After my island time, I hit the road once again, going by ferry, bus, and taxi-brousse to get to Andasibe. That's a few hours east of the capital.

While there, I wanted to see the indri, the largest lemur anywhere. They get up early and hard to find by afternoon, so I planned to get up early and be at the park by 7:30 or so. Alas, it was not to be. My hotel room must have been especially dark, because I woke up certain that it couldn't be dawn yet, when it was really 7:45. I still managed to get to the park at a reasonable time, but it was the same time all the other tourists were getting there. I found a guide and we started hiking, he was clearly annoyed by the crowds too and was trying to edge past any other groups in our path. We found a family of common brown lemurs and then hit the jackpot. Indri!! They are way bigger then I could have imagined , especially considering the thinness of the tree they were sitting in. One of the notable things about the indri is their eerie song, which I'd heard on my walk there, but they only sing for about 5 minutes each per day, only in the mornings. Another guide had a recording of it on his phone and was playing it, trying to get them to join in. They were attentive, and at one point the phone skipped to a song track, completely freaking out the indri. They started jumping around, converging on the same central trunk as if prepared for whatever made that noise to attack. After a few more rounds of recorded indri, they joined in. What was eerie from a distance was, to me, like nail on a blackboard in the middle of it. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, but it was a bit much and very, VERY loud for me.

After that, we left the trail. The guide said we were taking the "old trail" to get away from the crowds, and it worked since we didn't really see anyone else the rest of the hike. We did see some interesting birds and reptiles. And a clumps of sleeping nocturnal lemurs.

That night I did a night hike with a local community conservation group, Mitsinjo. We were looking for nocturnal lemurs, but I was far less lucky than I was that morning. We wandered around in the dark for over an hour, only managing to locate a sleepy indri (what's he doing up so late anyway?) and an owl doing a lemur impression. You look for lemurs at night by walking around and shining your flashlight in the trees; if there's a lemur there, he'll probably look at you to see where the light is coming from and his eyes will glow back at you, like a cat's. We saw a pair of eyes across a clearing, and the guide said it was a mouse lemur, the smallest species. I asked how he could possibly tell from that distance. We got right under the tree and he says something like, "Well, there it is." I ask if he's sure, because it kind of looks like it could be a bird. He looks again and says that maybe it is a bird. Then it flew away, which definitely answered that question! I think he was afraid I'd be angry not to find anything, but I told him that I paid to look for lemurs, if I want to pay to see lemurs, I'll go to the zoo. No worries.

And that, friends and loyal readers, was my final Madagascan/African adventure. For now. I get on a plane in a few hours to start my journey back home. Thanks for sticking with me. And Africa, stay classy.

Allison

Last day at ISM, I went whale watching. The humpbacks migrate right by there. I joined a group of French folks from the same hotel, and let me tell you, those Frenchies can chain-smoke like you would not believe. We sped around around in the boat most of the morning before finding any. Then we found a lovely pair of whales, who amused us with their waving tails and flippers until our tour time was up. I returned to land covered in dry sea salt, sunburned, and really needing to wash my glasses. I wanted to try scuba diving after, but the guy at the hotel forgot to call the guy at the dive center, and it turned out he didn't feel like going out that day. Lame!

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, Île Sainte-Marie. Yesterday I didn't do much. I rented a bike from the hotel, which had a broken chain and two flat tires in less than two hours, so I decided the best course would be chilling at the hotel, listening to the ocean, and going for a swim.

I hoped to go whale-watching today, but the boat motor is getting repairs. Maybe tomorrow. Instead, I got a new bike, went to town, did a bit of souvenir shopping, and visited the Pirate Cemetery. That's right, pirate cemetery. I had to ride a canoe there, which was unnerving in that I felt like I was going to overcorrect for the normal rocking motions and tip us over. The cemetery wasn't big, but it had graves from 1800, maybe earlier as a lot of the inscriptions were unreadable. One gravestone had a clear skull and crossbones engraved in it, and another was supposedly the grave of Captain Kidd, but all that was still visible was the date.

I also dropped by Endemika, a small zoo showcasing Madagascar's endemic species. The first thing they do is let you in the lemur cage. He was friendly, but he climbed on me to try to get into my backpack and kept making a noise right into my ear that was weirding me out. Unfortunately, the guide only spoke French, and missed my pleas to remove the lemur from my head. I think he was grooming me a little. There were also chameloens that I got to feed. So cool! Because they move soooo slllooowwwlllyyy... except the tongue! Also geckos that look like moss, frogs that look like rocks, and snakes and lizards that look like leaves and vines. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

After that first full day in Tana, I hit the road, grabbing an all-day taxi brousse (bush taxi) to Fianarantsoa. On the way we stopped for lunch and I was late getting my food, due to the need to locate an actual bathroom. As a result, I had a secret (as in he didn't know about it) eating contest with the last person not already back in the car. No one blames the second-to-last person back for holding everything up, so I wolfed down a plate of rice and barely beat him out the door. When we got to Fianar I got a taxi to my hotel. Now, all the taxis here are the most ancient Renaults ever created. Most of them have no door handles, and one I've ridden in the driver had to hold his door shut while he drove. This one couldn't make it up the hill to the hotel. It would get half way up ... and the engine cut out. Finally he grabbed my bags and just walked to the hotel.

Bright and early the next morning I was at the taxi brousse stand looking for a ride to Parc National de Ranomafana. I made it there shockingly quickly. I chose a guide and we went for a 3 hour hike through the remaining pqtch of protected rainforest. We found a family of Golden Bamboo Lemurs early on, then a Greater Bamboo Lemur, of which the park only has two. I believe this is the only park with bamboo lemurs. I also spotted a Milne-Edwards Sifaka and several interesting Madagascar birds and reptiles.

On the way back to Fianar the taxi brousse made a stop and some girls came with platters of snacks to sell. The first one: chicken feet. No lie. Second: duck heads. Seriously? Even Tanzanians throw the heads away. There was a third platter. What culinary horror could this last plate contain? Vegetable fritters. I have a constant impulse to buy street food, so I got two. A Brazilian also leaving the park saw me buy them and said he was afraid of the food here. I tried to explain how street food is the best thing for you. Keep your immune system on its toes, and besides, I never get sick from it. He wasn't buying it.

Unfortunately we got back too late for me to do anything else that day. The next day I got a taxi brousse to Ambalavao, and after a long wait, another to Anja Reserve. Its a community conservation project, and I highly recommend it. Not only is it a community initiative, but 5 minutes after getting there I was in the middle of a whole mess of ringtailed lemurs. They were amazing and had tiny 1 month old babies! This was a dry forest, not like Ranomafana. There was a lot of unexpected scrambling over rocks involved, and at one point I thought "Just give me a rope, I could rappel it easier than climb it." Then guess what we arrived at. Yes, a rope, to help in a particularly steep descent. After the hike they told me ther was a Peace Corps volunteer stationed there. I wanted to say hello, but it turned out she was away that day. Too bad.

After my lemur adventures, I rode back to Tana and today flew to Île Sainte-Marie.

More to come...

So, after the adventure of retrieving my camera, I went back to the hostel and packed so as to be ready nice and early for my 6am flight to Madagascar via J'burg.

I got to Antananarivo, the capital, hit the bookstores looking for a bird guide, didn't find one, and generally wandered about. Tana has THE most persistent street vendors I've ever seen. Thursday I visited the former queen's palace, or looked at the outside since there was a fire after elections some years back and the wood inside burned. The money to repair it stopped/disappeared after the most recent coup. I also visited the memorial to Malagasy soldiers who died in WWI. The guide at the palace commented that tourists don't stay in Tana, and I decided that's because it is dirtier than Dar (which is pretty dirty) and there is nothing to see. Not knowing French has been problematic, but I'm an expert in pantomime and generally being ridiculous, so I just wing it. I find most people know enough English to get us through simple transactions. I tried to buy a souvenir in a shop, but we were facing a language barrier when it came down to settling on a price. We ended up punching our bids into a calculator and passing it back and forth across the counter until we reached an agreeable number. Later I was trying to buy some street food. They sat me at a table and asked what I wanted. Everyone else was smiling at the tourist slumming it at the local hotely. I told the waitress I don't speak French and she looked exasperated, so I signaled her to follow me and led her to the glass cabinet of various fried goods and pointed to what I wanted, said how many of each, and ordered some chinese soup. I had no idea what the things in the cabinet were, but for those prices, I could have a sampler, and I saw chinese soup on every menu in town and figured I couldn't go wrong there. It was delicious and all cost about a dollar. :) I topped that off by going to a bakery to have tea and cake. I'm OK if that's the closest I ever come to a French cafè.

Like I said, Tana is boring, so I'm now in Fianaratsoa. I went by bush taxi, and it was way more comfy than a Tanzanian minibus. More later.

I waited to post this until the drama had fully played out.

So yeah, I did a winelands tour. We started in Franschoek, did a nice long bike ride to start off the morning. The scenery was nice, and though I had trouble on the initial hill, I left everyone in the dust once we hit the dirt road. Its so much easier on a mountain bike than my little cruiser, and the road was better than the one in Itiso. I do wish we could have gotten lunch instead of starting right in on the wine. So we each had a few glasses, then went to another winery in Stellenbosch. Then we finally got lunch, did our tastings, and they gave us this really tasty honey liquer that we dipped chocolate in. Mmmmm. At the last place we got a card that let us chooce any 5 wines off a list. We like that better, since we could get all whites if we liked white instead of having to drink the reds or sit the round out. I bought a lovely bottle to bring home. I hope I don't end up with just a bag of wine-soaked clothes. There was also a cheetah park and raptor exhibit, for the people who were tired of drinking. I did not go. Unfortunately, I lost my camera at this wonderful place. I didn't notice until I was back at the hostel, it was a Sat. evening and the tour company and winery phones were both closed. I couldn't get a hold of them until Monday when they both said they had not seen my camera. Tuesday, in a final, desperate attempt, I called again and the winery said that security had my camera. Hoorah! By then it was 1pm and I needed to get it back immediately as I flew out early Wed morning. None of the tours could pick it up as they weren't going there that day and a courier service wanted 1,000 Rand to pick it up, so I used the 1,000 Rand to take a txi there and back instead. Don't look up the exchange rate, it still makes me sad. But it had pictures all the way back to visiting my friends village and my goodbyes to Itiso, not to mention thqt entire trip, making it priceless.

I immediately loaded the pics to my computer and added some to my previous blogs, so have a look!

Apologies for typos. French keyboards are evil.

I signed on with a place called Day Trippers to do a day tour to the Cape of Good Hope, which is in Table Mountain National Park, apparently. We first went to Houts Bay and took a ferry to seal island. Other people were more impressed by the seals, since they can't see them at home I guess. (To be fair, these were a little different than the seals in SF harbor, but not much.) I used the time identifying various shore birds lurking amongst the seals. After that we went to Simon's Town and saw... PENGUINS!! Now I've seen TWO species of penguins! There were chicks, and they were so cute waddling around...

Anywho. We had lunch, heard horror stories about the baboons, and went in to the park. Then they pulled the bikes out of the trailer and we did a brisk 7k ride to the end of Cape Point. It was so beautiful riding through the fynbos habitat. I mostly like it because after I walked the bike up the first hill, it was all a downhill coast. We saw eland and there was an ostrich right by the sea eating plants. I stopped and got pictures. Also saw a fish eagle using the wind coming off the waves to just hover, which was pretty awesome. The point was full of people trying to get their pictures taken by the sign. (It's a bit misleading. People think it's the southernmost point of Africa, where it only claims to be the farthest south-WESTern point of Africa.) We also saw the old lighthouse (can't remember what it was called).

After the tour, an older couple treated me to dinner since they knew I was traveling alone. They were nice. Why is it I always seem to get along better with old people than with my peers? I don't mind much, since my peers wouldn't have bought me dinner. :)

I also went to Table Mountain. I am far too lazy to hike up, so I took the cable car. (Side note: you can vote for Table Mountain to be one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. http://www.new7wonders.com/archives/wonder/table-mountain ) I want to know whose idea it was to make the floor of the car rotating. That was disconcerting, for me anyway. Though it did provide a nice view. I had a nice, beautiful day; the day before had been cloudy and covered the mountain top (the Tablecloth). It was crazy windy up there. After losing my hat a few times, I had to wear the hat with the hood tied over it, which did feel a bit silly. I walked about and read the signs on the history of the mountain, etc. I asked a guy to take my picture and thought he would just click one real quick. No, he was hopping around on the rocks to get different angles, having me move to different parts of the lookout, I guess I was dealing with a pro. But I bet I get some good shots! Then I went to the Abseil Africa station to rappel over 100 meters down the mountain side. Did I mention it was really really windy?

The put me in the harness and ropes and gave me a refresher in how it worked. Then I went over the side. It was so much fun! I walked down the side for a while, then came the really scary part. I ran out of rock. I got to do the last part just sliding down the rope in a straight drop. Really exciting and great views of Cape Town. The hard part was hiking back to the mountain top afterward. Now I've at least done one adventure activity, so I won't be the lamest one at the backpacker hostel. :)

A bit behind on my blogs here, but no worries! I'll try to catch up before I switch countries again. :)

I got the overnight bus from Swakop to Cape Town and arrived with no hassle.

My first day here I decided to visit Robben Island, the prison where the apartheid resisters (including Nelson Mandela) were held. I foolishly thought I could just buy a ferry ticket and go, went at 11 and had to settle for a 1pm ticket. I also thought that gave me time to get to the hostel and have lunch first. As a result, I was sprinting across town (didn't see any combis or taxis along the way) to make it in time. There were only 2 people still boarding when I hit the security check and they didn't even give me time to collect my stuff after; they just dumped it into my hands because the ferry was ready to go without me.

The tour was nice, but not enough time for exploring. The bus tour took most of the time and was saved from being boring by the AWESOME guide we had. He asked about the nationalities of everyone on the bus and wove the contributions of each country into the history of South Africa or the fight against apartheid. This guy was good. Then we got to go inside with a former inmate who it seemed, didn't really want to talk about it. He asked for questions, but we didn't know what to ask and his answers were too short to really help us understand anything about life there. Afterward there was about 10 minutes for people to visit the gift shop before the ferry back. I snuck away and saw some really fascinating displays they had hidden down the hall and hadn't told anyone about! Artifacts and photos with their stories and explanations... great stuff and underutilized to boot. The gift shop irritated me too. It was such crass commercialism. I mean, it was an island of political prisoners being held for fighting injustice. It was awful. People died there. And to go from trying to think about that to a shop with Mandela shirts and mugs and keychains and commemorative EVERYTHING killed any reflection you might have on what you'd seen. It's a shame because it seems like they could do so much with this, but perhaps history needs more time before it can really be explained.

Things are COLD here in Namibia's Little Berlin. Sand, sea, konditorei... what more do you need?

Yesterday I went horseback riding (yes, they have a horse riding school here why?) to the Moon Landscape, which is shockingly moon-like. I should have known, right? THat was cool, except I've never used an English saddle and the other girl going insisted on a trot, which my horse imitated with painful results.

Today I took a tour to Sandwich Harbor. I wanted to do a birding tour, but couldn't find one and this was recommended since I'd see birds en route. Luckily, the guide was a twitcher and stopped to show me every bird on the way. Sweet! He could tell I was new at it and was full of tips. We saw lots of sea birds, a few endemics, the man-made bird island where they harvest the guano, and we off-roaded all over those dunes. I was riding shotgun, and told him he should have charged extra for that seat... some of those dunes were steep going down! The tide was too high to get all the way to the harbor, but we saw some ancient gravesites, learned all about sand dunes and desert vegetation and wildlife, saw the salt works, and had a lovely picnic lunch with homemade lasagne and chicken liver pate, and apple crumble for dessert. Wayne at Turnstone Tours knows how to class it up! I'm so glad I went.

I did end up finding a tour to the Namib. A few other people had asked at the hostel about going, and the weekly departure tours were full, so they arranged another one for us.

It kind of sucked, but only in the way that organized tours tend to suck. They are heavily scheduled and you can't do what you want. We left Windhoek and got to our campsite, set everything up, and then were told that we HAD to go to this special sand dune to see the sunset. The sunset was not anything special, as there were taller dunes that it went behind, but ok...

The next day we were up at 4:30 because we HAD to be first out the gate to see the sunrise from another particular sand dune. Apparently all the tours did this, as there were at least 100 other people climbing that dune. Note to everyone: climbing sand dunes is NOT fun. The sunrise was good, then we got breakfast and went to some other particular dunes that everyone goes to (who picks these out as tourist destinations from the hundreds of other dunes?) and a spot where I think there used to be a salt pan that it now dried out and full of eerie dead trees, and another sand dune with water by it. Then we went to a canyon. Not a really big or special canyon, just a regular sort of canyon. Then back to pask our stuff and go to Solitaire to camp for the night. The next morning it was back to Windhoek.

I also learned never to travel with a professional photographer. He will always spend your hiking time taking pictures and then want to hike, making you late, or will want to hold off on something because "the light is getting really good right now." The two guys were complaining about the food all the time, but I figured that's what you get for the cheapest safari in town. (It was still more than I paid in TZ!)

As soon as we got back, I hopped on a minibus and am now in Swakopmund, where the desert meets the ocean and Germany meets Africa. :)

I was deeply disappointed to learn that my best route to Namibia started with a 1am bus from Livingstone. Naturally, this 1am bus did not arrive until 3am, leaving me plenty of time to doze on a bench and reflect on how freaking cold it was that time of night. The bus came and took me as far as Sesheke, the border town nearest Namibia, at the more reasonable hour of 8:30. Went through customs and got a taxi to Katima Mulilo, the border town on the Namibian side. The driver took me around a while until we found a car heading to the capital, Windhoek. I don't think this was an actual minibus on its route, but a private car picking up people on the way it was already going. So, like hitchhiking, but without the spooky waiting on the side of the road and getting picked up by a lone creeper aspect. I was stuck in the middle of the backseat feeling like my knees were in my chin. Mercifully, he stopped every few hours giving the chance for a stretch, buying convenience store food, and bathrooms honestly, while the passengers in the back were swapped for new ones. I did that for 12 hours. And there was nothing to look at. I advised my fellow passengers that Namibia ought to just give the Caprivi Strip to Botswana and save themselves the trouble. Now I'm trying to find some tours or something to do here. It seems Namibia's tourism was designed for South Africans who come up in their own cars, not people like me with no transportation and not much cash. Oh well, I'll manage.

I did the sunset cruise on the Zambezi last night. It was not a booze cruise, but I definitely drank enough wine to get my money's worth. This was because I ended up talking to some people who'd lived in South Africa for 30 years who said things like, "You know, black rule didn't help them any." I needed frequent refills to keep myself from responding to things like that. We saw some elephants and hippos beside the river, munched hors d'oeuvres, and saw the beautiful sunset. I was classing the place up with my kitenge dress from Tanzania.

This morning I went to the Victoria Falls Bridge to take the zipline over the gorge. It was AMAZING seeing the gorge that way. Sadly, I was not nearly crazy enough to go for the gorge swing or bungee jump. But a lot of other people were. I personally want to live to see America (or what's left of it) again. But the zipline was great. I went into the park and hiked out to see the Boiling Pot (not worth the uphill slog to return). Also went to the Knife's Edge Footbridge, which was worth any obstacles faced in getting here. I could see the falls up close, the rainbows, got soaked with mist, and managed to fall (not once, but twice) cracking my kneecap really hard on the slippery and mossy path. There is a huge bruise and I'm glad I don't have any more walking planned today. Why do I always have to fall down when I go someplace cool? Gombe? Fell in the mud (twice). Lushoto? Fell several times while hiking. I can't remember falling in Zanzibar but I did break my shoe in the quicksand, and I feel like that counts as a klutz factor.

Tomorrow I intend to start for Namibia. Note that that doesn't necessarily mean that I will, as public transport here doesn't take my intentions into consideration.

So, my travel plans from my last post were, shall we say, wishful thinking. The bus i had a ticket for did not have space for me. After a lot of arguing with the ticket seller, he gave me enough money to stay in Mbeya another night. The next morning he put me on a coaster to the border and i had to lug my bags much farther than I wanted to. THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T WANT TO CHANGE BUSES AT THE BORDER. Then I found the office for that same company who had to get me someone onward transportation, as their sister office never returned the money I'd paid. I got to hang around the border all afternoon until the bus to Lusaka was ready to leave.

Some time around midnight, and still far from Lusaka, someone pulled the kanga off my head and told me they were checking IDs. Except, I noticed no one else was getting rousted for the ID check, just me. I asked the guy next to me to hand me my bag and muttered something like, "I guess you're only checking white peoples' IDs tonight." (I should add, no one here speaks Swahili, which makes me embarrass myself, and a lot more people speak English, so my habit of saying what I really think to myself in English will potentially get me in trouble.) The guy who woke me asked if I was Peace Corps, I forgot that I'm not anymore and said yes, and he changed his mind about the ID, just when I had managed to lay my hand on my passport. THEN WHY DID YOU WAKE ME UP?! Like its not hard enough to sleep on a crowded bus.

We pulled into Lusaka at 5 am and I found a bus leaving for Livingstone at 6:30, not bad. Got to Livingstone by 1pm, went to the backpackers lodge and had my first real meal and shower in a few days. Forget the falls, with the setup here, I may never leave the hostel.

Visa and kwacha in hand, I begin my journey.

I finally left Dar and all the other PCVs going RPCVs. After a night out for JB's birthday. Let's just say I'm getting too old for that, especially when I already bought a 6:30am bus ticket...

I slept it off on the bus and woke up once going through Mikumi when we hit a wildebeest. Actually, someone who saw it before we hit it said its a wildebeest, but now I feel like it looked like an impala. Anyway. There was a noise, I woke up, and it was like he saw the bus and was startled, but instead of running into the bush he inexplicably ran in front of the bus and got clipped in the hip. We were going slower for the trip through the park, but still. Everyone said it wasn't hurt, but I can't see how it couldn't be. Just because its still running doesn't mean its fine. That just means it doesn't want to stick around and get hit again.

Later on we got stopped by the police wanting a bribe and the driver had a FIT. I don't know if he had payed them off already or was just sick of it, but there was a scene. Half the passengers got out to become part of the scene on the side of the road and a good number of them were reading off the police id #s on their uniforms and texting them to the corruption hotline. Way to go! You don't have to take that!

Without further incidents, made it to Mbeya, barely found anywhere still open and serving dinner. I'm back on the bus this evening to get myself to Lusaka. It took some finagling as the bus that comes through today isn't scheduled to stop in Mbeya, but I talked the ticket guy into arranging for me to get on when they stop here for gas. Knowing Swahili saves the day yet again! I don't want to have to go to the border and change buses. Thanks David, for the advice on breaking the trip up in Mbeya! I'm much more alive now than I was last night. Time for another bus ride! Woo!

Our field trip went surprisingly well. The hired minibus broke down en route, so they didn't arrive in Dodoma until noon. I met them at the district environment offices. The district forestry officer came out to talk to them and encourage them to keep doing what they're doing after I've gone. He also told them that if they needed funding to visit other schools to teach about the environment and encourage them to start clubs, or to start a beekeeping project to help support the school, that the district government was there to help them. I liked that idea. They toured around the tree nursery there and a few went to the Dodoma Beekeeping Cooperative across the road. Then we went for a walk around the Parliament Building. Sendege led from the front and got to feel like a tour guide; I brought up the rear and felt like a sheepdog, rounding up the stragglers. He was oblivious to the fact that every time a bicycle ice cream cart passed, we'd lose a handful of students. I couldn't blame them; it was nearly 2, they hadn't eaten, and even though we were about to get lunch, he had been giving them that line for a couple of hours at this point. I swear at one point they had themselves stretched out over ¼ mile. Then we overwhelmed a small but cheap restaurant for lunch. Because of the car problems, we didn't have time to go to the university. The road to Itiso is no good to take at night. After that we told them to meet us in Nyerere Square (which was 2 blocks away) in 15 minutes. 30 minutes later, we had all but 4 students. For reasons I don't understand and continued to rail against, the driver decided to leave the area with the students still missing, meaning they would eventually go there and not find us, and would start to wander and we'd never find them. We sent the teacher out to hunt them down. An hour and a half later we were all in the car and started for home. We made it back a little after dark. We didn't get to do everything we wanted and were late, but I call it a success. The kids had a good time, nothing terrible happened. They got to see that there is a support network available to them that isn't me. They got some new ideas for the future.

The rest of the week was fairly normal. The Peace Corps staff sent to man the field office in Dodoma came and we visited a nearby village to see if he can get it ready to take a volunteer later this year. That night I had dinner at my counterpart's house. The whole family was there having soda and samosas and grilled antelope (a rare treat). We took pictures and I was given a very nice kanga and a liter of honey as going-away presents. It was funny watching the teenager trying to take pics in the semi-darkness. “I can only see Allison!” “It's ok, the flash will go off.”

The next day my village mama came by to help me finish packing up the house and she took all the furniture she bought, the clothes and things I gave her, and my luggage to her house in a donkey cart. Her two girls stayed behind to help me clean the place before I locked it up. Then I had lunch at the mission and one of the sisters gave me another liter of honey.

My last night I stayed at my village mama's house. We cooked a very special dinner of rice, beans, duck (it was huge!), tons of kachumbari, sodas, and a cake I brought. The kids were excited about all eating together, the boys usually eat apart from the girls an younger ones. We ate until we couldn't move changed into our nice clothes and took lots of pictures. I stayed the night there and they helped carry my bags to the bus stop in the morning.

Once in Dar everything sucked: hotels all full, paperwork forgotten, daladalas packed, rain, fully booked trains, and rushing around never quite getting anything right. But I did manage to COS, making me an RPCV. Finally! It still hasn't sunk in that I won't be back in the village next week.

Starting my trip to Zambia tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

Less than two weeks left in the village! I can't believe it. I really can't.

I gave my Malihai kids a last exam which they failed horribly. Mostly due to the fact that they couldn't read the questions in English. We did it again and let them ask for translations where needed. Hopefully they did better this round; I haven't corrected them yet. My counterpart and I were discussing what to do with the district money we were given for the Mikumi trip that didn't happen which turned into the Parliament trip that didn't happen. We decided to buy a handcart to support the tree nursery; one kid can fetch enough water for the nursery instead of sending a half-dozen or more kids to carry buckets on their heads. And he's arranging a trip to town today to take the kids to visit the local environment offices, drive by the Parliament building, and visit the University of Dodoma (to encourage them in their studies). (I personally feel they've got no chance from the start, given the lack of teachers at the school, but I'm not going to be the dream-crusher this time.) And I've been buying supplies to leave them, tree sacks and a hand saw for pruning, and worrying like a mom sending a kid to camp. Does he need a raincoat? (Its summer.) But what if it rains?! I considered buying hoes even though there are probably 2 hoes per person over the age of 5 in the village.

I've been invited to a few celebrations this week. I guess everyone remembers me now that I'm leaving. It was boring, but I appreciated the invites despite feeling completely out of place as always. I wouldn't be so awkward if they didn't make sit at the head table where everyone can stare at me, even if I don't really know the people being celebrated. I finally got my COS date and medical appointments finalized. And I figured out how to use the internet feature on my phone, too late, I know. I also finished The Three Musketeers. It's been a very busy week. :)

When I get back I'll have about a week left and I'll have to get serious about handing out the presents of my dishes and knickknacks, trying to collect on the loans I made, and cleaning out my house. I do not look forward to this at all. I hate moving!! And it will be sad to leave...

I was called back into town this week to participate I a focus group for the environment program review. They review the program every 5 years and this was it. It was interesting talking with the facilitator (from Madagascar!) an there were only a couple times during the session where the other volunteers and I were openly hostile toward each other. Really glad that got that on camera. They were all from the group that arrived last year and I guess we've had very different experiences. Also, I never have anyone to talk to, so putting me in a room and asking me to talk, and better yet, say what I think about PC/TZ's programming is sort of a recipe for disaster. (Actually, talking to a stranger and knowing it was being recorded I think made me surprisingly diplomatic in my comments.)

Counterparts came too and I found out that mine was angling for a replacement volunteer for when I leave, despite the fact that we had agreed that there is no one to work with a new volunteer (thats why I haven't really been working much) and there are no other potential PCV sites in the area. I don't know what he is thinking and I'm glad my APCD has the sense not to go through with it unless those change. I really do want the best for my village, but I wouldn't wish my difficulties getting people to work with and isolation on anyone else.

Then I went to Morogoro to see Dave at the education training. I haven't seen him since I graduated. I was sitting under a tree waiting for language classes to end, and he walked by and did the best double-take you've ever seen. This was funnier since I was wearing a headscarf and earrings like I wouldn't have been caught dead in in college. Maybe it was hard to tell it was me. :) It was nice to see someone from my former life! I hung out with the other trainees and answered a lot of questions about what non-eduction volunteers actually do, what I'll do when I get home, what it feels like getting ready to COS.

Then I went to Singida to visit my friend Cessie for 4th of July. We went to her village and made grilled hot dogs with sautéed onions and bacon bits and veggies and chips with 2 kinds of dip. Happy Independence Day indeed! The next day was bacon hot dogs part2, just as good as part 1! She showed me around her site. It's hot and dry like mine but they don't like to use Swahili much. We stayed up watching movies on her computer and snacking, finding new ways to eat hot dogs. She was glad I'm good with animals; her dog is sweet, but annoying and insisted on sleeping with us, waking me at 7 am with licks on the face. The second day was christened "kipepeo day" due to the insane number of butterflies fluttering about in search of water. We took a hike to a garden that we were told was not far (a lie) and took a few pictures and made veggie wraps. :)

I know this may be shocking, but PC/TZ has messed up yet again. Remember my Close of Service on August 5th? I heard from Cess that other volunteers were finding their dates incorrect or changed, so I called to verify. I was told that I was not on the calendar at all, and there were no spots open for the 5th. They gave me the 4th, but I'm still mad that they've managed to be incompetent to the very end and I'll be stuck in Dar an extra day waiting for the train. The timing for the 5th was so perfect, and now its gone. I have to reschedule me ex-pat homestay and med appointments. Thanks for being consistent, PC/TZ!!

I got back to the village feeling really awful and was sick for a few days. Must be the dust and the cold we've got right now. The village has been doing circumcisions the last few weeks, so I hear there have been several all-night parties; but I live too far away to hear them. No one will tell me much about it, me being a woman and all. All I know is that they (the Gogo) do it on the teenage boys as initiation and it's an excuse to party. As a side note, I know even less about the female circumcisions, since its very illegal. I don't even know when they do that or what variant they do, just that it happens.

My village friend's daughter is making me some clothes as a gift before I leave. She just finished a tailoring course in town and is apprenticing with a tailor in the village. I think I'm her first customer outside her family. This should be interesting.

Some girls from the primary school came to bring me water the other day ad offered to clean my house. They will do anything to get out of class, and since recently there have been areas of my house so dusty that I've decided to leave it that way until I move, I took them up on it. They did the dishes and swept and mopped and got rid of all the trash that the mice had piled into the corners without me noticing. They felt the need to tell me that, even though they swept the trash against the wall, I shouldn't burn it there or my house will catch fire. Duh? Then they took it out to the trash pit, just in case I was really dumb. Maybe they thought if I was dumb enough to keep my house that messy there's no telling what I'll do next.

Less than two months left! I am really ready to get OUT of here. I'm tired of trying to wash my hair in a bucket. I'm tired of having nothing to eat but rice and beans or peanut sauce. I've had it up to *here* (over my head) with people being rude to me because of my skin color and with the sexism I get outside the village (and sometimes inside it). I'm tired of not being able to get anything done because people tell me what I want to hear instead of what they really think/what they did. People are inconsiderate to me, take advantage of my kindness, and sometimes treat me like I'm mentally handicapped just because I'm foreign. I'm tired. I'm ready to go home.

Speaking of which, I'll be getting home in the most roundabout way I can think of. After all, its not really an African adventure if I stay in Tanzania, right? First, I will take a train to Zambia to see this. When I've had my fill of rushing water, I'll go to Namibia, where I hear the food is excellent, and hopefully see some of this. From there, I'm going to Cape Town to reintroduce myself to the First World and see this and this. Finally, I'll pop over to Madagascar to see these guys. Then home. :)

PS: Please don't send any mail after the 1st or it might miss me!

Apologies for the lack of blogging. I fried baby laptop while trying to eat a bowl of cereal in Moshi. Here's a brief re-cap of recent events.

Safari:

4 days, and amazing. Saw everything, including part of the world-famous wildebeest migration in the Serengeti. Lots of zebras, giraffe, antelope, buffalo, a couple leopards, elephants (some a little too close), hyena... Then went to Ngorongoro Crater the last day. Saw lions (sleeping and boring), a lake full of flamingos. It was basically all of animal Africa shoved into that crater. AWESOME. Stayed in the car during the trip to a Masaai village. I have Masaai in my village, they are not that cool, plus its a total tourist trap.

From there went to visit another PCV in his village near Lushoto. Had a great time watching birds, walking through the mountains, an trying out his archery equipment. Then went to a little farm/hostel near the viewpoint in Lushoto to check out the view.

From there, on to Dar for my close of service conference where we talked about the process of leaving, adjusting to life back home, getting jobs, writing resumes. It was a good conference. The one disappointment was the farewell dinner, which was all Tanzanian food, instead of the kind of stuff we'd been having all week. We showed a slideshow of pictures and another PCV and I read the 50 “you know you're a PC Tanzania volunteer when...” that people had come up with.

Then back to the village. Work is kind of over now. I made some fuel-efficient stoves at the secondary school, but then someone tore them down. I collected a few books from BookCrossing for the school environment library, as well as donating all my training manuals. I'm making all the visits and things I put off all this time, taking pictures, planning my post-Peace Corps trip and life. Also, I just got Ayn's birthday package from last year. I wonder where it was hiding for 11 months?

This month I had someone from Trees for the Future come out to do a workshop in my village. He talked about different tree species, windbreaks, boundary planting, stuff like that. It was a good thing I thought to invite my club kids to come. No one mentioned that there was a village meeting at the same time, so only 3 adults showed up. If the 25 students hadn't been there, the trainer would have been pissed about getting dragged all the way to my village! But it worked out, and the kids liked being treated like adults I think. They had really good questions and seemed to be paying attention.

Other than that, not much happening. I made soap at the mission, but with a nun and not a group, so its not really generating income for the villagers this time. They just aren't that interested anymore. Since my counterpart got promoted I don't see much of him. In other words, right now i'm killing time and hoping something will change soon so I can work again before I leave. It's all up to the people in the village, I can't do a thing without them and working with me has lost its novelty, but its not too late for someone to step up.

Never posted, from February 2011

I'm taking a little vacation in Iringa this week. My projects (with the exception of Mali Hai) are going nowhere and it was too frustrating to stay in the village and watch it happen. So I decided to get out for a bit. Iringa is nice, its not far from Dodoma, but the direct road is bad, so it took a long time to get there. It didn't help that the University of Dodoma let out for the term the day before I wanted to leave, so every outgoing bus was full. I was lucky to get the last ticket on the bus I took.

The drive to Iringa goes through Morogoro and a section of Mikumi National Park. I saw an elephant and impala! It was safari on the cheap at 50mph. Iringa is in the southern highlands so its nice and cool. A refreshing change from Dodoma. I found a hotel, got a room, and decided to walk around and orient myself with the town. I asked the hotel owner if I should leave her my room key and sh said yes. In TZ, you're usually supposed to leave your key when you leave the hotel. Its so they can get in to do cleaning and stuff and so it doesn't get lost or stolen. They don't have master keys or anything, so if you lose a key they have to re-key the door. I came back from my walk and she could not find my key at all. A half hour she looked for it, even checking couch cushions, bathrooms, desk drawers, etc. Finally she had to have some guys take he doorknob off the door and pry it open. I got my stuff out and she moved me to another room. I could tell she really felt bad about it, especially since I had asked if I should leave it with her! Since there was another room to give me, I didn't mind.

Let's see... I went to dinner a couple of times with my former sitemate and his girlfriend. Yummy Indian food once and super expensive Italian food with local JICA, KOICA, and VSO volunteers.

I took a side trip to Isimila, a site where stone age tools have been excavated. Its a huge dry gorge now, but they said it used to be a lake, and the stone age people made tools there because they hunted the animals that came to drink at the lake. There were also remains from extinct animals, like short-necked giraffes. But the best part was the awesome stone pillars nearby. I went without a guide, and the guy gave me lousy directions, so I got lost and missed them the first time. When I got back to the entrance I was a little disappointed in the whole experience and told one of the staff how I couldn't find the pillars. Just then a group from a local university showed up to tour the area, and I followed them out to see the pillars. A-mazing. Don't worry, I have pictures!

Malihai is going well. We had a 2 part lecture on seed collection and storage. During my talk I was getting blank stares for a while, until I compared choosing healthy mother trees with choosing healthy breeding cattle, and the teacher/interpreter compared drying the seeds well before storing with drying corn for storage. We brought it to the village level for that one.

Results from secondary school exams were bad. Out of 41 kids, I think 16 passed. Most of them, while technically passing, still didn't score high enough to even get into teachers' college. And this year there are no science teachers at all, so I doubt the next group will do any better.

My new girls program co-teacher was a flake these weeks. Missed the entire first week and half of the second. Since I can't teach it alone, that means the program wasn't even started. I had a talk with her and she promised to come. The next class, she called saying she wasn't coming; she was afraid to walk in the rain. It had been lightly sprinkling for about 10 seconds. By the time I called her back, it had stopped completely and I told her she needed to come. She showed, and we had a great session. Or, she did, because I didn't really say anything. The first class is always the hardest. The girls aren't used too us or talking much in class. It takes a few weeks to get them to quit mumbling their answers to the floor. Then we went to get a soda and talk about the next session. Hopefully we're on track now. (Update Feb26, no, we are not. She never showed again.)

The mission is repeating the soap project, but with a new group since the women didn't want to do it again, even though it made a decent profit. They want me there to supervise, so it'll be when I get back.

I think the headteacher has made it his mission to torture me in ways that I can't rat him out for. His newest thing is saying the students aren't allowed to carry my water anymore, and that his kids will do it. Except that they don't, and when they do, its nasty village well water and not the nice mission water I was used to. And I spend an awful lot of time without any water to wash or cook with. The other day I just asked a different teacher to have the kids bring me water and I got it, so I'll just go around the headmaster from now on.

Things are getting busy in the village. Malihai (enviro club) has been re-started with a slew of new freshman members. Like, we're now half freshmen if they all stay. Awesome! We've had major problems getting participation certificates from the malihai office in Arusha. First they said we weren't a real club because they haven't done a visit. So I sent pictures of the kids' work to show that we have a good program. Then they told my APCD that they sent the cert's, but the school never got them. So I called them for like, the 871st time and they said they never got the club registration form. That I sent in August. And that they had told me was received. Then they said that they got it, but it was unreadable. This is the same day I fried baby laptop, and backed everything up onto a flash until I could fix it. By a miracle, I found the scanned form on the flashdrive and re-sent it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Now they said they're sending the certificates, and they aren't charging for them like they normally do. I should think not after all they put me through to get them! We're planning a new field trip to town to see the Parliament and maybe visit some local environment projects.

Girls' program was a spot of trouble as well. My co-teacher from last year is out on maternity leave, and didn't tell me before she left. So I spent several days tryingt o hunt down the health officer to help me, unsuccessfully. Finally his wife, a nurse at the clinic, offered to help me, saying that he doesn't know anything about girls anyway. I'd have asked her first, but didn't know another nurse had been sent to help at the clinic. I assumed she couldn't leave if she was the only one working there now. And we found the curriculum that had been missing for months; I made copies of the lessons we used and made her her own book. We'll be finishing the lessons we didn't get to for the 7th graders (last years' 6th graders) and starting afresh with the new 6th graders, so we'll have 2 programs going simultaneously. I got some brochures and things from NGOs in town to supplement a few of the sessions. I'm really looking forward to starting again. My girls classes are always my favorite thing to teach.

Yes, I accidently messed up baby laptop, but luckily, one of the PCVs near-ish to me is a computer teacher, and he knew how to give me a new operating system, so baby laptop is back in action and better than ever. Also I bought 2 chickens at market day to eat at somepoint this month. They were both roosters, and someone saw me carrying them home and informed me that I wouldn't be able to get eggs, since they're both boys. I thanked him for his astute observation. I didn't study animal science for 2 years to sit wondering why my 2 roosters can't breed. They were fighters, so in my coop there are 3 roosters, each tied to their own corner so they can't reach each other. In the middle of this mayhem and testosterone-filled posturing is my duck and her remaining duckling wandering about peacefully. No one has any beef with the duck. Also, I was re-paid for a loan I made in peanuts. Literally. The secondary kids planted a bunch of trees with the plastic bags still on them. Dummies. My radio was stolen when I was gone over Christmas and has been replaced and a new lock obtained for my front door. I got some kind of infected wound on my head that felt like a brain-burrowing parasite but wasn't. I got some antibiotics and stuff at the hospital in town and got to keep my hair, but was irritated when a nurse saw me and asked if I was pregnant. The PC/TZ office continues to be frustrating whenever I'm forced to have contact with them.

Until nex time,

Allison

I decided to get out of the village for Christmas/New Years this year. I spent a couple of days in Dar spending too much money, but eating well and spending time at the beach on Christmas day. I saw a man herding a bunch of street kids through a crowded street, which reminded me of the phrase "like herding cats". I got 1/2 a dala to myself on Christmas day. and i rode a dala with a goat.

Then I moved on to the main attraction: Kilwa Masoko. It was a mess trying to get there. I bought a bus ticket, showed up at the station at 5am to find no bus. I was told it already left, but it wasn't supposed to leave until 5:30. It was still dark and buses can't legally travel at night, I doubt it would get out of town without passing a traffic checkpoint. My guess is that the bus didn't exist or wasn't sunning that day and the guy who sold me the ticket didn't know. The ticket guy was there, and got me onto a daladala to a part of the city I've never seen and paid my fare on a rickety dala to Kilwa. Not what I'd hope for transportation-wise, but at least I'll get there, right?

Kilwa is nice little coastal town. I got a room and some food and arranged my tour, and had nothing to do the rest of the day. Then the hotel staff taught me how to play mbao (kind of like mancala, but different enough to be very confusing). Everyone was entertained enough by the white girl who could play it that I never lacked an opponent the whole time I was in Kilwa. Also, Kilwa has a fun night market where i bought many a piece of fruit and fried fish. I called it newspaper dinner since they wrapped everything in newspaper.

Th next day I went (by dhow) to Kilwa Kisiwani, an island offshore from Masoko, with an Australian woman who had been in town all week and had no intention of seeing the ruins until the tour guide talked her into it so that the price would be lower for me. :) We walked around the island and saw the ruins from the 14th and 18th centuries when Kilwa was a major trading port between Africa, India, and the Middle East. Coral and lime buildings, a fort, several mosques and cemetaeries. Now its just a fishing village with a UNESCO heritage site. It was really cool. He showed us where some of it had been restored, where some sites had to be excavated, and told us how they had trained the locals to do the restoration work. And the guide grew up on the island, so we stopped by to see his mom and grandma too. When we got back, the Australian woman bought a jackfruit and shared it with me, the guide, and anyone else who passed by. We borrowed a knife from a Masai to cut it.

The next day I talked him into cutting me a deal and we went (no Aussie this time) to Songo Mnara, which is another island past Kisiwani. This took 3 hours by dhow with a good wind (Ksiwani was maybe 1/2 hour). So it was far, I got sunburned sitting on the boat so long. But we got there. Songo only has one ruin site, but I liked it better. It was a sultan's palace from the 15th century. I felt it was better preserved than Kisiwani ruins, you could easily tell what all the rooms were for and how the building may have looked. There was the palace and the sultan's office and a mosque. All made from coral and lime. I got lots of good pictures. The guide and the guy who owned the boat (he came on the tour with me, I guess he hadn't been there before) were saying how there were so many coconut trees on the island and usually young coconuts that you can drink the water from, but no one was selling any. As we were leaving the last site, we saw someone climbing up a coconut tree. The guide yelled for him to bring me a coconut. He threw down many and we all drank the water and had a coconut feast. We didn't have any small bills to pay him, but he agreed to the guide bringing him a basin or something from town next time he goes there. It only took 2 hours back on the dhow.

Then I went back to Dar for a couple days and now I think its time to head home...

Since my proposed chicken project for people with HIV was shot down by the grant committee, I have had very little work to do at my site. My girls program petered out months ago and my environment club has just wound down for the end of the school year and winter holidays. My counterpart has some big ideas for things he wants to do, but he can't really explain it to me.

One thing I did with the environment club was to hold a planning meeting to decide what activities the club wanted to do over the next year. Unfortunately, the Form II students were in exams, and Form IVs left long ago. So I only had 5 students at the meeting out of 13 Form I-III members. Not a great turnout, but I've learned that if I wait to get them all together at once, I will be waiting a very long time. So we did the planning with just the 6 of us. I had everyone brainstorm ideas for club priorities, everyone contributed at least one idea. Then I handed out 3 colored beads each (left over from the menstrual cycle bracelets) with colors for 1st priority, 2nd priority, and 3rd priority and they placed the beads on the cards they thoughts were best. Then we scored the cards by the number of beads they received to decide what the club goals would be. Two goals tied for first: getting a teacher to be a club advisor, and planting trees. Easy enough since we only had to ask the headmaster to appoint a club advisor and we already have the nursery planted. The second priority was to increase club membership. They decided to make announcements when the school year starts that they are accepting new members and to encourage their friends to join. The last goal was to start a school vegetable garden. I think they placed this last because it would be the most difficult. In this case, the timing was good, thy talked to the headmaster about it. This week the school closes, and right before that there is a school board meeting and parents meeting, and it would have to be taken up there to figure out whether its doable, what to plant, who buys the seeds, who waters it, etc. If it works out it will give them a little vegetables to go with their ugali and beans at lunchtime. By the time I get back, the school will be closed, primary will close soon, and then I will be very very bored. perhaps time for vacation?

I ave also been trying too track down whoever implemented a large tree planting project in my village in 1987. My counterpart was reminiscing about it since it was how he got started when he first started working in the village, right after college. All I got from him was that it was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency and it was from '87-'92. My APCD didn't manage to get a contact for me, but I found a phone number for SIDA in Dar es Salaam. I called today, but they said I couldn't talk to anyone because they are all at a conference in Dodoma. Well... I'm in Dodoma, and there's only one place to hold a nice conference in this town. So I dropped by the hotel around noon and sure enough, at 12:30, who comes downstairs from the conference room, but a bunch of Swedes. I got the attention of one of them, who could not believe that I was asking him about a project from 1987. He even called someone else over to talk to me, not because he would be more able to help. I think it was so someone could back him up when he told people about the crazy foreign girl asking about a project from 25 years ago. I did find out that the documents from that long ago would be in the archives in Stockholm. So I will go back to village and see if I can get any more information about the project, like who was in charge on the Swedish side, what the name of the project was, and if was actually a SIDA project, or was a Swedish NGO with SIDA backing. Then I can send the guy I met at the hotel an email with everything I know, which he will forward to Sweden. I'm curious to see how this will turn out.

This time nothing much happened until Wednesday.

Our newest village official, who lives next door to me, tried to get me evicted. The headmaster came to see me Sunday and asked if a new teacher could live in my house. I said no. This sort of thing happens to volunteers all the time when we're put in school houses. She was a nun, and I didn't get a satisfactory answer as to why she couldn't live at the mission. Then, he came back with the neighbor village official to lean a little harder on me. He started off by having a pissing contest with me, big mistake. Ask my mom, I can out-piss damn near anyone when I feel challenged. I kept saying no, and he kept telling me to think about it and answer them later. But I already answered! If I take time to think about it, it will stay the same! Then the official took a new tactic. He informed me that I shouldn't be living in a school house anyway because I am not a teacher. (I later found out that as the mratibu, HE shouldn't be living at the school either.) He said I should have to live with my counterpart (and his extended family) at the environment/natural resources house. I told him that this was the house the village government gave me, and if he had a problem with it, he could take it up with the village chairman and the Peace Corps, but I wasn't taking a roommate. My counterpart got wind of this later and told me that I am strong. I guess the official tried to take this up the ladder and got shot down; he's the one moving so the new teacher can take his house. :)

Then, Wednesday came. This was the deadline for students to pay their contributions for the Mikumi trip. We had one full payment, and two half-payments out of 25 students. I felt like I had no choice. I called the students together and canceled the trip. They acted surprised, but I asked what they seriously expected me to do when no one was paying. I think they had to know this would happen. Every time I asked if they could pay, they said yes. I don't think they were lying to me, but I do think they were just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I was concerned that this would negatively affect their attitudes during my site visit on Friday.

An hour or so later, I got a call to tell e that my chicken project grant was rejected. They sent an email with comments (aka, rejection reasons) brought up during the grant committee meeting, but I asked the secretary to tell me some of them before I could go to town and check my email. She said, “Oh, there are a lot of them...” Not good. :( I protest some of the reasons they gave, the others I think they were making me play a game of “guess what we want to hear without us giving you any of the answers.”

Then my APCD came for my site visit Friday. He said hi at the primary school, petted my cat and we chatted in my house for a bit about my recent work problems. Then we went to my counterpart's office. He showed him the maps the kids made back in August. He thought they were as awesome as I do. He said that if the government had commissioned an environmental analysis like that, it would have taken months and cost millions of shillings (thousands of dollars). These kids did it in a few afternoons with nothing but some bi poster paper and a pack of colored pencils. He immediately called Malihai Clubs in Arusha and told them to come out and visit our club to make us official, because the kids are doing such awesome work. We also showed him the test they took (I neglected to mention the rampant cheating that took place, but the ones who did their own test were awesome). Then we went to the school and met with the teachers in the office and then the kids at the tree nursery. Eliguard gave them a pep talk about the great work they'd been doing and how what we're learning will help them in any line of work they want to do.

Big couple of weeks in the vill. We had both the primary school and secondary school graduations. They were completely boring to sit through, as all graduation ceremonies are, but it was a big milestone for the kids. Especially the secondary students; it was the first graduation for that school, so this was the first crop of kids educated in the village to finish “high school”.

The primary school was first. I was put at the head table again, but was less concerned that I was on display than last year. It was held outside and at one point the wind picked up and part of the tarp broke free. This led the other guests of honor to tell me they obviously needed me to plant more trees, haha. The girls had all been in my girls program and had been asking for days if I would be there.

The secondary school ceremony started several hours late, as the guests of honor (representatives from the US-sponsored NGO Africare) were late. It was funny, as he kids were given their certificates (certifying that they attended school through Form IV) the parents and friends would come up and put garlands on them and gave them wrapped gifts while posing for pictures. Then, when another student went up, they would sometimes take back the garlands and gifts and be photographed giving them to someone else! It looked sad to me, they were taking their presents back! But it was all about the show for the camera I guess. After all the speeches, the memorial tree planting (with a tree bought by yours truly), the certificates and pictures, they brought out a very small cake. They cut the cake into tiny pieces, skewered them with toothpicks, and took pictures of each of the guests of honor (even me), being fed a piece by a student. She was one of my Mali Hai kids and got a little excited when my turn came. This process I've seen before, but then they did something that was a new one for me. They did the same thing, but with a half a cooked chicken. I don't know what happened, but th chicken had gotten some of the bright green cake frosting on it, so it tasted... interesting. When they went to feed me the chicken, the photographer was distracted, so I had to stand there with a bite of chicken being held halfway into my mouth until they could get him to take the picture. I had a picture taken with my neighbor who graduated and gave her a present of a kanga with a proverb wishing her well in all she does. Those kids start their national exams this week that will determine whether they can go on to higher education or not.

and now: the continuing saga of the Mikumi trip. Last time I got the letter saying we could go. Yay!... or not. I got to the village and went to the school the next day to deliver the good news. Then I was told that we can't go that day. Apparently Form IV students aren't allowed to travel the week before national exams, and the trip started exactly week before. they said they called the park and they didn't want to postpone our reservation date. The schools solution: to cut the form 4s from the trip (half my group) who have worked with me for a year and replace them with form 1s who have done nothing to earn a trip that sucked so much energy from my life. I was the only one in the room that saw the unfairness in this, and started feel like i was a crazy person for being the only dissenter. Then the teacher who has been working with me this year showed up and told them how we can't do that, ts completely unfair, and i felt sane again. The other concern is that if we go after exams, it can be claimed that they aren't students anymore(?). So, a few days later one of the teachers went to town and talked to the district secondary education officer to get permission for the new trip. He got it, then went with the ed officer to a national parks office in Dodoma (which i didn't even know existed, apparently the region has a game reserve I've never heard of) and had the person in charge there call the Mikumi warden directly (a feat I never managed to accomplish), explain the situation and get a new reservation date. We should be going on the 17th, two days after the national exams end and two days after my PC site visit.

In other news, the grant coordinator is inexplicably finding problems with the document after having it for 6 weeks. No one can explain why it took so long to notice the problem and tell me about it. I worked on it and sent in a new version yesterday, so hopefully its ok now. If not, I may have to drop the chicken project. If we wait much longer, the rainy season will start, everyone will be working their farms all day, and I wont be able to find single person willing to build me a 100+ capacity chicken coop.

Soap and batiks are stalled because my women groups, while excited to do the projects, seem to have zero interest in selling the products. Then they complain they haven't made any money. The nun who is running this show is tired of it and trying to sell the stuff herself while planning to give the projects to a new group of kids who have finished either Standard 7 or Form 4 and aren't continuing school, in the hopes that they will have the time and motivation to follow through. I told her, good luck with that.

I was planing to go to Kondoa this week, my nearest enclave of volunteers. After giving me tons of karibu, at the last minute they all bailed and said they couldn't come to town. thanks, guys! So I went to Dodoma instead and visited my site mate by default (he's the only one in my district).

Once again, I've fallen down on my blogging.

To re-cap: Zanzibar=amazing. Check my Flickr pictures.

Mid-Service Conference: boring, waste of time. The only good sessions were things we should have had last year at IST. The rest was the “lets talk about our feeling after being here a year” stuff that I could do without. The only worthwhile part was the medical and dental check-ups. During the massive amounts of downtime, I managed to upload all my pictures and videos from this year using the computers in the volunteer lounge.

How are things in the village? Hard to say, I only spent one week there in August. As far as I can tell, its mostly the same. The primary school finished the Standard 7 national exams the day I got back, so the 7th graders are done and the rest of the school is sliding to the end of the year and Christmas/Id/New Year holidays. I have not been able to teach my girls program since July, for various reasons, the most obvious being my absence.

Secondary school has their first graduating class this year!! And the celebrations have already begun. If that sounds exciting, check yourself. Tanzanian events are BORING. Long, speech after speech, in the hot sun, too many formalities. The school is having 5 graduations, one for each of the religious organizations and the big one. I missed one while I was at MSC, but since I work with the school and my Mali Hai kids are in each of the groups, I feel obligated to go to the rest. Had one last week for the Catholics. Longest 5 hours of my life. What about our trip? After a solid week of harassing the warden's office, I FINALLY got our reservation made with the park for Sept 27. Unfortunately, the hostel that students usually stay at in the park is under renovation, adding a new wrinkle to the plan. We have a few irons in the fire for places to stay, so we've all got our fingers crossed that one of the work out. The most likely option is to get permission from a school in Morogoro to use their dorms for a night, since they will be on break also. Oh, also that's within a week of the national exams for Form IV students, and the students are supposed to stay at their “testing site” for a full week before the exams. I will point at that back in July when they picked the date, I asked, “Isn't that awfully close to the Form IV exams?” and was told that it would be no problem. Well, now it is and the teachers' solution was to cut the form 4 students (half the club) from the trip and replace them with other students. Um, no? These kids earned the trip by working with me all year! Why should some other kid who has done nothing for me get to go instead? So now we're also trying to get the park warden to change the date, which he doesn't want to do. We're appealing to the district ed officer to talk him into it.

PLWHA group chicken project is stalled. The Grants manager didn't like my grant because... wait for it... it was printed funny. I had printed it out in the office in Tanga, Ind they had set the printer to do double sided, but the back side was upside down. Hence, my grant was too hard to read and could not be processed. I'm not even kidding. Also, one of the forms required a witness to my signature. Since I printed the forms in Tanga, I had another PCV sign as my witness. The grants manager does not approve. In his mind, the witness should be a counterpart. In my mind, a witness is just someone verifying that no one forged my signature. We're at an impasse because I won't re-do the form, there's nothing wrong with it. And he insists on things not required by the contract.

I found a snake in my backyard last week. More correctly, I heard the snake and ran to the headmasters house to tell him to come kill it. between his house and mine (only across the road) three other men saw him carrying a big stick and asked stuff like, “Is there a snake? Where? Let us help.” So there are 4 guys with sticks in my yard and I thought, “If they don't find a snake, I am going to look like a moron.” Of course, they start poking around in the corner where I heard it and... no snake. And I start looking lie the girl who cried snake, all I can say is, “No, really guys, I heard it!” As they're leaving, one of them points to the ground and says, “What's that?” My honor redeemed, that's what it was. Snake tracks coming out of my yard, around the house, and back into the woods. Must have gotten away when I was getting the teacher. At least that proved there really was one.

Ok, after all the madness Peace Corps has put me through in the last weeks, I needed a vacation. So I've spent the last (almost) week in lovely Zanzibar. It has been awesome!! I took a spice tour and saw vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, tumeric, curry, and more being grown. I spent time at the beach, ate fresh grilled fish within sight of the ocean, saw the Anglican church at the old slave market site, saw red colobus and sykes' monkeys at Jozani national park, walked through a mangrove forest, visited one of the sultan's old palaces and the old fort, spent a ton of money, ate good food, and basically had a fantastic time. Just what I needed. I have been shocked at the way the tourists here behave. Way too many miniskirts, backless tops, spaghetti straps, and short shorts. No shame. What part of "Muslim country during Ramadhan" don't these people understand? I've even seen a few people eating in the streets, which is a big no-no when the good Muslims are fasting, which is pretty much everyone on Zanzibar. Luckily the "holy month of Ramadhan" hasn't been a huge damper on the trip, a lot of restaurants are closed during the day, but tourist places keep open and just remove the outdoor seating, and dinner is no problem.

Hopefully I'll return home to find that my counterparts have been competently continuing my projects in my absence. Fingers crossed. Last time being gone for two weeks meant I had a lot of catching up to do when I got back, but maybe things have improved in the last few months.

I am still pissed at Peace Corps for keeping me in Dodoma by myself and for generally ignoring my complaints. But I'll be in Dar at the end of the month for Mid-Service Conference and my one-year medical check-up. It will be the first time I'll see everyone from my training group since IST back in December! Maybe by then I'll find someone in the staff who will agree that this in unfair instead of ignoring the problem.

I am not having a good time. I went to teach Life Skills and for the 5th time in a row, the students were doing other activities. The school obviously doesn’t care about this program, so I’m dropping it. Don’t come crying to me about how many girls drop out from pregnancy and how they need HIV education.

They changed the time of my environment program because they had a soccer match. NOT cool, when they mess with the times I can’t get the kids to show up. The teacher blames the headmaster, who conveniently is never there for me to talk to. We have told them numerous times to STOP doing this, but they continue it. The week before, we did a dry season tree planting training, and the kids whined and became prissy all of a sudden and didn’t want to touch the manure. Excuse me? Who said fixing the environment would be clean? Also, the Mikumi trip is likely called off. The school couldn’t pull itself together for 5 minutes to write a letter to the park requesting a reservation, and now we don’t have time to get a response before the midterm break.

The Agriculture officer agreed to write a budget for my chicken project, said I could have it in 2 days. 3 weeks later, he meets me in town as I get off the bus, the absolute LAST minute to give it to me before I leave for Tanga. Then he walks me halfway across town (I’m carrying my luggage and batiks to sell to the trainees) so he can make a copy. Really? You had no time to make copies earlier? After waiting outside the shop nearly 30 minutes, I go in. He’s having it typed. I will have to type it up later into the grant form anyway. I blew up. I’ll be lucky if he does the chicken training. (Actually, I might be lucky if he doesn’t, he can’t seem to follow through on things very well.)

Peace Corps screwed up and deleted me from the training schedule without telling me. I found out when I called about something else. They said I didn’t need to show for PCV of the week because I didn’t have a session to teach, despite the fact that I was selected to teach a specific session and submitted lesson plans…twice. That was fun to sort out. The PC here is the epitome of “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” I did get approval to go and my session time, eventually. Also they managed to assign exactly no one to my area of the country! After promising me 3 PCVs and leaving me there all alone! Thanks, guys! My complaints were met with indifference, despite that fact that they are never, ever supposed to leave someone isolated at site like that. And it’s not just me this is happening to.

Basically, my overriding emotion the last week+ has been anger and confusion.

Written weeks ago. Sorry, I forgot to blog last time I was in town.

After many phone calls, text messages, complaints, and going to town three weeks in a row (not fun) I got the money to help my Malihai (environment club) kids to go to Mikumi National Park! I had been contcting the district environment guy, and he had kept putting me off, saying he'd call later in the week, week after week. I talked to my APCD at Peace Corps and was told to go to the guy's office. I did, same thing happened. The next week, I went to the head honcho's office, the district director. He called in the environment guy, after he left, I was told that the environment office had over drafted their bank account and had no money to give me. Maybe that's why he kept stalling, he didn't want to admit that. Luckily, since I wanted to take secondary school students, we talked the department of secondary education into funding it. I got what should be half the cost of the trip, bringing the cost to the students to about $15 each for a 2-day trip. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

My girls program started up again. We got to learn all about the menstrual cycle! Then we made necklaces with beads representing the different parts of the cycle. They wear them around the village, even though they were loose enough to reach their shoulders, and I wear mine to be supportive. We also covered natural family planning (rhythm method), which I'm not wild about because I'm afraid they'll use that rather than the abstinence message. Pregnancy is especially damaging to girls here. If you get pregnant, you are not allowed to finish your education. But on the other hand, it’s the only family planning method available to them, and where else are they going to learn it? Since it's at the primary school, we aren't allowed to teach about condoms, not even with HIV prevention. But a few girls asked questions about them, and we can't just not answer their questions, right? So we got them information that way.

In other news, I nearly got run over by a run-away donkey cart, which gave me heart palpitations for about 10 minutes afterward. I found some women drumming in a field one day and got invited to play with them the next day. They neglected to mention that they were playing at a funeral, but no big deal. I still wish someone had told me who had died, though.

Hello all!

I am doing well after hitting my one year in Tanzania mark! Woohoo! Now, for year two! I have been extremely bored in the village with the schools closed for the end of the term. Luckily, they should re-open soon for the second semester and let me have work to do. Still working on getting soap and batiks made. My main problem is marketing. If anyone has any ideas on where I could sell this stuff, let mee know! We're only looking at a batch of about 30 bars of soap and maybe a dozen batiks for the training. If we make a profit they can continue with them on their own. I ordered the supplies over the weekend, so hopefully this month will see the end of the Income Generating Projects. I'd rather stick my school programs, they are less stressful and far less likely to end in failure.

Since the rains ended there have been no veggies available in the village, so I've been a little unhappy with my meals. I made sure to get a bunch of good stuff in town today, so I should be happy for a little while this week. My ducks (now 4) are doing well and, as far as I know, have stopped escaping. I had to tie them to the inside of their enclosure for over a week to get them to figure out that they need to stay there.

I should find out tomorrow whether or not the district is giving me money for my Mali Hai kids tto go to Mikumi. We asked for half of the transport costs a month ago, never heard back. When I came to town I found the person we sent the letter to. He said he hadn't brought it up with the District Director, but now that I came to ask about it, he would go and talk about it that day. *sigh* He should call me with the answer while I'm waiting for my bus. That would help a lot, because $30 each is a lot for these kids to get a hold of, but half that is far more do-able.

That's all I can think of to write. Thank you for your packages and letters. I'll try to keep up on my correspondance as things pick up again.

Allison

just a short update before my computer time runs out.

thanks for the packages, aunt cindy and ayn! they're both wonderful!

things are good in the village. my school programs (mali hai and girl's group) have wound down as the schools closed this week for the end of term vacation. when we get back, the girls get to learn about the biology of menstruation and pregnancy, and the mali hai kids get to go to mikumi. I'm more excited about one of these than about the other.

yes, the mikumi trip is on! we finally got an answer about the price of the mini bus, got them to lower it a bit, and talked to the kids. some said the price was too high, but they don't realize how far mikumi is. i think we got a fair price, 800k for a two day trip. the teachers brought it up at the school's end of term parents meeting, and the parents said that they can pay it, but not until closer to the trip, as they haven't harvested nd sold their crops yet. plus, we're trying to finagle some money from the district government. woohoo!

THE SOAP PROJECT MUST END!!! after i finish the training this week in tanga, I am going to dar to buy the lye to make the soap and get this project out of my hair once and for all!

my plwha group started, and the people with hiv/aids want to raise chickens and sell fabric at the village market to increase their incomes. so, it's to the grant applications for me. wish me luck.

i seem to have purchased the harry houdinis of the duck world. i put them in their new home, and within a day 2 escaped and tried to blend in with my neighbors' flocks. the string still tied to their legs gave them away. a few hours later one of them re-escaped. the kid i got to take care of them while i'm gone should have his hands full. :)

that's all for now! off to the training of trainers in tanga! (i'm going to help the new pcvs during training, and peace corps being what it is, they require me, in turn, to be get additional training first. whatever.)

So if you've looked at my Facebook, you might see my announcement that I no longer had malaria. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago I got a skin infection over the weekend and a fever. I talked to the Peace Corps nurse and got permission to visit a hospital in Dodoma on Monday to get checked out. (This is new, up until about a week before that all PCVs had to go to Dar for treatment, but she had looked at this hospital and decided that it was acceptable.) Sunday night, my hands hurt and I didn't know why. When I woke up Monday morning to walk to the bus, my everything hurt, every joint in my body. (Think back, neck, hands: all jointy.) It was a hard walk, and I forgot to bring my wallet so I had to borrow money to pay the fare when the bus came. Got to town and took a taxi to the hospital. Why would anyone build a hospital so far from town?

I told them about the infection, but then they heard “fever” and “joint pain” and took a blood sample to test for malaria. My parasite count was 6, which they thought was ridiculous; your average Tanzanian doesn't feel a thing until their parasite load in the hundreds. So they admitted me (which is funny, no one in Tanzania gets admitted to the hospital for malaria, they just get the pills and go home to take them). We then learned that my original problem was a boil with a staph infection. I almost hit the year mark without getting sick and decided to go all out I guess.

I stayed there a couple days to take my medicine, another PCV visited to check out the place, bring me some books, and loan me some cash to get back to my village. The staff were nice and I was obviously the only in-patient, so the staff had no problem keeping me company.

How did I get malaria? I have prophylaxis to prevent it, but when my bag was misplaced during the Kigoma trip, so were my malaria pills. Malaria doesn't make you sick right away. The parasite first goes and hides in your liver for a while before it starts pumping out copies of itself, in this case waiting about a month. But I'm fine now, back in the village as usual, and got a lot of sympathy there because people know how malaria messes up wazungu worse than it does them.

I forgot to write that some of the other passengers pointed out the refugee camps near Kigoma. I guess Tanzania is still hosting refugees from Uganda and Rwanda. I wanted to ask why they are still here? Didn't the Rwandan war end a long time ago? At some point they need to go home, right?

Anyway, I got to Kigoma too late for the ferry to Gombe. (Yes, the park is only accessible by boat.) I went to the park office to see when the next ferry would be. They have it set up so you are forced to stay 2 nights at the park: the ferry goes there once a day, arriving in the evening, and comes back once a day, leaving in the morning. You can't do it in one day and get to go on a chimp trek. Luckily for me, although I had missed the ferry, they were sending a boat later on to deliver 30 conference chairs to park (?!). They let me ride with the chairs, ensuring that I had a very comfy boat ride. Lake Tanganyika is amazingly beautiful. You could see the mountains of the democratic Republic of Congo on the other side, there were boats out fishing for dagaa, a misty fog on the shore. Amazing.

We got there just after dark and they got me set up in the rest house (hotel). The problem remained that I did not want to stay for 2 nights, as my allotted vacation time was slipping away from me. I went up to the restaurant to get some dinner and found the only other guests: a French family from Burundi. I immediately realized we wouldn't have much to talk about, even if they knew some English. But then I saw a Tanzanian sitting in the corner and struck up a conversation in Swahili. This was the hired boat driver for the Burundians, and they were planning to leave the next afternoon, and it would be no problem for him to ask if I could ride along as well. Score!!

So the next morning I got up early for my chimp trek. I had already seen several baboons hanging around the hotel and throwing themselves against the well-enforced doors trying to get in. One did manage to sneak into the restaurant, scare a few children and got chased out with a broom. The staff said that the baboons only try to get in to get some food, but they are persistent. I was assigned a tour guide, but since the group of French Burundians was small, we stuck together with both guides. We found a family of chimpanzees right away, in a tree on the shore of the lake. We watched them, maneuvering around for good viewing spots, for about 15 minutes. Then one of the Burundians insisted on moving on; he wanted to see other chimpanzees. I later learned that half of the family had gone out the day before and hiked around for 6 hours without seeing anything butt jungle. So we moved on, and climbed up steep, muddy hillsides in the jungle and the rain for 3 hours without seeing much of anything else. I fell down 4 times in the mud. We did see some red colobus monkeys and heard but couldn't see a group of blue monkeys. The rest of the group went back to the rest house and y tour guide and i took an extra hike past “Jane's House” to the waterfall, then back to the rest house. My boat driving friend told me that they had agreed to let me hitch a ride back on their hired boat, so I packed up what little I had and we waited for the weather to clear a little more before setting out.

The ride back to Kigoma was beautiful and uneventful. We docked at the very nice hotel they were staying at that I could not afford, I thanked them and went off in search of something a bit more my style. Then I went to buy a bus ticket too start my journey to Moshi. I wanted to go through Mwanza, but was told that there were no more tickets on the next buses out. I sat outside the ticket office throwing a small tantrum, this was the last straw on a really bad trip. a man asked what my problem was, and I told him what ALL my problems were, up to and including my week-old dirty clothes. Turned out, he had a ticket to Mwanza for the next morning that he didn't want (TZ buses have a really strict no-refunds policy), so I apologized for getting mad at him and bought his bus ticket from him.

I talked to the person at Saratoga to see where my luggage was. They sent it to Kigoma, but too late. I told them to send it back to Dodoma of transfer it to a Mwanza bus, since I was leaving Kigoma. I got to Mwwanza without incident and bought a ticket to Moshi. I missed my luggage again and told them to forget it, just get it back to Dodoma. I got on a bus the next day to Moshi and was met by the expat that had invited me to visit. When we got to the house he borrowed some clothes from his housekeeper so they could wash the ones I'd been wearing and we went to the used clothing market in town to get me something to wear until I got home. I got to hang out at the house for a few days, watch movies, play on the internet, and eat nice food (no rice and not a single bean). Then I came home and found that my luggage was STILL not here. I went back to the village without it and picked it up a few weeks later when I went to town.

That was my spring vacation. Who's in for Spring Break Tanzania 2011?

This story will be told in dribs and drabs, since it's long and I don't have much typing time. Here goes:

My trip to Gombe Stream National Park.

Things started off well enough. I arrived in town, bought my bus ticket, and enjoyed my evening away from the village as usual. This is a two-day bus ride with the stop stopping during the night and arriving the next day. The next morning I arrived at the bus stand before 11am, as I was told, to wait for the bus to pass through Dodoma from Dar to Kigoma. I waited and waited some more. They kept assuring me that it was coming, just wait a little longer, it's just a little late, ok, it's really late, but wait. By 2pm I was getting very surly with the office staff and they decided to swap my ticket for one on another (less reputable) bus that they thought would arrive sooner. Both buses show up at the same time: around 3:30. This is more than long enough to make sure that we won't make the preferred stopping point as planned. I get on the bus and it is PACKED. Even the aisles were full of suitcases, sacks, buckets, it looked like a vilage bus without the chickens. So I sit precariously perched on the variety of things in the aisle as the bus speeds out of the station. I don't have a seat. Finally, one of the staff talks someone who is getting off soon into giving up his seat for me: in the very last row.. This is the worst place to sit on a bus. Any time you hit a bump (constantly on the unpaved sections that are most of the road) those in the back row get the most impact and can hit their heads on the ceiling and generally get thrown around like a rag doll the whole time. At least my neighbors were friendly we were finally on our way. The woman next to me was playing music on a laptop. She started singing along to the video of We Are the World (original 1985 version). I sang along too. I don't know if she noticed me singing, but it amused me. The bus keeps driving on. People are asking to stop “to dig some roots”, aka a bathroom break (actual bathroom not required). They don't stop (not even for food) until 11, at which point we've all got to go dig some roots. I found myself a lovely little shrub, and another women thought it looked nice too. When she saw me already there, she asks, “Are you a man or a woman?” I thought this was obvious but I tell her I'm a woman. I guess she didn't want to share a shrub with a dude. We finally stop somewhere around 3 in the morning. Some of the people next to me got off the bus and I curled up for one of the most uncomfortable naps of my life.

Two hours later we're moving again, but not for long. At about 8am we come to a bridge that's gone out with a semi truck stuck in the middle of it. The bus returns to the last town to wait it out, along with every other bus going that way. It's a long wait. Finally around 5 we get word that they've arranged for a bus to pick us up on the other side of the creek. We start unloading the bus for the swap. This is when I learn that back in Dodoma, when I gave my bag to the bus employee to put it in the luggage bay, that it was already full. In a moment of sheer brilliance, he decided to put the bag in the office, despite the fact that I was clearly getting on the bus. So my luggage is gone. Luckily I knew enough to keep my passport and cash on me, and I had a pocketknife, my mp3 player, phone, and camera. Basi. But my anti-malarials, clothes, hairbrush, and binoculars are MIA. We unload the bus and carry everything across the creek to the new bus. The bus continues on until about 8pm, where it stops for the night. This time we stopped early enough to be able to buy dinner and get motel rooms, which I did. Cold chipsi mayai and a buggy room. Next morning (we're now on day 3) we leave at 5am. In the early afternoon we stop in a lovely decent sized town and I decide that I HAVE to get off this bus. So I do. I wander around a bit, find a nice cheap hotel, walk around a bit, shower (I've been wearing those clothes for 3 days at this point) and sleep. The next morning I hopped a daladala to Kigoma town.

To be continued...

This post is about TV in Tanzania, and why I find it amusing. I don't get to watch much TV, as I don't have a TV set or even electricity. But most restaurants and businesses in town have one running in the background, so I get to see a little.

First, the news. I love watching the news here. I usually can't understand the interviews because they talk so fast, but I get the gist of most stories and understand the headlines that scroll along the bottom. I also like when people watch me watch Swahili TV, because I know they're trying to figure out if I know Swahili, or if I'm just looking at the pictures. My favorite part of the news is after the interviews and reports, when they read the newspaper. Yes, the broadcaster just reads the newspaper aloud, while the cameraman zooms in on what he's reading. That way, you can read it too! And you can see where they put a star by the ones they want him to read. And it's not just one paper, they usually go through a whole stack of them. No one has been able to adequately explain to me why they do this. You'd think there would be some sort of copyright infringement going on, but apparently not. Reading the newspaper on TV, good work if you can get it, I guess. The Tanzanian news is usually and inexplicably followed by an English language Russian news show.

Aside from the news, the other main category of shows is foreign soap operas dubbed into English. There are two main groups: the Asian soaps, and the Brazilian soaps. Both have their good qualities, mostly in that “so bad, it's funny” way, but I'm not sure why they would appeal at all to Tanzanians.

There are also the educational shows where they talk about farming practices, health care, exciting new things people are doing for income, etc. These are usually boring, and interspersed with segments of people dancing to liven things up. (Hint: it doesn't work.)

I had a little “safety and security incident” this week. The local crazy guy, who has always annoyed me, but liited himself to following me and shouting nonsense at me, decided he didn't like me ignoring him anymore and hit me on the arm. Not hard, he just wanted my attention. I called Peace Corps to as what to do, because I was worried the situation could escalate. Plus, the guy always has two large walking sticks. I figured, he if he hit me with his hand, he might work up to using the sticks. He's already used them to poke at me. They called my village leaders who demanded to see the bruises, convinced that I must have been beaten bloody to hve the gall to call Dar es Salaam directly. Their first solution was to have him committed, which didn't sit well with me, especially since he didn't hurt me, and honestly, he was here first. Things settled down a little and we found a solution that I could live with. Turns out, that guy doesn't even live in my village! He lives in a neighboring village, so they told him that he needed to stay there from now on. And they told the people in the area where he hangs out that if he does come here and starts bugging me, they should do something about it to make him stop. This would be a refreshing change from their normal reaction, which is to pull up a chair and grab a bag of popcorn to watch their free show for the day.

Life Skills classes are going well, even better since my counterpart started translating instead of the science teacher, since he actually understands the point of all this and well, cares. Mali Hai went on a tree-planting frenzy and is getting ready to fund raise and plan a trip to Mikumi National Park, in near-by Morogoro during the semester break in June. Woohoo, road trip! For most of them, this may their first and only trip to one of their own awesome national parks. Aaaand my soap project is still circling the drain as I try desperately to revive it. Basically, anything soap-related that can go wrong has, from the wrong oil to my lye-eaten pot, up to the point that we might have trouble making money off this. Which, for an income generating project, is especially not good.

The corn harvest has started to come in. They'll leave most of it on the stalk to harden and use to make corn flour for ugali all year, but they've started picking a little to eat ripe. You can't swing a dead cat this week without hitting someone munching on grilled corn on the cob. My neighbors felt bad that I don't have a farm and can't share in the fresh corn goodness (it only comes once a year) and have been sharing theirs with me, usually more than I can eat, but I'm not complaining. And I've been informed that it's high time I claimed my ducks. That family is moving closer into the village and my ducks will not get to join their siblings in the move. Also, they said they're getting big and eating too much. I've gotten permission to use some space at the school, I just need to buy some wire mesh to enclose a little yard for them to walk around in, and I should probably buy something for them to eat.

I don't know if I've mentioned the school kitchen before. The World Food Program is trying to support school lunches in Tanzania, which is good, because I see a lot of kids who don't go home for lunch, either because it's too far away to get back to school in time or there's no food at home anyway. They told my village that if they (the village) builds a store room and a kitchen, the WFP will provide the food. They came out to do their inspection of the schools and found an unused classroom cleared out to be the store room and no kitchen. My villagers and the teachers remained in no hurry. A few weeks ago they started to build the kitchen , but last week they ran out of bricks. This week, someone must have paid for more bricks, because I stepped out of my house to see all 500 students walking single file, each with a brick on his/her head, helping to get them across the river and up the hill to the school. And building resumed. Mind you, the building should have been done before the inspection, I think the WFP is being very generous to let them finish it late and still get the food. Which goes to show me that my village will wait until the last minute for anything. I should have known this the day I arrived, as the cement on my bathroom was still drying. But, at least the walls are up, even if they aren't cemented yet and there's no roof. Hopefully they'll finish it and the kids will be able to get some ugali or porridge or something to help them concentrate in class.

Also, I think the secondary students are getting a raw deal; their two student teachers leave tomorrow, meaning there will be no one to teach biology, chemistry, history, or geography. How will they pass their exams? No one knows, or seems too worried about it.

Yes, ducks. My neighbor's duck had about 15 babies, and they were cute and funny baby animals. I'd been telling them for weeks that I was going to buy their ducks, and I finally pulled together the cash this week. I know thay overcharged me at 25,000 shillings for 3 ducks, but part of the deal was for them to continue to take care of the ducks until I get a shelter built, and let's be honest, I'm in no hurry to do that. However, it was almost worth the price to get to see the spectacle of the three older kids tearing around the yard, trying to catch a duckling, while avoidng Mama Duck, who was none too pleased about this operation. (“Anakuwa mkali!”) Once caught, the lucky 3 got a piece of scrap cloth tied around their foot so we would know who was mine and who was theirs. Unfrunately for the kids, the first 2 caught were female, so they got to continue diving into the flock hoping to snag one of the few males, who are only slightly larger than the females. The ducks seem unfazed by their change of ownership.

I just found out that my women's group may have spent 30,000 shillings on completely the wrong thing. I forgot to pass on the advice of my soap contact not to buy the coconut oil yet. They bought it, but my contact informed me that what they want, pure coconut oil, should be black. They probably bought the unpure kind, which explains why it was more expensive than it should have been. I hope we can sell it back somewhere. She also doesn't believe I can make caustic soda/lye with ashes and water. My homework this week is to try it and see who wins.

My environment club got tired of people never showing up to meetings. During their first member-run business meeting (I sat in the back and watched the magic) they decided to take their attendance book aand boot out the no-shows and take new members. They also decided to pay dues to buy some tools for the nursery, to plant the trees that have been in there way too long, and to expand the nursery later this year. Mali Hai oye! I also took a tree count for my volunteer report: 259! I may bump this to 260 on the assumption that we missed at least one. We somehow got a single tamarind tree, despite never having planted tamarind seeds. Thank you, anonymous seed-pooping bird, you have bumped my fruit tree count from 3 to 4!

My life skills teaching has been going...strangely. The kids are totally unresponsive, which is what Tanzanian teachers like, but the interactive format of the life skills curriculum falls flat. I can't tell if it's a language issue, an “I'm boring them” issue, or just what they're used to doing in class. This week's session did get lively when I did the drink mixing game they taught us at PEPFAR. 10 kids, nine with glasses of water (HIV-) one with soda (HIV+) and they each have instructions who they do and do not “mix” with. At the end, the only ones without soda-tainted water are the abstinent one, the monogomous couple, and the one who “clinks but never mixes” (uses a condom). The reason this got so lively was that the one girl with the soda (she's also my neighbor) kept trying to chug her glass of HIV every time my back was turned, keeping the rest of the class in giggle fits. I need to find a way to make HIV less appealing.

Had my first encounter with siafu, aka safari ants, this week. I'd seen them moving their nests and whatnot before, and knew from the way Tanzanians reacted to give them a wide berth. A few days ago I woke up and went into my backyard to get to my bathroom. By the tie I got to the bathroom, my feet were on fire. In my sleep-addled state, I had failed to see that my ENTIRE YARD was full of siafu. They had collected on my feet when I walked through, and they don't just bite, they hang on. (Shida came home once with a siafu lip-ring.) Yeah, not a good way to start off the day. After getting them off me and collecting my wits again, I went and told my neighbor, who came over with some poison to get rid of them. In the meantime, I could not use the bathroom or bathe, since they were in my choo and “shower” too. An hour later I was still finding them on me.

A few days later, standing outside my counterpart's house. His calf was grazing nearby and started nudging a box I was holding. Counterpart shoved the calf away, and the next thing I know I'm getting head-butted in the thigh in retaliation. Ouch, not cool, cow.

Same day, walking home and keeping an eye on the 5 primary school boys who were carrying my dresser from the carpenter's house. I didn't see the chicken just to the side of the road. But she saw me and thought I was way too close to her chicks. Cue the chicken chasing me and going insane, and the boys cracking up.

I've had two baby mice fall from my rafters and into my house. I'm not sure exactly why it's raining baby mice. Shida ate one of them, I swept the other outside, where I assume it was eaten by another cat.

It's been a bad week for me and animals.

Fortunately, it's been a good week for work. I got a regular time to meet with my environmnt club. They had a blast making the web of life and talking about species' interdependence for our first activity of the year. I also got a time set aside to do some girls' empowerment for 6th and 7th grade girls (I'm calling it “life skills for girls”, since empowerment doesn't translate and some locals may not want their girls empowered. The women's group is getting organized to start making baskets to sell, which is cool because I didn't have to do anything. And they're ready to start on soap as soon as I figure out how much our supplies will cost. The PLWHA group is raring to go; their leader tracked me down to ask when I'll be ready to start. Initiative! I love it. 4-H is on the backburner for now, but no big deal. I also permaculture-ed my front yard (hope something grows) and arrange for an education volunteer to visit and do a training with the secondary school science teachers. This is why I never have time to leave my village.

Katie, I got your Christmas package (after 4 trips to the posta and an argument with the customs officer). Thank you! It's awesome, and everyone else was jealous and trying to figure out what the ornament was made out of. Grandma, ease up on the packages. My friend won't deliver when there's more than 1, so I'll have to go up to Singida soon to retrieve them. Also, I think I have enough spices, etc to last me through 2011. UUs, your package is there too.

Well, the PEPFAR conference is over (and not a moment too soon). It was another redundant and frustrating affair, complete with counterparts asking for posho (payment for being there) above their reimbursement. But, we did get to dig a permaculture garden and talk about project planning and we got some good resources. Definitely not a total loss.

Right after PEPFAR, I took my work leave up to hot and humid Tanga. I took a daladala to visit my host family, who,, due to phone theft, didn't know I was coming. Everyone who saw me in the village welcomed me back. I got to my old house and only the kids were there, but they were glad to see me. I guess I displaced them from their room for the night, but I'd done that for 2 months last summer, so one night didn't seem like a big deal. Mama Nyiro got home and immediately got some doughnuts and tea for me and asked how I was doing and how long I'd stay. Then she reminded the girls, who were cooking fish, that I liked beans and sent them out to get some to make for dinner. (I don't really have a preference, but ok.) I think they were disappointed that I had to leave in the morning, but I promised to come back for a real visit soon. After our late dinner and visiting one of the other host families, I was pretty tired from 8 hours on the bus and went to bed. After a few minutes, Mama Nyiro came in and began a very confusing conversation with someone as sleepy as I was. First, she asked me if I wanted 'shuka', which as a verb means to disembark, and as a noun apparently means a blanket. As it was already too hot, I declined. Then she asked if I wanted 'mto', which apparently means both river and pillow. Needless to say, this wasn't one of my more brilliant language moments, but she knew me when I could barely say hello, so I wasn't too worried. The next morning she made the same breakfast I got during training, and helped me carry bags to find a daladala to Tanga town.

I went to the 4-H office to see about getting a club started. It was kind of lame; they spent most of the time showing me the grounds and buildings. They could have told me the steps I would have to take to start the project over the phone. But, I got to spend the evenings in Tanga and visit the beach, so I really can't complain.

I can complain, however, about the TWELVE HOURS it took me to get back to Dodoma. I still have no clue where the extra 4 hours came from. It made me so late I couldn't get transport to the village where i planned to stay with another PCV. In the end, I got desperate and managed to talk a taxi driver down to half the price to get me to the village, on the basis that I'm foreign, female, and looked pretty pathetic. Once there, he tried to ask for more, but I didn't have any more money. As I was getting my bags, he saw I had an enormous bag of oranges I'd bought on the bus and asked for some. I gave him a few, because I knew how much the ride should have cost, and I bought the oranges to give to my neighbors anyway. It also created a stir at the 2ndary school where my friend lives when students saw a taxi pulling up at around 9pm (probably never happened before) and me getting out. Surprise!

If I haven't mention in my blogs before, I've been attending the Catholic church in my village. In Tanzania, if you don't go to church, there's something wrong with you, and Peace Corps basically said that if you want the village to trust you, go to church, any church. I picked the Catholic one because I had no other preferences among the other denominations present in the village (Pentecostal, 7th Day Adventist, Lutheran) and the people I met in my first days here were Catholics. Also, it's a stone's throw away from my house. So every Sunday I go to church and claim my seat early (I was late once and found myself on the edge of a bench and getting slowly pushed off). They mumble the prayers which I don't know, we do some singing that I don't understand, then there's the offering. Here, they have people get up and go to the front to putt their offering in the baskets. They have one basket for men and one for women (why? I don't know, but TZ can be very sex-segregated, I guess to keep the youngun's out of trouble. Men and women even sit on opposite sides of the church). And almost every week, the women's basket will contain eggs, and maybe a small bag with a few cups of flour, or some tomatoes. In this society, it's harder for women to get access to money, and this might be a sign of that. I think to myself, maybe someday they'll have real equality and lower poverty level, and none of the offering baskets will have eggs.

Now, how to buy a rabies vaccine. Of course I've mentioned that I have a cat named Shida. Shida needed to get his rabies vaccine, and I put it off for various reasons. I decided I shouldn't put it off anymore, especially since I know he's started hunting for his dinner (unsuccessfully as far as I can tell). On a trip to town I asked at a couple of feed stores, none had vaccines. So I went to the big ag store that sells nything and everything, and in bigger bulk than you could imagine. They had rabies vaccines! The price sounded outrageous, but you never know what simple things will be crazy expensive here, and I really needed it. They bring out the bottle for me and it looks...wrong. It looks big, actually. Reading the label, it turns out this bottle has 10 doses of vaccine. I explained to the staff that I only have one cat and only want one vaccine, but that's the only bottle they have. The saleslady and I stared at each other for a few minutes, then she said she'd tell me what to do. She said to go next door to the medical supply store and buy a syringe and come back. I did, and was struck that no one else thought it odd for me to walk in off the street and buy a single syringe. I went back to the ag store, and she drew up one dose into my new syringe. Then she took a plastic bag and dumped some cold water into it and dropped the syringe inside. She tied up the bag, put it in another bag, and handed it to me, charging me 1/10 of the original price. The didn't have any vaccine certificates, so they gave m sticker with the lot # and said to ask the livestock officer if he had certificates. I have to tell you, a baggie of water will not keep a vaccine adequately cold through a hot 4 hour bus ride, but I ignored that fact, got home, and gave Shida a poke. After a few days of wondering what to do with a used syringe, I remembered that the dispensary has a sharps box and swung by one day to give it to the doctor. I'm sure she wondered why I had a single, used syringe, but she didn't ask.

Also, some new pics should be up. You're welcome!

Dec 24

Rains started today. Merry Christmas! Crops are growing and river re-appeared.

Dec 25

Went to church in the rain,not many people there. My counterpart insisted that I visit his family on Christmas. Decided to put on a sweatshirt, suck it up, and head over. Had to hold my skirt up to keep dry.

Dec 28

Thought it was bad before, but now I miss the mid-calf deep water. It's now knee-deep. My neighbor asked why my skirt was wet, and I told her if I'd held it higher everyone would have seen my undies. She said not to worry about it. I guess flashing is appropriate if you're crossing the river? Mission priest said he had to leave his Land Cruiser in the village because he didn't want to damage it driving through the water. It's really disorienting to walk such a long distance (1/4-1/2 mile maybe) through moving water. My eyes start wondering if I'm standing still while everything in my line of sight moves, or the other way around.

Dec 30

Had about enough of this. Packed a tote bag with all the work I need to get done and went to my counterpart's house. He returned from the farm to see me sitting on his couch with a wet skirt, and his wife spreading all my papers, cell phone components, and other stuff I brought out to dry in the sun. My foot slipped on a rock on the way over. Managed to get leave forms signed, handouts translated, and live fence hedge planted at the nursery. Went home when it started to rain and considered using the borrowed umbrella as a boat. Water now up to my waist.

Dec 31

Stranded on my hilltop. Called PC who said to move to the mission if it gets near my house or I run out of supplies. They asked if I could crash at another volunteer's house, but I don't want to risk it, especially not carrying a duffel bag or something with important medicine, papers, and electronics. After yesterday's almost fall, I decided to stay at home until it lowers or slows down. People still crossing the river (now lake) on foot, but it's not worth it for me to try. Higher water level than yesterday and moving faster. Some enterprising young men hung out on the banks and lead people across the shallowest part holding their hands for 500 shillings a head. A neighbor tied his duck to a tree because she kept trying to lead her flock of ducklings to the water, and he didn't want them all swept away.

Jan 1

Water back down to ankle level! Happy New Year indeed! Put on a new outfit and went to the dispensary to give HIV tests. I didn't get any positive ones, so I had a good time stabbing people, making them sweat it out while the test finished, and telling them that they're negative, congratulations, and happy new year.

Jan 3

Heard a lot of people at church say they were worried about being able to cross the river to go back home. I also heard the phrase “a lot of water” (in Swahili of course) repeatedly. After finishing my business at the mission, went into the village to pick up my uncharged cell phone (why does his generator always not work when it's my phone that needs charging?!). The water was only knee-deep! That's not a lot of water! Waist-deep is a lot of water. What a bunch of babies. ;)

I'm Magical

First, mail call: Ayn's package (Merry Christmas!), letters from Jan Z, Uncle Tim, Aunt Cindy P, and six Voice of America 2010 calendars (I only asked for one, so this is weird). Also got word that Katherine's package arrived in Singida, I might get it next week at the conference if my friend doesn't hitch a ride to town. No word on my books sent to the school, the teacher I spoke to later played dumb. I'll have to deal with this when (if) the headmaster gets back. It's too rainy for bird-watching now anyway.

For anyone who got a telephone or written tirade about my tree nursery (Mom and Ayn), forget it! It's back and better than ever. When I returned from IST, I found my seedbed...empty. Completely. It hadn't been getting enough water, so while I was gone, someone realized that it was dead and removed all the weeds and dead trees, leaving three scrawny seedlings. I think they were embarrassed about this, as they covered the whole thing up with dry grass, so I couldn't see it until I got close and pushed the grass aside. I was pretty crushed and pissed and everything you could imagine. The nursery was all I had to show for four months of my life.

Dec 30 I went to plant the live fence anyway. I had gotten the seeds for the hedge at IST, and thought there was no point letting them go to waste. If nothing else, it will make the site more permanent in case they want to try a nursery again in the future. As we approached the nursery, I saw that someone had re-built the shade cover that had been dismantled while I was gone. And under it was... SEEDLINGS! Lots of them, some entire rows had germinated.

There are two theories as to how this could have happened. Theory one: I am magical. Kind of hard to dispute given my history (single-handedly running field day four times, surviving substitute teaching, and general awesomeness). One of my neighbors didn't buy that, so he proposed theory two. When the students watered the nursery, they used watter from the local wells, which is na chumvi (salty). Some of the seeds sprouted, but others didn't like that water. The trees that grew died, and they and the weeds were cleared out. Then the rains came the seeds that stayed dormant got fresh clean rain water and decided it was time to grow.

Either way, this presents a problem (I'm trying to mentally frame this as an “opportunity”). The trees were planted three months before the rainy season because then they would be ready for transplanting NOW, and they would get the full rainy season to get big and strong enough to survive eight months of dry. These trees grew three months late, meaning they will need to be transplanted at the start of the dry season. However, my APCD had talked to me about a new method developed in Mali for transplanting trees in the dry season. I may have just accidentally created a chance to adapt it for central Tanzania and to try and see how it works. Which is pretty exciting for me. I know, planting trees in the dry season doesn't sound exciting, but being the first to try something new as a result of a total accident is cool to me.

In non-tree related news, I get to go to Tanga to visit the 4-H head office to discuss how to start a program in my village. 4-H currently isn't operating in Dodoma region, but I had already decided it would be a good program for my primary schools. Luckily, they know about Peace Corps and were jazzed to get to work with me, and I managed to score some work-related leave and a trip out of the village.

I talked to the village volunteer who work with PLWHAs (People Living With HIV/AIDS) about starting a group to teach income generating projects. He's on board, and since he's the only one who knows who has HIV in the village, I'm gonna need his help. He thought that people might not want to join because of fear of being stigmatized. So, he suggested we make it a People Living With Chronic Diseases group, include a few diabetics, people with TB, etc and not mention that the vast majority of the group is HIV positive. Which sounds like a good solution to me. If anyone gets asked what they have and they're afraid to admit it, they can make something up (uhhh, I have heart problems?). And I can mention that my resources for home gardens and income generation mention PLWHA, but they're good for anyone with a chronic illness.

As for the current critter count: my house has been full of moths for a month, as well as countless millipedes. Shida ate another scorpion (a little one), a found a dung beetle and took video of him rolling a ball of Shida poop. Found a mystery swarm of larval...things, took a video in hopes someone can identify it. Also, I picked a book up off the floor on Saturday and found a tiny snake underneath it. That one gave me heart palpitations. It was a little thicker than a pencil; Shida chased him around the room and he slithered under my duffel bag. Picked up the bag: no snake, looked in the bag (carefully) still no snake. No holes or anywhere he could have snuck in to hide. I finally told myself he went under the bag and out the door before I saw him. I went out to run some errands and when I got back, it was still bugging me, so I picked up the duffel bag again and there he was! Shida batted him around for a bit, then I swept him outside into the cornfield. I still don't know where he was hiding that whole time.

Hey all, finally got my final paperwork for Tanzania. That means I finally got my mailing address for training! They said mail can take 2-4 weeks to there, and month or more to here. Here it is...

Allison Eriksen

US Peace Corps

P.O. Box 9123

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

I also put it on my profile on the sidebar of the page for when you forget it.

I was reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile this week. I have decided to present my own theories on education, from a sub's point of view.

First off, strict teachers rock. They just do. A sub can tell when the teachers are strict. Every class has that one kid who can't sit still and has a 5 second attention span. When a teacher is strict, the rest of the class will usually discourage his/her antics because they don't want to get in trouble when their teacher gets back. When the regular teacher lets them get away with anything, "that kid" will start up and no one else will foresee any bad consequences and will join in.

I have had kids say that I'm mean. I don't think I'm mean to them. When classes listen like I ask them to, we can have fun at the end of class and I talk to them more. When they try to push my buttons, it will be all work and possibly extra work because I can't trust them to behave without something to do. I found this quote by Rousseau. "As long as all went well and I saw my plans and labors succeeding, I could not do too much - I was an angel; but when things went wrong, I was a devil." He admitted to not being cut out as a teacher. And let's face it, neither am I.

And here is where I break it down - by subject.

English/Lit - Depends on class personality, but I usually have time to read, which is good for me. It can really go either way.

Science - Yes! Cool movies!

History - Yes, because I am a history nerd and can tell them cool (to me) stuff.

Wood Shop - NO! that's where they put the a-holes and do-nothings. Also, they will not do bookwork and therefore focus all of their frustrations on me.

Art- No, bored kids want to do projects, not listen to me or read.

P.E. - Not too often. Too much whining to do regularly, but not usually bad. Just hot and mildly unpleasant.

Music - Yes! It's like having your own personal orchestras to serenade you. Plus I can use my mad marching band skills. Downside: might have to watch High School Musical.

It is kind of fun to go to different schools and teach different things all the time. But some days are just too much; you wonder why the teacher would make someone else deal with their awful kids. With hindsight and distance, it's an ok job. But in the heat of the classroom, it's another story.

That's it for now.

Allison

Ok, so now I know when I'll be leaving for reals. I've got a flight out of Fresno on Saturday, June 13th. Then I've got a couple of days in Philadelphia (yes, my favorite place ever). On the 15th we're flying to Tanzania. I don't have my new mailing address yet, but I'll post it here as soon as I get it. I'm really just looking forward to this whole thing being over and getting to start a new job and new life and not have the future feeling so tentative. Also, I'm totally over the whole "living with my parents" thing. It sucks; I don't recommend it.

I also cannot wait until school gets out. All of the kids have spring fever and I'm expected to make them learn and sit quietly. Needless to say, it is no easy task, especially since I'd rather be sleeping or by the pool too. The worst part is when they know they can't pass/graduate anyway, so they really really do not care. And at this point, that won't change because of something a sub (sorry, "guest teacher") tells them.

I'm considering another trip to Davis in early June, so my Davis peeps, call me and we can plan some fun stuff!

That's it for now, type at ya later.

I got nervous today when I checked the news and saw this: Tanzania President Urged to Quit. I don't care for how this sounds, Tanzania; I don't care for it one bit. Quick summary: there was an explosion at an ammunition dump just outside the capital city. Twenty-six people died and a hundred or more were injured. I read about the explosion when it happened (article here). The headline was alarming and I was glad to find out that it was an accident and not a deliberate attack of some kind.

Watch yourself, Tanzania. Take care of your business, so I can come live in you and help you out a little. Please don't prove that my assignment to a country is a sure sign of instability in the near future. That is a reputation I do not need.

And yes, I read the BBC for news almost exclusively now. I can never find news about Africa in the American media. We're just too self-absorbed.

As of this week, Madagascar officially has a new president. Ravalomanana has resigned as a result of the mounting pressure from the opposition and a lack of support from the military. The courts have transferred power to Rajoelina as a transitional authority. From the BBC article, "But according to Malagasy law, the head of parliament's upper house should have taken over after the president's resignation and organized an election within two months." Rajoelina, former mayor of the capital city Antananarivo, promises to hold elections in the next 18-24 months. He also promises to amend the national constitution, since as it stands, he is six years too young to hold his office. The whereabouts of Ravalomanana is currently unknown, probably for his own safety. All PC volunteers have been pulled out last week and sent home or reassigned, which was sad for them and the communities they had been living with, I'm sure.

Update 3/21

Due to the unconstitutional shift of power in Madagascar,the "transitional government" has been denounced by the USA, France, and the European Union. The United States has suspended all non-humanitarian aid to the island, including the $27.3 million Millennium Challenge Corporation fund, which Madagascar was the first country to receive. They could also face sanctions from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, who are threatening to suspend Madagascar's membership unless legal elections are held sooner than the two years Rajoelina has proposed.

Sorry, I just didn't feel like starting a new post so soon with a little bit of new info. I'm sure I'll be following this through the end. I may not have been sent to Madagascar, but we've got a connection now!

I accepted my new Peace Corps invitation today! My invitation packet arrived yesterday, but I had gotten most of the information documents by email last week. I was a bit mystified by the fact that the new had packet had some booklets for me and my family that were not included in the last one. Maybe that just means that this one is for real. Or someone sent off a half-assed packet last time. Why am I not surprised?

So I'm Tanzania-bound. Tanzania is classic safari country, complete with scenes of your typical African wildlife on the savannas, Serengeti National Park, and the Ngorongoro Crater. I'll be an Environment Extension Volunteer. The Tanzania program meshes environment and sustainable agriculture into one program, so I'll get the chance to get some real ag work in. I will also be near the equator (eek!) and away from the lush Madagascan rainforests of my dreams. Since Tanzania is a country particularly affected by HIV/AIDS I will also get to work with the communities to raise awareness of prevention techniques and improve access to care for people living with HIV or AIDS. Did I mention that I will almost certainly have to head up environmental primary school clubs? Maybe being with kids who are actually interested in something I have to talk about will be a lovely change of pace.

So hopefully by mid-June I will finally be in another country, training for Peace Corps service. And it only took twenty-one months!