So what can I say about the holidays? They were nearly perfect. I got to go home, take part in my cousin's wedding, see friends, and spend every second I could with my family. A little word of advice to any future or current Peace Corps Volunteer: if you have even the smallest thought of quitting, do not go home. If I did not feel that me job was unfinished, I'm not sure how I would have left me family again. My first few days back in Tanzania were just plain depressing. I missed my family more than I had the rest of my service. Luckily for me, I did not have to go straight back to my site and wallow in my self-pity. I hung around Dar and my entire class got together for our Mid-Service Conference, MSC. It is always amazing to see our class. I'm sure every group says it, but I'm almost positive that our training class is the best there is. For almost a week, we had medical check-ups, sessions, yummy food, and good friends. It really made for a nice transition back to country. At the end of it all, Peace Corps even flew us back down to Mtwara because the rains have turned the road into a muddy, soupy mess. Not to shabby. After a night in Mtwara Town, we loaded up onto a bus and about 7 hours later, VOI LA, I was home. Now I'm not the type of person to admit this face-to-face, but something about writing it seems so detached. When I got to my house, I sat on my floor and had myself a good cry. I sat there until Duck, my cat, started biting me, probably telling me to "shut the heck up," so then I transferred my little water works session into my bedroom. I was exhausted, my electricity was out, and I was just not too happy about being back. Luckily, the next day started to look up a little bit. I went to the market and visited with all of my favorites and handed out presents. Juice Man is now rockin' an Oklahoma State University keychain. I also gave Mr. Ubwabwa, a.k.a. the cutest little, old man alive, a pencil for his kiddo that is in school. He was ecstatic and started running around, showing everyone his cow print, Oklahoma pencil. Monday, we kicked off school. The first week was pretty much the same as always, no real classes happening and a lot of kids running around cleaning. I spent a lot of my week also reclaiming my house from the critters that had taken over. This included massacring about 200 cockroaches that had taken up residence in my shower room. My least pleasant houseguest I found at 9:30 at night. I was opening my door to let Duck out of my room for the night and I saw something long and black and thought, "My that's a large centipede." I then got the door open enough to see that it was in fact, a black snake about 2-feet-long. So of course I snatch Duck up and slam the door. Since I still did not have electricity, I grabbed my handy-dandy headlamp and then went to investigate. The snake, being the creepy crawler it is, had vanished. Lets just say I wasn't willing to be the "out of sight, out of mind" sort of girl, so I locked Duck in my room, grabbed my machete from the kitchen, and went hunting. It didn't take long to locate the sick-nasty creature my couch. I stood on my coffee table, hopefully out of striking distance, and used to machete to pry all the cushions off the couch. I was able to flush him out, but he was a quick little bugger and made it behind my bookshelf, no problem. I then scooted the coffee table over to the shelf and stood on it while I slid the shelf out. I got the table out far enough and threw a rock that I prop a window open with at the snake, making contact and slowing him down. I then went to town with my machete. Lesson learned: I need to get my machete sharpened. I did manage to kill the snake though in a blunt-force trauma sort of way. Now I'm not sure if this guy was a Black Mamba, but I think it’s safer to just assume that all black snakes around here are. The only way to really tell is to see inside of its mouth, its black with a Black Mamba, and I wasn't really to willing the explore that. Anyways, its dead and gone and I have my house back to myself. I showed the picture and told the story to all the staff at my school and I got told that it was dangerous and congrats on my kill.

In other news, my old club soccer coaches, Dee Friend and Chuck Lynn donated new soccer uniforms for my girls. We finally got some of the team together last week to model. I want to thank Dee and Chuck so much! The girls were so excited and I made them promise that they would not let any boys wear the new jerseys. No more shabby leftovers, they are lookin' sharp!

On a cute note...my favorite bug in Tanzania

First of all, I have officially competed my first grant with the help of my very cool and trendy friends Toni and Ben (not that being trendy made much difference). For our grant, we conducted 3 days of free HIV Testing and education at our sites. Overall, we provided HIV testing for over 200 people and education for hundreds more. We were lucky enough to score the talents of Ben's theater group who put together some very informative skits and a local HIV positive woman who talked about her own experiences. It was such a good feeling to be able to provide such a service that is normally no as readily available.

After we wrapped up our grant reports, I peaced out for the beginning of my vacation! I made it to Mtwara Town and flew to Dar es Salaam. That's right, instead of the usual 12+ hours trudging through the mud on an overcrowded bus; I spent an hour on an air-conditioned flight being fed juice and sandwiches. I had better not get too used to that though. We got to Dar and met up with some friends. The next day, we set out on an amazing adventure, MAFIA ISLAND! We caught about a 3-hour coaster to the town where the ferry sets out. On the way there, I may or may not have discreetly threw-up into a plastic bag. When we finally arrived, we had missed the ferry so we started looking for guesthouses close by. After asking a few people, we found one and started our few days of marathon arguing. We got them down a bit, dropped our bags, and headed out for a beer to recover a bit. While sitting around, we were approached by some random dude asking if we wanted to make it to the island that same day. Umm...no, I'd rather sit here in the 100 percent humidity paying entirely too much for a place I didn't want to be in the first place. Of course we want to go. After getting him to half his price twice, we had obtained transportation in a smallish motorboat. Our next goal was to retrieve both our luggage and refund from the guesti that we spent approximately 2 minutes at. The very not cool lady said that there was no way we would be getting a full refund. After a while arguing, we got half of our money back and skedaddled for the boat. We got to the harbor and thankfully received life jackets. Then we had a merry little 2 1/2 boat ride in the company of a generator, 4 goats, and 3 hookers (all the necessities of an island, you know). After hitting the shallows and wading into shore, we called up the place we had made reservations at and they sent someone to meet us. When he showed up, we were told that the reservations had been messed up and we did not have a room that night. He made up for it though when he spent about 2 hours calling every guesti in town finding us a place to stay for the night. The next morning, we kicked off our day with some good ol' beans and chapati. Then, we headed for the resort. We were in for another session of bartering when we arrived and were told that the prices to stay there were about twice what we had been told earlier. Because of all the arguing, we decided to go straight out in search of the holy grail of our trip, the whale shark! We got on the boat with our two Tanzanian guides and a couple Germans. On our way to deeper waters, we stopped by some dudes fishing in a canoe and our guides asked if there had been any whale sharks spotted. The excitement was overwhelming when they pointed not far and said right over there. After a couple more minutes of puttin' along, we say a dark fin cutting through the water. When we got right next to it, they dude said jump, and Jordan and I didn't even wait to ask "How high?” We just jumped. Talk about scary. Never in my life did I think that I would be swimming towards that iconic Jaws-style fin. When we jumped in, the shark had switched direction and we couldn't catch up. After we hauled ourselves into the boat, we got to try again. The first time I got a good look at the shark, it creepily appeared out of the plankton thick water coming straight at me. I got out of its way and swam besides it. When it dove, I tried to go with it, getting entirely too excited, forgetting that my snorkel didn't reach that far and choking on tons of salt water. The entire experience was just extremely amazing. It is hard to believe that I was swimming along with a 30-foot shark. At one point, I was swimming by the tail and realized that the fin was taller than me. We developed a pattern. Get in the boat, spot a fin, zip that way, and jump. We continued this for a couple of hours until I was missing the skin off my elbows and the rains were coming. When the winds come, the sharks dive so you can't play with them, so we headed in. We decided to just stay that one night since we did what we came to do, and headed back the next morning. The ride back was not quite as safi as our ride to the island. To get to the actual boat, we loaded about 30 people into a tiny little boat and poled out to another slightly larger boat with a motor. Next, we loaded two tiny boats worth of people into the slightly larger boat and slowly putted out to the ferry. It was mass chaos trying to get into the boats, but we made it. The ferry itself was very pirate-esque. This "ferry" was a wooden ship that they stuck a motor on to. We all loaded on and took off. On the way, we passed through a storm and rode some of the biggest waves ever. I loaded myself up with Dramamine, so I was fine, but the Tanzanians didn't handle it too well. At least 2/3's of the boat was vomiting the entire way and we were getting hit in the face with waves coming over the side. Can you say exciting pirate (and a little bit refugee-esque) adventure? We did finally make it and then headed on to Dar. Overall, amazing time that makes me feel so incredibly lucky to be in PC Tanzania. Next stop, AMERICA! Peace out peeps and if you in OK, come see me!

So holidays are always though in Africa. Being far away from family and friends just takes away some of the spirit. Luckily, I am surrounded by a group of amazing friends that have morphed into some strange hodge-podge family.

Halloween: For Halloween, we all gathered at a volunteer's house in our region. We all worked on our costumes and most were Tanzanian themed. We hung out, played games, and ate (as usual).

Its me...Ghee!! Love dressing up as other people.

Voodoo Priestess

Cashew Nut

Chili bottle...as seen at every bar in Tanzania

Primary School Student

Bus Stand Hard Boiled egg Salesman...and yes, thats an exact title

Creepy dude?Overall, it was a pretty big success and fun to celebrate in a somewhat normal style.

Now Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday and it just kills me to not have the normal fixins. Because our region is awesome though, we had almost a perfect Thanksgiving dinner. We all helped out and actually had the normal turkey (killed that morning), dressing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy and some other awesome sides. As per a usual Thanksgiving dinner, I completely over ate and was miserable, but it was completely worth it. Ben and I also got a red velvet birthday cake. It all made me pretty darn happy.

Dinner has arrived!

Thanksgiving Mtwara style

Fortunately, I will be spending Christmas with my family! That's right people, I'll be back in 'Merica from Dec. 13th to Jan. 2nd. I cannot wait to see friends and family and stop sweating for a bit.

Peace out folks!

So my neighbor had her baby. A month early, but luckily healthy. Baby Elnathai was born August 21st and weighed a whopping 1.5 kilos, which is about 3.4 pounds.

Little baby Elnathai

Its that time of year, in with the new and out with the old, volunteers that is. It is so weird that the older, more knowledgeable people are going. I did make it to a couple sharehe's, going away parties, to say bye. At Kristi's, the primary and secondary schools sang and gave speeches. Also, no Tanzania party is complete without everyone saying a speech. Luckily, I was passed over (wiping sweat from brow). I just got to eat, dance and enjoy my time.

Most of the ville turned up for the party.

Dance party

Claire's little friend, Tashi, rockin' it before her sharehe

Tanzanians believe in wrapping you in every single present you receive, followed by a short dance party.

I also made it to Claire's party. It was a lot of fun and all of her students and teachers came. They sang, danced, made speeches, and gave presents and we also stuffed ourselves full of pilau and danced the night away.

Ran into my first black mamba in country. Luckily, there were students nearby with a hoe that cut it into pieces. Good thing too because those will kill you dead!

The boys showing off their snake-killing weapon.

A newly discovered talent of one of Claire's students.

Tanzanians love playing with our hair. Claire's students successfully turned her hair into a rats nest right before good-byes.

In other news, this month marks one year of living in Tanzania. It is strange how fast it has gone!! I feel like I have so much to accomplish in the next year am looking forward to the rest of my service.

That's about all folks! Peace Out!

So I've got something funky going on with my sinuses right now. I am calling the Peace Corps doctors tomorrow to find out what medicines to go get, but in the meantime, I'll just lay in bed, thinking about all the things that feeling like this makes me miss. Here goes:

1. My Mom

2. Real Pharmacies and doctors I can trust

3. A bath

4. Ice cream

5. People understanding that when I am sick, I want to be left alone

6. Making soup without having to light the kerosene stove

7. America's Next Top Model marathons

8. My duck blanket

9. Sonic Blue Coconut Slushy

10. Ritz Crackers

11. Decongestants

12. REAL KLEENEX

Thats pretty much it for right now. Sorry about the pity-party, but I would sell me kidney for a Sonic Slushy right now!! Peace out!

So today I had my first true experience with the healthcare system in Tanzania. A student at a Claire's school collapsed, had a seizure, and was unconscious for about an hour. We are thinking this may be due to cerebral Malaria. After this occurrence, his friend held him on the back of a motorcycle and they admitted him to the Newala Hospital. When they arrived, there were no doctors and no real nurses. Eliezar, a teacher from Kiuta, was carrying him until they finally admitted the boy. Once admitted, a really shocker happened. The hospital had no supplies. This is not just an exaggeration. All the hospital has is beds, sheets, and mosquito nets. Claire had to go to the duka la dawa, pharmacy, and buy IV lines, needles, and medication. Once every thing had been bought, the staff took about 20 minutes to get the IV in him arm. Claire gave me a call once they had settled and I made my way that way, buying bananas, because get this: the hospital does not feed the patients. In fact, they do nothing except administer the drugs that you buy yourself. It depends on the patient's friends and families to feed, take to the bathroom, and clean the patient. When asked what happens if someone is without family, the response was that they die. That just goes to emphasize how much people rely on family in the Tanzanian culture. They share everything: food, money, success, and failure. In fact, if one person has any success, it falls on them to support the rest of their family. As great as it is to be close to family and depend upon one another, I can't help thinking that this is a contributor to many of the problems in this country. I know a guy who is extremely smart and an amazing person. He is the oldest child and his father has passed away. Because of this, after A-Level schooling (the equivalent of Junior College), he got his teaching certificate instead of moving on to University so that he could make money and help his younger siblings finish schooling. It is great for the education system that they got such a remarkable person, but he has so much potential to do much more good for this country. But, back to the hospital; after the IV was put in, he started to rouse. After about an hour, he was even able to talk, with difficulty, and drink water and eat some food. I can only hope that his progress continues. This trip to the hospital got me thinking about what can be done to improve the overall health care system in Tanzania. I think really, accountability needs to be addressed first. I was told that whenever the government comes to inspect, people are fired because they just don't show up to work. This still does not seem to improve the dependability of the staff though. Once this has been addressed, then other logistics can be improved, like separating people with TB or contagious diseased, possibly like the man in the corner of the building we were in coughing up blood, from the other patients with already compromised immune systems. Overall, the entire experience was extremely eye opening and I now understand why the Tanzanian citizens, at least around my area, seem to distrust medical care and tend to opt for solutions provided by witch doctors and superstition.

So cooking over kerosene stove, while limiting at times, is still enjoyable. I love cooking so one of the most enjoyable parts of my day is cooking dinner. So many people at home may be curious about the options available. We actually have quite a bit: spinach, eggplant, hot peppers, bell pepper, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes. I only miss a few things like cheap eggs (eggs are expensive for our budget), milk, cheese, and nice ready-to-cook meat. I am lucky that I have an amazing family though, because I usually have some packages of tuna for some quick protein. One of my favorite Tanzanian foods is chapati. Chapatti is the African version of the Indian naan. You may also say that it is just a thick tortilla. Well anyways, I thought it might be fun to show here so if you are interested, you can try it out for yourself!

To make chapatti, you need 3 cups of flour (maybe a little extra to flour the rolling surface), oil, salt, and water.

First, in a bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, and about a tablespoon of oil.

Next, add enough water so that you are able to form one elastic ball of dough.

Break off pieces of dough, experiment with the size you want. Roll out the dough, drizzle a little oil on the dough, and then roll the dough back up and set aside. I am usually able to form between 8 to 10 balls from one batch.

After oiling all of the dough, set aside for 20 minutes to 1 hour.

After setting aside, roll out the chapattis into reasonably thin circles. Again, the thickness is mainly up to your own preference.

Heat about a tablespoon, or less, of oil in a pan. After it is hot, add a chapatti.

When the chapatti is good and bubbly, it is time to flip.

After you cook them all, you can go traditional and enjoy with a hot bowl of beans, or make wraps.

So this is just a little taste of Tanzania. Hopefully more to come! Bon appetite! Peace out!

First of all, I want to add some pictures of Claire's very successful HIV/AIDs Education/Soccer camp. I went to Claire's ville last week to help out with this 3-day camp. The mornings were about 4 hours of HIV Education and Life Skills. Then in the afternoons, we played around 3 or 4 hours of soccer. The entire thing was exhausting, but extremely fun. I also think that the kids took a lot away from it. I am so glad that I went to help because after seeing the programing and structure, I think I'll conduct this camp at my school.

So there comes a time in every volunteers service that their time here is drawing to an end. For our 2009 Health and Environment class, that time has come. Last weekend, we decided to have one last hoorah for our friends. On Friday, we all made to trip to Mtwara town on the coast. The beach house had been reserved so we spent a good weekend with friends, internet, and good food with a beach front view. Not a bad way to go if you ask me. We shopped, ate at the fish market, swam and celebrated the friendships that we've made in such a short time. I know that sounds really corny, but its amazing how quickly good friendships are formed over here. In such a high stress, foreign environment, we count on each other for support. I still talk to my family, but there are so many things that I feel I can't tell them. They are already under so much stress by my being here, I would never want to aggravate that. Therefore, you end up talking to other volunteers who understand what you are going through and more often than not have gone through the exact same thing. It is so sad to see this class go, but we can only hope that they aren't replaced with a bunch of weirdos. Heres hopin'!

In other news, school officially reopened this last Monday. Hooray for my second term as a teacher. Time really flies over here, almost exactly 10 months in fact. Crazy. Well sorry this was such a sappy post! Peace out!

So last month, Peace Corps Tanzania threw a big shin-dig to celebrate 50 years of Peace Corps. This means a lot to the program as a whole and we have the honor of serving in one of the oldest programs here in Tanzania. Love it! I have been asked so many times why I would ever want to go to Africa, leaving all my friends and family behind. The following exemplifies the feelings that all Peace Corps Volunteers have about our service. After hearing this, I felt a renewed sense of purpose and pride. I hope that all of you enjoy this as much as we did!

PCV Dan Waldron’s speech at the 50th anniversary celebration - June 22, 2011 “Dr. Florens Turuku, Ambassador Lenhardt, Director Williams, Country Director Wojnar-Diagne. Distinguished guests, fellow volunteers, ndugu wenzangu. Take a moment to look around. We are not natural neighbors. We come from different generations, from different states and different countries, from different religions and backgrounds. But tonight we are united in a community of hope, brought together by an unshaken devotion to our common humanity. So it is tonight, and so it was at the beginning of our journey. 50 years ago a group of driven individuals arrived in what was then Tanganyika. It wasn’t a country yet, it wouldn’t be for four more months, and when they arrived, they were greeted by a sign which read “Beware the lions” And there we started. But who were these people, these reckless ambassadors? Reading the first curious accounts, the first letters home from a new frontier, one gets a sense of their characters. Who were they? They were George Schreiber, who talked about embodying “ a pioneer type of spirit”. They were George Johnson, who said “Peace Corps exists as an embodiment of a conviction that the best way to achieve global understanding is to put Americans in contact with other nations.” There were 35 of them, engineers, surveyors, and geologists, from Princeton, Harvard, Michigan. And they were drawn together by a man who stood on the steps of Ann Arbor and told the assembled students that based on “your willingness to not merely serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete.” 5 months later, the Peace Corps was signed into law, with Kennedy again telling us that “We will send those abroad who are committed to the concept which motivates the Peace Corps. It will not be easy:” Across the nation, people were moved. They volunteered, they went to boot camp (Drill sergeant and all), and they became the first soldiers in an army of peace. 50 years later, that army has fought poverty, hunger, disease, and subjugation in 139 countries, side by side with peoples of every language, tribe, and religion. Kennedy’s words have outlived him. The army fights on. And though it sometimes feels as though our struggle is never-ending, battles have been won, progress has been made. Yet for all the measurable progress, so much of what Peace Corps does is unquantifiable. There is no box that shows how amazed the children were when the seedlings began to grow, no graph to measure the change that occurred when a woman living with HIV when she realized she had become a leader. And more: how many Tanzanians knew, until the moment they were proven wrong, that Americans could never swing a jembe? How many Tanzanians did not believe that we could dance? And how many of us volunteers never guessed at the number of different ways life could be lived, and lived beautifully, until we came here? We knew about the poverty, but how little did we know about the generosity? These things may be unquantifiable, but they are no less real. Mwalimu Nyerere said "To measure a country's wealth by its gross national product is to measure things, not satisfactions." Many other organizations build more things. Yet I doubt there is another that builds more satisfactions. Now where do we go from here? The goal of our work is to make the continuation of our work unnecessary. We are not there yet, in fact we are nowhere near the limits of our potential. Success is based on expectations, but it is also limited by them, and we are limiting ourselves, and our communities as long as remain prisoners to what Michael Gerson called “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. Let us never tire of pushing ever upwards. We have come so very far, Tanzanian and American alike, still we have so very far yet to go. This is a party to celebrate 50 years of friendship and accomplishment, but it can be more. Let us stand together tonight and take this anniversary as an opportunity to recommit to the spirit of the Peace Corps, to remember the sense of duty that brought us all here, to do better, to go farther, to try harder. We can expect far more from one another, but we can also offer far more of ourselves. American poet Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Tonight we have a golden opportunity on this golden anniversary to not set limits on our potential, but rather expand our expectations. I don’t know much. I left America a year and a week ago, and I’m just beginning to realize what I don’t understand. But I love this job. There is nothing like it. I said goodbye to everything and everyone I held dear, climbed onto a plane with a large group of strangers, got pushed out at 30,000 feet, landed, and began to plant trees, dig wells, and teach beekeeping. One day, mungu akipenda, I will get good at my job, at which point it will be time to leave. And after all of that, after the level of insanity I’ve put myself and my loved ones through, the thought that will keep me up at night: is how do I get back to Tanzania? Because somewhere along the way, something changed. We came here as ambassadors from America, to show Tanzanians what America really is. But now…now we have become ambassadors to America, from Tanzania. For the rest of our days we will do all in our power to represent Tanzania: its beauty and its need, its poverty and its riches, its depth of generosity and humanity. The Kiswahili word for together is “pamoja”. It literally means “in one place”. And if that’s the case, none of us will ever be together again. A part of us never left America, the land of the free, the home of the brave. But a part of us will never leave Tanzania, “nakupenda na moyo yote”. That part of us will always be Tanzanian, rising with the sun, gripping the hands of strangers-turned-family, forever exchanging with unguarded smiles the news of the morning. Because Peace Corps is not for everybody. As Kennedy said, “it will not be easy.” It isn’t ea sy.It is painful, and it is lonely. But none of us here today have to be here. We could be living closer to our loved ones. We could be making more money. We could be cooler, or more comfortable, and God knows we could be cleaner. But each of us decided that there were more important things to us than comfort, that while a ship in the harbor may be safe, that is not what ships are built for. Everyone here tonight, Tanzanian and American, has dedicated a portion of their lives to the belief that with devotion, and kindness, and insistence on a brighter future, change is possible. Everyone here tonight is part of something greater than themselves. We are all soldiers in an army of peace. An army that marches on, as our President Barack Obama said, “with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us.”

Last episode of my blog, I left off while sitting in an amazingly Americanized coffee shop in Moshi. So much as happened since and I have either not had internet or been too lazy to type. So we hung out in Moshi about a week. Basically all we did was lounge around and eat all kinds of food. One day we did muster the strength to venture to the used clothes market, Memoria. This trip was made a success when I purchased a rather snazzy Patagonia rain jacket. We also did make a trip to Arusha. Kathryn and I loaded up onto yet another bus, and made to short trip to Arusha. After arriving, we had no idea where we were or where the guesti was so we wandered for a good amount of time. After a suggestion from another volunteer, we finally found a place to stay that was within our budget, which was quite the quest in the jungle of high-end tourist hotels that is Arusha. After getting to our room, we rested a bit and then later decided to explore the wonders of Shop-Rite. This extraordinary find is a real-live grocery store. Overall, we spent over an hour, browsing the aisle upon aisle of rarities such as raspberries, coffee creamer, and fresh-made breads and doughnuts. Basically we were happier than Charlie was in the Chocolate Factory. Oh commercial bliss! After Shop-Rite, a.k.a. "Land o' Plenty," we met up with our friends that had just climbed Mt. Meru at a sushi restaurant. When I say sushi restaurant, I mean it. A Japanese expat had settled in Arusha, recruited a real sushi chef, and founded my favorite place in Tanzania. We had dumplings and sushi and I was a happy, happy volunteer. The next day, after attempting sushi again (alas the sushi chef has Tuesdays off) we headed back to Moshi. After a few more days of hanging out, we loaded up onto my 7th bus in much to short of a time, we hopped over to Tanga, a region of the northern coast of Tanzania. Around 6 1/2 hours later, we met up with all of our friends. Overall, there were 20 volunteers gathered in Tanga for our 4th of July get-together. The next day, we went swimming at a beach. Swimming in Tanzania is always an awkward experience. Everywhere I have been in this country, there is always a swarm of children, and sometime even adults, wanting to just stare at your glorious whiteness in your swimsuit. Because of this feeling of being put on display, you must approach swimming with strategy. First, you must get out of your clothes and wrap a towel around you as quickly as possible. Next, approach the water fully concealed under your towel. You must then drop your towel as close to the water as possible without the chance of it getting wet. Then submerge your body in water up to your shoulders, there-by revealing nothing. Luckily for our swimming experience this day, we were met by a hoard of other white people so the awkwardness level is significantly decreased. The next day, on July 2nd, we celebrated the 4th of July early. A couple of volunteers had arranged a boat to take us out to a sand bar. We then spent most of the day on the sand bar, eating, drinking, and being merry. Also swimming in the Indian Ocean. This section of the ocean proved especially treacherous though. We had one girl step on a sea urchin and then get to spend a good chunk of the day getting the spikes dug out of her foot and there were also jellyfish about. The day was wrapped up at Toten Island, the Island of the dead, where there are a number of ancient German graves. On that next Sunday, Kathryn and I, accompanied by a couple of our friends, bussed down to Dar es Salaam. When we arrived, there was a bit of confusion and the bus did not stop where we needed it to, hence, we did not get our tickets to head back to Mtwara the next day. Instead, we gorged on delicious Indian food. The next day was the 4th of July, so we decided to celebrate with a Subway sub, Twix, and cold Pepsi. We also went to the bus stand and bought our tickets for the next day. That night, we celebrated our last night in Dar with Lebanese food. Nom, nom, nom!! The next day, we loaded up onto the bus, and headed back to home, sweet Mtwara. We actually made it in record time too, pulling into Newala at 5:30 p.m. It was glorious! The next couple of days, I spent marketing and visiting with people. I also spent almost an entire day washing my huge number of dirty clothes. Overall though, there is no better feeling than getting home after a long spout of travel! That's all for now folks! Peace out!

So!! As great as Zanzibar was, it was good to get back to the mainland and more reasonable prices. Our feeble Peace Corps salary was not made to go to safi tourist places. When we got back into Dar, we hit up Subway. Sandwiches might be one of the things that I miss most! After that, we napped and then snuck into the center where PC had all the new Education volunteers locked down. We spent a few hours getting to know them which was great! Now we just have to wait 7 weeks to find out who our new neighbors are. On Saturday, we decided to sleep in a bit and catch a later bus to Iringa. We got to the standi, and bought tickets. Well it just so happens we bought tickets on a super nice bus. They even served us cold sodas and water! Talk about service. We got to Iringa Town around 6 and met up with another volunteer, Glenn. We dropped our stuff at the guesti and then went out for Chinese food and a couple of beers. Honestly, the greatest thing about travel is getting to see all of your friends scattered around the country. That night, we also discovered just how cold it gets in Africa. I was wearing my North Face fleece and was still freezing. I slept under the thickest blanket I have ever seen, pants, and my fleece and was still a little cold. Glenn had to leave early the next morning so Kathryn and I slept in and went out for a late breakfast. We went overboard and ended up getting omelettes, french toast, and yogurt. After becoming entirely too full, we decided to hike up to a big rock that has a great view of the entire area. We spent a couple hours hiking up and then took a nice nap, well actually Kathryn napped and I fidgeted. Then we went back to the guesti and napped more (writing this makes me realize just how much we sleep!). That night, we did something that I did not even know was possible in Tanzania, we ordered DELIVERY PIZZA!! It was delicious and actually reasonably priced. That next morning, we had cold pizza for breakfast and then two more volunteers, TJ and Carly, got to town. We went for lunch at this amazing place called Neema's. They have amazing food, we got bacon avocado paninis, and also have cool crafts. The entire establishment is staffed by disabled Tanzanians. For example, the entire serving staff is deaf. It was amazing to see a business that allows Tanzanians with handicaps to support themselves. Elswhere in the country, their only option is begging. That day and the next day, we spent playing board games and hanging out at Neema's and spending way too much money on food and crafts. Iringa was a plethra of handmade products!! The motherload for a craft-lovin fool like myself. Also, Iringa is full of yummy food. A Peace Corps Volunteer must! I even had a warm cinnamon roll and homemade yogurt, am I in Africa anymore? Yesterday morning, we loaded up onto yet another bus bound for Moshi and almost exactly 12 hours later, made it! So far, I've had a bacon bagel and 2 cups of real coffee!!! Sorry if this blog seems a little scatter-brained!! Blaim it on my caffeine high! Thats about it for Iringa. Tune in next time for the down-low on Moshi! Peace out!

So after my ever so exciting bus ride, nothing could have been more welcome than a relaxing trip to Zanzibar. For those of you who are not familiar with this African paradise, Zanzibar is a short ferry ride off the coast of Tanzania. The island is covered with Spice Plantations and white sand beaches. The main town is called Stone Town and thats where we have stayed for 5 nights. The town is amazing! It is made up entirely of alleyways, so it is easy to spend an entire day, walking around getting lost. Zanzibar is such a strange collision of worlds. The island is 98 percent Muslim, so all native inhabitants are extremely conservative. With the boom of tourism in the last 10 to 15 years though, a swarm of skantily clad tours are mixed among the women in head scarves and full covering. When asked about what he thought a booty shorts and bare shoulders, a local Muslim man compared it to drinking alcohol. He said that the first time you taste it, it is not good, but as you continue, it gets better as you get used to it. Now what a man of Islam knows about drinking I have no idea, but he got his point across. Here is a run-down of our days here in our island paradise.

Sunday: On Sunday, Kathryn and I got up and were just going to wing it. It turns out we caught the 9:30 ferry. Of course, we left around 10. Its about a 2-hour ride and I ended up popping a Dramamine. As soon as land was out of sight, my motion sickness popped up and threatened to make it a messy ride. We hit land around noon. We had a friend from Pemba, an island just north of Zanzibar, meet up with us and also another volunteer, Eric, and his friend from the states. Kathryn and I had made reservations at a hotel called Zenji Hotel. We went and dropped our stuff off when we arrived. This hotel is incredibly cute. If I had one word to describe it, I would say "quaint." The best part has to be the roof. They serve a complimentary breakfast on the roof and even met us with complimentary drinks when we arrived. The breakfast is to die for: homemade breads, homemade jams, fruit, fresh juice, eggs, and REAL coffee!! Quite the spread for someone who has been living in the bush for 9 months. After we put all of our stuff in the hotel, our group went to just walk around a bit and hang out on the beach. We ate lunch(Chili Guacamole Burger!!) and the boys got fed up with Kathryn and I's shopping (although you should really call is browsing since our budget doesn't allow us to actually get anything). That night, we decided for just street food instead of a sit-down place. We had some pretty good Tandori chicken and hung out.

Monday: Monday, we got up, filled our bellies with breads and jams, and went on a Spice Tour. For something that sounds extremely touristy, it was well worth the money. They bus you about 30 minutes north of Stone Town and you visit one of the several local Spice plantations. You walk around the grounds and are shown more spices than I have ever seen: pepper vines, cinnamon trees, vanilla, ginger, tumeric, star fruit, nutmeg. Basically everything a well stocked kitchen would have. While showing us, they let us taste everything and told us about processing, harvesting, and even traditional medicinal uses. After the tour, they took us to some ruins, and then lunch. Lunch was pilau (spiced rice) that was prepared with all of the spices we had just seen. After lunch, they took us to this extremely secluded, beautiful beach and we explored a cave where they used to illegally hold slaves before shipping them out. After all of this, we showered back at the hotel, and went out for a nice dinner for the boys' last meal on the island. We found a rooftop restaurant called House of Spices that processes all of their own spices and makes DELICIOUS pizza in a brick oven right next to the table. After dinner, the boys left to catch their overnight ferry back to the mainland and Kathryn and I enjoyed a relaxing night on the roof of the hotel.

Tuesday: On Tuesday, Kathryn and I decided to shop. Well for normal people, this would not be a problem, but most of what we saw exceeded our meager Peace Corps budget. All the same, it was fun to just walk around the narrow alleys and have no clue where you are. We did find a lady that was amazing at henna and would do it for a reasonable price. So after getting henna, we met up with Claire and her visiting boyfriend, Rob. We had lunch at a fun little Indian restaurant. After that, we headed back to the hotel to nap and play on internet. That night, Kathryn and I went and had some beers on the beach and then decided to try out Zanzibar pizzas. This is not like a pizza at all, but really tastes like a hamburger. They take dough, fill it with meat, vegetable, and mayonaise and cook it in a wok. Sounds weird, but it was pretty tasty.

Wednesday: Wednesday, we decided to take a day trip out of Stone Town. We hopped on a dala dala to a town on the northern tip of the island called Nungwi. We spend the day relaxing on the beach at a resort. It would have felt like a completely different country, enjoying sangria and guacamole, if it had not been for the Masai that had parked his cattle on the beach next to the sun bathers. It was an intersting sight. After our skin got about as much sun as it could handle, we caught another dala dala back, showered, and went out for seafood. Kathryn started not feeling great and I was tired so we headed in early (we are such party animals, right?) and internetted and went to bed. Just give a Peace Corps volunteer wifi internet and they are satisfied.

Thursday (today): So far today, we have slept a lot and eaten breakfast. I think I might try to make it to one museum called the House of Wonders later, and also buy our ferry tickets for tomorrow. Tonight, we have plans to meet a volunteer that lives on the island for dinner. As an overall assessment, if you ever have the chance or for some reason are in Tanzania, visit Zanzibar. It is a beautiful place and a unique experience. Thats it for now! I'll try to keep you updated on the rest of our travels. Peace out!

So I know that I have always said that transportation here in Tanzania is bad. Well this level of bad just hit rock bottom last Friday on my trip to Dar es Salaam. Due to no other buses leaving my village, I was forced to take a bus company with an extremely poor reputation. A friend bought my ticket for me, and so I ended up in what we volunteers refer to as the "kill zone." This is the very front seats of the bus and the dangers the present with the travel situation here. At first I was worried about this, but shook it off thinking "Ahh...nothing with happen." Then, once I got on the bus, put my backpack in front of me, and was still able to stretch my legs out completely, I thought I was in for a good ride. Every thing started out fine, we only left 30 minutes late (right on time by Tanzanian standards), and were making good time. Then, a couple of hours into the trip, we stopped for about an hour while they worked on some unknown mechanics of the bus. After an hour, we were on our way again. Now the first thing you need to know is that I live on the Makonde Plateau, which is about 900 feet tall. The second thing is that this particular bus line goes a back way down the plateau, winding through small villages and descending down a road that the locals call "the dirty way." This road is extremely steep, winding, and rocky. Because of this, we were slowly making our way down the road when all of a sudden we started to gain speed at an alarming rate. By the time we had reached a rate that people were getting tossed from seats into the aisles, people began to panic because is was very obvious our breaks had gone out and we were out of control going down a cliff. We continued to gain speed and very quickly approached a sharp turn. Our bus driver then did probably the best thing he could have and did not attempt to make the turn. Instead, we careened through the forest, blazing out own path until 3 large trees were good enough the stop us. Right before impact, I grabbed the 2-year-old in front of me, put me feet on the barricade in front of me and braced for impact. At this point, everyone in the bus was thrown to one side of the bus, landing in a huge pile. Once we were stopped and even before we were out of our pile, everyone on the bus was screaming versions of "Asante Yesu!!" which means "Thank you, Jesus!" We then began to slowly untangle ourselves and stand up. After standing, the bus began to smoke and everyone started to panic and chaos errupted and a stampede towards the front doors began. There was no way to quickly exit that way, and so I called a Babu (grandpa) over to the window, handed about 4 small children out, and then climbed down one of the trees that stopped us. By the time everyone was off, it was obvious the bus was not exploding any time soon, so I went back to get me backpack and then made the almost 100 yard hike out of the forest where we had stopped. We all then got to sit on the side of the road and hope that some sort of vehicle passed on this scarcely used road. After about 3 hours, I was able to pay a vehicle to take me to the nearest volunteers house, and then caught a bus onto Lindi where I procured a ticket for another bus to Dar the next day. The next morning, I got to hop on another bus, yeah! The ride went amazingly smooth. I would just like to point out though that I have the worst transportation luck because even on this bus, only one person on the entire bus got hit by luggage flying off the overhead rack, and that person was me. I got whacked by a flying bag, which ripped my pants and cut my leg and hand. We then broke down for about 3 or 4 hours overall, finally making it to Dar after 12 hours. I was at least greeted by good friends and Lebanese food. Overall though, I was extremely lucky. The big man upstairs was really looking out for me. Now, after all of the drama, I am enjoying my first real vacation in 9 months, relaxing on Zanzibar, an island of the coast! More to come on that later! Peace out!

Hello All! As usual, things are great on my side of the world. I honestly think I love my village a little more with every passing week.

This last week at school, I was Teacher On Duty. This is my least favorite job at school, but at least its on rotation. In this role, you have to make morning announcements, record all school attendance, and give sick students permission to leave. Its really not that bad, its just incredibly dull. Also, I don't know how its even possible, but I'm not very good at this duty. Let me begin by saying that Tanzanians are especially careful record takers. If there is a record to take, all lines are perfectly spaced and straight. Also, the DO NOT have mess-ups and if they do, will start over instead of crossing out these mistakes. I am just not up to their standards. Most of my lines are all over the place and you would be hard pressed to find a page that I did not have a mistake that I just scratched out. Whenever I hand over the book, I am waiting for someone to ask what 3-year-old I let record attendance. They have all been very gracious so far though.

This last weekend, a bunch of volunteers came to town to celebrate Toni's birthday. Friday, we hung out at the bar/restaurant for about 6 hours and just caught up on everyones' lives. Saturday morning, everyone converged on casa de Katie for pancakes. I also took one over to my neightbors for them to try. They liked it so much, I agreed to have a pancake making lesson on Sunday afternoon (P.S. I can not even tell you how tempted I was to teach them the word flapjack instead of pancake). After everyone had their fill, we went to tour the old German fort that police use for extra office space. They originally said no picture taking, but then the police man showing us around said we were able to take pictures if we could reach an "agreement" with money or phone voucher. No thank you, sir. We really don't want pictures that bad. After that, we went to the market for some shopping. Kristi, another volunteer, is about to go back to the states and wants a new Tanzalicious outfit to wear while giving talks in Elementary schools. So we were on a mission for some rockin' fabric. While shopping, we witnessed the epic "Battle of the Crazies 2011." So if you refer to my previous catalogue of colorful people in my ville, "Wewe," plays a key role in the tale. There is another man who walks around rather quickly, yelling at no one in particular, and occasionally making barking noises. Well, apparently he encroached on "Wewe's" turf. So, in response, "Wewe" chased "crazy, barking man" with a huge bucket of dirty water, finally catching him and soaking him. "Crazy, barking man" then picked up a brick and chases "Wewe" a short way with his weapon overhead, but was unable to catch him. Fortunately, no one was injured in this skuffle and everyone went their crazy, little ways. After the show, we went for a refreshing glass of juice at Juice'man's and then grabbed lunch. Then it was time for my all-time favorite activity, napping. After my nap, I cut Kathryn's hair and then we did dinner and beers with the group.

Sunday, we went for chai and then partook in our normal Sunday shopping. After everyone left, I took another nap, made a tuna sandwich, cleaned, and just piddled around, being very productive. I went into town to give some stuff to Claire as she passed through on the way to her ville. She had been in Mtwara picking up her visiting boyfriend. Let me tell you though, nothing puts a smile on my face like hearing "Madame Katie, What's up?" from a student on the way to town. It was one particular Form III girl who loves that term and uses it every chance she gets since I taught it to my class. When I got back to my house, I brought my neighbors over to my house to learn how to make pancakes. Joyce, my neighbor and pancaking pupil, wants to perfect this American dish so she can make it for her husband. So that's pretty much my updates in a nut shell. Until next time! Peace out!

So life around the ville this weekend was pretty awesome! My students are getting pretty ansty in school since we are almost done, and this is making me ansty, so I was especially grateful for the weekend. Thursday night, I met up with some of the local doctors, the bishop to send off the British medical students. Their time down here is done and now they are going up north to travel. Friday, Kathryn came into town a day earlier than usual. This is because another volunteer, Tyler, was coming with his secondary school for a day of competition against my school. This day of competition was cut extremely short when their bus was about 4 hours late. By the time they arrived, there was only time for the boys to play soccer and the girls to play netball. Netball looked a lot like basketball, except you are not allowed to dribble or run once you have the ball. Our girls got creamed. At least it was entertaining, because many of the students and village children that were watching did marching/dances and chants around the field. My favorite was started by a bunch of my girls. It went a little like this, "Sambusas (stomp, stomp) Sambusas (stomp) Sambusas (stomp stomp)" and so on. We were losing, but they still loved their yummy fried food gosh darnit! While we were clobbered in netball, our boys managed to dominate and bring home a win for Newala Secondary in soccer. They rocked it. And after the netball game ended, the girls kindly brought their entertainment over to the soccer field and were chanting and marching the rest of the game.

Saturday morning, Claire came into town early and we commenced our plans to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Africa. We started the beans and then made rounds around the market for the rest of the food. We even picked up a little something extra when we all bought matching tie-dye moo-moos. Its not as bad as it sounds though, we are having them altered into not matching styles, because that would be totally uncool. Around this time, Ghee rolled into town and our fiesta participants were all gathered. We made beans, queso, fish tacos with tuna bought from a momma off the street, salsa, and chimichangas (which are actually a lot easier to make than I thought they would be). We all gathered around the table with a bottle of my homemade wine and had a legit Mexican feast. The one disappointment was our intended dessert of brownies. I just got a new solar cooker that was supposed to be amazing. Well, apparently I do not know how to use it because after 3'ish hours it remained a gooey mush. So then, we stuck it on the kerosene jiko (which is not the best for baking) and it all burnt.

The feasting did not stop there though. The next morning, was had a good ol' American breakfast. We made syrup, pancakes, coffee, and had juice. Then after breakfast, we had our normal trip to the market. I have been really wanted to show off my posse of little old men though so I actually took pictures. Lucky I had my camera though because my friend Dudu had his brand new baby (2 months old) at his store! One of my favorite old men though that sells degaa wasn't there, but never fear! Picture to come soon! We then went to talk to Mr. Jaffer. His store sells only in bulk so normally he has nothing that interests me. But then I saw he carried toilet paper in bulk!! Holler!! I bought a 40 pack of toilet paper for 12,000 shillings. That means I paid 30 shillingi per roll instead of 300!! I was pleased as punch!! After that, everyone left and I went home to clean my house, nap, and talk to my mom for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world, but especially my Momma!! You are the best mother I could ever ask for and put up with way more than you should ever have too!! I love you so much! So everyone give their moms an extra big hug. And if you see my Momma, give her a hug for me! Peace out!

Well howdy doody everyone! I cannot believe that May is already here. It is amazing looking back on the time I have already spent here and looking forward at my remaining time left. It really seems like it will all be over before I know it. So after our long Easter Break, it was back to the grindstone of trying to inspire my students to care about science and learning English. Some days, it really feels hopeless, but then just when you are about to lose all hope, a student will do something amazing. I have always had respect for teachers, but after this 2-year stunt, my respect is out of this world. To all those teachers out there, you are amazing (and a little bit crazy).

So during last week, Claire and I set up a soccer game between our school's girls' teams. It started out all right. My girls were there on time. They even had a ball. But then stuff got crazy. I ran around for about an hour and a half trying to track down the game ball, my whistle, and jerseys. Finally, all was sorted out and we got the game going. Claire even bribed some of my male students to ref the games so we could yell from the sidelines. I was ready for pandemonium. My girls had never played a real game and really hadn't even been practicing for that long, but I was oh so pleasantly surprised. A couple minutes in, my girls find the back of the net! They weren't the Premier League by any means, but they kept the ball at their feet, connected some passes, and for the most part played their positions. There were even some honest to goodness crosses. So at half, we were winning 1-0. Then in the second half, they scored again and we ended up winning the game 2-0. After the game, I got everything put up and then went to the market to see Claire and her girls off. I meandered my way back home, stopping to get degaa, dried sardine like fish, for my cat and a to-go bottle of juice from the one and only juice man. He even had made a debut flavor, stakafelli (actually have no idea how it is spelt). I do not know what this might be called in English, but I've been told it might be related to breadfruit. All I know is that when you mix it with Passion fruit juice, it results in an explosion of deliciousness in your mouth. So after these stops, I slowly made my way home. As I was about to walk up my front steps, I saw a very strange sight, a whole car full of wazungu (whities). They waved, so I waved back, and then crazy enough, they stopped and got out. It turns out that they were five medical students from England accompanied by the Anglican Bishop. There had been in Masasi for 4 1/2 weeks working in the hospital and were now going to be in Newala for around 10 days doing more clinical work. The Bishop invited me to meet them for lunch, and despite the temptation to just stay home and take a nap, I agreed and joined. Then they jetted off to visit a nearby hospital, but then I met up with them when they returned for some beers. They even wrangled me into attending church. Now its not that I am some horrible person, I just don't particularly enjoy church here. I have yet to go to a service that is under 3 hours long, I really don't understand most of what is being said, and they always, and I mean always, make the whitie, i.e. me, get up and give a speech. And this service was no exception. While the med students got to politely wave while being introduced by the Bishop, I was forced to go to the front and had a microphone thrust into my face for a speech. But overall it was all right. I do love the music here. This service had about 4 small choirs who each got their turn to stand and sing, always with an accompanying dance. I love it. And to make things even more entertaining, "Wewe," remember him from my catalogue of Newala crazies, tracked me down and followed me into church that oh so fine Sunday morning. He then proceeded to join in every song with his own rendition of the dance. It was great.

P.S. The Bishop called me to make sure I knew Osama Bin Laden was dead (glad he's got my back and I have now apparently have friends in high places)

P.P.S. If my neighbors don's slaughter their new chicken soon, I'm gonna go over there and do it for them

So we all made it back from our wonderful Easter excursion. The beach house was so amazing that we decided to stay an extra day. Every day, we would swim around 10 until the tide went all the way out and we were sitting in just 5 inches of water. Then we would shower (IN A REAL SHOWER!!) and hang out. Then we would swim again around 5 when the tide came back in. Saturday morning, we discovered that Msemo, the nice resort a little way down the beach, had a bomb breakfast. It had cereal with milk, sausage, Spanish omelets, crepes, and juice. It was pretty gosh darn amazing so we ended up doing this breakfast both Saturday and Sunday morning. On Saturday, we went for lunch at Msemo, down the beach. There we were, having a good classy lunch and having a good classy discussion when one of our fellow volunteers rolls up looking like a crazy, hobo man. He had gone to the fish market for lunch and had found a great deal on crab. He was so excited, instead of taking the road home like any clear-thinking human being would, he took the most direct route and waded across the cove carrying a big bag of live crabs in a burlap sack and rolled up soaking wet. He looked psycho, but having gigantic fresh crab was pretty exciting. So we finished up lunch and headed back to our house. That night, we went for a swim and the beach was packed with Tanzanians. The water was swarming with boys, ages 8 through 15. A vast majority of these boys, we figured out, after they came way too close, were stark naked. Now that's quite alright for the young boys, but there is just something not right about a 15-year-old flaunting what the good Lord gave him at the beach. Some of the nudity even snuck up on you, incognito. One of these older boys went swimming by about 6 inches from us and at first looked fine. He was wearing a short sleeve, sweatshirt material top which was a little weird, but whatever. Then we realized that he was sportin nothing on the bottom half and that was not okay. Regardless of the nudity, we did have an awesome Justin Beiber sing-along with this group of boys. "Baby, baby, baby, OOHH!! Like baby, baby, baby, OOHH!!" That night, we cooked up a feast of crab, spaghetti, fish, pineapple, and garlic bread. It was pretty legit. The next morning, we got up for the Msemo breakfast feast again. Then, Claire and I went into town to hit up the bank and get food for that night's fixins. Also while in town, the most amazing thing happened. We were sitting talking to a sidewalk fundi (a.k.a. a clothes tailor). We were talking about religion and it came up that we were Christian and he was Muslim. He said that how he saw it, we all worshiped one God and were asking for the same things so it really didn't matter. I love this philosophy and if all people thought along those lines, this world would have a lot less problems. While we were chatting, we met some older Indian gentlemen. The conversation then came around to the fact that we were returning to Newala on Monday morning. It just so happened that they were going to Newala in a private car and offered us a lifti! Heck yes! Hmm...a 9 1/2 hour sweaty, crowded bus ride, or your own seat and at least half of the time. That's a really hard choice. So after this exciting development in the conversation, we exchanged numbers and it was decided when they would come pick us up to head back to Newala the next morning. My month had been made! A weekend of real showers, beach, fresh seafood, and a safi ride back home? There's nothin' better. After Claire and I returned back to the house, we all went swimming. Then after showers, most people decided to head to the fish market for lunch, but I decided a nap sounded better than lunch. When everyone returned, we started on that night's supper, boiled shrimp, tuna steaks, pilau (rice with spices), and a sauté of pineapple, green pepper, and onions. And then to top it all off, we had hotdogs. Nothing goes better with seafood than hotdogs. The original intention was to build a bonfire on the beach and make seafood kabobs over the fire. All of our dreams of an awesome beach bonfire were crushed though when some really not cool police came and told us this wasn't allowed. They also tried to tell us that fish wasn't meat, but that is besides the point. Eventually though, we got everything cooked and it turned out amazingly. Maybe the best tuna I've ever had, but that's just a result of picking it out and buying it super fresh at the fish market earlier that day. So this morning, Claire, Kathryn, and I hauled our bags down to Msemo to wait and hope that this ride actually came through, and HALLELUJAH it did! We were on the road about 7 a.m. and made it back to Newala in 4 1/2 hours! It was legit! There was only one little hiccup in the ride when we got stopped by the cops. They got a ticket for not having a fire extinguisher in the car. That is apparently some law and just goes to show the state of most of the vehicles. There are so many at the point of exploding into flame that this is a law. That is very comforting. After we got back, we went to visit Mr. Jaffer, a little, old, Indian man that runs a duka. I had bought another modem from a missionary couple that was moving back to the states and they had left it with him. Then Claire headed home and I took a nap while Kathryn watched a movie. After a superb nap, we went for dinner and actually got my modem working when we got back to my house! I now have internet again!! BEST. DAY. EVER. I hope everyone else's Easter Holiday was as wonderful as ours. Peace Out!

"What's up butt-heads!!" No offense and all, but this is literally how one of the volunteers around me has greeted his class. Taking full advantage of the fact that none of our students down South speak English, I guess. Anyway, I made it back from training. The roads were pretty bad, but we made it to Newala unscathed. We made it back and I went back to school on Wednesday. Not a whole lot going on because they were about to start testing. Friday, I proctored, or as they say here "invigilated," a test on Friday. Let me tell you, trying to keep students from cheating for 3 hours is not a good time.

That weekend, a PCV was traveling through Mtwara and passed Newala, so I gave him the "grand tour." That weekend, I woke up not feeling great. Then Monday, half-way through the day, it really hit me. I went home and here is a list of the symptoms: puss on my tonsils, swollen lymph nodes (one so big you could see the lump and it hurt to turn my head), nauseous, and light headed/head pounding. I called the PC Medical Officer and eventually got my meds. They made be feel considerably better. Friday though, I woke up to a scary shock. Duck seemed to have lost motor control in her back legs and really couldn't walk. It was not a fun thing to watch and as a result, I think I cried about 6 times that day. I talked to a vet, and he said that it looked like she had some sort of brain virus. Awesome. So I was pretty much expecting to wake up the next day and her be dead. Weirdly enough, the next morning she was perfectly fine. It was like nothing was ever wrong with her and she has shown no sign of any brain virus since that Friday.

This last week, we plunged full force back in to lessons. We really only have like 4 weeks of class left so I starting to worry about getting through the syllabus. I also handed back all of my tests, about 300, which were pretty much just as dreadful as I was expecting. Yeah for language barriers! I really do believe that language is 70% of the problem. My busy week was interrupted though as I witnessed my first demonic possession. After assembly, a girl collapsed and started flailing around screaming bloody murder. About 10 girls jumped on her and held her down and a bajaj was called to take her to the hospital. It was extremely weird to say the least.

On Friday morning, we didn't have school so I hopped the bus to Mtwara town to meet up with some other volunteers. I got on the bus as 6:30 a.m. and 80 miles and 91/2 hours later I reached my destination. Most of that time was actually spent moving even. Because the roads were so bad, I think we maybe averaged 10 miles an hour, max. When I got to our beach house though, it was worth it. We are staying at a beach house run my Catholic priests and our front door is literally 40 yards from the Indian Ocean. So after I got here, we swam a bit, and then walked down the beach and ate at a really nice resort. Another really exciting thing about our house is, it has HOT SHOWERS!! It hasn't worked thus far, but I can still hope that before we leave, I'll get my first hot shower in 7 months!

That's really all that has happened that I can think of. Peace out peeps!!

So these past couple of weeks have been great! It all started a couple of Thursdays ago. We had to be in Morogoro for IST (in-service training), but we decided to take it slow and easy. So Thursday, I took a 3 hour bus ride to Kathryn's site. That's when we kicked off our food-fest. My lovely Grandma sent me a package containing Velveeta and Rotel. So logically, we decided to make ourselves a mexican feast. We made queso, tortillas, beans, and kachumbari (mixture of tomatoes and onions). Overall, we ate 1/2 a pound of cheese. By the end, we felt incredibly disgusting, yet satisfied. Friday, we caught an early bus to Lindi. We only had to get out and walk twice when the bus got stuck so overall, a pretty great bus ride. In Lindi, we met up with Ghee and Will. We just hung out all day. For dinner, we all had a real hankering for fish. We went to about 4 different places and no one had fish. One of the last ones, or didn't even have fish on the menu, told us we could go buy a fish, bring it back, and they'd cook it up for us. DEAL! So we went to the fish market, bought one that looked good, and took it back to the restaurant. There, the dude whipped up a crazy good fish masala sort of dish. The next day, we bused up to Dar. We got lost trying to find out hotel, but eventually made it. After that little adventure, we went on the quest for the fabled delicious Indian food. We found it! Its called the Patel Brothers. Its basically a huge compound with a bouncy house, play set, and probably 100 tables set outside. It said "Members Only," but you can apparently pay 1,500 shilingi to get in. BEST INDIAN FOOD EVER! We got so full I thought I was going to explode. On Sunday morning, we walked around and did some shopping. All of our dreams were crushed though when we found out that Subway was closed on Sundays. YES, there is a Subway in Africa and I will be gettin' me a big ol' sub! We got into Morogoro around 2 and could not have been there sooner. By the time we arrived, Kathryn, Ghee, and I were all yelling at each other and every Tanzanian was staring at us. All's well now though. Basically the past 2 weeks have been training from 8 to 5:30. Really boring, but its like we have been in mini-America with all the crazy delicious food! So really its been 2 weeks straight of having a food baby, but who cares? I also got to see my host family. I went to visit my Mama in her duka, or shop, a few times and even ventured up to Kihonda to eat supper with them. When Glory answered the door, she started jumping up and down screaming. Sara, the house girl, had the same reception. It always feels good to be loved.

SOCIAL (or whatever you wanna call it) UPDATE:

So what all has happened since my last post. It seems like so much, yet nothing at all. After I posted, we hurried back to good ol' Newala. A few volunteers came and stayed at my house. It was 3 girls and just one guy so we made popcorn and made him watched "Pride and Prejudice." And he loved every minute of it! So you might be asking "popcorn?" Well I amazingly found in my local market. So its not just an American movie must-have, its a world-wide phenomenon my friends! But it proved a little difficult to make. Kathryn and I were attempting this for the first time. By the end of this small task, there was popcorn all over the kitchen and Duck, the cat, was cowering under my cabinet after an unfortunate incident of Kathryn dropping a hot pot on her head. I have also been working really hard on my back courtyard. I "mowed" my grass using a machete type thing. Now that was a stress release if I've ever had one! I also de-bee'd my courtyard. There were tons of bee nests so I just used the heavy duty Africa bug spray and got rid of them...bwa ha ha!! Even broke up an old, rotting bench and fallen down tree. So now I love to lay in my hammock in my back yard and read. Pretty much the best thing ever. My dear Duck is proving to have a real awesome killer instinct. Her new favorite things are to eat cockroaches and catch and eat lizards. Recently, she even went after her first rat! I was putting a new bucket of water in my shower and suddenly a rat flies over my shoulder and lands in front of me. I turn to run, screaming (as usual), but Duck kicks it into savior mode and goes for the rat. Unfortunately it escaped out the drainage hole before she could get it. She then just sat there, crouched by the hole just beggin' that vermin to come back. Could not have been more thankful for her. One of these past weekends, I had to ban all volunteers from my house. I have people at my house almost every weekend, which I love for the most part, but I also like my personal time. So I declared it a "ME" weekend. It was glorious. I just read, watched movies, and visited people around my ville all weekend. Also, one of these weekends, a volunteer came to town to get her cat fixed. I got to hold the light and watch as the operation went down on the kitchen table. It was LEGIT. This last weekend, I went to Claire, another volunteer's village. One of her students has become my bestie and she roasted cashews and drew a picture for me! While there, my village played her village in soccer. I have to say that after years of playing, I have never seen a full game played with only about 2 of the players wearing shoes. My ville schooled hers, 7-2. GO NEWALA!

SCHOOL UPDATE:

Also since last time, NECTA results came out. If you aren't familiar with the Tanzanian school system, the NECTAs are the national exams that students take every two years. Well our results weren't so hot. We had over 100 students get 0's. Not exactly what we were shooting for. And apparently Mtwara region has the lowest average in all of Tanzania. So I guess there's nowhere to go but up? My school also got 2 new teachers!! AND...wait for it...they are both female and actually showed up! That's actually a pretty big deal. They moved into the duplex attached to mine so now whenever I scream when I encounter a new "house guest," they are entertained. Also, important info to know when teaching in Tanzania: when it is raining really hard, the metal roofs make it impossible for the students to hear so don't even try. Also, being Teacher on Duty, or TOD, is really not a fun job. It rotates around all the teachers and I had my turn. Not cool. You have to take care of all the school attendance, get there early and supervise students cleaning the school, write permissions for kids wanting to go home, blah, blah, blah. I now have a new respect for school secretaries. Other than that, teaching is going really well. I've had some discipline problems with my Sophomore Biology kids, but love my Junior Chemistry students to death! They seem to understand balancing equations, which makes me the happiest teacher in Africa! I also found out that if there is a skink running amuck in your classroom, the students will chase it with sticks until it runs out the door. That makes getting class started a wee bit chaotic. This last week, I started practice with my girls soccer team. We shall see how that goes, but I'm pretty excited.

IN FURTHER NEWS...

We also have our IST, or In-Service Training coming up. In years past, they have had the North and South at two separate trainings. This year they are combining us so I get to see all my dear friends up yonder. Super pumped. Our training is at the end of March so not that much longer and I get to see my peeps! Also, I had ringworm. Thanks a lot Duck! But no worries, we are both treated and all better. And one last thing, my cousin, Denise, is preggers!! WAHOO!!

P.S. My malaria medicine induces really strange, vivid dreams. The other night I dreamt that my older sister dressed up as Ron Burgundy for Halloween. If you don't know who that is, watch "Anchorman." It's great. The End.

So my internet decided to poop out for almost three weeks now, so that's why I haven't updated. So since last time, I've done a bit of traveling. I went and checked out Kathryn's site. I showed up with a water bottle of my mango wine and we made eggplant spaghetti, and hung out. That night, after our showers, we had a couple run-ins with her rat infestation and watched a bit of a movie. The next morning, we got up bright and early and headed to Mtwara for some volunteer birthdays. 4 1/2 hours later, we made it. It really is pretty remarkable how insignificant a 4-hour bus ride seems these days. That night, we all went to a resort on the Indian Ocean. Kathryn and I split the chili prawns and the chicken sandwich. I thought I might have died and gone to heaven, but that's not saying much since my diet consists mostly of beans. We hung out for most of the next day, playing Bananagrams and listening to music. We went into town and walked around and then went back to the beach despite the rainy weather. For dinner that night, I had a fish that was the size of my face and that tasted a lot better than I imagine my face would taste. Then we had bajaji races back home. For those of you that don't know, bajaji are those funny, three-wheeled vehicles that my brain always associated with India. They are quite possibly my favorite mode of transportation here in Tanzania. The bajaji drivers thought we were crazy, but really got into the competition, even taking "short-cuts" through areas that were definitely not meant for vehicles and flying over speed bumps. After getting home, a few of us decided to go for a nightcap at a near-by bar. While there, we had an extremely entertaining conversation with some schmammered locals. The lady told me I looked like I had come from the "shamba," or farm, and proceeded to button my dress the rest of the way. She then showered me, awkwardly, with "you're beautiful's" and "I love you's" for the rest of the night. Not gonna lie, it was creepy. The next morning, Kathryn, Tony, and I caught a bus out of town. Well after an hour stop to fix the bus we were out of town. Kathryn and I hopped off about halfway to stop for a visit at Leslie's site. We stopped for lunch and then proceeded to get caught in the hardest rainstorm ever. There were literally Tanzanian children swimming down the street. After visiting for a while, Kathryn and I got a liftie, the Tanzanian form of hitchhiking essentially. Guess I can cross that one off the bucket list now. It was pretty uneventful. It was a couple truckers who smelt funny and I called Grease Monkey 1, 2, and 3. We made it home in one piece, Mom, don't flip. That next week I went and picked up my kitten!! I had been told that she was "special," but had no idea what exactly that entailed. It turns out she is a bit physically handicapped. Basically, she has a club-foot. This deformity looks a bit like a flipper and makes her waddle so she has been named Duck. It really doesn't seem to hinder her much; she can still chase lizards and kill cockroaches just fine. We have become fast friends, which if you know me at all, you know my feelings on cats, and this is a shocking revelation. I started teaching the Monday before last, or I should say school opened. The first week, the small percentage of students that showed up spent the week cleaning the school. On Friday, we had a group trip to the school shamba, or farm. I showed up to school, not really knowing what to expect. Well it turns out on these days, the students wear street clothes instead of their uniforms; and instead of backpacks everyone brings their own machete. It was definitely a weird experience talking to a group of your students while they are all armed with 3-foot blades. So we all made the 2-K hike to the school farm and the other teachers lined all the students up and let 'em at it. I really wished I had my video camera. Just imagine 300 students, ages 13 to 18, all swinging their machetes at the same time. At one point a teacher even sent a boy up a tree to chop off some branches that were lying too low. Cause why wouldn't you send a child up a tree with a machete in his hand? This last Monday, January 24th, marked our 4-month anniversary of being in Tanzania. Weird. It doesn't seem like that long, but at the same time feels like forever since getting here. This last weekend, a bunch of volunteers came to my 'ville and stayed Saturday night. We just hung out, reading and playing our favorite game of Bananagrams. A volunteer told us just about one of the funniest stories ever. He said that his villagers love turning his kindle on and off of stand-by. This is because, when you turn a kindle on stand-by, a picture of famous writers, for example Alexander Dumas or Jules Verne, pops up. His villagers love these pictures because they truly believe that these are pictures of his close, personal friends. Well one time, this volunteer's VEO (village executive officer) was playing this fun game and when the picture of Virginia Woolf popped up he exclaimed, "AH! I love you!" So essentially, this village's leader has fallen madly in love with this volunteer's close, personal friend Virginia Woolf. I've even recently become well acquainted with a couple new Newala crazies. One I shall call crazy, hat man. This man followed me around town wearing a 3-gallon jug as a hat and was trying desperately to get me to buy another similar hat. It just really didn't match my outfit to say the least. Another one I call crazy, homeless man. So for a long time, crazy, homeless man lived on the basketball court next to my house at night and during the day spent his time doing moves that would lead you to believe he is an aspiring break dancer. I even had to stop opening my windows when he yelled "NIPE CHAI," "Give me tea," at me through the window. Well for a long time, it appeared that crazy, homeless man had moved his plastic-bag bed to greener pastures. What I didn't realize was that these greener pastures were situated on the porch of the other duplex connected to mine. I realized this when I got a knock on my door at 6:45 in the morning, and not having a peep-hole answered it. I pretty much told him to leave and shut the door in his face and he stood outside yelling "MCHUMBA!" This is Kiswahili for fiancé. So apparently crazy, homeless man believes that we are betrothed. Congrats to me (enter sarcasm here). So that is my life pretty much up till now. Never a dull moment here in the bush. Maybe internet will start working so I can post without 4 hours round trip to the nearest internet cafe. Peace out!

So the inevitable happened. About a week ago, the full wrath of Africa struck and I actually pooped my pants. Awesome. I had been having stomach problems for about a week and I though i was on the mend. I went into to town to run some errands when I got a peculiar feeling in my stomach and knew immediately I needed to high-tail it home. Well on the way home, I was stopped by a man wanting to strike up a untimely casual conversation. I made that conversation as short as possible and then half sprinted, half hopped home. I successfully made it all the way to my front door and was fumbling with the key when my stomach made the executive decision that it could no longer wait. These stomach issues continued for about another half a week when finally we reached the day before I was supposed to travel to Christmas in Ndanda. Katherine came and spent the night before we traveled the next morning so I stopped my issues dead in their tracks by loading up on Immodium. On Christmas Eve, most of the volunteers in the "deep south" met in Ndanda at a volunteer’s house. We rolled into town, had lunch, went swimming, ate dinner, and decorated our tiny Christmas tree that a volunteer's mom had shipped her. Then next morning, Kathryn and I got up early and made biscuits and gravy for everyone. It wasn't my mom's coffee cake, but it was pretty good all the same. After that, we had a Dirty Santa Christmas exchange. We each brought the most ridiculous present we could find. I ended up locating a belt that said Bruce Lee on it and was even adorned with a holographic picture of him on the belt buckle. For dinner, we made fajitas and tortillas. It was pretty delicious. I got maybe the best Christmas present ever and got to skype with some of my family and then talk to the rest on the phone. While I was skyping, I was even joined my 2 Tanzanian kiddos wanting to observe the "magic" of video chatting with a bunch of American whities. We finished off Christmas day with a lively game of spotlight (because the power went out) charades. The next morning, we got up and caught a bus to travel to Lindi region. We had plans to visit some Arab ruins on the coast. The others had an energetic bartering session with the boat people; I proved very helpful during the whole process and slept against a tree. The ruins were cool, but my favorite part of the trip was possibly this incredibly nice hotel we found. No way could be afford it, but that didn't stop us from drinking some beers on their white sand beach and swimming in the Indian Ocean. After our trip, Ghee, Kathryn, and I headed on home. They both joined me in Newala. We just hung out for a couple days and then Leslie, one the other volunteers from our training class joined us on New Years Eve. It was really nice it being just our training class celebrating together. We made chili and broke open the mango wine that I made in a bucket a couple weeks ago. We really welcomed the New Years in with style, bucket wine and dance party to Sheryl Crow. Well if I didn't get to talk to you, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I have a feeling this is going to be one heck of a year!

It really is amazing what you become accustomed to being called when living in Tanzania. If you have ever heard that song by The Ting Tings, "That's not my name," that song summarizes my feelings about living in Tanzania. The Tanzanian people are very fond of calling people everything, but their actual name. So far, this seems to not indicate whether that person knows your name, or they just don't like using it. The following is a short list of names I have been called. 1. Dada- this is Kiswahili for "sister."2. Sister3. Mama4. Auntie5. Mzungu- basically "wonderbread," "whitie," or "cracker" in Kiswahili6. Teacher7. Madame- how Tanzanian students address female teachers 8. Numerous names of other white, female Peace Corps Volunteers because all white people look alike.

In further news, I really thought my body was rejecting Africa for a while. It all started with a rash behind my left knee. That rash looked like harmless heat rash until it spread all up and down my leg, onto my right leg, onto my stomach, and up my back. A few days later, I started running a temperature and had extreme nausea. Then just the other day, I woke up with one eye almost completely swollen shut. I seem to finally be bouncing back though. My rash is slowly clearing up, my stomach issues and temperature lasted only 24 hours, and a popped some allergy pills and my swollen eye slowly went back to normal. Also, I am no longer afraid to stay up after dark because I now have a cat to protect me from the critters of the night. Unfortunately after 3 days, it is very clear to me that our personalities do not exactly mesh. The second night I had the cat, I discovered that he seemed to be suffering from some sort of separation anxiety when I shut him out of my room to sleep. He proceeded to spend the night meowing at my door and chewing up various objects that were left out. Luck for me, I had only left out some Ziploc bags and empty water bottles. This cat also appears to be the most vocal cat in the universe. It has the loudest, alien-sounding meow in the world. Sometimes, I swear words actually come out of that idiotic mouth. This morning, that lovely little feline decided my bed was a good place to take a dump. Needless to say, I am currently looking for a new home for this cat, which is currently the bane of my existence, and am searching the market for a replacement kitten. That has pretty much been my life for the past almost week, just hating this demon-cat. Next week we are all getting together for Christmas so hopefully I will have some better updates.

So as you might assume I safely reached my permanent site. The bus ride down was nothing short of interesting. We did end up staying all night and at around 4:30 we started loading up all of our possessions. We then had to all say our goodbyes to each other, which was about as much fun as getting a tooth pulled. We got to the bus stand at about 5 a.m. As soon as I got off the Peace Corps bus, someone promptly tried to swipe one of my bags, but lucky for me, one of the Peace Corps staff was on top of it. Then, the bus people refused to put our bags under our bus so Katherine and I's bags got put up with all of the passengers and my name written all over the bags for a purpose I do not completely understand. So now, my name is written in permanent marker not only all over my bags, but also Katherine's, including a big "K. Thill" written on her pillowcase. We finally got on the rode and remained on the rode for the next 13'ish hours. This would have been around a 10-hour ride if our lovely bus had not gotten stuck in the mud for 3 hours and pried out by our fellow passengers using big sticks and one shovel. Happy Birthday to me...So far I am really enjoying my site though. I am in a bit of a bigger town than I first thought, but have almost everything I should want locally available. Since I am in one of the bigger towns, I also have had a stream of other volunteers visiting, picking up supplies. I have yet to go a day without seeing another volunteer. Not exactly what I was expecting, but I'll take it. Everyone in my 'ville has been awesome so far. Even the crazies. There is one man, whom I call "Bird-man." I truly believe that this man is half bird because there is no way that a full human can make some of the bird noises he makes. Also, the other day, he tried to catch a mango falling from a tree with his mouth, which proved very entertaining. My site is almost perfect. I can even see Mozambique from my house. There is just one thing. There wildlife has about made me wet myself on several occasions. Now I'm not creeped out by most creatures, but my house guests are a bit much. For one, my house and the surrounding area seems to harbor giant lobster-bugs. These are humungous bugs that look like a cross between a scorpion and a spider and red-colored. Basically they look like a small lobster. I was later told that these were "just tarantulas." Also, I share my home with some very pleasant rats. I woke up to a living nightmare the other night when I heard a rat in my room. I turned on my flashlight, trying to locate the culprit. After a while of looking from the safety of my mosquito net, I finally saw it. It seems that earlier that day I accidentally zipped a rat inside of my duffel bag while cleaning up and it was now attempting to escape. I of course immediately slipped into a state of panic and lay in bed, sweating profusely for about 3 hours before I worked up the nerve to leave my mosquito net. When I finally got up, I ran out, got the broom, used the handle to drag my bag out of my room into the living area, and slam my door, shoving kangas under the crack before jumping back into bed. The next morning, the first thing I did was throw my bag into the middle of the courtyard and leave it there until someone else showed up to deal with it. To deal with this problem, I have adopted a killer cat. His first night in my house was a success. His hit list included 1 rat and 2 lizards.

So today was an extremely successful day...and maybe one of the best days of my existence. This morning, we made the short bus ride to the United States Embassy for our swearing-in ceremony. We all got "pertied" up in our Tanzanian finest and became official Peace Corps Volunteers, or PCV's. There was our honored guest, a member of the ministry of education, and even the U.S. Ambassador himself, Ambassador Lenhardt. We sang a little song and did a little dance, well maybe not a dance but we did have to sing, and then said our oath. After that, they shoved us full of food and patted our heads for a job well done during training. We had a bushel of samosas and meat on a stick, and man was it delicious. After that, we went back to our hostel for free time, a.k.a. try to nap in my room, but really just lay there in a puddle of my own sweat. We piddled around for a couple hours, packing, talking, cutting hair. Yes, I cut more hair today. I think I might have a new profession in my future. After that, we had to get dressed back up and loaded a bus to go to the Ambassador's house for dinner. When we got there, we hung out with his wife Jackie who may or may not be one of the sweetest ladies ever, and talked a bit. Then the food was unveiled. What lay before us literally brought a tear to my eye! Ladies and gentleman, the good Ambassador Lenhardt and his wife managed to wrangle us up an amazing Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of Africa. I ate so much mashed potatoes and stuffing that I was in physical pain and continued the self-torture by serving myself up a plate of pumpkin pie. BEST DAY EVER!! Tomorrow, we have to get up at 3:45 though and head to the bus station so we are thinking we might not even bother going to bed and soak up the last bits of togetherness before we get separated. Despite the awful waking hours, I am extremely excited about tomorrow and to finally get to my home for the next 2 years!!

Sorry its been like ten thousand years since I've posted. Things are still great. So since last time we found out our sites. I will be moving to Mtwara and teaching at Newala Day Secondary School. Mtwara is in the far south of Tanzania, on the Mozambique border and along the coast. I am supper excited about my site! I have a 2 bedroom house, pretty much already furnished, with a courtyard. There is a passion fruit vine, mango tree, and papaya tree in my courtyard. And the best part? ELECTRICITY!! Yes friends. I will be living on the coast, able to see Mozambique pretty much, with a plethra of fruit and electricity, so basically in the lap of luxury. Anyone want to visit?

In other news, I am done with training! The week before last week, we went to shadow current volunteers. I got sent to Singida. I was told that Singida was the desert of Tanzania and was dreading it. It turns our Singida is absolutely beautiful. It is dry, basically sand, but the sky is huge because the land is so flat. Our adventure began with the always exciting Tanzanian bus system. To start, the but was almost an hour late. When we were getting on, we basically sat wherever our bag was thrown by the conductor. I sat in between Doug and a gangly, rather pungent Tanzanian man. Most of the ride, the bus was flying. To avoid hurling all over the extremely crowded, swerving death-trap of a bus, I tried to stay passed out the entire ride. I was so unaware of my surroundings most of the time, I had no idea, until told by Doug later, that apparently my stinky friend next to me monopolized on my current state and used me as a pillow. After a whole 8 hours on awful roads, and at one point no road at all, we reached Singida Town. After getting to town, we met up with some PCV's. They had gotten hotel rooms and we went and dropped our stuff and went to the next door bar for drinks and dinner. They are all well acquainted with the owner who just loves "wazungu," or whities. He made us maybe the best meal I've had since arriving in country. The next day, we hung out in town, grabbing breakfast going to the internet cafe and later on lunch. After all this, it was time to catch our bus to her village. The ride was ridiculously bouncy. Imagine riding a charter bus across a field. Consequently, I spend the ride ready to stick my head out the window to hurl. I was in a better boat than my fellow volunteer though who was having stomach issues and about to poop his pants the entire ride. Apparently, this is not an extremely uncommon issue in Peace Corps. Our host said she had pooped her pant four times in the last 30 days due to a gnarly stomach issue. We finally reached her village and walked to her house. For the next 2 and a half days, Colin and I pretty much did nothing but work on a puzzle and occasionally help cook. It felt pretty awesome to just do nothing. While we were at Amy's house, we celebrated her birthday, making banana pancakes, omelets, and mango. Uma, Jordan, Doug, and their host Carol walked from their village, bringing chocolate cake. After vegging out, we spent the day laying on the concrete talking/reading/playing cards/puzzling. It was pretty wonderful. That night, Amy, Colin , and I went into the village to visit and eat dinner. We hung out chatting with her village, drinking what was meant to be homemade mango wine. After what seemed to be too much yeast, too little sugar, and too little mango, you get pretty much mango vodka'ish jazz. There are really no words to describe. The next day, we hiked 2 hours to Carol's village to spend the night with Jordan, Uma, and Doug. We played games and drug mattresses out on the front porch and slugged around all day. The next day, we again had bus adventures. So buses might bery well be the most interesting/scary part about my Tanzanian experience. We took a bus from Carol's village to Singida Town. We get smooshed on, fighting for our seat and breath in an often exhaust filled bus. This particular bus ride, I literally saw a man shove two live chickens into the overhead bin. Apparently the chickens just shut their eyes when the bus starts moving. Maybe we share the quality of getting motion sick and they just close their eyes to avoid tossing their little poutlry cookies. When we reached Singida Town bus stop, we then had to fight off the hourds of people selling mangos, water, baskets, and plastic crap. These vendors are all over the new buses rolling into the station like stink on poo trying to sell their goods. After a bit of confusion, we figured out that our bus did not leave till 1:30. It was currently about 8:30. We then went into town to waste time, avoiding the usual children screaming "give me money mzungu." After wasting time in town, we went to the bus stop and our bus was actually there. the bus ride seemed off to a great start: a normal amount of people, no animals, and actually leaving on time. Well then, we stopped 10 other times before leaving town and crammed as many people on as I though possible. Well I was wrong. The bus then stopped on the highway the entire way to Manyoni, cramming more people on. At one point, I had about 4 people half-sitting on me. Another time, some lady literally sat her baby on my shoulder. I am thankful I wasn't in one of the other volunteer's seat where he had to stay our of pecking reach of the chicken held right at his eye level. After a day in Manyoni, we headed home. It was then that I saw yet another sight that was extremely unusual. I saw a petroleum tanker with a live goat tied on top. Strange.

This last week, we had to go to CCT everyday. We had numerous tests, over teaching technique, security, etc. Thursday, we learned to make a permagarden. I really enjoyed this from about 8 to 3, but after that lost all concentration. I was entertained by playing with a machete for most of the day though. We would take pieces of banana tree and throw them at each other, trying to slice them out of the air. Basically it was like that Wii game, but real life. Friday, I had my final language test, which went awful. Friday night, we had our family good-bye party. My family gave me a dress. I am so ready to move on to my site, but will miss my host family so much. Tomorrow, on Sunday, we head back to Dar es Salaam where we will stay until we are sworn in at the embassy on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, I move to MTWARA!!

So yesterday, I got up bright and early and went to church with my host brother Felix and Mama Happyness. The music was greta, but I understood absolutely nothing. There was the long sleep-filled sermon and then the entire congregation got up to give a donation. After that they auctioned off kitangas (Tanzanian cloth) and a pair of shoes to raise money for building the church. Right now, the church is basically just a cinderblock building with wooden benches. Pretty much, the auction was like half-time entertainment. I was actually pleasantly suprised when chuch only lasted an hour and 40 mintues considering my friend Doug's experience a couple weeks ago when church lasted 7 hours. After church, Doug came over and ate breakfast with my family. After we finished breakfast, we went to Veronica's and sat in the shade while she finished her laundry. Then, we picked up our friend Eric and went to the local market. Going to the market is definitely my favorite way to practice my Kiswahili. You just feel so good about your skills because everyone is so excited that the whitie can speak Swahili at all. I even ran into some of my students from my school and talked to them for a bit. We then went back to Veronica's and Eric, Veronica, and I cooked lunch. We made guacamole, chips, sauteed potatoes, and an omelet. The chips we made were from plantains. We sliced them and fried them in oil and they were pretty much the greatest thing ever. The potatoes we sauteed with pepper, salt, and fresh ground cumin. In the omelet we put onions, pili pili hoho (bell pepper), to tomato, and spinach. Over everything, we poured pili pili sauce (just hot pepper sauce) that Veronica's host sister made. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the way everything came out. The most entertaining part of the day happened right before we cooked the omelet. We washed a bowl and put it on the jiko (charcoal stove) to let the water sizzle off. Well, there must have been grease or something on the bowl because all of a sudden, the entire pot went up in flames. Veronica pulled it off the jiko and I was doubled over laughing. The flames were huge, like almost as high as our heads at points. She kicked to bowl and it skidded across the floor, coming to rest beside a wooden table with a tablecloth hanging off. I grabbed the bowl and put it away from anything flammable. We were looking for baking soda when Eric decided that flour would work-WRONG. That just made the flames even bigger. We then just decided to ignore the "don't use water to put out a grease fire" rule and problem solved. The pot was pretty charred, but still usable and thankfully, Veronica's host sister had run to the store so we still had our pride. By the time we ate and cleaned up, the process had taken 7 hours. It had been a long day so Vero and I went to the bar with our friend Colin. There, over beers, we had a long discussion about how Physics is far superior to Chemistry. Essentially, they believe that Chemistry is the bastard child of Physics. Overall, a good, but exhausting day.

So someone told me that I haven't written often enough so I'll really try and pick it up. Sorry for my shortcomings. Things are still great. Life has really become routine. Up at 6:15, school from 7:30 to 5:00, cook dinner, eat, bed. Because of this really exciting pattern, it’s always really exciting when I get to do something different. The Thursday before last was a national holiday for the first Tanzanian president. Because everyone else had a free day, we went to CCT and played sports. Physical activity is good. My daily exercise has basically only consisted of walking to class and home every day. The Saturday before last, we joined groups with another Kihonda group and went to the market and cooked. It was so much fun to put our market-talk practice into action and I was able to score us some nicely priced cucumbers. We were out in the backyard of a friend's house for hours, learning to cook traditional Tanzanian dishes. We cooked beans, ugali (similar to tasteless mashed potatoes made from flour), pilau (rice made with spices like cinnamon, potatoes, peas, carrots, etc.), and a few other dishes. We then ate ourselves silly and then did dishes in the yard, which seems extremely counter-productive. Sunday, we got up early and climbed the mountain here in Morogoro. We met up with our guides, which you have to have or else you'll get robbed (story of my life here, basically if you are white you run a high risk of getting mugged everywhere you go). The mountain was awesome though. So beautiful. The mountainside is a covered with forested areas, farms, banana tree groves, and small villages. We hiked for a few hours and reached an old building that used to be a resort when the Germans controlled much of Tanzania. The building was beautiful, covered in flowering vines with awesome architecture and overlooking a cliff. We rested there for a while and then took off for a few more hours. When hiking, we passed through the type of villages I thought I would be living in when I used to think about coming to Africa. The houses were made of basically sticks and mud and the people spoke tribal languages. We finally reached a waterfall, rested for a while, and then headed back down the mountain. Overall, we were gone about 9 hours. I was so extremely tired, but so glad I did it. The 2 straight days of being outside took its toll though and I do believe that I got the worst sunburn I had ever gotten in my life. Having no lotion or aloe vera to relieve it, I had to take Advil in order to sleep. After the hike, we all headed home, but found out the next day that one of our fellow trainees got hit by a motorbike on her way home. She was walking, about to turn off the road, when she got hit from behind. She had on a backpack with a metal water bottle in it. The bottle is crushed pretty good, but absorbed a lot of the blow to her back. She is pretty bruised up and ended up with tissue damage to her legs. She is using crutches and got about 13 stitches in one leg and 3 in the other. From the looks of the stitch job though, there should have been about twice that in each leg. This last Tuesday I started teaching and my first lessons went awful. It turns out they were not where I was told they would be so all my planning went out the window. One of the classes also said that I looked like a baby, meaning I looked young. One kid even guessed I was 15-years-old...awesome. Last Wednesday, we had the written portion of our language mid-term. We had nothing to do after that so we played Pictionairy for hours. Our tactics got pretty ugly and nobody guessed a clue for about an hour. This was due to the fact we were giving each other clues like "Edward's Syndrome" and "Giarrdia." We left early that day though and took a daladala ride downtown. We all had some much needed banking and post office errands that needed taking care of. We then had time so we went to the market, visited my host mom's tailoring shop, and bought a birthday present for our friend. We then headed back to Kihonda to meet our friend, Veronica, for her birthday. We had a couple beers and then went to her house or a birthday dinner. Her host mom prepared both a "traditional cake" and a modern cake. The modern cake was just a regular cake. We sang, she cut the cake, and then Veronica had to feed everyone a bite in the order of importance to her. I was awesomely awkward. Then, her host mom unveiled the traditional "cake." This turned out to be a whole, raw chicken with a large number of hard-boiled eggs spilling out of its butt. Her mom had prepared a ridiculous amount of food and we ate an uncomfortable amount of food. Thursday, we had the oral part of our language mid-term. It actually went better than expected. I understood everything and was able to answer. I also taught again and it went tons better. We got out of class super early and I never thought I could be so content just lying on my bed, headphones in, staring at the ceiling. When I finished my staring session, I went and played cards for a couple hours. I honestly believe that meeting my friends, playing cards had helping keep my sane. I am becoming a pro at all sorts of new card games. After cards, went home, cooked, and had a Michael Jackson dance session with my host brothers. Friday at CCT, the Peace Corps Headquarters delivered all of our mail. I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for NOT sending me anything. It really made be feel all tingly inside. Just kidding...but really. The last weekend, we went to Mikumi National park, which was one of the coolest trips ever. We saw all sorts of animals: elephants, baboons, zebras, hippos, and giraffes. We were even lucky enough to see some lions feeding. We really lucked out. I took a ridiculous number of pictures so just let me know if you would like any of them. Well "Happy Halloween!!!" Kind of sad that I won't be celebrating it really, but Hamna shida (no worries). I'll try to update sooner next time...Peace out.

Hello all! So far, I haven't been stupendous at updating this thing, but I'm trying. My days are incredibly packed. I have a feeling it will be a lot easier to find the time to update after training is over. Just to quickly catch you up. I have officially moved to Morogoro. When we got here, we stayed at another compound-like place. We were sometimes allowed out of the walls of this prison at times though. While we were here, we were split into CBT's (Community Based Training groups), and our language training began. My group consists of Doug, Uma, William, and Carolyn and our legit language-culture facilitator is Rehema. So we really dove right into language. Since then, our days have pretty much consisted of nothing but language training from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I can honestly say that this method seems to be working. I think I can officially speak Swahili better than Spanish, a language I studied for years, but with no real dedication. I am loving having Rehema as a teacher. She speaks mostly in Swahili and really has a calming presence. This really became apparent when we had a sub one day when she was sick. Our sub was great, but something about her teaching style turned me into a spaz. I literally had a panic attack in class...awesome. Needless to say, I was grateful when we got Rehema back. During these days, we also had sessions about moving in with our host families. They gave us the do's and dont's of living with a host family. Some of them were pretty obvious, others were good tips, such as don't smell your food. The entire time, they would get us worked up and stressed about moving in with our families only for the homestay coordinator, Jumapili, to tell us to "don't shit the bricks." So the Sunday before last, we moved in with our host families. That may have been one of the most awkward experiences of my life. Basically, they load you onto a bus with all of your bags, knock on your family's gate, and leave you there with a Swahili-speaking family and a pile of bags. So here is a run-down of the family. My mama's name is Happyness and she is a taylor, or fundi, for a living. She is married to my baba, Emmanuel. He works for World Vision and is gone to Dodoma during the week. My oldest kaka or brother's name is Felix, who is 16. He speaks excellent English, which has been wonderful! My next oldest kaka's name is Alex. Alex is 14 and also speaks very good English. I also have a dada, or sister, named Glory who is 8 and absolutely adorable. When I first got here, she just wanted to follow me around and hold my hand. We have a house girl who we call Dada named Sarah and a bibi, or grandma, who speaks not a drop of English and frankly frightens me a bit, for no good reason. The family has 3 dogs: Jet, Kok Kok, and Jim. And a week after moving in I found out we also have a cat, which really doesn't have a name, but people kind of call him Neow. The food is amazing which I was really not expecting. They have ways of using bananas that I could not even imagine. There is also a lot of rice and beans, which honestly I am all about. When I get home from school everyday, I help cook dinner and do homework. By 9 o'clock, I am all pooped out and only want to go to bed. I am actually breaking my strict 9:30 bedtime to write this and save to my hard drive so I can possibly post tomorrow at the Internet cafe (yea for sticky key boards and uber slow internet). This last weekend marked my one-week anniversary of moving in with my host family. I celebrated by learning to perform household chores. I learned to sweep and mop (because I would have never figured that one out), light a kerosene lamp, and do my laundry in a bucket. It took me about 2 hours to wash 3 skirts, 5 shirts, and 2 bras. The result of all the hard work was clean clothes to wear, but also no skin on the knuckles of my left hand. If I return home with only a nub for a left hand, you know why. Also this Sunday, I rode the dala dala by myself for the first time ever! For those of you that don't know, dala dalas are the buses around these parts. Basically, they are the equivalent of a church van and seem to have all been imported from Asian counties (judging from the Chinese symbols on the sides). The manufacturers seemed to design these vans having in mind that they would hold about 18 passengers max. Once I was riding on one, and decided to count how many people were on the bus; I lost count at 30. Every time you stop, you are thinking "there is no freaking way that we are going to get more people on this bus!" then 7 more people cram on. People are crammed in, sat on, hanging from the ceiling and leaning out windows. It is honestly hilarious mayhem. So needless to say, my first successful solo dala dala ride made me feel incredibly accomplished. Well I'm exhausted...way past my bedtime. I'll try not to wait so long to write next time.

Tutaonana baadaye!! (See ya later!)

Habarini! So I finally made it! After so long it is still amazing to me that I am actually here. I haven't been able to blog much with all the traveling and lack of internet so let's just start from the beginning. I flew out of Tulsa airport on Sept. 21st and flew to Philadelphia via Chicago. Chicago was not the best experience. When I got there, I had to drag my carry-on and "personal item" all the way across the airport without the assistance of maybe my favorite invention, the moving sidewalk. When I finally arrive, I am sliding my bag off my now separated shoulder when they come over the intercom and announce that the departure gate has moved. So I loaded back up and hauled my pack mule self all the way across the terminal to the new gate. I finally take a seat and they tell us that the gate has moved again. Other than that, my trip was pretty uneventful except for a terrifying trip on a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Staging began on Sept. 22nd, but not until around noon, so I decided to tour the great city of Philly. I went on a tour of Independence Hall, Betsy Ross's house, saw Ben Franklin's grave, and the Liberty Bell. Then I headed back to the hotel for the unknown. My roommate, Eula, and I headed to the lobby to wait for staging to begin. We handed in all our forms and other really fun stuff. Meeting everyone went very smoothly. Everyone was really great and got along well. For our last supper, a group of us headed to China Town to have supper. I have the adventurous choice of Ox Tail's Soup; maybe the wrong choice for a last dinner. We then went on a quest for a final ice cream to discover that the store was closed. We opted for beer instead. The next morning, we checked out and hopped on a bus to JFK in NYC, and to make a long story short took a plane to Dar es Salaam, with stops in Zurich and Nairobi. When we made it to Dar es Salaam, we hopped on a daladala (a bus) and drove to hostel we are staying at. Our days now are filled with endless seminars trying to teach us how to not get robbed, go to the bathroom, and other knowledge we are expected to absorb. One of the best talks was about the "wiggly finger." Apparently if a female shakes a man's hand and he wiggles his finger against her hand, this does not equal good things. Basically, he is propositioning you and you must immediately put an end to this awkward situation. We have also gotten so many shots that we have trouble raising our arms and had to stop playing frisbee because it simply caused too much pain. We are also trying desperately to pick up the language. We even wrote a different vocab word on each card of a playing deck and played drinking games with them. If you knew the word you saved yourself from drinking. The Security guy from the U.S. Embassy also scared the bejeezus out of us about staying safe in Tanzania. For my mother's sake I will not touch on these too much. If you are really that interested just email me. I only have one word for the food: interesting. We have the same foods for every meal, ranging from chicken gizzard and liver to hot dogs. I am saving the best story for last though. The other day, I was playing soccer with a two kids, probably around 3 and 5. After a while of playing, the 3-year-old and I started playing chase. It was hilarious because it made him laugh really hard and it was possibly the cutest laugh ever. Well this was all good and well until I finally made him laugh so hard that he wet himself, which was really actually funny until he ran up to me and hugged my leg. Whelp, no re-wearing those pants. And just so you know, I counted and I have more than 30 mosquito from my knees down.

So today was the big day that we have all been looking forward to/dreading for so long. I left. My entire family took off of work and school to see me off at the airport. Saying goodbye to them may have been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. If you know me at all you know that I do not cry. Well that changed today...I cried all the way through security, all the way to the gate, and until be took off. Then I passed out. What made it even worse was that it was the smallest plane EVER! I was the only chair in my row and then there were only 2 chairs across the aisle from me, my knees touched the back of the chair in front on me, and the flight attendant brushed me every time she walked past. In other words, the entire plane could see me blubber.

So after finishing up my sob-fest, I woke up when we were landing in Chicago. I get off the plane and hike what felt like 7 miles with bags that felt like they were about 50 pounds. It was great. I finally made it to my gate, VICTORY. Just as a find a chair to sit down, they come over the loud speaker and say that there has been a change of gates. I then have to drag myself all the way down to the opposite end of the terminal. When I get there, I sit and and realize the plane is delayed, so I decide to pull out my computer and watch Modern Family Season 1 (which I just got for the plane!!). During this process, they switch the gate again. All in all Chicago is not my favorite.

I finally get into Philadelphia, collect my bags, and in the process meet some people in my group. We then venture onto the death trap they call a shuttle and make it to the hotel. My friend from college, Elizabeth, was waiting there when I rolled in! It was suck a relief to see her friendly face and go have dinner with her. All in all its been an eventful day and I am completely worn out. I have no idea what to expect tomorrow, but think I am ready for whatever comes.

So packing 2 years worth of stuff into 2 checked bags and 1 carry-on has proved difficult. Combined, the dimensions of my checked luggage cannot exceed 107"or more than 80 pounds. I have combed over numerous blogs with packing lists from previous PC volunteers hoping to pick up tips on what to take and what not to take. Although this proved to be tremendously helpful, this was still probably the most frustrated experience ever, considering I hate packing under normal circumstances. What all I have packed is as follows:

What I need to fit into my bags

Clothing3 skirts (mid-calf length)3 pairs light-weight pants3 nice shirts (to teach in)1 pair nice shoes (to teach in)Jogging pants (not tight)1 Modest swimsuit1 pair jeans1 Hoodie/jacket, for cold seasonRain Jacket1 pair sturdy sandals (reefs)1 pair chacos3 Regular bras4 Sports Bras25 pairs underwear2 Slips1 Pair leggings (to wear under kangas)

ElectronicsCamera gear2 head lampsCalculatorTravel clockTravel speakers for ipodIpod (with otterbox case)Solio solar charger with adapter tipsFlip camcorderKindle (with preloaded books)External Hard driveRechargeable batteries and charger

Kitchen and House SuppliesCutting board3 paring knifes (giving one as present to host mom)Measuring cupsMeasuring spoonsSpicesLeatherman knifeToiletries (solid shampoo, razors, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, facewash)Small sewing kitDramadine (I get car sick)Hair-cutting scissors2 pairs glassesSunglasses3 months worth of prescriptions2 Pack towels

Other SuppliesCamping GearSoccer Ball (deflated)Small Water filter for hikingLarge USA wall mapLarge World wall mapBannanagramsDeck of cards/UnoTravel Apples to Apples gameBible3 Moleskin journalsBinocularsPocket DictionaryKnitting needlesPassport and money beltNational Audobon Society Field Guide to African WildlifeTravel Map for TanzaniaGuide for Birds of East AfricaLonely Planet guide for TanzaniaSwahili translation dictionaryHammockPicture Album, with pictures from homeCommand sticky hooks (for my house)Office supplies (stapler, tape, scissors, pens, pencils)Peace corps paperworkCopies of passport, credit card, etc. (also left a copy with my Mom)Extra passport photos

Gifts for Host FamilyHard Candy for childrenPost CardsCalendarParing knife for Host mom

After Packing

As my departure date gets closer, the reality that I am going to be gone for two years is really setting in. I feel like I am about to jump out of a plane and just hope my parachute opens. I know very little about what to expect which makes me even more anxious about this process. I am starting to realize how much I will go without over the next 27 months and thought I would share some of those with you (mainly because I am bored and just sitting thinking these depressing thoughts):

1. My family 14. The cooking channel

2. My friends 15. Visiting Freedom, OK

3. My pets 16. My Pledge Class

4. Text messaging 17. Chick-fil-a

5. Frozen yogurt 18. Oklahoma State University Homecoming!!

6. Movies 19. Electricity

7. Barnes and Noble 20. Running water

8. Internet Shopping 21. "Date nights" with my little brother

9. Tailgating 22. The lake

10. College Football 23. Thanksgiving

11. Astro's Baseball 24. Pina Colada night with my sisters

12. Driving

13. Murphy's hot hamburger (if you haven't been there you need to visit Bartlesville, OK and discover the awesomeness)

These are just a few that I've been thinking about, but what I need to remind myself is how many new things I will have the opportunity to experience and the lives I will touch. When I think about the difference I can make it makes it a little easier to say goodbye to these things for that time.

So I've been working on buying everything to live overseas for 2 years (don't worry, there's a final packing list coming soon.) This weekend, the solar charger I ordered arrived. Before anyone realized that it had been delivered, our black lab and husky mix found and, tore open the package, and drug all the parts all over our front field. In the description of their product, Solio brags about the durability of their products. This was definitely proven. My very sweet little brother hopped on the four wheeler and hunted down every tiny piece over an area of a couple acres. After putting the charger in the sun for a couple hours to charge up, it miraculously worked! So for anyone needing a solar charger, check out Solio products! They are even dog-proof!

Today though, I got my final email from the Peace Corps sending me last minute papers and travel arrangement information. The email told me that my staging dates have been pushed back to September 22. After calling the travel people, it turns out that there are not any flights that can get me in before meetings start on the 22nd so I'm actually flying in on the 21st. This should work out great though! My friend Elizabeth is actually moving to Philadelphia soon so I will hopefully get to see her and hang out before I ship out! I can't believe I am leaving so soon, but am getting so excited!!

Maisha merefu! Afya! Vifijo!

(Good Health)

Katie

After 16 months of waiting, I finally found out my home for the next 27 months. TANZANIA!! I could not be happier about my assignment. I will be a Secondary Education Biology teacher in Tanzania, Africa. I could not believe it when I received my invite from the Peace Corps and didn't even tell anybody for about the first hour or so that I had it. It was so unbelievable that I had that blue envelope in my hand after waiting for so long. The timeline of my application process is below.

Applied April 2009--->Interview/Nomination Aug. 26, 2009--->Send in Medical Review Jan. 2010---->Dental approval Feb. 2010--->Medical Approval April or May 2010--->Receive PC Invite Aug. 11, 2010

This process is in no way easy. The entire time you are unsure of what is going on and feel completely helpless. I think this has maybe given me an idea of what I might feel like over the next 27 months. But finally, I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer. After I received my Invite, I had to read over all the information they sent me, telling me all about my country assignment and job. I then had to contact the Peace Corps office to officially accept my invitation. You actually have 10 days, but after 16 months of waiting I was sure I wanted to accept within 16 seconds of opening that packet. Then the never ending paperwork began. My immediate attention was on getting my new government passport and visa. I got to deal with a very confused, not so nice lady at the post office, but finally got all my passport paper work approved. Then I got walked through the Visa application by a laughing Tanzanian on the phone who found my questions extremely entertaining. At least I brought a little humor to some one's life.

The name of this blog, "Tumaini" means "hope" in Kiswahili (which is the language I will be learning!). I feel that will be my theme for this journey. I want to bring hope to the Tanzanians I work with and my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, and also try to remain hopeful throughout my journey no matter the obstacles I encounter. Wish me luck on this!!

I should be getting more information in a couple weeks letting me know my address in Tanzania. I will definitely put that up as soon as I get it! Also, feel free to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or email me!!

Maisha merefu! Afya! Vifijo!(Good Health!)

Katie