Now that about 13 months have passed since I arrived in Tanzania, some of my clothes are starting to get a little worn out. They've made a valiant effort to stay intact for so long in such a harsh environment; not that the environment here is that much harsher per say, but the fact that I wear these clothes a LOT compared to my habits of switching clothes every day (sometimes more) back in the
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I've been contemplating my future in recent days. The reasons behind this vary, from the book I've been absorbed in since last week (see lower left), to the incomprehensible groanings and mumblings within my heart.
President Obama's vision for a revolution in the way we think about government in the 21st century has my head spinning (it's quite detailed and technical), but it also has me
The first bit of footage from our girl's conference in Singida has officially landed on Youtube! It was choreographed by a subset of our brilliant Singida/Manyara talent pool. It might be a hard life out here in the desert, but we certainly know how to put on a show.
Thanks go to Lauren for filming for us! If you're looking for an extra dose of Peace Corps/Tanzania Volunteers doing dance
Yep. The seasons are changing. Leaves are shifting their color, the air is crisp and cool, and trees are stripping down to their bare branches.
If you're in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, that is. If you're in my neck of the woods, the temperature is going from sauna hot to broiler hot, the sun is attempting to push the UV index beyond its current limit, and everything is just as
I've decided to take a personal day today here in Singida before I head back to site, this post being one of the reasons for hanging back. That being said, don't expect much; I've probably slept a total of 15 hours in the past week (just woke up from a three-hour nap).
Yesterday was our last day of conference. And I wasn't there for most of it. Each day of the conference, we had "go-for" people
Cessie led our condom demonstration
Don't be afraid. This is the theme for our girls conference. After 2 full days of sessions, the girls have learned quite a bit; I lead off with Facts and Myths about HIV/AIDS, followed by HIV/AIDS education and prevention...we've had sessions on goal setting, communication skills, and of course, a condom demonstration.
Madata, my counterpart
The past week
There's been a flurry of activity upstairs the past few days.
About things past, things happening now, upcoming things, things to plan, and things that could be. Certainly a lot of "things" going on. Most of my attention has been drawn to an upcoming collaborative project, a girl's conference with a few other volunteers. I'm co-hosting a 4-day fun-festival for girls in Singida town in a few
I'm sitting here in the school computer lab on a Sunday morning trying to update the operating systems on the school computers and things aren't going well already. It's only been about 20 minutes since I got here, but I've spent those 20 minutes waiting for one computer to boot the new Ubuntu Live CD. Eight months ago I would've told you that I wasn't considering getting new computers for the
I'm saddened to announce that last Friday, our September 2009 intake suffered its first ET after swear-in. A good friend of mine and most everyone else in our group, Zach from the Manyara region decided to call it quits to pursue an opportunity back in America.
Good luck to you, friend, if you're reading this! His blogged was linked below, but I've already replaced it with another, a Health
About 30 minutes ago, I was eating lunch in town. While I was eating, a kid approached the glass door near my table and stood there, just watching me. I wasn't staring at him, but I could feel his eyes. When I glanced over, he mimed his desire for food. I was in a crappy mood, so all I did was shrug my shoulders and continued with my meal. It sounds so cold, but there's something about handouts
This is my friend Sam. He's been my wake-up call this weekend. Yesterday and today, I heard a knock on the door that shook me from slumber. 8:38am, both days. Like clockwork. The reason he's been knocking on my door is a bit heart-breaking. For the past few days, he's been coming over to retrieve bandages from my med kit because he has a gaping hole where his ankle used to be. It was a
Whoa, new layout! My apologies if you liked the previous setup for some reason. I like wide open spaces, especially when it comes to prose. You can find a hodge-podge of stuff--which used to be in the sidebar--down at the bottom of the page. Scroll down and check out the new video I uploaded today (!!), How to Wash Dishes in Zambia (it's from my trip to Zambia, in case you didn't catch it in
...among other things.
It hasn't been very long since I created my Twitter account, but I already feel like I'm getting Twitter Brain. This is my name for the condition where you find yourself wanting to share every mundane detail of your life with the world, but can't for the life of you generate an interesting thought of any substance worthy of a blog entry. So I apologize for the following
As promised, here is a synopsis of my trip to Zambia in greater detail.
My journey started when I flew to Lusaka on June 28th. I got to the airport way too early (around 12:30 for a 4:30 departure), and in the Dar airport, check-in doesn't even start until 2 hours before international flights. The flight was uneventful, especially when we started flying over Zambia. As a matter of fact, while
...when you're doing a new thing. Like jumping 20-foot waterfalls or biking 80km of the Zambian countryside.
I'm back from my Zambia excursion already (was that seriously 8 days???) and I just posted some pics on Flickr. I did a pretty horrendous job of documenting my trip, so I apologize for the shortage of media. Expect a couple of short videos to surface here soon, though. I got some good
Life has been pretty unexciting here the past few weeks, besides all the World Cup hysteria. Hence the mixed-bag nature of my recent posts (including this one).
Despite the unexcitement, I'm growing quite eager for my Zambia trip next week. I leave my site on Thursday for Dar to spend a few days getting some admin stuff taken care of, and then I fly out on Monday!
I'm visiting a friend I knew
Don't have any profound thoughts to share, but I thought I'd share some of the recent goings on of the week.
The World Cup starts today, for those of you completely oblivious in America. We've been buzzing with excitement here for the past 2 weeks or so, and a couple of my PCV friends are making their way down soon to catch a few games. It's actually kind of sad how little the US cares about
For those of you that are staging in approximately 7 days (and for any other Future PCV who wants to look at a packing list), I thought I'd post the packing list I used when I left country.
This isn't a list of suggestions, this is a list of the stuff I actually brought. Use it however you'd like.
..::PACKING LIST FOR PEACE CORPS SERVICE IN TANZANIA::.. -- draft #5 --
::
Don't worry, he's taking a nap.
I found him next to my choo last night, and like most bug sightings I make, I froze for a few seconds in sheer terror of his size. He was on his feet at that time (I took the picture this morning), and I could see a bright yellow nocturnal glow coming from his left eye. Yeah, this guy has legit eyeballs.
When I woke up this morning, I was hoping he found his
It's been a while since I've had one of these, or at least had one and then had the good sense to write an entry for you guys.
Last night was just too weird NOT to type something up about it. As I was walking home from town in the evening yesterday, I happened to walk by the social centre (just a big hall for hosting weddings and other events), and there just happened to be a bunch of white
I just got back from a small weekend trip up to Singida town, and I think I've suffered whiplash.
The road between my site and Singida is partially dirt road, and in normal driving conditions, you can make the drive in about 2 and a half or 3 hours in a large bus, as was the case on the way up yesterday. Today, I left Singida town at about 3:30pm, and arrived at my site 4 minutes before 5. I'm
While I was walking back from the market today after a long morning stroll, a rickety old motorcycle (which I will henceforth refer to as a pikipiki in my blog, because I like to say it that way) passed by and I caught a good whiff of exhaust fumes. Strangely, it smelled like a golf cart, and I was immediately longing for rolling fairways and manicured greens. I suppose it doesn't help that I've
Things have been going well on the OASIS front. I've cooked more in the last week than I have in the past few months! I consider that in itself a major victory. I'm still not very good at lighting fires though; I nearly run through an entire box of matches each time I attempt to start up the charcoal jiko.
Also, one of the walls in my house has seen a paint job, and a rather unorthodox one at
I have declared war on my house.
Last Sunday night was the first time I slept in my house in about 23 days. Granted, about 16 of those days were because of IST. It's hard to pinpoint the reason why I don't want to sleep in it, but generally it has to do with how dirty it is. It isn't clean by any sense of the word, and I had become a bit pessimistic about the process of cleaning it. Because I
We just finished the PEPFAR sessions about 3 hours ago, and everybody is exhausted and happy it's over. I'll let the comic tell the story of the past few days, since Monday kind of set the tone for the week.
Note: this is not what was literally said, but it does capture the spirit with which some of us spoke to our guest speaker Monday morning. It was a very uncomfortable 90 minutes for many of
Like I mentioned in my last post, I'm writing this to keep you up on all of the fun and excitement happening here at IST. It's actually really not that exciting, but it's been an absolute joy getting to see a bunch of my PST friends again and having the chance to catch up on what they've been up to. I'm very proud that, after nearly 4 months at site, we haven't had any ETs yet! Everyone seems to
My apologies for not posting an update last week when I had ample opportunity; I was in Dar for a few days with 24-hour wi-fi access. I did find time to upload the video I mentioned a few entries back, however. So check that out in the sidebar on the right. The comic will be forthcoming; unfortunately, the program I use to draw my comics broke when I ran a software update in Dar, so that set
Given that nearly a quarter of 2010 has already gone by (yes, it really has been almost three months), I figure this is a good time to reflect on what myoneword has taught me so far. My apologies to the uninformed and the unreligious in the audience; you can check out myoneword.org to find out what I'm talking about here.
Those of you that are in close contact with my parents may already be
People have many reasons for joining the Peace Corps; the international experience, the adventure, maybe to learn some skills they'd like to transfer to their lives back in the US. Along with these, there are things that PCVs learn and experience that they didn't anticipate before they swore in. This entry is about precisely those things that I've learned and experienced that, before coming here,
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