A fellow PCV/TZ, Heath Ray, created a video using images and video clips from PCVs all around Tanzania. It is so well done and reflects my experience as a PCV that I had to put it on my blog. Enjoy!

We didn't get too much sleep on the sleeping train - it moved back and forth a lot, was noisy, and light found its way through the curtains so we were all pretty tired by the time we arrived in Luxor. Although we were very tired, we still signed up for a trip to the West Bank leaving within two hours of arriving with our hotel, The Nefertiti Hotel, which is highly recommended. It is pleasantly situated just off the pedestrian only walkway, near the shops but not taking in any of the noises. Our breakfast on the rooftop terrace with a view of the Nile River alone was worth it! We were with a tour group and had a funny guide. We visited the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Deir al-Bahri (Temple of Hatshepsut). All the tombs in the valleys are empty, except for King Tut, whose mummy remains encased in glass in his tomb. Because the children of queens were often buried with their mothers, the childrens' tombs are very decorative, with the tomb of Amunherkhepshef being the most colorful - after more than 3,000 years!

In the Valley of the Kings, we were only allowed to go to certain tombs. The weather was quite pleasant in December - probably in the 80s during the day and 60s at night - beginning of the peak tourist season. Some of the King's tombs were grand, some went very long and deep while others were shallow and plain. It cost an extra $9 to see King Tut himself so Russ and I waited while Bekah and Laura did. (I saw the mummy in his tomb later on TV - not worth it). Next we went to Deir al-Bahri (Temple of Hatshepsut) then back to town. In the evening we strolled down the pedestrian only boulevard/shopping street pushing aside the annoying, and sometimes aggressive, salesmen who drop their prices by half as soon as you turn your back to leave.

The following day (December 7) we took a horse buggy to Karnak Temple. We wandered around this massive temple for hours, losing Russ only once. If you're an Egyptian history buff I would recommend visiting this temple. By mid-day it was getting hot so we ate some lunch then visited the new Luxor Museum. The museum is modern and very well organized with labels descriptions. There are even a few mummies to view at no extra cost. I would highly recommend this museum if traveling to Luxor. As evening approached we visited one last temple right in the heart of Luxor and can be seen from our hotel, the Luxor Temple. It is a little smaller than the Karnak Temple, but still very large. The Karnak and Luxor Temples were once connected by a 3 mile road lined with hundreds of carved sphinxes, a few of which remain outside each temple. At night, lights are turned on to give the temple a yellow glow. That evening we enjoyed some local dishes and shopped in the pedestrian only aisle crowded with aggressive merchandise sellers.

The next day we took it easy and slept in. We bought train tickets, shopped, and ate. That evening Laura and Bekah took a train to Aswan as Russ and I took an overnight train back to Cairo.

Russ and I arrived in Cairo early in the morning and decided to save money by walking to our hotel, Windsor Hotel, reserved by my mother months in advance (thank you, Rick Steves). We stayed there for 4 nights at about $50/night. The room was spacious but the wooden floor creaked and it was always cold. The shower was hot 24/7, though, which I couldn't say about other hotels in Egypt. We booked a tour with our hotel for the following day to see the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, the oldest intact, functioning mosque in Egypt and the Giza Pyramids. After booking and napping, we went to Coptic Cairo and toured ancient churches as well as the Coptic Cairo Museum, which is a piece of art in its own right. When the sun sets, Cairo comes alive. Thousands of people line the streets to eat and shop. We had an interesting dining experience at a restaurant called GAD.

The next morning we got into our tour minibus along with two Canadians and went to the mosque. It was a very big mosque designed after Mosque of Samarra in Iraq. We had to put woven booties over our shoes as not to dirty the rugs. Our guide showed us to the top of the tower for a good view of the city, only the city was clouded by lots of smog. We then made our way to the Giza Pyramids in the town of Giza, south of Cairo. It was a busy town with lots of construction delaying our arrival. But first we stopped at a papyrus paper making place where I got roped into buying a beautiful piece of artwork. Then we headed to the pyramids where our guide dropped us off and would meet us in 2.5 hours. It was so amazing to see the Great Pyramids in person. The first thing we looked at was the Sphinx, whose paws seem much larger in proportion than the rest of its body. We then walked around the three pyramids as well as many other smaller pyramids built for queens along the great pyramids, outlined in the following map:

As we walked along the outside of the pyramids, it cost extra money to actually go inside one (and the pyramids are empty because everything that was inside is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo), we were bothered by camel herders wanting us to ride a camel for money. After following us for half an hour, I told one that we would tell the tourist police he was making our trip unpleasant and he quickly turned the other way. Egypt relies heavily on tourists so there are special tourist police everywhere we went to insure the safety and well-being of visitors everywhere - and the locals who hustle foreingers are afraid of them. I understand why the Great Pyramids of Giza are one of the world's seven wonders. The rocks used to build them were enormous and the pyramids themselves, so tall. Just amazing. We went back to Cairo with our tour and I snapped one last picture of the pyramids from the highway.

The following day we met up with Bekah and Laura again, back from their brief adventures in Aswan and Abu-Simbel, and then went to the Egyptian Museum. We spent many hours admiring the great treasures gathered from all the tombs and displayed for everyone to see. The most amazing exhibit was King Tutankhamun's tomb items. Because his tomb remained untouched until Howard Carter discovered it in 1922, all the items in the chambers were not removed/stolen, but are displayed in the museum.

The next day, Russ fell ill, so us girls decided to go to the Khan al-Khalili market by ourselves. We went down tourist isle and bought a few trinkets for our families for Christmas. As Russ and I were leaving the following morning, we said good-bye to Laura and Bekah and headed back to our respective hotels, after some ice cream, of course.

On the morning of 13 December, we left Africa at 7:30 am. It was a long few days getting to Hawaii. Our itenerary: Cairo to Paris (4.5 hours), Paris to Los Angeles (11 hours), Los Angeles to Honolulu (4.5 hours) stopping only for at most two hours in each airport. Jet lag took a week to get over once home.

At home, I have gone through a little reverse culture shock. Most notably, drinking clean water from the sink that actually has running water, getting way out of the way when cars go by, and how much garbage is produced in a single day. I didn't let myself drive for a week just to get used to riding on the right side and reminding myself of all the rules. I'm not sure how long we'll stay with my parents in Hawaii or what the future holds for us but we're slowing figuring things out. This is the last blog entry I will post. I would be happy to answer any questions - my email is to the right. I hoped you enjoyed reading about my adventures. Kwa heri.

1 December, 2007

We flew to Gondar and stayed at the Fogera Hotel. We paid more than the room was worth so not highly recommended. Our day was spent wandering around the Royal Enclosure, the former capital of Ethiopia and ate an awesome lunch of shiro tegebani (mashed, spiced chick peas) at Habesha Kifto. In the afternoon we picked up a really yummy chocolate donut then went to the Debre Berhan Selassie Church, which is described in the Lonely Planet as "the most vibrant and ecclesiastical artwork in the nation." The ceiling of the church, pictured below, is beautifully painted and quite famous. It was really quite amazing to see every square inch inside of the church covered in paintings describing Bible stories.

2 December, 2007

In the early morning we walked to the bus station (we bought tickets the day before) to go to Bahir Dar and watched the sun rise as we left on the three hour journey, which was similar to the bus rides in Tanzania that we had become so accustomed to in the past two years. We made our way through mountains passing small villages and cow/goat herders along the way. The environment was green, yet the people were poor. A women behind me was very ill and kept throwing up. We finally reached Bahir Dar on the edge of Lake Tana and made our way to Ghion Hotel (budget hotel at 125 Birr) to drop our stuff. We walked on the path along the lake, grabbed some soda and cake to eat the went to the market where we were bothered by two guys who wouldn't leave us alone. I told them off once and they went away but they followed us to bother us again later. I just couldn't take them so we left the market. At the market there were lots of plastic stuff being sold as well as cloth and spices, especially berebere, which is used in nearly all Ethiopian dishes. Later that evening we went to Bahir Dar Hotel for dinner, which in the Lonely Planet says is the best in town, and I'd have to agree. Not a classy place, though - my wine came in a beer bottle.

3 December, 2007

In the morning we walked 3 km to the War Memorial, which, when we arrived, was being guarded by two official looking men who wanted our passports in order to enter the memorial. Yeah, so we declined and took a local minibus back to town. Silly us - thinking memorials are open to the public. Our afternoon flight was only an hour and bumpy as we landed back in Addis Ababa then made our way to Ras Hotel. The only rooms left were ones with TVs so we treated ourselves and paid 270 Birr a night for two nights for what turned out to be the nicest hotel we have ever stayed at in Africa, which isn't saying much. We ate dinner at Dashen Restaurant again - yum.

4 December, 2007

In the morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we walked 3 km to the Ethnological Museum (which is inside the Addis Ababa University), which had a lot of centuries old crosses, idols, paintings, and history. We had a fabulous lunch at Blue Tops Restaurant, a popular ex-pat place, then went to the National Museum, which was still under construction, but an alright way to spend an hour or two. There were lots of things inside, just not laid out very well. On our walk back to the hotel we stopped at the Sheraton and had milkshakes. The grandness of the hotel, a small city unto itself, seemed over the top for such a poor country. Again, we had dinner at Dashen, but tried the fasting food this time, accompanied by different singers during our candlelight dinner.

5 December, 2007

Farewell, Ethiopia. Welcome, Egypt. At the airport in Addis Ababa I did some last minute shopping (lot of options in the airport), exchanged leftover money, and boarded our plane. Our plane stopped in Khartoum, Sudan for about an hour and most people got off. As we flew over Sudan I saw how dry and desolate the environment was. Very brown, except along the Nile River where trees followed the banks. We landed in Cairo then made our way to the local bus station. We were going to use local transport instead of paying a fortune for a taxi. In the Lonely Planet guide it says to take bus 356 to downtown. Easy enough, right? Well, all the numbers, not to mention everything else, was all in Arabic! We quickly looked in our book to find the symbols for 3, 5, and 6, asked the conductor who spoke little English and hopped on a bus that we hoped would take us downtown. After getting to downtown we walked to meet up with Laura and Bekah, who were PCVs in our training group and bought train tickets for us the day before, and went to the train station via the metro station to catch our overnight train to Luxor.

26 November, 2007

The only way it worked out for us to go to Uganda to visit Russ's hometown friend, Deborah, also a PCV, was to go in the middle of our Ethiopia trip. So we flew to Uganda, exchanged money ($200), and made our way to Deborah's site following her directions. She lives on Lake Victoria in a small fishing village which was built quickly within the past five years. We really just hung out at her site, did laundry, and enjoyed some down time. We ate lots of fish and matoke (smashed, cooked plantains) and noted the similarities and differences between Tanzania, most notably that Ugandans speak Luganda, English, and Swahili - in that order. We were surprised that Swahili wasn't spoken by more people. Deborah was helping a group to pour a cement pit latrine so we went along with her to watch and take pictures. Pictures are always good for impressing your APCD. Because her fishing village was put up so rapidly, there were not enough toilets for the growing number of families. So one of Deborah's projects was to help build proper, deep, pit latrines for families to use. In her village the HIV/AIDS prevalence is about 25% so she is working on income generating projects with women to make soap and other small projects that will ultimately help PLWHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS). We also fed some monkeys around her site and travelled to Kampala on the last day for some city life. I didn't like Kampala because it was so busy, dirty, polluted, and crowded. Russ loved it. It's a push your way through type of city where crossing the road is nearly impossible. Yes, there are so many cars that traffic often stops in the middle of the city and you can walk across that way - just watch out for the thousands of bikes and motorcycles weaving between the cars and on the sidewalks! We grabbed some pizza at the mall, did a little souvenir shopping, went to the Peace Corps office, had an awesome dinner at Tuhende, and met a man who worked in our village, Mpwapwa, in Tanzania before we got there in 2005 - small world!

30 November, 2007

Said goodbye to Deborah at the crazy taxi park, went back to the airport, and flew back (two hours), to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we stayed at Lido Hotel (doh!). They had given our room to someone else, even though we reserved it and I watched her write my name down for the cheaper room a few days before. The only room left was the more expensive room and I asked to get it at the price of the cheaper room because they gave our room away. Eventually they found a room and we paid what we were supposed to pay, however the water wasn't working so we got an ice cold bucket of water. We were so tired we just went to bed. We promptly made reservations at Ras Hotel for the following two nights.

23 November, 2007

It was a bumpy two hour flight (via Bahar Dar) and we landed at an airport in the middle of nowhere in Lalibela, Ethiopia. We didn't book anything in advance (I would recommend booking something) so we didn't have a hotel come and pick us up. The airport is 23 km from Lalibela town. Fortunately the hotels run their airport shuttles when the only flight of the day comes in because they know some people didn't book ahead. It's no problem, though. The only time you will be caught without somewhere to stay if you don't book a room is during the pilgrimages. We hoped on the Tukol Village shuttle and it was 30 Birr each to get to town, way up in the mountains. We checked out the hotel whose shuttle we road on, saw the room, bargained down to 350 Birr ($40), from 450 Birr, for one night, dropped off our stuff then headed out. We walked up the windy, cobble-stoned road to the top of the town and had dinner at Seven Olives Hotel - a fasting meal (means no meat) of different types of lentils. The power kept going out so we ate by candlelight. Because Lalibela is a tourist hot spot the children know English and greet you with "Halo" before asking for things like pens and money.

24 November, 2007

After breakfast of yummy fried eggs and bread, we walked with our hired tour guide (300 Birr for the day), Balay, up to the rock-hewn churches where we paid 200 birr each to get in. You would probably get a lot more info by reading about it on wikipedia - just click on the above link. Although I must say they are quite amazing. We visited all 11 churches (well, I visited 10 as women are not allowed in one of them), taking our shoes off before entering each church (I covered my head with a scarf - not necessary, but respectful), and listening to our guide talk about each one. The churches are spread over a small area so they are all linked with tunnels. We were only able to pass through one of the tunnels and it was very dark - couldn't see a finger in front of your nose dark. The churches themselves were carved/dug out of pure rock by angels, as the story goes. Most of the churches were under construction as they were covered in scaffolding (making pictures not so great) in order to build a permanent cover so when it rains the churches do not suffer any more damage from water leaking into them. Oh well. One church, Bete Giyorgis (St. George's Church), has a ceiling that is 2 meters thick, which is enough to prevent water leakage and therefore does not need a cover.

After a lunch of cliff bars and water, we took a nap (Russ wasn't feeling well) then we went to the southern group of churches (we did the northern group in the morning). At the end of the day we walked around the few tourist shops and found the prices to be outrageous (didn't bargain at all) so on our way back stopped at a local tej (locally made honey wine) house, had some to drink, then had dinner at Roha Restaurant. We love Ethiopian food to begin with and at every single place we went to eat at, it was a hundred times better than Ethiopian food in the states or Tanzania. We just couldn't get enough! The power kept going out at our new hotel, the Lalibela Hotel (100 Birr) so we just went to sleep.

25 November, 2007

We were flying back to Addis Ababa today so we walked around the churches again (our pass is good for the duration of our stay) and rested as Russ was still ill and the elevation makes you tired walking all the time. Back in Addis Ababa we checked into Lido Hotel (not recommended) and finally got our room after they kept changing rooms on us and cleaning it, but the shower was hot. We walked to Dashen Restaurant (recommended in the Lonely Planet) for dinner and had Doro Wat (chicken stew with berebere sauce and hard boiled egg), wine, soda, tea, all for $7! The food was so good and so cheap. We walked back to our hotel at night and felt completely safe. There were lots of people out and about and it felt like we were back in the states with wide sidewalks and illuminated streets. Stay tuned for Uganda...

On 22 November, Russ and I boarded a plane from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania headed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was a fairly short flight of just a few hours. When we landed it took just a few minutes to obtain our visas ($20 each), change money ($300 = 2700 Birr), and hail a taxi to our hotel. As soon as we stepped out of the airport we could feel the cold air surround us. Little did I know that the Great Rift Valley runs pretty much entirely through Ethiopia and that Addis Ababa is located at an elevation of 7,600 feet smack dab in the middle of it. We arrived at night so went straight to the Wutma Hotel (80 Birr, $8.88), which wasn't anything special. Actually, it was pretty bad as hotels go, but it was only one night. We walked around the area, known as Piazza, and noticed all the night clubs blasting music and beggars. We bought some water and headed back to the hotel for some non-existent shut-eye. The first day in Ethiopia I had to keep reminding myself not to speak Swahili because Ethiopians speak Amharic. Also, we gave up all hope of actually being able to read Amharic script and just learned a few words verbally, which pleased locals. It took us a few days to learn thank you in Amharic, amesegenallo, because it's six syllables long!

The next day we walked around to find breakfast and ended up at Tomoca Coffee Shop and got tea and coffee. The atmosphere was old Italian. There were no chairs - you just order, pay, then drink your small, hot beverages standing up at counters. Then we got some pastries at another cafe where I had fun trying out the numbers in Amharic. After getting our bags from the hotel, we walked down Churchhill Avenue, past the tourist shops, to the Lido Hotel where we booked a room for when we returned. We then used local transport to get to the airport. Many people understand minimal English but we really just needed to say airport and they would point to the Bole minibus, so we hoped on. Public transport in Ethiopia (and in other countries as well) differ from Tanzania in that every passenger must have a seat. Taking public transport was also so much cheaper than a taxi (2 Birr each verses 50 Birr for a taxi). We flew to Lalibela, Ethiopia on Ethiopian Airlines. Because the country is so mountainous, flying is really the best way to get around. There are buses but after traveling on buses for two years in Tanzania, I was done with the long rides. Besides, we didn't have a lot of time and wasn't that expensive to fly. Stay tuned for Lalibela...

We have returned to the states! Right now we are just relaxing at home for the holidays. I'll write about our amazing adventures to Ethiopia, Uganda, and Egypt soon as well as upload pictures...

On the last day of class, I asked my students to answer two questions. What I asked them and a few selected answers (unaltered) are given below:

This year in Ms. Lisa's class I learned...

...how to solve different mathematical problems. Also I learned different mathematis topics which made me to be confident when I am doing any mathematics question. Not only I learned how to solve different mathematical problems but also I learned to have a speed in doing mathematics questions. I learned to have a speed by doing many class quiz which also made me to have an experience.

-Issa

...many things in Basic Maths, she taught many Topics properly and all general I understand without an anxiety. Thanks very much Ms Lisa!

-Juma

(i) The learned of the cant [count] number

(2) The learned of English of B. Mathematic

(3) The learned of To find y-intercept and x-intercept

(4) The learned of To find the sleep [slope] and equition [equation]

-William

This year I am proud of...

...that day when the team which I like it (Chelsea) win its match. Also I was proud that day because I bought the telephone. Not only I was proud about my team and my telephone but also I passed my standard seven examination that day.

-Issa

...myself that I have learned well my studies also I get high marks in science subjects such as Mathematic, Biology, Chemistry, Geograph and Physics. Also I am proud of Ms. Lisa's class. I am going to be proud if Ms. Lisa is going to teach next year Mathematic up to Form Four. Also I am very proud of Ms. Lisa's knowledge by found us friends from America.

-Mayagi

...To play football

To know how to switch on computer

To visit in the historical sites of this district

To write penpal which Ms Lisa gave us

-Michael

...-> How to play football well and its advantage

-> How to live with different people in piece

-> How to earn a living when I grow up

-Petro

...to write letter of go Marekani [America], play football

-Alex

...(i) To know to write and to understand English

(ii) To know to pray in english language

(iii) To be a many frinds from different region

-Njile

My students took their final exams on Thursday and I have marked/scored/graded them all. The majority of my students received A's and B's with only a handful failing. I'm glad that they did so well considering the exam covered material starting in January.

We have started to clean our house and will have one last pizza party on Saturday. Then next week we leave for Dar to COS (close our service). As of 21 November we will no longer be PCVs but I will try to put up posts about our travels to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

As our PC service comes to a close, I've noticed the types of laundry piles we have created. Our "dirty lights" get washed first with a good scrubbing. Then our "dirty darks" get dunked in soapy water then rinsed - since they are dark you can't see the dirt on them. The dirt shows itself in the water after rinsing. Then the really dirty stuff, "dirty, dirty," clothes are washed in dirty, soapy water and rinsed in semi-dirty water. Most of the clothes we brought with us will remain in Africa as they have holes in them or the elastic is no longer stretchable. Someone will find a good use for them.

Our electric stove broke so we have been cooking like an environmental volunteer using our charcoal stove for all our meals and boiling water. It's not as convenient, but it sure gets hot! Russ has mastered lighting the charcoal stove with only one match but I got him beat by lighting it matchless! Ok, so I have used an already burning piece of charcoal to get the fire started - but I didn't use matched to light that fire so it still counts as matchless, right? The charcoal stove is actually working out pretty well as power outages are becoming more frequent.

We have less than one month left at our site - then we're off on our adventures.

We have been traveling a lot over the past month. We were in Morogoro for a week helping to plan the new training for the incoming education PCTs, then went to Dar to pick them up, escorted them to Morogoro where we stayed with them for a week answering all of their questions and reassuring them that yes, they were in Africa.

The new group is a great bunch of excited PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees - they don't get the official title of Volunteer until after they complete the "hardcore/exhausting/rewarding training) and I was happy to get to know them. They joined right in dancing at their welcoming presentation. It was tiring being away from our site for three straight weeks but nothing was stolen when we got home - hurray! The only downside is that we have a lot of laundry to do...

We have one and a half months left at site...it's such a short amount of time. Our mango trees have started producing this year as the rains were plentiful back in "fall" (February-April). However I don't think we'll have the chance to try them as we will leave before the mangoes mature.

Just this morning, after making breakfast, I heard a noise in our front yard. I walked outside to see a young man throwing rocks at an injured hawk, mwewe. I asked him why he was doing that and he said that the hawk ate his chicks. I couldn't disagree with him there...I've heard about hawks eating chicks before and I've even seen one swoop down and grab one. It is interesting that when a hawk is in the sky all the chickens run for cover under trees or inside houses as if the sky was falling. They know the threat of hawks, as do their owners. Anyway, I asked the man what he was going to do with the hawk and he said that he was going to eat it for dinner.

Russ and I have printed out address cards to give away to people. As the time nears to say goodbye we still want to keep in contact with people and have been giving everyone who asks an address card. Asha, my primary school girl friend, just stopped by the house the other day and I told her I was leaving soon. She began to cry. I was shocked by this. Asha comes around the house every once in a while and we talk and she helps out with whatever we happen to be doing that day. But I didn't feel like she cared that much. After I gave her a hug and told her that we're still here for another month, and that she is welcome at our house at any time, I realized that perhaps I have made more of an impact in Tanzania than I originally thought.

Well, actually no it's not the Year of the Rat (2007 is Year of the Pig), but in our area rats have been the latest topic of discussion.

The day we were to leave for Morogoro (it takes 2 days to get from our site to Arusha so we stop in Moro for the night), three new health and environmental volunteers in our area were installed at their sites. The previous day they opened their bank accounts (after 5 hours) and went shopping for everything under the moon as their houses literally had nothing in them - except (we would find this out later) rats. As they were being driven to their sites, Russ, James, and I waited at our house. As I walked into the kitchen to get something to drink I heard the plastic bags crinkle. I looked over to them and saw a brownish rodent scurry away and I screamed, "rat!" It kept going behind things running out into the open then behind the cabinet then up the water filter then behind the buckets. I screamed whenever it ran towards me, not because I was scared really, but because it so was darn fast it kept surprising me! James came into the kitchen to help find the rat, but he seemed to have disappeared. Russ was still in bed so he got up and said, "well, I'm going to put on slippers in case I step on it." Just as he finished saying that he looked down and the rat was at his feet and he gave a girlish screech and the rat continued into the next room, a guest bedroom. We closed the door so it was trapped in there, then came up with a battle plan.

We didn't want to just leave the rat in there because we'd be gone for a week so we had to catch it. We didn't want to kill it either so Russ and James got a broom and a bucket and entered the room as I stood in the hallway on the other side of the door, listening. They screamed and screeched like school girls and I could hear them say things like "get the bucket!" "over here! "he's climbing up the bedpost!" "he jumped!" "oh, oh, oh, no! he got away!" I was laughing hard but were very thankful that the boys were the ones getting the rat. After 20 unsuccessful minutes they came out into the hallway, needing a break. Russ then came up with the idea of tricking the rat into going into the hallway, which would be enclosed if we closed all the doors. The last bedroom door does not close so one person would have to stand behind it and press it closed. I jumped on that opportunity and stood in the room applying as much pressure as I could to make the door as flush to the frame as possible. I could still see some light coming from where it wouldn't close all the way. The boys went into the room were the rat was and convinced him to go into the hallway. They then shut the door and the rat found himself trapped in the long hallway. He kept running up and down the hallway trying desperately to get away. I heard the same things from the boys in the hallway as I did in the room. Then they said, "he's coming your way, Lis!" and I braced myself as the rat came to my door and tried to dig his way into the room through the cracks where the door didn't close completely. Then he started to climb up the crack in the door and the guys tried to make him fall into the bucket but he got away. Russ and James eventually got the rat in the bucket and put the lid on and took him outside, a little ways away from the house, and let him go.

In Morogoro we met up with other PCVs and ate pizza, then the next day we took a long bus ride (ended up being 10 hours) to Arusha. The bus trip was pretty normal and uneventful until we passed Moshi. With an hour or so left until we reached our destination, a woman standing in the aisle next to Russ and I fainted. She could not pull herself back up after collapsing. People got her up and Russ helped her onto the seat behind us, next to Anna, another PCV. She leaned on Anna and Anna tried to help her stay conscious. Other Tanzanians around us were trying to talk to the woman who did not really respond. They found about 150,000/= ($150, or 5 months' salary for some people) on her and she mumbled she had just come from the market, from selling her goods. She mumbled that she lived not too far from Moshi and when we got to her stop, people said someone should physically take her home, but nobody volunteered. They all had families and it was already starting to get dark. They didn't just want to leave her by herself with all that money as the sun was setting. Then someone noticed blood dripping down her leg and covering the seat she was sitting on. At this point we knew she needed medical attention. The bus kept on going then the next few things that happened got lost in translation. A man, claiming to be her husband, tried to approach the woman. At this point everyone on the bus were yelling things like "he's not the husband, he's a thief!" and thought that if they let him take her off the bus she would be robbed. For some reason the woman couldn't identify the man as her husband. Then, people were saying we needed to get her to a hospital. But others on the bus were saying they needed to get to Arusha. The bus turned off the road in the direction of a hospital as people were yelling at the bus driver to keep going to Arusha. When we arrived at the hospital a few nurses came onto the bus and helped the woman out. Her money was handed over to a nurse and the man claiming to be her husband also got out with the woman, still being pushed around by people who didn't believe him. Anyway, then we were on our way to Arusha, arriving after sunset. That incident got me thinking, in America we can dial 911 to get help in an emergency but here, I wouldn't know who to call, except Peace Corps, in an emergency, assuming you have a phone and service.

So after our adventurous bus ride we ate a little dinner and went straight to bed. The next day we were taken to a lodge in the middle of Arusha National Park for our (COS) Close of Service conference. The lodge was situated so that Mount Kilimanjaro was on one side and Mount Meru on the other. It was also really, really cold there. The conference itself was informative and I was glad to see everyone together for the last time. We were given a few examples of DOSes (Description of Service) that we need to write up as an official Peace Corps document on what we've been doing here for the past two years. We also received reverse culture shock strategies as some people have a hard time adjusting life back in the land of abundance and waste. The food was great - we had bacon every day! We watched movies at night and the final night we watched a slide show in which everyone put up their pictures from over the last two years. There were some pictures of us in the Amsterdam airport on our way to Tanzania...so long ago.

One of the movies we watched was "The Departed," which we had actually seen twice before but Russ loved it so much we watched it for the third time. It was a really good movie, lots of shooting, but its main theme dealt with "rats" in both sides of the storyline.

We made it home safe and sound and have been at site for the past week. After talking to the newly installed volunteers they said their houses are full of rats. They've caught and killed a bunch already but the battle isn't over. Reminds me of our battle with the roaches when we first got to site - we eventually won that war.

We leave again soon as we are going to help plan the training for the new education group who arrive in country in less than two weeks! We'll be with them for a week or so, answering all their burning questions, getting them situated into their host families, and giving them a little information about teaching in Tanzania.

After 2 years of eating kilos and kilos of rice and beans you would think you would be sick of it. But everytime I see a plate of rice and beans, I can't wait to dig in!

It rained for the first time in one-third of a year the other day. Yup, we had not seen a single drop of the life sustaining substance in over four consecutive months. During that time we had seen lots of gray clouds hover around but we knew it wouldn't rain - so confident was I that I didn't even take an umbrella when going to town. Now, I'll probably think twice. Along with the rain came a cold front and we've started to bundle up again at night. The rainy season doesn't start until late November or early December so we know the rain over the next few months will be sparse and sporadic.

The past few nights we have not been sleeping well. For me it was malaria prophylaxis (mephaquin) day and paranoia is a by product of taking it. So that kept me on edge. We were in bed by 10 pm on the dot. Not five minutes later we heard what sounded like a light knock at the door. Not sure if it was a knock (why would anybody be knocking at 10 at night with no lights on inside?) or just the mango tree hitting the roof, we ignored it. After another minute we heard the door handle jiggle loudly - someone was trying to enter our house. Russ promptly got up and yelled, "We, nani?" - "Who is it?" and ran to the door. However when he reached it, there was nobody to be found. We eventually went to sleep but kept our ears open. Some time later in the night I heard sounds coming from our dresser drawer. Russ got up and took a peek and noticed something was trying to eat our cliff bars by chewing through the wrapper. We didn't find what was trying to nibble our American treats, but I did put them into a plastic container in the kitchen the following morning. Not to worry though, I feel very secure in our house. Some other PCVs left town that day so we think someone saw them and thought they were us and knew where we lived. I bet they didn't expect anybody to be in our house. But no one has ever broken in so I'm not worried at all.

Going to Arusha next week for our COS conference so I'll blog about that in two weeks or so.

As the weather changes my nose takes notice and makes a fit. I'm not sure why I'm sneezing so much but I have a temperamental nose and it doesn't like change. Over the last week or so we've had a lot of visitors. Shadowers, PCTs (PC Trainees), came to our site for a few days to see how PCVs really live. As they noticed, it's so much less tramatic than being in training. When you become a PCV you're on your own schedule and you it's at a much more relaxed pace. We had a big pizza party for all the shadowers in our district on Sunday and it was a hit, especially with red wine!

My students are doing well...sort of. I'm juggling two classes who learn at different levels so I'm still trying to figure things out. They are currently learning about statistics and how to create bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts. It's interesting what the students come up with when they try to graph information...it goes back to common sense and if you know how to read a chart you'll be able to draw it correctly. I had a "guest teacher," my good friend Sajigwa, come in and teach them a little more about bar charts - in Kiswahili. We're supposed to teach in English but because my students were so frustrated, I thought it would help them if they understood the concepts in Kiswahili. Then they would be able to apply it to any table of information they see and draw a correct bar chart. They asked Sajigwa questions and seemed to get a better understanding. I'll find out next week as I gave them a few more assignments to do.

With three English teachers at my school, we have organized an English Essay Contest. The topic will be: Why I am Protecting Myself from HIV/AIDS. There will be a winner from each Form (grade) and the winners will receive a certificate (Tanzanians are BIG on certificates) and a pen or something small. The English teachers and I agree that if the students will need to learn English to do their subjects they should be encouraged to use it. They will have two weeks to complete the essay.

In the four months that we have left here in Tanzania, I find myself more busy than ever. There have been social events that we attend in town and I teach Monday - Thursday. My students have pretty much all arrived. Only a handful are still missing but I'm sure they will arrive soon. In my two classes, one seems to learning at a mush quicker pace than the other. At the beginning of this term all the Form I students were reshuffled again and the first 40 students who had the top averages were put into one class (Stream A) while the remaining bottom 40 were put into another (Stream B). It works out well actually as the top 40 students have done great in math and I am teaching them faster. For Stream A we will finish Algebra next week. However for Stream B we will probably finish the following week. For Stream B, unfortunately they probably will not cover the entire math syllabus but I'm hoping that they will gain a better understanding of the topics we do cover, rather than gain nothing and cover them all too quickly.

Russ is currently in the northern part of the country at an ICT conference and will return the following week. This leaves me home alone but my friends says they will keep me company. Next month we will go to our COS conference and discuss what we have been doing for the last 2 years and how we can look ahead, to life back in the states. In September we have been invited to help with the training of the next incoming education group to Tanzania. October and November we will stay put then travel to Dar for a few medical check-ups then leave Tanzania before Thanksgiving to travel for a month to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt before spending Christmas in Hawaii with my family. I'm excited to be going home and seeing my family (who I have not seen in more than 2 years) before the end of this year.

We have settled back into the PCV life again as our "winter break" is over and school has opened. I showed up at 7 am last Monday morning (the first day of school) only to find I was the only faculty member there with 30 or so A-level students. A few minutes later the academic master shows up and opens the administration office. Not a single O-level student arrived for the first day of school. This usually happens - the students (especially at boarding schools) don't arrive until a few days (or weeks) after the term starts. There are many factors as to why this happens. For one the students must pay their school fees before coming (or bring it with them) and that's a large amount of money they need all at once. Then on top of that they need money to travel to school. Starting July 1 the price of petrol/gas increased and therefore bus fares have increased. As an example from our site to Dar it used to be 8,000 Tanzanian shillings and now it's 10,000 T.sh. When many Tanzanians make less than 1,000 T.sh. per day it's difficult to pay just a little more. So I didn't teach at all last week. This week I finally had about half of the students I should have (about 40 out of 80 total) so I went into the classrooms and talked with them about their break and did a little review of Algebra, what we ended with last term.

Russ and I were invited to a circumcision celebration in a village. We rode our bikes out there and entered a drumming and dancing party. The boys in our tribe are circumcised when their father says they are ready. A bunch of boys usually from different families are all done together. They are circumcised then they live by themselves in a sort of fenced in area for a few days while the elders of the village teach them to become men. I didn't see any of the boys but Russ did enter the fenced in area and said they were covered in dried mud from head to toe with a cloth around their waists. They live like this for a few days, cooking their own food, then wash off the mud and re-enter the village as men.

Chris Arrives

Our friend, Chris, left America to fly half way across the globe and spend a month with us in Tanzania. Since we didn't want to use vacation time to pick him up at the airport, and that Dar is expensive, we sent our good friend, Matayo, to pick him up and bring him to our town (just like when Russ's dad visited). Chris had quite the welcome party when he arrived as a bunch of PCVs were in town precisely when his bus arrived. I baked a cake for his arrival and also for Becky's birthday. Chris was doing well for travelling continuously for three days. He spent a week at our site trying different foods, taking some pictures, and going on a hike with Russ and Matayo. Unfortuneately Russ got sick half way through the week so I showed Chris around. I'm sure people thought Chris was my second husband. =) He brought and left a lot of great reading material that has kept us busy. I remember one dinner with Chris when we were eating corn on the cob, which was a gift from another teacher. It was boiled just like we would in the states. We each started to chow down on our half pieces when Chris realized it wasn't sweet American corn but tough, chewy, bland corn. He ate a few more bites then declared, "I can't eat this" and left the remainder on his plate. I guess after nearly two years I've gotten used to the corn that makes my jaw hurt after a few bites - and actually think it's good! Oh how my standards have changed.

Udzungwa Mountains National Park

John's flight arrived in Dar just after our bus did so we tried to find a taxi with a resonable price to downtown (6 km from the bus station). It was Russ's turn to negociate and the taxi drivers were giving him a hard time. We finally found a guy who would take us for 5,000/= (others were asking for 15,000/=). We hopped in the taxi and got off at the hotel while Russ continued on to the airport to pick up John. Chris, myself, and Angus (who was going home to visit his family in England) went and grabbed something to eat while we waited 2 hours for Russ and John to return. Someone didn't follow our advice of geting his VISA before arriving. =) We all went to bed early that night as the next day we were on a 7 am bus to Mang'ula, where the headquarters of Udzungwa Mountains National Park is located. That was quite a ride. We drove on tarmac road for 6 hours then on really bad, pot-holed, dirt road for 2 hours until we reached our destination in the middle of nowhere. Of course there were people standing in the aisle so we forced our way through to the door, as nobody moved out of the way, and got off covered in dust, thinking which dirt road to follow. We decided to go to the park headquarters first and we remembered seeing the sign just a few minutes before we got off the bus. On the way we saw a bunch of monkeys swinging in the trees gazing at us as we gazed back. The park fees were, for a 24-hour pass, $20 per person and a mandatory guide is $10 per group, and there was no camping gear available. I didn't think there was a lot of choice in terms of hiking trails. There were some 13 km trails, more advanced camping trails which spanded over a few days, and the waterfall trail which you needed to hire a driver to get to the start of the trail ($10 per group). We decided to book the Sanje Falls trail for the next day. The park ranger asked where we were staying and we said we haven't chosen a place but thought of trying the Twiga Hotel just down the road. He said it was under renovation so we walked to town and then through town to find a nice place to stay. Little did we know that there was a seminar taking place so all of the nicer hotels were fully booked. We settled on a hotel in town for 2,500/= a night for a double! That's about a dollar a person a night! The amenities of this lovely accomodations include: squat toilet and cold showers outside our rooms, "swiss cheese" mosquito nets, one roach, very loud truck horns at 4 am, and a crazy man yelling at 5 am. But seriously, the venue was alirhgt. It was run by Zula, a very nice, sweet woman, who looked after us like her own children. The next day we woke up and made our way back to the park headquarters. While walking we stopped at various chai (tea) shops to collect breakfast (chapati, donuts, water). We made it to the headquarters, paid our fees, hired a driver, and off we went. The Sanje Falls trail is a 5 km loop hike with a lot of elevation climbing. We saw lot of different species of monkeys and plant life. I thought I did surprisingly well for not being in shape. Our guide did a nice job of explaining things. We made it to the top of the waterfall and snacked on some dried fruit and nuts (thanks mom!), took some pictures of the rice and sugar cane fields below which continued as fas as the eye could see. We taught Chris and John a common greeting in Tanzania of "Mambo" with the reply of "Poa." They practiced non-stop! Out of the blue Chris would turn to John and say, "Mambo," and John (wait for it: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 seconds) would reply with a delayed "Poa." This happened the entire trip and the only thing that kept it interesting was counting how many seconds it took John to reply. Then we crossed the top of the waterfall in bitterly cold water and made our way to see the two much smaller falls. Chris and John dived right in to a pool of one of the falls while I took pictures of the "Minnesota Penguins." We then proceeded all the way down to the end of our hike. While waiting for our driver we stopped at a bar and drank cold sodas and water, or in John's case, a cold beer. When we got back to the headquarters we debated whether or not to spend another day in the park. The only other resonable option for us would be the 13 km hike which went up and down, up and down. We thought it wasn't worth another $20 each and I know I couldn't do it (although I encouraged the guys to go ahead) so we decided to return to Dar the next day. We bought bus tickets on our way back, grabbed a bite to eat, then relaxed until dinner. At dinner we were joined by our guide that day, whom we invited, and his friend, not invited but warmly welcome. We bought them meals and beers and called it a night. On our 1 minute walk back to our hotel we passed by a white pick-up truck. As John walked by we heard a loud scream and something surfaced out of the bed of the truck. John immediately screams back at the thing while raising both arms in defense. The thing turned out to be a goat with bounded legs trying to get our attention to release him. All of us cracked up laughing to the point of tears of the ridiculousness of the circumstances. Just mention "John's goat" to me and I get the giggles.

Dar es Salaam

The next morning we make our way to the main road buying donuts, chapatis, and the like for our anticipated 8-hour bus ride. Our bus was two hours late and while we waited Russ befriended a Maasai herding his cattle. When our bus finally arrived we shoved our way to the back of an already packed bus on bumpy dirt road to our seats. The bus made frequent 15-20 minute stops along the way so we didn't reach Dar until 5 pm or so. That night we had Summy's Street Chicken - a Dar favorite. The next day we took a short "ferry" ride (5 minutes on a freight-turned 500 passenger loading barge) ride to Kipepeo, a resort area with white sand beaches resembing the east side of Zanzibar. John went for a swim in the Indian Ocean, Chris played soccer with a local, and Russ and I chatted with another local. After a few hours of sun and sand we headed back downtown for lunch at Albasha, a lebanese restuarant, then chilled at the hotel until dinner at Retreat, a vegetarian Indian restaurant. The next day, Friday, we went to the PC office so I could get some cash from the safe and they guys could use internet and see where all the volunteers hang out in Dar. We had lunch, (pizza) at a very Western outside food court then walked half an hour over to another western shopping area for ice cream. On our way back we stopped at an art market to check out some paintings then back to town on a stuffed dala dala (minibus) in which Chris commented it was something like "playing twister" with 20 people in a small vehicle. Russ and I took a taxi to the airport and welcomed Hannah and Allison to Tanzania! Unfortunately Catherine, Russ's sister, missed her connection for the same flight so she would be arriving a day later. The girls say they were stuffed on the plane so they weren't as hungry as we were but had a little something to eat none the less. The next day Hannah, Allison, Chris, John, and myself took a bus to Moshi while Russ stayed in Dar to pick-up Catherine.

Moshi

The bus ride, using the bus comapny Dar Express, was the most safi-est (best) ride in Tanzania - even better than the luxury Scandinavia bus company. The seats were two and two (no middle seat), the cushions were soft, clean, wide, lots of leg room, overhead space, all windows functioned properly, seatbelts, and we got sodas, water, and candy. The only issue was that Chris and John had the very front seats, or as Chris put it "the ejection seats." However I told him to wear his seatbelt. There was a tv on the bus and at one point they showed a Tanzanian comedy that was way too loud and then gospel music videos. When we arrived in Moshi I lead our group to the YMCA and found our reservations got screwed up and it was completely full. It was eventually worked out and the boys each took a single room while us girls shared the double suite: two beds put together, our own bathroom, lounge area, and satellite tv. The boys went swimming in the pool while we waited for our safari company, Tanzania Journeys, to arrive for our pre-safari briefing. Our safari guide/driver, Amani, went over the itinerary with us. We knew we were camping and because tents were provided we thought sleeping bags were too. Apparently not. Chris and John brought sleeping bags but the rest of us didn't. Tanzania Journeys did some behind the scenes work and quickly "hired" 5 sleeping bags for us, each costing 10,000/= each for the entire safari. Russ was borrowing some gear from a friend about an hour outside Moshi and Tanzania Journeys went out of their way to get the gear, using their own vehicles, and didn't charge us a thing. After our meeting, we walked to town and met up with some PCVs for dinner and drinks. We returned to our rooms and us girls had a sleep-over - sharing one big bed and trying to talk through the unbelievably loud wedding music until it stopped at around midnight.

Lake Manyara

The next morning we met the rest of our safari "support group," and headed to Arusha to but water in bulk (apparently water is not included with food on safaris). We stopped at the campsite outside the park for a delicious lunch then entered Lake Manyara where we were greeted by Blue Monkeys close enough to touch! Amani said they were looking in our vehicle for food. By the way our safari vehicle was awesome! It seated 9 people, including the driver, and the roof opened for better viewing (we would say "transform" when we opened the top - that's what you get when 3 guys are giddie to see the upcoming Transformers movie). We followed the path to find other animals such as: mongoose (mongeese?), trumpeted hornbills, baboons, bushbucks, impalas (in bachelor herd), giraffes (Maasai species – the two other species are found in Kenya), yellow-billed and other storks, cattle egrets (on hippos), hippos, egyptian geese, warthogs, zebras, brown hornbills, monitor lizards, spoonbills, african fish eagles, wildebeests, dik diks, water buffalos, pelicans, elephants, and lesser bush babies. Thank you, Hannah, for writing down all of the animals we saw during the whole trip! As we stopped to take pictures of animals, we'd give Chris the best position as his professional SLR camera (with 4 different lenses) trumpted all of our point and shoot cameras combined. At one point we came across about 100 baboons just hanging around. At the Hippo Pool we learned of John's infacuation with hippos. We came within a few feet of an elephant grazing and witnessed a baby elephant "relieve itself." We all thought it was a great day and were thankful we were convinced to include it in our trip. Usually tour companies try to get you to spend more money on more things, right? Well, I didn't feel that way with Tanzania Journeys. We thought to save a little money we would not include Lake Manyara when originally booking. However, through recommendations from other PCVs and Tanzania Journeys we eventually added it, and were very happy we did. Back at Kiboko campsite we waited for Russ and Catherine to arrive before eating dinner. Tanzania Journeys was very accomodating to us and our supplies vehicle waited for Russ and Catherine to arrive in Moshi then took them straight to our campsite, not charging extra for the slight change in plans. We went to sleep with the sound of lesser bush babies screeching and jumping around in the trees above out tents.

Oldupai Gorge

The next morning we went on a village walk where we were greeted by enthusiastic children, who, after having their pictures taken, wanted to see themselves on the digital cameras. The villages we walked through were different from ours in that there was a banana forest and available water. When we were done with the tour we hopped into our transformer and drove to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Main Entrance. To get to Serengeti you need to drive around the Ngorongoro Crater Rim so we were entranced by the crater as we drove along. We stopped to eat a packed lunch on the rim before making our way past the crater and down the other side to Oldupai Gorge. The gorge itself wasn't that impressive. There's a visitor center with archealogical references to the site, a gift center, and a framed picture of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton of when they visited the gorge. We listened to a 10 minute speech about the uniqueness of the area and learned that the name Olupai came from the Maasai word for a local plant found in the area. Somehow the name got confused and the gorge is also called, incorrectly, Olduvai Gorge.

Endless Plains

Leaving the gorge I noticed that the land became very dry and flat. Amani said that all the thick ash from Ngorongoro created while it was still active blanketed in and around Serengeti National Park so that no trees could take root. It was quite amazing to look in all directions as far as the eye could see and still find to variation in elevation. The word Serengeti comes from the Maasai tribe and means Endless Plains. It was such a beautiful and awe inspiring place. We entered the park and saw thousands of Thompson’s gazelles, impalas, wildebeests, and hundreds of zebras and stopped occasionally for photographs. As the sun set the clouds in the sky became more photogenic and the temperature began to drop. We came to our unfenced Seronera campsite just as the sun set. Our tents were ready and waiting for us as well as hot drinks but no shower facility (it's being renovated). Dinner was awesome, as usual, with a soup started, spaghetti, ground beef stew with chapatis. All night I could hear the frog-like sounds of thousands of wildebeests all around, fearful that they would trample us as our campsite had no fence and no guard.

The next morning at breakfast there was talk about a hyeena walking around the campground sniffing tents at 4 am. We all gathered into the transformer, transformed, of course, and headed off to find animals. We first came across a group of baboons. One was munching on the head of a baby impala while another "got busy" with a female right in front of us. We saw a trail of wildebeests off in the distance all going south. Amani said the wildebeests should not be going south this time of year and that they were confused and would probably realize it when they discovered zebras going north, then change direction to follow the zebras. Apparently wildebeests are lost without zebras. Later that morning Amani found a male lion up in a cluster of rocks, who stood up, just for us, of course. Back to the campsite for lunch, then back to the park for more animal viewing. We passed the hippo pool, again, then made our way our next campsite, Ikoma, and all along the way stopping for giraffes, warthogs, zebras, a female lion just lying in the road, and joined the traffic jam to stare at a hard-to-see leopard sleeping in a far away tree. We had some good laughs at the campsite which had no shower facility (yet) and wooden toilets which obviously toursits had no idea how to use. The sunset was gorgeous that evening and again we fell asleep to the sound of wildebeests grazing in the nearby fields.

On our last day in the Serengeti we made more loops and eventually came across another leopard, this time we could see it better, and a cheetah. It was walking in a field, scarying the nearby wildebeests and impalas. We all thought it was hunting but Amani said it was walking to the shade of a tree. Amani got John's next banana for calling it right on! After lunch, which was always packed in reusable plastic containers (another thing we liked about Tanzania Journeys because all the other comapies used throw-away containers), we made our way to Simba Camp on the rim on Ngorongoro Crater.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

The campsite was very cold but there were zebras all around and one grazing elephant. It was so cool to hear the zebras grazing just outside our tents and we fell asleep to the soothing sounds of zebras yanking grass out of the ground. =)

We desended into the hazy crater and cruized around for 6 hours getting much closer to wildebeests, zebras, hyenas, and water buffalos than we did in the Serengeti. We came across hyenas eating a freshly caught wildebeest, saw jackals bobbing up and down in the grasses as they ran, ostriches and lots of different birds. We had to drive along a road bordered by a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other which scared the girls, which made the guys laugh.

To sum up our safari, Tanzania Journeys did an amazing job and we liked the company's non-pushy ways, how they accomodated our change in plans, and the people who guided us knew their stuff and respected the land and made for one awesome safari. Tanzania Journeys: highly recommended. Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro: real wonders of the world.

Zanzibar

Skipping ahead to Zanzibar...While Chris, Russ and John went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro (I'm sure they'll blog about that), Catherine, Hannah, Allison, and I went to Zanzibar. The ferry ride there was alright and went we got to Stonetown we were followed and bothered by guys trying to get us to stay at their hotels or advertise companies. We found a nice hotel (with AC, tv, and right in Stonetown) called Chavda and Hannah, Allison, and Catherine paid for the rooms (thanks, gals!) and it was really special to be treated to such conveniences. We booked Mr. Mitu's Spice Tour for the next day and then got lost in Stonetown. We had fresh lobster, shrimp, fish, for dinner at Foradhani Gardens and snacked on the famous Zanzibar Pizza (fried pastry of ground beef, egg, cheese, mayo, with a salad on top) before going to bed. The spice tour was lead by the same guy I had last time and we did the same things but I still enjoyed seeing, smelling, and tasting: elephant apple (hair gel fruit),

custard apple (soursop), henna plant (leaves), curry plant leaves (not the same as curry spice mix), three types of coconut, durian (smelly one), vanilla bean vine, cassava root, cardamom plant, clove trees, coffee plants, cinnamon bark, lemongrass, turmeric root (like ginger), pepper (white, green, black, red from same plant), nutmeg, lipstick plant, ylang ylang flowers, breadfruit, and jack fruit. And of course the lunch was the best part! Later that day we did some shopping and bought scarves and other trinkets. We took the ferry back to Dar the next day and then ate at Addis in Dar, an ethiopian restaurant, before heading to our house the following day.

Site visit and back to America

So while the guys were still on the mountain, us girls went back to our site for a few days. I showed them around and had them meet our Tanzanian friends then Hannah got sick. Her tonsils were inflamed and she had a 102 fever, at first, then 104.3, and her temperature fluctuated between 101 and 104 for 24 hours scarying all of us. I kept talking with my mom, a nurse, who said it sounded like strep throat, so we bought some penicilin in town for 3 cents a pill and she started taking it.

We met the guys back in Dar then went to craft markets where everyone picked up some souveniers, including a 30-pound wooden hippo, named Tina, which John bought. All of our friends got on their planes alright and arrived back home in America safely. We were so happy to have you guys visit us and miss you already! Special thanks to Hannah and Catherine for taking back loads of our stuff! We'll be seeing you guys next year!

Pictures are slowly being uploaded to our gallery...

While I'm still working on a very long blog post about the last amazing month and going through my photos to post, check out John, Hannah, Catherine, Allison, and (coming soon) Chris's photos.

So the first of our 5 friends have come to visit! Chris, who is super intelligent, reads more books than anyone I know, and is a superb photographer, has a blog that you should read with his amazing pictures of his travels with us in Tanzania. Check it out.

My students have taken their final exams and are on their way home now. I am so proud of them! The average grade in each class was a B - and I thought the exam was challenging. There were two 100% marks and one 0% (because one student cheated). The second term of school will start in July. So until then we have visitors from America coming! We'll do the big tourist stuff like the Northern Circuit (Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Crater, and Oldupai Gorge). If the company is good and our trip is awesome I'll post which company we used on my blog. Also I'll be going to Zanzibar (for the third time!) but I'm okay with that because Zbar has great food and good shopping, things which are lacking in our town.

Also, if you didn't see earlier, you can help the students of Tanzania by donating money towards projects. See our Wish List for more info!!

Hali ya Hewa (Weather)

The rainy season is over and past. Everyone, including the wise elders in our town, say that we will get manyunyu tu, drizzle/light rain only. The grass is already starting to turn brown and our garden is drying up. This season, we have harvested, or are in the process of harvesting: peanuts (120 pounds), beans (20 pounds), sunflowers (to be pressed for oil), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, squash, corn, cucumbers, onions, okra, and herbs such as basil, cilantro, mint, thyme, and marjoram. We will not have to buy peanuts during the rest of our service (6 months)! Besides the drop in rainfall, the wind has picked up and it's getting cooler. We have closed some windows and use blankets at night as winter is approaching.

End of Term

My school term is coming to an end very soon. This week I'm in Dar for a meeting, then next week we'll do revision in class, then the week after that the students take their final exams.

Peace Corps Volunteer Chacos Pro Deal

PCVs can get Chacos for half off but you need to fill out a form and there are restrictions, of course. Email Chacos to find out more.

The Peace Corps Times, a newsletter for Peace Corps Volunteers, contacted me as one of the editors had read my blog and wanted to quote me in the "What Volunteers are Saying" section at the end of the newsletter. Check out the Peace Corps Times here (my quote is in the Spring 2007 issue).

A Typical Day as an education Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania

Wednesday

5:45 am

I can barely make out the morning call to prayer over the loud speaker from the mosque in town. I'm half awake but since it's still dark I try to go back to sleep.

6:00 am

The loud horns of the buses honk in any type of jingle imaginable as they prepare to leave when the first ray of sunlight shines over the mountain. Buses, at least passenger buses, are not allowed to travel at night so they must use whatever sunlight is available to them to their advantage. It begins to get brighter and I stare at the mosquito net and watch as a mosquito buzzes around trying to find a way in to bite us before the sun rises and it goes into hiding - like a vampire. Since I can't go back to sleep I get myself quietly out of bed, trying not to disturb Russ, my husband, as he is still deep in slumber land. I walk to the toilet in our house and as I turn the corner for the door, a gecko scurries into the crack in our ceiling board and scares me. We do this every morning like a ritual. I guess it's too early for me to remember everyday where he likes to hide. I don't mind him because he eats mosquitoes and other bugs. Before I make my way to the toilet I turn on the light switch. All light switches to bathrooms here are outside of the room because the electricity is not grounded. I enter and find there's electricity now.

6:15 am

As I walk into the living room I hear the chatter of a flock of Superb Starlings outside probably catching up on yesterday's events or arguing about who gets the moth territory this morning. Cows "moo" as they are being milked, of which one liter will be delivered to us later. As it's still a bit dark I turn on the kitchen light, turn off the outside security light, and unbolt the kitchen door to the outside (the key lock is still locked but our house help cannot enter if the bolts are still in place). Since there is electricity I will make breakfast. On days when there is no electricity I don't bother making breakfast as there's not enough time to light the jiko, charcoal stove, and if we did it would be a waste of charcoal just for some porridge. I fill a sufuria, cooking pot, with some water, put it on the right burner of the two burner stove, plug it in, and turn on the power switch next to the plug. The knob for the right burner broke off so it comes on and stays on if the stove is plugged in. I get the package of uji, millet, soya, and groundnut flour mixture, and measure a few wooden spoonfuls into the water. A little sugar is added (otherwise the uji tastes like dirt) and stir it. While the uji heats up I transfer the boiled drinking water from a sufuria from last night into water bottles then fill up the sufuria with filtered water to be boiled after breakfast is ready. The uji eventually comes to a boil and when big bubbles reach the surface they make bursting sounds and look just like the "Fountain Paint Pots" at Yellowstone National Park. I take the uji off the burner and replace it with the filtered water to boil.

7:00 am

As I sit eating uji, which is gray and has the consistency of porridge or cream of wheat, my watch alarm goes off. I'm lucky on the days my watch alarm wakes me up. I go to tell Russ that it's seven o'clock and he mumbles something then turns to continue sleeping facing the opposite direction. I get dressed and hear that the water has come to a boil. I look at my watch and set a mental 5 minute timer for the water. I lay all my things out which I'll need for the day - purse, math books, little pouch of index cards with all of my students' names, calculator, folder, toiler paper (although normally tp is just for my nose, when traveling I always abide by the rule: A PCV is never without TP!), and water bottle. I look at my watch and notice the water has been boiling for seven minutes - but better longer than not. I turn off the stove, unplug it, and move the boiled water on a doily to cool. I check the water level in our homemade bucket filtration system, which uses ceramic filters given to us within the first week of arriving in Tanzania, and it's low. I add more maji baridi, which literally means cold water but here means non-salty water, as opposed to maji chumvi, salty water, because we don't like the taste of salty water. Then I place vegetables on the counter indicating what our house help should cook for lunch today. Since I soaked beans the night before, I put out a few tomatoes, green peppers, and onions to make kachumbali, tomato, pepper, onion salad, along with the beans. I also put out our tupperware of unga wa mahindi, corn flour, for him to make ugali, the staple food of Tanzania which is a hard ball of boiled corn flour. I see Russ up and about just as I'm ready to leave. We say our good mornings then I'm off to the office.

8:00 am

My first class today is at 8:20 am so I go the office a little early. I greet whoever I meet on the path to the school, about a minute's walk from our our, with Habari za asubuhi? - News of the morning? The reply is typically nzuri, good, or salama, peaceful. When I reach the classrooms, however, I am greeted with "Good Mornings." I unlock the math department door and enter. I put some things down and put a few more pieces of chalk into my chalk box and a student asks if he can enter. I allow him to come in and he asks if he can use my Elmer's Glue (from America) to fix his daftari, notebook. I tell him yes and he begins gluing together pages.

8:20 am

The bell (a huge tire rim that is hit with a rock) sounds and a few of my students help carry all my things for me to the classroom. They do this all the time and I don't even ask. When I walk into the classroom, all the students stand up. On of them claps his hands twice then they all say in unison "Good Morning Madame." I say "Good Morning, how are you?" and they reply "Fine." I tell them they can sit down and it becomes noisy for a few seconds as all the chairs move on the concrete floor. Today's lesson is about 3-dimensional polygons and I bring models of prisms, pyramids, cylinders, and cones that I made out of card stock like paper bought at a local stationary store. We go over all the different shapes and I ask them if they could give me "everyday" examples of these shapes. One at a time they raise their hands and I call on them to answer. For cone, they though of carrots and mounds of beans and rice found at the market; for cylinder they thought of cups and pipa, oil drums; and for pyramids they thought of the Great Pyramids of Misri, Egypt. We count together aloud the number of vertices, edges, and faces each shape has and draw and label them on the chalk board. I see through the windows and door outside our second master who is walking around with a stick and gives threatening looks.

9:40 am

The bell rings to mark the end of my (double period of 40 minutes) class. I sign a log book that the class monitor (one student who keeps track of the teachers' activities) hands to me at the end of each class. I notice all teachers taught yesterday but a teacher did not teach the period before me. I write "Polygons" under the topic, my name, then initial. A few students help me carry my things back to the math department. I greet teachers who walk by and my fellow math teachers who are in and out of the department throughout the day. I drop my stuff off then go to the administrative office to see if Russ or I received any letters - no mail for us today.

10:20 am

It's chai, tea, time which is a 40 minute break and I'm off to the mgahawa, tea room where I greet the ladies who work there. I buy "bites," of which my favorites are chapati, fried flat bread, and bagia, ball of fried yellow split pea flour, and tell her it's to go, which means the "bites" will be wrapped in newspaper, often times from South Africa from last year. Total cost: 150 Tanzanian shillings, or 13 cents. I walk back home to find our house help, we call him mzee, old man, sweeping dirt off our porch carried by last nights' wind. I greet him with Shikamoo, which literally means I hold your feet but is a greeting of respect to elders, and mzee replies the only reply, Marahaba. I ask him, literally, how is the "news of the morning/home/family" and he replies that everything is "good" or "peaceful." I eat my "bites" with a banana to follow. "Bites" are usually eaten with highly sweetened tea that will give you a sugar rush like you wouldn't believe. I don't drink tea with my "bites" because I prefer not to get a mad sugar rush and then crash from the tea in the mgahawa and I don't want to take the time to boil water and make tea at home. Mzee asks me how many people will be eating lunch today so he knows how much ugali to make. We often times have guests, sometimes the environmental volunteers from the surrounding villages show up in town or Angus, a VSO who works with Russ at the TTC, will join us for lunch. I tell him it will be just two today - myself and Russ. I ask mzee if he could chota maji, fetch water for us as we're down to two buckets. He, as always, says, hamnashida, no problem. There's plumbing in our house but no running water so all the water we use has to be brought here by some means. Mzee straps three 20-liter buckets to his bike then goes to town to the bomba, water spigot, to fill them up then brings them back. He does this several times a week. We are very cautious how much water we use and sometimes don't take baths or wash clothes just to save some water. I tell mzee I'm going back to work and he wishes me kazi njema, good work, and I wish him the same.

11:00 am

Since I don't teach until 1:00 pm I go to posta, the post office, to greet the ladies who work there and ask if Russ or I received any packages. On my way I pass two primary schools and some students are lurking around outside. They greet me by saying, "Good morning, teacher!" I say "Good morning, how are you?" back to them and they reply "fine, thank you teacher!" Today we got lucky and she pulled out a package from my parents, which means People magazines and flower-scented soap. Yippie! I feel like going home to open the package and spend all day catching up on celebrity gossip that I shouldn't care about but I'm good and just drop off the package at home, open it but leave the magazines on the couch to be read at a more convenient time. I then visit a fellow teacher's house to greet their three year old twin daughters. They greet me and ask where Babu, grandfather, referring to Angus, and Russ are and I tell them they are at work and the girls accept this answer and continue drawing in the dirt with sticks. I then make my way back to the math department to finish up lesson planning. I am visited by a few students who have questions about significant figures and decimal places. They usually have classes during all periods of the day but sometimes the teachers don't come to class to teach and that's when they seek me out for extra math help. Here the classroom belongs to the students and the teachers move around.

1:00 pm

The bell rings and I go to class again. I teach the same lesson to this class as I did to the morning class. This is the second "stream", or class, of Form 1 students, equivalent to 9th graders. Each Form is split into two streams at our school.

2:20 pm

The bell rings to mark the end of my class and the end of the school day. As all the students walk to the cafeteria I walk home to see Russ patiently waiting for me, to eat lunch. Beans, ugaji, and kachumbali - oh yeah! I eat too much ugali forgetting that it expands in my stomach and rest a while reading People, to help in digestion of course. I ask how Russ's day at work was as he tells me the usual - taught a little, electricity was cut for a while, and read stuff on the internet.

3:00 pm

Russ goes to see a friend and practice his Kigogo and I start lesson planning and then read People magazine on our front porch. I hear "Hodi! Hodi!," the Tanzanian way of knocking, and am greeted by a women selling tomatoes and onions carried in a bucket on her head (no hands) and a baby strapped to her back with a kanga, piece of cloth. I buy a few bunches of things and she asks for drinking water, which I give to her.

6:00 pm

I start dinner as it beings to get dark. Tonight it's spaghetti with tomato sauce with fried okra. As I cook dinner I notice the colors of the sky turning pink, purple, and orange. It's a nice sunset tonight and I go to the porch to watch it for a few minutes. That reminds me to turn on the outside security lights. I put some water in a bucket to be heated for bathing (using the best 2,000 Tanzanian shillings we ever spent on an electric heating wand) and head back to the kitchen to finish dinner.

7:00 pm

Russ comes home just as it's getting completely dark and we sit down to dinner. After dinner I usually take a bucket bath while Russ does the dishes. Then he takes a bath and we both hop into the safety of our mosquito net to read as the mosquitoes are in attack mode and are quite annoying.

9:00 pm

We lock and bolt the doors and go to bed.

My dad has told me many times before to "never take the same road twice, if possible." So Russ and I chose to go the scenic route to Iringa. If you look at a map, Iringa is due south of Dodoma so we would make a triangle loop by starting in Dodoma, taking the unpaved road to Iringa, then taking the paved road to Morogoro, then back home.

So, off we went to Dodoma. We had not been to Dodoma for many months but it still looked the same. There was nothing to do really so we bought our tickets for the next day and walked around the market. I found a nice Indian outfit and tried to bargain the price down but the lady wouldn't compromise. I bought it anyway, for about $15.

The next morning we made our way to the bus station and waited around for our bus and driver. Surprisingly we left only half an hour after the posted departure time of 8 am. It's not uncommon to wait a few hours for your bus to leave.

We started down the dirt road with clear blue skies and a chill in the morning air. After a few hours it began to warm up and since I had a window seat, I was covered in dust/dirt which the tires picked up and threw into the air. Although the rainy season is upon us, there was no sign that it had rained anywhere during the past few months. Everything was bone dry and we were approaching a main source of electricity for the country - Mtera Dam. The lake that feeds Mtera Dam is huge but it seemed so oddly out of place being surrounded by brown, dusty, dying vegetation. We drove over the dam in about ten seconds. Mtera marked the halfway point of the journey so we only had another 4 hours or so to go! The bus stopped just outside the dam at a "truck stop" type of place to stretch our legs, grab a bite to eat, and use the bathroom. Russ and I both got off and had some water and Pringles which we had bought the previous day. When travelling, especially on a long and bumpy road, I've learned not to eat or drink very much at all. I'd like to be more on the side of dehydration than have to use the bathroom or throw-up because there is no where to do those things but it your seat!

The bus started to climb up a mountain range as Iringa is in the mountains. The view from the top was spectacular. I tried to hide the fact that I was scared going around the curves on an unpaved rocky road with cliffs on one side and mountain on the other but some Tanzanians laughed at me. Silly mzungu. Oh well, I was glad we made it to Iringa before dark, at around 6 pm. That evening, after checking into a guesti (hotel) we went to a place called Lulu's for dinner. At around 9 pm or so we just went to sleep as we were tired from sitting on a bus all day - funny how that happens.

The next day was Easter Sunday and we walked around the town poking our heads into the standing-room only churches to see the whole town and villagers from the surrounding villages dressed in their Sunday best. With the sun so bright we had a clear view of the surrounding area - mountainous, green with large rocks - which reminded me of Ireland. Over the next few days we hung out with the Maasai, bought handmade bags from a local women's group, and shopped at Neema Crafts (a shop where all the artisans and employees are disabled). The local tribe in Iringa is the Hehe and the Kihehe greeting is Kamwenyi

After Iringa, Russ and I traveled different ways - he went home while I went to Dar for my last meeting as the Dodoma representative (my term ended). Dar was not as hot as it could have been; it was fall after all. Our meetings went without problem and I got to see a movie, Peter Jackson's version of King Kong. Meanwhile, Russ celebrated his birthday with some friends back home.

I got back to site on Saturday and prepared for teaching on Monday - but I wouldn't teach on Monday as a new math teacher arrived at our school and took over some of my periods. I was saddened to find that, upon entering the classrooms, all the teaching aids/visual displays that my students created were gone. I asked where they went and the students said everything was stolen - probably for the tape.

And that brings everything up to date. My students will take a quiz on geometry and polygons next week. Then I have to start preparing a final exam for them to take in May!

Rift Valley Fever (RVF) has swept through Tanzania, especially our region, Dodoma, in the last few weeks. In our town a few people have died from it and have blared public service announcements from a truck with a loud speaker on top. Even in the villages surrounding our town public service announcements are being handed out by way of fliers. Because RVF affects livestock nobody has been selling cow, sheep, or goat meat in town. The butchers have closed their doors and because people still want their meat, the price of chickens has increased dramatically. A few months ago you could but a (live) chicken for 3,000 TZ shillings. Now they go for 8,000 TZ shillings in our town and in Dodoma town 10,000 TZ shillings. The rainy season will end in a month so the threat of RVF will decrease as the number of mosquitoes fall.

Teaching has been going well. Right now we're on Easter break and Russ and I are headed for Iringa for a little vacation. It's starting to get cold around here and we've closed windows in our house and use blankets now. Winter is upon us. Iringa is higher in elevation so it will be a little more chilly that it is here - oh boy!

Over the Hump

We have surpassed the half way point of our service now and I've heard it's all down hill from here. RPCVs have said the second year goes much quicker than the first and I'm beginning to realize that since we've been "over the hump" for three months now. In the past year, I've often had the "Peace Corps Days" when I dreamed I was back home with friends and family doing what I was doing before we left for the PC. It's happening more often now that I can see the end. I never realized how much I miss my own culture until I've been away from it for so long. The one thing I really miss doing is watching movies. Entertainment, in the way of movies, is really an American cultural pastime and I keep reading about new movies that have opened while we've been gone and can't wait to see them when I return.

White Butterflies

For a few days thousands of white butterflies migrated through the town. They were coming from the north and continuing in the same direction to the south. The butterflies stopped at flowers along their way and you could see them along ways away. The birds were quite happy to have them around and we were happy too to see such a sight.

Hail storm

On Friday, I got up at 7 am to get ready for class at 7:40 am. On Fridays my lesson isn't paid attention to like the other days because there are only two periods on Friday (the two that I teach) then there's religion then two exams. After class I rushed home to help mzee cook sambusas (meat pockets) as my good friend Shangaluka wanted to learn how to cook them and our mzee in an expert. We spent four hours and made about 40 sambusas from scratch. We dine on them with sodas and beer for lunch then took naps. At around 4 pm it started to get cool so I walked outside to find the mountains to the north and east leaching dark clouds upon our town. Russ quickly joined me after I told him he had to see for himself the impending storm. The winds picked up and small branches started to fall from our mango trees and the natural tall grass bent over 90 degrees. For sure we thought the electricity would go at any moment, but to our surprise it remained on. It was like any typical "flash flood" here except that the rain water and air temperature was very cold. As we filled out buckets on our porch from our gutter we heard the hail begin to pound on our aluminum roof. The sound got so loud that we scared each other in the house. Hail in Kiswahili is "mawe ya mvua" or "rain rocks." This was my first hail sighting in Africa and after it continued for a few minutes we couldn't help but to think of all the crops people have planted and hoped they were not destroyed. Our crops did fine - there were just a few holes in the leaves of our plants but the wind did more damage than the hail. Not only did it hail, but it also flooded like we've never seen before. The water was half way up one of our steps near the back door, but it never got any higher.

After the storm passed we could hear the "river" so we went to look at it. 99.9% of the time it is a dry "river" which really acts more like a huge drainage ditch from the mountain. It was raging and many people were watching it. Apparently when the rains had just started, a primary school boy tried to cross it and got swept away. They found his body a mile down the river. Also, the heavy rains took away all the work that the town did to rebuild the bridge that was destroyed by heavy rains a few months earlier. It was a somber mood in town that weekend.

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, I got up early to make heart shaped pancakes for Russ and I then we both went to work like normal. After returning from work, and relaxing for a few hours, Russ asked if I was "ready." "Ready for what?" I asked, and he just smiled. We picked up Sajigwa and Shangaluka, parents of the twins, then went to a local hotel (the only place in town that serves decent food). We dined with another couple, Caroline and Gasper, the cook and manager of the hotel, and our friends, to make it a triple date for Valentine's Day. Russ told Caroline how to make mashed potatoes so we had comfort food from home (new and interesting to the Tanzanians) and a meat and banana stew, a typical Tanzanian meal from the north. She got the mashed potatoes spot on and Russ and I gobbled it up. This triple date with the Tanzanians for Valentine's Day was a first for them but they seemed to enjoy themselves. The power kept going out so we ate by candlelight. Valentine's Day is just starting to be recognized here. I heard if you asked anybody ten years ago about Valentine's Day they would have no clue what you were talking about.

Teaching

Teaching is going really well for me. My students did pretty well on their first exam. The average in both classes was around 55, which is a "C." There was one 100% and some cheating. How did I know there was cheating? Well, I made two different exams and on a few students' sheets the question and answer of a question on the other exam was written. I asked them why they cheated and it was because they said they didn't understand the material. I told them to ask me for help outside of class if they needed it. A week and a half went by and I gave my students a quiz. The quiz consisted of questions directly from their homework, I just changed the numbers. Most did really well, yet some are falling behind. I didn't say anything to those I though needed help. They came to me and asked for extra help! So I said they are welcome to ask questions if I'm in the office or they can do more problems from the book and I'll correct them. Since I had extra copies of the first exam, I have them the exam they didn't do on exam day. They didn't get it perfectly but they got a higher score than their first attempt. I really do enjoy teaching and am seriously thinking about pursuing it when I return home. I had to come to Africa and teach those who have nothing to learn than in teaching, I have everything.