, people here don’t seem to want to pay to drink fruit juice. Soda, they drink by the crates, but juice? No. But finally some people are starting to catch on, and one store now sells various fruit juices. Yesterday was pineapple/passion/banana mix. It was delicious. Apparently the guy who makes it has been doing pretty good business, so I expect I’ll be able to enjoy it for the rest of my time here. My neighbor bought a new daladala car, so now he has two. I swear, every day there is another car that starts doing the Missungwi/Mwanza route. I wonder sometimes how they still do business, and whether the profit isn’t shrinking rather drastically. Actually, I suspect that may be part of the reason my neighbor DID buy a second car, because the profits off the first were lagging, so he figured he up his stake in the general all-car daily take. I offered to be the driver or conductor, but they laughed at me. I said I’d bring a TON of business, since everyone would want to ride in the white guy’s car, there would be a high level of amusement. Seriously, one of my good friends [Dominic’s brother] wanted to be the conductor, but I advised him against it – most drivers and conductors have not-so-great behavior, i.e. drink and especially women [every night, often someone different from yesterday]. But yeah, a new car on our street is certainly exciting news in a small town like this. Form IV students are taking their exams. Already they’ve been asked a question on birth control, a topic I taught them, and today they take the biology test where I’m SURE there will be questions about HIV, STDs, reproductive system, or something along those lines. We’ll see if they were actually paying attention to anything I was saying… I've been watching '24' with some Belgian girls who are in town doing research. It's a pretty good show, we're halfway into the 3rd season. I am greatly looking forward to January, a month I plan on devoting to three things: the couch, the fridge, and a Netflix subscription [hint hint welcome home present]

As I stated in a previous blog entry, my emotions are pretty erratic these days, varying from fond sentimentality about my time here to harsh cynicism. For example, this past week my period at the Teachers Training college went very well, and all I could think was how great it was to work with such energentic, enthusiastic people - and all the better that their energy will hopefully go to helping thousands of young kids! Then the next day I heard a new rumor about one of the teachers I know sleeping with his students, and while visiting a guesthouse I saw a primary school teacher walking OUT of his room, in the middle of the day, followed closely by a secondary school girl [and once they left I went in to snoop, found no sign of condom usage - this girl clearly thinks she will not pass her exams and thus is free to get knocked up since she will be done in 3 weeks], and the more I asked people the more I gathered that many/most teachers sleep with many many students. And people know about it, and it's normal, though it's still considered unethical, it happens all the time. Hell, I heard [and of course this is all rumors and speculation which is a dangerous dangerous game] that there was a secondary school teacher who purposedly tried to get a student pregnant because he really like her - what can I say, it's sort of a complement here. It was all very disturbing.

I saw one of my coworkers again the other night at a bar, with his wife. I've seen them out together before, and have always been THRILLED when we bump into each other, because why the hell should a man NOT take out the woman he loves and is married to, to enjoy some drinks and music and relax together?!!?! It seems to happen so rarely here. But then within the past week I've seen back-alley [well there are no alleys here but you get the picture] conversations and heard a lot more stories, and have come to the conclusion that about 20% of married people here are actually faithful to their spouse. And it may be much lower. And if the husband has a job which is far away from his wife, it's almost a 100% guarantee that he's cheating. I used to try to trick myself by saying, well, ok, but not so-and-so, they don't do it. But no, almost everybody cheats and sleeps around. Well, this is cynical me talking, but this side of me can be pretty convincing.

Then there are the daladala conductors. I always knew they were a pretty rowdy bunch, but several of them have gotten used to me and we talk when we get free time, I give them advice, teach them about condoms, and give their heads the quarter-turn screw they need to get them on straight and live a decent life. But they become unscrewed again. Yesterday, I was coming back from a nearby village and one of the conductors was drunk as I've ever seen anyone be here. And he of course picked a fight with another one, traded some doosy insults, and started a fistfight that ended in blood all over the place, a car full of screaming children and mothers, a crowd of no-good young men [it was friday market day], and just an all-around not pleasant situation. Oh by the way, blood-inducing fist-fights may not seem a big deal in the states, but if you knew how many women these conductors sleep with, the last thing you would want is their blood on YOU. I'm sure several have HIV, statistically there are a total of around 20 so I would say 2-3 are positive. So there's that, plus they sleep with students too, and smoke a lot of pot, and just kind of seem to have given up on 'life' and are prepared to party until their death. Depressing.

And finally, everyone's favorite topic, AIDS. People die of AIDS here all the time, that's not new. And i've been working with several groups of PLWHA doing nutrition seminars to talk about balance diets, in order to prolong lives and improve the health of these people so they can take ARVs effectively and go about their daily work and lives. Again, not new. But this week for the first time I saw someone whom I've known since I arrived here, and who was a perfectly normal looking person, seemingly deteriorate into late-stage AIDS. He works in Misungwi town, and while he hasn't said anything, people suspect he has HIV since his first wife, second wife, and 2 children he has born by his third wife have all passed away. He's about 50 years old I'd say, short, and was a healthy body weight. Apparently he used to call himself 'mtombaji wa taifa', which is crude langauge for 'the national fucker' i.e. someone who has sex with a nation full of young women. Pleasant, no? I saw him yesterday, and he looks about 1/2 the man he used to be. If he was once 160 pounds, I would literally say he is now about 80. And all this weight loss has happened in the past 2 months, when he stopped coming to work because he was feeling ill. I almost cried when I saw him, but didn't. I cried a bit at home when I thought about his wives, his children, and all the other young women he's seduced.

One of my papayas, the biggest one on the tree, was stolen. Heads will roll if/when I catch the culprits, even if they are little kiddie heads, which I suspect they might be.

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WOW, what a sad, sad entry today!! But i'm really not feeling that bad! I went running again this morning with Alex, and it was terrific - the past few days I've gotten an increasing number of the 'damn, you are sweaty!' comments, but today I barely even broke a sweat until after we returned!! And I just had a great lunch in Mwanza town. AND I ran into Jonathan, a young man who makes and sells greeting cards here in town. He was very sick for a while, and himself looks to have gotten skinny, but is still full of energy and was SO happy to hear the news that I found a store to sell his cards for him back home [and that we're giving him 4 times more than what he asks for on the street here!]. I will try to get some pictures of the cards he makes up on the blog, but in the meantime they will be sold somewhere in Stevens Point, my mom has more info on this. This kid [he is older than me but very small, poor diet, he was a street boy here in Mwanza] has got moderate talent but monumental determination and perserverance, and it's so rewarding to help him out.

Ok, so that's a little cheerier. I'll wrap it up on that, time to go back to Misungwi, but first search around for fruit, since there isn't any at the busstand anymore...

So one result of the move of all the street vendors in mwanza town is that the doctor is gone too - the guys who sold me apples and carrots are mostly moved from their former station, though yesterday I bumped into one of them who sold me some delicious apples [i've already eaten 4 of them]. He didn't call me doctor though, I think they only do it when I'm leaving the office and it looks more doctorly of me, not when i'm just walking around Mwanza like any old schlep.

Speaking of Mwanza, I recently got a chance to visit a part of town where a lot of people live but I'd never been, mostly because it is a collection of sort of scattered homes that go STEEPLY up into the rocky hills of the city. The area is called 'mabatini', which means 'at the corrogated steel roofing' I have no clue why. It was pretty interesting, parts of it reminded me of Russia [though not the Soviet housing blocks], but in the sense where a home can look like shit on the outside but be really nice inside.

I was lucky to have some young guys in town for the past month on vacation from their advanced high school studies. Tuesday i hung out with them until around 10pm, way late for me, just shooting the shit and hanging out. And talking about things that, while not rocket-science, were at least somehow thought provoking. It was nice, I miss that sort of stimulation sometimes, an earnest exchange of ideas about interesting and important topics. But now they're gone, so back to same old same old.

I'm still running. I go with Alex and his younger brother. Alex is an electrician who is still pretty young, and both of his parents have passed away, so he is the breadwinner for like 5 younger children. He works with his younger brother together to make some money. He has a stuttering problem, which I think may be psychological, and he likes kung-fu. Him and his brother are exercise fiends and they've been routinely kicking my ass, but I'm doing a decent job now at least trying to somehow keep up with them, and they're really fun to hang out with. He's also dating one of my students at the secondary school - i'm not thrilled about that, but at least I'm in a position to advise him about condom use and marriage and planning his goals/budgeting etc. Oh, and he's a good dresser so we're going shopping in Mwanza next week. Now any of you who know me know how much I hate shopping, but I haven't bought any new clothes for 2 years - yikes! and handwashing is damaging on the fabrics. So the time has come.... i might actually be loathing that more than our 6am runs.

lots of things are changing lately.

Yesterday i was told 3 separate times that i'm getting fat, which is somehow true. That, combined with poor sleep and just general lethargy in the evenings [a few weeks ago I turned into my once-fat-now-fit father by sleeping on the couch for 2 hours before dinner] has produced another recent change - I'm running again. Albeit a bit late in the game since i only have 2 months left here, but I've started running with my friend Alex every morning at the butt-crack of dawn. It's going well, this fat man still remembers a thing or two and I get the job done, though people are never ashamed to point out WOW you were breathing hard GEEZ you were sweating a lot...

But in order to cut the fat a bit, I've also decided a change in diet is appropriate. I was eating, shall we say, a LOT. Breakfast alone was big bowl of chicken soup [entire chicken breast] 2 chappatis a glass of yogurt and a plate of fruit and sometimes a hard boiled egg. So now I want to try to eat NOT a lot. There are a few of my good muslim friends here in town who really want me to fast with them for a day, so I think next weekend I will give it a shot [I also plan on wearing my man-skirt, a 'kikoi' that muslim men all wear in zanzibar, so that I really go all out on this day. I asked if that would be offensive to the muslims in the community, people said hell no they'll be thrilled! sometimes political correctness in the states can go too far...]. Though I'm not sure how much fasting really helps in terms of weight loss. I went to my arab friends house, the one I wrote about a few weeks ago, for his last supper before returning to Oman for a few weeks. We broke the fast with tons of fruit, sodas, potatoes, and meat. I stuffed myself silly and then had to hire a bicycle to take me home, even though he lives maybe 5 minutes walk away...

I think my big problem is snacking. I snack a lot, fruits, sweets, pastries. That will probably be changing now too, especially when I go to Mwanza town. The place where I was accustomed to purchasing all my fruits and popcorn and etc is no more. You see, all over Mwanza town there were people who had set up informal huts to sell their wares, or they just brought a bucket and a stool and plopped themselves down everyday to do business, like at the main busstand [they call them machinga in Kiswahili]. They sold fruit, phone accessories, shirts, shorts, underwear [always fun to see people buy their underwear in a crowded bus stand or street] electronics, razors, cards, fancy gift bags - EVERYTHING. And now all these people have been kicked out of the downtown and moved to areas a bit outside of the city. So i'm a bit lost now, not sure where to buy some of my daily needs. Not to mention the city seems to have lost a bit of the oomph and life that it once had [though, i must admit, these street vendors did block sidewalks, make annoying calls and comments, and many were not honest businessmen and some downright pickpockets]. Not only is that not allowed, but the sale of charcoal for cooking has been banned. Which kinda sucks, since most people in the city use charcoal stoves. What this means is that any given night in Misungwi, which is on the main road from villages into Mwanza, if you pass around 9pm-4am you see guys pushing bicycles with HUGE loads of charcoal, walking over 50 kilometers into the city in the middle of the night [and making a FORTUNE when they sell it...]

other changes in brief:

one of my good friends was thrown in jail for getting piss drunk, threatening to kill his sister, and then trashing her restaurant. that sucks. i think he has a mental illness.another of my good friends just had a baby. he is about 26 years old [my friend, not the baby] and his fiance returned from her studies at university in january to live with him. yes, that's right, if you do the math he got her pregnant within days after her return. dude, why not chill out and enjoy life without noisysmellyNEEDY kids around? oh well, not the culture here. baby's name = elvisthe second of my two close teacher friends has left Misungwi to go study in Mwanza at a Teachers college. So basically, the two teachers I was close to are gone. Which kind of sucks for me, but I'm very glad for them to get the opportunity to further their education, so i can't be that upset. Plus i see them every wednesday when I go there to do work. friends name = cash

there's a cute little boy at the Misungwi market named Dominic, but everyone calls him Domi. he's a rascal, and unlike most kids is completely unintimidated by me. he also got into a bad habit of asking me for money or candy before even greeting me. yesterday for the first time we had a nice 2 minute conversation [kiddie talk of course] without a single request. that's a change I can handle.

electricity on tuesday, how nice! tomorrow i will be in Mwanza and will write more...

On Monday I finally got to taste what I had been waiting for since I first arrived... a piece of fruit from my own tree!!!

I am amazed at tropical fruit, obsessed with it, and a little upset at how Tanzanians take it for granted. Even in relatively dry Misungwi, fruit grows SO easily here, mangoes in season are a dime a hundred, and papaya trees bear fruit in - well, not that long as you can tell. I planted a SEED of a tasty piece of fruit that I had eaten sometime around last October, and less than a year later, I got the opportunity to eat an ENORMOUS piece of fruit, red and delicious. I of course shared it with my neighbors, as there is no way I could finish it, and all were impressed at the size and quality - it was nice. Papaya in the states sucks, so I'm getting as much of it here as I can. I swear, it seems like almost everyone from home who comes here says they don't like papaya, but then if you try it here it's like a whole different fruit- it's actually good.

Speaking of food, and eating, two topics which I devote quite a substantial amount of time to on this blog [but in which I feel completely justified doing], the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan started on Sunday. So no eating for Muslims until sun-down. OUCH. I couldn't do it, I like eating too much, not to mention drinking water when the sun is scorching because you're on the freaking equator.

I was actually having an interesting and sort of cynical conversation today with some coworkers. One is Muslim, but I ran into him at the canteen where we both got lunch. He said, and I quote [but in English], "I'm fasting from sin, not from food." I thought it was an interesting point, since I know plenty of Muslims who are fasting but are sure as hell sinning in a myriad of other ways [Christians for that matter too, I love seeing who is Catholic on Ash Wednesday, and thinking to myself "pious, huh, coulda fooled me"]. Oh well. I'm just waiting for the month to end on Idd, when there will be lots of celebrating and drinking.... whoops, I think God is shaking his head on that last point

The start of the holy month probably explained why there were few people at the disco on sunday night, even though there was a famous musician who came to sing [poorly, since he was drunk and stoned. at one point he just squatted on the floor and sang into his hands for a minute, i asked my neighbor if he was singing or taking a dump]. It was pretty tame, which means I should've gone home, but not, I stayed until 4am. This weekend in general was ROUGH. On friday night there was a party to say goodbye to the old [and I mean old, the guy is retiring] head of the District. So I partied and drank with all my coworkers [boy was THAT interesting, though I have to admit they did a good job playing not just old people music] until about 2am. Food was at midnight and after that it was listening to speeches, i.e. falling asleep. So I grabbed my last free beer and then skipped out and went to the disco to meet up with some friends, and got home around 4am.

On Saturday I went to yet another function attended by most of my coworkers, the wedding of the younger sister of the District Executive Director. Somehow I had been in Tanzania for 2 years without going to a wedding, this was my first. Weddings are an interesting cultural phenomenon, but let me be brief in my observations: very structured here, everything went by a down-to-the-minute schedule [though, of course, since it's Tanzania, we were about 2.5 hours behind schedule the entire time]. We drank, we gave gifts, we listened to speeches [and a pseudo-sermon given by a relative of some sort, the groom is a born-again]. We ate fried food, we danced, I danced with my bosses, I danced with THE boss which was kind of fun but kind of bizzarre because I had actually headed in her direction in order to try to dance with her youngest sister who was a bridesmaid and is fairly attractive. The only people who didn't dance were the bride and groom. Nor did they stand up, nor did they say anything, nor did they do much. This is apparently typical. They just sit up in front and look sad like they are going to prison or something, or are on trial, and the bestman/bridesmaid wipe the sweat off of them because they are eating fried foods and under glaring videocamera lights and aren't allowed to leave the room [I half expected to see catheter bags if I lifted up the tablecloth on the head table]. All in all it looked like the night was meant for us, the guests, at the expense of the people who were actually doing the work, i.e. getting married. But hey I'm not complaining, I had fun!

So 3 late nights in a row was a bit too much, now the town is chilled out because of Ramadhan, so it's time for me to chill out too. It is 3pm right now, I'm going home to sleep, then go to the market to sit around for awhile, then to my friends house to sit around some more, then to my neighbors house to eat, then home to sleep again. Now THAT's what I call entertainment.

PICTURES!!!

Top = children with weapons [see recent blog post]

Middle = me deep frying a vat of around 50 fish for transport into the interior of the country

Bottom = me, a young woman in a nearby town, and her son BRIAN. poor kid will have his name butchered his whole life, unless he shortens 'buhlayani' into 'bula' which is actually a common nickname...

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It rained this past week. Monday. For about 2 hours. That was glorious, first rain in I believe about 3 months. Provided much needed water, people were buying it for almost 500 shillings a bucket [20 liters or 5 gallons for 50 cents! expensive!] because one of the main pipes in town was broken. Anyways. It's hot again now.

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An interesting site, an interesting man, an interesting idea:

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/mvp/

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What is new. On thursday I did a fantastic seminar on nutrition for a group of about 30 PLWHA. They are more amazing everytime I meet them and talk to them. They chat, they laugh, they joke about their AIDS [the way you look so good today, no way you have AIDS, i dont believe it!]. And they EAT, alot. We spent the day talking about the food groups, balanced meals, using spices, and how to adjust diet when you are sick. And we ATE. Tea, egg, bread in the AM, then some yogurt. Lunch included: potatoes, rice, pilau, beef, one whole fish per person, beans, cabbage, spinach, salsa, 'kisamvu' which is very nice leaves cooked with peanut sauce, and a big slice of pineapple.

Boy did we eat. It didn't help either that we had planned for 40 people but only 30 were able to come, so we had leftovers [well, we SHOULD have had leftovers, but needless to say we didn't, we ATE].

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I have been talking a lot to students of mine. The other day I sat with a big group of them in a small barbershop hut and did a condom demonstration [using a cucumber, lots of jokes on how much the condom stretched, it was a BIG cucumber...]. Then I did another condom demonstration at my house for like 5 more guys. And I've been visiting a lot of them at their homes, helping especially the ones who are about to take their exams and graduate and most of whom probably will not continue on with schooling.

It's been a bit of an eye-opener to see how most of them live - they call it 'ghetto life'. Ghetto means that they rent rooms, each student has a VERY small room in a VERY not nice house, often without electricity or safe doors/windows. There are frequently 4-5 students all renting rooms in the same house. They clean, cook together, study together, and it is a pretty intensely routine life. Of course this life also puts them at risk [have I written about this before on my blog? it seems like EVERY aspect of life here puts people at risk for HIV infection]. They are newly self-dependent, newly free of parental controls, and hormoes are RAGING. I'm convinced there is quite a bit of unsafe sex going on, and am trying to convince them to knock it off, or at least put a box of condoms in the 'ghetto' for everyone to take from if need be.

I do like talking to them though, they frequently ask interesting questions, and every once in a while i have a geniunely interesting conversation with a student or two. I seem to run into them wherever I go, though a favorite hangout is the 'mangotree' bus stop on the road which is just a few hundred meters from my house, and where we often gather for some porrige [think like a smooth breakfast oatmeal that you drink] and to just hang out. I will be sad to see them go when they finish in October, though the ones that I really like, i.e. the ones that don't sleep in class and actually seem to give a damn, will probably [if they don't get HIV] go on to do some amazing things in their lives...

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Oh, speaking of 'just hanging out', I never understood why so many people just sit in the road until 8 or 9 pm not doing anything. Why not go home and rest? Oh yeah. Because at home there are 5+ kids who are all screaming their lungs out. I am still baffled why people here are shocked if I say that I might not have children. 'Why on earth not?!?!' they say. 'Dirty, noisy, smelly....' is typically how I begin the answer to that question.

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My aunt just recently emailed me a good question about HIV infection. I get asked the most random questions from all directions all the time, and have begun to expect it - i'm afraid i'll be a bit lost when I return home and am no longer the 'expert' anymore, the 'go-to guy', the 'guru'. Oh, and the 'doctor'. I got called that again today, and as I sit here writing in the internet cafe I have a bag full of 4 dollars of produce.

But one of my favorite yet most annoying questions is about HIV infection and tongue kissing, i.e. making out. I was at a school assembly at a nearby secondary school and they asked this, and it was probably the 30th time I've been asked, and I kind of lost it and got really sarcastic. I said something to the effect of this. HEY LOOK. Noone gets HIV by tongue kissing. OK it's true that if you have cuts in your mouth and your girlfriend has cuts in her mouth and blood is coming out and you decide to kiss each other you might get infected, but WHO THE FUCK KISSES PEOPLE when there is blood spilling out of their mouth?!?! Common sense here folks!! The real kicker, and I told them all this, is that people are so paranoid to ask me questions about using razors at the hairdressors or tongue kissing, but they seem PERFECTLY ok having unprotected sex at a rate that would shame even the noblest of rabbits.

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A new cell phone company officially opened up service in my area last week. They did it as any company looking to promote their merchandise around here does - they come with their big open bed semi truck, blast some local music, and have attractive men and women doing amazing and, to me, incomprehensible things with their bodies [mostly their waists and hips]. I have never seen a bigger crowd in Misungwi, and probably wont see the likes of it again. Of course very few who came to watch probably bought a cell phone card, but at least they got some good laughs...

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Time is up - hope to post some more pictures the next time I get a chance, and tell a story about one of my good friends who is, drumroll, an ORPHAN!!! Isn't that exciting and positive? Seriously though, while no OPRAH material he is somehow inspirational and somehow tragic. Will gather my thoughts on this topic before I write, as it is a serious issue here [I would say half of my friends my age, i.e. 25-30, have at least lost 1 if not both parents].

PEACE

no electricity during the daytime except for sporadic generator-induced email access - this was announced last friday, and is reportedly effective for between 2 weeks and 2 months while they fix a machine or something in Dar es Salaam...

super busy week this week - 2 discos, 2 seminars for PLWHA on nutrition, 2 funerals this past weekend and probably at least 2 more this week, a meeting/intervention with one of my young friends [aged 22] who has 2 wives and 2 kids and 2 much time on his hands anyways [and who likes meeting young college girls, who are 2 weeks away from arriving to start the term, thus the 'intervention'...], and 2 weeks left before the form 4 [seniors] at the secondary school take their examinations

it's all a bit too crazy, but seeing as I only have about 2 months left here, I'm too excited nonetheless...

The title of this post is a quote from the movie Big Momma, starring Martin Lawrence.

I saw it on Sunday at my friends house. That's right: I'm white, I'm in rural poverty-stricken East Africa, and I watched a popular African-American movie with my good friends who are... wait for it... ARAB. Omani, to be precise.

I really like them. First, moreso even than Tanzanians, they force feed me a lot of food. GOOD food, food with spices, and really soft nice pieces of meat. And the 'man of the house', Hamadi, is also a recent arrival. He is Omani, though he has visited Tanzania before he hasn't stayed much. He came to marry one of the women who was in the house. He knows Swahili [apparently a LOT of people in Oman and Yemen and UAE etc know Swahili - I'm not sure. A few of my friends in Misungwi told me that a lot of Arabs who were living in Tanzania and Zanzibar left after independence and when the Arab countries started better exploiting the oil riches back home...] but he does NOT know prices, so people try to screw him over almost worse than me!

Second, they are nice to talk to. They have lots of opinions about Tanzania and the Arab world and life in general that seem, at least from my perspective, to be refreshingly free of the bias or preference for one group/place over another. They shoot straight and tell it like it is, and in a really comedic way, too.

Third, they have a lot of movies. Of which I've only just started watching, though I caught bits of Lord of the Rings last week and plan on watching Big Momma 2 sometime in the next few days..

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On Friday I went, for the first time, to the Disco in Misungwi town. It was actually a pretty fun experience! I hadn't gone yet because I had heard stories of brawls and commotion and just general unpleasantries, but people say it has 'chilled out' since I first got here, and a few famous artists were coming so I figured I'd check it out.

It was a little bizarre going to a Disco where EVERYONE knows you and you know most of them. In a way it made it awkward - I saw some of my students who DEFINITELY should not have been there, and were behaving in a typical rebellious teenage way that portrays utter confidence in their actions but for us 'old folk' we cringe and shake our heads and think "in a few years, they'll regret THAT... and THAT...". I also saw some teachers and coworkers, most of whom asked me to buy them beers [um, no]. And I ran into a friend of mine who has a family - a wife and 3 month old baby - and who brought the whole crew along with him. Friday night, 11:30pm, I'm dancing to 'Candy Shop' or some other raunchy song [is Mystikal out of jail?!], and I turn around to see someone passing me a wide-eyed 3month old kid. HUH?!?! I danced/bounced him around for about 20 seconds before I got freaked out and just passed the kid along to the next person who was willing to take him [no worries since everyone knows each other, well worries about kidnapping. I think the act of taking a small child to the disco in the first place is a tad disconcerting....]

But knowing everyone also made it kind of fun. Since the disco is in the village, it is much more difficult for young women to come - they must stay at home with their parents and do housework, and it would be MOST inappropriate for them to be seen at the disco. So it was mostly men. But even the women who were there, since we all knew each other, it had a very relaxing and friendly atmosphere. People were drinking, talking to each other, enjoying life, dancing for the sake and enjoyment of dancing. Not like Mwanza or Dar, where the men seem to enjoy going from introduction [which is optional] to nasty hip grind dip hump etc etc in less than 5 seconds, despite the protest [or with occasional encouragement] of the women [prostitutes would be the exception].

So I had a good time, and people were really happy to see me there. In general, actually, people seem really happy to see me these days. On Sunday I greeted more people than I think I ever have in my life, i.e. a one-day record. Even last night I had gone out and was walking home late, and had everyone who passed call out greetings to me [not very helpful, though, since I have no clue who they are - I don't think it's racist to say that it's harder to tell black people apart at night than it is to distinguish that someone is white, no?]. Well, greetings or asking me to 'sell' them the young white Belgian women I was with who are doing their studies here for the next month [I told them they're not for sale, and if they were these guys couldn't afford it - pretty inappropriate huh?]

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I saw some men destroying an old, traditional mud-brick home. When I came upon them there was one wall left standing, and the preferred method of demolition was for 5 guys to stand next to the wall and start pushing. It was practical but also incredibly amusing to watch - I wanted to take a picture but they actually had the wall down by the time I got my camera out...

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Young men like hanging out at the small wooden huts that act as hair-dressers. Well, barbers, since all they do is usually shave their heads [most of them are too young to have facial hair, which Tanzanian men start growing later than American men, and if they DO have it they are too proud of it to want to shave it off]. It's fun to stop by sometimes and greet them, and yesterday I decided to do an experiment and took my good fundi friend, who has a barbershop next door, and taught the young guys who work there all about CONDOMS. Very informal classroom, just giving them the basics and answering their questions, but it was highly enjoyable and is one of the more rewarding aspects of my work [though often unreported in my work summaries].

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My time here is winding down, now less than 3 months, and I'm liking it here more every day.

It's gonna be hard to leave, but I think in the end I will be ready for it. I need to come home, work a little, go back to school, and start thinking about the next job I can get that will bring me back here...

Electricity - it's back!! Well, back to the glorious 4 days a week scenario, instead of the completely confusing, unpredictable, sporadic, and ill-timed 2 days a week [including Sunday] that had been the schedule for the past few weeks.

Rumor is that Mwanza is getting a break on electricity because the city needs it for the fish packing factories. Lord knows there are lots of small-scale Tanzanian businessmen and women who are trying to earn a days living, but no need to worry about them, what is clearly important is that rich white people in Europe get their much needed fresh-water fish. No but seriously, it's so important for these little guys, so at least they've cut us ALL some slack and provided us out of the city with the same rationing schedule as the big guys...

What is new. I just came from the office, where I managed to get all the work done I needed to but did NOT buy the eggs I had wanted to buy. Friday is always an interesting day, as it's the main weekly market, and so walking around in the middle of our office building are nice but slightly slow and definitely not 'city' ladies carrying big buckets of tomatoes or green peppers or spinach on their heads. Or eggs. I wanted the eggs, since the villagers sell them for 70 shillings but here in town I buy them for 150. But I swear, and I think i've written about this before, the women who work in the offices must be able to smell these people coming or have some 6th sense that I don't have, because all the good stuff, including the eggs, never makes it to my door....

This week has been full of a lot of, um, 'down-time.' I'm sure I've written about this too, but in Tanzania there is a LOT of time spent 'waiting' for something, anything. Yesterday I went to visit some secondary school teachers whom I had trained in a seminar, and spent a total of 3.5 hours waiting for various forms of dilapidated transportation [plus another hour walking when there were no other options but my legs]. The day before I spent an hour waiting for the generator to start working so I could send an important email, although that hour was MUCH more exciting than the ones waiting for cars because I spent the whole time talking to a guard at the internet cafe and office building, a friend of mine who took a long vacation and just came back, and who happens to be a Mmaasai. So I got updates on his family [he has like 50 brothers and sisters, since his father has 6 wives], his business [he walked god knows how many kilometers recently to sell some cows in Kenya, which itself is shocking not for the distance but that a Maasai would want to sell his cows...], and got a chance to ask some questions I'd been wanting to ask for awhile. His Kiswahili is much better now, as is mine, so we actually understood each other! I don't have the time or energy to explain much here, but here's a website that I haven't looked at but may be informative.... http://www.maasai-association.org/

The day BEFORE that, I was once again sitting around waiting for a car to go to Mwanza, though this only took about 45 minutes. And I was sitting with some people I know, and eating boiled maize, so that helps pass the time. And I saw one of the wildest [well, not wild, but crazy, or not crazy, but difficult] things I've seen here - a mama who was riding a bicycle while, without hands, carrying a huge bucket of fish on her head. I asked around, turns out they have competitions for this, and this mama placed 2nd last year in the whole of Mwanza region. She can apparently ride her bicycle even while carrying buckets of water. That's heavy, yo, in case you hadn't figured it out. And she doesn't even use her hands to hold it up there. Very impressive, and picture worthy...

Sometimes I feel like Tanzanians do a lot of things that, were Americans to try, we would severly injure ourselves. Such as buckets of water on the head. And opening soda bottles with teeth. And eating sugarcane as a dangerous activity in and of itself.

Another example - Tanzanian children are trusted highly, more than I think they deserve to be, with large machetes and knives. They use them to cut... wait for it... sugarcane, as well as to peel potatoes, other foods and vegetables, and to just play with. Oh, and razors for cutting their fingernails. I have countless pictures of children smiling, holding sugarcane in one hand and a big machete in the other, both pressed up to their faces, always wearing big smiles. Of course it helps that most machetes and knives here [do we even USE machetes in the states?!] are dull as crap, I couldn't even cut myself if I, well, if I tried really hard to cut myself. Although I did see some rather clever guys at the weekly market LAST week who had turned their bicycles into grinding stones and, while pedaling, sharpened the knives of market customers [who, of course, came to the market WITH THEIR KNIVES so that they could eat sugarcane, or just in case they might need a big enormous blade for something...]

But fortunatley for the children, I never hear about them cutting themselves. Usually they die of malaria, or AIDS, or lack of basic drugs, or scalding themselves on the open-flame fires that dominate everyone's yard [read: kitchen] in the evenings, but rarely knife fights or accidently self-impalements. Which is kind of surprising, because if there's one thing that children are better at then wielding knives that are half the size of their torsos, it's dancing. The children here can dance like Shakira at the age of 5, gyrating their hips and stomachs and stamping their feet and having a grand old time. And sometimes I see these children dancing while they are holding onto these sharp instruments of torture/food preparation.

Back to waiting - the car that I eventually got in was a 'daladala' also called Hiace, which has written on the side 'HUSTLE NEVER SLEEPS'. True dat. Inside, it had a plush blue velvet interior with a stuffed tomato hanging from the rearview mirror that reminded me of my mothers sewing pincushion. And we listened to hardcore Tanzanian rap and Celine Dion, alternating one after the other.