I want to marry a man who is a honest with evidence and bold with words as the blind man in John 9. Rejected by society (both the Pharisees and the disciples assume his guilt in his blindness), healed by Christ, he obeys. Challenged by authorities, he starts out both humble and honest. Not quarrelsome, but since they are calling him in and pressing for answers, he doesn't not back down to say what he saw, heard or experienced (although even his parents are concerned of the consequences of honest words). When pressed again, he is sharp, honest, well-spoken. "Why are you asking me again? Do you want to become his disciples, too? This is remarkable. No one has ever heard of opening the eyes of the blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." Then back outside with Jesus, who went to go find him, Jesus asked, "Do you believe in the son of man?" "Who is he, sir? Tell me so I can believe and worship him." And he did. Bold.

I'm in Granada, Nicaragua for four weeks this summer in order to learn Spanish. I felt right at home from the moment I arrived in the country. My host family is a joyful, young family that has made me feel like a part of them from day one. We visited my host 's home village outside of town with their 3 kids and another American student staying in the house, went to the market, to the running of the bulls festival, and to see Shrek 4 in Spanish :)

I've already felt Spanish progressing from conversation over the weekend, and classes started today. Small, great, very personable. And tomorrow morning I'll start working with the kids in the program (most kids have school from 12-5, so this is a before-school program). Can't wait.

Granada is so beautiful. Puffy white clouds sit on a nearby volcano that I can see from the outdoor courtyard of my 2nd story room in the morning. Building fronts are painted in an array of bright colors and horse-drawn carts frequent the streets with cars and bikes. Last Sunday was the running of the bulls- crazy ;) I didn't run, but we did have one hop on my raised sidewalk, and the crowd went wild. Next Sunday in town is apparently another festival, the parade of horses.

I'm having such a good- and relaxing- time here, but feel also very productive y aprendo mucho espanol.

Man, so its been a while since checking in here. I figure in this facebook age (and since I update less frequently after Africa), no one's looking here anymore. But, might as well give a summer update, in case you're not the facebook type.

Yes. School year #1 in NYC: COMPLETE. What an exhausting and challenging year it was! But I do love the city, my neighborhoods in the Bronx, and the relationships that have been building here. I'm midway through getting my MA in teaching science from Teachers College, and I'm loving the summer.

July has been getting out on the river and out in the town. I've had 3 weddings, at least 6 couch surfers, a swing dance class, Spanish tutoring, school trainings/ planning, and have been out enjoying the museums, parks and even a Broadway musical and a Shakespearian play. I've also been volunteering with my church and a sweet organization called Rocking the Boat, which gets high school kids out on the Bronx River.

During the month of August, Lord willing, I'll be learning Spanish in Nicaragua, so don't get mad at me if I'm not answering my phone.

God is good and the summer is sweet, indeed.

Baba Mungu, twashukuru. Nashukuru kwa wapendwa wako. Waoambia "watu wangu"- my people. Ijamaa. Nashukuru pia kwa wanaojenga jiji yetu kwa tumaini. Those who have planted and watered the seeds that we live in, eat from, name our schools after and rest in the security of. Mahali hapa siyo perfect lakini we hold this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. Your grace is sufficient for us- our broken bodies, broken communities, broken Church- your power made perfect in our weakness.

As an introduction to our unit on climate, this week my students were assigned to interview someone from their community who has lived in another country, to compare and contrast the climate. One of my students came to me afterschool asking help on this assignment. I asked him if he knew anyone who'd lived in another country (there are many in our Bronx neighborhood). No, he said, he didn't think so. I then asked if he'd ever seen a movie based in another country, or if he'd heard about one that maybe he could guess at what the climate might be like. He paused and furrowed his brow, then asked, "You mean like from Brooklyn?"

---

Test Question: What is the difference between a carnivore and an omnivore?

Student Answer: They are both different kinds of nivores.

Zingu,You always put a smile on my face, no matter what was going on around us. You taught me how to let go even in the craziness of school. One of my favorite memories of you was fool-heartedly running across the swinging bridge high over the river. In fact, the one time I remember you being bothered was at the end of that very long hike- we wore you out! Thanks for sharing your joy with us, for caring for our students. Tutakumis sana, rafiki yetu. Ninatumani unafurahia na Baba yetu.

Zingu is the guy on the other side of the bridge, right before he ran across.

What Amber does with a week off of school (besides hours of grading and lesson planning): Walk the Bronx River co-produce a 3 minute community inquiry documentary about NYC subway behavior (yes, interviewing strangers outside Penn Station with camera and mic)grow wheat, rye, and alfalfa in my apartment window to pre-test student vivarium projectsdiscover the steel drum community in Brooklyn... and scheme possibilities of diving inhemming, cleaning, organizing, mailing and communicating that's long been on the over due to-do liststay up late, sleep in, meet with friends, finish a book, cook, walk, bike, stretch those February legs!

This week I discovered that Brooklyn holds a steel drum panorama in August and that an unknown number of houses illegal dump sewage into the Bronx River. I've loved how much room to dream, research and discover this week off has afforded me. My hands are full of projects and my brain full of ideas. Thank you, Abba, (and NYC dept. of ed) for space to dream.

I carried my camera with me on my train/walking commute to meet with the church on Sunday morning, capturing some images of our community in the snow. It was a glorious morning to connect with folks, on the sidewalks and in our gymnasium-turned-sanctuary. And since the week before break is a light one, I spent the afternoon hours that would have otherwise been lesson planning sledding in Central Park and cooking chili with my roommates. Thank you, Lord, for winter, joy, rest, people and snow.

I'll be in Cincinnati from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve. Shoot me an email or give me a ring if you want to catch up!

Snow shoveler from my roof

rooftops from the 6 train

where the wild things are

6 train on the platform

Trash bag sledding with Schuyler and Jonathan in Central Park

Today was the perfect fall day. We've been progressively closing windows in our apartment this week, then wearing knit hats indoors and out, and at 50-some degrees this morning, we turned on the heat and made some coffee. Then, 5 of us peeled out of the Bronx and drove along the Hudson, watching the trees become increasingly vibrant in color as we traveled upstate. In addition to picking "our" tree clean and loading up bags of sweet red empire apples in the trunk, we petted goats, cranked cider, and enjoyed pumpkin tea, ginger cookies, hot soup and corn bread. Mmmmmmmm... sweet Sabbath. Sweet friendships. Sweet apples. Fall on!

I share the apartment with 2 incredibly cool roommates. We each have our own lofted upper and lower "cubicles" in an building that used to be a piano factory. If you know me, you can tell why this space is very me.

Here's some of my students in an activity to save Fred the worm and work out how to write a procedure.

My kids are fabulous. The kids and the teachers I'm with- oh, and my new roommates- have been the highlights of my first week of school. We have so much creativity, questions and eagerness in my class. And they've been much more responsive to my style and classroom management (so far) than I anticipated. I hear week 3 is about when the "honeymoon" is over and they start to really test you and give some push back. So hopefully by that time some of my keys, room, materials, overheads, timing, scheduling, and exhaustedness kinks will be starting to work themselves out by then, and maybe I'll be up for some creative pushing back of my own.

My roommate and I spend part of my Sabbath this weekend decking out my bike with lights, rack and basket. I'm geared up to go on these NYC streets. I haven't actually transitioned into being a full-time bike commuter yet... at 6am I usually feel like spending those 30 minutes like a zombie on the subway rather than on safety-defense in city traffic. Maybe we'll ease into it.

I have a healthy, beautiful new niece! My brother's first child, Amelia, is "First week... exhausted" experience of her own Ohio this week (and no doubt, the parents are too!). I can't wait to meet her.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand part in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. - Albert Einsteinphoto by Sarah Matz; Luxembourg 2008

At midnight I decided I was going to learn how to use iMovie, as a good skill for a new teacher to have. So I stayed up til 4am on a Thursday night editing this camp video (sound familiar to some of you out there?)... Tanzanaian style.

This is a Girls Empowerment Conference I led with 2 other Peace Corps volunteers and our counterpart teachers last June. I hadn't seen most of this footage until a few weeks ago- a year after the conference- as it had been saved on a disc moving around with me from place to place.

New teachers in New York City are playing an interesting ball game. Many were recruited through ads to come and teach in NYC because the need for teachers. And now, after three months of living expenses, taking out school loans and going through intensive training, they are not allowed to be hired due to a hiring freeze on new teachers. I am fortunate to be teaching one of the few subjects for which the freeze was lifted a few weeks ago (most science subjects and special ed), but most of my classmates and colleagues are not so lucky. Schools open in a couple weeks, right after labor day, and I know dozens of bright, qualified new teachers who have had principals that want to hire them, and yet they're still jobless.

A friend of mine, an incoming teacher at my middle school in the Bronx, recently challenged the chancellor on this publicly, which was reported on in this NY Times article.

I'm going to be in the Cincinnati/Oxford/Hamilton/Camden area this Thursday-Monday. You should be able to find me:

at PVM Thursday-Saturdayat Anna Baker's wedding Saturday nightat UCC Sunday morningin a swimming pool / baby shower Sunday afternoonwhereabouts Cincinnati on Monday morning/afternoon

I can't wait!

While trying to put together a schnazzy teaching portfolio, I pulled out a disc of old pictures I haven't seen in years.  Sometimes its incredible to me that I've lived 28 years of life.  Here's a few that made me smile.

5 years ago, I was in New York City for a day, and went bouldering with Matt, Lance and Sarah in Central Park.  Now I live less than a mile from Central Park.

Move-in day my sophmore year of college, 9 years ago. Yemi was such a rockin' roommate.  We both joined the Peace Corps after college and moved to Africa.  Yemi still works and travels back and forth to various African countries.  I think I've only seen her once in the past 8 years.  She still rocks my socks off.  

My parents on that same day.  Braids and a goatee.... we look like kids!

My first car, Rusty.  A '78 Poniac, inherited from my Grandpa.  I don't have a car anymore (its great!) but my current bike is even older... a classy 1976 light blue road bike.

My third car, Perky (which looked just like my second car, Pokey).  

So many precious PVM pics made me smile, I just couldn't choose.  I'm enjoying being in the big city this summer, but even after 3 years of absence, part of my heart is still out there this time every year.  

My nearest Peace Corps neighbors while in Tanzania- who collaborated with me for the Girls Conference, who shared my town and my community, who gave me new perspectives and inspired me, and who gave me hugs and chocolate cake on my bad days- will both be in New York City tomorrow!  In fact, we may all three be living here soon.  Tukuyu site-mates reunite!

Take a tour of my Peace Corps house in Tanzaniahosted by the lovely Sarah!

I miss those kids.

I have 3 elegantly designed wedding invitations clipped to a batik of African dancers hanging above my bed (my room is pretty much a bed, so there really isn't another place for it).  In the span of 15 days next month, I'll celebrate three weddings of dear friends from my remote urban location.  Adam and Bobbee, Max and Kristin, Anna and Ben: We share in your joy (even if from afar) and dance for your love!

A few of my fellow fellows on a city-wide scavenger hunt.

Taking on Wall Street.

Taking on 57th Street.

One park... 

2 fathers of nations.

My method of examining the sky this morning (to determine if I should wear biking-work clothes, a hard combination giving my choices) was to look at the reflection of the clouds on the the window of the neighboring apartment (because though I have a window, I can't see the sky).

There is a family of pigeons that like to land on the (dormant) air conditioner unit in my room, which is right next to my head.  In Tanzania, it was the roosters...   

My four weeks of high school morning observations are over (although New York kids still have 2 more weeks of school!) ... mmmmmmm coffee and morning homework til noon.  I'll take that.  

New Yorkers know how to do summer. As I ride my bike through neighborhoods, I inevitably pass outdoor barbecues, birthday parties, strolling, frisbee, little league baseball games, kyakers on the Hudson, shop keepers, mamas, and the usual flow of pedestrian traffic conversing on the sidewalks. Every block changes up the smells from hot dogs to sea water, the sound of multi-cultural languages and music, sightings of friends, lovers, families enjoying their love of each other out in the open.

I've been doing a lot of processing, analyzing and updating during my first 2 weeks in NYC, I just haven't been updating here. I'm keeping a teaching log, which at this point, is mostly for me to keep track of ideas, questions and observations from the schools I'm visiting and people I'm talking to or reading. At this point, its a lot of learning theory (of which I'm a complete neophyte) and basic classroom observations. It may become more interesting and filled with stories when I actually start teaching this September.

I love my program. I have observations at a high school in the Bronx each morning, training through the fellows program every afternoon (logistics, discussion, resumes, educational theory, classroom management...) and Teachers College classes 4 nights/week (middle school science methods and gender equality in education). That schedule, plus the typical grad school reading /written responses that accompany, plus moving into a new place and figuring out the neighborhood, have kept me quite busy. I'm learning a lot from the EXCELLENT teacher I'm observing, and from the prof's in our training session.

I see so much beauty around me- the greenery in the park, the families having birthday parties and the friends throwing frisbee, colorful murals painted on elementary schools and tilework around the subway platforms, the students interactions, the teacher smiles. I love the masses of people around. I love that we're all up in each others' grill and whether we like it or not, 20 people will be forced to ease drop on a the five year old in the subway telling her daddy a joke. I love that in the in the neighborhoods (like, not downtown Manhattan), people make eye contact and say hello (or Buenos dias). I love that with every commute I see and hear and sit next to and crowd in with people and I love to watch those around me be considerate of people who are bigger or slower or those who are with children or have needs. I watched a young girl walk down the sidewalk in front of me this morning, skipping, turning, filling up that space on the street with the creativity and joy of her dance.

I was walking down a street in Brooklyn with a friend last week. "Hear that?" he said, referring to a low tone from the distance. "A ship's leaving the harbor. That was from the ocean! I need to hear that," he said, "to be reminded that we're right next to something that God made that's bigger than the city."

looked a lot more like that picture from the last post than what you're probably imagining. Instead of being immersed in skyscrapers and taxis and local grocers, I've been immersed climbing culture- rock, chalk, misty mountain vistas and the poison ivy-laden trails of the Gunks.

After a pleasant 18 hour train rolling through the lush greenery of West Virginia and West Virginia, the old-town train depots and urban DC and Philly stations, I arrived in Penn Station. My luggage- a frame pack, back pack, and rolling 70 lb mammoth of a duffel- about did me in with the 2 subway transfers (both walking with staircases) and 3 blocks to my temporary stay in Brooklyn. On the last next to last stair case, I really questioned whether I would make it. My left arm hooked on the grimy metal hand rail as I lugged the canvas beast step at a time behind me... "I think I can...I think I can!" A young guy helped me up the last stair and by the time I was walking the sidewalk towards the community house where I'm temporarily staying, my arm and red-raw hand would last about 15 feet before I needed to stop again for a break.

This, however, only made the releif all-the-sweeter when 2 memebers of the community came skipping down the sidewalk to help me with my burdens.

I was invited impromptu on a climbing adventure outside of the city the next morning. Man, climbing culture itself is like being immersed in a foreign language. I've been climbing for years (I was referred to today as a "gym rat"... all wood and plastic, no rock) and still had a shaky understanding of pros, cams, aliens, pitch, trad climbs and sport, hangs and falls, leads, follows, free...

School starts Monday and later this week I'll be moving (hopefully not all the luggage at once this time) to my summer apartment in northern Manhattan. I'm once again grateful for the kindness of subway strangers and to have been invited so warmly into lives and communities. Home sweet home!

I see love, loving people and ways to participate in love, all around me. Grateful for the sweet, sweet moments in this place this week:

Alex's public words, Dad, the man he models himself after, Mom, whose loving words effect him and he wants to emulate, Adam and me, and his "successful failure" of melding our personalitiesCousins Keith and Heather as they dote on their daughters, Amy and Alex, Mark and Sarah, arms around swollen bellies as they excitedly ready, grow in pre-loveWalking with Les and Steve through the intoxicating spring gardens with a sunny Sunday breezeMrs. William's laugh and Mrs. Fox's ernestness with their troubled, drifting, joking, seeking, insecure, emotional, tough adolescent boys and girls at OylerDonald, Diamond and I laugh like old buddies shooting pool at the coner BLOC House. Donald, back for more during cafe hours on Thursday, they come and they know they are loved. Farie, Drew, Marcetta... speaking and living out truth in love.Dialogue with Robert about seeds dying to become a plant, about purpose and place, about reality and truthThe many surrounding the body of their beloved Dick Brown, recalling his love, the ways he served his family, the community, his neighbors and the ChurchThe sharing of beauty and creativity amoung the "family of artists", as CJ put it, at Rohs Street's 6th anniversary gatheringTed and Gabriel delight in Amira's joy and trust as they tickle and play- and she in themTroy's passion for standing up for justice in this town and globally, the spark in his words as he describes things he beleives in, things that bring him pain, the drive beyond moment energy or emotion that brings him to the tedious and enduring tasks of collaboration, relationship building, research, travel, and building up othersMy parents joy in baking, cleaning, hosting, making, helping for a warm, welcoming, and genuine celebration of love, life, and marriage for Alex, Amy and their community of friends and familyMegan, after hours of work, driving a friend to the hospitalDot, Judy, Henry and Charles in their long dedication and gentle patience ordering, organizing and giving away food at Manna in Price Hill. Their smiles. Their tremendous task of meeting growing community needs, by faith in the One who provides.

I'm moving to New York City on May 15- just bought the train ticket this morning! A lot of people have been asking how I feel about moving to New York. I wrote in an email to a friend this week, specifically speaking about my the people of the church I've been with, but largely applicaple to people at Oyler School, BLOC, Rohs Street, Manna food pantry and other pockets of loving people I've been privelged to dance with, " I am growing to love the people there and the more I find out about who they are and what they do here, in Clifton, [in Price Hill,] in Cincinnati, the more appreciative and fond of them I become. I really have to remember how tied in we all are to be okay with moving away from them. I'm so grateful we are."

People often think faith consists of forcing oneself to accept something that one does not and cannot understand. Often we call people believers if they just accept what others tell them. Some seek faith by denying reason and forcing themselves into something that has not yet become a personal experience. God requires a different faith, though. He is content if you believe what you can experience. Be faithful and hold on to what you have, not to what you do not have.

C.F. Blumhardt

A brand new start of it

After the past 2 years of teaching biology in Tanzania and the past few months of reuniting with loved ones in hometown Cincinnati, I'm moving from the Queen City to the Big Apple to begin teaching high school biology while going to grad school at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The program

The particular program I'm going for is a fellowship for returned Peace Corps Volunteers through which I'll work on my masters at Teachers College during summers and night classes over the next 3 years while teaching biology/life science in an underserved middle school or high school.

The purpose

As with the move to Africa, I'm moving once again both to learn and to serve. I'm getting an education in being a better teacher of science, and no doubt will have ample opportunity to grow as a student of life. I'm looking forward to the great diversity of my new community and all that it has to teach me. And I'm going in hopes that I can love and invest in a small group of those around me with genuineness, humility and the grace shown me.

The particulars

I'm moving up in early May. I don't yet have an address or know in which borough I'll be teaching. I'll probably have a temporary place for the summer and work out the particulars once I land a teaching job in a school. My cell phone number will remian the same (email me if you need it) and although its misleading, my primary email (amberinafrica) and blog are still the same.

Visitors are welcome! Although living arrangements aren't quite worked out yet, I'm looking forward to offering my courch or floor to any adventuresome visitors to the city as soon as I'm a little settled.

As always, I'm profoundly grateful for the many suculant gifts in my life... the space to transition, the support from loved ones, the joy of dipping into lives and communities here, homes and hearts that have invited me in, and God's patient grace over my messy growing process.

I remembered reading somewhere that the baobab could go for years without flowering, surviving on the sparsest of rainfall; and seeing the trees there in the hazy afternoon light, I understood why men believed they possessed a special power- that they housed ancestral spirits and demons, that humankind first appeared under such a tree. It wasn't merely the oddness of their shape, their almost prehistoric outline against the stripped-down sky. "They look like each one could tell a story,"... and it was true, each tree seemed to possess a character, a character neither benevolent nor cruel but simply enduring, with secrets whose depths I would never plumb, a wisdom I would never pierce. They both disturbed and comforted me, those trees that looked as if they might uproot themselves and simply walk away, were it not for the knowledge that on this earth one place is not so different from another- the knowledge that one moment carries within it all that's gone on before.

- Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father

I developed the nickname of "Amba Mshamba" (like "Amber the hick") among my travel mates as we zipped from life in the highland village to the metropolitan cities of Europe. I'm still enjoying the dance with new neighborhoods and communities and people here. Indeed, the connections sometimes are uncanny. I've met community leaders and coffee house owners, defenders of the marginalized and neighborhood initiators, internationals (indeed, even a few Swahili speakers!), teachers and students of education, activists, lovers, movers and shakers. I've met people digging into neighborhoods all over Cincinnati (Norwood, Price Hill, Clifton, Over the Rhine, Walnut Hills) who really care and are making impacts in neighborhood saftey, public school education and simply the way people treat each other. I've even had the unexpected privelege of meeting with a couple people who've through their speaking and writing about justice have had a profound influence on my path and my current obsession with loving through living community.

Thanks you, all of you, the Brown House, CCDA folks and community leaders I met there, the Mackins, the Westwoods, Rohs Street cafe frequenters, ELS students, BLOC, Oyler teachers... for what you do and for the time you've set aside to share with me.

Next month I'm going to New York City (1st week in February... anyone want to join me?) to check out the Teachers College there and chum around with some everyday folks to the same stuff up there as those that I've been chumming with down here. It seems there's so much action- and so much need for action. Like walking into one of our ginormous supermarkets and dizzyingly gaping at the plethora of options on the endless shelves. Amba Mshamba is dizzingly, gratefully, excitedly walking the aisles.

Its true. I have indeed returned to the US of A. And I'm loving it. The re-connections, new connections, meeting friends' spouces and fiances, catching up on new jobs, new cities, new homes... In the past decade I've lived in a 5 different dorm rooms, a one-room cabin in the woods, a backpackers hostel on a Scottish Island, the capital city of Luxemboug, and a boarding school campus in the Tanzanian highlands. And now, back in Cincinnati (for at least the first half of this year), I intend on learning to swing to the the pulse and flavor of life in my old hometown with both it and me 10 years more seasoned than when we last danced.

Student of Life I accompanied a neighboring PCV, Schuyler, on a bike ride down the meandering "Chai road" from his school to a neighboring village where they're trying to build a new orphan's school. It was a great ride, giving the impression of passing through multiple continents- an old European style dam under a shady wooden foot bridge, towering groves of bamboo around the bend (Asia), then wild vine-covered trees harboring bright exotic butterflies and the occasional monkey (Africa/South America). I enjoyed the ride (sweltering uphill climb notwithstanding), meeting villagers, and seeing the school grounds, but I enjoyed even more hanging out with Sky. The observative scientist that he is kept me looking and questioning about butterfly patterns, effects of chai roots on soil erosion or the darkness in the dense bamboo groves. Meanwhile, the artist in us both snatched up the aesthetics of the colors, framing, contrast, and angles of the natural landscape, abandoned factories, bamboo framed classrooms. Most markedly, though, I enjoyed noticing the ways his interactions are different than mine. His language is more fluent, sure, and I think that helps (and he's been here a year less than I have), but more than that, I'm concerned that my "entry posture" (to borrow an Intervasity MAC training term referring to the attitude and frame of mind you perceive a different culture/behavior/worldview) has drifted too easily into where I wish it weren't. I appreciated Sky's easiness with greeting, despite being stared down by everyone, laughing as we're being laughed at, engaging though its an interruption, paying close attention, though it means concentrating on translation, and being himself. I regret my difficulty with being myself in public and my quickness in feeling hopelessly misunderstood and instantaneously rejected. It's refreshing to be around people with a different approach to the same challenges and it made me wish that I'd learned some lessons faster (or that I'd grown from them more consistently). I hope that in entering my next community, no matter what brand of outsider I'm coming in as, that I'll stick to some things more patiently, more gracefully.

Q: So, if a person being interviewed is an interviewee, and a person taking an examination is an examinee, is a person taking a quiz a quizee? A: If you answered yes1, then I made the world's greatest2 single3 word4 comeback5 in Scrabble6 this week. If you answered no, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore7. End notes: 1. and you should 2. this is a completely unsupported claim 3. actually, it also made "ye" and was therefore a double word in a single play 4. if quizee is actually a word 5. 107 points, from last place to first in the next to last play 6. trademark 7. and you're wrong8 8. this is also a completely unsupported claim

Teacher of Science....Mwalimu wa Siansi...Teacher of Science Last week I was sitting under a tree when Atu, one of my best students, sat down next to me to chat and play with my hair. It had been one of those days where I slowed down my already (I thought) s l o w - a s – m o l a s s e s lessons down mid class until we were practically moving in reverse because the class was either 1. in stubborn refusal of learning, 2. had forgotten every word of English and half of the Swahili they'd every learned, or 3. had been overtaken by zombies. Step one. I say the definition. Step two. I write the definition. Step three. I break the definition down into parts. Step four. I translate the definition. Step five. I repeat the definition. What's the definition? (sounds of crickets chirping in the background) I stand in front of a student's desk and repeat. In English. In Swahili. In English. What's the definition? Blank stare. Is there a word in the definition you don't understand? Blank stare. Looks at his friends. Get me off the hook. Okay, have them help you. I just want to you say it. Nothing. Oh, I don't know, Atu, Something is wrong. Is no one trying? Are they angry and bored for going too slow? Are they confused at going too fast? No, Madam, she replied, I think it's good. They're understanding, its just hard to reply sometimes. Really? Cuz I think they hate it. I think they'd be better off with Tanzanian teacher who could go on in Swahili, that they'd have a better education if someone else taught them, not me. --- One of last year's students stopped in today to thank me for being a good teacher last year. He said he had a hard time in biology then and didn't speak out in class much, but now, a year later is doing very well and got good results on his mock exams. He had a hard time with my accent and the language at first, but feels that he learned a lot- both English and biology- from the way I taught. ----- During the first 4 weeks of this term, a student teacher from Dar took over 2 of my 4 classes. We talked in the beginning. I gave her the notes I'd been using and testing on, the text book I used as a reference, and showed her some of my visual aids. She said she'd pretty much be teaching the same notes. Great. I was astounded when I passed the classroom after 2 weeks and heard her lecturing about 4 weeks ahead of where I was. When the classes (suddenly and without explanation) were handed back to me, I looked at a student's notes and found they'd copied 42 pages of notes- word for word and picture for picture from the text book- as many pages as I'd covered in the first 5 months of school. Atu relayed that the student teacher would lecture in Swahili but they went so fast and tried to cover so many notes in complicated English that everyone was generally lost and confused. Both my classes, one full of diligent science stars and the other stubborn absentee slackers, gave an enthusiastic cheer when I told them I was coming back.

As a means of reflecting on the past couple years, I'm going to try in the next month or so to include some reflections in two categories: Teacher of science- stories, observations and lessons from school and teaching in TZ Student of life- things I'm learning, or would like to be learning, from the people, environment, and experience around me So, here's a starter... Student of Life My grampa on my dad's side passed away during this month. Dad sent me the programs and a transcript of the eulogy, including words from Grandma and all dad's siblings. I enjoyed reading dad and Uncle Bill's reflections on things they learned from their dad- practical house/car/machine fix-it stuff (he was an electrician), enjoyment of morse code, radio, and electronics. Most of the sibs also mentioned memories and values they learned from him about work ethic, responsibility and so forth. Now I'm a bit of a youngin to have sat up at the work bench with Grampa or to have known him enough to see his example or get lectured as a teen about work ethic, but I appreciate that their memories remind me of memories with my own dad- working on carpentry projects in the garage, fixing and making stuff around the house, and popping the hood of one of my unpredictable cars (including my very first car, a maroon '78 station wagon I called Rusty, handed down from Grampa himself). I also resonate with what many of them said about work, feeling an affinity for working and figuring out problems and science and "If a job's worth doing, its worth doing right." I appreciate that, even indirectly, Grampa's given me more than my striking good looks and Bennett DNA. This week, Kavisa and I were in the kitchen clumsily reinventing vegetable pancakes from the PC cookbook. I mentioned that all this potato grating reminded me of potato latkes from when I'd celebrate Hanukah. I really just celebrated it with myself, and having not had a traditional recipe taught and passed down, my attempts at latkes were usually pretty sad. She said she wished she'd had more family recipes and cultural dishes handed down from here parents, which reminded me of how special it feels to be a part of something passed on through generations. Thanks, Grampa.

Selections taken from recent emails: Dad recently told me to look for something to be in awe of everyday. On mornings when I'm motivated enough, I get out of bed a little early and brew a cup of coffee to take on a walk, about a mile loop to the edge of the pine tree forest next to school. If I time it just right, I can watch the sun rise at the edge of the forest and get back right about when the bell rings. I hadn't done it in a while, but the birds this morning sounded so spring-like and promising that the days are getting warmer that they convinced me to crawl out from under the mosquito net and go. And I'm glad I did. I'm relieved to report that I feel more or less back in the swing of things at school. I guess I was hoping to come back from vacation all fresh and rearing to go, when, to my surprise July was like an uphill battle against bacterial dysentery, not having much to do at school (on account of A. school takes 2 weeks to actually get started after it opens, B. missing a week due to a Peace Corps meeting on the other side of the country and C. an army of student teachers showing up at once and assuming half of my class load) and those things which I did try to do at school seemed to keep crumbling apart in my hands. But now I'm back in all my classes, and my students seem to be happy about that, which is an encouragement (the student teacher had them copy 40 some pages out of a biology text book and called it notes). I've started up 2 computer clubs with students, which I think will be smaller, more focused and more productive than most of the computer teaching I've done up until now. And now that I'm going to be consistently at school for a few weeks, my students are starting to take my assignments a little more seriously. I'm reading a book written by a missionary to New Guinea during around the time of World War II, and how the island was taken over by the Japanese and the hardships of the camps they were in and loosing her husband in the process. The way she talks about prayer and the ways that she saw God working in those times reminds me how I have been forgetting to look. It reminds me that there have been times in my life when I did look for God to work in real and specific ways (as apposed to broad, global, abstract ways) and when I believed that He could act in those things, answer those prayers. I haven't been looking. I haven't even been asking. I pray for people here and in the US and around the world, I pray for countries and for peace and for reconciliation with God, I pray about the state of my heart and the hearts of people I love. But I very seldom these days ask Him to act in the specifics of our lives and I think I even less do I actually look for it. Yesterday I was jogging up on the ridge of one of the mountains. I was thinking about the book and praying about the state of my heart and asking Him to teach me to ask and to listen when stopped abruptly by and old guy who demanded in Swahili with old guy exaggerated seriousness, "Hey! Do you love God?" I was out of breath and lost in thought and taken aback… uh, yea. "Why!?" he demanded again, clearly expecting an answer. I loved it. One of the ways I feel so removed from the people around me is that, regardless of what they believe or how they act, its so rare to have a "why" conversation (unless is about some quirky American thing I do or why I don't beat kids). I smiled, but just felt like I didn't have the words or the heart for it at the moment, much less in Swahili while at the same time trying to replenish oxygen to my brain. To my surprise, he spoke perfect English and started telling me his story of conversion 20 years ago with his wife praying for him, and why he trusts Him today and how he weeps for his neighbors up on that mountain ridge and how he talks to the youths who pass through from Europe and elsewhere who will talk about anything but get uncomfortable as soon as he brings up God. The encounter wasn't profound in an intellectual way, but I've been wanting very deeply to connect with people here, to go beyond the superficial greetings, to have some meat to the interactions. And this old guy in the mountains, in his boldness I'd be embarrassed about as a way to start conversations with people in the US, spoke to me as if what we were talking about mattered, looked me in the eye as a neighbor and not an mzungu, and reminded me how to listen when Someone is talking.

Believe it or not, I'm rounding the bend of my Peace Corps service, and therefore my time in Tanzania. Several things about the next six months have been decided while others are still in the works. I'll finish this year's school term in November when I'll be joined by a couple travel buddies, Sarah and Katherine. Emails and letters are still welcomed but at this point packages are unneccessary and may risk missing me. Come October, even letters may be too late to send. After experiencing a bit of life in Tanzania, we plan to head home via Morocco, and a few stops in Europe. My plane back to the US is scheduled for December 21. Lord willing, I'm looking forward to seeing whomever is around the Cincinnati/Oxford area around the holidays! As I won't have a phone, I suspect email will be the most reliable way to get in touch with me. I expect to be in Cincinnati for at least the first several months of 2009, and perhaps beyond. At the moment, I'm giving serious thought to pursuing a career as a high school teacher and am looking into some programs and degrees which may allow me to do that. While trying my hardest to enjoy the beauty and pace of life in Tanzania for the remainder of my time (and perhaps even work in one last major project at school before hitting the road), I am happily anticipating the upcoming transition, the closing and opening of life chapters, and I'm most excited about some of you being a part of that.

A bit delayed, but here's the savory highlights of my various travels during our school's break last month: Flavors Exploring new flavors adds another dimension of exploring a new place, and variety was not lacking in this area! FRUITY: Fresh fruits abound on the islands, coast and northern highland region. In addition to mangoes, apples, oranges, pineapple, guava and other fruits sold in piles at the market or by the handful from passing sellers, I tasted 3 new fruits I'd never tried (or heard of) before: Jack fruit, custard apple, and a spikey red ball on a stem with something like a grape inside, sold in bunches like flowers. SPICEY: I and my travel mates also took advantage of the coastal fusion of cultures by enjoying as many types of Indian food as possible. Jeremy even went to the extent of getting 2 days of Indian cooking lessons from one of his hosts, a skill which has become one of my new goals to acquire. MEATY: The 4th of July feast at a fellow PCV's village home was a robust affair. We started several days ahead of time and continued into the morning with committees peeling large vats of potatoes, picking rocks out of rice, making pies and casseroles. The most notable menu item however is the one which came in a basket on the bus: the goat. Indeed I was up, cold and groggy eyed, at 7am to witness her downfall. I even took part in the dirty work by leading her away to the slaughter. In a joint Tanzanian-American effort, she was slaughtered (quick and clean- kudos to Goeff!), hung, skinned, butchered, and barbecued kabob style, complete with honey garlic barbecue sauce. CHEESEY: And naturally, with a sizeable gathering of American involved who've had the opportunity to pass a town posh enough to have a refrigerator, we included the flavor Americans go ga-ga over when we're together: cheese. The eve of the July 4th feast involved a group of the American guests and Tanzanian neighbors sitting around 2 outdoor charcoal stoves plus one open flame making personal pan pizzas for all 20-some present. Arts My engagement into the variety of cultural arts included: EDUCATIONAL: painting colorful teaching aids on the walls of a nursery school COLORFUL: learning to wax and dye batiks with mama's from Jenny's village income generating project RYTHMIC: participating in 4th of July drum and dance circle Bena-style BODY ART: "henna" tattoos from a friend of a friend's Zanzibari kitchen (which a week and a half later left me a think ring of hives, I think because I left the ink, which is actually just black hair dye, on for too long before washing it off) Games for the kiddos: Elise and I were on the 4th of July piñata committee: a gorgeous firework-like fireball, if I do say so myself. It was a blast having the eager wee ones swing at this beast and then go postal on the subsequent display of flying sweets and stickers. SIAFU DODGEBALL: Another memorable 4th event was dodgeball underneath the village soccer goal. Dodging balls was enhanced by dodging biting ants crawling up our legs. And yet, neither the ands nor the blazing sun detered us from letting the game go on (I feel bad for whoever gets stuck being goalie in these games!) It reminded me a bit of the time the PVM staff decided to play sniper in a stinging nettle patch. I'm not sure whether to call it hard core or insane. Anyway, it's the stuff good stories are made of. PSYCHIATRIST: I've gained the reputation among PCVs as a gamer. Thanks to all those camp years, there's always something to do while you're waiting, when the electricity goes out, when there's no props around… and lately for us that thing has been psychiatrist. I have fond memories of this game and its fun taking it world-wide. Point A to Point B Yes, we even used a variety of ways to get around: THE FERRY RIDE: I think I already mentioned this. Beautiful coastal views, tummy turning waves. LEG POWERED: Hiking up in the highland Tanga region is breath-taking, albeit cold. One morning we woke up at dawn to stare in vain at the clouds which were supposedly hiding a view of the distant Kilimanjaro. The best look out though was undoubtedly Irente Farms near Lushoto. As we sat on the rock face, clouds would utterly engulf us in thick white, then pass to reveal the vast expanse of plains far below etched with villages, farms and roads. For a person who revels in heights, I was on cloud nine (so to speak). ARM POWERED: 2 other PCV's and I decided to swim to an island off the shore to Tanga in search of old Mosque ruins. We did not find the ruins, but we did find a good number of thorns in our barefeet as we explored the trails. WAITING: Let me warn you. Mafinga bus stand is a bad place to catch an Mbeya-bound bus. At least one that'll let you on. The 5 hour wait on the side of the road outside a sunny bus stand at mid-day would have been a bit more understandable I think if we'd known that's what to expect. But Tanzanians have tendency to tell you what you want to hear, which meant that no matter how we asked, the answer was always "Just wait here. One's coming shortly." Will it stop for us inside the stand? Yes. When's it coming? Right now. Riiiiiiiight. At least it was all in good company. And at least my company likes to play euchre and psychiatrist. Company I said 3 things that make a good vacation for me are exploring, variety, and building deeper relationships with people I love. I cherish the opportunities to see with Sarah, Katy, Jen, Val and Kit in at home in their villages and towns, to share prayer and coffee and real discussion with Nancy on her breezy Dar porch, to participate with Jenny in the incredible community and family that's growing around her, to peel potatoes and bake pizzas and swap stories with other amazing mates I only see twice a year, to meet a "random" New Yorker-Spaniard who makes stellar piñatas, offensive Mohawk hats and deathly glow worms (and who I'm totally going to visit in NYC when I get back), to travel with Jeremy, Kavsia, and Sky and to be able to lean on them, disagree with them, play with them and count on them as if they're family.


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a m b e r b e n n e t t

www.amberinafrica.blogspot.com

Team pinata with our fireworkesque masterpeice.

Action shot with the kiddos.

Stone town from the ferry (from which I subsequently lost my breakfast).

Henna tatoos by a friend of a friend of a friend.

Site mates! Bottom right is the jembe I bargained for in Stone Town. Niiiiiiiiiice.

My ideal vacation would include 3 things: variety, exploration, and opportunity to deepen relationships with people I love. And the past few weeks included all 3. I'll expand on this when I have a chance, but for now's a taste from Zanzibar (via Sky and Justin's cameras and Kavisa's blog... thanks guys!)

The long anticipated Girls Empowerment Conference was AMAZING. There were moments when Kavisa, Sky (my 2 nearest PCV neighbors and co-conspirators in this endeavor) and I would just sit back in our chairs, look at each other and laugh at how unreal the experience was.

First off, the 29 girls from our three schools were incredible. They jumped into every activity with both feet. I never witnessed such a competitive game of “I Never.” Not only were they enthusiastic participants and creative contributors, but they were able to immediately translate their learning into peer education and their confidence into leadership. After 2 and a half days of sessions and planning (topics included communication, media literacy, decision making, relationships, HIV/AIDS, and peer education) our 29 girls put on a program for the 200 students at our hosting school, doing skits, monologues, demonstrations, songs and even being MC and facilitator without betraying a shred of nervousness.

The 3 teachers who helped plan and facilitate with us were also on the ball. Since the conference was entirely in Swahili they were indispensable at making this work. Judging by their faces last night I think we entirely wore them out. It doesn’t take long to remember what it is to work at a camp pace: the early mornings, late nights, noisy meals, constant planning and readjusting… It was both refreshing and tiresome, especially following 2 straight days of solitary confinement in my room grading exams.

Here’s a few snapshots of the conference. I’ll put a lot more on flickr when I get into the city on the 13th. (I’ll probably be online for a couple hours around 9am EST that day (Friday), so if you gmail feel free to hop on and chat).

My “campers.” The 9 girls from Forms I, II and III of my school.

Kavisa coaches a team in an AIDS education ativitiy.

Sky and Glory teach about communication.

We sang the “Wiggalo” and “Wisconsin Milk” translated into Swahili (the students are milking each other) not to mention the unadulterated version of the “Vista Fly” and “Snap Crackle Pop”

I've been feeling a bit giddy in the classroom with the end of the term around the bend. So to distract from, uh, I mean, enhance my students group work in the class last week I started leading them in camp songs. Although my students would no doubt love for the Vista Fly to pick them up and take them off to Iowa, there's no longer any chance of that happening thanks to their do-wap dowalamineys and big billy oten-dotens. I've been teaching some of my students Snap, Crackle, Pop, and it made me laugh to remember how Sarah, Wicker and I learned it from Lance over walkie talkies on the highway and then performed it on the steps of downtown Boston and in the NY subway. Now I have a pack of Tanzanian teenagers snappin and rappin and tappin (I handle crackle cuz trying to explain what a beet is and how it pickles is a bit too complicated). Less than a week til the girls camp. After who knows how many summers of counting heads and leading songs and games it felt as if something was missing not doing anything of the sort this time last year. Our camp will be short (3 ½ days) and definitely of a different nature than PVM and Camp Ernst (we're focusing on leadership topics like goal setting, decision making, communication skills, peer education, and including HIV/AIDS education) but I'm excited and so are the girls. I'll try to get some pictures up in the not too distant future. Afterwards, I have a month off school which will include a few projects and some traveling.

Uplifters It's been a good week for encouragements. On Monday, just before the staff meeting started, I got a package from mom. Chocolates and letters! One letter was from the child I sponser through compassion… She was 8 when I started sponsoring, now she's turning 13! The grow up so quickly J Yesterday, I was visited by the PC program director, a once a year event. Even just for a business call, its nice to have visitors! Several authors have been very influential to me in the last year, helping me to process where I'm going, what's happening in the world, and how I/we choose to fit into that. One such author (Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution) mailed me a hand written reply this week, thanking me for the encouragement. Thanks back, bro! Buehler? Buehler? Attendance is becoming a big issue in my classes again, like it was the second half of last year. Urgh! I'm soooooo not eager to go down this road again. Out of my class of 52, I had 32 absent last week (no note) and 32 (some same, some different) absent again this week. And this is a boarding school! It's just frustrating that there's nothing consistent in the system to accommodate absences or legitimate excuses, its just up to the individual teacher on their time to hunt down students (which, when they skip all the time, finding 32 is near impossible) and make up some punishment, which for everyone but me means beating them. Everything I tried last year- detention, rewards, talking to them, writing assignments, affecting their grades- was generally ignored. What can I do beyond that but write down the ones who didn't do the punishment and turn the names in, which meant that someone else would hunt them down and beat them for me. Still to no real effect. Most of them in this class are failing, and generally don't care. It makes me want to not care and just teach to the ones who care about their education, and when about ¾ of the were in their chairs, that's what I've been doing. But dwindling 2/5 when there's no reason for it is crazy. In my opinion, the discipline and record keeping for things like attendance and in need of a deep systemic change, but usually when teachers talk about it (in staff meetings that go for hours on end) the solution is to become "more strict." ie. More beatings. Then we have staff meetings on how to reduce the beatings (or at least not get carried away when we do them) cuz students are near the point of revolt. Seriously. I can make little suggestions, but even if I had the experience to know what kind of system changes to introduce, I don't get the impression that my school is really interested. I got sunshine… The month of May has been started out with fantastic weather. Of course, we're not coming out of a long frozen winter, but still, after 2 months a whole lot of rain, we're on day 6 of gorgeous sunshine, and still counting. It's the kind of weather that fills you with energy and puts a spring in your step just to step outside- brisk in the mornings, warm in the afternoons, and the horizons at dusk are a gorgeous pink as the sun sets behind the mountains. With the paths staying dry, I've started running again in the evenings, and in addition, I've started a habit of taking a mile walk through the pine woods at sunrise with a hot cup of tea in hand. Delicious! (It would, of course, be even more delicious with coffee, which I've been out of for weeks). You've got to be kidding On Monday we had a 6 hour impromptu staff meeting (my personal record is 7 ½), followed the next day by a 4 hour all school assembly. This is, of course, if you include the hour or so while you set wait for each to start. Utterly Delicious After intending to get out there for 6 months now, I've finally made it to the shed (on time) where the cows are milked. My ever-smiling young neighbor Samuel taught me how to milk. Compared to his rhythm, my puny little streams were utterly pathetic, but he said after a day or two I'd get the hang of it. My housemates and I get fresh milk delivered every night, so its fun trying a hand at moving it from cow to bucket to boiled to tummy. (Sidenote: the Swahili for "to milk" a cow is "kamua" which I enjoy pronouncing ka-moooooo-a. I'm the only one who laughs.)

Its rainy season. Or more specifically, the "heavy" rains, because when your market town is the rainiest place in all of Tanzania, you have to specify. Ever gone grocery shopping with an umbrella? Our little concrete and mud maze of a market with its drippy overhangs, narrow passages, and gushing gutters makes it nearly impossible to pick up the week's veggies, eggs and flour without getting soaked in the process. Last weekend I biked up our muddy road into town. (I stayed up til about 4am with the PCVs who share my market town playing psychiatrist... a PVM throw-back along with breaking out The Game Without a Name a couple weeks ago) The next day I waited in vain for a window of opportunity make it out. Early Monday morning, despite my inclination to just cuddle up with some tea and a good book, I made myself roll out into the drizzle and heavy fog to cautiously skid and coast back down to school. The rain not only kept up all weekend, but continued nearly non-stop the following week and has been pretty constant ever since. Now I use my umbrella to accompany me up and down our slick and sloshy road instead of the bike. At least I can still get into town (a 2 hr walk); a friend of mine was stuck in town all last week due to a flooded bridge, as far as I know another is still stranded in his village due to the rain. When you stand on the ridge of the mountain and look down into the valley (which is possible from Sky's side yard) you see large bloches of white showing the flooded areas around the Lake Nyasa. It falls on our heads up here the rolls down the mountian to make trouble for the valley folks. Lots of people around here have umbrellas, most of them stamped with one or another British football team. Like me, it more or less becomes a permanent fixture going out of the house this time of year. But those who don't will often make their passage up and down the road toting a large glistening banana leaf poised over their head. Simple, natural, abundant. I love it.

This weekend my school was hoppin. Each year we hold an Easter Conference during which hundreds of students from school choirs all over the region come for a big choir competition. Each choir prepares 2 songs, some complete with drumming, dancing, and costumes, such as imitation masai robes and jewelry. The exciting part, however, is not so much the competition itself, but the hysteria happening all around our outdoor campus for the 3 days surrounding it while over a thousand teenagers run amuck with very few visible adults. I'm not saying this because it caused problems; if there were some I'm unaware of them. But rather its exciting to watch students generally organize themselves. The night of the competition student leaders rehearsed their choirs in classrooms or under awnings and filed them through the rain and mud puddles into the dining hall to compete. On Easter, all throughout the day and night students jumped in and out of informal drum circles, singing circles, dancing and celebrating, laughing, praising, and having good clean fun. Seriously, this was still going on just yards from my house when I finally fell asleep at about 1am and when I woke up again at 5:30am. It reminded me of being at PVM during the Tuesday night dance party, except longer, bigger, muddier, and the kids were the ones making the music! People banged on drums, plastic buckets, their tin dinner plates, and scrapped the edge of soda bottles. One school really made my day. They brought a small hand-made marimba consisting completely of scrap wood- about 7 rough cut pieces resting on a hollow wooden box open at the top and bottom, and held in place with some string. It was played, of course, with just sticks. For a while, I stuffed my mp3 player in my shirt on record and just walked around to different group, sampling different songs and rhythm and interacting with students on the way. I wish I could put it up for you to have a listen. You'll just have to look me up when I get home (9 months!)

Guava season is officially open, so Kavisa, Sky (my 2 nearest PC neighbors) and I with some neighbor kids when guava hunting last weekent.  Mmmmm.... Sweet and mushy.  

I regretfully must say that I've seen the last of mango season in Tanzania, and pineapple season is on its last leg.   So long, sweet flavors!   As a tribute, I tried my hand at pineapple-banana-mango wine making- not too bad!  

Sample conversation on my bike ride to town: Child: MZUNGU! MZUNGU! MZUNGU! (mzungu roughly means white guy) Me (in Swahili): My name's not mzungu. My name is Amber. Can you say Amber? Child: Amber. Me: What your name? Child: Elli. Me: Elli. A very good name. How are you, Elli? Elli: Fine. (pause) MZUNGU! MZUNGU! MZUNGU! Biking down the road here is like playing a video game. It's like a mix between Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2, whereas while you rumble along dodging rocks, mud slicks and chickens, you need to be always on your toes and ready with your line-up of moves (in this case, greetings), prepared to met and appropriately contend with each adversary (passerby). Alright, there are probably much better examples than Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2, but the extent of my gaming experience spans from approximately 1994 when my brothers and I persuaded my parents to let us buy a supernintendo, to about 6 months later when I realized its boring and besides I hopeless at it. But the biking around the village game is much more fun. You see, you can never just toss out any old greeting, unless you're a tourist, and then, you lose. And avoiding the greeting altogether is only an option in the most dire of cycling circumstances, for you can never be going too fast to be greeted. In every situation, your task is to size up your adversary as they approach at varying speeds, depending on slope of the road, select the appropriate phrase in the appropriate language(depending on age, time of day, villager, student, or from another region….), and wallop them with it, deflecting "MZUNGU! MZUNGU!"s and "Give me my money!"s, then continuing with replies and questions until you are out of vocal range, which happens a lot faster on the down hills. On the uphill climbs, you have more time to plan your moves and scope our your adversary before engaging in greeting combat, but you face the added challenge of gasping for oxygen between each word. Last week as I started down our wet muddy hill I was mzungued by a group of uniformed school kids, who I proceeded to lecture from my bike as I coasted on how they ought to call me dada (sister) or mwalimu (teacher) instead of mzungu, just before I hit a slick patch and completely wiped out on the road. (in Swahili) "Say 'How are you, dada'!" THUD. And I'm under my bike. I lost that game. But it didn't hurt as much as I many times have imagined it would. Only 2 bruises, 3 broken eggs, and a muddy shirt (and yes, mom and peace corps, I was wearing my helmet). So, in sum, when in need of some after-school village life entertainment (if not inclined daily to the football pitch) the 11 km road to and from town holds challengers awaiting!

Here's a few blubs from some recent emails I've sent out. See if you can find yours! 2007 has also been an eventful year for me… a year of teaching under the belt, figuring out a lot of what not to do in this crazy school system, getting a bit more comfortable around town and with some cross cultural things, not to mention the everyday stuff like washing clothes and cooking from scratch… actually, I've become quite domesticated in a lot of ways! Not sure if you'll recognize me in a skirt and long hair, besides my killer year-round tan… well, okay, its just more freckles. i started jogging back here at site. when you start jogging after not having been a runner, it makes you realize how much your butt jiggles. well, mine anyway. a couple of the pcv girls made a comment this weekend that "umepunguza mafuta"- that is, i've reduced oil. i was confused. they said it means i looked like i've lost weight. then my counterpart when he saw me monday said "umenene" which means, "you've fattened". thanks, i said unenthusiastically, not really caring, but knowing that he knows that americans don't like to be called fat. jerk. not really, he jokes a lot. then today my housemate told me that i'm getting so skinny and why aren't i eating. then she called my counterpart a liar. hmmmm... i'm getting mixed messages here. I feel fresh and new, like that red new plastic lunch box with Alf on the front that mom won't let you use until school begins. Well, school's begun…. I'm excited about going a step further with some of the extra curricular stuff that didn't really materialize or barely took off last year. For example, I'm starting up some teacher computer classes again, and have a few teachers and students that have show a lot of progress from coming in at ground level. I also intend to start an international club this week whereby students write American pen pals and discuss world news events, hoping it'll be a catalyst for them to apply their talents and creativity to world issues. I always love filling out recommendations for friends. Its fun thinking of

people's good qualities, reflecting on your relationship to them and

the situations in which you've seen them shine. ... I almost feel like I'm

writing this really meaningful encouragement, but then I don't

actually get to give it to them, but rather ship it off to the faceless

entity of their employer. Insights into identity… well, one I think is that so much is internal. I can be a completely different person and come off a completely different way (which therefore affects the way I am received and identified) depending on my mood and inclinations. I have a tendency to blame what I see as my short-comings in that area on other things… that they are judging me or can't see through my skin color, or that I'm not comfortable enough with the language to respond like I'd like to, or fear of being taken advantage of or allowing negative comments (ie cat calls and such) and overcompensating by coming off gruff or completely ignoring people, or that I'm in a hurry and its not fair because everyone seems to want my attention… But its been good for me to watch the way some other volunteers interact in their communities, and its served as a check for me that I don't have to respond the way I do, that there are options, and some options are more loving, more patient, and affect my image as well as my attitude and heart a lot more positively than some of the ones that I catch myself falling into more often than I'd like. I think there are some ways that we spend that have always sort of rubbed me the wrong way, but that I didn't really do much about or speak against, and even participated in and orchestrated… for example, marketing and campaigns that spend a lot on advertising and trinkets, events and unnecessary frills… but I sort of figured I don't know much about marketing and economics and the way business or communication works on a grand scale, and these things must be necessary for ministry/non-profits/fund-raising, etc, given the society that we live in. I can't say that I have it all put together, and there's probably some truth left in that sentence that that is the way some of those things work in a market society. But it isn't the way things have to work. And ministry and love will do just fine without them. I'm not sure if I'm completely anti all that stuff in every way, but its sort of a relief see things, just some things, done differently, done simply. And to know that people respond to it. Maybe I'm talking about things like industrialized food and excessive packaging and washing machines and disposable electronics and those kinds of things too. I don't need to come back and be on a crusade against everything, but I'm happy to know another way.

I bought a hoe. My high school history teacher Mr. Grunder used to start the lesson about the introduction of the hoe to agriculture/civilization by talking about his hoe, how he had lots of hoes, an old hoe, a dirty hoe, how his daddy has a hoe and all that. Well, now I, too, have a hoe. Even though one of my neighbors has one and has let me use it a few times, there were a lot of times where I wouldn't have minded going out and revitalizing the garden a bit, but my excuse was that there wasn't a hoe nearby. No more excuses. In fact, right after picking up the hoe from a shop in town, I passed the post office where I got an unexpected package that my grandparents sent last April containing gardening supplies. (Thanks!) So, this week, I re-made a compost pile (I made one last year which mysteriously disappeared a week later. Whooda thought? Compost!) and hopefully I'll start some double-dug beds (a permanent-agriculture technique to get more yield out of small spaces, which just means digging deeper, planting closer, and not stepping on stuff later) and get some seeds in the ground soon. I mentioned that it was my goal to try to "walk a mile in my neighbors shoes" a bit during December, and that I'd keep you posted. Well, a mile's a bit of an overstatement, but a meter, perhaps. I did learn how to operate a pedal powered sewing machine and do an hour of weeding with my neighbor on her farm. I tried to learn how to milk a cow, but kept showing up too early or too late (I'm still hopeful) and I cooked a full Tanzanian-style Christmas dinner for the neighbors with my housemate's help. A new school year started this week, and, surprise, surprise, the second time through is a whole lot easier than the first! A real break-through, I know. It was great being able to predict that only 25% of the students would be here the fist week and to know how schedules and note-taking work accordingly. Many times teachers follow the same set of students from year to year, but I was assigned Form III's again, which means new students, but the same material. I was looking forward to having my students again, but there's also something nice about starting with a clean slate. And tweeking notes and lessons for the 2nd time around should be much less time consuming! I honestly think I'm farther in 2 periods (one week) with my students than I was after 3 or 4 weeks last year. Bring that.

Here's a pic from our training group's field trip to the orphanage today. The lovely Miss Nora, far right, also chopped my hair last night- the summer cut. More pics from today on Cynthia's flikr. (Thanks, Cynth!)