Peace Corps Journals

TANZANIAN BRACKETOLOGY 101

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

2012-06-02 10:29:00

WELL IT'S BEEN QUITE SOME TIME SINCE I'VE BEEN ABLE TO UPDATE THIS BLOG OF MINE, BUT LET ME BLAME THAT ON A COMBINATION OF INSUFFICIENT INTERNET OPPORTUNITIES AND MY OWN LAZINESS AS OPPOSED TO A LACK OF INTERESTING, HILARIOUS, CONFUSING, ANNOYING, MISERABLE, SATISFYING AND EUPHORIC EXPERIENCES SINCE MY LAST INSTALLMENT. RATHER THAN PAINSTAKINGLY RECOUNTING ALL THIS IN NARRATIVE FORM, I'VE CHOSEN TO USE THE OFTEN-PREFERRED (AT LEAST BY ME) BRACKET METHOD. HERE ARE THE CONTENDERS:

NJOMBE JAM / BEST BASKETBALL GAME EVER. CUE THE EUPHORIC EXPERIENCE REFERRED TO ABOVE. SO NJOMBE JAM WAS BASICALLY A BIG GATHERING OF PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS OVER EASTER WEEKEND, AT THE END OF THE MIDTERM BREAK WEEK. WE TEAMED UP BASED ON OUR HOME REGIONS IN TANZANIA AND DID DIFFERENT EVENTS, KIND OF LIKE AN OLYMPICS. ANYWAYS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE WHOLE THING WAS A 3-ON-3 BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT (ON A COURT THAT WAS SLIGHTLY PREFERABLE TO THE SURFACE OF THE MOON). WE WERE DOWN 6-2 IN A GAME TO 7 POINTS IN THE FINAL AND CAME BACK TO WIN IN OVERTIME, 10-8. UNFORTUNATELY THE SPORTSCENTER CREW WE HIRED COULDN'T MAKE IT IN TIME TO DOCUMENT THE AMAZING COMEBACK, SO YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME THAT IT WAS AS EXCITING AS I'VE MADE IT SOUND...

LAKE MALAWI HIKE #1 - MIKONDE. CUE THE AFOREMENTIONED MISERY. MYSELF AND TWO OTHERS DID THIS HIKE FROM NEAR NJOMBE TO LAKE MALAWI OVER THE MIDTERM BREAK. THE HIKE, WHICH APPARENTLY USUALLY TAKES 7 HOURS OR SO, TOOK US CLOSER TO 13 IN ONE DAY. IT RAINED PRETTY MUCH NON-STOP FOR OUR TRIP, WHICH BASICALLY MADE IT THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SLIP-AND-SLIDE GOING DOWN THE FACE OF A MOUNTAIN. IF IT HAD BEEN CLEARER, WE WOULD HAVE HAD AN AMAZING VIEW THOUGH, AS YOU REACH THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN BEFORE GOING DOWN THE OTHER SIDE, YOU CAN SEE CLEAR ACROSS THE LAKE TO THE MALAWI SIDE. THEN IT'S SOMETHING LIKE A 4,000 METER DROP STRAIGHT DOWN TO THE LAKE. DEFINITELY THE TOUGHEST HIKE I'VE EVER DONE. IT WAS REALLY NICE, ASIDE FROM THE RAIN.

MATHLETES LEAGUE. IN AN ATTEMPT TO FURTHER PROMOTE MATH PRACTICE AMONG MY STUDENTS, WHILE SATISFYING MY OWN LOVE FOR KEEPING STATS ON THINGS, I STARTED A COMPETITVE "MATHLETES" LEAGUE AT MY SCHOOL. I QUICKLY LEARNED THAT MANY OF THEM ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE WORD ATHLETE, LET ALONE ABLE TO SEE THE HUMOR IN THE PUN, AND I CAN SAY FROM EXPERIENCE THAT ME TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT GOES A SHORT WAY IN GETTING US ALL ON THE SAME PAGE. FORTUNATELY DESCRIBING IT AS A SOCCER LEAGUE BUT FOR MATH WAS GOOD ENOUGH. I SPLIT THEM INTO BALANCED TEAMS BASED ON THEIR PAST TESTS AND MADE MY BEST STUDENTS CAPTAINS, HOPING THAT IT WILL HELP THEM DEVELOP LEADERSHIP SKILLS TOO. THEY TAKE WEEKLY QUIZZES AND I USE THE TEAM AVERAGES TO GIVE THEM WINS AND LOSSES. NOW TO FIND A WAY TO KEEP THEM FROM COPYING OFF OF EACH OTHER....

WORKER'S DAY (AKA TANZANIAN LABOR DAY). FOR THE HOLIDAY MOST OF THE SCHOOL STAFF WENT TO A BIG WORKERS GATHERING PARTY IN A NEARBY VILLAGE. THE CLOSEST VOLUNTEER TO ME, WHO TEACHES AT ANOTHER SCHOOL THERE, ALSO CAME, SO IT WAS NICE TO HAVE ANOTHER AMERICAN TO SHARE IN THE HUMOR OF EVERYTHING THAT WENT ON. AFTER PILING 16 PEOPLE INTO THE SCHOOL PICK-UP TRUCK, WE ARRIVED FASHIONABLY, TANZANIAN-LY LATE, WHICH IS ANYWHERE FROM 1-3 HOURS AFTER THE STATED ARRIVAL TIME, WHICH WAS FINE, GIVEN THE ACTUAL STARTING TIME OF ANYWHERE FROM 4-6 HOURS AFTER THE STATED ARRIVAL TIME. WHEN WE FINALLY GATHERED TOGETHER, THEY WERE DOING A KIND OF "WORKERS VS VILLAGERS" COMPETITION THAT I CAN ONLY LIKEN TO SOMETHING BETWEEN THE TV SHOWS NICKELODEON GUTS AND MXC. COMPETITIONS WERE IN SOCCER, OF COURSE, BUT ALSO SHOTPUT AND JAVELIN THROWING (QUESTION MARK). I DIDNT KNOW THOSE THINGS EVEN EXISTED HERE, THOUGH THEY MAY IN FACT NOT, JUDGING BY THE WAY THEY ALL THREW THE SHOTPUT LIKE AN 8-POUND BASEBALL. I WATCHED THROUGH CRINGES OF WAITING FOR THE FIRST ONE TO THROW THEIR ARM OUT. THE INTERMISSION WAS BY FAR THE MOST ENTERTAINING THOUGH, AS WE ALL GATHERED AROUND AND FORMED A BIG CIRCLE, INSIDE OF WHICH WERE 4 TANZANIAN WOMEN AND A MAN WITH A WHISTLE HOLDING A LIVE CHICKEN. MY HOPEFUL ASSUMPTIONS WERE CONFIRMED WHEN HE LET THE CHICKEN GO AND WHISTLED THE START OF THE CHASE FOR THE MAMA'S. IT TURNS OUT THAT EVEN FOR LARGE, MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO MAKE TANZANIANS MOVE QUICKLY IS TO PUT A CHICKEN UP FOR GRABS. IN MY HEAD OF COURSE I WAS PLAYING THE BENNY HILL THEME MUSIC AS I WATCHED THE CHICKEN DODGE, DUCK, DIP, DIVE, AND DODGE PAST THE LITERALLY DIVING MAMA'S UNTIL HE WAS FINALLY TACKLED. AS I LOOKED AROUND, I SAW THAT ALL THE OTHER TANZANIANS WERE LAUGHING ALONG WITH ME, BUT I COULDN'T HELP BUT THINK THAT IT WAS SOMEHOW FOR DIFFERNT REASONS.

LAKE MALAWI HIKE #2 - MBAMBA BAY. A DIFFERENT ROUTE TO A MORE SOUTHERN PART OF LAKE MALAWI, THIS HIKE WAS DONE AFTER THE RAINY SEASON HAD ENDED, WHICH THEREFORE MADE IT INFINITELY MORE ENJOYABLE THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE. IT TOOK ABOUT 6 HRS TO REACH THE LAKE, THROUGH MODERATE UP-AND-DOWNHILLS, AND WE STAYED AT A RELATIVELY NEW GERMAN-OWNED CAMP ON THE BEACH. THE PLACE WAS HEAVENLY, WITH SHELTERED TENTS SET UP TO SLEEP IN, AND PRETTY MUCH OUR OWN PRIVATE PAVILION SINCE WE WERE REALLY THE ONLY ONES THERE FOR THE WEEKEND. THEY MADE US AMAZING FRESHLY CAUGHT FISH FROM THE LAKE, AND BONFIRES ON THE BEACH BOTH NIGHTS. PERFECT WEATHER, AND WE DIDN'T EVEN RUN INTO ANY OF THOSE PESKY CROCADILES WE'D BEEN HEARING SO MUCH ABOUT. THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THIS TRIP WAS THAT IT ONLY LASTED FOR A WEEKEND.

UP, UP MATH DAY. AN IDEA THAT WAS ACTUALLY BROUGHT UP BY ANOTHER MATH TEACHER AT MY SCHOOL, WE GOT ALL OF THE STUDENTS FROM THE WHOLE SCHOOL TOGETHER ONE SATURDAY TO PROMOTE / DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING MATH, SINCE THE VAST MAJORITY OF STUDENTS QUICKLY DISMISS IT AS BEING TOO DIFFICULT, OR SIMPLY THE "NATIONAL DISEASE" AS IT IS OFTEN DUBBED. I HAD A PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITY PLANNED AND WANTED TO TALK ABOUT WAYS THAT THEY USE MATH IN THEIR EVERYDAY LIVES AND IN OTHER SUBJECTS. AND A FEW STUDENTS WHO ARE REALLY INTO DRAMA DID A FEW MATH-RELATED SKITS WHICH EVERYONE REALLY ENJOYED. THE DOWNFALL, I LEARNED, WAS IN GIVING TANZANIANS FREE REIGN TO SPEAK FOR AS LONG AS THEY DESIRED, WHICH MORE OFTEN THAN NOT IS A REALLY REALLY LONG TIME. WE HAD ANOTHER TEACHER'S BROTHER, WHO IS GOING ON TO STUDY AT UNIVERSITY, TALK AS A GUEST SPEAKER, WHICH WAS REALLY NICE, AND A FEW OTHER TEACHERS WHO USED THEIR OPPORTUNITY TO COUNSEL THE STUDENTS ON WHAT I CAN ONLY ASSUME TO BE THE MEANING OF LIFE, BECAUSE IT WAS FAR MORE COMPLEX AND LONG-WINDED THAN MY ATTENTION SPAN COULD HANDLE. THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR THE STUDENTS APPARENTLY BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL FALLING ASLEEP IN THEIR CHAIRS. IT WAS STILL A GREAT THING TO DO FOR THE KIDS, BUT I THINK THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN MORE OUT OF IT IF IT WERE MORE INTERACTIVE.

WAGENI (VISITORS). NEWS OF THOSE TO COME, THAT IS. I AM EXTREMELY HAPPY TO HAVE LEARNED THAT OVER MY JUNE AND AUGUST BREAKS, I WILL BE VISITED BY 3 GHOSTS, I MEAN, MY SISTER CHRISTINE AND RAFIKI NICK GIANGRANDE, RESPECTIVELY. CHRISTINE WILL BE HERE FOR HER 4TH OF JULY BIRTHDAY, SO I'M ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE NEAREST BOOM CITY IN TANZANIA TO BUY SOME FIREWORKS. OTHER HIGHLIGHTS SHOULD INCLUDE ZANZIBAR BEACHES, FROLICING WITH LIONS AND GIRAFFES, AND OF COURSE SPENDING AT LEAST HALF OF OUR TIME TRAVELLING ON LONG BUS RIDES. KARIBU ANYONE ELSE WHO CAN COME THIS YEAR OR NEXT!!

AVOCADO SEASON. OH YES, IT HAS ARRIVED. ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS I HAVE BEEN GIFTED BAGFULS OF GIANT, FRESH AVOCADOS AT SCHOOL, AND IN TOWN THEY ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE AND VERY CHEAP (EQUIVALENT OF 15 CENTS OR SO APIECE). LOOKS LIKE WE'RE OVERDUE FOR ANOTHER BATCH OF 50-AVOCADO GUAC-IN-A-BUCKET DELICIOUSNESS.

SO THOSE ARE THE PLAYERS, HERE'S HOW THEY MATCH UP IN TERMS OF BEST THINGS TO HAPPEN SINCE MY LAST BLOG POST....

ROUND 1

NJOMBE JAM------
                        ----------NJOMBE JAM
LAKE HIKE #1-----

NOT MUCH OF A CONTEST HERE. SPORTS, FUN AND FRIENDS VS FALLING ON MY BUTT 20 TIMES.

MATHLETES--------
                            --------WORKERS DAY
WORKERS DAY-----

AS MUCH AS I LOVE MATHLETES, IT'S TOUGH TO BEAT GROWN WOMEN CHASING AFTER A CHICKEN.

LAKE HIKE #2-----
                         --------LAKE HIKE #2
MATH DAY---------

DID I MENTION WE DIDN'T GET EATEN BY CROCADILES? NO WHAMMIES HERE.

VISITORS----------
                       --------VISITORS
AVOCADOS--------

...PROVIDED THEY BRING EVEN MORE AVOCADOS WITH THEM

SEMI-FINALS

NJOMBE JAM------
                          --------NJOMBE JAM
WORKERS DAY-----

6-2!!

LAKE HIKE #2----
                       --------VISITORS
VISITORS--------

TWO! TWO VISITORS! AH, AH, AH!

FINALS

NJOMBE JAM------
                         --------VISITORS
VISITORS--------

I LOVE HAVING PEOPLE COME TO SEE ME!!! HINT, HINT...

Picture(s) a Day for the Month of May

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Harambee in Tanzania

2012-05-31 19:09:00

May 1st: 'Winter' is coming and the corn outside my house is dying. Yea, that green thing is my house.

May 2nd: My neighbor Raymond got all dressed up to see his Bibi in town. It will also still fit him in 10 years.

May 3rd: I've got mail... from Cara and Brett. My Mom and Meli later added to the new competition of 'awesome boxes.' More competitors are welcomed

May 4th: Visiting my sitemate Nora in Itiso, Chamwino.

....and this is how we opened our wine that night...

May 5th/Cinco de Mayo/Tyler Keyser's Half-Birthday: This day was epic and included an entire day's hike, visiting a strangers home on the top of the mountain, and carrying their gifts back down to the vill.

The home we visited at the top. The wonderfully welcoming family gave us corn on the cob and squash for a snack, then got all dressed up for pictures.

They then gave us gifts of sugar cane and a live chicken before we headed back down. The chicken loved checking out the view and didn't mind that I fell multiple times on the steep trek.

Our tour guide/trooper for the day, 'Jackson.'

May 6th: Cooking dinner at Nora's crib after failing to get a chicken to kill.

May 7th: My broken toe and blistered feet, solved with sandy sandals and a rubber band!

May 8th: Jump rope time with the neighbor kids.

May 9th: The acknowledgement page of a nursing student's research page ended with: 'Also thanks to be sent to the cooker for their good preparation of food and available all the time. Not only this but also for providing a boiled water. So as to be out of water born infection.'

May 10th: Move over daisies, sunflowers are making a comeback

May 11th: Saturday=Movie Day with the neighbor kids. This weeks showing, Tangled

May 12th: I made American food for my neighbors Happy, Frank, Raymond, and Baba Mushi. Yes, that's the Mr. Potato head Masai version Raymond made, and the delicious cornbread and spaghetti I made.

May 13th: Who says you can't eat healthy in the Peace Corps? Mandarin, biscuits, kale, avocado, tomato, peanuts and baobob juice.

May 14th: Watching the vijana play soccer at the primary school next door

May 15th: Hanging at Mama Sara's duka with a tangawezi soda

May 16th: At the primary school chatting with the teachers pre-soccer practice.

May 17th: My walk home from the hospital every day.

May 18th: Dani/Farida/Fritto came in town for a night of soup, garlic rolls, carrot cake, two bottles of delicious Dodoma wine and girl talk.

May 19th: Saturday when all PCVs in the region are in town= Zanzibar mix at Roses, hike with the besti's to 'Pride Rock,' Eric/Copper getting his Tanzanian teenage boy on, and shot gunning beers pre-Club 84.

May 20th: This day will get a future blog...in the meantime admire one of the many fun critters I get to hang with every day. This day is was a praying mantis.

May 21st: When you work with an NGO and have your big Annual Work Plan meeting in Morogoro, these get to be your digs for the week! I got four channels on that TV, lukewarm water that only turned off 1 day, and a western toilet that flushed 3/6 days!

May 23rd: Tanzanians are chatting loads about President Obama's recent support of marriage for all and the election.
Co-Worker: How does your President support a man marrying another man?
Ellen: Well that's not entirely true.
Co-Worker: He doesn't support it?
Ellen: No, he thinks a woman can marry another woman too.

May 24th: Best thing about the I-TECH meetings, Morogoro....gorgeous.

May 25th: Getting our Logic Model on

May 26th: I returned to Dodoma for some friend therapy of sticking toothpicks up our noses using only our mouths and taking culturally inappropriate pictures with the oddly realistic cardboard cut-out at the local watering hole.

May 27th: Nora required the room to watch Downtown Abbey.

May 28th: What did I do today? I played with Harry Potter leggos, so yea, I was productive.

May 29th: Rainbow Primary School Life Skills Club: Meeting #2. We made a club contract, listed what we wanted to learn in the next few weeks, and played 'steal the bacon.'

May 30th: My veggie Mama. She hooks me up with all my seasonal fruits and veggies for the week for under 5,000 Tsh.

May 31st: Alive, well and 7 months in (20 to go). Time is flying.

Where Do You Go?

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania The Man Who Lives in Ma Finga

2012-05-31 09:27:00

I have survived another year on earth, in no small part because of all of you people! The birthday was crazy. Woke up and ran 8K for my last warm-up before the Half Marathon on Saturday. Went into The Finger (also known as Mafinga), met with some district officials, picked up the most beautiful piece of clothing any of you will ever see (go to facebook for photos). Came back to the village, transferred about 40 fruit-tree seedlings (mango and avocado) with my Environmental Club, had them sing Happy Birthday to me, then got on a 3-hour coaster ride to Iringa, during which I thought about aging, Africa, and aardvarks (it was very alliterative). Got to Iringa, was greeted by Kenzie, Tala, Stephanie, and a birthday cake! My friends are rather amazing. Went back to a friend’s house, watched the Avengers (I give it a B, maybe B+), and another birthday drifted off into the past. Which is fine, because the real party was on Saturday, at the First Annual Ruaha Half Marathon.

We were supposed to start the race (13.1 miles, or 21 kilometers) at 9am. It is winter right now in East Africa, and at night we are really struggling (gets down to about 25 Fahrenheit, with no insulation. Four blanket evenings are not uncommon). But we’re still at the equator, and by 11am the sun is about a foot and a half above our heads. Not good running conditions. Why wasn’t the race started at a more reasonable hour, say 7am? Sijui (I dunno). Maybe so the Mgeni Rasmi (Honored Guest) could get in his/her teatime. So the race was to start at 9am. At 9am the race had not started, and the shadows grew shorter. At a quarter after our Honored Guest had not arrived, but the natives were growing restless, so they found a substitute Honored Guest, who made a short speech, which was uniformly ignored, and then they fired off the gun.

For the whole first quarter of the race, Tanzanians stood by the side of the road, looking at this strange group of people that appeared to be fleeing some as-yet-unseen disaster. They commented upon it, to themselves and to us. There comments were not, on the whole, as encouraging as they might have been. A sample, translated for your benefit, of the motivational sentiments directed at your boy:

“Huyu ameshachoka” (This guy is already tired (this was at Kilometer 2))

“Hawezi huyu” (He’s got no chance)

“Hatarudi” (He ain’t coming back)

“Bwana! Unajua unakwenda Kalenga? Ni mbali!” (Mister! You know you are going to Kalenga (the halfway mark)? It’s far!)

“Utashindwa” (You’re going to lose)

‘Win one for the Gipper’ it was not. But as I have mentioned in this blog before, Tanzanians don’t tend to believe until they have seen. In their defense, I didn’t look so hot. From the first minute my legs felt like they’d already run a marathon. I don’t know if it was stress, I don’t know if I ran too much in the week leading up, but my legs were dead from the get-go. Tried to keep up with my friend Eric, but he was flyin, and so I threw in my headphones and just started grinding. The way out was just hell. The terrain was actually not bad: it was all downhill. The race started with a gradual 2K incline, then we passed the eventual finish line, and started a long and winding 4K descent. I was being passed, by friends and strangers, and it was hot, and I was tired, and there was a lot of race to go. The scenery was beautiful. Screw the scenery. My friends started passing me, going back the other way. I felt slow, and stupid, and tired.

Finally reached the turn, knowing that I still had the hotter half of the race ahead of me, and that it was all uphill. I grabbed a bottle of water, and turned around, and saw that my good friend Natalie was only a hundred feet or so behind me. She caught up, and we started the second half together. Thank god for friends. Since the second day I arrived in Tanzania, until now, 700 days later, I have run with a rogue’s gallery of different Peace Corps Volunteers. But I have run more miles side-by-side with Natalie than any of them. She’s relentless, both in her pace and in her optimism, and that is a hell of a thing in a running buddy, not to mention a friend. We didn’t move any faster than I had been going before, but things go by much quicker when you have someone to share them with. We talked sports and Tanzania. We laughed at the toothless mzee (elder) who asked us for a pipi (candy), and swerved together to avoid the truck that almost ran us off the road. We saw our friend Eric running ahead of us, one minute flagging, the next pulled forward by a bunch of small children who were overjoyed to run with an mzungu (white guy). And we saw all of that together. In the wonderful, informative, and amazing book “Born to Run”, Christopher McDougall writes about how all of the great runners in history were legendarily empathetic; that they cared less if they crossed the finish line than that their comrades also made it. And with 5 kilometers of umoja (one-ness), my amazing friend Natalie had picked me up off the road, and given me back my wind. We were nearing the base of the same long hill that I’d stumbled down an hour ago, and were about a hundred yards behind Eric, and I felt like I’d just woken up. I looked over at Nat and asked her if she would mind if I pushed it a little. She smiled, and said not at all.

I caught up with Eric, who is twice as athletic as I am on his worst day. As I pulled up alongside, he told me that he was dying. I told him, “not yet, you’re not”. And he wasn’t. We came upon a bus stop, which had a number of stores and customers and children scattered about, taking a sidelong interest we exhausted trotters. Tanzanians might not be too supportive of random unresponsive runners, but I know my people. As we passed by the crowd, I shouted out: “Pigeni Makofi Jamani! Tusaidie!” (Clap your hands! Help us out! (This is less ridiculous to shout out than it sounds...though given how white I am, and how much in Africa we were...still pretty ridiculous)). And they did. First they laughed, then they clapped, and then they cheered. Eric and I each got handed a half liter of water (our last water point), and I looked over at my man, and he didn’t look like he was gonna die any time soon. Drained my last half liter of water, and started up the hill. Because what goes down must come back up, if it wants to get back where it belongs.

On Saturday morning, I had found a faded black marker, and written on my hand the letters: WDYG. It’s a reference to one of my favorite book series as a child, The Guardians of the Flame. It stands for: Where Do You Go. As in: where do you go to give up? As I started up that hill, I looked at my hand, at the shadowy remnants of the letters that sweat and sun and 9 long miles had mostly burned away. I didn’t come this far to stop now. I didn’t live two years without my mother, my father, my sister, a lifetime’s worth of amazing friends, and the love of my life, just to give in and give up on the side of some piddly African hill that wishes it was a mountain. A grin spread across my face and I took a look around me, at the beautiful place I’ve been blessed to live in, at the amazing life I've led that brought me to this place, and I started up that hill like I’d been shot out of a cannon.

Up and up and up I went, getting closer, going faster. Now I was passing other runners. Now I was setting the pace. At one of the switchbacks I turned the corner and saw a mob of children, looking at me. I shouted “Twende!” (Let’s Go!), and they started sprinting with me, pushing me, crowding me, each one wanting an acknowledgement, a fist bump. They all got them. When they fell behind me, I was already atop the hill. At kilometer 19 I was fresher than I was when I woke up that morning. At kilometer 20 I was sprinting. One Tanzanian runner and I spent the last kilometer pushing each other, first him surging forward, then me. Down the stretch we came, and I saw my friend TJ standing by the side of the road, hand extended, cheering for me. I slapped his hand and kicked it to the tape, my newfound Tanzanian friend turned on his jets, and the crowd saw the two of us fighting for it and began to scream. We both crossed the finish line at 1:47, about forty minutes behind the victors, yet both of us were grinning like we’d just won gold.

Sports are funny things. It’s hard to think of something less significant than me running up a hill. Doesn’t change anything, doesn’t help anything. And on any other day, that would be it. But sports can be transcendent, if we are willing to invest ourselves in them. They can reduce us to tears or intoxicate us with joy; they can stand for things larger than themselves: pride, faith, the aspirations of cities, states, and nations. Sports become as powerful and meaningful as they are made to become. So if I choose to make my 21K run a referendum on my worth as a human, that’s what it becomes. Thank God I finished.

Peace Corps had itself a good day on Saturday. We had the first non-African to cross the finish line, seven people make it in under two hours, and the 2^nd and 3^rd place women runners (my friend Natalie took 3^rd!). So how do such speedy people relax? With ice-cold Kilimanjaro Lagers at the finish line. Don’t judge. We then got some lunch, took naps, and proceeded to dress up, make merry, and dance the night away.

I don’t know where I’m going in my life. I know the next few months are going to tear me away from and reunite me with people that I love. Somedays I can barely sleep, and when I do I wake up exhausted, my mind buzzing with uncertainty and indecision. But for an hour and forty-seven minutes, none of that mattered. I didn’t win. I didn’t even come close. But I finished a long, hot race with a full-out sprint and a smile on my face. Was it meaningless? Absolutely. But was it also incredibly important? Absolutely.

Where do you go to give up?

Not Africa.

Dorking out.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Riah in Tanzania

2012-05-30 17:19:00

So it's no secret to anyone who has met me ever that I am a giant dork. This has come out in full force this past week and a half, ever since TOT began. I have been spending basically all of my free time doing dorky English teacher things. Like writing a fricking grammar book. And coming up with examples of when and how an actual native English speaker would use things like the future perfect tense in question form (Will she have received it by next Tuesday?) or the negative past perfect continuous (we hadn't been feeling well, so we saw the doctor) or the future perfect continuous (as of June 15, I will have been living in Tanzania for one year!). It takes a surprising amount of work to come up with examples that are realistic for the trickier tenses. Examples in and of themselves are easy, it's the realisticness that is a challenge. But I've been doing it. My head is spending its downtime brainstorming up more of them, too. I've also been putting together a guide to creating teaching units based on the Tanzanian syllabus, and sorting out teaching activities based on subject (grammar, vocabulary, skills or specific topics). So much English going through my head right now.

Also, right now I'm teaching character traits. For some reason, I had not been excited (negative past perfect) about this topic. Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that it would be tricky and not fun to teach. No idea why, cuz it's definitely proving to be one of my most enjoyable topics. While I was in Moro last week I had my kids read a story (Mabala the Farmer) and so we've been using the characters in it as examples for some of the character traits. I also presented all of the vocabulary in pairs of opposites, which I think made it easier to grasp. And then today I wrote sentences describing behavior and had the students complete them using the vocabulary words. They did a really good job, and came up with multiple answers, which is always something I like to see, since it's not an idea that is super common in the Tanzanian school system. (Things like "Neema had two apples and gave one to me. She is____." They said, generous, kind, nice and thoughtful, all of which are correct. Yay!) (Also, I really do say yay all the time. We were writing up our bios for the welcome book to give the trainees next week (they're coming next week! so soon!) and each one had a quote to go with it. They decided mine should just be "YAYYY!") So that's really nice.

It is ridiculous how soon I'll be in South Africa. I fly there June 7, the day after the trainees arrive. Which means I'll see my mom. Which also means that I have been in Tanzania for almost one full year. (I'm missing my one year anniversary by being in the wrong country for it.) Which means it's almost my birthday. Which means I only have a week left to wrap everything up for this term. Which is crazy. Ideally I wouldn't be leaving while school's still in session, but we made the plans and bought the tickets based on the first school year calendar, which then got changed, because there's a census this year, and in Tanzania that means the schools can't be open when the census is happening, and rather than just have the census when the schools are closed, they need to change the school calendar for every school in the fricking country to accommodate the census. Which isn't ridiculous or anything at all. So they changed the dates, and my vacation, originally planned for the middle of break, was suddenly during the last two weeks of the term. Annoying. Hopefully I will be able to leave review lessons that my students will be able to do without me, to prepare them for the final exam that I'll leave them. They've been okay about doing the lessons I leave them when I'm gone. It seems like 2 classes get it right, but one of them always screws it up somehow and is behind when I get back. Oh well. Since it's right before finals, I might see if my counterpart is available to do a little bit of review with them too, so that they can have a teacher to ask questions to.

Also, my peer reviewer approved my grant (and said it was well done and very thorough) so now it goes on to the grant coordinator. One step closer!

Finally, I am hoping that the city clerk's office is able to email me a ballot in time for it to get back before the friday after the election at 4 pm (which it turns out is the last day that ballots can be received in order to be counted, provided they're postmarked by election day). I have not had good luck at all in receiving my paper absentee ballots here. Every single one of them has gotten to me after the election it was for. Rendering me unable to vote. But I was looking at things and read that they could email ballots, so I emailed them about it, and they got back to me saying that they couldn't because state law now prohibited sending email ballots to regular (non-military, non-overseas with no intent to return) voters so I should send them my address and they'd mail me a paper ballot. I sent a reply with my address, but also said I found it frustrating that I couldn't get a ballot just because I wasn't military and have an intent to return to the US, given that as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I too am serving my country and am overseas for an extended period of time, and pointed out that I had not received any of my ballots in time for them to be any use. So a different woman emails me back and says that actually, they treat active Peace Corps Volunteers the same as military voters, so they can email me a ballot and are processing my request. Which is on one hand good, cuz it means I at least have a chance of voting in time, but also mildly annoying, since I'd clearly stated I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in my original email, so the first person who looked at it should have seen it. Anyways, I'm really hoping I can vote, cuz the recall is kind of huge. (Seriously, like half of the emails I get these days are from various people and organizations reminding me to vote.) And I was able to send in my signature for the recall petition from over here (yay printing things from the internet!) so I really want to see it through and vote in the actual election. So that's me dorking out about politics. Which was what I was originally thinking about when I wrote the title of this post. But then I got caught up in my other dorkinesses.

Kiangazi

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzaniadave

2012-05-30 17:34:00

"haraka haraka, haina baraka" haste has no blessings

shamba field of pareto, a natural insecticide (from flower)

Kiangazi means dry season in Swahili. The dry season has started. The change has been swift and dramatic. We went from having heavy afternoon rainstorms almost everyday, to no rain. Before now, getting water for household use was easy. Since I have no running water (which is exremely rare in Tanzania), I used to be able to collect water from the metal roof of my house when it rained, onto rain gutters and then plastic buckets. Or, I could walk to the closest bomba (which is a pipe coming out of the ground, fed by tanks) turn it on and fill up my buckets.

No more. Now the bombas are dry. You turn them on, nothing comes out. So the place to get water now is the river. The closet river, or mountain stream is down a hill maybe a fifth of a mile. On Saturday I walked down with my two ten gallon buckets. You get to the creek and push the buckets in. The water is cool, and of course you gather some dirt in the bucket which sinks to the bottom. You have to be a little more careful boiling and filtering this water as to not get sick.

So then carrying it up the hill. Two heavy buckets up a incline made me feel like a real Tanzanian. Of course women carry these buckets on their head just as the carry firewood and other assorted items. For me, it's lugging each bucket in my hand strenuously walking, with frequent stops. Kids get a real kick out of watching the mzungu (white person) hauling buckets of water around.

Last week I bought a mountain bike. The brand I got is pretty good, a reputable American company which is very hard to find here. Peace Corps will reimburse us for the costs of the bike up to a certain price- mine was the maximum amount. We aren't allowed to drive cars or ride on motorcycles (piki piki) or own a motorcycle. So bike is the way to go. I'm ecstatic to have it, I can travel distances much faster, it's great exercise, it's got gears up here in the mountains (a necessity). Today I went for a ride through the shambas (farms) of potatoes and corn, down a road which leads to another village, and up another road which goes to a village above mine; then the exilirating ride down.

Sunflower (alizeti) used for a cooking oil here

We just found out that our girls conference, scheduled for the month of June, has been cancelled due to late funding. This is a big disappointment. Each volunteer was going to bring six young women from our villages to the conference, to teach them life skills, health education, environment education, and many other things. There's a possibility that it could be rescheduled for august, but no guarantee. Now I have to go through the strenuous process of informing village officials, headmasters, and others that the conference has been canceled.

All Jacked Up on Mountain Dew

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania A Peace Corps Odyssey: Tanzania

2012-05-30 17:12:00

The other day I went to Tukuyu to get some dough and check the mail box. Before jumping on the bus to head home I stopped at a store to buy some apples. As I was deciding weather or not I really needed another roll of TP I heard a man behind me yelling at me. I turned around to see a shoe-less man wearing tattered clothing and a rosary. This is the point when I realized he was shaking the remaining drops from a bottle Mountain Dew, attempting to baptize me. After he had emptied the bottle on my soul, he took his rosary out from under his shirt, held the cross up to me and shouted some thing about 'mungu'- god. The whole scene was really quite strange. I really did not know what to make of the whole thing, so I just stood there and stared at him. When I went to leave, he wouldn't let me pass. Thankfully some sane men were near by and told the guy to let me through. I should mention at this point the bible thumper had produced a whistle and was blowing it at me. Talk about not attracting enough attention being white... let's add a whistle to the mix. With everyone looking at me, I calmly walked away and forgot about the whole situation, until I remembered that it was too weird not to write about.

After this incident it really got me thinking in the states we have safe environments for people who have mental disabilities. Here people just ignore someone if they are mentally handicapped. They are left to live on the streets, no one really takes care of them. It is really sad if you think about it. Although the man was annoying and I told him to go away...not very nicely because honestly I cannot tell sometimes if someone is mentally handicapped or just really religious... after it was all over I felt bad for him. He probably has no one to take care of him and is just shunned/ ignored by everyone.

In other news, school is moving forward and so is the library project. We are currently a little delayed due to a shortage of wood to make the chairs, but I am confident it will be ready by next week. Today seven students from all different forms sat in the staff room and drew educational posters for the library! I was really impressed with their diligence and their skill. These kids are very good artists. So, I am happy to say that our library will house some student work and they will have something to be proud of every time they use the new space.

To follow up on the first story, I believe the way I handled the situation speaks truck loads about how I have changed since coming to Tanzania. I was thinking about if I have changed and how. First, I do not believe any one can go through and experience like this and not change. Secondly, I think change as much as you will allow yourself to. I have always been a shy person. I used to hid behind my mother's legs in public. Run down stairs at my aunt's house to play video games instead of being forced to talk to a hundred second cousins and great aunts. I was never one to volunteer for skits or any type of public speaking activities. Even after college and discovering booze will strip away the shyness, I still was not perfectly comfortable around other people. I was always nervous that I looked weird, or would say or do something to embarrass myself. Basically I was afraid of being judged and lacked self confidence. I would say I blame it on my mother's side of the family who are huge teasers, out of love. I hated being the center of attention, so I think I just stayed quiet so as not to attract attention. If something embarrassing happened to me I would dwell on it. It would be really hard for me to let it go. So, before this experience, I couldn't take a joke and was scared shitless to speak in public or embarrass myself and let meaningless incidents keep me up at night.

I can now say the above does not really hold true anymore. During training something changed and one day I decided to volunteer to do a skit, then the next day I volunteered to lead a discussion. Day after day I found my self conscious armor being stripped from my body like house shingles in a hurricane. I think I figured I would have to get used to the idea of putting myself out there. This new outlook also helped to learn the language and to use it at home with native speakers. I did not care if they judged me. Heck, I was trying to speak to them in their language...someone should be thanking me. This confidence has transformed my teaching. I am no longer afraid to sound stupid or make mistakes. I realized my students might judge me, but I am there to help them. If I need to dance around a classroom, or make weird faces or demonstrate a 'swagger' to my class, so be it. I walk into my village everyday and people stare, but I don't notice any more. If they want to stare at me they must be really bored or entertained by a tall white girl attempting to speak Swahili.

I know that when I return home I will keep my new confidence and relaxed sense of the world. I know I will be able to walk into a room full of strangers at a party and make conversation without looking to see if my shoes are on the right feet or sounding like I have no faith in what I am saying. Also, I cannot say that if I fall on my face walking down the street that I won't be blushing and looking to see who saw me eat shit, but I won't hold on to it. I'll just let it go. I am also hoping this experience comes in handy when I am the first one cold called by my law professor on a Monday morning.

Hope things are going well at home. I heard it is very very hot! Wouldn't mind some of that warm weather here... have changed to sweats and socks to sleep at night. Good luck this weekend at IRAs Jordo!! Be thinking of you.

All my love from TZ.

Paul, the Inveterate Wanderer, Part 2: Rwanda

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Paulzania

2012-05-30 10:32:00

Rwanda---or the “Pays de Mille Collines”, as it is more romantically called---is a tiny mountain kingdom located in the heart of Africa, characterized by its lush highlands, staunchly pro-development politics, and friendly populace. Well, I guess the term “kingdom” isn’t entirely accurate, as the Hutu monarchy that ruled the area for the past few centuries was thoroughly subdued and dissolved by the Belgians after World War I… the appropriate, politically-correct description of Rwanda’s current government is probably something more like “fledgling democracy”---which, given that this is Africa, inevitably runs more along the lines of “one-party authoritarian police state.” In all, I guess that pretty much sums up Rwanda in a nutshell: it’s a small, beautiful, green, progressive, well-developed, friendly authoritarian police state. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s a small, beautiful, green, progressive, well-developed, friendly authoritarian police state with a particularly dark past.

For those of you who remember the 90s (or have seen Hotel Rwanda), the mention of Rwanda necessarily invokes one particular event in that country’s history---namely, the systematic extermination of roughly one million Tutsi by the Hutu-backed Rwandan army as well as a number of armed civilian militias (most notably the Interahamwe) in the spring of 1994. This genocide can easily be ranked among the worst atrocities committed in recent human memory, as the sheer barbarism and hate that plagued Rwanda during that time reached a level of intensity previously unseen in that part of the world. Indeed, over the course of about three months, Rwandans had successfully murdered approximately one-eighth of their own country’s population, all while the international community (most notably the UN) watched and did nothing. Not to mince words, but it was… a bit of a rough patch in the history of East African development.

Surprisingly, despite the extensive devastation brought by the 1994 genocide, you actually wouldn’t know it if you visited Rwanda today, as heaps of foreign aid from a guilty international community as well as a strict, forward-thinking government have ensured that modern Rwanda is not only clean and developed but also safe and hassle-free. Parliamentary and presidential elections have recently been held, and---although the results were a bit dubious---the country is doing a hell of a lot better than it was back in the 90s, and it’s now one of the most progressive and urbanized countries in East Africa. As such, Rwanda has now become one of the more foreigner-friendly destinations on the continent, and, in recent years, it has seen a steady influx of aid workers, expatriates, and tourists.

And, back in March, not to be deterred by trivial matters such as “school” and “work”, one of those tourists was me.

I had always had a sneaking suspicion that not all of Africa was like Songea, and---not to put Tanzania down or anything---I had heard repeated tales of the relative safiness of neighboring countries (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, southern Mozambique, etc.). In no way do I hate Songea or Tanzania, but I was intensely curious to see if these legends of a posh East Africa were true, and given that Rwanda was small, compact, and didn’t require a $60 entry visa, it became an inescapable detour during my aimless wanderings around northern Tanzania.

In all, I spent about a week in Rwanda, which certainly wasn’t enough time to see everything the country had to offer, but was nonetheless sufficiently long to soak in as much Rwanda exposure as possible before running out of money and going home. Honestly, I never really had much of a game plan the whole time I was there; organization is not exactly my forte, and unless you consider “doing safi crap while putzing around Kigali” a travel agenda, I was pretty much going without any prior knowledge of what to expect. I guess things turned out okay in the end: armed with my tattered 2003 edition of Lonely Planet: East Africa and a solid 30 minutes of internet research in Bukoba, I was able to follow what I guess could be called the “Western Rwanda Circuit”---beginning in Kigali, moving south to Butare, heading west to Nyungwe and Cyangugu, ferrying north to Gisenyi, passing through Ruhengeri back to Kigali, and returning home via the Rusumo border. It was short, it was fun, and there were enough mini-adventures and exploits to say that, overall, it was a worthwhile trip.

Rather than bore you, the valued reader, with a blow-by-blow account of these exploits, I’ve elected to---as done before in this blog---describe my foray into Rwanda in “vignette” form, which will hopefully keep things brief and interesting (and again allow me to tell a story without writing a complete, coherent narrative). Moreover, if there are any PCVs in Rwanda who happen to read this, karibu sana to call me out on anything that may be inaccurate/misinformed/excessively jingoistic. I mean, you guys actually live there, and I’m just a poor country bumpkin from Tanzania, after all.

So, without further ado, here’s the Cliffs’ Notes version of Paul’s Totally Radical Rwandan Adventure:

General Impressions

Perhaps the first thing I noticed when crossing the border was the instant improvement in infrastructure. The average Tanzanian house is usually a one- or two-room mud brick structure with a corrugated tin roof and fire pit; the average Rwandan house appeared to be a one- or two-room mud brick structure with a corrugated tin roof and a fire pit and a personal water spigot and a telephone pole connected to an electric meter outside the front door. The roads, while still one-lane-each-way like Tanzanian roads, were largely paved, and most sported newly-painted lane dividers and passing zones, not to mention street lights---something only really seen in Dar (and then only in downtown Dar) in Tanzania. Lastly, while I can’t vouch for rural Rwanda, there were literally ZERO power outages and water shortages the entire week I was in country, which was pretty mind-blowing given that I come from the land of outdated diesel generators and personal rain catchment apparatuses (i.e. buckets). In all, I would say that things definitely seemed a step up from back home.

---

Another major change between Tanzania and Rwanda was that all of Rwanda (but particularly Kigali) was incredibly, meticulously---and, in some ways, obsessively---clean. I don’t think I’ve seen a cleaner capital city in my life; there was literally no litter anywhere. In fact, I learned during my stay that possession of plastic shopping bags is, in fact, a felony, and being caught with one can incur a sizeable fine (plus, of course, confiscation and incineration of said bag). Contrast this with Tanzania, in which the main thoroughfares are constantly lined with miniature mountains of plastic bottles, juice cartons, Styrofoam containers, and plastic bags tossed from buses… it’s pretty disgusting, to say the least. In all fairness, I’m pretty sure these stringent Rwandan anti-littering laws are more out of concern for pleasing the international community than environmental awareness, but hey, it worked for me, so I’m not complaining.

This is Africa.

---

I have no idea why, but, before coming to Rwanda, it never really occurred to me that Rwandans, in fact, speak a different language than Tanzanians---both with regard to traditional Bantu language (Kinyarwanda) and adopted colonial language (French). As a result, literally the second I crossed the border into Rwanda, I transformed from a street-smart, worldly East African veteran into a dumb, mute tourist who spent the next week primarily communicating through a series of grunts and hand gestures. In time, I eventually managed to work out a system for most social interactions: I would first try English, then Kiswahili… if both of those failed (which was often), I would reluctantly switch to my French, which, for lack of a better description, was absolutely atrocious. Seriously, my entire knowledge of the French language stems from Inglorious Basterds, Tintin comics, and that week-long family vacation in Provence when I was 8… as such, the furthest my French goes is only the most basic of phrases---“bonjour”, “désolé”, “Où est la toilette?”, “Je ne parle pas français”, “Je suis un stupide américain”, and so on. It didn’t help that many Rwandans seemed to be subject to the same general preconceptions about white people as Tanzanians (namely, that wazungu all speak the same language), and, with French being the de facto“white guy” language for the region, I had a great deal of difficulty telling Rwandans that I simply didn’t speak French, and that saying it again in French louder wasn’t helping my comprehension.

In the end, I was able to dig deep and recall some of the more important words (like numbers), and, with the occasional strategic insertion of English and Kiswahili, I was able to broaden my vocabulary to a marginally functional level over the course of the week (“Avez-vous… maji makubwa?”). So, in sum, I was able to get around without getting screwed over too badly.

And hey, at the very least, Rwanda marked the first time in my life I was able to say “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle” completely without irony. So that’s plus, too.

---

I could be wrong about this, and any of you reading this feel free to correct me, but… Rwanda struck me as a country that, well, maybe has received a bit too much international aid in recent years. By no means am I saying that Rwandans aren’t industrious or that, given how much the international community screwed them over back in 1994, Rwandans don’t deserve some foreign help… I’m just saying that Rwanda seemed like a place where the local NGOs went a bit buck-wild with their grant money over the past two decades: from the hordes of white people, to the brand-new steel telephone poles lining the streets, to the children playing with actual toys (as opposed to the venerable Tanzanian bicycle-tire-and-stick combo), to the ubiquitous white Hiluxes and Landcruisers patrolling the roadways, Rwanda just seemed like it was a bit more touched by Western influence than Tanzania.

The locals gave me hints of this as well: while I am routinely asked for money in Tanzania, money was frequently demanded from me in Rwanda, often to a much more preposterous degree (“Give me 10,000 francs!”, “Give me your jacket!”, “Give me your cellphone!”). Heck, one guy even insisted that I give him my backpack as payment for helping me get on a boat in Cyangugu, even though it was incredibly obvious that my backpack was carrying literally everythingI owned inside it, and, as a result, I clearlywas using it and thus couldn’t give it to him. I can’t imagine such audacious---and, in some ways, downright disrespectful---begging arising naturally in Rwandan culture; while I’m sure there are a number of factors at work, excessive foreign influence has got to be one of them. Again, to invite comparison: in most parts of Tanzania, the first English phrase Tanzanian children learn (or at least feel willing to yell at you) is “good morning!” (a.k.a. “goodimohn!”); in Rwanda, conversely, it seems to simply be “MONEY!”.

The guy who wanted my backpack. After I refused to give it to him, he told me we were best friends and asked me to take a picture. When I told him I wouldn’t be able to print it for him, he instructed me to send it to him “by internet.” He didn’t give me an e-mail address, so here it is. Sorry, buddy… this is the best I can do.

---

Perhaps a product of all this expat presence was the fact that Rwanda, much to my dismay, was crazy expensive---so much so that I easily spent more in a week there than I would during an average two months in Songea. At the time of my visit, the exchange rate was 1000 RWF = 3000 TSH = 2 USD, which, while not terrible for your average American or European with a full-time job, was absolutely devastating for me as a Tanzanian PCV: in addition to the exchange rate not being in my favor, Peace Corps Tanzania has one of the lowest living allowances for volunteers in the world, primarily on account of Tanzania’s being so cheap. Thus, I was horrified to learn that, despite every franc being worth three shillings, all prices in Rwanda were numerically the same as those in Tanzania, meaning that I literally had to pay three times as much for everything: a single meal in Kigali could set me back around 6000 francs, which equated to about 18000 shillings---enough to feed me for a week (and then some) in Songea.

As a result, for the duration of my stay in Rwanda, I was forced to go into hardcore “survival mode”: eating only one meal a day, begging kindly expats to let me crash on their couches, and hitchhiking like it was my job. Granted, it was out of this hyper-anxious penny-pinching that I had some of my more interesting experiences in Rwanda, but still, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as desperately poor as I did during that week out of country (with the possible exception of that one time when I sold my watch for passage across Lake Tanganyika, but that’s a different story).

---

Exacerbating my problems with money and language was the fact that I seemed to arrive in Rwanda in the wake of an aggressive (and, unfortunately, comprehensive) nationwide campaign to rename and relocate literally everything in country… and then not tell anyone about it. As a result, the towns of Butare, Gikongoro, and Cyangugu on my map were now known as Huye, Nyamagabe, and Kamembe, respectively; Rugege Forest had now become Nyungwe National Park; and pretty much every major landmark in Kigali had been renamed, removed, replaced, or relocated within the past two years. Naturally, this only caused me to be even more woefully unprepared for my visit than I already was: not only was my 2003 edition Lonely Planet now completely useless, but literally NO ONE---not even the taxi drivers or the moto guys---knew where anything was in country, making getting directions nearly impossible.

This was particularly problematic when I was in the capital: Kigali, despite being clean and pretty, is clearly not a sterling example of strategic urban planning, and, accordingly, I had no fewer than three unintentional multi-hour tours of the city from the various moto drivers during my stay there, as we would invariably get lost in Kigali’s morass of alleyways, dead-ends, and one-exit neighborhoods. In fact, most drivers never actually knew where my intended destination was in the first place (and, of course, I sure as hell couldn’t help them find it), and since typical African policy when it comes to taxis is to lie to the customer and then try to wing it by asking locals for directions (and then charge the customer more when we inevitably get lost), I ended up spending a lot more time in taxis or on motos than I would have liked. Add this in with my desperate poorness and the inexplicable confusion most of the motodrivers seemed to have with the words “cent” and “mille”---in the end, you have a recipe for many a heated, multilingual argument concerning capitalism, justice, and the fair exchange of goods and services in a developing country.

---

Perhaps the most fascinating and unique aspect of Rwanda---one that you can’t really see anywhere else in the world---was the constant juxtaposition of modern-day Rwanda (clean, friendly, civilized, happy) and its incredibly turbulent past. While the entire country is currently wrapped up in an incredibly strong “never again” attitude with regard to the 1994 genocide, the remnants of a much darker Rwanda are still quite present in the countryside---from the strong negative attitude towards the UN, to the occasional limbless farmer, to the ubiquitous (and rather grisly) genocide memorials scattered throughout the country.

I happened to arrive a few weeks before the 18^thannual Week of Mourning (a.k.a. Genocide Memorial Day), and literally the entire time I was there, I couldn’t help but think about what Rwanda must have been like 18 years ago. I mean, what if I had had the misfortune of being born Rwandan back then? I’m 24 now; I would have been 7 in 1994. That means that, Hutu or Tutsi, if I had survived the killing, I would have undoubtedly remembered it, enough so to permanently scar me for the rest of my life. And heck, what about the locals I interacted with? A lot of them were older than I am, and, as a result, they probably remember the genocide even better than I would have. Actually, given the numbers, chances are that most of the older folks I met during my travels participated in the genocide in some way, whether they wanted to or not. As a result, whenever I talked to a Rwandan over the age of 30, I couldn’t help but think that I was either talking to a victim, a guilt-by-proxy enabler, or---heaven forbid---an actual rapist or a murderer of innocent civilians. I actually did get some stories from a the occasional Tutsis I met around the country, but, for the entire week I was there, I had to constantly bite my tongue to prevent myself from asking every random older Rwandan I met, “So… what’s yourstory?”

5/9/12

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Rachel in Tanzania

2012-05-27 12:28:36

I was sitting on my stoop this morning, as is my normal routine, drinking coffee and eating peanut butter and lime marmalade, watching the fog lift off the mountains and looking at my half-planted garden and shagalabagala (every-which-way/chaotic) morning glory … Continue reading →

The Peace Corps / Tanzania Cookbook 2012

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Danielle in Tanzania

2012-05-26 15:03:28

Here in Tanzania cooking is quite an adventure. Many Volunteers arrive in country with very little knowledge of how to cook much more than Ramen noodles or Kraft Mac & Cheese, let alone how to do all of this on a small portable clay stove, let alone how to ignite the fuel and maintain it [...]

I'm a Misfit - can I join you?

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Hoppin' All Over the World

2012-05-26 15:07:00

Have you ever had one of those overwhelming feelings of contentment? Where you stand still exactly where you are and just appreciate every single thing around you? The wind blowing around you. The sun, hiding behind a few clouds as it sets for the day. The colour green that is literally everywhere around you. The mountains with their last bit of snow off in the distance. The fact that it is finally summer again after so many months of it not being summer. Feeling overwhelmingly busy and thinking you don’t have enough time to do anything, but it’s so different from how you’ve been all winter with NOTHING to do (other than watch TV and read books).

Yeah, well, if you couldn’t tell, I just had another one of those moments. And it was blissful. Sometimes I wonder why what I’m going to take away from this experience and if this experience is going to be all that I wanted it to be in the long run. Moments like the one I just had MAKE it exactly that. I might not the biggest difference in my community – there’s no way I’m going to develop a clean water system in the next 14 months (or maybe I will?) or get one of my students a full-ride to some amazing university in the States. I’m being realistic here. But I WILL have a huge appreciation for Kyrgyzstan. And its people. And eating outside under a canopy during the summer. And my host-family.

I guess you can tell that I’ve had a really good day/few days. God, I hope the rest of my summer will be like this – and I’m sure it will be – ‘cause this feeling is just sublime! And if it doesn’t, I hope that I can bottle up this sensation and can recall it when I’m huddled under 4 different blankets this upcoming winter. :) I really am so pumped for everything that’s coming up. Mom and Tif coming in like 20 days! Finally getting to know all the little (they’re so not little, excuse me) K-20s and how it’s been for them since being in country. Hearing how beautifully the Talas GLOW/TOBE camp (girls and boys empowerment camp) went without me. El Campo. Talas Welcome Weekend and then the Talawesome camp. AH, so excited.

On Monday, I finally got my shit together and started a P90x regime. I’m only a week into things, but I’m definitely feeling it. It’s definitely kickin’ my ass. But at the same time, I’m kind of excited about it. It’s something I can ‘look forward’ to doing every day. And it will make me feel better (I hope?) mentally and physically. Not so sure I’m going to get the results that I would like here in country – this whole eating healthy might not work in a world where potatoes and macaroni fried in oil and served up is normal – but I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and hope for the best. This really is something I need. I apologize if you do NOT want to be reading about my new exercise regime, but whatever, I’m going to put it in anyway. If you have any tips on how to do different exercise [Like, how do I do pull ups if I don’t have a bar or have a place to hang an exercise band?] or how to eat healthier (recipes for easy-access fruits and veg), would be GREATLY appreciated.

Onto the frivolous stuff: gone through another show that kills my soul (in a good way) – Misfits. It’s the British version of Heroes, but done correctly. Dear GOD, is it good. Simon. All the feelings. He’s got me feelin’ ‘em. Why are there only three seasons done and why is the fourth one going to be a giant shit show (no Kelly, Simon, or Alisha?!)?! What is the point? Either way, I loved almost every second of the show. Proved to be an interesting 3-4 day obsession with long-standing effects (damn you, Simon!). If anyone needed any more convincing that nerds/quiet guys were attractive – LOOK NO FURTHER. Done and done, thank you very much. And the guy that plays him, he was in London’s Spring Awakening. Dying. <3

In the process of re-watching (and falling in love with) Lost with JSR. It’s oh-so nice to have a geek out buddy once again. At least for this show. And it’s so nice to go back and re-watch all the craziness that happened so long again. Still have SOMUCHLOVE for Charlie, Hurley, Claire, Locke… Good times. Still hate Jack and Kate. Ridiculous.

Alright, now the brain is fried. Going to watch Love Never Dies – I’m going to give the video a chance even though I do NOT like the majority of the music – until I get called to dinner; if I do. Haha. Let me know what you kids are doing back in the good ol’ US of A for the summer. Ri – I fully expect reports on Dan and Philly’s trips to the States. Treat ‘em well and send them my love. Thinking of you all and wishing you the best of summers.

When it rains it pours! Work started, and won't stop!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Teach. Learn. Live.

2012-05-26 11:08:11

Righty-o, sorry I’ve been gone so long! I apologize, but I’m not going to promise to try and change it, because honestly it will never happen. So just sit back, grab a cup of coffee and read this super long, super detailed blog update. The lack of updates means good things for my village! I’ve been really busy and I’ve been working on a few bigger projects. I’ll explain the biggest one last so that you won’t stop reading half-way through (please don’t stop! I’m so excited about everything that’s going on and want to tell you all!)

First thing I started in my village when I returned from IST was a permargarden training. My counterpart came to me and asked for help teaching his uncle how to build a permagarden. Naturally I said yes and for the next 3 days we went to the farm to begin digging. We spent 2 days digging and one day planting and teaching about spacing and crop rotation. We double dug two beds and planted already begun tomato seedlings. They are currently thriving and now the three people we taught are asking for a group to be formed to learn about all these different techniques. It was really exciting. A few weeks ago we made a pesticide from Neem tree leave and mango tree leaves. It was really successful! He now has tons of extra tomatoes that he’ll sell in the village. Hopefully we’ll do another training with more people and train in things like this and other things like making fuel efficient stoves, how to purify water with Moringa seed powder, how to harvest seeds from trees and start tree nursery and other environmentally friendly things. Pretty stoked about this group. All the babas (fathers) are really excited to learn everything. But I’m going to make it a goal to get some mamas in there too since they actually do most of the farming in the village.

NEXT! My counterpart and I started teaching life-skills at the secondary school. We have started with HIV/AIDS and it’s pretty remarkable what they do and don’t know. For example some knew the four fluids that could transmit HIV but then thought that as long as the male hadn’t ejaculated that HIV couldn’t be transmitted. Some also thought that tears and saliva could transmit HIV. We taught about transmission and prevention and soon enough our students will go around to the primary schools in the different villages in our ward and teach grades 6 and 7. We taught every day for around a week and a half and then our 12 students put together a lesson to teach the entire secondary school. The lesson went incredibly well. Each student taught a separate section and then they wrote a 15 minute skit about HIV and stigma. It was awesome. I have it on video and hopefully at some point I will be uploading it, otherwise you’ll have to see if once I come home. The school keeps asking us to come back and teach another session, which we will hopefully be doing sometime in the next few weeks but currently my counterpart is applying for college so I’ve been helping him with that and he hasn’t been able to attend any classes so we haven’t been able to teach nearly as much as we would have liked. But that will be changing soon.

The next thing we are planning is to start an environment club at the primary school. We want to teach the students to make permagardens at the school so that they will be able to harvest them and use them for lunch or a snack during the day. Currently, many students eat nothing between the hours of 7 and 4 and are expected to pay attention in a hot room and then work in the afternoon. This is probably not going to happen effectively without some sort of sustenance. The other goal for this is for them to go home and teach their families and help their families produce more food for themselves and perhaps even enough to sell in town. That would be an ideal situation, but probably not entirely practical. Nother project for them will be to start up a tree nursery. They can care for it and make sure pesky cows don’t eat them. We will either harvest seeds from trees already existing in the village or we will try and collect money to buy already grafted seedlings from a village around 100km away. We’ll have to see how this one works out and how the school wants to go about it.

Moving on to Aga Khan, which I began about 2 weeks ago, even though I began calling people to start it three to four weeks ago. Unfortunately, because my village is so far away from Masasi town, no one wanted to come all the way out to us. It took some asking nicely, throwing around the Peace Corps name, and calling the regional director to finally convince them not to wait to hire another person for my area. My village was ready and eager to begin, and did we ever begin. Supposedly, most villages start 2 maybe 3 groups. My village has started 5, and wants to start more I guess I should first explain the goals of the groups and then how they work. It’s a little confusing so I am going to try and be detailed so that you’ll get a full understanding of it. Aga Khan starts up Community Based Savings Groups. These groups meet once a week to do just that, save money! They bring cash; it gets put into a bag and kept there for 9-12 months. It’s a way for them to save their money without having to pay a fee to use the bank. So here’s how it works in finer details. First, each person will bring 100-300 shillings to put into the community bag. This money can be taken out at any time and can be all given to one person if it is deemed that they need it. Perhaps they have an unexpected medical cost, or a family member dies. They can go to their group and say they need some help paying for medicine or help paying for the burial of a loved one. The group can decide to give them all the money or they can decide just to give them enough to ease the burden. The second bag is the shares bag. At the very first meeting of the group they will decide how much each share is worth. Most groups choose 1000 TSH, one of ours chose 2000TSH. They are teachers and are some of the incredibly small group of people that have a steady income. Each person can buy 1-5 shares per meeting. This money all goes into the same pot; completely separate from the community bag they pay the 100-300 TSH. They meet once a week or 9-12 months. After they have had 4 meetings they can start taking out loans. They must tell the group why the want the loans and how they plan on paying them back. They also must pay interest on whatever they take out. So lets say a mama wants to start selling rice and beans but needs some startup money. She might decide that she needs 50,000 TSH to start that up to buy, rice, beans, oil, charcoal, and paying the village for a place to sell from. If the interest rate was 10% she would then have to pay back 55,000. That extra 5,000 TSH goes into the shares bag. At the end of the there might have been 2000 shares purchased. So 2,000,000 in shares if each share is 1000TSH. There also might be 250,000 shillings extra from interest and various fines (if your phone rings, 200 TSH please, if you decide not to attend one day, 1000TSH please, if you are late, 200 TSH please). So then 2,250,000 is divided by 2000. Each share is now worth 1125 TSH instead of the original 1000 if was bought for. If you have bought 150 shares throughout the year you would get back 168,750 TSH instead the 150,000 you put in originally. An extra 18,000 shillings for these people can be the difference in being able to pay for uniforms for your children to be able to attend primary school and not, or enough money to buy flour for ugali and beans for a family of four for over a month. These are just estimates. They may be higher, they may be lower, but either way businesses are going to be started in the village and people are going to learn to manage their money and learn to save. It is going to do amazing things for the people involved in the groups. I’m excited to see what people do with the money the first time they can take out loans. I want someone to start selling rice and beans so I don’t always have to cook it! So naturally this is always the example I use hoping to convince someone to do it! I’ll let you all know how this works out for me.

Last but certainly not least, WATER!! I have started talking with my village about starting a water project. We’ve decided to either to dig a well to get groundwater, or to extend the piping from the next village over. We are talking currently about the cost of each project and looking at the feasibility of each. Personally I would prefer the pipes since it would be a more secure source and would be guaranteed. Whereas with drilling a well we cannot be sure that there actually is water there. However, drilling probably will be cheaper than piping. Unfortunately, there is little community contribution that can be made in non-cash forms for the drilling project. However, with the piping, nearly 5 million shillings of labor will be needed in terms of ditch-diggings for the pipes to be laid. So in terms of less financial strain on the village, the piping would certainly be better, but it is unlikely that Peace Corps would be able to give us the amount of money needed to complete the project. I hope to be able to get around 10 million from them, 5 million in labor and other materials like sand and water from my village, and then 2-2.5 in cash from my village. We will also be asking the local government to make a contribution as well as the federal government since this is a project that was supposed to have been completed in the 70’s. Yep, these people have basically been living and dying without water for decades. It makes me physically angry to think about the government of Tanzania asking people to stop being nomads and settle into villages. They promised them schools and education, health centers and health care, and land to farm, seeds, and clean water to drink. Schools are there for the most part, health centers are over worked and over-crowded but present, the land is no longer fertile because they never learned sustainable farming techniques, and the water dried us as soon as thousands of people were using the same water source every single day without giving it a chance to regenerate. So now I’m here trying to do something that was supposed to be done long before I was born because the government simply ran out of money. And Peace Corps budget keeps getting slashed and getting the money needed to complete this project is seeming more and more impossible. In case you weren’t aware, PC just lost another 25 million from its budget and had to close 4 countries. Currently I am trying to get my village in gear to write this grant and squeeze as much money out of them as I can before these budget cuts go into effect.

That’s pretty much it with me here. I’m keeping myself extremely busy, but that’s how I prefer it. I still read a whole lot. I think I’m up to about 25 books read since arriving in October. My village absolutely loves my cross-stitch and they come over to look at it every time I’m working on it. They can hardly wait for me to finish and can’t fully understand why it is taking so long! I hope I finish before I leave.

It’s turning to winter here. The nights are quite cool. I usually sleep with a sheet and a blanket. And in the mornings I always wear a sweatshirt and sometimes pants or leggings. I’m sure if you guys came here you’d think it was right nice and feel fine wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But I just lived through Africa summer, and it now feels cold. Though, in my defense, I did see my breath the other morning so it’s got to be at least a little chilly, right?

Not sure what else to tell you guys about. I’m sure there are many other things going on that I just cannot think of right now. I am at a girls conference until Monday so if I think of more I will try and post again before I leave. But it may be two weeks or so before I have internet again, so I hope this post lasts you guys a while!

Mama wa Tanzania

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania jenzania

2012-05-26 06:48:00

I’m blessed enough to have two loving mothers. One is in America (love you mom!), and one is my neighbor in Tanzania. Mama Kumbemba is one amazing woman. She is the Head Teacher at the Primary School, a mother of three, a leader figure in the village, and an incredible helping hand to me. She immediately made sure I was ok. The day I arrived in my village, she stood out to me. She made sure there was a sheet strung up on my bedroom window, made sure I had at least one bucket of water, and came over at night to see if I could feed myself. As far as the latter goes, my site mate biked over in the dark to give me some lovely chicken alfredo he had cooked. My first night I ate some pretty amazing food and talked to my sister, Laura J

My mama is strong-willed, determined, a hard worker and a kind soul. She never ceases to amaze me at how busy she is. She handles it well. And yet, she always has time for me. She takes the time to speak slowly, help me with words I don’t know and think through ideas with me. She even found time in her busy schedule to come with me to Morogoro as my Counterpart for a week-long training session.

So, even though I already have an amazing mom in the U.S., I’m grateful for my live-in mama for 2 years. She takes care of me. I don’t know where I’d be without her…

Ramblings of an English teacher

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-25 16:57:00

Sometimes, I have moments in class where I am simply astounded by what my students do not know. It is by no means a fault of theirs, living in a country where the majority of children are “left behind”. With overcrowded classrooms, only a pen and paper to learn with, and many times with parents who have an even lower education than my eighth grade students, it’s really a wonder they’ve even made it this far.

I always prepare my English lesson in Swahili and English, in the event the students don’t understand me, I can revert to Swahili to clarify points. Since my Swahili is horrible, I like to prepare the lessons before class so I don’t waste time in class fumbling over my words. If there’s a teacher around, I will ask them to double check my Swahili to make sure I’ve got it right.

The lesson I had to teach this week is syllabus point “Using a Dictionary”. Well, as mentioned, the students have pen and paper. It’s a real interesting experience trying to teach about how to use a dictionary…without dictionaries. So, I gathered as many dictionary-like books that we own and came up with about ten dictionaries. Of course, they aren’t the traditional dictionary – where you look up the English word and find an English meaning, but the English into Swahili or vice versa type of dictionary. My thoughts on this is that hey, it’s better than nothing.

I asked my neighbor teacher if the word for “spelling” was correct in Swahili, since whenever I ask my students “how do you spell ‘cat’”?, whether in English or in Swahili, I get blank stares. The teacher explained that my students are too young to understand the Swahili word which means “spelling”. She said, they’ll know it as “alphabet” (in Swahili). I was dumbfounded. My students are 14. They don’t know the word for spelling in their own language? Really? Swahili is a pretty phonetic language – what you read is what you hear. But, technically – these students should have started learning English in grade 3 (emphasize – technically). How can you learn English without knowing the word “spelling”?

Today, I presented the topic. Sure enough, students did not know the Swahili word for spelling. So, at age 14, my students learned that spelling means to organize letters of an alphabet to create a word on paper. They seemed to get it. Quickly. But, we’ll see about that.

The students were ecstatic to rifle through my dictionaries to do classwork. Sadly enough, they had to be in groups of 8 students per one dictionary. I mean, maybe three students benefit from this. But, they were all happy. It was also a little disheartening because the students work so well independently. I think about how much lost opportunity these kids have simply because they can only rely on a teacher to come and teach them (which often doesn’t happen or can’t due to shortage of teachers). These students showed me todaywhile using those dictionaries than more in the last five months how eager they are to learn, if given an opportunity.

Can you imagine learning a foreign language without a dictionary? I can’t.

this is what 80 kids in a class looks like

9 students huddled around a dictionary

Lia the cat who thinks she’s a dog

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-24 07:16:00

Lia is getting bigger and stronger as each week passes. She’s doing her job well as we haven’t seen a rat in months. We haven’t even seen remnants of a rat in months. She’s hyper and very playful nearly all day long. Jon and I notice that she has some pretty funny dog-like tendencies. Example 1: she carries her toys in her mouth like a dog. Example 2: she cries when she wants to go outside to go to the bathroom. We were training her to go outside but figured she would only go when the door is open, not all the time. Whoo hoo! Less litter box cleaning. She still likes to cuddle with us, but only at her discretion.

she loves rolling in the dirt

PSDN'd

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania InterpretacionesDelTanzania

2012-05-23 19:39:00

Another blog post, likely to the chagrin of some vols out there. Wompwomp.

So, PSDN training happened in Dar. I'll talk more about that later. First, I should explain just getting to Dar. I left my site on a Friday to stay with a vol who lives in the port town. He gives me my ticket, tells me it only goes to Unguja so I'll have to grab another ferry to get to Dar. But that shouldn't be a problem 'cause I should get to Unguja around 3. BUT this is not the normal ferry because that one isn't working. I was a little put off by this fact, but didn't think too much of it because the "back-up" ferry was still a fast ferry and not an overnight one. I leave Pemba around 10am on Saturday morning. Sitting in VIP (baller...not really) I slip in and out of sleep. Around 3 I wake up and notice the boat isn't moving. At least not forward. We're rocking left and right (I don't know nautical vocab - port? stern?) because it's raining (kind of hard) and we're broadside to the waves. Sheeiiit. I hear through the grapevine that the engines suck (they actually said something about overheating, but I digress...) and they're going to try to fix it. At this point, 2 words go through my head: Spice. Islander. (This was the name of the slow, overnight ferry that sank about 2 weeks after I got to site. About 3000 people died. It was a real tragedy nationwide, but especially in Pemba as the boat was headed there.) But this ferry was nothing like that one: no cars, no construction vehicles/materials, less people, daylight...mostly. But that's how it sank: Engine stopped; broadside to the waves; at night. But, like I said, this boat was NOT overloaded, or even at capacity. And the seas weren't toooo bad when I was on ze boat. We felt the waves but that's about it. No crazy rocking. The engines are off for about 2 hours, while the entire time we're at the mercy of ze ocean. We drift to a point somewhere between Pemba and Tanga (not the intended destination but I do need to find a way to get there by boat). Around 4:45 the power goes out on the boat. I call PC HQ at this point because its a little bit of a safety and security risk. 5pm the engine (not engineS) come back on and we slowly head to Zanzibar. We CCCCRRAAAAWWWWWLLLLLLEEEEEDDDDD the rest of the way there. I really think it would've been faster for me to swim. 7.5 hours later, we arrive in Stone Town. A solid 14 hours. Below is an approximation of my trip:

I was able to find a guesti in Stone Town and sleep for a good 5 hours before getting up and getting another ferry (a good one: the ones from Zbar to Dar are always good since all the tourists take them) to Dar. ONE AND A HALF HOURS. That's all it took to get from Zanzibar to Dar. WTF. Anyway, I get in, get to the hotel, poop, shower, nap, eat.
I did some thinking/mind wandering while wandering on a 14 hour ferry ride: How do chickens do it? Legs tied together, sitting outside on a boat's deck, getting rained on, all with an ocean wind blowing in their face. And they still fall asleep. (Yes, like most means of transport in this country, chickens were on the ferry.) TZians treat problems like they don't exist. And they love quick fixes.
As much as PC tries to scare us, telling us we're going to get mugged (not saying that hasn't happened), lots of people here are really friendly/helpful. For ex: getting into Stone Town at 12:30am and asking a chipsi vendor where a certain guesti is. Him asking 2 teenagers to take me there. Me getting there in 1 piece, only 400tsh poorer 'cause that's what I gave them for being my guides.
Also may have gained some enemies when I told a guy I don't like being called "mzungu." Got a lot more stares after that. I also wasn't too friendly about it. But hey, after 9 months of getting called "mzungu" every day, by everyone, then getting looks and hearing it again on a shitty ferry for 14 hours? I think that may be a tipping point. Saw a TZian movie where a guy bites the head off a live chicken. And movies here are (pretty much) homemade so you know it was real. Tanzanian movies are horrible. And they're played on almost every bus and on every ferry. Horrible. (I really have the worst luck traveling.)
But PSDN training was really good. Mon-Thurs were full days: sessions, role plays, handouts, ideas, lots of talking, um.... listening! Right. 12 of us hung out, learned shtuff, ate good food (shawarma, Indian, Mexican, Italian, street chicken, and the obligatory rice and beans), elected peoples, drank a little, hooka'd a little, planned a whole lot, edited, reviewed, and spent too much money. The group is pretty unique, insomuch as people, but also in the sense that we have a lot of responsibility and we work pretty close with administration and medical unit. Everyone in it is awesome. It's a more important group than I originally thought it was, but I am definitely OK with that and I look forward to it.

Never thought I'd say this during "rainy season," but can a brotha get some rain? It was (at best) hit and miss for about a week and I haven't been able to collect much water. Not that I really need any. I guess I'm just lazy and don't want to have to chote water when I can just catch it from my roof. Also, it's much warmer when it's not raining. Don't get me wrong, there's been rain, but we got this much in October and that was just the "short rains." I thought the rainy season would be a little more "rainy" than this... ("I was just thinking the same thing. That Doug Elhers is full of shit." Please tell me someone gets that reference.) (Looking back at other posts, and re-reading this a few times, I'm pretty manic when it comes to the rain. "When it rains it pours" rings true, I guess. There's either plenty/too much rain, or not enough/none at all. Just an observation about myself.)

RIP Adam "MCA" Yauch. Not going to pretend my life revolves around the Beastie Boys or I went into a deep, extended mourning over his death. I'm also not going to get into how much of a fan I am, when I got into them, what albums I have, etc.. But I have been a fan of the Beastie Boys for some time and I guess what I'm trying to say/express is I'm bummed that there will no longer be music coming from a (really good) person in a group I really enjoy/respect, but I'm thankful for the music he and they made together.
I hope the first musicians in human history were mourned just as much as musicians are today.

Cinco de Mayo wasn't like any I've had in the States (I was sober), but it was still a decent day. The sun was out all day (a nice change) and Pemba became hot again. Aside from it taking 3 hours to get to town, I eventually got there and did some food shopping. Got home, prepped some food, and enjoyed the sun and heat. Seeing it was Cinco de Mayo, I made some Mexican for dinner: Steak fajitas with homemade tortillas, guac, rice, bell peppers. No Jose, Dos X, or Corona, but it was still a decent Cinco de Mayo. Also, the moon that weekend was incredible. It was like a spotlight. So bright I could nearly see colors.

Mama has warmed back up to me. Even invited me to a wedding at her house on May 6th. But, that turned out to be something a little different than it sounded. On the 5th I ask her what time I should show up. She tells me "saa saba" [7 o'clock, or 1 o'clock in Western time] and also tells me not to cook because I will eat at the wedding. The next day I put on pants and a button-up (down?) and go to the wedding. I walk to my mama's house and through a bunch of women cooking in her backyard. They stare and giggle at me. Typical. I wander around a little, not really sure where to go because I'm the mzungu and have no clue as to how weddings are supposed to happen. (Oddly enough, I have never been to the ceremony of a Tanzanian wedding, only the reception. However, I do know that both involve music: guitar, horns, and lots of drums.) I stand around just outside the front door of my mama's house with the other men. Mama pops her head out and tells me to wait just a minute. I say OK and continue to stand there. 2 minutes later she comes back out with an mkoba [thatched handbag] with 2 closed serving dishes in them and tells me "here." Slightly confused as to what's going on, I take the bag and say thank you. I take a second to think, then head back home. Apparently my "invitation" to the wedding was actually her way of telling me she'd be cooking a shit-ton of food anyway, so I might as well come by and get some. Oh well. It was good food (pilau, goat, tomato sauce), and I was able to come back home, take my pants off, eat, and read while the sun and rain battled for supremacy of the day.

Why, why, why do I have 39 names in my grade book when there's only 28 names on the official class roster?? Names here are different than names back home. Instead of a first name, (middle name,) last name, people here use first name, father's name, grandfather's name. This can get pretty confusing because there are a lot of Mohammad's, Ali's, Khamis's, Nadra's, Asha's, etc.. Also, for some reason, students don't put the same names on all of their exams, quizzes, notebooks. (This seems to happen more for the guys than the girls. Weird.) Makes grading pretty frustrating. As far as my grade book goes, pretty sure some students just don't come, while a few came after the official roster was made. But really, 39?

Lizards are everywhere here. Pemba and mainland. Aside from the small piles of poop that can build up, they're pretty harmless: scurrying along on the walls, eating bugs, licking their eyeballs. Apparently, they're also some tough mf'ers too. I constantly see lizards with the back half of their tail missing or with 3 legs. No doubt the chickens and cats roaming around here terrorize them.

Motif of my time here so far: people can be happy no matter where they are, no matter how much money/how many "things" they have, no matter how "poor" someone else says they are.

Vitu:
*Send things to my site address. Not the Peace Corps address.
*Whoever gave me Journey and Boston on my computer, thank you.
*My interest in Blink 182 has spiked since I've been here. Not sure why.
*Aside from the parties, why does anyone care about the Kentucky derby?
*I constantly surprise myself when I do things I initially thought I couldn't. 99.9% of this involves amounts of food I eat.
*Here, the big dipper: looks bigger; still points north; is upside down.
*Why do we only say "I just landed" when getting off planes and not boats?
*Captain America (the movie) is like Star Wars meets Indiana Jones.
*Skyping with people is aaawweeeeesssommmmeeee! Love me some fast internet. And it turns out I can voice-skype while at site. Hit me up. Cheaper than a phone, people.
*I've given up on toilet paper. I'm becoming a big fan of bidets.
*Holy shit, hot showers. I don't care if it is 85 degrees outside, a hot shower beats almost anything. Oh, except maybe turning the a/c on to 10, getting cold, then taking a hot shower, then walking back into a cold room. Yeah. Winner. (Probably not too good for my immune system. I don't care.)
*What the shit is Pinterest?
*In spite of the amount of food I eat, I hit the scale at the PC medical office: I've lost around 40lbs since I got here.
*While I may stink at times, I have not been constipated (yet) in country. I also might know someone who wont be allowed to use my computer after me.
*Why is there no "dinosaurs for dummies" handbook in the "for dummies" series?
*Dar is definitely a city that sleeps. And its a boring city when no one else is around.

Making a guitar

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-22 07:03:00

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been guys carving out and making guitars near our village. The second time we noticed they were still there, we went to talk to them.They make not only acoustic guitars, but also guitars that will be electric. They carve it out of wood, paint them red, and attach legitimate guitar strings. The frets are made out of old bicycle spokes. Jon and I really want to see how the electric guitar works! They offered to show Jon how to make one and he wants to take them up on that offer when he finds some more time.

above: an almost finished electric guitar

above: an acoustic guitar version

bicycle spokes for frets

Reflection/ More Packets, Woman!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania A Peace Corps Odyssey: Tanzania

2012-05-21 10:44:00

As I was writing in my journal today, something I do almost every day, I began to think about reflection. I started to think about how reflection is such a huge part of my life as a volunteer. Reflection keeps me moving. It reminds me where I came from and how much I have gone through to get through this point. As any education volunteer can attest, our success as volunteers is not usually a concrete, physical thing. We are not building chicken coops, starting widow support groups or digging gardens. As education volunteers we are molding young minds...planting seeds, we hope, for fruits we will never see. Don't get me wrong, occasionally we see the fruits of our labor, library projects, English proficient and HIV/AIDS clubs. The real difference we may never see, we can only hope. So, how does reflection help with this? Reflection allows me to believe, it allows me to put faith in something I cannot see. (Many of you will know how hard this is for me). I have to reflect to see the change; and the small change I do see from when I started teaching my students until now allows me to believe that I am making a difference. It may be just a small seedling, but it is there. This reflection has also caused me to reflect on life in general, but I will not bore you with those details now. Let's just say I am not the same person I was before this experience, for better or worse.

So, it is Monday here, one of the last few and the school is being taken over by people from the ministry of magic... I mean education. They are inspecting our school to make sure our teachers are teaching, schedules are in order and the school is basically functioning. I always find these visits amusing because they are getting, what I refer to as, the beauty queen version of our school. Our school is clean and tidy when they arrive, papers are in order, teachers are present and in the classrooms and the students are doing what they are supposed to be doing. We are pageant ready. On any other day, half of the teachers are at school, paperwork is not complete and the students are around the classrooms. We look as if we woke up, forgot to put on make up and blow dry our hair before heading to Starbucks. I do not mean to critique my school because even schools in America do this. You would think we would all learn that being prepared pays off. Some where in the months between ministry visits, we just tend to forget what it is like to run around like decapitated chickens, or maybe we just like the thrill?

This weekend I went to town to print some paper for our girls' conference and see a few familiar faces. On my way back to site, around 4:30 pm, I jumped on a coaster and was forced to sit next to a very drunk Tanzanian. Within five minutes he had professed his love to me in front of everyone on the bus and drooled on my leg. Honestly there is nothing I can resist more than a man who can proclaim his love while smelling like gin, but I knew I had to restrain myself. I mouthed to one of the mamas next to me of me, “amelewa” [ he is drunk], which she decided to blab to the whole bus. Now I had about twenty people laughing at me and one mad, drunk man sitting next to me. By the grace of something, the man was moved the row behind me and after calling me a slew of dirty names, because I turned down his marriage proposal, he passed out. When he awoke twenty minutes later he was asking/yelling at the woman next to me to sell him small packets of booze (She didn't have any). At this point people on the bus got pretty pissed off, the drunk man started to verbally harass me again, and the conductor threatened to ditch him at the next stop. All the while I could not help but think how I would have dealt with the situation when I first came to country; drunk people in public during the day are usually hard to come by in the states and you are rarely forced to sit next to them for the better part of an hour. I can now confidently say that after two years ignoring things and people has become a honed skill, one I am grateful to have acquired here.

Really not much else to write home about. I have spent the majority of the last few weekends at my site enjoying time to myself. This, of course, leads me to wonder how I will do when I return home. There will be people I can interact with normally at all hours of the day and very little time will actually be spend like most of my time here – completely alone. It will be interesting to see how I readjust to being around familiar people all the time, lots of familiar people. I guess time will tell.

Health update: Last weekend food poisoning, or just really bad stomach cramps and a fever struck again. Laid me out for a few days and put me on a bland food diet. I have honestly lost count of the number of time I have been sick here... too many to count, but nothing that soda and biscuits cannot fix, right? Maybe I will have a stomach of steel when I get home?

As always I hope everything and everyone is well at home. Best of luck to Jordan, who will be racing at IRAs this coming weekend and Brown Women's Crew, who will be defending their national championship at NCAAs this weekend as well. I will have row2k on refresh. Congratulations to my cousin Erin on her upcoming wedding. I am sorry I could not be there. I hope you have a wonderful day! Lastly I am counting down the days until my mom's visit!!! Soo excited! Only a few more weeks!

All my love from TZ!

5/8/12

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Rachel in Tanzania

2012-05-21 08:50:50

My cat is missing, oh well, it was annoying and smelly anyway. I transplanted a papaya seedling in my courtyard last week, it seems to be doing well. My morning glories are doing what morning glories should do – climbing … Continue reading →

5/8/12

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Rachel in Tanzania

2012-05-21 08:28:20

Perro Vida: The Dogs of Surf Town*

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania A is for Adult. Chapter 3: American in Dar

2012-05-20 12:15:00

It’s an easy day at Tortilla Flats. The expats speak in a charming Orange County drawl while sipping Imperials. The tourists, happily day-drunk, munch on mountains of nachos. The surfers bob up and down in a consistent surf. The locals are policemen on bicycles, shirtless shop keepers, and five year olds tending their surf boards. Pura vida whispers in the ocean breeze as a long-haired dude moseys to the bar, orders a whiskey, and says to no one in particular “hair of the dog”.

I break off a piece of tortilla and toss it down to the straggly mut whose been at my side since I arrived in Domincal two days earlier. Everyone in this tiny Costa Rican surf paradise seems to have a canine side kick. Mine came with my room. Her name is Gamma.

Gamma arrived on the beach one day, bright eyed and tail-less. She was received by the resident muts with neutrality; she’s neither alpha nor beta. Straight away she teamed up with Tits McGee, a medium sized, golden haired teenager whose nipples hang like ornaments on the low branches of a Christmas tree. Tits needs friends. She’s the kinda dog the other bitches roll their eyes at. Poor Tits is constantly dodging efforts of the beach muts, attempting a quick mount beneath the coconut palms. Gamma isn’t much of a wing woman.

Lucy is a cowardly Pitbull who hides behind the bar in a cupboard that may have at one time been a bread box. Lucy has been bred for excellence in aggression and trained for total submission. She’s the beach beta. Her owner looks in her direction and she runs for the cupboard. The small surf dogs sniff her tail and she rolls belly up. Like many girls on the beach, Lucy has no idea what power she holds.

At sunset the beach gets crowded. Two German Sheppards herd a hunky California beach boy, jogging Hasselhoff style into the surf. The Sheppards (and I) watch contently from the shore while he catches a few waves.

Free agents scavenge the garbage cans, while a lab hangs back with a group of children playing in the sea foam. Across the way a shaggy stranger paws about in the turtle nesting area. A tall blonde alpha and two dark Chihuahuas taunt tits. Gamma has settled close by. She takes it all in, happy to be ignored.

Happy to be ignoredis the general vibe in Domincal. It’s a sleepy town, the kind of place where you could fall asleep in a hammock and wake up three months later with dreadlocks, a pick-up truck, and a dog.

My friend Victoria with Tits McGee (on left), and Gamma (on right).

*This is a belated post from my trip to Costa Rica last November.

Staying in Tanzania!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Anna in Tanzania

2012-05-20 10:35:00

It was close to dusk as I lugged my bag down the steps of the bus. Nahasibu was there, smiling ear to ear, a smile so contagious, you can't help but re-enact it. “Wao Wao” we simultaneously shouted as we hugged each other. Children run up and throw there arms around my legs. My bags are gone from my hands before I could even identify who was taking them. I greeted a few more people with hugs and waves as we started walking downhill towards my house. I had been gone from my village for only a week and a half but in such a short time so much had changed. May 2012, a month that had long been engrained in our minds, the month of our Close of Service (COS) Conference. I remember when my previous site mate had gone to the conference the year before, she was a year ahead of me, and I thought she had been through so much, was so mature. I was envious of her for making it so far in her service, but proud at the same time. Yet, here I was, arriving in my village for the last month and a half of my service, and I felt neither mature or proud of what I had accomplished. I expected to be done with work by this time, to feel differently about my service. But I had so much left to do, so many things to finish. I felt rushed and all of the sudden did not want to leave at all. I wanted to add a few more months, to stall time. So much change was ahead.

The week before I left for COS Conference I was decided on going home in July, as opposed to extending with Peace Corps or trying to find a job in Tanzania. I was going to do some traveling, return home and start the job search. Until, I got a phone call from the Assistant Director of Peace Corps Tanzania, asking me if I was interested in interviewing for an extension opportunity with World Food Program (WFP). With one phone call everything changed, my undetermined future suddenly had a direction. No grueling job search, no post-Peace Corps depression, no good-byes. I jumped at the interview and got on a bus the next day to Dar es Salaam to meet with WFP. The interview went well, pending funding, Amy, a friend who was also requested for this two-person job, and I were going to be moving to Mtwara, which is a town near the Mozambique border. I have never been there, but I hear it is beautiful and hot! But promises of morning swims and fish overshadow the less than ideal weather. Plans had changed, now I needed to move up my leave date from my village, figure out how to finish up all of my projects as soon as possible and break the news to all the people who were expecting me home in July. Even though I was constantly complaining about how hard the transition home was going to be, I was feeling sad about my change in plans. I was not going to see family and friends as soon as I thought. Though, I was able to see many people that I love when I went home for Christmas, it was too short and just a visit. I have lived in Tanzania for two years and now I want to add another 6 months. Is that too much? Hanging out with my parents and friends, eating delicious salads, going to the gym, all of that had to be postponed. And I am sad about it. There was some part of me that was attached to the idea of being an American living in America again. But inside I know that I am making the right decision by staying a little longer and working on a new project in Tanzania. Not only am I excited about the work, but I know that if I went home without giving a chance to another opportunity I would always ask “What if?” And now I don't have to!

Habari Ya Siku Nyingi

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Paff In Tanzania

2012-05-20 08:11:55

Note: this was actually written a few weeks ago, but since then I’ve had no luck getting it online. Word on the street is that PCVs who blog have a tendency to blog pretty regularly for several months, and then their blogging drops off over time. This seems to have happened to me – sorry, [...]

The Path Less Traveled

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Glenn in Tanzania: A Peace Corps Blog

2012-05-19 09:16:59

So I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted last. I actually had a blog post all written up on my computer and was just waiting until I went into town to post it. However, I just received a message from an old friend who is doing similar work as me and making some [...]

Peer Support Diversity Network

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-19 09:28:00

I spent the last week in Dar es Salaam for two reasons that are hopefully a really positive continuation of my volunteer experience in Tanzania. The first reason I had to make the 12 hour bus trip to Dar again was to check up on my eyes. My eyes remained the same as my last check up and as such, the doctors in South Africa said I can finish my medication. I am so pleased to announce that yesterday was my last day putting eye drop steroids into my delicate and over medicated eyes. I am not trying to be pessimistic, but there is a chance that my eyes will revert back to the initial symptoms by stopping the medication. However, I am being hopeful that all will turn out well. I need it to because it will really help boost my spirits as the school break/travel season is upon us! So, at this time, if you're a person who has religion in your life, I beg for your prayers - from every denomination!

The second reason I was in Dar es Salaam was because I applied and was selected to become a member of the Peer Support Diversity Network (PSDN) here in Peace Corps Tanzania. We're a group of 12 volunteers who over the course of the next year will help support volunteers in country who are experiencing small problems to very big issues. Mostly, we provide support through the phone, but also will have the great privilege to attend trainings to do sessions on various issues that Peace Corps volunteers face in country. Additionally, we work closely with staff and the medical office. I was elected into the position of training coordinator working with staff issues. I think I'll be great with the position and look forward to working with the staff in the future.

While in Dar es Salaam, I was able to explore the city center which was a different part of Dar es Salaam that I got to know during my six weeks in Dar during medical issues. I am excited to have Jon come with me next time to show him all the great places I discovered over the course of the week there. It was also nice to meet new volunteers who will be working with me on PSDN and see old friends who I trained with back in June-August.

The new education volunteers will arrive in about 2.5 weeks and we're all so very excited to meet them! Their training class is a little bit larger than what our training class consisted of. I decided not to apply to train the English volunteers because I have already missed so much school from my medical issues. I feel sad that I will miss the great opportunity to share my knowledge and meet everyone, but I am hopeful that I can apply next year to do it anyway.

Just a small update from me and hopefully I'll get some more fun stuff to write about soon!

They're heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Hoppin' All Over the World

2012-05-18 12:02:00

They’re here. After such a long time waiting the K-20s are finally here! And let me tell you – they seem like a really wonderful bunch. I’m pleased as punch that these are the kids that accepted their invitations to serve here in the K. Very much an eclectic group of people; young and old, black and white, crazy and crazier. Can’t wait to really get to know them. I keep having this ridiculous feeling that I want to be friends with them but 1) I’m not really quite allowed to be their friend yet; have to maintain my professional distance and be a good trainer and 2) they are NOT havin’ it. Haha. I wonder if we were the same with the 18s (although I think it’s a bit of the reverse in this case), where they tried to befriend us but we were just too involved in our own group to really branch out. Not sure I can handle two months of waiting to be friends – especially since a few of them are headed out in my direction and I want to like them and be ready to spend the next year havin’ a BLAST with them.

Back at site after almost 3 weeks in the Kek. First week was spent saying goodbye to one of my new best friends – BP, as we like to call him. John has been a staple in my Bishkek life over the past six months. Don’t know what I would’ve done without him and our Team Indulgence nights. However, I think that we sent him off (on his glorious 6 week vacation to Uzbekistan, Australia, NZ, Fiji, etc.) in true TI style. As sad as it was, I know that I’ll be able to do it all over again come July when he’s back for a month of consulting work. Good thing that’s when my session of PST will be. :)

Second week was doing our ToT for the K-20 PST. Lots of repetition of things we learned in our own PST, but it feels kind of nice being on the know-it-all end of things this time around and not the holy-shit-what-did-I-get-myself-into end. All of the trainers are going to be great; we have a very enthusiastic and positive energy going on and the LCFs (the language teachers) are ready and rarin’ to go with this new batch of trainees.

Third week kicked off with our jaunt out to the airport at 2 am to great the new trainees. I think that all of the vols who decided to show up – there were about 20 of us – were all so past the point of tired that we were all just giddy silly fools and so excited for them all to arrive safe and sound. A few vols waited inside the airport with PC signs (like they wouldn’t know who we were without them?! *facepalm*) while the rest of us waited outside, jumping up and down and very fidgety. We created a tunnel of sorts for people to walk down – we even got some locals to go through and cheered them on; they thought we were nuts! – just to add to their embarrassment of being up for howevermanyhours and traveled halfway around the world. Lots of them were good sports about it.

After the airport, we all headed to the hotel where the trainees would stay for the first few nights and the vols were let off into the world of 5 am Bishkek. Surprisingly beautiful and serene, I might add. Then we all tried to pull our shit together to manage a few hours of sleep before PST officially began. Lots of information was thrown in the trainees faces, all the trainers seemed way more excited then the rest of them, and the staff seemed incredibly well-put-together and ready to go. Our team this year really is going to be prime time. On Tuesday, they all got matched up with their host families for PST. Everyone was terrified and it was really cathartic knowing that I wasn’t the only one flipping out over this; that it very much is a big deal not speaking the language and getting placed with a family you don’t know anything about. They all took it like champs. I hope they’re doing well. Haven’t heard much to the contrary, so I’m guessing no news is good news.

I am excited to see them all in six weeks time for my session, but am still really nervous about handling them all on my own. The other two sessions for TEFL have two volunteers to work things out. I’m on my lonesome. Sometimes I think that’s a great idea and sometimes I’m scared shitless. I know I’ll be fine and my energy and enthusiasm will be enough to get me through the really awkward times, but at the same time, I want to share all my knowledge about teaching and living in the K with them. Does that make me weird? I hope not. Otherwise this’ll be awkward as hell. Fingers crossed that I’ll figure out what I’m doing before then and that things will go over smoothly.

Still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that a lot of my best friends from country are either traveling the world right now or are back in America. Can’t fathom it. It seems like only yesterday we were all sitting in a field in Kengesh and I was getting shit for wanting to come to Talas. Wonder if the 20s will feel that way about us in a year. Gosh, I hope they will. It really is interesting how people can get so close after only one year when put in places and experiences like this. Some of the 18s I will remember and love for the rest of my life. Like I said before, don’t know what I’m going to do without them until I really get to know the 20s. I’ll make due, I guess.

Haven’t been reading much lately. Been too wrapped up in TV shows finishing (Glee and Smash, although I haven’t seen the finales to either). Still trying to work my way through Game of Thrones – I’m on book four – but this one is just not as interesting. Why did he make it so that this book is ‘written’ by the crappy characters and the fifth one is with all the good ones?! Damn him, knowing we HAVE to read one to get to the other. Have Steve Jobs’ biography up next on the queue and am getting ready to rewatch all of Lost with Steve. Found The Avengers, but haven’t watched it yet. Quality is pretty shite and I just can’t bring myself to watch it like that – want to be able to really appreciate RDJ’s dialogue and to stare at Thor’s arms ‘cause… goddamn. Anyone got anything new for me? I’m really starting to need some of the following:

- A Bit of Fy and Laurie

- Jeeves and Wooster

- Less Than Perfect (old skool Zachary Levi, YESFRICKINPLEASE!)

If you have access to any or all of those things, send in my direction, please and thank you.

MOM AND TIF COME IN LESS THAN A MONTH. Sorry, just a wee bit excited. Cannot wait to be able to show off this beautiful country to them and to show off my (not so) amazing Kyrgyz skills. And just to hang out with them again. Miss them so much. And then less than a month after that, Jess comes to visit and help with camp. Going to be one of the best summers ever. Here’s hoping that Diana and Mrs EA find a way to make it in my direction and that my trip with Dad actually pans out. :)

This post has gotten completely incoherent, which means that I need to finish up and do something my brain can handle (Lost, it is then.). Please know that I’m missing you all and wishing the best summers. Hope tornadoes haven’t swept you all away. All my love to you guys.

Make a decision!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania jenzania

2012-05-17 11:53:00

You have about 5 seconds from the time you walk/push your way onto a dala (mini-bus) to pick the best possible seat. You have a few decisions to make. And fast. First of all, are there ANY seats available? Second of all, are there any openings near the front of the bus? Thirdly, is there a window seat? And lastly, if you have to sit in an aisle, which seat will you get the least butts, armpits, or arm flab in your face? The answers to these questions WILL determine the enjoyment of your entire ride. And, if you end up making a poor choice, it will possibly haunt you for a few days afterward; and, as they say to everything of varying degrees, pole (sorry)!

corn

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzaniadave

2012-05-16 10:57:00

Things are picking up in the village. But first, my garden. It's unbelievable to have such a flourishing garden in your backyard. The way things grow here in the this area of Tanzania, with all the rain we've had, is awesome. Corn is ripe and harvestable. The giant ears of corn I pull out of my back courtyard are the size of my upper arm. Tanzanians like to roast corn, but I prefer like many Americans to boil it- fresh, tasty, I have to cut it in half to fit in my cooking pot (sufuria).

I also have lima beans. My good friend Patrione pointed this out when he visited my village. The amount is staggering. Also delicious to cook, along with the spinach or mchicha as they say here. So anyway, this sunday is the international day for remembrance of victims of HIV/AIDS, celebrated by a candlelight memorial. We are planning a candlelight walk here in my village to raise awareness of the problem and to decrease the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, as well as to remember family and loved ones who have passed because of.

But the big event will be the national environmental day June 5th. Tomorrow I'm having a meeting with village officials, environmental officials, teachers and others to plan activities. The schoolkids will have fun singing songs, playing games, and drawing pictures; I'm planning about teaching and showing the permagarden, compost pile, and other activities like education and collecting seeds.

So it finally feels like projects are starting to come together. I'm continuing to teach one class a day at the Primary School, on environment. Yesterday I taught the students how to make drinking water without having to boil- because boiling usually requires firewood and excessive use of wood degrades the environment- so you take water collecting from the bomba (waterpipe in the ground), rainwater from the roof, or from the river. You filter it with a piece of cloth, then put it in a clear water bottle and put in on your roof (which must be metal) let's say for two days. Afterwords, it is safe to drink.

The previous groups of health and environmental volunteers is leaving the country soon- those who aren't extending. Time goes by very fast.

Dollars and Days

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania The Man Who Lives in Ma Finga

2012-05-16 07:29:00

In East Africa, there is a country. It is called Tanzania. And in Tanzania there is a city. It is called Dar Es Salaam (which incidentally means Harbour of Peace). And in that city there is a shopping mall. It is called The Third Ring of Hell. Or it should be. And this is where our hero finds himself, waiting. Waiting for the camera repair guy to show up. Our man got up early, with his act together. Found a new and frightening bus stand, got on the right bus, got off at the right stop (I know, these are rather minor accomplishments. But it’s a city of 8 million people (only 3 million officially, but good luck counting), and there are no road signs. You try it). Was at the mall by 8:45 on Monday morning. Of course, the store wasn’t open. Would not be open, in point of fact, until 11, this despite repeated reassurances from each and every passerby that the proprietor was “njiani” (on the way) or that the would “fika sasa hivi” (arrive right now). But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. So I waited, fumed, read “The Guernsey Literaryand Potato Peel Pie Society” (...all my masculine books are finished. So it’s getting a little “Bridges of Madison County”-ish these days), listened to the Muzak version of “Kiss from a Rose” (I hate you, Seal), and wondered what I had done to deserve this. Long story short, this was my two hour and fifteen minute window into the modern world. Things looked dark. Except when they looked bleak. My days in the simpler life are numbered.

I was in Dar for a week for my Close of Service (COS) Conference. It’s always weird going to Dar, because I get into a bus in the middle of a rural African village, stuck in a seemingly endless struggle to pull itself out of poverty, and at the end of the day I’m standing in a supermarket, wondering if I got into a bus or a time machine. But the US government doesn’t really care about my delicate sensibilities, so the COS was in Dar. Which all in all ain’t so bad. A week in the sun, with my original group of volunteers, where we got information on how to retire as Peace Corps Volunteers, find jobs, and readjust to American life (which apparently involves weeping in front of tomato soup cans). There was a lot of dancing, a bunch of midnight pool parties, some rough mornings, and a fantastic awards show called The Tanzos. Awards given out included “Best Hair” (she thanked her parents), “Closet Genius” (she thanked Nietzsche), and “Greatest Poop Story” (Not sure who she thanked. Those stories tend to accumulate when you combine foreign food and a paucity of toilets). I received the award for “Greatest Tanzo Award Acceptance Speech”. No pressure.

I’ll spare you the run-up and just hit the highlights. “I look at all of you tonight, and I know I’m looking at all of the people that I will one day meet again...in hell.” I proudly and publicly announced my engagement to Stephen DiOrio (once you’ll meet him, you’ll understand my choice). And I talked about how I’m not sure I can believe in governments, or in organizations, anymore. Even Peace Corps. How all of these things succeed or fail because people make them succeed or fail. And that is what I will miss: the people. I won’t look back fondly on Peace Corps the bureaucracy: the forms, the dates, the flash drives. I’ll remember the volunteers, the staff, the villagers, my friends. My closing lines were: “I don’t miss America. I miss Americans. I will not miss Tanzania. I will miss Tanzanians. And I will not miss the United States Peace Corps. I will miss all of you.”

On with the blog.

The woman running the conference was truly wonderful (not least in that she put up with us. What we lack in manners and calm we make up for in volume). We talked about resumes, RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) networks, interviewing, reverse culture shock, and a lot more. But I was really truly grateful that she shared with us some rather personal aspects of her life as a PCV, her work after Peace Corps in Haiti and Africa, and life as an American living overseas. Many of her stories are wonderful, and made me want to…well, to stay. But one of them struck me, and stuck with me. She was talking about a relative of hers who is always wondering when she and her husband (who is also an RPCV) will stop playing around in Africa and come home. How when he thinks of Africa he just thinks of naked children with distended bellies, crying in front of a camera, surrounded by flies, waiting for your dollar a day.

I guess congratulations are owed to all of you. If any of you felt like this, either when I began this journey or at any point along the way, you have been wise enough not to share said feelings with me. In a lot of ways the purpose of this blog is to make it clear that Africa isn’t about poverty (though poverty exists), or charity (though that is helpful, if done properly), or development work. It is about life and nature and belief and beauty. There are talented people and beautiful people and awful people and lost people. Which makes it different from...nowhere. The difference, I guess, is history. But that’s not my point either. I don’t think you need me to show you how different we can be. There are plenty of people making that point (though fewer and fewer every year, I hope. I wish). I wanted to show how all the things we know and treasure and value exist here as well, just in different packages. I’m not making sense...

...let’s try a metaphor! The kids in my village do a really fun thing. When I show up at a house, particularly if it’s the first few times I’ve been there, the little children will all scurry away around back (I am, in case you’ve forgotten, pretty horrifying). But if I stay long enough, they’ll start to peak their heads around the edge of the house, to have a good look at the scary pale giant. From time to time I’ll catch them looking, and just look back, frankly, into their eyes. The shyer ones turn and flee, but the braver ones will return my stare for a few seconds. Then the game gets too hairy, my eyes get too scary, and they pull their little heads back, just enough so that the wall once again blocks out the sight of me. Once they’re assured that they won’t be turned to stone, they peak back out, and the game resumes. I love that so much, that ability as a child to make something vanish and truly believe that it’s vanished; to be able to close your eyes and make the world go away.

I can’t do that any more, not even if I wanted to. And that’s good. I’m an adult, and I live in a varied and scary world that needs people to confront its problems, not pretend they don’t exist. The Third Goal of Peace Corps is “Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” That’s what this blog is. It’s one small piece of tape holding eyelids open, or perhaps less shit-eatingly, it’s a flashlight pointed at a part of the world that might otherwise remain unseen. But I suspect, in my heart, that all of you already knew all of this. My students are going to make it to Ruaha. They aren’t standing in the desert with their mouths open and bellies bulging. They are fun, and devilishly clever, and they like to run with me when I’m out for a jog. They are not charity cases, but they also do not have much, and they live tantalizingly close to breathtaking animals that they might never see. But now they will. They are going to see some animals. And it is all because of people who didn’t close their eyes, who cared, and who helped make a small, important difference. It’s all because of you.

Congratulations.

Money, money, money

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania jenzania

2012-05-15 09:53:00

The other day I walked back from town. I’ve gotten sick of waiting for the lorrie (open-topped truck) to be an hour late and packed to capacity, so I was looking forward to the hour and a half walk. Sure, I’d have to greet people along the way, but at least I had a destination and could keep walking. About 20 minutes into the walk, a guy already walking in the same direction asked me where I was going. I said the name of my village and he somehow decided he’d like to walk with me. Now, I wasn’t really in the mood to make Kiswahili small talk, and made it a point to slow down or speed up to try to lose him. If I stopped to pretend to rifle through my backpack, he’d shuffle along, clearly waiting for me; if I tried to pass him, he’d walk at a very un-Tanzanian fast pace to try to keep up with me. Needless to say, it was very frustrating. So, I’m about to turn down the path to my house and I say, “have a nice day” to be polite. He looks at me and says, “Where’s my money? I walked you here, and I’m tired.” I was stunned. I spent over an hour trying my hardest to lost this guy in transit, and he wants money?! I looked at him, and repeated three times each with more surprise and disgust, “You want money? You want money?! You want MONEY?!” I laughed, said a very sarcastic (which is lost on all Tanzanians), “Sorry mister,” and walked away.

The very next day, I went to the little market in my village. I was so excited to see bananas! I had just bought a few, and I hadnt even left the table and a guy comes up to me and asks me if he can have a banana. I thought, how rude. So, I, probably still annoyed from the day before, told him very politely that we were still at the table, so he could buy his own.

Also in the same day, I heard the name of the previous volunteer being shouted at me multiple times in a row. I stopped, turned around, and saw a mama coming toward me. I immediately recognized her as the mama that has, more often than not, usually been drinking. She didn’t even greet me and immediately patted her stomach and asked me for money for chai. This was the third time in two days that I’ve been tracked down and asked for money in my village. This, more likely than not, only happens in town. Now, first of all, I’ve told this mama my name at least five times, and she can’t even try to remember. Second of all, don’t scream my name across the whole village. And lastly, I don’t get a salary, you can’t have my bananas, and I can walk by myself!!!!!

Grandpa George.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Riah in Tanzania

2012-05-14 17:46:00

So my grandpa George died over the weekend. Which is sad, but everyone who was around him recently says that he was ready, and he was 92, which is plenty old, and that makes things less sad. I'm not entirely sure I have all the details right, but I think he slipped and fell and broke a vertebrae, and they had him intubated in the hospital, and he would have been paralyzed if he lived, so there was no reason to keep him on life support. Also, he couldn't talk. So they took the tube out and he died a little bit later. My mom called me on skype from his hospital room, and I got to talk to him about an hour or so before her died, which is kind of weird, but also something I was glad to be able to do. It's a really weird feeling talking to someone for the last time, knowing that they can hear you but can't talk back. So I told him what I was doing here, and mom, who was there with him, said that he was proud of me. Which was nice. Grandpa didn't ever really talk much, but that made it even specialer when he did say something like that. I remember this particularly clearly from after he saw me play Lear. Anyways, my mom was with him when he died, and I think that was good, and she said he just slowly stopped breathing. I think everyone was relieved that it didn't drag on, which at one point it sounded like it might. It's a really weird feeling having something big like this happening when you're away from your family in a totally different part of the world, where everything's a different time for you than for them. We were having a going away party taco night for Adam, and it was the day back home, when my mom called me. She called back an hour or so later, but I was busy making tortillas and didn't answer my phone in time, and she didn't call me back, so I didn't find out he had actually died until the next day, which was probably easier, talking to my mom about it when it was just me and Bill at the house instead of everyone in the middle of a party the night before. So there's that.

In other news, the taco night was a success. Adam, while not a Peace Corps volunteer, has been volunteer teaching in Moshi for the last 9 months or so, and he's definitely been a part of our group. He's going home next week for the summer, and then coming back to Tanzania, which is nice, cuz he's a really great guy, so it'll be fun to have him back. Also, we made corn tortillas, which were okay. A bit tougher than our usual wheat ones. And taco meat and guac and salsa and rice and really good beans. Plus margaritas. With triple sec and everything. Except not limes, cuz everyone always forgets the swahili word for limes and lemons here are green anyways, so Josh got lemons instead. Which really wasn't a problem, they still tasted like margaritas, just slightly lemonier ones. And we had a bunch of leftovers, so Bill and I fried up the leftover tortillas and made nachos the next day, which was exciting.

Also, I got selected to do some of the English training sessions at the next PST, which I'm super excited about. Next week is TOT (training of trainers) in Morogoro, where we'll sort out the schedule and who's doing what exactly, and work on our lesson plans together, which should be fun, because I'm a dork about these things and like them a lot. Plus, I get to see both some of my friends who I haven't seen in a while, and I'll get to go visit my host family, which will be very nice. Also, Mel's host mama just had a baby. In the time we've been away at site, which really puts how long we've been here into perspective. Once we'd been in country 9 months, me and Mel would say "we could've had a baby," but Mel's mama actually did. (Tanzanians are superstitious about talking about babies before they're born, so Mel didn't even know her mom had been pregnant until afterwards, which would never happen in America.) And I like babies, so I'm looking forward to this too. The only annoying thing about it is the scheduling, right smack in the middle of the week, which means we have to miss a full week of school for a 3 day training, which seems silly and unnecessary. But it's how things go here. Hopefully I can figure out some good teacher-less lessons for my students to do while I'm away. I'm thinking of giving them a story to spend the week reading and we can discuss it when I get back the next week, to go along with personality/character, which is the next topic in my scheme of work.

Entertainment

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-14 10:20:00

Peace Corps volunteers have an uncanny ability to make whichever country they are living within a little America.
Our friend came up with the idea of making a corn hole (or bags, as some others call it) set to play when we all hang out. Jon and I had the wood boards made in our village and our friend bought an old T-shirt, beans, and had a seamstress make bean bags. We’ve been play corn hole for hours every time we get together.

Jon & Jordan playing corn hole in the parking lot of our hotel.

Safari Steve, our buddy who we often hung out with during training spent the last week creating a risk board with markers and crayons and folding tons of origami boxes and cranes for the pieces. Last night, we played for hours on end. I controlled most of North America until Safari Steve took me over. The square pieces can represent up to four “army men”, the baby cranes are horses and the big mama birds are tanks.

the incredibly well-made risk game board and pieces

my baby bird defending Greenland

the first epic battle: two mama birds defending North Africa and Brazil

Three mama birds

my epic battle: defending Greenland with mama bird. I won!

Mama birds “doing it”

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania miaka miwili katika Tanzania

2012-05-12 10:16:00

Hey hey!

Not much news, but I've got some spare time and internet this weekend in Newala so I figured I'd post some words (and pictures)...

April ended with a Peace Corps Super-Regional (Lindi and Mtwara regions) conference, held in Mtwara town. It's always nice to have the chance for all 24 PCVs in the deep south to get together and catch up. The week-long conference was half catch up/share time with PCVs and staff and half focused on malaria training. Each PCVs local ward's CCA (community change agent) was there to talk about ways we can collaborate together in our respective villages. The highlight of the training was going to a nearby village with a "mobile video unit" that drives around and sets up a projector and shows various movies, this one a 45 minute Tanzanian love-story/fishing action drama/important lessons about malaria learned feature film. Tons of adults and children showed up and piled on the ground and it was really fun! Oh ya and then we spent our last afternoon at the beautiful beach :). It was also great timing for us to get some much needed time together for planning our girls empowerment conference, which will begin in just 12 days. I'm really excited, but I'll be relieved if and when we are finally able to pull it off!

Things are moving slowly in the village, as usual. A few weeks ago the 2nd year students at the nearby teacher's training college had their graduation ceremony. Tyler and I went and got to see Hanako (the JICA volunteer teaching computers there) and Tetsuko (JICA volunteer teaching in Newala) and eat some tasty pilau (Tanzanian spiced rice, special for weddings, ceremonies, etc.). This last week my ward's Malaria CCA (community change agent) had a meeting in my village with some Mamas. Trying to teach people to use mosquito bednets (when they don't have beds) is tricky! Hopefully in June the MVU (mobile video unit) from Mtwara will be coming to Maputi to play a movie, which should be more fun than listening to someone talk about the importance of malaria prevention!

And guess what! Peace Corps finally approved a pay increase of 20%! After seeing prices increasingly rise, some things nearly doubling in price over the last year and a half, it'll be really nice to have that extra 50,000 shillings (~ 30 USD) per month. Speaking of money, I'm supporting my former student, Karimu, during his A-level schooling. He's studying way out west of Songea. It is always amazing to me to see how little money Tanzanians are able to live on, and for just around 250,000 shillings (~160 USD) he can pay for school, room and board in the hostel, his uniform and supplies (of course a calculator for math class!), food and walking around money, and travel to/from home for an entire year! I'm trying to pay this from my modest PC living allowance, so if anyone is interested in helping support an amazing student this year or next year, let me know :)

I think that's it for now! Happy birthday sister (2 days ago)! And happy mother's day ma (tomorrow)!

Tardiness

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-11 10:18:00

“English class has already started. Do not enter. Do not knock on the door.”

Tanzanian time does not work for me when I am trying to teach. Students can no longer enter my class late. Tanzanian teachers beat students who come late. I generally just let them come in without much harassment. The students have started taking advantage of this and come in groups, ten minutes late. Not anymore. They won’t get beat by me, but they won’t get their lesson either, which is arguably a worse punishment. And in the end, if the students are not in class, they’ll end up getting hit anyway by the teachers who patrol the school making sure students are where they are supposed to be. I imagine one week after my sign being hung, students will figure out how to be on time to English class.

kkk: big problems in tanzania

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania A Fresh Start

2012-05-10 08:05:00

First off, no. It's not what you think. It is indeed an acronym, but it stands for something different in the Education sector of Tanzania. The order varies depending on who you ask. In fact, you could ask the same person 6 times and get six different combinations of the same three things:

Kuandika. Kusoma. Kuhesabu.

read the rest

Getting Started!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Maria:The Elephant Whisperer

2012-05-10 07:22:00

So I started teaching Life Skills at the secondary school. I can already tell that I am going to love teaching. These kids are stoked to learn about sex, condoms, stds and HIV/AIDS. I decided to start out teaching about peer pressure then work my way into everything else. Some of the kids are so bad! I set the ground rules my first day and they know they will be punished if they break them (NO talking when I am talking). Since I'm not really into beating the students with a stick I am going the route of making them hold penny to the chalkboard with their nose.It works, they seem to respect me for the most part. I also have kids from other forms (grades) snaking into my class to listen. I don't know if it' because they want to learn or they just want to see the American chick teach in Swahili.

I also started a sports club for the youth. I also made sure to get the street kids, orphans and students all involved as well as boys and girls. I decided since they mostly just play soccer that it would be fun to introduce them to kickball. I thought it would be easy but let me tell you that this was one of the hardest things I have done here.A bunch of kids showed up to play but introducing foreign concept to them was really something...."we use our hands AND our feet?". After literally 5 minutes kids started leaving saying it was too hard but eventually the ones that stuck around got it and loved at. After the kids who left saw them playing and loving it some of them came back.I have my second meeting/game today so we will see how it goes.

The previous volunteer started a group of OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) caretakers. They make school uniforms and such and sell them. I have started going to those meetings too, getting them back up and running.

My Swahili is ummm gradually getting better. I don't think I'll ever bee 100% fluent though, we shall see. My relationship with my village is better then ever. I seem to have a good rapport with people of all ages. It took a while to differentiate myself from the volunteer that was here before me. She was the first PCV in the village so when I arrived most of the villagers assumed we wold do things exactly the same. It's fun to teach them about American culture.
Thats all for now!

Getting things done.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Riah in Tanzania

2012-05-10 04:03:00

So yesterday was a super awesome productive day. I got up in the morning and took care of some VAC things that needed doing, updating the website and texting people to delegate responsibilities. (Yay Mar helping to put together a Swahili joke book! I’m excited about this project) Then I taught my first 2 classes, both of which went well. I came home and made some toast and worked some more on my grant proposal for the library project, right up until it was time for my third class. I taught my class, returned home and, feeling productive, wrote some songs to teach my students. I use the word wrote loosely. Rather, I wrote new lyrics to pre-existing songs. So now I have an adjectives version of jingle bells and an occupations version of we’re off to fight the injuns, from Peter Pan. Then it was off to English club, where I actually taught my adjectives song, which the kids were able to get the hang of pretty quickly. I even had them write their own verse at the end, which was fun. (They came up with “black and white, wide and narrow, male and female, these are opposites that I know, they’re all adjectives”) I really like using songs, cuz they help with both memory and pronunciation. Plus, I’m trying to get a session on songs and games added to the incoming training class’s PST, including a section on how to change lyrics to fit what you’re teaching, so it was good to get a bit more practice with it. Then, immediately after English club, I had a library meeting with Mr. Alex and Beatrice, where I showed them the narratives I’d written based on what we’d talked about. They liked them, and had a couple of good suggestions of things to add. Then we hashed out the goals, objectives and indicators, and brainstormed about the Do No Harm section. They were much, much better at thinking of potential negative effects of the library than I was. Then I went to my Airtel spot, called Bill briefly (he’d had a good day with his trainings as well), bought some tomatoes and a soda, and returned home just before dark. (Because my village is more some houses next to a road than an actual centralized community, I try to be home before it’s completely dark.) Then I cooked some soup, using the super basic ingredients I had (tomatoes, potatoes, onion, garlic, bullion, herbs and powdered milk) which turned out pretty tasty. Then I typed up everything we’d talked about and adapted our responses from the application to fit the proposal format. (We need 1 application to submit to the Peace Corps, and 1 separate proposal to submit to Peace Corps Tanzania. The questions on each are similar, but not quite the same.) So now basically all I need to do on this grant is write up the executive summary, convert the prices from shillings to dollars, have one last meeting to check everything with Mr. Alex and Ms. Njau and send it in. Super exciting.

Solar power!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-09 10:16:00

I have family that loves me a lot. I love to brag about how I have family that loves me a lot. Some volunteers here get one package a year. Meanwhile, I get one package per week. I got the ultimate package -my cousin built me by hand a solar panel unit that can charge my computer, power light bulbs and generally make my life so much better. The teachers at my school know how to install these units and one afternoon, Jon and two teachers got it installed.

Step one: Jon putting together the solar unit as per perfectly detailed instructions from my cousin.

Step 2: Tanzanian colleagues installing the solar unit to our roof since they have installed their own and a few of our neighbor’s units.

A close up view of the installation on our roof.

Step 3: Jon going into our “attic” to pull the wires through from our roof into our house. Jon came back out completely covered head to toe in spider webs and dirt. Jon needed to make the trip again to pull extension cords through the ceiling to the room we put light into.

Step 4: Hanging up the battery and meter reader onto our wall. We can plug our electronics into the box. At the moment this picture was taken, we were charging our computer and my ipod.

Step 5: Light bulb! Candle lit dinners are not romantic. Life seems more romantic when you can see the face of the person you love :)
THANK YOU Brian and Dianna!

Winner, winner chicken dinner

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania 820 Days of Africa

2012-05-08 14:04:15

Guess what?! Chicken butt. It was recently May first! May first in Tanzania is Labor Day. There were a bunch of festivities including a 100-meter dash, tug-a-war, chicken catch, soccer game, netball game, etc. I was really excited about the chicken catch. You chase a chicken around a big field and whoever catches it first [...]

Bugs

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Tanzanianology

2012-05-07 10:14:00

A disgusting flying long-legged bug that lived in my bathroom for two days before I decided it had it’s opportunity to leave, but didn’t. I asked Jon to kill it because it looks like a large mosquito. If it is a large mosquito, perhaps the malaria inside of it would be more harmful to me than a tiny mosquito carrying malaria. I gave it two days, but in the end, it met it’s death via toilet paper.

4/24/12

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Rachel in Tanzania

2012-05-07 07:56:10

I didn’t come here to find myself. In fact, I came here because I thought I already had found myself, and this was the next logical step in the trajectory that I had chosen for my life. Recent events, however, … Continue reading →

May Update!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania 6.307°S 34.854°E ~ Folake in Tanzania

2012-05-06 09:37:27

Ok, so I know I’ve been M.I.A., but its been for good reason! Ill explain everything from as far back as I can remember. Malaria Grant… APPROVED!!!! I have been working on a grant which recently was approved. The project is called Sudents Act! Against … Continue reading →

Trust and Common Sense

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania A Peace Corps Odyssey: Tanzania

2012-05-05 05:16:00

I was not sure if I was going to blog about something that happened two days ago, but I think writing about it may help overcome my fear.

Yesterday morning I woke up, negotiated the mosquito net, walked down the hall, unlocked the door to my kitchen and saw that my backdoor was wide open. I did not recall leaving it open and upon further inspection I saw that the nails that had held the door shut had been bent because the door was forced open. I looked around the kitchen and noticed that only my am/fm radio had been taken. The first few thoughts that flashed through my head were as follows:

How did I not hear this happening? The door must have hit the table in my kitchen making a huge noise and I did not wake up.
I am glad that I locked the door from the kitchen to the rest of the house. I do not really have anything of value save my life, but I am just glad the intruder did not get further into my house.
My space has just been invaded. Boundaries have been crossed. I feel sort of violated. I feel like the trust I have built up in my village has just become null and void.
After getting over the initial shock. I got dressed, went to school and told the other teachers what had happened. Another of the teachers said the intruder came into his house as well around 3:30am, he did not see him, but he scared him off when he heard the guy rummaging in the kitchen. This made me feel a little bit better because I was not solely targeted. After I talked to my mkuu who said he will be installing better locks on my house, I called PC to report the incident. Not much they can physically do, but it is good to know that they are alerted.

I tried not to think about what had happened the night before, but as the sun began to set last night I started to get a little anxious. Before bed I turned on the light in my kitchen, barricaded the door with buckets, pots, pans, anything that would allow me to hear if someone had entered my house from a dead sleep. I also boobie-trapped my kitchen door in case they penetrated my bucket fortress. Around 9pm the mkuu, night watchman and other teachers came to my house to help me with locks, etc. Thanking them for their help, I turned in. Needless to say I did not sleep well last night – one eye open. Actually I did not sleep between the hours of 2 am and 4 am. I kept feeling like I heard noise. I am hoping that tonight I will be able to sleep better, but I really do not know. Like I said, I feel the trust I have built up has been completely broken down because of this one instance. I feel like I am starting from square one again. Thinking back, it feels like my first night at site. I didn't sleep, I was just sweating bullets in my sleeping bag, wondering what would walk through my door in the midnight hour and running through scenarios of how to handle it. I know people say that you cannot live in fear, but I feel that usually relates to things that you can physically control. I cannot control if someone really wants to come in my house. If they want in, they will get in. All I really have going for me is the close proximity of my neighbors, my wit and a whistle. I also have done a fair amount of kickboxing here, but I am not sure how I would fair in real combat.

So here I am writing to the world about this issue. This type of thing is actually quite common for volunteers. It is the nature of living in a country that is poor. It is also the nature of a culture that had no boundaries for personal space. People will take what they want without respect for boundaries. Very rarely do these people get caught because the mind frame of HCNs is, “ well if they took it, they must need it more than me”. During our training we were told that thieves will actually say thank you to you as they run off with your wallet. I am sure if the guy who broke in and stole my radio had come to my door during broad daylight and said, “Sorry, Madam, I am going to break in to your house tonight, steal your radio and freak you out”, I would have said, “Here take it now. Look out though the antenna is broken, but I just put new batteries in!”, to save myself the lost sleep and the worrying.

Well now that I have that off my chest, I do feel a little better. I think I will start to trust again, slowly, not because I want to, but because I have to because I will not sleep for the rest of my time here. I still feel safe in my house, but just on edge.

Alright on to another thought for this post, clothing choices of Tanzanians. I may have talked about this before, but I think it is worth a revisit. Yesterday on my way to the post office, a Tanzanian got on the bus wearing a long sleeved biking jersey complete with the water bottle pockets in back. I could not help but laugh to myself and think what he does with all those pockets. Did he think to himself upon purchasing the jersey, “Hey! This is a great shirt, love the color, zipper up the front and it even has added pockets!”? Clearly not. I am also positive I will not see this guy tearing up the Alp d'Huez in July. Basically I really just want to know if this guy knows the shirt he is wearing is weird and not meant to be worn off a bike and not without tight biking shorts and a helmet.

Another odd clothing choice of Tanzanians is the rash guard. Yes, the one you wear at the beach instead of sunblock or for it's real purpose – to surf. The men wear the shirts under their dress shirts. One the teachers at my school wears one all the time and I do not have the heart to tell him it is NOT an undershirt. I am hoping that by the time I leave I will have worked up the nerve to ask him what he thinks of the shirt and what he believes it's purpose is.

This observation leads me to an even bigger one – common sense. There is a severe lack of it here. I can name about ten incidents everyday where common sense is not present. This would drive my father crazy and because it would, it drives me nuts as well (similar personalities). For example, people cannot figure out that when someone is getting off a bus and they are sitting behind you and you are blocking the aisle, that you need to stand up!!! Not hard to figure out. Sorry, Bibi (grandma), please move your butt off the folding chair, so I can leave! Another example, if I start writing notes on the board, you should be finding the appropriate notebook and starting to copy notes. Do not pick your nose, talk to your friend or stare out into space. I go through this with my students everyday. It is now May and I still have kids who will sit through the first 20 minutes of class without opening a notebook, if I do not come around and check their desks.

I am sure I can come up with a million other examples, but I think that I will look at lack of common sense very differently in the States. I won't get upset when the light turns green and the person in front of me does not move because she is yelling at her kids in the back seat, when people just assume I want cream in my coffee and sugar (I enjoy skim milk and Splenda, thank you) or when people do not move to one side on a moving sidewalk or escalator. I never thought there could be a place on Earth where common sense could be severely lacking on a large scale, but apparently I have found it.

Okay, I think that is enough ranting for this post. May is finally upon us, which means obligatory graduation ceremonies, Memorial Day, rowing championships and cold weather if you are living Mbeya, Tanzania. I hope everyone at home is well!

All my love from TZ.

Acronyms

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Tanzania Riah in Tanzania

2012-05-04 15:13:00

Peace Corps uses a ridiculous number of acronyms. I use them a bunch when I write without thinking of the fact that you guys out there reading this have no idea what many of them mean, so I put together a list.

APCD- Associate Peace Corps Director, the person in charge of each program. We have 2 for education, Hilda for the North and James for the South.
CBT- Community Based Training, your CBT is the group of 4-5 trainees that lives in the same area as you during PST, used for both the group and the place
CD- Country Director, ours is EB (that's her name, not an acronym) and she's awesome
CLT- Communicative Language Teaching, an English teaching technique focused on getting students to use English to communicate
COS- Close of service, there's a COS conference 3 months before home, and then your COS date is the day you actually finish your service. Sometimes used as a verb.
DC- Washington DC, where Peace Corps' headquarters is
ET- Early terminate, when a volunteer decides to go home early. Used as a verb.
HCN- Host Country National, in this case, a Tanzania
HOS- Head of School, your headmaster
ICT- Information and Communication Technology, computer classes
IST- In Service Training, the week long training after you've been at site for 3 month, including HIV training
LCF- Language and Culture Facilitator, the Swahili teachers during PST
LPI- Language Proficiency Interview, the oral Swahili test you take twice during PST and once before COSing
MSC- Midservice Conference, the conference you have after you've been at site for a year
NECTA- National Examinations Council of Tanzania, NECTAs are the national exams that students take after forms 2 and 4.
NGO- Non-Governmental Organization, sometimes volunteers work with NGOs, especially if they extend for a 3rd year.
OMS- Office of Medical Services, the medical office in Washington
PC-Peace Corps
PCMO- Peace Corps Medical Officer, the Peace Corps doctor
PCPP- Peace Corps Partnership Program, a type of grant where they post your project on the Peace Corps' website and people donate
PCT-Peace Corps Trainee
PCTZ- Peace Corps Tanzania
PCV- Peace Corps Volunteer
PEPFAR- President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the government's HIV program, and where the funding for PCTZ's HIV work comes from.
PIP- Performance Improvement Plan, when you get caught breaking rules, you get PIPed
PSDN- Peer Support and Diversity Network, a group of volunteers who are trained in supporting others, who you can call if you need someone to talk to about something.
PST- Pre-Service Training, the 2.5-3 months of training before you swear in and become a real volunteer
RPCV- Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, someone who has finished their service
SOW- Scheme of Work, the outline of what you're going to teach for the year
SPA- Small Projects Assistance- a type of grant
SSC- Safety and Security Coordinator, the staff member in charge of safety and security issues
TAC- Time Away from Community, when you're away from your site
TEFL- Teaching English as a Foreign Language, what I do.
TOT- Training of Trainers, when the PCV facilitators and staff get together to plan and prepare prior to trainings
TPR- Total Physical Response, an English teaching technique using lots of actions
TZ- Tanzania, or Tanzanian
VAC- Volunteer Advisory Council, a group of volunteers that sorts out issues with staff. I'm the president.
VAST- I don't remember what it stands for, but it's a type of grant for HIV/AIDS activities
VRF- Volunteer Reporting Form, the form we fill out twice a year to report our activities to Peace Corps
VSA- Village Survey Assessment, something that health and environment volunteers need to do their first 3 months at site to assess the needs of their community
VSO- Voluntary Service Overseas, the British version of Peace Corps
WU- Weekly Update, an email that gets sent to volunteers each week. Pronounced Woo.